Woman, 85, booted from home for ‘religious’ activity

‘Defending against a management bully like this is not grounds for eviction’

 

(Image courtesy Pixabay)

A discrimination charge has been filed with California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing over the eviction of an 85-year-old woman from her apartment.

She was told it was because of her religious activity.

“What happened to our client, Diana Martin, was wrong on many levels,” said Matthew McReynolds, a lawyer with the Pacific Justice Institute.

“No one should be evicted based on their religious expression, but especially not an elderly great-grandmother,” he said. “We are hopeful that a state investigation and remedial action will ensure this doesn’t happen to anyone else in this community.”

A WND call to the Windgate Village Apartments in Hanford, California, did not generate a response.

Martin had been living for nearly 14 years in the complex – promoted as a senior living center – when she was shocked by a call from the owner, PJI said.

She was told she was evicted because of her religious expression and age, the legal team explained.

Owner John Draxler, who also is the city’s vice-mayor, took the action even though Martin “still had months remaining on her year-to-year lease, and her rent was fully paid,” PJI said.

“But Draxler cited her religious activities – sharing her faith and offering to pray for people – as reasons why she must find a new home. Draxler knew Martin was recovering from strokes and a heart attack. When she began to cry, protesting that it was winter and she had no children living nearby, he responded that was not his problem,” said PJI.

Then Draxler repeated the religious basis for his decision in a conversation with Martin’s son, PJI said.

“She had originally moved to Windgate Village because it was designed and marketed as senior living. Since Draxler bought the complex a few years ago, he has brought in younger renters and is now removing older tenants. For many years now, Martin notes that the complex has failed to offer activities or amenities consistent with its original designation as a senior facility,” said PJI.

Martin complied with the orders but then contacted PJI.

“Besides the discriminatory reasons offered for the eviction, the notice given to Martin was clearly defective as to its timing. PJI fired off a legal demand letter for Martin. While Draxler initially seemed eager to settle and keep the matter quiet, talks stalled. PJI has now initiated a formal charge of discrimination with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing,” the organization said.

The management charges that Martin was “combative.”

PJI explained: “One of the conflicts between Martin and the management stemmed from their attempt to take away her longtime parking space and reassign her to one some distance from her door and next to a dumpster. Martin had raised safety concerns about homeless men foraging in the dumpster, so the move seemed retaliatory.”

PJI’s McReynolds said defending yourself “against a management bully like this is not grounds for an eviction, it’s just common sense.”

“I hope all of us could be described as combative if anyone tried to treat our mothers, grandmothers, or great-grandmothers this way.”

https://www.wnd.com/2019/06/woman-85-booted-from-home-for-religious-activity/

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How Much Does Your Life Cost?

by Don’t Fear, Only Believe

Worth.

It’s such a powerful thing. The word is used to indicate how valuable something is, usually the value of an expensive car or your dream house. But also, commonly, it is used to describe a person’s life. We are constantly yearning and seeking to be worth something to someone else. In society, we are constantly told to live your life, your way – your worth being meaningful only to yourself. But you are worth more than anything to a guy called Jesus…

One inspirational woman who I have had the honour of seeing her legacy left behind, has been Lilias Falconer. The Falconer home has a special place in my heart and my family’s hearts, and I’m sure I’ve touched on this subject before in a previous blog. I got the amazing opportunity to visit this amazing orphanage a few years ago in Zambia. But this woman clearly showed why Jesus is worth it all! Lilias was born in 1915 in my home town, Manchester, and at the age of 15 she was telling her family that the call on her life was to go to Africa and to look after babies and children. For her to fulfil this mission, she applied for medical training to train as a nurse. All these applications were refused. In 1939, at the start of World War II, she was accepted into nursing training with the Salvation Army, and after a course in tropical medicine she travelled to Africa to a leper hospital in Zambia. There she saw the plight of little babies left to die when their mothers passed during childbirth. From this, she agreed to look after one baby but soon five babies were brought to her and one her own, she went further into the bus, establishing her Children’s home and Orphanage in the small village of Kabulamema. She died in 1998, and her grave is situated behind the house, in a beautiful lone building, signifying a constant connection to her work. This is a woman who gave up her whole life for Jesus.

The “Waste” of Expensive Perfume

The work of missionaries and people who give up their ordinary lives for extraordinary lives reminds me of a story from the Bible that shows us why Jesus is worth it all…

Clutching the jar tightly in her hands, the woman stood in the doorway and looked into the room. Her heart beat intensely. Her eyes darted back and forth. Her anxiety was at its peak. The room was packed with me, most of them who knew her for the job she did. A prostitute. She consider running away. At that moment, she saw Him. Everything else vanished, the world stopped. Nothing mattered anymore. Running into the room, she fell to the ground, tears forming in her eyes. Breaking her jar open, she poured the expensive perfume in it all over the man’s feet. She loved Him. She was a sinner. But this man, this Jesus, had shown her forgiveness. Everyone else stared at this random woman, shocked by her actions.

“Why have you wasted all that? You could have sold it it and given it to the poor,” the disciples shouted. Then Jesus spoke above the fuss, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done something beautiful for me. You won’t always have me, but you’ll always have the poor. This woman is preparing me for my burial. Listen to me, when the gospel is preached, the memory of her will also be told.” (Matthew 26.6-13).

The Reaction

Imagine if you were one of the disciples. Would you have been angry at the woman? She would have wasted perfume that had cost millions of pounds. But then again, much like the woman in the story, how do we respond to the story of Lilias Falconer? Too often we would respond as the disciples did. When we hear about people giving up their lives in rich, western countries to honour and serve God, we question their choices. Too often we see it as a waste of potential. We may never say it in words but in reality, we are asking the same question the disciples asked, “Why this waste?”

As Christians, we are taught to present our lives as living sacrifices, demonstrating God’s perfect will. Many people, and many Christians, would say if you presented your life in such a way, that you would be vulnerable to the devil and forces of evil. But Paul in Philippians 4.19, clearly states:

“And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in Christ Jesus.” (NIV)

So, in answer to How Much Does Your Life Cost? I think it costs an infinite amount. We have worth because one man spent His worth for our all and so it is never a waste to give Jesus anything. And looking at it this way; it is our only reasonable response.

Thanks for reading.

Don’t Fear, Only Believe

Photo credits – unsplash.com

Original here

State moves to take over Christian school

Dozens of agents stage raid over fake rumor, then demand it ‘relinquish its moral standards’

 

(Image courtesy Pixabay)

California has a reputation for implementing the leftist, pro-homosexual and pro-abortion agenda in its schools.

Even back when “The Terminator,” actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, was governor, the state required that schools teach only  a “positive” view of homosexuality, preventing teachers from informing students of the health risks.

The state’s moves in recent years have been draconian, even banning counselors from helping students who want to rid themselves of unwanted same-sex attractions.

It’s why so many parents have chosen Christian schools for their children. But now the state is targeting that last remaining stronghold for faith and freedom.

And the Pacific Justice Institute is fighting back in a lawsuit brought by River View Christian Academy in rural northern California.

The school was hit with a SWAT-style raid prompted by “an internet rumor put forward by an online left-wing tabloid.”

There was no truth to the allegation the school “housed illegal drugs, stockpiled weapons, and was preparing for an end-times apocalypse.”

“The state was duped” into ordering a raid that included “16 armed law enforcement from the California Highway Patrol, two canine units, and 17 social workers,” PJI said

The unannounced assault against the boarding school “terrified students and staff,” said PJI.

But it turned up no evidence.

It was, however, only the first wave in the state’s attack.

“Instead of apologizing for its dangerous blunder, the state doubled down and began imposing daily fines against the school for allegedly operating as an ‘unlicensed community care facility,’” PJI said.

“RVCA has actually operated as a private school for the past 25 years, filing an annual affidavit with the California Department of Education as do other private schools and homeschools in the state,” the legal team explained.

“The state is now taking the position that, due to recent legislation, it is no longer possible for a private boarding school to operate without extensive licensing and oversight by the Department of Social Services. But licensing is more than just an administrative headache – it would require the Christian school to relinquish its moral standards. For instance, the state requires that licensed facilities allow students to have the right to engage in spiritual and sexual exploration, which contradicts the goals of many parents who enroll their kids in RVCA,” the lawyers explained.

The facility is under the oversight of the Teen Rescue ministry, which partners with parents who want to provide their teens with a “change of scenery and alternative educational environment.”

The ministry was founded in 1989 and the school in 1993.

“Reading the state’s search warrant and legal filings in this case is chilling,” warned PJI’s lead lawyer in the case, Kevin Snider.

“This armed incursion on a faith-based school shows that the state wants nothing less than to take jurisdictional control over Christian education in California. This is rooted in its disagreement with millennia-old religious values,” he explained.

The school sued, but a federal judge complained that it hadn’t gone through the state’s “process” first. But then the state itself abandoned its administrative routine and sued the school.

“In 25 years of practice, I have never seen this level of aggressive, militant, and ideologically driven conduct by a state agency against a religious institution,” Snider said.

“For years, as the public schools have become increasingly hostile toward parents, the courts have insisted that the parents’ option is to instead choose private education. Now, that fundamental right is also under attack.”

https://www.wnd.com/2019/06/state-moves-to-take-over-christian-school/

God Gave Us Sex For ‘Procreation of Children … This Truth Is Not Homophobia’

June 4, 2019  By Michael W. Chapman

Bishop Joseph Strickland, head

of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas.

(Diocese of Tyler)

(CNSNews.com) — In response to vicious attacks by homosexual activists and their supporters against a fellow bishop, Joseph Strickland, head of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, said that preaching the truth of the Gospel is not homophobic, that sexual intimacy is for a married man and woman “for the procreation of children,” and that this is “simply reality.”

Bishop Strickland made his remarks on Twitter in defense of Providence, R.I. Bishop Thomas Tobin who had advised Catholics not to participate in the LGBT activities of “Pride Month” in June because celebrating or endorsing sodomy in any way is contrary to Catholic teaching.

(Twitter.)

Tobin had tweeted on June 1, “A reminder that Catholics should not support or attend LGBTQ ‘Pride Month’ events held in June. They promote a culture and encourage activities that are contrary to Catholic faith and morals. They are especially harmful for children.”

For his statement on Catholic teaching, Bp. Tobin was harshly criticized onlineby LGBT activists and their supporters.

In response, Bp. Strickland tweeted on June 2, “Please stop labeling bishops who speak the truth of the Gospel as homophobic. God gave us sexual intimacy for the procreation of children and the deeper union of a man & woman in marriage. Stating this truth is not homophobia, it is simply reality.”

(Twitter.)

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.” (Emphasis added.)

(Twitter.)

The Catechism further teaches, “By its very nature the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory. Children are the supreme gift of marriage and contribute greatly to the good of the parents themselves. God himself said: ‘It is not good that man should be alone,’ and ‘from the beginning [he] made them male and female’; wishing to associate them in a special way in his own creative work, God blessed man and woman with the words: ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’

“Hence, true married love and the whole structure of family life which results from it, without diminishment of the other ends of marriage, are directed to disposing the spouses to cooperate valiantly with the love of the Creator and Savior, who through them will increase and enrich his family from day to day.”

Gay marriage is a contradiction in terms and illogical, according to the Church, because homosexuals use their sexuality in unnatural ways and do not reproduce. Unlike the unitive and generative nature of heterosexual coitus between a married man and woman, homosexual intercourse is non-unitive and non-generative.

(Twitter.)

Bishop Strickland also tweeted on June 2, “Bishop Tobin is simply speaking for one truth of the deposit of faith. God made humans male & female. Certainly those who are confused about their identity need Christ’s love & compassion, let’s remember Christ’s love is expressed when [he] dies on the cross for the truth.”

The Catholic Church teaches that same-sex attraction is not sinful but to engage in homosexual practices is gravely sinful.

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/us-bishop-god-gave-us-sex-procreation-children-truth-not-homophobia

Billy Graham mag calls out ‘lie of progressive Christianity’

Says Buttigieg, others seek to drive biblical faith to ‘outer margins of society’

 

The mantle of “progressive Christianity” is being claimed by more and more people these days – some megachurches, some old-line denominations and even some politicians.

It’s roughly a gospel that regards the Bible as a good book but insists it must be reinterpreted to comport with contemporary society.

But now Decision Magazine, the publication launched by Billy Graham and still run by his organization, has unleashed a broadside against that belief system.

Its June front-page headline, “The lie of ‘progressive Christianity,’” is plastered over the image of Pete Buttigieg.

He’s the Democratic presidential hopeful who just a few weeks ago attacked the faith of Vice President Mike Pence, whose beliefs align with traditional Christian views of marriage and sexuality.

“Back in April when Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg threw stones at ‘the Mike Pences of the world’ for their historic Christian beliefs about marriage, sexuality and sin, he drew rapt attention from the news media. He also raised the visibility of a religious movement that claims the term Christian but denies the full authority of Scripture on which ‘the faith once for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3, NKJV) is based,” writes the author of the article, Jerry Pierce.

“Buttigieg’s ‘progressive Christianity’ allows him to claim a commitment to the faith that Jesus Christ taught in the Gospels and still remain married to his male partner,” he wrote.

But R. Albert Mohler Jr., the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, says that’s a “distortion” of God’s Word.

Buttigieg attacked Pence’s faith as “social extremism” and, in effect, told faithful evangelicals to either “affirm the new sexuality embodied in the LGBTQ movement, or affirm the full authority of Scripture and be anathema in the postmodern culture.”

Mohler told Decision that it is tempting for Christians faithful to the Bible to hunt down a “middle ground” on such issues.

But that’s not what the Bible allows.

“I have made the argument that everybody’s opinion on these matters is going to be known,” Mohler told the magazine. “It may be when you run for office. It may be when you move into the dorm. It may be when a new neighbor walks in and you end up in conversation. But the point is, there’s nowhere to hide on these issues. There are a lot of Christians who are trying to hide in the tall grass, and that’s not going to work.”

The article says Buttigieg and others of his belief system are trying to drive biblical Christians “to the outer margins of society.”

Mohler explained “the new liberalism under the ‘progressive’ banner is encroaching on more conservative churches amid a culture that paints biblical values as oppressive and bigoted.”

He told Decision that Christians don’t want to appear hateful but issues such as homosexuality cannot be defined “on the world’s terms.”

The issue has brought untold grief to the United Methodists, now caught in a fight between conservative African and Asian members and progressives in the United States.

Lay leader Mark Tooley, a Methodist and president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, told Decision progressive Christians often affirm miracles, even the Apostles’ Creed, but deny the full authority of God’s Word.

“This is true for mainline Protestants, but also increasingly for many members of the post-evangelical left,” he told Decision.

Mohler said he is concerned that Christians eventually may be deemed as subversive as early Christians were in Rome, who were killed for their faith.

“There’s no middle ground between affirming and denying the bodily resurrection of Christ. There’s also no middle ground between defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman and saying it can be something else,” he said.

https://www.wnd.com/2019/06/billy-graham-mag-calls-out-lie-of-progressive-christianity/

Jesus Gave Me What Boozing and Brawling Couldn’t

My journey from the criminal underworld to the foot of the cross.
ALLEN LANGHAM| MAY 17, 2019

Six years ago—lost, broken, alone, and suicidal—I was the empty shell of a once-promising rugby player, shuffling around an exercise yard in a London prison. I was a man of extreme violence who had done seven stretches behind bars.

One morning around that time, I watched a flock of birds take off from a ledge outside my cell. Right then, I knew God was real—and that he had reached down to rescue me from the pit of hell.

A Ticking Time Bomb

As a child, there was violence everywhere I turned. My mother had been widowed by her first husband, abused for 20 years by her second, and deserted by my father (whom she never married) when I was eight months old. She and my two sisters surrounded me with love—I was the little favorite of the family. But she was also a harsh disciplinarian and liberally wielded what we called “the Allen stick” to keep me under control.

Throbbing with anger and resentment toward my absent father, I was constantly getting into scraps with neighborhood bullies, hoping to earn their respect. I was also abused several times: by a family friend, by a boy across the road, and by a man I can’t say much about because I’ve blocked the worst details from my memory.

I had some means of escape. Often I would skip school to go fishing or run off to the woods and dress up as an Army sergeant major, shouting commands at the other kids and exerting control to hide my inner pain. I loved sports and showed potential from an early age. And on Sundays, I would venture out on my own to attend church. At home I was fatherless and abused, but there I felt safe and at peace.

One morning, alerted by the shrieks of my eldest sister, I came downstairs to find my mother dead on the sofa, the victim of a cerebral hemorrhage. Something snapped in me that day—I was only 14—that put me on the road to destruction for the next 20 years.

I went to three schools, getting expelled from the first two for unmanageable behavior. By the time I left home at 16, I was a ticking time bomb—angry, bitter, and lost. My sister ran pubs, and I started down the path of drinking, gambling, and fighting, emulating the “gangster” lifestyle. This was my idea of what it meant to be a man.

But I excelled at rugby, and at 17 I signed a professional contract with Sheffield Eagles. Soon enough, I had far more money than good sense. Craving acceptance from members of the criminal underworld I perversely thought of as “family,” I began fighting for money, selling drugs, collecting debts for dealers, and generally bullying and intimidating my way through life. I walked into my first prison term as a lost little boy trapped inside a professional rugby player’s body.

A Hostile World

It didn’t take long for prison to turn me into a hardened criminal. It was a hostile world—physically, mentally, and emotionally—where only the fittest survived. In prison I developed a heroin addiction, which left me alienated from my firstborn daughter and her mother.

Between sentences, I went chasing the bright lights of London but ended up sleeping on the streets of the Strand. Without the “good fortune” of being sent back, I might have died. Back in custody, spurred forward by a picture of my daughter on my cell wall, I resolved to rebuild my life. During the next two years, I caught up on my schooling and got clean from heroin. But after the next release, I soon returned to my old ways. The vicious merry-go-round kept spinning: drinking, drugs (now cocaine), partying, violence, sex, and before long, a trip back to the slammer.

During my stints in prison, I was always drawn to the chapel. I considered it a place of refuge, just as church had offered a safe haven from the tumult of my childhood. Over the years, I experimented with everything: Buddhism, Hinduism, spiritualism, counseling, course after course, medication—but nothing worked. I was still a wreck. Despite my burning desire to change, I couldn’t find any peace or stability.

Eventually, after stabbing a number of fellow inmates, I landed in Belmarsh, a top-security prison in southeast London. I hated who I had become. With my violent outbursts and paranoid behavior, I had pushed away anyone I ever cared for—and put my family through hell. I was mentally, emotionally, and spiritually broken. Outwardly, I sought “respect” by lashing out against anyone or anything in my way. But on the inside, I remained a lost little boy in desperate need of love and acceptance.

While awaiting trial in a kidnapping and hostage-taking case, I finally hit rock bottom and decided to commit suicide. With tears streaming down my face, I dropped to my knees and made one final plea to God: “If you’re real and you hear me, put a white dove outside my prison window. Show me you are with me!” At the time, I had no conception of the dove being a symbol for the Holy Spirit. I was only looking for some sign of hope and new beginnings.

The next morning, when a flock of pigeons lifted off the nearby ledge, I saw the dove sitting there. Something inside me jumped, and tears of joy replaced tears of despair.

After transferring to another prison in Leeds, I began praying and studying the Bible in earnest. Reading Joyce Meyer’s Battlefield of the Mind, I stumbled across a chapter where Meyer describes taking the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her father, rolling it into a ball, and laying it at Jesus’ feet. I decided to do the same with my rage. Before going to sleep, I closed my eyes, imagined Jesus on the cross, balled up my rage, and surrendered it to him. When I awoke, I felt peace like never before.

The Long Refining

Being a Christian—and turning away from drinking, drugs, and sleeping around—hasn’t been easy. (It’s tough having a functioning conscience!) At first I was on fire for Christ, and my zeal would outrun my better judgment. I would strike up conversations with complete strangers and probably put them off forever. I would go to pubs to tell people about Jesus and—still enslaved to old habits—end up drinking to excess. On one occasion, I found myself in bed with a woman after trying to share the gospel with her. I needed serious refining.

But God, in his patience, kept using this broken vessel for his purposes. He has given me the privilege of going into prisons—at first under the supervision of more mature Christians, then increasingly on my own—and testifying to the hope and forgiveness he offers. I have spoken to rooms full of men convicted of the most heinous crimes, including pedophiles and murderers, and seen them reduced to tears. At a key moment when I wondered where my life was going, God helped me launch a ministry (Steps to Freedom) that reaches out to young people abandoned by society. He let me return to my first love, sports, as a chaplain serving several teams.

Miraculously, God has even given me my family back. It has taken years, but one by one he has repaired broken relationships with my sisters and their families, with my three children, and with the father who deserted us so long ago.

The refining process has been long and hard. But bit by bit, it’s polishing me into a trophy of God’s grace.

Allen Langham is the author of Taming of a Villain: A Message of Hope (Lion Hudson).

 

Original here

 

Geckos Evidence of Creation NOT Evolution

By David Jolly – June 9, 2019

Virtually everyone here in the U.S. has seen or heard of the gecko used in commercials for a certain insurance company. That gecko has successfully invaded and colonized many homes and businesses throughout the country. But what does that have to do with Creation?

As I have previously shared, while working on my master’s thesis, I studied a different gecko that also invaded and colonized many homes and businesses in the U.S. The first documented report of the Mediterranean gecko, Hemidactylus turcicus, was in Key West, Florida in 1915. Through the scientific literature, I tracked this gecko across the Gulf Coast states from Florida to Texas. At the time of my research, I lived in Mesa, Arizona and the Mediterranean gecko had been well established in the area for over 35 years.

During my research, I found that the only life history study ever done in the U.S. on this interesting little gecko was conducted in Texas and published in 1986. In the conclusion of this study, the author claimed that the Mediterranean gecko was proof of evolution because of its method of colonization which is known as the Founder Principle. Evolutionists have long used the Founder Principle to justify their theory.

The Founder Principle is defined as the establishment of a new population from a larger population by the transportation of a few individuals, a gravid[i] female or a nest, to a new area that is isolated from the original population. The new population will contain a lesser amount of genetic variation than was found in the larger original population. In a number of instances, the decrease in genetic traits will lead to enough of a change between the two populations to make interbreeding unlikely or impossible which in turn will result in the establishment of a new species or subspecies. And it is these changes that are used as proof of evolution.

The Founder Principle is one variation of what is called a genetic bottleneck.  A genetic bottleneck generally occurs as a result of a major event that drastically reduces the number of individuals in a population. It can also be the result of removing a few individuals from the parent population and relocating them in a new and isolated location. Examples of a genetic bottleneck could be a disease that kills off a majority of a population, leaving only a few individuals left. It could also be the effect of transplanting a few individuals to a remote location that is geographically separated from the original larger population. As can be seen in the image to the right, the narrower the neck of the bottle (meaning the fewer individuals that survive or are passed on to the new population) the fewer genetic traits that are passed on with them.

What if the ‘A’ was a trait for a large body size and ‘a’ was a trait for a small body size. Those individuals with ‘AA’ would be quite large, while those with ‘Aa’ would be medium sized and those with ‘aa’ had a small body size.

 

The parent population contained a fairly equal amount of the large and small traits which may have resulted in medium sized individuals. In the first example of the largest bottleneck, more traits are passed on and the new population will most likely reflect the traits of the parent population and have medium sized bodies. In the middle example, both traits occur, but there are a greater number of individuals with traits for the larger body size than the smaller, so in all likelihood, that population would have been somewhat larger than the parent population. In the third example, only those individuals with the ‘a’ trait survived, resulting in a population of smaller individuals.

Indeed, the Mediterranean gecko did colonize via the Founder Principle. When I mapped out the various reports of the appearance of the geckos across the Gulf Coast states, the paths followed the major highways and port cities. As a rule, they do not migrate more than a few dozen yards from where they hatch. They are nocturnal geckos that inhabit urban and industrial areas. They like to hide in the cracks in walls and fences of homes and commercial businesses and in and around boxes and freight. The females will nest in and under items such as large cartons of freight. Unlike most reptiles that lay numerous eggs at a time, female Mediterranean geckos lay an average of only 2 eggs at a time. However, up to a dozen or more females will lay their eggs in the same nest. When the freight is shipped from one city to the next, sometimes a few individuals or a nest will be shipped along with it allowing the geckos to colonize a new area.

Since the Mediterranean gecko repeatedly colonized across the U.S. by means of the Founder Principle, I tried to determine if there were any differences between the ones that were now well established in Arizona compared to those from Texas and Florida. Besides the nearly 100 geckos collected from the Mesa, Arizona area, I was able to obtain a number of specimens from Texas as well.   Unfortunately, I was unable to collect any specimens from Florida.

When comparing the Arizona and Texas specimens, what I found was quite interesting. The Arizona specimens were significantly smaller than the Texas geckos.  Additionally, the Texas geckos were far more aggressive than the Arizona geckos. Approximately 80% of the Texas geckos would try to bite when handled while none of the Arizona geckos ever bit. When placed together in a terrarium, the aggressiveness of the Texas geckos was such that even when the Arizona geckos out numbered the Texas geckos 10-to-1, they would find a secluded corner as far away from the Texas gecko as possible and remain there until they eventually starved to death. As long as the Arizona geckos were in the presence of the Texas geckos, they would not eat, but as soon as they were removed from the same terrarium as the Texas gecko, they would start to eat almost immediately. I tried 15 different combinations of numbers and sexes and had the same results every time – dead Arizona geckos.

The difference in size and behavior between the two populations may be considered enough evidence to claim that the gecko population in Arizona be classified as a new subspecies of Mediterranean gecko. Unfortunately, I was not able to afford the cost to conduct any DNA studies on the two populations of geckos to substantiate my findings. Had I been able to conduct the DNA tests, I am positive that it would have shown that the Arizona geckos contained a lesser amount of genetic variation than the ones found in Texas.

Probably the greatest example of all time for a genetic bottleneck coupled with numerous Founder’s effects, would have been the Genesis Flood and subsequent Ice Age. The animals on the Ark probably carried a fairly large amount of genetic variety, which would allow them to survive the many different environments on the earth after the Flood. A certain amount of variation would also have been lost at the time of the Flood because taking only 2 individuals (7 of some) out of a larger population would still create a HUGE genetic bottleneck. As the animals dispersed from the Ark, they would have started breeding faster than normal because breeding pressures would have been non-existent at the time. As the populations grew, they began to spread out to the four corners of the earth via one Founder’s event after another. Each new population would have had less genetic variation than the previous one creating many new species in a span of 100-300 years after the Flood. Eventually, new areas were filled with enough animals and the rapid speciation would have slowed down.

It was also around this time (200-700 years after the Flood) that Ice Age occurred as a result of the Flood. The Ice Age caused some major climate changes which would have caused many of the newly formed species to die out and become extinct because they no longer carried the necessary traits to survive that the original members of the population had. That would help to explain the many different fossils we find in early post-Flood deposits.

In reality, the Founder Principle and genetic bottlenecks are the exact opposite of what evolution requires. Not only does evolution need an increase in variability, they also need an increase in genetic information. For example, they need a way to have ‘Bb’ and ‘Cc’ added to the ‘Aa’ when it never existed in the population to start with. To date, there has never been a known case of NEW genetic information being added to an organism by natural means. If evolution was true, we should be finding all kinds of examples of this, but we don’t. We do find numerous examples of the Founder’s Principle and genetic bottlenecks resulting in not only new species, but numerous extinctions as well, which all fits into a curse filled Creation that continues to run down.

Yeah, listen to the gecko. It will tell you that real science and the study of population genetics supports a biblical creation model and completely destroys evolutionary theory. If I ever do get evidence that the geckos in Arizona are a new subspecies, I am tempted to name them Hemidactylus turcicus creationensis because they tell me that God’s Word about Creation and all that follows is true.

[i] The term ‘gravid’ is used for animals that are carrying young or eggs. In scientific terminology, the term ‘pregnant’ is used only for humans.

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