3 - More inappropriate comments about religion in Congressional hearing
In yet another Congressional hearing, a candidate for a Federal judgeship, Brian Buescher, was the recipient of inappropriate comments about his religious beliefs. According to Todd Starnes, writing at FoxNews.com:
Buescher came under attack by Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, for his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a revered and highly-respected Catholic charitable organization.
Both lawmakers posed a series of written questions demanding to know if he would end his membership in the Knights of Columbus should he be confirmed.
“The Knights of Columbus has taken a number of extreme positions,” Hirono wrote in the questionnaire. “For example, it was reportedly one of the top contributors to California’s Proposition 8 campaign to ban same-sex marriage.”That, of course, was a proposal that was passed by California voters, was challenged in court, and the Governor and Attorney General refused to defend the voters' action. The AG is now the Governor, Jerry Brown, and Harris was his replacement.
Starnes brought out that this is not the first time that nominees were criticized for their religious beliefs. Appeals court judge Amy Coney Barrett faced verbal barbs from Senator Dianne Feinstein, who said, "When you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern..."
And, before that, Sen. Bernie Sanders criticized Russell Vought, nominated for a leadership position at the Office of Management and Budget. Starnes wrote:
Sen. Sanders deemed Vought unsuitable for office because the nominee believes that salvation is found alone through Jesus Christ. He said someone with that kind of religious belief system is “really not someone who this country is supposed to be about.”Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, also from Hawaii, according to another FoxNews.com article, wrote an op-ed on The Hill website, in which she said, “While I oppose the nomination of Brian Buescher to the U.S. District Court in Nebraska, I stand strongly against those who are fomenting religious bigotry, citing as disqualifiers Buescher’s Catholicism and his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus...”
2 - Religious broadcasters' organization calls for action in Congress in light of censorship
There has been much concern expressed about the censoring of speech by Christians on social media platforms, and the National Religious Broadcasters organization has been involved in attempting to counter these efforts. Its website states:
National Religious Broadcasters is urging a “careful” congressional review of the “Good Samaritan” protections in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Dr. Jerry A. Johnson, president and CEO of NRB, sent letters to the chairpersons and ranking members of these committees: Judiciary and Energy in the House, and Judiciary and Commerce in the Senate. The website states:
The call for hearings comes after Big Tech leaders failed to respond to repeated requests from NRB to craft a free speech charter protecting users’ viewpoints while still permitting them to combat obscenity, incitements to violence, and other misuses of their platforms, “without unduly burdening free expression with an array of confusing and haphazardly applied speech codes,” Johnson told the congressional leaders. “I am still hopeful that such a charter could yet be put forward by the industry.”The article mentioned a temporary suspension by Facebook of evangelist Franklin Graham, for which the social media platform apologized, and mentioned comments made by Johnson to PJMedia.com. He said, "That the ban happened at all illustrates the pattern of censorship of Christian and conservative viewpoints by Facebook, which the company has failed to acknowledge and apologize for — a pattern shared by other Big Tech platforms,” adding, “How many similar bans have happened to Christians without the profile of Franklin Graham who have never received their apology?”
1 - Supreme Court passes on another abortion case
There has been plenty of anticipation about how the addition of conservative, Constitutionalist judges on the U.S. Supreme Court would affect the cause of life. So far, the results have been inconclusive. There was concern expressed a few weeks ago when the high court declined to hear a case out of , according to the Washington Examiner, "could have allowed states to defund Planned Parenthood in state Medicaid programs." It takes four justices to accept an appeal from a lower court, and it appears that Chief Justice John Roberts and newly appointed justice Brett Kavanaugh had sided with the liberal bloc of justices not to take the case, a case that Justice Thomas had contended did not directly affect so-called "abortion rights."
But the article did point out that a court watcher had said that Kavanaugh may have arrived on the court too late to be an informed fourth vote on this case.
Now, another case with ties to abortion has come before the high court. TheFederalist.com reported that, "On Friday, the Supreme Court delayed its consideration of a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision that struck down two Indiana abortion statutes. The first banned abortions that take place as a result of the child’s race, sex, or disability. The second mandates that the remains of unborn children be buried or cremated."
The article goes on to say that, regarding the abortion of children with Down Syndrome, for instance, that "The first statute in the lawsuit would have banned this type of abortion." It goes on to state, "No longer would mothers be allowed to remove their children from the gene pool merely because they see their children as less desirable than they might have been without such a 'defect.' The statute does not prohibit mothers from aborting disabled children for reasons other than their disability."
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