Liberty Counsel is the legal team defending Sandra Merritt. Along with David Daleiden, she faces a political prosecution by the state of California. The Center for Medical Progress caught Planned Parenthood (ahem) red-handed selling baby body parts. That powerful organization called on then-State Attorney General (now Senator and Democratic candidate for president) Kamala Harris.

Prosecuting Reporters

As Daleiden told The Stream:

Planned Parenthood specifically instructed Kamala Harris’ office as to what they wanted. Namely, all of my video recording footage and equipment seized. It played out as it had with every aspect of this selective and discriminatory prosecution. Kamala Harris was happy to put the powers of her office at the service of Planned Parenthood. And their wishes to retaliate against the whistleblowers.

The trumped-up charge against Daleiden and Merritt? That they violated Planned Parenthood’s privacy by tape recording its employees in public places. Pro-lifers, and defenders of the First Amendment nationally, have followed the trial closely. The media? You know the answer to that. The latest update from Merritt’s legal team includes some sobering facts.

Illegal to Treat Mice Like Fetuses

• [A] stem cell expert testified that hearts from live aborted babies procured from abortion providers are being used for research studies.

• Merritt and Merritt’s co-defendant, David Daleiden, the founder of the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), are the first undercover journalists to be criminally prosecuted in the history of the state.

• During the hearing Wednesday, Dr. Theresa Deisher, an expert in adult stem cell research … testified. [She described] the perfusion technique using the Langendorff method that is meant to be used on animal hearts. Deisher said she must go to great lengths as a cardiovascular researcher to make sure that the mice she studies do not suffer needless pain. [S]he would face ethical charges and go to jail if she cut beating hearts out of mice without anesthesia.

• Deisher also testified how horrified she was upon reading various studies involving baby human hearts procured from StemExpress. [E]vidence at the hearing showed [they] were sourced from Planned Parenthood. She knew those studies had to be conducted while the hearts were still beating when cut out, without anesthesia, from the aborted babies. She consulted with Daleiden before he and Merritt filmed the undercover videos. [Deisher] told them that the research methods discussed in these studies would have required fetal hearts. [emphases added]

“Shut Up,” They Explained

Neither Planned Parenthood nor its advocate, the State of California, want people to hear such distressing things. It shatters their safe, suburban image.

So Team Death tried to silence the witness, Liberty Counsel reports: “Deputy Attorney General Johnette Jauron, tried to intimidate her from testifying by threatening to indict her as a ‘co-conspirator’ because of the scientific advice she had provided Daleiden.”

The report continues: “Though Jauron had no legal basis for her action, Judge Christopher Hite told defense counsel that Deisher might need to consult a lawyer regarding her testimony… . Deisher declined and proceeded with her powerful testimony.”

Liberty Counsel’s Horatio Mihet explained: “As if the evidence of using beating hearts from human babies for research were not already grotesque. California’s attorney general decided to make matters worse by illegally threatening to prosecute a witness to suppress the truth. We are thankful that the attorney general’s transparent and desperate attempt at witness tampering and intimidation failed.”

Meet the New Gods, Same As the Old Gods

In an excellent commentary at Acton Institute’s Power Blog, Rev. Ben Johnson pointed out what ought to be obvious. The American left is neither secular nor libertarian. It’s intent on forcing down the throats of once-Christian America a secular theocracy. It serves many gods, not one. The pantheon includes:

• “Gaia,” or “Climate, the fickle goddess of crop fertility and rainfall.
• “Diversitus,” the bearded, pony-tailed god. He presides over forgiveness of sins, cheap nannies and funky ethnic food trucks.
• “Biodiversitas,” his gym-rat sister/wife. She is charged with providing us alarming nature documentaries, and heartwarming pet rescue videos.
• “Orgasmum,” the hermaphroditic god of pleasure. He also presides over solitary fits of political outrage, Schadenfreude over opiod deaths in Red States, and deplatforming efforts on social media.

Unlike Greek, Roman, or Assyrian paganism, this religion isn’t ancient. It’s forming before our eyes. What a privilege, to live through something analogous to the Apostolic Age, except of course for a different religion.

Working Out the Rites of Our New Official Cult

We’re learning through trials like this one which offerings the new gods find acceptable. And which ones they spurn, like the sacrifice of Cain. The left is compiling its very own Book of Leviticus! As I said, we live in exciting times.

So now, thanks to the State of California we know that cutting out the hearts of live, anguished mice ain’t kosher. It angers both Biodiversitas and Gaia. However, the god Orgasmus seems highly pleased by the same sacrifice of unborn baby humans. And his sister gods don’t object.

No, I can’t explain exactly why. As I said, this cult is new, so it hasn’t had time to develop a fully coherent theology. Maybe we can ask Mayor Pete “2,246 fetuses” Buttigieg to explain how it all makes sense in the light of his Cultural Marxist Christianity.

This article has been updated.

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream, and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration.