According to court documents, attorneys for The Pines Church in Hermon, Maine, say the local school board questioned the church on its beliefs about marriage, sex education, abortion, birth control access for youth, and conversion therapy before denying its request for a lease. “Access to a public facility was conditioned on theological agreement,” Advocates for Faith & Freedom said in a statement on its Facebook page. “‘Do your biblical beliefs align with the government’s’? That is a direct assault on the First Amendment and the free exercise of our faith.”

“No parent should be forced to lie to a vulnerable child about who they are, much less promote irreversible and life-altering procedures that don’t have any proven health benefits,” said Widmalm-Delphonse. “And, unfortunately, other loving families have been unable to open their homes to children in need just because of their Christian worldview. We commend Vermont for respecting the religious diversity of foster parents and ending its exclusionary policy that deprived children of opportunities to find loving homes.”

A Christian school and an educational choice organization are asking a U.S. district court to declare that Colorado’s ban on funding for religious education violates the United States Constitution. 

“For over 10 years, disability rights advocates, patients’ rights advocates, and representatives of various faith traditions banded together to stop the state of New York from passing the Orwellian legislation Gov. Kathy Hochul signed today,” the New York Alliance Against Assisted Suicide said in a Facebook post. “We fought hard, fought well, and fought for an honorable cause. While this stage of the legislative battle over assisted suicide did not end as we hoped, we are pleased to have substantially delayed the enactment of this lethal and insidious measure.”

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Cissie Graham-Lynch, who attended the oral arguments, commented: “This isn’t a political issue. This is a Genesis 1 issue.” The senior advisor for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association continued: “Regardless of what the Supreme Court decides, God’s Word is clear—men are men and women are women. And today I’m grateful, girls finally had their historic day in court to say just that.”

The rights now under threat—freedom of conscience, speech and worship—were birthed from the Christian conviction that every person first stands accountable to God, not the state. When the Christian conviction is removed, the secular state, which is never neutral, expands to fill the vacuum. Once Christ is no longer recognized as Lord over national life, political authority becomes absolute, and Christian dissent becomes suspect.

The Guidance On Constitutionally Protected Prayer And Religious Expression In Public Elementary And Secondary Schools, released Feb. 5, states that under recent Supreme Court rulings that interpreted First Amendment rights in schools, “all members of a public school community have a constitutional right to religious expression in public schools, including a right to engage in prayer.”

Influencing government for good on the basis of the wisdom found in God’s own words is a theme that runs through the entire Bible. Try to imagine what a nation and its government would be like if all Christian influence on government were suddenly removed—if all the churches and all the Christians in a society stopped seeking to have any kind of influence on laws or on government. Within a few years, most people would have no moral authority beyond that of individual human opinion. How could a nation find any moral guidance?

The recommendation, sent to ASPS’ 11,000 members on Feb. 3, urged surgeons to delay “gender-related breast/chest, genital, and facial surgery” until a patient is 19 years old, since “there is insufficient evidence demonstrating a favorable risk-benefit ratio for the pathway of gender-related endocrine and surgical interventions in children and adolescents.”

“It’s so hard to face that you are disfigured for life,” Varian said at the trial. “No amount of reconstruction is ever going to bring back what I lost.” The case could set a precedent for other individuals who underwent gender transitions and are seeking legal remedies, and doctors may adopt caution to avoid legal risks with malpractice.

“Being deprived of religious liberty involving worship is an irreparable harm. Coastal Family Church was unconstitutionally forced to choose between cancelling worship services or be in contempt of court. Every Sunday a church is forced to close its doors inflicts irreparable spiritual and constitutional injury on its congregation.” 

Sonja Shaw, Chino Valley Unified School board president who has fought Assembly Bill 1955 since its introduction, celebrated the announcement on social media, posting, “Children belong to families, not the state. God-given and constitutional rights are worth fighting for!!”

“Administrators will throw up roadblocks for pro-life clubs because they don’t want pro-life speech in schools, fearing that some may find it controversial,” Hawkins said in a press release. “Our petition will focus on an attempted ban on ‘political’ speech. Free speech rights you can’t use don’t exist. We are not going to forget about our students’ rights or ignore attempts to silence them, no matter how long it takes.”

“Now, we are grateful to the current administration for eliminating the remnants of this Biden-era abortion mandate by repealing it entirely. HHS’s decision will protect our former client and pharmacies around the country who are fully within their rights to decline to stock or dispense abortion drugs.”

Together, we’re standing up for our parental rights and our children’s privacy. And we hope and pray for a decision that will help a lot of other families in the future. That decision can’t come soon enough. Jeffco is failing to fulfill its responsibilities to families, parents, and teachers—and unfortunately, it’s our children who are paying the biggest price.