The Long Knives Are Coming Out

By DEACON MIKE MANNO

(The Wanderer) - I think we’ve probably known all along that in the current state of things our religious liberty would be under attack. I’ve written about those things and my radio program has highlighted many more. Until recently, however, the attacks have been somewhat muted, limited to isolated instances, and, at least to the general public, not very brazen.

But with a new political magisterium of faux Christianity, faux patriotism, faux liberty, along with the growing acceptance of a cancel culture, the New Left has ratcheted up the ante and no longer tries to conceal its vulgar attacks on Catholicism, people of faith, and conservative Christians.

So while the Equality Act, endorsed by the president and the majority party leaders of Congress, is pending before the Senate, an act which would stifle churches’ ability to teach and live out their beliefs, especially in the area of sexual morality, a legal challenge has raised the possibility that religious colleges might be cut off from federal funding upon which they have been dependent.

Acolytes of the New Left, operating under the name of the Religious Exemption Accountability Project (REAP), have filed suit in an Oregon federal court on behalf of current and former students to prevent future students from using tuition grants, student loans, and any other federal financial assistance at schools that operate according to Christian beliefs on sexuality.

The crux of the argument is that the religious exemption afforded to religious institutions under Title IX are unconstitutional because it allows for discrimination on the basis of, among other things, sexual and gender identity.

According to the Department of Education website, “Title IX generally prohibits a recipient institution from excluding, separating, denying benefits to, or otherwise treating students differently on the basis of sex in its educational programs or activities.” But it does not apply “to an educational institution that is controlled by a religious organization to the extent that application of Title IX would be inconsistent with the religious tenets of the organization.”

That, according to REAP, is unconstitutional, and on its website argues, “REAP’s lawsuit asserts the constitutional and basic human rights of LGBTQ+ students, seeking to end the sexual, physical, and psychological abuses perpetrated under the religious exemption to Title IX at thousands of federally funded schools, colleges, and universities across America.”

The class action suit was filed on behalf of 33 current and former students of some 25 Christian colleges that receive federal funds from the Department of Education. The 33 named plaintiffs are claiming to represent more than 100,000 sexual and gender minorities attending religious institutions where, REAP suggests, they were discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The 67-page suit lists each student, the college he or she (using the person’s proper pronoun) attended, and briefly how they were discriminated against. Some seemed quite trivial, such as the complaint by Rachel Held, a bisexual women attending Messiah University, “Messiah believes that the Bible teaches that marriage is between one man and one woman.” Rachel is engaged to another woman. Messiah University is a private Christian school in Mechanicsburg, Pa., whose motto is “Christ Preeminent.”

Lauren Hoekstra is a self-identified “queer woman” who attended Dordt University in Sioux City, Iowa. Apparently what Lauren found so intolerable were “activities that the school has declared unbiblical include ‘promoting or advocating sexually immoral activity,’ ‘extramarital sexual relations,’ ‘homosexual relations,’ and ‘transgendered behavior’.” Dordt is a private Christian institution affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church.

I could go on, but I think you get the drift. Anyway, the catchall takeaway is summed up in the fourth paragraph of the lawsuit: “When taxpayer-funded religious institutions require sexual and gender minority students to hide their identity out of fear, or to behave contrary to their fundamental sexual or gender identity, the unsurprising consequences are intense pain, loneliness, and self-harm. Students perceive that their campus, and even their government, believes that they are inferior in dignity and worth.”

None of the colleges are named as defendants in the lawsuit. In fact, the only defendants named are the Department of Education and several department officials in their official capacities. Thus, if that is left to stand, the Biden administration would very likely “settle” the suit favorably to the plaintiffs.

However, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), representing four Christian colleges, has petitioned to intervene in the case to argue for the defense. Intervention in a lawsuit would allow a party not originally named in the suit to enter as an actual party. The theory being that the intervenor may have rights that would be affected by the court’s decision. Intervention can be granted by right, when the party can show that he cannot be adequately be represented by either of the existing parties, or it can be permissive when in the court’s opinion the claims by the intervenor has common elements of law or fact with the suit.

ADF has petitioned under both theories, but it is difficult to imagine a federal judge denying the request. In its 27-page motion and brief, ADF says, “The very existence of Title IX’s Religious Exemption is at stake here, yet none of the current parties are religious educational institutions that benefit from this exemption. This case asks whether the Department may continue to grant and recognize religious exemptions enshrined in Title IX and required by the Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Religious Schools are Christian universities and seminaries that qualify for the Religious Exemption….The court should not assess the Religious Exemption’s constitutionality without hearing from the very institutions the exemption was designed to protect.”

Of course sometimes what happens in court can be a crap-shoot, especially when the litigants forum shop. Paul Southwick, the president and lead counsel for REAP, was asked why file in Oregon rather than in D.C. His reply was that it was close to him and “the Ninth Circuit [Court of Appeals, in whose jurisdiction is Oregon] tends to take a view of the Constitution and civil rights that aligns with our lawsuit.”

David Cortman, ADF vice president of U.S. litigation, suggested:

“This lawsuit wants the federal government to tell Christian schools, ‘To continue accepting students who have federal financial aid, all you have to do is to start acting contrary to your own beliefs.’ That’s neither reasonable nor constitutional. No court should grant a radical request to rewrite federal law and strong-arm religious colleges by stripping their students of much-needed financial aid. For that reason, we are asking the court to let our clients intervene in this lawsuit so that they and their students can defend their freedoms under federal law and the Constitution.”

“The very existence of Title IX’s Religious Exemption is at stake here, yet none of the current parties are religious educational institutions that benefit from this exemption,” said ADF Senior Counsel Ryan Tucker. He noted that those who filed the lawsuit are asking the court “to declare the Religious Exemption unconstitutional and seek a permanent injunction rescinding and prohibiting religious exemptions for institutions that hold beliefs about marriage, sexuality, and gender disfavored by some. The court should not assess the Religious Exemption’s constitutionality without hearing from the very institutions the exemption was designed to protect.”

It would seem likely that ADF’s motion will be granted, the battle will be joined, and the topic of the religious exemptions will come front and center with the Biden administration, after the litigation ends, having the option to either withdraw the exemption, as the Obama-Biden administration tried, or to restore it with restrictions.

Time will tell. But I can assure you, more of these religious attacks are coming and the strong defense which Mr. Trump would have provided won’t be there for us. The long knives will be coming.

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday at 10 a.m. CT on Faith On Trial at IowaCatholicRadio.com.)

 

Religious freedom doesn't matter to Biden WH, says attorney

Religious freedom doesn't matter to Biden WH, says attorney: In a move perceived by an attorney as a White House attack on religious freedom, the Biden administration is appealing a court decision allowing religious hospitals and doctors to opt out of gender-transition procedures.

Debunking 4 Claims the Radical Left Uses to Justify Their Supreme Court Coup

By Liberty McArtor 

Proponents of court-packing argue that adding more judges to our nation’s judiciary is the magical solution to urgent problems, and even paint the picture that doing so is an act of goodwill. But far from being a necessity, court-packing is a brazen power-grab by one political party to fix the number of Supreme Court justices or federal judges to get the political results they want.

And when we look at the history of court-packing across the world, there’s no way around it: Court-packing is a dangerous scheme with severe implications that would erase freedom and rights for future generations and destroy America’s constitutional order.

To equip you—and all Americans—in exposing the lie and the radical plan to overthrow America’s court system, here are four common (or rather, bogus) court-packing claims debunked with facts and logic.

1. Myth: The Supreme Court has been stolen.

Fact: The Supreme Court currently has nine highly qualified, legitimately appointed and confirmed justices. The far Left just doesn’t like some of them.

The reason court-packing advocates say the Supreme Court was “stolen” is because they disagree with the political party and the president who appointed the latest three justices (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett). For instance, they claimed that Justice Barrett’s confirmation happened too quickly. But as First Liberty President and CEO Kelly Shackelford has noted, justices have been confirmed in the same fashion nearly thirty (30) times. In fact, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whom Justice Barrett replaced, was confirmed in a similar time frame.

Ironically, stealing the Supreme Court is exactly what would happen if the coup attempt to add two, four or even six more justices were to succeed.

2. Myth: Court-packing has popular support.

Fact: Court-packing is widely unpopular—and historically has been within both parties. 

Polls conducted in the last few years show the majority of Americans oppose court-packing.

• In 2020, a New York Times-Siena College poll found that fifty-eight percent (58%) of likely voters opposed packing the Supreme Court.
• In 2019, Rasmussen polls found that only twenty-seven percent (27%) of Americans favor packing the Supreme Court with additional justices.

What’s more, opposition to court-packing is prevalent across the political spectrum.

Here are some quotes from several politicians and prominent figures on both sides of the political aisle, starting with the current president:

• President Joe Biden (D):

In 1983: “President Roosevelt clearly had the right to send to the United States Senate and the United States Congress a proposal to pack the court. … But it was a bonehead idea. It was a terrible, terrible mistake to make.”

In 2020: “I’m not a fan of court packing.”

• Ted Cruz (R-TX)

In 2020: “Packing the Court means one very specific thing: expanding the number of justices to achieve a political outcome. It is wrong. It is an abuse of power.”

• Joe Manchin (D-WV)

In 2020: “I want to allay those fears, I want to rest those fears for you right now because when they talk about whether it be packing the courts, or ending the filibuster, I will not vote to do that.”

• Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

In 2020: “I can’t think of a more destabilizing event for America than changing the number of [justices] on the Supreme Court every election cycle, because it becomes a winner take all for the Court.”

• Jon Ossoff (D-GA):

In 2020: “We shouldn’t expand the Supreme Court just because a justice may be confirmed with whom we disagree on policy.”

• Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933 – 2020):

In 2019: “If anything would make the court look partisan…it would be that—one side saying, ‘When we’re in power, we’re going to enlarge the number of judges, so we would have more people who would vote the way we want them to.'”

The truth is both parties have long opposed court-packing, and the sudden flip by a select group of elites on the Democratic side on this issue exposes this scheme for what it really is: a barefaced power grab.

3. Myth: Court-packing is a routine procedure.

Fact: Changes to the size of the Supreme Court are very rare in America’s history, and the few partisan attempts at court-packing have been failures.

Congress has changed the number of Supreme Court justices only a total of seven times in American history. The radical Left distorts this fact to make you think court-packing is normal. But in nearly 250 years and 120 Congresses, the seven prior changes (many of them due to workloads and the addition of states to the Republic) do not offer a justification for packing the Court today. On the contrary, the seven changes show how rare court-packing is in America. What’s more, the number of Supreme Court justices hasn’t changed at all since 1869—that’s over 150 years!

4. Myth: Court-packing will save democracy.

Fact: Court packing will crush civil liberties by making the Supreme Court a partisan tool of whoever holds power.  

Using a baseball metaphor, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts once said of a judge’s role, “It’s my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.”

What would happen if several partisan justices were added to the Supreme Court—justices who were instructed to “pitch” and “bat” for the team that appointed them? The Supreme Court would become an extension of the party currently in power. The fundamental principle of the “separation of powers” would be destroyed.

If more and more partisan judges are added to courts every election cycle, those in the minority—people who don’t agree with the current ruling party—would have their freedom squashed under the weight of a rigged judiciary. Civil liberties like religious freedom would have no stable protection.

Far from saving the principles of our democratic republic, court-packing would lead to the demolition of constitutional rights—just like it happened in other nations, such as Venezuela and Argentina.

###

Liberty McArtor is a freelance writer in the state of Texas. As a contributor to FLI Insider, published by First Liberty Institute. Liberty covered various topics, including historical articles about the role of faith during the American founding and religious liberty in the military. Liberty earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from Patrick Henry College and previously worked as a radio producer in Washington, D.C.

 

Americans Are Clear: Don’t Pack the Supreme Court

Washington, DC—First Liberty Institute today announced the results of a nationwide poll from Mason Dixon Polling & Strategy revealing more than two-thirds (2/3’s) of Americans oppose adding seats to the Supreme Court of the United States. First Liberty, the nation’s premier law firm dedicated exclusively to religious liberty, commissioned the poll. 

Read he results of the poll here. 

“Court-packing is a direct assault on the independence of the judiciary,” Kelly Shackelford, President, CEO, & Chief Counsel to First Liberty said.  “Other countries have done this, with disastrous results. Americans recognize that court-packing is a brazen power-play by political extremists to overthrow our court system.  The last thing our country needs right now is a coup on the Supreme Court. We need our Constitutional system. It is the envy of the world.” 

The poll, conducted by Mason Dixon of registered voters nationwide April 15-19, suggests that 68% of all respondents oppose court-packing.  Importantly, self-identified Independent voters overwhelmingly reject plans to pack the court (68% opposed). 

### 

About First Liberty Institute

First Liberty Institute is a non-profit public interest law firm and the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending religious freedom for all Americans.

Illinois Gov. Pritzker's Recommendations for Corrupting All Government Schools

Pritzker's Recommendations for Corrupting All Government Schools

This week's Faith On Trial

Guests: Tom Jipping, Senor Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation on court packing. Julie Blake, Senior Counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom on the case of a small Christian college that is suing the Administration because it mandates that the college place biological males into female dormitories and assign them female roommates, putting its religious freedom at risk

Nobody Cares

By Judie Brown, President American Life League

A longtime pro-life advocate recently told us a very sad story. As he stood in front of an abortion facility praying the Rosary and holding a sign, someone rode by on a bicycle and yelled, “Give it up. Nobody cares.”

That story struck a chord in my heart because what that individual yelled out at a faithful defender of the babies tells us exactly what is wrong with our nation today. We are living in a time when millions of our fellow human beings are going to their deaths, and most folks couldn’t care less!

I can give you plenty of examples of the “nobody cares” mantra, but here are just a few.

Headlines report that the president of the United States, Joe Biden, is undoing Trump administration regulations that prevented Planned Parenthood from referring expectant mothers to places where their babies can be killed by abortion. Reporters quoted a Biden administration official from HHS, who said: “Ultimately, continued enforcement of the 2019 rule raises the possibility of a two-tiered health care system in which those with insurance and full access to health care receive full medical information and referrals, while low-income populations with fewer opportunities for care are relegated to inferior access.”

Once again, we are told that killing a baby prior to birth is healthcare—a popular smokescreen about which nobody cares.

This “healthcare” not only results in a dead baby, but it’s not unusual for it to also harm the mother. We saw this recently when, at a Charleston, South Carolina, Planned Parenthood abortion facility, a 36-year-old patient bled uncontrollably and had to be rushed by ambulance to a local hospital. Tiffany, the Planned Parenthood official who made the call to the emergency services, not only laughed during the call but had no idea what an advance directive was or exactly how much help the patient might need.

This is the definition of women’s healthcare these days, but nobody cares.

Back in Washington, DC, Biden’s Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of mail-order abortion pills for the duration of the pandemic. A woman can now use telemedicine to talk to a doctor from her home. He then prescribes her the pills, and they are mailed to her, which she takes alone. While we wondered aloud why the Catholic bishops’ USCCB did not speak out immediately, the fact remains that once again pro-death counterfeit-Catholic Biden found yet another way to approve of abortion!

This is the Biden administration’s idea of women’s healthcare, but nobody cares.

So the beat goes on. In Nebraska, a corrections officer resigned because the state denied an inmate’s request to abort her child. And in Arizona, state resident Garin Marschall wrote in a local newspaper about his wife’s abortion. He opined: “When people say abortion is healthcare, it is not just a slogan, especially for people managing a health crisis. People get abortions for many reasons, making their own determinations based on their circumstances. For some, they find out new information during their pregnancy that changes everything.”

Please note that, in this case, it is the new information about “pregnancy” that makes an abortion decision the “right thing,” not new information about their child. This sort of dehumanization of the human being prior to birth occurs so many times a day that we cannot count them. And nobody cares.

Yet as we know—and as I told our fellow life defender—it is precisely because there are people all over this nation who do not care that we work hard every day to shine the light of truth in this moral darkness. You see, thousands of us do care! And we will continue to care, inspired by truth.

At the heart of our efforts to focus on the innocent person at every stage of his development is the fact that all human beings are made in the image and likeness of God. Pope Benedict XVI taught us to be cognizant of this greatness in every human being when he said: “Man is not a lost atom in a random universe: he is God’s creature, whom God chose to endow with an immortal soul and whom he has always loved.”

God loves every one of us, including the fellow on the bicycle who said “nobody cares.”

God loves and cares, so we persist because we do too!

 

This week (4-22) on Faith On Trial

Last week Capitol Hill Democrats announced a plan to add four new judges to the Supreme Court. How does the proposal to add justices affect justice and our civil and religious rights?” Joining us for that discussion Thursday on Faith On Trial will be Tom Jipping, Senor Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

After we’ll be examining the case of a small Christian college that is suing the Administration because it mandates that the college place biological males into female dormitories and assign them female roommates, putting its religious freedom at risk. Joining us to review that case is the author of the lawsuit Julie Blake, Senior Counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom.

Faith On Trial airs this and every Thursday at 10 a.m. central for Faith On Trial on Iowa Catholic Radio, 1150 AM, 88.5 & 94.5 FM and streaming on IowaCatholicRadio.com where you can also find and listen to our older programing.

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition: Three things most people don't know about assisted death.

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Big bucks in sowing division

Big bucks in sowing division: A cultural issues writer says most parents don't realize that they are paying to fund racial division in their kids' schools.

Is Twitter A Common Carrier?

By Deacon Mike Manno

(The Wanderer) Two weeks ago I wrote about Judge Laurence Silberman’s critique of the current state of the U.S. media, which he found to be biased against conservatives and Republicans. By way of warning, the judge, a member of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote: “The First Amendment is more than just a legal provision: It embodies the most important value of American Democracy. Repression of political speech by large institutions with market power therefore is — I say this advisedly — fundamentally un-American.”

The context of the case in which the judge made those remarks concerned how he saw the judicial misuse of the Supreme Court’s rulings requiring the showing of “actual malice” by certain plaintiffs in defamation cases. That standard, the judge opined, allowed the media to “cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity.” And, he noted, most of the false aspersions cast were against Republicans and conservatives.

In addition to taking on the press, the judge also criticized social media for its display of favoritism by banning certain persons and issues from their platforms. But now another judge, this time Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Clarence Thomas, took up a similar issue in another case. This one involved actions President Trump took to keep people from commenting on his Twitter feed.

The plaintiffs had alleged that Mr. Trump violated their First Amendment rights by blocking their comments. At the heart of the issue was Twitter’s policy of allowing users to block others from republishing or responding to posts. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals had held that the comment threads were a “public forum” and that the plaintiffs’ rights were violated by the block. The Supreme Court rejected the appeal as moot, since Mr. Trump was out of office (in fact, the case name had been changed to reflect the change of administrations).

Justice Thomas concurred with the decision, and like Judge Silberman, used the opportunity to opine on what he considered possible erroneous protections given to digital platforms, such as Twitter, and how those protections are out of step with the times by “applying old doctrines to new digital platforms. . . . Respondents have a point, for example, that some aspects of Mr. Trump’s account resemble a constitutionally protected public forum. But it seems rather odd to say that something is a government forum when a private company has unrestricted authority to do away with it.”

He continued, “The disparity between Twitter’s control and Mr. Trump’s control is stark, to say the least. Mr. Trump blocked several people from interacting with his messages. Twitter barred Mr. Trump not only from interacting with a few users, but removed him from the entire platform, thus barring all Twitter users from interacting with his messages.”

The case, he said, highlighted the difficulty surrounding digital platforms in trying to apply old legal doctrines to the new digital platforms. He suggested that it did show that some aspects of the president’s account did appear to resemble a public forum which is constitutionally protected. Then he observed that it is difficult to claim something that a private entity has an unrestricted right to do away with is such a protected forum.

Since “unbridled control” of the Twitter account belonged to a private entity, that entity is not ordinarily constrained by the First Amendment. Thus, in general, private parties can do as they wish. But he noted that there are several exceptions to that rule and suggested: “If part of the problem is private, concentrated control over online content and platforms available to the public, then part of the solution may be found in doctrines that limit the right of a private company to exclude.”

Some legal doctrines do limit that right. Foremost among them, and most analogist to the current situation, involves common carriers and public accommodations. In each the entity involved is required to service all customers, and in the case of common carriers, must do so in exchange for certain privileges.

“This Court long ago suggested that regulations like those placed on common carriers may be justified, even for industries not historically recognized as common carriers, when ‘a business, by circumstances and its nature . . . rise[s] from private to be of public concern’.”

One example of business of this type is the telegraph, Justice Thomas wrote, because telegraphs “resembled” and were “analogous enough” to railroads and other common carriers.

Since the government required that common carriers cater to all, the government usually provided some benefit, for example, protection from competition and immunity from certain types of lawsuits. In the case of the telegraph, and now telephonic communications, that protection was against defamation lawsuits. Thus the government places these companies in a special category.

“In many ways, digital platforms that hold themselves out to the public resemble traditional common carriers. Though digital instead of physical, they are at bottom communications networks, and they ‘carry’ information from one user to another. A traditional telephone company laid physical wires to create a network connecting people. Digital platforms lay information infrastructure that can be controlled in much the same way. And unlike newspapers, digital platforms hold themselves out as organizations that focus on distributing the speech of the broader public. Federal law dictates that companies cannot ‘be treated as the publisher or speaker’ of information that they merely distribute.”

As a result Congress has given these platforms immunity from certain types of suits but it has not imposed corresponding responsibilities. “Yet Congress does not appear to have passed these kinds of regulations. To the contrary, it has given digital platforms immunity from certain types of suits, with respect to content they distribute but it has not imposed corresponding responsibilities, like nondiscrimination, that would matter here,” he stated, referencing §230 of the Communication Decency Act which protects these platforms.

Turning to businesses that are public accommodations, he wrote, “The long history in this country and in England of restricting the exclusion right of common carriers and places of public accommodation may save similar regulations today from triggering heightened scrutiny — especially where a restriction would not prohibit the company from speaking or force the company to endorse the speech….There is a fair argument that some digital platforms are sufficiently akin to common carriers or places of accommodation to be regulated in this manner. . . .

“Much like with a communications utility, this concentration gives some digital platforms enormous control over speech. When a user does not already know exactly where to find something on the Internet — and users rarely do — Google is the gatekeeper between that user and the speech of others 90 percent of the time. It can suppress content by de-indexing or down-listing a search result or by steering users away from certain content by manually altering autocomplete results. Facebook and Twitter can greatly narrow a person’s information flow through similar means.”

Thus, Justice Thomas suggests that if the analogy between common carriers and digital platforms is correct, the concept could be the basis for laws that restrict its ability to de-platform most users. And: “Even if digital platforms are not close enough to common carriers, legislatures might still be able to treat digital platforms like places of public accommodation….Twitter and other digital platforms bear resemblance to that definition.”

Now, if there is that much concern over the ability of Twitter, Facebook, and the rest to limit speech and control the flow of information, the good Justice might just have the answer. But if you read his comments you’ll see that the effort must start with legislation, either on the state level or through Congress. Interesting options; glad these two jurists took the time to put their ideas down.

Now, who’s going to follow up?

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday at 10 a.m. Central Time on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)

The Search for Perfect Pronouns and Social Destruction -

The Search for Perfect Pronouns and Social Destruction -

NCAA's Anti-Religious Bias

 By Catholic League president By Bill Donohue

Collegiate sports and professional sports have traditionally been apolitical. They have also been at least tacitly supportive of traditional moral values. No longer. They have now laid anchor with the politics of the left, and that, in turn, has led them to adopt an aggressively secular worldview, one that is increasingly anti-Christian. Consider the NCAA.

On April 12, the NCAA Board of Governors stated that it "firmly and unequivocally supports the opportunity for transgender student-athletes to compete in college sports. This commitment is grounded in our values of inclusion and fair competition." It also said that it will not hold championship events in locations that do not agree with its position.

Truth to tell, the NCAA does not believe in inclusion and fair competition: It believes in exclusion and unfair competition.

Its policy of restricting championship events to locales that conform to  its transgender politics manifestly excludes parts of the country that maintain a Christian view of sex and sexuality. Moreover, there is nothing fair about allowing males to compete against females in athletics.

There is something else going on here that needs to be addressed. Why is the NCAA promoting sex reassignment therapy when it is well known how dangerous it is to the psychological and physical wellbeing of those who undergo it? To this point, are NCAA officials aware that hormone therapy causes physical changes that are irreversible?

Sweden has a comparatively long history of accommodating transgender persons. It does not have an admirable record. In fact, what we know should give us pause. For example, the suicide rate for those who undergo sex reassignment therapy is astonishingly high, and the range and scale of psychiatric disorders are also disturbing. None of this has anything to do with stigma—Sweden enthusiastically embraces the transgender community.

In this country, the American Heart Association has concluded that those who undergo sex reassignment therapy have higher rates of strokes, heart attacks and blood clots. Another study found that females who transition to males have a greater risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes.

In 2018, the Annals of Internal Medicine published the results of a major study conducted by distinguished universities and research institutes on this subject. Those men who switched to female experienced rates of stroke that were "80 to 90 percent higher" than biological women.

Last month, the Mayo Clinic reported on several risk factors for males who transition to female. They include blood clots, high blood pressure, infertility, Type 2 Diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke and breast cancer.

It is a sure bet that the NCAA will distance itself from reports of serious health issues that arise from transgender athletes. They will claim they have nothing to do with them.

In March 2021, the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that male athletes who transition to female maintain their body mass and strength for up to three years, putting natural-born women at a major disadvantage. In other words, once the change takes place, biological women will be hamstrung for years.

Even if there weren't any serious side effects to sex transitioning, there is still the anti-Christian bias that is evident in the NCAA's policy.

For instance, states such as Mississippi, Tennessee, Idaho and Arkansas have banned transgender participation in women's sports, and all of them are overwhelmingly Christian. Is it by accident that none of them are allowed to host an NCAA championship contest? Or is it a direct consequence of the NCAA adopting the anti-Christian animus that colors the politics of the left?

The NCAA commitment to inclusion stops short when it comes to Christian schools. None of the 25 members of the Board of Governors hail from these states, and the two religious-affiliated board members—from Georgetown University and Hamline University—represent schools that are unabashedly "progressive," not orthodox.

In general, male athletes are faster and stronger than female athletes. That is why everything from pre-school athletics to the Olympics are sex segregated. Similarly, we have the Special Olympics for the disabled. There should also be a forum for transgender athletes, even if it is limited to regional competition.

The NCAA should stay out of politics, stay away from affirming sex transitioning, and stay clear of imposing punitive measures on Christian states and schools.

This week's Faith On Trial program

Supreme Court Coup: Exposing the Radical Plot to Overthrow Our Judicial System