News

Police chaplain forced to resign for supporting traditional marriage

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Mary sent me this article from the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

A police chaplain says he was forced out of his post after criticising the Government’s plans for gay marriage on his personal website, MPs have been told.

Rev Brian Ross said he was summoned to a meeting with a senior officer and told that postings on his blog on the subject of marriage did not fit with the force’s equality and diversity policies.

Campaigners against same-sex marriage claimed that the case was “just the start of things to come”.

They said it backed up warnings that chaplains in hospitals, prisons and the armed forces as well as teachers and other public servants could be dismissed legally from their jobs if they take what they consider to be a stand on grounds of conscience over the issue.

Ministers have repeatedly insisted that no one should be sacked from their job for voicing opposition to same-sex marriage and have built in special “protections” for clerics into the Government’s Marriage Bill.

But in a written submission to a committee of MPs revising the bill in the House of Commons Rev Ross claimed that his case was “typical of the kind of situation that could, and would, arise” once gay marriage becomes law.

[…][Ross] went on: “Just before the summer, a particular senior officer in one of the divisions read my personal blog and objected to my expressed support for traditional marriage as, it was claimed, it went against the force’s equality and diversity policies.

“I was summoned to a meeting, the end result of which has been that my services have been dispensed with.

“This, I would emphasise, is before any legislation has been placed on the Statute Book.”

I recommend that Christians who like to blog on social issues blog under an alias, because this kind of thing happens more than you expect, and the consequences can be much worse than this. Depending on where you are, you might end up paying tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees as you go through a multi-year trial in front of some political correctness tribunal.

Videos

William Lane Craig debates John Shelby Spong on the resurrection of Jesus

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William Lane Craig is the greatest Christian debater in the history of the church, and Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong is a very liberal non-Christian.

Part 1 of 2: (61 minutes)

Part 2 of 2: (42 minutes)

The moderator is none other than the famous journalist David Aikman! The opening speeches are only 15 minutes, and the rebuttals are 10 minutes. This debate is accessible because Craig’s opponent is not really attacking him on a scholarly basis, but more as the pretty typical liberal atheist that you meet at work.

Craig spends all of his opening speech explaining historical methods, sources, dating and how he infers the resurrection as the best explanation of the minimal facts. The resurrection of Jesus is quite awesome to debate when people are given time to explain the historical methods and how the scholars use these methods to evaluate which facts are likely to be historical and which are not.

News

Florida high school student suspended after disarming gunman

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Fox News reports.

Excerpt:

A 16-year-old Florida high school student says he was suspended for three days for wrestling a loaded gun away from a teen threatening to shoot.

Fox4Now.com reports that the student, who attends Cypress Lake High School in Fort Myers, tackled the 15-year-old suspect on a school bus after he allegedly pointed the weapon at another student.

“I think he was really going to shoot him right then and there,” said the student, who declined to be identified.

According to the referral the student received the following day, he was suspended for his role in an “incident” where a weapon was present and given an “emergency suspension,” the station reported.

The boy’s mother told Fox4Now.com her son was suspended because he refused to cooperate with the investigation, adding that he was scared.

The suspected gunman was arrested and charged with possession of a firearm on school property and assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill, the report states.

Sgt. David Valez of the Lee County Sheriff’s Office told the station an investigation into the incident is ongoing.

School officials declined to a request for comment from Fox4Now.com due to privacy issues.

If you have young boys, do not send them to public schools. Public schools are not male-friendly places, they do not understand or support men. They view masculinity as something to be suppressed or neutralized. We really need to have more men in the public school system in the classroom as well as in the administration.