The US Supreme Court has decided not to hear an appeal from
a Christian photographer who was heavily fined for refusing to photograph a gay
wedding. The case had reached the Supreme Court of the state of New Mexico,
which ruled against the photographer, saying that it was “the price of
citizenship” that she must offer her services equally to all, even at the cost
of relinquishing her religious convictions. However, the US Supreme Court is
likely to discuss and pass judgment on the issue in the near future because at
least three similar cases are waiting to be accepted or rejected.
Sam Childers, the “Machine Gun Preacher”, has published his
schedule for his forthcoming UK tour. He’ll be at Revival Church in Stalybridge
& New Mills on 25 & 26 April; Hither Green Baptist Church, London on 27
April; Hope Church, Musselburgh on 28 April; Aberdeen (venue TBC) on April 29th;
Harehills Baptist Church, Leeds on May 4th;
and also in Tipton (W. Midlands), Conwy, Stockport and Dewsbury. God’s Garage
in Dewsbury will see the first UK screening of a new documentary about Childers’
work.
A local newspaper in England inadvertently uncovered a large
silent opposition to gay marriage. On the day when gay marriage became legal in
England, the Bristol Post published a picture of two men kissing on its front
page. It received only nine complaints, but sales dropped by “thousands.” The
editor has made an appeal on the Internet for people to tell him what they
dislike about gay marriage.
Another Christian couple have been sentenced to death for
blasphemy in Pakistan. Their offence was sending a text message that insulted
the prophet Mohammed. The couple say that the message came from a phone that
had previously been lost; the couple’s lawyer said that a bogus SIM card was
presented as evidence, and that the complainant, who is leader of the local
mosque, had been involved in a dispute with the couple and had threatened them
with the death penalty.
In Italy, an attempt to make “diversity education” standard
in Italy’s schools has been defeated. However, the same work seems to be
proceeding at local level; an educational group in the province of Florence has
secured a small grant to “make a representation of elastic gender roles” and to
“promote the use of personal preferences with respect to rejection of
pre-established patterns of gender.” Parents in Pontassieve, Tuscany have
launched a campaign against the project, quoting the Italian Constitution and
the European Convention on Human rights
that both say “public education … must respect the right of parents to ensure
such education is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical
convictions.”
A new counselling website has been set up by a group of professional health care chaplains.
ChaplainsOnHand.org is available to anyone seeking help, though it is
specifically geared to health care. A telephone service is also available.
In technology news, a widely circulated story about a
computer virus called “Heartbleed” that requires people to change their
passwords has turned out to be true. The virus affects Web servers, so anyone
who has bought anything on the Internet in the past two years is advised to change
their passwords.
And finally, the National Folk festival of Australia has
written a guide to help people distinguish bluegrass and Celtic music. “Celtic
songs are about whisky, food and struggle. Bluegrass songs are about God,
mother and the girl who did me wrong. If the girl isn’t dead by the third
verse, it ain’t Bluegrass. If everyone dies, it’s Celtic.”
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