"ALL CAPS IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY IS NO VICE."

Saturday, February 17, 2024

Unlike ordinary families in Minnesota, Muslim families are allowed to reject LGBT curriculum in schools

Here's another example of how, in far-left states like Minnesota, Muslim families are allowed to opt out of lessons about LGBT ideology, in contrast to non-Muslims:
A Minneapolis area school district says it will let families opt out of LGBT curriculum materials after several Muslim families threatened to sue.

[...] Somali Muslim families had threatened to sue the district, alleging that not allowing families to opt out potentially violates the Constitution and state law.

On November 2, the families’ attorneys sent the district a letter explaining Islamic teachings around gender and sexuality and outlining the timeline of parents’ complaints about the LGBT books.

Some of the families’ elementary school children had been exposed to LGBT characters in picture books, which caused “significant confusion and distress,” the families’ letter said.
All concerned about LGBT ideology indoctrination would do well to consider that this is really only a win for Islamists, not for Judeo-Christians, who can find it much harder to oppose this horrific stuff. Both Islam and LGBT ideologies are hurtful to women, and that surely has something to do with how this was all approached by the left. And no doubt, after the October 7, 2023 Hamas bloodbath in Israel, a lot of the pro-LGBT ideologues who may have wanted Islamists to accept their trash have now changed course completely, since the Religion of Peace truly is a favored ideology of theirs too in the long run.

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Former Dutch premier who supported antisemitism and Hamas dies of euthanasia

Dries van Agt, one of the worst antisemitic politicians in the Netherlands, and his wife, have both died by ways of euthanasia:
Dries Van Agt, who served as prime minister of the Netherlands from 1977 to 1982, and whom Dutch watchdog groups condemned in recent years as an antisemite, chose to die last Monday with the assistance of a doctor, along with his wife. He was 93.

The double-euthanasia was announced on Sunday, by Van Agt’s organization Rights Forum, which he founded to oppose what the group calls “blind support for Israel” in the Netherlands’ public and political discourse.

[...] Van Agt made the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a major area of interest later in his life and was condemned on several occasions by Jewish and other organizations as an antisemite. Van Agt defended Hamas as well as individual terrorists several times.

In 2008, the former prime minister spoke at a rally featuring a televised address by a Hamas official. As a justice minister in the 1970s, Van Agt cited his "Aryan" roots in explaining his plan to pardon four Nazi war criminals due to health reasons.

In 2022, the former prime minister said that settlers in the West Bank had poisoned a three-year-old Palestinian girl, a charge that B'Tselem, the leading Israeli organization devoted to documenting alleged human rights violations, said it was not aware of. CIDI, the Netherlands' main antisemitism watchdog, called the accusation a blood libel. The Central Jewish Board of the Netherlands declared Van Agt an antisemite in 2017.

The Rights Forum, which Van Agt founded in 2009, lobbies Dutch politicians and representatives to challenge Israeli policy in the UN and International Criminal Court, alleging “violations of international law and human rights in Israel and Palestine,” and naming international law and human rights as its “explicit and consistent reference framework” as an organization. The group accuses Israel of “violat[ing] the fundamental rights of millions of Palestinians in often extremely violent ways, generation after generation.”

The organization has come under criticism from pro-Israel groups such as NGO Monitor, in particular for a pattern of rejecting allegations or definitions of antisemitism that the group deems politicized: in 2023, the group accused the Dutch ambassador to Israel of “going too far” when he called a shooting attack, in which a 21-year-old resident of East Jerusalem killed seven people and wounded two more, antisemitic.
Gee, if this man was going to go out of his way to condone blood libels and support terrorists, it's hard to feel sorry he decided to end his life as he did. But, he's made sure to leave behind a venomous legacy and movement that's carrying on his repulsive practices, and they're sure to cause only so much more damage for years to come.

Monday, February 12, 2024

IDF rescues 2 hostages in Gaza's Rafah neighborhood

The IDF has thankfully and successfully rescued 2 men who were held hostage by Hamas in Gaza:
Two Israeli hostages Louis Har, 70, Fernando Simon Marman, 60, were rescued at around 2 a.m. on Monday from the second floor of a building in the center of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip by the Israel police’s Yamam anti-terror unit, Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet internal security agency. The men were flown by helicopter to the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, where they are in good condition. One soldier was slightly injured during the rescue.

Har’s son-in-law Idan Bejerano, said that he and his wife met with his father-in-law briefly before he was taken for medical examinations.

“We were called at 3:30 a.m. and jumped out of our beds in joy. We were told, ‘We have them in our hands,’ and instructed to get to the hospital. It took us nearly an hour to get there, and I am not sure my wife was breathing at all during that time. This is a great relief,” he said.

Asked about their condition, Bejerano replied, “They are both in bed in the hospital. Whether they are healthy in spirit, in body, is still hard to know, but they look whole. It seems they had the strength of spirit of these 128 days to remain strong and come back to us.”

The men were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak on Oct. 7, when terrorists from Gaza murdered 1,200 people, wounded thousands and took 253 hostage in a murderous rampage near the Gaza border. Marman and Har were taken captive along with Marman’s sisters Clara, 62, and Gabriela Leimberg, 59; and Gabriela’s daughter, Miam Leimberg, 17. They were visiting Har at the kibbutz for the Simchat Torah holiday weekend. The five were hiding in their sealed room during the attack before they were taken hostage. The women were freed as part of an earlier hostage release.
This is very fortunate, but only a small part so far in rescuing any more hostages who're hopefully still alive. For now, we must thank God these 2 men were saved from the awful situation they were in, and now reunited with their families. Let's hope they'll be able to recuperate as best as possible along with their families.