Religious Rights vs. LGBT Demands—Who Will Win?

Religious rights versus homosexual transgender demands.

Who will win? That is a topic we'll discuss today right here on the Christian worldview radio program where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to share the good news that all people can be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ. I'm David Wheaton, the host, and our website is thechristianworldview.org. Well, thank you for joining us today on the Christian worldview. You know, in a similar way that the men of Sodom surrounded Lot's house in order to impose their homosexuality on Lot's visitors, the homosexual and transgender movement in America is seeking to impose their, as Romans 1.26 calls them, degrading passions throughout society through a new bill in Congress called the Equality Act, which is H.R.

5. Liberty Council, a nonprofit legal organization which defends cases relating to religious freedom, the sanctity of life and the family, says the bill, quote, broadly imposes the LGBT agenda and does not exempt churches or religious employers, organizations or colleges. It specifically forbids raising religious free exercise as a claim or defense to the LGBT agenda, unquote. Now, it's not enough to be tolerant of those who commit indecent acts, as Romans 1.27 says. The homosexual transgender movement seeks to enforce normalization of their sin, punishing those who dissent and creating legal equivalency to unchangeable traits such as ethnicity.

For example, to refuse to bake a cake or photograph a homosexual wedding would be like illegally doing the same for a wedding between a black man and black woman. So will this new bill become law and what would the ramifications be if so for Christians, churches and schools and nonprofit organizations? How should Christians navigate the legal restraints related to this movement? Well, Matt Staver, who's an attorney, founder and chairman for Liberty Council, joins us today to discuss these questions and more. Let's get to that first segment of the interview.

Matt, thank you for coming on the program. Tell us about your background, how you became a follower of Christ and what Liberty Council does. Well, I became a follower of Christ after high school. I was religious but not a Christian and it was the year after high school I attended an evangelistic series and during one of the evening events the invitation was given and I went up and gave my life to the Lord Jesus Christ. I eventually became a pastor and when I was a pastor in 1983 I was invited to watch a movie and it was called Assignment Life. It was a new video, at that time it was reel to reel, and in fact it was about abortion, something I didn't have any knowledge about.

I was very knowledgeable about the Scriptures, I knew Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, and I knew archaeology and literature and the Bible, but I didn't know one of the most important cultural issues of our time that was going on in my backyard, abortion. When I watched that video, ultimately what happened was it shocked me and that was the turning point of me moving from the pastoral ministry into law. From there on I went to law school at some time after that and began private practice after law school and then also founded Liberty Council. We founded Liberty Council in 1989 and Liberty Council is a nationwide religious civil liberties organization that defends and advances religious liberty, the sanctity of human life, and marriage in the family. We also have a number of other affiliated ministries with Liberty Council such as Liberty Relief International, Humanitarian Relief Ministry for Persecuted Christians, Liberty Prayer Network, our prayer ministry, International Prayer Ministry. We also have Christians in Defense of Israel, our Israel Education and Advocacy Organization, Liberty Council Action, our public policy arm in the nation's capital, Faith and Liberty, our missionary team and ministry to the nation's capital, and others as well. Liberty Council maintains and continues to maintain its core mission of being a public interest organization, but we have many Christian ministry outreaches as part of the Liberty Council family of ministries. Yeah, sounds like you're a very busy man with all that and listeners can find out more about Liberty Council and all they do at lc.org.

That's lc.org. Again, Matt Staver, the founder and chairman of Liberty Council is with us today on the Christian Real View talking about is America losing our first freedoms? Very important topic we're going to discuss. Now, Matt, I'm going to read the first couple paragraphs from a column on Liberty Council's website about this new bill that's being proposed in the US House of Representatives. You say this, the US House introduced a bill that threatens the free exercise of religion and free speech. H.R.5, the name of the bill, known as the Equality Act, broadly imposes the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender agenda and does not exempt churches or religious employers, organizations or colleges. It specifically forbids raising religious free exercise as a claim or defense to the LGBT agenda. This paragraph, this bill amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by striking the word sex and inserting sex, sexual orientation, gender identity as protected classes throughout the federal code. This amendment applies to employment, housing, rental, public accommodation and more.

One more paragraph. Therefore, church leadership and nonprofit faith based organizations and schools would be forced to hire gender confused individuals and allow men access to female or vice versa at restrooms, showers, locker rooms, dressing rooms, shelters, dormitories and sports. This legislation would also create many more victims like women in shelters who have been sexually assaulted by a man posing as a transgender to gain access to the facility. Churches that provide weddings or baby showers will be forced to provide the same facilities to LGBT events and, quote, same sex weddings.

Such tax exemption in college accreditation, including federal student loans, would be affected. And this article goes on and on here. It's really chilling regarding the first freedom in our country, the freedom of religion, the First Amendment. We have this article linked on our website, thechristianworldview.org.

Tell us more about what H.R. 5 is and where it's coming from, Matt. Well, this has been a new bill that was just introduced into the House. It has more than enough votes to pass the House. Even the number of sponsors that are currently on H.R. 5 are far more than are necessary to pass it in the House.

So the real battle is going to be over on the U.S. Senate. But here's the best way to conceptualize this, and here's what it does. It puts into the federal employment and public accommodations law sexual orientation and gender identity in the same protected category as race. And the best way to conceptualize the far-reaching impact of H.R.

5 is best expressed in this sentence, and here it is. What you cannot do legally respecting race, you will not be able to do legally respecting LGBT. I'll say that again because that's important. It is a theme that covers through this entire bill. What you cannot do legally respecting race, you will not be able to do legally respecting LGBT. So what would be an example of that? Churches having segregated, racially segregated bathrooms. Churches are not exempt from the application of this law. Previous versions exempted churches.

This one does not. So, for example, conceptualize a church that has racially segregated bathrooms. A bathroom for whites, a bathroom for blacks. That would be a violation of this law from a place of public accommodation since churches are places of public accommodations under the federal law.

And other things with regards to segregation of races. If you can't do that legally, you can't do that in the area of LGBT. So you could not have a bathroom, male and female, and then a male who says I identify as a female wants to go to the female restroom. And you say no, you can't use that restroom. You have to use this other restroom, the one that is consistent with your birth sex. You can't even say there's a third option. It's the family single use restroom.

That's the one you can use. That's no more of an option than to say with regards to races, here's ones for whites and here's a restroom for African Americans and here's one for Hispanics. Or here's another one for Asians. You couldn't do that. That would be a violation of the civil rights law. Take, for example, Bob Jones University. Why do we say that you would lose your tax exempt status? Bob Jones University is a Christian university and many years ago it had a policy on racial dating and interracial dating. And it prohibited interracial dating based upon its then belief, now it's changed its belief, then belief that you should not have interracial marriages or dating. The IRS came after Bob Jones because of that policy. There was no particular law that said you couldn't have such a policy but there was the federal employment and public accommodations law that says you can't discriminate on the basis of race. They said this is racial discrimination, therefore we're revoking your tax exempt status unless you change.

They said we can't change. It's part of our doctrine. They ended up having a lawsuit that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and Bob Jones lost that case and lost its tax exempt status. Now, Bob Jones University has since abandoned that particular doctrine but unless it's recently applied for tax exemption, although it could, it has been an entity that's not tax exempt for many years because of that. So now you take a university or a church that has tax exempt status, we know that you'll lose your tax exempt status if you have a racially discriminatory policy.

We know that for a fact. It's not hypothetical. So if you have a policy that includes LGBT at the same protected level as race and you say we're going to have segregated bathrooms or a man has to use the men's bathroom despite the fact that the man says, well, I identify as a woman, that will be a violation of HR 5. Here's another situation. A church or a school have overnight events. Say the church has its youth program and they're going on an overnight stay somewhere for whatever reason, mission strips, sporting events, other kinds of, they're taking them to a Christian concert somewhere, doesn't matter, but they have to stay overnight. That school or that church wants to have one section for boys, one section for girls.

Makes sense. You don't want the boys and girls on the same hallway or side by side one room and there's another room. You don't want like co-ed dorms, if you will. And one boy says, but I don't want to stay with the boys. I identify as a girl.

My name is Molly, although my birth name is Mark and I want to go by Molly and I want to be recognized and treated as a girl. And you say, no, boys are on this side, girls are on this side. If you were to do that, that's the same as saying whites are on this floor, blacks are on this floor, whites are on this wing, blacks, African Americans are on this part of this section. It would be discriminatory because you're segregating. You would not be able to say, well, boys on this floor, girls on this floor, people who want to identify as a different gender, you're going to be on this floor. Nope, that's discriminatory.

So you would have to allow the boy to bunk with the girls, to shower with the girls, to dress with the girls and so forth. And if you didn't, you would have a violation of H.R. 5, which ultimately would result in lawsuits, penalties and eventual loss of your tax-exempt status. Moreover, colleges, religious colleges, not only would lose their tax-exempt status, but they would lose their accreditation. And if they lost their accreditation in the same way that they would lose their accreditation today, if they have a racially discriminatory policy, they lose the ability to receive student loans. So 99% of the religiously affiliated schools across the country would have to either comply or 99% of those would close. There's only a couple, a handful, if you will, schools in the entire country that do not accept student loans. Most of them, that's their lifeblood. That's how they pay the bills.

And that's how students attend college and pay for the tuition. I think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into the world that have disease from their parents, that have no chance in the world to be a human being practically, delinquents, prisoners, all sorts of things, just marked when they're born. That's Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.

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Think biblically and live accordingly. That is the motto here of the Christian worldview radio program. I'm David Wheaton, the host, and our website is theChristianworldview.org.

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We have several current resources available right now for a donation of any amount to the ministry. Also, I think I mentioned last week that we're working on a new element to the program called the Christian worldview speaker series and that's coming together. I don't want to quite announce dates or who the speaker is going to be at two events this year. One is going to be probably in early May, the first half of May, and the other one will be in conjunction that maybe the night before the Christian worldview golf and dinner event, which takes place on Monday, September 16th this year. So the speaker series event will likely take place on September 15th on a Sunday evening.

Shorter than a conference and we'll tell you more about these, but just want to inform you of what's coming up here in the program. And today in the program, we're talking about religious rights versus homosexual transgender demands and who's going to win this battle. Matt Staver is our guest. He's the founder and chairman of Liberty Council and we're talking about this.

Let's get back to the second segment of the interview with Matt Staver. It seems to me, Matt, that this bill will go to the Senate even if it passes there. Very likely that I would think President Trump would veto this bill, but even if that's the case, it seems like if there's ever a president from the Democrat Party coming up in office, if President Trump were to lose, let's say, this next election, that this bill would go right through both houses of Congress and then be signed by the president. Is that correct?

Absolutely. And here's our first firewall. It's the United States Senate. But where the firewall is, is at the filibuster level. The United States Senate, unlike the House, the House has many more than it needs to pass it. It'll pass the House. The United States Senate, if it were just a vote of the 100 and all you need is 51 of the 100, likely would pass the United States Senate because all the Democrats would come together and a couple of Republicans would join them. So here's the firewall, the 60-vote filibuster. The Senate has a rule that you need to get 60 votes in order to actually vote on the underlying bill. I think that's where we can block it. I think it's going to be a fight. It's not a done deal or a sure thing, but that's where we can block it.

That's the first firewall. And even within that area, I think what we can do is we might be able to bring some Republicans that might otherwise vote for it or some Democrats that certainly will vote for it to ultimately not vote for the 60-vote filibuster. Why? Because they're going to have to go back and explain to their constituencies why they just decimated the churches that are in their district. And the religiously affiliated schools that are part of those churches and denominations and some of their constituents. Because it will, I can tell you, decimate the tax-exempt status of churches and of nonprofit organizations, colleges, and their accreditation. But it's not just tax exemption. A pastor may say, well, you know what, the tax-exempt status, maybe it's not as important as it needs to be, and so we can live with that, losing the tax-exempt status.

Fine. But here's what else it'll do. Public accommodations. Like I said, a church cannot have racially segregated restrooms, shower rooms, locker rooms, overnight stays.

It's more than tax-exempt status. This will force the LGBT agenda into your church, into your schools. It will require you to, for example, churches can discriminate on the basis of religion, so Baptists can hire Baptists and Catholics can hire Catholics, et cetera. But you can't discriminate on the basis of race. You can't say we're not going to hire any people of color or we're only going to hire people of color and not whites, not Caucasians. That's racial discrimination.

So if you have race now in that category and you know what the result would be and you elevate this to the same level of race, you know what the result will be. So now you have a second-grade teacher. That teacher now comes to school and says, I'm going through hormone treatment.

I want to change my name. I'm going to eventually go through surgery and I want to teach the same kids in the Christian school, the second-graders, whatever it may be. And you say, no, that's against our sincerely held religious belief. Sorry, you're going to lose that. If you have weddings, just like you can't say we're only going to host weddings for members of our church that are white. And if you're African-American people of color, we're not going to do it. Racial discrimination in the public accommodations. And the same thing is going to be true here for same-sex weddings as well. So it's far more than the issue of taxes and status. Plus it applies to all the different employers. It even applies in the expanded version of this where they're expanded to individuals. And it applies to not just locations. It says it applies beyond physical locations.

It applies to internet retailers, internet sales. It applies to any gathering. It's unbelievably broad. And clearly it'll apply in the public schools. And you're going to see this as an engine driving a very radical LGBT curriculum and indoctrination in the public schools. Matt Staver with us today in the Christian worldview, the founder of Liberty Council talking about his America losing our first freedoms.

Their website is LC.org. Matt, how did we get to such a point in this country? I think there's almost an irony to the fact that this issue of homosexuality and transgenderism are the issues upon which Christians are being marginalized, even losing their businesses, fined imprisonment if they don't comply with laws. I heard someone once say many years ago, and it was absolutely correct because it's coming true today, gay is the new black. And so as soon as you have associated homosexuality and transgenderism as just being a born with innate quality like your ethnicity, well, then you can include it as they're doing now in this nondiscrimination policies of the federal government.

But that's not the case. People readily say that you can change your gender, of course, from male to female or female to male. But somehow you can't change your homosexuality.

Talk about the irony of this whole situation with these two issues of homosexuality and transgenderism having such a significant impact in our society and specifically with regards to marginalizing Christians. Well, they start off with wanting to ride the history and the train of the civil rights movement because of all the gains that have been made there on the basis of immutable, by the way, skin color and race. You can't change your race.

You are who you are. And so they want to say, well, they are also in the same category, immutable, unchangeable. Yet when you read the literature, when you also read what they say and you read what they advocate, they also say that gender is fluid and you can change it from one to the other.

And so it can flow and go here just like a winding river back and forth. So they want it to be immutable so that they can get the protection. But at the end of the day, they want to be able to have a free-flowing, winding river so that they can change it from one spectrum to the other. The only spectrum you can't change it to, they don't want to allow it to be changed to or stabilized within is male-female, binary, objective biology as a man and a woman. They don't want it to be heterosexual. So in the area of counseling, they want counseling to only be a one-way, like a one-way sign. It's a one-way street, and that one-way street is against and away from heterosexuality. It's against from how you were born innate as male and female.

And if you were to go back that way, no, you can't do that, but you can do anything as long as it's a one-way sign away from your birth sex, your birth as a male or female, your heterosexuality as your natural birth situation. So that's where we are, and unfortunately, the Church has been silent too much on this issue. There's a very vicious, violent, and frankly, a threatening opposition out there that threatens even the well-being and safety of anybody who disagrees. And they will label you as a hater. We don't hate anybody. It would be contrary to the very Christian values that have transformed us, that God loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son. And that is what motivates us, that God is love.

There is no one that we hate. That doesn't mean that we agree with everyone or everyone's practice or lifestyle. And mere disagreement, they then translate Orwellian-like into hater or a hate group, and then they try to take that to the next level to demonize you, to stigmatize you, and to eliminate and cut off any source of income and support or livelihood for you if you do not agree with them. And it's no longer something in which they're content with for you simply to remain silent.

They want you to be a cheerleader and a supporter of the LGBT agenda cause. So that is kind of what's happening. I think it's ultimately a spiritual battle, no question, that is coming up because it's a direct attack on God Himself.

How He created us in His images, male and female. And then how this bill came about is people not voting, people not voting en masse, people getting confused by what they read or hear in the media, and people either staying home, and that's how we got this radical, very radical US House of Representatives. And if you want to see more of that just shoved down your throat, then there's a way to change that and you don't have to vote in the next cycle. And I tell you what, it'll be open season on people of faith and moral and religious values.

And if you want to change it, you need to get involved now and you need to stand up and speak. All right, Matt Staver is our guest today on the Christian Real View talking about an important topic that's going to affect any Christian, any and every Christian who holds biblical convictions about biblical morality. We have much more coming up with Matt Staver after this next break on the Christian Real View.

I'm David Wheaton. founder of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, who brings a truthful biblical world view to this issue. Climate Change in the Christian is an 80 minute DVD message. And the Cosmic Consequences of Christ Crosswork is a 15 page booklet. One or both are available for a donation of any amount to the Christian World View. To order, go to theChristianworldview.org or call 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401 Excelsior, Minnesota 55331.

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Your email and mailing address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time. Call 1-888-646-2233 or visit theChristianworldview.org. We're so glad you joined us today here on the Christian World View radio program as we discuss religious rights versus homosexual transgender demands and who's going to win this. Now, this is nothing new. It's been going on for probably almost 15 to 20 years now. But the momentum is certainly on the side of the LGBT movement. We saw with the passage of same sex marriage.

What was that three, four years ago in the Supreme Court, and now this bill we're talking about today, H.R.5, the so-called Equality Act, which replaces or which adds sexual orientation and gender identity to the federal code of nondiscrimination. So what Matt Staver is basically saying today, what are the ramifications of this is that there's no way legally you could say you have a store, let's say, and you say, well, we don't allow white people to come into our store. You could you'd be under you'd be a federal crime. Now, with this new law, if you were a a wedding business or something and you were a photographer, let's say, and you'd say, well, I'm a Christian and I don't believe that same sex marriages are actually marriages. I don't want to participate and use my artistic skills to participate in what I believe to be sinful. Well, if you did that, you could you have the choice not to do that, but you'd be you'd be punished for it.

You'd be prosecuted for it. And we've already seen that in cases around the country on states levels. But this is going to enshrine into the federal code if it passes. So let's get back to the interview with Matt Staver, the founder and chairman of Liberty Council.

Their website is LC.org, an excellent organization you should get connected with. It's a defending religious civil rights in this country. This is what Hillsdale College said in their online course about first freedoms. They said the first freedoms in America, freedom of religion, speech, press, petition the government and assembly. Those five provide the people with everything they need to maintain control of the government.

Without them, there are no checks in place to prevent incumbents those in power from legislating themselves into permanent positions of power. Talk more about these first freedoms, Matt. Are they rights from God? Because I would define a right to something that you are legally entitled to, or are they mere intentions of God or are they privileges given by good governments? Well, if you go to the Declaration of Independence, the Declaration of Independence sets forth a long understanding of higher law versus earthly law. And it says, We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It goes on to say that government are instituted among men to protect these rights. In other words, it's saying the same thing that Blackstone said, Sir William Blackstone.

And every attorney, every person who was a jurist, they all read Sir William Blackstone's commentaries on the Constitution. And he got that from Christian writers and thinkers many, many years before him. And that is this, there is a higher law that comes from God. There is a universal principle that is part of the created order, just like the laws of gravity. We name them, and we abide by them, we discover them, but we didn't create them.

They're not bound by geography, time, or space. They are part of the natural created order. There are certain other laws that are also part of this natural created order. What we call natural law, the laws of nature, which is the natural law that they're referring to in the Declaration, and of nature's God, which is the revealed law, the law that we see, the revelation that we know of in the Bible. There's the revealed law, and there's the natural law. What's part of the natural law? Well, one of the things that's part of the natural law that we now also see confirmed within our earthly law is the right to life, the inalienable right to life.

That's what the founders said. We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, the right to life. Universally, people of all cultures and places of position have always supported the sanctity of the human life, the protection of human life.

We have that innate desire and willingness to protect our own lives and to protect other people's lives. Laws on earth should reflect that. Unfortunately, our laws since 1973 have violated God's law. God's natural law, his inalienable right.

And, you know, Sir William Blackstone said what also Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said when he wrote the letter from Birmingham jail. He was asked, how is it that you obey some laws and other laws you don't? He goes, well, that's because there's some laws that are just and some that are unjust. He said there are some laws that are part of God's law, you've got to obey those. There's other laws that are contrary to God's law. Those you have a duty to not obey, but you have to be willing to pay the consequences from the civil authority. And that's why he was there spending time in jail. He disobeyed an earthly law that he strongly believed was in conflict with God's heavenly law, a higher law.

And he was there paying the penalty for his disobedience. Why do you think the left and I mean the political left, the theological or religious left is so intent on eliminating opposition or eliminating speech and behavior that they disagree with? Well, originally the left, what people would call liberals as well, they were more in favor of freedom of speech. They didn't agree with you, but they wanted to be able to protect freedom of speech. But now the left has become radicalized and unprincipled.

And the constituencies of those that are in Congress right now, particularly in the democratically controlled house, have become very radicalized, unprincipled. So that the end goal is the objective and not the principle. There's no more principle.

It's just the end goal. That's how the Democrats, for example, in the current debate over immigration and border security, how they were all favorable, including Obama and Biden and Chuck Schumer, all in favor of border security. Now, nothing's changed except things have gotten worse, except President Trump is in favor of border security, so now they're opposed to border security because they don't want to give President Trump any benefit. So why you see what's happening is a loss of principle, a loss of a foundation, and the end goal, the objective, their view takes precedence over principle. So now they're no longer interested in free speech. In fact, they now have turned it to say it's their duty to stop other people's speech because they've now deemed it, quote, harmful and that it's a moral imperative for them. They now have turned it to be to stop a person's speech with which they disagree. Matt Staver with us today and the Christian RealView, the founder and chairman of Liberty Council, you need to get connected with this organization, sign up for their weekly emails and also consider supporting them as well.

We're going to get into what they do. Some examples of that LC.org is their website, or you can click over from our website to them, thechristianrealview.org. So, Matt, how do you recommend Christians navigate this changing climate today with regards to freedom of speech and religion? How do they protect themselves and their businesses and places of work from this agenda, which is sweeping across the land? Well, right now, there's ways to do that. First of all, pray, certainly get in contact with Liberty Council at LC.org. We can walk you through that process, and if you know of any situations, we can help you.

All of our services and work, our ministry is provided at no cost. Thirdly, in the meantime, pending this bill, you can develop policies because there is no federal law that elevates LGBT, sexual orientation, gender identity to the same category as race. And so there are certain ways to develop policies to best protect you. It's not foolproof, but it's a way to best protect you, whether it's your church or business. But if this bill passes, H.R.

5, the so-called Equality Act, it's a whole different ballgame nationwide. It is a social cataclysmic restructuring of our culture, and it will affect everything, and that's why it's so important to get involved. So stay in contact with Liberty Council, LC.org. We have e-mails that you can sign up for.

That's one way and probably the best, easiest way to learn. And then our e-mails, when we have a number of them, you can sign up for them and also our free newsletter there at LC.org. Those will not only give you information on what is the issue like this, but also how you can be involved, how your voice can ultimately make a difference on these issues. And so currently we're asking people to sign a petition to go to their senators, to go to the U.S. Senate on the issue of H.R.

5. And you can go to our Liberty Council website, LC.org. You can hit the subscribe button at the very top. There you can sign up for our various e-mails. But also if you go to LC.org, you'll also see on that very top an icon, H.R.

5 is a dangerous attack. Click on that. That's where you need to go. LC.org and click on that icon. You can also, we have a very short URL for it as well, LC.org forward slash H.R. 5. LC.org forward slash H.R.

5. And that's where we have a lot of information on this issue to educate you. And we also have petitions that you can sign to make your voice heard. Give us some examples of some of the cases that Liberty Council has defended. Let's say we're talking about freedom of speech today, freedom of religion. These two issues somewhat recently to give an idea of listeners about what the kinds of things that are going on in our country and what you all are trying to do to help those have freedom of speech and religion. Okay, Matt Staver will answer that question after this final break of the day in the Christian Rule View. And as I listen to him talk today, I'm just very thankful there are organizations like this out there defending the Christian religious freedom in this country.

It would be a one way street if people like Matt Staver and his organization weren't out there. Coming back after this one more segment, including we'll talk about what is going on with freedom of speech on the Internet with shadow banning much more on the Christian Rule View. That's next. In our online store, we have a wide range of resources for all ages, adult and children's books and DVDs, Bibles and devotionals, unique gifts and more. So browse our store at theChristianworldview.org and find enriching resources for yourself, family, friends, small group or church.

You can also order by calling our office toll free at 1-888-646-2233. That's 1-888-646-2233 or visit theChristianworldview.org. I think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into the world that have disease from their parents that have no chance in the world to be a human being practically delinquents, prisoners, all sorts of things just marked when they're born. That's Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.

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Normal retail is $49 plus shipping. Go to theChristianrealview.org or call 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401 Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. We are talking about religious freedom today here on the Christian Real View radio program. The first freedom of this country actually enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution, which has made this country different than any other country in the world and makes us what we are today and how that is that threat with this new law going through Congress and will likely pass the House, perhaps not the Senate. And then I think it will be vetoed by President Trump, but that doesn't mean they'll stop. A new president will mean a passage of this law, certainly if there's a Democrat president. Let's get back to the final segment of the interview with Matt Staver.

Then we'll have some follow up comments after that. Give us some examples of some of the cases that Liberty Council has defended. Let's say we're talking about freedom of speech today, freedom of religion.

These two issues somewhat recently to give an idea of listeners about what the kinds of things that are going on in our country and what you all are trying to do to help those have freedom of speech and religion. Well, we represent a lot of different individuals and people. We represent Sandra Merritt, who was one of the two undercover investigative journalists that revealed that Planned Parenthood was harvesting baby body parts and providing them for sale at enormous profits to these organizations, which were in turn profiting even more. We represent her, and we have been representing her for a couple of years. Planned Parenthood has filed a lawsuit against her, and so has the California Attorney General.

So it's a very intense litigation. We represent Kim Davis, the Kentucky County clerk that refused to issue a same-sex marriage license. We represent her, still do. We represent Camp Constitution up in Boston that has a situation there where they're being discriminated because of their Christian viewpoint, and we actually were just in depositions yesterday on that very case.

We represent Child Evangelism Fellowship with their Good News Clubs that are in the public elementary schools all over the country to get these powerful programs in the public elementary schools immediately after school for these young children, K through 5, a very powerful ministry called Good News Clubs sponsored by Child Evangelism Fellowship. We represent a wide variety of issues. We just filed a petition today with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of counselors and clients, clients who want to have counsel for their unwanted same-sex attractions, and they're prohibited from having that in California. We just filed a request with the U.S. Supreme Court to review that case just today, in fact, within the last hour. So those are just a touch, a very short overview of hundreds of cases that we have across the country.

We're very thankful. I know I speak on behalf of a lot of listeners who are very thankful as they hear you talking about this, that you are there to do what you're doing to defend people with the law against this creeping, it's not even creeping, it's an onslaught of religious discrimination now against people's sincerely held religious beliefs. Just a couple more questions for you, Matt, and again Matt Staver with us today on the Christian worldview talking about is America losing our first freedoms. Another space that there is this marginalization, this banning of non-politically correct or non-politically approved speech is on the internet, and it's called shadow banning, where conservative or Christian websites or people get banned.

Talk about how that is taking place and what the story is there. Yeah, shadow banning is something that you may not even know is happening, but for example, you post something on Twitter or on Facebook or some other social media site, and it looks like you've been able to post it, but no one has been able to read it because Facebook censors it without your knowledge. Also, in fact, I saw something the other day, my wife brought it to my attention, Jews for Jesus did a paid sponsorship of an advertisement for its own ministry, and they did it on Facebook. Facebook took their money and they then sent it out, but then when you received it as a recipient, Jews for Jesus didn't know this until we pointed it out to them.

It actually says, it gives a warning about that ad. So it's amazing, just like if you're going to go rent a billboard and you pay a company that owns the billboard to run your advertisement, and this is the advertisement you want to run on it, and then they put it up, and on their own they say, warning, this is dangerous, and you're driving by the interstate and you see the billboard, and you say, well, we didn't put that on there, and we paid for that. That's the kind of thing that these social media giants are doing.

Frankly, I think it's long past time that we allow these to be freewheeling. They have become irresponsible. These are the information highways that dwarf anything that was in the past, just like we would think about a telephone company saying, we're going to cut off this person because we don't like them. The utilities company, we're going to shut off the electricity despite the fact that they're paying for it as a normal paying customer because we don't like their view on marriage. No one would allow that, and yet these super information highways are saying, we're going to shut you down, we're going to ban you, we're not going to allow you to transact a credit card transaction here, even though it's your own choice, or we're going to hide your information from everyone else so that they can't see it.

It's all fake. I think people are getting so fed up with the system that it's time to act and stop that censorship. Well, we appreciate your coming on the program today. We could talk about a lot more. Thank you, Matt, for all you and your team are doing at Liberty Council. We wish all of God's best and grace to you. Thank you. Good to be with you. Okay, that was Matt Staver, everyone from Liberty Council.

Their website is lc.org if you want to connect with their organization. Now, just three points in response to this. Number one is we need to be informed this lie that gay is the new black. Well, that's the way it's being presented, but that is a lie because being gay is chosen and changeable, whereas black or whatever your ethnicity is, unchangeable. So they've swept that one under the door and to unsuspecting non-discerning people who have swallowed that hole in our society. And this is insidious, this new potential law here coming through, because people and Christians and churches and nonprofit organizations like the Christian worldview or Christian colleges or anywhere, you're going to be forced or punished for violating your sincerely held biblical beliefs. And this is going to push Christians to the margins. It's going to be a litmus test, as we heard Cory Booker, the senator, question someone for some post, I think it was some judicial post recently, basically saying, what's your view on homosexuality? Is it a sin? Is gay marriage wrong?

You can't do that, but they still do it. And that will be able to be allowed because you can't be a discriminator and be in business, so to speak. That's number one. Be informed. If you're confused about this issue, just remember, being gay is the new black, according to the worldview of the secular left and even the religious left in this country. Number two is be prepared. Even though this is unlikely to pass now, it's inevitable to pass eventually. This bill may pass the House, the Senate, but President Trump will likely veto it. But some future point down the road, this will come around again.

Just consider the demographics. And finally, number three, be bold. Be the same way Jesus and the apostles were. Open your mouth in truthfulness and graciousness. Not so much condemning homosexuality as that's not the most important issue is. The salvation of souls is. Paul said, preach the gospel boldly as I ought to speak it. That's what we need to do in this issue and be informed, be prepared and be bold. Thanks for joining us today on the Christian worldview, everyone.

Until next weekend, think biblically and live accordingly. Call us toll free at one triple eight six four six twenty two thirty three. The Christian worldview is a weekly one hour radio program that is furnished by the Overcomer Foundation and is supported by listeners and sponsors. Request one of our current resources with your donation of any amount. Go to the Christian worldview dot org or call us toll free at one triple eight six four six twenty two thirty three or write to us at Box four zero one Excelsior, Minnesota, five five three three one.

That's box four zero one Excelsior, Minnesota, five five three three one. Thanks for listening to the Christian worldview. Until next time. Think biblically and live accordingly.