Looking for something to feel thankful for in this traditional season of joy? The whole world seems to be abrew with grievance, vengeance, and crazy racial baiting; the “never again” regarding our Jewish brothers and sisters has been cast aside along with the “Hate Has No Home Here” signs.

Well, we who defend life can think of Mark Houck, who stands as one of the few victors this year in a culture of death that has been breathing fire ever since Roe was overruled.

I had read Mark’s story, reported often and well by both the Catholic and the conservative pro-life media, and was overjoyed when he was eventually acquitted by a jury of his Pennsylvania peers that deliberated for just two hours. He was returned to his loving family to continue his anti-porn ministry, The King’s Men. His experience with a government run amok convinced him to run for Congress in his Bucks County district; he is also suing the FBI and the Department of Justice for $4.35 million for malicious and retaliatory prosecution, abuse of process, false arrest, and assault. Let’s all pray that he and his family will prevail in a judgment that will send a message to those who, in post-Roe revenge, have doubled down on harming and harassing peaceful prolifers and damaging churches and pregnancy centers.

I have a personal interest in Houck’s life and plight since I had collaborated with him for a number of years in my former role as editor of the Fathers for Good website. I also edited a book on fatherhood (Man to Man, Dad to Dad) for which he contributed a chapter on how to heal from the harms of porn. But it wasn’t until I attended an event where Mark delivered the keynote that it struck me how horribly unjust and outrageous the case against him had been. If you ever get a chance to see Mark in person and hear the story in his own words, do so, as I along with 200 other supporters did last October at a banquet held by the Connecticut Institute for the Family.

Here’s a quick summary:

In 2021, Houck was charged with pushing aside a pro-abortion escort who was verbally harassing his 12-year-old son while the two of them prayed outside a Philadelphia clinic. As he describes the incident, Mark did what any red-blooded father would do to protect his boy. Charges were eventually dropped at the local level. But after Roe was overruled, Attorney General Merrick Garland—urged on by his similarly vengeful pro-abortion minions and encouraged by the rhetoric of our self-proclaimed Catholic president—was apparently looking to prosecute prolifers and tried to turn this minor incident into a laughably weak FACE case.

After Houck received notice of the new federal case, his lawyer contacted the local federal prosecutor in charge and made it clear that if Mark were to be indicted, he would peacefully turn himself in to the authorities; there was no need to send agents to his home. As time went on, his lawyer tried to get updates from the prosecutor but received no response to his phone calls. He asked Mark if he had heard anything from federal officials, and Mark said no. They both surmised that the flimsy case had been dropped, as it had been at the local level, and thought no more of it.

Then one dawn last year, as Mark was making breakfast in the kitchen while his family slept, there was thunderous pounding on his front door. A voice yelled, “Open up! Open up!” Mark had no idea who it was, and his first thought was for the safety of his wife and children. If he had a gun, he might have reached for it, he said, but he is perhaps the only guy in Bucks County who doesn’t own one.

Finally hearing that it was the FBI, he yelled for them to calm down and not shoot as he opened the door. It was a surreal scene: dozens of officers with long guns, bullet shields, battering rams, and cars parked all around his home. Roused by the commotion, his children were huddled on the stairs, startled, and shaking with fear, in full range of the firearms and in mortal danger of stray bullets had any shots been fired.

After being driven by agents from his rural home to Philadelphia, dragged through the FBI wringer, chained hand and foot during interrogation, Mark was released that same day on his own recognizance and went home. As he has observed, the fact that they let him out alone, with no limits on his freedom, shows they never considered him a violent threat. The dawn raid was meant to send a message to all prolifers that they were being watched, and that the feds could come at any time.

This bizarre Gestapo-style raid should never, ever happen in our country. There is no doubt that the pro-Roe abortocrats in our government fished out Houck’s local case and were determined to send a message to all of us who would dare pray, counsel, or shed a tear outside an abortion clinic. Thank God, a sane jury in Philly turned back the zealots at the gates of this malicious prosecution. But there are other pro-life stalwarts—Joan Andrews Bell, among them—who were convicted last summer under FACE for rescuing at a notorious late-term abortion clinic in Washington DC. They sit in jail today, still awaiting sentencing, when they could be hit with 11 years in prison and $350,000 in fines.

The best response to these injustices is to get out on the streets and pray at abortion clinics. If you have never done so before, start now. Otherwise, you may find, like the Houck family did, that even your own home is not a safe haven from the invasive warriors of death.