News: October 2009

Federal Hate Crimes Bill Passes House and Senate Legislation on Church Vans Through It All Bits and Pieces

Federal Hate Crimes Bill Passes House and Senate

Federal Hate Crimes legislation has now passed both the House and Senate in Washington D.C., and President Obama has pledged to sign the legislation into law. This legislation does not define sexual orientations or gender identity, and has been included in the Defense Authorization bill to force conservatives to vote for it.
President Obama also promised Veterans on August 17, 2009, “If Congress sends me a defense bill loaded with waste, I will veto it.” The Defense Authorization bill has 778 earmarks in it. A real slap in the face to our military is the attachment of “hate crimes legislation” to the final defense bill.

When the vote came up in the House to refuse to remove hate crimes from the bill, nine Republicans, including Illinois Republicans Mark Kirk and Judy Biggert, voted to keep it in the bill.

Called the Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, this legislation is based upon the theory that there is an epidemic of hate against homosexuals, while in reality, there is an epidemic of hate against Christianity.
This is the first time there is a federal policy which specifically states “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” There are plans in place to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in the next few months of Congress.
According to Traditional Values Coalition, this legislation would “Criminalize so-called “hate speech,”—which is any speech that is critical of homosexuality or cross-dressing behaviors. The suppression of free speech will be justified by the claim that such speech “incites” individuals to commit violence against homosexuals, cross-dressers, etc.”

The bill forbids planning to commit a violent act against a homosexual. Because of the way it is drafted, it has the potential for prosecution for free religious speech against homosexuality to be an incitement for immanent physical acts of violence to someone else.

A pastor preaching against homosexuality may have a loose nut sitting in the congregation when he preaches against homosexuality. If this person goes out and commits an act of violence against a homosexual, it would be very easy to prosecute the pastor for inciting an immanent act of violence against a homosexual.

This legislation has the potential to go much further than the specific words in the legislation with the potential of establishing a national public policy of non-discrimination against homosexuality. Even though there is no specific law stating that beliefs that homosexuality is sin are a violation of law, the potential is there for the IRS to begin to revoke tax-exempt status for churches, since tax exemption is considered a benefit.

Europe is 15-20 years ahead of the United States in implementing the homosexual agenda. In Europe, and particularly Sweden, hate laws have been used by Muslims and homosexuals.

God does not change His standards of right and wrong, and neither should the Church of Jesus Christ. God expects us to do what is right no matter what consequences we face. The concern about this legislation is that pastors and Christians alike will self-censor either out of cowardice or confusion. This legislation, more than anything else, is based on anti-Christian bigotry. The concern about hate-crimes legislation is that it is an attempt to punish offenders for what they think, not for what they do.
Wendy Wright from Concerned Women for America states:

“The Defense Authorization bill should fund our national defense. Period. This ‘hate crimes’ provision grants special rights to certain political groups and could give cover to criminal behavior. This exploitation of a bill to fund our national defense shamelessly places homosexual groups’ demands equal to or more important than our military,” stated Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America.

“’Hate crime’ laws unduly expand the federal government. These crimes are already fully prosecuted by the states. ‘Hate crime’ laws allow prosecution for the same act twice, violating the Constitutional protection against Double Jeopardy. It creates a class of ‘special’ preferred victims, denying equal protection to other victims. It could cover every kind of sexual behavior, granting protected status even for pedophiles. And homosexual activists admit the whole effort is a scam to raise money and political power,” Wright noted.“

May God help us!

Legislation on Church Vans

Many Christian schools which use 15 passenger vans to transport their students will be affected with the signing of HB 3982 by Governor Pat Quinn. On August 13, 2009, the Governor signed the bill (Public Act 96-0410), which eliminates the use of passenger vans which seat over 10 passengers for interscholastic or other school sponsored non-curriculum related activities. With the passage of this legislation, Illinois is now in compliance with federal standards which eliminate vans that are considered to be unsafe.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has found that these vans, when transporting 10 or more students, have a rollover rate which is three times the rate of rollovers for vans with less than five passengers. Federal regulations prohibit school districts from buying or leasing these vans, partially because, if there is a rollover accident resulting in the death or injury of students, schools are vulnerable to increased liability.

While the legislation specifically talks about school districts, Illinois has been interpreting laws regarding school buses for private schools in a way that is consistent with their application to public school districts.
This legislation does not affect passenger vans which are designed to carry 10 or fewer persons. These vans do not meet the qualifications to pick up students on a bus route or carry students to and from school.

The School Code has been amended requiring that any students under grade 12 are to be transported in a school bus or a multifunction school-activity bus (MFSAB) for any interscholastic, interscholastic athletic, or non-curriculum activity. Put simply, school buses must be equipped with the flashing lights, stop sign, and be painted yellow and black. Multifunction school-activity buses would include buses manufactured to transport 11-15 persons, including the driver, which is not designed to transport students to and from home and school bus stops.

This new law takes effect on July 1, 2010. Hopefully this will help any school in planning their students’ transportation needs for sports and academic competitions.
If your church has a 15 passenger van, it is legal to use to transport students to and from games until the end of June 2010, but consideration must be given, that if a student is injured or killed in a rollover accident, there will be additional liability for the school.

Schedule for 2009

One of our ministries is to educate the Christian Community. You can do so by scheduling Rev. Vanden Bosch to speak for your church or special event.

The following are confirmed events where Rev. Vanden Bosch is scheduled to speak:

October 25 AM East Park Baptist Church, Decatur, IL
October 28 PM Grace Baptist Church, Springfield, IL
November 1 AM Lighthouse Baptist Church, Jacksonville, IL
November 15 AM Ravenswood Baptist Church, Chicago, IL
November 22 AM & PM First Christian Reformed Church, Rock Valley, IA
December 6 AM Calumet City Bible Church, Calumet City, IL
January 3 SS Quentin Road Bible Baptist Church, Lake Zurich, IL
January 10 AM Salem Baptist Church, Decatur, IL
January 17 PM Cathedral Baptist Church, Rockford, IL

This fall, Rev. Vanden Bosch is also teaching a course at Dayspring Bible College and Seminary titled: Biblical Philosophy of Government.
When you schedule an event at your church or organization, it helps your friends to better understand the spiritual battle going on for the hearts and minds of Americans and encourages us as we work on your behalf with the Illinois General Assembly.

Through it All

We are in the fall veto session, and at this point, things look quite positive for us in stopping SB 1716, the Religious Freedom and Civil Unions Legislation. The primary concern in Illinois right now seems to be the budget and particularly the shortfall of the Illinois budget.

Thanks to your donations and your support, our budget needs are continuing to be met. Rev. Vanden Bosch has been able to continue his active work with the Illinois General Assembly and expand his outreach to the churches. Over these 17 years, God has opened many doors of opportunity to share the Gospel with legislators, staff members, and other lobbyists at the Capitol.

During the past year, we have not only had the opportunity to minister to the General Assembly, but in nearly 60 churches across the state. Would you please consider sending us financial support this month to continue to meet our needs?

Bits and Pieces

‘Tis the season for voter registration. It doesn’t seem right. The Illinois primary season is in full swing. The deadlines for candidates filing to run for office are fast approaching. And it is time to begin to think about voter registration. The Illinois primary voting is February 2, 2010. If we are to have good candidates in the fall general election, we must elect good candidates this February.

Generally speaking, only about 50% of the qualified citizens in the United States register to vote. As a general rule, only about 50% of those people vote, meaning that 12 1/2% of the people plus one can control the direction of an election.
Scripture says that the powers that be are ordained of God. God has given us a government which is “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” It is up to us to make sure we register to vote.

If you have moved since the last election, will turn 18 by the election, or have had a name change, you need to register to vote. It is not difficult. You can call our office if you would like to have voter registration in your churches, and we will be glad to help you.

The Illinois General Assembly has come back for the Fall Veto Session, trying to deal with some of the unsolved budget problems from this Spring. One of the major problems is that Illinois has not had a good solid budget for many years.

When Governor Ryan was in office, the state had a surplus, but legislators (and the governor) felt the need to spend every dollar that came in instead of practicing fiscal restraint. Now legislators have become addicted to spending, and refuse to cut the state budget, abdicating that responsibility to the governor. One downstate Democrat told me, “Reverend, I could balance the budget by cutting the programs that don’t work, but they would never let me do it because there are too many programs that are somebody’s pet programs.”

Another problem is that the Democratic leadership has refused to let Republicans be part of the budgetary process. Since they needed so many Democratic votes to pass the budget, a few holdouts could force their pet additional programs to become part of the state budget.

Now it has come to the point where some legislators are talking about the state possibly being insolvent as early as this March. Do we have a problem yet? Stay tuned as we prepare for the Spring!