DEBUNKING THE DISINFORMATION OF SO-CALLED 'FORCED PREGNANCY'
from: LiveAction News

(10 Jan.) Over the last year, great progress has been made in the pro-life movement as Americans witnessed the fall of Roe v. Wade – the 1973 Supreme Court decision that forced legalized abortion upon every state. Pro-abortion groups and activists fought back with both violent attacks against pro-life organizations and with the usual propaganda that the abortion industry and its allies have long relied upon in order to build and sustain abortion businesses. In 2022, the idea of "forced pregnancy" seemed to take center stage.

How abortion proponents define "forced pregnancy"

Abortion advocates define "forced pregnancy" as essentially any and all pregnancies that were not intentionally planned and therefore may not be "wanted." According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than half (51%) of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned. If a state enacts a law preventing a woman from killing the yet-to-be-delivered living child in her womb (whom she helped to create through a voluntary act in nearly all cases), abortion advocates say that amounts to ‘forced pregnancy’.

The pro-abortion American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a law group behind pro-abortion lawsuits aimed at blocking laws that protect preborn children from abortion, states, "Laws that prevent people from making their own decisions about whether to continue a pregnancy or have an abortion amount to forced pregnancy. Outright abortion bans aren’t the only way to force a pregnancy — even when Roe v. Wade was still technically intact, laws pushed abortion out of reach across the country."

Likewise, the pro-abortion group Equality Now defines "forced pregnancy" as "when a woman or girl becomes pregnant without having sought it or desired it, and abortion is denied, hindered, delayed or made difficult."

And Ms. Magazine claimed that "forced pregnancy is involuntary servitude." Author Carrie N. Baker wrote, "Abortion bans place pregnant women seeking abortion under state control and require them to perform involuntary labor. This is a violation of the 13th Amendment." Over the last year, great progress has been made in the pro-life movement as Americans witnessed the fall of Roe v. Wade — the 1973 Supreme Court decision that forced legalized abortion upon every state. Pro-abortion groups and activists fought back with both violent attacks against pro-life organizations and with the usual propaganda that the abortion industry and its allies have long relied upon in order to build and sustain abortion businesses. In 2022, the idea of "forced pregnancy" seemed to take center stage.

How abortion proponents define "forced pregnancy"

Abortion advocates define "forced pregnancy" as essentially any and all pregnancies that were not intentionally planned and therefore may not be "wanted." According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than half (51%) of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned. If a state enacts a law preventing a woman from killing the yet-to-be-delivered living child in her womb (whom she helped to create through a voluntary act in nearly all cases), abortion advocates say that amounts to ‘forced pregnancy’.

The pro-abortion American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a law group behind pro-abortion lawsuits aimed at blocking laws that protect preborn children from abortion, states, "Laws that prevent people from making their own decisions about whether to continue a pregnancy or have an abortion amount to forced pregnancy. Outright abortion bans aren’t the only way to force a pregnancy – even when Roe v. Wade was still technically intact, laws pushed abortion out of reach across the country."

Likewise, the pro-abortion group Equality Now defines "forced pregnancy" as "when a woman or girl becomes pregnant without having sought it or desired it, and abortion is denied, hindered, delayed or made difficult."

And Ms. Magazine claimed that "forced pregnancy is involuntary servitude." Author Carrie N. Baker wrote, "Abortion bans place pregnant women seeking abortion under state control and require them to perform involuntary labor. This is a violation of the 13th Amendment."

Pregnancy can never be forced

The majority of pregnancies in the United States occur because a woman (and a man) chose – of their own free will – to engage in sexual intercourse, which is the known cause of pregnancy. If intercourse takes place during the fertile time of a woman’s cycle (which can be tracked with countless modern apps and trackers), there is a good possibility (though not 100%) that she will become pregnant. This isn’t because the government or an individual forced sperm to meet egg. It’s because this is how reproduction works. Cleveland Clinic notes, "With every cycle, your [the female’s] body prepares for a potential pregnancy, whether or not that’s your intention." And Loma Linda University states, "The menstrual cycle is the term for changes a woman’s body goes through to prepare for a potential pregnancy each month." (emphases added)

In other words, each month, the woman’s body naturally prepares to conceive a child, and there are only certain, limited fertile times in a woman’s reproductive cycle. If sperm and egg do meet, a new unique human being is created with his or her own DNA, distinct from his or her parents, and that human being is inherently equal to his or her parents and to every human being who has ever existed – not more valuable, not less valuable – equally valuable. Equally human.

But even in the most fertile of circumstances, it is impossible to force a pregnancy to occur. The entire reason the fertility industry exists is to help couples achieve a pregnancy when they have been unsuccessful on their own. Even then, pregnancy is never guaranteed – because it is physically impossible to force a woman to become pregnant.

Despite the comparisons being made between pro-life laws and the fictional "Handmaid’s Tale" series, there is not a single law in the United States that requires women to become pregnant. In the "Handmaid’s Tale," a fundamentalist regime treats women as property of the state – and in an attempt to boost its dwindling population, the few fertile women who exist are forced by the government into sexual servitude in order to bear children. That's not reality. (In truth, this fiction is closer to the proliferation of surrogacy than it is to pro-life laws protecting the lives of preborn children – but that's not likely something abortion proponents wish to delve into….)

Pro-life laws do not order or require women to have sex or to become pregnant, but they do state that when a woman becomes pregnant — most likely through her own free will to engage in sex – she does not have the power or the authority to kill the innocent human being she helped to create.

Parents are legally required to support their (born) minor children, which includes providing food, clothing, shelter, and basic care. Failing to do so can lead to charges of neglect or abuse. Logic would then dictate that parental obligation and protection should include undelivered babies, who are equally human – the most vulnerable and voiceless humans on the planet. [read more...]

COMMENTARY:The above pro-abortion views are quite mistaken: the main force that is involved is browbeating the poor and racial minorities to have abortions. This article also doesn't mention the instances of rape, when a woman is forced to have sexual intercourse (but this does not force her to have a baby): another article, "Rape Pregnancies are Rare," examined the statistics and showed that only one in 500 (0.2%) to one in 1,000 (0.1%) of women are raped each year, but the number of pregnancies that result from rape the author, a medical doctor, calculates to be between only 200 and 500 per year out of six million pregnancies per year, or less than one out of 100,000 pregnancies. So the argument "What about cases of rape?" simply doesn't add up: we should not make laws on the basis of extremely rare exceptions. Such exceptions can be dealt with as sub-points within a law prohibiting abortions.

QUEBEC'S EUTHANASIA DEATHS ARE THE HIGHEST IN THE WORLD
from: BioEdge.org

(10 Jan.) Quebec has become the jurisdiction with the highest proportion of deaths by euthanasia and assisted suicide in the world, according to Michel Bureau, president of the province's Commission on End of Life Care.

"In Quebec 5.1% of deaths result from MAID," he told a press conference in December. "In the Netherlands it's 4.8% of deaths and in Belgium 2.3%."

However, MAiD or medical assistance in dying, has only been legal in Quebec since 2016 while in the Netherlands and Belgium, it has been legal since 2002.

In the rest of Canada, rates have been rising steadily to 3.3% in 2021. As Alexander Raikin points out in The New Atlantis in a blistering article on MAiD:

"One of the greatest reasons for concern is the sheer scale of Canada's euthanasia regime. California provides a useful point of comparison: It legalized medically assisted death the same year as Canada, 2016, and it has about the same population, just under forty million. In 2021 in California, 486 people died using the state's assisted suicide program. In Canada in the same year, 10,064 people used MAID to die."

Even Dr. Bureau is surprised by how readily Quebecers have accepted MAiD. He believes that it is due to the fact that MAiD is treated as care and not as euthanasia.

"Quebecers who receive medical assistance in dying are at the end of life. They have suffering that cannot be alleviated and they meet all the criteria," Bureau said. "The commission on end-of-life care analyses all requests for medical assistance in dying to ensure that they comply with the law."

Georges L'Espérance, a neurosurgeon and the president of the Quebec association for the right to die with dignity, said the increase does not surprise him. Apart from greater awareness of the availability of MAiD, "it means also that patients are more aware of their dignity and their own autonomy and that's what they want, they want to have a kind of control up to the end," he said. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: In a related article from BioEdge, "Canada's euthanasia program described as 'dystopian'," the left-oriented Jacobin magazine quoted Jeremy Appel, a journalist from Calgary and a former supporter of medical assistance in dying came to the conclusion that MAiD does not occur in a social vacuum; rather, the pressures of isolation especially among the disabled and economically depressed lead to an unequal application of MAiD laws: "In this context, the cavalier way in which MAiD has been implemented in Canada serves as a form of eugenics, where only the able-bodied survive." This same line of reasoning applies also to abortion, that it is "a form of eugenics" because it is unequally applied to the economically depressed and racial minorities.

BELARUS: GREEK CATHOLIC WEBSITE AMONG RELIGIOUS WORKS BANNED AS "EXTREMIST"
from: Forum 18 News Service

Hebrews 13:3 – "Remember those who are in bonds, as bound with them; and those who are ill-treated, since you are also in the body."

(6 Jan.) A Greek Catholic news website and a YouTube interview with a Catholic priest who fled to neighbouring Poland in 2021 to escape prosecution are the latest religious items to be banned by local courts as "extremist" and added to the Information Ministry's "Republican List of Extremist Materials." Other banned religious works include an introduction to Orthodoxy published in Russia's capital Moscow and added to the Republican List in 2016, as well as several Muslim books. Anyone who distributes any of these works risks criminal prosecution in Belarus.

The threat of banning religious literature and websites as "extremist" runs in parallel with the existing state censorship of religious literature, overseen by Belarus' senior religious affairs official, the Plenipotentiary for Religious and Ethnic Affairs Aleksandr Rumak (see above photo).

On 14 December 2022 Judge Yelena Kovalchuk of Lenin District Court in the western city of Brest declared the Greek Catholic news website Tsarkva (Church) "extremist," as well as its pages on two social media sites. The sites were added to the Republican List of Extremist Materials, published on the Ministry's website, on 26 December. The editors have since taken the pages offline.

Judge Kovalchuk's secretary told Forum 18 that the Judge does not discuss her decisions with those who are not parties to a case. The secretary would say only that the decision had not been appealed within the 15-day deadline.

The Republican List of Extremist Materials – which as of 26 December 2022 ran to 480 pages –includes many xenophobic and racist works (such as Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf), as well as material produced by the political opposition and foreign-based news websites. It also includes some religious works that do not call for the violation of anyone's human rights. All had been banned as "extremist" by a local court.

In October 2022, a court in Vitebsk Region banned as "extremist" a YouTube interview with the Catholic priest Fr. Vyacheslav Barok, who had fled from Belarus in July 2021 to avoid prosecution. The video was similarly added to the Information Ministry's Republican List of Extremist Materials.

Deputy Information Minister Igor Buzovsky, who is also Deputy Chair of the "Republican Expert Commission for the Evaluation of Symbols, Attributes, and Information Products for the presence (or absence) in them of signs of Extremism", defended the banning of specific publications and websites as "extremist." "This is done exclusively on the basis of the law," he insisted to Forum 18.

However, Buzovsky refused to discuss the banning of the Tsarkva Greek Catholic website or other religious publications. "You speak about one website – I wouldn't want to talk from memory. You need to apply officially." He refused to discuss anything else about why religious publications are banned and put the phone down.

Forum 18 reached Andrei Aryayev, the Head of the Religious Department of the Office of the Plenipotentiary for Religious and Ethnic Affairs, on 4 January. However, he put the phone down so Forum 18 was unable to ask him about the enforced closure of and ban on the Tsarkva news website – and earlier bans on other religious publications.

Meanwhile, the Organised Crime Police detained Orthodox priest Fr Dionisy Korostelev for praying at a New Year service in a Minsk church on 1 January for the defenders of Ukraine. He had been denounced by a pro-regime activist, who had allegedly learnt of the prayer from a parishioner. The head of the Orthodox Church in the country, Metropolitan Veniamin (Tupeko), banned Fr Dionisy from further religious service on 4 January.

Religious censorship

The threat of banning religious literature and websites as "extremist" runs in parallel with the existing state censorship of religious literature. This censorship is overseen by the country's senior religious affairs official, the Plenipotentiary for Religious and Ethnic Affairs Aleksandr Rumak in the capital Minsk.

The regime imposes compulsory prior state censorship of and restrictions on distribution of most religious literature and objects. Under Religion Law Article 26, all imported religious literature and objects undergo state censorship enacted by an "Expert Council" attached to the Plenipotentiary's Office, as does all religious literature which libraries wish to acquire.

The Plenipotentiary can seek an "expert analysis" of any religious literature being distributed. Only registered religious organisations can establish companies to produce religious literature. Shops selling religious literature require permission from local administrations. "Expert analyses" can take up to three months, making timely delivery of imported religious publications impossible.

One religious community told Forum 18 in January that getting permission for imported religious literature currently takes several weeks. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: This type of censorship sounds eerily familiar to that which is taking place on social media here in the U.S. The reason given for censoring conservative and Christian viewpoints is often "community guidelines." But whose community? Is it the leftist community, or the conservative/Christian community? Recent revelations from the "Twitter files" prove that the FBI paid Twitter millions of dollars to suppress certain news unfavorable to certain political candidates. Other recent revelations show US government links to so-called "private" social media companies, telling them what to censor.

The result is that Facebook, Twitter, Google searches, etc. can "shadow ban" (limit the exposure to) or outright shut down conservative/Christian viewpoints. Secondly, the US Dep't. of Defense paid $750,000 to NewsGuard, a leftist "fact-checking" group, to have Prager U's videos blacklisted. Another result is that people then "self-censor" so that their toned-down viewpoints can get circulated. All 3 types of censorship are violations of the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and religious expression.

TO ATTRACT IN-HOME CAREGIVERS, STATE OFFERS PAID TRAINING – AND SELF-CARE
from: Disability Scoop

(10 Jan.) One November afternoon, Chris Espedal asked a group of caregivers – all of whom work with people who have cognitive impairments, behavioral health issues, or complex physical needs – to describe what happens when their work becomes too much to bear. The participants, 13 caregivers from all over California, who had gathered in a Zoom room, said they experienced nausea, anxiety, shortness of breath, elevated heart rates, and other telltale signs of stress.

"I want to scream!" one called out. "I feel exhausted," said another.

Espedal, who has been training caregivers for 18 years, guided the class through a self-soothing exercise: "Breathe in for four counts, hold the breath for four, exhale for four." She taught them to carve out time for themselves, such as setting the goal of reading a book from beginning to end, and reminded everyone to eat, sleep, and exercise. "Do not be afraid to ask for help," Espedal said. She added that one of the best ways they can care for their clients – often a loved one – was to care for themselves.

The class is a little touchy-feely. But it’s one of many offerings from the California Department of Social Services that the agency says is necessary for attracting and retaining caregivers in a state-funded assistance program that helps 650,000 low-income people who are older or who have disabilities age in place, usually at home. As part of the $295 million initiative, officials said, thousands of classes, both online and in-person, will begin rolling out in January, focused on dozens of topics, including dementia care, first-aid training, medication management, fall prevention, and self-care. Caregivers will be paid for the time they spend developing skills.

Whether it will help the program’s labor shortage remains to be seen. According to a 2021 state audit of ."the In-Home Supportive Services program, 32 out of 51 counties that responded to a survey reported a shortage of caregivers. Separately, auditors found that clients waited an average of 72 days to be approved for the program, although the department said most application delays were due to missing information from the applicants.

The in-home assistance program, which has been around for nearly 50 years, is plagued by high turnover. About 1 in 3 caregivers leave the program each year, according to University of California-Davis researcher Heather Young, who worked on a 2019 government report on California’s health care workforce needs.

It doesn't help that the pay is low. According to the state, the average hourly rate for caregivers in the in-home assistance program is $15.83. Rates vary because the program is administered locally, with each county setting its own.

"Training is very helpful," said Doug Moore, executive director of the United Domestic Workers of America AFSCME Local 3930, which represents roughly 150,000 caregivers in California. "But when the wages are low – and you can make more at Target or McDonald's and get a signing bonus – then you're going to go and do that work versus harder work, which is taking care of someone with a disability or a person that's aging." [read more...]

COMMENTARY: This is a vitally important issue: if caregivers wear themselves out to the point of burnout or physical injury, they are not only hurting themselves, they are hurting those they provide care for because they're unable to continue. This is especially true for wives who feel it's their duty to take care of their ill husbands who are heavier and tend to become disabled before the wife due to shorter life expectancy... then the wife's health breaks down. Taking time for self-care is necessary both for spouses of disabled people and for those in the helping professions. We have an entire lecture on this: "Caring for Yourself as You Give Care to Others" in our course "Foundations of Psychology."

MINISTRY OF JUSTICE TO CHECK UOC-MP AGREEMENT ON LEASE OF LOWER LAVRA FACILITIES
from: Religious Information Service of Ukraine

(12 Jan.) The lease agreement for the Lower Lavra facilities concluded with the UOC-MP (Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate) in 2013, does not specify the period of termination of the lease, which may be considered a legal violation. Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy Yevhenia Kravchuk told this in a comment to Ukrinform.

"In the case of the upper Lavra, the contract simply ended, and it was not extended... Regarding the lower Lavra, a decree of the Cabinet of ministers was adopted (in 2013 - Ed.), and the lease agreement does not specify when it expires. Even if the lease is indefinite, it should be indicated in the document, but this is not the case there," Kravchuk said.

The MP has noted that specialists of the Ministry of Justice will be involved in the audit, who will analyze the procedural part: "There are certain inconsistencies of this agreement with the current legislation because, in fact, any contract must have some terms."

Meanwhile, Kravchuk noted that the results of the activities of the Interagency Working Group, which develops proposals related to the activities of the churches, will be announced in late January. In particular, she said, the government is currently working on a draft law that will allow banning in court the activities of religious organizations subordinate to the aggressor country.

"There are parliamentary developments, but we are waiting for the registration of the draft law from the Cabinet of Ministers, which the Ministry of Justice is working on. There is the State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience. This draft is at the final stage. It still needs to be processed with various departments. I hope that it will appear in January," Kravchuk said.

The results of checking the UOC-MP for compliance with church canons, including determining ties with Moscow and the Russian Orthodox Church, are also expected from the State Service for Ethnic Policy. The MCIP also presents conclusions on the existence of violations of the monument protection legislation, in particular, "on the issue of restoration works – whether they were carried out with the appropriate permits, on the construction and demolition of buildings."

The interdepartmental working group on the preparation of proposals and recommendations for the organization of certain tasks related to the activities of religious organizations in Ukraine was established in December 2022 to check whether the UOC-MP complies with the conditions for the use of the property on the territory of the National Kyiv-Pechersk Historical and Cultural Reserve.

As reported, the Primate of the OCU held a divine service in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra for the first time on January 7. It became possible after the state regained ownership of the Holy Assumption Cathedral and the Refectory Church. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: Two other RISU articles, "Adviser to the OP Head assures there will no longer be two Churches in Ukraine" and "The clergy and laity of the UOC-MP demand answers to 10 questions regarding the status of their Church and withdrawal from the ROC" both deal with the problem of the Moscow-oriented Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC-MP) being an instrument of Russian infiltration and propaganda. It appears that the era of two competing Orthodox groups in Ukraine is finally coming to an end.

PATR. BARTHOLOMEW: RUSSIAN CHURCH HAS SIDED WITH PUTIN, ACTIVELY PROMOTES THE IDEOLOGY OF 'RUSSKII MIR'
from: Orthodox Times

(14 Dec. 2022) Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew made a resounding condemnation of the war in Ukraine in his speech at the opening of the International Conference “World Policy Conference – For a Reasonably Open World,” which was being held in Abu Dhabi the previous days.

Bartholomew underlined that the ongoing war has led to the death of thousands of people, Ukrainians and Russians, while the destruction of infrastructure on the territory of Ukraine is incalculable.

The Ecumenical Patriarch, in his extensive speech, before representatives from all over the world, referred to the historical spiritual ties of the Kievan Rus with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, from which they received baptism into Christianity, in the 10th century, and the Russian attempts to undermine the Orthodox Church of Constantinople and its role in the Orthodox world, after the Fall of Constantinople, and especially from the 19th century, when in combination with the doctrine of pan-Slavism, Moscow instrumentalized the religious sentiment to achieve political and military purposes alien to it.

This attitude, which aimed at the removal of the Slavonic believers from their Mother Church and the promotion of Moscow as the “Third Rome,” led the Ecumenical Patriarchate to condemn it, in 1872, as a heresy, the heresy of ethno-phyletism, which comes in flagrant contradiction with the universalism of the Gospel message as well, but also to the ancient tradition of organization and administration of our Church.

This heresy of ethno-phyletism, with its vehicle of Pan-Slavism and the division of the Patriarchate’s flock, was useful for Moscow’s goals and the cause of the hatred among the Orthodox Christians of the Balkans, manifested during the Balkan wars and the atrocities that occurred in the early 20th century.

In his speech, the Ecumenical Patriarch referred to the marginalization of religion during the period of the Soviet Union, and its re-instrumentalization in the years that followed its fall. As he said, the Russian Orthodox Church has sided with Vladimir Putin, especially after the election of Patriarch Kiril, in 2009.

Its interventions in Africa are presented as punitive actions against the Patriarchate of Alexandria for recognizing the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. It is obvious that in these conditions the peace-making role of the Church becomes very difficult.” [read more...]

COMMENTARY: By the means of bribery and blackmail, Putin's Russia has used its lapdog Orthodox Church to exercise control over other national Orthodox Churches "whose countries are too dependent on Russia, blindly support the Moscow Patriarchate, still others prefer to keep a complicit silence." It is very disconcerting to witness some Orthodox jurisdictions in both Central Europe and the U.S. supporting Moscow's policy of the "Russkii Mir" – the heresy of ethno-plyletism, thus condoning the aggression, murder, rape, destruction, and plundering of Ukraine by commemorating the UOC-MP's Metropolitan Onufrii instead of Metropolitan Epinafii, leader of the true Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), who is recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarch.

Leonid Gozman's article in The Moscow Times states – "The war started by Vladimir Putin has no goals that can be achieved. It's not about trying to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO — that can’t be resolved through warfare. It’s not about ensuring that people can speak Russian in the Donbas — they could do that anyway. It’s certainly not about destroying U.S. labs manufacturing infertility viruses targeting Russian women: those simply do not exist.

This war can only be followed by peace if it ends with the complete military and political defeat of Putin’s Russia and the dismantling of the current regime. Putin’s state must cease to exist: not Russia, but the current state, hostile to the entire world, itself included. Any other outcome would only result in a temporary ceasefire, as once Putin’s regime will simply go on another attack as soon as it's replenished its strength."

Read the rest of this article for yourself. Yevgeny Prigozhin, sponsor of the paramilitary Wagner Group, has stated his goal is to retake the former central-european Soviet empire, then Germany, France, the rest of Europe, and eventually the whole world. Newsweek's article "Could 'Putin's Chef' Yevgeny Prigozhin Be Russian Leader's Biggest Threat?" reports that Prigozhin's officials have asked his fighters returning from recent assignments "if they would agree on engaging in military activities on the territory of Russia proper, including 'urban warfare battles with automatic weaponry and mortars on the streets of Moscow.'" Things are not looking good for Putin!

Russia has offered various reasons to justify its invasion of Ukraine: NATO's eastward expansion, Ukraine's westward orientation and its request to join NATO, rampant pro-homosexual and -transexual movements encroaching upon Russia, etc. These usually call for an immediate ceasefire and Ukraine ceding territiory to Russia: see "Getting the Suffering in Ukraine Stopped" – a leftist Evangelical viewpoint. The basic issue isn't NATO or homosexuality: the countries that have joined NATO have done so voluntarily in order to protect themselves from an aggressive Russia. And Russia – a "self-proclaimed paragon of virtue" – has its own homosexual community, as we know from living in Russia for 17 years.

BTW, a good article on a Christian approach to homosexuality is "Seven Questions to Open People’s Ears to the Truth About Christianity and Homosexuality (A Practical Ministry Explainer)." This contemporary contentious issue should be seen in in the perspective of Matthew 10:14-15 – "Whoever doesn't receive you, nor hear your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake off the dust from your feet. Most assuredly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on Judgment Day than for that city." There are plenty of other sins as equally sinful as sodomy (homosexuality): greed, lust for power, fornication, gluttony, blasphemy, etc., but the greatest sin, as verse 14 states, is rejecting the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ.

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