See LifeSiteNews for these disturbing stories from England, Brazil, and Germany. The criminalization of traditional values is happening just a bit faster there than here. But our federal and state "hate crimes" laws and their implementation plans are coming together in the U.S., while few pay attention.
"UK Regulations Barring Religious Schools from Teaching Against Homosexuality Approved"
and
"More Details on the Proposed Brazil Law to Jail Pastors who Preach Homosexual Activity is Sin"
and
"German Court Places Custody of Yet Another 5 Homeschooling Children with Government's Youth Office"
John Haskins comments on these stories:
LifeSiteNews reports that England has outlawed teaching against homosexuality in religious schools. Brazil may make criticism of homosexuality a criminal offence; conviction would result in prison sentences of between two and five years. Children are being stolen from their parents in Germany.
See the story on England (above): "The one thing the government doesn't want to see right now is priests and ministers in prison. That means they are going to start with schools or businesses. They've been pushing hard in education for years," Fr. Finigan said. Why is it that priests and ministers in prison is "the one thing the UK government doesn't want to see?" Because that is the one thing that could cause good to win over evil.
Do we have the leaders we need to prevent such things in this country? It doesn't seem so. You either have spiritual leaders who are more than willing to be arrested, beaten, impoverished and imprisoned for their faith and as an example to others, or you have no spiritual leadership at all. The big budgets, fancy cars, nice houses and everything else are not proof that God is blessing our pastors and "pro-family leaders." They are merely proof that we are the Church of Laodicea.
Why has Tony Perkins (Family Research Council), for example, never been arrested? Pat Robertson? James Dobson? Gary Bauer? If they haven't stood up, why should anyone else? Is there really still nothing worth getting arrested for?
Why has Jay Sekulow (American Center for Law & Justice) not accused judges of violating their oaths of office -- does he fear being sanctioned by the American Bar Association ? Why is it not common for prominent pro-family lawyers and law professors to speak publicly of the corrupt lawyers in the way that Christ descibed them in the Gospel of Luke? How is it possible for "pro-family" lawyers to lie about the constitutions they have sworn to defend? If the Founding Fathers or Martin Luther King, Jr. had used their methods, they would have achieved nothing. For too many "leaders," pro-family activism turns out over the long run to be just a career.
One day down the road it will occur to some people who should have seen it when it was happening: the criminalization of Christianity happened not in spite of our resistance, but because of what we thought was our "resistance." Our silly, half-hearted children's games created the moral vacuum needed to draw in the evil that is smothering the legal and cultural inheritance that we owe to our children. The criminalization of virtue was inevitable once we decided, unconsciously, to tolerate the counterfeit Christianity in us and around us.
