As court-imposed gag order expires, Canadian parent speaks out about his teenage daughter’s state-enforced sex-change.

Due to courts being closed because of virus, gag order was not renewed!

A MassResistance exclusive

 British Columbia schools (and others across Canada) have implemented a radical homosexuality and transgender program called "SOGI 123" to heavily indoctrinate schoolchildren. Make no mistake: it will eventually be in your schools if we don't stop it.

Anyone who doubts that the transgender agenda in the schools is headed into a nightmarish future should look across the border to Canada. Rob Hoogland of Surrey, British Columbia, is living that nightmare.

For over two years, British Columbian school staffers, psychologists, and LGBT activists have been inducing Rob’s daughter to believe that the reason she was struggling with depression and other issues is that she is really a “he.” They repeatedly encouraged and affirmed her new “male” identity. They worked with pro-LGBT doctors who gave her puberty blockers and male hormones to “change” her into a boy.

Rob did not find out about this until a year after it began. He took the school district, staffers, doctors, and others to court. Outrageously, the girl was assigned an LGBT activist lawyer to protect her delusion and oppose her own father. The courts ruled against him and told him that he had to go along with this transgender insanity, even ordering him to refer to his daughter as a “he.”

The courts also placed a gag order on Rob. He could not speak with the press or the public about what his daughter was going through, or even discuss the issue with his daughter. A few months ago, the gag order was modified so he could talk about it with his daughter and even attempt to dissuade her, but he still could not speak to the press about it. On April 15, the gag order expired. Since the courts are closed due to the COVID-19 virus, the order could not be renewed.

Back in February, Rob had had enough and decided to ignore the gag order. He spoke with MassResistance and some other conservative media briefly about his legal fight in the Canadian courts. He was quickly brought back into court and reprimanded by a judge – and threatened with jail time if he broke the order again. Since we are not based in Canada, we were able to publish the interview and not be threatened by a Canadian court.

Now that the order has expired, Rob decided to talk with MassResistance again. This time he talked more about the horrors of what’s been happening and what he’s doing about it.

 Rob Hoogland speaks with MassResistance from British Columbia via Skype.

MR: Is there anything new from the last two months that you wanted to share publicly, or that you didn’t get a chance to share before?

RH: Soon after the MassResistance interview came out, I was in court for four days under Justice Tammen. At one point, I used a female pronoun referring to my daughter, and he reprimanded me, saying “How dare you!” In fact, he stood up and screamed at me in the courtroom for doing that. He said, “Why did you do that?” And I said, “I did because I’m the only one doing what is in the best interest of my daughter.” He really didn’t like my saying that. This is the terrible state of the judicial system in Canada.

Justice Michael Tammen yelled at Rob Hoogland for calling his daughter a “she,” but recently released a man convicted of murder pending an appeal of the conviction!

Since then, I have a new attorney, Carol Crosson. She’s a fantastic constitutional lawyer. She specializes in freedom of speech and similar issues. I’m looking forward to working with her.

Essentially, Justice Tammen has handed me over to the Attorney General [of British Columbia] to be prosecuted for breaking the gag order. I still have the potential to face up to 30 to 45 days in prison.

MR: Tell us more about what’s happened to your daughter over the last few years.

RH: My daughter is the subject of state-sponsored child abuse. She’s being sterilized and her body is being mutilated – under a transgender agenda that is being promoted throughout all the schools. The schools here are using a radical program called “SOGI 1 2 3.” Its lunatic message to children is “Everyone has a sexual orientation and gender identity.” It’s become a program that a lot of other jurisdictions are looking at and using as a prototype, so it’s not just in British Columbia. They are using it in other provinces. And I think that some of the states like Washington State are taking a look at it, and using it, as well.

 Schoolchildren are being encouraged to read books like this. (From a SOGI 123 training video.)

MR: So what it comes down to is you’re protecting your daughter. That’s the crime that you are guilty of.

RH: Right. There’s a bunch of lunatic perverts who want to experiment on my child. They want to sterilize her. It’s just absolute lunacy, what is going on. And they want to cover it up so badly that they are willing to send people like me to prison to keep my mouth shut. They don’t want the public to know what is really going on.

They’ve been able to sell the idea that they are helping these children. They say, “We’re doing great things for these kids. They don’t understand their true gender. They’re screaming in their own skin.” But of course, that’s not what’s happening. They were just going through puberty, like every other teenager does. And they all get through it! I mean, it’s absolute craziness, and I’m not allowed to talk about it without possibly going to jail.

MR: It’s stunning and welcome to see that you are taking this on and are not afraid. This is the kind of courage that more people need to start demonstrating.

RH: Courage needs to be shown: I’m often asked “Why do I like MassResistance?” I’ve said this before: There’s courage there. You’re still up and fighting. So am I. People need to understand that we can defend ourselves and we can stand up for morality and virtues and truth and honor and all these great things.

MR: Regarding your daughter, do you have full custody of her? Has she moved back in with you? Does she still live with her mother? What’s the status on her right now?

RH: We have shared custody.

MR: I understand that they brainwashed her against you. They brought in all these attorneys to keep her away from you. What’s happening now? I mean, how’s the relationship now?

RH: You know, it’s pretty good. A couple weeks ago, she wanted to move in here, back with me. And then I got the excuse back from them: “Well, we can’t do that because of the Coronavirus.” They found another reason to keep her from me. I asked, “Has my daughter been out of the country? Has she traveled?” And they were just mute on that point. And now they’ve convinced her that seeing me is somehow in violation of all these new rules that are set up by COVID-19.

MR: Has your daughter begun to indicate that she wants to go back, to be comfortable with being a girl?

RH: I have not heard that yet. She’s still in that happy state where she thinks that this is working. It takes these kids a number of years before they realize that they made this big mistake. They kind of go through this thing, where it’s like crack cocaine. They’re taking these cross-sex hormones. They feel different. They feel better. They think it’s working. And then all of a sudden it all comes crashing down. It takes a bit of time, and she’s not there yet, no.

MR: Well, we hope she gets out of it before it’s too late. Now, you indicated that there’s something about a class-action lawsuit coming up. Can you tell me about that?

RH: Yeah, what we’re doing, it stems from SOGI 1 2 3. With all these parents like myself, there’s lots of psychological trauma involved. It’s so wrenching when you watch your kid go through this stuff, and you watch what’s going on at the school, and the confusion they are creating in these schools, the delusion that they’re presenting to these kids, and they come home and you can’t do a thing about it. Because the schools tell them you don’t know what you’re talking about. I think that there are so many parents who are just ripping their hair out and just totally going berserk because they don’t know what to do, and think there’s nothing they can do.

It’s time that parents got together and said, “This happened to my kid.” And we get enough of them together and we say, “Hey, it’s time for parents to fight back. Let’s unite and fight back against an agenda that is terrorizing our kids, destroying their lives, and is also psychologically damaging us as parents.”

MR: Have you already set the groundwork for the lawsuit? Do you have lawyers who are prepared to file it (because I know that the courts are closed)? Is there stuff already in place now?

RH: There is to some degree. We need to get enough people involved. So, the game plan right now is to get as many parents on board as possible. Carol Crosson is ready to run forward with it. We’ve got the legal groundwork laid out on this matter. We’re just kind of waiting now for the numbers to grow. We’re working with pro-family media to help get the message out. We want parents who feel brave enough to come forward. They can remain anonymous. They just need to sign on and reach out. They can reach out to us through the Caenis Foundation, or they can reach out to MassResistance and say “I’m interested.” There’s lots of ways they can reach out.

MR: Tell us a little bit more about the Caenis Foundation, because I know that this is something that you are doing moving forward.

I want to help parents who have gone through what I am going through – or who are going to go through what I am going through – to understand. So I’m working with some other pro-family activists to create the Caenis Foundation.

The purpose of this foundation is:

• One, to educate parents about this agenda.
• Second, we want to help them in the class-action lawsuit. We’ve seen what’s happening in England. Kids who have been victimized by the transgender agenda are coming out of the woodwork in the hundreds. I think people are going to be emboldened by that. So we’re preparing. I even have a lawyer who is ready to talk to any of these parents for free right now. We are very proactive in helping these parents out.
• Finally, we’re looking ahead for these children, like my daughter, and saying that when they detransition, we need to be able to support them. This is where I take some comfort. I may have lost my daughter right now in that she’s on the cross-sex hormones. But I know in my heart that she’s going to turn, and she’s going to come back, she’s going to detransition. And in getting this foundation put together we will help them.

MR: Thank you very much, Rob. You’re an inspiration to all of us.

Final comments

All of us should pay attention to what is happening in Canada because that is exactly where the US and many other countries are headed. The extreme radical direction of the schools and the judicial system's aggressive support of the transgender agenda – ignoring normal constitutional liberties – is clearly already happening.

What Rob Hoogland is now doing to confront it and help others are things that we all should consider doing. MassResistance will continue to work with Rob and others – and together we will fight this insanity!

Atheists Elicit An Amoral Ethics

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the ethics of atheists:

Do human beings possess natural rights, rights given by God that all governments must respect? Or is this plain nonsense? 

A recent Pew Research Center survey shows how this philosophical question comes into play in real-life settings. If ventilators are in short supply, whom should we service first? Those who are most in need at the moment? Or those most likely to recover? 

The answer, like so many ethical issues, turns on religion. The majority of those who are religiously affiliated say those who are most in need of a ventilator should take priority, while the majority of the unaffiliated (mostly agnostics and atheists) say those who are the most likely to recover should get it. 

Similarly, when questioned about the role of religion in one's life, religious Americans favor giving the ventilator to those in need at the moment; those for whom religion does not play a role prefer giving it to those most likely to recover.

On a related issue, a Pew survey in 2013 found that religious Americans were the least likely to say suicide is a moral right; the unaffiliated were the most likely to support it. 

A 2018 Gallup poll disclosed that euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide varied widely on the basis of religiosity: religious Americans were the least likely to support these options; the unaffiliated were the most likely to support them.

In 2010, the British Medical Journal found that atheist and agnostic doctors, as compared to those who are religious, were almost twice as likely to decide, by themselves, that it is proper to hasten a person's death if the patient is very sick.

To put it differently, those who are not religious are more likely to devalue the sanctity of human life. This is not a desirable outcome for anyone, especially the vulnerable. 

This all traces back to natural rights. Those who take their religion seriously are more likely to believe in natural rights: they believe all humans possess equal rights, and that they cannot be overridden on the basis of utility, or what works best overall. So when ventilators are in short supply, those who are most in need deserve to get them—we are all equal in the eyes of God. Their rights should never be subordinate to those who are the most likely to live. 

Those who believe otherwise embrace a utilitarian ethics.

Atheists embrace the utilitarianism as espoused by Jeremy Bentham. The British philosopher maintained that morality was best served by providing for the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Such a philosophy advantages the powerful and the healthy—it can be used to justify slavery and euthanasia—which is why it is fundamentally an amoral ethics. 

Bentham called natural rights "nonsense upon stilts." Not surprisingly, he was an atheist. For him, the idea that innocent human life is sacred was chimerical. What counts, he believed, was serving the best interests of the majority of people, even if it comes at the expense of others.

Atheism is amoral because its ethics devolves to the individual. It's all about me, not we. It is this kind of thinking that allows irreligious doctors to decide whether their patients should live or die. Ironically, even atheists who are sick would not want to have such a physician.

Society prospers morally when we have more religious persons, not less. This does not mean that all atheists are immoral or that all religious persons are moral. But it does mean that society, as a whole, is better off, generally speaking, when it is populated by people of faith, and not their atheist counterparts.

This week on Faith On Trial ... 10 a.m. Thursday on Iowa Catholic Radio, 1150 AM or 88.5 & 94.5 FM or listen on IowaCatholicRadio.com

Leftist elites are using corona crisis to accomplish the ‘change’ promised by Obama, Hillary Clinton

America’s leftist elites are subverting the U.S. from within by means of the 

‘Cloward-Piven Strategy.’

By Doug Mainwaring

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 24, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Amid the government's aggressive response to the coronavirus pandemic, many suggest that much of the United States is under de facto Martial Law. With citizens ordered to stay home, businesses forced to shut down, and even church services banned – with violators subject to onerous fines and jail time – it certainly feels that way.

And with some cities encouraging citizens to snitch on their neighbors suspected of skirting lockdown orders; with scenes of lone surfers and joggers, moms taking their kids to playgrounds, Christians sitting in their cars in church parking lots, and peaceful pro-life abortion protesters being ticketed or arrested and hauled off by police – despite practicing common sense social distancing – the U.S. has begun to feel more like communist East Germany under the Stasi’s reign of terror than the land of the free and the home of the brave. 

And with tens of millions thrown out of work – over 25 million as of today – while elites continue their lives of privilege unruffled, the most powerful and prosperous nation in the history of the world has begun to feel more like a third world country. 

Some state governors appear giddy with their new found powers to exert what amounts to tyrannical control over their citizens, as if the U.S. Constitution on display in the National Archives had been torn up in the same way House Speaker Nancy Pelosi brazenly ripped apart President Donald Trump’s speech as he wrapped up his 2020 State of the Union Address. 

But all of these are merely symptoms pointing to something insidious, meant to fundamentally change the USA forever: The Cloward-Piven Strategy.  

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What leftist elites couldn't accomplish under Obama, because of the massive pushback of the Tea Party that blocked them, they now hope to accomplish through the coronavirus pandemic. What they could not accomplish after their hopes were dashed, when Donald J. Trump came out of nowhere to beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, they now hope to accomplish by means of this crisis

. 

That became perfectly clear last week when former President Barack Hussein Obama stepped out of the shadows and announced his support for Democrat Joe Biden’s White House bid.  

But Obama did more than that. The man who explicitly promised to “fundamentally transform the United States of America,” who saw his presidency as “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal,” stated the agenda our nation’s leftist elites now have in store for us: 

If I were running today, I wouldn’t run the same race or have the same platform as I did in 2008. The world is different; there’s too much unfinished business for us to just look backwards. We have to look to the future.

Even before the pandemic turned the world upside down, it was already clear that we needed real structural change.

So we need to do more than just tinker around the edges with tax credits or underfunded programs. We have to go further ...

The leftist elites, the globalists, desperately need the United States to succumb to their plans and they are exploiting the current pandemic to employ the Cloward-Piven Strategy in order to drag America the Beautiful into line with socialism, with the ultimate goal of establishing a Marxist state.  

They are intent on going further than any of us might think possible in pursuit of their dream of making America un-American.

The Cloward-Piven Strategy

The Cloward–Piven strategy was outlined in a 1966 article in The Nation headlined “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty,” penned by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven.

Their scheme called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to create a massive political crisis that would force the welfare system to be replaced with a national system of a guaranteed annual income as a means to end poverty.

Simply put, their strategy aimed to force political change through an orchestrated crisis.  

David Horowitz/Discover the Networks explained:

The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

Tens of millions now unemployed, small businesses –– which have always been the backbone of our nation’s economy – boarded up, and $2 trillion spent by the federal government in the blink of an eye in order to keep the nation afloat, are all due to a manufactured economic crisis in order to avoid, we are told, a greater medical crisis.

The result, predicted Cloward and Piven, would be “a profound financial and political crisis” that would unleash “powerful forces … for major economic reform at the national level.” 

Dear reader: Doesn’t that describe exactly what we are now witnessing?

Not just about economics: Molding an anti-Christian America 

Over the years, the strategy has clearly been expanded and adapted to also bring about fundamental transformational change concerning important social issues, undermining human dignity.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 Obergefell decsion instituted same-sex “marriage” by the thinnest of margins – a 5-4 vote – quickly unleashed the ghastly contagion of transgenderism on our nation,  a virus of a different kind that the nation was ill-prepared to battle.

Our children have been its most tragic victims. 

We no longer face the single issue of same-sex “marriage.” The nation is being pummeled with a broad spectrum of gender identity issues, not to mention infestations of drag queens in the children’s sections of our public libraries. The rise of surrogacy has altered the sacredness of motherhood.   

Bedrock definitions of marriage, of man, of woman, and children have all irrationally been thrown into question, as if nature had had it wrong all along.   

“Religious liberty” has gone from our greatest strength and source of pride to being demonized as a code term belonging to “haters.

”   

In 2016, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report titled Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Nondiscrimination Principles with Civil Liberties. 

When the report was unveiled, the commission’s chairman, Martin Castro, said, “The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ ... remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy, or any form of intolerance.”

Ever since, Christians have been slandered as the “bad guys,” as “haters,” scapegoated for resistance to political correctness, for preventing progress.  

Leftist elites have managed to turn America into an anti-Christian state.

Where are we headed? Turning America into Venezuela

All together, American culture is being attacked on myriad fronts in countless ways on multiple levels with the intent of causing our society to completely break down and submit to a new regime that is decidedly un-American.

The coronavirus pandemic is being exploited to the hilt by the deepstaters, but not just to bring down President Trump.  

It's about bringing down the U.S.A. 

The last few weeks have seen well-organized, peaceful protest rallies at state capitals where citizens have begged their governors to reopen their states for business so they can salvage their human dignity and feed their families. Urban leftists have condescendingly criticized and mocked them.

If stay-at-home restrictions are not relaxed very soon, the peaceful protests will morph into riots, and that will be perfectly fine with leftist elites. They will have orchestrated an even greater crisis with which to justify the re-making of America into Venezuela.

Not long ago, Venezuela was South America’s most prosperous nation. Socialism has pushed it into economic collapse, creating an ugly humanitarian crisis.  

The coronavirus pandemic economic lockdown is being exploited to transform America into a socialist – if not Marxist – nation now that a critical mass of people have been made economically vulnerable.  

As my LifeSiteNews colleague Steve Jalsevac has pointed out, “The Wuhan virus appears to be an incredible and suspiciously timely gift for the globalists to push through their agenda faster than any of us could have expected.”

Wallowing In Pessimism Over Coronavirus

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on how those on the left are handling coronavirus:

"There are two things which kill the soul," wrote St. Augustine, "despair and presumption." Despair takes command when hope is jettisoned, when we give up on God. Presumption is more typically a characteristic of atheism, the conviction that we have no need of God, and are quite capable of going it alone.

The faithful do not despair. Secularists do. The faithful are also at home when they look to God for comfort. Secularists have no idea what this means. 

It is for reasons like these that many studies have shown that those who believe in God are more likely to be optimistic than secularists. And in the case of secularists who are activists, typically in left-wing circles, pessimism is something they wallow in, always looking at the dark side. 

"The Coronavirus Pandemic is Far From Over." "The COVID-19 Death Undercount Is Scarier Than You Think." The first article is from the Huffington Post and the second was published by the Daily Beast. To be sure, some medical experts might agree, but their conclusions would be data driven. In the case of left-wing pessimists, it is emblematic of their mindset. They bask in negativity.

Interestingly, those on the left who are not secularists have much in common with non-believers during this time. For example, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams upset some people when he opined that "God doesn’t put you where you're going to be comfortable. God puts you where you need to be." He added, "God always has a plan." For this he not only incurred the wrath of secularists, he ticked off left-wing Christians, including a Jesuit priest.

The Nation, a magazine which proudly defended Stalin's genocidal regime, ran an online article by two left-wing ministers lashing out at Ben Carson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. His offense? He noted that during this time of trial, it is important to develop "your God-given talents to the utmost." This, the authors said, was an example of "religious nationalism."

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, an ex-altar boy, told us on April 13 that the coronavirus numbers were getting better. He made sure God got none of the credit. "The number is down because we brought the number down. God did not do that. Faith did not do that." Yes, he is just that self-righteous.

The secular left is happy about one element of the coronavirus pandemic: it allows them to exploit this tragedy for political purposes. 

Slate ran an article on April 20 describing how hard life is at this time in Riker's Island, the New York prison for serial murderers and rapists. The title of the piece is, "Everyone's Coughing, Everyone's Agitated." No doubt that is true. It is also true that those in nursing homes are lucky if they can cough, though that is not a community of any interest to the left.

"Advocates Worry As ICE Says Only Around 300 of its 32,000 Detainees Have Been Tested for COVID-19." Daily Kos gave us this gem. The advocates, of course, want to abolish ICE, and the "detainees" are those who crashed our borders illegally. 

The Nation took up the cause of "sex workers," a.k.a. prostitutes, saying they "are among those most affected by the social distancing and lockdown policies." These poor victims, we learn, are "consistently and unfairly stereotyped as diseased, so even mild epidemics can hurt business." Trump should declare this a national emergency. 

"Amazon Tribes Say Christian Missionaries Threaten 'Genocide' During Pandemic." This Huffington Post beauty blames those intrusive Christians for bringing their lousy diseases with them, threatening to wipe out "isolated peoples." 

Daily Kos beat them all with this post: "Trump Faces Credible Accusations of Knowingly Spreading Coronavirus to the Maya of Guatemala."  Why he hasn’t been placed under house arrest is a mystery. The least he can do is authorize reparations for the Maya.

Finally, we have Richard Wigmans of Texas Tech University. He wants  coronavirus to kill Trump. "I am personally an atheist," the physics professor says, "but if #45 would die as a result of this virus, I might reconsider." 

Wigmans no doubt speaks for many of his ilk. This is what it takes to bring about optimism among these miserably unhappy people. A sicker bunch cannot be found, anywhere on earth.

Major pro-family victory: Washington State MassResistance strategically helped to stop terrible “comprehensive sex ed” bill in Legislature!

By MassResistance

Washington State MassResistance strategically helped to stop terrible “comprehensive sex ed” bill in Legislature! activists helped mobilize groups around the state and worked strategically to successfully stop a hideous Planned Parenthood-backed “comprehensive sex-ed” bill from becoming law – despite its broad support in the Legislature.

Many people are unaware that Washington State has become a far-left state, on a par with California and New York. Following last year’s November elections, left-wing Democrats solidified their power in the state capital, Olympia. Like other states that have gotten “bluer,” the government is now pushing abusive, anti-family policies at a rapid pace. This includes the items on the LGBT and Planned Parenthood checklist for the public schools.

Their major bill, SB 5395, was a “comprehensive sex-ed bill.” It was lobbied heavily by both Planned Parenthood – a major donor to Democrat politicians – and the LGBT lobby. The bill included the following:

1. It would require all public schools in the state to teach “comprehensive” sexuality education and gender theory in all grades – even Kindergarten. It would ostensibly be “age appropriate” – as defined by the school system.
2. It would be “inclusive” – with sexuality lessons that include homosexual sex and transgenderism.
3. It would teach all forms of birth control, including abortion, as well as abstinence.
4. It allows schools to bring in outside LGBT or Planned Parenthood speakers.
5. Borrowing from the hysteria over supposed “rape culture” on college campuses, the bill would teach the onerous concept of sexual “consent” to the young children.
6. Parents could opt-out their children from parts of the curriculum through a written request. They could also request to review the curriculum.

Parents have noted that even when they take advantage of the often cumbersome “opt-out” provisions, the school climate and culture change for the worse when “comprehensive sex ed” is implemented. (Their children still mingle with students who have learned the harmful information, and some teachers will still be displaying pro-LGBT propaganda for all children to see.)

Getting the fight started

MassResistance activists in Washington State contacted our office throughout the early part of the year. They wanted help with organizing and networking in the state to stop this bill. Their alarm about it was considerable. Fortunately, they refused to sit back, or just resort to phone calls and emails.

The bill started out in the State Senate.

One of the MassResistance tactics was to have people attend strategic local meetings.  The State Senator who sponsored this terrible legislation, Claire Wilson (D-Federal Way), an “out” lesbian, also served on the Federal Way District School Board’ (Federal Way is about 30 minutes from Olympia.) On Feb. 26, over a hundred people came to the Federal Way School Board meeting to express their outrage about this bill. The outpouring that evening was so intense that after the meeting member Claire Wilson resigned from the School Board!

Already, elected officials were feeling the heat! MassResistance activists then contacted the State Senators repeatedly. It was an uphill battle, but necessary and effective.

On Feb. 27, Bill SB 5395 passed the Senate, but on a narrower margin than expected, 28-21. This also indicated that it would face rougher currents in the State House of Representatives.

In the House, the first stop was the Education Committee. Working with other local activists, MassResistance identified which members, mostly Republicans, would likely vote against this legislation. But they also identified the Democratic members in swing districts who would most likely fear a voter backlash if they supported this comprehensive sex-ed bill. They focused particularly on them.

In addition, MassResistance activists and others protested inside and outside the state legislature. Non-stop calling and emailing followed. Over the next several weeks, hundreds of people emailed and called both their own State Representatives and the MassResistance list of Education Committee members.

Local town hall. On March 23, a core group of Washington State MassResistance activists helped mobilize nearly a thousand people from local churches and family groups to a “town hall meeting” at the Federal Way High School, featuring Senator Clare Wilson and two local State Representatives.

The town hall meeting with state legislators overflowed with nearly a thousand outraged pro-family citizens. The meeting was held in the high school cafeteria. Hanging from the ceiling was a huge rainbow flag. That only served to anger the parents.

At the meeting, the legislators refused to talk about the comprehensive sexuality education bill until a pastor yelled, “You know what we are here for!” and the crowd stated chanting. At that point the legislators had to open the floor to 45 minutes of public comments. People were already furious over the HIV and sexuality education currently in the local schools. It teaches children about homosexual sex but is devoid of any conservative or Christian values.

The bill dies in the House Education Committee!

April 3, 2019 was the statutory deadline to advance any policy-oriented legislation in the Washington State Legislature. As that date approached, the House Education Committee was feeling heat from all sides. The targeted “progressive” committee members were getting nervous about the angry phone calls and emails they were getting. And rumors were spreading that the House Speaker was getting tired of complaints about this bill from other House members.

On March 27, the Chairman of the House Education Committee, Rep. Sharon Santos, started to cave in on Bill SB 5395. During a speech before a local group, she complained that she had been left out of the “process” when the bill was written and introduced. Even though she thoroughly agreed with key parts of it, and certainly with LGBT inclusion, she was feeling the uneasiness of the committee members. And she was troubled by the rumors that if she made the Education Committee vote on it and pass it, the Speaker wouldn’t bring it up on the floor.

Two days later, the April 3 deadline passed without the House Education Committee bringing SB 5395 forward for a vote! This was a huge victory. Legislative staffers in the state legislature confirmed that Washington State House Reps did not even want to vote on the bill.

Thousands of Washington State citizens, with help from MassResistance, made it very clear that they abundantly opposed this terrible bill. When politicians fear the wrath of the voters, but don’t want to disappoint their leftist special interest donors, the voters generally come out on top. The special interests had to settle for excuses.

What This Victory Means

Most pro-family movements believe that they have little chance of success in liberal states with large Democratic majorities. In contrast, MassResistance informs and trains its activists to confront lawmakers across the political spectrum, regardless of their party. And our tactics work.

Armed with facts, while refusing to rely on weak but comfortable arguments, MassResistance strikes at the core problems associated with LGBT behaviors and the sexual promiscuity associated with it. Even liberal lawmakers know that they must face the voters on Election Day. When enough voters pound their representatives, their leadership will find a way to quietly kill or table bad bills. This is the kind of confrontational, pro-family activism that works!

Our Washington State MassResistance activists will be keeping a close watch on state legislation, since a similar sex-ed bill will likely up next year – or be attached to some existing current legislation. For now, they can rest in the knowledge that they have made a big difference in one of the bluest, most pro-LGBT states in the country.

This week on Faith On Trial

This week we’ll have John Horvat II, vice president of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property. He’ll be discussing the emergence of Satanism, especially that which is directed towards children.

Second we’ll have Arthur Schaper, director of communications for MassResistance on sex education programs in public schools. (See story above).

For a video view check: https://www.facebook.com/FaithOnTrial/videos/561204237853078/.

Faith On Trial airs every Thursday at 10 a.m. and is repeated at 10 p.m. on Iowa Catholic Radio, 1150 AM, 88.5 & 94.5 FM, hear it on IowaCatholicRadio.com or download our free app.

First Liberty Scores Two Powerful Victories to Save Drive-In Church Services

by Jorge Gomez

This year’s Easter weekend will surely go down as one of the most historic with regard to the current and future “health and safety” of religious liberty in America.

Last week, one day before Easter Sunday, our legal team scored a very important and powerful victory for On Fire Christian Church in Louisville, KY, one that will help protect religious liberty for ALL houses of worship during this pandemic.

Thanks to the untiring efforts of our attorneys, the U.S. District Court in Louisville, KY, granted a temporary restraining order preventing Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer from blocking On Fire Church from holding its drive-in services on Easter Sunday.

And just this week, First Liberty also won a victory for King James Bible Baptist Church (KJBBC) in Greenville, MS, another house of worship that was prevented by its local city mayor from hosting drive-in services consistent with CDC guidelines.

Setting a Precedent for Houses of Worship Nationwide

Like hundreds of congregations and churches across the country, On Fire Christian Church found an innovative and creative way to keep its members and its community spiritually engaged. They opted to host drive-in church services in the parking lot for several weeks consistent with CDC guidelines.

And because members would be unable to gather as usual for the biggest service of the year, the church planned to host a drive-in church service for Easter Sunday. The church took action to comply with health and safety regulations, ensuring that cars would be parked six feet apart and all congregants would remain in their vehicles with windows no more than half open for the entirety of the service. Additionally, multiple security personnel were present to ensure proper spacing between cars and orderly compliance with all guidelines.

To think that local police officers would potentially stand in church parking lots to record license plate numbers of all Easter weekend churchgoers—even though they were strictly adhering to CDC guidelines—is absurd!

Thankfully, the US District Court Judge wrote an opinion that clearly reaffirmed the First Amendment rights of the church:

“On Holy Thursday, an American mayor criminalized the communal celebration of Easter. That sentence is one that this Court never expected to see outside the pages of a dystopian novel, or perhaps the pages of The Onion. But two days ago, citing the need for social distancing during the current pandemic, Louisville’s Mayor Greg Fischer ordered Christians not to attend Sunday services, even if they remained in their cars to worship—and even though it’s Easter. The Mayor’s decision is stunning. And it is, ‘beyond all reason,’ unconstitutional.”

With all the attacks against churches going on right now during the “new normal,” this was the first legal decision to put a stop to this type of shocking—and ongoing—overreach by government officials. And more importantly, this decision set a crucial precedent that state officials must respect the religious rights of houses of worship even in the midst of a national crisis.

The Fight Never Ceases: Fighting to Reclaim Religious Freedom for Mississippi Church

In addition to our legal victory in Kentucky, First Liberty also successfully represented Pastor Charleston Hamilton and King James Bible Baptist Church (KJBBC) in Greenville, MS, where local officials threatened to clamp down on religious services.

It’s especially shocking that officials in Mississippi went so far as to issue a $500 ticket to everyone who attended a drive-in service. This caused local church leaders and people of faith to fear they’d be fined and criminally prosecuted for attending a religious gathering that falls within CDC guidelines.

That’s why First Liberty filed a federal lawsuit against Greenville, Mississippi Mayor Errick Simmons seeking to reverse his prohibition on churches holding drive-in services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like On Fire Church in Kentucky, KJBBC creatively chose to utilize a “drive-in” method of holding church services while still making sure he would strictly follow all CDC guidelines.

Members of KJBBC drive in their cars and park in their parking lot. Pastor Hamilton stands at a distance greater than 6 feet from his parishioners as they remain their cars with the windows up. No one leaves their cars at any time during the service. Rather, they listen to Pastor Hamilton as he, utilizing a bullhorn, preaches to them in the open air.

Nonetheless, during an evening service held in the KJBBC parking lot, Pastor Hamilton and a few of his church members (many of them elderly citizens) found themselves surrounded by police cruisers, and were threatened with criminal citations for attending church in their cars.

One police officer even told Pastor Hamilton that his constitutional rights were “suspended!”

In the videos below, you can watch FLI President, CEO and Chief Counsel Kelly Shackelford and Jeremy Dys, FLI Special Counsel, join Pastor Hamilton in two recent news interviews to discuss why the attacks against drive-in religious services are a blatant violation of the Constitution.

Thankfully, just a few days ago, Mississippi Governor Reeves and Mayor Simmons recognized the importance of protecting religious liberty and clarified that drive-in church services are allowed during this difficult time.

Even though the nation is in the midst of a pandemic, it is essential that we protect religious liberty. And while it’s necessary to comply with temporary state-mandated restrictions for the sake of demonstrating love for our fellow man, we will not—and should not—tolerate churchgoers being ticketed by the police for following CDC guidelines at church.

As evident from the incredible legal victories in Kentucky and Mississippi, First Liberty’s efforts are already making a lasting impact.

What’s more, thanks to your steadfast support, our legal team has identified numerous instances where government ordinances are violating the constitutional rights of people of faith, and gotten these orders rescinded—sometimes in a matter of hours. And we’re receiving more requests for legal assistance from across the nation every day.

MassResistance poses reasonable question to national pro-transgender “education” group – and gets a vile response

They insist that males should compete on female sports teams. Very revealing about their frightening mindset.

By MassResistance

Craig Tefler (center), a male who now "identifies" as a female, won the U.S. national title for the women’s 400 meter hurdles at the NCAA Division II Championships on May 25, 2019. During 2016 and 2017 he had competed on the men’s team for the same event and was not among the top 200 competitors. Radical “education” groups insist that this must be allowed.ption

What’s really going on in the heads of the people running the “education” groups that actively oppose sensible laws protecting people from radical transgender lunacy? MassResistance recently got a taste of it, and it’s not at all pleasant.

In our recent post we listed the major education, medical, and social welfare organizations that had lobbied the Idaho Legislature not to pass two bills protecting the public from the radical transgender agenda. (Luckily, the bills passed anyway.)

We noticed that one of the groups on the list is the “Association of Title IX Administrators.”  This group was particularly opposed to the Idaho bill which says that only females (not males pretending to be females) may compete in girls’ or women’s school and college sports.

Association of Title IX Administrators

We looked a little further into the Association of Title IX Administrators.

Title IX (“Title Nine”) refers to the federal law passed by Congress in 1972 that prohibits any school that gets federal money (basically, all of them) from discriminating on the basis of “sex” in any “education program or activity” – which includes athletics. Furthermore, every school district, college, and university in the US is required to have a Title IX administrator (to ensure compliance with the law).

In 2011 a group of liberals wanted to use the Title IX law to push a radical and aggressive sexual ideology in high schools and colleges. They formed the Association of Title IX Administrators (ATIXA), as a purported “professional association.” Led by radical attorneys, they have been extraordinarily successful in organizing thousands of Title IX administrators across America to push their agenda. Among other things, the group provides “compliance, litigation, and expert witness services” as well as extensive training sessions.

In 2016, the Obama administration decided that the word “sex” in Title IX must now include “gender identity” – i.e., transgenderism. Obama’s Justice Department and Department of Education published a letter to all schools demanding that all athletic teams, locker rooms, restrooms, etc., be open to opposite-sex “transgender” students – under a veiled threat of possible federal litigation. Simultaneously, the Department of Education published a ridiculous booklet for all schools titled, Examples of Policies and Emerging Practices for Supporting Transgender Students.

ATIXA used those government documents to aggressively confront schools and universities across the country to force them to allow males to compete on female sports teams, and vice versa.

 This absurd Obama-era booklet is unfortunately still posted on the DOE website.

Thankfully, in early 2017, the Trump Administration (Dept. of Justice and Dept. of Education) rescinded that nonsense, and published an updated letter to all schools informing them that a federal district court has ruled that “the term ‘sex’ unambiguously refers to biological sex” and issued an injunction against mandating the earlier interpretation.

However, ATIXA decided to ignore the Trump Administration’s 2017 letter and continues to pretend that the Obama mandate is still in place – that “sex” must include “gender identity.” The group explained its reasoning in a Feb. 2017 Position Statement, where they basically said that a current court case (that did not involve sports teams) might rule in their favor. They also cited material from radical LGBT groups such as the Transgender Law Center and Human Rights Campaign.

The Trump DOJ makes its position clear - again

In March 2020, the Trump Department of Justice (DOJ) made its position clear again. Three Connecticut high school girls are suing Connecticut school officials in federal court for allowing boys to compete against them in track. The DOJ filed a strongly-worded amicus brief in their favor – and against the absurd concept that Title IX requires “transgender” participation in school sports.

MassResistance poses the question to ATIXA

On April 7, MassResistance Research Director Amy Contrada emailed a question to the Board Members of ATIXA. She simply asked if they planned to update their 2017 Policy Statement to include the DOJ’s amicus brief in the Connecticut Case.

Here’s what Amy wrote to ATIXA:

From: Amy Contrada
Date: Tuesday, April 7, 2020 at 12:03 PM
To: [Group]
Subject: Question re Your Guidance on Title IX in K-12 schools

Dear ATIXA Board Members & Consultants:

Is ATIXA planning an update on your 2017 policy statement regarding “gender” issues in K-12 schools? There has been an important new development I don’t see addressed on your website.

Earlier this month, the DOJ intervened in the lawsuit brought by high school girl athletes in Connecticut. The plaintiffs are challenging Connecticut Association of Schools, five local school boards, and the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) over their policies allowing biological boys (who claim to be transgender girls) to compete on girls’ teams.

The DOJ brief (siding with the plaintiffs) explains that the named Connecticut school entities are in error, and that the term “sex” in Title IX should “be interpreted as taking [its] ordinary, contemporary, common meaning.” Excerpts from the brief:

… requiring all students to participate on the athletic team associated with their biological sex cannot be described as sex “discrimination.” … Nothing in Title IX or Supreme Court precedent requires such radical upheaval. To the contrary, the Supreme Court has recognized that sex-based classifications sometimes are permissible because certain “differences between men and women” are “enduring.”

Title IX and its implementing regulations prohibit discrimination solely "on the basis of sex," not on the basis of transgender status, and therefore neither require nor authorize CIAC's transgender policy. To the contrary, CIAC's construction of Title IX as requiring the participation of students on athletic teams that reflect their gender identity would turn the statute on its head. One of Title IX's core purposes is to ensure that women have an "equal athletic opportunity" to participate in school athletic programs. 34 C.F.R. § 106.41(c); see also Cohen v. Brown Univ., 991 F.2d 888, 897 (1st Cir. 1993) ("Equal opportunity to participate lies at the core of Title IX's purpose.").

Schools realize that purpose primarily by establishing separate athletic teams for men and women and by ensuring that those teams are on equal footing. See 34 C.F.R. § 106.41(b)-(c). Because of the physiological differences between men and women, the existence of women's sports teams permits women to participate more fully in athletics than they otherwise could.

Signatories include William P. Barr, Attorney General, and John H. Durham, U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut.

Their point on the meaning of "sex" in Title IX has relevance to other school policies relating to gender identity (facilities use, names, pronouns, official student records).

I look forward to your response.

Amy Contrada
MassResistance - Research

A bizarre and vile response

Within hours, Amy received the following reply from Attorney Brett Sokolow, the president of ATIXA. The reply was also cc’d to the ATIXA Board of Directors. The reply did not directly answer Amy’s question about the new DOJ statement, but was an inexplicably hateful, anti-Christian rant:

From: Brett Sokolow <brett.sokolow@tngconsulting.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 7, 2020 2:29 PM
To: Amy Contrada; Katie Walker;
 Subject: Re: Question re Your Guidance on Title IX in K-12 schools

Dear Ms. Contrada,

I am responding on behalf of the entire ATIXA board, whom you copied. ATIXA will revise its position statements as necessary once the Supreme Court makes its rulings in October. Until then, any changes are premature. Please consider any further communication from you or your organizations to be unwelcome. I hope you will reconsider your bigotry, as I doubt Jesus would have tolerated the kinds of intolerance that you not only accept but embrace. We find your positions and advocacy repugnant. Thank you.

Brett A. Sokolow, Esq.
Chair
brett.sokolow@tngconsulting.com
phone (610) 993.0229 x1011 | fax (610) 993.0228
www.tngconsulting.com  |  www.atixa.org | www.nabita.org | www.viiaa.org
475 Allendale Rd, Suite 200 | King of Prussia, PA 19406

This is a clear window into the mindset of the people in these organizations. We’ve seen it in school officials, politicians, and corporate executives. It’s as if they’re incapable of discussing this issue in any rational way.

Attorney Brett Sokolow, president of ATIXA, responded to Amy "on behalf of the entire ATIXA board."

In many ways it’s similar to a cult belief. Transgenderism, like the rest of the radical LGBT ideology, is basically irrational and cannot be defended in a normal manner. Instead, anyone who disagrees is met with a torrent of hatred and fury. These are the people who are leading (and are a part of) many of the major education and medical institutions.

But we believe that it’s imperative that good people always challenge these people and their dangerous and absurd positions. And we will continue to do so.

Sokolow does not say what “Supreme Court rulings in October” he is referring to. But it would appear to be the case of a Detroit Funeral home being sued for firing a man who insisted on dressing in women’s clothes. It is actually a Title VII case (dealing with employment), not a Title IX case. But the LGBT lobby believes that if the Supreme Court rules their way in this case – that “gender identity” is included in the word “sex” in anti-discrimination law – it would carry over to Title IX.

We will stay on top of this issue.