# 1232 (5/17) SUNDAY SPECIAL - "Bruce Jenner, Transgenderism and the Church

"BRUCE JENNER, TRANSGENDERISM AND THE CHURCH - THINKING THROUGH THE NEXT TOUGH ISSUE" - By: John Stonestreet| Breakpoinnt.org: May 7, 2015;
http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/27319?spMailingID=11323502&spUserID=MTMyMjM2ODE5OQS2&spJobID=540396003&spReportId=NTQwMzk2MDAzS0

It’s the new thing on the cultural horizon. In fact, from Time magazine to major news shows, transgenderism is here. How should Christians respond?

On ABC’s 20/20, former Olympian Bruce Jenner recently announced that he is a woman. Explaining that he’d always been confused about his gender identity, he believes that while God had given him the body of a man he’d also given him the soul of a woman. Jenner’s interview brought 20/20 its highest ratings in fifteen years. Sympathetic commentators said Jenner was “brave” to “transition” from a man to a woman. And the transgender community is delighted.

But what did Jenner, 20/20, and the commentators leave out?

Well first, those people who consider themselves transgendered are suffering from what is still recognized as a mental disorder. In the Wall Street Journal, psychiatrist Paul McHugh writes that “the transgendered suffer a disorder of assumption like . . . other disorders familiar to psychiatrists.
For instance, those who suffer from anorexia are convinced that they are overweight, even when they are unhealthily skinny.

In a similar way, a man’s belief that he is really a woman (or vice versa) also, McHugh says, “does not correspond with physical reality,” and if not properly treated “can lead to grim psychological outcomes.” For example, Sweden’s Karolinska Institute found that the suicide rate for those who had undergone gender reassignment surgery was 20-fold higher in the 30 years following the surgery compared to a nontransgender population. That is simply horrifying.

And here’s another important fact hardly ever mentioned from two different studies—one at Vanderbilt University and one at Portman Clinic in London—70 to 80 percent of children who report transgender feelings “spontaneously lost those feelings.”

But so many doctors and parents these days are encouraging children, younger and younger, to undergo drastic, life-altering treatments and surgery for a condition that may well be temporary.

Folks, this is just another area in which worldview desperately matters. While homosexuality and transgenderism are distinct issues—one is primarily about external sexual attraction, the other about internal self-identity—they do have one thing in common. Members of the LGBT movement believe and teach that gender is infinitely malleable, that observable physical reality has nothing to do with what it means to be male and female.

And this is one reason that I find it so disturbing that a growing number of Christians and even so-called evangelical pastors are now “affirming” gay marriage and the gay lifestyle. In essence, what they’re saying is that God-given, created reality is now irrelevant to the conversations regarding gender, sexual attraction, sexual behavior and marriage. I don’t know how else to say it, but isn’t that a denial of creation and therefore a denial of the Creator?

We need to educate ourselves about transgenderism because every single person is made in God’s image. Already, as McHugh notes, several states have made it a crime for psychiatrists to restore to transgender children “natural gender feelings.” These will be additional victims of our social experimentation, and Christians must be there to care for them.

And like so many have discovered, this is not just an issue that's merely “out there” in the culture. Just recently, a mother confided in me that her teenage son wanted to begin the process of gender modification: And yet she felt that there was no Christian to whom she could turn. Church, that is not only unfortunate, it’s sinful.

People who struggle with gender confusion, and those who love them, deserve our love and compassion—and they need us to point them to the only One who establishes human identity and value, and that of course is God, who made each and every one of us in His image.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION
If someone you love needs help dealing with sexual identity, Focus on the Family may be able to help. You can call them at 1-800-232-6459 Monday through Friday, 6am to 8pm MT, and the folks there will do their best to locate a psychiatrist in your region.
RESOURCES
"Transgender Surgery Isn’t the Solution" - Paul McHugh | Wall Street Journal | June 12, 2014;http://www.wsj.com/articles/paul-mchugh-transgender-surgery-isnt-the-solution-140261512"0
"I was a transgender woman . . . and here’s how it nearly killed me" - Walt Heyer | Lifesitenews.com |April 8, 2015;https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/i-was-a-transgender-woman
"Surgical Sex: Why We Stopped Doing Sex-Change Operations" - Paul McHugh | First Things | November 2004;http://www.firstthings.com/article/2004/11/surgical-sex
'Transgenderism: Genesis 1: Casting God's Vision for the Sexes" - Focus on the Family | 2008; http://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues/social-issues/transgenderism-issue

# 1231 (5/16) PRO-LIFE SAT. - "Remembering Kermit Gosnell’s Victims

"REMEMBERING KERMIT GOSNELL'S VICTIMS by Protecting Other Women and Children From Abortion Industry" - Sarah Torre/ @sarahtorre / May 13, 2015;
http://dailysignal.com/2015/05/13/remembering-gosnells-victims-by-protecting-other-women-and-children-from-the-abortion-industry/

Kermit Gosnell, center, after being convicted on three counts of first-degree murder on May 13, 2013, in Philadelphia. (Yong Kim/Philadelphia Inquirer/MCT/Newscom)

Today [Wed. May 13th] marks the second anniversary of the conviction of Kermit Gosnell, the late-term abortionist who brutalized women and routinely killed living, breathing infants in his rundown West Philadelphia clinic.

Later today the House is scheduled to vote on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, H.R. 36, which would limit late-term abortions after 20 weeks, include stronger informed consent requirements and additional protections for children born alive after failed abortions.[The bill was passed; "House Passes Bill Banning Most Abortions After 20 Weeks" - Kate Scanlon; @scanlon_kate / May 14, 2015; http://dailysignal.com/2015/05/14/house-passes-bill-banning-most-abortions-after-20-weeks// ]

Late-term abortion ends the lives of some 15,000 unborn children every year.

Protecting the safety of women and the lives of unborn children who are so close to being able to live outside the womb from late-term abortion is a policy the American people overwhelming support and our collective conscience demands. ["Americans Want Late-Term Abortions Banned, Back Bill to Stop Them After 20 Weeks"-  Steven Ertelt, May 13, 2015 | http://www.lifenews.com/2015/05/13/americans-want-late-term-abortions-banned-back-bill-to-stop-them-after-20-weeks/]

Gosnell is currently serving a life sentence for first-degree murder in the deaths of three infants who were born alive after botched abortions. Among more than 200 other criminal counts, he was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Karnamaya Mongar, a 41-year-old woman who died from an overdose of anesthetic drugs during an abortion procedure.

The details of the Gosnell’s six-week murder trial were grisly. The pictures submitted as evidence are almost unbearable. According to the almost 300-page grand jury report, the murder of newborn infants after failed abortions was a regular occurrence during the 40 years Gosnell ran the clinic. One clinic worker estimated nearly 100 living babies were killed just moments after birth. Many of those murders followed failed, illegal abortions, attempted after Pennsylvania’s 24-week limit.

Gosnell’s disregard for the dignity of human life extended to the vulnerable mothers of the infants he was charged with murdering. Prosecutors and former clinic workers testified to the decaying, dangerous operating rooms, stocked with “filthy, corroded” instruments and outdated machines. Despite reports of death, injury, and dangerous conditions, Gosnell’s clinic went uninspected by the state for almost two decades.

In the wake of the Gosnell trial’s disturbing revelations, many are left questioning how the oft-repeated slogan of “safe, legal, and rare” abortions can continue to encompass late-term procedures. After all, just a few weeks earlier or a few inches within the womb, Gosnell would have been well within the law to take the lives of those near-viable infants.

There is broad consensus that late-term abortions shouldn’t take place—either within the filthy walls of 3801 Lancaster Ave. or the more sterile facilities of other providers. The vast majority of Americans—including nearly 60 percent of women—support limits on dangerous and gruesome late-term abortions performed after 20 weeks.That’s five months, or halfway through pregnancy, when unborn children can feel pain and women are at increased risk for the negative effects of abortion.

National leaders’ failure to protect women and unborn children from late-term abortion has made United States’ policy on abortion extreme among developed nations. The U.S. is currently one of only seven countries in the world—in the company of North Korea and China—in which elective, late-term abortion after 20 weeks is allowed.[See article noted below]

Which is why protecting women and children from the harms of late-term abortion is a good and long overdue step to restoring respect for the dignity of every life in law. But it cannot be the last.

Gosnell’s clinic, though one of the more horrific, is not an outlier in the abortion industry. Dozens of other abortion clinics across the country have faced investigations and criminal charges. Many continue their dangerous and life-ending work with little to no oversight or inspection.

Planned Parenthood, the leader in the lucrative abortion industry, performs over 300,000 abortions every year, while receiving over half a billion dollars in annual taxpayer funding. Yet, this is the same organization that allegedly turned a blind eye to the safety of women in at least two of its clinics, has been repeatedly accused of fraud, and opposes commonsense legislation that would protect infants born alive after failed abortions.

In light of the brutality that became commonplace at the infamous West Philadelphia clinic and has appeared elsewhere, both state and federal policymakers should also strengthen safety regulations on abortion clinics and end continued financial support for an industry that creates and supports the likes of Gosnell.

Kermit Gosnell's abortion clinic. (Photo: Gilbert Carrasquillo/Splash News/Newscom)

3801 Lancaster Ave. stands vacant today; its murderous owner justly behind bars.The victims of Gosnell’s “House of Horrors,” many of whom remain unnamed and unknown, can be remembered and honored by the protection of other women and children from the dangers of late-term abortion and recklessness of the abortion industry.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

Sarah Torre focuses on policy issues related to religious liberty, marriage and family as policy analyst in the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation. Read her research.

"Congressman: Democrats Say They Stand for the Voiceless While They Support Killing Babies in Abortions" - Steven Ertelt, May13, 2015|; http://www.lifenews.com/2015/05/13/congressman-democrats-say-they-stand-for-the-voiceless-while-they-support-killing-babies-in-abortions/
"U.S. Is One of Seven Countries That Allows Late-Term Abortion" - Sarah Torre / @sarahtorre / March 12, 2014  http://dailysignal.com/2014/03/12/report-u-s-one-seven-countries-allows-late-term-abortion/
"The Nation Is About to Debate Late-Term Abortions. Where Does Your State Stand?" - Kelsey Harkness / @kelseyjharkness / May 08, 2015; http://dailysignal.com/2015/05/08/the-nation-is-about-to-debate-late-term-abortions-where-does-your-state-stand/

# 1160 (5/15) "The Return of Obama's Hoax-Spreading Bitter Half"

"THE RETURN OF OBAMA'S HOAX-SPREADING BITTER HALF" - Michelle Malkin | May 13, 2015;
http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2015/05/13/the-return-of-obamas-hoaxspreading-bitter-half-n1998052/page/full [ AS I SEE IT:It's common to see the mainstream press liking to highlight the softer, motherly side of Mrs. Obama. But as First Lady, what is usually ignored is how the woman who represents our country to so many here and around the world has a bitter, divisive side. Her comments such as reported here are a reminder of those who fan the flames of racial tension in our country rather than trying to bring about healing. It's another reminder that our country is not better for people - as her husband once famously said - "behaving badly." In contrast,  please check out the video link listed at the end of this post. Now that's a unifying comment!  - Stan]

She's baaaaaaaack. And she's maaaaaad.
     First lady Michelle Obama delivered the commencement address at Tuskegee University last weekend. She'll do it again at Ohio's Oberlin College -- the UC Berkeley of the Midwest, Ground Zero for racial grievance-mongering and fake hate crimes -- next week.Commencement FLOTUS is not the same first lady who shows up on "Ellen" or "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" wearing her pastel cardigan, Chuck Taylors and a megawatt grin. No, this frowny-faced Michelle Obama talks and squawks like Al Sharpton in Jimmy Choo kitten heels. At Tuskegee, FLOTUS traded her affable TV persona for the divisive social justice complainer we all came to know and loathe during her husband's first presidential campaign.

     Obama's resurrected bitter half inspired the graduates by complaining about people complaining about her. She complained about the "sting" of "daily slights" throughout her life and her poor, beleaguered husband's. And then she complained. And complained. And complained some more.
     She clucked at the "folks" (read: white folks) who allegedly "crossed the street in fear of their safety" at the sight of the Obamas.
     She called out unnamed "clerks who kept a close eye on us in all those department stores."
     She decried the racist "people at formal events who assumed we were the 'help.'" (Funny, the only time I recall this happening in the Obama White House was when Valerie Jarrett mistook four-star Army Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who is white, for her waiter. But I digress.)
     Reaching into her deep well of indignation, Mrs. Obama then assailed "those who have questioned our intelligence, our honesty, even our love of this country."
     Let me take out my teeny-weeny bow and play the world's smallest violin at the thought of Mrs. Obama being subjected to the "sting" of impolite questions about her honesty. Using my best slow vibrato: Waw-waw-waw-wawwww.

     It's hard to take Mrs. Obama seriously, because she has been caught so brazenly lying about the racial discrimination she supposedly still faces today even as first lady of the United States. When she told the Tuskegee students about being watched "in all those department stores," she neglected to mention that just five months ago, one of her most famous anecdotes of retail racism went up in smoke.
     What? You forgot already? Using almost the exact same language in a People magazine interview that she used in her Tuskegee commencement speech, the first lady deplored the "sting" of "racist experiences" that she and her husband allegedly still suffer. Get her some Calamine lotion STAT!
    "Even as the first lady," she bemoaned, "not highly disguised, the only person who came up to me" at a Target store "was a woman who asked me to help her take something off a shelf." Remember: ABC News reported that Mrs. Obama claimed such "incidents are 'the regular course of life' for African Americans and a 'challenge' for the country to overcome."

     The anecdote turned out to be a tall tale -- with the emphasis on "tall." The reason the 5-foot-11 first lady was asked to get detergent off the Target shelf was that her vertically challenged fellow shopper couldn't reach it. How do we know this? Because Mrs. Obama said so herself in a radically different version of the Target story she told David Letterman three years ago. "I reached up, 'cause she was short, and I reached up, pulled it down," the first lady described with that megawatt grin, and the shopper said, "Well, you didn't have to make it look so easy." Far from psychologically debilitated by any racial "sting," Mrs. Obama told Letterman, "I felt so good" helping out the short woman.

     I don't care what color you are: This arrogant exercise of first lady privilege -- invoking false stories to stoke racial hostility and score political points -- is patently offensive. There's enough demagoguery in the public square. The Aspen ski-vacationing, haute couture-wearing, Hollywood elite-chumming first lady's delusional discrimination fables are fuel on a raging fire her husband has failed to alleviate with billions of dollars of government "investments," programs, summits and photo-ops.
     It is especially irresponsible of Mrs. Obama to be spreading her cultural gasoline on college campuses, where the excesses of identity politics and multiculturalism continue to poison young minds. Don't like suffering the "daily slights" of questions about your honesty? Stop lying.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]
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"[VIDEO] DENZEL WASHINGTON GIVES GOD-CENTERED COMMENCEMENT SPEECH On Same Day As Michelle Obama’s Hateful, Racist Rant To Grads" -  By patti - May 12, 2015; http://100percentfedup.com/2015/05/12/video-denzel-washington-gives-god-centered-commencement-speech-day-michelle-obamas-hateful-racist-rant-grads/

"The First Lady and the Race Card" - Suzanne Fields | May 15, 2015;http://townhall.com/columnists/suzannefields/2015/05/15/the-first-lady-and-the-race-card-n1999076/page/full

# 1230 (5/14) "Defying ISIS - A WAKE UP CALL TO THE WEST AND THE WESTERN CHURCH"

"Defying ISIS -   - A WAKE UP CALL TO THE WEST AND THE WESTERN CHURCH"-  By: Eric Metaxas| Breakpoint.org: May 13, 2015; http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/27354?spMailingID=11371128&;spUserID=MTMyMjM2ODE5OQS2&spJobID=540809750&;spReportId=NTQwODA5NzUwS0 [As I SEE IT: As I've said before, it's not enough for the church in the West, esp. in America, to simply give a cursory pray one Sunday and then say that the persecution of believers around the world is something we have a "disconnect" with, ie. that we can't identify with such atrocities. The question is - I believe - whether or not we really do see those being persecuted as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ or just people "over there." If we really did feel a kinship with other believers elsewhere, should we in America not be doing more than we have been? - Stan]

ISIS must be stopped. And author Johnnie Moore wants the Western Church to wake up before it’s too late.

What’s happening to our brothers and sisters in Iraq and Syria is nothing short of a Christian holocaust. Thousands and thousands of Christian men, women, and children are being beheaded, crucified, raped, and sold into slavery by ISIS.

Remember, the Middle East is the birthplace of our faith. Jesus grew up in Nazareth. It was in Syria where the term “Christian” was first used. And now, after almost 2,000 years of faithful presence and flourishing, the world’s most ancient Christian communities are disappearing. For too long, Christians in the West and the governments that represent us have done virtually nothing.

In his new book, “Defying ISIS,” former Liberty University vice-president Johnnie Moore says he has had enough. And he’s on a mission to wake up the Church in the West. My colleague John Stonestreet interviewed Moore on “BreakPoint This Week.” Please, I urge you, come to BreakPoint.org to hear this important interview.

Moore wrote the book after visiting Christian refugee camps in Iraq and Jordan. The living conditions were appalling, and the refugees’ stories were heartbreaking. Moore told John that as he talked with these people he realized: “they once had houses, cars, children in college . . . they were just like me.” These brothers and sisters were bewildered by the lack of outcry from the Western Church and the inaction of Western governments.

Moore describes what’s going on as a holocaust, and he uses the term advisedly. He reported that even his Jewish friends cannot believe that Christians around the world are doing so little to help their brethren.

Yes, it’s easy to feel helpless, but there are things we can do. No, neither you nor I can pick up the red phone and call in the Marines and the 82ndAirborne, but Moore urges Christians in America and elsewhere to create the political will for Western leaders to intervene.

“Now is the time,” Moore says, “to educate ourselves, to give generously . . . and to show love like we've never shown it before . . .  We must pray as we have never prayed before for the persecuted church.” “The fact is,” Moore continues, “we're seeing 1st century persecution in the 21st century. People are being beheaded the way they beheaded Paul. People are being crucified the way they crucified Peter. People are being killed with the sword . . . as described in Hebrews 13. And now we need to pray a very specific prayer. It's the prayer Paul told us to pray in 2 Thessalonians: ‘Pray that we might be delivered from wicked and evil men.’”

Folks, I do hope you will get yourself a copy of Johnnie Moore's book, “Defying ISIS.” We’ve got it at our online bookstore at BreakPoint.org.  And I warn you, Moore is unflinching in describing the atrocities ISIS is committing against our brothers and sisters: against men, women, and children alike. But he also shows us who these Eastern Christians are, tells us about their history, their accomplishments, and their unyielding faith. It’s inspiring.

You’ll also find lists of organizations making a difference right now—organizations likeWorldHelp, The Cradle Fund, and The Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East—all of which he urges us to support prayerfully and financially.

Oh, and by the way. Moore makes it very clear that ISIS is not just a Middle Eastern problem. It’s our problem, too. There are  people in your community who are probably reading and watching ISIS propaganda on the web, and as Homeland Security head Johnson admitted on the Sunday talk shows, they’re preparing to strike.“[This is] a once-in-a-thousand-year crisis,” says Moore. “And the fact that we are alive while it's happening means that God will hold us accountable as to whether we did something or not.” 

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

RESOURCES
Defying ISIS: Preserving Christianity in the Place of Its Birth and in Your Own Backyard
Johnnie Moore | Thomas Nelson | April 2015
"BreakPoint This Week: Denying ISIS" - John Stonestreet | BreakPoint.org | May 8, 2015;
http://www.breakpoint.org/features-columns/discourse/entry/15/27341

# 1229 (5/13) "‘We Will Not Obey’..."

"‘WE WILL NOT OBEY’: Christian leaders threaten civil disobedience if Supreme Court legalizes gay marriage" -  By Todd Starnes, April 28, 2015, http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/04/28/will-not-obey-christian-leaders-threaten-civil-disobedience-if-supreme-court/ [AS I SEE IT: 26 years ago this past Easter weekend, God called me and over 600 others to engage in an act of civil disobedience in the face of the abortion of unborn babies. It resulted in 4 days in jail and 60 hours of community service. That was not unexpected. But the lack of support and even opposition of those within our own faith community was something I was not ready for. I've always been convinced that had the Body of Christ stood together those many years ago, the tide on abortion could have been decisively turned and possibly even ended in America. I applaud these who would be willing to turn to civil disobedience in the face of an unjust SC ruling. The question would then be not whether those doing so will face opposition from the non-believing community but will believers stand together. I pray that - should we be led to this point - that the Church will be THE Church and stand strong together. - Stan] 

“We will not obey.”
     That’s the blunt warning a group of prominent religious leaders is sending to the Supreme Court of the United States as they consider same-sex marriage. “We respectfully warn the Supreme Court not to cross that line,” read a document titled, Pledge in Solidarity to Defend Marriage. “We stand united together in defense of marriage. Make no mistake about our resolve.”

“While there are many things we can endure, redefining marriage is so fundamental to the natural order and the common good that this is the line we must draw and one we cannot and will not cross,” the pledge states.

The signees are a who’s who of religious leaders including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, National Religious Broadcasters president Jerry Johnson, Pastor John Hagee, and Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse.

The pledge was co-drafted by Deacon Keith Fournier, a Catholic deacon, and Mat Staver, the founder of Liberty Counsel. Also involved in the document were Rick Scarborough, the president of Vision America Action and James Dobson, the founder of Family Talk Radio.

“We’re sending a warning to the Supreme Court and frankly any court that crosses the line on the issue of marriage,” Staver told me. He said that once same-sex marriage is elevated to the level of protected status – it will transform the face of society and will result in the “beginning of the end of Western Civilization.”

“You are essentially saying that boys and girls don’t need moms and dads – that moms and dads are irrelevant,” Staver said. “Gender becomes pointless when government adopts same-sex marriage. It creates a genderless relationship out of a very gender-specific relationship. It says that it doesn’t matter and that two moms or two dads are absolutely equivalent to a mom and a dad.”

Dobson said the legalization of same-sex marriage could fracture the nation. “The institution of marriage is fundamental and it must be defended,” he told me. “It’s the foundation for the entire culture. It’s been in existence for 5,000 years. If you weaken it or if you undermine it – the entire superstructure can come down. We see it as that important.”

And that means the possibility of Christians – people of faith – engaging in acts of civil disobedience. “Yes, I’m talking about civil disobedience,” Staver said. “I’m talking about resistance and I’m talking about peaceful resistance against unjust laws and unjust rulings.”

That’s quite a shocking statement. So I asked Mr. Staver to clarify his remarks. “I’m calling for people to not recognize the legitimacy of that ruling because it’s not grounded in the Rule of Law,” he told me. “They need to resist that ruling in every way possible. In a peaceful way – they need to resist it as much as Martin Luther King, Jr. resisted unjust laws in his time.”

Scarborough said the pledge was meant to be forthright and clear. “We’re facing a real Constitutional crisis if the Supreme Court rules adversely from our perspective on same-sex marriage,” he told me. For me there’s no option. I’m going to choose to serve the Lord. And I think that thousands of other pastors will take that position and hundreds of thousands – if not millions of Christians.”

Scarborough is urging pastors across the nation to sign the pledge. He referenced the “outrageous penalties” being assessed against people of faith simply because they don’t want to participate in a same-sex union. An Oregon bakery is facing a $135,000 fine for refusing to make a cake for a lesbian wedding and a Washington State florist faces fines for refusing to participate in a gay wedding.

“Christians are being declared the lawbreakers when we are simply living by what we have always believed, and by a set of laws that the culture historically has agreed to,” he said. “Right now the courts are changing the playing field and declaring that what the natural eye can see and natural law reveals is not truth. ...  What will we do, and how will we respond?”

Dobson said there’s no doubt that LGBT activists are targeting Christian business owners.

“For about 50 years the homosexual community has had as its goal to change the culture, to change the ideology and if necessary – to force people who don’t agree by use of the courts,” Dobson told me. “I think there’s a collision here and we can all see it and where it’s going to go is anybody’s guess – but it is serious.”

To be clear – the men and women who courageously signed this pledge did so knowing the hell storm that is about to be unleashed on them – and their families.“We have no choice,” Staver told me. “We cannot compromise our clear biblical convictions, our religious convictions."

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. Sign up for his American Dispatch newsletter, be sure to join his Facebook page, and follow him on Twitter. His latest book is "God Less America."

# 1228 (5/12) "Would Lincoln Have Supported Gay Marriage?..."

"WOULD LINCOLN HAVE SUPPORTED GAY MARRIAGE? Looking at How Liberals Use Him." - Carson Holloway / May 10, 2015 / http://dailysignal.com/2015/05/10/would-lincoln-have-supported-gay-marriage-looking-at-how-liberals-use-him/

The original print of the "cracked-plate" portrait of Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Gardner. (Photo: Abaca Press/Sipa USA/Newscom)

As America observes the 150th anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, we find that this great American’s legacy is as much a source of division as of unity. Lincoln is the first and greatest of America’s Republican presidents. Nevertheless, some voices on the contemporary left claim that the Republican Party no longer deserves to call itself the party of Lincoln.

Lincoln, after all, believed in an expansive exercise of the national power (at least by the standards of his day), while the modern Republican Party says it is more concerned with limiting the reach of the federal government. On this view, Lincoln was more of a progressive than a conservative.

The contemporary left also seeks—at least implicitly—to enlist Lincoln in its effort to transform American society. There are some comparisons for them to exploit. Lincoln headed a great transformation of American society in his own day: the abolition of slavery. The contemporary left is now pressing hard for a great transformation of American society in our own day: the redefinition of marriage. Lincoln’s statesmanship was in the service of the great and fundamental American ideas of freedom and equality. Today’s left campaigns for a redefinition of marriage, claiming our commitment to freedom and equality requires this innovation.

Moreover, today’s left contends that opposition to same-sex marriage is the moral equivalent of racism, an irrational bigotry that unjustly curtails the rights of others. They thus tacitly link their cause to that of Lincoln, whose political career was dedicated to resisting a great injustice committed in the name of racism: slavery.

These similarities, however, are misleading. The contemporary left’s campaign to redefine marriage is actually guided by principles that are incompatible with those that informed Lincoln’s thought and statesmanship. It is worth reviewing the difference because Lincoln’s principles are essential to maintaining our civilization, and the left’s rejection of them is a threat to our civilization.

1. Abraham Lincoln Was Charitable to People Who Disagreed With Him
     First, there is a striking difference between the moderation usually characteristic of Lincoln’s political rhetoric and the intemperance of the political rhetoric commonly used by the left in its advocacy of same-sex marriage.
     The proponents of same-sex marriage often denounce its opponents in the most strident terms that our political discourse affords: as “bigots” and “haters.” Those who seek same-sex marriage believe that its absence is an injustice. They would surely concede, however, that slavery was a far greater injustice. It is instructive, then, to note that Lincoln spent a large portion of his public life tenaciously pressing a fundamental moral and political critique of slavery, but without ever denouncing slaveholders as evil. On the contrary, Lincoln admonished his fellow northern opponents of slavery that they should not pride themselves on a supposed moral superiority to slaveholders, because they would probably have thought and acted much like the Southerners if they, too, had been born and raised in a slaveholding society.
     In arguing in this manner, Lincoln was not just being generous, although he was certainly a generous-minded man. He was also being a responsible statesman. He understood that while deeply divisive questions must be debated in a self-governing society, the tone of that debate should not cause some Americans to despise their fellow citizens, no matter how wrong the former thought the latter might be. Fostering such disdain was not only unjust, but also imprudent, since a healthy country requires mutual affection among its citizens and not mutual animosities.

2. Abraham Lincoln Upheld Natural Rights; Liberals Reject Them
    Second, the kinds of ideas on which Lincoln relied in making his case against slavery were very different from the kinds of ideas to which the contemporary left uses in contending for same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage advocates present it as the next great stage of social and moral progress. They explicitly or implicitly rely on notions of history as an intelligible and progressive process, as when they suggest their opponents are “on the wrong side of history.”
    In contrast, Lincoln did not argue against slavery on the basis of such concepts as “history” and “progress”—although he did once suggest that America’s growing disregard for the principles of the Declaration of Independence showed a lamentable “progress” in “degeneracy.”
     Instead, Lincoln made his argument on the basis of the natural rights philosophy that informed the American founding and was given memorable public expression in the Declaration of Independence. Lincoln followed the Declaration in accepting eternal principles of justice rooted in the nature of things, accessible in principle by reason to human beings in all places and at all times—in the words of the Declaration, “self-evident” truths rooted in “the laws of nature and nature’s God.”
     The philosophic substance of Lincoln’s arguments no doubt played a role in sustaining the moderation of his rhetoric. Lincoln believed in a common ground of nature and reason, on which all human beings could argue with each other in moral terms everyone could understand.
    Lincoln’s statesmanship, in other words, was based on the assumption that rational persuasion is possible, if admittedly difficult.
    In contrast, appeals to progress and history tend to exclude the possibility of persuasion. The left describes its opponents as being on the “wrong side of history.” The left’s opponents, however, do not think this of themselves. For the most part, indeed, they do not even recognize “history” as an intelligible standard by which human beings can evaluate the validity of their moral and political opinions.
     They are instead informed—like Lincoln—by belief in permanent principles such as natural law and natural rights, or by a respect for tradition, for the ancient and universal understanding of marriage as a union between a man and a woman. In such a context, the judgment that one’s opponents are “on the wrong side of history” is not so much a conclusion that can be defended by arguments as a pronouncement that can neither be supported nor assailed by reasons that can be understood by both sides to the dispute. It is more an assertion of will. Small wonder that such an assertion tries to sustain itself—and to create in onlookers the appearance of objective validity—by substituting moralistic denunciation for moral argumentation.

3. Abraham Lincoln Fought to Restore America’s Founding Ideals
   Third, as the argument above implies, Lincoln’s thinking about the problem of slavery was guided by the moral consensus of the American founding, or by the moral identity of the nation at its origins. Lincoln’s efforts to restrain, and eventually to eradicate, slavery were essentially conservative in their character, because they sought to restore a proper respect for the principles the founding generation held.
     Lincoln knew, of course, that many of the founders had held slaves, and that they tolerated slavery in many of the states and gave it certain protections under the Constitution. Nevertheless, Lincoln also understood that the majority of the founding generation acknowledged that slavery was wrong, that it was inconsistent with the principles the founders asserted and were trying to live up to. The only argument for slavery that the founders ever acknowledged, Lincoln argued, was the argument from “necessity”—the necessity imposed by being born into a country with slavery as an established institution.
     Submitting to this necessity, however, was compatible with recognizing the evil of slavery and trying to set it on the “course of its ultimate extinction.” It is true that a later generation of Southerners came to defend slavery not as a necessary evil to eradicate as soon as practicable but a positive good to be preserved forever. Lincoln, however, viewed the spread of this and similar opinions, again, as a sign of “degeneracy”—or deviation from a founding that had been good in its essential principles.
     Contemporary progressives, on the other hand, cannot claim that the quest for same-sex marriage is an effort to restore the nation’s original, founding-era understanding of what marriage is. The definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman, for the purposes of mutual support and the procreation of children, was absolutely uncontroversial among the founders, as it has been for most of human history in all civilizations of which we have knowledge.
    The founders did not merely tolerate this supposedly too-limited conception of marriage as a necessary evil. They did not take steps to set it on the course of its ultimate extinction, to be replaced by a more expansive and supposedly more just definition. Such thinking never occurred to them and would have been rejected by them as madness if someone had suggested it.
     Whatever else may be said about the quest for same-sex marriage, then, it is a demand not for restoration but innovation. It is not an effort to return to the founders’ understanding of a fundamental institution, but an effort to replace that understanding.

4. Abraham Lincoln Didn’t Write Things Into the Constitution
     Fourth and finally, Lincoln respected the Constitution as having a determinable meaning distinct from his own moral convictions. From the time he became president, ardent abolitionists urged Lincoln to wield the executive power with a view to destroying slavery. He refused to do so on the ground that the Constitution gave the government of the United States no power to forbid slavery where it already existed, much less a unilateral power of the president to do so by executive decree.
     The Constitution, after all, did not name slavery explicitly to delegate a federal power to abolish it. It only acknowledged slavery indirectly to provide it certain limited protections in the states where it already existed. Accordingly, Lincoln never used the executive power against slavery until he was convinced that doing so was a necessary war measure, and then only did it to the extent that it could be justified as such.
     Lincoln held to this conception to the end of his political career, which is why he worked to secure the passage of the 13th Amendment, which added a prohibition of slavery to the Constitution—a procedure that would have been pointless if Lincoln had been willing to invent or discover such a principle in the Constitution as had existed prior to the 13th Amendment.
     In contrast, those on the contemporary left promoting same-sex marriage draw no distinction between their moral aims and the Constitution. They argue as if same-sex marriage is self-evidently right, and that it therefore must be required by the Constitution.
    The Constitution says nothing about marriage. The provisions to which the legal architects of same-sex marriage appeal—in the 14th Amendment—were written and ratified by people who had no intention to change the definition of marriage, and have been lived under by generations of people who never believed that they involved any such principle.
     Nevertheless, we are now told that the Constitution requires this transformation of marriage. This procedure turns the Constitution into an expression of the moral aspirations of whatever faction can prevail, rather than a commonly respected set of fundamental legal principles on which citizens of differing moral and political views can agree.
     It is worth noting here that the contemporary left seeks this redefinition of the Constitution through the judicial power. Here, again, they seek what Lincoln would not, and what he in fact condemned.In his first Inaugural Address, Lincoln noted that “if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.”
     Needless to say, the definition of marriage, or the authority of our legislative institutions to define it as they think best, is a policy matter involving a vital question affecting the whole people. On Lincoln’s view, the effort to redefine marriage through a case relying on a legal argument not based on any express words of the Constitution would be inconsistent not only with respect for the Constitution but also for the people’s right to self-government.

It’s Not so Much About Gay Marriage as Losing Self-Government
     None of this is to say, by the way, that fidelity to Lincolnian statesmanship would require the country to ignore or belittle the just aspirations of gay Americans. As opponents of same-sex marriage have often argued, those aspirations can be met by changes in the law that do not redefine marriage. And even if those aspirations did require redefining marriage, that aim would not require the use of the aforementioned problematic arguments and tactics that they have embraced and that Lincoln avoided.

Beyond the vital question of the definition of marriage, why does any of this matter? Lincoln’s political thought and statesmanship were always careful to foster respect for the principles necessary to preserve the character of our civilization: candid and forceful moral argument without embittering moralistic denunciation, appeal to permanent principles of natural right accessible to human reason and therefore offering the possibility of rational persuasion, a desire to preserve the moral inheritance of the founding, respect for the Constitution as a rule of law, and respect for the right of the people to govern themselves.

The contemporary left is seeking to achieve its goals in ways that undermine all of these essential principles. This should be a matter of concern to all Americans, regardless of their position on the particular goals—such as same-sex marriage—the left is seeking.

(Originally published in The Federalist)

Carson Holloway is currently a visiting fellow in American political thought in the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics at The Heritage Foundation.

"How the Illiberal Left Uses Silencing Tactics" - Kirsten Powers / @KirstenPowers / May 11, 2015; http://dailysignal.com/2015/05/11/how-the-illiberal-left-uses-silencing-tactics/

# 1227 (5/11) "Uncivil Rights and Wrongs"

"UNCIVIL RIGHTS AND WRONGS" - Robert Knight | May 05, 2015;http://townhall.com/columnists/robertknight/2015/05/05/uncivil-rights-and-wrongs-n1994317/page/full

While the U.S. Supreme Court held an Alice in Wonderland session on the nature and value of marriage, one of the nation’s largest cities lay partly in ruins over the death of a black man in police custody.

What do the two have in common? In each instance, the concept of “civil rights” has been redefined to the breaking point. Each represents an unraveling of the moral order that makes civilization possible.

In Baltimore last weekend, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake expanded civil rights to include giving “space” to rioters “who wished to destroy.” Even though she later claimed to be taken out of context, here’s what she said:“I've made it very clear that I work with the police and instructed them to do everything they could to make sure that the protesters were able to exercise their right to free speech,” she said, as recorded by NBC, on the weekend before rioting began over the death of Freddie Gray in police custody on April 19. “It's a very delicate balancing act because while we try to make sure that they were protected from the cars and the other things that were going on, we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well.” Say what?

Try being Ms. Rawlings-Blake’s PR spokesman and having to walk that one back. One man’s right to own a car or a store is up there with another man’s right to loot it and burn it?

Thirty-eight miles down the road, at the U.S. Supreme Court, several justices on Tuesday were taking chisels to the Constitution, trying to sculpt a new, previously unknown right to same-sex “marriage.” Invoking the Loving v. Virginia ruling in 1967 that ended the state of Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage, several liberal justices failed to spot the huge difference that makes this an apples-and-orange comparison, as explained by Illinois Family Institute writer Laurie Higgins:

“Laws banning interracial marriages were wrong for the same reason laws permitting same-sex ‘marriages’ are wrong: Both depend on wrong assumptions about the intrinsic nature of marriage. If marriage has a nature central to which is sexual differentiation, then marriage laws that recognize that ontological nature do not reflect invidious discrimination.”

Indeed, in a rare moment of clarity, Chief Justice John Roberts told the plaintiffs, “You’re not seeking to join the institution – you’re seeking to change what the institution is. The fundamental core of the institution is the opposite-sex relationship.”

Precisely. And since marriage laws were on the books for thousands of years before the advent of America’s sexual revolution, it’s disingenuous for liberal judges to say that marriage laws are solely the product of hatred toward homosexuals. That was federal Judge Vaughn Walker’s short-sighted finding in 2010 when he struck down California’s constitutional marriage amendment, and it appears to guide the thinking of several Supreme Court justices.

There’s another reason to jettison the false comparison to Loving, as Mrs. Higgins explains: “Laws banning interracial marriage wrongly assumed that blacks and whites have different natures, while laws permitting same-sex ‘marriage’ wrongly assume that men and women have identical natures.” But they don’t, of course. Even same-sex couples prefer one sex over the other.

There is still another logical problem. As Justice Anthony Kennedy put it, activists want same-sex marriage in order to acquire “dignity” and “ennoblement” of their relationships. But moral capital is not transferable – with the singular exception of God’s unwarranted grace through the sacrifice of His Son for us sinners.

Marriage has dignity because of its importance as society’s indispensable building block. 
Conveying marital status to non-marital couples – including unmarried straight couples – is a form of moral theft. On a far less important scale, it’s like granting an advanced degree to someone who doesn’t qualify, simply because he feels entitled to the status.

During a discussion of the fallout if the plaintiffs win, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli said it would be left to the states to decide whether to force clergy to perform same-sex ceremonies. He noted that this is already an issue in states where same-sex marriage is legal.

So, yet another “civil right” is taking shape – the “right” to force a minister or rabbi to perform a celebration of what the Bible calls sin. In Indiana, Republican Gov. Mike Pence and the GOP legislature caved in to corporate and media pressure and actually created a law on April 2 elevating “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” over the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom.

As a nation, we agreed that slavery and Jim Crow were evil enough to warrant elevating non-discrimination based on race to preferred status. But marriage is different. Using government power to force Americans to ignore their consciences – and what their children will be taught – would be an act of tyranny.


Robert Knight is an author, senior fellow for the American Civil Rights Union and a frequent contributor to Townhall.