Parminder Biant. 26th-28th August 2021 - Sacramento, California.
1. The 14th Amendment: It's Place in Prophecy (26-08-2021).
06:00 - START OF CLASS - The story of an LGBT person starts in 2005 and is set in Kansas. In 2005 there was a Constitutional amendment. The Constitution is a federal document. The United States is a federation, composed of 50 states (or countries). Each state has it's own government, police, military and legislature. Then there is a federal police, federal army, legislature etc. Each state actually has their own Constitution.
15:00 - The US has 3 branches within the govt. Lower House, Upper House and President's office. Then the legal system, or legislature, is the Supreme Court. The govt. make law, and the Supreme Court are the guardians. There is also the Constitution. The judiciary cannot make law, the Supreme Court judges can only check that the laws agree with the Constitution. Question: What is the highest authority in the U.S? Answer: The Constitution, because everything gets cross referenced, and checked with the Constitution. The Constitution has supreme authority. Each state has their own Supreme Court which checks state laws against the state Constitution. Again, the highest authority is the Constitution of the state.
21:30 - In 2005 Kansas is going to do something sneaky. They want to make an amendment to their Constitution. The amendment agrees with their current law. So Kansas has one particular law, and they want to change the Kansas Constitution with an amendment, so that their Constitution agrees with that particular law.
23:30 - A different story now. Two people have a legal fight. They go to court and one loses. They don't like the result so they appeal the decision. As the Constitution is above everything, all laws have to agree with the Constitution. If they lose the appeal, albeit with immense funding, they can take it to the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court rejects the case, then the ruling by the lower courts still stands, but if the Supreme Court accepts the case, they will reinvestigate it according to their interpretation of the Constitution - which may well vary. Each judge might have different methodologies of interpreting the Constitution.
30:00 - Can you challenge a law? Yes. Can you challenge the Constitution? No. So in 2005 we saw Kansas trying to change the Constitution so that it comes into agreement with an existing law. If they amend the Constitution you cannot challenge it. At a federal level it is very, very difficult to change the Constitution. In Kansas the people have to vote on whether or not they want their Constitution to be amended. In 2005 around 70% voted yes to amend the Kansas Constitution.
34:00 - The particular law in question, already in existence before 2005, stated that it was illegal to have same-sex marriage. So Kansas starts to get homosexual couples wanting to take them to court and try and prove that that law is unconstitutional. So Kansas quickly, and successfully tried to amend the Constitution before these court cases.
41:30 - The first ten amendments were actually the Bill of Rights. Some states refused to accept the Constitution as it placed the President as a kind of king, and they wanted to limit the power of the President. 2016-2020 we saw how those measures taken by those who worried about the Constitution, and creating a king out of a President, did not work very well. Look how easy it was in the end for the President to do whatever they wanted. It was rather like the monarchs of 16th century England! So there is an amendment to limit federal power and protect the rights of the individual from the federal government. So the amendments are there to protect the states as well as the individual against the federal government.
47:30 - The 14th Amendment of the Constitution. In Elder Parminder's opinion the 14th amendment is the most important amendment. 11,000 amendments have been proposed but only 27 have been ratified. There are five sections to the 14th amendment but the last section is not particularly relevant.
50:15 - Section one is the main part of this amendment, and has three sections to it; the citizenship section, the due process section (how the legal system treats you) and the equal protection or equal rights section. The 14th amendment was passed by Congress on June 13th 1866, just after the Civil War, when these issues were all important. It took two years for it to be ratified, on July 9th 1868.
53:30 - Due process means you have the right to go to court and be treated fairly. These rights are mentioned when people get arrested and the police read them their rights. You cannot be forced to incriminate yourself and most civilised countries have this due process.
56:30 - Paraphrase of section one: The 14th amendment gives an important definition of citizenship. It says that anyone born in the US is a citizen and has the rights of a citizen. This was important because it ensured the freed slaves were officially US citizens, and awarded the same rights that every US citizen has. Once you become a citizen no one can take that status from you. The requirements of the states. Before the 14th amendment was passed the Supreme Court said the Bill of Rights only applied to the federal govt. They did not apply to the state govts. In the 14th amendment it says the Bill of Rights in fact do apply to the state govts. This is vital because today the 14th amendment is being used. The 14th amendment says the Supreme Court was previously doing something wrong. The 14th amendment says the Supreme Court has to interpret the amendments also at the state level and not just at the federal level. A famous fight between the states and their rights, and the federal government and its power, was 2015 in the same-sex marriage law. This is where the 14th amendment becomes critical in understanding the states and the federal govt.
62:30 - Still in section one, Privileges and Immunities. The amendment guarantees that the state cannot take away the privileges and immunities of citizens. The federal Constitution gives you some rights, and the states cannot take those rights away. The states cannot write their own laws that override the federal Constitution. This also became an issue in 2015, in the same-sex marriage case. This means that there are some rights that the state govts. cannot be taken away from you.
64:15 - Still in section one, Due Process. The amendment guarantees due process (your legal rights) of the law by the state govt. Due process is not something new. It comes up in an earlier amendment, the 5th amendment. In the 14th amendment, due process applies at the state level and in the 5th amendment due process applies at the federal level.
66:15 - Section one, equal protection. The 14th amendment also guarantees equal protection of the laws. It was put there to make sure everyone, regardless of age, race or religion, would be treated the same way by the govt.
67:10 - Section two, the House of Representatives. Section two describes how the states would send their federal govt. representatives to Congress. So this is about state representation, and it is all about numbers. Simply, the more people in the state, the more members of govt. the state can send to Congress. So section two talks about how to count the people. So each state sends their representatives to the House of Representatives. During the era of slavery, slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person. People have manipulated this into the following ideology. They will say black people were considered to be three-fifths of a human being compared to a white person. This was an economic issue. In the slave states they had so many slaves, the state would actually want them counted as individuals. It was the free states that wanted the slaves counted at three-fifths. The slaves would add to the population by so much that these states would have more representatives in the House of Representatives, that there would be an imbalance.
72:50 - Section three is about rebellion. Anybody who has participated in rebellion against the government, cannot hold an office in government at state or federal level. That means anybody who was involved in the Civil War was not allowed to hold a government office at the state or federal level. Section four says, anyone that was a slave farmer before, will not receive any help. The most important point in the court cases which have used the 14th amendment, is "equal protection under the law". Famous cases which used the 14th amendment are, Brown v Board of Education over racial discrimination, Roe v Wade over reproductive rights, Bush v Gore over election recounts. Lesser known cases but still very important was Reed v Reed over gender discrimination, and lastly, University of California v Bakke over racial quotas in higher education.
2. The 14th Amendment: Midway (26-08-2021).
02:20 - START OF CLASS. Summary of previous presentation.
13:00 - Reed v Reed was a case between a married couple whose son died, and the case was over which one takes care of the deceased son's estate. The law stated that the man would always win in such a case, regardless of who was more capable. So the judge ruled in favour of the husband, the reason being it would be less work for the courts. But that decision was appealed and when the case went to the district court, they ruled that the wife should actually be the executor of her son's estate. Then the state Supreme Court took on the case and reversed the decision, placing the husband as the executor, based on the sexist law. It went to SCOTUS and eventually they again overturned the previous decision making the wife the final executor. The child only had some toys and less than $1000. So they only fought the case over the principle.
20:00 - SUMMARY OF THE 14TH AMENDMENT 26:50 - The 15th amendment says all men can vote
27:30 - 14th amendment section two says only men can vote and go to Congress, while the 19th amendment says women can vote. The 14th amendment is the most important as it is always the amendment which is used in cases of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation.
35:30 - ABORTION. Right wing, evangelicals use extreme, flippant laws to bait or provoke cases in the Supreme Court, because there is now a Republican majority in SCOTUS.
42:20 - Women's reproductive rights and abortion is a prophetic issue but this movement has not stated its position on it yet.
44:30 - Explanation of privileges and immunity
47:45 - Back to the case in Kansas, 2005 from part 1. Many Christians do not particularly oppose homosexuals, nor gay rights, but they do oppose gay marriage because they believe marriage is a God given institution.
59:45 - A. T. Jones had to deal with these same legislative issues, inalienable rights issues etc., only it was over the Sabbath. The question is, do you accept people, or tolerate them, and do you have the right to grant people a certain freedom or not grant them a certain freedom.
3. Marriage or Forced Celibacy? (27-08-2021).
06:00 - START OF CLASS. The 14th Amendment is midway of the 27 amendments. It is also midway of the post Civil War amendments. Elder Tess' presentations are focussed on 2013, 2014 and 2015.
10:00 - Elder Tess also alluded to the Kansas 2005 case in her third presentation. So on April 4th 1996 Kansas banned gay marriage. If a gay couple married outside of Kansas, Kansas would not recognise the marriage. 1996 is the same year as DOMA. In 2005 Kansas voted to amend their Constitution. The next year, 2006, Alabama, South Dakota and Tennessee also want to vote for this similar thing, and 13 other states are proposing or discussing that they want to have a similar ban.
21:30 - Kansas, like many other Bible Belt states, tried to confront the subject of Sodomy. Firstly they only confronted men with men. Then they did not know whether to include oral sex in the discussion or not. It became crazy and sodomy between man and wife became illegal! It became so ridiculous that if a wife put her breast into her husband's mouth it became illegal, as she had penetrated him! This is where conservative, evangelicalism can lead you!
28:40 - In February 2000, shortly after his 18th birthday, Matthew had consensual oral sex with a fourteen year old boy. Under Kansas' so-called Romeo and Juliet law, penalties for statutory rape are less severe in cases involving two consensual teenagers. But the statute did not apply to same-sex conduct. If Matthew had engaged in oral sex with a female, his maximum sentance would have been 15 months. Instead, following his conviction he was sentenced to 17 years in prison. This is Christians enforcing extremely harsh laws on homosexuality because they think it is an abomination.
36:05 - Matthew's attorneys argued the sentence violated the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment because it punished same-sex acts more severely than opposite sex acts. After several years of fighting in the lower courts, finally the Kansas Supreme Court made a ruling, and they ruled that the Romeo and Juliet statue was discriminatory. Matthew served five years of his sentence, which was imposed because he is a homosexual.
40:20 - October 2013 and the Supreme Court has already struck down DOMA. Yet the Kansas tax department are still going to force gay couples they have to file their taxes separately.
43:10 - If you were in the movement in 2015, you will remember we all blamed Obama, and we did not even understand how the American institutions worked. The gay marriage law had nothing to do with Obama! We need to be more educated today on how the American system of law and government works.
45:00 - So the issue is not homosexuality, but gay marriage because Christians see marriage as two people coming together in the sight of God, rather than just the state. So then the Christians oppose the marriage taking place in the church. They say Christian marriage is holy and homosexuality is an abomination. They claim we cannot redefine marriage based on personal or public opinion. So what does God think? Nobody knows! If you offer a Thus Saith the Lord, you must use correct methodology. One tool which is very important is to understand the Bible is not a book of principles. It is a book of examples.
50:15 - Definition of a principle is law or rule that never changes from dispensation to dispensation. The Sabbath therefore is not a principle as it did not exist before we were created. The Sabbath was made for mankind.
54:00 - Marriage brings us closer to God.
58:10 - "When the Pharisees afterward questioned Him concerning the lawfulness of divorce, Jesus pointed His hearers back to the marriage institution as ordained at creation. "Because of the hardness of your hearts," He said, Moses "suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so." Matthew 19:8. He referred them to the blessed days of Eden, when God pronounced all things "very good." Then marriage and the Sabbath had their origin, twin institutions for the glory of God in the benefit of humanity." (THOUGHTS FROM THE MOUNT OF BLESSING, PAGE 63.2) Marriage is a law. One stipulation is, no sex outside of marriage.
61:00 - The Sabbath and marriage are "for the glory of God in benefit humanity." When it says "man" and "wife", "father" and "mother" in Genesis 2:24, is that principle or example? Conservative Christians incorrectly think this as a principle.
63:40 - "That which the Eternal Father Himself had pronounced good was the law of highest blessing and development for man." (Ibid). So marriage is a law and is the highest blessing. NB: Here "man" means "man or woman", or "human". So now we are not using a Thus Saith the Lord because we are adding in words. "Like every other one of God's good gifts entrusted to the keeping of humanity, marriage has been perverted by sin;" (Ibid). NB: Now it is not a law, it is a gift, and now it is "humanity" not "man".
66:40 - Has marriage been perverted because of your sin. Were the restrictions or conditions God put upon marriage after sin, good or bad? Surely God only good gifts. So "marriage has been perverted by [our] sin". 67:40 - "...[b]ut it is the purpose of the gospel to restore its purity and beauty" (Ibid). What is it supposed to be restored to? Marriage before sin, or marriage after sin, or the day they got married? Where does this restoration take us to?
69:30 - Is LGBT a choice, or fixed in nature? The lust that heterosexual people feel for the opposite sex is not a choice. Place pornography depicting females in front of a heterosexual man and his physical, sexual reaction will be involuntary. He cannot help becoming aroused. He cannot resist getting an erection. In the same way, a homosexual man would find it impossible to get aroused, but place pornography depicting men and in exactly the same way, he would find it impossible not to get aroused. A heterosexual man cannot help, and does not even know why he is attracted to women, or is not attracted to men, and it is the same for homosexuals. Conservative Christians would answer, "Because God ordained it that way." But then why is it different for homosexuals? Again, they would answer, "Because they don't have control or are liars". But science has proven all of those arguments wrong. You cannot change someone's sexual orientation without damaging their brain. That is why so many LGBT commit suicide. It's not because there is something wrong with their brain. The reason they have mental health issues is because of the enormous pressure society places upon them. If you were called a liar from childhood, for your entire life, you would be mentally damaged as well.
75:40 - So your sexual orientation is fixed in your nature, and is not a choice. Thus, we are forced to modify our understanding of two Christian teachings. LGBT either have to enter into lifelong abstinence (celibacy), or we change the scope, or parameters of marriage i.e. can it include same-sex marriage. Most importantly, according to the Bible, celibacy is voluntary. So again, we either change abstinence from the biblical definition and make it forced, or involuntary, or you change who can marry. It is as simple as those two options.
4. Do Not Force Celibacy on Us (28-08-2021).
05:45 START OF CLASS.
07:50 We always consider both internal and external events at major waymarks. The first major waymark in the repeating pattern is always Boston (a.k.a. time of the end). Then it is Concord (increase of knowledge), Exeter (formalisation, midnight cry, loud cry). But the increase of knowledge actually begins at Boston.
14:00 In Elder Tess' fifth presentation she gave us the date of our formalisation for the priests, during their harvest. It was 15th August 2021.15th August in 1844 was the midnight cry given at Exeter, so it is the same date. Externally, this is the date that Kabul fell. The last time this happened was 1996. So there has been a civil war in Afghanistan since 1996 - the Taliban v the government. The civil war is over now because the government has collapsed and the Taliban have won. The last time Kabul was taken by the Taliban was 1996. Then there was civil war and the Taliban was thrown out, and now they are back and running the government.
16:30 We are not trying to make this into a waymark, but in 1844, July 21st was midway, and on July 21st 2021 the Taliban were midway, or had taken half of Afghanistan. Also, on the 2nd May the Americans withdrew from Afghanistan and that day the Taliban assault began, almost without opposition. In 1844, the 2nd May was the date of Samuel Snow's letter. This was noticed by Arjan from the Netherlands. So we are now officially at the formalisation of the message during the time of trouble for the priests, and heading to Panium, which will be this year (2021). After Panium is the harvest of the Levites.
20:00 A friend sent Elder Parminder the following thought. The 2018 formalisation seemed complicated to him, as there was so much information. But someone like him could just learn information and repeat it i.e. just copy Elder Tess. Like in Germany in 2019, you just had to copy Elder Tess and wear trousers. This formalisation may or may not end up having a lot of information, but what is different is that this formalisation definitely requires someone like him to learn the spirit, mindset or philosophy of the message. Inspiration would say, It's not the letter of the law, it's the spirit of the law. Now you cannot just learn and repeat the facts and the figures. What is required now, is that you have to believe what is being taught.
26:00 Yesterday we said if a person's sexual orientation is fixed (as opposed to cultivated), then sexual orientation cannot be learned behaviour. Nobody teaches you to be attracted to women. You do not even learn it yourself, because it is not a learned behaviour. The sight and smell of women were naturally attractive to me. You need to be taught how to treat women, and behave around women, but your sexual orientation is already inbuilt. So suggesting homosexuality is a choice is obviously wrong.
28:15 Therefore we need to modify two Christian teachings. Either the voluntary nature of lifelong celibacy, or the scope of marriage (who can be married). The Bible teaches that celibacy should be voluntary, but we would have to teach that homosexuals should be forced to be celibate, even if they want to be married. Alternatively we must redefine the parameters, or scope of marriage, i.e. who can marry, allowing homosexuals to marry. If we deny them the right to marry, perhaps based on Genesis one or two, then we are forced to change the biblical terms and conditions of celibacy, because we would have to force homosexuals to live a life of celibacy.
31:30 Celibacy. When Christians refer to celibacy, the first point is that it is described as a gift, or a calling for chosen people. We criticise the Catholic Church for many things, but they do not force people to become celibate. They do not force people to become priests, monks or nuns. That calling is voluntary. However when we insist that LGBT should remain celibate, not being allowed to marry, we are forcing celibacy on them against their will. The very reason we would force celibacy upon them, is our rejection of their sexuality, and that is not a biblical reason for celibacy. In Inspiration, celibacy is always voluntary.
35:25 "Jesus Did Not Enforce Celibacy - Those who regard the marriage relation as one of God's sacred ordinances, guarded by His holy precept, will be controlled by the dictates of reason. Jesus did not enforce celibacy upon any class of men. He came not to destroy the sacred relationship of marriage, but to exalt it and restore it to its original sanctity. He looks with pleasure upon the family relationship where sacred and unselfish love bears sway." (THE ADVENTIST HOME, PAGE 121.1). So marriage is a law, a rule, an "ordinance". It is therefore guarded by God's word. Therefore you will use your mind correctly, using common sense and reason, when you think about marriage. You should be controlled by reason rather than emotion when you think about the subject of marriage. Slow brain as opposed to fast brain. All you see is not all that there is. Jesus did not force anyone to be celibate. Jesus did not destroy marriage, rather He lifted it up. When He looks at marriage He looks at it with joy and happiness.
39:00 Matthew 19:10-12. the context is divorce and remarriage, beginning in verse one. The Pharisees want to trap Jesus (v3) and ask Jesus if men can divorce their wives for any reason. So this is a question of entrapment. Jesus responds in verses 4, 5 and 6, saying, In the beginning it was not like this, referring to the book of Genesis. Then they respond, What about what Moses said? So essentially they are saying Genesis tells us one thing, but Moses will tell us another. As if placing Genesis at odds with the law of Moses. Jesus answers that in verses 8 and 9, saying, the rules for divorce that Moses gives you were because men had hard hearts, or a mind that is opposed to God's will. We will not address verse 9, as it is about remarriage, and we are looking at the subject of celibacy. In verse 10 the disciples respond, If that is how it is between a man and a woman, it is better not to get married. Jesus told them, only those people who have been given the gift of staying single can accept this teaching. Verse 12 continues, Some people are unable to marry because of birth defects or because of what someone has done to their bodies. Others stay single for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Anyone who can accept this teaching should do so.
43:45 Above is a modern Bible translation, and it says, "people", but that is not what Matthew 19 is actually saying. Women do not marry men. Women just stood there waiting to be asked. All of this is about men. Verse 10, it is better that men do not marry. Verse 11, only men who can handle this should not marry. Verse 12, some men cannot marry. Some men stay single. If a man can handle this, then that's fine.
45:15 KJV Matthew 19:12 "For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." 46:20 A eunuch means someone who is impotent, meaning they cannot produce sperm. There are three types of eunuchs, one who is born that way, one who has been made into a eunuch, and they are voluntarily eunuchs. So to become a eunuch, means a man's testicles are affected, for example, removed or damaged. You can either do mechanical damage or you can damage them by taking chemicals, or you can just chop them off. That's what happened to Daniel and one of his friends. We do not know if it was chemical castration or surgery. So Jesus says, if you have a problem with your testicals (giving the three reasons above), then they will not marry. The difference between a vasectomy (or steralisation) and castration, is that with castration testosterone stops being produced. Without testosterone, basically, men lose their sex drive. So after a vasectomy you will still produce testosterone, your testicles are not affected and so you still have a sex drive.
50:10 Just an observation. If you were born a eunuch you cannot have children and you do not have a sexual desire, although not strictly, as even eunuchs can have an erection, engage in sex, and some can even have some level of sexual desire. So it is not as black and white as some might think. Importantly, when Jesus is saying all this, what is He thinking? Is this an objective, factual truth? Can a man marry a woman if he did not possess genitalia? Can a man still marry a woman if he says, I cannot have sex with you but I love you. Will you marry me? We would all agree that he certainly could marry. Elder Tess has already spoken about Jim Obergefell and John Arthur. Arthur was essentially on his deathbed when the couple decided to marry. He could no longer walk. Speaking was difficult, but they could still get married. There are plenty of stories of heterosexual people marrying when one is on their deathbed. The obvious point here being that they are marrying knowing they will not have sex.
53:15 So if you believe that it is ok to marry without ever having sex, then you disagree with Jesus! Jesus says, no sex, no marriage. That is a Thus Saith the Lord! This in another important example of how you need to read contextually. You have to see what Jesus is saying here. Ancient Israel were obsessed with continuing their family line. The most important thing for a man in ancient Israel is that he has an heir to his inheritance. It gets so bad that in the story of Ruth, if the husband dies the widow has to go to his brother. If she cannot find a brother she has to find a kinsmen.
55:30 So is this an objective fact? Men who cannot have sex are not allowed to marry. Even in ancient Israel, theoretically, if you loved a woman who could not have children, you were still allowed to marry her. But no one ever did it in ancient Israel as it was shameful in their society. If you are not producing sperm in those days, you are not a real man. So there would be no point in wasting yours and your wife's lives in getting married. That is how to understand this response of Jesus - contextually. In those days it was a given that if you were born with damaged testicles, you will never marry. You would never be able to find a wife. Her father would never allow it. If your testicles were damaged in a fight for example, no woman would ever marry you.
58:30 The third group does it voluntarily. We do not know if they voluntarily damage their testicles or just voluntarily abstain from sex. As the first would be so painful, the second option is perhaps more likely. But the point is, in all three cases, it is always voluntary. In all three cases you cannot have children, and Jesus even says marriage is forbidden, when in fact it is not. It is only the custom of the Israelites that forbids it.
61:15 If you are going to try and use Matthew 19:12 to say, if you are a eunuch you are forbidden to marry, then that is not true. Chemical castration can be the result of the cure for testicular cancer, but you can still marry. Just because you cannot have babies, it would be cruel and heartless to tell that patient they cannot ever get married. But according to the Bible, Jesus says that in verse 12! So again, we need to know how to read.
63:30 SUMMARY This is an important verse to understand as it is a key verse to debate the biblical perspective of gay marriage. So again, if you cannot choose your sexuality, then any Bible believing Christian only has two choices: 1. Throw away voluntary celibacy, which means you are not allowed to marry, or 2. broaden your perspective of who can marry. In ancient Israel if you could not have babies there was no point in marrying. In ancient Israel, marriage became essentially about property rights and inheritance. That is of course not what Jesus believed, so these verses must be understood in the Jewish context. You cannot take them literally, or just objectively. They have to be taken subjectively, as in according to their historical Jewish context.
68:00 Probably most of us used to believe that homosexuals were not allowed to marry as the Bible forbids it. So we believed in forced celibacy. We would never marry them in our church nor welcome them as members.
70:00 Simply, there is no biblical mandate to say that celibacy is something that you can force upon another human being. Who would want to serve a God that would do that? We have not yet begun to dismantle some preconceived ideas about marriage as we have only looked at celibacy.