March 21, 2013
Calling it “The Great Crossover,� a report by academics and social activists shows that for the first time in history the median age of American women having babies is lower than the median age of marriage – 25.7 and 26.5, respectively.
These “dramatic changes in childbearing,� the report states, results in dramatic statistics about American children. Among them, 48 percent of first births are by unwed mothers, and by age 30 two-thirds of American women have had a child, typically out of wedlock.
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- Author: Penny Starr
- Source: CNS
March 21, 2013
WASHINGTON — Same-sex couples are not the only ones who want government recognition of their relationships. Those in polyamarous relationships do too.
Loving More, a national non-profit organization based in Loveland, Colo., plans to release a survey next month of 4,000 self-identified polyamorists that shows more than two-thirds would choose concurrent or multi-partnered marriage if it were legal.
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- Author: Mark Stricherz
- Source: The Colorado Observer
March 20, 2013
WASHINGTON — The decline of two-parent households may be a significant reason for the divergent fortunes of male workers, whose earnings generally declined in recent decades, and female workers, whose earnings generally increased, a prominent labor economist argues in a new survey of existing research.
David H. Autor, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says that the difference between men and women, at least in part, may have roots in childhood. Only 63 percent of children lived in a household with two parents in 2010, down from 82 percent in 1970. The single parents raising the rest of those children are predominantly female. And there is growing evidence that sons raised by single mothers “appear to fare particularly poorly,� Professor Autor wrote in an analysis for Third Way, a center-left policy research organization.
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- Author: BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
- Source: The New York Times
March 20, 2013
WASHINGTON — They hear that their cause is lost, that demographics and the march of history have doomed their campaign to keep marriage only between a man and a woman. But the young conservatives who oppose same-sex marriage — unlike most of their generation — remain undaunted.
They identify themselves as part of the “pro-marriage movement� and see themselves at the beginning of a long political struggle, much like the battle over abortion. If they can begin shifting the terms of the debate away from gay rights and toward the meaning of marriage, they say, they have a chance to survive short-term defeats.
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- Author: Ashley Parker
- Source: The New York Times
March 18, 2013
A graphic designer is suing a hotel after claiming he was turned down for a job there because he is a Christian.
Jamie Haxby said he felt 'victimised and persecuted' after allegedly being told he could not design adverts for the Essex venue due to his faith.
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- Author: JONATHAN PETRE
- Source: The Daily Mail
March 14, 2013
Traditional marriage has a unique proponent in Doug Mainwaring, the openly gay co-founder of the National Capital Tea Party Patriots who lives with his ex-wife to co-parent their two adopted sons.
Mainwaring divorced his wife to explore his homosexual desires, but in a piece for Public Discourse he explained how he discovered over the course of a decade that “creating a family with another man is not completely equal to creating a family with a woman.� He also found that “denying children parents of both genders is an objective evil. Kids need and yearn for both.�
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- Author: Angela Lu
- Source: WORLD Magazine
March 05, 2013
Crystal Kelley ran through the calendar once again in her head.
It was August, and if she got pregnant soon, she could avoid carrying during the hot summer months -- she'd done that before and didn't want to do it again. There was no time to lose.
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- Author: Elizabeth Cohen
- Source: CNN
March 04, 2013
When future historians attempt to narrow down the exact point at which the concept of free speech died in Canada, they’ll likely point to Saskatchewan (Human Rights Commission) v. Whatcott, specifically this sentence:
Truthful statements can be presented in a manner that would meet the definition of hate speech, and not all truthful statements must be free from restriction.
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- Author: Joe Carter
- Source: Acton Institute Power Blog
February 28, 2013
I almost started this column by saying The Guardian is a mainstream British daily newspaper and not the U.K.’s version of the National Enquirer. But that would insult the National Enquirer, which, whatever you want to say about supermarket tabloids, was the first to expose presidential candidate John Edwards’ dalliances when respectable papers held their noses.
On Jan. 2 the respectable Guardian published an article, “Paedophilia: bringing dark desires to light.� The title choice is more prophetic than intended, calling to mind Isaiah’s “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness� (Isaiah 5:20). Below are excerpts, a case study in journalistic slouching toward Gomorrah.
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- Author: Andrée Seu Peterson
- Source: WORLD Magazine
February 26, 2013
MOSCOW, Idaho – The border with Washington State is just two miles from the home that Henry D. Johnston and his partner, Alex Irwin, own here in western Idaho, but for a gay couple it might as well be a thousand. Over there, just a brisk morning’s walk away, same-sex marriage was approved by a majority of statewide voters last fall; over here, the Idaho constitution, through an amendment passed by voters in 2006, says that even a civil union granted elsewhere has no validity.
“Set your clock back,� Mr. Johnston said of his daily commute home from a job in Pullman, Wash.
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- Author: Kirk Johnson
- Source: New York Times
February 26, 2013
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Democratic Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe said Tuesday he will veto a bill that would ban most abortions in the state at 20 weeks into a pregnancy.
The bill passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature is based on the disputed belief that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks. It includes exemptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.
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- Author: Andrew DeMillo
- Source: Associated Press
February 26, 2013
Has there ever, in the history of America, been a presidential administration as dismissive of religious liberties as the Obama Administration?
The Administration seems to truly believe that when religious beliefs come into conflict with one of the President’s pet policies—such as employers being forced to pay for contraceptives and abortifacients—that religious liberties must be set aside. A prime example is the Administration’s idea that by forming a business entity intended to limit liability, a person loses their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.
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- Author: Joe Carter
- Source: Acton Institute Power Blog
February 25, 2013
On Feb. 15, Washington Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton made a startling statement:
It is possible that I’ll be The Washington Post’s last independent ombudsman and that this chair will empty at the conclusion of my two-year term Feb. 28. If so, that will end nearly 43 years of this publication having enough courage and confidence to employ a full-time reader representative and critic.
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- Author: Mollie Hemingway
- Source: Get Religion
February 20, 2013
China's Christians felt a noticeable rise in persecution in 2012 as the Communist government began the first of a three-phase plan to eradicate unregistered house churches, a new report says.
Incidents of persecution of Christians rose by about 42 percent last year compared with 2011, according to the report by human rights group China Aid. Many of these incidents involved groups of Christians. In total, the number of individual persecuted Christians rose by roughly 14 percent and total individual detentions increased by nearly 12 percent. China Aid said overall total persecution in six categories was about 13 percent worse than in 2011—though China Aid termed its statistics just "the tip of the iceberg."
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- Author: Morning Star News
- Source: Christianity Today
February 11, 2013
Today’s New York Times features an op ed by former executive editor Bill Keller. He weighs in on the religious liberty debate, especially the question of whether owners of for-profit companies can claim rights of religious liberty. It’s not the most clear-minded piece, but it raises the key questions.
The most obvious concerns Hobby Lobby and other litigants. Keller sides with those who think it obvious that the regulatory state can tell corporations what to pay for and what not to pay for, just as the government can tax and spend as it sees fit. This view fails to grasp a key distinction. There’s a difference between what the government does in taxing and spending and what the government does in using its regulatory power to force me to spend. That’s why Chief Justice Roberts redefined the individual mandate as a tax. The government has a near plenary freedom to tax. The Constitution limits the government’s power for regulate.
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- Author: R.R. Reno
- Source: First Things
February 08, 2013
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has threatened to sue a black man for, in his words, “trying to save black babies.�
But Ryan Bomberger, a child conceived in rape and now the chief creative officer of The Radiance Foundation, isn’t bowing to the pressure. In fact, just the opposite.
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- Author: Whitney Williams
- Source: WORLD Magazine
February 07, 2013
Business-school professors are making a morality play.
Four years after the scandals of the financial crisis prompted deans and faculty to re-examine how they teach ethics, some academics say they still haven't gotten it right.
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- Author: Melissa Korn
- Source: Wall Street Journal
February 07, 2013
We talk about bullying, obesity, and guns. But when it comes to the greatest social experiment of our times, we don’t care about kids at all. I’ll explain next, on BreakPoint.
Rachel Campos-Duffy, a blogger on the Today Show’s “Moms� site, described Monday how watching the Super Bowl like millions of other families turned into a “parenting challenge� when the halftime show began.
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- Author: John Stonestreet
- Source: BreakPoint
January 24, 2013
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is pushing a bill in the New York state legislature that pro-life advocates are aggressively opposing. They say the so-called Reproductive health bill is the “the most sweeping abortion legislation in the nation� because it would lift limits on third-trimester abortions and allow non-physicians to do abortions.
“Gov. Cuomo’s bill elevates abortion to a fundamental right and says New York state can’t discriminate on abortion in benefits or services or anything else it provides,� said Kathleen Gallagher, the New York’s Catholic Conference director of pro-life activities.
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- Author: Steven Ertelt
- Source: LifeNew.com
January 23, 2013
Pro-life advocates at the United Nations have succeeded in halting U.S. efforts to list abortion as an international right that member nations could be forced to uphold.
Speaking at a recent panel discussion on “reproductive rights,� U.S. State Department population policy advisor Beth Schlachter told abortion advocates their “vocal and well-coordinated� opponents made it impossible for the Obama administration to push for “sexual rights,� according to a report from the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM).
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- Author: Leigh Jones
- Source: WORLD Magazine
