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Christian leaders must realize that liberals don’t intend on easing up. Instead, they are determined to saddle believers with ever-increasing ideological burdens that undermine basic freedoms and mock biblical tenets.
Imagine a neighborhood where a notorious burglar blares his plan to rob each house from a loudspeaker, and yet, everyone sleeps soundly, doors unlocked. Absurd, isn’t it? Yet, this parallels the reality Christian leaders face today, seemingly unfazed by the White House’s relentless drive to quash the biblical stance on sexual ethics.
Far too many ministry poohbahs are either in denial or blissfully unaware — and they’ll stay that way until they’re rounded up for a stint at the rainbow-themed re-education camp for the crime of pulpit “wrongthink.”
Consider an underreported facet of the White House’s “Transgender Day of Visibility” spectacle. Tucked within the proclamation was a doubling down on the leftist crusade to make it illegal for Christian organizations to — put simply — practice Christianity in public.
After proclaiming their commitment to pump our children with dangerous cross-sex hormones, the administration declared, “There is much more to do [on transgenderism]. I continue to call on Congress to pass the Equality Act, to codify civil rights protections for all LGBTQI+ Americans.”
The Equality Act, egregiously misnamed, has many troubling aspects — you can catch up to speed here and here. For our purposes, let’s focus on the clear threat it poses to Christian business owners, nonprofits, and even churches themselves.
The goal is to shoehorn “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” into the status of “protected classes” covered under “existing federal nondiscrimination laws governing employment, housing, public accommodations, and recipients of federal financial assistance.”
These civil rights protections, originally crafted in the 1960s, were largely implemented to shield black Americans from unjust discrimination. But now, the left aims to elevate the theys and the thems to the forefront of the marginalized lineup.
Rachel Levine is batting cleanup to Rosa Parks.
Currently, the Equality Act doesn’t have enough votes to become the law of the land. But what if the winds change? What then?
These are the pressing questions pastoral figures should ponder, left hanging ever since progressives paraded the Equality Act through the House in 2021, only to see it fizzle out in the Senate.
Would such a measure respect the rights of religious people who don’t subscribe to whatever the latest gender craze is?
Ha, please don’t make me laugh.
When H.R.5 strutted through the House under Nancy Pelosi’s command, it unceremoniously dumped the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a landmark protective measure from the Clinton era.
To give you some context on the RFRA, Justice Neil Gorsuch calls it a “super statute” that “prohibits the federal government from substantially burdening a person’s exercise of religion unless it demonstrates that doing so both furthers a compelling governmental interest and represents the least restrictive means of furthering that interest.”
It’s rather significant.
Progressives have long shown disdain for this “super statute” because, along with the Constitution, the RFRA is a check on their efforts to impose the Alphabet agenda on the normies who just want to live out their lives without having to pretend men are women and vice versa.
The Equality Act would rip away this legal buffer.
The bill states,
“The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993…shall not provide a claim concerning, or a defense to a claim under, a covered title, or provide a basis for challenging the application or enforcement of a covered title.”
In other words, RFRA protections are explicitly gutted if one’s religious convictions come head-to-head with today’s pronoun warriors.
This detail is important to understand because gender identity and sexual orientation would be recognized under “public accommodation” laws. What’s more, H.R.5 drastically “expands the definition of public accommodations to include places or establishments that provide (1) exhibitions, recreation, exercise, amusement, gatherings, or displays; (2) goods, services, or programs; and (3) transportation services.”
If you think courts stacked with left-wing activists on the bench or city councils wouldn’t use the broad categories of “gatherings,” “displays,” or “programs” to encompass actual church events, then let me tell you a story: In the name of a “pandemic,” rogue politicians in blue cities across America shuttered the doors of churches for nearly a year while allowing abortion clinics and pot dispensaries to remain open.
Apparently we have a short memory when it comes to leftists in power trampling on core constitutional rights.
The thing is, we don’t need hypotheticals to predict the Equality Act’s impact on American liberty. The previews are already unspooling in blue Meccas like Washington, and it’s not pretty.
Take Union Gospel Mission in Seattle. This Christian group meets the immediate physical needs of the homeless by doing nightly outreaches on the streets while also offering them free services that address the root of their plight: substance abuse. However, in 2017, when a man in a same-sex relationship pursued a job over there, he was turned down because his lifestyle clashed with the Mission’s statement of faith. Instead of moving on, he sued under “anti-discrimination laws” — and won.
Although the U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t weighed in on the Union Gospel case up to this point, Justices Alito and Thomas did warn that coercing “religious organizations to hire employees who fundamentally disagree with them” would mean that “many religious nonprofits would be extinguished from participation in public life.”
Or look at the family in Washington who had their foster care application rejected because they refused to parrot the State’s gender mantra and wouldn’t take foster kids to “pride” marches. “We entered foster care to follow the Bible’s command to care for widows and orphans in distress,” said Shane DeGross. “There’s a huge need in the state of Washington for foster families to come alongside these children in need. So, we definitely felt compelled to take up that charge.”
Too bad. No Christian beliefs allowed.
This, my friends, is the Equality Act’s endgame writ large: Government-backed discrimination against people of faith.
In 1 Timothy 2:1-2, the Apostle Paul urges Timothy to pray for everyone, including rulers, “that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.”
It’s the Bible’s version of “Get Off My Back.”
Pastors must realize, though, that liberals don’t intend on easing up. Instead, they are determined to saddle believers with ever-increasing ideological burdens that undermine basic freedoms and mock biblical tenets.
How much louder must the burglar broadcast his heist before church leaders bolt their doors and warn their flock about the looming threat coming from the progressive wing of American politics?
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