UK Christian Constitution
‘Hurtful’ National Trust in Rainbow Row
The National Trust is in a row over the promotion of homosexuality after volunteers refused to wear homosexual equality symbols.
The National Trust is Britain’s leading conservation charity. It exists, according to its most recent Annual Report, to protect ‘the nation’s heritage and open spaces … for everyone to enjoy’. It operates in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. There is a separate National Trust for Scotland.
According to the BBC, the National Trust required staff and volunteers at Felbrigg Hall, a stately home in Norfolk, to wear rainbow badges and lanyards in support of a campaign to promote homosexuality.
Annabel Smith, the Trust’s head of volunteering and participation development, said ‘Whilst volunteering for the National Trust we do request and expect individuals to uphold the values of the organisation.’
But of course, the promotion of homosexuality does not appear in the aims or values of the National Trust.
Dissenting volunteers
By Friday, over 30 (and possibly as many as 75, depending where you read) of 350 volunteers refused to be part of the stunt.
Initially, National Trust management offered them duties away from the public gaze. Non-rainbowed staff would be an embarrassment. Its director general, Dame Helen Ghosh, said anyone who did not agree with the campaign was ‘free to step back from the volunteer role or take a different role for the duration’. Who said Victorian-style labour relations were dead?
But Lucy Pasha-Robinson writes in the Independent that 240 National Trust members revoked their membership over the weekend in disgust. Meanwhile, the volunteers went to the newspapers. They accused the Trust of encroaching on their political freedoms. The Trust began to get rattled.
Dame Helen was left humiliated as a National Trust official later issued a statement on Saturday. Now they were ‘making it clear to volunteers that the wearing of the badge is optional and a personal decision’.
Previous owner ‘outed’ as homosexual
One Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer owned Felbrigg Hall. The distinguished historian and author left his ancestral home to the National Trust when he died in 1969.
But as part of its pro-sodomy campaign – it actually has a special page for it – the National Trust latched onto rumours that Lord Ketton-Cremer was homosexual. It commissioned Professor Richard Sandell from the University of Leicester to dig up any dirt he could find.
In true gutter journalism style, Sandell trawled the local area for anyone prepared to say Ketton-Cremer’s sexuality was an ‘open secret’. He pored over his poems and books about acquaintances to try to find code words and possible euphemisms. But he failed to find anyone to say his subject engaged in any same-sex activity with anyone.
The Trust then hired the King of Crass, Stephen Fry, to voice a video. In the frankly tedious film, Fry states Ketton-Cremer ‘defied the conventions of his day’. Actually, he didn’t. He lived exactly as a bachelor of those days would do.
National Trust ‘hurtful’
The film appalled Ketton-Cramer’s nephew and niece. Ted Coryton and Katie Spencer are demanding to know what proof the Trust has that their uncle and godfather, known to them as ‘Bun’, was homosexual. Moreover, even if he was, what right did the National Trust have to ‘out’ someone who chose to keep his sexuality secret? The squire died two years after sodomy in private was decriminalised in 1967.
‘It is simply so hurtful,’ Mrs Spencer, 78, told the Daily Telegraph: ‘It is outrageous and totally unnecessary. The National Trust has done this to get publicity to get people to visit the hall and make money. I personally didn’t think there was any suggestion he was gay. The first I heard was when I was shown the article in the Telegraph about the Trust’s film. I would like to know what proof they actually have. I think Bun would have felt betrayed by the National Trust. He was a fascinating man, a brilliant historian and biographer. That was how he would want to be remembered. His sexuality was a private matter and should remain so.’
The siblings, from Cornwall, share the late Ketton-Cremer with another godson, Tristram Powell, from London. All believe the move represents a betrayal. Moreover, they argue it could have serious implications for future legacies to the Trust. They have a point. Who is going to leave property to the National Trust knowing its officials are prepared to seek and publicise salacious gossip about you years later?
Virtue signalling
The Trust’s pro-sodomy campaign does not end here. The National Trust has also signed up the BBC’s token sports lesbian, Clare Balding.
Miss Balding will do a series of podcasts on homosexually-themed National Trust properties. There turn out to be very few, by the way. And of course, this is not a serious attempt at increasing its membership among the 1% of the population who are sadly homosexual. If they like old houses, they will join the Trust’s four million other members anyway. No, the Trust is instead engaging in a perverted form of ‘virtue-signalling’ while blundering into the minefield of social engineering.
Indeed, Mr Fry said: ‘Some have asked why Prejudice and Pride is necessary – why the lives of people who challenged conventional ideas of gender and sexuality should be made public and celebrated in this way. The answer is quite simple – to do anything less is to suggest that same-sex love and gender diversity is somehow wrong, and keeping these stories hidden only lets prejudice – past and present – go unchallenged.’
Once again, Lord Ketton-Cremer did not ‘challenge conventional ideas of gender and sexuality’. Moreover, some 40& of the population still believe gay sex is wrong, after all the years of pro-sodomy propaganda. And we can venture the figure will be higher among National Trust members.
Professor Sandell added: ‘We have equality in many areas of the law but there is a need to build greater public understanding.’ I was right. It’s virtue-signalling and propaganda rolled into one.
Condescension
This is not the first controversy at the National Trust under Dame Helen’s tenure, says the Guardian. During her leadership, the Trust found itself drawn into debates about fracking and windfarms. The Trust quite likes the former, but is snooty about the latter. And earlier this year our members will recall it replaced the word ‘Easter’ by ‘Cadbury’ in publicity for its egg hunt.
Rachel Cooke, also in the Guardian, writes: ‘There is a growing sense in some quarters that the Trust is distracted from its main purpose – conservation – and that in its determination to be inclusive, it is, for want of a better description, dumbing down.’
Miss Cooke also has some acerbic observations on the Trust’s acquisition of land and on Dame Helen Ghosh, with whom she secured an interview. Dame Helen is a retired civil servant. The National Trust pays her £183,960 as its director general.
But Miss Cooke says: ‘Her manner is – how to put this? – edged with condescension. Five minutes into our conversation, she tells me about her first-class history degree from Oxford, as if this alone should settle my mind in her favour. … She talks loudly of the importance of listening to other views without ever really giving the impression that she is doing so.’
Dame Helen Ghosh to leave
And now Dame Helen is returning to her alma mater. She gained a first in history, you know. She will leave her job at the National Trust in March 2018 to become the first woman master of Balliol College, Oxford. She is taking an obvious career step.
National Trust members and volunteers will be eager to attend its Annual General Meeting in Swindon on 21st October 2017. Will this topic come up? What will Dame Helen condescend to say to the backward member masses? Will her replacement will be as eager to force gayness down everyone’s throats? Is the National Trust going to continue alienating the public with repellent virtue-signalling? Will it return to its core business of protecting the nation’s heritage and open spaces for everyone to enjoy – not just the intellectual elite? When are the next elections to the National Trust’s Council?
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Pray for Tuesday’s elections in Kenya
On Tuesday 8th August, the people of Kenya go to the polls. Voters will elect the President and Deputy, Members of Parliament (Senate and National Assembly) and devolved government members. That’s county governors and ward representatives.
Kenya shaken by violence in 2007
Ten years ago (2007), an outbreak of tribal violence followed the presidential elections. The violence flared up after Mwai Kibaki narrowly beat Raila Odinga. Mr Kibaki is from the Kikuyu people, Kenya’s largest ethnic group. Mr Odinga is a Luo, who form the fourth-largest ethnic group. Raila was supported by many from the Luhya and Kalenjin communities, the second and third-largest tribes. When the result was announced, ethnic Kikuyus were targeted by elements of Luo and Kalenjin. The attacks led to retaliation. In all, thirteen hundred people lost their lives. On top of that, the criminal low-life came out, taking advantage of the disorder. From the violence, thousands were also internally displaced and many people were injured.
Kenyans were dismayed by the tragedy. Around eighty per cent of Kenyans practice Christianity. (There are also 10% Muslim, concentrated near the coast. 10% of Kenyans are Animist, found mainly in the rural areas). Pastors led prayers for peace.
Tribal jokes and a move for peace
Kenyans like to play down their ethnic divisions, especially to outsiders. However, amongst themselves, tribal characteristics are a rich source of humour. The Kikuyu have a reputation for running everything and never passing up an opportunity to make money.
The Luo inhabit the areas around Lake Victoria. They are renowned for their diet of fish and for taking themselves seriously. The Luhya are also characterised for their diet, which centres on chicken and the drinking of copious volumes of tea. The Kalenjin are Kenya’s distance runners and traditional keepers of cattle.
But election time is not a time for ethnic jokes. Even Kenyan comedians are emphasising togetherness. And they have taken their lead from the candidates themselves.
In 2012 Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Jomo, faced Raila Odinga in the Presidential race. But that is not the whole story. In order to avoid further ethnic tensions, and let it be said with an eye to winning, Mr Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, teamed up with William Ruto as his running mate. Mr Ruto is a leading Kalenjin. After the 2007 elections, allegations surrounded both Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto. Both were accused of inciting the violence. But for many Kenyans, the two men coming together on a single ticket was a clear call for peace and stability. Similarly, Raila ran for president with a member of another tribe. Again the church prayed. Accordingly, there was no violence following the 2012 elections, which the Kenyatta / Ruto ticket won.
Journalists stirring up trouble
This time, 2017, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto are running for re-election. Once more they are up against Raila Amolo Odinga. RAO has again appointed Kalonzo Musyoka as his running mate for the post of deputy president. Mr Musyoka is from the Kamba, the fifth-largest tribe.
We should pray that everything passes off peacefully. And indeed we can feel we are pushing at an open door in that prayer.
But more than that, let us pray for an end to tribalism so that commentators stop feeling a need to talk about post-election violence every time there is an election in Kenya.
Above all, journalists should certainly not talk violence up. The Independent have a shabby story based on suggestions by Western-funded human rights activists that violence is about to break out again. It isn’t. The article, by Tom Odula of Associated Press in Nairobi, even claims some sad, inevitable and periodic clashes between nomadic herdsmen and farmers in the Rift Valley is ‘pre-election violence’. It isn’t. Those tragic shootings have nothing to do with the election. The Indy should have known better.
Elsewhere, the BBC is running a piece saying Kenyan ‘mixed-tribe’ couples fear animosity. It really is barely a story and it stokes trouble up. Wikipedia’s entry on the Kenyan 2017 elections has a ridiculous section on ‘pre-election violence’. They don’t stoop to Mr Odula’s level, but they still manage two entries. Firstly, an election official called Christopher Msando died a week ago in suspicious circumstances. Secondly, days ago a lunatic with a machete tried to gain entry to William Ruto’s home when the DP was away. A policeman was injured. That’s the sum total of your ‘pre-election violence’ in Kenya.
Giving God the glory
Christian Voice is not taking a position on the candidates. Kenya has distinct problems. The Nairobi Star newspaper reports for example on high levels of youth unemployment.
The country is politically stable but corruption puts a brake on enterprise and opportunities. Kenya also faces challenges with immigration from unstable South Sudan to its north-west and Somalia to the North-East.
There is constant political interference from the US, EU and UK. China is trying to secure access to raw materials by building infrastructure that is not always as good as it should be. Moreover, in Kenya, as elsewhere in the developing world, Western governments and NGO’s funded by anti-Christian American and European foundations are constantly trying to impose immorality on the country, and undermine its stability.
Yet in all this a vibrant church is praying and political leaders are not afraid to ‘do God’. William Ruto, for example, is one devout Christian who completely gave God all the glory after his election in 2012.
A call to prayer
The Bible records the Lord saying to Israel:
Leviticus 26:3 If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; 4 Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. …
Lev 26:6 And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. …
Lev 26:12 And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.
Every nation is called to keep the Lord’s statutes. The Bible says clearly:
Proverbs 16:12 It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness: for the throne is established by righteousness.
The Apostle’s wish was for always for peace amongst the Lord’s people:
2Thess 3:16 Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all.
So please pray for a peaceful election. Pray for great faith for the Christians of Kenya. Please also pray that whoever is elected to office in Kenya on Tuesday 8th August 2017 will walk in the Lord’s ways of obedience, honesty, justice, peace and prosperity.
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The vegetable politicians musn’t grow
It is a tasty and dependable addition to any vegetable garden, but it is one which no politician’s gardener will not be putting on the menu any time soon.
Its Latin name is Brassica napus pabularia, and it produces a succession of sweet full-flavoured leaves. If regularly harvested, and protected from those white butterflies, it will resprout with new tender leaves right through the growing season.
Yes, it’s Russian Kale
Its English name? Russian Kale. People sometimes add the adjective ‘Red’ because the main vein (or midrib) can be a shade of purple, especially in young plants. Or, if you remember the cold war …
Russian Kale likes cool, temperate climates and is resistant to bolting. However, in its second year it will produce hundreds of yellow flowers. Pods will ripen in June to July, yielding thousands of seeds ready to replant or save for the following spring. If seed falls to the ground, look out for Russian Kale volunteer plants, proving that the Russians are everywhere, ready to turn your garden into a Kremlin plot.
The thousands of seeds from just one plant are called ‘redundancy’. Many plants produce vastly more seed than one would think necessary. But the Almighty has put this abundance of seed in place. Furthermore, it means this author has several thousand seeds to distribute to those who would like some Russian interference in their garden.
Psalm 104:14 He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;
Kremlin connections?
If you are already a member of Christian Voice, you do not need a secret Russian communications system. Simply send a stamped addressed envelope to the Christian Voice office for your seeds.
We shall also send at least a hundred Russian Kale seeds to every new member who joins in August.
Both offers will be subject to first come first served. When the seed runs out, that’s it until next year.
Growing Russian Kale does of course raise suspicions over a possible direct connection to the Kremlin. It will be no surprise if President Putin has personally authorised every Russian Kale seed and sent them out to meddle in vegetable plots across the West. Expect a US Senate Committee to confirm this attack on our bland way of life very soon. Well, the name gives it away, doesn’t it? It’s Russian Kale, after all. It must be dangerous to NATO and its military complex.
But all I know is, it’s prolific and tasty. We shred the mature leaves finely and simply stir-fry in olive oil or butter. Or you can add young leaves to salad. Plant now, and you will just about get a crop before winter. Wait for the spring, and you’ll have veg for months. Your garden needs a Russian reset.
Attack on Nord Stream 2
Meanwhile, across the pond, any hopes Donald Trump had of a reset in trade relations with Russian have been scuppered by the veto-proof sanctions bill passed almost unanimously by Congress and the Senate. However, it’s just a clumsy attempt to promote US shale gas at the expense of Russian natural gas. Moreover it could easily backfire, as even the Washington Post is pointing out. Who destroyed the Russo-German Nord Stream 2 pipeline? And the EU does much more trade with Russia than does the US anyway. Russia will just trade elsewhere, as Bloomberg reports.
But symbolically the bill is bad for US-Russian relations. Already, according to the Independent, Russian expulsions of US diplomats have increased tensions. And that is precisely why the military-industrial complex like the sanctions bill just as much as the US shale gas industry. After all, it would never do if peace were to break out, now would it? Indeed former US Assistant Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts told RT these ‘interest groups’ ‘put their interests ahead of normalizing relations between nuclear powers’. We should be in much prayer for peace and against these men:
Psalm 140:2 Which imagine mischiefs in their heart; continually are they gathered together for war.
Administration, jobs and legacy
Where does all this leave President Trump’s domestic policy, his ‘West Wing’ administration and his legacy? It is hard to keep up with the comings and goings in his office. Is the man as shambolic as this in the appointments he makes in his business empire? Or is it just the ‘Deep State’, what we call the ‘Establishment’, that is out to destabilise him?
Wherever there are people in the world, they need jobs. Donald Trump promised much to the ‘rust belt’ workers of the US. We have seen signs of him reaching out to the unions but nothing much concrete yet, unless the mainstream media is keeping something from us.
But despite anything immediately visible, says Breitbart, a recent poll shows US working class voters believe Mr Trump’s Republicans, rather than the Democrats, ‘will help improve the economy and create jobs’.
President Trump’s real legacy could yet be in the US Supreme Court. He has already filled one vacancy with constitutionalist Neil Gorsuch. Three justices are now 78 or older. If two of those die or retire, the President’s nominees could put a brake on liberal sacred cows such as abortion, gay rights and transgenderism for a generation. Continue to pray:
1Timothy 2:2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
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BBC unwatchable on Gay Jubilee
Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the legalisation of sodomy. Consequently, the BBC will be unwatchable and unlistenable for a week at least.
Especially today, all BBC channels will be awash with ‘Gay Britania’. It is exactly fifty years since the enactment of the Sexual Offences Act 1967.
BBC reflecting the Establishment
One can argue the BBC is simply reflecting the Establishment. It is impossible to be a candidate for Labour, the LibDems or the Tories without being a ‘Diversity’ wonk. Plaid Cymru, SNP and Sinn Fein are almost as bad. And anyone Christian or just pro-family in government needs to keep his views to himself.
Moreover, in the broadcast media, Sky, ITV and Channel 4 news will no doubt be promoting what they will see as a joyous day. It is always interesting to discern between what is news and what is the advancement of the Establishment agenda. This author reckons BBC ‘news’ is usually 50% propaganda.
Nevertheless, TV viewers have a choice. RT (Freeview 135) ought to be free of homosexual promotion while Yesterday (19) and TBN (65) should be gay-free zones.
Never satisfied
The homosexual mindset is never satisfied. Neither with life as a whole, nor with sexual expression, nor indeed with political gains. It was never enough just to be left alone to do whatever they were going to do in private. As it happens, we all now know rather more than we ever wanted to about what homosexuals do in private. That is largely owing to the AIDS crisis, forcing gay charities like Terrence Higgins Trust to list homosexual activities in order of health risk.
So in 2004 Tony Blair enacted Civil Partnerships. The BBC celebrating that event with footage of happy couples. Nevertheless, civil partnerships were not good enough. Equally, gay politics had moved out of its Labour redoubt. Therefore, a Conservative Party Prime Minister, David Cameron, inflicted same-sex ‘marriage’ on the nation in 2013. More celebratory BBC footage, this time of gays getting gay-married.
And now the elite are moving on again. They want to allow anyone, for any reason or none, to change his gender at will. The Government have announced a new ‘Gender Recognition Bill’ for the autumn. Our story on that is here.
Homosexuality … universally condemned
How did it come to this? Was such a degradation of society in the minds of those who framed the Sexual Offences Act? Not at all. The 1967 Act was ‘permissive’ legislation. That does not mean it was part of the ‘permissive society’, although of course it was. It means it permitted something still illegal to happen in certain circumstances. The Abortion Act of the same year is another example of ‘permissive’ legislation.
So the Sexual Offences Act allowed acts of sodomy and gross indecency to take place in England and Wales between two consenting adults (aged 21 or over) in private. It was a Private Member’s Bill, brought in by Leo Abse MP, at the instigation of Antony Grey of the Albany Trust and the Homosexual Law Reform Society.
In the debates on the 1967 Sexual Offences Bill, MPs and Peers made clear Parliament was refusing to do anything more than permit homosexual acts in certain circumstances. This was emphasised again and again by, for example, Lord Arran, who said:
‘In all the discussions we have had, and in all the speeches, no single noble Lord or noble Lady has ever said that homosexuality is right or a good thing. It has been universally condemned from start to finish, and by every single member of the House.’
First Gay Pride March in 1972
Strangely enough, under a Christian legal system, there would be no need for the Sexual Offences Act. The Bible requires at least two witnesses before a court can convict anyone of a crime:
Deuteronomy 19:15 One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established.
If two men were doing something indecent in private there would be no witnesses. Accordingly, there could be no prosecution.
But the sentiments of their Lordships, no doubt well-intended, were to fall on deaf ears. Homosexuality would not now stay private. Activists held the first ever gay pride march in London five years later in 1972. Veteran campaigner Peter Tatchell was on it. He gives a valuable Gay Liberation Front insider’s view here.
Eschew ostentatious behaviour and flaunting
In a later House of Lords debate, one Lord Henderson slightly misquoted the Earl of Arran. In 1967, said Henderson, Lord Arran ‘asked the homosexual people of the future to comport themselves quietly and with dignity and to eschew any form of ostentatious behaviour or public flouting.’ Lord Arran actually used the word ‘flaunting.’ He said any evidence of it would ‘make the sponsors of this Bill regret that they have done what they have done.’
One homosexual activist, John Marshall, summed up the arguments of the Bill’s supporters like this:
‘The protection afforded by the Sexual Offences Bill, particularly for young people, was stressed repeatedly; homosexuality was a lesser evil than the blackmail which its prohibition encouraged; relaxing the law would make it easier for homosexuals who wished to be free of their practices to seek help from the caring ministries.’
The Sexual Offences Act 1967 was extended to Scotland in 1980 and to Northern Ireland in 1982. The latter happened after a European Court ruling and despite a campaign led by the late Dr Ian Paisley MP to ‘Save Ulster from Sodomy.’
Homosexual lobby group founded
Even twenty-one years after the Sexual Offences Act, in 1988, homosexual activity was still viewed with distaste. That was the year of Section 28, which banned promotion of homosexuality in the classroom.
Section 28 and its description of homosexual couples as being in a ‘pretended family’ energised gay activists. They founded the Stonewall lobby group in 1989.
Five years later, under John Major, Parliament lowered the minimum age in the Sexual Offences Act to eighteen. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 also permitted buggery on women.
The Christian Voice group was founded in the same year to inform Christians so they could pray into such matters and take action. But a tidal wave was approaching.
In 1998 activist MPs voted to lower the homosexual age again, this time to sixteen. The House of Lords objected. Undaunted, Prime Minister Tony Blair used the Parliament Act. Accordingly, in 2000 homosexual men gained legal access to sixteen-year-old boys. In 2003, his administration repealed Section 28. The Scottish Parliament repealed its equivalent in 2000.
In 2003, Parliament allowed homosexuals to adopt children. The following year saw civil partnerships. Also in 2004 Parliament legislated a lie. They passed the Gender Recognition Act. That allowed someone to go back and falsify his birth certificate if a doctor agreed he was a woman – or if a woman thought she was really a man.
Like a flood
Gay-promoting legislation was now coming in like a flood. In 2007 we had the Sexual Orientation Regulations, forcing Christian B&B owners to offer beds to homosexual couples. In 2008 Parliament abolished the offence of blasphemy and passed their own blasphemy law, a ‘gay hate speech’ law.
2009 saw the Equality Act placing a duty on public authorities to promote sodomy and transgenderism. And then David Cameron forced through the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act 2013.
It is difficult to promote homosexuality politically any more. The activists have achieved virtually everything. Accordingly, the BBC is simply leading today’s celebrations. Of course, reparative therapy offering people a progression out of same-sex attraction is still a target, because the idea there could be something wrong with being homosexual is anathema to the ungodly. Additionally, it is true there are still grumblings in society. For example, many parents still do not want teachers promoting homosexuality to their children. And the Independent says today that 42% of people in Britain still think homosexual activity is unnatural. Curiously, 59% of Brexit voters said gay sex was unnatural, compared to a quarter of Remain voters. (And if you want to know which countries in the world say sodomy is unacceptable, click here!)
But one UK institution in particular remains a thorn in the activists’ collective side. The stronger elements of Christianity are still holding out. Homosexuals demand full acceptance from the church. Tolerance is not enough. So our openly-lesbian Education Secretary has demanded churches offer ceremonies for people getting gay-married. According to the Daily Mirror, Justine Greening said: ‘I think it is important that the church in a way keeps up.’
Lift up a standard
The Bible shows God Almighty does not ‘keep up’ with wickedness. In contrast, the Prophet of God says:
Isaiah 59:19 So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.
And on this day of shame, this satanic jubilee, good Lord, that is what your Church is praying for. For men of God to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to lift up the Lord’s standard and press the Crown Rights of King Jesus!
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‘Choose your gender’ says UK Government
People will be allowed to choose their gender if the UK Government gets its way.
Change gender ‘at will’
The Independent reports: ‘Under plans being considered by ministers, adults will be able to change their birth certificates at will without a doctor’s diagnosis, while non-binary gender people will be able to record their gender as “X”.’
The paper says: ‘Changes to the law will be consulted on and will ultimately be included in a planned Gender Recognition Bill, set to be published in the autumn.’
In stark contrast, just before we went to press, President Trump announced a ban on transgender personnel in the US military, citing ‘the need to focus on victory’, the Washington Post reported.
And then, according to RT, in true ‘couldn’t make it up mode’, Rear Admiral Alex Burton, commander UK Maritime Forces, tweeted: ‘As a Royal Navy LGBT champion and senior warfighter I am so glad we are not going this way.’ As one of those you would be glad, Admiral. But as a husband and father you should know better.
‘This is a choice’
Education and Equalities Secretary Justine Greening announced the move as MPs set off for their summer recess last Friday. Just days before, Jeremy Corbyn urged the Conservatives to allow people to ‘self-identify’. The fiftieth anniversary of legalising sodomy also appears to have influenced the timing. The Queen gave her Royal Assent to the Sexual Offences Act on 27th July 1967.
The Labour manifesto included plans for self-identification. The Conservatives’ did not. Nor did June’s Queen’s Speech include a Gender Recognition Bill. It is safe to say that had the Tories included such a divisive measure they would have lost the election.
According to RT, Miss Greening ‘told Sky News on Sunday the state needs to “stop treating people changing their gender as if it’s some medical problem that needs fixing. Actually this is a choice that people are making and we need to try and make that choice more straightforward than it already is.”’
Suzanna Hopwood, a member of the sodomy advocacy group Stonewall’s Trans Advisory Group, agrees. ‘It is “vital” the reform removes the requirement for medical evidence and an intrusive interview panel,’ she said. Miss Hopwood went on to describe the current system as ‘demeaning and broken.’ (‘Broken’ is a fashionable word with which to criticise Government policy or a state department’s handling of something.)
‘Still a long way to go’
A follow-up article in the Indy shows Prime Minister Theresa May as wholly supportive. She said “when it comes to rights and protections for trans people, there is still a long way to go”. Her predecessor, David Cameron, rode ‘gay marriage’ roughshod over his party’s opposition. He even boasted about it in his resignation speech
But Tory activist Mary Douglas of Grassroots Conservatives strongly disagreed. Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, she said she was ‘very concerned’ about the move. ‘In my view it should not be easy to do something as massive as change your gender,’ she said. ‘And the law is there to protect us, normally from other people, but also sometimes from ourselves. I think many people have profound concerns about this.’
She went on: ‘It is profoundly unconservative. Conservative with a big C and small C implies continuity with what has gone before.’ She was asked if Miss Greenings’ own self-declared homosexuality had anything to do with the announcement. Mrs Douglas replied: ‘It’s a possibility.’ She continued: ‘But I’m not going to suggest anything I don’t know. I don’t know Justine personally at all but the bigger issue here is not who is … considering introducing this policy, but the implications of the policy itself.’
‘They are deeply troubled’
The liberal Huffington Post reports activists were up in arms about further comments from Mrs Douglas. They took particular exception to her suggestion that those with gender dysphoria have mental or emotional problems.
Mrs Douglas asked: ‘If somebody thinks they have a mismatch between how they think and the way their body is, the question is: which should be changed?’
Answering her own question, she said: ‘What’s interesting is that many people who have gender dysphoria also have other mental health conditions like depression or drug addiction. They are deeply troubled and it has been proven that when they change their gender, that doesn’t solve those issues.’
Activists called her ‘rude’, ‘bigoted’, insensitive’, ‘old-fashioned’ and even ‘disgraceful.’ Crucially, no-one appears to have put together a coherent response to show she was wrong.
The practicalities
We need to be very clear about why Christians need to oppose this measure. Just at a practical level, it means that anyone can just decide to be the opposite gender to the one they were born with. They will need no evidence. Just their word will do. In no other area would we accept someone’s word against scientific evidence. The evidence here is that of simple genetics.
The proposal is a voyeurs’ charter, allowing men to visit ladies’ toilets and dressing rooms. They will also absurdly be able to compete in athletics events this time against proper women. We could be seeing the beginning of the end of women’s sport. Sadly, in today’s post-truth world, being ridiculous will not stop this preposterous measure being enacted.
Additionally, the move will give a further push to the already-rolling transgender bandwagon. More children will start deciding they are ‘in the wrong body’. Shockingly, teachers and social workers have been encouraging such children. Doctors too are prescribing powerful hormones to adolescent children to delay or block the onset of puberty. Medicine is intended to cure. Puberty blockers harm. Sadly, medicine is not free of charlatans. Surgeons too are ready to mutilate people’s God-given bodies into what they think they should be. Some, as Mrs Douglas implied, will regret it.
Adults are meant to safeguard children from bad decisions. But instead, authority figures are taking vicarious delight in these wrong-headed childish decisions. They are perpetrating child abuse. Some school or local authority, in a few years’ time, is going to be sued.
Rebellion against God’s creation
Moreover, at a theological level, we need to recognise that transgenderism is far worse than sodomy, even than ‘gay marriage’. Homosexuality rebels against God’s institution of the family.
The Bible records this moment in Genesis chapter 2:
Gen 2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. 24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
However, transsexuals and transgender apologists are in rebellion against creation itself. If we go back a chapter in Genesis, we find the chromosonal reality of the division of the sexes as an expression of God’s very image:
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
God decides your gender, not you. Our generation wants to spit in the face of God. The church has to stand firm and proclaim the whole Gospel.
The economic and security dimension
This brings us to the economic and security dimension. When the UK voted to leave the European Union, all sides agreed our Parliament could now pass our own laws. The EU would not allow the UK that freedom. We expressed a hope that the UK would now repent and start to enact godly laws.
Allowing self-determined gender choice was not and never will be in a list of godly laws.
Accordingly, by enacting a measure in sheer defiance of God’s righteousness, our legislators are bringing even more of God’s judgment on us.
Furthermore, with Brexit negotiations going on and Islamic extremists stalking the streets, we need all the economic and security blessings – and all the wisdom – the Almighty can bestow.
Make no mistake, if our nation is doing well, we shall all be doing well. Moreover, Christian people want the best for those sad individuals caught up in gender dysphoria, for the nation’s children and for the country of which we are a temporal part. God’s words to the captives in Babylon still ring true:
Jeremiah 29:7 And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.
Meetings
This author is happy to visit any gathering to speak on these issues. Ring 01994 484544 to arrange a date.
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Boots in Morning-After Pill row
Boots has come under attack from a leading abortionist angry at the Chemist’s pricing for the morning-after pill.
According to the BBC, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) issued a press release on Friday 21st July 2017. BPAS demanded Boots and other pharmacies reduce the cost of what it euphemistically called ’emergency contraception’ Levonelle. ‘Levonelle’ is a brand name for levonorgetsrel. Bayer PLC market the drug in the UK.
‘Incentivising inappropriate use’
Currently, the progestogen-based drug Levonelle costs £28.25 in Boots. The store sells a non-branded equivalent for £26.75. However, Tesco have the branded drug at £13.50. Meanwhile, Superdrug offer a generic version for 13.49. Additionally, Superdrug charges £27 for Levonelle and £35 for something called EllaOne (qv).
Clare Murphy, BPAS director of external affairs, said: ‘Most people believe women should be able to access emergency contraception from pharmacies at an affordable price.’ We do not know what evidence she has for that statement.
The chief pharmacist at Boots UK, Marc Donovan, said: ‘In our experience, the subject polarises public opinion and we receive frequent contact from individuals who voice their disapproval of the fact that [Boots] chooses to provide this service.
‘We would not want to be accused of incentivising inappropriate use, and provoking complaints, by significantly reducing the price of this product.’
He added that the chemist wanted to avoid the pill ‘being misused or overused’.
‘Patronising and pathetic’
Labour MP Yvette Cooper chimed in on Twitter. ‘This is patronising and pathetic – keeping emergency contraception price too high cos you don’t trust women and are scared of critics.’
The morning after pill is a powerful abortifacient. Bayer say they think it stops ovaries releasing eggs. It might also prevent fertilisation by sperm. But the Mayo Clinic say some morning-after pills also prevent an embryonic human being implanting in the womb. While the BBC say the pill ‘can be taken in the days after unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy’, Bayer make clear Levonelle must be taken within twelve hours. The Mayo Clinic add ‘recent evidence strongly suggests that levonorgestrel doesn’t keep a fertilized egg from implanting’. They add: ‘ It’s not clear if the same is true for Ella.’
We have been wondering why the UK’s biggest abortionist is cheer-leading for Bayer’s Levonelle. After all, would not an over-the-counter potion reduce their own market? But it seems Levonelle has only a small window of use. Moreover, it does not always work. A woman can take it according to instructions. She can then discover she is pregnant despite that. Additionally, her mind has fully taken against pregnancy. Therefore Levonelle use may actually increase BPAS core business of surgically ripping babies to pieces. the same may be true of other ’emergency contraceptives’. Abortionists have said in the past that contraceptive use in general increases demand for abortions.
Around the United Kingdom
In England, Levonelle and EllaOne are free of charge from most sexual health clinics. Moreover, many GP surgeries and most NHS walk-in centres give them out free. The BBC added ‘The drugs are free only to women in certain age groups from pharmacies in some parts of the country.’ Note ‘certain age groups’. What they meant is some pharmacies and school nurses give it out free to teenagers behind their parents’ backs.
In 2002, supermarkets Sainsbury’s and Tesco gave out the hormonal drug free to teens. The move was part of a Government scheme. Christian Voice led a campaign with SPUC which put the brakes on Sainsbury’s involvement. Tesco proved more obdurate.
In Scotland and Wales, the pill is available free of charge on the NHS from pharmacies, GPs and sexual health clinics. In Northern Ireland, some pharmacies allow it to be bought on the NHS, Sexual health clinics and GPs in the Province make it available free of charge.
Boots caves in to pressure
By Monday morning, Boots had caved in. The firm was ‘truly sorry’ for its response and its ‘poor choice of words’. It would look for cheaper alternatives to Levonelle, perhaps not quite what BPAS had in mind.
Now, the BBC reported Laura Perrins from the blog Conservative Women. Mrs Perrins said condemning a pharmacy for setting a price on a particular drug was itself a ‘form of moralising’.
She said Boots should not be forced to reduce the cost, saying Levonelle ‘is a drug that is unlike others and is a drug that can be given to under-age girls without parental consent’.
But Sandra Gidley, from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, said the original stance taken by Boots was a ‘little uncomfortable’.
She said: ‘They seemed to be saying women would be irresponsible.’ ‘That can’t be the case because pharmacists have to ask a set number of questions. So if women are regularly trying to use the morning after pill as a method of contraception they’re simply not allowed to have it.’
Magaluf Mentality
Speaking on LBC, this author said a couple should not be engaging in conjugal relations if they were not open to the possibility of conception.
Furthermore, we take a medicine because there is something wrong with us. We have a ‘dis-ease’. So what ails a woman taking the morning-after-pill? Has fertility – or new life – now become an ailment? Levonelle and its competitors are not medicines, they are poisons.
Moreover, the availability of such potions helps bring about a ‘Magaluf Mentality’, after the depraved antics at the Spanish island resort. Intiimacy becomes recreational.
Thanks to our divorce culture, we now have a crisis of young people deprived of (mainly) a father’s love. They are desperately seeking someone to love them. When this affects girls, they are prey to any young man who takes an interest in them. The absence of fathers in a boy’s life decreases morality and accountability. Add in Levonelle and the rest of the morning-after-pill drawer and you have a perfect storm for debauchery.
And a nice source of turnover for the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.
Deuteronomy 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.
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Medway Council took children because home ‘untidy’
A local authority took two children into care because a house was ‘untidy’, a mother has told Christian Voice.
And now, seven years later, Medway Council are trying to send the mother to prison for speaking out about her case. This is despite both children now being over eighteen. Care proceedings end at eighteen.
Medway Council harmed boy with violent video games
Medway Council have a history of such intimidatory tactics against parents who refuse to play by the rules. Last month they brought contempt of court proceedings against a father for naming council employees on social media. Judge Richard Scarratt gave him 56 days suspended.
In January this year Medway Council also applied to send Eugene Lukjanenko to prison for naming his son. Judge Richard gave him his first 56 days, also suspended. Mr Lukjanenko says he was speaking out against the injustice he says both he and his son have suffered at the hands of Medway Council.
According to friends of the family, Mr Lukjanenko’s son suffered horrific emotional abuse at the hands of Medway Council after being taken into care following a one-off altercation with a neighbour’s child.
If there was ever a case for a local authority working with a parent to keep a family together, this was it. But instead, Medway Council took J into care at huge cost to the taxpayer.
Whether that is down to resources or ideology we do not know.
Moreover, they encouraged him to watch violent video games, including one played by Norwegian neo-nazi Anders Breivik.
We cannot name Mr Lukjanenko’s son without being in contempt of court ourselves. As he is a minor, we do not wish to anyway.
We are only able to name Mr Lukjanenko because Medway brought committal proceedings against him.
‘Hired gun’ psychologist says home-schooling causes ‘harm’
In the present case, that of the mother, we are at liberty to name all parties, but will wait until next week’s court case before doing so. In the meantime, Medway’s barrister, Edward Elliott, boasts about his involvement in the Council’s committal proceedings against the mother. He calls her ‘SR’ which is how we shall refer to her.
Nevertheless, some disturbing factors of SR’s case should concern all of us. Medway’s case at the final hearing on 4th March 2010 was that SR had harmed her two youngest children by pulling them out of school. Her daughter ‘C’ has special needs, while her son ‘D’ is above average intelligence.
Medway Council hired chartered psychologist Mr Graham Flatman to dig up dirt on the family. His comments should alarm every home-schooling parent in the land. He contended SR ‘had provided (‘D’) only with a limited and possibly distorted social experience’ and had ‘missed the opportunities offered by school for extended social contacts, extra curricular activities and the benefit of experiencing how a society of children and adults can function’. He concluded, ‘He had therefore suffered harm.’ On this point, District Judge Graham Green found otherwise.
It is legal to home-school in the United Kingdom.
Uncooperative with professionals
Having failed on home schooling, Medway turned on SR herself. Mr Flatman said she was ‘narcissistic’. She had ‘no insight into the harm and neglect the children have suffered’. He said she ‘should not have the responsibility of caring for her children unless she progresses through treatment and support’. What ‘treatment’? He did not say. Could it involve keeping SR away from looking glasses and pools of water? Whatever treatment it might be, Mr Flatman will not be providing it. He is far too busy writing reports for the family court.
Mr Flatman also said SR, a single parent, was uncooperative with the professionals. These are people who wanted to remove her children from the family home. Many reasonable people might also be assessed as having ‘distorted and paranoid belief systems about authority figures’ in such circumstances.
Indeed, it seems Medway Council were intent on forcing SR’s children back into school. The mother has a suspicion that Council employees were disgruntled she had chosen to home-school her two youngest children. In her view, care proceedings were a retaliation. Indeed, Medway applied to the family court for an Emergency Protection Order in February 2010. Moreover, the Council did this in secret without SR’s knowledge. Social worker Janet Western-Mullins then ambushed her with the order and a riot van full of police officers at her home.
Social worker ‘had no evidence’
Miss Western-Mullins told the court in her statement there was a ‘long history of reported squalid conditions’ at SR’s home. But she then had to admit these were based on one referral from a workman and a report from Medway Housing association in Feb 2008. She had actually ‘gone no further than the front room of SRt’s home’. She apologised for the exaggeration and ‘agreed that she had no evidence to support that assumption’.
But a police officer, Detective Constable Alexandra Smith, gave unchallenged subjective evidence supporting Medway. She said the garden ‘was a mess’, and there was ‘a litter tray smelling strongly of urine in the hallway.’
Astonishingly, and on this scant evidence, and despite SR having raised her three other children without incident, Judge Green found that the conditions of the home were ‘significant’ and ‘harmful to the children’. He made a final care order.
SR tells us that one Mark Noble, then a detective inspector in Kent Police, expressed what we shall politely call ‘reservations’ about Alex Smith’s evidence. He reportedly said the case was ‘laughable’. Mr Noble now offers his services on LinkedIn as a ‘safeguarding manager’,
We shall look back at this with shame
This is just the latest example of a council’s social services department putting more effort into securing a care order than helping a family stay together. Again a Council uses a ‘hired gun’ psychologist to damn the parent. We see a care order based on the most nebulous crossing of the Children Act ‘threshold’. And yet again we have Medway Council trying to send a parent to prison for exposing what she sees as the injustice she and her family have suffered.
Indeed, in case after case, parents tell this writer stories which speak of institutional, systemic injustice. In years to come, British people will look back at what the family courts did with shame. A senior judge will write a report about the parents who were deprived of their children without committing a crime. Politicians will make speeches of apology to the children condemned to local authority care and its poor outcomes.
Venue and Scripture
Medway Council will try to send SR to prison at Maidstone County Court . The address is Barker Road, ME16 8EQ. Judge Richard Polden will hear the case on Monday 17th July 2017 at 10.00am in open court . The rules say the hearing must be heard in public unless there are ‘exceptional circumstances’.
An embarrassed Medway Council will want to maintain secrecy. Accordingly, we shall expect an application from them to hear the case in private. And we shall expect Judge Polden to dismiss it.
Scripture says: Exodus 23:6 Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause. And:
Ezekiel 45:9 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel: remove violence and spoil, and execute judgment and justice, take away your exactions from my people, saith the Lord GOD.
We were asking Medway Councillors for comments on this story as we went to press.
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Charlie Gard: Why can’t his parents decide?
Stop Press (24/07/2017)
Charlie’s parents have ended their fight after a US doctor said it was now too late to treat their baby. What would have happened had Great Ormond Street Hospital simply allowed them to take him to the US in March, we shall never know.
(And do read Canon Giles Fraser on this matter in the Guardian.)
Original article:
Many of us are now asking one question above all in the case of Charlie Gard. Why does the judge not simply allow his parents to do what they think is best for their baby?
What is wrong with Charlie Gard?
Charlie Gard has a very rare mitochondrial disease, says an explanation in the Guardian. His mitochondria are failing to supply energy to the cells in his body. This mitochondrial failure is leading to damage to his body’s organs.
Charlie is in intensive care at Great Ormond Street hospital in London. Life support machines are keeping him alive because he cannot breathe by himself. The doctors say he has severe brain damage, and his heart, liver and kidneys are also affected.
However, Charlie’s mother, Connie Yates, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday that her son is responsive, enjoying tickles and watching videos with his parents. She also said that she had yet to see proof that her son had irreversible brain damage.
But the doctors say Charlie Gard ‘should be allowed to die with dignity’. That just means die, in plain language. Mr Justice Francis, sitting in the High Court, agreed death would be in Charlie’s ‘best interests’. How is that?
American hospital would treat Charlie
Moreover, Charlie Gard’s parents, Chris Gard and Miss Yates, have raised over a million pounds to take Charlie to a hospital in the United States. Doctors there are offering nucleoside therapy, an experimental drug treatment. It might not even work. It probably could not reverse what has already been damaged.
Nevertheless, according to the BBC, the family’s lawyers say ‘cutting edge genetic science’ gives a ‘small chance’ of brain recovery. It is a chance ‘worth taking’. The Bible agrees with that positive view:
Ecclesiastes 9:4 For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
The parents have taken the case to the Court of Appeal. They even went to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. But all agreed that to prolong Charlie’s life would risk causing him further suffering. The European Court gave permission for the hospital to switch off Charlie Gard’s life support systems. They said further treatment would not help him.
Pope and President Trump intervene
But then Pope Francis offered the services of the Bambino Gesù paediatric hospital’s neurosciences department in the Vatican. President Trump also expressed his support for the parents.
In addition, commentators in the United States are amazed at our legal process and decisions. News Channel 3 reports a CNN wire on the story with astonishment: ‘Courts will not allow the hospital to release the baby, Charlie Gard, into the parents’ custody so they can travel to try an experimental treatment.’
The difference is that in the US, law begins with parental rights. Here parents’ rights come second to the enforcement of parental responsibility to raise their children as the state sees best. This is coupled with the nebulous ‘best interests of the child’.
Consequently, Great Ormond Street and Justice Francis have taken to themselves the parental rights of Mr Gard and Miss Yates. Such a statist, secularist position simply cannot be right.
The Bible says: Psalm 127:3 Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. It does not say those children are a heritage of the State. Parental responsibility is grounded in parental rights.
People worldwide have given Charlie Gard’s parents huge financial and moral support. Plainly the Biblical position strikes a chord in the public mind. The parents have the money. They are not asking the NHS to pay for anything. Why can’t they go?
The case goes back to the High Court on Thursday. Let us pray for a righteous outcome. If not, the law must change.
They’re all backing London Gay Pride
Businesses and politicians fell over each other to support the London Gay Pride parade at the weekend.
The BBC reported: ‘With almost 50 official partners, ranging from airlines to mobile networks, and a list of over 60 supporters, companies are signing up to try to stamp out prejudice.’
Well, no, they are not trying to ‘stamp out prejudice’, BBC, they are simply trying to sell product. To do that, a bit of good old ‘virtue signalling’ will do the trick.
The inverted commas indicate that we have come to a strange place when supporting a group defined by vice is ‘virtue signalling’ in the first place. But clothing retailers such as Topshop are definitely adopting a ‘more progressive than thou’ stance.
London Gay Pride sponsored by Barclays and the Mayor
Costa coffee also went rainbow coloured. In addition to the opportunists on the street, the ‘Pride in London’ website indeed lists around fifty corporate sponsors of one kind and another.
London Underground is a sponsor, putting the six-coloured rainbow up at Oxford Circus with a slogan: ‘#LoveisLove’. Or five minutes in the bushes on Hampstead Heath.
Barclays Bank was joint ‘headline’ sponsor with the Mayor of London.
That’s devout Muslim Mr Khan. There is obviously a time and a place for Islam in a politician’s life.
Gold sponsors include Starbucks and Tesco. Tesco seem not to have learnt the lesson of their disastrous financial calamities following their £30,000 sponsorship of the 2012 Gay Pride.
Gay flag flying over Downing Street
Politicians other than the mayor of London jumped on the bandwagon. The London Evening Standard gleefully reported that the Houses of Parliament were lit up in rainbow colours. Well, after a fashion.
“The rainbow illumination of Parliament is our signal of support for sodomy,” said John Bercow, the Commons Speaker. Sorry to misquote him. Actually, he said: ‘.. of support for equality’.
Moreover, the Prime Minister flew the rainbow flag over 10 Downing Street. Thersa May put every true Christian, Othodox Jew, Muslim and for that matter every decent person in the realm, firmly in their place.
From protest to fashionable
Gay Pride has moved from protest to fashionable in forty years. However, not everyone in the gay sub-culture is happy. Peter Tatchell complained in the Guardian: ‘What began in 1972 as a protest for gay rights has now morphed into a commercialised, bureaucratic and rule-bound event, which too often reflects the wishes of the city authorities, not the LGBT community.’
The veteran campaigner went on to observe ‘a mere 26,500 people will be permitted to march. This is a fraction of the number who would march if it were a free and open event’.
Many might think 26,500 is more than enough dysfunctional people parading through our capital city. But when Gay Pride becomes as much a part of the calendar as Christmas, we need to take notice and start praying very hard for our nation to repent. And keep our passports up to date just in case the mind of God is for judgment on the UK, rather than for mercy.
Conversion therapy ‘abusive’, says Jayne
Meanwhile, one Jayne Ozanne, speaking at a weekend event in York, condemned so-called conversion therapy. This is where people who wish to be free of same-sex attraction seek psychiatric help. She said:
“Conversion therapy is condemned by professionals as being harmful to LGBT people as it is based on a misguided belief that being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender is wrong. This leads to increased mental health problems for LGBT community due to stigmatization.”
No, that’s not a ‘misguided belief’, Jayne, that is the plain teaching of scripture:
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Gen 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Lev 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
Mar 10:6 (Jesus said) But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. 7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; 8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.
And being ‘one flesh’, in that full wonderful God-given spiritual, emotional and physical sense, is something a pair of gays, or two lesbians, can never do. Moreover, the ‘increased mental health problems’ are from gays and lesbians knowing what they are doing is plain wrong. If it were from ‘stigmatization’, mental health problems for LGBT’s would be diminishing with greater media-driven acceptance. They aren’t. It isn’t.
Postscript
Just why is transgenderism an even greater assault on the Gospel than homosexuality? Click here to read about the Canadian baby whose mother (sorry, ‘parent’) insists she (sorry, ‘they’) has no gender.
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Saudi Arabia funding UK extremism
Saudi Arabia is the leading overseas nation funding Muslim extremist ideology, a think-tank has claimed.
The Henry Jackson Society is named after the late anticommunist US Democrat hawk. It has investigated links between a number of Gulf States and British mosques.
Its report, linked here, is published at a critical time. The UK Government refuse to release their own report on foreign funding of Islamic extremism. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt have ganged up on Qatar, accusing it of sponsoring terrorism. That charge now looks hypocritical. Qatar, of course, is home to the TV news station Al Jazeera.
Saudi Arabia ‘Foremost’
The report’s author is one Tom Wilson. He writes: ‘The foreign funding for Islamist extremism in Britain primarily comes from governments and government linked foundations based in the Gulf, as well as Iran. Foremost among these has been Saudi Arabia,’ he writes. He discovered that since the 1960s the Arabian state ‘has sponsored a multimillion dollar effort to export Wahhabi Islam across the Islamic world’. Naturally, the ‘Islamic world’ includes ‘Muslim communities in the West’.
‘In the UK this funding has primarily taken the form of endowments to mosques and Islamic educational institutions, which have in turn played host to extremist preachers and the distribution of extremist literature. Influence has also been exerted through the training of British Muslim religious leaders in Saudi Arabia, as well as the use of Saudi textbooks in a number of the UK’s independent Islamic schools.
‘A number of Britain’s most serious Islamist hate preachers sit within the Salafi-Wahhabi ideology and are linked to extremism sponsored from overseas, either by having studied in Saudi Arabia as part of scholarship programmes, or by having been provided with extreme literature and material within the UK itself.’
UK Wahhabist mosques increased 60%
The think-tank says the money pouring out of Saudi Arabia has increased in recent years. This has in turn increased the number of mosques in the UK promoting Islamic extremism. Giving references, the report says:
‘In 2007 Saudi Arabia was estimated to be spending at least $2 billion annually on promoting Wahhabism worldwide. By 2015 that figure was believed to have doubled. The impact of this increased spending may well have been felt in Britain. In 2007, estimates put the number of mosques in Britain adhering to Salafism and Wahhabism at 68. Seven years later, the number of British mosques identified with Wahhabism had risen to 110.’ That is a 62% increase.
Reaction of politicians
Politicians have reacted in various ways to the report. Labour’s Dan Jarvis, once suggested as a leadership possibility, endorsed the report.
According to the BBC, ‘Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has called for the immediate suspension of UK arms exports to Saudi Arabia because of its human rights record and involvement in military action in Yemen.’
Meanwhile, Theresa May insisted the UK’s historic relationship with the desert kingdom is important for British security and trade. She visited Saudi Arabia in April, and gained yet more arms deals.
The Independent reports recent UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia are worth a whopping £3.3 billion.
Extremism funding report ‘may never be published’
Tom Wilson says: ‘In June 2017 the UK government pledged to establish a commission for countering extremism.’ Accordingly, his report calls for this new body to prioritise the issue of foreign funding for Islamist extremism. It also deplores the Government’s refusal so far to publish a report on the matter. In January 2016, Prime Minister David Cameron told the Extremism Analysis Unit to investigate, as the Observer reported. Theresa May was then Home Secretary, responsible for the Unit.
But the Guardian said in May: ’18 months later, the Home Office confirmed the report had not yet been completed and said it would not necessarily be published, calling the contents “very sensitive”.
‘A decision would be taken “after the election by the next government” about the future of the investigation, a Home Office spokesman said.’
MPs must take notice
Well, that’s now. So where is the announcement of publication? Could it be the Home Office report fingers Saudi Arabia, our main ‘Gulf Ally’ and armaments market? The press has widely reported, for example here in the Indy, that Saudi Arabia and Turkey support and finance Sunni Salafist jihadist groups in Syria. This report in The Atlantic highlights the importance of Salafist ideology in the terrorist mindset. Muslim muhajideen fighting against US forces in Afghanistan or Israel in the Holy land are encouraged and too often funded by Saudi Arabia. But what if the Saudi-funded extremists were a bit closer to home?
We need to know. The UK Government must publish its report. But until then, the Henry Jackson Society have done a good service in this instance. They have shone a light into some very murky places. We can only pray our MPs take notice. The Governments’ first duty is to keep us safe. They must take action now to stop the flow of money from this repressive, barbaric, Islamist regime.
You can email your MP using this Parliament link. Ask your MP when the Government will publish its report into foreign funding of extremism.
Christian ethics would also demand an end to arms sales to the Saudis (as a start) In a complete rethink of our foreign policy:
2Chronicles 19:2 And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the LORD? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the LORD.
Luke 12:2 For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.
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Canadian mother puts transgender curse on baby
An eight-month old baby has been given a Canadian health card with no gender marker. The media claim it is the first case in the world.
A health card seems to be a little like a British NHS card. It is not a registration of birth. A Canadian court will hear arguments over the latter.
The child’s mother, whom the mainstream media, such as the BBC and the Independent, ludicrously insist on calling ‘the parent’, does not want to admit her baby is either a girl or a boy.
Transgender pronoun nonsense
Therefore, the Province has issued the health card with a ‘U’ in the space for ‘sex’, which could be for ‘undetermined’ or ‘unassigned’. Essentially, this is a case of a grown-up forcing her own prejudices on an infant.
Naturally, it was left to the Daily Caller, the thinking man’s Huffington Post, to reveal the Canadian tot is actually a girl.
The BBC says: ‘Parent Kori Doty – a non-binary transgender person who identifies as neither male nor female – aims to allow the child to discover their own gender.’ She has hired a lawyer to fight to omit the child’s gender from her birth certificate.
The BBC totally goes along with the fiction and the transgender pronoun nonsense. Its website says: ‘The parent gave birth to Searyl Atli in November at a friend’s home in British Columbia. Kori Doty, who prefers to use the pronoun they, argues that a visual inspection at birth is unable to determine what gender that person will have or identify with later in life. They want to keep Searyl’s sex off all official records.’
Kori Doty is transgender
Naturally, Searyl Atli is a ‘they’ as well.
The Independent chips in: ‘Doty claims a medical examination at birth cannot determine a child’s true gender because a baby might be intersex or grow up to identify with a gender that is different to their biological sex.
“When I was born, doctors looked at my genitals and made assumptions about who I would be, and those assignments followed me and followed my identification throughout my life,” they said. “Those assumptions were incorrect, and I ended up having to do a lot of adjustments since then”.’
Those ‘adjustments’ appear to be Kori Doty taking just enough male hormone tablets to sport a scraggy beard.
Clearly, charlatan surgeons have not yet adjusted anything ‘down below’ or in the nursing department to reflect the gender Kori thinks she is.
The Sun was not quite so bad, saying ‘its mum insists only the tot can decide what sex it wants to be’.
But the Sun signed up transgender Hayden Cross. Then the paper ridiculously called her Britain’s ‘first transgender dad’.
Daughter stands in the need of prayer
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation first ran the story about Kori Doti’s daughter. Naturally, CBC is just as politically correct. It quotes Kori Doty as saying: ‘I’m raising Searyl in in such a way that until they have the sense of self and command of vocabulary to tell me who they are, I’m recognising them as a baby and trying to give them all the love and support to be the most whole person that they can be outside of the restrictions that come with the boy box and the girl box.’
The Province of British Columbia refuses to issue Searyl a birth certificate with no gender on it. They only issued the health card so the child could access medical services.
Doty’s lawyer is one barbara findlay. That’s right, she objects to capital letters. Moreover, Ontario and Alberta are currently reviewing their policies to include a third, non-binary gender option on birth certificates. Doty herself is inevitably a member of the ‘Gender-Free ID Coalition’.
What will her daughter make of this nonsense when she is old enough to make decisions? Has her mother already cursed her with transgenderism? Or will she reject her mother’s words and her fantasy land? This daughter stands in the need of prayer.
Change coming to British Passports
Campaigners in the UK have already called for British passports to be allowed to include a third gender for people who do not identify as male or female.
The Government said earlier this year that it is reviewing rules on how gender is registered on official documents.
‘The UK already has strong laws in place to protect transgender people and we are committed to delivering further positive changes for them,’ a spokesperson said in April.
‘That is why we have committed to reviewing the Gender Recognition Act to look at ways of streamlining and de-medicalising the process for changing a person’s legal gender, as well as reviewing gender markers in official documents.’
The homosexual rebellion
The Queen enacted the Sexual Offences Act 1967 fifity years ago this month. The Act started the relentless promotion of sodomy and all things homosexual. Many of our readers might be tempted to say homosexual practice is just another sexual sin. However, it goes much further than that.
We object to all things sodomite on the grounds that homosexuality rebels against God’s natural order, that its activists clearly intended to destroy the family, that it brought appalling consequences of ill health on its practitioners and costs on the taxpayer, that those caught up in it would start recruiting the young, destroying lives along the way. Furthermore, we said the homosexual values of hedonism, crassness, self-absorption coupled with a disregard for self, others and the future would negatively impact on society as a whole. All that has come true.
At its root, homosexuality rebels against God’s institution of the family, found in Genesis chapter two:
Gen 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
The transgender rebellion
But transgenderism goes back a step. It rebels against God’s created order itself:
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
We know about the sad condidtion of ‘intersex’, where external organs are typically at odds with internal ones. It is extremely rare, but the South African athlete Caster Semenya is one example.
She/he was born with the external manifestation of female genitalia, but with internal testes. Real women athletes understandably object to racing against the testosterone factory that is Caster. They simply cannot compete with someone awash with male hormones and built like a brick outhouse.
But we do not hear Kori Doti’s daughter has been diagnosed with intersexualism. God evidently made her, like Doti, genetically a girl. It is just Doti’s self-centred lunacy which is causing the problem.
Perversion of medicine
It is sheer idiocy for society to just go along with someone who decides his or her God-given gender is not satisfactory. Such people need psychological, emotional and indeed spiritual assistance to accept their God-given gender.
What they do not need is doctors prescribing powerful hormone drugs to stop the onset of puberty. That is child abuse. Nor do they need ‘reconstructive surgery. That is a perversion of medicine.
It is like me deciding I am Long John Silver and expecting you to fund my operation to remove my leg and buy me a parrot.
In no other area of life would we accept such a life-shattering decision to be made on the say-so of an individual. If I said someone had hit me, I should be expected to provide witnesses to prove my case in court. In other words, the court would require some evidence.
Here there is none. Indeed, any sensible society would say: ‘your own genetics witness against you.’
But we now allow an individual to play God with their own body. The UK’s Gender Recognition Act 2004 started the rot, allowing people to go back and falsify their birth certificates. Now we are at the stage of a Canadian mother imposing transgenderism on own daughter.
Welcome, again, to the post-truth world.
Isaiah 59:14 And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.
Read:
Gender-neutral pronouns at Oxford
Anti-Transgender bus banned from Barcelona
Activism Marketing and the Transgender Doll
Transgender documentary spills beans (If you click on no other link read this one!)
Bexley children finally go home
Four children from a family rent apart by false allegations two years ago have finally gone home.
In early March 2017 Judge Diane Redgrave approved an agreement worked out between counsel for the parents, Hilary Pollock, and the London Borough of Bexley. Bexley returned the children to their parents on 29th March.
The Lord’s hand at work
The Lord’s hand was all over the case. He arranged for Christian solicitor Michael Phillips to instruct Miss Pollock. That proved inspired (of course) as the experienced family court barrister gained the agreement of Bexley to everything beneficial to the parents.
But after the March hearing, Miss Pollock shared with this author that Bexley never expected the parents to get through the process. Nor did they expect overnight stays in the family home organised for the children at Christmas 2016 and New Year 2017 to go as well as they did.
Accordingly, from the threat of a contested hearing, where Bexley would have continued to oppose the children going home, the council changed their mind a week before the date. Behind the scenes, the setting up of a new ‘Back Together Team’ in the Borough in late 2016 possibly had something to do with that.
Bexley took children into care after false allegation
The family’s nightmare started in June 2015. Their eldest boy, in his mid-teens, ran off after being caught out in a lie about his whereabouts.
Upon being picked up by the police, he reported his parents for child cruelty. All four children were instantly taken into care. The parents were charged and sent to the Crown Court. The only corroborating evidence was that of a doctor who saw a photo of a mark on the eldest boy’s body.
He thought it could have been made by a metal implement. However, he never examined the boy himself, and none of the other children made any similar accusation. Moreover, the police found nothing resembling such an alleged item in the family’s home.
Bexley social worker Judy Simon even contacted the mother’s place of work, a care home. The call resulted in her being laid off. Secondly, Miss Simon accused the father to his employers, British Transport Police. He was dismissed last year in another miscarriage of justice. He is currently appealing that dismissal.
Judge Redgrave gave the astonishing advice to the parents to plead guilty in the Crown Court. She said this would help them have their children returned. That may have been correct. If so, it raises yet more questions about the system. Nevertheless, father and mother stuck to their guns and maintained their innocence. On the eve of the Crown Court case their eldest son confirmed he had made it all up.
Video: Christmas Ruined by Social Services
Accordingly, the parents were acquitted. Despite that, the children stayed in care. Bexley Children’s Services callously told the parents they would need to apply to the court to have them returned.
The parents courageously told their story in a video on the Christian Voice YouTube channel. It is called Christmas Ruined by Social Services. Bexley’s reaction to the video was to threaten us with contempt of court proceedings if we did not take it down.
Despite that, the video is still there and has had over 96,000 views to date.
It must be said, in March this year Judge Redgrave could not have been more constructive. Discharging the Care Order, she congratulated the parents, saying they had ‘worked very hard’. She also suggested activities to keep the eldest son occupied. He was ‘Not the only teenager in the world’ to get into trouble, she said.
Prayer answered
Christian Voice members prayed hard for this family and against the injustice they suffered. The father says: ‘Every day I see the smile and joy on my children’s faces I pray for those that helped me be a complete family man again. My children too pray for them when we all have our family prayers together. Help me to say a big thank you to them all.’
If you prayed into this case, consider yourself thanked!
Judge finds father in contempt of court again
A father in dispute with Medway Council narrowly escaped jail for contempt of court in Canterbury County Court last week for the second time in six months.
Eugene Lukjanenko was charged with five breaches of an order made on 30th September 2015. The Order prohibited him from naming employees or ex-employees of the Council online.
To his credit, said Judge Richard Scarratt, he freely admitted the breaches. But His Honour rejected Mr Lukjanenko’s argument that his conduct was reasonable. Judge Scarratt sentenced him to 56 days in prison, suspended for a year.
The judge said: ‘The local authority may feel that is soft’. Nevertheless, His Honour had taken into account that if he imposed an immediate custodial term, Mr Lukjanenko ‘will be a martyr to his cause, a cause which in my judgment has no substance whatever’.
Previous contempt of court sentence ‘stemmed the flow’
In January, the same judge imposed the same sentence on the same defendant for naming his son online in breach of a High Court Reporting Restrictions Order. But yesterday, he said that had ‘stemmed the flow’ of the prohibited information. He said he hoped the same would happen this time.
The Order, made in the family court, forbad Eugene Lukjanenko from displaying the Names, Contact Details or photographs of any Medway Council employee any where.
How such an obvious infringement of his Article 10 right to Freedom of Expression came to be made was never explained at the hearing. The judge was solely concerned with Medway’s heavy-handed application to commit Mr Lukjanenko to prison.
Moreover, we are going to commend Judge Scarratt for his patience. He was dealing with an understandably upset father. The father’s first language is Russian. He continually wanted to raise what he sees as previous unjust treatment in the family courts and by Medway. He may have a point. There is little evidence the Council tried to keep this family together. And that is what we all think social workers should be doing, except in the most extreme cases of abuse or neglect.
Did he breach the Order?
The Crown Prosecution Service looked at the case under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and decided there was no case. That should raise a question about double jeopardy. In a convoluted bit of reasoning, barrister Edward Elliott, appearing for the Council, submitted that the CPS only considered one aspect of the case. Moreover, since they took no action, there was no double jeopardy in any case. This court could try the case, a point which Judge Scarratt was happy to accept.
Mr Elliott said: ‘This is not the criminal court’. So it was not about whether the conduct actually amounted to harassment. All the mattered was ‘did he breach the order?’
And of that there was little doubt. Mr Lukjanenko put the names of three social workers with their contact details (where those were in the pubic domain) on his Facebook timeline quite a while ago.
No compromise
The court heard that over the lunch break Mr Lukjanenko discussed the possibility of a compromise with Medway. This fell down when the Council refused to increase contact with his son. Nor would they bring forward a meeting scheduled for September to reconsider the frequency of contact. That seems mean-minded.
But the judge said the two issues, contact and the breaches of the order, could not be linked. Judge Scarratt actually heard the case in the family court. But this was not now the family court, he said. This was a civil court hearing for contempt of court in public.
However, in an extraordinary development, the court heard that Mr Lukjanenko produced a letter in the interval.
In the letter, signed by his son, the son said he wanted to come home. Mr Lukjanenko drafted it and gave it to his son to read and sign in his last meeting at the local authority contact centre. Although these were not family court proceedings, the judge was aghast. ‘Was not the contact supervised? How did that happen?’ he demanded.
Contact centres are intended to be heavily policed by social workers. Parents are not even supposed to tell their children they love them or that they are fighting to get them home. They may certainly not pass pieces of paper to them.
Reporting Restrictions
At the end of the hearing, this author drew Judge Scarratt’s attention to a Reporting Restrictions Order in the family court which forbids the media from naming the father or the son in any report on the case. However, ours is not a jurisdiction that quietly locks people up. If someone faces prison, the hearing must be advertised and the person named. Court Practice Direction, CCR (County Court Rules) 29 on Committal Applications applies. Rule 29.9 says:
9. A committal application should normally be heard in public (see CPR rule 39.2), but if it is heard in private and the court finds the respondent guilty of contempt of court, the judge shall, when next sitting in public, state –
(1) the name of the respondent;
(2) in general terms the nature of the contempt or contempts found proved; and
(3) the penalty (if any) imposed.
Judge Scarratt had to comply with the end of rule 29.9 as he was already sitting in open court. His Honour accordingly ruled we could identify the father by his full name. We are actually reluctant to do so, but the interests of justice require it. The onus is on a local authority pursuing a parent to prison to be aware they are enabling the identification of parents. They normally strive very hard to avoid that. We can only hope this does not lead to identification of the child in the case.
Medway Council pursuing another parent
Eugene Lukjanenko is not the only parent Medway Council are pursuing. We understand they are after a mother, who at the moment we shall refer to as SR. SR has published details about her case on social media. She sees a miscarriage of justice towards her and her children who are now, as we understand it, of majority age anyway.
Curiously, Edward Elliott, Medway’s barrister, boasts on his chambers page about his involvement in committal proceedings against SR for contempt of court. The mother’s case will be heard in July and we shall be there, God willing, to report on the case.
Previous posts:
Family Court Restrictions: father ‘in contempt’
Father fighting Medway Council faces jail for contempt
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Tories promise family courts reform
The Conservative Party promised reform of the family courts in their manifesto following a rooftop protest.
It is of course open to argument whether the manifesto commitment was a response to the protest at the home of Edward Timpson. Mr Timpson was Minister of State for Vulnerable Children and Families in the previous government. It follows he had responsibility for social services, child protection and to some extent the operation of the family courts.
Protest
The protest, on 8th May, was carried out by an aggrieved father who has fought a long campaign to be reunited with his son.
We reported on the father’s case in January when the local authority tried to have him imprisoned for contempt of court.
Medway Council asked a court to jail ‘EL’ for contempt after he posted a picture of his in-care son online. Instead circuit Judge Richard Scarratt imposed a suspended sentence.
HIs Honour instructed this author that we may only refer to the father as ‘EL’ and the son as ‘J’.
That is because of secrecy rules the family court employs to protect the reputation of the courts and local authorities.
The local paper reported on the 8th May protest here. And additionally here. Other parents have left comments which are worth reading.
Manifesto Commitment on Family Courts
Theresa May published her manifesto ten days after the protest, on 18th May. In it, she said:
‘Protecting vulnerable children and families’.
‘Placing a child under the oversight of social services and taking a child into care are amongst the most serious duties the state may discharge.’
‘We will demand all local authorities be commissioners of the highest-quality family support and child protection services, removing these responsibilities from the weakest councils and placing them in trust.
‘Finally, we shall explore ways to improve the family justice system. The family courts need to do more to support families, valuing the roles of mothers and fathers, while ensuring parents face up to their responsibilities.’
Moreover, the Tories were the only party to commit to any such reform. That in itself lends support to the view that the commitment was a direct result of EL’s rooftop protest.
However, the manifesto commitment did not save Mr Timpson’s seat. He lost Crewe and Nantwich to Labour’s Laura Smith.
Mrs Smith overturned a 3,620 majority. She won the seat by 48 votes.
Court appearances
The police placed the father involved on police bail pending a court charge in September. However, Medway Council are taking him to court again this Thursday 15th.
A judge will hear the case at Canterbury County Court. The Council seek to commit the father to prison for contempt of court this time after he named a social worker online. As it happens, he is perfectly entitled to do so under the law.
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Hung Parliament as Theresa drops the ball
After all the sound and fury, we have a hung parliament following yesterday’s General Election. You can check the results on the BBC website here. It looks very like the Conservatives will govern with the support of Ulster’s Democratic Unionist Party. The figures add up.
With one seat to declare, the Tories have 318 seats and Labour 261. The DUP had a good night, gaining two seats to go up to ten. The two parties, with 328 seats, would have a Commons majority.
We must pray the DUP will keep the Tories honest and a bit more moral on social issues. The transgender assault on schools springs to mind as something any government should oppose. And if Mrs May’s Easter message was not plain hypocrisy, sacking Christians for talking about their faith in the workplace must stop. We must have security and in foreign policy, the warmongering must stop. But its the impact on Brexit of a hung parliament which is looming large in the media this morning.
Proverbs 16:12 It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness: for the throne is established by righteousness. (KJV)
What went wrong?
Prov 16:18 Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
So what went wrong for the Conservatives? I said right at the start they should avoid hubris, keep it simple and not offend core voters. So what did they do? Thinking they would win handsomely, they got carried away with themselves.
Firstly, they refused to rule out National Health Insurance increases. That followed an attempted raid on the self-employed in the March Budget. So they told the self-employed they were going for them. That’s four million people and their families.
Secondly, they alienated the elderly and their families. They abandoned the so-called ‘Triple-Lock’ on pensions. They proposed to take away the rule that pensions would rise by a minimum of 2.5%. It may have been right to do, but it contrasted badly with Labour assurances to keep the Triple Lock.
Mrs May forsook the counsel of the Cabinet
The care cost floor, dubbed the ‘Dementia Tax’, was a hasty policy. It was neither thought out nor trailed beforehand. There was no Cabinet consensus or even discussion. The policy was inserted in the Tory manifesto after a battle between advisers in No 10. The outcry was predictable. Ditching it after just four days made Theresa May look, not ‘Strong and Stable’, but ‘Weak and Wobbly’.
Prov 24:6 For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counsellors there is safety.
Mrs May’s director of communications until the election was announced, Katie Perrior, told the BBC she “needed to broaden her circle of advisers and have a few grey hairs in there who been around a bit and could say ‘don’t do that'”.
2Chr 10:8 But he (King Rehoboam) forsook the counsel which the old men gave him, and took counsel with the young men that were brought up with him, that stood before him.
Who can be trusted to keep us secure?
Thirdly, the two terror attacks, on Manchester and London Bridge, focused attention on the relationship between security and foreign policy. People were able to see how the British attack on Libya in 2011 has put us all at risk. Mrs May, as Home Secretary, encouraged known Muslim extremists to go to Libya. Not only that, she allowed them to return here as trained jihadists. Mrs May made Jeremy Corbyn look strong on security.
Fourthly, voters liked the Labour Manifesto. I am not talking about extending the Abortion Act to Northern Ireland, recognising a state of Palestine and encouraging gay rights and transgenderism. I mean nationalising the railways and spending more on public services. These things chimed with voters. In addition, doing away with student fees brought out the younger vote.
Fifthly, Jeremy Corbyn came across as affable and genuinely interested in people on the campaign stump. Theresa May looked wooden and distant. Voters warmed to Mr Corbyn. They were somewhat put off by Mrs May and what they saw as a negative personal campaign against Mr Corbyn.
Proverbs 15:1 A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.
Effect on Brexit of hung parliament
As I write, the mainstream media are pretending the hung parliament result is a rejection by voters of a clean (or ‘hard’) Brexit. The BBC quoted former Chancellor George Osborne who told ITV: ‘Hard Brexit went into the rubbish bin tonight.’ But Brexit and the form of it was hardly mentioned in the campaign.
The party most defined by opposition to Brexit was the Liberal Democrats. Tim Farron’s crew gained a few seats but their popular vote declined. They took two seats off the SNP in Scotland but lost their only one one in Wales to Plaid Cymru. Their idea of a second referendum was shot down by the voters. The Scottish Nationalist Party, and their IndyRef coupled with flat opposition to Brexit, went backwards.
UKIP voters appear to have thought ‘Job Done’. If so, they thought wrongly. But in any event, most have returned to the Conservatives and Labour whence they came.
DUP did not mention the Single Market
Labour’s position was to accept the referendum result and try to maintain access to the Single Market, not necessarily by being in it. The Conservatives said they want to take the UK right out of the Single Market and the EU Customs Union.
The DUP stated their position as follows: ‘The DUP will work to get the best deal for Northern Ireland as the UK leaves the European Union.’ The DUP manifesto, which everyone is studying this morning, did not mention the Single Market or the Customs Union. They obviously want a ‘frictionless border’ with the Republic of Ireland. (Maybe the Republic will follow us out of the EU.) The DUP say they want a ‘Comprehensive free trade and customs agreement with the European Union’. As a party which never wanted to join the EU in the first place, they should support a clean Brexit.
Revelation 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
Should Mrs May resign?
The Remoaner Anna Soubry MP (Con) and Bilderberg insider and globalist Ken Clarke can safely be ignored. As long as the UK maintains EU-style protections for working people, there will be enough Labour votes to secure a clean break from the European Union in a hung parliament.
The media love a story and if there isn’t one they invent one. So apart from Brexit, their other topic of conversation is whether Theresa May should resign.
The view here is that although she dropped the ball during the campaign, she still won the election. No-one else would have any kind of a mandate. She should stay on and clear up the mess. She must sack her foolish advisers and listen to her Cabinet. In addition, Mrs May has some tough questions to answer on her record at the Home Office and her ability under pressure.
Set up a church meeting about Brexit
So those of you who were praying for some sort of Con-DUP coalition have your prayers answered. We now need to be praying for those in authority even more. And the Brexit debate is back on the agenda. In that regard, I am more than happy to come to your church or fellowship and share what I learnt about the EU and its revived Roman Empire on my travels last year. All the Brexit videos are in this link.
Just ring or email to arrange a time.
Malachi 3:16 Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name.
Prayer and the LBGT dimension
Pray for the Lord to extend mercy over this United Kingdom. In particular, pray for a godly government to be formed. Pray in particular for the negotiations between the DUP and Conservatives. Also pray for righteousness and wisdom from on high to penetrate and wash over the corridors of power.
Lesbian Ruth Davidson is the Tories’ leader in Scotland. She is about to get gay-married to her ‘partner’ Jen Wilson. She is very worried about the DUP and their staunch opposition to sodomy. Miss Davidson told the BBC LBGT rights means more to her than her Party. Mrs May has told her ‘gay rights’ will not be eroded in Great Britain. Furthermore, Mrs May will try to advance ‘gay rights’ in Ulster. We need to pray to the contrary. In addition, pray that DUP influence will mean the UK will stop promoting sodomy abroad.
Job 22:22 Receive, I pray thee, the law from his mouth, and lay up his words in thine heart. 23 If thou return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up, thou shalt put away iniquity far from thy tabernacles.
Prayer and Brexit
Keep praying for Brexit, for security, for an end to political corrrectness, for the rights of Christians in the workplace and especially for Christians in Parliament, of whom not a few are in the DUP, as it happens. Indeed, the media are now attacking the DUP. Their opposition to gay rights, mentioned above, and abortion are well known. But one or two of them are sceptical about climate change and evolution. They need our prayer as a group.
1Tim 2:1I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; 2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. 3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
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Ariana Grande wished fans would die
The singer Ariana Grande wished fans would die, according to 2014 report in the respected New York Daily News.
The paper reports: ‘While visiting a Manhattan radio station this summer (2014), the 21-year-old “Better Left Unsaid” singer should’ve left her thoughts unsaid.
‘I hope they all f—ing die’
‘“She did autographs and pics and was all smiles until she got into the elevator,” a stunned industry insider tells us. “And as soon as the doors shut she said, ‘I hope they all f—ing die.’ ”’
On 22nd May 2017, her death wish came true. IS-motivated Muslim bomber Salman Abedi took 22 innocent lives as he blew himself up at her ‘Dangerous Woman’ concert at Manchester Arena.
We ran a previous post asking why parents were actually taking their daughters (mainly) along to hear the potty-mouthed popstrel’s sexualised lyrics. A lesbian-themed launderette video still defiles her website home page.
But the new allegations must leave anyone with any sanity wondering why this young woman is still successful. If the reports are true, she despises her fan-base. Why do they turn out for her? Why do parents pay for tickets for her concerts? Don’t they even investigate her lyrics of lifestyle? A simple internet search and parents can easily explain to their children that she is nasty piece of work. Why don’t they love their children enough to do that and protect them from her influence?
The New York Times allegations are based, they say, on two separate witnesses. They are fueled by the singer’s reaction to the story. That fell far short of a denial.
According to the Daily Mail, Ariana Grande “said she had been ‘laughing out loud’ following the shock claims, in which it is said she blasted naive supporters in New York as soon as their backs were turned following a seemingly joyful encounter.”
Greedy
The Mail often runs stories which are not true, or are slanted, but here they quoted the NY Daily News and printed a copy of a tweet from the Ariana Grande twitter account. And indeed it said: ‘man some of these rumors which have been coming out about me lately have me laughing out loud – really can’t take ’em seriously’. That folks, is not a denial.
Also ‘coming out’ are reports that she charges fans $495 to have their picture taken with her. Such an amount is not out of the ordinary. But every other pop star has their picture taken with you alone. Ariana Grande has hers taken with up to six of her adoring fans together. That’s nudging three grand of dollars a shot.
New York Daily News reports: ‘Grande further dissed fans Monday by offering a $495 photo op for fans during her upcoming “Honeymoon Tour,” but stipulated that shoots are for groups of four to six people, not individuals.
‘“Really?” exclaimed one media industry tipster. “Bieber, Miley, Britney, Katy Perry all did individual pics when they sold these packages.”’
There’s a lot more about the sheer unpleasantness of Miss Grande-Butera on BuzzFeed here.
Ariana Grande says a lot about our culture
The ‘Love Manchester’ gig on Sunday 4th June should by rights be termed the ‘Exploit Manchester’. Ariana Grande is receiving exposure and virtue-signalling all in one. And making a few quid along the way, despite the charity emphasis.
But the character and nature of the centre of attention must focus attention on our civilisation. We have someone here who is crass, graceless, destructive, avaricious, self-centred, ill-mannered, foul-mouthed, indecent and got up like a prostitute. Far from telling her to repent and be saved by the blood of Jesus, the public and mainstream media fawn over Ariana Grande.
Parents encourage their daughters to watch her, to listen to her and to regard her as a role model. Then they will be surprised when their child comes out with foul language, insults them, dresses like a slag, turns lesbian or gets pregnant. Depraved, dissolute and disgusting hardly covers this culture. We are in decline, friends. We are just treading water at best, waiting for a stronger, militant people to destroy and supplant us. Now what could that militant culture be?
Ezek 39:4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
Luke 13:4 Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? 13:5 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
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