Translate

Friday, January 5, 2018

IRAN PROTESTS: NIKKI HALEY TO U.N. ON JANUARY 5, 2018 AT SECURITY COUNCIL EMERGENCY MEETING

IRAN PROTESTS: NIKKI HALEY TO U.N. ON JANUARY 5, 2018 AT SECURITY COUNCIL EMERGENCY MEETING
 
 Canada: Iranian pro-freedom protesters praise Trump for standing with Iranian people, say “shame on Trudeau”
 “It’s all about freedom, it’s not just about the economy.”
 

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE'S RELIGION COURSE CATALOG INCLUDES STUDY IN "QUEERING THE BIBLE"

  http://www.swarthmore.edu/images/administration/communications/swarthmore_logo.jpg
“Queering the Bible” is set to launch next fall and will be instructed by Gwynn Kessler, an associate professor of religion, according to Swarthmore’s course catalog. The course, which is being offered through Swarthmore’s Religion Department, promises to “[introduce] students to the complexity of constructions of sex, gender, and identity in one of the most influential literary works produced in ancient times.” “By reading the Bible with the methods of queer and trans* theoretical approaches,” the catalog advertises, “this class destabilizes long held assumptions about what the bible–and religion–says about gender and sexuality.” It appears that the Swarthmore Religion Department will offer no other Bible-centric courses next fall apart from this one. Out of around ten listed courses that explicitly involve Bible study at Swarthmore, “Queering the Bible” appears to be the only one taking place in fall of 2018. Only one other Bible-related course, a class teaching the grammar and vocabulary necessary to read the Old Testament in the original Hebrew, is offered during that time. Read more... http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/40306/
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE'S RELIGION COURSE CATALOG INCLUDES STUDY IN 
"QUEERING THE BIBLE"
BY HEATHER CLARK
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 
SWARTHMORE, Pa. — A private liberal arts college just outside of Philadelphia is drawing concerns over a “Queering the Bible” class included in its course catalog that is meant to provide “queer and trans readings of biblical texts.”
Swarthmore College, founded in 1864 by Quakers, provides a description of the course on its website, along with other upcoming religious-themed classes such as “Christian Mysticism,” “Islamic Law and Society” and “From Vodun to Voodoo: African Religions in the Old and New Worlds.”
“This course surveys queer and trans readings of biblical texts,” the outline reads. “It introduces students to the complexity of constructions of sex, gender, and identity in one of the most influential literary works produced in ancient times.”
“By reading the Bible with the methods of queer and trans theoretical approaches, this class destabilizes long held assumptions about what the Bible—and religion—says about gender and sexuality,” the course description asserts.

The study will be offered this fall and taught by Swarthmore Associate Professor of Religion Gwynn Kessler. According to the college website, Kessler’s research work focuses on Jewish interpretations of Scripture, specifically “rabbinic theology and rabbinic constructions of gender and identity” with “postmodern, feminist, and queer theoretical approaches.”

Kessler
Kessler is the author of several publications, including “Imagining the Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture,” “Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible” and “Let’s Cross That Body When We Get To It: Gender and Ethnicity in Rabbinic Literature.”
Christian News Network reached out to Kessler for comment, but a response was not received as of press time. The College Fix, which first reported on the matter, likewise attempted to obtain additional information from Kessler, but the professor did not respond.

In addition to Kessler’s “Queering the Bible” course, Swarthmore also lists among its religion courses—although it does not appear that it is being currently offered—a study called “Queering God: Feminist and Queer Theology.”
“The God of the Bible and later Jewish and Christian literature is distinctively masculine, definitely male. Or is He?” the description of the course reads. “If we can point out places in traditional writings where God is nurturing, forgiving, and loving, does that mean that God is feminine, or female? This course examines feminist and queer writings about God, explores the tensions between feminist and queer theology, and seeks to stretch the limits of gendering-and sexing-the divine.”
Public reaction to Swarthmore’s “Queering God” and “Queering the Bible” courses has been largely in opposition of such teachings.
“This college is wrong to be offering such a damaging course. They are harming young minds unnecessarily,” one commenter wrote.
“This is about sanitizing and neutralizing the prohibitions on homosexual acts that Scripture unequivocally condemns. … Guilty conscience? No problem, we’ll simply alter the verses to suit ourselves,” another stated.
Leviticus 18:22, part of what is referred to as the Torah, reads, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.”
Jude 1:7, written by a man believed to be one of Christ’s earthly brothers, also outlines, “Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”

STUDENTS BANNED FROM OPT OUT OF LGBT "EDUCATION"~REVIEW BY ALEX NEWMAN WITH DR. DUKE PESTA~THE REBRANDING OF COMMON CORE RUINS SCHOOLING

STUDENTS BANNED FROM OPT OUT OF 
LGBT "EDUCATION"~
REVIEW BY ALEX NEWMAN WITH 
DR. DUKE PESTA
 Most of the children can't even read or do math at a proficient level, government studies show. But victims of government schools across California will now be forced to endure extreme state-sponsored “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender” (LGBT) indoctrination, whether parents approve or not. | Article: http://bit.ly/2CSMN56
 Dr. Duke Pesta and Dr. Sandra Stotsky Dissect Why Common Core Has Failed Every Child
THE STEALTH "REBRANDING" OF COMMON CORE
 FreedomProject's Academic Director, Dr. Duke Pesta, interviews Dr. Sandra Stotsky on the demonstrable failures of Common Core. According to a new study from the Pioneer Institute, the move to Common Core has decimated academic achievement in Massachusetts. Prior to adopting the Core, Massachusetts schools and educational standards were the finest in the nation, in large part because of the work of Dr. Stotsky. Now, Common Core has relegated Massachusetts to the same underachieving, politicized, centralized mediocrity plaguing the rest of the country’s public schools. Learn more @ http://www.fpeusa.org/commoncore

LIBERAL "SANCTUARY CITY" GOVERNORS PARDON IMMIGRANTS CONVICTED OF SERIOUS CRIMES TO HALT DEPORTATION

LIBERAL "SANCTUARY CITY" GOVERNORS PARDON IMMIGRANTS CONVICTED OF SERIOUS CRIMES TO HALT DEPORTATION 
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 Governors Andrew Cuomo & Gerry Brown
Liberal Governors Andrew Cuomo & Gerry Brown Pardon Illegal Immigrants to keep them in the USA.
USA – -(Ammoland.com)- While the nation was preoccupied celebrating the holidays, the governors of two major states pardoned immigrants convicted of serious crimes to shield them from deportation.
First, California Governor Jerry Brown pardoned two men on the verge of being deported for committing crimes in the U.S., according to a Sacramento news report.
Days later, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo [who is eyeing a run for President] pardoned 18 immigrants convicted of serious crimes so they could remain in the country. The foreigners had obtained legal immigration status in the United States but committed such abhorrent crimes that they faced removal after the completion of their criminal sentence. An official statement issued by the governor’s office refers to the pardoned as “contributing members of society” who face the “threat of deportation and other immigration-related challenges” as a result of their crimes.
Cuomo said the foreign criminals he pardoned had been rehabilitated but the “stigma of convictions” prevented them from gaining legal status or fully reentering society. “While the federal government continues to target immigrants and threatens to tear families apart with deportation, these actions take a critical step toward a more just, more fair and more compassionate New York,” Cuomo said in a statement.
The state press release also quotes several representatives from open borders groups praising the governor’s pardons. Among them is the president of a group dedicated to eradicating racial disparities in the criminal justice system, who commended Cuomo’s strong display of leadership.
“Too many immigrants with prior criminal convictions are subjected to the gratuitous punishment of deportation, despite being longstanding contributing members of our community,” said the president of the Vera Institute of Justice. The director of the Center on Race, Inequality and the Law also applauded Cuomo, saying “deportation is an out-size punishment for prior criminal convictions when people serve their sentences and go on to become longstanding, law abiding, contributing members of society.”

Let’s look at a few of the newly pardoned immigrants.

The Californians are two Cambodian men, Mony Neth of Modesto and Rottanak Kong of Davis, arrested in immigration sweeps a few months ago. The men, ages 42 and 39, came to the U.S. as children and were convicted of felonies as adults. The crimes include a weapons charge and association to a gang. Neth and Rottanak were scheduled to be deported in December along with dozens of other Cambodians convicted of crimes but a federal judge in southern California issued a temporary restraining order after their pro bono attorneys from a civil rights group filed an emergency motion. Nearly 2,000 Cambodians in the U.S. are subject to deportation, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) figures cited in a northern California newspaper. More than half of them have criminal convictions that stripped them of legal status.
The New York pardons include a 57-year-old Mexican transgender woman convicted of criminal facilitation, a 35-year-old man from Estonia convicted of larceny and a 53-year-old Dominican man convicted of criminal sale of a controlled substance.
The Mexican national, Lorena Borjas, deserves to stay in the U.S. because she is a strong advocate for transgender and immigrant communities and runs HIV testing programs for transgender sex workers and a syringe exchange for transwomen taking hormone injections. The Estonian, Alexander Shilov, became a nurse and frequently gives talks on overcoming addiction. The Dominican, Freddy Perez, works as an electrician and takes care of his autistic younger brother. For these reasons, they deserve to remain in the U.S. despite their criminal histories, according to Cuomo.
This appears to be part of a broader effort by local governments to protect criminal immigrants from deportation. Months ago, Judicial Watch reported that prosecutors in two major U.S. cities ordered staff not to charge illegal immigrants with minor, non-violent crimes because it could get the offenders deported. Brooklyn, New York District Attorney Eric Gonzalez was the first to issue the order creating two sets of rules involving local crimes. The goal, according to a statement issued by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, is “minimizing collateral immigration consequences of criminal convictions.” Taxpayers in the busy New York City borough are also paying for two immigration attorneys to train all staff on immigration issues and advise prosecutors when making plea offers and sentencing recommendations. The idea is to avoid “disproportionate collateral consequences, such as deportation, while maintaining public safety.” Gonzalez, the Brooklyn District Attorney, says he’s committed to equal and fair justice for all Brooklyn residents—citizens, lawful residents and undocumented immigrants alike.
Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch
A few weeks after Brooklyn proudly disclosed its policy, prosecutors in Maryland’s largest city joined the bandwagon, albeit more quietly. There was no public announcement or celebratory press conference but a local newspaper got ahold of an internal memo sent by Baltimore’s Chief Deputy State’s Attorney instructing prosecutors to think twice before charging illegal immigrants with minor, non-violent crimes. The chief deputy, Michael Schatzow, used similar language in the memo, writing that the Trump administration’s deportation efforts “have increased the potential collateral consequences to certain immigrants of minor, non-violent criminal conduct.” Schatzow is second-in-command to Baltimore’s top prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, and oversees major crimes at the state agency.
“In considering the appropriate disposition of a minor, non-violent criminal case, please be certain to consider those potential consequences to the victim, witnesses, and the defendant,” Schatzow wrote to his staff.
About Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch, Inc., a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law. Through its educational endeavors, Judicial Watch advocates high standards of ethics and morality in our nation's public life and seeks to ensure that political and judicial officials do not abuse the powers entrusted to them by the American people. Judicial Watch fulfills its educational mission through litigation, investigations, and public outreach.
For more information, visit: www.JudicialWatch.org.

MUSLIM DEMOCRAT KEITH ELLISON POSES WITH ANTIFA HANDBOOK THAT RECOMMENDS FORMS OF VIOLENCE

 http://www.yaf.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Screen-Shot-2018-01-04-at-10.35.43-AM.png
 https://www.westernjournalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Keith_Ellison_Bernie_Sanders-1.jpg
MUSLIM DEMOCRAT KEITH ELLISON POSES WITH ANTIFA HANDBOOK THAT RECOMMENDS 
FORMS OF VIOLENCE
 Keith Ellison Poses With Antifa Handbook
BY AMBER ATHEY
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 
Democratic National Committee Deputy Chair Keith Ellison 
endorsed Antifa on Wednesday, tweeting a picture of himself smiling with an Antifa handbook.
Ellison posted a picture with “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook” and asserted that the book would “strike fear in the heart” of President Donald Trump.
Antifa is a far-left group that uses violence to achieve progressive political ends, including starting riots and fires at the University of California, Berkeley. While the group claims to be anti-Fascist, they routinely shut down the speech of people they disagree with. Antifa clashed with far-right protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year.
The book, written by Dartmouth professor Mark Bray, argues that “militant anti-fascism is a reasonable, historically informed response to the fascist threat that persisted after 1945 and that has become especially menacing in recent years.”
According to Bray, it is acceptable to use violence against “fascism” because what he considers to be fascist ideas — like those shared by right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopolous — aren’t worthy of debate.
Bray also states that anti-fascists must be prepared to “physically confront the far right when necessary.”
During an MSNBC interview in August, Bray even argued that Antifa needs to preemptively strike against white nationalists because “fascism cannot be defended by speech.” (RELATED: Dartmouth Professor Defends Antifa Violence) 
Ellison’s decision to share a photo with the book is interesting considering House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi condemned the “violent actions” of Antifa protesters.
__________________________________________________________
 Ellison-Top Democrat Endorses Antifa
 Powerful Democrat Keith Ellison Second in Command of Democrat Party praises Antifa handbook - by Mark Bray


US PUTS PAKISTAN ON WATCH LIST FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM VIOLATIONS; IRAN & SAUDI ARABIA OF "PARTICULAR CONCERN"

US PUTS PAKISTAN ON WATCH LIST FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM VIOLATIONS; IRAN & SAUDI ARABIA OF "PARTICULAR CONCERN" 
BY ROBERT SPENCER
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 
In 2012, the Obama State Department scrubbed the section on religious freedom from its human rights report, so this is a step in the right direction.

“U.S. places Pakistan on watch list for religious freedom violations,” Reuters, January 4, 2018:
WASHINGTON, Jan 4 (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department has placed Pakistan on a special watch list for “severe violations of religious freedom,” it said on Thursday, days after the White House said Islamabad would have to do more to combat terrorism to receive U.S. aid.
The State Department also said it had re-designated 10 other nations as “countries of particular concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act for having engaged in or tolerated egregious violations of religious freedom.
The re-designated countries were China, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. They were re-designated on Dec. 22.
“The protection of religious freedom is vital to peace, stability, and prosperity,” the department said in a statement. “These designations are aimed at improving the respect for religious freedom in these countries.”…

MICHAEL W. SMITH CONTINUES TO CALL FOR ECUMENICAL UNITY

 http://thegospelblog.com/wp-content/uploads/michael_w_smith.jpg
MICHAEL W. SMITH CONTINUES TO CALL FOR ECUMENICAL UNITY 
 
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
BY DAVID CLOUD 
(Friday Church News Notes, January 5, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - One of the great dangers of using contemporary worship music is that it builds bridges to the one-world church. To my knowledge, 100% of the popular contemporary worship musicians are radical ecumenists, including Stuart Townend and the Gettys. They have non-critical association with "Christians" of every stripe, including Roman Catholics. To them, "separation" is almost a dirty word. Michael W. Smith is one of the most prominent and influential names in contemporary worship, and he continues to call for ecumenical unity. The goal of his new live album Surrounded is "to unify the Church’s diverse expressions into one passionate, joyful cry of worship." He says, "I feel God moving through His Church and He is calling us together to be one voice and one heart. One bride. Every nation, every tribe and every tongue. Every social class, EVERY DENOMINATION" ("Michael W. Smith Releases Two Albums," louderthanthemusic.com, Dec. 2017). It is impossible to reconcile the Bible’s clear and forceful warnings about false teaching and apostasy (e.g., Romans 16:17; 2 Corinthians 6:14-18; 11:1-4, 14-15; 1 Timothy 1:3; 4:1-5; 2 Timothy 3:5; 4:3-4; 1 John 4:1; Jude 3; Revelation 2:14-16) with contemporary praise music’s call for ecumenical unity. For those who love the Bible, interpret it literally, and hold it to be the sole and final authority for faith and practice, it is clear that the voice Michael W. Smith is hearing is not God’s. "Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way" (Psalm 119:128). Bible-believing churches that are messing around with contemporary music and are not properly educating their people about this issue are playing with spiritual fire, but most of the pastors are terribly and carelessly and willfully ignorant of such things.
_______________________________________________________
 Michael W. Smith - Surrounded (Fight My Battles)