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In a major victory for religious congregations, delivered late on Thanksgiving Eve, the United States Supreme Court blocked the state of New York from implementing gathering restrictions that the Court ruled discriminate against religious congregations. The post Court blocks New York Governor's COVID Restrictions on Religious Congregations appeared first on ReligiousLiberty.TV / Founders' First Freedom®. View the full article

I clicked on the link in the opening post. MY quote, below, is critical to understanding the proposed legislation. In order to be convicted the following would both have to be proved: * That an attempt was made to change gender identity. This is not attempting to promote a celibate lifestyle. * That the attempt caused serious injury. Absent serious injury, the law would not be violated.

This type of legislation has been enacted into law in many places to include in some parts of the United States. It is a misunderstanding to state that these laws prohibit the conversion of LGBTQ people to Christianity, they do not. In the above post, notice the phrase "conversion therapy." This phrase references professional clinical care., as would be practiced in psychology and psychiatry. As it relates to clinical care, it references a type of therapy that attempts to convert one from a homosexual to a heterosexual. As professional clinical care it uses clinical terms that have standard meanings. This is important because the word "homosexual" is often understood by common people that differs from the meaning attributed to if in clinical practice. Common people often understand the word "homosexual" to relate to sexual practice. With this understanding there is no such thing as a celibate homosexual, as a celibate person in no longer a homosexual. In clinical practice homosexuality is defined by one's preference for sexual partners. IOW, if one prefers a sexual partner of the same gender, one is a homosexual. If one prefers a sexual partner of a different gender, one is not a homosexual. Clinical practice agrees that one can chose to be celibate. But, clinical practice believes that true sexual preference is fixed for life and can not be changed. It also believes that attempts to change one's preference typically is harmful and dangerous. Therefore society has often passed laws that prohibit the attempts of clinicians to change one's sexual preference. In the spirit of openness: As clinician, I once, in a period that lasted for a year, was part of a clinical team that provided clinical care to HIV Infected people. Most of those people were adult male homosexuals. a few were not. Included in that group were several Seventh-day Adventist homosexuals, to include ones who were celibate. But, all of those celibate persons considered themselves to be homosexuals. None of them believed that they had converted to heterosexual. Also, note, my comments above are a very brief statement of issues. An expanded statement would have allowed me to give greater clarity to issues on which I have only made a brief comment. One of those areas, to which I did not comment, involves differences between the LGBTQ individuals. So, please consider my comments to be a very generalized statement.

Just a thought........ Did Jesus discriminate? Or did he pass on his message to all sorts of people and then let them decide for themselves?

✨promise ✨ I will answer answer ? : I will hear ???? Isaiah 65:24 And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.

I have to confess being uncomfortable with her. I don't know if she knows the difference between being a Catholic supporter of Donald Trump supreme court justice, and being a United States of America Supreme Court Justice who happens to have been named to the court by Trump and a member of the Catholic church. And I'm uncomfortable about the lack of response by some of our members as pointed out in this article. It makes me worry that they are seeing conservative Christianity and headship theology as the seal of God and other forms of Christianity the mark of the beast. One month this summer my TV had a free month of the Smithsonian Channel. One of their programs was flyovers of different states. The one on Maryland had something that I found very eye-opening. They showed the first settlement of Maryland, that started out as a Catholic state. Yet, they had something surprisingly American: The first settlement had the government buildings on one side of town and the church (Catholic of course) on the complete opposite side of town. Good for them!!! I wish that people going into Politics and public service would read what Roger Williams and William Penn said about religious freedom, and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. And, not in a anti-Catholic way, but looking for the principles of liberty of conscience vs. state supported religion in Mrs. White's writings, and what John Kennedy said about the difference between being a Catholic President of the United States, and a President of the United States who happened to be a Catholic. And a visit to that first settlement of Maryland would also be useful. I'm glad that we publish "Liberty" that many of those in public office get a subscription to. Sadly, we are in danger of loosing this heritage. Too often we are finding people in politics who are either trying to push the religions of conservative Christianity and others pushing the religion of secular humanism. As I understand Williams, Penn, Jefferson, Madison, White and Kennedy is that the US should be an open market place for religion and people choose what makes sense to them. Sometimes you hear Catholic bishops demanding their politicians to push religious laws or that they should not be able to receive the emblems. We need to hold on to our heritage of true freedom of religion. The above listed sources must not be forgotten. Let us pray for justice Barrett. I'm just scared at her background and that President Trump was looking for a justice that would use her position to push her religious views and side with President Trump. But hopefully she will at least read "Liberty" and learn the difference between a Catholic, Donald Trump supporter Supreme Court Justice and a Supreme Court Justice who happens to be a Catholic and happened to have been named to the court by Donald Trump.