[Image: Dodo Goose, 2013, JA Van Devender]
Location: City Park, Halifax, NS, CA
(Eze 33:7 NKJ) " 7 "So you, son of man: I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore you shall hear a word from My mouth and warn them for Me."
I have no clue what type of goose this bird truly is, but it reminded me of dodo birds... and we all know what happened to them.
A similar danger is facing freedom in this country, and Christians in particular are at risk. It's time to wake up and face it.
A recent 9th Circuit Court of Appeals [see HERE] has ruled that the constitutional safeguards for freedom of speech do not extend to any kind of "conversion talk therapy" [a counselor's directed guidance to an individual seeking to influence them to resist same-sex impulses or inclinations]. This essentially means that the confidentiality and freedom of a counselor to express his or her own opinions and directions to a person subjected to same-sex attractions is subject to criminal or civil sanctions imposed by the state.
But it goes further than that. In a section directly aimed at parents, the court ruled:
"Fundamental rights of parents do not include the right to choose a specific type of provider for a specific medical or mental health treatment that the state has reasonably deemed harmful,"
Note carefully the implications of this statement. The sole arbiter of what constitutes "treatment" that is to be deemed harmful is that the state has "reasonably" declared it so. Who is to determine the criterion of "reasonability"? The state does, of course, silly dodo. This means that the authority of the state to restrict freedom of speech is simply without objective limits. It is not a large step at all for the state to deem religious catechism or religious schools as subject to these same legal liabilities if the state, in its own sovereign capacity, deems such practices "harmful."
Futher notice that this extends to the fundamental rights of parents. A parent does not have the right to require their child to submit to such "treatment." By implication this means that a parent, being an authority figure in the child's life, does not have the right to counsel their child either. Do not take refuge in the language "medical or mental health provider." It is just as much a case of murder for a private person to administer a syringe of deadly poison to someone as it is for a medical professional to do it. If it is "harmful" for a medical or mental health practitioner to seek to counsel a person away from immoral sexual practices, based entirely upon that individual's understanding of what constitutes immoral practices, then that same harm is being extended if anyone does it.
Parents no longer have primary responsibility for determining the moral framework for the upbringing of their child.
The implications are staggering.
If the privacy, confidentiality and freedom of the counselor is subject to legal sanctions, then what is to prevent those same sanctions being extended to authoritative proclamations from the pulpit... or opinions expressed in a blog... or subjecting a child to chatechism training (brain washing).... or the decision to send the child to a private religious school that teaches moral standards deemed harmful... or, horror of horrors, seeking to educate the child at home which is, of course, a form of child-abuse in and of itself.
There are simply no bounds on this basic idea. To the degree that this thinking becomes ingrained in our culture, once it is accepted that this is a legitimate exercise of authority by the government, there are no remaining barriers preventing absolute tyranny.
It's time for all us sleeping dodo birds to awaken The watchman soundeth.
The king of Babylon passed a law. Daniel went to his house, opened the windows, and blatantly, publicly defied it. This ruling needs to be resisted by every means available to Christian citizens. Every politician should be subjected to a litmus test with regard to its fundamental principle: do they support this ruling as a just limitation on free speech or not? No politician, no matter how otherwise attractive, should receive our vote if not willing to publicly and vigorously denounce it. No Christian parent should accept the state's authority to so rule or submit to it with regard to their child.
This ruling directly strikes at an essential tenet of the Christian religion... that the duty of the Christian citizen to obey the powers that God has set over him is only to the limit that to so obey would mean to disobey God. God is the ultimate lawgiver... and what He has declared clean no man is to call unclean. Conversely, that which He has declared unclean is unclean... period. There is no court of appeals beyond God and here we must stand or else authentic Christianity in this country will either be forced underground or will become extinct altogether.
OK, brother and sister geese, what shall we do?
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