Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.

Ex Input:
Religious Freedom Day 2015: What our Founders understood about freedom of faith. Friday, January 16 is Religious Freedom Day, a celebration of one of the powerful and unique freedoms within our nation's founding and fabric . In 1992, the House and Senate joined together to pass a resolution designating January 16th as Religious Freedom Day . This day is based on the anniversary of the 1786 passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, originally authored by Thomas Jefferson . Congress formally recognized that the "Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom inspired and shaped the guarantees of religious freedom in the First Amendment." President George H  W  Bush issued the first proclamation in 1992 , noting that "American law and institutions have been shaped by a view of man that recognizes the inherent rights and dignity of individuals." For the last 24 years, each president has made an annual declaration and encouraged Americans to "observe this day through appropriate events and activities in homes, schools, and places of worship." To better understand the Founder's intent for this precious right, we must return to the actual text of the 1786 statute . Most notably, it reads:"... no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced ...in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." The Founders understood that there is a direct connection between the prosperity and health of a nation and its respect for human rights and religious freedom . Individual faith grows when people live free of government coercion and control . In America, any person can live their faith or choose to have no faith; in many parts of the world that simple truth is revolutionary . This fundamental right at the core of our nation allows the United States to champion religious freedom around the world . Our own State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom appropriately reinforces this value by saying, "Given the U.S  commitment to religious freedom, and to the international covenants that guarantee it as the inalienable right of every human being, the United States seeks to: Promote freedom of religion and conscience throughout the world as a fundamental human right and as a source of stability for all countries." Over the last few years, there have been many heated conversations in our own country about the role of religious freedom in our society, like pubic prayer, abortion, college campus organization, religious symbols, and many others . Last summer's Supreme Court decision affirming the right to live and work in accordance with one's convictions was contentious , but the High Court reinforced the right of Americans to not just have a faith, but to actually enter the marketplace and practice that faith as well . Religion that is contained only within a church building is a weekend hobby, not a personal faith . Our nation's Founders fled from a regime of religious persecution , sacrificing their lives to birth a new place of liberty . They not only believed that religious freedom was fundamental to shape this new nation, but that religious freedom was a fundamental human right for all . As we celebrate and recognize religious freedom today , let us reflect and remember that it has served as an important pillar of this nation from the start . For America to maintain its greatness, Washington must honor and prioritize religious freedom in public policy, as well as in culture . Our nation has not grown past freedom of faith, in many ways we have grown because of our freedom of faith .

Ex Output:
Friday, January 16 is Religious Freedom Day, a celebration of one of the powerful and unique freedoms within our nation's founding and fabric


Ex Input:
Sia's video: let's be wary of seeing paedophilia everywhere. Australian musician Sia has apologised to anyone "triggered" by her video for Elastic Heart, featuring Shia LaBeouf and 12-year-old dance prodigy Maggie Ziegler, dancing together, in flesh-coloured outfits (Ziegler sporting a platinum Sia wig), in a cage . The video has caused uproar in some quarters . Fame-averse Sia(who generally performs with her face hidden) tweeted:"I anticipated some 'paedophilia!!!' cries for this video . All I can say is Maddie and Shia are two of the only actors I felt could play these two warring 'Sia self states'" , adding that her intention was to "create some emotional content, not to upset anybody" . The video is jarring . Famously troubled LaBeouf and Ziegler dance around, wrestling, attacking, playing . At one point, LaBeouf holds Ziegler aloft ; at another, he tries to stroke her and she kicks and hisses to get away . Elsewhere, Ziegler wraps her tiny limbs around LaBeouf in a feral grip . Watching it, I realised that the intensity(Sia's "emotional content") was the reason it was jarring - the mere fact that the video wasn't carefully benign, cheaply titillating or just plain boring, like so much else in the genre . In Elastic Heart, the grown man and the young girl are alive with feelings for each other, running the gamut from amusement and play through to fury to despair . What isn't there is sexuality . In fact ,  it baffles me how anyone could look seriously at Elastic Heart and claim to see any sexual content whatsoever . Can't a grown man and a young girl produce art with edge and beauty of any kind without a squalid sexual subtext instantly being read into it? Sia seemed to apologise for potentially triggering memories of child sex abuse and grooming (as some accused her of doing, on behalf of abuse victims) . Of course we all sympathise with abuse victims . However, one would imagine that such triggers would be everywhere - perhaps mainly focused on the most ordinary and domestic of situations . All of which couldn't be further away from a highly choreographed performance of an arty cage dance . If some abuse survivors were genuinely disturbed by Elastic Heart then fair enough, but what about those who referred to it as an excuse for their own unease? Are these people aware that Ziegler performed solo, dressed identically, dancing similarly, for Sia's Chandelier video . Did this talented young dancer remind them of child sex abuse then? If not, is it because LaBeouf was in Elastic Heart - so presumably a woman performing the same dance with Ziegler would have been perfectly fine . Is this where we are now: society flinching from the sight of a man and a girl performing together in any way that hasn't been entirely emotionally neutered? Ultimately, this discomfort seems wrapped up in our own dirty, addled, increasingly paranoid 21st-century mindset, in which paedophilia, once so grotesquely secretive, is now seen everywhere and in the most kneejerk fashion . No one could complain about increased awareness of abuse , which means that children are finally protected and believed . Such instincts come from a good (better informed) place . However ,  the situation has surely become overcooked when paedophilia becomes one of the first things we presume and in the most ludicrous settings . It becomes so that everything, even art, is expected to distil and accommodate all the retrospective guilt of bygone eras: the fact that so many perpetrators of the past weren't caught, that we were lax, not observant or protective enough . In some ways, it's good not to forget ; in others, perhaps we need to get past it . The latter is true of Elastic Heart - a video found to be offensive because of sanctioned hysteria, rather than anything happening on screen  - all the more disturbing when set against the wider background of any artist being scared into silence or self-censorship . Sia should not have been badgered into an apology . She had nothing to apologise for . Russia has listed transsexual and transgender people as no longer being allowed to qualify for driving licences . They are to be classed as having "mental disorders" , which would also include exhibitionism, voyeurism and fetishism of any kind (others include compulsive gambling and stealing) . The official line is that this is because there are too many road accidents in Russia and tightening medical controls has become necessary . However ,  Russian psychiatrists and human rights lawyers have condemned the move , which appears to follow on from the infamous 2013 legislation that made the promotion of "non-traditional lifestyles" illegal . Barring a person from driving for no good reason is a serious matter . It takes away not only a civilian right but also a prime symbol of adult autonomy ; never mind the real logistical difficulties that being car-less might present in parts of Russia . It also means that people who might feel that they'd benefit from some degree of psychiatric counselling would feel less inclined to do so if they feared losing their cars . What a farce . There are some of us who would like it proved that a certain Vladimir Putin is mentally fit to ride that horse he is often(and so sexily!) perched upon . There are shots I've seen where he looks quite thrillingly "barking", bobbing about on his saddle, with no top on, brandishing a rifle like the big he-man he oh so obviously is . More seriously, this reminds us that it's still important to keep abreast of Russian moves such as these . Big and small, these laws represent blatant targeting of minorities and cynical affronts to international human rights . This latest one is yet another shift towards the blanket criminalisation of anything other than blessed, state-ordained heterosexuality . We must keep watching . I go pretty low with television, lower than is dignified . But even I have never watched The Jump , the Channel 4 reality show where low-rent celebrities compete in a variety of winter sports, with the slowest two each week being made to perform a ski jump to decide who will be eliminated . There are always casualties during training . This time, Ola Jordan, of Strictly Come Dancing, injured her knee so badly that it threatens her dancing career . The Speaker's wife, Sally Bercow, also injured herself - her ribs, not her gob , so she'll be able to carry on just fine . We all accept this kind of caper as "normal", but on what premise is such dangerous and sadistic television justified? I thought Splash! was irresponsible(unfit semi-famous people falling off high-diving boards after minimal training) . But ski jumping - are they kidding? A test of mettle, my derriere; this is Lord of the Flies with frostbite . Why don't programme makers go the whole hog and push C-listers into fast-moving traffic and allow viewers to vote on who gets squelched by an articulated lorry the fastest? If people dislike celebrities, then fine, but breaking their bones should be off limits .

Ex Output:
Ultimately, this discomfort seems wrapped up in our own dirty, addled, increasingly paranoid 21st-century mindset, in which paedophilia, once so grotesquely secretive, is now seen everywhere and in the most kneejerk fashion  the situation has surely become overcooked when paedophilia becomes one of the first things we presume and in the most ludicrous settings


Ex Input:
From Panama to Ferguson: Countering the devaluation of black lives. Twenty five years ago on December 20, 1989, El Chorrillo, an Afro-Panamanian neighbourhood in the centre of Panama city was the scene of a criminal assault by the military forces of the United States government . A vigorous assault from the most powerful military body on the planet was unleashed by President George H W Bush to execute an arrest warrant issued by a US court on General Manuel Antonio Noriega, the de facto head of the sovereign state of Panama, and up until that time an obedient servant of US interests in the region . Significant elements of the outgunned Panamanian defence forces had barracks in the El Chorrillo community and as a consequence it was turned into a free fire zone by the invading forces, despite the fact that the invaders knew that thousands of civilians also lived in the densely populated community . As Marta Sanchez and others who experienced the assault remembered, the people of El Chorrillo, whose descendants came from the Caribbean to Panama as cheap labour to build the canal, never knew what hit them when they awoke to the sounds of machine gun fire from the 82nd Airborne division . When the firing stopped and the smoke from the fires finally subsided, thousands were dead and the neighbourhood largely destroyed . "Black Lives Matter" is a refrain whose importance is reflective of the value that black people place on our lives , yet we must disabuse ourselves of the illusion that black lives or any other lives matter when they stand in the way of the political and capital interests of US elites and that it is not limited to black communities in the US . As human rights strategist Ajamu Baraka points out:"The black lives taken by the murderous assault on Panama 25 years ago should be a sober reminder that US state violence is not confined to ghettoes and barrios of the US but is a central component of the racist, colonial, capitalist project that is the US. We cannot pretend that police brutality in the US and the devaluation of black life that it represents is restricted just to the black experience in the heart of the US empire." The attack on Panama and the massive loss of life and destruction was a harbinger of the lawlessness and aggression that would characterise US policies in the unipolar world of the late 20th and early 21st century . When President Noriega failed to support US efforts to destabilise Nicaragua and had the audacity to publicly defy the US state with his defiant rhetoric, Bush had a perfect opportunity to establish the terms for what he referred to as a new world order of unchecked US power . Panama became a demonstration project to communicate to the nations of the global south that resistance to US hegemony would be met with ferocious violence . The fact that scores of black lives would be lost as part of the demonstration was of no consequence to the policymakers of hegemony . The structures and relations of repression are linked from the centre of the empire to its periphery states . US police forces train police departments throughout the world through programmes such as the International Taskforce Agent Training, (conducted by US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations) including police officers that work in communities like El Chorrillo . The US police forces bring with them their military, interrogation, intimidation and racially biased tactics which involve use of excessive force on civilians . It is also internationally known that police are quicker to use force, shoot and kill black people, the same way that the US is quick to invade smaller countries with less power , because in the scope of the political reality, they matter less . Violence is integral to the project of western colonial capitalist domination from Palestine to Ferguson . "On this 25th anniversary of the US invasion of Panama, we need to remember that the struggle for black liberation is ongoing. US authorities must be made to understand that the value of black life is not determined by the borders that those black bodies find themselves. The destruction in Panama is a reminder to my generation that our demand is not new," says Alicia Garza, National Domestic Workers Special Projects director and cofounder of #BlackLivesMatter . While we remember the victims of the US invasion of Panama, the families of the thousands of victims of US criminality in Panama are still demanding justice and accountability 25 years later . Like the families of Eric Garner and Mike Brown and the victims of police violence in the US, they are part of the long line of victims of US criminality globally . These crimes will continue until the people - black people in particular - are able to build the power necessary to ensure that black lives really matter in the US and across the globe .

Ex Output:

"Black Lives Matter" is a refrain whose importance is reflective of the value that black people place on our lives


