Tag Archives: Topic: Culture

LifeSiteNews: Several groups in the Czech Republic are organizing pro-life, pro-family counter-demonstrations to take place at the same time as the “gay pride festival” scheduled for August 18th.

PublicEye.org (authored by Kapya John Kaoma and published by Political Research Associates): Conference panelists varied from a new brand of less vitriolic pro-traditional family advocates such as Dr. W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at University of Virginia, to Piero Tozzi, an attorney for the right-wing Christian group the Alliance Defense Fund, to Floyd Godfrey, a practitioner of the harmful and discredited practice of reparative or conversion therapy for “treating” same-sex attraction . . . The ACLJ is now one of the principal legal advocacy groups in the conservative movement, along with the Alliance Defense Fund, Liberty Counsel, the Liberty Institute, and the Thomas More Law Center.
The group has built strong partnerships with many Religious Right groups, including the Christian Defense Coalition, Faith and Action,
the American Family Association, and WallBuilders. Its reach has expanded globally with affiliates in countries including France, Israel, , Kenya, Pakistan, Russia, Zimbabwe, and Brazil.

Christian Institute: The Prime Minister David Cameron last night lashed out at churches for “locking out” gays by supporting marriage between one man and one woman.

USA Today: The growth of the Nones is one reason the Secular Coalition for America is organizing local chapters to lobby states. The coalition wants to raise the public profile of nonbelievers and push to keep religion out of public policy. But their critics say that atheists and other nonbelievers are part of a new secular religion that’s pushing for special privileges.

The Telegraph: The former Labour prime minister talks about religion and politics, lessons from the financial crisis and the future of the euro

Baptist Press: The good news is the Obama administration continues to go out of its way to funnel money to the country’s No. 1 abortion provider. The bad news is Planned Parenthood can’t stop scandals and negative reports from reaching at least some of the American public. For instance . . .

Christian Post: Conservative radio and TV host Mike Huckabee and the National Organization for Marriage are calling on people to eat at Chick-fil-A on Wednesday to support Dan Cathy, the company’s president, who is being attacked by gay activists for saying in recent interviews that he supports traditional marriage.

ABC: Despite decades of prevention efforts, HIV continues to increase among young gay men in urban areas, and most of these men are unaware they are infected, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

LifeSiteNews: A senior gov’t official stated that one way to curb Britain’s social problems is to tell mothers with large families not to have any more children.

Casey Mattox at The American Thinker: Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy recently incited the outrage of The Washington Post, actor Ed Helms, and at least five other celebrities by supporting marriage on the Ken Coleman radio program. In a discussion about ongoing attempts to redefine marriage in this country, Cathy said . . .

jeff Jacoby at

AP: A new report says conservative U.S. Christian groups are setting up fronts in Africa to fight for anti-gay and anti-abortion legislation.

Melissa Moschella at Public Discourse: The right to religious freedom was crucial to the Founders’ vision of America. Religious freedom is a right to be protected because it enables us to fulfill our human obligation to seek the truth. The second in a two-part series.

Christian Post: Advocacy groups in Ukraine have said that homosexuals in the Eastern European country are being targeted by an increasing amount of intolerance and violence, and have criticized the government for pushing legislation that would criminalize any positive portrayals of homosexuality.

Owen Strachan at Baptist Press: Some still think that they have the luxury of sitting out the national debate over homosexuality. They think, “Well, the battle over marriage is for those frothy-mouthed Christians who send out the weird newsletters and are always sounding the doomsday bell. I don’t really have the stomach for that; I don’t want, after all, to be weird, or unliked, or out of tune with The New York Times and NPR crowd. I’m educated and above the fray. Culture wars, as I’ve come to understand from the media, are for hillbillies and fear mongers, the God-and-country set. Nope. No thank you.”

NY Times: In a recent morning at the main public library here, dozens of people sat and stood at computers, searching job-hunting sites, playing games, watching music videos. And some looked at naked pictures of men and women in full view of passers-by.

Michael Brown at Townhall: A British hotel replaces the in-room Gideon Bibles with copies of Fifty Shades of Grey (aka Mommy porn). A Christian organization is banned by the Advertising Standards Authority from announcing that God can heal sickness today. And a recent poll indicates that only 37% of people in England say they have always believed in God, as opposed to 81% of Americans. Christian England, what has become of you?

Kathryn Jean Lopez at Townhall: It’s Time for Mark Regnerus to Get Collectively Dumped,” read one online headline. The outrage was in response to a study that Regnerus, a professor in the department of sociology at the University of Texas, Austin, released earlier this summer. His crime? Doing research on the effects of same-sex parenting on children. The shamelessness of the blogosphere’s eruption turned outrageous . . .

Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review: “I think it’s a fairly pervasive attitude in our culture that people with religious convictions should really get along with the program, whatever the program is — in this case, the HHS mandate,” Ryken observes. He worries that the principle that “even if you disagree with a point of view it’s very important to defend the right of someone else to have that point of view” is “not as widely valued as it needs to be for us to have a flourishing democracy” in the United States today.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation: America’s “Nones” — the nonreligious — are at an all-time high, now comprising nearly one in five Americans (19%), according to a new study by the Pew Center for the People and the Press. The 19% count is based on aggregated surveys of 19,377 people conducted by the Pew Research Center throughout 2011 and reported by USA Today.

BBC: St Mary Constable Juliette Gallichan said she was worried pupils spent so long studying world religions they did not learn enough about Christianity. She said it was disappointing many children in the island could not recite the Lord’s Prayer.

AP: In a memorandum sent to all its branches, the Defense Department said it was making the allowance for the San Diego parade on Saturday – even though its policy generally bars troops from marching in uniform in parades.

NCPA Policy Digest: Many suburban communities have long made it difficult, or impossible, for homeowners to convert underused space — barns, garages and basements — into rental apartments. But across the United States, homeowners are pressing for changes in zoning laws to allow rentals while home builders report a rise in demand for houses with in-law suites or quarters with separate entry, says the Wall Street Journal.

American Prospect: In Murfreesboro, Tennessee, just outside Nashville, the Muslim community won a hard-fought victory Wednesday. After a two-year legal battle that inflamed anti-Islamic sentiment across the state, a federal judge ruled that a new Islamic community center could get the permits necessary to open. Elsewhere in the state, however, Muslim residents got a cold reminder this week of just how much prejudice exists around them.

(AP) KGWN.tv: Part Karl Rove and part Pat Robertson, Schubert is managing four statewide campaigns where the issue is on the ballot in the fall – in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington. He’s trying to preserve a winning streak in which conservatives have put anti-gay marriage laws on the books in 32 states in the last decade.

But Dan Cathy, president of the popular fast food chain Chick-fil-A . . . “we’re inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage . . . ”

LifeNews: Just another indication of how abortion has turned the world upside down. India is cracking down on doctors that tell parents the sex of their baby. Charges have been brought and a handful of doctors have been suspended for determining the sex of a fetus and disclosing that information to the parents, which is illegal in India.

Philip Ryken and John Garvey at the Wall Street Journal: Many Americans disagree with our shared belief in the immorality of abortion. That is their right. But there should be no dispute about a second point we hold in common: Religious schools like Wheaton College and Catholic University should have the freedom—guaranteed by the United States Constitution—to carry out our mission in a way that is consistent with our religious principles. “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation,” Justice Robert Jackson wrote in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), “it is that no official . . . can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

Robert P. George at Public Discourse: In the name of “marriage equality” and “non-discrimination,” liberty–especially religious liberty and the liberty of conscience–and genuine equality are undermined.

Christian Post: Conservative groups including the National Organization for Marriage, Focus on the Family, and the Family Research Council have all come out against Freedom to Marry’s new campaign, insisting that while Freedom to Marry might talk of supporting conservative principals, in practice they fall woefully short.

Jordan Lorence appeared on Southern California Public Radio (89.3 KPCC) with Patt Morrison. | MP3 audio 15:16 mins

Huffington Post: This week the David Bohnett Foundation made a substantial investment in the future of LGBT leadership when it announced a grant of $800,000 to help send mid-career, openly LGBT professionals to Harvard Kennedy School.

AP on ABC: After a confidential two-year review, the Boy Scouts of America on Tuesday emphatically reaffirmed its policy of excluding gays, ruling out any changes despite relentless protest campaigns by some critics.

LifeSiteNews: In North America today, the Christian Church is challenged in the most extreme way in this regard by the issue of homosexuality. There is no other topic, abortion and contraception included, which has made for more gun-shy Church, political and institutional leadership. And that is quite understandable given the current obsession with homosexuality and all things relating to it by the media and so many of the institutional elites. For nearly 20 years the labels of ‘hater’ and ‘bigot’ have been cast upon all those who would dare to question the homosexual lifestyle.

Nathan Cherry at Engage Family Minute: The reality is that if trends continue and religious freedoms and Christians are persecuted as they have been in recent years we can reasonably expect to see church attendance and professions of faith dwindle. As persecution and pressure escalates it will become more difficult for people to live out the tenets of their faith and, necessarily, harder still to impart faith to their children.

Nathan A. Cherry at Engage Family Minute: The opposition I hear most from Christians, pastors in particular, is that there should be a “separation of church and state” and the two should have nothing to do with one another. The problem is that while many pastors are following that philosophy, the government is not. The government is seizing upon the apathy and inaction of pastors and churches with an increasing number of attacks on religious freedom and religious conviction

UPI: The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina criticized the national church’s approval of services blessing same-sex relationships.

ScienceBlog: Poor people hold more traditional values toward marriage and divorce than people with moderate and higher incomes, UCLA psychologists report in the current issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family. | What’s (Not) Wrong With Low-Income Marriages (pages 413–427)
Thomas E. Trail and Benjamin R. Karney
Article first published online: 24 MAY 2012 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2012.00977.x

NPR (includes audio): The increasing debt load of college graduates has affected young people’s lives in untold ways, from career choices to living arrangements. Now add another impact on a key part of young adult life: dating and marriage.

FRC: Family Research Council President Tony Perkins is pleased to announce today that Lt. Gen. (USA Ret.) William G. “Jerry” Boykin has joined Family Research Council as its Executive Vice President. In this role, he will oversee day-to-day operations including policy, finance, development, communications, human resources, facilities, information technology, constituent communications and services.

NY Times: Estimates vary widely, but scholars have said that changes in marriage patterns — as opposed to changes in individual earnings — may account for as much as 40 percent of the growth in certain measures of inequality. Long a nation of economic extremes, the United States is also becoming a society of family haves and family have-nots, with marriage and its rewards evermore confined to the fortunate classes.

Helen Alvare at Public Discourse: Against what social science tells us about human happiness, the government is promoting sexualityism—a commitment to uncommitted, unencumbered, inconsequential sex—as the answer.

The Hill: Nearly half (47 percent) of likely voters believe it is impossible for them to become wealthy in the course of their lifetime, according to a new poll for The Hill.

Harry R. Jackson, Jr. at Townhall: First of all, the legal rigor that made the organization effective and famous under Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall was not employed in this decision. Secondly, instead of leading the community in a mature discussion about this issue, the NAACP has stooped to name calling and hate mongering.

Reuters: The biggest civil rights group’s two-month-old decision to support same-sex marriage has opened rifts at its convention in Houston this week, pitting religious conservatives against political progressives.

AP: More than three hours of violence in the hardline Catholic Ardoyne district marked the fourth straight year that the area has descended into street battles following the annual passage of Protestant marchers from the Orange Order brotherhood.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: In a democratic society, politics should be based on the exchange of rational arguments, not on negative campaigning and name-calling. This poster does not present any reasoned arguments in favour of same-sex marriage or gay adoption. Instead, its apparent purpose is to prevent the exchange of rational arguments from taking place and to belittle, marginalise and denigrate those holding different views. Their message is simple: Don’t listen to the arguments of our opponents — they are BAD and IGNORANT people.

Rod Dreher at Real Clear Religion: What If Rachel Held Evans Is Wrong?
The Putnam-Campbell data suggest the real battle will not be over whether or not churches are going to embrace gay marriage. As I said, the churches that do aren’t benefiting from it, overall. The question is going to be whether or not young people remain Christian in any sense connected to the Great Tradition. Homosexuality is a clear, bright line.

Washington Post: The Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, who heads the leadership program for Catholic educators at the University of Notre Dame, said many bishops “are in a pickle.” They want Catholic institutions to be staffed by people who not only teach what the church teaches but whose “whole life will bear witness.”

The Texas Pastor Council provides information regarding today’s press conference and observes: “It is clear that the NAACP does not represent the majority of African Americans on this issue and we will explain why.”

Christian Science Monitor: Sexting – often thought of only in a legal context – needs to be considered from a youth perspective in order for parents to more fully protect them from its consequences.

C-Fam: Eberstadt and Shah point out that in terms of relative fertility decline, “the estimated population-weighted average for Muslim-majority areas as a whole was -41 percent over these three decades.” They show that “22 Muslim-majority countries and territories were estimated to have undergone fertility declines of 50 percent or more during those three decades–ten of them by 60 percent or more. For both Iran and the Maldives, the declines in total fertility rates over those 30 years were estimated to exceed 70 percent.”

Deseret News: Our take: The religion of Islam is growing faster than any other religion in San Diego, according to a new census. Currently there are 21,994 Muslims in that area, which makes it the seventh-largest religion in the U.S. Much of the growth is attributed to the immigration of Somali, Iraqi, Afghani and Bosnian refugees as well as to conversions within the U.S. and births.

Dr. Melvin Johnson at the Christian Post: So this poses a couple of quesions for the leadership of the century-old organization: Is it truly supportive of the advancement of “colored people” or only certain colored people? OR was the NAACP actually formed by the white socialists as a means to infiltrate the African American community (including churches) and use it to incubate and the Marxist ideology. Based upon the current agendas and positions, the orgiinal founders are successfully making their marks!

Fox News: But Mrs. Pitt has at least one high-profile supporter on her daughter-in-law’s side of the family: Jolie’s dad Jon Voight! “Good for her,” Voight told FOX411’s Pop Tarts column, adding that he agrees with the points-of-view expressed by Jane.

AP: “You can’t make a rule to stop every accident,” Mosbacher said after his son Jacob hopped off the 40-year-old, 60-horsepower tractor at their farm near the tiny southern Illinois town of Fults. “There’s always a risk in life, no matter what you do.”

Robert Knight at Townhall: The most important part of the program, of which CBS ran 249 episodes (159 in black and white and 90 in color) from 1960 to 1968, was not the idealized portrayal of small town American life. It is the Christian-inspired warmth and wisdom, which never goes out of style. Most Americans don’t live in semi-rural villages anymore, and the communications age has ended isolation, but “The Andy Griffith Show” transcends its venue.

Marvin Olasky at Townhall: Are evangelicals ready to join the crowd in recommending that unmarried individuals use contraceptives?

Telegraph: Christianity is in danger of ‘sliding out of cultural memory’, the Church of England’s head of education has warned, as he unveiled a new drive to use its network of schools to spread the religion.

AP: Church leaders on Monday voted 111-41 in favor of the liturgy during the Episcopal General Convention in Indianapolis.

LifeSiteNews: “Abortions are the most terrible Holocaust in humanity’s life,” said Fr. Chaplin, during a pro-life and pro-family rally on Moscow’s Gogolevsky Boulevard on Sunday, according to the Russian news service RIA Novosti.

Robert P. George and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf at Public Discourse: A letter on pornography and business ethics written by two prominent public intellectuals—one a Christian, one a Muslim—sent to hotel industry executives last week.

AP: The Church of England on Monday put off a final decision on allowing women to serve as bishops because of continuing disagreements . . .

The Church Report: The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) narrowly rejected a proposal to revise the traditional definition of marriage on Friday, a year after it struck down a barrier to ordaining gays.

Marion Smith at Human Events: This July 4th America still stands for freedom, but precariously so. Welfare and entitlement programs strain the federal budget, while sapping the spirit of self-government and the virtues that enable it.

Seattle Post Intelligencer: The United Methodist Church in the Northwest, at odds with its parent denomination, has endorsed Referendum 74 and called on voters to make Washington the nation’s seventh state to enact same-sex marriage.

Daily Caller: “Our common goal is to increase participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,” the United States Department of Agriculture explains on its “Outreach Toolkits” page. “Our purpose is to ensure that those going through difficult times can feed their families healthy, nutritious food. By working as a team, we can accomplish these goals.”

Fox News: “The Andy Griffith Show” was a loving portrait of the town where few grew up but many wished they did — a place where all foibles are forgiven and friendships are forever. Villains came through town and moved on, usually changed by their stay in Mayberry. That was all a credit to Griffith, said Craig Fincannon, who met Griffith in 1974.

One News Now: The Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP) is demanding a meeting with President Barack Obama or Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss the president’s endorsement of homosexual “marriage.”

CNSNews: A record of 8,733,461 workers took federal disability insurance payments in June 2012, according to the Social Security Administration. That was up from 8,707,185 in May.

Kenneth D. Whitehead at the Homiletic and Pastoral Review: Christians, including Catholics, are acquiescing, and even favoring, the idea that homosexual behavior must be considered, at least, morally neutral…and must be considered something to which those, so inclined, have a right.

MSNBC: “Evangelicals have been so submitted to these culture wars for so long, so that’s hard to give up,” evangelical writer and speaker Rachel Held Evans, 31, told msnbc.com. But “the majority of young Christians really, really, really want to stop with the political emphasis.”

LifeSiteNews: For the first time since researchers began gathering the statistics, Australian women are reaching the end of their fertile years having had fewer than two children.

Rasmussen: Just 43% of American Adults now view the United States as the last best hope of mankind, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. That’s down from 51% who felt that way in May 2010. Thirty percent (30%) say America is not the last best hope of mankind, as Ronald Reagan famously described it, but nearly as many (27%) are not sure.

Iona Institute: The number of stay-at-home mothers is falling by almost 10,000 per annum, despite the steep rise in unemployment figures, according to figures from the 2011 Census.