Ideology – United Yam

Oregon officials back off ‘gender ideology mandate’ for mom seeking to adopt #Catholic Oregon officials have agreed they will not “categorically disqualify” a Christian woman from adopting or fostering children based on her religious beliefs about gender and human sexuality, which settles a three-and-a-half-year legal battle.The Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) agreed to a legal settlement with Jessica Bates, who was represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). It affirms the department will not consider her religious beliefs when evaluating her application for a certification to adopt children and will not attempt to regulate her speech about gender and sexuality.“Every child deserves a loving home, and children suffer when the government excludes people of faith from foster care because of the state’s own ideological crusade,” ADF Senior Counsel Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse said in a statement following the Sept. 9 settlement.“Oregon officials turned Jessica away just because of her common-sense belief that parents should help children become comfortable with who they are instead of pushing them down a path of confusion and medicalization,” he said. “We believe this settlement is a win-win that protects constitutional rights and puts children’s interests first.”In September 2022, the ODHS denied Bates’ application because she would not comply with a state policy that requires applicants to agree they will “respect, accept and support the … sexual orientation, gender identity [and] gender expression … of a child or young adult” who is placed in the home, which ADF has characterized as a “gender ideology mandate.”Bates sued ODHS in March 2023, arguing that the policy violated her First Amendment rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion. The lawsuit stated she told the certification officer she would love any child as her own but would not facilitate a child’s gender transition through hormone therapy, use pronouns inconsistent with a child’s biological sex, or encourage gender expression inconsistent with the child’s biological sex or same-sex attraction.A federal district court initially ruled in favor of ODHS in December 2023, but an appellate panel of judges ruled in July 2025 that ODHS likely violated her constitutional rights and blocked the department from enforcing the rules against her while the lawsuit continued.Legal settlementPer the legal agreement, ODHS will allow Bates to apply for a certification and will not consider her religious views in any way.It states ODHS will not deny the application “because of her religious beliefs that sexual activity should occur only within the confines of a marriage between one man and one woman, and a person should identify and seek to live consistent with his or her biological sex.”The settlement adds that this extends to her “desire to respectfully speak about, live out, parent, and make day-to-day caregiving decisions consistent with these sincerely held religious beliefs.”Under the agreement, ODHS also cannot require her to “agree to use prescribed words or language, including chosen pronouns, to express views about sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression inconsistent with her religious beliefs described above as a condition of certification.”“[The] ODHS may not enforce any per se standard, rule, or policy that precludes Bates from being considered for any particular placement, based in whole or in part based on her religious belief,” the settlement agreement states.It further prohibits ODHS from disqualifying Bates from consideration for any particular child placement based on her religious beliefs.Yet, the settlement does not prevent ODHS from “deciding a child’s placement based on its individualized consideration of the child’s needs and of a foster parent’s concerns or limitations (including where religiously motivated) on their ability or willingness to meet the child’s specific needs, including with regard to their sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.”The Oregon attorney general’s office referred EWTN News to the Oregon Department of Human Services for comment. The department did not respond to a request for comment.

Human rights group calls Nicaragua’s constitutional reforms a ‘usurpation of power’ #Catholic Nicaragua’s National Assembly, controlled by the dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega and his wife and co-president, Rosario Murillo, “unanimously” approved a constitutional reform barring “traitors to the homeland” (the term the regime uses for its political opposition) from participating in elections. The measure has sparked widespread domestic and international condemnation.The reform was “unanimously approved in general terms,” Assembly President Gustavo Porras stated on Sept. 1 during a special session held in the city of León, according to the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa.The reform amends the constitution, which extends the presidential term, as well as those of other high-ranking officials, from six to seven years, with the possibility of renewal.Ortega has governed Nicaragua for about 30 years: since 2007, and previously, from 1979 to 1990. On July 19, he stated that there would be no further elections in Nicaragua, and on July 31, he proposed the reform — set to take effect in 2027 — that excludes “coup plotters” and “terrorists,”, terms he uses to refer to the political opposition, from participating in elections.Reforms are a ‘formalization of the usurpation of power’Ruta del Cambio (Pathway for Change), an organization which defends human rights and the rule of law, declared in a Sept. 2 statement that it “categorically rejects and and gives no legal recognition to the partial reform to the Political Constitution [of the Republic of Nicaragua] approved during the first legislative session on Sept. 1, 2026, by a National Assembly stripped of all independence and reduced to a mere rubber stamp for the will of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.”Ruta del Cambio counts among its leaders Félix Maradiaga, a former presidential candidate and former political prisoner now living in exile.“What has been approved is not a constitutional reform. It is the formalization of the usurpation of power through a text drafted in secret, approved without opposition, and voted for with unanimous obedience by those who owe their positions, privileges, and impunity to the couple that has hijacked the state,” Ruta del Cambio charged.“Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have turned the constitution into a family’s title deed. They have transformed the state into personal property, the law into an instrument of vengeance, and the republic’s [law enforcement apparatus] into tools of terror against the very people they swore to serve,” the organization emphasized.Ruta del Cambio called for “rejecting the legal validity of this reform and of any act, mandate, extension, or appointment derived from it, and formally declaring it without force under international law.”Elections ‘without legitimacy’“What we are seeing in Nicaragua right now is a reform attempting to hold elections without competition, without legitimacy, and without any possibility of change. In other words, Ortega controls the judges and the playing field, and seeks to firmly establish his authoritarian model without any competition,” stated Arturo Mcfields Yescas, Nicaragua’s former ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), in a Sept. 3 interview with EWTN Noticias, the Spanish-language edition of EWTN News.“This further undermines not only civil and political freedoms but also another fundamental freedom: religious freedom,” he pointed out.McFields explained that when the regime speaks of “traitors to the homeland,” it is referring to those who dissent from its rule. “People who questioned Ortega’s authority immediately became traitors to the homeland,” as did those who “simply thought differently” or called for “international mediation.”“This means,” he charged, “that anyone who does not applaud Ortega becomes a traitor to the homeland.”U.S. reactionOn Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated on X that “the Murillo-Ortega’s National Assembly gutted what remained of Nicaragua’s democracy in the second constitutional rewrite in two years. The U.S. will implement measures at the next @OAS_official [meeting of foreign ministers] to ensure that our hemisphere stops business as usual with this dictatorship.”Regarding the United States’ call for countries to sever diplomatic and commercial ties with Nicaragua, McFields called it “an extraordinary start.” “For the first time, Ortega is facing pressure of this nature. For the first time, the OAS has approved a resolution on Nicaragua almost unanimously,” by convening a meeting of foreign ministers to address the situation, McFields said.Likewise, neighboring Costa Rica expressed its “deep concern regarding the ongoing deterioration of democracy in Nicaragua, exacerbated by the recent constitutional reform that further limits political and electoral participation,” and stated that it “will support a firm and coordinated response” with the OAS.The government of Peru, led by President Keiko Fujimori, also rejected the approval of the constitutional reform. In a Sept. 2 statement, it declared that it “will stand with the Nicaraguan people, their political prisoners, their exiles, and all those who are currently persecuted for dreaming of free elections.”Persecution of the Catholic Church in NicaraguaMcFields questioned the stance of countries like Brazil and Mexico, which did not support the resolution against Nicaragua, stating that “it’s surprising, painful, and something that ought to change. There should be empathy for the suffering of the Nicaraguan people, for persecuted politicians, for priests who have been imprisoned, exiled, or banished, and for the churches that have, at times, been burned down. It is truly grotesque, yet ideology seems to be prevailing over democracy.”Since 2018, the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship has waged a fierce campaign of persecution against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua. Its latest known victim is the bishop emeritus of Estelí, Abelardo Mata (80), who suffers from diabetes, a heart condition, and vision problems. His condition remains uncertain, despite the regime’s claim that he is at home. In mid-August, the regime released a video of an interview with the prelate, who recently celebrated his 50th anniversary as a priest, without specifying when the footage was recorded.This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

unitedyam September 3, 2026September 4, 2026

The Ortega-Murilla regime has approved reforms that bar the opposition from participating in elections, drawing strong opposition from exiled leaders, the United States, Costa Rica and Peru.

Medicaid formally ends funds for ‘sex-rejecting procedures’ for minors with final rule #Catholic The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it has implemented a final rule that formally bans using funds for “sex-rejecting procedures” for minors, which are drugs and surgeries used to facilitate “gender transitions.”According to a CMS news release, this includes puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical operations. It states these medical procedures cause irreversible damage, including infertility, impaired sexual function, diminished bone density, altered brain development, and other physiological effects.The move formalizes a policy of President Donald Trump’s administration to prevent minors from accessing these drugs and surgeries. In January 2025, Trump signed an executive order that instructed agencies to adopt rules to “end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.”The final rule includes a tapering-off period of up to six months for children who are receiving cross-sex hormones, which allows them to be gradually weaned off the medicine. It does not affect mental health services.“Children deserve our protection, not experimental interventions that pose serious risks and convey no proven benefits,” CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said in a statement.“By cutting off federal funds for these sex-rejecting procedures, we’re following the science, saving taxpayer dollars, and, most importantly, protecting children from potentially irreversible harm so they can truly flourish,” he said.Rachel N. Morrison, director of the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Administrative State Accountability Project, told EWTN News that government funding should never support “harmful, sterilizing, and often irreversible sex-rejecting procedures.”“I am grateful to CMS and the Trump administration for their efforts to combat gender ideology, protect children from the harms [of] sex-rejecting procedures, and advance policies that reflect a true understanding of the nature of the human person,” she said.The Church’s positionThe U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) referred EWTN News to a Feb. 17 letter to CMS, which said the proposed ban on federal funding “aligns with Catholic teaching on the nature of the human person” and “reflects true distinctions between the sexes.” “Rejection of our God-given bodies, such as by modifying them to appear as the opposite sex, is a grave matter, and when done with full knowledge and complete consent, is a grave sin,” the letter states.In November 2025, the USCCB published a new edition of its ”Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” guidelines, which prohibit Catholic institutions from providing treatments that “aim not to restore but rather to alter the fundamental order of the human body in its form or function” such as “interventions that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex (or to nullify sexual characteristics…).”Joseph Meaney, past president and senior ethicist for the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC), told EWTN News CMS “should be applauded for putting an end to federal taxpayer funding of transgender procedures on children.”“There is substantial agreement between U.S. government policy and Catholic teaching in this area of healthcare policy,” he said.Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, an NCBC senior ethicist, told EWTN News that the implementation of the rule “is very sensible and long overdue.”“Countless youth have already been railroaded along this path, placing themselves at great risk and damaging their bodies as they struggle with this confusion,” Pacholczyk said. “Once a young person steps onto that train, they often become ‘regular business customers,’ with a lifelong dependence on the continued prescribing of hormones and additional cycles of expensive surgeries.”He said tax money should not pay for “a hysterectomy on a girl who wants to live as a boy, nor to provide breast implants into a boy who thinks he is a girl.” He said children “deserve far better from the world of medicine and psychiatry.”“They are entitled to solid psychotherapy as a means of assisting them to reintegrate their subjective gender identity with their objective lifelong biology so they can recognize and embrace the beautiful gift of the biological sex they have been endowed with from the beginning,” Pacholczyk said.

Texas Children’s Hospital fined for performing illegal ‘sex-rejecting’ procedures on minors #Catholic The historic settlement agreement between Texas Children’s Hospital, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and the state of Texas has been fully executed, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said this week.Under the terms of the settlement agreement, first announced by Paxton’s office in May, Texas Children’s, the largest children’s hospital in the United States, said it would no longer provide “gender-transition” interventions, including puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, to minors, per Texas law.“This historic settlement is a resounding defeat for the radical gender ideology that has preyed on Texas children under the guise of ‘care,’” Paxton said in a press release Aug. 5.Per the executed agreement, Texas Children’s “will pay a total of $10 million to resolve these claims,” with $8,576,000 going to the state of Texas. It will also fund, for five years, a detransition clinic offering free restorative medical care to patients who previously underwent such procedures. The clinic must open by the end of October.“Texas Children’s has agreed to pay millions back to Texas,” Paxton said. “The detransition clinic, which is the first of its kind, must open within months. Activist doctors who harmed children have been fired.”The agreement also required the permanent termination and revocation of privileges for five physicians who performed these interventions.The hospital is permanently barred from rehiring or credentialing the doctors and must implement new compliance measures, including bylaw changes that will automatically revoke privileges for any physician who violates Texas law prohibiting such procedures on children.“This settlement sends an unmistakable message,” Paxton said. “If you put radical ideology over childrenʼs health, my office will go after you. We will continue to lead the way in stopping the far-left’s radical gender agenda.”The settlement agreement resolves a yearslong investigation of the hospital by the DOJ and the state of Texas that began after whistleblower allegations surfaced claiming the hospital had continued performing sex-change procedures on minors in secret even after state lawmakers made such procedures illegal.The Justice Department said in May that the Houston-based hospital had agreed to pay millions in civil penalties and damages for allegedly falsely billing Medicaid and other insurers for “pediatric sex-rejecting procedures.”The federal government had alleged that the hospital violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the False Claims Act, and federal fraud and conspiracy laws.Following the publication of a directive by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that transgender procedures on minors that could be considered “child abuse” under existing state law, Texas Children’s announced in 2022 that it would cease “sex-change” therapies and procedures, citing concerns that these practices were potentially illegal.In 2023 Texas passed a law that explicitly banned puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender-transition surgeries for minors under 18.Nevertheless, at least three doctors associated with Texas Children’s — Richard Roberts, David Paul, and Kristy Rialon — continued to perform “sex-rejecting” procedures on children throughout 2022 and 2023, according to whistleblower evidence published by Christopher Rufo, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.Rufo claimed that Rialon had been performing surgeries on minors ranging in age from 15 to as young as 1.Calling the settlement “historic,” Paxton said in May that it “will ensure that the deranged child mutilators who hurt our kids are fired and held accountable.”According to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the DOJ “will use every weapon at its disposal to end the destructive and discredited practice of so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ for children.”The Department of Justice noted that Texas Children’s cooperated with the investigation and took proactive steps that contributed to the resolution. The claims resolved in the settlement remain allegations, with no determination of liability.“I am grateful that Texas Children’s wants to be part of the solution and no longer the problem,” said Brett Shumate, assistant attorney general for the Civil Division.