One Voice for Public Policy - Pushed to the Margins
What does it look like … what does it feel like to be pushed to the margins of society? Well, of course, for Christians, things have been moving in this direction for quite a few years now, but it appears that this may become a much more felt reality for all of us in the near future.
In recent years, here in Minnesota especially, elements on the political left have been systematically and forcefully implementing a wide variety of radical actions, all of which seem to have the same end goal in mind: pushing Christians and a Christian view of humanity and the world to the fringes of society. While any one of these changes may not seem worth getting upset over, collectively they have been extremely destructive, refashioning our society in radically socialist and atheistic ways, weakening and ultimately seeking to destroy the nuclear family and the Church.
In support of this contention, allow me to site a few recent examples:
Changes to the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA)
During the 2023 legislative session, the DFL majority amended the MHRA to remove a key religious exemption so that in the future, churches, and especially church-related schools, will be forced to submit to transgender ideology in their hiring and other practices. Failure to do so would open these schools and their sponsoring congregations to lawsuits based on claims of sexual identity discrimination. For the past thirty years, the MHRA sought to maintain a delicate balance that would allow people of all faiths, and of no faith, to live together in respectful harmony with each other. Now, however, the MHRA has been transformed into a weapon to be used against people of faith. Such is life at the margins.
Christians No Longer Considered Trustworthy Citizens
In a recent federal court case (MO Dept. of Corrections v. Finney), a judge determined that people who hold traditional religious views on matters of sexuality will henceforth be automatically presumed to be unfit to sit on juries hearing cases involving a homosexual party. As Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito suggested in his dissent in the 2020 Bostock case, and as he recently restated, Christians who do not hide their religious beliefs are now to be labeled bigots and treated as such by their own government. Such is life at the margins.
Parents Protecting Their Children Now Threatened With Loss of Custody
In 2023 the Minnesota Legislature declared Minnesota to be a “gender identity sanctuary state”. It did so by passing legislation that would actively welcome out-of-state minors with sexual dysphoria, offering to aid them in obtaining transitioning services. If their parents were unwilling to support such transitioning, or if such transitioning is illegal in their home state, the State of Minnesota would facilitate these life-altering changes by taking temporary legal custody of the child.
This is consistent with a proposed bill in the State of Illinois that would change the State’s definition of "child abuse" to include a parents’ failure to actively facilitate the “sexual transitioning” of their child, or failure to help their minor child procure an abortion. Parents could then lose custody of their child and/or be punished with fines or imprisonment. This is pertinent to Minnesotans, in that the current majority party here in Minnesota shares these same political views and could easily introduce similar legislation here in Minnesota.
More recently, the State of Maine is considering an even more radical version of this bill. Such is life at the margins.
A New (and Dangerous) Equal Rights Amendment
Earlier in this legislative session, the Democratic Party of Minnesota committed itself to introducing a new Equal Rights Amendment to the Minnesota State Constitution. Under this amendment (not to be confused with the similarly named federal amendment of the 1970’s and 80’s), abortion through all nine months of pregnancy would be made a constitutional right, as would the core components of woke transgender ideology. It also contains no religious liberty protections. Ominously, the actual language of the proposed amendment has not yet been released, but it would surely establish Minnesota as one of the most radical states in the nation and would further stigmatize the Church and persons of faith who would dare to speak or live in a Christian manner. Such is life at the margins.
Driving a Legal Wedge Between Parents and Their Children
Under the banner of promoting “gender-affirming care” for children, HF2280 and SF2236 would explicitly guarantee the right of every child, regardless of age, to make their own healthcare decisions without notification of parents or input by parents. Aside from the obvious rejection of parental rights in general, this bill would further encourage public schools in their denial of the well-settled understanding that parents are the primary authority in the life of their child and would further encourage schools to assert that they are justified in assuming that role for themselves, particularly in matters of sexual transitioning. Such is life at the margins.
Again, this is just a sampling of the many legislative and administrative agency efforts, all of which seem designed to embed a new and radical political ideology … actually a new religion … in our legal system, in our public education system, and in every other aspect of our public life.
What does all this mean? As Christians, of course, we are not without hope. In fact, historically the Church has done some of its best work while operating from the fringes … when being rejected by the mainstream. And so it is that we earnestly appeal to God in prayer, asking Him to restrain this evil, and we urgently appeal to our fellow citizens to use the tools of citizenship to actively oppose this destructive and atheistic agenda. Indeed, it has become increasingly clear that one of our chief baptismal callings in this moment is to do whatever we can to call our society back from the cultural brink at which it now stands. It means pastors and laity summoning the courage to initiate public conversations about these matters within our congregations and within our communities.
Why would we do this? Why would we expose ourselves to the sharp criticism of the secular left? We certainly do not do it to benefit ourselves, either individually or as the Church; rather, we do so to benefit our neighbors, many of whom already are and will continue to suffer greatly from our current descent into political and social chaos. Indeed, especially in this season of Lent, we take both comfort and inspiration from the sufferings of our Lord, as He too sought to serve a world that sought to push him to the margins.
P. S. Want to know where things stand on the issue of Physician-Assisted Suicide? READ THE EMAIL ALERT! Your help is needed.
If you have questions, please feel free to contact me.
In Christ,
Rev. Fredric Hinz
fred.hinz@mnsdistrict.org
507-317-9634
Public Policy Advocate
Minnesota South and North Districts
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
