During this week’s Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing to consider her nomination to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court,Judge Amy Coney Barrett told the committee, “I would hope that no one would consider me to be nominated for anything if I didn’t have values… I have principles. I wouldn’t be fit for office if I didn’t.” Her principles and values, including her commitment to originalism and the rule of law, were on displaythroughout the hearing.
During the hearing, Judge Barrett held to what is called the “Ginsburg Rule,” following the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s example of refusing to offer an opinion on past rulingsor comment on matters that could come before the Court. This meant that, no matter how many times she was asked, she did not commit herself to a particular position on any case because the Court ought to play a judicial role, rather than a legislative role. “Judges don’t have campaign promises,” she reminded the committee.
In recent years, abortion activists have attempted to argue that since the word “abortion” is not in the Bible, the Bible has nothing to say on the matter so Christians should not oppose abortion. It seems that this argument has begun to affect the thinking of many Christians—a recent study found that 44% of self-identified Evangelicals, 62% of Mainline Protestants, and 58% of Catholics believe that the Bible is ambiguous on abortion. How should we respond to this trend?
It’s true that the word “abortion” does not appear anywhere in Scripture, but just because the word itself does not appear in the Bible does not mean the Bible has nothing to say about abortion. When figuring out how to apply Scripture to the issue of abortion, we should consider what it has to say about life, including life in the womb, as well as what science has to say about when life begins.
I received my first library card some time in 1958, when I was 9 or so. I've been a library user ever since. Traditionally, libraries have presented themselves as family-friendly organizations. In my early teens I could visit either the local branch library or the central library on my own. My parents had no reason to be concerned. The one and only time a librarian questioned my choice was to be certain I wasn't overextending myself as far as reading level was concerned. When she saw that I was doing fine, she had no further issue.
I relied on the library for many years for entertainment and information, but only as a user. This changed when I started my library career. I began working with the St. Paul Public Library in November 1979, and retired in December 2019. For two years I was a library clerk. For 38 years I was a library associate (27 years as a paraprofessional reference librarian, and 11 years as a cataloger).
During the 1990s I started to notice that teen fiction was becoming more sexually explicit. Not overtly at the time, but enough that I started cautioning parents to read the synopses when I saw them browsing the shelves to find books for their children. I also spotted the occasional nonfiction books aimed at teen readers who wanted to explore their sexuality and didn't want to talk about this with their parents. This trend has only accelerated since then.
Parents should know what happens in their children’s schools and they should be informed immediately if their child is experiencing or mental health struggles while they are at school. This is basic common sense. Unfortunately, Madison Metropolitan School District adoptedan update to their policies and guidelines handbook in 2018 allowing and encouraging teachers to deceive parents of children struggling with gender dysphoria. Under these guidelines, students are able to socially “transition” behind their parents back, adopting a new name and using opposite sex pronouns while at school without their parents ever knowing. The district encouragedteachers to exploit a legal loophole in order to conceal information from parents by filing “Gender Support Plans” in their personal notes instead of in the student’s official records. Earlier this year, a group of concerned parents filed a lawsuitchallenging this harmful policy and this week the court issued an injunction prohibiting the school district from deceiving parents. The injunction will be in place until the court rules on the case.
A policy that encourages children to live a double life and enables teachers to hide important information about a child’s mental health from their parents is unhealthy and troubling. In an expert affidavit, Dr. Stephen Levine wrote,
For a child to live radically different identities at home and at school, and to conceal what he or she perceives to be his or her true identity from parents, is psychologically unhealthy in itself, and could readily lead to additional psychological problems.
In a TEDx talk called “I have one more chromosome than you. So what?” disability rights advocate Karen Gaffney commented to her audience, “Imagine that, ladies and gentlemen. Here we are… removing barriers to education, making inroads into a full and inclusive life for people like me, and we have those who say we shouldn’t even be born at all?”
Born in 1977, Gaffney grew up in a time when the neglect and mistreatment of people with Down syndrome had recently been brought to light by disability rights advocates who were calling for reform. The late 1960s and early 1970s saw the beginning of the end of mass institutionalization, but as recently as the 1980s, babies with Down syndrome could be denied lifesaving treatments and even food and water until an act of Congress prohibited this kind of discrimination.
The nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court has brought renewed attention to the urgent need to overturn Roe v. Wade. Over 61 million babies have lost their lives to abortion since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling, with the U.S. committing an estimated 98 abortions per hour. This is an evil that must be stopped, which means that ending legalized abortion is absolutely necessary. As Abby Johnson pointed out when she spoke at Minnesota Family Council’s annual dinner in September, in order to make abortion unthinkable, we must make it illegal. The appointment of a justice who recognizes the humanity of the unborn is an important step in that direction.
Tragically, our society often fails to grasp the true horror of abortion. The pro-life movement is frequently met with the glib response, “Don’t like abortion? Don’t get one!” as if abortion was merely a matter of personal preference, like a tattoo or a haircut, rather than the destruction of a human life. Because abortion is legal, people often assume that it is morally acceptable, or if nothing else, morally neutral. By legalizing abortion, the Supreme Court rendered a moral opinion on abortion, creating an uphill battle in the fight to build a culture of life. As long as abortion is legal, it will be treated as if it morally acceptable.
Yesterday the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled that the Anoka-Hennepin school district must allow students to use restrooms and locker rooms on the basis of their gender identity rather than their biological sex. Last year the parents of a student identified as N.H. alleged that the school had discriminated against their daughter, who identifies as a male, by telling her not to use the main boys’ locker room. The school provided a separate locker room for her because she was not comfortable using the girls’ locker room.
Treating a student who is struggling with gender dysphoria with compassion and dignity does not have to come at the expense of the privacy of other students, and the school demonstrated that fact by making accommodations for N.H. Unfortunately, the Appeals Court has determined that privacy for all students is discriminatory and that students should be required to share intimate spaces with members of the opposite sex.
On Wednesday, President Trump made an important announcement: “I will be signing the born alive executive order to assure that all precious babies born alive, no matter their circumstances, receive the medical care that they deserve. This is our sacrosanct moral duty.” Since 2003, at least 300 babies have been born alive after abortion, at least 143 of whom died shortly after being born. Last year in Minnesota, three babies were born alive after failed abortions and died shortly after. This Executive Order will ensure that abortion survivors receive proper, life-saving medical care, rather than being left to die.
Pro-life lawmakers in Congress have made repeated efforts to pass the Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act. In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has refused to take up a vote on the bill, and in the Senate, it has received opposition from Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris, and Senators Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar, among others.
In 2015, a Virginia high school was sued for a policy maintaining single-sex restrooms and locker rooms.Three years after graduation, Gavin Grimm, a female student who announced before her sophomore year that she identified as male, is still pursuing litigationagainst the school board. The Gloucester County School board has stood their ground in defendingthe policy. Following a loss in a federal court, the school’s most recent appeal means that the case could make its way to the Supreme Court.
When Grimm first announced to school administrators that she identified as male, they allowed her to use the restroom in the nurse’s office. Grimm complained that this was stigmatizing and insistedon using the boys’ restroom. When parents expressed concern, the school adopted a policy that required students to use restrooms and locker rooms corresponded with their biological sex, while also making unisex, single-stall restrooms available to any student who wished to use them. In response, Grimm sued with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union,alleging that the school had violated Title IX and discriminated against her on the basis of sex.In 2017, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower courts, leading to three more years of court battles. In the case’s most recent development, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Grimm, prompting the school to appeal for a full review of the case.
September 12 is National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Babies, a day set aside to grieve the terrible toll of abortion in the United States as pro-lifers gather at gravesites and memorials for babies who have lost their lives to abortion. The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reported that in 2017, 862,320 abortions were committed in the united States, meaning that 18% of pregnancies in the U.S. that year ended in abortion. In Minnesota alone, nearly 10,000 babies lose their lives to abortion every year. Last year over 80% of those babies were killed after fetal heartbeat was detectable, and three survived the abortion procedure only to die shortly after.
By taking a day to grieve the tragedy of abortion, we recognize and remember the humanity of the babies who have been lost. In honoring their brief lives, we call attention to the horror of abortion and commit to fighting for life by reminding ourselves and our culture that each abortion is not merely a statistic but the destruction of a child’s life. Because of abortion, nearly 10,000 babies in Minnesota last year lost their lives before they had the opportunity to see the light of day.
The uncertainty and anxiety surrounding COVID-19 lockdownshas brought renewed attention to another crisis in the United States—an alarming uptick in death by suicide. Between 1999 and 2018, the national suicide rate increased by 30%, and last year it was found that 24% of Minnesota’s 11th graders had seriously considered suicide at some point. Recent months have escalated this tragic trend, with a June survey from the Center for Disease Control finding that 11% of respondents had seriously considered taking their own lives in the past 30 days.
Sadly, as our nation faces this sobering trend, the attempt to fight suicide in some is being undermined by a movement that is enabling and encouraging others to end their own lives.Physician-assisted suicide is currently legal in nine U.S. states, two of which legalized the practice in 2019. Last year Minnesota legislators held an informational hearing on a bill that would have legalized assisted suicide in our state. Despite the claims of assisted suicide proponents, assisted suicide is not compassionate. It denies real help and care to people who desperately need it,offering them the meansto end their lives, rather than providing a helping hand as they walk through suffering.
Devaluing life in this way leaves hurting people vulnerable to the lie that their lives are less valuable and runs contrary to efforts to fight the suicide epidemic that is ravaging the U.S. Unsurprisingly, overall suicide rates have been found to increase when assisted suicide is legalized. Furthermore, when assisted suicide is legalized, the so-called “right” to die often becomes a duty to die, with 64% of patients who seek to end their own lives citing fears of becoming a “burden” to their family and friends as one of their reasons for requesting assisted suicide, and insurance companies denying coverage for expensive treatment options but offering to cover assisted suicide. Earlier this year, this mindset led a bioethicist to assert that “legalizing assisted dying would avoid [a] waste of resources.” Elderly populations are especially vulnerable to assisted suicide and already have the highest suicide rates of any age group in many parts of the world.
Recent data from Pew Research indicates that roughly half of America’s Christians believe that casual sex and premarital sex are sometimes or always acceptable.According to Pew,
Half of Christians say casual sex – defined in the survey as sex between consenting adults who are not in a committed romantic relationship – is sometimes or always acceptable. Six-in-ten Catholics (62%) take this view, as do 56% of Protestants in the historically Black tradition, 54% of mainline Protestants and 36% of evangelical Protestants.
Attitudes toward premarital sex between adults who are in a committed relationship reflect a similar trend:
A majority of Christians (57%) say sex between unmarried adults in a committed relationship is sometimes or always acceptable. That includes 67% of mainline Protestants, 64% of Catholics, 57% of Protestants in the historically Black tradition and 46% of evangelical Protestants.
Unsurprisingly, these findings come at a time when American Christians areincreasingly caving to pressure from the LGBT movement. Both of these trends indicate that the American church has lost sight of the goodness of God’s design for sexuality. When Christians reject God’s design for sexuality, they reject God’s word, as well as theglorious picture of Christ and his church that marriage as God designed it offers.
The Hyde Amendment is estimatedto have saved over 2.4 million lives since 1976 by blocking federal funds from being used to pay for abortions. Research from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute shows that public funding for abortion increases abortion rates and that nearly a quarter of abortion-minded women choose life when Medicaid funds are restricted from being used for abortion. The pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute published similar findings, indicating that by blocking federal funds from paying for abortions, the Hyde Amendment saves roughly 60,000 lives per year. This lifesaving amendment has received bipartisan support for decades, and polling data shows that 60% of American voters oppose taxpayer-funded abortions.
According to reports that emerged on Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who chairs the subcommittee that funds federal health programs, informed a group of lawmakers that they would not be adding the Hyde Amendment to any government funding bills next year. Speaker Pelosi hinted at this shift earlier this year when she tried to sidestep the Hyde Amendment in emergency economic stimulus packages, first in March and then again in May. Writing for National Review, John McCormack has pointed out that the Democrat party has purged most of their pro-life members, leaving very few Democrats in Congress who support the Hyde Amendment.
Like so many events this spring, my little sisters’ dance recital was canceled, causing much disappointment after months of hard work. My youngest sister has found solace in leaping and twirling around the house in her recital costume, with the undeterred enthusiasm of a four-year-old who fully intends to be a princess-ballerina when she grows up. From my own days as a dancer and from my younger sisters’ current experience, I know dance’s potential to be a source of enjoyment that also builds confidence, coordination, and discipline. Because of this, Netflix’s recently released trailer and promotional imagefor a film called Cuties disappointed me, to say the least. The film artworkwhich sparked an outcry on social media, causing Netflix to issue an apology and replace the image (without changing the content of the film itself)featured 11-year-old girls in revealing costumes and provocative poses accompanying the film description, “Amy, 11, becomes fascinated with a twerking dance crew. Hoping to join them, she starts to explore her femininity, defying her family’s traditions.”
Cuties is not the first time that Netflix has featured a film that portrays children in a sexualized manner. As World magazine pointed out, “It might be easier to give Netflix the benefit of the doubt on its artistic intent, though, if the company didn’t have such a poor track record featuring hypersexual material involving young characters.” Cuties is a symptom of a much deeper problem. It is a symptom of culture that does not understand human value and dignity and that views the human body as a commodity. This same mindset fuels the widespread use and acceptance of pornography and the hypersexualized images that are so often on display in the entertainment industry and on social media.
Last night pro-life spokeswomanand former abortion worker Abby Johnson addressed the Republican National Convention, sharing part of her story of her journey from directing a Planned Parenthood facility to advocating for the unborn, explaining how, for her, the fight against abortion is not abstract but deeply personal. “See, for me, abortion is real,” she told the convention. “I know what it sounds like. I know what abortion smells like. Did you know that abortion even had a smell? I’ve been the perpetrator to these babies. To these women.
“I truly believed I was helping women,” she said of her time at Planned Parenthood. Shortly after she was recognized as Planned Parenthood Employee of the Year,Abby Johnson was assigned an abortion quota and was instructed to make sure that her facility sold twice as many abortions as they had the previous year. When she questioned this, pointing to the abortion giant’s public goal of making abortion less common, she told, “This is how we make our money.” She left the abortion industry a few months later after witnessing an ultrasound abortion. Her ministry, And Then There Were None (ATTWN) has helped nearly 600 abortion workers leave the abortion industry.
Marriage rates in the United States recently reached an all-time low.On top of that, it is currently estimated that only half of America’s children are raised by married parents. An increasing number of people are beginning to ask, “Are we seeing the death of the nuclear family?” What is particularly striking is that many of the people askingthis question do not see the death of the family as a bad thing. As lockdowns were put in place this springdue to COVID-19, severalvoices suggestedthat this ought to be the end of traditional family structures. Even well before COVID-19,the nuclear family was being challenged as sexist, oppressive, and even racist.
These critiques generally assume that the nuclear family is an invented concept. However, at the core of the nuclear family is marriage, which does not have a human inventor. Rather, it was created and ordained by God in the beginning. Because marriage is part of God’s good design, the benefits of stable, two-parent families are not a surprise, nor is it surprising that there are serious, tragic effects when God’s design is ignored. These effects do not come about because the nuclear family is an oppressive construct, but because the nuclear family is good.
Two more Minnesota cities have adopted counseling bans that intrude on counselor-client relationships by allowing the city council to dictate what kind of help young people struggling with gender dysphoria or unwanted same-sex attraction may seek out. Winona and West Saint Paul’s bans, both of which passed on Monday night, bring the total number of Minnesota cities that have adoptedthese counseling bans up to six.
These bans make it punishable for a licensed counselor or therapist to discuss a full range of optionswith their clients. Counseling bans are especially concerning when it comes to teens struggling with gender dysphoria. Even though the vast majority of young people struggling with gender dysphoria and do not “transition” become comfortable with their biological sex as they get older, these bans would usher young people into social transition and medical “treatments” that carry life-long effects and do not improve mental health outcomes. City officials do not have the right to decide that a young person struggling with gender dysphoria cannot receive help in the form of watchful waiting and counselinginstead of being rushed into a “transition” that will affect them for the rest of their lives, nor do they have the right to limit the free speech of counselors in this way.
On Friday, a federal district court halted the enforcement of a Louisville, Kentucky ordinance that would have penalized Chelsey Nelson, a Christian wedding photographer and blogger, for running her business in accordance with her beliefs. Last year, the city of Louisville adopted an ordinance that prevented Nelson from refusing to participate in a same-sex wedding. The ordinance would have also prevented her from explaining her beliefs about marriageon her website or her social media accounts. In other words, the Louisville ordinance would have kept Nelson from publicly statingor acting on her beliefs.
In response to this law, Nelson filed a lawsuit, pointing out that she was being required to choose to “violate the law, forsake her faith, or close her business.” The judge’s decision on Friday allows Nelson to continue to operate her business in accordance with her beliefs as her case continues to move forward. In a statement, Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Jonathan Scruggs said,
The court was right to halt enforcement of Louisville’s law against Chelsey while her case moves forward. She serves everyone. She simply cannot endorse or participate in ceremonies she objects to, and the city has no right to eliminate the editorial control she has over her own photographs and blogs.
Christians are often accused of engaging in politics because we love power and we want to control people. While these accusations are often spurious, it is important that we ask ourselves why engage in politics and what we communicate to the world around us. Our cultural engagement reflects what we believe about God. Because God is sovereign over all, we are free from the politics of fear, so as we engage, we should ask ourselves if our words and our actions reflect this. Do we engage in such a way that people know us by our love?Does the world around us know that we love and celebrate God’s design? Do we approach victories as well as defeats with the confidence that, whatever happens, God is in control, or do we allow ourselves to be consumed by fear and bitterness?
If we place our ultimate hope in anything that is not God, we ask that thing to be something that it is not, distorting its purpose and keeping it from what it was designed to be. As a result, something that was created to be good becomes something harmful.Political engagement is a good thing, but all good things must be kept in their place in order to remain good. If we find that our politics are marked by resentment, fear, and love of power, we should carefully examine our hearts and ask ourselves if we have allowed ourselves to bow to an idol by placing our hope in the political process, instead of God.
Yesterday presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden announced that he had chosen Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate, making for the “most pro-abortion ticket in history.” Senator Harris takes her support for abortion to appalling extremes. Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser pointed out that Harris supports taxpayer-funded abortions on demand up until birth, and has even opposed legislation that would prevent abortion survivors from being denied lifesaving care. She also allowed her support for abortion giant Planned Parenthood interfere with her work as California Attorney General prior to her election to the U.S. Senate in 2016. While she was serving as California Attorney General, Harris ordered a raid on a citizen journalist David Daleiden’s home after he expose Planned Parenthood’s role in the trafficking of body parts from aborted babies. The handling of Daleiden’s case has raised significant concerns regarding freedom of speech and the future of undercover journalism. In May, the Center for Medical Progress filed a lawsuit against Harris and others for “brazen, unprecedented, and ongoing conspiracy,” pointing out that Harris secretly met with Planned Parenthood executives to discuss the investigation shortly before the raid.
