I Will Not Be Distracted

So, as some of you may have noticed, yesterday I went to Austin to do something about HB2. 

3,543 people showed up at the Capitol to register their opinion. Over a thousand of those signed up to testify. A hundred of them were called in to actually testify. I was one of the hundred.

We got three minutes to testify. If you want to hear how I used my minutes, you can go here. I'm told you can find me at 6:24 in the video, which means I was about six and half hours into the 8 1/2 hour hearing. 

For some reason, a reporter with the Associated Press decided to use a line of my testimony in his article covering the hearing, and that article went to Fox News, CBS Houston, NPR, NBC, and (my personal favorite) the ever-liberal-loving-rag Huffington Post.

The line they used, with my name and the fact that I was representing the Houston Coalition for Life, was: 

"In this country, we've forgotten about a big law: 'Thou shall not kill.'"

The article was actually pretty ridiculous, but I did say that. (Sort of, I actually said "shalt" but whatever).

And since that article went out, there have been some questioning emails about where I (and HCL) stood on other issues. First it was the death penalty for criminals. Then there was one about the practices of our US military. (If I were allowing myself to be distracted from the matter at hand, namely, ABORTION, I might actually allow myself to get angry about that second matter in particular, because comparing our soldiers to abortionists is total garbage, and I couldn't say what I'd want to say about that kind of garbage anyway, because my mother would be humiliated that I even thought words like that, much less wrote them down.)

But, uh, excuse me - we're talking about ABORTION. That testimony was about ABORTION. And for the record, the clearly stated mission of HCL is "Ending ABORTION in Houston, peacefully and prayerfully."

Now, if you know me at all, you know I have opinions for just about everything. I have an opinion about the death penalty for criminals. I definitely do. 

I also have opinions about the American military. I most assuredly do. 

But, just to clarify - that testimony was, once more, about ABORTION.

I woke up at 3:30AM, rode to Austin, sat in the Capitol for 13 hours, and stood up in front of those Representatives, cameras, and thousands of viewers at 10PM because abortion is legal in Texas, and it shouldn't even be thinkable.

I did those things because there is nothing, NOTHING as horrific as the fact that in this country there is a billion-dollar industry being run over the dismembered bodies of tiny, innocent babies and the broken hearts of their mothers and fathers.

There are plenty of things I'd like to fix, change, institute, or encourage. But none of them, not a single one, are as gaping a wound in the body of this country as the wound of legal abortion. There is no fault as glaring as the fact that we allow precious pre-born children to be ripped limb from tiny limb because their desperate mothers have been deceived into thinking there is no other choice, and no-one to help them. There is no stain more black on our national conscience than the fact that even ONE irreplaceable, innocent child  pays for our comfort, convenience, ignorance, silence, and sloth with his or her LIFE. Even one child's death...and there are 4,000. 4,000, every single day. 

The question of the death penalty for criminals is a distraction.

And I refuse to be distracted.

I will not be distracted as my fellow human beings - tiny, innocent, precious children - are flushed from their mothers' wombs by toxic chemicals, sucked out by razor-lined vacuums, ripped out by medical instruments while they feel the pain of that procedure, or born alive only to have their heads twisted off before they're left in buckets on facility floors until they're shipped off to be incinerated with medical waste. Legally.

I will not be distracted until this is not only illegal, but unthinkable.

I will not be distracted because if we don't get this right, we can't get anything right. It will be impossible to know how to treat criminals and enemies of state if we do not clearly know how to treat our own most innocent and defenseless citizens.

I beg you not to be distracted when people tear your witness for the unborn out of context to further their own distracting chatter. I guarantee those most opposed to us know clearly why we are here - to be a voice for the profoundly voiceless. We must make sure we know it too.

Do I have an opinion about the death penalty for criminals? Yes. But more important than my opinions, I have a mission: the protection and defense of my unborn brothers and sisters, and the assistance of their families in crisis.

I will not be distracted.

“This is my song, O God of all the nations,

A song of peace for lands afar and mine.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.

But other hearts in other lands are beating,

With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

This is my prayer, O Lord of all earth's kingdoms:

Thy kingdom come; on earth Thy will be done.

Let Christ be lifted up till all shall serve Him,

And hearts united learn to live as one.

O hear my prayer, Thou God of all the nations;

Myself I give Thee, let Thy will be done.”

- Lloyd Stone