Two news articles by Quin Hillyer at Liberty Headlines…. (Click the headlines for the full stories.)
Trump Team to Send Memorial, Cherished by U.S. Vets, Back to Philippines:
For whom do the Balangiga Bells toll?
Not for thee, says Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.
In a rather unexpected example of the adage that “politics makes strange bedfellows,” the Trump administration is siding with the thuggish, anti-American president of the Philippines against the repeated, strongly expressed wishes of the conservative, Trump-friendly congressional delegation of Wyoming.
Last weekend, Secretary of Defense James Mattis announced that the United States will return the somewhat controversial Bells of Balangiga, which serve as a war memorial in Cheyenne for Wyoming (and other) veterans of the American war in the Philippines at the turn of the 20th Century…..
Against Duterte’s demands, all members of Wyoming’s delegation, along with several veterans groups, have vociferously opposed the return of the bells….
Responding personally to me at Liberty Headlines, Rep. Liz Cheney added: “The bells are memorials to American war dead and should not be sent to the Philippines. This decision is opposed by veterans’ organizations. It is also wrong as a matter of policy, particularly at a time when the decision rewards the leader of the Philippines who has called, among other things, for his military to rape women.”…
California anti-counseling bill could ban the Bible:
The California Legislature continues to move ever closer to dictating that people have freedom to act as homosexuals but no freedom to get help to stop acting that way.
The California Assembly is expected this week to vote on a bill which already passed the state Senate that would make it illegal to provide professional counseling to anyone to help them ward off homosexual desires.
By defining such counseling, or the advertisement of such counseling services, as “fraudulent business practices,” the bill puts religious traditionalists at risk.
It opens the door to the possibility of a lawsuit, losing a professional license, or perhaps other penalties merely for advising patients or clients that they can choose not to practice homosexuality [or, yes, even for selling Bibles]…..
[NOTE FROM QUIN: This is not an issue of judging homosexuality, or of adjudging the value of the counseling involved, but only of the freedom of people to choose for themselves whether or not to avail themselves of such counseling.]