In today’s News:
Concordia Seminary offers online visitations
Two online visitation events are scheduled for February at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis; one for high school men, and another for college-age and second-career prospective students planning to study to become pastors and deaconesses. Registration is now open for Taste of the Sem for high school men Feb. 13-15 and Green & Gold Day for prospective students planning to study to become pastors and deaconesses Feb. 20. The events are typically held in person but have been moved online because of the coronavirus pandemic. Both events are free.
Pro-abortion Democrats take the Senate
Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff defeated Incumbent Republican Georgia Sen. David Perdue in Tuesday’s runoff election. The victory for the pro-abortion Democrat over the pro-life senator essentially puts the Senate in democrat hands by giving pro-abortion radical Kamala Harris the tie-breaking vote if she becomes vice president. With both senators losing their races, the Senate will have a 50-50 party split, and, if she’s vice-president, Harris, a pro-abortion Democrat, would cast the deciding vote on issues like forcing taxpayers to fund abortions and expanding late-term abortions.
Study shows gender dysphoric men outperform women
Biological men who identify as women continue to outperform biologically-female athletes for at least two years after they begin receiving “feminizing therapy” (female hormones), a new study shows. “The results, published last month in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, could mean the current one-year waiting period for Olympic athletes who are transitioning is inadequate,” NBC reported on Tuesday. States seeking to ban transgender athletes from competing against biological females in school sports are citing the study to document that athletes born as biological males have an unfair advantage over biological females.
California defines women’s breasts as ‘abnormal’
The California insurance commissioner is clarifying that insurance coverage on double mastectomies for gender dysphoric females is not “cosmetic” but “reconstructive,” and classifying normal breast tissue as “abnormal structures of the body caused by congenital defects.” The move paves the way for more minor girls who identify as something other than their biological sex to undergo breast amputation.
Arguments heard on the ‘Ministerial Exception’
The highest court in Massachusetts heard oral arguments on Monday regarding whether an evangelical Christian higher education institution can lawfully refuse to promote a former professor who held pro-LGBT views. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court heard arguments virtually over a lawsuit filed against Gordon College by former associate professor Margaret Deweese-Boyd. At issue is whether Gordon, founded in 1889, could lawfully deny a promotion to Deweese-Boyd by citing the “ministerial exception,” a legal principle that allows religious bodies to choose their own ministerial staff with exemption from employment discrimination law. Eric Baxter, an attorney with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty who is representing the school, argued in his opening remarks that the exception applied to the employment of Deweese-Boyd since she was expected to undertake certain religious obligations.
