Pictures: Downtown foot-washing prayer service ahead of Easter weekend
Scenes from the Holy Thursday prayer service presented by the Faith Leader Network of the Immigrants Are Welcomed Here Coalition of Orlando and the Hope CommUnity Center of Apopka, outside the Federal Immigration Court in downtown Orlando, Thursday, April 17, 2025. Local pastors and clergy from multiple faiths, immigrant families, elected officials, and community advocates participated in The Washing of the Feet service, known as Maundy, a religious rite observed by various Christian denominations leading into Easter weekend. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
MAUNDY WASHING OF THE FEET — Sister Ann Rowland, left, with Bishop David Maldonado, is greeted by a protester during a Holy Thursday prayer service presented by the Faith Leader Network of the Immigrants Are Welcomed Here Coalition of Orlando and the Hope CommUnity Center of Apopka, outside the Federal Immigration Court in downtown Orlando, Thursday, April 17, 2025. Local pastors and clergy from multiple faiths, immigrant families, elected officials, and community advocates participated in The Washing of the Feet service, known as Maundy, a religious rite observed by various Christian denominations leading into Easter weekend. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel) MAUNDY WASHING OF THE FEET — Bishop David Maldonado washes the feet of Sister Gail Grimes during a Holy Thursday prayer service presented by the Faith Leader Network of the Immigrants Are Welcomed Here Coalition of Orlando and the Hope CommUnity Center of Apopka, outside the Federal Immigration Court in downtown Orlando, Thursday, April 17, 2025. Local pastors and clergy from multiple faiths, immigrant families, elected officials, and community advocates participated in The Washing of the Feet service, known as Maundy, a religious rite observed by various Christian denominations leading into Easter weekend. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel) MAUNDY WASHING OF THE FEET — Sister Ann Rowland, right, hugs a friend during a Holy Thursday prayer service presented by the Faith Leader Network of the Immigrants Are Welcomed Here Coalition of Orlando and the Hope CommUnity Center of Apopka, outside the Federal Immigration Court in downtown Orlando, Thursday, April 17, 2025. Local pastors and clergy from multiple faiths, immigrant families, elected officials, and community advocates participated in The Washing of the Feet service, known as Maundy, a religious rite observed by various Christian denominations leading into Easter weekend. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel) MAUNDY WASHING OF THE FEET — Bishop William Cavins washes the feet of Bishop David Maldonado during a Holy Thursday prayer service presented by the Faith Leader Network of the Immigrants Are Welcomed Here Coalition of Orlando and the Hope CommUnity Center of Apopka, outside the Federal Immigration Court in downtown Orlando, Thursday, April 17, 2025. Local pastors and clergy from multiple faiths, immigrant families, elected officials, and community advocates participated in The Washing of the Feet service, known as Maundy, a religious rite observed by various Christian denominations leading into Easter weekend. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel) MAUNDY WASHING OF THE FEET — Bishop William Cavins washes the feet of Sister Ann Kendrick of the Hope CommUnity Center during a Holy Thursday prayer service presented by the Faith Leader Network of the Immigrants Are Welcomed Here Coalition of Orlando and the Hope CommUnity Center of Apopka, outside the Federal Immigration Court in downtown Orlando, Thursday, April 17, 2025. Local pastors and clergy from multiple faiths, immigrant families, elected officials, and community advocates participated in The Washing of the Feet service, known as Maundy, a religious rite observed by various Christian denominations leading into Easter weekend. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel) MAUNDY WASHING OF THE FEET — Protesters hold signs during a Holy Thursday prayer service presented by the Faith Leader Network of the Immigrants Are Welcomed Here Coalition of Orlando and the Hope CommUnity Center of Apopka, outside the Federal Immigration Court in downtown Orlando, Thursday, April 17, 2025. Local pastors and clergy from multiple faiths, immigrant families, elected officials, and community advocates participated in The Washing of the Feet service, known as Maundy, a religious rite observed by various Christian denominations leading into Easter weekend. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel) MAUNDY WASHING OF THE FEET — A protester holds a sign during a Holy Thursday prayer service, in the baackground, presented by the Faith Leader Network of the Immigrants Are Welcomed Here Coalition of Orlando and the Hope CommUnity Center of Apopka, outside the Federal Immigration Court in downtown Orlando, Thursday, April 17, 2025. Local pastors and clergy from multiple faiths, immigrant families, elected officials, and community advocates participated in The Washing of the Feet service, known as Maundy, a religious rite observed by various Christian denominations leading into Easter weekend. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel) MAUNDY WASHING OF THE FEET — Community Organizer Frank Rivera holds up a sign calling worshipers during a Holy Thursday prayer service presented by the Faith Leader Network of the Immigrants Are Welcomed Here Coalition of Orlando and the Hope CommUnity Center of Apopka, outside the Federal Immigration Court in downtown Orlando, Thursday, April 17, 2025. Local pastors and clergy from multiple faiths, immigrant families, elected officials, and community advocates participated in The Washing of the Feet service, known as Maundy, a religious rite observed by various Christian denominations leading into Easter weekend. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel) MAUNDY WASHING OF THE FEET — Protesters hold signs during a Holy Thursday prayer service presented by the Faith Leader Network of the Immigrants Are Welcomed Here Coalition of Orlando and the Hope CommUnity Center of Apopka, outside the Federal Immigration Court in downtown Orlando, Thursday, April 17, 2025. Local pastors and clergy from multiple faiths, immigrant families, elected officials, and community advocates participated in The Washing of the Feet service, known as Maundy, a religious rite observed by various Christian denominations leading into Easter weekend. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel) MAUNDY WASHING OF THE FEET — Protesters hold signs during a Holy Thursday prayer service presented by the Faith Leader Network of the Immigrants Are Welcomed Here Coalition of Orlando and the Hope CommUnity Center of Apopka, outside the Federal Immigration Court in downtown Orlando, Thursday, April 17, 2025. Local pastors and clergy from multiple faiths, immigrant families, elected officials, and community advocates participated in The Washing of the Feet service, known as Maundy, a religious rite observed by various Christian denominations leading into Easter weekend. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel) MAUNDY WASHING OF THE FEET — Protesters hold signs during a Holy Thursday prayer service presented by the Faith Leader Network of the Immigrants Are Welcomed Here Coalition of Orlando and the Hope CommUnity Center of Apopka, outside the Federal Immigration Court in downtown Orlando, Thursday, April 17, 2025. Local pastors and clergy from multiple faiths, immigrant families, elected officials, and community advocates participated in The Washing of the Feet service, known as Maundy, a religious rite observed by various Christian denominations leading into Easter weekend. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel) Show Caption1 of 12MAUNDY WASHING OF THE FEET — Bishop William Cavins washes the feet of Sister Ann Rowland, as Bishop David Maldonado looks on, during a Holy Thursday prayer service presented by the Faith Leader Network of the Immigrants Are Welcomed Here Coalition of Orlando and the Hope CommUnity Center of Apopka, outside the Federal Immigration Court in downtown Orlando, Thursday, April 17, 2025. Local pastors and clergy from multiple faiths, immigrant families, elected officials, and community advocates participated in The Washing of the Feet service, known as Maundy, a religious rite observed by various Christian denominations leading into Easter weekend. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)Expand
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New York Post
8 hours ago
- New York Post
No more LGBTQ brainwashing — SCOTUS school smackdown revives parents' rights
The Supreme Court on Friday handed down a sweeping victory for parental rights and religious freedom — and dealt a devastating blow to the progressive zealots bent on brainwashing America's children. In Mahmoud v. Taylor, Montgomery County, Md., parents fought their local school board over a policy requiring young children to read books centered on LGBTQ+ identity. The justices ruled 6-3 in favor of the parents, who sought the right to opt their kids out of lessons that undermine their religious beliefs. In his majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito let the books speak for themselves via color reproductions of their pages. There was no better way to demonstrate that these were not books promoting tolerance and acceptance, but radical attempts at indoctrination. 'Pride Puppy,' part of the district's kindergarten curriculum, includes a word search listing topics detailed in the book's illustrations: drag king, drag queen, high heels, lip ring, lace, leather. Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore. Another book, 'Born Ready,' features a very young child who identifies as transgender. In it, the character's older brother protests, 'This doesn't make sense. You can't become a boy. You have to be born one.' Their mother scolds him: 'Not everything needs to make sense. This is about love.' The message is clear: If you want issues of sex and gender to make sense, you aren't a loving person. The school board, Alito wrote, 'encourages the teachers to correct the children and accuse them of being 'hurtful' when they express a degree of religious confusion.' They use the books to do it. At the heart of the case was the claim that parents' religious rights were being violated. But the deeper reality remained unspoken: The school-district progressives weren't simply undermining the beliefs of Muslim, Christian and Mormon parents. They were trying to induct the children of these families into their own ideology — one that dismisses biological reality and enshrines 'love,' as they define it, as the only acceptable truth. The conflict also exposed a stark divide between the progressive activists who run the county school system and the religious, largely immigrant families the district serves. Accustomed to lockstep minority support, leftist county officials were blindsided when the communities they claim to represent pushed back. And when the minority parents protested, the progressives lashed out. The curriculum dispute 'puts some Muslim families on the same side of an issue as white supremacists and outright bigots,' Montgomery County Council member Kristin Mink complained in one contentious public meeting. School board member Lynne Harris disparaged a Muslim student who testified at another meeting, telling the press she felt 'kind of sorry' for the girl and speculating she was 'parroting dogma' she'd learned from her parents. Get opinions and commentary from our columnists Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters The Council on American-Islamic Relations demanded apologies from both officials. When progressives rallied outside the Supreme Court during oral arguments, speaker after speaker insisted the district's policy was about teaching tolerance to children of supposedly bigoted parents. After the ruling came down, the district declared in an email to staff, 'This decision complicates our work creating a welcoming, inclusive and equitable school system.' But if tolerance and inclusivity were truly its goals, the county would have sought to respect the values of religious families. No, the objective was ideological control over every child in the county's schools. The progressive activists' message was brutally simple: Our way or the highway. This is what we do in public schools. If you don't like it, you can pay to educate your kids privately, or homeschool them yourself. Alito flatly rejected that argument. 'Public education is a public benefit,' he wrote, 'and the government cannot 'condition' its 'availability' on parents' willingness to accept a burden on their religious exercise.' In addition, he observed, 'since education is compulsory, the parents are not being asked simply to forgo a public benefit.' This case laid bare the hypocrisy of progressive ideology — and the flimsiness of those convictions when challenged. Progressives in Montgomery County had a choice: To respect the religious beliefs of minority families, or to force them to abandon those beliefs and cave to leftist views on gender and sexuality. Or, of course, the district could have dropped its leftist indoctrination mission altogether. Rather than offering an unbiased public education to these low-income, immigrant religious families, school officials told them to leave if they wouldn't comply. Mahmoud v. Taylor revealed the left's true colors on tolerance and privilege. But with its decision, the Supreme Court sent an unmistakable message: Parents' rights are not subject to the whims of progressive activists — and they don't evaporate at the schoolhouse door. Bethany Mandel writes and podcasts at The Mom Wars.
USA Today
2 days ago
- USA Today
Tens of thousands march against Hungary's government, for LGBT rights
Crowds in Budapest waved rainbow flags and carried signs mocking Prime Minister Viktor Orban amid a new ban on Pride marches. BUDAPEST, June 28 (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of protesters marched through Hungary's capital on June 28 as a banned LGBTQ+ rights rally swelled into a mass demonstration against the government. Crowds filled a square near Budapest's city hall before setting off across the city, some waving rainbow flags, others carrying signs mocking Prime Minister Viktor Orban. "This is about much more, not just about homosexuality, .... This is the last moment to stand up for our rights," Eszter Rein Bodi, one of the marchers, said. More: They were out and their companies were proud. Then came the DEI backlash. "None of us are free until everyone is free," one sign read. Small groups of far-right counter-protesters attempted to disrupt the parade, but police kept them away and diverted the route of the march to avoid any clashes. Orban's nationalist government has gradually curtailed the rights of the LGBTQ+ community in the past decade, and its lawmakers passed a law in March that allows for the ban of Pride marches, citing the need to protect children. Opponents see the move as part of a wider crackdown on democratic freedoms ahead of a national election next year when Orban will face a strong opposition challenger. Organizers said participants arrived from 30 different countries, including 70 members of the European Parliament. More than 30 embassies have expressed support for the march and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called on Hungarian authorities to let the parade go ahead. Seventy Hungarian civil society groups, including the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, Transparency International Hungary and the Hungarian Helsinki Commission, published an open letter on June 27 in support of the march, saying the law that led to the police ban "serves to intimidate the entire society". 'Legal consequences' "The right to assembly is a basic human right, and I don't think it should be banned. Just because someone does not like the reason why you go to the street, or they do not agree with it, you still have the right to do so," Krisztina Aranyi, another marcher, said. Budapest mayor Gergely Karacsony tried to circumvent the law by organising the march as a municipal event, which he said does not need a permit. Police however banned the event, arguing that it fell under the scope of the child protection law. Orban, whose government promotes a Christian-conservative agenda, provided some clues on June 27 about what participants can expect when he warned of "legal consequences" for organising and attending the march. Earlier this week Justice Minister Bence Tuzson warned in a letter sent to some foreign embassies in Budapest that organizing a prohibited event is punishable by one year in jail, while attending counts as a misdemeanour. The law that allows for the ban of Pride lets police impose fines and use facial recognition cameras to identify people who attend. When asked about the threat of a one-year jail term, Karacsony said at a press briefing on June 27 that such a sentence would only boost his popularity. "But I cannot take it seriously," he said. Making the march a key topic of political discourse has allowed the Orban government to take the initiative back from the opposition and mobilise its voter base, said Zoltan Novak, an analyst at the Centre for Fair Political Analysis think tank. "In the past 15 years, Fidesz decided what topics dominated the political world," he said, noting that this has become more difficult as Orban's party has faced an increasing challenge from centre-right opposition leader Peter Magyar's Tisza party, which has a 15-point lead over Orban's Fidesz in a recent poll. Tisza, which has been avoiding taking a strong position on gay rights issues, did not specify in response to Reuters questions whether it believed the Pride march was lawful, but said those attending deserved the state's protection. "Peter Magyar has called on the Hungarian authorities and police to protect the Hungarian people this Saturday, and on other days as well, even if it means standing up against the arbitrariness of power," its press office said. Magyar himself would not attend.
The Hill
2 days ago
- The Hill
Sotomayor says public education is doomed without mandatory gay and trans story hour
The end is nigh. That seems to be the message this week from the three liberal justices at the Supreme Court when faced with the nightmarish prospect of parents being able to remove their young children from mandatory classes on gay, lesbian and transgender material. The decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor was a roaring victory for parents in public schools. The Montgomery County, Md. school system fought to require the reading of 13 'LGBTQ+-inclusive' texts in the English and Language Arts curriculum for kids from pre-K through 12th grade. That covers children just 5-11 years old. The children are required to read or listen to stories like 'Prince & Knight' about two male knights who marry each other, and 'Love Violet' about two young girls falling in love. Another, 'Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope,' discusses a biological girl who begins a transition to being a boy. Teachers were informed that this was mandatory reading, which must be assigned, and that families would not be allowed to opt out. The guidelines for teachers made clear that students had to be corrected if they expressed errant or opposing views of gender. If a child questions how someone born a boy could become a girl, teachers were encouraged to correct the child and declare, 'That comment is hurtful!' Even if a student merely asks, 'What's transgender?,' teachers are expected to say, 'When we're born, people make a guess about our gender and label us 'boy' or 'girl' based on our body parts. Sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong.' Teachers were specifically told to '[d]isrupt' thinking or values opposing transgender views. Many families sought to opt out of these lessons. The school allows for such opt-outs for a variety of reasons, but the Board ruled out withdrawals for these lessons. Ironically, it noted that so many families were upset and objecting that it would be burdensome to allow so many kids to withdraw. The Montgomery County school system is one of the most diverse in the nation. And Christian, Muslim, and other families objected to the mandatory program as undermining their religious and moral values. The majority on the Supreme Court ruled that, as with other opt-outs, Montgomery County must allow parents to withdraw their children from these lessons. The response from liberal groups was outrage. Liberal sites declared 'another victory for right-wing culture warriors,' even though the public overwhelmingly supported these parents. However, the most overwrought language came not from liberal advocates but liberal justices. Justice Sonia Sotomayor declared that there 'will be chaos for this nation's public schools' and both education and children will 'suffer' if parents are allowed to opt their children out of these lessons. She also worried about the 'chilling effect' of the ruling, which would make schools more hesitant to offer such classes in the future. It was a particularly curious concern, since parents would like teachers to focus more on core subjects and show greater restraint in pursuing social agendas. The majority pushed back against 'the deliberately blinkered view' of the three liberal justices on dismissing the objections of so many families to these lessons. Nevertheless, even though such material was only recently added and made mandatory, the liberal justices declared that 'the damage to America's public education system will be profound' and 'threatens the very essence of public education.' The truth is that this decision could actually save public education in the U.S. Previously, during oral argument, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had shocked many when she dismissed the objections of parents, stating that they could simply remove their children from public schools. It was a callous response to many families who do not have the means to pay for private or parochial schools. Yet, it is a view previously expressed by many Democratic politicians and school officials. State Rep. Lee Snodgrass (D-Wis.) once insisted: 'If parents want to 'have a say' in their child's education, they should homeschool or pay for private school tuition out of their family budget.' Iowa school board member Rachel Wall said: 'The purpose of a public ed is to not teach kids what the parents want. It is to teach them what society needs them to know. The client is not the parent, but the community.' These parents still harbor the apparently misguided notion that these remain their children. Today, many are indeed following Jackson's advice and leaving public schools. The opposition of public-sector unions and many Democratic politicians to school vouchers is precisely because families are fleeing the failing public school systems. Once they are no longer captive to the system, they opt for private schools that offer a greater focus on basic educational subjects and less emphasis on social activism. Our public schools are imploding. Some are lowering standards to achieve 'equity' and graduating students without proficiency skills. Families are objecting to the priority given to political and social agendas to make their kids better people when they lack of math, science, and other skills needed to compete in an increasingly competitive marketplace. This decision may well save public schools from themselves by encouraging a return to core educational priorities. It may offer some cover for more moderate school officials to push back against such demands for mandatory readings to young children. What the majority calls 'the deliberately blinkered view' of the dissent could just as well describe the delusional position of public school boards and unions. Schools are facing rising debt and severe declines in enrollment, yet unions in states like Illinois are demanding even more staff increases and larger expenditures. The liberal justices are right about one thing: This is a fight over 'the essence of public education.' However, it is the parents, not the educators (or these justices) who are trying to restore public education to meet the demands for a diverse nation. Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the best-selling author of 'The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.'
