Tag: religion

A Critically Important Trial Has Just Begun, and No One Involved Will Speak About Motive

When the defendant entered the courtroom, he was dressed respectably in a blue button-down shirt and dark slacks. When his presence was announced, he stood up, said “Good morning,” and gave all present a cheery wave. And thus began one of the most important trials of our age, although everyone involved is doing everything possible to ignore all the reasons why it is so important.

Hadi Matar finally went on trial Tuesday for attempting to murder the novelist Salman Rushdie back in Aug. 2022. There is little, if any, doubt about Matar’s guilt, even though he has pleaded not guilty, for he stabbed Rushdie multiple times in full view of a shocked crowd at the Chautauqua festival. Matar was supposed to have gone on trial in Jan. 2024, but Rushdie wrote a book about the attack, and Matar’s defense attorney, public defender Nathaniel Barone, received a delay in the trial so that he could review the book. It’s hard to fathom how what the victim thought about what happened might affect the guilt of his client, but nevertheless, Barone managed to delay the trial for over a year.

Now that it has begun, both Barone and his opposite number, Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt, seem curiously intent on preventing any discussion of Matar’s motive. Matar tried to kill the man who, at the time of the stabbing had carried for 33 years the most famous bounty on his head since the days of the Wild West.

It was on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 1989, that Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini called for Rushdie to be killed for supposedly blaspheming against Muhammad in his novel “The Satanic Verses.” By 2022, Iran’s bounty on Rushdie’s head was $3 million. Without Khomeini’s death fatwa on Rushdie, Matar wouldn’t have tried to kill him, and there would be no trial. Nevertheless, neither the prosecution nor the defense wants any talk of that as Matar is tried.

Matar himself was upfront about why he stabbed Rushdie. Back in Aug. 2022, he said: “I respect the ayatollah. I think he’s a great person. That’s as far as I will say about that.” Of Rushdie, Matar said: “I don’t like the person. I don’t think he’s a very good person. I don’t like him. I don’t like him very much. He’s someone who attacked Islam, he attacked their beliefs, the belief systems.” Matar isn’t the most articulate person in the world, but what he said was clear enough to establish that he wanted Rushdie dead in accord with Khomeini’s fatwa.

Schmidt, however, insists all that is irrelevant, saying: “Here, I don’t believe we have to get into issues of Mr. Matar’s religious beliefs, his nationality, and his background to prove an attempted murder charge, which is what we’re doing. The allegation is that Mr. Matar stabbed Mr. Rushdie and stabbed Mr. Reese in an unprovoked attack. Therefore, I think we can prove that without getting into matters that give rise to prejudice of our jury pool.”

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Public Support for Religious Exemptions Nearly Doubled Over Past 6 Years

Public support for policies that allow parents of schoolchildren to opt out of vaccinating their kids for medical, religious and personal or philosophical reasons is growing, according to a survey conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

The center conducted a nationally representative opinion panel from Jan. 3-5, 2025, of 1,077 U.S. adults, and compared the results to those from its own 2019 survey. The 2019 survey was also nationally representative and involved 2,344 U.S. adults in April and May of 2019.

The 2025 survey had a sampling error margin of +/- 5.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The 2019 survey had a sampling error margin of +/- 2.8 percentage points.

A report released Jan. 28 describing the differences between the 2019 and 2025 surveys revealed that roughly two-thirds of U.S. adults (63%) in 2025 “somewhat or strongly support” a law allowing parents in their state to choose not to vaccinate their children for medical reasons. In 2019, about a third (36%) supported such a policy.

In 2019, only 17% of U.S. adults said they would support parental choice not to vaccinate their children for personal or philosophical reasons. By 2025, that number had doubled, with 35% of U.S. adults saying they would support school vaccination opt-out options for personal or philosophical reasons.

Public support for religious exemptions to school vaccine requirements also doubled, from 20% in 2019 to 39% in 2025.

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New ICJ president a Christian Zionist influenced by End Times theology

Julia Sebutinde stood alone in rejecting South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Now the court’s president, the Ugandan judge suggests her motives for protecting Israel can be found in the Old Testament. 

With new countries joining South Africa’s case accusing Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, and a ceasefire potentially enabling war crimes investigators to gather fresh evidence of Israeli atrocities, a leadership shakeup at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) threatens to undermine the campaign for legal accountability. 

The ICJ’s President Nawaf Salam resigned on January 14, 2025 to become Prime Minister of Lebanon, and was succeeded by Justice Julia Sebutinde of Uganda. Many observers were stunned when Sebutinde voted “no” on all resolutions introduced by South Africa in January 2024, placing herself in opposition to all ICJ judges, including her Israeli colleague, Aharon Barak. 

The Ugandan judge rejected the court’s call for the Israeli military to halt deliberate assaults on civilians, end its policy of forced displacement, and cancel its planned invasion of Rafah. In a previous advisory case on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories, Sebutinde insisted that Palestinians had not been subjected to any military occupation whatsoever. In fact, she concluded that Israel may have the right to maintain a permanent presence in the West Bank and the whole of Jerusalem on the basis of purely biblical claims.

Sebutinde’s opinion opened with a lengthy history of the Israel-Palestine conflict that blended well-worn Zionist propaganda with the Old Testament. In rejecting her colleagues’ ruling declaring Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal, she resorted to accounts of the Jewish presence in the biblical land of Israel, omitting any mention of UN resolutions or international law. 

“There is substantial evidence that Jewish people lived in the region of ancient Israel between 1000-586 BCE. This period corresponds to the era of the United Monarchy under Kings Saul, David, and Solomon, and the subsequent divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The evidence includes archaeological findings in the City of David…” Sebutinde insisted. “The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) offers detailed accounts of the history, culture, and governance of the Israelites during this period. While these texts are religious in nature, many scholars consider them valuable historical documents.”

Her opinion was so extreme, and so shot through with theological commentary, it prompted Uganda’s ambassador to the United Nations, Adonia Ayebare, to declare her “ruling at the International Court of Justice does not represent the Government of Uganda’s position on the situation in Palestine.”

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Iranian Regime Sentences Artist to Death for Advocating Freedom and Insulting Muhammad

The Iranian regime has issued a death sentence against pop singer Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, known professionally as Tataloo, for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

This has sparked a wave of reactions both within and outside the country, highlighting the severity of Iran’s blasphemy laws.

Tataloo, whose fame has spread beyond Iran’s borders, has been a controversial figure in the underground music scene.

According to sources, the singer has been detained in Iran since his extradition from Turkey in December 2023.

He now faces a sentence that not only threatens his life but also underscores the tensions between artistic freedom and the strict interpretation of Islamic law in Iran.

Tataloo’s case is not an isolated incident.

The Islamic Republic is known for its harsh policies against expressions deemed offensive to religion. “The singer was sentenced to death for insulting the Prophet,” stated a report from Europa Press, emphasizing the gravity of the accusation and the penalty imposed.

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Britain’s Leftist Government Blocks Law Outlawing Cousin Marriages in Effort to Appease Muslim Voters

Britain’s left-wing government has blocked a law seeking to outlaw first-cousin marriages.

As pressure grows on Prime Minister Keir Starmer over his government’s refusal to fully investigate the grooming gangs scandal in which mainly Pakistani men were allowed to groom young white girls, the Labour Party is seeking to shore up ties with their Islamic voting base.

Conservative MP Richard Holden, who proposed the legislation, wrote on the X platform that Labour has blocked any further advancement of his 1st Cousin Marriages Bill, which would outlaw marriages between first cousins that are common within Muslim communities.

Holden explained:

The Government today blocked any further consideration of the prohibition of 1st Cousin Marriages Bill.

They could have let it progress to committee stage when all the details could be thrashed out but they blocked it Labour will block it progressing on the 25th too and whenever I try and bring it back.

It’s sad because it was a Labour MP, Ann Cryer, who raised this issue 20 years ago and was shouted down then.

People will get off on calling me names but I grew up in the Pennine mill towns and I don’t want to see the children of the kids I grew up amongst going through this for another generation.

Thank you to the brave people who’ve reached out to me who are part of the communities where this is prevalent and who hate to see certain elements of the establishment continue to enable terrible practices for – at best – fear of causing offence or thinking it’s better to sweep issues under the carpet – or worse, because when the chips are down they simply don’t care, see it as a way of harvesting votes from gatekeepers, or have some screwed up views regarding cultural relativism.

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The Secular State Reinvents the Inquisition

One of my favorite books is The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene.

Set in the 1930s when Mexico was still persecuting the Catholic Church (a persecution which the government of the United States consented to), the novel follows the life of a nameless “whiskey priest” who, despite being a drunk and a fornicator with an illegitimate daughter, continues to illegally minister to the people while other more reputable priests have abandoned their ministry out of fear of the punishment by the government.

The whiskey priest is lured to his doom by his sense of duty, as a request for a deathbed confession is communicated to him by a lying Judas-like figure. Despite his suspicions, the whiskey priest goes and is arrested. Sentenced to die, and denied confession by one of those priests who had abandoned ministry, we see into the whiskey priest’s thoughts for a final time in what I consider the most moving paragraph in all of literature:

What a fool he had been to think that he was strong enough to stay when others fled. What an impossible fellow I am, he thought, and how useless. I have done nothing for anybody. I might just as well have never lived. His parents were dead—soon he wouldn’t even be a memory—perhaps after all he was not at the moment afraid of damnation—even the fear of pain was in the background. He felt only an immense disappointment because he had to go to God empty-handed, with nothing done at all. It seemed to him, at that moment, that it would have been quite easy to have been a saint. It would only have needed a little self-restraint and a little courage. He felt like someone who has missed happiness by seconds at an appointed place. He knew now that at the end there was only one thing that counted—to be a saint.

The novel ends with another fugitive priest arriving, and a young boy who had previously been a skeptic greeting him enthusiastically, having been inspired by the martyrdom of the whiskey priest.

Years ago, this novel helped convince me that I could enter seminary despite the heavy realization of my own sinfulness. In 2020, those of us who were trying to get sacraments to people despite being forbidden by tyrants certainly could identify with the sense of duty demonstrated by the whiskey priest. I know of one priest who had to remove his cassock, put on jeans, and pretend to be a grandson in order to bring the sacraments to a woman in the nursing home.

The irony in all of this, however, is that some powerful men in the Church wanted the novel placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. Thankfully this would not occur, and Greene’s account of the conflict includes a useful comparison to totalitarianism:

The Archbishop of Westminster read me a letter from the Holy Office condemning my novel because it was “paradoxical” and “dealt with extraordinary circumstances.” The price of liberty, even within a Church, is eternal vigilance, but I wonder whether any of the totalitarian states…would have treated me as gently when I refused to revise the book on the casuistical ground that the copyright was in the hands of my publishers. There was no public condemnation, and the affair was allowed to drop into that peaceful oblivion which the Church wisely reserves for unimportant issues.

I’d like to suggest that understanding the use (and abuse) of the religious impulse to limit what type of content an adherent consumes can help us to understand the wave of censorship which has taken hold in the West, especially with respect to what began in 2020.

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More than $5 billion spent on Catholic sexual abuse allegations, new report finds

Over two decades, Catholic dioceses, eparchies and men’s religious communities spent more than $5 billion on allegations of sexual abuse of minors, according to a new report released Wednesday (Jan. 15) by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

Between 2004 and 2023, three-fourths of the $5.025 billion reported was paid to abuse victims. Seventeen percent went to pay attorneys’ fees, 6% was in support for alleged abusers and 2% went toward other costs. On average, only 16% of the costs related to the allegations was borne by insurance companies.

The CARA report combined 20 annual surveys sent to dioceses and eparchies within the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (which excludes some parts of the U.S., such as Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa), as well as U.S. religious communities belonging to the Conference of Major Superiors of Men. The report does note that some alleged perpetrators were assigned outside the U.S. The USCCB commissioned the survey in 2004.

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‘Huge Win’: West Virginia Governor Issues Executive Order Allowing Religious Exemptions

West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey on his first full day in office issued an executive order allowing for religious exemptions from mandatory school vaccinations, ending one of the most restrictive vaccination policies in the country.

“We’re ensuring that the current policy, which does not recognize a religious and conscientious exemption for vaccines — that is being changed,” he said at a news conference.

The exemption will be available to anyone who wants to send their child to school but objects on “religious or conscientious grounds” to one or more of the vaccines required by the state’s compulsory immunization law.

To comply with the new order parents need only provide a written statement on why they object to the vaccines.

West Virginia state law requires children to receive vaccines for chickenpox, hepatitis B, measles, meningitis, mumps, diphtheria, polio, rubella, tetanus and whooping cough before starting school. The state does not require COVID-19 vaccinations for children.

West Virginia was one of a tiny minority of states that didn’t recognize religious exemptions for vaccines. “Today that changes,” Morrisey said.

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Mainstream Media Ignoring Ethno-Religious Genocide Under Syria’s New Rulers

Mainstream Western media previously wrote several puff pieces on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its US-designated terror leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani in the wake of Assad’s ouster, but now that same media is completely ignoring the atrocities taking place under Jolani’s watch.

Various armed allied groups of HTS are rampaging through the central and northern countryside, attacking Christians and Alawites, in a developing ethno-religious genocide. It has only been one month since Assad was overthrown.

Initially HTS and other factions, which includes foreign groups such as Chechens and Uyghurs, rounded up individuals and tortured or executed them under the guise that they were former “Assad regime agents”.

Now, according to regional reports, the jihadists are dropping even this pretense and are simply taking over Alawite villages. Serious problems and threats are also being reported in the historic ‘Valley of the Christians’ (or Wadi al-Nasara, which lies in Western Syria in Homs governate).

Various locations have seen jihadists seeking to impose public segregation of the sexes, Islamic head-coverings, and blanket bans on alcohol… 

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U.K. ‘Grooming Gangs’ Scandal Could Happen In The U.S. Thanks To Leftist Justice System

The United Kingdom’s “grooming gangs” scandal has reentered the public spotlight, largely thanks to X posts by Elon Musk showcasing court transcripts.

They detail how groups of men, mainly Pakistani Muslims, groomed and raped thousands of English girls across the country over a decades-long period. The simultaneously infuriating and blood-curdling descriptions of the violations those girls suffered are only compounded by the British authorities’ complicity in and cover-up of the abuse.

The first reports on these crimes came out in the early 2000s, and the grooming gangs may go back as far as the 1970s. And though this scandal has reappeared multiple times since then, only growing the list of victims, those in power have done outrageously little to stop it.

Despite years of reports about these crimes, local officials turned a blind eye to what was happening in dozens of cities. Police refused to investigate. In multiple cases, the police arrested fathers who had tracked down the locations used by the rape gangs to abuse young girls. In others, the victims found themselves arrested for “breach of the peace” while the perpetrators got off scot-free. The British Home Office, the office within the British government responsible for law and order, advised in 2008 against the prosecution of “grooming gang” members, claiming that their victims had “made an informed choice about their sexual behavior.”

British leftists hurled accusations of racism and Islamophobia at those who tried to speak up. And, of course, the British media joined in lockstep with politicians to downplay and bury the stories. Even so-called “conservatives” helped cover it up. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in 2019 that further investigation into the crimes would be a waste of time, and his government claimed that releasing the government’s official review of the scandal to the public was not in the “public interest.”

Why? Officials wanted to maintain good “community relations,” which is code for maintaining racial harmony with Britain’s large immigrant Muslim population. The police knew that the culprits were predominantly men from countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh, but they “were told to try and get other ethnicities.” British politicians feared that reports of the rapes would turn Britain’s white native population (and anyone with a soul) against Muslims.

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