Facebook (FB) has now restored the pages
of Christian ministries it says were “incorrectly removed” from its platform for
7-days amid a purge of content that offers “services that aim to change
people’s sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The head of Help 4 Families, a Christian ministry and its sister organization called Living Stone Ministries, which aim to help individuals and families seeking to live in accordance with Christian sexual ethics, said FB removed the organizations’ pages from its platform at the behest of LGBT activists. Denise Shick, the director of Help 4 Families and Living Stone Ministries, both of which FB recently removed, said in an email to The Christian Post (CP) that the pages were taken down after a report was released by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) that compiled a list of groups and organizations that minister to and counsel people struggling with unwanted sexual attractions or gender confusion. GPAHE has been pushing for social media giants like FB to ban these organizations — many being Christian — from its platform. Although the GPAHE report acknowledged that the two Christian ministries create “safe places for individuals and families to openly share their grief and pain about homosexuality” and transgenderism, they were still deemed too controversial to remain on the platform, Shick told CP.
The GPAHE report argues that the views espoused and promoted by these ministries and other groups, such as so-called “conversion therapy,” which, according to the United Nations, is tantamount to “torture” and an “egregious violation of rights.”
From February 2-8, Shick couldn’t access her account, and her pages were taken down without notification. Eleven years’ worth of pictures are now gone, she lamented to CP after the ministries’ pages had been taken down. “If we are offering ‘safe places’ to ‘openly share,’ how is that hateful or extremist?” she asked. “We offer opportunities for people to share their struggles without condemnation. That is the definition of love and acceptance.”
Shick is the daughter of a man who told her when she was 9 years old that he wanted to be a woman. “This implies that what my father believed to be true was true for him. But my dad actually said that he wanted to be a woman. The word ‘believe’ means ‘to consider to be true.’ The word want, on the other hand, means ‘to have a strong desire for.’ My dad didn’t believe he was a woman. He knew he was a man, but he wanted to be a woman. That desire became an obsession, and that obsession led to much pain for him and his family,” she explained.
The social media giant no longer believes in the right to freedom of speech without censorship, Shick said. Her ministries notified their supporters and readers via email of the latest developments and have also moved their on-line communications on social media to MeWe. “For over 200 years, people in the U.S. were free to hold differing beliefs and to speak about them without censure,” Shick added, noting that this has changed because of the efforts of LGBT activists. “Our voices need to be heard by contacting our congresspersons and senators,” she added.
Following two inquiries from CP, a FB employee with knowledge of the matter said Shick’s pages were “incorrectly removed and [have] been restored.” Shick later confirmed that both FB pages had been restored.
FB and other social media outlets are being used broadly and unfettered to promote LGBTQ+ activists’ messages of real hate and even calling for violence, while the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His love is being called hate speech.
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