Earlier this year, Metro City Church, a non-denominational, independent Christian church in southeast Michigan, made plans to host an “Unashamed Identity Workshop” for young women who might have questions about – or may be struggling with – their sexual identity (which is certainly an understandable position given contemporary society’s gender confusion issues!). As the church’s Facebook post described it, the workshop was intended for ~

“… girls only (by birth), 12-16 years old, for those struggling with the thoughts that they are trans, bi, gay or other. It doesn’t have to be this way.
 
Through thoughtful, relevant and biblical counsel we will help your girl be unashamed of her true sexual identity given to her by God at birth.”

Unfortunately, those are fighting words to today’s social justice warriors. As Christian Post reported, LGBTQ activists immediately went on the offensive ~
 

A Michigan pastor whose church recently invited teen girls for a discussion over LGBT thoughts has said that the backlash has hit extreme levels, with people threatening to kill his family and burn his church down.

 
Why is it that LGBTQ totalitarians – the folks who tell us not to “judge,” refuse to tolerate any position but their own?
 
According to Pastor Jeremy Schossau, the church has been targeted by “unbelievable hate, vulgarity; filled with stuff that I just can’t understand or believe.”. On February 9th, a group who somehow feel threatened by God’s official position on men and women, held a demonstration in front of the church, accusing Metro City of forcible conversion therapy.
 
 

These activists are totally misrepresenting the nature and intent of the workshop, as Pastor Schossau so graciously explains in this video ~
 

Shortly after he made that video – in an interview with Tony Perkins (Family Research Council) – Pastor Schossau said that one girl had just told him the workshop had saved her life ~

“Just a few minutes before we went on the air here, I received a text message from one of the young ladies who is involved with this whole workshop that we have been putting on,” Schossau said. “She said that we saved her life, literally, that she was suicide-minded before getting into discussions with us. And she was just overwhelmed by the ‘peer pressure’ to be gay, to be a lesbian.”
 
Schossau said that the meeting provided her with the comfort of knowing that “she doesn’t have to make any of these decisions when she is 13 years old.”
 
“She can slow her sexual thought down and that just because you struggle and just because your friends say that you are, [that] doesn’t make you gay,” the pastor explained.
Source: Christian Post

 
Progressive politicians are happy to jump on controversies like this to pacify their more radical constituents. So Michigan Democrat Reps. Adam Zemke and Darrin Camilleri have already introduced House Bill 5550 to “prohibit mental health professionals from engaging in efforts to change the sexual orientation and gender identity of a minor.” They’re also calling on Attorney General Bill Schuette to investigate the church. Good grief.
 

If you believe, as I do, that these activists have gotten totally carried away with trying to force others what to believe about human sexuality, the Family Research Council has a petition you can sign HERE, which is asking the congressmen to withdraw their request for an investigation ~

It is alarming that legislators, who have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution, have attacked the free speech rights and free exercise of religion by a local church congregation, in direct violation of the First Amendment. Moreover, as government officials, for you to dictate what a local church must teach regarding its theology is totalitarian in nature, and is at the heart of what the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was meant to prevent.

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Related:
It doesn’t help when news organizations can’t be bothered to report the truth about this issue ~ Demonstrators brave the cold to protest conversion therapy sexual identity program at Riverview church
The Left Really is Trying to Silence Us ~

So, not even a church is allowed to help its young people who struggle with unwanted same-sex thoughts. I guess freedom of religion and, even more fundamentally, freedom of self-determination only goes so far. How dare a church do such a thing!

What did Jesus Mean When He Said, ‘Judge Not’? Probably Not What You Think

The pen IS mightier than the sword ~ Governor Chris Christie (a Catholic, I thought?) signed a bill banning mis-characterized “conversion therapy” in 2013