The California Assembly has voted in favour of a Bill to ban the sale of books that address helping people overcome unwanted same-sex attractions, and that may even extend as far as banning the Bible. California had already become the first state to ban any counselling (for children or adults, mandated or voluntary) on “gay conversion” – meaning that if a (tithing) church member asked their pastor for such counselling, it would be illegal for the pastor to offer any. The latest Bill classifies any advertising of the practice as “unfair or deceptive acts or practices undertaken by any person in a transaction” – and State laws expressly command that laws against deceptive acts or practices are “liberally applied”, leading to fears that the same law might be used to ban any books or materials supporting a traditional Christian view of sexuality or even describing divine healing. The Bill is yet to be voted on by the state’s Senate.
Orange County in California has banned parents from withdrawing their children from “sex education” lessons in school that promote abortion and homosexuality, including using sex toys and anal lubricant, and defining “anal intercourse,” “phone sex,” and more as “common sexual behaviours.” The curriculum was introduced in 2015 with an explicit right in the Act for parents to excuse their children from participation – but the Orange County Board of Education has decided that the opt-out only applies to lessons that specifically discuss “reproductive organs”.
A third Bill that has been put forward in California would mandate anyone operating a website in California to fact-check the news they post according to the standards of the state and to place a warning on news stories containing false information. The similarities to the “Ministry of Truth” in George Orwell’s novel 1984 (which actually disseminated only its own version of the truth) are noticeable.
Meanwhile, the president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, has warned his people not to engage in “wrong” sexual practices “indulged in and promoted by some of the outsiders” – including oral sex. “The mouth is for eating, not for sex,” he said, adding: “We know the address of sex; we know where sex is.”
In Glasgow, a gay pride organisation has decided to ban drag queens from its annual parade in case they offended transgender people. Free Pride Glasgow which bills itself as being more non-commercial and open-minded that traditional Glasgow LGBT events, said, “It was felt that some drag performances hinge in the social view of gender and make it into a joke, however transgender individuals do not feel as though their gender identity is a joke.”
President Trump has signed a declaration that April 2018 is “Second Chance Month” for “those who have exited the prison system and successfully re-entered society." The idea of “Second Chance Month” emerged from the Christian charity Prison Fellowship to address the hopelessness that ex-convicts often suffer from. It turns out that there are 48,000 “collateral sanctions” in US Law restricting the rights of former prisoners to housing, employment, education and other things. The “Second Chance” initiative is being promoted by an unlikely combination of Prison Fellowship, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Heritage Foundation.
Another new piece of (bipartisan) US legislation has made a huge dent in the online sex trafficking industry. Free speech advocates had fiercely defended the right of websites to place adverts for sexual services even though many people knew or suspected that the prostitutes involved were being trafficked. The new legislation allows those who have been trafficked to sue the websites that offered them for sale. The biggest such website, Backpage.com has been shut down and other websites such as Craigslist have taken steps to reduce their liability. Ann Wagner, who sponsored the Bill through the House of Representatives, said, “We have already interrupted 87 per cent of the global ad volume.”
On the subject of abortion, the latest news from the US is that there is no news: specifically, two major events that might portray abortion as a bad thing have been ignored. One was a student walkout from 200 schools on 10 April to support pro-life causes which received no media coverage from the major networks, in contrast the previous walkout regarding gun control. Also an abortionist is on trial in New York for causing the death of a patient by releasing her to go home after an abortion even though she was bleeding heavily and had already collapsed once at the clinic. Robert Rho’s trial was expected to finish on April 13 but is continuing.
In Asia and Africa, persecution of Christians continues. Two Muslims claiming Islamic State allegiance have claimed responsibility for a drive-by shooting outside a church in Quetta, Pakistan that left two dead and three injured, after four Christians from the same family were shot by militants in the same city on Easter Monday. A third Roman Catholic priest has been shot dead in the Democratic Republic of Congo, shortly after celebrating Mass and a fourth has been kidnapped with a high ransom being demanded; the local bishop said, “There are different armed groups in our region, at least 15… we live in total chaos”. A Czech missionary who was arrested for carrying a duplicate passport in Sudan and held for 14 months told how he was tortured by fellow prisoners who were ISIS fighters but was eventually able to bring 40 Eritrean prisoners to faith in Jesus. An American missionary who served as a pastor in Izmir, Turkey has been jailed on charges of “Christianisation” and spying; Donald Trump tweeted “I am more of a spy than he is”, but the Turks decided to raise the stakes by moving Pastor Andrew Brunson to a far more overcrowded prison despite him already being in declining health. And a pastor in China has been sentenced to seven years in jail for “organising others to illegally cross the border into Myanmar” [Burma] when all he was doing was organising groups of teachers to deliver notebooks, pencils and Biles across the river border.
However. Egypt has decided to grant licences to 166 unlicensed church buildings following the passing of a law in 2016 to protect Christian churches – although approximately 3500 churches remain unlicensed while only 53 others have been granted licences. Some of the licence requests collected by the Coptic Church date back over 150 years. Also in South Sudan, a total of 207 male and female child soldiers were released by armed groups, part of a series of planned discharges that should see nearly 1,000 children return home over the coming months. It follows the release of 300 children by armed groups in early February,
There is contrasting news regarding two long-running stories. Of the 276 schoolgirls kidnapped in Chibok, Nigeria in April 2014, 150 are now free, either through escape or after a ransom payment in May 2017. Of the remainder, 13 are presumed dead; 112 are missing; and one chose to stay with her husband rather than be released. However, the news for Asia Bibi, the Pakistani Christian mother who has spent years on death row on a (apparently trumped-up) charge of blasphemy against Islam, is less good; the European Commission, which had threatened to deny Pakistan duty-free access to EU markets unless Bibi was released, has now changed its mind and granted the access.
In science and technology news, scientists in Britain think they may have created a mutant enzyme capable of breaking down plastic drinks bottles, which could be used to help tackle the planet’s pollution problem. The breakthrough follows studies done on bacteria that had naturally evolved and was found feeding on plastic at a waste dump in Japan in 2016; the mutation was induced by X-rays. University of Portsmouth biologist Professor John McGeehan and his colleagues are now attempting to verify their claim.
In film and music news, the success of the film I Can Only Imagine has helped to make the song of the same name the official inspirational song of the state of Oklahoma, where much of the filming was done. Governor Mary Fallin signed the Bill into law on 19 April.
And finally, a Texas megachurch that normally spends $100,000 advertising its services at Easter time decided instead to donate the money to a local charity that buys up medical debt and then forgives it. US medical debt overwhelms people’s finances so often that it is often sold on at a large discount; medical providers reason that it’s better to get some money than none at all. Covenant Church based in Carrollton ended up paying off over $10 million worth of medical debt for 4,229 families within 20 miles of one of its campuses, including every single military veteran living in those areas.
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