fivethirtyeight--2019-12-12--Millennials Are Leaving Religion And Not Coming Back

Millennials have earned a reputation for reshaping industries and institutions — shaking up the workplace, transforming dating culture, and rethinking parenthood. They’ve also had a dramatic impact on American religious life. Four in ten millennials now say they are religiously unaffiliated, according to the Pew Research Center. In fact, millennials (those between the ages of 23 and 38) are now almost as likely to say they have no religion as they are to identify as Christian. .  For a long time, though, it wasn’t clear whether this youthful defection from religion would be temporary or permanent. It seemed possible that as millennials grew older, at least some would return to a more traditional religious life. But there’s mounting evidence that today’s younger generations may be leaving religion for good.  Social science research has long suggested that Americans’ relationship with religion has a tidal quality — people who were raised religious find themselves drifting away as young adults, only to be drawn back in when they find spouses and begin to raise their own families. Some argued that young adults just hadn’t yet been pulled back into the fold of organized religion, especially since they were hitting major milestones like marriage and parenthood later on.  But now many millennials have spouses, children and mortgages — and there’s little evidence of a corresponding surge in religious interest. A new national survey from the American Enterprise Institute of more than 2,500 Americans found a few reasons why millennials may not return to the religious fold. (One of the authors of this article helped conduct the survey.) • For one thing, many millennials never had strong ties to religion to begin with, which means they were less likely to develop habits or associations that make it easier to return to a religious community. • Young adults are also increasingly likely to have a spouse who is nonreligious, which may help reinforce their secular worldview. • Changing views about the relationship between morality and religion also appear to have convinced many young parents that religious institutions are simply irrelevant or unnecessary for their children.  Millennials may be the symbols of a broader societal shift away from religion, but they didn’t start it on their own. Their parents are at least partly responsible for a widening generational gap in religious identity and beliefs; they were more likely than previous generations to raise their children without any connection to organized religion. According to the AEI survey, 17 percent of millennials said that they were not raised in any particular religion compared with only five percent of Baby Boomers. And fewer than one in three (32 percent) millennials say they attended weekly religious services with their family when they were young, compared with about half (49 percent) of Baby Boomers.  A parent’s religious identity (or lack thereof) can do a lot to shape a child’s religious habits and beliefs later in life. A 2016 Pew Research Center study found that regardless of the religion, those raised in households in which both parents shared the same religion still identified with that faith in adulthood. For instance, 84 percent of people raised by Protestant parents are still Protestant as adults. Similarly, people raised without religion are less apt to look for it as they grow older — that same Pew study found that 63 percent of people who grew up with two religiously unaffiliated parents were still nonreligious as adults.  But one finding in the survey signals that even millennials who grew up religious may be increasingly unlikely to return to religion. In the 1970s, most nonreligious Americans had a religious spouse and often, that partner would draw them back into regular religious practice. But now, a growing number of unaffiliated Americans are settling down with someone who isn’t religious — a process that may have been accelerated by the sheer number of secular romantic partners available, and the rise of online dating. Today, 74 percent of unaffiliated millennials have a nonreligious partner or spouse, while only 26 percent have a partner who is religious.  Luke Olliff, a 30-year-old man living in Atlanta, says that he and his wife gradually shed their religious affiliations together. “My family thinks she convinced me to stop going to church and her family thinks I was the one who convinced her,” he said. “But really it was mutual. We moved to a city and talked a lot about how we came to see all of this negativity from people who were highly religious and increasingly didn’t want a part in it.” This view is common among young people. A majority (57 percent) of millennials agree that religious people are generally less tolerant of others, compared to only 37 percent of Baby Boomers.  Young adults like Olliff are also less likely to be drawn back to religion by another important life event — having children. For much of the country’s history, religion was seen as an obvious resource for children’s moral and ethical development. But many young adults no longer see religion as a necessary or even desirable component of parenting. Less than half (46 percent) of millennials believe it is necessary to believe in God to be moral. They’re also much less likely than Baby Boomers to say that it’s important for children to be brought up in a religion so they can learn good values (57 percent vs. 75 percent).  These attitudes are reflected in decisions about how young adults are raising their children. 45 percent of millennial parents say they take them to religious services and 39 percent say they send them to Sunday school or a religious education program. Baby Boomers, by contrast, were significantly more likely to send their children to Sunday school (61 percent) and to take them to church regularly (58 percent).  Mandie, a 32-year-old woman living in southern California and who asked that her last name not be used, grew up going to church regularly but is no longer religious. She told us she’s not convinced a religious upbringing is what she’ll choose for her one-year-old child. “My own upbringing was religious, but I’ve come to believe you can get important moral teachings outside religion,” she said. “And in some ways I think many religious organizations are not good models for those teachings.”  Why does it matter if millennials’ rupture with religion turns out to be permanent? For one thing, religious involvement is associated with a wide variety of positive social outcomes like increased interpersonal trust and civic engagement that are hard to reproduce in other ways. And this trend has obvious political implications. As we wrote a few months ago, whether people are religious is increasingly tied to — and even driven by — their political identities. For years, the Christian conservative movement has warned about a tide of rising secularism, but research has suggested that the strong association between religion and the Republican Party may actually be fueling this divide. And if even more Democrats lose their faith, that will only exacerbate the acrimonious rift between secular liberals and religious conservatives.  “At that critical moment when people are getting married and having kids and their religious identity is becoming more stable, Republicans mostly do still return to religion — it’s Democrats that aren’t coming back,” said Michele Margolis, author of “From the Politics to the Pews: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity.” in an interview for our September story.  Of course, millennials’ religious trajectory isn’t set in stone — they may yet become more religious as they age. But it’s easier to return to something familiar later in life than to try something completely new. And if millennials don’t return to religion and instead begin raising a new generation with no religious background, the gulf between religious and secular America may grow even deeper.


frontpagemagazine--2019-01-17--Media Attacks VP Pence039s Wife for Working at a Christian School

Media Attacks V.P. Pence's Wife for Working at a Christian School

It's not just Senator Kamala Harris, the Democrats have swung into an open war on religion under the guise of social justice.  Take today's attack on Karen Pence for working as an art teacher at a Christian school. Or as the hysterical HuffPo headline has it, "Karen Pence Is Working At A School That Bans LGBTQ Employees And Kids ".  The Washington Post, the Daily Beast and other social justice clickbait tabloids joined in the hate. Their problem is that the school is religious.  And [has the expected](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/16/karen-pence- christian-school-1104090) moral code of a religious educational institution.  > In Immanuel Christian School's "parent agreement," it states that the school can refuse admission to an applicant "if the atmosphere or conduct within a particular home, the activities of a parent or guardian, or the activities of the student are counter to, or are in opposition to, the biblical lifestyle the school teaches."  >  > The agreement also lists disqualifying qualifications, including "heterosexual activity outside of marriage (e.g., premarital sex, cohabitation, extramarital sex), homosexual or lesbian sexual activity, polygamy, transgender identity, any other violation of the unique roles of male and female, sexual harassment, use or viewing of pornographic material or websites, and sexual abuse or improprieties toward minors as defined by Scripture and federal or state law.”  In sum, what the United States and the West considered basic morality for quite a few centuries.  Karen's school isn't telling people outside it what to do. It is creating a "safe space" for religious people to live out their values. This isn't Moral Majority stuff. Instead it's the Left that is going to war against people who have religious values.  This is the same phenomenon as the attack on Orthodox Jewish schools and Catholic schools in New York[ that I wrote about earlier.](https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272379/send-your-son-leftist- school-or-government-will-daniel-greenfield)  The Left used its control of culture war to win the culture war. But it isn't stopping or slowing down.  And it's working to outlaw religion as a way of life.


globalresearch--2019-02-21--Education and the Capitalist Myth of Equality of Opportunity

We commit a big fallacy when we assume that our educational accomplishments are our individual achievements. We like to believe that we are born with a certain innate talent that makes us intellectually superior to all the rest.  But the fact of the matter is that our innate talents aren’t all that different. Some people are born with genes that make them grow to being six-feet tall, whereas others are a few inches shorter; these are all minor differences of genetics, nevertheless.  The difference of innate intelligence amongst people belonging to all races is quite similar. It’s our environment, family, culture and educational institutions which are primarily responsible for our cognitive abilities and critical faculties.  In this regard, capitalism works like outdated monarchy: a person born in a rich and educated family is by default a prince; he has access to all the modes of learning: such as parental guidance, best educational institutions, books, libraries and internet; peer pressure as a motivation, and intellectual discussions and debates with well-informed teachers, family members and close friends further hone one’s cognitive abilities.  A poor peasant, on the other hand, lacks the wherewithal to educate himself and his children to that level. Thus, when the neoliberals blame the uneducated for their lack of education, they are actually blaming the victims for their misfortunes. They ought to blame the structural injustices and the capitalist system which engenders social stratification and consequent inequality of educational opportunities.  It bears mentioning, however, that I’ve written this article in the context of the Third World’s stratified educational systems where we have markedly different educational institutions that impart elementary education to the children of the elite and the masses.  The public schools of the developed world provide quality education to all the citizens, irrespective of their social class, because in a country like the UK, the budgetary allocation for public education is more than $50 billion for a population of 65 million, while in a Third World country, like Pakistan, the education budget is roughly $5 billion for a population of more than 200 million. Thus, equality of opportunity, which is directly linked to the equality of education, has been ensured in the developed world, but not in the Third World.  In the Third World developing countries, especially in Pakistan, there are four distinct types of educational institutions that impart elementary education to citizens:  Firstly: The elite English-medium schools that offer courses in O/A Levels, and Junior and Senior Cambridge. The quality of education in such institutions is quite good, but their tuition fee and other expenses are so exorbitant that only the upper middle class can admit their children in such schools.  Secondly: The Urdu-medium public and private sector schools that cater to the educational needs of the children of the middle and lower middle classes. Though such institutions are often misrepresented as “English-medium,” because the textbooks are in English, the lingua franca in such schools is generally Urdu; and their quality of education is average, at best.  Thirdly: The government schools that are run by the provincial education departments. The tuition fee in such schools is quite nominal and so is the standard of education that they impart. Such institutions cater to the educational needs of the children of the poor classes.  Fourthly: The religious seminaries, or madrassas, that are funded by the Islamic charities and endowments, and that impart religious education to the children of the poorest of the poor.  These petrodollars-funded madrassas offer the kind of incentives which are lacking even in government schools, like free boarding and lodging, meals for the poor students, free of cost books and stationery; and some generously funded madrassas even give monthly stipends to their students.  The poor folk who admit their children in madrassas, in a way, outsource the upbringing of their children to the madrassas; because, for all practical purposes, such children are raised by religious clerics.  Regardless, in today’s complex world, without education, people are not equipped to survive. For instance: if I go to China and I don’t understand the Chinese language, I’ll be needing a tour guide with me all the time.  Similarly, those of us who can’t read and write, they can survive due to their traditional social networks in villages, but not in modern cities. And the innumerate who can’t do math, they cannot succeed in business. If you want to register a property or a vehicle to your name, and you don’t know the law and the understanding of how the system works, you can run into a lot of trouble.  Therefore, education is imperative for survival in today’s complex world. Biological evolution is based on the cardinal principle of natural selection and the survival of the fittest; thus, fitness to the environment is the only law that ensures our survival. But that fitness is bestowed upon us by nature; and like I have argued earlier, that in today’s complex, man-made world, every newborn child is unfit to survive until he gets proper education.  More to the point, the lack of fitness of an individual, or a social group, is not their fault, it is the fault of the society as a whole. If you are fortunate enough to have been born in upper middle class family, by default you will be equipped with all the necessary tools that are required for survival and progress; but if you have not been properly educated to understand and deal with today’s complex modern societies, then you will remain an unfit peasant.  Finally, and in a nutshell, equality of opportunity, which is the fundamental axiom of the modern egalitarian worldview, is directly linked to the equality of education, or at least, the equality of educational opportunities.  In the capitalist neoliberal societies of the Third World, however, only the children of the upper classes get proper education which is essential for upward social mobility, whereas the children of the masses get barely sufficient education which might be enough for becoming clerks and technicians, but as far as honing one’s cognitive abilities and critical faculties are concerned, their optimal potential is not realized.  Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.  Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.


globalresearch--2019-02-27--Does Pakistan Have the Capability to Eradicate Terrorism

Does Pakistan Have the Capability to Eradicate Terrorism?

Not only Washington, but Pakistan’s “all-weather ally” China, which plans to invest $62 billion in Pakistan via its China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects, has also made its reservations public regarding Pakistan’s continued support to jihadist groups.  Thus, excluding a handful of far-right Islamist political parties that are funded by the Gulf’s petro-dollars and historically garner less than 10% votes of Pakistan’s electorate, all the civilian political forces are in favor of turning a new leaf in Pakistan’s checkered political history by endorsing the policy of an indiscriminate crackdown on militant outfits operating in Pakistan. But Pakistan’s security establishment jealously guards its traditional domain, the security and foreign policy of Pakistan, and still maintains a distinction between the so-called “good and bad Taliban.”  Regarding Pakistan’s duplicitous stance on terrorism, it’s worth noting that there are three distinct categories of militants operating in Pakistan: the Afghanistan-focused Pashtun militants; the Kashmir-focused Punjabi militants; and foreign transnational terrorists, including the Arab militants of al-Qaeda, the Uzbek insurgents of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Chinese Uighur jihadists of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Compared to tens of thousands of native Pashtun and Punjabi militants, the foreign transnational terrorists number only in a few hundred and are hence inconsequential.  Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is mainly comprised of Pashtun militants, carries out bombings against Pakistan’s state apparatus. The ethnic factor is critical here. Although the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) like to couch their rhetoric in religious terms, but it is the difference of ethnicity and language that enables them to recruit Pashtun tribesmen who are willing to carry out subversive activities against the Punjabi-dominated state apparatus, while the Kashmir-focused Punjabi militants have by and large remained loyal to their patrons in the security agencies of Pakistan.  Although Pakistan’s security establishment has been willing to conduct military operations against the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), which are regarded as a security threat to Pakistan’s state apparatus, as far as the Kashmir-focused Punjabi militants, including the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, and the Afghanistan-focused Quetta Shura Taliban, including the Haqqani network, are concerned, they are still enjoying impunity because such militant groups are regarded as “strategic assets” by Pakistan’s security agencies.  Regarding the question does Pakistan have the capability to eliminate terrorism from its soil, Pakistan is evidently a police state whose civic and political life is completely dominated by military and affiliated security agencies. In order to bring home the military’s absolute control over Pakistan’s politics, an eye-opening incident that occurred last November is worth noting.  On the evening of November 2, Maulana Sami-ul-Haq was found dead in his Rawalpindi residence. The assassination was as gruesome as the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul a month earlier on October 2. He was stabbed multiple times in chest, stomach and forehead.  Sami-ul-Haq was widely known as the “Godfather of the Taliban” because he was a renowned religious cleric who used to administer a sprawling religious seminary, Darul Uloom Haqqania, in Akora Khattak in northwestern Pakistan.  During the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s, the seminary was used for training and arming the Afghan jihadists, though it is now used exclusively for imparting religious education. Many of the well-known Taliban militant commanders received their education in the seminary.  In order to understand the motive of the assassination, we need to keep the backdrop in mind. On October 31, Pakistan’s apex court acquitted a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who was accused of blasphemy and had been languishing in prison since 2010. Pakistan’s religious political parties were holding street protests against her acquittal for several days before Sami-ul-Haq’s murder and had paralyzed the whole country.  But as soon as the news of Sami-ul-Haq’s murder broke and the pictures of the badly mutilated corpse were released to the media, the religious political parties promptly reached an agreement with the government and called off the protests within few hours of the assassination.  Evidently, it was a shot across the bow by Pakistan’s security establishment to the religious right that evokes a scene from Francis Ford Coppola’s epic movie The Godfather, in which an expensive racehorse’s severed head was placed into a Hollywood director’s bed on Don Corleone’s orders that frightened the director out of his wits and he agreed to give a lead role in a movie to the Don’s protégé.  The entire leadership of the religious political parties that spearheaded the campaign against the release of Asia Bibi and hundreds of their political workers have been put behind the bars on the charge of “disturbing the public order” since the assassination.  In the manner thousands of religious protesters who had been demonstrating against her acquittal were treated by the security agencies brings to the fore the fact that Pakistan’s military wields absolute control over its jihadist proxies. Thus, cracking down on terrorist outfits operating in Pakistan, particularly on Kashmir-focused Punjabi militant groups, is not a question of capacity but of will.  What further lends credence to the conclusion that Pakistan’s security establishment was behind the murder of Sami-ul-Haq is the fact that Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a close associate of the Taliban’s founder Mullah Omar, was released by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies in October and was allowed to join his family in Afghanistan.  Baradar was captured in a joint US-Pakistan intelligence-based operation in the southern port city of Karachi in 2010. His release was a longstanding demand of the US-backed Kabul government because he is regarded as a comparatively moderate Taliban leader who could play a role in the peace process between the Afghan government and the Taliban. He is currently leading the Taliban delegation in the negotiations with the US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad in the capital of Qatar, Doha.  Furthermore, Washington has been arm-twisting Islamabad through the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to do more to curtail the activities of militants operating from its soil to destabilize the US-backed government in Afghanistan and to pressure the Taliban to initiate a peace process with the government. Under such circumstances, a religious cleric like Sami-ul-Haq, who was widely known as the “Godfather of the Taliban,” becomes a liability rather than an asset.


lifesitenews--2019-10-11--Beto O’Rourke pledges to penalize churches that oppose gay ‘marriage’

LOS ANGELES, October 11, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) -- Robert “Beto” O’Rourke, a Catholic and presidential candidate for the Democratic party, called for churches and religious institutions to lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex “marriage.”  Joining other Democratic candidates in defending their respective LGBTQ platform stances on Thursday evening during a CNN televised town hall, O’Rourke said, “There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone … that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us.” As the audience cheered, O’Rourke continued, saying, “And so as president, we are going to make that a priority, and we are going to stop those who are infringing upon the human rights of our fellow Americans.”  At the CNN LGBTQ Equality town hall, co-sponsored by the pro-LGBTQ Human Rights Campaign, O’Rourke also said that efforts to help people overcome unwanted same-sex attractions, dubbed as “conversion therapy” by critics, “should be illegal" because it is "tantamount to torture" of children. "We will ensure that there are penalties stiff enough, enforcement vigorous enough to make sure it does not continue,” he added.  O’Rourke took a step further in the direction of stripping churches and charities if they oppose same-sex “marriage” than Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ). When asked what he would do as president, Booker said there would be “consequences” for churches and religious institutions, stopping short of ending tax-exemptions. He did not say outright whether they would lose their exemption status.  When asked whether “religious education institutions should lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose LGBTQ rights,” the senator replied: “We must stand up as a nation to stay that religion cannot be an excuse to deny people health insurance, education, or more,” apparently broadening the issue to include private employers. “You cannot discriminate, he said, “….I’m going to make sure that I hold them accountable.”  Conservative Republican and former business executive Herman Cain tweeted on Friday, “Does your church preach the Gospel? Then Beto O’Rourke wants to take away it’s tax-exemption.”  LEMON: Let's talk about something that also doesn't get enough coverage, and it's controversial, and I'm talking about conversion therapy, which is a widely discredited practice that seeks to change a person's sexual orientation or possibly their gender identity.  LEMON: Should this be illegal? And if it is illegal, what should the punishment be?  O'ROURKE: It should be illegal. As president we will seek to outlaw it everywhere in this country.  In my opinion, this is tantamount to torture, a torture that we're visiting on children who are absolutely defenseless.  And so we're going to make sure that whatever the penalty is, it is steep enough to dissuade anybody from entering into this practice or being able to torture kids with the kind of impunity that we have seen so far.  And we're also going to recognize that these kind of practices, in addition to the immediate torture that that child or that person feels, also adds to other challenges that we have. When we look at homeless youth in America, 40 percent identify as LGBTQ in America right now. When we look at those who age out of the foster care system right now, some of them subject to these conversion therapy practices, their outcomes in life are not what they should be in part because of the practices that we've allowed so far.  So, yes, we will outlaw it, and, yes, we will ensure that there are penalties stiff enough, enforcement vigorous enough to make sure that it does not continue.  LEMON: Let me ask you this. At the center of all -- many of these issues, most of these issues is religion. So, you know, when you say you're going to do laws, you're going to -- how do you change people's minds about religion? Because that's what's really telling people, preaching to young people that they're wrong, that what they are is an abomination, that they're not supposed to be the way that God created them. So how do you deal with that?  O'ROURKE: What does that do to your head and your conception of yourself and what you think is possible for you in your life when someone has labeled you as defective or less than? Not only is that terrible for you, it is terrible for all of us in this country and the potential that we are losing out on right now.  I remember in the El Paso City Council -- this was more than 10 years ago -- we wrote an ordinance, passed it, that offered health care benefits to the same-sex partners of city employees, very controversial idea at the time.  And your question about religion, I was born and raised a Catholic, and there was a Catholic priest at the lectern during the call to the public telling me that what I was doing was welcoming an abomination to God. And he and I really got into it at that podium, a very politically unpopular position for us to take in the council. It sparked recall elections and citizen-driven petitions.  But I knew it was the right thing to do, not just for those city employees, but for any child who is reading the newspaper, watching TV, or who wanted to know what those in positions of power and public trust thought about them.  And what we were saying from the El Paso City Council is you're every bit as important, every bit as valuable, every bit as much an American and a human being as anyone else and we're going to treat you the same as everybody else. So defying the religious condemnation that I received from a Catholic priest, as a lifelong Catholic, defying the polls and the politics of the moment, and just doing the right thing because it was the right thing to do. Allow the politics to catch up. That's my philosophy.


nationalreview--2019-09-23--Will the Supreme Court Nix Montanas Anti-Catholic Blaine Amendment

Will the Supreme Court Nix Montana’s Anti-Catholic ‘Blaine Amendment’?

School choice and religious liberty are on the docket.  As a second-grader, Raelyn Sukhbir used to cry every night. She was being bullied “unmercifully” in the public school she was attending. Life at home was miserable because the poor girl was so anxious and despondent — which had her parents worried about how bad things might be all the rest of the time, when she wasn’t home. Raelyn “did not want to be around other kids and was clingy whenever we would visit friends,” her mother told lawyer Andrea Picciotti-Bayer. “She did not want to participate in any activities or sports.” Her father, a retired army veteran who was injured in Afghanistan, talked to the teachers and administrators, but there was no improvement.  Brittany and Kyle Sukhbir had heard good things about the nearby St. Mary’s Catholic school — that it had a “zero tolerance policy” against bullying. Picciotti-Bayer writes that “the Sukhbirs did not think that they could afford private school, but the daily bullying simply became too much for Raelyn to bear.” They contacted the school just before Christmas, and Raelyn spent a day trying on the school. “Every single teacher knew her name, and every student was excited to meet Raelyn and play with her,” her mother said.  Two years later, the girl is transformed. She’s not shy and reserved anymore, but outgoing. She fully participates in the life of the school, including sports. “St. Mary’s is teaching self-confidence and kindness,” her mother reports. She’s thriving academically, and even the Sukhbirs’ family life is better. “Now that Raelyn is no longer crying when she comes home from school, we can really enjoy being together,” Brittany says.  Brittany works as an office manager at a local physical-therapy clinic, and Kyle works in North Dakota on an oil field two weeks of every month. Their combined salaries would not cover tuition for Raelyn, now eight, and their son, five-year-old Wyatt. She used to think that “St. Mary’s was only for rich kids,” she says. “But I now know that that is 100 percent not the case.” Knowledge of tuition assistance from the school or other widely available helps from private and public sources could help save other families from similar situations. “My kid would not be the kid she is today if we did not have the scholarship supports to send her to St. Mary’s,” Brittany notes. Raelyn “really has flourished into an amazing child.”  Piccioti-Bayer interviewed Brittany Sukhbir and other parents of children benefiting from tuition assistance, for an amicus brief just filed at the U.S. Supreme Court by the Catholic Association Foundation. The brief is in support of a challenge to a decision by the Montana supreme court that religious schools cannot benefit from public tuition aids — not even from tax credits for people donating to private scholarship funds. (The Institute for Justice is representing moms of Montana.) The case, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Taxation, has the potential to remove the anti-Catholic Blaine amendments that remain in many state constitutions. Such a decision could change children’s lives in America.  Other parents profiled by Piccioti-Bayer include Christina and Justin Schye, who had sent three children to public schools. Their nine-year-old with Down syndrome needed something else, they concluded. His public-school situation was “traumatic.” By contrast, when he went to St. Francis school, some eighth-grade boys would wait for Kellan’s arrival every morning, giving him “hugs and high-fives” as he entered school. He was immediately a welcome part of the community, and his needs were attended to. If he needed extra time, including time for eating lunch, he would get it. School staff and families of students rallied for him when he competed in this first Special Olympics. (The teacher arranged the transportation, and parents even chipped in to get pizza for him and for all the three second-grade classes who came to cheer him on.) The flexibility and love at St. Francis for Kellan is a “huge blessing” for the whole Schye family. “We have peace of mind now that Kellan is where he belongs,” his mother says.  Some but not all of the parents Piccioti-Bayer interviewed are Catholic. Catholic schools serve all. In some settings, such as Montana, the students are mostly non-Catholic. Parents choose these schools because of they are staffed by educators with a missionary, vocational approach. The families Piccioti-Bayer talked with experienced religious education as the leaven it is — communities where human dignity is respected and served in gratitude for the gift of life.  It worth a prayer not only that this case winds up a win for religious liberty and school choice — for families across the country who shouldn’t be deprived of giving their children the best chance at a good life — but that it is a reinvigoration of Catholic education and our collective need for it. In their book Lost Classroom, Lost Community: Catholic Schools’ Importance in Urban America (2014), Notre Dame law professors Margaret F. Brinig and Nicole Stelle Garnett make the case that, statistically, when a Catholic school closes, social capital, “the web of connections and trust between people,” declines. Catholic schools have been closing, and we see the deterioration in our culture. Let’s do everything we can to ensure that families have access to the good ones in operation. A Supreme Court win here for these Montana families would be no small dose of hope for family life, freedom, and the health of our nation.  This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.


newsbusters--2019-01-18--Pentagon Reporter Compares Extremist Pence to Farrakhan KKK

Pentagon Reporter Compares ‘Extremist’ Pence to Farrakhan, KKK

The Mr. & Mrs. Mike Pence hate train has been receiving quite a few guests onboard in the last week, what with Huffington Post and several CNN anchors insisting that the Second Lady is a homophobic bigot for working at a devout Christian school. Now that VP Mike Pence has come to her defense, more lefties are calling him an “extremist” who exists in the same camp as actual hate-peddlers like Louis Farrakhan and the Ku Klux Klan.  Kevin Baron, Pentagon reporter and executive editor of Atlantic Media site Defense One continued the anti-Pence fever on Friday afternoon with a series of tweets blasting Mike Pence and his wife as religious “extremists” existing on the “fringes” of society. Baron trashed Pence’s statements from an interview with EWTN reporter Lauren Ashburn, during which he defended his wife and his Christian faith, which have come under another wave of nasty lefty insults.  Pence told Ashburn, “To see major news organizations attacking Christian education is deeply offensive to us. I mean we have a rich tradition in America of Christian education, and frankly religious education broadly defined. We celebrate it. The freedom of religion is enshrined in the constitution.”  Well to Baron, all of those self-evident truths presumably induce some intense eye-rolling. “Rich history” be damned, the reporter characterized the Vice President’s rhetoric as “extremist” and tweeted, “Pence’s double standard is pretty basic. Praises ‘moderate’ Islam but practices extremist Christianity.”  Concerning the “Islam” comment, Baron was referring to a 2017 statement of Pence’s, in which the Vice President praised Indonesian Islam for its efforts to promote “peace” and a more “unified” nation. One can presume that Baron’s observation of a double standard involves seeing Pence praise a version Islam that doesn’t maim ideological dissenters, while worshipping a God Who teaches that homosexuality is not a natural lifestyle.  Clearly there’s an appropriate distinction here on Pence’s part, but for lefty ideologues like Baron, not celebrating homosexual acts is tantamount to throwing homosexuals off of parapets, etc. It’s this kind of unwieldy logic that’s tearing America’s social fabric apart, but such is a small price to pay in order to be able to throw playground insults at your political enemies.  Still, Baron wasn’t finished. Instead of just pointing out some fallacy on the Pence’s part, the reporter couldn’t resist stooping low in order to equate the vice president and his wife (and Jerry Fallwell Jr., for good measure) with some of the lowest dregs of society He tweeted:  “So, America is great because even extremists like the KKK and Fallwell [sic] and Farrakhan get to exist on the fringes, as long as they don't hurt anyone. And the rest of us are free to decide whether to adopt their preachings or keep them on fringe, where VP and SLOTUS Pence live”.  Real nice. Christians thrown in with murderers, liars, and thieves. It’s one thing to disagree with the Christian stance on sexuality — that’s expected if you want to work in media — but to equate a man who values biblical traditions including forgiveness of enemies and love for the sinner, with one who calls his enemies “satanic” and “termites” to be eradicated, is a whole new hate ballpark. Maybe Baron should start wondering where he stands next to Farrakhan.


newspunch--2019-11-06--Satanist Ministry Plans To Teach ‘Tenets Of Satanism’ To Tennessee School Children

A Satanist ‘children’s ministry’ in Tennessee has announced plans to teach the tenets of Satanism to students who don’t want to study the Bible and would prefer to worship the devil.  Knox County officials say they are considering a program that will allow students to miss class for Church-sponsored bible study, with local school board members preparing to vote on the proposed program.  But the Satanist group responded to the proposal by launching the Satanic Children’s Ministry of Knoxville, because they believe schools should not promote religion, and if they do, all religions should be represented, including devil worship.  If Bible Release Time is approved, SCMK plans to implement its own Satanism Release Program for students who don’t want to attend the bible study.  Daily Mail report: A spokesperson for the group said in a written statement the organization was legitimate and that between five to 10 children were initially expected to take part if the plan went ahead, but there ‘may be more people interested’ than initially thought.  The group, who says five people are on its board, refuses to identify itself ‘due to threats of violence’.  The Knox County School Board will vote on the Bible Release Time program in December. The program would fall under a Tennessee statute that excuses students to attend an hour-long released time course in religious moral instruction if authorized by the local school district.  ‘We would prefer that the school board vote down any policy written for religious release programs but if they do not, we are prepared to roll out a program,’ a spokesperson for the group told DailyMail.com on Tuesday.  ‘We have the financial backing and volunteers needed to make it happen.’  Superintendent Bob Thomas reportedly agreed to a trial run at Sterchi Elementary School after the Elgin Foundation and The Church at Sterchi Hills proposed the idea.  The Elgin Foundation already sponsors several bible release programs across East Tennessee, including in Anderson, Roane, Scott and Union counties.  ‘We just educate churches and schools in the legality of it,’ Executive Director Tim Rogers told WVLT.  ‘We ask schools to just simply accommodate schools parents who would participate in that.’  In a statement announcing its answer to the bible program, SCMK said: ‘The Elgin Foundation and The Church at Sterchi Hills will broadcast that their program is “opt-in” and children do not have to attend. They do not announce that their goals are to promote proselytization in our public classrooms by teaching children to do this for them.  ‘They will send the kids back with toys, candy, and propaganda to help them achieve these goals. This creates problems in the classroom not just for us as Satanists but also any Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or atheist child in the classroom as the children involved in the Bible Release Time are taught to challenge the beliefs of their classmates and promote that their god is the one true god.  ‘We do not send our children to schools to be converted by outside religious organizations. We send them to get a state-approved education.’  The statement continued: ‘Satanic Children’s Ministry would prefer not to introduce our own program. We do believe in separation of church and state; however, if another religion is allowed to introduce a program to indoctrinate children, we feel the need to step up and ensure our children have their own program to attend.  ‘Our children would already be losing precious instructional time due to the schools accommodating Elgin’s program, so we might as well sign them out and allow them to receive their own religious education focusing on the tenets of Satanism.  ‘Our preferred outcome is that all parents of Knox Co realize the importance of keeping religion out of public schools completely.  ‘It is in the best interest for all children to keep these programs out of school all together and in homes and churches where they belong. They create divisiveness among students based on their religion creating conditions that are optimal for bullying.’  The statement concluded by calling on Knox County residents to contact their local schools and school board representatives about blocking the implementation of release time programs.  The SMKC spokesperson told DailyMail.com that many Knox County teachers have expressed support for the organization and its intentions.  ‘They may not be for the actual program, but they seem to appreciate the fact that it is shining a light on the problem with allowing one church to have their religious release program in the school,’ the spokesperson said.  ‘From our conversations, it sounds like many teachers at Sterchi Elementary are against the program as it takes away from their instruction time.  ‘The school completely rearranged the class schedule to make room for The Church at Sterchi Hill’s Bible Release Program and that alone seem like a promotion of a religion within the school.  ‘The overwhelming majority of people we have talked to are against a policy allowing release programs, but the principal at Sterchi Elementary and certain school board members – against their constituent’s wishes – are pushing for it.’  SMKC has said that if the bible release program is approved, it fully intends to follow through with its own version.  ‘Our goal is to teach children the empathy, compassion, and kindness that the tenets [of the Satanic Temple] promote,’ the spokesperson told DailyMail.com.  ‘We initially thought we would just be signing out our own children with this program but amid the outrage, we have learned the interest in our program extends beyond our families.’  SMKC has repeatedly asserted that it is not affiliated with The Satanic Temple or the Church of Satan and said that the majority of its members do not believe in a literal Satan, but see him as a symbol of free thought.  The group announced on Thursday that it had filed for 501(c)3 non-profit status. A spokesperson said it would not release the form until the organisation was approved and legally obligated to do so.  ‘We need time for the outrage to die down.’  When asked about SMKC’s proposal, Elgin Foundation Executive Director Tim Rogers told DailyMail.com: ‘We trust that the public school boards in our area will respect the right of parents to have their children released from school for religious and moral instruction under the guidelines of state and federal law.’  The Church at Sterchi Hills and Knox County Superintendent Bob Thomas did not immediately return DailyMail.com’s requests for comment.  DailyMail.com also reached out to Knox County School Board members about how they plan to vote on the issue.  Virginia Babb of District 4 responded: ‘I have never supported the Bible release program and it has nothing to do with the Satanic Ministry wanting to offer their own program.  ‘Should a policy be passed allowing for Bible Release than I support any organization who meets the criteria of the program to be able to offer it.’  Other board members did not return request for comment, but WVLT reported that Susan Horn of District 5 and Terry Hill of District 6 are planning to vote to approve the bible program, while Evetty Satterfield of District 1 is undecided.  It is unclear which way the remaining five board members are leaning.


npr--2019-02-11--Turks Examine Their Muslim Devotion After Poll Says Faith Could Be Waning

Turks Examine Their Muslim Devotion After Poll Says Faith Could Be Waning  Turkey has been governed for most of the past two decades by a party steeped in political Islam. So when a pollster recently surveyed personal beliefs, there was a finding that stood out: Levels of piety were flat, or even declining, compared with a decade ago.  The apparent shift is not seismic, but it has Turks talking about where their country is headed.  The survey, by the pollster Konda, is a follow-up to a similar poll in 2008, and the company broke down the results from each side by side to illustrate the comparison.  While some see changes a decade later as a natural progression, Turkish analysts say the shift could be a backlash, especially among the young, against a religious president and his push to form what he calls a "pious generation."  The percentage-point change for many of the questions is not dramatic: Respondents identifying as "pious" slid from 13 percent in 2008 to 10 percent in 2018, and those choosing "religious" dipped from 55 to 51 percent. Figures for "nonbeliever" and "atheist," which barely registered in 2008, are now at 2 and 3 percent, respectively.  There was, however, a significant drop in respondents calling themselves "religious conservative," from 32 to 25 percent. And those who say they fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan declined from 77 to 65 percent.  Other social customs could also be changing. According to the poll, the portion of respondents saying a man and a woman should have a religious marriage to live together was still in the large majority, but it fell 5 percentage points to 74 percent.  So why does the percentage of self-described faithful seem to be declining at all, even when voters keep re-electing political leaders who infuse their devout Muslim beliefs into their policies?  Analysts say President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party started out with a strong focus on the economy, which was a major draw for the electorate. Over time, his administration's use of the state to promote religion became more strident.  In an official video in 2017, Erdogan celebrated the booming growth of state-funded Imam Hatip religious schools like the one he attended as a boy. At the time of the video, the schools were teaching some 1.3 million students across Turkey.  "From here, the mayors were raised," Erdogan said, adding that "the members of parliament were raised, the ministers and the prime ministers were raised and even the presidents were raised" with a religious education.  Busra Cebeci, a 25-year-old journalist, is from a Turkish generation that has had only one leader for most of its members' lives. Erdogan came to power, first as prime minister, in 2003.  Speaking to NPR at an Istanbul cafe, Cebeci explained that she was raised to believe a headscarf is proper attire for a Turkish woman and that when she was a teenager, she put it on without protest.  But she began to have questions. She recalls practicing for a school performance one hot May afternoon several years ago and worrying about getting overheated.  "I remember it was really hot," she says. "So I said to my mom, 'Maybe I should take this scarf off,' and she started yelling at me. I didn't take if off."  When she went away to college in Konya, a conservative Turkish city with a large student population, she remembers long talks with her friends about taking off their scarves. Then one day, she made a decision.  "I would look in the mirror, and I wasn't seeing myself," she says. "One day I went inside, I took off the scarf and walked out without it. And that was my first day."  She says it took two years for her father to speak to her again, but eventually her parents got used to it.  The recent lifestyle survey does not suggest a majority are changing their headscarf customs specifically, but it does mark a slight reduction in women who say they wear any head cover at all.  Analysts say declining religious behavior in Turkey despite the government's attempts to promote it should not come as a surprise.  The government's "very active and costly efforts to promote religiosity" don't appear to be having much effect, Murat Somer, a professor of political science and international relations at Istanbul's Koc University, said in an email to NPR.  In general, he said, "government control and state provision of religion usually alienate people from religiosity."  While the survey notes a slightly higher portion of respondents who regularly pray, those who say they fast during Ramadan dropped 12 percentage points.  Somer says he has also noticed that public religious acts such as attending Friday prayers appear to be continuing steady, while more private acts such as fasting are down. He explains this as religion "becoming more publicly expressive but at the same time more shallow in Turkey."  Analyst Soner Cagaptay at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy says just as modern Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, forced post-Ottoman Turkey onto a secular, pro-Western path, Erdogan has elevated Turkish and Ottoman traditions over Western values, and piety over secularism.  Erdogan has said he aims to create a "pious generation" that will "work for the construction of a new civilization."  That, Cagaptay says, is generating a backlash among young people.  "And I think the polls are showing that because Erdogan replaced the power of authority with his own identity of this conservative, religion-loving politician, a lot of young Turks are reacting to it," he says.  If these polls indicate a real trend, Cagaptay says, it could mean Erdogan's push to create a more religious Turkey is backfiring.  "So I think that Erdogan maybe is ironically making Turkey less religious, when he thought that he would make it more religious with himself on top," he says.  Again, that's less religious, not majority secular.  "I don't hate Islam," says journalist Cebeci. But she adds, "I haven't become secular because I quit [wearing] the headscarf; I was already becoming secular while still wearing it. My reaction was toward the government policies, trying to create a new, conservative generation — that's what I was against."  Cebeci believes a resistance to the push toward piety will continue to grow. She says her decision to take off her own headscarf, for instance, was a result of other women supporting her.  "When women show this kind of solidarity, I think it will continue," she says. "A woman who can't find the courage to take off the scarf, if she sees this, she may find the courage to do it."


npr--2019-02-20--As Pope Holds Sex Abuse Summit US Catholics Not Hopeful For Bold Moves

As Pope Holds Sex Abuse Summit, U.S. Catholics Not Hopeful For 'Bold Moves'

Pope Francis has called Catholic leaders from around the world to the Vatican this week for a meeting about clergy sexual abuse. **Gregorio Borgia/AP** ****hide caption****  ****toggle caption****  Gregorio Borgia/AP  Pope Francis has called Catholic leaders from around the world to the Vatican this week for a meeting about clergy sexual abuse.  Gregorio Borgia/AP  Never in the history of the Roman Catholic Church has a pope ordered bishops from around the world to come together and consider how many priests abuse children sexually and how many church officials cover for the abusers. The scandal of clergy sex abuse has deep roots in church history, but church leaders have been notoriously reluctant to acknowledge it and deal with the consequences.  Not surprisingly, when Pope Francis summoned more than 100 bishops to a meeting in Rome to address the "Protection of Minors in the Church," the announcement raised expectations that it could mark a turning point in the Church's lagging response to the ongoing clergy abuse crisis. The three-day meeting begins Thursday.  In the weeks that followed the Pope's announcement, however, U.S. Catholics in particular have become disappointed over [his characterization](https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2019-01 /holy-see-press-office-meeting-protection-minors-communique.html) of the summit as a gathering that will merely feature "prayer and discernment," hardly an ambitious vision for what could have been a momentous event.  "That offers little solace to American Catholics who feel their own church is in need of reform," says Kathleen Sprows Cummings, director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame. "I think the bold moves that a lot of people are going to want to see are very unlikely to happen."  The scourge of clergy sex abuse became evident in the United States much earlier than in other countries, and U.S. Catholics have progressed further in their determination to deal with the crisis. Under pressure from abuse survivors and their advocates, numerous dioceses have publicly identified hundreds of priests credibly accused of sexual misconduct, in order to warn communities that might otherwise not know of their record.  Such scrutiny has extended to U.S. bishops, especially after an [explosive grand jury report](https://www.npr.org/2018/08/14/636855561/report-reveals- widespread-sexual-abuse-by-over-300-priests-in-pa) in 2018 on the abuse of more than 1,000 children by Catholic clergy in Pennsylvania. The report revealed that bishops in the state "weren't just aware of what was going on; they were immersed in it. And they went to great lengths to keep it secret."  In response, U.S. bishops prepared a new set of reforms, including the formation of a special commission to review complaints against bishops who fail to take action to prevent abuse.  The bishops' plans were thwarted in November, however, when Pope Francis said he wanted to deal with the abuse crisis on a global basis and announced his plans for a summit.  "We were ready for some proposals, [but] the proposals were not received well by the Holy See," says Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the archbishop of Houston and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "So we were disappointed. But we continue to work, and we hope the [Rome] meeting will be of help."  **Survivors demand action**  With Pope Francis taking the reform initiative away from U.S. bishops, he now faces the demands of abuse survivors on his own. One group, Survivors' Network of Those Abused by Priests, drafted [a letter](http://www.snapnetwork.org/snap_delivers_letter_to_papal_nuncio_dc_feb19) to the pope demanding action. Having initially focused individually on abusive priests, the group has now redirected its attention to bishops who have allowed priests under their jurisdiction to go unpunished.  Clergy abuse survivor Becky Ianni (right) delivers a letter to the Vatican Embassy in Washington, D.C., addressed to Pope Francis. **Tom Gjelten/NPR** ****hide caption****  ****toggle caption****  Tom Gjelten/NPR  Clergy abuse survivor Becky Ianni (right) delivers a letter to the Vatican Embassy in Washington, D.C., addressed to Pope Francis.  Tom Gjelten/NPR  "There must be a zero-tolerance policy not only for the abuser, but for those who enable abuse as well," the group said in its letter.  "Those people to me are the bigger criminals," says SNAP board member Becky Ianni, who hand delivered the letter to the Vatican Embassy in Washington, D.C. "They covered up abuse, and they allowed more and more children to be put in harm's way. That breaks my heart."  Ianni, who was sexually violated by her family priest as a 9-year-old girl, says she and her fellow survivors never had much faith that U.S. bishops would take effective action on their own.  "The pope is in control," she says. "Cardinals and bishops can't control each other, so if something is going to happen, it's going to have to come from Pope Francis."  There is scant evidence, however, that the Pope is prepared at this week's summit to propose any new accountability measures directed at bishops or cardinals.  "If this meeting were to have any real impact, it would require Pope Francis to come in and lay down the law and say, 'This is what you've got to do. Go home and do it,'" says Father Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and frequent commentator on Vatican developments for the Religion News Service. "But that's just not his personality. He's a pastoral pope. He's not the sheriff of the Catholic Church."  **Opportunity for education**  Instead, Vatican aides say the pope sees the Rome summit as an opportunity for "catechesis," or religious education, for the bishops in attendance from around the world.  "The goal is that all of the bishops clearly understand what they need to do to prevent and combat the worldwide problem of the sexual abuse of minors," [according to Vatican Spokesman](https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican- city/news/2019-01/holy-see-press-office-meeting-protection-minors- communique.html) Alessandro Gisotti.  Given that Catholic bishops outside the U.S., especially in the Global South, have lagged in their recognition of the abuse crisis, that goal is likely to mean that American Catholics won't find much satisfaction in the aftermath of the Rome meeting.  A suggestion from Cardinal Blase Cupich, the Archbishop of Chicago and one of the summit organizers, that the Catholic leadership in the U.S. should align with other church leaders in the world brought a sharp response from Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org.  "This would be a step backwards," Doyle says. "It would undo years of slow but real progress. While the U.S. bishops' norms need improvement, they are by far more effective than the norms of any other bishops' conference we've studied."  The U.S. reform agenda in response to the clergy abuse crisis has actually moved beyond demands of the church leadership, with more attention to the role that civil law enforcement might play. Several state attorneys general have initiated their own investigations of abuse cases and are demanding that church authorities turn over relevant records.  Against that background, the Rome summit may have minimal importance for efforts in the United States to deal with the clergy abuse crisis.  "I would love for the church to commit to saying, 'We're going to find out what happened and come to a reckoning of this,'" says Notre Dame's Kathleen Sprows Cummings. "I don't see that happening, and at this point, I think we have to look to the civil authorities to do that."


pamelagellerreport--2019-10-18--Islamic Schools for Girls “a Finishing School for Child Brides”

In Islam, Muhammad is the “perfect model.” And Muhammad’s favorite wife Aisha was 6 when he married her, 9 when he consummated the marriage, hence ……  Ill-equipped private madrassas in Assam ignore child rights, junk formal education; girl students often end up as child brides  By: Firstpost • Sep 18, 2019 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):  The Assam State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (ASCPCR), in a recent survey, has raised a red flag over blatant violation of child rights, and of the provisions of the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009 in madrassas (schools of Islamic education). The survey comes at a time when the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development is working on a road map to introduce reforms in madrassas with the aim of bringing them at par with the national educational curriculum.  The ASCPCR survey was conducted by a three-member team of the commission led by its chairperson Sunita Changkakoti in private madrassas in two districts of Assam — Dhubri and South Salmara. Both these districts, some 250 kilometres away from Guwahati, are dominated by the Bengali-origin Muslim community.  In a statement, it said, “The team of ASCPCR, during the visit to the madrassas, observed that although there are a number of madrassas for boys and girls, a majority of them are functioning with multiple violations of child rights. The team recorded multiple cases of corporal punishment, violations of the RTE Act, 2009 among the private madrassas.”  The shocking reality inside the dark rooms of the madrassas led the commission to suggest shutting down of certain madrassas for gross violation of child rights and the RTE Act.  “There are gross violations of child rights, especially against girl children. The students are not provided with basic facilities. The banat madrassas (women madrassa) keep the girl children in confinement. The food is of bad quality. There is a huge chance of sexual violations and above all, children are deprived of formal education,” Changkakoti said.  Dhubri is the least literate district in Assam with 58.34 percent literacy rate, as per the 2011 Census.  The number of madrassas in India, which came into being with the advent of the Muslim rulers in the subcontinent, has gone up from some hundreds in the 1950s to over 8 lakh in the 2000s, according to various reports. Despite widespread suspicions that such institutions encourage a fundamentalist mentality, they have increased in number in Assam’s char areas. (Char is the Assamese word for sandbar.)   Ill-equipped private madrassas in Assam ignore child rights, junk formal education; girl students often end up as child brides  A private Madrassa in Agamani block of Dhubri district in Assam. Photo credit Khalilullah SK  Started as a means of ensuring education to the marginalised communities as a viable substitute for government schools, the private madrassas in Assam do not follow the standard formal education system. Away from any kind of government regulation, these non-registered schools house hundreds of children in tiny plots in unhygienic conditions and deprive them of formal education, consequently disconnecting them from the outer world, the commission observed.  “There are many reasons why a lot of madrassas have been coming up, although they cannot provide the kind of education needed for a person to secure a job. One of the reasons for this is the lack of government-run schools in char areas. The students have to travel 14-20 km to go to school. In most of the cases, they have to cross the river. As these madrassas provide free education and meals, the parents send their kids to these madrassas,” said Illias Rahman Sarkar, a child rights activist from Dhubri district.  As per the records of the State Madrassa Education Board, the oldest in the country, there are 614 recognised madrassas in Assam. However, the number of privately-run madrassas are in thousands, said Sarkar.  “In my area in Golakganj, you would find four-five madrassas within the radius of five kilometres. Those who pass out from private madrassas have no option other than to become daily wage earners or maulanas (religious teacher). So they would establish more madrassas to survive on donations from the people of the society,” he said.  Masud Zaman, an advocate, who is associated with the legal cell of the Assam State Jamiat Ulema-E-Hind in Dhubri district, however, felt that madrassas were acting as a place for the betterment of lives children in the char areas.  “Who goes to a madrassa? Obviously the poor people. The madrassas are providing free education and free meals. We cannot expect world-class facilities there because they are dependent on donations from society. At least these children are learning something in the schools. These schools prevent them from roaming around in an idle manner and committing crimes in that process,” Zaman said.  However, he also agreed that these private madrassas have become businesses in these districts more than institutes of religious education.  In most cases, madrassas are set up in a small cluster with mud huts and tin roofs by the donation from local villagers.  The 29-year-old Mariyam Bibi is a daily wage labourer in Guwahati. She belongs to Kamlakhar village of Golakganj revenue circle in Dhubri. Mariyam was 13 years old when she got married to one Marham Ali from Barpeta district.  “I was studying at a madrassa in my village. When I got enrolled I was eight years old. After five years of studying there, my mother said I had become ready for marriage,” she said. Mariyam’s 14-year-old daughter, a student of a banat madrassa also got married in the same district.  Changkakoti said that the girls’ madrassas were acting as grooming centres for minor girls to get married by the age of 13-14 years.  “During our visit to banat madrassas, it was observed that girls are groomed in such a way where they do not have any interest in formal education, they do not have any dream to become anything in life other than maulana and they are interested in getting married as soon as finish their course. The madrassas are depriving the girls of experiencing the big world outside. A girl gets enrolled in the madrassas at the age of 7-8. They study a four-year course on religion. After that they are considered to be fit for getting married,” the ASCPCR chairperson said.  Sarkar, who is actively working towards the eradication of child marriage from Dhubri, seconded this. He claimed that the banat madrassas are like the finishing schools for child brides in the district.  “The parents of a girl child want to get the girl married off by the age of 13-14. So they send their children to banat madrassas. As soon as the girl takes the religious education for two-three years, she is considered to be fit for marriage. So this is another reason why banat madrassas are so popular here,” he said.  Changkakoti also expressed the high possibility of sexual violence in banat madrassas.  “In banat madrassas most of the teachers are male and they have all the access to the rooms of the girl students. The girls do not know anything outside their religious education. They do not have any sex education. The female teachers are also submissive. What happens inside would never be reported,” she said.  She also said that not only girls, but there are high chances of a sexual offence against boys also.  “In many madrassas, there are boys from the age of five-six to 18-19 years. So there is every possibility of sexual harassment by elders. No one has sex education,” the ASCPCR chairperson said.  Rahman recalled an incident where a minor girl was sexually assaulted and impregnated by a maulana in one of the banat madrassas of Raniganj area in Bilashipara sub-division of the district some seven months back. However, he chose not to speak much about it.  “If I speak against the madrassas I will face the rage of my people here,” he said.  The Right to Education Act 2009, which makes formal education compulsory for children up to the age of 14, has been grossly violated by the private madrassas of the state.  Apart from religious education to students, the madrassas are not interested in linking themselves with the state board of education.  The commission in its report said, “The team recorded multiple cases of corporal punishment, violations of the RTE Act, 2009 among the private madrassas. It was also observed in the madrassas for girls that the girls were not allowed to interact with the outside world, keeping them confined inside the premises only. Even in madrassas for boys, some of them were found to be only providing religious education to the children, depriving them of the state education curriculum.”  The team which visited some madrassas during the celebration of Teachers’ Day on 5 September said the private madrassas although took part in the celebration did not know the significance of the day.  “The students would say they do not like to learn science and math. They would not want to become anything than a maulana. This is a very sorry state of affair. What would they become once they are out of it? Not everyone in these schools can become a maulana. These students will become frustrated in later part of life and contribute to the high rate of crime in such areas,” said Changakakoti.  Though Section 17 of the Right to Education Act banned corporal punishment more than a decade back, the maulanas of the madrassas have defended the practice corporal punishment to discipline students.  Rakibul Islam Ahmed, who used to be a maulana in a banat madrassa named as Al-Madrassadul Islamia in Golakganj of Dhubri district, said, “There are some boys who are very naughty. In our house also our parents sometimes beat us for not studying. In madrassas, the situation is the same. We beat them at times to teach them.”  Zaman also advocated this school of thought.


pinknewsuk--2019-06-26--Children should learn about stable and healthy same-sex relationships guidance says

Children should learn about ‘stable and healthy same-sex relationships’, guidance says

Signup to receive a daily roundup of the top LGBT+ news stories from around the world  Government guidance for relationships and sex education says children should learn about “stable and healthy” examples of same-sex relationships.  The finalised guidance was published on Tuesday (June 25) for relationships and sex education, which will become be mandatory from September 2020 in schools in England.  The guidance, which comes amid continued unrest at teaching over LGBT+ issues, makes clear that all pupils “should be taught the facts and the law about sex, sexuality, sexual health and gender identity in an age-appropriate and inclusive way.”  It adds: “All pupils should feel that the content is relevant to them and their developing sexuality.  “Sexual orientation and gender identity should be explored at a timely point and in a clear, sensitive and respectful manner.  “When teaching about these topics, it must be recognised that young people may be discovering or understanding their sexual orientation or gender identity.  “There should be an equal opportunity to explore the features of stable and healthy same-sex relationships.  “This should be integrated appropriately into the RSE programme, rather than addressed separately or in only one lesson.”  The guidance acknowledges that people will have “a range of opinions,” but makes clear: “The starting principle when teaching each of these must be that the applicable law should be taught in a factual way so that pupils are clear on their rights and responsibilities as citizens.”  The document does provide leeway for schools ”to explore faith, or other perspectives, on some of these issues in other subjects such as Religious Education.”  In a release, Education Secretary Damian Hinds said: “Our new guidance is clear that children should leave school having learnt about LGBT relationships.  “Children will of course find out about all sorts of things, including the diversity of our society, anyway – the question is where and how is it best to do so – in class, on the internet, or in the playground.  “I would strongly encourage schools to discuss with children in class that there are all sorts of different, strong and loving families, including families with same-sex parents, while they are at primary school.  “There is no reason why teaching children about the society that we live in and the different types of loving, healthy relationships that exist cannot be done in a way that respects everyone.”  Stonewall chief executive Ruth Hunt praised the guidance as “a real, positive step forward for LGBT inclusion in England’s schools.”  She added: “Teaching about the diversity that exists in the world means children from all families feel included and helps every child and young person understand that LGBT people are part of normal, everyday life.”  Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers said: “The Secretary of State has now made it abundantly clear that it is appropriate to teach primary-age children that there are different kinds of relationships, and that not every family is the same.”  He added: “We agree that diversity and equality are a matter of fact and a matter of law and learning about equality and diversity is not optional.”


politicalite--2019-01-03--MOSQUE RAIDS China Stands FIRM On Islam CLOSING Multiple Mosques

MOSQUE RAIDS: China Stands FIRM On Islam CLOSING Multiple Mosques

CHINA is standing firm on the spread of Islam, closing THREE mosques according to reports.  The totalitarian ruling communist party has taken a tough line on Islam and China says that the Mosques conduct ‘illegal religious education’.  Islamic crescents and domes have been removed from mosques, religious institutes are now required to fly the national flag.  China is an atheist country. However, it does allow the practice of religions in places of worship pre-approved by the ruling party.  The mosques were located south-west China and were raided by 100 police officers last Saturday, according to reports.  The raid in the villages of Huihuideng, Sanjia and Mamichang was coordinated by the Weishan County Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee to ‘protect harmony and stability in the religious domain’ said officials.  ‘The mosques were illegally established and conducted illegal religious education in violation of China’s Regulation on Religious Affairs,’ the statement said, adding that the decision to raid the three mosques came after the government’s outreach programmes failed to deter such ‘illegal religious activities’.  In the far west region of Xinjiang, following violent attacks by radical Muslims, many Muslims have been detained prisons where they are urged to denounce Islam and profess loyalty to the ruling party.  What do you think? Comment below.


rawstory--2019-03-18--Betsy DeVos promotes plan to hand over billions in federal tax credits for private religious and h

Betsy DeVos promotes plan to hand over billions in federal tax credits for private, religious, and home schooling

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has been touring the country to promote her plan to hand over billion of dollars in federal tax credits to dramatically expand the number of students attending private schools, religious schools, or even being homeschool. The program, part of a bill in Congress, would be funded through private donations in exchange for tax credits. In other words, tax dollars would effectively be paying for the program, as those dollars will have to be made up by taxpayers.  Secretary DeVos’ “Education Freedom Scholarships” program would continue the Trump administration’s blurring of the lines between church and state. Just last week Sec. DeVos announced the Dept. of Education will no longer ban religious organizations from being funded with taxpayer dollars for secular projects.  The Dept. of Education claims up to $5 billion annually could be allocated, but Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who spoke at an event with DeVos to roll out his bill to support the program (video below), said it would be $10 billion.  The reception in Sec. DeVos’ stop in Iowa appeared less than enthusiastic.  “Pitching her proposal to fund scholarships for private school and home-schooled students, federal education secretary Betsy DeVos met behind closed doors Friday with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and other state leaders and lobbyists,” Iowa’s Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reports.  The paper notes that Waterloo Community Schools’ Superintendent Jane Lindaman was “the lone public education representative invited to participate,” and described her as being “concerned.”  “I was surprised by the imbalance of people at this meeting today,” Lindaman told The Courier. “Out of 14 people, I was the only public school advocate. I quickly realized the responsibility and, quite honestly, the burden of speaking for the hundreds of thousands of kids who are in public education in Iowa.”  Here’s a local news report from Alabama last month that features Sec. DeVos and Senator Ted Cruz, a big home schooling advocate, promoting his bill and the Secretary’s program. Cruz endorses the federal government effectively paying for private and religious education, calling it a “civil rights issue.”

David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement


realclearpolitics--2019-01-29--When Will Rising Tide of Bias Against Christians Stop

When Will Rising Tide of Bias Against Christians Stop?

The rising tide of intolerance against Christians in the U.S. has found a new platform for persecution — the spouses of public service officials.  Karen Pence, her husband Vice President Mike Pence, and by proxy the current administration, have been accused by the media of  “making a statement” against LGBT people because Mrs. Pence has chosen to teach art at a Christian school. The question was even raised as to whether taxpayers should continue to pay for her Secret Service protection.  This is part of a striking and alarming trend — a trend that uses a religious litmus test to determine if individuals are fit for public service and demands that those in office deny their conscience and beliefs. Freedom of religion is a First Amendment right set forth by our Founding Fathers, not some new conservative fad adopted since the Trump administration came into office.  Using a religious litmus test as a prerequisite to serve in office is unconstitutional, yet the current list of examples of this trend is too long:  Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif.)  said of Judge Amy Coney Barrett,  Catholic “dogma lives loudly within you”; the Christian views of Russell Vought, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, were called Islamophobic by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.); Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) repeatedly asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during his confirmation hearing, “Is gay sex a perversion?”; and most recently Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) challenged federal judicial nominee Brian Buescher about his ties to the Knights of Columbus, an international Catholic service organization with almost 2 million members.  More examples can be cited, especially with regard to our Senate Judiciary Committee. This trend has now spread to accusing the spouses of our public servants of bigotry and hate for their religious beliefs, and it must stop.  Immanuel Christian School, where Mrs. Pence works, is an institution that has educated children and served the community in Northern Virginia for 43 years. All people are welcome; however, the school asks that its applicants be followers of Christ and adhere to certain standards of conduct regarding sex and marriage. These are the same standards of conduct that have been part of the teachings of Catholicism, Judaism, and Islam (to name just a few religious faiths) throughout their long histories.  According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 5.8 million elementary and secondary school children (pre-K through 12th grade) are enrolled in private institutions, making up more than 10 percent of all school enrollment in the U.S. Particularly important to note is that about 67 percent of these have a “religious orientation or purpose.”  The majority of these religious educational organizations are Roman Catholic and African Methodist Episcopal, but the list also includes Greek Orthodox, Jewish, Islamic, Seventh-Day Adventist, and more. Are these 23,000 religious educational institutions, which consist of almost 336,000 teachers, 4 million schoochildren and their parents and families, also bigots, or could it possibly be that they hold and live by their moral and religious beliefs? Should we scrutinize the teachers, students, and standards of conduct of each of these schools as well?


redstate--2019-08-07--Vice President Pence Calls on the Nation to Turn to God in the Aftermath of Evil Mass Shootings

On Tuesday, as Americans continued to process the terrible mass shootings which occurred over the weekend, Mike Pence called on the nation to turn its heart toward God.  Speaking to the Alliance Defending Freedom in Arlington, the Vice President referenced a remark by the Commander-in-Chief:  And how do we do that? Perhaps it’s through communication with a higher power:  Pray for everyone hurt — the victims and the nation, broadly:  Belief in God is a strength, he explained. It binds us:  Horrifically, the tragedies in Texas and Ohio left over 50 wounded and registered a death toll of — as of August 6th — 31.  It’s certainly a grave wound to the American soul.  And no answers to “why” could possibly suffice.  But Mike pointed out that, historically, the country’s houses of worship have served as places of comfort — though times are certainly changing:  “From the American founding, voluntary associations — churches, synagogues, places of worship, and religious education — have been at the center of American communities and they are the wellspring of American strength. But as you all know well, we live in a time where we’ve seen people driving religion from the public square and it’s even become fashionable for many in the media and popular culture to mock religious belief.”  For those of you who prone to agree, consider the Vice President’s call to help heal the national hurt:  “Let’s pray for the people of El Paso and Dayton. As we pray, let us resolve to act to make our communities safer. Let us resolve that we will do our part to ensure that our heritage of family and faith and freedom is renewed and preserved for this generation and the next. “God bless the people of El Paso and Dayton and God bless all of you here to defend faith and freedom for the American people. And may God bless America.”  See 3 more pieces from me:  Mario Lopez Claims Small Children Shouldn’t Choose Their Gender. What’s Worse – That Or His Christian Faith?  WATCH: Student Suspended For Posting Bible Verses Near Gay Flags Says Faith Is Unwelcome At School  Christian Revival: This Season, Donald Trump Brings Faith In God Back To The Presidency  And please follow Alex Parker on Twitter and Facebook.  Thank you for reading! Please sound off in the Comments section below.  If you have an iPhone and want to comment, select the box with the upward arrow at the bottom of your screen; swipe left and choose “Request Desktop Site.” If it fails to automatically refresh, manually reload the page. Scroll down to the red horizontal bar that says “Show Comments.”


russiainsider--2019-09-08--Patriarchy Preserves Families Feminism Destroys Them

Patriarchy Preserves Families, Feminism Destroys Them

When feminism intrudes, the child becomes an idol, the woman becomes his priestess, and the man becomes an economic appendage. As a result, the entire family structure is destroyed.  Archpriest Sergei Rybakov, associate professor of theology department at Ryazan State University, chairman of the religious education department of the Ryazan diocese, answers the question: “Why does the modern family break up?”  "A lot depends on how the the hierarchy is setup. Previously, families had a patriarchal structure, in which a wife traditionally came to her husband each morning to request a blessing for the day. She also brought the children, who would receive blessings from their father. He would bless each of them with his right hand. This is the patriarchal way of the Orthodox family.”  “But then, due to spiritual impoverishment and the influence of liberal ideas, the man ceased to be recognized as a patriarch. As a result, a modern woman rarely fulfills what the apostle has commanded — not to teach, but to learn from her husband at home (1 Timothy 2:12; 1 Corinthians 14:35). There is no one to learn from now, and worldly wisdom is not enough. The soul of the woman remains hungry, and thus a kind of madness begins. She desires to seize power in the family. The child is often used as an excuse."  "And thus there is a restructuring of the entire family. The child becomes the head of the family, who is served by the mother. The child becomes an idol, the woman becomes his priestess, and the man becomes an economic appendage. As a result, the entire family structure is destroyed, and the man leaves the family to find a place where he feels more comfortable. Thus the family falls apart.”  “This is confirmed by statistics: Where patriarchy is preserved, there are fewer divorces. The patriarchal family is more stable, and is immune to all sorts of difficulties. If there are fewer divorces, it means that a greater number of families acquire an understanding of the correct dispensation of the family, although it may be done with great difficulty."  "Meanwhile, where there is a matriarchal approach to raising children, feminism breeds feminist women who are not ready to become wives and mothers, and feminist men who are not ready to become responsible husbands and fathers. So until the pedagogical attitude is changed — through intentional education about the Orthodox family — the situation will continue to be senseless.”  Here in Russia, this website is currently the only source of income for the Gleason family and the Silva family. Both families now live in Russia, and they appreciate your support.  To keep the Russian Faith website running, a recurring donation of even $15 or $25 per month would be a huge blessing.


shareblue--2019-09-11--GOP congressman We have mass shootings because we dont teach kids not to covet

GOP congressman: We have mass shootings because we don't teach kids not to covet

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) told House colleagues that teaching the Bible in schools is the only way to stop gun violence. And he blamed the rise in suicides and mass shootings on politicians teaching children to desire stuff.  At a House Judiciary Committee markup on Tuesday, lawmakers considered legislation to address gun violence through "extreme risk protection orders" (red flag laws that allow courts to temporarily arm those deemed a violent threat to others or themselves), limits on high-capacity magazines, and new restrictions on gun ownership for those convicted of hate crimes. All three measures passed, but Gohmert was not happy.  "I would just submit to you that we can use these words and try to craft laws," he argued. "But people will continue to kill themselves at a higher and higher alarming rate. And there will be continuing these mass shootings we didn't use to deal with."  He then implied that the solution to these problems is religious education in public schools.  "Perhaps there was something good when children in school were taught that you shouldn't covet, you shouldn't be jealous, you shouldn't kill, that those are things you should not do," Gohmert continued. "And today we have more politicians encouraging jealousy, covetousness, and we've divided the country and it needs to stop. That will do more than any of these bills in taking away constitutional rights."  It is unclear which public education system Gohmert is referring to. Schools still teach kids commonly accepted norms, including that they should not kill or take that which does not belong to them. Indeed, the statewide school curriculum in his own state of Texas mandates that all kindergartners be taught things like "the foundation for responsible citizenship," "basic human needs and ways people meet these needs," and "the purpose of rules and the role of authority figures in the home and school."  Published with permission of The American Independent.