Governor DeSantis signs legislation to promote fathers and fatherhood

I try to keep abreast of what’s going on in the men’s rights movement, and a frequent complaint is that there’s nothing going on in either political party that benefits men. Men feel that their needs don’t matter to Democrats or Republicans. And no one is interested in having men lead their homes. But is it true? Let’s take a look at a bill that Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law.

Here’s a statement from the governor:

Today, Governor Ron DeSantis signed HB 7065, which includes educational programs, mentorship programs and one-on-one support to encourage responsible and involved fatherhood in Florida. The bill is tied to nearly $70 million in funding to provide a wide spectrum of family and youth support through the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) and the Department of Children and Families (DCF).

“There are more than 18 million children in our country who live without a father in their home,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “This has a severe impact on children, and often leads to dropping out of school, crime and substance abuse. Incredibly, there are those who diminish the importance of fatherhood and the nuclear family – we will not let that happen in our state. I am proud to say we are doing everything we can to support involved fatherhood in Florida.”

It’s so common these days for governments to spend money on women’s programs. Think of how much money governments spend on single mother welfare, which does nothing except subsidize women who want to get pregnant by a hot bad boy instead of getting married to a good man. It’s rare to see a government spend money on a program designed to help men who want to be involved in raising their children.

The bill  offers money to help fathers with “finding employment, managing child support obligations, transitioning from a period of incarceration, accessing health care, understanding child development, and enhancing parenting skills.”

The bill also supports mentoring at-risk youth to develop useful skills by working alongside father figures.

DeSantis was in the news recently for banning teachers from discussing sex and sexuality with 5-year-old children in the classroom. He took on many woke groomer corporations and journalists in order to get it passed.

Previously, signed a new law designed to teach children basic financial skills in high school:

 Only one day after passing both chambers of the State Legislature, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill into law requiring students complete a financial literacy course for graduation in all Florida high schools.

Passed in the midst of the final week of legislative session, S.B. 1054, or the “Dorothy L. Hukill Financial Literacy Act,” sailed through the bicameral state legislature with a tremendous amount of support. Both the State House and Senate approved the measure unanimously.

Just prior to DeSantis signing the bill, the Governor stated, “Financial literacy is an important life skill for a student to have.”

“We think it will improve a student’s capability for financial management when they enter the real world.”

And don’t forget, last year, DeSantis signed bills to protect wildlifebanning biological males from women’s sports, and punishing Big Tech social media companies for censoring conservatives.

Many cynical people like to say that there isn’t much difference between Republicans and Democrats on social issues. But those people aren’t following the legislation. If you watch the legislation, Republicans do a lot for social conservatives.

#EvangelicalsForBiden sexual harassment scandal at Christianity Today

Friend of the blog “Wintery’s Friend” sent me news about this breaking scandal. Although some of you may remember the days when Christianity Today was still Christian, they’ve lurched far to the left in recent years. No one conservative posts there or reads it anymore. But now news is emerging about the hypocrisy of CT. In public, they embraced feminism. But in private, something else.

Here’s the story the Washington Times:

Two top executives of evangelical magazine Christianity Today committed “unchecked” sexual harassment of colleagues over the course of a dozen years, the publication said Tuesday.

Mark Galli, who was editor-in-chief of the magazine for seven years before his retirement in January 2020, was accused of multiple incidents of ”demeaning, inappropriate and offensive behavior,” in an online article by CT News Editor Daniel Silliman posted Tuesday.

In December 2019, Mr. Galli — a veteran of several editorial positions in his three decades at the Christian publisher — penned a widely noticed editorial condemning then-President Trump as unworthy of office.

“Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election — that is a matter of prudential judgment,” Mr. Galli’s 2019 editorial stated. “That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.”

The editor cited a “stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence” on the part of Mr. Trump that would “crash down on the reputation of evangelical religion and on the world’s understanding of the gospel.”

Speaking to the magazine he used to run as editor, Mr. Galli confessed his own failures.

The title of that editorial was “Trump Should Be Removed from Office”. That’s what he was concerned with. Getting rid of the man labeled “the most pro-life President ever” by organizations who major in getting pro-life legislation passed. But who cares about them, when you can get the adulation of the secular left elites in the mainstream media?

Look: if you’re gaining all your virtue points from public condemnations of “mean tweets”, then of course you think you have a big bank account of virtue stored up to offset some sexual harassment on the side. That’s what makes it possible for hypocrites of every stripe to do things in private that they condemn in public. They are celebrated as good people in public, and that gives them cover to think that they deserve to do bad things in private.

Every single one of these Democrat “Christians” had a choice between learning how to do defend the Christian worldview, and attacking their own people in order to curry favor with the secular left. If you align 100% with the Democrat party on abortion, gay rights, socialism, critical race theory, grooming children for sex, etc. then you don’t have time to solidify your own worldview with evidence. You major in politics because you minor in truth.

More:

Olatokunbo Olawoye, former advertising director at the publication, was accused of imposing himself on female employees. The CT article alleged Olawoye — who in 2017 pleaded guilty to traveling to meet a minor for sex and served three years in prison — “did not respect personal boundaries” when it came to female employees at the firm.

Olawoye, the article alleged, “frequently invited himself into women’s offices, shut the door, and engaged them in long, personal conversations.” Another manager at the Carol Stream, Illinois, publisher reported Olawoye’s “inordinate” engagement with a female college student interning at the firm, alleging the advertising director asked the young woman “inappropriate questions,” including whether she would want to have dinner at his house.

The alleged incidents of harassment by Olawoye ended with his arrest in the sex-with-minors sting in 2017. At the time, Mr. Galli reportedly told editorial employees to “suspend” judgment about Olawoye until a conviction was recorded.

Eight women alleged that Mr. Galli “touched them inappropriately,” but the magazine reported no action was taken until three successive reports of inappropriate touching by Mr. Galli during three days in August 2019.

I guess Mark Galli thought this was OK, because – like all the Evangelicals for Biden – he was obsessed with getting a diversity of skin color. Who cares whether employees are authentic Christians who can defend core Christian truth claims with reason and evidence? The important thing is getting a good mix of skin colors. That’s literally how these Big Eva elites in the SBC and ERLC think. “How does my congregation look?” They don’t really think that presenting Christianity as true is enough. No, they have to add liberal politics to it. These people are lousy at Christianity.

William Lane Craig debates Walter Sinnott-Armstrong: evil, suffering and God

This is one of the top 4 best debates that William Lane Craig has ever done in my opinion. (The other three are Craig-Millican debate and the first and second Craig-Dacey debates). If you’ve never seen Dr. Craig in a debate with a non-Christian, this one is probably the best introductory one out there. Dr. Craig is the foremost defender of Christian theism on the planet, and probably of all time.

Sinnott-Armstrong is very courteous, respectful and intelligent scholar and he is very good at defending his side. This is a very cordial and engaging debate, and because it was held in front of a church audience, it was targeted to laymen and not academics. So if you are looking for a good first debate to watch, this is it! Normally, Dr. Craig debates at major universities in front of students and faculty.

There is also a book based on this debate, published by Oxford University Press. I was actually able to find a PDF of it online. I should also remind people that you can get the wonderful Craig-Hitchens debate DVD from Amazon.com if you are looking for a debate to watch, or show in your church, this is the one to start with.

The debaters:

The format:

  • WSA: 15 minutes
  • WLC: 15 minutes
  • Debaters discussion: 6 minutes
  • Moderated discussion: 10 minutes
  • Audience Q&A: 18 minutes
  • WSA: 5 minutes
  • WLC: 5 minutes

SUMMARY:

WSA opening speech:

Evil is incompatible with the concept of God (three features all-powerful, all-god, all-knowing)

God’s additional attributes: eternal, effective and personal (a person)

He will be debating against the Christian God in this debate, specifically

Contention: no being has all of the three features of the concept of God

His argument: is not a deductive argument, but an inductive/probabilistic argument

Examples of pointless, unjustified suffering: a sick child who dies, earthquakes, famines

The inductive argument from evil:

  1.  If there were an all-powerful and all-good God, then there would not be any evil in the world unless that evil is logically necessary for some adequately compensating good.
  2.  There is evil in the world.
  3.  Some of that evil is not logically necessary for some adequately compensating good.
  4. Therefore, there can’t be a God who is all-powerful and all-good.

Defining terms:

  • Evil: anything that all rational people avoid for themselves, unless they have some adequate reason to want that evil for themselves (e.g. – pain, disability, death)
  • Adequate reason: some evils do have an adequate reason, like going to the dentist – you avoid a worse evil by having a filling

God could prevent tooth decay with no pain

God can even change the laws of physics in order to make people not suffer

Responses by Christians:

  • Evil as a punishment for sin: but evil is not distributed in accordance with sin, like babies
  • Children who suffer will go straight to Heaven: but it would be better to go to Heaven and not suffer
  • Free will: this response doesn’t account for natural evil, like disease, earthquakes, lightning
  • Character formation theodicy: there are other ways for God to form character, by showing movies
  • Character formation theodicy: it’s not fair to let X suffer so that Y will know God
  • God allows evil to turn people towards him: God would be an egomaniac to do that
  • We are not in a position to know that any particular evil is pointless: if we don’t see a reason then there is no reason
  • Inductive evil is minor compared to the evidences for God: arguments for a Creator do not prove that God is good

WLC opening speech:

Summarizing Walter’s argument

  1. If God exists, gratuitous evil does not exist.
  2. Gratuitous evil exists.
  3. Therefore, God does not exist.

Gratuitous evil means evil that God has no morally sufficient reason to permit. WSA doesn’t think that all evil is incompatible with God’s existence, just gratuitous evil.

Everyone admits that there are instances of evil and suffering such that we cannot see the morally sufficient reason why God would allow it to occur.

The claim of the atheist is that if they cannot see that there is a moral justification for allowing some instance evil, then there is no moral justification for that instance of evil.

Here are three reasons why we should not expect to know the morally sufficient reasons why God permits apparently pointless evil.

  1. the ripple effect: the morally sufficient reason for allowing some instance of evil may only be seen in another place or another time
  2. Three Christian doctrines undermine the claim that specific evils really are gratuitous
  3. Walter’s own premise 1 allows us to argue for God’s existence, which means that evil is not gratuitous

Christian doctrines from 2.:

  • The purpose of life is not happiness, and it is not God’s job to make us happy – we are here to know God. Many evils are gratuitous if we are concerned about being happy, but they are not gratuitous for producing the knowledge of God. What WSA has to show is that God could reduce the amount of suffering in the world while still retaining the same amount of knowledge of God’s existence and character.
  • Man is in rebellion, and many of the evils we see are caused by humans misusing their free will to harm others and cause suffering
  • For those who accept Christ, suffering is redeemed by eternal life with God, which is a benefit that far outweighs any sufferings and evils we experience in our earthly lives

Arguing for God in 3.

  1. If God exists, gratuitous evil does not exist.
  2. God exists
  3. Therefore, gratuitous evil does not exist.

Four reasons to think that God exists (premise 2 from above):

  • the kalam cosmological argument
  • the fine-tuning argument
  • the moral argument
  • the argument from evil