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News

Canadian pro-life student quarantined by public school principal

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Here’s the story from LifeSiteNews.

Excerpt:

16-year-old high school student Jennifer Rankin fully intended to unite her voicelessness with that of the unborn as part of the annual Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity when she arrived at school yesterday, reports Bill Henry of Sun Media.

She was impeded, however, by her school principal, who stated that the right to free speech does not apply on school property and who forced Rankin to remain in isolation for the entire day as long as she participated in the event.

Rankin, 16, arrived at Peninsula Shores District School in Wiarton, Ontario yesterday morning, with the red tape over her mouth and with the simple word ‘life’ written upon it.  She and her mother were stopped at the door, however, by school principal Patricia Cavan, while police cruisers stood nearby.  Cavan initially told Rankin that she could not enter school property, but then consented to allowing her in the building, separated from other students.

“I was taken directly into a small room that was opposite the vice-principal’s office and I was in there all day,” Rankin told Sun Media.  “I wasn’t allowed to speak with or see any other students and students were not allowed to come and see me and I was isolated in that room for the entire day.”

[…]The youth pastor at Rankin’s church, Ken Holley, expressed disappointment and insisted that the school’s actions violated her rights.  “It’s a day of silence and basically they lose their voice for those that never had a voice,” he said. “It’s pro-life. There’s no arguing. They can’t talk all day. They just stay silent and if anybody asks why they’re silent they hand out a little sheet that says this is why.”

[…]Cavan, who did not return a message left by LifeSiteNews.com, told Sun Media that the right to free speech does not apply on school property.  “School property is not a public place,” she said. “So while absolutely we support the right to free speech in a public space, that’s not school property.”  She said that school policy prohibits the dissemination of one-sided information on religious, political, or other issues that are controversial.

Pastor Holley pointed out that the school does an annual ‘Gay Pride’ day “where everybody wears pink shirts,” and that the school allows nude pictures on the wall to stand as ‘art’.

It’s strange because this school is located in a tiny town in a very rural area, hundreds of miles from any major city. I would think that a rural school would not be so backward as to thwart basic human rights like free speech. Oh well. It’s Ontario, Canada. Land of Chief Censor Jennifer Lynch and the Canadian Human Rights Commissions. You can read more about how Canada discriminates against Christians here. You can read more about how Canada discriminates against pro-lifers here.

UPDATE: It’s happening here! Student sues for right to wear pro-life shirt (via Ruth Institute Blog)

News

Atheist congressman introduces bill to force states to allow homosexual adoption

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Story from LifeSiteNews.

Oh, yes. He’s a Democrat. And an atheist.

Excerpt:

Last week a bill was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives proposing federal-level punishment for states that ban homosexual couples and non-married individuals from adopting children.

Touted as a measure to help more children find homes, Democratic California Rep. Pete Stark’s “Every Child Deserves a Family Act” recommends that states allowing foster care placements only into married heterosexual households be deprived of federal child welfare funds.

The law would have an impact on Utah, Florida, Arkansas, Nebraska and Mississippi, which either explicitly restrict adoption to heterosexual couples, or restrict it to married couples while not recognizing same-sex “marriage.”

[…]The bill reads: “In order to open more homes to foster children, child welfare agencies should work to eliminate sexual orientation, gender identification, and marital status discrimination and bias in adoption and foster care recruitment, selection, and placement procedures.” It also authorizes those who claim their bid for adoption was compromised by such factors to sue in a federal court.

For a survey of the research on which family arrangement is best for children, click here. For a primer on why people oppose same-sex marriage, click here. For a primer on why atheists cannot ground moral behavior rationally on atheism, click here.

Commentary

MUST-READ: Hugh Hewitt interviews Richard Dawkins on his new book

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Transcript here. (H/T Muddling Towards Maturity)

Excerpt:

HH: On the person of Jesus Christ, did He exist?

RD: I suspect He probably did. I suspect there are lots of itinerant preachers, and one of them was probably called Yehoshua, or various other versions of Jesus’ name, but I don’t think that a miracle worker existed.

HH: How do you rate the evidence for Christ’s existence, manuscript evidence, eyewitness evidence, things like that?

RD: As I said, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if a man called Jesus or Yehoshua existed. I would say the evidence that He worked miracles, He rose from the dead, He was born of a virgin, is zero.

HH: Well, you repeatedly use the analogy of a detective at a crime scene throughout The Greatest Show On Earth. But detectives simply can’t dismiss evidence they don’t want to see. There’s a lot of evidence for the miracles, in terms of eyewitness…

RD: No, there isn’t. What there is, is written stories which were written decades after the alleged events were supposed to happen. No historian would take that seriously.

HH: Well, that’s why I’m conflicted, because in your book, you talk about the Latin teacher who is stymied at every turn, and yet Latin teachers routinely rely on things like Tacitus and Pliny, and histories that were written centuries after the events in which they are recording occur.

RD: There’s massive archaeological evidence, there’s massive evidence of all kinds. It’s just not comparable. No…if you talk to any ancient historian of the period, they will agree that it is not good historical evidence.

HH: Oh, that’s simply not true. Dr. Mark Roberts, double PhD and undergraduate at Harvard, has written a very persuasive book upon this. I mean, that’s an astounding statement. Are you unfamiliar with him?

RD: All right, then there may be some, but a very large number of ancient historians would say…

HH: Well, you just said there were none. So there are some that you are choosing not to confront.

RD: You sound like a lawyer.

HH: I am a lawyer.

Read the whole thing.

Now, obviously, Hugh is not an expert and he is going about his defense all wrong by trying to argue for general reliability of the gospels, instead of arguing for several specific “minimal facts” passages that pass standard historical criteria. But Dawkins is not going to call him on it. For a good debate on the reliability of the gospels, try Richard Bauckham versus James Crossley.

Related posts

My previous post on Richard Dawkins, including my opinion of his intellectual capability and honesty. Here’s another atheist, Peter Atkins. And did you hear Craig’s debate with Arif Ahmed? These are all Oxford University atheists, just like the one Greg Koukl is debating in Calgary on Friday.