In the recently completed legislative session, the Washington State legislature passed legislation making it professional misconduct for licensed therapists to provide “conversion therapy” to a minor.  As a result, a therapist may help a boy become a girl but may not help a boy identify as a man if he experiences gender dysphoria.  Similarly, they can help a child embrace same-sex attraction, but they are forbidden from telling a child it is possible to reduce or eliminate same-sex attraction,

The Washington State House of Representatives voted Wednesday afternoon to pass legislation banning “conversion therapy” for minors by a 66-32 margin. Sixteen Republicans joined every Democrat to pass it.

Proponents of the bill had long argued that it would protect children from torture that therapists would have used in an effort to make kids not be gay.

No mention was made of the fact that torture and coercion of any kind by a therapist are already professional misconduct.

This legislative session has seen a barrage of really harmful legislation be introduced and gain traction in the legislature.

Two bills, (HB 1523, and SB 6219) would force businesses, individuals, and possibly religious organizations to pay for contraception and/or abortion coverage despite religious and moral objections.

Another bill (SB 6037) would legalize surrogacy contracts in Washington State.  Mitsutoku Shigeta, a single man from Japan,

If you haven’t said it yourself, you’ve definitely heard someone say it.

We don’t get involved in “political issues”. Churches say this all the time.

For Americans, it’s a polite way of breaking up with a conversation we don’t want to have. “It’s not you, it’s me.”

But there’s one little problem with this argument, there’s no such thing as a “political issue.”

There are economic issues,

The Washington State legislature continues to prioritize a number of radical social policies in the 2018 legislative session.

Yesterday, the Senate passed SB 6037 legalizing contract surrogacy by a 27-21 vote margin. Several amendments were proposed but not adopted.  One amendment would have limited surrogacy contracts in Washington State to residents of Washington State.  This was an attempt to avoid challenges like those faced in Southeast Asia where the wealthy would fly in from all over the globe to take advantage of the surrogacy industry that developed there.

Many people have never heard of Senate Bill 6037 nor do they know what commercial surrogacy is, but this issue has become one of the most hotly debated bills so in Olympia this year.

While the bill is an overhaul of the States Uniform Parentage Act generally,  as we wrote about previously, the most contentious part is the provision that would remove the state’s current prohibition on commercial surrogacy contracts. 

Emerald City Metropolitan Community Church bills itself as “the original church for LGBTG+ people & allies in the Pacific Northwest.”  On their Facebook page yesterday, they posted something called “A Manifesto! The Time Has Come!” by Bishop John Shelby Spong who is a retired Bishop of the Episcopal Church.

It appears that it was written in 2009, but over the last decade, this sentiment has become increasingly pervasive among progressives generally, including those who identify as Christian.

Yesterday in Washington, DC, more than 100,000 people joined the annual March for Life calling for an end to abortion and legal protections for pre-born people.

Both President Trump and Vice-President Pence addressed the crowd.  It was the first time in the forty-five year history of the march that the President addressed it.

In recognition of the event, Congress voted on and passed the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.

The bill requires that any child born alive after a failed abortion be transported to a hospital and provides penalties to punish abortion providers who fail to give medical attention and care to these infants.