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FPIW to Host “Family Issues in a Trump Administration” Event in Spokane

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After such a tumultuous election FPIW has been asked, “What happened and where do we go from here?”

Join us on December 20th, at 6:30pm, for our “Family Issues in a Trump Administration” forum at the RL Red Lion at the Park Hotel in Spokane.

At this special event, we’ll talk about the national implications of the recent elections, including what Congress is expected to do, appointments and judicial vacancies we expect to see filled, and the direction of the nation as a whole. We’ll also address the impacts the recent elections had on our state government and preview the legislative session in Olympia.

Perhaps most importantly, we’ll get you equipped to plug in and make a difference.

What’s Next for the Abortion Industry?

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Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry are facing some major challenges after the November election, including the revelation that groups in several states, including the University of Washington, have indeed been profiting from the sale of fetal body parts.

Listen to today’s podcast here:

Why Washington State Didn’t Follow America’s Lead

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Following this week’s elections, FPIW’s Joseph Backholm, Zach Freeman, and Chris Plante sat down to talk about why Washington State’s elections didn’t go as well for conservatives as other elections did nationally.

It all comes down to one thing: high voter turnout in Western Washington, and low voter turnout in Central and Eastern Washington. Listen here:

Target, We Told You So

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Last week, a “trans woman” — a biological man named Sean Smith — pled guilty in an Idaho court to one felony count of voyeurism after he was caught taking photos of a woman in a Target changing room.

Together, we warned Target that their attempt to be progressive was a terrible, horrible, no-good idea that would result in violations of privacy and safety.  We warned that people with bad motives would take advantage of this bad policy.

But Target pushed on anyway, and now they get to taste the bitterness of being wrong along with the pain of permanently losing over 1.4 million customers. On April 19th, the day before the AFA Target boycott petition was launched, Target’s stock price was $83.98.  And since April 19th, the stock price has fallen as low as $65.00 per share, and it has failed to reach the value that it had prior to the Target boycott launch.

Call it a coincidence, but that’s one heck of a coincidence.  Listen to this week’s episode of FYI for more analysis:

Two Bad Reasons Christians Won’t Get Involved in This Election

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We are now less than two weeks from the election. While there is a lot that people are fighting about, the one thing everyone seems to agree on is that we’re ready for it to be over; in a dead man walking kind of way.

Within the church, people are disagreeing as well. One side says Donald Trump is too bad of a person to vote for, while the other side says that we have to vote for him because to allow Hillary to become President is a death sentence for the Supreme Court and many of our civil liberties.

But there’s another voice that sometimes chimes in as a kind of referee encouraging everyone to relax. And they have some really spiritual arguments for why we shouldn’t be that worried about it.

So here are my two favorite “Christian” reasons for being ambivalent.

  1. God is in Charge Anyway

This is basically the sovereignty of God argument. It says that, “God is still going to be God regardless of who is elected, so chill out.” From a strictly logical sense, this argument is the fallacy known as the non sequitur. Which means the conclusion does not follow logically from the premise.

It’s like saying, “Burritos are yummy so I should buy a new car.” Burritos are in fact yummy, but my decision to buy a car should be determined more by things like need and my ability to afford one. Burritos are going to be yummy regardless.

It is true that God is in charge, but our responsibilities and obligations are given to us independent of that fact. After all, God is also in charge if I neglect to pay my mortgage, abandon my family, or set off a nuclear bomb in the middle of a city.

Indeed, if we think it significant that God is always in charge, we should contemplate the implication of the command to occupy until he returns (Luke 19:13), seek the welfare of the city to which he has sent us (Jeremiah 29:7), and cast down every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. (2 Cor 10:5).

Of course God’s sovereignty is always relevant to our lives, it’s just not always instructive to our choices and should never be an excuse for passivity.

For those of us who are more inclined to panic at the current state of affairs and live in a state of perpetual fear, the fact that God is good and always in charge should comfort us and allow us to trust Him and be confident regardless of the circumstances.

But ultimately, it should lead us to be more interested in His purposes for us in our current circumstances, not less.

  1. Persecution will be good for us.

This argument says essentially that, “I know things are bad and getting worse, but maybe shouldn’t do anything about it. After all, I’ve read Revelation and the decline is inevitable. Maybe we should embrace the loss of religious freedom and be ok with the government taking control of our churches, universities, non-profits, businesses, and families. After all, a little persecution will be good for us.”

What would your life be like today if our Founding Father’s took this position?

The first reason we know this is a bad argument is that no one would be willing to make it outside America.

Raise your hand if you’re willing to tell a Christian brother in Syria, Iran, or Nigeria how much you’re looking forward to experiencing a little persecution so our churches can flourish.

I’m sure we’d all become a bit sheepish at the sight of the machete scar across his face.

We should be prepared to obey regardless of what happens in the future, but that should never become indifference to what happens in the future, particularly when we are in a position to influence it.

Remember, if persecution happens in any form, that means bad things are happening to real people. In the Middle East, parents are forced to watch their kids be executed unless they recant their faith. In America, businesses are forced to shut down. Different degrees of bad, but still bad.

The church has been created in Christ Jesus for good works (Eph 2:10). We were not created to allow some harm because it will be good for us.

Of course God can take even the worst circumstances and make something beautiful from it, but if bad things start happening to our friends, neighbors, and churches, it should be despite our best efforts, not because of our passivity.

In 2014, it is estimated that only 20 million of the 60 million evangelicals in America filled out a ballot. That’s a lot of influence for good that was never leveraged.

Sometimes the reason we aren’t engaged is that we don’t know how to. We’ve tried to help in this election cycle by providing a voter guide that will help you identify which candidates share your worldview and value system. You can also access it by texting your zip code to 77039.

But sometimes we aren’t engaged because we’ve convinced ourselves we don’t need to be.

There are many things people within the church can disagree about this election season, including what to do with Trump v. Clinton. But we should all be able to agree that we won’t be afraid, we won’t be indifferent to evil, and we don’t quit because it’s challenging.

Why? Because we all want to be like Jesus.

New Video for Pastors and Churches: Don’t Be Afraid of the IRS

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We’ve heard from a number of Washingtonians who are frustrated with their church’s lack of engagement in the ongoing culture battles. Pastors commonly cite IRS rules as a reason to stay quiet on the issues, afraid that their church might lose its non-profit status if they say or do the wrong thing.

What they don’t know is that thousands of pastors have been deliberately challenging the IRS to come after them, and to this point, the IRS has refused to do so.

FPIW has just released a new video, entitled, Why Your Church Won’t Lose Its Tax-Exempt Status. We’d be grateful if you’d watch the video, and then pass it on to your pastor and church leadership.

Please feel free to call our office at (425) 608-0242 if you have any questions, or email us at info@fpiw.org.

FPIW Announces Defending Freedom Event Series

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Frustrated about the election?  Thinking about sitting this one out?

Before you do anything, come spend an evening with us at one of our “Defending Freedom” events.

Regardless of how you feel about who is running for President, the people elected throughout the state and nation are going to make decisions that dramatically impact your family, your church, and religious freedom.

Our “Defending Freedom” series will show you the specific policy decisions that are at stake and how the upcoming state and federal level will impact them.

Tacoma | Yakima | Bothell | Tri-Cities | Vancouver | Spokane

At this event, attendees will:

  • Learn about the upcoming elections, and the issues that will surely be affected by the outcomes,
  • Get insider information about important federal and state-level issues and races including the State Supreme Court race,
  • Better understand the balance of power at the state and federal level, and
  • Have time to ask questions about the issues and processes.

What Makes You, You?

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What makes you, you? And what does it mean to be true to yourself?  On a personal level, we all wrestle with these questions. But the way we answer these questions has cultural consequences as well.

One view of “self” claims that “living authentically” means being true to your desires. “If it feels good do it.” Or, in more modern parlance, “You do you, man.”  The corollary, of course, is that to deny myself my desires (or to expect someone else to do so) is essentially denying yourself the chance to be who you really are.

You find this view of “self” in the arguments in favor of redefining marriage.  “If you have the right to marry the person you want to marry, I should have the right to marry the person I want to marry too.”

Justice Kennedy echoed this sentiment in the Obergefell decision that redefined what marriage is as a legal matter. “The opportunity to marry is integral to human dignity.”

The unspoken premise underlying this argument is that there is no objective reality that should prevent me from being able to be who I want to be and do what I want to do.

My feelings define what is true.

It is clear, however, that that this does not extend just to marriage.  Only minutes after marriage was redefined, we were told that the ability to self-select ones gender was the next crisis of human dignity.

The sentiment is identical.

“If you have the right to be the gender you feel you are, I should have the right to be the gender I feel I am.”  The arguments appeal to the libertarian in us all because, “Hey, if you can do what makes you feel whole, it’s only fair that I get to do what makes me feel whole, right?”

The challenge with these arguments is that they require us to affirm a person’s worth by affirming their desires before pausing to ask whether it’s objectively true or good.

“Hey, if believing 2 + 2 = 4 makes you happy, I should be able to believe that 2 + 2 = 137 because that makes me happy.”

“Right on, Bro.”

The idea that each of us is the sum of our feelings will inevitably lead to irrational outcomes (more of which can be seen here).

But it does something more—and worse—as well.

While we all have impulses and desires, we all understand that many of our impulses and desires are not helpful because we have something else as well: the ability to reason.  That ability to reason allows us to consider what qualities make for an honorable and upright life, which, necessarily allows us to make judgments about what habits, behaviors, or choices are inconsistent with what we know to be virtuous.

However, in a culture which believes people live authentically solely by fulfilling their desires, the use of our reason to conclude that some feelings should be suppressed is judgmental and denies others human dignity.

And who wants to be guilty of that?

We can all understand the appeal in believing that the purpose of my existence is fulfill my desires. I mean, who doesn’t think that sounds good?

Still, despite the insistence of modern progressives that the path to personal fulfillment is being true to our desires, we live in a world in which our desires are trying to destroy us.  We know this because those of us who are indulging our desires most intentionally and consistently are also the most miserable.

So I ask again, what makes you, you? Are you a rational being capable of making choices despite how you feel, or you are defined by your desires?

By viewing ourselves as the sum of our desires, we deny ourselves the chance to be something better.  And, at some point, we’ll discover that we are now convinced that feeling female actually makes it so.

FPIW Statement Regarding Seattle City Council’s Plans to Ban Same-Sex Attraction Therapy

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LYNNWOOD – Next week, the Seattle City Council is expected to vote on a bill that would ban Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) therapy for minors who are struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions and gender identity confusion.

This bill, filed by Councilmember M. Lorena González, would strip families of helpful, life-changing counseling they should have the freedom to receive, says Christopher Doyle, a licensed professional counselor and leader of the #TherapyEquality campaign of Equality And Justice For All.

“Proponents of this bill and others like it communicate lies that counselors who affirm clients’ sexual identity do so through electroshock and vomiting-inducing drug therapy,” Doyle said. “Activists are repeating half-truths and un-truths through myths and claims that have been thoroughly discredited for years. Therapy by experienced, educated, and sincere counselors helps minors and families find the root of sexual identity issues and leads them down the path to healing and restoration.”

Doyle, a former homosexual who says that therapy changed his life, is now married to his wife, and they have five children. He has long advocated for therapy freedom and therapy equality, especially as activists fight harder to ban therapies for minors that help them deal with unwanted same-sex attractions and gender identity confusion.

Doyle is coming alongside the Family Policy Institute of Washington to encourage residents to voice their opposition to the ordinance, which would restrict the rights of minors with unwanted same-sex attractions to seek out their treatment of choice and not be labeled as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ). The bill would ban children and their parents from receiving counseling from licensed mental health professionals to help address unwanted sexual attractions.

“As bills like this crop up around the country, we encourage those who are opposed to them-and those who can tell their own story about how therapy changed their lives-to speak up and tell lawmakers why residents deserve therapy freedom,” Doyle said.

Joseph Backholm, Executive Director of the Family Policy Institute of Washington, released this statement on Thursday afternoon:

“To set restrictions on what a counselor or therapist can do or say in the course of his or her work is both an assault on free speech and an exercise in ignorance. For a City Council to assume that they know better how to counsel a client than the professionals themselves is an insult both to the profession and to the intelligence of the voters who entrust the Council to focus on the issues they’re tasked with.”

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You can read more about the Seattle City Council’s efforts here.

Equality And Justice For All is the only civil rights organization that works to further the general welfare of the ex-gay community by promoting fair and equitable laws and policies protecting their rights. By furthering individual self-determination and liberty for former homosexuals, the organization strives to reduce bigoted representations of the ex-gay sexual orientation status, ensuring that ex-gays and their friends and families can be open, honest, safe and respected in a diverse society.

The Family Policy Institute of Washington (FPIW) is a pro-family public policy educational organization serving Washington State, focusing on issues of marriage, life, religious freedom and parental rights. 

 

 

Joseph Backholm Statement on SCOTUS Decision

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For Immediate Release

June 27, 2016 (LYNNWOOD) — Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that struck down Texas’ law providing basic care standards in abortion clinics, FPIW Executive Director Joseph Backholm released the following statement:

“Today’s Supreme Court should serve as a reminder that the abortion industry will stop at nothing to keep the money flowing — even if that means sacrificing the health of women.

Texas’ law was not an attack on women’s health — it was an effort to ensure that women seeking an abortion could reasonably expect a basic level of care in case of an emergency.  Making abortion facilities safer for women is not a burden – it’s just common sense.

Today the Supreme Court has forced states like Texas to subsidize inferior care in order to make it easier for abortion sellers to stay in business.

Women deserve better than today’s ruling. All abortionists and abortion facilities should be held to the same basic standards of care we expect in all other surgical centers in our country.”

MEDIA AVAILABILITY:

To schedule an interview with Joseph Backholm, please contact FPIW Communications Director Zach Freeman at zach@fpiw.org or by phone at 425-608-0242.