New educational standards introduced last month in England
and Wales require academies, free
schools and independent schools to “actively promote” the rights defined in the
Equality Act 2010. In a commissioned legal opinion, a senior barrister has said
that this opens the door for schools to be sued over what they teach by “disgruntled
pupils, parents and campaigners.” The standards were introduced in response to
the “Trojan Horse” scandal at Islamic schools in Birmingham; the Christian
Institute had previously protested to the Government that these standards were
a disproportionate response. No-one has yet commented on the standard of English
or the split infinitive in the standards themselves.
Meanwhile, calls for compulsory sex education for children
in Scotland, including homosexuality and transsexualism, from a lobby group
called Sexpression:UK have been strongly criticised by a MSP and by a Free
Church minister. The latter said ‘It is an absolute breach of human rights … it
is a Trojan horse which will be used to indoctrinate out children into [a] particular
sexual ethics and philosophy.”
In Texas, a law requiring abortion clinics to upgrade
facilities or close down has been enacted by the Appeal Court after a judge
delayed it. There are now only eight abortion clinics open in the whole of
Texas. Meanwhile, a petition has been started against a plan to co-locate an abortion
clinic in London with a GP’s surgery. The petition states, “A doctor’s surgery
should be a place to help people get better, not to kill human life.”
A new reality show on US TV has been given permission to
film inside three convents as it follows five young women who are deciding
whether to become nuns. The Sisterhood will show its first episode on November
25th.
The couple who owned the Christian bakery in Oregon that was
fined for refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding have been forced to close
their bakery after gay activists pressurised every wedding vendor who they did
business with. The husband described these actions as “economic terrorism.”
They are also facing further legal action after a complaint was filed with the
Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries that they had violated the civil rights
of the lesbian couple, which could cost them $150,000 in damages.
The film Left Behind’s opening night has left it … behind. A
popular website that combines scores from different reviewers gave it a score
of 4 out of 100 (for comparison, “Space Chimps II: Zartog Strikes Back” got 11
out of 100). Its theological accuracy is also doubtful even for Christians who
believe in a pre-Tribulation Rapture; the film posits that “several million
people worldwide” have been raptured, which is a very low percentage of the
more than 2 billion Christians in the world today. Meanwhile, “The Song” which
I reviewed recently opened in the USA with a respectable average of $1,672 per
cinema (16th best overall for the weekend) and another low-budget
Christian film has just been released; ”Believe Me” is a comedy/drama about a student
who needs to raise funds for his tuition fees and so decides to set up a fake
charity and fleece the church crowd (but unsurprisingly, things don’t go
entirely as planned).
The third in my series of Facebook tips concerns ‘likes’.
Facebook’s terms of service allow your photo to be used for advertising by any
group you have ‘liked’ or by any shop or restaurant you have ‘checked in’ at.
Unfortunately, the only way to stop this is to ‘unlike’ groups, companies or
retail establishments (who might advertise on Facebook) one by one; click to the down arrow next to
the globe, then Activity Log, then ‘Likes’ on the left hand side.
And finally, Kim Jong-un, the dictatorial leader of North Korea, recently missed a session of the Supreme People’s Assembly for the first time since 2011, leading to speculation of a coup on social media. However, a South Korean newspaper has given an alternate explanation: he is recovering from surgery after fracturing both ankles. The newspaper further reported that the ankle fractures were largely due to the dictator’s obesity; he is known to be very fond of imported Emmenthal cheese, and to have gained weight rapidly recently.
And finally, Kim Jong-un, the dictatorial leader of North Korea, recently missed a session of the Supreme People’s Assembly for the first time since 2011, leading to speculation of a coup on social media. However, a South Korean newspaper has given an alternate explanation: he is recovering from surgery after fracturing both ankles. The newspaper further reported that the ankle fractures were largely due to the dictator’s obesity; he is known to be very fond of imported Emmenthal cheese, and to have gained weight rapidly recently.
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