What does Christianity have to do with the quality of chocolate? A lot, according to Swiss Air. The company just announced that it’s cutting ties with Läderach, one of its high-end sweets suppliers, because the owner happens to be a believer. And not just any believer, but a pro-life, pro-marriage evangelical. According to the international airliner, the sky is the limit for that.

“Because I fight for the unborn life, I’m accused of misogyny,” CEO Johannes Läderach told reporters. “But I’m not a misogynist — 60 percent of our managers are women.” And while Swiss Air was worried about the impact of his views on the crew who identify as gay, Johannes was adamant: “No one at Läderach is homophobic — neither the management nor the staff. We have homosexuals working for us. We don’t ask about it. Läderach has a zero-tolerance policy regarding discrimination.”

Unfortunately for the chocolatier, who employs more than 1,000 people in 14 countries, none of that seems to matter to the airline. Like a lot of major corporations, they don’t care if the accusations of intolerance are real — they only care about pushing Christians out of the marketplace. Just look at what’s happening overseas to Franklin Graham. While he tries to carry on the legacy of his father in the U.K., several venues are refusing to host him — or worse, canceling his events outright.

Fortunately for the people there, Franklin isn’t easily deterred. On Saturday, despite the news, he posted that he’s “looking forward to preaching the gospel across the U.K. in late May and June.” Graham, who’s been a target of an international smear campaign, tried to combat the lies that he’s coming to preach “hate.” In a message specifically to the LGBT community there, he wrote, “It is said by some that I am coming to the U.K. to bring hateful speech to your community. This is just not true. I am coming to share the gospel, which is the Good News that God loves the people of the U.K., and that Jesus Christ came to this earth to save us from our sins.” “My message,” he went on “…is inclusive. I’m not coming out of hate; I’m coming out of love.”

In the West, the fallout over faith is only deepening. The subtle marginalization of Christians — for holding the same view of marriage that Barack Obama espoused when he was elected — is being driven by a lot of these big corporations. And if this marginalization continues in the United States, it will almost certainly lead to even greater global persecution for Christians.

Thankfully, President Trump and his administration have been challenging this wave of intolerance for the last three years. Whether it’s here at home or overseas, this White House is fighting to give Christians the right to live out their lives according to their faith. And that includes the public square. In education, the medical community, military, health care, and business, Donald Trump has seen to it that people have all the protections they need to pray, worship, employ, lead, and express themselves freely.

But that defense of religious freedom at home isn’t just for our benefit. It’s essential to the protection and safety of Christians all over the world. While young seminarians are being slaughtered in Nigeria and Sudanese churches are being burned to the ground, what our leaders do and stand for matters. “Our Founders,” the president reminded everyone on January 15, “entrusted the American people with a responsibility to protect religious liberty so that our Nation may stand as a bright beacon for the rest of the world. Today, we remain committed to that sacred endeavor and strive to support those around the world who still struggle under oppressive regimes that impose restrictions on freedom of religion.”

For more on the international religious freedom crisis, check out Arielle Del Turco’s new op-ed in the Washington Examiner, “Pakistan Religious Discrimination Is Enabling Human Trafficking.”

Originally published here.

Super Bowled over by Political Ads

The Kansas City Chiefs may be the Super Bowl champs, but the real winners, some say, may be liberal activists. If you watched to Sunday’s game, then you know that corporate America didn’t stay on the sidelines — at least not where political advocacy was involved.

After a hyper-partisan year like this one, tens of millions of people probably tuned into the Super Bowl hoping for a break from Washington. Instead, they were the victims of an all-out political assault from some of America’s best-known brands. From Budweiser to Pop Tarts, far-Left groups cheered what they called Sunday’s “rainbow wave” — a flood of pro-LGBT ads featuring everything from transgenderism to same-sex marriage.

It was a record-setting year, GLAAD insisted, thanks to TurboTax, Olay, Proctor & Gamble, Amazon Alexa, and others who competed to be the darlings of the fringe Left. In the end, it was Sabra hummus who dropped the most jaws, casting drag queens to pitch its products in a Super Bowl first. But, as most experts will tell you, companies take a big risk throwing their lot in with the liberal crowd. Not only do consumers object (63 percent of Americans think it’s “inappropriate" for brands to make political statements), it usually backfires. Just ask Target, Starbucks, GrubHub, and Kellogg’s.

But commercials weren’t the only things chocked-full of propaganda. The halftime show also had more than its share, thanks to Shakira and Jennifer Lopez. While "Born in the USA” blared across the stage, a dozen children seemed to crawl out of cages, an apparent jab at President Trump’s border policy. Lopez, who said back in November that it was “super important for two Latina women to be headlining [the show]… especially right now in Trump’s America,” made no secret that she was performing to make a political point. (Maybe now, CNN's Ana Navarro mocked, “Trump will build a wall around Miami.”)

If the cage theme was subliminal, the costuming and stripper pole were not. A lot of parents admitted that they’d turned off the halftime show and, after seeing the publicity, were grateful they had. Franklin Graham called the performance another example of “moral decay,” calling out the hypocrisy of companies like Pepsi who want to promote things like women’s empowerment while debasing them with routines like this one. “This exhibition was Pepsi showing young girls that sexual exploitation of women is okay. With the exploitation of women on the rise worldwide, instead of lowering the standard, we as a society should be raising it. I’m disappointed in Pepsi and the NFL,” he posted.

Naturally, liberals didn’t waste a second calling Graham puritanical, insisting that Christians have “no right” to be outraged. Funny, Matt Walsh tweeted, “People always say that we should take the fragile emotional states of adults into account and refrain from doing things that might offend them. But the moment we argue that certain content isn’t appropriate for children, suddenly those same people are all ‘Deal with it, snowflake!’”

Most fans, if you asked them, just want to get back to the business of watching football. It’s a shame that the league and so many liberal-led companies won’t let them.

Originally published here

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