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The Patriarch of Russia’s Orthodox Church praises Putin’s invasion of Ukraine that’s resulted in so many thousands of civilian casualties. What especially pleases this religious leader is that Putin’s attack is a defense against the West’s push for gay pride.
Danusha V. Goska, a college professor and author of, God Through Binoculars, wasborn to Eastern European peasant immigrants in New Jersey. Critiquing the “woke”, she writes: “Woke insists on a rigid division between all whites, all men, all heterosexuals, who are all oppressors, and selected others who are defined as permanently oppressed.” She recognizes: “It’s undeniable that gay people have been treated horrifically. It’s equally undeniable that we have no way of knowing that any given white man has not faced equally horrific treatment. I have met white, heterosexual men who were slave laborers under the Nazis, imprisoned by the Imperial Japanese, who suffered years of unspeakable child abuse, who were beaten up in Paterson or Newark, or, whose academic careers were sabotaged, exactly because they were white males, and whose loved ones were killed on 9/11 because of their identity. In my mother’s natal Slovakia, I met a Catholic priest who was tortured by Communists. I refuse to close my eyes to these men’s suffering because Woke insists to me that they are “privileged white oppressors.” She states: “I refuse to withhold judgment from LGBT people who have abused others”, and she cites the very vicious Roy Cohn as a prime example. “Identity is no basis for morality or for the rationing of kindness.”
Bill Barr, former U. S. Attorney General, sees religious liberty as today’s most pressing civil rights issue. He says, in his new memoir, One Damn Thing After Another, “A healthy religious sphere, is a necessary precondition for a system in which the power of government can be effectively limited and bound to respect the widest personal freedoms of its citizens.”
Grammys now add an award for “Best Song for Social Change”. The Recording Academy says: “Submissions must contain content that addresses a timely social issue and promotes understanding.” Mel magazine responds: “Some of the greatest tracks ever recorded were in response to inequality and injustice”, citing “Strange Fruit” and “A Change is Gonna Come”. “But those are too often the exceptions. More frequently, artists with noble intentions pick up a guitar or go to the piano, and what comes out are ill-considered, awkwardly-conceived, knee-jerk protest songs. You can’t fault their aspirations, but that doesn’t mean you have to listen to what they come up with, either.”
Broward County Florida’s public-school policy now withholds children’s gender transition desires from their parents. The policy is alleged to be, “for the well-being and safety of the transitioning students.” Teachers insist, “expression of transgender identity, or any other form of gender-expansive behavior, is a healthy, appropriate and typical aspect of human development”, i.e., it’s not the parent’s business to know of it.
A grieving mother claims an LA County school pushed transgender treatments onto her teenage daughter who ultimately committed suicide: “Why did they play with her life?” The mother is speaking out against LA County’s government, which, she claims, encouraged her daughter to identify as male, sign up for transgender treatments, and be put in foster care instead of under her mother’s care. She says her daughter’s L.A. County school didn’t properly treat her daughter’s depression.
On Easter Monday, 2022, the soft-porn singer, Blanco, entertained 80,000 teens in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. Famous for his homoerotic performances, he was invited by the Italian Bishops Conference as part of a national prayer vigil for teens. The bishop’s Av vinir promised his appearance would prepare these teens for Pope Francis’ sermon later that evening.
Calvin University has technically separated from the Center for Social Research on campus. This is in response to the Center’s Nicole Sweda’s marriage to a woman. In effect, the separation allows Sweda to continue working there without violating Calvin University’s policy against same-sex marriage.
40% of Latinos and Latinas reject the so-called gender-neutral, “Latinx”. They say that they’re offended by the term. Only 2% identify as “Latinx”. The data were gathered among registered voters of Hispanic, Latina or Latino origin in a nationwide poll that was conducted by Bendixen & Amandi. A Pew Poll found that 76% of Hispanic adults had never even heard of this term, “Latinx”, and only 3% used it. This Poll found that 30% were less likely to support politicians who used this allegedly gender-neutral term.
Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz) explains: “‘Hispanic’ and ‘Latin American’ are already gender-neutral terms.” Later, Gallego Tweeted: “To be clear, my office is not allowed to use ‘Latinx’ in official communications. When Latino politicos use the term, it is largely to appease white rich progressives who think that is the term we use. It is a vicious circle of confirmation bias.”
A UK Parliament bill to ban conversion therapy for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender people has been pulled. Further work goes ahead due to polarizing over contended issues.
Conservative Clergy of Color calls on corporations and business leaders to withdraw their financial support from Black Lives Matter after BLM relaunched its annual boycott of these companies. This black clergy group says, “BLM is actively attacking the very corporations that provide it with financial and public relations support which seeks a ‘boycott of white capitalism’ by encouraging consumers to stop ‘spending with White corporations’. … Corporations have many other options to be a part of the national dialogue about race without capitulating to Marxists,” To the Clergy of Color: Capitalism is the greatest economic force in history, which has lifted billions of people – including tens of millions of black Americans – out of poverty, especially over the past 60 years.”
“Fasting from Whiteness” for Lent was the woke spin in a liberal UCC congregation in Oak Park, Illinois. This church promised: “Our music will be drawn from the African American spirituals tradition, from South African freedom songs, from Native American traditions, and many, many more.” Others asked, “They had nothing more relevant to focus on in Lent?”
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), partnering with RealClearEducation, called on College Pulse to conduct a survey of students at 159 colleges regarding students’ experiences with free speech on campus. Fielded from February 15 to May 30, 2021, via the College Pulse mobile app and web portal, the survey included over 37,000 student respondents in 4-year degree programs. This was the largest survey of college students on campus free speech ever conducted. It was found that: “The data are clear: The more elite the school, the more likely that its students are willing to silence speech” – even with violence.
The Pennsylvania House voted in June to erase the word “homosexuality” from prohibited sexual acts in the state’s Crimes Code. The 198 to 0 vote was on a bill to clean up language that does not belong, since homosexuality is not a crime.
The Supreme Court has another dispute over religion and LGBTQ rights. It’s to be argued this fall and involves a Colorado web designer who says her religious beliefs prevent her from doing wedding website designs for same-sex couples.
Tacoma’s suburban schools will now use what’s termed “culturally responsive discipline”, encouraging school staff to impose disciplinary policies that “may be adapted to individual student needs in a culturally responsive manner”. The Daily Mail reports: “Critics say the new approach is in effect a race-based disciplinary policy that will encourage harsher or lighter punishments based on a student’s race, with white students being disciplined more severely.” Progressives are upset with the critics who call this woke policy, “reverse racism”.
Washington State’s legislature bans the word “marijuana” as “racist”, after the state helped minority groups to get started in this lately freed cannabis business.
Since 2021, New Jersey has made it customary for prisoners to be assigned according to their personal gender identity, not their biological sex. And, not surprisingly, two inmates at a New Jersey Correctional Facility for Women have been impregnated by another inmate.Prisons in California and Connecticut have adopted the same system.
There’s now an “X” option to choose to identify one’s gender on US passports. Secretary of State Antony Blinken promises that the option will be available for other documents next year.
“These policies that criminalize their identities and behavior, it’s like this dark cloud hanging over their heads. It causes them to have to remain in the closet, to conceal, to be super vigilant about their behavior.” At many of these universities, Paul Southwick said, “your identity is forbidden.”
Southwick is the director of the Religious Exemption Accountability Project, which advocates for the rights of LGBTQ students at Christian colleges and universities, and counsel for the plaintiffs. He says that even students who are not disciplined endure a culture of pervasive anxiety and fear.
The Title IX religious exemption ensures that, despite historic advances in LGBTQ rights over the past decade, religious colleges and universities are not required to change their policies in accordance with those new laws — all while receiving the benefits of taxpayer-subsidized funding. According to the REAP complaint, religious colleges and universities that have the exemption received, in 2018 alone, a collective $4.2 billion in funding from the federal government. Much of this comes in the form of federal student loans and financial aid, but the pandemic brought even more aid as well.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints support for LGBTQ rights, including same-sex marriage, has increased noticeably since 2015, mirroring trends across the U.S. society generally, according to a recent study by the Public Religion Research Institute. From interviews online and by phone of a nationally representative sample of more than 22,000 adults, the report finds an overall increase of 8 percentage points among Americans between 2015 and 2021. Nearly 8 in 10 (79%) Americans now favor nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ individuals.
Homosexuals should be “lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head!” That’s what Dillon Awes shouted from his pulpit at Stedfast Baptist Church in Watauga, Texas early this summer. “That’s what God teaches! That’s what the Bible says!” From a previous Stedfast preacher, Donnie Romero: “I’m not going to let these dirty faggots in my church. They’re all pedophiles.” After the Pulse nightclub massacre, Romero said the “sodomites, perverts, pedophiles deserved to die” and he prayed that the surviving victims, too, would die. He praised their killer, Omar Mateen. But later, Romero had to resign in disgrace when he was caught sleeping with prostitutes and doing drugs. Jonathan Shelley, replaced Romero as the preacher. In his sermons, he calls LGBTQ folks “filthy,” “wicked,” and “beasts”. Awes is Shelley’s assistant pastor.
And Finally: As California Democrat, Rep. Ted Lieu, recently stood at the podium in the U.S. House of Representatives, he cited some bills aimed against the rights of LGBTQ youths and their families. Then, he said: “I just thought I would now recite for you what Jesus Christ said about homosexuality.” Liew then stood there, looking out at his colleagues, in silence, for about 20 seconds. Then, he said, “I yield back”, and returned to his seat.