Author: Penna Dexter

Penna Dexter
It’s December: time for another UN climate confab. Global socialists who see a climate emergency in every heat wave are meeting in Dubai for the 28th annual Conference of the Parties. Marc Morano, publisher of Climate Depot says, “COP 28 is shaping up to be a doubling down on the green agenda despite the massive failure on a grand global scale.”  
These conferences have no effect on climate. They have sparked little significant change in energy consumption. People who have to live with these agendas are starting to push back. Three thousand U.S. auto dealers are asking President Biden to let up on his aggressive electric vehicle push. EV’s are piling up on dealers’ lots. They’re losing money on every EV sold.
Wall Street Journal columnist Gerard Baker observes God’s “wicked sense of humor” in that, on their way to the summit, “members of the planetary emergency rescue elite” ran into the early arrival of winter — a facet of the climate they could not control. They were stranded in Munich, where a snowstorm dumped 17 inches on the ground and forced cancellation of most outbound flights.
The private jets and snowbound adventures of attendees is just the beginning of their hypocrisy.
That so much time and money is spent on these conferences would be laughable if the climate mandates were not so damaging.
The Hill points out that U.S. climate envoy John Kerry has said, “There shouldn’t be any more coal power plants permitted anywhere in the world.” And yet he’s pushing what Gerard Baker describes as “some grand new partnership with China, which ”is becoming one giant coal-fired power station.”
A Bloomberg report predicts that “developed nations will be told to curb their excessive appetite for meat.” A UN report for mayors recommended a limit of three new clothing items per person per year by 2030 to fight climate change.
Apparently, climate bureaucrats are not content with the destruction of the American auto industry. 

Penna Dexter
An article in the online publication — FLI Insider — sent me searching through several years of radio commentaries to find my stories covering the “Christmas Wars.”
I found quite a few.
Here’s one from 12 years ago:  Mayor Tony Court of Ellwood City, Pennsylvania received a threatening letter from the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation about a nativity scene that had been displayed in his town for the previous fifty Christmas seasons. The letter insisted the nativity scene was illegal and had to be taken down. It could remain only if accompanied by an anti-Christmas banner containing a long message, ending with these words: “Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”
“No way,” said Mayor Court. But many city officials are not so bold.
Over the years, the Freedom From Religion and other complainers have launched hundreds of challenges against creches on public property. Often they insist that localities obey something called “The Three Reindeer Rule” which requires that a number of secular trappings of Christmas be placed around the nativity scene.
Jorge Gomez of First Liberty Institute, author of the article that sent me on my search, explains that “the law protects expressions of faith in the public square.” That’s always been true, but many city officials don’t realize it, or they simply don’t want the fight.
Now, thanks to two landmark US Supreme Court victories for religious freedom, the folks at First Liberty want Americans to know “it doesn’t have to be that way anymore.”
The Supreme Court’s momentous decisions protecting Coach Joe Kennedy’s public prayer fand safeguarding the Bladensburg Peace Cross remove “major barriers and precedents against religious freedom.”
According to First Liberty, this “means you can go into your community and begin restoring Nativity scenes, Menorahs and other religious memorials, images, and displays.” First Liberty has launched Restoring Faith In America — RFIA.org — to help folks work with local leaders to seize this wonderful opportunity.  

Penna Dexter
Bioethicist and political thinker Leon Kass has often been called upon to weigh in on consequential moral debates. He lives both in the US and in Jerusalem where he serves as dean of faculty at Shalem University. His recent Wall Street Journal commentary, “Why the Jewish Way of Living Matters,” speaks to certain “Torah-based beliefs,” moral principles shared by the Jewish right and left. Some of these concern the centrality of family life. Dr. Kass states: “In this time of moral confusion and social fragmentation, Israel, by its example has something to teach us…..Alone in the developed world, it has a birthrate above replacement, with a low level of out-of-wedlock births.”
According to a Journal report, titled, “Why Americans Are Having Fewer Babies`,” the US relies on “a robust pool of young people. Without them, the US economy will be weighed down by a worsening shortage of workers.”
Demographers and economists are worried. In 2007, the number of babies born in the United States started to plummet. It hasn’t recovered. According to the Journal, the number of babies born last year was down about 15% from the number born in ‘07, “even though there are 9% more women in their prime childbearing years.”
We originally blamed the ‘08 financial crisis for the persistent drop. Now we look at other factors: The economy, feminism, and even concerns about the environment can influence childbearing decisions. But studies show, young women still want kids. The Journal article cites evidence which leads to the conclusion that “the gap between women’s intended number of children and their actual family size has widened considerably.”
In his documentary, “Birthgap,” data scientist Stephen Shaw points out that 80% of the childless women he studied wanted to have children. Many just thought they had more time.
This is heartbreaking for them and terrible for the country as we find ourselves in a childbearing trough. Hopefully, it’s not too late to turn this around.

Penna Dexter
The United States Supreme Court recently set out a “Code of Conduct” to “gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the members of the court.” All nine justices signed it.
They have done this in response to pressure from groups on the Left who want Congress to put into place “ethics” requirements for Supreme Court Justices.
Enacting such legislation would intensify political accusations against justices and bring endless recusal fights in hot-button cases. And that’s the point. The Left seeks to weaken — really neuter — the Court because it’s not getting the rulings it wants.
Should Congress impose an ethics code on justices, it would violate the US Constitution’s separation of powers. The Founders created the judiciary, under Article III of the Constitution, as a separate and co-equal branch of government.
Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus criticized the justices’ document as inadequate, writing that it tells lawmakers, “You’re not the boss of me.”
That’s exactly what the Court should say.
Supreme Court justices police their own financial disclosures and make their own recusal decisions.
A Wall Street Journal editorial published last summer argues, “The nine justices are appointees with lifetime tenure under the Constitution in order to insulate them from political pressure.” The Journal emphasizes, “While Congress established the lower federal courts, the Constitution created the Supreme Court which sets its own rules.” Congress has no power to set rules for the Court or dictate how it is run.
The rules and principles laid out in the justice’s code are not new. The document is likely meant to deter any action by Congress. Justice Samuel Alito told The Journal, “No provision in the U.S. Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”
Last summer Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s draconian ethics bill passed the Judiciary Committee along party lines. If this legislation was ever enacted, it would destroy the independence of the Supreme Court. 

Penna Dexter
The recent off-year election was not a good one for the pro-life movement. One big disappointment was the vote on Ohio Issue 1 which creates a constitutional right to abortion in what has been a pro-life state.
The 57 to 43 percent vote, in favor of Issue 1, opens the door for legal late-term abortions and the negation of parental rights and health and safety protections, which Ohio pro-lifers have worked for decades to attain.
In 2019, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed a heartbeat law which banned abortion after embryonic cardiac activity is detected — normally at about 6 weeks gestation. The law has been under a court challenge ever since.
The 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade returned responsibility for abortion policy to the states. That should have smoothed the path for enactment of Ohio’s heartbeat law. But instead, a coalition of abortion industry lobbyists and far-left organizations launched a ballot initiative, Issue 1. They spent $35 million branding the pro-life movement as “extreme.”
Direct-to-voters ballot initiatives allow out-of-state actors to bypass elected bodies. Carol Tobias, President of National Right to Life warns that the rise of such initiatives risks making state legislatures obsolete.
One shocking statistic regarding this vote is that 24 percent of self-described “white evangelical or born-again Christians” supported Issue 1.
One would have hoped churches all over Ohio would have prepared congregants for this vote. But Family Research Council’s Joseph Backholm says, “Many churches don’t want to be divisive, so they choose to say nothing,” which leaves the impression that “it really doesn’t matter what Christians think about abortion.”
It does matter.
Author and cultural commentator Rod Dreher says we must not “fool ourselves into thinking that we can sustain a civilization without a religious foundation.“
It appears many Christians need help getting moral clarity on the sanctity of human life. Churches must step up.

Penna Dexter
Most politicians — even those with strong religious faith — don‘t necessarily make that the first thing they want you to know about them. They want to appeal both to voters who will trust them more because of their faith and also to those who will trust them less or who want faith and the Bible left out of politics.
Politicians often publicly explain how their faith informs their position on a social issue, like abortion, or gay marriage, or religious liberty. But few clearly articulate how their faith informs their politics the way Mike Johnson the new House Speaker does.
Within days of his election, he did just that in an in-depth interview with The Daily Signal. Speaker Johnson said he doesn’t find his openness all that remarkable. He said, “It’s who I am. It’s how I think.”
Some media took issue with remarks Mr. Johnson made to Congress minutes after his election as Speaker. Especially his words claiming, “God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment and this time.” He explained this to The Daily Signal: “It’s a central promise of the Bible that God invented civil government.”
People used to know this. Speaker Johnson warned that we must pay attention to the fact that we are “a more secularized society.” Our founders were clear that, to maintain a constitutional republic, “there has to be a consensus on virtue and morality.”
Mr. Johnson recognizes a growing sense among Americans that “we are adrift…in uncharted waters.” He explained, “We live in an age of moral relativism, which has become postmodernism, which is gradually becoming nihilism, the idea that if there is no truth, then you can believe anything or everything, or nothing.”
Speaker Johnson is not going to push his faith on the country. He will live it. He’s known for treating colleagues “with dignity and respect.” On that foundation, he will forge consensus to enact wise policy.

Penna Dexter
What is education even for? Not, it seems, for proficiency in core subjects. At least not in Oregon or in other states that have been ratcheting down their educational standards. Recently, the Oregon Board of Education, by unanimous vote, decided to drop state graduation requirements that students be proficient in math, reading and writing. The board’s statement announcing the move called the standards “burdensome to teachers and students.”
Oregon suspended its proficiency requirement for graduation in 2020, a “pause” instituted during the height of the pandemic. As with many misguided Covid-related education policies, this one resulted in worse outcomes.
Rather than implement remedial measures to bring students up to speed, education bureaucrats blamed the assessment tool for students’ subpar performance. According to the Oregonian, the decision to extend the “pause” means: “Students in the K-12 system will not be held to an academic graduation standard for another four years.” Board members argued that proficiency requirements for graduation would harm marginalized students because many of them would have to take extra classes their senior year in order to demonstrate mastery of required disciplines.
Requiring extra effort on students’ part is wise policy. Throwing out basic requirements is not.
Ohio also tried this in 2020, abandoning “competency” in math and English. The Daily Signal points to an Ohio State University report showing a substantial decline in math performance for middle-and-high-schoolers.
The Daily Signal also reports that Baltimore City Public Schools relaxed math standards several times since 2010. After the 2023 state assessments, the district “has 13 high schools in which zero students are proficient in math.”
In similar misguided attempts to achieve “racial equity,” school districts in California,Michigan, New York, and South Carolina have tried lowering standards and expectations. According to the Daily Signal, “No district that has sought to cut academic standards has seen an improvement in academic performance.”
Idiotic no-expectations/no-failure policies will not help minorities and will destroy many students’ futures.

Penna Dexter
Israel’s critics have denounced even it’s very first efforts to defend itself against Hamas’s horrific massacre. These voices warn that any civilian casualties will be seen as war crimes. And it’s true: the deliberate targeting of civilians is a violation of international law and the laws of war. But unlike Hamas, Israel does not target civilians.
Law Professor Eugene Kontorovich asks this question in a Wall Street Journal op-ed:“Does international law require a nation to choose between committing war crimes and having war crimes committed against it?” He says “The answer is no.”
Professor Kontorovich teaches at George Mason University Scalia School of Law and heads up the international law department at a Jerusalem think tank. Since civilians often become victims, “countries like Israel, “he writes, “resort to war only as self-defense, which, according to the United Nations Charter, is every nation’s inherent right.”
Hamas launches its rockets from civilian population centers. Its weapons infrastructure is located among civilians, by design, as shields and for propaganda. The professor points out that “Hamas has violated international law by hiding among civilians.” Hamas has even ordered Gazans not to flee to avoid Israel’s defensive campaign. He says the presence of civilians in and around military targets does not mean those targets are immune from attack.
Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2005 and has attacked Israel from there several times. In defending against those attacks, Israel targets Hamas fighters and infrastructure.  With this horrendous attack, Israel must operate with the knowledge that “Hamas’s goal is the annihilation of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.” Destroying Hamas is now, rightly, Israel’s existential goal.
Professor Kontorovich writes: “When military objectives and civilians are intermingled, siege aimed at the former will also affect the latter.”  Siege is a part of lawful war. He wonders whether those who deny Israel’s right to self-defense “are merely naïve or wish to leave Israel perpetually exposed to genocide.”
Israel cannot look away. 

Penna Dexter
Pediatric gender clinics once put patients seeking gender transitions through in-depth assessments and waited months before prescribing hormones. This was standard practice until caseloads at these facilities began ballooning. Last year an investigation by Reuters found that some pediatric gender clinics prescribe hormones on the first visit.
But these clinics at least provide more scrutiny of would-be transitioners than Planned Parenthood does.
The Washington Free Beacon reports that Planned Parenthood has become one of the largest and fastest-growing providers of cross sex hormones in the country. According to a Free Beacon article by Aaron Sibarium, “Hormones now appear to be in higher demand than abortion at some branches.”
Mr. Sibarium points to “Fred,” an 18-year-old high school student who is on the autism spectrum. At age 17, he announced to his parents he was a transgender woman. They found the only gender clinic in the country that specializes in autistic youth. Mr. Sibarium explains that they “wanted to be sure his dysphoria wasn’t transient or peer-driven.” But the Gender and Autism Program at Children’s National Hospital, known for lengthy assessments, told them the waiting list for an initial appointment was about a year.
Fred didn’t want to wait that long. Within a couple of months, he turned 18. While his parents were out of town, he went to a Planned Parenthood clinic. At Planned Parenthood,  any legal adult can receive cross sex hormones with no communication from a therapist, no formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and with only a consultation about side effects with a nurse practitioner
Phone-tracking data showed Fred’s parents that he “arrived at the Montclair, New Jersey clinic at 11 AM. “By 11:39, they received a text message from CVS, Fred’s estrogen prescription was on its way.”
Autism is a common undercurrent of gender dysphoria.  These cases deserve more than a 30-minute discussion when considering life-altering drugs and a young person’s permanent loss of fertility.
Planned Parenthood is a criminal enterprise.

Penna Dexter
There’s nothing like a looming re-election battle to derail, or at least delay, a politician’s campaign promises — especially radical ones like allowing men to compete in female sports.
In July 2022, the Biden Administration released a proposed revision to Title IX that effectively forces every school district to allow transgender athletes to compete in school sports. This means biological men on women’s teams and in their locker rooms.
The Washington Stand points to the latest Gallop poll on the issue, which shows that nearly “70% of Americans — including 55 percent of Democrats — don’t want their daughters on teams competing with biological boys.”
The new guidelines were scheduled to be released in May, and then pushed out to October and look likely to miss that deadline. The regulations have not even been sent to the Office of Management and Budget for review, a necessary step that can take up to 120 days.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was passed in recognition of the inherent distinction between men and women. It prohibits discrimination based on sex in any educational program or activity that receives federal assistance. A huge beneficiary has been women’s sports.
Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville says he coached girls’ basketball when Title IX kicked in and the numbers of girls playing high school sports exploded. The senator explained that Title IX “opened up facilities, funding, athletic scholarships — and almost immediately you saw the rise and dedication of women’s sports across our country.”
The Department of Education reports a “historic number of comments” on this issue. Family Research Council’s Meg Kilgannon, an education official in the Trump Administration, told The Washington Stand, “The fact that the rule isn’t final means that overwhelming public comments made a difference.” She expects the rule to be published closer to the election “to get the rule in place late in the game, and deal with the consequences after the election.”
They are stalling, but not dropping this. 

Penna Dexter
It was hard fought, but North Carolina recently became the 10th state to approve a universal school choice program. The effort began in 2013 with the creation of North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarships. Now, the legislature has expanded the program to grant eligibility to all students in the state, though the amount of the scholarship declines for higher-income families. Families can use the assistance for the schooling of their choice, including private school tuition, instructional materials, and homeschooling expenses.
School closures during the pandemic forced education online and into homes across America. Some parents found a lot they didn’t like in what the public schools were teaching their kids. The Washington Stand reports that, since the pandemic, “1.2 million K-12 students have not returned to public school, with 26% choosing to homeschool.”
Legislatures in states across the nation are responding. Just since 2022, universal school choice has been enacted in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah, and West Virginia. During the same period, 8 other states, have either expanded existing programs or created alternative school choice programs.
School choice has its opponents. When North Carolina’s legislature took up a choice bill, Governor Roy Cooper declared a “state of emergency,” warning “that the Republican legislature is aiming to choke the life out of public education.” The issue led State Rep. Tricia Coddle to switch parties, from Democrat to Republican, and provide the majority needed to override the governor’s expected veto.
Governor Greg Abbott is calling the Texas legislature into special session this month with the express purpose of passing school choice for every child. During the regular session, the Texas Senate passed a bill, but the House did not. The governor promises consequences for Republicans who choose teachers’ unions over Texas parents. When Iowa governor Kim Reynolds faced a similar situation last year she got involved in nine House primary races. In January, Iowa passed universal school choice.
Texas lawmakers: choose the easier way.

Penna Dexter
Thankfully, outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, four-star Army General Mark Milley’s end-of-tour award citation narrowly escaped the Pentagon’s wokification efforts before it was issued.
General Milley retires at the end of September when his four-year term as Joint Chiefs Chairman ends.
On August 7, the Department of Defense issued an update to its regulation for joint declarations and awards. Change 5 requires that “gender-neutral” pronouns be used for the six most prestigious joint service awards.
According to Change 5, the wording should include the recipient’s rank, name, and branch and then state that this officer (quote) “distinguished themselves by superior meritorious service in a position of significant responsibility.” The position, duty assignment, and time served in that assignment follow.
According to Change 5, General Milley distinguished — not himself — but themselves.
How ungrammatical. How awkward. But General Milley’s citation, drafted the old way, needed to be fixed.
Somebody in the Pentagon told the Daily Signal about Change 5. Reporters Cully Stimson and Dakota Wood broke the story.
When Senator Tom Cotton, a retired Army officer, got wind of the change, he took the opportunity to poke some fun at it in a public letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. “The Department’s embrace of far-left gender ideology doesn’t merely subvert the English language in ways that would astonish George Orwell. Worse,” wrote the senator, “it exemplifies a Pentagon leadership consumed by the fads of the faculty lounge at a time when the Army can’t hit its recruiting goals.
The Senator also asked the Secretary some serious questions, like: “Who approved this?” and “…can service members request the use of the male or female pronoun on their award citations and at award and retirement ceremonies?”
That answer, according to a Pentagon spokesperson was “Yes”. But the default pronoun is themselves.
No longer. On September 19, the Pentagon quietly posted Change 6, reversing the pronoun rule. Good work, Daily Signal.

Penna Dexter
Twenty-two states, so far, have enacted restrictions on performing so-called “gender-affirming” medical interventions on minors. Many of these laws have faced court challenges and there’s good news: Two federal appellate courts have upheld these laws.
This legislation not only prevents young people from medical and psychological harm, it protects the rights of parents, who in many cases are not told by schools that their children are actively pursuing gender transitions.
Should a school ever keep parents in the dark when a child asks to be treated as a different gender? These 22 states said ‘no.’ In California, state officials say ‘yes.’ Some school boards are pushing back.
Orange Unified School District has become the sixth California district to require that parents be notified if a child takes steps toward identifying as a member of the opposite sex. This follows Rocklin Unified School District, near Sacramento, which passed a policy, by a vote of 4 -1 which requires that schools contact parents within three days if their child asks to use a name, pronouns, or single-sex facilities “that do not align with the child’s biological sex.”
These actions stand in opposition to Governor Gavin Newsome’s stance against parental notification policies.
In July, Chino Valley Unified School District, near San Bernardino, became the first California district to approve one of these common-sense parental rights policies. State Attorney General Rob Bonta recently obtained a temporary restraining order against enforcement of the Chino district’s policy. Lance Christenson of the California Policy Center told The Washington Stand, “Gov. Newsome and other state officials are on a mission to strip parents of their rights and give control over their kids to the government.” He said the attorney general is attempting to “scare other school boards that are considering adopting parental rights policies.”
This is a state government attempting to hide vital information from parents and to facilitate minors’ gender transitions without notifying their parents.  May additional school boards join the rebellion. 

Penna Dexter
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that: “More hospitals are getting out of the maternity business.” Maternity wards are closing across America, especially in sparsely-populated or aging communities.
Hospital executives report difficulties recruiting enough staff to safely operate. It’s hard to attract doctors and nurses to hospitals where births are declining.
Order of St. Francis Healthcare, which operates in Illinois, is finding it necessary to close certain maternity units. According to OSF’s chief operating officer, “There’s just not enough babies to be had.”
The March of Dimes defines maternity deserts as counties that have no hospital or birthing center, and that lack O.B.s and nurse midwives. As of 2020 there were 1052 counties on the March of Dimes’ list — 70 more than 4 years earlier. These counties were home to approximately 2.2 million women of childbearing age.
This is a dangerous situation. The Journal cites research showing that women who do give birth in remote, rural areas that have lost maternity wards are more likely to deliver too early or to encounter serious complications, such as acute kidney failure.
The growth of maternity deserts reflects our declining marriage rate, which translates to lower birth rates. A new study shows that 25 percent of Americans are turning 40 without ever having married. This is up from 20 percent in 2010 and 6 percent in 1980.
Married couples are having fewer children. Or no children. Some cite global problems like “climate change.” Others say they can’t afford kids.
Author Rod Dreher highlighted the Journal’s story in a recent blogpost, stating, “I have never understood how it is that every generation in the West had much more materially difficult lives than we do today, and yet they all chose to have families.”
Thomas à Kempis wrote of those “always searching for ease and not the things of Christ.” Let this generation not be, as Rod Dreher described them, “too rich and comfortable to want kids.”

Penna Dexter
Here is a real life story of one of the unjust repercussions of the 2015 Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which struck down the marriage laws of every state. According to Obergefell, states cannot deny marriage licenses to same sex couples.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the opinion, allowed that some people oppose same sex marriage for “decent and honorable” reasons. These folks still have First Amendment Rights, he promised. Consider the Burkes:
Michael Burke served in Iraq as a Marine. Kitty Burke worked as a paraprofessional helping special needs children. The Burkes sought to adopt a child through the state of Massachusetts’ foster care program. In their application, they said they were willing to adopt children of any race or ethnicity. They’d take siblings and even kids with certain special needs.
The Burkes are devout Roman Catholics. They frequently work as musicians at local churches. Wall Street Journal columnist William Mc Gurn wrote of the Burke’s faith: “Once upon a time that would be an endorsement. Today it’s an indictment.” The Burkes were rejected as unfit to be adoptive parents. The author of their license study was concerned regarding LGBTQ issues. She noted: “their faith is not supportive and neither are they.”
Justice Samuel Alito saw this coming.
In his dissent in Obergefell, Justice Alito wrote that the decision “will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy.”
Sure, people can think what they’d like about same sex marriage. Justice Alito argued, “I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers and schools.”
The Burkes’ lawyer at the Becket Fund describes this “new orthodoxy” as a government-imposed “replacement ideology.” Christians must refuse to accept this. The Burkes’ lawsuit should help.

Penna Dexter
Our American culture is rich with gifts God has given for human flourishing. Sometimes we take these gifts for granted. Sometimes, tragically, we reject them. One of these good gifts is the family.
Growing up in a coastal suburb of Los Angeles, I couldn’t articulate God’s beautiful plan for the family as a moral and economic unit for the raising of the next generation and the perpetuation of society. We just lived that way. We knew work brought the money to meet life’s needs. We assumed you married first before having children. It was normal to respect authority figures and obey the law. Whether or not we saw these as Christian values, we knew they worked. When the government’s policies incentivized something different, the society began to show cracks.
One of those cracks was something called “the generation gap.”  Families of faith often avoided the gap. But faith was declining in America. The generation gap was not simply due to normal teenage rebellion. Everything in society seemed to be pushing the generations apart: drugs, free sex, music, Hollywood, even higher education. California state universities were teaching students to hate and rebel against America, capitalism, ‘the patriarchy, and the traditional family. The hard leftist ideology at certain universities drove some students to violence and led others — the peace-loving ones — to live in drug-infested streets as hippies.
The US Supreme Court handed down decisions banning official prayers in public schools and upholding abortion rights. Feminists’ were unsuccessful in passing the Equal Rights Amendment. But their effort, along with the enactment of a national no-fault divorce law, served to undermine marriage and the traditional family.
Then, in 2015, the High Court redefined marriage.
To “be fruitful and multiply” means to have children and form families. Families lead to the creation of other forms of government — cities and nations — in which we organize ourselves to use God’s gifts to flourish on the earth.
We have arrogantly rejected this foundation.

Penna Dexter
The United States Senate is considering legislation that would require the Supreme Court to set up a code of conduct, tighten financial disclosure rules, and bolster recusal requirements for justices. The bill would allow individual complaints against justices. Each complaint would be adjudicated by a “judicial investigation panel” of 5 chief judges from the circuit courts.
The proposed bill violates the US Constitution’s separation of powers. Supreme Court  justices police their own financial disclosures and make their own recusal decisions. But since the Court as currently composed is not giving the Left the rulings it wants, progressives are attacking certain justices’ ethics.
Last month, Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act passed the Senate Judiciary Committee along party lines.
After the vote, six committee Republicans told reporters that, if enacted, the legislation would destroy the independence of the Supreme Court. Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) said the bill “should make every American afraid.”
A Wall Street Journal editorial argues, “The nine justices are appointees with lifetime tenure under the Constitution in order to insulate them from political pressure.”  Enacting this bill would do the opposite. The Journal points out that “Legislators are political actors accountable to voters for their relationships with campaign contributors and interest groups.” The Founders created the judiciary, under Article III of the Constitution, as a separate and co-equal branch of government.
The Journal emphasizes, “While Congress established the lower federal courts, the Constitution created the Supreme Court which sets its own rules.”  Congress has no power to set rules for the Court or dictate how it is run.
Justice Samuel Alito told the Journal he and the other justices voluntarily follow the disclosure statutes that lower court judges and executive branch officials adhere to. But, he says, “No provision in the US Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”
The Senate must block this attempt to intimidate justices and control the Court. 

Penna Dexter
It’s hard to know the rate at which people who obtain gender transition surgeries ultimately seek to detransition. The detransition rate has hovered at around two percent. But two trans academics, Daniela Valdes and Kinnon MacKinnon, point out that “older studies may not adequately predict outcomes for today’s far larger, more diverse trans and gender-questioning population.”
In their article in The Atlantic entitled, “Take Detransitioners Seriously,” the two researchers argue that detransitioning is not “a negligible issue.”
We have been hearing from quite a few detransitioners lately.
Here’s one of their stories as told to FOX News and reported in Family Research Council’s news publication, The Washington Stand. For privacy, the detransitioner calls himself ‘Kobe.”  Kobe says he was a “feminine boy” and that he was experiencing “mental health” issues. Had it not been for the pervasive gender ideology online, he says he would not have  pursued a gender transition.
Kobe began taking puberty blockers at age 13 and estrogen at age 16. To get them, he heeded online advice to “play the suicide card.” He received “castration surgery” at age 19. “But then,” he says, “everything started to crack, and I couldn’t ignore the complications. I couldn’t ignore that I mutilated myself pretty much with the permission of a psychiatrist.” Because Kobe took puberty blockers and started estrogen so young, he mostly skipped male puberty. He has breasts, female hips, no gonads, a smaller body, and more of a feminine skull. As to the hoped-for improvement in his mental health, he says, “it didn’t do anything.” He has many complications including urination issues caused by his castration surgery and severe back pain which he fears is osteoporosis. “I just wasted so much time,” he says, “and all I really did was become a medical patient for life.”
Gender detransitioners like Kobe who were in no position to consent to such mutilation, are now to be commended for their courage in standing up against it. 

Penna Dexter
The US Centers for Disease Control recently published guidance for new parents using a word I had never heard until a couple of weeks ago. The word is chestfeeding.
In an article in Today’s Parent magazine, lactation consultant Azura Goodman defines the word. She writes:
“Chestfeeding or bodyfeeding can refer to feeding your baby milk directly from your body. This term is used by people who don’t identify their anatomy with the term “breast.”
She explains that she uses the term chestfeeding in order to be inclusive “rather than narrow in on one population.”
When transwomen — let’s be clear: these are biological males — (when they) go to the CDC website looking for information on feeding newborns, they will find the affirming statement that “transgender and non-binary individuals may give birth and breastfeed or feed at the chest.”
Biological males cannot give birth. They can, however, be given hormones which mimic changes that take place in biological women’s bodies during the late stages of pregnancy. Apparently, this regimen results in some men producing a nipple discharge that a couple of transgender doctors claim can be pumped out and sustain a baby.
One of the hormones used in this protocol is domperidone, which, the FDA warns “can pass into breast milk in small amounts and can sometimes give babies an irregular heartbeat.” The CDC helpfully notes this.
The CDC’s advice on chestfeeding also applies to transgender males — biological females — who have breast-removal surgery and still want to coax a little milk out of what’s left. What a tragic sacrifice to have made. But what truly loving parent — biological or adoptive — would allow their child to be fed this toxic brew especially when it’s usually to allow a confused male to feel “seen” or satisfy a disordered desire to experience breastfeeding.
The CDC’s “guidance” on chestfeeding is not medical advice or a legitimate recommendation for the care and feeding of infants. The post-COVID CDC is embarrassing.

Penna Dexter
In the bellwether state of Ohio, it’s easy to pass a constitutional amendment. It only takes 50 percent of a vote of the people. That’s why the state constitution has nearly 70,000 words. (The U.S. Constitution has 7000.)
Buckeye conservatives have seen the ease of amending Ohio’s constitution as a vulnerability for years. Aaron Baer, President of Ohio’s Center for Christian Virtue says, “it’s led to so many different issues and so many different problems that we’ve wanted to fix it.”
They’ve got their chance. A proposed amendment to enshrine abortion rights in Ohio’s constitution provides some urgency.
The Right to Make Reproductive Decisions Including Abortion Initiative — would wipe out abortion restrictions on the books in Ohio, including parental consent legislation. The amendment contains loopholes for transgender surgeries. According to The Washington Stand’s Susanne Bowdey, “If it passes, Ohio moms and dads will have zero say over their children’s abortions or bodily mutilation.”  
Ohio is a pro-life state. Lawmakers there passed and the governor signed a six-week heartbeat law that is currently being blocked by the courts. But, in recent weeks, U-Haul trucks arrived at the state capital bearing 710,000 petition signatures, 300,000 more than required to get the amendment on the November ballot. Planned Parenthood and the ACLU are pouring tens of millions of dollars into the signature-gathering effort.
The idea here is to undermine the work of Ohio’s pro-life legislature.
Conservatives in Ohio’s general assembly launched a counterattack. They set a vote to take place August 8, a special election in which voters will decide whether to raise the threshold for altering the state constitution from a simple majority to a 60 percent “supermajority.”
The pro-abortion left cannot rely on grassroots support. So special interests paid out-of-state signature-gatherers to get a radical pro-abortion amendment on the ballot in Ohio. They will spend heavily, and use manipulative messaging, to get the vote out. Passing Issue 1 makes that harder.