Further Ramifications From Rugby Australia's Prejudice

'Might as well sack me'

Taniela Tupou defends teammate over religious post

NZ Herald

Rugby Australia is facing a potential Polynesian player mutiny.   Taniela Tupou has claimed all Pacific Islanders "might as well just be sacked" because of their religious beliefs after Wallabies centre Samu Kerevi felt he needed to apologise for 'offending' fans after saying 'I love Jesus' in an Instagram post on Easter.

In an explosive development days from Israel Folau's attempt to save his multi-million-dollar career at a Rugby Australia code of conduct hearing, Tupou took to Facebook in a now deleted post.  The man once known as the Tongan Thor when he played in New Zealand, says he will never apologise for his faith.

"Seriously," his post began.  "Might as well sack me and all the other Pacific Islands rugby players around the world because we have the same Christian beliefs.  "I will never apologise for my faith and what I believe in, religion had [sic] got nothing to do with rugby anyways #TYJ ".

Only Secularists Enjoy Human Rights--It Would Seem

Militant Secular Humanists Can't Help Themselves

Here is a piece from The Hill which echoes the militant secularists' abiding prejudice against Christians, Christianity, and the Christ Himself.  In this case, the animus toward Christians has been occasioned by the wife of Vice President Mike Pence, who is to teach at a Christian day school.  So far, so good.

But the school requires of its teachers and administrators (and, by implication, its pupils and their parents) loyalty and fidelity to the Messiah and His creed.  Not only must their own beliefs be in concert with the Messiah's, but their teaching must also be consistent with His Word.  But the freedom human rights normally accorded all citizens of the United States are stripped away by the secular critics, whose tolerance extends only to those who agree with them.  Apparently freedom of religion applies only to the secularists and their ilk.

Vice President Pence responded to critics questioning his wife’s new job teaching at a school that prohibits LGBT students and faculty by saying attacks on Christian education are “deeply offensive.”  Pence spoke with EWTN host Lauren Ashburn in an interview airing Thursday for the Catholic news program about the backlash following Karen Pence announcing she's taking a job at Immanuel Christian School in Springfield, Va.

The Neutering of Rabid Intolerance

A Christian Man Receives Justice

The Forces Of Religious Intolerance in the US Are Taking a Hit


By David French
National Review Online

Former Atlanta fire chief Kelvin Cochran

In a groundbreaking win for religious liberty, former fire chief Kelvin Cochran has reached a $1.2 million settlement with the city of Atlanta.

A good man’s legal ordeal is at an end. Yesterday, my friends and former colleagues at the Alliance Defending Freedom announced that former Atlanta fire chief Kelvin Cochran had reached a $1.2 million settlement, ending a case he brought after the city fired him for writing — and distributing to a select few city employees — a self-published book that articulated an entirely orthodox Christian view of sex and marriage.

The facts of the case were egregious from the beginning. Cochran was a pioneer — born in Confederate Memorial Hospital in Shreveport, La., he grew up to become one of the first black firefighters hired by his hometown fire department. He ultimately became the first black fire chief of Shreveport.

He continued to ascend the ranks of firefighters, becoming Atlanta’s fire chief, and then, in 2009, Barack Obama appointed him to run the Fire Administration, a division of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

After Cochran left Atlanta, the fire department struggled. So Atlanta’s mayor recruited him back, and Cochran turned the department around so thoroughly that it for the first time received the nation’s highest fire-protection rating. The cornerstone of his effort to transform the department’s morale was a “participatory management structure” that solicited input from “every rank, race, shift, and gender.”

He consciously included LGBT employees, granting — in his words — “every group a voice.”  As I wrote when his case went to court, to this point Cochran’s story was one that would make even a university diversity officer rejoice. He overcame poverty and discrimination to ascend to the pinnacle of his profession, where he implemented an inclusive management style that improved employee morale.

But Cochran is also a Christian, and — soon enough — that presented a problem that was fatal to his career.

Poking the Borax

What!  That's Not On

There is talk of a female only taxi service about to be launched in Auckland.  Here is the skinny:

Women-only ride-sharing coming to NZ with launch of DriveHer app

Brittany Keogh
Stuff
Uber is getting a new competitor when an Auckland law student launches a female-only ride sharing service later this year.

An Auckland law student is starting a female-only ride-sharing service, believed to be the first of its kind in New Zealand.  DriveHer is similar to Uber, where users can hail a car using a cellphone app. The difference is its drivers - and riders - must be women.

DriveHer founder Joel Rushton, 23, told Stuff he often worried about his partner's safety when she caught taxis home late at night when they were living in Melbourne and was inspired to start the business after learning about a women-only ride-sharing service in Australia called Shebah.

So far, so good.  But, let's just run with this a bit.

Judicial Pushback

Christian Club Reinstated

Had Been Banned for Refusing to Elect LGBT Activist

Fr Mark Hodges
LifeSiteNews

IOWA CITY, January 26, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – A Christian group has prevailed in court and will be reinstated as a campus organization after being stripped of club status for disqualifying an active homosexual from running for its leadership position.

U.S. District Court Judge Stephanie Rose granted a temporary injunction blocking the University of Iowa’s (UI) ban against the campus Christian group Business Leaders in Christ (BLinC).  Tuesday’s decision allowed BLinC to recruit at a fair in the student union on Wednesday.

“The University has to stop discriminating against BLinC because of its religious beliefs,” Becket Fund attorney Eric Baxter stated in a press release. “Every other group on campus gets to select leaders who embrace their mission. Religious groups don’t get second-class treatment.”

Gay activist Marcus Miller applied for BLinC leadership, but refused to agree to BLinC’s Statement of Faith, which includes sexual chastity outside heterosexual marriage.  “He expressly stated that he rejected BLinC’s religious beliefs and would not follow them,” the group explained.  Miller then filed a complaint with the university, claiming he was rejected because he is gay. UI in turn yanked BLinC’s status as a registered student group, effectively halting their activities on campus.

Second Class "Citizens"

Canadian Christians Face Government Discrimination

Inapplicable For Federal Job Funding Due to Pro-abortion Clause

Kate Scanlon
The Blaze

Canadian Christians say they can’t apply for a federal job funding program called the Canada Summer Jobs program because it would require them to voice support for abortion, the Ottawa Citizen reported.

What is the Canada Summer Jobs program?

According to the Canadian government, the program provides funding to some nonprofits, public sector employers and small business so they can offer summer jobs to students. The Citizen reported the program subsidizes about 70,000 jobs with $113 million each year.

However, the government says CSJ applicants “will be required to attest that both the job and the organization’s core mandate respect individual human rights in Canada, including the values underlying the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as other rights.”

These rights are listed as “reproductive rights and the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of sex, religion, race, national or ethnic origin, colour, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.”  The clause states that “reproductive rights” includes “the right to access safe and legal abortions.”

The document states that such rules will “prevent Government of Canada funding from flowing to organization whose mandates or projects may not respect individual human rights, the values underlying the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and associated case law” and will “prevent youth (as young as 15 years of age) from being exposed to employment within organizations that may promote positions that are contrary to the values enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and associated case law.”

What are Christians saying?

Anti-Christian Discrimination

More Evidence that the UN is Ignoring Christian Refugees


The Barnabas Fund

An official information request submitted to the New Zealand government by one of our supporters has revealed further evidence of the institutional discrimination against Syrian Christian refugees by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

The government’s response to the request, made under New Zealand’s Official Information Act, revealed that 383 Syrian refugees were resettled in New Zealand in 2016 either as part of its annual refugee quota or additional emergency intake of Syrian refugees. However, only 6 of these were Christians (1.5%) while the remaining 377 (98.5%) were Muslims.



Thousands of Christian refugees remain stranded in camps, like this one in Erbil, Iraq.

What is particularly striking is that the percentage of Christians resettled in NZ last year is identical to that of Syrian refugees resettled to the UK last year – and both countries only accept Syrian refugees who have been directly referred to them by the UNHCR.

This is despite it being widely accepted that 10% of Syria’s pre-war population were Christians. In fact, this is stated in the NZ government’s own factsheet providing advice for those seeking to help Syrian refugees adjust to NZ.

It is also, of course, widely accepted that Christians have been specifically targeted and even faced genocide at the hands of jihadists in Syria.

Drug Cheating in Sport Is a Human Right

The Sound of Rats Being Swallowed

A couple of really interesting articles appeared in Stuff the other day.  The first had to do with the new intellectual fad sweeping the Western world: gender identity!  The idea here is that no-one has a right to tell anyone else what their gender is.  One's gender is determined by how one thinks of oneself.  It's a self-identification thing, and oneself is the ultimate and final determiner of one's reality.  Naturally, the autonomy of identity has been claimed as an inviolable human right.

In this particular case New Zealand has a man whose gender self-identity is female.  So--genetically male, but self-identified as female.  Same old, same old inanities.  But this chap is a weightlifter and has been competing as a male, but now that he has "transitioned" he has been selected for our national female weightlifting team and will likely represent New Zealand in the forthcoming Commonwealth Games.

The selection of a transgender woman for the New Zealand weightlifting team is understood to be a first for New Zealand sport.  Laurel Hubbard will represent her country in the 90kg+ women's category at this month's Australian international weightlifting event and is in line for selection for the NZ team for next year's Commonwealth Games.  [Stuff]

Whoopee.  What a wunnerful world.  The president of Olympic Weightlifting New Zealand, Garry Marshall believes the rules give them no choice.  There are only two genders recognised in the rules: male and female.  No category called transgender.

Marshall went on to comment on the "advantages" Hubbard will enjoy in this charade:

Marshall said he believed Hubbard had "huge advantages" over her rivals.  "She competed for a long time as a man and her efforts were very strong. That strength has remained with her despite reduced testosterone.  

When the charade finally plays out and Hubbard gets his gold medal in the female weightlifting competition everyone amongst the Chatterers will clap and cheer, saying "Wunnerful.  Sport was the winner on the day."

Embarassment

Passed Its Use-By Date?

Is this the most racist law still on the statute books of New Zealand?  

Section 30-36 of the Maori Community Development Act 1962:

30  Prevention of riotous behaviour
(1)Any Maori who—

(a)disturbs any congregation assembled for public worship, or any public meeting, or any meeting for any lecture, concert, or entertainment, or any audience at any theatre, whether or not a charge for admission has been made, or interferes with the conduct of any religious service in any church, chapel, burial ground, or other public building or place; or

(b)in or in view of any public place as defined by section 40 of the Police Offences Act 1927, or within the hearing of any person therein, behaves in a riotous, offensive, threatening, insulting, or disorderly manner, or uses any threatening, abusive or insulting words, or strikes or fights with any other person—

commits an offence against this Act.

31  Prevention of drunkenness

Jolly Good Fellows, Which Nobody Can Deny . . .

Disciples of The Shapeshifting Serpent

We have pointed out several times that when a hip-entity like Facebook offers subscribers 45 different options (and counting) to identify their gender, a major transformation of religion, philosophy, and culture is underway.  Behind it lies deeper beliefs which are not changing at all: they are becoming merely more consistent, more "outworked", more logically aligned.  The tectonic plates have just shifted, but the magma has been building up underneath for a long time.

Here are some of the evidences that the plates are moving and re-aligning.  Firstly, Houston, 2014--where we clearly have a problem.

After nearly nine hours of chanting and tears from seas of opponents and supporters in color-coded T-shirts, Houston City Council passed an ordinance on Wednesday extending equal rights protections to gay and transgender residents.  Despite weeks of discussion and dissent over the measure, the final vote was 11-6, a count that matched guesses made months ago, when Mayor Annise Parker — the first openly lesbian mayor of a major American city — said she planned to bring forward such a measure.

The approval was greeted with thunderous applause from the audience, largely full of supporters, and chants of "HERO," for the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance. "While much of the debate has centered around the gay and transgender section of the ordinance, it is a comprehensive ordinance," Parker said after the vote. "It is a good step forward for the city of Houston."

Note the neologism "transgender" to which we will return shortly.

Letter From America (About Attacks Upon Religious Freedom)

Preventing ‘Discrimination’ against Gays

The Left Would Destroy Religious Liberty

By David French
National Review Online

This morning The Atlantic ran a long piece asking whether Christian adoption agencies should be “allowed to discriminate against gay parents.” The story is written in the classic liberal style, as the favored group recounts its experience with “discrimination,” and the demonized religious conservatives are left explaining why they hurt such good people. But look closely and you’ll notice a key fact: All of the gay families the author spoke to ultimately succeeded in adopting and/or fostering children.

The first couple mentioned in the story, Clint McCormack and Bryan Reamer, has “three foster children and 10 adopted children.” Then there are Tod and Tom McMillen-Oakley, “who have adopted two children, one through a private adoption and one from the state of Michigan.” Tod and Tom also tell of going to a “beach event” for “gay parents of adopted children” — an event where “the beach was lined with gay couples and their foster children.”

In other words, the “discriminatory” Christian agencies aren’t actually blocking gay adoptions.

Neo-Nazi Revival

Anti-Semitism Rising in Britain

Hatred of the Jewish people is on the rise in the UK (and in some European countries).  In a recent research experiment, a reporter put on a yarmulke (a traditional Jewish skull cap) and walked down streets in Manchester and Bradford.  Within minutes he was being publicly insulted and event spat at. 

The headlines which of the Daily Mail report read:

EXCLUSIVE: 'Fight the Jewish scum!' Shocking anti-Semitism on streets of BRITAIN as Jewish journalist is spat at, abused and even stalked... and the same happens in Copenhagen

• Journalist donned traditional Jewish head covering 'kippah' to test reaction
• It took one minute for first abuse to be hurled on Britain's streets 
• Spat at in Manchester and boy walking with father called out 'Jew'
• 'Stalked' by a man in Bradford for five minutes as he took photos
• Prime Minister David Cameron told MailOnline: 'There are no excuses for the shocking anti-Semitism revealed in this report'
• Same test in Copenhagen saw a similar taunts to 'Jewish man'
• But Stockholm and Berlin walkabouts went without any incident  

By Jonathan Kalmus For Mailonline

Published: 09:47 GMT, 6 March 2015 | Updated: 16:50 GMT, 6 March 2015

We believe that what is transpiring before our eyes is an unholy alliance.  On the one side are mainly Pakistani immigrants to the UK settling in ghettoes in cities like Manchester and Bradford whilst continuing to live within the traditional doctrines and dictats of Islam.  On the other side--far removed from the ghettoes--is the Leftist (now UK mainstream) ideology which frames Israel (and, therefore, the world-wide global conspiracy of Zionism) as being the relentless oppressor of Palestinians, in particular, and Middle Eastern peoples in general.  (Yes, we know it's a troglodyte's position, owned by the impeccably ignorant, but there you go.)

In Britain, Leftist ideology also frames the Islamic ghettoes as being populated by victims, the have-nots, the disenfranchised, the exploited and the oppressed.  The Left must stand with them and help facilitate the struggle against oppression within Britain itself.  Both groups, now joined at the hip in group-think, hate the Jewish people and Israel as the unjust monster with its foot on the neck of deprived and exploited peoples.

The Left has made anti-semitism and hatred of the Jewish people fashionable and respectable once again in the UK. 

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Racial Animosity

Douglas Wilson

Blog and Mablog

December 23, 2014

The cross of Christ deals with real sins, not imaginary ones. It deals with real sins by offering free and full forgiveness. It “deals” with imaginary sins by enabling  us to see them for what they are — vain constructions of our own imaginations.

When it comes to issues of race, the cross of Christ puts enmity to death. The problem that must be overcome is racial animosity — hatred, spite, bitterness, and envy.

“Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby” (Eph. 2:15–16).

In the cross, God crucified racial enmity. He killed hostility, and because Jesus really died, He killed it dead — but only in Christ.

Because liberals believe that man is basically good, they have identified the culprit as “prejudice,” or “discrimination.”

Extenuation by Race

Wretched Argument for Racial Inferiority

If we were Maori, with just the slightest smidgeon of self-respect, honour and decency, we would right now be hanging our head in shame and boiling with righteous anger, both at the same time.  On what provocation, we hear you ask? On this:

Christchurch defence lawyer James Rapley said Maori should receive shorter prison sentences because they come from an environment of social deprivation and inequality.  "Fifty-one per cent of the prison population is Maori," he told the Court of Appeal. "Everyone says everyone should be treated alike and equally, but not everyone is equal."[NZ Herald]

Rapley was arguing before the Court of Appeal to get the sentence of one Fabian Mika reduced by ten percent on the grounds that he was Maori.  Not, notice, on the grounds of Mika's remorse over his crime, his early guilty plea, his efforts at restitution of his victims, or extenuating circumstances, but because of his race.

German Public Health Dangers

“Anti-Discrimination” policies always were ridiculous. But now they turn into a serious danger.

Posted on | June 25, 2013 by J.C. von Krempach, J.D.

Turtle Bay and Beyond

 

The fight against “discriminations” reaches a new extreme in Germany, where the Bundesärztekammer (BÄK), a body representing the country’s healthcare professionals, has proposed to abolish a ban against homosexuals to act as blood donors. The BÄK announced its intention to work towards the lifting of this prohibition, which it described as “discriminatory”.

The ban has, however, an objective reason: it is the fact that “men having sex with men” ("MSM")  are 100 times more likely than other people to carry HIV. Indeed, when HIV/AIDS first emerged in the 1980s, it was mainly through homosexuals that the virus spread, and contrary to Africa, where it affects much wider spheres of the population, in Europe and the US it still remains a disease with a nearly exclusive link to male homosexuality.

Is this “discriminatory”? It is one of the most remarkable successes of the gay lobby that it still is allowed to frame HIV/AIDS as an issue related to “LGBT discrimination”, just as if it was unfair for the virus to befall them rather than anyone else.

A Small Blow for a Free Society

Political Correctness Takes a Hit

A new Race Relations Commissioner has been appointed in New Zealand.  The position has gone to Dame Susan Devoy, one of our great sportswomen.  Some Maori have been up in arms.

The problem is that Dame Susan has had the temerity to express her frustration over Waitangi Day.  She also has particular views about women wearing burquas.

What is amusing and telling in the splenetic eruption are the arguments and reasons for objecting to Dame Susan's appointment.  Firstly, the Maori brigade, as reported in the NZ Herald.

Maori groups in particular questioned enlisting someone who had been outspoken in her disdain for New Zealand's national holiday. . . . In Parliament, Maori Party MP Te Ururoa Flavell queried the choice, noting that Dame Susan had "already courted controversy with her views".
Mana Party president Annette Sykes went further, demanding that Dame Susan stand down because she was not fit for the role.  "It's so disturbing that someone with a clearly expressed ... viewpoint can be appointed to a job that's about providing independent leadership and advice on race relations, including public education on the Treaty of Waitangi," Ms Sykes said in a statement.

Then there is the Islamic response:

Leading Indicators

Winnowing Forks and the Wind

God's people are always being winnowed and refined.  It's not something many Western Christians give a great deal of attention to, although we expect that this will not continue to be so.  When our Lord was about to commence His public ministry the prophet, John the Baptist was sent by God as a forerunner, to prepare His way.  John said of Jesus' coming ministry,

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. (Luke 3: 16,17)

This winnowing--separating the wheat from the chaff--occurs through the proclamation and ministry of the Word of God.  God's ministers address His people with enjoinders such as, "Choose you this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24:15)  But it also occurs through oppression and public rejection and mockery of the Christ and His people.

A Victory for Our Dominant Religion

Minatory Developments

A dominant religion progressively builds the prevailing culture in its own image.  As secularism is the dominant religion in the West, it is building progressively a secularist culture that excludes genuine Christians to an ever greater degree.  Christians and the Christian faith are being ghettoised. 

A salient manifestation of this phenomenon is the increasingly strident demand that one's Christian faith remain a silent and private affair.  Society demands that one must restrict one's faith to the space between one's ears.  As soon as a Christian steps out of bed he is expected to act and think and worship like a secular humanist.  To the extent that he does not, he will be progressively excluded from participation in the community.

Here is an example from the UK and Europe.

Integrating into the Void

Marriage Progressively Meaningless and Empty

One of the unintended, but real consequences of the acceptance of homosexual "marriage" is that the state will end up so inflating the concept of marriage that it will eventually become meaningless (at least in official parlance and practice).

Here is an example of the inflation to which we refer:  The Guardian reports that a homosexual marriage campaigner is arguing that heterosexuals are going to be face discrimination  in the UK--but not for reasons that you might expect:

The New Model Man

Trying Harder

Over recent months we have discovered the corpus of C J Sanson, a writer of tight, illuminating historical novels.  His premier character is a hunchback lawyer, Matthew Shardlake practising amidst the turbulent times of Henry VIII.  It has often been observed that superior historical novels are one of the best ways to access particular historical periods and times: Dr Sanson's work perfectly illustrates the point.  His historical knowledge is both comprehensive and compelling. 

He has also set novels in the twentieth century.  We have recently read Winter in Madrid, a novel set in Franco's Spain in the early 40's.  In this novel Sanson portrays (in passing) the fantastical notion held by many communists and socialists of the day: when the revolution comes, human nature will be transformed.