Breakpoint

The U.S. Department of Education is changing the rules again, and, again, forcing teachers into situations they may not be prepared for. On June 23, the feds announced that, going forward, gender identity would be included in protected classes under Title IX. Between the efforts of federal officials implementing the latest executive orders and the activism of LGBTQ advocacy groups, school administrators struggle to keep up. Too often they end up caving to these outsiders by crafting new rules of dubious legality. Even though some of these bureaucratic diktats have been successfully challenged in court, those most affected, like teachers and students, don't always know their rights when faced with this top-down pressure. If you find yourself in that position, here are two groups you might want to contact. First, there's our longtime partner organization, the Alliance Defending Freedom, who will protect teachers of conscience. Second, there's the Colson Center's education initiative that trains teachers to know where and how to stand on these very important issues.

After nearly 50 years of waiting, working, praying, and weeping, a moment longed for by millions around the nation and around the world has arrived. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned, not only the heinous 1973 Supreme Court decision known as Roe v. Wade, but also the equally flawed decision from 1992, Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the Supreme Court found that these earlier cases, the foundation of so-called abortion rights for a half-century, were without legal merit. Therefore, the final ruling was as follows: "The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives." To be clear, this ruling doesn't end abortion in America, nor does it legally ban abortion. It means that state-level restrictions on abortion are not immediately invalidated by Supreme Court decisions that even honest pro-abortion legal theorists have recognized as poorly decided. It means that the work to see abortion swept into the same dustbin as other historic evils can now proceed legally unencumbered as it has long been. The next milestones are that abortion is made illegal in as many places as possible and, eventually, as unthinkable as slavery is. Already, state officials have begun working to outlaw or dramatically restrict abortion in their states. Ohio's attorney general has moved to revive its "heartbeat bill," abortion will be illegal in Tennessee within a month, and Missouri has effectively ended the vile practice already. Much has begun, with many areas already prepared to enact similar pro-life laws, and much more remains to be done. The Dobbs ruling is not a surprise. The final draft of the majority opinion was virtually unchanged from an earlier draft leaked back in May. Not only did Justice Alito, who authored the opinion, conclude that a Mississippi abortion restriction could stand, but also that Roe and Casey were promulgated without any constitutional or historical precedent, that the so-called viability argument was inadequate, and that decisions about regulating abortion should return to voters and their elected officials. Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan co-authored a dissent, which (I suspect) will be quoted far more often than the majority opinion by most media outlets, especially this line: "With sorrow—for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent," wrote the justices. The main difference between the leaked draft of the opinion and the final version is must-read material for everyone. In four pages, beginning on page 35 of his opinion, Justice Alito absolutely dismantles the dissent. "The dissent," writes Alito, "does not identify any pre-Roe authority that supports such a right—no state constitutional provision or statute, no federal or state judicial precedent, not even a scholarly treatise." Or again, Like the infamous decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, Roe was also egregiously wrong and on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided. Casey perpetuated its errors, calling both sides of the national controversy to resolve their debate, but in doing so, Casey necessarily declared a winning side. Those on the losing side—those who sought to advance the State's interest in fetal life—could no longer seek to persuade their elected representatives to adopt policies consistent with their views. Of course, many are outraged by this decision. Women's March President Rachel Carmona already declared a "summer of rage." In recent weeks, there have been acts of arson and vandalism, threats of violence against pro-life leaders and conservative justices, all with promise of more to come. In mid-June, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York and Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore released a statement asking "our elected officials to take a strong stand against this violence, and our law enforcement authorities to increase their vigilance in protecting those who are in increased danger." According to Lila Rose of Live Action, the Department of Homeland Security has warned churches and other pro-life organizations to be prepared for "extreme violence" coming from pro-abortion agitators. Today, it is right to celebrate a long-awaited and hard-earned victory in the fight to protect pre-born lives, with thanks to God. We thank God for this cultural grace. We thank Him for the Roman Catholics who called out this evil when many Protestants took refuge in moral ambiguity, and for courageous Protestants like Francis Schaeffer who called evangelicals out of their moral slumber on abortion. We thank God for all who spoke for life, signed petitions, attended rallies, crafted legislation, were spat upon and yelled at by those for whom Roe was a sacrament, not of life but of death. We thank God for the many people, mostly women, who have showed up every day for women and their children at churches, pregnancy resource centers, living rooms, and elsewhere to show compassion and speak life. There've been times in the last 50 years when many assumed we'd never see the end of Roe. I confess to being among those skeptics. Today, a colleague reminded us of a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem, and now Christmas carol, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day": Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men." The Colson Center has compiled many resources to help prepare the Church for a post-Roe world. You can find them here and here. Also, in July, we'll be making available Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis' book Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing. Because although today we celebrate with thanksgiving to God, tomorrow we get back to work... until abortion is not only illegal but also unthinkable.

While Maria's out for the day, John and Shane swivel to discuss the breaking news of the reversal of Roe v. Wade after the Supreme Court announced the Dobbs decision. Reading through the ruling in real time, John points out that Roe was never constitutional. Because Shane just had an opportunity to interview Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis on their new book Tearing Us Apart, he talks about how abortion harms not only preborn children but entire cultural systems. As John and Shane close, they reflect on the disembodiment of not only abortion but also of the message conveyed about a married lesbian couple in Disney's new Pixar film: Lightyear. And yet, recent research has once again shown that fathers are irreplaceable.

Given the amount of attention the issue gets, it's easy to yield to a so-called "inevitability thesis" when it comes to transgender ideology, that it's just a matter of time before everyone is on board. A recent story aired for pride month highlighted the story of two parents who chose to raise their biologically female daughter as a transgender boy. "Before Ryland could even speak," the anchor narrates, "he managed to tell his parents that he is a boy." But, the piece continues, "unlike some trans kids, when Ryland came out at the age of five a few years later, he had the full support of his parents." This story was carried by Fox News, the so-called "conservative" news outlet. Saying, with a straight face, that a child as young as five could somehow "come out" to her parents before she "can even speak," tells us next to nothing about the child. It does, however, speak volumes about the parents, as well as the sad state of a culture that does not allow a story like that to be scrutinized. We're never told, for example, how Ryland somehow "knew" she was a boy as a baby. Now that Ryland's 14, we are not told the plan for puberty, or beyond. Will chemicals be administered to block puberty? Will destructive and irreversible surgeries enable her family to maintain the charade? Fox's segment is the same paper-thin propaganda we've come to expect from other outlets, promoting a dangerous and unprecedented idea while inferring that anyone not on board simply doesn't have enough love in their hearts. The reality, of course, is different. Across the country, thousands of young people are being permanently marked by physical and psychological damage. In fact, some are now expressing deep regret, and their stories are coming to light. Journalist Laura Dodsworth recently published a piece at the U.K.'s The Critic titled "The False Euphoria of Dysphoria." It's worth quoting at length: I photographed and interviewed women [ who] thought they were transgender, had "top surgery", then went on to change their mind and detransition. But although they reverted their names, pronouns and passports, flesh cannot be returned after a double mastectomy. The effects of testosterone cannot be undone, nor the removal of the uterus and ovaries, which some of these detransitioners also had, leaving them sterile, on hormone replacement therapy for life, and traumatized. Dodsworth describes how one young woman, Lucy, who, struggling with anorexia and body dysmorphia, was quickly prescribed gender reassignment surgery as treatment: "At the age of just 23, she could not comprehend how doctors could remove her breasts, uterus and ovaries. 'I feel mutilated,' she said." Another young woman, Susanna, described how her dysphoria grew from the scars of unaddressed sexual abuse: "For me, transition was a kind of self-harm. I was trying to destroy the person I was." Still another young woman, Sinead, wishes she could have received real help instead of a quick fix: I've tried to talk about background issues with therapists. … Actually, I think my gender issues came out of mental health, not the other way around. … For the rest of my life I will always be bewildered that this was allowed to happen. I was dealing with unaddressed trauma from sexual abuse. I needed therapy and help, not a bilateral mastectomy. The conclusion, according to Dodsworth, is simple. Listen to the stories of those who have detransitioned. Women's sports, prisons, even the basic question of what a woman is, have become a uniquely modern battlefield. Detransitioners bear the literal scars of this battle. ... The problem is that young people are affirmed and groomed before the first doctor's appointment by euphoric and unbalanced content on social media. One trans man's pure joy may be another woman's pure regret. The stories Dodsworth tells are just some of the stories now emerging from young people dealing with incredible regret. Figures like Helena Kerschner or Scott Newgent, and hundreds of others on blogs, Twitter threads, and Reddit posts are telling the sobering truth about what trans ideology cost them. What this means for Christians is that we must not buy into any "inevitability thesis" when it comes to trans ideology. We aren't on the wrong side of history, or of our religious beliefs, or of love. The number of detransition stories coming out of the U.K. are a good example that, if anything, America is out of step with much of the rest of the world, who are currently applying the brakes to "gender transitioning" therapies for minors. Also, Christians must give up, once and for all, a foolish and dangerous position of neutrality on this issue. Most damning of all is the claim that to not oppose the destructive gender ideologies of our culture is somehow "the loving thing to do." Too many stories of regret and permanent damage have already emerged. More are told every day. We can never again say that we didn't know. Creating space for these stories to be shared is a powerful way to combine truth with compassion. Ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have victims. In our cultural moment, the victims are not supposed to exist. But they do, and if we can share their burden or prevent the pain of even one other, we must.

"Perhaps it's the clarity that comes from enduring a difficult period, but I've noticed, in myself and others, a diminishing tolerance for uncomfortable or unfulfilling social interactions," Melissa Kirsch recently wrote in The New York Times. Reflecting on the impacts of the pandemic, Kirsch repeated what has become cultural orthodoxy: If certain relationships are a drag on your health, time, happiness, or resources, ditch them. Of course, Scripture says that "bad company corrupts good morals." But it also says to "bear one another's burdens" and to not only "love our neighbor" but also our enemies. In other words, friendships are so fragile today because our modern notions of friendship get it almost exactly backwards. Selfish instead of self-giving, the character ingredients a friendship needs in order to survive are incredibly rare: humility, patience with the faults of others, a willingness to laugh at ourselves. G.K. Chesterton put it this way: "Sociability, like all good things, is full of discomforts, dangers, and renunciations." Real friendship just isn't for the self-interested. That's why it's rare. That's also why it's worth it.

This month, Colorado became the first state to officially ban anonymous sperm and egg donation. The law also gives those conceived through anonymous donation the right to seek out their biological parents at 18. This is a win for reproductive ethics and for children. As Katy Faust at Them Before Us puts it, every child has the right to the love of their biological mom and dad, and that relationship matters throughout development. On average, kids raised by their married biological parents do better on every economic, social, and emotional metric. And many children of our technologies struggle with identity, too. Left with the anguish of a missing or ambiguous parent, they wonder, Who am I? Where do I come from? Was I wanted? In sperm donation, especially anonymous sperm donation, this lack of knowledge is by design. It's a feature of sperm donation, not a glitch, treating children as products ordered by adults, sometimes even with specifications. The children's wellbeing is, at best, secondary. Colorado has long been a disaster on reproductive ethics, but this was the right call. We can hope other states will follow suit.

To repeat something said on Breakpoint last month, kids deserve better books than the ones currently being written for them. Too many children's books today are activist books, not really written to kids (and certainly not for them) but to and for grown-ups who want to be the kind of parents who would give this kind of book to their kids. I must admit, however, that I recently received an "activist" kid book that I really like, and so does my son. It's age appropriate, written to kids, and designed to help them think well about something that they, sadly, need to understand. Pro-Life Kids is authored by Bethany Bomberger. She and her husband Ryan, who recently spoke at the 2022 Wilberforce Weekend, are committed pro-lifers, creatives, and Christians. An experienced educator and mom, Bethany understands where kids are developmentally. Pro-Life Kids teaches them what's most true about themselves and others, that every person is made in the image and likeness of God, and introduces them to an issue that's really difficult to talk about—abortion—in an appropriate and engaging way. And, of course, it rhymes! Here's a sample: Sadly, there are those who don't understand … that life has purpose whether planned or unplanned. Throughout history many believed a lie. "You're not a person!" "No way!" they cried. Today many think that lie is still true— that babies in wombs aren't people too. Abortion is when some say it's okay to take that baby's precious life away.* The illustrations are instructive, but also appropriate. For example, the image on the page that introduces abortion is of an ambulance leaving an abortion clinic. And, my favorite page spread shows the value of every human life with a charming set of illustrations sharing the stages of development from baby to elderly, including people of multiple races, male and female, abled and disabled. Near the end is an elderly woman with gray hair and a walker. After the book's main text, there are tips on how kids can stand for life at any age, contained in 15 colorful text blocks. Suggestions include everything from loving their adoptive siblings, to praying outside abortion centers, to marching in D.C., to writing an essay about being pro-life, to showing their friends this book. Bethany Bomberger and her husband Ryan lead the Radiance Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to "create a culture that believes every human life has purpose." They've raised millions for pregnancy resource centers, and they have a special stake in their cause. Ryan was conceived through rape, but his mom was courageous enough to proceed with his pregnancy. He was adopted into a loving, diverse family of 15. Bethany was a single mom who chose to have her baby after seeing an ultrasound of her daughter and encountering Psalm 34:5: "Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed." That verse has been the basis of the Radiance Foundation since its founding. Ryan and Bethany have also adopted two children. In fact, one of the most compelling illustrations in Pro-Life Kids is of their own diverse family. Bethany's story will be featured on the Colson Center's Strong Women podcast in August, and Ryan's message from our "Life Redeemed" Wilberforce Weekend can be heard online right now. In it, Ryan calls himself a "factivist," instead of an activist. According to Ryan, many people act without facts, but factivists act with facts. They know that truth is unchanging because God is eternal. His message includes how to identify the lies of secularism "when it comes to human value." Bethany has a baby book version coming out soon and is launching an initiative called Put It on the Shelf, aimed at getting her book on library shelves to counter the "massive influx of books with destructive ideologies." In fact, when you order a copy of Pro-Life Kids, pick up an extra copy to donate to the library. It's a way of living out something the book says quite clearly, "Like many before us who stood for what's right, we'll never give up as we fight for life." To hear Ryan's message, and also messages of others, such as Os Guinness, Nancy Guthrie, and Rachel Gilson, go to WilberforceWeekend.org. And check out Bethany's book Pro-Life Kids. I believe it's another way, paraphrasing Psalm 145:4, for one generation to commend God's works to another. *Excerpt used with permission.

According to a recent WORLD magazine opinion piece, "a massive trove of documentary evidence" was released this month, detailing in concrete terms China's brutality towards minority groups. "The files include photographs of detainees (including children), flamboyant speeches by senior Communist Party officials, police and military reports, and training documents," Eric Patterson, the executive vice president of the Religious Freedom Institute, described. "They expose the precision of China's genocidal policies toward Muslim Uyghurs." Drawn from leaked police reports, this evidence leaves little room for China's leaders to deny their atrocities. Despite official claims, this is not a matter of Chinese national security, and China's leaders are not impartial observers. They are orchestrating the process. A quote attributed to Greek tragedian Aeschylus states that "in war, truth is the first casualty." Whether an actual war with China is in the cards, we are the middles of what Patterson calls "a war of ideas and a war on how international affairs will be conducted." In such war, truth is on the front lines, and it must be told.

Back in 2017, with a 7-2 majority vote, the Supreme Court ruled that denying a church "an otherwise available public benefit on account of its religious status" amounts to violating the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution. In that case, known as Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer, a Missouri church that operated a licensed pre-school and day-care facility applied for funding from a state program that offered "funds for qualifying organizations to purchase recycled tires to resurface playgrounds." Though Trinity Lutheran met all of the qualifications of the program, the state of Missouri informed them that a grant would violate a provision in the state constitution that "no money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, section or denomination of religion." That provision was one of 36 so-called "Blaine Amendments" in state constitutions, amendments originally aimed at Catholic schools and born of the now-incredible belief that public schools were a principal instrument in safeguarding America's Protestant Christian character. Trinity Lutheran sued the state, claiming that because of the Free Exercise clause in the First Amendment, a government benefit available to some organizations cannot be withheld from others solely because of religion. Remember, the First Amendment reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Trinity Lutheran argued the "prohibiting the free exercise thereof" part. The state emphasized the "establishment of religion" part. In his majority decision, Chief Justice Roberts came down squarely on the side of Trinity Lutheran, chiding Missouri for forcing the church to choose between whether to "participate in an otherwise available benefit program or remain a religious institution." The right to be a church, he said, should not come "at the cost of automatic and absolute exclusion from the benefits of a public program for which the Center is otherwise fully qualified." The Missouri law could only be justified if it served some compelling governmental interest in the least restrictive manner, a standard the state of Missouri failed to meet. So, Justice Roberts concluded, "the exclusion of Trinity Lutheran from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution all the same, and cannot stand." Then, in 2020, the Chief Justice authored another similarly blunt and straightforward opinion in Espinoza vs. Montana Department of Revenue. In that case, decided by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court held that a state tax credit, in which Montana awarded a dollar-for-dollar tax credit to individuals who donated to organizations that provide scholarships for private school students, could not "[discriminate] against religious schools and the families whose children attend or hope to attend them." After creating the program, the Montana Department of Revenue had ruled that such a tax credit, if used to fund to religious private schools, would violate that state's version of the "Blaine Amendment." Kendra Espinoza, a single mom who hoped to send her kids to a Christian school, challenged the Department of Revenue ruling in court. In late 2018, the Montana Supreme Court acknowledged that the Department's ruling ran afoul of the U.S. Constitution's Free Exercise Clause. Instead of overturning the ruling, however, it invalidated the entire program. In his opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts referenced his earlier Trinity Lutheran opinion, stating that Montana lacked a "compelling government interest" in discriminating against religious schools and that religion is not a secondary part of the First Amendment. Roberts continued, the attempt to invalidate the whole program did not change Montana's "error of federal law." Because of the Trinity Lutheran decision, the Montana Court knew the Department's ruling was unconstitutional. However, instead of applying the decision as it should have, it invalidated the whole program "to make absolutely sure that religious schools received no aid." That action in itself violated the Free Exercise Clause, said Roberts: "A State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious." In summary, the Court has been more than clear on the rights of religious institutions. That, however, did not stop the state of Maine from continuing to discriminate against religious schools in their state funding program. Once again, the Court in an opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, said "no." Under a Maine program that provides tuition assistance for parents who live in school districts without a secondary school, parents "designate the secondary school they would like their child to attend, and the school district transmits payments." That includes private schools, as long as they are accredited, but, since 1981, not "sectarian" schools. If these facts of the Carson v. Makin case sound somewhat familiar, they also did to the Chief Justice. And so, in an opinion released yesterday announcing a 6-3 decision against the state of Maine, the Chief Justice stated bluntly, "The principles in Trinity Lutheran and Espinoza suffice to resolve this case," and that the state's "'nonsectarian' requirement for its otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment." It's another win for religious liberty, at least the religious liberty of religious institutions. Once again, the Court and its Chief Justice John Roberts have been crystal clear: The state need not, and indeed must not, sacrifice the Free Exercise clause on the altar of the Establishment clause.

As University of Tennessee professor James Tucker writes, "The deterioration of reading achievement in the United States has been noted for decades, and the many attempts to correct this decay have been unsuccessful." He then quotes a sobering statistic: "At least "44 million adults [in the United States] are now unable to read a simple story to their children." The question is, why? Obvious factors include poverty, technology and education, but so are our ideas about what literacy is for. We've largely rejected the great books of the past, preferring subjective and personal experiences to universal truths. So why study? Also, today's emphasis on race, politics, and sexuality in education has transformed literacy from a gift, into more of a weapon. Simply put, literacy cannot be ideologically neutral. It's not just about that we read or even what we read. It's also about why. Consider William Tyndale who rightly sensed all people should be able to read Scripture. He believed that "the boy that drives the plow" could be more knowledgeable of Scripture than the Latin-speaking elite. Words are powerful. And that's why literacy matters.