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Liberty Counsel Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman
1/31/2013
This has probably been the most intense January in the 24 year history of Liberty Counsel. As 2013 gets fully underway, I expect an increase in our activity going forward as Barack Obama settles into his second term.
This morning, we received the State of California’s response to our brief challenging their state’s outrageous “change therapy” law. Personally, I can’t understand how that overreaching and politically-inspired law is defensible – but unless we defeat California’s attorneys at the federal Court of Appeals, it will become the law of that state.
The California lawsuit, coupled with our lawsuit challenging ObamaCare, make two of the landmark cases my legal team and I will be focused upon over the next several weeks. And there’s so much more to do!
I hope you will consider making a generous gift to Liberty Counsel as January comes to a close. The fact is, we can’t succeed without your help! Please, go here to stand with us:
To get a better idea of the caseload we now face, please read my earlier message below…
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Who would have ever thought that in America it would be illegal to counsel people who want to change from a dangerous, ungodly lifestyle to a healthy and righteous one?
Or, that it would be legal to…
- force Christians to pay for killing another human being, or
- force Christians to act against their Freedom of Conscience, or
- force Christians to call good evil and evil good?
Yet, all of these wildly improbable propositions are at the heart of cases Liberty Counsel’s legal team has been battling in January, along with many others.
++The new California “change therapy” law is a total outrage.
At the onset of 2013, Liberty Counsel filed its opening brief at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals against the California ban on change therapy (SB 1172), which would ban any counseling to minors seeking to diminish or eliminate unwanted same-sex sexual attractions, behavior, or identity.
Under the new law, Christian counselors are by force of law prohibited from counseling against the homosexual lifestyle – even if the client sought help to break free!
Thankfully, in late December, the Ninth Circuit granted Liberty Counsel's Emergency Motion to temporarily block the law from going into effect on January 1, 2013, as previously scheduled.
Please continue to pray that the Lord moves on the hearts of the judges in this case, and this Orwellian “thought police” law is struck down and never implemented.
++Liberty Counsel continues its vigorous defense of natural marriage.
This month, Liberty Counsel filed two extensive amicus briefs with the United States Supreme Court on a pair of enormously significant marriage cases – the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8, the well-known state marriage amendment.
Liberty Counsel has been deeply involved in legal advocacy on both of these crucial cases for many years now. The High Court will decide both cases by the end of the term in June 2013.
++We will not allow pro-homosexual activists to destroy the sanctity of marriage in America!
We are at a pivotal point in our nation’s history. Nothing will define the future of America more than the Court’s upcoming decisions on marriage.
It is no exaggeration to say that America’s very existence is at stake. Marriage is not simply an artifact of law needed to regulate government benefits and determine domestic rights and duties.
Rather, it is an institution ordained of God to nurture mankind and rightly order procreation through the generations. The natural family is fundamental to our very existence!
That’s why our intense legal advocacy for natural marriage is so important and why Liberty Counsel will never stop fighting for this vital institution!
++We aggressively fight against any attempt to squash the right to publically share the Gospel!
Last September, Doru Neamtu was peacefully passing out Christian tracts in front of the post office in Tempe, Arizona, when a police officer accused him of "Aggressive Solicitation." His constitutional rights were further violated when the police officer arrested him on a bogus “Failure to Provide Identification” charge.
After Liberty Counsel intervened, this month the Tempe City Court dismissed the outrageous charges against evangelist Neamtu.
We defended Doru, the son of a Romanian pastor who was also jailed for sharing the gospel in their native land. Who could have imagined that what happened to the father in Communist Romania could also happen to the son here in “the land of liberty”?
Yet, that is what it has come to in an America that seems to have forgotten what it is to be a “shining city set upon a hill.” May God help us!
++Christians must now pay to kill others’ unwanted children.
Encouraged by Barack Obamas’ radical advocacy for abortion, Americans have been forced to fund a “Hitler-like killing machine” through the hundreds of millions of federal taxpayer dollars given to Planned Parenthood each year, and now a direct payment-per-month through ObamaCare’s heinous “abortion mandate.”
At a time of exploding government borrowing and debt, as states slash spending to get their own fiscal houses in order, it is outlandish that the federal government would give Planned Parenthood, the largest participant in America’s abortion industry, $542 million last year alone.
Liberty Counsel has been a leading advocate of defunding Planned Parenthood – and we will continue working hard to lawfully stop the public funding of their abortion mills.
++Obamacare and the HHS mandates must not stand!
As I’m sure you know, Liberty Counsel has the most comprehensive lawsuit in the nation to rid the country of the scourge of ObamaCare.
We are in intense preparation for our upcoming appearance before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, and have an excellent chance of getting the President’s healthcare “reform” law declared unconstitutional. Among other crucial aspects of Obamacare, we will be directly confronting provisions that force employers to pay for abortifacients, regardless of the firm’s standards, beliefs, or principles.
Please mark these dates on your prayer calendar: February 27 and May 14-17, 2013. These days may well signal the beginning of the end of ObamaCare as our case heads back to the Fourth Circuit and eventually the United States Supreme Court.
++Liberty Counsel can’t win these cases without your help!
Please let me encourage you to make a special month-end gift to help cover the cost of Liberty Counsel’s extensive litigation work.
What I’ve shared with you today is just a small portion of the legal work that we performed in January 2013. The majority of our cases are actually settled out of court – about 95% of the time in most years – but still require my team to do the necessary work to achieve a non-litigated victory for our clients.
Right now, our litigation docket is full of crucially important cases. We need your help now more than ever! Please click here to give a substantial gift to help Liberty Counsel win these battles:
Liberty Counsel is committed to advancing life, liberty and family, and we have certainly been called upon to do that in this first month of 2013. And the fact that this month marks the beginning of the Obama administration’s second term has added a certain urgency to our vital work of defending the Constitution!
Please, give a special gift today and stand with us as we take on the leftist organizations and individuals who want nothing more than to squash our inalienable rights as Americans. Every gift – whether large or small – helps us move forward:
Thank you in advance and may God richly bless you!
Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman
Liberty Counsel
P.S. Again, please mark these dates on your prayer calendar: February 27 and May 14-17, 2013. Those are crucially important dates for our case against ObamaCare and for the future of America!
For information on the multi-faceted work in which the Liberty Counsel family of ministries engages – or to make comments – please visit our new website: www.libertycounsel.com
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Liberty Counsel, with offices in Florida, Virginia and Washington, D.C., is a nonprofit litigation, education and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and family. Liberty Counsel . PO Box 540774 . Orlando, FL 32854 .800-671-1776