Should a gay baker be required by law to design a cake with the message, “God hates fags”? Should an African American t-shirt maker be required by law to design a t-shirt saying, “Long live the KKK?” Should a Muslim caterer be required by law to provide pork for a secular event? Should a Jewish photographer be required to shoot a wedding on the Sabbath? The answer to all these questions is: Of course not. Why, then, should a Christian baker be required by law to design a cake celebrating the “wedding” of two women (or men)?

That is the big question the U.S. Supreme Court will be answering this week when it hears the Masterpiece Cakes case involving Christian baker Jack Phillips.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, which is defending Phillips, has pointed out that: 1) “Jack does not discriminate,” and he was perfectly happy to sell the gay couple, who subsequently took him to court, cookies and brownies and anything else pre-made off of his shelves; 2) “Jack has turned down other cakes in the past,” including Halloween cakes and lewd cakes; 3) “Jack has faced anti-religious bigotry as well as threats and intimidation simply because he declined to promote an event,” so he is the one being singled out for unfair treatment; 4) “Jack owns a private family business, and he doesn’t give up his rights when he sells his art,” and by calling his business “Masterpiece Cakes,” he is making clear that for him, they are works of art; 5) accordingly, “Jack’s shop has been called an ‘art gallery of cakes’”; and 6) “Wedding cakes made up about 40 percent of Jack’s business,” and these are all custom designed. But due to Colorado’s laws and legal rulings to date, he has had to drop this part of his business entirely.

Now, common sense would say that this case should be a no-brainer, a slam-dunk win for Jack Phillips and his attorneys. And in principle, I agree. The problem, however, is that “gay rights” have been exalted to such a degree that these “rights” trump all other rights and freedoms, including our freedoms of conscience, speech, and religion.

In the case at hand, because Phillips is a committed Christian, he doesn’t make cakes mixed with alcohol (nor can he be required to), he doesn’t make cakes for lewd bachelor parties (nor can he be required to), and he doesn’t make cakes for horror-themed events (nor can he be required to). But when he cannot, in good conscience, use his artistic skills to make a cake for a same-sex “wedding,” he can be charged with violating the state’s anti-discrimination laws to the point that the state can now discriminate against him as a Christian.

Put another way, you can freely exercise your Christian beliefs unless those beliefs offend gays. In that case, you’re breaking the law.

And what if a Hindu came in and wanted a, “Krishna is Lord” cake? Phillips could politely decline, without legal penalty or pressure. The same with a Muslim baker declining to bake a cake for a Christian with the words, “Jesus is Lord.”

But wouldn’t that offend the Hindu and the Christian wanting to buy the cakes? Perhaps so, but the bakers are rightly protected by the law and cannot be penalized for refusing the business.

Why, then, are gays and lesbians treated differently? Why are they put in a special category?

The sympathetic answer would be that society has overcompensated for perceived past injustices. And so, the pendulum has swung from one side (mistreatment of gays and lesbians) to the other side (overprotection of gays and lesbians).

The more realistic answer is that some gay activists have always had as their ultimate goal the silencing of those who resist their cause.

As a Christian attorney once commented to me, “Those who were once put in jail want to put us in jail.”

In the days ahead, many on the left will argue that Phillips was guilty of discriminating against gay customers. But that is a complete misrepresentation of the facts, and if the Supreme Court finds him guilty, the implications for America will be massive.

It will mean that the highest court in the land has ruled that, in virtually all conceivable cases, gay rights trump religious rights. And it will mean that Christians in particular can be forced to violate their consciences and their deeply held, historic beliefs under penalty of law, with the real potential of losing their very livelihoods. And should they still refuse to comply, it could mean a jail sentence too.

While some on the left (including LGBT activists) will say, “This is not what we intended,” plenty of others will gloat. After all, if we deserved to be thrown to the lions in one generation, it’s no big deal to imprison us in another generation.

I’m hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court does the right thing. If not, my leftist readers may mock my words today but you will mark them tomorrow.

This article was originally posted at Townhall.com

Written by Casey Ryan

A Colorado baker has a right not to make a wedding cake celebrating a same-sex marriage that is against his faith, and the LGBT agenda is not a new civil rights movement, black Christian leaders said Monday outside the U.S. Supreme Court.

The nine leaders spoke in support of Jack Phillips, whose lawyers will ask the high court Dec. 5 to affirm that his free speech and religious liberty rights under the First Amendment allow him to turn down a request by two male customers to create such a cake.

“The First Amendment gives us the freedom of religion, not the freedom from religion,” Garland Hunt, senior pastor at The Father’s House, a nondenominational church in Atlanta, said at the press conference in defense of Phillips, who was not there. “The freedom of religion is an inalienable right that comes from God.”

In 2012, Phillips declined the business of two men who visited his bakery in Lakewood, Colorado, and asked him to create a cake celebrating their wedding in Massachusetts.

His Christian faith, Phillips has said, teaches that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. He also has said he doesn’t design and make cakes that go against his faith in other ways, such as being sexually suggestive or depicting Satan.

Persecution of Christians is real and “coming for America,” Hunt said.

Dean Nelson, co-founder of the Frederick Douglass Foundation of North Carolina and senior fellow for African-American affairs at the Washington-based Family Research Council, said Phillips is being attacked because he is a Christian.

“Jack is an honorable man who has served his community through his business for all people, regardless of their race, creed, color, gender, or sexual identity,” Nelson said. “Jack as a Christian is compelled to love all people, and this is what he has done for decades.”

The press conference was organized by Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal group that defends religious liberty and represents Phillips, and sponsored by the Frederick Douglass Foundation, which promotes Christian and Republican values. The foundation also has launched a website in support of Phillips called We Got Your Back, Jack.

Janet Boynes, author of Called Out: A Former Lesbian’s Discovery of Freedom, said the civil rights movement started to help blacks gain their rights and sexual behavior is not the same as skin color.

“I resent having my race compared to what other people do in bed,” Boynes said.

LGBT activists want special rights, she said, and she is concerned that people are falling for the idea that homosexuality is not a choice. American culture is in a “downward spiral,” she said.

“God only condones and blesses sex between a man and a woman in marriage,” she said.

William Avon Keen, president of the Virginia chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization co-founded by civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr., said activists for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans have hijacked civil rights.

Unlike many LGBT activists, Keen said, he dealt with separate and unequal public facilities when he was growing up.

Keen said the Bible calls homosexuality a sin.

“We as Christians, we feel that murder is a sin. … We feel that marriage is ordained by God between a man and a woman,” Keen said. “We don’t believe in the third gender.”

He said the civil rights movement of the 1960s was “anti-sin,” and that today Christians are “too quiet” on societal issues and need to speak up.

“It is an injustice for our nation or anyone to try to force an individual to deny their faith,” Keen said.

Article originally posted on Stream.org.

Busy schedule? Valid reason. Don’t know the couple? Valid reason. Watching football? Still a valid reason. Violates your conscience? You’re fired. Or so goes the logic of the Wyoming Supreme Court.

In December 2014, a reporter asked Judge Ruth Neely whether her faith would allow her to perform a same-sex “wedding” in her official capacity as a local municipal judge. Citing her belief in the Biblical definition of marriage, Judge Ruth Neely said she could not. Judge Neely had not been asked to do a same-sex ceremony. In spite of the fact that many other judges in the district were willing to do such ceremonies, a mere comment to a reporter was enough to bring judgment on Judge Neely.

In March 2015, the Wyoming Commission on Judicial Conduct and Ethics filed a complaint against her, alleging that her comments about marriage constituted judicial misconduct, and sought to remove her from both her roles as a judge.

Judge Neely appealed to the state’s Supreme Court, arguing that her removal based on her comments to the reporter would violate her First Amendment free-exercise and free speech rights. The Supreme Court disagreed and publicly censured Judge Neely and forced her to stop solemnizing marriages. Within a week she lost her magistrate position.

Wyoming Supreme Court said that it had to punish Judge Neely to uphold “judicial integrity” despite “no evidence” of Judge Neely’s beliefs harming “respect for the judiciary” or “any person.”

Wyoming law gives municipal judges wide discretion in deciding who they will marry. Judges are allowed to refuse to perform a wedding if they will not marry strangers, if they would rather go to the big football game, or even if they simply don’t feel like marrying the couple. It is only a religious reason that brings legal hostility.

Judge Neely receives no state compensation for performing weddings nor was it argued that she would not recognize a same-sex marriage in acting in her official capacity.

On August 4, 2017, Judge Neely, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys, petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case. The Court has not made it clear whether it will grant the petition.

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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I was hoping not to step into the sticky wicket that the Charlottesville protest, counter-protest, and at

tack created. All discussions of fault or causation carry the risk of being labeled a bigot or hater. But, for a number of reasons, fearful silence is not a justifiable response.

Southern Poverty Law Center 

One of those reasons is that the Plainfield Patch published an article titled “Illinois Hate Groups: Map Shows Active Racist Organizations” in which the Patch cites the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to alert Illinoisans to the presence of “32 hate” groups in Illinois, including the Illinois Family Institute.

It is both morally indefensible and intellectually dishonest of the ethically impoverished Southern Poverty Law Center to include the Illinois Family Institute (IFI) on its list of “hate” groups, alongside repugnant white supremacist groups/white separatists/white nationalists.

IFI is included on this list because we espouse theologically orthodox views of homosexuality, marriage, and the intrinsic and profound meaning of objective, immutable biological sex—views that are held by the Catholic Church, a dozen Protestant denominations, the Mormon Church, Seventh Day Adventism, many non-denominational churches, 2,000 years of church history, the Bible, and Orthodox Judaism.

Other Christian organizations included on the SPLC “hate” groups list are the American Family Association, Family Research Council, Alliance Defending Freedom, Liberty Counsel, and the Ruth Institute.

The goal of the SPLC’s malignant slander is to stigmatize and marginalize any group that defends marriage and sexual morality. Is the Plainfield Patch absolved of all moral culpability for smearing IFI because technically all it did was cite the anti-Christian hate group known euphemistically as the SPLC?

To be clear, the Illinois Family Institute and its sister organization Illinois Family Action—both of which have blacks serving on our boards–unequivocally denounce racism and hatred directed at any persons.

White Separatism and racism

Every decent person and certainly every Christian should denounce the vile racist beliefs of white separatists/white supremacists. We should condemn the actions of the domestic terrorist who launched his car into a crowd to mow down those whose beliefs he rejected. His actions (and the beliefs that impelled them) are as repugnant as those that led to lynchings, Jim Crow laws, and the Holocaust.

Christians must speak truth even when doing so is difficult. In a letter to his son who has embraced the ugly and false beliefs of what has come to be called the “alt-right,” a father reveals what commitment to truth may entail:

On Friday night, my son traveled to Charlottesville, Va., and was interviewed by a national news outlet while marching with reported white nationalists, who allegedly went on to kill a person.

I, along with all of his siblings and his entire family, wish to loudly repudiate my son’s vile, hateful and racist rhetoric and actions. We do not know specifically where he learned these beliefs. He did not learn them at home.

I have shared my home and hearth with friends and acquaintances of every race, gender and creed. I have taught all of my children that all men and women are created equal. That we must love each other all the same.

Evidently Peter has chosen to unlearn these lessons, much to my and his family’s heartbreak and distress. We have been silent up until now, but now we see that this was a mistake. It was the silence of good people that allowed the Nazis to flourish the first time around, and it is the silence of good people that is allowing them to flourish now.

Peter Tefft, my son, is not welcome at our family gatherings any longer. I pray my prodigal son will renounce his hateful beliefs and return home. Then and only then will I lay out the feast.

He once joked, “The thing about us fascists is, it’s not that we don’t believe in freedom of speech. You can say whatever you want. We’ll just throw you in an oven.”

Peter, you will have to shovel our bodies into the oven, too. Please son, renounce the hate, accept and love all.

The proper response to racial hatred is not the curtailment of speech rights, the destruction of property, or violent vigilantism. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mr. Tefft understood what antifa anarchists clearly do not.

Antifa’s anarchism

Peter Beinart, associate professor of journalism and political science at the City University of New York, writes about the history and current incarnation of the troubling antifa movement in an article in the Atlantic titled “The Rise of the Violent Left”:

Since antifa is heavily composed of anarchists, its activists place little faith in the state, which they consider complicit in fascism and racism. They prefer direct action: They pressure venues to deny white supremacists space to meet. They pressure employers to fire them and landlords to evict them. And when people they deem racists and fascists manage to assemble, antifa’s partisans try to break up their gatherings, including by force.

Such tactics have elicited substantial support from the mainstream left.

…

The violence is not directed only at avowed racists like [Richard] Spencer: In June of last year, demonstrators—at least some of whom were associated with antifa—punched and threw eggs at people exiting a Trump rally in San Jose, California. An article in It’s Going Down [an online website for “anarchists” and “autonomous anti-capitalists”] celebrated the “righteous beatings.”

…

As members of a largely anarchist movement, antifascists don’t want the government to stop white supremacists from gathering. They want to do so themselves, rendering the government impotent. 

…

Antifa believes it is pursuing the opposite of authoritarianism. Many of its activists oppose the very notion of a centralized state. But in the name of protecting the vulnerable, antifascists have granted themselves the authority to decide which Americans may publicly assemble and which may not. That authority rests on no democratic foundation. Unlike the politicians they revile, the men and women of antifa cannot be voted out of office. Generally, they don’t even disclose their names.

…

The people preventing Republicans from safely assembling on the streets of Portland may consider themselves fierce opponents of the authoritarianism growing on the American right. In truth, however, they are its unlikeliest allies.

The causes of both racial hatred and anarchism are numerous and complex. As Americans grapple with understanding them and finding solutions, I hope and pray they will think deeply about the causative roles these three phenomena play in rendering young people—particularly young men—vulnerable to racist or anarchistic ideologies:

• the absence of faith in the one true God

• the break-up of nuclear families and the concomitant absence of fathers

• the dissemination in government schools of Critical Theory, which teaches students that whites are oppressors based on nothing other than their skin color

Pastor and theologian John Piper reminds Christians that what unites humans—what humans of all races and ethnicities share in common—is far greater, more profound, and more substantive than the things that divide us:

In determining the significance of who you are, being a person in the image of God compares to ethnic distinctives the way the noonday sun compares to a candlestick. In other words, finding your main identity in whiteness or blackness or any other ethnic color or trait is like boasting that you carry a candle to light the cloudless noonday sky. Candles have their place. But not to light the day. So color and ethnicity have their place, but not as the main glory and wonder of our identity as human beings. The primary glory of who we are is what unites us in our God-like humanity, not what differentiates us in our ethnicity.

Recovering and passing on to our children an understanding of the political principles on which the greatest country in the history of the world was founded is essential to fostering unity amid diversity. So too is faith in God.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
(William Butler Yeats)

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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A Federal District Court has granted a preliminary injunction in a right-of-conscience case, the controversy of which the Illinois Family Institute has been following for several years.

The religious liberty defending law firm of Mauck & Baker, LLC is reporting some very good news out of that Federal District Court regarding an Illinois law mandating that pro-life medical personnel provide their clients with positive information about abortion services:

CHICAGO— Wednesday a Federal District Court granted the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) and several pro-life pregnancy centers a preliminary injunction against an Illinois law that forces pro-life healthcare professionals to make abortion referrals. The injunction prohibits the State from enforcing the law against healthcare facilities or physicians who have a conscience objection to performing abortions or making abortion referrals.

In their news release, Mauck & Baker provided background on the state statute and the challenge to it:

In 2016, Illinois amended its Healthcare Right of Conscience Act to require pro-life doctors and medical staff to provide referrals to abortion clinics and to speak of the “benefits” of abortion as a treatment option.

Late last year, another group of pregnancy centers obtained an injunction in state court.

The words of the opponents of the legislation were echoed in the court’s opinion, which questioned “why Illinois would require the very individuals who object to abortion services to become a source of information about them.”

In yesterday’s order, the federal court wrote, “It is clear that the amended act targets the free speech rights of people who have a specific viewpoint.”

The federal court preliminary injunction broadly protects all “healthcare facilities, health care personnel, or physicians who object to providing information about health care providers who may offer abortion or who object to describing abortion as a beneficial treatment option.”

Here is Noel W. Sterett, co-counsel on the case with the Alliance Defending Freedom:

“The government has no business forcing pro-life doctors and pregnancy care centers in Illinois to operate as referral agents for the abortion industry. A law that targets medical professionals because of their pro-life views and right of conscience is unconstitutional and unethical.”

To read the entire court order, click here.

Click here to learn more about the law firm of Mauck & Baker, LLC, which “was established in 2001 to defend the broken and the religiously oppressed.”

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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Last October the Illinois Family Institute brought attention to the “Free Speech Fairness Act.” Now faith leaders from around the country, including IFI’s executive director David E. Smith, are signing a letter addressed to U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy calling for the passage of the bill. This letter was delivered earlier this week.

Here is the opening paragraph of the letter:

We, the undersigned, representing hundreds of thousands of Americans, want to thank you for your commitment to preserving the rights secured in the First Amendment of the Constitution, specifically the rights to freedom of religion and speech. Unfortunately, since its passage, the Johnson Amendment has effectively squelched both of those rights in the context of activities that could be construed by the IRS as on behalf of or in opposition to a candidate for public office. That is why we support the Free Speech Fairness Act of 2016 (H.R. 781, “Fairness Act”), introduced by Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Representative Jody Hice (R-Ga.) to protect the speech and religious freedom rights of 501(c)(3) organizations and their leaders. We encourage you to prioritize hearings and votes on this important bill.

A lot has been written about the existing and growing threats to religious liberty for the past couple of years, and the infamous “Johnson Amendment” even became an issue during the presidential campaign.

H.R. 781 would restrict enforcement of the Johnson Amendment against churches and other non-profit groups for whom the law was never intended. You can find more information about that legislation by clicking here, as well as a great deal more information on the Johnson Amendment here.

In addition, both the Family Research Council and the Alliance Defending Freedom have information posted outlining the details of the legislation and why it is needed. FRC has published a one-page outline that answers the following questions:

• What Does the Bill Do?
• Why is the Bill Needed?
• What’s The Background on the Johnson Amendment?
• Has the IRS Gone After Nonprofits For Speaking Out On Political Issues?
• Who Supports the Bill or the Policies Represented in the Bill?

At their website, the Alliance Defending Freedom lists “5 Things to Know about the New Johnson Amendment Fix“:

1. The bill fixes but does not repeal the Johnson Amendment.
2. The bill applies to all 501(c)(3) entities, not just churches.
3. The bill does not turn churches and charities into political action committees.
4. The bill is constitutionally sound.
5. The bill is the first step in getting Congress to fix what it created in 1954.

Both FRC and ADF have videos posted that also outline the facts — here is ADF’s 3-minute video:

So many moral issues in the political arena must be addressed by church leaders inside the church – and not just by Christians outside the church. We must reclaim our God-given First Amendment right of free speech. It doesn’t just belong to those on one side of the debate.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your U.S. Representative to ask him/her to support or even co-sponsor this legislation. Speak up for free speech by telling them you want the Johnson Amendment repealed. Tell them they can start the process by cosponsoring H.R. 781, the Free Speech Fairness Act.

As of this writing, H.R. 781 has 57 Republican co-sponsors, including Illinois’ U.S. Representatives Randy Hultgren (Campton Hills) and John Shimkus (Effingham).

Download the IFI App!

We now have an IFI mobile app that enables us to deliver great content based on the “Tracks” you choose, including timely legislative alerts, cultural commentaries, upcoming event notifications, links to our podcasts, video reports, and even daily Bible verses to encourage you. This great app is available for Android and iPhones.

Key Features:

• It’s FREE!
• Specific content for Christians
• Performs a spiritual assessment
• Sends you daily Scriptures to encourage and equip you
• You determine when and how much content you get

Temporarily Halts Illinois Abortion Referral Mandate

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It seems that our nation’s founding fathers were not clear enough with their use of language in the First Amendment, which protects some of our God-given rights. That “make no law” thing is confusing for many, and that “abridging” business, well, that’s way over the heads of Leftists.

While the U.S. Constitution binds Congress, our state constitution binds our state government, and the spirit of the First Amendment is expressed using different words in our state constitution’s Bill of Rights.

Regardless, in Illinois, our governor and General Assembly have now taken up the task of telling people what they can’t say. Reparative therapy is now against the law. So anyone seeking help to escape unwanted same-sex attraction or gender confusion are going to have to find a state where therapists retain their freedom of speech.

In addition, they passed a law forcing pro-life counselors and medical professionals to violate their conscience by telling patients the benefits of abortion and going so far as to require them to give referrals, making them complicit in ending a human life. Here is Michele Bachmann speaking at an IFI event in September:

It is amazing to me that the law compels believers to say something they know isn’t true. Doctors, caregivers, people in pro-life centers — they’re forced, compelled, by a state entity, to share information that not only violates their moral conscience, but they know fundamentally, maybe even experientially in their own life — it is not only wrong — it will bring about death. And yet their government says they must say it.  (Read more here.)

The Alliance Defending Freedom is reporting some good news on this latter front — the doctors and healthcare professionals at the Pregnancy Care Center of Rockford have been given a reprieve by a state court in the form of a preliminary injunction.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) Senior Counsel Matt Bowman commented on the injunction:

“Forcing pro-life doctors and pregnancy care centers in Illinois to operate as referral agents for the abortion industry in violation of their freedom of conscience is unconstitutional, illegal, and unethical. No state has the authority to compel health professionals, against their will and their sacred oath to “do no harm,” to promote abortion. We commend the court’s ruling which is a victory for free speech and the freedom of conscience.”

ADF reported that in its nineteen-page order issued Tuesday, “the state court noted that Pregnancy Care Center of Rockford raised sufficient questions as to whether the new law is either legal or constitutional as applied to pro-life doctors and pregnancy care centers.”

As an example, according to ADF, the ruling states:”Why must the State, which licenses and regulates those who provide the objected-to services, rely on the very people who object to the services to be the source of information about them?”

Click here to read the order of the state court granting preliminary injunction.

Upcoming Event:  Join thousands at March for Life Chicago 2017 as we come together from across Chicago, the Midwest and the U.S. to defend, protect and celebrate LIFE on January 15th.

Illinois Family Spotlight:  Listen to this week’s podcast as Monte Larrick and Dave Smith talk with pro-life hero Jill Stanek about what the pro-life movement can expect over the next few years in a Donald Trump administration.

End-of-Year Challange

As you may know, IFI has a year-end matching challenge to raise $110,000. That’s right, a small group of IFI supporters are providing a $55,000 matching challenge to help support IFI’s ongoing work to educate, motivate and activate Illinois’ Christian community.

Please consider helping us reach this goal!  Your donation will help us stand strong in 2017!  To make a credit card donation over the phone, please call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.  You can also send a gift to:

Illinois Family Institute
P.O. Box 876
Tinley Park, Illinois 60477

Written by Richard Ostling

Suddenly transgender rights is the hot “culture wars” topic. Religious folks with traditional convictions about such matters have been largely silent, or else many newswriters haven’t yet figured how to locate them in order to report the other side of this crucial debate.

Thus, there’s useful sourcing in the strongly-worded “Transgender Identification Ethics Statement” issued by the Christian Medical and Dental Associations.

This group is made up of 16,000-plus professionals who affirm “the divine inspiration and final authority of the Bible as the Word of God.” CMDA had Big 10 origins at the University of Illinois and Northwestern and went national in 1941. It’s one of many such U.S. fellowships for vocational and academic specialists. Most of these were launched by Evangelical-type Protestants but have long since welcomed Catholic and Orthodox participants.

The transgender statement, approved at a CMDA conference April 21 but publicized only recently, urges doctors to treat these patients with understanding and grace. On the other hand, CMDA champions professionals’ right to freedom of conscience, asserting that it is not “unjust discrimination” if a physician in conscience declines treatment that is considered “harmful or is not medically indicated.”

On the religious aspect, CMDA contrasts the Old and New Testament belief that “God created humanity as male and female” with current “confusion of gender identity.” “Gender complementarity and fixity are both good and a part of the natural order,” it says. The “objective biological fact” is that sex “is determined genetically at conception” and is “not a social construct arbitrarily assigned at birth or changed at will.”

The statement focuses on transgender persons whose psychological “gender identity” is the opposite of biology and genetic makeup – the current public issue – and distinguishes this syndrome from medical treatment of rare abnormalities in which the sexual phenotype and chromosomes conflict (e.g. ambiguous genitalia, androgen insensitivity syndrome, congenital adrenal hyperplasia).

That is, “the purpose of medicine is to heal the sick, not to collaborate with psychosocial disorders. Whereas treatment of anatomically anomalous sexual phenotypes is restorative, interventions to alter normal sexual anatomy to conform to transgender desires are disruptive to health.”

CMDA leaders think physicians should be aware of evidence that persons who identify as transgender, use cross-sex hormones, or undergo sex reassignment surgery, generally suffer more depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, substance abuse, and risky sexual behaviors. The organization is especially critical of doctors who prescribe hormones for a biologically healthy child in order to block normal growth and fertility. On sex-change surgery, CMDA says the medical evidence on outcomes is incomplete but there are potential dangers there as well. In addition, “transgender designations may conceal biological sex differences relevant to medical risk factors.”

Such professional concerns, which have received little media notice thus far, provide good fodder for interviews with transgender advocates, physicians included.

Meanwhile, CMDA is involved in another developing story, the federal lawsuit filed July 19 by the Alliance Defending Freedom against Vermont’s Board of Medical Practice and its Office of Professional Regulation. The suit charges that these agencies interpret “Act 39,” the state’s 2013 suicide law, to require death-by-doctor counseling, in violation of medical ethics and conscience rights.

Resources:

– CMDA media office in Bristol, Tenn.: 423-844-1000.

– Transgender affirmation from the Human Rights Campaign.

– The former chief of psychiatry (and a Catholic) explains why the Johns Hopkins University hospital halted sex-change surgery.

This article was originally posted at GetReligion.org

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing an Illinois doctor and two pregnancy care centers filed suit in state court against Gov. Bruce Rauner after he recently signed a bill into law that forces doctors and medical facilities to promote abortion regardless of their ethical or moral views on the practice.

ADF sent a letter to Rauner in May on behalf of numerous pro-life physicians, pregnancy care centers, and pregnancy care center network organizations advising him that the bill, SB 1564, would violate federal law and therefore place federal funding, including Medicaid reimbursements, in jeopardy. ADF also warned legislators about the problems with the bill last year. The lawsuit claims the new law, which is actually an amendment to the existing Illinois Healthcare Right of Conscience Act, violates state law and the state constitution.

“No state should attempt to rob women of the right to choose a pro-life doctor by forcing pro-life physicians and entities to make or arrange abortion referrals. What’s even worse is that Illinois did this by amending a law designed specifically to protect freedom of conscience,” said ADF Senior Counsel Matt Bowman. “The governor should have vetoed this bill for many reasons, including its incompatibility with Illinois law and the state constitution, which specifically protects freedom of conscience and free speech.”

The new law forces medical facilities and physicians who conscientiously object to involvement in abortions to adopt policies that provide women who ask for abortions with a list of providers “they reasonably believe may offer” them. Illinois law prohibits government from placing burdens on religious conscience without a compelling interest for doing so. Additionally, the Illinois Constitution protects “liberty of conscience,” saying that “no person shall be denied any civil or political right, privilege or capacity, on account of his religious opinions.” It also protects free speech, which includes the right not to be compelled by government to speak a message contrary to one’s own conscience.

“Pro-life health care professionals shouldn’t be forced to hand out lists describing how to contact abortionists, yet that’s what this law mandates that they do,” explained ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot. “If this profane amendment to Illinois’ conscience protection law remains on the books, doctors and medical staff committed to saving all lives will be forced to promote the killing of some children, women will lose access to doctors who unconditionally value human life, and pregnancy resource centers that offer free help and hope to pregnant women will be forced to refer to abortionists. This is the kind of government coercion that the state constitution, the state Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the very law that was amended were all designed to prevent.”

Mauck & Baker LLC attorney Noel Sterett, one of more than 3,000 private attorneys allied with ADF, is co-counsel in the case, The Pregnancy Care Center of Rockford v. Rauner, filed in the Circuit Court of the 17th Judicial Circuit in Winnebago County.

Attorney Noel Sterett, co-counsel in the case and partner at Mauck & Baker, LLC, in Chicago, says, “These crisis pregnancy centers have been doing tremendous work serving their community for years, but now their core mission is being threatened. People disagree on whether abortions end human lives, but I’d hope we can all agree that pregnancy centers dedicated to protecting the unborn should not be forced to recommend abortion to mothers.”

Written by Casey Mattox

Whether you’re a painter, pastor, lawyer, or laborer (pro-life or pro-abortion), you work for Planned Parenthood. A portion of every paycheck goes to the world’s leading abortion business through the federal and state taxes allocated by your elected representatives and the unelected bureaucrats they empower.

For the fiscal year ending in June 2015 (just before the Center for Medical Progress videos were released), over $550 million of your hard-earned tax dollars went to Planned Parenthood.

But the states are taking the lead to end this forced partnership with “Big Abortion” and redirecting those funds to providers that better serve women and families.

Since the authenticated Center for Medical Progress videos were released showing Planned Parenthood officials bartering over the prices of baby body parts, 15 states have taken action to end or limit its taxpayer subsidies.

Here are just a few examples of what state legislatures and governors have done:

• New Hampshire canceled over $600,000 in annual state grants to Planned Parenthood.
• Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas moved to exclude Planned Parenthood from the states’ Medicaid programs “for cause,” citing its waste, abuse and potential fraud and the evidence of violations of the law and ethics demonstrated in the Center for Medical Progress videos.
• Wisconsin and Arizona have slashed the Medicaid reimbursement for certain drugs for entities like Planned Parenthood that receive them at artificially low rates under a federal government program, denying them windfall profits and making those funds available to more women and families.
• Ohio, Florida, Utah and Wisconsin have also eliminated Planned Parenthood from other federal and state grant programs administered by the state.

These actions have potentially eliminated tens of millions in annual taxpayer subsidies going to Planned Parenthood. This represents a small part of the hundreds of millions that it receives, but it is a solid start. And these efforts may at least cut into the $59 million in “excess revenue” the abortion outfit reported last year alone.

States have fought to defund the abortion industry before, but never has the effort to rid American taxpayers of their compelled support of Planned Parenthood been more purposeful and effective than the past several months.

Even Congress has heard the call to stop the flow of taxpayer funds to Planned Parenthood. Just five years ago, an effort to defund Planned Parenthood garnered only 42 votes in the Senate. But moved by the evidence against Planned Parenthood and the fact that other providers are simply better public health options for women and families, in January, Congress actually placed a bill on the president’s desk slashing Planned Parenthood’s access to our tax dollars.

The bill wasn’t perfect, and it was of course vetoed by President Barack Obama, but the progress is real. A different president, one not beholden to an entity that alone has spent tens of millions of dollars to elect him and others who will defend their access to the public trough, would make the difference.

But just as the states are not waiting on Congress to pass laws limiting abortions after five months, when the unborn child can feel pain, they are also not content to wait on Congress to finally stop their citizens’ tax dollars from going to the abortion industry. Governors and state legislators have worked to redirect our tax dollars away from the abortion industry before, but in the last 10 months they have shown a new leadership that should encourage pro-lifers and any advocate of federalism.

No one ever said that eliminating taxpayer subsidies to the abortion market leader and a key political friend to Democratic candidates would be easy. Planned Parenthood has sued several states, and the ultimate success of some states in defunding it may rest on the election of a pro-life president who will support their authority to make their own decisions about their state Medicaid programs.

But the results of the last 10 months should give us hope that this is a fight we can win. We don’t have to keep sending our hard-earned tax dollars to support a billion dollar abortion business. And the leaders in that fight are outside the beltway.

This article was originally published at DailySignal.com.

On Wednesday afternoon, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and the Thomas More Society filed a lawsuit in federal court against School District 211 and the Department of Education (DOE) on behalf of 51 district families who rightly claim that the district and the Department of Education “trample students’ privacy” rights and create an “intimidating and hostile environment” for girls who are being forced to share the girls locker room and restrooms with a boy who wishes he were a girl.

The lawsuit claims that the DOE’s reinterpretation of Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, is unlawful. The DOE through its Office for Civil Rights claims that the word “sex” in Title IX actually includes “gender identity” and “gender expression,” thereby prohibiting schools from maintaining separate restrooms and locker rooms for boys and girls.

There’s only one wee little problem with that fanciful interpretation. Title IX specifically states the following:

[T]itle IX of the Education Amendments of 1972…is designed to eliminate (with certain exceptions) discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program….A recipient [of federal funds] may provide separate toilet, locker room, and shower facilities on the basis of sex, but such facilities provided for students of one sex shall be comparable to such facilities provided for students of the other sex. [emphasis added]

For those who may not remember, several months ago the ACLU represented a gender-dysphoric boy in District 211 who was seeking the right to use the girls locker room and restrooms. Actually, he was seeking the right to unrestricted access to the girls locker room and restrooms. Though he and the ACLU lost the right—for now—to unrestricted access, he won the right to use the girls restrooms and locker room, which has been fitted with a privacy changing area.

While this boy—and he is a boy—demands the right to change clothes and go to the bathroom with only girls, he seeks to deny actual girls the right to change clothes and go to the bathroom with only girls.

According to the Chicago Tribune, ACLU spokesman Ed Yohnka waxed indignant over opposition to a boy in the girls locker room and restrooms and to the conventional and proper use of pronouns to denote objective, immutable sex:

Ed Yohnka…called the lawsuit a “sad development by groups opposed to fair and humane treatment of all students, including those who are transgender.”

He also bristled at the lawsuit’s repeated reference to the transgender student as “he.”

“It’s pretty offensive that they don’t even fundamentally acknowledge that our client is a girl,” Yohnka said.

I regret being so graphic, but Yohnka’s idiotic statement makes it necessary: Girls don’t have penises.

The Left takes umbrage if anyone dares to dissent from their doctrinaire notions about sex and grammar. Tyrannical Leftists demand that biological males who wish they were female be treated as if they are in reality female—even in womens showers. The Left demands that everyone join them in their delusional charade.

District 211 superintendent Daniel Cates said “students have shown acceptance, support and respect of each other,” evidently meaning that students don’t object to sharing restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex students. If true, is that a good thing? Has the culture successfully indoctrinated all our young people with the lie that acceptance and respect of those who suffer from gender dysphoria require sharing restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex persons? Doubtful.

Should the delight of teens in sharing restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex students determine policy? If physical embodiment matters and if modesty is a virtue derived from physical embodiment, shouldn’t schools create policies that reinforce those truths?

And does anyone believe that in this cultural climate, teens who don’t want to share restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex peers would feel comfortable admitting it? Or to use Leftist jargon, does anyone believe it is “safe” for students to express opposition to sharing restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex peers?

The issue of objectively male students using girls private facilities is not solely about the risk of assault—though that risk exists. The central issue concerns the meaning of physical embodiment as male or female, particularly as it pertains to modesty and privacy.

Virtually everyone—including gender-dysphoric persons and homosexuals—acknowledges that men and women are substantively and significantly different. When homosexuals claim they are attracted only to persons of the same sex, they are implicitly and necessarily saying men and women are different, and those differences include bodily differences.

When gender-dysphoric persons who wish they were the opposite sex say they don’t want to use restrooms or locker rooms with persons of their same sex, they are saying there are fundamental and significant differences between men and women. Further, they are necessarily saying that their desire to use opposite-sex restrooms is based on objective bodily differences. They are demanding privacy based on objective sex differences while denying that privacy to others.

Questions Leftists must answer:

• Why are sex differences meaningful for those who have gender dysphoria but not for those who don’t?

• Do the desire for privacy and feelings of modesty derive from objective sex differences or from desires about one’s sex?

• If gender-dysphoric persons are allowed to use restrooms with only those whose “gender identity” they share, why shouldn’t non-gender-dysphoric persons be allowed to use restrooms with only those whose sex they share?

• If there is a mismatch between a person’s sex and their feelings about their sex, why would anyone assume the problem is with the healthy, normally functioning body and not the mind?

How refreshing and encouraging it is to see parents boldly challenging the incoherent and indecent actions of “progressives” in government schools. Please pray for these families and the success of their lawsuit.

ADF attorneys file reply brief with Washington Supreme Court
on behalf of Barronelle Stutzman, targeted for her beliefs.

Alliance Defending Freedom filed a brief Friday with the Washington Supreme Court that answers arguments the state and the American Civil Liberties Union have made in favor of government discrimination against a floral artist, whom they sued for acting consistently with her faith.

ADF attorneys asked the state high court to take up the case in June of last year after a lower state court ruled that Stutzman, owner of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, must pay penalties and attorneys’ fees for declining to use her artistic abilities to design custom floral arrangements for a long-time customer’s same-sex ceremony. Rather than participate in the ceremony, Stutzman referred the customer, whom she considers a friend and had served for nearly 10 years, to several other florists in the area who would provide high-quality arrangements and wedding support.

“Barronelle and many others like her around the country have been more than willing to serve any and all customers, but they are understandably not willing to promote any and all messages,” said ADF Senior Counsel Kristen Waggoner. “No one should be faced with a choice between their freedom of speech and conscience on one hand and personal and professional ruin on the other.  Americans oppose unjust government actions that strong-arm citizens to create expression against their will.”

As the ADF reply brief explains,

“The case boils down to this question: is there room in our tolerant, diverse, and freedom-loving society for people with different views about the nature of marriage to establish their ‘religious (or nonreligious) self-definition in the political, civic, and economic life of our larger community…?’ The trial court’s and [the state’s and the ACLU’s] answer is ‘no.’ Their view is that those who seek to establish their self-identity based on the millennia-old view that marriage is solely between a man and a woman may be coerced by law to express different views or be silenced. This is contrary to the best of our historical and constitutional traditions, which mandate that citizens who hold non-majoritarian views be given room to express them and not be coerced, punished, and marginalized through force of law.”

“The trial court’s and [the state’s and the ACLU’s] view—that there can never be a free speech exception to public accommodation laws—endangers everyone,” the brief continues. “If correct, then the consciences of all citizens are fair game for the government. No longer could a gay print shop owner decline to print shirts adorned with messages promoting marriage between one man and one woman for a religious rally. Nor could an atheist painter decline to paint a mural celebrating the resurrection of Christ for a church. Indeed, no speaker could exercise esthetic or moral judgments about what projects to take on where a customer claims the decision infringes on his or her rights under the WLAD [Washington Law Against Discrimination].”

“People in creative professions regularly have to make decisions about where they lend their artistic talents and the events in which they will participate,” Stutzman said. “For me, it’s never about the person who walks into the shop, but about the message I’m communicating when someone asks me to ‘say it with flowers.’ The government should respect everyone’s freedom—including our artistic freedom and core religious beliefs about marriage—and not force us to create expression that violates our conscience.”

Washington attorneys George Ahrend, John Connelly, and Alicia M. Berry are also counsel of record in the lawsuits, State of Washington v. Arlene’s Flowers and Ingersoll v. Arlene’s Flowers.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) will revisit the legality of the Obama Administration’s contraceptive and abortion drug mandate in a crucial case this coming term.

SCOTUS announced last Friday that it will hear another challenge to the mandate filed by various religious groups, including the Catholic religious order The Little Sisters of the Poor.

Under the mandate, all health insurance policies issued in the United States must include coverage of abortifacient drugs and devices such as Ella and Plan B without co-pays or deductibles.

Ella and Plan B and the like are often marketed as “morning-after pills,” or “emergency contraceptives.”  However, these drugs also operate after conception to destroy developing human embryos in their earliest stages.

The SCOTUS has previously ruled that closely-held corporations with religious objections cannot be forced to subsidize abortifacient drugs in their health insurance plans.

In a high profile case involving craft giant Hobby Lobby, the court ruled that family businesses were “persons” under the Constitution, and thus entitled to the free exercise protections of the First Amendment.

The Obama Administration has attempted to evade the SCOTUS ruling by establishing what they have called an “accommodation” for religious institutions and religious ministries.

Under this sham arrangement, religious entities can notify their third party health administrator or the Department of Health and Human Services that they object to the abortion drug mandate on religious grounds.

The religious organization’s health insurer is then required to provide contraceptive and abortion drug coverage to the company’s employees directly “for free.”

Christian colleges and ministries have rightly objected to this “alternative,” which still requires that they facilitate and likely pay for drugs and devices that destroy human life.

“We perform this loving ministry because of our faith, and we cannot possibly choose between our care for the elderly poor and our faith, and we shouldn’t have to,” says Sister Lorraine Marie McGuire, Mother Provincial of the Little Sisters of the Poor.

“All we ask is that our rights not be taken away,” Sr. McGuire continued.  “The government has exempted [others] from what they are now imposing on us.  We just want to keep serving the elderly poor as we have done for 175 years.”

The SCOTUS is consolidating a number of cases in hearing the appeal of the Obamacare mandate.  Other plaintiffs include Priests for Life, two Catholic dioceses, East Texas Baptist University, Southern Nazarene University (SNU), and Geneva College.

“The government has no legitimate basis for forcing faith-based organizations to be involved in providing abortion pills to their employees or students,” says Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Gregory Baylor, who is representing Geneva College and SNU.

“These Christian colleges simply want to abide by the very faith they espouse and teach,” Baylor explains.  “They should not be forced to choose between giving up their fundamental freedoms and paying financial penalties.”

Failure on the part of an employer to comply with the abortion drug mandate can result in fines of $100 per day per employee.  Such fines would bankrupt many nonprofit religious ministries.

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Written By Billy Hallowell

Atlanta’s former fire chief who was terminated after he self-published a book that included his faith-based opposition to homosexuality has filed a lawsuit against the city in federal court. This act follows a complaint that his attorneys filed last month with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, citing unlawful discrimination.

Kelvin Cochran, who is being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal firm, believes that he was fired because of his Christian faith, arguing in the complaint that his freedom of religion was violated in the dismissal process.

“To actually lose my childhood-dream-come-true profession – where all of my expectations have been greatly exceeded – because of my faith is staggering,” Cochran said in a statement following the filing on Wednesday. “The very faith that led me to pursue my career has been used to take it from me. All Americans are guaranteed the freedom to hold to their beliefs without the consequences that I have experienced.”

The Alliance Defending Freedom is working with Jonathan Crumly and Garland Hunt, two allied local attorneys in the case, which was filed U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division, according to a press release.

“This civil rights lawsuit is not only about restoring Kelvin Cochran’s constitutional freedoms, but the freedom of all Americans to live without fear of being fired because of their beliefs and thoughts,” David Cortman, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, told TheBlaze. “It’s ironic that some claim Chief Cochran was fired in the name of ‘diversity’ for having different beliefs than the city. That sounds more like compelled conformity and thought policing.”

As reported last month, the legal firm filed an official complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of Cochran in January, alleging that he was discriminated against when Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed fired him. The newly filed lawsuit ups the ante on the situation, though, solidifying a formal legal complaint about the firing.

Cochran’s dismissal in early January followed controversy over “Who Told You That You Are Naked?” a book that he self-published in which he called homosexuality “sexual perversion” and compared it to “bestiality,” among other critiques. Activists reacted swiftly to the text, sparking involvement from the mayor’s office.

While Cochran has repeatedly said that he was terminated for his religious views, Reed has offered up a very different story, claiming at a press conference last month that Cochran’s judgement was at the center of his firing, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Full video: Fire chief sues city of Atlanta over unjust termination from ADF Media Relations on Vimeo.

“I, too, am a person of very deep religious faith … 1 Corinthians 14:40 says, ‘Let all things be done decently and in order’ and I want to make very clear in my judgement that was not done here,” Reed proclaimed. “Chief Cochran’s book … was published in violation of the city’s standards of conduct, which require prior approval of the ethics officer and the board of ethics.”

While Reed claims that he wasn’t consulted before the book was written and that Cochran, who spoke out about his battle with the city to religious groups when he was reportedly told not to, isn’t being persecuted because of his faith, the former fire chief disagrees.

Cochran claims Atlanta ethics officer Nina Hickson gave him verbal permission to write the book and that he had given a copy to Reed’s office last January, the Journal-Constitution reported.

Reed launched an investigation in November after it was revealed that the book discussed homosexuality in a negative light, though Cochran was found to not have discriminated against any employees during his tenure, but his termination followed.

Read more about the initial controversy here.

Originally posted at TheBlaze.com.

The Truth Project

First Annual IFI Worldview Conference
featuring Dr. Del Tackett
April 10-11, 2015

CLICK HERE for Details