Democrat Ted Lieu Trashes Mike Pence’s Christian Faith; ‘It’s Just Hate’

It sounds like Ted is the real hater here. But it is true that the Bible makes clear that God hates homosexuality.  It is an abomination to the Lord (Leviticus 20:13; Romans 1:27) it is inimical to normal family formation, which is the foundation of society, so there is wisdom there. The only marriage role Jesus saw was for a union between man and woman (Mark 10:6-9; Matthew 19:4-6)

Big time California Democrat Representative Ted Lieu fired shots at Vice President Mike Pence and his Christian faith. His outburst towards Pence and his faith called said his ways are basically hateful and made it seem like Pence is hiding his hate for homosexuals behind his religion.

Lieu then asked what Jesus Christ said about homosexuals, and then replied to his own question with the word “nothing” and continued to badger the Christian Vice President.

All of this occurred because Mike Pence jumped to his wife Karen’s defense when she began working at a private Christian school as an art teacher.

Their daughter once attended the school and Karen Pence recently took up employment there, instead of milking the government salary of her husband.

The school’s rules and guidelines ask that students and staff adhere to a set of religious principles that require those in attendance to refrain from participation in homosexual or transgender activity.

Ted Lieu appears to believe these principles and Pence’s defense of his wife and the school are hateful, stating “it’s just hate” and suggesting they’re hiding their true feelings about the gay community behind their religion.

Then the Daily Caller reported on it, stating:

“In response to Lieu’s original tweet, a Twitter user referenced three of the apostle Paul’s epistles that reinforced the disapproval of homosexual behavior. Lieu dismissed these New Testament teachings as “not by Christ.”

Immanuel Christian School’s parent agreement states that families must “acknowledge the importance of a family culture based on biblical principles and embrace biblical family values such as a healthy marriage between one man and one woman.”

When it comes to leftists forcing their agenda upon everyone, they call anyone who disagrees an intolerant bigot. When it comes to Christians believing in their religion, without pushing it upon others, they are attacked by leftists who don’t see they’re living in a wicked double standard. In this case, the leftists are the intolerant bigots who refuse to accept the religion of others, just like many people refuse to accept that a six foot man in a dress is a woman.

This is merely fake outrage sparked by the left because Christianity has been the same for years, but there wasn’t ever a peep about it until Trump was in office and his Vice President’s wife took up teaching art at a religious school.

Now that Karen Pence will be teaching art in a school that wishes to not cater to the LGBT crowd, she’ll endure rabid attacks from people who wish to force their agenda down the throat of an entire school and religion who wish to not be associated with them.

Will any hardcore leftists who attack Christianity, Karen Pence, and the school she works at be labeled as intolerant bigots?

Because that’s what they are.

SOURCE






Watch Company Launches Response To Gillette ‘Toxic Masculinity’ Ad; It Goes Viral

On Tuesday, Egard Watch Company released an advertisement on YouTube in response to Gillette’s controversial ad regarding alleged "toxic masculinity."

The video features footage of men in various situations — from fighting fires to hugging their children — while the company’s founder, Ilan Srulovicz, narrates. The footage and narration are accompanied by sobering statistics relating to men.

"What is a man?" Srulovicz asks as a fireman carries a child from a burning building. "Is a man brave?" The on-screen text reads: "Men account for 93% of workplace fatalities." The number comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

"Is a man a hero? Is a man a protector? Is a man vulnerable? Is a man disposable? Is a man broken? Is a man trying?"

As each of the above questions are asked, the following statistics are shown on the screen:

Men comprise over 97% of war fatalities. (U.S. Department of Defense)

79% of all homicide victims are male. (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)

Nearly half of fathers without any visitation rights still financially support their children. (U.S. Census Bureau)

Men account for 80% of all suicide victims. (World Health Organization)

75% of single homeless people are men. (National Coalition for the Homeless)

"We see the good in men," Srulovicz concludes.

Although the company’s YouTube channel has only 5,500 subscribers, the video has been watched more than 766,000 times, and features a 64:1 "like" to "dislike" ratio as of publication.

The Daily Wire spoke with Ilan Srulovicz about his YouTube video, as well as Gillette’s controversial advertisement:

DW: What was your response to the Gillette commercial?

SRULOVICZ: If I’m being honest, my initial response from a visceral standpoint was a negative one. Whether it’s justified or not, I felt a little bit offended. I felt like it painted with too broad a brush. At the same time, I also understood what they were trying to say. I just don’t think it was the right way to say it.

I think that there’s a very strong movement in society that’s very pervasive, and from an advertising perspective, I can see how Gillette felt like that was the right move — that’s the ongoing narrative.

I’m absolutely for addressing issues like sexual assault and bullying, and I think the unfortunate thing that the Gillette ad seems to miss is that most guys feel the same way.

DW: What drove you to make your own commercial addressing this issue?

SRULOVICZ: I did the commercial completely on my own because I didn’t get support necessarily from the people around me. They were a little bit worried that a message that was so contrary to Gillette’s message would not be well received. I think they were just trying to protect me. I think they believe in the message of the commercial, but I think they were just trying to say, "Is it worth the risk to put your company behind this message?"

Srulovicz said that he was at one point being urged to do the video anonymously, but that a quote pushed him to release it as a company advertisement: "There are only two places actions can come from — they’re either going to come from fear or they’re going to come from love."

SRULOVICZ: Releasing it anonymously felt like an action out of fear, not out of love. Putting something I’ve built and something that means so much to me behind this video would be an action out of love. So, I decided to go in that direction. I also thought that an anonymous video wouldn’t have the same impact as a company saying, "This type of message is okay. This type of message is good."

According to Srulovicz, the overwhelmingly positive response to the video was quite unexpected. He foresaw a potentially negative response.

SRULOVICZ: I had friends tell me that a message like this draws away from women’s rights issues, and it’s not the right time, or the current political climate isn’t right for this kind of message. I just don’t see why it has to be an either/or thing; it’s not a competition. Suffering should never be a competition; uplifting people should never be a competition. We should all have positive messages, and I think companies have lost track of that. You should want to uplift people in your advertisements, not lecture them or generalize an entire group.

I decided to just take a stand and do it. I spent my own money on it; I recorded it myself; I did the editing myself because it was the only way I could go about it and not be influenced by anyone – and that was important. I didn’t want to have it get pulled back, or not get the statistics out that are very real, and often sadly ignored in society.

DW: There are going to be people who say that you saw the conservative backlash to the Gillette commercial, and, knowing that a large portion of the country is right-leaning, used this as a cynical marketing ploy. What would you say to that?

SRULOVICZ: As I said before, I actually expected a negative response, not a positive one. So, I didn’t expect this to help my company necessarily. The reason I put my company behind it was because it’s easier for an individual to go out and say, "I believe in this message." It’s much more difficult for a company to do that.

Right now, I have contracts with large-scale companies, with celebrities, and for me to stand up and put out a message, I would realistically have to make sure that the message was not controversial on any level. I’m not Gillette; I don’t have that kind of backing where I can take chances.

Of course there will be people who think it’s a ploy to take advantage of the Gillette backlash. What I actually hope out of all of this is that other companies take notice, and start creating positive messages for men.

I just don’t understand why we live in a time where we have to divide each other in that way; why you have to make a controversial ad. Gillette could have easily made an incredibly positive ad for men at a time when no one wants to do that, and I believe that they would have had an amazing response.

I also think that if you want to effect change in society, you don’t do it by lecturing people, you do it by giving them a positive message, you do it by showing who the best men are. If I want to make a message that has an impact on society, am I going to do it by saying, "These are the worst of us, and some of us aren’t this, but that’s not enough" or am I going to say, "These are the best of us, and many of us are that – and to those who aren’t, this is what we can inspire people to be. This is what we represent as a gender, as a people, as a society."

DW: Is there anything we haven’t touched on that you would like to say?

SRULOVICZ: The nice thing from all of this is the response, not just from men, but from women. It’s not just men who are wanting this kind of positive message for men — there are mothers out there who have male children; there are wives who have husbands. It’s not just one group that’s affected by negativity; it’s everyone. There are so many women who stand behind positive messages for men.

The Daily Wire would like to thank Ilan Srulovicz for speaking with us about his commercial and his company.

SOURCE








Marines Hoist White Flag To Social Justice Warriors

The United States Marine Corps may have battled America’s enemies from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, but today’s Marine Corps leadership has hoisted the white flag to social justice warriors demanding the Corps continue the destructive social engineering experiments of the Obama administration.

The latest Marine Corps capitulation courtesy of Marine Corps Commandant General Robert B. Neller was on the long-contentious issue of co-ed basic training.

Our friend Elaine Donnelly, founder and president of the Center for Military Readiness, gave us the heads-up that Neller quietly announced on a Friday afternoon that for the first time in history, a platoon of fifty enlisted female recruits would be housed and trained alongside five male platoons in the 3rd Training Battalion at the Marines’ Parris Island boot camp.

If this were a good and certain to be well-received policy, it would have been trumpeted from the parapet of the Pentagon. However, since the announcement was buried on a Friday afternoon news cycle in the midst of the government shutdown controversy you can be sure that Neller and the Obama holdovers at the Pentagon knew it would not be well-received by Republicans on the Hill, the conservative national defense constituency and a White House that doesn’t need or want another Obama-era policy to defend.

According to a Marine spokesman speaking to ABC News, boot camp recruit classes typically are much smaller in the winter months.  Housing one female platoon with five male ones in the 3rd Training Battalion allows temporary de-activation of the all-female 4th Training Battalion.

The excuse was lame, at best says Elaine Donnelly.  The Marines’ Delayed Entry Program (DEP) sends new recruits to boot camp on timetables set by the needs of the service, not the weather.  Someone should find out why there aren’t enough female recruits to populate the 4th Training Battalion.  Perhaps young women are shunning recruiters because they know that once they sign up, they might be ordered into ground combat units on the same involuntary basis as men.

Officials also made the disingenuous claim that the “temporary” change would support “training efficiency.”  But within a week, Marine Corps Times reported that the female platoon co-located in the men’s training battalion “may not be the last.”

Speaking at a forum in Washington, D.C., Marine Sergeant Major Ronald Green said the service doesn’t “do things as a one-time deal.”  Green added that the intent is to give everyone “the greatest opportunity for success.”

Marine Sergeant Major Green’s “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” comment failed to recognize that boot camp is not about individual “success.”  Its mission is to transform ordinary civilians into disciplined male and female Marines.

Elaine Donnelly also noted that the Marine Corps Times article confirmed General Neller’s needless campaign to increase the percentage of female Marines from 8.9% to 10%.  That quota, unfortunately, signals that the Marines are assigning highest priority to political correctness over mission readiness and combat lethality.  The Trump Administration should revoke this and all gender diversity mandates, including the 25% quotas that still apply in in the Navy, Army, and Air Force.

Sergeant Major Green also said that assessments of the gender-mixed battalion would determine “whether it is a model the Corps should continue.”  Based on previous Pentagon practices, however, assessments of the gender-mixed battalion likely will center on sociological goals, not the primary military goal: transformation of undisciplined civilians into Marines.

Officials and media will claim that standards are “gender-neutral” and women are doing the same things as men.

Half-truths such as this in all the services, however, are misleading says Elaine Donnelly.  Under the Dempsey Rule, which Donnelly named for former Joint Chiefs Chairman General Martin Dempsey, high standards that women cannot meet are being re-evaluated, dropped, or scored differently to ensure female trainee “success.”

An example of how this works occurred last year at the Marines’ Infantry Officer Course (IOC) at Quantico, VA.  As CMR reported in 2018, only one female officer out of more than thirty had passed the IOC.  Most failed on the grueling Combat Endurance Test (CET) – the first and toughest challenge in the Infantry Officer Course conducted at Quantico, VA.

The incredibly tough CET event was designed to identify and prepare infantry officers who are capable of leading other men on the battlefield, from the front.  With uncompromising physical demands and high attrition rates, the first-day test was working to separate the best from the rest.

The system was not broken, but in November 2017, without prior notice, General Neller decided to “fix” it.  Neller changed the must-pass CET into a success-optional Combat Evaluation Test.  The acronym remains the same, but now the CET is just another evaluation data point.  Seven months later, a second female officer passed the course.

All branches of the service are struggling to make changes in basic physical fitness and combat fitness tests (PFT/CFT).  They are finding it difficult to challenge stronger men without causing disproportionate injuries among women.  Gender-normed scores are justifiable in basic, entry-level, and pre-commissioning training, but not in advanced courses qualifying personnel for the combat arms.

Donnelly says, and we agree, that controversies surrounding co-ed boot camp are only part of the larger debate about the consequences of treating men and women as if they are interchangeable in all military positions, including combat arms units such as the infantry.  This debate must include an honest re-assessment of conditions leading to sexual misconduct in the military -- a problem that eviscerates morale and readiness in America’s military, and may have roots in co-ed basic training.

In the classic military and bureaucratic imperative, promotable officers and drill instructors will do everything possible to ensure that women are happy.  Over time standards or evaluations will change without notice, and the incremental experiment will be declared successful, justifying more “progress” in the wrong direction.

We urge CHQ readers and friends to call the White House at 202-456-1111 or use this link to email the White House to let President Trump know you demand he reverse the Marine Corps destructive decision to train male and female recruits together.

SOURCE







Dying with their Rights On: The Myths and Realities of Ending Homelessness in Australia

Dr Carlos d’Abrera, psychiatrist, makes points below that extend well beyond Australia.  The problem is far from one of housing only

A growing problem or a misplaced definition?  If you were to ask the average Australian what they understand by the term ‘homeless’, the most common answer would be ‘a person who sleeps rough, and usually on the streets’.

Despite this common perception, only 7% (8200) of the 116,427 homeless persons counted nationally on census night 2016 met this definition of homelessness. This percentage is unchanged from 2011, although the numbers of people sleeping rough increased by approximately 2000 persons nationally between 2011 and 2016.

This is despite governmental spending on homelessness exceeding $817.4 million in 2016-17, an increase of 29% from $634.2 million in 2012-13. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data indicates that the total number of homeless persons has grown from 89,728 in 2006 to 116,427 in 2016 — an increase of 30% over the decade.

These inflated figures are based on a questionable official definition of homelessness adopted by the ABS in 2012 that includes the ‘housed homeless’ (such as those living in supported accommodation) and people living in overcrowded accommodation. Prior to this, a so-called ‘cultural’ definition of homelessness was used.

The revised ‘ABS definition’ worsened the apparent extent of the homelessness problem overnight. People living in severely overcrowded accommodation represent both the largest and most rapidly growing proportion of the officially homeless. Homeless rates in the other categories have remained largely unchanged over the past decade.

According to the ABS Census data, people living in severely overcrowded dwellings rose from 31,531 in 2006 to 51,088 in 2016. Most of the increase over that period is in NSW — where the jump has been from 27% to 45% of the total homeless population in that state. Overcrowding has increased most in the cities of Sydney and Melbourne where rates of net overseas migration have been the highest.

For some groups, such as recent migrants, living in crowded dwellings is a rational economic decision, while for others it may reflect cultural preferences for shared living spaces of people who would never consider themselves homeless.

‘Homelessness industry’ obscures the small subset of those most in need

It is in the interest of the ‘homelessness industry’ — the academics, charities and NGOS that undertake research, conduct advocacy, and lobby government for more taxpayerfunded spending on the alleged problems and solutions — for the numbers of homeless to be artificially high.

The orthodox understanding of the causes of homelessness promoted by the industry overemphasises the role of economic and social structures (structuralism). Solutions based on structuralist explanations — such as increasingly the supply of affordable social housing — are insufficient to reduce genuine homelessness. Such approaches dilute out those most at risk and most in need; chronic rough sleepers. They also minimise the role of, and fail to address, the individual characteristics, choices, and behaviours — especially the high rates of mental illness and drug abuse — that afflict rough sleepers.

Structural ‘solutions’ with respect to current public housing policy also exacerbate the problems they are designed to solve by maintaining people on the margins of homelessness. Breakdowns in social housing tenancies are often related to the antisocial behaviours and criminal activities associated with drug use (especially methamphetamines). While tenancy support provides an opportunity for vulnerable individuals with complex needs to maintain housing, there is too much scope for such persons to refuse support and to potentially face eviction.

Policy Recommendations: Benign and enlightened paternalism

An inverse moral panic — an ideological fear of being perceived to support ‘moralistic’ policies that violate the autonomy of rough sleepers — has paralysed our treatment of the most severely homeless in recent decades. Homelessness services have proved unable to reduce the numbers of rough sleepers because of an unwillingness to implement the necessarily assertive strategies that are required to help the most vulnerable exit the streets.

A truly compassionate community should not fail to intervene to stop the poor choices and wide range of health, social, and physical harms that are linked to the cognitive impairments — such as mental illness and substance abuse problems — that lead to rough sleeping.

To effectively reduce genuine homelessness and stop those who sleep rough on our streets from ‘dying with their rights on’, the following benign and enlightened paternalistic policies should be implemented:

* Underpinning assertive outreach programs for rough sleepers with a non-opt-out triage process to reduce non-participation and ensure those who mentally ill are referred to mental health services and treated assertively.

* Appointing public guardians to help make decisions on behalf of rough sleepers who lack decision-making capacity.

* Expanding mandatory drug treatment for individuals who are homeless or at high risk of homelessness to improve the chances of maintaining stable accommodation.

* Requiring occupants of public housing referred to mental health services to accept mandatory psychosocial support as a condition of ongoing tenancy (consistent with the principle of mutual obligation).

* Re-establishing long term institutional care facilities for that proportion of chronically homeless people, particularly those with mental illness and complex needs who would benefit from high levels of support

SOURCE  

*************************

Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

***************************