Today’s Brew contains another lesson on why you all must vote in your school district elections.

But first, American churches under attack.

“Hostility Against Churches”

Attacks on American churches more than doubled last year, according to Family Research Council’s annual “Hostility Against Churches” report.

FRC found at least 436 acts of hostility against houses of worship last year, versus fewer than 200 in 2022, and 50 in 2018. “The types of acts include vandalism, arson, gun-related incidents, bomb threats, and more,” FRC President Tony Perkins said, continuing: 

There is a common connection between the growing religious persecution abroad and the rapidly increasing hostility toward churches here at home: our government’s policies. The indifference abroad to the fundamental freedom of religion is rivaled only by the increasing antagonism toward the moral absolutes taught by Bible-believing churches here in the U.S., which is fomenting this environment of hostility toward churches.

Added Arielle Del Toro, Director of FRC’s Center for Religious Liberty, “Our culture is demonstrating a growing disdain for Christianity and core Christian beliefs, and acts of hostility against churches could be a physical manifestation of that.”

Utah School District Discourages Teachers From Telling Parents About Their Kid’s Gender Transitions

Two Utah school districts are encouraging staff to hide gender transitions from parents, National Review is reporting. Utah … which in terms of family and traditional values makes the Amish look like the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

It’s happening in the Nebo and Alpine school districts. Nebo’s instructions are to hide a child’s gender transition from Mom and Dad unless “a situation exists which presents a serious threat to the well-being of a student.” You mean like coercing a boy to believe he’s a girl or a girl to believe she’s a boy? That kind of threat?

Alpine’s guidance says there’s no requirement to notify parents and to definitely not tell the parent if it is dubbed a “safety” risk.

According to Parents Defending Education, there are now at least 18,000 schools nationwide across 1,058 districts that are fine with keeping parents in the dark about their kid’s embrace of the trans cultural contagion. Amazing how schools will treat a sneeze more seriously than a sex change.

Meanwhile, the state of Illinois is considering legislation that would deem any minor whose parents protest their being transitioned as an “abused child.”

Further, the bill declares that doctors who provide “gender affirming care,” and even abortions, to minors “shall not incur civil or criminal liability for failure to obtain valid consent or professional discipline for failure to obtain valid consent if the health care professional relied in good faith on representations made by the minor.”

So you can get carded trying to sneak into an R-rated movie, but tell a doctor you are really a different sex and Doc Mengele is off the hook?

Do you live in one of the 1,058 districts (and counting) listed by PDE? Did you vote in the last school district elections? How about in your state elections?

“Pray, Vote, Engage” isn’t just a slogan. It’s a life saver.

Victory in Texas: Professor Reinstated After Being Fired for Teaching Biological Differences Between Men and Women

Biology professor Dr. Johnson Varkey will be back in the classroom this fall at St. Philip College on Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. Varkey had been fired after several students complained he was teaching the biological differences between men and women … in his biology class. The professor was accused of “religious preaching, discriminatory comments about homosexuals and transgender individuals, anti-abortion rhetoric, and misogynistic banter.” According to The Post Millennial, the school didn’t provide specific examples.

Varkey successfully sued the school with the help of First Liberty Institute over St. Philip College’s hostility to his religious beliefs. The Adjunct Professor has now reached a settlement with administrators, and by golly, biology will be allowed back into his biology class. St. Philip himself could not be reached for comment, but he is smiling. 

Idaho Goes to SCOTUS for Help Banning Trans Treatments on Minors

Idaho has filed an emergency motion with the Supreme Court, asking the justice to narrow a lower court’s ruling stopping the state from enforcing its law banning sex-change treatments on minors. Idaho wants the lower court’s decision only to apply on the two trans-identifying teens who filed suit against the ban. Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador says the state wants to protect some 2 million minors from “harmful and experimental drugs and procedures.”

Shout Out to Jimmy Carter After DNC Diss

Before we go on, let’s give a late President’s Day shout-out to our 39th President, Jimmy Carter. Seems the Democrats forgot all about the former president, humanitarian and Sunday school teacher when it honored the living Democrat presidents. With his wife Rosalynn recently passed and the 99-year-old Carter in hospice care himself, that’s just cold. Larry Elder spotted the snub.

OOPS!

DNC omits Jimmy Carter in now deleted Presidents Day post celebrating living Dem presidentshttps://t.co/slXelm2qwX

— Larry Elder (@larryelder) February 19, 2024

The DNC post was soon deleted.

So we’ll offer the belated “Happy President’s Day” to the humble peanut farmer who brought peace between Israel and Egypt.

Widow of Slain Haitian President Charged in His Assassination

Sure, over on Resolute, we’ll talk about Dr. Jill’s obvious hunger to remain in power. And folks all over joke about Hillary Clinton’s deadly ways. The former First Lady of Haiti has been indicted in connection with her husband’s assassination. Prosecutors claim Martine Moise was complicit in the 2021 murder of President Jovenel Moise, conspiring with ex-Prime Minister Claude Joseph in the hopes of becoming president upon her husband’s death.

The assassins broke into Moise’s bedroom in Port-au-Prince on July 7, 2021, shooting the President to death. First Lady Moise was herself injured in the attack.

Joseph claims current Prime Minister Ariel Henry was the real beneficiary of the assassination and is now “weaponizing the Haitian justice system” to persecute opponents in a “classic coup d’état.”

The story is also on our radar because the Haitian unrest so close to our shores helped trigger an exodus from that dysfunctional island nation and a rush of illegal Haitian immigrants.

Plus, the plots and perils of the political world lead us perfectly into a new series from John Zmirak.

Along The Stream

The Stream’s John Zmirak and Jason Jones launch a must-read series called “Putin’s Revenge: Re-Electing the Democrats So the U.S. Collapses Like the USSR.” They start by explaining why Putin wants to break the U.S. the way the Soviet Union was broken up. And wait until later parts where they explain who is the American equivalent of Mikhail Gorbachev and why. Fascinating stuff.

Also later today, we drop our first excerpt from the great new book Fight the Good Fight, written by our founders, Jay Richards and James Robison.

 

Al Perrotta is the Managing Editor of The Stream, co-author, with John Zmirak, of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and co-author of the counter-terrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.