Visiting homebound-As the government has developed home care services for those elderly who can no longer take care of themselves, more of those who need a little help each morning getting bathed and dressed, but can take care of themselves after that, have been able to stay in their own homes instead of going into a nursing home. The result has saved the government a great deal as home care usually costs only 1/2 to 1/3 of nursing home care and has enabled many to stay in their homes, however it also tends to isolate them. Workers come in daily but must complete their work and move on to the next client so they can not stay and visit. In addition, there are many who can take care of themselves and don’t need help, but they can no longer drive and get out. The grocery may deliver their groceries and the laundry picks up, cleans, and returns their laundry but they don’t have time to stop and visit. Many elderly confined to their own homes do not see anyone besides any care givers and medical personnel they have, and could use someone who is willing to come and spend time talking to them. The elderly often appreciate visits by children who are well behaved and teens because they may have grandchildren but have never seen them because they live at a great distance and the children and teens often enjoy visiting the elderly who have the time to sit and talk with them or play games with them, because their parents often work and don’t have the time.
Legislation-H-D
- The Center For Christian Virtue issued the following notice. There are three bills coming before the Ohio House tomorrow (Wednesday June 21: (1) HB 68 (The Safe Act-Saving Adolescents from Experimentation) that would ban dangerous puberty-blocking drugs, wrong-sex hormones, and transgender surgeries on children. (2) The Save Women’s Sports Act that would preserve the integrity of women’s sports by protecting female athletes from having to compete against biological males. (3) HB 8 The Parent’s Bill of Rights which would recognize the fundamental right of parents to make decisions regarding their children’s upbringing, care, and education, by requiring public schools to provide advance notification to parents about the teaching of sexual content to students, protect students from being encouraged by school counselors to “socially transition” to the opposite sex without their parents’ knowledge, and require schools to notify parents if a student requests a change of gender recognition at school. Ohio voters need to contact their House representatives immediately and encourage them to vote for them.
Election issues-A
The Supreme Court has overturned Roe vs Wade and declared that the baby is a person and so protected by the courts. However, the federal government has not enacted laws to protect babies. As a result, it has become the obligation of the States to enact laws protecting babies. Ohio has enacted strict laws limiting abortion and protecting the mother by requiring facilities be licensed and inspected. While laws in all States require medical facilities to be licensed and inspected, abortion supporters claim that under Roe vs Wade, they were not required to be licensed since the baby wasn’t a person protected by the law. It made no difference to them that the mother was a person protected by the law and the laws were enacted to protect her. They felt they were above the law simply because they performed abortions. Ohio responded by enacting laws specifically requiring abortion clinics be licensed to protect the mother. Planned Parenthood is targeting Ohio and other pro-life States. They are seeking to overturn the pro-life laws currently in effect by pushing through a Constitutional amendment in November that will not only open Ohio to unlimited abortion up to birth, it will also wipe out all the current laws protecting the mother. Currently, it is easy to enact Constitutional amendments. The federal government requires a 2/3 majority of Congress and an approval of 3/4th of the Staes. Only 27 amendments have been enacted since it was ratified in 1788. Ohio currently only requires a simple majority and has had 187 amendments since 1803. It is open to being amended anytime someone feels like pushing a ballot issue and can get half the people to vote for it. As a result, the Ohio legislature has enacted a law setting up a special ballot issue in August to raise the requirement to 60%. This has great importance, not only for the abortion ballot issue, but for all future attempts to amend the Constitution. The Constitution should be a sacred document and only amended with strong support from its citizens. No issue as important as whether to kill unborn babies should be left to a simple majority. The amendment in August would make it more difficult for Planned Parenthood to pass their amendment in November, as well as make it more difficult to pass any future attempts to amend the Ohio Constitution. Up until 1973, all States had laws banning abortion and the vast majority of people supported laws against abortion. In 1973 Roe vs Wade ruled that we did not know when life began and so the courts could not protect the baby. It never ruled that abortion was legal, however it prevented the courts from enforcing laws against abortion. It opened the door to a profitable abortion business which has operated openly without fear of court interference. Most people took it that since the abortion businesses were operating openly, it must not be bad. Three generations have grown up believing abortion was legal. While a majority still oppose abortion, many do only half-hearted and cannot be depended on to oppose it. The life of hundreds of thousands of babies should not be left up to a simple majority.
Schools-education-I-Z
The schools have increasingly been pushing parents out of the decision making process over the education of heir children. School boards were set up in each school district and members were elected by voters in the district. Members were known in the school district and elected based on the values of the voters. The boards held regular board meetings where parents could voice concerns and inform board members about their concerns. In addition, school districts usually had Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) where parents and teachers worked together to support the schools. Schools were supported by funds from local taxes. However, the federal department of education has increasingly been funneling money to school districts under the pretense of helping poorer districts. However money has been distributed to both rich and poor districts making them increasingly dependent on those funds. The federal department of education then began blackmailing school districts to include liberal moral and ethical teaching, by threatening to cut off funds if they did not comply. Many of the programs were instituted without notifying parents. When parents have learned of them and objected they were ignored or even ridiculed. With Covid, children were forced to work from home and many parents learned about programs that had not been aware of, and have begun speaking out against them. The Ohio legislature has introduced House bill HB-8 ”The Parent’s Bill of Rights” to address the growing tyranny of the educational establishment. It would reestablish the parent’s right to make decisions about the child’s upbringing, care, and education. It would also require schools to notify parents ahead of time when the school was going to provide instruction involving sexual material. It would also protect students from being pressured by school staff to transition to the opposite sex without the parent’s knowledge and require the school to notify the parents if a student requests a change in gender recognition at school. Nineteen other States have already passed similar legislation. It is important to inform your representatives in Columbus that you want them to support the bill.
Gay Privileges-VI-P
There has been a rapid increase in the number of girls identifying as trans in last 6-7 years. Originally rare and primarily boys, it is increasing among girls as early as 11 or 12 at an alarming rate. The teen years are very confusing for girls in establishing their identity and many feel they don’t fit in with the image that the media paints that girls should be. In addition, they are feeling a lot of pressure from boys to have sex. The media says they are really boys in girl’s bodies and can solve the problem by becoming boys. This sounds like a good solution to them because it offers an explanation for why they are confused about their identity and solves the problem of pressure from boys. In addition, the overwhelming pressure by doctors and school personnel is to transition and little is done to help them understand or resolve their confusion. Yet there is no information on whether transitioning helps or the damage done by transitioning. Most studies are done on boys which have entirely different causes. The rise in the number of girls is so recent that the outcomes cannot be predicted, since girls often don’t resolve their confusion until their early 20;s. Doctors and school personnel are often afraid to try to help them deal with the problem and parents feel they will be labeled as bigoted if they try to get the girl help. Some States are even passing laws that make it a crime to try to prevent a child from transitioning or to get them to return to their natural orientation. Many schools are not notifying parents when a child is confused and are pressuring the child to transition without exploring the cause of their confusion. Ohio House Bill 68 (the SAFE Act-Saving Adolescents from Experimentation) is headed for the House floor. It would ban the experimenting on children by giving them puberty blockers and wrong-sex drugs to transition them to the opposite sex and performing transgender surgeries that often leave them sterile. Contact your representatives and urge them to paass it. Nineteen other States have already passed such laws.
Fourth Sunday of Pentecost-June 18
Meeting A Need-If there is a need in your area and there is no one meeting that need, you may consider organizing a ministry through your church or in your community. The small groups may check to see if there are nearby residents needing lawns cut, snow shoveling of simple repairs. If the group doesn’t have anyone available, they can ask neighboring groups. Churches often claim they don’t have the resources. Some needs may be beyond the resources of the local small group. Churches often claim they don’t have the resources. In the mid-1970’s, I belonged to a house church consisting of only six families. They became concerned about the large number of suicides in the area after I told them about the hour, I had spent the previous week on a railroad bridge with a teenage girl who could not decide whether to jump. They set out to organize a crisis hotline and contacted Contact International and with their help laid plans for a crisis phone line for the county. In only 12 months, the members of that church gathered 129 volunteer phone workers and trained them, and secured enough voluntary contributions to support a phone bill of almost $1500 a month, plus cover utilities and rent for an office, to provide a place where people could call toll-free 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from anywhere in the county. They went on the phones only a year after we began planning and are still serving their community to this day, after 44 years of continuous phone service. They drastically cut the suicide rate in their area. If a church of only six families can do that, what can a church of 100 or more families do?
Unions-A-S
Right to Work Laws While Democrats claim to support worker’s rights, we are seeing a lot of ads from time to time, extolling the benefits which unions have given us and telling people that the “right to work” movement threatens their communities. While the unions did a lot of good to bring safety to the work place, raise wages, and break the power of tyrannical companies, they have become tyrants themselves. They aren’t run as a democracy. They are run by union bosses who use the union dues to support politicians who in turn pass laws benefiting the unions. As union bosses gained control over politicians, they began supporting other things such as abortion even though the majority of their members opposed it. Because of laws in many States, workers have no voice in how their dues are spent. While some States allow members to opt out of dues which support political candidates, most States don’t allow that. As the union bosses have gained power, they have used union funds to gain control over local, State, and national politicians. Politicians, backed by union funds, have expanded laws supporting causes, like abortion, that the union bosses want, in spite of the fact that many of their members are opposed to it. Union bosses, working with abortion providers and Gay rights groups have united behind the Democratic party to push their agenda, in spite of the fact that their members predominantly oppose those issues. Democratic politicians can often outspend their Republican rivals as much as 4-10 times. As industry declines, unions are declining and so they are trying to expand their power over their members and the industries they control. In fact, unions have been preying upon those in other occupations, who are unhappy with making so much less than union workers, in order to to expand their power into new industries. Many cities, and some States, like Michigan, are more controlled by union bosses than by the votes of their people. “Right to Work” laws abolish mandatory union membership and dues allowing workers to work without belonging to the union or paying dues to support causes they don’t believe in. The only thing they threaten is the union’s control over workers.
Unions-A-R
A-Q President Biden and liberals in Congress are continuing to push the infrastructure bill in spite of its massive expense and extensive pork barrel spending designed to entice people to support the party. The bill contains dangerous clauses designed to advance the power and reach of the unions. It would abolish the Right to Work laws in those States where they exist and would give the unions complete control of the federal, State and local governments, as well as complete control of the corporations where they currently exist. It would be impossible to get a government job or a job in a major industry without belonging to the union Such control violates the American ideal of equal opportunity for all and the Christian belief that all men are endowed by their creator with certain rights including that of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Men should be free to join such unions if they feel the union can help them better themselves but should not be forced to join them if they want to work. In addition, members are forced to pay union dues. While some of the dues support the union, a lot of those dues go to support liberal politicians and liberal causes even though the members believe they are morally wrong and they have no say where their dues go.
Unions-A-Q
Democrats say they support unions and worker’s rights. In the beginning, the factories had a lot of control over workers and worked them long hours for low pay. You either did what they said or got fired. There were always people willing to take your place. The unions did a lot of good in the beginning because they could pressure the companies into making concessions by threatening to shut down production. The unions were able to help the workers by forcing companies to shorten the work week, limit time worked per day, and provide workers with decent wages. However, as the unions gained power, they began pushing wages higher and higher. Wages increases forced increases in the cost of goods they produced which hurt those who were not in the union. In addition, in States like Michigan where the economy was dependent on industry which was dominated by the unions, wage increases prevented companies from competing with non-union companies in other States, forcing many companies to close down, move out of State, or even move overseas to stay competitive. In the end, the unions cost many of those workers their jobs and left Michigan and similar States near bankruptsy. While the unions cry about all the lost jobs, they refuse to acknowledge that they were responsible for the loss of jobs.
Sanctity of Life-A-2-K
While those supporting abortion claim it is a simple procedure with no lasting effects, the fact is that they do not follow up to see if there are any ill effects. There are far more physical complications then they will admit. Occasionally the abortionist punctures the wall of the uterus. Some of the women may be transported to the hospital but clinics try to hide them so word won’t get out. Many of the women are released with excessive bleeding and told it will stop soon. They either believe the doctor and bleed to death or ignore the advice and go to the hospital where the doctors may or may not be able to save them. Many women are rendered unable to have future children. However, a far greater problem is the emotional suffering which can last for many years. While no mention is made of men, many men involved with the decision also suffer far reaching emotional distress. Care Net has developed a website to help those suffering from emotional distress resulting from an abortion at https://abortionhealing.org/abortion-healing/resources-for-men/ .