This week Merry is back and we talk about Quebec's hypocritical plan to remove religious symbols from government, the Pope blaming the devil, Mormon's blaming the LGBTQ community on Satan, the SDA church's unity through division and more.

INTRO

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Dustin’ off the Degree - Scapegoats

NEWS

Quebec plans to ban religious symbols, except the cross at the National Assembly http://bit.ly/an273-quebec-symbols http://bit.ly/an273-quebec-assembly

Quebec’s incoming government has announced a new law they plan to enact that would prohibit civil servants from wearing religious symbols in the workplace. This will apply to judges, police officers, prosecutors, and teachers and means they will not be able to wear crucifixes, yammakahs, or hijabs. This does not mean that the giant crucifix above the speaker’s podium at in the National Assembly chambers will be removed, since it’s clearly historical, not religious.

Pope Francis’ favorability declines has he blames the church’s problems on the devil http://bit.ly/an273-pope-devil http://bit.ly/an273-pope-poll http://bit.ly/an273-pope-defrock

Pope Francis is trying to figure out how to respond to the ongoing crisis of people finding out about priests raping children. Last month he asked people to shut up about it, now this month he’s blaming the divisions in the church on the devil and asking Catholics to pray to St Michael to protect them. Fortunately he has fired a cardinal and a few priests.

Mormon Leader blames LGBTQ advocacy on Satan http://bit.ly/an273-mormon

During the Mormon church’s General Conference earlier this month Dallin Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency, said that:

Satan “seeks to confuse gender, to distort marriage, and to discourage childbearing, especially by parents who will raise children in truth.”

“Our knowledge of God’s revealed plan of salvation requires us to oppose many of the current social and legal pressures to retreat from traditional marriage or to make changes that confuse or alter gender or homogenize the differences between men and women.”

Adventist Church approves "Unity Document" outlining how to stop the ordination of women http://bit.ly/an273-sda-cuc http://bit.ly/an273-sda-nad

Xinjiang legalises 'reeducation' camps http://bit.ly/an273-china

The Xinjiang Autonomous Region in China has passed new legislation with the stated claim of fighting extremism. What it will do is allow for promoting religion, expanding halal beyond food, wearing a hijab or “strange” beard to be grounds to send people to “vocational skills and educational training centers”. Basically, this is legislation to cover the already in place practice of sending Uighur Muslims to re-education camps that are already holding a reported one million people.

Witch doctor tourism is booming in Kenya http://bit.ly/an273-kenya

Study finds nearly 800 dietary supplements that contain unapproved drug ingredients http://bit.ly/an273-supplements

IPCC report warns rapid changes needed to stem catastrophic global warming http://bit.ly/an273-climate

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