A Christian elected to the student senate at the University of California at Berkeley is refusing to resign after declining to vote on a resolution to oppose the Trump administration’s recent Title IX changes
“There’s a Christian community and campus that has been praying for me and encouraging me throughout all this. And if I don’t represent their views, who else will?” Isabella Chow said in an interview with Campus Reform.
She was attacked for refusing to oppose the federal government’s reversal of Barack Obama’s expansion of Title IX to make “gender identity” a protected class.
The Obama administration claimed that the 1972 law was written with “gender identity” in mind, meaning men should be allowed to use women’s rest rooms and showers.
When she abstained, Chow, who represents the Associated Students of the University of California party Student Action, was dropped by her party.
Campus Reform explained: “The proposed Title IX changes lack a legal definition of gender, effectively limiting ‘gender identity’ to one’s physical sex. … The resolution before the Berkeley student government was a statement of opposition to these proposed changes, intended to display solidarity with members of the LGBT community, specifically ‘transgender, intersex, nonbinary and gender nonconforming students,’ as reported by the independent student newspaper the Daily Californian.”
Chow told Campus Reform she campaigned as the candidate who would represent the Christian community. She did not vote on the bill because doing so would have compromised her values.
“I didn’t expect the backlash and misunderstanding to be so swift,” Chow told Campus Reform.
But she believes the protest and banners demanding “Senator Chow Resign Now” is a good thing because it’s sparked a dialogue for Christians about the LGBT issue.
“As a Christian, I believe that God redeems and he uses all situations for the good of those who love Him. There is so much happening, and even though it’s been a really, really rough week for me, I know that God is working and I know that he is using this to strengthen the church, to awaken the church in a sense,” Chow told Campus Reform.
On the issue of the LGBT privileges, she said: “I want to stand by my comments on last Wednesday when I said that my God is a God that loves. No matter how I’m treated, no matter how my community is treated, we want to be able to love unconditionally in a Christlike manner and to respond in a Christlike manner.”
The Daily Californian refused to publish an editorial she wrote explaining her decision, condemning it as “homophobic and transphobic.”
