"Stand for Marriage" is running these ads: - [Note: Updates added below]
Maine:
Minnesota:
Consider whether you can make a sacrificial donation to the
campaigns to help keep these ads on the air through the election.
Update: Big money is pushing gay marriage. NOM reports:
Just this week ,
billionaire Bill Gates gave
$500,000 for gay marriage to the referendum fight in the state of
Washington. Manhattan billionaire and Mayor, Mike Bloomberg, chipped in
with his
$250,000 "match" gift. Proponents of gay marriage in Washington (R-74)
have spent more than $9.5 million already—five times more
than the whole war chest of the little band of faithful
brothers and sisters at Protect Marriage Washington. They are the David
in this fight against the Goliath of the gay marriage media-industrial
complex—Big Business, Big Hollywood, and Big Media—who have been on the
airwaves for literally months with ads.
The money advantage is only part of the story. Big media and big business are joining forces to push gay
marriage like nothing I've ever seen before.
Major corporations in Washington have
pooled their resources to take out a full-page ad announcing support for gay marriage. The Olympian reports:
Executives
from leading Washington businesses—including iconic Northwest brands
such as Costco, Nordstrom, Microsoft, REI,
Amazon.com and many others—have signed onto a full page ad in this
morning's Sunday Seattle Times [sic], endorsing Referendum 74's same-sex
marriage law.
Nordstrom
sent an email to all 58,000 employees
announcing company policy supports gay marriage, and urging them to vote
for R-74. (It may backfire: how many ordinary workers want our bosses
instructing us how to vote in a moral matter like the definition of
marriage?)
And
the
Seattle Times corporation upped the ante, announcing it would donate at
least $90,000 in free full-page newspaper ads supporting gay marriage!
Traditional marriage ad running in Washington State:
Debate moderators and reporters love to ask pro-life candidates hard
questions about abortion. Curiously, they don’t do the same for
pro-choice candidates.
The following is adapted from a speech delivered on September 20,
2012, in Washington, D.C., at Hillsdale College’s third annual
Constitution Day Dinner.
ONCE UPON A TIME, hardly anyone dissented from the idea that, for
better or worse, the United States of America was different from all
other nations. This is not surprising, since the attributes that made it
different were vividly evident from the day of its birth. Let me say a
few words about three of them in particular.
First of all, unlike all other nations past or present, this one
accepted as a self-evident truth that all men are created equal. What
this meant was that its Founders aimed to create a society in which, for
the first time in the history of the world, the individual’s fate would
be determined not by who his father was, but by his own freely chosen
pursuit of his own ambitions. In other words, America was to be
something new under the sun: a society in which hereditary status and
class distinctions would be erased, leaving individuals free to act and
to be judged on their merits alone. There remained, of course, the two
atavistic contradictions of slavery and the position of women; but so
intolerable did these contradictions ultimately prove that they had to
be resolved—even if, as in the case of the former, it took the bloodiest
war the nation has ever fought.
Secondly, in all other countries membership or citizenship was a
matter of birth, of blood, of lineage, of rootedness in the soil. Thus,
foreigners who were admitted for one reason or another could never
become full-fledged members of the society. But America was the
incarnation of an idea, and therefore no such factors came into play. To
become a full-fledged American, it was only necessary to pledge
allegiance to the new Republic and to the principles for which it stood.
Ronald Reagan's church put this together to commemorate the birthday of Ronald Reagan. I think it magnificent and inspiring. I remember well the media's treatment of Ronaldo Magnus. It was deplorable, dishonorable, and poisonous. The media's bias against conservativism has only intensified with the passing of time. (HT: Joyce)
RAJASTHAN, India -- Every year, millions of Indian
girls are married as children. In some instances the brides are no more
than 4 or 5 years old.
Child marriages are illegal in India, but the practice is flourishing.
Rajasthan is the epicenter of India's child
marriage. More than half of girls born in the area become child brides
before the age of 15.
"The life of a child bride is very sad," said Prem Dabi, who's studying the impact of child marriage on Indian society.
"The moment she gets married, from a physical,
mental, emotional and educational perspective, her life becomes very
challenging," Dabi added.
Most of India's rural poor live on less than a dollar a day. Marrying off a daughter means one less mouth to feed.
See behind the scenes photos from this story on George Thomas' Facebook page. While you're there, share reaction to his report on India's #childbrides.
Dinesh Shur is a village pastor.
"Girls are seen as a liability and burden," Shur
explained. "The girl's family is responsible for the paying [of] the
dowry, so the longer they wait to get the girl married off, the more
they'll have to pay the future-in-laws."
Secret Weddings
April and May are popular months for marriages in
Rajasthan. Villages will hold thousands of ceremonies, the majority of
them between minors.
"Every year you'll see the images of parents holding
their children, sometimes as young as 4 or 5 years old, in their lap as
they get married," Dabi said.
India first introduced laws against child marriage
in 1929, and back then the legal age for marriage was set at 12. It was
eventually increased to 18 years old in 1978.
To evade the law, families often perform marriages
in secret, usually late at night. Outsiders are rarely allowed to attend
these ceremonies, let alone film them.
Rajma Patel's parents made an exception, giving CBN News permission to film their son the night before his wedding.
"I am becoming a man tomorrow," Patel laughed on camera.
His parents insist that he's 21. But his friends
told CBN News off camera that he's only 10. His young face covered in
traditional makeup, he wears a special suit with flashing colored
lights.
"I want the youngsters in the village to follow my example," Patel said.
The entire village spends the night before the wedding drinking and dancing.
"Under the influence of alcohol, these dance rituals
become sexually charged and often you'll see young boys and girls
joining in. It becomes a place to find potential child suitors," pastor
Shur said.
Loss of Innocence
CBN News wasn't allowed to film Patel's bride, who is said to be no more than 8 or 9 years old.
"The parents always lie about the child's age," Dabi
said. "Families know what they are doing is not right but because of
culture and economic reasons, the parents will marry their children off
at a young age."
CBN News was allowed to film Veena's wedding. Her wedding took place during the day, which is very uncommon.
"We've been preparing for this wedding for nearly a
year," Veena's father Kehra said. "I've invited the entire village to
come for this happy occasion."
Veena tried to look her best as she prepared to teeter down the aisle of her house. But she was anything but happy.
In between combing her hair and putting on jewelry,
she sobbed uncontrollably. The family tried to console her. When CBN
News asked her why she's crying, she refused to talk.
"She has no idea what it means to be a wife, how to
take care of a family. But because this has been forced upon her, she
has to go along with it. I think she's a little scared," Veena's aunt
Jeetha said.
Veena's family insisted she's 18. But she looks 7 or 8.
"I also got married when I was very young. She will adjust," Jeetha said.
No End in Sight
India is only one of many countries where child
marriage is thriving. Each year, some 10 million girls are married
before they turn 18. The practice is most common in Africa, the Middle
East, and South Asia.
"The girl is married then moves in with
her husband's family," Dabi explained. "She's not allowed to go to
school to get an education. As soon as she reaches puberty she's
expected to have children."
And the ripple effects of these young marriages are devastating. Research shows that girl brides are more likely to
Die during pregnancy and childbirth
Lose her child before it's born
Be infected with HIV
Have three or more births, and
Undergo multiple abortions.
In the village, Veena's soon-to-be husband, Darji
Damor, arrived in a bus with his family. Wearing a special crown with
flashing lights, he joined a procession of villagers making their way to
the bride's home.
His face was partially covered by a multi-colored
mask worn until the ceremony is over. His family also insisted he's old
enough to legally marry.
"I am ready to be a husband," Darji said.
Weak and exhausted from her emotional preparation, Venna had to be carried down the aisle by her father.
She sobbed through the two-hour ceremony.
"It is heartbreaking to watch," Dinesh said. "These are children, little children getting married."
In her discussion of Obama's first debate, Noonan muses: [my bolding]
Maybe what happened isn't a mystery at all.
That, anyway, is the view expressed this week by a member of the U.S.
Senate who served there with Mr Obama and has met with him in the White
House. People back home, he said, sometimes wonder what happened with
the president in the debate. The senator said, I paraphrase: I sort
of have to tell them that it wasn't a miscalculation or a weird moment. I
tell them: I know him, and that was him. That guy on the stage, that's
the real Obama.
***
Which gets us to Bob Woodward's "The Price of Politics,"
published last month. The portrait it contains of Mr. Obama—of a
president who is at once over his head, out of his depth and wholly
unaware of the fact—hasn't received the attention it deserves.
Throughout the book, which is a journalistic history of the president's
key economic negotiations with Capitol Hill, Mr. Obama is portrayed as
having the appearance and presentation of an academic or intellectual
while being strangely clueless in his reading of political situations
and dynamics. He is bad at negotiating—in fact doesn't know how. His
confidence is consistently greater than his acumen, his arrogance
greater than his grasp.
He misread his Republican opponents from day one. If he had been
large-spirited and conciliatory he would have effectively undercut them,
and kept them from uniting. (If he'd been large-spirited with Mr.
Romney, he would have undercut him, too.) Instead he was toughly
partisan, he shut them out, and positions hardened. In time Republicans
came to think he doesn't really listen, doesn't really hear. So did some
Democrats. Business leaders and mighty CEOs felt patronized: After
inviting them to meet with him, the president read from a teleprompter
and included the press. They felt like "window dressing." One spoke of
Obama's surface polish and essential remoteness. In negotiation he did
not cajole, seduce, muscle or win sympathy. He instructed. He claimed
deep understanding of his adversaries and their motives but was often
incorrect. He told staffers that John Boehner, one of 11 children of a
small-town bar owner, was a "country club Republican." He was often
patronizing, which in the old and accomplished is irritating but in the
young and inexperienced is infuriating. "Boehner said he hated going
down to the White House to listen to what amounted to presidential
lectures," Mr. Woodward writes.
Mr. Obama's was a White House that had—and showed—no respect for
trying to negotiate with other Republicans. Through it all he was
confident—"Eric, don't call my bluff"—because he believed, as did his
staff, that his talents would save the day.
They saved nothing. Washington became immobilized.
Mr. Woodward's portrait of the president is not precisely new—it has
been drawn in other ways in other accounts, and has been a staple of
D.C. gossip for three years now—but it is vivid and believable. And
there's probably a direct line between that portrait and the Obama seen
in the first debate. Maybe that's what made it so indelible, and such an
arc-changer.
People saw for the first time an Obama they may have heard about on radio or in a newspaper but had never seen.
They didn't see some odd version of the president. They saw the president.
And they didn't like what they saw, and that would linger.
The Family Research Council does superb work in assembling these
articles. For previous issues of the Social Conservative Review, click here. The items below are found here.
Stem Cell Research To read about the latest advances in
ethical adult stem cell research, keep up with leading-edge reports from
FRC's Dr. David Prentice, click here.
Religion in America Check out Dr. Kenyn Cureton's feature on Watchmen Pastors called "The Lost Episodes," featuring how religion has had an impact on our Founding Fathers.
Questionable indeed. The following video gives an overview of Obama's treatment of Israel. Many Jews are rethinking their traditional Democratic voting habits. Barry Rubin: "No Jewish American should vote for Obama on the belief that he is a great friend of Israel." (More on the changing Jewish vote beneath the video).
"Two
Jews, three opinions" goes the famous joke. And every day, more of
those opinions turn pro-Romney, as American Jews increasingly reject the
collapsing presidency of Barack Hussein Obama.
Romney's surging poll numbers in the crucial state of Florida reflect his growing success with Bubbie Molly and her unemployed grandson Adam, who both thought their right hand would wither if it ever pulled the lever for a Republican.
The signs and portents are everywhere, beginning with the special election of a Republican
in Anthony Weiner's heavily Jewish, New York congressional district one
year ago. Now a startling new poll even has Romney performing the
ultimate miracle: the parting of the blue states, winning the Jewish vote by a healthy 44% to 40%!
Florida activist Alan Bergstein described
his recent experience advocating for Romney in the Jewish stronghold of
Delray Beach. "Of about 100 entering and leaving the Bagel Tree eatery
in that plaza, we ran into only two Democrats and loads and loads of
Romney supporters. They stopped to talk to us, to congratulate us and to
support us with their views of the Ryan/Biden debate. They were
militant and fearless."
What's
driving the Jewish exodus from the Democratic Party? Like everyone
else, Jews are singing the bad economy blues. But they're also
increasingly acknowledging the uncomfortable facts about Obama's
hostility towards Israel and its Jewish supporters.
"Absolutely Uncertain," a 20-minute YouTube video
starring 23-year-old Irina, a disillusioned Obama voter who analyzes
the president's harsh treatment of Israel, racked up an astonishing
650,000 views in just three days. The Republican Jewish Coalition's
video, "Perilous Times,"
is closing in on a million views, as anxious Jewish voters seek
information outside the mainstream media to understand the accelerating
nuclear threat to Israel from Iran.
In the fight for better health, Americans view
cholesterol as Public Enemy No. 1. Doctors tell us to stay away from
food high in saturated fat, like butter, eggs and meat because it's
responsible for heart disease.
But what if that's wrong?
Dr. Stephen Sinatra, a cardiologist who's been practicing for over 30 years and the author of The Great Cholesterol Myth, thinks it's wrong.
Cholesterol Not the Perpetrator
"You know cholesterol is found at the scene of the crime for heart disease, but it's not the perpetrator," he contends.
Sinatra explained that since half of all patients
hospitalized for heart disease have high cholesterol, that means the
other half do not.
He had a similar experience in his own practice, which helped him realize high cholesterol didn't cause heart disease.
"I was doing angiograms on people with 150, who had
far advanced heart disease," he recalled. "And the converse, I was doing
angiograms on somebody with cholesterol of 280 and they had no heart
disease."
Deadly Inflammation
If cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease, what
does? Sinatra is among a growing number of physicians who point the
finger at inflammation, which is caused by a number of things. Eating
too much sugar is at the top of the list.
Sinatra admits a small percentage of LDL cholesterol
is bad because it's inflammatory. But he said, for the most part, it's
good for you.
"Cholesterol many times can be a gift in disguise," he said. "Higher cholesterol."
Unlike Sinatra, most physicians blame cholesterol
for causing heart disease. They prescribe cholesterol-lowering statin
drugs to their patients with high cholesterol.
But Sinatra said he believes only a very small
percentage of people who are taking statins actually need them. For
example, he usually only prescribes statins to middle-aged men who have
coronary heart disease.
He also said a small number of women need statins
but mostly benefit from the statin's anti-inflammatory properties, not
its ability to lower cholesterol.
On the other hand, by and large, Sinatra believes
statins are far too over-prescribed. Although drug companies sell $30
billion worth of statins every year, Sinatra said the people who take
them are paying a price with their health as well as their wallet.
Statin Risks
In other words, for many statin users, the risks outweigh the gains.
"The side effects of statins are grossly under-reported," he said.
Tonight Gov. Romney and President Obama meet to debate Foreign Policy. The Family Research Council notes that:
In three and a half hours of debating, the candidates have exchanged
30,586 words--but not one
of them was spent discussing marriage. Heading
into this evening's contest, Barack Obama has yet to answer for one of
the most defining moments of his presidency: his "evolution" on same-sex
"marriage" and the abandonment of thousands of years of human tradition
and logic. While tonight's debate in Boca Raton is focused on foreign
policy, this final face-off will be the last opportunity Americans have
to hear for themselves the stark difference between the two men on
defining fundamental issues. The moderators of the previous two debates
have largely avoided the subject of values, save a passing glance or two
on contraception. The void is especially glaring given that a radical
social agenda has been the hallmark of this President's entire first
term. [emphasis mine] In fact, absent other tangible accomplishments to campaign on, the
White House has resorted to highlighting its pro-abortion, Planned
Parenthood policies in ads. President Obama isn't running away from his
extreme social policy--he's running on it! And for once, it's time for Americans to hear why.
How can Bob Schieffer squeeze in social issues? The same way
President Obama did in his dealings with other nations and our military:
by force
In many ways, the administration's international agenda is the perfect
segway to a discussion on life, marriage, and religious liberty. For
four years, President Obama has used his State Department and its
diplomats as his agents of social change. He has not only pushed
homosexuality on the military, but he's advanced his agenda on unwilling
countries through his selection of controversial ambassadors and his celebration of "gay pride" around the globe. At home, he hid subtle changes to marriage in gay immigration policy, U.S. passports, or taxpayer-funded hormone therapy for cross-dressers.
To export abortion, he funneled millions of dollars to his friends at
overseas Planned Parenthoods, UNFPA, and other organizations that
support gendercide, China's one-child policy, and forced sterilization.
In countries like Kenya, which has a strong pro-life majority, the White
House bullied its way through obstacles, hiring lobbyists to expand
abortion in its constitution--illegally. And when it came time to reauthorize the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the President dragged his feet.
Yes, there are plenty of ways to introduce values into a debate on
foreign policy. If Mr. Schieffer needs some conversation starters, he
could start with FRC's new one-pagers on President Obama's record. Our
experts combed through the last four years of the President's record and
found plenty of disturbing trends. Of the 66 decisions he made that
violate pro-family values, 60 of them were done without congressional
approval. Check them out here.
John Lennox in his book, God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? tells the story of Chinese palaeontologist Jun-Yuan Chen who visited the USA in 1999 during which time he gave several lectures. Lennox writes (p. 95) :
His work on the remarkable discoveries in Chengjiang of strange fossil creatures led him to question the orthodox evolutionary line. In true scholarly fashion he mentioned his criticisms in his lectures but they elicited very little response. This lack of reaction surprised him and so he eventually asked one of his hosts what was wrong. He was told that scientists in the USA did not like to hear such criticism of evolution. To this he gave the delightful reply that it seemed to him that the difference between the USA and China was:
In China we can criticize Darwin, but not the government; in America you can criticize the government, but not Darwin."
No doubt it is treacherous to criticize Darwinism in the United Kingdom as well. After all, it is the Oxford evolutionary extremist Richard Dawkins who famously said,
"It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that).
To which John Lennox counters with a quote from the distinguished biologist Lynn Margulis:
"Like a sugary snack that temporarily satisfies our appetite but deprives us of more nutritious foods, neo-Darwinism sates intellectual curiosity with abstractions bereft of actual details -- whether metabolic, biochemical, ecological;, or of natural history."
Lennox offers a valuable overview of the evolution debate in the course of which he makes the observation that, to put it in my words, evolution is first and foremost a philosophy in search of evidentiary justification. rather than a theory developed on the basis of actual evidence. In other words, if one starts out with a philosophy of naturalism and materialism, then as Lennox says,
[...] merely as a matter of sheer logical necessity [emphasis his], it follows that some kind of evolutionary account must be given for life, apart altogether from any evidence which may be offered to support it. For, what other possibility can there be? If, for example, we start off with the materialistic hypothesis that all we have is matter/energy and the forces of physics, then there is only one option--matter/energy together with the forces of nature over time have produced life, that is, evolution of some sort.
This overview of Mark's gospel is full of insight. Dr. Witherington is one of the top New Testament scholars in the world today. He teaches at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky.
I have deer hunting friends who I think will get a kick out this: [HT: Brian]
This actually happened.
They dressed the truck up with the guy tied down on the
roof.
The driver and passengers put on Moose heads.
Then they went down the toll road Interstate, causing 16 near accidents.
Yes, they went to jail... Yes, alcohol was involved...
John F. Kilner (PhD, Harvard) is the Franklin Forman Chair of Ethics,
Professor of Bioethics and Contemporary Culture, and the Director of
the Bioethics Program at Trinity International University in Deerfield,
Illinois. - Why the Church Needs Bioethics
-
Breakpoint interview with John Kilner and Scott Rae - Listen Now | Download
Bioethics
• Cameron, Nigel M. de S. The New Medicine: Life and Death after Hippocrates. Bioethics Press, 2001.
• DeGrazia, David, Thomas A. Mappes and Jeffrey Brand-Ballard. Biomedical Ethics, 7thed. McGraw-Hill,
2011.
• Rothman, David. Strangers at the Bedside. Aldine de Gruyter, 2003.
Christian Bioethics
• Engelhardt, H. Tristram. The Foundations of Christian Bioethics. Taylor & Francis, 2000.
• Lysaught,
M. Therese, and Joseph Kotva, Jr., eds. On Moral Medicine: Theological
Perspectives on Medical Ethics 3rd ed. Eerdmans, 2012.
• Ramsey,
Paul, Margaret Farley, Albert Jonsen, and Marcia Wood. Patient as
Person: Exploration in Medical Ethics 2nd ed. Yale Univ Press, 2002.
Christian Bioethics Surveys
• Feinberg, John S., and Paul D. Feinberg. Ethics for a Brave New World, 2nd ed. Crossway, 2010.
• Meilaender, Gilbert. Bioethics: A Primer for Christians, 2nd ed. Eerdmans, 2005.
• Rae, Scott B. and Paul M. Cox. Bioethics: A Christian Approach in a Pluralistic Age. Eerdmans, 1999.
• Thobaben, James. Heath-Care Ethics: A Comprehensive Christian Resource. IVP Academic, 2009.
Jeffrey H. Anderson at the Weekly Standard reports: (HT: Drudge)
In the wake of the Treasury Department’s newly released summary
of federal spending for 2012, it’s now possible to detail just how
profligate the Obama years have been. Here’s the upshot: Under Obama,
for every $7 we’ve had, we’ve spent nearly $11 (or, to be more exact,
$10.95). That’s like a family that makes $70,000 a year — and is
already knee-deep in debt — blowing nearly $110,000 a year. [more . . .]
Physician, surgeon, and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Dr. Frist writes: [my emphases]
Want real health reform that is in the interest of you and your
family? Don't make the same mistake that Washington did. In formulating
ObamaCare, the politicians listened to lobbyists, policy wonks,
academics, health theorists, regulators, and occasionally to each other.
But they failed to listen to the people who actually care for patients:
Doctors. Granted, the lobbyists for physician groups were at the table,
but not the doctor him or herself. Ironic, isn't it? Especially when
it's the doctor who has the daily responsibility of directly caring for
the patient.
Go ahead, ask your physician at your next visit what she or he thinks of
current Washington-directed reform and its impact on the doctor-patient
relationship. What you hear will likely surprise you, because it will
likely be markedly different from what you hear from Washington. The
policy theorists are simply too far removed from the reality of
front-line patient care. Health reform, whether via the implementation
of ObamaCare or the GOP's "repeal and replace" plan, should no longer
ignore the input and counsel of experienced, front-line, practicing
doctors.
Here is a sampling of what my own internist, who has taken care of thousands of patients over the past 20 years, shared with me:
Samuel Tadros' subtitles his article, "For Copts, a persecuting dictator was preferable to the Islamist mob." He writes: [the bolding is my own]
Visit any Coptic church in the United States and you immediately
recognize the newcomers. You see it in their eyes, hear it in their
broken English, sense it in how they cling to the church in search of
the familiar. They have come here escaping a place they used to call
home, where their ancestors had lived for centuries.
Waves of Copts have come here from
Egypt before, to escape Gamal Abdel Nasser's nationalizations or the
growing Islamist tide. Their country's transformation wasn't sudden, but
every year brought more public Islamization. As the veil spread, Coptic
women felt increasingly different, alien and marked. Verbal abuse came
from schoolteachers, bystanders in the bus station who noticed the cross
on a wrist, or commentators on state television.
But life was generally bearable. Hosni
Mubarak crushed the Islamist insurgency of the 1980s and '90s. He was no
friend to the Copts, but neither was he foe. His police often turned a
blind eye when Coptic homes and shops were attacked by mobs, and the
courts never punished the perpetrators—but the president wasn't an
Islamist. He even interfered sometimes to give permission to build a
church, or to make Christmas a national holiday.
To be sure, Copts were excluded from
high government positions. There were no Coptic governors, intelligence
officers, deans of schools, or CEOs of government companies. Until 2005,
Copts needed presidential approval to build a new church or even build a
bathroom in an existing one. Even with approval, state security often
blocked construction, citing security concerns.
Those concerns were often real. Mobs
could mobilize against Copts with the slightest incitement—rumor of a
romantic relationship between a Christian man and a Muslim woman, a
church being built, reports of a Christian having insulted Islam. The
details varied but the results didn't: homes burned, shops destroyed,
Christians leaving villages, sometimes dead bodies. The police would
arrive late and force a reconciliation session between perpetrators and
victims during which everything would be forgiven and no one punished.
What pained the Copts most was that the attackers were neighbors,
co-workers and childhood friends.
Some 80% of companies receiving Department of Energy backing,
according to the Hoover Institution's Peter Schweizer, are "run by or
primarily owned by Obama financial backers." One, Mr. Al Gore, is worth
an estimated $100 million, thanks to $2.5 billion in federal loans,
grants and tax breaks, according to Friday's Washington Post
What about the "green" jobs that were supposed to sprout? By Mr.
Obama's own arithmetic, the $21 billion spent so far should have
delivered 700,000 jobs. Actual count: 28,854, according to Friday's
Bloomberg Businessweek. [my emphases]
[...] Peter Brierley found that attendance at church in 1980 was 57% for women
and 43% for men. In the year 2000 the figures were 60% or women and 40%
for men; while in 2010 attendance for women was 63% and 37% for men.
Thus although there was a net loss of men and women from churches in the
ten year period 2000 to 2010, the proportion of women still attending
(albeit in an overall shrinking group) appeared to be steadily rising.
This must have been because men were leaving churches at a much faster
rate than the women.
The proportion of men worshippers relative to women worshippers has been
in decline for a very long time, almost certainly from before the end
of the medieval period. The Reformation, a male instigated and led
activity, may have slowed down or even reversed temporarily in some of
the new national churches a decline in men's attendance. Other factors
since then which may have boosted men's presence at acts of worship were
the Methodist revival in the eighteenth century, and several other
revivals (e.gs. Tractarian, Evangelical) in the Nineteenth Century.
But
when we come to recent times, i.e. the Twentieth Century and the
present one, we can see quite clearly that the falling away of
attendance at church, especially by men has become more pronounced and
very visible, and deservedly should be called a haemorrhage of the
lifeblood of the Church. That nearly all mainstream churches for a long
time - and increasingly so in recent times - steadily and spectacularly
have lost their men folk, ipso facto is turning Christianity into
a female religion. And that is about as serious a criticism as can be
made about the Christian religion today. [more...]
Earlier today this very topic came up in a discussion I was having with others. It's a major challenge, and not just for the Church of England.
The Family Research Council does superb work in assembling these
articles. For previous issues of the Social Conservative Review, click here. The items below are found here.
Stem Cell Research To read about the latest advances in
ethical adult stem cell research, keep up with leading-edge reports from
FRC's Dr. David Prentice, click here.
Religion in America Check out Dr. Kenyn Cureton's feature on Watchmen Pastors called "The Lost Episodes," featuring how religion has had an impact on our Founding Fathers.
From the National Organization for Marriage (NOM):
Dr. Angela McCaskill. You
may not know her name but you should. She is the first black deaf
woman to be granted a PhD by Gallaudet University, a national
university for deaf people.
Until a few days ago, she was Gallaudet's chief
diversity officer.
You can see her discussing her job here:
But then someone complained about Dr. McCaskill.
Was it about her job performance? Did she make a mistake? Fail in a key duty? Treat someone wrongly?
No. The complaint against Dr. Angela McCaskill consists of one fact and one fact alone: she
exercised her core civil rights by signing a petition to put the
question of marriage on the ballot for the voters of Maryland.
That's it. But that in itself was enough for Gallaudet to relieve Dr. McCaskill of her
responsibilities and to place her on paid leave while they "investigate" her!
This
is a very sad day in America. African-American Christians, it seems
to me, are paying a disproportionate price for exercising these
core civil rights to speak, to vote, to donate and to organize on behalf
of marriage and traditional views on sexuality. Consider these
examples:
Crystal Dixon, an
administrator at the University of Toledo, was fired after writing a letter (as a private citizen) to the editor of the Toledo Free Press. The letter respectfully opposed the notion of gay rights and explained God's plan for human beings. Activists later
tried to keep a city from hiring her.
In
New Jersey, a special
education teacher, Viki Knox, wrote a message on her personal Facebook
page criticizing the school's promotion of a "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender History Month." Activist groups and others have demanded
that she be fired, and have planned protests targeting her. The lawyer
who
began the attack on Knox said: "Hateful public comments from a teacher
cannot be tolerated. She has a right to say it. But she does not have a
right to keep her job after saying it."
This week The
Star-Ledger reports that, under ongoing pressure and threats not only to her job but to her pension, Viki Knox has chosen to resign!
And
in Michigan, Julea
Ward, a graduate student at Eastern Michigan University, was dismissed
from that school's counseling program after asking for permission to
refer a
client to another counselor because she was uncomfortable affirming that
client's same-sex relationship.
But there's something especially chilling in this most recent case regarding the treatment of Dr. McCaskill, who simply
exercised her civil right to sign a petition in favor of putting a certain question before her state's voters.
It would be shocking to the conscience if this happened anywhere. But here's another thing you may not know
about Gallaudet: it's not a private university!
It's a Congressionally chartered corporation, with a legal
obligation to report each year to the Secretary of Education, who must
approve any transfer or sale of real property owned by the university.
Traditionally, the diplomas at Gallaudet are even signed by the President of the United States.
I
hope Gallaudet University does the right thing. If not, I hope the
President of the
United States will make it clear that this injustice must stop. As a
final failsafe, I hope Congress recognizes its responsibility to affirm
how this
behavior is unacceptable in a government-affiliated institution.
Let me make it
clear that there is a principle at stake here as important as marriage itself: No
American, whether he or she is
for or against gay marriage, should be afraid to vote, to sign
petitions, to donate or to speak—with civility of course!—in support of
that position.
Even Marylanders for Marriage Equality campaign manager,
Josh Levin, says that Angela McCaskill "should be reinstated immediately."
I
thank Mr. Levin for that, and I hope and pray that he's doing that out
of conviction and not just because he knows that this story is a
real problem for his goal of getting voters to approve gay marriage in
Maryland—the record of gay rights activists is not very good in this
regard.
Please join me in praying for Dr. McCaskill, and praying that justice be
done in her case.
In addition (10/13/12), the Family Research Council makes the point:
As Americans wrestle over this debate in four states, Dr. McCaskill is
the perfect illustration of what's at stake. It's not love. It's not
commitment. It's not even equality. The battle for marriage is about our
most basic civil rights--rights to worship, to speak freely, to cast
our ballots, even, in Dr. McCaskill's case, to pursue a livelihood. As
Derek McCoy, head of the Maryland Marriage Alliance, pointed out, "If
these attacks can be made before same-sex 'marriage' is law, how can
homosexual activists in good faith say that religious liberties will not
be attacked it Question 6 passes?" If Gallaudet is willing to harass
its own educational pioneers, there is no limit to the persecution
everyday Marylanders will face if marriage is redefined.
...the 7.8% unemployment figure released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics
(BLS) last week is downright implausible. And that's why I made a stink
about it. [more . . . ]
-- Rick Santelli at CNBC gets into a shouting match with Steve Liesman. Santelli's the man:
Rick Santelli, the man widely regarded as the founding father of the Tea Party
movement, got into an incredibly intense shouting match Tuesday morning
with CNBC reporter Steve Liesman over recent comments regarding
possible election-year manipulation of the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report.
On the issue of marriage, President Obama may speak for liberals, but
he doesn't speak for the black community. That became painfully obvious
in North Carolina when 61% of the state, including the majority of
African Americans, turned out to protect what Obama had attacked:
marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Months later, the
President's miscalculation is still costing him, as 18% of African Americans say they are still undecided about which candidate to support.
Thousands of black church leaders continue to speak out against his
position, including the Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP),
which is combating what it sees as a phony civil rights movement. Adding
to their frustration, the NAACP has taken to bucking its base and
launching its own campaign
to support same-sex "marriage" in Maryland. Featuring Julian Bond, the
organization's chairman emeritus, the ads insist that the state's "gay
and lesbian families share the same values" as the NAACP "and they
should share in the right to marry."
Rev. Bill Owens, who presides over CAAP, had plenty to say about the
campaign. "Gay marriage is not a civil right it's a civil wrong, and the
NAACP needs to change its name to the National Association for the
Advancement of Gay People if it's now spending money not to advance the
interest of black people but of the gay community."
Meanwhile, as the race over marriage tightens, the Maryland Marriage Alliance released its first television spot, encouraging voters to oppose Question 6. You can help support that effort by clicking here.
Help remind Marylanders that while everyone is entitled to love and
respect, no one--not even President Obama--is entitled to redefining
marriage.
Multiple sources have confirmed that about 25 to 30 Christian college
students were massacred at a university in northeastern Nigeria late
Monday night, causing Christians to pray for a “change of heart” among
the extremist Islamist group Boko Haram to put a stop to the continued
violence.
While there is speculation as to the motive of the massacre, sources
close to the human rights watchdog Open Doors USA confirm that the
massacre was performed by Boko Haram.
The killings reportedly occurred in the late night hours on Oct. 1,
when masked gunmen went door-to-door in the off-campus housing section
of Federal Polytechnic College in Mubi, a city in the remote Adamawa
State in northeastern Nigeria.
Open Doors USA sources confirmed that the gunmen separated
the Christian students from the Muslim students, addressed each victim
by name, questioned them, and then proceeded to shoot them or slit their
throat. [more details here]
The October issue of Journal of Marriage and Family
published an analysis by Charles Lau of a British probability sample,
“The Stability of Same-Sex Cohabitation, Different-Sex Cohabitation, and
Marriage.”
Lau found that cohabiting same-sex couples in Great Britain are twice
as likely to break up as cohabiting opposite sex couples — and married
couples (all opposite-sex in Great Britain) are at least five times more
stable than same-sex couples:
Compared to married couples, the dissolution rates for male and
female same-sex cohabiters were seven and five times higher,
respectively. Among cohabiters, the differences were smaller: The
dissolution rate for male and female same-sex cohabiters was
approximately double the rate for different-sex cohabiters.
He also reports no increase in stability of same-sex unions between the 1958 birth cohort and the 1970 birth cohort.
This of course cannot tell us how children fare on average when they
are raised by stable same-sex couples, or whether gay marriage will
significantly increase stability in same-sex couples. It can tell us why
Professor Mark Regnerus’s study turned up so few: They are rare.
