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The Register-Mail
Duane Bonifer
Fri, October 7, 2022 at 12:03 PM·5 min read

MONMOUTH — More Americans are allowing their politics to shape their religion, according to a study by a Monmouth College political science professor.

"Church shopping" based on political beliefs is one of the findings of a recent research project by Monmouth political science professor Andre Audette in collaboration with political science and data science double major Shay Hafner of Sterling.

"It was fun for me to go back to a project that was near and dear to my heart," said Audette, who describes himself as a political psychologist and, in particular, a political behaviorist. "At least historically, religion has been a non-political field, or it's supposed to be a non-political field."

Audette's hometown in Wisconsin had one Catholic church, but his options grew substantially when he attended graduate school a decade ago at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.

"Attending Notre Dame was an interesting religious experience in and of itself," he said. "I went from having one Catholic church in my town in northern Wisconsin to having 30 Catholic churches to choose from in South Bend — some liberal and some conservative. People could base their church choice on their politics."

Audette said politics and religion are not only separated theoretically through the U.S. Constitution, but some would argue through two entirely different spheres of thought. Most people are indoctrinated into religion by their parents as part of the worldview that's ingrained in them.

Which comes first, religion or politics?

"Our religion comes first, and then our politics," Audette said.

He also cited the Constitution's First Amendment, which reads, in part, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

"It's almost heretical if we choose our politics based on our religion," he said.

But there appears to be a lot of such heresy in modern society.

"It seems like our politics is impacting our religion," he said of his research.

A recent Pew Research Center poll indicates that 44% of church-goers have switched religion or stopped attending church altogether. Audette and Hafner conducted their own survey, and out of a nationally representative sample of 2,000 respondents, they found that 52% had shopped for a church, and that roughly a third had done so more than once.

"You think the music is horrible? You think the pastor is boring? Look elsewhere," said Audette. "Brand loyalty is not as strong as it used to be."

Audette said that American churches operate in a "laissez-faire religious marketplace," which means without interference, and that means churches have to compete with each other. Once people have decided to abandon tradition and leave a church
they grew up in or that had their parents' support, they shop for a church, and "the winners are evangelical Protestants, a conservative group that is the largest coalition in the Republican Party, and secularism," which means non-religion or unaffiliated.

More staying true to their politics over church

"In the 1970s and '80s, conservative Christians moved into the Republican Party," said Audette. "People associate religion with conservative politics. This is complicated for liberals and moderates, because if you go to a church that you experience as being conservative, it can hurt your brain a little bit, because you start to think, 'I'm very liberal, but here I am at this conservative church. What do I do? How do I fix this?' This is known as cognitive dissonance in psychology."

Mired in that dilemma, most people today are staying true to their politics.

"The way to reconcile this is, you've got to change one or the other," said Audette. "Are you going to change your politics, or are you going to change your religion? Interestingly, people change their religion, not their politics."

They make that change, even if it means choosing no religion at all.

"Because of the religious right, people are leaving religion," Audette said. "The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) lost over half its members in a 35-year period from 1983 to 2018. We could literally see some of these religious affiliations disappear in our lifetime."

Through about 2000, said Audette, "heaven forbid" if a person were to choose their church based on political reasons.

"Today, more people are willing to say that," said Audette. "More people are saying that politics causes religion. I find that fascinating as a scholar because, again, religion is supposed to be our deeply held beliefs about humanity and where we came from, where we're going. The fact that we're changing that for our politics is fascinating."

Survey: 25% left or considered leaving their church for political reasons

Audette and Hafner's survey showed that 25% of respondents had left or considered leaving a church because of political reasons. The number who "disaffiliated" was higher among Democrats.

"We think this is notable, especially given that we haven't really talked about this in the literature before," said Audette. "I think this has a lot of implications for democracy. Part of the record polarization we're experiencing may be attributed to our religion and politics because, increasingly, if we're pushing people on the left and moderates out of religion, and pushing people on the right into religion, then we've just divided ourselves even more. And we've divided our social institutions in a political way."

This article originally appeared on Daily Review Atlas: Monmouth College Professor: More now shop religion based on politics

Brand loyalty not what it used to be. Study: More now shop churches based on politics (yahoo.com)

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The Register-Mail
Thomas Mosher
September 6, 2022·2 min read

Editor, Register-Mail: America's Christian roots and heritage run deep within our history. The majority of our founders were practicing Christians. The very first Constitutional Congress was opened with a Christian prayer. It is essential that we know both the good and bad history of our nation if we are to improve our future. In 1892, the Supreme Court of the United States cited dozens of precedents to conclude that ours was indeed a nation based on Christian principles.

There are those who would ignore or censure our biblically based core values in order to further their own agendas. They refer to themselves as "woke" progressives as they deny our Christian foundations. Religious freedom and biblical values are vital to our nations moral character. The founders understood our Christian values from the time of the Puritans who fled religious persecution.

I do not consider myself a Christian nationalist, as some have defined that term, although I do believe that God has blessed our country in the past. Any nation that holds our creator in reverence will be blessed and those nations that reject him will be rejected. Our God is not the cause of mankind's miseries, mankind is.

Side note 1: Much of our history has, admittedly, been abominable — slavery, racial strife and segregation, abortion, sexual immorality, increasing crime, "woke" leftist ideology, etc. As a nation, we are reverting to Old Testament times as we continue to worship idols, accept abhorrent sexual practices, and sacrifice our children as we label the practice of tearing them limb-from-limb "choice." Does "sick" describe what we have become?

Side note 2: Our nation will only be blessed again if we return to God's biblical precepts. (Deuteronomy 28:1-25). We do have choices. We can do what is right in our God's eyes or suffer the consequences. — Thomas Mosher, Victoria

This article originally appeared on Galesburg Register

https://www.yahoo.com/news/letter-woke-progressives-deny-christian-195706237.html

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Diana Glebova
September 6, 2022·2 min read

An Irish teacher was put in prison after he refused to use “gender-neutral” pronouns, telling the judge he would continue going to the school to teach despite a court order barring him from the premises.

Enoch Burke was temporarily suspended on full pay from the Wilson’s Hospital School after refusing a request from the principal to address a transgender student by “they” instead of “he,” according to Irish outlet Independent.ie.

The evangelical Christian continued to show up to work everyday despite the suspension, leading the boarding school to get an interlocutory injunction restraining him from coming in the building.

When Burke persisted in showing up to work, the school’s board of management filed a further application, and on Friday, Justice Miriam O’Regan ordered Burke to be arrested and brought into court.

In court, Burke continued to insist on showing up to school teach, saying, “I love my school. I am here today because I would not call a boy a girl,” the outlet reported.

Staying away the school “is not something I will do. It is in violation of my conscience,” Burke added.

The teacher claimed that his suspension was invalid and that he would’ve had to “commit an act of gross misconduct” for it to be justified, according to the outlet.

“It is reprehensible that anyone’s religious beliefs could be taken as a ground for misconduct or gross misconduct,” Burke said. “Were I to obey the order of the board of management and the order of the court, I would have to accept that sticking by my belief in male and female is wrong.”

“It is not something I will do. It is in violation of my conscience,” he added, saying, “Were I to go into the school and bow to something I know to be manifestly wrong, it would be a shame and a disgrace on my part.”

Justice Michael Quinn ordered Burke be committed to Mountjoy Prison and remain there indefinitely “until he purges his contempt or until further order of this court.”

Burke refused to comply with the court’s order after the judge’s decision, saying, “I cannot purge my contempt by holding my Christian beliefs in contempt.”

Wilson’s Hospital School is a secondary school — or high school — run by the Church of Ireland. It is co-ed and caters to boarding and day students.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/irish-teacher-imprisoned-continuing-teach-124942329.html

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TASSANEE VEJPONGSA and DAKE KANG
September 7, 2022·5 min read

BANGKOK (AP) — Days after flying to Thailand to seek asylum, members of a Chinese church huddled in a restaurant to share their stories with journalists. But when they peered over their shoulders, they spotted strangers taking videos of them with cellphones. In seconds, they scattered, fearing Chinese state security had come for them yet again.

"Political pressure is rising, and there's more and more ideological control,“ said Pastor Pan Yongguang, whose church has been on the run for years. “The persecution is growing worse.”

The story of the exile of the Shenzhen Holy Reformed Church illustrates how the Chinese government is going to increasing lengths to control religious faith and its citizens, even far outside its borders.

Since leaving China for South Korea’s resort island of Jeju three years ago, Pan's 61 congregants have been stalked, harassed, and received threatening calls and messages despite fleeing hundreds of kilometers (miles) away, he said. Relatives back in China have been summoned, interrogated and intimidated. In one case, Chinese diplomats refused to issue a member’s newborn child a passport, rendering the baby stateless.

The government's tactics against the church echo ones used against the Uyghurs and other Chinese ethnic minorities abroad, as well as fugitives accused of corruption, to coerce them to return to China.

In China, Christians are legally allowed to worship only in churches affiliated with Communist Party-controlled religious groups, but for decades, the authorities largely tolerated independent, unregistered “house churches.” They have tens of millions of worshippers, possibly outnumbering those in the official groups.

However, in recent years, house churches have come under heavy pressure, with many prominent ones shut down. Unlike previous crackdowns, such as Beijing’s ban of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement it labels a cult, the authorities have also targeted some believers not explicitly opposed to the Chinese state.

Most members of Pan's church are young, married middle-class couples, with their children making up about half the group.

Bob Fu, founder of ChinaAid, a Christian group helping Pan, cited tightening controls on religion under Chinese leader Xi Jinping aimed at rooting out foreign influence and bolstering national security.

“What national security threat?” Fu said. “They’re not going to public squares, they’re not trying to shame the Chinese government. They’re just trying to seek religious freedom.”

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the matter was “not a diplomatic question” when asked for comment.

Ministering in China was never easy, Pan said. Since starting the church in 2012, it has had to move from house to house as authorities ordered landlords to turn them away. Police kept close track of church gatherings, recording attendees and hauling Pan in for questioning from time to time. The questions grew sharper after they discovered he was ordained into the Presbyterian church in Philadelphia, sharper still after new religious regulations in 2018. Police homed in on his ties overseas.

“They want to seal off Chinese churches from the outside world,” Pan said.

Pan said the church began thinking of leaving after his friend, an outspoken pastor from the same denomination, was arrested.

The final straw came after millions began taking to the streets of Hong Kong in 2019 to protest Beijing’s tightening grip on the city. Pan said they had no connection to the protests, but authorities in their city of Shenzhen on the mainland bordering Hong Kong were on high alert under “quasi-martial law.” The church came under excruciating pressure.

Pan decided it was time to put the matter to a vote. Most members elected to leave.

“At the time, I thought maybe we could return after things settled down,” said Nie Yunfeng, who joined the church months after its founding. “I never imagined things would get this bad.”

At the beginning of this year, her parents were summoned by police and questioned about Nie’s faith, as were dozens of relatives of other church members who had left for South Korea. Officers all over the country, from central Hubei province to tropical Hainan island, threatened the relatives with confiscation of state benefits or the closure of their businesses if the congregants didn’t return to China.

“Your descendants may suffer,” they told Nie’s terrified father. “Tell them to come back right now, or else they will face serious consequences.”

Officers found Pan’s brother, sisters and mother and accused Pan of “treason,” “collusion with foreign forces” and “subversion of state power.” Evidence obtained by Pan and seen by the AP indicates that state security was ordered to investigate the church.

They left South Korea for Thailand after meetings with local and U.S. officials made it clear that prospects for refuge were dim. Despite being home to a large, active Christian population, South Korea’s cultural and ethnic homogeneity can make it unfriendly toward refugees. Government statistics show less than 1% of asylum seekers were granted refuge there last year.

So, the church decided to flee again. On Monday, church members gathered outside the United Nations refugee office in Bangkok. They piled manila envelopes stuffed with asylum papers on a mailbox hanging by the entrance.

In Bangkok, members have split between different hotels and attend Sunday service on Zoom, wary of being tracked by Chinese police. They spend their days praying, worrying about an uncertain future.

Xie Jianqing, a church elder, said the transition has been tough. The church members, largely white-collar workers in the glittering high-tech metropolis of Shenzhen, had to get used to picking fruit and digging dirt in the volcanic soil of Jeju island. Now, they have no work, and their future is even cloudier.

Still, such sacrifices are worth it, Xie said. In China, he wasn’t able to give his children the religious upbringing he wanted because state schools are compulsory and mandate an atheist,
communism-infused curriculum. Abroad, he said, his children can learn about the God he believes in.

“We’re willing to pay this price,” he said. “God always has the best plan.”

___

Kang reported from Beijing. Associated Press video journalist Jerry Harmer contributed to this report.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/beijing-hounds-chinese-church-seeking-093444702.html

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Tiffany Puett, Adjunct Professor of Religious and Theological Studies,
St. Edward's University
Sun, September 18, 2022 at 10:03 AM

The debate over critical race theory has played out in TV studios, school board meetings and state legislatures across the U.S. It has also found its way into churches.

The theory comprises a set of concepts that frame racism as structural, rather than simply expressed through personal discrimination. Scholars point to racial discrepancies in educational achievement, economic and employment opportunities and in the criminal justice system as evidence of how racism is embedded in U.S. institutions.

But as its critics tell it, critical race theory is a divisive ideology that has infiltrated classrooms and needs to be stopped. By and large, such depictions of critical race theory are inaccurate and misconstrued, perhaps at times even intentionally so. But they have nonetheless made critical race theory a “culture war” issue.

Religious voices, particularly among white evangelical Christians, were among the earliest and loudest in calling for critical race theory to be stopped. Conservative evangelical bloggers warned against the supposed dangers of the theory “infiltrating the church” back in 2018.

And in 2019 – before the anti-critical race theory movement gained widespread attention – the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest evangelical group in the U.S., passed a resolution criticizing the theory as a problematic secular ideology that conflicts with the authority of Scripture. A push by conservative Southern Baptists to again reject CRT by name failed at this year’s convention, but a resolution was passed against any theory that frames racism in a way other than its being “a sin” to be resolved by redemption through Christ.

These resolutions reflect a common evangelical ideology. Essentially, evangelical morality sees social problems such as racism as the result of sinful individuals, not larger structures or institutions. In the words of evangelical pastor and theologian Voddie Baucham: “Critical race theory is at odds with Christianity because it takes the problem of racism out of the individual heart and puts it out there somewhere in systems and structures.”

Such views from evangelicals laid the groundwork for the uproar over CRT in recent months.

Rhetoric aside, it’s worth noting what critical race theory actually is: a complex body of scholarship that reflects the efforts of legal scholars to analyze how race functions in American society. As legal scholars Kimberlé Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller and Kendall Thomas explain in their introduction to a key collection of writings on the topic, it explores “how a regime of white supremacy and its subordination of people of color have been created and maintained in America.”

As a scholar of religious studies, I frequently use critical race theory as a tool to better understand how religion operates in American society. While critical race theorists initially focused on how race has been embedded in our legal system, the theory can also help us think about how race is entrenched in religious institutions.

It helps move beyond the idea of religion’s being primarily a matter of individual belief to seeing religious institutions and identities as shaped by larger social structures and movements.

In the U.S., race and religious institutions have been intertwined from the beginning. Early U.S. leaders used language that described a “true” American as essentially both white and Protestant. And many Protestant churches supported white supremacy through rhetoric from the pulpit, interpretations of the Bible and policies of segregation.

Critical race theory sheds light on the ways that religious institutions and rhetoric have helped justify and reinforce white supremacy.

And the Southern Baptist Conventions’s resolution against critical race theory is an example of this. Denying the existence of structural racism takes away the opportunity to assess its presence in education, housing, the legal system and religion. It also makes it harder to conceptualize new, more equitable policies.

As such, theological arguments rejecting critical race theory can reinforce white supremacy by refusing to acknowledge the role racism has played in U.S. institutions. It is much akin to the ways that proponents of “colorblind” approaches to racism, in which people claim not to see race, may unwittingly reinforce racism.

While some religious organizations may see critical race theory as incompatible with their ideology, the theory provides an important framework for analyzing the seen and unseen ways that race operates within all institutions and structures of American society – and that includes organized religions.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. The Conversation has a variety of fascinating free newsletters.

It was written by: Tiffany Puett, St. Edward's University.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/critical-race-theory-important-tool-121606569.html

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CP WORLD | WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 07, 2022
By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter

An Evangelical teacher at a church-run boarding school in Ireland who refused to use gender-neutral pronouns to address a trans-identified student was arrested for continuing to show up to work despite his suspension.

Enoch Burke, who teaches German, history and politics at Wilson's Hospital School in County Westmeath, Ireland, was arrested Monday for breaching a court order barring him from returning to the Church of Ireland-affiliated secondary school while on paid leave. Burke was detained at Mountjoy Prison in Dublin, Ireland.

The teacher was suspended on Aug. 24 pending the outcome of a disciplinary process after he refused the request of the principal and the school's board for teachers to use the pronoun "they" instead of "he" for a trans-identified student.

According to The Independent, Burke continued showing up for work, leading the school to seek an interlocutory injunction last Wednesday that barred him from going to the school until Sept. 7. Despite the order, Burke's continued presence at the school led Justice Miriam O'Reagan to order Burke's arrest last Friday.

In response to Burke's arrest, LifePetitions launched a petition calling for Burke's release. As of Wednesday afternoon, the petition has garnered more than 7,200 signatures.

"I am here today because I said I would not call a boy a girl," Burke proclaimed before the High Court Monday, according to the petition. "Were

I to obey the order of the board of management and the order of the court, I would have to accept that sticking by my belief in male and female is wrong."

"It is not something I will do. It is in violation of my conscience," Burke added. "Were I to go into the school and bow to something I know to be manifestly wrong, it would be a shame and a disgrace on my part."

According to Monday's court order, Burke must remain in custody "until he purges his contempt or until further order of this court."

"I cannot purge my contempt if it means holding my Christian beliefs in contempt," Burke said.

"It is insanity that I will be led from this courtroom to a place of incarceration, but I will not give up my Christian beliefs," he added, according to
The Daily Mail. "Transgenderism is against my Christian belief. It is contrary to the scriptures, contrary to the ethos of the Church of Ireland and my school."

Burke believes that its "reprehensible that someone's religious beliefs on this matter could ever be taken for grounds as an allegation of misconduct."

He said his religious beliefs "are not misconduct" nor "gross misconduct" and declared that he will "never deny them and betray them, and I will never bow to an order that would require me to do so."

"It's just not possible for me to do that," Burke insisted, saying his suspension is "unreasonable, unjust and unfair."

"There has been a dumbing down of the seriousness of suspension," he said, adding that it has left "a stain" on an "unblemished teaching record."

"[The suspension has] tarnished my good character and my good name, particularly in the profession of a teacher, where one is so close to a large number of members of the local community," Burke asserted.

Rosemary Mallon, the counsel representing Wilson's Hospital School, defended her client's request to ask the court to send Burke to prison.

"We are simply seeking to have Mr. Burke comply with the order," she stated. "Mr. Burke is knowingly in breach of this order, he is therefore in contempt, and he has made it clear that if he is not committed to prison he will attend at the school [today], and the concerns of the school regarding the ongoing disruption of the students remain."

Burke is not the first teacher to face punishment for refusing to use a trans-identified student's preferred pronouns.

In the United States, Peter Vlaming, who taught French in Williamsburg, Virginia, lost his job in 2018 over his refusal to use male pronouns to address a trans-identified female student. Like Burke, Vlaming cited his religious faith as the reason why he could not do so.

In Kansas, teacher Pamela Ricard recently won a $95,000 settlement from the school district that she taught in until her recent retirement.

Ricard was suspended for declining to address a trans-identified student by their preferred name, which reflected their new gender identity.

In Loudoun County, Virginia, physical education teacher Tanner Cross was suspended last year for speaking at a school board meeting in opposition to a proposed policy that has since passed requiring teachers to use the preferred names and pronouns of trans-identified students.

Cross was reinstated after the courts intervened.

Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/teacher-suspended-for-not-using-trans-pronouns-jailed.html

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Hannah Getahun
September 4, 2022·3 min read

Republicans have campaigned behind the scenes for years now to change the Constitution through a gathering of 34 state legislatures known as a constitutional convention.

A constitutional convention, designated by Article V of the Constitution, would allow state legislatures to pass or ratify constitutional amendments without a governor's signature, Congress' intervention, or any input from the president.

Some Republicans attempt to use a convention, which has never been accomplished in U.S. history, to limit the federal governments spending and taxation powers and enact term limits on more federal officials.

Former Democratic Senator Russ Feingold and constitutional scholar Peter Prindiville write in their new book "The Constitution in Jeopardy" that a "runaway" convention has the potential to go off-script and create massive changes in how the federal government regulates laws concerning health care, education, and the environment.

Prindiville told the Times that the convention would operate as a "free-standing, distinct constitutional body" without clear guidance on how it would function because the rules of a constitutional convention were never detailed by the framers.

"Despite convention proponents' claims of legal certainty, the most important questions about how a convening held under Article V would be called and how it would function are unsettled," Feingold and Prindiville write in their book, according to the Times.

"The framers left no rules. In this uncertainty lies great danger and, possibly, great power." Insider's Grace Panetta and Brent D Griffiths previously reported on the Republican plan to assemble a constitutional convention to gut environmental regulations and education standards while making it more difficult for Washington, DC or territories like Puerto Rico to earn statehood.

Rob Natelson, a key Article V scholar in the movement to call a convention, previously dismissed the potential of a "runaway" convention to Insider.

The Convention of the States, which has ties to prominent Republicans like former Trump lawyer John Eastman, has pushed for narrow revisions of the Constitution that would limit "the power and jurisdiction" of the federal government.

David Super, a professor and Constitutional law expert at Georgetown University Law Center, told Insider that limiting the power of the federal government could actually result in extreme and broad changes.

"I defy you to name a Constitutional amendment that you might want that I couldn't characterize as one of the three things in the Convention of States," Super told Panetta and Griffiths. "You want to repeal the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause? That's limiting the power of the federal government to interfere with state laws. Almost anything you want, you can characterize as one of those things."

Nineteen states have so far passed a Convention of States' resolution — with five states making progress on the resolution — according to an Insider analysis. Three states — South Dakota, Iowa, and North Carolina — have Republican-led state legislatures.

Backers of a constitutional convention include Eastman, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Fox News personalities like Sean Hannity and Mark Levin.

Natelson previously told Insider that he predicts there is a 50% chance the country will be able to form one within the next five years.

Read the original article on Business Insider

https://www.yahoo.com/news/republicans-want-rewrite-constitution-limit-003422846.html

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CP WORLD | SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2022
By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post Contributor

A university in Mexico has initiated proceedings against a recent psychology graduate after a group of professors expressed concerns over his graduation speech defending the family and the sanctity of life, which might cost him his license to practice.

The Autonomous University of Baja California received complaints against the student, Christian Cortez Pérez, and has started formal proceedings to ban him from practicing psychology, human rights group ADF Internationalsaid Friday.

As the top of his class at the university’s School of Medicine and Psychology, Pérez earned the right to deliver the commencement address at his graduation ceremony on June 27 where he voiced his deeply held moral convictions regarding the state of the world today, and the importance of the family and the sanctity of life among other issues.

Some students and faculty protested vocally and walked out, but he continued and delivered his graduation address in full.

The professors then issued a “manifesto,” calling his address “hate speech.” They demanded that his academic degree and professional license be withheld, his merit award withdrawn and psychology associations across Mexico be alerted regarding his actions.

“I exercised my fundamental right to free speech to address my classmates about what I believe are the most pressing issues of our time,” Pérez was quoted as saying in response to the university’s action. “Now, I stand to lose my entire professional career because I expressed views with which some students and faculty disagree.”

In response to the proceedings against him, Pérez has submitted a counterclaim to protect his rightful interests, said ADF International, which is supporting him, adding that a judgment from the university is expected later this month.

In his commencement speech, Pérez said, “Today we are deep into a real anthropological struggle to redefine the human being, the human person, man, through the implementation of ideologies and fashions of thought that always end up undermining dignity and freedom.”

He then quoted English writer and lay theologian G.K. Chesterton: “People do not know what they are doing; because they do not know what they are undoing.” Pérez added that “to attack life and the family is to self-destruct, it is an attack on civilization itself.” He then urged his peers to live in solidarity with one another, saying, “You have to love; no one seeks the good of the other if he does not love him.”

Kristina Hjelkrem, ADF International’s legal counsel for Latin America, said Pérez “faces irreparable reputational damage and a ban on his professional practice, threatening all that he has worked for in his career” just because he exercised his basic human rights and expressed views shared by many.

“If the campaign to punish Christian is successful, it shows that anyone who dares to speak in public in Mexico is in danger,” Hjelkrem added.

“This is a clear violation of international human rights law, reminiscent of dictatorships, not democracies.”

Pérez said he is “committed to obtaining justice not just for myself, but for all Mexicans interested in preserving the right to freely express themselves.”

ADF International commented that students and professors all over the world are being subjected to “censorship campaigns, often accompanied by legal proceedings, which threaten severe harm to both their reputations and careers.”

https://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-student-may-lose-work-license-after-graduation-speech.html

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CP VOICES | TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 06, 2022
By Steve Baldwin

Over the last few years, parents have been waking up all over the country realizing that our public schools are full of lunatics. Whether it is the mask issue, critical race theory, or the “gender identity” fad, parents feel like our schools have kept them in the dark while educators have quietly sought to undermine the values most parents want their children to have.

Americans are being flooded with stories about schools urging children to switch their gender, take hormone blockers, and even mutilate their breasts and genitalia all in the name of a bizarre, cult-like movement that calls itself the “gender identity” movement. But none of this should come as a surprise to those who have followed public schools for any length of time.

When sex-ed was introduced into public schools in the 1950s and 60s, it was opposed by the vast majority of parents. Parents rightfully thought that this issue was best left for families to deal with. Nonetheless, the Left continued to fight to make sex-ed part of the school curricula with the main argument being that such instruction would be focused “strictly on biology” and that no agendas would be pushed. Eventually, the Left won and parents who opposed sex-ed were smeared as backward and ignorant people.

It is important to understand who was behind this very patient but devious movement. It was Alfred Kinsey and his organization, the Kinsey
Institute. Kinsey has been called the father of the “Sexual Revolution” because of his best-selling books on sexuality. These books made the claim that all people are sexual from a very early age. Therefore, sexual activity by youth should be viewed as normal and healthy. Moreover, Kinsey also claimed that all sex, no matter how violent, unhealthy, or abnormal, was normal and should be encouraged. His book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, even soughtto normalize sex between adults and children.

One chart in this book, called “Table 32,” features dozens of children whom he managed to obtain, it is believed, through the efforts of some child molesters he hired. Kinsey then had these perverts rape the children on a table in his laboratory while he took notes on their reactions, which were fear and pain. These were children as young as 4 months old!

To this day, the Kinsey Institute denies this and tries to claim this info was collected from child molesters, but Kinsey’s own observations in his book make it clear that either he or his assistants were there in the room with the children: "Speed of pre-adolescent orgasm; Duration of stimulation before climax; Observations timed with second hand or stopwatch." Kinsey even recorded their painful screams and convulsions as they were molested.

This Institute still exists today at the University of Indiana but they have refused to allow researchers to look at Kinsey’s research, especially anything dealing with the molestation of children.

This is sickening and is one of the greatest abuses of science in American history and yet Kinsey was celebrated by the liberal establishment as a great pioneer of sexual freedom.

Amazingly, no one in authority gave a hoot about the children he had raped nor was he ever investigated for child abuse. The book was a runaway bestseller. Indeed, a few years later he published a companion book titled, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, that again promoted the idea that children should be sexually active:“It is difficult to understand why a child, except for its cultural conditioning, should be disturbed at having its genitalia touched, or disturbed at seeing the genitalia of other persons, or disturbed at even more specific sexual contacts.”

A Messa Kinsey went on to found the Kinsey Institute, which had a goal of “liberating” American society from its traditional sexual mores, like, for example, fidelity and keeping children away from sexual activity. But the damage this institute has had on America’s culture was incalculable. Within a few years after the publication of his two books, Kinsey Institute disciples in all 50 states persuaded state legislators to change codes having to do with sex. In order to give their radical agenda credibility, the Kinseyites worked with Columbia University law professor Herbert Wechsler to create new standards for sex crime sentencing and called it a “model penal code,” which was published by the American Law Institute.

They convinced legislators that since Kinsey had “proven” that all sex is healthy. Incredibly, Kinsey’s assistants were open about their views on rape: “As Dr. Kinsey often said, the difference between a ‘good time’ and a ‘rape’ may hinge on whether the girl’s parents were awake when she finally arrived home.”

Americans often wonder why rapists and child molesters receive so little jail time. Well, now you know.

But that was not all. The Kinsey Institute played a key role in creating the sex education movement. They knew that if they were to be successful in undermining America’s founding Christian culture, they need to get to the kids. Indeed, it is quite clear that the sex education movement was specifically created to radically change America’s culture and destroy it they did. Any parents who tried to stop them were smeared as backwoods hicks.

It is not a coincidence that all the major sex education curriculum publishers: ETR, SIECUS, Planned Parenthood, etc., were founded by disciples of Kinsey and were deeply influenced not only by Kinsey but his key associates such as Kinsey Institute “superstar” John Money, who has been called the father of the “gender identity” movement due to his work in normalizing transgenderism.

But while America’s liberal establishment continues to lionize Kinsey even today, much of his work has been revisited by social scientists and found to be bogus. It is clear he constructed his research to support his existing “sexual freedom” theories and he used such sloppy methodology that no real social scientist (if they’re honest) is able to replicate his work.

Much of the credit for exposing this huckster must go to the late great sex researcher Judith Reisman. As a friend of mine for the last 30 years,
I can attest to the fact that she spent thousands of hours dissecting Kinsey’s research and was able to show that Kinsey was a pervert and a sexual revolutionary who fabricated “science” to cover up his radical agenda.

But it was all a lie.

Reisman also tried to find politicians and law enforcement authorities with the guts to investigate the Kinsey Institute for refusing to come clean about the children who were raped by Kinsey and his team. But few listened to her and today, Kinsey’s phony research continues to impact sex education curriculum. Had people listened to Reisman 30 years ago, it is possible the sex education movement would have been unable to get its hooks into public schools, and the gender identity movement would never have occurred. To really understand the hoax that Kinsey pulled off and how his work has influenced sex education today, it is absolutely critical to read Reisman’s book, Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences.

By the 1980s, sex education curricula became increasingly anti-family and aggressively challenged the values of America’s founding Christian culture, but educators continued to use the cover story that such texts are “just teaching about reproductive biology." While chairing the California Assembly Education Committee, I was inundated with so many examples of vile and vulgar sex education curricula sent to me by parents that I ended up spending hundreds of hours researching sex education curricula.

What I found was shocking and made it clear to me that Kinsey’s research was the foundation of today’s sex ed curriculum.

The big lie of the Left regarding sex education is that the introduction of sex education has been a wild success story but the opposite is the actual truth. The rates of sexual disease, teenage pregnancies, and child molestation have dramatically increased in our society shortly after the introduction of sex education in our schools.

And it is the sex education curriculum today that is taking the lead in the gender identity movement. Understand that once you destroy traditional gender roles, the family unit breaks down, and without healthy family units, civilization falls apart. The traditional family unit is essential to maintaining civilization for reasons too long to go into here. It is also NOT a coincidence that the leaders of the sex education movement are not only sexual revolutionaries. They are leftists who detest America in general.

Indeed, the push today for destroying the whole idea of gender by indoctrinating children with false ideas about “gender identity” and urging children to block their hormones and/or remove their sex organs, comes from texts pushed by the sex education industry. This site has
many shocking examples. While those examples are from California’s public schools, don’t think for a minute this cult-like movement is limited to California. Indeed, all one has to do to confirm how widespread such sex ed texts are, is just take a look at the national standards that serve as guidelines for sex education publishers and they are horrifying.

The Left ridicules the idea that today sex education is grooming children for sex but that is precisely what it was designed to do by the pioneer of sexual grooming – Alfred Kinsey. He should have been locked up for his crimes, but instead, his work is promoted by the Left as a way of “liberating” American society from its “oppressive” Christian culture.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to get rid of sex education today since it is required by law in most states and even most Republicans don’t have the guts to abolish it. But, short of changing state law, school board members do have the latitude to pick and choose what kind of sex ed curriculum they want. There are curricula on the market today that emphasize abstinence, are not vulgar, and don’t promote bogus gender theories or try to undermine the values of most parents.

Steve Baldwin is a former California State Assemblyman and the former Executive Director of the Council for National Policy and Young Americans for Freedom. He writes for various publications and is the author of multiple books.

https://www.christianpost.com/voices/how-sex-education-led-to-the-gender-identity-movement.html