It was interesting to read Jonathon Van Marren when he said ‘I’ve always been skeptical of the “pro-life celebrity.” Not because I don’t think that celebrities who sincerely oppose abortion don’t exist, but because I believe celebrities are both unreliable and often undesirable advocates.
An artist or actor may oppose abortion while creating sexually-charged entertainment that contributes to the degradation of our culture, for example. Or, as in the case of pop stars like Selena Gomez (who swapped her purity ring for abortion bling) they discard their previous views due to industry pressures or peers.
Pro-life celebrities generally fall into two categories. First, there are those oppose abortion for profoundly personal reasons. Jack Nicholson, for example, discovered later in life that his “mother” was actually his grandmother and that the woman he thought was his sister was his mother, who had been pressured to abort him.
As a result, he noted in one interview when asked about abortion, “I’m positively against it. I don’t have the right to any other view.” Similarly, singer Celine Dion was her mother’s fourteenth child, and initially considered an abortion before being talked out of it.
Justin Bieber’s mother was also pressured to abort him, and he has stated that he thinks abortion is “like killing a baby.” Martin Sheen’s wife was conceived through rape, a fact which he has referenced with regard to his anti-abortion views. Despite this, Sheen is a dedicated Democrat, and it is important to note that many “pro-life celebrities” still vocally support pro-abortion politicians.
Discovering just how close one came to becoming what Christopher Hitchens has referred to as a “forgotten whoosh” often makes it impossible for people to regard abortion as a simple matter of rights or healthcare. A near miss can be morally clarifying.
There are also those who are pro-life as part of a larger worldview. Patricia Heaton, who often shares pro-life content on social media, is a Catholic. So is Mel Gibson, who has shared his pro-life views in interviews (and has also contributed financially to pro-life work in the past.)
Hollywood’s handful of conservatives are generally pro-life as well, including Jon Voight, Tom Selleck, and Chuck Norris. Conservatives, of course, are becoming even rarer in Hollywood in the wake of the Great Awokening, which is accompanied by purges of those with even liberal sentiments.
And then there is Kanye West, a man who defies all categories.
On Independence Day, he announced that he is off the Trump Train and running for president of the United States, although thus far no campaign has materialized (he says he will be running for “the Birthday Party,” because “when we win it’s everybody’s birthday.”)
Back in 2011, West tweeted that “An abortion can cost a ballin’ n**ga up to 50gs maybe 100. Gold diggin’ b**** be getting pregnant on purpose,” later clarifying that “it ain’t happen to me but I know people.” Then, an interview for his latest album, he criticized the Democrats for “making us abort our children.”
Last week he expanded on those views, telling Forbes that “Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work,” a reference to the racist and eugenicist history of the American abortion giant. “I am pro-life because I’m following the word of the Bible,” he added.
Planned Parenthood’s director of Black Leadership and Engagement responded by stating that the “real threat to Black communities’ safety, health, and lives stems,” among other things, from “the criminalization of reproductive healthcare by anti-abortion opposition.”
Kanye recently tweeted and then deleted a screenshot of a Google search for “what does a 6 month fetus look like.” Along with the now deleted image, he wrote, “These souls deserve to live.”
It is unquestionably good for the pro-life cause that a man with such an enormous platform is using it to call out the American abortion industry, as West reaches an audience that pro-lifers have often had difficulty reaching. With that said, pro-lifers would do well to be cautious. West is notoriously erratic, and a lot of his ramblings can end up being pretty weird.
In a culture obsessed with celebrity, there is a huge temptation to immediately promote and embrace any famous person saying some of the right things. While encouraging and affirming those things is essential, we shouldn’t give these folks the status of moral leadership overnight.
West in particular has gone on a roller-coaster with regard to many of his different views, and his reliability, despite hopeful indicators, remains to be seen. We should not make celebrities — even those going after the abortion industry — into our heroes.’ https://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=4163
Gender
‘I don’t know when it happened precisely, but Mark Latham has become one of the champions of religious freedom in the state of NSW. It’s strange, because by his own admission he doesn’t even consider himself ‘religious’. However, the NSW One Nation leader is taking on the thought police with a bill to protect free speech online.
For anyone keen to still be able to express their religious point of view online via social media, Latham’s proposed bill offers the much-needed protection. According to Latham’s Facebook post, the Bill will seek to do two main things:
- Empower/Make further provisions for the President of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board to decline certain complaints as frivolous or vexatious.
- Remove the requirement for the President to refer declined complaints to NCAT (NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal).
In the light of everything that happened people such as Israel Folau last year, this is a welcome move. Because the Anti-Discrimination Act has been weaponised by certain activists to financially destroy those whom they disagree with. As Latham argued in the NSW Parliament:
Activists are using the legal system to try to score the political points they cannot achieve by democratic means, or even worse, they are using the legal system to try to destroy their opponents financially to break them with the cost of using lawyers and going through tribunals to defend themselves. This is not justice; it is a lawyer’s picnic.
In the four decades since the Anti-Discrimination Act was legislated the political environment has changed substantially. We now live in an era of heightened political activism, much of it driven by the intense polarised and at times obsessive nature of social media, and tactics such as ‘de-platforming’ and ‘cancelling culture’ have become common.
Bernard Gaynor, a former army major, is another example of someone who has had to engage in modern “law-fare” to financially defend himself against numerous defamation lawsuits. For example, over the past five years, Gaynor has had up to 37 complaints brought against him by just one individual.
Latham has asked the public to issue a long or short submission in support of the bill (you can do so by clicking here). But in response to the proposed legislation, Gaynor has said:
The NSW Anti-Discrimination Board … should be abolished and Mark Latham’s common-sense bill to force it to dismiss vexatious complaints is a good first step.
The Anti-Discrimination Board is a totalitarian, state-funded activist organisation that is hell-bent on using the coercive power of the state to silence mainstream conservative opinion.
These types of ‘Thought Police’ should have no place in Australia.
Hear, hear. I mean, “Amen!” I’m still getting used to the use of religious language after a speech by a secular politician. We can thank God though that there’s someone who’s willing to speak up for the many quiet Australians.’ https://www.spectator.com.au/2020/04/mark-latham-takes-on-the-anti-discrimination-industry/
‘Remember the cliche parroted by every Australian general ever interviewed that we have the smartest and most well-trained soldiers in the world?
Well, in this time of diversity Defence has decided that it needs to give a powerpoint presentation explaining that a woman is different than a man…
If our soldiers really are the smartest in the world and the top brass is feeding them this rubbish, then we have got the dumbest generals in the world.’ http://bernardgaynor.com.au/2020/06/08/diversity-makes-us-dumber/
There is that slippery slope which the West is rushing down to its own demise. For instance, making so-called same-sex marriage legal was not the beginning down the slide but it certainly gave a BIG push! Therefore, ‘Let me totally clear at the outset. One of the purposes of this article is to say, “I told you so!” Or, more precisely, many of us have been predicting this moment for years. As reported in the New York Times, “A Massachusetts City Decides to Recognize Polyamorous Relationships.
The city of Somerville has broadened the definition of domestic partnership to include relationships between three or more adults, expanding access to health care. Is anyone really surprised?
After all, if the winning mantras of the same-sex “marriage” movement have been “Love is love” and “Love wins” and “I have the right to marry the one I love,” why limit that number to two? Isn’t that discriminating against love? Isn’t that simply carrying over the outdated, outmoded, limiting ways of the past?
To this day, in all my dialogue and debate with LGBTQ activists and their allies, I have yet to hear a reasonable explanation of why marriage should be limited to two people if any two people can marry. Why limit the union to two people? Based on what? All the solid arguments for limiting marriage to two people are, ultimately, arguments for marriage being the union of a male and a female. All other arguments fall short. Very short. (For a glaring illustration, see here.)
When it comes to polyamory, which can include virtually any combination or number of men and women, on what basis should the government not recognize such relationships? Is not love still love? Does not love still win? And is not love the only thing that matters? So the argument goes.
As I asked in 2015, “If Love Is Love, Why Not Three Men ‘Marrying’?” Why not?
Today, we’re talking about just one city in Massachusetts extending health benefits to polyamorous families. But one city is all that is needed to begin a trend. That’s also why this is national news, even in the midst of an unrelenting, tumultuous news cycle.
As for warning about this for years, polyamory was mentioned frequently in my book A Queer Thing Happened to America, published in 2011, but with research for the book dating back to 2005.
In fact, in the book I drew attention to a polyamory seminar hosted by the Metropolitan Community Churches – obviously, pro-LGBT churches – back in 2005: “Yes, ‘polyamory’ – in other words, having multiple sexual partners (loving, of course!) – was also a topic of discussion at the MCC conference, and church members were encouraged to come out of the closets with their ongoing, multiple sexual relationships.”
Again, this was at a church conference in 2005. And even then, this trend had been building for years. We told you so!
In the book I also quoted polyamorous advocates who marched prominently in gay pride parades, stating, “We’re 30 years behind the gay activist movement.” They probably underestimated the timeline. (On a different but related front, I could point to articles like, “Here Come the Polygamists,” dating back to 2012.)
In my 2015 book, Outlasting the Gay Revolution, I wrote, “Perhaps we should change the wedding vows to sound more like this (with the man speaking here): ‘I take you as my wife, but probably not for life. I take you as my own, but not just you alone. I pledge myself to you, and perhaps to others too. I take you as my bride, although your name is Clyde.’
“Is this really so farfetched? If you can have a bride and a broom, if ‘husbands’ can be women and ‘wives’ can be men, if you can be married and dating and swinging and swapping, if you live together before marriage and end the marriage whenever it suits you best, then what does ‘marriage’ mean?”
Back in 2015, Stephen Colbert mocked the idea of a slippery moral slope when it came to redefining marriage. The reality of the matter, as he likely knew, was that the mocking predictions he made had already come to pass. I illustrated all that in this video. You can mock, but you can’t deny reality. (Take a minute to watch. You’ll be shocked.)
In saying all this, I am not saying that gay couples do not love each other or that gay couples will inevitably become polyamorous throuples and beyond. I’m simply stating the obvious: if two men or two women can “marry,” then there is nothing sacrosanct about the number two. Any potential number will do, as long as the relationships are based on “love.”
Already in March, 2016, Oliver Bateman wrote on Mic.com, “When it comes to marriage, three is still a crowd. But that might be changing sooner than we think. According to a 2015 Gallup poll, a small-yet-growing percentage of Americans report that they find the concept of plural marriage ‘morally acceptable,’ while polyamorous relationships are increasingly receiving mainstream media coverage. A 2014 Newsweek article even estimates that there are more than 500,000 openly polyamorous families living in the United States today.”
Did I say we told you so? Need I say more?’ https://mychristiandaily.com/in-massachusetts-here-comes-polyamorhttps://mychristiandaily.com/in-massachusetts-here-comes-polyamory-just-as-we-predicted/y-just-as-we-predicted/
It doesn’t take many smarts to know biologically that there are ONLY two sexes. However, the result of this belief that a boy may be a girl or vice versa is that ‘Keira Bell can never get her childhood back. And her body, a scarred and mangled reminder, tells her every day. “I am living in a world where I don’t fit in as male or as female. I am stuck between two sexes.” Now 23, she’s dedicated her life to stop teenagers from making the same mistake. And suing the clinic responsible is step number one.
Keira was just a child when she walked into England’s Tavistock clinic and declared she wanted to be a boy. The staff didn’t blink. Despite just starting her periods and having no other real psychological evaluation or therapy, Tavistock prescribed her the puberty blockers that ultimately ruined her life.
“I should have been challenged on the claims that I was making for myself,” Keira told the judges. “And I think that would have made a big difference as well. If I was just challenged on the things I was saying.” If an adult had taken her aside, talked to her about her feelings, maybe none of this would have happened.
As soon as she started taking the drugs, Keira said “it was like turning off a tap.” Her development as a young woman just stopped. And nobody warned her. “I had symptoms similar to the menopause when a woman’s hormones drop. I had hot flushes, I found it difficult to sleep, my sex drive disappeared. I was given calcium tablets because my bones weakened. My female hormones had been flushing through my body and, suddenly, a curtain came down on them.” It felt awful she says.
Three years later, after having her breasts removed free of charge (courtesy of the government), she was filled with crushing regret. She stumbled on charities and advocates that help young people reverse the damage. Now that she’s gone public, trying to hold Tavistock accountable, Keira says she’s been contacted by “hundreds of young adults” who wish they’d never walked down this path. “The treatment has not solved their problems.”
Here in the U.S., the battle over puberty blockers and transgender advocacy is just as intense. Eight states are trying to impose age limits on the drugs — which would have spared teens like Keira years of horrible agony. But the reason lawmakers have had to step in, the Wall Street Journal’s Abigail Shrier says, is because “scientists aren’t engaging in honesty.”
In a powerful conversation with FRC’s Sarah Perry, she told the listeners of “Washington Watch,” “Look, I’m a journalist. I’m not an activist. My job is not to stop people from using puberty blockers on their children. My job is to tell the truth — and on this issue, not enough people are telling the truth. And the truth is… we have no idea what the long-term effects of these drugs will be.”
In the Left’s rush to medicalize kids and trap them into this lifestyle, there’s been an explosion of these prescriptions without any thought to the permanent consequences. “We’re going to see a lot of lawsuits,” Abigail predicted. “And the reason is — the doctors are being activists rather than being doctors.
I’ve interviewed a lot of doctors on this topic, and they’ll tell you that when they go to conferences, [whenever there’s] a new heart medicine or any other kind of medicine, there’s an open discussion of risks and benefits — because all medications have risks and benefits. But when it comes to transgender medicine… one researcher I interviewed said it was like an infomercial for trans. In other words, no discussion of risks were ever assessed.”
That’s a terrifying thought, she says when you consider how profoundly these puberty blockers affect the human body. “They shut down the part of the pituitary that stimulates puberty, so that eight-, nine-, and 10-year-olds will not go through the normal puberty.
The sexual organs will remain the size… and the capacity of a small child. They will not have the potential for orgasm, and they may … be permanently infertile.” Not to mention, Abigail goes on, that these hormones flood the brain. “So what’s we’re doing is an experiment that we don’t know the long term effects of. And patients aren’t being advised of that.”
And what if there are underlying mental health issues that no one knows about? When you attack the brain with these cross-sex hormones for a child struggling with conditions like depression, bipolar disorder, even high-functioning autism, which is sometimes the case for these girls, “one can only wonder,” Sarah pointed out, “what that kind of medical intervention does.”
And yet no one in the medical community seems to have the nerve to call everyone together and demand scientific research on this — something that would be routine on any other treatment.
Even more worrisome, Abigail says, America has gone from two gender clinics in the last decade to well over 50. But that doesn’t include groups like Planned Parenthood, who, believe it or not, are now one of the biggest dispensers of cross-sex hormones in the country. So along with killing unborn children, they’re also embracing a separate track to make generations completely infertile. All the while keeping parents — as they usually do — in the dark.
Yet, thanks to Obamacare, these pricey drugs and gender transitions are, in some cases, completely free for young people. Or, at the very least, of minimal cost. “So, all of the sudden, these were readily available. You could get these fancy surgeries, and it costs you almost nothing. So, unsurprisingly, you’re seeing a lot greater demand for it.”
But that demand must be met by a different demand from parents, citizens, and doctors: for safety, accountability, and caution. It’s time to stop the radical Left from experimenting on our children before, as Keria found out, it’s too late.’ https://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=4118
1 Corinthians 3:19 …For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.
Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Psalm 139:14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well
‘The World Wide abortion counters uses one of the more conservative estimates on the number of abortions world-wide since 1980 (40 Million per year for 30years) and this equals 1,200,000 Billion (from Lifesitenews.com)’ http://www.numberofabortions.com/
Romans 1:26 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: 27 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.
Woke companies are supposedly so tolerant. Well, they are for some BUT NOT for all! This is seen in the fact that ‘Last year, the Swedish-based furniture and retail giant, IKEA was sued for after it fired a Christian because he opposed the store’s promotion of LGBTQ activism. You may remember, the employee was pink-slipped after he refused to delete a Bible verse he posted on social media after the company asked him to. Right, there’s no political or anti-Christian agenda in that world-wide corporation.
Or is there?
A German IKEA store was recently noted for loaning its parking lot to a local mosque in Germany where nearly 800 Islamics gathered to pray the annual EID prayer.
While Christians are opposed to homosexuality, Muslims take an even more radical approach to it. Homosexuals are regularly killed in Islamic countries as are Christians and any others who don’t toe the line of radical Sharia.’ https://reformationcharlotte.org/2020/05/28/while-ikea-fires-christians-loans-parking-lot-to-muslims-for-islamic-prayer/
IKEA is like many WOKE companies seeking to be all things to all people while excluding some. Figure that out!
John McEnroe was an excellent tennis player but that’s just about all he was. He was a loud mouth and in a video he spouts that he sides with sodomites and that lifestyle as opposed to those who believe marriage is only for one man and one woman. McEnroe may have his opinion but so may Margaret Court!
Romans 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
Society is getting nuttier each day. For instance, when individuals promote children to question their gender and even seek to change gender something is wrong in the heart. Mark 7:21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts…, 22 Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:
23 All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.’
Now, in Mormon country ‘The state of Utah this week became the 19th state to ban conversion therapy for children who struggle with gender-disorientation pathology. In short, that means therapists are
legally prohibited from working with young people to help them recalibrate their sexual desire or identity.
Here’s the Associated Press definition and explanation of conversion therapy:
Conversion therapy is a practice used to try to change sexual orientation or gender identity. Many people who have been through it say it deepened feelings of depression and increased thoughts of suicide. The new rule bans licensed Utah therapists from subjecting LGBTQ minors to the practice that the American Psychological Association has said is not based in science and is harmful to mental health. The Utah Psychological Association also spoke in favor of the rule.
The hypocrisy is so appalling it’s worth recasting that paragraph with a couple of links to prove the assertions:
Gender “reassignment” surgery is a practice used to try to “change” a person’s biological sex, despite the clear science that there are only two sexes. Many people who have been through it say it deepened feelings of depression and increased thoughts of suicide. In fact, an astounding 41% of “transgendered” individuals have attempted suicide, compared to just 4.6% of the overall population. Nevertheless, judges and doctors have subjected minors to the hormone therapy and more — sometimes over the objections of their parents — even though the American Psychological Association used to say this was not based in science and is harmful to mental health.
The American Medical Association also used to classify various gender pathologies as mental illness, even recommending conversion therapy until 1994, when the AMA reversed course and started recommending psychotherapy to help homosexuals “become more comfortable with their sexual orientation.”
Now, we’re not defending any particular brand of conversion therapy, as that would greatly depend on the therapist and vary widely depending on the patient. But it’s clear that over the last 30 years, the Rainbow Mafia has put the screws to doctors, psychologists, and scientists, who have done a total about-face from prior established practice in order to comply with a political agenda. When this sort of pseudoscience is done to teenagers or even elementary-age children, it is nothing less than child abuse.
And yet The Patriot Post has encountered censorship from Facebook on two specific occasions for talking about the science of two sexes and for opposing child abuse. Yet it’s not just memes on social media; it’s laws affecting parents, children, businesses, doctors, and others. Utah has joined 18 other states in criminalizing opposition to the accepted political point of view, and that’s what’s so dangerous.’ https://patriotpost.us/articles/68075-banning-conversion-therapy-to-placate-the-rainbow-mafia-2020-01-23?mailing_id=4820&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4820&utm_campaign=digest&utm_content=body
whatyareckon 