There isn’t a person from either side who wouldn’t agree that our immigration system is broken. So when Barack Obama was president, the problem wasn’t that he wanted to fix it. The problem was how he went about it. Unilaterally.

“I am not king,” he said in 2010 when liberals pressured him to overhaul the system himself. “I can’t just do these things by myself.” But in 2012, that’s exactly what Obama did. With a swipe of his pen he invented Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) out of thin air, dodging the entire naturalization process for millions of minors who were brought to the U.S. illegally. Of course, Obama didn’t have the authority to do it — a fact he himself admitted a year earlier when he told his supporters that he can’t “just bypass Congress and change the [immigration] law by myself… That’s not how a democracy works.” His re-election came and went — and suddenly, without voters to worry about, he decided that’s exactly how his democracy would work.

Most courts didn’t agree, striking down DACA as efficiently as it had Obama’s other attempts at lawlessness. The only reason it still stands is because the Supreme Court was a justice short when the case arrived in 2016, deadlocking at 4-4 after Antonin Scalia’s death. Now, with Neil Gorsuch on the bench, the odds of DACA surviving are even slimmer. In the meantime, President Trump did what any constitutionally abiding president would: He responded to Obama’s executive order with one of his own by repealing it. That’s been the standard practice every time a new party enters the White House. The most obvious example is the policy preventing tax dollars from subsidizing abortions overseas (the Mexico City Policy), which ping-pongs in and out of effect depending on who’s in charge.

Now, suddenly because that person is Donald Trump, the rules no longer apply. Two activist judges have decided that Trump’s powers are more limited than Barack Obama’s, ruling as recently as Tuesday that he can’t stop an unconstitutional order with a constitutional one. Brooklyn Judge Nicholas Garaufis sided with state Democrats who argued with straight faces that rolling back DACA was “arbitrary,” “capricious,” and motivated by “racial animus.” Actually, what it’s motivated by is the rule of law — a concept the Obama administration never did quite grasp.

Like most liberals, these judicial activists seem to think that good intentions excuse lawlessness; that somehow they make skirting the legislative process okay. But, as The Federalist’s David Harsanyi points out, “The Constitution makes no allowance for the president to write law ‘if Congress doesn’t act.’” And even if it did, as this judge seems to think, “Is [this] rationalization in play for all presidents? If Congress doesn’t build a border wall … or act on any of the policies the president views as imperative, is Trump free to circumvent Congress because of D.C. inertia? Those arguing that DACA should stay in this iteration are arguing that Trump should be empowered to do the same. We can’t have a stable government if there are separate sets of rules for Democrats and Republicans.”

Yet unfortunately, that’s the very situation we’re in. Our courts have said they know better than voters, better than the Constitution, and certainly better than this president. That’s particularly ironic, since, for the first time in years, they’re dealing with a White House that actually accepts the limits of its authority. As Harsanyi says, “Nothing [Donald Trump] has done during his term thus far has undermined separation of powers in the way Obama regularly did. If anything, many of Trump’s executive orders have merely rolled back the abuses of the past eight years.” And still, we’ve seen judges trying to run the administration on everything from the military, transgender policy, national security, and immigration. President Obama was quite happy letting the courts govern since many shared his same contempt for the Constitution. Over his two terms, plenty of judges were more than happy to do his extremist bidding on policies he could never pass legislatively. Now, with Donald Trump in office, these same courts are trying to restrict his legal actions as president to protect the illegal actions of the previous president.

It’s a dangerous situation with one remedy: you. I realize things in Washington are broken and a lot of conservatives are fed up with Congress, but we have to continue pushing forward. Rulings like this one are a sobering reminder of what’s at stake in November. Thanks to Donald Trump, we finally have a president who will push back and appoint solid, constructionist judges to the bench. Without a Republican majority, he’s powerless to stop the out-of-control activism in the courts. And with a vacancy possible at any time in the Supreme Court, it’s absolutely vital that voters finish the job the Republican majority started.

If the courts continue on this path, it won’t matter which party’s in power or who sits in the Oval Office. We’ll be turning the keys to our nation over to the unelected activists in black robes. And there’s no telling how long the constitutional process would survive it.

Originally published here.

Church Nightmare a Wake-Up Call on ‘Tolerance’

“It’s absolutely crazy.” That’s all Pastor Jeremy Schossau could say about all that his church has endured in the last several days. From shutting down its social media to being on a heightened security alert, the congregation of Riverside, Michigan, never dreamed this much hate could exist over such a simple Bible-based workshop.

“People have literally threatened to kill me and my family, to burn our house down, to burn our church down, to assault the people of our church and our staff,” he said. Surprised? “That’s an understatement.” At one point, Metro City Church was getting 40 messages a minute. “Thousands upon thousands of hate-filled notes, 24 hours a day,” he told me on “Washington Watch.” One man was even arrested after a gun threat. All because Pastor Schossau dared to offer hope, healing, and life-saving (according to one teenage girl) help to kids struggling with the sexual questions of the day. The schools are talking about it, he pointed out. Sitcoms and society too. But the church can’t?

All Metro City church wanted to do was walk families through what the Bible has to say about the issue of gender and sexuality. And for that, legislators want Pastor Schossau to be formally investigated. When I asked him what he thought about two state representatives coming after him for opening a simple dialogue on the issue, he said, “Apparently, [they’re] against conversations or against parental rights.” As far as liberals are concerned, there’s no right to have a discussion or talk openly with your kids, even if they initiate it! And anyone who tries will be viciously harassed, persecuted, and intimidated.

“This is all coming from a tolerant loving community? An open-minded community that seeks to be understood and wants to understand others?” Pastor Schossau said. “That is crazy.” Welcome to the politics of the Left. But if LGBT activists thought they could intimidate the church, they were mistaken. “We’re not going anywhere, Tony. We will love anybody who walks through our doors. We will not condemn anybody — but we will not back down from what Jesus tells us.” Don’t miss his powerful interview, which is nothing less than a profile in courage. Then, when you’re done, stand alongside Pastor Schossau and the rest of Metro City Church by signing our petition demanding that Rep. Camilleri and Rep. Zemke withdraw their call for an investigation and respect the church’s freedom to teach what the Bible says about sexuality.

Originally published here.

Parents on Explicit Sex Ed: Get Real!

Politicians aren’t the only ones who can stop Planned Parenthood. Just ask the parents of Cumberland County, North Carolina. When they found out that the country’s biggest abortion provider had been put in charge of their kids’ sex education, they pitched a fit. And then, to cheers, they pitched the curriculum too!

Like a lot of districts, the families in Cumberland had no idea that Planned Parenthood had pushed its way into local health classes — and with curriculum so graphic most reporters would be in hot water just for reprinting it! Craig Autrey, a parent and pastor, found out middle schoolers were being exposed to the “Get Real” approach and demanded a copy. What most people don’t know, he told me on “Washington Watch,” is that parents have a legal right to review whatever their children are being taught.

“The whole nature of this has been very secretive in how it’s been rolled out to students here,” he explained. “That’s why it’s so imperative for parents to be involved in your school — particularly middle school ages where you know sex education is being taught. The parents [here] had no clue… It was piloted in schools where parental enrollment is low…” Obviously, there was a strategy for getting Planned Parenthood’s curriculum in under the radar — with good reason. The “Get Real” approach is hugely controversial, and not just in Cumberland. “Parents were furious that this would even be considered,” Craig explained. “We were the only district in North Carolina that had adopted this material. It had already been thrown out of [others].”

Thanks to the outcry of parents, it’s now been thrown out of Cumberland too. The program, which did more to sexualize kids than educate them, was tossed out after a heated school board meeting. “It’s very crude and almost to a pornograph[ic] level where even things like plastic wrap are talked about as a form of protection during oral sex,” a mom of three testified. “I mean, please, let’s get real [about ‘Get Real’].” One parent after another stepped up to blast the idea. “A curriculum in the schools that teaches what? Kids to go out and get freaky?” one man said.

From promoting homosexuality and gender confusion to jaw-dropping descriptions of various acts, “It just simply was not appropriate for our sixth grade students,” argued even interim superintendent Tim Kinlaw. Ultimately, to the relief of Cumberland parents, leaders voted to pull the plug on the program. This is exactly the kind of vigilance we need to practice in schools all across America. It’s easy to make a difference if we pay attention. To learn how you can get involved, don’t miss this important conversation with Elizabeth Schultz and Karen England, who tell parents everything they need to know about public education.

Originally published here.

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This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.