California this year became the first state with a law spelling out the transgender student rights in public schools, including the ability to use restrooms and to play on sports teams that match their expressed genders.
Another 13 states prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity in schools. Dozens of districts, from Salt Lake City and Kansas City to Knoxville, Tennessee, and Decatur, Georgia, have adopted similar protections, the Huffington Post reports.
While the transgender rights movement gains momentum in the public school system around the country, Christian parents fear how the laws will affect their children.
"I want my children to understand that while we are called as Christians to love those struggling with gender identity, [that kind of lifestyle] is should not be promoted or encouraged," says Lisa Wilkins, who has two young children in the public school system in San Diego, CA. "Myself and many other parents are concerned about what these new laws mean for the future of our children."
Andrea Lafferty, president of the Traditional Values Coalition, echoed this fear, telling Fox News prior to the bill's passing that the main issue is whether this decision will impact the rights and fairness for the majority of kids.
"We are seeing a trend here nationally where we have individuals who are psychologically unhealthy who are always getting with they want, but what do you do about the hundreds of other children in the school affected?" she said.
Michael Craven of Crosswalk.com says instead of responding with horror and disgust to California's new law, Christians should respond through the lens of Scripture.
"No one is excluded from the hope of a new life in Christ," Craven writes, quoting Romans 1, where the Apostle Paul says he is "under obligation" to share the gospel to all of mankind-even those who engage in "dishonorable passions."
"Paul is expressing the fact that such clear distortions of the creator's male-plus-female intention occur in the world indicates that the human race as a whole is guilty of character-twisting idolatry."
Understanding the Biblical truths, Craven says, will encourage parents, along with their children, to "pray for our society and these who remain in captivity and declare that any distortion of the creator's intent for the male-plus-female structure is degrading to human dignity and undermines God's intent for boys and girls."
Laurel Rhondstat, a Family Life Counselor in Cleveland, TN, says that Biblical education begins in the home.
"If kids see their parents praying in the home and are daily receiving Biblical instruction, they will know how to respond to their transgender classmate in the public school. It is important that parents continually instruct their children from a Biblical standpoint."
"Kids are impressionable-parents, be their greatest influence," she continued.
