The 3 - July 13, 2025

Baylor reverses course, rejects hundreds of thousands of dollars to study LGBT "inclusion"

On Thursday's edition of The Meeting House on Faith Radio, I referenced a news story from The Daily Citizen about a substantial grant that Baylor University had received dealing with LGBT inclusion.  Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family had written that article, which stated, as an updated version on the website noted:

We explained,

On June 30, Baylor University announced its Center for Church and Community Impact (C3I) in its School of Social Work was awarded a substantial $643,401 grant from the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation to help “better understand the disenfranchisement and exclusion of LGBTQIA+ individuals and women within congregations to nurture institutional courage and foster change.”

But, there are new developments, according to Stanton: "Baylor’s Media and Public Relations office also sent Daily Citizen a link to Baylor President Linda A. Livingstone’s 'message to the Baylor family' on the decision to return 'all associated funds to the granting foundation.'" He went on to say:

President Livingstone helpfully notes the funded research project was “for perspectives on human sexuality that are inconsistent with Baylor’s institutional policies, including our Statement on Human Sexuality.”

Livingstone is quoted as saying: “We affirm the biblical understanding of human sexuality as a gift from God, expressed through purity in singleness and fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman.”

But, as Stanton notes, earlier in that letter, Livingstone had said:

We remain committed to providing a loving and caring community for all – including our LGBTQIA+ students – because it is part and parcel of our University’s mission that calls us to educate our students within a caring Christian community.

At The Daily Citizen, Stanton says: "Loving and caring for all students who come to a university to study and grow is critical. No one should ever be mistreated while an institution seeks to hold fast to the biblical norm of human sexuality. Nor should a Christian institution casually adopt the specific language of an ideology that is directly opposed to what a university says it stands for on sexuality and marriage."

Megan Basham of The Daily Wire, in a post on X, said:

It’s a win that @Baylor is returning the LGBTQ grant, but this statement from President
@LindaLlivings is appalling. Nowhere does address LGBTQ behaviors and identities as sin. Instead, it is all an appeal to the accommodation of LGBTQ ideology. 

And nowhere does she address faculty that are openly promoting LGBTQ affirmation in opposition to a Christian worldview. Baylor staff is openly flaunting their rebellion to God‘s Word and she has allowed this. 

Further, in her role as board member of the NCAA, she refused to speak up on behalf of young female athletes who appealed to her to use her position to help keep men out of women’s sports. 

The rot is extensive at Baylor and it begins with Livingstone.

Agreement reached that would change the way that churches engage in political speech

For years, there have been restrictions placed on churches regarding comments on cultural issues and on the positions on candidates on those issues.  These were part of the so-called Johnson Amendment, affecting policies of the Internal Revenue Service.

Liberty Counsel relates: "In a recent court filing, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has agreed that churches and other houses of worship are not prohibited from engaging in political speech."

The analysis by the Christian legal organization stated:

This was prompted as a result by a lawsuit filed in a U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas by the National Religious Broadcasters, Intercessors for America, along with two Baptist churches in Texas, against Billy Long, in his official capacity as Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service...

Liberty Counsel also said:

In a joint motion with the plaintiffs to settle the lawsuit, the IRS agreed to view endorsements of political candidates from the pulpit as private matters, not as a form of campaigning. The motion asked the court to bar any presidential administration from hindering the plaintiffs from backing candidates in front of their congregations. The IRS said that if a house of worship endorsed a candidate to its congregants, the agency would view that not as campaigning but as a private matter, like “a family discussion concerning candidates.”

NRB General Counsel Michael Farris stated in a recent e-mail: "The joint filing made with the Justice Department for a consent decree in our constitutional challenge to the Johnson Amendment is not final until reviewed by the judge...," noting, "We cannot make public comment until the judge has made his ruling..." But, NRB was able to include comments from a variety of Christian leaders in that e-mail.

Florida teacher fails in court in attempt to force students and other staff to use "gender" pronouns

As The Christian Post reported: "Public school teachers can no longer demand that staff and students refer to them as the opposite sex, an appeals court has ruled."

In 2023, the state of Florida had passed a law, which stated: "[a]n employee or contractor of a public K-12 educational institution may not provide to a student his or her preferred personal title or pronouns if such preferred personal title or pronouns do not correspond to his or her sex.”  That law was upheld in a 2-1 ruling by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals; the article noted:

The three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled 2-1 that Katie Wood, a high school math teacher who is a man but identifies as a woman, could not require the use of feminine pronouns or the honorific “Ms.”

A lower court decision, according to the article, determined "that Wood’s self-declared pronouns were speech from a 'private citizen' rather than a 'government employee.'” The article said that Judge Kevin Newsom, in the majority opinion...

...wrote that “a teacher’s right to speak is not without limits” and that Wood “cannot show, with respect to the expression at issue here, that she was speaking as a private citizen rather than a government employee.”