Orthodox Jews prefer Donald Trump over Kamala Harris.
https://x.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1854090494143295683
https://twitter.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1854090494143295683
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-824531#google_vignette
https://forward.com/opinion/670246/trump-israel-jewish-vote-orthodox/
Pastor arrested after commenting on Islam, saying sex is binary: ‘That he was arrested, held in police custody for 13 hours and had his property destroyed is appalling’
Pastor arrested after commenting on Islam, saying sex is binary
‘That he was arrested, held in police custody for 13 hours and had his property destroyed is appalling’
October 15, 2024
A Christian pastor was arrested after he made comments about Islam and the binary nature of sex while street preaching outside Bristol University.
In response to a question from a Muslim member of the public, Dia Moodley said he believed there were differences between the moral standards of the God of Islam and the Christian God.
During his preaching he also expressed the belief that God made humans male and female and that this truth should not be denied.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF UK), which is supporting Moodley, said he was arrested and detained for 13 hours by Avon and Somerset Police in March.
The organization said that Moodley was pushed off his short stepladder and had a sign snatched from his hands before being arrested by attending officers.
Four of his signs were handed to staff at Bristol University, who disposed of them under the instruction of the officers.
Reacting to the incident, Moodley said, “Two-tier policing is sadly not a fiction or some conspiracy theory, it’s a reality that Christians in the U.K. have been experiencing for years.
“It shouldn’t be for the state to decide which religions and ideologies must not be discussed or critiqued in the public street. The result is the normalization of a two-tier society where some beliefs and ideologies are valued and protected, while others are undermined and outlawed.
“The world is looking at the dismal state of free speech in the U.K. with shock. What happened to me reflects a wider trend of increasing state censorship in the U.K. and across the West.”
ADF UK is supporting Moodley in pursuing a complaint against Avon and Somerset Police. He has already received an apology for the disposal of his signs.
An officer wrote in an email to Moodley: “I’m sorry to advise that the signs were handed to … the UoB [University of Bristol] for them to dispose of. I cannot comment as to why this decision was made (as I was not present at the time), however I would like to apologiae on behalf of my colleagues. … Again, I am sincerely sorry that this action [sic].”
ADF UK described Avon and Somerset Police’s actions as surprising, noting that they had previously settled with Moodley after admitting that restrictions preventing him from “passing comments on any other religion” besides Christianity were “disproportionate.”
Barrister and legal counsel for ADF UK, Jeremiah Igunnubole, said, “We are glad Avon and Somerset Police dropped their investigation into Pastor Dia.
“But the fact that he was arrested, held in police custody for 13 hours, and had his property destroyed with the encouragement of Avon and Somerset police is objectively appalling. Nobody should be subject to discriminatory treatment for peacefully and lawfully sharing their core beliefs.
“In this case, Pastor Dia was himself a victim of crime, including assault, aggressive harassment and criminal damage and yet, perversely, he was the one treated as a criminal for peacefully exercising his fundamental rights.
“Everyone must be treated equally under the law. Freedom of speech cannot be the preserve of those expressing socially progressive ideals. In a democratic society, everyone must have the right to peacefully express their core beliefs, even when those beliefs are considered controversial or criticize other religions and belief systems.”
I don’t know if this CNN guest deliberately made a reference to the movie Pulp Fiction, or if it’s just a coincidence, but he said that “divine intervention” saved Trump. Skip to 4:50.
CNN recently interviewed Cory Mills, who has worked in military security, and is also a current Republican member of the U.S. Congress from Florida.
I don’t know if Mills was deliberately making a reference to the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction, or if this is just a coincidence, but he said that “divine intervention” saved Trump. Skip to 4:50.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APZ6IrrCrcU
And here’s the relevant scene from Pulp Fiction:
This is from 2011, but it’s relevant to the current situation on U.S. college campuses. Which one of these stages is Columbia University currently at?
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2011/05/the_five_stages_of_islam.html
The Five Stages of Islam
By Richard Butrick
May 29, 2011
Stage 1. Establish a Beachhead
Population density à 2% (US, Australia, Canada).
Muslims are conciliatory, deferential but request harmless special treatment (foot bath facilities, removal/elimination of that which is offensive to delicate Muslim sensibilities – like walking dogs near Mosques).
Stage 2. Establish Outposts
Population density 2% – 5% (UK, Germany, Denmark).
At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs. A recent example is that of Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal who is back in Jamaica after being kicked out of the UK.
Stage 3. Establish Sectional Control of Major Cities.
Population density 5% – 10% (France, Sweden, Netherlands).
First comes the demand for halal food in supermarkets, and the blocking of streets for prayers; then comes the demand for self rule (within their ghettos) under Sharia. When Muslims approach 10% of the population the demands turn to lawlessness. In Paris, we are already seeing car-burnings. Any criticism of Islam results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam. In France which may be over the 10% range, the minority Muslim populations live in ghettos, within which they are 100% Muslim, and within which they live by Sharia Law. The national police do not even enter these ghettos. There are no national courts, nor schools, nor non-Muslim religious facilities. In such situations, Muslims do not integrate into the community at large. The children attend madrassas. They learn only the Koran. To even associate with an infidel is a crime punishable with death.
Stage 4. Establish Regional Control.
Population density 20% – 50% (Europe 2020?).
After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues.
Stage 5. Total Control, Brutal Suppression, and Dhimmitude.
Population density > 50%.
Unfettered persecution of non-believers of all other religions (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon, and jizya, the tax placed on infidels. As Muslim population levels increase and all infidels cower in submission there will peace at last. Dar al-Islam is achieved and everyone lives under Sharia and the Koran is the only word.
The American Museum of Natural History has just canceled its Native American exhibits
https://www.amnh.org/about/statement-new-nagpra-regulations
Beginning this Saturday, we will be closing two halls dedicated to Indigenous cultures of North America, the Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains Halls, to visitors and staff. Both Halls display artifacts that, under the new NAGPRA regulations, could require consent to exhibit. The number of cultural objects on display in these Halls is significant, and because these exhibits are also severely outdated, we have decided that rather than just covering or removing specific items, we will close the Halls. In addition to closing these two Halls, we will be covering three cases just outside of the Hall of Eastern Woodlands and two cases in the Mead Hall of Pacific Peoples, which display Native Hawaiian items. In addition, two cases in Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall also will be covered.
One immediate effect of these closures will be the suspension of school field trips to Eastern Woodlands, which for years has hosted local students as part of their social studies curriculum.
A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags
A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags
Many liberals celebrated when Hamtramck, Michigan, elected a Muslim-majority council in 2015 but a vote to exclude LGBTQ+ flags from city property has soured relations
By Tom Perkins
June 17, 2023
In 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city attracted international attention for becoming the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council.
They viewed the power shift and diversity as a symbolic but meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric that was a central theme of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign.
This week many of those same residents watched in dismay as a now fully Muslim and socially conservative city council passed legislation banning Pride flags from being flown on city property that had – like many others being flown around the country – been intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.
Muslim residents packing city hall erupted in cheers after the council’s unanimous vote, and on Hamtramck’s social media pages, the taunting has been relentless: “Fagless City”, read one post, emphasized with emojis of a bicep flexing.
In a tense monologue before the vote, Councilmember Mohammed Hassan shouted his justification at LGBTQ+ supporters: “I’m working for the people, what the majority of the people like.”
While Hamtramck is still viewed as a bastion of multiculturalism, the difficulties of local governance and living among neighbors with different cultural values quickly set in following the 2015 election. Some leaders and residents are now bitter political enemies engaged in a series of often vicious battles over the city’s direction, and the Pride flag controversy represents a crescendo in tension.
“There’s a sense of betrayal,” said the former Hamtramck mayor Karen Majewski, who is Polish American. “We supported you when you were threatened, and now our rights are threatened, and you’re the one doing the threatening.”
For about a century, Polish and Ukrainian Catholics dominated politics in Hamtramck, a city of 28,000 surrounded by Detroit. By 2013, largely Muslim Bangladeshi and Yemeni immigrants supplanted the white eastern Europeans, though the city remains home to significant populations of those groups, as well as African Americans, whites and Bosnian and Albanian Americans. According to the 2020 census some 30% to 38% of Hamtramck’s residents are of Yemeni descent, and 24% are of Asian descent, largely Bangladeshi.
After several years of diversity on the council, some see irony in an all-male, Muslim elected government that does not reflect the city’s makeup.
The resolution, which also prohibits the display of flags with ethnic, racist and political views, comes at a time when LGBTQ+ rights are under assault worldwide, and other US cities have passed similar bans, with the vast majority driven by often white politically conservative Americans.
While the situation in Hamtramck largely evolved on its own local dynamics, some outside rightwing agitators connected to national Republican groups have been pushing for the ban on Hamtramck’s social media pages and voiced support for it at Tuesday’s meeting. They are from nearby Dearborn where they were part of an effort last year to ban books with LGBTQ+ themes.
Their talking points mirror those made elsewhere: some Hamtramck Muslims say they simply want to protect children, and gay people should “keep it in their home”.
But that sentiment is “an erasure of the queer community and an attempt to shove queer people back in the closet”, said Gracie Cadieux, a queer Hamtramck resident who is part of the Anti-Transphobic Action group.
Mayor Amer Ghalib, 43, who was elected in 2021 with 67% of the vote to become the nation’s first Yemeni American mayor, told the Guardian on Thursday he tries to govern fairly for everyone, but said LGBTQ+ supporters had stoked tension by “forcing their agendas on others”.
“There is an overreaction to the situation, and some people are not willing to accept the fact that they lost,” he said, referring to Majewski and recent elections that resulted in full control of the council by Muslim politicians.
Though the city’s Muslims are not a monolith and some privately told the Guardian they were “frustrated” with council, the only leader to publicly question it was the former city council member Amanda Jaczkowski, a Polish American who converted to Islam.
In a statement, she raised concerns about the move’s legality: “There are far too many questions to pass this today with any semblance of responsibility.”
On one level, the discord that has flared between Muslim and non-Muslim populations in recent years has its root in a culture clash that is unique to a partly liberal small US city now under conservative Muslim leadership, residents say. Last year, the council approved an ordinance allowing backyard animal sacrifices, shocking some non-Muslim residents even though animal sacrifice is protected under the first amendment in the US as a form of religious expression.
When Michigan legalized marijuana, it gave municipalities a late 2020 deadline to enact a prohibition of dispensaries. Hamtramck council missed the deadline and a dispensary opened, drawing outrage from conservative Muslims who demanded city leadership shut it down. That ignited counterprotests from many liberal residents, and the council only relented when it became clear it had no legal recourse.
At other times, the issues are not unique to Hamtramck. In the realm of local politics, personal fights among neighbors, warring factions and dirty politics are a common part of the democratic process across the US.
“I don’t know that we’re really all that different from other cities in most ways,” Majewski said.
However, race and religion add more fraught layers to Hamtramck’s issues. Islamophobia exists here, and some Muslims say they saw bigotry in local voter fraud investigations, and in LGBTQ+ supporters not respecting their religion.
But Majewski said the majority is now disrespecting the minority. She noted that a white, Christian-majority city council in 2005 created an ordinance to allow the Muslim call to prayer to be broadcast from the city’s mosques five times daily. It did so over objections of white city residents, and Majewski said she didn’t see the same reciprocity with roles reversed.
Ghalib disagreed, and labeled the prayer broadcast a “first amendment issue” while noting no one was asking for city hall to broadcast the calls.
Moreover, the white majority council was not always hospitable to Muslim residents who have previously faced overt racism. And with a majority-Muslim council in place, more Muslims had been appointed to boards and commissions, and hired in city hall. So had some LGBTQ+ residents, Ghalib added.
Despite the political clashes, he thinks there is hope for Hamtramck to live up to its multicultural ideals.
“We can get along and people are not violent here,” he said.
Cadieux agreed peaceful coexistence was possible.
“We aren’t in the business of excluding people from our society and I’m not going to exclude socially conservative Muslims – they have a place at the table just like everyone else,” she said. “However, they cannot, and will not, shove another community out of the way.”
Christians caught with a Bible in North Korea have faced death and had their families, including children, thrown in prison for life, a new report says
Christians caught with a Bible in North Korea have faced death and had their families, including children, thrown in prison for life, a new report says
By Ryan Pickrell
May 26, 2023
North Korea offers freedom of religion to its citizens on paper but not in practice.
It has imprisoned tens of thousands of Christians, according to a State Department report, citing NGO research.
The recent report reveals executions and imprisonment for life for people caught with religious materials.
North Korea is notorious for the cruelty it inflicts on people deemed undesirable by the state. In the Hermit Kingdom that prizes weaponry over its own people, many of whom are starving and live in abject poverty, tens of thousands of Christians are said to be languishing in prisons.
A recently released Department of State report notes that while North Korea constitutionally allows for religious freedom, there is no such thing in practice.
The constitution vaguely states that religion must not harm the state or social order, giving authorities room to target those who seek to openly follow their faith.
The report from the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom, citing research conducted by non-governmental organizations which have gathered testimony from defectors, says as many as 70,000 Christians have been imprisoned in camps along with those believers from other religions.
One NGO, Open Doors USA, has reported that for Christians in North Korea, life is a “constant cauldron of pressure” and “capture or death is only a mistake away.”
As State highlights in its report, North Korean government documents state that “freedom of religion is allowed and provided by the State law within the limit necessary for securing social order, health, social security, morality and other human rights.”
Anything beyond that can land citizens in deep trouble.
People who have been arrested for religious crimes have reportedly faced detention and forced labor, torture, sexual violence, and death.
Christians are considered a “hostile class” in the songbun system, in which people derive status from loyalty to the state and its leadership. Christians, ODUSA reported, are regarded as the lowest in society and are constantly “vulnerable and in danger.”
The Department of State, pulling from information collected by NGOs, noted that an entire family, including their two-year-old child, was imprisoned following the discovery of their religious practices and possession of a Bible.
The family, which was most likely targeted by the Ministry of State Security that handles roughly 90 percent of these cases, was sentenced to life in prison.
A report from the NGO Korea Future documented a shocking incident in which a man caught praying was nearly beaten to death by guards. Another incident involved a Korean Worker’s Party member who was found with a Bible, taken by authorities out to an airfield, and executed before a crowd of thousands.
North Korea celebrates the Kim family, specifically the current ruler, Kim Jong Un, and his late father and grandfather, Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung, above all, recognizing the Kim dynasty or Mount Paektu bloodline in ways reminiscent of deification.
The State Department report, pointing to Korea Future’s research, says that the state ideology “Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism” has “many hallmarks of religion.” It notes the state regards the two previous leaders as “extraordinary beings.”
ODUSA has reported that Christian materials, including Bibles, are leftovers from the early 20th century up to World War II and are passed among believers. Though there have been reports of underground churches, it is unclear if these are active given that, as one defector said, “meeting other Christians in order to worship is almost impossible.” Some even fear being reported by their own family members.
This situation has long been a problem in North Korea, and State noted that “multiple sources indicated the situation had not fundamentally changed since” the 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry report on human rights in the in North Korea was published. That report found that North Korea “denied the rights to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion” and engaged in “crimes against humanity.”
Palestinian workers prefer to work for Israeli employers
https://www.jns.org/report-palestinian-workers-prefer-to-work-for-israeli-employers/
Palestinian workers prefer to work for Israeli employers
Higher salaries, legal protections and lack of discrimination are among the reasons most Palestinians would prefer to work for Israeli firms.
February 16, 2020
The United Nations “blacklist” of businesses operating in Israeli settlements was lauded by the Palestinian leadership following its publication last week, but a recent report indicates that Palestinians actually prefer to work for Israelis rather than Palestinians.
Titled “Why Palestinians prefer to work for Israeli employers,” the report, by Israel-based media watchdog group Palestinian Media Watch, affirms that whenever Palestinian workers have the opportunity to work for Israeli employers, they are quick to leave their jobs with Palestinian employers. The report cites an article in the official Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida that praises the Israeli-employment sector.
According to senior PMW analyst Nan Jacques Zilberdik, who co-authored the report with PMW director Itamar Marcus, there are a number of reasons Palestinians prefer Israeli employers.
“First, the salary from Israeli employers is more than double that of the Palestinian sector, but that is not all. Palestinians working for Israelis are protected by the same laws as Israeli workers, including health benefits, sick leave, vacation time and other workers’ rights, whereas these protections are not granted by Palestinian employers. Also there is no gender or religious discrimination in the Israeli sector.”
Speaking on the official P.A. TV show “Workers Affairs,” Israeli-Arab labor lawyer Khaled Dukhi of the Israeli NGO Workers’ Hotline said Israeli labor law is “very good” because it does not differentiate between men and women, Israelis and Palestinians, Muslims and Jews. However, he explained, “Palestinian workers who work for Israelis still suffer because Palestinian middlemen ‘steal’ 50 percent, 60 percent and even 70 percent of their salaries, especially those of women.”
The higher Israeli salaries have been consistent for years, according to surveys published by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Labor Force Survey for the second quarter of 2018 showed that the average daily wage for wage employees in the West Bank was NIS 107.9 ($31.5) compared with NIS 62.6 (18.3) in Gaza Strip. The average daily wage for the wage employees in Israel and the Israeli settlements reached NIS 247.9 ($72.3) in the second quarter of 2018, compared with NIS 242.5 ($70.8) in the first quarter of 2018.
Hamline University, a self described “liberal arts” college, fired a lecturer for showing adult students this piece of controversial art that is considered by art historians to be “a global artistic masterpiece”
Hamline University, a self described “liberal arts” college, fired a lecturer for showing adult students this piece of controversial art that is considered by art historians to be “a global artistic masterpiece.”
Some students had complained to the college that the artwork included a depiction the Prophet Muhammad, which is against their religion. Instead of standing up for the “liberal arts,” the college fired the lecturer who showed the artwork. Art historians consider the artwork to be “a global artistic masterpiece.”
Source for image and information: https://reason.com/volokh/2022/12/26/hamline-university-apparently-fires-art-history-lecturer-for-showing-depictions-of-muhammed/
The Word ‘Homosexual’ Is in the Bible by Mistake: The Explosive Documentary That Is Under Attack
The Word ‘Homosexual’ Is in the Bible by Mistake: The Explosive Documentary That Is Under Attack
LOVE THY NEIGHBOR
The documentary “1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture” claims that one human error 75 years ago stoked decades of homophobia and hate. Extremists don’t want you to see it.
By Kevin Fallon
November 7, 2022
The first time the word “homosexual” appeared in the Bible was in 1946. That year, a committee gathered to translate an updated English version of the book from the Greek. Religious scholars, priests, theologists, linguists, anthropologists, and activists have done decades of research and investigation into the instances where the word appears in the book. Their conclusion is that it was a mistranslation.
In other words, the Biblical assertion that homosexuality is a sin—the catalyst for an entire shift in culture, with political repercussions, religious implications, consequences for LGBT rights and acceptance, and, frankly, deadly results—was, they allege, a mistake.
As a new film asserts, it was “the misuse of a single word that changed the course of history.”
1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture is a new documentary directed by Sharon “Rocky” Roggio. Ahead of its premiere this week at the DOC NYC festival, it has, as one might expect, gone viral within the conservative and Christian communities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yly6Q0GbtFk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yly6Q0GbtFk
A grassroots campaign to promote the film on social media has gotten its official TikTok account more than 185,000 followers. That makes sense. For most people—practicing Christians or otherwise—what the film is stating is shocking.
There are layers to it: the realization that the Bible has been translated many times over the centuries, and that human error may have been involved in the process. That may be obvious, but it’s eye-opening. Moreover, there’s coming to terms with the notion that human error could be responsible for the stoking of homophobia—a mindset of hatred, oppression, and religious nationalism that has defined the last 75 years of our existence.
Before anyone has even seen the film, there has been an organized effort to attack and debunk the film’s claims. Roggio and others involved in the making of the documentary have received threats. Campaigns have been waged to get even innocuous social media posts taken down. An entire book was published to refute the evidence—even though the film has yet to be screened.
“The opposition is quite vocal about our film, trying to debunk it because they’re afraid,” Roggio tells The Daily Beast in an exclusive interview ahead of 1946’s New York premiere. “We’re literally unmooring them and pulling the anchors out from underneath.”
Those attacks are coming from all sides.
“We’ve been hit by the conservative audience,” Roggio says. “We’ve been hit by the atheist audience. We’ve been hit by LGBTQ people who have been hurt by the church and who have now left the church, because they feel that we are subscribing to religious supremacy by even playing along in this dialogue.”
1946 takes a journalistic, academic approach to substantiating these claims. Poring over thousands of historical documents, centuries of ancient texts, and Bible translations in many languages, the experts in the film conclude that two Greek words were mistranslated to mean homosexual. One more accurately means effeminate. The other connotes a person who was a sexual abuser and who had harmed someone.
As the film outlines, years after the translation, when the mistake was pointed out, the committee recognized and attempted to correct it. But, by the ’70s, the implications of those verses had become widespread. By the time the AIDS crisis arrived in the ’80s, that mindset was weaponized by the moral majority, particularly in the merging of politics and religion in the United States.
“A big point of our film has been biblical literalism,” Roggio says. “We do just think that it was a magical book that was just dropped down to us, but these are real people who have made these decisions that impact our real reality. People are going to feel unmoored by this idea that it’s man that has messed up, not God. As much as we are combating biblical liberalism, we want our conservative audience to journey with us, in the sense that this is not an attack on God. This is not an attack on the Bible. This is a real issue of a mistranslation.”
Before 1946 premieres at DOC NYC on Nov. 12, we spoke with Roggio about the work she did (along with scholars and activists Kathy Bullock and Ed Oxford) to meticulously substantiate the film’s claims, the challenge of getting through to a Christian community that refuses even to hear the evidence, and how a documentary like this could change the world.
I grew up in the church, but I am still someone who found the idea of “homosexual” being a mistranslation in the Bible to be shocking. What has been people’s response to this?
We’re talking about the biggest book in the world. This impacts the three largest religions in the world. This impacts everyone. And we don’t discuss these things. That was what intrigued me as someone who grew up in the church, was a victim of bad theology, and was discriminated against because I’m a member of LGBTQ community. Realizing that the word homosexual wasn’t in the Bible until 1946, that was a click for me. I think that it’s gonna be a click for a lot of people.
Even the basic principle that the Bibles we read were translated by a human, and there may have been a mistake in that translation—that’s a mind-blowing realization for people.
One of the biggest concerns that we see in America today is Christian nationalism and people using the Bible who are saying that it is inerrant. They are biblical literalists. It has sovereignty over us. It can’t be changed. The word is the word. That is dangerous. It’s dangerous for so many people. We see it playing out in our reality today, and I call that religious supremacy, really. My idea in finessing these themes is to hopefully get the conservative audience to join with us and be honest about this. Words have power and words have meaning. The way that we use the Bible and use these old texts is very important. So what we try to do is contextualize.
What is the goal of that contextualization?
Our movie is more than just theology. It’s history. It’s society. It’s politics. It’s law. It’s oppression. It’s how, again, these words have meaning. We as a group of people have had to negotiate the text. A group of people over time have had to pick and choose which verses stand out, which verses we follow—which verses play out in our land and our law. To really be an honest reader of Christian scripture, we have to find a way where we’re not oppressing people, where we’ve contextualized the text—we understand where it comes from and how it impacted a group of people.
When you’re introducing this idea, which is seismic and likely upsetting to a lot of people, how do you explain it to them at the most basic level?
1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture is about the first time the word “homosexual” appeared in the Bible. We had a team of researchers who wanted to ask the question: Who made this decision, and why? What was discovered, through a series of letters written by the translation committee that put the word “homosexual” in there, is that it was a mistake. Then it was discovered how the word “homosexual” went viral in print in the ’70s. That impacted the ’80s and the moral majority, and how we see the merger of politics and religion, specifically in America. What we now see today is the dangers of Christian nationalism, and it’s only grown.
Can you talk more specifically about the mistranslation of the word “homosexual” and what happened there?
We’re talking about a word, a medical term that has a connotation of a group of people that have an orientation, as opposed to what the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts are referring to, which is an aggressor, somebody who was an abuser—somebody who has abused someone else, and there is a victim on the other side. It’s a very different connotation. So that was my drive for making the movie, because now I have tangible evidence, letters written from the committee [acknowledging this].
This translation committee also has not only recognized the error but continues to rectify it and make their translations reflect the connotation of abusive behavior. Whereas now we see malice in the conservative committees, who since the ’80s have done the opposite. They say it refers to consensual acts, so it’s been amplified as homophobia because of this mistranslation.
From my experience, I know there are many Christians who are unmoving in their beliefs, who operate from a point of blind faith. What is it like to arrive with all of this evidence, research, and proof—even just an ask to listen to what the movie is alleging—but be met with that stubborn certitude?
It’s like hitting a wall. You get two kinds of Christians. You get people like my dad. [Roggio’s father is a pastor who appears in the film and repeatedly challenges its claims.] They want us to think they love us so much, that they’re just trying to give us the truth. And my dad is very kind and he’s never hurtful. But there are other people that I’ll see, especially on social media, who turn their fear into anger and then hatred. They’re vicious. A lot of what I see on social media and TikTok is the epitome of the phrase “There’s no love like Christian hate.” They’re just so disgusting.
Is it ever productive? What is it like to encounter that, on a human level?
We have reached a couple of people who actually will listen and watch the movie. But there are so many people who are so close-minded. It’s heartbreaking that people aren’t even open to recognizing us as human. It’s just dehumanizing. With the church being comfortable othering people—it’s not us, it’s you—it’s easy for them to dehumanize the LGBTQ person. A key barrier is that even some of these theologians that will put out this harmful rhetoric, they don’t have relationships with LGBTQ people.
Do you think that makes a difference?
One reason why I wanted to put my dad in the movie and my story in the movie is because we are a prime example of that “hitting the wall.” Here’s an example of someone who I love very much, who is my biggest oppressor. There’s no getting through to him at all. And so the other thing is, you know, we’re not going to change everybody’s minds, and that’s OK. But at the end of the day, my dad needs to keep his beliefs where they belong, and stay out where my beliefs are.
I don’t impede his equal rights and he doesn’t need to impede mine. I’m doing this to provide equal protection for everyone under the law, because if we don’t get a handle on this now, with the Bible in this country, we’re all in trouble—no matter what you believe.
Jeremy Boland, Assistant Principal of Cos Cob Elementary School in Greenwich, Connecticut, has been placed on administrative leave after a Project Veritas video showed him confessing to illegally discriminating against prospective teachers who were Catholic or over 30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD2kM39S4d4
https://www.yahoo.com/news/connecticut-teachers-union-circles-wagons-170559875.html
Connecticut Teachers’ Union Circles the Wagons after Undercover Video Reveals Anti-Catholic Discrimination
By Caroline Downey
September 1, 2022
The Connecticut chapter of the largest teachers’ union in the country urged its district leaders to stonewall “unvetted” reporters who ask about a viral video which shows a Greenwich assistant principal admitting to discriminating against Catholic, conservative, and elderly job applicants.
After the video was released by Project Veritas on Wednesday, Greenwich Public Schools notified families and staff Wednesday evening that Cos Cob Elementary assistant principal Jeremy Boland was placed on administrative leave while an investigation is underway.
“We have been alerted that Project Veritas has dropped a hit piece using an administrator in Greenwich. While a teacher was not used(so far) the narrative is that of hiring liberal teachers to indoctrinate students, so it is not kind to educators,” Kate Dias, president of the Connecticut Education Association wrote in an email obtained by National Review.
“Please do not search this,” Dias said of the Project Veritas exposé. “Veritas does not need our hits to drive traffic to the site. We will get a clean copy of the video tomorrow from NEA and will share it out as soon as it received.”
She instructed union leaders not to speak to reporters “that have not been vetted,” insisting that they “should not comment on the Greenwich video at all.”
“We know that Veritas uses this tactic to trap educators and union members into making incriminating statements. Don’t feed the beast,” she said. Dias implored union heads to spread the word that undercover journalists from the independent outlet are “lurking around.”
“Keep meetings closed and ensure your members are the only people present,” she said. “Remind your members that they could be the next victim of a hit piece if they aren’t fully aware of who they make comments to and what they say.
Boland told the Project Veritas reporter that he oversees the hiring of faculty and rejects applicants who espouse conservative or Catholic beliefs, are older than 30, or sympathize with concerns about parental rights in education. Instead, he recruits progressive instructors so that they may incorporate their ideology into classroom curricula in a “subtle” way.
“You don’t hire them,” he said of Catholic teaching candidates. “Because if someone is raised hardcore Catholic, it’s like they’re brainwashed. You can never change their mindset. So, when you ask them to consider something new, like a new opportunity, or ‘you have to think about this differently,’ they’re stuck — just rigid.”
“Believe it or not, the open-minded, more progressive teachers are actually more savvy about delivering a Democratic message without really ever having to mention politics,” Borland said.
In this video from 2005, Whoopi Goldberg explains why she’s against censoring old Looney Tunes cartoons that have racial stereotypes. I agree with her. And I’m against suspending her for her recent comments about the Holocaust. And I’m Jewish.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
February 2, 2022
Whoopi Goldberg has just been suspended from The View for her recent comments about the Holocaust.
I’m Jewish, and I’m against her suspension. I support free speech for everyone, and for all points of view.
In the past, Goldberg herself has defended free speech for old Looney Tunes cartoons that have racial stereotypes. This video is from The Looney Tunes Collection Vol. 3, which was released in 2005:
I’m Jewish, and I think it’s ridiculous that anyone would be upset by what Whoopi Goldberg said about the Holocaust
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
February 1, 2022
The people who insist on getting offended and upset by everything are saying that Whoopi Goldberg should be fired for her recent comments about the Holocaust.
I say those people are a bunch of totalitarian idiots.
I support anyone’s right to express their opinion on any subject.
I support Whoopi Goldberg’s right to say what she said about the Holocaust.
And I also support the right of people to say that Goldberg should be fired for her comments about the Holocaust. I disagree with what they say. But I do support their right to say it.
And I also support free speech for people who disagree with me.
I support free speech for everyone.
Free speech is awesome!
In California, some public schools are designating some rooms as prayer rooms for Muslims
California Schools Prepare for Thousands of Afghan Refugee Students
By Diana Lambert
September 21, 2021
In California, home to the largest number of Afghan refugees in the country, school officials are preparing for an influx of students who fled Afghanistan with their families after the Taliban seized power in the country last month.
Schools are especially busy in Sacramento and Fremont, which have two of the largest Afghan communities in the state. Over 40% of the nation’s Afghan refugees have resettled in the Sacramento region in recent years, according to Jessie Tientcheu, chief executive officer of Opening Doors, a resettlement agency based in Sacramento.
Elk Grove Unified School District began offering culturally appropriate meals and setting aside rooms in many of its middle and high schools for prayer during Muslim holidays in preparation for the additional Afghan students it expects in the next month. San Juan Unified is offering Saturday school for English learners, and Fremont Unified is planning to hire more translators.
‘No Gestapo Here!’: Polish Pastor Tosses Canadian Police Out of Good Friday Church Service
‘No Gestapo Here!’: Polish Pastor Tosses Canadian Police Out of Good Friday Church Service
By Beth Baumann
April 4, 2021
Calgary police were met with resistance when they attempted to shut down a Good Friday church service for violating COVID restrictions. Artur Pawlowski, the pastor at The Cave of Adullam, told police to leave and not return until they have a search warrant in hand.
“You come back with a warrant,” Pawlowski said. “Out! Out! Out!”
Police were hesitant to leave but the pastor wasn’t backing down. “Out of this property, you Nazis!” Pawlowski shouted. “Gestapo is not allowed here!”
As police left the property, Pawlowski told them “not to come back, you Nazi psychopaths.”
“Unbelievable sick, evil people. Intimidating people in a church during the Passover! You Gestapo, Nazi, communist fascists! Don’t you dare come back here!” he shouted as they walked away.
The pastor turned the camera to face him.
“Can you imagine those psychopaths? Passover, the holiest Christian festival in a year and they’re coming to intimidate Christians during the holiest festival? Unbelievable,” Pawlowski said. “What is wrong with those sick psychopaths? It’s beyond me. Wow. Wow. How dare they?”
“Unbelievable. We’re living in a total takeover of the government with their thugs, goons, the brown shirts, the Gestapo wannabe dictators,” an incredulous Pawlowski said. “Coming to the church armed with guns and tasers and handcuffs to intimidate during Passover celebration? Well, I guess that’s what it is, they want to enslave us all like the Egyptians did. They want to be the Pharaohs of today, that’s what they’re doing. Unbelievable. People, if you don’t stand up, wake up, wow. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow.”
The pastor warned about Germany, where “wannabe Hitlers are already ruling” and fascism is reigning once again. He took particular issue with the country’s lockdown.
He referenced the COVID passports that are being talked about and potentially implemented.
“If you will not be vaccinated like a dog or a cat, you will not be able to buy or sell. You will not be able to go to school or work. Is that the future you want?” Pawlowski asked. “Is that what you want for your children and your grandchildren?”
According to the pastor, the time to stand up and push back against the out-of-control government is now.
Hanukkah Celebrated in Public in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for the First Time, After Trump Peace Deal
Hanukkah Celebrated in Public in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for the First Time, After Trump Peace Deal
By Joel B. Pollak
December 11, 2020
Jews observed the holiday of Hanukkah (or Chanukah) in public for the first time in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), on Thursday, following the peace deal between Israel and the UAE under the auspices of U.S. President Donald Trump.
A “lavish” Hanukkah party was thrown at the foot of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, on Thursday evening.
https://twitter.com/Ami_Magazine/status/1337409716864036865
https://twitter.com/Ami_Magazine/status/1337409716864036865
Hanukkah is a post-Biblical festival that celebrates the victory of the Jews in ancient Israel over the occupying forces of the Syrian-Greek empire in the second century B.C. Religious Jews fought a rebellion against Hellenization and reclaimed the Holy Temple. Upon reconquering it, they found only enough oil to last for one night, but it miraculously burned for eight.
Traditionally, Jews observe the festival by lighting a menorah, or chanukiah, with eight branches, adding one light for each night. (The ninth light is called the shamash, and serves to ignite the other lights, but is not considered one of them.)
https://twitter.com/DrAlsarrah/status/1337101068598173700
https://twitter.com/kaisos1987/status/1337087677343145988
https://twitter.com/UaeMasami/status/1337119855116488708
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1337424023433728004
Hanukkah is the only Jewish holiday that is meant to be observed as publicly as possible. Families are encouraged to light their menorahs near their doorways or windows, for example. But that was not possible in Dubai until very recently.
The Abraham Accords, signed by Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, and the U.S. in September, established peace and normalized relations between the Jewish state and its Arab partners. Similar agreements with Sudan and with Morocco soon followed.
Since then, Jews have been traveling to Dubai — to the extent possible under coronavirus restrictions — to enjoy the famed city’s attractions, and to host a variety of communal gatherings, including several boisterous Jewish weddings:
https://twitter.com/TheBelaaz/status/1333419118196822018
The menorah at the Burj Khalifa was erected by the local Chabad rabbi, part of a campaign of public Chanukah celebrations launched by the late Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Chabad reports an “exploding” number of Israelis in Dubai. Rabbi Levi Duchman has been in the country since 2015, helping to lay the groundwork for what has followed.
Splitting 5 to 4, Supreme Court Backs Religious Challenge to Cuomo’s Virus Shutdown Order
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/26/us/supreme-court-coronavirus-religion-new-york.html
Splitting 5 to 4, Supreme Court Backs Religious Challenge to Cuomo’s Virus Shutdown Order
In earlier rulings related to coronavirus restrictions in California and Nevada, the court had taken the opposite approach. But its membership has changed since then.
By Adam Liptak
November 26, 2020
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court late Wednesday night barred restrictions on religious services in New York that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo had imposed to combat the coronavirus.
The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the court’s three liberal members in dissent. The order was the first in which the court’s newest member, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, played a decisive role.
The court’s ruling was at odds with earlier ones concerning churches in California and Nevada. In those cases, decided in May and July, the court allowed the states’ governors to restrict attendance at religious services.
The Supreme Court’s membership has changed since then, with Justice Barrett succeeding Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in September. The vote in the earlier cases was also 5 to 4, but in the opposite direction, with Chief Justice Roberts joining Justice Ginsburg and the other three members of what was then the court’s four-member liberal wing.
In an unsigned opinion, the majority said Mr. Cuomo’s restrictions violated the First Amendment’s protection of the free exercise of religion.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said Mr. Cuomo had treated secular activities more favorably than religious ones.
“It is time — past time — to make plain that, while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues, and mosques,” Justice Gorsuch wrote.
The court’s order addressed two applications: one filed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, the other by two synagogues, an Orthodox Jewish organization and two individuals. The applications both said Mr. Cuomo’s restrictions violated constitutional protections for the free exercise of religion, and the one from the synagogues added that Mr. Cuomo had “singled out a particular religion for blame and retribution for an uptick in a societywide pandemic.”
The restrictions are strict. In shifting “red zones,” where the coronavirus risk is highest, no more than 10 people may attend religious services. In slightly less dangerous “orange zones,” which are also fluid, attendance is capped at 25. This applies even to churches that can seat more than 1,000 people.
The measures were prompted in large part by rising coronavirus cases in Orthodox Jewish areas but covered all “houses of worship.”
In a letter to the court last Thursday, Barbara D. Underwood, New York’s solicitor general, said that revisions to the color-coded zones effective Friday meant that “none of the diocese’s churches will be affected by the gathering-size limits it seeks to enjoin.” The next day, she told the court that the two synagogues were also no longer subject to the challenged restrictions.
Lawyers for the diocese questioned “the fluid nature of these modifications and the curious timing of the governor’s latest modification,” and they urged the court to decide the case notwithstanding the revisions.
Lawyers for the synagogues said Mr. Cuomo should not be allowed to “feign retreat” when “he retains the unfettered discretion to reimpose those restrictions on them at a moment’s notice.”
In a dissenting opinion on Wednesday, Chief Justice Roberts said the court had acted rashly.
“Numerical capacity limits of 10 and 25 people, depending on the applicable zone, do seem unduly restrictive,” he wrote. “It is not necessary, however, for us to rule on that serious and difficult question at this time.”
“The governor might reinstate the restrictions,” he wrote. “But he also might not. And it is a significant matter to override determinations made by public health officials concerning what is necessary for public safety in the midst of a deadly pandemic. If the governor does reinstate the numerical restrictions the applicants can return to this court, and we could act quickly on their renewed applications.”
In a second dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Elena Kagan, said Mr. Cuomo’s restrictions were sensible.
“Free religious exercise is one of our most treasured and jealously guarded constitutional rights,” she wrote. “States may not discriminate against religious institutions, even when faced with a crisis as deadly as this one. But those principles are not at stake today.”
“The Constitution does not forbid states from responding to public health crises through regulations that treat religious institutions equally or more favorably than comparable secular institutions, particularly when those regulations save lives,” Justice Sotomayor wrote. “Because New York’s Covid-19 restrictions do just that, I respectfully dissent.”
The larger question in the two cases was whether government officials or judges should strike the balance between public health and religious exercise.
In a concurring opinion in the case from California in May, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that government officials should not “be subject to second-guessing by an unelected federal judiciary, which lacks the background, competence and expertise to assess public health and is not accountable to the people.”
But in a recent speech to a conservative legal group, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who had dissented in the earlier cases, said courts had an important role to play in protecting religious freedom, pandemic or no.
“Whenever fundamental rights are restricted, the Supreme Court and other courts cannot close their eyes,” Justice Alito said this month, rejecting the view that “whenever there is an emergency, executive officials have unlimited, unreviewable discretion.”
In ruling against the diocese, Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn said the case was difficult. But he concluded that he would defer to the governor.
“If the court issues an injunction and the state is correct about the acuteness of the threat currently posed by hot-spot neighborhoods,” the judge wrote, “the result could be avoidable death on a massive scale like New Yorkers experienced in the spring.”
In refusing to block the governor’s order while the two appeals went forward, a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit drew on Chief Justice Roberts’s concurring opinion in the California case. Since the restrictions on churches were less severe than those on comparable secular gatherings, the majority wrote in an unsigned opinion, they did not run afoul of constitutional protections for religious freedom.
In dissent, Judge Michael H. Park said Mr. Cuomo’s order discriminated against houses of worship because it allowed businesses like liquor stores and pet shops to remain open without capacity restrictions.
Chief Justice Roberts rejected a similar argument in the California case. The order there, he wrote, “exempts or treats more leniently only dissimilar activities, such as operating grocery stores, banks and laundromats, in which people neither congregate in large groups nor remain in close proximity for extended periods.”
Judge Park responded that the order in the California case, coming as it did in the context of an emergency application that was decided in summary fashion, had limited force as a precedent. Moreover, he wrote, it had been “decided during the early stages of the pandemic, when local governments were struggling to prevent the health care system from being overwhelmed.”
In asking the Supreme Court to step in, lawyers for the diocese argued that its “spacious churches” were safer than many “secular businesses that can open without restrictions, such as pet stores and broker’s offices and banks and bodegas.” An hourlong Mass, the diocese’s brief said, is “shorter than many trips to a supermarket or big-box store, not to mention a 9-to-5 job.”
Ms. Underwood responded that religious services pose special risks. “There is a documented history of religious gatherings serving as Covid-19 superspreader events,” she wrote.
Indoor religious services, Ms. Underwood wrote, “tend to involve large numbers of people from different households arriving simultaneously; congregating as an audience for an extended period of time to talk, sing or chant; and then leaving simultaneously — as well as the possibility that participants will mingle in close proximity throughout.”
Still, she wrote, religious services are subject to fewer restrictions than comparable secular ones. “Among other things, in both red and orange zones, casinos, bowling alleys, arcades, movie theaters and fitness centers are closed completely,” she wrote.
And here is still even more proof that the lockdown is a scam: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio does not understand math
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
May 21, 2020
Here’s another one that I’ll be adding the next time I update my list, which you can read here: Here are 70 reasons why I’m against the COVID-19 lockdowns
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio does not understand math.
According to the CDC, for children who contract COVID-19, the death rate is zero:
https://www.businessinsider.com/most-us-coronavirus-deaths-ages-65-older-cdc-report-2020-3
And here’s a recent news headline:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/risk-coronavirus-spreading-schools-extremely-194143983.html
Risk of coronavirus spreading in schools ‘extremely low’, study finds
Despite those two pieces of information, this is a recent tweet by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio:
https://twitter.com/NYCMayor/status/1262509072051470340
The text of de Blasio’s tweet says: (the bolding is mine)
“Earlier today the NYPD shut down a Yeshiva conducting classes with as many as 70 children. I can’t stress how dangerous this is for our young people. We’re issuing a Cease and Desist Order and will make sure we keep our communities and our kids safe.”
Clearly, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio does not understand math.
Note from Daniel Alman: If you like this blog post that I wrote, you can buy my books from amazon, and/or donate to me via PayPal, using the links below:
Note from Daniel Alman: I’d like to recommend that you visit Whatfinger News. It’s a really awesome website.
New York City, controlled by racist Democrats, is using COVID-19 as an excuse for the police to harass racial minorities
New York City is controlled by Democrats. It’s one of the bluest cities in the country. The mayor is a Democrat. Of the 51 members of the New York City Council, 48 are Democrats. In the 2016 election for U.S. president, 79% of the voters in New York City voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton. That makes New York City one of the bluest, most Democratic controlled cities in the country.
Democrats, as we know, are the party of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow, and school segregation.
After a Democratic U.S. Senator named Robert Byrd started his own chapter of the Ku Klux Klan and recruited 150 of his friends and family members to join it, Democrat Hillary Clinton referred to him as “my friend and mentor.” After Clinton praised the Ku Klux Klan leader, 79% of the voters in New York City voted for Clinton for U.S. President.
Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the racist, Democratic controlled city of New York is using COVID-19 as an excuse for police officers to harass racial minorities.
This recent article by NBC News it titled
Violent encounter in New York City prompts concerns about unequal policing of social distancing
The article’s first two paragraphs state:
A violent encounter between a New York City police officer and a bystander that police said began as an attempt to enforce social distancing rules has prompted concerns about unequal policing.
New York City’s public advocate Jumaane Williams posted pictures on Twitter on Sunday — one of swarms of white people sitting in parks and three images from what appeared to depict encounters between police and people of color.
This is the tweet that the article is referring to:
The same NBC News article also states:
Last week, de Blasio personally oversaw the dispersal of a crowd of mourners in the Williamsburg neighborhood at the funeral of a Hasidic rabbi, that he and the commissioner said drew thousands of people.
Clearly, the racist Democrats who control New York City don’t think the First Amendment’s protections of freedom of assembly and freedom of religion applies to minorities such as Jews.
It is very clear and obvious that New York City, controlled by racist Democrats, is using COVID-19 as an excuse to harass racial and religious minorities.
Mississippi police issue $500 tickets to drive-in church service attendees
Mississippi police issue $500 tickets to drive-in church service attendees
April 12, 2020
GREENVILLE, Miss. (WJW) — Police in Mississippi issued $500 tickets to parishioners attending drive-in church services on Wednesday.
In wake of the coronavirus outbreak, Temple Baptist Church began running its services using radio frequencies that can only be heard within a one-block radius of the church, WLBT reports.
On Wednesday, their drive-in church service was shut down by local police.
“The police started coming up and we said, well, we think we’re in our rights. And they started issuing tickets, $500 tickets, it may have been 50 — I mean 20 to 30 tickets. Everybody got one, it wasn’t per car. Me and my wife was both in the car together and both of us got tickets,” longtime parishioner Lee Gordon told the news outlet.
Greenville Mayor Erick Simmons claims the drive-in church services pose health violations.
“You’re there for a 2-hour-period of time, folks want to use the bathroom, or go potty, and the little girls want to go use it. Now folks are in and out and they are facing this invisible giant called COVID-19,” Mayor Simmons reportedly said. “What we’ve been asking for in the state is bold leadership from our state, and partnership. If we have clear direction, we wouldn’t have issues that have evolved across the state.”
Another church in the area, who experienced a similar situation, has filed a lawsuit against the mayor saying his order is ” unconstitutional, illegal and must be withdrawn.”
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 