Gerry Charlotte Phelps

When Boys Will Be Girls

                                  (Image from worldofstock.com)

Jim Tonkowich writes:

You might expect to see this article in some other supermarket tabloid.  Instead “A Boy’s Life” by Hanna Rosin appears in the November Atlantic.  It focuses on the story of Brandon (not his real name).

Since he could speak, Brandon, now 8, has insisted that he was meant to be a girl. This summer, his parents decided to let him grow up as one. His case, and a rising number of others like it, illuminates a heated scientific debate about the nature of gender—and raises troubling questions about whether the limits of child indulgence have stretched too far.

Brandon and other “transgendered” children and adults are convinced in spite of physical and genetic evidence that they have been “born in the wrong body.” 

Rosen writes that at school Brandon draws pictures of himself as “a girl, often with big red lips, high heels, and a princess dress” or as “a mermaid with a sparkly purple tail, or a tail cut out from black velvet.”  From an early age he dressed up in his sister’s or mother’s clothes and at five insisted that if God made him a boy, “God made a mistake.”

As I read, my heart went out to Brandon, his mom, and the other children and parents whose stories Rosen tells.  What would I do if my son wanted to be my daughter or my daughter wanted to be my son?  I do not know and so I do not want to minimize difficulties, confusion, or pain.  Nonetheless, it is clear to me that this is a story illustrates a deeply flawed view of what it means to be human.

One mother Rosen quotes said about her five-year-old son, “She could end up being a mommy if she wants, just like me.” The italics are Rosen’s and point to the heart of the issue.

These parents can let their boy dress and act as girls and their girls dress and act as boys.  They can change their names (Brandon is now called Bridget).  As they approach puberty they can and do give their children puberty blocking drugs that Rosen says, “prevent boys from growing facial and body hair and an Adam’s apple, or developing a deep voice or any of the other physical characteristics that a male-to-female transsexual would later spend tens of thousands of dollars to reverse… [and] allow girls to grow taller, and prevent them from getting breasts or a period.”  They can even pay for hormone treatments and sexual reassignment surgery later on.  But that will never change the fact that little boys cannot grow up to be mommies and little girls cannot grow up to be daddies.  Our bodies have made those decisions for us.

But people in our culture are no longer willing to own their bodies as themselves.  We think that “real me” is entirely spiritual.  The body is treated as an appendage that can be manipulated to satisfy the desires and whims of that “real me.” In this, we have taken a Gnostic turn, radically separating body from spirit. 

In his book The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Western Religious Tradition, James Herrick writes, “In its most elemental form, Gnosticism is the systematic spiritual effort to escape the confines of history and physical embodiment through secret knowledge (gnosis) and technique (magic).” 

Thus we have the wide-spread belief that each of us has a “true self” hidden deep inside and needing to be discovered (gnosis).  That true self is independent of the body which is, after all, nothing but a container—or even “prison”—that will be gleefully cast off at death.  Pharmaceuticals, medical science, and surgery (modern magic) are employed to create whatever sort of body a “true self” requires.  We have, as scholar and IRD board member Mary Ellen Bork has written, “accepted the cultural trend that our bodies are objects to be reconfigured and have lost the sense that the body expresses a person who is not self-created.” 

This is the problem not only for transgendered children and their families, but for the rest of us with our own whole host of personal problems and dissatisfactions.  The givenness of the body, male and female, is a great fact of life that we ignore at our peril—and considerable expense.

This is not to say along with Alexander Pope that “whatever is is right.”  In a fallen world we should expect homosexuality, transgender disorders, sexual addictions, and a thousand and one other shades of confusion about who and what we are. 

It does mean that central to a Christian understanding of humanness is the notion of a Creator.  None of us “asked to be born this way.”  None of us asked to be born at all.  Life as a human—body knit to soul, male and female—is the gift of God to be received with thanksgiving.

Family Dinner Essential to Civilization

                                     (Image from ih-sandiego.com)

This article claims that the family dinner is an important, irreplaceable tool in the civilization and socialization of our children.  We may have long suspected it, but this puts it in a new light.  Here are the money quotes:

...an essay by Francine du Plessix Grey about the film “Kids,” which portrays the sex-, drug-, and violence-crazed lives of a circle of New York teenagers. Du Plessix Grey writes of being haunted by the adolescents’ “feral” and “boorishly gulped” fast-food diet: “We may,” she suggests, “be witnessing the first generation in history that has not been required to participate in that primal rite of socialization, the family meal.”

Such an activity “is not only the core curriculum in the school of civilizing discourse; it is also a set of protocols that curb our natural savagery and our animal greed, and cultivate a capacity for sharing and thoughtfulness.” These teenagers “are deprived of the main course of civilized life—the practice of sitting down at the dinner table and observing the attendant conventions.”

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...our attitudes toward food—which nourishes and sustains us, which binds us most fundamentally to place, family, market, and community—provide a measure of our respect for what Russell Kirk called the “Permanent Things.” We are not just what we eat but how we eat. The cultivation and consumption of our meals are activities as distinctively human as walking, talking, loving, and praying. Learning to regard the meal not merely as something that fills our bellies and helps us grow, but as the consummate exercise of beings carnal and earthbound yet upwardly and outwardly drawn, is a crucial step in the restoration of culture. The suggestion that the inculcation of such values might be an essential part of an adequate education ought to resonate...

This  takes me back to meals with old Hispanic friends, where the meal is a ritual of getting together, with the most important part being the "sobre mesa" - the time spent talking around the table after the meal.  That was lively, fun and stimulating.  It would have been appallingly rude to get up and leave immediately after eating.  Definitely a civilizing experience.

Are we missing out on an important tool in the upbringing of our kids and the strengthening of our families?  Should we bring back at least one meal a day where we sit around the same table together?

What do you think?

(From http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_06_30/article.html.)

PBS Show Argues Allies As Bad As Nazis

           (Image from theodoresworld.net)

Monday at 10 Eastern time, 9 Central, PBS will show "The War of the World".  The NY Post recommends at http://www.nypost.com/seven/06262008/tv/its_all_one_war_117294.htm  that "Members of the Greatest Generation - especially those with weak hearts - might want to steer clear.".

This PBS documentary suggests that the Allied victory in WWII was "tainted" by adopting the same "pitiless" and "remorseless" tactics of the enemy.

The thesis of Niall Ferguson, Harvard historian, that the 20th century was actually not two or three wars, but one long war, briefly interrupted by peace, is an interesting one.  But his allegations that the campaign of the Allies was equivalent to the bestial brutality of the Nazis and the Japanese will surely not go unanswered.

Conservatives More Honest Than Liberals?

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Are Conservatives More Honest Than Liberals?  by Peter Schwiezer, the Dallas Examiner, on 6-2-08, at http://www.examiner.com/a-1419425~Peter_Schweizer__Conservatives_more_honest_than_liberals_.html

The headline may seem like a trick question — even a dangerous one — to ask during an election year. And notice, please, that I didn’t ask whether certain politicians are more honest than others. (Politicians are a different species altogether.) Yet there is a striking gap between the manner in which liberals and conservatives address the issue of honesty.

Consider these results:

Is it OK to cheat on your taxes?  A total of 57 percent of those who described themselves as “very liberal” said yes in response to the World Values Survey, compared with only 20 percent of those who are “very conservative.” When Pew Research asked whether it was “morally wrong” to cheat Uncle Sam, 86 percent of conservatives agreed, compared with only 68 percent of liberals.

Ponder this scenario, offered by the National Cultural Values Survey: “You lose your job. Your friend’s company is looking for someone to do temporary work. They are willing to pay the person in cash to avoid taxes and allow the person to still collect unemployment. What would you do?”

Almost half, or 49 percent, of self-described progressives would go along with the scheme, but only 21 percent of conservatives said they would.

When the World Values Survey asked a similar question, the results were largely the same: Those who were very liberal were much more likely to say it was all right to get welfare benefits you didn’t deserve.

The World Values Survey found that those on the left were also much more likely to say it is OK to buy goods that you know are stolen. Studies have also found that those on the left were more likely to say it was OK to drink a can of soda in a store without paying for it and to avoid the truth while negotiating the price of a car.

Another survey by Barna Research found that political liberals were two and a half times more likely to say that they illegally download or trade music for free on the Internet.

A study by professors published in the American Taxation Association’s Journal of Legal Tax Research found conservative students took the issue of accounting scandals and tax evasion more seriously than their fellow liberal students. Those with a “liberal outlook” who “reject the idea of absolute truth” were more accepting of cheating at school, according to another study, involving 291 students and published in the Journal of Education for Business.

A study in the Journal of Business Ethics involving 392 college students found that stronger beliefs toward “conservatism” translated into “higher levels of ethical values.” And academics concluded in the Journal of Psychology that there was a link between “political liberalism” and “lying in your own self-interest,” based on a study involving 156 adults.

Liberals were more willing to “let others take the blame” for their own ethical lapses, “copy a published article” and pass it off as their own, and were more accepting of “cheating on an exam,” according to still another study in the Journal of Business Ethics.

Now, I’m not suggesting that all conservatives are honest and all liberals are untrustworthy. But clearly a gap exists in the data. Why? The quick answer might be that liberals are simply being more honest about their dishonesty.

However attractive this explanation might be for some, there is simply no basis for accepting this explanation. Validation studies, which attempt to figure out who misreports on academic surveys and why, has found no evidence that conservatives are less honest. Indeed, validation research indicates that Democrats tend to be less forthcoming than other groups.

The honesty gap is also not a result of “bad people” becoming liberals and “good people” becoming conservatives. In my mind, a more likely explanation is bad ideas. Modern liberalism is infused with idea that truth is relative. Surveys consistently show this. And if truth is relative, it also must follow that honesty is subjective.

Sixties organizer Saul Alinsky, who both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton say inspired and influenced them, once said the effective political advocate “doesn’t have a fixed truth; truth to him is relative and changing, everything to him is relative and changing. He is a political relativist.”

During this political season, honesty is often in short supply. But at least we can improve things by accepting the idea that truth and honesty exist. As the late scholar Sidney Hook put it, “the easiest rationalization for the refusal to seek the truth is the denial that truth exists.”

Peter Schweizer is the author of “Makers and Takers: Why Conservatives Work Harder, Feel Happier, Have Closer Families, Take Fewer Drugs, Give More Generously, Value Honesty More, Are Less Materialistic and Envious, Whine Less ... And Even Hug Their Children More Than Liberals”

Teens Having Less Sex, Booze, Drugs

                (Image from party.lovetoknow.com)

AP, Brietbart news, June 4, 2008, at http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080604164426.71yqurvs&show_article=1

US teens are having less sex, doing fewer drugs and smoking fewer cigarettes than those who grew up in the 1990s, a study released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found.

They are also more likely to use condoms when they do have sex, wear a seat belt and avoid getting into a car with a driver who's been drinking, the national study of youth risk behavior found.

About 48 percent of high school students were no longer virgins in 2007, down from 54 percent in 1991.

Meanwhile, just 15 percent said they'd had four or more sexual partners, down from 19 percent in 1991.

And 62 percent of sexually active students said they'd used a condom the last time they had sex, up from 46 percent in 1991.

Some 35 percent of teens had at least one drink of alcohol in the month before they were surveyed in 2007, down from 42 percent in 1991.

Marijuana used has fallen to 20 percent of students from a peak of 27 percent in 1999 while methamphetamine use is down to four percent of teens surveyed in 2007 from 10 percent in 2001.

Nearly half as many students admitted to carrying some kind of weapon: 17 percent in 2007 compared with 33 percent in 1991.

But there has been little change in the number of students who said they'd stayed home from school because they felt unsafe either in the building or on the streets: seven percent in both 1991 and 2007.

Only 12 percent of students said they'd rarely or never worn a seat belt in 2007, down from 35 percent in 1991. Just 27 percent said they'd gotten into a car with a driver who'd been drinking, down from 36 percent in 1991.

"We are pleased that more high school students today are doing things that will help them stay healthy and avoiding things that put their health in danger," said Howell Wechsler, director of CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health.

"Unfortunately we are not seeing that same progress among Hispanic teens for certain risk factors."

While there has been a significant decrease in the number of black teens who'd had sex (66 percent in 2007 compared with 82 percent in 1991) and also among white teens (44 percent in 2007 compared with 50 percent in 1991) there was no change among Hispanic teens (52 percent in 2007 and 53 percent in 1991.)

"Hispanic students were more likely than either black students or white students to attempt suicide, use cocaine, heroin or ecstasy, ride with a driver who had been drinking alcohol, or go 24 hours or more without eating in an effort to lose weight," Wechsler said in a conference call with reporters.

"Hispanic students were also more likely than both black students and white students to say they did not go to school on occasion because of safety concerns, were offered or sold illegal drugs on school property or drank alcohol on school property."

A nationally representative sample of more than 14,000 students in grades nine to 12 were surveyed.

The Daffodil Principle

By Jaroldeen Edwards:

Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, "Mother, you must come to see the daffodils before they are over."

I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead. "I will come next Tuesday," I promised a little reluctantly on her third call.

Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised and, reluctantly, I drove there. When I finally walked into Carolyn's house I was welcomed by the joyful sounds of happy children. I delightedly hugged and greeted my grandchildren.

"Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The road is invisible in these clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see badly enough to drive another inch!"

My daughter smiled calmly and said, "We drive in this all the time, Mother."

"Well, you won't get me back on the road until it clears, and then I'm heading for home!" I assured her.

"I was hoping you'd take me over to the garage to pick up my car."

"How far will we have to drive?"

"Oh...just a few blocks," Carolyn said. "But I'll drive. I'm used to this."

After several minutes, I had to ask, "Where are we going? This isn't the way to the garage!"

"We're going to my garage the long way," Carolyn smiled, "by way of the daffodils."

"Carolyn," I said sternly, "please turn around."

"It's all right, Mother, I promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience."

After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand-lettered sign with an arrow that read, "Daffodil Garden" We got out of the car, each took a child's hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path. Then, as we turned a corner, I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight. It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it over the mountain peak and its surrounding slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, creamy white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, and saffron and butter yellow. Each different-colored variety was planted in large groups so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers.

"Who did this?" I asked Carolyn.

"Just one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on the property. That's her home."

Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house, small and modestly sitting in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house. On the patio, we saw a poster. "Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking" was the headline. The first answer was a simple one. "50,000 bulbs," it read. The second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain." The third answer was, "Began in 1958."

For me, that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountaintop. Planting one bulb at a time, year after year, this unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. One day at a time, she had created something of extraordinary magnificence, beauty, and inspiration.

The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration. That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time--often just one baby-step at time--and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small elements of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.

Based on "The Daffodil Principle" by Jaroldeen Edwards.

Hat Tip to Bob Bailey

Whisper Zone 2 - The Economic Costs of Sin

"Why We Whisper, Part 2" - The Economic Costs of Sin," by Chuck Colson on Breakpoint, here, below::

Imagine the following social experiment: You divide up Americans into two groups. Those who agreed to live by traditional moral values live in certain states. Those who reject traditional values take up residence in other states that would allow them to do whatever they pleased, morally speaking.

After 20 years, which states would be better off—economically speaking? The traditional values states would be far better off, because the liberal states would be spending $500 billion dollars every year dealing with the economic costs of their moral decisions. (Economist's added note: $500 billion in extra government expenses equals $1,667 in extra taxes a year for every man, woman and child in the U.S., or $6,667 per family of 4.)

Senator Jim DeMint and David Woodard outline those costs in their book, titled: Why We Whisper: Restoring Our Right to Say It’s Wrong. As the authors note, “As elected officials and judges continue to throw traditions overboard from the ship of state,” conspicuously absent from the political debate “is the mounting cost in dollars [and] debt.”

For example, there is the cost in treating sexually transmitted diseases. Research shows that more than half of all Americans will contract a sexually transmitted disease at some point. The cost: Some $17 billion in higher taxes and health insurance costs every year. And that does not include secondary costs, like treating cervical cancer, infertility, birth defects, and brain damage. And yet, our government does little or nothing to discourage premarital sex.

And then there are the huge costs of out-of-wedlock childbearing. Welfare costs alone to single-parent families amount to $148 billion per year. We pay indirectly, as well, through costs associated with child abuse—much more common in single-parent homes—and in higher crime rates.

We know about this at Prison Fellowship. We see it in the faces of the inmates day after day. Crime and incarceration rates are soaring—so much so that corrections budgets in many states exceed education budgets. And what is the leading cause of crime? Fatherless families, the lack of moral training during the morally formative years, according to respected studies.

Americans spend billions on abortions—mostly to single women—not counting the expense of treating post-abortion medical and psychological problems.

We also pay huge economic bills associated with pornography and government-sponsored gambling. We pay for the easy availability of divorce and for the choice of many to cohabit instead of marry. In time we will, like Scandinavian countries, be asked to pay the economic costs of destroying traditional marriage.

As DeMint and Woodward write, the quest for unfettered moral freedom has come at a very steep price—a price we all pay, whether we engage in these behaviors or not. And at the same time as we pay—more and more each year—we are being told we are narrow-minded bigots if we speak out against the destructive behaviors that are causing the increased costs.

The economic costs—not to mention the costs in human suffering—are why you and I need to speak out. We ought to insist that our lawmakers support policies that make good economic sense and relieve human misery. Instead of making biblical arguments, which sadly, most people do not listen to anymore, we ought to make prudential ones: that encouraging destructive behavior is destroying the economic health of our nation. And it is demonstrable.

If special-interest groups and liberal lawmakers tell us to pipe down and stop trying to “impose our morality” on everyone else, we need to remind our leaders of that little clause in the Constitution: the one that talks about promoting the general welfare.

This is part two of a two-part series.

Our Lost Young Savages - Today's Newly-Criminal Children

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A 16 year old girl is lured to another house and beaten by six other teen girls, with two teen boys standing guard outside the house. They start by smashing her head into a wall, knocking her out.  When she comes to, they beat her for another half hour.  It is all videoed, at » Watch Full Video «  The victim suffers a concussion, damage to an ear and eye, and still has some vision loss.

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In a school cafeteria, with a student filming the incident, a 13 year old girl picks up a folding chair, walks up behind a 12 year old girl, and slams her over the head with the chair.  The 12 year old drops to the floor, unconscious.

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On a playground, some 10 and 11 year old girls pull another girl, 10, to the ground, kick and stomp her head and body mercilessly.  The girl is in the hospital with several fractures in one hip, waiting for a hip replacement.

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In a middle school, a classroom teacher calls the class to order.   A teen girl advances on her, knocks her to the floor and kicks her in the head.  What did the authorities do?  The principal said the teacher triggered the attack.  The student was returned to the same class.  So far, no disciplinary action against the girl.

With a friend filming a video, a group of boys advance on a couple of young teen boys, beat them senseless, and exit, leaving them lying motionless on the pavement.  (I've seen this video, but can't find it now.  Help, anyone?)

In each case, the perpetrators proudly posted the videos on MySpace or some other venue for their friends to see.

Someone once said that each generation has to deal with a new wave of barbarians - their children.  But it was understood then that would happen only if we did not raise our children well.

What have we wrought?  What do we do now?  And how long do we have before it is too late for another generation?

They Are Expecting You

                                (Image from neatorama.cachefly.net)

Rubel Shelly, guest blogger today, writes:

It was a Sunday morning.  A bright and perky mom went in to wake her son and tell him it was time to get up, eat a bite of breakfast, and get dressed for church.  "I'm not going!" he announced.  There was a sullen tone in his voice.

"Hold on, young man!" she replied.  "You know the Sunday routine in this house.  Why don't you want to go to church today?"

"I'll give you two perfectly good reasons," he said.  "First, nobody likes me down at that church.  And second, I don't like them either."

Rather than get exasperated with her boy, the wise mother sat down on the side of his bed.  Rubbing his back very gently, she spoke in her most tender and comforting voice.  "Now, sweetheart, you know you shouldn't feel that way," she began.  "But let me give you two good reasons why you just must get out of bed and go with us.  First, you're 47 years old.  And second, you're the pastor."

Okay.  It's an old story you've heard before.  But it is marvelously adaptable.  It can be Monday mornnig, the people in that office, and their boss.  Or Wednesday morning, the nurses at the clinic, and the doctor.  It even works for Friday morning, traffic court, and the judge.  The reason it is such a flexibla story that fits practically every work situation is that we all have those days or seasons.

When things are going well and everybody's happy with you, there is no problem getting up, going to work, and doing your job.  But things don't always go well.  And people aren't always happy with you.  What then?

Have you noticed how many things are cyclical?  A few good months of sales may be followed by a lean time for the company.  Or maybe it's the mortgage business when interest rates are at historic lows, then the Federal Reserve starts inching rates up again.  It even happens in family life.  There are seasons of health and joy and laughter that seem to vanish overnight in the wake of a heart attack or auto accident or angry exchange.  Does that mean the good times are gone forever?  That it is right just to throw in the towell?

The Bible speaks of a virtue called perserverance.  This noble trait is also known as holding on, staying steady at the task, and persistence.  It deserves more credit than it gets.  And it needs to be cultivated in everyone's character.

Somebody occasionally needs to remind us that tasks need doing because they are ours.  We've made commitments with consequences.  Others are depending on us.  Once we carry through, the outcome can be trusted to the faithfulness and mercy of God.

So what's on your agenda for today?

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For back issues and other resources please visit www.RubelShelly.com

Twin Survives Several Abortion Attempts, Doing Fine

(By request of the owners of the photos, I took them down.  But here is a video of the twins, at http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1114191272) 

                                     Mother Rebecca Jones: 'It's a miracle'

This story is in The Daily Mail, here, and was also broadcast on Fox News on 11/05/07.

Rebecca and Mark Jones had to make a heart breaking decision about the unborn twin boys in her womb.  One, Gabriel, was weaker than his brother, only half his brother's size, with an enlarged heart 3 times normal size.  Doctors told her that if Gabriel died in the womb, his brother Ieuan could die too.  So with much grief, the Jones let them operate to take Gabriel's life.

But things took an unexpected turn.  First, when they tried to sever Gabriel's umbillical cord to cut off his nutrition, it was so tough they couldn't sever it!  Then they divided the placenta in half instead, to preserve Ieuan's life in case Gabriel died. 

  Gabriel, right, with his twin brother Ieuan, is now a healthy 12lb 6oz at seven months

But tiny Gabriel, weighing less than a pound, put up a fight.  His mom felt him kicking strongly in her womb, the day after the surgery.  His enlarged heart began to shrink, and he gained weight.  He managed to live 5 more weeks until delivery by caesarean section.  The doctors thought what had happened was that when they divided the placenta, that unexpectedly evened out the nutrition between the twins, allowing Gabriel to survive.  At birth, Gabriel weighed nearly 2 pounds and Ieuan weighed 3 1/2 pounds.

At seven months, Ieuan weighs 15 pounds and Gabriel weighs 12 pounds and 6 ounces.  Now they are back at home in Stoke, England - and are so close they are always holding each other's hand.  If one cries, the other reaches out to comfort him.

It seems that nothing was able to break the bond between them.

Apologetics Is Getting Big

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Which of us has never had any doubts about our faith?  And when we doubt, who is there to help?  That is what Christian apologists have done through the centuries.  They don't "apologize" for the faith; they defend it.

Many people do not know that Christianity can be defended on every front, including scientific, philosophical, and historical.  Most people have heard claims that science has disproved the Bible and the existence of God.   

Now atheists have become more militant and angry.  A spate of books by well-known atheists arrived this year.  As a result, many more Christians have questions about their faith. 

Recently a debate took place in Birmingham, Alabama between the famous Oxford biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins, author of "The God Delusion," and Oxford mathetician and Christian, John Lennox  It was sold out 3 weeks in advance and tickets were going for 3 times their face value, according to Naomi Schaefer Riley at the Wall Street Journal, here.

Such propositions were debated as:

"Faith is blind; science is evidence based," "Design is dead, otherwise one must explain who designed the designer" and "Christianity is dangerous."  The two oxford professors, who had never met before this evening, both displayed rhetorical skills in the best British tradition.

They clashed over whether it was Christianity that began the scientific revolution, whether the universe's complexity was evidence for a creator and whether atheism was itself a sort of faith.  Some of the exchanges were funny, as when Mr. Lennox suggested that his opponent believed that his wife loved him even though it's not scientifically provable.  "Is there any evidence for that?" Mr. Lennox asked.  "Yes, plenty of evidence," Mr. Dawkins answered.  "Never mind about my wife."

Pastors say that congregants are aware of these recent atheist best-sellers and want to know how to respond to such arguments.  Such works as "The Case for Christ" and "The Case for Faith" by Lee Strobel, formerly a teaching pastor at Saddleback Church, have sold well.  So have Josh McDowell's "Evidence that Demands a Verdict," Ravi Zacharias' "Reasons for Faith" and this month's "Apologetics Study Bible," whose contributors include Chuck Colson and former Southern Baptist Seminary   

Then there is my own favorite, "The Defender's Bible" by Henry Morris, Bible teacher, scientist and founder of the Institute for Creation Research, www.icr.org.  Plus his book "Many Infallible Proofs."

Defenders of the faith are drawing crowds of thousands in person as well.  Next month, the Southern Evangelical Seminary will host a National Conference on Christian Apologetics, which will include a special segment for teens.  Younger people are some of the most avid consumers of apologetics texts, according to Christian author Johalyn Fincher, who speaks to college and high-school groups regularly.  She says that in the 20th century, Christians often reacted to science's attacks on religion by "running away from culture."  But in recent years more Christians have begun to take the attitude, "If our God is the God of truth, what are we afraid of?"

Note: If you like this article and would like for others to read it, please go here and vote for it.  (If 5 votes accumulate soon enough, this post will appear on the front page of realclearpolitics.com, then will be read by many people.)

Socialists and Greens Ruin Complex Systems

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One of life's little pleasures is reading the excellent posts by Wretchard at the Belmont Club blog, here. But the comments there are also exceptional. Recently it was about how Socialism and Environmentalism are attempts to manage very complex systems through government, here. 

Wretchard comments:

Both Communism and Environmentalism are attempts to manage very complex systems. The first attempted to plan human societies. The second attempts to "heal nature". In neither case is there enough of the information necessary to accomplish those ends. Not until we have quantum computers and even then.

This partly explains why, despite the best of intentions, these enterprises can have such disastrous results.

Because complex systems often behave in a nonlinear way, relating to them with a very short feedback loop is usually superior to the Five Year Plans or Multi-Decade Climate Target Goals characteristic of these endeavors.

We can only reliably predict how complex systems will behave in the nearly immediate future. Market mechanisms and decision-making with a great deal of subsidiarity approach the "real-time" feedback loop ideal more closely than big, bureaucratic projects coordinated through the UN or some similar mechanism.

In contrast these massive geo-engineering projects will probably be managed through equally massive bureaucracies and ponderous consultations. They will be projects with all the maneuverability of a 4-mile long freight train. Long after the first signs that something is going wrong are detected, the juggernaut will keep plowing ahead, driven by sheer unstoppable momentum toward whatever cliff yawns before it.

and then The Wobbly Guy commented:

That's why environmentalists are watermelons. Green on the outside, red, or even yellow, on the inside. They're either commies or cowards.

Any reasonable scientist would conclude we simply do not know enough to do anything. Too bad pseudo-science has won out. From HIV to global warming to th ozone layer, science has been led astray. I am anticipating a severe backlash once the lies are exposed.

So  LarryD commented:

Heh, a study back in 1998 showed that North America was a net CO2 sink, probably due to forest regrowth. Forest regrowth can't be continued indefinitely, but timber harvesting would be a sustainable CO2 sink with out new technology or great expense.

The tree-huggers will just loath it..

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Cleaning Up Intellectuals' Messes

          (Image from montanalibraries.org)

Ideally, intellectuals help us all by showing what is important, and which way to go in the future.  But as smart as they are, intellectuals have made huge mistakes.  Because they have shaped the thought of whole societies, their impact has been powerful and lasting.  So their mistakes have led to disasters on a global scale.  How do we clean up their mess?

One such cleaner-up was Ayn Rand, whose landmark book "Atlas Shrugged" was published 50 years ago today, as noted by Robert Tracinski in "The Historic Significance of Atlas Shrugged."

Tracinski notes that:

The most important event of the past two centuries, with which artists and intellectuals ought to have come to grips, is the rise of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution--a social revolution that has radically transformed human life for the better.

No one could have conceived of the achievements of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution before they happened--and these new events required a radical re-evaluation of conventional ideas. Yet the intellectuals failed to perform such a re-evaluation.

Instead, intellectuals were looking backward, many to the Middle Ages.  They feared all the new science and technology, the soaring new industrialization and predicted it would bring disaster.

A German intellectual named Karl Marx gave one of the most influential accounts of the new capitalist system--and he got everything wrong. An Industrial Revolution driven by scientific and technological advances springing from the minds of a few extraordinary individuals, he would describe as the anonymous, collective product of brute physical labor; an economic system of liberty, he would describe as a system of oppression; a system built on the right to property he would describe as a system based on expropriation--and then he would propose actual oppression and expropriation as the solution.

This has been the pattern of the artists and intellectuals in dealing with the most significant phenomenon of our age. While the world was transformed around them, they refused to grasp the real meaning of these events, choosing to ignore or denigrate the forces that were rapidly improving human life.

What Ayn Rand did was to grasp the meaning of these forces and illuminate them in both fiction and philosophy.  She found heroism in the achievements of the entrepreneurs and industrialists who were making it happen.

Atlas Shrugged was written in an age of creeping global socialism. Extrapolating from the trends of the day,  Rand projected a future in which most of the world's nations are collapsing into the poverty and oppression of socialist "people's states," while America itself is collapsing under the weight of an increasing government takeover of the economy.

She saw the dramatic potential in asking a single question: what would happen if the innovative entrepreneurs and businessmen--after decades of being vilified and regulated--started to disappear?

This involved the novel's philosophical question - what is the moral status of the businessman and industrialist?

Capitalism unleashed an extraordinary burst of scientific and technological innovation and of human creativity--yet this had largely gone unrecognized as a phenomenon with any moral or intellectual significance. Ayn Rand was the first to celebrate the accomplishments of the James Watts and Andrew Carnegies and Thomas Edisons and to recognize in their productive energies an example of moral heroism.

The central philosophical theme of Atlas Shrugged is Ayn Rand's demolition of the intellectuals' dichotomy between the high-minded pursuits of the intellect and the allegedly grubby, un-intellectual world of business and industry.

Now, 50 years later, we recognize that knowledge and ideas are the engine of wealth-creation, more than physical labor or raw materials.  Ayn Rand originated this idea during the old industrial age, when the "brute muscle power of union workers was still widely put forward as the source of American's industrial might."

Throughout most of mankind's history, moralists have warned that individuals driven by "greed" and left free to pursue their self-interest would plunge society into a destructive war of all against all, a system of brutality, plunder, and exploitation--precisely the qualities Marx projected onto the new capitalist system.

Instead, capitalism produced a system of freedom, independence, prosperity, and super-abundant creative energy--while the societies most thoroughly dedicated to the sacrifice of the individual to the collective, the 20th century's Communist regimes, were guilty of the greatest crimes ever recorded.

As a Christian and an economist, I part company with Rand on the issue of selfishness.  She pointed to the now widely-accepted fact that self-interest works out for the greater good of all in capitalism.  But she also claimed that pure selfishness in personal relationships works out for the greater good of all.  As a social scientist, I do not think that can be demonstrated to be true.  On the contrary, there is broad evidence it ruins marriages, families, communities and describes narcissistic sociopaths.

Still, Rand should be celebrated for pioneer work in giving philosophical and intellectual recognition to business people and entrepreneurs, whose efforts and innovations undergird the revolution in technology that is shrinking poverty all over the world.

The World Is Getting Better - Shhh!

                                   (Image from taratours.com)

Ten years ago or so, billionaire investor and philanthropist John Templeton shocked many by saying in an interview that the world had never been better.  It seemed a strange attitude.

Now the UN has also shocked many by saying that the world has never been better-off, here.  Oddly, very few in the major media have reported it.  But here is the UN conclusion at the end of its "State of the Future" report: 

People around the world are becoming healthier, wealthier, better educated, more peaceful, more connected, and they are living longer.

Wait!  Isn't the outlook supposed to be bleak?  Hasn't it been bad all our lives?  Anyone remember the "Stop the planet, I want to get off" buttons of the 60s?  Then -

A group of scientists calling themselves the Club of Rome issued a report called "Limits to Growth." It explained that lifeboat Earth had become so weighed down with humans that we were running out of food, minerals, forests, water, energy and just about everything else that we need for survival.

Paul Ehrlich's best-selling book "The Population Bomb" (1968) gave England a 50-50 chance of surviving into the 21st century.

In 1980, Jimmy Carter released the "Global 2000 Report," which declared that life on Earth was getting worse in every measurable way.

"Doom and gloom" journalism is about the same today.  Yet the UN reports that:

-World-wide illiteracy rates have fallen by half since 1970 and now stand at an all-time low of 18%.

-More people live in free countries than ever before.

-The average human being today will live 50% longer in 2025 than one born in 1955.

And how did all these good things happen?  According to the UN report, it was -

Capitalism, according to the U.N. Free trade is rightly recognized as the engine of global prosperity in recent years.

True, we still have problems.  Global warming is said to be getting worse and income disparities are widening.  But while incomes are more unequal, most also have higher incomes.

-In 1981, 40% of the world's population lived on less than $1 a day. Now that percentage is only 25%, adjusted for inflation.

-At current rates of growth, "world poverty will be cut in half between 2000 and 2015"--which is arguably one of the greatest triumphs in human history.

-Trade and technology are closing the global "digital divide," and the report notes hopefully that soon laptop computers will cost $100 and almost every schoolchild will be a mouse click away from the Internet

-The world's six billion people are living longer, healthier and more comfortably than ever

The population-controllers also got the story wrong.  Now -

Demographers now say that in the second half of this century, the human population will stabilize and then fall

Maybe what we need is fewer "doom-sayers" and more "doom-slayers."  That would fit the facts better.

There Is Only One Political Issue

              What Happens When the Taliban Visit an Art Gallery

      (Image from static.flickr.com/83/279634632_70798c4a12.jpg)

Writing in the American Thinker today, Joseph Rosenburger says:

The current political squabbles in America between the liberal, socialist left and the moral capitalist conservative right are merely a skirmish line on the edge of two colliding civilizations.  The combatants are not the free market, individual-centric conservatives and libertarians vs. the Nanny State, socialist plantation liberal straw bosses.  Not at all!

The elephant in the room is Islamofacism - and President Bush and his brilliant General Patraeus, at the head of the greatest Army of our lifetime, are decisively engaged.  What is at stake dwarfs the '08 elections topics of single-payer medical care, unfunded social security, or our billions of dollare held by China and Saudi Arabia, for economic blackmail.

(Or, he might have added, immigration.)

Life as we know it - the profound blessings of the Age of Enlightenment and the spectacular technological progress in the arts and sciences that resulted -- is, absent a courageous defense, doomed to be devoured in the maws of a barbarian Islamofacism if President Bush's war leadership fails. 

Militant Islam means to convert, enslave or exterminate the infidel non-Muslim world, depending on the amount of resistance encountered.  The Koran demands it, and militant Islamists are implementing it wherever they have the critical mass to enforce it.  Secular pluralism and a democratically-established Rule of Law will not survive, absent protectors that exercise lethal force to defend it. 

This should be the litmus test of who our next president should be, and no other.

That is the only policy in this election that matters.  If we fail on this one, no other policy questions will be left even to be considered.  There is one, and only one, political issue now.

Rosenburg continues:

...Islamofacism or Western Civilizatin...will prevail depending on who imposes its will on its neighbors sufficient to expand its borders, increase its population, and accumulate treasure...The rise and fall of one society or another reflects the simple equation of warfare, biology and technology development.

For example, Islamofascists, reproducing rapidly, brainwashing young boys...raising battalions of Kamikazi homicide bombers, cutting off hands and heads to maintain discipline and tribal cohesion, are overcoming a complacent West, spoiled, secular and imploding with declining birth rates.  In fact, Islamists are reaching a tipping point in Europe, for example, nearing a critical mass in Spain, France and Great Britain.

We'll know for sure the game's over when they burn down the idolatrous art museums in Paris.

That Islam condemns half its population (females) to abject servitude and shows profoundly little ability to advance the frontiers of science and technology, suggests an approaching dark age if left unchecked.

The alternative, brighter future depends on supplying General Patraeus with what he needs, funding the Surge all the way.

Of course he is not the first so to define this choice.  But he does it well, cutting through the political distractions.

We can use the reminder!

Men and Women: Vive La Difference

                               (Video from ymarsakar.wordpress.com)

Are man and women different?  Oh yes!  Although feminists have insisted for decades that there is no difference, or that any differences are culturally learned, not inborn, science is re-acknowledging that male/female differences are hard-wired.

How can the difference be demonstrated? Ymarsakar brilliantly uses ballet and ice skating to illustrate how men and women rely on, and play to, each other's strengths.   Their different strengths are, in countless ways, a good fit.  She says:

The ice dance seems rather a fitting analogy...since the man is the base and foundation, using his strength to lift up the woman, holding her and more or less protecting her with his strength..  She could not, after all, do what her partner does for her, yet it doesn't need to be exactly the same.  A woman on the ice contributes grace, beauty and perfection of form and motion.  Different from what the man contributes, which is a foundation, strength, endurance, and so forth.

Watch the video and just listen and see.

But neoneocon, a former ballet dancer, speaks not only of the grace of the woman, but also of her tremendous strength.

Back when I was dancing, my personal experience with partnering surprised me.  What is required of the woman is what you don't see -- what is hidden by the impression of tremendous grace -- and that is a tremendous and steely strength. 

Not upper-body strength to lift: that's what the man must have, who must also take care to hide the effort involved and not telegraph it or make it look any way but easy.

And it's not too hard for an onlooker to imagine how difficult it must be to lift a woman...even a 100 pound woman is harder to lift than a bag of groceries.  It's much harder to imagine the strength a woman needs to hold her pose in the air, even upside down at times, and to conquer her fear and trust a partner who quite literally holds her fate in his hands.

Trusting a partner who holds her fate in his hands?  Yes, literally.  See this video of ice-skating champions from Russia, where the man, holding the woman high above his head, loses footing and she crashes down from that height, with such force that it knocks her out.

The sad part of that story was not what happened to her, but to him.  She was OK, and quickly regained her willingness to trust him on the ice again.  But he was not able to bring himself to risk lifting her again, and left ice skating.

Which perhaps brings us to the crux of the relations between men and women.  That is, the courage to trust.  It has to be there.  If lost, it has to be regained.  Then paired men and women can often move, function and live almost as one - united in body, heart and mind, despite their tremendous differences.  That very real possibility keeps us pursuing the dream of men who complement women, and women who complement men.  Who become more, together, than each could be separately. 

Perhaps ballet and ice dancing move us so because they lift up the dream before us again.  And la difference?  Vive!

Fred Thompson - Laws on Gay Marriage, Abortion

(Click here http://www.blogsforfredthompson.com/fred-thompson-would-support-constitutional-amendment-banning-gay-marriage-and-supports-overturning-r to play the video pictured above.)

In it, Fred Thompson states that he would support a constitutional amendment ruling out gay marriage, and that he thinks Roe v. Wade, the court decision legalizing abortion, should be overturned.

Update: Fred Thompson does NOT support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.  He supports the right of each state to make its own laws concerning marriage, but does not believe states should have to accept the marriage laws of other states.  If necessary, he would support a constitutional amendment to prohibit that.

Force Methodist Campground to Host Homosexual Union?

(Image from home.centurytel)

We have already learned that our Constitutional First Amendment rights of freedom of religion and freedom of speech can be threatened by laws protecting homosexual marriage, here,  homosexual adoption, here, and anti-discrimination laws aimed at protecting homosexuals, here.

Now, the lastest example is a lesbian couple in New Jersey who have filed a civil rights complaint because a Methodist campground will not allow them to be united in a ceremony there.   New Jersey's laws prohibiting anti-homosexual discrimination on public property are the basis of their complaint.  Even though the campground is private property and used for religious purposes, the suit has still been filed.

The laws of the United Methodist Church forbid hosting such ceremonies.  Their church law also prohibits homosexual ordination or marriage. 

This latest legal action is another blatant attempt to take away religious freedoms not only from Methodists, but from all other churches and religions.  At issue is the freedom of religions and religious people to believe and practice what they choose. 

Obviously immigrants cannot expect to come into the U.S. and practice things that were already against U.S. law before they arrived, such as polgamy, ritually-sanctioned mutilations and murders, wife-beating, etc., because their religions sanction these.  They are expected to accept our laws as a condition of coming here.

What is at stake here, however, is taking away religious freedoms that American citizens already have.  There is a great difference.  Such efforts are increasing ever more rapidly.  Once our freedoms are lost, it would be much more difficult to get them back.  We need to make a stand, now and whenever attacked in the future.  If not, we could lose the constitutionally-protected freedoms of religion and speech that our ancestors sacrificed so much to establish and protect.

Are the Biblical Gospels Accurate and True?

CAN WE TRUST THE GOSPELS?  Bible Scholar Mark D. Robert's new book says "Yes!"

"Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John"

is now available.

Order it from Amazon by clicking here

This book is a clear, straightforward explanation of why we can trust the New Testament Gospels to give us solid historical information about Jesus. I deal with such questions as:

• Can we know what the original Gospel manuscripts really
said?

• Did the evangelists know Jesus personally?

• When were the Gospels written?

• What sources did the Gospel writers use?

• Did early Christian oral tradition reliably pass down the
truth about Jesus?

• What are the New Testament Gospels?

• What difference does it make that there are four Gospels?

• Are there contradictions in the Gospels?

• If the Gospels are theology, can they be history?

• Do miracles undermine the reliability of the Gospels?

• Do historical sources from the era of the Gospels support their reliability?

• Does archeology support the reliability of the Gospels?

• Did the political agenda of the early church influence the content of the Gospels?

• Why do we have only four Gospels in the Bible?

• Can we trust the Gospels after all?

I have written this book not for experts in biblical studies, but for all people who seek to understand the Gospels as trustworthy historical documents.

Endorsements for Can We Trust the Gospels?

“What F. F. Bruce did for my generation of students, Mark Roberts has done for the current generation. Any student who asks me if our Gospels are reliable will be given this book, and then I’ll buy another copy for the next student!”

—Scot McKnight, Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies, North Park University

“Mark Roberts has produced what has long been needed: a highly read- able and compelling account of why Christians can indeed trust the Gospels. Dr. Roberts is a formidable scholar whose reputation is very high among academics. He is a skilled writer and teacher. He is also an innovative force in the world of Christian apologetics, among the very first to see the potential for blogging as a formidable means of pursuing the Great Commission.

“I have had Dr. Roberts on my radio show more than any other theolo- gian or pastor, for several reasons. First, he has been a very good friend for a long time. But much more important is his ability to communicate and the knowledge he has accumulated through his three decades of serious and thorough study of the Gospels and the scholarship around them. Whenever a major controversy erupts that touches on the Christian faith, I call on Dr. Roberts.

“Can We Trust the Gospels? is quite simply the best effort I have ever read by a serious scholar to communicate what scholars know about the Gospels and why that should indeed encourage us to trust them and thus to trust Jesus Christ.”

—Hugh Hewitt, radio talk show host, author, blogger, and Professor of Law at Chapman University School of Law 

“There is a crisis of confidence about the Gospels, fueled by sensational claims about supposedly new Gnostic Gospels with a ‘revised standard’ view of Jesus. With a pastor’s insight but a scholar’s critical acumen, Mark Roberts provides a readable guide to answering the question, Can we trust the Gospels? As Mark makes clear, the earliest and best evidence we have for the real Jesus is the canonical Gospels, not the much later Gnostic ones.”

—Ben Witherington III, Professor of New Testament, Asbury Theological Seminary, author of What Have They Done with Jesus?

“Can We Trust The Gospels? caught me completely by surprise. While I knew a scholar of Mark Roberts’s caliber could convince skeptics the Gospels are reliable, I never expected to have my own preconceptions uprooted and replaced with a more solid trust in these biblical texts. This book not only makes a compelling case for trusting the Gospels, it illuminates the creative ways in which God worked to bring us His Word. Roberts’s brilliant little book deserves to be widely read by both skeptics and believers.”

—Joe Carter, blogger (evangelicaloutpost.com) and Director of Communications for the Family Research Council

Order Can We Trust the Gospels? from Amazon by clicking here

Update to "Hillary, George, Methodists and Homosexuality

(Image from home.centurytel)

James Taranto had this follow-up on Friday, June 8, 2007, at "Best of the Web Today," Opinion Journal, Wall Street Journal, to his article on Thursday, June 7, 2007 "What Would Methodists Do Without Experts?*

"Yesterday we noted that President Bush's nominee for surgeon general, James Holsinger, is under attack for a 1991 paper in which he observed that the sexes are 'fully complementary' and that some forms of male homosexual activity are considerably more dangerous than ordinary intercourse.

"The Associated Press reports that Holsinger's detractors are also complaining about his religious activities:

• -"Holsinger has come under fire from gay rights groups for voting to expel a lesbian pastor from the United Methodist Church.**
• -"Also, Holsinger helped found a Methodist congretation that, according to gay rights activists, believes homosexuality is a matter of choice and can be 'cured.'
• -"As president of the Methodist Church's national Judicial Council, Holsinger voted last year to support a pastor who blocked a gay man from joining the congregation.  In 2004, he voted to expel a lesbian from the clergy.  The majority of the panel voted to keep the lesbian associate pastor in place, citing questions about whether she had openly declared her homosexuality, but Holsinger dissented.
• -"As for the congregation Holsinger helped establish, Hope Springs Community Church, the Rev. David Calhoun told the Lexington Herald Leader last week that the Lexington church helps some gay members to 'walk out of that lifestyle.'
• -"The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which is opposing the nomination along with the Human Rights Campaign and other local and national groups, calls such a practice 'nothing short of torture' for gays."

"This is an attack not only on Holsinger but also on the U.S. Constitution.  The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, which means that the government has no business dictating its moral preferences to the United Methodist Church.  That same First Amendmant protects all congregants who find the Hope Springs approach objectionable.  They are free to follow their conscience, or to find another congregation, denomination or religion.

"U.S. senators, however, are bound by the Constitution, which stipulates in Article VI that 'no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.'  Any senator who votes against Holsinger's confirmation because of his church activity is defying the Constitution (although there is probably no way to hold such a senator to account apart from the ballot box).

"Finally, take note of that quote, which comes from a statement by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, that so-called reparative therapy is 'nothing short of torture.'  This may shed ight on some of the hysterical claims about the treatment of terrorists at Guantanamo.  After all, if voluntery counseling is 'torture,' then pretty much everything is."

________

*Available free by email from the Wall Street Journal.

**Actually this pastor was expelled from the clergy, not from the United Methodist Church.

New Thought-Control Law

             (Image from nndb.com)

The Thought Police

___

By "Guest Blogger" Chuck Colson
5/1/2007

Congress is busy trying to pass a new "Hate Crimes Prevention Act."  But it's not about hate, or even crime.  It is about outlawing peaceful speech that says such things as homosexuality are morally wrong.  In other countries, such laws recently have caused pastors to be arrested for what they said in the pulpit. 

This article by Chuch Colson tells how, and why.

What the Hate Crimes Law Would Do

In George Orwell’s classic novel 1984, the government Thought Police constantly spies on citizens to make sure they are not thinking rebellious thoughts. Thought crimes are severely punished by Big Brother.

1984 was intended as a warning against totalitarian governments that enslave and control their citizens. Never have we needed this warning more urgently than now, because America’s Thought Police are knocking on your door.

Last week the House Judiciary Committee, egged on by radical homosexual groups, passed what can only be called a Thought Crimes bill. It’s called the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act. But this bill is not about hate. It’s not even about crime. It’s about outlawing peaceful speech—speech that asserts that homosexual behavior is morally wrong.

Some say we need this law to prevent attacks on homosexuals. But we already have laws against assaults on people and property. Moreover, according to the FBI, crimes against homosexuals in the United States have dropped dramatically in recent years. In 2005, out of 863,000 cases of aggravated assault, just 177 cases were crimes of bias against homosexuals—far less than even 1 percent.

Another problem is that in places where hate crimes laws have been passed, hate crimes have been defined to include verbal attacks—and even peaceful speech. The Thought Police have already prosecuted Christians under hate crimes laws in England, Sweden, Canada, and even in some places in the United States.

If this dangerous law passes, pastors who preach sermons giving the biblical view of homosexuality could be prosecuted. Christian businessmen who refuse to print pro-gay literature could be prosecuted. Groups like Exodus International, which offer therapy to those with unwanted same-sex attraction, could be shut down.

In classic 1984 fashion, peaceful speech will be redefined as a violent attack worthy of punishment.

This is the unspoken goal of activist groups. We know this because during the debate over the bill last week, Congressman Mike Pence (R) of Indiana offered a Freedom of Religion amendment to this hate crimes bill. It asked that nothing in this law limit the religious freedom of any person or group under the Constitution. The committee refused to adopt it. It also refused to adopt amendments protecting other groups from hate crimes—like members of the military, who are often targets of verbal attacks and spitting. They also shot down amendments that would protect the homeless and senior citizens, also often targeted by criminals. Nothing doing, the committee said—the only group they wanted to protect: homosexuals.

Clearly, the intent of this law is not to prevent crime, but to shut down freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of thought. Its passage would strike at the very heart of our democracy.

The full Congress may vote on this bill as early as this week. Unless you want Big Brother telling you what to say, what to think, and what to believe, I urge you to contact your congressman immediately, urging him or her to vote against this bill. If you visit the BreakPoint website, you’ll find more information about this radical law.

If we do nothing, 1984 will no longer be fiction, and Big Brother will be watching you and me—ready to punish the “wrong” thoughts.

(Mr. Colson's article above appears here.)