Paul Random

Baby Should Be Immediately Removed from Convicted Child Predator

Brandon Keith Mitchell is a Tier 1 registered sex offender, and yet he and his homosexual partner recently obtained custody of a newborn baby through surrogacy.

How is this even possible?

There’s a loophole in Pennsylvania law that doesn’t bar sex offenders from privately contracting with other parties in reproductive agreements.

Mitchell and his partner have been parading the baby on social media, and even solicited funds to pay for the surrogate. A journalist decided to dig into the background of the two men and discovered Mitchell had previously been arrested for soliciting a 16-year-old boy.

As a chemistry teacher at Downingtown West High School in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, the 30-year-old Mitchell pleaded guilty to felony child pornography charges and corruption of a minor. He sent over 12,000 text messages to the student. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

Not surprisingly, none of this wickedness was disclosed in the two men’s GoFundMe campaign or in their exploitive videos with the newborn baby.

Earlier this week, York, Pennsylvania County District Attorney Tim Barker acknowledged the serious issue with state law.

“I thoroughly appreciate the concerned and outraged emotions expressed by many that a loophole exists in the law that allows a registered sex offender to become a parent through surrogacy without the same intense scrutiny, accountability, and judicial oversight mandated for the adoption process,” York told Newsweek.

“Pennsylvania law currently does not, in and of itself, prohibit a registered sex offender from becoming a parent through surrogacy,” Barker stated. “Given this fact, no one presently has brought forth to my office an allegation of a criminal violation being perpetrated by Mitchell in York County. Accordingly, my office lacks any legal basis to act on this matter.”

Pennsylvania lawmakers must get to work to right this dangerous legal loophole.

Tragically, the husband of the surrogate told Newsweek that Mitchell had told the couple there was “something in my past” but that neither the mother or father followed up.

“I didn’t know the story and I didn’t care to dig into it,” stated Theodore Martinovich.

At the core of this evilness isn’t simply a legal loophole but a fundamental disregard for what’s in the best interest of children. This apathy and indifference manifests on many levels but especially in support for same-sex adoption.

Same-sex adoption deliberately and unapologetically deprives a child of either a mother or a father. It normalizes the abnormal. It exposes children to a confused and destructive sexual ethic.

Those who support same-sex parenting often to point to studies indicating there’s no difference between a child being raised by two men or two women compared to being raised by a mother and a father. Yet, those studies have been shown to be fundamentally flawed. They’re often based on self-reporting, feature individuals recruited from same-sex advocacy groups – and are often only looking at small groups for a short period of time.

The Pennsylvania legislature needs to immediately close the loophole that allows convicted child sexual predators to contract to basically buy a child. That’s legislation every sane person should unequivocally support.

Image credit: Pennsylvania Police

30-Year-Old Baby Born in Ohio

His name is Thaddeus Daniel Pierce and he now holds the distinction of being the oldest baby ever born.

Conceived back in 1994, and adopted as a frozen embryo by Lindsey and Tim Pierce, Thaddeus has a biological twin sister who is 30 1/2 years of age.

Tim, Thaddeus’ adopted father, was a toddler back when his son was frozen in his embryonic state along with two other siblings. Linda, his biological mother, had been struggling to conceive with her husband. The Ohio couple began exploring In vitro fertilization (IVF) and with the help of the technology, created four embryos. They implanted one in Linda’s womb and froze the remaining three.

Now 62, Linda and her husband planned on implanting the remaining embryos but never did.

“I always wanted another baby desperately,” she reflected. “I called them my three little hopes.”

A Christian, Linda said discarding or turning them over for research was never an option. Instead, the Archerd family paid to have them frozen and stored. Services of this nature can run between hundreds of dollars to $1500 annually. Having divorced, and when it became obvious she wasn’t going to implant any of the remaining embryos, she decided to donate them to an adoption agency that operates what’s become known as a “snowflake” program.

They’re called this because embryos, like snowflakes, are all beautiful and unique.

Nobody knows for certain how many embryos are frozen and stored in the United States, but officials estimate it’s somewhere between 400,000 and 1,500,000.

As it is, Thaddeus’ escape from his frozen state was a statistical anomaly. The odds of a preborn baby making it back to the womb and then out into the world are astronomically long – and therein lies just some of the ethical and theological concerns and challenges with IVF.

IVF is a multi-billion-dollar industry. Often managed and promoted by people either oblivious to or uninterested in the moral minefields, embryos are often rated and graded by cold hearted calculators who believe the end justifies the means.

Embryologists base their evaluation on the quality of an embryo based on its rate of cell growth in its first three days, its degree of fragmentation, and the evenness of its cells. It’s then given a number between one and four, with the four meaning it’s in the best possible condition.

We don’t know how many “ones” or “twos” are destroyed all together, but the number would inevitably be heartbreaking.

Couples interested in adopting a frozen embryo complete a required home study. The home study will help prepare the family for parenting any resulting children and communicating with the placing family. It includes a background check on the adopting family members and properly vets everyone involved.

The legal side of embryo adoption is governed by property law since embryos are considered to be property and not people in the United States. Once a contract is signed by both the placing and adopting families, the adopting family “owns” the embryos and the placing family has terminated all of their rights and responsibilities to the embryos.

We celebrate Thaddeus’ birth and liberation from his three decade plus frozen state. We applaud the decision to preserve his life all these years and admire and laud the Pierce’s willingness to step out in faith and adopt this precious little boy.

Thaddeus’ birth also calls into the spotlight all those embryos still in limbo. It commands and demands thoughtful and critical consideration for couple’s currently struggling with infertility and evaluating whether IVF is something they want to pursue. Focus on the Family believes couples who do pursue it can reduce the moral and ethical concerns surrounding the procedure. But our hearts still ache over the conundrum that nevertheless persists at cryobanks all across the country.

Image credit: Lindsey Pierce

Yes, Pastors Should Be Discussing ‘Political’ Issues

In the aftermath of this month’s reinterpretation of the Johnson Amendment by the Internal Revenue Service, questions remain about what pastors will and won’t say from the pulpit.

Yet one thing remains clear.

Given the trajectory of culture and their responsibility as shepherds to their flock, pastors have an obligation to help their congregants better understand what God’s Word has to say about the times in which we’re living.

In short, responsible pastors cannot stay silent while talking inside their church about what’s happening outside its doors.

Especially when it comes to thorny and uncomfortable “political” issues like the sanctity of human life, the preservation of one-man, one-woman marriage, the distinctiveness of the two sexes and the constitutionally protected religious freedom that all Americans enjoy.

Incidentally, it might interest readers to know the Johnson Amendment, named after then Senator Lyndon Johnson, was a politically motivated effort to silence the legislator’s opponents who were supporting his primary rival.

Inserted into the U.S. tax code in 1954, the legislation prohibited non-profit organizations from endorsing or opposing candidates for office. Over the years, the declaration has had a chilling effect on what pastors and other non-profit leaders have felt comfortable talking about.

This month’s IRS ruling provided welcome clarity as well as leveled the playing field regarding the historic uneven application of the politically charged amendment.

Professor Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer of Notre Dame Law School told The New York Times that the IRS declaration “basically tells churches of all denominations and sects that you’re free to support candidates from the pulpit.”

Whether a pastor wants to announce support for any candidate is something only the pastor can decide, but the ruling does far more than simply allow endorsements from a pulpit. As issued, the decision from the IRS takes away any excuse pastors might have previously cited about remaining above the political fray. 

Josh Howerton, who serves as senior pastor of Lakepointe Church in Dallas, has long believed that pastors and the Church must respond to the cultural issues confronting the world. A third-generation pastor, he also recognizes that the world is different than it was when his father and grandfather were teaching and preaching. Here is how Pastor Howerton sees and understands the intersection between faith and politics – and why church leaders can’t bury their heads in the sand:

What’s happening right now is that the Church has not gotten more political. Politics are getting more theological, and politics are getting more spiritual. When the government moved past things like building roads, issuing driver’s licenses, and teaching math, to things like redefining marriage, erasing gender, reframing abortion as reproductive rights, and then using the government school system to indoctrinate everybody’s kids into believing those things, hey guys, the Church didn’t move. Politics did.

You cannot read the Bible about Moses, Daniel, Esther, Nathan, Nehemiah, John the Baptist, and think that the Church and pastors should avoid addressing government and governmental leaders. You just can’t do it. If the Church won’t disciple people, the world will.

So what’s going to happen is if godly leaders and godly pastors and godly voices all go silent or refuse to be clear on issues related to politics and government, then the only voices that are left are the godless ones. Politics can’t save anybody from hell, but the book of James says that our everyday decisions either pull heaven down into our lives or pull hell up into our lives. So, politics can’t save anybody from hell, but [politics] can save us from pulling hell up into our cities, states, and nations.

Pastor Howerton gets it. He gets it loud and clear. It’s reckless, irresponsible, and a dereliction of their duty for a pastor to ignore the cultural revolution that is consuming families, destroying marriages, killing innocent children, and encouraging the mutilation of sexually confused children.

If a pastor is entrusted with a pulpit, the pastor better be using it to teach God’s Word and helping their people to understand the times and know what to do about it (1 Chron. 12:32).

If your pastor never mentions abortion, the assault on marriage, the corruption and abuse of sexually confused children or the erosion of religious freedom, the question to ask is, “Why not? Why are you remaining silent when the enemy is roaring loudly outside the door?”

We’re grateful for inspired, bold, and fearless leaders like Pastor Howerton who are leading their people and bringing God’s truth to light in practical and applicable ways.

Image credit: Lakepointe Church.

Young Girls Shouldn’t Have to Be Brave

Our friends at Prager U, an organization founded to help educate and point students to truth, recently posted a video of a young girl speaking before a school board in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

At issue was the district’s “trans inclusive” policies – a politically correct term for rules and regulations pertaining to the sexually confused.

We don’t know the student’s name, but this young teen is seen addressing a group of what appears to be mostly middle-aged adults.

“Now you guys are probably thinking, ‘Well, I’m not going to listen to her because she’s what, a middleschooler?’” the girl begins. “Well, I’m on the student council and those younger kids who probably weren’t brave enough to be here, I’m afraid for them.”

Why?

“I don’t want them to have to walk into the bathroom and see someone of the opposite sex in there,” she testified. “That’s not right. That’s not how it’s supposed go. I know most people are like, ‘Well, that’s not a way it’s supposed to go.’”

In response to her testimony, Prager U posted, “She’s brave and we’re proud of her.”

This young woman certainly acted in a courageous manner and made a valiant case regarding the dangerous and foolish policy of allowing boys to go into girls’ bathrooms or locker rooms.

But this young girl shouldn’t have to be brave, at least not in this way. 

This middleschooler shouldn’t have to be standing up to the bullies, testifying before a board of adults who should know better and who should have intervened long before this youngster was placed in a position where she felt compelled to push back against the wickedness.

The “trans” issue in schools has been hotly debated for years now. Thanks to common sense policies from the Trump administration, progress against the danger has been made, but the lunacy still lives on in areas where radicals have wrested control.

Attention is often paid to the practical side of the outrageousness – who can use what bathrooms and where, who can compete in what sports and when. But not enough attention has been focused on what these battles have done to the hearts and minds of the otherwise well-adjusted young people caught in the crosshairs.

The loss of innocence has been widespread and profound. Childhood is brief enough. These radical prevaricators who are determined to upend norms and redefine reality are stealing and corrupting fleeting moments from our children and forcing the young to bear the heavy burden of issues they’re unprepared and ill-equipped to encounter.

That young Wisconsin girl shouldn’t have to be brave. She should be protected and shielded from the cultural insanity. She should be allowed to focus on the evolution of her studies and sports or other extracurricular activities, not on the politics of a destructive cultural revolution.  

When you steal a child’s innocence and thrust them into a cultural conversation surrounding sexual deviance, you’re robbing not just the child, but everyone else, too. That’s because thanks to the carefree days of childhood, young people dream, and those dreams take root, and those roots can run deep and produce wonderful fruit years into the future.

Yet, short-circuit childhood, force children to “grow up” early by filling their minds with perversion and nonsense, and you potentially lose those fertile and innocent  fields of development. Rush childhood and you run the risk of ruining adulthood, too.

Young girls and boys need courage and bravery, but better to learn to first be brave by falling asleep in the dark, jumping off a high diving board, or reciting a poem in front of a class. Childhood bravery should not involve testifying before a school board about the dangers of boys in girls’ bathrooms.

And let’s face it: this type of bravery is only needed in youth today because of the cowardice of adult school board members who refuse to protect the very children they’re directed and called to serve.

Image from Shutterstock

The Fighting Christian is Not a Contradiction

Writing in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, columnist Peggy Noonan appears convinced that President Donald Trump’s natural governing inclination is to fight:

“What we’ve seen the past six months is what we’ll see in the future. It will be fight, fight, fight, not only or primarily for a movement, program or platform, but because fighting is good and the natural state.”

“Of all his weaknesses that is one of his greatest, that he’d rather hurt himself than not fight. He’d rather hurt the country than not fight. The fight is all.”

Since 2016, President Trump’s critics on both the right and the left have made similar accusations. Are they right or wrong? Is this good news or bad news? Where you stand on those questions seems largely dependent on your opinion of Trump himself and how he is governing the country.

But as believers, how should Christians think about fighting the ongoing cultural battles?

Many like to point to the apostle Paul’s encouragement to members of the Church in Rome, when he urged them, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18).

Taken in context, Paul is relaying to believers what true Christians look like. Earlier in the letter, he writes:

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor …Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer… Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them …Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all (Romans 12:9-10, 12, 14-17).

But does that mean we can’t push back against the wickedness of the culture?

Of course not. To “abhor” or “hate” evil is to fight it, not passively watch the wicked run roughshod over the innocent. Addressing believers in Ephesus, Paul advised Christians to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil” (Eph. 6:10-11).

God can orchestrate anything with our without our assistance, but passivity is more likely to invite the status quo. 

Last week it was announced that Kaiser Permanente, a healthcare provider serving nearly 13 million people across eight states, was stopping all gender mutilation surgeries for any patients under the age of 19. 

The healthcare behemoth hasn’t really had a change of heart or “seen the light” but instead is responding to pressure and executive federal action.

They’re responding to the fight.

From an internal memo written by CEO Greg Adams:

Since January, there has been significant focus by the federal government on gender-affirming care, specifically for patients under the age of 19 … In response to these federal actions, many health systems and clinicians across the country have paused or discontinued providing gender-affirming care for adolescents … After significant deliberation and consultation with internal and external experts including our physicians, we’ve made the difficult decision to pause gender-affirming surgical treatment for patients under the age of 19 in our hospitals and surgical centers.

Notice how many times (three) they used the term “gender-affirming” – a dishonest and reckless description of a destructive act that deforms and leaves young people to manage irreversible consequences. And a “difficult decision”? It’s the only right decision after the disastrous one that has led to the maiming of sexually confused children.

It was Winston Churchill who once quipped, “I like a man who grins when he fights.”

C.S. Lewis was right. “Christianity is a fighting religion.” Christians are called to be happy warriors who fight evil with good, who defend the defenseless, and who fight based on principle not on predicted or anticipated outcomes. Loving Christians fight because they hate the evil and love their neighbor. They fight and leave the outcome to the Lord.

Image from Getty.