16/2/2018
Guardian view on religious education: teach humanism too
Religious studies voted among least important subjects
15/2/2018
Children’s rights activist Peter Newell jailed for abuse
Religious groups mount campaign against teaching about same-sex marriage
Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion adapted for the stage
Sex abuse claims were kept out of the public eye admits Oxfam chief
Single dads are more than twice as likely as lone mums to die early, study claims
Freedom of speech and the Welsh Assembly
14/2/2018
LGBT athletes making history at the 2018 Winter Olympics
Boy, 17, stabbed to death in east London
Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black are having their first baby
NHS powerless to stop anti-abortionists ‘harassing’ women seeking pregnancy termination
Labour backs compulsory labelling of non-stunned halal and kosher meat
Faith groups demand Government’s permission for homophobic teaching in English schools
13/2/2018
Transgender resources pack available for schools
Muslim threatens to blow up primary school, is spared jail time
Researchers prove that money does indeed buy happiness
High street betting machines hook 120k Brits and cost communities £1.2bn
Transgender Primark checkout girl wins £50k compo over toilet humiliation
12/2/2018
Farage warns ‘Brexit betrayal’ would plunge UK into crisis
Teen killed by single punch trying to protect friends from thugs
Thug punched toddler in the face and then sent video to her grandparents to blackmail them
Paloma Faith opens up about why she won’t publicly gender her child
Elton John’s dog attacked 5-yr-old-girl – and he hasn’t even said sorry
We don’t want gay marriage, says Bermuda. Oh yes you do, insists meddling Britain
11/12/2018
One in ten children now adopted by same-sex couples
Killer who strangled cellmate with shoe-laces is living behind bars as a woman called Sophie
Scout master fired for comparing Muslim leader wearing full face veil to Darth Vader
Tesco trolleys branded ‘sexist’ for safety instructions which show a woman in a dress with children
‘Christians don’t have equal rights’: Fury of prison chaplain ‘discriminated’ against
More than 120 charity workers accused of sexual abuse in the last year alone
Feminists protest over decision to let transgender women use ladies-only pool on Hampstead Heath
‘Overly sexualised’ Cambridge student May Ball video forced down
Booze deaths at RECORD HIGH as thousands of Brits killed by the bottle every year
10/2/2018
UK: Huge rise in knifepoint rapes and fatal stabbings while police focus on “hate crime”
Bankers pocket £111m as Foxy Bingo owner buys Ladbrokes – but up to 1,600 staff will lose their jobs
To take just a couple of items:
1. “Meddling Britain insists Bermuda has gay marriage”. this of course isn’t colonialism, that greatest of evils (evidently apart from homophobia, I suppose, as here) (sarcasm alert)
2. “Feminists protest over decision to let transgender women use ladies-only pool on Hampstead Heath”: ooh, I’d like to keep abreast of developments on this one. A battle of the favoured minorities: which one will win? There was a case in Canada not long ago of a lesbian suing a muslim barber who refused to cut her hair. THAT battle would have been fascinating, not to say hilarious. Apparently, it was settled out of court, I am unaware of any other details.
1. “Colonialism” is often thought of as an evil because it forces foreign rule on people and exploits them. There are (or were) more favourable aspects to it as well. But in this case, one should remember that Bermuda insists on being a colony ! It have often turned down the opportunity of independence. The last vote in a referendum was 74% not to be independent (FAR more than the British vote to leave the EU !) .
2. Considering only the swimming, not the changing rooms, I can’t personally see why women (or men) need separate ponds anyway. The water is no doubt very murky. But if there are to be three ponds, the idea that people can “self-declare” the right to use all of them seems absurd. Unusually, Mark probably agrees with me on this.
Those articles you think are raising the issue of absurdity regarding erroneous attribution of sex to humans (not seen a transgender frog yet) are actually for the purpose of trying to normalise this erroneous thinking. They are all in it together, and hence they all deal in evil.
I think the best thing Christians can do is just don’t take it seriously and don’t go along with it. They should also beef up their legal expertise in the cases where they are persecuted. Christians should also be aware of the manipulation of language. Be sure that you don’t pick it up unconsciously.
I do notice these things myself. If an organisation has not self-censored itself then I warm to them, and if on the the other hand, they adopt this nonsense I avoid them. To me it is a mark of which side you are on. If there is anything we would actually want normalised here it is the frequent demonstrations by as many as possible that they will not go along with it. Eventually the judges will get sick and tired of a combination of petty stupidity and being ground into the ground by a proficient legal representation. If you are one in a million to digress from the chosen path the government has set out, they will hit you badly, but if you are one of thousands, or even millions then the law will become a farce and have to be changed.
You are quite right Andrew, there is a ‘normalisation’ process going on. We list these articles not to partake of it but so that Christians can pray into it and mobilise the forces of heaven. But it’s a fine line we tread.
very sound and sensible thinking.
One way in which language is being manipulated is the way that people involved in crimes and possible crimes are referred to, even (and particularly) by the BBC. “Allegations” of sexual misconduct are treated as fact, and the victim of the allegation is expected to resign without any evidence or trial. Yet when police attend a stabbing, and find a man covered in blood with a knife in his hand and shouting abuse at bystanders, clearly taking full responsibility for what he has done, they call him a “suspect”.
It is perfectly right to call somebody a “suspect” until his guilt is clear, but it becomes ridiculous when his guilt is clear, especially if (armed to the teeth) he is still at the wheel of a vehicle which has run over a crowd of people, and he is triumphant about what he has achieved. On the other hand, if a woman says you touched her knee 20 years ago, you can protest as much as you will, but you are obviously guilty and you have had it, with a punishment out of all proportion to the alleged “offence”. Recently, an MP hoping for promotion apologised out of the blue for kissing some woman ten years ago, just in case she reported him for it and he lost a future job. This is ridiculous. I can’t imagine Lloyd George or George Brown doing anything of the sort.
Some invertebrates (and even some vertebrate fish, I believe) are hermaphrodite, but when one is acting in a male role he injects his mate with chemicals to stop her seeing herself as a male in future, which will make her a better mother for his offspring. (Or something like that) . Stranger than the frog which Andrew has not seen (but how could he know what a frog feels about its identity ? ).