Monday, December 14, 2020



Tulsi Gabbard Introduces Bill that bans transgender individuals from competing in women's sports.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) is getting lonely on her side of the political aisle. First she celebrates the Supreme Court's ruling that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's (D) edict to limit gatherings in Catholic diocese and synagogues was unconstitutional as a religious freedom win. Then she sides with President Trump on his decision to oppose the NDAA because of Section 230, a provision that protects tech firms from liability over third-party content on their platforms.

And her next move isn't pleasing many liberals either. On Thursday, the Democrat introduced a bill with Republican Oklahoma Rep. Markwayne Mullin called the "Protect Women’s Sports Act of 2020," which bans transgender individuals from competing in women's sports.

Gabbard explained that her intent is to protect Title IX, which has been "weakened" by some states' misinterpretations.

“Title IX was a historic provision championed by Hawai‘i’s own Congresswoman Patsy Mink in order to provide equal opportunity for women and girls in high school and college sports," Gabbard said in a statement. "It led to a generational shift that impacted countless women, creating life-changing opportunities for girls and women that never existed before. However, Title IX is being weakened by some states who are misinterpreting Title IX, creating uncertainty, undue hardship and lost opportunities for female athletes. Our legislation protects Title IX’s original intent which was based on the general biological distinction between men and women athletes based on sex. It is critical that the legacy of Title IX continues to ensure women and girls in sports have the opportunity to compete and excel on a level playing field.”

LGBTQ leaders and organizations said they were furious but not surprised by her bill.

Thousands demonstrate in streets of Polish capital Warsaw after country's right-wing leaders all-but banned abortions except in the most exceptional circumstances

Thousands marched on Sunday in Warsaw and other Polish cities to protest the country's right-wing government after a high court ruled to tighten the country's already restrictive abortion law.

Sunday's protests coincided with the 39th anniversary of the 1981 martial law crackdown by Poland's communist regime.

Many Poles accuse the current government of acting more and more like that authoritarian regime by disregarding the civil liberties of citizens.

Due to a ban on gatherings of more than five people amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the marches were organised as 'spontaneous walks' and the slogan was: 'We are going for freedom. We are going for everything!'

The protests were organised by the Women's Strike, a group behind recent mass nationwide protests. Others also joined in, including farmers and entrepreneurs angry at the government´s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

The weeks of protests have morphed into the largest protest movement in Poland since communism fell three decades ago.

An October 22 ruling by the Polish constitutional court to ban abortions of foetuses with congenital defects, even when the foetus has no chance of survival at birth, sparked the protests, which have now grown to include other grievances.

'We are no longer fighting just for women's rights, but for everyone´s rights. What is happening at this point is dramatic,' said Adrianna Gluchowska, a protester joined by her father.

The protesters gathered at a central intersection and began marching to the home of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of the ruling Law and Justice party. Riot police blocked the protesters, forcing them to take another route along the Vistula River to reach Kaczynski's home in the northern Zoliborz district.

Police announced on loudspeakers that the protest was illegal, saying 'we have an epidemic.' To that the protesters replied: 'We have an epidemic of PiS,' using the Polish acronym for Law and Justice. 'We are overthrowing the government!'

Many carried European Union and rainbow flags to show their support for liberal Western values. One protesters was dressed as a human-sized tear gas canister. Police in recent weeks have been using tear gas on protesters.

Kaczynski's apartment building was surrounded by hundreds of police officers in riot gear. Several people dressed in communist-era militia costumes managed to get near Kaczynski's home and were removed by police.

Smaller protests also were held Sunday in dozens of other cities, including Gdansk, Krakow, Poznan, Lodz and Szczecin.

Authoritarian. Unyielding. Merkel gets Brexit so wrong because her arrogance is boundless

By DOUGLAS MURRAY

Most of us have been in no doubt over who is to blame for the obstacles and burning barricades blocking our route to a viable trade deal.

Emmanuel Macron, the sharp-suited, sharp-nosed President of France, has been in the vanguard of those wanting to punish Britain for daring to leave. Desperate to preserve the advantages enjoyed by French fishermen. Desperate to be the saviour of the whole European project.

However, Macron is by no means alone in conducting this unpleasant campaign of sabotage. For, as The Mail on Sunday explains today, his sensibly-suited counterpart in Germany, Angela Merkel, has played her own discreditable role.

It is Chancellor Merkel who has consistently presented herself as the voice of common sense and compromise.

Yet it is Merkel who has completely failed to understand Great Britain and misjudged it – and it is she who must take prime responsibility for the EU's calamitous negotiating stance. It is, in part, a personal matter.

Angela Merkel is the daughter of a Lutheran pastor. Known as Mutti – or Mummy – to voters, her formative years were in East Germany, the Communist state ruled over by the Stasi. Like others, she belonged the Free German Youth (FDJ), the official communist youth movement.

Rectitude and certainty pour from her. And she has no time for Boris Johnson, a man she dismisses – with remarkable condescension – as no more than a dissembler and a libertine.

Despite his huge parliamentary majority and the certainty that he speaks for millions, she refuses to trust the Prime Minister or believe him. And, however calmly she projects herself before the cameras, she has been utterly unbending behind closed doors.

We have seen Merkel's handiwork before.

In 2016, our then Prime Minister, David Cameron, paid a last-ditch visit to Brussels to negotiate a better arrangement with the EU ahead of the referendum.

Cameron begged his European counterparts to give him a meaningful concession, one that would allow him to argue that remaining within the bloc would be to our advantage.

But Merkel and the EU sent him packing. Months later the UK voted to leave entirely.

We can't blame Macron for these events, which all happened a year before he was seriously in the running for the French presidency.

The only major player from that disastrous episode still in post today is the Chancellor herself, the great survivor of European politics now into her 15th year of rule.

Then, as now, Merkel had a reputation for hard-headed efficiency.

But, while it is true she helped guide the continent through the Eurozone crisis, she did so with an authoritarian rigidity which still sees her loathed in much of southern Europe.

Despite its vast trade profits, Germany refused to bail out the 'feckless' Mediterranean neighbours who had been stupid enough to buy its products.

Then, in 2015, it was Merkel who made the calamitous decision to open the borders of Europe. She did not consult her counterparts. She simply did it, single-handedly turning a migrant challenge into a migrant crisis.

Even now, an unrelenting Merkel continues to try to punish those countries in Central and Eastern Europe which refuse to pay for her errors and accept large quotas of migrants themselves.

For all her reputation as a pragmatic political performer, her flaws have been obvious for years: Unyielding when she ought to yield.

Authoritarian while presenting herself as a champion of liberty. Feted as uniquely insightful, yet wildly off-beam in her most basic political calculations.

In 2016, Merkel believed that the EU must be seen to be rigidly inflexible and that Cameron must be given no new concessions for fear that other nations might demand flexibility in turn.

But – and not for the first time – it was a huge miscalculation. Despite mounting evidence that British voters were fed up, Merkel refused to believe that we would leave. A major error and a dereliction of her duty to understand her counterparts.

Today we see the same pattern – bad advice combined with belligerence. Once again, the German Chancellor has started from the assumption that Britain will not leave the EU without a deal. Once again, she has refused to believe the clearest possible assertions from the Prime Minister that we will.

The advice that Merkel received from her side was that Boris was bluffing. And so she resumed her role as unbending negotiator. Doubtless, she believes that Britain will move her way. Doubtless, as in 2016, she is completely wrong.

This is not the first time she has been accused of behind-the-scenes manipulation. According to a 2013 biography, Merkel was no mere cultural officer of the Free German Youth, but a higher ranking 'Agitation and Propaganda functionary' – claims she has never openly denied.

Whatever the truth, we can be certain that Merkel has received provably wrong advice at every step of the way in the Brexit negotiations – and acted upon it. And it is her failure to understand this country that now makes a No Deal departure so likely.

Were she truly a pragmatist, she would have tried to make these negotiations work. A good and workable UK-EU trade deal would be to the benefit of the whole continent.

Millions of people across the EU work in businesses which need access to our markets. Any reasonable and pragmatic EU leader would have the livelihoods of those people in mind and negotiated on their behalf.

Instead, the EU stance is both immoderate and unstable. And that derives from the qualities for which she has been so often lauded. An inflexibility. An authoritarian efficiency. An instinctive distrust of her negotiating partners.

Push them and they will crumble, is the advice she has been doling out to the EU leaders. And they have pushed. But there is no evidence that we will crumble.

What has crumbled is the reputation of the Chancellor as the fair-minded pragmatist. She is no such thing. Mutti is an ideologue who destroys the very things she is meant to be protecting.

Australian Anglican Church on a path to schism over blessings of same-sex unions by national body

As ever, Sydney diocese stands firm on Bible teachings. Since they have a third of Australia's Anglican parishoners, they will always have the last laugh.

But their place in the Anglican communion is an odd one. Most of the Anglican churches in the Western world are so wishy-washy about doctrine that their claim to being Christian is dubious. The Sydney diocese is about the only place where the old Anglican faith lives on.

But they are not a bit abashed by that. Their seminary (Moore College) has hundreds of students and their churches too are pretty full. So their collections make them very robust financially as well.

And there is plenty of passion at their Synod, as they take doctrine seriously

You would think that other Anglicans would learn from them and return to the faith once delivered. In reality, however, it is the Devil's gospel that you hear from most Anglican pulpits

Bible references on homosexuality: Romans 1:27; Jude 1:7; 1 Timothy 1:8-11; Mark 10:6-9; Matthew 19: 4-16; 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11; 1 Corinthians 7:2; Leviticus 18:22; Leviticus 20:13; Genesis 19:4-8


The conservative Anglican Diocese of Sydney has told its top personnel the church is "on a trajectory towards disintegration" over a decision to allow the blessing of same-sex unions.

The church's *national* appellate tribunal – a legal advisory body comprising three bishops and four lawyers – ruled last month that Anglican priests could give a blessing to same-sex couples who had already been married elsewhere.

The tribunal found it would not breach the church's fundamental declarations and principles, and it was up to each diocese whether they allowed such blessings. Many LGBTQ people of faith still want such a blessing from their bishop or priest even if they are not able to marry in their church.

Sydney Archbishop Glenn Davies, who will retire in March, recently wrote to hundreds of bishops, wardens and school chaplains promising a showdown in coming months over the tribunal's decision.

He said the Bible and therefore the Anglican Church clearly taught that "the sexual union of two persons of the same sex was sin", and "to bless such a union would amount to the blessing of sin".

Dr Davies wrote: "While the world may deride our commitment to the standard of morality that God has established for his people, we have been called to holy and righteous living."

Bishop Michael Stead – a leading candidate to succeed Dr Davies as archbishop next year – warned "the majority opinion [of the tribunal] has put the Anglican Church of Australia on a trajectory towards disintegration".

Mr Stead said it was not feasible that clergy in the Newcastle diocese could be permitted to bless same-sex marriages while clergy in the Sydney diocese would be disciplined for such an action. He compared it to the invention of rugby in 19th century England which eventually led to the establishment of association football.

"Just as there are different codes in Australia which are all called 'football', there will be different versions of the Anglican Church of Australia, which have nothing in common except the name," he wrote in a letter seen by The Sun-Herald which was attached to Dr Davies' communique.

"While some might applaud the judicial innovation of the appellate tribunal for finding a way to enable an already fractured church to remain together, they have in fact entrenched separation and division. This decision has destroyed the rationale for a national church."

Late last month following the tribunal's decision, a retired bishop in Victoria's Wangaratta diocese, John Parkes, blessed the marriage of retired clergymen John Davis and Rob Whalley using a liturgy the diocese approved in 2019.

In response to reports of the blessing, Dr Davies issued a further statement last week saying it was untenable to have some members of the church "purporting to declare God's blessing" on same-sex marriages.

"It would be naive to think that mutually contradictory views on same-sex marriage can co-exist within our national church," he said. "To pursue this course will not bring healing but will only lead to a collapse in the fellowship that binds us together."

The issue will be debated at the Anglican church's national General Synod in 2021.

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The first one is easy. Xy you compete as a man,xx you compete as a woman. Anything else is dealt with on a case by case basis.