Why is it that organizations like the SPLC can designate conservative Christians as hate groups while ignoring radical leftists like Antifa? Why is it that Facebook and Google and YouTube and Twitter appear to punish conservatives disproportionately for alleged violations of community guidelines?

The answer is as disturbing as it is simple. The left believes it is so morally and intellectually superior to the right that it can see nothing wrong with its extreme positions and hostile words. Is it wrong to be intolerant of bigots? Is it wrong to hate (or even punch) a Nazi?

In short, if I’m a member of the KKK, is it wrong for you to disparage and mock me? If I’m a dangerous homophobe, is it wrong for you to vilify and exclude me? If I’m a hate-filled propogandist spreading dangerous lies, is it wrong for you to mark me and marginalize me?

Of course, there are double standards on all sides of the debate, on the right as well as on the left. And there is more than enough hypocrisy to go around, from the most progressive to the most conservative.

All of us also have our share of blind spots, so we tend to condemn in others what we justify in ourselves. Welcome to human nature.

Still, it is conspicuous that the same behavior gets treated differently by the leftist elite (including many a university professor) and by watchdog groups like the SPLC and by the internet giants.

Back in 2004-05, when I first began to address gay activism, I was widely mocked for saying, “Those who came out of the closet want to put us in the closet.”

The response was consistent: “No one wants to put you in the closet!”

A few years back, I noticed a change in tone: “Bigots like you belong in the closet!”

But of course!

While being interviewed on a Christian TV program back in 2011, I quoted the comment of a Christian attorney. He told me that those who were once put in jail (speaking of pioneer gay activists) will want to put us in jail.

For having the audacity to say this on Christian TV, I was vilified and maligned.

Yet when Kim Davis was jailed in 2015 for refusing a court order to grant same-sex marriage licenses, there was widespread rejoicing on the left: “Kim Davis is ISIS! Lock her up!”

Again, I’m aware of double standards on all sides, and it’s a point of personal reflection and self-examination in my own life.

For example, I believed that, in 2004, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom should have been disciplined for issuing same-sex marriage licenses in violation of the law. Yet I believe that Kim Davis was within her rights in refusing to issue such licenses and her home state of Kentucky failed to protect her, under the law.

These are debates we can (and should) have.

What I’m talking about here has to do with fundamental attitudes, with the basis of our judgments, with the inability to see wrong on one’s own side. I’m talking about a dangerous hypocrisy. (For the record, I never compared Gavin Newsom to Muslim terrorists.)

In my May, 2016, article “Is Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg a Well-Intended Liberal with a Massive Blind Spot?”, I referenced the kidnapping of Adolf Eichmann, the notorious Nazi mass murderer, who was apprehended by two Israeli agents while living quietly with his family in Argentina.

They had to wait for several weeks before smuggling him out of the country, during which time they spent many hours in private conversation with him, somehow managing to restrain themselves from taking the law into their own hands.

During one of the conversations, one of the agents realized that Eichmann had given the order to exterminate the village in which his wife’s family lived, killing every single one of them.

When asked how he could do such a thing, Eichmann seemed perturbed, responding, “But they were Jews.”

Of course he gave the order to kill them. What else was he to do?

Again, to be clear, I am not comparing the SPLC or Facebook or Google to Eichmann and the Nazis. That would be as bad as leftists comparing conservatives to Nazis. Not a chance.

I’m simply pointing out that in Eichmann’s twisted world, he was only following orders and doing what was right.

So also, in Antifa’s twisted world (although, again, I emphasize, not as twisted as that of the Nazis), they are doing what is right in violently opposing the tyrannical right. Somebody’s got to do it!

Thankfully, there is an ongoing, healthy push-back against this liberal hypocrisy. In fact, just this week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions called out the SPLC for using hate group labels to “bully” conservatives. Let their hypocrisy be exposed.

But remember: You have been prejudged as guilty, so your mistreatment is well-deserved.

It is this highly bigoted attitude we must overcome with truth, reason, determination, and love.

This article originally posted at Townhall.com.

The three cases dealt with quite different issues.

In National Institute of Family Life Advocates v. Becerra, a 5-4 majority of the court overturned a California statute that required anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers to inform clients where they could obtain free or inexpensive abortions — something the centers regard as homicide.

The same 5-4 majority in a second case, Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, reversed a 41-year-old precedent and ruled that public employees don’t have to pay unions fees that cover the cost of collective bargaining. Echoing a position taken by then-President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s, the court reasoned that collective bargaining with a public employer is inevitably a political matter, and that forcing employees to finance it is compelling them to subsidize political speech with which they disagree.

In the third case, Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the court avoided a direct decision on whether a baker, whose Christian belief opposed same-sex marriage, could refuse to design a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple, contrary to a state law that bars discrimination against gays. Seven justices ruled that the commission showed an impermissible animus against religion, but the four liberal justices endorsed a separate opinion indicating they’d rule against the baker otherwise.

Rational arguments can now be made for the dissenters’ positions. In Becerra, they argued that the law simply prevented misleading advertising; in Janus, they argued that union members should pay for services rendered; in Masterpiece Cakeshop, they argued that selling a cake is a routine service, not a form of expression. You may not agree, but you can see why others might make these arguments.

But are they “liberal”? That word comes from a Latin root that means “free.”

And “free” is the keyword in the First Amendment to the Constitution, which bars Congress from passing laws “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion or “abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.”

The Supreme Court First Amendment jurisprudence got its start almost exactly 100 years ago, in cases challenging laws passed by a Democratic Congress and endorsed by a Democratic administration, prohibiting opposition to the government and, specifically, American participation in World War I.

The justices hesitated to block such prosecutions, but those considered “liberal” — Republican appointee Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and Democratic appointee Justice Louis Brandeis — were most likely to look askance. The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 to defend the free speech rights of everyone, even vile extremists.

Unhappily, the ACLU today subordinates free speech to other values, like defending the sensibilities of certain students on campuses. And other liberals have been moving in the same direction. It’s less important for them that people say what they think and more important that they say what the government requires.

In his Bagehot blog, the Economist’s Adrian Wooldridge describes the process. Historically, he says, liberals understood that conflict was inevitable and tried to foster freedom based on their distrust of power, faith in progress and belief in civic respect. But today, Wooldridge writes, “liberalism as a philosophy has been captured by a technocratic-managerial-cosmopolitan elite.” They have moved from making “a critique of the existing power structure” to becoming “one of the most powerful elites in history.” In response, we see “a revolt of the provinces against the city”: Brexit, Donald Trump. In counter-response, as Niall Ferguson puts it in a column for The Times of London, “‘liberals’ are increasingly authoritarian.”

Like the “liberal” Supreme Court justices, who don’t see a constitutional problem with compelling crisis pregnancy centers to send messages they find repugnant, or requiring union members to subsidize political speech they disagree with, or forcing people to participate in ceremonies prohibited by their religion.

In the process, they are providing support for Friedrich Hayek‘s argument in “The Road to Serfdom” that moving toward socialism means moving toward authoritarianism. And they seem to not have noticed Yale Law Professor Stephen Carter‘s observation, as quoted in The Atlantic, that “every law is violent” because “Behind every exercise of law stands the sheriff.”

Carter calls for “a degree of humility” in passing and enforcing laws that compel speech against conscience — something today’s “liberals” seem to have forgotten.

Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.

This article originally posted at Creators.com

Posted by 2nd Vote

A New Hampshire Planet Fitness did right by its members this week by having police arrest a man who said the company’s “Judgement Free Zone” let him do yoga poses naked. The man is being hit with multiple charges, and will go to trial in September.

A “Judgement Free Zone” shouldn’t be controversial at a gym. Working out, building muscle, getting in better shape, losing weight — all judgement-free. Walking around nude outside of the men’s locker room? Definitely illegal and shockingly inappropriate.

However, it appears that Planet Fitness gender ideology convinced this one man that he could expose himself to who knows how many women — and that would be just a-okay with gym staff.

Planet Fitness has created a reputation for itself as a haven for men who take advantage of the company’s policies which allow men to use women’s locker rooms. In 2015, staff cancelled the membership of a woman who reported to local and corporate staff, as well as members, that a man used the female locker room. Her efforts to raise awareness were problematic, according to Planet Fitness:

“The manner in which this member expressed her concerns about the policy exhibited behavior that management at the Midland club deemed inappropriate and disruptive to other members, which is a violation of the membership agreement and as a result her membership was canceled,” Gosselin said in a statement on behalf of Planet Fitness.

“Planet Fitness is committed to creating a non-intimidating, welcoming environment for our members. Our gender identity nondiscrimination policy states that members and guests may use all gym facilities based on their sincere self-reported gender identity.”

Another woman claims she faced similar treatment earlier this year. The conservative legal group Liberty Counsel is representing a woman whom they say reported a man who was intentionally taking up space and time in a female locker room. The man was asked to finish whatever he was doing — according to Liberty Counsel’s complaint, their client says the man pretended to apply makeup “for at least an hour,” intentionally preventing their client — a prior rape victim who asked him to leave the locker room — from changing, using bathroom facilities, etc. in peace and safety. He then reported her to police for alleged harassment, and Planet Fitness cancelled her membership.

Liberty Counsel’s complaint cites several Florida laws, Planet Fitness’ own policies, and basic human decency. However, none of this would be a problem if Planet Fitness’ policies reflected biological reality instead of its own Starbucks-like decision to put left-wing ideology over running a business.

Leftists frequently say it’s important to avoid “triggering” people — unless it’s women in restrooms and locker rooms who want to feel safe. Little girls and sexually abused women apparently don’t count. Well, here at 2ndVote, they do. And we suspect they do for our readers and members. Be sure to let Planet Fitness know where you stand by going elsewhere for your fitness needs.

This article originally posted at 2ndVote.com.

A British doctor has committed the unpardonable sin. He is guilty of medical heresy. He has transgressed the sacred lines of revisionist science. Surely a man like this must be punished.  And punished he shall be.

What exactly was the crime of Dr. David Mackereth, who had worked for the National Health Services for 26 years? He dared to affirm that sex is biologically determined. Yes, that was his terrible transgression.

As the headline in the Daily Mail states, “Christian doctor is SACKED by the Government for refusing to identify patients by their preferred gender because he believes sex is established at birth.”

What in the world was he thinking? How could be so foolish as to believe that a biological male is different than a biological female? How could he not realize that if a man perceives himself to be a woman, then for all medical purposes, “he” is now “she”?

Not only is this doctor a bigot. He is also scientifically ignorant. (I trust you will forgive my sarcasm.)

Ironically, I read this article one day after speaking with a British medical professional. She is responsible for interviewing patients when they come in for treatment, which includes people with life-threatening illnesses.

She told me that some biological males insist on being registered as females, and vice versa. What is she to do?

The doctors are not concerned with how the patient identifies. They’re not interested in knowing if the patient feels at home in his or her body. That is not their concern.

Instead, they must deal with biological realities. Males are different than females, which means that in some cases, males must be treated differently than females. To fail to recognize this is to be unscientific, irrational, and liable to medical malpractice.

So what does this caregiver do? She fills out the form according to biological realities, not internal perceptions. And in doing so, she might just be saving the patient’s life.

The sad thing, though, is that she does this without the patient’s knowledge or approval. Sadder still is the fact that she could be fired for trying to ensure the proper treatment of her patient.

As I have asked in similar contexts many times before, has the whole world gone mad?

What if you truly believed you were blood type A when you were really blood type B? You’ve been in an accident and you’re being rushed to the hospital, needing a transfusion. Thankfully, you’re still conscious, and when the medic asks if you know your own blood type, you say, “Yes, I’m type A.”

As a result, you die on the operating table. You were given the wrong blood. Biology is biology. Perception does not matter.

Israel’s prestigious Weizmann Institute reported last year that, “Researchers Identify 6,500 Genes That Are Expressed Differently in Men and Women.”

Yes, “Men and women differ in obvious and less obvious ways – for example, in the prevalence of certain diseases or reactions to drugs. How are these connected to one’s sex? Weizmann Institute of Science researchers recently uncovered thousands of human genes that are expressed – copied out to make proteins – differently in the two sexes.”

This alone would tell you that, for medical purposes, it’s important to identify men as men and women as women. Yet when a doctor in England determined to do this very thing, he was sacked. This is beyond illogical. This is criminal.

Dr. Mackereth’s new job “would have involved compiling independent reports about the health of those he interviewed who were claiming disability benefits. But matters began to sour when his instructor said reports must only refer to the patient or client by the gender that person selfidentifies [sic] as.”

For him, this was a matter of medical integrity. Of scientific honesty. It was also a matter of his religious beliefs. As he explained, “’I said that I had a problem with this. I believe that gender is defined by biology and genetics and that as a Christian the Bible teaches us that God made humans male or female. I could have kept my mouth shut but it was the right time to raise it.”

And for raising his voice, he was fired. This is political correctness gone totally mad.

As he warned, “I don’t think I should be compelled to use a specific pronoun. I am not setting out to upset anyone. But if upsetting someone can lead to doctors being sacked then, as a society, we have to examine where we are going.”

We are facing similar issues here in the States, while in Canada, Prof. Jordan Peterson has sounded the alarm about the dangers of government compelled speech.

Now, the UK has taken things one step further. And it is a dangerous step indeed. Will there be a pushback from the society, including others within the medical profession? Will Christian leaders raise their voices in protest? Or will the madness continue?

To be candid, at the moment, given the climate of things in the UK, I fear for the worst. Nothing less than a national awakening will turn the tide.

This article originally posted at Townhall.com.

While students and teachers every year hold a Day of Silence in solidarity with the LGBTQ agenda; that agenda is silencing licensed counselors as well as Christians who use social media, and it threatens pastors.

Written by Samuel Smith

A federal court has granted a Christian liberal arts college in Pennsylvania a permanent injunction against the Obama-era abortion pill mandate that required the school to be complicit in providing health care coverage that violated its religious convictions.

On Thursday, Judge Joy Flowers Conti of the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania granted permanent relief to Geneva College, a liberal arts school affiliated with the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America.

Conti ruled that the Department of Health and Human Services Obamacare contraception mandate violated the college’s rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) by requiring the school to facilitate coverage of services to which it has religious objections.

“[T]he court finds that Geneva is entitled to declaratory relief that defendants’ enforcement of the mandate … and implementing regulations against Geneva and requiring its compliance with the accommodation procedure with respect to providing, paying for, making accessible, or otherwise facilitating or causing access to coverage or payments through an insurance company or other third party for contraceptive coverage services to which Geneva College has religious objections … violates Geneva’s rights under RFRA,” the court document reads.

Written by Daniel Horowitz

In case you thought that the potential to flip Justice Kennedy’s seat alone will bring us back to the constitutional promised land, think again. So long as the lower courts are not restrained, we will never return to the Constitution and the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

There is nothing more radical than a lower court granting standing to random plaintiffs to sue against non-coerced public prayer in county government meetings, prayers that have been going on since our founding. Yet a district judge in 2015 and the en banc decision of the radical Fourth Circuit in 2017 barred Rowan County, North Carolina, from opening council sessions with a prayer, similar to what our federal Congress does every day. [Last week], the U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant certiorari to the appeal from Rowan County, despite three years of being under a tyranny that the judges know is unconstitutional.

We shouldn’t even need to get into court precedent to understand our heritage and the true meaning of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. But just four years ago, in Town of Greece v. Galloway, Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority that as long as the prayer “comports with our tradition and does not coerce participation by nonadherents,” there is no room for judicial intervention. “To hold that invocations must be non-sectarian would force the legislatures sponsoring prayers and the courts deciding these cases to act as supervisors and censors of religious speech,” Kennedy wrote in the 2014 case.

The Fourth Circuit rejected precedent because this prayer, in the court’s estimation, was tantamount to coercion because it makes non-religious attendees feel like “outsiders” and “the overall atmosphere was coercive, requiring them to participate so they ‘would not stand out.’” (More on that case and how contrary it is to our founding here.)

For the U.S. Supreme Court not to take the appeal is egregious, especially given that the Sixth Circuit recently ruled the other way, triggering a circuit split. Justice Thomas, as has become his tradition recently, dissented from the decision to deny cert. Thomas noted, “The Fourth Circuit’s decision is both unfaithful to our precedents and ahistorical” and observed, “For as long as this country has had legislative prayer, legislators have led it.” Gorsuch joined the dissent.

There are a number of important observations to be made here in light of the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy, calling into question our ability to change the direction of the judiciary absent broader reforms:

• Aside from the contorted construction of the First Amendment inherent in this ruling, the courts are continuing to grant standing to random plaintiffs (as straw men for the ACLU) who have no justiciable injury-in-fact other than that their sensibilities are offended. The notion that you can even take such a policy to court is absurd and has grown the power of the courts to that of a legislature rather than an individualized adjudicative body. So long as the Left can lodge hundreds of frivolous lawsuits on important abstract policies every day and have the most liberal districts and circuits uphold them, the shift on the U.S. Supreme Court will not bring much relief. The ACLU and its offshoot organizations essentially have unlimited power so long as the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t change its policies and more aggressively police the lower courts.

• The fact that Roberts knows there will be a more conservative fifth justice added to this wing of the court in the fall and still refused to take up the case is all the more disturbing and demonstrates that we cannot rely on him to overturn these insane lower court rulings expeditiously.

• There is no such thing as a conservative win at the U.S. Supreme Court. Lower court justices will always find hairs to split in any case that is not 100 percent identical and completely ignore precedent, something conservative lower court judges will never do in defiance of liberal U.S. Supreme Court opinions. This is why just hours after the high court affirmed the president’s full power to place conditions on entry, a California judge said that the president must find every single family entering illegally and unite them within 30 days. In another ludicrous ruling on immigration, a New York federal judge said yesterday that the Trump administration cannot promulgate a rule requiring the director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement to personally sign off on the release of illegal immigrant child detainees. Yes, we have no sovereignty, and the president has no powers to even establish some oversight before swamping the country with foreign nationals, who flood into our schools and communities and who often join MS-13. Chief Justice Roberts said that there are no limits to the president’s power to regulate entry into the country, but that will not stop lower courts from granting standing to illegal aliens to sue against every minute piece of policy.

This is all to say that unless the lower courts are dealt with, we will continue to suffer increasingly at the hands of the lower courts even as the membership on the U.S. Supreme Court officially gets better. The bottom line is: We don’t have five Clarence Thomases and will not get them any time soon.

It is incumbent upon conservatives in Congress to create a movement to reorient the power of the lower courts. Rather than the default being that any random court can shut down our heritage and system of governance for years until the U.S. Supreme Court grants relief – if ever – the injunction should automatically be placed on hold until and unless the U.S. Supreme Court takes up the case and affirms the ruling. Granting a congressional-created court supremacy power over the other branches of government is a case of the inmates running the asylum. If the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to act supreme to its own underlings, then why should we respect its supposed “supremacism” over the rest of us?

This article was originally published at ConservativeReview.com

So much good news from the U.S. Supreme Court this week, including the announcement of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s impending retirement and the 5-4 decision in the NIFLA v. Becerra case, which asserts that the speech of pro-life crisis pregnancy centers is, indeed, protected speech.

Justice Kennedy surprised the nation by announcing his retirement at the end of July, giving President Donald Trump another opportunity to continue to restore respect for constitutional principles and historical American values. Perhaps we will see that proverbial long arc of justice bending more often toward justice.

Justice Kennedy surprised again, this time in NIFLA v. Becerra. Fascistic California lawmakers eager to impose their beliefs by any unethical means at their disposal passed “The California Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency Act” (FACT Act) which requires the following:

Clinics that are licensed must notify women that California provides free or low-cost services, including abortions, and give them a phone number to call. Its stated purpose is to make sure that state residents know their rights and what health care services are available to them. Unlicensed clinics must notify women that California has not licensed the clinics to provide medical services.

Several crisis pregnancy centers sued, claiming that the law abridged their First Amendment speech protections. A district court voted against them, they appealed the decision, and then the nightmarish 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals voted against them as well. That decision was appealed to the Supreme Court, and in a 5-4 decision with Kennedy joining the majority, the Court decided in favor of the crisis pregnancy centers.

In his concurrence in NIFLA v. Becerra, Kennedy ridiculed and scolded the California legislature:

The California Legislature included in its official history the congratulatory statement that the Act was part of California’s legacy of ‘forward thinking.’ But it is not forward thinking to force individuals to ‘be an instrument for fostering public adherence to an ideological point of view [they] fin[d] unacceptable.’ It is forward thinking to begin by reading the First Amendment as ratified in 1791; to understand the history of authoritarian government as the Founders then knew it; to confirm that history since then shows how relentless authoritarian regimes are in their attempts to stifle free speech; and to carry those lessons onward as we seek to preserve and teach the necessity of freedom of speech for the generations to come. Governments must not be allowed to force persons to express a message contrary to their deepest convictions. Freedom of speech secures freedom of thought and belief. This law imperils those liberties.

This decision means, among other things, that pro-life crisis pregnancy centers cannot be forced to communicate information that violates their beliefs.

Kennedy used this teachable moment to educate lawmakers on the constitutional limits on their pernicious efforts to abuse the law to advance their ideological views. It’s a lesson children should be taught repeatedly in government schools but aren’t.

Buried within the NIFLA decision is something even more remarkable. According to Curtis Schube, Legal Counsel for the Pennsylvania Family Policy Institute, “NIFLA also overturned speech restrictions on therapists who assist people with unwanted same sex attraction.” Schube continues:

Laws which ban sexual orientation change efforts (“SOCE” for short) have increasingly entered the national conversation, most recently in California. Before California’s recent attempts to ban all forms of SOCE at any age, California already had such a law in place for minors. The law considered it “unprofessional conduct” to “seek to change sexual orientation” for a minor. Any counselor who violated the law faced professional discipline.  

California’s more recent SOCE laws take an even more extreme position. These laws ban all therapy that aims to change, or even reduce, sexual attraction to the same sex. Therefore, a patient who wants SOCE therapy cannot receive that service without risk to the professional counselor.

In Pickup v. Brown, same sex attracted minors and their parents, as well as counselors who wished to provide their services, claimed that this law violates their First Amendment rights to free speech and free expression. The Ninth Circuit, in 2013, determined that counseling is not speech, but rather professional “conduct.” The “First Amendment does not prevent a state from regulating treatment,” the Ninth Circuit concluded.

The Third Circuit upheld a similar law in New Jersey using the same logic in the 2014 case, King v. Governors of New Jersey. In relying partly upon Pickup, the Third Circuit concluded that counseling is speech (rather than conduct) but classifies that speech as professional speech. The Third Circuit states that a “professional’s services stems largely from her ability to apply… specialized knowledge to a client’s individual circumstances… Thus, we conclude that a licensed professional does not enjoy the full protection of the First Amendment.”

In the NIFLA case, the Ninth Circuit had justified the requirement for pregnancy centers to advertise for abortion as “professional speech,” just like the Ninth and Third Circuits had done for SOCE laws. The Supreme Court opinion overturning the Ninth Circuit’s NIFLA opinion, specifically identified Pickup and King as examples of “professional speech” protected by the First Amendment. Writing for the majority, Justice Thomas… stated: “Some Courts of Appeals have recognized ‘professional speech’ as a separate category of speech that is subject to different rules.” However, “speech is not unprotected merely because it is uttered by ‘professionals.’”

This is a paradigm shift in the existing precedents for SOCE bans.

Thomas seized the opportunity to provide protections to many other professions as well. “Professionals might have a host of good-faith disagreements, both with each other and with the government, on many topics in their respective fields.” He identifies doctors and nurses who disagree on the prevailing opinions on assisted suicide or medical marijuana as examples of good faith disagreements. So too are lawyers and marriage counselors who disagree on prenuptial agreements and divorces, and bankers and accountants who disagree on how to commit money to savings or tax reform. One would have to conclude that Justice Thomas’ intent is to protect all professionals from being regulated on matters of good faith disagreement.

There is no settled judgment within the mental health community regarding the efficacy and value of counseling for minors or adults who experience unwanted same-sex attraction. There is no settled judgment about the cause or causes of such attraction. Even the liberal American Psychological Association acknowledges that causation is unknown and is likely—in its view—a result of both nature and nurture. There is, however, fairly broad consensus within academia—including among homosexual scholars that “sexual orientation” is fluid. Kudos to Justice Thomas for providing a constitutional pathway to overturning bans that restrict the First Amendment speech rights of mental health professionals.

And kudos to Justice Anthony Kennedy for his week of surprises.

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Written by James Rossi

During a [recent] congressional hearing, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, Alex Azar, testified in front of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce. During the hearing, U.S. Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA) pursued an aggressive line of questioning, which highlighted a tragic religious liberty attack that has become increasingly common in recent years.

Scott repeatedly pressed Secretary Azar in regards to Christian adoption agencies and their placement policies. Essentially, the issue involves the question of whether Christian adoption agencies should be coerced into violating their consciences by being forced to place children with same-sex couples. The hearing revealed Scott’s alignment with the increasingly mainstream Left on this issue, who are actively striving to force Christian adoption agencies to compromise their religious beliefs by allowing the placement of children to same-sex couples.

Sadly, many Christian adoption agencies have been given the choice between violating their most deeply held religious convictions and shutting down. As a result, several faith-based adoption agencies have already closed their doors, including the Catholic Charities in Boston, San Francisco, and Illinois. Among the frequent attempts by the Left to strip religious liberty away from Christians, this is one of the most damaging examples. Not only is the Left harming the Christians who are losing their religious freedom, but also the thousands of children who receive life-changing aid from these organizations. As Secretary Azar accurately pointed out in the hearing, faith-based adoption agencies “have a long history of providing social services to poor and underprivileged children as well as families, and if we take steps to exclude faith-based groups from our programs, it will harm them and harm efforts to support our programs.”

Indicative of the Left’s movement as a whole, they have chosen to place their radical ideology ahead of the well-being of these children. Unfortunately, the stories of Christian adoption agencies closing down is only a small piece of a much larger picture: the Left’s relentless attack on the religious liberty of faithful Christians. The battle against Christian adoption agencies is not about an attempt to ensure that same-sex couples can adopt children, for there are already numerous adoption agencies that are willing and happy to place children with same-sex couples. Instead, it is simply about the Left’s continued attempt to ram their radical ideology down the throats of faithful Christians.

As we witness time and time again, in the great irony of our age, a war of intolerance is being waged against Christians under the banner of “tolerance.” In this unique moment of history, Christians have to decide whether to obey the truths of their faith and the judgements of their conscience or bow down to the altar of tolerance.

James is a 2018 Summer Policy Intern at The Family Foundation and a student at Christendom College.

This article was originally published on the FamilyFoundation.org blog.

It’s often difficult to distinguish truth from satire on websites like The Onion and the Babylon Bee, and a few days ago many woke up to this headline:

Southern Poverty Law Center Apologizes for Mislabeling Group as Anti-Muslim Extremists, Agrees to $3.3M Settlement

But it’s a real news story, not a joke. It’s from Accuracy in Media, and here is a short excerpt from its report:

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which has a history of flagging its political opponents as “extremists,” apologized to Muslim anti-terrorism group Quilliam and its founder Maajid Nawaz for wrongly naming them in their Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists…

The SPLC also agreed to pay a $3.375 million settlement, which Quilliam and Nawaz intend to use to fund work fighting anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamist extremism, according to a statement from the SPLC.

So the SPLC has actually admitted defamation, but only against one Muslim organization.

Here is what the Alliance Defending Freedom’s Jeremy Tedesco had to say in response to this news:

“It’s appalling and offensive for the Southern Poverty Law Center to compare peaceful organizations which condemn violence and racism with violent and racist groups just because it disagrees with their views. That’s what SPLC did in the case of Quilliam and its founder Maajid Nawaz, and that’s what it has done with ADF and numerous other organizations and individuals.

This situation confirms once again what commentators across the political spectrum have being saying for decades: SPLC has become a far-left organization that brands its political opponents as “haters” and “extremists” and has lost all credibility as a civil rights watchdog…

SPLC’s sloppy mistakes have ruinous, real-world consequences for which they should not be excused.”

National Review’s news writer Jack Crowe also posted on this news and following his article, a video was included that summarizes some of the SPLC’s outrageous defamation examples in 90 seconds.

The Washington Times reported this:

“A coalition of 45 prominent conservative groups and figures called Wednesday on those partnering with the Southern Poverty Law Center to sever their ties, saying the center’s credibility has been further eroded by this week’s defamation settlement.”

The coalition is also threatening a lawsuit against the SPLC and issued warnings to CEOs and news editors who are complicit in the defamation by citing the group’s anti-Christian bias. Here is the text of the joint statement which was also signed by the Illinois Family Institute’s executive director David E. Smith:

JOINT STATEMENT BY ORGANIZATIONS DEFAMED BY THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER

We, the undersigned, are among the organizations, groups and individuals that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has maligned, defamed and otherwise harmed by falsely describing as “haters,” “bigots,” “Islamophobes” and/or other groundless epithets. We are gratified that the SPLC has today formally acknowledged that it has engaged in such misrepresentations.

In an out-of-court settlement announced today, the Southern Poverty Law Center formally apologized in writing and via video for having falsely listed Maajid Nawaz and the Quilliam Foundation as “anti-Muslim extremists” in one of the SPLC’s most notorious products, The Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists. It also agreed to pay them $3.375 million, tangible proof that the SPLC, which amounts to little more than a leftist instrument of political warfare against those with whom it disagrees, fully deserves the infamy it has lately earned. For example, in addition to its settlement with Nawaz and Quilliam, the organization has had to disavow multiple misstatements and other errors in its reporting in the past few months.

Journalists who uncritically parrot or cite the SPLC’s unfounded characterizations of those it reviles do a profound disservice to their audiences.

Editors, CEOs, shareholders and consumers alike are on notice: anyone relying upon and repeating its misrepresentations is complicit in the SPLC’s harmful defamation of large numbers of American citizens who, like the undersigned, have been vilified simply for working to protect our country and freedoms.

With this significant piece of evidence in mind, we call on government agencies, journalists, corporations, social media providers and web platforms (i.e., Google, Twitter, YouTube and Amazon) that have relied upon this discredited organization to dissociate themselves from the Southern Poverty Law Center and its ongoing effort to defame and vilify mainstream conservative organizations.

The list of signatories can be read following the statement here.

It is also interesting to note this update on the SPLC’s finances from the The Washington Free Beacon:

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a left-wing nonprofit known for its “hate group” designations, now has $92 million in offshore investment funds, according to financial statements…

The controversial organization reported $477 million in total assets and $132 million in contributions on its most recent tax forms, which cover Nov. 1, 2016 to Oct. 31, 2017. That represents an increase of $140 million in its total assets from the previous year. Millions flowed to the group following the deadly Charlottesville, Va. attacks from employees at companies including JP Morgan Chase and Apple as well as from actors such as George Clooney.

Google, Twitter, YouTube, Amazon, JP Morgan Chase, Apple, and evidently the SPLC’s itself represent some “deep pockets” when it comes to potential lawsuits and settlements.

In a 7-2 decision the U.S. Supreme Court decided in favor of Colorado baker Jack Phillips who was sued by a homosexual couple, Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins, for declining to bake a wedding cake for their pseudo-wedding. While the decision is, indeed, a victory, a careful reading should dampen the celebration.

Phillips was appealing a decision reached by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission—a decision suffused with unmitigated religious hostility condemned by Justice Anthony Kennedy writing for the majority:

Phillips was entitled to a neutral and respectful consideration of his claims in all the circumstances of the case. That consideration was compromised, however, by the Commission’s treatment of Phillips’ case, which showed elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs motivating his objection. As the record shows, some of the commissioners at the Commission’s formal, public hearings endorsed the view that religious beliefs cannot legitimately be carried into the public sphere or commercial domain, disparaged Phillips’ faith as despicable and characterized it as merely rhetorical, and compared his invocation of his sincerely held religious beliefs to defenses of slavery and the Holocaust…. The comments thus cast doubt on the fairness and impartiality of the Commission’s adjudication of Phillips’ case.

It was refreshing to hear Justice Kennedy express proper condemnation of religious hostility and the anti-constitutional view that religious beliefs are prohibited from the public square, but what followed from Kennedy was troubling:

When it comes to weddings, it can be assumed that a member of the clergy who objects to gay marriage on moral and religious grounds could not be compelled to perform the ceremony without denial of his or her right to the free exercise of religion.  This refusal would be well understood in our constitutional order as an exercise of religion, an exercise that gay persons could recognize and accept without serious diminishment to their own dignity and worth. Yet if that exception were not confined, then a long list of persons who provide goods and services for marriages and weddings might refuse to do so for gay persons, thus resulting in a community-wide stigma inconsistent with the history and dynamics of civil rights laws that ensure equal access to goods, services, and public accommodations….

Petitioners conceded… that if a baker refused to sell any goods or any cakes for gay weddings, that would be a different matter and the State would have a strong case under this Court’s precedents that this would be a denial of goods and services that went beyond any protected rights of a baker who offers goods and services to the general public and is subject to a neutrally applied and generally applicable public accommodations law….

Any decision in favor of the baker would have to be sufficiently constrained, lest all purveyors of goods and services who object to gay marriages for moral and religious reasons in effect be allowed to put up signs saying “no goods or services will be sold if they will be used for gay marriages,” something that would impose a serious stigma on gay persons.

Constitutional lawyer and member of the Bars of the Supreme Court of the United States and the Supreme Court of Illinois, Joseph A. Morris, warns that Kennedy’s narrowing of the argument to a “question of procedure,” offers little judicial “light to free speech or free exercise jurisprudence”:

Justice Kennedy pretty much telegraphs that if the Commission had only been more circumspect in its language, and less obviously insistent on expressing disdain for people whose religious views do not accept the ‘‘dignity” of homosexual conduct or the “sanctity” of same-sex marriages, its decision would have been sustained instead of reversed…. [I]t is a convenient roadmap for the Colorado Civil Rights Commission (and other would-be thought police) to have their way the next time. Commissioners will just have to restrain their own self-expression a bit while they go about their business of suppressing the wrong, and compelling the correct, expression of others.

It’s troubling enough that Kennedy believes the government has the authority to prohibit acts because some individuals may perceive such acts as diminishing their sense of “dignity and worth,” but it’s worse still that Kennedy claims to know what those acts are and are not.

The great and powerful Kennedy proclaims that the refusal of church leaders to officiate at same-sex faux-weddings is hunky dory because he knows that such a refusal would leave homosexuals’ sense of dignity and worth intact. But what if homosexuals claim otherwise?

Evidently, Kennedy also knows that if lay Christians seek to live their lives—including their professional lives—in accordance with their religious convictions, the subjective, internal psychological health of homosexuals will be damaged. If the refusal of Christians to supply goods or services to homosexuals for their “weddings” damages their psyches sufficiently to warrant forcing Christians to contravene their own religious beliefs, what other acts would Kennedy mandate or prohibit in the service of homosexual self-esteem?

Many—this writer included—believe that no theologically orthodox Christian should be required to provide goods or services for an event that violates their religious beliefs. Whether they are engaged in creative arts or own companies that provide linens and chairs, Christians should be allowed to decline to provide goods or services for an event that the God they serve detests.

The Court compared the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s decision in Phillips’ case to the commission’s decision in the case of Mr. William Jack who had visited three bakeries to request cakes with religious messages about homosexuality:

He requested two cakes made to resemble an open Bible. He also requested that each cake be decorated with Biblical verses. [He] requested that one of the cakes include an image of two groomsmen, holding hands, with a red ‘X’ over the image. On one cake, he requested [on] one side[,] . . .  ‘God hates sin. Psalm 45:7’ and on the opposite side of the cake ‘Homosexuality is a detestable sin. Leviticus 18:22.’ On the second cake, [the one] with the image of the two groomsmen covered by a red ‘X’ [Jack] requested [these words]: ‘God loves sinners’ and on the other side ‘While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.  Romans 5:8.’

All three bakeries refused to make such cakes for Mr. Jack, so he sued and lost. Kennedy—who has a habit of contradicting himself—argued the following regarding the difference in the decision in favor of the three bakeries by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission as compared to its decision against baker Jack Phillips:

A principled rationale for the difference in treatment of these two instances cannot be based on the government’s own assessment of offensiveness…. [I]t is not, as the Court has repeatedly held, the role of the State or its officials to prescribe what shall be offensive…. The Colorado court’s attempt to account for the difference in treatment elevates one view of what is offensive over another and itself sends a signal of official disapproval of Phillips’ religious beliefs.

But don’t Kennedy’s references to “stigma,” “dignity,” and “worth” in his earlier advocacy of constraining “purveyors of goods and service” from refusing to serve homosexual “weddings” elevate one view of what is offensive over another? When Kennedy suggests that a refusal to serve a same-sex “wedding” is a stigmatizing act that diminishes the “dignity” and “worth” of homosexuals, isn’t he stigmatizing the theological beliefs that impel refusals?

In their dissent, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor argue that because the three bakeries that refused to bake cakes with biblical messages condemning same-sex marriage had previously made cakes with Christian symbols, they couldn’t be accused of discriminating based on religion. As further evidence that there was no religious discrimination at play in the three bakeries’ refusal, Ginsburg and Sotomayor argue that they “would have refused to make a cake with Jack’s requested message for any customer, regardless of his or her religion.”

The fact that the three bakeries were willing to bake cakes with religious symbols proves nothing about whether they were motivated to refuse Mr. Jack’s request by religious hostility. The use of Christian symbols has no necessary connection to religious devotion. Sometimes the use of religious imagery is a sign of religious intolerance, bigotry, mockery, and hostility. The recent Met Gala whose theme was religious imagery saw irreligious Hollywood starlets awash in religious imagery. Further, one can approve of some religious beliefs while detesting others.

The customer, Mr. Jack, was religious, he was motivated by his faith, and his requested message was distinctly religious. The refusal of the three bakeries to sell a cake with a religious message to a religious person motivated by his religion may, indeed, constitute religious discrimination.

The fact too that non-religious people may hold a view that Mr. Jack holds and which the three bakeries deemed “demeaning” does not make his view non-religious—or objectively demeaning.

Jack Phillips had on many occasions sold baked goods to homosexuals, so based on Ginsburg and Sotomayor’s reasoning, how could he be accused of discriminating based on “sexual orientation”? Well, here’s how they attempt to undermine the hard evidence that Phillips did not discriminate based on sexual orientation: They argue that the fact that the three bakeries would sell all their products to Christians was relevant because it shows their motivation for refusing Mr. Jack’s cake message was not religious bigotry but, rather, the “demeaning message.” In contrast, the fact that Mr. Phillips would sell almost all products to homosexuals was not relevant because the one product he wouldn’t sell (i.e., wedding cakes) proved he was motivated “solely by the identity of the customer requesting it.”

Whoa, Nelly.

What constitutes a “demeaning” act or message is subjective. Many people of faith would argue that a same-sex faux-marriage is itself demeaning to the celebrants and that participating in, facilitating, or serving such an event is demeaning. If same-sex faux-marriage is, in reality, abhorrent to God, saying so cannot be demeaning, though hearing that claim may be unpleasant.

Ginsburg and Sotomayor assert that the refusals of three bakeries to make cakes with biblical messages were not religiously discriminatory in that it was the offending message to which they objected—not the religious identity of the customer. But calling a biblical message “offensive” or “demeaning” is ipso facto evidence of religious discrimination. It’s not one’s religious “identity” per se that the First Amendment protects but one’s religious free exercise which for Christians is a holistic, comprehensive endeavor that encompasses, among other things, their work and their publicly expressed messages.

As an aside, isn’t calling Mr. Jack’s biblical views on marriage “demeaning” tantamount to calling Mr. Phillips’ views on marriage “despicable” as did one of Colorado’s Civil Rights commissioners whom Kennedy chastised?

Ginsburg and Sotomayor strain futilely to establish a moral distinction between what the three bakeries refused to do and what Mr. Phillips refused to do:

When a couple contacts a bakery for a wedding cake, the product they are seeking is a cake celebrating their wedding—not a cake celebrating heterosexual weddings or same-sex weddings—and that is the service Craig and Mullins were denied.

Ginsburg and Sotomayor make clear that Craig and Mullins were asking Mr. Phillips to supply a product for a particular event—a celebration of their union—which is a union that God detests. Phillips’ refusal was based on the type of event he was asked to serve—not the sexual identity of the customer.

Again, it was not the “identities” (i.e., sexual predilections) of the homosexuals that formed the basis of Phillips’ refusal. He would have refused to bake a wedding cake for a celebration of a homosexual faux-wedding regardless of the sexual orientation of the customer requesting it. If the heterosexual parents of a homosexual couple were the customers seeking to purchase a cake for their sons’ homosexual “wedding,” Phillips would have refused. He wasn’t refusing to serve homosexuals. He was refusing to use his business to serve a type of event that violates fundamental tenets of Christianity.

All cakes are not created identical. Just because all cakes are made with flour, butter, and sugar does not mean all cakes are the same kind of cakes. What makes a cake a wedding cake are not its ingredients or its design. What makes a cake a wedding cake (or birthday, anniversary, or Independence Day cake) is the type of event for which it is made.

For people of faith, a wedding is something. It has a nature that the law cannot change. A same-sex union may now be recognized in law as a “marriage,” but for theologically orthodox Christians, it is not and never can be a marriage, and the ceremony solemnizing it can never be a wedding. A U.S. Supreme Court decision can no more turn an intrinsically non-marital union into a marriage than it could turn a whole person into 3/5 a person. Craig and Mullins asked Jack Phillips to supply a product for a type of event for which he has never supplied a product: an anti-wedding.

Mr. Morris brings to the foreground yet another important question ignored in this case and rarely discussed in the public square of whether public accommodation laws violate the constitutional principle regarding freedom of association (or assembly):

The Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, which supplied the basis for the same-sex couple’s complaint and the Colorado Commission’s decision, is a rather extensive model of the genre, prohibiting the denial of a “public accommodation” to any individual or group on the basis of “disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, or ancestry.”

In a society characterized by freedom of association one would expect that people would be free to associate with, including do business with, anyone they chose, for any reason: Or not to do so, also for any reason.

We long ago agreed to abridge the freedom of association in order to prohibit discrimination on the basis of race and previous condition of servitude, in order to eliminate “the badges and incidents of slavery.” How long freedom of association must be abridged to achieve that end is an open question, clearly one of prudence confided to our national and State legislatures.

Over the years and decades, however, the discussion of when that end has been accomplished, and how to tell that it has been accomplished, has been abandoned, and has given way, instead, to an ever-expanding new list of categories in the service of which the freedom of association is to be further abridged.

In a healthy society one would think that the pressure would be toward finding a path to end the special restrictions needed to redress a grave and pervasive legal wrong (slavery) with persistent legal consequences (state-compelled segregation) and, in due course, restore the full and unfettered freedom of association—a condition in which government does not care and does not monitor with whom one associates and why, and does not compel private association for any reason.

Instead, our society now features incessant competitions by aggrieved groups to achieve highly-desired designations as “victim classes” to bring them within an ever-expanding list of categories of people with whom private association may be compelled and, thus, the freedom of association be ever further abridged.

As I say, nary a mention by the Court of Assembly / Free Association, although that, even more than the Religion and Speech clauses, is the freedom that is at stake in this case.

The anorexic thinness of Kennedy’s decision portends the future bloatedness of the ravenous “progressive” beast that gorges on constitutionally protected rights, often in the service of sexual deviance.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Troubling-SCOTUS-Decision-on-Cake-Baker.mp3

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In the last several years, we’ve seen a strong movement towards unrighteous in our country.  A look at the headlines, news stories, social media and other forms of media, reminds us that this world is not our home.  However, while this world is not our home, we still need to live, work and be an ambassador for Christ.

Many of us know Romans 13:1, which tells us to “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.”  However, what do we do when the “governing authorities” force us to commit an act or submit to something that is clearly disobeys God?  How can we be “subject to the governing authorities” and follow the LORD at the same time?

In Daniel chapter 3, King Nebuchadnezzar had erected a large golden statue.  He made a proclamation that whenever the sound of the King’s instruments played; everyone must bow down and worship his golden image, or be thrown into a fiery furnace.  This was Government enforcement.  Three young friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, refused to bow down and worship the false god.  They said in Daniel 3:18, “…be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

In the book of Acts, we see the Sanhedrin, which is today’s equivalency of the Supreme Court; meet with Peter and the Disciples about preaching Jesus Christ.  They said in Acts 5:28, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching,”  This was the supreme court of the day telling followers of Christ to not teach/preach in the name of Jesus.  Peter responded in verse 29, “We must obey God rather than men.”

The teachers of the day tried to trip Jesus up.  They asked Him if they should pay taxes to Caesar.  Jesus replied in Mark 12:17, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

So, when should a Christian break the law?  When Caesar starts taking what is rightfully Gods.  Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, along with the Disciples in Acts, all saw the overreaching of the government and those over them….and they all responded by refusing to submit.  Biblically speaking, you have every reason to step out from underneath that authority and refuse to submit.  As Peter said in Acts 5:29, “We must obey God rather than men.”

Earlier this morning, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a historic ruling, striking down the State of Colorado’s decision against Jack Phillips. Though Jack served all customers, the State of Colorado punished Jack for declining to participate in a same-sex ceremony by creating a wedding cake.

This is an important court decision, not just for Jack, but for every American who values freedom and hopes to freely exercise their faith in the public square!

This decisive 7-2 ruling invalidates the State of Colorado’s tyrannical ruling in which they violated Jack Phillips’ First Amendment rights by punishing him for operating his business according to his sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage. In other words, the court upheld Jack’s freedom to live and work consistently with his conscience.

The ruling clearly states the government cannot decide what is and isn’t ‘acceptable’ for you to believe or think. And the government can’t be hostile toward your faith.

This ruling will set the tone for future cases on similar issues of sexual identity verses religious liberty and freedom of conscience.

Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission

Description:  Two men filed a complaint with the state of Colorado after they asked cake artist Jack Phillips to design a wedding cake to celebrate their same-sex ceremony. In an exchange lasting about 30 seconds, Phillips politely declined, explaining that he would gladly make them any other type of baked item they wanted, but that he could not design a cake promoting a same-sex ceremony because of his faith.

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide soon on two closely watched cases that could have a major impact on life and the freedom of conscience in America. Justices will rule on a California law that requires pro-life pregnancy care centers to post notices about the availability of taxpayer funded abortions. And the High Court will be ruling on baker Jack Phillips, the Colorado man who refused, based on his faith, to paint a cake for a same-sex wedding. We need to pray for the US supreme court.

How would you answer this question? Which group is the smallest, most rejected minority in our country?

African Americans have certainly suffered terribly through our history. But they are not the smallest minority today, making up roughly 12 percent of the population. And, despite ongoing issues they face, African Americans are certainly not the most rejected.

Perhaps it is Native Americans? They make up less than 1 percent of our population, so they are certainly very small. And their suffering over the centuries has been intense, with their communities facing immense difficulties to this hour.

But they are neglected more than rejected. To most of our country, Native Americans are, sadly, out of sight and out of mind. And there is another suffering minority that is smaller still.

What about the LGBT community? They too are quite small (perhaps equaling 3 percent of our population; estimates vary). And to this day, many who identify as LGBT suffer hatred and discrimination.

But the truth be told, LGBT’s are more celebrated than denigrated, more protected than rejected, more powerful than powerless.

Ironically, the group that can lay claim to being the smallest and most rejected minority in America today once was part of the LGBT community. They once identified as gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender, but they no longer do. Today, they are “ex-gay” or “ex-trans.”

Their numbers are very small since they came out of a small community to start with. And it is only a small percentage of that small group who make a break with the rest of the LGBT community.

Most of them make that break because of their religious faith, often newly found. Others make the break simply because they no longer want to identify as gay or bi- or trans. But for making that break, they pay a steep price.

They are mocked and maligned and bullied by the community they once called home.

They are told they do not exist. They are assured they will fail. Their motives are questioned. They are called liars and mercenaries. They are even mocked for being so small in number (even if they number in the thousands or tens of thousands, that represents the tiniest slice of the population).

All this simply because they want to lead a new life, because they do not embrace their same-sex attractions (or their gender confusion.)

Shouldn’t they be applauded for their courage? Shouldn’t they be lauded for doing what they feel is right?

Really now, what can possibly be wrong with a man wanting to be married to a woman, having natural children of his own? Why on earth should he be penalized for that?

What can possibly be wrong with a woman wanting to be at home in her own body? Why on earth should she be criticized for that?

And why is it that we put ex-gays and ex-trans individuals under such intense pressure? If they have one slip-up, they’re called phonies. If they still struggle with attractions or gender confusion, they are told they haven’t changed. But why?

There are plenty of former alcoholics who fell off the wagon for a season, only to get back on track. Do we ridicule them or empathize with them and show them compassion? Many of them identify as recovering alcoholics. Why can’t someone identify as a recovering homosexual?

There are plenty of former porn addicts who still struggle with temptation. Do we tell them they will never be free, or do we encourage them to resist their temptations?

But when it comes to someone being ex-gay, things are very different. If you still struggle with temptation, even if you don’t yield to it, you’re told you’re living in denial. If you mess up once, you’re discouraged from trying again. Why the double standard?

I personally know ex-gays who have experienced a complete and total change. They have become heterosexual and have been happily married for many years.

I know others who have seen a marked decrease in same-sex attractions along with an increase in opposite-sex attractions. Some of them are in successful heterosexual relationships.

I know others who remain same-sex attracted but who say no to those attractions. They are happy to be celibate, finding joy and purpose and satisfaction in life without being in a sexual or romantic relationship.

And I know others who tried to come out of homosexual practice, only to fall back and embrace their homosexuality. But their very real failures and struggles do not negate the success enjoyed by the others.

Why, then, can’t the LGBT community accept it when someone says, “I was once out and proud as a gay person; now I’m out and proud as an ex-gay person”? Why, instead, do LGBT’s commonly mock and attack and ridicule those who identify as ex-gay (or ex-trans)?

The reason is simple: If it is possible for someone to change from gay to straight, either through the gospel or through counseling (or both), then the whole “innate and immutable” argument goes out the window. (The same can be said for someone who is ex-trans.)

In other words, one of the foundations of LGBT activism is that “We’re born this way, and we can’t change. Gay is the new black. (Or trans is the new black.) This is who we are. Our sexual identity is as innate and immutable as our skin color.”

That’s why those who say, “I used to be gay, but I’m free today” must be maligned. Their existence must be denied. Their ultimate failure must be assured.

If change is possible – again, through divine intervention or through counseling or both – then the whole push for “LGBT rights” can be questioned.

I’m aware, of course, that for many who identify as LGBT, this is an intensely personal issue. They tried to change and could not, leading to depression and even attempts at suicide. They had bad experiences with counseling. Their churches or families rejected them. And they finally found relief when they embraced their gay (or trans) identity.

The moment they hear of someone who claims to be “ex-gay” or “ex-trans,” those old wounds are opened, and they feel personally attacked.

To such people, I would say this: Just as you must live your own life before God, allow others to do the same. Just as you have the right to self-determination, allow that to others as well. And just as you despise bullying, don’t bully others.

This past weekend, a small group of ex-LGBT’s held a rally in Washington, D.C., called the “Freedom March.” Although I have met many such people around the country, I expected that the turnout would be tiny. And it was.

That’s because the great majority of those who came out of homosexual practice and transgender identification simply want to live their lives. They are not known or celebrated. They are on no one’s payroll. They are changed, and they are the better for it.

But I do know that many of them feel alone and misunderstood. That’s why one ex-gay counselor, Chris Doyle, founded Voice for the Voiceless. Its mission is “to defend the rights of former homosexuals, individuals with unwanted same-sex attraction, and their families.”

It is a mission all of us should support, especially those of us in the faith community. If anyone should be encouraged and embraced, it is these precious men and women, some of whom are still in the healing process.

And this is in keeping with the New Testament writings, which say plainly that, just as some of us once engaged in sexual immorality or adultery or theft or lying or greed or idolatry or homosexual practice, we do so no longer. If the Son of God sets us free, we are free indeed. (See John 8:31-36; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. For a 6-minute animated video, click here.)

So, I say to the ex-gay, ex-trans community, you are not alone. We are standing together with you. More importantly, the Lord is standing with you. Be strong in Him.

This article was originally published at AFA.net