The 3 - August 22, 2021

We live in a world that is full of conflict, and this week's edition of The 3 reminds us of turbulent circumstances that Christians face.  In Afghanistan, the Taliban is ramping up its mistreatment of Christians as it spreads its territory across that nation.  In the state of Virginia, Christian teachers are standing up a against a new policy that grants special privileges to LGBTQ students.  And, a major retailer has just been fined thousands of dollars in a case involving an employee who demanded that he be allowed to use the women's restroom at a store location.

Christians' lives in danger under Afghanistan Taliban rule

We continue to observe the situation halfway around the world, as the United States and other nations struggle to extract their citizens out of the quagmire known as Afghanistan.  And, an already tenuous situation for Afghani Christians has intensified in this latest round of violence

The Christian Post reports that Frontier Alliance International shared a statement sent to the organization by an underground church leader in the country. It says: “The Taliban has a hit list of known Christians they are targeting to pursue and kill. The U.S. Embassy is defunct and there is no longer a safe place for believers to take refuge," adding, “All borders to neighboring countries are closed and all flights to and from have been halted, with the exception of private planes. People are fleeing into the mountains looking for asylum. They are fully reliant on God, who is the only One who can and will protect them.”

Also, the statement said, "...the Taliban are going door-to-door taking women and children."

The article also quoted from SAT-7 President, Rex Rogers, who stated, “We’re hearing from reliable sources that the Taliban demand people’s phones, and if they find a downloaded Bible on your device, they will kill you immediately..." He went on to say, "It’s incredibly dangerous right now for Afghans to have anything Christian on their phones. The Taliban have spies and informants everywhere."

The Christian Post also noted that:

...World Evangelical Alliance Secretary General Bishop Thomas Schirrmacher stressed that “we should not pretend as if everything was well in Afghanistan before the Taliban taking control of the country.” Schirrmacher asserted that because “the constitution of 2004 stated that Afghanistan is an Islamic republic with Islam as its state religion,” religious minorities never fully received equal rights in the country.

Lawsuit against VA county over new LGBTQ-friendly regulations expands

Loudoun County, Virginia, to a certain extent, has become "ground zero" regarding the attempt to inject ideology into the public schools that has motivated parents and teachers to stand up and speak up. WUSA Television reported that new regulations friendly to transgender students, which had already resulted in a teacher who spoke up against the policy being suspended temporarily, also yielded a resignation from another teacher. Laura Morris announced, "School board, I quit. I quit your policies. I quit your trainings and I quit being a cog in a machine that tells me to push highly politicized agendas on our most vulnerable constituents -- the children..."

The board passed the new policies by a 7-2 vote; it also discussed mask mandates and critical race theory at the meeting.

Now, Alliance Defending Freedom reports on the addition of new plaintiffs to a lawsuit that it had filed on behalf of the previously suspended teacher, Tanner Cross. The teachers are Monica Gill and Kim Wright; ADF has now expanded the suit to challenge the new policy; the site relates:

The amended complaint filed with the Loudoun County Circuit Court in Cross v. Loudoun County School Board, pending the court’s approval, explains that if Gill, Wright, and Cross were to comply with the school board’s demands, “they would be forced to communicate a message they believe is false—that gender identity, rather than biological reality, fundamentally shapes and defines who we truly are as humans, that our sex can change, and that a woman who identifies as a man really is a man, and vice versa. But if they refer to students based on their biological sex, they communicate the views they actually believe—that our sex shapes who we are as humans, that this sex is fixed in each person, and that it cannot be changed, regardless of our feelings or desires.”

Court rules against Hobby Lobby in transgender bathroom case

Meanwhile, a state appeals court in Illinois has fined craft store chain Hobby Lobby in excess of $200,000 in a case in which an employee identifying as a gender other than his biological one claims he was not able to use the women's restroom at the store at which he was employed.

CBN.com stated:

Bloomberg reports the Second District Appellate Court ruled the retailer violated the Illinois Human Rights Act by not allowing Meggan Sommerville, a biological man, to use the women's restroom at the East Aurora store where Sommerville is employed.

The court ignored biology and plainly stated that Sommerville "is female." The article says:

Sommerville, who still works for the retailer, filed a complaint with the Illinois Human Rights Commission eight years ago after being disciplined for using the women's restroom. The store management told the transgender employee to use the unisex bathroom instead.

The commission later ruled the company's policy was against state law, awarding Sommerville $220,000 for emotional distress and attorney's fees in 2019.

That fine was upheld by the state appeals court.  

Meanwhile, the Montgomery City Council defeated a proposal to implement a so-called "non-discrimination" ordinance, which grants special rights based on sexual orientation and gender identity.  For the past decade or so, the city has experienced dynamic economic growth, yet now there seems to a belief that not endorsing homosexuality and transgenderism, the city is no longer deserving of future growth.  That's the essence of a Montgomery Advertiser article about the 5-4 vote defeating the ordinance, which would provide for a 10-member commission to provide special protection for homosexuals and transgender individuals, but apparently not for people of faith who believe that this behavior is contradictory to Scripture. This seems to be a city-level attempt to enact the same agenda that is being tried on the Federal level with the so-called "Equality Act," which tramples on religious freedom and introduces harmful policies that ignore science and perpetrate a radical LGBTQ agenda.