Welcome to the Friday Five! Every Friday we share our top five articles, stories, and quotes for you to read and share with your friends and church families.

We would be very grateful if you could make a donation of $100, $50, $25, or $10 today towards our work producing these Friday Fives and fighting for your values on the public square!

1. CAROLINA JOURNAL: Trump Nominates Bishop to be Deputy Director for Budget at OMB

Congratulations to our friend Dan Bishop on his nomination by President-elect Trump to Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget!

In a press release issued Tuesday night, Trump wrote: “‘Dan will implement my cost-cutting and deregulatory agenda across all Agencies, and root out the Weaponized Deep State.’ Trump pointed out that, before serving in the United State Congress, Bishop served in the North Carolina House and Senate and as a county commissioner for Mecklenburg County. He also has a 30-year career as a business litigator in trial and appellate courts.”

Read more: https://www.carolinajournal.com/trump-nominates-bishop-to-be-deputy-director-for-budget-at-omb/

2. WNG: Supreme Court Rejects Parental Challenge to School District’s Transgender Policy

“The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a case involving parental rights on Monday. The Supreme Court was one vote short of approving the case for review. Wisconsin parents brought the case, alleging that a local school district’s transgender policy instructed teachers to intentionally withhold information about students from their parents. Parents Protecting Our Children, a coalition of Eau Claire parents, sued the Eau Claire Area School District in western Wisconsin in 2022 after the district introduced a policy barring teachers from informing parents of changes to their child’s sexual orientation.”

“Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Clarence Thomas signaled a desire to hear the case in the court’s published decision. The question of schools violating parental rights over transgender issues is a question of growing national importance, Alito wrote in the dissenting opinion, which Thomas formally joined. The justice said he would have heard the case and voiced concerns that federal courts are starting to use the question of standing to avoid ruling on contentious constitutional issues.”

As we reported last week with the United States v. Skrmetti case, the Supreme Court does seem open to addressing some questions related to parental rights and transgender issues of growing national importance. You can read the amicus briefs our sister organization, the NC Values Institute, filed in the cases here and here.

Read more: https://wng.org/sift/supreme-court-rejects-parental-challenge-to-school-districts-transgender-policy-1733786440

3. CAROLINA JOURNAL: NC State Leaders Meet with Tillis and Budd on Capitol Hill to Push for Helene Federal Aid

“Leaders of the North Carolina General Assembly traveled to Washington, DC, on Tuesday to meet with Sens. Thom Tillis and Ted Budd amid ongoing calls for Congress to provide immediate assistance to North Carolinians affected by Hurricane Helene’s devastation.

North Carolina’s top officials, Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and Rules Chairman Sen. Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, and House of Representatives Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, and Speaker-elect Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, visited the nation’s capital, joined by other state officials representing western North Carolina, including Rep. Dudley Greene, R-Avery, and Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell.”

Read more: https://www.carolinajournal.com/nc-state-leaders-meet-with-tillis-and-budd-on-capitol-hill-to-push-for-helene-federal-aid/

4. NORTH STATE JOURNAL: Legislature Overrides Veto of Helene Funding Bill

“The General Assembly has completed the override of the veto on a bill containing an additional $252 million in Hurricane Helene relief. The amount approved so far by lawmakers now totals over $1.1 billion. The Senate overrode the veto of Senate Bill 382 on Dec. 2 by a vote of 30-19 down party lines. The House completed the override on Dec. 11 by a vote of 72-46. The House override came after having pushed the vote back twice in a week’s time.”

Read more: https://nsjonline.com/article/2024/12/legislature-overrides-veto-of-helene-funding-bill/

5. THE HILL: Republican Senators Launch Inquiry into Unpublished NIH Study on Puberty Blockers for Trans Youth

“Six Republican senators in a letter to National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Monica Bertagnolli said they are ‘concerned about the transparency’ of studies funded by the NIH, the federal agency responsible for conducting and supporting medical research. Their public statement of concern follows an October New York Times report that a long-awaited study of puberty-blocking drugs had gone unpublished over fears that its findings would be ‘weaponized’ by opponents of transition-related care for minors.”

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/lgbtq/5027047-nih-study-puberty-blockers-letter/

Weekly Prayer: Family

LORD, we cry out to you as Father. You are a model of the love, mercy, and authority of the perfect parent. We thank you for modeling for us what every parent should strive for, and for creating this wonderful institution called family.

LORD, we thank you for creating us with a basic nature designed to not be alone. You made us to desire the intimacy of relationships, and it is here where we experience joys indescribable: the joys of marriage, the joys of having children; the joys of seeing our children have children. What a blessing and mercy you gave us in the family! In it we find our first teachers, our first guardians, and our first authorities.

LORD, we recognize how deeply you love your children, and how deeply it pains you when they go astray. Alongside our adoration and thanksgiving, we pray in confession—as individuals and as members of larger communities—over any sins we may have committed that undermine your beloved institution. Forgive us when we endanger your institution through selfishness and arrogance. Forgive our communities and nation for attempting to redefine some of the most basic and deepest parts of being human—being made male and female, having lifelong marriage vows and responsibilities, and having parental rights over educating one’s children.

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:12-17)

Amen

Sincerely,

Tami & Team

NC Values