During World War II, members of the British intelligentsia began to spread the idea that American troops in the country weren’t there to fight the Germans. Instead, they were there to put down a possible British revolution.

Well, the famous British author George Orwell’s response was, “Only an intellectual could believe such stuff – an ordinary man could not possibly be such a fool.”

What brought Orwell to mind was a recent announcement by the Federal Bureau of Prisons that it was looking for people to serve as “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender” Program Managers inside Federal Prisons.

The duties of these “LGBT” program managers would include coordinating “activities and programs designed to cultivate Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender cultural awareness both within and outside the institution.” “Institution” in this case, being a euphemism for “prison.”

They would also be expected to “attend monthly Workforce Diversity Committee meetings and other conferences related to the concerns of the constituency group; [and] participate in the development and implementation of the institution’s Affirmative Action Plan . . .”

There’s more, but you get the point. My first response to the “Training Opportunity Announcement” was to laugh. The second was to paraphrase Orwell: only someone who has never spent time in an American prison could come up with something this ridiculous.

Whatever else this is about, it has nothing to do with the actual day-to-day running of an American prison. It neither promotes the safety of the prisoners nor their rehabilitation.

On the contrary, “cultivating LGBT cultural awareness” inside a prison is tantamount to painting targets on the backs of prisoners. As anyone who has been in a prison knows, they are violent places where rape is often the weapon of choice.

An offender whose who is perceived as weak is almost always a target. An offender who identifies as gay will certainly be one, which is why it’s absurd to think that gay prisoners would intentionally out themselves.

Should it be different? Of course! There are lots of things about American prisons that I would change if it were up to me. But expecting that “cultural awareness” programs are going to change anything for the better of LGBT prisoners is irresponsible folly.

It took years for a coalition led by Prison Fellowship to put the scandal of prison rape on the national agenda. Americans, when they weren’t ignoring the scandal, treated prison rape as the stuff of comedy, for example, the 2008 movie “Let’s Go to Prison.”

The Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 requires the Justice Department to “make the prevention of prison rape a top priority in each prison system.” How the “Training Opportunity Announcement” furthers this priority is far beyond me. It does nothing to make prisoners, regardless of their sexual orientation, safer. It does nothing to make prison officials’ jobs any easier.

Ironically and sadly, we’re putting LGBT representatives in federal prison while across the country chaplains are being cut because of budget tightening.

Where is George Orwell when we need him?

The occasion of course is the three days of oral arguments in the case that may decide the fate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — or at least critical pieces of it.

The question is, will the demonstrations matter? The textbook answer is no: The Court consists of judges who have been appointed for life, who are not subject to public opinion; their supreme obligation is to the Constitution of the United States.

That’s the way it is supposed to be.  In practice it doesn’t work that way.  The Supreme Court justices do read the newspapers; they know what the public will and won’t accept.

That was certainly the case in Washington v. Glucksberg, where the Court unanimously refused to recognize a constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide. Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote at the time, “Americans are engaged in an earnest and profound debate about the morality, legality and practicality” of assisted suicide, and that the Court should “permit the debate to continue.”

Now the question is whether the country is ready for Obamacare — and especially for the individual mandate. The Court will decide whether the Commerce Clause permits the federal government to force individuals to purchase insurance. That is a very sticky Constitutional question.

But, again, history shows that public opinion does matter. Certainly the White House knows it.

What happens in this case will tell us a lot about what happens in another case in which all Christians have a keen interest; that’s the HHS mandate, which seeks to force religious organizations to provide insurance coverage that violates their faith. I hope and pray Christians will take to the streets when the Court takes up that one!

Now, I’ve not taken a public position on Obamacare. I believe we do need health-care reform. I’ve seen first-hand the gross inefficiencies and fraud in Medicare. And a biblical worldview certainly acknowledges the need to take care of the poor and the needy.

Now on the other hand now, especially in the light of what has happened with HHS, I’m wondering if the Christian doctrine of subsidiarity, one of the most important areas of social teaching, doesn’t factor in here. Simply put, subsidiarity teaches that that a central authority should only take on those tasks that can’t be handled at a more local level. Why? It’s a question of justice and human flourishing. The local officials see the basic needs of the community and understand them better. Communities and individuals are often powerless in the face of a powerful central authority.

So, I think there is a truly biblical argument to be made that health care is best handled at a state and local level. That the federal government — as we’ve seen in the HHS controversy — is incapable of administering health care in a way that encourages human flourishing, but at the same time protects our most vital liberties.

Now we’ll see what the Court says.

You have no doubt heard things like “98 percent of Catholic women use contraception” and “most Americans, especially women, support the HHS mandate.”

Well, it’s not true. The first assertion is based on a study by the Guttmacher Institute, which as an affiliate of Planned Parenthood, is hardly an objective observer. Even the Washington Post compared the media to Pinocchio for using these statistics.

In fact, the most that can be concluded is that many sexually-active Catholic women have, at some point in their lives, used contraception. That says nothing about whether they and other Americans support the HHS mandate.

Speaking of which, the claim that most Americans, especially women, support the HHS mandate is equally bogus. I know that will surprise you, given what the administration and the media are constantly telling us. But repeating a falsehood doesn’t make it true.

For example, a recent New York Times story told readers that, according to its latest poll “women were split as to whether health insurance plans should cover the costs of birth control and whether employers with religious objections should be able to opt out.”

As Mickey Kaus at the Daily Caller put it, “if the Times says women were ‘split,’ you know that must mean they were actually narrowly against the [Times’] preferred position.” And that’s precisely so. By a 46-44 margin, women favored a religious exemption for all employers. The gap widened to 53-38 in the case of religiously-affiliated employers.

Men, who do vote after all, were even more supportive of opt-out provisions. Overall, Americans, by a 57-to-36 margin favor allowing religiously-affiliated employers to opt out. Remember that statistic.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed similar results: by 49-to-34 percent, Americans oppose requiring “religious institutions” to provide contraception and abortion-inducing drugs.

Now like I say, this may surprise you. It certainly comes as a surprise to the media. While, as Kaus says, the president “appears to be losing the public debate” on the HHS mandate, the media, which overwhelmingly supports the mandate, can’t see it. When the president’s approval ratings drop, they cite gas prices instead.

Well they may not be able to see it, but I can, and you should too. This is a battle that is both crucial and winnable. The important thing is to keep the focus on where it belongs: religious freedom. The early polls where a reaction to the media’s initial announcement that this was all about contraception, but the Catholic Bishops and everybody else has been working hard to educate them.

And you need to continue to educate people that this is about religious liberty. This battle won’t be won in the pews — it will be won over the backyard fence and during kids’ baseball games. It’s getting warm outside, so break out the grill, throw on some burgers and hot dogs, invite your neighbors over, and start talking. And then phone and email your legislators and the Administration.

As Mark Twain once said, “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

Okay folks, put on your shoes, we are winning.

Last week, they did.

One reason Americans are so dissatisfied is the sense that Congress doesn’t play by the same rules it imposes on the rest of us. Take, for instance, the matter of Congressional insider trading–the trading of stocks and other securities by people who have access to non-public information.

Insider trading is a felony, and for good reason: The belief that markets can be gamed by people with privileged access to information can destroy confidence in the honesty of those markets. People who are in a position to know things that the general public doesn’t must be like Caesar’s wife: above suspicion.

Congress failed that test, as a 60 Minutes broadcast in November exposed. So, Congress, in damage-control mode, pulled a 2006 bill, the “Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act,” called STOCK, off the shelf and put it on the fast track to passage.

STOCK was supposed to do three things: first, it outlawed the buying or selling of securities on the basis of non-public information by congressmen and their staffs. Second, it required that these same people disclose trades worth over $1,000 within 90 days of the trade.

The third provision would subject a new class of Washington insider, so-called political intelligence consultants, to the same rules as lobbyists. If you have never heard of “political intelligence consultants,” that’s because they want it that way.

Unlike lobbyists, you see, who advocate for the passage or defeat of a bill or regulation, these consultants pump people in Congress for information that they then pass on their clients, hedge-fund managers and wealthy investors. This information gives their clients an insider’s advantage when it comes to buying or selling securities.

The version of STOCK passed last week by the House omits this key provision. It was stripped out by the Republican leadership.

If the goal was to restore confidence in Congress, the Republican leadership failed. If the goal was to assure ordinary Americans that financial markets are on the up-and-up, the leadership failed. If the goal was to send a message that the rules are the same inside the Beltway as they are outside, then they failed.

After all, nobody is talking about putting these firms out of business — we just want to know who is benefitting from information the rest of us don’t have access to. But apparently even that was too much to ask of the House.

You know what else is too much to ask? Asking the American people to believe that Congress is sincere about cleaning up its act.

Folks, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Free societies and the free market cannot flourish in the face of rampant corruption. We must re-build a culture of virtue at every level of public life if we are to survive.

Ground-penetrating radar revealed the remains of an ancient monument consisting of a “circular central hall . . . surrounded by eight small chapels.” This monument was a shrine to the Apostle Philip and the vital distinction between what belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar.

The last time Philip is mentioned in the Bible, he is in the Upper Room after the Ascension of Jesus in Acts 1. But his story doesn’t end there: according to ancient Christian tradition, he traveled throughout Asia Minor preaching the Gospel.

One of the places he visited was Hierapolis. Like most Roman cities, Hierapolis was dedicated to the worship of a particular god — in this case, the emperor Domitian. The simple act of passing through its gates acknowledged the Emperor’s authority and his divinity.

Philip refused to acknowledge the emperor’s divine status, insisting that Jesus alone was lord. He was killed for his refusal. A shrine to his martyrdom was built outside the center of Hierapolis, the same one discovered by the archeologists.

Philip’s story is similar to the stories of other martyrs. Their “crime” was refusing to render to Caesar what was rightfully God’s. As the Apostle Paul instructed, they obeyed the law and paid their taxes. In fact, they often went beyond that: caring for those whom Roman society considered beneath even contempt.

They drew the line at suggesting that Caesar, not Jesus, was Lord: Philip refused to walk through a gate; other Christians refused to burn a pinch of incense. In every case, the message was, to paraphrase Thomas More, “we die the emperor’s good servant but God’s first.”

Thankfully, our situation cannot remotely be compared to that of the early church or that of our brothers and sisters in many parts of the world today. Our opposition to sinful men does not require the shedding of blood.

But it does require that we draw lines and endure criticism. It does require that we rejoice and be glad when people revile us because we insist on rendering God what is due Him.

It also requires that we stand by and support Christians who are making their stand. Several Catholic bishops announced they would

not comply with the Department of Health and Human Services’ requirement to pay for abortion-inducing drugs and contraceptives. It’s not yet clear how the President’s announcement on Friday changes the situation.

Prison Fellowship and other Evangelical ministries have rallied to the Bishops’ cause. We know that if the government can compel Catholics to violate their conscience, it can do the same to us.

This resistance to Caesar will no doubt be the occasion of more criticism, almost all of it unfair. But criticism and a lot more has always been the price of faithfulness.

Rejoice, we are in most excellent company.

Editor’s note: Since this was written, the Catholic bishops have rejected the “accommodation” announced by the President.” You can read the bishops’ most recent statement here.

As you know by now, Obama Administration has refused to grant religious organizations an exemption from purchasing health insurance that covers abortion-inducing drugs, surgical sterilization, and contraception.

The Catholic bishops responded quickly, decrying the Administration’s decision for what it is—an egregious, dangerous violation of religious liberty.

And folks, we evangelicals must stand with them. While all of us may not share the Catholic view of contraception, all true Christians believe that the taking of human life in utero, whether surgically or by abortifacient drugs, violates the basic human right to life.

Many bishops have already declared that they will not obey this unjust law. The penalty for such a move would be severe. Catholic hospitals, universities, and other organizations would be force to pay punitive fines ($2,000 per employee) for refusing to purchase insurance that violates the teaching of their church.

But Catholic institutions aren’t the only ones affected by this mandate. Prison Fellowship, for example, which employs 180 people, could not morally purchase insurance for its employees that covers abortifacients. Nor could we afford the fines we would incur.

For some faith-based institutions, it would spell the end of their existence—and their far-reaching service to the public and to the needy. As Mike Gerson pointed out in his excellent Washington Post op-ed on Tuesday, it’s crazy that the government would drive charities like the Salvation Army and other Christian groups out of business. The government simply can’t afford to replace the services they provide–such as “homeless shelters, food banks, health care, welfare-to-work, prisoner re-entry programs” and much more.

Here is what I want you to do right now.

First, go to Manhattan Declaration.org and sign the petition to President Obama prepared by the Becket Fund, protesting this violation of our civil liberties.

Second, if you haven’t done so, sign the Manhattan Declaration. Join with 500,000 people who have committed to “fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.”

Third, pray that God would soften the hearts of the president and others in his administration that they would reverse course.

Fourth, be vigilant. The Administration may reverse itself here, but we are seeing an extremely dangerous pattern. The issue of religious liberty is not going to go away. Our freedoms are at stake.

For more on this grave threat to religious freedom, please go to ColsonCenter.org and watch my “Two-Minute Warning.”

Got that? Go to ManhattanDeclaraiton.org and sign the petition to the President and the Declaration itself. Then watch my “Two-Minute Warning” at ColsonCenter.org, and above all, my friends, be vigilant, and pray.

No doubt you’ve been watching the unfolding drama of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation’s decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood — and then its stunning reversal.

What you saw last week was a concerted, intentional effort by an ideological minority — the radical pro-abortion forces — not just to make their case in public, but to destroy the opposition. Using incendiary language, accusing Komen of endangering the lives of women, they made no pretense to pursue civil discourse.

And it’s a tragedy that Komen for the Cure caved. Because all of the rational arguments were on their side.

First of all, Planned Parenthood does not perform mammograms, its doctors simply provide breast cancer referrals. No wonder Komen for the Cure figured its money could be better spent on organizations that provide direct treatment.

And of course there’s the uncomfortable link between breast cancer and abortion. A 2009 study by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center showed “a statistically significant 40% increased risk [of breast cancer] for women who have abortions.”

Second, Komen’s stated policy was not to contribute to organizations under investigation. Well, Planned Parenthood is under Congressional investigation for potentially misusing federal funds — funds that by law may not be used for abortions. In 2010, the organization received fully 46 percent of its funding — 487 million dollars — from government grants.

Yet according to Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report, the organization and its many affiliates performed more than 329,000 abortions in 2010 — or a full 91 percent of services rendered to pregnant women.

It sure sounds to me that they’re flouting the law.

Finally, this never was about the money. Komen’s grant was a drop in Planned Parenthood’s bucket. As Tim Stanley of the UK Telegraph pointed out, Komen for the Cure’s annual grant made up a mere .058 percent of Planned Parenthood’s budget!

So what is this all about? Look friends, Komen is the kind of respectable and mainstream partner that Planned Parenthood desperately needs to continue its charade that it is all about “women’s health.” And it and its friends will bully and shout down anybody who dares to disagree with them.

What happened to Komen is a perfect example of the despotism of the modern left. Disagree with them, they vilify you and seek to intimidate you into silence. Tragically, Komen caved.

As I’ve been saying on BreakPoint for the last three or four months, we must break the spiral of silence. That’s why it is so important to speak out, even now. Let Komen know that you appreciated what they did to de-fund Planned Parenthood — come to BreakPoint.org and we’ll link you to their website — and that you are horrified that they didn’t have the courage to stick to their convictions.

Here is the lesson for us in all of this: We must have the courage of our convictions. Remember, courage is the first of the cardinal virtues, the virtue on which all others depend. We must never cave when it comes to defending the Truth, no matter what comes our way.

Just remember, we have no choice but to stand for what is true and just and to oppose evil no matter what the cost.

Well, if that’s insanity, then most state officials are quite insane when it comes to gambling: for more than two decades, they have looked to casinos, lotteries, slot machines, and video poker as a way out of their budgetary woes.

In virtually every instance, actual revenues fell far short of expectations: There was no pot at the end of gambling rainbow. Whatever added revenue was gained came at the expense of social problems associated with gambling.

At this point, a sane person might conclude that it really wasn’t worth the trouble. But state officials seem intent on proving Einstein right.

Case in point: a recent New York Times story about states possibly legalizing online gambling. Specifically, the goal is to get a cut from the online poker industry. The thinking is that just as the states took the various numbers rackets and turned them into state-run lotteries, the states could do the same with online poker.

The states would sell licenses to websites and tax the game operators’ earnings. And thanks to a favorable ruling from the Obama Justice Department just before Christmas, states now have the green light to proceed.

As Einstein might have predicted, the case for government-licensed online poker is drearily familiar: industry trade groups are predicting billions in additional tax revenues, an enticement state legislators find hard to resist. As a California legislator put it, “Two hundred and fifty million dollars buys you a lot of teachers.”

Ah, the old “we’re doing it for the children” gambit. The same gambit was employed in Florida in support of casino gambling. It didn’t turn out that way. Casino money didn’t “fix education” as politicians promised. In fact, the state wound up spending less money on education after legalizing casino gambling than it did before.

Folks look, this whole thing is a political shell game.

Licensing and taxing gambling is an easy out for every lilly-livered politician who refuses to make tough political and budgetary decisions. And it perpetuates the illusion that you can get something for nothing.

Since support for state-sponsored gambling is a way to avoid hard truths, you are unlikely to hear this. Likewise, you are unlikely to hear that lottery revenues are the most regressive of taxes, since the poor spend a larger proportion of their income on gambling. You also won’t hear about the social and personal costs associated with gambling, including crime, family breakdown, and on and on — up to $10,000 a year for each compulsive gambler.

So let’s be honest: As Alan Mallach of the Brookings Institution put it, “every dollar dropped into a slot machine is a dollar not spent on something else.” It’s taking money away from things like groceries and child support.

None of these arguments are new: state-sponsored gambling has always been a sucker’s bet, which makes the newest rush to expand it, well, insanity.

Those are tough words, but regrettably, true words.

On December 9, 2009 in a major address entitled, “Human Rights Agenda for the 21^st Century,” Secretary of State Clinton said people “must be free to worship, associate, and to love in the way that they choose.”

Did you catch that? In one sentence, little noticed at the time, Mrs. Clinton showed the Administration’s true priorities. In one fell swoop, she changed our God-given right to freedom of religion, a public act, to a much more restricted “freedom of worship,” a private act, which any Chinese official could go along with. And at the same time, Mrs. Clinton, speaking for the administration, elevated the quote “right to love in the way they choose” as a fundamental human right.

Lest you think I’m overreacting to an isolated statement, the intervening years have amply borne out my concerns.

Freedom of worship has been substituted for freedom of religion in speech after speech by administration officials. Just last month, the Secretary told a gathering of diplomats that “gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.” She also said the “most challenging issue arises when people cite religious or cultural values as a reason to violate or not to protect the human rights of LGBT citizens.” As I mentioned before on BreakPoint, this is a disastrous foreign policy. African nations are already up in arms, and it certainly isn’t going to help us with Muslim nations, who view U.S. advocacy for homosexuality as proof of Western decadence.

Not to be outdone, President Obama told a pro-gay-rights group, “Every single American—gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, transgender—every single American deserves to be treated equally before the law.”

Does that include marriage? Well, the President’s secretary for Housing and Urban Development, Shaun Donovan, has just said that he “absolutely” supports same-sex marriage. The Administration has already refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act. And before the EEOC, officials have said in a contest “between religious liberty and sexual liberty,” sexual liberty triumphs

Can you see where all this is headed?

But how, you might ask, does elevating so-called LGBT rights actually threaten religious rights? Well, as Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York has said, framing homosexual marriage as a civil right equates those who oppose it with those who practice either “intentional or willfully ignorant racial discrimination.”

Dolan is predicting “a national conflict between church and state of enormous proportions and to the detriment of both institutions.” Friends, no one wants to oppress gays, but what happens to Christians’ right to practice our religion, which does not allow us to accept “gay marriage”?

That’s why I am urging you, and everyone you know, to sign the Manhattan Declaration, which takes a bold stand for religious freedom and traditional marriage. Do it today, ManhattanDeclaration.org.

Now the Administration has announced it will not expand exemptions for religiously affiliated organizations when it comes to insurance. So a Catholic hospital, for instance, will be forced to purchase insurance for its employees that would provide free contraception and sterilization services.

Now, in case you didn’t know, the Catholic Church teaches that using artificial contraception or undergoing sterilization are grave sins. The government has now said, “Tough.”

Even the liberal Washington Post sees this for what it is: a restriction of religious freedom. Its lead editorial called the Administration’s decision “wrong.”

Perhaps the Administration was feeling benevolent because it delayed the implementation of the insurance mandate for a year.

Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan wasn’t feeling the love. He rightly fumed: “In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences.” Dolan said that “to force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable. . . Historically this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty.”

Folks, I’ve been warning for more than a year now that the Administration is constricting religious liberty bit by bit. It has abandoned any defense of traditional marriage. It is promoting gay rights abroad at the expense of religious rights. And I’ve documented that the Administration, beginning with Secretary of State Clinton, has intentionally used the phrase “freedom of worship” instead of “freedom of religion,” implying that one’s faith is a private matter — and that exercising that faith in public is not a protected right.

Well, if the Administration’s latest move isn’t proof of that, I don’t know what will be.

Now, to all my evangelical brethren who may be wondering why I’m making so much of this — after all, the vast majority of evangelicals don’t have a problem with contraception — I will say this: Which of our religious convictions will we be forced to abandon one day? Will our religiously affiliated groups be forced to hire people who oppose our faith? Will the government force a curriculum upon our schools and homeschoolers? Just a few years ago these possibilities seemed crazy. Now, they seem very real.

I’m reminded of the famous saying of German pastor Martin Niemoeller, referring to the horrors of Nazi Germany:

“First they came for the Socialists, and I
did not speak out —
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did
not speak out — Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was
no one left to speak for me.”

Folks, all Christians speak out against this latest attack — and every attack — on religious liberty. Please, I plead with you, sign — and get your friends to sign — the Manhattan Declaration in support of religious liberty. Do it today at ManhattanDeclaration.org.

Because pretty soon no one will be left to speak out for us.