Tag Archives: Labor

News

UK judge rules that Christians have no right to religious liberty

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From the UK Telegraph. (H/T ADF Alert)

Excerpt:

Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson made the remarks when ruling on the case of a Christian couple who were told that they could not be foster carers because of their view that homosexuality is wrong.

The judges underlined that, in the case of fostering arrangements at least, the right of homosexuals to equality “should take precedence” over the right of Christians to manifest their beliefs and moral values.

In a ruling with potentially wide-ranging implications, the judges said Britain was a “largely secular”, multi-cultural country in which the laws of the realm “do not include Christianity”.

[…]The ruling in the case of Owen and Eunice Johns, from Derby, is the latest in a series of judgments in which Christians have been defeated in the courts for breaching equality laws by manifesting their beliefs on homosexuality.

[…]In their ruling yesterday, the judges complained that it was not yet “well understood” that British society was largely secular and that the law has no place for Christianity.

“Although historically this country is part of the Christian West, and although it has an established church which is Christian, there have been enormous changes in the social and religious life of our country over the last century,” they said.

It was a “paradox” that society has become simultaneously both increasingly secular and increasingly diverse in religious affiliation, they said.

“We sit as secular judges serving a multicultural community of many faiths. We are sworn (we quote the judicial oath) to ‘do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will’.”

The judges acknowledged that there was a “tension” in the case of Mr and Mrs Johns between the rights of individuals to maintain their religious beliefs and the rights of homosexual people to live free from discrimination.

However, when fostering regulations were taken into account, “the equality provisions concerning sexual orientation should take precedence” over religious rights, they said.

The world becomes a more evil place when Christians are forced to retreat into the shadows by the fascist state. I wonder if the two defendants voted for the Labor government that brought in these anti-Christian changes? I hope that they did not vote for the Labor Party, because it is a fearful thing to be your own executioner.

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News

Somalian woman lied to get asylum and $417,000 of welfare benefits

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Story from the UK Daily Mail.

Excerpt:

Abdulle, who also used the fake name Amina Muse and is from Somalia, was living in Gothenburg when the authorities insisted immigrants learn Swedish if they wanted to continue to claim handouts.

She told a friend she couldn’t be bothered and moved to England where she knew it would be far easier to collect benefits.

She made up a story to gain asylum and gave herself and five of her six children false names and dates of birth, fraudulently claiming benefits on both the real and invented identities.

And she somehow managed to continue claiming benefits in Sweden for three years after leaving.

Abdulle was born in Mogadishu in 1969 but moved to Sweden in 1994.

Her friend Hodan Abdullahi Egal, who lives in Gothenburg, said yesterday: ‘Ayan liked life here. She never worked, just took things easy and spent her time meeting up with old friends from Mogadishu.

‘But she couldn’t be bothered to learn another language. Instead she decided to move to England.

‘She said it was the land of easy money. She was convinced she would have no problems there because the system there made it far easier to collect money without proper checks.’

Abdulle arrived in London in 2004 with her first five children, now aged eight to 17, and her husband Raghe Adan, and claimed asylum under the name Amina Ali Muse.

In her application, she said militiamen had targeted her home in Somalia on December 1, 1998, shooting her brothers dead.

She claimed she had been gang raped while three months pregnant, leading to a miscarriage, and that her niece had been raped, tortured and beaten.

In fact, on that date Abdulle had been in Sweden giving birth to a daughter.

Between June 2004 and May 2010, Abdulle, who was living in Neasden, North-West London, claimed £261,358.14 in handouts.

The cash came from almost every welfare benefit possible, including income support, disability living allowance, carers’ allowance, jobseekers’ allowance, housing benefit, council tax benefit, tax credits and child benefit.

[…]Abdulle… cannot be deported after finishing her sentence because she was granted British citizenship in 2009.

I wonder how welfare laws like this get passed? Oh I know – people vote for left-wingers who are “compassionate” so they can redistribute the money they collect from high-earning productive taxpayers and business owners. That way, the do-gooders in government feel superior, the people who vote for higher tax rates feel superior, and the people who receive working people’s money feel superior. Everybody wins! Everybody!

Giving money to the government is good! We should do more of that so that we can all feel like we are nice people! When I tell people that I vote for “compassion”, they like me! And that’s what voting is for! Feelings! Social acceptance! It’s not like my company needed the money – they would just wasted it on giving people jobs to make stuff. And it’s not like I needed the money – I would just waste it getting married. Much better for deserving poor people who are down on their luck through no fault of their own to get it.

In compassionate Canada, you can marry several people over the phone and collect welfare for each of them. Now that’s compassion that we can all feel good about!

Commentary

Should Christians pray for the economy?

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This article from John Piper’s Desiring God blog was sent to me by Mary.

Excerpt:

A healthy economy serves people in multiple ways. Here are two.

First, it is better for people to be able to work for their living than to have to depend upon others to provide for their needs. For example, Paul exhorts the Thessalonians to work with their hands so that they “will not be dependent upon anyone” (1 Thessalonians 4:12; see also 2 Thessalonians 3:6-12).

In addition to this, as Wayne Grudem has pointed out in his book Business to the Glory of God , economic productivity is the only long-term solution to global poverty. We have seen this manifestly demonstrated over the last several hundred years as economic freedom has, through God’s grace, lifted millions out of poverty, and it remains true for the future.

Second, a healthy economy more effectively allows for the wide-scale implementation of proactive initiatives for the good of others. This is where I want to spend my time—focusing on things that do good for people on a large scale, both physically and spiritually. The multi-faceted creative initiatives that are enabled by a healthy economy include both the initiatives of for-profit businesses as well as the social and spiritual good that non-profit organizations are able to do.

It is absolutely true that God does good through times of hardship and not just health. This is not just true, but glorious. Yet this does not give us reason as Christians to be nonchalant about whether hardship comes. We are to guide our actions and desires by God’s will of command, which is to seek our nation’s (and the world’s) welfare, just as God commanded Jeremiah: “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare (Jeremiah 29:7).

Economics is something that all Christians should care about. Read the Bible first, then think about how the Bible can be applied to economics. What is your plan to serve God, and how does the state of the economy help or hurt your plan? What can you do to make the economy stronger? How can you convince others to share that goal?

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