Second conference on Religious Liberty to be held in Ocean County
/Following up on June’s successful conference on religious Liberty held in Newton, Sussex County, a second conference is scheduled for Ocean County on August 27th in Toms River.
At the first conference, attendees heard from Senator Steve Oroho on the status of various legislative initiatives – including the Human Trafficking & Child Exploitation Prevention Act and the 20/20 bill, which recognizes that a fetus experiences pain at 20 weeks (all but 7 nations on earth recognize this FACT).
Rev. Mandy Leverett gave a talk about the threat of human trafficking in New Jersey and detailed a number of horrific cases. There was a discussion about how a porous border and the Murphy administration’s Sanctuary State directive empowers human traffickers in the sexual exploitation of women and children.
Christine Flaherty explained the importance of the 20/20 bill, also known as the "Babies in the Womb Feel Pain". This legislation recognizes the scientific fact that a fetus or unborn baby is pain-sensitive at 20 weeks. Every other country on earth recognizes this fact except North Korea, China, Vietnam, Singapore, Canada, and the Netherlands. Similar legislation has been passed in nearly half the states and is moving forward in others in an attempt bring our laws into line with the rest of the civilized world.
An ecumenical movement has formed called the 20/20 Project. Its members represent many religious denominations. It is actively supported by a number of organizations including the Respect Life Office of the Archdiocese of Metuchen, the Respect Life Office of the Archdiocese of Newark, Project LEARN, the New Jersey Family Policy Council, New Jersey Right to Life, the Center for Garden State Families, Corazon Puro, LifeNet, the League of American Families, among others.
Of course, the 20/20 bill has been attacked by the death-cult wing of the New Jersey Democrat Party (there are still a great many religious Democrats who value life and recognize that their communities are being slaughtered for profit by Planned Parenthood). As one activist said: “They celebrate taking life and would do anything to maintain the barbaric practices that are illegal in most of the civilized world."
And speaking of attacks… Since the first conference in Sussex County, one of the speakers has been attacked for his Biblical-based beliefs.
Pastor Phil Rizzo, who spoke to the conference on the importance of religious freedom, was stalked and targeted by Sussex County Democrats for agreeing to help sort out a recent Twitter controversy involving the GOP county chairman. State Democrats reached out to a political blog to arrange a “hit” on Pastor Rizzo, the gist of which was that he didn’t embrace Islam and wasn’t pro-LGBTQ+.
The fact that those two world-views differ dramatically apparently didn’t dawn on the author of that hit piece, but the incident did offer up an important lesson: There are Establishment forces who want to drive traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs out of the public square and to make it punishable (and eventually illegal) to express them.
Despite the presence of good believers in the Democrat Party, the leadership of that party is in thrall to these forces – as is corporate media. As evidence of this was the statement by the Sussex County Democrat Chairwoman that compared Pastor Rizzo to “Hitler” because he held traditional Biblical beliefs and the attack by an LGBTQ+ activist employed by the Star-Ledger.
The battle lines are drawn and they are coming for your Bible. They want to make reading it (or repeating what you have read) a “hate crime”. And they will target and stalk anyone who stands for religious freedom. Faith will either win this one or be driven into the wilderness.
If you are interested in attending the Second Conference on Religious Liberty, please contact the Center for Garden State Families at
If you have a conflict, please contact the center and ask when the next one will be (at least four more are planned throughout the state). Let’s get active!
And be of good cheer. Faith can move mountains, while government and politicians and corporations and media and academics are all… “a small dust in the balance.”
