SocietyWatch
Transgenderism now law in Canada
The Legislative Assembly of Ontario passed a law on June 1 that cements transgenderism into the province’s culture. The Supporting Children, Youth and Families Act, 2017 repeals and replaces the former Child and Family Services Act that governs adoption, foster care and child protection services.
The new law requires social workers to evaluate “gender identity” and “gender expression” as two new categories when determining the best interests of a child. Parents who try to dissuade a child from transgenderism are now at risk of having their children taken away if a social worker deems that it is “abusive” to the child. The new law also removes the parents’ religion as a factor to be considered. Only the child’s interests are to be considered.
“The matters to be considered in determining the best interests of a child are changed,” the law states. “The child’s views and wishes, given due weight in accordance with the child’s age and maturity … must be taken into consideration …. [T]he current act includes the religious faith in which the child is being raised [as a factor to be considered] while the new act includes the child’s race, ancestry, place of origin, color, ethnic origin, citizenship, family diversity, disability, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.”
Ontario Minister of Child and Youth Services Michael Coteau, who introduced the bill, told QP Briefing that he sees even questioning a teenager’s self-identification as transgender as abuse.
“I would consider that a form of abuse, when a child identifies one way and a caregiver is saying no, you need to do this differently,” he said. “If it’s abuse, and if it’s within the definition, a child can be removed from that environment and placed into protection where the abuse stops.”
Most Americans believe in human evolution
The percentage of American adults who believe that God created mankind in His own image has fallen to a record low. A May 22 Gallup poll found that only 38 percent of adults now accept that God created humans in their present form at some point within the past 10,000 years. For the first time since Gallup began tracking this trend in 1982, the belief that God directly created humans is no longer the most common belief.
Among U.S. adults, 38 percent believe God guided the process of human evolution over millions of years, while 19 percent believe God had no role in man’s development from less advanced life forms. That is a total of 57 percent who believe in human evolution from less advanced life forms.
This belief in human evolution is most stark among millennials. According to a Pew Research Center poll two years ago, 25 percent of Americans between ages 18 and 29 believe that God guided the process of human evolution, while 51 percent—a majority—believe God had no role in man’s development.
Australia’s household debt crisis
Australians are burdened by a crippling amount of household debt. Total household debt reached a whopping AUD2 trillion in 2016, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia. This is an average of AUD250,000 (us$190,000) per household.
Since the country’s gross domestic product in 2016 was just AUD1.6 trillion, Australia comes in third for the embarrassing “highest debt-to-gdp ratio in the world” award. Only Switzerland and Denmark have greater problems with household debt.
Australia comes in first for the highest debt-to-income ratio among developed nations, with a record 190 percent. At the peak of America’s housing bubble, which popped catastrophically in 2008, Americans’ debt-to-income ratio was 130 percent.
Australia is addicted to debt. The staggering weight is carried primarily by investors and owner-occupiers, but their knees are starting to
