Steve Harvey Says He 'Can't Wrap Mind Around' Bruce Jenner Identifying as a Woman
New York Times best-selling author, comedian and self-professed Christian Steve Harvey says he can't "wrap his mind around" Bruce Jenner's recent interview with Diane Sawyer where he told the world that he identifies as a woman.
During a Sunday interview with "Hip Hollywood," Harvey shared his thoughts on the Jenner's announcement.
"Everybody says it's the bravest thing they've ever seen, so that's the politically correct thing to say," Harvey asserted. "I can't wrap my mind around it all. Zero. I have no concept of what that means. Nothing negative. He has every right to live his life the way he want to, but I can't come in the house and make that announcement to my wife, to my children. Nothing."
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Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner confirmed rumors that he had taken steps toward a sex change when, in a candid interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, he admitted that he doesn't view himself as a man.
"For all intents and purposes, I'm a woman," Jenner told Sawyer in an interview that aired last Friday. "People look at me differently. They see you as this macho male, but my heart and my soul and everything that I do in life — it is part of me. That female side is part of me. That's who I am."
And even though Harvey admitted to not understanding Jenner's statements during the interview, some of which included him referring to his male self in the third person, he appreciated Sawyer's work and said she "covered it all."
In true comedic fashion Harvey told "Hip Hollywood" that he probably couldn't do the sit down interview with Jenner.
"My wife told me I couldn't do the interview. She said, 'Your faces are too expressive.'"
Jenner, who identifies as a Christian and as a Republican, also sparked responses in the Christian community, including Russell D. Moore, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
In an op-ed titled What Should the Church Say to Bruce Jenner Moore urges the church not to laugh at or make fun of people struggling with gender identity.
"First of all, we should avoid the temptation to laugh at these suffering souls," Moore said. "We do not see our transgendered neighbors as freaks to be despised."
He also warned against the "cultural narrative behind the transgender turn" which he says is rooted in the ancient heresy of Gnosticism and dictates that the "real" self is separate from the material being.
Moore emphasized that the root of the desire to change sexes is a feeling of alienation which can only be solved by knowing God.
"The hope for Bruce Jenner, and for others like him, is not to alter the body with surgery or to flood their systems with hormones," Moore added. "The answer is to realize that all of us are born alienated from what we were created to be. We don't need to fix what happened at our first birth; we need a new birth altogether."
