The outcome was predetermined, but it was still a little bit surprising.

The meeting began with an hour of public testimony, limited to one minute per speaker, and dominated by those opposed to the proposal targeting pregnancy centers.

Nevertheless, the King County Board of Health voted 10-1 to require “limited service pregnancy centers” to post notices in their facilities, in 48 point font in 10 different languages, that say “This facility is not a health care facility.”

Councilmember Kathy Lambert was the lone vote in opposition.

The purported reason for the regulations was to prevent delay in receiving pregnancy information that can have an adverse health impact on both the woman and the baby.

However, public testimony in support of the proposal was conspicuously devoid of anyone who claimed to have been deceived, delayed, or otherwise harmed by a pregnancy center.

That isn’t to say no one was there to support the regulation.

A small parade of interns from the far-left legal group Legal Voice had several bad things to say.  None of them, however, claimed any personal contact with the organizations, much less harm.

Legal Voice is the organization who sent fake clients into pregnancy centers under false pretenses.   Unsurprisingly, they reported that the centers were deceptive and dangerous.

The staff report prepared by the Board of Health that is frequently referred to as the justification for the rule relied entirely upon the Legal Voice report.

Kim Triller, executive director of Care Net of Puget Sound, told the board emphatically that the contents of the report were false, but the board seemed uninterested.

We are not aware of any attempt by the Board of Health to independently verify whether the accusations were true.

The vast majority of those who attended the hearing were opposed to the proposed regulation. No fewer than 10 women, who had personally been served by the pregnancy centers, described how the pregnancy centers served them.

Council members attempted to acknowledge the good work the centers were doing and repeatedly emphasized that this was not an attempt to shut down the centers.

Still, the political rather than policy motives were transparent.

While the committee claimed to have been working on the issue for more than a year, they appeared to have done little actual thinking about the rule itself.

For example, a significant amount of time was spent trying to figure out how many pieces of 8.5 x 11 paper were required to print the notice in 48 point font in ten different languages.   That fairly rudimentary conversation seemed to betray the fact that very little actual thinking had been done about the rule.

Five minutes before the passage of the regulations one member pointed out that requiring pregnancy centers to post the warning on internet advertising in ten different languages makes many forms of internet advertising illegal or impractical for pregnancy centers.

Imagine the impact of the following advertisement with a warning printed in 10 different languages.

Kinda takes away the impact, doesn’t it?  Well. That’s the point.

While the notice might actually fit on a banner of this size, it could be illegal for a pregnancy center to purchase a smaller advertisement because there wouldn’t be room for the notice.

That fact creates a significant constitutional problem for the rule.

The council, however, was now more than two hours into the meeting. They appeared to be losing interest in discussing the actual impact.

So they just passed it.

Constitutional concerns about the rule abound.  Additional free speech concerns include prohibitions on government forcing people to engage in “compelled speech”.   Additionally, the rules would not apply to centers that perform abortions.

Several federal courts have found similar regulations to be unconstitutional and an appeal of a similar regulation from California is on the Supreme Court’s conference schedule for September 25, 2017.  As a result, the Supreme Court may soon be speaking to this issue soon.

Constitutional issues aside, it remains unclear whether any centers in King County actually fall under the definition of a “limited service pregnancy center” according to the rule.

The definition of a “limited service pregnancy center” excludes “health care facilities… where licensed, certified, registered, or otherwise authorized health care providers conduct functions that make it governed by 70.02 RCW.”

Virtually every pro-life pregnancy center meets this definition of a “health care facility” and is therefore exempt.

It is possible that in their effort to appease the abortion lobby, the county has drawn a circle so small that no one is inside it.

If that’s the case, even abortion industry lackeys can’t help but wonder whether the inevitable legal costs to the county are worth the effort to regulate no one.

Regardless, you can be sure that groups like Planned Parenthood, Legal Voice, and the National Abortion Rights Action League will use these rules to harass pro-life facilities even if, in the end, the rule is found not to apply to them.

After all, that’s the entire point of the rule is harassment, isn’t it?

Those who receive political contributions helping those who make political contributions.

 

Proponents of genderless locker rooms, showers, and bathrooms have long used slogans like “free to pee” to minimize the issue.

“Who cares where people go to the bathroom?” No one.

“Are you going to have a genital monitor standing outside the door?”  Of course no one is interested in that.

They miss the point on purpose, most likely.

But a recent story out of Toronto highlights the real problem of creating a one-size-fits-all rule that applies to every situation regardless of how unique it is.

The Body Blitz Spa operates two facilities in Toronto.  This business is unique because it is a single-sex facility enjoyed in the nude.

A naked spa for women.

Apparently there are women who enjoy taking their clothes off with strangers and doing spa things.

To each her own, right?  No judgment here.

Even if this isn’t your particular cup of tea, it isn’t hard to imagine why someone who enjoys being naked in a spa exclusively for women might feel differently knowing that a man could waltz in at any time.

Well, this poor spa has the misfortune of being in a gender specific business in 2017.

In an attempt to acknowledge the tremendous confusion about gender while still being in business and honoring the needs of their clientele, they had adopted a no-penis rule.  Men who had undergone gender reassignment surgery would be allowed, but people with a penis (still known by virtually everyone as men) would not be allowed.

Naturally, the progressive mob was outraged.

How dare they try to reach a compromise that attempted to balance the needs of the supermajority of their clients as well as the handful of people who experience gender dysphoria.

Compromise is so kindergarten.

These snowflakes are in college now and in college we learned that some women have a penis and anyone who disagrees deserves to be burned at the stake.

So burn they will.

Metaphorically of course.

They started the obligatory boycott, which would be incomplete without its own hashtag.  #BoycottBodyBlitz

Their Facebook page is full of comments from people who have probably never been to the spa, and maybe have never been to the country, giving their two cents about how awful all the people involved are.

Standard fare.

Though this is happening in Canada, it’s instructive to those of us in Washington State.

Right now, Washington State has the same rule in place.  There are spas in Washington State that provide similar opportunities for women to enjoy spa treatments in the nude.  But presently, Washington State law makes those facilities legally liable if they attempt to stop me from walking in and taking my clothes off.

That’s unreasonable.

And only the most unreasonable among us are unable to see that.

Fortunately, there’s a solution. Initiative 1552 would eliminate the one-size-fits-all rule that currently applies to every public accommodation in the state and once again give businesses owners the freedom to create policies that consider everyone’s interests.

In addition, I-1552 would requires schools to maintain separate locker rooms, showers, and bathrooms for boys and girls.

There is only four weeks left to get the 330,000 signatures necessary to allow the voters to have a voice on this issue.

If you haven’t signed the petition,  click here to have a petition mailed to you , your friends, and family can sign the petition.  Then click here to make a contribution.

The thing is, there is middle ground in this debate.

I’m sure most of us can agree not to care where people go to the bathroom if the other side can agree to respect personal boundaries.

Sadly, that option wasn’t ever offered.

In one day we moved from, “Love can’t exist without boundaries” to “Boundaries are bigotry. Bigot.”

Which means we have to insist.  Politely but firmly.

It isn’t about someone being free to pee.

It’s about no one being free to make even simple decisions without consulting government first.

Share this with every business owner you know who doesn’t want to be sued for protecting the privacy of people in their business.

Then share it with every parent and grandparent who doesn’t want their 13-year old daughter or granddaughter forced to share a locker room with a boy who claims to be a girl.

Compassion does require you to care about other people’s kids. But it also requires you to care about your own.

I-1552 is your last chance to fix this in Washington State.  You have less than four weeks.

Or we can do nothing and watch businesses like the Body Blitz Spa shut down because people were afraid to defend sanity.

And while you’re at it, you might want to work on what you’ll say when your kindergartner comes home and tells you that some women have a penis.

 

Over the weekend I wrote about  new guidelines in Illinois disqualifying those who believe anatomy determines gender from being foster parents.

Apparently that’s the modern equivalent of being a flat-earther.

Well, it turns out Illinois isn’t the only one heading this direction.

The government of Ontario Canada recently passed Bill 89 which authorizes the government to remove children from the home of a caregiver if they feel gender is fixed. 

The money quote is from Michael Coteau, the Minister of Child and Family Services, who introduced the bill. “I would consider that a form of abuse, when a child identifies one way and a caregiver is saying no, you need to do this differently,” Coteau explained. “If it’s abuse, and if it’s within the definition, a child can be removed from that environment and placed into protection where the abuse stops.”

Set aside the absurd assertion that the truth about gender is abusive and consider the precedent being established and how it could affect you and your family, even if you aren’t foster parents.

The argument goes, “It is abusive to tell a child their anatomy determines their gender.  Therefore, children can be removed from the homes of caregivers who tell their children that.”

The obvious follow-up question is, “why would we tolerate abuse anywhere?”

If it is abusive, what sense does it make to allow biological parents to “abuse” their biological children?

The path from here to removing children from any home is very short.

There’s another layer to this Canada story, however, that places this in the category of “truth is stranger than fiction.”

In April of this year, foster parents in Ontario sued the Hamilton Children’s Aid Society for removing children from their home.

The parents claim the children were removed because they refused to tell the children that the Easter Bunny was real.   “We have a no-lying policy”, Derek Baars, the foster dad, told the National Post.  The Baars recounted a meeting with a social worker who told them they were required to affirm the existence of the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause to the children, 4 and 2, in their care. 

Mr. Baars said, “We said that we would neither confirm nor deny the existence of these two mythical creatures but were not prepared to lie.”

This seems too strange, even for progressives.

My suspicion is that the Baars refusal to affirm the existence of the Easter Bunny simply tipped the case worker off to the fact that this family is Christian, which is their real concern.

That being said, there is something oddly consistent about being required to deny the connection between biology while also being required to affirm the existence of the Easter Bunny.

For some, reality really is unimportant once they are convinced a fantasy will make their audience feel better.

 

Race matters.  Not in the sense that it makes people more or less valuable, but in the sense that income, health, marriage rates, crime, and educational achievement, and much, much more all have racial components.

However, you probably haven’t ever thought about the relationship between race and a church’s willingness to engage in “politic issues”.

I know I hadn’t.

Until very recently.

I find myself, once again, part of an effort (Initiative 1552, more information at www.JustWantPrivacy.org) to require schools to maintain separate locker rooms, showers, and bathrooms for student’s based on their sex. This is now a strangely controversial idea.

Washington State law currently says that students (and anyone else for that matter) have a legal right to access facilities based on the gender that they express or identify with.

A lot of us think this is a bad idea.

Within the church world, most people have an appreciation for the fact that God made people male and female, and while we can have compassion for the real distress people who experience gender dysphoria have, the best solution is not pretending that biology doesn’t matter.

As a result, most churches agree that your gender is something you are born with, not something you discover.

But you’d be surprised at how hard of a sell it is to ask a church to take what they know to be true and apply it in a tangible way. Particularly when it comes to “political issues”.

I put that term in quote because no issues are inherently political. All issues are ultimately about what is true or false, better or worse.  What we refer to as “politics” is simply a process for resolving those questions.  We have created a category of “political issues” that we have given ourselves permission to ignore, in some cases, as a way of avoiding the hard conversations.

“We can’t do that. We want to create a safe space for people to hear the gospel and those issues are divisive.”

“We don’t want to jeopardize our tax-exempt status.”

“That’s not our model of ministry.”

“We just preach Christ and Him crucified.  Politics is a distraction from what’s most important.”

Always followed immediately by, “But I want you to know I’m personally very supportive and so thankful you’re doing what you’re doing.”

In other words, “I hope we win, we just shouldn’t try very hard.”

There’s something unique about these arguments that didn’t dawn on me until recently.

There must be exceptions to this rule somewhere, but as far as I can tell, the only churches making these arguments are white, conservative churches.  Of course not every white, conservative church takes this position, but the ones that do have that in common.

Strange, isn’t it?

I have spent the last nine years living at the intersection of church and politics and interacted with hundreds of churches and pastors. Maybe thousands.

I have never heard an ethnic church of any kind, be it Russian, African American, Romanian, Chinese, Ukrainian, Korean, or Hispanic, make the argument that engagement on a political issue would be inappropriate in the same way I hear almost daily from white conservative churches.

Why? I can’t speak for other people, but I can speculate.

Many in Slavic and Chinese churches have personal experience with totalitarian forms of government and many saw their families punished because of their faith.

Maybe that’s why they are genuinely excited to use their influence to try to make their community a better place now that they finally have some.  I think they’d look at you funny if you said some version of, “you shouldn’t use it, you’re a church.  People might misunderstand.”

I’ve also never heard an African American church talk about the need to keep their faith-based convictions to themselves.  The heritage of so many black churches is one of fighting publicly for what is true, not despite their faith, but because of it.

I doubt the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would approve the message, “Don’t get involved.”

Hispanic churches do have hesitations with engaging in government, but not because they see it as in conflict with their primary mission.

Overtime, I had, without realizing it, developed an expectation that when I talk to an ethnic church I find support but when I talk to a white church I will find hesitation, if not opposition.

There are certainly exceptions to the latter, but none to the former.

Generally, ethnic churches are happy to help. Generally, white churches will either say no or send it to a committee.

Of course, not all white churches are opposed to political engagement.  Just conservative ones.

Progressive churches are downright enthusiastic about it.  In many cases, they advertise their political leanings and convictions about the day’s most controversial issues on signs and flag poles outside their churches in ways that would make even engaged conservative churches blush.

The next time I hear a progressive church talk about how important it is to keep their morality inside the four walls of their church will be the first.

In fact, the campaign to maintain unisex locker rooms in public schools, Washington Won’t Discriminate, was launched inside of a church with a cross as the backdrop in every picture.

Their current headline on their Facebook Page is “Washington Faith Leaders Say No On I-1552” with a picture and quote from a man in a collar headlining a public letter from a number of religious people talking about how discriminatory it is to suggest that someone with a penis not be allowed to undress in front of a 7 year-old girl.

If history is any indication, this campaign will feature far more “faith leaders” publicly opposing God’s understanding of sex and gender than supporting it.

That isn’t because faith leaders as a group have come to realize that God sometimes makes mistakes and puts people in the wrong body, but because on every issue in Washington State, progressive faith leaders are far more public about how their beliefs apply to cultural debates than those who believe the Bible.

That’s just the way it is.

And it’s not just a progressive church v. conservative church phenomenon.  Though that difference is stark. Within conservative churches, it is white churches v. everyone else.

Why?

I’m not sure I know the answer. But at this point, I’m awfully curious.

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If you and your church would like to participate in Signature Sunday on June 4^th to help I-1552 qualify for the ballot, you can do so by clicking here.