Tag Archives: Intolerance

News

Democrat senators attack judicial nominee for her Catholic faith

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This is from National Review.

Excerpt:

This afternoon, during a confirmation hearing for 7th Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Amy Coney Barrett, Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein attacked the nominee for her Roman Catholic faith.

Barrett is a law professor at the University of Notre Dame who has written about the role of religion in public life and delivered academic lectures to Christian legal groups. Drawing on some of these materials, Feinstein launched a thinly veiled attack on Barrett’s Catholic faith, asserting that her religious views will prevent her from judging fairly.

“When you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you,” Feinstein said. “And that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for for years in this country.” Feinstein is clearly hinting here at the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, a ruling that Feinstein supports so vociferously that she has even called it a “super-precedent.”

[…]Other Democratic senators took issue with Barrett over her faith as well. Senate minority whip Dick Durbin criticized Barrett’s use of the term “orthodox Catholic,” insisting that it unfairly maligns Catholics who do not hold certain positions about abortion or the death penalty. (Durbin himself is a Catholic who abandoned his previous pro-life position.) “Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?” he later asked Barrett point blank.

And Hawaii senator Mazie Hirono snarked, “I think your article is very plain in your perspective about the role of religion for judges, and particularly with regard to Catholic judges.”

It was reported that Feinstein actually said “The dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern“. Think about that.

To me, the more important thing about this story is how comfortable secular people are about forcing their secular convictions down the throats of others. What they’re essentially saying is this: “I can use power to push my worldview onto you, and I can use power to stop you from living according to your convictions”. You can be certain that Diane Feinstein has answers to all of the same big questions that theists have answers to: “does God exist?” “did Jesus rise from the dead?” “is there a purpose to suffering and evil?” “is there life after death?”, etc. She has different answers to those same questions, but she wouldn’t accuse herself of having dogma. She feels very comfortable pushing her worldview through political power, but doesn’t think that theists ought to be able to do the same.

And this provides an interesting lesson for Christians: how did it come to be the case that Christian convictions are automatically perceived by secular leftist elites to be irrational and dangerous? Why is it that Christians shouldn’t be allowed to participate in politics, but atheists should, since they answer the same big questions with their respective worldviews? The answer is simple. Atheists perceive Christians as having a worldview that is not based on fact. And they perceive themselves as having a worldview that is based on fact. How did this happen?

Well, simply put, Christian leaders made it happen, by refusing to focus on apologetics and evangelism. For better or worse, Christian churches (from fundamentalist Pentecostal to conservative Presbyterian) have decided that evangelism and apologetics are not important enough to focus on at church. And the result of this is that as non-Christians work their way through school and into the workplace, they never encounter any intelligent Christians who have reasons and evidence for their beliefs. Not just Christian beliefs, but policy beliefs, too. The church has failed to teach their members and adherents the importance of having answers, and this (along with the Sexual Revolution) is one of the main reasons why America has gone secular.

Even if you spend your childhood and teen years in church, you will never hear serious discussion of whether God really exists or whether the Bible is historically reliable. These things will be assumed to be true. You will be shamed if you ask questions, and you will even be shamed if you study apologetics to know how to answer these questions. This is considered pious by most church leaders, no matter what denomination you’re in. Atheists are not blind to the fact that most people who profess Christ are ignorant of competing views, and cannot explain why they hold their views using reason and evidence. And this is where the perception that Christians are too dangerous to be allowed to participate in politics comes from.

This past week, I had a conversation with a senior engineer about his beliefs. He had attended Christian schools K through 12, and Christian churches his entire life. It all ended for him the minute he hit college. I perceived that he had questions that had gone unanswered, and asked him if he had ever seen any formal debates on Christianity. His answer? “I did not know that such a thing even existed”. I sent him a couple of debates to watch, and we are going to have lunch to discuss his background, because he was open to a rational discussion of the evidence. It doesn’t matter what church you are in, you will almost certainly never see a formal debate on Christianity. Because of this lack of emphasis on open debate, we lose a lot of intelligent people the minute they hit the university campus.

Things have gotten so bad, that it is now dangerous to even come out as a Christian in the education system, although there is still space to do it in the workplace, if you are careful who you speak to, and when. Most Christians I know, though, have no interest in jeopardizing their careers by being perceived as stupid at work. And yet there is this tremendous need for every Christian to reset the perceptions on ultimate questions. We must do this, or we are finished.

Anyway, it’s interesting to take a look at two of the nominees that Democrat senators opposed. Are they even qualified? Or are they anti-intellectual dingbats with no experience at all?

The Daily Signal has a helpful article about them. It turns out that they are exquisitely well-educated and have solid resumes, as well. That’s something else that Christians should not neglect if we want to be respected by secular elites.

We should all be very serious about our educations, careers and finances. Finances are important because it is an immediate signal to others that you have a wisdom about how to live. If we marry, then our marriage and children also sends a signal about competence. My view is that Christians should be learning much more than just the Bible in church. A little basic economics, basic apologetics, basic New Testament, and basic philosophy of religion would definitely help to correct the perceptions that others have of Christianity. And the study of those areas would make the average rank-and-file Christian much more confident about discussing those things in school and at work.

Positive arguments for Christian theism

News

East Lansing bans farmer from selling produce because he opposes gay marriage

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Young people seem to like gay marriage more than they like individual liberties
Young people seem to like gay marriage more than they like individual liberties

Can basic human liberties like freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of religion coexist with legalized gay marriage?

Consider this story from the Daily Signal.

Excerpt:

A farmers market and Facebook posts have opened a new front in courtroom battles over religious freedom.

It started when Steve Tennes, who owns a 120-acre farm in Charlotte, Michigan, expressed his traditional view about marriage on the farm’s Facebook page.

This drew a warning from an official more than 20 miles away in East Lansing, Michigan, that if Tennes tried to sell his fruit at the city’s farmers market, it could incite protests.

No one showed up to protest that August day last summer, though, and Tennes continued selling organic apples, peaches, cherries, and pumpkins at the seasonal market until October, as he had done the six previous years.

Nevertheless, East Lansing moved earlier this year to ban Tennes’ farm, the Country Mill, from participating in the farmers market when it resumes June 4. The city cited its human relations ordinance, an anti-discrimination law that includes sexual orientation.

So Tennes and his wife sued the city for religious discrimination.

[…]Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal aid organization, is representing the Tenneses.

You’ll recall that gay rights activists are constantly going after those who disagree with them about gay marriage. Sometimes with insults, sometimes with lawsuits, sometimes with intimidation (this case for an example), sometimes with job terminations (this case for an example), sometimes with expulsions (this case for an example), sometimes with vandalism (this case for an example) and sometimes with domestic terrorism (this case for an example).

I have adjusted to this by just assuming that anyone who votes Democrat is a potential fascist, who cannot be trusted to have a civil conversation. That’s what my alias is for – so I can discuss these issues without losing my job, like Mozille CEO Brendan Eich did, when he opposed gay marriage. It’s just safer to assume that secular leftists are incapable of rational debate. So many of them clearly are not, and no one on the secular left condemns them for it.

We’ve seen a lot of Christian business owners being sued in SOGI states, and this is really an attempt to compel agreement on gay marriage through starvation. Not just the business owners, but their families, too. Of course, gay activist Floyd Lee Corkins took that a step further when he attacked the Family Research Council building with a gun – intent on mass murder. Given their indifference to basic human rights, I wonder how many gay activists really think that what he did was wrong.

Here’s another case of fascism from earlier this week, this time reported by The Federalist.

Excerpt:

On May 6, 2017, the director of Illinois’ child welfare agency (DCFS), George Sheldon, “signed enhanced department procedures” setting “mandatory minimum standards for LGBTQ children under its authority (See Appendix K in this May 11, 2017 document. Quoted passages in this article are from Appendix K unless otherwise specified).

[…]Designed with American Civil Liberties Union assistance, the policies are problematic not only for the vulnerable children in state care but also for the kin, foster families, caseworkers, volunteers, and others trying to assist them. Consider the effects on staff and volunteers, who must pass an ideological test—to see if they are sufficiently “LGBTQ-affirming”— to mentor, serve, or care for the state’s most vulnerable children.

According to the gender guardians at DCFS, all children have a “right to self-determination of gender and sexual orientation,” and individual choices about “sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression” should be viewed as “developmental milestones, not problematic behavior.”  The role of adults is simply to “facilitate exploration of any LGBTQ matters through an affirming approach…by being open, non-judgmental, and empathic.”

Thus, when children or adolescents “explore/express a sexual orientation other than heterosexual and/or a gender identity that is different from the child/youth’s sex assigned at birth,” DCFS “staff, providers, and foster parents” must “support and respect” the child’s exploration “without any effort to direct or guide them to any specific outcome for their exploration.”

In other words, all DCFS staff and volunteers must communicate a uniform message to the children and adolescents in their care: it’s perfectly normal to identify as transgender or gender non-conforming, and just as conducive to a child’s wellbeing to be transgender as to identify with one’s actual sex.

It’s always useful to look to other countries where gay rights is further along to find out what will happen next. In previous posts, I talked about how Ontario – a province in Canada – decided to allow a convicted child pornographer design their education curriculum. Parents would not be granted an opt out of the indoctrination for any reason.

Well, Life Site News reports on the next step:

Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne Liberals have passed what critics describe as “totalitarian” Bill 89 by a vote of 63 to 23 on the last day before Queen’s Park adjourns for the summer.

[…]Bill 89, or the Supporting Children, Youth and Families Act, 2017, repeals and replaces the former Child and Family Services Act that governs child protection services, and adoption and foster care services.

It adds “gender identity” and “gender expression” as factors to be considered “in the best interests of the child.”

At the same time, it deletes the religious faith in which the parents are raising the child as a factor to be considered, and mandates child protection services consider only the child’s own “creed” or “religion” when assessing the best interests of the child.

“With the passage of Bill 89, we’ve entered an era of totalitarian power by the state, such as never witnessed before in Canada’s history,” says Jack Fonseca, senior political strategist for Campaign Life Coalition.

[…]Children’s Aid agencies now have “a type of police power to bust down your door, and seize your biological children if you are known to oppose LGBT ideology and the fraudulent theory of ‘gender identity’, if for instance, some claim is made that your child may be same-sex attracted or confused about their ‘gender,’” according to Fonseca.

“We already see similar tyranny happening in other jurisdictions, such as Norway, where the main child protection service there, Barnevernet, has been involved in numerous high profile seizures of children from traditionally-principled families,” he added.

This is what happens when you let the secular left have a majority government in your country. Would you get married and have children in a country where your children could be taken from you? I would not.

News

Duquesne university student government wants to ban Chick-Fil-A from campus

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Young people seem to like gay marriage more than they like individual liberties
Young people seem to like gay marriage more than they like individual liberties

This story from Campus Reform is worth considering, especially for people who think that it is safe to support traditional marriage in public.

Excerpt:

Student senators at Duquesne University are lobbying for the cancellation of plans to bring Chick-fil-A to campus in the fall, saying they “fear” for the safety of their peers.

The popular fast-food chain came under fire in 2012 after its president, Dan Cathy, admitted his company was “guilty as charged” for donating to organizations opposed to same-sex marriage, prompting years of protests by LGBT activists, especially on college campuses.

Now, however, Duquesne University Student Senator Niko Martini has reignited concerns over the company’s past by proposing a resolution at the Student Government Association’s (SGA) March 26 meeting to nix the restaurant from a list of proposed overhauls to the school’s dining options.

“Chick-fil-A has a questionable history on civil rights and human rights,” Martini remarked in a statement to The Duquesne Duke. “I think it’s imperative [that] the university chooses to do business with organizations that coincide with the [university’s] mission and expectations they give students regarding diversity and inclusion.”

He hates the chicken, because the chicken is pro-natural-marriage, and he can’t deal with that. He has to silence anyone who disagrees with him on the definition of marriage.

This reminds me of the time that the gay activist Floyd Lee Corkins entered the Family Research Council building in Washington D.C. with several Chick-Fil-A sandwiches – and a handgun.

The radically leftist Washington Post wrote about what happened:

The man convicted of shooting an unarmed security guard at the Family Research Council last summer was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison.

Floyd Lee Corkins II had plotted to kill “as many people as possible” at conservative organizations that he viewed as anti-gay before he was stopped by the guard, Leonardo Johnson.

U.S. District Chief Judge Richard W. Roberts called Corkins’s crime “horrific” and praised Johnson, who was shot in the forearm while subduing Corkins and taking his gun.

“The carnage you wanted did not happen only because an ordinary man showing extraordinary courage stopped you,” Roberts told Corkins before announcing his prison term. “Killing human beings is not political activism. It is criminal behavior.”

[…]In February, Corkins pleaded guilty to three felony charges: a federal charge of transporting a firearm and ammunition across state lines, and D.C. charges of assault with intent to kill and committing an act of terrorism while armed.

Corkins, who volunteered at a gay community center in the District, told investigators that he was angry with organizations he considered anti-gay, such as the Family Research Council and the fast-food chain Chick-fil-A. The head of the restaurant chain had spoken out at the time against same-sex marriage.

In a multimedia presentation in the courtroom, federal prosecutors described Corkins’s planning of the shooting as “deliberate and clear-headed.”

The day before, Corkins had purchased 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches that he carried in his backpack along with the 9mm SIG Sauer pistol. He planned to “smear” the sandwiches in the faces of his victims to make a political statement, according to court documents.

Is Corkins any different from these other anti-marriage campus radicals? He opened fire, I guess, and was convicted of domestic terrorism. The campus radicals haven’t shot anyone who disagrees with them so far. But the same hate is there in both.