It's Tuesday, January 13, 2026. I'm Albert Mohler, and this is the Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. President Donald J. Trump has set off a firestorm among pro-life conservatives, and it has the interest of his own party, and sure, particularly members of his party in Congress. It all goes back to comments made by the president to members of his own party in Congress about the proposed legislation that would put back in place subsidies for the Obamacare program. This is a highly controversial issue. Obamacare has been highly controversial from the start. Republicans have opposed it. Nearly in unanimous voice from the start, but the big problem right now is that millions of Americans have found the subsidies that were put in place to lower the cost of Obamacare premiums during the COVID-19 pandemic. The reality is that the loss of that has led to a huge political crisis. The Democrats, who after all had misrepresented those subsidies as temporary, they are trying to profit from the situation. But the reality is that the Republican Party is going to have to be responsive to the issue in one way or another. And President Trump made the headlines and caused the concern among pro-life conservatives by saying that Republicans will need to be flexible about the Hyde Amendment and this legislation. Okay, so hold on. What in the world is the Hyde Amendment? And why is this such a crisis? Well, the Hyde Amendment was put in place just several years after the 1973 Supreme Court decision known as Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion in all 50 states. Now the Roe v. Wade decision came as a shock to many Americans and in particular to conservatives. The pro-life movement was very young because the pro-life movement was really brought into a thunderous reality by the advent of legalized abortion in all 50 states by the Roe v. Wade decision, the Supreme Court's action in 1973. But there were other aspects that really led to the formation of a very strong pro-life consensus. One of the first issues that came to mind is that even if Congress was in no power to legislate a reversal of the Supreme Court decision, it could limit the impact of that decision when it came, for example, to matters related to the federal budget. The budget is under the control of Congress. That of course makes a proposal that must be signed by a president in order to be enacted in law. But Congress had big authority. And frankly, going back to 1976, that's three years after the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, by 1976, pro-lifers in Congress had come to the conclusion that the first issue they really could deal with is federal funding of abortion. The moral outrage about abortion was intensified when American taxpayers were put in the position of paying for abortions, a practice that millions upon millions of Americans saw rightly as morally abhorrent. Now the interesting thing is that when the Hyde Amendment was proposed and it was proposed by Illinois Congressman, Republican Henry Hyde, and it was simply customarily referred to as the Hyde Amendment, when it was proposed in the first place in 1976, just three years after the Roe v. Wade decision, the amazing thing is that support for it was largely bipartisan. That is to say that large numbers of Republicans and even large numbers of Democrats supported the Hyde Amendment because they bought into the logic that it was wrong to coerce American taxpayers into paying for abortions they found morally abhorrent. Now why was the situation different then? Well it's because one of the other surprising realities to many Americans today is that if you go back to 1973 in the Roe v. Wade decision, the fact is that neither party was particularly pro-life and neither party was particularly pro-abortion. There were pro-life Democrats and there were pro-abortion Republicans, but in the House and especially in the Senate, most of the members simply didn't want to talk about the issue. Now as Christians by the way, one of the worldview clues we have playing a part here is the fact that one of the reasons politicians didn't want to talk about it is because of what the ethicist Leon Kass calls the yuck factor. That is to say even among people who have no pro-life convictions, the more you talk about abortion, as abortion the yuckier or ickier the conversation becomes. And that's what many politicians wanted to stay away from altogether. For a while, both Republicans and Democrats could hide and not have really a public position on the issue, but Roe v. Wade eventually changed all of that. So you fast forward from 1973 to 1980, that's just seven years, and when you had basically bipartisan confusion in 1973, you had a very clear partisan divide by 1980. The abortion issue changed everything. The battle lines were drawn. But again, when it came to the Hyde Amendment, it was overwhelmingly bipartisan. Let me give you a concrete example. Let's look at the career of former President Joe Biden. Now let's remember how he ended. He ended his political career after four years in the White House as by his own estimation the most pro-abortion president in American history. I think he probably deserves that infamy. But even as he brags about it, let's understand if you were to go back just a matter of a few years, Joe Biden would have been defined differently. He was in that democratic position of being supposedly as a Roman Catholic personally opposed to abortion, but for abortion rights. That was a very common position and frankly a morally abhorrent and contradictory position. But nonetheless, that was Joe Biden. But Joe Biden supported the Hyde Amendment every single time it was up for a vote when he was a member of the United States Senate for decades. He only changed his position when it was clear he would not gain the democratic nomination for the presidency if he did not overnight come out and condemn the Hyde Amendment and become its very active adversary. That's what he did. And it didn't even take 24 hours. And just a matter of a few hours, Joe Biden went from having a stellar record in the sense of supporting the Hyde Amendment to coming out and condemning it saying that it was wrong and its time had passed. Just notice that's the extremism on the abortion rights position and the democratic party. Joe Biden just as one single individual represents that. But as now the two parties are absolutely divided on the abortion issue. They're also divided on the Hyde issue. But as you'll recall, running for the Republican nomination and then running for the White House in 2024, President Trump basically called for Republicans to be flexible on the entire abortion issue, even removing the language from the Republican national platform. This itself was very problematic. But I also want to say that the current composition, the pro-life composition of the U.S. Supreme Court is largely due to President Donald Trump's appointments during his first term. It's also clear that since beginning his second term, President Trump has even on the Hyde Amendment really offered a great deal of policy support. But just in recent days with the Obamacare subsidy issue looming large and representing something of a political crisis, President Trump called for Republicans in Congress to be flexible on the issue of the Hyde Amendment. Here's the problem. If there is any issue in which politicians, office holders, representatives, and senators cannot be flexible, it is this issue. This is an issue of principle. This is not an issue of mere politics. We're not talking here about tax policy. We're not even just talking about Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act. We're not talking about tariffs. We're not talking about taxes. We're talking about human dignity. We're talking about human life. We're talking about life and death. Now it is certainly true, and President Trump can do the math here. It's certainly true that in his winning coalition for the White House, there were a lot of people who are not driven by the abortion issue. But what he also has to keep in mind is that the Republican Party cannot win. Period. Simply cannot win without active activist eager pro-life support. Republican candidates lacking pro-life support will be called losing candidates. That's just the way it works. I think President Trump recognizes that. It's not exactly clear what he meant when he called upon Republicans in Congress to be flexible on the Hyde Amendment, but here's where Republicans simply have to speak back to the president and say, Mr. President, there's no flexibility on this issue. President Donald Trump, of course, came to national attention, not as a politician at all. He came to national attention because he was a real estate developer and a businessman. He was known for, in his own words, the art of the deal. We have to make very clear to the president, and this can be done in a very friendly but clear way that when it comes to the art of the deal in this issue, flexibility, in his words, on the Hyde Amendment is a deal breaker. He wants the art of the deal. Well, Mr. President, this is a deal breaker. It's also a party breaker if this goes the wrong way. It's very important for us to recognize that the Hyde Amendment has been essential to our understanding of how taxpayers are related to the federal government and, frankly, to how the federal government engages the entire issue of abortion. To give the Hyde Amendment away now, it's a political disaster, but that pales over against the moral significance. It will lead to even greater numbers of unborn babies. It will mean untold numbers of unborn human lives simply terminated in the womb. That is morally unacceptable. And it means the American taxpayer will not only have to acknowledge that fact, the American taxpayer will be coerced into paying for abortions. That is unconscionable. Mr. President, this one is a deal breaker. Conservatives can be flexible on any number of issues, but, Mr. President, this isn't one of those issues. Well, all right, we've got to transition to another issue just because of the urgency and importance, and this has to do with boys on girls' sporting teams. And it has to do with the Supreme Court of the United States, because tomorrow at the Supreme Court of the United States, the nation's highest court is going to hear oral arguments, not just in one, but in two cases related to the question as to whether or not states have the right to limit participation on girls' sporting team to biological females. In other words, excluding biological males. Now, the simple fact is that if you were to go back just a matter of a few years, if you were to hear that the Supreme Court was considering this kind of case, you would have considered the one who told you to be acting irrationally. What kind of sense does this make? How could it be that the Supreme Court of the United States is being called upon to decide whether states have the right to say that only girls can be on girls' sporting teams and by extension women on women's teams, etc. But the big issue here is teenagers and in particular youth and teen sports. It also is very much focused on the public schools, but frankly beyond that, in the entire area of girls' teams. Now, let's just consider what's going on here. At stake are the rights of two states to enact this kind of legislation. Because of the way this has come before the court, the two cases are coming from Idaho and West Virginia. In both cases, we're talking about biological males who had declared themselves transgender and identified as girls and then they played on girls' teams. Now, what both of these cases share in common is the fact they have biological males demanding to play on girls' teams. But the legal question and at the Supreme Court, it's always important to recognize the court doesn't just accept cases. The court accepts questions. What is the question the court is going to address? In this case, the central question is not really about biology. It's not really about the definition of boy and girl. The most fundamental issue is whether states have the right to enact this kind of legislation. It is expected that the actual constitutional question the court is going to address is whether or not the states in enacting this legislation did so because of a reasonable or rational purpose. Is there a rational purpose in the states enacting this legislation? A rational purpose which is not directly at odds with the Constitution. The second part is the rub. The rational purpose here is going to be very clear. The rational purpose, both of these states are going to say, is to make certain that girls are on girls' teams and that girls' teams remain girls' teams. That is to say, with girls on them. And of course, they have a very heavy, very thick, indeed obvious historical case to make You go back to Title IX, you go back to the legislation, you go back to the arrival and the radical spread of girls' sports. You go back particularly to the 1970s and the 1980s when a lot of this was being litigated. The fact is that everybody knew who a boy was and who a girl was. And it was completely rational that there was no confusion over the issue. The legislation known as Title IX goes back to 1972. And the big question is whether or not men and women, boys and girls, were to be treated equally within the context of education, both K through 12 education and higher education in colleges and universities. And this came down also to sports. And so this again was the catalyst for this rapid explosion and expansion of girls and women's sports. But the entire existence of girls' sports was predicated upon the fact that those participating on those sporting teams and in those athletic events would be, now hold for it, girls. The transgender revolution really has changed all of that. And the part of this is complicated by the Supreme Court itself and a decision that was handed down in 2020. More about that in just a moment. But the two states, Idaho and West Virginia, that are represented in these two cases to be heard together tomorrow in oral arguments at the Supreme Court, these two states adopted legislation to say that girls and girls only can participate on girls' teams. Idaho's law came in 2020 or just about six years ago. It's known as the Fairness in Women's Sports Act. It was the first act of this kind of form adopted by any state in the union. So Idaho was out ahead here. And the bill comes down to what's been described as a flat ban on the participation of transgender women and girls on women's and girls' sports teams in public schools at all levels from elementary school through college. Here I'm quoting a SCOTUS authority. So you look at that and you recognize, okay, that's pretty clear. Idaho was first. And Idaho's just simply said when it comes to participation on girls' teams, it means girls, not transgender girls. Okay, the law in West Virginia came just a year later. In 2021, it is known as the Save Women Sports Act, very, very similar. And it is very much like the Idaho legislation in banning so-called transgender girls and women from participating on girls and women's teams. Again, because of Title IX, this is directed at most importantly public schools and higher educational institutions that receive tax money, which means the vast majority of them. So we are looking at two cases, two states, two biological males at the center of this, one in Idaho, one in West Virginia, presenting as women claiming to have the right to play on girls' teams. Now, the situation, as you might expect, gets a little more complicated. For one thing, the individual at the center of the story in Idaho has asked the High Court to effectively drop the case. But at this point, it's virtually impossible. The Supreme Court is going to do that precisely because the constitutional issue has already been accepted by the court, and the court is going to move ahead. By the way, there's a lot of historical precedent for this. And this goes back even to some abortion issues before the Supreme Court. The fact is that someone may bring a case, it may roll all the way up to the Supreme Court, but if the Supreme Court takes the case, even if an individual wants to back out, the fact is, often the constitutional issue is so important, the court simply says, we're going to go ahead. In the West Virginia case, we're talking about a biological male presenting as a girl, playing on girls' teams, and currently playing as a sophomore. Okay, now you have Idaho legislation and you have West Virginia legislation. Well, wasn't that the end of the story? Why in the world are we talking about the Supreme Court? It is because in both cases appeals were made and federal courts put a stay or hold on both of these state measures. So the biological male playing on a girl's team in West Virginia is still playing on a girl's team, still participating in, identified as a girl in athletic competition. But in an interview with USA Today, this biological male representing himself as a girl has indicated that there's the expectation this case will be lost and thus the next year, this current season may be the last for this transgender athlete. Now in the background to this, lots of arguments have already been made. And this comes in the form of what are called amicus briefs before the Supreme Court. So interested parties can send in formal arguments for the court's consideration. What happens tomorrow is that the lead lawyers on both sides have to appear before the Supreme Court. In both of these cases, they will make an introductory argument. And then at that point, the justices of the Supreme Court will be asking questions. Both cases have been allotted an hour, but observers of the Supreme Court, they're very doubtful that either of these will be limited to an hour. This could be a very long hearing, but more importantly for us, it's going to be incredibly disclosive of worldview issues. Okay, let's look at what is really on the stage. The stage is set for what? Well, you're going to have the argument made for the transgender ideology that female means basically a state of mind rather than a biological state. And so the argument is going to be that the transgender claim trumps biology. On the other side, you're going to have lawyers on behalf of Idaho and West Virginia say that they have a rational basis for saying only girls should be on girls' teams and only women should be on women's teams. And that comes down to the fact that male physiology as a result of the entire process of male puberty. By the way, that is a new form of the argument just in terms of what has to be said, the entire process of male puberty. So when people talk about someone who is biologically male, a child, a boy, supposedly transitioning to a female identity, there is often the use of so-called puberty blockers or hormone blockers claiming that this will prevent male puberty. Now the issue here is how you define puberty or adolescence, but it is interesting that lawyers for these two states are going to come back and say that the process of male adolescence or male puberty, that transformation starts even before most people think it starts. And that's already clear in the differential between boys and girls in skeletal and muscular and athletic issues by the time they reach even the age of nine or 10. So this argument comes down to the fact that when you look at very young children, there's not a radical distinction and athletic ability between boys and girls, but by the time they are approaching double digits, it shows up. By the time a body goes through male puberty, it shows up in remarkably distinct ways. So much so that when you look at even a male, a boy, who is in the middle range or even the top part of the lower range in some athletic categories, that boy still may be able to defeat just about every single girl when it comes to athletic competitions. And that's just something that is a biological fact. But again, what's the constitutional question? Do the states have a rational basis? It's going to be pretty clear that both states have a rational basis for adopting this legislation. And furthermore, it's also clear this is not the issue before the Supreme Court, at least it's not supposed to be, but we fool ourselves if we think that the court isn't concerned about public relations. The vast majority of Americans, even more liberal and progressive Americans when it comes to girls' sports, they hold on to the rational idea that it needs to be limited to girls. So there is sort of like I mentioned with the Hyde Amendment after the Roe v. Wade decision, there's a pretty clear bipartisan pattern of support here. So much so as we're going to see that the Democratic Party is wary of this kind of issue. They are entirely for the LGBTQ revolution and thus they really have no way to back off this issue, but it's also clear that they would like the issue to quickly go away. And in this case, it's going to be very interesting to see what actually happens before the court. It's going to be interesting to see what questions are addressed to both sides in these two cases from more liberal jurists and from the conservative majority of jurists on the nation's highest courts. It's going to be very interesting to see what issues come up, what questions are asked. It's going to be very interesting to see how both sides answered the questions and frankly, it's going to be very interesting to see whether or not Justice Neil Gorsuch really injects much into this. And that is because going back to 2020, it was Justice Gorsuch clearly appointed as a conservative and clearly thinking of himself as a conservative. Nonetheless, was the crucial vote and eventually the author of the majority opinion in a decision hauntingly similar to this about whether or not the definition of women or for girls when it comes to Title IX and other federal legislation is about biological sex or about gender identity. Very tragically, he went the wrong way in 2020, but if he goes the wrong way on this one, it's very clear he's going to be way off the rails in terms of conservative approaches to jurisprudence and the law. It is really interesting that the editorial board of the Washington Post, again, historically, a very liberal newspaper, very liberal newspaper on LGBTQ issues, nonetheless, the editorial board itself released a statement on January the 11th. Here's the headline, Supreme Court can save women's sports with trans cases. The subhead in either science nor the American public is on their side, meaning the transgender side. Here's how the editorial board begins its statement. I quote, the Supreme Court has the chance this week to save women's sports, allowing states to restore a level playing field for girls by excluding biological men and thereby correcting one of the worst excesses of America's cultural revolution. End quote. Okay, so we'll stop the presses. That is a simply stunning statement. It's amazing coming from the editorial board of the Washington Post. Let's just say that that underlines the issue that when it comes to LGBTQ, it is the T that right now is by far the most controversial. It is the T that is by far right now the most disclosive because you have organizations that have been gung ho for LGBTQ who are all of a sudden saying, you know, if you got to choose between girls sports and the transgender movement, we're going to go with girls sports. We want to save women's sports. The other stunning thing about that opening statement from the editorial board of the Washington Post is that they came right out and talked about quote, the worst excesses of America's cultural revolution. End quote. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon bought the Washington Post and there have been changes brought to that paper. But that tells you a whole lot about the fact that at least on the transgender issue, one of America's historically most liberal papers and certainly influential in Washington, DC is sending a pretty clear signal. Here's the next paragraph quote. On Tuesday, the justices will hear oral arguments and challenges to laws enacted by West Virginia and Idaho. The court is weighing whether blocking biological males who identify as women from participating in female sports violates their rights under the 14th Amendment. Here's how the editorial board answers the question quote. The answer is obviously no. And the very existence of these cases represents a failure of policy and politics in quote. So in worldview analysis, we're talking about male and female boy and girl so clear. Why would this editorial board put out this statement? Well, I think we can offer that the reason the editorial board would make this kind of statement is because losing this case badly, it's going to be a very significant exposure of exactly what they're talking about here, the worst excesses of America's cultural revolution, a failure of policy and politics. By that language, they mean even people committed to the LGBTQ agenda should have known to back off of this one long ago. It is a failure, I think they're inditing the LGBTQ activist community of pressing way, way, way too far. The pushback is likely to be fierce. The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal more predictably calls for the same kind of sanity at the Supreme Court, but it underlines another issue. And that is whether or not the states have the right to enact this legislation points to an even more fundamental question, which is whether or not the people of a state, in this case, Idaho and West Virginia have the authority to use the political process to enact the legislation that fits their purposes, their convictions and their desires. That's exactly what democracy is supposed to be about. So it is interesting. All of this is on the line in these questions, but Christians are the ones who understand that the constitutional issues have to be understood as secondary. The biological creation order issues are primary, most fundamental. You confuse this, you won't get anything downstream right. Okay, on Thursday, on the briefing, we'll come back to look at the actual oral arguments and the blowback because it's going to be very, very interesting. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website at albertmoller.com. You can follow me on X or Twitter, but go to x.com forward slash Albert Moller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to spts.edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com. I'm speaking to you from Davenport, Florida, and I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.
