COLORADO SPRINGS, Co. — A Christian website has been locked out of its Twitter account after it posted a story stating that Biden Assistant Secretary of Health nominee “Rachel” Levine is “a man who believes he is a woman.”
The Daily Citizen, an arm of the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, posted the story to Twitter on Jan. 19 with a summarized paragraph from the article outlining President Joe Biden’s selection for the position.
“On Tuesday, President-Elect Joe Biden announced that he had chosen Dr. Rachel Levine as assistant secretary of health at the Department of HHS. Dr. Levine is a transgender woman, that is, a man who believes he is a woman,” the text read.
However, the outlet soon received an email from Twitter advising that The Daily Citizen had violated its rules.
“Hi The Daily Citizen, your account, @FocusCitizen has been locked for violating the Twitter rules. Specifically for: violating our rules against hateful conduct. You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease,” the correspondence read, according to the news site.
“Please note that repeated violations may lead to a permanent suspension of your account,” it warned. “Proceed to Twitter now to fix the issue with your account.”
When staff sought to see what was the issue, it was presented with the Levine tweet and directed to “remove [the] tweet.”
The Daily Citizen decided to appeal the matter, submitting a letter outlining that the site did not engage in “hateful conduct,” nor did it “promote violence against, threaten, or harass” the Department of Health nominee.
“As a Christian organization, we would never do so,” the letter stated, according to an article about the matter. “We simply explained to our readers the appointment and defined what transgender women are – those born male who believe they are a woman, regardless of whether they have had opposite-sex hormones or surgeries.”
“We believe Twitter’s blocking of this tweet and lockdown of our account discriminates against Focus on the Family’s The Daily Citizen on the basis of our religious affiliation,” it said.
However, Twitter responded to the appeal by affirming that the outlet did violate its rules.
“Our support team has determined that a violation did take place, and therefore we will not overturn our decision,” it said. “In order to restore account functionality, you can resolve the violations by logging into your account and completing the on-screen instructions.”
“At this point, The Daily Citizen has two options. Either accede to Twitter’s tyrannical demands and delete a factually true tweet or refuse to bow under pressure and continue to be locked out of our account indefinitely,” wrote reporter Zachary Mettler.
It appears that The Daily Citizen remains locked out of its account as of press time.
THE GOSPEL
As previously reported, while some view transgenderism as a medical condition, Christians believe the matter is also a spiritual issue at its root — one that stems from the same predicament all men everywhere face due to the Fall.
The Bible teaches that all are born with the Adamic sin nature, having various inherent feelings and inclinations that are contrary to the law of God, and being utterly incapable of breaking free by themselves.
“Bitter experience teaches that the imprisoning net clings too tightly to be stripped from our limbs by our own efforts. Nay rather, the net and the captive are one, and he who tries to cast off the oppression which hinders him from following that which is good is trying to cast off himself,” wrote the late preacher and Bible commentator Alexander Maclaren.
It is why Jesus came: to free men from the bondage of sin (1 John 3:5; 2 Corinthians 5:21) and reconcile those alienated from God because of their sin to the Father (Romans 5:10; Colossians 1:20).
“O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord,” Paul declared in Romans 7:24-25.
Jesus outlined in John 3:5-7 that men must be regenerated supernaturally by the second birth, and have their very nature transformed from being in Adam to being a new creation in Christ, or they cannot see the kingdom of Heaven. It is known in Christianity as the doctrine of regeneration.
2 Corinthians 5:17 teaches, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new.”
“But to men writhing in the grip of a sinful past, or paralyzed beyond writhing and indifferent, because [they are] hopeless, or because they have come to like their captivity,” Maclaren declared, “comes one whose name is ‘The Breaker,’ whose mission it is to proclaim liberty to the captives, and whose hand laid on the cords that bind a soul, causes them to drop harmless from the limbs and sets the bondsman free.”
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