As many of you noticed, I didn’t blog much over the Christmas holidays with the exception of a column on the tragedy in Argentina and a piece over at The American Conservative on my recent interview with Roger Stone. As such, there’s a lot of news to get through, so I may be posting several of these just to get caught up. The culture wars don’t pause for Christmas, unfortunately. In the meantime, I hope you and yours had a relaxing break and wish you all the best for the New Year.
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This story, from The Post Millennial, is so tiresomely predictable that I wasn’t even shocked to read it:
In 2007 Mark Allen Campbell, who now prefers to go by Nicole Rose Campbell, of Waupun, Wisconsin was arrested for sexually assaulting and abusing his 10-year-old daughter and was sentenced to 34 years in prison. In December 2020 a federal judge declared that Campbell at age 49, now identifying as a transgender woman, has a Constitutional right to gender affirmation surgery, paid by the taxpayers.
Why not? Trans activists are entirely supportive of this sort of thing, and we’ll be sending many rapists off to women’s prisons, where their next victims can’t get away. Often, women are the trans agenda’s collateral damage.
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On that subject, the National Postpublished a story last month titled “’I feel angry’: Why some people regret and reverse their transgender decisions,” about those who transition and later come to regret it—a growing group that is either ignored or maligned by trans activists.
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Nowhere is reality being redefined faster than California, which is now making moves to ensure that medical insurance covers a laundry list of procedures demanded by the trans lobby. As Colin Wright noted on Twitter: “CA moves to change insurance language on double mastectomies for gender dysphoric females from ‘cosmetic’ to ‘reconstructive’ to ensure no age limit for the procedure. Normal breasts are reclassified as ‘abnormal structures of the body caused by congenital defects’…in an individual diagnosed with gender dysphoria, who is born with female characteristics and identifies as male, the presence of a female chest is an abnormal body structure caused by gender dysphoria…”
Read that over one more time. Those questioning gender ideology point out that the beliefs of trans activists are incompatible with biological reality. The response? They are simply redefining reality and demanding that we all play along—or else.
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Pro-life heroes David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt continue to face persecution in the courts. From Disrn:
A federal judge ordered Center for Medical Progress (CMP), a pro-life group that recorded undercover videos of Planned Parenthood, to pay more than $13 million in legal fees.
“Viewing the ample evidence plaintiffs submit regarding the time they spent on the categories of tasks in each phase of this highly contested litigation, and relying on my own knowledge and understanding of the unusually significant time required to develop and try this case, I have a sufficient basis to conclude that the hours plaintiffs seek are reasonable,” wrote U.S. District Judge William Orrick III.
From 2013 to 2015, David Daleiden, CMP Project Lead, recorded undercover videos of conversations in which Planned Parenthood employees and representatives from biomedical companies discuss extracting and selling the body parts of aborted babies. Daleiden and his CMP colleague Sandra Merritt have faced various legal challenges ever since the videos went viral.
The Center for Medical Progress still possesses much damning footage that the abortion industry wants suppressed, and they are throwing everything they’ve got at the pro-life investigators to ensure that it is not released.
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Considering Switzerland’s reputation as a destination for suicide tourism and her tendency to explode into violence when pro-life events are planned, I was mildly surprised to find out that same-sex marriage wasn’t already legal. It turns out that the Swiss are just getting around to it, and they’re going whole hog:
Swiss lawmakers voted on Friday to legalize same-sex marriage and to simplify legal gender recognition procedures for transgender people. Campaigners hailed the move as a major step forward for LGBT+ rights. The gay marriage law is likely to be put to a nationwide referendum next year before taking effect, at the request of the Christian, ultra-conservative Federal Democratic Union party.
The marriage bill has seen multiple rounds of debate since 2013. The approved wording of the bill allows gays and lesbians to marry. It will also allow lesbians to access sperm donations. Under current legislation, same-sex couples can enter into “registered partnerships.” This does not provide the same rights as marriage, including rights to obtain citizenship and the joint adoption of children.
Lawmakers also voted to simplify legal name and gender marker changes on identity documents. Trans and intersex people will now be able to do this by making a declaration at civil registry offices without the need for a court or a doctor. This is known as “self-ID,” according to the advocacy group Transgender Europe. Currently, both children and adults have to apply to a court to change their gender that can cost up to CHF1,000 (€924, $1,130). The minimum age for legal changes to gender without parental consent was set at 16.
As usual, attacks on religious liberty are sure to follow. The Swiss March for Life has already been frequently cancelled over threats of violence, and anti-Christian attitudes are growing in Zwingli’s native land.
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LGBT kids are all the rage in Hollywood—all the stars want one. The latest is from Busy Philipps, who announced the news on a podcast:
Busy Philipps has opened up about her eldest child Birdie Leigh’s sexual identity and gender, revealing that the 12-year-old is gay and uses they/them pronouns. Philipps discussed the topic on her podcast Busy Philipps Is Doing Her Best, where she explained that Birdie first spoke about their sexuality when they were 10 years old.
“For those of you who are my friends listening at home, this is the first you’re hearing that Birdie is gay and out,” the 41-year-old said during Thursday’s episode. “Birdie told us at 10 years old and we immediately … I mean obviously, I knew that Birdie knew.”
During the podcast, the actress also discussed Birdie’s choice to use they/them pronouns, explaining to co-hosts Shantira Jackson and Caissie St Onge that she had previously avoided publicly discussing the topic to protect Birdie’s privacy.
As one wag noted, LGBT kids are like vegan cats—we all know who is really making the decisions.
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Finally, First Things has just published a very helpful essay titled “The Origins of Sexual Totalitarianism.” It begins thusly:
Recently, some social and political movements associated with sexual identity seem to have taken a “totalitarian” turn. Rather than calling for tolerance in matters of sexuality, these movements present themselves as defenders of absolute human rights, which cannot be called into question by competing interests—like those, for example, of religious schools. They maintain that disagreements with their vision can only be the result of “bigotry” or “phobias,” and must be banned from the public sphere or even legally sanctioned because they promote “hate” and (potentially) violence. Naturally, this has created all sorts of conflicts and contributed to the excesses of “cancel culture.”
Rather than rehashing this familiar story, here I would like to briefly revisit its remote historical beginnings. I will use as a guide some observations by Italian political philosopher Augusto Del Noce, who in the 1960s witnessed the early stages of the sexual revolution. Del Noce was original in studying the sexual revolution as a philosophical phenomenon that reflected a new worldview and not just new social circumstances (e.g., women working, or contraception). In my opinion, a failure to fully grasp this worldview is the reason why today many intelligent people seem genuinely surprised that movements putatively seeking tolerance for marginalized minorities should be so intolerant of dissent.
If you’re interested, do read the whole thing. It is helpful context for what we see unfolding all around us.
“Trans activists call healthy breasts “abnormal structures of the body” They are for trans masculine people they make our dysphoria much worse