Government Archives

May 24, 2021May 23, 2021

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

A federal judge has ruled against a Christian college in Missouri, and the ruling may affect other Christian colleges and universities. It involves opening the women’s dorm rooms and showers to biological males. On his first day in office, President Biden issued an executive order prohibiting “discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.” His order requires federal agencies to interpret the word “sex” to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Fair Housing Act is part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. It prohibits discrimination in the sale or rental of housing based on race, religion, or national origin. In 1974 a provision was added banning discrimination based on sex, but it says nothing about sexual orientation and gender identity. With the new executive order, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is now enforcing the requirement based on “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” and applying it to dormitory housing at colleges and universities.

The College of the Ozarks is a Christian college near Branson, Missouri. In April 2021, the college sued the Biden administration, stating that the new executive order “requires private religious colleges to place biological males into female dormitories and to assign them as female’s roommates.” On moral and religious grounds, the school prohibits males students from female dorms and vice-versa. The federal judge ruled against the school.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) plans to challenge the judge’s ruling. Ryan Bangert is vice president of legal strategy at ADF. He says that as it stands now, “If you have a male who identifies as a female, that student must be allowed to access female dormitories,” and that includes restrooms and showers. Failure to comply could result in fines that might force the school to close. That could be especially hard for College of the Ozarks, which does not charge tuition but depends on donations and requires all full-time students to work on campus.

Few Christian colleges could withstand hefty fines for violating the new rule, and dismissing a student because of sexual orientation and gender identity could create even more issues with the government. College of the Ozarks, like other colleges, is now working on housing plans for returning and new students in the fall. ADF said in a statement that “in this case the government is clearly overreaching.”

You can follow this on adflegal.org

May 16, 2021May 11, 2021

Refusing Vaccines is Not New

The current ignorance about vaccines is amazing. We see statements every day, frequently in religious publications, that are simply not true. There is nothing in a vaccine that could contain a microchip, for example. There is a fundamental distrust of the government and the scientific establishment that fuels ideas like this one. There are always hucksters who will seize upon this distrust and use it to try to make money. Refusing vaccines is not new.

In 1776 Edward Jenner noticed that milkmaids frequently had cowpox, which is a virus found in cows. The milkmaids didn’t get smallpox, which was killing 30% of the population at the time. Doctors tried various attempts to stop the epidemic, but Jenner’s treatment of giving people cowpox shots was the only one that worked. But many people were refusing vaccines for a variety of religious reasons.

In America in 1809, Massachusetts passed a mandatory vaccination law. In England in 1853, the government passed a U.K. Vaccination Act. It required parents to have infants vaccinated by three months, or the parents would be arrested. This precipitated the “Anti-Vaccination League of London,” and in 1879, the “Anti-Vaccination Society of America” was formed.

In America from 1920 through the 1970s, scientists developed vaccines for diphtheria, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, and rubella. Some of those diseases, such as polio, were stopped in your author’s lifetime. I can remember iron lungs and classmates dying with polio and how we all celebrated when scientists produced the polio vaccine.

That all changed in 1982 when a documentary aired called “DPT: Vaccine Roulette.” It claimed that children had suffered brain damage from the diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus shot. It turned out that the cases used in the documentary were unrelated to the vaccines, but the media never reported that. Parents formed “The National Vaccine Information Center,” which is an organization to encourage refusing vaccines.

We must point out that there can be allergies or reactions to any drug. When I was a kid, doctors used sulfa-drugs to fight infections, and I had a severe reaction to one of those drugs. The drug was never removed from the market because I was a rare exception, and the drug benefited many others. My atheist parents did not attach any religious significance to my allergy but withheld further treatments. Some people are very allergic to peanuts, but I have not heard of an anti-peanut league.

In 1998, the National Vaccine Information Center secured a report from Andrew Wakefield, a gastroenterologist claiming that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine caused autism. Since I have a grandson who is autistic, I was very interested in that report. It turned out that Wakefield falsified data, and there was no connection. I took the time to check out the claim, but in 2000 Wakefield’s study reached the U.S. and was immediately seized upon by anti-vaccine groups as more evidence for refusing vaccines.

So why are we reporting on this in DoesGodExist.today? First, Christians are to serve others and do the best we can to promote well-being in all of those created in God’s image. That means we need to check out the stories and make sure the data supports what people are saying. We can not trust the news media, and TV programs promote hoaxes of all kinds, from Bigfoot to UFOs to miracle health substances.

Secondly, Christians should embrace anything that relieves suffering and avoids the pain of disease. Jesus had naysayers in His day. He would cure someone by a miracle, and His opponents would try to explain it away rather than admit He was God’s Son. Don’t blindly embrace the claims of anyone, but check out the facts. Vaccines are not made from aborted babies, and they do not contain fetal cells. Vaccines save thousands of lives, even though occasionally someone will have an adverse reaction to them.

Science and the Bible are friends, not enemies. The only reason vaccines work is because of God’s design of our bodies. “I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows completely” (Psalms 139:14).

Data from Science News, May 8, 2021, pages 32-34.

May 2, 2021April 21, 2021

Legal Bias Against Christianity

One of the peripheral issues to the COVID-19 pandemic has been the question of whether the government can shut down worship gatherings if it perceives they are spreading disease. There was a legal battle in California because the state had passed a law that said no more than three households could gather for religious services. Religious leaders said that the ruling stopped most Bible studies, prayer meetings, and other services in people’s homes and meeting places. The same law allowed more than three households to gather in hair salons, retail stores, movie theaters, and restaurants. Is it more dangerous for people to gather for religious purposes than for those other activities? Is there a legal bias against Christianity?

Early in the pandemic, the Supreme Court said that limiting worship to three households complied with the First Amendment. With the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September and conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett taking Ginsburg’s place, the court changed direction. On April 9, 2021, the court ruled the state could not restrict religious worship and that the same precautions used for businesses had to must apply to churches.

We have pointed out that having large crowds is not required for Christian worship, so the ability to worship is not the question. The question is whether there is a legal bias against Christianity. Shouldn’t religious teaching and campaigns be allow to have the same freedom as businesses? There have been cases where the virus was spread through a lack of social distancing in religious activities and in other activities.

It does seem that the double standard of allowing movie theaters to operate and shutting down religious activities involving the same number of people is inconsistent. Legal bias against Christianity is certainly an issue here, and the problem is far from settled.

Reference: USA TODAY 4/11/21.

April 18, 2021April 16, 2021

The Right to Worship

An interesting battle is going on in the Indiana state legislature, which could affect the rest of the country. Senate Bill 263 would make it illegal to restrict the right to worship even during pandemics or natural disasters. The statement made by those promoting the bill is, “The right to worship is guaranteed by the United States and Indiana constitutions, and no one has the right to infringe on that right.”

This is a complex issue. Telling people they can’t assemble because they might get sick or make someone else ill puts the government in the position of deciding who can worship and who cannot. Which is more important, having the right to worship anywhere, anytime, and in any way you wish or having authorities decide when and where to allow worship? The potential for abuse is very high either way.

We suggest that carefully following the biblical teachings and examples would solve this issue. The first-century Church did not own buildings and worshipped in small groups in private homes. Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). The need for large groups with elaborate services and many participants is a product of church entertainment, not the worship of God.

No one can take away our right to worship if our worship is doing what the Bible encourages us to do and following the example of the first century Church. There are interesting legal questions in this discussion, but the right to worship is not threatened no matter what the legislature decides.

Reference: Tribune Content Agency for 4/9/21 page A2 in the South Bend Tribune.

April 13, 2021April 12, 2021

Abortion Industry Taxpayer Supported

One of the most challenging decisions for a woman to make is what to do with an unwanted pregnancy. The difficulty of this decision is evident from the “no show rate” for abortion appointments, which can be as high as 75%. Tragically, the abortion industry has become taxpayer-supported.

Planned Parenthood has released numbers in a report for the years 2017-2018. That organization operated 590 locations and performed 332,757 abortions. Their total income for the year was 1.67 billion dollars, of which $563.8 million was in tax money. Because it is a business, Planned Parenthood has to produce an increasing number of abortions or run out of money and have to close. Since 1995, 37% of Planned Parenthood locations have closed, and many of them closed for financial reasons.

By their own data, 96% of “pregnancy resolution services” are completed with abortions without regard for the mental and emotional issues of the women involved. They report only one adoption referral for every 117 abortions. Those numbers tell us that Planned Parenthood is not a service-oriented organization but an industry that must create a market to secure income. We have reported on data about abortion clinics selling baby parts as a source of income for this industry.

The abortion industry has been involved in lobbying politicians to approve their activities and fund them. We now have a president and vice president who approve of abortion and funding organizations like Planned Parenthood. Because of the sensitivity of this issue, it is difficult to get politicians to deal with the facts. The reality is that our political system is now endorsing infanticide. Attempts to defend abortion by claiming the fetus is an extension of the mother’s body do not have scientific support. Morning sickness is because the woman’s body recognizes that the baby is not a part of her body, and her immune system reacts to it. Genetically, the baby is 100% human when the sperm fertilizes the egg.

Educating the public about the facts of the abortion industry and providing alternatives to abortion remains the best that we can do. Our society has now endorsed infanticide, and involuntary euthanasia is the next step in getting rid of inconvenient humans. Scholars like Peter Singer, the Ira W, DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, call for euthanizing the physically disabled and mentally ill. The question is whether this is the kind of world we want to live in and leave to our children?

For facts about the abortion industry we recommend: To the Heart of the Matter by Shawn Carney (Cappella Books ISBN 978-1-7327417-44)

April 9, 2021April 7, 2021

Did Jesus Use Hate Speech?

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a child of hell as you are” (Matthew 23:15). Did Jesus use hate speech when He spoke those words?

In today’s world, making any negative statement about the LGBT lifestyle might put you in jail or at least under threat of a lawsuit. Sweden passed a law in 2003 and Finland in 1995 demanding discipline for anyone who says anything negative about the lifestyles of others. J.K. Rowling, the popular author of Harry Potter fame, has been “canceled” in England because she stated that males cannot become females. The question is not whether she is right or wrong, but whether in society today it is permissible to say anything critical of anyone else. George Orwell wrote, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

Those of us who are Christians and try to follow biblical teaching do not believe that anything in the scriptures qualifies as “hate speech.” What Jesus said in the passage above is not hate. We need to define what the phrase “hate speech” means. Webster simply says hate is “strong dislike.” We would add that the words “hate speech” describe what leads to physical action against a person. Most people would say it is okay to hate an idea. We can hate the idea of rape or prejudice without an individual being involved. When Jesus taught his followers to turn the other cheek and to love their enemies, He was certainly not advocating hate speech.

Did Jesus use hate speech in Matthew 23:15 when He expressed rejection of the Pharisaical system that injured other people as well as themselves? We have the moral teachings of the Bible because alternatives to those teachings hurt others and damage the people who promote those alternatives. No one following the teachings of Jesus would do any physical harm to anyone, no matter what their lifestyle. This is in stark contrast to the alternative teachings that would enact beatings, imprisonment, and even death.

In 1906, a British writer summarized Voltaire’s philosophy with the statement, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Others have repeated that phrase many times to describe the freedom of speech principle. Did Jesus use hate speech? No, and neither should His followers.

We live in a world where freedom of speech is becoming threatened, and those in power are trying to limit what someone can say. Ultimately Christians may be faced with the same situation that Peter and John faced in Acts 4:19. Their response to those who would shut down their freedom to speak was, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

March 29, 2021March 28, 2021

Lessons from Holy Week and January 6

There are many similarities between the events of January 6 in Washington D.C. and the biblical account of what happened to Jesus Christ. We can learn some lessons from Holy Week and January 6, 2021.

People of both political parties came to Washington D.C. on that Wednesday morning with a feeling of optimism and renewal. As Zechariah 9:9 had prophesied, Jesus came into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, an animal of peace, not a horse which was an animal of war. The people’s response was to spread palm branches, a symbol of triumph and victory, in front of Him.

Jesus began his tenure in Jerusalem by throwing the religious crooks out of the Temple (Matthew 21:12-13). He initiated good things by healing the blind and lame (verses 14-15). Some good leaders came to Washington D.C. on January 6 to allegedly do some good things.

The people’s actions in Jerusalem brought jealousy to the establishment, who thought they were losing control. They challenged Jesus’ authority and tried to put him at odds with the Roman courts (Matthew 21:23-27). When that failed, they secured an extremist’s support to advance their cause (Matthew 26:14-16).

On January 6, extremists were motivated to attack the authorities in power resulting in violence. Not only was there damage to the physical structures of Washington, but several people died. The people of Jerusalem were motivated to accept and even promote the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. At the same time, the politicians washed their hands and turned their backs on the violence that was being carried out.

There are many lessons from Holy Week and January 6 in Washington that are hard to miss. No matter what your political beliefs or religious convictions, or lack of them, the comparisons are strong.

People are crazy. Humans can be led, and their price is cheap. Judas sold out Christ for what in our money would be about $120.
Whether they are secular or religious, most politicians will stop at nothing to advance their own standing. Breaking religious law (read Leviticus and Deuteronomy) or violating the U.S. Constitution is easy when it involves greed, jealousy, and power struggles.
Journalists are biased and interpret the news rather than reporting it. As you read Matthew 26:59-60, you find two false witnesses saying that Jesus said, “I am able to destroy the temple of God.” That was a half-truth. The witnesses and the religious leaders interpreted that to mean the Temple made of stone when Jesus had made it clear it was His body. The news media on all sides of the January 6 event interpreted the news.

The similarities between Holy Week and January 6 end with the resurrection of Christ. Even today, many people deny the evidence and maintain their conviction that Jesus was a fraud. Some people will not change their political agenda no matter what the evidence. Indeed, the importance of “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21) cannot be over-emphasized.

March 19, 2021March 18, 2021

Collateral Damage from COVID-19

In the past year, we have endured the sickness that the virus caused, resulting in the deaths of loved ones, the isolation of family members, and economic losses. Recent studies by Gallup, the COVID-19 Consortium, the American Medical Association, and the Centers for Disease Control have shown a substantial amount of collateral damage from COVID-19. Reports now being released by these groups show:

1) The suspension of in-person schooling has resulted in poor learning, school dropouts, and social isolation, especially in lower-income groups.

2) In a three-month period, 78% of cancers were never detected due to missed screenings. That means 750,000 to over a million new cancer cases missed over a nine-month period.

3) People being afraid to go to the hospital has resulted in a massive increase in pediatric illnesses, heart attacks, and strokes.

4) The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported a four-fold increase in depression, a three-fold increase in anxiety symptoms, and a doubling of suicide ideation.

5) The American Medical Association (AMA) reported an increase in drug overdoses and suicides.

6) Cases of domestic and child abuse have “skyrocketed,” while many child abuse cases have gone unreported because they are usually detected through schools.

A significant factor in these reports is that specific economic and racial groups dominate the most affected areas. Recovery from the pandemic will depend on churches and ministries addressing many of these areas, but Government rules for gathering have prevented many Christian groups from helping the needy.

We hope that we have all learned some things from this horrible experience. Christian involvement can help create a cooperative effort to heal the divisions and minister to the needs of those dramatically injured by both the virus and the collateral damage from COVID-19.

Data from Imprimis, February 2021 – available at imprimis.hillsdale.edu.

March 17, 2021March 16, 2021

Vaping Weed is at least as bad as Smoking Cigarettes

States across the United States are rapidly approving the recreational use of marijuana, but scientific evidence suggests this is a dangerous development. Very little research has been done on marijuana vaping, but available evidence shows that vaping weed is at least as bad as smoking cigarettes.

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have identified a new disease called EVALI. That is short for E-Vaping Associated Lung Injury. An apparent culprit in this problem is vitamin E acetate, a sticky oil substance often added to vaping products. This is especially common in vaping products that contain THC, the primary psychoactive compound in marijuana.

The Center for Disease Control says that 84% of the EVALI cases involve cannabis-containing products. As of February of 2020, cases of EVALI had caused 68 deaths in 29 states and the District of Columbia. Those numbers now are far more significant, and virtually all of them are in young adults. Teenagers are twice as likely to have “wheezing or whistling” in their lungs after vaping marijuana as compared to smoking cigarettes.

As followers of Jesus, 1 Corinthians 3:16 tells us that our bodies are the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Vaping weed is at least as bad as smoking cigarettes, and both are destructive acts that damage the body and can lead to death. As our society turns away from God and rejects the notion that our bodies are designed creations of God, young people are less concerned about taking care of them.

The consequences of rejecting God are enormous, and one consequence is the threat to our health. The COVID-19 pandemic should have made us all aware of the importance of caring for our lungs. These studies on the destructive nature of vaping have centered on young people, so the results are not due to old age.

First Corinthians 3:16 tells us of the sacred nature of our bodies. Verse 17 says, “If any man defiles the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.” This is not some violence done to humans by God, but the natural consequence of abusing God’s creation. We cannot blame God when we fail to care for what He has given us.

You can find more information on this study HERE and HERE.

February 11, 2021February 10, 2021

Legal Assault on Christian Values

One of the things going on in America today is the massive legal assault on Christian values. The Christian view that LGBTQ behavior has unhealthy consequences for individuals is becoming illegal. Christian love and concern compel us to warn a person that a behavior is destructive and unwise, but no Christian would want to put someone in jail or fine them for having an LGBTQ belief or practice. However, LGBTQ lawyers attempt to make Christian beliefs illegal and justify fines and imprisonment for Christian teachings.

An example of damage to innocent people caused by LGBTQ advocates is the inclusion of transgender participants in girl’s athletics. Now 16 states are allowing biological male transgender people to compete in girl’s sports. Obviously, a biological male can have a huge natural advantage over girls and women in bone density, muscle mass, and lung capacity. Biological males who have chosen to be females have won several athletic events denying capable girls the possibility of scholarships. Even magazines like the New York Post have pointed out the unfairness of this inclusion.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has 300 staff attorneys and a $300 million budget to bring expensive lawsuits against Christians and precipitate laws that afflict them. Planned Parenthood has more than $600 million in taxpayer funding, much of which goes to legal attacks on churches and pro-life organizations. The Southern Poverty Law Center has $500 million to use for similar agendas. Christians must be aware of the legal assault on Christian values and express their concern to their political representatives.

Data from The Week, February 5, 2021, and Alliance Defending Freedom letter for January 25, 2021.