The 3 - November 22, 2020

On this week's edition of The 3, with three stories of relevance to the Christian community, there is news regarding the overturning of a ban in a county in Florida on counseling for minors struggling with same-sex attraction.  Also, an author's book on the harmful nature of the transgender agenda was removed from a large retailer, then restored.  And, a large California church that has challenged government restrictions related to COVID has been given a clean bill of health by a public health agency.

Federal Appeals court removes ban on counseling minors regarding same-sex attraction

Robert Otto and Julie Hamilton are Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists in Florida who have been involved in counseling minors struggling with same-sex attraction. The City of Boca Raton and Palm Beach County had enacted ordinances that Liberty Counsel reports "prohibit minors from voluntary counseling from licensed professionals." So, Doctors Otto and Hamilton filed a lawsuit.

A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Federal appeals court ruled 2-1 that the bans were unconstitutional; one of the judges wrote, "We hold that the challenged ordinances violate the First Amendment because they are content-based regulations of speech that cannot survive strict scrutiny.” That judge, Judge Grant, also stated, "The First Amendment does not protect the right to speak about banned speech; it protects speech itself, no matter how disagreeable that speech might be to the government. And what good would it do for a therapist whose client sought SOCE [sexual orientation change efforts] therapy to tell the client that she thought the therapy could be helpful, but could not offer it? It only matters that some words about sexuality and gender are allowed, and others are not…" The court pointed out, "What the governments call a ‘medical procedure’ consists—entirely—of words. As the district court itself recognized, plaintiffs’ therapy ‘is not just carried out in part through speech: the treatment provided by Drs. Otto and Hamilton is entirely speech.’"

Liberty Counsel pointed out that, "This is the first federal Court of Appeals decision on such laws since the 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision in National Institute of Family & Life Advocates v. Becerra (NIFLA)."  NIFLA said on its website that:

In 2018, the Supreme Court issued a historic ruling in favor of the free speech rights of pro-life pregnancy centers and all Americans. In addition to protecting the work of life-affirming pregnancy centers, this landmark ruling also expanded protections for the free speech rights of medical professionals, Christian counselors and churches.

Retail chain removes, restores book warning against transgender agenda

Abigail Shrier has been sounding the alarm about the advance of the cultural embrace of transgenderism, and wrote a book called, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Girls.  She has even had conversations with what Family Research Council describes in a recent article as "lifelong LGBT supporters" who are "dealing with the fallout of this devastating ideology."

Shirer has written, according to that article:

"Unsuspecting parents are awakening to find their daughters in thrall to hip trans YouTube stars and 'gender-affirming' educators and therapists who push life-changing interventions on young girls -- including medically unnecessary double mastectomies and puberty blockers that can cause permanent infertility."

FRC points out that there are those who wish to silence Abigail, stating:

They bullied Amazon into blocking ad buys for the book. Then, this past week, a single tweet was all it took to persuade Target to pull the title from their shelves. The move hardly came as a shock, since this is the same company that still allows men in their girls' restrooms and changing rooms.

But, the backlash against Target was apparently significant; FRC reports:

Twenty-four hours later, the company released this statement: "Yesterday, we removed a book from Target.com based on feedback we received. We want to offer a broad assortment for our guests and are adding this book back to Target.com. We apologize for any confusion."

Get ready; this battle over normalizing transgenderism will intensify in a projected Biden Administration.  As CBN.com reported, at a town hall meeting during the Presidential campaign, "Biden told a mother who said her eight-year-old daughter was transgender that he supports children who want to change their gender." The article says:

"I would just flat out change the law," Biden replied. "Eliminate those executive orders number one."

"The idea that an eight or 10-year-old child decides you know, 'I decided I want to be transgender. That's what I think I'd like to be. It would make my life a lot easier.' There should be zero discrimination," he continued.

As Michelle Cretella of the American College of Pediatricians stated in a 2017 piece at the Daily Signal website: "...prior to the widespread promotion of transition affirmation, 75 to 95 percent of gender-dysphoric youth ended up happy with their biological sex after simply passing through puberty." She goes on to say that:

Today’s institutions that promote transition affirmation are pushing children to impersonate the opposite sex, sending many of them down the path of puberty blockers, sterilization, the removal of healthy body parts, and untold psychological damage.

These harms constitute nothing less than institutionalized child abuse.

Good news for CA church that has stood against state's COVID restrictions

Grace Community Church in Southern California has continued to challenge public health laws in the state and county and meet together in-person and inside.  This week, according to The Christian Post, the church was found to be in compliance with county health authorities.  The article says:

“We are glad to announce that we received a notice from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health … saying that we have been cleared of COVID-19 outbreak,” the church says on its website.

The article points out that: "L.A. County requires places of worship to report to the Public Health Department when there are at least three COVID-19 cases within a span of two weeks, after which the agency determines whether there is an outbreak."  After three cases were reported last month, the church, pastored by John MacArthur, had restrictions placed on it, but the church has now been "cleared."