Why is the Skrmetti Supreme Court case important?

Today, we’re discussing the important Supreme Court case, United States v. Skrmetti. Welcome to the ERLC Podcast, where our goal is to help you think biblically about today’s cultural issues.

This week marked a decisive victory in protecting minors from harmful gender transition procedures. The Supreme Court justices ruled 6-3 in favor of the Tennessee law banning healthcare providers from prescribing medication or performing procedures on minors to “transition” to an identity opposite of their biological sex. 

The protection of minors from harmful “gender transition” surgeries and interventions is good and appropriate. Furthermore, states have a constitutional responsibility to protect children from harm. Because of this, the ERLC advocated against such procedures, and filed an amicus brief alongside the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board in favor of the Tennessee lawmakers and the protection of children. 

Before the ruling was released, we talked about the importance of this case with Matt Sharp, who serves as senior counsel and director of the Center for Public Policy at Alliance Defending Freedom. Sharp earned his J.D. in 2006 from the Vanderbilt University School of Law. Since joining ADF in 2010, Sharp has authored federal and state legislation, regularly provides testimony and legal analysis on how proposed legislation will impact constitutional freedoms, and advises governors, legislators, and state and national policy organizations on the importance of laws and policies that protect First Amendment rights. 

Episode Transcript: Why is the Skrmetti Supreme Court case important?

Narration:

Welcome to the ERLC podcast, where our goal is to help you think biblically about today’s cultural issues. I’m Lindsay Nicolet, and today we’re discussing the important Supreme Court case, United States v. Skrmetti.

Narration:

Today marks a decisive victory in protecting minors from harmful gender transition procedures. The Supreme Court justices ruled 6-3 in favor of the Tennessee law banning healthcare providers from prescribing medication or performing procedures on minors to “transition” to an identity opposite of their biological sex. The protection of minors from harmful “gender transition” surgeries and interventions is good and appropriate. Furthermore, states have a constitutional responsibility to protect children from harm. Because of this, the ERLC advocated against such procedures, and filed an amicus brief alongside the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board in favor of the Tennessee lawmakers and the protection of children. Before the ruling was released today, we talked about the importance of this case with Matt Sharp, who serves as senior counsel and director of the Center for Public Policy at Alliance Defending Freedom. Sharp earned his J.D. in 2006 from the Vanderbilt University School of Law. Since joining ADF in 2010, Sharp has authored federal and state legislation, regularly provides testimony and legal analysis on how proposed legislation will impact constitutional freedoms, and advises governors, legislators, and state and national policy organizations on the importance of laws and policies that protect First Amendment rights. Now, let’s turn to ERLC President Brent Leatherwood’s conversation with Matt Sharp. 

Brent Leatherwood:

Alright, well thanks for joining us today. And I especially want to thank my friend Matt Sharp from ADF for taking a few minutes to talk about – what I’ve been telling folks across the Southern Baptist Convention is potentially going to be – the landmark decision coming out of this Supreme Court term. And Matt, you and the whole team at ADF, y’all just do such incredible work. We’re so privileged to be partners with y’all and particularly as it relates to this case. So thanks for taking a few minutes to talk with us about it.

Matt Sharp:

Yeah, well, thanks for having me on.

Brent Leatherwood:

So let’s jump right in. The case we’re talking about is United States v Skrmetti. Jonathan Skrmetti, he is the Attorney General here in Tennessee. And so Matt, just give us a little bit of lay of the land. What is this case actually about?

Matt Sharp:

Well, over the past several years we’ve heard more and more voices, particularly in the medical community, raising concerns about gender transitioning of children. This is where you’re putting young kids on puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, even surgeries that remove healthy body parts, all to allegedly treat these kids that have discomfort with their biological sex. So more and more voices have been saying, “This is harmful, this is dangerous to kids, it’s experimental.” And so in response, several states, including Tennessee, began to work on legislation to protect kids from these dangerous drugs and surgeries. Tennessee was one of the first states to do this and passed a strong law simply saying that children all the way up to, you know, age 17 should not be put on these drugs and surgeries. Instead, let’s try and get them counseling. Let’s try and get them help to embrace their biological sex rather than rejecting it. And so this is a challenge to Tennessee’s law protecting kids from these drugs and surgeries that the ACLU and others brought against the state.

Brent Leatherwood:

Okay. So next question is tell us a little bit about the role that ADF is playing in the case, but then at the same time, go ahead and let our audience know a little bit more about Alliance Defending Freedom and just kind of the great work that your organization does under the leadership of Kristen Wagner, who I like to think that maybe I’m the biggest fan of, [I] tend to fanboy out over Kristen. But just give us a little sense of all that ADF is doing, and then particularly about this case.

Matt Sharp:

So Alliance Defending Freedom, we are a legal organization that works through the courtrooms, through legislatures, to protect our fundamental freedoms of free speech, religious liberty, to defend parental rights, marriage and family, and the sanctity of life. And so on this issue in particular, we’ve been heavily involved in working with lawmakers across the country, including in Tennessee, in helping to draft these laws in a way that will be legally sound and defensible because we don’t want to protect kids with a law that then gets struck down. We want to see something that in a case like Skrmetti, the Supreme Court upholds so that kids in Tennessee and across the country can be protected from these drugs and surgeries. So for example, we’ve helped legislators by providing legal testimony at hearings and, particularly in this case, not only did we work with lawmakers in Tennessee, but we’ve filed an amicus brief in the case helping to present some of these arguments about the medical harms that these drugs and surgeries do to kids; the irreversible damage it does to their bodies when you’re putting them on these hormones that we don’t even know what it does to a child when they’ve been on these hormones long term.

Matt Sharp:

But then also laying out some of the legal arguments to explain why it’s perfectly permissible for states to protect kids from dangerous items. Just think: most states say a kid can’t, you know, buy alcohol or tobacco. We don’t let kids in many states go to a tanning salon because we know it damages their bodies. How much more so can a state protect them from sterilizing surgeries or puberty blockers that deny their bodies the ability to experience natural puberty? So just like Tennessee and other states protect kids from those other items, they have the legal authority to protect kids from these dangerous items as well.

Brent Leatherwood:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, you talked about the fact that ADF filed an amicus brief in this case on so many different issues. The ERLC and ADF, we are aligned or part of a broader coalition, and that’s certainly the case here. We actually went ahead and, you know, typically we actually will join an ADF-led brief. On this one though, we felt it was necessary to file a brief specifically from the Southern Baptist Convention along with our partners at the Tennessee Baptist Convention because this case is our number one legal priority before the court this term. And so honestly, I think in many ways it actually helps to have so many voices leaning in on really the side of sanity. And actually, just since we’re talking about ADF, I should go ahead and just, kind of, put in a plug for y’all.

Brent Leatherwood:

You do so much incredible work for ministries and for local churches. We have for years been a part of your ministry alliance; you have a church alliance that serves churches. We are continually, when we field calls here at the ERLC about kind of specific legal matters, we’re continually referring churches and pastors to the ADF because we do believe in the work that y’all do. So I really do appreciate that, Matt. So I’m curious from your strong legal mind and the background that ADF has, what do you think is really at stake with this case? 

Matt Sharp:

Well, the challengers here are claiming that what Tennessee is doing somehow discriminates against people based upon their gender identity. And so, this case is really about much more than just the drugs and surgeries that Tennessee is protecting kids from. There’s so many other laws that states have been looking at recently. You think of the women’s sports laws saying that men don’t belong in women’s sports. You think of other things protecting adoption and foster care organizations and families that are wanting to be able to help kids, to open their homes to them, but are being told that in order to do so, they have to affirm a child that’s experiencing gender confusion. All of these ultimately boil down to states trying to protect kids, trying to protect religious freedom in a way that really does show compassion to everyone, but ultimately focuses on biological truth: that we are created male and female and that our laws can and should respect those differences when they matter.

Matt Sharp:

So the challengers in this, if they prevail, not only with Tennessee’s law – protecting kids from these puberty blockers and hormones – be at risk, but many of the other states passing women’s sports laws or other protections from the harms of gender ideology could all be at risk as well. So that’s why this Skrmetti case you pointed out, really is one of the most consequential cases of this term, because it ultimately boils down to “can states recognize the biological differences between boys and girls and pass laws to protect kids from the harms of that ideology that rejects the truth of how we are created.” That’s why we’ve been leaning into this issue. We’re happy to see ERLC and so many other organizations leaning into this issue as well.

Brent Leatherwood:

So, you know, you’ve talked about some of these other cases, but obviously this fight, it’s not just limited to the legal realm, is it? So what are some of the other major public policy wins that you all have seen from your perspective at ADF, maybe whether it’s at the federal level or at the state level where you’re seeing leaders really push back against this radical transgender ideology? 

Matt Sharp:

Yeah, well I think a few worth highlighting: number one, talking about the law at issue in Skrmetti, 27 states have now passed laws like Tennessee’s that protect kids from these drugs and surgery. So that’s a huge victory. Same thing on the women’s sports: I think we’re at 26 states that have passed laws saying men don’t belong in women’s sports. So those two alone are pretty major. Where we’re seeing some, I think, more momentum is in this issue of women’s privacy. This is saying that men don’t belong in women’s locker rooms and restrooms, and this ranges from public schools to women’s shelters. We had a case at ADF years ago in Anchorage, Alaska, where the city of Anchorage was telling a women’s battered shelter that they had to allow a man to come in and sleep where these cots were just literally an arm’s length apart.

Matt Sharp:

We’re also seeing it pop up in the context of women’s prisons. Again, these are women that they’re in correctional facilities for a reason, but they should not be forced to share a cell with a biological male. So many states are taking efforts to protect women from the harms of this. We’re also seeing it in the realm of speech: making sure that students, teachers, [and] other government employees can’t lose their job or be punished because they don’t want to say an accurate pronoun, they don’t want to use someone’s preferred name. All of this is about protecting free speech, religious liberty, and ultimately the privacy and safety of women. So those are some of the big policy victories we’re seeing spread across the country as they’re taking steps to combat radical gender ideology.

Brent Leatherwood:

Yeah, y’all’s work is so heavily focused in the legal arena. We, as the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, tend to focus a lot of our attention on public policy, but I know both ADF and ERLC, we’re also concerned with culture. And at the ERLC we’ve got a dual mandate to not just speak into public policy, but also to resource our churches, equip our pastors and really just help them understand the cultural times that we’re living in. And so, from that perspective, kinda shifting gears over to that, do you all at ADF, do y’all sense that there’s a real cultural shift happening right now on these issues? I mean, for so long it just seemed like, gosh, we were racing towards real extremism, particularly on these issues. And I’m just curious how y’all see some of this and what you are detecting is happening out there? 

Matt Sharp:

I agree. I think there is very much a cultural shift happening. Let’s rewind the clock to 2016: this is when we first started seeing states look at policies to protect privacy and safety. You may recall North Carolina was one of the first states to pass a student privacy bill just simply saying, “boys don’t belong in girls’ locker rooms.” Well, there was a national outcry and all of these big corporations threatened to boycott North Carolina and it ended up where the legislature ended up rolling the law back, ultimately repealing it. And it felt at that time like “Ah,” you know, “is this one of those moments where gender ideology is winning out?” But I think because our side said we are fighting for something that is fundamental of how God created us, and we know when we reject that truth that there are consequences that flow. So the church became more engaged.

Matt Sharp:

It was so, I think, encouraging to see more and more pastors speaking up about this issue from the pulpit and saying, “This is a Genesis 1 issue of how God created us, and we have to advocate for the truth on this.” You now fast forward, you know, not quite 10 years later from where we had a defeat in North Carolina in 2016, to now dozens and dozens of states passing laws to protect privacy, to protect fairness, ultimately to reaffirm that we are created male and female and that those differences matter. Sometimes I think that shows that huge cultural shift. We’re seeing it reflected in polling where 60-70% across the board believe men don’t belong in women’s sports or don’t belong in women’s spaces. Those all show that I think people are really fed up with gender ideology. They see the harms that it’s causing to women, to children, to free speech, to other fundamental freedoms. And they’re saying enough is enough. There’s a place that we can continue to show compassion and accommodation for people that are struggling with gender confusion, that do have discomfort, that do have gender dysphoria. But that doesn’t mean we have to compromise our fundamental freedoms. It doesn’t mean we have to lose free speech or to get rid of common sense protections for privacy and safety. I think that’s where America is heading to say, “We want to show compassion to everyone, but we also want to stand firm that we are created different, that those differences matter.”

Brent Leatherwood:

Yeah, I sense I think, you know, from some of the conversations that we’ve been having with folks outside the church, that there’s a real sense of almost cultural exhaustion with this and that’s also kind of manifesting itself out there. Folks are just tired of basically having political leaders be some kind of like a schoolmarm that wants to tell them, you know, how they should be thinking on these issues when they know it obviously conflicts with the biblical wisdom that we have, [and] just the biological realities too. And so, I get the sense that that is out there and it’s resonating through our politics. I just read an interview this morning about how very progressive and liberal members of the Democratic party are rethinking this whole constellation of issues in this particular area. So I do believe that there is a real change and I wrote in an op-ed at the end of last year how I think we’re going to come to see 2024 as the real turning point on this issue.

Brent Leatherwood:

And so, I’m glad to see that y’all are seeing it out there and obviously your great legal work is doing so much to call us back to reality and steer us away from some of this extremist lunacy. But we’ve got a cultural tide that’s turning. We’ve got some public policy wins, we’ve got some really good legal challenges that we feel good about, but our work is not done. It’s not finished yet. So where do y’all look out there and see where there is work that still needs to be done and needs to be accomplished?

Matt Sharp:

Well, as I said, we’re a little over half the states that are passing laws protecting kids from these drugs and surgeries or women’s sports or privacy. But that also means half the states have it. And in fact, some of them – you look at California, you look at Vermont [and] Minnesota – are doubling down on these things saying, “We’re going to force schools to allow boys into girls locker rooms, boys on girls teams. We’re going to pay for kids to get these gender transitions, drugs, and surgery.” So taxpayer dollars are going to harm kids. So I think we’ve got to be looking, “What can we do in those states?” I think some of it is [to] continue to share the stories of the damage this ideology is doing. And that’s why it is encouraging to see this is not just a conservative/liberal issue. We’re hearing so many voices that would describe themselves as liberals, that would describe themselves as even radical feminists, saying, “This is wrong, this is not what we ought to be standing for to do something that is harming children, that’s harming women.”

Matt Sharp:

So I think the more we continue to explain our position on this to help change the culture, that can start [to] make a difference in some of those states that maybe are still passing some bad laws and policies. But number two, I think from ADF’s perspective, we’ve got to look [at] what can we do legally to go into those states to get some protections, either to start passing some laws or litigation in those states to protect children and families. Specifically, we’re seeing cases where parents, their rights to raise their children, are being impacted: whether it’s an adoptive family that’s being told that they have to affirm a child’s gender confusion, or even parents. We’ve got a case in Colorado where parents were basically told “Your daughter’s going to be forced to share a bed on an overnight school trip with a biological male and there’s nothing you as parents can do about it.” So I think being able to take those cases, to go into those states, and say we’re going to continue to defend parental rights and the ability of religious organizations to operate consistent with our beliefs as ways that we can continue to push back. And ultimately, I’m hopeful that we are going to see a complete cultural shift and so that no matter where a child lives, they’re going to be protected against the harmful gender ideology.

Brent Leatherwood:

Yeah, you mentioned Colorado and it just <laugh>, it just feels like Colorado is just such a battleground right now. They just continually want to keep pushing the outer limits on some of this stuff. So I’m glad that y’all are active there. You know, one of the things, you know, in talking about work that needs to be done, you reminded me of [when] I attended the oral arguments for the Skrmetti case back in December, and one of the individuals that I had the opportunity to meet with and just talk with was the individual who led the brief that had multiple signers on it from the de-transitioner community. And she was just telling me how this ideology, she had just kind of become beholden to it, and so many people around her were, but thankfully she found her way back through it. And that community came together to file a brief here talking about the importance of this law, why it is needed, and why they actually want to protect the next generation or future victims from this ideology, from having to walk their same path. And I just think that’s just indicative, you know, you don’t have to take it from you, a brilliant legal mind, or from us at the ERLC coming at it from a theological perspective: here’s people who are showing that there are real lives at the center of this, and real lives that have been harmed. And so, I think in that sense, the state is authorized to go in and intervene in these situations because these people are being harmed and their brief is proof of that.

Matt Sharp:

Absolutely. I still remember one of the first times I was testifying on one of these bills, I believe it was Indiana, and one of the great detransition voices, Prisha Mosley, showed up at the hearing to testify and she shared her story about she had faced sexual abuse, just a really traumatizing childhood, and was being pushed to this radical gender ideology [and] was being pushed to ultimately go through the hormones, the puberty blockers and surgeries, and a double mastectomy. And she was now on the back end of that and was just talking about how, I mean, her body was just physically in pain every single day from what she was going through at that time. She was concerned about whether she would ever be able to have a child of her own. And it’s heartbreaking to hear these stories and she’s one of hundreds and hundreds of children that were damaged by this ideology.

Matt Sharp:

The courage it takes for them to stand up, I think, is worthy of applause. I mean, they face scorn, they face rejection from so many people, but for them to stand up at the Supreme Court and to say, “Here’s what happened to us and we want to make sure this never happens to any other child in our country,” I think is worthy of applause. And that’s who we as Christians ought to be standing with them to elevate those voices and to elevate the power of their testimonies. And I think they have probably been the single biggest factor in helping change the cultural tides in all of this because when you do hear their stories and how they were pushed and lied to and pressured into this dangerous ideology, there’s just no more powerful story than someone that can say, “This is what it did to me. Let’s make sure no other child suffers through what I suffered through.”

Brent Leatherwood:

You’re absolutely right. Their brief, it shows obviously the extent of the physical harm that these radical experimental procedures cause, but then there’s real emotional harm. And then I think as believers like you and I are meeting these people, seeing them up closer, there’s real spiritual harm there, too. So we need to be praying for those folks and obviously walking alongside them and we need to be praying for this case and continuing to pray for you at ADF Matt and just all the great work that you do. Again, we’re so privileged to call y’all partners and we’re really thankful for the role that you play in defending, really, our fundamental freedoms that we’re all privileged to have. Thank you, Matt, for your time today and God bless.

Matt Sharp:

Thank you so much.

Narration:

As Southern Baptists, we wholeheartedly affirm God’s good design for gender and sexuality. In addition, in a 2023 resolution, Southern Baptists explicitly expressed their condemnation of the “harmful and often irreversible ‘gender transition’ experiments on vulnerable minors and young adults”. We can praise God that the Supreme Court justices affirmed the state’s right to protect minors from these harmful practices. Join us in praying we’ll see more instances of children protected and God’s design honored. Thanks for listening to this episode of The ERLC Podcast. Join us next time as we talk about Southern Baptists Serving in the Public Square.