Thursday, January 30, 2020

U.S. evangelical preacher Franklin Graham writes open letter after organizers canceled his event in the United Kingdom over “incompatible views” on gay “marriage”


U.S. evangelical preacher Franklin Graham writes open letter after organizers canceled his event in the United Kingdom over “incompatible views” on gay “marriage”

By Julio Severo
A famous American evangelical preacher has written an open letter after organizers decided to cancel his event in the United Kingdom following pressure and complaints from LGBT activists.
Franklin Graham was due to visit Glasgow, Newcastle, Sheffield, Liverpool, Cardiff, Milton Keynes, Birmingham and London later in 2020.
But the ACC Liverpool conference center has decided to cancel the 67-year-old’s show after branding his views “incompatible” with their values, adding, “We can longer reconcile the balance between freedom of speech and the divisive impact this event is having in our city.”
The decision to cancel the show came after a petition was started by the Liverpool Labour LGBT Network.
Graham was labeled a “homophobic hate preacher” by the Liverpool Labour LGBT Network, which wrote in a letter that they fear “Graham’s appearance may incite hateful mobilization and risk the security of our LGBTQ+ community.”
Graham, who is a vocal supporter of Donald Trump and the son of the late international evangelist Billy Graham, has previously described gay “marriage” as a sin and has defended children against homosexual indoctrination in the schools.
LGBT activists in several British cities he was due to visit also pressured government officials and political leaders to stop him from speaking.
Sheffield Mayor Dan Jarvis has criticized the American preacher, and said in a statement: “Sheffield is a city of sanctuary [for homosexuals and Muslims]. We welcome people from all backgrounds, irrespective of race, religion, belief or their sexuality. As a city and as a region, we are proud to stand for equality, diversity, respect and compassion. I believe in free speech and of the right to freedom of expression, within the parameters of the law. But I also believe in people’s rights to disagree with extreme beliefs such as those preached by Franklin Graham. Intolerance cannot be welcomed here in South Yorkshire.”
Representative Heather Paterson said: “Franklin Graham has repeatedly publicly promoted his homophobic beliefs, including but not limited to branding homosexuality a sin. We believe that these statements far exceed freedom of speech and are direct hate speech and incitement to violence against LGBTQ+ communities and individuals, which should not be welcomed in our city or anywhere else.”
Kelvin Holdsworth, Provost of Glasgow Cathedral, said on Twitter: “Have just heard that Franklin Graham is coming to the SSE Hydro in Glasgow next year. Very surprised to hear that @SSE would want to be associated with him. #homophobia.”
Peter Nimmo, minister of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland in Inverness, fumed: “Franklin Graham tour includes Glasgow. I trust Scottish churches give him the cold shoulder, too.”
Graham is facing protests in the United Kingdom because of his stance against gay “marriage” and because he has said that homosexual behavior is sin. When laws support homosexual behavior, people who do not support it are persecuted.
In a report titled “Hateful Homophobe Franklin Graham Canceled by U.K. City,” The Advocate, the largest gay magazine in the U.S. and in the world, explained Graham’s “homophobia”:
Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, founded by his late father, has a long history of anti-LGBTQ statements. In one of the most recent, he tweeted that Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, who is both gay and Christian, should repent of the “sin” of homosexuality. In 2018, in response to the circulation of an old quote from former President Jimmy Carter saying Jesus Christ would have no problem with same-sex marriage, he said Carter was “absolutely wrong” and that God had destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because they embraced homosexuality. (That Bible passage is open to other interpretations.)
In 2016, he defended House Bill 2, legislation passed by his home state of North Carolina to prevent transgender people from using restrooms and changing rooms that match their gender identity. It “protects the safety and privacy of women and children and preserves the human rights of millions of faith-based citizens of this state,” Graham said at the time, implying that transgender people are a threat. That remark got him banned from Facebook for a brief time two years later.
He has also praised Russia’s ban on so-called gay propaganda, which prohibits any positive mention of LGBTQ identity that could be heard or viewed by minors. “I very much appreciate that President Putin is protecting Russian young people against homosexual propaganda,” Graham told a Russian newspaper in 2015. “If only to give them the opportunity to grow up and make a decision for themselves. Again, homosexuals cannot have children, they can take other people’s children.”
In addition to LGBTQ people, targets of Graham’s ire have included Planned Parenthood [the largest abortion network in the U.S.], which he has described as “Hitleristic,” and Islam, which he has called “evil.”
Graham is a major defender, however, of Donald Trump.
Yet, it is not only Graham who defends Trump. When I and several U.S. evangelical leaders criticized in 2019 Trump’s effort to legalize homosexuality around the world, what did The Advocate did? It criticized me and these other evangelical leaders and, incredibly, defended Trump against us evangelicals.
Franklin Graham has been silent about Trump’s homosexualist effort. Even though the U.S. president is very fond of Graham and has even invited him for his personal meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump has been also silent about the LGBTQ campaign against Graham in the United Kingdom.
Even being a spiritual adviser to Trump, Graham is not getting any presidential help. Trump, who uses to intervene in many international issues involving Americans, has said nothing about the homosexualist persecution against Graham, who is always voicing public support for Trump.
Graham has been a passionate defender of Trump. He has defended him in everything. For example, when Christianity Today, the largest liberal evangelical magazine in the U.S., criticized Trump on December 2019 saying that he deserved to be impeached and suggesting that evangelicals should not support him, Graham made a very strong defense of Trump against Christianity Today.
Why Trump’s silence now? To defend Christians or even to defend an American citizen who is a victim of homosexual bullying is less important than defending an effort of the U.S. government to legalize homosexuality around the world? The Trump administration has not been silent about criticizing Christian nations that reject homosexuality, but it has been silent about Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally, executing homosexuals.
With no support from Trump, Graham addressed LGBTQ activists in the United Kingdom. In his “A letter to the LGBTQ community in the UK,” Graham explained that he has no hatred of homosexuals. He said:
It is said by some that I am coming to the UK to bring hateful speech to your community. This is just not true. I am coming to share the Gospel, which is the Good News that God loves the people of the UK, and that Jesus Christ came to this earth to save us from our sins.
The rub, I think, comes in whether God defines homosexuality as sin. The answer is yes. But God goes even further than that, to say that we are all sinners—myself included. The Bible says that every human being is guilty of sin and in need of forgiveness and cleansing. The penalty of sin is spiritual death—separation from God for eternity.
That’s why Jesus Christ came. He became sin for us. He didn’t come to condemn the world, He came to save the world by giving His life on the Cross as a sacrifice for our sins. And if we’re willing to accept Him by faith and turn away from our sins, He will forgive us and give us new life—eternal life—in Him.
My message to all people is that they can be forgiven and they can have a right relationship with God. That’s Good News. That is the hope people on every continent around the world are searching for. In the UK as well as in the United States, we have religious freedom and freedom of speech. I’m not coming to the UK to speak against anybody, I’m coming to speak for everybody. The Gospel is inclusive. I'm not coming out of hate, I’m coming out of love.
I invite everyone in the LGBTQ community to come and hear for yourselves the Gospel messages that I will be bringing from God’s Word, the Bible. You are absolutely welcome.
Another challenge Graham faces in the United Kingdom is Islam. This once Protestant nation is now fast succumbing to Islam, and Graham reportedly described Islam an “evil and very wicked religion.”
Christians are living in hard times. If Franklin Graham, who is one of the most powerful evangelical leaders in the United States, can suffer harassment and bullying for preaching the Gospel in a nation with a strong Christian history, what will happen to many other Christians who voice the Bible message on homosexuality?
These are easy times for coward and silent Christians. But the time will come when even cowards will be targeted by the same fanatics who persecute courageous Christians today, because fanatics will sooner or later require not only silence, but also total conversion to their fanaticism, whether homosexual or Islamic.
With information from the DailyMail, The Advocate and FoxNews.
Recommended Reading on Franklin Graham:
Recommended Reading on Trump and homosexuality:

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Insane reaction from the left against abstinence message from Brazil’s Bolsonaro administration to teenagers


Insane reaction from the left against abstinence message from Brazil’s Bolsonaro administration to teenagers

By Julio Severo
Making a stir, the New York Times said “Brazil’s minister for women and families, an evangelical pastor, formulated a new abstinence campaign in consultation with a religious group,” adding, “Brazil’s far-right government has a message for adolescents as the nation grapples with a stubbornly high teenage pregnancy rate and rising H.I.V. infections: Save sex for marriage.”
In 1992, I attended an international congress with representatives from governments and NGOs from all Latin America, from Mexico to Argentina. There were many education and health officials. A high-profile representative from the United Nations gave a speech.
Basically, their message was that teenagers should be taught that they could make lots of sex — but only contracepted sex. And they promised that by following their enlightened guidance, there would be lots of contraception devices and information for teenagers to make sex and there would not be stubbornly high teenage pregnancy rate and rising H.I.V. infections in the future. We are in the future.
Their promises were fully fulfilled. Since 1992 Brazilian schools have been inundated with comprehensive sex education, with teenagers having access to every kind of birth control you can imagine and not imagine. And what does Brazil see today as result of such contracepted free sex policy for teenagers? By the own admission of the New York Times, “stubbornly high teenage pregnancy rate and rising H.I.V. infections.”
They failed. Now do they want fight a Pentecostal minister who is just offering another option to teenagers? On her Facebook, Minister Damares Alves made it clear that abstinence “would be the complementary policy, and not the only or the main one.” So Alves is being very democratic: She is allowing the old failed left-wing options and putting abstinence as just a complementary and secondary policy. Why are not left-wingers satisfied with such democratic approach?
The New York Times was not honest by presenting abstinence as a policy of “Brazil’s far-right government” because Bolsonaro has no history of abstinence advocacy. On the contrary, his history is directly connected to the advocacy of family planning as a way to reduce poor populations. Bolsonaro believes that the smaller the families, the better.
Even being historically a strong birth control advocate, Bolsonaro allowed his evangelical minister to introduce abstinence among birth control options. Isn’t this democracy?
Government officials would not expose teenagers to birth control devices if they were properly informed that many of them are micro-abortive and that their origins are suspicious. The individual responsible directly and indirectly for many of the birth control devices today is Margaret Sanger, who coined the term “birth control.” She was a theosophist with a Catholic background and Nazi connections. She also founded Planned Parenthood, the largest family planning, sex education and abortion network in the U.S. and around the world.
What advocates of free contracepted sex for teenagers want is big money to fund their expensive sex education and birth control devices. Coincidentally, the international congress I attended was sponsored by contraceptive industries. They have much to profit from increased teenage sex.
Why is the left so angry at the abstinence message? Damares Alves is not removing the traditional left-wing policies that have failed for decades — including contraception for teenagers and including the failed policy of equating teen pregnancy with sexual diseases. Conservative Christians have disagreements with her for keeping the old failed left-wing policy disguised as “health policy,” just as they have disagreements with her policy of keeping the same homosexualist officials from past left-wing administrations.
The New York Time said:
President Jair Bolsonaro and his allies accused their leftist rivals of encouraging teenagers to have sex at a young age. He also condemned a school campaign against homophobia that was designed, but never implemented, by his leftist predecessors. He called it a “gay kit” intended to “pervert” students.
His message was powerfully effective at mobilizing evangelical voters, a growing and politically powerful constituency in Brazil.
The government’s abstinence campaign is being led by Ms. Alves, an evangelical pastor who calls herself “extremely Christian” and is among Mr. Bolsonaro’s most popular and visible cabinet members.
The New York Times did not add the important information that the school campaign against homophobia, which was essentially homosexual indoctrination for schoolchildren, was never implemented because conservatives, especially the Evangelical Parliamentary Caucus in the Brazilian Congress, did fierce opposition.
Then the New York Times said, “Experts say the [abstinence] campaign could undermine the progress Brazil has made in curbing teen pregnancy.”
It is a very strange progress, because the New York Times recognized that today Brazil has a “stubbornly high teenage pregnancy rate and rising H.I.V. infections.” So is the New York Times implying that the “progress” of left-wing policies is indeed “stubbornly high teenage pregnancy rate and rising H.I.V. infections”? I am not surprised. When I attended the international congress with Latin American and U.N. officials, I knew that the result would be “stubbornly high teenage pregnancy rate and rising H.I.V. infections”! It does not take a genius to foresee the obvious.
The Bolsonaro administration is not abandoning the failed policies of the past left-wing administrations. According to the New York Times, the abstinence policy of Alves “would complement, rather than replace, existing initiatives, which include providing access to contraceptives and condoms,” including messages putting pregnancies and sexual diseases as evils to be avoided.
To equate teen pregnancy, or any other pregnancy, with sexual diseases, as left-wing campaigns do, is immoral, because each of us was born not like a disease or in the same level as sexual diseases. While diseases are created in the image and likeness of demons, we, through a teenage pregnancy or not, are created in the image and likeness of God.
If teen pregnancy is like a disease, as propagandized by left-wing fanatics, do Christians worship a “disease”? Jesus Christ, who is worshipped by Christians, was born from a teenage mother.
Following the United Nations, the Brazilian Congress approved in 2019 legislation banning marriage before 16. The approval happened under the Bolsonaro administration. So if God did today what he did 2,000 years ago — to impregnate, by the Holy Spirit, a Jewish teenage girl with Jesus —, would law-enforcement agencies go after the Author of this “criminal” pregnancy?
While leftists blatantly promote free sex for teenagers, in no way I am promoting teenage pregnancies. But teenage marriages and pregnancies were not crimes in the Bible and in the Christian history.
What the Left does is vastly harmful to teenagers. The Left promotes lots of free sex and contraception for teenagers (contraceptives paid by taxpayers), and there is no law to ban these. But the Left promotes only sex without marriage and without pregnancy.
Answering to the law banning teenage marriages, Minister Alves said, “Children do not date and adolescents do not marry, not even for fun.” This commentary is so inconsistent as the left-wing “progress” that includes stubbornly high teenage pregnancy rate and rising H.I.V. infections. If children do not date, why do they need comprehensive sex education with lots of contraceptive information? Is not this a powerful motivation for sexual activity? If adolescents do not marry, how to explain teenager Mary pregnant with Jesus?
Adolescents should never get involved in sexual activity. But if do they need such activity, they should be taught that the only option is marriage.
The U.N. policy, which Brazil and Damares Alves are following, of banning teenage marriage is actually intended for population control purposes. NSSM 200, a U.S. government document produced by the CIA, stipulated that the U.S. government should use the U.N. system to keep teenage and young women involved in studies to stop marriage and pregnancies. The clear purpose of the CIA was population control. Teenagers and young women studying long years cannot think in marriage, even though they cannot avoid sexual activity!
It is very immoral that the Brazilian government, even under Bolsonaro (called “far-right-wing” by the New York Times), is providing contraceptives and condoms to teenagers.
The international congress I attended in 1992 addressed exclusively “adolescent reproductive health.” One of the speakers was the Brazilian representative of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the largest abortion group in the world. My participation in this congress provided material for Catholic pro-life leader Dr. Humberto Leal Vieira and Human Life International, of Fr. Paul Marx. The representative of the Brazilian government in the congress said that teenagers should be free to have sex — without the constraints of marriage and pregnancy. She was representing the Collor administration. Collor was elected as a right-wing president by a Brazilian people who defeated pro-abortion socialist Lula who could do… the same things Collor eventually did about teenage sex!
Often I wonder why we vote for right-wing candidates who, in a lesser or bigger degree, do the same things left-wingers do. Sex education and contraception are just two examples.
If Mary lived today, the United Nations and governments, including the Bolsonaro administration, would say to this Jewish teenager: “You cannot marry and you cannot definitely be pregnant with Jesus. But you can have lots of contraceptives and condoms at the expense of taxpayers! Or you can practice abstinence today and say to God to wait years for you be pregnant of Jesus!”
Even though the New York Times has criticized the abstinence policy of Damares Alves, it touted in the same report Women on Waves, a Dutch feminist group that offers free abortions for women in Third World nations. The New York Times saw lots of problems in the Bolsonaro administration offering abstinence, but no problem in offering abortions to teenagers.
The New York Times to Mary: “Do not practice abstinence. Get an abortion!”
Answer of Mary to the New York Times: “Sorry, abortion is the destruction of an innocent life! I will follow God and I will keep, as a God’s teenager, my pregnancy.”
Answer of Mary to the Bolsonaro administration: “Sorry, I cannot use contraceptives and condoms. I cannot also get involved with abstinence, because God called me to be pregnant of Jesus!”
The New York Times said, “emphasis on abstinence blurs the line between church and state.” This is a very extremist ideological stance. For the New York Times, it is ok for the government to offer contraceptives, condoms and abortions to teenagers, but does abstinence “blur the line between church and state”? Is the New York Time suggesting that the State belongs exclusively to pro-abortion left-wingers?
When left-wingers rule, they impose their failed dogmas — including contraception and abortion. And when they do not rule, do they want also to impose their same failed dogmas?
The Bolsonaro administration and Damares Alves should promote education for marriage and pregnancy and Bolsonaro should abandon his left-wing contraceptive mindset. It is time to abandon the failed left-wing propaganda portraying pregnancy and marriage as diseases. It is time to value marriage and pregnancy as special blessings from the Creator.
Recommended Reading:

Monday, January 27, 2020

Holocaust Remembrance Day: Few people know the consequences of anti-Semitism


Holocaust Remembrance Day: Few people know the consequences of anti-Semitism

By Julio Severo
A new survey claims Americans are forgetting the Holocaust and the consequences of anti-Semitism.
The Pew Research Center report, “What Americans Know About the Holocaust,” said 45 percent of almost 11,000 Americans surveyed didn’t know the Nazis killed 6 million Jews during World War II.
The report asked the question: “Are those who underestimate the death toll simply uninformed, or are they Holocaust deniers — people with anti-Semitic views who ‘claim that the Holocaust was invented or exaggerated by Jews as part of a plot to advance Jewish interests?’”
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is the anniversary of the date when the Red Army of the Soviet Union liberated the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. Auschwitz, which is in current Poland, was the most notorious in a system of death and concentration camps that Nazi Germany operated on territory it occupied across Europe. In all, 1.1 million people were killed there, most of them Jews from across the European continent.
World leaders on January 23, 2020 denounced the rising threat of anti-Semitism and vowed never to forget the lessons of the Holocaust at a solemn ceremony in Israel marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the infamous Auschwitz death camp.
The World Holocaust Forum in Jerusalem, the largest-ever summit of its kind, drew more than 45 world leaders, including German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Russian President Vladimir Putin. U.S. President Donald Trump did not attend, but he sent his vice-president, Mike Pence. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was invited, but he did not attend and he did not send his vice-president. In 2019, when visiting the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem Bolsonaro was corrected by its director after claiming that Nazism was a left-wing movement.
Among the speakers was Steinmeier and Putin.
Steinmeier said he stood before the audience “laden with the heavy, historical burden of guilt.”
“Germans deported them. Germans burned numbers on their forearms. Germans tried to dehumanize them, to reduce them to numbers, to erase all memory of them in the extermination camps. They did not succeed,” he said.
Nazi extermination of the Jews would never have succeeded if there were not centuries of widespread anti-Semitism in Europe. This anti-Semitism was essentially Catholic and its most prominent symbol of strength is the Inquisition, which tortured and murdered multitudes of Jews for centuries. Both the Holocaust and the Inquisition have their equal shares of deniers today.
There are three main anti-Semitic threats today in Europe: Islamic, Nazi and Catholic.
The first threat is Islamic anti-Semitism, which is very present in Islamic nations, and it is a consequence of the huge wave of Muslim immigrants invading Europe. These immigrants bring with them the same cultural and religious baggage of anti-Semitism they had in their original nations. It is, by far, the most aggressive and expansionist anti-Semitism today in Europe. They are deniers of the Holocaust.
The second threat is Nazi sympathizers, who remember Nazism and deny the Holocaust.
The third threat is Catholic traditionalism or nationalism. It is impossible to separate anti-Semitism from the centuries-old Catholic political and legal culture in Europe.
A survey of 14 European countries undertaken in 2019 found a quarter of Europeans hold anti-Semitic beliefs with Polish people the worst offenders.
Poland, which is today the most conservative Catholic nation in Europe, is seeking a Catholic “revival” to live the old Catholic days of its nation. The problem is that the old Catholic days in Poland include plenty of Catholic anti-Semitism 200, 400 and 500 years ago.
Another problem of traditionalist or nationalist Catholics is that many of them are rabid deniers of the Inquisition.
In early 2018, Poland, which is considered today a model of Catholic conservatism, saw an explosion of anti-Semitic language in public life — on public television and even by public officials — after the conservative nationalist Catholic ruling party passed legislation banning certain kinds of speech remembering the Holocaust. Such ban drew sharp remarks from Israel.
Polish European Parliament member Sylwia Spurek stirred up controversy on January 21, 2020 after tweeting a drawing by vegan artist and activist Jo Frederiks depicting cows walking through a slaughterhouse corridor in clothes reminiscent of those worn by Jews in Nazi concentration camps. Essentially, the Polish European Parliament member compared Holocaust to animal abuse.
The Polish case is interesting because Poland is one of the strongest examples of European nations resisting Islamic invasion, which entails anti-Semitism. But the Polish Catholic nationalism entails its own kind of traditional Catholic anti-Semitism. Even though a progressive, Pope Francis has fought nationalism and anti-Semitism. What is happening in Poland is not approved by Francis.
The survey also found that in Ukraine anti-Semitism, which was 32 percent in 2016, now is 46 percent. In 2018 Ukraine decided to honor a nationalist leader whose movement sided with the Nazis during World War II, drawing sharp remarks from Israel’s ambassador.
A good way to honor the Holocaust Remembrance Day is remembering that anti-Semitism in its Islamic, Nazi and Catholic form is a threat to humankind.
With information from FoxNews, Jerusalem Post and DailyMail.
Recommended Reading:

Saturday, January 25, 2020

Trump Became First U.S. President to Attend March for Life


Trump Became First U.S. President to Attend March for Life

By Julio Severo
President Donald Trump on January 24, 2020 became the first sitting U.S. president to appear in person to attend and address the March for Life, which has happened annually for 47 years.
“We know that every human soul is divine, and every human life, born and unborn, is made in the holy image of Almighty God,” Trump told the thousands gathered on the National Mall in Washington DC.
He said “unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House,” but he did not mention that his defense does not include some categories of babies, including babies conceived in the violent act of rape. Pro-life leader Rebecca Kiessling, who was conceived in rape, has already addressed the weakness of Trump’s pro-life stance.
If all babies are “made in the holy image of Almighty God,” why to exclude those who have no guilty of being conceived in the violent act of a rape?
In his speech, Trump touted policies supported by evangelicals, such as protections of religious liberty and the appointment of conservative judges — but again he did not mention anything about his appointment of homosexualist judges.
The March for Life began in 1974 when pro-life activists sought to draw attention to the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling that declared state laws banning abortion unconstitutional in 1973. Since then, abortion has been legal from conception until delivery.
Even pro-life presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush did not make a personal appearance at the March for Life.
Since 1973, the U.S. has made over 61 million abortions, that is, over 61 million U.S. babies were sacrificed on the medical altar of convenience.
In spite of Trump’s efforts, 862,320 abortions took place in the United States in 2017, the first year of his administration. In the second year of his administration, approximately 876,000 abortions took place in the United States in 2018. About 800,000 babies were slaughtered in 2019.
Trump has cut some US$ 50 million of federal government funds (tax-payer money) of Planned Parenthood, which nevertheless continues receiving over US$ 500 million from the Trump administration. So while pro-lifers get good pro-life speeches from Trump, pro-abortion groups receive from the Trump administration big money for abortions.
Even though U.S. pro-life presidents make their speeches, millions U.S. babies continue to be sacrificed. If millions innocent Americans suffered systematic slaughter in the hands of a foreign group, Trump would certainly send killer drones to solve this problem. In fact, earlier on January he sent such killer drones to kill an Iranian general, and the justification was that he had killed Americans.
If the murder of Americans is a good justification to use killer drones, why to spare baby slaughterhouses?
Yet, baby slaughterhouses, especially the biggest abortion network in the U.S., Planned Parenthood, kill year by year many more Americans than Islamic terrorist groups have ever did. If such terrorist groups can receive the deserved visit of killer drones, why not baby slaughterhouses?
It makes no sense to send killer drones to visit Islamic terrorist groups and let baby slaughterhouses keep killing millions of Americans. Terrorists, Islamic or baby slaughterhouses, should not treated only by speeches. Killer drones should not be used only against Muslims. I repeat: baby slaughterhouses kill infinitely more innocent Americans than Muslim terrorists do.
Below is a full transcript of the remarks President Donald Trump made at the 2020 March for Life. His speech marked the first time a president has attended the March for Life and addressed it in person:
Thank you very much and thank you, Jeanne. It is my honor to be the first president in history to attend the March for Life. [applause] We are here for a very simple reason: to defend the right of every child, born and unborn, to fulfill their God-given potential. [applause]
For 47 years, Americans of all backgrounds have traveled from across the country to stand for life.
And today as President of the United States, I am truly proud to stand with you. [applause]
I want to welcome tens of thousands – this is a tremendous turnout – tens of thousands of high school and college students who took long bus rides to be here in our nation’s capital. And to make you feel even better, there are tens of thousands of people outside that we passed on the way in. If anybody would like to give up their spot, we can work it out.
We have a tremendous group of people outside. Thousands and thousands wanted to get in. This is some great success. [applause]
Young people are the heart of the March for Life. And it’s your generation that is making America the pro-family, pro-life nation. [applause]
The life movement is led by strong women, amazing faith leaders, and brave students who carry on the legacy of pioneers before us who fought to raise the conscience of our nation and uphold the rights of our citizens. You embrace mothers with care and compassion. You are empowered by prayer and motivated by your unselfish love. You are grateful and we are so grateful ­­– these are incredible people – to be joined by Secretary Alex Azar and Kellyanne Conway. [applause]
And thanks also to Senators Mike Lee and James Lankford who are here. Thank you, fellas. And Representatives Steve Scalise, Chris Smith, Ralph Abraham, Warren Davidson, Bob Latta, John Joyce, Lloyd Smucker, Brian Fitzpatrick, and Brad Wenstrup. Thank you all. I have to say – and I look at it, and I see it exactly – we have many more politicians in the audience. But if you don’t mind, I won’t introduce them all.
All of us here understand an eternal truth: Every child is a precious and sacred gift from God. [applause] Together, we must protect, cherish, and defend the dignity and the sanctity of every human life. [applause]
When we see the image of a baby in the womb, we glimpse the majesty of God’s creation. [applause] When we hold a newborn in our arms, we know the endless love that each child brings to a family. When we watch a child grow, we see the splendor that radiates from each human soul. One life changes the world – from my family, and I can tell you, I send love, and I send great, great love – and from the first day in office, I have taken historic action to support America’s families and to protect the unborn. [applause]
And during my first week in office, I reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy and we issued a landmark pro-life rule to govern the use of Title X taxpayer funding. I notified Congress that I would veto any legislation that weakens pro-life policy or that encourages the destruction of human life. [applause]
At the United Nations, I made clear that global bureaucrats have no business attacking the sovereignty of nations that protect innocent life. [applause] Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House. [applause]
As the Bible tells us, each person is wonderfully made. [applause]
We have taken decisive action to protect the religious liberty – so important – religious liberty has been under attack all over the world and frankly, very strongly attacked in our nation. You see it better than anyone. But we are stopping it. And we’re taking care of doctors, nurses, teachers, and groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor. [applause]
We are preserving faith-based adoption and to uphold our founding documents, we have appointed 187 federal judges, who apply the consultation as written, including two phenomenal supreme court justices – Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. [applause]
We are protecting pro-life students’ rights to free speech on college campuses. And if universities want federal taxpayer dollars, then they must uphold your First Amendment right to speak your mind. And if they don’t, they pay a very big financial penalty, which they will not be willing to pay. [applause]
Sadly, the far left is working to erase our God-given rights, shut down faith-based charities, ban religious leaders from the public square, and silence Americans who believe in the sanctity of life. They are coming after me because I am fighting for you and we are fighting for those who have no voice. And we will win because we know how to win. [applause] We all know how to win. We all know how to win. You’ve been winning for a long time. You’ve been winning for a long time.
Together, we are the voice for the voiceless. When it comes to abortion – and you know this, you’ve seen what’s happened – Democrats have embraced the most radical and extreme positions taken and seen in this country for years and decades, and you can even say, for centuries.
Nearly every top Democrat in congress now supports taxpayer-funded abortion all the way up until the moment of birth. Last year, lawmakers in New York cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb right up until delivery.
Then, we had the case of the Democrat governor in the state of Virginia, the commonwealth of Virginia. And we love the commonwealth of Virginia, but what is going on in Virginia? What is going on? The governor stated that he would execute a baby after birth. You remember that.
Senate Democrats even blocked legislation that would give medical care to babies who survive attempted abortions. And that’s why I’ve called on Congress – two of our great senators here, so many of our congressmen here – I called upon them to defend the dignity of life and to pass legislation prohibiting late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in their mother’s womb. [applause]
This year, the March for Life is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment, which forever enshrined women’s rights to vote in the United States and given by the United States constitution. Such a big event. Today, millions of extraordinary women across America are using the power of their votes to fight for the right and all of their rights as given in the Declaration of Independence – it’s the right to life. [applause]
To all the women here today, your devotion and your leadership uplifts our entire nation and we thank you for that. The tens of thousands of Americans gathered today not only stand for life – it’s really here that they stand for it so proudly together. And I want to thank everybody for that. You stand for life each and every day. You provide housing, education, jobs, and medical care to the women that you serve. You find loving families for children in need of a forever home. You host baby showers for expecting moms. You make – you just make it your life’s mission to help spread God’s grace.
And to all the moms here today, we celebrate you and we declare that mothers are heroes. [applause] Your strength, devotion, and drive is what powers our nation. Because of you, our country has been blessed with amazing souls who have changed the course of human history.
We cannot know what our citizens yet unborn will achieve. The dreams they will imagine. The masterpieces they will create. The discoveries they will make. But we know this: every life brings love into this world. Every child brings joy to a family. Every person is worth protecting.
And above all, we know that every human soul is divine and every human life, born and unborn, is made in the holy image of Almighty God. [applause]
Together, we will defend this truth all across our magnificent land. We will set free the dreams of our people. And with determined hope, we look forward to all of the blessings that will come from the beauty, talent, purpose, nobility, and grace of every American child.
I want to thank you. This is a very special moment. It’s so great to represent you. I love you all. [applause] And I say with a true passion, thank you, God bless you, and God bless America. Thank you all. Thank you. [applause]
With information from WorldNetDaily and LifeNews.
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