Feminists, Media Lay Undue Blame on Marines for Photo Scandal

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In early March Thomas J. Brenner broke the story: “Hundreds of Marines investigated for sharing photos of naked colleagues.” In a force of more 181,000 Marines, the number of participants is miniscule: .0046%. Yet feminists are pushing a damaging false narrative: that this crass behavior is typical of male Marines. In fact, such disgraceful actions run contrary to standards of conduct and leadership that we Marines learn from boot camp on.

There’s more. It turns out that this scandal includes every military branch. But only the Marines are being singled out in the media. Why? Maybe because the other services didn’t protest integrating women into their combat units. We did.

Outraged feminists don’t care so much about victimized women as they do about compliance. Sign on to their “gender-free” vision or pay the price. Now they’re using the scandal as a battering ram. The prize? Their long-standing goal of integrating boot camp and tripling the number of women in the ranks of the Marines.

Sexualized Society

First, the obvious. Sharing other people’s private photos and posting ugly commentary is shameful. Participants should be penalized. But 99.9954 percent of Marines, most of them male, did not and would not behave this way. They are the rule. The offenders are the exception.

The photos have various sources. In one of the worst cases, a female Marine’s photo was taken (fully clothed in uniform) without her consent. Then someone shared it, along with her personal info, and obscene commentary. The male responsible had already been kicked out of the Corps by the time this scandal even went public.

By contrast, most of the other photos in this case were uploaded and shared by women themselves on social media. Then a few men copied and re-shared them. In other cases women shared private photos by phone with boyfriends who later exploited them. “Sexting” is now prevalent from the halls of Congress (thank you Anthony Weiner) to our college campuses. So are “sexy selfies.” Leftists have pushed for the military to look just like society. Congratulations. Now it does. The scandal is a gross symptom of our highly sexualized society in the digital age. It’s not a reflection of accepted Marine behavior. Maybe it’s also a distorted reaction to our modern culture’s lie: that the sexes are the same, so women are interchangeable with men.

Codes of Conduct

The military long had the latitude to punish abuses like the photo scandal under the category of conduct unbecoming. Or at least it used to. Standards of conduct are long gone now. Social engineers want the military is to be just as sexually liberated and expressive as the rest of society. As the Center for Military Readiness points out:

Section 654, Title 10, the 1993 law that the Senate repealed in the 2010 lame duck session, used to recognize that the military is a “specialized society” with unique requirements that are: “characterized by its own laws, rules, customs, and traditions, including numerous restrictions on personal behavior, which would not be acceptable in civilian society.”

In other words we stopped holding our military to more stringent standards than civilians. So where is “the line” now? We’ve torn down the old, higher standards of conduct — which once protected women. Yesterday this case would have been open and shut. Today it is not. The military is no longer allowed to be a “specialized society” requiring higher ethics of its members. Military women now must shower with transgender men-in-transition. They must share tents with men in the field. That is not an invasion of privacy. But posting a photo your ex-girlfriend shared with you is? The new “standard” is arbitrary.

While sharing private photos was certainly conduct unbecoming, here’s a newsflash: so is taking nude or pornographic photos of yourself and sharing them. But we’re recruiting from Generation Sexy Selfie. Women are degrading themselves energetically without any help from men. The Russians now have a trove of the racy photos, but they didn’t have to hack to get them. They can go to sites like Instagram’s “Curves ‘n Combat Boots.” There military ladies post shots of themselves in side-by-sides in uniform and out, clothing optional.

3rd-Wave Feminism Manifest

For several decades now, feminists have encouraged women to be open and free with their sexuality. We have sexy selfies, annual “slut week” on college campuses and vagina costumes to show for it. (And more unplanned pregnancy than ever.) But such behavior doesn’t empower women. It just encourages them to degrade themselves. Then when that doesn’t make them happy either, they learn to blame it on men. Feminist dogma doesn’t protect or empower young women. It just gives them a megaphone after they’ve been victimized.

Feminists forbid the tools of self-protection that could prevent abuses. Modesty, self-respect and collective social mores used to protect young women from men who are exploitative. But now we’re not allowed to give out obvious advice, like: Sexy selfies can’t be misused if you don’t take them and share them. And: If you don’t want to be considered a sexual object, first don’t objectify yourself. Advising abstinence is totally out of the question. That’s retrograde and sexually repressive. Such life advice is being skewered as “accepting the masculinist culture.”

In 2014, Miss USA Nia Sanchez was asked what young women could do to fight sexual assault. Her answer (as a fourth degree black belt) was that they should learn martial arts to better protect and defend themselves. For such common-sense advice she received a huge backlash from feminists. They claimed that she was victim-blaming. Similar backlash is frequent against those advocating gun ownership for women. Women shouldn’t have to protect themselves. Bad men should just … stop being bad. But that no more equips women for the dangers they may face than trusting criminals to follow gun laws. There will always be criminals and leftist regulations are notoriously inept at stopping them.

Young military women are being pushed into a minefield of close-quarters personal contact with men in their sexual prime. Rank structure and intense combat training further complicate things. But we’ve stripped women of the age-old tools that could help them navigate it. Instead they’re convinced to depend on government bureaucracy to protect them. Big Brother will punish forbidden speech. It will force men to treat them equally. Pass enough policies, and suddenly it will be problem-free for 20-year-old women and men to share tents in the field. Fighting attackers is presumably what these women will be doing in combat units. But instead of teaching them to protect themselves proactively, we’re urging them to use their voices to resist the “patriarchy.” That won’t help in the field against ISIS.

Oft-Used Tactics

Back in the 1990s Senator Pat Schroeder used the Tailhook scandal to push combat pilot jobs for women. The Navy’s annual celebration was notoriously debauched with men and women participating equally, until sexual assault occurred. The year of the scandal two women were assaulted but the number was grossly exaggerated. A witch hunt ensued for the sake of the same “masculinist culture” purge. Thousands were punished for the actions of a few — even men who weren’t there and had nothing to do with the event. Schroeder said opening the pilot jobs would stop scandals like Tailhook and give women the respect they deserve. The fact that it didn’t work just means there’s (perpetually) more work to be done.

More recently, a 2013 exposé claimed to have discovered 26,000 military sexual assaults in the previous year. Feminists used that study to … open ground combat units to women. When the public heard the astronomical number, the outcry was naturally immediate. The actual number of sexual assaults that year, however was only 3,374. The researchers got the much higher number by inferring it, via a ratio, across the military population. To get those numbers, they included everything from actual rape to “unwanted contact,” and again inferred many unreported cases. The total also included assaults that had occurred before the victim was even serving in the military, a Pentagon practice since 2008 in its annual reporting.

Inflating the numbers didn’t help the victims, nor did it prevent future crimes. The rate of sexual assaults had actually increased some five percent by 2016. Advocates for coed combat units used this baseless narrative: Women are assaulted more when they are barred from the toughest units. So the cure is to have more women in all military jobs. The public outcry simply provided a tool to push for their desired policy. With more women than ever in the military, we’re still waiting for rates of assault to drop. Instead they keep climbing.

Now in 2017, the Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Robert Neller was contrite before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand derided him for letting such behavior “fester” and not doing enough to eradicate “sexual violence” in the force. He had already condemned it in no uncertain terms as antithetical to Marine Corps standards and ethos. The investigation is ongoing and dozens have been punished so far. He has encouraged victims to come forward so that perps can be held accountable. (They can report to other women in the ranks if they prefer.) He demanded support for victims, forbade retaliation against them, and reformed social media policy to include criminal action for cyberbullying. As during Tailhook, common-sense changes and punishing the few participants will not be nearly enough for Gillibrand and her radical cadre.

Marines Are Punished for Wanting All-Male Combat Units

This is all about punishing the Marines for their original sin: Requesting that their combat units remain all-male. It was backed by mountains of peer-reviewed scientific data and common sense for effective warfighting. Even so, the Marines must atone. They must meet feminist demands by integrating Marine Corps boot camp and nearly tripling the number of females in the ranks. Those demanding this even say separate boot camps are the reason for all this misogyny.

Forget the fact that separate boot camps have produced superior Marines with much less distraction and bad conduct than coed boot camps. The Air Force and the Army have both had boot camp sex and rape scandals. Forget the fact that other branches have more women because they’re far less physically demanding. Opposition to integrating the combat arms is now being redefined as misogyny itself. It’s a bully’s tactic to achieve compliance without complaint.

Gen. Neller hasn’t defended the vast majority of Marines who are not part of this scandal, but I will. I served with great guys and came out of the Marines and deployment to Iraq unscathed. Thousands of other women across the military had the same experience. I never had reason to worry that a naked picture of me would end up with jeers online because there are none. I never worried that I’d regret last night’s debauchery with my Marine brothers because there was none. I followed a straightforward formula of maintaining boundaries, not flirting and not getting drunk with the guys socially. It was amazingly effective. I enjoyed the respect of my peers and a great enlistment. Such habits won’t prevent every instance of assault, but they go a long, long way to avoiding them. But we can no longer teach such mores without silly accusations of victim-blaming. And we are now pursuing policies that put women at greater risk in our military.

If there’s a culture of misogyny, then feminist ideology is the culprit. It fails young women and fails to reduce men’s abuse of them. Throwing more women at the problem won’t solve it. To think so is the definition of insanity: repeating what has been done before and expecting different results. Feminists won’t be accountable for their policy and ideological failures. They’ll just blame them on men. (For more from the author of “Feminists, Media Lay Undue Blame on Marines for Photo Scandal” please click HERE)

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Parenting Coach Urges Mothers to ‘Prioritize’ Children in New Book

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Veteran psychoanalyst Erica Komisar is encouraging mothers to prioritize their children over their careers. She spells out her argument in a new book published last week, Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters.

Already, the working mother of three has been called “anti-feminist.” Writing for TIME Monday, Komisar says she’s a feminist, but “child-centric.”

“I strongly believe that women and men should have equal opportunities and choices,” Komisar writes. “I also believe that both women and men, whether they work or not, should put their children first in every way.”

Rising Levels of Anxiety and Depression

Komisar’s insights come from working as a psychoanalyst, social worker and parent guidance expert for over 25 years.

“In my practice I was seeing an epidemic level of children with emotional problems related to the absence of mothers,” she told Fox News. The emotional problems appeared in one in five kids and included anxiety, depression, aggression and ADHD. A child’s chance for such problems increase when their mother returns to work after a short maternity leave, Komisar said.

But not all women can afford to stay home for three years after their child is born. This is something Komisar understands.

It’s not about working or not working, she said of Being There. “It’s a book about prioritizing your children to the best of your ability in the first three years.”

“The first three years are what we call the critical period of brain development,” she said. “By three years old 85 percent of your right brain, or social-emotional brain, is developed.”

She also noted that “you can be there physically, but not emotionally … Being emotionally present means putting away your distractions.”

Pressured to Prioritize Work

But many women feel pressured to prioritize work over children.

Last month Australian columnist Sarrah Le Marquand suggested it be illegal for moms to stay home. The Atlantic published a series last year exploring in part the struggle working mothers face in deciding what to prioritize. Women like Sheryl Sandberg continue to push hard for women to run half of the world’s companies, viewing anything short of the 50/50 goal as a sign of sexism. This is despite the fact that millennials embrace a more traditional family structure. The Washington Post also reported married mothers’ participation in the labor force hasn’t grown since the 90s.

“I dream of a society where women aren’t asked to put their careers before all else at the risk of stunting their own potential,” Komisar writes.

She is glad that today’s women have more choices to pursue careers than previous generations. “But having choices means not that we should, but that we can, if we want to.”

“You may never become a chief executive if you choose to make your family your first priority, and that’s a loss,” she writes. “But sacrificing the chance to create a close relationship with your children is a loss, too.”

Moms and Dad: Both Important, but Different

Komisar told Fox News that while both moms and dads are critical to nurturing their children, “they’re not exactly the same.”

That’s because men and women react differently to oxytocin. Oxytocin is the “love hormone” the brain releases when caring for one’s children.

“For women it makes them more empathic and sensitive nurturers,” she said. “For men it makes them more playful, and it makes them encourage their children to be resilient.”

“Life is long, and you have many, many years to work and be ambitious and make money,” Komisar told Fox News. “You only have a few years to have that great influence on your children.” (For more from the author of “Parenting Coach Urges Mothers to ‘Prioritize’ Children in New Book” please click HERE)

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Bill Nye: The Perfect Talking Head for a March against Science

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Bill Nye may not be a scientist. But he used to play one on TV. Now he is an honorary co-chair and speaker for the “March for Science” in Washington D.C. and elsewhere on April 22.

The choice of Nye as one of the faces of the March is revealing. March organizers have paid lip service to critical thinking and “diverse perspectives” in science. However, Nye is a good example of someone who promotes science as a close-minded ideology, not an open search for truth.

He attacks those who disagree with him on climate change or evolution as science “deniers.” He wouldn’t even rule out criminal prosecution as a tool. Asked last year whether he supported efforts to jail climate skeptics as war criminals, he replied: “Well, we’ll see what happens. Was it appropriate to jail the guys from ENRON?”

Real science encourages debate. It doesn’t insist that scientists march in lockstep. Or that they speak with one voice. In fact, scientists disagree on far more issues than the March organizers admit.

Models Vs. Evidence

Take global warming. Many marchers will wear their belief in climate change on their sleeves. On their signs, too. They, like Nye and others who claim to speak for science, equate belief in man-made climate disaster with science itself. If you disagree, you’re “anti-science.”

Yet there are strong reasons to doubt the so-called “consensus” on warming. But the popular media rarely cite them.

From 1890 to 1990, records show only a .45 degree C rise in global temperature as measured from near-surface thermometers around the Earth. Yet about 75 percent of the increase occurred before World War II, while most of the increase in human produced greenhouse gases occurred after World War II. So, human industrial activity doesn’t really correlate with the main effect of interest. Meanwhile, after a few warmer than usual years in the early 1990s, global temperatures have flat-lined. They show no net increase over the last two decades.

Most warmists’ models have predicted steep rises. But these models don’t match the real global temperatures collected after the fact. So why believe the dire predictions that those same models make about future temperatures before the fact?

Bill Nye, Al Gore, and former President Obama have said we must accept what “the scientists” say. To listen to the skeptics would be to reject “settled science.” But skeptics of extreme warming include many top scientists: physicists, biologists, earth and atmospheric scientists like Richard Lindzen (MIT), Freeman Dyson and William Happer (Princeton), Roy Spencer (University of Alabama, formerly NASA), John Christy (Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama), and Matt Ridley (DPhil, Oxford). How strong can the “consensus” be if such stars of science question the idea?

What About Neo-Darwinism?

But let’s say widespread agreement did exist on the question. Has such an agreement served as an error-free guide to truth in the past? The history of science says no.

Here’s another scientific issue to ponder. Nye claims the evidence for evolution is “Undeniable.” That’s how he put it in the title of his recent book. By “evolution” he means textbook neo-Darwinism. So the case for evolution is “undeniable”? In truth, many leading scientists, including evolutionary biologists, reject neo-Darwinism. Many biologists now doubt the creative power of random mutation with natural selection. But that is the core idea of the theory.

This past November I attended a conference of the prestigious Royal Society of London. The meeting was called to address this problem. Speaking first, biologist Gerd Müller listed the “explanatory deficits” of neo-Darwinism. He said those include its failure to explain the “origin of biological complexity” and the origin of major morphological “novelties.” It also doesn’t predict their abrupt appearance in the fossil record.

Other biologists echo his concerns. They argue that mutation and selection can account for “the survival, but not the arrival of the fittest.” That is, minor, but not major, changes in the history of life.

I say more on this in my book Darwin’s Doubt. For instance, neo-Darwinism fails to explain the origin of the new genetic information needed to build new forms of life.

Our own experience with computer code helps to explain why. Random changes to the digital characters in a section of functioning software code will degrade the information in a program and destroy its function. That will happen long before those changes can generate a new program or operating system. Yet, neo-Darwinists invoke just such random changes to the characters in the genetic text to explain where new genetic information comes from. Mathematicians who know biology say “not a chance.”

What Do You Mean By “Evolution”?

In any case, the textbook examples of natural selection and random mutations do not involve creating new genetic information. Many biology texts tell about the famous finches in the Galápagos Islands whose beaks have waxed and waned in shape and length over time. These books also recall how moths in England got darker and lighter as levels of industrial pollution changed. Darwinists present such cases as knockdown evidence for evolution. But that depends on what you mean by “evolution.”

That term has many meanings. “Evolution” can refer to anything from minor change within the limits of a gene pool to the creation of wholly new genetic information and structures.

Yet, as a host of biologists have argued in recent papers, small-scale “micro-evolutionary” changes can’t explain large-scale “macro-evolution.” Mostly, micro-evolution (such as changes in color or shape) just uses pre-existing genetic information. But the large changes needed to build new organs or whole body plans need entirely new sources of information. This explains the growing doubts about the power of natural selection and random mutation.

It also explains why many biologists are seeking new theories of evolution. As yet, though, nothing like a consensus is emerging.

March for Conformist Science

Don’t expect Nye or the others “marching for science” to breath a word about any of this. And that’s a shame. A real “March for Science” would celebrate scientific puzzles, disagreements, and competing ideas rather than fear them.

Just ask Italian philosopher of science Marcello Pera. In his book The Discourses of Science, he writes that science advances as scientists argue about how to interpret the evidence. They can only do that, though, if they are free to challenge established ideas and advance new ones.

Those who truly want to support science should defend the right of all scientists — including dissenters — to express their views. Those who stigmatize dissent do not protect science from its enemies. Instead, they subvert the process of scientific discovery they claim to revere. (For more from the author of “Bill Nye: The Perfect Talking Head for a March against Science” please click HERE)

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Detroit-Area Doctor Arrested for Female Genital Mutilation on Minors

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A Detroit-area doctor was arrested Thursday for performing female genital mutilation (FGM) on two minor girls, The Detroit News reported.

Jumana Nagarwala is scheduled to appear in federal court Thursday afternoon. A press release from the Department of Justice said Nagarwala is believed to be the first person charged under the federal law prohibiting FGM. The law passed in 1996. The offense is a federal felony.

The News reports the charge came after an FBI investigation of Nagarwala. The FBI interviewed the doctor’s two victims, who identified Nagarwala as the woman who performed the procedure. According to the Justice Department’s press release, the girls were between 6 and 8 years old.

One girl said the doctor “pinched” her and the other said she “got a shot” that made her scream in pain. Both girls were instructed by their parents not to tell anyone of the procedure.

Nagarwala has reportedly denied the allegations. But the FBI’s investigation revealed that the girls’ families checked into a hotel nearby the clinic where the FGM took place. Phone records show that one of the families is from Minnesota and communicated with Nagarwala. One of the girls’ parents also confirmed the trip. According to FBI records, they called the procedure a “cleansing” of extra skin, the News reports.

FGM removes some or all of external female genitalia. There is no medical benefit to the procedure, which causes severe pain and serious health problems. It usually occurs in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The World Health Organization calls FGM “a violation of the human rights of girls and women.” The organization notes that over 200 million women and girls currently living have undergone the procedure.

Over 500,000 women and girls were at risk for FGM in the U.S. in 2012, CNN reported, citing data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CNN noted the significant spike in the number of those at risk from 1990.

Nagarwala is employed by Henry Ford Health System and has been placed on administrative leave, the News reported. (For more from the author of “Detroit-Area Doctor Arrested for Female Genital Mutilation on Minors” please click HERE)

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Dignity and Fairness Matter for Every Child in the Locker Room

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The American Civil Liberties Union recently noted in a blog post that “the burden of confronting and remedying injustice falls on the shoulders of the oppressed.”

There is some truth to this: The oppressed are powerful voices in any battle for justice. But when it comes to defending the most vulnerable among us—our children—it is chiefly the responsibility of parents, teachers, school administrators, and lawmakers to defend their rights.

Yet the ACLU, rather than seeking justice, fairness, and privacy for every child, has chosen to privilege a select few while utterly disregarding the privacy rights of millions of other young students across the country.

In the growing conversation taking place about what privacy means in intimate facilities, and whether one’s biological sex is a relevant factor to consider in boys’ and girls’ athletics, we’ve heard a lot from certain students who are working through very sensitive issues pertaining to their sex and gender identity.

And that is a good thing. Their voices matter in this conversation.

But substantially missing from this national conversation are the indispensable voices of the vast majority of children, and particularly girls. Ignoring their voices results in a failure to advance true equality and justice and violates children’s fundamental rights. Indeed, not one child’s privacy should be compromised.

And yet, young girls across the country—including in Illinois and Ohio, as just two examples—have been subjected to anxiety and humiliation when their school administrators secretly decided to open the schools’ locker rooms, restrooms, or showers to the opposite sex.

In Texas, 10-year-old Shiloh Satterfield recently described to the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee how uncomfortable and anxious she feels now that her school has changed its policies to let boys into the school’s intimate facilities.

Her parents join thousands of other parents understandably concerned about what this means—not only for their children when changing clothes for gym class or showering after a swim meet, but also for overnight school trips where their daughters could be forced to share a bed with a biological boy (or vice versa).

And take the young boy in Pennsylvania who is not even able to change for the school’s mandatory gym class because the school is forcing boys and girls to undress together and to try “to act as natural as possible” while doing so. The boy is receiving a failing grade for each class he is unable to change for.

Young girls and boys across the country are trying to be heard—to share their discomfort and embarrassment at the thought of having to undress with a member of the opposite sex, or their frustration that they will no longer be able to compete in a fair environment if their sports teams allow boys and girls to play together.

These voices are not coming from a place of fear or social dislike. I’ve witnessed the love these students have for their friends who consider themselves transgender, while simultaneously pleading for their own rights, dignity, and privacy to be protected.

Just last week, a 15-year-old boy who identifies as a girl competed in a Connecticut high school girls’ track meet and won the 100- and 200-meter dashes.

Even a quick glance at the pictures from the meet reveal that this young man, who now identifies as a woman, is still very much built as a male and is already significantly larger than his female peers.

As a woman who loved playing sports in high school, it’s obvious to me and many others that allowing biological males to compete with females is fundamentally unfair to girls who are physically different than high school boys.

Allowing boys, regardless of how they identify, to play on girls’ sports teams creates an unequal playing field for girls to compete and deprives them of a fair chance to qualify for—let alone win—athletic competitions.

Before the Civil Rights Act of 1972, women did not have the same athletic opportunities as men. In this emerging conversation, we cannot forget the ground women have gained for equal opportunities.

Permitting the definition of sex to be changed or ignored would undermine the very essence of what it means to be male and female, which is a particularly relevant factor when it comes to athletics.

This understanding of biological differences is precisely what led to the passage of federal laws that help ensure a fair playing field for women. And now, some in our society, ironically in the name of equality, are running roughshod over what women fought so hard to obtain.

Many would like to paint this as a one-sided story about one victim: the boy who thinks he’s a girl, or the girl who thinks she’s a boy. And these children absolutely deserve love, attention, and support.

But supporting and caring for them does not mean we should inflict injustice on other children. We owe every young person in America a better response—a compassionate and fair solution that ensures protection for every student’s privacy and well-being, such as the policy that Alliance Defending Freedom has recommended to schools since 2014.

This policy allows schools to respect student privacy by continuing to designate separate boys’ and girls’ showers, locker rooms, and restrooms while providing other facilities for any student uncomfortable with using areas that correspond to his or her biological sex.

Justice requires that we protect the privacy and dignity of every child. We as a society should pause before we tell some children that their voices and their privacy rights don’t matter. (For more from the author of “Dignity and Fairness Matter for Every Child in the Locker Room” please click HERE)

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My Near-Abortion Experience: What I Would Have Missed

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Those of you who have read one of my earliest stories know how close I came to an abortion when I was pregnant with my fourth child. I considered it as a single 40-year-old mom of three. Now having just passed my son’s third birthday, I reflect on what could have been had I chosen death instead of life. Here’s what I would have missed.

I would have missed my baby calling me “Mama” for the first time. More than that, I would’ve missed hearing him sleepily say “Mama, I want you,” first thing in the morning as he’s waking in his crib.

I would’ve missed his cuddling and the kisses where we play who-can-smack-louder and say “MUA!”

I would’ve missed his first dance as I played TobyMac’s Feel It. (Incidentally, the chorus says, “You take our brokenness and make us beautiful.”)

I would have missed that precious day when a little voice in the back seat of the car said, “Mommy, you’re my best friend.” I almost cried.

I would have missed him saying “No, I want Daddy to change my poopy diaper,” because only Daddy knows how. (That is just fine with me).

I would’ve missed the dumbfounded look on his face when he was watching Johnny Depp play Willy Wonka and hearing him say, “Something on the T.V.’s strange.”

I would’ve missed hearing him say, “Mommy, I want to sleep in your big girl bed.” (Um, no.)

I would’ve missed hearing him talk about a bad day at daycare and concluding the story with “Every single one of those kids get on my last nerve!” (I laughed hysterically.)

I would’ve missed hearing him quote one of my favorite Madea movies, hollering at me: “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth??!”

I would’ve missed all of the firsts. First kiss, first hug, first steps, first words, first tooth, first real meal.

I wouldn’t have known that he loved green beans. Or boudain (gross). Or hot salsa from Mexican restaurants. Or black olives that he puts on his fingers before popping them in his mouth.

I wouldn’t have known he was so independent. That his mantra would be, “I want to do it all by myself!” while brushing his teeth, or crawling into his car seat, or sitting on the big boy potty.

I wouldn’t have known his awesome personality. I wouldn’t have known him.

Yes, I would’ve missed all of the temper fits, the corner time, the spitting, the screaming, the poopy diapers. But I would’ve missed the greatest blessing in my life, too. I would’ve missed an unconditional love that is almost unequaled. Only Jesus did that better.

If I chose death over life, I would’ve still been trying to convince myself that it was only tissue. That I wasn’t ready. That I didn’t make a mistake. That a baby would’ve complicated things. And they do. But in the best way possible.

(For more from the author of “My Near-Abortion Experience: What I Would Have Missed” please click HERE)

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Have a Bleak and Blessed Good Friday

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The weakest link in recurring adventure shows, like Daredevil or The Flash, is the lack of real suspense. However fatal the trouble the hero seems to be in, you know that he will survive it. Somehow or other. At worst, he will lose his powers for a while. Or he’ll “die” and get reanimated. I’m sure that writers struggle to keep the story compelling anyway. For us, marking Good Friday carries the same challenge.

It’s all too easy to let this holy day get swallowed up by Easter. We know how things turn out. Death gets swallowed up by victory. Jesus goes down into darkness just for a weekend.

In fact, we know that tomorrow He will be rooting around in Hades to free Elijah and Esther, Abraham and Moses, even schlemiels like Adam and Eve. They will follow Him to glory. So it’s all too easy for us to fast forward through the Passion. Just so, lax Christianity would glide over the darkness of sin, to focus on forgiveness. That’s natural, of course. But then, our nature is fallen.

To really embrace the grace that’s offered by this season, we must master our minds and emotions. We should travel the road of these holy days at the same speed as the apostles. It won’t help us to jump ahead. In fact, it impoverishes everything.

How to Harness Your Mind and Heart on Good Friday

Ignatius of Loyola invented a method of mental prayer. He called it the “composition of place.” It proved so powerful that soon English Protestants — no fans of Jesuits — were adapting it for themselves. (John Donne’s poetry bears its traces.) It’s easy to master and profoundly useful.

Take a Bible passage (for today, the Good Friday narrative) and try to place yourself there. See it through the eyes of one of its participants. Of Jesus, yes, but also of His disciples, the apostles, even His mother, Mary.

Use the five senses God gave us as your starting point.

Imagine what John must have heard coming down from the cross. The screams and cries and psalms. Then the jeers coming up from the raucous, whipped up mob.

What it smelled like, up on Golgotha, where bodies died every day.

What John saw looking up at the rabbi whom he had followed, even this far, as others had fled.

Squirm your toes in his sandals, and feel the ache of his feet, as he stood there for three long hours.

Taste the salt of his tears.

Go further, and try to imagine John’s disappointment. He too was a Jew, and surely treasured hope for earthly liberation. For an end to strutting Romans and sold-out Sadducees. For a king again in Jerusalem. Whatever John came to believe about Jesus’ broader mission, he surely did hope for that.

How did you feel the last time some crucial battle in the world went against you? Think back to the last bad Supreme Court decision, or evil law enacted. Or just the last time you suffered or witnessed injustice. Remember how it felt to see freedom, fairness, and faith get hammered by worldly powers. That’s a hint of how John must have felt when he heard the Roman troops tramping by, while Jesus hung above, dying.

What Did Simon Peter Think?

Or put yourself in Simon Peter’s place. You have spent the past few months boasting of your faithfulness unto death. But last night you could not even stay awake with Jesus for an hour. Then you pulled out your sword and tried to kill a temple guard. And then, worst of all, when you found that you couldn’t fight. … You turned and fled.

You lied, and denied the Lord three times, just as He’d predicted. That cock that crowed marked you for life. From now on, you fear that every dawn will call you out as a coward. Now you skulk on the outskirts of a bloodthirsty mob, unable to tear yourself away, too ashamed to approach the cross.

We Are All Judas, Too

It might even profit to spend some time with Judas. Consider how your own sins helped hustle off Christ to the cross. Remember how little profit or pleasure they really brought you. Like a bag of ill-gotten money, you wanted to give it all back. And you thought your sins might really be too grand for a mere God to forgive.

There are many other witnesses. Spend time with more than one. But don’t read past the verse where the sun dies in the sky. Treat Good Friday as the open casket wake for your best friend in the world. Let tomorrow be watchful and quiet, if you can. Blot Easter out of your mind, except as a distant glimmer. Let it come in God’s good time.

When you walk with the women to the tomb on Sunday morning, you don’t want to miss the surprise: That it is empty. (For more from the author of “Have a Bleak and Blessed Good Friday” please click HERE)

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Trump Expected to Sign Legislation Erasing Obama-Era Rule on Family Planning Funds

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President Donald Trump is expected to sign legislation Thursday erasing an Obama-era rule that barred states from withholding federal family planning funds from Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers . . .

The legislation squeezed narrowly through the Senate last month after Vice President Mike Pence cast the tie-breaking vote.

It was passed using an obscure measure called the Congressional Review Act, which lets lawmakers undo regulations enacted in the last months of the Obama administration with just a majority vote. (Read more from “Trump Expected to Sign Legislation Erasing Obama-Era Rule on Family Planning Funds” HERE)

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Trendy to Be Transgender: Child Psychologist Reveals Something Terrifying about Many Kids

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An Australian child psychologist said that to some children, being transgender “is the new black.”

Many of the children Stephen Stathis sees in his gender clinic are actually confused about their sexuality. They could also be desiring to stand out, Heatstreet reported Monday.

Stathis runs his gender clinic at the Lady of Cilento Children’s Hospital in the state of Queensland, Australia. It began after Stathis received so many referrals for gender issues that his appointment waiting list jumped to two years.

Gender “Variant,” Not Dysphoric

Stathis has diagnosed children as genuinely transgender — including a 3-year-old boy (now 9) who identifies as a girl. But he says not all his patients are actually gender dysphoric.

In a recent interview with Brisbane Times, Stathis said many children are “getting their sexual identity mixed up with their gender identity.” Others are “gender variant.” This means they enjoy activities associated with the other gender, but don’t identify with it.

This is especially common among boys, he said. Girls who enjoy masculine toys or activities are usually considered tomboys. Boys “put on a pink tutu and you’re off to see the doctor.”

Some girls who had been sexually abused told Stathis they wanted to transition. They thought they wouldn’t have been abused as a boy.

“It became really, really complex,” he admitted.

Social Contagion

In 2016 the American College of Pediatricians released a study of gender dysphoria in children. It confirmed Stathis’ experiences.

According to the study, many children “self-diagnose” as transgender after social media “binges.” “This suggests that social contagion may be at play,” the study says. “In many schools and communities, there are entire peer groups ‘coming out’ as trans at the same time.”

The study further suggests that factors like parental abuse and social reinforcement influence a child mentally. These factors can “contribute to the development and/or persistence” of gender dysphoria.

After Puberty, Nevermind

Stathis supports giving puberty blockers to children entering puberty. (Blockers stall the development of sex-specific characteristics.) He says they help children who identify as transgender avoid depression.

He’s seen many children attempt to cut off body parts or avoid regular hygiene because they are ashamed of their genitalia, he told the Times. But he’s also seen children who aren’t really “gender dysphoric” obtain hormones illegally.

“There may be other issues going on and that needs to be worked through,” he said.

Stathis requires prepubescent children to live transgender for six months before taking puberty blockers. At 16 they can choose to start cross-sex hormone treatment. But most of them don’t.

“About 75 per cent of boys and girls who present with gender variant interests and behaviours” don’t follow through, Stathis told the Times. (The American College of Pediatricians says 80-95 percent of gender-disphoric children without “social affirmation” come out of puberty fine.) He continued:

You might get a six or seven-year-old girl wanting to dress as a boy. She may even say she wants to be a boy. When she hits puberty, she says ‘no, I’m just a girl who likes to do boy things’.

A 2008 study concluded the same thing. It noted that “most children with gender dysphoria will not remain gender dysphoric after puberty.”

Dangers of Blockers and Cross-Sex Hormones

The full effects of puberty blockers are unknown, but they are generally considered safe. Even so, the American College of Pediatricians warns against their use. The study claims that over 40 gender clinics in the U.S. support the use of blockers and even cross-sex hormones. Cross-sex hormones present a myriad of known health risks. They can also irreversibly damage one’s fertility.

PBS reported in 2015 that some children in the U.S. started cross-sex hormone treatment as young as 13-years-old. Official guidelines suggest 16 as the minimum age. This is despite the fact that there is no “single large, randomized, controlled study that documents the alleged benefits and potential harms,” the American College of Pediatricians finds.

“The should give everyone pause,” the study says. (For more from the author of “Trendy to Be Transgender: Child Psychologist Reveals Something Terrifying about Many Kids” please click HERE)

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Red Crayons That Identify as Blue: The Latest in the Radical Indoctrination of Public Schools

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Sixth graders quizzed on what they’d do if asked to go to a gay bar, high schoolers forced to write the Islamic creed “There is no god but Allah, and Mohammad is his prophet,” first graders forced to read about a red crayon that self-identifies as blue. The push of radical ideology onto our public school children continues. These latest examples shock, but don’t surprise.

The Invitation to a Gay Bar

Students at a Florida middle school recently brought home a disturbing survey, reported The Blaze. A teacher asked her students to answer questions about how they would feel in different situations. The only problem? They were questions designed to teach the children liberal morals.

One question asked how the sixth-graders would feel if they were asked to a gay bar. Or if they went to a gay bar and someone of the same sex asked them to dance, if they saw their brother kiss a boy, or if two women down the hall (in a dorm) were lesbians.

Others were designed to detect racism. Students were asked how they would feel if they lived in a black neighborhood. Or how they would feel if they saw black men approaching them on the street.

Even the kids knew something was wrong. One sixth-grader named Tori told WFTS-TV that she felt the questions on the survey were “very inappropriate.” “I thought some of them were racist, I thought some of them were sexist, I thought it was completely intolerable.”

At some point, the teacher realized what she did. When kids asked if they could take the survey home to mom or dad, the teacher seemed to panic, said Tori. “She was going, ‘No, don’t show your mom, don’t take that home. I’m taking it back up.’” The survey came from a book titled Exploring White Privilege by Robert P. Amico.

This is not an isolated event. Schools nationwide thrust the liberal agenda on their students. Here are three more examples.

Islamic Creeds, Boys in Dresses

At least one lawsuit arose over a Maryland high school’s telling students to write out the Islamic creed, the Shahada, and recite the Five Pillars of Islam. According to The Free Beacon, students “were subjected to disparaging teachings about Christianity.” They were taught Christianity for one day but Islam for two weeks. So not only were the Christian students’ religion demeaned, but they had to memorize another religion’s tenets in opposition to their own.

Last year the Obama administration threatened to pull funding from schools that did not let transgendered students use the bathroom they wanted. More than one school buckled under the pressure.

A first-grade book called Jacob’s New Dress was in every first-grade classroom in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina. After outrage from state legislators, the schools pulled the book. They replaced it with Red: A Crayon’s Story about a red crayon that self-identifies as blue. The Charlotte Observer reported that the school board is getting ready to add sexual orientation and “Gender identity/Expression” to its multiculturalism policy.

The Need for Vigilance

The drive to force radical ideas onto our children is alive and well in the classroom. Even at the first-grade level. “The purpose of our elementary schools is to teach writing, reading and arithmetic, not to encourage boys to wear dresses,” said Tami Fitzgerald of the North Carolina Values Coalition.

Thomas More Law Center’s President Richard Thompson urged parents to “be ever vigilant to the Islamic indoctrination of their children under the guise of teaching history and multiculturalism. This is happening in public schools across the country.”

Conservative and Christian parents must watch like hawks the education their children receive, especially if they go to public school. Too many schools in too many places want to feed our children information hostile to conservative or Christian values. (For more from the author of “Red Crayons That Identify as Blue: The Latest in the Radical Indoctrination of Public Schools” please click HERE)

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