'A huge victory': Christian leaders react to Supreme Court's Skrmetti ruling

4. Brent Leatherwood

Brent Leatherwood, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's public policy arm, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, praised the ruling.

"When a child needs to be protected, states have a right to step in with common-sense laws to save that child from harm," Leatherwood said in a statement, adding that it's "a view long held by Southern Baptists."

He identified the Skrmetti case as "a top priority for the ERLC before the court."

"The protection of children from harmful transgender surgeries and interventions is not only an entirely appropriate action by the state, it is desperately needed in a culture that believes a person's identity can be divorced from biological realities simply on a whim," he asserted. "Southern Baptists have been unequivocally clear about the dangers of 'gender transition' procedures and interventions on minors and the devastating effects they have on children."