I remember how it was -- JR
Catholic School Suspended Student Who Spoke Out Against Transgender Bathroom Policy
A 16-year-old boy who was suspended indefinitely from a Catholic high school in Canada for objecting the school’s trans-inclusive bathroom policy.
The student, Josh Alexander, spoke to EWTN News Nightly about the experience. He attends St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Renfrew, Ontario. The school reportedly allows biological males who identify as girls to use the women’s restroom.
In the interview, Alexander said that after he began attending the Catholic school, was was “informed by female students that male students were using the female washrooms.” At one point, the issue came up in a classroom debate.
“I quoted some Scripture, I said that there’s only two genders. And apparently, because there’s transgender students in the class, that was considered bullying,” he said, adding that he “took it to the office, and I said, ‘Ok, this is an issue. There’s female students that are uncomfortable. Something needs to be done.’ And I was ignored. A female student made the same complaint I did, and they ignored her as well. So at that point, I decided to organize a protest outside my school. Two days before the protest, they suspended me indefinitely.”
Alexander was first suspended from school for “bullying” in November, according to Catholic News Agency. When he tried to return to school earlier this month, he was suspended a second time and arrested for trespassing. He is forbidden to attend classes at the school through the remainder of the year.
“One of the allegations being held against me until this day is that I said ‘male breastfeeding is pedophilia,’” Alexander said.
“I do sympathize with the confused transgender students,” Alexander explained to EWTN, “because they’ve been wronged by their parents and by society and by the education system that has pushed this indoctrination on them. But at the same time that doesn’t mean I’m going to condone their wrongful behavior, especially when it’s a violation of my female peers’ privacy.”
“My issue wasn’t with the individual students,” he clarified. “I have an issue with the system that is going to encourage this form of misbehavior.”
Alexander plans to file a complaint in violation of his religious freedom, he said.
“As of right now, I don’t really have much of an education. They’ve offered me some online stuff. But, I was actually the organizer of the student walkouts across Canada during the freedom convoy against the online learning and against the mask mandates and all that. So, I’m certainly not going to accept this form of inferior education,” he said.
In a statement, the Renfrew County Catholic District School Board said: “Bullying behavior that creates an unsafe space for our students is not tolerated … A trans person should not be required to use a separate washroom or change room because others express discomfort or transphobic attitudes, such as, ‘trans women are a threat to other women’” and cited the Ontario Human Rights Code, the same code a separate school district in Canada used to defend a teacher who wears “z-size” prosthetic breasts to school, which Townhall covered.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/madelineleesman/2023/02/24/transgender-bathroom-policy-n2619943
**********************************************A Christ-filled university
WILMORE, KENTUCKY, is the kind of quaint town (population 6,027) you might drive through and forget. Perhaps if you stop at the intersection of Main Street and Lexington Avenue you may notice a white Presbyterian chapel and a redbrick Baptist church on opposite corners—reminders of a bygone era when America was staunchly Christian. But over the past two weeks this sleepy town has turned into a pilgrimage site for tens of thousands of people who believe God’s presence has descended on the campus of Asbury University, a private Christian school where students have been worshipping nonstop for days. They are calling it a spiritual revival.
To an outsider the scenes inside Asbury may seem perplexing. Students are crying, jumping, praying, shouting and singing. News of an unending worship service on campus went viral online. On Tiktok, a socialmedia app, the hashtag #asburyrevival has been posted nearly 100m times. Joel Podeszwik, an insurance salesman and a lay minister from San Diego, California, travelled to Wilmore to see it with his own eyes. “I wanted to be in a place where God is pouring his spirit,” he says. An Asbury spokesperson estimates that up to 70,000 people from across America and even overseas have come to experience the numinous air inside the university’s chapel.
Generation Zers—those born between 1997 and 2012—are not known for their piety. A third are nonreligious and nearly one in five are agnostic or atheist, the most of any generation. They grew up in less devout homes and start questioning their beliefs at a younger age, according to the Survey Centre on American Life, part of AEI, a thinktank. But it would be premature to conclude they are giving up on faith. The Barna Group, a research firm, reports that over half of Gen Zers aged 1317 say they want to learn more about Jesus. Another survey, by the American Bible Society, a religious outfit, found that over 70% of Gen Zers express interest in the Bible. And the Pew Research Centre found in a poll published in 2020 that four in ten teenagers believe in God with “absolute certainty”.
Kevin Brown, Asbury’s president, thinks younger folk prize authenticity above all else. He says they are not asking, “What do you believe?”, but “Does this work?” Research from a global study of Gen Zers by the Barna Group backs his hunch: respondents were more likely to say they wanted to see Jesus’s teachings promote good than know whether they were true.
Take the revival at Asbury, which began on February 8th. The service that preceded it was “unremarkable”, says Mr Brown. The volunteer preacher who spoke that night confessed he had “totally whiffed” the sermon—a sports term for missing the mark. The music is simply vocals, a piano and acoustic guitars. There is no programme, no one calling the shots—a point Asbury’s spokespersons stress. The revival seems the opposite of organised religion.
In some ways, it is also a rebuttal of religious politics. When Tucker Carlson, a popular Fox News host, requested permission to visit the campus, the university declined. What is happening on campus is purely spiritual, a university spokesperson told Mr Carlson’s crew. “Jesus doesn’t care about politics,” says Alexandra Presta, a senior at Asbury and editor of the university’s newspaper. “He just wants you no matter who you are, and he loves you no matter what political party you identify as.”
Younger Christians, though conservative, seem tired of their parents’ culture wars—polls suggest they rate LGTBQ issues, a hot topic among Republicans, lower than gun violence and racial justice. They have witnessed moral failures of church leaders and the rise of extremists who identify as Christians. Ryan Burge, who studies religious trends, says Gen Zers have grown wary of institutions, and reckons this is why so many are religiously unaffiliated.
After two weeks the university has decided to move services off campus. The revival, Mr Brown believes, will continue elsewhere. (Students at other colleges are reported to be trying to start revival meetings.) Some curmudgeons say this is prematurely ending a movement from God. Ms Presta disagrees: “We can’t stop something we didn’t start.”
https://blendle.com/i/the-economist/a-new-awakening/bnl-economist-20230224-f93fb939a65
****************************************************Washington teacher says schools must do more to keep students' info secret from 'Christo-fascist' parents
A Washington teacher complained on Friday that many schools’ "guidelines and laws" haven’t helped them keep students' information secret from "Christo-fascist" parents.
A tweet shows Auburn School District 408 teacher Karen Love responding to another that urged parents to check their school district’s policy regarding keeping info about their child’s secret from them.
"Parents-check your school districts’ policy regarding keeping info about YOUR child secret from you. There are some scary policies out there. Schools should not have a right to keep info about your child from you unless abuse by you is suspected. There I said it and mean it," a tweet written by "The Principle’s Office" reads.
Love responded, "I cannot disagree with this more. So many students are not safe in this nation from their Christo-fascist parents. And our guidelines and laws haven’t caught up with this."
The Twitter thread of Love and the other users was reposted as a screenshot by Ian Prior, a senior advisor at American First Legal. "Teacher in Washington State thinks schools don’t go far enough to keep secrets about their students because they ‘are not safe in this nation from their Christo-fascist parents,’" Prior tweeted.
Love responded to another tweet that claimed "few" educators know deeply about the history of racism and oppression. "It’s absolutely wild to me how few educators have a working knowledge of the history of racism and oppression in this nation," SwaggyG tweeted.
Love replied, "Because many of them are perpetrators of it– 80% of teachers are white women. And at least statistically, over 50% of them vote for upholding white supremacy and patriarchy."
Several others reacted to Prior’s thread, blasting the teacher and filing a public records request to Auburn School District to obtain emails of Love that contain any words regarding transgender, gender and a plethora of other related terms.
"I wonder how far DOES she think the school should go to keep secrets from parents? There’s a public records request for that," senior fellow with Independent Women's Forum Nicole Solas tweeted, showing a screenshot of her email to the Auburn School District requesting public records about Love.
Another Twitter user responded to Prior, "Librarians think exactly this. Full on religious discrimination. And to defend school kids getting graphic child [porn] as school books. #AASL23 will be loaded with such groomers and @ALALibrary will be training more. All taxpayer supported, of course. #parenting #moms #dads"
"Until we enact laws that allow removal of these people from teaching positions, this will continue. The forfeiture of their teaching licenses is appropriate," another tweeted.
The teacher's comments underscore the phenomenon of parents across the country paying closer attention to school boards by challenging progressive curricula and contesting books they deem inappropriate.
The issue of education has become a top concern among voters. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, school board meetings have oftentimes become battlegrounds between parents and school board officials, reigniting the debate on how much control parents have over their children's education.
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