You see, the ACLU has launched a national campaign called “Don’t Filter Me,” that seeks to remove internet filters from elementary, middle and high school computers.  They claim that some national homosexual advocacy groups, such as Gay Straight Alliance (GSA), Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN), and the Trevor Project, were being “discriminated against” because their LGBT websites were being filtered by schools.

As one of their first targets, they filed a lawsuit against Camdenton School District in Missouri.  They cleverly wrapped their argument in free speech garb and claimed that students were missing out on an important pro-homosexual “viewpoint.”  What filter did the ACLU want to remove, you ask?  The “sexuality” filter.   That’s right, the filter that blocks thousands of pornographic, obscene and explicit websites during the day on school computers.

The school district at first gave a valiant effort to defend against the ACLU onslaught.  Then bit by bit, they seemingly caved.  First, by unblocking some of the specific sites, then, the rest.

No matter though, because the ACLU got the judge to buy in.  She held that blocking the websites was unconstitutional “viewpoint” discrimination and stated: the filtering software “allows access to websites expressing a negative view toward LGBT individuals by categorizing them as ‘religion’, but filters out positive viewpoints toward LGBT issues by categorizing them as ‘sexuality.”

But maybe it is because the “religious” websites that discuss the issue “negatively” don’t include porn on their site, and the “sexual” websites that discuss the issue “positively” do.  Speculation?  Nope.  Let’s look at just a few of these “positive viewpoints” that were being blocked.

These websites include, among other things, recommended books for children to read.  Dr. Seuss, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Percy Jackson?  Not quite.  How about Reflections of a Rock Lobster that talks about first graders having serial homosexual encounters in school restrooms.  Or Queer 13 which includes a thirteen year old having a graphic, violent homosexual encounter with an adult in a school restroom.  For obvious reasons, I will not go on.  Suffice it to say that many other sites that the “sexuality” filter used to block also feature photographs, “how to” guides, and a host of sexually inappropriate materials.

So this is a positive viewpoint?  Wow, have we come a long way.

And what else was the school faulted for?  Well, the court held that there was “direct evidence” that the school “intentionally” discriminated against this “viewpoint.”  What evidence, you ask?  Included was that one school official wanted to require parental consent before allowing the children to view these sites, and that one parent stated that a school would usurp the authority of parents by allowing access to these sites in the school.  That doesn’t sound like unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination to me.  Sounds like good education policy and an alert, responsible and involved parent.

We can only hope that the school district will appeal this decision.  And we encourage everyone to get involved in their local schools to make sure that the ACLU doesn’t score another “victory” in its public school porn initiative in a district near you.

A student at Dixon High School learned that last fall when she put up posters promoting the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity in some high-traffic areas of her campus. The school district has always allowed that kind of publicity before, encouraging students, student groups, and community organizations to post fliers, drawings, and other materials “in areas of the school which are generally frequented by students.” In the same vein, Dixon administrators have traditionally allowed students to make P.A. announcements at designated times to promote upcoming activities and opportunities of interest to students.

Such communications have been allowed because, according to district policy, “student expression regarding a variety of topics may be beneficial to the District’s educational mission,” including “discussion and debate regarding serious issues.” In recent years, that policy has been used to justify posters with political and anti-drug messages, posters and announcements promoting the Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network’s Day of Silence, even photos of students edited to look like bloody zombies …

… and – until last year – posters and announcements promoting the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity. Last October, though, when this student put up her posters and asked to make a public address announcement, officials tore down her artwork (calling the subject matter “offensive”) and denied her request.

“What is ‘offensive’ is the double standard here,” says ADF Litigation Counsel Matt Sharp. “Public school officials cannot pick and choose what messages they are going to allow based on which viewpoints they prefer. ADF has litigated numerous cases similar to this one, and the law and the Constitution are clearly on the side of our client here as well.”

With that in mind, Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed suit against the Dixon R-1 School District on February 14 on behalf of the student.

“All students should have the freedom to express their beliefs,” says ADF Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco. “Pro-life students have a positive and valuable message that school officials should welcome, not censor. Public schools are more likely to succeed when they allow for the free exchange of ideas.”

Douglas Fredrick, one of nearly 2,100 attorneys in the ADF alliance, is serving as local counsel in the case. Please be in prayer for him, and for all our ADF attorneys as they rigorously defend the rights of Christian students coast to coast to hear and speak the Truth.

The decision was much more sad than surprising. Sad, because a federal court endorsed a lower court judge’s decision to ignore the expressed will of California voters, effectively ruling to redefine marriage in California. But not surprising, since the three-judge panel that heard the appeal included Judge Stephen Reinhardt, the most overturned judge in America and the husband of the former executive director of the ACLU of Southern California.

The appeal the panel rejected was filed by the ProtectMarriage.com legal defense team, which includes Alliance Defense Fund attorneys. ProtectMarriage.com is the banner organization for the official proponents and campaign committee of Proposition 8, which 7 million California voters enacted in November, 2008.

Still, not all the news was bad. A stay that prevents marriage licenses from being issued to same-sex couples in California is still in effect. And the 9th Circuit affirmed the right of the official Proposition 8 proponents to continue to defend the amendment on appeal – which, of course, we will, to either the full 9^th Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court, or both.

“No court should presume to redefine marriage,” says ADF Senior Counsel Brian Raum, “or undercut the democratic process by taking the power to preserve marriage out of the hands of the people. Americans overwhelmingly reject the idea of changing the definition of marriage. Sixty-three million Americans in 31 state elections have voted on marriage, and 63 percent voted to preserve marriage as the timeless, universal, unique union between husband and wife.”

“We are confident that the expressed will of the American people in favor of marriage will be upheld,” he says. “The ProtectMarriage.com legal team’s arguments align with every federal appellate and Supreme Court decision on marriage in American history.”

Even as ADF attorneys work with the rest of the ProtectMarriage.com legal team to prepare an appeal, we invite you to play a vital role in this effort by going to TELLADF.org/marriage right now and signing a special pledge affirming marriage as one man and one woman.

Then, I hope you will make plans to take an active part in the National Day to Pray for Marriage on February 26, praying with other concerned Americans coast to coast about this critical issue. We know that a day of unified, focused prayer for marriage can and will have a powerful impact on this case – and on the future of marriage – and marriages – nationwide. Please join us, and spread the word about this special day to your friends, neighbors, and fellow church members. May God bless and grant our petitions, and accomplish what only He can in the hearts of our nation’s judges.

But even if this claim of non-payment made any economic sense, the moral question is, so what?  Paying for something is not the ONLY way for an employer to morally facilitate it.  Religious entities object to helping objectionable things, not merely to helping by paying for it.  There are other ways to help something besides giving money.  In the President’s scheme, the employer’s providing of its specific plan to the employee is the only thing that makes the employee able to obtain the coverage, and she can only obtain it from the insurer whom the employer is paying.  This is a rather direct form of facilitation of the employee getting the objectionable coverage.  Therefore it forces religious employers to directly help employees obtain coverage they consider objectionable.  It is not morally sufficient to tell religious objectors that they aren’t paying anymore, while making them take some different action that still facilitates the objectionable activity.  Federal law prohibits the President from imposing burdens on religious beliefs, not just from imposing burdens on pocketbooks.

This situation is also not analogous to the mere fact that when an employer pays an employee a salary, she can go spend it on immoral things.  It is not even like if the government told all insurers that they must offer free coverage to any person who walks in off the street.  Here the employee can only get the coverage from one vendor, and can only get it from that vendor because the employer is already paying that vendor.  It is therefore more like the government ordering religious employers to give their employees a gift certificate for free abortifacient/contraception coverage, knowing that the employee can only qualify for that coverage if the employer gives her that certificate.

Or, to use a more extended analogy, it is like if the government declared that all employers must provide their employees with a monthly meal credit to use at a specific major restaurant chain that the employer chooses, say TGI Fridays or Applebees or Outback Steakhouse, but the government also requires that each restaurant must offer, to any covered employee who requests one, a free sea-turtle omelet.  No environmentalist employer (including a left-leaning Christian conservationist entity) would be content to say, “I myself am not cooperating in the extinction of the sea turtle, since the restaurant I contracted with, not I, is the one who must give the employee her spoil at its own cost.”  Nor could the government excuse itself by insisting that the meal credit actually costs the employer less in those circumstances, since employees who satiate themselves on sea-turtle frittata will, on balance, order less additional food.  Even if that made economic sense, the Sierra Club employer is still being forced to exacerbate sea-turtle genocide.  The President’s plan requires direct moral facilitation of coverage that religious people object to providing.  There’s no way around that except to stop the government coercion altogether.

In August 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a rule requiring virtually all entities providing group health insurance to include “FDA-approved contraceptives” in their plans.  That includes drugs and devices that can cause abortion, including ella and Plan B.  The mandate had an extraordinarily small religious exemption that left religious hospitals, colleges, and social service agencies subject to the rule.  Of course, many religious organizations believe that abortion is a moral evil, and the Roman Catholic Church has similar views about contraception.

After a tremendous and bipartisan backlash, the White House announced today a modification to the mandate.  Instead of forcing employers to list contraceptives and abortifacients as benefits, the modified rule will force the employer’s insurer to provide those morally problematic items to employees without cost to the employee.  This is simply an accounting gimmick rather than a substantive amelioration of the moral problem.  The bottom line remains the same:  employees will be given abortifacients and contraceptives as a direct consequence of their employer’s purchase of a group health plan.  The employee is not negotiating a truly independent insurance contract with the insurer.  And the insurance company will certainly consider the cost of the contraceptives and abortifacients it provides to employees “without cost” when setting the premium it charges the employer.  The employer will end up paying for contraceptives and abortifacients, in violation of its conscience.

Today’s announcement also fails to consider the plight of employers that self-insure.  It contemplates that “insurance companies” rather than employers will pay for morally problematic drugs and devices.  What if the employer is, in a functional sense, the insurer as well?  Will the new rule force pro-life employer-insurers to pay for abortifacients?  Will the new rule force Roman Catholic employer-insurers to pay for birth control, in clear violation of Catholic doctrine?  The answer seems to be yes.  After all, who else is going to pay?  The whole point of the mandate is to force a third party to pay for contraceptives and abortifacients so that the users of these drugs and devices don’t have to.

And this alleged “compromise” does not even purport to do anything for employers that conscientiously object to contraceptives and abortifacients but that are deemed by the government to be “non-religious” organizations.  Many for-profit “secular” employers are understandably unwilling to underwrite the destruction of human life caused by abortifacients like ella.  Today’s announcement does nothing for such employers.

It’s a right that officials in Illinois are trying to deny the proprietors of the TimberCreek Bed and Breakfast in Paxton, after they declined the request of two men to hold their “civil union” ceremony at the inn.

The two men filed complaints against TimberCreek with the state’s Human Rights Commission, claiming sexual orientation discrimination. Since then, the Commission has shown a much greater concern with the outrage of the two men – who of course had the option of holding their ceremony at any number of other establishments in the area – than with the conscience rights of the bed-and-breakfast’s owners, whose religious convictions spurred their refusal to host the event.

“TimberCreek does not host civil union ceremonies for same-sex or opposite-sex couples, so the discrimination charge is baseless,” says ADF Senior Counsel Bryan Beauman. “TimberCreek has done nothing wrong, and their right to freely exercise their faith should not be threatened.”

“No business owner may be forced to violate his sincerely held religious beliefs merely because someone demands it,” says Steve Amjad, one of more than 2,100 attorneys in the ADF alliance, who filed answers in December to the complaints lodged against TimberCreek.

“Constitutional and state laws guarantee religious freedom for every American, including business owners,” he says. “These complaints ignore those fundamental freedoms and are further examples of the threat the homosexual legal agenda poses to every American’s basic rights.”

The answers filed with the commission in response to the complaints assert that “TimberCreek did not engage in sexual-orientation discrimination under the Illinois Human Rights Act” and that applying specific portions of the act to this situation would actually violate the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, federal law, and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  The case is currently still with the Illinois Human Rights Commission.

These encroachments on constitutionally protected religious freedoms are happening more and more in cities all over the U.S.  Please be in prayer for our ADF attorneys as they stand in defense of America’s first liberty … and for the clients we’re representing, many of whom are standing with great courage in the face of enormous pressures from a hostile culture.

Two days ago the nation’s leading breast cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, announced that it would no longer provide grants to Planned Parenthood.  In recent years, Komen has donated between $500,000 and $700,000 per year to  Planned Parenthood perform manual breast exams on some women.  Ostensibly, Planned Parenthood refers some women to other healthcare providers for mammographies.  This referral was necessary because not a single Planned Parenthood clinic in the entire country has a mammogram machine. Not one.  Komen appears to have made the sensible decision that its donors’ dollars would be better used actually paying for mammograms instead of subsidizing Planned Parenthood’s abortion practice.   Who can disagree with that logic?  Most nonprofits would have taken that decision with disappointment but also with a measure of grace, thanked Komen for the millions it had given them over the years, and examined how they could improve their services to be worthy of receiving grants from Komen or others in the future.

But Planned Parenthood is not your typical nonprofit.  It is a corporation with an annual budget in excess of a billion dollars, nearly 40% of which comes from taxpayers.   Last year, Planned Parenthood received nearly $500 million in federal taxpayer dollars.  For four decades it has been able to evade public scrutiny as a  nonprofit and instead has successfully demanded billions in taxpayer dollars from the federal government.  Its political friends, who then receive the enthusiastic financial support of the largest abortionist east of Tiananmen Square, are happy to meet its financial demands.  These enablers also treat Planned Parenthood differently from other grantees, shielding them from questions — much less investigations — of how they spend precious taxpayer dollars.  Thus, despite decades of billions in federal funding, Chairman Stearns and the House Oversight Committee are in the midst of the first congressional investigation ever into how Planned Parenthood is spending the money Congress appropriates.  And even that has been met with vitriol by the abortion lobbyists (including the elected ones) who resist any attempt to have the abortion giant account for how it spends our money.

And so instead of graciousness, Planned Parenthood pitched what my grandmother would have called a “hissy fit.” Despite Komen’s plea that “[m]aking this issue political or leveraging it for fundraising purposes would be a disservice to women,” Planned Parenthood immediately made this issue political and leveraged it for fundraising purposes, accusing Komen of bowing to political pressure.  Planned Parenthood’s President, Cecile Richards, issued an emergency fundraising call to meet this supposed shortfall (less than 1% of its budget).  Its supporters responded, almost replacing the full amount in a single day (demonstrating that the association with the world’s most highly respected breast cancer organization, not the cash, is what was so valuable to Planned Parenthood).

It is the attitude of Planned Parenthood and its defenders that is so revealing.  How dare Komen take away Planned Parenthood’s money?!  Thousands of Planned Parenthood employees, volunteers, and supporters have flooded Komen with hateful attacks on Facebook, Twitter, email, telephone, and newspaper stories.  Take one major paper as an example: a Dallas Morning News writer said Komen “voluntarily donned the theocratic burka of anti-abortion ideology Tuesday with its decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood.”  And its lead editorial writer said that he would “think twice” about editorializing in favor of any local breast cancer fundraising events for Komen.  Former Democratic National Committee Chair, and former Planned Parenthood board member, Howard Dean said Komen “lack[s] courage” and called for donors to stop supporting the largest breast cancer charity — apparently to show their support for women.  In the minds of the abortion lobby, Planned Parenthood is entitled to your money – and everyone else’s money, too.  And if you cross the abortion behemoth, you must pay with your reputation.

Given Planned Parenthood’s lack of transparency and oversight, they reveal a corporate giant unworthy of this privileged status.   Apart from the ongoing House investigation, federal audits into just a handful of Planned Parenthood’s affiliates have found evidence that Planned Parenthood has improperly overbilled Medicaid for millions of dollars.  And undercover investigations have revealed that Planned Parenthood clinics have been willing to help cover up and facilitate child sex trafficking, cover up statutory rape, and provide women incomplete and inaccurate medical information about their unborn child.

A typical nonprofit might decide that if it wants to be worthy of financial support, it should get its own house in order, perhaps showing some financial accountability, ensuring that every taxpayer dollar is well spent, complying fully with the law, and welcoming the opportunity to show Congress that it is doing just that.  And if it is interested in women’s health, perhaps actually purchasing mammogram machines to screen for breast cancer, instead of deluding some women into thinking the manual examination was effective, would be a good plan.

But Planned Parenthood is not your typical nonprofit.  After decades of taxpayer funding and insulation from scrutiny and thousands of dollars in political donations, it has revealed itself as a 95-year-old petulant child that lashes out when it doesn’t get something it wants.  It is evidently not learning its lesson from losing Komen funding.  Maybe Planned Parenthood needs a time-out from taxpayer funds, too.

After several years of service as a schoolteacher and informally counseling young people, Julea heard God’s call to help others in need.  She applied to EMU, worked hard, and distinguished herself as a student.  She was cruising toward her degree until she was assigned a client seeking assistance for problems with a sexual relationship.

This potential client’s problem conflicted with her sincerely held Christian beliefs, which prohibit her from providing counseling regarding heterosexual and homosexual relationships that fall outside of God’s design for marriage between one man and one woman. So, she did what she had been taught to do.  She went to her supervisor and asked her for advice on how to best handle the conflict.  The advisor told her to have the clinic assign the client to another counselor, advice directly from the counseling profession’s code of ethics.

Julea thought the matter was settled.  But a rude surprise awaited her as she was charged with ethical violations.  She was dragged before a formal review meeting where her beliefs were repeatedly mocked, and she was told she would have to see the “error of her ways” and change her “belief system” as a condition to getting her degree. Julea stood firm and refused to compromise in the face of the attacks and was dismissed from the program.

Julea called ADF and after two and a half years of hard-fought litigation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit asked:

“…what did Ward do wrong?  [She] was willing to work with all clients and to respect the school’s affirmation directives in doing so.  That is why she asked to refer gay and lesbian clients (and some heterosexual clients) if the conversation required her to affirm their sexual practices.  What more could the rule require? Surely, for example, the ban on discrimination … does not require an atheist counselor to tell a person of faith that there is a God if the client is wrestling with faith based issues.  Tolerance is a two-way street … A university cannot compel a student to alter or violate her belief systems . . . as the price for obtaining a degree.”

Julea’s case will now return to federal district court for reconsideration.  Please continue to pray for her, for the ADF attorneys representing her, and that this brave woman’s courageous stand will have an impact for the religious freedom of public university students and counselors across America.

Your support can make all the difference

ADF is committed to reclaiming and preserving religious freedom on public university campuses. By God’s grace, and with the prayers and financial support of Christians like you, we will continue our winning record of success—defending the constitutionally protected rights of students, like Julea Ward, to freely live out their faith.

Even at the time of Roe, some were concerned that legalized abortion would lead to compelled participation in abortion, a concern that was not misplaced as ACLU attorneys were working in Montana to force Catholic hospitals to perform sterilizations.  The Supreme Court acknowledged but dismissed that concern, holding only that “the attending physician, in consultation with his patient, is free to determine, … the patient’s pregnancy should be terminated.”  The Court cited favorably the resolution of the AMA House of Delegates stating:

RESOLVED, That no physician or other professional personnel shall be compelled to perform any act which violates his good medical judgment. Neither physician, hospital, nor hospital personnel shall be required to perform any act violative of personally held moral principles. In these circumstances, good medical practice requires only that the physician or other professional personnel withdraw from the case so long as the withdrawal is consistent with good medical practice.

Similarly, in Doe v. Bolton while the Supreme Court struck down some parts of a Georgia abortion law, it left standing a provision that allowed any medical professional or hospital to decline to participate in abortions, saying that this provision was an “appropriate protection to the individual and to the denominational hospital.”  Thus, in the seminal abortion decisions that President Obama and the abortion industry celebrate this weekend, the same Court acknowledged the right NOT to assist in abortions in violation of conscience.

To be absolutely sure however, the U.S. Congress passed the Church Amendments, turning back ACLU efforts to treat Catholic hospitals receiving Medicare funds as public hospitals and force them to perform sterilizations (and ultimately abortions), and prohibiting recipients of certain federal funds from requiring medical professionals or any person to participate in abortions, sterilizations, or other procedures in violation of conscience.  This was so uncontroversial it passed with only a single vote against in either house – a vote total unthinkable even for a bill to honor mom and apple pie today.  In fact, noted right wing extremist Senator Ted Kennedy spoke in favor of the law on the floor of the Senate, saying that it protected the constitutional right not to participate in abortion and he supported the “full protection to the religious freedom of physicians and others.”  In 1973, as the opinions reflect, there was no doubt that whatever right the penumbral emanations of the constitution gave to women and doctors to participate in abortions, it certainly protected the right not to participate in abortions or other medical procedures that violated one’s conscience.

It is in the face of this history that the Obama Administration announced on Friday that it will, with only a 1 year reprieve, fine virtually every faith-based ministry in the country that does not pay for contraception and abortifacients (Plan B, Ella, IUD, etc. included).  This decision is certainly an affront to religious liberty –perhaps the greatest in our nation’s history.  But it is also completely unsupported, indeed rejected by the very cases that the Obama Administration would use to support its cause.  Roe and Doe, as bad as those decisions are, reject the Administration’s claim that a woman’s “right” to contraception and abortifacients justify the federal government compelling Christ-centered ministries to violate their conscience by buying these for them.  When you hear abortion industry supporters rely upon those decisions to justify this assault on conscience, don’t believe it.  Even Roe itself is conservative compared to the radical anti-life advocacy of the present Administration.

Last year, he graciously alerted a campus official to his intention to visit the campus again – but this time, the official threw a flag on the play. He told Arneson he would have to abide by the school’s solicitation policy, which is not exactly a Constitutional model for encouraging free speech. The policy requires individuals to pay at least a $50 fee, buy insurance, and submit a request form with proof of that insurance 14 days before visiting campus.

All of which flies in the face of some pretty fundamental constitutional protections… so Arneson has enlisted the help of the Alliance Defense Fund.  Thanks to your support, ADF has been able to remind the Maricopa County community colleges – the largest community college district in the United States – of the contents of the First Amendment.

Even after some gentle legal prodding, the officials failed to change their policy, so ADF attorneys asked a federal court to suspend the college system’s enforcement of their solicitation policy, pending the outcome of an ADF lawsuit.

“Free speech is protected by the First Amendment, which means it can’t come with a price tag and a burdensome waiting period,” says ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Jonathan Scruggs. “Christians visiting public college campuses shouldn’t be deterred from expressing their beliefs because of cumbersome, unconstitutional policies.”

Chris Stovall of Phoenix, one of nearly 2,100 attorneys in the ADF alliance, is serving as local counsel in the lawsuit.  Please be in prayer for Chris and other dedicated Christian lawyers across the U.S. as they work to defend the right of all Americans to hear and speak the Truth. And join me in giving thanks for faithful believers like Ray Arneson, who are committed to sharing the Gospel in their communities.