No one has ever accused Apple of being apolitical. And this week, pro-lifers can prove it. Days after giving LifeSiteNews the green light to publish stories on Apple News, the company yanked the group’s channel and all of its content. Why? According to the tech giant, the messages are “intolerant against a certain group.” That’s funny — I thought the real intolerance was arguing that babies shouldn’t be born in the first place!

For LifeSite Editor-in-Chief John-Henry Westen and his team, the whiplash was palpable. First, the organization was approved, giving users a chance to track the site and get customized updates. Then, the rug was unexpectedly pulled out from under them, de-platforming another conservative source with a respectable following. Westen, who’s watched the disturbing shift toward censorship, contacted the company to complain.

“We don’t yet know the reason for Apple’s decision to delete our channel,” he explains. But, “at a time when there is growing evidence that tech juggernauts are engaging in concerted censorship against even mainstream conservative viewpoints, Apple’s decision — made unilaterally and without opportunity to appeal — is frightening.” It ought to go without saying, he argued, “that LifeSite would never promote intolerance or hatred against any group. However, in our current divisive political climate, even mild expressions of common conservative viewpoints are often written off as de facto hatred and intolerance. We certainly hope that this is not what Apple is doing. However, we urge our readers to contact Apple, and to respectfully demand that they reinstate LifeSite’s channel.”

Of course, LifeSite probably drew Apple’s ire for more than its conservative views on abortion. Westen’s writers also haven’t been shy about calling attention to the Left’s dangerous gender ideology and a whole host of other cultural issues that directly affect families. Apple thinks it can marginalize conservatives and get away with it. Let them know how wrong they are! Sign LifeSite’s petition here and ask the popular site to be reinstated. Otherwise, the only intolerance Apple’s showing is its own.

Originally published here.

Climate Change’s Fair-Weathered Friends

They may be driving hybrid cars and outlawing straws — but for all the anti-pollution celebrities, there seem to be even more environmental hypocrites. At this week’s “Google Camp,” a who’s who guest list is all converging on Sicily to talk about fighting climate change — completely ignoring the damage they did to the environment just to get there!

When Barack Obama, Prince Harry, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Katy Perry hopped on a plane, you can bet it wasn’t commercial. According to the Post, the celebrities “were expected to show up in 114 private jets,” spewing, one estimate said, 784,000 kilograms of CO2 in the air. Those who didn’t fly, the reports announced, sailed — on their gigantic personal yachts. “Haven’t these people heard of tele-conferencing?” PJ Media’s Jim Treacher jabbed. “How much carbon do they need to spew into the atmosphere, just to lecture the rest of us peons about leaving the phone charger plugged in?”

And of course, this was just hours after the Democratic candidates ate up minute after minute on the debate stage insisting that in 12 years the earth will be toast. But if liberals actually believed that, do you think any of them would be living the kind of double-standard existence they are? Of course not. Here they are, asking to be put in power so they can pass laws that take away your pick-up truck, raise your utility rates, and ship off our cows, and all the while, they’re continuing their jet-setting ways.

If what they’re proposing was actually good for America and supportive of true freedom, why haven’t they already adopted what they want to impose on everyone else? Because climate change — like a lot of the liberal agenda — is about power. The Left can make all kinds of claims about America saving the planet and changing the weather patterns. But do you really think any government is capable of that? Sure, we can have either a positive or negative impact on the environment, air quality, or water quality — and we should keep moving toward those positive environmental advancements. But when it comes to climate change, you could give liberals all the power they are asking for — and maybe more — and we’ll still never be able to measure the effects of their policies.

And they want it that way! It means they make all of these promises, and no one will be able to verify if their actions ever actually led to any positive outcome. And if they’re challenged, they’ll just say they need more authority to restrict the freedoms of others.

If climate change were the existential threat the Left scares people into thinking that it is, then the tech gurus of Google could’ve easily saved the planet lots of carbon by doing their confab online. Be leery of those who want to adopt policies that they themselves are not currently willing to live by. If something is good for America, then the people who are advocating should be practicing it now.

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.