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Oy veh.\u00a0 This is not a story that I was happy to see:<\/p>\n
\u201cDuncan Event at BYU Law School \u2018Canceled\u2019\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n And here, for your convenience, is the article to which reference is made:<\/p>\n \u201cBYU Cancels Debate Event on Abortion: Beams before Motes\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Which leads me into a more general topic.\u00a0 We have, I think, entered into a period of flat-out insanity.\u00a0 Regarding which, I share now a bunch of links, in simple chronological order, that I\u2019ve been accumulating for a while.<\/p>\n First, though, I need to say \u2014 quite in vain, if past experience is any guide \u2014 that I do not do so out of \u201chate.\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t hate anybody<\/em>, so far as I\u2019m aware.\u00a0 Not even those who have tried mightily for years to earn<\/em> such hatred from me.\u00a0 Quite the contrary:\u00a0 I believe in treating others kindly, charitably, and respectfully, and I try seriously and (I think) pretty successfully to do so.\u00a0 However, I don\u2019t believe that kindness demands of us that we deny reality or live a lie.\u00a0 Anyhow, here are the links in question:<\/p>\n 26 February 2023:\u00a0 \u201cDoes Being Christian Disqualify Politicians from Leadership Now?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 7 March 2023:\u00a0 \u201cChristian College Claims Biden Executive Order Violates Religious Freedom and Student Safety\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 22 March 2023:\u00a0 \u201cIT NEVER ENDS: Hollywood\u2019s Relentless Campaign to Destabilize the Family\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 27 March 2023:\u00a0 \u201cDoctors Report Startling Rise In Testicular Injuries Among Woman Athletes\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 28 March 2023:\u00a0 \u201cIf You Don\u2019t Publish This Manifesto, Publish None of Them\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 28 March 2023:\u00a0 \u201cYes, We Are Making Kids Trans: We\u2019re going to look back years from now and wonder how we failed young girls so badly.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 30 March 2023:\u00a0 \u201cThe Nashville Tragedy\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 30 March 2023:\u00a0 \u201cMale Canadian Powerlifter Breaks Women\u2019s Bench-Press Record in Protest against Trans-Inclusion Policy\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 30 March 2023:\u00a0 \u201cFemale University of Wyoming Students Sue Sorority for Admitting Male Student\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 31 March 2023:\u00a0 \u201cPodcast: Was the attack on a conservative Presbyterian school in Nashville a religion story?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 2 April 2023:\u00a0 \u201cFemale Role Models Are Being Supplanted by Men: We used to say that \u2018sex sells.\u2019 Now, it seems, transgenderism does \u2014 and women are being sidelined once again.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 2 April 2023:\u00a0 \u201cWoke Accreditors Are Coming for Medical Schools: Supposedly neutral institutions meant to determine a school\u2019s quality are turning into ideological enforcers.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 (There\u2019s a Utah connection to this one.)<\/p>\n 2 April 2023:\u00a0 \u201cThe Media\u2019s Savior Complex: The backwards coverage of the Nashville shooting follows a pattern we\u2019ve witnessed over the past two decades.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 4 April 2023:\u00a0 \u201cEnough with the \u2018Trans Community\u2019 Nonsense\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 4 April 2023:\u00a0 \u201cCan We Spare a Moment for the Murdered Children?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 5 April 2023:\u00a0 \u201cMaine Mom Sues School District That Secretly Gave 13-Year-Old Daughter a \u2018Chest Binder\u2019\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 6 April 2023:\u00a0 \u201c10 Disturbing Responses by LGBTQ+ Activists After the Nashville School Shooting\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 8 April 2023:\u00a0 \u201cFormer college swimmer says she was assaulted at an event opposing the inclusion of trans women in women\u2019s sports\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 9 April 2023:\u00a0 \u201cRiley Gaines Condemns San Francisco State University for Statement Thanking Students after Attack\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 10 April 2023:\u00a0 \u201cHow a Flamboyant Gay Man Conquered Corporate America: Dylan Mulvaney figured it out.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 12 April 2023:\u00a0 \u201cAmazing! Brief mention of doctrine in LGBTQIA+ war at Point Loma Nazarene University\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 12 April 2023:\u00a0 \u201cProving the Point\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 12 April 2023:\u00a0 \u201cBud Light\u2019s Not-So-\u2018Inclusive\u2019 Marketing:\u00a0When a company executive talks about \u2018inclusivity,\u2019 she doesn\u2019t mean it in the way the average observer would assume.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n And then there\u2019s this:<\/p>\n \u201cDutch Euthanasia Deaths Soar, Mentally Ill Also Killed\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n And these:<\/p>\n \u201cDebates in England about free speech and religion veer into \u2018thoughtcrimes\u2019 zone\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cStudent Sues University That Prohibited Her From Contact With Other Students Because She\u2019s Christian\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I like the writing of David French very much, and I really like this recent article of his in the New York Times<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201cEaster Rebukes the Christian Will to Power\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n We had dinner with friends last night, and then, with them, attended a show, entitled \u201cA Simple Space,\u201d<\/a> by the Australian acrobatic team \u201cGravity and Other Myths.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 Pretty amazing.\u00a0 I think that even I<\/em> would have a difficult time replicating their feats.\u00a0 The performance took place in the former Provo High School \u2014 which now belongs to Brigham Young University under the name of \u201cWest Campus Central Building\u201d \u2014 because the Harris Fine Arts Center (HFAC)<\/a>, a William Pereira<\/a> design that I really liked and in which my future wife (a theater major) spent much of her undergraduate time is, well, simply gone.\u00a0 It is no more.\u00a0 The BYU School of Music is moving into its own separate building<\/a>, which is essentially complete, and a new arts building will be constructed on the site where the HFAC stood from 1964 until just a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Many, many years ago, when I began to write an article on whether Latter-day Saints are Christians that eventually became the book Offenders for a Word: How Anti-Mormons Play Word Games to Attack the Latter-day Saints<\/em><\/a>, I came across an article about Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, in Centennial, Colorado, which was sponsoring an open house to counter the open house of the soon-to-be-dedicated Denver Colorado Temple<\/a> by revealing that Latter-day Saints aren\u2019t real Christians.\u00a0 At that stage, I was trying to systematically survey all of the major reasons adduced for denying our Christianity.\u00a0 So I wrote a short, very polite, business-like letter to the church\u2019s lead pastor, Rev. Henry F. Fingerlin, inquiring as to whether he would be willing to send me copies of the materials that he was handing out and offering to pay postage and handling costs.<\/p>\n In response, I received not only the requested materials but a twelve-page typed letter denouncing my religious beliefs that opened with his confidence that I was a Latter-day Saint only because I had never been outside of Utah and, accordingly, knew nothing better.\u00a0 His presumption was, umm, slightly inaccurate.\u00a0 I had, in fact, been born and raised in California, had served a German-speaking mission in Switzerland, had earned a degree in classical Greek and philosophy, had lived (by that point) for six months in Israel and nearly four years in Egypt, and was, at the time, writing my doctoral dissertation on a topic in medieval Islamic philosophical theology for the University of California at Los Angeles.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t, I thought, quite the rustic and narrow provincial that he assumed me to be.<\/p>\n In that light, here\u2019s an interesting suggestion from the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof of CNN and the New York Times<\/em> (who, by the way, according to his Wikipedia entry, holds degrees from both Harvard University and Magdalen College, Oxford, and who claims to have visited at least 150 different countries):<\/p>\n \u201cUtah may well be the most cosmopolitan state in America. Vast numbers of young Mormons \u2014 increasingly women as well as men \u2014 spend a couple of years abroad as missionaries and return jabbering in Thai or Portuguese and bearing a wealth of international experience.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Plainly \u2014 and as you\u2019ll instantly recognize \u2014 this horror was found in the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u2122:\u00a0 \u201cFrom the ashes:\u00a0When a volcanic eruption set a tsunami in motion last year, thousands of Tongans tapped the island\u2019s deep reserves of faith\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n And here\u2019s an old item that I just came across in the section of the Hitchens File<\/em> that is commonly known as \u201cThe Church helps nobody; it\u2019s just a heartless business focused on profits\u201d:\u00a0\u00a0\u201c\u2018To see it in action is incredible\u2019 \u2014\u00a0community influencers from around the world visit Welfare Square\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n