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| #Post#: 11958-------------------------------------------------- | |
| Social Heart Rot: BY SHERMAN @THEOLOGYONLINE (TOL) | |
| By: Sherman Date: April 15, 2020, 11:20 am | |
| --------------------------------------------------------- | |
| [font=Arial] I have decided to use this site to post my | |
| theories. I have never done this on a forum before. Some of | |
| you may think I am an ogre after reading this, but I have never | |
| actually put this down in a paper since high school.[/font] | |
| [font=Arial] I�ll begin by stating I tend not to debate over | |
| things that are not salvic issues. Theories concerning the | |
| shape of the planet is not a salvic issue. In this God is | |
| concerned with the intent of the heart. That being said - it�s | |
| controversial enough - that I believe a site that embraces it, | |
| will embrace me. My views on the topic of LGBT are just as | |
| controversial as flat earth cosmology in today�s culture.[/font] | |
| [font=Arial] I used to live in the city of Lincoln Nebraska | |
| 15 years ago. The city is pretty old. The streets are lined | |
| with old trees. Some streets are lined with Oak. These trees | |
| live to a great age and grow to a great size. They possess a | |
| preserving substance called tannin, the secret to their | |
| longevity. The one of the trees that has the most tannin in the | |
| green kingdom is the Giant Sequoia. The substance quite | |
| literally preserves the wood and prevents rots. Of interest for | |
| this essay, though, is the green Pennsylvania Ash that was | |
| planted in abundance in Lincoln. It did not possess the | |
| protective tannins. Over time when the Ash incurred a wound, it | |
| would contract brown heart rot that would break the wood up at | |
| the center of the tree into cubes. At first this disease is | |
| invisible as it attacks the wood at the heart of the tree | |
| weakening it. But then yellow conks appear up and down the | |
| trunk. I saw one such tree a few yards from my neighbors house. | |
| At its foot was a large showy yellow fungus tinged with orange. | |
| It has the nickname �Chicken of the Woods, as it is said to be | |
| edible. But it's status as a comestible is dubious. People have | |
| sickened after eating it. Brown oozed from a wound in the | |
| trunk. It smelled. Leaves yellowed early and fluttered down | |
| from the thin crown. The tree was dying. I doubted that this | |
| sorry specimen was half as old as one of the magnificent Oaks. | |
| Every year while I lived there in October, when the cool air | |
| moved in, the guady fungus would pop out and the tree would give | |
| off a foul odor. Year by year the tree looked more sickly and | |
| more of the fungus displayed. [/font] | |
| [font=Arial] I then moved to a small town in Minnesota and | |
| watched Ash trees sicken in the same fashion. One came crashing | |
| down taking down power lines. I was without power for several | |
| hours until the city was able to clear the shattered log and | |
| repair the power lines. A fetid odor hung in the air when the | |
| tree was being cut up.[/font] | |
| [font=Arial] Now why do I talk about Pennsylvania Ash and | |
| Brown Heart rot? Cultures go through a similar life cycle. | |
| They start out vigorous and idealistic. Then they spread out | |
| and grow in strength. Then a rot sets in, invisible at first. | |
| This stage may last a century or more. The culture changes, | |
| from ideals focused on the other person, to ideas focused on | |
| self service and self pleasure. The government becomes corrupt | |
| and toxic, marked by murders. Flamboyant sexual perversion | |
| surfaces like a fungus, intruding on every aspect of public | |
| life. Rome decayed in this fashion. It had become a fractured | |
| society that pined away until it was replaced by Christian | |
| culture.[/font] | |
| #Post#: 11960-------------------------------------------------- | |
| Re: Social Heart Rot | |
| By: Sherman Date: April 15, 2020, 12:24 pm | |
| --------------------------------------------------------- | |
| I didn't get the whole thing when I did the paste. Oh well, | |
| I am getting to learn the software on this site. Here's the | |
| other half: | |
| Unless the nation or organization stays anchored to God�s | |
| laws and place Godly people in leadership, the organization is | |
| going to rot within. God�s people something that preserves. | |
| Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his | |
| savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for | |
| nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of | |
| men. | |
| Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill | |
| cannot be hid. | |
| Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but | |
| on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the | |
| house. | |
| Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good | |
| works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. - Matthew | |
| 5:13-16 | |
| When Christian do not act as salt - or tannin, the society | |
| rots. In fact the rot may even stick to them. It can be seen | |
| in what is happening in our culture today. Everywhere we turn | |
| in the media and in the papers, there is discussion of sexual | |
| immorality. It started out as fornication and adultery. It was | |
| glorified in entertainment and books. There are porn magazines. | |
| Now it gets worse. There is homosexuality, bisexuality and | |
| BDSM. This filth pops out like a gaudy fungus marring our | |
| films, books, and even children�s programs. There�s the Drag | |
| Queen story time at some libraries for children. Thirty years | |
| ago no one would have thought of such a travesty. Immorality | |
| like this marks rejection of God and his principles. | |
| Decay in our society has been going on for some time. It | |
| started with the introduction of Darwinism. Naturalistic | |
| explanations eclipsed biblical explanations. More and more | |
| members of our Western civilization turned away from | |
| Christianity. This secularism entered our schools and | |
| universities. Our society was left without the preserving | |
| effect of a Biblical paradigm and the influence of Christians | |
| grew less and less. Christian were scoffed at at the college | |
| level. Then there was Roe V Wade. By the 1990�s and 2000�s | |
| homosexuality and other perversions encroached on our | |
| entrainment industry. The film Fried Green Tomatoes was | |
| released in 1991. It included a lesbian relationship between | |
| the two principal characters. Other films cast perversion in a | |
| positive light. Bug�s Life by Disney in 1998 has a drag queen | |
| lady bug, Francis. And not too surprisingly, most children hate | |
| the toys of this character. The daughter of my friend would | |
| tear it up with her teeth. Now it is hard to find a animation | |
| by this company that does not have a character that is | |
| transgender or gay somewhere in the film. | |
| Before anyone gets up my nose about me criticizing | |
| transgender and gay, let me say the Bible does not have anything | |
| favorable to say about it. For the sake of this discussion I | |
| will stick to the New Testament since we are under the New | |
| Testament. | |
| Romans 1 22-32 | |
| Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, | |
| And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image | |
| made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted | |
| beasts, and creeping things. | |
| Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the | |
| lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between | |
| themselves: | |
| Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and | |
| served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for | |
| ever. Amen. | |
| For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even | |
| their women did change the natural use into that which is | |
| against nature: | |
| And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, | |
| burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working | |
| that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that | |
| recompence of their error which was meet. | |
| And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, | |
| God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which | |
| are not convenient; | |
| Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, | |
| covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, | |
| deceit, malignity; whisperers, | |
| Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, | |
| inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, | |
| Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural | |
| affection, implacable, unmerciful: | |
| Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such | |
| things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have | |
| pleasure in them that do them. | |
| And 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10 | |
| Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom | |
| of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor | |
| adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with | |
| mankind, | |
| Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor | |
| extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. | |
| In old testament times reprobates who engaged in these | |
| things were executed. That is what God thought of these sins. | |
| A lifestyle characterized by these sins is a sign of a spiritual | |
| state that separates a person from God. A society that embraces | |
| them is diseased. I had a person ask me �What do you have | |
| against gays?� I don�t have anything against them as persons. | |
| I have everything against the lifestyle and the sin. I hate | |
| anything that separates people from God and tears at the fabric | |
| of America. This group is making demands that impinge on the | |
| rights of families and Christians. But that is a topic for | |
| another essay. | |
| #Post#: 11972-------------------------------------------------- | |
| Re: Social Heart Rot | |
| By: patrick jane Date: April 15, 2020, 10:15 pm | |
| --------------------------------------------------------- | |
| Sherman, I agree with you and we are basically forced to | |
| "tolerate" these many perversions as just "part of life" or if | |
| we express objection and /or disgust we are branded as racist or | |
| that we discriminate. It is everywhere and promoted by | |
| Hollywood, television and YouTube and every social platform in | |
| fact. | |
| Also, I should as you if you want discussion and commentary in | |
| this thread. Great writing. How is A Culture Warrior? I miss | |
| him. | |
| #Post#: 11997-------------------------------------------------- | |
| Re: Social Heart Rot | |
| By: Sherman Date: April 16, 2020, 3:02 pm | |
| --------------------------------------------------------- | |
| He's still writing in his threads and members are still | |
| denigrating him. | |
| Member are free to comment on my threads. I am mostly a writer | |
| of fiction so I don't know how productive I will be on writing | |
| essays. | |
| #Post#: 12136-------------------------------------------------- | |
| Re: Social Heart Rot | |
| By: patrick jane Date: April 18, 2020, 1:04 am | |
| --------------------------------------------------------- | |
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE5t8EBnOmg | |
| #Post#: 14240-------------------------------------------------- | |
| Re: Social Heart Rot | |
| By: patrick jane Date: June 14, 2020, 11:31 pm | |
| --------------------------------------------------------- | |
| [center][b]Transgender Health Protections Reversed By Trump | |
| Administration | |
| [/center] | |
| https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/12/868073068/transgender-heal… | |
| The Trump administration on Friday finalized a rule that would | |
| remove nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people when it | |
| comes to health care and health insurance. | |
| "HHS respects the dignity of every human being, and as we have | |
| shown in our response to the pandemic, we vigorously protect and | |
| enforce the civil rights of all to the fullest extent permitted | |
| by our laws as passed by Congress," said Roger Severino, who | |
| directs the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health | |
| and Human Services, in a written statement announcing that the | |
| HHS rule had become final. The rule is set to go into effect by | |
| mid-August. | |
| It is one of many rules and regulations put forward by the Trump | |
| administration that defines "sex discrimination" as only | |
| applying when someone faces discrimination for being female or | |
| male, and does not protect people from discrimination on the | |
| basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. | |
| Supporters of the new rule said this is a necessary reversal of | |
| Obama-era executive overreach and will reduce confusion about | |
| the legal meaning of "sex discrimination." Critics argue the | |
| rule could further harm an already vulnerable group � | |
| transgender people � in the midst of a pandemic and historic | |
| unrest spurred by the killing of George Floyd at the hands of | |
| police in Minneapolis. | |
| "I can't help but wonder if the timing [of this rule] is by | |
| design so that this is something that people won't pay attention | |
| to," said Tia Sher�e Gaynor, a political science professor at | |
| the University of Cincinnati. | |
| What the final rule does | |
| The rule focuses on nondiscrimination protections laid out in | |
| Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. That federal law | |
| established that it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of | |
| "race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability in certain | |
| health programs and activities." In 2016, an Obama-era rule | |
| explained that protections regarding "sex" encompass those based | |
| on gender identity, which it defined as "male, female, neither, | |
| or a combination of male and female." | |
| In June 2019, under Trump, the HHS Office for Civil Rights | |
| proposed a rule (the one finalized this week) that reverses the | |
| one from the Obama administration. | |
| Severino said at the time, "We're going back to the plain | |
| meaning of those terms, which is based on biological sex." He | |
| also said the rule could save hospitals and insurers and others | |
| $2.9 billion over five years since they will be relieved of the | |
| requirement to print notices of nondiscrimination in several | |
| languages and include them with any "significant" mailings. | |
| Under the new rule, a transgender person could, for example, be | |
| refused care for a checkup at a doctor's office, said Lindsey | |
| Dawson, associate director of HIV policy at the Kaiser Family | |
| Foundation. Other possible scenarios include a transgender man | |
| being denied treatment for ovarian cancer, or a hysterectomy not | |
| being covered by an insurer � or costing more when the procedure | |
| is related to someone's gender transition. | |
| The Trump rule makes changes to gender-based discrimination | |
| protections beyond Section 1557 of the ACA; it affects | |
| regulations pertaining to access to health insurance, for | |
| example, including cost-sharing, health plan marketing and | |
| benefits. The rule could also mean that those seeking an | |
| abortion could be denied care if performing the procedure | |
| violates the provider's moral or religious beliefs. | |
| Even with the rule now finalized, an LGBTQ person who is | |
| discriminated against or denied health care can still sue, and | |
| courts may rule that their civil rights were violated in such a | |
| case. But that's not an easy avenue, Dawson said. | |
| "Because of limited access to litigation, I think that it's fair | |
| to state that the ramifications [of this rule] could be pretty | |
| significant," she said. Protections will also vary based on | |
| where someone lives, she added, so the rule "creates a patchwork | |
| of civil rights, compared to standardized protections." | |
| For Severino, this move has been a long time coming. He joined | |
| the Trump administration from the Heritage Foundation, a | |
| conservative think tank, where he wrote a paper on gender | |
| protections in Section 1557. He's also a devout Catholic and, as | |
| director of the Office for Civil Rights, has made protections of | |
| religious freedom a key focus, including the right of doctors to | |
| refuse to provide care that contradicts their religious or moral | |
| beliefs. | |
| The rule the HHS proposed on gender and discrimination in health | |
| care garnered 155,966 public comments. The final rule is nearly | |
| identical to the original version proposed last year. | |
| Conservative groups, including the Christian Medical | |
| Association, the Susan B. Anthony List and the Heritage | |
| Foundation, applauded the new HHS guidance. | |
| "Health professionals know they must base medical decisions on | |
| biology and science, not ideology," Dr. Jeff Barrows, the | |
| Christian Medical Association's executive vice president for | |
| bioethics and public policy, said after hearing the | |
| announcement. | |
| "We are hopeful that this rule will help steer consideration of | |
| gender issues in health care back toward science and away from | |
| politics and ideology, back to the protection of professional | |
| medical judgment and the freedom to adhere to long-observed | |
| ethical and moral standards." | |
| Ryan Anderson, a senior research fellow at the Heritage | |
| Foundation and former colleague of Severino's, submitted a | |
| comment in support of the rule. Anderson said it simply reverses | |
| what he sees as the Obama administration's executive overreach. | |
| "Just for the lawmaking process, it's important that the Trump | |
| administration clarify that that's not what Congress had in mind | |
| when they used the word 'sex,' " he said. | |
| Critics worry about access to health care, especially in a | |
| pandemic | |
| Mari Brighe, a freelance writer and transgender woman who lives | |
| outside Detroit, called the rule "terrifying." | |
| "I can relate a decade of stories about getting terrible health | |
| care because I'm trans," Brighe said. "We walk into any given | |
| health care situation not knowing whether doctors are going to | |
| treat us well, whether we're going to get high quality care, | |
| whether any given, random health care person is going to be | |
| terrible to us." | |
| Once, when seriously ill with the flu and having trouble | |
| breathing, Brighe recalled, she was sent home from a hospital in | |
| rural New York and ended up driving 90 minutes and crossing a | |
| lake by ferry to get treatment at a hospital in Vermont. | |
| She said worries now that the rule could make transgender people | |
| � who are already reluctant to seek medical care � all the more | |
| likely to avoid coronavirus treatment and testing. | |
| "The way that [the rule] reads to me is that people could refuse | |
| to collect your COVID specimen because they don't want to touch | |
| a trans person," she said. "That's a recipe for spreading a | |
| really terrible pandemic among a really, really vulnerable | |
| population." | |
| "I can't help but think about how this impacts black trans | |
| people," said Gaynor, the political science professor, who noted | |
| that African American transgender people are "arguably the most | |
| marginalized group in our country." | |
| African Americans who get COVID-19 are much more likely to die | |
| from that disease than are white Americans, statistics show. A | |
| recent report from the Williams Institute at UCLA estimates that | |
| hundreds of thousands of transgender adults may be especially | |
| vulnerable to COVID-19 because they have an underlying | |
| condition, are over 65, lack health insurance or live in | |
| poverty. | |
| For black transgender people, Gaynor said, "it's layers of | |
| oppression � it's transphobia on top of racism on top of | |
| economic oppression." All of that could affect their ability to | |
| get health care during the pandemic, she said, which in turn | |
| could have public health implications for all. | |
| Katie Keith, a health law professor at Georgetown University, | |
| noted that the new rule could have another chilling effect. | |
| "Even if no one actually does discriminate more because of the | |
| rule, you've created a fear," Keith said. | |
| She pointed to research documenting how the "public charge" rule | |
| � which penalizes people who are seeking to become citizens if | |
| they use public safety net programs such as nutrition and | |
| housing assistance � affected people and programs outside the | |
| scope of the rule itself. | |
| "When they target these vulnerable populations, you see less | |
| enrollment in health insurance," she said. "You see folks scared | |
| to go to the doctor." | |
| Although the Heritage Foundation's Anderson supports the rule, | |
| he said the prospect that it could have a chilling effect is "a | |
| very reasonable concern." | |
| "I don't think any reasonable person wants to see transgender | |
| people not enrolling in health care plans and not having access | |
| to health care," Anderson said. What's needed, he said, is a | |
| "finer grain" approach to this issue � such as a new law in | |
| Congress that protects LGTBQ people from health care | |
| discrimination generally but carves out protection for providers | |
| to refuse to provide care related to sex reassignment. | |
| What's next? a word from the high court and, perhaps, Congress | |
| Now that it's marked "final," this rule � which was issued by an | |
| agency of the executive branch � may now encounter hurdles via | |
| the two other branches of the federal government. | |
| This month, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to weigh | |
| in on two major cases on the meaning of the word "sex" in | |
| employment discrimination. The two cases involve issues closely | |
| related to the legal questions at play in Severino's HHS rule, | |
| and the high court's decision might have major implications for | |
| the rule's legal footing. | |
| "It's wild that they're finalizing this rule before we have the | |
| Supreme Court decision," Keith said. | |
| Meanwhile, in Congress, House Democrats have already asserted | |
| that they strongly disagree with the HHS rule. In early May, | |
| Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement that read, in part: "The | |
| Administration must immediately abandon this outrageous, | |
| un-American plan and give LGBTQ individuals the reassurance that | |
| they will never be denied the health care they or their families | |
| need." | |
| Now that the final rule is out, Congress does have a way of | |
| invalidating it, using the Congressional Review Act. That would | |
| only happen in this case if � within 60 days that Congress is in | |
| session � Trump were no longer president, and simple majorities | |
| in both chambers of Congress voted to block the rule. Even if | |
| Democrats win big in November, it's not clear if that's a | |
| possibility given the tricky timeline � Congress is typically in | |
| recess in August, and the COVID-19 pandemic may complicate | |
| matters further | |
| The date at which the final rule would be able to avoid this | |
| congressional threat is a moving target, Keith said. "Folks are | |
| watching the calendar now [wondering], 'When is that 60-day | |
| legislative deadline?' " | |
| What's much more certain, she said, is that there will be | |
| lawsuits to try to overturn the rule or block it from going into | |
| effect. | |
| On Friday, less than an hour after HHS issued its press release, | |
| LGBTQ activist group Lambda Legal said it would challenge the | |
| new rule in court. | |
| "Today's rule is a tragically failed public health policy and | |
| just flat-out illegal," Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, Lambda Legal senior | |
| attorney and health care strategist, said in a written | |
| statement. "We will be challenging the rule because at a time | |
| when the entire world is battling a dangerous pandemic, which in | |
| the United States has infected more than 2,000,000 people and | |
| killed more than 116,000, it is critical for everyone to have | |
| ready access to the potentially lifesaving health care they | |
| need." | |
| Unless someone does file a lawsuit that results in a judge | |
| putting the rule on hold, it is set to go into effect 60 days | |
| from the date the rule is published in the Federal Register. | |
| #Post#: 14304-------------------------------------------------- | |
| Re: Social Heart Rot | |
| By: patrick jane Date: June 17, 2020, 11:45 am | |
| --------------------------------------------------------- | |
| [img] | |
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| https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/june-web-only/bostock-supreme-court-r… | |
| LGBT Rights Ruling Isn't the Beginning of the End for Religious | |
| Liberty | |
| Social conservatives liked Neil Gorsuch before they didn�t. | |
| Maybe they were right the first time. | |
| The US Supreme Court ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, | |
| Georgia is not the last word on the conflict between LGBT rights | |
| and religious freedom rights. In fact, Bostock could be the | |
| first step in breaking the impasse. | |
| The case will certainly have major implications for religious | |
| exercise. But contrary to initial reactions, this decision | |
| should not be read as a decision that dooms religious liberty in | |
| America, but rather as an inevitable step toward something | |
| Congress and most state legislatures have thus far been unable | |
| to do: crafting a compromise that balances LGBT rights and | |
| religious freedom. | |
| Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia involved a man named Gerald | |
| Bostock�by all accounts an exemplary worker with a decade on the | |
| job�who was fired for conduct �unbecoming� a government employee | |
| shortly after he had started participating in a gay softball | |
| league. The Supreme Court was asked to decide whether the 1964 | |
| federal law barring employment discrimination �on the basis of | |
| sex� protects people who are discriminated against because of | |
| sexual orientation and gender identity. And by a 6-3 margin, the | |
| court ruled that it does. | |
| Social conservatives were distraught. Robert George described | |
| the majority opinion as �sophistical� and the position it | |
| endorsed �untenable.� �Hard to overstate the magnitude of this | |
| loss for religious conservatives,� added Rod Dreher. Denny Burk | |
| said the decision �eviscerated� religious liberty, while Andrew | |
| Walker called the opinion �devastating,� adding, �If you're a | |
| Christian higher ed institution taking federal monies, buckle | |
| up.� | |
| Denny Burk | |
| ✔ | |
| @DennyBurk | |
| Indeed. Pray for Christian business owners. Their ability to | |
| operate their business in accordance with their religious | |
| conscience just took a major blow. | |
| The Supreme Court just eveiscerated religious liberty. | |
| Cannot overstate how disastrous this decision is. | |
| https://twitter.com/puredesigntees/status/1272542084789125121 | |
| � | |
| From Twitter: | |
| PureDesignTees | |
| @PureDesignTees | |
| Replying to @DennyBurk | |
| Say a prayer for Christian business owners everywhere. | |
| 70 | |
| 9:54 AM - Jun 15, 2020 | |
| Twitter Ads info and privacy | |
| 64 people are talking about this | |
| These reactions, while understandable, are premature. Bostock, | |
| while a significant decision following 2015�s Obergefell v. | |
| Hodges, is limited in what it can tell us about the future of | |
| religious freedom. Its implications for future cases involving | |
| religious organizations and institutions are real, yes, but for | |
| people concerned about the future of religious liberty, there is | |
| reason for cautious optimism. | |
| It should be noted, for one thing, that the majority opinion in | |
| the case was authored by Neil Gorsuch. His appointment to the | |
| Supreme Court was lauded by many of the same people criticizing | |
| his ruling now�and it�s possible they were right the first time. | |
| Gorsuch ruled the way he did because of his commitment to the | |
| conservative legal philosophy called textualism. This is the | |
| philosophy famously embraced by the conservative justice Antonin | |
| Scalia. The philosophy says that judges ought not extrapolate | |
| principles from laws and rule based on these extrapolations. Nor | |
| should they try to imagine the intents of the many lawmakers who | |
| bargained and bartered their way to the passage of a bill. Those | |
| approaches leave too much leeway for creative interpretation and | |
| judicial activism. Judges should rather, according to Scalia and | |
| Gorsuch, restrict themselves to the plain, ordinary meaning of | |
| the text of the law. They should ask, what do the words say?, | |
| and make limited rulings based on that. | |
| David French notes that Gorsuch�s legal philosophy shaped the | |
| whole case. Bostock�s attorneys appeared to make their arguments | |
| expressly with Gorsuch in mind. | |
| You can see how textualism works in Gorsuch�s opinion. He | |
| dedicates pages of analysis to interpreting the meaning of �sex� | |
| and �discrimination� when Title VII of the 1964 law was written. | |
| The analysis is cautious and relies on the dictionaries of the | |
| era to interpret the ordinary meaning of those terms at the time | |
| the statue was being drafted. Gorsuch concludes that | |
| �homosexuality and transgender status are inextricably bound up | |
| with sex,� as �sex� was understood in 1964, so Title VII | |
| necessarily protects sexual orientation and gender identity from | |
| employment discrimination. | |
| While other conservative justices disagree with Gorsuch�s | |
| textualism in this case�Samuel Alito, notably, calls the | |
| decision �preposterous��there is little reason for people who | |
| care about religious liberty to doubt Gorsuch is a legal ally. | |
| He has a record, after all, of applying textualism in religious | |
| freedom cases. Gorsuch�s concurring opinion in Masterpiece | |
| Cakeshop, defending a Christian baker�s right not to make a cake | |
| for a same-sex wedding, shows this. In the ruling, as Robert | |
| George has explained, he critiques a colleague�s understanding | |
| of what a wedding cake is and, importantly in that case, what it | |
| means. In doing so, Gorsuch demonstrates that he understands the | |
| crucial issues of conscience. | |
| In the Bostock ruling, he writes: �We are also deeply concerned | |
| with preserving the promise of the free exercise of religion | |
| enshrined in our Constitution.� He explicitly says that | |
| religious liberty issues will likely come up for other employees | |
| in other cases and there will need to be other rulings. | |
| Gorsuch also indicates his understanding of the issue in some | |
| sublte ways. He favorably cites the Hosanna-Tabor case, in which | |
| the court unanimously exempted ministers from employment | |
| discrimination laws. Gorsuch also calls the Religious Freedom | |
| Restoration Act a �super statute, displacing the normal | |
| operation of other federal laws,� suggesting that it protect | |
| religious liberty in the hypothetical cases worrying religious | |
| conservatives post-Bostock. | |
| While defenders of religious freedom have reason to be more | |
| concerned after Bostock than before, there is more reason for | |
| optimism. Case after case in recent years�Hosanna-Tabor, Hobby | |
| Lobby, Holt, Trinity Lutheran, Masterpiece Cakeshop�have | |
| protected religious exercise. There is no reason to believe the | |
| court is poised to roll back protections for religious liberty. | |
| If anything, the appetite exists to expand them. | |
| The controversy at the heart of Bostock has been foreshadowed | |
| for decades, intensifying in the years since the court�s | |
| landmark gay rights decisions. As a result, there have been | |
| efforts at all levels of government to balance LGBT rights with | |
| protections for religious freedom. Utah is often held as a | |
| standard for such a compromise, as a bipartisan bill of this | |
| sort was signed into law in 2015, just months before Obergefell. | |
| At the federal level, however, these measures, commonly called | |
| Fairness for All, have stalled. Democrats appear to have | |
| consolidated around the Equality Act, which grants legal | |
| protections to LGBT Americans without any religious exemptions. | |
| At the same time, many religious conservatives do not support | |
| Fairness for All, saying any law protecting someone like Bostock | |
| from getting fired because of his sexual orientation is | |
| unreconcilable with religious liberty. And now, opponents of the | |
| Fairness for All proposals are citingBostock to justify their | |
| opposition, saying that once sexual orientation and gender | |
| identity are protected, there is no guarantee that religious | |
| freedom protections will be maintained. | |
| Given larger cultural trends favoring LGBT rights, recognizing | |
| sexual orientation and gender identity under Title VII of the | |
| Civil Rights Act may have been inevitable. But the court�s | |
| opinion here does not mean it is game over for religious freedom | |
| arguments in these disputes. It means that the debate rages on, | |
| most likely through the courts. | |
| Despite some of the initial reactions, Bostock could conceivably | |
| be the first step in breaking the impasse. Those praising the | |
| court for its decision in Bostock will probably criticize | |
| related decisions in the future, and those upset today could | |
| very well be praising the Court in future cases involving | |
| religious freedom. While Fairness for All has not fared well in | |
| the legislative process, it is not difficult to see how the | |
| basic ideas of the proposal could be enacted via a series of | |
| judicial rulings, especially under the current composition of | |
| the court. Legal protections for LGBT Americans balanced with | |
| religious liberty exemptions may win the day after all. | |
| Our pluralist society guarantees conflict and is dependent on | |
| compromise. While this process isn�t always comfortable, | |
| Christians should nevertheless come away from Bostock hopeful | |
| for the future. This does not deny the necessity of strategic | |
| engagement moving forward; such engagement is needed now more | |
| than ever. But our engagement must be paired with hope�not a | |
| na�ve hope in a flawed and fallen political and legal system, | |
| but hope in him who has overcome the world. | |
| Daniel Bennett is associate professor of political science at | |
| John Brown University. He is also assistant director of the | |
| Center for Faith and Flourishing, and is president of Christians | |
| in Political Science. | |
| Speaking Out is Christianity Today �s guest opinion column and | |
| (unlike an editorial) does not necessarily represent the opinion | |
| of the publication. | |
| #Post#: 15001-------------------------------------------------- | |
| Re: Social Heart Rot | |
| By: Firestarter Date: July 10, 2020, 10:00 am | |
| --------------------------------------------------------- | |
| In 2012, Donald Trump donated $20,000 to homosexual activists of | |
| the [I]Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network[/I] (GLSEN) | |
| that promoted: 1) "fisting" to middle school students; 2) books | |
| excusing homosexual paedophilia; 3) �homosexuality" to children | |
| as early as kindergarten. | |
| �Fisting� is stuffing a fist up the �anus� for sexual reasons. | |
| Kevin Jennings founded GLSEN in 1990. He and (other) homosexual | |
| teachers (including Jaki Williams) began indoctrinating children | |
| about the LGBT lifestyle from the age of 5. | |
| This included teachers �casually� showing that a �mother a | |
| father� for �parents� is just as �normal� as �two dads� or �two | |
| moms�. | |
| Jennings has stated that he was �inspired� by Harry Hay, who | |
| publicly stated that homosexual statutory rape is �[I]precisely | |
| what 13-, 14-, and 15-year-old kids need more than anything else | |
| in the world. And they would be welcoming this, and welcoming | |
| the opportunity for young gay kids to have the kind of | |
| experience that they would need[/I]�: | |
| https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/donald-trump-donated-to-group-that-promotes-h… | |
| ( | |
| http://archive.is/11tpF) | |
| Trump defended this donation, by telling that it wasn�t his own | |
| choice. These donations were part of Trump's role in his reality | |
| television show, in which Trump would make a matching donation | |
| to charities of the choice of the guests on the show. | |
| Aubrey O'Day appeared on �[I]Celebrity Apprentice[/I]� and was | |
| playing to benefit GLSEN. That show was executive produced by | |
| Trump�s friend Jeff Zucker, who has since become CNN president | |
| with the help of the Donald | |
| See Zucker, Donald and Melania in 2004. | |
| [IMG] | |
| https://archive.is/b9Sr3/1cc41b3935b596fa5e44cc4fc10b2f0688b04bdf.jpg[/img] | |
| https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/trumps-donations-to-lgbt-groups-were-part-of-… | |
| #Post#: 15421-------------------------------------------------- | |
| Re: Social Heart Rot | |
| By: Firestarter Date: July 20, 2020, 10:59 am | |
| --------------------------------------------------------- | |
| The associate of Steve Bannon (who was really the mastermind | |
| behind the 2016 Trump campaign) Trump supporter Milo | |
| Yiannopoulos has been advocating gay paedophilia, between adult | |
| men and 14-year-old boys. | |
| https://youtu.be/oJhHwspZGcg | |
| Yiannopoulos said: [quote]We get hung up on this sort of child | |
| abuse stuff, to the point where we are heavily policing | |
| consensual adults. | |
| In the homosexual world, particularly, some of those | |
| relationships between younger boys and older men � the sort of | |
| �coming of age� relationship � those relationships in which | |
| those older men help those young boys discover who they are and | |
| give them security and safety and provide them with love and a | |
| reliable, sort of rock, where they can�t speak to their parents. | |
| But you know what? I�m grateful for Father Michael. I wouldn�t | |
| give nearly such good head if it wasn�t for him.[/quote] | |
| https://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/02/19/video-surfaces-of-milo-yiannopoulos-de… | |
| ( | |
| http://archive.is/wmhdo) | |
| [quote]On July 19, 2016, Gays for Trump hosted a party, called | |
| "Wake Up!", at the Wolstein Center, in Cleveland, Ohio, United | |
| States, during the 2016 Republican National Convention. Speakers | |
| at the party were Milo Yiannopoulos and Pam Geller and the VIP | |
| guests at the party were Ann Coulter, Amy Kremer, Lisa De | |
| Pasquale, Genevieve Wood, Geert Wilders, and Roger Stone. | |
| Richard B. Spencer also attended the party. | |
| On January 20, 2017, Gays for Trump hosted an inauguration | |
| party, called "Gays for Trump DeploraBall Gala", was held at the | |
| Bolger Center Hotel in Potomac, Maryland, United States. The | |
| party celebrated the inauguration of Donald Trump to the | |
| presidency of the United States.[/quote] | |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gays_for_Trump | |
| #Post#: 15434-------------------------------------------------- | |
| Re: Social Heart Rot | |
| By: guest8 Date: July 20, 2020, 7:45 pm | |
| --------------------------------------------------------- | |
| [quote author=Firestarter link=topic=897.msg15421#msg15421 | |
| date=1595260780] | |
| The associate of Steve Bannon (who was really the mastermind | |
| behind the 2016 Trump campaign) Trump supporter Milo | |
| Yiannopoulos has been advocating gay paedophilia, between adult | |
| men and 14-year-old boys. | |
| https://youtu.be/oJhHwspZGcg | |
| Yiannopoulos said: [quote]We get hung up on this sort of child | |
| abuse stuff, to the point where we are heavily policing | |
| consensual adults. | |
| In the homosexual world, particularly, some of those | |
| relationships between younger boys and older men � the sort of | |
| �coming of age� relationship � those relationships in which | |
| those older men help those young boys discover who they are and | |
| give them security and safety and provide them with love and a | |
| reliable, sort of rock, where they can�t speak to their parents. | |
| But you know what? I�m grateful for Father Michael. I wouldn�t | |
| give nearly such good head if it wasn�t for him.[/quote] | |
| https://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/02/19/video-surfaces-of-milo-yiannopoulos-de… | |
| ( | |
| http://archive.is/wmhdo) | |
| [quote]On July 19, 2016, Gays for Trump hosted a party, called | |
| "Wake Up!", at the Wolstein Center, in Cleveland, Ohio, United | |
| States, during the 2016 Republican National Convention. Speakers | |
| at the party were Milo Yiannopoulos and Pam Geller and the VIP | |
| guests at the party were Ann Coulter, Amy Kremer, Lisa De | |
| Pasquale, Genevieve Wood, Geert Wilders, and Roger Stone. | |
| Richard B. Spencer also attended the party. | |
| On January 20, 2017, Gays for Trump hosted an inauguration | |
| party, called "Gays for Trump DeploraBall Gala", was held at the | |
| Bolger Center Hotel in Potomac, Maryland, United States. The | |
| party celebrated the inauguration of Donald Trump to the | |
| presidency of the United States.[/quote] | |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gays_for_Trump | |
| [/quote] | |
| Like the days of Naoh, we are in...A little faith will go a long | |
| ways. | |
| Blade | |
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