Frankenpod

My tripod broke. I have a DSLR camera and love photography (thanks, Dad), so I’ve had the same tripod for a while – quite a while to be exact. I sort of fell in love with it. It’s very sturdy, full size, has every feature you could ever need, is almost infinitely adjustable, and so on. The problem was that roughly a month ago, a locking mechanism on one of the legs cracked. The result was a leg that was not dependable and a tripod that could not be relied on to support my camera. Thus started my search for a new tripod.
 
Ebay is the catchall of replacements for everything old. True to its reputation, I found the exact tripod – new in box no less. I ordered it and it arrived on Monday.  I opened the box, and that’s when the disappointment began.
 
One of the legs of the new tripod was cracked in the same place as mine had cracked. Further, the baseplate you mount onto your camera was missing for the new tripod. I had a “new” tripod that had the same problem, and worse.
 
Never one to give up and undaunted by sketchy fix-it schemes, I came up with a solution. I replaced the cracked leg on the new tripod with a good leg from the old tripod. Second, I removed the whole head assembly on the new tripod and again replaced it with the old assembly that had a workable baseplate. I now have a “Frankenpod”, but it works correctly, albeit a bit worn in some places.
 
What does this have to do with us or with policy? I find that I often feel like that old tripod – a bit broken and in need of repair. I expect a “silver bullet” to fix all my problems, but it never seems to happen that way. Instead, God takes parts of my life that are old, worn, and just not right for His purposes, and He replaces them with something new. I end up being a mishmash of new and old parts that have seen a lifetime of use, but God knows what He is doing. He’s using a fallen person to fulfill his role/purpose in this life.
 
This is often also like policy work. We can craft an elegant bill that addresses an urgent need, only to find out that parts are just wrong or have been left out. Then the process of rewriting, amending, problem solving, etc. begins. In the end, we do have a workable bill; in some sense, a “Frankenbill”. However, the final bill we’ve created is far better, stands a higher likelihood of making it into law, and will ultimately serve the people of North Dakota in a superior way over the coming years.
 
The danger in all this is to hang onto that old tripod or old life or broken bill. It feels comfortable. However, none of them will ultimately serve the purposes for which they were intended, and in fact, may cause significant harm.
 
It’s hard to let go, no matter how broken something is, but God promises to fix it. Let Him work on the broken pieces, no matter how skeptical you may be. In the end, you may deem it inelegant, but it will ultimately fulfill its purpose. We are all in some way Frankenpods, but that’s OK, as long as we are fulfilling our purpose in God’s grand plan.

We Hadn't Heard About That

I love talking with you, our ministry partners. Whether it is by phone, email, or in person, you give us feedback on what topics matter most to you, what we can do better, and how best to interact with you. Interestingly, in the midst of these conversations, I often hear the same theme: thank you for the information you provide and for keeping us up to date on issues affecting our values, because “We hadn’t heard about that.”
 
It makes sense. One of the important things we do as NDFA is the education/information component of our work. You need to know about threats (and wins) regarding your values. Perhaps most importantly, you need to know what those who oppose your values are doing quietly and without fanfare. Well, here are three perfect examples that few of you may have heard about.
 
Do you remember the federal funding that NDSU was receiving and funneling to Planned Parenthood to teach its “Safe Spaces” sex education course to teachers? The legislature last session effectively severed that relationship by putting some of NDSU’s funding at risk if they continued to serve in this capacity. However, Planned Parenthood doesn’t give up so easily. They are now touting the federal grant money they have to do similar work Planned Parenthood Funding. Did you know that? 
 
Whether the money goes through an intermediary organization or not (it’s unclear from their description), they are planning to continue exposing those in our state education system to their “pro-choice” agenda. What worries me even more are two phrases. It states, “provides education to young people’ and then notes that, “All participants 17 and younger must have parent or guardian permission to attend.” While the previous grant was to instruct teachers, is this directly instructing children? What is their plan here? Please watch what happens at the local level as it relates to school curriculum – that is where these decisions will be made.
 
The second example is associated with the University of North Dakota. Did you know that they have proposed a gender inclusion policy? Interestingly, the link to it has now disappeared from their website. That said, here are some nuggets from the proposed policy we managed to capture before it disappeared.

• “Students, employees, and visitors may access restrooms, locker rooms, and other facilities consistent with their gender identity and expression and are not required to use UND facilities inconsistent with their gender identity and expression or to use alternative facilities.”

• “Students are provided access to housing consistent with their gender identity and expression, as requested, and are not required to stay in single-occupancy accommodations.”

• “All recognized student organizations, including fraternities and sororities, must adhere to the University's policies, including nondiscrimination policies.” [This part of the policy then goes on to say that fraternities and sororities are exempt from this policy, with the obvious result that student organizations are not, e.g., Christian organizations.]

In fairness to UND, they did have a comment period and I assume they followed university guidelines on how to announce this. However, it was so under the radar that it was effectively moot, and now the comment period has ended. I can’t tell you how best to give UND your perspective now that the comment period has closed, but making your voice heard in some manner would certainly be advantageous.
 
Finally, did you know that there is a drag queen show planned for this Saturday in Valley City? In this particular case, we found out about it from one of you, our ministry partners (thank you). Here is the most disturbing part: Valley City State University’s Cultural Diversity Committee and Social Justice Council is helping to support the event. The show promises to, “make people feel good in a way that also informs our community about aspects of the LGBTQ+ culture” VCSU Drag Queen Show. There is even a discount by showing your VCSU ID card. Feel free to let the university know what you think about the event being supported with your taxpayer dollars at VCSU.
 
There you have three current examples of what is going on between legislative sessions – when all seems quiet. We will continue to provide information like this as we become aware of it, and feel free to contact us if you hear about something that would impact your biblical values or those of your fellow North Dakotans. We can’t catch everything, but with your help, we can perhaps get the word out as soon as possible.
 
We need to make sure that these types of occurrences come out of the dark and into the light, so all North Dakotans are aware of what is going on. We promise to do our best in this regard, so that you don’t have to tell us, “We hadn’t heard about that.”

Are Your Files Backed Up?

As I write this weekly email, my computer is backing up its c: drive. It’s making a permanent record of the operating system, relevant databases, Excel and Word files, PowerPoint presentations, the 200+ weekly emails I’ve written, and more. The bits and bytes are flying to the external backup drive even as I write this. I’ve been thinking, that while computers and humans have certain characteristics in common, the ability to make and use backups is not one of them.
 
One might make the argument that memories are a sort of mental backup. Memories serve an excellent purpose, from giving context and perspective to life, to turning into stories that endlessly entertain our grandchildren. However, as fine as they are, memories are not backups. Let me use an illustration. 
 
A few weeks ago, I loaded some new software onto our home computer and things did not go according to plan, to put it mildly. It was so bad that the machine wouldn’t even boot off a USB thumb drive. It was an incredibly frustrating and alarming event that took me from 2am to 8am to fix (helpful hint: don’t install new software late at night). I was finally able to use a backup from a week before to get things up and running (second helpful hint: create backups regularly).
 
By returning to that backup, I effectively reversed time from my computer’s perspective. It was now operating as if nothing had gone wrong at all. All was well and it could simply go on its merry way doing what it was supposed to do. All software installation mishaps, work it had done, files it had created, and changes to the operating system were yet to come in the future, if so decided by our family.
 
Now, the restore from the backup had two distinct components: reading the backup image to see what had changed, and then copying the appropriate files back to the c: drive. The memory in this case was the backup image; the actual backup was a set of files, that when written to the c: drive, physically changed things back to how they were earlier.
 
Humans have memories, which do not have the ability to change past events. We do not have backups that can actually alter the past and restore events to a prior time. However, there is an “exception clause” of sorts.
 
The things we want to change in our past are always bad things, not unlike the crash of a computer. The exception clause is that God is able to actually backup our lives to a pure point where the bad things didn’t happen, through justification in Christ. It’s as if those things never happened. The irony here is that we will still have the memories, but the events effectively never occurred in His eyes, which is what truly matters.
 
In the policy world, as in other aspects of life, we have our memories and would like to often reverse past events. Roe v. Wade, the last presidential election, bills in our ND legislature that did not pass, decisions by local school boards. We have the memories, but can’t change the past.
However, that’s OK. Our failures in changing laws, losing elections, and other policy defeats are wiped clean with God’s backup. He simply asks us to be faithful and advance his Kingdom in the policy arena.
 
It’s a wonderful thing to know that there is a backup to overwrite every mistake and wrong I’ve done or every bad thing that’s ever happened (including a bad software installation). Just don’t confuse memories with backups. The memories of these events may stay with us or fade over time, but regardless, the backups will always belong to God.

Teach Kids the Holocaust Was Just Fine?

I thought that might grab your attention. Not only is it a patently false and offensive statement, but it is also an affront to all those who fought for freedom in WWII, those who sacrificed so much, and particularly those who lost their lives in concentration camps, similar to some of our family members. Who would have the temerity to make such a claim? 

Gina Peddy, that’s who. She is the Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, Texas. She advised teachers in a recent training meeting that if they have a book in their classroom describing the atrocities of the Holocaust, they should also offer students access to a book from an “opposing” perspective.  
 
So why is she taking this ludicrous and offensive position? It’s pretty clear that her goal is to make a mockery of a recent Texas law that doesn’t sit well with the Left. The Texas Legislature recently passed a bill aimed to mitigate Critical Race Theory and other dubious concepts from being taught in the classroom. The goal of the legislation was not to make it easier to ban books on these subjects, but instead, it simply asked for balanced teaching. Despite this reasonable approach, Peddy is clearly showing her contempt for the new law and her support of the “we will decide what curriculum is best for your child” mentality. 

That said, Peddy didn’t have many standing in her confusing corner. The liberal Texas State Teachers Association called it an overreaction and misinterpretation of the law, policy experts familiar with the state’s education body of law refuted her interpretation, and the school district itself posted a retraction, authored by Superintendent Lane Ledbetter. It stated, in part, that, “the comments made were in no way to convey that the Holocaust was anything less than a terrible event in history. Additionally, we recognize there are not two sides of the Holocaust. As we continue to work through implementation of HB3979, we also understand this bill does not require an opposing viewpoint on historical facts.” No kidding.

If Peddy was going for drama, she succeeded. If she was trying to show that the new law was poor legislation, she failed miserably. She was simply trotting out the all-too-familiar slippery slope argument. By her standard, we need to make sure that children get a balanced perspective by presenting books which argue that slavery wasn’t so bad, the Roman Colosseum was built for soccer games, the pyramids were part of a giant Tetris® game, and so on. 

This whole unfortunate situation illustrates a few points. First, if you make wildly crazy claims, you get media coverage. Second, while not everyone can articulate the logical facility in her illustration, it should be obvious at an intuitive level that her conclusion just simply doesn’t mesh with what the new law will do. Third, it highlights that the intent and interpretation of a law is often as important as the wording of the law itself. The courts look at written laws, interpretations, and intentions – the interpretation and intent of this law is not to require refutation of the Holocaust. Finally, nothing is off limits for those opposed to your values. Whether it be lies about life in the womb, pretending transgender advantages in womens’ sports don’t exist, or aggressively forcing the indoctrination of your children and grandchildren on Critical Race Theory and other baseless concepts, they will stop at nothing.

Are we passionate enough about defending our biblical values despite adverse media coverage, intentional misinterpretation of laws, and the merciless onslaught by those on the other side of the issues? I can assure you that North Dakota Family Alliance is, and I hope you stand alongside us in defending our shared values.

If we lose, someday North Dakota students may be required to read a book that argues that the Cat really didn’t have a Hat. With apologies to Dr. Suess, I can live with that. But denying the atrocities of the Holocaust? That will not happen on our watch.