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'Tell it to God': Evangelical pastor spars with Ted Cruz over Uganda’s 'Kill the Gays' law
June 01, 2023
A Florida pastor with ties to GOP Governor Ron DeSantis insists his recent remarks attacking U.S. Senator Ted Cruz should not be viewed as an endorsement of the biblical call for gay people to be executed. But he’s not saying he is opposed to it either.
As The Daily Beast first reported, Tom Ascol, the senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida, blasted the Texas Republican Senator, who surprised many when he called Uganda’s new “Kill the Gays” law “horrific & wrong.”
“Any law criminalizing homosexuality or imposing the death penalty for ‘aggravated homosexuality’ is grotesque & an abomination. ALL civilized nations should join together in condemning this human rights abuse,” Cruz actually tweeted.
That would be the same Ted Cruz who in 2015 claimed gay people were waging a “jihad” against Christians.
Pastor Ascol, who delivered the invocation at Governor DeSantis’ second inauguration, has been called the man who could bring evangelicals from Donald Trump and deliver them to Ron DeSantis.
On Tuesday Ascol tweeted, “Tell it to God, Ted.”
He then quoted the Book of Leviticus, writing: “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.”
“Was this law God gave to His old covenant people ‘horrific and wrong’?” Ascol asked.
Ascol two hours later tweeted, “Amazing how many professing Christians, even self-designated ‘conservative’ ones, are embarrassed by God’s Word. Just quote some unpopular words of God & watch what happens. Many so-called Christians react the same way that unashamed unbelievers do. It’s a commentary.”
Cruz did not reply, but some others did.
David Smith, whose Twitter bio reads, “25 yrs trusting Jesus!” replied: “We no longer live under the Levitical laws @tomascol.”
“If so, we would have to apply the same standard to adultery. (Leviticus 20:10) I agree that all of these things are sin, but where does grace come in? Jesus was clearly in no hurry to condemn in John 8:1-11.”
Pastor Ascol apparently liked the reply from Steven Hasty, which reads: “Many of you are missing the point. If you’re understanding this Tweet to mean Pastor Tom thinks we should start executing homosexuals, you’re missing it. Instead, he’s challenging the standards of Cruz. Where does Cruz derive his standards?”
Apparently whether or not it’s acceptable to execute LGBTQ people isn’t an issue (except it is, since the entire “debate” its based on Uganda’s new “Kill the Gays” law.)
“Pastor Tom” told Hasty, “You are exactly right. Some people don’t read carefully. Others, evidently, don’t reason well. Thanks for clarifying & accurately expressing what I *actually* wrote. Keep pressing on.”
Ascol didn’t say whether or not he supports the execution of LGBTQ people, he’s merely debating, as Hasty put it, “standards.”
The Daily Beast also reports, “Ascol’s tweet…certainly seemed to suggest that the execution of gay people had a biblical blessing,” and notes that “even on careful reading, most reasonable people would assume Ascol was suggesting that Uganda’s anti-gay law is not intrinsically ‘horrific and wrong.'”
Ascol, The Beast adds, “has repeatedly called for homicide charges against any woman who has an abortion for whatever reason. He has compared choosing to terminate a pregnancy to retaining a killer for hire.”
“’It’s like saying if I don’t murder someone, but I just contracted a murderer to murder someone, I’m not culpable,’ Ascol said on a Christian radio show in 2022.”
The tweet posted to the top of Ascol’s Twitter page says, “If your commitment to the authority of Scripture is limited by cultural sensitivities then it’s not really Scripture’s authority to which you are committed.”
Supporting or opposing the execution of LGBTQ people isn’t about “cultural sensitivities.”
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Donald Trump on Thursday addressed the latest revelation in the widening classified documents probe in a social media rant in which the former president assailed federal authorities and touted his robust poll numbers.
CNN on Wednesday reported that federal prosecutors are in possession of an audio recording of Donald Trump in which the former president admits he kept a classified document describing a potential attack on Iran.
Trump is heard on the recording suggesting that, although he wishes to share the information, he’s aware that as a former president he can’t declassify them, multiple sources told the cable news channel, indicating he understood he was in possession of classified material.
CNN has not heard the audio.
Trump described the latest revelation as part of an ongoing effort to use the legal system to undermine his political viability.
“Just like the Democrat inspired Fake Dossier, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, the ‘No Collusion’ Mueller Report, and so much else,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website.
Trump claims the “the illegally leaked, by the DOJ, FBI, and Special “Prosecutor,” Document story is a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt of all time and, like all of the others, Fake News!”
The former president denied wrongdoing.
“I did nothing wrong,” Trump wrote, “they did, and have been doing so for a long time. GREAT POLL NUMBERS - ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!”
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'Backlash to the backlash' is seeing reddest parts of Florida rise against DeSantis' right-wing crusade: columnist
June 01, 2023
The wave of right-wing populism that carried Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) to a decisive reelection victory in November appears to have hit a wall.
A Tuesday night school board meeting held in a county DeSantis won handily saw furious teachers, students and parents railing against right-wing efforts to reshape the Sunshine State’s educational system – a clear sign of an emerging “backlash to the backlash, Washington Post columnists Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman wrote Thursday.
“By now, it’s obvious that the reactionary culture warriors who want to reshape American education are inspiring a serious liberal counter-mobilization in response,” Sargent and Waldman write in an opinion piece for The Post published under the headline “In a deep red Florida county, a student-teacher revolt shames the right.”
“Remarkably, this backlash to the backlash is gaining momentum in some of the reddest parts of the country.”
The meeting was held in Hernando County, which DeSantis won by 41 points, and which has become the focus of national media attention after fifth-grade teacher Jenna Barbee showed her class the Disney film “Strange World,” which features an openly gay character.
The Florida Department of Education is investigating Barbee over whether she violated the state’s new “don’t say gay” law that bans instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation.
Sargent and Waldman write that “The scene featured teachers pointedly declaring that right-wing attacks are driving them to quit, even as parents and students forcefully stood up on their behalf, demanding a halt to the hysteria.”
Barbee is resigning from the Hernando County School District and she isn’t alone, according to the report.
“No one is teaching your kids to be gay,” Alyssa Marano, a math teacher who has resigned from the district, said at Tuesday’s meeting.
“Sometimes, they just are gay. I have math to teach. I literally don’t have time to teach your kids to be gay.”
Sargent and Waldman write that “the real story of the night was the response. Again and again, parents and students forcefully defended teachers. They cast the right’s attacks, the censoring of educators and the removal of books as the real threats to education.”
“War on woke?” one student said. “More like war on your children’s future.”
Sarah Jones writes for New York Magazine that the blowback to far-right efforts to shape education seen at the Hernando County district are happening throughout the country, as “liberal parents in states as far-flung as New York, North Carolina and Montana are organizing local groups, pressuring school boards and running for office to challenge the right’s education takeover.”
“Just as a car wreck commands attention, the ugliness of right-wing culture-warring often transfixes the news media,” Sargent and Waldman write.
“But another story is beckoning: Ordinary parents everywhere and their elected representatives are responding, and declaring that they’ve had enough.”
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