Written by Jerry Newcombe

After President Donald Trump named Vice President Mike Pence last week to lead nation’s battle against the coronavirus, many in the media decried the choice because supposedly Mike Pence “doesn’t believe in science.” How could he? He’s a Christian. So the logic goes.

They mock along the lines of: Maybe he just wants to pray the virus away.

The late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel quipped, “Why is Mike Pence in charge? What is his plan to stop the virus, abstinence?”

Writing for mediaite.com (2/26/20), Reed Richardson noted,

“President Donald Trump’s decision to task Mike Pence with heading up the federal government’s coronavirus response triggered an immediate backlash as critics noted the vice president’s record of doubting scientific evidence and his role in exacerbating an HIV outbreak in Indiana while he was governor.”

Richardson argues that Pence allegedly did a poor job in quelling the HIV outbreak in Indiana because for two days, he cancelled a needle exchange program and supposedly during those two days, the HIV “infection rates exploded.” After praying about it, Pence relented. An explosion of new cases in just two days?

Meanwhile, Richardson has compiled many comments from those criticizing Trump’s choice of Pence for this fight. Included in the criticisms is that he doesn’t believe in “climate science.” Why should he? Man-made catastrophic climate change is a hoax.

Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders tweeted against the choice of Pence: “Trump’s plan for the coronavirus so far:…Have VP Pence, who wanted to ‘pray away’ HIV epidemic, oversee the response…Disgusting.”

Another socialist, Democrat Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez commented:

“Mike Pence literally does not believe in science. It is utterly irresponsible to put him in charge of US coronavirus response as the world sits on the cusp of a pandemic.”

One critic tweeted:

“America is a driving force in fighting epidemics, and now the director of that fight is Mike Pence, a guy who’s [sic] scientific knowledge consists of how many times you have to pray before you’re cured of being gay.”

An M.D. remarked,

“Trump names Mike Pence as the Coronavirus Czar rather than CDC Director Robert Redfield or Surgeon General Jerome Adams. A physician should be in charge of the nation’s coronavirus response, not some dude who quarantines himself from other women when dining out.”

It seems like most of the criticisms are that Pence is unqualified to head up this task force because he is a devout Christian. Therefore, the same people who argue that a man can give birth  are pro-science, while because of his Christianity, Mike Pence is supposedly anti-science.

The canard that Christians are somehow anti-science is astounding. After all, Christian invented modern science. As the great astronomer Johannes Kepler put it, the scientist is a priest of the Most High God, “thinking His thoughts after Him.” A rational God had created a rational world, and it was the scientist’s job to try and discover God’s laws in nature.

The founder of every major branch of science was created by a Bible-believing Christian of one stripe or another. I highlighted this in a previous post. As the great evangelical thinker, Dr. Os Guinness, once told me, “Actually, many of the earliest, and some of the very greatest of scientists have been people of enormous faith.”

Daniel Lapin is an author and an orthodox Jewish rabbi. He once told me in an interview about the impact of Christianity on the world, “Sir Isaac Newton wrote far more on faith, theology and religion than he wrote on gravitation. And there is a reason for that. Once we are given a clue, wait a second, ‘In the beginning, God created heaven and earth,’ then that tells me that one way I can get to know God better is by studying heaven and earth. And that’s why, until relatively recently, all the great scientists were also great Christians.”

Lapin also said, “If you look at the last thousand years…ninety-eight percent of all the major technological scientific medical advances took place again, let’s face it, under Christendom: they were in Christian countries.”

As D. James Kennedy and I noted in our book, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?: “Both Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) and J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967) have stressed that modern science was born out of the Christian world view…..Whitehead [in his 1925 book, Science and the Modern World] said that Christianity is the mother of science because of ‘the medieval insistence on the rationality of God.’”

The arguments that Mike Pence is disqualified from serving as the top executive to fight the spread of this virus because of his Christian commitment makes no sense.

Pence has a good record of mobilizing people to work together for the common good—and to do so in a humble attitude of “servant leadership.”

This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.

Last time I introduced the new and impressively researched book from MassResistance, which runs about 500 pages and adds another 100 pages of footnotes. These days when the meaning of the word “gay” has been radically changed by leftwing radicals, this book puts the lie to the idea that the word, as used, is a synonym of “happy.”

Social conservatives should buy a copy of this book so they can have the facts about “What the Medical and Psychological Research Reveals.”

In Tammy Bruce’s 2003 book The Death of Right and Wrong, Bruce, a self-described lesbian conservative, describes many of her fellow LGBTers with harsh language:

For people whose entire identity and reason to live is based in their sexuality, what do they need to do in order to fit comfortably into our society? They must work to sexualize every part of society…

From where does this madness spring? Why this compulsion to change our society’s culture to mirror the Left Elite’s own worldview? This pattern of the Left Elite’s projecting their issues onto society isn’t as odd as you may think.

It makes perfect sense, according to the most respected psychoanalysts of our age. Childhood trauma, stress disorders, and the resulting malignant narcissism all play a part in the Left’s victim mentality and in their effort, mostly subconscious, to shape our world to mirror their own damaged psyches.

In chapter 3 of the book, MassResistance surveys the mental health data and provides footnotes for the reader to learn more. “There is widespread agreement among researchers,” the chapter begins, “that the GLB population shows significantly higher incidence of mental health problems than heterosexuals.”

Here is the sad list: “anxiety, depression, suicidal thinking and attempts, substance abuse, eating disorders, promiscuity, sex addiction, risk taking, and unstable relationships. If that isn’t bad enough, chapter 4 focuses on GLB “partner abuse.”

Those who read The Health Hazards of Homosexuality, may, like me, be surprised at the long list of physical ailments that are common in the GLB community — and yes, that includes lesbians. While the list is longer for men, bisexual men play the role of helping spread many of the diseases to women.

This is not an exhaustive list: HIV/AIDS, HPV, condyloma, genital warts, anal warts, anal cancer, Kaposi’s sarcoma, genital herpes, molluscum, viral hepatitus, hepatitus A, hepatitus B, hepatitus C, chlamydia and LGV, gonorrhea, and syphilis. Okay, that’s enough. There are many more, but you get the picture.

There were many other things I had been unaware of beforehand. Here are just a few of them:

“Bathhouses are accepted as ‘mainstream’ by homosexual organizations.” There is actually something called the North American Bathhouse Association. For some reason I was under the impression that their “disproportionate impact on the spread of disease” had led health organizations to shut them down.

If you were to read closely the pages about “fisting,” you could probably be counted as an expert on the topic. That was one of the sections I just paged-through. Thanks, but no thanks. But again, it’s important information, albeit completely awful to be made aware of.

If you’re still reading this article, I applaud your stamina. The good news is that we’re almost done. Just one more thing. From chapter 8:

Homosexuals would deny that any in their community engage in bestiality (intercourse with animals). If that is so, why is there a section discussing it at the pro-homosexual AIDS advice site, The Body? Why are bestiality videos sold at the International Mr. Leather event?

I’ll spare you the titles of the videos given as examples.

In this information age, it is astounding how much information remains mostly, and purposefully hidden. The politicized health organizations are as much to blame as the Leftist media and others advancing the LGBT agenda. This book can go a long way to helping solve this information problem — but only if social conservatives buy it and help spread the word.

People are “suffering unnecessarily,” as MassResistance’s executive director Brian Camenker writes in the Forward. The Introduction of the book states it clearly:

The mainstreaming of homosexuality is a serious threat to the public health and to the health of individuals caught up in the homosexual lifestyle.

The American public is not being told how dangerous homosexuality is to the physical and mental health of its practitioners, as well as to our larger society.

Click here to learn more about the book and to buy a copy.

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After years of lobbying by homosexual activists, the FDA has lifted its lifetime ban on “men who have sex with men” (MSM)—which is the Centers for Disease Control designation—from donating blood. Homosexual activists view the ban as unjustly discriminatory, a relic from the beginning of the AIDS crisis when testing was far less effective. The change means that donations from MSM who claim not to have had homoerotic encounters for one year will be now be accepted.

While many homosexuals claim the lifetime ban was based on “homophobia,” they can’t explain why it didn’t apply to lesbians. Facts are such stubborn and inconvenient things.

While many cheer this decision as a victory for science, others are wondering if it’s a political victory for male homosexual activists.

The FDA explains that “its policies to date have helped reduce HIV transmission rates from blood transfusions from 1 in 2,500 to 1 in 1.47 million.” Further, the FDA cites an Australian study that showed no increase in HIV/AIDS transmission rates following their switching from a lifetime ban to a one-year deferral period.

News reports cite similar policy shifts in other developed countries. For example, the United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden, and Japan all have one-year deferral periods, and Canada and New Zealand have five-year deferral periods. It is interesting to note, however, the HIV/AIDS adult (ages 15-49) prevalence rates in these countries as compared to the United States:

• United Kingdom: .3%
• Australia: .2%
• Sweden: .2%
• Japan: <.1%
• New Zealand: .1%
• Canada: .2%
• United States: .6%

The United States has twice the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate as the country with the next highest rate.

The reason for a one-year deferral period is that during what is called the “eclipse” phase” or “window period,” the HIV virus has infected the first cell but is present at levels undetectable by current testing. The eclipse phase is estimated to last from 7-90 days. Therefore, the one-year deferral period is viewed as more than sufficient.

The ban on donations from MSM grew out of concern not just for HIV/AIDS transmission but also for the transmission of hepatitis. According to the CDC the risk of transmission of acute hepatitis, which is caused by the hepatitis C virus, is just under “1 chance per 2 million units transfused.” It has also been reported that the rate of hepatitis C among MSM is approximately 5%, whereas the rate among the general population is .78%. Since the rate of hepatitis C among MSM is over 500% higher than the rate among the general population, will the lifting of the ban on this high-risk group donating blood increase the number of people infected by hepatitis C?

The CDC also reports that “[a]mong adults, an estimated 10% of new hepatitis A cases and 20% of new Hepatitis B cases occur in MSM.” So, 10% of new hepatitis A cases and 20% of new hepatitis B cases come from a demographic group that the CDC claims constitutes 2% of the population. A 2011 study reports that the level of Hepatitis B infections per donations is “1:500,000 to 1:1,000,000.” Will this rate remain steady or increase now that MSM are permitted to donate blood?

The FDA assures the public that “[m]oving forward, the FDA will continue to reevaluate and update its blood donor deferral policies as new scientific information becomes available.” Let’s hope and pray that the new scientific information does not include an increase of even a small percentage in the HIV/AIDS or hepatitis transmission rates. And let’s hope and pray that when screened, men who have sex with men will be truthful about the duration of time since their last homoerotic encounter.

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