Daily Headlines | Tuesday December 14, 2021

Good Morning! 

The Bible commands us to “Outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10). 

Yet, respect of the sacred and extending honor to others are practices in increasingly short supply these days, especially on network television: 

Saturday Night Live’s Blasphemous Nativity 

From The Daily Citizen: 

I don’t watch Saturday Night Live – probably like most of you, our readers. 

But you should know a sketch this past week titled “Hip-Hop Nativity” started with two glittery Christmas pageant producers deciding “times are changin’” and “we can’t do the normal, boring pageant thing this year.” It’s “too old” and “too boomer.” 

So, they start by teaching Joseph how to do a hip-hop “pimp walk” … and that’s all I could stomach watching. 

But apparently the not-funny-sketch included a twerking actor portraying baby Jesus and his mother, Mary, twirling on a stripper pole. 

As our friend Todd Starnes observes, SNL would never produce similar “skits about the Prophet Mohammad for their Ramadan show.” 

But the Son of God? He’s fair game for mockers. 

It’s easy to just get angry and simmer about such dark sacrilege.  

In addition to responding to voicing your objections to NBC, you can also pray for the actors, writers and management of NBC’s Saturday Night Live. Ask God to open blind eyes, turn them from darkness to light and save them from sin.  

After all, that is why Jesus came to this broken world. That’s still Good News, even in the midst of depravity and emptiness. 

Maryland Can’t Discriminate Against Christian School Because of its Beliefs, Federal Court Rules

From The Daily Citizen: 

Government hostility to a Christian school’s statement of beliefs in Maryland resulted in a ban from a state scholarship program for needy students, as well as a demand by the state for a refund of previous funds paid to the school. That, ruled a federal judge, violated the First Amendment rights of the school. 

Bethel Christian Academy, located in Savage, Maryland, is a private, preschool through eighth-grade educational institution that is unabashedly Christian and outwardly shares its Christian beliefs with prospective students. 

The State of Maryland began a scholarship program in 2016 called Broadening Options and Opportunities for Students Today (BOOST) which provides money to eligible students to attend private schools. Only students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch programs are eligible. 

What I’ve Learned Rescuing My Daughter From Her Transgender Fantasy 

From The Daily Signal: 

My daughter’s story is no longer novel. Stories like it are occurring in your state, your town, and perhaps even on your street. Gender dysphoria—the incongruence between the mind and the body—moves stealthily and quickly to invade girls and boys alike. 

But this isn’t a cautionary tale. It’s a warning. 

My daughter was an ultrafeminine girl since birth. She insisted that her room be painted pink, and she refused to wear anything but dresses until third grade. She avoided her older brother’s toys and sports, choosing tea sets and Shopkins, a series of tiny, collectible toys. 

Her favorite activity was to slip into my closet and don my few sparkly clothes and shiniest of heels. She rejected sports in favor of art and sewing. 

Nuns and Catholic hospitals head to court over HHS transgender mandate

From The Gazette: 

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to hear arguments Wednesday over whether a Health and Human Services mandate can force religious-based hospitals to perform sex-reassignment procedures that could cause “harm” to patients, plaintiffs say. 

Earlier this year, President Joe Biden’s administration restored federal protections for gay and transgender people, allowing them to sue for “sex discrimination” in healthcare. The Religious Sisters of Mercy, along with other faith-based hospitals and medical providers, argue its facilities “routinely provide top-notch care to transgender patients,” contending the HHS mandate should not force it to provide potentially “harmful” procedures such as sex-reassignment surgery for minors. 

“Those fighting the mandate are Catholic doctors, hospitals, and clinics who joyfully serve all patients regardless of sex or gender identity,” according to a statement from Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which served as legal counsel for the plaintiffs. 

Despite two lower federal courts striking down the mandate as a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Biden administration appealed two previous cases. 

Not Just Bowling Alone 

Focus on the Family’s Tim Goeglein writes in The Epoch Times: 

With more people delaying or foregoing marriage, as well as choosing to have children without being married, it becomes clear what the long-term ramifications are for children and society. 

But there is hope and it is not too late to reverse the damage that has been wrought. That hope comes through faith and commitment, and not government solutions. As James Q. Wilson wrote, “The right and best way for a culture to restore itself is for it to be rebuilt, not from the top down by government policies, but by the bottom up by personal decisions. On the side of that effort, we can find churches – or at least many of them – and the common experience of adults that the essence of marriage is not sex, or money, or even children: it is commitment.” 

If we are to reverse the tragic decline in marriages and families, and the growing number of adults choosing to “opt out” and go their own way, we must restore the essence of marriage. That essence, as Wilson says, is the commitment of two people to form a lifelong bond that will bring personal and corporate stability. And faith, as studies done by organizations such as the Pew Research Forum have shown, plays a major role in developing and sustaining that bond. 

The fruit of such commitment will be personal restoration for those who are lonely, for children who will know the love of two parents, and for a society that will no longer have to place government-subsidized band-aids to fix a problem that can only be repaired by faith and personal dedication. Most of all, it restores hope for all to live a life built on a solid foundation of faith and family and enjoy the life-changing results. 

Proposed North Carolina CRT ban a model for avoiding censorship, education expert says

From The Washington Examiner: 

A new report on state measures to ban critical race theory said legislatures should look to North Carolina as a model for proposing legislation that both bans the controversial theory and avoids censorship. 

The report authored by the American Enterprise Institute’s Max Eden explained that there are three approaches being deployed in legislative efforts to ban critical race theory in public schools, but it said bills that ban the promotion of the theory are the model legislation. 

Critical race theory says American institutions and culture are fundamentally and systemically racist and actively oppress racial minorities. Critical race theorists say that to oppose systemic racism, one must be “anti-racist.” 

The issue of critical race theory in public schools has generated substantial controversy nationwide over the past year as parent groups have organized against school officials to push back against the inclusion of aspects of the theory in public school curriculum. 

RELATED: 

Texas school board tries censuring conservative members: ‘Naked political hit job’ 

From Fox News:   

Five members of a Texas school board seemed on the verge of censuring their two conservative colleagues in a move that the conservatives say would reverse the will of the voters in a “naked political hit job” – one in a series of controversies the board is facing. 

Amy Weir, the president of the Round Rock Independent School District (ISD) Board of Trustees, agreed to place on the agenda two censure resolutions against her colleagues, Mary Bone and Danielle Weston, following their complaints that the school district had violated the Texas Open Meetings Act by keeping members of the public out of a contentious school board meeting on Sept. 14. The resolutions came just days after two fathers got arrested for allegedly disrupting school board meetings, including that Sept. 14 meeting. 

How a Handful of Republicans Killed the Female Draft

From National Review:   

A reform that would have required women to register for the draft is dead, at least for now. The measure, which would have expanded the language of the Selective Service from “all men” to “all Americans,” initially sailed through with bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate versions of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). But in what Politico described as “a stunning turnaround,” a small group of conservatives in both chambers whipped up enough last-minute opposition to kill the provision’s momentum — a major win for military concerns surrounding combat readiness and social-conservative concerns regarding the cultural breakdown in distinctions between men and women. 

The push for expanding the draft beyond men began soon after women were made eligible for combat roles in the military back in 2015. At the time, Republican opposition to women in combat was tepid; although some voiced concerns about the Obama Department of Defense rule change’s leading inevitably to a female-draft requirement, there was no coordinated GOP effort to act on those concerns. Many implicitly accepted the decision: “I’ve sort of, I guess, evolved on this issue, quite frankly,” Lindsey Graham told reporters. “If the military community feels that women are capable of doing this, then I will not stand in the way.” 

That deficit in serious conservative opposition gave the draft-women movement a sense of inevitability. “This is an issue that the leftists have wanted to have as a feather in their hat, to get to so-called ‘equity’ with respect to the draft, irrespective of what that means for the quality of our military and irrespective of the desires of millions of Americans who do not want to see their daughters or their wives or sisters or mothers drafted,” Representative Chip Roy (R., Texas), who played a pivotal role in killing the female-draft requirement in this year’s NDAA, told National Review. “That’s been a thing that has been percolating for a while.” 

VIDEO: How to Breakup Like a Grown-up

Focus on the Family’s Lisa Anderson on Fox DC: 

December has been branded “Dump Month.” People are looking for a new start in January, so many couples are splitting up during this usually merry time of year.  

Click here to watch the TV interview 

Franklin Graham Applauds Settlement With Scottish Trust After It Cancelled Venue for ‘God Loves You Tour’

From The Daily Citizen: 

Cheers to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA), which settled with The Robertson Trust (TRT), in Stirling, Scotland, after TRT cancelled bookings of its conference center facilities for Franklin Graham’s “God Loves You Tour” in 2020. 

TRT, Scotland’s largest independent grant-making charity, published an apology to both the BGEA and Stirling Free Church (SFC), and it will pay the organizations £20,000 (about $26,550) towards expenses. 

Graham, president and CEO of the BGEA, responded to the news, “The positive resolution of cases in Scotland, England and Wales sends a clear message – religious freedom isn’t dead.” 

According to the Christian Institute, the United Kingdom legal group that represented BGEA, this is the fifth legal victory against U.K. venues that cancelled bookings. The cancellations were largely due to Graham’s beliefs about marriage, sexuality and sin. 

Great things can come from community colleges 

From the Colorado Springs Gazette (Paul Batura): 

In recent days, college board scores have been arriving in homes as high schoolers plot and plan their educational futures. Our oldest son reported a friend’s lament, specifically that their result might relegate them to a community college instead of a prestigious four-year university.  

Junior college has provided millions of individuals with a ladder they’ve climbed to their dreams and in some cases, the literal and metaphorical stars.

Astronaut Eileen Collins, the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle, got her start at Corning Community College in New York.

In Hollywood, Walt Disney, Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman and George Lucas began at junior colleges.

Jackie Robinson, the Baseball Hall of Famer who became the first Black to play in the Major Leagues, attended Pasadena City College before transferring and starring at UCLA.

History demonstrates that great things often come from humble beginnings. Giant leaps are only achieved after millions of small steps, many of which are never seen or fully appreciated by anyone but the person taking them. Every dream doesn’t always come true — but it’s true that junior colleges have proven to be sturdy rungs to climb and clasp on our upward journey through life.