Penna Dexter Like many of the Canadian truckers, author Abigail Shrier never set out to make anyone angry and certainly not to become the center of controversy. To do that, she told an audience of Princeton undergrads recently, “You need only be two things: effective and unwilling to back down.” Ms. Shrier’s bio includes Jewish day school, Columbia University, a…
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Penna Dexter The International Olympic Committee has allowed transgender athletes to compete since 2004. The first to participate openly did so in Tokyo’s summer games in 2020. Several competed this year in Beijing. The rules for transgender women — biological men — competing in women’s sports are that they must demonstrate testosterone below a certain threshold for 12 months before…
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Penna Dexter The U.S House of Representatives just passed a bill called the Global Respect Act. Supporters say it is meant to protect and foster respect for human rights in foreign countries. But it does the opposite. The bill elevates the so-called human rights of some individuals — those who identify as homosexual or transgender — over the rights of…
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Penna Dexter Following the Biden administration’s admission that its Build Back Better Plan is dead, there’s an effort to resurrect parts of this massive social spending bill. One goal is the White House’s proposal for a “transformational investment” — $200 billion — for free universal pre-K for 3 and 4-year-old children. The plan is modeled on the Head Start program…
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Penna Dexter There’s a development in the heart-rending case involving Christian bakers, Aaron and Melissa Klein. The Kleins were the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, located in downtown Gresham, Oregon. Their bakery is closed now because Oregon officials imposed a $135,000 financial penalty on the Kleins for declining to create a custom cake for a same-sex union ceremony. When…
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Penna Dexter The COVID-19 vaccine was approved for children 5 and older on an emergency basis at the end of October. Immediately, talk of mandates began. Several experts on an FDA advisory panel warned against mandating the shot for kids. But some bureaucrats have already succumbed to what National Review’s Rich Lowry calls “the irresistible urge of officialdom in blue…
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Penna Dexter Most people don’t know this, but roughly half of abortions performed today are not done surgically. They are chemical abortions. Last month the Food and Drug Administration officially made it much easier to procure such abortions. The chemical abortion is approved to be used during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. It involves a two-step process, which causes…
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Penna Dexter Panelists on the year-end edition of CBS’s “Face the Nation” were asked to identify what they think is the most under-reported story of the year. Correspondent Jan Crawford’s choice was “the crushing impact that our COVID policies have had on young kids and children.” These policies, she said, have been implemented despite the fact that children face “the…
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Penna Dexter New research on family life shows that COVID-19 has exacerbated a growing divide in family formation, with higher-income, better-educated Americans more interested in getting married and having children than those with less education and lower incomes. Marriage rates are falling. Birth and fertility rates are at record lows. The fertility rate is only about 1.7 children per woman….
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Penna Dexter My prayer for 2022 is that Christians across America would have courage. When a person chooses to be the best person he or she can possibly be when the consequences for doing that could be very harmful to them — that’s courage. Principled Christians can be cancelled, lose jobs, even face criminal penalties for standing against evil and…
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Penna Dexter The Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatly Foundation recently published a report about Americans’ attitudes regarding marriage and child-rearing. Its title is, “The Divided State of Our Unions: Family Formation in (Post-) Covid-19 America.” It shows the “desire to marry” has ticked up a bit overall since the onset of Covid, while “the desire to have a…
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