Tag Archive for: marriage

The Faults in ‘No-Fault’ Divorce

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Jesus rejoiced in the institution of marriage. “He Who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:4-6).

Note the phrases: “hold fast … one flesh … what God has joined … not separate.” Marriage is, in God’s good plan, unitive and permanent, a covenant made to last. While Jesus made an exception for infidelity, God’s word makes clear that marriage is composed of a relationship that is to be as secure as our salvation in Christ. Indeed, marriage is a picture of the union of Christ and His church (Ephesians 5:22-33).

In our culture, this beautiful union has been tarnished by the availability of penalty-free dissolution. On July 6, 1969, the state of California enacted the nation’s first “no-fault” divorce law. As the state’s judicial branch website explains, this means “no one has to prove someone did something wrong to cause the divorce (this is called no fault divorce). You can get a divorce even if the other person doesn’t want one.” This measure became law under the signature of then-governor Ronald Reagan, who later told his son Michael that signing it was “one of the worst mistakes of his political career.”

In 2010, New York became the last state to enact a no-fault divorce law; today, all 50 have some form of the law on the books. Making no-fault divorce available and inexpensive is like offering a child an endless supply of ice cream and soda: Given human fallenness, something accessible that is also seen as desirable will be common. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2021 there were 1,985,000 marriages in the United States and almost 690,000 divorces — almost exactly 35% of those who tied the knot.

In total, about half of first-time marriages end in divorce; subsequent marriages end at an even higher percentage. While the causes vary widely, ultimately no-fault divorce is a precipitating factor.

It has also become common. As National Review journalist Madeleine Kearns observes, we now have “widespread acceptance of ‘no fault divorce,’ the idea that marriage, like a car, sometimes spontaneously breaks down, becoming more hassle than it’s worth.” A disturbing but accurate metaphor. “The nation saw a spike in divorce rates following the enactment of no-fault divorce laws,” writes The Daily Signal’s Daniel Davis. “Between 1960 and 1980, the divorce rate more than doubled and remained relatively steady into the 1990s.”

At the same time, consider research by the University of Virginia’s Dr. Bradford Wilcox, who heads the National Marriage Project, that “active conservative Protestants,” or Evangelicals, “who attend church regularly are actually 35% less likely to divorce than those who have no religious preferences.” Also, in 2018, Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program published research collected over 14 years showing that “regular religious service attendance is associated with 50% lower divorce rates in later life.” So, while it’s good news that among regular churchgoers the divorce rate is lower, it is still high. And the costs of divorce for the couples involved, their children, and the culture at large are wide and deep. The scars left, especially on children, are large and enduring.

Christians need to pursue Christ-honoring marriages and there are many resources to help them; some can be found at FRC.org. With that said, while personal character is not the province of government, both Scripture and the Constitution emphasize the need to restrain the excesses of human fallenness. Penalizing adverse and destructive behavior is necessary for individuals and communities, even nations, to enjoy a high measure of stability and security. Along with this, nothing strengthens the foundation of any society more than healthy, robust families. So, what can government do, for the good of everyone, to create a cultural environment in which faithful marriage is encouraged?

Policies that bolster marriage are helpful. For example, the home mortgage deduction, the adoption tax credit, and the charitable tax deduction are among those that enable families to better pay their bills. But things like the so-called “Respect for Marriage Act,” which essentially said that marriage is whatever any state says it is, and no-fault divorce take away from whatever else government gives.

What is not helpful is a national policy in which divorce-at-will, or with modest qualifications, is now more the norm than not. Revising state divorce policy is a tough challenge; model legislation (which includes exceptions for such things as spousal abuse and abandonment) provides guidance but has yet to be enacted. It’s hard to curb people’s desire for an easy-out.

Perhaps the most effective remedy is for believers to model the kinds of marriages Jesus envisioned. As Christian men and women demonstrate the beauty of the lifelong, exclusive, covenantal commitment He taught, the attractiveness of the one-flesh union might well make marriage more attractive.

A final note: Theologically, there’s no such thing as a no-fault divorce. There is always at least one party morally responsible for violating something God never intended to be dissolved.

AUTHOR

Rob Schwarzwalder

Rob Schwarzwalder is Senior Lecturer in Regent University’s Honors College.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Top Reasons to Dump the ‘Fag Flag’ and Restore ‘Old Glory’ from the school house to the White House

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I remember that each and every single day that I was in elementary, middle and high school holding my hand over my heart with my teacher and classmates reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I grew up loving my country. Each and every day I grew to love her more and more. Until the inauguration of Joseph Robinett Biden Jr.

Today young people seem to have forgotten America’s history, the basics of biology, and the science of DNA. It seems they feel comfortable, even devoted, to embracing myths like: America is racist, whites are supremacist, mankind can control the weather if we the people just submit to big government mandates, laws and regulations that take away our freedom of choices bit by bit and a male can identify as a female.

This has led to Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. flying the “Fag Flag” in front of the White House along with the American flag honoring pride month. BTW, remember that pride is one of the seven deadly sins.

Title 4, United States Code, Chapter 1, Paragraph 7 reads (c),

No other flag or pennant should be placed above or, if on the same level, to the right of the flag of the United States of America, except during church services conducted by naval chaplains at sea, when the church pennant may be flown above the flag during church services for the personnel of the Navy. No person shall display the flag of the United Nations or any other national or international flag equal, above, or in a position of superior prominence or honor to, or in place of, the flag of the United States at any place within the United States or any Territory or possession thereof: Provided, That nothing in this section shall make unlawful the continuance of the practice heretofore followed of displaying the flag of the United Nations in a position of superior prominence or honor, and other national flags in positions of equal prominence or honor, with that of the flag of the United States at the headquarters of the United Nations.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. has violated U.S. Code by flying the Fag Flag on the same level as the American Flag at the White House.

Reasons to Dump the Fag Flag

There are many reasons to dump the Fag Flag, including but not limited to:

  1. Remove the Fag Flag from the White House in accordance with Title 4, United States Code, Chapter 1, Paragraph 7 (c).
  2. In a video recently unearthed from 2019, Chasten Buttigieg, “husband” of Department of Transportation diversity hire Pete Buttigieg, is seen leading children in a pledge of allegiance to the Gay Pride flag. Buttigieg had the young children recite: “I pledge my heart to the rainbow of the not so typical gay camp, to the gay agenda for which it stands. One camp, full of pride, indivisible, with affirmation and equal rights for all.” Doing this harms children and grooms them for pedophiles and pederasts.
  3. The U.S. Air Force Twitter account posted a tweet celebrating pride month with an image of a soldier saluting the alphabet rainbow flag. Read some of the comments WOKE Air Force received on this official tweet they sent out. So bad that the U.S. Air Force shut off  all comments. This harms the health, welfare and morale of our men and women in the armed services. It is an existential threat to our national security.
  4. A Colorado school district encouraged its physical education (P.E.) teachers to don LGBT pride gear and use preferred pronouns in an effort to display their support for the LGBTQ community, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation through a public records request. On March 8, a group of Jeffco Public Schools high school teachers were trained on how to make the district’s P.E. programs “even more inclusive,” where all students feel welcome regardless of their “race, ethnicity or sexual orientation,” according to a presentation obtained by the DCNF through a public records request. Teachers were trained to engage in “public visibility” by sporting some sort of rainbow pride gear such as a pin or t-shirt, plan or participate in pride events and practice using preferred pronouns. Having any teacher forced to don Fag Wear is both demeaning and a threat to the emotional health and well being of students.
  5. Bosch Fawstin wrote, “It might be news to some, especially to the left’s useful idiots on the left and the right, but the “LGBT Pride movement” is a communist movement. Same with the “Black Lives Matter movement,” the “Feminist movement,” etc. Because a naked communist movement might wake up too many Americans, and leftists know that, they hide behind race, sex and sexuality to push communism…In sum, the LGBT movement is a gay communist movement that now expresses a triumphalist attitude about their position in 2023, where they moan about how “marginalized” they are, while shoving their lifestyle in our children’s faces. As one of these gay supremacists put it the other day, ‘Straight sex is just not natural. Those are biological facts.’ I would tell this gay supremacist that without natural straight sex, he and billions of people wouldn’t exist.” Communism is anti-American.
  6. Jim Hoft, on September 24, 2022 reported, “Earlier this week investigative journalist Christopher Rufo reported on the teacher’s union promoting how-to guides on ‘anal sex’ and ‘fisting’ to children. This is shocking news to most Americans that the nation’s largest teachers’ union is promoting such material to America’s children. “It All Started with Obama: Barack Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar” Pushed Books that Encouraged Children to Meet Adults at Gay Bars for Sex”>But this trend of perversion did not start during the Joe Biden regime. Back in January 2010, The Gateway Pundit reported on Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings. “Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings and his organization GLSEN was encouraging children to meet adults in gay bars for sex. From our 2010 report: This story just gets freakier and weirder and the fact that the mainstream media completely ignores this dangerous man working in the Office of Safe and Drug-free Schools makes the story even more scandalous. You’d think the AP could peel away a few of its reporters from Going Rogue to investigate this radical czar. This avoidance by the democratic-media complex won’t keep us from reporting the truth. Our goal of protecting children is greater than our desire to protect a political party. Kevin Jennings’ was the founder, and for many years, Executive Director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) until he left his post in 2008. GLSEN maintains a recommended reading list of books for children that the radical organization believes all kids should be reading. The books on the list promote all kinds of radical ideas from child rape, to first graders having sex to the joys of prostitution. Recently it was discovered that these books were not only on GLSEN’s reading list but that Kevin Jennings personally promoted several of these books during his career. One of the books he promoted encouraged children to go to gay bars for sex with adults to see if they like it.
  7. One of the queerest myths is the use of the Fag Flag by the LGBTQ+ community to symbolize pride and equality. The truth is that the Fag Flag rainbow was created by God after the great flood and first seen by Noah and his family. The rainbow in the clouds was a symbol of hope that civilization would begin anew in His Image. Genesis 9: 15-17 read, “[A]nd I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures. Never again will the floodwaters destroy all life. When I see the rainbow in the clouds, I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth.” Then God said to Noah, “Yes, this rainbow is the sign of the covenant I am confirming with all the creatures on earth.”
  8. A Professor from Bethlehem College & Seminary named Dieudonné Tamfu wrote in a July 18th, 2015 article titled What Does the Rainbow Mean for Gays?, What do you think of when you see the rainbow flag? Most likely, you think of homosexuality or the wider LGBT movement. Gilbert Baker, the man credited with pioneering the celebratory rainbow flag flying over the gay movement, recently lauded his craft, noting that it’s something beautiful. He answers those who think it’s not, saying, “The rainbow’s in the Bible. It’s a covenant between God and all living creatures.” According to Baker, the God of the Bible knows the struggle of gays and lesbians, and that is where he finds hope. God does indeed know the internal and social battles of gays and lesbians, but the question is, Does he approve of their practice? Would God approve of their use of the rainbow to symbolize this movement? The Supreme Court’s decision on gay “marriage” has made the rainbow symbol ubiquitous. Those who celebrate so-called same-sex marriage are painting social media with rainbow colors. Even the White House was lit up the with red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. God designed the rainbow to symbolize something far greater and far more glorious than homosexuality, and if those in the homosexual community truly understood and embraced the symbol they are waving in their hands, they would experience true freedom and peace. [Emphasis added] Read more. The Fag Flag is anti-Muslim, Christian and Jew.

But there are rays of hope.

The Bottom Line

ChurchMilitant.com reported,

The U.S. ambassador to Poland has become embroiled in the battle between militant homosexual campaigners and traditionalist Catholics after tweeting her support for the gay lobby on Thursday, as anti-Catholic blasphemy by LGBT activists continues to escalate before the fall general elections.

Over 30 town councils in Poland declared themselves “free from LGBT ideology” after anti-Catholic LGBT parades blasphemed the Blessed Sacrament and the icon of the Black Madonna and Warsaw’s mayor signed a pro-LGBT declaration in February calling for gay sex education in schools.

[ … ]

Swidnik councillor Radoslaw Brzozka said his town issued its anti-LGBT statement in response to Warsaw’s declaration, which was “against good moral values.”

“Let children have a father and a mother, not such deviations. Otherwise there will be fewer and fewer children, and Poland will shrink,” 83-year-old Teresa Drzewiecka, who witnessed Nazis and Communists battling for control of her town Swidnik, told Reuters.

Tom Perkins, from the Guardian on June 17, 2023 reported,

In 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city attracted international attention for becoming the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council.

They viewed the power shift and diversity as a symbolic but meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric that was a central theme of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign.

This week many of those same residents watched in dismay as a now fully Muslim and socially conservative city council passed legislation banning Pride flags from being flown on city property that had – like many others being flown around the country – been intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.

Muslim residents packing city hall erupted in cheers after the council’s unanimous vote, and on Hamtramck’s social media pages, the taunting has been relentless: “Fagless City”, read one post, emphasized with emojis of a bicep flexing.

The Washington Stand’s Ben Johnson on June 20, 2023 reported,

In the latest sign the LGBT agenda is losing support, the number of people who view same-sex relationships as “morally acceptable” tumbled last year — a sign “people are beginning to connect the dots” between legalizing same-sex marriage and indoctrinating schoolchildren in the LGBT agenda, a prominent pro-family leader says.

Overall, support for homosexual relationships fell this year by 7%, the largest decrease of any of the moral issued posed by Gallup pollsters in their annual Values and Beliefs poll, conducted each May. In 2023, 63% of Americans say they see nothing wrong with “gay or lesbian relations.” Fewer Republicans and Democrats said they found homosexual relations morally neutral this year.

“People are beginning to connect the dots between these agendas,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on “Washington Watch” Monday. “We were told all this is just about live and let live, just being able to marry the one you love.” Disengaged voters “didn’t realize that it was going to involve the indoctrination of their children, the infiltration of every media outlet in America,” or that “different professions will be forced to affirm these same-sex unions” or go out of business.

It’s time for America like Hamtramck, Michigan to become a “Fagless” nation.

The first step on the road to reality would be taking down every Fag Flag in every classroom, board room, and from the school house to the White House.

Then purge media centers and school curriculum K-24 of all references to Fags and their Communist ideology.

Finally, The Washington Stand’s Ben Johnson reported,

Americans who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual are far more likely to suffer from major depression, abuse illegal drugs, and are up to six times as likely to attempt suicide, according to a new report from the Biden administration. Although the report admits it cannot “explain the reasons” for these differences, it opens by blaming LGBT “invisibility and erasure” — a leap critics say is “just bad science” that obscures the real causes for their mental distress.

Adults who have sex with members of the same sex, or both sexes, experience a dramatically lower quality of life across numerous measures, the Biden administration reveals. Women who have sex with members of both sexes (bisexuals) were six times as likely to have attempted suicide within the last year as women who identify as straight, and three times as likely to abuse opioid drugs. Bisexual men were three times as likely to have had a serious mental illness in the last year, according to the survey from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

“A higher prevalence of substance use and mental health issues has been well-documented among people who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (also referred to as sexual minorities) than among those who identify as heterosexual or straight,” notes the report, which focuses on American adults’ behaviors during the 2021-2022 year.

Time to save the children before they become fags to keep them from abusing drugs, preventing their mental illnesses and stop the suicides.

As for corporate CEOs across America warning, go Fagless or your company goes broke. Hey, Bud Light did you get the message to go Fagless?

©2023. Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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Biden Reelection Bid Promotes Abortion, Pornographic School Library Books as ‘Personal Freedom’

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President Joe Biden officially announced he plans to seek reelection in an online video message that indicates he plans to wage a social issues-focused campaign that presents unrestricted abortion-on-demand and same-sex marriage as “our rights” to “personal freedom.”

Biden chose to launch his reelection campaign, not with a traditional campaign speech, but with a previously recorded video posted online around 6 a.m. Tuesday morning. Abortion is among the ad’s first political messages, as the camera pans a protester holding a sign that reads, “Abortion is healthcare.”

The campaign video, which cites no presidential accomplishments in the president’s tenure, seemingly seeks to paint Republicans as extremists who threaten America’s spiritual health. “When I ran for president four years ago, I said we were in a battle for the soul of America. And we still are,” Biden says. “The question we’re facing is whether in the years ahead whether we have more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer rights.” But, the president asserts that “MAGA extremists are lining up to take on those bedrock freedoms,” including allegedly “dictating what health care decisions women can make, banning books, and telling people who they can love all while making it more difficult for you to be able to vote.”

Conservatives say the ad shows Biden’s newly discovered focus on social issues. “Five seconds. That’s how long it took Joe Biden to endorse abortion in his new campaign ad,” noted SBA Pro-life America. “It’s what he’s running on. It’s what he stands for: taxpayer funded abortion on demand up to birth.”

Biden’s reference to “banning books” apparently refers to outraged parents’ efforts to remove books heavy with graphic depictions of sexual acts from public school libraries serving children under the age of 18. Among these titles is “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, which “has detailed illustrations of a man having sex with a boy,” as well as “fellatio, sex toys, masturbation, and violent nudity.” Another book that frequently generates parental outrage, “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison, “describes a fourth-grade boy performing oral sex on an adult male” and remembering the experience fondly. The content of books that parents removed from Florida school libraries proved so sexually explicit that TV networks cut away from a press conference in which Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) showed their contents publicly. One such concerned parent pushed back against such characterizations, telling “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” last July that removing pornography from school libraries is “not Kristallnacht.”

Biden’s campaign appears to have adopted the talking points offered last summer by a Beltway Democratic polling firm, Hart Research Associates, which advised Democrats to attack “Republicans’ culture war attacks on schools” and accuse the GOP of “banning books and censoring curriculums,” while reassuring voters that Democrats want to “put politics aside.”

Biden’s launch video also appears to indicate that he will highlight his signature accomplishment of the so-called “Respect for Marriage” act, which imposed a nationwide redefinition of marriage on all 50 states. As he refers to “telling people who they can love,” the camera features Jim Obergefell, the plaintiff in the 2015 Supreme Court opinion that invented the right to same-sex marriage. Swing-state voters in Ohio rejected Obergefell in a landslide loss last November.

The ad says Biden intends to advance “personal freedom,” to “protect our rights,” and “to make sure that everyone in this country is treated equally.” As president, Joe Biden attempted to impose a COVID-19 vaccination mandate on every employer with 100 employees or more, doubled fines for travelers who refused to wear masks, and shoehorned discriminatory race- and gender-based equity policies into every aspect of government.

“I know America,” Biden insists in the ad.

Biden’s campaign intends to enroll inner-city Christians in his coalition. Near the end of the video, a shorter-than-normal screen cut featured two shots containing a cross-shaped Baptist church sign and a black minister opening his church door, separately.

Critics showed no surprise that the president chose not to highlight his record, which has included inflation unseen in 40 years, a poorly executed withdrawal from Afghanistan, and divisive efforts to brand his political opponents as incipient domestic terrorists.

“This particular president has been a sad story for the United States,” Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” on Tuesday. “We’re exposed to so many weaknesses in consequence of it abroad.” The last 27 months have inflicted “debilitating damage,” Bishop stated.

Entirely apolitical figures have criticized Biden’s promotion of gender ideology, threatening to cut off school lunch funding to schools that refuse to give men access to women’s private facilities and the “right” to compete against females in sports. “More and more women are realizing their biological reality is being attacked by politicians pandering to their base instead of protecting women’s rights,” said 12-time NCAA All-American swimmer Riley Gaines. “Protecting the girls’ and women’s sport category is common sense and should not be a partisan issue.”

Whatever issues his handlers highlight, Joe Biden faces an uphill battle in 2024. Biden currently has an approval rating of just 39%, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll. A new CBS News/YouGov poll shows that 72% of Americans say the nation is “out of control,” and 71% say it’s Joe Biden’s fault.

“In terms of inflation and other problems in our economy, it’s time to turn a page,” Bishop told Perkins. “But he’ll do what he’s going to do, I guess.”

A whopping 70% of Americans, including 51% of Democrats, say they do not want President Biden to seek a second term in office. He currently faces two Democratic primary challengers: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and New Age author Marianne Williamson.

The Democratic National Convention currently plans to hold no debates during the 2024 primaries.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘Null and Void’: Iowa Aims to Expunge Same-Sex Marriage

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The political battle to defend natural marriage is far from over in the nation’s heartland, as Iowa legislators have introduced two bills that would expunge same-sex marriage from state law and declare a national law redefining marriage “null and void.” The bills come as yet another local Republican Party chapter condemned Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), one of 12 Republican senators who voted for the so-called Respect for Marriage Act.

On Tuesday, eight Iowa state representatives introduced House Joint Resolution 8, which would amend the state constitution to read: “In accordance with the laws of nature and nature’s God, the state of Iowa recognizes the definition of marriage to be the solemnized union between one human biological male and one human biological female.” The measure must pass both this session and next session, then go to a statewide referendum of the voters no earlier than 2025.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Brad Sherman (R) felt moved to introduce the bill based on history, law, and the Bible itself. “The definition of marriage was defined as being between male and female for 5,000 years of world history. Marriage has been defined as a model of Christ and the church for 2000 years (see Ephesians 5:31-32),” he wrote to constituents.

But Democrats claimed the measure originated from a lower motivation. “This kind of disgusting hatred and backwards thinking has no place in Iowa,” fumed State Rep. Sami Scheetz (D). “And I’ll fight it every single day.”

The second bill, House File 508, would nullify the Respect for Marriage Act, rendering it a dead letter inside state boundaries and protecting any state resident from being forced to carry out a same-sex nuptial ceremony. The legislation invokes the First Amendment, Tenth Amendment, and the separation of powers between the state and national governments established by the Constitution’s federalist system.

“The state of Iowa considers certain elements of the federal Respect for Marriage Act … relating to the definition of marriage to be null and void ab initio and to have no effect whatsoever in Iowa,” the bill declares. Any “attempt by the federal entity to erect a legal definition of marriage plainly falls outside the enumerated powers of Article I, section 8, of the Constitution of the United States” and violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

“The Respect for Marriage Act violates the tenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States by encroaching upon state powers that are reserved to the states or to the people,” it adds.

Since marriage represents “a sacred religious sacrament that is fundamentally” tied to the free exercise of religion, the bill says the government compel anyone to take part in a same-sex rite. “No resident of Iowa shall be compelled, coerced, or forced to recognize any same-sex unions or ceremonies as marriage, notwithstanding any laws to the contrary that may exist in other states, and no legal action, criminal or civil, shall be taken against citizens in Iowa for refusal or failure to recognize or participate in same-sex unions or ceremonies,” says H.F. 508.

Both measures come as the Tama County Republican Central Committee censured Joni Ernst and fellow Iowa Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson for voting to pass the Respect for Marriage Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law last December. The censure says their votes violate the Republican Party of Iowa’s platform, which states:

“We believe that traditional, two-parent (one male and one female), marriage-based families are the foundation to a stable, enduring, and healthy civilization. Therefore, public policy must always be pro-family in nature, encouraging marital and family commitment, and supportive of the parental rights and responsibilities. We encourage the repeal of any laws allowing any marriage that is not between one natural man and one natural woman.”

“In line with the [f]aith and [r]eality with respect for all Judeo-Christian ethics, that are endowed to us by our Creator we affirm the following: ‘Only marriage between one man and one female’” the censure states.

The motion made the organization the 16th county GOP to censure Ernst over her vote to redefine marriage, according to a list compiled by The Iowa Standard. Others who have faced backlash for voting for the measure include Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Thom Tillis, and Richard Burr (both R-N.C.), as well as Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), and Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas).

The right of citizens to enact their own laws figured prominently in both Iowa bills, as well.

Iowa’s left-leaning Supreme Court imposed same-sex “marriage” on the Hawkeye State by judicial decree in 2009, making it only the fourth state in more than two centuries of U.S. history to recognize the institution — all by judicial decree. State supreme courts in Massachusetts, California, and Connecticut forced states to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2008; California passed Proposition 8 to overturn the ruling less than six months later.

“The reason I signed on” to H.J.R. 8 “was because in 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court made an unlawful decision to define marriage,” State Rep. Luana Stoltenberg (R) told the Quad City Times. “It never went through the legislature. So, if this resolution goes through, it would go to a vote of the people of Iowa.”

Some say lawmakers hope their bill will return to the U.S. Supreme Court, which now has a far more conservative, constitutionalist membership. “Let’s be clear: their goal is for SCOTUS to strike down the RFMA and overturn Obergefell,” said Santiago Mayer, the executive director of the Generation Z-focused Voters of Tomorrow.

In his concurrence to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which found the Constitution contains no “right” to an abortion, Justice Clarence Thomas invited his fellow justices to reexamine other cases premised on legal theories he considers erroneous. Among them, Thomas listed Obergefell v. Hodges.

Lower courts would typically have to issue conflicting rulings on the issue of same-sex marriage, and justices would have to agree to take the case, before it would come before the high court. The constitutionalist-leaning Supreme Court would then have the opportunity to reverse this precedent, which bars U.S. citizens from having a democratic voice on the policy.

First, both bills must pass committee by the end of this legislative day. Neither has been assigned to a subcommittee, and Speaker of the House Pat Grassley (R), Senator Chuck Grassley’s grandson, has stated, “I don’t expect any of those bills to move.”

The eight Iowa state representatives who introduced the marriage protection amendment are: Mark Cisneros, Zach Dieken, Thomas Gerhold, Helena Hayes, Brad Sherman, Luana Stoltenberg, Mark Thompson, and Skyler Wheeler.

The eight Iowa state representatives who sponsored H.F. 508 are: Sherman, Cisneros, Dieken, Gerhold, Anne Osmundson, Stoltenberg, Charley Thomson, and Thompson.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Democrat Calls Advocacy for Natural Family ‘Dangerous and Un-American’

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A Democratic politician has received massive backlash after she called the scientifically attested belief that children suffer less abuse in nuclear families “dangerous and un-American.”

“Extremist group Family Heritage Alliance said this morning that the safest place for kids are in families that have a married mom and dad. What a dangerous and un-American belief,” tweeted State Representative Erin Healy (D) on Monday.

She had apparently been triggered by testimony offered on behalf of the natural family by the South Dakota family policy council. “In committee we made the claim that the home of a married mother and father is statistically the safest place for a child, and we stand by it 100%. We know that a strong, nuclear family is the safest, most beneficial place for a child to be. Research confirms our claim,” Family Heritage Alliance Director Norman Woods told The Washington Stand.

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“Children living with two married biological parents had the lowest rate of overall Harm Standard maltreatment,” according to the most recent, congressionally mandated survey of child abuse, conducted in 2010. “This rate differs significantly from the rates for all other family structure and living arrangement circumstances. Children living with one parent who had an unmarried partner in the household had the highest incidence of Harm Standard maltreatment.”

Studies as far back as 1985 found toddlers living with a stepparent were 40 times more likely to be abused than those living with “two natural parents.” Children living with an unrelated parent were 50 times more likely to be killed than those living with their biological parents, according to a 2005 study by University of Missouri researchers Patricia Schitzman and Bernard Ewigman published in the journal Pediatrics. Four years later, Lawrence Berger of the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that “families in which the mother was living with a man who was not the biological father of all children … were significantly more likely to be contacted by [Child Protective Services] than those in which she was living with the biological father of all resident children.”

Children from fatherless homes are more likely to do poorly in school, join a gang, commit crimes, and be imprisoned, multiple studies show. In addition, “boys who came from a home without a father were more likely to use drugs than boys who came from a home where a father was present,” according to the Minnesota Psychological Association.

The science attesting to the success of the natural family “is well established, uncontroversial, and obviously not un-American to believe. How sealed does one’s echo chamber have to be to tweet something like this?” replied Jay Richards of the Heritage Foundation.

Yet Healy had lobbed multiple epithets at the defenders of the natural family. Three hours earlier, she complained, “The grip from fundamentalist groups who only believe in nuclear families is strong at our state legislature today. I am disgusted by the extremist opposition we heard today,” she said, adding she was “disappointed” a House committee voted down a “simple, important bill” (H.B. 1092) that would redefine marriage as any union “between two persons.”

Live-in boyfriends are not the only threat to children’s safety. The tweet came the same day South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem (R) signed the Help Not Harm Bill (H.B. 1080), which bars the transgender industry from administering puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or committing surgeries “for the purpose of attempting to alter” the child’s gender identity in a way that is “inconsistent with the minor’s sex.” It allows children affected to sue the doctors and medical establishment involved.

“This bill is extremism at its finest,” Healy said, adding, “We know that kids are going to die because of this bill. We know that most Republicans realize that this bill and its testimony is full of lies and misinformation.”

The assertion that children suffering gender dysphoria will commit suicide without lifelong hormone injections or permanently life-altering surgeries is itself misinformation. Multiple surveys show that individuals who go through with gender-reassignment procedures have the same, or higher, risk of suicide as those who do not. Whistleblower Jamie Reed, who identifies as a lesbian supporter of “trans rights,” explained that employees of gender reassignment surgeries regularly use high-pressure tactics to convince parents to go forward with the controversial, and highly profitable, transgender procedures. Reed’s former clinic is now under multiple investigations for prescribing experimental cancer drugs to children and disregarding parental consent.

“Denying the truth that we are either male or female hurts real people, especially vulnerable children. By enacting this legislation, South Dakota has taken critical steps to protect children from radical activists that peddle gender ideology and pressure children into life-altering, experimental procedures and drugs,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Matt Sharp. “Science and common sense tell us that children aren’t mature enough to properly evaluate the serious ramifications of making certain decisions; the decision to undergo dangerous and likely sterilizing gender transition procedures is no exception.”

Ironically, Woods’s organization — and Woods personally — has also taken heat from Kristi Noem after Woods wrote a letter asking her to take action against a “kid-friendly” drag show sponsored by South Dakota State University. Noem responded by instructing the organization to “find an executive director” who does not “attack the most conservative governor in the country.”

Sanford Health, Noem’s top career donor, furnishes minors with puberty blockers and commits transgender surgeries, has received accreditation on the “Healthcare Equality Index.” The industry successfully killed a similar bill, the Vulnerable Child Protection Act, in the 2020-2021 legislative session.

Woods says his organization will continue advocating for nature and the natural family. “Any child who grows up without a mother has lost something. Any child who grows up without a father has lost something,” Woods told TWS. “We will not ignore this loss, no matter the political consequences.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Policeman’s Resignation Shows the Fallout over Marriage Has Begun

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Last week, North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis (N.C.) bragged to The Washington Post that he doesn’t “vote for anything” that he thinks “will have a serious political consequence.” They were glib words for a man who’d just put his name behind a bill rewriting marriage for every American. Like the 11 other Republican senators whose moral courage collapsed before the nation’s eyes, Senator Tillis would have you believe there’s no fallout from his vote for same-sex marriage. But a young Georgia policeman who’s out of a job over his beliefs would beg to disagree.

“Christians should not be fearful of this legislation,” Senator Todd Young (R-Ind.) wrote in an op-ed for the Indy Star. The so-called Respect for Marriage Act, he insisted, offers “far more in the way of religious liberty protections than [we have now].” Tell that to Jacob Kersey, who was a 19-year-old rookie of the Port Wentworth Police Department, until his supervisors decided his views on marriage were too “offensive.” Try telling Jacob that Christians don’t need to worry that these laws “will be used as a weapon to bludgeon them for their beliefs,” as Senator Young claimed, because this young man — like every American with a bullseye on their backs — won’t believe it.

Barely a month after Joe Biden signed his name to the law upending marriage in all 50 states, every excuse these 12 Republicans made is turning out to be exactly what conservatives warned they were — lies. “… [W]e have just improved on religious liberty protections … across the United States,” Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said, despite every legal argument to the contrary. Now, these dozen senators are making prophets out of conservatives, who warned that abandoning marriage would only usher in a new wave of oppression.

For Kersey, that oppression was swift, coming less than 24 hours after a Facebook post he made on his personal account. “God designed marriage,” he wrote January 2. “Marriage refers to Christ and the church,” he explained in reference to in Ephesians 5. “That’s why there is no such thing as homosexual marriage.”

The next day, the Daily Signal reported, Kersey’s supervisor called to tell him that someone had complained about the message. Take it down, he was told. Jacob refused. For that, he was hauled into a meeting with three superiors, Major Lee Sherrod, Captain Nathan Jentzen, and Police Chief Matt Libby, and ordered to “turn in everything he had that belonged to the city.” While people are entitled to their own views, Libby said, talking about natural marriage is the same as using a racial slur. It’s like “saying the N-word or ‘F— all those homosexuals,’” the chief insisted.

Despite the promise they saw in him as a police officer, the three men agreed Kersey would have to be placed on administrative leave while the city considered whether his job could be salvaged.

A week later, Kersey was given a choice: keep your opinions off social media or turn in your badge. If he wanted to post Scripture, fine. But if he shared anything else that offended someone, he could be fired. Does that sound like “a good step forward for religious freedom” to you? Is that what Todd Young meant when he talked about showing “diverse beliefs proper respect?” Or how Cynthia Lummis (R-Wy.) defines “tolerance?”

A few sleepless nights later, Jacob resigned. “I didn’t believe that my department had my back, and I didn’t really want to go back and play that game and just wait to be fired, because I know it would happen at some point,” he told “Washington Watch” Thursday. “The leadership at that police department claims to be Christian. But I just don’t understand why they would say that an outspoken Christian is the same thing as a racist. It’s just absolutely ludicrous to try to equate me to [someone] who hates people based off the color of their skin, because I believe in God’s design for marriage.”

“I really enjoyed being a police officer,” Kersey admitted. “And that was a huge part of my identity at a young age. And I look forward to doing that for a long time. But, you know, you have to follow when Jesus calls.” As Jacob said, “We really, really have to understand that this isn’t all just a big political game. This is a spiritual battle that’s going on right now. … And Christ is King — and if we’re believers and we really believe that, then we should be fighting for His comprehensive rule overall, especially in our hearts, and we should stand for Him and His word.”

In the meantime, Jacob could lose his whole career because 12 grown senators couldn’t muster the courage he’s shown at 19. He is the fallout they denied, the collateral damage of a decision that will haunt our country for generations. While these men and women hold up their law’s non-existent protections as a shield from criticism, know that very real Americans have no defense. No shelter for the attacks that will come.

When we asked Jacob what he would say to the 51 Republicans who turned their backs on him and millions of other Americans, he grew serious. “My decision to stand up for biblical truth goes back to the Bible in Genesis 3. I see the serpent whispering in the ear of Eve. And Adam, who knows very well what God has said, stood passively by and let sin happen. And I think there are going to be consequences for those who stand idly by and watch the serpent slither around and ignore God. If you’re going to be a Christian, you’re going to have to decide — are you going to be like Adam? And what are the consequences for your action?”

Today, the consequences are exactly what we warned: the Left and those trying to curry favor with the intolerant mob are now empowered with the force of government to crush anyone who lives out their biblical faith. The retort of the 12 Republicans will likely be that the action against Jacob was unlawful, and he would have a good chance of prevailing in court. But why should a 19-year-old have to go to court to defend the teaching of the Bible in order to be a police officer? While it’s true he could win that challenge, the real effect is upon those watching.

“You can see exactly what they’re doing,” Dr. Albert Mohler warned when the votes were imminent. “They’re coming for us.”

And Jacob Kersey is just the beginning.

AUTHOR

Tony Perkins

Tony Perkins is president of Family Research Council and executive editor of The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

The Number of Children Growing Up in Intact Families Is Rising

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Amidst the negative news surrounding the state of marriage and the family in the U.S., a bright spot is beginning to emerge: the number of children being raised by their married mothers and fathers is slowly rising.

A new analysis from Lyman Stone, a research fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, found that “[s]ince a low ebb around 2014, the share of kids living with their parents has actually risen by about 1.5 percentage points.” While the relatively low growth rate might seem inconsequential, it stands in stark contrast to the overall pattern of decline in stable American families over the last 50 years. From the early 1960s until around 2014, the share of children living in intact families steadily nosedived from 87% down to around 62%.

As Stone observes, there are a number of reasons behind the increase in stable households for children. Even though marriage rates are falling, so is divorce, which means that the marriages that are happening are more stable. On top of this, the rate of children born to married parents has remained stable. At the same time, writes Stone, “birth rates of unmarried women have fallen very rapidly” over the last 20 or so years. So despite falling fertility and marriage rates, “the children who are born are more likely to live with two married parents.”

This is good news for children, as an abundance of studies show that kids raised in an intact, two-parent household have vastly better life outcomes than their peers who are raised in single-parent households. One recent research brief found that children raised in intact homes are “more likely to be flourishing economically, educationally, and socially” with regard to child poverty, college graduation rates, and rates of incarceration than their counterparts in single parent homes.

In addition, a summary of the effect that family structure has on children noted that kids who grow up with their married mother and father are more often involved in community activities like sports and other extra-curricular activities, spend more time with their fathers, are 20 to 35% more physically healthy, score higher in cognitive tests like verbal reasoning, and are less likely to exhibit problematic behavior at school than their peers from non-intact families.

As family sociologist Brad Wilcox and other researchers have observed, there has been a notable recent challenge to the social scientific consensus on the benefits that intact families give children in outlets including The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Harvard Gazette, which argue that family structure has negligible consequences on children. But as Wilcox contended, these arguments ignore what the consensus in the sociology field has been for decades. “It is simply the truth that white and black children usually do better when raised by their own mother and father, compared to single-parent and stepfamilies,” he wrote.

According to Stone’s most recent analysis, this means that the future is looking a little bit brighter for America’s children. “All in all, the decline in intact families in America appears to have bottomed out for now,” he wrote. Stone also noted that not even a global pandemic could stop the rising trend of children growing up in intact families.

“Naturally, these trends could change in the future, but as of now, it appears that not only did COVID fail to undo the trend of rising intact families, it may have accelerated it for certain groups,” he pointed out.

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Oops! Democratic ‘Oversights’ Would Legalize Polygamy, Infanticide

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One of the most famous illustrations in all of literature comes from “The Adventure of Silver Blaze,” when Sherlock Holmes notes “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time”: the dog that did not bark. The canine’s silence revealed the watchdog’s familiarity and comfort with the criminal. “Obviously the midnight visitor was someone whom the dog knew well,” remarks Holmes.

Voters can glean the inner disposition of our lawmakers, learning which issues they consider vital and which never enter their minds, through a similar device: the “errors,” omissions, and oversights politicians make when drafting legislation. Allegedly inadvertent “oversights” and “drafting errors” by Democratic lawmakers over the last year alone would have decriminalized infanticide, legalized polygamy, and suppressed sacred religious liberty rights enshrined in the First Amendment.

Lest I be accused of overstatement, let’s look at the record:

1. Infanticide

En route to becoming an “abortion sanctuary,” California lawmakers passed Assembly Bill 2223, introduced by Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks. The original draft forbade law enforcement from prosecuting or investigating any mother for the death of her child through “miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or perinatal death.” Pro-life legal scholars noted that California state law extends the term “perinatal death” up to 30 or “60 days following delivery,” essentially decriminalizing infanticide. Wicks retorted that her law could never be construed to support child murder, because “one of the tools judges would use in that case is legislative intent.” (Then again, if judges valued original intent, Roe v. Wade would never have been written.) Wicks called pro-life concerns “absurd and disingenuous” … but then the Assembly’s overwhelmingly Democratic Judiciary Committee released its official analysis, which put the matter as gently as possible:

[T]he “perinatal death” language could lead to an unintended and undesirable conclusion. As currently in print, it may not be sufficiently clear that “perinatal death” is intended to be the consequence of a pregnancy complication. Thus, the bill could be interpreted to immunize a pregnant person from all criminal penalties for all pregnancy outcomes, including the death of a newborn for any reason during the “perinatal” period after birth, including a cause of death which is not attributable to pregnancy complications, which clearly is not the author’s intent.

That is, pro-life critics were right all along: The language of her bill would legalize the murder of newborns. Wicks amended the “perinatal death due to a pregnancy-related cause.” Despite this change, the law “still prevents law enforcement from investigating ‘perinatal death,’ and the amendments Ms. Wicks” added proved “woefully inadequate,” Jonathan Keller, president of California Family Council, told me at the time.

Nonetheless, Governor Gavin Newsom (D), an undeclared 2024 presidential hopeful, signed the amended bill into law alongside a pack of 12 other abortion-promoting bills. These bills underscore the need for the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which passed the House of Representatives on January 11: national lawmakers must correct the “oversights” of far-left state legislators. Unfortunately, they must also correct their own.

2. Legalizing Polygamy Nationwide

After then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hustled the drastically misnamed Respect for Marriage Act (RFMA) through the House of Representatives in one day, U.S. senators noted something curious: The original draft of the bill did not limit marriage to two people. While one provision mentioned “2 individuals,” another section of the bill would have amended federal law to say simply “an individual shall be considered married if that individual’s marriage is valid in the State where the marriage was entered into,” with no numerical limit.

The bill’s chief Republican sponsor, Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), chalked the oversight up to a “drafting error,” though she admitted “the language needs to be clarified” that the bill does not permit polygamy/polyandry. The authors said, in effect, they intended to redefine the most fundamental institution in human society, just not quite that far. Again, legal scholars say the new legislative patch sewn into the old garment of the RFMA failed to fix the problem. The “clarified” final draft of “the bill leaves open the possibility that one person can be in multiple two-person marriages at the same time, which would trigger federal recognition if a state legally were to recognize such consensual, bigamous unions as separate family units,” noted the Heritage Foundation’s Roger Severino. Nonetheless, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (R-N.Y.) exclaimed “Praise God!” as President Joe Biden signed the bill into law last December 13. That would not be the bill’s only oversight.

3. Erasing Religious Liberty

The Respect for Marriage Act makes a second appearance, as the bill’s authors also ignored all concerns about religious liberty. Despite years of litigation aimed at bringing Bible-believing Christians to heel, and warnings that the bill will usher in “a new era of oppression” of Christians like Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips, Senate Democrats only entertained the notion of a religious protection amendment as a fig leaf for wavering Republicans. They insisted they did not mean to wage culture war against believers; they just crushed your religious freedom all accidental-like. Once again, the “cure” proved inadequate, as the Senate rejected Mike Lee’s (R-Utah) amendment in favor of an irrelevant and legally ambiguous substitute.

Like Holmes, we can deduce from these silences that when social liberals ponder transforming life, marriage, and society, they give not one thought to the lives of newborn children, the nuclear family, or a Higher Power (Who, in His sovereignty, might restrain and hold them accountable for their actions). Their ideological fever to revolutionize everything from marriage to human nature blinds them to any negative consequences — or convinces them these results will be tolerable, even desirable.

That analysis would explain how Democrats omitted the word “God” from their 2012 platform and then booed when His Name was restored. It might make clear why candidate Joe Biden referred to the benevolent Creator as “you know, The Thing,” apparently likening Jehovah to a 1950s monster movie — much as the man most responsible for inflicting Biden on the nation, Barack Obama, regularly elided the Almighty from his quotations of our founding documents (which Obama demeaned as “the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day”).

A platform that doubles as a photographic negative of God’s Word might offer some insight into why the Left “did not like to retain God in their knowledge” (Romans 1:28).

Such hostility to the God of the Bible has led liberals into the legislative wilderness for two more years. One of the most overlooked upgrades the Republican congressional majority will have over previous management has gone unappreciated: Even the quality of legislative errors will improve.

The Democrats’ radical “oversights” should also warn every thoughtful statesman against hastily voting for any bill promoted by social liberals, lest they risk placing their own stamp of approval on polygamy, atheism, infanticide, or other evils they cannot see while blinded by left-wing bias.

Finally, the fact that many of these oversights come as news, even to well-informed conservatives, serves as an eloquent indictment of the nation’s Christians. It is not merely Sherlock’s dog that held its peace. The prophet Isaiah condemned the inert watchmen of his day as “blind,” “ignorant,” “greedy,” and “dumb dogs [who] cannot bark; Sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.” They “have no understanding” and look only unto their “own gain” (Isaiah 56:9-12; compare with John 10:11-12).

Like the self-serving shepherds of Isaiah’s day, too many people who know better did not expose the implications of these bills for the sake of political favoritism, for fear of offending the Facebook algorithm (and its sweet, remunerative traffic), or sheer timidity. Some modern evangelicals also love dreams — fantasizing of being hailed as the “reasonable” and “winsome” Christian, of their leftist overlords granting their children a safe haven from endless culture wars, even of being invited to “a seat at the table” to carve out their rights as an ideological minority. They may have even been promised these things — but then, empty promises were the one thing the devil never lacked.

The other side’s silences show their fealty to their masterplan. Let our speech prove our fidelity to our Master’s plan. Now is no time to remain silent.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This The Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘An Indefensible Assault’: Conservatives Call for Halt to Omnibus

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As an impending snowstorm in the Washington, D.C. area and Senate Democrats put mounting pressure on Congress to push through a last-minute 4,155-page, $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill before the Friday deadline and Christmas recess, conservative lawmakers are voicing strong opposition to the measure, citing irresponsible delays and reckless spending on progressive special interest projects.

“These people, I would not put [them] in charge of a Minute Mart and three gas stations, much less a $6 trillion economy,” said Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.). “They know the deadlines, they fail every year. They bring it to Christmas and then they blame conservatives.”

Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) took to Twitter to lambast the bill in a series of tweets. “This omnibus spending bill is the worst of business as usual in Washington and is an indefensible assault on the American people. We will not abide it,” he said. The congressman pointed to a host of inclusions he deemed wasteful, including “$982k for motel vouchers in LA”; “$817k for partnerships with ‘justice-involved individuals’ in Glendale, CA”; “$2 million for ‘improving coordination’ in the NYC Mayor’s office”; “$8.6 million for ‘gender advisor programs’” at the Pentagon; “$65 million for salmon”; and “$3 million for bee-friendly highways,” among other controversial insertions.

Other GOP lawmakers, including Reps. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) as well as Senator Mike Braun (R-Ind.) slammed a provision for $3.6 million to be spent on a “Michelle Obama Trail.”

Multiple earmarks amounting to millions of dollars have also been designated for LGBT-themed special interest projects, along with millions more allocated for “diversity, equity, and inclusion”-themed ventures.

Still, despite the multitude of progressive priorities embedded in the spending bill, pro-abortion groups like NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and others expressed dismay Tuesday that it did not include specific new funding for abortion. “At a time of great crisis for reproductive health in this country, Congress has again utterly failed to safeguard access to the birth control and sexual health services made possible by the nation’s family planning program,” said Clare Coleman, president of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association.

Family Research Council, however, has argued that language is included in the omnibus that paves the way for abortion expansion. On Tuesday, FRC sent a letter to senators informing them that the organization would score against the bill for a variety of reasons, including language that “seems intent on making clear that VA [Veterans Affairs] facilities need to upgrade to be ready for an influx of abortions by female veterans and their families. The Omnibus should not be a vehicle for the Biden administration’s abortion expansion priorities.”

The letter went on to note that a section of the omnibus dedicated to funding for future pandemic response includes “grant programs that use vague, undefined terms such as ‘health equities,’ leaving the door open for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers to gain access to taxpayer dollars.” The letter included the example of the city of Rochester, N.Y. recently setting aside a “$5 million grant of federal COVID-19 relief funding for Planned Parenthood for being an ‘anti-violence organization.’”

Connor Semelsberger, FRC’s director of Federal Affairs for Life and Human Dignity, underscored that final passage of the omnibus is in the hands of the GOP, which has the choice to delay passage of the spending bill until next January when Republicans will control the House.

“Senate Republicans really control the cards,” he explained on Tuesday’s edition of “Washington Watch.” “No piece of legislation can get through the U.S. Congress without bipartisan support thanks to the filibuster. And so, the Republicans really could band together [and] help their friends out over in the House to set them up for a good spending opportunity [that is in] their own interests next year.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

6 Republican Lies Behind the ‘Respect for Marriage’ Act

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The recent, lamentable vote over the so-called Respect for Marriage Act revealed a new breed of Republican: The “personally pro-marriage, but” Republican. Like their spiritual forebears, the “personally pro-life, but” Democrats, they strenuously present themselves as people of deep moral conviction, who have equally compelling reasons to lay aside their views and act on other people’s convictions for political reasons. Here are six such explanations offered by Republican senators who supported the Disrespect for Marriage Act, and the reason their rationales fall short.

Cynthia Lummis, Lie #1

The statement: In her official statement on the bill’s passage, Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) invoked America’s Founding Fathers. “Striking a balance that protects fundamental religious beliefs with individual liberties was the intent of our forefathers in the U.S. Constitution and I believe the Respect for Marriage Act reflects this balance,” Lummis said. Lummis, who says she identifies “as a Christian and a conservative,” noted, “While I firmly believe marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman, I respect that others hold different beliefs.”

The lie: The Founding Fathers never intended to “strike a balance” between religious liberty and “individual liberties”; religious liberties are individual liberties. The Bill of Rights made freedom of religion its first freedom: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” says the First Amendment. Congress — and all members from the founding generation to Lummis’s — are legally prohibited from stymying the free exercise of religion.

The Founders considered the right to practice religion, not merely hold it, as fundamental and inviolable. “To restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty,” wrote Thomas Jefferson. James Madison agreed, “The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man: and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.” Even at the dawn of our independence, Samuel Adams said “this happy country” had become the “last asylum” for “the right of private judgment in matters of conscience.”

Yet this bill obliterates that balance, forcing Christian bakers, florists, web designers, and many other professionals to choose between violating their faith or losing their business. As Missouri Attorney General Jay Ashcroft told “Washington Watch” on December 5, the bill represents a “massive step away from how this country was founded, and it will eventually affect every individual who has a deeply held religious faith, regardless of what that faith is.”

And, of course, it is possible to “respect” the views of others without making their views the law of the land.

Cynthia Lummis, Lie #2

The statement: Senator Lummis received plaudits from colleagues on both sides of the aisle for her self-contradictory speech supporting the Respect for Marriage Act. Standing on the Senate floor, Lummis said, “We do well by taking this step, not embracing or validating each other’s devoutly held views, but by the simple act of tolerating them.”

The lie: Tolerance is precisely what the Respect for Marriage Act annihilated. In the unlikely event that justices overturned Obergefell, the states would have regained the right to make their own marriage laws democratically, as they had for 226 years before the ill-conceived ruling. The genius of federalism, enshrined by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, forced states to tolerate other states coming to different policy conclusions. The Respect for Marriage Act replaced the 50 states’ peaceful coexistence with imperious, top-down government decrees designed to silence one side of the debate.

Mitt Romney, Lie #1

The statement: Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) also tried to square his belief in the nuclear family with his vote to redefine the institution. “While I believe in traditional marriage, Obergefell is and has been the law of the land upon which LGBTQ individuals have relied,” Romney said.

The lie: If Congress should “codify” same-sex marriage because same-sex couples have “relied on” Obergefell for seven years, what possible reason can Romney give to oppose “codifying” abortion-on-demand? Roe v. Wade stood for 49 years and affected more than half of all Americans; people who identify as gay make up 4% of the U.S. population, and only 10% of them have ever obtained a marriage license. The notion that women “rely” on the Supreme Court’s diktats echoes another Republican disappointment: Justice Anthony Kennedy, who upheld Roe on specifically those grounds. Kennedy wrote in Casey v. Planned Parenthood (1992), “[M]illions of women continue to rely on the fundamental rights guaranteed in Roe v. Wade.” The same compass-free jurisprudence, from the same justice, undergirds Obergefell v. Hodges. How long until Romney endorses the “Reproductive Freedom for All” Act?

Mitt Romney, Lie #2

The statement: Senator Romney offered a second rationale for his vote to redefine marriage in all 50 states: “While I believe in traditional marriage … [t]his legislation provides certainty to many LGBTQ Americans, and it signals that Congress — and I — esteem and love all of our fellow Americans equally.”

The lie: Normal people don’t ponder whether their leaders “love” them (although GOP base voters could be forgiven for asking if the party elite hate them). National laws are not meant to serve as mash notes; legislation exists to codify policies that accord with reality to further human flourishing. “Our laws actually don’t confer dignity. You and I don’t actually confer dignity. We just acknowledge dignity,” said David Closson, director of the Center for Biblical Worldview at Family Research Council, on the December 9 episode of “Washington Watch.”

Honorable Mentions: Shelley Moore Capito and Dan Sullivan

As the slippery slope continued, Senate Republicans began backtracking from other principles, as well. Senator Shelley Moore Capito of bright red West Virginia did not say she believes in traditional marriage, only that “I appreciate my fellow West Virginians who have reached out to me regarding the sanctity of marriage, and hold sincere beliefs based on strong traditional and religious values.” But Capito and her fellow Republicans (except Susan Collins of Maine) voted for a religious liberty amendment from Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), signaling the underlying legislation did not go far enough to protect people of faith from potentially bankrupting lawsuits. Then these Republicans, including Capito, voted for the unamended bill, anyway, indicating their willingness to see believers persecuted by LGBT activists, which hardly reflects Capito’s appreciation.

Likewise, Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) admitted he had abandoned his constitutionalist/federalist principles in subjecting 50 states to an imperial decree from Washington. He offered this explanation: “While I’ve long held that marriage should be an issue left up to the states, the Supreme Court nationalized the issue in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015. Although I disagreed with Obergefell, I said then I would respect the [c]ourt’s decision and also continue to fight for, respect, and defend the religious liberty of all Americans.”

Sullivan said he opposes national legislation — but since an activist court already nationalized the issue, he voted to expand their ruling and create new threats to religious liberty without giving people of faith a single additional protection.

These are but six lies. The greatest unspoken lie holds that legislators can change the definition of marriage by majority vote on the Supreme Court or in Congress. The eternal truths the Creator established to order the world will continue as certainly as they have endured in endless ages past. The only question is whether sage leaders obey them and enjoy the benefits — or defy them, and cause all of us to reap consequences too plain to be hidden beneath soothing-sounding falsehoods.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Senator Ernst the Latest to Face Blistering Backlash over Marriage

EDITORS NOTE: This The Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Killing Unborn Children Will Never Solve Maternal Mortality

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Since its founding, the abortion industry has always targeted minority and economically disadvantaged women as its prime sources of profit. Today, this anti-life narrative often takes the form of arguing that protecting life in the womb will exacerbate the nation’s maternal mortality crisis — a lie that a bogus new study from Boston University and the Commonwealth Fund attempts to perpetuate.

In the study, titled “The U.S. Maternal Health Divide,” the researchers claim that passing pro-life laws in the states will lead to an increase in maternal mortality and the disintegration of existing maternal health care. The legacy media wasted no time in elevating the report, with outlets like The Hill writing, “The new findings from The Commonwealth Fund confirm what many advocates feared: scrapping Roe v. Wade would have a disproportionate impact on women of color and worsen maternal health overall.”

The pro-abortion narrative is set — the only problem? The study doesn’t actually provide evidence or statistically significant data backing up the claim that protecting life in the womb augments maternal mortality. Rather, the study attempts to correlate the pre-Dobbs maternal and infant mortality rates between 2018 and 2020 with where the state laws now stand on protecting life in the womb in a post-Roe America.

One glaringly obvious issue with the narrative portrayed by this study is that under Roe v. Wade, no state had the ability to enforce a meaningful protection for life in the womb prior to viability. This means that during the period studied, practically speaking, the states now enforcing pro-life protections were indistinguishable from the states that currently allow abortion through 40 weeks of pregnancy.

Furthermore, during the three-year period studied, 20 of the 26 pro-life states reported at least a one-year increase in abortions, with several seeing increases across both years. If abortion were negatively correlated to maternal mortality, then an increase in abortion would cause a decrease in maternal mortality; however, increased rates of abortion in states that are now pro-life did nothing to alleviate the maternal mortality crisis in these states.

The study ignores regions such as our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., where women are almost twice as likely to die from pregnancy complications as mothers in the rest of the nation. The city also maintains one of the most liberal abortion laws in the United States; an abortionist in D.C. can kill a child in the womb at any point in pregnancy, and the abortionist does not need to be a doctor. The D.C. Abortion Fund directly finances abortions for abortion-minded mothers who struggle financially. If abortion were the solution to maternal mortality, why does unlimited abortion fail to remedy the maternal mortality crisis in areas like D.C.?

The answer, of course, is that killing a child in the womb is not a valid solution to any problem — nor is pregnancy itself the problem when addressing maternal mortality. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that 63.2% of all pregnancy-related deaths are preventable. Treating abortion as the solution to the maternal mortality crisis is a waste of time, money, and energy that would be far better directed to addressing real disparities in human flourishing.

For example, limited access to convenient and quality health care plays a major role in whether a woman is healthy before, during, and after her pregnancy. The Commonwealth Fund study attempts to characterize abortion as a solution to maternity care deserts. Of the 26 pro-life states analyzed, the majority are predominately rural, making the solution to a maternity care desert much more complex than simply opening a new hospital. Innovative medical resources, like telehealth services and mobile maternity care units, would go a long way in addressing the maternal health care disparities that abortion attempts to camouflage.

Likewise, abortion is not the solution to poverty. Nine of the top 10 states with the highest poverty rate in the country are states with pro-life protections in place. Poverty often predicts a mother’s ability to access quality health insurance, healthy food, and pharmaceutical resources. In these instances, mothers require assistance to access the resources needed to experience a healthy pregnancy and postpartum lifestyle — not abortion.

A quick glance under the hood of the Commonwealth Fund study reveals the major logical leaps that a reader must make in order to accept the claim that pro-life laws increase maternal mortality. Beneath the misleading pro-abortion framing, however, the report holds some truth: our nation really is suffering from a maternal mortality crisis. But one must only look around the abortion propaganda to recognize that telling poor and minority women that their safest pregnancy outcome is to kill their child is not a real solution.

AUTHORS

Joy Stockbauer

Joy Stockbauer is a policy analyst for the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council.

Connor Semelsberger

Connor Semelsberger is Director of Federal Affairs – Life and Human Dignity at Family Research Council.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Marriage works. Why won’t politicians back it?

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Among parents in the top socio-economic groupings three quarters are married by the time their children are born.

Marriage Foundation, a UK charity, recently surveyed 2,000 young adults for Marriage Week 2021 and found that over 80 percent of 18-30s want to marry.

So why won’t our politicians back marriage?

I am the Research Director of Marriage Foundation. For at least two decades, I have been a strong advocate for marriage, not out of some sense of loyalty to outdated traditions, but because the psychology of marriage and the evidence about the effects of marriage go so strongly with the grain of human nature.

Study after study suggests that marriage works more than it doesn’t for most people, despite what many people assume about divorce rates.

The better-off know this.

Among parents in the top socio-economic groupings, for example, three quarters are married by the time their children are born. Among cabinet members in the UK, 85 percent (23 out of 27) are married for the first time. The Prime Minister is unusual in being the only person on his second or more marriage, in his case about to begin his third.

So why are our politicians and policy-makers such fans of marriage in their private lives and yet so reticent to back marriage in public policy?

If you doubt me, when did you hear a cabinet member give a speech on the importance of marriage? When did a cabinet member say that the £250 married couples allowance was not nearly incentive or reward enough? Or when did any of them comment, assuming they are even aware, that couples stand to lose up to £10,000 a year in universal credit if they marry their partner?

Maybe they won’t back marriage in public because they don’t think the public are interested.

Surveys suggest otherwise. In 2018, the Centre for Social Justice found that 93 percent of teenage young men said they expected to marry at some point. In 2008, a survey of young adults under 30 by Anastasia de Waal at Civitas found much the same.

But clearly there’s a need for an update. So we commissioned our own survey of 2,000 adults under 30, the Tik Tok generation.

What we found is that the vast majority of young adults still want to marry:

  • More than eight out of 10 young unmarried women and men want to get married. 86 percent of unmarried women and 80 percent of unmarried men under 30 in a relationship say they would “like to get married at some point” in their life, while 76 percent of women and 77 percent of men under 30 say they “expect to get married at some point”.
  • Nor does age dull the desire to marry appreciably, with slightly fewer women wanting to marry, falling from 89 percent of 18-24s to 83 percent of 25-30s, whereas slightly more men want to marry, rising from 78 percent of 18-24s to 81 percent of 25-30s.
  • Nor does social class, with 91 percent of women and 83 percent of men in the top tercile wanting to marry compared to 81 percent of women and 82 percent of men in the bottom tercile.

You can download our paper here. The verdict is clear.

Young adults overwhelmingly want to marry.

We invite government to affirm this strong desire to marry by backing the annual celebration of Marriage Week, and to motivate development of a fearless policy that promotes and distinguishes marriage in line with the evidence.

COLUMN BY

Harry Benson

Harry Benson is Research Director of the Marriage Foundation, a UK charity championing marriage for the good of society. More by Harry Benson

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

BLM’s Shroud is Ripped Off — It’s All About Leftist Politics

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The Black Lives Matter (BLM) Global Network Foundation becoming a project of the Tides Foundation should dispel any notion that BLM (2.01) is a nonpartisan group dedicated to nonpartisan solutions for racial and policing challenges. According to the Capital Research Center (CRC), this recent move means the control Thousand Currents has over BLM’s chapters will merely be transferred to yet another prominently liberal group. Thousand Currents is a nonprofit that refuses to be transparent about its financial data, and it has close ties to violent activists like Susan Rosenberg. The shift to the Tides Foundation is little better; in 2018, Tides gave $291 million to leftist groups, ranging from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations to the Hewlett Foundation.

The questionable ethics of the backers behind the BLM Global Network Foundation means any donors to BLM are not contributing to a philanthropic cause, but a radical political movement.

Major corporations such as Amazon (1.29), Apple (1.00), and Facebook (1.00) have supported this blatantly left-wing organization by donating to BLM’s allies. If these companies want to maintain their conservative and apolitical customer base, they should refrain from validating the BLM movement and its unquestionably biased funding source.

Big Tech companies have consistently been one of the worst offenders when it comes to advancing liberal messaging by suppressing right-leaning content. While these companies have repeatedly protested against the idea that they’re anti-conservative, they have pledged to donate generous sums to causes connected to the BLM movement. By moving under the Tides Foundation umbrella, the BLM Global Network Foundation is clearly aligning with the political left. It is not a neutral effort to save black lives. Big Tech should question allying with BLM if their goal is to disprove the existence of an anti-conservative agenda.

Whether a corporation donates to BLM directly or to its allies, that company is clearly favoring one side of the political aisle while vilifying the rest. Corporations will need to decide if they serve the public by delivering a product or a service, or if they intend to operate as political actors who censor those who disagree with them.

EDITORS NOTE: This 2nd Vote column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Michigan AG Dana Nessel’s Tyrannical Tactics to Suppress Religious Belief in Traditional Marriage

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ANN ARBOR, MI—Watching, listening, tracking, and compiling secret dossiers on dissidents until they are finally accused and prosecuted—these are the police-state tactics one might associate with an authoritarian regime in a World War II movie.

Yet, these are the very methods the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) has found are being used by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel acting in concert with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

On February 19, 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a notorious and discredited radical left-wing anti-Christian organization, published its annual Hate Map report which listed 31“hate” groups operating in Michigan in 2018.  Listed in that group as “ANTI-LGBT” was Church Militant, a nonprofit Michigan-based religious media organization which advocates traditional Catholic belief that marriage as instituted by God is for one man and one woman.

Three days later, on February 22, 2019, a disturbing joint news release by Attorney General Nessel and the Director of the Michigan Department of Civil Rights was issued referencing and linking to SPLC’s Hate Map. The joint release contained Nessel’s promise to establish a hate-crimes unit to fight against hate crimes and hate groups which have been allowed to proliferate in Michigan.

Nessel’s spokeswoman, Kelly Rossman-McKinney, noted that SPLC is a good place to start when investigating hate and bias.

The Director of the Civil Rights Department told a Detroit News reporter that the Department is creating a database which would document hate and bias incidents that don’t rise to the level of a crime or civil infraction.

Additional damning evidence of AG Nessl’s hostility toward traditional marriage was provided by the findings of Chief Judge Robert Jonker of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan. In a published 2019 legal opinion, Buck v. Gordon, Judge Jonker found that Nessel attempted to stop St. Vincent Catholic Charities from performing adoption and foster placement services because it professed the Catholic belief on marriage. Judge Jonker said that past statements by Nessel “raise a strong inference of hostility toward a religious viewpoint.”

Jonker concluded that “St. Vincent was targeted based on its religious belief, and it was Defendant Nessel who targeted it.”

Concerned that AG Nessel is continuing to weaponize the Attorney General’s Office to suppress religious beliefs in traditional marriage by threats of investigation and prosecution, the Thomas More Law Center, a national nonprofit public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, filed a request for records under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Using sham excuses, Nessel refused to supply crucial records that would shed light on her use of her law enforcement powers to target organizations that opposed her personal ideology supporting same-sex marriage.

TMLC filed a lawsuit in the Michigan Court of Claims on January 9, 2020, against Nessel for her refusal to comply with Michigan’s FOIA.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of TMLC, which represents Church Militant and its Founder and President Michael Voris, commented: “This lawsuit is about the right of the people to know what their public officials are doing. We believe that Attorney General Nessel targeted Church Militant because of its stance on traditional marriage as she had done in the case involving St. Vincent.”

Continued Thompson: “The combination of actions by the Attorney General Nessel, the Department of Civil Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center have a chilling effect on the freedom of speech and religion not only of Church Militant, but every religious group in Michigan that stands for traditional marriage.”

Astonishingly, Nessel’s office admitted in its response to Thomas More Law Center’s FOIA request that:

  • It had no policies in place to safeguard the constitutional rights of individuals who committed no crime but are being investigated for espousing traditional marriage.
  • It has no clear definitions of “bias incidents” or “hate crimes” against LGBT persons that are backed up by Michigan statutes or court decisions.
  •  The AG’s Office failed in its FOIA response to provide any clear policies or parameters governing the prosecution of hate crimes. Nor does it have a clear definition of what constitutes a “hate group.”

Without policies to adequately guide the actions of the Hate Crime Unit, it is free to roam about launching secret investigations against any organization based solely on the fact that it supports traditional marriage.

Consequently, it was easy for the Attorney General’s Office to claim that Church Militant was under investigation to avoid turning over records and to escape public scrutiny.

“Nessel has single-handedly turned the Attorney General’s Office into an instrument of thought control by intimidation, using its law enforcement powers to police the speech of Michigan residents.

“One of her primary goals is to suppress the religious definition of marriage that does not conform to her opinions on same-sex marriage,” Thompson said.

Church Militant, headquartered in Ferndale, Michigan, reports on current events around the world from a Catholic perspective. Defending the institution of marriage as between one man and one woman has always been a major theme of its video broadcasts and written reports, which are viewed by millions of people throughout the world via its website and YouTube channel.

Click here to read TMLC’s full complaint.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Thomas More Law Center column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

#FreeSpeechBus Tour Successful, Reveals Violence and Hate of LGBT Extremists

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LGBT extremists did everything in their power to prevent us from completing the #FreeSpeechBus tour to promote a national conversation on the biological nature of gender – including engaging in violence, property damage and acts of intolerance, as well as coordinating with anarchist groups – but I’m pleased to say that we overcame them and completed the tour this morning in Washington, DC.

NOM joined with CitizenGO and the International Organization for the Family (IOF) to sponsor the tour as a way of provoking a national discussion about the biological truth of gender and to hit “pause” on the headlong push by the left to redefine gender based on “identity” and “feelings.” Throughout the tour we encountered the ugly side of the LGBT movement, which repeatedly engaged in violence and assault, and inflicted substantial property damage, in a failed effort to derail the bus tour.

Shockingly, we also discovered the deep coordination that exists between Democratic politicians, LGBT groups and extremists, including anarchists who are bent on destroying civil society.

As you may remember, within hours of launching the tour, the bus was attacked by two LGBT activists while parked near the United Nations in New York City. They assaulted the African American bus driver and destroyed several of the bus’s windows with a hammer, while also using graffiti to cover the bus with militant “trans liberation” messages. After repairs, the bus continued the tour to Boston, New Haven, Philadelphia, and concluded in Washington, DC. Along the way, it was frequently met by an angry mob of LGBT extremists and anarchists.

One of the major developments uncovered by the tour was how closely prominent Democratic politicians are in coordinating with LGBT extremists and their active participation in promoting activities that result in violence and hate.

In Philadelphia, Mayor Jim Kenney’s office was deeply involved in organizing the violent demonstrations against us, which were attended by anarchist groups that are closely watched by the FBI. The mayor’s Office of LGBT Affairs proudly referred to themselves as ‘an accomplice’ in organizing protests which turned violent, with attacks on the bus and on police officers by gay activists and anarchists. At least one of them was arrested and we were prevented from speaking, an act of intolerant bullying the Mayor’s office takes pride in. Meanwhile, while we were being prevented from engaging in a discussion with these protestors, the mayors of both Philadelphia and Boston ordered LGBT/transgendered flags to be flown at City Hall.

What we encountered throughout the bus tour was a sustained, violent, coordinated attack designed to shut us down and force us to just go away. They failed to stop the tour or silence us, and, ironically, in the process made our very point that they don’t want to debate the issues and instead will use force and political power to silence Christians and all Americans who understand that biology determines gender.

Sadly, this kind of behavior is not limited to public demonstrations such as promoting our bus tour. Average Americans are routinely subjected to acts of intolerance whenever they speak up in defense of the obvious truth that gender is determined by biology and that nobody can change their gender.

The #FreeSpeechBus tour demonstrated in clear and stark terms why it is essential for Congress to move forward immediately to pass the First Amendment Defense Act, legislation which would prevent the federal government from discriminating against people of faith based on their views of gender, marriage and similar matters. No American should be subjected to discrimination or harassment by the government simply for standing by their deeply held beliefs about marriage, gender and human sexuality.

NOM will continue to work to counter the dangerous gender ideology of the left, and stand for the truth that we were all created male or female, and that gender is based on biology, not “identity” or emotions.

Faithfully,

Brian S Brown

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EDITORS NOTE: The #FreeSpeechBus tour was a taxing and expensive undertaking. Readers may make a financial contribution to help NOM recoup and replenish their resources.