The California Legislature has left truth and reality. It’s as if Fantasyland moved from Disneyland up to Sacramento, as legislators attempt to remake the world according to their own imagination. Although there are many examples I could point to, let me just give you three.

Let’s pretend gender doesn’t matter.

Here’s what AB 1266 says:

A pupil shall be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.

So a boy, who wants to be a girl or who believes he is a girl, will be able to compete on a girl’s athletic team and use the girl’s bathrooms and locker rooms.  It doesn’t matter what the girls on the team think about changing in the locker room with a biological male.

The reality is that humans are born male or female. At birth we don’t “assign” sex to a child arbitrarily, as the analysis of this bill implies. We recognize the child’s sex – it is a physical reality. But in the world of this bill, that reality doesn’t matter. Like Cinderella in a fantasy world, a person may choose or change his sex, saying, “I can be whatever I want to be.”  

The bill has passed the Assembly and is moving toward passage in the Senate.

Let’s pretend there is no First Amendment.

SB 323 would punish non-profit groups – including “non-profit educational institutions” by taking away tax-exemptions if they “discriminate” on the basis of “gender identity” or “sexual orientation.” That means penalizing groups that uphold God’s design for sexuality, marriage and family.

The measure specifically lists groups like Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts, and it’s clear that the measure was designed to punish the Scouts and other groups that have Christian views about marriage and sexuality.  The bill would also impact faith-based schools.

Forget the First Amendment, with its guarantees of free speech, religion and assembly.  This bill has passed the Senate and is making its way through the Assembly.

Let’s pretend same-sex couples can get pregnant.

AB 460 is a bill in the California legislature that requires insurance companies, if they offer coverage for infertility, to provide it “without discrimination on the basis of age, ancestry, color, disability, domestic partner status, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, national origin, race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation.”

While the inclusion of “age” could also be a problem, it’s with the inclusion of “sexual orientation” that this piece of legislation enters the realm of unreality. The bill defines infertility two ways: it is the presence of a recognized condition or it is the inability to conceive after one year of regular sexual relations without contraception. So if a same-sex couple doesn’t get pregnant after a year of sexual relations, they would be eligible for insurance-paid fertility treatment.

The analysis provided by the assembly notes that insurance companies typically treat a couple as a “unit” when dealing with infertility. Perhaps that’s because the laws of nature and nature’s God decided that for the purposes of procreation, a man and a woman are required. As Robert P. George writes, our bodies are complete when it comes to all other biological functions, such as breathing and digestion, “But individual adults are naturally incomplete with respect to one biological function: sexual reproduction.”

Same-sex sexual activity is of a different kind than male-female sex, but the California Legislature chooses to ignore reality. The bill has already passed the Assembly and is moving forward in the Senate.

For more information on these bills, and other California legislative fantasies, check out California Family Alliance

The Parents Television Council (PTC), a media-watchdog group, opposes the Federal Communications Commission’s proposal to loosen its policy against radio and T.V. indecency (obscene speech and nudity). The PTC is making its opposition known to the FCC during a public comment period, which end June 19, 2013. They encourage parents to send comments to the FCC on this subject, as well.

According to PornHarms.com, Tim Winter, the president of PTC, commented:

“It unnecessarily weakens a decency law that withstood a ferocious, 10-year constitutional attack waged by the broadcast industry. It invites yet another wave of special interest pressure to obviate the intent of Congress and the will of the American people,” Winter said.

“… Either material is legally indecent or it is not,” Winter said. “It is unnecessary for indecent content to be repeated many times in order to be actionable, and it is unwise for the FCC to pursue a new course which will guarantee nothing but a new rash of new litigation.”

Read more about the FCC proposal from The Hill.

Lowering broadcasting decency standards to reduce the FCC workload seems to be an irresponsible policy proposal that ignores a growing and persistent problem. Giving license to more indecency invites further corrosion of our nation’s character with far-reaching, negative implications for many generations to come. This appears to be an unwise direction to move obscenity laws, when clarification and enforcement of existing laws could begin to reign in broadcast indecency.

If obscenity laws are softened, it will only allow obscene broadcasting – and the subsequent FCC workload – to expand; meanwhile, more families and individuals will be exposed to more profane language and sexually explicit material within the media.

How do you feel about the FCC proposal to allow more ‘legal’ obscenity?

Citizens care and parents are Upset about the FCC proposal

View the public notice for comment here …

• See actual comments to the FCC on GN Docket No. 13-86

• As of May 15, 2013, there were 94,428 total filings (comments submitted), with 27,014 filings or comments submitted in the past 30 days.

How can you submit or file a public comment to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)?

1) Briefly, write and save your comments on your own computer as a Word file or other common file.

(Sample FCC Comment Only, which you can modify with your own language.)

2) Go to the FCC public comment site:  http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/upload/display?z=dyh3l

• In the Proceeding Box, enter:  13-86
• In the Details Box:  Select “Comment” (in drop box)
• In the Documents Box, you can “Browse” your PC, and Select the file where you wrote your comment.

Deadline: June 19, 2013 (posted here …)

Dig Deeper …

• Plugged In – Focus on the Family website for Movies/Music/Videos/TV/Games – Reviews for “Family Friendliness”
• MyRockToday.org – Research on pornography and obscenity
• PureIntimacy.org – Focus on the Family resource for issues regarding sexuality and porn addiction
• PTC ndecency Timeline from 1934 to Present
• PTC Family Guide to Television
• PTC Facts and TV Statistics

Actually, Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, the founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), uses some form of the word “monster” to describe Christians 12 times in this diatribe. Now to be fair, Weinstein is only talking about “fundamentalist Christian monsters,”  whoever those are. But since he mentions Focus on the Family’s founder, Dr. James Dobson, then that pretty much brings all evangelicals within the “monstrous” realm of Mikey’s imagination.

Weinstein, a former military lawyer, has managed to find a Christian cabal behind much of what goes on at our nearby neighbor here in Colorado Springs, the United States Air Force Academy, from which he graduated, as well as at the Pentagon and other military installations. And he doesn’t take kindly to chaplains talking about Jesus Christ to the military personnel who seek spiritual advice from them. He has whipped up some special venom for organizations that support chaplains’ religious rights, such as the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, the Chaplains Alliance for Religious Liberty, and Todd Starnes, the religion reporter for Fox News:

“If these fundamentalist Christian monsters of human degradation, marginalization, humiliation and tyranny cannot broker or barter your acceptance of their putrid theology, then they crave for your universal silence in the face of their rapacious reign of theocratic terror. Indeed, they ceaselessly lust, ache, and pine for you to do absolutely nothing to thwart their oppression. Comply, my friends, and you, too, become as monstrously savage as are they. I beg you, do not feed these hideous monsters with your stoic lethargy, callousness and neutrality. Do not lubricate the path of their racism, bigotry, and prejudice. Doing so directly threatens the national security of our beautiful nation.”

He also says that sharing Christ with those in the armed forces amounts to “spiritual rape,” “sedition,” “treason,” and “a national security threat.” C’mon, Mikey, tell us what you really think.

Ordinarily, we would ignore Weinstein’s latest slander. Everyone’s entitled to their point of view, after all. But he recently met with Pentagon generals to offer his own unique perspective on the military’s policy regarding religious freedom. And if the generals are listening to this guy, then there’s cause to be gravely concerned for the future of religious freedom in the ranks.

The Pentagon says that a new pamphlet outlining its religious free exercise rules for the military is due out in a few weeks. Let’s hope it contains no back-tracking on its policies for our chaplains and troops.

Because that, my friends, would truly be “monstrous.”