The Abortion Ties of the COVID Vaccines: A Deal-Killer or No Big Deal? | The Stream

The Abortion Ties of the COVID Vaccines: A Deal-Killer or No Big Deal? | The Stream: Little Johanna was carved up for parts so you could have your vaccine. Are you okay with that? It's still happening, with the NIH funding it.

Media Ignore Antifa Assault On Christians

By Catholic League president Bill Donohue

Antifa, the urban terrorists, brutally assaulted Christians who were praying in a Portland park on August 7th, and the media have almost totally ignored it. Dressed in black, with face coverings, the left-wing nihilists destroyed the sound system and assaulted the Evangelicals with pepper spray and projectiles.

Andy Ngo, the reporter who has covered Antifa better than anyone—and has been beaten up for doing so—recorded this savage event. Flash bombs were thrown at kids as young as four months old. "Where is your god now?" asked an Antifa thug.

The police were called to the scene but did nothing. They were acting rationally: The authorities have yielded power to street barbarians, handcuffing the cops. The same passive police presence is now routine in America's largest cities, thanks to no bail, no prosecutions, no insurance protection for cops, and calls to dismantle the police and empty the prisons.

Quite frankly, it is now borderline legal to kill and maim innocent persons in urban America, including those whose crime it is to pray in public, never mind the police. Anarchy reigns. And what do the media do? Nothing.

Not one major newspaper or wire service covered the Antifa assault on Christians. Broadcast TV networks also ignored it, and among the cable channels, only the three conservative outlets, Fox News, Newsmax and OAN profiled the story. Ngo had video footage but had few takers.

By contrast, the recent CNN interview with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) was covered by almost all the mainstream media: print, internet and television gave it wide attention.

She said that on the day of the Capitol riot, January 6, she feared for her life, adding that she also feared she would be raped. Yet unlike the Christians who were attacked, no one laid a hand on her. They couldn't—she was not in the Capitol when the riot occurred (she was safely tucked away in her office).

Unlike the Christian victims of Antifa, AOC's tale of woe is patently contrived. For the media to play up her phony story while dismissing the real-life Antifa riot, smacks of ideological and religious bias. No wonder the public holds the big media in such low esteem. Cub reporters earn more respect these days.  

Mark Levin: Whatever Happened to Individual Liberty? 'Soft Tyranny' is Getting More Aggressive | The Stream

Mark Levin: Whatever Happened to Individual Liberty? 'Soft Tyranny' is Getting More Aggressive | The Stream: If you love freedom and your family, and if you are concerned about the direction of our country, then I plead with you to watch this clip with an open heart and open mind.

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Middle School “Trans” Indoctrination

By Deacon Mike Manno

Lately there has been a slew of reports about how unhappy parents are confronting school officials for attempting to indoctrinate their children in ideologies the parents reject. Unfortunately, with the backing of the teachers’ unions and “woke” school administrators, the schools are fighting back sometimes even to the point of violating the law.

Unfortunately, these efforts have turned schools into war zones, whether over critical race theory, masks in the classroom, or even if the schools are to open for in-person instruction. It’s the parents vs. the academic community.

And also unfortunately, the academic community starts with the upper hand; for to them your children belong to the schools once one realizes that folks with titles and initials after their names are smarter than you, and if you persist in causing “trouble” the state can take you children away and find someone else to raise them. That’s not speculation, it has been done in the United States and even more spectacularly in Canada.

Recently, there has been one more hideous example of what the academic-industrial complex has been doing to kids.

This story comes from the great People’s Republic of Massachusetts, Baird Middle School in Ludlow, to be more specific.

It was only a few years ago that several parents exposed the school for its graphic sexual, homosexual, and transgendered themed books in the library and classrooms. According to reports from MassResistance, the outfit that is assisting the parents, the impetus came from the school’s cross-dressing librarian along with support from the school’s staff, principal, superintendent, and board.

Apparently things started leaking out when the librarian held talks with some of the children where they were given certain books to read and videos to watch — all with transgender themes. According to one of the teachers, many of the children chosen for this “education” were from troubled homes who were “easy prey for such messages.”

From there it went into the classrooms where children were asked not to use “boys” and “girls” but were given a list of non-gender specific terms that should be used instead. In addition they were asked to decide on a “preferred pronoun.” That was followed by the choosing of opposite sex names and identities. Of course, none of this was to be told to the kids’ parents.

To show how insidious this was, here is a copy of a note sent to staff about one of the girls:

“Mary has a preferred name of Michael/Mike and preferred pronouns of he and his. He understands that there will be times that ‘Mary’ and ‘she/her’ slips out and he is fine with that.

“Michael is still in the process of telling his parents and is requesting that school staff refer to him as Mary and use she/her pronouns with his parents and in written emails/letters home. When Michael has informed his parents of his preferred name and pronouns, we will change the name in the computer system if that is what he wishes to do at that time.

“I explained to him that we understand this is a complicated process and we will be as supportive as possible — but may make mistakes from time to time.”

You can probably see where this whole thing is heading: the “transgendering” of our children behind the backs of their parents.

In February of this year an 11-year-old girl sent this e-mail to her teachers and staff. See if this sounds like an 11-year-old:

“Hello everyone,

“If you are reading this you are either my teacher or guidance counselor. I have an announcement to make and I trust you guys with this information. I am genderqueer. Basically, it means I use any pronouns (other than it/its). This also means I have a name change. My new name will be Raymond. Please call me by that name.

“If you deadname me or use any pronouns I am not comfortable with I will politely tell you. I am telling you this because I feel like I can trust you. A list of pronouns you can use are: she/her he/him they/them fae/faer ae/aer ve/ver xe/xem ze/zir. I have added a link so you can look at how to say them. Please only use the ones I have listed and not the other ones. I do not like them.”

Of course I’m sure this sounds just like the little 11-year-old that is underfoot in your house. If not, what have you been teaching them?

This was followed up a short time later by the 11-year-old’s brother, 13, who then decided that he was really a girl and wanted to be called “Skylar.”

Unfortunately for the school, a teacher, identified only as “Bonnie” took a critical look at the situation and notified — against all school norms — (gasp!) the siblings’ parents.

In March, Bonnie was placed on administrative leave for “conduct unbecoming a teacher related to your inappropriate communications with the parents of a student.” In other words, according to the academic-industrial complex of the Peoples’ Republic of Massachusetts, parents had no need to know of the struggles their children face. Or, perhaps, the professional educators didn’t want the parents to know who suggested these ideas to their kids. After all, what 11-year-old knew what the words “genderqueer” and “deadname” mean, much less the wide variety of pronoun alternatives?

When Bonnie was called to attend an “investigative interview” with the school’s compliance officer she was represented by a local pro-life attorney because the teachers’ union refused to provide a lawyer. Shortly after that hearing, Bonnie got a letter from the principal stating that she was intending to terminate her employment. So much for telling the truth and respecting parental rights.

Now in a morality tale you’d expect it to end with a righteous comeuppance against the school administration. But this isn’t a morality tale. Stacy Monette, the principal of Baird Middle School who fired Bonnie, was named Middle School Principal of the Year by the Massachusetts School Administrators Association.

Yup, no morality tale here.

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com every Thursday at 10 a.m. central.)

Note: See below for Faith On Trial's interview with Bonnie. This article was written before the interview. 

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This week on Faith On Trial

 

Bonnie Manchester was fired from her job as a teacher at Biard Middle School in Ludlow, Massachusetts for disclosing to parents that their children were being groomed for a transsexual lifestyle. Bonnie’s crowdfunding site is https://bit.ly/3jt9HWl and her story is told at https://bit.ly/3lEhinM.

Does A Preborn Baby Have Standing To Sue?

By Deacon Mike Manno

(The Wanderer) – A brief submitted to the Rhode Island Supreme Court in June argues that a pre-viable fetus, along with a post-viable fetus, has standing to challenge the Rhode Island Reproductive Privacy Act (RPA), which, according to the brief, “unlawfully amended the Rhode Island Constitution by granting, securing, and funding a right to an abortion.”

Of course the fetuses are not alone in their challenge: Also on board with the argument are three Rhode Island voters, Catholics for Life, and its umbrella entity, Servants of Christ for Life. Representing the plaintiffs is a Chicago-based religious liberty law firm, the Thomas More Society.

The case, as unusual as some of the plaintiffs are, started — as most do — when Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, a practicing Catholic who now serves the Biden Administration as secretary of Commerce, signed into law a bill that would legalize abortions up to birth. The bill allows late-term abortions on viable fetuses including partial-birth and dismemberment abortions.

The bill was described by the director of the state’s Right to Life Committee as a “New York-style abortion expansion bill.” Thus a legal challenge was initiated. Last November, the trial court rejected the plaintiffs’ claims and dismissed the suit, finding that “unborn persons do not have rights as persons to make this challenge,” their claim about the unconstitutionality of act was dismissed as they suffered no “concrete and particularized harm.”

As a result the case was dismissed by the trial court — not over the merits of the case, but because the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue. The appeal to the State Supreme Court is asking it to find that the plaintiffs do have standing to challenge the law. Under Rhode Island case law, “a plaintiff has sufficient standing to sue if he or she alleges ‘an injury in fact resulting from the challenged statute’.”

The plaintiff’s suit claimed, among other things, that the state’s RPA unlawfully established a constitutional right to an abortion by statute, but not according to the requirements of the state’s constitution. The Rhode Island constitution, Article XIV, Section 1, states, “The general assembly may propose amendments to the Constitution . . . and submitted to the electors at the next general election . . . if then approved by a majority of the electors voting thereon, it shall become a part of the Constitution.”

One of the allegations made by the plaintiffs was that by the legislature’s adoption of the act, plaintiffs were denied the opportunity to campaign and vote against the law during a referendum campaign that would have taken place had the proposal been submitted to the voters for approval or rejection, as any constitutional change would have required.
Since the legislature had no power to alter the state’s constitution without a vote of the people, the action of the legislature violated their right to equal protection because “it treated opponents of the change less favorably than proponents.”

To counter the argument that the plaintiffs suffered no injury, they argue that the denial of their ability to express their views in a statewide constitutional referendum is in itself a judicially cognizable interest that satisfies the legal requirement of injury since the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that voters treated unequally suffer actual injury.

While these arguments will follow the course of other cases, the interesting question that is raised is about the preborn children. One, Baby Roe, at the time of filing, was non-viable at 15 weeks, the other, Baby Mary Doe, was viable at 34 weeks and was considered a “quick child,” defined by Rhode Island law as: “An unborn child whose heart is beating, who is experiencing electronically measurable brain waves, who is discernibly moving and who is so far developed and matured as to be capable of surviving the trauma of birth with the aid of usual medical care and facilities available in this state.”

As a “quick child,” the viable fetus had the protection of the “Willful Killing of Unborn Quick Child” statute. But since the RPA repealed the fetal homicide statute, the child’s right of due process and equal protection was violated, it is claimed.

The unborn babies also “had a protectable legal interest in continuing to keep the criminal abortion law on the books because Roe v. Wade [and other cases] “as judicial decisions, are subject to reversal, and could be overturned as early as the next U.S. Supreme Court term in view of the court’s grant of certiorari in [the Mississippi case of] Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.”

The contention is that if Roe is overruled by the Supreme Court, all state laws that are still on the books that were negatively affected by that case and rendered null, would become enforceable as if Roe never existed. Thus by repealing such statutes such as the fetal homicide statue the “rights” of the unborn babies — whose interest is being advanced by their respective mothers — have been abridged by the passage of the RPA.

Thus the fetuses have a sufficient stake in the outcome of the case, according to the brief.

But a more interesting question is this: Are the fetuses, especially a pre-viable one, persons under the law?

This is where things get a bit complicated. And remember as you read this, the primary issue to be resolved is the issue of standing. You can have standing and still lose your case; but without standing you can’t even sue. So the main issue now is the issue of standing. We’ve seen above how the adult and organizational interest argued for standing.

Now, continuing the standing argument for the preborn, the brief argues:

“The trial court did not distinguish between Roe’s holding — that a pre-viable fetus is not a ‘person’ under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution when the issue is a woman’s privacy interest in terminating a pregnancy — and a viable fetus’ legal interest in avoiding the depredations of a killer under Rhode Island’s fetal homicide (or quick child) law.

“The latter law renders a viable fetus like Baby Mary Doe a ‘person’ for purposes of the Rhode Island Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act, enabling her to determine her rights under the fetal homicide law and other laws that may protect her. In situations when the rights of a post-viable child, in this case, Baby Mary Doe, under fetal homicide or other protective laws, do not impinge on a woman’s right to abortion found by the U.S.

Supreme Court [and] it is erroneous and unjust to ignore injury to their legal interests on the ground that they are not ‘persons’ in the abortion context [emphasis added].
“This is an access to the courts and to justice issue — it does not implicate a state’s attempt to interfere with or abridge a woman’s right to abortion…she has standing to ask, and justice requires, that the Court hear her claim for redress of her injury pursuant to Article I, Section 2 of the Rhode Island Constitution, the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act.

“For these reasons Baby Roe and Baby Mary Doe have shown an actual injury. It was error for the court below to conclude they had no standing to claim redress.”

Thomas Olp, vice president and senior counsel at the Thomas More Society, explained the substantial public interest in this case. “There are several issues here in which a lower court erred,” Olp explained. “In this case the personhood of a pre- or post-viable child in utero is not negated by the United States Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. We are asking the court to acknowledge that a preborn child has standing to challenge the Reproductive Privacy Act’s removal of legal protections under Rhode Island law, including the fetal homicide law and other laws that may protect her.”

So, does a preborn baby have the right to sue? We’ll soon find out what Rhode Island has to say in the matter. Stay tuned.

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday morning at 10 a.m. Central on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)

This week’s Faith On Trial Program:

Attorney Daniel Blomberg from the Becket Fund on their recent case, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship v. The University of Iowa. What the case means and the viability of the “qualified immunity” doctrine for college administrators, as well as other news of the day.

Disrespect Of American Indian Culture

By Deacon Mike Manno

(The Wanderer) – One thing I remember from my childhood, among all the old black and white westerns that I watched on TV, was an interest in Cowboys and Indians. Of course, at the time most Indians were portrayed as the antagonists, except for Tonto and a few that were intended for comic relief.

That never seemed right to me, but what was a kid to do? So like all the other kids I just sat back and watched the boob-tube. But the portrayal of the Indians never seemed balanced, especially when in history class the nuns taught us how real the prejudice against them was, and how they were relegated to reservations and stripped of most of their natural rights as the white man moved westward.

Then one day I remember seeing a solicitation for a Catholic Indian mission in one of the Dakotas. The solicitation listed the prices of things they needed to acquire to make sure the mission was financially stable. Of course I wasn’t a rich kid and lived with my parents in modest style. But I was intrigued with the cost of one of the mission’s necessities.

Bricks for building classrooms were fifty-cents apiece. I remember talking to my dad about it, he gave me an envelope and stamp and I put a dollar bill in it with a note that I would like to buy two bricks for the Indian kids. I don’t remember if I ever sent them any more money, but I was hoping my dollar might contribute to a better life on the reservation for kids like me.

Now before you get the idea that I’m some sort of civil rights activist for Native Americans, I’m not. I know history has not been kind to them, I know they were here first, but I also know that there were many other injustices committed during the long history of white men in America. There, of course, is nothing that we can do about the past except trying to understand it, and to grapple with the legacy we have inherited, both the good and the bad.

One of the ways we deal with this history is to recognize the cultural beliefs that are represented by the indigenous peoples that inhabited our land before we did. That may sound pious, although I do not mean it in that way. What I mean is this: Just as we take umbrage when we see mobs of demonstrators tearing down symbols of our white, Euro-centric culture, we should be reticent to disrespect theirs.

A case on point is now before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in which the Klickitat and Cascade Tribes of the Yakama Nation have watched as the government has not only disrespected a small religious site that has been the center of rituals and burial ceremonies since long before we arrived, but it deliberately destroyed it.

And it was all done to widen a highway in Oregon, without notice to the tribe and in violation of an agreement between the tribal leaders and the government agencies involved.

The dispute goes back to 2006 when the Federal Highway Administration sought to expand U.S. Highway 26 which linked Portland to Mount Hood, an ancient and sacred site for the native Indians. Along the highway was a small sacred cite called Ana Kwna Nchi nchi Patat, the “Place of Big Big Trees.” It was not quite a full acre and consisted of “a dense stand of old growth trees encircling a historic campground, burial ground, and centuries-old stone altar. The site has been used by indigenous peoples since time immemorial, and by Plaintiffs personally since the 1940s for core religious ceremonies that cannot take place anywhere else,” according to the tribe’s petition to the appellate court.

While initially the government tried to work with the tribes, those negotiations failed as the government went ahead with its widening plans and in 2008 the tribal hereditary chiefs, Wilbur Slockish and Johnny Jackson, along with a tribal elder, Carol Logan, and two other entities, responded by bringing suit against the Federal Highway Commission to prevent the further destruction of their religious site.

To add the turning lane, and to protect nearby wetlands, the government “completely destroyed the sacred site — cutting down the old-growth trees, bulldozing the burial ground and stone altar, and covering the area under a massive earthen berm. It did this even though there were several feasible ways to add the turn lane without harming the sacred site,” the tribes argued in their brief.

The tribes alleged that this is a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), claiming the governmental action posed a “substantial burden” on the tribe’s religious liberties. “Here, the sacred site’s destruction obviously imposed a ‘substantial burden’ on Plaintiffs’ religious practices because it makes those practices impossible,” the tribes wrote.

Additionally the tribes contend the government violated the Free Exercise Clause by carving out secular — but not religious — exemptions from the negative consequences of its actions. Specifically, while the government altered the project to accommodate nearby wetlands, it refused to make the same accommodations for plaintiffs’ sacred site.

In addition, the suit alleged that the government violated the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act.

The lower court, however, was not kind to the tribes. It dismissed the suit saying that since the religious site had been destroyed and it was no longer accessible to the tribes, the destruction of the site did not impose a substantial burden on their religious exercise under RFRA. The case bounced around in the district court for a while until the court entered a final decree from which the tribes took this appeal to the circuit court.
In its brief, the tribes appealed to the court of appeals:

“Some cases present an irreconcilable conflict between the protection of a sacred site and the accomplishment of the Government’s goals. Not this one. Plaintiffs sought to protect a tiny, 0.74-acre site where they worshiped for a half-century, and where their ancestors worshiped for centuries before them.

“The Government knew about the site, sending an archaeologist to examine it. The Government protected the site, changing prior projects to preserve it. But then the Government knowingly destroyed it, rendering Plaintiffs’ religious practices impossible. That the Government deemed the site insignificant, or wanted to finish its project more quickly, does not justify its actions. It only shows why we have laws like these in the first place — so our nation’s tragic history of destroying sacred sites does not senselessly repeat itself.”

“For centuries Native Americans have endured the destruction of sacred places by the federal government, and it’s heartbreaking that the court would say this completely preventable destruction was okay,” said tribal elder Carol Logan, and one of the plaintiffs in this case. “All we want is the return of our sacred artifacts, the rededication of the area for our ancestors, and the promise that we can continue to worship as our tribes have done for centuries.”

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and two local firms are representing the tribes.
This case has had a long and complicated history. This appeal was only filed May 3, 2021 so there might be a while longer before the tribes get justice. But this is one of those cases that will get little note by the press or legal commentators. For most, unless you live in the area, you will never have heard of this dispute. But it is real, it affects real people who want to protect their religious heritage and practice.

We would want the same thing.

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday at 10 a.m. Central on Faith On Trial at IowaCatholicRadio.com.)

 

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Faith On Trial: this week's program

Thomas More Society Special Counsel Charles LiMandri on his suit in against the San Diego United School District in California, and the principle of Junipero Serra High School for illegally changing the school’s name to erase the name of a Catholic saint who is prominent in the history of California.

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