Corporate Threats to Religious Institutions in CA

It should come as no surprise to hear that traditional values and religious liberties are under assault in the liberal petri dish of California … as opposed to critical battles for the freedom of conscience in states like North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas in the past year. The liberal activists are working right now to obliterate protections of religious institutions like churches and schools in the Golden State.

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has identified three examples of how the protections guaranteed by 1st Amendment are being threatened in California.  Two of these examples show how new regulations could coerce organizations to fund or promote abortion.  A third highlights legislation that would bar religious schools from making personnel decisions based on their beliefs:

According to ADF:

“Catholic schools would not be allowed to only hire those who share their faith, Christian universities would not be allowed to maintain living arrangements for its students that are separated by biological sex, and if that’s not enough, students who are offended by their school’s policies and practices could file a lawsuit.”

Just as in other states, liberal LGBT advocacy organizations have lined up in support of these legislative efforts to eliminate the ability of people of faith to run their private institutions in accordance with their beliefs.  Sadly, several corporations are using the very dollars that people of faith and people of conscience spend on their goods and services to help fund this anti-freedom agenda.

2ndVote has found that the liberal, LGBT advocacy organization Equality California has helped sponsor legislation this year that The Federalist’s Holly Scheer says:

“[T]hreatens religious institutions ability to require that students attend daily or weekly chapel services, keep bathrooms and dormitories distinct according to sex, require students to complete theology classes, teach religious ideas in regular coursework, hold corporate prayer at events such as graduation, and so on.  In other words, it threatens every practice that makes religious institutions distinct from secular institutions.”

Equality California is supported by several major corporations and organizations that enable their lobbying efforts to undermine religious liberty:

Statewide Sponsors: AT&T, Southwest Airlines, StateFarm

Event Sponsors: Blue Cross Blue Shield of California, Comcast, Coca-Cola, Diageo, Facebook, Fox Entertainment Group, Google, Kaiser Permanente, LinkedIn, Pepsico, Microsoft, Sacramento Kings, SalesForce, Seaworld San Diego, Time Warner Cable, United Health Care Group, Verizon, Walmart

The time is fast approaching when people of faith and people of conscience will find it near impossible to spend on goods and services that aren’t funding anti-freedom causes.  Such contrary to religious liberty advocates will take great delight in pointing out the hypocrisy of believers who spend their money with corporations that fund anti-Biblical actions.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

U.S. Armed Forces Decimated Without Firing a Shot

Defense Secretary, Ash Carter, wants to open the door for more “lateral entry” into the U.S. Armed Forces’ upper ranks … clearing the way for civilians with critical skills and strong resumes to enter commissioned officers as high as the O-6 paygrade (Army/Air Force/Marine Colonels and Navy Captains).

To say the very least the idea is controversial.  For many in the military’s rank-and-file it seems absurd … a bewildering cultural change that threatens to upset many assumptions about military life and traditional career paths.  But while it’s not universally embraced, there is interest in Congress and among some of the military’s uniformed leaders.

This is a key piece of Carter’s “Force of the Future” personnel reform unveiled June 9.  It aims to help the military bring in more top talent … especially for high-tech career fields focused on cyber warfare and space.  Advocates say it will help the military fill important manpower shortfalls with highly skilled professionals; and, more broadly, create greater “permeability” between the active-duty military and the civilian sector.

Critics suggest that this will erode the military’s tradition of growing its own leaders and cultivating a force with a distinct culture and tight social fabric … which many believe to be the heart of military effectiveness.  Critics worry it will create a new sub-caste of military service members who are fundamentally disconnected from the traditional career force.

“They will enter a culture they don’t know, understand or potentially appreciate,” said Dakota Wood, a retired Marine officer and military expert at the Heritage Foundation.  “The Marines around them will likely be challenged to appreciate them as they would a fellow Marine.”

If approved by Congress, the individual military services would be authorized — but not required — to expand lateral entry up to the rank of O-6.

Count me among the critics.  I served in the Army for 25-years, and it took me the first 20-years to come into the zone to achieve Colonel.  I retired (without requesting to extend) so that those below my paygrade could advance … because there are only so many O-6 authorizations.  This will be a devastating blow to the morale of those who have committed 20+years in military service and are worthy of promotion.  No surprise that members of Congress would consider this … because so few of them ever served in our armed forces.  Furthermore, no surprise that this proposal comes from an Administration that provoked the early retirement of many, many outstanding senior leaders who dared to challenge the Administration’s determination to use the military as a petri dish for social experimentation.  To date, the shortfall in critical skills has been found in the civilian community by securing defense contracts.  If defense contracting is not providing the desired outcomes, then revise contracting (where it is broken) … rather than decimating our military!

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Which is More Dangerous: Hate Speech or Censorship?

Recently, the internet giants (Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, YouTube) took on the role of internet speech police when they agreed to monitor and combat so-called “hate speech” for the European Union (EU).  No word, however, on how they define “hate speech.”

Susan Brown of Townhall.com suspects “the whole EU hate speech argument is less about preventing terrorist attacks, as they propose, and more about removing criticism of their immigration and refugee policies.”  She says, “Oh, the hypocrisy of those who brag about their ‘open-mindedness’ in one breath and cry about censorship in the next.  The only acceptable speech is that which is pleasing to their ears or palatable to their particular ideology, while supporting the prosecution of people for their personal opinions or religious beliefs, especially if those opinions and beliefs do not fall in line with theirs.  It sure sounds an awful lot like totalitarianism to me.”

It takes you back to a quote from George Orwell’s novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four.”  There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the ‘Thought Police’ plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork.  It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.  But any rate, they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to.  You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

Here in the U.S., the 1st Amendment covers all speech.  Yes, even hate speech. Speakers shouldn’t be banned from universities unless a university’s intention is to ban free thought.  The same goes for talking about climate change, and what the Bible says about marriage.

It’s pretty telling that you rarely find conservatives, known for their deep respect for free speech, charging liberals with “Constitutionphobia” or “Christianphobia” or “babyphobia” or whatever phobia might be applied to those with whom they disagree.

Listen: The dangers of censorship far out-weigh the dangers of hate speech.  Even still, we march closer to it every time we bend a knee to political correctness.  You don’t have to live in a totalitarian state to be controlled by totalitarianism.  America is not there yet, but we’re sure headed in that direction.

If we believe in the right to free speech, we also must believe in the right to offend.  That means that building a wall isn’t xenophobia; traditional marriage is not homophobia; and fundamentally disagreeing with President Obama’s policies is by no means racism.

By the way, the Bible is pro-free speech; but with accountability.  Jesus said in Matthew 12:36 that “every careless word” we speak we will “give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.”  So maybe we should occupy our time considering our own words rather than censoring others.

Bottom Line: The best way to stop a bad guy’s speech is to counter it with a good guy’s speech, not censor it!

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Did You Understand Your 2nd Amendment Right to Self-Defense Stops at Your Front Door?

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, CA … long known for their out-of-the-main-stream views … has decided (ruling 7-4) that the basic human right to self-defense does not apply in much of the western United States.  They upheld a California law requiring residents to show “good cause” for carrying a concealed handgun.  This is a significant blow to gun-rights activists and gun owners … at least until the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) overrides them.

“We hold that the Second Amendment does not preserve or protect a right of a member of the general public to carry concealed firearms in public,” wrote Judge William A. Fletcher for the 7-judge majority.  Lawmakers are free to enact “any prohibition or restriction a state may choose” on the carrying of concealed guns, Judge Fletcher said.  A 2nd Amendment right to carry a firearm openly in public may exist, but the SCOTUS hasn’t answered that question, Judge Fletcher wrote.

California’s current concealed carry laws operate under “may issue” guidelines, meaning that government may arbitrarily allow or deny concealed carry permits based upon the whim of the controlling legal authority, which in most of California, is your county sheriff. This has resulted in a very uneven issuance of permits based upon the whims of local sheriffs … with many sheriffs denying permits to almost everyone while other sheriffs providing permits to anyone who isn’t prohibited by law.

According to this panel of jurists, the “may issue” permitting scheme that results in what is practically a “no issue” policy in many of California’s most dangerous counties means that there is not right to bear arms outside of your home in California, as California Penal Code 26350 (out-lawing even empty-gun open carry) makes it illegal to open carry in the state as well.

By holding that the state has the right to deprive you of concealed carry on a whim, and holding that the state’s laws against open carry have likewise not been successfully overturned by a higher court, they’ve effectively decided that you do not have any right at all to carry a firearm for your self-defense outside of your home.

While this will no doubt be seen as a victory by supporters of gun control it shouldn’t be; when radical governments and courts are grossly out of touch with the people, citizens simply stop obeying laws they find oppressive and unjust.  Many people are going to determine that their lives and the lives of their loved ones matter more than the opinion of seven judges, and tens-of-thousands of these people are going to simply opt to carry concealed firearms without a permit.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

KS – Yet Another State Standing Against Obama’s Bathroom Order

Kansas is now one of a near dozen states that will not force their school districts to allow students to use restrooms of the gender with which they identify.

The Kansas State Board of Education voted unanimously to ignore the directive from the Obama Administration.  Instead, they’re leaving the decision up to the individual school districts.

The Obama Administration has threatened to withhold federal aid from states that don’t comply.  [To understand the full scope of Obama’s transgender edict, read both my June 6th & 8th blog posting.]  That aid makes up about 10% of the Kansas education budget.

Scott Gordon, general counsel for the state’s education department, says he does not think the board’s statement will jeopardize federal aid.  He says the threat of loss of federal funding is not sweeping, contending that the entire state would not lose federal education funding if one school is found out of compliance with the anti-discrimination law.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced earlier this month that the state will sue the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education, which issued the bathroom decree.  Schmidt has not yet decided whether the state will join the lawsuit being filed by Texas and 10 other states, or sue separately.

Thank God for those elected officials functioning in the realm of common sense … and willing to stand strong against the bullying tactics of this Administration.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

POTUS Appoints Transgender to Advise on Faith Issues

Last month, President Obama appointed a biological man named Barbara Satin … a Christian transgender activist (an oxymoron) … who identifies as a woman, to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. 

Satin is the Assistant Faith Works Director for the LGBTQ Task Force and a member of the United Church of Christ … serving on the denomination’s national executive council. The UCC is among the nation’s most open denomination to the LGBT community.  Satin has been the chair of GLBT Generations (an advocacy group for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people) since 1999.

Obama has been a strong advocate for LGBT issues.  The appointment comes amid a major controversy over freedom of religion laws at the state level and as the administration has threatened to withhold federal funds from schools if transgender people can’t use their restroom of choice.

“The fact that he would appoint someone to the faith-based partnerships council who has been an activist, as she has, fits the Obama Administration agenda,” says Travis Weber, director of the Center for Religious Liberty at the Family Research Council.  “The LGBT agenda has been part of the State Department’s programs overseas, and with Department of Education’s threat to withhold Title IX funding to schools.”

Satin recently worked on the development of Spirit on the Lake, which the White House describes as an “LGBTQ senior housing project in Minneapolis.”  Since 2013, Satin has also served on the board of directors of PFund Foundation – a regional LGBT advocacy group covering Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, according to the White House.

In a statement on the task force website, Satin said: “Given the current political climate, I believe it’s important that a voice of faith representing the transgender and gender non-conforming community — as well as a person of my years, nearly 82 — be present and heard in these vital conversations.”

The President’s Council is charged with identifying the best practices for delivering social services, “evaluating the need for improvements in the implementation and coordination of public policies relating to faith-based and neighborhood organizations,” and making policy recommendations to the president and other administration officials.

The bigger problem is that the council is not representative of America’s faith community, said Attorney John Stemberger, President of the Florida Family Policy Council.  “This is more evidence that Obama is attempting a moral revolution pretending the percentages of America is as diverse as his faith council,” Stemberger said.  “It’s not a proportional representation of America.”  Stemberger added this appointment ties in with the larger debate: “This is directly related to the bathroom debate.  It’s an attempt to push conservative traditional people of faith on this issue.  No world religion embraces this moral agenda, at least not in its orthodox form.”

On the same day Obama named Satin, he also appointed Naseem Kourosh to the council, the human rights officer at the U.S. Bahá’í Office of Public Affairs, and Manjit Singh, co-founder and chairman of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund. [The council is made up of people from different faiths.]

After Obama made the appointments to the faith council and other panels, he said in a statement: “These fine public servants bring a depth of experience and tremendous dedication to their important roles.  I look forward to working with them.”

In closing, let it be known that Satin grew up as a Catholic, but left the church later in life, according to her [his] biography on the LGBTQ Religious Archives Network website, which said Satin was “raised as a boy.”  Satin later served as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force.  Satin married and was the father of three children.  The bio says Satin did not begin to explore a different gender identity until the age of 54.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Can You Say: LGBT Indoctrination? Kindergarteners Can!

Beginning as young as kindergarten, public school students in the state of Washington will be taught about “transgenderism” effective in the fall 2017 semester.

New LGBT-friendly changes to the Evergreen State’s health education learning standards have been applied so that instruction on “gender expression” will be mandatory for teachers to administer in their classrooms to students, according to the Daily Caller.

As early as 5-years, children enrolled in public schools will be taught to “Understand [that] there are many ways to express gender” — as part of the mandatory so-called “Self-Identify” sexual health curriculum.  The educational materials will instruct students that gender is no longer determined by a person’s biological characteristics at birth.  In fact, teachers will inform children through the curriculum that gender expression is now subjective to individual preference — and not limited to one’s actual sex.

Such teachings about sexuality will begin in kindergarten, and then progress through students’ public school education to achieve higher levels of “understanding” about gender-confused individuals and others who practice sexually deviant behavior.  Once a student is in 3rd grade, he or she will be required to “Explain that gender roles can vary considerably” — now that dozens of gender types are recognized and promoted by the Obama Administration … which worked to federalize public school curricula through the implementation of its controversial Common Core.

Further pushing of the indoctrination demanded by the proliferating “LGBT rights” across America, public schools within the state will also force 3rd graders to recognize and “understand [the] importance of treating others with respect regarding [their] gender identity.”

Redefining the sexes falls in line with President Obama’s homosexual agenda that resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court redefining marriage to legalize same-sex “marriage” — so that the union is no longer solely recognized as being between one man and one woman.  Now the state of Washington is redefining gender.

According to the Northwest state’s health education glossary, gender is now officially defined as something that is based on a number of confusing contingencies.  “Gender – A social construct based on emotional, behavioral, and cultural characteristics attached to a person’s assigned biological sex,” reads the Washington state’s newly revised glossary.

In order to blur the lines even further between boys and girls — and between men and women — the public education system in the state seeks to make sure that students take a number of factors under consideration when attempting to pigeonhole another’s “true” or desired gender.  The state’s health education learning standards attempts to do this though offering another definition: “Gender expression – The way someone outwardly expresses their gender.”

Even though changes have already been made to the state standards as public education officials are preparing to roll out the new curricula, a press release has not yet been issued by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to alert concerned parents throughout the state of Washington about what their children will be subjected to within a year’s time.  Students’ objection to the new teachings … as well as parental consent … were not addressed by the OSPI as it moves forward to implement its new sex education curriculum next year.  When pressed, the OSPI conceded that it has not yet determined what would be done if students with sincerely held beliefs opposing the teachings object to completing assignments required under the new curriculum on sexuality.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

President Obama’s Policy vs. Parental Pulling Out of Public Schools

A Michigan school district has stopped the practice of allowing members of one biological sex to use the restrooms of the opposite sex after parents pulled their two sons out of elementary school over the issue.

A couple of weeks ago, Matt Stewart’s 9-year-old son told him, “There was a girl in the boys’ bathroom” with him and other male elementary kids.  When Stewart called the school, the principal told him the Obama Administration’s federal guidance on transgender students forced them to allow transgender students in the bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers of their chosen gender, and not their biological sex; and that violating the policy means losing federal funding.

Stewart talked it over with his wife, and they decided to take their sons out of Southwest Elementary School in Howell, MI. 

Now, after publicly complaining that parents should have been consulted, Stewart says, “over the last few days they have actually changed their positions.”

Howell Public Schools Superintendent Eric McGregor issued a statement saying, “At this time, we do not currently have any students using a restroom other than that designated for their biological gender, or requesting to do so.”  The school district refused to say whether the elementary girl in the boys’ room left the school district, or is now using the bathroom of her actual, biological gender.  “We are pausing on the federal guidance issued to all school districts across the nation ... while we work to gather feedback on this matter,” Superintendent McGregor wrote.

Stewart has since sent his sons back to school.

Former presidential candidate Gary Bauer told LifeSiteNews that Stewart’s concern – and public reaction – shows the way parents should respond to school districts that follow the controversial federal rules.  “Parents should join hands and respond by telling their local schools that if they surrender to these demands, they will take their children out of that local school and find another alternative to educate them,” Bauer said.

Bauer, who is the president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families, said that parents who follow this family’s lead “will accomplish two things: reminding local school officials they work for you, and, teaching your children that fighting back against big government is as old as the American Revolution.”  Bauer told LifeSiteNews, “The Obama Administration is bullying low income, disadvantaged students by threatening to withhold their education dollars if the school district doesn’t cave into Obama’s demands.”

In Howell, school administrators appear to have gotten the message.  WXYZ reports, “Sources at the school district say the school board plans to meet with attorneys on Monday to discuss options.  The school board has a meeting scheduled for June 13.”

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Religious Freedom: Yesteryear vs. Today

The late Claremont Institute scholar, Harry V. Jaffa, opened an essay he wrote called “The American Founding as the Best Regime,” discussing the meaning of the words of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.  Included in those words, laying out the purpose of the Constitution is the phrase, to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”  Jaffa says that “No words of the Constitution reveal the intention of the Constitution,” more than these.

“What is a blessing?” asks Jaffa.  It is “what is good in the eyes of God,” he answers.  Jaffa then turns to the closing words of the Declaration of Independence, written 13-years before the Constitution, where, before officially declaring the colonies “free and independent states,” the signers appealed “to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions.”  And in closing the Declaration, ushering the United States into existence, the signers wrote, “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

The point is: In today’s chaos and cynicism, America was founded with a sense of vision and mission and meaning.  And this meaning was anchored in the religious values that some work so diligently today to purge from our nation’s public life.

As many of you know, amidst that lofty vision at the founding was a far less lofty reality – the reality of a nation founded on the idea of human liberty as central to a God-given destiny, where 20% of the population consisted of black slaves.

In the midst of America’s Civil War, driven by that ugly reality, Abraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address, saying [regarding the warring sides], “Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.”  Even this horrible struggle occurred with the perspective of the Biblical tradition of the nation in the background.

But today we are in a different place.  Rather than trying to perfect ourselves in the context of our Biblical tradition, the answer many have chosen today is to declare that tradition null and void.  So now we try to navigate toward a fair, just and prosperous nation with a sense of right or wrong not rooted in tradition, but rather defined by politicians over dinner in fancy restaurants in Washington.

Is it any wonder why we’re where we are today?  Why we have candidates running for president that represent nothing positive and have no sense of ideals that are not purely political, and why the votes they will receive will be solely because they are preferred to the other undesirable alternative.

Question: On what is our law based?  What is the authority that ultimately defines the rules by which we live?

The American civil rights movement was led by a Christian pastor, who concluded his famous “I Have a Dream” speech with the words “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at least.”  The Bible was his point of reference for justice.

But subsequently, along with the direction of the rest of the country, the civil rights movement took leave from the religious and moral values that drove it to begin with. Government became its god and the values of secular humanism – with right and wrong defined by politicians, displaced religion.

While it is true that we cannot impose the religious values in public life that we once had, we also cannot allow the values of secular humanism to be forced on believing, religious Americans.  We must keep the heavy hand of government as limited as possible in the public square.  This will allow, at least, the healthy parts of the country to prosper.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

The Unreported Part of Obama’s Transgender Edict (Part 2 of 2)

The most outrageous provision of President Obama’s transgender bathroom order does not even involve locker rooms where teenagers of the opposite sex will change and shower next to one another; rather, the most offensive part of the new policy is that, under the Obama Administration’s federal guidance:

School districts must allow biological males and females to spend the night together in the same hotel room on field trips;

Colleges must let men who say they are transgender be roommates with one or more women; and

School officials cannot even tell those young women or their parents in advance that their new roommate is a man, without risking a federal lawsuit.

This plain wording of the Obama Administration’s order is clear enough; and doesn’t just apply to high schools, but to colleges as well.  The Administration makes clear:

“In this letter, the term schools refers to recipients of [f]ederal financial assistance at all educational levels, including school districts, colleges, and universities.”

To drive the point home, Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. said in a press release accompanying the letter, “No student should ever have to go through the experience of feeling unwelcome at school or on a college campus.”

So how would a college apply the Obama Administration’s demand to furnish a transgender student “housing” that conforms to his “gender identity” so that he does not feel “unwelcome” in its dorm rooms?

As demonstrated, the Administration’s guidance makes gender dependent on the student’s assertion and nothing else; it requires students to be housed with members of the sex with which they identify.  The letter states that the college cannot tell other students about a transgender student’s biology.  “Nonconsensual disclosure of ... a student’s birth name or sex assigned at birth, could be harmful to or invade the privacy of transgender students,” and Obama warns it could be against the law in the letter.

Some people would argue that not telling a gifted 17-year-old college freshman that her new roommate is a bearded 51-year-old with male pattern baldness and a taste for young ladies violates her privacy.  But according to the booklet, even the potential roommate cannot ask about a transgender person’s biology, because “asking personal questions about a person’s body” is a form of harassment.  Thus, under the Administration’s policies, a man can declare himself a female and be assigned as the year-long roommate of a possibly under-age, co-ed.  If the college tells the young lady her roommate is a biological male without his express consent, it could be sued.  And if the young lady objects, she is guilty of stigmatizing and possibly “harassing” the poor man and should probably be sent to sensitivity training – which she can schedule between her therapy sessions to deal with her sexual assault.

All of this is being forced on the nation without one legislator voting to authorize it, or even a public debate to consult the views of the American people.  Obama’s spokesman, Josh Earnest, insists these policies are being implemented to assure that schools and universities are as “respectful and safe as they can possibly be.”  Your choice is to get on board or get sued.

The fact that nothing in Obama’s federal guidance forecloses the possibility that a biological woman will become the unwitting, unwilling roommate of a heterosexual biological male - overnight or possibly much longer - tells us how far the president is willing to go to enforce his radical ideology, and how little concern Obama has for anyone who does not share it.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

The Unreported Part of Obama’s Transgender Edict (Part 1 of 2)

The most outrageous provision of President Obama’s transgender bathroom order does not even involve locker rooms where teenagers of the opposite sex will change and shower next to one another; rather, the most offensive part of the new policy is that, under the Obama Administration’s federal guidance:

School districts must allow biological males and females to spend the night together in the same hotel room on field trips;

Colleges must let men who say they are transgender be roommates with one or more women; and

School officials cannot even tell those young women or their parents in advance that their new roommate is a man, without risking a federal lawsuit.

This plain wording of the Obama Administration’s order is clear enough, yet it has not been reported, even by conservative news outlets.

The 8-page letter clearly states that, as far as the Justice Department and the Department of Education are concerned, a student becomes a member of the opposite sex the moment he feels like it.  The instant he tells school officials about his decision, they must immediately treat him accordingly:

“When a student or the student’s parent or guardian, as appropriate, notifies the school administration that the student will assert a gender identity that differs from previous representations or records, the school will begin treating the student consistent with the student’s gender identity.”

In other words: The student doesn’t have to meet any other conditions to change his sex – in fact, school districts are prohibited from setting any.  The Administration’s unilateral rewrite states: “Under Title IX, there is no medical diagnosis or treatment requirement that students must meet as a prerequisite to being treated consistent with their gender identity,” the letter says.  A student doesn’t have to have surgery, take hormone treatments, or present himself in any way as a member of the opposite sex.  He can continue looking and acting as a male, but say he identifies as a female.

Just as there is no minimum threshold required to qualify as transgender, there is no maximum limit to the number of times a student can change genders.  “For some people, gender is not just about being male or female,” CNN reported.  “In fact, how one identifies can change every day or even every few hours.”

So, theoretically, one could be male during homeroom, female during gym class, then male again before he gets on the bus – and the school district is bound to comply every step of the way.

Tucked away in the Administration’s letter is a section requiring schools to provide transgender students proper “housing”:

“A school must allow transgender students to access housing consistent with their gender identity, and may not require transgender students to stay in single-occupancy accommodations or to disclose personal information when not required of other students.”

The Administration’s 25-page booklet of proposed policies approvingly cites a local Colorado school district, which says teachers must embrace “the goals of maximizing the [transgender] student’s social integration and equal opportunity to participate in overnight activity and athletic trips, ensuring the [transgender] student’s safety and comfort, and minimizing stigmatization of the [again, transgender] student.”

The president’s adopted hometown of Chicago is more insistent:

“In no case should a transgender student be denied the right to participate in an overnight field trip because of the student’s transgender status.”

So, any individual who says he is a member of the opposite sex must be allowed to spend the night in the same room as members of the opposite biological sex for his “social integration” and “comfort.”

Here is what these means: Suppose a teenage boy discovers he is “transgender” just in time to spend the night in his girlfriend’s hotel room? … or the hotel room of a girl who is decidedly not his girlfriend?  He must be allowed to do so without a chaperone, unless there’s an adult in every room.  [Don’t forget, under civil rights law, there can be no unequal treatment.]  If transgender students are chaperoned but “other” girls aren’t, that’s profiling and could trigger a federal civil rights lawsuit from the social justice warriors in the Obama Administration or its like-minded successors.  Obama’s already acted to establish unisex bedrooms on field trips.  Three years ago, the Obama Administration sided with a transgender female after California’s Arcadia Unified School District refused to let her “bunk with [her] buddies” on a seventh grade overnight field trip.  The Obama Administration forced a settlement on the school district, which agreed to the teenager’s requests for hotel rooms during “overnight events and extracurricular activities on and off campus, consistent with [her] gender identity.”  Obama is now taking this nationwide.

School officials cannot alert the girls’ parents that a biological male will be sleeping in their room because, under guidelines quoted by the Obama Administration, they can’t even tell the boy’s parents:

“School personnel should speak with the student first before discussing a student’s gender nonconformity or transgender status with the student’s parent or guardian.”

The Arcadia settlement – again, dictated by the Obama Administration – says the child’s birth sex must be “treated as confidential” by school officials and cannot be disclosed without “express written consent.”

So, your daughter may not know she will be spending the night with a boy until she gets to her hotel room.

Mind you: This guidance doesn’t just apply to high schools, but to colleges as well.  In the next blog posting I’ll address the college scene.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

A Unanimous SCOTUS Decision Involving Religious Liberty

The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) avoided issuing a major ruling on May 16th in a combined religious liberty case – Zubik v. Burwell.  In a unanimous decision, the justices wrote that the Court “expresses no view on the merits of the cases” but were instead sending the case back down to the lower courts for opposing parties to work out a compromise.

What is this case, and what’s it about?  The case, Zubik v. Burwell, combines seven challenges to the Health and Human Services' (HHS) contraceptive/abortifacient mandate.  To fulfill the requirements of the Affordable Healthcare Act (aka Obamacare), the federal government passed a regulation (often called the “HHS Mandate”) that attempts to force groups into providing insurance coverage for contraceptives, sterilization and abortifacients.  Some religious groups, such as the Little Sisters of the Poor (LSP), objected on the grounds that the requirement violates their religious liberty as protected by the 1st Amendment and the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).  HHS offered an accommodation that the LSP found to be insufficient.

SCOTUS was asked to decide, as SCOTUS Blog explains, whether the government has offered nonprofit religious employers a means to comply and whether the HHS satisfies RFRA’s test for over-riding sincerely held religious objections in circumstances where HHS itself insists that over-riding the religious objection will not fulfill HHS’s regulatory objective … namely, the provision of no-cost contraceptives to the objector’s employees.

Who are Zubik and Burwell?  The plaintiff in the case is the Most Rev. David A. Zubik, the 12th Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.  Rev. Zubik supervises a diocese that oversees LSP.  This is why the case is still often referred to as the Little Sisters case … since the original lawsuit was LSP Home for the Aged v. Burwell.  The defendant in the case is Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the Secretary of HHS.

Who are the Little Sisters of the Poor?  LSP is an international Roman Catholic Congregation of Religious Sisters that serves more than 13,000 elderly poor in 31-countries around the world.  The first home opened in America in 1868, and now there are nearly 30-homes in the U.S. where the elderly and dying are cared for.

What was the accommodation, and why was it rejected?  The proposed accommodation would require the LSP to find an insurer who will cover all of the things they oppose: sterilization, contraceptive, abortifacients and so on.  They would also be required to sign a form that triggers the start of that coverage of those items and procedures that they find objectionable.  LSP believe that the accommodation does not prevent them from violating their religious beliefs.

Isn’t this merely a Catholic issue?  No.  Many Protestant nonprofits have similar objections as LSP.  The current case combines the cases that were brought by East Texas Baptist University, Southern Nazarene University and Geneva College.  Other groups who have brought similar lawsuits, such as Wheaton College, will also be affected by the outcome of this ruling.

Doesn’t the “religious employer exemption” cover LSP and similar nonprofits?  No, the general exemption the HHS provides applies only to churches and certain types of church-like organizations.  Most religious nonprofits do not qualify.

Doesn’t the mandate apply to everyone equally?  No.  In fact, 1-in-3 Americans do not have a plan that is subject to the mandate HHS is attempting to force on LSP.  Many large corporations — such as Exxon, Chevron and Pepsi — are already exempt from the mandate because they never changed their plans and are grandfathered.  The government does not even require the nation’s largest employer — the U.S. military — to provide these services through their family insurance.

What if LSP simply refuse to comply?  If LSP do not provide coverage for contraceptives, sterilization and abortifacients, the government is threatening to fine them with $70-million in fines per year.

Didn’t the Hobby Lobby case already resolve this issue?  Last year, SCOTUS agreed some owners of closely held for-profit corporations (like Hobby Lobby) have sincere Christian beliefs that life begins at conception and that it would violate their religion to facilitate access to contraceptive drugs or devices that operate after that point.  SCOTUS found that the HHS mandate violated RFRA because it imposed a substantial burden (i.e., if the companies refused to violate their beliefs, they would face severe economic consequences: about $475-million per year for Hobby Lobby; $33-million per year for Conestoga; and $15-million per year for Mardel).  The government also failed to satisfy RFRA’s least-restrictive-means standard, since the government could assume the cost of providing the four contraceptives to women unable to obtain coverage due to their employers’ religious objections or extend the accommodation that HHS has already established for religious nonprofit organizations to nonprofit employers with religious objections to the contraceptive mandate.  In that case, the companies can qualify for an exemption by filling out a form and submitting it to the government.  This type of accommodation was already available to religious nonprofits.  But this is a procedure LSP and others find insufficient to resolve their religious objections.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

ACLU Wants Catholic Hospitals Defunded of Federal Funds

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) alleges that Catholic hospitals across the U.S. are “withholding emergency care” and denying “essential health services.”  They also inflict harm on “transgender and gender-non-conforming patients” when seeking reproductive healthcare.

In a new report, “Health Care Denied,” the ALCU calls for no federal dollars for Catholic healthcare institutions, as well as investigations into their practices.  With a subtitle of “Patients and Physicians Speak Out About Catholic Hospitals and the Threat to Women’s Health and Lives,” the stated goal of the report “is to shine a light on the harm and discrimination occurring at hospitals across this country.”  Produced in partnership with MergerWatch, a group founded by a “reproductive health” group that combats religious medical care and receives funding from Planned Parenthood in New York, the document decries how the U.S. Bishops’ 2009 Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services shapes Catholic healthcare.  The Directives spell out the Church’s moral teaching for institutionally based Catholic healthcare services in the U.S., and in keeping with Church teaching prohibiting such things as contraception, sterilization and abortion … which the ACLU deems “appropriate care.”

This latest strike by the ACLU follows a series of legal challenges directed over several years at the U.S. Catholic Church, with the ACLU either suing Catholic hospitals, the U.S. Bishops or the federal government, or otherwise advocating in opposition of Catholic morals.

The new ACLU document calls a number of the Bishops’ positions relative to the Directives “myths,” and lists instances of women refused “emergency abortions” and tubal ligations after pregnancy at Catholic hospitals, taking issue with the U.S. Bishops’ contention in the Directives that direct abortion is never morally permissible no matter the reason.  It laments that 1-in-6 U.S. hospital beds is in a Catholic hospital, along with other statistics on the prevalence of Catholic healthcare in the U.S., and alleges that because of this patients are victims of discrimination who are robbed of healthcare choices.  “The power of the public purse should be leveraged to ensure that facilities no longer withhold essential health care from patients,” the report states.  “We cannot stay silent and let hospitals use their religious identity to discriminate against, and harm, women,” it concludes, calling on the federal government through its Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to issue a statement that denying emergency “reproductive health care” violates federal law, and also investigate Catholic hospitals for violations of the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA).

Catholic leaders decried the initiative but were not surprised.  “The ACLU has long waged war on Catholics over the issue of abortion,” the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue said in a statement.  “Now it has joined with Planned Parenthood to author a report that sounds the alarms over the “news” that one in six hospitals in the nation is Catholic-run.”  Donohue continued, “The ACLU has repeatedly sued Catholic hospitals for allegedly violating the civil liberties of women, and it has repeatedly lost in the courts.  As proof, it cites the Church’s opposition to contraception, sterilization and abortion, and various directives issued by the bishops to Catholic hospitals.  It continues to lose because the First Amendment guarantees religious liberty, a fundamental expression of which is the right of Catholic entities to maintain institutional autonomy.”

“Let us be perfectly clear,” Human Life International’s Director of Research and Training Brian Clowes told LifeSiteNews.  “Both the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and MergerWatch have one objective in mind: To force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions and sterilizations as a blanket policy.”  “They are both extremist pro-abortion organizations,” he said, “and their concern for women’s health is only a cover.”

Clowes pointed out how the latest ACLU report employs the classic liberal tactic of heavily stressing the “hard cases,” something the ACLU used in its successful bid to help legalize abortion on demand in the U.S.  The report’s examples of “emergencies” contain details that are deliberately vague or which are completely irrelevant, he said, in one example, where a woman suffering preeclampsia is refused sterilization by a Catholic hospital.  “The report conveniently omits the fact that sterilization does not cure or ameliorate preeclampsia even slightly,” said Clowes.  “The solution to this perceived problem is to educate doctors and medical staff at Catholic hospitals in the details of the Bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services,” he stated, “not to force them to act against their consciences and against their faith, which the ACLU and MergerWatch seem to have no problem attempting to do.”

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel