Even as he touted the truth during his May 18 sermon, Chris Goble, lead pastor of Ridgeline Community Church, lied about the contents and implications of House Bill 25-1312, “concerning legal protections for transgender individuals,” falsely claiming that it prevents him from “deadnaming” and misgendering a transgender person in church. Why he as a self-proclaimed representative of Jesus would want to treat people that way is a different question.
In the process, Goble demeaned Colorado’s only transgender legislator, Brianna Titone (D-Arvada) in her absence — deadnaming her, denying her transgender identity, calling her “very confused and broken,” questioning her legislative appointments, and claiming she was “taken in by the lie of this transgender cult … from the pit of Hell.”
Goble also asserted that the Christian religion rejects claims of transgender identities, but he offered no scriptural evidence or serious theological analysis to back up his assertions. As I pointed out previously, many Christians welcome transgender people, the Biblical case against transgender identities is weak at best, and aspects of Christian theology support transgender identities. I also pointed out that we properly live under a nonsectarian government, not a theocracy.
My Purpose in Writing
Goble posted to social media, tagged various elected officials, linked to a video of his sermon, and lied about violating the law in question in order to draw attention to himself and his views.
I am aware that, in critically reviewing Goble’s remarks, I am giving him the attention that he desires.
Yet I think that critically reviewing his remarks is important. Coloradans and people elsewhere deserve to know about the bigotry preached from the pulpits of various churches. Quite a few people agree with Goble, and some of them might be open to reasoned criticism. And, because Goble substantially misstated the contents of the bill in question, I want to correct the record. As Goble professes to understand, the truth matters.
Goble’s Remarks
In a May 18 post to X, Goble claimed, “I broke the law during my sermon this morning; several times actually, and in both services. Because resistance to tyrants is obedience to God” (spelling corrected).
During his 10:45 am sermon on the problem of evil, Goble said “our own state government gave us another example of the problem of evil” when Governor Jared Polis signed bill 1312 on Friday, May 16. “I am so ticked” about the bill’s passage, he said, because “we fought with everything that we had over these past six weeks.” He continued, “I hate losing to evil, and evil advanced on Friday.”
Goble said of the bill: “We now have a law on the books here in Colorado . . . that forbades us [sic] to follow our Biblical conscience. . . . ‘Deadnaming’ and ‘misgendering,’ otherwise just known, you know, as just telling the truth, are now punishable before a civil rights commission, just like what happened to poor Christian baker Jack Phillips [of Masterpiece Cakeshop] for about a decade out in Lakewood.” He continued, “This is obviously wicked and evil and totally unjust, proof of just how far our once great state has slid down the slippery slope of absolute pagan insanity.”
“So what are we to do, men and women of faith?” Goble asked. He encouraged church members to be “courageous” in the face of “unjust laws.” He continued, “We will continue to truthfully, boldly, and clearly apply the powerful truth of God’s word to every nook and cranny of existence. We will be faithfully obedient, come what may. And, as I’ve told you guys several times, I will not comply with any aspect of this abomination of a law in any way, shape, or form. I won’t. And I won’t because I love God, I love his truth, and I love my neighbors, and I love my people.”
Goble said that several preachers in Colorado agreed to share a similar message that Sunday. “I’m going to defy this thing from the jump,” Goble said, “and I’m going to model it this way.”
Goble then began his personal attack against Titone: “In the course of our involvement up at the Capitol the last few weeks, we’ve come across and interacted with a very confused and broken member of our state legislature here in Colorado, who goes by the name of Brianna Titone.” Goble then called Titone by her pre-transition name and insisted that Titone “is a man.”
Goble then listed Titone’s committee assignments and said, “These are important assignments, obviously. . . . We need wisdom, we need truth, in the people charged with doing that. And yet, unfortunately, we have someone like [Titone], who’s very confused, taken in by the lie of this transgender cult, and desperately in need of Jesus, just like the rest of us.”
Goble continued, “And everything that I just said is now considered illegal. I just violated a law.”
Then Goble continued his message to Titone: “You’re a man, faithfully and wonderfully made in the image of the one true God of the universe, who loves you, and created you for relationship with him, in spirit and in truth. And our good God does not make mistakes. God made you a man specifically and purposefully, and our heart breaks that you and so many others have been taken in by this lie from the pit of Hell.” Goble then urged people “taken in” by transgender “lies” to “repent and embrace saving faith in Jesus Christ.” Still speaking to Titone, Goble said Jesus “is the only one who can give you true peace, true freedom, and true identity that you clearly desperately want.”
Then, in a prayer to wrap up the segment, Goble suggested his fantasy defiance of the transgender bill “may be a moment” like the historical persecution of Christians when the faithful at times were crucified, burned, or fed to lions. He again referred to “heinous lies from the pit of Hell like this cult of transgenderism.” Following his prayer, he transitioned to the next segment saying, “Well, now that your pastor just committed a crime. . .”
What Bill 1312 Actually Says
True, as introduced on March 28, bill 1312 said, “It is a discriminatory practice and unlawful to, with specific intent to discriminate, publish materials that deadname or misgender an individual.” That language plausibly falls under the sort of complaint that Goble makes.
But that language was stripped out of the bill as signed on May 16. The replacement language instead amends preexisting statutes by defining a “chosen name” in a context that can include one’s gender identity or gender expression (or one’s race, creed, religion, marital status, etc.), and by expanding the definition of “gender expression” to include one’s “chosen name, and how the individual chooses to be addressed.”
To understand any possible impact of the new language, then, it must be read in the context of existing statutes. To emphasize: existing Colorado statutes already prohibited discrimination in relevant contexts on the basis of gender identity and gender expression (and various other things). Bill 1312 slightly modifies language already on the books.
But here’s the thing: Churches are explicitly exempt from the antidiscrimination laws in question. Bill 1312 does not change that. So, despite his bogus claims and hyperventilations, Goble was not breaking any law by deadnaming and misgendering Titone. He was being a complete jerk, but that’s a different issue. So Goble will not be writing his Letter from a Birmingham Jail anytime soon, his cheap and dishonest theatrics notwithstanding. (We can argue elsewhere about whether churches specifically should be exempted; I think any exemption should be based on more-general ideological grounds.)
Here are the details. Title 24, Article 34, Part 3 begins to lay out the rules for the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. C.R.S. 24-34-601 defines “places of public accommodation.” The statute states, “‘Place of public accommodation’ does not include a church, synagogue, mosque, or other place that is principally used for religious purposes.”
Bill 1312 May Affect Places of Public Accommodation
C.R.S. 24-34-601(2)(a) guarantees “the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of a place of public accommodation,” regardless of one’s identity, including one’s gender identity or gender expression. The language further forbids notices “that an individual’s patronage or presence at a place of public accommodation is unwelcome, objectionable, unacceptable, or undesirable” based on identity.
By expanding “gender expression” to include one’s “chosen name, and how the individual chooses to be addressed,” bill 1312 seems to require that business owners recognize the chosen names and pronouns of transgender people. I think that, morally, businesses should respect those chosen names and pronouns. But I also think that bill 1312 goes too far by potentially mandating speech. As I have pointed out, the bill could have instead required that business owners not expressly demean transgender people without requiring that they use chosen names and pronouns. So I believe that 1312 is open to First Amendment challenges and will be delimited accordingly by the courts. We’ll see.
Presumably, part of what Goble was doing was communicating to members of his church who run places of public accommodation that he thinks they should deadname and misgender transgender people in their places of business. The compromise I have suggested is to allow people to instead use gender-neutral language. But I admit it’s not completely clear how this might work out in practice.
Goble’s Suspect Theology
The thin theological justification that Goble offers for his anti-transgender bigotry is that someone born with a penis is made by God a man, irrevocably, and is “faithfully and wonderfully made in the image of the one true God of the universe.” Moreover, “God does not make mistakes.” Goble’s theological hubris falls apart at the faintest breeze.
Let us start with the fact that, in rare cases, a person’s sex chromosomes do not match the person’s genitalia, and some people are born with both male and female genitalia. So Goble has a choice: He can either say that God does, after all, make mistakes, or he can admit that the reality of sex and gender is far more nuanced than what he claimed during his sermon. Maybe if he weren’t so cocksure in announcing God’s will to everyone around him, Goble could learn some important theological lessons from the complexities of the reality around him.
What about typical cases where a person’s sex chromosomes match the person’s genitalia at birth in the usual way? Goble is absolutely convinced that the typically masculine gender always must match masculine genitalia, and the same with the female. He refuses even to consider that God might have made some people transgender. Yet “God does not make mistakes.”
Ignoring the wisdom of Matthew 7:1, Goble presumes that, like God, he is capable of reading into the hearts of people Goble has never met or barely knows, and of determining that transgender people are “broken” by their gender identity, tainted by a Hellish lie, and in need of repentance owing to their transgender identity.
Here is an alternate view: Transgender people are perfectly normal, they are made how they are by their nature (or, if you prefer, by “Nature’s God”), and they deserve better than Goble’s meanness and hateful bigotry spouted carelessly from the pulpit in the name of Jesus.
