On May 13, the Department of Education, Civil Rights Division, issued a letter to schools, with a weight and consequence behind it that will forever change religious freedom and child safety in our nation.

The “bathroom bill” was started in North Carolina and became a line drawn in the sand by a brave North Carolina governor, Pat McCrory. It could be the “shot heard ‘round the world” for this issue in our nation. Shortly after the bathroom bill standoff began between the White House’s Justice Department and the North Carolina Governor, the administration expanded their reach and battle to school administrators across the nation.

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The letter cites Title IX, originally introduced to give girls and women equal treatment and access to sports in schools, now being used by this administration to mandate equal treatment and facilities for transgender students. It states in part, “… a school’s Title IX obligation to ensure nondiscrimination on the basis of sex requires schools to provide transgender students equal access to educational programs and activities even in circumstances in which other students, parents, or community members raise objections or concerns. As is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others’ discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students.”

By making this issue a “civil rights” issue, they bring in a whole new classification of prosecution, enforcement, and consequence for those opposed to or not upholding the law. While the letter goes on to say that this is a recommended practice from the Department of Education, they later share a 25-page document that outlines that federal school funding is tied to the compliance of this one issue.

The Obama Administration just doubled down.

Now a civil rights issue in their argument, what are the consequences for good and protective families and administrators who are trying to protect the children in their care from those who would force their transgender and whimsical identity desires on the remainder of those they share a restroom, locker room, and even a dormitory with? The answer is, prosecution for a hate crime. Even talking against this issue will be prosecutable under this administration’s Justice Department. Where does that leave parents, pastors, and grandparents who are just as concerned for the children’s well-being?

The fight on this one issue alone is a large one. It is not just about bathrooms. It is not about equal access for those confused children who are calling themselves transgender. It becomes a religious freedom issue that threatens the very ability for the Church to speak plainly and clearly on what the Word of God says about issues in our culture. It essentially outlaws free speech by those who cite God’s Word. This movement by the administration is calculated and becomes a narrow door to a broad field of applications and implications for our nation.

People are already beginning to formulate a response. The “bathroom bill” in North Carolina brought out protective parents, grandparents, and other decent people everywhere who seek to strike down this ludicrous bill.

“A group of North Carolina parents are joining forces to fight the Obama administration over its policy that forces public schools to allow transgender students into restrooms, showers, and locker rooms that are opposite from their biological sex. “It’s not safe for my daughter,” Tammy Covil, a mother from Wilmington, N.C. told The Daily Signal. The parents, part of a nonprofit called North Carolinians for Privacy, allege in a lawsuit filed May 10 against the Department of Justice and the Department of Education that the federal government is forcing them to choose between their children’s privacy and educational future.

“This is tantamount to extortion,” said Donica Hudson, a mother of three from Charlotte, N.C., “to threaten to take away our public funding, for education, no less, if we don’t allow them to come in and jeopardize the safety and privacy of our children.”

There comes a time for civil disobedience—many are calling for that with this matter. David Limbaugh, a conservative writer, calls this issue a “hill to die on.”   Writer and theologian Michael Brown states, “Across the nation, parents, school boards, principals, administrators, and teachers must say no to President Obama and his administration. They must do it for the sake of the children. They must do it for the sake of moral sanity. They must do it to honor the Lord.”

Brown goes on to share facts about the transgender issue—facts that the Obama administration will not acknowledge or share:

• Kids who identify as transgender represent the tiniest minority of the population, perhaps two or three out of a thousand.
• The great majority of kids who identify as transgender do not do so once they pass through puberty, so for most of them this is a temporary condition.
• Some parents of transgender-identified kids, along with LGBT activists, have rejected compassionate solutions for these kids (such as letting them use a faculty, single-stall bathroom). Instead they insist that the child’s struggles be imposed on the rest of the students.
• Parents of transgender-identified kids, along with LGBT activists, have also sought to introduceradical transgender curricula to students as young as 5.
• Schools are ignoring reports of other children feeling violated, embarrassed, and even traumatized by the presence of kids of the opposite biological sex in their bathrooms and locker rooms, and the parents of those traumatized kids have been told that nothing can be done because of laws against discrimination based on gender identity.
• Already one university that introduced gender-neutral shower stalls had tore-evaluate its policy after heterosexual males were caught using cell phones to record the girls showering in the adjoining stalls.
• Some kids have admitted to using transgender identity as a way topush back against the “dominant society.”
• In the vast majority of cases, we are not talking about children with biological or chromosomal abnormalities, and mental health professionals and brain scientists still do notagree as to the exact nature of transgender identification. (Is it a mental disorder? Is perception now reality? Is it the best course of action to give hormone blockers to children, followed by sex-change surgery and then hormones for life?)
• The American College of Pediatricians (branded a “hate group” by its radical critics) issued a documentedstatementurging “educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex. Facts — not ideology — determine reality.” (The statement is titled, “Gender Ideology Harms Children.”)

How can Americans get behind the movement to stand firmly against this blackmail against families and schools by the Obama administration?

Virginia State Delegate David LaRock shares that in addition to praying about this issue fervently, action is needed to be able to stave off the administration’s mandates. He, like many other believing and conservative lawmakers in our nation, are quickly crafting legislation that will help render this action by the Department of Education ineffective. Sharing your thoughts with lawmakers, school board members and school administrators as well as others in authority is an important way to speak out and be counted. This sample information sheet is a helpful source of information for communities to share with the public to educate them about the issue facing their schools and community. The top part of the fact sheet contains a sample email or letter concerned citizens can use in writing to local leaders. This letter was created for families in Virginia—tailor it to fit your state.

Sign a petition. The Family Research Council has one already created. You can sign it here.

This issue is not one that believers should take lightly. It is a turning point for those who wish to see America turn from the traditional Judeo-Christian values, and introduce confusion, and further indoctrinate our young people against the traditional family. It is planned and it is evil. What will you plan to do to stop it? (Contributor: By Kris Kubal for Intercessors for America)

This summary of the issues involved calls for a “faith plus works” response. First, we invite all believers to intercede fervently and urgently due to underlying principles of modesty and personal rights being violated. Second, we ask that you pray about becoming involved in a legal protest, such as signing a petition and writing letters to legislators at both the state and federal levels.

“And I looked, and arose and said to the nobles, to the leaders, and to the rest of the people, ‘Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, great and awesome, and fight for your brethren, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses.’” (Neh. 4:14)