Jan. 9, 2020: Hollywood marketing explicit content to kids; Nick Sandmann; 'Unholy Bible'
Thursday, Jan. 9, 2020
Here are the latest headlines, brought to you by The Christian Post.
— Hollywood is directly marketing its most explicit content to kids, PTC president warns
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Although the nation’s leading nonpartisan family television watchdog group says there is good reason for parents to be optimistic heading into 2020, there's also cause for concern for families looking to protect their children from seeing explicit content on the shows they watch.
Over the course of the last few years, there has been a dramatic change in Hollywood, Parents Television Council President Tim Winter told The Christian Post. There’s a growing and “pervasive” trend of media giants marketing explicit content to teens and preteens, such as HBO’s “Euphoria,” which focuses on a drug-addicted teenager; Hulu’s “PEN15”; and Netflix’s shows “Sex Education” and “Big Mouth.”
— Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann gets settlement from CNN in defamation lawsuit
A pro-life Covington Catholic High School student has reached a settlement with CNN over a defamation lawsuit he brought against the news outlet for their false reporting about him last year that led to death threats against him and other students.
Nicholas Sandmann filed the suit against CNN and other media outlets for their coverage of him at the 2019 March for Life rally when a Native American and former Marine named Nathan Phillips confronted him and other teens.
Negative coverage based off the misreported video forced Sandmann’s family to temporarily move and for him to stop attending his high school, which was also threatened. The lawsuit was part of an overall litigation against CNN, The Washington Post and NBC Universal, seeking $800 million in damages.
— 'Unholy Bible': University promotes art project of desecrated Bible, satanic Christ
A university’s promotion of an atheist student’s art display of a desecrated Bible and demonic images covering Jesus' face has sparked outrage from Christians who meet on campus for worship.
The University of Southern Maine has found itself embroiled in a controversy over the art piece called the “Unholy Bible: Very Revised Standard Edition.” The display features a Bible that’s been ripped apart with pages torn and painted orange to look like flames with satanic images covering the face of Jesus Christ.
Despite complaints from a Christian community group that meets at the university, the school is standing by the artwork, citing the student’s First Amendment right to free speech.
— UK court to decide whether children, teens can consent to taking puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones
The question of whether children and teenagers can consent to taking puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones to thwart their bodies natural growth as part of transgender experimentation will be adjudicated this week at the U.K.'s highest court.
The case is being brought by attorneys for Susan Evans against the Tavistock and Portman National Health Service which operates England’s sole gender identity clinic. Evans is a psychiatric nurse and psychoanalytic psychotherapist who believes the medicalization of gender in young people carries lifelong, harmful consequences.
In 2004, Evans raised concerns about practices within the clinic. Though an internal inquiry was conducted, she ultimate left feeling nothing had changed substantially.
The lawyers representing Evans are also representing a mother, whose identity has not been disclosed, of a 15-year-old autistic girl who's on the waiting list for the Gender Identity Development Service.
Evans has said that children as young as 9 and 10 are being asked to give informed consent to these experiments that are being touted as medical treatments.
— Missionaries, church groups in Puerto Rico on surviving earthquake, facing uncertainty
Several church groups and missionaries working in Puerto Rico during Tuesday’s 6.4 magnitude earthquake that triggered an islandwide blackout and toppled several churches and other buildings are relaying their experiences and telling how they and others are coping with uncertainty in the aftermath.
About 25 volunteers from the First Congregational Church of Hartland arrived in Puerto Rico on Sunday to help with relief efforts from the devastation of Hurricane Maria which left thousands dead in September 2017.
All of them were reported safe and they had planned to continue working to renovate a church in San Juan but officials concerned about more earthquakes and whether the building remains structurally safe has paused all their efforts for now.
The United States Geological Survey said the earthquake struck at about 4:24 a.m. local time offshore of southwest Puerto Rico just a day after a magnitude 5.8 quake erupted from the same area.
Over the past several weeks, hundreds of small earthquakes have occurred in the region, the USGS said. The seismic activity began with a magnitude 4.7 earthquake late on Dec. 28 and was followed by a magnitude 5.0 tremor just a few hours later. Since Dec. 28, the USGS said more than 400 magnitude 2+ earthquakes have occurred in the region. Some 10 of them registered stronger than magnitude 4, including Tuesday’s tremor.
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