Sorry – “Diversity, Inclusion, Equity’ doesn’t include your views
Yep, so-called “Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE)” doesn’t include you!
It’s pretty clear to most people that if you have a Christian faith and hold biblical values – especially around marriage and sexuality, you are public enemy #1 and must be shut down. Its no longer possible to sit on the fence and expect reasonableness and tolerance. The new religion of Diversity and inclusion and equity only goes in one direction – and it’s definitely not in yours and mine. In the words of respected commentator Dr Michael Brown, You must bow at the altar of the LGBTQ altar or else. You can not graciously disagree. You can not respectfully opt out. Instead, you must deny your convictions, rewrite the Bible, run roughshod over your faith and publicly celebrate something you believe to be wrong. Otherwise, you are a crass human being and a small-minded bigot. Those are your only choices! And here’s three recent examples:
Example #1
Professional National Hockey League (NHL) player Ivan Provorov was the only member of the Philadelphia Flyers who refused to wear a rainbow-colored jersey ahead of Tuesday night’s annual pride game against the Anaheim Ducks. During a media scrum following the match up, Provorov told journalists that his Russian Orthodox beliefs prevented him from participating in the pre-game exercises. “I respect everyone. I respect everybody’s choices. My choice is to stay true to myself and my religion,” he said. When pressed by multiple reporters for further comment, the seven-year NHL veteran simply stated, “that’s all I’m going to say.” He swatted away an additional question by saying, “can you respect [my views]?”
In other words, if someone identifies as LGBTQ, that’s their business, and he respects that. He has his own religious beliefs which dictate how he lives, and he would ask others to respect that. Live and let live.
ESPN hockey writer Greg Wyshynski unleashed a torrent of pro-social justice tweets aimed at Provorov’s supporters, whom he labeled “homophobes.” Sports Illustrated’s Mike Stephens called Provorov “disgusting.” Sports and comedy writer Rachael Millanta was even more blunt, calling Provorov “ignorant, obnoxious and homophobic,” also referring to people like him as “bigots” who “hide behind their cherry-picked religion.”
Gotta love this diversity intolerance and equity eh
By the way, you’ve probably heard of the Manly 7 and their refusal to wear a pride jersey.
But I bet you’ve never heard of Haneen Zreika from Australia AFL team or Senagalese’s Indrissa Gueye who plays football for Paris St Germain. They too didn’t want to wear the pride logo – but they’re Muslim. Diversity inclusion and equity seem to have an exemption clause for Muslim beliefs. Or maybe Muslims hold fast to their beliefs – whatever the consequence. Perhaps Christians can learn from that.
Here’s another example:
This was in The American Conservative at the end of last year.
In a column in the Wall Street Journal, Robin Keller, a partner at Hogan Lovells, wrote about being fired from the firm after a distinguished career of 44 years. Keller was not fired for intermingling funds or violating confidentiality of clients. She was fired because she exercised free speech in an internal meeting on the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health – the case that overturned Roe v Wade (and which upset every pro-abortion advocate who can’t figure out that an unborn child is still a human being.
After Keller expressed her support for the opinion and concern about higher rates of abortions in the black community, a participant complained that she could not breathe and others called her a racist. She was later suspended and reportedly fired.
Robin Keller’s column is not paywalled at the Wall Street Journal; you should read it. I’ll put a link in the description. It actually is worse that it seems:
Everyone else who spoke on the call was unanimous in her anger and outrage about Dobbs. I spoke up to offer a different view. I noted that many jurists and commentators believed Roe had been wrongly decided. I said that the court was right to remand the issue to the states. I added that I thought abortion-rights advocates had brought much of the pushback against Roe on themselves by pushing for extreme policies. I referred to numerous reports of disproportionately high rates of abortion in the black community, which some have called a form of genocide. I said I thought this was tragic.
The outrage was immediate. The next speaker called me a racist and demanded that I leave the meeting. Other participants said they “lost their ability to breathe” on hearing my comments. After more of the same, I hung up.
Someone made a formal complaint to the firm. Later that day, Hogan Lovells suspended my contracts, cut off my contact with clients, removed me from email and document systems, and emailed all U.S. personnel saying that a forum participant had made “anti-Black comments” and was suspended pending an investigation. The firm also released a statement to the legal website Above the Law bemoaning the devastating impact my views had on participants in the forum—most of whom were lawyers participating in a call convened expressly for the purpose of discussing a controversial legal and political topic. Someone leaked my name to the press.
They denounced her to the entire firm as a racist for having said that a disproportionate number of black babies die by abortion, and that this is a bad thing. These are woke snowflake lawyers who were traumatized because a colleague expressed a dissenting view of abortion, a view held by millions of other Americans as well as many judges and justices. It is a view that has been expressed widely in the media, including by African-American and female commentators.
This is going to keep happening until and unless we fight back. It’s time to push back.
One more quick one
This was 3 days before Christmas last year. A charity volunteer was arrested after she told police she “might” be praying silently when they asked why she was standing on a public street near an abortion facility,
Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, the Director of the UK March for Life, was standing near the BPAS Robert Clinic in Kings Norton, Birmingham in an area ADF UK called a “censorship zone,” when police approached her after an onlooker complained she might be praying outside the abortion facility the report said. Birmingham’s authorities established a buffer zone around abortion clinics, which makes it illegal for an individual to engage in any act or attempted act of approval or disapproval as it relates to abortion and includes “verbal or written means” like “prayer or counseling.”
So she has been “criminalised for thinking and for praying, in a public space in the UK.”
Here was the arrest. The clip shows the woman silently standing on a curb across from an abortion clinic as British law enforcement officers approach her. One asks why she is standing there and responds that she’s there because of the abortion clinic. She denies that she is part of any protest. The officer then asks, “Are you praying?” to which she responds, “I might be praying in my head.” The officer then asks her if she’d be willing to go to the station for questioning about her actions. “If I’ve got a choice, then no,” she responds, after which the officer states, “You’re under arrest” and claims she’s charged with “suspicion of failing to comply with Public Spaces Protection Order.”
And here is the criminal – I say that very sarcastically. She’s actually trying to save lives of both babies and women.
Now you may have been aware of this case, but you may not know the latest. According to the Washington Times last week the case had been “discontinued” by local prosecutors, though the charges could be revived. Her lawyers from the Alliance Defending Freedom say This leaves Isabel in significant legal uncertainty and her priority is to obtain legal clarity on what, if any, liability she may incur in the future based on the charges laid against her.
NZ has a similar law – so you can protest outside a gas industry conference or fossil fuel conference , a rodeo , a political party conference – but don’t you dare pray outside or even think about vulnerable women entering an abortion facility.
1984 anybody?
Got the message yet? You cannot graciously disagree. You can not respectfully opt out. You cannot sit on the fence.
As Bruce Logan says “Subject to Diversity Inclusion Equity, the state believes and preaches the sovereignty of identity politics; that human beings are self-creating self-affirming creatures. Marriage is what the state says it is. Abortion is an absolute right. Unbelievers must be silenced.”
By the way, last week Sonny Bill Williams who’s a Muslim tweeted an offensive tweet. A transphobic tweet! He agreed that children should not be medically and surgically experimented on with gender ideology.
Unlike the mass media coverage of Israel Folau, there was a handful of media stories – and pretty lame at that. Remember the wall-to-wall coverage of Israel Folau?
Heck – even LGBT politicians wanted to be pictured with Sonny Bill just the day after the transphobic tweet.
It shows that it’s not necessarily what’s said that’s the problem. It’s the underlying faith that’s the target. Got the picture yet?
It’s up to you and me whether we stay silent. I’m not. I hope you won’t either.
