By James Wilson
California apparently gets the distinction between compelling and forbidding speech because she is doing both. AB 775 and SB 1172 are subject to ongoing lawsuits – Praise God – in actions brought by Pacific Justice Institute. The former orders pregnancy care center leaders to refer clients for free abortions while the latter forbids counselors to treat young clients who desire healing from homosexual feelings. Both laws are the fruit of legislative true believers – acolytes of political correctness on whom neither science nor informed compassion has any impact. These laws need to go down in flames; they are an assault on the freedom of those both for and against them.
Both address life issues in a most destructive way. AB 775 props up Planned Parenthood by directing business to the behemoth. In California there are too few doctors to perform 25% of the nation’s abortions in a state with 10% of her population. Imagine Ford ordered to refer clients to Chrysler; escalate to the point where life and death for some is at stake and you see what this law does to the First Amendment and the cause of life itself.
At this writing US District Judge Kimberly Mueller has just ruled against the clinics protesting AB 775. (An appeal is pending.) She agreed with the clinics that it threatens the First Amendment and will cause irreparable harm to them – the two needed elements for a successful legal action – but she over-rode the Constitution because she decided the interest of the state in providing abortion information to clients justifies her constitutional bypass. In other words, she says the state may trump the Constitution that provides and shapes its legitimacy.
The logic is not lost on legislators and Judge Mueller. Yet believing the right to kill a sacred trust they sacrifice the Constitution to what they see as justice. Such is the obsession of true believers, the Joseph McCarthy’s of today. Like McCarthy in the fifties they must be stopped by a body politic led by an aroused Body of Christ.
SB 1172 is another life issue, albeit concerning sexuality. It doesn’t get more horrific for adolescents than the sometime struggle over hetero versus homosexual attraction. California leads the nation in suicide; this is one of the prime triggers. Add in the reality that life is about free choice – for freedom Christ set us free is how Galatians 5 puts it – and you have a fundamental life challenge. True believers in California are convinced Frankenstein-like therapists and bigoted family members are waiting to pounce on teens coming out as gay and are determined to protect them. But the law forbids treating young people who come out of self professed need and consigns them to gay activists who maintain there is no way out – and should not be. This logical absurdity is lost on the true believers. The constitutional protection of the professional’s right to make informed and conscientious decisions on treatment based on expertise and conviction? That never seems to come up for zealots.
PJI first took the issue to the trial court as the free speech issue it is. They lost at both lower and appellate levels. They are back in court on free exercise; most or all of the counselors affected are Christians. They believe they have a strong case because the language of the law itself targets Christians.
Granted films like 2014’s The Imitation Game illustrate the barbaric practices of a bygone era seeking to force homosexuals to adjust to a socially correct template for sexuality; some of them were driven to suicide. But that nightmare ended before the Vietnam War got seriously started. Today the shoe is on the other foot and the bullies of our era are the gay activists and their allies. They too are driving the innocent to self-destruction in the militant dash to enforce conformity to a new and even more death dealing social template. If the Constitution fails to guarantee life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – it is nothing but a piece of paper if good men and women do not rally for its integrity – it is time for the people to remember the ultimate Source of our liberties and stand duty in the Name of that Source. How do we do that – whether we stand against compelled speech or for speech forbidden?
The prayer piece is self-evident; if we are Christians we are to pray without ceasing per 1 Thessolonians 5:17 and pray blessing on our enemies per Romans 12:14. Standing – literally – with those impacted by these laws is just as evident for Christians or no, and splashed liberally throughout the New Testament letters. But the most important piece flows from the praying, the blessing, and the standing. The Great Commission calls us to go forth in the power of the Spirit not just to preach salvation for the humble, but to demonstrate the power of the submitted life. That is the core of teaching one another to obey all things He commands. That and the challenge to be ambassadors of the very reconciliation we have received.
The take-away is abundant life for ourselves and for those we once thought enemies.
James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships, The Holy Spirit and the End Times and Kingdom in Pursuit – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at praynorthstate@charter.net
