Not Ashamed to be on the “Shame List”

By: American Decency Staff

In the history of tyrannical regimes, there is a progressive system of squashing opposing thought. As Elwood McQuaid wrote for Charisma News:  “Although methods may differ, the objective is always the same: demean, discriminate, disenfranchise, criminalize, then destroy. And to every despot who lives that dream, Jesus Christ is always an obstacle to be removed”.

In our culture, the secular Leftists are the despots seeking to remove every vestige of Christianity.   We are well past the “demeaning” stage and are quickly moving from “discriminate” to “disenfranchise”.  You can see from the list above what comes next.

The latest example comes from the federal Department of Education which had their rubber arm twisted by the LGBTQ activist group, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), to post a “Shame List” of Christian colleges who applied for waivers from Title IX regulations which would conflict with their religious tenets.

Title IX is the law passed in 1972 which prohibits schools which receive federal funding from discriminating based on sex – as in male and female – not the alphabet soup of LGBTQ and any other “sexual orientation”.  Yet in 2014 the Obama administration decided to apply Title IX to “transgender” students as well, using the threat of withholding federal funding to strong arm schools to bend to the demands of gender confused students to use locker rooms of their choice, etc.

Yet the 1972 Title IX law allows for exemptions for religious schools and colleges who believe the law requires them to violate the teaching of their faith.  So, as the Department of Education under President Obama has been amping up pressure on colleges and universities to comply to their LGBTQ edicts, hundreds of Christian colleges are applying for waivers.

Over 230 Christian colleges have applied for and received waivers (with an additional 31 still pending).  This number is huge – especially considering that the exemption applies only to schools affiliated with a denomination, and so does not apply to non-denominational schools such as Wheaton College, for example. 

Yet for those institutions affiliated with a denomination, a Title IX waiver must be granted when sought – the Department of Education does not have the authority to deny the exemption application.  That doesn’t mean, however, that Obama’s Dept. of Ed. isn’t making it difficult for those who apply for waivers – forcing schools to jump through hoops of paperwork.  Yet as Tony Perkins writes: “The bottom line is this: no one should have to get a waiver to exercise their First Amendment rights!”

Of course LGBTQ groups such as the Human Rights Campaign and Campus Pride are referring to the list of colleges receiving waivers posted by the Dept. of Education as a “Shame List” – targets to bully for having the gall to exercise their freedom of religion.  As Campus Pride decried:  “Religion-based bigotry is careless and life-threatening” and railed against Title IX exempted schools, claiming they “openly discriminate against LGBTQ people due to their anti-LGBTQ religion-based bigotry.”

Yet while this published “Shame List” smacks of despotism rather than democracy, it unwittingly serves as an example of over 250 Christian colleges who refuse to compromise Biblical teaching – who will not bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s demand to worship the LGBTQ god.  For Christians, this is not a “Shame List” – but a “Fame List.”  (Parents looking for a Christian college, this list may be a place to start.) 

The “shame list” should be those denominational colleges who are not on the list.  (In upcoming days, we’ll be writing about such so-called “Christian” colleges who are betraying God’s Word and bowing the knee to LGBTQ political correctness.)

But for those who have submitted waivers – the pages of documentation the Department of Education is requiring gives these colleges an opportunity to bear witness to Biblical truth. 

Click here to see the list of colleges.  And when you do, I urge you to take time to click on the waiver requests for some of the colleges.  I randomly clicked on several – some names I recognized, some I didn’t.  Letter after letter from these colleges, spells out a Biblical view of sexuality and an unashamed commitment to adhere to God’s Word.  Someone at the Department of Education is getting steeped in Biblical theology as they are forced to read and respond to each of these filings!

For these Christian colleges who refuse to pay homage to the towering LGBTQ idol, such stands may eventually land them (and us) in a fiery furnace of our own.  If/when that happens I pray our response will echo that of the three Hebrews.

“O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” (Daniel 3:16–18)

 

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