Despite calls for many Democratic politicians and pundits to temper their inflammatory rhetoric, this week has proven a further escalation in this dangerous form of rage rhetoric. DNC Chair Ken Martin just told MSNBC’s “The Beat” that “we may be nearing” the moment when “elections don’t matter and then the resistance looks completely different.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on people to “forcefully rise up.” With political violence on the rise, these leaders are clearly fueling the mob in hopes that they and their party can ride the wave of rage back into power. History suggests that it is a foolish delusion. Today’s revolutionaries quickly become tomorrow’s reactionaries.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who pictures himself brandishing a baseball bat has previously called upon people to “fight in the streets.” California Governor Gavin Newsom previously declared, “I’m going to punch these sons of bitches in the mouth.” Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger called upon her supporters to “Let your rage fuel you.” She then refused to withdraw her support for the Democratic candidate for Attorney General, Jay Jones, who once expressed his desire to kill his political opponents and his children.
In his podcast with co-host Al Hunt, James Carville was again spewing unhinged hate. He returned to treating Trump and others as Nazis and their supporters as “collaborators.” I previously criticized Carville for that analogy. He later attacked me.
Doubling down, Carville declared
“You know what we do with collaborators? I think these corporations, my fantasy dream is that this nightmare ends in 2029 and I think we ought to have radical things. I think they all ought to have their heads shaven, they should be put in orange pajamas and they should be marched down Pennsylvania Avenue and the public should be invited to spit on them.”
To be sure that his menacing words were not lost, he then added “The universities, the corporations, the law firms, all of these collaborators should be shaved, pajamaed and spit on.”
There was no later push back by his co-host Hunt or anyone else associated with the podcast.
As one of those Carville has already attacked, I expect he has a haircut and public humiliation in mind for me and a significant number of others deemed insufficiently committed to the resistance.
Even with the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the attempts on Trump and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, these politicians and pundits are still fueling the madness. Even with the sniper attack on ICE officers, they are still calling these law enforcement officers “Gestapo” and “Nazis.”
“What few today want to admit is that they like it. They like the freedom that it affords, the ability to hate and harass without a sense of responsibility. It is evident all around us as people engage in language and conduct that they repudiate in others. We have become a nation of rage addicts, flailing against anyone or anything that stands in opposition to our own truths. Like all addictions, there is not only a dependency on rage but an intolerance for opposing views. … Indeed, to voice free speech principles in a time of rage is to invite the rage of the mob.”
The appearance of guillotines has become commonplace in left-wing protests. From protests against Trump to those against Israel, the symbol of the Terror is being rolled out as a warning to those with opposing views: “We got the guillotine, youbetterrun.”
It is the ultimate expression of an age of rage. There is no question that it is protected speech. However, it is part of what I have called “rage rhetoric,”and it is meant to inflame others. It suggests that the only solution to these issues is what the French called “the razor of the Republic.” In the French Revolution, the irony is that those who turned the guillotine into the symbol of revolution were themselves beheaded on the same platforms. Robespierre and others would ultimately be dispatched in the same atmosphere of rage and revelry.
As my new book discusses, most revolutions are driven by establishment figures who seek to capitalize on the wave of popular rage to gain power. We are seeing that today with many Democratic leaders using rage rhetoric to appeal to the far extremes of their political bases. Some have. Protesters are burning cars, dealerships, and even lawyers and reporters on the left are throwing Molotov cocktails at police.
In the end, today’s pseudo-revolutionaries are likely to find themselves tomorrow’s reactionaries. Leading mobs is rarely a safe place to be as more radical elements take hold of a movement. The result is an inexorable pattern that runs throughout history as revolution devours its own.
A wave of moral outrage and justified condemnation is sweeping across the nation following the shocking revelation of events at the University of North Texas. Mere hours after the tragic assassination of conservative leader Charlie Kirk, a brave student, Mary Catherine, found herself subjected to a grotesque display of hatred and violence-glorification within her own classroom. This incident, which exposes a deeply sickening undercurrent on college campuses, stands in stark contrast to the values of decency and law and order championed by President Donald Trump.
According to her powerful firsthand testimony, Mary Catherine was in her quantitative methods class when a female student announced the news of the shooting. The situation rapidly devolved into a macabre celebration, with students actively seeking out the horrific video of the assassination. Mary Catherine described the scene: “She’s showing the video of him getting shot and everyone’s like, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ Right when it stopped, everyone starts clapping and cheering.” This reprehensible behavior underscores a complete moral decay fostered by radical leftist ideologies that have infiltrated higher education.
The hatred did not stop with the deceased. The mob mentality quickly escalated, with students explicitly calling for further political violence. “They were like, ‘This needs to happen to Trump.’ And they start saying other names,” Mary Catherine recounted. This direct threat against the life of a former and potentially future President of the United States reveals the terrifying endgame of the violent rhetoric often ignored or tacitly encouraged by the liberal media. It is a stark reminder of why the strong, America-first leadership of President Trump is so desperately needed to restore order and respect for life.
In a display of immense courage that should be commended, Mary Catherine was the sole voice of reason in a room consumed by hatred. She stood up to the mob, stating, “No matter what your political beliefs are, this shouldn’t even be being brought up in this class.” For her act of basic human decency, she was immediately attacked, ridiculed, and shouted down by her peers. This is the toxic environment that conservative students face daily, an environment where expressing a dissenting opinion or even advocating for human dignity makes you a target.
Perhaps the most alarming element of this entire ordeal was the complete failure of the university authority figure present. The professor, who had been silently observing the commotion, did not admonish the students laughing at a murder. Instead, he specifically targeted the one victim in the room. “The professor has been watching this happen, and he comes up to me, not to the other student, to me, and says, ‘You all should probably take this outside,’ and then laughs.” This blatant bias and dereliction of duty from an educator is a scandal of the highest order.
Seeking justice, Mary Catherine did everything right. She went directly to the dean of students, where she first learned that Charlie Kirk had succumbed to his injuries. Despite her clear distress and the severity of the incident, she was met with a bureaucratic runaround and profound indifference. She was told “We can’t do anything” and was passed from office to office, with one administrator even coldly informing her that the department chair only had “seven minutes” to hear her plea for basic fairness regarding an attendance record. The institution designed to protect her utterly failed.
BREAKING – A University of North Texas student is going viral for confronting classmates who were passing around a video of Charlie Kirk dying while laughing, and says the professor singled her out and asked her to leave class. pic.twitter.com/tNn9riEtrW
This story is a microcosm of a much larger national sickness, one that President Trump has consistently fought against. It is a story of a brave young woman standing against a woke mob and a complicit system that celebrates violence against conservatives. While the liberal media remains largely silent on such atrocities, the response from conservative leadership was swift. Representative Andy Hopper, who serves Texas House District 64, confirmed he has already contacted University of North Texas President Harrison Keller, Ph.D., about the situation, demanding accountability where the university itself has offered none.
It is arguably the most disheartening aspect of the “Age of Rage.” Almost immediately after the shooting of Minnesota politicians and their spouses, the press, pundits, and politicians leaped to capitalize on the tragedy by blaming the other side for political violence. There is a sick, almost hopeful, quality to the commentary as political pundits hope that they win this round of the assassination sweepstakes with a criminal associated with the other party. Initial reports fueled such speculation on both sides. Some are now saying that Boelter suffered from “MAGA disease” while others are claiming that he is a “far left” goon. Still others insist that he is “a far right, MAGA, left wing loon,”
Both sides found just enough to weaponize the shootings. Vance Luther Boelter has connections to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who reappointed him to a state board. He is also someone who reportedly voted for Trump and opposed the abortion movement.
As we have discussed, there is a rise in political violence in this country. From January 6th to attempted assassinations of both President Donald Trump and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, there is a radicalization that is occurring within our society. It is the license of rage that I discuss in my book where unhinged individuals believe that any means are now justified to counter a political threat.
The fact is that rage rhetoric has been common on both sides of the political spectrum for years. Politicians continue to fan these flames, including many who insist that democracy is about to die in this country, or call Trump the new Hitler. Leaders on both sides have called their opponents “traitors” and threats to the nation.
The fact is that we still know little about Boelter. He had “No Kings” literature in his car but that does not mean that he was motivated by those protests. We still do not know what is contained in a reported manifesto left by the shooter.
The only thing that is likely is that Boelter is another unstable loner who took his anger out on others. There are reports that he was in difficult financial straits and suffered a series of setbacks. He was the CEO of an international NGO called the Red Lion Group, which appears to have run out of funding. There are reports that he was holding a variety of odd jobs to sustain himself.
The fact is that we have a significant number of people who are mentally unstable or delusional. Anger in their lives is easily translated into a lethal obsession for public officials or public figures, particularly when leaders call on people to resist opponents labeled as traitors or tyrants.
The rush to claim Boelter as a devotee of the left or right only shows how these critics are engaging in the very rage rhetoric that they are supposedly condemning.
We should know the actual facts soon, including the contents of this manifesto. So here is a novel idea: perhaps we should wait for those facts rather than engage in this frenzy of recrimination and rage.
Would you be shocked to learn that Americans now view Joe Biden as the worst president of the last nine?
Of course, not — unless you’re as disconnected from reality as Biden himself or his dwindling pool of supporters. The idea of “81 million votes” now feels as believable as a fair game of three-card monte on a New York City sidewalk. Biden may have ridden into office on the crest of an alleged “historic mandate,” but history seems to have had the last laugh.
Let’s set the stage for this train wreck. According to an exclusive Daily Mail poll, Biden has managed to plummet past even the least flattering benchmarks of modern presidencies. The voters have spoken, and their verdict is devastating. Biden ranks dead last among the nine most recent presidents. Yes, worse than Nixon, who resigned in disgrace after Watergate. Worse than Jimmy Carter, whose presidency was defined by skyrocketing inflation and the Iran hostage crisis. Worse than every other president you could name—and you’d have to work pretty hard to find another to match this level of public disdain.
Hard to believe why it took so long for Democrats to impose the fatwa on Joe that eventually took him out less than 90 days before his ass-kicking by Trump. Laughably, Biden gets to keep his consolation prize of pretending to believe he beat Trump in 2020.
Here’s the breakdown of the poll:
44% of voters placed Biden in the bottom two, while only a meager 14% saw him as one of the best two. The result? A net score of -30, which buries him below Nixon (-25) and even Donald Trump (-15), who Leftist want to believe is a divisive figure.
James Johnson of J.L. Partners, the group behind the poll, didn’t mince words, calling the results “diabolical.” I’d call them a public performance review so bad it should come with a pink slip.
From 81 Million Votes to Bottom of the Barrel
Remember, Biden’s presidency began with that allegedrecord-breaking 81.2 million votes, surpassing even Obama (Baby Black Jesus) during his peak popularity? Well, it didn’t take long for the wheels to fall off the Biden express. Voters were told Biden would “heal the soul of America”—a vague slogan that feels as ironic of Biden “bringing decency to the White House”.
Biden’s presidency has been a highlight reel of legislative blunders, geopolitical missteps, and the kind of verbal gaffes that would make even the most forgiving of public speaker’s cringe. Inflation spiraled out of control, the southern border became a sieve, Afghanistan collapsed in a catastrophic withdrawal, and his administration championed economic policies that have left Americans wondering if we’re all trapped in a decades-long rerun of The Jimmy Carter Show.
Lies, Lies, and More Lies
Biden’s downfall isn’t just about bad policies or poor results. It’s about the lies. From tales of his supposed civil rights activism to his fictitious encounters with Amtrak employees, Biden’s fabrications are legendary. His latest scandal—the controversy surrounding his son’s legal troubles—might just be the final nail in his political coffin.
Let’s not mince words: the Hunter Biden saga is the kind of ethical quagmire that would sink any other politician. Biden’s deflection, obfuscation, and refusal to come clean about his role in his son’s legal woes have turned a bad situation into a full-blown debacle. His pardon of Hunter was a move so tone-deaf it would make Nero fiddling while Rome burned look like a masterstroke of PR strategy.
Biden vs. the Big Picture
So, what does this all tell us? Simply put, Biden’s presidency is a cautionary tale of what happens when you ignore merit in favor of narratives. He ascended to office as the “anti-Trump,” a figurehead for unity, empathy, and stability. Instead, we got a leader whose performance has left Americans more divided, anxious, and skeptical of government than ever before. The poll results reflect this deep dissatisfaction, with voters saying, loud and clear, that they’ve had enough.
Clearly, Biden’s legacy will not be one of healing or leadership. Instead, he will likely be remembered as the president who squandered his so-called mandate, mismanaged crises at every turn, and alienated the very people he promised to serve. From legislative failures to moral lapses, Biden has managed to become a punchline in his own tragic comedy.
The bottom line? Biden’s presidency is a masterclass in how far a politician can fall—and how fast. Whether through incompetence, dishonesty, or sheer hubris, Biden has managed to turn “the most votes in history” into the most dismal presidency in recent memory. As for his supporters? Even they must feel like they’ve been left holding a very empty bag.
History will one day move Biden from the worst of 9 presidents to the worst president ever.
It appears no liberal Christmas is complete without the ultimate stocking stuffer: an actual stocking to wear over your face while rioting. While not yet selling face coverings for anonymous violence, Crooked Media, co-founded by former Obama staffers Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor, is selling a line of Antifa items for liberals wanting to make a statement against any “Peace on Earth.” (As of this posting, Antifa items were still being sold on the “Crooked Store” site). You can now proudly wear your “Antifa Dad” hat to signal your support for political violence and deplatforming. It is the ultimate naughty gift list for putting the slay back into your Sleigh Bells.
These liberal hosts and their “POD SAVE AMERICA” show have been featured on various shows and courted by figures like Hillary Clinton. There is no apparent backlash for their support of one of the most violent groups in the world, which routinely attacks journalists and anyone who holds opposing views. Imagine the media response if a conservative site started selling “Proud Boy” items. Yet, Crooked Media is now offering liberals the chance to buy “ANTIFA” onesies for babies, a T-shirt for toddlers reading “ANTIFA” and other items.
Just to make sure that everyone understands the support for the violent group, a spokesperson for Crooked Media told Fox News Digital that the clothes it has listed on its website “are not a joke.” The spokesman added that “all toddlers are antifa until their souls are broken by capitalism.”
“Antifa originated with European anarchist and Marxist groups from the 1920s, particularly Antifaschistische Aktion, a Communist group from the Weimar Republic before World War II. Its name resulted from the shortening of the German word antifaschistisch. In the United States, the modern movement emerged through the Anti- Racist Action (ARA) groups, which were dominated by anarchists and Marxists. It has an association with the anarchist organization Love and Rage, which was founded by former Trotsky and Marxist followers as well as offshoots like Mexico’s Amor Y Rabia. The oldest U.S. group is likely the Rose City Antifa (RCA) in Portland, Oregon, which would become the center of violent riots during the Trump years. The anarchist roots of the group give it the same organizational profile as such groups in the early twentieth century with uncertain leadership and undefined structures.”
Despite the denial of its existence by figures like Rep. Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.), I have long written and spoken about the threat of Antifa to free speech on our campuses and in our communities. This includes testimony before Congress on Antifa’s central role in the anti-free speech movement nationally. As I have previously written, it has long been the “Keyser Söze” of the anti-free speech movement, a loosely aligned group that employs measures to avoid easy detection or association. Yet, FBI Director Chris Wray has repeatedly pushed back on the denials of Antifa’s work or violence. In one hearing, Wray stated, “And we have quite a number” — and “Antifa is a real thing. It’s not a fiction.”
Some Democrats have played a dangerous game in supporting or excusing the work of Antifa. Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison, now the Minnesota attorney general, once said Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. This was after Antifa had been involved in numerous acts of violence, and its website was banned in Germany.
Ellison’s son, Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, declared his allegiance to Antifa in the heat of the protests this summer. During a prior hearing, Democratic senators refused to clearly denounce Antifa and falsely suggested that the far right was the primary cause of recent violence. Likewise, Joe Biden has dismissed objections to Antifa as just “an idea.”
It is at its base a movement at war with free speech, defining the right itself as a tool of oppression. That purpose is evident in what is called the “bible” of the Antifa movement: Rutgers Professor Mark Bray’s Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook.
Bray emphasizes the struggle of the movement against free speech: “At the heart of the anti-fascist outlook is a rejection of the classical liberal phrase that says, ‘I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’”
Bray admits that “most Americans in Antifa have been anarchists or antiauthoritarian communists… From that standpoint, ‘free speech’ as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.”
Now, liberal families can bring a small part of that political violence into their homes for the holiday to pledge that there will be no peace or silent nights so long as opposing views are heard. Antifa has gone retail, and there is no better way to celebrate political violence and rage than your Antifa onesie.
With tensions rising after the election, the embrace of organizations like Antifa will only fuel calls for violent action. Liberal figures like ex-Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz have even conveyed support for the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan.
It is not the time to go full naughty list to celebrate a group that regularly beats reporters and others with opposing viewpoints. While this may appeal to your own special smash-mouth Santa, tis the season for political violence.
According to Gallup’s latest polling, support for a handgun ban has fallen to just 20 percent and support for an “assault weapons” ban has cratered to just 52 percent. Gun bans were a constant call from both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris over the last four years. President Biden often combined the call with dubious factual, legal, and historical arguments.
I previously wrote about the failure of politicians to acknowledge the limits posed by the Second Amendment and controlling case law. While there are good-faith objections to how the Second Amendment has been interpreted, the current case law makes such bans very difficult to defend.
In 2008, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, recognizing the Second Amendment as encompassing an individual right to bear arms. Yet, the 2024 campaign showed a belated recognition that the Administration has failed to galvanize public opinion in support of gun limits and bans. Harris came under fire during the campaign when she suddenly seemed to embrace one of the very guns that she previously vilified as it became clear that she was too far left from much of the country.
Years ago, I wrote that the rise in gun ownership in the United States, including among minority gun owners, was strikingly out of sync with the Democratic talking point. In 2019, support for an assault weapons ban stood at 61%. It is now barely at a majority.
The drop in support for a handgun ban is notable in that only 33 percent of Democrats support such a ban. The rise in gun ownership and the drop in polling raise another issue where Democratic candidates seem to be speaking to an increasingly empty room. The gun ownership rates are a problem for the party because most political issues do not involve a large personal investment by citizens. When someone becomes a gun owner, they spend hundreds of dollars on the weapon, ammunition, and other costs. The ban campaigns become more of a personal and financial issue for them.
Harris’s attempt to appeal to gun owners fell flat after years of calling for limits and bans. The question is whether the party is ready to pivot on this and other issues — and whether it can give its political base. That 33 percent is the core voting bloc in primaries even as the rest of the country moves toward the center of the political spectrum.
This week, I wrote about polls that show the public is not buying the apocalyptic predictions of the imminent death of democracy unless Kamala Harris is elected president. Now, a new poll shatters another main talking point of pundits and the press. Democratic candidates, including Vice President Harris, have denounced voter identification laws as “Jim Crow 2.0” attacks on voters. A majority of voters have long supported these laws. According to a new Gallup poll, that majority is now a supermajority.
Despite unrelenting attacks on these laws in the media, eight in ten Americans now support both laws:
With less than two weeks to go in the presidential campaign and voting already underway in many states, 76% of U.S. adults favor the concept of early voting. Two other election law policies are supported by even more Americans — requiring photo identification to vote (84%) and providing proof of citizenship when registering to vote for the first time (83%). …
Majorities of Americans favor a range of election law policies that expand voters’ access to the ballot box, including early voting, automatic voter registration, and sending absentee ballot applications to all eligible voters. They also broadly support measures to limit fraud and ensure election integrity, including requiring photo identification to vote and providing proof of citizenship when first registering to vote.
There are few major political issues today that could show this type of overwhelming support, including from Democrats. Yet, both the Democratic politicians and pundits continue to denounce these laws. Indeed, the campaign against Georgia resulted in their losing the All-Star Game and its economic benefits. Yet, under these laws, Georgia is setting records in the turnout of voters.
In the meantime, the Biden Administration is continuing to oppose and legally challenge efforts of states like Virginia to remove alleged non-citizens from their voting rolls.
Christina Lewis is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene—even before Hurricane Milton followed in its wake—nonprofit charitable organizations such as Samaritan’s Purse and Save Our Allies stepped up to help the storm’s victims.
The president of Samaritan’s Purse, Franklin Graham, told The Daily Signal in a telephone interview that one of the positive things he has seen is neighbor helping neighbor.
“If you’re going to sit in your house or your apartment waiting for the government to come—well, good luck. You’re going to be waiting a long time,” said Graham, the son of the legendary late evangelist the Rev. Billy Graham.
Meet Dianne Messer, who, along with Doug Warden, who is 93-year-old, run Big Oak Mobile Park in Hendersonville, North Carolina.
Dianne was kind enough to show me around the property and introduce me to some of the residence, many of whom have been without power for 10 days.… pic.twitter.com/tRZuvYhqi9
Meanwhile, Save Our Allies founder Sarah Verardo said western North Carolina resembles a war zone in the wake of Helene.
“We are seeing incredible hearts of helping and service,” Verardo said. “And our volunteer team of mostly Special Operations veterans is in there, working right alongside our government and private partners to just be the somebody and be in there making a difference.”
The organization has saved lives, including that of an 11-day-old baby born prematurely, she said.
The veterans on Verardo’s team said the destruction they see in North Carolina resembles what they saw in Afghanistan.
Notice the house on the left. A giant oak tree split it in half. The owner was home at the time and survived. pic.twitter.com/RWV2EQwenx
Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian organization that provides spiritual and material aid to hurting people around the world, has deployed more than 9,000 volunteers to help families affected by the hurricane. The organization sent three water-filtration systems to hard-hit areas in western North Carolina on Oct. 4.
(Samaritan’s Purse photo)
In a statement, Graham said the systems were originally intended to be used overseas, but now they are needed here in America.
“We are airlifting supplies, mudding out homes, removing trees, and doing so much more—all in Jesus’ name—and we’re thankful for everyone who is helping make it possible,” he said. “We want to remind each person that we help that God loves and cares for them and hasn’t forgotten them.”
The organization had delivered emergency relief supplies in more than 150 helicopter operations, Graham told the Daily Signal.
Meanwhile, Sean Lee, ground team commander of Save Our Allies, said people ask him every day where the Federal Emergency Management Agency is.
“It’s the community, the community of North Carolina, the community of helpers who are here on the ground making a difference every day to try to keep these people alive until there is a bigger response,” Lee said. “We hit communities every day that are just devastated. And I keep using that word, because I can’t find another word.”
FEMA allocated $650 million of this year’s budget to the funding of its Shelters and Services Program “to provide humanitarian services to noncitizen migrants following their release from the Department of Homeland Security.”
As of Monday, FEMA had spent more than $210 million on Hurricane Helene assistance.
Spoke with a Henderson County native, Tristin, in a Waffle House just south of Asheville. He and his wife have been without power for 9 days.
He called Kamala Harris a “phony.”
I asked him what he thought about FEMA spending $1 billion to house illegal aliens:
TV personality Dr. Phil McGraw has partnered with Samaritan’s Purse and Michaels Stores, an arts and crafts retail chain, to provide supplies to hurricane victims. In a video, McGraw said, that unlike FEMA, Samaritan’s Purse puts “verbs in their sentences” and “they’re out doing things” to help the victims of Hurricane Helene.
— Merit Street | Providing Clarity & Solutions (@MeritStreet) October 8, 2024
Graham said it’s a very worrisome thing that hundreds of people in North Carolina remain missing about 10 days after Helene dissipated.
“We can replace stuff and roads and things like that, but we can’t replace people,” Graham told the Daily Signal. “And, so, I’ve just asked people to pray for the families that have lost loved ones and those that are still missing.”
In prior columns, academic articles, and my book, “The Indispensable Right, I discuss the never-ending litigation targeting Jack Phillips, the Christian baker who declined to make cakes that violated his religious beliefs. Phillips continues to be the subject of continuing lawsuits despite the Supreme Court upholding his right to decline to make expressive products for ceremonies or celebrations that he finds immoral. Now the Colorado Supreme Court has dismissed an action brought by a transgender lawyer against the cake shop and its owner.
Phillips has been the target of an unrelenting litigation campaign for over a decade.
In 2012, Charlie Craig and David Mullins asked Phillips to make a cake for their same-sex marriage. As a devout Christian, Phillips declined. He would sell any pre-made cakes to customers, but said that he could not morally make a cake for same-sex marriages.
That refusal turned Phillips’ tiny bakery into ground zero for the long-standing battle between religious rights and anti-discrimination laws. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission found that Phillips must make the cakes under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA).
The case went all the way to the Supreme Court in what many of us hoped would be a final resolution of this conflict. I had long criticized the framing of the case (and other cases) under the religious clauses as opposed to taking this as a matter of free speech. In the end, the Supreme Court punted in a maddening 2018 decision that technically ruled in favor of Phillips based on a finding that the Commission showed anti-religious bias against Phillips.
As a result, Phillips was thrown back into an endless grind of litigation as activists targeted his bakery for additional challenges by demanding cakes with other messages that Phillips found offensive.
In 2023, the Supreme Court delivered a major victory for free speech in 303 Creative v. Elenis when it ruled that Lorie Smith, a Christian website designer, could refuse service to a same-sex marriage. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote “the framers designed the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to protect the ‘freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think.’ … They did so because they saw the freedom of speech ‘both as an end and as a means.’”
The decision was not just a vindication for Smith but Phillips. However, Phillips continued to languish in the Colorado system, spending over a decade in non-stop challenges and lawsuits. Because the Supreme Court could not reach a clear resolution, it left Phillips to the continued pursuit of activists targeting his bakery.
The latest dispute began when Autumn Scardina spoke to the wife of Phillips and requested a pink cake with blue frosting to celebrate her gender transition. When the shop declined, Scardina filed an anti-discrimination claim with the Colorado Civil Rights Division (“the Division”) under section 24-34-306, C.R.S. (2024).
In her complaint, Scardina suggested that this was not a targeting of the famous cake shop but merely an effort to get a birthday cake.
In the complaint, Scardina wrote: “Ms. Scardina repeatedly heard Defendants’ advertisements that they were “happy” to sell birthday cakes to LGBT individuals. Hopeful that these claims were true, on June 26, 2017, Ms. Scardina called Masterpiece Cakeshop from Denver to order a birthday cake for her upcoming birthday.”
The shop said that they could make such a cake. However, “Ms. Scardina then informed Masterpiece Cakeshop that the requested design had personal significance for her because it reflects her status as a transgender female.” When the shop noted that it did not make cakes for gender transitions, Scardina insisted that it was for her birthday.
Having established the basis for the lawsuit, she then filed an administrative action. Eventually, however, she jumped from the administrative process into the courts. That would prove the procedural problem for the Colorado Supreme Court.
Scardina prevailed in the lower courts but the case was dismissed by the Colorado Supreme Court on technical grounds.
Justice Melissa Hart wrote in the Colorado Supreme Court’s majority opinion that
“The underlying constitutional question this case raises has become the focus of intense public debate: How should governments balance the rights of transgender individuals to be free from discrimination in places of public accommodation with the rights of religious business owners when they are operating in the public market? We cannot answer that question.”
The most notable aspect of this opinion is that, after a decade, Phillips is still being dragged through the courts despite the fact that the Supreme Court has recognized his free speech right to decline such contracts.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has defended Phillips and Jake Warner, ADF senior counsel, stated “Enough is enough. Jack has been dragged through courts for over a decade. It’s time to leave him alone.”
It is doubtful that activists will heed that request.
Fox News’ Bill Melugin on Kamala Harris’ upcoming Arizona border trip as polls show more voters trust Trump on border policy. Former President Donald Trump holds a razor-thin two-point edge over Vice President Kamala Harris in battleground Arizona, according to a new public opinion poll. Fueling the former president’s margin appears to be support from voters age 50 and over.
Trump stands at 49% among likely voters in Arizona, with Harris at 47%, according to an AARP poll conducted Sept. 24-Oct. 1 and released on Tuesday. According to the survey, Green Party candidate Jill Stein grabs 1% support, with 3% undecided.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall on Thursday in Tucson, Arizona. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
“Among voters 50+, Trump is ahead by 7 points, driven by a 14-point lead among voters 50-64,” the poll’s release highlights.
Harris holds a 4-point advantage among voters under 50, according to the survey, “while the race is a tossup with seniors.”
The poll also points to a gender gap in Arizona which favors Trump. The former president and Republican nominee is up 11-points over the vice president and Democratic nominee among men, but down only 6 points among female voters, the survey indicates.
While on the presidential campaign trail stopping in battleground states, Vice President Kamala Harris walks out into a packed rally in Glendale, Arizona, on Friday, Aug. 9, 2024. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The survey is the latest to indicate a margin of error race between Harris and Trump in Arizona, a state President Biden narrowly carried over Trump in the 2020 election.
Arizona’s one of seven crucial battlegrounds whose razor-thin margins decided Biden’s White House victory four years ago and are likely to determine if Harris or Trump win the 2024 election.
The survey was released on the eve of the kick-off of early in-person voting in Arizona.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump during their first and likely only presidential debate in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The major party vice presidential nominees – Sen. JD Vance of Ohio and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota – each hold campaign events in Arizona on Wednesday. Harris returns to the state on Friday.
Besides being a crucial presidential swing state, Arizona is also holding one of a handful of competitive Senate elections that will decide if the GOP wins back the chamber’s majority. The AARP poll indicates Democratic Senate nominee Rep. Rueben Gallego holding a 51%-44% lead over Republican nominee Kari Lake, a former news anchor who narrowly lost the state’s 2022 gubernatorial election.
The AARP poll was conducted by the bipartisan polling team of Fabrizio Ward (Republican) & Impact Research (Democrat). The firms interviewed 1,358 likely voters in Arizona. The survey’s overall sampling error is plus or minus four percentage points.
MUST LISTEN 🚨 Kamala Harris Admin ARRESTED a man for bringing helicopter full of supplies to Hurricane Helene victims
“There was a man that took off yesterday in his helicopter to go up in the mountains to drop off food. He landed and got arrested and said he was interfering… pic.twitter.com/I0OjFyVqMq
“It’s over, the choice is clear. You don’t have to like him but you see what America first was and now we see what America last is. You can’t defend this administration.”
WEAPONIZATION: Elon Musk posted that one of his SpaceX engineers on the ground in North Carolina is reporting that FEMA is blocking and seizing shipments of aid including Starlink receivers. The engineer reports that all Starlink shipments are on hold until they can get an escort… https://t.co/E3PqcsmHSapic.twitter.com/YwkzZjjsU1
This is disturbing. Land grab of Chimney Rock, NC. Town to be bulldozed before removal of the deceased. Sicking and disrespectful. America is truly lost. Lord help us. pic.twitter.com/lXMg2nvWx9
Biden has ordered a stand down of over a thousand military helicopter crews in the south. Every branch is reporting that they are waiting on orders while people die. This is an unprecedented action by the Biden/Harris crime syndicate. The hurricane conveniently destroyed the… https://t.co/YdcE7y3Tpd
A group of private helicopter pilots working *on their own* at great risk to rescue people deep in the mountains of storm-ravaged Western North Carolina. Their time, money, heart, soul. Their day started like this. pic.twitter.com/XUChBt8AjW
“They are literally allowing this people to fvcking die in the mountains right now because we can’t get helicopters.”
Jonathan Howard with the Florida State Guard Special Mission Unit who is assisting Aerial Recovery says they desperately NEED… pic.twitter.com/EtWrkYtYc4
Hurricane Helene: Tennessee Resident Says Tennessee/ FEMA Sending Out Text Messages Telling Everyone Do Not Help Neighbors In Need
Messages saying “We don't want you to donate stuff to other people. You need to just donate money and stuff to us and get your instructions from us… pic.twitter.com/gzuF8owjmF
MUST WATCH & MUST SHARE ! If you don’t fear the government yet , you will after watching this 👇 Apply logic to your question WHY ! So they can make life of disaster victims as miserable as possible ; where people give up , leave their homes never to return…. #AbandonedAmericapic.twitter.com/GtdzuTTBqz
We have previously discussed schools such as Harvard, Yale, and even courts removing portraits of white people in the name of inclusivity despite complaints that the left is engaging in its own form of racism. The media as praised these efforts and, in one case, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow spurred Rockefeller University to change what she derided as the “Dude Wall.” Now Canada’s Dalhousie University Medical School has joined these ranks in ordering the removal of former “old” and “white” deans in a campaign to “put people first” … with some obvious exceptions.
Dean of Medicine David Anderson announced the portrait cleansing in a message as part of the school’s “Valuing People” initiative. He declared that showing former white deans was inimical to “creating positive, safe, and inclusive environments for people to thrive.”
He claimed that the appearance of white people in the portraits make students feel unwelcomed and “dominated by senior male white leaders.” In other words, their race was viewed as interfering with maintaining a healthy and friendly environment.
This exclusion was all done in the name of inclusion, part of the Orwellian logic of today’s culture in higher education.
What is lost is the history of the institution and the recognition of those who built the medical school regardless of their race. Whatever they may have done for the school has been now superseded by their race and gender. As greater gender and racial diversity is achieved, those portraits show an institutional progression that is reflective of a changing society and profession.
Below is my column in The Hill on the controversies surrounding the Paris Olympics. Criticisms of the Opening Ceremony continue with the Vatican weighing in this week to condemn the scenes discussed below.
Here is the column:
“I wanted no part of politics.” Those words of Jesse Owens after the 1936 Olympics echoed in my mind as I watched the string of controversies emerge from the Paris games.
From the scenes in the Opening Ceremony to even the food service in the Olympic village, the 2024 Olympics sometimes seemed like a clash not of individual athletes but of political agendas.
The Opening Ceremony of director Thomas Jolly is still raising protests from religious and other groups over two controversial segments. In one scene, three young people are shown flirting in a library while reading books like “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” (Dangerous Liaisons) and “Le Diable au Corps” (Devil in the Flesh). They then run to an apartment for what was clearly a threesome sex-romp, culminating in the participants pushing the cameraman out of the bedroom.
Many people (including me) could not care less about who or how many people you have sex with. Many also would prefer not to have to explain to kids watching what the scene meant if they failed to pick up the meaning from the hot stairway kissing scene.
Then there was the feast scene, featuring DJ and producer Barbara Butch, described as “an LGBTQ+ icon who calls herself a ‘love activist.’” For many, the tableau evoked Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” — an image that was brought home for many by the Christ-like halo worn by Butch in the center.
For the record, I loved many parts of the Opening Ceremony with its stunning imagery and wonderful music. I also welcomed the inclusion of scenes with gay or trans people to show the diversity of French culture.
But for games that are supposed to serve as a shared experience for a world composed of many religions, cultures and practices, these two scenes were gratuitously divisive. Why was a threesome sex romp so vital to the vision of these Olympics?
For many, the hoisting of the Olympic flag upside down seemed to capture the approach of the French organizers. The games are supposed to capture our shared love of sports and ability to come together as a world for these games.
But that was only the beginning of the controversies, as the games appeared to make political and social divisions into an Olympic sport. It seemed like every aspect of the games, no matter how small, had to “make a point.”
For example, the environmentalists prevailed in pushing a green agenda that succeeded in not only producing possibly more carbon emissions but certainly pushing many nations over the edge.
Athletes have complained that their performances were undermined by the conditions at the village. That included “green beds” made of cardboard — beds that are ideal for recycling and a nightmare to actually sleep on. Athletes complained that they competed with little sleep on the beds designed by some woke Marquis de Sade.
Air conditioning was a “non” at the Paris Olympics, leaving athletes sweltering on their cardboard beds. It was so miserable that various countries flew in air units to make the rooms inhabitable.
Then there was the food shortage. Many blamed the push for plant-based food to lower the games’ carbon footprint. The result was that many teams, given their athletes’ need for high-protein and high-calorie meals, turned up their noses at the “reasonable,” “sustainable” choices and flew in not just their own food but also their own chefs.
None of this, of course, was about the athletes, who were left literally scavenging for meat. Their food and living conditions were meant to send a message, much like the opening ceremony, that was separate from them or their competitions. It seems like only interest groups were cheering, as athletes literally sweated it out before even going to compete.
Ironically, the many planes and trucks used to ship air conditioning units, food, and staff to Paris likely wiped out any climate benefits.
The games then became the focus of an even more intense debate over the decision to allow transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports.
Imane Khelif of Algeria defeated Angela Carini of Italy in just 46 seconds in the ring. Carini tapped out, stating that in her entire career she had never been hit that hard.
It was later revealed that Khelif and another boxer, Lin Yu‑ting of Taiwan, had failed to meet gender eligibility tests at the Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi just last year. (It should be noted that Khelif is not a transgender athlete but someone listed with differences of sexual development, known as DSDs.) Khelif and Yu-ting competed in the last Olympics without medaling. (Yu-ting won a fight on Friday in the women’s 57kg category against Uzbekistan’s Sitora Turdibekova to reach the quarterfinals.)
In fairness, the Olympics, like all federations, is struggling with this issue and it is not the responsibility of the French organizers. Yet the theme of the games also outraged some civil libertarians. For example, there was another controversy at the start of the games when France announced that its Muslim athletes would not be allowed to wear their hijabs, or hair coverings, a decision that some of us condemned as a gratuitous denial of their faith. France is infamous for barring religious garb in public as part of its secularist tradition.
At the same time, French authorities have announced that charges are being considered against critics of the participants and organizers of the “Last Supper” scene.
There is little debate that direct, intentional threats should be prosecuted as they are in the U.S. But France is now one of the most anti-free speech nations in the West, with its sweeping criminalization of speech that can be interpreted as “inciting” or “intimidating” others.
These measures reflect the most glaring disconnect in the Opening Ceremony where the French motto of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity (“liberté, égalité, fraternité”) was celebrated.
In today’s France, “liberté” is no longer valued. Individual rights of religion and speech are routinely sacrificed in the name of “equity” and “fraternity.”
Many in this country believe that we should follow the same path. As I discuss in my new book The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” this movement has reached our shores, with many calling for individual rights like free speech to be limited by goals of equity. There is even a movement to amend the First Amendment as “aggressively individualistic.”
In spite of our best efforts, the athletes of the Paris games continue to inspire us. Ratings are soaring. I have been glued to the television and have already fallen into the habit of gasping in shock when a gymnast steps slightly out of bounds after doing a routine that would have left me crippled for life for just attempting. They make us believe that anything is possible, even superhuman feats.
There are times when athletes cannot escape the politics of our age. When Owens won four gold medals with Hitler watching, there was no missing the transcendent meaning of his achievement.
That message, however, was far more powerful because it was delivered by an athlete as part of his competition. The problem with the Paris games is that they are trying to make it more about us than it is about them.
In 2023, 138 Dutch people chose to end their lives because of psychiatric suffering. (Photo: ArtistGNDphotography/Getty Images)
Once, we told stories of rescuing women in distress. Now, we hand them a prescription for assisted suicide.
Two young women in the Netherlands, Jolanda Fun and Zoraya ter Beek, have recently done media interviews explaining their respective decisions to pursue euthanasia, despite being physically healthy.
Fun, who planned to end her life on her 34th birthday late last month, has struggled with depression for years. “Most of the time I just feel really sh—-,” she told The Times, a British newspaper, in an interview published April 14. “Sad, down, gloomy. People don’t see it, because that’s the mask I put on, and that’s what you learn to do in life.”
In the Netherlands, euthanasia has been legal since 2002. (The legislation passed in 2001, and went into effect the next year.) Fun started exploring the possibility two years ago, when a counselor mentioned it. For Fun, who has parents and a brother and a boyfriend, death still seemed like a better reality than staying alive.
“My father is sick, my mother is sick, my parents are fighting to stay alive, and I want to step out of life,” she told The Times. “That’s a bit strange. But even when I was seven, I asked my mother whether, if I jumped from a viaduct, I would be dead. I’ve been struggling with this my whole life.”
Meanwhile, ter Beek, 28,told The Free Press she plans to die by assisted suicide this month. Ter Beek, who is autistic and suffers from depression, has a boyfriend she loves and with whom she shares a home and cats. Her psychiatrist told her, “There’s nothing more we can do for you. It’s never [going to] get any better,” ter Beek told The Free Press, saying those words triggered her decision to end her life.
Zoraya ter Beek is one of a growing number of people across the West choosing to end their lives rather than live in pain. Pain that in many cases can be treated.
Ter Beek and Fun are not alone in their decisions. (So far, no media outlets have confirmed that either one has died.) In 2023, 138 Dutch people chose to end their lives because of psychiatric suffering, according to Spanish newspaper El Pais, which reported that represented a 20% increase from 2022. The trend is undeniably upward: The Netherlands had a mere two assisted suicide deaths for mental health reasons in 2010 and 68 in 2019, according to the Times.
In general, euthanasia has grown in popularity in the Netherlands over the past two decades. More than 9,000 Dutch people chose euthanasia in 2023, reports El Pais, noting that euthanasia deaths made up more than 5% of all deaths in the Netherlands last year.
Canada—which initially legalized assisted suicide in 2016 for those with terminal illnesses and later for those with a “grievous and irremediable medical condition”—is similarly experiencing an upward trend. Over 13,000 Canadians died by assisted suicide in 2022, a 31% jump from the 2021 numbers. In 2017, the first full year assisted suicide was legal in Canada, 2,838 people chose to die that way.
Canada was slated to further follow in the Netherlands’ path and allow assisted suicide for mental health reasons this year, but due to concerns over straining the medical system, it has postponed that to March 17, 2027.
If you value life, you should be worried.
Already in the United States, 10 states and the District of Columbia allow assisted suicide under certain circumstances. If mental health continues to deteriorate in the U.S., as unfortunately seems likely, we could well face advocacy for allowing suicide for the mentally ill.
Of course, mental illness is a “real” illness, and its suffering can be acute.
But there is a reason we fight so hard against suicide, try to help and encourage and to provide medical assistance to Americans who struggle with depression and anxiety and other mental illnesses.
Not only do we love them, and want them to remain in our lives, but we also know that as long as someone is alive, there is hope—hope that he or she might heal, fully or partially, from mental illness and be able to live life more joyfully, less burdened by rapacious negative emotions. That belief is hard to hold when you are struggling with depression, making it all the more critical that the non-depressed in society vociferously advocate for the value of life.
⭕️ Jolanda Fun, qui est en bonne santé physique aux Pays-Bas mais qui veut mettre fin à ses jours par l'euthanasie parce que sa psychologie n'est pas bonne, mettra fin à ses jours en appelant ses amis le jour de son anniversaire.
Furthermore, plenty of those who have suffered from depression or other mental illnesses have, as their health has improved, become grateful they did not die by suicide. “I am extremely thankful that I did not take my life,” Olympian medalist Michael Phelps said in 2018 when discussing his history of depression.
In a 2023 Washington Post essay, Billy Lezra described a planned suicide attempt.
“I’d been drinking whiskey mixed with flat Coke all afternoon to work up the nerve to jump in front of the train, and I was drunk enough that my plan felt within reach. I was 23,” Lezra wrote.
“Two months earlier, my mother had tried to take her life, and I had interrupted her attempt. This experience, compounded by years of depression and addiction, made me long to stop feeling. It’s not that I wanted to die, exactly, it’s that I didn’t want to live.”
But then “a wiry woman with pink hair and a titanium lip ring” asked Lezra to take a photo. By the time the photo was taken, the train was gone—and now, seven years later, Lezra remains alive.
Lezra cannot recall the face of the pink-haired woman, but “what has stayed with me is a feeling of sharp, profound gratitude.”
Statistics back up Lezra’s experience. About 90% of suicide survivors will not ultimately die by suicide, according to the T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University. That suggests that many depressed people do, in fact, get better, at least to some extent.
And what does it say about us as a culture that we allow people to end their lives, that we publicly support it?
As Western civilization further becomes divorced from its Christian roots, it’s perhaps not surprising that there is renewed interest in suicide. The belief that God gives life and that it is not ours to take is less widely held. In modern thinking, where the individual becomes a free agent encouraged to pursue his own truth and happiness, obedience to the timing of a Creator is about as unfashionable a virtue as it gets, especially when such obedience includes chronic suffering.
“In the absence of Christianity, suicide and euthanasia become, perhaps, the ultimate and extreme (if mistaken) vindication of human choice and human dignity: My life is mine, and I can end it when I want to. In this way, individual liberty is reduced to a kind of death cult,” wrote John Daniel Davidson in “Pagan America.”
How bleak.
In addition to embracing individualism in our time, we constantly talk of kindness—but it is often a limp kindness, never deployed in tough times. Sometimes, the truest kindness is to fight for someone when she can no longer fight for herself.
Laws often more shape, than reflect, cultures. If the Netherlands had not legalized assisted suicide, perhaps both Fun and ter Beek would be trying new doctors, new treatments, and other ways to ease their very real suffering.
Instead, their government’s laws are telling them their lives may well not be worth living.
President’s Biden’s decision to elevate Transgender Day of Visibility on Easter, the holiest day of the Christian calendar, was no accident. Yes, we all know (now) that it falls on March 31 every year, while the date of Easter obviously varies. But the idea that the White House’s promotion of the transgender agenda on Easter was a mere coincidence, as Biden’s press secretary insisted on Monday, strains credulity. We all know it was no coincidence.
I won’t go into the specifics of it here — my friend Dave Marcus has already laid out why this was a blatant attack on Christianity and a slap in the face to Christians — but focus instead on the larger story within which the Transgender Day of Visibility incident fits.
That story, put simply, is the retreat of Christianity in the West and the emergence of a new religious faith in its place — a new paganism. What comes amid the decline of the Christian faith is not some live-and-let-live secular liberal utopia, not a rational and atheistic political order with neutral public spaces and a culture of tolerance. Instead, we have a new form of paganism with its own moral precepts, obligations, and rites. And unlike the secular liberal order, which embraced tolerance and pluralism as an inheritance from Christianity, the pagan order will be intolerant in the extreme.
Let me clarify my terms. By “paganism” I don’t necessarily mean a flood of new converts to the cult of Zeus or Woden (although that too is on the rise, at least in Britain). The postmodern pagan culture that’s now emerging won’t look like the paganism of the past, but it will be no less pagan for all that.
The pagan ethos, across immense spans of history and geography and cultures, has always been a rejection of reason and objective moral truth (along with the entire idea of objectivity), and a radical embrace of relativism and subjectivity in every realm of life. Paganism embraces a divinization of the here and now, of things and even people. Its creed, so far as it has one, can be summed up in the maxim: Nothing is true, everything is permitted.
What that means in practice, of course, is a society in which power and force, not democracy or human rights or universal moral principles, rule the day. This is why the most advanced pagan societies have always taken the form of slave empires. They are societies in which power alone determines what is right. In such societies, the ruling class is free to do as they please as regard the underclass, who are obliged to adhere to the state morality and do as they’re told.
Understood in that light, we can see the outlines of a modern form of paganism emerging in our time, especially on the political left. The official morality of the left forbids any dissent from the LGBT agenda and its claims about identity, for example. This is why lawmakers in deep-blue states like California want to make it a crime if parents don’t affirm their child’s “gender identity.” This is why public schools, captured by leftist ideologues, aggressively indoctrinate students in gender theory, and even socially “transition” children without the knowledge of their parents. We are going to see more of this, not less, as Christianity retreats from public life in America.
What Biden’s White House is trying to communicate by declaring Easter Sunday to be about transgender awareness is that the old moral order is being replaced by something new. If you don’t adhere to the new morality, if you don’t offer a pinch of incense to Caesar, you will be endlessly persecuted. If you don’t believe me, ask Jack Phillips.
In other words, it should be obvious by now that there are no neutral spaces anymore. There never were, really. Secular liberalism was a luxury only a predominantly Christian society could afford. Without societal norms derived from Christianity, sustained by the actual practice of the Christian faith among the people, liberalism decays. Recall that Christianity is the only moral system that has ever protected minority rights, for example, or ever declared that each person has inherent dignity. With the Christian faith, these ideals will die. And in the vacuum created by the faith’s desuetude, something else is rushing in.
The famous atheist Richard Dawkins doesn’t seem to grasp this. A clip of an interview Dawkins gave recently made the rounds Monday on social media. Commenting on the promotion of Ramadan instead of Easter in Britain, Dawkins expressed his disapproval and remarked, “We are culturally a Christian country. I call myself a cultural Christian. I’m not a believer. But there’s a distinction between being a believing Christian and being a cultural Christian.”
"If I had to choose between Christianity and Islam, I'd choose Christianity every single time."
He went on to talk about how he loves Christian hymns and cathedrals, but also, he’s happy that the number of people in Britain who actually believe in Christianity is going down. “But I would not be happy if, for example, we lost all our cathedrals and our beautiful parish churches.”
Does Dawkins think these artifacts of Christendom, the cathedrals and Christmas carols, will endure without the faith that created them? Does he think that a post-Christian Britain won’t revert to some form of paganism or Islam? He seems to think that cultural Christianity can survive without the faith that created and sustained it. He’s wrong, as anyone not blinded by their priors can plainly see. Once the faith goes, it isn’t long before the cathedrals and parish churches go too. In Britain and across Europe, beautiful empty churches are being repurposed as concert halls, coffee shops, and luxury apartments. There simply aren’t enough Christians to keep them as churches.
Much the same thing goes for our own country. America was founded not just on certain ideals but with a certain kind of people in mind, a predominantly Christian people, and it depends for its survival on their moral virtue and piety, without which the entire experiment will collapse. Without a national civic culture shaped by the Christian faith, and without a majority consensus in favor of Christian morality, America as we know it will come to an end.
With apologies to the likes of Dawkins, Christianity’s decline across the West doesn’t mean that secular liberalism, much less atheism, will triumph, but that a new religious creed will take its place. And make no mistake: This new form of paganism will bring with it all the violence and oppression common to every pagan empire across the dreary ages of the world. Instead of citizens in a self-governing republic, we will find ourselves slaves in a pagan empire.
John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. He is the author of Pagan America: the Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.
Dozens of conservative leaders demand that House Republicans adopt Rep. Chip Roy’s amendment protecting Americans who support traditional marriage. (Photo illustration: Image Source/Getty Images)
Dozens of leaders of conservative organizations planned to send a letter Friday to members of Congress demanding that the lawmakers adopt protections for religious Americans who support the traditional idea of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The signees urged House Republicans to protect religious freedom by prioritizing passage of the so-called Roy Marriage Amendment, named after Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Advancing American Freedom, a conservative policy organization founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, spearheaded the letter. It also includes signatures, among others, of Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; Joe Waresak, president of the James Dobson Family Institute; and Tom McClusky, director of government affairs for Catholic Vote.
If adopted, the Roy amendment would prohibit the government from engaging in “any discriminatory action against a person, wholly or partially on the basis that such person speaks, or acts, in accordance with a sincerely held religious belief, or moral conviction” regarding marriage between a man and a woman, according to the text. The amendment also would prevent the federal government from eliminating a religious group’s tax exemption status for their beliefs on marriage.
Roy submitted the amendment to the House in 2022 in an attempt to include it with the Respect for Marriage Act, which requires all 50 states to recognize same-sex marriages from other states and was passed in December of that same year.
The House has been attempting to avoid a partial government shutdown after failing to pass a new budget for fiscal year 2024 in September. Members voted Thursday to extend the deadline to March 8, prompting Advancing American Freedom to encourage lawmakers to push the Roy amendment through before a potential shutdown.
“This provision is needed now more than ever, for no one should ever fear government punishment for holding to traditional marriage as the unique blessing that it is for all. We strongly encourage you to once again include the Roy ‘Marriage Amendment’ in upcoming appropriations bills,” the conservative leaders’ letter concludes.
Homeless people in California were found living in caves along the Tuolumne River before they were cleared out by the Modesto Police Department and volunteers over the weekend.nVolunteers with Operation 9-2-99 and the Tuolumne River Trust worked with police to clear them out, removing some 7,600 pounds of garbage from the area, authorities said.
“This particular area has been plagued by vagrancy and illegal camps, which have raised concerns due to the fact that these camps were actually caves dug into the riverbanks,” the Modesto Police Department said in a statement.
The cleared debris filled two truckloads and a trailer, police added.
Volunteers with Operation 2-9-99 and the Modesto Police Department participated in a joint clean-up operation along the Tuolumne River in Modesto, California, on Jan. 23, 2024. (Modesto Police Department)
Ahead of the cleanup, individuals residing in the caves and nearby homeless camps were told about the operation and informed of services to assist them, the department said. The caves were about 20 feet below street level, and some were fully furnished, indicating that vagrants had been living there for some time. Items found inside included bedding, belongings, food, items on a makeshift mantel, drugs and weapons, local news station KOVR reported.
“We had a hard time figuring out how they got so much stuff down in there, considering how hard it was to get it up the hill and out,” Operation 2-9-99 coordinator Chris Guptill told KOVR.
Guptill was one of many volunteers who participated in the cleanup. He said his group found eight caves in total, and this was not the first time they were occupied.
Homeless people were found living in caves like this one pictured along the Tuolumne River in Modesto, California, on Jan. 23, 2024. (Modesto Police Department)
“We really don’t have a known solution on how to deal with it,” Guptill told KOVR.
Tracy Rojas, a Modesto resident who lives near the caves, said it is dangerous for people to take up residence underground.
“If one of these were to collapse, it would be devastating,” she told KOVR. “This whole thing would come down and go into the water.”
A tarp and trash belonging to homeless people encamped by the Tuolumne River in Modesto, California, on Jan. 23, 2024. (Modesto Police Department)
The city of Los Angeles, about 300 miles south of Modesto, recently began recruiting up to 6,000 volunteers to count homeless people.
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority-led street tally helps the county government’s efforts to tackle a homeless crisis, which has crippled the city with tens of thousands of people living on the streets, living in cars, tents and makeshift street shelters. These temporary homes have proliferated on sidewalks, in parks and other community areas.
The so-called “point-in-time” count aims to estimate how many people are homeless and what financial or medical services they may require for potential mental health conditions or from drug addiction.
This count comes as California residents have grown increasingly frustrated over lawmakers’ failure to deter the surging homeless population. Since 2015, homelessness has increased by 70% in Los Angeles County and 80% in the city. In 2023, officials reported more than 75,500 people were homeless on any given night in LA County, a 9% rise from a year earlier, and about 46,200 within the city of Los Angeles.
“Homelessness is an emergency, and it will take all of us working together to confront this emergency,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement, calling the count “an important tool to confront the homelessness crisis.”
Fox News Digital’s Lawrence Richard contributed to this report.
Chris Pandolfo is a writer for Fox News Digital. Send tips to chris.pandolfo@fox.com and follow him on Twitter @ChrisCPandolfo.
1. The four creators of the Charlie Brown Christmas special were veterans of the U.S. military.
Charles Schulz, the creator of Charlie Brown and the writer of the script for the Christmas special, was a U.S. Army combat veteran of World War II. The show’s producer, Lee Mendelson, served in the United States Air Force. Vince Guaraldi, who composed the music for the special, was a U.S. Army veteran, as was the program’s director and animator, Bill Melendez. When an interviewer asked Schulz what his proudest accomplishment was, Schulz pointed to a framed military award he kept on his studio wall — his Combat Infantryman’s Badge, which is awarded to infantrymen who have fought in active ground combat.
2. CBS executives were dismayed when they first screened ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’
The executives were shocked by the animation’s poor quality and by the show’s amateur voice talent. They were dismayed by the use of jazz music in a Christmas special and by the absence of a laugh track (something Schulz had refused to insert). The executives were particularly put off by the show’s overt religiosity (“The Bible thing scares us!”). They concluded by pointedly telling Lee Mendelson, the show’s producer, that they would not be ordering any more specials from him or Schulz.
3. Neil Reagan, President Ronald Reagan’s older brother, played a role in the special’s production.
In 1965 Neil Reagan, the younger brother of the future president, was plotting his brother’s first run for political office. Neil was also the West Coast manager of Coca-Cola’s advertising firm. When the TV special was in the pre-production stage, the adman was shown the storyboards for the holiday program and a rough version of the animation.
Reagan was aghast at the show’s slow plodding. He told Schulz and Mendelson, the show’s producer, that if he gave his honest opinion of the program to his superiors back in New York City, they would shut down the production immediately. Mendelson pleaded that the show would be much better once it had a soundtrack and when color was added to the animation. Reagan pondered for a long time before responding, “OK, it might cost me my job, but I’m not going to say anything.”
“A Charlie Brown Christmas” has become an iconic part of every Christmas season. (Photo by ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)
4. The Peanuts characters were very difficult to animate
Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” characters were incredibly difficult to render in animation. They had large round heads, making it difficult to gather them together in a scene without their oversized skulls banging into one another. Their arms couldn’t reach the top of their heads, restricting certain movements, and their short stubby legs made walking look awkward.
Ironically, the minimalism of Schulz’s drawing also made them more difficult to animate. Because there were so few reference points on their faces, if an eye were a little too far to the left or right, the character would look disfigured.
5. The special contains many continuity errors
For example, when Lucy approaches her psychiatric booth it has no snow on it, but when she arrives, she has to wipe away snow before sitting down to consult with Charlie Brown. In the same scene, her sign sometimes says “The Doctor is Real In” while at other times it says “The Doctor is In.”
In a later scene, Charlie Brown’s nose disappears when he is addressing Lucy and discussing the need for a Christmas tree. Also, at times, the sad Christmas tree has three branches, while at other times it has six or more.
6. In the climactic scene of ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas,’ Linus’s blanket plays a key but little-noticed role
During the special’s climactic scene, when Linus recites from the Gospel of Luke, he drops his security blanket at the exact moment he utters the words “fear not.” The moment is handled subtly, but it is rich with significance, both in the context of the character and the words being spoken.
Linus had been clinging to the blanket since its introduction into the comic strip on June 1, 1954. The words “fear not” or “be not afraid” are reportedly the most common phrases in the Bible, found 365 times in Scripture.
7. A Mexican immigrant directed and animated the special
Jose Cuauhtemoc “Bill” Melendez immigrated to Arizona with his mother and siblings as a young boy before relocating to Los Angeles. An excellent student, Melendez mistakenly thought that since he was not a U.S. citizen, he could not attend college at UCLA, so he went to work at a lumberyard.
His talent for drawing led him to the animation training program at Disney in the 1930s. Melendez was drafted into the Army during World War II where he was sworn in as a U.S. citizen. Melendez first animated the “Peanuts” characters for Ford commercials in the 1950s. He quickly developed a close friendship with Schulz and became the only person Schulz would ever entrust to animate his cartoon characters.
The cover of Michael Keane’s book, “Charlie Brown’s Christmas Miracle: The Inspiring, Untold Story of the Making of a Holiday Classic.”
8. The Golden Gate Bridge played an important role in the special’s soundtrack
In 1963, Mendelson was working on a documentary about Schulz and was desperately in need of finding music for the show’s soundtrack. While driving across the Golden Gate Bridge and listening to his car’s radio, he heard a captivating tune — “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” by jazz musician Vince Guaraldi.
Mendelson reached out to Guaraldi and asked him to compose the music for the documentary. Just a few days later, while Guaraldi himself was driving across the Golden Gate Bridge, inspiration would strike the musician. He rushed home and sat down at his piano and played the tune that had entered his head. The melody became known as “Linus and Lucy” and is the signature song of the Peanuts franchise.
9. Schulz insisted on keeping Linus’s recitation from Scripture in the special, against objections
When Schulz proposed having Linus recite from the Gospel of Luke in the Christmas special, he was met with objections by both the producer, Mendelson, and the show’s director, Melendez. “We can’t do this, it’s too religious,” said Melendez. Mendelson agreed, arguing that religion didn’t belong in a cartoon.
Ironically, the minimalism of Schulz’s drawing also made them more difficult to animate. Because there were so few reference points on their faces, if an eye were a little too far to the left or right, the character would look disfigured.
Schulz’s proposed scene would expose the special to attacks from both religious and non-religious viewers. Churchgoers might object that animating from the Bible and having its sacred verses spoken by cartoon characters was sacrilegious. Those who were less religious might be turned off by what they perceived to be preachy moralizing. Schulz, however, was insistent. “If we don’t do it, who will?” he asked.
10. Some of the child actors were too young to read their scripts
Some of the children who were the voice talent for the special, when handed their scripts with their lines of dialogue, stared back at Melendez, the special’s director, in stunned silence. They had not yet learned how to read.
This necessitated Melendez having to recite the lines to his young talent, and then having each actor repeat the words back. At times, a single word had to be broken down into bite-sized syllables, even for the actors who could read. The end result was that much of the dialogue in the special has an uneven, choppy cadence to it.
“Canceling” people who disagree with you over ordinary political issues is bad for civil society. Ruining someone’s life because he wore a MAGA cap or tweeted something stupid or supported the wrong initiative creates an oppressive environment for open discourse.
“Canceling” people who sign petitions and hold up signs that openly celebrate or justify the targeted, brutal murders of women and babies, on the other hand, is good for civil society. Stopping malevolent ideas from being normalized is good. Exercising your First Amendment right to free speech and free association to shun and call out people who spread odious ideas in public life is a moral imperative.
Because people who walk around ripping down posters of kidnapped children and women aren’t pondering the future of a “two-state solution” or the Gazan refugee situation, they are moral degenerates. In the same way you wouldn’t hire the guy who stands in front of Disney World waving around a swastika flag, you shouldn’t hire someone who marches with a sign that reads “from the river to the sea.” Both convey the same sentiment. The ethical line is bright and obvious. If you don’t see it, something is broken in you.
Yet, a bunch of Hamasapologists are calling out conservatives for their alleged hypocrisy on “cancel culture” when it comes to “pro-Palestinian” advocates.
Though I’m not a fan of mobs, I’ve never been a big critic of cancel culture, either. Looking back, I could find only one piece I’ve written on the topic — and it concerned itself with double standards. It’s a slippery term. And there is facet to the debate that’s often overlooked. Americans have no obligation to associate with those who attack their deep-seated values. To hire someone who signs a pro-Hamas petition can be an endorsement of that outlook. Your company is not an open social media platform which exists as a forum for debate, it has a reputation and customers. (Not that I believe the state should be able to compel social media companies to host opinions, either.)
And it’s not as if you asked these people to give you their opinion on genocide. They did so by their own volition. The Harvard petitions blaming Jews for their own murders were signed and released for public consumption. They were released before Israel had even counted the dead, much less invaded Gaza. If law students were celebrating 9/11 on 9/12, would New York firms have a responsibility to provide them with gainful employment? No, they would be rejected in the real world and compelled to get jobs in academia, where such views are welcome.
Of course, the contention that “pro-Palestinian” advocates, or even those who talk about Israel as if it was some authoritarian proto-Nazi state, are being mass canceled is a myth, anyway. They fill the op-ed pages of major newspapers and cable news. They dominate campuses. They aren’t canceled. They are rewarded. When someone like “porn star” Mia Khalifa was “canceled,” it is because she was quite literally rejoicing in the murder of innocent people in real time.
Ibrahim Bharmal, who one suspects is dumber than the average internet prostitute, is the editor of the Harvard Law Review, not some rando trying to wind people up on the internet. He is out there physically and verbally abusing a Jewish student during a pro-Hamas rally on campus like some kind of Brownshirt. Does Harvard have a responsibility to have him on campus? Why should a firm with Jewish partners — or any decent people — hire him?
Harvard, by the way, has assembled a special task force to help students who signed pro-Hamas statements deal with the blowback. Apparently, some people are under the impression they’re the only ones allowed to speak.
The notion that anti-Israel pundits are concerned about double standards, by the way, is risible. You might recall that Harvard rescinded its offer to pro-Second Amendment Parkland kid Kyle Kashuv, ostensibly over things he tweeted as a 16-year-old. No one cared. Today, Georgetown thinks it’s fine to cancel Ilya Shapiro for a single inarticulate tweet, but it will not cancel a professor who complains online about “Zio bitches.” The New York Times cancels an editor for running a column from a sitting senator but hires a writer who praises Hitler (true story).
When I say I’m a free-speech absolutist, I mean it. The state should do absolutely nothing to inhibit or censor pro-Hamas Americans from expressing their opinions. Free speech isn’t contingent on your position. Hate speech is free speech. The government has no business prodding or even suggesting limitations on our rhetorical interactions. Even outside state intervention, we should be upholding the values that promote free expression. We can peacefully coexist with colleagues, neighbors and friends who hold contradictory opinions within the normal parameters of political debate.
Likewise, Americans have a right to use their freedom to call out and disassociate themselves from people who take the side with nihilistic murder cults.
As the carnage in the Middle East persists, an America’s New Majority Project poll recently found that more than 75 percent of Americans are closely following the news about the Israel-Hamas war in the Middle East. While a majority of voters agree that Israel must do what is necessary to destroy Hamas, and that Hamas is responsible for Palestinian civilian casualties, the outlandish defense of Hamas’s atrocities across the United States– particularly on university campuses – raises great concern.
American universities ought to be centers where ideas, debates, and opinions are freely exchanged, but many, instead, have fostered hateful, antisemitic ideology among the student population. A recent Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found that 48 percent of voters between 18-24 support Hamas in the current conflict. According to Steven Davidoff Solomon, a corporate law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, “Universities have been engaging for far too long in moral equivocation, and terrorist attacks against innocents should be condemned and not justified.”
Amidst escalating tensions on college campuses, 20-year old Melanie Schwartz, a junior at Cornell, told The Washington Post, “Jewish students are fearful and isolated.”
To help students facing hostility on college campuses, Franciscan University of Steubenville, a private Catholic university in Ohio, has created an expedited transfer process.
“[W]ith too many universities preaching tolerance but practicing prejudice, we feel compelled to do more. We are witnessing a very troubling spike in antisemitism and serious threats against Jewish students. We want to offer them the chance to transfer immediately to Franciscan,” Father Dave Pivonka, president of Franciscan University, said.
Although Franciscan achieved record-high enrollment this academic year, university administrators are committed to accommodating and creating a safe haven for Jewish transfer students.
“Our community will welcome them with generosity and respect,” Father Pivonka said. “Our religious differences will not cause any conflict. On the contrary, at Franciscan, our radical fidelity to Christ and the Catholic faith demands of us fraternal charity toward our Jewish brothers and sisters, as it does toward all people.”
In recognition of the need to combat antisemitism in the U.S., Franciscan University recently partnered with The Philos Project, a community of Christians who seek to promote positive Christian engagement in the Near East, to cosponsor a joint conference, Nostra Aetate and the Future of Catholic-Jewish Relations at a Time of Rising Antisemitism. The conference focused on addressing antisemitism, “one of the biggest social problems that we’re facing,” according to President of The Philos Project Robert Nicholson.
Additionally, the conference discussed the significance of Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Relation of the Catholic Church to Non-Christian Religions, promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1965. The Declaration marked a turning point in relations between the Catholic Church and Judaism by emphasizing the Jewish roots of the Christian faith and the condemnation of antisemitism.
In the aftermath of World War II, the Catholic Church under Pope Pius XII faced criticism that not enough was done to support our Jewish brethren. In March 2020, Pope Francis opened the Vatican Archives and made the documents of Pope Pius XII’s wartime pontificate accessible for study. Recent discoveries prove, according to German historian Dr. Michael Hesemann, that Pope Pius XII’s efforts “did more to save Jews and to stop the killings, than any politician or religious leader of his time.”
According to Dr. Hesemann, “What has to be rewritten is the ‘black legend’ of the silent and disinterested Pope… Today, we know that Pius XII not only mentioned the horrible fate of the Jews in three public speeches but also tried to save as many as possible.”
An anti-Israel protester in Cambridge on Monday shouted slurs at the pro-Israel counter-protesters, calling them “pigs” and “Nazis.” (Kassy Dillon/Fox News Digital)
As Dr. Hesemann explained to Vatican News, “[I]n 235 monasteries and convents, 4,205 Jews were hidden, plus 160 in Vatican City. Of 3,200, we know the names, thanks to the newly discovered list. Eventually, about 6,400 of the Roman Jews, or 80 percent survived the Holocaust, more than anywhere else where a SS-razzia happened.”
Today, we see this same fervor among the faithful to bring peace and aid to those affected by the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Amid the current war in the Middle East, Pope Francis has ardently called for an end to the violence and noted that “terrorism and war bring no solutions, but only to the death and suffering of many innocent lives. … Let us pray for peace.”
As the brutality of the Israel-Hamas war wages on, we must eradicate antisemitism and offer our prayers for peace in the Middle East.
We need a church for the nones, or Americans who say they don’t belong to a particular religion. That’s what The Washington Post’s Perry Bacon calls for in a much-ballyhooedcolumn last month. “Start the service with songs with positive messages. … Reserve time when church members can tell the congregation about their highs and lows from the previous week. Listen as the pastor gives a sermon on tolerance or some other universal value, while briefly touching on whatever issues are in the news,” Bacon suggests. Sunday services would be supplemented by volunteer, community-service activities, he adds.
Bacon, who grew up evangelical, communicates a yearning felt by many Americans in this atomized age. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, in a recent advisory titled “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation,” asserted: “Religious or faith-based groups can be a source for regular social contact, serve as a community of support, provide meaning and purpose, create a sense of belonging around shared values and beliefs, and are associated with reduced risk-taking behaviors.” Church, even our post-Christian culture can admit, is healthy for us. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., argued much the same in a June speech, citing the values of churches to address our “epidemic of loneliness” by giving us “connection” and “meaning.”
A church without God, prayer, or the Bible; a church for fellowship not faith, service not sacraments: that’s supposedly what lonely Americans need. Yet can such a civically focused ecclesial institution, or set of institutions, replace our increasingly empty (or repurposed) churches? In fact, they already exist, and have proved just as incapable of replacing the role vacated by that “old time religion.”
Mainline Protestantism Has Already Failed at Church Without God
Some have recommended Unitarian Universalism, which welcomes a wide diversity of religious (or areligious) beliefs as long as their adherents accept various mantras associated with the political left (e.g. “justice, equity and compassion in human relations”). Yet Bacon doesn’t like the fact that the Unitarian Universalist church remains predominantly white and elderly, and lacks activities for children. He also cites a 10-year-old organization called Sunday Assembly that has attempted to establish “nonreligious congregations” around the world, though the group, which promotes “wonder and good” and “celebrat[ing] life,” is attracting few followers.
But let’s be frank. We don’t need to look to secular simulacrums of Christianity to identify craven appeasements to the gods of progressivism. Liberal Protestants long ago capitulated to the gods of the left and are little more than mouthpieces for the Democrat Party. Sure, the “Seven Sisters of American Protestantism” — American Baptist Churches USA, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church — still profess to uphold biblical doctrines. But would any of these mainline Protestant churches really discipline a member (or even a clergyman) who confessed they didn’t believe in various creedal documents or, for that matter, even Scripture?
Mainline Protestant denominations — or what’s left of them — are swimming with those whose membership is often attributed to the very same things endorsed by Bacon, Murthy, and Murphy. According to Pew, only a little over half said religion was important to their life, about 20 percent prayed little to never, more than half barely ever read the Bible, and 20 percent didn’t believe or didn’t know if heaven existed. And yet, these “tolerant” and “diverse” denominations are hemorrhaging even their like-minded attendees, some losing almost half of their total membership in little more than a decade.
America’s Abandonment of Religion Is About Apathy and Addiction
And it’s not as if the nones are champing at the bit to join secular civic organizations that, denuded of any deity, prayer, or Scripture, still offer camaraderie and community service. Between 2019 and 2021, formal volunteer participation in America fell 7 percent — the largest drop that the U.S. Census survey recorded since it began tracking it in 2002. Covid didn’t help any, but this is not a new trend: Volunteerism has been declining for decades.
No, Americans are not just abandoning God, but each other, escaping into their smartphones and streaming entertainment. “Americans spend an average of 13 hours and 11 minutes a day using digital media,” Forbes reported earlier this year. It’s not only unbelief with whom churches must compete, but Apple, Amazon, and Netflix. Loving your neighbor or the Lord your God doesn’t offer the same dopamine rush as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, I’m sorry to say.
This is why a church for the nones is dead on arrival. The nones don’t want it, as even Bacon must admit. “But I’ve not followed through on any of these options,” he writes of trying to find a new “ecclesial” home. “With all my reservations, I don’t really want to join an existing church. And I don’t think I am going to have much luck getting my fellow nones to join something I start. My sense is that … those who aren’t at church are fine spending their Sunday mornings eating brunch, doing yoga or watching Netflix.” Americans are too disenchanted with an “intolerant” and “illogical” religion and too addicted to its chemical proxies to think an areligious alternative will satisfy the longings in their soul. Choosing church for its social utility, liberal pundit E.J. Dionne acknowledges in a recent WaPo column, is not a particularly strong draw.
Only God Can Save Us from Ourselves
More than 16 centuries ago, a North African intellectual and private tutor heard a child playing a game and, curiously, felt compelled to pick up a book of the writings of St. Paul the Apostle. Less than a year later, he was baptized a Christian in Milan, Italy. By the time of his death in A.D. 430, he was already recognized as a man of unparalleled intellectual and moral acuity, as he still is today, even by non-Christians. “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you,” St. Augustine wrote in his Confessions, one of the earliest (and greatest) spiritual autobiographies ever composed.
Only when Americans relearn that we are, above all else, made for God, will our personal health improve and our communities once more move with brilliant energy and excitement, unanticipated byproducts of passionately orienting our hearts and minds to the transcendent and its transformative demands. Until then, expect little from ham-handed attempts to fashion church (and spirituality) to our personal preferences and peccadilloes. As a young Augustine himself learned, all that resides in such vain efforts is vapid self-worship.
Casey Chalk is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review. He has a bachelor’s in history and master’s in teaching from the University of Virginia and a master’s in theology from Christendom College. He is the author of The Persecuted: True Stories of Courageous Christians Living Their Faith in Muslim Lands.
Here is an utterly un-American quote from President Joe Biden:
These are our kids. These are our neighbors, not someone else’s kids; they’re all our kids. And our children are the kite strings that hold our national ambitions aloft. It matters a great deal how we treat everyone in this country. LGBTQI+ Americans, especially children: You are loved. You are heard. And this administration has your back.
Now, perhaps the phrase “they’re all our kids” sounds like an innocuous platitude to some woke White House speechwriter, but to me it sounds like a totalitarian notion.
Years ago, P.J. O’Rourke correctly described the purpose of Hillary Clinton’s detestable book on the same subject: “It takes a village to raise a child. The village is Washington. You are the child.” It’s no accident the head of the nation’s largest and most powerful teachers union praises op-eds with headlines like, “Parents claim they have the right to shape their kids’ school curriculum. They don’t.” That’s also the position of the institutional left, including the president, who argues that American values are at risk if parents dare demand kids’ libraries exclude books describing incestual rape, celebrating gender dysphoria, and depicting 10-year-old boys having oral sex.
Marx also saw the traditional family as an antiquated unit. The first Soviet welfare ministers complained about the “narrow and petty” idea of the nuclear family in which reactionary bourgeois parents, selfishly wrapped up in their trivial anxieties, were “not capable of educating the ‘new person.’”
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe Joe Biden is going to ship parents to Siberia. Nor am I suggesting that the president’s handlers are sitting around thinking about the Frankfurt School. (They arrived at a similar philosophical destination organically, I suspect.) What I’m saying is that the White House is teeming with wannabe authoritarians who believe the state would do a better job raising kids by filling their impressionable heads with corrosive, immoral ideas. And that the institutions to achieve that goal already exist.
Public schools, some of them excellent and many of them disastrous, are not voluntary, communal places. In most municipalities, parents have little choice, and their kids are in a captive audience. State-run schools, conceived to educate and forge patriotic, civic cohesion, have often become places of left-wing indoctrination — from “universal pre-k” until they go off to college, where credentialed halfwits and leftist ideologues who detest the “national ambitions” of a constitutional republic run the place. You pay for all of it. But you also get to shut up.
It’s important to remember that totalitarian states do not stop citizens from participating in political life, they demand it. Everything one does in these societies is drenched in ideology. Sports. Movies. Academia. Books. Commerce. Morality. Family. Sex. Schools. Which very much sounds like the goal of contemporary leftism.
It’s none of our business who you sleep with or what sex you cosplay as, but it is our business that government-run elementary school kids are running around waving flags celebrating sexual identification and gender dysphoria like little soldiers in history’s dumbest Cultural Revolution.
Why wouldn’t they? Elizabeth Warren says things like, “Black trans and cis women, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary people are the backbone of our democracy…” At the White House the other day, the self-anointed pontifex maximus of true Americanism raised the pride flag to the same level of reverence as the Stars and Stripes, a flag that exists to represent all of us. Though, to be fair, most contemporary leftists seem a lot more comfortable standing under a rainbow flag than an American one.
Let’s start by pointing out that there is absolutely nothing uplifting or patriotic about allowing doctors, operating under the patina of (pseudo)science, to forever mutilate confused kids. The state’s duty to your children is to protect them from violence and abuse. Those who allow that cruelty, even celebrate it, do not, in fact, have “your back.”
Yet, the White House hangs a flag that implicitly endorses this barbarity, and then demands you do too. Indeed, reactionary parents, believers, traditionalists, normies, contrarians — culture warriors — unwilling to salute an ideology that grates against their religious, moral, and/or scientific beliefs are smeared as “cruel” enemies of “democracy” and “diversity.” As the great Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (what a name) argued decades ago, despite all its rhetoric about inclusivity, the left is the “enemy of diversity and the fantastical promoter of identity. Uniformity is stressed in all leftist utopias, paradises in which everybody is the same, envy is dead, and the enemy is either dead, lives outside the gates, or is utterly humiliated.”
Of course, even if pride flags were completely unobjectionable, your kids are not “kite strings that hold our national ambitions aloft.” They are human beings with rights, parents, and unique ambitions, not platitude-spouting automatons who should be categorized by skin color or gender “identification.” In a truly diverse and free nation, we have an array of aspirations and very different ideas about what constitutes “national ambition.” That’s why politics exists. That’s why neutral principles of governance and inherent rights (are supposed to) exist.
Marriage, once the most child-friendly institution in the world, has now been redefined in the name of equality. It was argued same-sex couples just wanted to visit one another in the hospital, have access to the same inheritance laws, and get the same tax breaks as heterosexuals. We were told ad nauseam that marriage had nothing to do with children.
Eight years post-Obergefell and it is clear we were lied to. As we have seen in every country that has redefined marriage, the redefinition of parenthood follows quickly on its heels. Court decisions mandating the state-sanctioned falsification that children have “two moms” at birth; deeming the term “mother” and “father” unconstitutional; Andrew Cuomo supporting commercial surrogacy in the name of “fairness and equality” for “LGBTQ+ New Yorkers” — in all of this, it is clear that children are the permanent victims of gay marriage.
California’s Senate Bill 729 offers one of the clearest connections between adult “equality” and child victimization. Take it from the child-violating bill’s co-author Sen. Caroline Menjivar who notes that this legislation “is critical to achieving full-lived equality for LGBTQ+ people.” The bill has passed in the Senate and advanced to the Assembly. As of June 1, it’s been referred to the Committee on Health and is awaiting a hearing date. But how does this bill provide full-lived “equality” for LGBT couples?
First, SB 729 redefines infertility. For the purpose of insurance coverage, infertility is typically defined as 12 months of unprotected heterosexual sex without pregnancy or birth. But what about gay couples? Twelve months — or 12 years — of unprotected homosexual sex will never produce a baby. Thus, California’s more “equitable” definition of infertility will include “a person’s inability to reproduce either as an individual or with their partner without medical intervention.”
Never mind that every adult operating under this expanded infertility definition will be creating a child who is intentionally motherless or fatherless — a child who will experience the inevitable mother-hunger or father-hunger as they are deprived of their natural right to both. True “equality” seems to require that children lose a parent (or two).
Next, because same-sex couples cannot create children organically, synthetic baby-making is required. SB 729 will force insurance companies to cover in-vitro fertilization (IVF) for the medically and relationally infertile. Never mind that children created in-vitro (in glass) experience higher rates of physical and developmental struggles. “Equality” demands that a child’s conception be directed by a technician rather than in the loving embrace of his or her own mother and father.
Third, while two female bodies have double the eggs, and two male bodies have double the sperm, bigoted biology requires one sperm and one egg for every new life to begin. Therefore, SB 729 will require insurance companies to fund the participation of reproductive third parties — someone else’s, sperm, egg, womb, and/or embryo — to make sure single men, lesbians, or gay couples are not disadvantaged. Never mind that this will subject children to the identity struggles often experienced by children created via sperm or egg donation. Never mind that womb-rental infants suffer intentional severing of the maternal bond — largely regarded as a foundation for life-long trust and attachment. (And no, surrogacy is not just like adoption.) “Equality” must be achieved, even at the expense of denying children a relationship with a biological parent and/or their birth mother.
Finally, biology puts no limit on a heterosexual couple’s pregnancy attempts, while single and same-sex couples are limited by the high cost of IVF. That’s why SB 729 will grant everyone unlimited embryo transfers. Once you’ve selected your child’s genetic parent from that sperm or egg catalog, created your dozens of embryos, discarded or donated the undesirables, sex-selected to your preference, and frozen the majority for later — or possibly for never — then the sky’s the limit! You can implant however many tiny humans you want in your womb, or that of a hired stranger.
Never mind that only 7 percent of lab-created babies will be born alive due to the high-risk nature of IVF pregnancies, eugenic screenings, and the abortionselective reduction to which they’re subjected. We already have 1 million babies on ice in this country, many of whom have been functionally abandoned — but at least the 93 percent of lab-created babies who die in California will do so at the hands of a truly diverse population.
California’s proposed bill is not unlike other recent attempts in Minnesota, Washington, and nationally to treat children as items to be cut and pasted into any and every adult relationship. But this is the inevitable result of equating two things that can never be equal: opposite-sex and same-sex relationships. There is only one kind of marital relationship capable of producing children and thus only one coupling that deserves to be incentivized and institutionalized.
In the marriage and family world, the pursuit of “Equality” based on adult emotions and preferences will always result in true inequality for children. And unfortunately for America’s children, our highest court insists that there is no distinction between these two types of parental pairings, even though one leads to wholeness for children, and the other to lifelong loss.
Actress Dakota Fanning poses with some of the Girl Scouts of the San Fernando Valley council as she arrives to a special screening in Burbank, California, September 22, 2005. | REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
Girl Scouts can earn an LGBT-themed patch by participating in several activities, such as attending a pride parade or creating a rainbow-themed flag, with the organization encouraging members of all levels to celebrate the LGBT movement this month.
In a document directed to troop leaders and guardians, the youth scouting organization Girl Scouts of the USA detailed how child participants can earn the “LGBTQ+ Pride Month Fun Patch.”
The Daisy, Brownie and Junior Girl Scout levels, which consist of younger children, must participate in three pride-related activities to earn the patch. Older Girl Scouts at the Cadette, Senior and Ambassador levels must participate in six activities to earn the patch.
In addition to attending a pride parade with their troop or family, the document encourages all Girl Scout levels to identify five books by LGBT authors to read or create a painting of an LGBT artist. Among the list of other recommended patch-earning activities for all levels are making a music playlist featuring 12 LGBT artists and drawing an admired figure in the LGBT movement.
The document also contains a glossary of LGBT terms, with definitions from the Human Rights Campaign, which the advocacy group designed for elementary school children. The Girl Scouts’ document defines gays and lesbians as individuals who love or are attracted to people of the same gender. It goes on to describe queer people as those who “identify with and celebrate people of all gender identities and all the ways people love each other.” However, the document warned troop leaders that the word “queer” can hurt people when used in a “mean way.”
Regarding the terms “transgender” or “trans,” the youth organization defined these as: “When your gender identity (how you feel) is different than what doctors/ midwives assigned to you when you were born (girl/boy or sex assigned at birth).”
“…ASSIGNED TO YOU….”??????????? These are the same people who screamed at all of us because we weren’t “follow(ing) the science”. What about the real science we’ve had for how many generations?
According to the Girl Scouts’ website, the purpose of allowing troop members to earn the LGBT-themed patch is to “celebrate” the diversity of LGBT individuals and acknowledge the community’s contributions to the nation. The website also noted that “girls of all identities” are encouraged to participate.
The Girls Scouts of the USA did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment.
“The Girl Scout LGBTQ+ Pride Month Celebration Fun Patch is designed for Girl Scouts of all levels and their leaders to honor LGBTQ+ history, to celebrate the diverse cultures and identities of LGBTQ+ people, and to acknowledge the many contributions of the LGBTQ+ community has made and continues to make across our nation,” Girl Scouts of the USA states on a webpage for its multicultural community celebrations.
“Girls and leaders have plenty of activities to choose from to earn this fun patch, and we encourage girls of all identities to participate.”
The youth organization received backlash years ago for entering the LGBT cultural war by announcing that it would allow boys who identify as girls to join to be Girl Scouts. As CP reported in May 2015, the GSUSA’s “Chief Girl Expert,” Andrea Bastiani Archibald, wrote in a now-deleted blog post that the organization exists to serve “all girls,” regardless of their biological sex.
“The foundation of diversity that Juliette Gordon Low established runs throughout Girl Scouting to this day,” Archibald wrote. “Our mission to build ‘girls of courage, confidence and character, who make the world a better place’ extends to all members, and through our program, girls develop the necessary leadership skills to advance diversity and promote tolerance.”
The American Family Association started an online petition urging GSUSA to change its policy, arguing that the organization has lost its “moral compass” and added, “this policy undermines the trust that parents place in the GSA’s leadership to make wise decisions and the obligation the GSA has to protect their daughters.”
“This means girls in the organization will be forced to recognize and accept transgenderism as a normal lifestyle,” the petition stated. “Boys in skirts, boys in makeup and boys in tents will become a part of the program. This change will put young innocent girls at risk.”
“Adults are willing to experiment on our kids — both the boys who are confused and the girls who will wonder why a boy in a dress is in the bathroom with them,” the petition added.
The petition is no longer available online, but it garnered at least 35,000 signatures before it was taken down.
The most uneducated but wildly popular critique of Christianity in America — especially on social media — is that Christianity has been a bastion of oppression and intolerance. So much so that the advancements made in liberty and equality over the centuries have come only when America and American leaders have rejected Christianity. In his new book Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land, historian Mark David Hall offers a concise corrective to this inaccurate and often ignorant hot-take and popular narrative.
Hatred of Christianity is one of the pillars of the current anti-American ideology that permeates universities and the governing spirit of our ruling elite. Mockery of Christians, especially evangelicals, is also one of the core tenets of progressive culture. This hostility and mockery are unwarranted. Far from being agents of oppression and anti-intellectualism, Hall highlights how Christians have been the bedrock of social activism advancing liberty and equality, as well as promoting education reform, increasing literacy, and publishing newspapers and magazines.
We are all familiar with the asinine proclamations of America as a secular country, that progress, liberty, and equality are atheist ideals, and that committed Christians are the greatest threat to America’s future. Yet, as Hall forcefully rebuts, “it is simply false to claim that liberty and equality have been advanced primarily when America’s leaders embrace progressive manifestations of religion or reject faith altogether.”
Looking at the Puritans, the American Revolution, evangelical social reform prior to the Civil War, and contemporary debates over religious liberty, Hall reveals what used to be well-known: Christianity has been the heart of true social progress and explosive advancements in human liberty, equality, and democratic government.
Puritans and Foundations of Liberty
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims, Daniel Webster, one of the most important senators the United States ever had, lauded the Pilgrims and Puritans as champions of the liberty that our “civil and religious liberty” grew from. Today, however, it is common to imagine Puritans as petty tyrants, intolerant theocrats, and bah humbug killjoys.
When I was a student at Yale taking classes on American Puritanism, our professor went to great lengths to de-indoctrinate us of the popular stereotypes of the Puritans. The Puritans were among the most educated people at the time, established our most venerable institutions of higher education, promoted the advancement and discoveries of Enlightenment science, vigorously advocated for public literacy, and enjoyed a good laugh, beer, and sex.
The real history of the Puritans that I learned at Yale is covered again by Hall in his opening chapter deconstructing the lies of secularists and anti-Christian writers and hacktivists portraying the Puritans in a dark and inaccurate light. The Puritans, our author reminds us, “valued natural rights, government by the consent of the governed, and limited government; they were convinced that citizens have a right, and perhaps even a duty, to resist tyrannical government.” When traveling through the lands the Puritans helped to build in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville remarked, “Puritanism was not merely a religious doctrine, but corresponded in many points with the most absolute democratic and republican theories.”
As historians and scholars of Puritanism have long asserted, the democratic ethos of congregationalist church politics helped develop the local customs of self-government in New England that would form the basis for “Democracy in America,” as Tocqueville famously put it. But what about the banishment of certain Baptist dissenters and the Salem witch trials, the critic asks? These events did happen, but they are drastically overblown by contemporary critics.
The banishment of a handful of religious dissenters in Massachusetts was only after these rabble-rousing individuals repeatedly, and deliberately, returned to cause trouble and disturb the peace. Also, Hall reminds us, when compared to Europe, where more than 100,000 men and women were prosecuted as witches and half sentenced to death, only 272 individuals in America were ever charged with witchcraft. The Salem witch trials, which happened in 1692, marked the last execution of a witch in North America. In Europe, witches were still executed as late as 1782.
Completing his overview of the Puritans, Hall writes that the Puritans “created political institutions that were more democratic than any the world had ever seen, and they strictly limited civil leaders by law.”
Rebellion to Tyrants Is Obedience to God
Another one of the popular putdowns of Christianity by its critics (and even some Christians) is that Christianity doesn’t permit rebellion to tyrannical government but supports tyrannical government. In a gross and deeply literalist reading of the Apostle Paul in Romans (somewhat ironic all things considered), these critics assert that because a single passage in the New Testament supposedly teaches obedience to government, which is ordained by God, the American revolutionary patriots rejected Christian teachings and had to utilize secular and Enlightenment arguments to advance the cause of liberty during the American Revolution.
Again, this is patently false, as any decently educated person knows. Kody Cooper and Justin Dyer recently published a superb book, The Classical and Christian Origins of American Politics, addressing this myth in detail. Hall, too, quickly covers the problems of this critique. Highlighting Calvinist theological history (something that these critics have no knowledge of, despite their claims of educated intelligence), covering important names known to students of theology, such as John Ponet, John Knox, George Buchanan, Samuel Rutherford, and even John Cotton (grandfather of Cotton Mather), Hall shows that Christian theological history had come to see rebellion to tyrants as obedience to God and Scripture.
Moreover, most of the popular and patriotic arguments for revolution were not conversant with theorists such as John Locke but with Scripture. The Old Testament, especially, was appealed to by the patriotic clergy in favor of revolution. Christians, far from submitting to tyranny, offered complex theological arguments against tyranny and, therefore, helped formulate a political theology of liberty and equality in the process.
Evangelicals Against Oppression
Perhaps the most common trope that our contemporary anti-Christian elite culture pushes is the tyrannical and ignorant evangelical Christian. This, too, is a stereotype with little basis in history. In fact, many of our best institutions of higher learning were founded by evangelical Christians even if they have since departed from that faith that gave birth to them (Harvard, Yale, and Oberlin, to name a few). The first opponents of slavery and proponents of abolition were the heirs of the Puritans, such as the Rev. Samuel Sewall, who published the first anti-slavery writing in 1700.
Motivated by a vigorous religious faith, the Second Great Awakening was the fire that fueled anti-slavery and abolitionist politics in antebellum America. Men and women of Methodist, Baptist, and congregationalist (Puritan) backgrounds were oftentimes the leading champions of liberty and equality for African-Americans and indigenous Americans. As Hall writes, it was American evangelicals, and especially evangelical women, who most actively “oppos[ed] the evils of slavery and Indian removal.”
During the antebellum years, American evangelicals sought to “work together to help end social evils” and established “thousands of organizations aimed at alleviating suffering and reforming society.” Evangelicals were on the front lines of creating new educational institutions, promoting education reforms to advance public literacy, and establishing newspapers as a means of confronting social evils. Furthermore, Evangelicalism, originally a religious minority grouping, was deeply indebted to religious liberty as the means for its social growth and prominence.
This spirit of religious social reform for liberty led to the contemporary defense of religious liberty as the bedrock on which all liberty and equality before the law stands: “Christian legal organizations have been among the best advocates for religious liberty for all, including citizens who embrace non-Christian faiths,” Hall writes.
Why Christianity Matters to America
In Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land, Hall gives us yet another triumphant and important book to correct the polemical, inaccurate, and deeply misleading public presentation of the relationship between Christianity and American politics. Far from the evil bogeyman and religion of oppression that ungrateful critics claim, Christianity has been a positive force for good and the growth of liberty and equality. In fact, America has been best when it has reached into the heart of Christianity for its social reforms and advancement of liberty and equality rather than rejecting Christianity.
Paul Krause is the editor-in-chief of VoegelinView. He is the author of “Finding Arcadia: Wisdom, Truth, and Love in the Classics” (Academica Press, 2023), “The Odyssey of Love: A Christian Guide to the Great Books” (Wipf and Stock, 2021), and contributed to “The College Lecture Today” (Lexington, 2019) and “Making Sense of Diseases and Disasters” (Routledge, 2022).
While the World Health Organization has declared that COVID-19 is no longer a “public health emergency,” America’s embrace of syncretism — the fusion of different religions — and the growing rejection of a biblical worldview remains a threat to general quality of life in a post-pandemic world, especially for children, new research from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University suggests.
“During times of crisis, every generation turns to their worldview to navigate the challenges. Sadly, because syncretism is the prevailing worldview of each generation in America today, the response of Americans to the pandemic and the political turbulence it facilitated have been every bit as muddled and chaotic as the worldview on which they are based,” wrote George Barna, director of research at the Cultural Research Center on the findings from his research.
“The ideological and philosophical confusion that characterizes America is perhaps the biggest reflection of the nation’s rejection of biblical principles and its decision to replace God’s truth with ‘personal truth.’”
Using recent data from the American Worldview Inventory, which is the first-ever national survey conducted in the United States measuring the incidence of both biblical and competing worldviews, Barna shows how the four adult generations in the U.S. — millennials, Gen X (baby busters), baby boomers and elders — had very different spiritual responses to the pandemic.
The research, which involved the tracking of a nationally representative sample of 2,000 adults undertaken in January, showed the lowest incidence of adults with a biblical worldview among the youngest cohorts, millennials, adults born between 1984 and 2002, and Gen X, adults born from 1965 through 1983.
The data show that of the four generations, millennials had the lowest incidence of biblical worldview at 2%. Their connection to Christianity was also shown as quite weak before the pandemic and “was even weaker by the end of the COVID-19” pandemic.
“Millennials were hit hard by the pandemic in dimensions such as their emotions, finances, vocation, relationships, and ideology,” Barna wrote.
Only 5% of Gen X adults held a biblical worldview, according to the data. The study shows that Gen X endured the greatest degree of “spiritual turbulence,” with 10 statistically significant changes and two notable directional changes.
“In all but one instance, those changes showed Gen Xers moving away from biblical perspectives or behaviors. In general, the nature of the spiritual transitions among Gen Xers during the pandemic era was a shift away from trust in God. Among the biggest changes in their religious perspective were declines in believing God created humans, that He is the basis of truth, and that He is the omniscient and omnipotent ruler of the universe,” Barna noted.
“Those doubts have precipitated important transitions in religious behavior, including less frequent Bible reading, church attendance, confession of personal sin, seeking to do God’s will, and worshiping God. Another noteworthy shift is the decline in how many Gen Xers believe that human life is sacred.”
Baby boomers, adults born between 1946 and 1964, and elders, adults 77 and older, were shown to be the most likely among adults to hold a biblical worldview. However, they were still in the minority among their respective cohorts and showed declines over the course of the pandemic.
The biblical worldview incidence among boomers dropped from 9% to 7% over the past three years, while it dropped among elders from 9% to 8%.
Barna suggested that the decision by Christian churches to shutter during the pandemic wasn’t helpful for the American public because it left people unprepared for the challenges of a post-pandemic society.
“The last three years have been a time of high anxiety for tens of millions of adults. It was an ideal time for the Christian Church to provide wise guidance and emotional calm. Unfortunately, most churches agreed to the government’s dictate that they close their doors and remain mostly silent. That left an unprepared populace to follow the primary form of leadership available to them: government perspectives and policies,” Barna argued.
“Obviously, that has not worked well, given how dissatisfied a large majority of the country is with the direction of the nation and the quality of post-COVID life. With only one out of every 50 millennials embracing a biblical worldview, America’s children are especially vulnerable to the inward-looking approach to life that their parents and most other adults practice,” he added.
“As a nation, we may be past the danger of COVID-19, but we are in the thick of the danger brought about by people relying upon syncretism as their dominant worldview. Biblical churches must see this as a time for an urgent response to the direction society is taking. While the Left pursues the Great Reset, it is time for the Church to pursue the Great Renewal — leading people’s hearts, minds, and souls back to God and His life principles.”
This April marks 40 years since my therapist told me a “sex change” was the only answer to my persistent mental difficulties. Unfortunately, I followed his advice, obtained cross-sex hormones, and underwent surgery. As I learned through my painful experience, “gender-affirming treatment” (GAT), also known as “gender-affirming care,” is medical fraud and malpractice.
A person’s sex cannot be changed. I know. I lived and identified as a woman for eight years. Hormones and surgery didn’t change my sex. I was a man before surgery, and I remained a man after surgery, illustrating the truth of God’s perfect design — two separate and distinct sexes, male and female, innate and unchangeable.
Every step I took to identify as a female did not make me a female but devaluated me as a man, father, and husband. Each step dehumanized my male body and identity. So-called gender-affirming treatment destroyed my life and relationships, as well as those of my family.
The same thing is happening to people today, except at younger ages. I know. I get their emails.
In the decades following my surgery, instead of the “gender” industry dying out, it has run rampant — devaluing, dehumanizing, and destroying thousands of lives. When I fell for the scam, the patients were exclusively adult men. Today, the industry targets vulnerable adolescents of both sexes influenced by the emotional and physical throes of puberty, who can’t be expected to grasp the long-term consequences, such as infertility, bone density loss, and heart problems.
Parents are told their child will die by suicide if the child is denied medicalization, but it’s a myth. The Child and Parental Rights Campaign gathered the scientific evidence: “[T]here is no long-term evidence that puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or ‘transition’ surgeries prevent suicide. On the contrary, the best long-term research shows that individuals who do go through medical transition kill themselves at a rate 19 times greater than the general population.”
A Path to Sterilization
GAT includes many destructive and devaluing procedures. With social transition, a person adopts a new name and pronouns that erase his original identity. Puberty blockers — drugs with severe, well-known side-effects that stop normal growth and maturation — are administered.
Those are followed by cross-sex hormones — powerful drugs with destructive, known medical side-effects that impose a cross-sex appearance. The final step is surgeries — invasive, destructive procedures to remove healthy breasts and wombs in girls and healthy genitalia in boys.
It’s a path to sterilization. Sperm and eggs don’t mature without going through puberty. When puberty blockers are followed by cross-sex hormones, the teen is permanently sterilized. Some refer to this as chemical castration. Furthermore, to state the obvious, surgically removing testicles or wombs ends any possibility of having biological children.
Affirming a child in the opposite sex is emotional and psychological child abuse. Experimenting on healthy children with powerful drugs and sterilizing surgery is the epitome of medical malpractice and horribly barbaric.
‘Regret Is Rare’
After living eight years identifying as a woman, I still experienced extreme emotional distress and made the decision to detransition, i.e., to go back to living and presenting as the man I am. When I told my gender therapist and sex change surgeon, they assured me I was the only one they had ever heard of who went back.
Curious how I could be the only case in which “sex change” failed to fix gender issues, I launched a website, SexChangeRegret.com, to reach out to others. It turns out my experience wasn’t rare. Over the last ten years, I have heard from hundreds, maybe thousands, of people like me who found that GAT wasn’t the answer.
Research tells a similar story. Regrettable outcomes made the headlines almost 20 years ago. In July 2004, The Guardian reported the results of a review of 100 medical studies in an article tellingly headlined “Sex Changes are Not Effective, Say Researchers.” The article summarized the findings: “There is no conclusive evidence that sex change operations improve the lives of transsexuals, with many people remaining severely distressed and even suicidal after the operation.”
A 2011 long-term follow-up study in Sweden concurs. People who underwent GAT were 19 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population.
Undeterred by the lack of evidence of benefits, enthusiastic “gender experts” in Europe and the United States expanded the dangerous practice to children and adolescents. Pediatric gender clinics sprang up, ignoring evidence that showed most children, if not affirmed as the opposite sex, reconciled their sex with biological reality by the time they reached adulthood. Instead, clinics promoted and offered only GAT.
Finally, in 2022, pediatric gender clinics in Sweden, Finland, and the UK objectively reviewed the evidence. They found the risks outweighed the potential benefits and officially ended the practice of GAT for minors, replacing it with good psychosocial care. Recently, Norway did the same.
Why the U.S. Continues as Others Stop
But in the United States, it’s a different story. The legacy medical establishment pushes radical, risky medicalization, sterilization, and removal of healthy body parts as the only effective treatment for youth — no counseling, no diagnosis and treatment of co-existing disorders, little discussion of the risks and harms, no waiting, no alternatives.
Hospitals apparently salivate over the money to be made by gender clinics, as seen in the video from Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Pediatric Transgender Clinic in Nashville, Tennessee, in which a doctor describes the surgeries as a “huge money maker” for the hospital.
Recently, a selfless whistleblower from Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital blew the cover off the lack of established protocols and frequency of harm, saying, “what is happening to them [children] is morally and medically appalling.”
Children and their parents need protection from this medical quackery, and they need it now. That’s why lawmakers in several states are pursuing legislation to protect children from harmful medicalization. Arkansas, Arizona, Alabama, Florida, and Texas enacted protections, and several other states are in process: Missouri, Utah, Montana, South Carolina, South Dakota, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Oklahoma.
The state of Florida commissioned a comprehensive evaluation of the benefits and harms of GAT for minors in 2022. The scientifically stringent review exposed a lack of quality evidence showing any benefit, and ample proof of harm. The analysis prompted the Florida medical boards to act and limit the widespread use of hormonal and surgical interventions for youth.
Encouraging Me to Cross-Dress Was Child Abuse
As a child, I was encouraged and affirmed by my grandmother to cross-dress in women’s clothing. She made me a purple chiffon evening dress when I was four years old. It was our secret, she said. Her repeated affirming and loving response to me in the dress proved devastating. It implanted the damaging idea that something must be wrong with me as a boy.
Think of the parallels to today. The public-school environment fosters the same perverse practice on children by teaching students (beginning in kindergarten) a disturbing curriculum that confuses children about their innate identity. Public schools have become indoctrination centers for “gender change” and de facto satellite gender clinics that practice medicine without training, a license, or, in many cases, parental permission.
“The public-school environment fosters the same perverse practice on children by teaching students (beginning in kindergarten) a disturbing curriculum that confuses children about their innate identity. Public schools have become indoctrination centers for “gender change” and de facto satellite gender clinics that practice medicine without training, a license, or, in many cases, parental permission.”
Teachers groom children as early as kindergarten or first grade to think that “there are many genders” and they can choose one. When children seem upset or perplexed about whether they are a girl or a boy, school counselors and teachers stand ready to inappropriately diagnose them as trans and encourage them to take the next step: “Choose a new name and wardrobe for use at school. We’ll keep it a secret from your parents.” Unbeknownst to parents, many school districts prohibit staff from informing parents.
Protect your children from being corrupted and “transitioned.” Take them out of the public school system.
Trans Kids and Parents
As I discovered in my own life, and in the lives of parents and the detransitioners I have had the pleasure to work with, gender distress is a symptom, not a diagnosis. There are many factors driving youth to identify as trans, such as indoctrination and enabling in public schools, local peer group influence and social contagion, and autism or mental disorders.
Other factors are social media apps such as TikTok, sexually charged transgender gaming, and anime. Lastly, there are adverse childhood experiences, such as sexual abuse, emotional abuse, divorce of parents, exposure to pornography, bullying, and other perceived trauma.
Kids don’t need a “gender” therapist or hormones or to cut off healthy body parts. They need parents to shelter them from school indoctrination and peer group and social media influences. They may need a trauma therapist who can help them unearth and address underlying adverse childhood experiences or mental disorders.
My Adverse Childhood Experiences
I can only speculate as to why I wanted to cross-dress and pretend I was a girl. Certainly, my grandma’s obvious delight in me as a girl in the purple dress, not as the scruffy boy in blue jeans, damaged my male identity. Another leading contender was my relationship with my mother.
I never felt my mom, a young 20-year-old at my birth, ever wanted me, loved me, or accepted me. The feeling was confirmed years later, after I detransitioned, when she shared an alarming story with a friend of mine.
Without any shame or remorse, she revealed how she would grab my wrists and yank me up off the floor with one arm and hit my dangling body with a frying pan with the other. I have no memory of this. I must have been very young to be suspended with one hand.
I never hated my mom. I was always trying to win her approval and get her to love me. The sad truth is, at no time in my mom’s lifetime did she ever talk about how much she loved me. Shortly before she died, she revealed to me and my wife that when I was a toddler, she almost killed me by shaking me very hard.
With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to guess that a four-year-old boy would prefer being loved and appreciated at grandma’s wearing the purple dress than being yanked up by one arm and hit with a frying pan by an angry mom. My grandma’s affirming me as a girl started my overwhelming desire to change into a female, a longing reinforced by subsequent physical and sexual mistreatment.
The psychological and emotional abuse perpetrated on me as a child was so devaluing and so dehumanizing, I was convinced as an adult by doctors that the only way to heal was to load up on female hormones and let surgeons slice up my body and declare I was now a female. That was 40 years ago. Today, “gender-affirming care” for children is lucrative medical abuse that devalues, destroys, and dehumanizes boys and girls.
Sweden and other countries examined the evidence and ended it. Florida reviewed the high-quality evidence and as a result, Florida medical associations stopped it. The U.K. court reviewed evidence provided by the Tavistock clinic and called it experimental and not suitable for children.
Children need love, real care, and good psychosocial counseling, not a change of identity.
Walt Heyer is an accomplished author and public speaker with a passion for mentoring individuals whose lives have been torn apart by unnecessary gender-change surgery.
Regular viewers know that I am sicken by what is happening to America’s children. I have been asking for a long time, “Why is the political Left so hyper about transgenderism, and mutilating children?” I think I might have some (certainly not all) answers.
Could it be motivated by the “Over-Population” cabal?
The Democrat Party, and the rest of the whacky Left, have always embraced Margaret Sanger and her beliefs that the world is overpopulated. She fought for euthanizing certain people groups, especially black people. She wrote how she was a student of how Hitler killed the Jews.
The Left certainly knows that children that have these cross-sex hormones, surgeries, et., al., CANNOT REPRODUCE. (They also know the alarming amount of people, especially young people, are dying from Fentanyl poisoning, yet won’t close the southern border).
History is full of their manipulative means to control Americans. Could this be one more manipulation?
Two Dutchstudies touting the great success of “gender-affirming” medical intervention on youth have been deemed bad research by experts at the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. In the report “The Myth of ‘Reliable Research’ in Pediatric Gender Medicine” published earlier this month, researchers describe how the 2011 and 2014 studies that formed the foundation of the transgender industry in the U.S. should never have been accepted by the professional community, falling “unacceptably” short of modern research standards. The studies led to a global movement of wrongly named “gender-affirming care,” resulting in hormone experimentation on youth and, in some cases, irreversible mutilation.
The Dutch studies had several major flaws, according to the report. Study authors only recorded the cases with the best outcomes, concluded without evidence that gender dysphoria disappeared solely as a result of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, and failed to properly examine the risks of the interventions, with disastrous effects.
The American College of Pediatricians responded to the report in a press release on Jan. 25 calling on organizations to “reconsider current protocols for gender dysphoric children.”
“The entire pediatric transgender industry is based on these two Dutch studies,” Michelle Cretella, immediate past executive director of ACPeds and advisory board spokeswoman for Advocates Protecting Children, told me. “This open access report is critical because it exposes the fraudulent foundation of pediatric transgender medicine in the United States.”
The Dutch studies were so foundational to the U.S. movement that the first pediatric gender clinic in the United States was opened by Dr. Norman Spack, a pediatric endocrinologist who was convinced of the necessity of “gender-affirming” interventions after visiting the Dutch physicians who published them, Cretella said.
But if these studies had been published today, the authors conclude, the research would have been recognized as very low quality and would not have encouraged the use of puberty blockers, wrong-sex hormones, and surgery in confused children and young adults in general medical settings.
‘No Evidence’ of Genetic Cause
The report criticizing these studies was published in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, and authors E. Abbruzzese, Stephen B. Levine, and Julia W. Mason have years of experience studying so-called gender identity. Levine has worked in the field as a psychiatrist since 1974.
“We had no bias, we are just responding to and trying to articulate the limitations of the studies,” Levine told me. “We are doing harm to an unknown percentage of kids, and the data that is supportive of this work does not really address the issue. The real issue here is what happens to these children when they get into their 20s and 30s.”
Youth who have been hormonally and surgically “transitioned” have major obstacles to their happiness and productivity later in life, Levine said.
“After people have sex reassignment surgeries … they want more surgeries,” according to Levine. “It’s very clear they have continued gender dysphoria. The idea that they are being ‘cured’ by affirmative care is an artifact, it’s a myth.”
Hormone and surgical treatment, and subsequent medical intervention, leads many people to assume this must be a “medical problem” but “we don’t have any evidence that this is genetically determined,” Levine said.
“Just because we have hormone treatment doesn’t mean there is a hormonal defect in the person,” he said. “People believe, erroneously, that there is some genetic, pre-determined factor here, but we have not been able to find a genetic cause.”
Cultural, interpersonal, psychological, and developmental factors all contribute to the development of a person’s behavior, Levine said. Gender dysphoria can be a resulting psycho-social problem.
Biased, Uncontrolled Studies
Though the Dutch studies were found to have selection bias and multiple, uncontrolled variables, they were broadly applied in the U.S.
“The Dutch study researchers only took healthy kids from supportive and reasonably healthy families,” Levine said. “They carefully screened kids, so if they had major developmental problems they were not included in the studies. But in the U.S. … the vast majority of these kids have a history of psychiatric issues before they developed gender dysphoria. The Dutch rejected these kids from their research.”
The Dutch study had 196 participants initially and only put 70 in the protocol. Only 55 then completed the protocol. As well as having selection bias, the study was uncontrolled.
“Wisely, the Dutch people gave these kids and their families continued psychotherapy during this protocol,” Levine said. “Is the positive results they found due to the psychotherapy, improvement as they got older, or affirmative care? This is an uncontrolled study. They cannot make conclusions about what caused what. But the world took this as scientific evidence.”
In the U.S., youth who had rapid-onset gender dysphoria and didn’t even meet the baseline criteria for the Dutch study began receiving interventions in pediatric clinics, with doctors utilizing the studies as justification. Furthermore, when the Dutch began this project there was also much less awareness of autism, Levine said. A very large percentage of these kids that have come to American facilities are on the autism spectrum, according to Levine.
Courageous Pediatricians Have Resisted
ACPeds physicians have spoken out against sexual disfigurement and medical intervention in youth with gender dysphoria for years.
“There are a handful of us physicians within ACPeds and across the country who have the courage and expertise to speak out on this issue,” Cretella said. “When we are able to do so in an environment open to dialogue, we are met with significant appreciation and affirmation by fellow physicians and laypersons alike.”
Most colleagues, Cretella said, appreciated ACPeds’ stance, acknowledging that the studies affirming medical intervention in gender dysphoric youth were likely flawed or fake; but too many feared losing their jobs to speak out against transgender interventions.
“Trans interventions are big money,” Cretella said. “Billionaire elites promote trans ideology over truth across all public institutions and media platforms, and [in America] a severe cancel culture results in everything from severe harassment and doxing to ending one’s career.”
Fortunately, signs of sound medical ethics triumphing over junk science are breaking through, Cretella said.
In the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Finland, cultures that embraced transgender interventions for youth early on have reversed course. France has urged greater caution in these cases.
In the United States, Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., has rooted his administration in medical ethics and utilized the best science to establish pro-child treatment of gender confusion with psychotherapy, Cretella said.
Currently, about 13 other states are attempting similar legislative efforts.
Ashley Bateman is a policy writer for The Heartland Institute and blogger for Ascension Press. Her work has been featured in The Washington Times, The Daily Caller, The New York Post, The American Thinker and numerous other publications. She previously worked as an adjunct scholar for The Lexington Institute and as editor, writer and photographer for The Warner Weekly, a publication for the American military community in Bamberg, Germany. Ashley is a board member at a Catholic homeschool cooperative in Virginia. She homeschools her four incredible children along with her brilliant engineer/scientist husband.e who lives in Virginia.
“Boys are boys from the beginning. Girls are girls right from the start.” No, those aren’t the words from a tweet banned for “hate speech” — though they could be. They’re prophetic lines from none other than Mister Rogers, who put the immutable truths to a tune decades before the trans craze.
Resurfaced in a recent TikTok, the clip shows Fred Rogers, host of the classic children’s show “Mister Rogers Neighborhood,” singing his ditty “Everybody’s Fancy,” which goes:
Boys are boys from the beginning Girls are girls right from the start Everybody’s fancy Everybody’s fine Your body’s fancy and so is mine
Girls grow up to be the mommies Boys grow up to be the daddies Everybody’s fancy Everybody’s fine Your body’s fancy and so is mine
TRIGGER WARNING. ⚠️ This is the most upsetting thing you will see all weekend. https://t.co/eVLPZ3J3RI
In his first appearance on “The Tonight Show” starring Johnny Carson in 1980, Rogers delved into the song’s importance. When Carson asked Rogers a series of lighthearted questions about his show and asked how Rogers communicates important themes to his audience of children, it didn’t take long for the host to pivot to the topic of sex. “Are they too young for that?” Carson asked.
That’s how they learn the difference between boys and girls, Rogers replied. “Sometimes children think that they might change, they might have to change after a while,” he continued, to which the audience laughed.
But Rogers wasn’t laughing. “You know, we laugh about that now,” he said, “but it’s because we had that concern when we were little.”
Some have argued that Rogers was simply the product of his generation or speculated that he was a homosexual to explain his gentle demeanor. In a 1969 Senate Commerce Committee hearing, however, Rogers made his case clear: “I’m very much concerned about what’s being delivered to our children in this country.”
And of course, some of Disney’s most recent productions have forged ahead with an increasingly explicit LGBT agenda for children. The latest “Toy Story” installment, “Lightyear,” boasted a lesbian kiss. “Baymax!” taught kids that men can have periods.
“Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” was not a political program, but it tackled issues, both big and small, that troubled children. This included not only instilling truths about the immutability of the sexes, but reassuring kids that they wouldn’t get sucked down the bathtub drain or lose an ear during a haircut.
“Children are concerned when they get their first haircut that the barber’s going to cut more than hair,” Rogers said on “The Tonight Show.” So to assuage kids’ fears, he visited a barber to ask whether the trimmer cuts more than hair.
It isn’t that Rogers hated children who wanted to be unique—far from it. As he stated in the Senate hearing, he merely wanted to address the “inner drama of childhood.” Long before libraries began hosting drag queen story hour, Rogers tried to warn us about the dangers of gender-bending. But in true Mister Rogers’ fashion, he did so while celebrating each person for being “fancy” and unique, no transgender interventions required.
Ioan Gruffudd plays William Wilberforce, the 18th-century English abolitionist. | (Photo: Samuel Goldwyn Films)
This month, January 2023, marks the 250th anniversary of the classic hymn, “Amazing Grace.”
The Museum of the Bible writes: “It was January 1, 1773. John Newton led his congregation down the road from the parish church in Olney, England, to Lord Dartmouth’s Great Hall to sing … and the hymn he wrote for this day was special. It spoke of his conversion, of his self-proclaimed wretchedness, and of the saving power of God’s grace. Since then, the words of ‘Amazing Grace’ have struck a chord with millions across cultures and generations, and its popularity has never wavered.”
The museum based in D.C. now has a section dedicated to the anniversary of this amazing hymn.
In the hymn, John Newton, a former slave-trader now converted, indeed describes himself as a “wretch,” who was amazed that God would extend His grace to one such as he.
He became a minister after his conversion, and one day, a politician came to visit him for personal guidance. That man was William Wilberforce, who had recently been converted to faith in Jesus.
Everybody should know who William Wilberforce was — one of the greatest Christian statesman of all time.
He was a longtime Member of Parliament, who worked tirelessly (with a group of like-minded associates that became known as “The Clapham Sect”) to end the slave trade of the British Empire and then to free all the slaves therein. By the time of his death in 1833, Wilberforce was successful. But it took him about half a century.
Author Dr. Os Guinness once said, “When Wilberforce died, he was described as ‘the George Washington of humanity.’”
William Wilberforce was born in 1759 and inherited considerable wealth which placed him among the landed nobility of England. He was indeed a polished gentleman, and he first ran for Parliament and won at the age of 21.
But not until his conversion a few years later did he begin to take life seriously.
After committing his life to Christ, he briefly dallied with the idea of leaving politics to serve God. But John Newton counseled Wilberforce to stay and let God use him in politics. Newton declared, “The Lord has raised you up to the good of His Church and for the good of the nation.”
I shudder to think about someone like Wilberforce seeking guidance today among some modern ministers, who might easily convince him that Christians and politics shouldn’t mix. But John Calvin Coolidge, an often-overlooked president, once said, “If good men don’t hold office, bad men will.”
Soon after meeting with Rev. Newton, God put it on Wilberforce’s heart to fight against slavery. Working to uproot it was a daunting task because the slave trade brought enormous wealth to those involved.
After much prayer, Wilberforce felt that this indeed was the very voice of God speaking to him, calling him to this important mission. He was also concerned by the godless immorality of the age. In 1787, he wrote in his diary: “Almighty God has set before me two great objectives, the abolition of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.” (“Manners” would be comparable to “morals” in modern parlance.)
In an interview I once did with the late Chuck Colson, prison reformer and Wilberforce admirer, he told me: “[Wilberforce] stood up on the floor of the Parliament influenced by his new Christian conviction, took a stand that was enormously unpopular because all of the vested interest opposed him, including the government, and for 20 years he waged that battle.”
Kevin Belmonte, author of William Wilberforce: A Hero for Humanity, observes, “Wilberforce had to travel with an armed bodyguard.” But Wilberforce persevered — despite whatever personal cost he must pay.
Colson said, “One day in 1807 in a February snowstorm, the votes were cast to abolish the slave trade. While members of Parliament were jumping up and down for joy, they looked over and there was Wilberforce, head bowed at his desk, praying, thanking God for what He had done.”
But Wilberforce wasn’t finished. He then set out to emancipate the slaves, who, even after this vote, were still in chains throughout the British Empire. This was a battle to last for another 25 years.
Because of health problems, he had to resign in Parliament in 1825, but the movement he began to free all of the slaves in the British Empire continued without his direct involvement — and when he was already on his death bed, in 1833, he received word that the Parliament decided to free all of the 800,000 slaves throughout the British Empire.
Wilberforce is a great example of what Jesus can do through those fully committed to Him in whatever position in which He has placed them — when God’s “amazing grace” gets ahold of a life wholly committed to Him.
Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., is the executive director of the Providence Forum, an outreach of D. James Kennedy Ministries, where Jerry also serves as senior producer and an on-air host. He has written/co-written 33 books, including George Washington’s Sacred Fire (with Providence Forum founder Peter Lillback, Ph.D.) and What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (with D. James Kennedy, Ph.D.). http://www.djkm.org? @newcombejerry www.jerrynewcombe.com
Pastor Christiana Ford (L) mourns her late son, Lamar Ford, 39 (R). | Screenshot/4WWL
Christiana Ford, a New Orleans pastor and founder of the Silence The Violence Foundation, is calling for an end to gun violence in her community just days after losing a second son to gun violence just outside her home and steps away from her church. Ford lost her 39-year-old son Lamar Ford in a shooting earlier this month. Lamar Ford was fatally shot in the head on Aug. 5, 4WWL reported. Police say the shooting happened about 11:30 a.m. on the 1300 block of Elysian Fields Avenue. The location of the deadly shooting was near the House of Faith Non-Denominational Ministries, a congregation led by his mother.
Lamar Ford had served time in prison for manslaughter, according to nola.com, but was released two years ago. According to his mother, he was turning his life around and helping with outreach programs at her church.
In addition to his mother, Lamar Ford left behind a 9-year-old son and other siblings.
“This man got out of the car and stood over him and shot him two times in the head,” Christiana Ford told 4WWL. “It’s not right; it’s not right. It’s nothing like losing a child.”
The grieving pastor, who previously lost another son to gun violence in Texas, spoke out against gun violence in New Orleans amid a sharp increase in homicides in the city. Data from the Metropolitan Crime Commission found that since New Year’s Day, 180 murders have been reported, a 42% increase compared to the same period last year.
“To see our kids getting killed daily on the streets. It’s multiplying. It’s crippling. It’s out of control. We need help here in New Orleans,” Ford said.
“Every day, all day, somebody is being killed. That tells me it’s easy to kill and it’s easy to get away with it. … It’s my child now. Whose child is it going to be next?”
“We must come together and let these criminals know they’re not taking over the streets.”
At his trial in 2017, prosecutors said Lamar Ford shot a man named Tyrone Daniels in a vacant alleyway in a dispute over a $40 drug debt on April 22, 2013, according to nola.com. Prosecutors alleged that Lamar Ford lured Daniels into the alleyway by claiming his bike was there and then shot him. They cited circumstantial evidence against him.
Lamar Ford’s brother Lynn Ford, who had given Daniels a haircut shortly before he was shot, reportedly told investigators that he thought Lamar Ford had murdered Daniels but recanted his testimony upon taking the stand.
In May 2017, Lamar Ford pleaded guilty to manslaughter two days after his trial started, with Daniels’ mother accepting the deal made with prosecutors but insisting he was a murderer.
“I know you killed my son, but I’m going to take it,” Shirley Daniels said, as reported by nola.com at the time. “I can’t do it no more.”
A 25-year-old biological male who identifies as a woman was forced to leave a Texas cheerleading camp after allegedly choking a female teammate.
The trans-identified cheerleader, Averie Chanel Medlock, was kicked out of the camp held at Ranger College last month in Eastland County, Texas. Police responded to the campus on July 21 following reports of a dispute among members of the cheer team, according to Fox News.
A since-deleted Facebook post alleged that a teammate said Medlock was a “man with a penis” and that a man should not be on the cheerleading team.
“Well guys I’m officially retired as a cheerleader as of last night at 5:30 AM. A girl on the team was being very disrespectful and told me I am a MAN with a PENIS and that [guys] should not be on the team,” Medlock wrote.
“I stood up for myself and she called her mom and dad because she was scared because I [stood] up for myself. Her father said ‘she still has testosterone and a penis and I will kill anyone who comes after my daughter.'”
The father later identified himself as Mike Jones, and posted a comment on Facebook addressed to Medlock, claiming that at “no time did I ever say anything about your race or your gender.”
“I ask you what you would have done when receiving a phone call at 1 o’clock in the morning from your daughter stating they had locked themselves in the room with other girls,” Jones wrote.
In response, Medlock posted a video to Facebook with a caption reading, “This is video evidence that I did not assault her” and urged Jones to “get [his] facts straight.”
Medlock, who was kicked out of the camp and cited by police for misdemeanor assault, later denied the allegations of misconduct. Medlock told The New York Post that there “was no physical contact at all” and was “just trying to talk it out as an adult.” Medlock claims to have not been questioned by the college before being removed from the cheer team.
Eastland County District Attorney Brad Stephenson told The New York Post that there was an assault and that cops handled the incident appropriately.
“There definitely was an assault and it could’ve ostensibly been charged as a class A misdemeanor, but I think they appropriately charged it as a class C misdemeanor,” Stephenson was quoted as saying.
The incident comes amid growing debate over whether trans-identified athletes who are biologically male should be allowed to participate in women’s sports. The debate has gained national traction after swimmer Lia Thomas, a biological male formerly known as William, won the NCAA women’s championship in March in the women’s 500-yard freestyle. Thomas edged out the second-place finisher by nearly two seconds.
At least 18 states have passed legislation to prohibit or strictly limit transgender participation to the athlete’s birth sex, including Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.
A Texas store clerk fought back against a robber who attacked her with a knife last week, shooting the suspect multiple times and landing him in the hospital. Beaumont Police got a call about a robbery in progress at the Everest Food Mart in the 2800 block of Eastex Freeway around 11:30 p.m. last Friday, KBMT-TV reported. While police were on their way to the scene, the station said they were told the store clerk shot the robber multiple times. Police arrived at the store within minutes of receiving the initial call, KBMT said.
Image source: KBMT-TV videos screenshot
Officer Haley Morrow told the station’s news crew at the scene that a store clerk called and said a man entered the store with a knife and robbed her, KBMT reported, adding that the clerk suffered minor injuries. A preliminary investigation determined the robber displayed a knife and attacked the clerk prior to her shooting him, the Port Arthur News reported.
Officer Morrow emphasized to the station that crime victims have the right to defend themselves.
“Essentially, you know, we see the aggravated robberies often; in a lot of cases what we don’t see is … a victim fight back and defend themselves,” she noted to the KBMT. “But, you know, we want to make sure that people understand that they do have that right.”
Officer Haley MorrowImage source: KBMT-TV video screenshot
The suspect was identified as 62-year-old William Coleman of Beaumont, KBMT said, adding that he was taken to an area hospital for treatment for serious injuries. Coleman later was charged with aggravated robbery, the station said.
Once Coleman is released from the hospital, he will be taken to the Jefferson County Jail and held on a $250,000 bond, KBMT reported.
Navy veteran Whitfield Smith grabbed his rifle after spotting prowlers outside his Georgia home in the middle of the night last week — and a furious shootout erupted after he headed to his driveway to get a closer look.
Much of the scary encounter was captured on surveillance video.
WAGA-TV characterized Smith’s neighborhood near Jonesboro — about 30 minutes south of Atlanta — as “quiet.”
It was anything but in the early morning hours of July 11 after Smith saw potential trouble outside his home, the station said.
“As I keep looking at the Ring camera I noticed a young man running from the neighbor’s yard across my yard and into the street to meet up with two other gentlemen,” he told the station.
Image source: WAGA-TV video screenshot
Then things got scarier for Smith, as one of the individuals headed down his driveway.
“I can see from the camera he’s hunched down wearing a gray hoodie, and he has a firearm in his hand. He tries to get into the BMW in the driveway. The door’s locked,” Smith recounted to WAGA.
Image source: WAGA-TV video screenshot
“My first thought was to protect my house and protect my property,” Smith told WAGA. “I just wanted to get the intruders away.”
Whitfield Smith / Image source: WAGA-TV video screenshot
“I grab my rifle, and I head outside,” he told the station.
Smith was shirtless and wearing only flip-flops and pajama pants in that moment — but the main thing on his mind was protecting his wife who was hiding inside their home, WAGA noted.
“I knew I had to act,” Smith added, according to Inside Edition.
Surveillance video shows Smith approaching his driveway — he later added to WAGA that the armed individual was using his truck as a shield — and then a shootout erupted.
Image source: WAGA-TV video screenshot
Smith is then seen quickly backpedaling toward his home, kicking off his flip-flops, and heading back inside.
Image source: WAGA-TV video screenshot
He soon returned to the driveway with a shirt and shoes on.
Image source: WAGA-TV video screenshot
“I could hear them trying to get away,” he added, according to Inside Edition. “They’re jumping over fences.”
While Smith was uninjured, he added to the station he fears he would be dead if it weren’t for his BMW shielding him from the nearly two dozen bullets fired in his direction.
Image source: WAGA-TV video screenshot
“I don’t want to die at home. I survived Afghanistan and everywhere else. To die at home? In my own yard?” an incredulous Smith — who’s also a father — reflected to WAGA.
Image source: WAGA-TV video screenshot
“This was coordinated,” he told WAGA of the incident. “They were working together as a team to get this done.”
The station added that a gun which was inside Smith’s truck was stolen, and that those who know anything about what took place can contact Clayton County police anonymously.
Another “Good Samaritan” with a gun saved the day again, this time, shooting and killing a man who was holding a gas station attendant at knife point. Last Saturday, the concealed carrier pulled up to a QuikTrip service station in St. Charles, Missouri, about a half-hour outside St. Louis, and used the restroom. After he walked out of the store and returned to his car, however, some suspicious activity from another driver prompted him to remain at the gas station rather than pull away.
The customer with the gun, who has asked to remain anonymous, told reporters that he saw the driver of a black SUV enter the store and immediately grab the clerk and hold a knife to her throat.
“I saw him grab her and drag her to the front to the counter, something wasn’t right when I saw that, so me being concealed carry, I had my gun on me and I just waited,” he said.
“I walked up to the door and I saw him with a knife to her throat,” he continued. “She was emptying out the cash register and I took a step in and peeked my head in to ask if everything was okay. I couldn’t see his face but he was saying yes, but I could see her face she was saying no, she was scared.”
The man said that the suspect then charged straight at him, still wielding the knife, so the man pulled out his gun and shot the suspect four times. Once the suspect fell, he and the clerk both called police.
“I don’t think I honestly had a choice. He already had a knife at her throat, he could’ve pulled out something bigger than what I had. Then, you would’ve had two people dead instead of one,” he said.
When police arrived, emergency medical teams transported the suspect — later identified as Lance Bush, a 26-year-old homeless man from St. Louis — to the hospital, where he died. Bush is believed to have robbed at least one other gas station earlier that morning by holding a knife to the throat of the attendant and forcing her to give him money from the register. The black SUV he was driving had also been reported stolen on Friday.
“Taking somebody’s life is not an everyday thing, neither is saving someone’s life,” the man with the gun said.
When asked why he elected to confront the robber rather than call police from the safety of his vehicle, he replied, “Instinct I would say. Instinct that’s just it. I guess knowing that I’m protected, I can protect somebody else.”
Less than three weeks after Indiana’s new constitutional carry law went into effect, an armed bystander shot and killed an assailant suspected of fatally shooting three people and injuring two others in an Indiana mall on Sunday evening.
Reports of a shooting in the Greenwood Park Mall began around 6 p.m. on Sunday when an unnamed gunman opened fire in the food court. After striking at least one male and four females including a 12-year-old girl, the suspected shooter was quickly shot and killed by a bystander who “observed the shooting in progress.”
As of Monday morning, police had not released the identity of the man who shot the gunman, but local news reports indicated he is 22 years old and from the nearby Bartholomew County.
“The real hero of the day is the citizen that was lawfully carrying a firearm in that food court and was able to stop the shooter almost as soon as he began,” Greenwood Police Chief Jim Ison told reporters.
Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers also praised the “good Samaritan” for stopping “further bloodshed.”
“This person saved lives tonight,” Myers said in a statement. “On behalf of the City of Greenwood, I am grateful for his quick action and heroism in this situation.”
CNN tried to downplay the “good guy with a gun” by claiming that it is extremely rare for armed citizens to step in. Their article about the shooting dedicated four paragraphs to warning that, according to a New York Times data chart, “having more than one armed person at the scene who is not a member of law enforcement can create confusion and carry dire risks.”
Several local news outlets centered their coverage on the narrative that the man who took down the suspected assailant violated the mall’s no weapons policy.
According to Fox 59 out of Indianapolis, the mall owner, Simon Property Group, “states in its code of conduct that no weapons are allowed at their shopping centers.” It isn’t until later in the article that Fox 59 noted, “While the property group has the ability to set policies against weapons, what the man did was not illegal.”
Meanwhile, Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts took a swipe at the good guy with a gun and the Second Amendment, and Kris Brown, president of the anti-gun Brady Campaign, smeared him as a “vigilante.”
Under pressure from a wave of primary challengers this spring who made constitutional carry a top critique of Republican incumbents, the GOP-controlled legislature and governor passed a new law earlier this year that no longer requires gun owners to obtain a permit to legally “carry, conceal or transport a handgun within the state.” The law took effect on July 1.
A Houston police sergeant is also being hailed as a hero after he tackled a man armed with a rifle, 120 rounds of ammunition, and a handgun in the Houston Galleria over the weekend.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
Religious freedom supporters hold a rally to praise the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case on June 30, 2014, in Chicago, Illinois. | Scott Olson/Getty Images
More than half of all Americans say religious tolerance for Christians is on the decline, even as more than a third also believes Christians complain too much about how they are treated in society, a newly released Lifeway Research survey suggests.
In a study of just over 1,000 Americans conducted last September, 54% said religious liberty in the United States is in decline, including around a quarter (24%) who strongly agree with that statement. Almost a third (32%) of respondents disagreed, while 14% said they weren’t sure.
An even greater percentage of Americans believe religious tolerance for Christians in America is in decline, with 59% agreeing that “Christians increasingly are confronted by intolerance in America today.” Less than a quarter (24%) disagreed, and another 18% said they were unsure if intolerance for Christians is increasing in America. African Americans (68%) and white Americans (59%) were more likely to agree than people of other ethnicities (47%).
Protestants (69%) and Catholics (59%) were most likely to agree that Christians are facing increasing intolerance. Fifty-three percent of respondents of other religions and 41% of religiously unaffiliated respondents said the same. Those who attend a worship service at least four times a month (64%) are more likely to believe religious liberty is on the decline in America than those who attend less than once a month (53%).
The religiously unaffiliated, or “nones,” were the least likely (40%) to agree religious liberty is on the decline.
“Freedoms are not limitless,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “As some groups seek more freedom, it often encroaches on another’s freedom. It’s not surprising those who are more religiously active are the ones noticing reductions in religious freedom compared to those who don’t practice religion.”
The survey also found an interesting corollary to the perceived decline in religious liberty: more than a third (36%) of all Americans say Christians in the U.S. “complain too much about how they are treated,” including 14% who strongly agree. Nearly half (49%) of respondents disagreed, while another 15% weren’t sure. Males (40%) were more likely to agree than women (32%) that Christians complain too much about how they are treated. Respondents over 65 were the most likely to disagree that Christians complain too much (64%). The survey found that those who hold Evangelical beliefs are more likely to disagree that Christians complain too much (61%) than those who don’t have Evangelical beliefs (45%).
The religiously unaffiliated (53%) were more likely to agree than either Protestants (27%) or Catholics (34%) that Christians complain too much.
“Intolerance is about cultural pushback,” McConnell said. “In the American marketplace of ideas, not all systems of thought are welcomed. The majority of all religions notice this pushback against Christians today.”
The survey was conducted online with over 1,005 respondents and has an error margin of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points, with error margins being higher among subgroups. Quotas and slight weights were used to balance gender, age, region, ethnicity, education and religion to more accurately reflect the U.S. population.
Overcoming any fear of heights, 4 girls at WinShape Camps in Crandall, GA prepare to be raised up on the big swing. | Courtesy of WinShape Camps
My pre-teen daughter climbed into our car one night at the end of this school year and burst into tears. She had been struggling with some friendships. On that drive back from Wednesday night church, she just finally broke down and let it all out. She cried the whole way home.
I didn’t say much at the time, as I’ve learned that sometimes the best thing you can do as a parent is to allow your child to just get it all out before receiving any advice or opinions. What immediately came to mind, though, was how grateful I was that I would be sending her to camp in two weeks. And not just any camp — a Christian camp — and, candidly, the one where I serve as a director. I objectively knew she would be surrounded by young women and girls who would call out the best in her and cheer her on.
I also marveled at how different her childhood was from my own. When I was in sixth grade, “stressed” wasn’t even part of my vocabulary. I wasn’t struggling with anxiety or depression. I wasn’t online, checking to see how many likes a photo had received. I was riding my bike and hanging out with the neighborhood kids. No doubt, things were simpler then.
But today, over half of teen girls say they have persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness, according to CDC research. In 2020 alone, the National Center for Health Statistics found that there were more than 6,600 deaths by suicide among the 10 to 24 age group. That same study also revealed that early last year, emergency department visits for suicide attempts were 51% higher for young girls.
The widespread and disheartening effects of social media on girls have been thoroughly documented: Depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, and body dysmorphia. And even when it doesn’t manifest in diagnosable disorders, our girls are saturated day in and day out with internet media that is proven to harm their emotional and mental health. In fact, a recent study found that social media largely worsens mental health during sensitive life periods, particularly for girls ages 11 to 13.
It’s scary for young girls to have to face these sad influences — and it’s scary for me as the mom to one of those young girls, too. But I do find comfort knowing that it’s possible to still build resilient, confident girls in this day and age, albeit determination, intentionality, wisdom, grace, and a strong community are required to do so. This is why I personally send my daughter to a Christian camp every summer.
I know that when I drop her off, she will be championed by the counselors and staff. She will be listened to and encouraged by people who genuinely care for her. She will learn to navigate the world around her from a biblical perspective. And most importantly, she will be taught that her identity and self-worth are not determined by how many “likes” she receives or how many “followers” she attains but by her Creator alone.
This type of environment is essential to helping our girls build the spiritual, social, and emotional tools they need to stay grounded in a world that is constantly bombarding them with the message that they are not enough — but it’s rare to find these days. This is why WinShape Camps is so explicit about intentionality and purpose being the core of the camp experience.
If we want to raise strong, healthy, confident girls, we need to provide them with opportunities to unplug. At WinShape, campers are asked to give up their phones for the duration of camp, and guess what? They gladly comply.
Throughout the week, they are intentionally integrated into small groups of supportive peers and spend time connecting in meaningful ways. They’re reminded every day how much they are valued and are taught to recognize the value of their peers. They’re also stretched in healthy ways through choosing new hobbies to learn and activities to participate in.
For instance, my little bookworm daughter chose to learn how to mountain bike last summer. She learned to rock climb and participated in musical theater. She stepped outside her comfort zone and was cheered on by fellow campers and her counselors as she did so. And she came home with more confidence because of it. I know firsthand that so many other summer campers have the same experience, and I’m so grateful that they do.
The reality is that raising children isn’t just about helping them cope with their stress, anxiety, or suffering: It’s about raising them to flourish, overcome obstacles and grow because of them. It’s about raising them to see the best in others and cultivate the best in themselves. Most importantly, it’s about raising them to know that God loves them deeply, that they are precious in His sight, and that He has a purpose and a unique plan for each of their lives — despite how they may feel at times.
No mom is ever alone in trying to raise strong, healthy girls. And no girl is ever alone in trying to grow up with self-confidence. Sometimes, we just need a summer at camp to remind us that it canhappen.
Amy Lowe is the director of WinShape Camps for Girls and oversees WinShape Camps for Families. She has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Samford University and a Master of Arts in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. Like most other moms, her hobbies include laundry, running the robot vacuum, and unloading the dishwasher.
New report finds that boys who have an absent father are less likely to graduate college, more likely to idle in their 20s, and more likely to go to jail.
Roland Warren, the former head of the National Fatherhood Initiative, when delivering the eulogy for his late father, said about the distant relationship he had with him as a child, “I was a little boy with a hole in my soul in the shape of my dad with unhealed wounds from years of feeling neglected and less than worthy.”
A recent research brief by Brad Wilcox and his colleagues at the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) on how the lack of an involved father impacts boys verifies the effects of that “dad-shaped” hole on boys.
In the brief, Wilcox reports that the percentage of boys living in homes without a biological father has almost doubled since 1960 – from 17 percent to 32 percent – resulting in an estimated 12 million boys growing up without a biological dad.
Wilcox writes, “Lacking the day-to-day involvement, guidance, and positive example of their father in the home, and the financial advantages associated with having him in the household, these boys are more likely to act up, lash out, flounder in school, and fail at work as they move into adolescence and adulthood.”
Thus, it quickly becomes evident how big that dad-sized hole can be and that hole can have lifelong implications, and often determines whether a boy will be a success or failure in life.
For example, Wilcox and his colleagues report that 35 percent of boys with a present biological father obtain a college degree, compared to just 14 percent of boys who do not have a present biological father.
While obtaining a college degree is not the only way to avoid poverty, a certain level of educational attainment is required if one wants to avoid poverty. But, according to the report, many fatherless boys are even struggling to achieve the most minimal level of educational attainment – a high school degree – which allows them to enter equipped for the workforce.
These young men are directionless, or as Wilcox and his colleagues write, “The daily life of these men is often marked by hours in front of a screen, vaping, smoking marijuana, or under the influence of some other kind of substance.” They are not contributors, but instead bystanders.
Secondly, our society plays a tragic price. According to the IFS brief, young men who grew up without a biological father are nearly twice as likely to be idle compared to those who grew up with an actively involved dad. In addition, they have significant anger issues which leads to legal problems as fatherless boys are about twice as likely to have spent some time in jail before they reach the age of 30.
It is not a coincidence that the tragedies of Columbine, Sandy Hook, Buffalo, and Uvalde are all tied to angry young men.
All of this is sobering enough. But there is another related problem. Growing up fatherless often makes young men poor candidates for marriage. Many women are aware of this. They can see the “holes in their soul” of the young men in their lives.
So often we hear from women – where are the good men who have a purpose in life, who want to be successful at work and in the home? Instead, they see a lack of emotionally mature and stable men who are stuck in perpetual adolescence because they lack the role model of a biological father to guide them.
Is it any wonder then that the average age of women getting married continues to climb as they see young men in their 20s still stumbling around directionless? It is a common lament we hear from so many young women, “I want to get married, but there are no men to marry.”
While not all dads are perfect, and there are some that are far from perfect, a father in the home still makes a major difference in the development of a boy into a man. A good father, in most cases, who invests in his son, ends up developing a successful man.
As Wilcox and his colleagues write, “If we wish to revive the fortunes of today’s young men, we must help fathers teach their sons how to prepare better for adulthood, relationships, and marriage … These steps matter, not just for renewing the fortunes of young men, but also for the sake of women for good partners to love, marry, and start families in the future.”
If we want a society of successful men who do not lash out in anger, who love and cherish their families, and are good citizens, those who are fathers must realize that it is our responsibility to pass those values on to our sons. If we are absent or distant, we do not only a disservice to these boys, but also to women, and society. If we take fatherhood seriously, we can raise a generation of boys with no “holes” in their soul and future generations will be better off for it.
Tim Goeglein is the Vice President of Government and External Relations at Focus on the Family in Washington DC.
Corion Evans, 16, is getting major praise after jumping into a river in Mississippi early Sunday morning and rescuing three teenage girls as their car sank — and coming to the aid of a police officer who also jumped in to help but began to struggle.
How great is this! 16-year-old Corion Evans jumped into action to save four people when a vehicle drove off a boat launch and into the Pascagoula River! https://t.co/dpn5C0CUVTpic.twitter.com/oX7MEcJlgz
Authorities said the three girls were in a car on the Interstate 10 boat launch that ended up in the Pascagoula River and began to sink, WLOX-TV reported.
“They drove straight under the water,” Evans told WLOX. “Like, only a little bit of the car was still above the water.”
With that, Evans told the station he tossed off his shoes, shirt, and phone — and jumped into the river.
“I was just like, ‘I can’t let none of these folks die. They need to get out the water.’ So, I just started getting them,” the Pascagoula High student added to WLOX. “I wasn’t even thinking about nothing else.”
Evans added to the station that he was “behind them trying to keep them above water and swim with them at the same time.”
He wasn’t the only hero of the morning. One of Evans’ friends — Karon “KJ” Bradley — jumped in as well and helped get the girls to the top of their vehicle, WLOX reported.
Evans — who’s been swimming since he was about three years old — not only helped bring the three girls to shore but also came to the aid of Moss Point Police Officer Gary Mercer who swam out to help, the station said.
“I turned around. I see the police officer,” Evans added to WLOX. “He’s drowning. He’s going underwater, drowning, saying, ‘Help!” So, I went over there. I went and I grabbed the police officer, and I’m like swimming him back until I feel myself I can walk.”
In the aftermath, he told the station the victims were “throwing up because a lot of water had got inside all of them. Twenty five yards [from shore], so it was a lot of swimming. My legs were so tired after. Anything could’ve been in that water, though. But I wasn’t thinking about it.”
Officer Mercer and the three girls were taken to a hospital and are recovering, WLOX said, adding that Mercer is expected to be back on duty later this week.
‘Saved my life right before my last breath’
Marquita Evans expressed pride in her son, saying he “wasn’t just thinking about himself. He was trying to really get all those people out the water. I’m glad nothing happened to him while he was trying to save other people’s lives,” the station said.
Moss Point Police Chief Brandon Ashley released the following statement to WLOX: “The police department and I commend Mr. Evans’s bravery and selflessness he displayed by risking his own safety to help people in danger. If Mr. Evans had not assisted, it could have possibly turned out tragically instead of all occupants rescued safely.”
One of the rescued girls, Cora Watson, went on Facebook to reveal that Evans “saved my life right before my last breath,” the station said.
Heroic 16 Year Old Mississippi Student Corion Evans saves 3 teenage girls and an officer after the girls drove their car into the River. Corion we salute your efforts and sacrifice! May your compassion & bravery serve as an example to others! pic.twitter.com/hsZ737bAB6
— Black With No Chaser (@BeBlackNoChaser) July 5, 2022
Activists hold a banner in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on June 18, 2020. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected President Donald Trump’s move to rescind the DACA program that offers protections to 700,000 undocumented migrants brought to the US as children. | NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images
For the majority of my life, I held fairly traditional views on illegal immigration. It was based in my trust that America’s democratic political systems are rooted in liberty, justice, and fairness.
However, meeting Jose changed me.
Like me, Jose is a Baptist minister and fellow believer in Jesus Christ. We both were raised in America, graduated from an American education system, and have a family and community we love. Where we are different is that as a teenager, Jose became aware that he wasn’t an American citizen but instead an undocumented immigrant, limiting his opportunities and delivering uncertainty around his future in the only country he knew as home.
Jose exposed me to the fact that there are millions of people like him who are deemed illegal immigrants and did not choose this status when they first arrived in America at the age of 2 or even 11. In fact, many did not learn until later that they were not born in the U.S. Our society has labeled this population as “Dreamers,” and despite our American value of fairness, there is no path for them to make the right choice someone else made on their behalf.
Imagine celebrating your high school graduation only to be blindsided with new information that you don’t have legal government documents and there is no solution to fix it. You can’t pursue the careers you were taught to aspire to while in high school. You can’t leave the country for a mission trip overseas. You can’t get caught with a broken car light while driving to the grocery store.
In 2012, after years of Congress debating and failing to create an earned path to legal status for Dreamers, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was introduced as a presidential executive order.
This policy created a special opportunity for Jose and roughly 600,000 other individuals to work legally, pursue college, buy a house and not fear deportation.
DACA also continues to face legal challenges and could be struck down by the courts at any moment this year. Jose would be faced with renewed risks of deportation and removal from his church, his family, and his community.
Americans are faced with a moral gravity to make things right for our neighbors like Jose. But fairness and justice for this unique population can only be permanently secured by Congress.
Voters are calling out for it and don’t want to wait until after the midterm elections. The National Immigration Forum published a poll in February that shows 8 in 10 voters support a pathway for legal status for Dreamers coupled with border security policies and smart visa reform to deliver a reliable workforce for farmers and ranchers.
In my home state, I find hope in U.S. Senator Alex Padilla’s (D-CA) promotion of the “Citizenship for Essential Workers Act” and in Congressman David Valadeo’s (R-CA-21) political courage to vote for the 2021 American Dream and Promise Act. Both sides can come together and show us how to live up to our own ideals as a nation. This is the year to get the right decisions across the finish line for Dreamers and for our country.
Alan Cross is the pastor of Petaluma Valley Baptist Church in Petaluma, California.
Just as the humanitarian crisis at the border is the predictable result of the left’s open-borders policies, so our crime wave is a consequence of their anti-punitive philosophy of criminal justice.
Since a spate of recent shootings, Democrats led by President Joe Biden have been busy exploiting the tragedies to call for more gun control, go after the “gun lobby” bogeyman, and yell that we must “do something!” about firearm-related crime. They’ve been clear that they aren’t interested in talking about effective solutions that don’t involve gun-grabbing, so they probably also don’t want to talk about who’s responsible for America’s unsettling crime wave: the left.
Meanwhile, as of late Tuesday night, the Associated Press projected that San Francisco voters had handily recalled left-wing District Attorney Chesa Boudin, whose soft-on-crime policies wreaked havoc on the California city.
While a prosecutor recall might seem disconnected from an uptick in mass shootings and subsequent gun-control chatter, the two are intertwined. Just as the humanitarian crisis at the border is the predictable result of the left’s open-borders policies, our crime wave is the inevitable result of their anti-punitive philosophy of criminal justice. And the biggest culprits are progressive prosecutors like Boudin who champion Democrats’ policies and have been installed across the country after being bankrolled by left-wing radicals like George Soros and other groups.
Prosecutors Who Don’t Prosecute
According to a new report out from the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund (LELDF), Soros alone has poured a staggering $40 million into prosecutor races to help elect 75 leftists that have contributed to the crime wave, and he’s just one of many billionaires working to destroy law and order, influence elections, control the media, and otherwise destroy the country.
The left and its skeptics continue to use guns as a scapegoat and say there’s no direct correlation between left-wing prosecutorial philosophies and crime, but the evidence suggests otherwise. According to the LELDF report, more than 40 percent of the roughly 22,500 homicides in 2021 — so more than 9,000 — happened in these 75 district attorneys’ jurisdictions, which accounted for more than one-third of last year’s violent crimes and property crime.
These DAs’ decisions produce consequences even in the areas they don’t oversee, however, since there’s nothing keeping released offenders in the prosecutors’ jurisdictions. Light sentences, low cash bail, and other slaps on the wrist send criminals right back onto their streets and those of their neighbors.
“These radical activists now preside over 72 million Americans and 40% of US homicides,” said LELDF President Jason Johnson, noting that Soros has already spent another $1 million to date this year to boost his preferred prosecutors. “Soros is using that campaign money and the hundreds of millions more for supporting organizations to quietly transform the criminal justice system for the worse, promoting dangerous policies and anti-police narratives to advance his radical agenda.”
The country saw the effects of progressive prosecutors up close over the last holiday season. The Waukesha parade murderer didn’t need a firearm. To kill six people and injure 62 more, he needed only a vehicle, a soft-on-crime district attorney’s office that let him out on a pittance of bail, and leftist policies that “guaranteed” offenders would kill people. It’s evil like that, enabled by leftist policy failures, that expose America’s crime problem as being so much bigger than a few psychopaths with guns.
Democrats’ Progressive Dream
But the rise in crime is much bigger than Soros and 75 district attorneys too. More fundamentally, it’s the predictable result of a long list of so-called leftist policy goals and beliefs that are prevalent not only among the radicals of the left, but also among the mainstream Democrat Party.
For a particularly grotesque example, look at cities in blue bastion California — particularly Boudin’s San Francisco, where the sidewalks are littered with used needles, passed-out junkies, and homeless encampments, and street sightings of human feces number in the tens of thousands each year. Facing an explosion in shoplifting, retailers in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Francisco were helpless to do anything but reduce store hours. As a Wall Street Journal article noted in October 2021, “Walgreens has closed 22 stores in [San Francisco], where thefts under $950 are effectively decriminalized.”
That little $950 tidbit is courtesy of Democrats’ woke Proposition 47, which more than doubled the amount a person could steal before facing a felony. In other words, Prop 47 reclassified felonies as no-biggie misdemeanors. Crime in the Bay Area has gotten so bad that even Democrat Mayor London Breed was forced to admit that the left’s soft-on-crime approach has led to “all the bullsh-t that has destroyed” San Francisco.
Meanwhile, in 2021, Los Angeles experienced its highest number of homicides in 15 years, and looters ran rampant on that area’s train tracks, with some railroad companies reporting a “160% increase in criminal rail theft,” and “approximately $5 million in claims, losses and damages” to the train companies alone.
The Left’s Culture of Crime
The crime wave isn’t confined to California, though. It’s swept through Democrats’ strongholds across the rest of the country too. As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd wrote in January, “New York, D.C., and Chicago all saw ‘record-high‘ murders in 2021 while Philadelphia; Portland, Oregon; Louisville, Kentucky; and Albuquerque, New Mexico, ‘had their deadliest years on record.’”
And let’s not forget the scores of rioters, looters, and vandals who went unpunished after the 2020 summer of rage that resulted in billions of dollars in damages. In fact, rather than condemn them, prominent Democrats including our very own Vice President Kamala Harris helped bail out of jail those who were caught. It was Minneapolis Democrats who voted to dismantle its police department in 2020, enabling a crime wave there. And Democrat lawmakers joined the chorus of those calling to “defund the police,” only stopping when they realized that abhorrent position could hurt them politically.
It’s hard to take Democrats’ tired calls for gun control seriously anyway, given their debunked talking points and faulty logic. But it’s especially disqualifying for the left when you take into account all the lawlessness and violence they enable as hallmarks of their criminal justice platforms. If voters in far-left San Francisco can see it, it’s a safe bet the rest of the country can too. America’s culture of crime belongs to Democrats, and no amount of gun control can fix it.
Kylee Zempel is an assistant editor at The Federalist. She previously worked as the copy editor for the Washington Examiner magazine and as an editor and producer at National Geographic. She holds a B.S. in Communication Arts/Speech and an A.S. in Criminal Justice and writes on topics including feminism and gender issues, religious liberty, and criminal justice. Follow her on Twitter @kyleezempel.
Repentance from sin plus faith in Christ equals a new life. | Pixabay
In a recent documentary, I discussed the rapid decline of America and the desperate need for serious prayer and fasting. To say that we are at a crossroads is an understatement — we are in the crosshairs.
This is an urgent call to the pulpits of America. America’s lukewarm temperature is caused by a lack of fire in the pulpit and apathy in the pew. Leonard Ravenhill once lamented, “We need more prophets in our pulpits and less puppets.” That same cry goes out today. We simply cannot remain silent.
Is saving America the mission of the Church?
CNN recently released an article quoting pastor Andy Stanley who said, “saving America is not the mission of the church.”
I don’t know Pastor Stanley, nor do I know his heart, but he highlights a real dilemma in our nation — prophetic voices who lack humility. In short, many bold preachers don’t weep before they whip (cf. John 2:13-16). But balancing love with anger over the condition of our nation, families, and churches is a hard balance to find.
People who say things such as, “Saving America is not the mission of the Church,” often use this phrase to justify their silence on important issues. Biblically speaking, it’s impossible to be non-confrontational to a culture hell-bent on rejecting God. We can’t be “unhitched” from God’s Word.
But Shane, can you answer the question?
Back to the question, “is saving America the mission of the Church?” Of course not, but shouldn’t we desire godly leaders and laws that align with God’s Word and not be shamed for it? Shouldn’t we want to protect our borders and our children without being chastised? Shouldn’t we be a voice to those who have no voice and stop the slaughtering of the innocent?
The dilemma Pastor Stanley and others face is that they can’t have their cake and eat it, too. They can’t avoid controversial topics in the hopes of not offending. Watering down difficult topics is exactly why America is drowning in a cesspool of moral relativism.
CNN quotes Stanley because, in their eyes, he supports their narrative. You won’t find secular news outlets quoting and supporting bold preachers. Why? Because bold, Christ-centered, truth elevating preaching exposes and dismantles their agenda. If secular news outlets are on your side, are you sure that you’re on the right side?
Weak and woke won’t awaken
My goal isn’t to divide the Body of Christ, but to convict it. I don’t have a beef against Pastor Stanley (I’m sure he’s a great guy), but if a Christian leader says controversial things, can’t we lovingly challenge their words? This isn’t dividing the Body, rather it’s sharpening our iron (Proverbs 27:17).
Many of us are becoming weary of the silent pulpit that seems more comfortable slamming bold saints than confronting blatant sinners. Weak sermons from woke pastors won’t convict the sinners who need redemption.
A person who is considered “woke” prides themselves on being extra sensitive and aware of racial and social discrimination and injustice. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It all depends on the motive of the person using the phrase.
If we repent of our skin color, dislike policemen, disdain America, and support sexual perversion by our silence (all under the banner of “wokeness”), we are in deep trouble. If we won’t preach the truth because some in our audience are on the other side of the political spectrum, we aren’t pastors, we are appeasers.
Love of country over love of people
Love of country shouldn’t take precedence over love of people, but doesn’t loving people also mean loving the country in which they live?
What many are really saying is: If you vote for a mean-tweeting president, care about God-given freedoms, and talk about hot-button issues, you don’t love people. With all due respect, that simply is not true!
Is it even possible for Christians to embrace a political party without hurting the feelings of the other party? No, it’s not. This is the dilemma of Pastor Stanley and other leaders. Instead of asking, “How can we not offend others?” they should be asking, “Are we offending God?”
There must appear a new type of preacher
A.W. Tozer hit the nail on the head decades ago: “If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation, it must be by other means than any now being used … there must appear a new type of preacher.”
Tozer continues, “The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting.”
He concludes, “Such a man is likely to be lean, rugged, blunt-spoken and a little bit angry with the world. He will love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the glory of the One and the salvation of the other. But he will fear nothing that breathes with mortal breath.” God, give us more prophets and less puppets!
Appeasement — an exercise in futility
Those who have been called to preach will confront compromise, condemn moral digression, and powerfully denounce sin in the hope of reconciling man to God. The world despises them because they challenge the sin the world enjoys. Trying to please a Christ-rejecting world is an exercise in futility.
Although ruffling feathers is not our goal, we will step on toes from time to time when we speak the truth. This can’t always be avoided, nor should it be.
Weak and woke won’t turn America around, but neither will pride and arrogance. Speaking the heart of God flows from a reservoir of brokenness and time spent with Him. How are you doing in this area?
Whether you’re on the Right or the Left, you must be on the right side of God’s Word.
We need more men like the Old Testament prophet Micaiah, who said, “As surely as the Lord lives, I will speak whatever the Lord tells me” (1 Kings 22:14).
Prosecutors have filed charges against a Kansas City woman who activists claim was the victim of excessive police force. Leonna Hale, 26, was approached by police officers last Friday after she was spotted inside a car that police say matched the description of one involved in an armed carjacking. According to police, the driver of the vehicle jumped out and ran when police approached. They claim Hale also exited the vehicle, went to the rear of the car, and drew a firearm. Police told Hale to drop the firearm, but she allegedly pointed it at police. Law enforcement responded by firing three shots. Hale was wounded in the incident, but she did not die.
The incident generated significant attention online. Activists claimed police had shot an unarmed pregnant woman five times. Even worse, they claimed she had her hands up.
Activist Leslie Mac: “#LeonnaHale is a 26 year old unarmed pregnant Black Woman who was shot five time by Kansas City police on Friday. She had her hands up and told police she could not follow their directions to get on her stomach b/c she was pregnant. There is no reforming this. #AbolitionNow.”
CRT scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw: “Please send prayers and support to Leonna Hale, unarmed, shot 5 times in a traffic staff. If mass murderers of Black people can be apprehended alive, why must Black people in traffic stops constantly fear for their lives?”
The Kansas City Defender: “Kansas City Police Department shot an unarmed Black woman 5 times. Eyewitnesses say the woman had her hands up. The police handcuffed her while she was bleeding out on the pavement.”
Linda Sarsour: “Cops can apprehend white mass murderers without a scratch but will shoot unarmed Black people that pose no threat to them. Leonna Hale. Kansas City, MO.”
Occupy Democrats: “BREAKING: A witness reveals that Kansas City police shot Leonna Hale, a pregnant unarmed Black woman, five times as she was running away from them — she has been hospitalized with serious injuries but remains stable.”
Prosecutors are now charging Hale after they say body cam footage shows that Hale was, in fact, in possession of a firearm and that she pointed her weapon at police.
Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker explained in a statement:
Some false narratives about what happened last Friday night at 6th and Prospect Avenue, unfortunately, were relied upon by some media and other sources. Our job, as prosecutors, is to remain neutral and review all evidence. Our review of body cam videos provided the actual accounting of events that night.
Our review of the investigation revealed the defendant, although she denied having a weapon at the time of the encounter with law enforcement officers, continually displayed a weapon during her encounter with police officers and also appeared to be attempting to flee. The two officers stated that she was armed with what they believed to be a handgun. Body camera footage confirms the officers’ statements that Hale was holding a handgun. Still photos, taken from body cam footage, of this encounter also demonstrate a weapon was present and in the hands of the defendant.
Hale has been charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful use of a weapon, and a misdemeanor resisting a lawful detention. Local activists, however, do not believe police are being truthful, the Kansas City Star reported.
Hale remains in the hospital. The driver of the vehicle who fled from police has also since been apprehended. Neither the police nor the media have confirmed that Hale is pregnant, WDAF-TV reported.
Supporters of woman shot by KC police shocked of image, charges of her pointing weapon at officers www.youtube.com
A drag queen performer defended an unapproved high school event that angered parents, who he told to “broaden your horizons.” The drag show was performed at the Ankeny High School in Iowa as a part of the end-of-the-year meeting of the Gay Straight Alliance Club. Students were invited but their parents were not warned beforehand, and no permission slips were signed for the event.
The school issued an apology after videos of the drag show were highlighted by the popular “Libs of TikTok” account on Twitter.
Despite the outrage from parents, one performer told KCCI-TV that they needed to lighten up and he defended the performance.
“To the parents that are accepting, thank you. To the parents that are not, please broaden your horizons,” said Skyler Barning.
“I just want them to realize that while the idea of drag is very taboo, there are places and shows meant for people under the age of 21,” he claimed. “It is not always a sexual act, it can be positive and uplifting with a message behind it as well.”
A senior student who performed as “Vivian Von D” at the drag show also defended the performance in an interview with the Des Moines Register.
“It was meant to be an uplifting environment for those in the (Gay Straight Alliance) who don’t always have all the support they need to get through the struggles in their lives,” said Carson Doss.
The school apologized for the incident in a message on Facebook and said the matter was under investigation.
The Libs of TikTok account forced a town in Indiana to cancel a drag show at an LGBTQ event that was advertised as “family-friendly” by simply posting the advertisement for the show on Twitter.
Here’s the interview with Skyler Barning:
Drag event at Ankeny High School draws criticism from some parents www.youtube.com
The father of the teenager who murdered 19 children and 2 adults in Uvalde, Texas said:
“He probably would have shot me too, because he would always say I didn’t love him.”
The father is also a criminal. He has an apparently lengthy criminal record. His most deadly crime, however, isn’t on his record. His most deadly crime is that he is an absentee father.
A father who doesn’t value his child’s life is teaching his child a person’s life isn’t valuable.
And especially, 75% of the most-cited school shooters in America are fatherless — just like the teenager who walked into Robb Elementary School to murder 21 people.
Of course, most fatherless people value life. Fatherlessness doesn’t make a person a mass murderer or a criminal. However, fatherless children are significantly more likely to commit crimes. For instance, a 2012 study on juvenile male inmates found that fatherless boys are 279% more likely to carry guns for criminal behavior.
Absentee fathers discourage their children and they provoke them to anger (Colossians 3:21, Ephesians 6:4). I know that too well. Eighty-five percent of children with behavioral problems are fatherless — that describes my childhood.
I was involved in over 20 fights before I was 18 years old. Most of these fights happened when I was between 4-10 years old, especially when other children made fun of me for being fatherless. I didn’t know how to maintain my composure when other children blamed me for my father’s absence. After all, it was hard to refute them. My father, indeed, didn’t love me. He left my mom and our family after my mom became pregnant with me. Therefore, I lacked discipline and self-control. I didn’t know how to respond to insults without anger and violence. By the grace of God, my extraordinary mother, and especially the Gospel, changed me.
Nevertheless, I know fatherlessness is one of the most damaging things children can experience. I know the potentially deadly consequences of absentee fathers.
I know that if the school shooter’s father valued his son’s life — his son would have been more likely to value other people’s lives too. But many of us are unwilling to consider that. After all, Black Lives Matter maintains strong support from our society despite its feminist agenda to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.”
It’s horrific to imagine what the school shooter’s big gun did to the children’s little bodies. It’s horrific to think about the gunshots silencing the children’s screams. It’s painful to think about. Blaming the school shooting on gun rights, however, isn’t helpful. We have a habit of prescribing the wrong solutions to deadly issues. Guns are not the problem. Gun control isn’t the solution.
Samuel Sey is a Ghanaian-Canadian who lives in Brampton, a city just outside of Toronto. He is committed to addressing racial, cultural, and political issues with biblical theology, and always attempts to be quick to listen and slow to speak.
A student at Uvalde High School in Texas who says he knew Salvador Ramos rejected the prevailing media narrative that the gunman was the victim of bullying, and this was the catalyst for his May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.
Ivan Arellano, a senior at Uvalde High School, told WFAA-TV in Dallas that Ramos “was not a good person” and had been a bully himself.
“Salvador Ramos was a boy who was not bullied,” Arellano said on Wednesday. “He would try to pick on people but fail, and it would aggravate him.”
Ramos was shot to death by a Border Patrol agent after his shooting rampage at Robb Elementary School, which left 19 children and two adults dead.
Shortly before the attack, the 18-year-old gunman shot his grandmother in her home. Celia Martinez Gonzales, 66, was reported to be in stable condition at a San Antonio hospital.
Arellano, who was friends with one of the victims, wanted to set the record straight because he had not seen any media coverage spotlighting Ramos’ cruel personality.
“I don’t see this covered and I’m going to put this out there: He would hurt animals. He was not a good person,” he said.
Arellano’s statements belie the initial media coverage of Ramos as a victim who was subjected to gay slurs and bullied over his lisp.
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So do the observations of 17-year-old Crystal Foutz, who attended school with Ramos and worked with him at the fast-food restaurant Whataburger.
“He always seemed to take his anger out on the most innocent person in the room,” Foutz told KTBC-TV in Austin.
Our understanding of people and events generally morphs as the dust settles after a horrific crime like this shooting and research unearths more about the perpetrator’s background.
However, one thing is already clear: The school system and his own family failed Ramos, who should have been red-flagged over his threatening, anti-social behavior, which included self-mutilation, animal abuse and shooting people with BB guns.
American culture is cratering at a chilling pace, fueled in large part by toxic left-wing policies that marginalize nuclear families, decimate the working class and demonize hard work and meritocracy.
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