Twenty-five years ago, the paleontologist Stephen J. Gould optimistically proposed that science and religion were both valid ways of understanding the world, but only if they stayed within their non-overlapping domains of knowledge. “Science tries to document the factual character of the natural world, and to develop theories that coordinate and explain these facts,” he wrote. “Religion, on the other hand, operates in the equally important, but utterly different, realm of human purposes, meanings, and values — subjects that the factual domain of science might illuminate, but can never resolve.”

Nice try, but constant incursions across the proposed border continue. The idea that a clear demarcation between religion and science exists is probably only wishful thinking, as both concern themselves with the same ultimate end: defining reality. The very different approaches they employ to that end inevitably lead to different conclusions and open conflicts. Religious knowledge handed down in the form of “revelation” must be regarded as categorical truth, regardless of what others believe or say. Scientific knowledge gained through observation and experimentation must always be regarded as potentially incorrect or incomplete, at least until enough testing supports tentative acceptance. A closed stance of absolute truth vs. an open stance of tentative understanding is at the core of the religion-science debate.

This skirmish plays out regularly on multiple fronts, but it is nowhere more intense than on the battlefield of human sexuality and gender. Past — and still simmering — cultural disagreements about male vs. female gender roles and differences, particularly in terms of reproduction, are well known. In most of those incidents, lived experience and scientific discovery blunted the most egregious dogmatic attitudes over time. But they continue to re-emerge in new arenas. The most recent is transgenderism, under attack from a faith-founded refusal to even acknowledge the existence of, much less accept, transgenderism as a reality, and transgender people as even existing, much less being who they say they are.

Not that long ago, men and lesbians were the primary target of these dismissive moral arguments based on flawed beliefs about nature and human biology. I remember vividly the honest bewilderment of Notre Dame’s iconic president Fr. Theodore Hesburgh telling a group of students asking to start a LGBTQ+ support group that he didn’t understand their request, since there “were no homosexuals at Notre Dame.”

Or my own spiritual advisor at the monastery, who would end our weekly meetings with a prolonged full-frontal body hug that he obviously, um, “appreciated,” but insisted that it was not sinful “homo-sex” if clothes remained on. (In case you are wondering, my responses to both of these men got me kicked out of their respective offices. Notre Dame did go on to allow a support group, though not before Hesburgh retired and the University’s Spiritual Director announced that the only room on campus they could use was the confessional, and my handsy monastic advisor went on to become an archbishop and I was advised strongly by my abbot to “forget whatever happened.”)

I count myself lucky: Despite the awfulness of these and other experiences, I was strengthened by the knowledge that I was not a wanton reprobate, much less suffering demonic possession. I was simply growing into the highly variable biological hand dealt uniquely to me. I was doubly lucky to get a second career in genetic science, which drove that truth home while also revealing just how intellectually and morally bankrupt dogmatic views of human biology and sexuality are. It defies both logic and wonder to believe that the fundamental processes giving rise to the uniqueness of every living thing could be so constrained.

Nevertheless, the most recent Supreme Court decision permits states to legislate away transgenderism as if such individuals don’t really exist. Or consider the recent demand by the National Park Service dictating no transgender flags at the Stonewall Memorial! We are witnessing a revival of the Lavender Scare redecorated in Pink and Blue, but with the same depraved disregard for truth or decency.

Shame on those who would disappear others from society, particularly in the name of a god they claim created all of us! They have it exactly backwards: Decreeing what is “natural” based on unexamined cultural and religious beliefs is the real perversion here.

Fintan Steele is an ex-Benedictine monk and priest with a Ph.D. in biology/genetics. He spent most of his life in science communications, including scientific publishing and, most recently, for biopharma and academic centers. He and his husband live in Hygiene. Email: fsteele1@me.com.