Written By Gina Miller

As we continue to watch insanity reign in our nation on far too many levels, yet another activist federal judge, an Obama appointee who apparently does not know the difference between the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, has overruled the will of the people in the State of Virginia and declared its ban on same-sex “marriage” to be “unconstitutional.” So continues the warped, vicious assault on truth, reason, the family and our freedoms.

We also have an example of what a Godless, morally relativistic university system produces. A third-year law student at Yale has written an opinion piece published on Wednesday in the New York Times. Jacob Victor’s column titled, “Ending ‘Gay Conversion’ for Good,” demonstrates the standard, leftist talking-point lies used against those who help people overcome unwanted same-sex attraction.

His piece begins:

Therapy programs that purport to “convert” lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender kids have caused immeasurable harm since they became prominent in the 1970s. Rigorous studies have shown again and again that efforts to change young people’s sexual orientation not only fail, but are also linked to suicidal behavior, depression, anxiety, drug use and risky sexual behavior.

These are lies. I am not aware of any therapists who guarantee conversion, any kind of therapists. When sin has a powerful hold on someone, it’s never easy to let it go, but it is possible. Countless people have escaped the grip of homosexuality and have gone on to live normal lives. To say that change from homosexuality is not possible is to lie.

As for Victor’s contention that “rigorous studies” have shown that reparative therapy causes suicidal behavior, depression, anxiety, drug use and promiscuity, the truth is that any time we embrace sin, which is behavior that contradicts God’s commands and His design for mankind, we are subjecting ourselves to all kinds of self-destructive potential. Homosexual behavior is particularly destructive, because of the special, sacred and spiritual nature of human sexuality, which is meant to be expressed between husband and wife. When that act is perverted, debased and abused, it becomes a monstrous force in the lives of the people who engage in it. It can be no other way, because homosexuality turns God-designed sexuality on its head, and it then becomes an evil, destructive force, and all those rotten things routinely manifest themselves in the lives of homosexuals at much higher rates than in heterosexuals.

These “rigorous studies” to which Victor refers are nothing more than politically motivated tripe. The truth is that if it becomes widely understood that homosexuality is not an immutable characteristic but a chosen behavior, then the entire homosexual agenda collapses upon the lies on which it was built. That is why we are seeing a hyper-aggressive assault on therapists who offer help for people who want to be free of homosexual attraction. While same-sex attraction itself may not be consciously chosen, due to various influences, including childhood sexual abuse, it most certainly is a choice when someone decides to act upon the attraction by engaging in the behavior.

In his deceit-laden column, Victor goes on to mention the November 2012 lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) against a small, nonprofit group in New Jersey, Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH). The angle taken by the radical leftists at the SPLC is that JONAH has engaged in “consumer fraud” by claiming to be able to “cure” homosexuality, which is a flat-out lie, something JONAH has never done. The SPLC is using this lie in an attempt to shut down JONAH and discredit the legitimate efforts of others like them in helping people reduce or eliminate their homosexual attraction.

This is an evil, detestable attack on the God-given rights of the members of JONAH and those who seek their help. From JONAH’s website:

JONAH has been unjustly sued by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) who claims that homosexuality is permanently fixed and that people cannot be helped in overcoming their unwanted same-sex attractions.

SPLC ‘s position is inconsistent with numerous scientific and medical opinions and studies, finding that sexual attraction is influenced by many factors, both environmental and biological. Even certain gay activist groups claim that sexual attractions can be fluid and change throughout people’s lives. SPLC’s allegations also ignore the thousands of people who have already benefited from programs, such as those offered by JONAH and others, many of whom are now living their life long dreams, including traditional marriage and children.

Charles LiMandri, the President and Chief Counsel of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, stated, “The SPLC lawsuit is ill-conceived and legally untenable for multiple reasons. It seeks to violate the First Amendment freedoms of speech, religion and association not only of JONAH and the other defendants, but also untold numbers of people in need that stand to benefit from their services.”

… JONAH has never been the target of a lawsuit until now, and this lawsuit is apparently the result of SPLC advertising in the media for people willing to be named as plaintiffs against JONAH. SPLC’s lawsuit seeks to deprive men and women who experience unwanted same sex attractions of the opportunity to explore and resolve these attractions so that they can live healthier and happier lives consistent with their own personal values.

“It is the height of intolerance and arrogance for the SPLC to dictate to individuals who experience unwanted same sex attraction and who are seeking help, that they are not entitled to receive such help nor support in a way that respects their personal values,” LiMandri stated: “JONAH and the other defendants will be vigorously defended against these baseless claims to protect not only their Constitutional rights, but also the right of self-determination of all those who wish to resolve their unwanted same sex attractions.”

Do not underestimate the seriousness of this case and the horrible legal precedent implications to reparative therapists, counselors and other such groups across the nation if JONAH were to lose. Just because JONAH is clearly innocent of these accusations does not mean that a leftist court won’t rule unjustly against them.

Charles LiMandri and the other God-sent lawyers from the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund (FCDF) have stood up to defend JONAH from this un-American lawsuit. Both JONAH and the FCDF are non-profit groups that rely on generous donations to continue their work. I spoke on the phone today with Arthur Goldberg, the Co-Director of JONAH, and he expressed his deep gratitude to Mr. LiMandri and the FCDF for their invaluable assistance with this case. Without their help, JONAH could never afford a defense against the super-wealthy SPLC.

I ask that you please pray for JONAH and the FCDF that the Lord would protect them and give them the victory over this unjust legal assault at the hands of the radical leftist, hate-mongering SPLC. I also ask that if you’re able, to consider donating what you can to one or both groups. You can give to JONAH here, and to the FCDF here.

Originally published at RenewAmerica.com.

Written by Thomas Lifson

A case filed by the American Humanist Association in New Jersey has gone down in flames, defeated by a high school student named Samantha Jones, backed by lawyers from the  Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and  the Knights of Columbus and the American Legion, which acted in support. Fox News explains what happened:

The legal battle first began when an unnamed New Jersey family from Monmouth County, identified in court papers as John and Jane Doe and their child, sued the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District in February 2014, alleging the phrase “under God” in the pledge is discriminatory. The case was filed by the American Humanist Association, which claimed the recitation of the pledge violates Article 1 of the state’s constitution. (snip)

Jones, who was attending another school, fought back, telling Fox News last November that the phrase “acknowledges that our rights don’t come from the government but from a higher power, so they can’t take away the rights.”

She described America as a country of many beliefs and claimed all of those beliefs – including those of atheists – are protected by “one nation under God.” (snip)

State Superior Court Judge David Bauman said during arguments in November that there wasn’t any evidence the student in question had been “bullied, ostracized or in any way mistreated.” But Bauman also noted during his questioning of district attorney David Rubin that district policy requires parents whose children don’t say the pledge to furnish an explanation in writing.

At the time, Rubin said he wasn’t aware of any cases in which parents had refused to supply an explanation and didn’t know what the ramifications would be if they didn’t. He accused the plaintiffs of filing a lawsuit claiming the pledge violates laws against the official establishment of religion “masquerading as an equal protection case.”

School district officials had claimed they’re simply following a state law requiring schools to have a daily recitation of the pledge. In a court filing, the district wrote that the plaintiffs can’t claim a violation of equal protection laws because all students are treated equally by not having to recite the pledge.

The UK Daily Mail notes:

In a statement released Friday, she [Samantha] said: ‘I’m so grateful the court decided that kids like me shouldn’t be silenced just because some people object to timeless American values.’

‘Ever since I was little, I’ve recited the Pledge of Allegiance because it sums up the values that make our country great. The phrase ‘under God’ protects all Americans-including atheists-because it reminds the government that it can’t take away basic human rights because it didn’t create them.’

Eric Rassbach, Deputy General Counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty added: ‘The message today is loud and clear: ”God” is not a dirty word. The Pledge of Allegiance isn’t a prayer, and reciting it doesn’t magically create an official state religion.’

The atheist left will not give up, of course. If this case is not appealed, other cases will be filed, in search of sympathetic judges. Atheists abhor the notion that belief in God is normative.

This article was originally posted at the American Thinker website.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to hear a case that could do for same-sex marriage what Roe v. Wade did for abortion-on-demand.

What concerns me, besides the obvious prospect of having marriage permanently redefined in American law, is the impact of such a ruling on religious freedom. As you know from listening to BreakPoint, there is ample reason for concern on that score. Recent events have demonstrated that the clash between gay rights and religious freedom is a zero-sum game.

That’s why a recent column by Frank Bruni of the New York Times concerned me so profoundly.

From the start, Bruni, who is himself gay, demonstrates that he does not, or perhaps cannot, understand this issue. He begins by telling readers that he “chafes” at being called “a threat to your religious liberty.”

He then goes on to dispute the idea that allowing “men who have romantic relationships with other men and maybe want to marry them” will somehow run roughshod over someone’s creed. In fact, he calls such a belief “absurd.”

Bruni calls “the deference that many politicians show” to religious liberty concerns that are raised by same-sex marriage and gay rights “an illustration of religion’s favored status in a country that’s still working out this separation-of-church-and-state business and hasn’t yet gotten it quite right.”

Not surprisingly, he compares those raising the issue of religious freedom to segregationists whom, he is quick to remind his readers, also claimed religious warrant.  He ends by saying that “I support the right of people to believe what they do and say what they wish — in their pews, homes and hearts. But outside of those places? You must put up with me, just as I put up with you.”

Of course, he supports no such thing. Bruni’s definition of “putting up” with religious believers can be summed up in a phrase he is no doubt familiar with: the closet.

Imagine that the shoe were on the other foot and a Christian wrote that he supported the right of gay people to “do what they wish in their clubs, homes, and hearts” but that outside the subject must not be broached. Bruni would certainly reject that idea as “bigotry.”

Yet, Bruni and others clearly want to stuff Christians into the closet that they recently escaped.

As to the idea that same-sex marriage and gay rights more generally pose a threat to religious liberty, that isn’t a Christian creation. More than a decade ago, Chai Feldman of Georgetown Law School, wrote about what she saw as the emerging conflict between gay rights laws and religious freedom.

As she put it, “When we pass a law that says you may not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, we are burdening those who have an alternative moral assessment of gay men and lesbians.”

For Feldman, who is herself gay, most of the time protecting the “dignity” of the gay person should trump religious freedom. As she told Maggie Gallagher, “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.”

Now, obviously I disagree with Feldman on the priority we should accord religious freedom. But I give her credit for recognizing the conflict, something that seems to completely escape Frank Bruni. For him, the conflict, along with those who disagree with him, is something best left in—you guessed it—the closet.

Read More:

NY Times Columnist Wants to Confine Religious Liberty to Church Closet
Written by Laurie Higgins

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

Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission has already handed down its decision in a case involving a baker who favors biblical marriage – now it will hear one concerning a baker who favors same-sex “marriage.” A customer walked into Azucar Bakery in Denver and requested a cake in the shape of a Bible inscribed with what bakery owner Marjorie Silva describes as “a hateful message” and an “X” through the image of a same-sex couple.

Silva agreed to bake the cake in the shape requested, but refused to add the inscription. The customer left and later filed a complaint before the Commission.

Alliance Defending Freedom represents Colorado cake artist Jack Phillips, who has already been found guilty of discrimination because, based on his Christian faith, he refused to do a special cake for a same-gender “wedding.” ADF attorney Jeremy Tedesco argues that Silva has every right to decline to promote a message with which she sincerely disagrees – the same stance ADF took in defending Phillips.

“So the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which now has a complaint before it on [the Silva] case, has to decide whether this baker is going to have their First Amendment rights respected – or if they’re going to be put in the same position as Jack Phillips, who faces potentially losing his business just because they exercised their First Amendment right.

“We support the right of this baker who didn’t want to create a cake that was contrary to their beliefs,” he summarizes.

Tedesco says the state can go one of two ways in the matter.

“Colorado is either going to have to say We don’t care about anybody’s First Amendment rights in our state – or they may say, Well, we’re going to play favorites. We’re going to allow the baker who supports same-sex marriage to decline to provide services to people who object to that point of view.”

According to the attorney, the state would be stating the latter by allowing the baker who supports homosexual marriage to get away with it and letting stand the punishment against Christian baker Phillips. He has taken his case to the Colorado Court of Appeals.

This article was originally posted at the OneNewsNow.com website.

Barely five days after The New York Times ran a major news article on the firing of Atlanta’s fire chief for his views on homosexuality, a major Times opinion writer declared that religious liberty is a fine thing, so long as it is restricted to “pews, homes, and hearts” — far from public consequence.

The firing of Kelvin Cochran as chief of Atlanta’s Fire Rescue Department came after the city’s mayor, Kasim Reed, determined that the chief could not effectively manage the department after he had written a book in which he cited Scripture in defining homosexuality as a sin.

The most crucial portion of the Times story includes the mayor’s rationale:

“At a news conference, Mr. Reed said that Mr. Cochran’s ‘personal religious beliefs are not the issue.’ But Atlanta’s nondiscrimination policy, the mayor added, is ‘nonnegotiable.’

‘Despite my respect for Chief Cochran’s service, I believe his actions and decision-making undermine his ability to effectively manage a large, diverse work force,’ Mr. Reed said. ‘Every single employee under the fire chief’s command deserves the certainty that he or she is a valued member of the team and that fairness and respect guide employment decisions.’”

But the mayor’s words do not form a coherent argument. Chief Cochran was fired precisely because his “personal religious beliefs” are, in the mayor’s mind, incompatible with assuring every member of the department “that he or she is a valued member of the team and that fairness and respect guide employment decisions.”

Chief Cochran had written a book entitled, Who Told You that You Were Naked?, in which, according to the Times, he had affirmed that homosexual acts are among what the Bible defines as “vile, vulgar, and inappropriate activities” that “dishonor God.”

The story has been widely reported in the national press, and no accusation that Chief Cochran had acted in a discriminatory fashion toward any department employee has yet been asserted. In November, announcing the Chief’s suspension without pay, Mayor Reed said that Chief Cochran’s views as expressed in the book were inconsistent with the city’s policies on discrimination. Note, as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution made clear, the mayor’s concern was the chief’s views on homosexuality. The paper cited a statement from the mayor’s office in its report on the suspension: “I want to be clear that the material in Chief Cochran’s book is not representative of my personal beliefs, and is inconsistent with the administration’s work to make Atlanta a more welcoming city for all of her citizens — regardless of their sexual orientation, gender, race and religious beliefs.”

But the mayor did not extend his concern about non-discrimination on religious beliefs to Chief Cochran, who clearly expressed his views as a matter of biblical belief.

Liberties do not exist in a vacuum. In any historical moment, certain liberties collide with other liberties. We are now witnessing a direct and unavoidable collision between religious liberty with what is rightly defined as erotic liberty — a liberty claimed on the basis of sexual identity and activity. Religious liberty is officially recognized in the Bill of Rights — even in the very first amendment — and the framers of the American order did not claim to have established this right to free religious expression, but to have recognized it as a pre-existent right basic to citizenship.

Erotic liberty is new on the scene, but it is central to the moral project of modernity — a project that asserts erotic liberty, which the framers never imagined, as an even more fundamental liberty than freedom of religion. The logic of erotic liberty has worked its way from law schools and academia into popular culture, entertainment, public policy, and Supreme Court decisions.

In one classic example, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy famously wrote  of human dignity in terms of one’s “concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life” — and he has explicitly tied that to erotic liberty in a series of decisions and opinions.

Chief Cochran wrote a book, as a Christian and for his fellow Christians. According to the Times article, he gave a copy of the book to three city employees who had not asked for it. In response, he was fired by Mayor Reed.

The opinion column published just days after Chief Cochran’s firing was written by Frank Bruni, an openly-gay columnist whose essays often appear in the “Sunday Review” section of the paper. In this case, he cites his own sexual orientation in making his argument in “Your God and My Dignity.”

His argument is that claims of endangered religious liberty for conservative Christians are “absurd.” He complains about “religious people getting a pass that isn’t warranted.” Religious liberty, he claims, is being used as “a fig leaf for intolerance.”

The legalization of same-sex marriage cannot and will not infringe upon religious liberty, he claims, because such laws “do not pertain to religious services or what happens in a church, temple or mosque; no clergy member will be compelled to preside over gay nuptials. Civil weddings are covered. That’s it.”

The really chilling part of his statement is the restriction of religious liberty to “religious services or what happens in a church, temple, or mosque.” This is becoming more and more common, as major political and legal figures speak more and more of “freedom of worship” as a replacement for religious liberty. Religious liberty certainly includes freedom of worship, but it by no means stops there.

Furthermore, when the proponents of same-sex marriage and the new sexual revolution promise even to respect what goes on in a church, temple, or mosque, they evidently cannot keep their arguments straight. In the very same column, Bruni complains that religious congregations are given too much liberty to define their own ministry. He laments that “churches have been allowed to adopt broad, questionable interpretations of a ‘ministerial exception’ to anti-discrimination laws that allow them to hire and fire clergy as they wish.”

The front lines of the battle for religious liberty will be at the door of your congregation very soon, if this column is any indication — and it is. While promising to respect “freedom of worship,” Bruni openly implies that congregations should not have the right to hire and fire ministers or clergy on the basis of their sexual orientation or beliefs. What kind of liberty is that?

It is no liberty at all. This argument spells the end of religious liberty in any meaningful sense. What about the right of religious schools to hire, admit, and house on the basis of Christian moral judgment? If Bruni complains about congregations having the right to “hire and fire clergy as they wish,” we can only imagine what he would want to see mandated in terms of religious schools and institutions.

The headline over the print edition of Frank Bruni’s column is “Your God and My Dignity.” The use of the term “dignity” in this way is explained by University of Texas professor Mark Regnerus as “the mission creep of dignity.” In an important article released today, Regnerus contrasts the traditional view of human dignity, rooted in the belief that every human being is made in God’s image and affirmed by natural law theorists as “Dignity 1.0.” As Regnerus explains, this view of human dignity is defined as a person’s “inherent worth of immeasurable value that is deserving of certain morally appropriate responses.” As he further explains, “Understood in this way, dignity is an inalienable value. It’s a reality. Human dignity does not become real when you start to believe in it. It remains real even when neglected or violated. It may be discerned differently across eras, but it’s not arbitrary, to be socially constructed in unique ways by collective will or vote.”

“Dignity 2.0,” on the other hand, is on the ascent. As Regnerus asserts, “To be sure, Dignity 2.0 exhibits some similarities with its predecessor. Each has to do with inherent worth. Each implies the reality of the good. Each understands that rights flow from dignity. But Dignity 2.0 entrusts individuals to determine their own standards.”

In terms of the moral revolution and marriage, he writes:

“Witness, as an example, what is happening to marriage in the West, where the power elite has aligned behind Dignity 2.0 and its novel conclusions about the nature and structure of a timeless institution. The basis for Dignity 2.0 in the West does not rest on external standards, on traditional restraints such as kinship, neighborhood, religion, or nation, which are all stable sources of the self. Rather, it is based upon the dis-integrated, shifting “me,” subject to renegotiation, reinvention, and reconstruction, reinforced by expansive conditions and regulations. It’s exhausting—though profitable to attorneys. And Facebook. But it also explains my confusion: there are rival forms of dignity, and the version you employ matters a great deal.”

Indeed, it matters a very great deal. And the central thrust of Dignity 2.0 is what I describe as erotic liberty — the newly asserted liberty that is now trampling  or endangering religious liberty.

Don’t miss the final words of Frank Bruni’s column:

“And I support the right of people to believe what they do and say what they wish — in their pews, homes and hearts. But outside of those places? You must put up with me, just as I put up with you.”

In the event we missed the point earlier in his column, he makes the point crystal clear in the end. Religious liberty is to be respected, so long as it is confined to “pews, homes, and hearts.”

Chief Kelvin Cochran knows exactly what Frank Bruni means. Do you?

This article was originally posted at the AlberMohler.com website.

Openly homosexual New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Bruni has announced his generous support for the right of people of faith “to believe what they do and say what they wish—in their pews, homes and hearts.” (emphasis added).

Wow, thanks, Mr. Bruni.

The hubris of “progressives,” particularly “progressives” of a particular rainbow-hued stripe, seems to know no bounds. According to Bruni, conservative Christians must relinquish their constitutionally protected right to the free exercise of religion on his altar to the god of homoeroticism.

A peevish Bruni starts his screed by moaning that he feels “chafed” by claims that homosexuals like himself are a threat to religious liberty and then proceeds to argue for a breathtaking limitation of religious liberty to only pews, homes, and hearts—which is actually no liberty at all. In so doing, Bruni reveals his lack of understanding of both the history of religious liberty and of what faith entails for followers of Christ.

The First Amendment was intended to protect the right of people of faith to practice their religion unencumbered by government, which has the unruly tendency to intrude into areas of human life into which it ought not intrude. The Free Exercise Clause was intended to provide broad protections for the exercise of religion—which is not limited to pews, homes, and hearts, and not abrogated by homoeroticism.

Homosexuals and their “progressive” ideological allies who condemn orthodox Christian beliefs are trying to arrogate to themselves the right to determine what the free exercise of religion for orthodox Christians entails. For true followers of Christ, the practice of religion is a holistic endeavor—at least as holistic as homosexuals claim their romantic and erotic desires are. Imagine someone saying that he supports the right of homoerotically-oriented men and women to believe what they do and say what they wish only in their churches, homes, hearts, and maybe the Center on Halsted.

Or imagine if those homosexuals who attend churches that embrace late 20^th Century, heterodox theology and as a result support legalized same-sex faux-“marriage” were told that they could believe what they wish and say what they wish only in their pews, homes, and hearts. In other words, they should lose the right to affect public policy or allow their business practices to reflect their religious beliefs.

In a hyperbolic rhetorical flourish, Bruni asks, “why should a merchant whose version of Christianity condemns homosexuality get to exile gays and lesbians?” Exiling gays and lesbians? Wow again.

The inconvenient truth for Bruni is that Christian florists and bakers are seeking neither to exile homosexuals nor to refuse to serve customers who affirm a homoerotic identity. Rather, they’re refusing to use their time, gifts, and labor to make a particular product that celebrates an event that the God they serve abhors. In reality, these same florists and bakers have actually served on multiple occasions the very homosexuals who are suing them for not making products for their “weddings.”

Bruni then digs in with his floppy shovel, suggesting that not making a cake or floral arrangement  for a same-sex “wedding” is analogous to a Muslim store-owner refusing to serve a woman whose head is not covered or a Mormon hairdresser turning away clients “who saunter in with frappuccinos.”

In other words, Bruni suggests that when a baker chooses not to make a particular product for a particular type of event—and a type of event for which this baker has never made a product—it is analogous to a business-owner demanding that a customer adopt the owner’s religious practices in order to be able to purchase a product or service.

But of course, no Christian florist or baker has demanded that customers adopt his or her religious practices or beliefs in order to purchase a product or receive a service. Conservative Christian bakers sell their cookies and cupcakes to homosexuals. Christian photographers take photos of homosexuals. Christian florists sell flowers to homosexuals. No Christian has turned away customers who saunter in wearing a PRIDE t-shirt. And Christian business-owners do not demand that customers wear crucifixes or take Communion in order to be served.

It’s important to note this critical distinction: A ceremony that celebrates the union of two people of the same-sex is not identical to a ceremony that celebrates the union of two people of opposite sexes. Such a ceremony is the antithesis of a marriage, which is why many orthodox Christians will not use the terms “wedding” or “marriage” to describe the union of two people of the same-sex.

Calling a homoerotic union a “marriage” does not make it a marriage in reality. Just as legally construing a human as 3/5 person would not make him in reality only 3/5 a person, the foolish decision of foolish people to recognize legally a homoerotic union as a “marriage” does not make it in reality a marriage.

So, the request of homosexuals for a cake for their “wedding” is not the same as a request from a heterosexual couple for a cake for their wedding. Homosexuals are seeking to compel bakers to make a product for an entirely different type of event, and one which the bakers believe mocks real marriage and offends God.

Bruni trots out and beats the dying but still useful homosexuality = race horse: “As these lamentations about religious liberty get tossed around, it’s worth remembering that racists have used the same argument to try to perpetuate segregation.” It’s also worth remembering that the fact that one group of people with a gross misunderstanding of Scripture appealed to religious liberty to defend evil practices does not mean all groups who appeal to religious liberty are guilty of engaging in evil practices or of grossly misinterpreting Scripture.

Moreover, it makes no rational sense to compare a condition like race that has no inherent connection to either feelings or volitional acts to homoeroticism which is constituted solely by feelings and volitional acts.

Since Bruni is busy declaring the boundaries in which people of faith may exercise their religion, maybe Bruni can help us out by answering these questions:

• Should a male Muslim massage therapist whose faith prohibits him from touching unrelated women be required to give massages to unrelated women?

• Should a Mormon hairdresser whose faith teaches that polygamy is profoundly sinful be required to use her skills to style the hair of brides in a polygamist’s commitment ceremony?

• Should a Christian whose faith teaches that racism is sinful be required to bake a cake decorated with a white supremacy message for a Neo-Nazi event?

• Should a baker who identifies as a “gay Christian” and attends a theologically heterodox church—perhaps a Metropolitan Community Church or a Dignity USA chapter—be compelled to make a cake for a National Organization for Marriage event?

Bruni makes clear the error in his thinking when he says that Christian bakers, photographers, and florists “are routinely interacting with customers who behave in ways they deem sinful. They don’t get to single out one group of supposed sinners. If they’re allowed to, who’s to say they’ll stop at that group?”

Bruni’s rendering of the plight of Christian owners of wedding-related businesses is backwards. Christian owners of wedding-related businesses are not singling out and refusing to serve a particular group of sinners. Rather, some members of a particular group of sinners are trying to force Christian owners of wedding-related businesses to participate in their sin.

Bruni presumptuously proclaims that “Baking a cake, arranging roses, running an inn: These aren’t religious acts…”

Well, God may beg to differ with Bruni:

• “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).

• And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col. 3:17).

• “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men…” (Col. 3:23)

• “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness…” (Jer. 22:13).

• “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).

• “For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.  Therefore do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.  Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.  For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret” (Eph. 5: 5-12).

Due to the astonishing influence of homosexual and “trans” activism and the unbiblical cowardice of Christians—including especially Christian leaders—we’re going to see the government increasingly making demands on Christians with which Christians ought not comply. It is during those times that Christians should remember that we are commanded to “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

The Truth Project

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

CLICK HERE for Details

A fresh campaign has been launched on behalf of an official with the Atlanta fire department – a Christian – who was fired after making public his biblically based views on homosexuality.

Kelvin Cochran, chief of the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department, was suspended in November after he wrote a short book, a portion of which conveys the biblical view of homosexuality. He gave copies of the book, Who Told You That You Were Naked? (self-published in November 2013), to a few co-workers he knew to be strong Christians – but three city employees also received a copy without asking for one.

Mayor Kasim Reed now has fired Cochran after suspending him for a month without pay, saying “his actions and decision-making undermine his ability to effectively manage a large, diverse work force.” Cochran, a firefighter for more than three decades, otherwise had no blemish on his record.

Gary Cass of DefendChristians.org responds to news of Cochran’s firing and Mayor Reed’s remarks.

“It appears that simply upholding a traditional Christian view of morality automatically makes you unfit for any kind of leadership in this morally upside down world of political correctness,” Cass tells OneNewsNow. “It seems that Chief Cochran is being fired not for his actions, but simply for holding a biblical worldview.”

The mayor has stated publicly that Cochran’s “personal religious beliefs are not the issue,” but that the city’s nondiscrimination policy is “nonnegotiable.”

Cochran is a strong Southern Baptist – and Cass points out that Mayor Reed is a member of Cascade United Methodist Church in Atlanta.

“So here’s somebody [Reed] who ostensibly identifies as a Christian, who thinks he can be fair in the way that he conducts his business but apparently [thinks] Chief Cochran can’t be fair,” Cass surmises. “So it’s an interesting confluence of hypocrisy and double standards all at the same time.”

He asks on his website: “Does Mayor Reed believe what the Bible says about the sin of homosexuality? If so, shouldn’t he resign, too?”

At the end of the day, adds Cass, the action taken against Cochran is “an overt violation of Chief Cochran’s First Amendment liberties.” Cass is hopeful Christians will continue to contact Reed’s office on Cochran’s behalf.

Following Cochran’s suspension, the Georgia Baptist Convention initiated an online petition calling for the chief’s reinstatement. Another petition is available at ExtinguishIntolerance.com.

Take ACTION:  The American Family Association has launched a “Stand with Chief Kelvin Cochran” campaign that allows individuals to (1) sign a statement of support that will be delivered to Chief Cochran, and (2) contact Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed via email or telephone.

This article was originally posted at the OneNewsNow.com website.

From American Family Association

Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran was fired from his job this week by the mayor because of his Christian views on marriage.

After serving a one-month suspension for writing a book expressing sex outside marriage (including homosexuality) as sinful, Chief Cochran faced the wrath of homosexual activists and Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed and was  publicly chastised and summarily fired from his position.

Chief Cochran, a devoted Christian, wrote a short book, a portion of which conveys the biblical view of homosexuality. He gave copies of the book, Who Told You That You Were Naked? (published in November 2013), to a few co-workers he knew to be strong Christians – but three city employees also received a copy without asking for one.

Chief Cochran said he referenced homosexuality on less than half a page in the 160-page book.

According to OneNewsNow and other news sources, the mayor was praised by openly homosexual councilman Alex Wan for terminating Chief Cochran.

“When you’re a city employee, and [your] thoughts, beliefs and opinions are different from the city’s, you have to check them at the door.” – Councilman Alex Wan

“I want to be clear that the material in Chief Cochran’s book is not representative of my personal beliefs…” – Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.

For his Christian faith, he was fired from his job.

TAKE ACTION

A Christian brother is facing anti-Christian bigotry at its worst. The mayor and a councilman have shown their intolerance and hatred toward a person of faith, and have proved they are willing to take revenge against anyone who doesn’t embrace the pro-homosexual lifestyle.

Will you stand with Chief Kelvin Cochran by taking the following actions?

1. Sign the Statement of Support to be delivered to Chief Cochran

2. Contact Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed (A pre-written email message and phone number are available)

If you’re like six in ten Americans, you make New Year’s resolutions at least some of the time. According to the website Statistic Brain, the top five resolutions are: losing weight, getting organized, spending less and saving more, enjoying life to the fullest, and staying fit and healthy.

Now those are fine resolutions, although they’re all pretty self-directed. But if you’re making resolutions for 2015, let me urge you to consider an old one that hardly makes anyone’s list, but is certainly at the top of mine.

Will you resolve to support religious freedom in 2015? If we don’t do it in this New Year, it just might be too late.

Just think of all that has happened to undermine religious freedom, the first freedom, in 2014. Think about all the Christian bakers and florists who were told to support what are called “same-sex marriages” or face ruinous fines and the loss of their careers.

Or think of Gordon College, a well-regarded evangelical institution that faces the possible loss of accreditation for its biblical beliefs about human sexuality. Gordon President Michael Lindsey, a friend of mine, dared to sign a letter requesting that President Obama include a religious exemption in an executive order that would prohibit discrimination in hiring and employment on the basis of sexual orientation or “gender identity.”

Or, think of the owners of Hobby Lobby, a Christian-run company, or the Catholic Little Sisters of the Poor, being told by the Obama administration that they must provide their employees with drugs that can induce abortions.

Wheaton College in Illinois, which faces the same issue, is also fighting for its beliefs in court. Yet most of us go about our lives as if nothing is really happening, as if all is well. Well folks, it isn’t!

Now let me make it clear that I’m concerned about protecting this old, fundamental right for all Americans, not simply protecting our rights as Christians. God forbid. This is about freedom of conscience and giving everyone the opportunity to exercise a faith, or to exercise no faith at all.

I can never get Jonathan Swift’s classic satire “Gulliver’s Travels” out of my mind when I think of this. Remember the scene where a sleeping Gulliver is being tied down by the Lilliputians? Gulliver is like the American church, asleep. At any moment, if he wakes, he can crush the Lilliputians, which are the proliferating ways that our culture restricts our freedom of action and belief. But as Gulliver continues to sleep, the Lilliputians are putting one small rope across him followed by another. If Gulliver doesn’t wake up in time, eventually there’ll be too many ropes, and he will not be able to get up. Folks, that is happening.

As my friend Os Guinness said in his great book, “A Free People’s Suicide,” “America’s writing on the wall is evident to those who are watching.”

My question is whether this will be the year when the church finally realizes that although our situation may not be as dire as Bonhoeffer’s and the German church during the Third Reich, the principle is exactly the same. When the state tries to impose its values on a sleeping church, it will succeed and will eventually neutralize the voice of the church completely.

Now, I do see some hopeful signs. Remember earlier this year when the mayor of Houston subpoenaed the sermons of pastors? Many Christians, some of you, flooded her office with sermons, books, and Bibles, and she backed down. The incident was a tiny wake-up call for the church, enabling us to see that the battle for religious liberty is real, and we had better fight it.

But many more challenges are coming. Let’s make a resolution to stay awake for religious liberty in 2015. It is the most important resolution we can possibly make.

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

If you missed the Illinois Family Institute’s annual fall banquet back in September you missed an important keynote speech by bestselling author Eric Metaxas. Combining encouragement and a call to action, Metaxas emphasized that “it is time for us to be all in” when it comes to the political and cultural battle.

This speech by Metaxas is now available on DVD, and I highly recommend that IFI supporters listen to it and then share it with as many people as possible.

Eric Metaxas first came to the attention of many after his speech about religious liberty at the National Prayer Breakfast in early 2012. Others know him from his award winning biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, or his book about William Wilberforce, Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery.

In his speech Metaxas discussed the examples of both men – “We need to know these stories of encouragement.” Metaxas contrasted Bonhoeffer and Wilberforce with those who say, “I don’t know if Christians should be political – they should just preach the Gospel.” Metaxas responded: “Do you think Wilberforce was political?”

“If you give a darn about people suffering…in the case of Wilberforce that meant being very political,” Metaxas said. “Some people didn’t like that – they said he should keep his faith private…There are a lot of people who are glad that he didn’t keep his faith private.”

“Don’t think about what people say,” Metaxas said, “think about those people who are suffering.”

Wilberforce’s impact was felt “far beyond the slave trade,” Metaxas said, and added: “It is staggering to see how God used this one man. It needs to be a lesson for us – you have no idea what God can do through you.” Wilberforce, Metaxas said, “was used to totally transform that culture.”

As tough as the political fight might be, Metaxas said, Christians shouldn’t be fatalistic, but rather are called to rejoice and be hopeful – “we don’t know what the future holds.”

In Germany in the 1930s the Christian Church failed to heed the warnings of men like Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “Germans became comfortable,” Metaxas said, and their complacency resulted in their forfeiting religious liberty. A parallel can be seen in America today as encroachments upon our religious freedoms are increasing at an alarming rate.

Religious liberty is at the heart of all of our liberties, Metaxas said. The Founders understood that without Christian morality, “the whole thing doesn’t work…the free market is nothing, and democracy is nothing without a moral populace.”

Metaxas also challenged pastors to “rejoice in rebelling against anything that would restrict religious freedom.” As during the founding era, he said, we can’t just “sit this one out.”

If every pastor in America was in the fight, Metaxas said, then we would be free: “There should be at least one line in every sermon you preach that would threaten your 501c3 status.”

“God is with us,” Metaxas said, so this should not be a dour campaign: “Now is the time for us to be all in. We can all give more money, we can all sacrifice more, we have time that we’re not using wisely…this is it – the church has to be all in.”

“I’m in a room full of heroes,” Metaxas said, “I often think, what would it be like if this organization didn’t exist.”

“I thank God for those of you who support this organization – you’re doing the Lord’s work.”

Order Today! The suggested donation is $15. Call the IFI office at 708-781-9328 or you can also send a check to following address indicate you would like the DVD:

Illinois Family Institute
P.O. Box 88848
Carol Stream, IL  60188

Written By Howard Slugh

In 2014, activists in Michigan and Arizona successfully lobbied against proposed Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs). Proponents of the laws were caught off guard, never expecting such fierce opposition to the usually popular legislation. RFRAs’ supporters must learn from this year’s stiff opposition in order to ensure that they are better prepared to defend the laws in the future.

In Arizona, RFRAs’ opponents tarnished the proposed law by misleading the public into believing that, if it passed, religious business owners would suddenly refuse to serve homosexuals. Opponents of Michigan’s proposed statue, emboldened by the successful strategy in Arizona, took this false and incendiary rhetoric to an entirely new level. They absurdly claimed that if Michigan adopted the RFRA, emergency medical technicians (EMTs) who were religious could refuse to treat gays and lesbians who lay suffering on the street.

RFRAs’ supporters must reframe the debate by demonstrating that the critics’ claims are untrue or wildly exaggerated and by providing the public with specific examples of the people protected by RFRAs. An important first step is to understand why states are passing RFRAs and what those laws are intended to accomplish. In 1990, the Supreme Court determined that “generally applicable” laws that incidentally burden the free exercise of religion are not subject to the full protections of the First Amendment. The RFRA, as its title suggests, was intended to “restore” the robust protections that most people thought had applied to religious liberty. The law won strong bipartisan and public support, passing both houses of Congress with only three dissenting votes. At that time, no one imagined that the law might function in the manner described by its recent critics.

In 1997, the Supreme Court decided that the constitutional separation of powers prevented Congress from applying the RFRA to state laws. Therefore, since 1997, people’s religious liberty is less protected from burdensome state laws than from identical federal laws. In order to remedy this imbalance, states began to pass statutes substantially similar to the federal RFRA.

In the early days, these state RFRAs also passed with little or no controversy. Illinois adopted a state RFRA in 1998 with near-unanimous votes in both houses. Today, 19 states and the federal government have RFRA statutes. Cases decided pursuant to these statutes provide actual evidence about how these laws do and do not function.

No state or federal court has ever held that RFRA generally entitles religious business owners to refuse service to gay people. In the 20 years that these laws have existed, there is simply no record of successful cases that would justify the critics’ concerns.

It is predictable that very few, if any, cases would involve arguments that RFRAs allow businesses to refuse to serve gay people. Such a claim simply does not reflect the views of the vast majority of religious Americans. In about half the states in the country, religious business owners serve gay people in the absence of any legal compulsion to do so. Such people have the exact “license to discriminate” that RFRA opponents fear, and yet they choose not to discriminate. There is no reason to believe that religious business owners in states with existing nondiscrimination laws would behave any differently than those in the other half of the county simply because their state adopted an RFRA.

A few prominent cases have occurred in which religious people have claimed a religious obligation to refrain from participating in same-sex weddings, but that is logically distinct from claiming a broad right to discriminate. In fact, the religious people involved in those cases specifically disclaimed a general religious obligation to discriminate against gays. If there is very little evidence that a meaningful number of religious business owners seek to deny general service to gays, there is absolutely no evidence for the even more extreme and absurd claim that religious EMTs want to let gay people die on the street.

Even if a small number of misguided religious outliers claimed that RFRAs allowed them to broadly deny services to gays, it is very likely that they would lose in court. Michigan’s RFRA, like all other RFRAs, does not exempt religious people from a law that is narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest no matter how substantially that law burdens their exercise of religion.

Both of the opponents’ fears highlighted above would probably fall within the exception. There is no doubt that a law requiring EMTs to provide life-saving care to anyone in need would meet the narrow-tailoring and compelling-interest requirements. The Supreme Court has noted, and it is obvious on its face, that states have a compelling interest in protecting the lives and health of their citizens. There is no readily apparent less restrictive alternative to that law.

It is very likely that a statute prohibiting discrimination against gay people in public accommodations would also survive within RFRAs’ exception. The Supreme Courthas found that states have a compelling interest in eliminating discrimination in public accommodations. A handful of courts have found that states have acompelling governmental interest in prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

It is impossible to know for certain how a court would decide this question, because, as noted above, virtually no one has ever tried to use any RFRA in this manner. Therefore, the strongest claim the critics can honestly make is that if new RFRA laws pass, a very small number of people might attempt to use the laws to refuse service to homosexuals and will probably lose in court. That is far less impressive than the claims they have actually made.

Merely pointing out that RFRAs cannot possibly cause the harms posited by its adversaries is insufficient to convince the public that such laws are worthy of support. RFRA advocates must also demonstrate that religious-liberty statutes have provided tangible benefits to real people. Fortunately, there are a sizable number of cases that establish this point. Federal courts have applied RFRAs in many circumstances, including to protect the right of members of a Brazilian church topossess plants necessary to make sacramental tea; Muslim firefighters’ right towear beards that do not interfere with their equipment; Jehovah’s Witnesses’ right to maintain government employment despite refusing to take a loyalty oath; Native Americans’ right to wear long hair in school; and Rastafarians’ right to not be fired by the government for having a traditional haircut.

State courts have also applied RFRAs to protect their citizens. The Virginia Court of Appeals protected a Native American couple’s right to possess bird feathers used in prayer. The Tennessee Court of Appeals held that the state couldn’t autopsy a man over his family’s religious objections. The Ohio Court of Appeals noted that a statute banning a Sikh man from carrying a ceremonial sword for religious reasons would face scrutiny under a religious-liberty statute.

Religious-liberty statutes are particularly important to religious prisoners. Courts have found, for example, that such laws require Jewish prisoners to be provided kosher food; Muslim prisoners to be provided halal food and access to prayer oils; and Native American prisoners to wear religious clothing and have access to certain items used while praying.

Next year is likely to include more debate over the propriety of state RFRAs. Proponents need to be ready to force opponents to answer why they are more concerned with far-fetched hypothetical harms than with the real benefits RFRAs have provided for 20 years.

— Howard Slugh in an attorney practicing in Washington, D.C. Originally Posted at NationalReview.com.

Your church may be the next one approached to host a gay wedding and your pastor asked to perform the ceremony. So what can you do to fend off the lawsuits that are certain to follow when you refuse?

Homosexual activists, called the “Gay Gestapo” by lesbian Tammy Bruce, are busily suing or harassing every Christian business owner and wedding vendor they can find. So far they have gone after wedding photographers, bakers, florists, wedding chapel operators, counselors and now even wedding planners.

Lana Rusev, who runs Simply Elegant Wedding Planning in Jacksonville, Florida, turned down a lesbian ceremony because of her deeply held conviction that marriage is exclusively a one-man, one-woman institution.

Rusev’s family fled Ukraine 26 years ago just to find freedom from this kind of anti-Christian hatred and oppression. Welcome to the land of the free, eh?

For taking a stand on biblical principle, she has been blistered, demonized and vilified on her company’s Facebook page, and her business has been added to the LBGT no-go-zone directory.

Mean-spirited and bigoted members of what Bill Maher calls the “gay mafia” won’t rest until every Christian who supports natural marriage is under virtual house arrest, exiled from polite society and forbidden to engage in commerce of any kind.

Your church may be next. Do not think for one minute that the First Amendment all by itself will guarantee your church’s protection from rabid gay activists and their minions in the court system. The courts have already shredded the First Amendment virtually beyond recognition, and as far as protecting your church’s religious liberty, it may be hardly worth the parchment it’s printed on.

A church in Lakewood, Colorado, is under fire from the gay lobby for canceling a funeral for a lesbian when her family insisted on including in the service pictures of her kissing her lesbian lover. The family is considering a lawsuit against the church, and given the predilection of the courts and its “Gay Rights Uber Alles” mindset, we can expect such a lawsuit to find a sympathetic ear.

What can your church do to make its stance abundantly clear and head off possible lawsuits at the same time? The elders of my church have formally recommended to our church family an amendment to the Constitution and bylaws that spell out in no uncertain terms the church’s stance on homosexuality and gay marriage. (The elders have wisely provided church members with a 30-day comment period before the statement becomes official.)

In part, the intention here is to anticipate the possibility that the church will be approached to host a gay wedding and its pastor asked to perform a same-sex ceremony.

Here’s how the addition reads:

* * * * *

Proposed Change for Statement of Faith

We believe that the term ‘marriage’ has only one meaning and that is marriage sanctioned by God which joins one man and one woman in a single, exclusive union, as delineated in Scripture.

We believe that God intends sexual intimacy to only occur between a man and a woman who are married to each other. We believe that God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of a marriage between a man and a woman.

We believe that any form of sexual immorality, such as adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, pornography or any attempt to change one’s sex, or disagreement with one’s biological sex, is sinful and offensive to God.

We believe that God offers redemption and restoration to all who confess and forsake their sin, seeking His mercy and forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

We believe that every person must be afforded compassion, love, kindness, respect, and dignity.

Hateful and harassing behavior or attitudes directed toward any individual are to be repudiated and are not in accord with Scripture nor the doctrines of the church.

Gen. 2:24; Lev. 18:1-30; Rom. 1: 26-32; 1 Cor. 5:1-2; 6:9; 1 Thess. 4:1-8; Heb. 13:4; 1 Cor. 7:10; Eph. 5:22-23; Mark 10:6-9

* * * * *

To be forewarned is to be forearmed. It might be wise for every church in America to formally adopt this statement or one like it to prepare with prudence and foresight for a litigiously uncertain future.

Thomas Jefferson’s famous wall of separation, as he articulated it, was designed to protect the church from the intrusion and interference of the state (not, you will note, to protect the state from the influence of the church). Jefferson’s wall, erected by the Constitution itself, was intended to prevent the very thing we are witnessing: the state breaking down that protective barrier and barging into the affairs of Christians, Christian business owners and churches and telling them what they must believe and do.

It’s time to rebuild Jefferson’s wall, and this statement just might be the place to start.

Originally published at OneNewsNow.com.

Written by Napp Nazworth

2014 may be remembered as the year of intolerant liberalism, also dubbed the new intolerance, dogmatic liberalism and illiberal liberalism.

In no particular order, here are 33 examples of intolerant liberalism in 2014:

1. “Duck Dynasty”

The year began with a controversy surrounding the popular television show Duck Dynasty. In January, A&E announced the reinstatement of Phil Robertson after he was initially suspended from the show for controversial remarks about homosexuality.

2. HHS Continues to Force Americans to Support Products for Which They Have Ethical Objections

Even after a repudiation from the U.S. Supreme Court, the Obama administration has continued its effort to force some Americans to pay for birth control and abortifacient drugs that they find morally objectionable.

Closely-held corporations must be allowed an exemption from the birth control mandate if it violates their sincerely held religious beliefs, the Court said. Nonetheless, the Obama administration has continued to require that certain religious groups, like colleges and hospitals, be active participants in something they find morally objectionable.

There were many other examples this year of liberals trying to force Christians to participate in an activity that is in opposition to their religious beliefs:

3. New Mexico Photographer Forced Out of Business for Declining to Photograph Same-Sex Wedding

4. Colorado Baker Forced to Make Gay Wedding Cake

5. NY Family Fined for Refusing to Host Same-Sex Wedding on Their Farm, Ordered to Undergo “Re-Education Classes”

6. Washington Florist Required to Serve Same-Sex Wedding

7. Christian T-Shirt Printer Ordered to Take “Diversity Training” for Refusing to Make Gay Pride Shirts

8. Gay Couple Sued Pennsylvania Wedding Venue for Refusing to Marry Them

9. Idaho Wedding Chapel Faced Fines for Refusing Gay Weddings, Before City Backed Off

10. State Laws to Protect Religious Freedom Under Attack

In reaction to efforts to force Christian wedding vendors to serve same-sex weddings, some states sought to pass or strengthen their state-level version of the national Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The federal RFRA was passed with almost unaimous bipartisan support in the 1990s and signed by President Bill Clinton. In 2014, however, the nation was deeply divided over whether religious freedom should allowed when it comes into conflict with, what some call, “gay rights.” The debate first occured in Arizona, where opponents falsely claimed that the law would allow businesses the right to deny gays access to public accomodations. The debate continued in Georgia, Mississippi and Michigan.

11. Gay Activist Groups Withdraw Support for ENDA Because It Protects Religious Freedom

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act had the support of gay activist groups last year when it was passed by a Democrat-controlled Senate. But after the U.S. Supreme Court supported religious freedom protections for Hobby Lobby, some gay advocacy and atheist groups rescinded that support, saying they could not support a bill that also protected religious freedom.

12. Gordon College Under Attack After Its President Signs Letter Asking for Religious Freedom Protections in Obama’s Executive Order

After President Barack Obama announced he would sign an ENDA-like executive order for government contractors, Michael Wear, who led the faith outreach for Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign and worked in Obama’s Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, wrote a letter to Obama, along with 13 other signers, encouraging him to include the same religious exemption that was in the Senate bill.

One of the signers of that letter was D. Michael Lindsay, president of Gordon College, an evangelical college in Massachusetts. Even though the letter was not asking for any special treatment for Gordon College (the order only applied to government contractors), the letter was written by a former Obama White House staffer, and the letter was only asking for what was already in a bill passed by a Democrat-controlled Senate, the act of signing that letter made Lindsay and Gordon College a target for certain gay activist groups. As a result, the mayor of Salem, Massachusetts,ended a contract with the school and Gordon is being investigated by its accrediting agency.

13. Brendan Eich Forced Out at Mozilla for Supporting Traditional Marriage

Brendan Eich, the CEO of Mozilla, was forced out of his job because he supported a California ballot initiative to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

14. Harvard Student Called for End to Tenure to Expel Conservative Professors

Writing for the student newspaper, a Harvard student called for getting rid of tenure so that colleges could get rid of conservative professors.

15. HGTV Cancels Benham Brothers Show

HGTV cancelled a reality show with the “Benham Brothers” after they discovered the brothers were outspoken conservative Christians.

16. SunTrust Bank Cancels Benham Brothers Bank Account

For some intolerant liberals, conservative Christians should not only not be allowed to have their own TV show, they should also not be allowed to have bank accounts. After the public controversy, SunTrust Bank told the Benham Brothers they would no longer have them as a customer. After a public backlash, SunTrust reversed its decision.

17. NYT Reporter Says Traditional Marriage Supporters “Unworthy of Respect,” Deserve Incivility

In a Twitter debate with Ryan Anderson, New York Times reporter Josh Barro said it is OK to be uncivil toward traditional marriage supporters because such people are “unworthy of respect.”

18. Houston Mayor Subpeonas Pastor’s Sermons, Private Communication About Homosexuality

After Mayor Annise Parker was sued for throwing out petition signatures and declining to place on the ballot a repeal of the city’s new transgender law, her legal team issued subpoenas to five Houston pastors for all of their sermon notes and personal communication related to homosexuality and gender identity. The move, apparently an attempt to intimidate the pastors into backing off, backfired quickly. There was national outrage over the subpoenas and legal experts from across the political spectrum all agreed that the subpoenas were overly broad. Parker first changed the subpoenas to not include sermons, then dropped the subpoenas entirely. The suit will go to trial in January.

19. Wikipedia Editors Attempt to Remove Entry for the Federalist After Neil deGrasse Tyson Flap

The Federalist, a conservative news and opinion website, ran a series of articles pointing out that celebrity scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson had misquoted former President George W. Bush in his public speeches. References to that story were being removed from Tyson’s Wikipedia entry. At least one Wikipedia editor took the spat a step further and tried to remove The Federalist’s Wikipedia page.

20. Kickstarter Censors Fundraiser for Abortionist Gosnell Documentary

Kickstarter, a crowd funding website, would not allow a campaign for a film proposal about abortionist and convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell to accurately describe what Gosnell was convicted of doing (stabbing babies to death). While Kickstarter’s CEO claimed that describing what the movie was about was inconsistent with his website’s “community guidelines,” columnist Kirsten Powers pointed out Kickstarter has been selective in how it has applied those guidelines.

21. Philosophy Professor Says Global Warming Skeptics Should Be Imprisoned

Lawrence Torcello, assistant professor of philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology, wrote an op-ed arguing for criminal penalties for those who criticize scientific claims about global warming. In one of the examples he used, the penalty was imprisonment.

22. Ezra Klein Criticized for Hiring Gay Man With Different Opinions Than Most Gays

Ezra Klein, a former liberal columnist for The Washington Post who started Vox.com, was denounced by some liberals for hiring Brandon Ambrosino. Even though Ambrosino is liberal and gay, the fact that he has said some things that are slightly out of step with what liberal gay men are “supposed” to say made him a target for those close-minded liberals.

23. Marquette University Trains Employees to Report Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage as Harrassment

Marquette, a Catholic university in Wisconsin, required all its employees to undergo anti-harrassment training in which opposition to same-sex marriage is considered a form of harrasment.

24. Marquette Professor Suspended for Criticizing Teacher Who Will Not Allow Students to Voice Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage

Consistent with No. 23, a Marquette teaching assistant told her students that those who support the traditional definition of marriage should not voice their opinions in class because such views are offensive. After John McAdams, associate professor of political science at the university, wrote a blog post criticizing that pedagogy, he was suspended.

25. Radical Feminist Conference Forced to Change Venues After Transgender Opposition

The Radfem Conference, a group of self-described radical feminists, has been forced to change venues on several occasions due to intimidation tactics by certain transgender groups. These radical feminists hold views that transgender groups do not like. In particular, the radical feminists think there’s an important difference between one who is female and one who is male but thinks of themselves as female. So the radical feminists should not be allowed to hold a conference, those transgender groups believe. In the August issue of New Yorker, Michelle Goldberg wrote about the transgender group’s intimidation tactics, which included threats of violence.

26. Christian Groups Booted From California College Campuses

California state universities, the largest state university system in the country, will no longer recognize Intervarsity Christian Fellowship as a student group because the organization requires its leaders to hold beliefs consistent with the organization’s beliefs.

27. “It’s OK to Hate Republicans,” University of Michigan Professor Wrote

Susan Douglas, professor of communications at the University of Michigan, penned an op-ed for In These Times titled, “It’s OK to Hate Republicans.” Republicans vilify others, she complained in the article, vilifying Republicans as dogmatic, rigid, intolerant
 of ambiguity and supportive of authoritarianism. The title was later changed to, “We Can’t All Just Get Along,” at the request of the author.

Also in 2014, there were many attempts, some successful, to disinvite college speakers, lest students be exposed to different points of view:

28. Brandeis University Rescinded and Honorary Degree and Disinvited Ayaan Hirsi Ali

29. Brown University Disinvited Ray Kelly

30. Berkeley Students Attempted to Get Bill Maher Banned From Delivering a Commencement Address

31. Stanford Students Tried to Ban Ryan Anderson’s Appearance

32. Smith College Disinvited Christine Lagarde as Commencement Speaker 

33. Azusa Pacific Disinvited Charles Murray

For some additional reading on this issue, check out these articles:

Liberal Professor Stunned to Learn Liberals Not More Open-Minded Than Conservatives

Analysis: Why Tolerant Liberals Can Win Their Fight With Intolerant Liberals; A Response to Robert P. George

Christians Who Cave to the ‘New Intolerance’ Only Make It Worse, Mary Eberstadt Says

Political Party Analysis: Democrats Will Lose Elections if They Don’t Fix Their Religion Problem

Liberals Now Deeply Divided Over Religious Freedom and Homosexuality

These Four Liberals Believe in Diversity, Tolerance

This article was originally posted at The Christian Post website.

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.” (Matthew 5:13)

At the recent fund raising banquet for Abstinence & Education Partnership, Dr. Erwin Lutzer of Moody Church spoke with IFI’s Monte Larrick about recent developments in the state of religious liberty and the Church’s presence in the public square. Watch the interview below:

Help us reach our goal of raising a total of $80,000 during the month of December.

You can also send a gift by mail to:

Illinois Family Institute
P.O. Box 88848
Carol Stream, IL  60188

Written by Brendan O’Neill

Rather than striking a blow for individual liberties, the dogma of gay marriage is stifling them

AUSTRALIA–Has there ever been a sweeter-sounding, more goosebump-inducing phrase than ‘Freedom to marry’? Everyone likes freedom (even illiberal politicians pay lip service to liberty), and who doesn’t love a good wedding? Marry these two things together (pun intended) and you end up with an endorphin-releasing buzzphrase that will make anyone grin wildly.

So it has been following Senator David Leyonhjelm’s unveiling of the Freedom to Marry Bill. Across Oz, right-minded people who think gays must be allowed to get hitched experienced paroxysms of joy at the introduction of this new phrase into the political vernacular. Sure, those of a leftish bent had trouble computing the fact that it’s a classical liberal politician who’s championing their most beloved cause. But the instant they made peace with this seeming anomaly, they, together with small-l liberals, gay-rights activists and the Age-reading patrons of non-chain coffee shops across the land (well, in Melbourne), were giving themselves adrenalin rushes by whispering those three magic words: ‘Freedom to marry…’

I hate to rain on this fabulous parade, but there’s a massive problem with this happy-clappy rallying cry. And it’s this: everywhere gay marriage has been introduced it has battered freedom, not boosted it. Debate has been chilled, dissenters harried, critics tear-gassed. Love and marriage might go together like horse and carriage, but freedom and gay marriage certainly do not. The double-thinking ‘freedom to marry’ has done more to power the elbow of the state than it has to expand the liberty of men and women.
There are awkward questions the ‘freedom to marry’ folks just can’t answer. Like: if gay marriage is a liberal cause, how come it’s been attended by authoritarianism wherever it’s been introduced?

Consider France. Hundreds of thousands of French people — or ‘bigots’, as the gay-marriage lobby brands anyone who disagrees with it — marched against the legalisation of gay marriage in 2013. And they were beaten and tear-gassed by riot cops. Parisians in t-shirts celebrating traditional marriage were arrested for holding ‘unauthorised protests’. In the words of Parisian writer John Laughland, critics of gay marriage were turned into ‘ideological enemies’ of the French state. It’s a funny expansion of freedom that so violently pummels the right to protest.

Consider America. The authorities there haven’t had to whip out their truncheons because non-state mobs have policed the opponents of gay marriage on their behalf. In the words of the author Damon Linker, asupporter of gay marriage, Americans who raise even a peep of criticism of gay marriage face ‘ostracism from public life’. We saw this with the medieval hounding of Brendan Eich out of his job at Mozilla after it was revealed that — oh, the humanity! — he isn’t a massive fan of gays getting married. Linker says the gay-marriage brigade has created a menacing climate, where the aim seems to be to ‘stamp out rival visions’. Americans who fail to bow at the altar of same-sex hitching, from wedding photographers to cake-makers, are harassed and boycotted and sometimes put out of business. The ‘freedom to marry’ clearly trumps the freedom of conscience.

Consider Britain. One of the first things gay campaigners here did when they won the right to marry was demand Catholic schools be forced to teach that gay marriage is as good as straight; even though they don’t believe this. Screw you, freedom of religion. Perhaps Catholic schools should bring back ‘priest holes’ to discuss their beliefs free from the watchful stare of the gay-marriage lobby, which, in Linker’s words, demands ‘psychological acceptance’ of gay marriage from all.

Why is this alleged freedom so feverishly embraced by politicians who can’t spell the word freedom? There’s David Cameron, demolisher of press freedom; French officials, so allergic to liberty that they won’t let Muslim women wear what they want; Obama, Christendom’s spymaster-in-general. What draws such freedom-fearing rulers to the ‘freedom to marry’? It’s simple: gay marriage has diddly-squat to do with freedom. Rather, this new institution, invented from pure cloth by tiny numbers of sharp-suited lawyers and agitators, is better seen as a Trojan horse for the enforcement of a new morality, one which calls into question the old virtues of lifelong commitment and familial sovereignty and replaces them with the flightiness and flexibility more commonly associated with gay relationships. ‘Gay marriage’ is the lick of paint modern society gives to its own discomfort with the traditional family set-up and its desire to dismantle, or at least dent, that set-up in favour of pushing new, post-traditional, state-defined hook-ups.

Twenty-five years ago, American thinker Christopher Lasch argued that ‘progressive rhetoric has the effect of concealing social crisis and moral breakdown by presenting them as the birth pangs of a new order’. Bingo! There’s no better description of gay marriage. Here, too, progressive-sounding rhetoric is really the dolling-up of our atomised, risk-averse societies’ growing disdain for those deep relationships in which families and communities traditionally socialised the next generation, mostly away from the prying eyes of the state.

This is why the gay-marriage campaign is so contradictorily illiberal, so hostile to dissent, and so attractive to petty-authoritarian politicians: because it isn’t about expanding liberty at all; it’s about unilaterally overhauling the moral outlook of the traditionalist sections of society and elevating the commitment-phobic, passion-lite, short-termist values of the chattering classes instead.
 Aussie campaigners for the ‘Freedom to marry’ are actually lucky that the PM isn’t cheering their moral crusade. Because this means that when they finally win this illiberal liberty — which they unquestionably will — they’ll be able to present it as a great victory for civil libertarians who bravely took on The Man. When in truth, their victory will be built on the spilt blood of French protesters and the trampled-upon right to dissent of Americans and Britons and the transformation of gay marriage by Western political elites into a new orthodoxy that you question at your peril.

Poor Mr Leyonhjelm — he thinks he’s striking a blow for liberty, when really he’s completing the final act in a pink-tinged tyranny kickstarted by the new authoritarians of the modern West.

Originally posted at The Spectator