An Idaho pastor and his wife have won a showdown with the city of Couer d’Alene over demands that they preside over same-sex union ceremonies.

Donald and Evelyn Knapp, who are both ordained Pentecostal ministers, have operated The Hitching Post Lakeside Chapel in Coeur d’Alene since 1989.

City officials had previously informed the Knapps that they must perform same-sex “weddings” at their chapel, or face the potential of a $1000 fine for each day of violation and up to 180 days in jail.

City attorneys said the failure by the couple to do so would violate the city’s non-discrimination ordinance, which prohibits bias against persons based on so-called “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”

City officials said the Knapps must comply because The Hitching Post is operated as a for-profit corporation.  The Knapps responded by filing suit in federal court arguing that the edict was a violation of their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.

The Knapps stated publicly that they would shut down The Hitching Post before they would take actions contrary to what the Bible teaches.

Following a controversy that attracted national headlines, city officials have reversed their position.   They now say that the Knapps’ lakeside chapel is exempt from the ordinance because the business is a “religious corporation.”

In their lawsuit, the Knapps asserted that they believe that “God created two distinct genders in His Image” and “that God ordained marriage to be between one man and one woman.”

The weddings conducted by the Knapps are distinctly Christian in nature.  Scriptures are read during the ceremonies, and couples are provided with sermons on Christian marriage and recommended books on the subject.

Jeremy Tedesco, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, says the city’s treatment of the ministers is a predictable result of the “special rights” laws pushed by homosexual advocates.

“We’ve been told that pastors would never be forced to perform ceremonies that are completely at odds with their faith.  Yet that’s exactly what is happening here, and it is happening this quickly.”

Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, says that the Hitching Post case reveals the true intentions of the so-called “marriage equality” movement.

“Americans are witnesses to the reality that redefining marriage is less about the marriage altar, and more about fundamentally altering the freedoms of the other 98 percent of Americans.”

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Why We Must Defend Religious Liberty

In Appleton, Wisconsin, Marge Christensen labors tirelessly to share the Gospel. In her eighties, Marge is active in her church and has been promoting biblical citizenship for more than twenty years. She and her husband are ambassadors for the Alliance Defending Freedom and have been working lately to encourage churches to promote marriage with greater boldness.

Recently, Marge shared with a colleague of mine that churches do not seem to sense the urgency of teaching on matters of marriage, family and especially religious liberty.

Folks, that’s a problem.

A friend of mine, you may have heard of him, Rick Santorum, shares Marge’s concerns. After a long and illustrious career in politics, Rick has taken over as chief executive of EchoLight Studios with the goal of bringing top-notch and redemptive media to a darkened culture.

EchoLight’s latest documentary film, “One Generation Away,” draws its inspiration from Ronald Reagan’s famous inaugural address as California’s 33rd governor. In it, Reagan warned: “Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.”

Several of the cases examined in the movie are familiar to us. There’s the decades-long battle to remove the large cross from the Mt. Soledad Veteran’s Memorial in San Diego. And then there’s the coercive healthcare mandate that sought to force businesses like Hobby Lobby to violate Christian conscience and pay for abortion-inducing drugs.

But what makes “One Generation Away” so interesting and valuable is that it interviews leaders on both sides of the issue. Along with a great cast of stalwart defenders of religious freedom like Mike Huckabee and Ryan Anderson of the Heritage Foundation, you’ll hear from members of the ACLU and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State—people who are leading the crusade to restrict religious expression in public life.

And as I myself say in the film (and yes, I was privileged to take a part in it), to preserve our freedom we have to know what our liberties are and what they aren’t. And we have to defend them—and that requires knowing our opponents’ arguments and intentions.

Part of the task will be reminding our fellow Christians that we believers have full rights of citizenship. Too many of us have bought into the idea that religion is purely a private matter. God forbid! As Vincent Munoz of Notre Dame said so well in the film, “Just as other citizens can bring their convictions into the public square, religious citizens can and should bring their convictions into the public square. Don’t you lose your rights because you’re religious!”

Folks, the lesson of “One Generation Away” is that vigilance in defending our freedoms is not a one-time task, but a sacred trust that we pass from generation to generation.

This is why I hope you will get your church to host a screening of “One Generation Away”—and please get your friends and neighbors to attend. Come to BreakPoint.org and click on this commentary. We’ll link you to the movie’s website so you can learn how your church can premiere the movie at no cost to you or your congregation.

Folks, we’ve got to do something. And this is something we can do. I hope you’ll do it.

This article was originally posted at the BreakPoint.org website.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a brief Wednesday that responds to the Obama administration’s defense of its abortion pill mandate in one of two major legal challenges the U.S. Supreme Court will hear on March 25. Alliance Defending Freedom and allied attorneys represent the Hahns, a Pennsylvania Mennonite Christian family, and their woodworking business in one of those cases, Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius.

The mandate forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception under threat of heavy financial penalties if the mandate’s requirements aren’t met.

“In America, we tolerate a diversity of opinions and beliefs; we don’t try to separate what people do from what they believe,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel David Cortman. “The Constitution guarantees the highest form of respect to the Hahns’ freedom. The government must prove why disregarding that freedom is somehow justified.”

According to the Alliance Defending Freedom reply brief, “the government contends that [the Hahns] harm the ‘freedom’ of third parties simply by not buying them abortifacients…. But that turns ordinary notions of liberty upside down. Citizens are already free to buy birth control for themselves and the government often subsidizes those purchases. Yet in the government’s view that is not enough. For the government, coercion is the new ‘freedom.’”

“Americans must be free to exercise their constitutionally protected liberties without punishment,” added Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “That at least includes freedom from government attempts to force them to pay for other people’s abortion pills.”

In January, numerous third parties filed briefs in both Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius and The Becket Fund’s Hobby Lobby Stores v. Sebelius case, which also challenges the mandate. The briefs filed in support of Conestoga Wood Specialties and Hobby Lobby outnumbered the briefs filed in favor of the Obama administration by nearly three to one.

The Hahns asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review their case after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled 2-1 against them. The decision conflicts with most other circuits and with the vast majority of rulings on the mandate so far. According to a dissent that Circuit Judge Kent Jordan wrote in that case, the mandate could cost the Hahns $95,000 per day if they don’t agree to live contrary to their Christian convictions.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys are lead counsel in the case together with co-counsel Randall Wenger of the Independence Law Center and Charles Proctor III of the Pennsylvania firm Proctor, Lindsay & Dixon. They are two of nearly 2,300 attorneys allied with Alliance Defending Freedom.

A Christian counseling student who was the subject of religious discrimination has won a major settlement against Eastern Michigan University. 

University officials have agreed to pay Julea Ward $75,000, after having expelled her from the school’s graduate counseling program. 

As part of her studies, Ward had been asked to counsel a homosexual client.  Ward sought to transfer the client to another counselor, saying she could not affirm the client’s behavior because of her religious beliefs.    

Even though referrals are an accepted practice under the counseling profession’s code of ethics and had been recommended by her supervisor, academic officials fiercely attacked Ward’s position. 

They informed Ward she would have to undergo a “remediation” program where she could “see the error of her ways” and alter her “belief system.”  When Ward held her ground, she was booted from the program. 

“Public universities shouldn’t force students to violate their religious beliefs to get a degree,” says Jeremey Tedesco of Alliance Defending Freedom.  “We are pleased that Julea and her constitutionally protected rights have been vindicated.” 

Ward had taken her case to federal court, where the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that she was entitled to a trial.  “Tolerance is a two-way street.  A reasonable jury could conclude that Ward’s professors ejected her from the program because of hostility to her speech and her faith,” the judges wrote.     

You can read more about Julea Ward’s case HERE.

The future of the institution of marriage in the United States will be decided next year as the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) rules on two landmark cases.  The High Court has agreed to hear legal challenges to the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and to a California constitutional amendment preserving the definition of natural marriage.

In the most momentous case, the Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, which was approved by California voters in 2008.  Proposition 8 amended California’s state constitution to affirm that marriage is the legal union of one man and one woman.  The passage of Proposition 8 reversed a unilateral decision of the California Supreme Court which mandated that marriage be redefined to include homosexual unions.

Proposition 8 was struck down by a homosexual U.S. District Judge whose ruling was broadly criticized as a “gay rights” manifesto,  rather than a reasoned examination of constitutional law.  That decision was upheld by the Ninth U.S Circuit Court of Appeals in a bizarre ruling that applied its result only to the state of California, rather than the entire Ninth Circuit.  The ruling by the Ninth Circuit has been on hold pending what is now a successful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Leading voices in the pro-marriage movement are calling the decision by the Supreme Court to hear the California case welcome news.  “We believe it is a strong signal that the court will reverse the lower courts and uphold Proposition 8,” says John Eastman, chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage.

“Had the Supreme Court agreed with the lower courts’ decisions invalidating Proposition 8, it could simply have declined to hear the case,”  Eastman continues.  “It’s a strong signal that the justices are concerned with the rogue rulings that have come out of San Francisco.”

“Marriage between a man and a woman is a universal good that diverse cultures and faiths have honored throughout the history of Western civilization,” says Jim Campbell, legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom.  “We look forward to advocating before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the people’s right to preserve this fundamental building block of civilization.”

Forty-one states currently have laws on the books defining marriage in historical terms as the union of one man and one woman — including Illinois.  Thirty of those states have incorporated definitions of traditional marriage in their state constitutions.  

The Proposition 8 case, Hollingsworth v. Perry, has the potential to be the Roe v. Wade of the national debate over the institution of marriage.  Should the Supreme Court uphold the Ninth Circuit decision, it would almost assuredly lead to the invalidation of all state laws protecting marriage, much like Roe v. Wade nullified all state laws protecting the unborn child.

Brian Brown, President of the National Organization of Marriage, believes such an outcome “would launch a national culture war.”  “The majority of Americans who have voted to protect marriage as the union of a man and a woman are never going to go away.”  A Supreme Court decree mandating so-called “same-sex marriage” on the nation would result in an explosive legal, cultural, and religious civil war more intense than the decades-old national struggle over legalized abortion.

Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, agrees, saying  “Should the Supreme Court decide to overturn the marriage laws of 41 states, the ruling would become even more divisive than the court’s infamous Roe v. Wade decision.  Voters in these states will not accept an activist court redefining our most fundamental social institution.”

The other case the Supreme Court agreed to hear, United States v. Windsor, involves a challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act.  This federal DOMA protects states who have preserved the institution of marriage from being required to acknowledge same-sex unions approved in other states. 

However, the legal challenge to the federal DOMA regards another provision that provides that government spousal benefits can only be extended to someone in a valid marriage between a man and a woman.   The plaintiff, Edith Windsor of New York’s Greenwich Village, claims she should not have to pay inheritance taxes on the estate of her lifelong lesbian partner.   The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal benefits section of DOMA is unconstitutional, echoing a decision made by a Boston appeals court in another DOMA challenge.

The Supreme Court will have to decide whether that section of DOMA is constitutional in its entirety, or whether it is unconstitutional as applied in states where marriage has been redefined to include homosexual unions.  In a stunning example of dereliction of duty, President Barack Obama instructed the U.S. Justice Department not to defend the federal DOMA in court.  The U.S. House of Representatives stepped forward to provide its own legal defense of the federal DOMA in the absence of Justice Department attorneys.

Some homosexual activists believe momentum is on their side following the decision by voters last month in Washington, Maine, and Maryland to redefine marriage to include homosexual unions.  Those three states join the states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, and Iowa, where so-called same-sex “marriage” has been mandated by state courts or state legislatures.

Other homosexual activists are wary of an unfavorable High Court decision that could prove to be a major setback for their agenda.  Even if the Supreme Court were to force same-sex “marriage” on the entire country, some legal voices in the homosexual community believe that such a decision would be premature, prompting a potent backlash that would refuel the defense of traditional marriage.

The Supreme Court of the United States is expected to hear oral arguments in March, and issue a decision by late June.  Please be praying for all the Justices, particularly Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is expected to be the crucial vote in determining the outcome of these cases. 

In an overt act of religious discrimination, a Kentucky T-shirt manufacturer has been found guilty of “sexual orientation” discrimination for refusing to print T-shirts for a community  homosexual festival. 

Organizers of the Lexington, Kentucky “gay pride” event had filed the complaint against Hands On Originals, a Christian outfitter.  The company declined to print T-shirts promoting the 5th annual “Lexington Pride Festival,” citing a conflict with their religious beliefs. 

The Lexington-Fayette Human Rights Commission has found that Hands On Originals violated the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance.  Attorneys for the company plan to appeal the decision to an independent hearing examiner, and if necessary to a court of law. 

“Hands On Originals declined this order because it did not want to communicate the message of the requested shirt–that people should be ‘proud’ about engaging in homosexual behavior–nor did they want to promote the ideology of the Pride Festival,” says Jim Campbell, staff counsel of the Alliance Defending Freedom.   

“The Constitution prohibits the government from forcing business owners to promote messages they disagree with,” Campbell adds.  “This kind of bullying may be practiced in a dictatorship, but violations of conscience have no place in the United States.” 

Blaine Adamson, the owners of Hands on Originals, says the company treats its customers fairly.  “We don’t have a sign on the door that says ‘No Gays Allowed.’  We’ll work with anybody.  But if there’s a specific message that conflicts with my convictions, then I can’t promote that.” 

You can watch a video providing more information about this controversy by clicking HERE.

Written by Tony Perkins, Family Research Council

Apparently, Planned Parenthood is no longer content exploiting just women and children–so they’ve moved on to the federal government. Over the past several years, it seems the country’s biggest abortion provider has also been running one of the country’s biggest scams: a Medicaid racket that’s ripped off millions of taxpayer dollars. Today, it appears that at least six states have been targeted by Cecile Richards‘ scheme, which reportedly conned the government with hundreds of thousands of bogus reimbursement claims.

One of those states–Texas–will be hearing its first arguments on the issue this week in U.S. District Court, thanks to former Planned Parenthood director-turned-whistleblower Abby Johnson. With the help of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), she plans to expose at least 87,000 instances of fraud during her time as a clinic manager in Southeast Texas. Based on her testimony and supporting documents, Planned Parenthood routinely submitted ineligible claims on everything from pap smears to STD and pregnancy tests. In fact, Johnson says her bosses at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast were under so much financial pressure that they would repeatedly tell staff, “We must turn every call and visit into a revenue-generating client.” A ring of at least 10 clinics were falsifying patient charts, which they would “fix” and “cover up” before the auditors and inspectors came.

“People may hold different views about abortion,” Johnson says, “but everyone can agree that Planned Parenthood should play by the same rules as everyone else. It certainly isn’t entitled to any public funds, especially if it is defrauding Medicaid and the American taxpayer.” In states like Iowa, the plot was so sophisticated that clinics were getting $26.32 reimbursement checks for a $2.98 package of birth control. State and local governments have poured more than a billion dollars into Richards’s group–and this is how she repays them? Twenty-eight million in stolen funds in Iowa, $6 million in Texas, $180 million in California, and similar allegations in New York, New Jersey, and Illinois.

And while we can’t say exactly where the dollars went, evidence suggests President Barack Obama’s campaign was one of the biggest beneficiaries of Planned Parenthood’s largesse. Thanks to this extra revenue from overbilling, Richards’s group had the flexibility to spend a whopping $15 million to put Barack Obama back in the White House, where he can keep the money flowing to his favorite chain. When an organization like Planned Parenthood is suspected of not just fraud, but criminal cover-ups, falsifying medical information, violating safety standards, encouraging prostitution and sex trafficking, medical malpractice, sex-selection abortion, accepting racially-motivated donations, and huge profits, this is no longer about abortion. It’s about accountability.

The Treasury Department announced on Tuesday that America is on track for its fifth straight trillion dollar deficit, yet our government continues to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to this group, which also happens to be under congressional investigation! If both parties are serious about cutting spending (and nothing they’ve done recently suggests they are) then it’s time to put an end to this relentless cycle of exploitation. The war on women was a hoax. The war on taxpayers is not.

Alliance Defending Freedom, previously the Alliance Defense Fund, has filed suit in federal court against Planned Parenthood of Iowa. The lawsuit claims repeated false, fraudulent or ineligible claims for reimbursements to Medicaid and suggests Planned Parenthood Iowa failed to meet acceptable standards of medical practice.

Michael Norton, senior Alliance counsel and a former U.S. attorney, tells OneNewsNow his group is representing former Planned Parenthood clinic director Sue Thayer.

“Americans deserve to know if their hard-earned tax money is being funneled to groups that are misusing it,” Norton asserts. “People may hold different views about abortion, but everyone can agree that Planned Parenthood should play by the same rules as everyone else. It certainly isn’t entitled to any public funds, especially if it is defrauding Medicaid and the American taxpayer.”

Thayer, former manager of clinics in Storm Lake and LeMars, sued under whistleblower laws, alleging that Planned Parenthood knowingly committed Medicaid fraud by improperly seeking reimbursements for products and services not legally reimbursable. The lawsuit contends nearly a half-million false claims were filed with Medicaid, resulting in Planned Parenthood of Iowa retaining nearly $28 million.

One of the focuses of the Planned Parenthood Illinois investigation is more than $3 million in reimbursements in 2009 to one abortionist, Caroline Hoke.  Judie Brown of the American Life League is appalled by Hoke’s response so far. (Listen to audio report)

“I think it’s very interesting that Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Hoke has the unadulterated gall to say she has no comment after being reimbursed by the state for more than $3 million in so-called ‘medical fees,'” Brown comments. “She must be working 24 hours a day, seven days a week in order to earn that kind of money — and you and I both know that is not the case.”

She commends several state legislatures for denying funding to the nation’s biggest abortion-provider, despite the fact that the federal government since 1970 “has been wedded to Planned Parenthood at the hip, and they are not going to deny money.”

“You know, it’s like a siphon,” the pro-lifer compares. “The money continues to go to Planned Parenthood no matter what the public is being told, and the only way that’s going to change is for American taxpayers to get smart about this and demand that their money no longer go to an organization that specializes in killing babies.”