By Will Hall, Baptist Message executive editor
WASHINGTON (LBM) – The U.S. Supreme Court recessed from its 2024- 2025 term on June 26, having voted on 58 cases, decided another nine without ballots, and moved two to the 2025-26 term (which begins October 6) with a number addressing public policies that touch the homes, workplaces and ministries of Louisiana Baptists.
VULNERABLE CHILDREN
In United States v. Skrmetti, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a 2023 Tennessee ban against “performing on a minor or administering to a minor a medical procedure if the performance or administration of the procedure is for the purpose of enabling a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex.”
The Court’s ruling will impact 25 other states with similar statutes, including Louisiana whose lawmakers overrode a veto, by then-Governor John Bel Edwards, to make HB648 a law (Act 466). This 2023 legislation, authored by Rep. Gabe Firment, a deacon with the First Baptist Church, Pollock, prohibits “procedures to alter the sex of a minor child” and was largely influenced by the 2022 Louisiana Baptist Convention
RESOLUTION 2: ON PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM THE PERMANENT PHYSICAL HARM OF SEX CHANGE SURGERIES AND DRUGS.
PARENTAL RIGHTS
In 2023, after receiving an overwhelming number of “opt-out” petitions, Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland rescinded a 2022 policy that allowed parents to request that their children be excused from elementary-school English lessons that included storybook readings about LGBT characters. MCPS said it could no longer accommodate “the growing number of opt out requests” because they resulted in “unsustainably high numbers of absent students.” Parents argued that the materials impinged upon their right “to direct the religious upbringing of their children” because the lessons undermined the religious beliefs they wished to instill in their children.
The matter landed with the U.S. Supreme Court in Mahmoud v. Taylor, with the Court ruling 6-3 to grant an injunction “prohibiting the School Board from forcing [their] children and other students— over the objection of their parents—to read, listen to, or discuss” the storybooks.
This ruling reinforces the parental rights embedded in Louisiana Act 680 (2024), championed by Rep. Raymond Crews, a member with First Baptist Church, Bossier City, which requires school employees to “use the name for a student listed on his birth certificate, or a derivative thereof, unless granted written permission by parents to do otherwise.”
Both the ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor and the provisions of Act 680 (2024) support the primary emphasis in LBC 2023 RESOLUTION 1: ON PARENTAL RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES that urges enactment of laws and public policies that “uphold parents’ rights and responsibilities for their child, particularly with regard to teaching fundamental Christian concepts about the human condition and human sexuality.”
PRO-LIFE CULTURE
In Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that South Carolina can deny Planned Parenthood from receiving healthcare funds for non-abortion procedures. South Carolina had taken the position that giving funds to Planned Parenthood for any service effectively subsidizes its abortion services and consequently denied funds to the largest provider of abortions in the nation.
Louisiana has been engaged in litigation since 2016 to remove Planned Parenthood from participating as a healthcare provider (non-abortion services) in the state’s Medicaid program based on Act 304 (2016), authored by then-Rep. Frank Hoffman, a member with the First Baptist Church in West Monroe. A year earlier, Louisiana Baptists had passed RESOLUTION 3: ON DEFUNDING PLANNED PARENTHOOD which called for the state legislature “to defund Planned Parenthood … of any and all state monies.”
After the SCOTUS ruling in Median v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, Planned Parenthood announced that it would be closing its two remaining clinics in our state.
CHILDREN’S INNOCENCE
In Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Texas law that required age verification before patrons could access pornography websites. In 2023, Texas enacted a statute via House Bill 1181, that required websites with sexually explicit materials to use “reasonable age verification methods” to ensure that persons seeking access are 18 or older. Porn distributors sued almost immediately to stop the law.
By a vote of 6-3, the justices determined that the Texas law is constitutional, declaring that the “power to require age verification is within a state’s authority to prevent children from accessing sexually explicit content.”
Although the Texas statute was challenged by Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton, Louisiana led the nation in passing an age verification statute in 2022 when HB142 was signed into law as Act 440, allowing Louisiana parents to sue porn distributors if a child is exposed to adult content and the company did not use available technology to deny minors access.
In 2015, Louisiana Baptists passed the resolution RULINGS from page five “On Protecting Children from Pornography.” Since then, they have helped (via the LBC Office of Public Policy) to pass HCR 100 (2017) declaring the proliferation of pornography a health hazard; SCR 56 (2019) which established a state task force to develop bills to protect children from pornography; and Act 440 (2022) which requires age verification by porn sites.
When Act 440 went into effect on Jan. 1, 2023, PornHub (the world’s largest porn site) posted the following warning on its landing page: “Louisiana now requires us to put in place a process for verifying the age of users who connect to our site from Louisiana. The privacy and security of the PornHub community is our priority, and we thank you for your cooperation.”
According to Politico. com, since Act 440 became active on the first day of 2023, traffic to PornHub’s website from Louisiana has dropped 80 percent.
OTHER CASES
— In United States v. Shilling, the Supreme Court issued a May 6 stay against a March 31 order by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which prevented the military from moving forward with a policy of banning transgender members in the armed forces. The latest legal decision effectively allows the Department of Defense to discharge transgender individuals while legal challenges continue.
In 2016 Louisiana Baptists adopted RESOLUTION 5: AGAINST THE SEXUAL POLITICS OF TRANSGENDERISM which celebrated God’s creation of “male and female (Gen. 1:26-27) and condemned the “attempt to re-engineer basic concepts of sexual identity, man and woman, which are key constructs of the social notions of family and home.”
— The state of Wisconsin denied tax exemptions to a religious group, concluding that its charitable work with the poor was not “religious enough” because it didn’t exclusively serve the group’s denomination or actively proselytize. However, in the lawsuit that followed, Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission, the Supreme Court declared that Wisconsin had violated the First Amendment’s protection for religious freedom.
Since 2015, Louisiana Baptists, with the adoption of RESOLUTION 3: ON PROTECTING RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, have actively advocated for state and federal laws which protect freedom of “speech and religion” and called on Christians to “exercise their religious beliefs … in all areas of life, not just their houses of worship.”
— Finally, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, the National Religious Broadcasters and two Texas congregations (Sand Springs Church, Athens, and First Baptist Church Wascom – both listed as Southern Baptist on SBC.net) succeeded in overturning the 1954 Johnson Amendment to the U.S. Tax Code that prohibited all 501(c)(3) non-profits from endorsing or opposing political candidates. The IRS announced, July 7, that moving forward a “house of worship” may speak to congregants “in connection with religious services” about “electoral politics viewed through the lens of religious faith” – and it would be viewed the same as a “family discussion con[1]cerning candidates.”
Louisiana Baptists have not adopted a consensus statement specifically about the Johnson Amendment restrictions but have consistently stated that Christians should apply the Bible in all spheres of and this would include the voting booth.
