Christians are responding to California Governor Gavin Newsom who placed pro-abortion billboards quoting scripture.
Newsom, a Democrat, announced several versions of billboard advertisements that would be going up across seven states as part of his re-election campaign.
“Just launched billboards in 7 of the most restrictive anti-abortion states that explain how women can access care–no matter where they live. To any woman seeking an abortion in these anti-freedom states: CA will defend your right to make decisions about your own health,” Newsom wrote on Twitter.
One of the billboards placed in Oklahoma and Indiana, reads “Need an abortion? California is ready to help” and quotes Mark 12:31: “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these.”
Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church in Los Angeles responded in an open letter to Newsom on Friday, calling the governor’s actions “thoroughly rebellious against God” and that the billboards promote “the slaughter of children, whom He creates in the womb.”
“You further compounded the wickedness of that murderous campaign with a reprehensible act of gross blasphemy, quoting the very words of Jesus from Mark 12:31 as if you could somehow twist His meaning and arrogate His name in favor of butchering unborn infants,” MacArthur wrote.
MacArthur said was hard to “imagine a greater sacrilege.”
Kathleen Domingo, executive director of the California Catholic Conference—a public policy advocacy group for the Catholic Church in California—told The Epoch Times that the billboards are “unconscionable” and “co-opt” the meaning of Jesus’s words in the verse.
“He’s twisting the meaning of what Jesus and the Christian community meant for the last 2,000 years by this particular passage and using it to describe something that the Christian community traditionally has seen as absolutely adverse to their teachings,” Domingo said.
The advertisements placed in conservative states are nothing more than “political theater,” she added.
“The reaction even of the Christian community is probably what he was hoping for,” she said.
“The idea that Newsom is using the words of Jesus Christ, the Holy Scriptures, to promote the killing of unborn children as somehow loving and commanded by God is quite frankly disgusting,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law & Justice, in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“This is a blatant, political fundraising ploy to boost his own political profile and presidential aspirations. The people are smarter than that. It just won’t work,” Sekulow added.
In the aftermath of Roe v. Wade being overturned on June 24, California’s Democrat lawmakers drafted bills to codify its abortion procedures into the state’s constitution. Newsom signed 13 bills that make abortion more accessible on Sept. 27, deeming California a “sanctuary state” for women seeking to end the life of their pre-born child.
This month, California also launched a taxpayer-funded website connecting women with abortion resources and services, including how to seek financial assistance.
Newsom promotes that website on 18 billboards placed in seven states: Oklahoma, Mississippi, South Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Indiana, and Texas. Each of those states has enacted some restrictions on abortion.
Some of the new laws signed by Newsom include Bill 2223 decried by opponents as an “infanticide” bill. It shields abortionists from criminal prosecution in infant deaths “after” birth.
–Wire services
