I’m not a political person. I don’t saturate myself with Fox News or even subscribe to a newspaper. Admittedly, I’m more a bury-my-head-in-the-sand kind of person. It’s not something I’m proud of, it just is. I become anxious and depressed when I see how far we’ve fallen over the last several years. Of course, you don’t have to tune into the news to see this—just glance at the magazine covers at your local grocery store.
But when our rights as Christians are blatantly tromped upon, I take notice. In Greg Laurie’s Daily Devotion dated Saturday, September 21, he commented that what once was “freedom of religion” has become “freedom from religion.” This nation was built on Judeo-Christian values—it’s what made us a client nation, blessed by God. But now, at an alarming rate, every nuance of Christianity is being obliterated by a new religion—Tolerance. G.K. Chesterton said, “Tolerance is the virtue of the man without conviction.” Is that what this nation has become? A mass of people who stand for nothing?
When I taught middle school, one of the requirements for my eighth-grade students was to read The Diary of Anne Frank. Most of you have probably read it, or at the very least, heard of it. It was the diary of a young girl over the two year period when her family hid away in an attic to prevent being sent to a concentration camp during World War II. Anne and her family were Jewish.
In order for my students to grasp an understanding of what the Jews experienced, we did some background study. The Jews were tolerant of Hitler’s decrees because it was easier than fighting the Nazi’s. And really, I don’t believe they felt threatened in the beginning. So when asked to register their religion, they did so. Then little by little, their rights were stripped away from them until they were packed onto trains and hauled down to concentration camps like Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen and Dachau. By the time Hitler was defeated, he’d murdered over six million Jews.
We’re fortunate that it is not illegal to practice Christianity as it is in other countries. But little by little, the winds of change are occurring, just as it did for the Jews during World War II, and we’re tolerating it. We don’t bat an eye when same sex marriages are made legal—even when we, in this state, voted against it. We don’t think anything of it when our historic Day of Prayer is taken away by our president because he feels it discriminates against other religions. Yet, at the same time, we’re careful to not tromp on the religious rights of Muslims. Prayer has been taken from our schools, to the point that the Pledge of Allegiance has been altered to a previous version that didn’t use the phrase “one nation, under God.” We “tolerate” it because it’s not that big of a deal. And really what can we do?
But when I discovered that AB 1266 was passed, without our vote, to allow co-ed bathrooms in public schools, I thought I was going to throw up. Seriously? This is what it states: AB 1266 is a bill recently enacted by the California Legislature and signed by Governor Jerry Brown. The legislation creates the right of elementary and secondary school students to use sensitive sex-segregated school facilities such as showers, restrooms and locker rooms based on the student’s perceived gender identity rather than their actual sex. It’s the only legislation of this kind to have ever been enacted in the country.
So, although I am not political, I’m giving you the opportunity to help overturn this bill. There is only little more than a month left to get enough petitions signed. My husband and I signed ours last week and mailed it in. It’s a simple download of a one-page petition along with instructions. You have to be a registered voter, so if you’re not, maybe this is the time to become one. If we’re not voting, we certainly have no right to bemoan the state of our country.
I’m all for Jesus’ command to love. My former pastor used to say, “Hate the sin, but love the sinner.” There is a difference between loving our neighbor and tolerating the ever-increasing obliteration of God in this once great nation. The Israelites did the same and look where it got them?
