{"id":4849,"date":"2010-08-16T11:16:04","date_gmt":"2010-08-16T15:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=4849"},"modified":"2010-08-16T15:19:53","modified_gmt":"2010-08-16T19:19:53","slug":"re-education-its-not-just-for-tyrants-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2010\/08\/re-education-its-not-just-for-tyrants-anymore\/","title":{"rendered":"Re-education, It’s Not Just for Tyrants Anymore"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chuck<\/a>
Chuck Colson<\/figcaption><\/figure> 8\/16\/2010 – Chuck Colson –<\/p>\n

The threat to religious freedom in this country is not a hypothetical threat. It\u2019s real, and real people are suffering as a result.<\/p>\n

When we wrote the Manhattan Declaration last fall, we warned about \u201cthe decline in respect for religious values in the media, the academy and political leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

An example of this decline is on display currently in Georgia. Jennifer Keeton, who is a 24-year-old studying for a master\u2019s degree in counseling at Augusta State University, has been threatened with expulsion. The grounds for the threatened expulsion are not poor grades or misconduct \u2013 they are Keeton\u2019s beliefs. <\/p>\n

Specifically, they are Keeton\u2019s beliefs about the morality of homosexuality. In written assignments and classroom discussions, Keeton has said that people\u2019s sexual conduct is \u201cthe result of accountable, personal choices,\u201d and not \u201ca state of being.\u201d <\/p>\n

These statements caused officials to question \u201cher ability,\u201d I\u2019m quoting now, \u201cto provide competent counseling to gay men and lesbians.\u201d So they gave her a choice: participation in a re-education plan or expulsion.<\/p>\n

That word \u201cre-education\u201d may bring to mind for you, as it does for me, what happened in Vietnam and in China after the Communists took over. And frankly, it should bring it to mind. Keeton would need to do remedial reading, complete with written assignments on how the reading affected her beliefs; she would also be required to \u201cwork,\u201d and I\u2019m quoting, \u201cto increase [her] exposure and interactions with gay populations,\u201d including but not limited to attendance at Gay Pride parades.<\/p>\n

All that\u2019s missing is working in the rice paddies.<\/p>\n

Keeton\u2019s case isn\u2019t unique: last year, Eastern Michigan University dismissed a student from its graduate counseling program for refusing to \u201cchange her religious beliefs about homosexual behavior.\u201d Like Keeton, Julea Ward was ordered to enter a \u201cremediation\u201d program designed to change her beliefs about same-sex relationships.<\/p>\n

In both cases, there was no evidence their beliefs interfered with their ability to counsel others \u2013 the concerns were, at most, theoretical.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, homosexuals are a tiny minority of the people needing counseling services. Keeton and Ward could have spent decades counseling people without the issue ever coming up.<\/p>\n

Yet, their beliefs about homosexuality have become the sole criterion by which their fitness to be counselors is being judged. The word for this: ideology.<\/p>\n

In the Manhattan Declaration we pointed out that the trampling of religious liberty is being led by people who insist that there is some right to engage in immoral sexual practices. We also pointed out that \u201ca growing body of case law\u201d has chipped away at religious freedom. Again, these two cases act as confirmation: Julea Ward lost in a Federal District Court case. While her lawyers are hopeful of prevailing on appeal, it\u2019s far from assured.<\/p>\n

These cases and others like them are stark reminders of why we called the Manhattan Declaration a \u201ccall of Christian Conscience.\u201d Contrary to what our enemies say, Christians aren\u2019t out to impose their beliefs on anybody \u2013 it\u2019s the other way around.<\/p>\n

More and more, in order to participate in public life, Christians are being told to render to Caesar that which belongs to God. So please join us, that we might take a stand together, that this is something we will never do.<\/p>\n

HT: Break Point<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

8\/16\/2010 – Chuck Colson – The threat to religious freedom in this country is not a hypothetical threat. It\u2019s real, and real people are suffering as a result. When we wrote the Manhattan Declaration last fall, we warned about \u201cthe decline in respect for religious values in the media, the academy and political leadership.\u201d An … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[113,68,37,95,142,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-persecution","category-christianity","category-culture-war","category-homosexual-indoctrination","category-leftist-tyranny","category-moral-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}