When Your State Legislature is the Hate Group

The State of California has declared War on the Trump
Administration. From the 35+ lawsuits filed by appointed Attorney General
Xavier Becerra, to the repeated passage of legislation designed to neuter a
free Internet, to the opposition to the national guard along our borders. A
resident can infect someone with AIDS and get a slap on the wrist. If a
restaurateur gives away too many straws, he could face one year in jail. If a
nurse uses the wrong pronoun when addressing an elderly person, you could face
jail time, too.

Since when did any state legislature become so hostile, so
hateful toward liberty, common sense, and reality?

Currently, an egregious bill, AB 2943, is heading toward
Governor Jerry Brown’s desk. Superficially, this bill would ban reparative
therapy as an advertised service in the state of California. Eight years ago,
the state legislature banned reparative therapy for minors. Now they want to
treat adults like children and prevent them from seeking help for unwanted
same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria. Seeking help with sexual attraction
and gender identity issues could look like it’s gone for good

For the record, reparative therapy is an effective
treatment, one which relies on an atmosphere of trust, respect, and
communication—not abuse, deprivation, or shock treatments, as distorted opposing
arguments and fraudulent opponents would have the public believe. These testimonies from
ex-gays and former transgenders are among many accounts affirming
that people do change and restore their lives to healthy sexual preferences and
identities.

With the continued push for AB 2943, however, the California
State Legislature has maintained its morally decrepit war on the laws of nature
and Nature’s God. Regardless of one’s libertarian or socially liberal leanings within
otherwise conservative circles, families establish stable communities,
especially Western Civilization, the best set of values out there to ensure
liberty for all and equal opportunities for all, no matter what challenges,
outcomes, or starting position in which a person finds himself. Families
matter, faith matters, and so does freedom, which makes the other two possible.

If AB 2943 passes, all of that won’t matter—at least in the
state of California, but no one should naively believe that the moral rot in
California will stay there. MassResistance, the international
pro-family group which makes a difference, has been fighting this
destructive LGBT hate machine for years. For the last two months, we have directed
more targeted, and
vocal efforts against AB 2943, to protect therapy equality, freedom
of speech, and respect for natural marriage and gender.

Our national team is battled-tested. Two
years ago, we jumped into the fight against the California LGBT Hate
Machine fray when law(less)makers wanted to essentially shut down every
Christian college in the state of California with SB 1146. We contacted churches,
Republican clubs, and non-profit organization invested in protecting the
well-being of a truly liberal education, especially on Christian colleges. Legislators
up and down the state heard from us. The legislation faced immense backlash,
and the author withdrew its worst portions.

Today, MassResistance has followed the same process and connected
with more activists to stop AB 2943. Our team in Massachusetts stopped the Bay
State from banning reparative therapy for minors last month. Could we take on
this menacing agenda in California, too? After visiting and calling a number of
district offices, I learned that groups all over the state had been calling,
sending emails, writing letters, and paying visits to the district and capitol
offices of different representatives.

Then came the fateful day on the floor of the state senate.
MassResistance activists had hoped that we could delay this legislation until
August 31^st, thus ensuring that it would not meet the constitutional
deadline for passage to the Governor. On August 16^th, State
Senator Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) announced an amendment which
would permit the sale of goods but not services related to reparative therapy.
Any legislation which imperils the right of individuals to seek help, aid, or
counsel from a therapist remains unconstitutional. Pro-family activists have
learned the hard way that amending a bad bill is not enough. Bad bills should
fail and be withdrawn completely.

To listen to State Senator
Scott Weiner of San Francisco defend AB 2943, an unjust intrusion
into the rights of individuals, to justify trampling on the rights of hurting
people to seek qualified help, was just unbelievable. A diligent, indifferent minority
agenda has taken over California’s levers of power, and the rest of California
is expected to tolerate it?! The bill passed on a party-line vote.

Doesn’t this fit the definition of ‘hate
group’? The state legislature is targeting Christians, conservatives
of all colors and backgrounds, even immigrants by granting favors and perks to
illegal aliens. This is targeted bigotry. For decades, MassResistance
has been unjustly smeared as a hate group because we tell the truth
about homosexuality, transgenderism, and the unprecedented, inevitable assaults.
My
friends and I have been unfairly targeted by the Southern Poverty
Law Center, itself a hate group recently forced to pay a huge indemnity for
smearing a reformist Muslim as an “Anti-Muslim Extremist.”

Let’s call out the truth as we see it. Any state legislature
which declares war on the natural rights of its citizens, which disregards the
oath of office to uphold and defend the United States Constitution, has become
the hate group. More Californians need to shout “Enough!”, but still so many
remain uninformed.

Yet this unconscionable overreach may give way to a silver
lining. Should California’s unrequited Anti-Trumpism push Governor Brown to
sign this travesty into law, multiple lawsuits will emerge. This legal
challenge will go all the way to the Supreme Court, and based on the concurring
opinions in NIFLA vs. Becerra, a (growing) majority of conservative
justices will strike down this law and all reparative therapy bans across the
country.

California Democrats may win a battle, but they will lose
the war. Like the Southern Poverty Law Center and other anti-conservative smear
machines, the California State Legislature’s hatred of targeted groups will
come to an end.