“In Columbia, Maryland, the First Presbyterian Church hosted a drag queen story hour on June 11th, featuring a performer by the stage name of “Mama Belle;” the event was advertised as being for children of all ages. The webpage for the event, which has since been taken down, encourages children “to be themselves.”
“The costumes and imaginative presentation of the Drag Queen enhance the story as the storyteller themselves is conveying a story through their dramatic appearance and performance,” the church explained in its now-deleted post. “Additionally, by breaking down barriers of traditional gender norms, drag queens help to create an atmosphere that is both open, accepting, and free of anything that could inhibit imagination. If even, drag queens provoke questions, that in of itself is evidence that they are opening the gateway to wonder and engagement.”
In New York City, Trinity Church Wall Street is encouraging high school-aged attendees to go to a “Youth Queer Prom,” an event that will feature “dancing, fashion, snacks, swag, and great music.”
In Pasadena, California, the All Saints Church hosted a similar “prom”-style event, titled the “Somewhere Over the Rainbow Queer Prom,” on June 2nd, as well as a “Drag Queen Bingo Hour” on June 4th. Other pro-LGBTQ events hosted by the church include an event on June 11th called “But the Bible says,” which encourages members to discuss how to argue with those who would use “the Bible as a weapon of exclusion … [and] to dismantle the misuse of our sacred texts as weapons of mass discrimination.”
These and other similar, church-hosted events reflect the growing trend of allegedly Christian churches and other religions turning against the long-honored teachings of the Bible, which specifically state that homosexuality is a sin. The growing divide comes as “pride” faces a greater backlash in 2023 than in previous years, with multiple companies facing widespread boycotts over their support for “pride,” and particularly for supporting the false concept of transgenderism.”
I had to google it to see if it was true. Sad, that the comments are only about sugar, but then most people feel threatened to say much. If anyone doesn’t realize children are being targeted, they deliberately have their heads in the sand. The cereal looks awful to me. I would love to hear how the cereal itself is accepted.
“Southern Baptists are meeting in New Orleans for their annual convention this week. Megachurch Pastor Rick Warren, author of the bestselling book The Purpose-Driven Life, is waging war with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), hoping to push the denomination to the left on the issue of female pastors.
Warren, now “retired” but still listed as the Founding Pastor on Saddleback Church’s website, is pressuring the SBC to allow female pastors, contrary to clear biblical teaching that pastoral roles are reserved for men.
Warren has been all over Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube this past week, viciously attacking his opponents (while calling for love and reconciliation). He’s become increasingly combative, calling his opponents “angry fundamentalists,” “angry fighters,” and “legalist showmen.” (I’ll leave it up to readers to determine who’s playing the role of “showman” in this debate.)
Warren also issued a veiled threat to leaders who oppose him. During a recent podcast with Christianity Today Editor-in-Chief Russell Moore, he warned, “We [Saddleback churches] don’t need the Southern Baptist Convention. They need the 6,000 purpose-driven churches that are in the Southern Baptist Convention in our fellowship, but we don’t need the Convention. It would be for the benefit of others, not for us.” In other words, if he doesn’t get his way on liberalizing the doctrine of the SBC, he’ll take his churches and go home.
As background, in June of last year, the SBC Credentials Committee determined that Saddleback Church was “not in friendly cooperation with the Convention,” essentially disfellowshipping the church for having a female “teaching pastor.” Southern Baptist churches are officially self-governing, but blatant violations of the Baptist Faith and Practice (BF&P — the SBC’s statement of faith) can be cause for removing a church from membership.
The committee ruled that the megachurch “has a faith and practice that does not closely identify with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith, as demonstrated by the church having a female teaching pastor functioning in the office of pastor.”
Saddleback is expected to appeal the ruling at the convention this week, and Warren is expected to issue an emotional plea for the group to liberalize on the issue. While he claims that his goal is not to force other churches to allow female pastors, allowing Saddleback back into the SBC would open the floodgates to other churches following his lead.”
—-
My biggest regret in 53 years of ministry is that I didn’t do my own personal exegesis sooner on the 4 passages used to restrict women. Shame on me. I wasted those 4 yrs of Greek in college & seminary. When I finally did my proper “due diligence”, laying aside 50 years of… pic.twitter.com/yz3HjNUFw6
“Chief Justice Roberts has evolved over the years. There was a time when he could be viewed as an “institutionalist.” In 2017, I analogized Roberts to a bank–depositing and withdrawing capital to advance the conservative “long game.”
The institutional theory views the Court as something like a checkbook: the Court can take a big withdrawal once in a while, so long it makes regular deposits. Indeed, Roberts has adopted such a fiduciary approach to judging. Back in 2007, he viewed the Court’s three-decade-long pattern of divisive 5-4 decisions as “eroding, to some extent, the capital that [Chief Justice] Marshall built up.” Thus, decisions can fall on either side of the ledger: deposits or withdrawals. By depositing “capital” in the narrow decisions—such as WRTL v. FEC, NAMUDNO v. Holder, NFIB v. Sebelius, and King v. Burwell —the Court can withdraw that “capital” in the broad decisions like Citizens United v. FEC, Shelby County v. Holder, and cases yet to come.
But after Trump, Roberts’s “long game” was turned upside down, and post-Dobbs, the long game is long gone.
If he is no longer an “institutionalist,” what is he? In the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin offers this description of Chief Justice Roberts.
If political opinion “tester” explains Roberts’s past compromises and the shift from Shelby to Milligan, he should be viewed not so much as an institutionalist (who would protect the jurisprudential integrity of the court and insist on abiding by the highest ethical standards) but as an unprincipled politician, trying to prevent his radical colleagues from sinking the court and the Republican Party when he suspects blowback to decisions from the court’s right-wing majority.
In that sense, Roberts has become the worst sort of results-oriented judge. Rather than legal consistency, respect for precedent or even a judicial philosophy, he’s become the quintessential weather vane. How much can the public tolerate? How far must he let his conservative colleagues drift before the court falls into political oblivion?
I don’t quite agree. Chief Justice Roberts sees himself as the Court’s savior–the only force that can protect the legacy of John Marshall. John Roberts, and no one else, knows what is best for the Republic. John Roberts, singlehandedly, can ward off incursions from the radical left Court “reformers” and the radical right (including his colleagues). Of course, this is all a figment of Roberts’s imagination. Delusions of grandeur, really. He can barely keep his own Court in line. Joan Biskupic’s reporting suggests that even his colleagues are annoyed at how much Roberts seems himself as in control.”
“John wrote yesterday about how the case for the lab leak hypothesis for the origin of COVID is now more firmly locked down than a university president’s brain. Now we come to add a brand new paper, circulating in pre-print form on SSRN (Social Science Research Network) that is devastating about the collateral costs of our COVID policy madness, especially the lockdowns.
The paper is titled “How Did the COVID Pandemic Response Harm Society? A Global Evaluation and State of Knowledge Review (2020-21),” and was written by Kevin Bardosh of the University of Washington & University of Edinburgh. (Bardosh as authored or co-authored several studies challenging COVID orthodoxy over the last couple years.) This study is what is known as a “meta-analysis,” that is, a synthesis of studies of various particular aspects of the subject. (A layman would call this “literature review,” but academia requires the use of some kind of specialized term. By whatever term, this is the same method of the periodic climate reports from the UN; in other words, this is a widely accepted method in the scientific and academic community. The only people who don’t use this method are government policy makers.)
Here is the abstract (with highlights added):
Early in the Covid pandemic concerns were raised that lockdown and other non-pharmaceutical interventions would cause significant multidimensional harm to society. This paper comprehensively evaluates the global state of knowledge on these adverse social impacts, with an emphasis on their type and magnitude during 2020 and 2021. A harm framework was developed spanning 10 categories: health, economy, income, food security, education, lifestyle, intimate relationships, community, environment and governance. The analysis synthesizes 600 publications with a focus on meta-analyses, systematic reviews, global reports and multi-country studies. This cumulative academic research shows that the collateral damage of the pandemic response was substantial, wide-ranging and will leave behind a legacy of harm for hundreds of millions of people in the years ahead. Many original predictions are broadly supported by the research data including: a rise in non-Covid excess mortality, mental health deterioration, child abuse and domestic violence, widening global inequality, food insecurity, lost educational opportunities, unhealthy lifestyle behaviours, social polarization, soaring debt, democratic backsliding and declining human rights. Young people, individuals and countries with lower socioeconomic status, women and those with pre-existing vulnerabilities were hit hardest. Societal harms should challenge the dominant mental model of the pandemic response: it is likely that many Covid policies caused more harm than benefit, although further research is needed to address knowledge gaps and explore policy trade-offs, especially at a country-level. Planning and response for future global health emergencies must integrate a wider range of expertise to account for and mitigate societal harms associated with government intervention.
The complete study, like this abstract, is mostly written in the bland prose of academia, though this one is mostly free of specialized jargon and is therefore readable to the layman. But even with this understated prose style, there are devastating findings in the complete study. And like many academic articles, sometimes the best action is found in the footnotes. At one early point in the paper, Bardosh notes that COVID policymakers were resistant to considering the kind of tradeoffs this paper explores, and dismissed any caution against collateral harms from lockdowns and other measures. In a footnote he explains:
One appears to have been a form of motivated reasoning (which I call covidization) that over-emphasized the benefits and necessity of Covid interventions and downplayed their risks and societal costs. Covidization has meant that people were much more willing to accept greater multidimensional societal harm for hypothetical benefits against the virus.
“Covidization” is a term we should file away for future use, as it is certain our overlords will try it again when the next excuse for a power grab comes along.”
“Aleftwing Canadian politician is being called “Ottawa’s Jussie Smollett” after his claim that an anti-gender ideology activist punched him in the face during a protest unraveled over the weekend.
Christian and Muslim protesters joined forces at a “Save Canada” rally on Friday to show their opposition to the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board’s (OCDSB) plan to force non-binary pronouns on all students.
The directive, issued to all staff, advised the use of ‘they/them’ pronouns for all students until their preferred pronouns were expressed. The move, viewed as an overreach by many parents, triggered a protest attended by more than 250 individuals.
Canadian Muslims, who have become increasingly vocal opponents of the aggressive LGBTQ+ agenda, were recently inflamed when a public school teacher in Edmonton lambasted a Muslim student for eschewing school Pride celebrations. “You don’t belong here,” the teacher said in a rant that was secretly recorded.”
—
“Ottawa Centre MPP Joel Harden and other LGBTQ+ counter protesters showed up at the rally to voice their support for “queer and trans youth.” Harden, who was clad in a rainbow striped jacket, said he was there to potentially de-escalate any violent confrontations spurred by the anti-trans ideology protesters.
“We held a part of the street far away from schools as we did not want to be protesting in front of schools, so we gathered near where they said they would gather,” Harden, a member of Canada’s far-left New Democratic Party (NDP) told Yahoo News.
Harden claimed that while speaking through a megaphone, he could see an altercation between a woman and another individual out of the corner of his eye. He said he rushed over and stood between them in an attempt to deescalate the situation.
“I felt a punch in the back and then a rabbit-punch to the face,” Harden recounted. “It happened in a split-second.” The MPP posted a picture of himself with a cut under his eye following the alleged attack. “I’ll take a punch for queer and trans youth any day,” he tweeted.”
““There will never be room for hate in our community; we will always be there to #ProtectTransKids; love will outlast hate every time. #Pride,” Harden tweeted later on. The MPP received an outpouring of sympathy from outraged LQBTQ+ allies.
“Hope you’re ok Joel,” tweeted fellow MPP Marit Stiles after the rally. “Hateful so-called rallies outside of our schools are becoming far too common – and it’s boiling over into violence. It’s well past time to take urgent action and protect 2SLGBTQ+ youth. Thank you to everyone that showed up today.”
Jagmeet Singh, the leader of Canada’s “New Democratic Party” also weighed in on the alleged assault.
“I’m proud of you @JoelHardenONDP,” Singh tweeted. “Queer and Trans people – and kids – are being targeted by angry and hateful extremists. Governments must step up to protect the queer and trans community.”
“My local MPP @JoelHardenONDP just got punched in the face at a counter rally, during an anti-trans protest,” tweeted consultant Kathryn LeBlanc of LeBlanc (& co.) Communications. “Queer and trans people are sounding the alarm on rising hate. It’s time to come together, mobilize, and build solidarity on this issue.”
“J-sus Ch–st. I’m sorry Joel, and I hope you’re okay. Thank you for always standing by 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈 communities and our rights,” said LGBTQ+ activist Fae Johnstone, a transvestite who was featured on a Hersey’s Chocolate bar earlier this year. “We must take the rise in far-right anti-2SLGBTQIA+ hate seriously.”
Ariel Troster, Councillor for Somerset Ward in Ottawa and Liaison for Women and 2SLGBTQ+ Affairs, claimed to have witnessed the assault.
“I saw my dear friend (and MPP) get punched in the face by haters today. When I say the bigots are getting emboldened, this is what I mean,” Troster tweeted.
However, video footage has since emerged showing that no one had “rabbit punched” Harden in the face or in the back of the head when the injury occurred. Rather, it appears that the damage was self-inflicted while Harden was holding the megaphone close to his face. The culprit wasn’t a “hateful far-right transphobe”—it was a sharp plug protruding on his megaphone.”
It’s hard to calculate which was more disgraceful and humiliating, the pornographic celebration of atypical sexual lifestyles at our Nation’s most important, historic, and traditionally dignified monument and seat of authority, or the fact that the White House’s “celebration” featured the so-called Pride flag carefully located in between and higher than two U.S. flags surrounding it, which was itself a grotesque violation of flag etiquette, and metaphorically suggested that Pride governs the United States.
🔥 Once again corporate media completely ignored yesterday’s biggest story, instead doing its level best to smother it by rapidly pushing out explosive fake news stories, assisted by the DoJ, which is currently trying to indict everybody it can, including most famously President Trump.
The story was, in an electrifying floor address yesterday, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley dramatically informed Congress that the document the FBI has been diligently concealing reported that its confidential source has SEVENTEEN recordings of bribery phone calls between the Burisma executive and Joe and Hunter Biden.
Grassley wondered why nobody followed up, say, to try and get ahold of those recordings, or even mention them to anybody? In his statement, Grassley pointed out it’s not like the FBI has been shy about presidential audio recordings:
It’s clear that the Justice Department and FBI will use every resource to investigate candidate Trump, President Trump and former President Trump [and] it’s clear that the Justice Department, the FBI, haven’t nearly had the same laser-focus on the Biden family. Special counsel Jack Smith has used a recording against former president Trump. Well, what is US Attorney Weiss doing with respect to these alleged Joe and Hunter Biden recordings that are apparently relevant to the high-stakes bribery scheme?
Grassley revealed that, even after the FBI agreed to show the Oversight Committee a copy of its Biden Bribery form, all references on the form to the recordings were redacted. In other words, the FBI literally covered up the recordings’ existence — even though the document had already been unclassified.
Senator Grassley also seems to think, as I do, there’s some connection between the timing of President Trump’s bogus indictment and the nation-shaking Biden Bribery story:
And on the same day that the FBI provided a redacted version of the 1023 to the House Oversight Committee, the Justice Department announced that former President Trump had been indicted and charged with 37 crimes relating to his alleged mishandling of classified records
“Multiple Target stores across the U.S. received bomb threats over the weekend for allegedly “betraying the LGBTQ+ community” by tamping down on some of the Pride Month products sold in its stores due to massive backlash the company has faced.
The FBI is now investigating the bomb threats that have been made in stores located in Oklahoma, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Louisiana, Ohio, Utah, and Pennsylvania.
The threats first started a few weeks ago when Target made “emergency” calls to managers and senior directors after the company faced backlash for its Pride collection, which included “tuck-friendly” female swimwear. JPMorgan said that it was downgrading Target’s stock because of the “recent company controversies” and the company has since lost more than $15 billion in market cap.
USA Today reported that stores in Ohio, Utah, and Pennsylvania received a threat that stated: “Target is full of cowards who turned their back on the LGBT community and decided to cater to the homophobic right wing redneck bigots who protested and vandalized their store.”
The threats continued over the weekend when seven stores in Oklahoma received a threat that began, “We are going to play a game” and included the date of the Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people.”
“A UN Special Rapporteur — a job that entails monitoring, promoting and raising awareness on a particular human right — warned about trans activists who have championed using violence to achieve their ends.
Reem Alsalem, who monitors violence against women and girls globally, defended women who speak out in favor of women-only sports contests, women-only bathrooms, and women-only prisons and warned of harassment or worse from trans activists.
“There is an increasing trend that I have been observing,” Alsalem told The Daily Mail. She urged nations in the West to “ensure that the freedom of speech and thought, including on the issues of sex, gender, and gender identity be protected and upheld.”
A series of recent events have crystallized fear of trans activists turning violent.
In late March, a woman claiming to be a man murdered three 9-year-old children and three adults at Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. The woman was armed with three guns including a semi-automatic rifle when she stormed into the school she once attended and opened fire. After the incident, police searched her home and recovered a sawed-off shotgun and a second shotgun.
In April, outspoken 12-time NCAA champion swimmer Riley Gaines was reportedly assaulted by a group of trans activists at San Francisco State University after she made a speech against allowing female trans athletes to compete in women’s sports.
TikTok creator Tara Jay, who claims he is a woman, posted a video (later deleted) threatening to use guns against anyone who dared to “stop me from going into the women’s bathroom,” adding, “It will be the last mistake you ever make.”
Blogger Kayla Denker, a man claiming to be a woman, issued a video in which he reloaded an assault rifle multiple times while staring into the camera.
Warning that the trans activists were aligning with hard-left groups, Julio Rosas, the author of “Fiery But Mostly Peaceful,” said, “Trans activists gravitate towards these very far-left groups, because they share their anarcho-communist type ideology. They view the U.S. as systemically racist, that it’s subjugated queer people, and that states passing laws against child mutilations is part of a trans genocide. And they’re fighting back.””
And more than likely, the FBI is well aware of this.
“Burisma Executive Who Allegedly Bribed Biden, Hunter has Recorded Conversations With Them
“The 1023 produced to the House committee’s redacted reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversation with them. 17 such recordings.””
“Sen. Chuck Grassley announced the Burisma executive who allegedly bribed then-VP Joe Biden and Hunter recorded the conversations as an insurance policy:
GRASSLEY: “So, now let me assist for the purposes of more transparency on this subject. The 1023 produced to the House committee’s redacted reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversation with them. 17 such recordings. According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses 15 audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden. According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses two audio recordings of phone calls between him and then-Vice President Joe Biden. These recordings were allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case that he got into a tight spot. The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden. Based on the facts known to the Congress and the public, it’s clear that the Justice Department, the FBI haven’t nearly had the same laser focus on the Biden family. Special Counsel Jack Smith has used a recording against former President Trump. Well, what is U.S. Attorney Weiss doing with respect to these alleged Joe and Hunter Biden recordings that are apparently relevant to the high-stakes bribery scheme?””
🚨🚨🚨
Senator Chuck Grassley Announces On The Senate Floor That The Foreign National Who Allegedly Bribed Joe And Hunter Biden Allegedly Has Audio Recordings Of His Conversations With Them
DeSantis has plans for a “Day One” strategy to end the weaponization of the justice system. On the agenda: hire and fire tons of federal personnel, reorganize entire agencies, and “physically remove large swathes of the DOJ from the District of Columbia, including FBI… pic.twitter.com/M4Z9Q9D6s4
Heated Exchange During Judiciary Committee Hearing Between Senator Ted Cruz And FBI Deputy Director Abbate Over The Biden 1023
Senator @tedcruz: “Last month, a whistleblower brought to light the existence in the FBI of a report, an FD-1023 in which the informant alleges that… pic.twitter.com/rVubCEtQuk
— The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 (@ColumbiaBugle) June 13, 2023
"The FBI is stonewalling!"
FBI Deputy Director Refuses To Answer Whether There Are 17 Recording Of Joe & Hunter Biden
Why aren't you reporting who made the threats? The tweet makes it sound as if it's people upset with the presence (rather than the absence) of Pride merchandise.
How Media Misleads & Manipulates You: The headline doesn’t specify who made the bomb threats. They want you to assume it was right-wing anti-LGBT activists. But if you read the entire article, though it’s paywalled, they buried the truth: the threats came from the alphabet mafia. https://t.co/n2JhrHK5ed
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) June 13, 2023
Gay Prom has been around for at least a decade if not longer in some areas. Its become so blase there’s probably more straight teens than LGQBT teens at the prom. Not sure why the article was so alarmed about it.
Churches are divided over LGBQT rights and have been since I was a kid – this is nothing. Again not sure why the alarm
The NDP is not far left, they’re simply left. Sanders and AOC would be comfortable with them. I’m further to the left on economic issues. It looks like somebody pushed the megaphone in his face and he got confused.
The Muslim community is as divided as the Christian community on LGBQT issues. Some Muslims join evangelical Christians in protesting Pride events while other Muslims work with the LGBQT to promote minority rights. The hijab wearing candidate for the school board in my ward teamed with the LGBQT activist running for councilor in the same ward. Once they both won they endorsed the NDP canidate who was a Muslim women – she endorsed a defund the police platform and was a disablity activist. She also won – my neighbourhood is far left. She endorsed LGBQT rights. She differs from her NDP colleagues in her opposition to Medical Assistance in Dying . She basis this on disability rigths not Islam. Islam is as diverse as Christianity.
Have to agree on the Justice Roberts article. He’s extremely worried about his legacy and likes to dress it up as deference and respect for the court. The problem is he expects respect and deference but doesn’t work for it. In the case of Thomas (and others), its obvious a code of ethics is necessary and the justices need to abide by it.The Court like Congress loses legitimacy if it is perceived as corrupt and Roberts has done nothing to dissuade people that this is not the case.
Grassley has as much credibility as Fienstein. If Biden is Sleepy Joe, then I’m not sure how to describe the other two. Grassley (along with House Republicans) keeps making claims and allegations yet never produces evidence. Whistleblowers disapper, others refuse to produce their so called statements, others run from questions, and finally some are found to have been fired for obvious errors of judgment. And now apparently there are recordings. Sure Biden can clear it up but the first rule of politics is to never answer “the mud” because then you acknowledge it as an issue. Allegations have been made, evidence must be produced before Biden should stoop to answer them. So produce the recordings or give it up.
Target bomb threats remind me of high school pranks. Phone in a bomb threat before an exam or just to get a day off. Similarly, this is just to punish a corporation you don’t like. Prior to Targets change of mind, social conservative activists were bringing merchandise to the cashier and then “changing their mind”. A little less serious but both are immature.
The UN has long been mocked by the right to have nations on committees who have no business being there. In the past you had Iran or Saudi Arabia on womens or human rights committees. Reem Alsalem is a Jordanian. Jordan by Arab standards is fairly progressive on women’s rights but as for making comments on LGBQT issues, she has little credibility.
So DeSanits plans to gut the entire public service and replace them with his own appointments. Now that’s weaponization. And probably a violation of contract and labour rights. And create sheer chaos as you throw away years of experience.
Wandering Views 
https://twitter.com/robsmithonline/status/1668276610632499207/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1668276610632499207%7Ctwgr%5E6ae7667d1e9ffd8a4d0fecd1cb40ab4b56b30a43%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailywire.com%2Fnews%2Fkelloggs-tony-the-tiger-poses-with-dylan-mulvaney-at-awards-show-and-twitter-has-thoughts%3Futm_campaign%3Ddw_newsletterutm_medium%3Demailutm_source%3Dhousefileutm_content%3Dmember
Yes….kids are being targeted and I pray eyes that are shut tight will soon open wide.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Just wrong.
“Churches Across the Country Promote ‘Pride Month’ Celebrations”
“In Columbia, Maryland, the First Presbyterian Church hosted a drag queen story hour on June 11th, featuring a performer by the stage name of “Mama Belle;” the event was advertised as being for children of all ages. The webpage for the event, which has since been taken down, encourages children “to be themselves.”
“The costumes and imaginative presentation of the Drag Queen enhance the story as the storyteller themselves is conveying a story through their dramatic appearance and performance,” the church explained in its now-deleted post. “Additionally, by breaking down barriers of traditional gender norms, drag queens help to create an atmosphere that is both open, accepting, and free of anything that could inhibit imagination. If even, drag queens provoke questions, that in of itself is evidence that they are opening the gateway to wonder and engagement.”
In New York City, Trinity Church Wall Street is encouraging high school-aged attendees to go to a “Youth Queer Prom,” an event that will feature “dancing, fashion, snacks, swag, and great music.”
In Pasadena, California, the All Saints Church hosted a similar “prom”-style event, titled the “Somewhere Over the Rainbow Queer Prom,” on June 2nd, as well as a “Drag Queen Bingo Hour” on June 4th. Other pro-LGBTQ events hosted by the church include an event on June 11th called “But the Bible says,” which encourages members to discuss how to argue with those who would use “the Bible as a weapon of exclusion … [and] to dismantle the misuse of our sacred texts as weapons of mass discrimination.”
These and other similar, church-hosted events reflect the growing trend of allegedly Christian churches and other religions turning against the long-honored teachings of the Bible, which specifically state that homosexuality is a sin. The growing divide comes as “pride” faces a greater backlash in 2023 than in previous years, with multiple companies facing widespread boycotts over their support for “pride,” and particularly for supporting the false concept of transgenderism.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
I had to google it to see if it was true. Sad, that the comments are only about sugar, but then most people feel threatened to say much. If anyone doesn’t realize children are being targeted, they deliberately have their heads in the sand. The cereal looks awful to me. I would love to hear how the cereal itself is accepted.
LikeLiked by 3 people
As is this….
“Megachurch Pastor Rick Warren Goes Scorched Earth in Effort to Push Southern Baptists Down the Slippery Woke Slope”
https://pjmedia.com/columns/paula-bolyard/2023/06/12/megachurch-pastor-rick-warren-goes-scorched-earth-in-effort-to-push-southern-baptists-down-the-slippery-woke-slope-n1701104
“Southern Baptists are meeting in New Orleans for their annual convention this week. Megachurch Pastor Rick Warren, author of the bestselling book The Purpose-Driven Life, is waging war with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), hoping to push the denomination to the left on the issue of female pastors.
Warren, now “retired” but still listed as the Founding Pastor on Saddleback Church’s website, is pressuring the SBC to allow female pastors, contrary to clear biblical teaching that pastoral roles are reserved for men.
Warren has been all over Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube this past week, viciously attacking his opponents (while calling for love and reconciliation). He’s become increasingly combative, calling his opponents “angry fundamentalists,” “angry fighters,” and “legalist showmen.” (I’ll leave it up to readers to determine who’s playing the role of “showman” in this debate.)
Warren also issued a veiled threat to leaders who oppose him. During a recent podcast with Christianity Today Editor-in-Chief Russell Moore, he warned, “We [Saddleback churches] don’t need the Southern Baptist Convention. They need the 6,000 purpose-driven churches that are in the Southern Baptist Convention in our fellowship, but we don’t need the Convention. It would be for the benefit of others, not for us.” In other words, if he doesn’t get his way on liberalizing the doctrine of the SBC, he’ll take his churches and go home.
As background, in June of last year, the SBC Credentials Committee determined that Saddleback Church was “not in friendly cooperation with the Convention,” essentially disfellowshipping the church for having a female “teaching pastor.” Southern Baptist churches are officially self-governing, but blatant violations of the Baptist Faith and Practice (BF&P — the SBC’s statement of faith) can be cause for removing a church from membership.
The committee ruled that the megachurch “has a faith and practice that does not closely identify with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith, as demonstrated by the church having a female teaching pastor functioning in the office of pastor.”
Saddleback is expected to appeal the ruling at the convention this week, and Warren is expected to issue an emotional plea for the group to liberalize on the issue. While he claims that his goal is not to force other churches to allow female pastors, allowing Saddleback back into the SBC would open the floodgates to other churches following his lead.”
—-
LikeLiked by 2 people
A great disappointment.
“Chief Justice Roberts Is Not A “Weather Vain.” He’s Just So Vain.”
https://reason.com/volokh/2023/06/12/chief-justice-roberts-is-not-a-weather-vain-hes-just-so-vain/
“Chief Justice Roberts has evolved over the years. There was a time when he could be viewed as an “institutionalist.” In 2017, I analogized Roberts to a bank–depositing and withdrawing capital to advance the conservative “long game.”
The institutional theory views the Court as something like a checkbook: the Court can take a big withdrawal once in a while, so long it makes regular deposits. Indeed, Roberts has adopted such a fiduciary approach to judging. Back in 2007, he viewed the Court’s three-decade-long pattern of divisive 5-4 decisions as “eroding, to some extent, the capital that [Chief Justice] Marshall built up.” Thus, decisions can fall on either side of the ledger: deposits or withdrawals. By depositing “capital” in the narrow decisions—such as WRTL v. FEC, NAMUDNO v. Holder, NFIB v. Sebelius, and King v. Burwell —the Court can withdraw that “capital” in the broad decisions like Citizens United v. FEC, Shelby County v. Holder, and cases yet to come.
But after Trump, Roberts’s “long game” was turned upside down, and post-Dobbs, the long game is long gone.
If he is no longer an “institutionalist,” what is he? In the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin offers this description of Chief Justice Roberts.
If political opinion “tester” explains Roberts’s past compromises and the shift from Shelby to Milligan, he should be viewed not so much as an institutionalist (who would protect the jurisprudential integrity of the court and insist on abiding by the highest ethical standards) but as an unprincipled politician, trying to prevent his radical colleagues from sinking the court and the Republican Party when he suspects blowback to decisions from the court’s right-wing majority.
In that sense, Roberts has become the worst sort of results-oriented judge. Rather than legal consistency, respect for precedent or even a judicial philosophy, he’s become the quintessential weather vane. How much can the public tolerate? How far must he let his conservative colleagues drift before the court falls into political oblivion?
I don’t quite agree. Chief Justice Roberts sees himself as the Court’s savior–the only force that can protect the legacy of John Marshall. John Roberts, and no one else, knows what is best for the Republic. John Roberts, singlehandedly, can ward off incursions from the radical left Court “reformers” and the radical right (including his colleagues). Of course, this is all a figment of Roberts’s imagination. Delusions of grandeur, really. He can barely keep his own Court in line. Joan Biskupic’s reporting suggests that even his colleagues are annoyed at how much Roberts seems himself as in control.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
“THE HIGH COST OF “COVIDIZATION””
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/06/the-high-cost-of-covidization.php
“John wrote yesterday about how the case for the lab leak hypothesis for the origin of COVID is now more firmly locked down than a university president’s brain. Now we come to add a brand new paper, circulating in pre-print form on SSRN (Social Science Research Network) that is devastating about the collateral costs of our COVID policy madness, especially the lockdowns.
The paper is titled “How Did the COVID Pandemic Response Harm Society? A Global Evaluation and State of Knowledge Review (2020-21),” and was written by Kevin Bardosh of the University of Washington & University of Edinburgh. (Bardosh as authored or co-authored several studies challenging COVID orthodoxy over the last couple years.) This study is what is known as a “meta-analysis,” that is, a synthesis of studies of various particular aspects of the subject. (A layman would call this “literature review,” but academia requires the use of some kind of specialized term. By whatever term, this is the same method of the periodic climate reports from the UN; in other words, this is a widely accepted method in the scientific and academic community. The only people who don’t use this method are government policy makers.)
Here is the abstract (with highlights added):
Early in the Covid pandemic concerns were raised that lockdown and other non-pharmaceutical interventions would cause significant multidimensional harm to society. This paper comprehensively evaluates the global state of knowledge on these adverse social impacts, with an emphasis on their type and magnitude during 2020 and 2021. A harm framework was developed spanning 10 categories: health, economy, income, food security, education, lifestyle, intimate relationships, community, environment and governance. The analysis synthesizes 600 publications with a focus on meta-analyses, systematic reviews, global reports and multi-country studies. This cumulative academic research shows that the collateral damage of the pandemic response was substantial, wide-ranging and will leave behind a legacy of harm for hundreds of millions of people in the years ahead. Many original predictions are broadly supported by the research data including: a rise in non-Covid excess mortality, mental health deterioration, child abuse and domestic violence, widening global inequality, food insecurity, lost educational opportunities, unhealthy lifestyle behaviours, social polarization, soaring debt, democratic backsliding and declining human rights. Young people, individuals and countries with lower socioeconomic status, women and those with pre-existing vulnerabilities were hit hardest. Societal harms should challenge the dominant mental model of the pandemic response: it is likely that many Covid policies caused more harm than benefit, although further research is needed to address knowledge gaps and explore policy trade-offs, especially at a country-level. Planning and response for future global health emergencies must integrate a wider range of expertise to account for and mitigate societal harms associated with government intervention.
The complete study, like this abstract, is mostly written in the bland prose of academia, though this one is mostly free of specialized jargon and is therefore readable to the layman. But even with this understated prose style, there are devastating findings in the complete study. And like many academic articles, sometimes the best action is found in the footnotes. At one early point in the paper, Bardosh notes that COVID policymakers were resistant to considering the kind of tradeoffs this paper explores, and dismissed any caution against collateral harms from lockdowns and other measures. In a footnote he explains:
One appears to have been a form of motivated reasoning (which I call covidization) that over-emphasized the benefits and necessity of Covid interventions and downplayed their risks and societal costs. Covidization has meant that people were much more willing to accept greater multidimensional societal harm for hypothetical benefits against the virus.
“Covidization” is a term we should file away for future use, as it is certain our overlords will try it again when the next excuse for a power grab comes along.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
The Jussie Smollett of Canada.
“Canadian MPP Dubbed ‘Ottawa’s Jussie Smollett’ After Claim of Being Assaulted By Transphobes Falls Apart”
“Aleftwing Canadian politician is being called “Ottawa’s Jussie Smollett” after his claim that an anti-gender ideology activist punched him in the face during a protest unraveled over the weekend.
Christian and Muslim protesters joined forces at a “Save Canada” rally on Friday to show their opposition to the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board’s (OCDSB) plan to force non-binary pronouns on all students.
The directive, issued to all staff, advised the use of ‘they/them’ pronouns for all students until their preferred pronouns were expressed. The move, viewed as an overreach by many parents, triggered a protest attended by more than 250 individuals.
Canadian Muslims, who have become increasingly vocal opponents of the aggressive LGBTQ+ agenda, were recently inflamed when a public school teacher in Edmonton lambasted a Muslim student for eschewing school Pride celebrations. “You don’t belong here,” the teacher said in a rant that was secretly recorded.”
—
“Ottawa Centre MPP Joel Harden and other LGBTQ+ counter protesters showed up at the rally to voice their support for “queer and trans youth.” Harden, who was clad in a rainbow striped jacket, said he was there to potentially de-escalate any violent confrontations spurred by the anti-trans ideology protesters.
“We held a part of the street far away from schools as we did not want to be protesting in front of schools, so we gathered near where they said they would gather,” Harden, a member of Canada’s far-left New Democratic Party (NDP) told Yahoo News.
Harden claimed that while speaking through a megaphone, he could see an altercation between a woman and another individual out of the corner of his eye. He said he rushed over and stood between them in an attempt to deescalate the situation.
“I felt a punch in the back and then a rabbit-punch to the face,” Harden recounted. “It happened in a split-second.” The MPP posted a picture of himself with a cut under his eye following the alleged attack. “I’ll take a punch for queer and trans youth any day,” he tweeted.”
““There will never be room for hate in our community; we will always be there to #ProtectTransKids; love will outlast hate every time. #Pride,” Harden tweeted later on. The MPP received an outpouring of sympathy from outraged LQBTQ+ allies.
“Hope you’re ok Joel,” tweeted fellow MPP Marit Stiles after the rally. “Hateful so-called rallies outside of our schools are becoming far too common – and it’s boiling over into violence. It’s well past time to take urgent action and protect 2SLGBTQ+ youth. Thank you to everyone that showed up today.”
Jagmeet Singh, the leader of Canada’s “New Democratic Party” also weighed in on the alleged assault.
“I’m proud of you @JoelHardenONDP,” Singh tweeted. “Queer and Trans people – and kids – are being targeted by angry and hateful extremists. Governments must step up to protect the queer and trans community.”
“My local MPP @JoelHardenONDP just got punched in the face at a counter rally, during an anti-trans protest,” tweeted consultant Kathryn LeBlanc of LeBlanc (& co.) Communications. “Queer and trans people are sounding the alarm on rising hate. It’s time to come together, mobilize, and build solidarity on this issue.”
“J-sus Ch–st. I’m sorry Joel, and I hope you’re okay. Thank you for always standing by 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈 communities and our rights,” said LGBTQ+ activist Fae Johnstone, a transvestite who was featured on a Hersey’s Chocolate bar earlier this year. “We must take the rise in far-right anti-2SLGBTQIA+ hate seriously.”
Ariel Troster, Councillor for Somerset Ward in Ottawa and Liaison for Women and 2SLGBTQ+ Affairs, claimed to have witnessed the assault.
“I saw my dear friend (and MPP) get punched in the face by haters today. When I say the bigots are getting emboldened, this is what I mean,” Troster tweeted.
However, video footage has since emerged showing that no one had “rabbit punched” Harden in the face or in the back of the head when the injury occurred. Rather, it appears that the damage was self-inflicted while Harden was holding the megaphone close to his face. The culprit wasn’t a “hateful far-right transphobe”—it was a sharp plug protruding on his megaphone.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
https://substack.com/redirect/586a5607-2024-4e93-bd12-938616fc0678?j=eyJ1IjoiMWhvcmVsIn0.sKDsJtvn84Hufwg9JtmKjkidTdwJDkGmKWhnBUgYruU
One nation under God?
It’s hard to calculate which was more disgraceful and humiliating, the pornographic celebration of atypical sexual lifestyles at our Nation’s most important, historic, and traditionally dignified monument and seat of authority, or the fact that the White House’s “celebration” featured the so-called Pride flag carefully located in between and higher than two U.S. flags surrounding it, which was itself a grotesque violation of flag etiquette, and metaphorically suggested that Pride governs the United States.
LikeLiked by 3 people
FBI just doing their job you say????
🔥 Once again corporate media completely ignored yesterday’s biggest story, instead doing its level best to smother it by rapidly pushing out explosive fake news stories, assisted by the DoJ, which is currently trying to indict everybody it can, including most famously President Trump.
The story was, in an electrifying floor address yesterday, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley dramatically informed Congress that the document the FBI has been diligently concealing reported that its confidential source has SEVENTEEN recordings of bribery phone calls between the Burisma executive and Joe and Hunter Biden.
Grassley wondered why nobody followed up, say, to try and get ahold of those recordings, or even mention them to anybody? In his statement, Grassley pointed out it’s not like the FBI has been shy about presidential audio recordings:
It’s clear that the Justice Department and FBI will use every resource to investigate candidate Trump, President Trump and former President Trump [and] it’s clear that the Justice Department, the FBI, haven’t nearly had the same laser-focus on the Biden family. Special counsel Jack Smith has used a recording against former president Trump. Well, what is US Attorney Weiss doing with respect to these alleged Joe and Hunter Biden recordings that are apparently relevant to the high-stakes bribery scheme?
Grassley revealed that, even after the FBI agreed to show the Oversight Committee a copy of its Biden Bribery form, all references on the form to the recordings were redacted. In other words, the FBI literally covered up the recordings’ existence — even though the document had already been unclassified.
Senator Grassley also seems to think, as I do, there’s some connection between the timing of President Trump’s bogus indictment and the nation-shaking Biden Bribery story:
And on the same day that the FBI provided a redacted version of the 1023 to the House Oversight Committee, the Justice Department announced that former President Trump had been indicted and charged with 37 crimes relating to his alleged mishandling of classified records
LikeLiked by 1 person
The pervs be mad.
“Multiple Target Stores Across U.S. Hit With Bomb Threats For ‘Betraying The LGBTQ+ Community’”
https://www.dailywire.com/news/multiple-target-stores-across-u-s-hit-with-bomb-threats-for-betraying-the-lgbtq-community-report
“Multiple Target stores across the U.S. received bomb threats over the weekend for allegedly “betraying the LGBTQ+ community” by tamping down on some of the Pride Month products sold in its stores due to massive backlash the company has faced.
The FBI is now investigating the bomb threats that have been made in stores located in Oklahoma, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Louisiana, Ohio, Utah, and Pennsylvania.
The threats first started a few weeks ago when Target made “emergency” calls to managers and senior directors after the company faced backlash for its Pride collection, which included “tuck-friendly” female swimwear. JPMorgan said that it was downgrading Target’s stock because of the “recent company controversies” and the company has since lost more than $15 billion in market cap.
USA Today reported that stores in Ohio, Utah, and Pennsylvania received a threat that stated: “Target is full of cowards who turned their back on the LGBT community and decided to cater to the homophobic right wing redneck bigots who protested and vandalized their store.”
The threats continued over the weekend when seven stores in Oklahoma received a threat that began, “We are going to play a game” and included the date of the Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
This pairs nicely with the last one.
“UN Official Warns Of The ‘Increasing Trend’ Toward Trans Activist Violence”
https://www.dailywire.com/news/un-official-warns-of-the-increasing-trend-toward-trans-activist-violence
“A UN Special Rapporteur — a job that entails monitoring, promoting and raising awareness on a particular human right — warned about trans activists who have championed using violence to achieve their ends.
Reem Alsalem, who monitors violence against women and girls globally, defended women who speak out in favor of women-only sports contests, women-only bathrooms, and women-only prisons and warned of harassment or worse from trans activists.
“There is an increasing trend that I have been observing,” Alsalem told The Daily Mail. She urged nations in the West to “ensure that the freedom of speech and thought, including on the issues of sex, gender, and gender identity be protected and upheld.”
A series of recent events have crystallized fear of trans activists turning violent.
In late March, a woman claiming to be a man murdered three 9-year-old children and three adults at Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. The woman was armed with three guns including a semi-automatic rifle when she stormed into the school she once attended and opened fire. After the incident, police searched her home and recovered a sawed-off shotgun and a second shotgun.
In April, outspoken 12-time NCAA champion swimmer Riley Gaines was reportedly assaulted by a group of trans activists at San Francisco State University after she made a speech against allowing female trans athletes to compete in women’s sports.
TikTok creator Tara Jay, who claims he is a woman, posted a video (later deleted) threatening to use guns against anyone who dared to “stop me from going into the women’s bathroom,” adding, “It will be the last mistake you ever make.”
Blogger Kayla Denker, a man claiming to be a woman, issued a video in which he reloaded an assault rifle multiple times while staring into the camera.
Warning that the trans activists were aligning with hard-left groups, Julio Rosas, the author of “Fiery But Mostly Peaceful,” said, “Trans activists gravitate towards these very far-left groups, because they share their anarcho-communist type ideology. They view the U.S. as systemically racist, that it’s subjugated queer people, and that states passing laws against child mutilations is part of a trans genocide. And they’re fighting back.””
LikeLiked by 1 person
And more than likely, the FBI is well aware of this.
“Burisma Executive Who Allegedly Bribed Biden, Hunter has Recorded Conversations With Them
“The 1023 produced to the House committee’s redacted reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversation with them. 17 such recordings.””
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/06/burisma-executive-who-allegedly-bribed-biden-hunter-has-recorded-conversations-with-them/
“Sen. Chuck Grassley announced the Burisma executive who allegedly bribed then-VP Joe Biden and Hunter recorded the conversations as an insurance policy:
GRASSLEY: “So, now let me assist for the purposes of more transparency on this subject. The 1023 produced to the House committee’s redacted reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversation with them. 17 such recordings. According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses 15 audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden. According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses two audio recordings of phone calls between him and then-Vice President Joe Biden. These recordings were allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case that he got into a tight spot. The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden. Based on the facts known to the Congress and the public, it’s clear that the Justice Department, the FBI haven’t nearly had the same laser focus on the Biden family. Special Counsel Jack Smith has used a recording against former President Trump. Well, what is U.S. Attorney Weiss doing with respect to these alleged Joe and Hunter Biden recordings that are apparently relevant to the high-stakes bribery scheme?””
—
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Keep digging.
LikeLike
WaPo running cover for the pervs.
LikeLiked by 2 people
LikeLiked by 2 people
Gay Prom has been around for at least a decade if not longer in some areas. Its become so blase there’s probably more straight teens than LGQBT teens at the prom. Not sure why the article was so alarmed about it.
Churches are divided over LGBQT rights and have been since I was a kid – this is nothing. Again not sure why the alarm
The NDP is not far left, they’re simply left. Sanders and AOC would be comfortable with them. I’m further to the left on economic issues. It looks like somebody pushed the megaphone in his face and he got confused.
The Muslim community is as divided as the Christian community on LGBQT issues. Some Muslims join evangelical Christians in protesting Pride events while other Muslims work with the LGBQT to promote minority rights. The hijab wearing candidate for the school board in my ward teamed with the LGBQT activist running for councilor in the same ward. Once they both won they endorsed the NDP canidate who was a Muslim women – she endorsed a defund the police platform and was a disablity activist. She also won – my neighbourhood is far left. She endorsed LGBQT rights. She differs from her NDP colleagues in her opposition to Medical Assistance in Dying . She basis this on disability rigths not Islam. Islam is as diverse as Christianity.
LikeLike
Have to agree on the Justice Roberts article. He’s extremely worried about his legacy and likes to dress it up as deference and respect for the court. The problem is he expects respect and deference but doesn’t work for it. In the case of Thomas (and others), its obvious a code of ethics is necessary and the justices need to abide by it.The Court like Congress loses legitimacy if it is perceived as corrupt and Roberts has done nothing to dissuade people that this is not the case.
Grassley has as much credibility as Fienstein. If Biden is Sleepy Joe, then I’m not sure how to describe the other two. Grassley (along with House Republicans) keeps making claims and allegations yet never produces evidence. Whistleblowers disapper, others refuse to produce their so called statements, others run from questions, and finally some are found to have been fired for obvious errors of judgment. And now apparently there are recordings. Sure Biden can clear it up but the first rule of politics is to never answer “the mud” because then you acknowledge it as an issue. Allegations have been made, evidence must be produced before Biden should stoop to answer them. So produce the recordings or give it up.
LikeLike
Target bomb threats remind me of high school pranks. Phone in a bomb threat before an exam or just to get a day off. Similarly, this is just to punish a corporation you don’t like. Prior to Targets change of mind, social conservative activists were bringing merchandise to the cashier and then “changing their mind”. A little less serious but both are immature.
The UN has long been mocked by the right to have nations on committees who have no business being there. In the past you had Iran or Saudi Arabia on womens or human rights committees. Reem Alsalem is a Jordanian. Jordan by Arab standards is fairly progressive on women’s rights but as for making comments on LGBQT issues, she has little credibility.
So DeSanits plans to gut the entire public service and replace them with his own appointments. Now that’s weaponization. And probably a violation of contract and labour rights. And create sheer chaos as you throw away years of experience.
LikeLike
Did you just equate shopping to a bomb threat?!?!?
LikeLike