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Alberta

Pastor James Coates in jail for one more Sunday. Erin Coates releases statement

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A week ago Edmonton Pastor James Coates marked a sobering anniversary.  March 16 was the one month anniversary of his incarceration.  Albertans weren’t sure just how long Pastor James Coates would remain in prison.  Coates was taken into custody back on February 16 after the Pastor of Edmonton’s GraceLife Church refused to sign a bail condition which would have required him to promise to stop holding services that violate public health rules on the size of gatherings.
Then on Wednesday Alberta Crown Prosecutors agreed to withdraw all but one of the Public Health Act offences Coates was charged with and it looked like the pastor might be released as early as Friday.  The Provincial Court of Alberta quickly sent out a press release stating there would be no proceedings on Friday.
Family and friends are now expecting Coates to be released following procedures on Monday at Stony Plain Provincial Court.  Pastor Coates’ wife Erin Coates released a statement on her instagram feed recognizing the delay.

From the Instagram account of Erin Coates

Hi friends, so we weren’t able to get the Friday hearing we hoped for. James’ hearing is Monday morning. This breaks my heart that he has to wait and be away from our family and GLC when he was so excited to potentially get out. He is trusting the Lord with it. He said his work for the Lord must not be done yet. Please remember that even his release is not set in stone…the JCCF article stated they EXPECT the release of James in the upcoming days. The judge has to agree to the terms of the deal. We have high hopes but ultimately our hope is in the Lord. This has been an emotional roller coaster for my children. We have been praying for the last couple days that our hope would not be in the timing of James’ release but in the perfect sovereign will of God. I’m not going to lie, every day without him is a little harder especially with the prospect of his release. I’m trying to subject my emotions to the Lord and trust in His timing alone. Please pray for James, this is the fifth Sunday without GLC, he misses the body. Please pray that he would use the most of his time and that God would continue to protect him. Please pray he would have the words to speak with his statement before the judge and that he will glorify the great name of Christ Jesus. Thank you everyone. I’m so thankful that you all pray so fervently for us, how we need it!

Last Sunday at GraceLife Church Associate Pastor JACOB SPENST read out this letter of encouragement to the congregation written by Pastor Coates from his jail cell.

After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

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Alberta

Sylvan Lake high school football coach fired for criticizing gender ideology sends legal letter to school board

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The letter on behalf of Alberta high school volunteer football coach Taylor ‘Teej’ Johannesson mentions ‘workplace harassment’ while demanding his job back.

A Sylvan Lake high school football coach who was fired for sharing his views opposing transgender ideology on social media in a video discussing his Christian faith sent a legal demand to his former school board demanding he get his job back.

H.J. Cody High School volunteer coach Taylor “Teej” Johannesson, as reported by LifeSiteNews, earlier this month was fired by his school’s principal because he spoke out against gender-confused youth who “take their hatred of Christians” to another level by committing violent acts against them.

School principal Alex Lambert fired Teej, as he is known, as a result of a TikTok video in which he speaks out against radical gender ideology and the dangers it brings.

In a recent update involving his case, local media with knowledge of Johannesson’s issues with the principal at H.J. Cody High School in Sylvan Lake, Alberta, confirmed a legal demand letter was sent to the school.

The letter reads, “From his perspective, this opposition is consistent with the Alberta government’s position and legislation prohibiting prescribing prescription hormones to minors and providing care to them that involves transition surgeries.”

In the letter, the school board’s “workplace harassment” procedure is mentioned, stating, “Any act of workplace harassment or workplace violence shall be considered unacceptable conduct whether that conduct occurs at work, on Division grounds, or at division-sponsored activities.”

The legal demand letter, which was sent to school officials last week, reads, “Given that Mr. Johannesson’s expression in the TikTok Video was not connected to his volunteer work, the principal and the division have no authority to regulate his speech and punish him by the Termination decision, which is ultra vires (“beyond the powers.)”

Johannesson has said, in speaking with local media, that his being back at work at the school as a volunteer coach has meaning: “It’s about trying to create some change within the school system.”

He noted how, for “too long,” a certain “political view, one ideology, has taken hold in the school system.”

Johannesson has contacted Alberta’s Chief of Staff for the Minister of Education about his firing and was told that there is a board meeting taking place over the demand letter.

According to Teej, Lambert used his TikTok video as an excuse to get rid of someone in the school with conservative political views and who is against her goal to place “safe space stickers” all over the school.

Teej has been in trouble before with the school administration. About three years ago, he was called in to see school officials for posting on Twitter a biological fact that “Boys have a penis. Girls have a vagina.”

Alberta’s Conservative government under Premier Danielle Smith has in place a new policy protecting female athletes from gender-confused men that has taken effect across the province.

As LifeSiteNews previously reported, the Government of Alberta is currently fighting a court order that is blocking the province’s newly passed ban on transgender surgeries and drugs for children.

Alberta also plans to ban books with sexually explicit as well as pornographic material, many of which contain LGBT and even pedophilic content, from all school libraries.

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Alberta

Parents group blasts Alberta government for weakening sexually explicit school book ban

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The revised rules no longer place restrictions on written descriptions of sexual content.

Some parental rights advocates have taken issue with the Conservative government of Alberta’s recent updates to a ban on sexually explicit as well as pornographic material from all school libraries, saying the new rules water down the old ones as they now allow for descriptions of extreme and graphic sexual acts in written form.

As reported by LifeSiteNews last week, Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides of the ruling United Conservative Party (UCP) released revised rules outlining the province’s ban on sexually explicit content in school libraries.

The original ban included all forms of sexually explicit as well as pornographic material. However, after a large public school board alleged the ban applied to classic books, the government changed the rules, removing a clause for written sexual content that has some parental rights groups up in arms.

Tanya Gaw, founder of the conservative-leaning Action4Canada, noted to media that while she is happy with Premier Danielle Smith for the original book ban, she has deep concerns with the revised rules.

“We are very concerned about the decision that no longer places restrictions on written descriptions of those acts, which is problematic,” she said in an interview with The Epoch Times.

Gaw noted how kids from kindergarten to grade 12 should “never” be “exposed to graphic written details of sex acts: incest, molestation, masturbation, sexual assaults, and profane vulgar language.”

According to John Hilton-O’Brien, who serves as the executive director of Parents for Choice in Education, the new rule changes regarding written depictions “still shifts the burden onto parents to clean up what should never have been purchased in the first place.”

He did say, however, that the new “Ministerial Order finally makes catalogs public, and what we see there is troubling.”

Alberta’s revised rules state that all school library books must not contain “explicit visual depictions of a sexual act.” To make it clear, the standards in detail go over the types of images that are banned due to their explicit pornographic nature.

As reported by LifeSiteNews in May, Smith’s UCP government went ahead with plans to ban books with sexually explicit as well as pornographic material, many of which contain LGBT and even pedophilic content, from all school libraries.

The ban was to take effect on October 1.

The UCP’s crackdown on sexual content in school libraries comes after several severely sexually explicit graphic novels were found in school libraries in Calgary and Edmonton.

The pro-LGBT books in question at multiple school locations are Gender Queer, a graphic novel by Maia Kobabe; Flamer, a graphic novel by Mike Curato; Blankets, a graphic novel by Craig Thompson; and Fun Home, a graphic novel by Alison Bechdel.

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