A Forgotten Voice in the Alabama Abortion Debate

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The goal of the new, strict Alabama abortion law is to potentially overturn Roe v. Wade. The law would penalize abortion doctors, and it contains no exception clauses, except for the life and health of the mother.

In all of the brouhaha about the new Alabama law, there is a long-stilled voice that has been forgotten. That of the repentant Roe of Roe v. Wade.

Of course, Norma McCorvey was the Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade. After converting to Christ and the pro-life position (about 15 years after the Supreme Court decision), she proclaimed to the world that the whole case had been based on a lie (a few lies, really). Chief among the lies was that she was raped (gang-raped at that), and that was why she needed an abortion.

By the time, Roe v. Wade was decided on January 22, 1973, Norma had already had her baby (a girl), whom she gave up for adoption. Justice William Rehnquist, one of two dissenters in the decision, voted against it because it was a moot point. Roe’s baby had already been born.

The opinion of Roe of Roe v. Wade is significant for the abortion debate, including the Alabama law, because abortion was accepted on a wide scale throughout the country, only by judicial fiat. It was not something “we the people” voted on.

Look at how divided the country continues to be on the subject of abortion. Well, why not? We the people did not decide that case on that fateful Monday. Dissenting Justice Byron White, the only Justice appointed by JFK, said that Roe was an “act of raw judicial power.”

Those who live by court decisions should die by court decisions. And Roe herself, after her pro-life and Christian conversion, tried to legally overturn Roe v. Wade since it was all based on lies. Therefore, if the new Alabama law helps overturn Roe, so be it.

Yet one person called the Alabama law “a major step towards the death of democracy.” Oh brother. The Constitution shows that the courts, including the Supreme Court, were never designed to legislate or execute our laws.

There obviously was a time when Roe favored abortion. She was in opposition to Henry Wade—the pro-life attorney general of Texas, where Norma was living at the time of the lawsuit that worked its way up to the high Court.

In an interview with D. James Kennedy Ministries television, she said, “My story began many, many years ago in 1969 when I found myself pregnant, on the streets. I was into drugs, and I really didn’t have any other alternatives in line. I did not believe in God, and I’d fallen away from the church at a very early age.”

Jumping ahead, change came about because of new neighbors moving in. Unwelcome neighbors at first. What transformed her in particular was meeting a little girl who truly loved God.

Norma continued, “In retrospect, when I look back on those days, and I see what a sad person I was, I have to really kind of smile and think about little Emily: a little seven year old girl who came up to me at my office one day and told me that if I knew God that I wouldn’t be going to the place downstairs. She befriended me when Operation Rescue moved in next door to the abortion clinic where I worked. And at first I didn’t like them there because they reminded me of what we were doing. I worked in an abortion clinic. We killed children for a living.”

She added, “I was a child-killer. I was an executioner.…There’s a fellow in the Bible; his name was Baal. He was into child sacrificing, and that’s basically what you’re doing out there today—you are sacrificing your child for a career, or high school or college.”

Norma found forgiveness through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, who died for sinners, paying the penalty for our sins, for those who believe: “And I think once you’re forgiven by God, you should forgive yourself. But then you really should not put yourself in that kind of situation either.”

Norma warns against what happens in an abortion: “You are totally different after you’ve had an abortion. Abortion kind of sucks your soul dry; it makes you a very angry person inside, from what I’ve seen.”

This is why for the last several years of her life until her death in 2017, Norma McCorvey fought against abortion on demand. She would have welcomed Alabama’s new law as a way to try to undo the damage of Roe.

She said: “We want the child-killing to stop….There are other alternatives, other than abortion; there’s adoption….We don’t want to see Roe v. Wade to be the law of the land anymore. We want our children back.”

RELATED ARTICLE: Alabama and Georgia Abortion Laws on Right Track

The New Pro-Life Moment

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Robert Royal: Pro-life opportunities abound, and Church leaders and laity must seize them, if we don’t want history to say that we did nothing. 

Something out of the ordinary happened this past week. On Saturday, over 10,000 people walked the streets of Rome in defense of children in the womb. Italian lay people have organized a march for nine years now, and it grows – despite no support from the Italian bishops – including the pope.

On Friday, Francis did encourage members of the Catholic Medical Association to “defend life,” though so vaguely that you couldn’t tell whether he was talking about abortion, euthanasia, immigration, climate, poverty – or all of them (more of this below).

But as usual no Italian bishops participated in the Marcia– they’ve been saying that they don’t want it to be seen as only “Catholic,” though why is not clear. And that they prefer to work through elected officials rather than public protest (though they seem to support other public demonstrations, e.g., on immigration and poverty, and don’t have any natural partners in government now that the Christian Democrats have splintered). Italian television, accordingly, didn’t even mention the march occurred.

The lone Italian prelate in the past, Archbishop Viganò, was missing, for good reasons.

None of this was out of the ordinary. And neither, basically, were the large pro-life marches in London last week and Ottawa. There are marches in many other countries in Europe and Latin America as well, though we rarely hear about them outside of the Catholic press, and not very much even there.

No, the real novelty is that Alabama essentially banned abortion last week with a  bill that was passed by the legislature and signed into law by governor Kay Ivey who, like large numbers of women, believes abortion is the taking of innocent human life.

Numerous states have now passed law restricting abortion, so we’re about to see a titanic battle in the Supreme Court – and American society.

Pro-abortion commentators are worrying about a reversal of Roe v. Wade, though the swift discrediting of the Center for Medical Progress’s videos showing Planned Parenthood selling fetal body parties suggests that it’s still easy to gaslight the public about such matters.  (Remember when Groucho Marx’s line – “Who you gonna believe, me or your own lying eyes?” – was a joke?)

But pro-lifers too are nervous, several wondering whether such “extreme” legislation makes it easier for courts to strike down such measures.

In any case, we’ll shortly know whether our legal system is entirely captive to anti-scientific ideology or still capable of rational moral debate. The Supremes may only send questions on abortion back to the states, where – as Justice Antonin Scalia often argued – it belongs, since the Federal government has no constitutional jurisdiction over such matters. The fundamental right to life will probably be addressed, if ever, further down the line.

But there’s reason for hope here.

Abortion supporters are beginning to deploy arguments that may delay but will not dispel the main question. Some states, for example, have tried to draw a line at the point where the fetus has a detectible heartbeat or some other biological marker.

A writer in the Washington Post this weekend elaborated on a new formula now appearing everywhere from Hollywood to Manhattan; “Lest I be chastened for daring to humanize an embryo, let me state for the record that the correct term for ‘heartbeat’ is ‘fetal pole cardiac activity,’ because at six weeks, said embryo doesn’t have a cardiovascular system and, therefore, no fully formed beating heart.”

Valiant effort, but if people – and the courts – start to pay attention to such details, we will inevitably have to decide, “So when do we have enough ‘fetal pole’ motion and vascular system to call what’s going on simply a heartbeat?” It’s not long after.

Similarly, as even outlets like The New York Times have been conceding for more than a decade, there is rudimentary brainwave activity detectible about as early as “fetal pole” motion – not a developed brain of course, but by ten weeks an articulated brain is forming.

These defenses of early abortion will look increasingly weak as people (and courts) look more carefully. Is there anyone who thinks that as science advances we will discover less rather than more complexity and activity in the early embryo? I’d be nervous, too, about the science if I supported abortion.

The Church – and especially the Vatican – should get squarely behind this burgeoning pro-life pushback. Commentators recognize that the radicalism of new abortion laws in New York, Virginia, and Canada have provoked the current reaction.

And anyway, protecting human life in the womb has been and remains the central human-rights question of our time.

Respect for human life is never merely a numbers game. But we need to find ways to take proper measure of the horror. For instance, authorities estimate 2241 people died crossing the Mediterranean illegally from Africa to Europe in 2018. In an average year, on the U.S. border, there are usually 200-400 such deaths.

So some simple math: 2241+400 (to take the high estimate) = 2641. Abortions in America are at a low point, “only” 652,639 in 2015 (though this is clearly an undercount since California and other states don’t report abortions to the Centers for Disease Control).

That’s 1788 per day. So every two days, the abortion body count exceeds the migrant deaths for a whole year. Planned Parenthood alone does almost 1000 abortions per day.

No one really knows global numbers, but a good estimate is 16 million abortions a year, roughly 44,000 per day. If that many innocents were dying while migrating or in a repressive regime or owing to racism or some climate shift or even in a war zone, the world would be – rightly – in an uproar.

Yet very few people, even those who say abortion wrong – even high Church officials – seem much moved. Some procedures are medically necessary (only 1.5 percent of abortions follow rape or incest). But there’s no getting around the massive, casual, brutal carnage.

We’re all going to need to learn to debunk terms like “fetal pole cardiac activity” and whatever other rationalizations will be coming now. But this is a new and special moment when some real change seems possible. And we – Church leaders, laity, all people of good will – have to seize it, if we don’t want history to say that we did nothing while millions of innocents were being slaughtered.

COLUMN BY

Robert Royal

Dr. Robert Royal is editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing, and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. His most recent book is A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century, published by Ignatius Press. The God That Did Not Fail: How Religion Built and Sustains the West, is now available in paperback from Encounter Books.

RELATED ARTICLE: I’ve Had 2 Abortions. Here’s Why I Support Alabama’s Pro-Life Law.

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2019 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Corporations Behind Equality Act’s Passage in House

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On Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation containing provisions that will seriously undermine 1st Amendment protections for people of faith.

The so-called Equality Act is essentially a sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) accommodation mandate at the federal level. Like the “bathroom bills” at the state and municipal levels in recent years, the measure would add sexual orientation and and gender identity to the list of classes protected by civil rights laws such as race, sex, age, and physical disability.

The Heritage Foundation has outlined seven ways the Equality Act would affect Americans:

  1. It would penalize Americans who don’t affirm new sexual norms or gender ideology.
  2. It would compel speech.
  3. It could shut down charities.
  4. It would allow more biological males to defeat girls in sports.
  5. It could be used to coerce medical professionals.
  6. It could lead to more parents losing custody of their children.
  7. It would enable sexual assault.

Small business owners, especially those who service the wedding industry, are already in the left’s crosshairs. Cake bakers and florists like Jack Phillips and Barronelle Stutzman have had their livelihoods threatened by government agencies for refusing to participate in same-sex weddings under similar SOGI accommodation laws in their states. The Equality Act’s implementation would open more business owners to lawsuits, including doctors and mental health professionals.

Fortunately, the Senate appears to have no desire to allow the Equality Act to move forward this Congress.

On the other hand, major corporations, at the behest of the liberal Human Rights Campaign (HRC), are openly endorsing the legislation’s anti-religious liberty provisions. The Business Coalition for the Equality Act is a coalition of companies that support this legislation’s attempt to promote the LGBT agenda while attacking small business owners and undermining the 1st Amendment.

Members of the Business Coalition for the Equality Act

Abercrombie & Fitch
Accenture
Adobe
Advanced Micro Devices
Airbnb
Alcoa
Amazon
American Airlines
American Eagle
American Express
Apple
Arconic
Automatic Data Processing
Bank of America
Best Buy
Biogen
Boehringer Ingelheim
Booz Allen Hamilton
Broadridge Financial Solutions
Brown-Forman
CA Technologies
Caesars Entertainment
Capital One
Cardinal Health
Cargill
Chevron
Choice Hotels
Cisco Systems
Coca-Cola
Corning
CVS
Darden
Delhaize
Diageo
Dow Chemical
Dropbox
EMC
Facebook
Gap
GE
General Mills
Google Inc.
Hershey
Hewlett-Packard
Hilton Worldwide

HSN Inc.
Hyatt Hotels Corp.
IBM Corp.
Intel Corp.
InterContinental Hotels Group
Johnson & Johnson
JPMorgan Chase
Kaiser Permanente
Kellogg Co.
Kenneth Cole Productions
Levi Strauss & Co.
Marriott International Inc.
MasterCard Inc.
McGraw Hill Financial
Microsoft Corp.
Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams
Monsanto Co.
Moody’s Corp.
Nike Inc.
Northrop Grumman Corp.
Office Depot Inc.
Oracle Corp.
Orbitz Worldwide Inc.
PepsiCo Inc.
Procter & Gamble Co.
Pure Storage Inc.
Qualcomm Inc.
Replacements Ltd.
Salesforce
SAP America Inc.
Sodexo Inc.
Symantec Corp.
T-Mobile USA Inc.
Target Corp.
Tech Data Corp.
TIAA
Twitter Inc.
Uber Technologies Inc.
Unilever
WeddingWire Inc.
The WhiteWave Foods Co.
Williams-Sonoma
Xerox Corp.

Use the links provided to contact these companies directly and demand they withdraw their support for the so-called Equality Act.

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EDITORS NOTE: This 2ndVote column is republished with permission.

The Party That Extremism Built

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When Democrats ask for their jobs back next year, there should be two dates on voter’s mind: February 25 and May 17. One should have been an unremarkable Monday. That all changed when 44 men and women marched to the Senate floor and justified taking the life of a newborn baby. Three months after that extreme, the House is taking its turn at gut-wrenching clarity — this time, with a bill that would wad up 231 years of freedom and throw it in the garbage along with the rest of the so-called “personal choices” liberals won’t protect. If there was ever any doubt that Democrats are out to destroy the republic, today’s vote on the Equality Act ought to have made that quite clear.

Apparently, the party of legal infanticide wasn’t radical enough. Now, Speaker Nancy Pelsoi (D-Calif.) is going for broke. She doesn’t just want to treat infants like garbage, but women, freedom, parents, science, employers, and religious organizations too. When 228 members of her party cast their “yes” votes for H.R. 5, they weren’t only saying yes to the most extreme piece of LGBT legislation in history — they were saying no to girls’ sports, parents’ authority, religious liberty, women’s rights, privacy, and the free market.

What most people don’t understand is that this campaign was never about equality. That was just a convenient stalking horse to get what the far-Left really wants: raw power. Think about it, Stella Morabito writes in a frightening column about the end-game of H.R. 5. “If you and your cronies wanted to control everybody’s lives, how exactly would you go about [it]?” Obviously, you wouldn’t come right out and say it. “You would mask your self-supremacist intentions with a benign and trendy word like ‘equality.’ You’d pretend that your project was about helping a vulnerable minority.”

In this case, that minority is a handy one. Society is already trained to tiptoe around the people who identify as LGBT. That’s why this legislation is so shrewd — it plays right into the country’s hypersensitivities about tolerance. As Stella points out, Democrats already have an infrastructure in place that shames anyone who with morals, questions, or points of concern about their agenda. Add that to the Left’s around-the-clock reward system for CEOs, organizations, and celebrities who support the con job, and suddenly, the culture is ripe for the taking. “It’s another attempt by a ruling micro-clique to exert mega-control over everyone else’s lives…”

And eight Republicans were foolish enough to take the bait. Reps. Susan Brooks (Ind.), Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Will Hurd (Texas), John Katko (N.Y.), Tom Reed (N.Y.), Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), and Greg Walden (Ore.) played right into the Democrats’ hands. And it’s not as if the warning signs aren’t there. Teachers are already being fired for using the “wrong” pronoun. Girls are already being violated in restrooms and changing rooms and bathrooms. Shop owners are already being driven out of business for their beliefs. Female athletes are already losing scholarships and competitions to biological males. Taxpayers are already bankrolling abortion. Doctors, nurses, and therapists are already handcuffed into violating their conscience. Religious charities are already closing their doors because the government wants to force them to change their standards. America is already catering to the 0.6 percent at the expense of the other 99.4. This would just give the government more painful tools to punish non-conformers.

“No one who disagrees with this bill,” Congressman Doug Collins (R-Ga.) said, “believes [anyone] ought to be treated wrongly, badly. Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) echoed his friend. “There are some fundamental principles that we ought to agree on: don’t hurt other people, respect the right of doctors to do no harm, respect the right of parents to protect their children… Unfortunately, [the bill before us today] violates these principles in the most fundamental way… And this isn’t speculation. Many states have adopted similar laws so we can see firsthand the result of them. This bill harms people in so many ways, taking away safe spaces for women, undermining women… We know this will happen because it already has.”

One after another, conservatives held the line. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) warned that H.R. 5 is “a classic example of passing something now and figuring out what it actually means later. We have been here before. If the devil is in the detail, we’re in for a lot of devilish surprises. This is a small price for some greater good [that] the bill’s proponents have argued.” She’s right, Congresswoman Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) made clear. “This is not equality. This is far from it.” Almost as far as the brave new Left is from the American people.

Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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State of “Gun Violence” in the United States

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Politicians treat so-called “gun violence” as a lever issue, hoping to energize their base and guilt law-abiding Americans into supporting policies that would have no effect on crime or help the mentally ill. Part of this effort entails presenting as large a number of fatalities as possible, and so researchers, the media, and anti-gun politicians combine suicide, homicide, accidents, legal interventions, and incidents in which the intent is unknown.

They’ve chosen to sensationalize tragedies time and again to advance an anti-freedom agenda. The media misrepresents old data by using current-tense headlines. Anti-gun organizations the Brady Campaign and Moms Demand Action politicized memorial services held the day after a shooting when the community wanted a chance to mourn properly. Anti-gun politicians ignore pre-existing trend data if it means they can claim gun control works – no matter how many caveats are included in the underlying analysis.

What does “gun violence” really look like? CDC non-fatal injury data is not reliable, but fatality statistics are accurate. The most recent data available is for 2017; there were 39,772 total firearms-related fatalities. Sixty percent were suicides. Thirty-seven percent were homicides, which is a rate of 4.5 fatalities per 100,000 people. The rate held steady between 2016 and 2017, but it has increased slightly since the start of the decade. However, the 2017 rate is 34% lower than it was in 1980 and 36% lower than in 1993. In other words, the firearms-related homicide rate dropped by 36% in the last 25 years for which we have data. Rates don’t tell the whole story; the total population grew by more than 99 million people from 1980 to 2017 and the number of firearms-related homicides decreased by 958.

Let’s look at the specific wording used in a recent article supporting gun control. “In 2017, the United States had the highest rate of firearm fatalities since 1996.” This statement is specifically crafted to make a dramatic point. The rate of all firearms-related fatalities in 1996 was lower than it was in the previous 15 years, and the rate was lower every year from 1997 through 2016. The data tell a clear story, even in the presence of a recent and moderate increase. Perhaps more importantly, the data shows that suicide is increasing as a percentage of all firearms-related fatalities.

Not all charts are as clear. Some seem designed to support a certain perspective rather than to present data without bias. Doctor Eric Fleegler, affiliated with Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, recently published the above-referenced article titled, “Mass Shootings and the Numbing of America” in JAMA Internal Medicine. He presented firearms-related fatalities by age group and intent. The bars represent the percentage of all fatalities within that age group that involve firearms.

This representation is technically correct, but it suggests at first look that there are more firearms-related fatalities among younger people, specifically those within the 15-19-year-old and 20-24-year-old age groups. The chart really indicates what is not shown: that younger people face fewer potentially fatal injuries and health complications than older generations. In other words, younger age cohorts are generally healthier than older people, some of whom unfortunately pass away due to falls, to heart disease, cancer, or any number of other issues that are not common among teenagers and young adults.

This commentary is not designed to trivialize any deaths, but efforts to address firearms-related fatalities should be targeted and the data needs to be considered sincerely. Unfortunately, we too often see the presentation of data sensationalized to make a point. But, that’s the shell game that anti-gun activists and politicians want to play.

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Should We Panic over the Measles Outbreaks?

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In general, it is not a good idea to panic about anything. The panic itself often causes more harm than the original threat.

Crisis situations, real or contrived, lead to new intrusive laws that the public would never accept otherwise. We supposedly cherish freedom, but if we believe that the world will end if we don’t act NOW, then we may clamor for the government to save us. Cynical politicians bent on increasing their power never let a crisis go to waste.

Something like the Green New Deal—the end of our comfortable, prosperous lifestyle—takes a truly apocalyptic threat. But to eliminate our freedom to decline a medical treatment, the threat that “millions will die” of measles is evidently enough. Or if not millions (most older people had measles and recovered fully), a few especially vulnerable children, who can’t be vaccinated themselves, might catch measles and die.

There are several hundred cases of measles nationwide, more than in 2014, and bills are being pushed through state legislatures to eliminate all but very narrow exemptions to the 60 shots now mandated for school attendance.

In New York City, people are receiving summonses based on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s emergency order. Everybody, adult or child, who lives in four ZIP code areas must get an MMR shot or prove immunity, or face the prospect of a $1,000 fine ($2,000 if you don’t appear as ordered). Your religious exemption is overridden. The threat of 6 months in prison and the prospect of forcible vaccination were removed before a hearing on a lawsuit brought by five mothers. The judge dismissed the case.

Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot said that the purpose of the fines is not to punish but to encourage more people to proclaim the message that vaccines are safe and effective. Get it? If you say something to avoid a fine, that makes it true.

It’s about the need for herd immunity, they say. We need a 95 percent vaccination rate for herd immunity to measles. With only 91 percent or so we are having outbreaks! If we could just vaccinate another 4 or 5 percent!

Mayor De Blasio has a point about vaccinating everyone. Adults are getting measles because their shots have worn off. It is likely that we have survived for decades with a large part of the adult population vaccinated—but not immune. So where do the mandates stop?

Outbreaks have occurred in populations with a near-100 percent vaccination rate. Was it vaccine failure? Or was the vaccine not refrigerated properly? Or was a claimed outbreak real? One in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was called off when a special test, a reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) showed a vaccine-strain measles virus rather than a wild-strain measles virus. Some 5 percent of vaccinees may get an illness that looks like measles, but it is just a “vaccine reaction.” Can they shed live virus? Yes. Should you keep your immunocompromised child away from recently vaccinated people? Just asking.

Like all medical treatments, vaccines are neither 100 percent effective, nor 100 percent safe. Read the FDA-required, FDA-approved package inserts. Arizona defeated a law that would have required making these available to parents in obtaining informed consent. (You can get them on the internet.) Vaccine Court has paid out about $4 billion in damages—recently for two children with severe brain damage from encephalopathy (that’s brain inflammation) after a fight lasting about 15 years. Just incidentally, they had an autism diagnosis also. Parents bring their severely injured children to hearings. You won’t see these children on tv, only pictures of babies with measles. No “fear-mongering” allowed about “rare,” possibly coincidental problems from vaccines.

There are trade-offs with vaccines: risks and benefits. But in the panic about measles, the right to give or withhold informed consent—fundamental in medical ethics as well as U.S. and international law—is being sacrificed. And so is free speech. The AMA wants to censor “anti-vaccine” information on social media. I happened on a factual article by investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, but was not able to retweet it because it had been removed.

The threat of infectious diseases is real and increasing. We need more robust public health measures, better vaccines, and improved public knowledge and awareness. Deploying vaccine police and shutting down debate will erode trust in health authorities and physicians, although more people may get their shots. But such heavy-handed measures will not defeat the enemy—measles and worse diseases.

Nancy Pelosi’s Equality Act Would Undo Trump’s Most Significant Achievements

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Back in October, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi told an audience at Harvard University that if the Democrats retook the House, one of her top legislative priorities would be to pass the misnamed Equality Act, a bill that would impose radical sexual ideology on the nation.

Democrats took the House, and Pelosi wasn’t bluffing. She’s now pushing a bill that would undo some of the most significant achievements of the Trump administration. Here’s how.

The Equality Act adds the phrase “sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity)” to our nation’s civil rights laws that ban discrimination on the basis of race. This means the law would suddenly treat people as racists if they dare to dissent from the left’s ideology on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

Here are the major Trump victories that the Equality Act would undo.

1. The Equality Act would force employers to cover abortion, and medical professionals to perform or assist in performing abortions.

When the Obama administration tried to force this same policy in its very last months in office, a federal judge declared it unlawful. When the Trump administration came into office, the Trump Justice Department agreed with that judge and did not appeal his ruling, which placed a 50-state injunction on that regulation.

Should the Equality Act become law, this abortion policy would become the law of the land, undermining President Donald Trump’s significant pro-life record.

2. The Equality Act would force employers to pay for sex “reassignment” procedures in their health insurance plans, and require medical professionals to perform them.

Think Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor, but only worse. If a health care plan covers mastectomies in the case of cancer, but not in the case of “reassignment,” the Equality Act would deem this illegal “discrimination.” So, too, if a doctor chooses to perform mastectomies in the case of cancer but not for sex “reassignment” purposes. That doctor would be guilty of illegal “discrimination.”

Thankfully, when the Obama administration attempted to impose this mandate, a federal judge struck it down, and the Trump administration agreed with the judge and did not appeal the ruling. Should the Equality Act become law, it would undo Trump’s policy of protecting the freedom of medical doctors to not perform “reassignment” procedures if they deem them bad medicine.

3. The Equality Act would force all schools and businesses to open their women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, showers, and sports teams to boys who “identify as” girls and to men who “identify as” women.

The Obama administration imposed this transgender mandate on schools in all 50 states, and thankfully the Trump administration reversed the misguided policy during its first weeks of office. But, should the Equality Act become law, it would override the Trump policy and would threaten the privacy, safety, and equality of women and girls across the country.

4. The Equality Act could be used to force the military to pay for “reassignment” procedures and force the military to accept recruits suffering from gender dysphoria who are not combat-ready.

The Trump administration has implemented a careful, nuanced policy that allows people who identify as transgender to serve in the military—provided they no longer suffer from gender dysphoria and serve in accordance with their biological sex. But should the Equality Act become law, this Trump policy could be deemed “discrimination.”

5. The Equality Act would force faith-based adoption agencies to either violate their conviction that every child deserves both a mother and a father or to stop serving children in need altogether.

Thankfully, the Trump administration has taken initial steps to protect adoption agencies from these misguided policies. Additional steps are needed. But if the Equality Act became law, it would force all adoption agencies in all 50 states to either violate their convictions or close their doors.

6. The Equality Act would force a variety of small business owners to violate their beliefs about marriage, sexuality, and gender.

At the state level, this has happened to bakers, florists, photographers, and even funeral home owners.

Thankfully the Trump administration has supported these small business owners as their cases proceeded through the court system. But should the Equality Act become law, it would bring the full force of the federal government against these small business owners, treating them as violators of federal civil rights law.

7. The Equality Act, in general, threatens the freedom of speech, freedom of association, and free exercise of religion rights of countless people.

Anyone who believes we are created male and female, and that male and female are created for each other, will be at risk. This means Orthodox Jews, Roman Catholics, Evangelical Christians, Latter-day Saints, Muslims, and people of no particular faith tradition but who take science seriously will be on the wrong side of federal civil rights law.

Thankfully, the Trump administration has championed freedom of speech, free exercise of religion, and the rights of conscience. All of this would be at risk should the Equality Act become law.

COMMENTARY BY

Ryan T. Anderson

Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., is the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow in American Principles and Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation, where he researches and writes about marriage, bioethics, religious liberty and political philosophy. Anderson is the author of several books and his research has been cited by two U.S. Supreme Court justices in two separate cases. Read his Heritage research. Twitter: .

RELATED ARTICLES:

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Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

ACTIVATE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission.

Ignorance, Fear and LGBTQ

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Mary and I met with several black relatives for dinner at a restaurant in Baltimore. The jovial conversation drifted to politics. I was stunned that they know nothing about several important political issues. Because they only watch mainstream media, my relatives are either misinformed or uninformed.

For example: My relatives have never heard of Sharia Law. When I explained the tyranny of Sharia and how leftists are promoting it in America, my relatives were shocked. Overwhelmed, a relative said, “I’ve heard enough. Can we change the subject?”

The second thing that disturbed me was my relatives’ intense fear of pushing back against LGBTQ indoctrination that is impacting their lives. As I said, these are not political people. And yet, they know they had better not get caught opposing LGBTQ activists forcefully infiltrating every aspect of our lives; from public education to entertainment to Sunday morning worship.

A relative said her two granddaughters told her about a picture posted on the internet by their cousin. Their cousin is a girl who posted a picture of her kissing her girlfriend. All these kids are in elementary school. Disturbed, my relative asked her son, her granddaughter’s father, about the picture. He begged his mom not to say anything about the picture. He feared that disapproving of their cousin kissing her girlfriend could lead to him being deemed an unfit parent and losing custody of his daughters.

Another relative said his two little granddaughters were painting their fingernails. Having a little fun, he bent his hand femininely and said, “Paint my nails too.” The little girls immediately turned stone-faced. They said, “That’s not funny Pop-pop. It’s not right to make fun of them like that.” My relative was taken aback by how upset his granddaughters were with him. He did not know that kids are taught beginning in pre-k that homosexuality is superior to heterosexuality. 

Another relative chimed in about a visit at his adult daughter’s home. His granddaughter looked beautiful in her gown for a formal high school event. He was shocked when her date arrived. It was a girl wearing a tuxedo. He thought this was terrible but hid his feelings, fearful of offending his daughter and granddaughter. He knew they would think he was an old-fashion, out-of-date hater if he showed any sign of disapproval.

Folks, LGBTQ activists’ domination of our culture has come a long ways from the days when they claimed they only wanted tolerance. Today, they demand that we bend a knee in total submission and approval of their lifestyle in education, entertainment media and even Christian churches. LGBTQ activists are aggressively seeking to ban the Bible, declaring it bigoted hate speech. LGBTQ activists seek to make it illegal to counsel those who wish to transition from LGBTQ lifestyles. 

Leftists are thrilled about “Corpus Christi” which is a blasphemous movie in which Jesus and his disciples are portrayed as homosexuals. And yet, leftists are demanding that public schools forbid students from drawing pictures of Mohammad because Sharia law says to do so is blasphemy. 

My late dad, Dr Rev Lloyd E Marcus said homosexuals were coming out of the closet and forcing us who believe the Bible into the closet. Truer words were never spoken.

Years ago, I wrote an article about how LGBTQ activists were aggressively seeking to infiltrate and take-down Christian institutions like the Boy Scouts of America. Tragically, LGBTQ activists have transformed the Boy Scouts away from its Christian founding, principles and values. Everything I stated in that article was 100% true. Shockingly, Christians, conservatives and Republicans who usually agree with me backed away from me. My article was branded “mean-spirited” and “anti-Christian”.

At that time, I was Chairman of a PAC which helped to elect conservative candidates. LGBTQ activists attacked our candidate, demanding that they disassociate from this “hater”, Lloyd Marcus. My employer warned that if the bad press intensified, he would be forced to request my resignation. This was my first time personally experiencing the wrath and punishment of LGBTQ activists, simply because I warned people about their mission to bully us into submission.

The surprising intensity of the LGBTQ attacks, reporters chasing me down and sticking microphones in my face, scared me. I could not give a rat’s derriere about what leftists think of me. I had to fight off feelings of guilt as I witnessed LGBTQ enforcers attacking everyone associated with me.

My wife Mary and I prayed about the situation. My wife is awesome. Mary said, “You must spread truth without fear of man.” Life has taught us that while my paycheck came from my employer, God is the true source of our financial security. The heated attacks over my LGBTQ/Boy Scouts article faded away. I was not fired.

However, another of my controversial articles sparked tension between my employer and me. Mary and I concluded that I must be free to write as I am led by God. I resigned from my position as chairman of the PAC.

For years, leftists have accused me of being a black “Uncle Tom sellout” highly paid by the Republican Party. This is not true. Quitting my position as chairman of a PAC was a serious financial decision; an act of faith. God is faithful and has sustained us. Praise God!

I left our family gathering at the restaurant feeling a bit disturbed that my relatives were so politically clueless and so fearful of attempting to stop LGBTQ activists from forcing their anti-Christian agenda down the throats of our children. Still, I am determined to continue spreading the truth and standing up for what is right. God is the source of my strength.

On a positive note, my wife Mary is a crab-cake snob. The crab-cakes at Romano’s restaurant were excellent.

RELATED VIDEO: Drag Queen Showdown – Bill Finley.

Big oil goes big green: Green groups rake in fossil fuel cash

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Climate alarmists often accuse skeptics, like myself and independent groups like CFACT, of being in the pay of Big Oil. This is completely false — we do not receive even a dime from them. It is part of the green fairy tale that skepticism only exists because the oil companies are funding it. That Exxon-Mobil threw a few million at various skeptical causes prior to 2007 is the standard example, but that was many years ago.  They have stopped sending any money whatsoever to skeptical causes since then.

So I did some digging and the reality turns out to be just the opposite. In fact the big oil companies are putting at least a billion dollars into alarmist projects and lobbying. Of course they have good commercial reasons, which are killing coal and making natural gas more “climate friendly.” After all, Big Oil is also Big Gas.

The central vehicle for moving these green billion dollars goes by a perfectly descriptive name — the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative or OGCI. If the false accusers were correct then “oil and gas” would never go together with “climate initiative” but there it is and it is very big.

OGCI members include these Big Oil names:

  • British Petroleum
  • Chevron
  • China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC)
  • Eni
  • Equinor
  • Exxon Mobil Corporation
  • Occidental Petroleum
  • Pemex – Petróleos Mexicanos
  • Petroleo Brasileiro – PETROBRAS
  • Repsol
  • Royal Dutch Shell
  • Saudi Aramco
  • Total

Collectively they claim to produce 30% of the world’s oil and gas.

The OGCI website features a lineup of Corporate CEOs, just to show how seriously green they are. Their latest annual report has a letter from the CEOs, including this gem:

“As our ambition grows with the scale of the challenge, we look forward to working closely with policy-makers, regulators and all stakeholders to help develop the levers that can economically and sustainably accelerate the pace of the low carbon transition.”

OGCI was started in 2014, shortly after the famous Chesapeake Energy scandal. Chesapeake’s CEO was caught giving the Sierra Club millions of dollars to support the war on coal, but some Club members objected, given that they consider fossil fuels their enemy.

What seems to have happened is that the ever-wily big companies simply created their own green group. With a billion bucks in funding it may well be the biggest outfit in Big Green (not counting the green governments).

However, I also found that EDF is actively engaged with corporations, via its EDF+Business arm. In particular EDF has a huge methane reduction program — the Methane Challenge — that involves OGCI. This program is featured in the Sustainability Reports of several major oil companies. EDF is even building and launching their own satellite, cleverly called MethaneSAT.

EDF is clearly getting a lot of money for this. They say they get none directly from the companies, rather that they get it from unspecified “philanthropies.” Where these philanthropies get it may be a different story. They could easily be laundering Big Oil money. It may be telling that OGCI does not issue a financial report.

Space News actually asked EDF about this funding but got stonewalled. Here is their report:

“However, EDF has provided few details about how much MethaneSAT will cost or how it will be funded. The project received last year a grant from a new initiative called The Audacious Project, although the size of the award was not disclosed. An EDF spokesman did not respond to an inquiry about the financial status of the project.”

Having EDF on their side is certainly a big plus for Big Oil.

In any case it is clear that Big Oil is spending at least a billion dollars on green stuff, which is a lot of green. There is no evidence that the skeptics are getting anything, but if some are it is trivial in comparison. Meanwhile OGCI is getting at least a billion and EDF maybe many millions.

When it comes to skepticism, the simple fact is that roughly half of Americans do not accept climate alarmism, right up to the President. No one is paying for this widespread skepticism. As for Big Oil, they are putting big bucks into green climate initiatives, not skepticism. Conservatives do have their think tanks, which happily manage to find some funding, but not from Big Oil for climate skepticism.

That Big Oil is responsible for skepticism is just another part of the alarmist fantasy world.

Author

David Wojick

David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. For origins click here. For over 100 prior articles for CFACT click here. Available for confidential research and consulting.

Transgenderism as a Tool of Humiliation

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Matthew Hanley: Transgender activists are unafraid to make menacing displays of power, to which appeals to basic reason count for nothing.

What if I were to tell you that defining gender by objective reference to genetics, anatomy, and genitalia “has no basis in science”? Would you consider that persuasive – or unhinged?

That, alas, is the viewpoint expressed in the journal Nature, long reputed to be an authoritative scientific publication. They now banish the classification of male and female as “a terrible idea that should be killed off” since it threatens to “undo decades of progress” in reclassifying sex and gender as a “social construct.” You might think Nature would be concerned about cultivating a credibility problem. But what do they have to worry about when colossal lies are the order of the day?

Regarding the “mismatch between gender and the sex on a person’s birth certificate,” Nature applauds the American Academy of Pediatrics for advising physicians to “treat people according to their preferred gender, regardless of appearance or genetics.” Pediatricians doubling as transgender apologists: this surely is the mark of a culture that has made peace with its disdain for children, science, and human nature.

Meanwhile, the American Psychological Association (APA) has issued guidelines warning about the dangers of espousing “traditional masculinity.” But if we are to take the APA at its word, why on earth should medical authorities encourage a female to become a male?  It seems the reigning approach is that troubled females should be entitled to undergo reassignment surgery – an act of mutilation – in order to acquire an unconvincing external appearance, but should also, thenceforth, be encouraged to disdain all the “harmful” traits associated with masculinity.

A related inconsistency is also routinely ignored: if transitioning from one sexual identity to another is so enthusiastically embraced as a good to be facilitated because of our enlightened appreciation of gender “fluidity,” why are there legal obstacles to legitimate approaches to help people transition away from homosexuality?

Though still quite rare, there has been a spike in the incidence of transgender identification in recent years – sometimes in bunches and rather out of the blue.  Going transgender does not necessarily invite derision but, believe it or not, is sometimes pursued as a way to boost popularity among one’s peers. To point that out is not to dismiss the genuine distress some adolescents acutely feel, but largely overcome with the passage of time.

Common sense suggests the transgender surge has been prompted by the Zeitgeist, against which the medical profession, in particular, should be on guard. Yet they have become complicit in its emergence.

We tell ourselves this is a free country.  No one is “forcing” them to peddle the falsehood that a man can become a woman, or vice versa. But just because this is not Mao’s China does not mean that a form of its Cultural Revolution has not made its way here.

So says Anastasia Lin, who left China at age 13 and now resides in Canada.  Writing recently in the Wall Street Journal, she pinpoints the ultimate objective of our politically correct mobs:

The goal is not to persuade or debate; it is to humiliate the target and intimidate everyone else. The ultimate objective is to destroy independent thought.

One can only hope that the extremism exploding all around us may help more people perceive that the target in this case, as with the sexual revolution more broadly, is Christianity itself, along with its social and moral order.  By definition, this means that man himself is in the crosshairs, a point to which many who have adopted the post-Christian quasi-religion of “humanitarianism” are apparently oblivious.

Lin describes how her parent’s generation in China “learned to keep their heads down and to watch what they said, even to their closest friends, for fear of being accused of thought crimes,” in order to lament what is taking hold here as well. Too many of us in any number of professions know how true those words ring.

Coercion in one form or another is mandatory anytime a lie is purveyed to the masses. Examples of this are multiplying before our eyes. A professor at Arizona State University contends, in the American Journal of Bioethics, that parents should not be permitted to prevent their children from acquiring puberty-blocking treatment.

In the inverted thinking so typical of our time, it is the withholding of this “treatment” that constitutes child abuse, rather than the abetting of delusions and the sanctioning of aggressive measures that are often harmful, and in a real sense experimental, since evidence justifying their use is utterly lacking.

For now, that remains a proposal in our country. But the Supreme Court of British Colombia decreed last month that the father of a fourteen-year-old girl may not thwart her quixotic attempt to transition into a boy. She is entitled to puberty blockers that are hers by unnatural right.  Furthermore, the father was put on notice that he also better watch his mouth: calling his own daughter a girl or using female pronouns when referring to her would be considered “family violence,” the truth now being a punishable offense.

And as the night follows the day, he has since been declared “guilty” of that “crime.”

In light of this menacing display of power, basic appeals to reason count for nothing. This is ultimately a matter of competing wills. But taking a strong stance against irrational gender tyrants can work, as Muslims in the UK proved by getting the LGBT-oriented curriculum pulled from their kids’ schools.

That the militant LGBT crowd, having pushed over everyone else, backed down in this context suggests that they are driven primarily by the desire to dismantle Christian sensibility rather than an unwavering belief in gender ideology. Note here the winner in this battle of wills.

If only faith and the art of persuasion were in vogue, more might see that abandoning Christianity and our inbuilt human nature does no favor to man; doing so tends toward ruin, as all too many discover after wading into the transgender abyss.

COLUMN BY

Matthew Hanley

Matthew Hanley is senior fellow with the National Catholic Bioethics Center. With Jokin de Irala, M.D., he is the author of Affirming Love, Avoiding AIDS: What Africa Can Teach the West, which recently won a best-book award from the Catholic Press Association. The opinions expressed here are Mr. Hanley’s and not those of the NCBC.

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2019 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

NASA Chief Criticized for Mentioning Christianity in Speech

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It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the First Amendment. Or maybe, after the spat over a speech by NASA’s Jim Bridenstine, it does.

Thanks to the double standards of secularism, public officials can’t even talk about faith without making headlines. It’s no wonder, then, that when the head of America’s space program gave remarks at a Christian ministry, even he had trouble finding signs of intelligence in the criticism that followed.

Capitol Ministries, the organization that Bridenstine has supported for years, is hardly controversial. Nine of the president’s 15 Cabinet officials are sponsors of the ministry—whose aim is simple: influencing government with biblical teachings.

During his talk, Bridenstine even talked about the importance of that goal and what it means in the context of these times. “I love what Ralph said earlier: We’re not trying to Christianize the U.S. government. We believe in an institutional separation, but we also believe in influence. And that’s a big distinction and an important distinction, and that’s why I love this ministry.”

Bridenstine couldn’t have been more clear: No one in the Trump administration is trying to create a theocracy. They just want the same freedom to bring their personal views to bear on public policy that liberals have.

Still, secularists like Business Insider’s Dave Mosher seem intent on dragging Bridenstine through the mud for daring to talk about actual NASA history—like Buzz Aldrin’s communion on the moon and the Apollo 8 astronauts’ Bible reading in orbit.

In a 2,000-word rant about the faith of President Donald Trump’s team, Mosher insists that “Some ethics and legal experts outside NASA have expressed concern over Bridenstine’s speech. They believe it ran afoul of the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which outlines a separation of church and state, and might have also violated ethics rules for federal executives.”

Quoting people like Virginia Canter of Citizens for Responsible Ethics, Mosher tries to paint Bridenstine as a typical Establishment Clause abuser. “One’s personal beliefs must be respected, but when appearing in an official capacity, you have to adhere to certain ethical standards,” Canter explained. “One is not to give the impression that you are officially endorsing any products or service or enterprise.”

Funny, where was Mosher when former President Barack Obama was headlining political fundraisers for Planned Parenthood? Or worse, invoking God’s blessing on the abortion giant?

Everyone from Hillary Clinton to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have not only endorsed the group’s “service”—but funneled hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to it. No one seemed to care when they appeared in their official capacities to preach the gospel of abortion. But put a Christian on the stage from the Trump administration—encouraging something as innocent as prayer—and they’re a walking ethics violation. This is NASA, for crying out loud. What are they worried about? Bridenstine sending astronauts to evangelize the galaxy?

If secularists are upset about Bridenstine’s speech, then they should have been shaking the White House gates over the last administration’s agenda for the space agency.

How quickly we forget those shocking comments in 2010 when Obama told NASA Administrator Charles Bolden that his new mission should be “to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations … .”

If you’re looking for a textbook abuse of public office, I’d say start with the Obama administration. After that, giving a few remarks at a charity function seems like small potatoes.

But hypocrisy is the name of the Democratic game. Like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and countless other Trump officials before him, Bridenstine is just the latest target of an intolerant left whose only goal is purging faith from public life and history.

If activists can’t get Christians to stay quiet, then they’ll try to drive them out of government altogether. That will be tough to do in this administration, thanks to the fearless leadership of Trump. If his team has learned anything, it’s how to stand up to bullies. That shouldn’t be hard for a man like Bridenstine. He was already light-years ahead of the opposition.

EDITORS NOTE: This Family Research Council column is republished with permission.

Gender Identity Law Declares War on Women, Forces Trans Men to be Accepted as Female

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House Democrats have reintroduced a bill that would make “gender identity” a protected class under federal civil rights law and force men who identify as women to be treated and accepted as female. If the measure, known as the Equality Act, becomes law, it would drastically impact numerous sectors.

Hospitals and insurance companies will have to provide costly sex-reassignment therapies, employers and workers who don’t conform to new sexual norms will lose their businesses and jobs and women would lose female-only facilities and sports. The only requirement for protection under the bill is a self-declared “gender identity.”

In a statement celebrating the Equality Act’s reintroduction last month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this: “To dismantle the discrimination undermining our democracy, we must ensure that all Americans, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, are treated equally under the law — not just in the workplace, but in education, housing, credit, jury service and public accommodations as well.”

The veteran California congresswoman claims the measure has strong bipartisan support even though two Republicans that supported it when it was first introduced in the last Congress are no longer in office. Florida’s Ileana Ros-Lehtinen retired and Virginia’s Scott Tayler failed to win reelection. Fortunately, the bill is likely to encounter serious resistance in the Republican-majority Senate as well as the White House.

Nevertheless, the transgender movement has become a dangerous war on women and girls and the law floating around in Congress will be detrimental to both. The Equality Act would be a setback to women’s rights in several areas.

American women would be stripped of single-sex accommodations in public multi-stall bathrooms, domestic violence or rape crisis shelters, drug rehabilitation centers, jails, juvenile detention facilities, homeless shelters, locker rooms or group showers. Judicial Watch recently wrote about a separate law that aims to defund women’s shelters that don’t allow transgender men who self-identify as women.

The Equality Act goes further by also stripping a woman’s right to have a person of the same sex conduct security searches on their body, supervise drug tests, handle intimate medical care and supervise children on overnight trips. This is because the language in the proposed law replaces sex with gender identity, open to the claimant’s interpretation, as a protected category.

This would be especially harmful to females in areas such as competitive sports. A decades-old federal measure known as Title IX prohibits discrimination in all federally funded education programs, including sports.

It ensures that boys and girls in elementary through high school and men and women in college have athletic opportunities. If the Equality Act passes males will have the right to compete against females, an atrocity that even the most liberal women and feminists reject.

Among them is tennis legend Martina Navratilova, an 18-time Grand Slam champion who encountered lots of discrimination for coming out as gay during the peak of her professional tennis career in the 1980s. “You can’t just proclaim yourself a female and be able to compete against women,” Navratilova said. “It’s insane and it’s cheating. I am happy to address a transgender woman in whatever form she prefers, but I would not be happy to compete against her. It would not be fair.”

A recent public high school case in Georgia supports the tennis great’s assessment. At a track competition, a transgender athlete easily beat all the females. The mother of one of the demoralized athletes reached out to several women’s rights groups for help but her concerns fell on deaf ears. A conservative public policy women’s organization in Washington D.C. helped the mother express her concerns to Congress.

In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee the mother writes this: “To say that my daughter, as well as the other female athletes, were humiliated and had a sense of defeatism is an understatement. In the words of my daughter, ‘What’s the point Mom, we can’t win.’ Hearing this broke my heart, for my daughter and for all the female athletes, who train so hard, but no matter how hard they work and train they will never be able to beat a biological male. … What are we doing to our girls by forcing them to race biological males?”

Concerned Women for America, the group that assisted the Georgia mother, has conducted extensive research on the Equality Act and recently published a document outlining the measure’s dangerous consequences for women and girls.

Shea Garrison, the organization’s vice president of international affairs, says the bill wrongfully “redefines civil rights law” and “elevates the interests of one group over another.” An esteemed academic, Garrison’s work and research focuses on women’s economic and social empowerment, religious freedom and human rights.

EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch column is republished with permission.

BOOK REVIEW: The Terror of Existence — From Ecclesiastes to Theater of the Absurd

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“Sincerity in literature may not always be a virtue, but insincerity is almost always a vice.” – Theodore Dalrymple

“A theater of the absurd is exactly that: absurd.” – Kenneth Frances

Theodore Dalrymple, a former prison doctor and psychiatrist, and Kenneth Frances, who holds an MA in Theology, joined together to produce a work that explains how we have fallen into the “theater of the absurd.”

I have written dozens of articles about uncontested absurdities that have now become public policies. Theodore Dalrymple and Kenneth Frances analyse how we have come to accept these uncontested absurdities via literary works. Frances writes this about a J.D. Salinger book read by millions of public education students:

I have often wondered whether the America novel, The Catcher in the Rye, is a literary hoax, a kind of Leftist propaganda manifesto, manufactured to discredit traditional family values.

Who are the culprits? Who set the cornerstone for the theater of the absurd?

The culprits are existentialists, led by Jean-Paul Sartre, who are a “conundrum of intellectuals” who have abandoned God and replaced him with man.

Existentialism is about “being”, not “believing.” We are in an age of “identity theory” that has morphed into “identity politics.” God has been taken out of the public square and replaced by me-myself- and I.

What could possibly go wrong?

The Believer vs. The Non-Believer

In their compelling book The Terror of Existence — From Ecclesiastes to Theater of the Absurd Dalrymple and Frances analyse the main existentialist works of the 20th century. Francis is a “believer” Dalrymple is not. However, both help us find meaning in a existentialist created meaningless universe.

This book is both literary criticism and spiritual and philosophical exploration. The authors try to answer some of the most compelling questions faced today including:

  • How can a life stripped of ultimate meaning be anything but absurd?
  • How is man to live?
  • How could man find direction in a world of no direction?
  • What would a father tell his children that could make their lives worthwhile?
  • What is the bed rock of morality?

Education Has Created a Nation of Idiots

In Chapter 13 Francis reveals how educators have been injecting our children with the heroin of existentialist ideals. Francis writes:

Theologian Peter Mullen, writing in the Salisbury Review in 2017, said: “Give me fifty years of comprehensive education and I will show you a nation of idiots.”

Francis goes on stating, “[E]ver since the widespread use of social media and the rise of political correctness, many institutions of education seem to have lowered their standards. Generation Selfie, particularly millennial college students, live in an era of sound bites, ‘micro-aggressions’, ‘safe spaces’ and shallow, trolling tweets.”

In the May 2017 edition of Taki’s Magazine, Dalrymple wrote the following on “Sovietization without a revolution”:

“For to force people to assent to propositions that are outrageously false, on pain of losing their livelihoods or worse, was to crush them morally and psychologically, and thus make them docile, easily manipulated, and complicit in their own enslavement.”

Without God Life is Meaningless

Francis writes, “Satanic temptation is real…Shielding our ears from the groans emanating from Western or Eastern holocausts in the pursuit of happiness is evil and satanic.”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, during his Temple Address in London, England on May 10, 1983 said:

“If I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous [Communist] Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately that to repeat: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”

In Chapter Six Francis does an analysis of Jean-Paul Sartre’s novel Nausea. Francis writes, “This book is about a writer who finds himself in the belly of the absurd.” Francis notes, “there’s a long list of factual infamous despots and psychos influenced by [Sartre’s] existentialism who exercised their authenticity with gusto.”

One of these “existentialist” tyrants was Pol Pot.

“Many years before the Year Zero slaughter of millions began in the mid-1970s in Cambodia, a well mannered, polite Mr. Pot left Cambodia and went to Paris to study radio technology. While there, he was deeply influenced by Sartre and Marxism.” notes Francis. “In testimony before a genocide tribunal in Cambodia, Pol Pot’s chief jailer, Kaing Guek Eav, said that children were executed to prevent them seeking revenge. In order to save bullets, executioners would hold the children by their legs or feet and smash their heads against tree trunks in the ‘killing fields’ on the edge of Phnom Penh.”

Conclusion

If you want to understand how we got to our current political system and the culture of identity politics then read The Terror of Existence — From Ecclesiastes to Theater of the Absurd.

A Message to Mayor Pete from a Latina Mama: ‘DON’T FORCE YOUR SEXUAL IDEOLOGY ON ME AND MY CHILDREN’

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By Ana Samuel

Yes, be polite to us, and we will be polite to you. But we know that we are in an intense battle over the hearts and minds of our children. Mothers are very good at educating and protecting our children from harm when we believe they are in danger. This time, that danger is the harmful sexual ideology of the Left.

I would like to respond to a tweet by Pete Buttigieg, newly announced Democratic presidential candidate. Last week, he tweeted:

People will often be polite to you in person, while advancing policies that harm you and your family. You will be polite to them in turn, but you need not stand for such harms. Instead, you push back, honestly and emphatically. So it goes, in the public square.

Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is a man in a same-sex marriage. The tweet’s sub-text is that anyone who refuses to cheer for same-sex marriage or support the Left’s sexual ideology is a bigot — someone who is out to harm Mayor Pete and his family.

Mayor Pete, it cuts both ways. As a Latina mama in touch with a number of other Latinas with traditional family values, I can tell you we are faced every day with people who are “polite to us in person” but who advance and execute policies that assault our values, harm our families, and hurt our children.

Enough Is Enough

I’m talking about policies that undermine our parental rights and duties by seeking to indoctrinate our children in progressive sexual ideology without our consent and sometimes in spite of our explicit protest. Consider just a few examples:

  • The public schools in my area where reading assignments from the Language Arts curriculum ask: “What is heteronormativity and how is it harmful?” (Mind you: this is a question from the school district’s recommended language arts curriculum for eighth graders, not from a single health teacher or counselor. It is not unusual for the LGBT theme to find its way into history classes, foreign language studies, and even STEM courses. The explicit goal is to normalize LGBT lifestyles throughout curricula).
  • Pediatricians who ask to see our teenagers alone and then push to prescribe them contraceptives or ask them about sexual behaviors that we find offensive. Our teens themselves bring these pediatricians’ inappropriate behavior to our attention. (One OBGYN slipped a prescription for oral contraceptives stealthily to a 14-year-old daughter of a Mexican friend of mine, after she had explicitly stated to his face that she did not wish to see her daughter on oral contraceptives.)
  • Sex education classes in which our kids are taught unproven Freudian-Kinseyan doctrines that “sexual repression” will cause neuroses (“express yourself, don’t suppress yourself”), and which preach about topics like abortion, masturbation, condom use, sex toys, “outercourse,” oral stimulation, and rectal intercourse, with all the humor and scientific grounding of a Saturday Night Live sketch, while refusing to seriously address the short and long-term medical and psychological health risks of those actions.
  • Public library programming where unicorns, rainbows, gingerbread persons, drag-queen story hours, and other symbols of progressive sexual ideology make an appearance, so that we must regularly steer our toddlers clear of the propaganda. With our middle-school children, it’s much harder to opt out. Trendy middle-school books (published after 2014) that appear to have fairly innocuous plots frequently feature an LGBT teen or gay couple, ever-so-gently normalizing the ideas that are so conflicting to our consciences. (Avoiding these storylines isn’t easy, since book-review websites regularly delete or block parents’ reviews that warn of LGBT elements, so we cannot even alert other parents of the real content within these books.)
  • And last but not least, the latest round of violence against children: efforts to entice children to question the reality of their sex through school gender-transitioning ceremonies, pronoun-sensitivity training, and other transgender propaganda. Parents have historically enjoyed the right to direct the education and upbringing of their children, under the correct presumption that parents—rather than school counselors, psychiatrists, teachers, government bureaucrats, or any other persons—are best able to act in their children’s best interests. Now, activists are pushing courts to allow minors to receive puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones against their parents’ objections.

Mr. Mayor, it is hypocritical for you to cry foul about policies that “harm you and your family” while your side pushes for government intrusions into the parent-child relationship at the most fundamental levels.

At some point, we say “enough is enough.” Basta.

Toleration for You, but Toleration for Me Too

Mothers tend to emphatically care about the welfare of all children, regardless of their family’s origin or current form. We also tend to emphatically care about every LGBT person—recognizing our common humanity even when we do not agree with their lifestyle choices. When we are polite to you, we are coming from a place of deep moral principle and authenticity. It’s not a superficial cover up for our true beliefs about you. You are rights-bearing individuals (like all of us) endowed with human dignity.

Although our home countries have often been viciously anti-gay places, there is a deep understanding among Hispanic mothers that those who identify as LGBT have suffered a lot, and that many have lived a life of hurt, harm and pain. We feel great sympathy for your suffering. But the ideas you have developed from painful experiences are not always sound ones. And we can distinguish between the two: between affectionate concern for you as a person and disagreement with your ideas. So please stop shutting us out of the conversation by the intellectually dishonest rhetorical expedient of implying or saying that we are bigots. We are the opposite of bigots.

We are prepared to co-exist peacefully and tolerate a great deal of what you propose, but not at the expense of losing our own ability to practice and preach our own values and freedoms. We are happy to work side-by-side with you, to have you as our coaches, neighbors and friends, but don’t cross the line and tell us what sexual values to cherish and uphold.

Check Your Financial Privilege

Blacks, the poor, and children have always paid a disproportionately heavy price for the breakdown of marriage and sexual morality in society. Marriage between husband and wife has historically been the institution that best offers women, children and the poor a decent shot at a peaceful, stable, financially secure, socially connected life.

Please note that I’m not blaming the erosion of marriage on the LGBT movement. No, we in the mainstream did that all on our own. However, the LGBT movement has further eroded marriage, and in a more shocking way. It is not a good idea to tell society that you don’t need a member of the opposite sex to have a baby or that kids don’t need a mom and a dad because they will do fine in any kind of arrangement. That’s not true, and there’s plenty of empirical data to prove it.

Respecting the truth about sexuality and marriage is also the least expensive. Friend, it takes a lot of money to circumvent nature. It takes upscale health insurance to pay for those doctor’s visits to the urologist, OBGYN, and additional medical care linked to sex outside of marriage, rectal intercourse, or cross-sex hormones. It takes a lot of money to pay for that surrogate rent-a-womb so that two men can have a baby. Even if she’s from a third world country—and easily exploitable—it’s still expensive (and the ethics don’t look good). It also takes a lot of money to go through IVF, usually requiring dual-income households.

The fact is, permanent, monogamous, exclusive marriage between husband and wife is the cheapest and highest quality deal on the market. It’s the most financially accessible way to have a child and the safest way to experience sexual pleasure. It also provides some built-in sexual complementarity: a family environment that educates in sexual diversity by example and is more likely to offer balanced childcare, with both sexes offering their unique and invested perspectives on how to raise the children.

Amigo, I’m sorry, but these are the truths of nature. Hijacking nature with cutting edge technology may sound attractive to those who can afford the niceties of upper-class life, but not to those working to meet their basic daily needs. (Do you think getting a sex change is cheap? Don’t you think the poor have other things to think about?) Your agenda requires a lot of extra cash—either that, or socialized medicine. And many of us Hispanics have fled from countries like Cuba and Venezuela (and increasingly Argentina and Mexico) precisely because socialist policies in our home countries turned despotic.

Ask yourself: is the lifestyle you are setting up as a pattern for others to follow replicable and sustainable? Or does it further destabilize the family form that has provided the greatest financial and social stability to women, children, and the poor? The evidence consistently points to the latter.

You play the victim card, but it’s well-off same-sex couples who can afford to cushion themselves and their children from the costly effects of the progressive sexual lifestyle. You can redirect your children’s attention away from the gaping absence of a mother or a father towards a good education, nice clothes, memorable experiences, and recreation. However, your lifestyle cannot be sustained by millions of people who make less money than you. The mothers in my circles know this, and we care about those poor children — and their mothers and fathers, too.

The weight of the past fifty years of social science evidence is virtually unanimous in its conclusion: children — and societies — do best when kids are raised by their married, stable, biological parents. Separate a child from his or her biological mother or father, and you’ve made that child much more likely to experience internal conflict, significant pain and suffering, relational struggles, and a host of other issues.

Challenge Accepted

So yes, be polite to us, and we will be polite to you. But we know that we are in an intense battle for the hearts and minds of our children. We mothers may be underground and quiet, we may not be marching in the streets, and we may not be debating you in public. But we are meeting for coffees in our homes, talking privately with our school teachers, spreading thoughts the media refuses to print, and speaking freely while the First Amendment still means something. Yes, so long as we still enjoy the freedom of association in this country, we will continue to meet and organize, to speak and teach.

Mothers are very good at educating and protecting our children from harm when we believe they are in danger. This time, that danger is the sexual ideology of the Left.

Finally, to my Latina sisters, my message is this: ¡Encuentren su voz! ¡No dejen que la ideología de genero de la izquierda borre nuestros valores culturales sobre la familia! ¡No dejen de ejercer sus derechos de madres! ¡Mamas del mundo: únanse!

This essay originally appeared at Public Discourse: The Journal of the Witherspoon Institute and is reprinted with permission.

COLUMN BY

Ana Samuel

Ana Samuel, PhD, is the daughter of Mexican immigrants, the wife of an Argentine immigrant, and the mother of six awesome children. She completed her undergraduate studies at Princeton University and her doctoral degree from the University of Notre Dame before becoming a founding mother and the Academic Director of CanaVox.

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Colorado Sex Ed Bill Would Force Kids to Learn LGBT Ideology, Ban Talk of Abstinence

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Colorado’s wildly controversial, comprehensive sex ed legislation has ignited national discussions about how far Americans want to expose their children to a radical social agenda.

More than a few eyebrows were raised when Colorado passed its mandatory comprehensive sex education law in 2013, which required students undergo “culturally sensitive” lessons.

“Culturally sensitive” meant that sex ed lessons would incorporate minority perspectives on sex that had not previously been represented in sex-ed—including LGBT individuals, but also other groups. (In practice, this meant teaching and affirming more diverse kinds of sex.)

Though many parents were concerned, those concerns were appeased by the fact that students could discuss their moral, ethical, and religious beliefs on sex and sexuality in the classroom. It also allowed some schools to be excused from provisions of the law, if requested.

Yet, just five years later, Colorado’s Democrat-controlled General Assembly thinks the 2013 law is no longer good enough to address the sexual education of teens.

Enter HB 1032.

HB 1032 would do away with all the “concessions” included in the 2013 law and would specifically prohibit religious, moral, and ethical perspectives on sex from being discussed in the classroom.

The bill demands that schools teach about the relational and sexual experiences of LGBT teens. It would forbid any emphasis on abstinence and sexual-risk avoidance as the only foolproof method against pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, and even declares that saying so in the classroom is against the law.

HB 1032 would strip teachers, administrators, and school boards of the ability to choose the content of their comprehensive sex ed curriculums and would no longer allow schools to be excused from the requirements of the bill.

The bill is almost militant in its stringent requirements and prohibitions, thoroughly censoring the speech of teachers and crushing parental rights and religious freedom in the classroom.

Currently, only two states in the country (California and Louisiana) prohibit schools from speaking about religious beliefs regarding sex. The majority of states—including Colorado currently—allow abstinence to be stressed or emphasized to teens as the only foolproof method against sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy.

Yet, HB 1032 would flat-out ban speech that suggests abstinence is the best and healthiest choice. That’s despite the fact that the majority of American teens are choosing abstinence, and Colorado teens have a lower rate of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted teen pregnancies than the national average.

HB 1032 would flat-out ban speech that suggests abstinence is the best and healthiest choice.

Prohibiting emphasis on abstinence isn’t the only instance of the Colorado Legislature attempting to place words into the mouths of teachers and ideology into the hearts of our children. HB 1032 would also require that teachers who discuss pregnancy outcomes, like adoption and parenting, also discuss abortion.

If passed, Colorado would become only the third state in the country to have that, after Vermont and California.

Clearly, the vast majority of American parents, teachers, and schools believe adoption and abortion are not morally or ethically equivalent options. The bill brazenly refers to teaching abortion as an example of “objective, unbiased” instruction, despite abortion being one of the most contentious issues of our time.

It probably comes as no surprise that Planned Parenthood lobbies across the nation for comprehensive sex education bills to be enacted, and Colorado was no exception.

It certainly isn’t coincidence that Planned Parenthood is one of the world’s largest providers of comprehensive sex education materials in the world, peddling radical content that even the most liberal among us might find too shocking for our taste.

Planned Parenthood’s ready-made sex education curriculum just happens to fit the exact requirements HB 1032 would impose on local school districts. Its materials often promote virtually any type of sexual exploration and experimentation as a “safe and healthy” part of any relationship, no matter the child’s age or biological sex, just as long as you “say yes.”

Planned Parenthood’s ready-made sex-education curriculum just happens to fit the exact requirements HB 1032 would impose on local school districts.

That last point is certainly the provision of Colorado’s sex education bill that garnered the most heartfelt protests from parents during the 20-odd hours of public testimony. Parents tend to take issue with the government mandating teaching elementary school students the definition of “consent.” They already know the answer.

In Colorado, as in most other states, the definition of consent for elementary students is: Illegal. Criminal. Unsafe.

Parents have been rightfully confused on how teaching young children about consent could possibly protect them from predators. How did decades of “No Means No!” education become upended to be “Yes Means Yes”?

Young children are certainly capable of voluntarily saying the word “yes” to acts that might feel good but are nonetheless deeply harmful and traumatic. It is a parent’s job to protect their children from an agenda that has shifted sex education dialogue from being one of protection to one of pleasure, from prevention to gratification.

Unfortunately, HB 1032’s sponsors and supporters have downplayed the tens of thousands of parents clamoring for the bill to die as well as the national dialogue the bill has ignited on how parents can guard their children’s hearts and minds in today’s schools.

HB 1032 has already been passed through a state House committee, the House floor, and its first state Senate committee, despite the overwhelming outcry. The bill is currently being considered in a Senate fiscal committee, which will soon vote on whether $1 million will be allocated from the general fund to schools to help them pay for implementing the burdensome legislative requirements.

If passed out of committee, the full Senate will vote on the bill, and then it will be off to the desk of Colorado’s openly gay governor, Jared Polis, for signature.

It is a parent’s job to protect their children from an agenda that has shifted sex-education dialogue from being one of protection to one of pleasure, from prevention to gratification.

Families in states such as Arizona, Massachusetts, and Texas are fighting controversial provisions similar to Colorado’s. Tennessee, Alaska, Idaho, and other states are taking proactive measures to ensure family values are respected in the classroom.

Washington state parents recently took a page from Colorado parents’ book and successfully stopped their own appalling comprehensive sex education bill, as did parents in New Mexico.

But the threat isn’t limited to state legislatures. The U.S. House of Representatives will be voting soon on the deceptively named “Equality Act,” which could lead to federal courts ordering schools to implement curriculums on sexual orientation and gender identity.

We hope the outcry in Colorado continues to encourage parents in other states around the country to stay informed about what’s being taught in their children’s classrooms—and to do everything they can to protect their children from harmful ideology.

COMMENTARY BY

Stephanie Curry

Stephanie Curry is the policy manager for Family Policy Alliance.

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RELATED ARTICLE: California Parents Object to New Sex Ed Program in Public Schools

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission.

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