Twitter changed its terms of services in late November to ban criticism of transgender people, although conservatives say the move squashes debate on the issue.

The new rules prevent Twitter users from calling transgender persons by their birth gender (which is called “misgendering”) or birth name (“deadnaming”).

The rules state: “We prohibit targeting individuals with repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanize, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category. This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.”

A dead name, according to Refinery29.com, is “The name given to a transgender person at birth, which they often change when they transition.”

Misgendering is “When someone uses the wrong pronoun or term to refer to a person, such as calling a transgender boy ‘her’ or a transgender girl ‘him.,’” according to Refinery29.com.

Users who violate the rules could be banned from Twitter, although initially they may be asked to serve only a “timeout” and not be able to post for a short period of time. 

“For example, we may ask someone to remove the violating content and serve a period of time in read-only mode before they can Tweet again,” the Twitter rules read. “Subsequent violations will lead to longer read-only periods and may eventually…

Voters in Taiwan backed defining marriage as the union between one man and one woman in a referendum held over the weekend. 

In 2017, Taiwan’s high court ruled that outlawing same-sex marriage was unconstitutional and gave lawmakers two years to draft legislation. The referendum carries no official weight, but legislators facing reelection will not be eager to go against the will of their constituents.

The referendum contained three questions advocated for by proponents of the traditional definition of marriage which all passed. Questions on the referendum put forth by same-sex marriage advocates failed. 

One question asked, “Do you agree that Civil Code regulations should restrict marriage to being between a man and a woman?” A majority of votes answered in the affirmative while rejecting a question that asked if the regulations should “be used to guarantee the rights of same-sex couples to get married.”

Same-sex marriage advocates expressed their disappointment with the results of the referendum, but plan to continue their fight to make Taiwan the first nation in Asia to endorse same-sex marriage. Annie Huang, the acting director for Amnesty International Taiwan called the result “a bitter blow and a step backwards for human rights in Taiwan.” She also called on the government to ignore the results of the referendum and pass legislation as the court…

Archaeologists discovered tiny stone weighing approximately 11 grams and dating back to the period of Solomon’s temple. The stone had been inscribed with the word “beka” in Hebrew. 

A volunteer discovered the stone as he sifted through earth and rubble lifted from the foundations of the Western Wall. Eli Shukron, an archaeologist who led the excavations for the Israel Antiquities Authority, told The Times of Israel that similar stones had been discovered, but this was the only one bearing this precise inscription.

Scripture first mentions the weight in Exodus 38:26. It reads, “a beka a head (that is, half a shekel, by the shekel of the sanctuary), for everyone who was listed in the records, from twenty years old and upward, for 603,550 men.” (ESV) 

Shukron explained how the weight was used in the temple tax. “When the half-shekel tax was brought to the Temple during the First Temple period, there were no coins, so they used silver ingots. In order to calculate the weight of these silver pieces they would put them on one side of the scales and on the other side they placed the Beka weight. The Beka was equivalent to the half-shekel, which every person from the age of twenty years and up was required to bring to the temple.”

Shukron also explained another feature of the stone that makes it stand out from other discoveries. The person who engraved the stone wrote…

HYDERABAD, India, November 26, 2018 (Morning Star News) – Pastor John Lakra was taking his 18-month-old baby to the hospital for emergency treatment in Odisha state, India when hundreds of Hindu extremists surrounded his car.

The pastor, his wife and their three children were on the way to the hospital in Sundargarh at about 7 p.m. on Oct. 23 when the mob began hurling stones at them and hitting the windows with rods as they shouted curses at him, he said.

“There were so many people that we could not even try get out there,” Pastor Lakra said. “We could not even see through the windows. My children and wife were crying. I did not know what to do.”

Earlier he had received word that Hindu extremists were looking for him regarding a text message and photo insulting the Hindu goddess Durga that a hacker had sent from his phone. He thought they only meant to talk with him.

“Soon, they pulled me out of the car, slapped and beat me black and blue,” Pastor Lakra told Morning Star News. “They ripped off my clothes. Not a single part of my body was left unstruck.”

After throwing him onto the road and kicking him, they picked him up and forced him onto a motorcycle, he said. With hundreds following, they took him to a Durga idol and forced him to kneel before it even as they continued beating him, he said.

“Then they poured a gallon of petrol on me,”…

The Trump administration is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to bypass lower courts and take up a case involving the military’s proposed ban on most transgender military members.

The military’s proposed policy would prohibit service by those “who require or have undergone gender transition,” according to NPR.

Opponents of the ban, including GLAD and Lambda Legal, filed suit in federal court seeking to have the proposed ban blocked. The military, under the Obama administration, changed rules to allow transgender personnel to serve.  

“This is simply one more attempt by a reckless Trump administration to push through a discriminatory policy,” Jennifer Levi, the Transgender Rights Project director at GLAD, said in a statement. “The policy flies in the face of military research and dozens of top military experts.”

But the Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to fast-track the suit because current policy — adopted during the Obama administration — harms the military.  

“[T]he military has concluded [the policy] poses a threat to ‘readiness, good order and discipline, sound leadership, and unit cohesion,’ which ‘are essential to military effectiveness and lethality,’” the request to the high court reads. 

Concerns over privacy also are an issue, the Department of Justice argues.

“The military…