Medway Council’s Emotional Abuse
A mother who says her two youngest children were wrongly taken into care by Medway Council was given a six-month suspended prison sentence at the end of last month by Judge Richard Polden
Sara Root told Christian Voice her children were taken seven years ago for ‘emotional abuse’.
District Judge Graham Green made a judgment which will concern home-schoolers up and down the land.. Medway satisfied the judge the son and daughter were suffering the said emotional abuse due to home schooling. This had given them, said Medway’s Ian Scrivens, a ‘skewed view of the world’. Despite attending a primary school, playing with other children and going out to the park and the cinema, they were not ‘socialising.’
Legal Statement
Sara Root was found guilty in July, as we reported at the time. But in July we did not feel able to identify the mother. Now that she has been sentenced, the court authorised this legal statement:
In relation to C00ME422. On 30th August 2017, at Maidstone County Court, His Honour Judge Polden sentenced Sara Root to a custodial sentence of six months, suspended for twelve months, for contempt of court. The basis of that sentence was that: (a) she had breached an injunction made under section 12 of the Administration of Justice 1960 on 13th December 2011 on ten occasions; (b) she was in breach of an undertaking she gave to the court on 12th December 2016; and (c) she failed to comply with reporting restrictions made at the same hearing. All of the breaches were occasioned by publishing material relating to care proceedings on Facebook and failing to remove it.
September hearing
Ms Root is now applying to the High Court to remove the injunctions. Her two children are now young adults aged respectively 18 and 19, she told Christian Voice. Therefore they are no longer subject to any care order. Not surprisingly, she would like to make contact with them again. But in a bizarre twist, Medway Council have applied for non-molestation orders on behalf of the two young adults. Their only evidence appears to be hearsay.
Social worker Kelly Hopper had to admit in court she was not even in touch with Ms Root’s children. Meanwhile, ‘support worker’ Lucy Conn has made a statement. We understand this discloses that the young man involved does not even want Medway Council to speak on his behalf. The case will be heard behind closed doors at the Royal Courts of Justice on 28th September.
Contempt removes some secrecy
The family courts are shrouded in secrecy. Those in social services and the child protection industry say this is to protect the children involved. But it also means parents cannot easily bring injustices to the light. The media are also loathe to report cases. Editors fear they may fall foul of contempt of court rules. So in practice, the secrecy rules protect the system.
The only reason Sara Root and Eugene Lukjanenko can be named is because Medway Council brought actions against them for contempt of court, which carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison. Family court judges still hear such cases. Nevertheless, the cases have to be held in open court in the civil court, rather than the family court. This is because the British legal jurisdictions do not ‘disappear’ people. Anyone facing jail must be named. This does not mean the media can then name any children involved, nor do we want to. But we can and shall name local authorities and social workers.
Medway Council rooftop protest
Meanwhile, concert pianist Eugene Lukjanenko occupied the porch roof of Medway Council offices in Chatham last week. He remains in dispute with Medway over access to his son in care. However, above all, he wants his son returned, and his son, who is 14, also wants to come home. With worrying similarities to the Sara Root case, Mr Lukjanenko also says his son his taken away for alleged ’emotional abuse’.
A group of people on the ground also protested against forced adoption & foster care. Two police cars were called to the protest, where four people were spotted handing out leaflets. A spokesman from the police said: ‘Officers have been made aware of a protest on a roof in Dock Road, Chatham. Officers were called to the scene at 7.21am on Tuesday 5 September 2017.’
One protester told the local KentOnline newspaper they were calling on the government to investigate the way in which children are taken into care.
Mr Lukjanenko came down from the roof voluntarily at 7.30pm. He was arrested on suspicion of aggravated criminal trespass and causing a public nuisance.
Earlier this year he was twice found in contempt of court for publishing details of case in social media. Mr Lukjanenko was sentenced to 56 days suspended for a year in January 2017 and again, for a separate offence, in July.
Emotional abuse in Medway Council area
The Government’s most recent figures show wide variations in numbers of children taken into care and reasons given. The discrepancy shows up widely in the contrast between the two councils in Kent. These are Kent County Council and, funnily enough, Medway Council.
Kent County Council took 1,049 children into care in 2015-2016. The population of Kent CC area at the last census was 1,541,900. Under 20’s were 360,605. So a Kent child has a 0.29% chance of being ‘in care’.
Medway Council took 539 children into care in 2015-2016. The population of Medway’s council area at the last census was 263,925. Under 20’s were 74,000. So a Medway child has a 0.73% chance of being ‘in care’.
In Kent County Council, 656 children were taken for neglect, 63% of the total and higher than the national average for England. The Council took 203 children for ‘emotional abuse’. That is 19%, which is lower than England’s national average.
But in Medway, 237 children (44%) were taken for neglect and 257 (48%) for emotional abuse. Given Medway’s far lower population, are we really being asked to accept that children in Chatham and Rochester are suffering ‘emotional abuse’ (whatever that is) over six times more than children in Canterbury and Ramsgate?
Or is something rather odd going on in Medway Council Social Services? And if it is, are we justified, to use the old Watergate expression, to ‘follow the money’?
The Tinderbox of North Korea
North Korea today set out a strike plan for the US island territory and military base of Guam in Micronesia, in the Western Pacific.
According to the Guardian, ‘North Korea has defied threats of “fire and fury” from Donald Trump, deriding his warning as a “load of nonsense” and announcing a detailed plan to launch missiles aimed at the waters off the coast of the US Pacific territory of Guam.’ The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) says it will launch four missiles into waters ‘30-40km’ off the US territory and called President Trump ‘bereft of reason’.
Sanctions against North Korea
On Saturday 5th August, the UN security council voted unanimously to impose new sanctions on the DPRK. But the sanctions and the threats from Mr Trump do not appear to have brought peace.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media have been keen to lay the blame squarely on North Korea. Only this morning, BBC news ran a piece in which a young boy on Guam, prompted by his mother and connected to London by Skype, implored Kim Jong-un not to bomb them. This was not news. It was propaganda.
Back in May, the United States was amassing its navy off the North Korean coast in a show of military strength. It was practicing bombing raids into the North. The North Korean military, for their part, have been busily testing missiles thought to have nuclear capability. The Pope urged diplomacy and called for Norway to mediate. How do we pray into all these aspects of what the papers call this ‘Hermit Country’? What has brought international tension over the DPRK to this point?
Would a more diplomatic, even a relaxed, approach have brought about a peaceful solution to the crisis already? Instead of an US apoplectic fit, what if a test launch of a North Korean missile was met with a shrug of the shoulders? Rather than isolation, what would be the result of a policy of engagement with Kim Jong-un and his crew?
After all, the Bible says:
Psalm 34:14 Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.
Proverbs 15:1 A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.
The sense of God’s word is that in general peace is good and wrath and anger are bad. Moreover, a bit of wisdom and diplomacy can defuse a dangerous situation. And in this case, it’s one that could adversely affect us all.
Religion in North Korea
Open Doors describes North Korea as the worst place in the world to be a Christian. Its ruling family are, in practice, deified. But this was not always the case. Historically, religion on the Korean peninsular was shamanic with elements of the humanistic Confucian self-improvement doctrine coupled with ancestral worship. In the nineteenth century there was underground Christian missionary activity. The state had focused on neo-Confucianism and repressed the nascent Buddhism and Christianity. But the materialism of Confucius was collapsing.
Romans 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Accordingly, in the 1880s the government allowed large numbers of Western missionaries to enter the country. Protestant missionaries set up schools, hospitals and publishing agencies. The king of Korea and his family tacitly supported Christianity.
When Japan’s imperialism spread to the peninsular from 1910 the Land of the Rising Sun tried to impose its religion of Shinto. Like Confucianism, Shinto believes humans to be fundamentally good. The difference is, for Shinto, evil comes not from poor thoughts but from evil spirits. Consequently, Shinto rituals try to keep these away by purification, prayers and offerings to the kami (the divine – hence ‘kami kaze’ = ‘divine wind’).
Christianity and Nationalism
Christianity became associated with Korean nationalism as Christians refused to take part in Shinto rituals. But a reformed Confucianism called Cheondogyo also took hold. Cheondogyo translated literally means ‘religion of the Heavenly Way’. The word ‘Cheon’ means ‘Heaven’, ‘do’ means ‘way’ and gyo means ‘religion’. Cheondoism is agnostic about an afterlife. It tries to create paradise on earth through inner peace, moral virtue and Confucian propriety. It shares with Christianity the aim of reforming society but lacks the power of the Holy Spirit. The royal family supported the ‘Heavenly Way’ movement as well. But a movement opposed to the Lord of life cannot end well:
Proverbs 14:12 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
With the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Japanese were evicted from the Korean peninsular. Sadly, the country was then divided into a Russian-backed communist North and an American-supported South. Many Christians in the North fled to the South. They included around a sixth of the population of Pyongyang. The Cheondoists stayed put. To the newly-installed communist rulers of North Korea, Christianity was now associated with Americanism. That state of affairs exists to this day. If you are interested, there is only one mosque in Pyongyang, in the Iranian Embassy.
Constitutional Freedom
In the DPRK 1992 constitution, Article 68 grants freedom of religious belief and guarantees the right to construct buildings for religious use and religious ceremonies. The article also states, however: ‘No one may use religion as a means by which to drag in foreign powers or to destroy the state or social order’.
This may give us a clue to the problem. Christian Solidarity Worldwide supports economic sanctions against North Korea. But it says: ‘Christianity is repressed most harshly because it is viewed as a foreign religion, and Christians are suspected of being spies.
‘In Pyongyang, there are four churches – two Protestant, one Catholic and one Russian Orthodox – but these are widely regarded as … show churches for the benefit of foreign visitors.’
The imposition of economic sanctions hardly mollifies the view of Christianity as a foreign, aggressive religion.
Threats from North Korea
In 1950, the North Korean Communist army crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded non-Communist South Korea. As Kim Il-sung’s North Korean army, armed with Soviet tanks, quickly overran South Korea, the United States came to South Korea’s aid. In the ensuing Korean War, all the cities of the North and many of the South were flattened. The economies of both were shattered. South Korea rebuilt faster with the help of its US and European allies. Mired in Communism, the USSR-supported North started well but collapsed in the 1990s (see below) and is only slowly rebuilding, hampered by continuing sanctions.
It is only sensible to view things from another’s perspective. Although the North started the Korean War, today its supporters argue self-preservation is more on its leadership’s mind. It has the historic enemy of Japan allied to the US across the Sea of Japan to the east, a US fleet parked off its coast, the US-backed South Korea to the South, and China to the north and west. A small border with Russia in the far north-east completes the set.
Threats to North Korea
Bruce Cumings of the University of Chicago reminds us (in thenation.com) that President Bill Clinton persuaded North Korea ‘to freeze its plutonium production for eight years (1994–2002) … Clinton also signed an agreement with Gen. Jo Myong-rok stating that henceforth, neither country would bear “hostile intent” toward the other.’ He claims the Bush administration ignored both agreements and embarked on a policy of aggravation:
‘Bush’s invasion of Iraq is rightly seen as a world-historical catastrophe, but next in line would be placing North Korea in his “axis of evil” and, in September 2002, announcing his “preemptive” doctrine directed at Iraq and North Korea, among others.’ The sense of what he is saying is that the invasion of Iraq, the ruin of Libya and destabilisation of Syria have made the North Koreans wonder if they are next in line for ‘regime change’. If so, they would be foolish not to take steps to defend themselves.
With (let us say) unpredictable and bellicose leaders in charge of both North Korea and the United States, we are driven to our knees in prayer. Mr Tillerson’s earlier threat of ‘preemptive action’ can only result in death and destruction. It would bring unintended consequences across the region and beyond.
Faint Ray of Hope
As well as the cause of peace for its own sake, this ministry is most concerned about our Christian brothers and sisters in North Korea.
The US library of Congress reported a faint note of hope in 1993: ‘In the late 1980s, it became apparent that North Korea was beginning to use the small number of Christians remaining in the country to establish contacts with Christians in South Korea and the West. Such contacts are considered useful for promoting the regime’s political aims, including reunifying the peninsula. In 1988 two new churches, the Protestant Pongsu Church and the Catholic Changchung Cathedral, were opened in P’yongyang.
‘Other signs of the regime’s changing attitude toward Christianity include holding the International Seminar of Christians of the North and South for the Peace and Reunification of Korea in Switzerland in November 1988, allowing papal representatives to attend the opening of the Changchung Cathedral in October/November of the same year, and sending two North Korean novice priests to study in Rome. Moreover, a new association of Roman Catholics was established in June 1988. A North Korean Protestant pastor reported at a 1989 meeting of the National Council of Churches in Washington, D.C., that his country has 10,000 Protestants and 1,000 Catholics who worship in 500 home churches. In March-April 1992, American evangelist Billy Graham visited North Korea to preach and to speak at Kim Il Sung University.’
Visit of Franklin Graham
In 2008 Franklin Graham also visited the country, taking in a considerable amount of supplies for hospitals on behalf of Samaritan’s purse. He preached in Bongsu, the largest of two Protestant churches in Pyongyang. Preaching. ‘is not allowed outside of churches,’ Graham explained to an accompanying Fox News journalist at the time. ‘We will be preaching Sunday morning in one of their local churches. But as far as taking a stadium like we would in the United States or in other countries, no, that is not possible here. Many of the communist countries, or former communist countries, only allow you to preach on church property’. Essentially, then, this is encouraging the converted, which is good in itself. However, it isn’t preaching to the lost, which Mr Graham has a particular heart for:
Rom 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
Nevertheless, we should not let the perfect be the enemy of good. Mr Graham, and his father before him, have been doing what they can.
Human Rights violations
In 2013, a different picture emerged. The UN Commission of Inquiry on human rights in North Korea now found that ‘the gravity, scale and nature’ of human rights violations in North Korea ‘reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.’
In 2014, the Commission of Inquiry went further. It said: ‘there is almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought conscience and religion as well as the right to freedom of opinion, expression, information and association’ in North Korea, as well as possible crimes against humanity being perpetrated against the North Korean people. The Commission also noted that the regime in North Korea “considers the spread of Christianity a particularly severe threat”. As a result, “Christians are prohibited from practising their religion and are persecuted”. Severe punishments are inflicted on “people caught practising Christianity”.’ It was ever thus:
2Tim 3:12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
Importance of The Family
Family and family connections are important to Koreans. Franklin Graham shared with journalist Greta Van Susteren a story about his father’s experience in 1992. ‘It is a little bit of a mystery, but President Kim Il Sung for some reason liked my father, and gave my father a big bear hug when he met him, and called him family.’
Which brings us to the importance of The Family of the DPRK. The aforementioned Kim Il-sung (15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) is the grandfather of the current leader. Evidently, historians accept that, while Kim’s exploits were exaggerated by the personality cult that was built around him after the division, he was a significant guerrilla leader against the Japanese under occupation. He became Prime Minister of the DPRK from its establishment in 1948 and President from 1972 up to his death. His birthday is a significant public holiday, marked by the sort of military parades we saw last month, and styled ‘The Day of the Sun’.
Worryingly, according to an online encyclopedia, ‘many North Koreans believe Kim-Il-sung is an “almighty god” who “created the world” in seven days as a divine spirit millions of years ago, and came to Earth as a human in 1912 as a messianic figure’.
The Guardian reported in October 2015 on Kwang Jin. Apparently, the North Korean defector was smuggled out of China by South Korean Christians, who renamed him Joseph Kim.
The Guardian says: ‘When he was very young he was taught in kindergarten about the magical powers of Kim Il-sung, then supreme leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Kim learned that the dictator was the smartest man in the world and that he was able to fly around the countryside keeping watch over all his children.’
Kim Jong-Un & Juche
On his death (1994), Il-sung was succeeded by his son Kim Jong-il. When Jong-il died in December 2011, his third son, Kim Jong-un, born in 1984, succeeded him. He gave titles to the deceased Jong-il reflecting Historic Korean ancestor-worship. Jong-il became ‘Eternal General Secretary’ of the Workers Party of Korea and‘Eternal Chairman of the National Defence Commission’.
US Senator John McCain crassly referred to Kim Jong-un as ‘that crazy fat kid’. Being rude is hardly a sign of statemanship. Donald Trump called him a ‘smart cookie’ whom it would be ‘an honour’ to meet. Of course, to North Koreans he is their Supreme Leader, and, like his father, ‘a great person born of heaven’.
The Kim family is also regarded as the custodian of ‘Juche’. This is a Confucian-Marxist semi-religious offshoot dreamt up in the 1940s. It is usually described as ‘patriotic self-reliance’ and has become the official state ideology of North Korea. Naturally, it is described as Kim Il-sung’s ‘original, brilliant and revolutionary contribution to national and international thought’. Juche says an individual is ‘the master of his destiny’. The North Korean masses are to act as the ‘masters of the revolution and construction’. Moreover, by becoming a self-reliant and strong nation they will achieve true socialism.
A Positive Effect
It is clear from the material on the Billy Graham Organisation website that Franklin kept to a personal message of the Gospel in his preaching in Pyongyang. He reported about his father:
‘”When we come to know Christ by committing our lives to Him, God comes into our lives and begins to change us from within,” Billy said after offering them a spiritual challenge. “And when we are changed from within, we become concerned about the problems of our world and we want to do something about them.” That is why I believe true religion has a legitimate place in modern society and why I believe Christ has a message for the people of the DPRK. In my experience in many countries, Christians – although often a minority – make good citizens and have a positive effect on their societies.’
Heb 12:14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:
From that, and we cannot disagree, one would think any government would welcome a body of people caring for their fellows because of their love of God. Surely it could only be good if they were praying for their nation and its leaders. Think of the blessing which could flow. What could any national leader possibly find objectionable in sentiments like this:
Jer 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.
Another King and Saviour
But there is a problem, and it is one which goes back almost two thousand years. Just like the Roman Caesars, the Kim family have become used to being subject to no higher authority. Those elevated to ‘Supreme Leader’ or ‘Caesar Augustus’ are regarded by the populace as divine. In a sense, they are the saviours of their country. All wisdom and all provision flows from them. But the Bible says it comes from God:
Prov 2:6 For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.
Matt 6:31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
We remember Richard Burton’s character of Marcellus in the 1950’s film ‘The Robe’. The Centurion promised to be a faithful servant of Caesar. But central to his Christian faith was the understanding that Caesar is a ruler under the authority of God Almighty. That suggestion was as objectionable to Caesar as it could easily be today to Kim Jong-un.
Christ is a literal King of kings, more than a mere personal Saviour and helper. The idea of Christ demanding to rule in the here and now over the affairs of men has been spotted in the DPRK just as it was in first-century Thessalonica:
Acts 17:7 Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.
Failure of Juche
According to the website NorthKoreanChristians .com: ‘The 1995-1998 North Korean famine starved to death an estimated 2 million people – about 10% of the population – and shook North Korea’s faith in Juche. The closed, self-reliant economic model it espoused was supposed to beat capitalism and conquer the world. Yet, there they were, unable to even feed themselves.
‘The fact that North Koreans are beginning to recognize the economic and spiritual bankruptcy of Juche is evidenced by the recent resurgence of shamanism. Having had their faith in Juche rocked, the North Koreans are turning to gods other than Kim Il Sung. The rebellion has already begun, at least spiritually.’
Fortune telling is illegal, but fortune tellers are everywhere, as people search for anything spiritual. But of course a more powerful answer to Juche lies in Christianity. The website says the Faith ‘is actually expanding’ in the North. Human rights activist David Hawk interviewed North Korean Christians in Seoul. Hawk writes, ‘Interviewee 29, a former Gugkabowibu police official who became disillusioned and fled to China and subsequently to South Korea, reported that North Korean officials are anxious to catch believers because they fear “Christianity will defeat Juche”.’ Hawk was able to use satellite imagery to verify the locations of prison camps the refugees said existed, but the DPRK regime denied.
A greater authority
Matt 8:9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.
As the officer knew, a man acting on his own authority has less authority than a man under authority. Jesus Christ acts on the authority of the God-head. Imagine if Kim Jong-un acknowledged Jesus Christ as King of kings, as his Saviour and Protector, and led his people in prayer for peace and prosperity. He would enjoy far more authority than he currently has.
One answer to previous prayer is that US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in April and May 2017 that Washington would negotiate with North Korea with a view to removing nuclear weapons from the country, and not changing the government.
He told NPR radio in the US: ‘We do not seek regime change, we do not seek a collapse of the regime, we do not seek an accelerated reunification of the peninsula. We seek a denuclearised Korean peninsula – and that is entirely consistent with the objectives of others in the region as well.’
But sadly, that more peaceful approach seems now to have disappeared from view, as more punitive sanctions are imposed and the DPRK and US leaders shout at each other. Yet all the sanctions in the world, all the big ships parked off the coast, all the threats and all the insults could do much harm but will achieve precisely nothing of any good.
Do good and seek peace
Psalm 34:14 Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.
The United Kingdom is historically a trading nation. Our ambassadors should be arguing strongly against economic sanctions against North Korea, or any other nation for that matter. Trade in goods leads to trade in ideas. The Security Council’s imposition of sanctions is a piece of ‘virtue signalling’ which will not improve the UK economy. Furthermore it will impoverish, not Kim Jong-un, but the North Korean people. The resolution will entrench the feeling in the DPRK leadership that they are under attack. Sanctions will increase tensions and lead to more expenditure on armaments.
It is an uncomfortable thought that although Mr Tillerson’s pragmatic diplomatic approach would in the end improve ordinary trading links, it would not benefit the armaments lobby which appears to run the United States. At some stage we shall post an article showing just how much money the likes of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and Northrup Grumman have ploughed into re-election campaigns on both sides of the US Senate and Congress.
Senator Bernie Sanders also urged a diplomatic solution after President Trump’s ‘fire and fury’ speech.
It would be a tragedy if the world went to war for lack of a ‘soft answer’.
PRAY: for our Christian brothers and sisters in North Korean. Pray the Lord deepens their faith, adds to their number and protects them. Also pray in the current crisis for diplomacy and understanding, for ‘soft answers’ to arise. As always, pray for peace. In particular, pray for President Trump and the UK Government and for all who think sabres are there to be rattled. Lastly, pray for Kim Jong-un to see himself as a man in need of salvation and the Cross.
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‘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 dispute Mother guilty of ‘contempt’
A mother in dispute with social services was found guilty yesterday of contempt of court. The case has not yet concluded so we shall refer to her as ‘SR’.
Sitting at Maidstone County Court, in open court, Judge Richard Polden held ‘SR’ had breached an injunction forbidding her from naming her children and reporting on her case online.
Furthermore, she gave an undertaking last December to take down the articles and then changed her mind, he said. The articles remained up on her page on social media.
Sledgehammer to crack a nut
Sentence will be passed on 30th August, said His Honour. In accordance with the rules, he must name the mother in public at the conclusion of the case. Barrister Edward Elliott, representing Medway Council, objected to naming the mother even at that stage. He said that would enable the public to join up her case and the details already legally presented about it on this website with her social media page.
But this author, speaking as a journalist and member of the media, invited His Honour to have no sympathy with that argument. Ours is not a jurisdiction which ‘disappears’ dissidents. The rules say clearly that a person committed to prison, even if sentence is suspended, must be named. The Council should have thought of that before employing a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Medway ‘verging on vindictive’
The two ‘children’ Medway took are now nineteen and eighteen. Any orders passed under the Children Act no longer apply. Medway complained about breaches occurring while at least one of the children was still under eighteen. But they do not wish the mother to post anything even now about her treatment by Medway Council. Furthermore, that treatment, on the face of it, appears to have verged on vindictive, as our earlier story detailed. Accordingly, to try to stem the flow of embarrassing negative information about Medway Social Services, they wanted the judge to make a ‘non-molestation order’ in favour of the children.
But Judge Polden was not confident Medway could present such an application on behalf of persons who are now legally adults. The Council even expected him to take merely the evidence of social worker Kelly Hopper in support of it. But when Kelly Hopper gave evidence against the mother for contempt of court, she had to admit she was not even in contact with the son or daughter. She only had a chat with their ‘support worker’. So when she laid it on about the children being distressed about their mother’s actions, that was mere hearsay. Miss Hopper had her speech off pat. She did not even read from notes she might have taken when purportedly speaking to the support worker. Her evidence came across as frankly contrived. So His Honour sent that application up to a High Court Judge to decide in September.
Using the system against itself
The case exposes the problems faced by local authorities who want to shut parents up. There is a growing number of parents aggrieved by the loss of their children and the injustice they say they have faced in the family courts. They are beginning to gather together in social media groups. And they feel they have very little to lose. SR herself told the judge: ‘I’ve lost everything. Medway have destroyed my life and my family. Send me to prison if you want.’
The truth is, the establishment can only go down its given routes. Suppose a parent (or even this ministry) shares information contrary to Section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960, which forbids publication of ‘information relating to proceedings … under the Children Act 1989’. Or a parent (not this ministry) names their child on social media contrary to Section 97 of the Children Act 1989.
All the annoyed local authority can do is apply for the parent (or journalist) to be sent to prison. They only have that blunt instrument of a weapon. But employing it creates more publicity around the initial injustice.
Additionally, the parent must now be named in public. When a respondent shows no fear of consequences and desires the publicity, such sanctions play into their hands. They are, in the classic expression, ‘using the system against itself.’
A previous Mayor of Medway writes
After emailing our previous story on this case to Councillors in Medway, one Councillor Stuart Tranter responded. Cllr Tranter was Mayor until Cllr Wildey took over this year. What he wrote perfectly illustrates the complacency of those in charge of Medway Council:
‘I always welcome the truth, and if you believe something is wrong I suggest you use the courts and other proper means to have the evidence examined.’
No, Councillor Tranter, we are the media. We are part of the Fourth Estate, holding those in power to account. Those in power include local authorities, social workers, advocates, judges and indeed councillors. We are not going to court, and what ‘other proper means’ are there? Media is a ‘proper means’ and the only court we shall use is the court of public opinion.
He goes on: ‘Cllr Alan Jarratt (current leader) and Cllr David Wildey are good people working hard for our community, yet you imply they are running a council which sets out to harm innocent people. But living in Wales, I doubt you know them or how this council really works. We may be imperfect, but we do our best to get things right with the resources we have.’
Indeed, us humble sheep-rearing folk know nothing of the high-minded ways of the Home Counties. But we can spot an injustice when we see one. Furthermore, a local authority and its councillors should display more humility than ‘we may be imperfect’ and acknowledge their mistakes.
He that troubleth Israel!
Cllr Tranter continues: ‘I found all I read about you and your organisation and your beliefs negative and disturbing, so I must assume you thrive on causing disturbance which reinforces your beliefs and gives you energy. I hope that one day you get the help you need to find peace.’
Wow! When you lose the argument, try the ad hominem attack. Now who was it who said, ‘You are stirring up trouble!’ The idolatrous king Ahab said it to the Prophet Elijah. Here is the full discourse:
1Kings 18:17 And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? 18 And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the LORD, and thou hast followed Baalim.
‘Baalim’ were false gods. Israel had departed from the laws of the Lord, just like Medway Council in stripping children from their parents because a house is untidy. Thanks for that, Councillor. And you will only find peace in the Lord Jesus, who told his followers:
John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
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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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