When I first saw a link to the following article, I thought it might be a fraud. But as I read, it was apparent that it is sadly true and is the kind of harbinger of the future we should not ignore.

From The Telegraph UK:

If you don’t take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits
By Clare Chapman
1/30/05

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing “sexual services” at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.

Prostitution was legalised in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners—who must pay tax and employee health insurance—were granted access to official databases of jobseekers.

The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, had said that she was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe.

She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested in her “profile” and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did the woman, who has not been identified for legal reasons, realise that she was calling a brothel.

Under Germany’s welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job—including in the sex industry—or lose her unemployment benefit. {Emphasis added.} Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month to 4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest since reunification in 1990.

The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided that it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars. As a result, job centres must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse.

When the waitress looked into suing the job centre, she found out that it had not broken the law. Job centres that refuse to penalise people who turn down a job by cutting their benefits face legal action from the potential employer.

“There is now nothing in the law to stop women from being sent into the sex industry,” said Merchthild Garweg, a lawyer from Hamburg who specialises in such cases. “The new regulations say that working in the sex industry is not immoral any more, and so jobs cannot be turned down without a risk to benefits.”

Read the whole thing.

Americans think we are insulated from this kind of problem. But the kind of incrementalism that caused this in Germany is not impossible here, especially when we link it to healthcare, job, and retirement. Under this kind of “Nanny State” finagling, anything is possible if sold correctly to the public by well-meaning people. Unfortunately, we Christians continue to place too much trust in the State and not enough in the Lord.

It is not hard to imagine how this demonic ploy in Germany came about. Tax pressures, social activism, joblessness, and a leaders of low morality and conscience made it happen. It is even possible that people who knew better assented when faced with political pressure brought about by a financial squeeze.

Legislation that makes this kind of debauched socialism work always seems harmless on the surface. Forcing a reliance on the government to take care of you instantly creates a scenario like this—easily sold in a United States in which everyone has a sense of entitlement.

I have written before that I believe our rugged individualism in America is not of God. Oddly enough, as much as we worship at the throne of self-reliance, we are also very vocal in calling for handouts and entitlements. In fact, America is fast becoming a nation of people chanting, “Gimme what is owed me!”

However, this article should be our wake-up call as to what is produced when we look to the State to fulfill all our needs rather than to God working through His Church.

Christians in this country who crusade for social issues by looking to government to resolve them should wake up and see what kind of bastard child is born from that kind of union. Diligence is called for whenever we try to make the government an arm of the Church. We need to watch to see if our call for entitlements that address social needs instead enslaves us and becomes our God.

Government cannot supplant the work of the Church, nor should it. In these Last Days, we need to be aware of the issues at stake in our country and be on guard against “helpful” legislation that can turn around and bite us long term.

Wisdom is known by her children.