Tag: religion

Pastor accused of sexually abusing foster child had prior prison sentence commuted by Trump

A South Carolina pastor accused of sexually assaulting a foster child had his prison sentence commuted by President Donald Trump and was on federal probation when the alleged assaults occurred.

The Richland County Sheriff’s Department (RCSD) said Rodney Gibson and Kawiana Young were arrested Monday. RCSD noted the two are married.

Both were charged with unlawful conduct with a minor, while Gibson was additionally charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct, second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Gibson was also identified as the pastor of Pathway 2 Hope Ministries in Columbia, while Young owns and operates DreamCatcher Child Development Center.

Federal court records obtained by WIS reveal more about Gibson’s prison sentence and his efforts to end his probation early.

Federal court records show Gibson, 50, served more than 10 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to federal drug and gun charges in 2009. His prison sentence was reduced to 32 years in 2015 and to 17 years in 2017.

Records also show Gibson filed to have his sentence reduced again in June 2020, claiming errors in the sentencing process. Then, in January 2021, Gibson was one of several people whose prison sentences were commuted by President Donald Trump on the final day of his first term. Gibson was released in May that year, but remained under the previously imposed supervision.

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Revealed: ALL Members Of Government’s ‘Anti-Muslim Hostility’ Group Have ISLAMIST Links

The UK Labour government’s new definition of “anti-Muslim hostility” – rebranded from “Islamophobia” – is being shaped by a working group where every single member has links to Islamist organisations.

The details are exposed in the Free Speech Union’s latest investigative briefing which highlights ties between the group members and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND), groups that governments since 2009 have refused to engage with due to their extreme views. 

One member, Baroness Gohir, tweeted in support of Hamas in 2014. Another stood for the far-left, Islamist-supporting Respect Party.

As the Free Speech Union states: “In a free society, no religion should enjoy greater protection than others — nor be shielded from legitimate criticism and challenge.”

The FSU adds: “This group was stacked with members already sympathetic to such a definition.” And with the government yet to appoint a new Islamophobia tsar, “there is deep cause for concern.”

Conservative MP Katie Lam put it bluntly in her video response: “The Government’s new ‘anti-Muslim hostility’ definition will make it harder to talk about Islamist extremism, FGM, and the grooming gangs. They’d rather restrict our right to criticise than deal with these problems head-on. It’s putting us all in danger.”

Parliament abolished blasphemy laws in 2008. Yet as the FSU warns: “This Government risks reviving them for Islam alone, via the back door.”

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For The Third Time, SCOTUS Tells Colorado To Stop State-Enforced Homosexuality

The Supreme Court, for the third time, has slapped down another attempt by Colorado to control what people say, think, and do regarding sexuality and the sexes.

First, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission told Jack Phillips that he may sell baked goods only if he’s willing to include messages that violate his religious beliefs. The Supreme Court said that violated Phillips’ First Amendment rights. Up next, Colorado’s “anti-discrimination” law allowed creative entrepreneurs, like web designer Lorie Smith, to do business only if they, too, would include messages in their work that violated their religious beliefs. Again, the Supreme Court said this violated the First Amendment.

But Colorado had another law, this one dictating what licensed counselors like Kaley Chiles may say to their young clients about sexuality and the sexes. They may, the law says, provide acceptance, support, and assistance for “an individual’s … identity exploration and development.” That much might sound OK, but it only works in one direction. Counselors may help an individual who wishes to separate so-called gender identity from his or her sex, but not those who wish to align them.

In other words, a counselor in Colorado may help a boy — even without his parents’ permission — accept that he’s actually a girl, but must tell a girl — even with her parents’ permission — who doesn’t want to be a boy that she has to go elsewhere.

The law uses the extremely broad brush of “conversion therapy” to include everything from discredited and abandoned physical techniques to the “talk therapy” that Chiles uses. That’s no doubt intentional, a rather crude attempt at guilt-by-association, but seriously misleading. And the First Amendment flag has to go up whenever the government attempts to dictate what you must or can’t say.

Colorado is being especially authoritarian here. Under this law, any person who thinks a counselor is saying the wrong thing may file a complaint with a regulatory board, which triggers a disciplinary review process that can result in a counselor losing his or her license. This invites activists to target mental health professionals with such complaints, knowing that even the rumor of a disciplinary proceeding, no matter how bogus, can ruin a professional’s reputation.

Equally undeterred, the Supreme Court on March 31 held that this violated Chiles’ First Amendment right to freedom of speech. The First Amendment’s “jealous protections for the individual’s right to think and speak freely,” wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch for an 8-1 majority, means that government attempts to control the content of speech are “presumptively unconstitutional.” This Colorado law did not ban counselors from talking about sexuality and the sexes, but dictated what they may say when they do. Attempting to control the opinions or perspectives an individual may express, Gorsuch wrote, presents “even greater dangers” and constitutes an even more blatant violation of the First Amendment.

This time, the Supreme Court repudiated Colorado’s authoritarian tendencies by a resounding margin, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson the lone dissenter. As she did during the argument in this case, Jackson suggested that there’s no difference between physical interventions like electric shocks and simply talking. She insisted that a ban on certain speech affects speech “only incidentally.” Yes, she really did.

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Patriots Head Coach Mike Vrabel CAUGHT on Camera in ‘Intimate Moments’ with Married Leftist NYT Reporter — Just Days After Lecturing Christian Player Over Bible Verse

The head coach of the New England Patriots, Mike Vrabel, was photographed in what many are calling highly inappropriate interactions with a married reporter tied to far-left The New York Times.

The photos, first obtained by Page Six and now blowing up across the internet, show the married Patriots boss hugging, holding hands with fingers interlocked, and relaxing in a hot tub alone with Dianna Russini, a top NFL insider for The Athletic (the sports arm of the failing New York Times).

A ‘Page Six spy’ said that Vrabel and Russini spent the day together at the ultra-luxury Ambiente resort in Sedona, Arizona, on March 28th.

They were spotted having breakfast, lounging poolside, soaking in a private hot tub for nearly an hour, and later heading up to a $2,000-a-night rooftop bungalow with those iconic red rock views.

Photos show the pair getting very comfortable, hugging tightly and interlocking fingers like a couple on a romantic getaway.

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Deepfake Video of Trump Showing Off ‘Jesus Portrait’ Goes Viral as He Threatens to ‘Reign Hell’ on Iran in the Name of ‘God’

Donald Trump has said and done a number of notable things over the past week.

Here’s one thing he didn’t do: hang up a picture of Jesus Christ in the Oval Office.

A lot of people think he did, however, thanks to a fake/AI-manipulated video that went viral on social media over the holiday weekend. It shows Trump opening up a set of curtains off to the side of his desk at the White House to reveal a copy of Warner Sallman’s famous “Head of Christ” painting.

This type of widespread confusion is pretty much becoming a daily occurrence due to the proliferation of low cost, increasingly-powerful AI tools, so it’s impossible to keep up with more than a small fraction of it, but we feel it’s worth periodically looking at examples, studying how they spread, and learning how to better spot them.

The timing of this particular video’s appearance and virality is also notable, as Trump massacres civilians in Iran and bombs their infrastructure with his partners in Israel and incorporates religious rhetoric into his threats of further escalation.

‘Thank you, POTUS!’

The clip was posted on X by an account called “Gizmo Memes” on Friday afternoon with the caption: “Trump puts up a portrait of Christ for Good Friday. Christ is King!”

Within four hours, the post already had over 45,000 likes. As of this writing, it has over 106,000.

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French Government Tries to Ban Major Muslim Gathering in Paris for Security Risks, But Court Decision Confirms the Event

The Islamization of France is a fact, with 2,5 million Muslims in Paris and the metropolitan area alone.

Back on Thursday, the French government announced the ban of a major gathering of Muslims planned for the country’s capital.​

The head of police said it ‌represented ‘a security risk’, but the decision was later overturned by a French court.

Reuters reported:

“’At the request of the Interior ​Minister Laurent Nunez, I have issued an ​order prohibiting the 40th edition of the ⁠Annual Meeting of Muslims of France, from April ​3 to April 6 at the Paris–Le Bourget ​Exhibition Centre’, the Paris police chief Patrice Faure said in a post on X.

‘This decision is set within ​a national and international context marked by ​heightened tensions and an increased level of terrorist alert, risks ‌of ⁠public disorder, and the large police presence on the streets in the coming days’, he said.”

The attempt at a ban came after ⁠a foiled bomb attack on Bank of America building in Paris.

But the gathering is happening as planned, after a French court overturned the government’s bid to ban it.

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Zelensky’s Christian-themed award to Kallas is ‘satanism’ – Moscow

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has received a prominent Ukrainian award for encouraging prolonged fighting, forced mobilization, and supporting a crackdown on the country’s largest Christian denomination, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has said.

Earlier this week, Zelensky decorated Kallas – widely regarded as an anti-Russia hawk – with the Order of Princess Olga, as the two discussed EU support for Kiev.

Princess Olga of the Kievan Rus was the first Christian ruler of the realm, establishing contact with Byzantium in the 10th century and paving the way for the mass baptism of Rus under her grandson Prince Vladimir in 988 AD.

Kallas said she was honored by the award, adding that “Ukraine has been on my mind every day since Russia started its war of aggression.” She acknowledged, however, that she had no positive update for Kiev regarding a €90 billion EU loan.

In a post on Telegram, Zakharova mocked the ceremony, quipping that Kallas has made “outstanding” achievements for Ukraine – including her “calls to speed up mobilization, dragging women into the military, demands that the Kiev regime abandon any attempts to reach peace, and turning the country into an instrument to fight ‘to the last Ukrainian.’”

Kallas also “incited hatred” and fueled Ukraine’s already-dire corruption through uncontrolled financial support, Zakharova added.

Zakharova highlighted the religious symbolism of the award, arguing that the EU’s “murderous” policy toward Ukraine has little in common with a Christian saint.

“Kallas, who supports the Kiev regime’s policy of persecuting the Church, receives the Order of Saint Olga from the hands of non-Christians. Satanism as it is,” she said.

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Thousands of Christian Families Are Facing Eviction in This Muslim Country

There are currently 25,000 Christians in Islamabad, Pakistan, who are suddenly being asked to leave their homes by the nation’s Islamic authorities.

Christian families living in the capital city were told that they must leave within the next few days, per a report from International Christian Concern.

These families were resettled in Islamabad after the Rimsha Masih case in 2013, during which Masih, then a 14-year-old girl, was arrested on blasphemy charges.

Authorities claimed that she desecrated pages from the Quran.

Two weeks later, the Muslim cleric who reported her to the police was arrested for allegedly planting the pages in her bag, and she was eventually acquitted.

International Christian Concern noted that because Masih was a Christian, the case created “serious threats against the Christian community.”

Many families were moved to the communities in Islamabad “so they could live without fear,” and have built new lives there over more than a decade.

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The Islamic State Spreads Images of Christian Executions in An Naba from Northern Nigeria and Issues Ultimatum of Conversion, Taxes or Murder to the Infidels

A publication attributed to the Islamic State (ISIS) has appeared in its weekly magazine An Naba with graphic and textual material that documents the execution of at least two people shot at close range in northern Nigeria. The victims, according to the jihadist propaganda, were immobilized on the ground and executed with no possibility of defense.

The same bulletin claims responsibility for the death of 17 Christian civilians and four Nigerian soldiers in additional operations, along with the burning of two entire localities in the region.

One of the actions described took place in the village of Kautekari, where terrorists armed with automatic rifles burst into a residents’ meeting and opened fire.

The jihadist text does not limit itself to boasting about the massacres. It includes an explicit doctrinal justification: “Islamic law gives Christian infidels two options among three options: Islam, a tax, or murder.” The victims, according to the terrorists, “chose their fate.”

This rhetoric reproduces the classic dhimmi ultimatum that ISIS applied in Iraq and Syria: forced conversion, payment of the jizya (the humiliating protection tax) or death. The propaganda also includes images of beheadings of Nigerian Christians and mentions kidnappings in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, all framed in a narrative of Islamic supremacy and holy war.This is not an isolated event.

The African branch of ISIS, known as the Islamic State in the West Africa Province (ISWAP), has been consolidating its presence in northeastern Nigeria for years, where it competes with Boko Haram in brutality against Christian communities.

Thousands of the faithful have been murdered, churches burned, and entire villages razed in what religious freedom defense organizations describe as systematic persecution. ISWAP itself has claimed responsibility in the past for executions of Christians, offering them precisely the same three “options” that it now repeats in An Naba.

The Western left and much of the mainstream media continue to maintain a deafening silence in the face of this reality. While they mobilize for any narrative that fits their ideological agenda, the genocide of Christians in Africa and the Middle East barely deserves a paragraph.

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Liberal HuffPost Mocked for Article Claiming Pentagon ‘Excluded Catholics’ from Good Friday Service

Liberal Huffington Post breathlessly wrote about the Pentagon and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth allegedly “excluding Catholics” from Good Friday services.

Jennifer Bendery, a senior politics reporter at the outlet, wrote that the Pentagon “invited more than 3,500 employees to attend a Good Friday service at its in-house chapel.”

“Except it’s only for Protestants, not Catholics,” Bendery claimed.

Was there not a single Catholic Bendery could have queried about religious traditions during the period surrounding Easter and Holy Week?

And, in sharing the actual text from the Pentagon invitation, does she not understand sentence structure?

Bendery shared a memo sent to staff by Air Force leadership that read, “Just a friendly reminder: There will be a Protestant Service (No Catholic Mass) for Good Friday today at the Pentagon Chapel.”

“No Catholic Mass” does not exclude Catholics; it simply notes that a Catholic Mass is not being held. Why? Because Catholics traditionally do not attend Mass on Good Friday.

Catholic Holy Week and Easter form the most sacred period in the liturgical year in the Catholic church, which commemorates the final days of Jesus Christ’s life, his Passion (suffering), death, and Resurrection.

Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday and culminates in the Easter Triduum (the “Three Days”), a single unified celebration from the evening of Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday evening.

Palm Sunday marks the start of Holy Week, recalling Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, when crowds welcomed him with palm branches. In Catholic churches, a procession with blessed palm branches takes place at the beginning of Mass, and many families take the blessed palms home and display them, often woven into crosses. The palms are later burned to make ashes for the following year’s Ash Wednesday.

Holy Thursday (Maundy Thursday) marks the beginning of the Easter Triduum. It commemorates the Last Supper, where Jesus instituted the Eucharist (the sacrament of his Body and Blood) and the priesthood, and washed the feet of his disciples as an example of humble service.

Good Friday (The Passion of the Lord) is the most solemn day of the year — a day of mourning, fasting, and penance that commemorates Jesus’ crucifixion and death on the cross.

It is a day of strict fasting and abstinence from meat for Catholics aged 14 and older, with some observing additional silence or prayer between noon and 3 p.m.

Popular devotions include the Stations of the Cross (a meditation on 14 scenes from Jesus’ Passion) and processions or reenactments in some cultures. For the first time since Pope John Paul II, Pope Leo Pope personally carried the wooden cross himself through all 14 stations.

But there is no Catholic Mass on Good Friday. The tabernacle is empty, and the altar remains bare.

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