Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican, called on state regulators to make a rule against so-called conversion therapy for minors after a legislative proposal failed. Officials confirmed that they finalized the rule late Tuesday, making Utah the 19th state to prohibit therapy aimed at changing minors’ sexual orientation, even if they ask for it.

The Boy Scouts of America has mortgaged Philmont Scout Ranch, one of the BSA’s largest and most valuable properties, according to documents obtained by MinistryWatch.com. 

Once again a cultural fad has come and gone and I have missed it altogether. In the ’90s it was the Macarena dance craze, which caught me flat-footed at a party in Italy where every other American tourist knew the steps but me. And I find that anyone my age can reminisce about their Sony Walkmans but yours truly.

Nothing is what it seems at the Trans Wellness Conference down at Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Someone brushing past in the hall sports a beard on an angular chin, but also a handbag and heels. A lecturer refers to himself as “they” throughout his (or was it her?) talk on chest “binding.” The brochure says “Wellness,” but no one looks well here. All around are misshapen and untoned bodies; faces marked with dissipation; studied dress that is a couturial assault on the eyes. Scarcely one in the 700 looks appealing. 

It was bound to happen sooner or later. At the church where I help serve dinner for the downtown community once a month, I meet all kinds: street people, addicts, gays, and the occasional cross-dresser. This individual flaunted the figure and clothing of a teenage girl, with the facial hair and facial structure of a man. It wasn’t just the face, though; no one would have taken this person for anything but male, no matter the accoutrement.  

Daniel Darling is vice president for communications at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the public affairs wing of the Southern Baptist Convention. He’s been a pastor in Chicago and Nashville and is the author of The Dignity Revolution. Here are edited segments of our Q&A.

She speaks with the fervor of a tent preacher, proclaiming a message that resonates with Christians, but the Bible isn’t her handbook. Gail Dines is a self-described radical feminist who wants pornography stopped.

Dines, of the Boston porn-fighting nonprofit Culture Reframed, is part of a growing secular movement to eliminate violent, degrading sexual images, especially on the internet. Feminists, medical professionals, and legislators are working together, sometimes alongside Christians, in a multipronged attack on porn.