The 3 - August 11, 2019

This week's edition of The 3, features another three stories of relevance to the Christian community, including topic areas of pro-life, transgender pronouns, and the censorship of Christian content - step 3, the restorations.  Stories include the Kentucky governors signing of 4 pro-life bills, a student's right to free speech concerning transgender pronouns upheld, and a channel restored to the large tech firm's news app.

Not 1, not 2, but 4 pro-life bills signed by KY governor

Governor Matt Bevin of Kentucky has developed a reputation as a Christian, pro-life, pro-family leader who is devoted to religious freedom.  This past week, he signed multiple pro-life bills into law in his state, according to the 14 News website.  The article lists the four new laws:

• Senate Bill 9 is known as the heartbeat bill. It bans abortion after detection of a fetal heartbeat.
• Senate Bill 50 requires doctors present information to patients about the reversal of medication abortions.
• House Bill 5 bans abortions based on sex, race, or perceived disability.
• House Bill 148 states if Roe v. Wade is overturned abortions will be banned in Kentucky.

The governor is quoted as saying: “People of western Kentucky are very strongly and appropriately on the side of life," adding, "Meant a lot to me to be out here to celebrate with these bill sponsors and the people who sent them to Frankfort.” He signed the bills in Owensboro at the Daviess County Courthouse.  He also shared a broad view about the importance of support for pro-life legislation: "This issue, frankly, isn’t about faith...It’s about science. It’s about medicine. It’s about morality. It’s about who among us even remotely can think we can justify the taking of an innocent life when we know for a fact that’s exactly what it is.”

School corrects punishment for student in pronoun flap

Another of the troublesome aspects of the furtherance of the transgender agenda has to do with the use of pronouns, instances that have been seen in a variety of settings, including schools, where students wish to be called by the pronoun corresponding to the gender they identify as, rather than their biological gender.

Liberty Counsel reports on the situation involving a student in an Ohio school in which a sixth-grader was "punished by an assistant principal in an Ohio school district for using the male pronoun 'he' in reference to a male student..." (That student was apparently identifying as female.)  The student was also reportedly punished "for respectfully stating his opinion that 'he is a boy, not a girl...'" in a discussion with other students. The student was told that he would be facing "consequences" and was not allowed to participate in PE that day.

The report states:

After Liberty Counsel intervened, the school district claimed the PE class removal was not “formal disciplinary action” and said no record of it exists, but conceded that neither Liberty Counsel’s student client nor others would be subject to discipline for expressing “respectful disagreement on any topic,” nor for using accurate “pronouns in referring to students,” and that teachers would not “coerce any student to use a particular pronoun.” “John’s” parents were satisfied with this result.

Liberty Counsel Founder and President Mat Staver said that, "Schools cannot force students to lie about objective reality..."

Another correction: Christian conservative website back on Apple News

It seems like an almost weekly occurrence when you have Christian content or content consistent with a Christian perspective blocked by large tech firms. Sometimes, there is a reversal.

Last week, the channel of LifeSite was removed from Apple News after having originally been selected to be posted.  Apple has reversed its course.  The LifeSiteNews.com website reported, "the Apple News team informed LifeSite that they have 're-evaluated' our channel. LifeSite's channel and articles are once again available on the Apple News app."

The article published on Tuesday, August 6, stated:

Since last week, over 57,000 people have signed a petition demanding that Apple re-enable LifeSite's channel. Approximately 1000 of those signatories also opted to send a physical postcard to Apple's heardquarters, demanding LifeSite's channel be re-instated.

And, when you go to the LifeSite web site, you will see a listing of "Must-Reads," including a story originally published on Newsbusters, that highlight's YouTube's banning of a conversative teenager named Soph.  The article said that BlazeTV host Lauren Chen had featured a clip from...

...Soph's video "Pride and Prejudice" which got her banned. In the video she commented on the nature of LGBT politics: "When you attack the concept of gay pride for what they're doing to children" the left will respond by attacking the critic as someone who hates all gay people, she explained. "It's morality laundering, they put the indefensible together with the legitimate so that you can't scrutinize it without being called a homophobe."