Many, many years ago, one of my colleagues pointed out there was an association between violence and having same sex partners. The association existed if you claimed to be gay or not, but was higher if you self identified as homosexuals. There were demands she resign because of offence.

I do not care about offence. I care about assault and murder. Gays should be prayed for. And Christians should be able to go to school without coming home in a box.

A teenager from a Christian family has been beaten to death by Muslim classmates at the MC Model Boys Government High School in Pakistan, allegedly for drinking from the same water cooler as them.
Sharoon Masih, described as “an incredibly bright student from an impoverished Christian family” by the British Pakistani Christian Association, was targeted from his first day at the school, where he was the only Christian in his year.

Classmates isolated Sharoon, telling him: “You’re a Christian, don’t dare sit with us if you want to live,” according to Christian Today.

They also attempted to convert him, slapped him, and verbally abused him as a ‘chura’ — a pejorative term for Christian — and refused to let him use a common drinking water cooler.

Muslims are discouraged from drinking from the same vessels as non-Muslims in Islam, and another Pakistani Christian — Asia Bibi — ended up languishing on death row for years following a dispute over her fitness to carry a water bowl.

Sharoon’s punishment when he drank from the cooler on his fourth day at the school was more immediate, with classmates subjecting him to a fatal beating.

Early reports suggested the teacher present at the time of the attack — named as Nazir Mol — turned a blind eye as Sharoon was pummelled to death, although he claimed he simply did not notice the beating as he was reading a newspaper.

The school’s headteacher suggested the attack actually took place between classes with no teacher present — but the teacher has since been dismissed from his post.

What should we take from this?

Firstly, never convert. Never apologize to those who bully you.
Secondly, be ready to run. If they push you out, leave. And they will be held to account.
Thirdly, the blood of the martyrs brings a harvest of souls for Christ.
Fourthly, comfort the parents, the siblings, and his church. It is better that we support such than put our rainbow flags or preach tolerance.

Philippians 2:12-30

¹²Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; ¹³for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

¹⁴Do all things without murmuring and arguing, ¹⁵so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world. ¹⁶It is by your holding fast to the word of life that I can boast on the day of Christ that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. ¹⁷But even if I am being poured out as a libation over the sacrifice and the offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you — ¹⁸and in the same way you also must be glad and rejoice with me.

¹⁹I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I may be cheered by news of you. ²⁰I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. ²¹All of them are seeking their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. ²²But Timothy’s worth you know, how like a son with a father he has served with me in the work of the gospel. ²³I hope therefore to send him as soon as I see how things go with me; ²⁴and I trust in the Lord that I will also come soon.

²⁵Still, I think it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus — my brother and co-worker and fellow soldier, your messenger and minister to my need; ²⁶for he has been longing for all of you, and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. ²⁷He was indeed so ill that he nearly died. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, so that I would not have one sorrow after another. ²⁸I am the more eager to send him, therefore, in order that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. ²⁹Welcome him then in the Lord with all joy, and honor such people, ³⁰because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for those services that you could not give me.

Note that there were those preaching the gospel for gain and compromising from the beginning. Paul had only a few faithful supporters in prison. He wanted to send Timothy soon, but Epaphroditus had been ill and was returning.

Because there will be pressure to compromise, to retract.

“GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, and the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization, today called on Stanford University and responsible media outlets to expose dangerous and flawed research that could cause harm to LGBTQ people around the world,” they declared. “A professor affiliated with Stanford University has published a research study that resulted in several media outlets wrongfully suggesting that artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to detect sexual orientation. Further, GLAAD and HRC today urged all media who either covered the study or plan to in future coverage to include the myriad flaws in the study’s methodology — including that it made inaccurate assumptions, categorically left out any non-white subjects, has not been peer reviewed, and many other issues enumerated below.”

Despite the fact that the A.I. demonstrated a success rating ranging from 74 and 81 percent in determining whether people were gay or straight, GLAAD’s Chief Digital Officer, Jim Halloran, claimed, “Technology cannot identify someone’s sexual orientation.”

“What their technology can recognize is a pattern that found a small subset of out white gay and lesbian people on dating sites who look similar. Those two findings should not be conflated,” he continued. “This research isn’t science or news, but it’s a description of beauty standards on dating sites that ignores huge segments of the LGBTQ community, including people of color, transgender people, older individuals, and other LGBTQ people who don’t want to post photos on dating sites.”

“At a time where minority groups are being targeted, these reckless findings could serve as a weapon to harm both heterosexuals who are inaccurately outed, as well as gay and lesbian people who are in situations where coming out is dangerous,” Halloran concluded.

Ashland Johnson, the director of public education for the Human Rights Campaign, also claimed, “This is dangerously bad information that will likely be taken out of context, is based on flawed assumptions, and threatens the safety and privacy of LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ people alike.”

“Imagine for a moment the potential consequences if this flawed research were used to support a brutal regime’s efforts to identify and/or persecute people they believed to be gay,” Johnson proclaimed. “Stanford should distance itself from such junk science rather than lending its name and credibility to research that is dangerously flawed and leaves the world — and this case, millions of people’s lives — worse and less safe than before.”

Peer review means by the usual suspects. All methodologies are flawed. This is an appeal for censorship

I care not a whit for the feelings of GLAAD when there are Christians (and homosexuals) bring killed by mobs. Being offended is nothing. Broken and dead bodies is another.

And only fools conflate these together.

It is more important to live as Christ did, even at, as was the case in Pakistan, the cost of our lives.