Kerby Anderson
Each year I teach second-year students at a bible school a class on homosexuality. One of the questions we discuss is what percentage of the population is homosexual. I quote from studies done by the University of Chicago and the Alan Guttmacher Institute which put the percentage around 2 percent. Then I show the students a Gallup poll that found US adults estimated that 25 percent of Americans are gay and lesbian. Of course, those estimates are off by an order of magnitude.
We now have articles quoting the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System of the CDC that estimates that only 75 percent of American high-school students now identify as heterosexual. The headlines and articles therefore claim that 25 percent are LGBTQ.
In a recent commentary, Wilfried Reilly raises some significant questions. First, “there is simply no genetic or biological explanation for a surge like this one.” This is significantly different from the many studies I have quoted in the past.
Attempts to argue that this is due to “increased social tolerance for gays” does not hold either, especially when you consider that many other European countries have been even more tolerant of LGBTQ. I think a better explanation is social contagion, which I have discussed in relation to transgenderism in previous commentaries.
Andrew Sullivan is a prominent gay columnist and provides this answer. “The most plausible explanation is that everyone wants to be LGBTQ now — so why not lie and be cool? Only problem is that this makes the LGBTQ community majority straight.” As you can tell, he doesn’t believe the 25 percent headlines and doesn’t think this is helpful to his gay agenda.
There is no reason to believe the 25 percent claim. It reminds me of the Gallup poll estimate from many years ago.

Penna Dexter
Early last year The Daily Wire investigated Vanderbilt University Medical Center and found a robust gender transition program including pressure tactics against conscientious objectors and a “Buddies Program” in which trans activists accompany patients seeking treatment to make sure nothing deters them along the path to transition. Doctors pushing for the gender program touted so-called gender affirmation surgeries as “huge money makers.”
When Tennessee House Republicans saw this evidence, they sought clarification from Vanderbilt Medical Center. The clinic paused transition surgeries on minors, pending “review” of the program.
Fast forward to the session of the Tennessee General Assembly that wrapped up last month. Legislators passed and the governor signed, SB1, which prohibits gender transition procedures from being done on minors.
House Majority Leader William Lamberth exhibited blunt southern honesty when he stated,  “We’re not gonna have any kind of quack doctor coming to this state and start doing double mastectomies on children that are suffering through body dysphoria.”
The U.S. Department of Justice has now sued Tennessee to block this law. The DOJ claims SB1 violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The complaint states that this new law “denies necessary medical care to children based solely on who they are.”
The complaint argues that, under SB1, a doctor would be allowed to prescribe testosterone for a “non-transgender male minor” for delayed puberty, but would be prohibited from issuing that same prescription for a transgender male — i.e., a biological female.
SB1 defines a person’s sex as “determined by anatomy and genetics.” The DOJ’s complaint, instead, elevates gender identity over sex “assigned” at birth. In an article describing the lawsuit, Washington Stand writer Joshua Arnold, points out that the DOJ is supposed to enforce federal law. But the language in this complaint signals what he terms “a revisionist reality at work,” which “would retroactively rewrite laws distinguishing the sexes.” 
The courts must shut down this overreach.

Kerby Anderson
Historian Nial Ferguson begins his PragerU video with a lament that few students graduate from college with any idea of what makes Western Civilization different from the rest of the world. In his video with the title, “Why the West Won,” he summarizes a few key points from his book, Civilization: The West and the Rest. He explained that western civilization succeeded because of six killer apps—competition, modern science, the rule of law, modern medicine, the consumer society, and the work ethic.” These are the secret sauce of Western Civilization.
You may not have time to read his book, therefore, I suggest you take five minutes to watch the video. And since these ideas aren’t being taught in the universities today, you might share the video with some young people.
These are the six killer applications. The first was economic and political competition. The second was the scientific method. All the major 17th century breakthroughs happened in Western Europe. A third application was the rule of law and representative government. This included private property rights and representation of property owners in elected legislatures.
The fourth was modern medicine. Nearly all the 19th and 20th century breakthroughs in health care were made by Western Europeans and North Americans. Fifth was the consumer society. The industrial revolution took place because there was both a supply and a demand. Sixth was the work ethic. Westerners worked harder and saved more of what they earned. This led to capital accumulation which in turn led to investment in the wonders of modern technology.
These six killer apps made the West successful and have now been downloaded to other countries as well. That is why the west won.