Unplanned depict Johnson’s account of her experience as a formerly enthusiastic Planned Parenthood employee, and how – as she describes it – she gradually became jaded, then horrified by her first sight of an abortion. The movie ends with her quitting her job at the clinic to join The Coalition for Life, an anti-abortion group down the street. In real life, Johnson has spent her time since quitting Planned Parenthood in 2009 becoming a prominent advocate for anti-abortion, publishing the memoir on which the film is based in 2011.

Unplanned was the fourth-highest grossing movie in the US on its opening weekend (March 29-31), and has already received endorsements from Mike Pence, Donald Trump Jr. and Ted Cruz. The film’s trailer promises viewers they will “discover the truth,” but the reality is one of manipulation, misrepresentation, and the invigoration of a nationwide trend which threatens the safety of women and their rights over their bodies.

The reach of such films must not be underestimated. Another anti-abortion movie, Gosnell, was screened by the White House last week. President Trump was apparently not present, but he has already proven himself an enthusiastic proponent of blatant abortion lies for the sake of political capital - claiming in a statement in February that New York lawmakers would happily “allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth.”

A bizarre anti-gay protest in Iowa has seen a Pete Buttigieg impersonator whipping a man dressed up as Jesus Christ while being egged on by Satan.

Gay presidential candidate Buttigieg has been canvassing in Iowa this week where he has been met by a number of anti-LGBT+ protesters.


In the bizarre scene—videos of which were shared online by Marcus DiPaola and Charlotte Alter—a man dressed up as Satan shouted: “Beat him Peter, beat him. I hate this guy. More blood, Peter. Every vote is a lash on the back of Christ.”

Before the European Enlightenment, virtually all New Testament experts assumed that handed-down stories about Jesus were first recorded by eye witnesses and were largely biographical. That is no longer the case.

Assuming that the Jesus stories had their beginnings in one single person rather than a composite of several—or even in mythology itself—he probably was a wandering Jewish teacher in Roman-occupied Judea who offended the authorities and was executed. Beyond that, any knowledge about the figure at the center of the Christian religion is remarkably open to debate (and vigorously debated among relevant scholars).
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University of Sheffield’s Philip Davies—who believes that Christianity probably began with a single Jesus, acknowledges that the evidence is fragile and problematic. Davies argues that the only way the field of New Testament studies can maintain any academic respectability is by acknowledging the possibility that Jesus didn’t exist. He further notes this wouldn’t generate any controversy in most fields of ancient history, but that New Testament studies is not a normal case.

White supremacy, and the violence that it spawns, can no longer be lampooned as a postgraduate talking point. It is unpicking the now very fragile fabric that’s keeping us all together.

The number of rightwing extremists arrested in Europe nearly doubled between 2016 and 2017; there was a 74% increase in antisemitic offences in France last year; and the number of hate groups in the US is the highest ever. According to a 2017 Washington Post/ABC poll roughly one in 10 Americans believes that holding Nazi views is acceptable – assuming very few of those were black or Latino, that’s a lot of white people in a very dark place.

Were we to borrow the language directed against Muslims at this point, we would be talking about a “death cult” deep in the Caucasian psyche and calling on moderate, law-abiding members of the white community to step up and speak out. There would be lofty lectures on the Enlightenment and liberal democracy and integration. We would be talking travel bans, rendition and muscular liberalism. The Home Office would revoke Boris Johnson’s citizenship on the basis that he was born in the US and his presence here is not conducive to the public good.
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It should be clear by now, if it was not before, that any concession that is made to bigots does not satisfy but emboldens them. That is, in no small part, how we got here. They need to call it out both in the chamber and on the doorstep. If it came from any other group they would have done it already. In the current climate they can no longer avoid it. Their lives may depend on it.

They know that racism is the problem. They have yet to understand that anti-racism is the solution.