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SCOTUS Upholds Religious Freedom in Education Choice

Religious Schools Can Get State Tuition Aid

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) issued a decisive victory for religious freedom and school choice this week in a 6-3 ruling in the Carson v. Makin case.

The case revolved around a Maine school-choice program that allowed parents to access taxpayer dollars for private school tuition. However, Maine attempted to prohibit parents from using the program to attend a religious school.

On Tuesday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, ruled that a Maine private-school-choice statute violated the First Amendment Free Exercise of Religion, writing:

“[T]here is nothing neutral about Maine’s program. The State pays tuition for certain students at private schools— so long as the schools are not religious. That is discrimination against religion. A State’s antiestablishment interest does not justify enactments that exclude some members of the community from an otherwise generally available public benefit because of their religious exercise.”

In response to this important ruling, Kelly Shackelford, President, CEO, and Chief Counsel for First Liberty Institute said:

We are thrilled that the Court affirmed once again that religious discrimination will not be tolerated in this country. Parents in Maine, and all over the country, can now choose the best education for their kids without fearing retribution from the government. This is a great day for religious liberty in America.

Illinois Attorney General candidate David Shestokas celebrates the ruling as well, saying:

The Supreme Court affirmed this nation’s commitment to religious liberty in the case of Carson v. Makin. The court established a far reaching principle that when the government makes a benefit available it may not restrict the benefit based upon religion. While the case involved tuition assistance in schools, the principle established has the potential to extend across our civic life and keeps faith with the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause.

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the dissent. In the dissent, Breyer said the majority gave too little credence to the establishment clause and too much to the free exercise clause, saying:

The Court today pays almost no attention to the words in the first Clause while giving almost exclusive attention to the words in the second. The majority also fails to recognize the ‘play in the joints’ between the two Clauses.

Yet the Chief Justice’s majority opinion ended with these three sentences:

Maine’s nonsectarian requirement for its otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Regardless of how the benefit and restriction are described, the program, said the chief justice, operates to identify and exclude otherwise eligible schools on the basis of their religious exercise. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

This is not the first time the SCOTUS ruled to uphold the religious exercise clause regarding taxpayer tuition aid for religious schools. In its June 2020 decision in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the Court struck down a state scholarship program that excluded religious schools. And in 2017, the court found in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer that a church-owned playground can be eligible for a public benefit program.

Bottom line: The government should not discriminate against citizens who would choose to use their tuition-assistance for faith-based schools schools. Carson v. Makin is a victory not just for religious freedom but also for educational choice.





The Almighty and Abortion

As the debate over abortion rages, with the U.S. Supreme Court poised to possibly overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 pro-abortion ruling, I find myself wondering: How can anybody claim that God is in favor of abortion? But some do. Or how can they claim that the issue is important, but not really that important?

‘It’s About Abortion’

Francis X. Rocca wrote for The Wall Street Journal (6/13/22) on the ongoing split between Catholic bishops on the issue of “Abortion Politics.” The issue is: Should Catholic politicians who are strongly pro-abortion, such as Nancy Pelosi, nonetheless receive Communion?

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco thinks Pelosi should not receive it. As Bishop Michael Barber of Oakland puts it, “because it’s really not about Communion, it’s about abortion, the killing of a child in its mother’s womb.”

In contrast, Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego claims also to oppose abortion, but his view (as characterized by Barber) seems to be, that “it’s not wrong enough that you need say or do anything about it or interact with the politicians who are publicly promoting it.”

Christian Leaders Who Support Abortion

This debate is not among Catholics alone. A few weeks ago the Associated Press (5/20/22) wrote an article highlighting professing Christian leaders who claimed their faith demanded that they support abortion.

They quote Kendra Cotton of the Black Southern Women’s Collective: “We know that Christianity supports freedom, and inherent in freedom is bodily autonomy. Inherent in Christianity is free will. When people talk about the body being a temple of God, you have purview over your body, there is nothing more sacred.” Than what — being able to abort your own baby?

Obviously, what is ignored here is the sacred nature of the unborn child created in the image of God. In Psalm 139, David describes how we are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” even in utero: “You knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”

“Thou shalt do no murder” is the 6th Commandment. That directly applies to abortion, the deliberate taking of a human life, albeit in the womb (hidden from view).

Meanwhile, it would seem that the vast majority of Christian leaders in the conservative denominations are clearly opposed to abortion — thankfully.

And why shouldn’t they be? We know more today, scientifically, about the humanity of the unborn baby than the Supreme Court did in 1973, when they gave us Roe v. Wade.

From Planned Parenthood to Pro-Life

When women see a sonogram of the unborn, they often become pro-life.

Abby Johnson, author (with Cindy Lambert) of the book, Unplanned, was the Planned Parenthood Employee of the Year in the late 1990s. The very next year, at her own clinic for which she served as the manager, she quit shortly after witnessing the sonogram of a 15-week old preborn child being aborted. The poor kid didn’t have a chance.

Today pro-life Abby helps medical workers transition out of the abortion industry into other jobs through her outreach, And Then There Were None.

Other Excuses for Abortion

Another commandment is that we are not to tell lies. But we often forget that Roe v. Wade was built on a series of lies, e.g., that “Jane Roe” was raped. She was not. Well, if you favor killing unborn babies, why would you have a problem telling lies?

Another commandment forbids adultery. Sometimes abortions are committed to cover up the sin of adultery. Abortion could be viewed as violating at least three of the Ten Commandments.

When Abraham Lincoln delivered his Second Inaugural Address, he brought out the issue of God and slavery. Speaking about the two sides in the Civil War, he said, “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces but let us judge not that we be not judged.”

He goes on to point out, “The prayers of both could not be answered — that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offenses for it must needs be that offenses come but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.’”

An Act of Violence

And we would ask today: How can any true Christian accept the direct violence of dismembering an unborn child simply because the mother has been deceived to think this is her only choice in the matter?

Every abortion is an act of violence no matter how sterile it may be presented in the media. Lila Rose of Live Action has documented that violence.

Those who claim God is on the side of the abortionist are not only supporting a terrible evil; but they are likely violating the Third Commandment by taking the name of the Lord God in vain.


This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.




Important Pro-Life Documentary

On January 22, 1973, the United States of America was subjected to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave legal cover to the slaughter of over 60 million babies in the name of “choice.” The Roe v. Wade decision, now averaging 1 million abortions each year, gave women a so-called “right” to murder their own children in the womb. The Roe v. Wade decision, which established a so-called “right to privacy,” is built upon lies and a disgraceful reading of the U.S. Constitution. The Daily Wire’s new documentary titled Choosing Death [The Legacy of Roe] exposes many of the prominent fallacies that are peddled by the abortion industry.

In this chilling documentary, the “pro-choice” movement’s most atrocious lies are uncovered. They tell us that abortions are safe, or that abortions have helped minority communities, or even that science tells us life doesn’t begin at conception – all false. The Daily Wire unravels the propaganda that abortionists have used to further their cause. It reveals the “pro-choice” movement’s dark and murky past, all the way from its racist and genocidal beginnings to its current medical lies about “safety.” In interviews with pro-life activists and even some former abortion supporters, the abortion industry’s history of medical malpractice, preying upon young children, and horrible details about the side effects of abortions are laid bare for all to see and hear – even including an interview with an actual abortion survivor whose twin was tragically killed while she miraculously survived.

Find more details about the horror show that is abortion in this new documentary appropriately titled “Choosing Death“.





Oren Jacobson: Another Foolish Illinois Activist

Why has Illinois become a stinking bog of degradation, violence, and fiscal collapse? It’s because we have scores of “leaders,” and activists who are as unable to distinguish right from wrong as they are unable to distinguish men from women. One of those activists is Oren Jacobson, devoted advocate for the slaughter of preborn humans, founder of Men4Choice, board member of pro-human slaughter Personal PAC, self-identifying “thought leader,” and self-promoter extraordinaire who recently said,

Everything we’re doing is focused on getting what are really millions of men—who in theory are pro-choice but are completely passive when it comes to their voice and their energy and their time in the fight for abortion rights and abortion access—to get off the sidelines and step in the fight as allies.

And here I thought men were supposed to shut up about abortion.

In an interview on MSNBC with Zerlina Maxwell after the U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito was leaked, Jacobson emoted,

I want to say one thing to … all the women watching, everybody who can get pregnant, how deeply sorry I am that we’re in this moment. I’m feeling very emotional about that.

He had to add that last statement in case everybody who can get pregnant didn’t notice his phony voice-cracking indicating he was about to fake-cry. Jacobson wants everybody who can get pregnant to know he has Deep Feelings about the possibility that pregnant women—and men—may not be legally allowed to slaughter their offspring. Nuttin’ means nuttin’ without Deep Feelings.

And boy, oh, boy does the emotive Jacobson have Deep Feelings—deep feelings and a vivid imagination. The mere thought of women not being free to slaughter their unborn leads Jacobson to imagine a horrific dystopian handmaid’s tale where rapists roam free and women’s very humanity is denied:

If this is, in fact, the ruling that the Court will hand down, that in at least 13 states right away and most likely in 25 0r 26 states pretty quickly, a rapist will have more rights than a woman in those states. And it is beyond horrifying to imagine a future in which your humanity, your dignity, your ability to control your life is valued less than a rapist.

What precisely are the “rights” rapists will have that women will not in states that acknowledge the humanity of unborn humans? And how are the humanity and dignity of women diminished by recognizing the humanity and dignity of their offspring and protecting their right not to be exterminated?

I’m not exactly sure what the self-identifying “thought leader” Jacobson means when he says that restricting or banning human slaughter means women’s humanity, dignity, and ability to control their lives are “valued less than a rapist.” Rape is illegal, and if caught, rapists are arrested and punished.

Maybe he’s referring to opposition to abortion in cases of rape. Many people who believe in the sanctity, humanity, and dignity of all human life believe that humans created through criminal acts should not be punished for the crimes of their fathers. Such a belief does not constitute either a devaluation of women or an elevated valuation of rapists.

Rather than feeling horrified that 64 million humans have been slaughtered since 1973 because they were imperfect, inconvenient, or unwanted by their mothers, Jacobson is horrified that the killings may stop.

Jacobson sidestepped an awkward question from interviewer Maxwell who said the quiet part out loud, tacitly admitting that men and women use human slaughter as a means of contraception:

One of the things I think we need to talk about … is how men benefit from abortion. … There are men who would not be CEOs but for access to contraception. Tell us how men benefit.

Jacobson was politically canny and cunning enough to avoid responding to that question. Instead, he launched into an autonomy answer that—again—ignores the person with the most at stake and no voice whatsoever:

I want every pro-choice male to step into this out of an obligation to stand up for the freedoms to those most directly impacted. … You deserve the right, within the context of a healthy relationship, to make decisions with your partner that are in the best interest of your family. … In my own personal life, when we have had moments in planning our family … at no point did I give a rip what Ted Cruz, Greg Abbott, Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump, Mike Pence, or any other of these anti-abortion men with power across the country thought about what my wife and I should do. And that is why, to me … this isn’t just a woman’s issue.

When considering whether the “product” of conception between two humans is a human; whether that “product” has humanity, dignity, and value; whether the “product’s” body is her mother’s body; and whether a more developed human should be able to kill the “product,” I don’t give a rip what Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, J.B. Pritzker, Jared Polis, Jan Schakowsky, Gavin Newsom, Oren Jacobson, or any other pro-human slaughter men and women with power who refuse to recognize that abortion involves two human bodies thinks.

And that’s why this isn’t just a woman’s issue.

Jacobson continues with his dissembling and evasion:

The simple reality is that the men in America who oppose abortion, who are using their privilege and their power, are not shy, and they are not quiet. So, the question isn’t why shouldn’t men get loud. It’s why haven’t we been getting louder sooner.

Surely, Jacobson knows that men who support the legal right of women to off their offspring have been “using their privilege and power” to rob the unborn of their right to live. In fact, it was seven men, six of whom were white, who in a raw exercise of their power and privilege denied the humanity, dignity, and right to life of preborn humans in Roe v. Wade.

And surely, Jacobson knows why men haven’t “been getting louder sooner.” The reason is that feminist harpies have been shrieking for years that men have no right to speak on abortion—despite the fact that the babies killed have fathers too.

But I agree with Jacobson. Men should get involved. Men should donate to pro-life crisis pregnancy centers and advocacy organizations.

Men, who should be the protectors of and providers for women and children, should march shoulder-to-shoulder with women in pro-life marches. Men should listen to the voices of women who were pressured to have their sons and daughters killed, who live with bone-deep grief and regret, and who are angry that their country tolerates the slaughter of thousands of babies every year.

And to quote Jacobson,

Men, your job is to carry the voices of those women to your peers and buddies, to call them, text them, post on social media about this, to start lifting up those voices and owning this conversation amongst your friends.

The very lives of humans depend on the voices of men and women who know truth.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Jacobson-Another-Foolish-Illinois-Activist.mp3





New Documentary on The Legacy of Roe v. Wade

Back in 1973, America was subjected to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that has contributed to the slaughter of over 60 million babies in the name of “choice.” The Roe v. Wade decision gave women a so-called “right” to murder their own children in the womb. The United States now averages close to one million abortions each year. The Roe v. Wade decision, which many Americans have been tricked into supporting, is built upon lies and a disgraceful reading of the U.S. Constitution. A new film, titled Choosing Death [The Legacy of Roe], exposes the numerous lies that are peddled by the abortion industry.

In this chilling documentary, the “pro-choice” movement’s most atrocious lies are uncovered. They tell us that abortions are safe, or that abortions have helped minority communities, or even that science tells us life doesn’t begin at conception – all false. The Daily Wire does a great job unraveling the propaganda that abortionists have used to further their cause. It reveals the “pro-choice” movement’s dark and murky past, all the way from its racist and genocidal beginnings to its current medical lies about safety. In interviews with pro-life activists and even some former abortion supporters, the abortion industry’s history of medical malpractice, preying upon young children, and horrible details about the side effects of abortions are laid bare for all to see and hear – even including an interview with an actual abortion survivor whose twin was tragically killed while she miraculously survived.

Find more details about the horror show that is abortion in the Daily Wire’s new documentary Choosing Death [The Legacy of Roe] where they debunk America’s worst decision ever — the decision where we chose death over life.





America Needs a Great Conservative Reset

Americans who care about liberty, equality, justice, safety, and economic prosperity should not vote for any Democrat in upcoming elections, including the 2024 presidential election.

A Democrat-controlled presidency and U.S. Congress (as well as state legislatures) will further empower the arrogant, ignorant, divisive, tyrannical cancel culture that has taken root in every major cultural institution in America. Academia, the mainstream press, Big Tech, corporate America, Hollywood, and professional medical and mental health organizations collude to censor the dissemination of ideas leftists hate and oppress those who disseminate them. The power these institutions already enjoy and employ to destroy speech rights, religious liberty, and careers is not enough to satiate the unquenchable thirst for power of leftists.

Leftists consumed by rage and bloodlust after the leaking of the U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion on Dobbs, will continue their push to pack the U.S. Supreme Court with leftists in order to ensure that the Court becomes the supreme lawmaking body in America. The U.S. Supreme Court, which was intended by America’s founders to be the weakest branch of government, is intended by leftists to become the most powerful.

A Democrat administration with a Democrat-held Congress will continue the economic carnage Biden has begun, destroying our economy through increased business regulation, increased taxes, and the destruction of the oil industry, which in turn decimates the lives and retirement income of Americans.

Assaults on religious liberty and speech rights will intensify, especially via the deceitfully named “Equality Act,” which has nothing to do with equality and everything to do with forcing compliance with policies that the homosexual community and “trans” cult want.

Democrats will continue to fight for federal funding of abortion and for a federal law protecting a non-existent moral or constitutional right of women to kill their offspring.

“Trans” cultism will continue its march through shelters, prisons, bathrooms, and locker rooms where women and girls will be forced to do private things in the presence of men and boys. Let’s remember that with Democrats in charge, male coaches who masquerade as women will be allowed in girls’ locker rooms. Democrats, ignorant of the meaning of “woman,” will continue to insult and erase women by referring to them as “birthing persons.”

Leftists will continue to try to confiscate guns and eviscerate gun rights, even if that means exploiting tragedies.

Federal promotion of toxic ideas derived from Critical Race Theory will continue to corrupt the military.

Hopes for school choice will be obliterated.

They will continue their effort to get rid of the filibuster, thereby clearing the path to easily pass any oppressive piece of legislation their Machiavellian hearts desire.

In their unholy quest to acquire and secure power in perpetuity, leftists will make sure our borders are gaping open and continue their efforts to make Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. states.

They will continue to try to dismantle the Electoral College in order to effectively disenfranchise the Republican heart of America.

A Democrat presidency would mean a great leap forward toward the revolutionary “Great Reset”—a project of a small group of mega-wealthy globalists who seek to reshape the earth and the fulness thereof. That’s not some conspiracy group’s view of the Great Reset. That’s the explicitly stated view of the mega-wealthy globalists who meet every year in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The Great Reset envisions a “stakeholder” form of capitalism:

“Stakeholder capitalism,” … positions private corporations as trustees of society, and is clearly the best response to today’s social and environmental challenges. … The young Swedish climate activist [Greta Thunberg] has reminded us that adherence to the current economic system represents a betrayal of future generations, owing to its environmental unsustainability. Another (related) reason is that millennials and Generation Z no longer want to work for, invest in, or buy from companies that lack values beyond maximizing shareholder value.

[T]o uphold the principles of stakeholder capitalism, companies will need new metrics. For starters, a new measure of “shared value creation” should include “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) goals.

A stakeholder form of capitalism contrasts with the “shareholder” form of capitalism most notably defended by University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman. Stakeholder capitalism is essentially “woke” socialism that will redistribute wealth to achieve “equitable” results. Sound familiar? “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”? And we thought the demise of the Soviet Union meant the end of Communism.

Integral to the Great Reset are the “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) standards. Sounds innocuous as do all tyrannical leftist projects, but a closer look reveals the dark side cloaked in euphemistic language. Here’s a description of the goals of the Great Reset from the WEF’s website:

COVID-19 lockdowns may be gradually easing, but anxiety about the world’s social and economic prospects is only intensifying. … To achieve a better outcome, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a “Great Reset” of capitalism. … We must build entirely new foundations for our economic and social systems. (emphasis added)

The goals are global and radical:

The Great Reset agenda would have three main components. The first would steer the market toward fairer outcomes. … governments should implement long-overdue reforms that promote more equitable outcomes. … (emphasis added)

Anyone who’s been paying attention understands what is really meant by “fairer” and “more equitable outcomes.” The goal of globalist socialists is not the creation of fairer more equitable opportunities but, rather, the flattening of outcomes to ensure that everyone’s outcome is the same—well, everyone but the mega-wealthy globalists.

Andrew Stuttaford, editor for National Review’s financial and economic coverage, warns against “stakeholder capitalism”:

[S]takeholder capitalism is a betrayal of democracy as well as of shareholders. The power it gives to managers is used to support an agenda influenced by a cabal of activists, NGOs, representatives of the “international community,” and politicians too arrogant to go through the usual legislative channels.

Like the “social and emotional learning” (SEL) standards leftists use to indoctrinate children with leftist views on sexuality in public schools, every company rejiggered in accordance with the wishes of the WEF will be expected to implement ESG standards, that is to say, leftist environmental and social standards:

Environmental criteria may include a company’s energy use, waste, pollution, natural resource conservation, and treatment of animals. … For example, are there issues related to its … compliance with government environmental regulations?

Social criteria look at the company’s business relationships. Does it work with suppliers that hold the same values as it claims to hold? Does the company donate a percentage of its profits to the local community or encourage employees to perform volunteer work there?

In other words, wokesters will control all aspects of the economy to control citizens’ beliefs.

In an opinion piece published by The HillJustin Haskins, editorial director and senior fellow at the Heartland Institute shares Stuttaford’s concerns about the Great Reset:

Instead of traditional capitalism, the high-profile group said the world should adopt more socialistic policies, such as wealth taxes, additional regulations and massive Green New Deal-like government programs. …

[T]he general principles of the plan are clear: The world needs massive new government programs and far-reaching policies comparable to those offered by American socialists such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in their Green New Deal plan. …

Or, put another way, we need a form of socialism — a word the World Economic Forum has deliberately avoided using, all while calling for countless socialist and progressive plans. … For those of us who support free markets, the Great Reset is nothing short of terrifying. … America is the world’s most powerful, prosperous nation precisely because of the very market principles the Great Reset supporters loathe.

Like the mostly violent protests Americans endured in 2020, this massive economic revolution requires an army of revolutionaries:

Of course, these government officials, activists and influencers can’t impose a systemic change of this size on their own. Which is why they have already started to activate vast networks of left-wing activists from around the world, who will … demand changes in line with the Great Reset.

In October 2020, Andrew Stuttaford warned that the pace of the march toward the WEF’s socialism-infused stakeholder capitalism “will only pick up in the U.S. should Joe Biden, who has caricatured shareholder primacy and described it as ‘an absolute farce,’ be elected president.”

The warning about the Great Reset is even more urgent today. The colossal economic reset envisioned by socialists who identify as capitalists, along with dozens of other reasons, should lead Americans to choose a new path: The Great Conservative Reset.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/America-Needs-a-Great-Conservative-Reset.mp3





Dissecting The Left’s Panic Over the U.S. Supreme Court’s Look at Roe

One can only consider it shocking that the first-time ever pre-release leaked opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices (regarding the potential overturning of Roe-V-Wade) was instantly overshadowed by hysterical hatred directed toward the Court, and a fevered, shrill demand to keep abortion legal for any reason throughout a woman’s pregnancy.  Anyone with any regard for life, and especially the lives of helpless and innocent babies, can only be appalled by the calloused demands from the Left that the Nation MUST permit the destruction of these little ones with no questions and no limits. Their death-dealing fanaticism is breath-taking!

The news that the U.S. Supreme Court may overturn Roe v. Wade in the coming months is received as a breath of fresh air by all who love babies; but the instantaneous explosion from the Left reminds us that we are in a nation that is on a trajectory of rejecting God, hating Him and all that He loves. The Bible prophesied that the End Times will be as it was in the days of Noah, for in those days, God “saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”  (Genesis 6:5)

While some may say there is room for debate over the so-called “hard cases,” such are a tiny fraction of the totality of abortions performed.  The question many are asking is how anyone can even begin to make the case for the other 95 percent plus which are convenience abortions?  Pro-abortionists see unrestricted abortion as fundamental to their ultimate objective, which is total personal autonomy, (the good which is above all other goods).  They refuse to accept any limits, even pushing the envelope to include the killing of newborns. How can any compassionate person demand such?

Mans’ historic inhumanity to man that one reads about in history books is now displayed before our eyes.  The shear barbarity of abortion, especially late term abortions, can no longer be hidden. Technology has opened the termination centers to the public’s eye, yet the pro-death crowd does not flinch or try to explain it away. They double down! This in spite of the fact that a preborn baby at twenty weeks gestation differs from a born baby at forty weeks only in scale.

I believe the answer as to why the Left defends so intensely the killing of the unborn throughout the forty weeks of pregnancy will not be found in logic, law, culture, or history. It will only be found in Scripture. God’s Word alone explains the hyper irrationality and fanaticism behind the fevered passion of the abortion proponents.

First, denying God leaves a power vacuum in the minds of the deniers, and human pride being what it is, each person fills that void with him or herself, the imperial “I.”  (“All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way. . . .” (NKJV Isaiah 53:6).  The incongruence of such a perspective cannot be addressed here, but this is the beginning of the irrationality.  (“The fool has said in his heart, ‘there is no God.’” (NKJV Psalm 14:1).

Fifty years ago, cultural critics referred to young Americans as the “Me Generation.”  Who would have ever guessed how much worse the narcissism would get!  Few of those who reject God would actually claim deity for themselves, but they come to act as their own gods; and the attributes one would attach to deity they take to themselves. They reject anything that contradicts their own perspectives and desires, and detest external authorities, claiming the right to make their own choices, to live their own lives, and to formulate their own morality. And in the same way that God rejects competition, so do they. Sourcing their morality in themselves, they accept no boundaries imposed by others and as the imperial “I” they have no scruples about destroying anything or anyone who gets in their way. Self sits enthroned, and pleasure is the greatest good. (What could possibly go wrong?) History has shown that in such situations people are able to accept and carry out unspeakably barbarous acts.

Taking the seats of gods, they tolerate no challenge to their power. In the past few questioned the right of God to take human lives. It was understood that such was His prerogative. Now, those who are gods in their own minds take to themselves God’s prerogatives, including taking human lives at will, and therefore allow no inherent value to human life itself; and without the belief in life after death, death itself becomes inconsequential, especially the deaths of others. Scriptures point out the fact that those who hate Him go beyond carelessness about life to the point that they love death! (Proverbs 8:36). One cannot miss the proliferation of symbols of death in American popular culture. Graphic depictions of skulls, bones, and songs about death are ubiquitous as is also the use of deadly drugs. Rejecting God leads to rejecting a high view of life and produces instead a grievous tolerance of death.

Another consequence of denying God is that of losing the ability to make wise, long-term choices. This is the biblical definition of a fool, (Romans 1:22). God is eternal and calls us to see things from His eternal perspective.  But in rejecting Him, people are rendered fools living for the moment and becoming animalistic with appetites only for immediate self-gratification. Thus, it is not surprising that sexual pleasure now dominates culture. It would be difficult to deny that in the popular culture sexual activity ranks at the pinnacle of human activity, and that all other human activities have become subordinated to it. Moral and boundary free sexual activity has become the “supreme good,” eclipsing everything else, even the lives of unborn children whose very existence hampers their parents’ sexual pleasure for a time.

Unfettered sexual activity mimics drug use as people sacrifice virtually everything for another moment of pleasure. We understand the tragedy of drug and alcohol addiction where the user discards everything he once considered important to satisfy the addiction, often even losing the appetite for food itself. I recall one man’s testimony of selling his dead baby’s shoes to get another bottle of booze. As people embark on the pathway of sexual addiction, we see a parallel recklessness. Everything else is discarded to satisfy an appetite that cannot be satisfied through wanton behavior, thus leaving a trail of disease, depression, destroyed relationships, and dead babies.

One question that I have heard repeatedly since the SCOTUS leak is, “Why is the demand for abortion throughout pregnancy without exception so rabidly demanded?”  Talking heads, leaders of proabortion organizations, and high-ranking Democrat officials have been ranting that to even consider placing any restrictions on abortion is the epitome of evil! It is a very troubling issue, for it reveals a barbarity and inhumanness unlike anything we’ve ever experienced in America. Please stay with me as I try to explain what I believe is at work here, for it is a graphic illustration of the Second Psalm, “Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against His anointed, saying, ‘Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us.’” (NKJV) It is rebels determined to live free from God’s law and justice.

While millions of these Americans claim to believe in no God and reject any subjective truth and authority, I see in Scriptures a clear declaration that God’s existence and His truths are inescapable (Romans 1). Just as one who denies gravity will not float off into space, so it is with God’s moral laws. They are written in our hearts by our Creator, and we cannot escape their effect. In the same way a lawbreaker hates the police, God rejecters hate Christ and anything that points to Him. His justice contradicts their injustice. His love exposes their hate. His grace condemns their selfishness. His goodness contradicts their wickedness. It is as Mark Twain noted, “There is nothing more irritating than a good example.” Thus, there is nothing more galling to God rejecters than the unborn who are the epitome of innocence! The unborn child is both an intolerable representation of the Creator and an impediment to the imperial “I” and therefore must be eliminated! Eerily reminiscent of grade school bullies who destroy other children’s artwork.

These God haters cry that there is no God, but we might, with Shakespeare say, “me thinks they protest too much.” Their hysterics speak of an inner voice they cannot silence which whispers in their ears that every unborn baby belongs to God, whether one week or thirty-nine weeks old. The unborn are all the same to God, and these people know it. It is stamped on their hearts; and for that reason, they cannot allow a value to be attached to a fetus at any stage of development. To allow that second and third trimester abortions are immoral renders first trimester abortions immoral. What God loves they hate, and thus they fight for the license to kill throughout the forty weeks of pregnancy without exception. To allow any restrictions on abortion dethrones the imperial “I.”  Their fanaticism is a de-facto proof of God’s existence and His moral law as well as the intrinsic value of the pre-born child.

Some who, in spite of the evidence against it hold to the intrinsic goodness of man, might argue that it is not possible for people to knowingly do something so grossly immoral as to kill living, innocent babies once they understand it; but one need look no further than the many multinational companies who do business with China, a nation unequivocally known to practice slavery, torture, and murder to know better. Sadly, given enough of a pay-off people are willing to tolerate or commit any kind of immorality or atrocity. The only check on such wickedness is God Himself.

The problem we face in the slaughter of the unborn is not about evidence, science, or facts. It is the rebellion of the heart that cries out against a Creator, a Judge, One to whom we must give an account. Abortions are not performed because there are rational arguments for killing the unborn, but because rebellious people demand a life accountable to no one other than themselves. They reject being burdened by or for anyone. It is narcissism at its worst.

Overturning Roe-v-Wade would force the pro-abortionists to prove over-and-over again in fifty states a point they know they cannot prove! Their only weapon now is shear fanaticism and fear! Facts are simply not on their side.





Resistance Grows to UN WHO & Biden “Global Health” Power Grab

** Urgent: Please click HERE to communicate directly with your federal legislators. **

Under the leadership of a Communist Chinese-backed “former” Marxist terror leader, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) and the Biden administration are plotting an unprecedented power grab to build a planetary bio-medical police state. Think Shanghai during lockdown, but worldwide. Leading experts argue that this is truly the emergence of the “New World Order” discussed by Biden and others.

Already, the WHO claims all sorts of draconian authorities, including powers to work with UN member states in quarantining villages or nations, locking down societies, forcing medical “treatments” such as vaccines, and generally crushing medical freedom. When Ebola was spreading, for instance, the Obama administration sent thousands of U.S. troops to help the UN enforce medical martial law in the Ivory Coast.

Now, under changes proposed to the WHO’s “International Health Regulations” by the Biden administration, the dictator-friendly global “health” body would gain the power to carry out its wishes without even the approval or consent of the targeted nation. Not surprisingly, neither the WHO nor the Biden administration plan to consult the U.S. Senate on the matter.

Despite the enormity of the ongoing usurpation, and the drastic implications for freedom and self-government around the world, the establishment media have been largely silent on the issue. Still, concern is growing quickly as more and more experts and activists speak out. Word is starting to spread. But the first major deadline to stop it will arrive in a matter of weeks at a WHO meeting in Geneva starting May 22.

There are two key routes of attack being pursued by the WHO and its allies. In June, a dangerous “pandemic treaty” is set to be considered giving the WHO new “teeth” to enforce its dictates. But the first and most urgent assault on liberty and self-government involves a series of 13 controversial amendments being proposed to the WHO’s so-called International Health Regulations (IHR). The details of the amendments were only released publicly — and very quietly — about a month ago.

The health regime created under the IHR, which was first approved by the World Health Assembly in 2005, is already draconian in its current state. Indeed, these regulations are what supposedly empowered the disgraced global organization to “recommend” the totalitarian policies it deployed worldwide in response to COVID. Much of the leadership in the global war on freedom over the last two years came from the WHO.

But under the new amendments proposed by the Biden administration last month, it would go from bad to catastrophic. Among other concerns, the WHO would acquire new powers to impose its will on nations and peoples against their will. Indeed, the WHO would be able to declare a “health emergency” in any nation, with virtually no limits, going far beyond even actual pandemics, as long as it “could present significant harm to humans.”

One of the most significant changes would remove language from the WHO’s international health agreement requiring a government to consent to the WHO’s determinations before action is taken. Under the new language, all that would be necessary is for the WHO boss to claim there is “a public health emergency of international concern” (PHEIC). Even a claimed suspicion of such an “emergency” would be enough to get the gears turning.

Once it declares an emergency, the WHO would be authorized to partner with a dizzying array of global agencies and organizations such as the UN and more under the guise of protecting “health.” That includes UN agencies overseeing food, agriculture, aviation, the environment, and much more. In short, a full-on assault on a nation by a range of would-be global government agencies is in the cards for defiance of the WHO.

The amendments would accelerate the process of turning the head of the WHO into a global health dictator, numerous critics say. That is especially troubling considering that WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, installed by the regime in Beijing, is a former politburo member of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, an ethno-Marxist terror group designated a terrorist organization by governments around the world. Countless critics have called for him to be prosecuted for ghastly crimes perpetrated by the terror group he helped lead, and later the brutal Ethiopian regime he served at a high level.

Leading Psychiatrist Speaks Out 

“If passed, the Biden administration’s proposed amendments will, by their very existence and their intention, drastically compromise the independence and the sovereignty of the United States,” warned Dr. Peter Breggin, one of the leading medical voices sounding the alarm about this power grab and author of the best-selling new book Covid-19 and the Global Predators: We Are the Prey.

According to Dr. Breggin, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, the same threat applies to the sovereignty and self-government of all of the UN’s 193 member states, representing virtually the entire global population. In an interview with The New American, Dr. Breggin suggested this was a major step in the direction of global government, led by a global “predator class.” The proposed changes would put “enormous new powers” in the hands of “unelected technocrats” — powers that “would be exercised whether the target nation agreed or not,” he explained.

“The amendments would give WHO the right to take important steps to collaborate with other nations and other organizations worldwide to deal with any nation’s alleged health crisis, even against its stated wishes,” warned Dr. Breggin, adding that these measures could include economic and financial attacks orchestrated by the WHO and its partners.

These attacks would hardly be limited to genuine pandemics. “Under WHO’s approach, it would be difficult to find any important national issue that was not a potential health problem,” warned Dr. Breggin, pointing out that the Communist Chinese regime and Bill Gates were the largest influences at the WHO. “With the imminent passage of the American-sponsored amendments to the International Health Regulations, WHO will have free reign for using these expansive definitions of health to call a crisis over anything it wishes in any nation it desires.”

If the WHO succeeds in advancing its agenda, he added, the most important use of these arbitrary authorities would be against the United States — at least if the American people were ever to elect another anti-globalist government such as the Trump administration. Under Trump, the U.S. government exited and defunded the WHO, though the Biden promptly reversed that upon taking office.

“We need to face that these American-sponsored amendments are a great step toward America voluntarily forfeiting its sovereignty to the New World Order or Great Reset — and that without strong opposition, the ratification of the amendments is a foregone conclusion,” added Dr. Breggin. “Our success or failure in stopping the ratification of these amendments will establish the pattern for the future, including WHO’s ongoing effort to make legally-binding treaties that rob nations of their sovereignty.”

But it is even worse than a loss of sovereignty. Instead, it amounts to handing power over all of humanity to a global class of predatory elites interested not in health, but in power and money, he said.

“In reality; they will be forfeiting their sovereign powers to the global predators who rule the UN and WHO, including the Chinese Communist Party and supporters of the Great Reset, like Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, and giant foundations and corporations — all of whom benefit from weakening or destroying the sovereignty of the Western nations,” continued Breggin. “Western civilization, and mainly the United States, is all that stands in strong opposition to the globalist takeover of the world, called the New World Order or the Great Reset.”

Already, the WHO and its allies — and the global predators behind the whole machine — have shown their awesome powers. During the COVID crisis, the global agency was the key mechanism for unleashing and coordinating the unprecedented assaults on freedom around the world.

“WHO was highly effective during COVID-19 in implementing the aims of the global predators, led by the groups around Bill Gates and the Chinese Communist Party, in their organized assault and terror campaign against the Western democracies,” Dr. Breggin said. “This purposely resulted in the vast weakening of any potentially anti-globalist, freedom-oriented, patriotic nations, including the U.S., Great Britain, Australia, Canada, and others. That success may explain why the global predators chose WHO to now deliver a major and potentially lethal death blow to the sovereignty of the world’s nations.”

If not stopped, the ongoing power grabs would make all of it orders of magnitude worse, he said.

WHO Insider Speaks Out 

In an interview with The New American, Dr. Astrid Stuckelberger, a prominent epidemiologist and international health scientist in Geneva and a former WHO official turned whistleblower, also warned that the WHO was the leading force behind the tyranny that enveloped the globe during COVID. Already, the situation is dire.

In defiance of its own IHR, which Dr. Stuckelberger taught at the university level, the WHO used fear-mongering to “issue directives that were totally not commensurate to the situation,” she said. If the amendments are passed, it would get even worse. It all shows that the WHO and its backers such as Bill Gates “have moved now, clearly, into global governance,” Dr. Stuckelberger said. “The way they are handling WHO is not like coordinating member states that can decide for themselves.”

The global model truly came into view over the last two years. “Before, in the IHR, we trained [students] that everything should be customized to countries,” she said. But now, “they have brought everybody to obey one governance, to obey a single standard.” “WHO is now more and more taking power of the world together as the only organization to be able … to direct any epidemic preparedness plan or pandemic intervention plan,” she added.

The dystopian developments are moving from rhetoric to reality. At the WHO’s extraordinary World Health Assembly meeting late last year, member governments were given a document headlined “A Guide to a Pandemic Treaty.” Member states voted to accept the procedures to develop that treaty, which is now underway. “They are so sneaky,” she said. “They are going to take the instrument that will be adopted the quickest, and the instrument likely to be adopted the quickest is the International Health Regulations.”

The WHO “Constitution” — something governments have — is likely in place to help turn the agency into a true global authority with governmental powers, Stuckelberger said. And the outfit’s constitution purports to enshrine a “fundamental right” to the “highest attainable standard of health.” It also calls for the “fullest cooperation of individuals and States.” This is basically a blank check for intervention in people’s lives.

In Article 21 of the WHO Constitution, the World Health Assembly is empowered to “adopt regulations” on everything from “sanitary and quarantine requirements” to “standards” for diagnosing diseases. This is what made possible the global tyranny that enveloped the world in early 2020, as well as the unreliable PCR COVID tests that fed the narrative, said Dr. Stuckelberger, who served as president of the WHO’s Geneva International Network on Ageing.

“We have to be liberated from the United Nations,” said Stuckelberger before urging everyone to contact their elected officials, attorneys, and others in a bid to derail the WHO power grab.

Seeking Even MORE Powers 

Another significant WHO threat to medical freedom, national sovereignty, and self-government comes from the proposed “International Pandemic Treaty” being worked on now behind the scenes. Under the guise of controlling future pandemics, this global agreement would also hand vast new powers to the global “health” organization. Advocates of the treaty are proposing to turn the WHO into a global health ministry with vast powers over every person and government on Earth.

Even actual sanctions on nations whose governments defy their would-be WHO overlords are now being peddled. For instance, WHO boss Tedros claimed that “maybe exploring the sanctions may be important.” Meanwhile, German Health Minister Jens Spahn argued “that countries that fail to follow up on their commitments to the WHO should face sanctions.” This sentiment is widespread among global elites.

Indeed, less than a year ago, an “independent” UN panel of high-level globalists convened by the WHO chief claimed the health agency “needs to be empowered — financially, and politically.” This empowering should include making the WHO more independent, creating new “capacities” (powers) at the global level, and establishing a “new international system for surveillance.”

The UN report, which suggests COVID damage could have been mitigated with more global tyranny, also seeks to bring in the “precautionary principle.” Similar to the “climate” narrative, the precautionary principle involves implementing policies — in this case medical tyranny — as a precaution in response to potential dangers rather than in response to a proven threat.

Offering broad insight into the objectives, the report celebrated regimes such as the Communist Chinese dictatorship for their authoritarian response to COVID. Numerous globalist bigwigs working with the WHO and Beijing such as Gates and Schwab have repeatedly praised the barbaric COVID response by Beijing while condemning jurisdictions that respected individual rights and the rule of law. This was all foreseen as far back as 2010 in the Rockefeller Foundation’s “scenario” dubbed Lockstep involving a hypothetical pandemic.

Even as these battles are raging, totalitarians are already scheming on even more draconian powers over basic rights such as free speech. The WHO itself has been working to silence what it considers “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “conspiracy theories” for years. “We’re not just battling the virus,” said WHO Director-General Tedros in the summer of 2020. “We’re also battling the trolls and conspiracy theorists that push misinformation and undermine the outbreak response.” The WHO was “working closely” with Big Tech firms to censor the web, it boasted. Ironically, the WHO has urged health professionals to lie to parents in order to peddle vaccines.

Opposition Grows as Legal Questions Swirl 

In a memo to the WHO, U.S. Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs Loyce Pace cited almost 50 other governments that support the Biden administration’s proposal. Those include the member governments of the European Union, along with numerous other governments including those in India, Australia, Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom, and more.

Normally, governments would have 18 months to withdraw from the UN WHO scheme. However, in this case, the time period has been shortened to a mere six months. According to experts on WHO processes, if a majority of member governments consent to the amendments, then they will be considered to be part of “international law.” The amendments to the WHO’s regulations are set to be approved by May 28 of this year if not stopped.

Because of the existing international agreement adopted by member WHO member states almost two decades ago, the UN WHO considers any updates to its International Health Regulations to be binding on all nations and all of humanity, legal experts say. Similar machinations were used to impose UN “climate” schemes on the planet without ratification by the U.S. Senate.

However, there are several constitutional issues at hand as far as the United States is concerned. For one, the states that created the U.S. government never delegated these sorts of powers over “health” to the government they established. If the U.S. government lacks a specific authority or power, it certainly cannot hand a power it does not rightfully possess over to another body — at least not without a constitutional amendment.

In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed as recently as 1957 in the case Reid v. Covert that the U.S. government could not grant new powers to itself — or delegate those powers to other bodies — merely by adopting international agreements. Thomas Jefferson, a key architect of America’s constitutional system, understood that as well. “I say the same as to the opinion of those who consider the grant of the treaty-making power as boundless,” he explained in 1803. “If it is, then we have no Constitution.”

Neither the WHO nor the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services responded to requests for comment.

In an interview with The New American, journalist and commentator James Rogusky, among the first to sound the alarm on these amendments, called on people to resist while it was still possible. “The time to speak out and stand for your rights is now,” he explained, calling on Americans to share the warnings with those in their sphere of influence and to contact their elected representatives.

In an effort to derail the WHO’s power grab, The John Birch Society recently launched a grassroots effort encouraging lawmakers to nullify the schemes at the state level. “Rather than sitting back and being complacent, state legislators must take bold action to nullify any WHO agreement,” the Society said in a mass email to its national membership.

“Nullification of the WHO’s pandemic treaty wouldn’t be the first time the states have taken such bold action,” the organization’s alert continued. “Among multiple other examples, Alabama in 2012 enacted a strong law banning the implementation of the UN’s Agenda 21 (now Agenda 2030) in the state. Multiple other state legislative chambers passed similar bans.”

Urging activists to contact their lawmakers, the group, which has chapters nationwide, called for strong laws to prohibit implementation and enforcement of the WHO scheme. This could include ensuring that no state or local officials can participate in the enforcement of any actions originating from the WHO or under the authority of its illegitimate agreements.

In an interview with The New American magazine, U.S. Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) expressed support for getting out of the UN entirely. “It’s full of dictators, and it’s also something that I don’t think our sovereign government should defer to,” he explained. Legislation to do just that, the American Sovereignty Restoration Act, has been regularly introduced in Congress for decades.

Derailing the WHO’s draconian power grab would be a good step in the direction of neutralizing the ever-increasing threat of globalism and international tyranny. However, over the long term, small victories in battles such as this one will not be enough. A full restoration of sovereignty must be the ultimate objective — and this massive attack on humanity by the WHO may be the perfect catalyst to supercharge the movement to stop globalism for good.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact U.S. Senators Dick Durbin, Tammy Duckworth and your federal representative in the U.S. House and urge them to oppose these dangerous amendments and urge them to enact strong legislation fully preventing the implementation and/or enforcement of the WHO’s proposed pandemic treaty.

Read more:

WHO & Global Predators Plot Global “Health” Tyranny

UN Whistleblower: WHO is Tip of the Spear for Global Tyranny

Marxist UN WHO Boss Must Be Put on Trial, Critics Say

Citing Ebola, Obama Boosts UN and Sends Troops to Africa


This article was originally published at TheNewAmerican.com.




Schools As “Religion-Free Zones”?

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a new case related to school prayer. This story began in 2015 when high school football Coach Joe Kennedy got on his knee at mid-field after a game and thanked God quietly. Some of the players voluntarily joined him in this huddle.

Kennedy was fired for this act by his employer, Bremerton High School in Bremerton, Washington. He sued to get his job back.

Fox News (4/25/22) reports: “Lower courts have all ruled for the school. The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals concluded that by kneeling and praying in view of students and parents, Kennedy ‘spoke as a public employee, not as a private citizen, and his speech therefore was constitutionally unprotected.’”

Fox News quotes Rachel Laser, the president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State: “No child attending public school should have to pray to play school sports.” But his defenders note the coach was expressing his own public thanks—not forcing anyone else to participate in his prayer.

How dare he, argued the secular authorities in the state of Washington and beyond, acknowledge Almighty God before all those students and parents and members of the community?

How dare Coach Kennedy do this in the state named after George Washington, who acknowledged Almighty God on multiple occasions—even on the day be became our first president and participated in a two-hour Christian worship service with the new government leaders of the United States at St. Paul’s Chapel, in which they received Holy Communion?

Coach Kennedy is closer to the ideals and practices of the founders than his critics who assert a false “strict separation of church and state”—words found nowhere in the Constitution.

Coach Kennedy is being represented by First Liberty Institute based in Plano, Texas, which focuses on defending religious freedom in America. Their name is derived from the fact that the first liberty listed in our nation’s Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U. S. Constitution, is religious liberty.

The First Amendment begins: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Historically, this was understood to mean that there would no Church of America, like there is a Church of England. That is, there was to be no Church “by law established” at the federal level. Some states at the time had state-churches.

Defenders of Coach Kennedy argue that the same men who gave us the First Amendment also gave us the Northwest Ordinance, which spells out the template that future states in the country were to follow.

They wrote in this ordinance: “Religion and morality being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” The founders did not intend schools to be “religion-free zones.”

Judge Darrell White, the president of Retired Judges of America, once told me in an interview on church-states relations: “There is a separation of church and state, but it’s not a separation of God and government.” It is a separation of the institution of the church from the institution of the state.

James Madison, a key architect of the Constitution, wrote a document called “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments” in 1785. In that document, he notes that because Christianity is of divine origin, it will stand on its own, without the aid of the state.

Madison said, “Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offence against God, not against man: To God, therefore, not to man, must an account of it be rendered.”

In other words, the state is not to support the church and nor is the federal government (sometimes called by the founders the “general government”) to interfere with the church. Said Madison in 1788: “There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion.”

Just the idea of a school official bowing the knee to God—not bowing the knee to protest our national anthem, but in respect to our Creator—was enough for those on the left to try and destroy Coach Kennedy’s career and keep him from what he believes is his calling, to coach high school football.

It would seem that the left cares about free speech and freedom of expression when it comes to things the founders would have never dreamed about, like alternative sexualities and gender fluidity, but not for things explicitly protected in the U.S. Constitution like the free exercise of religion.


This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.




The Higher Law of Nuremberg on Roe

It is an unfortunate fact that very few Americans today are familiar with the principles of common law. If they are familiar with it at all, many assume it to be something akin to the fact that if you live together unmarried for 7 years, you are considered to be legally married. In other words, the idea of law that is unwritten yet practiced.  In truth, there is much more to it than that.  Central to common law is the idea that law can be discovered but not made. This is grounded in the principle of “higher law – the concept that there is a law higher than any government’s law.

Richard Maybury is widely regarded as one of the top free-market writers in America and is the author of the “Uncle Eric” series of books which introduces young people to the principles on which our country’s legal and economic system was founded. His book Whatever Happened to Justice has some profound things to say about common law and its connection to the abortion issue.  Quoted in Mayberry’s book is Terry Eastland who reiterates the concept: “Up until the 1930’s the idea was understood that a judge is merely an interpreter of established law.” Law is found by judges, not made.

And the criteria for “finding” this law are the two common law principles of “do all you have agreed to do” and “do not encroach on other persons or their property.” Common law principles were at the heart of what corrected the atrocity of slavery where human beings were being regarded as property. Through the process of “discovering, not making” law, the truth was found “all are created equal,” “all are persons,” and “all should have equal protection under the law.”

Likewise, at the heart of the abortion debate is the definition of the word “person.” What is a person? Is it connected to– intelligence? A beating heart? Two cells that have fused and begun to be “formed in a woman’s inward parts?” These questions deserve discussion and answers within the context of higher law. And while higher law has a connection with religion and truth, those answers aren’t religious issues; they are human issues. I can be an atheist and understand the truth of personhood–the reality that  “humans are not property,” that “persons” have a right to life.

The beauty of common law is it allows for the debate for finding truth, for finding higher law and ensuring it forms the basis of actual law. But now we are in danger of political law, or made-up law, taking over when so much is at stake. For central to the abortion debate, and erroneously so, is the idea that mere men and women can make up law.

It explains why legislators such as U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren are ranting and raving and losing their minds screaming “the majority of Americans don’t want Roe Vs. Wade overturned,” revealing their view that the decision should be made by what most people want rather than by what is right. The essential question is not, “Do the majority of Americans want Roe Vs. Wade to stand; the essential question is   “What says Higher Law?”

This is where the Nuremberg Trials come in. While the German people originally recognized the killing of any innocent life as murder, political law–made-up law–crept in. Political leaders, with the cooperation of judges, slowly changed the law. Legalizing the killing of the mentally incompetent and making their way to the killing of millions of Jews and those trying to rescue them.

They were killed by those following “the law.” Were the perpetrators right? Were they excused? Was “political law” vindicated? The Nuremberg Trials  answered with a resounding “NO!” Nazi defendants arguing they were “just following the law” were held accountable not to political law, but to higher law. Judges in the trial declared, “The fact that the defendant acted pursuant to order of his government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility.”

The impact of that decision was three-fold: 1) there is a higher law than any government’s law; 2) we are all obliged to obey it; 3) and courts must seek out and enforce higher law. The “seeking out’ is what common law is all about. Rather than make up laws, law must be discovered through religious and philosophical principles.

In the current political realm, we are at a crossroads. Will the right to life for the unborn  be settled through a constitutional amendment? Will it be decided by majority rule?

The potential for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe Vs. Wade and send it back to the states where it belongs is a hopeful first step. But, it mustn’t end there. Once back in the states, the issue must be searched out, questioned, and explored. The definition of personhood must be determined. The principles of higher law must be applied. It MUST not be left in the hands of “majority rule.”

In the words of Richard Maybury, if majority rule decides the abortion issue:

“The right to life, yours, mine, and everybody else’s will be regarded not as a given, not as a gift from the Creator, but as a gift from the voters. And the voters can change their minds. The victory of political law will be complete. Nuremberg will be gone, and no one’s life will be safe. Our legal system will be sitting squarely on the same foundation as Nazi Germany.”





Prayer Alert: Our Response to the Potential Repeal of Roe v. Wade

The big news of the week has been confirmed by Chief Justice John Roberts. The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade in the very near future, possibly by the end of June. In a news release from the High Court, however, they were careful to point out that, although the leaked draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito is authentic, “it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.” In other words, the ruling is not official yet.

If it becomes official, it will be an enormous victory for the sanctity of human life in America. Repealing Roe is what pro-lifers have marched, prayed, worked, and voted for since 1973.

We are relieved to know that many states will restrict or completely outlaw abortion, thereby saving untold number of women and unborn babies from becoming victims. Yet, it’s sobering to realize that states like Illinois, New York, Maryland and California will become abortion destination points for those who are determined to kill their pre-born babies. And seeing women come out in droves screaming about the possibility of losing their right to kill their children is a grave reminder that we are in a spiritual battle.

The work before us continues, especially in Illinois. Our ongoing mission is to educate family members, friends and neighbors on the evils of abortion. We’ll need to continue working to change hearts and minds regarding “bodily autonomy,” the science of when life begins, and, most important, the fact that we are all created in the image and likeness of our Creator.  As such, every human has an intrinsic and inestimable dignity and worth. (Genesis 1:27)

Our culture has drifted away from God and no longer loves or values the things of God. We see proof of that in a birth rate which is disastrously low and abortion rates disastrously high. This disregard for life is also evidenced in the gang violence in our cities and by the skyrocketing suicide and overdose rates plaguing communities throughout the nation.

In response, followers of Jesus Christ must be diligent in praying for the courage, strength, and wisdom to engage the culture forthrightly on the abortion issue. Ironically, this morning, in response to the leaked opinion, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke dishonestly from the chamber floor to decry the pending decision, claiming that tens of millions of women will lose “bodily autonomy.”

Overturning Roe v. Wade does not constitute the loss of women’s “bodily autonomy” because abortions don’t destroy the bodies of mothers. Abortions destroy the bodies of women’s children. Abortion robs the unborn of bodily autonomy, body integrity, and life.

May God forgive us.


PRAYER ALERT

We cannot stress the urgency of your fervent prayers this month as our culture once again descends into a season of acrimony. Add to this the fact that we are in an election cycle in which dozens of federal and state legislative seats are in play. There are a number of God-fearing candidates running for office, and our prayers are vitally important.

Appeal to God for His Mercy

  • Pray that God would forgive us for allowing the innocent blood of preborn children to be spilled for decades in America.
  • Pray for forgiveness for using tax dollars to pay for abortions in Illinois and to sustain this wicked industry.
  • Pray for the courage and strength to expose and refute lies and to offer hope to those who are stumbling towards death.
  • Pray for a flood of new volunteers who will commit to prayer and sidewalk counseling at abortion clinics and at pregnancy centers to help turn individual hearts away from the slaughter of the most innocent.
  • Pray that church leaders would speak boldly on this issue and offer hope to post-abortive women who need love, care, and assurance of God’s forgiveness. Pray that Christians will share the love of Christ with post-abortive women, and that these women would find healing through a church group and/or Bible study.

Abortion

  • Pray that every leader in our nation would come to realize that “fetuses” are real humans in the womb who deserve protection.
  • Pray that the agenda of Satan and his wicked disciples to kill pre-born babies in the womb and encourage immoral sexual activities to innocent young children in government schools would be exposed and stopped.
  • Pray that Christians of every age would develop a biblical perspective on abortion, on caring for those who face unplanned pregnancies, and on our obligation to respond to sin with grace and compassion in addition to truth.
  • Pray that we can be used to communicate effectively how God wants to redeem the lost.

For Those in Authority

For the next several weeks, please pray for the political leaders listed below. Pray that they would seek God’s wisdom when they make decisions that affect the people for whom they work. Pray that God would turn their hearts to Himself. (Proverbs 21:1)

This includes praying for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, J.B. Pritzker, and Julia Stratton and those who serve in these administrations. Pray also for our two U.S. Senators: Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth.

Please pray for the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court: John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. (Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will take her seat on the Court when Justice Breyer steps down in late June or early July.)

In addition, please pray for the following officials:

    • U.S. Senator Mark Kelly (D-Arizona)
    • U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama)
    • U.S. Representative Robin Kelly (D-Illinois)
    • U.S. Representative John Yarmuth (D-Kentucky)
    • U.S. Representative Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado)
    • State Senator Melinda Bush (D-Grayslake)
    • State Senator John Curran (R-Lemont)
    • State Representative Deb Conroy (D-Villa Park)
    • State Representative Andrew Chesney (R-Freeport)
    • YOUR local City/Village/Township Officials

My son, if you will receive my words
And treasure my commandments within you,
Make your ear attentive to wisdom;
Incline your heart to understanding.
For if you cry out for insight,
And raise your voice for understanding;
If you seek her as silver
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
Then you will understand the fear of the Lord,
And discover the knowledge of God.

~Proverbs 2:1-5




Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and Abortion

With a bang of a gavel in 1973, 63 million fellow Americans were condemned to die. And the number keeps growing.

Now if the U.S. Senate confirms Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, another pro-abortion justice will be added to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Last week, Judge Jackson, nominated by Biden to the U.S. Supreme Court, faced four days of hearings in the U.S. Senate. South Carolina Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham raised an intriguing point to her: “Every group that wants to pack the court, that believes the court is a bunch of right-wing nuts who are going to destroy America, that considers the Constitution ‘trash’—all wanted you picked. That is all I can say. That so many of these left-wing radical groups who would destroy the law as we know it…supported you is problematic for me.”

Jon Schweppe of the American Principles Project noted, “On abortion and religious liberty, it’s clear where she stands. Jackson co-authored an amicus brief for the Massachusetts NARAL chapter characterizing pro-life sidewalk counselors as ‘indisputably harmful’ and supporting the notion that they should not be allowed anywhere near an abortion clinic.”

He adds, “Why would leftist groups like American Atheists, the Human Rights Campaign, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, the National Education Association and the Southern Poverty Law Center push the White House to nominate Jackson and the Senate to confirm?….Ketanji Brown Jackson is a woke Trojan horse, as the preponderance of evidence suggests.”

When asked to define what a woman is, Judge Jackson declined, claiming she’s “not a biologist.” When asked when human life begins, she said to Louisiana U.S. Senator John Kennedy: “Senator, um… I don’t know.”

Gary Bauer responded to her answer: “Of course, this well-educated, Harvard graduate knows life begins at conception. The problem is that she’s all in on abortion on demand.”

The U.S. Supreme Court decisions Roe v. Wade (1973) and Casey v. Planned Parenthood (1992) established by judicial fiat a right to abortion. Thus abortion, said Judge Jackson, is “settled law of the Supreme Court concerning the right to terminate a pregnancy. They established a framework the court has reaffirmed.”

One Constitutional authority had some criticisms of Roe v. Wade as a legal opinion. She said that Roe “tried to do too much, too fast—it essentially made every abortion restriction in the country at the time illegal in one fell swoop—leaving it open to fierce attacks. ‘Doctrinal limbs too swiftly shaped…may prove unstable.’”

Who was this radical anti-abortion activist that would dare criticize the left’s most beloved decision? It was Ruth Bader Ginsburg–before she became a justice on the high court who did everything in her power to preserve Roe v. Wade.

Writing for Lifenews.com, Micaiah Bilger observes that Judge Jackson has called peaceful pro-life sidewalk counselors at abortion clinics “hostile, noisy and in your face” people.

Bilger added, “Jackson has the support of NARAL Pro-Choice America, which advocates for abortions without limits up to birth…She also ruled against the Trump administration’s efforts to defund the billion-dollar abortion chain Planned Parenthood, and she clerked for pro-abortion Justice Stephen Breyer when he issued an opinion against the partial-birth abortion ban.”

I believe abortion is the single most important political issue of our time. It’s not complicated. Abortion takes a human life every time.

When judges rule in favor of abortion, they are playing God. I find it amazing that the left constantly decries bullying, yet they favor abortion rights. What could be more bullying than dismembering a defenseless, unborn child limb by limb because it is perceived as somehow inconvenient?

Some critics on the left, like Bill Maher, say that the only reason conservatives oppose Judge Jackson is because she’s black. But people need to remember that the founder of the nation’s leading abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, was Margaret Sanger, who spoke at a Ku Klux Klan meeting. She wrote a letter to one of her board members (Dr. Clarence J. Gamble, 12/10/1939): “We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.” No wonder the majority of abortion facilities are in urban areas—to this day.

In our nation’s birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence, our founders said that our rights come from the Creator—and first among these rights is the “right to life.” Indeed, if you’re dead, how can you enjoy any other right?

The U.S. Constitution, which is predicated on the Declaration, notes in the preamble that one of its purposes is: “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Our posterity? That is, the yet to be born.

To paraphrase Dr. D. James Kennedy, Judge Jackson should get down on her knees and thank God that her mother wasn’t “pro-choice.”

If you get abortion wrong, you tend to get everything else wrong too.


This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.




Alarming and Disarming

The Biden Administration’s efforts to trample our Second Amendment rights fall into two categories: overt and covert.

In the more overt category is the game of “changing semantics”- the evolution of word usage usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from the original usage. This trend seems to be happening at an ever quickening pace. Even words once easily defined such as “woman” have the power to stump some of our nation’s most educated–case in point– Ketanji Brown Jackson—President Joe Biden’s recent nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Another word not so easily defined is “terrorist.” Historically considered to be “an individual and/or group committing criminal acts to further ideological goals,” it now is evolving to mean “concerned parents voicing those concerns at a school board meeting.” Recently, parents have had good reason for legitimate concerns. From school policies resulting from the pandemic such as shutdowns and unnecessary masking to abrupt changes in curriculum such as Critical Race Theory and “Comprehensive” Sex Education, parents were showing up at their local school board meeting and demanding to be heard and their views considered.

So last fall, the National School Board Association (NSBA) sent a letter to President Biden urging the administration to classify “these heinous actions” of concerned parents as “the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes” quickly prompting U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to issue his own memo promising “a series of measures designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel” and directing the FBI and U.S. Attorneys to coordinate with state and local authorities on the matter.

What exactly is going on here? Is the main concern behind the broadening of the term “terrorist” really the safety of school personnel? Or are there more nefarious reasons at work? Gun-control maybe? After all, a terrorist should not be sold a gun. And although Garland testified before Congress: “I do not think that parents getting angry at school boards for whatever reason constitutes domestic terrorism,” FBI whistleblowers revealed that a tag has been created to track “threats specifically directed against school board administrators, board members, teachers, and staff”–effectively broadening the definition of “terrorist” to now include concerned parents.

Which seems to be a just one arm of a emerging world-wide trend. The United Kingdom just passed a bill declaring that anybody that goes against the official narrative with “propaganda” will be charged criminally even if later information reveals they were correct.” This could be the direction we are headed here in the U.S.

In the more covert and disturbing method of trampling 2nd Amendment rights is a trick as old as the hills–the hiding of gun control measures within the recent $1.5 Trillion Infrastructure Bill which sends $13.6 Billion to Ukraine. The bill passed the U.S. Senate with bi-partisan support (68-31) and was signed by President Biden.

Hidden in the 2207 pages of this omnibus bill is the previously rejected Violence Against Womens Act (VAWA). While its title sounds harmless enough, it originally failed due to its gun-control provisions. The resurrected version contains a major change in current law–the NICS Denial Notification Act of 2022.

Anyone who has purchased a gun or is knowledgeable about the procedure knows that a criminal background check is conducted before someone receives a “green light” on the purchase. This system is utilized literally thousands of times a day across the country and is not without its problems. Would be gun-purchasers often face never-ending delays or, much to their surprise, flat out denials.

According to Gun Owners of America, the FBI itself admits that it’s often wrong on gun-related background check denials. And when an appeal to the denial is filed,  “27.7 percent of [the denials] are overturned”, and the firearm purchase is approved. Yet according to the research published by Professor John R. Lott, these denials are wrong 99 percent of the time!

Now comes the dangerous part. The NICS Denial Notification Act of 2022 passed as part of the Infrastructure Bill will NOW require the criminal investigation of all denials on the National Instant Criminal-Background-Check System (NICS). That’s right. If you happen to be part of the 27.7 percent who are erroneously denied your gun purchase–even when that denial is appealed and corrected–an immediate and mandatory criminal investigation is opened into that person (you!) and sent to not only local authorities but the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms as well. This gives local authorities and lawyers the Federal authority to create a database on you and snoop into your social media posts, spending habits, etc. The time to be alert is here.

While all of our God-given, Constitutionally protected rights are precious, perhaps the most precious is the Right to Bear Arms for it is the right needed to protect all of the others.

“The beauty of the Second Amendment is
that it will not be needed until they try to take it.”   

~Thomas Jefferson





SCOTUS Nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Stupefying Answers

U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson has provided sufficient evidence for the U.S. Senate to vote against her nomination to fill Justice Stephen Breyer’s seat following the full-court press he received from leftists to abdicate his lifelong seat before the 2024 election. That evidence includes her stupefying claim that she is unable to define “woman” because she’s not a biologist. The press has profligately identified Jackson as a “woman.” Has anyone confirmed that with a biologist?

Jackson’s claim was made in response to a line of questioning by U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) who began by citing the U.S. Supreme Court Case United States v. Virginia in which the buttinsky U.S. government sued the state of Virginia and the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) claiming that the policy limiting VMI admissions to males violated the U.S. Constitution. Blackburn cited Ruth Bader Ginsburg who voted with the majority in overturning VMI’s male-only admission policy:

Supposed inherent differences are no longer accepted as a grounds for race or national origins classifications. Physical differences, however, are enduring. The two sexes are not fungible. A community made up exclusively of one sex is different from a community composed of both.

Blackburn then asked Jackson, “Do you agree with Justice Ginsburg that there are physical differences between men and women that are enduring?”

Jackson, looking like the proverbial headlight-blinded deer, took an awkward beat and then stammered,

Um, Senator, respectfully, I am not familiar with that particular quote or case, so it’s hard for me to comment as to whether or not …

This was a half-truth. While it likely was “hard” for Jackson to comment on the now-incendiary topic of whether there are enduring physical differences between men and women, the reason for that difficulty is not Jackson’s ignorance about the VMI case.

The reason it is hard for her to acknowledge the obvious truth that even children know is that Jackson didn’t want to offend either the rational members of the U.S. Senate who will vote for or agin her nomination or to offend the “trans” cult, which wields inordinate political power in service of their reality-denying disorder.

Blackburn tried again:

Do you interpret Justice Ginsburg’s meaning of “men” and “women” as “male” and “female”?

And again, Jackson bobbed and weaved:

And again, because I don’t know the case, I don’t know how to interpret it. I’d have to read the whole thing.

Surely, the third time would be a charm, particularly because Blackburn omitted reference to the VMI court case. Blackburn asked,

Can you provide a definition of “woman”?

Here came Jackson’s whopper. She replied confidently,

No. I can’t.

Incredulous, Blackburn asked,

You can’t?

Jackson chuckled and responded,

Not in this context. I’m not a biologist.

Surely Jackson knows how biologists define woman. Biologists defined “woman” long before cross-dressers decided to goose-step in their stiletto-accoutered jackboots through America’s institutions trying to convince Americans that biologists know nothing about the phenomena of man and woman.

Transtopians are baffled at the notion that biologists could know what a woman is because in Transtopia, “man” and “woman” have nothing to do with hard science, anatomy, physiology, genetics, or reproduction. Transtopians believe in pseudoscience and metaphysical alchemy.

Transtopia is a solipsistic Wonderland where words mean whatever Transtopians say words mean and where nothing exists outside each individual’s mind—including minds beclouded by sin, confusion, delusion, and deviant desires. If there’s a mismatch between a Transtopian’s mind/feelings and their anatomically healthy, properly functioning bodies, they just know the error is with their healthy, properly functioning bodies. “Treatment,” therefore, means artificially disrupting normal, properly functioning biological processes and excising normal, healthy anatomical parts as if they’re malignant tumors.

For Transtopians, nothing matters but the subjective feelings of the self, and that’s why Transtopians demand everyone ask every person they meet what their pronouns are. While weeping about being “mis-gendered,” they tyrannically demand compulsory mis-sexing.

Transtopians exalt subjective feelings, except for the subjective feelings of those who live and move and have their being outside of Transtopia. Their feelings, beliefs, and values mean nothing in Transtopia. Transtopians hate anyone who refuses to move body, mind, heart, and soul to Transtopia, ironically labeling dissenters hateful, intolerant, bigoted, and non-inclusive.

Jackson’s expansive ignorance of biology accounts too for why she doesn’t know when life begins or when a baby in the womb is viable. Maybe if she spent less time cozying up with Planned Parenthood, she would free up some time to read a basic biology text. Presumably, her husband—a doctor—or the Internet could help her find out the answers to those not-so-vexing questions.

But perhaps Jackson’s most troubling statement was this:

I have a religious view that I set aside when I am ruling on cases.

That claim drips with the anti-constitutional view that a Supreme Court Justice must sever her religious faith from the exercise of her duties. That view, however, is at odds with the spirit and text of the Constitution which prohibits religious tests for holding office and which guarantees the free exercise of religion. For true Christians, their religious faith inheres every aspect of their lives. It shapes their ethics; morality; political values; and their views of government, human nature, and liberty.

To paraphrase Richard John Neuhaus, that which is political is moral and that which is moral, for religious people, is religious. It is no less legitimate to have political or judicial decisions shaped by religion than by psychology, philosophy, “gender ideology,” or self-serving personal desire.

A democratic republic cannot exist without objective normative ethics that render legitimate the preservation or circumscription of individual rights. Historically, the sources of the absolute, transcendent, objective, universal truths that render legitimate our legal system have been “the institutions of religion that make claims of ultimate or transcendent meaning.” Neuhaus explains that this “does not represent an imposition of the private into the public spheres, but rather an expansion or transformation or recollection of what is public.” He argues that when religion is utterly privatized and eliminated as a “source or transcendence that gives legitimate and juridical direction and form, something else will necessarily fill the void, and that force will be the state.”

While Ketanji Brown Jackson may view her silly non-answers as canny political stratagems, many people view them as dishonest, foolish, and cowardly.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/SCOTUS-Nominee-Jacksons-Stupefying-Answers.mp3





Growing Number of Government School Students Face Anti-Christian Attacks

As incomprehensible to average Americans as it may seem, three stories about government school students facing disciplinary actions for expressing their Christian faith were featured in Christian media publications over the past few months:

  • A six-year-old girl loves Jesus and is concerned about her second grade classmates’ eternities. She shares her newfound faith and it scares her friends. The Des Moines Washington teacher hears concerns from the classmates’ parents, and the little one finds her book bag searched everyday when she enters the schoolyard.
  • A 14 year old student in Florida is ridiculed for reading his Bible at school. Not only did classmates reportedly threaten the boy on account of his faith, the high school freshman’s science teacher publicly questioned him and insinuated he was “ignorant” for believing in God and the Bible.
  • Last year, yet another Florida high school student was reprimanded by her drama teacher for writing a monologue that referenced her faith in Jesus. The student was told to rewrite the assignment with no reference to religion.

Those are only three instances made public by legal groups representing the students who, their lawyers say, have had their First Amendment rights restricted in government schools.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says, “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.”

While the First Amendment focuses on the U.S. Congress and what they cannot do, it asserts that public policies restricting religious practice or expression at lower levels are not acceptable, either.

The 14-year-old Florida student whose teacher ridiculed him for his faith experienced something no American should ever have to experience, his attorney Harmeet K. Dhillon said in a statement.

“It’s bad enough that the school has done nothing to stop the bullying from his peers, but have gone as far as joining in on targeting [the student] for simply practicing his faith. This blatant violation of his First Amendment rights is another example of how extreme so many in our education system have become,” Dhillon said, and why her law firm took on his case.

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which took on the 14-year-old drama student’s case, described a similar legal scenario.

“This is what ‘wokeness’ has come to—shaming middle school students for expressing their joy in their personal relationship with Jesus Christ because it is considered ‘offensive,’” Christina Compagnone (Stierhoff) of the ACLJ wrote in April 2021. “This was a clear violation of this student’s First Amendment rights and an affront to the religious liberties rooted deeply in the history and culture of the United States.”

The U.S. Supreme Court dealt with the First Amendment rights of students five decades ago, in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969). In their ruling favoring the plaintiffs, the highest court in the land wrote:

In our system, state-operated schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism. School officials do not possess absolute authority over their students. Students in school, as well as out of school, are “persons” under our Constitution. They are possessed of fundamental rights which the State must respect, just as they themselves must respect their obligations to the State. In our system, students may not be regarded as closed-circuit recipients of only that which the State chooses to communicate. They may not be confined to the expression of those sentiments that are officially approved. In the absence of a specific showing of constitutionally valid reasons to regulate their speech, students are entitled to freedom of expression of their views.

And while that’s a strong statement in favor of students’ rights to express their opinions, the question is whether the Court would hold a similar position in 2022, or would the Court decide that maintaining peace in a politically- and religiously-divided setting is the “greater good?”

A growing number of Christian parents are choosing home schools and private Christian schools rather than dealing with antagonistic settings and curriculum offered in state-operated schools.

As more and more cases like those hit Christian media headlines and eventually make it to dominant media, the more intense the issue will become and all the more urgent for American freedom-loving parents to defend future generations from anti-Christian sentiments within government schools.

Illinois Family Institute offers an array of resources on their website at illinoisfamily.org to help parents make crucial decisions about their children’s education.