Watchmen Ministry North Idaho

(Idaho Tribune) Idaho Senator Tammy Nichols (R-Middleton) has introduced a groundbreaking new bill that will give Idaho Parents the ability to really choose where their kids will go to school.

(Washington Stand) A new documentary on the Walt Disney Company is making crystal clear how the once family-friendly company is today one of the most serious peddlers of radical ideology in America.

Released last week by the Catholic League, “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom” is a 50-minute film that highlights how Disney went from entertaining and inspiring kids to indoctrinating and grooming them as it embraces and advances the radical agenda of a very small yet vocal minority that even a growing number of liberals feel have gone too far.

“They want to go after the little kids,” Catholic League President Bill Donohue said during an interview Tuesday on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.” “As I pointed out in the movie, they just got off their tricycle. And now they’re trying to sexually engineer them.”

The idea for the documentary came after Donohue and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins were unable to arrange a meeting with then-Disney CEO Bob Chapek to speak on behalf of conservative Catholics and evangelicals in America amid the tumult over Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill last year.  (Read More)

(Life Site News) A video reportedly shown to daycares in North Carolina has sparked online backlash for depicting a teacher blatantly indoctrinating very young children into radical gender ideology.

The clip, part of a larger documentary called “Reflecting on Anti-bias Education in Action: The Early Years,” was shown during a training hosted by the NC Association for the Education of Young Children (NCAEYC), according to Washington Free Beacon journalist Jordan Chamberlain.

In the video, female teacher Maddie Piper (who says she is “nonbinary”), introduces a group of four- and five-year-old children “to a new friend in our class,” a baby doll she called Nash. Repeatedly using “they” pronouns to refer to the doll, Piper tells the children that Nash is “just a kid” and, like her, “isn’t sure” yet whether it’s a boy or a girl.

“But kids can be boys or girls,” a child says earlier in the clip.

As the teacher begins to answer, a little girl interjects that a kid can also be “they” or “nonbinary.”

A group of teachers discussed the interaction in a separate segment in the video, with one suggesting that the little girl’s response “was a huge testament to how much we’ve been talking about it in the classroom.”  (Read More)

(Washington Stand) Following the Food and Drug Administration’s recent move to permit retail pharmacies to dispense dangerous chemical abortion drugs with a prescription, the nation’s largest pharmacy businesses tripped over one another to apply for certification. CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid have all formally applied to the FDA seeking to sell the mifepristone and misoprostol drug cocktail that starves children to death in the womb and then violently expels them — often into a toilet where they are flushed into the sewer. As of now, however, some national businesses have stayed quiet about whether they will seek to turn their pharmacies into abortion facilities.

Notably, Walmart, whose pharmacy business ranks only fifth in national prescription-dispensing revenue as of 2021, has not yet succumbed to pressure from abortion mongers. As of now, Americans who desire to distance their pharmacy purchasing from the abortion industry can rest assured that Walmart remains a neutral zone. Family Research Council, along with a coalition of 13 other prominent pro-life organizations, recently sent a letter to Walmart Inc. encouraging it to stay the course of avoiding abortion controversy.

And after all — why wouldn’t it? Walmart’s pharmaceutical department is hardly an essential contributor of revenue. In 2015, Reuters highlighted a statement from Walmart about how “lower margins in its pharmacy business had emerged as a drag on profits, as it gets paid less by drug plan managers and as fewer customers pay in cash, since Obamacare has increased the ranks of insured Americans.”  (Read More)

(PJ Media) According to Wikipedia, “LGBT grooming” is a conspiracy theory perpetuated by “the far right.”

“Since the early 2020s, conservatives and members of the far-right, mostly in the United States, have falsely accused LGBT people, as well as their allies and progressives in general, of systematically using LGBT-positive education and campaigns for LGBT rights as a method of child grooming,” claims Wikipedia. “These accusations and conspiracy theories are characterized by experts as baseless, homophobic and transphobic, and as examples of moral panic.”

Except, they’re not baseless at all. We’ve been reporting on LGBT child grooming for some time now at PJ Media, and we know it’s not a conspiracy theory. The reason why the radical left opposes the use of the word “groomer” when we discuss Drag Queen Story Hours, transgender closets, and porn in school libraries is because the word is accurate. They don’t want us to believe that it’s happening, but it is.

The latest story comes out of Portland, Maine, where a male middle school substitute teacher who identifies as transgender intentionally shared his highly sexualized TikTok account with sixth-grade students.

According to a report from Reduxx, Chris “Lydia” Lamere “wrote his TikTok handle on the whiteboard at the front of the classroom and encouraged students to ‘check it out.’”  (Read More)

(Faith & Freedom) The U.S. Surgeon General has suggested a social media age limit and health officials are now urging parents to keep young kids and teens off the apps.

Here’s why.

Be informed, not misled.

The Bible instructs parents to “train up a child in the way he should go.”

Unfortunately, our culture has created a number of surrogates to displace parents in the “training up” of kids.

For example, the entertainment industry has chosen to lead kids down the rainbow path to the LGBTQ worldview, which even claims that God makes mistakes in the creation of children—“sometimes boys are born in girl’s bodies” and vise-a-versa.

Disney has led that parade—at great cost to both kids and Disney stockholders.

[…]US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy says, “I — personally, based on the data I’ve seen— believe that 13 is too early.”

“If parents can band together and say you know, as a group, we’re not going to allow our kids to use social media until 16 or 17 or 18 or whatever age they choose, that’s a much more effective strategy in making sure your kids don’t get exposed to harm early,” Murthy said.  (Read More)

(Life News) A Philadelphia jury has found pro-life father Mark Houck not guilty on both counts in the case of the bogus charges the Biden administration filed against him.

Houck is facing bogus charges that he violated the federal FACE law when he was helping women outside an abortion center. An abortion business escort accosted and bullied his son and Houck stepped in to stop it – and, in doing so, the older abortion center volunteer fell down. Houck could have faced over a decade in prison if he was found guilty.

But a jury today reached a not guilty verdict – in what is a huge victory for Houck’s family and pro-life Americans who protect or help women outside abortion businesses.

Houck’s attorney Peter Breen (pictured below) celebrated the decision in comments to LifeNews.

“Mark and his family are now free of the cloud that the Biden administration threw upon them. We took on Goliath – the full might of the United States government – and won,” he said.  (Read More)

(Washington Stand) Last week, North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis (N.C.) bragged to The Washington Post that he doesn’t “vote for anything” that he thinks “will have a serious political consequence.” They were glib words for a man who’d just put his name behind a bill rewriting marriage for every American. Like the 11 other Republican senators whose moral courage collapsed before the nation’s eyes, Senator Tillis would have you believe there’s no fallout from his vote for same-sex marriage. But a young Georgia policeman who’s out of a job over his beliefs would beg to disagree.

“Christians should not be fearful of this legislation,” Senator Todd Young (R-Ind.) wrote in an op-ed for the Indy Star. The so-called Respect for Marriage Act, he insisted, offers “far more in the way of religious liberty protections than [we have now].” Tell that to Jacob Kersey, who was a 19-year-old rookie of the Port Wentworth Police Department, until his supervisors decided his views on marriage were too “offensive.” Try telling Jacob that Christians don’t need to worry that these laws “will be used as a weapon to bludgeon them for their beliefs,” as Senator Young claimed, because this young man — like every American with a bullseye on their backs — won’t believe it.

Barely a month after Joe Biden signed his name to the law upending marriage in all 50 states, every excuse these 12 Republicans made is turning out to be exactly what conservatives warned they were — lies.  (Read More)

(The Federalist) Utah Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed new legislation over the weekend that appeared to bar permanently deforming transgender surgeries for minors, but things aren’t always what they seem.

Senate Bill 16, titled “Transgender Medical Treatment and Procedures,” was a top priority for lawmakers who introduced the measure two days after the legislature opened on Jan. 17.

Despite immediately receiving praise from numerous figures critical of transgender ideology, including a detransitioner, the bill signed into law Saturday certainly isn’t perfect. In fact, it doesn’t do much of anything.

The new law signed by the Utah governor, who has a history of introducing himself by stating his so-called preferred pronouns, only bars transgender procedures and hormone interventions for minors who have not been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. In other words, minors can find a sympathetic physician steeped in wrongly named “gender-affirming care” who will give them a diagnosis that enables them to pump their bodies full of wrong-sex hormones and amputate their healthy organs. Teens focused on gender-bending can even be diagnosed online.  (Read More)

(Idaho Tribune) Caldwell School District has been mired in chaos and controversy since they announced that they are considering adopting new policies on “Gender Identity” and “Sexual Orientation.”

(Action Idaho) Nearly 70% of Idahoans favor a ban on gender reassignment treatments. The legislature is sure to hear a bill on just such a ban during the next few months. But the prospects for such a ban passing are not bright.

St. Luke’s stands in the way.

St. Luke’s Boise campus has the leading transgender health clinic in Idaho. Its clinic, it seems, prescribes puberty blockers. It seems to oversee the use of hormone therapies. As far as we know, the Essence Clinic at St. Luke’s does not perform surgeries. But gender affirming care is very, very lucrative for hospitals. It requires lots of follow-up treatments. And lots of medications. The Essence Clinic is, it seems, a profit center for this “non-profit” hospital system.

St. Luke’s is very powerful in Idaho. It is the state’s largest private employer, with more than 15,000 employees, well ahead of Wal-Mart, which does not have 10,000 employees.

Elsewhere, in small states, hospital systems like St. Luke’s have been able to translate their outsized economic power and moral authority into a roadblock against legislation regulating gender reassignments and other related transgender issues.  (Read More)

(Idaho Freedom Foundation) Eighth-grade kids in Moscow Middle School were shown a disturbing video with animated sex scenes and a cartoon character apparently removing a condom from his erect penis.

The video was part of a Planned Parenthood-endorsed sex education program which is implemented in public schools by the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare and by individual health districts. Public records requests reveal that the video was shown for multiple years as part of the sex education program known as Reducing the Risk.

Use of the video and other materials obtained by IFF indicates violation of Idaho law and standards, which require all sex education taught in public schools to reinforce traditional family arrangements and teach abstinence. The video definitely does not promote abstinence.

[…]Titled “Condom Sense,” the video was created by Trojan Condoms and shows multiple scenes in which either a bed or car is rocking back and forth in an obvious attempt to depict sexual activity.  (Read More)

(Washington Stand) Following Arizona’s successful rollout of its groundbreaking school choice law last October, an increasing number of states are moving forward with bills that allow students and their families to utilize taxpayer dollars to fund the schooling options of their choice.

Arizona’s HB 2853 extended its educational savings account (ESA) program to all K-12 students in the state, allowing parents to use up to $7,000 per child per year to pay for private-school tuition, tutoring, textbooks, online courses, homeschool curricula, and other education-related expenses — the most expansive program of its kind in the nation.

The program has proved to be immensely popular. A recent poll found that “67% of Arizonans and 77% of parents with school-aged children support ESAs,” with enrollment “surg[ing] to 45,000 from 10,000 since the expansion.”

A similar program in West Virginia, called the “Hope Scholarship,” was upheld by the state Supreme Court last October, giving families $4,300 per child per year to attend the school of their choice. “West Virginia went from virtually no education freedom in early 2019 to having charter schools, open enrollment, learning pods, micro-schools, and the Hope Scholarship … now available to families in 2022,” wrote Amanda Kieffer of the Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy.  (Read More)

(Standing For Freedom Center) Anyone paying attention knows that Christians face increased persecution across the United States. As I’ve said before, we don’t have to wait until we are being made lunchmeat for lions before we can label certain acts of discrimination and harassment against faithful Christians as examples of persecution.

One area in particular that has been increasingly hostile to Christians is higher education. Most public universities are openly antagonistic to the Christian students who step foot on their campus. Professors mock them for their faith, they aren’t allowed to have their student groups without being forced to compromise on their beliefs about marriage, and they are subjugated to all kinds of false and wicked ideas put forward as positive facts.

In light of this situation, Christian colleges and universities that are serious about their Christian commitments and provide excellent conservative education are more important than ever. Still, the Marxists march on all institutions, and the revolutionaries are by no means content to leave Christian colleges alone.

Consider the case of Hunter v. U.S. Department of Education. In March 2021, a group of LGBT activists led by Elizabeth Hunter filed a lawsuit in a U.S. District Court in Oregon in an attempt to force the U.S. Department of Education to stop providing federal financial assistance (grants, loans, etc.) to any college or university that operates according to beliefs or commitments that don’t fully embrace homosexuality, transgenderism, etc.  (Read More)

(Idaho Freedom Foundation) Idaho Education Association president Layne McInelly’s presentation to the House and Senate education committees this week got very little legacy news attention, except for a mere six sentences from Idaho Education News, which reported how “excited” McInelly and the rest of the education establishment is about Gov. Brad Little’s education plans.

The real story, however, is how McInelly admitted that the labor union is helping push radical leftist ideology into our classrooms through teacher training sessions. We knew it was true already, but it was nice to have it on the record.

Sen. Scott Herndon, R-Sagle, asked McInelly about teacher training sessions mentioned on the IEA’s website, including “Equitable and Just schools,” fighting “institutional racism,” and, “teaching the rainbow and creating safe space for LBGTQ students in Idaho.”

McInelly answered that the training is voluntary and covers a wide range of topics from classroom management to mental health services.

But Herndon pressed: Does that mean these lessons wind up being used in classrooms?

Said McInelly, ““There are things that are taught to me that aren’t necessary going to be taught to students … and then there are things that I’m going to take directly back to my classroom and implement the very next day.”

Meaning, yes, Idaho school teachers are being trained in wokeism and that wokeism is making its way back to Idaho schools.  (Read More)

(Life News) Actor Jonathan Roumie from the enormously popular Christian series “The Chosen” spoke Friday about the spiritual battle being waged in America today over the right to life.

Speaking at the March for Life in Washington, D.C., Roumie encouraged pro-life advocates to persevere in the fight for life because Satan is “doubling down” in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned, The Christian Post reports.

“Just as God is real, Satan is also real,” said Roumie, who plays Jesus Christ in the Angel Studios series.

“I’m not talking about the simplistic cartoon of some dude with horns and a tail,” he added. “I’m talking about the father of lies, the great deceiver, the diabolical slanderer who pushes you to doubt when you know in your heart the right thing to do.”

Roumie said Satan is not giving up the fight to keep the destruction of innocent babies legal in the U.S.

“In fact, he’s doubling down because, guess what? His time is limited. So, he’s throwing everything he has at the world and all of us in it. And countless are being deceived as a result,” he continued.  (Read More)

(Faith & Freedom) The New York Times published a front-page article yesterday documenting the outrage that even liberal parents feel when schools hide their minor children’s gender “transitions” from them until it is too late to intervene.

The article titled, “When Students Change Gender Identity, and Parents Don’t Know,” highlights the anxiety that educators are said to feel about the moral dilemma of whether to inform parents who may disapprove.

LGBTQIA+ has been allowed to dismantle kids’ lives and families.

The outrage and pushback have begun.

Be informed, not misled.

But along the way, the Times reports the outrage of parents — even liberal parents who support gay rights and transgenderism for adults — who are kept in the dark, even when children consider hormones and surgery.  (Read More)

(Washington Stand) A Nebraska bill introduced Tuesday would protect minors from gender transition procedures. Nebraska Senator Kathleen Kauth (R) introduced LB574, the Let Them Grow Act, along with 22 Senate cosponsors. Nebraska is unique among the 50 states for its unicameral (one-chamber) legislature. While elections to the Nebraska Senate are technically nonpartisan, Republicans hold a non-official 32-17 majority.

The Let Them Grow Act prohibits health care personnel from performing “gender altering procedures,” including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery, “for an individual younger than nineteen years of age,” or referring a minor for these procedures. It defines such behavior as “unprofessional conduct” and creates a private right of action, whereby the child or their parents may sue for “actual damages and reasonable attorney’s fees.” Not every bill of this kind includes parents in the private right of action, but by doing so, this bill acknowledges that these gender transition procedures may occur without the parent’s knowledge or consent.

Legislation aimed at protecting minors from gender transition procedures is apparently new to the Nebraska legislature, and so is its sponsor. State Senator Kathleen Kauth (R) — not to be confused with the Olympic bronze-medalist — was appointed by then-Governor Pete Ricketts on June 7, 2022 to replace the late Nebraska Senator Rich Pahls, who died of complications related to cancer. She won reelection to her first full term in November, and this legislative session is her first opportunity to introduce new bills.  (Read More)

(The Federalist) Former NFL head coach Tony Dungy made his first-ever appearance at the March for Life in Washington, D.C. on Friday, and predictably, Twitter’s leftist blue checkmark brigade is out in full force demanding he be canceled for it.

After tweeting on Thursday morning that he and his wife would be attending the annual gathering of pro-lifers, Dungy, an outspoken Christian, soon found himself on the receiving end of a wave of attacks from left-wing activists masquerading as journalists. Within hours of Dungy’s announcement, The Nation’s sports editor, Dave Zirin, published an article accusing the co-host of NBC’s “Football Night in America” of being a “right-wing zealot” and “anti-gay bigot.”

“Dungy should feel shame. Instead, he is emboldened, ready to take the stage at a rally that’s been a blunt instrument for robbing people of their rights to privacy and the rights to their own bodies,” Zirin wrote, adding that NBC and the NFL’s “silence speaks volumes. It’s a silence that’s … almost as loud as the thousands of people descending upon Washington—some mandatorily—to celebrate a fascistic, discredited Supreme Court and the loss of our rights.”  (Read More)

(American Family News) In an eye-opening story, two investigators from Accuracy in Media, or AIM, posed as liberal parents who visited two Ohio school districts where they tricked administrators into defending and boasting about race-based lessons that are taught to their students.

In one incident on video, the two “parents” record a DEI administrator named Matthew Boaz (pictured above) boasting how he tricked a TV news station when it asked if Critical Race Theory is taught in Upper Arlington Schools. He denied it was being taught, which was technically true, he recalled, but he happily assured the “parents” when they pretended to be concerned the “tenets” of CRT, such as social justice, are not being taught to kids.

“Those conversations are happening. Absolutely,” Boaz proudly assured him.

Boaz oversees the diversity, equity, and inclusion program at Upper Arlington, a Columbus-area school system.

Boaz also told the “parents” how the school intends to circumvent state law if Critical Race Theory is banned in the classroom by Ohio legislators.  (Read More)

(Standing For Freedom Center) All across America thousands of families — sparked by the pandemic, the rise of wokeness, and radical gender ideology in the classroom — are taking control of their children’s education in new and significant ways. Many parents finally realized that their children weren’t being educated at their local public school, they were being indoctrinated.

According to the Foundation for Economic Education, “New Census Bureau data show that 11.1 percent of K-12 students are now being independently homeschooled. This is a large uptick from 5.4 percent at the start of the school shutdowns last spring, and 3.3 percent in the years preceding the pandemic.”

If you are a Christian parent, and you are thinking through the idea of homeschooling, it’s important to consider what the Bible has to say about education — specifically what your role as a Christian parent is in ensuring your children are educated in a God-honoring manner. Romans 12:1-2 commands Christians “to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship,” and warns us: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

The choice of your children’s education is then 1) an act of worship and 2) a matter of helping your children resist following the world’s ungodly ways. In light of that truth, here are three Biblical reasons to consider homeschooling your children:…  (Read More)

(Action Idaho) Citizens in Caldwell are livid at the Caldwell School Board proposed transgender student policy. If adopted, the policy would require district staff to use the pronouns and name corresponding to a student’s supposed gender identity. The policy also allows boys in girls bathrooms. More details at Idaho Tribune. Why is Caldwell even considering this?

The board chair, Marisela Pesina, embraces full spectrum gay pride. She has promoted child drag shows on social media. She promotes LGBTQIA+ events and leftist ideology in the school district. Pesina promoted the child drag show at Boise Pride Fest. She loves it when men up as sexualized women dance for kids. Is it any wonder that she promotes the same as a public official?

Her son Miguel Pesina, pictured below, does drag and now he says that he is really a woman. He repeats all of the lies about being born to drag and having no idea what his sexual identity is, in a Washington Post story. “Forming their drag queen persona in college helped them explore their gender fluidity.” The “they” is from Miguel, who dances under the name Malia Gemini  (Read More)

(PJ Media) It’s so weird that Oklahoma has become the battleground against woke ideology. It makes NO SENSE in a state as red as Oklahoma. The people of Oklahoma are more conservative than anywhere else, including Texas, yet I have written multiple horror stories coming from Oklahoma where the woke gender cult members and groomers are wreaking havoc on Oklahoma’s children. Remember when Oklahoma University was chemically castrating kids? That was just a few months ago.

Legislators managed to stop that by withholding funds until the university shut down the “gender clinic” for kids. A few short months later, Edmond Memorial High School superintendent Dr. Angela Grunewald allowed a male student to use female bathrooms in violation of the law. The male student beat up two girls; then the school hid it from the media and parents for two months.

But now, some teachers have come out publicly and announced they’re flouting the laws of Oklahoma and are teaching critical race theory and queer theory along with anti-American propaganda in violation of state law. Superintendent of Schools Ryan Walters isn’t having it. He’s declared war.  (Read More)

(Standing For Freedom Center) Theological liberalism denies key doctrines like the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture. They deny that the Bible is, in the words of Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, “to be received as the authoritative Word of God” and that “Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit” and serves as the final rule of faith and practice.

Because it denies the truthfulness and reliability of Scripture, it denies the historical creation account, events like the flood, the virgin birth, the miracles of Jesus, and often the resurrection of Jesus itself.

In other words, theological liberalism largely rejects the supernatural and miraculous events recorded in the Bible as fact, calling them fiction instead. Furthermore, it denies essential doctrines like original sin and the indwelling sin in all mankind, which makes the sacrifice of Christ on the cross unnecessary.

Finally, in our present moment, theological liberalism is often seen in the rejection of the creation order and biblical sexual morality. Denominations that deny the truthfulness of God’s Word almost always end up rejecting what it teaches about sex and marriage when the world pressures it to compromise. This is why many of the major “mainline denominations,” like the Presbyterian Church of the United States (PCUSA), most United Methodist churches, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, American Baptists, and the Episcopal Church, are all LGBT-affirming.  (Read More)

(Idaho Family Policy Center) We’ve been hard at work for the last nine months engaging in policy research and analysis, preparing for what we believe is a historic opportunity to advance God-honoring public policy in the state legislative session that began on Monday.

That’s why we’re proud to announce the results of our first-ever “Idaho Family Policy Poll.”

This scientific public opinion poll was commissioned by Idaho Family Policy Center and was conducted with a large, representative sample of likely Idaho voters. The questions focused on issues of importance to Idaho families: public drag shows, library pornography, school bathrooms, minor sex changes, and the right to life.

Unsurprisingly, the results reveal that overwhelming support for our aggressive and strategic conservative agenda to protect family, faith, and freedom in the Gem State.  (Read More)