News Blog for social, fiscal & national security conservatives who believe in God, family & the USA. Upholding the rights granted by God & guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, traditional family values, "republican" principles / ideals, transparent & limited "smaller" government, free markets, lower taxes, due process of law, liberty & individual freedom. Content approval rests with the ARRA News Service Editor. Opinions are those of the authors. While varied positions are reported, beliefs & principles remain fixed. No revenue is generated for or by this "Blog" - no paid ads - no payments for articles.Fair Use Doctrine is posted & used. Blogger/Editor/Founder: Bill Smith, Ph.D. [aka: OzarkGuru & 2010 AFP National Blogger of the Year] Contact: editor@arranewsservice.com (Pub. Since July, 2006)Home PageFollow @arra
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics
is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -- Plato
(429-347 BC)
Monday, March 06, 2017
Transgender Rights
by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: Last month, the Trump administration announced that it was rescinding the Obama administration “gender identity” policy. Ryan Anderson says that the administration “is doing the right thing in correcting Obama’s unlawful overreach, which imposed a one-sided solution on all 50 states.”
A little history is in order. The Obama administration redefined the term in the Title IX law prohibiting sex discrimination to include “gender identity.” On May 13, the Justice Department and the Education Department sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to our nation’s schools informing them of their new interpretation that must be implemented in these federally funded schools. On August 21, a U.S. district judge ruled that the attempt to redefine sex as gender identity was unlawful and blocked the decree from going into effect. Last month, the new Attorney General, Jeff Sessions withdrew from the lawsuit and cancelled oral arguments.
One question we need to resolve is whether transgender rights are civil rights. Jim Dennison rightly states that if they are the same, then they should be enforced over the objections of state and local school districts. But he also points out that “unlike previous civil rights legislation, transgender civil rights significantly impact the civil rights of all people.”
Ryan Anderson talked about a recent panel of women (including a rape survivor, a lesbian, and a feminist activist) at the Heritage Foundation that talked about the value of “women-only spaces.” He concluded that: “While we must be sensitive to the dignity, privacy, and safety concerns of people who identify as transgender, that is not a reason to ignore the dignity, privacy, and safety concerns of everyone else.”
One solution is for Congress to reintroduce and debate the Civil Rights Uniformity Act that clarifies the term “sex” so that our representatives, rather than judges and bureaucrats, develop future transgender policy.
----------- Kerby Anderson is a radio talk show host heard on numerous stations via the Point of View Network endorsed by Dr. Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service Tags:Kerby Anderson, Viewpoints, Point of View, Transgender RightsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: One of the issues in the 2016 presidential campaign was religious liberty. Many of the Americans who voted for Donald Trump believed he would protect religious liberty by appointing conservative judges to the federal court.
Ryan Anderson argues that there are executive actions that the president-elect can do even before he appoints judges to the federal court. First, he can address the threat faced by religious schools (like Wheaton College) and religious groups (like the Little Sisters of the Poor) from the mandates from the Department of Health and Human Services. Houses of worship were exempted from the Obamacare contraception and abortifacients mandate.
Currently these religious groups were merely offered an accommodation that still violated their religious beliefs. The next president and his administration could direct the new secretary of Health and Human Services “to provide robust religious liberty protection to the HHS mandate.”
A second action could be taken with regard to the Justice Department and the Department of Education. Bureaucrats in the Obama administration re-interpreted the 1972 Title IX law to mandate that schools allow students to use bathroom and locker room facilities in accord with their “gender identity.”
The next president could rescind the executive orders by President Obama. He could also instruct the new secretaries of Education and Health and Human Services along with his new Attorney General to interpret the Title IX law the way it was intended.
Finally, Congress can pass and the next president can sign two pieces of legislation. One is the Russell Amendment, which protects freedom in religious staffing. The other is the Civil Rights Uniformity Act that specifies that the word “sex” in our civil rights laws does not mean “gender identity.”
These are three things the next president can do to protect religious liberty, even before appointing judges to the courts.
----------- Kerby Anderson is a radio talk show host heard on numerous stations via the Point of View Network endorsed by Dr. Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service Tags:Kerby Anderson, Viewpoints, Point of View, 2016 presidential campaign, Religious Liberty, Ryan AndersonTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
The findings - that scientific research does not support the
claim that sexual orientation is innate and immutable -
directly contradict claims made by Justice Kennedy
in the Obergefell ruling. The Daily Signal
by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: Could it be that nearly everything we have been told about sexual orientation and gender identity is wrong? A new report published in the journal, The New Atlantis, seems to challenge conventional secular perspectives on these issues. The paper by Dr. Lawrence Mayer and Dr. Paul McHugh surveys over 200 peer-reviewed studies done in various social science disciplines.
Ryan Anderson of the Heritage Foundation summarizes the paper’s results. He says the major takeaway is that “some of the most frequently heard claims about sexuality and gender are not supported by scientific evidence.” Here are four of the most important conclusions from the paper.
First, the “belief that sexual orientation is an innate, biologically fixed human property” is not supported. In other words, people are not “born that way.”
Second, the “belief that gender identity is an innate, fixed human property independent of biological sex—so that a person might be a man trapped in a woman’s body or a woman trapped in a man’s body—is not supported by scientific evidence.”
Third, “only a minority of children who express gender-atypical thoughts or behavior will continue to do so into adolescence or adulthood.” It goes on to say that children should not be encouraged to become transgender. They also should not be subjected to hormone treatments or surgery.
Fourth, people who are homosexual or transgender “have higher rates of mental problems (anxiety, depression, suicide), as well as behavioral and social problems (substance abuse, intimate partner violence), than the general population.”
The paper only focuses on the scientific research, but it obviously has implications for public policy. Incorrect scientific claims have been used to justify court rulings, government policies, and medical practices concerning sexual orientation and gender identity. They have not been based upon sound science.
----------- Kerby Anderson is a radio talk show host heard on numerous stations via the Point of View Network endorsed by Dr. Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service Tags:Kerby Anderson, Viewpoints, Point of View, gender Identity, scientific research, The Heritage Foundation, Ryan AndersonTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
What’s Next for the Marriage Debate After Supreme Court Ruling
by Kate Scanlon: Far from settling the marriage debate, the Supreme Court’s ruling on Obergefell v. Hodges raised more questions, according to four participants in a panel discussion Tuesday at The Heritage Foundation.
Regardless of their views on same-sex marriage, the panelists said that the majority’s opinion in the Obergefell ruling is unclear, and fails to provide accommodation for individuals who object to same-sex marriage on religious grounds.
The panelists weighed in on the future of the marriage debate.
Ryan Anderson, senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation and author of the new book “Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom,” argued that supporters of traditional marriage can learn valuable lessons from the pro-life movement.
“The truth hasn’t changed, regardless of what five justices have said,” Anderson said.
Anderson said that the pro-life movement never accepted that Roe v. Wade settled the abortion debate. Pro-lifers condemned the ruling as judicial activism and legislating from the bench.
They immediately sought protection “to live in accordance with the truth,” Anderson said, such as preventing the taxpayer funding of abortion.
Next, they worked to overturn the ruling.
Anderson said that “recapturing the truth of marriage,” should be reflected in both law and culture.
“People can disagree on this contentious issue without being disagreeable,” Anderson said.
Robert George, the McCormick professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University, said the ruling was a redefinition of the institution of marriage, not an expansion of it.
The ruling also paves the way for legal recognition for the “’throuple,’ or three person couple,” he said.
Mollie Hemingway, the senior editor of The Federalist, said the Obergefell ruling was “poorly reasoned,” and “removed the debate from the public square.”
She said that mainstream media figures also treated the abortion debate as if it were “settled” by Roe, and that simply isn’t true.
Hemingway argued that the ruling has exposed “tension” between “religious freedom and the new regime.”
Ilya Shapiro, the senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute and the editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review, said it is possible to be “for” same-sex marriage, but also “for” the rights of “the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker.”
Shapiro said that Justice Kennedy “muddied these waters with his incomprehensible ruling.”
------------- Kate Scanlon (@scanlon_kate) is a news reporter for The Daily Signal and graduate of The Heritage Foundation's Young Leaders Program. Tags:What’s Next, Marriage Debate, Supreme Court RulingTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: The announced departure of House Speaker Paul Ryan brought lots of commentary, but one that deserves more attention is how his exit illustrates the desire of the American public to jettison adulthood. Andrew Cline says that “America is done with adults like Paul Ryan. Donald Trump and celebrities are the future.”
He reminds us that Paul Ryan was introduced to the country as a young policy wonk with a head full of Austrian economics. That apparently wasn’t what America was looking for. The rise of youth culture is the reason the least “cool” candidate has always lost the presidential election (from Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale in the 1980s to George Bush and Bob Dole in the 1990s to the recent losses of John McCain and Mitt. Romney).
“The combination of youth culture and 21st century technology has made attention the currency of the moment. Sober, calm, and judicious are out. Loud, obnoxious, and incessant are in.” That is why Donald Trump defeated Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz in the Republican primaries.
One research study concluded that the 2016 election was “extremely light on policy.” Instead, it was driven by clickbait. You don’t get lots of coverage by going on C-SPAN with a PowerPoint presentation on tax policy or health care policy. You get attention with tweets and verbal slams.
Cline explained, “Sober, dignified figures such as Paul Ryan are at a double disadvantage in this new era . . . To paraphrase Sean Connery in The Untouchables, they bring a pie chart to a knife fight.”
This is a sad, but probably accurate, assessment of the state of American politics today. As voters and citizens, we should demand more from our candidates and politicians. Unfortunately, we are willing to settle for so much less.
-------------- Kerby Anderson is a radio talk show host heard on numerous stations via the Point of View Network endorsed by Dr. Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service Tags:Kerby Anderson, Viewpoints, Point of View, Done with Adults, Paul Ryan, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
The overarching question before the Supreme Court is not whether an exclusively male–female marriage policy is the best, but only whether it is allowed by the U.S. Constitution. The question is not whether government-recognized same-sex marriage is good or bad policy, but only whether it is required by the U.S. Constitution.
Those suing to overturn male-female marriage laws thus have to prove that the man–woman marriage policy that has existed in the United States throughout our entire history is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution.
The only way someone could succeed in such an argument is to adopt a view of marriage that sees it as an essentially genderless institution based only on the emotional needs of adults and then declare that the U.S. Constitution requires that the states (re)define marriage in such a way. Equal protection alone is not enough. To strike down marriage laws, the Court would need to say that the vision of marriage that our law has long applied equally is just wrong: that the Constitution requires a different vision entirely.
The U.S. Constitution, however, is silent on what marriage is and what policy goals the states should design it to serve, and there are good policy arguments on both sides. Judges should not insert their own policy preferences about marriage and declare them to be required by the U.S. Constitution.
On Tuesday, The Heritage Foundation published our new Legal Memorandum: “Memo to Supreme Court: State Marriage Laws Are Constitutional.” In it we explain that there simply is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that requires all 50 states to redefine marriage.
We explain why advocates for the judicial redefinition of marriage cannot reasonably appeal to the authority of Windsor, to the text or original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, to the fundamental rights protected by the Due Process Clause, or to Loving v. Virginia. So, too, one cannot properly appeal to the Equal Protection Clause or to animus or Lawrence. Nor can one say that gays and lesbians are politically powerless, so one cannot claim they are a suspect class. Nor can one say that male–female marriage laws lack a rational basis or that they do not serve a compelling state interest in a narrowly tailored way.
Part of the design of federalism is that experimentation can take place in the states: As the Sixth Circuit noted when it upheld several states’ marriage laws, “federalism…permits laboratories of experimentation—accent on the plural—allowing one State to innovate one way, another State another, and a third State to assess the trial and error over time.” Judges should not cut this process short.
At the end of the day, this is a debate about whether citizens or judges will decide an important and sensitive policy issue—in this case, the very nature of civil marriage. Read more about it in our new legal memo.
---------------- Gene Schaerr is a Washington, D.C.-based attorney who specializes in constitutional and appellate litigation. He has previously served as associate counsel to the president and as law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia and has handled dozens of cases (including six he personally argued) before the U.S. Supreme Court. Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., researches and writes about marriage and religious liberty as the William E. Simon Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. [Heritage Foundation article] Tags:U.S. Supreme Court, marriage, States Right, Constitution, New Legal memo, Gene Schaerr, Ryan T. Anderson, Heritage FoundationTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Kerby Anderson: Last year, Amazon began removing books the gatekeepers felt took the wrong side of the ongoing LGBTQ debate. Some of them weren’t the sort of books most small bookstores would deem to have on their shelves because of their mean-spirited tone.
Then came Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. When I interviewed her on the book three months ago, we talked about some of the negative controversy that resulted in Target pulling the book off the shelves. But you could still buy the book on Amazon.
That is no longer the case with Dr. Ryan Anderson’s book When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. Amazon pulled the book, even though the book was released three years ago. Why now? Some speculate that it was an inconvenient reminder of the dangers posed if Congress passed the Equality Act.
If you read the book, you will find an accurate presentation of scientific, medical, and legal debates about transgenderism. Anderson currently serves as the president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. It would be hard to describe him as a bomb-throwing radical, though he obviously has a viewpoint that comports with a biblical view of marriage and family.
Critics of Amazon usually focus on its size and market share. There’s another problem: its opacity. We still do not know who decided to ban the book or why the Amazon gatekeepers even felt the need to ban the book.
Removing books from Amazon has larger implications. First, it also removes them from Amazon subsidiaries like Kindle, Audible, and Abe Books. Second, it sends a signal to other bookstores not to carry the book.
Here’s the issue. Censorship makes it easy to maintain that there is only one side to an argument, when one of the sides is no longer given a forum.
--------------------------- Kerby Anderson (@KerbyAnderson) is an author, lecturer, visiting professor and radio host and contributor on nationally syndicated Point of View and the "Probe" radio programs.Tags:Kerby Anderson, Viewpoints, Point of View, TransgenderismTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Obama Administration Says Non-Profit Status ‘Going to Be an Issue’ for Religious Schools
by Dr. Ryan Anderson: Is the Obama administration about to wage war on religious schools?
One of the more startling portions of oral arguments at the Supreme Court was the willingness of the Obama administration’s Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, to admit that religious schools that affirm marriage as the union of a man and a woman may lose their non-profit tax-exempt status if marriage is redefined.
Justice Samuel Alito asked Verrilli whether a religious school that believed marriage was the union of husband and wife would lose their non-profit tax status.
The solicitor general answered: “It’s certainly going to be an issue. I don’t deny that. I don’t deny that, Justice Alito. It is it is going to be an issue.”
This should not be an issue. Citizens and organizations that continue to believe the truth about marriage should not be penalized by the government.
Even if the Court says that all 50 states have to recognize a same-sex relationship as a marriage, there is no reason why the government should coerce or penalize institutions of civil society that simply ask to be free—without penalty—to continue to operate in accordance with the belief that marriage is a union of husband and wife.
This line of questioning between Alito and the solicitor general picked up on a theme that Justice Antonin Scalia had started with the lawyer representing the same-sex couples suing the states.
Scalia asked about the religious liberty concerns if the Supreme Court creates a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. When the lawyer replied that we hadn’t seen many religious liberty violations in the states that have democratically redefined marriage, Scalia pounced: that’s his point. Here’s how he explained it:
They are laws. They are not constitutional requirements. That was the whole point of my question. If you let the states do it, you can make an exception. … You can’t do that once it is a constitutional proscription.Scalia repeated himself, almost verbatim, mere minutes later: “That’s my whole my point. If it’s a state law, you can make those exceptions. But if it’s a constitutional requirement, I don’t see how you can.”
This highlights another reason why it would be wise for the Supreme Court to not disregard the constitutional authority of states to make marriage policy. Not only is there nothing in the Constitution that requires the redefinition of marriage, but a ruling saying that there was could create unimaginable religious liberty violations. These situations are best handled democratically.
--------------------- Ryan T. Anderson (@RyanT_Anderson)researches and writes about marriage and religious liberty as the William E. Simon Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. He also focuses on justice and moral principles in economic thought, health care and education. Tags:Obama administration, non-profit status, goint to be an issue, Religious Schools, Ryan T. Anderson, Heritage FoundationTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Penna Dexter, Contributing Author: During the recent campaign season, we heard a lot about how evangelicals are losing influence in politics. That will be true only if Christians fail to take advantage of what happened in the recent elections in which 81 percent of self-described evangelical voters pulled the lever for Donald Trump.
Americans concerned about the growing number of government attacks on religious liberty applaud this result. But we mustn’t be complacent. Now, the real work begins.
First, we’ve got to make it known that it’s freedom of religion we seek to protect. Every politician says they’re all in for freedom of worship, which allows full religious expression inside the four walls of a church. But, the contraceptive and abortifacient mandate under the Affordable Care Act contained no exceptions for other types of religious employers and religious non-profits doing God’s work out in the culture. Hobby Lobby won an exemption for Christian-owned businesses at the Supreme Court. But Christian charities, schools, and ministries that are not specifically churches have not attained such protections.
The Heritage Foundation’s Dr. Ryan Anderson says the new presidential administration can “fix this right away.” In Heritage’s The Daily Signal article, he said once Donald Trump takes office, he can “Make Religious Freedom Great Again.” In the article, he says, once inaugurated, the president can immediately “instruct his secretary of Health and Human Services to provide robust religious liberty protections to the HHS mandate.” He can do this without a congressional vote because ObamaCare gave HHS discretion to write the rules implementing the law.
And then, Congress can go ahead and repeal the entire Affordable Care Act with all its freedom-grabbing tentacles.
The president can quickly nominate judicial nominees with track records of strict adherence to the constitution. Timely confirmation will advance the cause of religious liberty.
The mandates requiring that bathrooms and locker rooms be open to people according to gender identity can also be easily fixed. Since it’s the Administration, specifically the Department of Education and the Justice Department, that redefined the word sex to mean the gender you identify with, the new Administration can simply return the term to its original meaning.
This action would help settle controversies regarding restrictions on military contractors who lack the “correct” gender policies and would prevent doctors from being forced to provide sex reassignment therapies.
Donald Trump addressed social engineering in the military at a forum hosted by the Family Research Council. Mr. Trump said the questions he’d want answered about any policy are ‘does it help us fight and win wars?’ and ‘does it make us a stronger military?’ The Administration must re-evaluate what is being forced upon our fighting forces. Reversing policies that hamper religious liberty is a good first step. Then, Congress should pass legislation — some of which has already been written — to help ensure a future Administration does not undo this good work.
-------------- Penna Dexter is a radio talk show host heard on numerous stations via the Point of View Network endorsed by Dr. Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service Tags:Penna Dexter, Viewpoints, Point of View, restoration, religious freedom. Dr Ryan Anderson, Heritage Foundation,The Daily Signal, Donald Trump, Make Religious Freedom Great AgainTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: I believe that corporations should stay out of the culture wars. Unfortunately,companies like Apple and PayPal just can’t help themselves. In doing so they leave themselves open to three different forms of hypocrisy and double standards.
First, they focus on states in America but turn a blind eye to what is happening overseas. PayPal canceled its plan to build a global operations center in Charlotte, North Carolina. On the other hand, PayPal built a global operations center in Malaysia. The country’s penal code punishes homosexual conduct with whippings and up to 20 years in prison.
In previous commentaries, I have talked about how Disney and Apple ignore human rights injustices in other countries (like China and Singapore) while trying to punish states in the U.S. for standing up for traditional morality. And I should mention that New York Governor Cuomo issued a travel ban for state employees to North Carolina just after his returned from a trip to Cuba.
There is a second hypocrisy. Ryan Anderson reminds us that while liberals denounce corporations trying to influence politics, they cheer the actions of Apple, PayPal, and Salesforce that threaten legislators and governors with boycotts as they pass popular laws that uphold moral and social values.
Third, liberals applaud Bruce Springsteen for taking a moral stand. He and other entertainers have the right to follow their conscience. But liberals don’t want to extend that same right to people with moral questions about same-sex marriage. Liberal politicians and bureaucrats want to punish bakers, florists, and photographers who try to follow their conscience. These individuals, as well as adoption agencies and marriage counselors, want the same liberty to follow their conscience.
Corporate bullies would be wise to stay out of politics and the culture wars. They leave themselves open to charges of double standards and a lack of common sense.
----------- Kerby Anderson is a radio talk show host heard on numerous stations via the Point of View Network endorsed by Dr. Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service Tags:Kerby Anderson, Viewpoints, Point of View, Corporate Bullies, Apple, PayPalTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Kerby Anderson: Could it be that nearly everything we have been told about sexual orientation and gender identity is wrong? A report published in the journal, The New Atlantis, seems to challenge conventional secular perspectives on these issues. The paper by Dr. Lawrence Mayer and Dr. Paul McHugh surveys over 200 peer-reviewed studies done in various social science disciplines.
Ryan Anderson of the Heritage Foundation summarizes the paper’s results. He says the major takeaway is that “some of the most frequently heard claims about sexuality and gender are not supported by scientific evidence.” Here are four of the most important conclusions from the paper.
First, the “belief that sexual orientation is an innate, biologically fixed human property” is not supported. In other words, people are not “born that way.”
Second, the “belief that gender identity is an innate, fixed human property independent of biological sex—so that a person might be a man trapped in a woman’s body or a woman trapped in a man’s body—is not supported by scientific evidence.”
Third, “only a minority of children who express gender-atypical thoughts or behavior will continue to do so into adolescence or adulthood.” It goes on to say that children should not be encouraged to become transgender. They also should not be subjected to hormone treatments or surgery.
Fourth, people who are homosexual or transgender “have higher rates of mental problems (anxiety, depression, suicide), as well as behavioral and social problems (substance abuse, intimate partner violence), than the general population.”
The paper only focuses on the scientific research, but it obviously has implications for public policy. Incorrect scientific claims have been used to justify court rulings, government policies, and medical practices concerning sexual orientation and gender identity. They have not been based on sound science.
-------------- Kerby Anderson is a radio talk show host heard on numerous stations via the Point of View Network endorsed by Dr. Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service Tags:Kerby Anderson, Viewpoints, Point of View, Gender IdentityTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: Could it be that nearly everything we have been told about sexual orientation and gender identity is wrong? A report published in the journal, The New Atlantis, seems to challenge conventional secular perspectives on these issues. The paper by Dr. Lawrence Mayer and Dr. Paul McHugh surveys over 200 peer-reviewed studies done in various social science disciplines.
Ryan Anderson, of the Heritage Foundation, summarizes the paper’s results. He says the major takeaway is that “some of the most frequently heard claims about sexuality and gender are not supported by scientific evidence.” Here are four of the most important conclusions from the paper.
First, the “belief that sexual orientation is an innate, biologically fixed human property” is not supported. In other words, people are not “born that way.”
Second, the “belief that gender identity is an innate, fixed human property independent of biological sex—so that a person might be a man trapped in a woman’s body or a woman trapped in a man’s body—is not supported by scientific evidence.”
Third, “only a minority of children who express gender-atypical thoughts or behavior will continue to do so into adolescence or adulthood.” It goes on to say that children should not be encouraged to become transgender. They also should not be subjected to hormone treatments or surgery.
Fourth, people who are homosexual or transgender “have higher rates of mental problems (anxiety, depression, suicide), as well as behavioral and social problems (substance abuse, intimate partner violence), than the general population.”
The paper only focuses on the scientific research, but it obviously has implications for public policy. Incorrect scientific claims have been used to justify court rulings, government policies, and medical practices concerning sexual orientation and gender identity. They have not been based on sound science.
---------------- Kerby Anderson (@kerbyanderson) is a radio talk show host heard on numerous stations via the Point of View Network (@PointofViewRTS) and is endorsed by Dr. Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service. Tags:Kerby Anderson, Viewpoints, Point of View, Gender Identity, Homosexuality, Sexual EthicsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Jihad at Fort Hood - Part IV (14 Murdered) & Jihadists in the Military
by Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families: The “Crazy” Hasan - ABC and several other news outlets are reporting that Major Nidal Hasan, the Ft. Hood killer, had contacts with numerous Muslim extremists and had visited jihadist “chat rooms” on the Internet. Anonymous FBI officials predict the details of his other suspicious activities will become public soon. I hope so. But there are a lot of important people, from the president to media mavens, who are obviously committed to convincing us that we shouldn’t believe our own eyes and ears.
First they suggested that Hasan was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Obama was pushing that idea earlier this week when he suggested that sometimes soldiers just “crack.” And it was the first and most popular speculation by reporters right after they told us not to jump to conclusions. But the PTSD explanation itself began to crack when it became apparent that Major Hasan had never been in combat and had never formally asked to leave the Army.
Now the “jihadist deniers” are suggesting Hasan was just plain crazy – paranoid, delusional, and a psychotic. His acts didn’t have anything to do with Islam, they argue. Rather, he had a chemical imbalance leading to some brain cells misfiring.
Under this theory, the Palestinian mother who encourages her children to become suicide bombers to kill Jews just needs some counseling. The jihadists who throw acid in the faces of little Afghan girls because they want to go to school could be helped with a prescription of Prozac. The American Muslims arrested in recent months in plots to attack Ft. Dix, Quantico, and other U.S. military bases could get counseling under universal health care. Perhaps President Obama should send 40,000 psychiatrists to Afghanistan instead of soldiers.
Islamofascism is by definition crazy, certainly by our standards. How else can one explain radical Muslims who hail the 9/11 hijackers as heroes, while at the same time arguing that the Jews or the CIA or both attacked America that day to provoke us to attack Muslim countries? Islamofascists are molded, directed and inspired by what the jihadists have concluded their faith requires of them. There are plenty of imams, Islamic “scholars,” Islamic schools, web sites, books, movies and mosques encouraging them to be “soldiers for Allah.”
If our leaders – after all the beheadings, homicide bombings, honor killings and other atrocities – still don’t get it, then I think the evidence is clear that they – not “crazy” Hasan – are the ones who are delusional.
Why Not 14? The Army officially charged Major Hasan today with 13 counts of premeditated murder. Why not 14 counts? One of Hasan’s victims, 21 year-old Francheska Velez of Chicago, was nine weeks into her pregnancy. Hasan should be charged with the murder of her unborn baby and could be charged under the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, otherwise known as Laci and Conner’s Law.
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act was signed into law by President Bush in 2004. It acknowledges the obvious: In a violent crime against a pregnant woman there are two victims – the mother and the baby. Today, our staff double-checked the law, and it covers the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In fairness, officials announcing the charges today made it clear that additional charges were possible, and the Associated Press reports that a 14th murder charge for Private Velez’ baby is under consideration. by Kerby Anderson, Point of View:Jihadists in the Military - This week many broadcasters have tried to understand the shooting that took place last week at Fort Hood. But callers and guests have routinely rejected the idea that Major Hasan's actions were merely an anomaly or an aberration. Instead they believe it will happen again unless the military is willing to identify jihadists within the armed services.
A recent editorial in Investor's Business Daily provides a list of other jihadists in uniform. Perhaps you remember the story of another devout Muslim in the Army, Sergeant Hasan Akbar. In March 2003, he was guilt of fragging 17 fellow soldiers and killed two. Soldiers who survived his grenade attack heard him say: "You guys are coming into our countries, and you’re going to rape our women and kill our children."
Navy Signalman Hassan Abujihaad last year was convicted of tipping off al Qaeda to battle group movements in the Persian Gulf, including disclosing classified documents detailing the group’s vulnerability to terror attack. Army reservist Jeffrey Battle in 2003 pleaded guilty to conspiring to wage war against the U.S., confessing he enlisted "to receive military training to use against America"
Army Sergeant Ali Mohamed trained Green Berets at Fort Bragg's elite special warfare school before stealing military secrets for al Qaeda and helping plan bombings at three U.S. embassies in 1998. Army Specialist Ryan Anderson in 2004 was convicted of leaking military intelligence to al Qaeda terrorists, including sensitive information about the vulnerabilities of armored Humvees.
In light of this list, we should immediately admit that good and decent Muslim soldiers have served in the U.S. military with distinction. But the growing list of jihadists in the military illustrates the need to protect us from those who intend to weaken the U.S. military or bring down America. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that's my point of view. Tags:anti-military, Campaign for Working Families, Gary Bauer, jihad, Kerby Anderson, Media, Point of View, political cartoon, political correctness, William WarrenTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
by Tony Perkins: When it comes to censorship, one editorial board said, "it's about as subtle as carpet bombing." Liberals, who used to at least pretend to have some use for free speech, have dropped all pretense now. The war against a thinking culture is out in the open now, as shameless and determined as ever. To them, it's no longer enough to yank books off shelves, ban conservatives from the public square, and slap warning labels on thousands of years of proven science. They want to totally control the airwaves too. And they'll stop at nothing to force the carriers to do their bidding.
It started as a letter from two Democrats. Insisting they were concerned about the latest scourge of "misinformation," Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) fired a volley of threats to 12 cable, satellite, and streaming companies, accusing them of spreading lies and conspiracy theories just by carrying channels like Fox, Newsmax, and One America News Network (OAN). Pull the plug, they demanded. Or at least make it hurt.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr looked on in horror. Are Democrats actually suggesting that these companies will "pay a price if the targeted newsrooms do not conform to Democrats' preferred political narratives?" he asked. If so, he warned, Americans are in for a dangerous new chapter -- one that looks a lot more like Communist China than the home of the First Amendment.
"From the perspective of free speech and the free press," law professor Jonathan Turley argued, "the letter is not just chilling, it's positively glacial." Still, radical Democrats pressed on, insisting Wednesday at their House hearing, "Fanning the Flames: Disinformation and Extremism in the Media" that the best way to combat misinformation is to shut conservative newscasts down completely.
Like most Republicans on the committee, Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-Wash.) was outraged at the suggestion. If you want to talk about misinformation and lies, she fired back, how about CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, and ABC, who spent the last five years broadcasting complete and utter fiction on everything from the Russia collusion to Governor Andrew Cuomo's (D-N.Y.) nursing home killing field. "In all my time on this committee," McMorris-Rodgers fumed, "there's never been a more obvious direct attack on the First Amendment.""So today, the media is the target -- but where does it end? We've already seen liberal ideology pushed in our schools where we work, the books we read, who we communicate with, how we practice our faith. It's frightening. And you know what the worst part is? People are afraid of a work. An authoritarian system that is getting them fired, canceled, and shamed. And so they're being silent. They have no voice. They can't trust the broken institutions to protect them. This culture of fear is unjust, and this committee should not be using fear to force everyone to be the same or be destroyed. It's abuse of power, and it's a force of a state religion of liberal ideology."Congressman Steve Scalise (R-La.), who nearly lost his life because of hyper-charged liberal rhetoric, warned Democrats against heaping all the blame on the Right. "For anyone to just try to suggest that discourse started getting out of control on January 6th would be disingenuous when you look at where we've gotten and how are this has come. I want to take you back to June 14th, 2017. A day that a gunman walked onto a baseball field and shot at a dozen members of congress including myself... Let's be consistent," he insisted and stop suggesting disingenuously that this toxic language only comes "from one side of the political spectrum."
That message was lost on the corporate bullies at Amazon and Target, whose virtual book burnings -- Ryan Anderson warns -- are the stuff of 1930s dictators. Anderson, the new president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, waited three days for an explanation on why his book about responding to the transgender movement, When Harry Became Sally, was pulled from the online store. Despite more than three years on Amazon's shelves -- as a best-seller in two categories -- "They told us late yesterday that it violates their 'content policy," Ryan explained on "Washington Watch." "But they won't tell us what aspect of the policy it violated. and they won't tell us what passage, what page, what sentence is the offending passage." Obviously, he said, "anyone who's telling the truth, anyone who believes that we're created male and female, whether from a faith-based perspective or from a science-based perspective, is going [to be banned]."
What's next? Bouncing every biology book that's ever been printed? The Bible? Where does the mob draw the line? Abigail Shrier's book, the very powerful Irreversible Damage, was stripped from Target's website again Wednesday. Obviously, Ryan said, liberals are scared that someone will stumble on the truth about this lethal ideology. "If they could defeat [conservatives' arguments], they would just argue on the merits. This is why lawyers say, 'Where you can argue the facts, argue the facts. Where you can argue the law, argue the law. When you can't argue either, bang the table.' And I think that's what we're seeing here. They can't argue based on the science. They can't argue based on the medicine. They can't argue based on the philosophy. They can't argue based on the theology. So what's left? Just don't have the argument. Use our market power to shut it down."
A public school district in Oregon paid a teacher $60,000 because colleagues declined to use the pronoun “they” to describe the teacher. The teacher, Leo Soell, does “not identify as male or female but rather transmasculine and genderqueer, or androgynous.” As Volokh explains: “Soell wants people to call Soell ‘they,’ and submitted a complaint to the school district objecting (in part) that other schoolteachers engaged in ‘harassment’ by, among other things, ‘refusing to call me by my correct name and gender to me or among themselves’ (emphasis added).”
The 4th Circuit Court has said a Virginia school district must allow bathroom access based on “gender identity” not biology. The school district created a policy that says bathroom and locker room access is primarily based on biology, while also creating accommodations for transgender students: only biological girls can use the girls’ room, only biological boys can use the boys’ room, and any student can use one of the three single-occupancy bathrooms, which the school created specifically to accommodate transgender students. But the court said this commonsense policy was itself “discrimination” on the basis of “gender identity.”
Congress should not be ratifying Obama’s radical transgender agenda and imposing these outcomes on private employers just because they contract with the government.
All Americans should be free to contract with the government without penalty because of their reasonable beliefs about contentious issues. The federal government should not use government contracting to reshape civil society about controversial issues that have nothing to do with the federal contract at stake.
Obama’s executive order and the Maloney amendment treat conscientious judgments about behavior as if they were invidious acts of discrimination akin to racism or sexism.
By contrast, “race” and “sex” clearly refer to traits, and in the overwhelming majority of cases, these traits (unlike voluntary behaviors) do not affect fitness for any job.
Congress tried to minimize the damage of the Maloney amendment with two provisions last night. One provision, introduced by Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., amended the Maloney amendment to say that it couldn’t violate the U.S. Constitution. Another provision, the Byrne Amendment, attempted to attach existing religious liberty protections to the bill. Neither adequately protects against the damage of Maloney.
Liberal activist judges will do all they can to ensure that sexual orientation and gender identity policies will trump religious liberty protections.
Here is a list of the 43 Republicans who voted for the amendment:
Justin Amash, Mich.
Susan Brooks, Ind.
Mike Coffman, Colo.
Ryan Costello, Pa.
Carlos Curbelo, Fla.
Rodney Davis, Ill.
Jeff Denham, Calif.
Charlie Dent, Pa.
Mario Diaz-Balart, Fla.
Bob Dold, Ill.
Daniel Donovan, N.Y.
Tom Emmer, Minn.
Michael Fitzpatrick, Pa.
Rodney Frelinghuysen, N.J.
Chris Gibson, N.Y.
Joe Heck, Nev.
Will Hurd, Texas
Darrell Issa, Calif.
David Jolly, Fla.
John Katko, N.Y.
Adam Kinzinger, Ill.
Leonard Lance, N.J.
Frank LoBiondo, N.J.
Tom MacArthur, N.J.
Martha McSally, Ariz.
Pat Meehan, Pa.
Luke Messer, Ind.
Erik Paulsen, Minn.
Bruce Poliquin, Maine
Tom Reed, N.Y.
David Reichert, Wash.
Jim Renacci, Ohio
Tom Rooney, Fla.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Fla.
John Shimkus, Ill.
Elise Stefanik, N.Y.
Fred Upton, Mich.
David Valadao, Calif.
Greg Walden, Ore.
Mimi Walters, Calif.
David Young, Iowa
Todd Young, Ind.
Lee Zeldin, N.Y.
--------------------- Ryan T. Anderson (@RyanT_Anderson)researches and writes about marriage and religious liberty as the William E. Simon Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. He also focuses on justice and moral principles in economic thought, health care and education, and has expertise in bioethics and natural law theory. Tags:43 Republicans, Join Democrats, Support Obama, Transgender Agenda,Ryan T. Anderson, Heritage FoundationTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Dr. Ryan T. Anderson: President Donald Trump said he’d promote commonsense policies that would “Make America Great Again” and would stand up to politically correct bullying from the left.
So why isn’t he doing that in the case of religious freedom?
Twice now, he has failed to stand up for commonsense policy on religious liberty when liberal opponents lashed out against it.
He issued an executive order on “free speech and religious liberty” that does not address the major threats to religious liberty in the United States today.
Trump’s election was about correcting problems of the last administration, including religious liberty violations and the hostility to people of faith in the United States. This order does not do that. It is a mere shadow of the original draft leaked in February.
As I explain in my new book from Oxford University Press, “Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination,” religious liberty is a birthright of all Americans. And yet over recent years, Americans saw their religious liberty rights under assault as never before.
The Trump administration still has time to take meaningful action to reverse those trends, so that all Americans may seek out and serve God and their neighbors according to their own convictions, not the government’s.
All Americans will benefit from the protections that Trump could issue. Congress should also act to make these protections permanent, so a future administration cannot easily undo them.
All Americans should remain free to worship God, serve the poor, educate the next generation, and run a business, all in accordance with their religious beliefs—whatever those religious beliefs happen to be. We should all be subject to the same legal standard: Government can only substantially burden the free exercise of religion if it is acting to advance a compelling government interest pursued in the least restrictive way possible.
Media reports from Tuesday said that today’s executive order was going to provide meaningful protections: “one influential conservative who saw the text said it hasn’t been dialed back much—if at all—since the February leak. ‘The language is very, very strong,’ the source said.”
In reality, what Trump issued is rather weak. All it includes is general language about the importance of religious liberty, saying the executive branch “will honor and enforce” existing laws and instructing the Department of Justice to “issue guidance” on existing law; directives to the Department of the Treasury to be lenient in the enforcement of the Johnson Amendment; and directives to the secretaries of the Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services (HHS) to “consider issuing amended regulations” to “address conscience-based objections” to the HHS contraception mandate.
But the federal government should be honoring and enforcing our religious liberty laws anyway, legislation is required to actually address the Johnson Amendment—which isn’t the prime priority on religious liberty—and the Supreme Court has already unanimously instructed the federal government to resolve the case of Little Sisters of the Poor and other HHS mandate cases.
By contrast, the February draft—a version of which was originally planned for today according to media reports—made good on many of the president’s promises to protect religious liberty from government penalties.
That draft protected the religious liberty rights of all Americans in very tailored ways that addressed the problems of today.
--------------------- Ryan T. Anderson (@RyanT_Anderson) researches and writes about marriage and religious liberty as the William E. Simon Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. He also focuses on justice and moral principles in economic thought, health care and education, and has expertise in bioethics and natural law theory. Tags:President Trump, Executive order, Fails to Address, religious liberty threats, Ryan T. Anderson, Heritage FoundationTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Parents of children with gender
dysphoria are increasingly being
encouraged to place their Kids
on puberty blockers and cross-sex
hormones. (iStock Photos)
by Dr. Ryan T. Anderson: Properly understanding sex, gender, gender identity, and gender dysphoria will continue to be pressing concerns in 2018.
A proper understanding is a prerequisite for properly forming people in the truth and properly ministering to people in need.
As new gender ideologies are promoted throughout America, their lies will impact not only those who suffer from gender dysphoria, but all children who need to mature in their self-understanding as a boy or girl, man or woman, a potential husband or wife, father or mother.
In 2007, Boston Children’s Hospital “became the first major program in the United States to focus on transgender children and adolescents,” as its website brags. A decade later, more than 45 pediatric gender clinics have opened their doors to our nation’s children.
Parents are told that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones may be the only way to prevent their children from committing suicide.
Never mind that the best studies of gender dysphoria show that between 80 and 95 percent of children who express a discordant gender identity will come to identify with their bodily sex if natural development is allowed to proceed.
Never mind that “transitioning” treatment has not been shown to reduce the extraordinarily high rate of suicide attempts among people who identify as transgender (41 percent, compared with 4.6 percent of the general population).
Never mind that people who have had transition surgery are 19 times more likely to die by suicide.
These statistics should be enough to halt the headlong rush into “transitioning” and prompt us to find more effective ways to prevent these tragic outcomes. Most of all, we shouldn’t be encouraging children to “transition,” or making heroes and role models of those who have done so.
We should be tolerant—indeed, loving—toward those who struggle with their gender identity, but also be aware of the harm done to the common good, particularly to children, when transgender identity is normalized.
Transgender activists are not merely asking for tolerance or kindness. They are demanding affirmation, not just from adults but from children and adolescents who are already challenged by the normal process of sexual development.
In a culture where transgender identities are not only affirmed but celebrated, everyone will be compelled to construct their own gender identity, unaided by a common understanding of sex differences and why they matter.
In my new book “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment,” I show that the best biology, psychology, and philosophy all support an understanding of sex as a bodily reality, and an understanding of gender as a social manifestation of bodily sex. Biology isn’t bigotry.
A sound understanding of gender rejects sex stereotypes on the one hand and androgyny on the other. The virtuous mean is a view of gender that reveals meaningful sex differences and communicates the difference they make—a view that takes sex differences seriously while upholding the fundamental equality of the sexes as complements to one another.
The most helpful therapies do not try to remake the body to conform with thoughts and feelings—which is impossible—but rather to help people find healthy ways to manage their tension and move toward accepting the reality of their bodily selves.
My book provides a nuanced view of our sexed embodiment, a balanced approach to policy issues involving transgender identity and gender more broadly, and a sober and honest survey of the human costs of getting human nature wrong.
--------------------- Ryan T. Anderson (@RyanT_Anderson) researches and writes about marriage and religious liberty as the William E. Simon Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. He also focuses on justice and moral principles in economic thought, health care and education, and has expertise in bioethics and natural law theory. Tags:Ryan T. Anderson, Transgender Ideology, Hurts KidsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Supreme Court Decision Will Lead to Gay Marriage in Five States. Why That’s Wrong.
by Ryan T. Anderson, Heritage Foundation / (@RyanT_Anderson): The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review appeals from Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Indiana and Wisconsin on the definition of marriage. This means that lower court rulings that struck down state marriage laws now will go into effect, forcing the redefinition of marriage in these states and potentially in other states in the 4th, 7th, and 10th circuits.
This is an unfortunate setback for sound constitutional self-government and a setback for a healthy marriage culture.
The truth of the matter is that the marriage laws in these five states—as in many states across our nation—are good laws that reflect the truth about marriage. Frequently they were passed with overwhelming democratic support. The Supreme Court should have reviewed these cases and should have upheld the authority of citizens and their elected representatives to make good marriage policy. Instead, the Supreme Court left standing bad rulings from lower federal courts that usurped authority from the people by striking down good laws.
The cases at issue involve lower court rulings that struck down state marriage laws, claiming that they violated the U.S. Constitution. But the courts never provided compelling arguments that laws that reflect the truth about marriage are unconstitutional. Indeed, as former Attorney General Ed Meese and I argued last week in The Washington Post, the Supreme Court should have reviewed these cases and declared the laws constitutional.
In a system of limited constitutional self-government, the people and their elected representatives should be making decisions about marriage policy. And there are reasonable arguments on both sides of this debate. Judges should not insert their own policy preferences about marriage and declare them to be required by the Constitution.
Some people argue that marriage is simply a committed relationship of two people. My co-authors and I have argued that marriage is a comprehensive union of sexually complementary spouses—and that the state cares about marriage because it can unite a man and a woman as husband and wife to be mother and father to any children their union may produce.
A comprehensive union capable of uniting children with their mom and dad is something only a man and a woman can form. So enacting same-sex marriage would not expand the institution of marriage but redefine it. Finishing what policies such as no-fault divorce began, it would finally replace the conjugal view with a revisionist view of marriage as fundamentally an emotional union. This would multiply the marriage revolution’s harms, making them harder than ever to reverse.
Citizens are, of course, free to redefine marriage to include same-sex relationships, but so too should citizens be free to retain the historic definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman—as citizens in a majority of states have done. Nothing less than the future of our society and the course of constitutional government in the United States are at stake.
Declining to review these cases does not speak one way or the other to the merits of the cases. But it does leave in place bad rulings from lower courts—and it will make it harder for courts to do the right thing in the future.
Nevertheless, as citizens, we must rally in support of our constitutional authority to pass laws making marriage policy. We must insist that law and culture promote the truth about marriage.
-------------- Ryan T. Anderson researches and writes about marriage and religious liberty as the William E. Simon Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. He also focuses on justice and moral principles in economic thought, health care and education, and has expertise in bioethics and natural law theory. Tags:Supreme Court , refuse hearing cases, appeals, state marriage laws, marriage, gay marriage, law and culture, Ryan T. AndersonTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
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by Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families: The “Crazy” Hasan - ABC and several other news outlets are reporting that Major Nidal Hasan, the Ft. Hood killer, had contacts with numerous Muslim extremists and had visited jihadist “chat rooms” on the Internet. Anonymous FBI officials predict the details of his other suspicious activities will become public soon. I hope so. But there are a lot of important people, from the president to media mavens, who are obviously committed to convincing us that we shouldn’t believe our own eyes and ears. 
