A brief summary of culture war news from around the interwebs:
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The Law and Justice Party has won in Poland once again, triggering a wave of angry editorials about the homophobia and bigotry of the Catholic Right. Headline example: “Poland exit polls mean victory for homophobic Andrzej Duda — and misery for LGBTQ people.” Rod Dreher of The American Conservative, however, warns that Poland may be heading for the secular cliffs nonetheless, but is just floating a bit further upstream at the moment. I hope he’s wrong.
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Forbes is reporting that Instagram is banning any “conversion therapy”-related content:
Instagram banned ads for LGBT conversion therapy earlier this year and, starting Friday, they are taking it one step further by banning all content about conversion therapy — the decision comes as concerns about parent company Facebook’s handling of hate speech, misinformation and civil rights continue to gain momentum.
Of course, when they say “conversion therapy” what they actually mean is anything that could be perceived as discouraging the LGBT lifestyle. This “conversion therapy” angle as a means of enforcing their agenda has been a real coup for the LGBT movement.
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Per ABC News, Georgia’s six-week abortion ban has been struck down: “District Judge Steve C. Jones said the state law, H.B. 481, was unconstitutional as it violated several stipulations set forth by Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that codified abortion as a protected right.” This was expected. Until Roe goes, restrictions like this remain exercises in shifting the Overton Window and educating the public.
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In an ongoing trend (first publicized by Mark Steyn in America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It back in 2006), global fertility rates continue to decline. As the BBC reported this month: “The world is ill-prepared for the global crash in children being born which is set to have a “jaw-dropping” impact on societies, say researchers. Falling fertility rates mean nearly every country could have shrinking populations by the end of the century. And 23 nations – including Spain and Japan – are expected to see their populations halve by 2100. Countries will also age dramatically, with as many people turning 80 as there are being born.”
Of course, the BBC manages to put a positive spin on it: “It has nothing to do with sperm counts or the usual things that come to mind when discussing fertility. Instead it is being driven by more women in education and work, as well as greater access to contraception, leading to women choosing to have fewer children. In many ways, falling fertility rates are a success story.”
Oh. Well I guess that’s good news then.
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This, from Live Action, is interesting:
Rabbi Yaakov Menken, the Managing Director of the Coalition for Jewish Values, recently responded to a claim from the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) that Judaism is a pro-choice religion. Contrary to the group’s claims, Menken argued that abortion is not a “Jewish value.”
“The ethical lessons of the Five Books of Moses, what Jews call the Torah, are today so commonly held that they are almost taken for granted,” Menken wrote over at Newsweek. “We forget that beliefs such as the inestimable value of every human life, the superiority of peace to warfare and a justice system that must treat all as equals were hardly common in the ancient world.”
