Gay Rights vs. Free Speech: Supreme Court Backs Free speech
Free speech has constitutional protection. Gay rights do not.
I have never understood why homosexuals do not want to use homosexual-friendly businesses for their needs. Why must they harass Christians?
One has to conclude that harassment of Christians is the point, not provision of services to homosexuals. So the SCOTUS ruling is in effect an anti-harassment ruling. And why do some homosexuals target Christians? Leviticus 20:13 provides a graphic answer. Homosexuals should be grateful for Romans 2:1
In a 6-to-3 vote, split along ideological lines, the Supreme Court sided on Friday with a web designer in Colorado who said she had a First Amendment right to refuse to provide services for same-sex marriages despite a state law that forbids discrimination against gay people.
Writing for the majority, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said that “the opportunity to think for ourselves and to express those thoughts freely is among our most cherished liberties and part of what keeps our Republic strong.”
He added, “The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands.”
The case, though framed as a clash between free speech and gay rights, was the latest in a series of decisions in favor of religious people and groups, notably conservative Christians, who celebrated the ruling on Friday as a victory for religious freedom.
In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the ruling “profoundly wrong,” arguing that the Colorado anti-discrimination law “targets conduct, not speech, for regulation, and the act of discrimination has never constituted protected expression under the First Amendment. Our Constitution contains no right to refuse service to a disfavored group.”
The designer, Lorie Smith, said her Christian faith requires her to turn away customers seeking wedding-related services to celebrate same-sex unions. She added that she intends to post a message saying the company’s policy is a product of her religious convictions.
A Colorado law forbids discrimination against gay people by businesses open to the public as well as statements announcing such discrimination. Ms. Smith, who has not begun the wedding business or posted the proposed statement for fear of running afoul of the law, sued to challenge it, saying it violated her rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion.
But when the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, 303 Creative L.L.C. v. Elenis, No. 21-476, it agreed to decide only one question: “whether applying a public-accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment.”
In a news conference Friday in Washington, Ms. Smith said she was grateful to the court, who “affirmed today that Colorado can’t force me or anyone to say something we don’t believe.”
Here’s what else to know:
Progressive interfaith groups and L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy organizations around the country condemned the ruling. Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement that the ruling was “a deeply troubling crack in our progress and should be alarming to us all.”
Both sides have said that the consequences of the court’s ruling could be enormous, though for different reasons. Ms. Smith’s supporters said a decision for the state would allow the government to force all sorts of artists to state things at odds with their beliefs. Her opponents said a ruling in her favor would blow a hole through anti-discrimination laws and allow businesses engaged in expression to refuse service to, for example, Black people or Muslims based on odious but sincerely held convictions.
The decision appeared to suggest that the rights of L.G.B.T.Q. people, including to same-sex marriage, are on more vulnerable legal footing, particularly when they are at odds with claims of religious freedom. At the same time, the ruling limited the ability of the governments to enforce anti-discrimination laws.
Lower courts have generally sided with gay and lesbian couples who were refused service by bakeries, florists and others, ruling that potential customers are entitled to equal treatment, at least in parts of the country with laws forbidding discrimination based on sexual orientation.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/06/30/us/gay-rights-free-speech-supreme-court
*****************************************************The Left’s Trans Suicide Lie
One of the weapons used by transgender activists is their claim that our failure to support a gender-dysphoric person’s desire to “transition” is a form of abuse. Worse yet, they say this lack of support may lead to suicide.
Talk about a guilt trip.
But a revealing and disturbing study from Denmark published by the Journal of the American Medical Association paints a completely different picture, and the results are sure to raise questions about all those warnings of suicide.
The study of seven million people over four decades found that transgenders in Denmark have a much higher rate of suicide than the general population. Keep in mind, these are people who’ve already partially or fully transitioned, and they’re living in a progressive country that’s more accepting of the trans culture than other countries. Try being trans in Saudi Arabia, for example.
“Transgender people in the country,” reports The New York Times, “had 7.7 times the rate of suicide attempts and 3.5 times the rate of suicide deaths compared with the rest of the population, according to the records analyzed in the study, though suicide rates in all groups decreased over time. And transgender people in Denmark died — by suicide or other causes — at younger ages than others.”
This, of course, is in stark contrast to all those media reports about how kids who want to switch their biological sex are at greater risk of suicide if conservatives don’t acquiesce. And all those heartwarming stories we see on the news about trans kids feeling happy and excited about their new life might be called into question now that we know the facts.
But it’s not just Denmark where transgenders are feeling more suicidal. As the Journal of the American Medical Association notes: “An even higher suicide mortality rate (270 per 100 000 person-years) was reported for Swedish transgender individuals undergoing gender identity-affirming surgery during 1973 to 2003. A recent population-based study using data from general practitioners and death statistics in England between 1988 and 2019 reported 3 to 5 times increased mortality from either suicide or homicide among transgender and gender-diverse individuals compared with non-transgender individuals.”
According to U.S. News, the study also found that 43% of transgenders had a psychiatric diagnosis while just 7% of the non-transgender group did.
This might be the most interesting part of the study. After all, it raises critical questions about whether the trans industry might be pushing treatments and surgeries on children whose real problem might be getting swept under the rug.
“The astronomically higher suicide rates among transitioned or transitioning patients certainly indicates widespread malpractice, or at the very least widespread dissatisfaction with the outcomes of sex-change operations and therapies,” writes Ed Morrissey at Hot Air. “The data strongly demonstrates that such ‘therapies’ leave patients much worse off than when they started, and doesn’t touch the actual medical issues in play.”
Morrissey adds, “This data should force the medical establishment — and perhaps more importantly, insurance companies that provide malpractice coverage — to completely rethink their embrace of sex-change treatments, especially in pediatric settings.”
One hopes this study might lead transgender activists and the politicians who support them to reconsider reflexively giving children puberty blockers and setting them up for irreversible surgeries instead of properly diagnosing them. Otherwise, we’ll see an epidemic of post-trans regret experienced by people like Milo, made famous in 2016 on MTV for transitioning from female to male. Back then, Milo was celebrated for daring to undergo testosterone shots, a hysterectomy, and “top removal” after the show aired.
As the Daily Mail reports: “Sitting beside him, Milo’s supportive mom, Kristin, described the ‘horror stories’ she had heard about trans kids committing suicide. In hindsight, those comments from Milo and Kristin were red flags. Today, many parents complain that doctors and therapists bully them into affirming their child’s decision to transition by suggesting that, without support, they would likely take their own lives. Now Milo says she’s ‘ashamed’ of the documentary and ‘can’t bear to watch’ it.”
The battle to protect our children continues, and we have a long way to go. But this Danish study might be a turning point.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/98469-the-lefts-trans-suicide-lie-2023-06-30
***************************************************Anti-feminist YouTuber Hannah Pearl Davis dubbed the ‘female Andrew Tate’
An “anti-feminist” YouTuber who believes women shouldn’t have the right to vote and divorce should be illegal has been dubbed the “female Andrew Tate”.
Hannah Pearl Davis, 26, who goes by “Pearl”, has amassed more than 1.5 million followers for her conservative views, with clips of her inflammatory remarks often going viral on Twitter and TikTok in recent months.
Her popularity online increased following the arrest of Tate in Romania on sex trafficking charges in December.
Tate, 36, who became one of the world’s most famous influencers for sharing his controversial views online, had been a guest on her channel shortly before he was taken into custody.
Since then her YouTube following has increased from 960,000 subscribers to 1.54 million, according to SocialBlade.
Davis also had 930,000 followers on TikTok prior to being banned in August last year “for telling the truth about feminism”.
“Why do all of these big companies censor one side but they don’t censor the other?” she said in a video at the time.
“Men have issues, I’m not saying they don’t, but it’s not a fair conversation if only one side gets to speak. We’ve heard about men’s issues the last 20 years, but women don’t listen to men. Feminists don’t want to have the conversation because it makes them look bad. Anything that puts women in a bad light, it’s taken down, it’s censored.”
Davis is originally from Chicago, Illinois, where she grew up with nine siblings and her parents, software entrepreneurs Dan and Jennifer Davis, according to Insider.
Ironically, her mother was once on the board of directors for UN Women USA, a charity that supports the gender-equality programs of the United Nations.
She now lives in London where she gained some initial success filming street interviews, and now hosts a YouTube talk show called The Pregame as well as creating viral video content such as tongue-in-cheek “whiteboard” presentations.
She joined YouTube in 2020 but her popularity only took off in May 2022, when her increasingly edgy content saw her subscriber count skyrocket from 25,000 to more than half a million in six months.
In total her YouTube videos have generated more than 781 million views, while on Twitter videos with the hashtag #justpearlythings have been viewed more than 300 million times.
She told Insider earlier this year that she was influenced by watching videos of popular right-wing figures like The Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro and economist Thomas Sowell during college.
Davis has since teamed up with manager Coby DeVito, a former colleague of Shapiro at The Daily Wire.
While she denies exaggerating her opinions for clicks, Davis clearly enjoys generating controversy.
“A lot of people think I’m insane because I don’t think women should vote,” she said in a Twitter video this week which has been viewed 860,000 times. “If anything this is probably my most extreme opinion.”
She went on to explain that she “came to this conclusion” because she wanted to know “why men were so angry about women”.
“When I started researching this stuff it was pretty easy to figure out why — 90 per cent of women have been on birth control, one out of three women has had an abortion, one out of three women has an STD, the average body count is over five, 95 per cent of women are not virgins on their wedding day — so I understand these complaints,” she said.
Davis then claimed that “the courts, the legal system, all of society is basically pandering and simping for women”, citing examples such as payments for single mothers.
“If you pay women to be terrible, then you’re probably going to have more terrible women,” she said.
“The issue is that the politicians, the only way they can get elected, the women vote for them. The reason we can’t see a change in these laws … is because they won’t be re-elected. Does every person deserve the right to vote? Because essentially we have a society where men are just paying for women’s bad decisions.”
In another video this week, viewed 2.6 million times, Davis suggested “outside of reproduction, society would function fine without women”. “If women stopped working tomorrow I think we would have an increase in efficiency, not a decrease,” she said.
“The problem is we have all these women that think they’re doing more than they are because they’re hot and they make money off of being hot, and they’re subsidised by the government.”
In other viral clips on TikTok, Davis argues a woman doesn’t “deserve a guy that makes six figures if you’re obese”, that it’s a woman’s fault if her partner cheats, and that men should be allowed to hit women back.
“A lot of you guys are shitty wives,” she said in one video. “You don’t cook for your man, you belittle him, you nag on him all the time. You don’t treat him like a man.”
Clips of Davis appearing on other podcasts have also circulated widely, including a debate with YouTuber Ethan Klein over slavery and divorce rights. “I think we should ban divorce,” she said.
“I just think that if you want to leave, you just shouldn’t get married. You know, because marriage is supposed to be for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, it’s not supposed to be when I feel like leaving. The majority of divorces now it’s just when the girl feels like leaving.”
Davis, however, insists she is not a misogynist. “Misogyny is the hatred of women,” she told Insider. “I don’t hate women. For some reason acknowledging a basic truth like men and women are different is labelled as misogyny nowadays.”
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Rent control sanity from the British Labour party: Most unexpected
Labour has ditched a pledge to control surging rents if it wins the next general election – nine months after endorsing the policy.
Lisa Nandy said last September that that she wanted to give local authorities the power to freeze rents, telling the party conference: “Doing nothing is not an option.”
But speaking on Wednesday, the shadow communities secretary described the approach as a “sticking plaster” and claimed it would increase homelessness.
“When housebuilding is falling off a cliff and buy to let landlords are leaving the market, rent controls that cut rents for some, will almost certainly leave others homeless,” she told the Housing 2023 gathering of industry professionals.
Scrapping the policy represents a major shift in thinking for Labour, which has promised the regulation of rents in all its manifestos since Ed Miliband was leader.
But following Ms Nandy’s speech a Labour spokesperson said it was unfair to characterise her latest announcement as a U-turn, stating: “A rent freeze has never been Labour party policy.”
The change has prompted an outcry from Labour’s left, with campaign group Momentum accusing the party leadership of being “allergic to good, popular policy”.
But Ms Nandy told the conference on Wednesday: “It might be politically easier to put a sticking plaster on our deep-seated problems, but if it is cowardice that got us here, it is never going to get us out.”
Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham are among senior figures in local government to have called for powers to control rents as prices surge in their cities, with Mr Khan urging the government to set up a commission to work out a way forward.
England and Wales are unusual around Europe in having no rules about what a landlord can charge or how sharply they can increase rents over time.
The Scottish government in March voted to cap rent increases on sitting tenants at 3 per cent in most circumstances, and continue a ban on evictions. Local authorities can also apply to control rents more generally in so-called “rent pressure areas”.
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Fun and games in Ireland
Ireland is a very small country so news from there should not in theory be of great interest. But so many of us in the Anglosphere have some Irish ancestry that Ireland looms large in our consciousness. I remember my grandma Kelly well
It has become Ireland’s top-rated show – a tale of celebrity, secrets and lies that has entranced the public and dominated the airwaves. Some reckon it is the most gripping drama ever produced by RTÉ.
Unfortunately for the national broadcaster, it is an all too real scandal over clandestine payments that has engulfed its star presenter and senior managers and planted a question mark over RTÉ’s future.
The stakes rose on Friday when the taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said laws may have been breached. “Some of these payments may have been on the wrong side of the law,” he told reporters, capping a calamitous week for the broadcaster.
The story erupted on 22 June when RTÉ disclosed hidden payments of €345,000 (£295,000) to Ryan Tubridy, who hosted The Late Late Show and a flagship radio programme, in addition to his published salary between 2017 and 2020.
The revelation caused outrage because RTÉ is publicly funded and had given false statements about Tubridy’s salary to staff, viewers and the government while it was seeking pay cuts and extra funding. The broadcaster apologised for a betrayal of public trust.
With RTÉ staff staging protests and calling for changes, other high-profile presenters took to the airwaves to reveal their salaries and to deny having any clandestine top-ups.
The director general, Dee Forbes, was suspended last week and subsequently resigned. The legislature’s public accounts committee grilled her former colleagues in televised sessions this week that exposed a “slush fund” for corporate hospitality and glaring holes in RTÉ’s governance and accountability.
When asked about his salary, Richard Collins, RTÉ’s chief financial officer, replied: “I think that’s a private matter.” Reminded that he was paid with public money, Collins paused, then said: “I don’t know what my exact salary is, off the top of my head.”
James O’Connor, a Fianna Fáil member of the committee, expressed disbelief. “The chief financial officer of RTÉ can’t tell us what he’s paid. Are we supposed to buy that?” When pressed, Collins said he believed his salary was “around €200,000 base salary plus a car allowance of €25,000”.
Collins said taxpayers may have been “defrauded” over undeclared payments to Tubridy and that he believed some entailed “concealment” or “deception” to bump the presenter’s annual salary over €500,000.
Labour’s Alan Kelly said the committee hearings exposed profound dysfunction. “This is an executive that isn’t functioning and can’t continue. Neither can the board after what we saw.”
Executives and board members traded blame, saying they were unaware of the payments. “An act designed to deceive,” said the RTÉ chair, Siún Ní Raghallaigh. She said the term “talent” should no longer be used to distinguish presenters and other performers from colleagues. “It implies some have greater worth than others. The first step in culture change is to consign this term to the dustbin.”
The drip drip of disclosures – forced in part by robust, forensic reporting by RTÉ journalists – has rotted goodwill towards the broadcaster and undercut its campaign to obtain more funding and overhaul its funding model.
Politicians are keen to question Forbes, who declined to appear at the public affairs committee, citing ill health. They also want to question Tubridy and his agent, Noel Kelly, who funnelled the hidden payments through the agent’s British company. The pair denied wrongdoing and have not detailed how any payments were made.
Tubridy’s future is unclear. The scandal has tainted his genial everyman persona, and he has stopped presenting his radio show since the story broke.
On 16 May, a week before RTÉ’s bombshell disclosure, Tubridy announced he would step down from The Late Late Show, which he had hosted since 2009. RTÉ’s interim deputy director general, Adrian Lynch, said it was possible Tubridy knew of the brewing crisis before his announcement to step down.
Tubridy’s successor, the Northern Ireland comedian Patrick Kielty, disclosed he would earn €250,000 for each 30-episode season. Kielty, who lives in London, said that under his contract he could have put travel and accommodation on expenses but had chosen not to. “I genuinely hope this helps clarify things,” he said.
Oliver Callan, the stand-in for Tubridy’s radio show, joked to listeners that he would allude only sporadically to “the unpleasantness in the basement” and invoked the hashtag #DontMentionTheThing.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See
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