Morning Wire XX
[0] Pastors are sounding the alarm over a new conversion therapy law, which they say could be used to prosecute Christians for teaching the Bible.
[1] We'll hear from a pastor who's helping lead the fight against the laws.
[2] I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor -in -Chief John Bickley.
[3] It's January 15th, and this is your Saturday edition of Morning Wire.
[4] Real estate websites are now saying they won't include crime data in neighborhoods because of racial bias concerns.
[5] Which websites are wiping out the data, and does the move align with Americans' priorities?
[6] And empty shelves and supermarkets and big box stores continue to plague U .S. consumers?
[7] What's driving the shortages, and how long would they last?
[8] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[9] Stay tuned.
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[18] Canadian pastors are warning that a new conversion therapy law in their country could be used to prosecute Christians for teaching biblical sexual ethics.
[19] Meanwhile in the U .S., Indiana legislators have introduced a similar bill.
[20] In response, ministries across America, led by prominent California pastor John MacArthur, are planning to preach about the issue on January 16th in a show of peaceful protest.
[21] Here to tell us more about how bans on conversion therapy are affecting religious groups and how clergy are responding is Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham.
[22] So Megan, I think conversion therapy might be a new term for some people.
[23] Can you explain what that means?
[24] Sure.
[25] You might have heard it called reparative or ex -gay therapy.
[26] So in the past, it typically referred to any abusive or coercive treatment intended to retrain same -sex attracted people to prefer the opposite sex.
[27] And it's also been used on individuals who believe they were transgender to embrace their biological sex.
[28] So when we talk about coercive, we're talking about everything from electroshock to brain -altering drugs.
[29] But there are almost no doctors who offer that kind of treatment today.
[30] And nearly every major health care organization has discredited that kind of practice.
[31] So that's not really what these laws and bills are targeting.
[32] So what are these laws targeting?
[33] Well, there are a number of implications, but churches and religious freedom groups say that the biggest issue is that these laws effectively ban preaching and teaching that draws on biblical standards for sexuality and gender.
[34] So to give you an example, that new Canadian law, known as C4, it bans any counseling that advocates for the Christian standard that sex is reserved for one man and one woman, within marriage.
[35] Now, it could also potentially criminalize any instruction that confirms human beings are created as holy male or female from birth.
[36] So the Bible doesn't have a category for transgender, but it does have passages that teach that men aren't to dress like women and vice versa.
[37] I spoke to Pastor John McArthur about the issue, and this was just a little snippet of what he told me. So the case is being made that, yeah, this is talking about psychologists and counselors And in some ways, that's the cover.
[38] That's the cloak, the disguise.
[39] Because look, they're not after the psychologists.
[40] They're after the church.
[41] This is the camel's nose way into the tent.
[42] So this legislation bans counseling or advice to help someone turn from homosexuality or transgenderism, even if the person wants or is asking for that help.
[43] Now, in the Indiana case, it only applies to most.
[44] minors.
[45] But here's the kicker.
[46] The language of these laws is so broad, it could apply to almost any context.
[47] Say, a pastor preaches a message from the pulpit about sexuality, and the authorities interpret that as trying to potentially convince someone in the audience not to be gay or transgender.
[48] Well, in that case, they could arrest him.
[49] Same with a teacher at a Christian school.
[50] One prominent Canadian pastor, James Coates, you may recognize his name from when he defied those COVID shutdowns and kept his church open.
[51] Well, he says this legislation essentially quote, criminalizes evangelism.
[52] Wow.
[53] So it essentially says that there's certain biblical passages that are off limits for pastors to preach in church.
[54] Yeah, it does.
[55] So I think a lot of people might hear this and they might think, okay, but that's Canada.
[56] You know, they don't have the same religious protections there as we have here.
[57] No, but, you know, you have to realize that LGBT groups have really ramped up efforts to pass these conversion therapy bills here.
[58] So already, California, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, number of other states have some version on the books and activists have been working to broaden their application.
[59] And then the Democratic Party made banning conversion therapy practices an official part of its platform last August.
[60] I think it's important to note that religious freedom groups are pointing out that there are no laws or bills going the other way, that is, preventing teachers or therapists from counseling people to become transgender or homosexual.
[61] So it sounds like these laws, it's not like they're preventing people from tampering with other people's sexuality.
[62] It's really just going in that one direction of not biblical sexuality.
[63] Yeah, exactly.
[64] Now, so this was recently added to the Democratic Party platform, so it sounds like this is something that activists here have their eye on as well.
[65] How are pastors responding to that?
[66] Well, a number of ways they're filing legal challenges, issuing statements, all the things we would expect.
[67] But MacArthur hit on this idea of using the power of pulpit.
[68] So he issued a call to U .S. pastors to preach about biblical sexuality on January 16th in defiance of laws and bills like this.
[69] Now, I've spoken to contacts at his church, and they tell me that thousands of pastors across the country have signed up.
[70] So that's going to be happening all around the country tomorrow.
[71] Good to know.
[72] Megan, thanks for reporting.
[73] Yeah, anytime.
[74] That's Daily Wire Entertainment reporter, Megan Basham.
[75] Coming up, real estate websites wipe out crime data for the sake of racial equity.
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[80] At least two of the largest real estate websites, Realtor .com and Redfin, are now saying they won't provide neighborhood crime data due to concerns of racial bias.
[81] The decision comes as many Americans are looking to move away from areas that have become crime -ridden over the last few years.
[82] Daily Wire investigative reporter, Marade Allorty, is here to tell us what's going on here.
[83] So, Marade, it kind of looks like these home -buying websites are scrapping their crime data right when Americans are actually looking specifically for that information.
[84] What are the companies saying their reasons are here?
[85] So both Realtor .com and Redfin said they're concerned that the crime data is racially biased against minorities.
[86] Both companies announced on the same day in December, they won't include crime data on their websites to help guide home buyers.
[87] So on the same day, they both made the same announcement.
[88] That's right.
[89] In Realtor .com's case, they actually scrapped a crime map that some users said was the site's most useful feature.
[90] CEO David Docterot said the company has been working to, quote, break down those hurdles relating to discrimination in home ownership.
[91] Now, Realtor .com initially said that it would, quote, reimagine how to provide safety data for buyers.
[92] But the company told me last week that they don't have any updates on that.
[93] Okay.
[94] In Redfin's case, the site never had a crime map, but they were considering adding one until they decided it could reinforce racial bias against minorities.
[95] Redfin actually went even further and declared that the available crime data should not be on, quote, any other real estate site either.
[96] So they're weighing in on what other sites should be offering.
[97] They are.
[98] So did they offer any details on why they think the available crime data is biased?
[99] So Redfin did try to explain its thought process.
[100] Redfin said it considered using data from both the FBI's Uniform Crime Report and the National Crime Victimization Survey, but both of those data sources had issues such as missing unreported crimes.
[101] In a recent blog post, Christian Tobman, Redfin's chief growth officer, said that in the 2019 survey, people reporting crimes were more likely to describe their offender as young, male, and black than would be expected given the representation of those groups in the population.
[102] Tobman also said that Redfin is aware people want to know whether they'll feel safe in their home or neighborhood, but the data available simply doesn't allow them to speak accurately on that.
[103] And he cited the, quote, long history of redlining and racist housing covenants in the United States.
[104] He said there's, quote, too great a risk of this inaccuracy reinforcing racial bias.
[105] So in the end, it comes down to this equity agenda.
[106] And both of these real estate sites are extremely popular, aren't they?
[107] That's right.
[108] both Realtor .com and Redfin rank in the five most trafficked real estate websites in the U .S. as of October.
[109] So now the question is, will homebuyers just look to other sources to get crime data for their neighborhoods?
[110] Or will they end up buying homes in neighborhoods that turn out to be unsafe?
[111] Right.
[112] And meanwhile, crime has increased in a lot of places over the pandemic.
[113] Pretty much every major city, right?
[114] Yeah, that's true.
[115] A lot of major cities have seen crime spike in the last two years.
[116] As I reported just last week, this has helped fuel an exodus of people looking to move out of cities.
[117] Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, and D .C. have all seen very concerning high crime rates.
[118] Last year, Chicago had more than 800 murders, making 2021 the city's deadliest year in 25 years.
[119] Well, it looks like there's a lot of emphasis on escaping crime, but apparently not by these real estate websites.
[120] Thanks, Mairee.
[121] Thanks, John.
[122] Daily Wire, investigative reporter, Marade Allorty.
[123] Americans around the country are noticing their grocery store shelves are looking, well, empty.
[124] to tell us what's playing into the shortage is Daily Wire's Charlotte Penns Bond.
[125] So Charlotte, what's going on here?
[126] Well, a few things.
[127] Everyone remembers the toilet paper crisis of 2020, but grocery stores are beginning to look sparse again.
[128] While grocery stores in the U .S. ordinarily have 5 % to 10 % of their products out of stock at any given moment, the rate right now is around 15%.
[129] And the shortages aren't limited to certain areas of the country or to specific items.
[130] The problems are widespread.
[131] The items, especially, hard -hit are many of the essentials, like meat, fruit, vegetables, and packaged items, including cereal.
[132] Not only are these essential goods more difficult to obtain, but when you can get them, they're costing more.
[133] Right.
[134] And do we know what's causing this specific shortage for things like groceries?
[135] I mean, most of these items, I would guess, are domestically produced.
[136] Well, there are several factors at play here.
[137] Winter storms, supply chain delays, and labor shortages are all causing problems.
[138] And of course, there's the COVID factor of the Omicron variant.
[139] On Tuesday, the CEO of grocery store chain Albertsons spoke on an earnings call about the shortages.
[140] We were expecting that supply issues to get more resolved as we go into this period right now.
[141] Omicron has put a bit of a dent on that.
[142] So there are more supply challenges and we would expect more supply challenges over the next four to six weeks.
[143] And the lack of workers is also playing into this.
[144] There have also been lots of workers absent from their jobs recently, more in the past two weeks than in all of 2020.
[145] The National Grocers Association reported that grocery stores have less than their typical amount of workers, noting that lots of its members are operating with fewer than 50 % of their typical workforce.
[146] Not to mention, inflation is still an ongoing issue, which isn't helping.
[147] Right.
[148] Well, we recently reported on how the consumer price index went up 7 % last year, which is the quickest pay since 1982.
[149] Exactly.
[150] And the producer price index went up 9 .7 % in December.
[151] That's the highest calendar year rise ever recorded.
[152] Many are placing the blame directly on President Joe Biden for the lack of goods.
[153] Just last week, the hashtag bear shelves Biden turned it on Twitter.
[154] Then on Wednesday, White House National Economic Council Director Brian Dees spoke about what's being done to address the shortages.
[155] Over the course of this fall, we've seen concerns about product shortages in particular categories and otherwise.
[156] What we've seen overall, if you look at retail inventories, including grocery store inventories, they're actually higher now than they were pre -pandemic, so in a pretty healthy place.
[157] But that doesn't mean that there's logistical challenges at the bottlenecks that may be localized and to the degree that we can work with private sector companies and help ease the challenges in their private sector supply chains.
[158] Well, I think we're all hoping for a real solution and hopefully soon.
[159] Charlotte, thanks for reporting.
[160] Thanks for having me. That's Daily Wires, Charlotte Pence -Bond.
[161] Other stories we're tracking this week.
[162] Wastewater data from over 100 U .S. cities indicates the Omicron wave may be peaking.
[163] After seeing peaks in the first week of January, some cities, including Boston and New York, now show significant slowing or even precipitous drops in viral remnants.
[164] The visa of unvaccinated tennis star Novak Djokovic has once again been revoked by the Australian government.
[165] Immigration minister Alex Hawke announced the decision on Friday, claiming it was in the interest of protecting public health.
[166] The top -ranked tennis star's visa had been reinstated by a court earlier in the week.
[167] His lawyers are appealing the decision.
[168] Djokovic has won the Australian Open a record nine times.
[169] If you like this episode and are interested in hearing more, subscribe to Morning Wire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening, and give us a five -star review.
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