What’s Wrong with the World

"We need to keep on talking about why abortion, euthanasia, and homosexuality are wrong and why their promotion in a society as a whole is a very bad thing."

I just listened to the most recent Matt Walsh podcast and he says pretty much the same thing.
In a nutshell, that we have lost because we have been losing the arguments about is right and good, and that we will see our liberties to speak and act on our views in these areas continue to erode accordingly. Simply defending religious liberty as it has been defended recently, which from the other sides perspective...amounts to asking for the right to infringe upon the human rights of others, is a non-winner. It's hard to expect to win anything when the people who have the power think what you are saying and doing is dangerous and harmful.

"And finally, the Walders, who own a B & B in Illinois, have been not just fined but ordered by a judge to hold a celebration for a homosexual couple"

I had not heard this...frankly, unbelievable. Or maybe it is really exactly what we expected to happen all long. Is it ok to bring up the recent law passed in Mississippi? I believe that law protects B&B owners along with religious institutions from having to be involved in same sex "weddings", and really nothing else. It is the narrow religious liberty law that people on our side have been asking for. You mentioned we will continue to lose (and I think you are right), so what happens if/when this law or another like it gets struck down by the Supreme Court? I mean a full strike down and not a partial one (Id expect the whole thing to go). Does civil disobedience mean that the church that lost its non-profit and tax exempt status because of it's marriage position not pay taxes? Does it mean that if/when they are ordered to vacate their building that they hole themselves up and make it be taken by force? I hope I am not suggesting things that are wildly implausible and probably never gonna happen. Seems to me if a B&B owner can be *made* to host a same sex "wedding" anything is possible. If it "bigotry and hate" for a state to pass a law that says pastors and churches are free to not be involved in ss"m", anything is possible...I hope I am wrong.

Here's a fourth case!

I'm wondering what civil disobedience would look like in the case of the recently introduced bill in California, Assembly Bill 1888, which stops all institutions receiving Title IX religious exemptions from the Feds from receiving state tuition aid (i.e. CalGrants) on the basis of “discrimination”
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160AB1888

Suppose it passes through the California legislature, is signed by the governor and withstands court challenges and becomes the law of the "Golden" State.

Christian schools would have a choice, change their behavior or stop taking state money.

Would getting off the government dole be civil disobedience? I suppose it wouldn’t be “disobedience” at all, since refusing money is not breaking a state law. But would refusing the money have the same results? Should it be done?

Perhaps taking the money away is the first step to state compulsion of violation of religious belief. The next step would be to go after accreditation (cf. Gordon College case), 501c3/non-profit status, and then outright criminalization. Perhaps civil disobedience then?

Would this then apply to academic freedom? Merely believing “p” where “p” is some belief endorsed by the state entails that all state workers, including state university professors, or any professor receiving state aid through their institutions (whether secular, or apostate), would be required to teach “p” as true or be breaking the law? I suppose if it gets that far, civil disobedience would be merited.

Think of the case of John McAdams at Marquette, where some state or quasi state agency functions as the “thought police” for professors!

Didn’t Socrates teach us how to handle this nobly in the Apology? Didn’t the Apostles teach of how to handle this as a joyful opportunity to suffer in the Acts of the Apostles? Both Socrates and Peter thought it was better to serve God than man; and so it is.

Perhaps taking the money away is the first step to state compulsion of violation of religious belief. The next step would be to go after accreditation (cf. Gordon College case), 501c3/non-profit status, and then outright criminalization. Perhaps civil disobedience then?

TM, you have nailed the progression perfectly. That's how it plays out.

Didn’t Socrates teach us how to handle this nobly in the Apology? Didn’t the Apostles teach of how to handle this as a joyful opportunity to suffer in the Acts of the Apostles? Both Socrates and Peter thought it was better to serve God than man; and so it is.

You are right, there is always the Socrates option (which is also the martyr option). But the reality is that few, very few will accept that. As we look at that prospect, we can and should do what is possible now to either prevent things coming to such a pass, or at least defer it as long as possible.

It is not intrinsically wrong to take the path of silence illustrated by Thomas More (at least as portrayed in A Man for All Seasons). We aren't obligated to rush upon martyrdom. But increasingly, like More, we are being flushed out of our silence. We are being required to affirm something we think false and to abet actions that we think are wrong.

Lydia, you are correct: we are not obligated to seek out our persecutors and say "here I am, come and get me!" But there is also a flip side to that: in this quasi-democratic society, when a new persecution is put forward, it is put forward with a certain amount of hesitancy, a sort of "let's see if this will fly", with enough support at some level (usually bureaucracy but sometimes legislature), but rarely full-throated support of the populace. By hunkering down and avoiding notice, we let pass the most opportune moment for making a stink, for pushing back, for getting the hitherto silent majority to say "hey, wait a minute, we don't want THAT to happen, that's going too far." For many of us, we have more critical duties at home. But for some, generally fewer (either not having kids, or whose kids are grown, or something like that), perhaps they ARE being called to raise a stink and shout out "you mean ME? Well, come and try it, and we'll see who wins that contest." For, it is one thing for society to have to handle a few tens and fifties of people who are "caught out" even though they hunkered down. It is quite another to have to handle 50,000 who stepped out all at the same time and said "do your worst".

By the way, this is EXACTLY the basis for my advice about religious hospitals and schools. If all the religious hospitals in a city called up the mayor and said "your policy of enforcing asinine transgender stuff means we cannot operate. We are closing our doors in 1 hour. Come and get the patients." They will have a MUCH better chance of getting officials to re-think the policy and come up with something more plausible. Same with all the religious schools, acting as one: on the day public schools open for class (high stress for superintendent of schools), call him up and say "state policies mean we cannot operate. We are shutting down in 1 hour. Come and get the kids, you are responsible under state law for educating them (and for their safety during school hours. They will be truant starting in 1 hour.)" (Then call the newsies, of course, and make your case in the media.)

Being killed by a thousand million cuts over time is still being killed. We won't turn it around when they have already cut off 2 arms, 2 legs, 1 lung, 1 kidney, etc. We have to act before that (if it's not already too late.)

Civil disobedience would be easier if middle and upper class Christians would financially support those engaging in it. For example, it should not be that difficult to find a wealthier Christian willing to outright buy the B&B from the owners and reclassify it as something else such as a halfway house or merely a private residence. Obviously that does not protect the legal rights of the B&B owner, but it protects them in a material sense while getting the point across: "you can kiss our collective ass if you think we'll participate in this."

Makes one wish that the Koch Brothers (not Christians, but anti-liberal libertarians) would borrow from Soros and start hiring rent-a-mobs to respond to whatever initiative the left is pushing at the moment.

And just as an epilogue for an earlier case, Ken Miller, the pastor who helped Lisa Miller (not related) flee the country with her daughter in order to escape her former lesbian "spouse", has finally entered prison. You can read his first prison update here: http://millercase.org/home/updates/102-prison-update-1.html

Scott, thank you, you beat me to it. I literally just thought within the past half hour, "I need to update that post or put into comments the link to what is happening to Ken Miller." Also by the way there is a "donate" button there for helping out his family while he's in prison for, I believe, two years.

McAdams is actually being pursued by Marquette which in this regard is leaning (ironically) on its own status as a non-state, "private," university. FIRE has made it clear that professors have _more_ protection at state universities, though Marquette allegedly has an academic freedom policy, in print, and I believe McAdams is going to fight legally on that basis.

Tony, I like your idea of hospitals "conspiring" to close. That might be a useful type of protest in Canada concerning the euthanasia issue. One would have to be ready to carry out the bluff, though. Vulcans never bluff.

Mike, I doubt that the B & B owners want to sell, but it's a kind of interesting legal question what would happen to the judge's order if they sold the business outright before carrying out the order to offer the facilities to the homosexual "couple" for a celebration. That's supposed to be done within a year. What if they sold the place outright to someone who wasn't running it as a business, say, next month?

The whole thing about the judge's order is very legally odd, and I can't help wondering if he can really pull it off, though I fear that he can. As far as I know, it is unprecedented. In all the other cases, they have _punished_ the businessmen with fines and have ordered them and their staff to undergo "training" in "how not to discriminate"--presumably the latter would be moot if they closed the business and would also be moot as far as their actually having to do something objectionable if they got out of the wedding portion of their business. This is the only case I know of where the business owner has actually been told that he has to offer to host the celebration.

Mike, I doubt that the B & B owners want to sell, but it's a kind of interesting legal question what would happen to the judge's order if they sold the business outright before carrying out the order to offer the facilities to the homosexual "couple" for a celebration. That's supposed to be done within a year. What if they sold the place outright to someone who wasn't running it as a business, say, next month?

Add that to another reason why "no one in their right mind should run a sole proprietorship today." IANAL, but if the B&B were a LLC and the home an asset owned by the LLC, then there should be a lot more protection to skate around the judge's order. Like starting a new "realestate management company" and selling the house to the new LLC for $10 and declaring to the judge that you'd be fine with hosting their party at the B&B's expense, but the B&B has no realestate assets anymore and so it'd have to be at a roach motel used by prostitutes and Mexican drug runners :)

This is the essence of "black knighting" the other side. You follow the rules in the most legalistic and obnoxious way possible. The more absurd the better. Go one step better. Do what I said about the LLC and buy a former crack house and say "sure, we'll cater your party!" Oh and by the way, we believe in second chances which is why we a) don't background check our contract employees and b) do believe in giving ostensibly reformed felons employment opportunities so bear that in mind when asking us to cater your party. We hear that Crips and Latin Kings aren't very fond of yuppy white homosexuals. But y'all ain't racist or classist, right?

If they are legally able to and are open to selling the property, the simpler course of action would be to sell the property and see whether they can be required to do anything else at all. Is the order to host a civil union reception (or whatever it's called) attached to _that property_? If so, does it "follow" the property like a lien and does the requirement fall upon future owners if sold within a year? In which case the property has been made to some degree toxic and may not be saleable. Or is the order to _finance_ and _run_ a civil union celebration _somewhere or other_? If so, then I fear the judge might have the power to order it to be done at a "suitably similar" property or some nonsense like that. They need to find out in excruciating detail how much power this judge has in order to know what their options are.

I suspect that from their perspective right now the hope is to retain the property and somehow keep the business going, but that may be a vain hope.

I wonder how much past examples of donations covering the legal expenses of the persecuted wedding vendor have influenced this judge to order the B&B owners to host the homosexual conduct celebration. Clearly mere fines have not been enough, and maybe if this works here that this will be an increasingly common tactic employed by the persecutors. That photographer must be both fined and ordered to take a photo of a man kissing another man.

If all the religious hospitals in a city called up the mayor....

This assumes, of course, that the religious hospitals, schools and whatnot are not in agreement with the mayor's view. (cough)Marquette(cough).

DR84, that's an interesting question, and I don't know. It may be that this judge is just "doing it because he can." Though I don't have a lot of examples at my fingertips, I'm pretty sure there have been other cases where people have been ordered to "make it up to the other person" in some way other than monetarily. I seem to recall a case in Canada where a businessman (or a pastor?) was required to publish an apology for "hate speech." Employers in the U.S. have been required to actually _rehire_ someone they had fired and even pay back wages, not _just_ pay monetary damages for "discrimination." Things like that.

If they are legally able to and are open to selling the property, the simpler course of action would be to sell the property and see whether they can be required to do anything else at all. Is the order to host a civil union reception (or whatever it's called) attached to _that property_?

It would be an interesting case. They could probably get it ruled that they simply have to perform it in some capacity, which would offer all sorts of opportunities like going to a truly horrible location and paying someone a few hundred bucks to rent their property. Sure, we'd be delighted to give this fine gay couple a "wedding." Only problem is, the only venue we currently offer is in the heart of the "murder capitol" of our state.

I would be curious to see what an attorney well versed in employment and contract law would say about a LLC versus sole proprietorship. My assumption would be that if you incorporate as a LLC and do business through that they could only require the LLC as an entity to perform the function because that is "the business." I've never heard anything that suggested that contract and business regulation law allow a court to order a performance so specific in such a case that would require a particular employee to perform it. So it would stand to reason that if the B&B were run under a LLC there would be flexibility to get obnoxious via hiring decisions and moving assets around while being personally shielded from liability.

So for a photographer's business he could hypothetically hire his drunk, irreligious uncle and send him with an iPhone 3G to the "wedding" to perform the photography. Technically, it would be a performance because he could hire the man for a period of 30 days, send him to the "wedding" liquored up with a crappy camera and justly say he sent an employee to perform as the court instructed (in the letter, not spirit).

Generally all those sorts of activities (deliberately providing poor service, etc.) are considered _in themselves_ instances of discrimination (in discrimination law) via hostile environment, signaling, etc. For example, Denny's lost a class action lawsuit (if I recall correctly) because of charges that it offered inferior service to black customers because they were black. All of these laws as applied to homosexuals treat them as a protected class, as with race, so presumably the same evaluation would apply.

It could happen that one would run into a kind of infinite regress: You discriminated by refusing to provide the service, so now you have to provide the service. You provided the service unpleasantly or in a substandard way, so that is another count of discrimination, so now you have to be fined again, provide the service, etc. I suspect that the idea here is that they have to "make whole" the "harmed" couple by giving them the equivalent of what they asked for originally. I very much doubt that they would be allowed to get away with providing it in a substandard manner and have that be the end of the matter.

The whole thing about the judge's order is very legally odd, and I can't help wondering if he can really pull it off, though I fear that he can. As far as I know, it is unprecedented. In all the other cases, they have _punished_ the businessmen with fines and have ordered them and their staff to undergo "training" in "how not to discriminate"--presumably the latter would be moot if they closed the business and would also be moot as far as their actually having to do something objectionable if they got out of the wedding portion of their business. This is the only case I know of where the business owner has actually been told that he has to offer to host the celebration.

Is the order to host a civil union reception (or whatever it's called) attached to _that property_? If so, does it "follow" the property like a lien and does the requirement fall upon future owners if sold within a year? In which case the property has been made to some degree toxic and may not be saleable.

It is almost certainly NOT like a lien on the property. You have to jump through a bunch of hoops to perfect a lien, and nothing like that has happened here.

The judge's order is a huge can of worms, and can probably be successfully overturned. At least, that's what I think. This is either a civil or a criminal case. If a criminal case, the judge should be limited to penalties written in law, he cannot just make them up willy nilly. If a civil case, he may have more latitude, but there is a fundamental problem with an order like "provide a wedding reception" - it consists in 1001 details that consist in the couple and the reception facility agreeing upon, accommodating each other's wishes, demands, needs, and limitations. Even if you can "make" (said loosely) someone perform a simple service (shine my shoes, serve a meal, whatever), you can't make them accommodate each other on 1001 details. "What? I DID offer my facility. I gave them the choice of the (flooded) basement, or the (dusty) attic! It turns out that my AC contractor had the AC torn apart that week...how unfortunate. But that was not in the contract, so I didn't fail to perform my contracted service. Food, don't get me started with food. I tried a new vendor - HORRIBLE, I'll never try THEM again, no way."

Wouldn't sending an employee to photograph a homosexual conduct ceremony, no matter how drunk and useless they may be, still place the employer on the hook morally speaking as if they went themselves?

Same goes also if one were to offer up an undesirable venue. You are still offering to help make the homosexual conduct ceremony happen, and if they accept the offer, you are on the hook to help make that event happen.

Closing down schools, hospitals etc is not civil disobedience rather the reverse--obedience to unjust laws. And may well be welcomed by hard-core secularists.
Civil disobedience consists in continuing to carry out forbidden practices.
It also does not lie in looking for legal loopholes.

Bedarz, I didn't suggest that closing down schools was civil disobedience, I suggested it was a way of fighting bad laws. As is civil disobedience. And looking for legal loopholes instead of civil disobedience might be, for some of us, a matter of due prudence to our other duties rather than shirking a duty to flout the bad law. Just as it might be, for others, a positive duty - as I pointed out.

I am all for civil disobedience in the right time and place, as should have been clear in supporting the Kentucky county clerk. If you will examine what we've actually said, you will see nothing that we said indicates disapproval of civil disobedience in these cases.

And may well be welcomed by hard-core secularists.

Maybe. But the point is that if it's done properly, it WON'T be welcomed by the government officials on whom lands the obligation to deal with the mess, or the 25% to 30% of parents faced with getting the kids into a new school overnight. Get the parents screaming at the school officials and the mayor, get the school superintendent shouting at the mayor that he needs his budget increased by 30% for teachers, and needs 30% more buildings overnight, get the city council faced with raising taxes by 15% along with an IMMEDIATE "special levy" - spread the pain to people who don't have a committed ideologcally secularist view, and the city might decide they can make a conscience clause work. Not everyone who is willing to be silent when the hard-core secularists push a new policy is willing to accept all the pain that goes with it, if they are confronted with the pain all at once.

A similar bill in New York State was defeated on first amendment grounds as requiring "forced speech" by the pro-life crisis pregnancy centers, but whether that will be done in the California case or not remains to be seen. Meanwhile, a federal judge has refused to put a stay on the enforcement of the law, which does not bode well. The centers are right to refuse to comply with this law.

Seems to me that by mainstream conservative logic, the centres should comply if they're going to otherwise be shut down. Because expediency! Better to have the centres open albeit with forced speech than to have disobedience inevitably leading to closure, right?

GJ, if you act like an unpleasant person on my threads, sneering at "mainstream conservatives" and all that jazz, I'll just delete your comments. I'm coming to have less and less patience with trolling.

Whether or not it is moral for the centers to provide the information gets into the whole question of "material cooperation with evil." I think they are right to believe that providing the information--"Oh, by the way, here's where you can go to get an abortion"--is not something they should comply with. It normalizes the "services" provided at the places they refer the client to. It's clearly an attempt to make these pro-life centers say "shibboleth" to _precisely_ the evil abortion regime that they are offering an alternative to. They are right to resist it. At the same time, one might argue that it is not _intrinsically_ immoral to provide the information and hence that any center that complies is not engaging in an intrinsically immoral act. Presumably that is an argument that some centers are making. (I've only heard of two in the San Francisco area that are known not to be complying. Some we just don't know about.)

This is no doubt an agonizing situation for these crisis pregnancy centers, since they know that they _are_ saving babies' lives from abortion. It's nothing to make fun of.

The point that GJ seems to be making is that mainstream conservatives are too often concerned with the good that is not being done when the people make a principled stand. That is one reason why we cannot expect religious hospitals to stage a strike and cripple a city in protest. The people in charge, no matter how conservative, will find an excuse to keep going. They will say you, Lydia, are a bad person for not seeing how it is some sort of equally morally heinous privation to prevent people in need from getting their services. (In many cities, one could cynically say that the hit to their wallet from a strike matters more than anything else)

That is of course a load of nonsense. If someone dies outside the ER because it is closed in protest, the blame falls on the person who started the fight, not the medical professionals who refuse to yield. You start a fight, you bear much of the blame for even how your opponents respond if they tell you how they will respond. Medical professionals are under no obligation to yield to unjust political pressure because someone might be harmed. Ironically, mainstream conservatives do clearly see the necessity of this logic when it comes to "negotiating with terrorists."

Mike T:

Yup. It's the same choice: do you make a principled stand that limits your 'effectiveness' (e.g. fighting until your centres get closed) or do you yield yet some more for the sake of expediency (e.g. shut out from the pro-life movement voices advocating that women who undergo abortion should be liable for punishment)?

The mainstream pro-life movement has (both implicitly and explicitly) proclaimed that expediency should carry the day. Therefore if push comes to shove the centres should advertise as commanded so that they may stay open.

And inch by inch ground is given.

Well, but actually my main post says that some of the Crisis Pregnancy Centers (which is what GJ was talking about) _are_ refusing to comply.

I don't know who is "mainstream conservative" and who isn't in all of this. Do we have the slightest reason to think that the CRC operators aren't or are "mainstream conservative"? I couldn't care less, and neither should anybody else. I consider myself somewhat of a mainstream conservative. I strongly support them. I'm certainly not going to throw around vague sneers about how "by mainstream conservative logic" they shouldn't be doing what they are doing. The heck with that. It's sheer posturing. They're doing something right; good for them.

Simply shutting down a hospital or school will ultimately not be enough. Eventually, the government will simply take it over by eminent domain or otherwise. It will be necessary to convert the facility to another purpose, perhaps a monastery, or dynamite the building.

Do we have the slightest reason to think that the CRC operators aren't or are "mainstream conservative"? I couldn't care less, and neither should anybody else.

I don't think that was even GJ's point, but rather what "mainstream conservatives" would tell CPC operators of any political persuasion they ought to do. The fact is that "mainstream conservatives" don't fight, except with their nominal allies on the right-of-center side of the spectrum. That's why instead of cheering the Alt-Right in going after SJWs, mainstream conservatives are genuinely worried about the treatment of men and women who would literally throw them into a gulag if they had power.

Mike T., we are not going to have this discussion. I cannot begin to tell you how tired I am of having *every single thread* on this blog turned into a discussion of "why mainstream conservatives are bad" or "why mainstream conservatives have the wrong priorities" or "why we shouldn't worry about the alt-right" or the Trump candidacy, or whatever. I loathe the alt-right. You know that I do. I make no bones about it. I am not discussing that on this thread. And if people who disdain non-alt-right conservatism and are always preening themselves on their superiority come into this thread and try to threadjack it with snark about the bad mainstream conservatives, I will shut them down.

The great irony here is that I'm the one talking about how WONDERFUL these CPCs are. I'm holding a whole thread on resistance to those who are trying to force totalitarian demands on social conservatives. I am, in my own person, a counterexample to these sneering claims about "what the mainstream right would say." But the irony no doubt will escape GJ, and may escape Mike T. as well. Whatever. I'm uninterested. Just bag it, both of you.

Nor am I alone in supporting the CPCs. As far as I can tell the mainstream pro-life movement as a whole is behind them. I am indescribably uninterested in whether or not GJ thinks this stance is inconsistent with something else that pro-lifers said or did that he disagreed with and feels like snarking about, and this thread will not be cluttered with his fumbling attempts at making a strained connection to his own personal gripes with the pro-life movement.

Simply shutting down a hospital or school will ultimately not be enough. Eventually, the government will simply take it over by eminent domain or otherwise. It will be necessary to convert the facility to another purpose, perhaps a monastery, or dynamite the building.

Oh, golly. Rebobg, the concept outlined was to carry out a quasi-bluff: "you think you're going to force us to do X while we have no desire or intention to carry out X, our purpose is to do A, B, and C - things that the government is USED TO having us do, and is generally glad we are doing. Well, nuts to you, we'll stop doing A, B, and C and see how you like them apples."

If the quasi-bluff works as intended, the government backs down from demanding X. When it backs down, the hospital or school re-opens and gets on with life as it was before. If the government CAN'T turn on a dime and just figure out how to all of a sudden provide services A, B, and C for thousands of people that were, hitherto, taken care of without spending a government nickel, and those people scream at the mayor for services, the government may be forced to reconsider demanding X of the school or hospital, and figure out a compromise that doesn't demand X of them.

If the government is both able and willing to step into the breach and provide A, B, and C without the schools or hospitals, at a moments notice, then the quasi-bluff will fail. But how plausible is it that a government will succeed with that? These things take time, they don't work in a day or two. Take a city of 1,000,000. They probably have 150,000 kids in school, and probably 25,000 in private schools. The city probably has 300 schools, and typically they are crowded, with little extra space and over-full classrooms. If you tell the superintendent of schools on opening day that he has to make room for 25k MORE students TODAY, if he doesn't have a heart attack on the spot, he will certainly tell you that it cannot be done today, it cannot be done within a week, it cannot be done ON CURRENT BUDGET in any sense at all, but if the money were found tomorrow he could figure out terrible, partial, and crazy half-solutions in 2 months time. In the meantime, half of those 25k students will have parents screaming that they expected to drop their kids off at school and go to work, now they can't go to work, what are they going to tell their bosses. Their bosses and the businesses will be screaming at the mayor to find a solution today.

The whole quasi-bluff depends on it all coming to a crunch all together at once, all unexpectedly, all under time-critical consequences. It depends on that terrible time crunch having no feasible or palatable solution by the city.

If you miscalculate, and the city DOES come up with a solution in a very short time (say, 2 days), you lose. But if you are right, the city cannot solve any portion of the problem in that time, you wait 2 days, and then you say "Oh, OK, we will re-open the schools because the mayor said he is willing to be reasonable and established a conscience clause for religious schools. You re-open, taking the pressure off the city - which also prevents the city from actually figuring out any viable solution. So the quasi-bluff is available for the next issue.

Note: it is a quasi-bluff rather than a bluff simply, because you really would prefer to close your doors than provide X. It is a quasi-bluff rather than simply closing your doors because, like going on strike, your objective is to RETURN to working and providing the service, when you have made the point that the other party is NOT willing to do without the service you provide.

I am glad that so many of the conservatives are not that kind of stupid "mainstream" conservatives GJ talks about. There's the people out there running the CPCs, they are doing something other than attack the people to their right. There's the people on the sidewalks at abortuaries doing sidewalk counseling and witness. They are attacking liberals in their home territory. There's the people who support CPCs with money, time, energy, and expertise of various sorts (like priests and ministers). There's the people fasting and praying for the conversion of abortionists and women about to go to them - they are contending with Powers, not with people on the right. There's the people who march, who protest, who visit their congressman, who write their senators to oppose Planned Parenthood funding and oppose sex-ed in the schools. Probably a lot of people I didn't mention, too. I wonder if all these, added together, might be an even more massive stream of people than the stupid "mainstream conservatives" mentioned. I wouldn't know, it is hard to count a large crowd when you are inside it, and the larger the crowd, the harder it is.

@Tony: "The whole quasi-bluff depends on it all coming to a crunch all together at once, *all unexpectedly*, all under time-critical consequences." (Emphasis mine)

It should be emphasized that the government would never expect this sort of thing in a million-gazillion years, and this fact in itself would almost ensure a successful outcome. And yet, in spite of the high probability of success on the part of the schools or hospitals or whatever, the likelihood of getting 30 private schools in one city to *all agree* and participate in the quasi-bluff is slim to none. More likely that a half dozen, give or take, would get onboard while the rest clamored to work with the publics to make space available for the displaced students from the six or eight other schools ... should they follow through. Principles go out the window for most when they feel their lifestyles might have to take a serious hit.

I mean this all sounds wonderful'n all, but I just don't see it happening. If I'm proven wrong, then I'm more than happy to eat a heaping helping of crow any way y'all decide to serve it.

Terry, you are mostly correct. The exception would be if the Catholic bishop got behind it and told all of the Catholic schools they are going to do it, point blank. Other than the few independent Catholic schools, by and large the schools are attached to parishes, and what the bishop says, goes. Since the Catholic schools usually account for about 80% to 90% of the private schools, that would be the large majority. Once you got the preponderance of the schools involved that way, the others (like the Jewish, Protestant, and Mormon schools) would probably NOT go out of their way to help the government solve the problem, they most likely would take a wait and see approach, if not pitch in with their own closing. So, it would depend on a Catholic bishop growing a spine, or at least locating a spine and getting a surgical implant.

[attempted threadjack deleted]

NEWSFLASH

This just in: pro-death activists, who behind closed doors admit that they worship demons, have grown so irate over pro-life activists calling what they do 'worshiping demons' that they finally pushed through a bill that requires pro-life centers to send their clients over to abortionists to worship demons. The bill, known as "Fairness and Equal Time in Demonland" or FETID, requires the pro-life centers to fairly list all of the different demons that are available for worshiping locally at the centers for diseased souls. An immediate case was brought to trial, heard by Judge John Huston-Baal, who after patiently hearing arguments for 10 minutes ruled against the pro-life center on the reasonable grounds that "it isn't nice to refuse to tell people about worshiping demons." He didn't see a need to cite the law upon which that was based. The nice judge has not only denied the uptight ABC Pregnancy Center For Remaining Pregnant Until Normal Birth a temporary stay in their contentious appeal of his decision, taking a page out of the book of an administrative law judge in Illinois, he demanded that they sign up for abortion services themselves at Steal Your Baby And Your Soul and Sell Them to the Devil for sensitivity training and to have their souls sucked out. He refused to accept their astonishingly irrelevant claim that they weren't pregnant as a valid excuse for refusing SYBaYSaSttD's pregnancy services. He told them to "stop being full of [them]selves and just go to SYBaYSaSttD like everyone else does. I can personally assure you, you'll feel much better without a conscience."

I'm not a pro-lifer or social conservative myself, but tend to side with them on issues like these on grounds of liberty -- not just religious liberty. Though not by any means a doctrinaire libertarian, I have a hard time accepting that the state has the authority to, e.g., order a doctor to give information about abortions, or to order anyone to host a wedding ceremony. I think if pro-lifers emphasized the question of constitutionality, of liberty, of the legitimacy or lack thereof of whatever the gov't is trying to do, they would find a lot more sympathy and support in the wider public. Tocqueville predicted exactly how the federal government would increase its control over every sphere of life: with everyone seeking to defend liberty in his own little corner, but indifferent to state imposition on others in areas that he considers of no concern to him.

Any act of the state whatsoever can be disapproved for one of two conceptually distinct reasons: one can question its desirability, or one can question the authority of the government to carry it out in the first place. To cut to the chase: I think the American people have grown meek; there almost seems to be an unspoken assumption that the government automatically has the authority to do whatever it has the physical ability to do. Of course, this is an exaggeration, but it seems to be the direction in which things are moving. In light of this distinction (which I got from Oakeshott), I think it's clear that civil disobedience is appropriate precisely when it is the authority of the state to do something, rather the desirability of doing it, that is being challenged.

Stan S., conservatives have been trying to get libertarians on-board on these matters for decades, literally. We mainstream conservatives have not scrupled to emphasize questions of constitutionality and liberty and have been yelling those questions loudly from the housetops.

Shamefully, many who share a libertarian perspective have run in just the opposite direction and have embraced leftism while not seeming to realize that this is not the way of liberty. A lot of it in the area of homosexual rights arose from a kind of weird foolishness: We should have homosexual "marriage" despite the *absolutely predictable* lessening of freedom because, in some imaginable but never-existent libertarian utopia in which a bunch of _other_ laws were changed (which would never actually be changed), the negative impact upon freedom that this would have would be (allegedly) quite minimal (not true, in fact), and meanwhile "letting gay people get married" _sounded_ like a libertarian Good Thing.

We argued with them in vain, trying to use their own principles. It didn't work. But not for want of trying. I speak as one who has argued with the tongues of men and of angels on this very topic with these very people and has gotten nowhere.

But by all means, we will be happy to see libertarians leap en masse to the defense of the bed and breakfast owners, the doctors and crisis pregnancy center owners, the nurses, the bakers, the florists, the photographers.

I'm just not holding my breath anymore.

http://thefederalist.com/2016/04/18/read-about-norway-stealing-these-kids-then-tout-democratic-socialism/

What sort of civil disobedience would be advisable (if any) in a case like this?

If they could have gotten out of the country prior to having the children stolen, that would have been better and of course morally appropriate. (Maybe not even illegal, unless under some court order.) However, it looks like it happened without warning. In that situation (as I wrote about it some months ago) the scary part was that they were trying to be compliant by sending the children to public school, and it was the public school principal who kicked the whole thing off by reporting them as "Christian extremists" or something like that. Now the principal himself is unhappy about how far CPS has taken the matter. It doesn't follow that they would have been better off if they had home schooled, though, because that could have made the child-snatching government look askance at them even sooner in a country like that.

It's not at all clear that civil disobedience would help in any way in this case, or in CPS overreach cases generally, as they involve such sheer totalitarianism that no loopholes have really been left for the parents. After all, if the penalty is having your kids taken away to be raised by strangers who will brainwash them, that's a much different thing than "merely" going to jail yourself.

Right, that was my thought also: civil disobedience can play a role before they have your kids. After, you're kind of stuck. Sneak in and grab the kids (if you can find them) and carry them off to...Sweden? Neither likely nor very helpful run anywhere that has extradition with Norway.

The harder question is what to do before they grab the kids. And here, the question of civil disobedience almost goes in the opposite direction: if it is against the law to spank, then as a Christian your presumptive stance is that you ARE going to be disobedient to that law. The question then becomes: in what way do you manage your disobedience so as not to run afoul of the tyrants? Obviously, keeping it "under wraps" is a good idea, but not really all that easy, kids being kids and all. Homeschooling might help in some cases, if homeschooling isn't itself illegal (as it is in Sweden and Germany), and if being a homeschooler didn't automatically mean heightened scrutiny of the tyrants so that they have a microscope on you even without any special cause.

In this kind of situation, where they have basically said "raising your children in the Christian manner is illegal", or considered so close to illegal as to make no difference, you are in a bind. You might try to keep it under cover, but you don't have complete control of circumstances. You might make a big public stink over the issue and bring the fight to them, but in a country like Norway (and Sweden, and Germany), there isn't anywhere near as strong a basic respect for subsidiarity, you are likely to simply lose outright. You won't get as much public sympathy for a direct head-to-head debate on whether spanking is OK.

So, it kind of looks like the real options are either get the hell out of the country or expect at any time to be nabbed, and suffer the consequences as a martyr. The latter is particularly difficult due to the effects on your children: unlike the martyrs of Maccabees or of the early Christian centuries, the authorities aren't going to merely kill your kids, they are going to convert them into pagans.

Here in the US, there are some local jurisdictions that have or are trying to make spanking illegal, but generally state and country-wide that isn't the case. Mostly. In practice, most or all CPS people will assume that spanking is abusive, and will treat it that way even if the law is not on their side. So UNTIL you come to the attention of CPS for something, spanking isn't as such a direct issue. (But then, it wasn't the sole issue in Norway.) We should take this story to heart, though, and be more proactive in turning back the trend - if we can. There is no feasible way to get a constitutional amendment for this, but one for "parental rights" might be just the thing, as long as the US doesn't sign the UN Convention on the Rights of Children.

I read a recent update that the Bodnariu parents promised in a "hearing" (which was not before a judge and involved no due process, right to cross-examine, etc.) that they would never use corporal punishment again on their children, in an effort to placate the authorities, but CPS still will not give the children back. It's looking very grim at this point for them. Insanely, Norwegian law does not formally recognize bonding with a child's own parents but CPS policy recognizes bonding with foster parents. If they keep them in foster care for 2 years they will claim that they have bonded with foster parents and that it would be too traumatic to return them to their own parents.

You really can't count on any rational limits to what out-of-control CPS types will decide to do. Since they are out of the control of higher authority, they can follow whatever whims and prejudices strike them. Pay no attention to the irrational elevation of THIS bonding problem over THAT bonding problem.

As I mentioned, CPS types are trying to push as the standard that spanking IS abuse, not "like" or "indicative of" or "may be", but simply _is_. It is also, apparently, a fairly common element of adoption papers that the adoptive parents sign off on never spanking. I am on record for opposing lying pretty much across the board, but a provision like this creates a situation of "conflicting morals": that of following the Bible or following a statement you signed. At the very least, I would accept taking a pencil and drawing a very light line through "not" and then sign it as without a "no spanking" clause. They demand an immoral and unjust promise, I deceive. There's no absolute moral prohibition against deception, as we all know.

The underlying morality of whether or not you are obliged to follow such a provision if you sign it isn't straightforward. For one thing, I would argue that the adoption agreement shouldn't be considered, morally speaking, nothing more than a "contract", for becoming a parent isn't a simply a contractual reality, it is more. But when there is an ontological reality deeper than the stated contractual terms, the contractual terms can mis-state the reality, and then which one trumps? We have the same problem with the marriage contract in this modern culture: traditional Christians insist that the state has no capacity to dissolve a valid marriage, because the ontological reality of a marriage is deeper than a merely contractual arrangement. Likewise: arguably, the state has no capacity to entail a parenthood with a denial of the right to spank.

In any case, this highlights the significance of the battle here in the US to stand firm against the insanity (and, where possible, to roll back the invading barbarians) - both the particular one over spanking and the general one of denying parental authority in favor of the nanny state / faceless bureaucrats.

It is also, apparently, a fairly common element of adoption papers that the adoptive parents sign off on never spanking.

Wow! In the U.S.? Does this vary by state? Is it required by law?

I need to do some research on that.

Here's an interesting thread: Apparently the "no corporal punishment" pledge in Illinois arises while one is still a foster parent "with the intent to adopt" but is ended by the finalization of the adoption. I wonder how that is in other states.

http://discussion.bethany.org/viewtopic.php?t=64599&f=21

I don't know if the rule against adoptive parents spanking is driven by laws or not, but practically every web site I look at implies at the least that a parental intent to spank usually if not always closes the door to adoption. My guess is that in MOST places, it is not driven directly by law, but is (a) driven by the adoption agencies' own policies, and (b) buttressed by an indirect connection between such policies and regulatory standards that invoke "findings" or otherwise reference "expert" opinions stated in studies, "best practice" guidelines, and all the secondary bureaucratic folderol that means you can never track it down to an AUTHORITATIVE decree by anyone whose position rides on election (or appointment by elected officials). All you know for sure is that saying "yes, I spank my kids" means "no, you won't get a child." And since you never have a right to get a child for adoption, you effectively have no recourse.

I would love to see a some good conservative politicians (at state level) OUTLAW asking about spanking by adoption agencies, because of their repeated abuse of the issue.

When you read the sheer scale of emotion-driven drivel by eyeore531 (in the link you listed), you start to get the magnitude of the problem. It would be fun to go back and ask how her kids turn out at 18 or 20, with her attitude about "we use time outs". The attitude is wrong on so many levels it is hard know where to begin.

It's looking to me like it's the connection to foster parenting. Apparently the way it's working now is that you adopt only by first being a foster parent "with intent to adopt," at least for a short time, and you have to promise not to spank the foster child to be a foster parent. The only way to get around that I suppose would be to sign the promise but intend it only for the time during which the child was your foster child (and if it's a tiny baby, you aren't going to be spanking during that time period anyway), then once the adoption is finalized legally the promise doesn't apply anymore.