We previously discussed the defiance of Louisiana Pastor Tony Spell who refused to stop holding large services as the state struggled to control the coronavirus. Now, Spell has announced that while he wants nothing to do with orders designed to control the virus, he would appreciate the faithful sending him and other churches their pandemic stimulus checks. We also previously discussed televangelists telling the faithful that the pandemic and economic collapse is not excuse to stop sending tithes to the churches.
Spell has launched the #PastorSpellStimulusChallenge, to collect stimulus checks for churches and ministers.
CNN’s Victor Blackwell asked on Sunday about “people who you know don’t have much” to hand over their $1,200 stimulus checks, but Spell said many evangelists are not getting checks.
This might be a tad more compelling if Spell was not the early face of defiance against efforts to control the spread. It is like refusing to help put out a fire destroying a home and then contacting the owners if they wanted to donate their insurance payment.
Man dies from coronavirus after calling it a ‘political ploy’
By Lee BrownApril 21, 2020 | 8:13am
https://nypost.com/2020/04/21/man-dies-from-coronavirus-after-calling-it-a-political-ploy/
An Ohio man who dismissed the coronavirus pandemic as a “political ploy” and ripped his state’s lockdown as “bulls–t,” has died of COVID-19, according to reports.
John W. McDaniel, 60, passed away last Wednesday in Columbus — exactly a month after reportedly firing off a series of angry messages about the contagion.
“Does anybody have the guts to say this COVID-19 is a political ploy? Asking for a friend. Prove me wrong,” he wrote on March 13, according to the Sun.
Two days later, McDaniel reportedly called “bulls–t” on Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s stay-at-home order closing bars and restaurants.
“He doesn’t have that authority. If you are paranoid about getting sick just don’t go out. It shouldn’t keep those of us from living our lives,” he wrote, according to the reports.
“The madness has to stop.”
The posts have since been deleted, but were saved and shared widely on social media, including by coronavirus talking head Dr. Dena Grayson.
McDaniel’s obituary confirmed that he died “with his loving family by his side from complications from Covid-19.” He was the first COVID-19 fatality in Marion County, the Marion Star said.
In sharp contrast to his reported posts, his family pleaded in his obit for “everyone to continue practicing social distancing to keep each other safe.”
McDaniel leaves behind a wife and two sons and will have a livestreamed funeral service on Wednesday. “You could not have known a more loving and loyal husband, father, son, brother, uncle, and friend,” the obit said.
“Simply put, Johnny McDaniel loved life and loved everyone he knew with his whole heart.” -NY Post
At least the New York Post didn’t engage in the lip-smacking other newspapers and magazines have, suggesting that some who died of Covid-19 brought their deaths on themselves for supporting the President or other offenses which the Left now think ought to carry the death penalty. I suppose their reasoning would go over well in China, in which a steadily increasing number of people must show evidence of having read the thoughts of President for Life Xi.
Here is an interesting LEGAL story, that ties into religion:
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Elizabeth Bartholet, Wasserstein public interest professor of law and faculty director of the Harvard Law School’s Child Advocacy Program, wrote a paper recommending a “presumptive ban” on homeschooling children in the United States. Yeah, that United States. The land of the free, home of the brave United States.
According to Bartholet, homeschooling can prevent children from receiving a meaningful education, leave them open to child abuse, and can socially isolate them. She argues that anybody can homeschool, even parents who are illiterate. She suggests that as many as 90% of homeschool parents educate their kids at home because of conservative Christian beliefs, inculcating them with the beliefs that women are subservient, science isn’t real, and white people are the supreme race.
These parents are committed to homeschooling largely because they reject mainstream, democratic culture and values and want to ensure that their children adopt their own particular religious and social views. Many belong to fundamentalist religious groups, groups that Michael Rebell describes in his important new book, Flunking Democracy, as believing “that exposing their children to ideas such as secularism, atheism, feminism, and value relativism is inconsistent with the values they espouse and undermines their ability to inculcate in their children their beliefs in the sacred, absolute truth of the Bible.” Many use alternative textbooks that teach creationism instead of evolution. Many seek to create for their children a system of “total socialization” aimed at negating the influence of competing socialization agents. As Dwyer and Peters say in their recent comprehensive book on homeschooling, many religious homeschoolers object in principle to some core goals of public education:
[T]hey reject the value of independent thinking about values and aims in life, they oppose instruction in scientific methodologies . . . and they want to constrain their daughters’ lives to a single occupation—housewife. To the extent parents in this group do value secular learning, they treat it—even basic literacy—as of little importance compared to unflinching acceptance of religious doctrine and reactionary political views. (source)
I’m sure that will come as a vast surprise to all my homeschooling friends (particularly the ones who homeschool for secular reasons) who may have missed that part of the curriculum.
In her 80-page diatribe, Bartholet completely overlooks the lack of practical knowledge imparted by the school system. Our kids leave school knowing all about anal sex and BDSM but not how to do their taxes, make a reservation, navigate using a map, handle credit, or stick to a budget.
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More at this link:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/real-reason-why-harvard-professor-thinks-homeschooling-should-be-banned
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter