Objectifying Olympic Athletes, Religious Freedom at the Courts, and Understanding Demisexuality - BreakPoint This Week
Breakpoint
Colson Center
4.8 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 30 July 2021
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
John and Shane discuss the place of the Olympics in framing our national identity and how we often objectify athletes as patriotic symbols akin to soldiers. This in the light of a recent situation where star gymnast Simone Biles took a mental health break from the Olympics, giving up her spot to other teammates to compete.
Shane also asks John to expand upon recent BreakPoint commentaries, specifically one piece about a new sexual identity called "Demisexual." John then considers another that looked at a call to strip parental rights from moms and dads who challenge their children's desires regarding transgender chemical and surgical procedures..
To close, Shane asks John about recent court judgments that seem outlandish. In reply, John suggests that the religious freedom court cases are likely to land in the Supreme Court, and points out that many conservative lawyers and scholars are rallying with strong and surprising legal opinions against these threats to core freedoms.
-- Story References --
Simone Biles Withdraws from Olympics Citing Mental Health
When Simone Biles scratched most of the Olympic team final, she said it was not because of a physical injury, but her mental health. This doesn't mean she felt sad, or didn't have her heart in it to compete. It means that her psychological state put her at significant physical risk. If her brain wouldn't play along with what her body knows how to do, she could be seriously injured.
All I want to say about Simone Biles is this. She is a young woman. She is truly a remarkable young woman. Her achievements are extraordinary. What's more, she's endured some dreadful things. If she were my daughter, I would be extremely proud of her. Right now, I wouldn't be giving her a lecture or even advice. I'd be giving her a hug. She's a young woman--still a girl, really. And an amazing one. And what she needs right now is simply support and encouragement--not evaluation, or assessment, or disapproval, or (for that matter) even approval of choices or decisions she's made. Just support. Just a hug, really.
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What Does "Demisexual" Say about Christian Hope?
Earlier this month, Michaela Kennedy-Cuomo, daughter of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, announced that she now identifies as "demisexual." As she described in the interview, her journey has gone from identifying as straight to identifying as bisexual to identifying as pansexual to now, finally, demisexual. This latest identification refers to someone who is sexually attracted only to people with whom one has formed an emotional attachment.
Journal of Medical Ethics Says Parents Should Lose Rights Over Children
The Journal of Medical Ethics recently released a formal paper in which they argued that parents should lose their rights to care for their children. The paper referenced an article by Dr. Lauren Notini showing a supposed benefit in treating minors with so-called gender-affirming surgeries.
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Mississippi Challenges Roe at the Supreme Court
Last Thursday, two months after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear what could be the most significant challenge to Roe v. Wade to date, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch submitted a brief clarifying how this case could impact the abortion debate. "Under the Constitution," she wrote, "may a State prohibit elective abortions before viability? Yes. Why? Because nothing in constitutional text, structure, history, or tradition supports a right to abortion."
-- In Show Mentions --
10th District Written Decision on 303 Creative Decision
-- Recommendations --
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Well, welcome to Breakpoint this week where we talk about the stories of the week, the headlines that you have read, also trends, other stories happening in our culture, looking at all of them from a Christian worldview. |
| 0:11.1 | Today we're going to recap the things that we talked about on Breakpoint commentaries throughout the week. |
| 0:15.2 | Also, of course, talking about Simone Biles, the story that dominated, I think, every news source and every Twitter feed for the week and a lot happening in the courts. |
| 0:27.6 | I'm joined today, not by Maria Bear, who's still frolicking on vacation somewhere, I believe, in an undisclosed top tropical location. |
| 0:36.3 | But with Shane Morris, former host of Breakpoint this week. |
| 0:39.7 | And I don't say that in any derogatory sense, I promise, Shane. |
| 0:43.4 | I prefer Breakpoint this week co-host Emeritus. |
| 0:46.9 | By the way, the plaque was lovely. |
| 0:49.1 | I really appreciated that. |
| 0:50.4 | And it's good to be back on again after so long. |
| 0:53.4 | I like what you guys have done with the |
| 0:54.3 | place. Well, good. You've been quite busy over at the upstream podcast. Really fun to see |
| 1:00.8 | some of the tremendous guests that you've been able to talk with. And also just the feedback |
| 1:07.0 | that we're getting on what is becoming kind of our deepest dive into content, |
| 1:13.3 | kind of fulfilling that name of, look, here's all the headlines that we talk about on |
| 1:17.7 | Breakpoint and Breakpoint this week and the ideas that are upstream from those headlines. |
| 1:23.0 | You can subscribe to Upstream wherever you get your podcast. |
| 1:25.9 | Shane, what's been happening over there? Well, first of all, if you subscribe to Upstream, make sure your podcast. Shane, what's what's been happening over there? |
| 1:28.1 | Well, first of all, if you subscribe to Upstream, make sure you don't confuse us with the |
| 1:31.6 | defunct economics podcast by the same name. Not a few people do that. In fact, I invited a guest |
| 1:37.6 | on a while back and he got back to me and said, hey, you know, Shane, I'm honored that you invited me on your podcast, but I don't think I'm really qualified to talk about economics. And I said, no, no, no, no, the Colson Center's upstream podcast, |
| 1:48.1 | the one with the orange fish swimming upstream of that one. John, my favorite thing recently, |
... |
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