A WordPress Blog-THE CHURCH MILITANT Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse. ALL CONTENT FROM HTTPS://RATHEREXPOSETHEM.BLOGSPOT.COM MOVED TO THIS NEW BLOG, MAY 2020
Ali Dawah recently told the Apostate Prophet that, in a Muslim state, ex-Muslims will be executed. Adam Saleh and Mohammed Hijab seemed to applaud Dawah's threat. How long will people in the West continue to deny that Islam promotes the death penalty for apostates, when popular Muslim YouTubers are openly declaring their intention to kill anyone who leaves their religion? David Wood discusses the issue.
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On condition that his congregation wear masks and follow social-distancing guidelines, Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, was prepared to hold indoor services on Sunday.
Those were the conditions set by a lower court on Friday, which turned aside Los Angeles County’s demand to close the church to inside services altogether. MacArthur said he’d be willing to follow those guidelines as a gesture of good will, in anticipation of a full hearing on the matter on September 4.
But that wasn’t good enough for Los Angeles County and its health official. Late Friday night, they appealed the decision to the Second Appellate District’s Court of Appeals, asking it to set aside the lower court’s agreement with the church.
On Saturday, a three-judge panel of that court tossed that lower court’s ruling and agreement and said that the county could continue to ban indoor services at Grace Community Church.
The panel said they couldn’t decide the issue instantly, that the issues were too involved, and consequently the county’s demands must remain in place:
The questions presented in the County’s … petition are easy to articulate: May the county enforce the portion of its Health Order prohibiting “indoor religious services” as a means of limiting the spread of COVID-19?
Nested within this question is another: Does the prohibition on “indoor religious services” infringe upon the constitutional right of the Church (and its parishioners) to the free exercise of their religion?
Definitively resolving these questions, however, will entail the resolution of difficult questions of law. We certainly cannot resolve them before tomorrow [Sunday] morning’s church services….
Justice requires that [we] issue a stay order to preserve [our] own jurisdiction … while [we] prepare … to rule on the merits of those questions….
The County is [therefore] empowered to enforce [its] “indoor religious services” provision of its Health Order.
To which Pastor MacArthur said the equivalent of “nuts to you!” In his opening remarks on Sunday he told his congregation:
We agreed: we’ll comply for a few weeks. They [the county] asked for three weeks. We’re not wanting to be defiant. We will do what is reasonable.
That was not enough for the city.
They went to the appellate court Saturday late and had that order removed….
They don’t want us to meet. That’s obvious. They’re not willing to work with us. They just want to shut us down.
But we’re here to bring honor to the Lord. We are holding church … because our Lord commands it.
The congregation erupted with applause and cheers.
The next move is up to the court. Are they going to enforce their ruling? If so, how? With police, with guns, and badges? Will they seal off the entrance to the church so that no one can enter? Will they arrest Pastor MacArthur?
If so, is this really the message they want to deliver to the millions of believers across the country watching the confrontation between church and state play out?
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LOS ANGELES —A California appeals court on Saturday overturned a temporary injunction that prohibited Los Angeles County from enforcing an order prohibiting indoor church services, a day after a trial judge allowed renowned pastor John MacArthur and Grace Community Church to hold gatherings in the building’s sanctuary. The church proceeded with services as usual despite the order.
“At this very preliminary stage in this litigation, the County has demonstrated a likelihood that it will prevail on the merits of enforcing its July 18, 2020 health order. The County’s health order is presumed to be constitutional unless its ‘unconstitutionality clearly, positively and unmistakably appears,'” wrote presiding justice Elwood Lui, along with judges Victoria Chavez and Brian Hoffstadt for the Second District, Division Two.
“Given the preliminary state of the evidentiary record as well as the weight of precedent favoring the enforcement of COVID-19-related restrictions, the presumption that the health order’s ‘indoor religious services’ provision is valid has yet to be rebutted,” they stated.
The court said that while the church may not hold services indoors under the County order, it is free to hold them outside.
The panel opined:
“Were we to not issue a stay of the trial court’s order, the County would be barred from enforcing that provision and the Church would be able to conduct its services indoors, even though indoor church services have been a ‘source of outbreak’ of COVID-19 due to the heightened risk of transmission when people are ‘in close proximity to one another for extended periods of time’ and they are ‘singing, shouting and chanting,’ risks that ‘physical distancing and wearing a mask’ ‘do not eliminate.'”
Therefore, due to “the harm that flows from having to conduct religious services outdoors instead of indoors, the balance at this early stage favors issuance of a stay,” it said.
Los Angeles County issued a press release likewise reiterating that outdoor services are permissible while indoor gatherings are not.
“Los Angeles County is pleased that the California Court of Appeal recognizes the vital importance of our health officer orders in protecting the lives and health of our residents as we work to slow the spread of the deadly COVID-19 virus,” it stated.
“Outdoor religious observances are permitted; participants must wear cloth face coverings and maintain six feet of distance from each other unless they live in the same household.”
According to reports and online videos, Grace Community Church held indoor services anyway on Sunday out its stance that the government does not have jurisdiction over matters of the Church.
“[W]e’re not meeting because want to be rebellious,” MacArthur stated from the pulpit, according to the Washington Times. “We’re meeting because our Lord has commanded us to come together and worship Him.”
“They were going to be asking us to do two things, social distance and wear masks,” he explained of Friday’s initial ruling. “We agreed, [saying,] ‘Look, we’ll comply for a few weeks.’ They asked that for three weeks. We’re not wanting to be defiant. We will do what is reasonable. That was not enough for the [county]. They went to the appellate court Saturday late, and had that order removed.”
As previously reported, MacArthur and Grace Community Church, with the assistance of the Thomas More Society, filed suit against California Gov. Gavin Newsom, officials with the Los Angeles County Health Department and others last week to challenge the prohibition on indoor church services, over which he is being threatened with fines and/or jail time.
“Defendants’ mandates are not ‘narrowly tailored’ to further any compelling governmental interest,” the lawsuit stated. “Defendants have granted numerous special exemptions to their bans on public gatherings and conduct, including for purportedly ‘essential’ businesses and activities, including, for example, cannabis dispensaries, abortion and other medical providers, daycare and childcare, and shopping.”
“Defendants have also provided a de facto exemption for protests against the unjust death of George Floyd, without extending the same solicitude to Plaintiffs’ religious gatherings,” it argued. “Since these gatherings may be permitted, there can be no doubt that Defendants must also permit Plaintiffs to engage in religious activities and services.”
The County issued MacArthur and Grace Community Church a cease and desist letter on July 29, advising that MacArthur could be subject to a fine “of up to $1,000 and imprisonment of up to 90 days” for continuing to hold indoor church services. It noted that “[e]ach day that you conduct indoor services is a separate offense.”
“The County requests that you immediately cease holding indoor worship services or other indoor gatherings, and adhere to the health officer order directives governing activities at houses of worship,” the letter, written by attorney Jason Tokoro of the law firm Miller Barondess, LLP, states. “If you or Grace Community Church continue to hold indoor services in violation of the law, you are subject to criminal and civil liability.”
Grace Community Church had complied with the initial prohibition on indoor services in the spring because, according to a statement, leadership did not know at that time “the true severity of the virus” and they believe it is “legitimate for Christians to abstain from the assembly of saints temporarily in the face of illness or an imminent threat to public health.”
But because “[i]t is apparent that those original projections of death were wrong and the virus is nowhere near as dangerous as originally feared” and cancellations of 2021 public events signaled that shutdowns would drag out into next year, the church felt that California had “force[d] churches to choose between the clear command of our Lord and the government officials.”
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Hallmark isn’t the only network that plans to air films with homosexual themes this upcoming holiday season. While some are stated to be celebrating the arrival of the Messiah, come to save men from their sins, Lifetime plans to air a movie with its main plot being about two men who are attracted to each other.
Among the 30 new films set for its “It’s a Wonderful Lifetime” lineup will be “The Christmas Set Up”.
“Hugo, a New York corporate lawyer, and his best friend Madelyn head to Milwaukee to spend the holidays with his mom Kate, who is also in charge of the local Christmas celebrations. Ever the matchmaker, Kate arranges for Hugo to run into Patrick, Hugo’s high school friend and secret crush, who has recently returned after a successful stint in Silicon Valley,” a description of the movie states.
“As they enjoy the local holiday festivities together, Hugo and Patrick’s attraction to each other is undeniable and it looks as though Kate’s well-intentioned Santa-style matchmaking is a success,” it says. “But as Hugo receives word of a big promotion requiring a move to London, he must decide what is most important to him.”
The story was written by Michael J. Murray and will be produced by Neshama Entertainment in association with MarVista Entertainment. Casting and production are stated to be underway this month.
Lifetime said in a press release that “The Christmas Set Up” and other films set to air demonstrate the company’s “commitment for diverse storytelling with its storylines, talent and characters.”
“We are thrilled to continue our legacy of creating a holiday destination that is welcoming to all at Lifetime,” Executive Vice President and Head of Programming Amy Winter remarked in a statement.
As previously reported, the Hallmark Channel aired its first movie with a same-sex “wedding” theme this past weekend and plans to release more films with homosexual themes as it plans to work with the organization GLAAD to “better represent the LGBTQ community across [its] portfolio of brands.”
“Diversity and inclusion is a top priority for us and we look forward to making some exciting programming announcements in the coming months, including announcements about projects featuring LGBTQ storylines, characters, and actors,” George Zaralidis, the vice president of network program publicity with Crown Media Family Networks, told NBC News.
The outlet reports that former Crown Media CEO told the Hollywood Reporter last year that Hallmark was open to “any type of movie of any type of relationship in any space.”
Executive Vice President of Programming and Network Publicity Michelle Vicary similarly outlined that Crown was “looking at pitches for LGBTQ movies … and we are looking to expand and represent the United States as a whole.”
Photo Credit: Geralt/Pixabay
As previously reported, while the common argument among those who identify as homosexual is that they were “born that way” and cannot change, the Bible teaches that all men are in the exact same predicament as none can shed their birth nature on their own.
Scripture states that all are born with the Adamic sin nature and are therefore “by nature the children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3), having various inherent feelings and inclinations that are contrary to the law and will of God and being utterly incapable of changing by themselves (Job 14:4).
It is why Jesus came: to “save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21) and that they might be “saved from wrath through Him” (Romans 5:9) — taking out of the way for those who are saved both the penalty for, and the power of, sin.
Jesus also outlined in John 3:5-7 that men must be made anew by the second birth, and be transformed from being in Adam to being in Christ, or they cannot see the kingdom of Heaven.
“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again.’”
This work of the Holy Spirit is known in Christianity as the doctrine of regeneration. A man or woman regenerated by Spirit of God will also undergo a lifelong process of sanctification, turning from realized sins to “walk as He walked” (1 John 2:6).
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An animated series on the Disney Channel that centers on the adventures of a teenage girl who travels to another world and becomes a witch’s apprentice features the first bisexual character to air on the youth-aimed station, it has been revealed.
“The Owl House” creator Dana Terrace recently outlined on Twitter that as she herself identifies as bisexual, she wanted to depict one of the characters as being attracted to both males and females. At first, she was told that such a depiction would not be allowed.
“In dev (development) I was very open about my intention to put queer kids in the main cast,” Terrace wrote. “I’m a horrible liar, so sneaking it in would’ve been hard haha. When we were greenlit, I was told by certain Disney leadership that I could NOT represent any form of bi or gay relationship on the channel.”
However, Terrence said that she continued to push the idea and was eventually given the go-ahead.
“I’m bi! I want to write a bi character, [expletive]! Luckily my stubbornness paid off and now I am VERY supported by current Disney leadership. Not to mention the amazingness of this crew,” she stated.
“The Owl House”, which began airing in January of this year, is a fantasy series about a 14-year-old girl named Luz (played by Sarah-Nicole Robles) who travels to another world — the Demon Realm of the Boiling Isles — where humans are not well-liked. The Isles are stated to be a place where “every myth you humans have is caused by a little of our world leaking into yours.”
Luz becomes the apprentice of a witch named Eda (played by Wendie Malick) and a demon who goes by the name King as he claims he was once a ruler and desires to regain his power (played by Alex Hirsch).
Students attend the Hexside School of Magic and Demonics, and inhabitants who “do not conform to the norms of society” are sent to the Conformatorium, supervised by Warden Wrath.
Episodes include “A Lying Witch and a Warden”, “Witches Before Wizards”, “Wing It Like Witches”, and “Young Blood, Old Souls”.
According to reports, in some episodes, Luz is portrayed as being attracted to men, but in the episodes “Enchanting Grom Fright” and “Wing It Like Witches”, viewers note that the witch Amity begins forming a friendship with Luz and had intentions to ask her to prom (Grom) as her date. The two dance in one scene.
Terrace and others confirmed that the depiction of Luz was meant to be bisexual.
“Back when I made GF (‘Gravity Falls’) Disney FORBADE me from any explicit LGBTQ+ rep. Apparently ‘happiest place on earth’ meant ‘straightest’ But as of today, thanks to @DanaTerrace & team there are explicitly queer ANIMATED MAIN CHARACTERS on DISNEY TV. I’m so proud & happy to say that,” wrote Alex Hirsch.
However, not everyone was thrilled about the revelation.
“Why not let children be children? Children don’t need to learn about sexual orientations or sexual attraction on cartoons,” one commenter wrote under Terrace’s tweet. “No more ‘Owl House’ in my house.”
“Children need to focus on being children, not sexuality at a young age. Disney’s twisted, shoving alter-sexuality down our kids throats. No, at a young age, this isn’t right, isn’t normal and this agenda needs to be dismantled,” another stated.
“Adults should stop trying to get into children’s heads. These are adult topics being forced into tender innocent minds. Shame,” a third likewise opined.
As previously reported, besides its more recent inclusion of homosexuality in its productions (“Andi Mack”, “Star vs. the Forces of Evil”, “Beauty and the Beast”, “Onward”, “DuckTales”), Disney, known for its “Magic Kingdom,” has been recognized for decades for its focus on magic, sorcery and witchcraft, from its early productions of “Fantasia” (1940), “Snow White” (1937) and “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” (1971) to the present-day “Maleficent” (2014 and 2019), “Frozen” (2013 and 2019) and “Onward” (2020).
Witchcraft and homosexuality are both forbidden in God’s law.
THE GOSPEL
Photo Credit: Gerd Altmann/Pixabay
While a common argument among those who struggle with feelings toward the same sex is that they were “born this way,” the Bible teaches that all are born with the Adamic sin nature (Romans 5:19), having various inherent feelings and inclinations that are contrary to the law of God and being utterly incapable of changing by themselves (Job 14:4).
All men, therefore, face the same predicament, being natural lawbreakers and guilty in the sight of God (Romans 3:19), evoking His wrath.
“[W]e all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others,” Ephesians 2:3 outlines.
“All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way,” Isaiah 53:6 reads, “and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
It is why Jesus came: to do what men could not do for themselves, to “save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
Scripture outlines that Jesus came to be the propitiation for men’s sins (1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:10), a doctrine in Christianity known as substitutionary atonement, and to save men from the wrath of God for their violations against His law (Romans 4:25, Romans 5:9, Romans 5:16), a doctrine known as justification.
In light of Christ laying down his life for His enemies (Romans 5:10), God calls all men to repent and believe the gospel (Mark 1:15).
Acts 2:38-40 exhorts, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.”
The Bible also teaches about regeneration, as in addition to sparing guilty men from eternal punishment, Christ sent his Holy Spirit to make those who would repent and believe new creatures in the here and now, with new desires and an ability to do what is pleasing in the sight of God by His indwelling and empowerment (Ezekiel 11:19, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Titus 3:5).
Jesus said that men must be born again — a work of the Spirit transforming their very nature from being in Adam to being in Christ, or they cannot see the Kingdom of God (John 3:3-8).
“Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ Nicodemus saith unto him, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again.’”
Ezekiel speaks of God transplanting the regenerated with a new heart and spirit, stating, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.”
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The arrival of Joe Biden’s decision on a running mate is a true turning point in the history of American politics.
There has never before been a presidential candidate who, prior to entering the White House, has shown such undeniable signs of age-related neurological decay. All political disagreements disregarded, the sight of an elderly person succumbing to the demons of those dreaded cognitive ailments -- which all too often rob us of the older people we love -- is truly excruciating to behold.
The political outcome of Biden's mental state is, if possible, even more unsettling. The role of the president is meant to be powerful. All constitutional checks and balances considered, the sheer power of the chief executive, in that one single person invested with authority to counter-balance the power of the legislative and judicial branches, is truly awesome.
In our situation today, we see a man who is clearly not in full command of his mental faculties, who is allowing himself to be considered for that office of chief executive; an office which, unlike a prime minister in a parliamentary system, is intended to be stable and not prone to regular changes in leadership.
The expectation of a normal four-year presidential tenure on Biden’s part if he is elected must, at the very least, be subjected to serious doubt. If pronouncing basic words -- let alone quoting the most famous phrase of our Declaration of Independence -- is such a confusing ordeal for him, then it is our urgent duty to question whether this individual is fit to be the man who must accept the ultimate responsibility for this country’s national security and well-being.
These facts squarely cast the Democrat side of the current election as not a presidential election at all, but a vice-presidential election.
Should Biden win, the chances are very probable that his vice president will become the 47th president to finish out his first four-year term. As the vice president automatically succeeds to the Oval Office if the president dies or is rendered permanently incapacitated, the profoundly anti-democratic repercussions of this situation is worsened by whom Biden has actually chosen.
The traditional custom for presidential hopefuls is to either choose the second-highest-polling candidate in a primary race, as Ronald Reagan did with George H. W. Bush in 1980, or to choose a highly capable politician who is well-respected by most of the party, as Donald Trump did with Governor Mike Pence in 2016. In both of those cases, the aforementioned running mates reflected the Republican Party and its voters quite respectably while promoting unity.
It is highly questionable, meanwhile, whether Kamala Harris -- aside from all of the establishment media’s expected giddy cheerleading -- really represents her party all that well. She was polling at 2% nationally by the time she ended her own presidential bid on December 3, 2019. Her more radical positions, such as support for the Obama administration’s Iran deal, prosecuting a journalist who exposed Planned Parenthood’s collection and sale of aborted babies’ body parts (while receiving campaign donations from them), and defending Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitism, may indeed sit well with a great many leftists, but her actions as Attorney General of California may not. While in that position, Harris jailed hundreds on marijuana charges and authorized anti-prostitution sting operations which, according to SF Weekly, disproportionately targeted Latino men (a crucial Democrat demographic). In addition to this -- though she later admitted it was a mistake -- she prosecuted and jailed the parents of truant teens. She even refused to release the names of Catholic priests accused of sexually molesting children, abnegating law enforcement’s most basic and humane duty -- regardless of anyone’s opinion of the Catholic Church.
it is highly debatable if these are positions that a high number of progressives who voted for the Democrat primary runner-up, Bernie Sanders, would approve of. Especially today, being tough on minority and drug crime -- to the exclusion of “white patriarchal” clergy sex abuse -- is not en vogue among the Democratic Party’s truly energized base, which is largely college-educated millennials taught to have contempt for not only aggressive inner city policing, but inner city policing overall.
It also remains a question as to how many black American voters Kamala really represents. Without doubt, she completely failed to gain these voters' support during the primary. Many black Americans responded to Barack and Michelle Obama due to their image as people who empathized authentically with the black experience of living in inner city America. Harris’s flip-flopping on criminal justice issues has clearly deprived her of the Obama touch.
What should highly concern all Americans of whatever political persuasion is the fact that, given Joe Biden’s medical condition, a Democrat victory in 2020 could very likely result in a person for whom only 2% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning Independents supported to become president.
The reasons for Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris as his running mate are as yet not entirely clear. What is very clear, however, is that a new president of the United States in the near future could be a person whom a weak and faltering man choseby fiat, and not someone whom the majority of the country elected by the ballot.
That's a problem.
It's a problem for America -- and it's a serious and profound problem for American democracy.
Barry Nussbaum is an exceptional American businessman and real estate mogul, whose distinguished career extends more than 38 years. He is an experienced news commentator on international affairs, who has been featured on major television networks, web-based and in print media. Visit his site: AmericanTruthProject.org.
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WATCH LIVE starting at 9 p.m. EST: Day 1 of the Democratic National Convention is expected to feature big-name
speakers, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, former Ohio Gov.
John Kasich, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Rep. James Clyburn, DNC Chairman Bennie Thompson, Rep. Gwen Moore,
Sen. Doug Jones, Maggie Rogers, Leon Bridges, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Michelle Obama.
_______________________________________________________
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The Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed suit on behalf of these women. CAIR attorney Zanah Ghalawanji said: “No one should have to pick between their livelihood and their faith. By standing up for their rights and fighting back, Tia, Shakeya and Madinah hope that this agency will be prohibited from imposing this terrible predicament on other women in the future.”
However, the facility where the women worked say it was a safety issue, not one of discrimination against Muslims. “In a written statement at the time, officials in charge of the facility where the women worked said they were not trying to ‘stifle religious freedoms’ and that allowing exceptions to policy is complicated when the safety of staff and youth is impacted. ‘We must carefully balance our strong support of religious freedom with the need to keep youth and staff safe,’ the statement said. ‘In some instances, a person’s job may require them to do certain actions, such as the physical restraint of a youth, that makes wearing some religious clothing unsafe.'”
Safety concerns are of nointerest to Hamas-linked CAIR. The idea behind all these suits is to establish and reinforce the principle that where Islamic law and American law conflict, it is American law that must give way. Also, many companies and institutions, wanting to avoid the hassle and negative publicity of a court battle, have settled for large sums just to make the thing go away. This kind of lawsuit is a reliable cash cow for Hamas-linked CAIR and its clients.
“Women sue state over workplace hijab prohibition; federal lawsuit claims discrimination,” by Xerxes Wilson, Delaware News Journal, August 14, 2020:
Three Muslim women who used to work at a state detention center for juveniles have filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against Delaware officials claiming they were barred from wearing religious head coverings at work.
The women, Tia Mays, Madinah Brown and Shakeya Thomas, claim nobody told them it was against policy to wear a hijab to work at the New Castle County Detention Center and Ferris School for adjudicated juveniles.
Once they began working for the state Department of Services of Children, Youth and their Families, which oversees the facilities, they were prohibited by supervisors from working at the center unless they removed their head coverings….
The lawsuit names the department as well as officials working in the department as defendants. A spokesperson for the department declined to comment on the litigation and said “we are dedicated to maintaining an inclusive environment for all.”
In Thomas’s case, she was told by a supervisor that she “had a few days to think about what she wanted to do — keep wearing her hijab or continue to be employed,” the lawsuit states. She was later told if “she ever wanted to work for the State of Delaware in the future, it would be in her best interest to resign,” according to the complaint.
In Brown’s case, she continued to wear the hijab and was forced to clock out on some days. She continued to try to work, but was forced to go home on multiple occasions and ultimately was issued an ultimatum: stop wearing the head covering or resign.
One supervisor yelled, “Now you’re looking like a terrorist,” according to the her report filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal agency that administers and enforces civil rights laws against workplace discrimination….
In a written statement at the time, officials in charge of the facility where the women worked said they were not trying to “stifle religious freedoms” and that allowing exceptions to policy is complicated when the safety of staff and youth is impacted.
“We must carefully balance our strong support of religious freedom with the need to keep youth and staff safe,” the statement said. “In some instances, a person’s job may require them to do certain actions, such as the physical restraint of a youth, that makes wearing some religious clothing unsafe.”…
They seek back pay, financial damages and a court to order the state to institute a religious accommodation for Muslim workers to wear religious head coverings.
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Joe Biden has turned in another forgettable performance in a basement bunker interview. No, we’re not being unkind. The former veep keeps forgetting stuff and it’s long past the time his sister, whose name he forgets, and his wife, whom he confuses with his sister, talked with him about it.
Biden’s interview with rapper Cardi B, timed for release the week of the virtual Democratic convention, highlighted Biden’s vow to raise taxes and give out “free” higher education. And it also highlighted Biden’s now trademarked and worrisome forgetfulness. (See the interview below.)
So perhaps it should be no surprise that when the former vice president did his interview with the medically transformed rapper Cardi B recently, he forgot the number of family members he has.
Joe, How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up?
At the very beginning of the interview, Cardi B attempted to talk about her two-year-old daughter and Biden jumped in to declare that there is no more caring individual than himself when it comes to kids. That why he forgot two of his grandkids.
You’re telling me. I got four kids, five grandkids. Come on, I’m an expert. I understand about kids. They’re the most important thing in the world. They come first.
Here’s the snippet from the interview.
Previously, he’s “forgotten” to count Hunter Biden’s latest love child from his corps of grandkids, but this time Biden forgot two of them.
Biden’s son Beau has two kids and Hunter Biden has five children – that we know of.
Hunter’s love child, a product of his coupling with a D.C. stripper from Arkansas — while he was dating his deceased brother’s widow with whom he was having an affair while he was still married to his first wife. He also has a new baby boy born to him and a woman he later married.
That’s five kids. Plus two. And, unless you’re part of the woke mob who believe 2+2=5, that still equals seven.
Fox News reported that Cardi B emphasized that black people are on the streets just rioting for equality and how she doesn’t feel like an American.
The Grammy-winner emphasized how Black people are just “asking for equality,” fairness, and justice. “That is all,” she said. “I feel like everything people are asking for is getting interpreted in a very different way. No, it’s simple: We just want justice. We want to feel like Americans.”
Biden said he’s sure the change in the world will come from her generation.
“You’re the smartest, the best educated, the least prejudiced, and the most engaged generation in history. And you’re going to change things,” he said.
Cardi B has had an epiphany in the past few years about where all her tax dollars are going. She’s ranted about rats on the streets, not enough charitable “reductions,” and believes the 40% the government takes out of her bountiful earnings is confiscatory. Nevertheless, she has supported Bernie Sanders in the past and now backs Joe Biden, both of whom have promised to raise her taxes.
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In this episode of Behind The Deep State, host Alex Newman exposes how the Deep State is using the LGBT movement as a weapon to wage war on family, marriage, the Bible, and the Church. Alex goes through the key Deep State players in this such as George Soros, Tom Gill, Jon Stryker, Hollywood, and Big Business. He also says the next step will be the normalization of pedophilia and the unleashing of further government persecution against Christians who refuse to bow before the idols of the LGBT movement.
ANTIFA and BLM Agitators are Getting CRUSHED in America’s New CIVIL WAR! In this video, we’re going to actually look at a burgeoning civil war being fought on three different fronts, and we’re going to see how in each of these fronts, the far left is losing and they are losing big; you’re not going to want to miss this!
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That tireless advocate for Islam, Pope Francis, is facing criticism for his uncharacteristic silence over a Muslim population that is actually suffering injustice and persecution: the Uighurs of China. ChurchMilitant.com reported Tuesday that Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, archbishop of Yangon, Myanmar, denounced “the potential genocide” of “one million Uighur and other Muslims in China.” But Francis remains resolutely silent.
The reason why may be found in his bank balance.
Rahima Mahmut, head of the World Uighur Congress, declared: “Pope Francis, in particular, speaks almost every week at the Sunday Angelus, and on many other occasions, about issues of injustice in the world. He has often addressed the persecution of the Rohingya Muslims. Yet there is one country whose human rights record he has not highlighted — China — and one people whose suffering he has not spoken about — the Uighurs.”
A dissident who has been exiled from China, Guo Wengei, may have provided the key to the Pope’s curious silence in late June, when he charged the Chinese Communist Party pays the Vatican $2 billion each year in exchange for silence about the Chinese government’s human rights abuses.
If that is true, it explains everything. The Uighurs don’t pay Francis, but the ChiComs do. If the Uighurs did pay him, he might speak up on their behalf. As I told ChurchMilitant, his eye, in this case, appears to be squarely on the bottom line, not on the humanitarian concerns he speaks out about so enthusiastically in other contexts.
Up until now, it has seemed that if anyone was paying Francis, it was Islamic organizations. Or maybe he undertook his enthusiastic advocacy of Islam for free, out of love for the Religion of Peace. Whatever the case may be, his efforts have not gone unappreciated. In September 2017, Pope Francis met in the Vatican with Dr. Muhammad bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa, the secretary-general of the Muslim World League (MWL), a group that has been linked to the financing of jihad terror. During the meeting, al-Issa thanked the pope for his “fair positions” on what he called the “false claims that link extremism and violence to Islam.”
Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Cairo’s al-Azhar, has also thanked the Pope, for his “defense of Islam against the accusation of violence and terrorism.” Al-Tayeb is Pope Francis’ favored dialogue partner. In February 2019, they published “A Document On Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together” during the Pope’s trip to the United Arab Emirates. It was as filled with falsehoods and wishful thinking as one would expect coming from a practiced deceiver such as el-Tayeb and someone so eager to be deceived as Pope Francis.
One of its egregiously false statements was this: Terrorism, it said, “is not due to religion, even when terrorists instrumentalize it. It is due, rather, to an accumulation of incorrect interpretations of religious texts and to policies linked to hunger, poverty, injustice, oppression and pride.”
So are the authoritative sources in Sunni Islam, the schools of Sunni jurisprudence (madhahib), all incorrect in their interpretations of the Qur’an and Sunnah when they say that Islam teaches warfare against unbelievers? Francis and al-Tayeb would apparently have us think so.
Meanwhile, if anyone is paying Francis, it isn’t persecuted Christians: the Pope has committed the Catholic Church to silence about Muslim persecution of Christians as the price for that dialogue. The Associated Press reported in 2016 that the pope “embraced the grand imam of Al-Azhar, the prestigious Sunni Muslim center of learning, reopening an important channel for Catholic-Muslim dialogue after a five-year lull and at a time of increased Islamic extremist attacks on Christians.”
Why had there been this “five-year lull”? Because “the Cairo-based Al-Azhar froze talks with the Vatican to protest comments by then-Pope Benedict XVI.” What did Benedict say? Andrea Gagliarducci of the Catholic News Agency explains that after a jihad terrorist murdered 23 Christians in a church in Alexandria 2011, Benedict decried “terrorism” and the “strategy of violence” against Christians, and called for the Christians of the Middle East to be protected.
So Pope Benedict condemned a jihad attack, one that al-Azhar also condemned, and yet al-Azhar suspended dialogue because of the pope’s condemnation. Then Pope Francis wrote to the Grand Imam of al-Azhar affirming his respect for Islam, and the Grand Imam warned him that criticizing Islam was a “red line” that he must not cross. That strongly suggests that the “dialogue” that Pope Francis has now reestablished will not be allowed to discuss the Muslim persecution of Christians that will escalate worldwide, especially since an incidence of that persecution led to the suspension of dialogue in the first place.
Francis, for his part, in sharp contrast to Benedict, has proclaimed that “authentic Islam and the proper understanding of the Koran reject every form of violence,” doing his bit to ensure that as many Christians as possible would remain ignorant and complacent about the jihad threat that his precious “dialogue” does nothing to mitigate.
All this makes his silence regarding the Uighurs all the more curious and self-contradictory. But whether Guo’s charges are true is something we are likely never to know: the Vatican is not exactly forthcoming with information that may make the Vicar of Christ look bad.
“Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
Truman Fritz and Rose Ritch won the most votes in the race for president and vice president of the USC Undergraduate Student Government. Isabel Washington scored the most votes in the Senate race. Six months later, all three USC students were harassed into resigning.
The story of how that happened exposes the ugliness of campus bullying and anti-Semitism.
Of the three USC student government leaders and one student who was next in the line of succession who were forced out, three were Jewish, one of them gay, and one was African-American. The cancel culture campaigns against them were led by Islamic students.
Three of the four students were targeted for supporting Israel.
Isabel Washington, a Jewish African-American student senator, was the first to be forced out after false accusations of “anti-black racism,” of holding “white supremacist ideologies,” and, of “Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian statements.”
Shaden Awad, an RA at USC, and apparently a supporter of American Muslims for Palestine, attacked Washington for her role at Hillel, a Jewish campus organization where Washington serves as the Jews of Color Co-Chair, writing “Even if all the orgs on campus that r Jewish r also Zionist That’s not an excuse For you to join That’s still blood on ur hands.”
"I didn't join them bc they're zionist. I joined them because I'm Jewish," Washington replied.
A petition calling for her expulsion, with over 1,200 signatures, declares that "a woman with years of internalized racism, classism, and Zionism behind her should not be given the luxury of being a USC student."
The same petition also went after Nathaniel Manor, who would have been next in line to succeed Washington,, because he “openly identifies as a Zionist” and had communicated, "in texts that Palestinians are dying because they refuse to 'let Israel exist', blaming Palestinian people for their own displacement and genocide."
Some of the petition signatories had been involved with Students for Justice in Palestine.
After outrage at the antisemitism scandal at USC went viral, the anonymous creator updated the petition to argue that, “being anti-Zionist and being anti-Semitic are not the same.”
"USC SJP calls for the immediate resignation of Isabel Washington as a USG senator and the prevention of Nathaniel Manor from succeeding Senator Washington and demands that the University hold Mr. Manor accountable for his display of Islamophobia and anti-Arab/Palestinian rhetoric," the USC chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, an antisemitic hate group with a long history of harassing Jewish students, posted.
Manor had been targeted by Muhammad Yusuf Tarr, the former president of USC SJP and a Muslim Student Association leader, an organization with its own history of antisemitism, who had celebrated a call by Marwan Barghouti to free convicted terrorists.
Barghouti was convicted of responsibility for 5 murders, including that of a Greek monk. But at USC being someone who, “openly identifies as a Zionist” is a serious offense, but not supporting the murder of Jews and anyone else living in Israel who doesn’t support terrorists.
When David Horowitz came to USC to speak about Islamic antisemitism, Muhammad had protested against his talk. And that’s still a topic that can’t be discussed at USC.
While Jewish student leaders have been purged, SJP is free to operate on campus.
“I was physically assaulted in an elevator in 2013. I heard my friend get called a ‘Zionist kike’ by SJP. Today I was called a ‘kike’ on campus by SJP. My two female friends and I were shoved to the ground and physically assaulted at our own Israel event in 2014,” a University of California student related.
Rawan Eid, USC SJP's former president, had expressed support for Hezbollah and other terrorists responsible for killing Jews.
But at USC, being a member of SJP allows you to demand the heads of Jewish students.
In addition to targeting Isabel Washington, SJP had also demanded the "the immediate resignation of Truman Fritz and Rose Ritch from their positions as President and Vice President of the Undergraduate Student Government."
Rose had been one of the reasons why Isabel was targeted.
“Seeing people want to impeach Rose bc she’s a Zionist, but they don’t know I’d be the new VP, and I’m also a Zionist,” Isabel had posted.
The antisemitism crisis at USC finally went viral when Rose stepped down from her role as vice president with a resignation letter that described being "harassed and pressured for weeks".
"I have been told that my support for Israel has made me complicit in racism, and that, by association, I am racist. Students launched an aggressive social media campaign to 'impeach [my] Zionist a**’,”' she wrote.
Another letter to President Carol Folt of USC by the Brandeis Center, a Jewish civil rights organization, documented part of the sustained pattern of antisemitic harassment of Ritch.
Abeer Tijani, a Muslim USC student, had led the impeachment campaign, claiming that Ritch, "has been outspoken on issues that alienate Palestinian Trojans". While Tijani later went on to deny that she meant that being pro-Israel was impeachable, her words speak for themselves.
More attacks on the Jewish VP came from Emad Askar, the Director of Health and Wellness of USC's Interfraternity Council and a member of the Students for Justice in Palestine hate group.
Emad falsely claimed that "Zionism is not Judaism," defending his attacks on Ritch by insisting that the "occupation of Palestine represents a larger struggle of oppression for numerous groups in the United States and throughout the world.”
When Isabel Washington was forced to resign, Emad whined that the student government hadn’t condemned her as a “zionist.”
Even during the election, Ritch was attacked for her role in Trojans for Israel.
“There never was an explicit like, ‘dirty Jew,’ like anyone ever invoking even the word ‘Jew.’ It was all under that kind of cloak of anti-Zionism,” she said.
President Carol Folt of USC responded to Ritch’s resignation letter by calling it “heartbreaking” and touted the USC Shoah Foundation's Stronger Than Hate program as the answer. But the Stronger Than Hate program praises the Black@USC instagram account which played a key role in inciting attacks on Jewish students and its only mention of the antisemitism crisis, among its rants about George Floyd and ICE, put the blame on the Jewish students.
"Several members of the USC USG government resigned amidst accusations and revelations of microaggressions, racist memes and expressions of antisemitism," its mission paper notes.
It fails to mention that the students were Jewish and the victims of antisemitic harassment.
The word "Jewish" only appears 3 times in a 19 page program from the Shoah Foundation which had been created to record the testimonies of Holocaust survivors, but now touts Black Lives Matter while dismissing antisemitic harassment at USC. Israel isn’t mentioned at all.
Stronger Than Hate is not the solution to what happened at USC: it’s a symptom of the problem.
Folt’s letter failed to note the role that campus hate groups like Students for Justice in Palestine have played and continue to play in the harassment of Jewish students. She did not address the fact that multiple Jewish student leaders, not just one, had been forced out by the harassment. And she did not condemn any specific acts, including the petition, or any of the harassers.
That’s a far cry from USC’s response when a Trojans booster had tweeted that BLM was a terrorist group. That woman was quickly banned from buying tickets or attending USC games.
The double standard is blatantly grotesque.
Criticising BLM will get you banned from USC, but harassing Jewish students will not only result in your demands being met, but will earn you a spot of honor at the USC Shoah Foundation.
“This is antisemitism, and cannot be tolerated at a University that proclaims to 'nurture an environment of mutual respect and tolerance,'” Ritch wrote in her letter of resignation.
USC is in violation of its own codes and those of the Department of Education.
President Folt stated that, "what happened to Rose Ritch is unacceptable, and we must all take up her challenge to do better.”
That should begin with confronting campus hate groups like Students for Justice in Palestine.
Two of the three Jewish students targeted by SJP and its campus allies had impeccable progressive credentials. One was black and the other was gay. That did not save them. They were not harassed because they were insufficiently politically correct on any issue. Except one.
Rose Ritch and Isabel Washington’s work with Hillel made them targets. As did Ritch’s role at Trojans for Israel. It was their Jewish affiliations that led to the harassment. Their tormentors had made it their goal to ban any pro-Israel Jewish students from holding student government offices. This is not a new tactic. It was innovated by Hatem Bazian: SJP’s founding father.
“Hatem Bazian was more responsible than any other student on campus for trying to make life miserable for Jewish students,” Rabbi Doug Kahn, who led Jewish outreach in San Francisco, had charged.
Bazian’s tactics included blocking a Jewish student from sitting on the Student Judicial Council at SFSU because he “supported the state of Israel and was therefore, by definition, a racist."
More recently, SJP had targeted student government leaders at UCLA for taking trips to Israel. And a student was asked if being Jewish would be a “conflict of interest” when sitting on the student judicial board. At UC Santa Cruz, a Jewish member of the student government was warned to abstain from a BDS vote because he had been “elected with a Jewish agenda.”
This is swiftly becoming the new normal. And there are no sanctions for this strategic harassment of Jewish students on campuses where wearing the wrong Halloween costume or posting something dumb as a 15-year-old can end a college career before it even gets started.
College presidents issue letters claiming to be troubled or concerned. And then do nothing.
As long as Students for Justice in Palestine is free to target and harass Jewish students for supporting the existence of a Jewish State, USC and other campuses are safe spaces for hate.
Yale has also got in on the act with a hotline, along with The University of North Georgia, whose plea for students to police each other prompted the Southeastern Legal Foundation to pen a letter warning that the system may violate students’ privacy and freedom of speech.
“Colleges have a duty to protect student health and safety, especially during uncertain times like these. However, even in unprecedented times, students’ First Amendment rights remain unchanged. That means colleges and universities cannot engage in viewpoint or content-based discrimination, cannot enact vague and overbroad policies, and cannot chill student expression,” the letter urges.
It continues, “With a Concern Form at students’ fingertips, students wishing to prevent a controversial speaker from visiting campus or to stop a student organization from garnering interest in their cause can simply report members of that organization as symptomatic. Without stricter reporting guidelines and limits, it appears that such events could be shut down entirely with the press of a button. This may sound unlikely, but then again, who would have predicted 2020 to turn out as it has?”
The SLF also warned that Fourth Amendment rights may be under threat as students could be forced to get tested for COVID-19, without probable cause.
“Under the Fourth Amendment, individuals cannot be subject to unreasonable searches and seizures. The Supreme Court has even considered that right in the context of cheek swabs. The Court has held that a criminal arrested and charged with a serious crime can be subjected to a DNA cheek swab, so long as the charges are supported by probable cause, meaning there must be sufficient likelihood that the crime occurred. However, a swab is unconstitutional if there is no probable cause, the charge is not criminal, or if the DNA is used to gather medical information about the criminal,” SLF asserted.
“Will UNG, upon receiving a report of a symptomatic student, subject that student to an invasive COVID-19 swab? Surely the university understands that this action would violate the Fourth Amendment,” the SLF further explains.
In a recent opinion piece published in the New York Times, Karen Levy, an assistant professor at Cornell University and Lauren Kilgour, a doctoral candidate at Cornell warned that universities should avoid turning students into spies, warning that while some “may feel a sense of civic duty… others may be loath to report on their friends.”
“People report on one another (truthfully or falsely) for a number of personal reasons, including competition, revenge, leverage and everyday aggravations,” the piece also notes.
“There’s every reason to assume that these motivations will bubble up in the college context, too. Students have their own loyalties, broken hearts, rocky roommate relationships and fraternity codes of silence,” Levy and Kilgour note.
In light of Christ laying down his life for His enemies (
