Evangelist Franklin Graham has accused Obama of opening bathrooms to "sexual predators and perverts" after the president ordered public schools to permit transgender students to use the bathroom that corresponds their gender identity.
"Who does President Barack Obama think he is? The sultan of Washington?" Graham, 64, wrote on his Facebook page. "Does he think he can just make a 'decree' and we will bow down and simply obey?"
The president and CEO of Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association argued that the directive blatantly ignores the protection and privacy of other students, calling it "discrimination."
"This opens up bathrooms to sexual predators and perverts," he added. "A decree does not carry the force of law-that's the job of Congress. The president obviously must have no fear of God, who made us and created us male and female."
Graham concluded by saying that he hopes to see school districts across America openly defy Obama's efforts to "promote and advance the sin of homosexuality and the LGBT agenda."
In a letter sent to public schools by the Department of Justice and Department of Education on Friday, administrators were informed they "may provide separate facilities on the basis of sex, but must allow transgender students access to such facilities consistent with their gender identity."
The letter also warned schools they could risk losing federal funding or be at risk of lawsuits if they refuse to follow the guidelines laid out in the directive.
A number of political leaders have pushed back against the ordinance, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who referred to it as "politically correct lunacy."
"Yesterday Barack Obama issued a decree," Cruz said Saturday at the Texas GOP convention in Dallas, according to CBS News. "Now let me stop there. How many of ya'll have read your Constitution? Tell me where in the Constitution does it say the president can issue decrees?"
"There is no decree clause to the Constitution," he added.
The former Republican primary contender warned of the danger of public schools allowing grown men and boys into girls bathrooms: "We have entered the world of politically correct lunacy," Cruz said. "There is nothing in the Constitution that gives the president the power to be the 'bathroom police' for this country."
He contended that the president's latest guidance is an "embodiment of just how off-track we've gotten" and argued that the federal government "needs to leave us the heck alone."
"Secure the borders, deliver the mail and keep us safe - that's it," he said.
The state's lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, also slammed the ordinance and suggested that Obama was "probably paying back the lesbian, gay and transgender community that helped him defeat Hillary Clinton in 2008 or he believes in this policy."
Calling the transgender student accommodation the "biggest issue" since prayer was taken out of school, Patrick compared Obama to Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, according to an account in the Gospel of Matthew 26:15 in the New Testament.
"[Obama] says he is going to withhold funding if schools do not follow the policy," he said. "Well, in Texas he can keep his 30 pieces of silver. We will not yield to blackmail from the president of the United States."
