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Evangelical Rethink on Divorce?

By DAVID VAN BIEMA Tue Nov 6, 12:30 AM ET

On questions relating to the Bible's treatment of family and morals, one might expect assurance, if not rigidity, from Evangelical Christianity. So, it may surprise many to learn how "live" the topic of divorce remains in Evangelical circles. Last month, the cover story of the monthly Christianity Today was titled "When to Separate What God has Joined: A Closer Reading on the Bible on Divorce." The heated controversy provoked by the story showed how Biblically flexible some Evangelicals can be - especially when God's word seems at odds not just with modern American behavior, but also with simple human kindness.

As the article's author, the British Evangelical scholar David Instone-Brewer, points out, for most of 2,000 years Christians have viewed divorce through two scriptural citations. In Matthew, the pharisees ask Christ, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?" Jesus refers to the Old Testament and then replies, "Whoever divorces a wife, except for sexual indecency, commits adultery." The apostle Paul adds in the book First Corinthians that a Christian is "not bound" to a non-Christian spouse who abandons him. Simple, right?

Instone-Brewer radically reinterprets the first passage using, of all things, quotation marks. The Greek of the New Testament didn't always contain them, and scholars agree that sometimes they must be added in to make sense of it. Instone-Brewer, an expert in Jewish thought during Jesus's era, writes that Christ's interlocutors were not asking him whether there was any cause at all for divorce, but whether he supported something called "any-cause" divorce, a term a little bit like "no-fault" that allowed husbands to divorce wives for any reason at all. Instone-Brewer claims Jesus's "no" was a response to this idea, and that his "except for sexual indecency" condition was not a statement of the sole exemption from God's blanket prohibition, but merely Christ's reiteration of one of several divorce permissions in the Old Testament - one he felt the "any-time" advocates had exaggerated. Finally, Instone-Brewer tallies four grounds for divorce he finds affirmed in both Old and New Testaments: adultery, emotional and sexual neglect, abandonment (by anyone) and abuse.

Christianity Today has written previously on divorce, often bemoaning how easy it is in today's America. However, the Instone-Brewer essay appeared to be its editors' attempt to offer Evangelicals an escape from a classic dilemma. The "plain sense" of Jesus's words without quotes seems clear enough, but also inhumane: how could a loving God forbid divorce, even by omission, in cases of wife-beating, or of abandonment by a Christian spouse?

Each branch of Christianity deals with divorce in its own way: Catholicism bans it entirely, but many divorced and remarried couples nonetheless find that their conscience permits them to take Communion. Liberal Protestantism accepted divorce some decades ago without much engagement of the scriptural issue. Evangelicals define themselves as being tightly bound by scripture. But besides the humanitarian problem, there are some uncomfortable facts on the ground: The divorce rate among Evangelicals, which first became news after polls released by the Barna Research Group in 2001, has been as high or higher than the national average.

The Evangelical movement has actually made tremendous accommodations given the strictures it lives under. Ministries for the newly divorced are common at megachurches; and on the historically less-rigid Pentecostal side of the spectrum, celebrity preachers Juanita Bynum and Paula White both recently announced their intention to divorce. Most experts interviewed for this story attested that whereas 30 years ago, a pastor might well order a battered woman home to return her husband, that is rare today.

More conservative Evangelicals remain uneasy about divorce. If a split itself is inescapable, notes Christianity Today editor Andy Crouch, "remarriage is where the rubber meets the road," and many remarried couples find themselves denied church membership. Says Russel Moore, dean of the 16.3 million-member Southern Baptist Convention's influential Southern Seminary, "We teach our future pastors that marriage is a lifelong, one-flesh union." Any woman in an abusive marriage should "leave that situation," he acknowledges, and a "majority" probably accept remarriage. Asked if he does, Moore demurred: "Let me think about that for a little bit. I could answer in a way that would be very easily misunderstood."

Evangelical conflict on the topic was obvious in reader response to the Instone Brewer essay. Initially the mail was heavily negative. The most stinging broadside sas a column by John Piper, a respected theological conservative, that called the essay not just weak but "tragic." The magazine's editor in chief, David Neff, felt the need to explain online that "Instone-Brewer's article did not... give people carte blanche on divorce." The mail eventually leveled off at 60% negative to 40% positive.

Still, the controversy suggests that even the country's most rule-bound Christians will search for a fresh understanding of scripture when it seems unjust to them. The implications? Flexibility on divorce may mean that evangelicals could also rethink their position on such things as gay marriage, as a generation of Christians far more accepting of homosexuality begins to move into power. (The ever-active Barna folks have found that 57% of "born-again" Christians age 16-29 criticize their own church for being "anti-homosexual.") It could also give heart to a certain twice-divorced former New York mayor who is running for President and seeking the conservative vote. But that may be pushing things a bit.

Evangelical Rethink on Divorce? (http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20071106/us_time/anevangelicalrethinkondivorce)

Nation Hotel Bibles Being Replaced With Porn, Intimacy Kits, Free Condoms

By Roya Wolverson

In the rooms of Manhattan's trendy Soho Grand Hotel guests can enjoy an eclectic selection of underground music, iPod docking stations, flat-screen TVs and even the living company of a complimentary goldfish. But, alas, the word of God is nowhere to be found. Unlike traditional hotels, the 10-year-old boutique has never put Bibles in its guest rooms, because "society evolves," says hotel spokeswoman Lori DeBlois. Providing Bibles would mean the hotel "would have to take care of every guest's belief."

What might be surprising to many Americans is that the Bible-free room isn't a development just in hip New York City hotels. Across the country upscale accommodations are doing away with the Bible as a standard room amenity. And in its stead have arrived a slew of "lifestyle" products that cater to a younger, hipper (and presumably less religious) clientele. Since 2001 the number of luxury hotels with religious materials in the rooms has dropped by 18 percent, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association. The Nashville-based Gideons International, which has distributed copies of the Christian scripture to hotels since 1908, declined to comment on this trend.

Edgier chains like the W provide "intimacy kits" with condoms in the minibar, while New York's Mercer Hotel supplies a free condom in each bathroom. Neither has Bibles. Since its recent renovation, the Sofitel L.A. offers a tantalizing lovers' dice game: roll one die for the action to be performed (for example, "kiss," "lick") and the other for the associated body part. The hotel's "mile high" kit, sold in the revamped gift shop, includes a condom, a mini vibrator, a feather tickler and lubricant. The new Indigo hotel in Scottsdale, Ariz., a "branded boutique" launched by InterContinental, also has no Bibles, but it does offer a "One Night Stand" package for guests seeking VIP treatment at local nightclubs and late checkout for the hazy morning after.

The reason for hotels' shift in focus? Leisure travel is up, business travel is down, and younger generations are entering the hotel market. Leisure now leads business by more than 10 percent in U.S. hotel stays, according to travel research firm D. K. Shifflet & Associates. With the lead in technology, design and nightlife, the boutique market is where Generations X, Y and young baby boomers want to be, says CEO Doug Shifflet. And with the boutique sector booming (boutique hotel rooms have grown by 23 percent since 2001, compared to only 7 percent for standard rooms), more traditional chains, which once catered to business clientele, are now desperate to emulate.

Sofitel's brand, for example, is taking "a new direction," says Daniel Entenberg, the "romance concierge" at the chain's flagship Los Angeles location. He was brought in two years ago in an effort to reposition the entire company's image. The chain once had Bibles in all guest rooms, but the corporate office in Dallas recently removed them due to guest inquiries about why other religious texts weren't available.

Even the staid Marriott chain, founded by a Mormon, is debating whether or not to include Bibles in its yet to be named boutique chain, which is set to launch in partnership with hipster hotelier Ian Schrager, who created the '70s disco Studio 54 and later New York City's Morgans, Royalton and Paramount hotels—which are largely credited with kicking off the boutique hotel craze. Schrager says he hasn't yet discussed the Bible amenity with Marriott, though he adds that his properties have never had in-room Bibles.

Marriott spokesman John Wolf says the Bible question is premature for the new venture, which he describes as "cutting-edge," "more urban" and "less values-oriented." Now, there's a marketing slogan no one's tried yet: "Sleep with us. Leave the values at home."

Nation Hotel Bibles Being Replaced With Porn, Intimacy Kits, Free Condoms (http://www.newsweek.com/id/69049)

Silent Indoctrination: Meditating in School
CBNNews.com
November 10, 2007

CBNNews.com - Pencils, papers, books and... relaxation mats - could be coming to a school near you.

It is estimated that the number of public, private, and charter schools in the nation exposing children to a Hindu-based meditation practice will reach 100 by next year - a 75 percent increase since 2006.

Supporters of this practice, known as Transcendental Meditation, say it is not religious and has no harmful side effects. But many disagree.

Mainstreaming Meditation

Over the past four decades, Hindu-based meditation practices have been making steady headway into mainstream culture. You may be most familiar with the image of a person sitting in a yoga posture, chanting "ohm" while resting their hands upon their knees - palms up.

But today, not only has this practice known as transcendental meditation, become a part of the mainstream, it has crept into the public school system with increasing force.

Just this month, 1960s pop star Donovan announced he was joining film director David Lynch to open the Invincible Donovan University in an effort to inject the mind-altering practice into education.

Lynch, who founded the David Lynch Foundation, has actively promoted transcendental meditation in schools across America for years.

The director has toured the U.S. with Donovan to increase the number of schools and colleges using their techniques to "help" students relieve the crime, stress, and violence on campuses. From 2005 to 2006, the David Lynch Foundation gave more than $3 million to fund TM practices at 20 public, private, and charter schools in the U.S.

Quiet Time in Schools

One elementary school in Washington D.C. has already incorporated TM as part of its everyday curricula.

IDEAL Academy principal Dr. George Rutherford argues that meditation helps students deal with outside stress so they can focus on their schoolwork.

"And if a child comes in and they're stressed out, how do we expect them to learn?" Rutherford asked News 21. He says that TM is the answer.

"It feels like you're floating on clouds," 5th grade student Jami Jones told the news service. She takes part in a daily 10-minute classroom meditation, where she recites her mantra.

Should TM Be Used in Schools?

But the claim that TM is not a religious practice has not been supported in the court room.

A 1977 decision by a U.S. district court made it clear that TM and all of its affiliated teachings "are religious in nature within the context of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution."

The case was Alan B.Malnak v. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. District Judge H. Curtis Meanor ruled that the textbook titled Science of Creative Intelligence was also religious in nature, and violated separation of church and state.

Despite this ruling, many state-funded schools continue to endorse the practice.

In October 2006, students and faculty members of Terra Linda High School in San Rafael, Calif., made plans to participate in a TM club funded by the David Lynch Foundation. Lynch had promised to give a $175,000 grant to the public school,

The support was retracted, however, after parents became aware of the campus program.

Still, Terra Linda's principal Carole Ramsey supported the TM program, ignoring the parental concerns raised. In a report from The Associated Press, she accused "a few individuals" for stirring up "an environment that has led to the withdrawal of this grant."

Ramsey said the school would continue to urge students interested in TM to find other similar programs.

TM's Harmful Effects

Although the TM movement touts positive benefits, many detrimental effects have been documented.

A German study published by the Institute for Youth and Society reports that psychological disorders and illnesses accompany 76 percent of those who practice TM.

The study showed that of those practicing TM: 63 percent experienced fatigue, 52 percent underwent "states of anxiety," 45 percent suffered from depression, 39 percent exhibited nervousness, 39 percent showed signs of regression, 26 percent had nervous breakdowns, and 20 expressed suicidal tendencies.

Students who performed well at school before practicing TM were included in the study, making it even more unclear that TM has any positive effect on the student.

In fact, in the German study, 61 percent found it hard to maintain their workload. Only 13 percent said they could handle more. Another 56 percent had decreased concentration, and only 16 percent claimed an improvement.

Dr. William Hathaway, psychology professor at Regent University, said he does not believe TM lives up to its claims.

"If it is just used as a de-stressing method, then I am not aware of any evidence that TM is a better route to this goal than simple rest or other quieting activities," he said.

Hathaway also compared TM to Christian meditation.

"I will say, however, that Christian and biblical meditation can be distinguished from Eastern meditation, as its deliberate focus is on God," Hathaway said. "We may also try to 'quiet' the nervous system, but we focus on an encounter with the divine Other, not an alleged self within."

The TM Experience

TM doctrine declares that stress is the originator of all personal tribulations. However, one former TMer says the practice is not only religious in nature, but deceitful.

"TM doctrine teaches that absolutely all personal difficulties and restrictions are caused by 'stress,' which is some 'abnormality' in the nervous system," Joe Kellet said on the Web site, Suggestibility.org. Kellet is now working to expose the deception behind TM.

Kellet argues that TM teaching claims participants can reach "Cosmic Consciousness," by taking part in a "simple relaxation exercise" twice a day for 20 minutes.

He adds that the "exercise is supposed to produce people who are morally perfect, people who will 'perform spontaneous right actions' in everything they think and do and will receive 'support' from something called 'nature."

When he taught TM, Kellet admits that he regularly deceived his students.

"As a teacher I frequently lied to people 'for their own good" because 'they weren't ready yet' to receive the full truth, and so did my friends who were teachers," Kellet said on Suggestibility.com. "We didn't think of it as 'lying.' We thought we were giving people as much truth as they could handle."

He said one of the frequent lies is that TM is not a religion.

Is TM a Religion?

Christian apologists argue that the rituals TMers must go through in seeking to relieve stress don't comply with claims that the practice is not religious.

"TM, however, is not a neutral discipline that can be practiced without harm to the individual," Christian authors Josh McDowell and Don Stewart said in their Handbook of Today's Religions. "In actuality, TM is a Hindu meditation technique that attempts to unite the meditator with Brahman, the Hindu concept of God."

In fact, McDowell and Stewart said that the religious content of a simple initiation ceremony TM instructors read contain phrases that hail, give offerings, and bow down to Hindu gods.

Silent Indoctrination: Meditating in School (http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/261448.aspx)

Head of Google Israel refuses to censor hate material on the Web
By The Associated Press

Google is not the address for stopping online hate, the Israel director of the well known search engine told a conference on Monday.

Organizers of the conference representing the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish group that counters anti-Semitism, brought examples of anti-Jewish hate material freely available on the Internet, and participants called for more action to stop it.

But Google Israel Director Meir Brand explained his company's free-access philosophy that puts it on the sidelines of the war against cyberhate.

"At Google, we have a bias in favor of people's right to free expression," he said. "Google is not and should not become the central arbiter of what does and does and does not appear on the Web. That's for elected governments and courts to decide," Brand said.

He said Google removes results from its search index only when required to by law, for example, when copyright infringement is an issue. In Germany and Austria, he said, Google removes Nazi content, which is against the law there.

Recognizing the problem, however, Google has instituted a warning system for hate entries, taking viewers to a page warning that some of the search results may be offensive, and noting that opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect Google's views.

"The problem with using law to combat hate speech online is that technology changes so quickly," said Brian Marcus, director of Internet monitoring for ADL North America. "By the time the law is amended to prohibit certain sites," he said, "those sites have changed names and addresses."

"The law is simply one tool in the toolbox for dealing with hate speech," said Christopher Wolf, chairman of the International Network Against Cyberhate. "We [also] need the voluntary cooperation of the Internet industry."

"I applaud the efforts of Google," he said, but he called for more. He said social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook have been accused of hosting racist and religiously offensive content, and that must be dealt with.

Avi Aviv, head of the Israeli police computer crimes unit, said the law has not yet adapted to the many types of cybercrime, including hate speech that leads to violent acts.

"The traditional 'scene of the crime' is changing," Aviv said. "In the past there were street gangs [who] rumbled. Today, these rumbles take place on the Internet."

Head of Google Israel refuses to censor hate material on the Web (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/923191.html)

We really turned to Paganism in a BIG way When Constitine seen HIS Vision of a Firey Cross & had his Conversion and the Offical Religon became Christianity! Somewhere around 323 AD...
I'm Sure alot Christians back then said ALLRIGHT no more being fed to Lions No More being used as human torches to light their Gardens at night, No more having to hide to seek God & Love Jesus!
But, what came with that is: A Rabbit & a Egg that was mixed with the Day that our Lord Rose from the Dead...
What ever the word is for "sunday" in italian, was used by them for the 1st day of the Week,
Because they Worshipped the Sun on that day...
They changed the names from HOLYDAYS too HOLIDAYS...
They celebrated the birth of Jesus too & they put it on a day that they use to Worship ALL their GODS,
Like they did the Rabbit for it's reproduction qualities, the Egg for it's fertility & some Godess named Estar,
These of course only being a couple of the 100's of Gods they had...
THIS was done to appease the Roman citizens that was just told that they are all Christians now & not to neglect the
Christians that have been around for awhile...

Think about it, After almost 300 yrs. Satan seen he was'nt gaining any ground by trying to Kill us off,
SO he became that Angel of Light that we have all been told that he can Become. And HAS wormed his way(s) into OUR WAYS...
Do you know that right now in some of those old christian churches in and around Jerusalem have some stuff
made out of the Gold that TITUS took back to Rome after he destroyed the Temple and took all it's Gold, and when Constitines Mother went their some 250 or so yrs. later She had a few Churches Built in certain places and took some of that Gold as did her son and had things made and put them in these churches...
TEMPLE GOLD....
YLBD
P.S
I hope someone enjoys this and looks up all the other things that has happened because of this...
Gods Will Be Done...

So Long, Gideons
The one thing travelers could reliably count on in their hotel rooms: a Bible in the bedside table. But like many traditions, this one may be dying.

By Roya Wolverson
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 3:16 PM ET Nov 8, 2007

In the rooms of Manhattan's trendy Soho Grand Hotel guests can enjoy an eclectic selection of underground music, iPod docking stations, flat-screen TVs and even the living company of a complimentary goldfish. But, alas, the word of God is nowhere to be found. Unlike traditional hotels, the 10-year-old boutique has never put Bibles in its guest rooms, because "society evolves," says hotel spokeswoman Lori DeBlois. Providing Bibles would mean the hotel "would have to take care of every guest's belief."

What might be surprising to many Americans is that the Bible-free room isn't a development just in hip New York City hotels. Across the country upscale accommodations are doing away with the Bible as a standard room amenity. And in its stead have arrived a slew of "lifestyle" products that cater to a younger, hipper (and presumably less religious) clientele. Since 2001 the number of luxury hotels with religious materials in the rooms has dropped by 18 percent, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association. The Nashville-based Gideons International, which has distributed copies of the Christian scripture to hotels since 1908, declined to comment on this trend.

Edgier chains like the W provide "intimacy kits" with condoms in the minibar, while New York's Mercer Hotel supplies a free condom in each bathroom. Neither has Bibles. The new Indigo hotel in Scottsdale, Ariz., a "branded boutique" launched by InterContinental, also has no Bibles, but it does offer a "One Night Stand" package for guests seeking VIP treatment at local nightclubs and late checkout for the hazy morning after.

The reason for hotels' shift in focus? Leisure travel is up, business travel is down, and younger generations are entering the hotel market. Leisure now leads business by more than 10 percent in U.S. hotel stays, according to travel research firm D. K. Shifflet & Associates. With the lead in technology, design and nightlife, the boutique market is where Generations X, Y and young baby boomers want to be, says CEO Doug Shifflet. And with the boutique sector booming (boutique hotel rooms have grown by 23 percent since 2001, compared to only 7 percent for standard rooms), more traditional chains, which once catered to business clientele, are now desperate to emulate.

Sofitel's brand, for example, is taking "a new direction," says Daniel Entenberg, the "romance concierge" at the chain's flagship Los Angeles location. He was brought in two years ago in an effort to reposition the entire company's image. The chain once had Bibles in all guest rooms, but the corporate office in Dallas recently removed them due to guest inquiries about why other religious texts weren't available.

Even the staid Marriott chain, founded by a Mormon, is debating whether or not to include Bibles in its yet to be named boutique chain, which is set to launch in partnership with hipster hotelier Ian Schrager, who created the '70s disco Studio 54 and later New York City's Morgans, Royalton and Paramount hotels—which are largely credited with kicking off the boutique hotel craze. Schrager says he hasn't yet discussed the Bible amenity with Marriott, though he adds that his properties have never had in-room Bibles.

Marriott spokesman John Wolf says the Bible question is premature for the new venture, which he describes as "cutting-edge," "more urban" and "less values-oriented." Now, there's a marketing slogan no one's tried yet: "Sleep with us. Leave the values at home."

There may be a number of hotels/motels that are not allowing it anymore yet the Gideons are placing more Bibles in peoples hands than they ever have before. Annually, The Gideons International is placing and distributing more than 63,000,000 Scriptures worldwide. This averages one million copies of the Word of God placed every six days, or 120 per minute!

Over the years their ministry has expanded to include more than just hotels/motels.

Jails and Prisons. Gideons are permitted to enter jails and prisons to place Scriptures and share the love of God with prisoners.

Hospitals. Attractive Testaments are placed beside the patients' beds, and many patients and their loved ones have found comfort and peace in the Lord Jesus Christ by reading God's Word. These Testaments are also available to residents of nursing and convalescent homes.

Military. Military personnel have been given Testaments since 1941. New Testaments with Psalms and Proverbs are given to men and women of the Armed Forces. Gideons personally distribute Testaments at military entrance processing stations and also make Testaments available to military chaplains in unlimited quantities for Armed Forces personnel.

Youth. Colorful New Testaments with Psalms and Proverbs are distributed to students from the fifth grade up, at both public and private schools.

Colleges and Universities. The college program was inaugurated in 1972. There have been many favorable responses from college and university students who have received Scriptures. One student stated: "I always believed there was a God, but He was unknown to me. I never read a Bible until The Gideons gave me one and spoke to me about Jesus. Today I am a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ."

Medical. The wives of Gideons present white New Testaments to those in public nursing fields: those who work in hospitals, offices, institutions, clinics, private homes, and are otherwise engaged in bedside nursing care as their livelihood. Nursing students are included.

The association has more than 250,000 members, located in more than 180 countries of the world.

Brothers and Sisters,

"Immoral Behavior" is a great title for this thread. Evil and immorality is growing and on the move everywhere. It's sad that most of us already know that we can't stop it, and our children and grandchildren will have to put up with it. I doubt that any of us have seen a time where things are changing so rapidly. It should become apparent that the devil wants everything, most certainly including our homes and children.

Now is not the time for any Christian to get weak-kneed and sit down. Just the opposite - we should stand up and demand to be heard. Our duties and responsibilities as Christians are greater than ever. We should all stand tall and strong until JESUS comes to take us home.

The Gideons are a beautiful example for all of us. They won't give up and will continue their work. GOD has work for all of us to do and we should never give up. Christians have faced challenges, danger, beatings, imprisonment, and death around the world since Bible Times. We've had an easy time in this part of the world. It might be our turn and time for challenge and danger. I pray that we all accept that challenge and simply yield to GOD for HIS Use however he pleases. That is our reasonable service to GOD. We all need to pray for the strength, courage, and guidance to do HIS Will until the last moment.

We are Children of the KING OF KINGS and this world isn't our HOME. Truly, we need to become Strong in the LORD and the Power of HIS MIGHT! Truly, we need to put on the Whole Armour of GOD and go forth.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Ephesians 1:18-23 NASB
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

Colossians 1:29 NASB
For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.

Colossians 1:9-12 NASB
For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.

Ephesians 6:10-17 NASB
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Muslims, Christians, Jews at interfaith service urged to express their Thanksgiving joy by helping others
Muslims, Christians, Jews urged to express happiness by helping
Thursday, November 22, 2007
GREG GARRISON
News staff writer

Seven 4-year-old children stood on the steps of Highlands United Methodist Church at Five Points South just before noon on Wednesday, jumping excitedly and greeting everyone who entered the church.

"Happy Thanksgiving!" they shouted.

The class from the Highlands Child Development Center provided the first dose of cheer at the annual community Thanksgiving service sponsored by the Southside Faith Community.

Then the Rev. Johnny Mosby, pastor of East End Missionary Baptist Church, urged everyone to be not only thankful but also joyful givers.

"We oftentimes get joy mixed up with receiving," Mosby said in his sermon. "When you're able to give, it means you are already a recipient of God's blessings and can share it with others."

More than 100 people, a dozen clergy and the Highlands choir joined in what has become an annual interfaith ritual.

Rabbi Jonathan Miller and Cantor Jessica Roskin of Temple Emanu-El shared a reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, followed by a reading from the Quran by Raed Awad of the Birmingham Islamic Society and a reading from the Gospel of Luke by the Rev. Ed Hurley, pastor of South Highland Presbyterian Church.

"You only get happy when you are able to give to others," said Mosby. "We always expect to have something poured in and are loathe to pour out. You've got to start emptying out. We ought to express our joy by helping others. Maybe it's your enemy, but you need to learn how to give."

An offering was taken up to be divided between the YMCA Youth Center Camp scholarship fund and the Birmingham Hospitality Network.

"Everybody was in the Thanksgiving mood today," said Rhonda Hooks, a member of Highlands Methodist. "The way the world is right now, we need this a lot. We need to get Christians, Jews and Muslims together in the same room more often."

The Rev. Marc Burnette, rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, said this was his first Southside interfaith service and that he was impressed.

"It should be done more than once a year," he said. "We're all brothers and sisters."

Muslims, Christians, Jews at interfaith service urged to express their Thanksgiving joy by helping others (http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1195723707224110.xml&coll=2)

Seattle Schools' Thanksgiving 'Myths' Stir Controversy

Thursday , November 22, 2007
By Robert Shaffer

FC1
ADVERTISEMENT

Seattle public schools want a side of political correctness served on your Thanksgiving table.

Washington state's largest school district sent letters to teachers and other employees suggesting Thanksgiving should be "a time of mourning" for its Native American students.

The memo, from Caprice Hollins, the district's director of Equity, Race & Learning Support, included an attachment to a paper titled "Deconstructing the Myths of 'The First Thanksgiving.'"

Click here to read the "myths." (http://www.oyate.org/resources/shortthanks.html)

It includes 11 "myths" disputing everything from what was served at the first Thanksgiving (no mashed potatoes or cranberries) and who provided the food to the nature of the Pilgrims themselves: Myth No. 3 calls the colonists "rigid fundamentalists" who came to the New World "fully intending to take the land away from its native inhabitants."

But what got the Internet abuzz was Myth No. 11: "Thanksgiving is a happy time." It was followed by "Fact: For many Indian people, 'Thanksgiving' is a time of mourning ... a bitter reminder of 500 years of betrayal returned for friendship."

Hollins would not defend her letter, but David Tucker, a spokesman for the district, said it was an effort to be sensitive to minorities in Seattle schools.

"One of the core elements in education is not just understanding your own life history but also those of others," he said.

But one Seattle-area tribe says Thanksgiving is not somber on the reservation but a time to see friends and family, as it is for other Americans.

Native Americans in the Northwest celebrate the holiday with turkey and salmon, said Daryl Williams of the Tulalip Tribes. Before the period of bitter and violent relationships between natives and their culturally European counterparts, they worked together to survive, he said.

"The spirit of Thanksgiving, of people working together to help each other, is the spirit I think that needs to grow in this country, because this country has gotten very divisive," he said.

Nationally syndicated talk show host Michael Medved was more blunt.

"The notion that now you have a major school system sending out a message that, no, rather than expressing thanks we should emphasize guilt on this holiday — that is sick, it is destructive and it is anti-American."

Seattle Public Schools has been in the news before, not always for the performance of its students.

The U.S. Department of Education investigated in April after the district spent part of a federal Smaller Learning Communities grant to send 20 students to the "Eighth Annual White Privilege Conference."

After complaints last year, the district removed from its Web site a definition of racism that claimed planning ahead and individualism were examples of cultural racism.

Seattle Schools' Thanksgiving 'Myths' Stir Controversy (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,312480,00.html)

Pope, cardinals discuss ties with other Christians
Fri Nov 23, 2007 1:14pm EST

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict and his cardinals discussed Catholic relations with other Christians on Friday, highlighting efforts to work closely with the Orthodox and to meet the challenge of fast-growing Protestant churches.

The closed-door meeting, held on the eve of a ceremony to install 23 new cardinals, took place amid progress with the Orthodox -- who broke from Rome in 1054 -- but growing fragmentation in the Protestant and Anglican world.

The Roman Catholic Church, with 1.1 billion of the world's 2 billion Christians, seeks better ties with other Churches partly to strengthen the Christian message in the world.

A statement on the meeting said the cardinals also spoke briefly about ties with Jews and Muslims but gave no details. Islam is a pressing issue after 138 Muslim scholars called for a broad Christian-Muslim dialogue last month.

"We made good progress with the Orthodox in Ravenna," said Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the department for Christian unity, referring to a Catholic-Orthodox meeting last month that agreed the Pope was the leading prelate of Christianity.

The Russian Orthodox Church, with more than half the world's 220 million Orthodox, quit that meeting in protest against the presence of an Estonian Orthodox Church aligned to the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, today's Istanbul.

"We are working now in Constantinople and Moscow that they find a solution or a compromise. It's a political question, not a theological one," Kasper told journalists.

The Russian Orthodox Church, which has become more active on the ecumenical scene since the fall of communism, chafes under the tradition that gives pride of place to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomos, despite the fact his local church is tiny.

Kasper said a historic meeting between Pope Benedict and the Alexiy, the Russian Orthodox Patriarch, would be very helpful to improve relations but did not say when or where it might take place.

ANGLICAN SITUATION "VERY COMPLICATED"

Kasper said talks with the Orthodox could not restore the hierarchy of the ancient church, which gave second place to Constantinople, but that the Orthodox agreed last month for the first time that the Pope still held first place.

"This can only be the Bishop of Rome," he said, using one of Benedict's titles. "There is no other candidate."

On relations with Anglicans, Kasper said the 77-million member Anglican Communion was in "a very difficult situation" with the challenges by traditionalists -- many from the Third World -- against liberal bishops in western countries.

The Anglican Communion is in internal crisis over the ordination of women and openly homosexual bishops.

"We hope they make a decision very soon. They cannot postpone all this crisis. There must be a decision made. But it is not in our hands."

Relations with Protestant Churches were getting more difficult because of "an inner fragmentation" among them, Kasper said. "Some of them have turned to liberal (positions) and there are now new ethical problems dividing them," he said.

He said that evangelical churches were spreading quickly and noted there were now 400 million Pentecostals around the world.

These two conservative Christian movements have been spreading especially rapidly in Latin America, often wooing away the faithful from the Catholic Church there.

"We must not ask first what is wrong with the Pentecostals but ask what is wrong with our pastoral work and come to a spiritual renewal," he said.

Pope, cardinals discuss ties with other Christians (http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USL2331851520071123)

"Oprah and Friends" to teach course on New Age Christ
By Warren Smith

November 2007

Oprah Winfrey will be letting out all the stops on her XM Satellite Radio program this coming year. Beginning January 1, 2008, “Oprah & Friends” will offer a year-long course on the New Age teachings of A Course in Miracles.1 A lesson a day throughout the year will completely cover the 365 lessons from the Course in Miracles “Workbook.” For example, Lesson #29 asks you to go through your day affirming that “God is in everything I see.”2 Lesson #61 tells each person to repeat the affirmation “I am the light of the world.”3 Lesson #70 teaches the student to say and believe “My salvation comes from me.”4

By the end of the year, “Oprah & Friends” listeners will have completed all of the lessons laid out in the Course in Miracles Workbook. Those who finish the Course will have a wholly redefined spiritual mindset—a New Age worldview that includes the belief that there is no sin, no evil, no devil, and that God is “in” everyone and everything. A Course in Miracles teaches its students to rethink everything they believe about God and life. The Course Workbook bluntly states: “This is a course in mind training”5 and is dedicated to “thought reversal.”6

Teaching A Course in Miracles will be Oprah’s longtime friend and special XM Satellite Radio reporter Marianne Williamson—who also happens to be one of today’s premier New Age leaders. She and Conversations with God author Neale Donald Walsch co-founded the American Renaissance Alliance in 1997, that later became the Global Renaissance Alliance of New Age leaders, that changed its name again in 2005 to the Peace Alliance. This Peace Alliance seeks to usher in an era of global peace founded on the principles of a New Age/New Spirituality that they are now referring to as a “civil rights movement for the soul.”7 They all agree that the principles of this New Age/New Spirituality are clearly articulated in A Course in Miracles—which is fast becoming the New Age Bible. So what is A Course in Miracles and what does it teach?

A Course in Miracles is allegedly “new revelation” from “Jesus” to help humanity work through these troubled times. This “Jesus”—who bears no doctrinal resemblance to the Bible’s Jesus Christ—began delivering his channeled teachings in 1965 to a Columbia University Professor of Medical Psychology by the name of Helen Schucman.

One day Schucman heard an “inner voice” stating, “This is a course in miracles. Please take notes.”8 For seven years she diligently took spiritual dictation from this inner voice that described himself as “Jesus.” A Course in Miracles was quietly published in 1975 by the Foundation for Inner Peace. For many years “the Course” was an underground cult classic for New Age seekers who studied “the Course” individually, with friends, or in small study groups.

As a former New Age follower and devoted student of A Course in Miracles, I eventually discovered that the Course in Miracles was—in reality—the truth of the Bible turned upside down. Not having a true understanding of the Bible at the time of my involvement, I was led to believe that A Course in Miracles was “a gift from God” to help everyone understand the “real” meaning of the Bible and to help bring peace to the world. Little did I know that the New Age “Christ” and the New Age teachings of A Course in Miracles were everything the real Jesus Christ warned us to watch out for. In Matthew 24 Jesus warned about false teachers, false teachings and the false “Christs” who would pretend to be Him.

When I left the New Age “Christ” to follow the Bible’s Jesus Christ, I had come to understand that the “Jesus” of A Course in Miracles was a false “Christ,” and that his Course in Miracles was dangerously deceptive. Here are some quotes from the “Jesus” of A Course in Miracles:

* “There is no sin. . . " 9
* A “slain Christ has no meaning.”10
* “The journey to the cross should be the last ‘useless journey.”11
* “Do not make the pathetic error of ‘clinging to the old rugged cross.’”12
* “The Name of Jesus Christ as such is but a symbol... It is a symbol that is safely used as a replacement for the many names of all the gods to which you pray.”13
* “God is in everything I see.”14
* “The recognition of God is the recognition of yourself.”15
* “The oneness of the Creator and the creation is your wholeness, your sanity and your limitless power.”16
* “The Atonement is the final lesson he [man] need learn, for it teaches him that, never having sinned, he has no need of salvation.”17

Most Christians recognize that these teachings are the opposite of what the Bible teaches. In the Bible, Jesus Christ’s atoning death on the cross of Calvary was hardly a “useless journey.” His triumph on the cross provides salvation to all those who confess their sin, accept Him and follow Him as their Lord and Saviour. His victory on the cross rings throughout the New Testament. It has been gloriously sung about in beloved hymns through the ages and is at the heart of our Christian testimony.

I found the Jesus of the Bible to be wholly believable as He taught God’s truth and warned about the spiritual deception that would come in His name. The “Jesus” of A Course in Miracles reveals himself to be an imposter when he blasphemes the true Jesus Christ by saying that a “slain Christ has no meaning” and that we are all “God” and that we are all “Christ.” It was by reading the Bible’s true teachings of Jesus Christ that I came to understand how deceived I had been by A Course in Miracles and my other New Age teachings.

I was introduced to A Course in Miracles by Dr. Gerald Jampolsky’s book Love is Letting Go of Fear. Jampolsky declared in his easy-to-read book how the teachings of A Course in Miracles had changed his life. As an ambassador for A Course in Miracles over the years, Jampolsky has been featured not only in New Age circles but at least twice on Robert Schuller’s Hour of Power. While Schuller introduced Jampolsky and his “fabulous”18 Course in Miracles-based books to his worldwide television audience, it was Marianne Williamson’s appearance on a 1992 Oprah Winfrey Show that really shook the rafters.

On that program, Oprah enthusiastically endorsed Williamson’s book, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles. Oprah told her television audience that Williamson’s book about A Course in Miracles was one of her favorite books, and that she had already bought a thousand copies and would be handing them out to everyone in her studio audience. Oprah’s endorsement skyrocketed Williamson’s book about A Course in Miracles to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Ironically, all of this was happening after I had left the Course and the New Age. In fact, I was doing the final editing on my book The Light That Was Dark that warned about the dangers of the New Age—and in particular A Course in Miracles.

cont'd next post

After being introduced to the world on Oprah, Marianne Williamson has continued to grow in popularity and, as previously mentioned, has become one of today’s foremost New Age leaders. Williamson credits Winfrey for bringing her book about A Course in Miracles before the world: “For that, my deepest thanks to Oprah Winfrey. Her enthusiasm and generosity have given the book, and me, an audience we would never otherwise have had.”19 In her 2004 book, The Gift of Change, Williamson wrote:

“Twenty years ago, I saw the guidance of the Course as key to changing one’s personal life; today, I see its guidance as key to changing the world. More than anything else, I see how deeply the two are connected.”20

Thus the New Age teachings of A Course in Miracles are about to be taught by Marianne Williamson to millions of listeners on Oprah’s XM Satellite Radio program. Listeners are encouraged to buy A Course in Miracles for the year-long course. An audio version of A Course in Miracles recited by Richard (John Boy Walton) Thomas is also available on compact disc.

Popular author Wayne Dyer told his PBS television audience that the “brilliant writing” of A Course in Miracles would produce more peace in the world.21 Williamson’s New Age colleague, Neale Donald Walsch, said his “God” stated that “the era of the Single Saviour is over”22 and that he (“God”) was responsible for authoring the teachings of A Course in Miracles.23

Meanwhile, Gerald Jampolsky’s Course in Miracles-based book, Forgiveness, continues to be sold in Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral bookstore as Schuller prepares to host a January 17-19, 2008, “Rethink Conference” at his Crystal Cathedral.24

At this critical time in the history of the world, the New Gospel/New Spirituality is coming right at the world and the church with its New Age teachings and its New Age Peace Plan. But this New Age Peace Plan has at its deceptive core the bottom-line teaching from A Course in Miracles that “we are all one” because God is “in” everyone and everything. But the Bible is clear that we are not God (Ezekiel 28:2; Hosea 11:9). And per Galatians 3:26-28, our only oneness is in Jesus Christ—not in ourselves as “God” and “Christ.” What Oprah and Marianne Williamson and the world will learn one day is that humanity’s only real and lasting peace is with the true Jesus Christ who is described and quoted in the Holy Bible (Romans 5:1).

Oprah Winfrey’s misplaced faith in Marianne Williamson and the New Age teachings of A Course in Miracles is a sure sign of the times. But an even surer sign of the times is that most Christians are not taking heed to what is happening in the world and in the church. We are not contending for the faith as the Bible admonishes us to do (Jude 3).

It is time for all of our Purpose-Driven and Emerging church pastors to address the real issue of the day. Our true Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is being reinvented, redefined, and blasphemed right in front of our eyes and hardly anyone seems to notice or care. If we want the world to know who Jesus Christ is, we need to also warn them about who He is not. There is a false New Age “Christ” making huge inroads into the world and into the church. The Apostle Paul said that “it is a shame” we have to even talk about these things, but talk about them we must (Ephesians 5:12-16).

If people want to follow Oprah Winfrey and the New Age “Christ” of A Course in Miracles they certainly have that right. But let them be warned that the New Age “Christ” they are following is not the same Jesus Christ who is so clearly and authoritatively presented in the pages of the Bible.

notes:
1. http://marianne.com/book/index/htm
2. A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume (Glen Ellen, California: Foundation for Inner Peace, 1975), (Workbook), p. 45.
3. Ibid., p. 102.
4. Ibid., p. 119.
5. Ibid., (Text), p. 16.
6. Ibid., (Preface), p. ix.
7. Neale Donald Walsch, Tomorrow’s God: Our Greatest Spiritual Challenge (New York: Atria Books, Simon & Schuster, 2004), pp. 262-263.
8. Robert Skutch, Journey Without Distance: The Story behind “A Course in Miracles” (Berkeley, California: Celestial Arts, 1984), p. 54.
9. A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume, (Workbook), p. 183.
10. Ibid., (Text), p. 425.
11. Ibid., p. 52.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., (Teachers Manual), p. 58.
14. Ibid., (Workbook), p. 45.
15. Ibid., (Text), p. 147.
16. Ibid., p. 125.
17. Ibid., p. 237.
18. http://www.hourofpower.org/interviews/interviews_detail.cfm?ArticleID=3079
19. Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles A Course in Miracles (New York: Harper Perennial, 1996), p. ix.
20. Marianne Williamson, The Gift Of Change: Spiritual Guidance for a Radically New Life (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004), p. 5.
21. Wayne Dyer, “There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem,” Public Broadcasting System broadcast in 2001.
22. Neale Donald Walsch, The New Revelations: A Conversation with God (New York: Atria Books, 2002), p. 157.
23. Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God: an uncommon dialogue, Book 1 (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1996), p. 90.
24. http://www.rethinkconference.com (See also WorldNetDaily.com 10/30/07 “What is Robert Schuller ‘rethinking’?” by Joseph Farah and “Rethinking Robert Schuller” by Warren Smith. See also Herescope: "Rethinking Culture" and "Rethinking and Reinventing" (10/30/07)

"Oprah and Friends" to teach course on New Age Christ (http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/007/smith-oprah.htm)

Dawkins Accuses Christians of Spiritual Abuse German Bishop Challenges Atheist’s Views of Old Testament

By Wolfgang Polzer

MAINZ (ANS) -- Professor Richard Dawkins, one of the world’s best-known
atheists and evolutionists, has accused Christians of committing spiritual abuse, if they teach their children the existence of hell.

Dawkins, author of the bestseller “The God Delusion”, took part in a television debate on the German channel ZDF, November 15. His opponents were the leader of the main line Protestant Churches in Germany, Bishop Wolfgang Huber, and the Roman Catholic auxiliary Bishop Hans-Jochen Jaschke.

Dawkins said both Protestant and Catholic clergy in America threatened children with hell’s torment, if they do not believe. Dawkins also criticized modern theology for selecting more or less arbitrarily which bible passages were acceptable. He described the God of the Old Testament as a malicious and cruel figure.

Bishop Huber rejected these allegations and called them an expression of anti-Judaism. God’s history with Israel was one of liberation from slavery, he said. In this context the Ten Commandments were given to Israel.

The Christian faith manifests itself in love, said Huber, even the love of one’s enemy. Such a love could not be explained without God. The Bishop conceded that there are controversial views of hell. But it was also inappropriate to speak of a “cute God”. Everyone is accountable to God, Huber said.

He accused Dawkins of presenting a “very fundamentalist atheism”. The aggressive tone of his arguments could be a result of the fact that today’s intellectuals do not automatically embrace atheist positions any longer.

According to Jaschke hell has not played a prominent role in the churches during the last 50 years. Religious education concentrated on teaching trust and confidence. A child was assured of being accepted by a loving God.

Jaschke emphasized that the key to biblical understanding is Jesus Christ. “Never believe for one moment that all evil will cease, once you have got rid of religion,” Jaschke warned Dawkins.

Dawkins Accuses Christians of Spiritual Abuse German Bishop Challenges Atheist’s Views of Old Testament (http://www.christiannewstoday.com/christian_News_Report_116.html)

Quote from: blackeyedpeas on November 24, 2007, 07:58:23 AM

If these are the end days of this Age of Grace, the Bible tells us that there will be more and more false teachers and false prophets. Great hosts will be deceived. Christians should not become discouraged - just the opposite. We should be more determined than ever to give the REAL GOSPEL in any way that GOD provides for us. What we need to be worried about is getting the TRUTH of GOD'S WORD out to the lost. GOD has already promised that HE will use it, and it won't return void. The Bible also tells us that those who give out false gospels will be accursed, and I have no doubt that GOD will deal with them harshly. We can and should also warn people about false teaching, false gods, and false prophets. If Christians yield to GOD for HIS use, GOD will handle the rest.[/b]

Love In Christ,
Tom

(http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i160/tlr10/357/ro10_910.gif)

Thank you for those words of encouragement Brother Tom. I have just read some of thread for the first time this morning and my head is spinning. I am having such a hard time knowing what to pray these days. All I can come up with is "Your Will Be Done Lord". Things are moving so incredably fast and I'm having a hard time keeping up. I am so looking forward to my new job so that I can share the real TRUTH and be able to help in anyway God sees fit for me to do so. And yet it seems so little. I just want to shake the world and say, "Wake up! Snap out of it!"
It is so beyond me how folks can fall for these lies and yet they are falling all around us! It seems that since I was a child, I have always been able to just know what was Truth and what wasn't. I could FEEL it. Whether is was in speech, movies, books, whatever. I just have always KNOWN. I can walk into a shop up on Capitol Hill or Pike Place Market or Pioneer Square and my spirit just senses the evil in it if it's there. In which case I turn around and walk out without looking at their goods.
I know the Bible says that hearts will be hardened and eyes blinded.....but as for me....I just don't get how people can be fooled.

I can fully understand how you feel Yvette. It is difficult to understand. I have thought about this many times. The only thing that I have been able to comprehend is that it is because they want to be fooled and it has to do with accountability as Brother Bob said. They don't want to be accountable to anyone except for themselves. They do not want to have to answer to a higher power. They consider that they are the god over their lives. In doing so they don't have to feel guilty about the things they may do. They do not see that it doesn't work that way and that in fact they are very miserable and will be even more so later on.

As Brother Tom said that is so worthwhile repeating

Quote

The REAL GOD THE FATHER, GOD THE SON, AND GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT are in the Holy Bible.

It's very cruel to make people feel good about living in darkness and sin, and it's especially cruel to withhold the TRUTH of GOD'S ONLY Plan of Salvation. GOD has not changed and HIS WORD will endure forever. The false gods being spoken of have no power to do anything except to speed someone's trip to Hell. GOD, Heaven, and Good are absolute reality, just as satan, hell, and evil are absolute reality as an opposite.

If these are the end days of this Age of Grace, the Bible tells us that there will be more and more false teachers and false prophets. Great hosts will be deceived. Christians should not become discouraged - just the opposite. We should be more determined than ever to give the REAL GOSPEL in any way that GOD provides for us. What we need to be worried about is getting the TRUTH of GOD'S WORD out to the lost. GOD has already promised that HE will use it, and it won't return void. The Bible also tells us that those who give out false gospels will be accursed, and I have no doubt that GOD will deal with them harshly. We can and should also warn people about false teaching, false gods, and false prophets. If Christians yield to GOD for HIS use, GOD will handle the rest.

Tony Blair: Mention God and you're a 'nutter'

By Jonathan Wynne-Jones and Patrick Hennessy
Last Updated: 1:44am GMT 26/11/2007

Tony Blair has sparked controversy by claiming that people who speak about their religious faith can be viewed by society as "nutters".

The former prime minister's comments came as he admitted for the first time that his faith was "hugely important" in influencing his decisions during his decade in power at Number 10, including going to war with Iraq in 2003.

Mr Blair complained that he had been unable to follow the example of US politicians, such as President George W. Bush, in being open about his faith because people in Britain regarded religion with suspicion.

"It's difficult if you talk about religious faith in our political system," Mr Blair said. "If you are in the American political system or others then you can talk about religious faith and people say 'yes, that's fair enough' and it is something they respond to quite naturally.

"You talk about it in our system and, frankly, people do think you're a nutter. I mean … you may go off and sit in the corner and … commune with the man upstairs and then come back and say 'right, I've been told the answer and that's it'."

Even Alastair Campbell - his former communications director who once said, "We don't do God" - has conceded that Mr Blair's Christian faith played a central role in shaping "what he felt was important".

Peter Mandelson, one of Mr Blair's confidants, claimed that the former premier "takes a Bible with him wherever he goes" and habitually reads it last thing at night.

His comments, which will be broadcast next Sunday in a BBC1 television documentary, The Blair Years, have been welcomed by leading Church figures, who fear that the rise of secularism is pushing religion to the margins of society.

The Archbishop of York, the Most Rev John Sentamu, said: "Mr Blair's comments highlight the need for greater recognition to be given to the role faith has played in shaping our country. Those secularists who would dismiss faith as nothing more than a private affair are profoundly mistaken in their understanding of faith."

However, Mr Blair, who is now a Middle East peace envoy, has been attacked by commentators who say that religion should be separated from politics and by those who feel that many of his decisions betrayed the Christian community.

In the interview, Mr Blair, who was highly reluctant ever to discuss his faith during his time in office, admitted: "If I am honest about it, of course it was hugely important. You know you can't have a religious faith and it be an insignificant aspect because it's profound about you and about you as a human being.

"There is no point in me denying it. I happen to have religious conviction. I don't actually think there is anything wrong in having religious conviction - on the contrary, I think it is a strength for people."

Mr Blair is a regular churchgoer who was confirmed as an Anglican while at Oxford University, but has since attended Mass with his Roman Catholic wife, Cherie, and is expected to convert within the next few months.

He continued: "To do the prime minister's job properly you need to be able to separate yourself from the magnitude of the consequences of the decisions you are taking the whole time. Which doesn't mean to say … that you're insensitive to the magnitude of those consequences or that you don't feel them deeply.

"If you don't have that strength it's difficult to do the job, which is why the job is as much about character and temperament as it is about anything else. But for me having faith was an important part of being able to do that… Ultimately I think you've got to do what you think is right."

Mr Blair's opponents say his religious zeal blinded him to the consequences of his actions, and point to his belief that his decision to go to war would be judged by God.

The Rt Rev Kieran Conry, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, said last night that Mr Blair's comments echoed the feelings of religious leaders.

Mr Campbell, in the same TV programme as Mr Blair, said the British public were "a bit wary of politicians who go on about God".

Tony Blair: Mention God and you're a 'nutter' (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/25/nblair125.xml)

Gunfire a new element in Paris rioting

By NICOLAS GARRIGA, Associated Press Writer 12 minutes ago

VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France - Police reinforcements streamed into the tough suburbs north of Paris on Tuesday after a second night of rioting by bands of youths who have burned cars and buildings and — in an ominous turn — shot at officers.

A senior police union official warned that "urban guerrillas" had joined the unrest, saying the violence was worse than during three weeks of rioting that raged around French cities in 2005, when firearms were rarely used. More than 80 officers were reported injured overnight.

The violence presented new President Nicolas Sarkozy with a stern test. And it showed that anger still smolders in France's poor neighborhoods, where many Arabs, blacks and other minorities live largely isolated from the rest of society.

The trigger was the deaths Sunday of two minority teens when their motorscooter collided with a police car in Villiers-le-Bel, a blue-collar town on Paris' northern edge.

Residents claimed the officers left the scene without helping the teenage boys. Authorities cast doubt on the claim, but said they were investigating.

Rioting and arson erupted Sunday night, with youths attacking a police station. The violence worsened Monday night as it spread from Villiers-le-Bel to other impoverished suburbs north of the French capital. Rioters burned a library, a nursery school and a car dealership and tried to set some buildings on fire by crashing burning cars into them.

More police moved in Tuesday trying to prevent a third night of rioting, as officials sought to keep the upheaval from spreading to other impoverished areas as happened two years ago.

Patrice Ribeiro of the Synergie police union said rioters this time included "genuine urban guerrillas," saying the use of firearms — hunting shotguns so far — had added a dangerous dimension.

Police said 82 officers were injured Monday night, 10 of them by buckshot and pellets. Four were seriously wounded, the force said. Police unions said 30 officers were struck by buckshot.

One rioter with a shotgun "was firing off two shots, reloading in a stairwell, coming back out — boom, boom — and firing again," said Gilles Wiart, No. 2 official in the SGP-FO police union.

Youths, many of them Arab and black children of immigrants, again appeared to be lashing out at police and other targets seen to represent a French establishment they feel has left them behind.

"I don't think it's an ethnic problem," Wiart said. "Most of all it is youths who reject all state authority. They attack firefighters, everything that represents the state."

Suspicion of the police runs high among people in the drab housing project where the two teenagers died in the crash. The boys were identified in French media only by their first names, Lakhami, 16, and Mouhsin, 15.

There have long been tensions between France's largely white police force and the ethnic minorities trapped in poor neighborhoods.

Despite decades of problems and heavy state investments to improve housing and create jobs, the depressed projects that ring Paris are a world apart from the tourist attractions of the capital. Police speak of no-go zones where they and firefighters fear to patrol.

"The problem of bad relations between the police and minorities is underestimated," said criminologist Sebastian Roche.

Sarkozy, speaking from China, appealed for calm and called a security meeting with his Cabinet ministers for Wednesday on his return home.

Sarkozy was interior minister, in charge of police, during the riots of 2005 and took a hard line against the violence. He angered many in housing projects when he called delinquents there "scum."

The rioting youths "want Sarkozy — they want him to come and explain" what happened to the two teenage boys, said Linda Beddar, a 40-year-old mother of three in Villiers-le-Bel. Beddar woke Tuesday to find the library across from her house a burned-out shell.

The violence two years ago also started in the suburbs of northern Paris, when two teens were electrocuted in a power substation while hiding from police. The government is keen to keep the new violence from spreading.

"We will not let go. We will fight with all the force the nation is capable of," Prime Minister Francois Fillon told firefighters in Villiers-le-Bel.

Fillon spoke with a firefighter who was shot by rioters and handled the bullet that was extracted from the man's arm.

In Villiers-le-Bel, arsonists set fire to the municipal library and burned books littered its floor Tuesday. Shops and businesses were also attacked, and more than 70 vehicles were torched, authorities said.

Rioters even rammed burning cars into buildings, trying to set the structures on fire, authorities said. Police reported six arrests.

Several hundred youths organized in small groups led the rioting in Villiers-le-Bel, and incidents were also reported in five other towns north of Paris, the regional government reported.

It refused to give specific figures on injuries among the police, rioters or other civilians, or the numbers of cars and buildings set on fire, saying it feared that doing so would encourage youths to try to wound more officers and destroy more property.

82 police officers hurt in Paris riots (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071127/ap_on_re_eu/france_violence;_ylt=AvO.k7jUPhwUZmaaZvFS8FhvaA8F)

Christian leaders ask for Muslim forgiveness
26 November 2007

ABU DHABI—Peaceful relations between Muslims and Christians stand as one of the central challenges of this century, according to leading Christian leaders.

Responding to an open letter in October signed by 138 leading Muslim scholars, clerics, and intellectuals from around the world, the Christian leaders also asked the Muslim world for forgiveness “We want to begin by acknowledging that in the past (e.g. in the Crusades) and in the present (e.g. in excesses of the “war on terror”) many Christians have been guilty of sinning against our Muslim neighbours. Before we “shake your hand” in responding to your letter, we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community around the world”, they said in the letter which was made available to the press here yesterday.

Following is the full text of the letter:

As members of the worldwide Christian community, we were deeply encouraged and challenged by the recent historic open letter signed by 138 leading Muslim scholars, clerics, and intellectuals from around the world. A Common Word Between Us and You identifies some core common ground between Christianity and Islam which lies at the heart of our respective faiths as well as at the heart of the most ancient Abrahamic faith, Judaism. Jesus Christ’s call to love God and neighbour was rooted in the divine revelation to the people of Israel embodied in the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18). We receive the open letter as a Muslim hand of conviviality and cooperation extended to Christians worldwide. In this response we extend our own Christian hand in return, so that together with all other human beings we may live in peace and justice as we seek to love God and our neighbours.

Muslims and Christians have not always shaken hands in friendship; their relations have sometimes been tense, even characterized by outright hostility. Since Jesus Christ says, “First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye” (Matthew 7:5), we want to begin by acknowledging that in the past (e.g. in the Crusades) and in the present (e.g. in excesses of the “war on terror”) many Christians have been guilty of sinning against our Muslim neighbours. Before we “shake your hand” in responding to your letter, we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community around the world.

Religious Peace-World Peace “Muslims and Christians together make up well over half of the world’s population. Without peace and justice between these two religious communities, there can be no meaningful peace in the world.” We share the sentiment of the Muslim signatories expressed in these opening lines of their open letter. Peaceful relations between Muslims and Christians stand as one of the central challenges of this century, and perhaps of the whole present epoch. Though tensions, conflicts, and even wars in which Christians and Muslims stand against each other are not primarily religious in character, they possess an undeniable religious dimension. If we can achieve religious peace between these two religious communities, peace in the world will clearly be easier to attain. It is therefore no exaggeration to say, as you have in A Common Word Between Us and You, that “the future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians.” Common Ground What is so extraordinary about A Common Word Between Us and You is not that its signatories recognize the critical character of the present moment in relations between Muslims and Christians. It is rather a deep insight and courage with which they have identified the common ground between the Muslim and Christian religious communities.

What is common between us lies not in something marginal nor in something merely important to each. It lies, rather, in something absolutely central to both: love of God and love of neighbour.

Surprisingly for many Christians, your letter considers the dual command of love to be the foundational principle not just of the Christian faith, but of Islam as well. That so much common ground exists-common ground in some of the fundamentals of faith-gives hope that undeniable differences and even the very real external pressures that bear down upon us can not overshadow the common ground upon which we stand together. That this common ground consists in love of God and of neighbour gives hope that deep cooperation between us can be a hallmark of the relations between our two communities.

Love of God We applaud that A Common Word Between Us and You stresses so insistently the unique devotion to one God, indeed the love of God, as the primary duty of every believer. God alone rightly commands our ultimate allegiance. When anyone or anything besides God commands our ultimate allegiance-a ruler, a nation, economic progress, or anything else-we end up serving idols and inevitably get mired in deep and deadly conflicts. We find it equally heartening that the God whom we should love above all things is described as being Love. In the Muslim tradition, God, “the Lord of the worlds,” is “The Infinitely Good and All-Merciful.” And the New Testament states clearly that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Since God’s goodness is infinite and not bound by anything, God “makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous,” according to the words of Jesus Christ recorded in the Gospel (Matthew 5:45). For Christians, humanity’s love of God and God’s love of humanity are intimately linked. As we read in the New Testament: “We love because he [God] first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Our love of God springs from and is nourished by God’s love for us. It cannot be otherwise, since the Creator who has power over all things is infinitely good. Love of Neighbour We find deep affinities with our own Christian faith when A Common Word Between Us and You insists that love is the pinnacle of our duties toward our neighbours. “None of you has faith until you love for your neighbour what you love for yourself,” the Prophet Muhammad said. In the New Testament we similarly read, “whoever does not love [the neighbour] does not know God” (1 John 4:8) and “whoever does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20). God is love, and our highest calling as human beings is to imitate the One whom we worship. We applaud when you state that “justice and freedom of religion are a crucial part” of the love of neighbour. When justice is lacking, neither love of God nor love of the neighbour can be present. When freedom to worship God according to one’s conscience is curtailed, God is dishonoured, the neighbour oppressed, and neither God nor neighbour is loved. Since Muslims seek to love their Christian neighbours, they are not against them, the document encouragingly states. Instead, Muslims are with them. As Christians we resonate deeply with this sentiment. Our faith teaches that we must be with our neighbours-indeed, that we must act in their favor-even when our neighbours turn out to be our enemies. “But I say unto you,” says Jesus Christ, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good” (Matthew 5:44-45). Our love, Jesus Christ says, must imitate the love of the infinitely good Creator; our love must be as unconditional as is God’s-extending to brothers, sisters, neighbours, and even enemies. At the end of his life, Jesus Christ himself prayed for his enemies: “Forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

The Prophet Muhammad did similarly when he was violently rejected and stoned by the people of Ta’if. He is known to have said, “The most virtuous behaviour is to engage those who sever relations, to give to those who withhold from you, and to forgive those who wrong you.” (It is perhaps significant that after the Prophet Muhammad was driven out of Ta’if, it was the Christian slave ‘Addas who went out to Muhammad, brought him food, kissed him, and embraced him.) The Task Before Us “Let this common ground”-the dual common ground of love of God and of neighbour-“be the basis of all future interfaith dialogue between us,” your courageous letter urges. Indeed, in the generosity with which the letter is written you embody what you call for. We most heartily agree. Abandoning all “hatred and strife,” we must engage in interfaith dialogue as those who seek each other’s good, for the one God unceasingly seeks our good. Indeed, together with you we believe that we need to move beyond “a polite ecumenical dialogue between selected religious leaders” and work diligently together to reshape relations between our communities and our nations so that they genuinely reflect our common love for God and for one another. Given the deep fissures in the relations between Christians and Muslims today, the task before us is daunting. And the stakes are great. The future of the world depends on our ability as Christians and Muslims to live together in peace. If we fail to make every effort to make peace and come together in harmony you correctly remind us that “our eternal souls” are at stake as well.

cont'd next post!!

We are persuaded that our next step should be for our leaders at every level to meet together and begin the earnest work of determining how God would have us fulfill the requirement that we love God and one another. It is with humility and hope that we receive your generous letter, and we commit ourselves to labor together in heart, soul, mind and strength for the objectives you so appropriately propose.

*Harold W. Attridge, Dean and Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament, Yale Divinity School *Joseph Cumming, Director of the Reconciliation Program, Yale Center for Faith and Culture, Yale Divinity School *Emilie M. Townes, Andrew Mellon Professor of African American Religion and Theology, Yale Divinity School, and President-elect of the American Academy of Religion *Miroslav Volf, Founder and Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology, Yale Divinity School Martin Accad, Academic Dean, Arab Baptist Theological Seminary (Lebanon) Scott C. Alexander, Director, Catholic-Muslim Studies, Catholic Theological Union Roger Allen, Chair, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania Leith Anderson, President, National Association of Evangelicals Ray Bakke, Convening Chair, Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding Camillo Ballin, Bishop, Vicar Apostolic of Kuwait (Roman Catholic) Barry Beisner, Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of Northern California Federico Bertuzzi, President, PM Internacional, Latin America James A. Beverley, Tyndale Seminary, Canada Jonathan Bonk, Executive Director, Overseas Ministries Study Center Gerhard B?wering, Yale University Joseph Britton, Dean, Berkeley Divinity School at Yale John M. Buchanan, Editor/Publisher, The Christian Century Joe Goodwin Burnett, Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska Samuel G. Candler, Dean, Cathedral of St. Philip, Atlanta Juan Carlos C?rdenas, Instituto Iberoamericano de Estudios Transculturales, Spain Joseph Castleberry, President, Northwest University Colin Chapman, Author David Yonggi Cho, Founder and Senior Pastor, Yoido Full Gospel Church, Seoul, Korea Richard Cizik, Vice President, National Association of Evangelicals Corneliu Constantineanu, Dean, Evangelical Theological Seminary, Croatia Robert E. Cooley, President Emeritus, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary Harvey Cox, Harvard Divinity School John D’Alton, President, Melbourne Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, Australia Andr? Delbecq, University of Santa Clara Keith DeRose, Yale University Andr?s Alonso Duncan, CEO, Latinoamerica Global, A.C.

Diana L. Eck, Harvard University Bertil Ekstrom, Executive Director, Mission Commission, World Evangelical Alliance Mark U. Edwards, Jr., Senior Advisor to the Dean, Harvard Divinity School John Esposito, Director Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University David Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity, Cambridge University Timothy George, Dean, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University Roberto S. Goizueta, Boston College Bruce Gordon, University of St. Andrews William A. Graham, Dean, Harvard Divinity School Lynn Green, International Chairman, YWAM Frank Griffel, Yale University Edwin F. Gulick, Jr., Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of Kentucky David P. Gushee, President, Evangelicals for Human Rights Kim B. Gustafson, President, Common Ground Elie Haddad, Provost, Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, Lebanon L. Ann Hallisey, Hallisey Consulting and Counseling Paul D. Hanson, Harvard Divinity School Heidi Hadsell, President, Hartford Seminary David Heim, Executive Editor, The Christian Century Norman A. Hjelm, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, retired Carl R. Holladay, Candler School of Theology, Emory University Joseph Hough, President, Union Theological Seminary, NY Bill Hybels, Founder and Senior Pastor, Willow Creek Community Church Nabeel T. Jabbour, Consultant, Professor, Colorado Shannon Sherwood Johnston, Bishop Coadjutor, Episcopal Diocese of Virginia David Colin Jones, Bishop Suffragan, Episcopal Diocese of Virginia Stanton L. Jones, Provost, Wheaton College, IL Tony Jones, National Coordinator, Emergent Village Riad A. Kassis, Theologian, Author, Consultant Paul Knitter, Union Theological Seminary, NY Manfred W. Kohl, Vice President of Overseas Council International, USA James A. Kowalski, Dean, Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, NY Sharon Kugler, University Chaplain, Yale University Peter Kuzmic, President, Evangelical Theological Faculty Osijek, Croatia Peter J. Lee, Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of Virginia Linda LeSourd Lader, President, Renaissance Institute Tim Lewis, President, William Carey Int’l University John B.Lindner, Yale Divinity School Duane Litfin, President, Wheaton College Greg Livingstone, Founder, Frontiers Albert C. Lobe, Interim Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee Rick Love, International Director, Frontiers Douglas Magnuson, Bethel University Peter Maiden, International Coordinator, OM Danut Manastireanu, World Vision International, Iasi, Romania Harold Masback, III, Senior Minister, The Congregational Church of New Canaan, New Canaan, CT Donald M. McCoid, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America C. Douglas McConnell, Dean, School of Intercultural Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary Don McCurry, President, Ministries to Muslims Brian D. McLaren, Author, Speaker, Activist Kathleen E. McVey, Princeton Theological Seminary Judith Mendelsohn Rood, Biola University Steve Moore, President and CEO, The Mission Exchange (formerly EFMA) Douglas Morgan, Director, Adventist Peace Fellowship Richard Mouw, President, Fuller Theological Seminary Salim J. Munayer, Academic Dean, Bethlehem Bible College, Jerusalem Rich Nathan, Senior Pastor, Vineyard Church of Columbus David Neff, Editor in Chief and Vice-President, Christianity Today Media Group Alexander Negrov, President, St. Petersburg Christian University, Russia Richard R. Osmer, Princeton Theological Seminary George E. Packard, Bishop Suffragan for Chaplaincies of the Episcopal Church Greg H. Parsons, General Director, U.S. Center for World Mission Doug Pennoyer, Dean, School of Intercultural Studies, Biola University Douglas Petersen, Vanguard University of Southern California Sally Promey, Yale Divinity School Thomas P. Rausch, S.J., Loyola Marymount University David A. Reed, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto Neil Rees, International Director, World Horizons Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., Fuller Theological Seminary Leonard Rogers, Executive Director, Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding William L. Sachs, Director, Center for Reconciliation and Mission, Richmond Lamin Sanneh, Yale Divinity School Andrew Saperstein, Yale Center for Faith and Culture Robert Schuller, Founder, Crystal Cathedral and Hour of Power Elizabeth Sch?ssler Fiorenza, Harvard Divinity School Francis Sch?ssler Fiorenza, Harvard Divinity School William Schweiker, University of Chicago Donald Senior, C.P., President, Catholic Theological Union, Chicago C. L. Seow, Princeton Theological Seminary Imad Nicola Shehadeh, President, Jordan Evangelical Theological Seminary David W. and K. Grace Shenk, Eastern Mennonite Missions Marguerite Shuster, Fuller Theological Seminary John G. Stackhouse, Jr., Regent College, Vancouver Glen Stassen, Fuller Theological Seminary Andrea Zaki Stephanous, Vice President, Protestant Church in Egypt Wilbur P. Stone, Bethel University, MN John Stott, Rector Emeritus, All Souls Church, London Frederick J. Streets, Yeshiva University William Taylor, Global Ambassador, World Evangelical Alliance John Thomas, President and General Minister, United Church of Christ Iain Torrance, President, Princeton Theological Seminary Michael W. Treneer, International President, The Navigators, CO Geoff Tunnicliffe, International Director, World Evangelical Alliance George Verwer, Founder and former International Director, OM Harold Vogelaar, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago Berten A. Waggoner, National Director, Association of Vineyard Churches Jim Wallis, President, Sojourners Rick Warren, Founder and Senior Pastor, Saddleback Church, and The Purpose Driven Life, Lake Forest, CA J. Dudley Woodberry, Dean Emeritus, Fuller School of International Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary Christopher J.H. Wright, International Director, Langham Partnership, London Robert R. Wilson, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Yale Divinity School Nicholas Wolterstorff, University of Virginia Godfrey Yogarajah, General Secretary, Evangelical Fellowship in Asia Community Council of the Sisters of the Precious Blood, Dayton, OH.

Christian leaders ask for Muslim forgiveness (http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/theuae/2007/November/theuae_November688.xml&section=theuae&col)

Cross-dressing day sparks school exodus
Parents pull students from district, citing conflicts with biblical rules
Posted: November 28, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

A public school's "gender-bender" cross-dressing event, where boys were supposed to dress as girls and girls as boys, has prompted at least dozens, perhaps hundreds, of students to flee the tax-supported institutions in Iowa.

Many of the parents apparently are members of the Christ Apostolic Temple in Des Moines, which teaches a biblically based doctrine of rejecting the world's values.

"Christ Apostolic Temple Inc. Fellowship ... is a Bible-based organization that believes one must 'come out from among them and be ye separate.' (2 Cor. 6:14-17)," the organization's website says.

That apparently includes cross-dressing, an event which has found sponsorship in other arenas from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, which has promoted a school lesson plan for teaching boys and girls to cross-dress.

State officials in Des Moines confirmed to WND that at least 80 children whose parents were alarmed by the "Gender-Bender Day" during homecoming week at the city's East High School have moved their children from the various districts in the area into homeschooling plans. Several parents told WND that the number could be in the hundreds.

One parent, writing on a blog shortly after the cross-dressing promotion, hardly could contain the outrage.

In bold red type, the parent wrote, "TUESDAY AT ONE OF OUR LOCAL HIGH SCHOOLS THEY HAD WHAT IS CALLED 'GENDER BENDER DAY!' IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT THAT IS THEN LET ME EDUCATE YOU REAL QUICK … IT IS WHERE THE BOYS DRESS LIKE GIRLS AND VICE VERSA!!"

The author continued, "THIS WAS ALLOWED AND CARRIED OUT AT OUR SCHOOLS!!! … I IMMEDIATELY PULLED MY CHILD OUT OF THE DES MOINES PUBLIC SCHOOL! WE ARE NOW HOMESCHOOLING ALONG WITH SEVERAL HUNDRED OTHER PARENTS!"

"I AM GETTING MAD WHILE I TYPE THIS … SO I NEED TO SHUT IT DOWN…"

Barb Heki is a board member for the Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators, and was ecstatic about the parental response.

"I'm just praising God there is a church with so many families that would take a biblical stand and decide that we're not going to put our children under anti-Christian indoctrination any longer. That's refreshing and encouraging," she told WND.

A mother whose children were taken out of the public schools because of the cross-dressing promotion didn't want to be identified, but told WND she knows of probably 200 families who filled out state-required paperwork to withdraw their children from public schools.

"What it is is we're following the Bible," she told WND. "There was a situation that took place, which was the gender bender day. Our children were to participate in the cross-dressing. When they refused they were told they would get a bad grade..."

"The situation came out, and everybody was disgusted," she said. "Well, we're not doing it. All we did was pulled our kids out. Nothing more to be said or done."

Officials with Christ Apostolic Temple, which describes itself as an apostolic holiness fellowship, couldn't be reached for comment. But parents who talked to WND said it was a move of parents, nothing mandated or organized by the church.

An advertisement in the Des Moines newspaper said the event was part of the theme days for the school's homecoming events. "Tuesday, dress in clothing of the opposite sex for Gender Bender Day," were the instructions. Other days were "Movie Theme Day," and "Spirit Day."

Phil Roeder, a spokesman for the Des Moines schools, told WND that the event was nothing unusual.

"There were a couple of calls at the office at the school from parents that were concerned," he told WND. But he said the district itself had not seen any unusual activity regarding homeschooling.

"Let's just say the numbers you are hearing are greatly exaggerated," Roeder told WND. "Events like this at a high school are part of homecoming week activities and certainly are not mandated events. They're voluntary activities that the students put on.

"Now if the parents had any indication that their students were coerced or bullied then that's another matter. They've not brought that to my knowledge," he said.

State officials said the list of 80 students they had reviewed included students from virtually all grades and dozens of schools in several districts, making it unlikely a single district would have a large number of students affected.

East High recently was the chosen location when Iowa Lt. Gov. Patti Judge announced a new state award highlighting increased diversity in the state.

"The "One Iowa Award" recognizes those who are working to create a "unified Iowa."

Judge said making that a reality takes input from Iowans "regardless of their race, age, gender, nationality or sexual orientation." The announcement had been staged to include East High students talking about the importance of diversity.

State law in Iowa also provides parents a tax credit for some costs of students attending "accredited" schools, but does not allow homeschooling parents the same benefit.

State Education Department officials said they had provided information to the church members about their rights and responsibilities should they choose to start a private school, or pursue homeschooling options.

"Let us see what the word of God says about the matter…" wrote the parent blogger. "Deut. 22:5. The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God."

The Pacific Justice Institute reports that in a prior school year, a California school dealt with the same issue.

Officials at Adams Middle School in the Bay Area had announced a "gender switch" day.

"The mother of a seventh-grade student … was alarmed when she heard that on the last day of the school's 'Spirit Week,' students were being encouraged to dress like the opposite sex. Perhaps even more disturbingly, parents were given virtually no advance notice from the school and found out about the event after flyers were posted throughout the campus," PJI reported.

"The parent contacted Pacific Justice Institute on Monday, which advised her on enlisting other parents' support and communicating with the school. PJI also began laying the groundwork to hold the school accountable… In a 180-degree turnaround, the flyers posted about the gender switch day had disappeared by Tuesday morning, and the school confirmed the event had been canceled."

The principal, Adam Clark, had said he wanted to encourage students to be "free thinkers," but the "overall message wasn't coming across clear."

"We commend the parents in this school who said, 'Enough is enough' and challenged the administration to re-think its position," Brad Dacus, president of PJI, said at the time. "No student should be made to feel uncomfortable at school simply because he doesn't want to cross-dress."

This has NO PLACE in public schools. If they paid more attention to your basic math, science, language arts etc, etc......

I would be pulling my kid too. Way to go, to those parents who pulled their children out of the schools. I hope it hurts the schools and give them a rude awakening.

If we look carefully through the Bible we will find that we are commanded to bring up our children and educate them.

Ephesians 4:14-15 So then, we may no longer be children, tossed [like ships] to and fro between chance gusts of teaching and wavering with every changing wind of doctrine, [the prey of] the cunning and cleverness of unscrupulous men, [gamblers engaged] in every shifting form of trickery in inventing errors to mislead. 15 Rather, let our lives lovingly [c]express truth [in all things, speaking truly, dealing truly, living truly]. Enfolded in love, let us grow up in every way and in all things into Him Who is the Head, [even] Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).

So as Christians are we failing when we allow the state to indoctrinate our children? Are we failing when don't get involved with politics since we have the right to be involved and allow politicians to create theses Laws and then pervert Romans 13 against us.

Romans 13:1-7 LET EVERY person be loyally subject to the governing (civil) authorities. For there is no authority except from God [by His permission, His sanction], and those that exist do so by God's appointment. 2 Therefore he who resists and sets himself up against the authorities resists what God has appointed and arranged [in divine order]. And those who resist will bring down judgment upon themselves [receiving the penalty due them]. 3 For civil authorities are not a terror to [people of] good conduct, but to [those of] bad behavior. Would you have no dread of him who is in authority? Then do what is right and you will receive his approval and commendation. 4 For he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, [you should dread him and] be afraid, for he does not bear and wear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant to execute His wrath (punishment, vengeance) on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God's wrath and escape punishment, but also as a matter of principle and for the sake of conscience. 6 For this same reason you pay taxes, for [the civil authorities] are official servants under God, devoting themselves to attending to this very service. 7 Render to all men their dues. [Pay] taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, and honor to whom honor is due.

Hello Dreamweaver,

I understand that some Christians will have difficulties in "Rendering Unto Caesar", but we have many more instructions about our children that are quite specific. Our children don't belong to Caesar and they certainly don't belong to the devil.

Brother, I already know that you understand the Biblical issues dealing with government, but others might not. Many things should be considered, starting with our system where the people are in charge, and we elect representatives who are accountable to the people. The situation would require a more difficult Bible Study if we had a dictator or a king. Regardless, Christians would still have major concerns about not "sending our children through the fire" or giving our children up to the devil. At least we still have options in this current system that don't involve giving our children to the devil, and those options are lawful.

Instructions regarding our children are scattered in hundreds of places throughout the Holy Bible, but I only want to mention a few. I would suggest to all Christian parents that they know what their Biblical instructions are regarding their children. In fact, this should be a mandatory Bible Study for a Christian couple before they decide to have children.

Proverbs 22:1-6 A good name is to be more desired than great wealth, Favor is better than silver and gold. The rich and the poor have a common bond, The LORD is the maker of them all. The prudent sees the evil and hides himself, But the naive go on, and are punished for it. The reward of humility and the fear of the LORD Are riches, honor and life. Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse; He who guards himself will be far from them. Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.

(Past and future Israel should give us a hint.)

Jeremiah 32:38-42 "They shall be My people, and I will be their God; and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me always, for their own good and for the good of their children after them. "I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me. "I will rejoice over them to do them good and will faithfully plant them in this land with all My heart and with all My soul. "For thus says the LORD, 'Just as I brought all this great disaster on this people, so I am going to bring on them all the good that I am promising them.

Matthew 7:13 "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.

Brothers and Sisters, let's make this more simple. Are we of GOD or of the devil? Will our children be of GOD or of the devil? The consequences are ETERNAL, so these are matters of GREATEST importance. Our children belong to GOD, and they are given to us as gifts for nurturing while we live in this short life. Under what circumstances could we possibly give them over to the devil and know that their own Eternity was at stake? I couldn't do this and won't do this. It would be easy if I was of the devil, but I'm not. As a Christian, I don't know what would make this possible to bear other than my own death first.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable GIFT, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour Forever!

Saudi Rape Victim Tells Her Story
Victim to Receive Whipping and Jail for Being in Nonrelative's Car When Attacked
By LARA SETRAKIAN

Nov. 21, 2007 —

Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Justice is defending a sentence of 200 lashes for the victim of a gang rape, punished because she was in the car of a male who wasn't a relative when the two were attacked.

In exclusive testimony obtained by ABC News, the young woman told her story of what happened and how she was treated in the months that followed.

"Everyone looks at me as if I'm wrong. I couldn't even continue my studies. I wanted to die. I tried to commit suicide twice," she said of her experience just after the attack.

The woman, known anonymously in the Saudi press as "Qatif Girl" for the eastern province town where the crime took place, was originally sentenced to 90 lashes for being in a state of "khalwa" -- retreat with a male who's not a relative.

But the General Court of Qatif increased the punishment to 200 lashes and six months in jail after she took her case to the press. Authorities deemed it an "attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media," according to Saudi Arabia's English-language newspaper Arab News.

The seven attackers were convicted of rape with sentences that ranged from two to nine years in prison, according to Arab News.

In a December 2006 interview in Khobar, Saudi Arabia the woman gave a full account of her testimony to Human Rights Watch, describing the incident as she did before the court. She was meeting a male acquaintance, a former boyfriend, when the attack took place.

Ordeal Began With a Photo

"I [was] 19 years old. I had a relationship with someone on the phone. We were both 16. I had never seen him before. I just knew his voice. He started to threaten me, and I got afraid. He threatened to tell my family about the relationship. Because of the threats and fear, I agreed to give him a photo of myself," she recounted.

"A few months [later], I asked him for the photo back but he refused. I had gotten married to another man. He said, 'I'll give you the photo on the condition that you come out with me in my car.' I told him we could meet at a souk [market[ near my neighborhood city plaza in Qatif.

"He started to drive me home. &We were 15 minutes from my house. I told him that I was afraid and that he should speed up. We were about to turn the corner to my house when they [another car] stopped right in front of our car. Two people got out of their car and stood on either side of our car. They man on my side had a knife. They tried to open our door. I told the individual with me not to open the door, but he did. He let them come in. I screamed.

"One of the men brought a knife to my throat. They told me not to speak. They pushed us to the back of the car and started driving. We drove a lot, but I didn't see anything since my head was forced down."

"They took us to an area & with lots of palm trees. No one was there. If you kill someone there, no one would know about it. They took out the man with me, and I stayed in the car. I was so afraid. They forced me out of the car. They pushed me really hard ... took me to a dark place. Then two men came in. They said, 'What are you going to do? Take off your abaya.' They forced my clothes off. The first man with the knife raped me. I was destroyed. If I tried to escape, I don't even know where I would go. I tried to force them off but I couldn't. [Another] man & came in and did the same thing to me. I didn't even feel anything after that.

"I spent two hours begging them to take me home. I told them that it was late and that my family would be asking about me. Then I saw a third man come into the room. There was a lot of violence. After the third man came in, a fourth came. He slapped me and tried to choke me.

"The fifth and sixth ones were the most abusive. After the seventh one, I couldn't feel my body anymore. I didn't know what to do. Then a very fat man came on top of me and I could no longer breathe.

"Then all seven came back and raped me again. Then they took me home. & When I got out of the car, I couldn't even walk. I rang the doorbell and my mother opened the door. She said you look tired.' I didn't eat for one week after that, just water. I didn't tell anyone. I went to the hospital the next day.

"The criminals started talking about it [the rape] in my neighborhood. They thought my husband would divorce me. They wanted to ruin my reputation. Slowly my husband started to know what had happened. Four months later, we started a case. My family heard about the case. My brother hit me and tried to kill me."

Lawyer Punished Too

Along with the young woman's sentence, the General Court of Qatif confiscated the license of her attorney, Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem, a lawyer known for taking on controversial cases that push back against Saudi Arabia's strictly interpreted system of sharia, or Islamic law.

"Asking me to appear in front of a disciplinary committee at the Ministry of Justice & is a punishment for taking human rights cases against some institutions," Al-Lahem told Arab News.

Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Justice said in this week's statement that Al-Lahem's "faulty behaviors & contradict the ethics of his profession and violate the provisions of practicing law and its executive code."

New York-based Human Rights Watch researcher Christoph Wilcke, who studies the Saudi legal system, said the woman would need a pardon from King Abdullah himself or from the provincial governor to be spared the lashings and jail time. The punishment will also be reviewed by the Supreme Judiciary Council, which will scrutinize the ruling, according to the Ministry of Justice.

Saudi Rape Victim Tells Her Story (http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3899920)

Santa train takes kids to sexy Victoria's Secret

(http://bestsmileys.com/eek/7.gif)

Toddler attraction features lingerie display
Posted: November 27, 2007
11:20 p.m. Eastern

© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

The kids' Santa train at the White Flint shopping mall in Bethesda, Md., is giving the tots an eyeful, taking them past a storefront display of "SEXY" lingerie, according to a consumer who complained to the shopping plaza's owners.

Rebecca McMurry called the situation, "Marketing of Evil, Washington suburban style," after she expressed her concern to the owners of the White Flint Mall, without getting satisfaction. She was referring to "The Marketing of Evil" book by David Kupelian, WND's managing editor, which outlines the campaigns responsible for selling sex and violence agendas to the American public.

"I am shocked! This evening my husband and I visited White Flint Shopping Mall and while strolling through window shopping we were greeted by a sleazy display of near pornographic sado-masochistic sexist mannequins in the display windows of Victoria's Secret," she wrote to Mark Lerner, of Lerner Enterprises, the mall's owner.

"It was bad enough for me to be humiliated by the scene, but what about the children, Mr. Lerner? We watched as the little train carried them by those windows. Is this the image that you want to be projected for your mall?" she wrote.

The Lerner company did not respond, but the mall manager, informed of the complaint by another store, suggested McMurry contact the Victoria's Secret store itself, or the chain's corporate headquarters.

McMurry responded: "White Flint started out 25 or so years ago as an 'upscale' mall but time and fortune have not been as good as we would have desired. Now things have reached a disastrous low when you have a 'porn shop' on the main level."

WND contacted the Victoria's Secret store, and was advised to contact the corporate headquarters. Messages left there were not returned.

But the issue remains for McMurry and her family, who have promised not to shop at the mall again unless changes are made.

"This is just so awful," she told WND. "Here it is Christmas, and kids are on that train going right by several of the windows, display windows with these provocative mannequins."

"I told them I wasn't going to go back to the mall," she said. "Of course, they don't care."

The manager for the mall, Desharri Bell, told WND Victoria's Secret is a "store within our shopping center. They have merchandising as all of our tenants do."

She said the store is relatively new to the mall, and said the mall takes seriously shoppers' concerns. She said the mall "would as a landlord work with the tenant on this issue," but so far wasn't aware of any changes.

But she declined to comment on the appropriateness of a children's train ride adjacent to the revealing display.

"I can't speak to that, but we work to bring a solid group of tenants that can be enjoyed," she told WND. "We've got a number of people who enjoy visiting the Victoria's Secret store."

The mall's website suggests children "Ride North Pole Express!" from now through Dec. 24.

"Tickets are $1 (cash only) and are sold at the Train Depot, Lord & Taylor Wing, Level One. Children under 7 must be accompanied by an adult; adults must be accompanied by children."

McMurry described how the train starts near the Lord & Taylor store, then moves throughout the mall, passing several times in front of the Victoria's Secret lingerie promotions.

"If I was a mother with a child, I'd be putting my hands over their eyes," she told WND.

Marx had great ideas: his error was forgetting God, says Pope
December 1, 2007

Richard Owen in Rome

Atheism has led to some of the “greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice” known to mankind, the Pope said yesterday.

He also said that humanity would not be saved by scientific progress or political revolution, but only in the hope offered by Christianity.

“A world which has to create its own justice is a world without hope,” he said in an encyclical released yesterday, the most authoritative statement a Pope can issue to the faithful and the second of his pontificate.

In Spe Salvi (Saved by Hope), Pope Benedict said that atheists argued that “a world marked by so much injustice, innocent suffering and cynicism of power cannot be the work of a good God”. Since there was “no God to create justice”, atheists said, Man himself was called on to establish it on Earth. This protest against God was understandable, the Pope said, but “the claim that humanity can and must do what no God actually does or is able to do is both presumptuous and intrinsically false”.

He added: “It is no accident that this idea has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice: rather it is grounded in the intrinsic falsity of the claim. A world which has to create its own justice is a world without hope.”

He said that faith in progress through science was illusory. Scientific advances offered mankind “new possibilities for good”, he said, but science also “opens up appalling possibilities for evil, possibilities that did not formerly exist. We have all witnessed the way in which progress, in the wrong hands, can become and has indeed become a terrifying progress in evil”.

He also said that Christianity itself had ignored Christ’s message that true Christian hope involves salvation for all, focusing instead on individual salvation. “We must do all we can to overcome suffering, but to banish it from the world is not in our power,” the Pope wrote. “Only God is able to do this.”

In the 76-page document, peppered with scholarly and theological references but written in a clear, limpid style, Benedict argued that the modern world was shaped by the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917, the latter inspired by the ideas of Karl Marx.

He praised Marx’s “acute analysis” and “precision” in describing his times. But Marx’s “fundamental error” was that he “showed precisely how to overthrow the existing order but did not say how matters should proceed thereafter”. Marxism, the Pope wrote, had left behind “a trail of appalling destruction” because it failed to realise that Man could not be “merely the product of economic conditions”.

Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, the Vatican biblical scholar who presented the document, said that it was addressed not only to Catholics but also to Protestants, Orthodox Christians and nonChristians. The Pope, who has shown increasing concern over global warming and other green issues, said that “Christian hope” also meant protecting the planet.

“We can free our life and the world from the poisons and contaminations that could destroy the present and the future. We can uncover the sources of Creation and keep them unsullied, and in this way we can make a right use of creation, which comes to us as a gift,” he said.

The Pope said that many people reject faith today, “simply because they do not find the prospect of eternal life attractive. What they desire is not eternal life at all, but this present life, for which faith in eternal life seems something of an impediment. To continue living forever – endlessly – appears more like a curse than a gift”. But he concluded that Eternity was “not an unending succession of days in the calendar” but an encounter with Christ after death which is “like plunging into an ocean of infinite love, a moment in which time, the before and after, no longer exists”.

Marx had great ideas: his error was forgetting God, says Pope (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2977564.ece)

Quote from: grammyluv on December 01, 2007, 05:42:12 PM

Looks like the right pope may be in place for the end of the age.

Hello Grammyluv,

Sister, I was thinking exactly the same thing. The overall message was subtle but Anti-Christ. It was a "feel good now" philosophy with a mixture of humanism, communism, universalism, and Marxism - mainly humanism and universalism. It's interesting to note that not one of these of any combination of them has ever solved a single problem in this world. In fact, they are the opposite of what GOD has instructed in the Bible, and these man-made systems have caused untold misery and death. YES - this is the perfect philosophy for the end of this age and will help make the world RIPE for the HOLY AND RIGHTEOUS WRATH OF ALMIGHTY GOD.

On the other side of the coin is the ONLY and SIMPLE TRUTH: Absolute Sovereignty of ALMIGHTY GOD and each human being's RESPONSIBILITY to THE CREATOR - ALMIGHTY GOD. This is the solution to the problems of man, and it's so simple that any child should be able to understand it. Bluntly, HE is the ALL MIGHTY GOD SOVEREIGN CREATOR whether man recognizes and yields to HIM or not. Most obviously, there is a horrible price for rejecting and disobeying the KING OF KINGS! in this short life and for ETERNITY!

Brothers and Sisters, it appears that the pope has decided that he is god, and the pope has given a message of stinking garbage to mankind. Many will be deceived and follow it.

Love In Christ,
Tom

GOOD NEWS!

1: Romans 3:10 NASB as it is written, "THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE."

2: Romans 3:23 NASB for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

3: Romans 5:12 NASB Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--

4: Romans 6:23 NASB For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

5: Romans 1:18 NASB For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

6: Romans 3:20 NASB because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.

7: Romans 3:27 NASB Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith.

8: Romans 5:8-9 NASB But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.

9: Romans 2:4 NASB Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?

10: Romans 3:22 NASB even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction;

11: Romans 3:28 NASB For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.

12: Romans 10:9 NASB that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;

13: Romans 4:21 NASB and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.

14: Romans 4:24 NASB but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead,

15: Romans 5:1 NASB Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

16: Romans 10:10 NASB for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

17: Romans 10:13 NASB for "WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED."

Thanks be unto GOD for HIS unspeakable GIFT!, JESUS CHRIST, our Lord and Saviour forever!

Hello Grammyluv,

I understand Christians not wanting to talk about specific years, dates, or times, but it is becoming fairly obvious that we are approaching the end days of this Age of Grace. I think this is important and should definitely be talked about. It was important enough for the Apostle Paul to talk about it in his day, so it should be even more important in our day. The Thessalonians were worried and concerned about these issues, so the Apostle Paul gave them the comforting and wonderful TRUTH.

Sister, GOD gave us that information for a reason - HE wanted us to know what was going to happen, and HE certainly wanted us to know about HIS Promises to HIS CHURCH and HIS Promises to Israel. GOD'S Promises to Christians in the days of Paul gave them comfort and hope in the ultimate TRUTH from GOD, and the same should be true for us.

Love In Christ,
Tom

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 NASB
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.

1 Corinthians 15:50-58 NASB
Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. "O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

Folks just don't get it. At the very least, immoral behavior will cause misery! However, this kind of immoral behavior has caused misery, disease, and death for millions, and millions are dying right now.

A.I.D.S. is a plague courtesy of those from alternative lifestyles. Violation of GOD'S Laws of Nature nearly always have a horrible price. All kinds of other plagues have been loosed on mankind because of acting like animals and being immoral. BUT REMEMBER - these things are supposed to be normal and respected. NOPE! There's plenty of room left in cemeteries and HELL!

What the world needs is JESUS CHRIST!

GOOD NEWS!

Thanks be unto GOD for HIS unspeakable GIFT!, JESUS CHRIST, our Lord and Saviour forever!

NURSES TOLD TO TURN MUSLIMS’ BEDS TO MECCA

December 4,2007
By Paul Jeeves

OVERWORKED nurses have been ordered to stop all medical work five times every day to move Muslim patients’ beds so they face towards Mecca.

The lengthy procedure, which also includes providing fresh bathing water, is creating turmoil among overstretched staff on bustling NHS wards.

But despite the havoc, Mid- Yorkshire NHS Trust says the rule must be instigated whenever possible to ensure Muslim patients have “a more comfortable stay in hospital”.

And a taxpayer-funded training programme for several hundred hospital staff has begun to ensure that all are familiar with the workings of the Muslim faith.

The scheme is initially being run at Dewsbury and District Hospital, West Yorkshire, but is set to be introduced at other hospitals in the new year.

It comes on the back of the introduction in some NHS hospitals last year of Burka-style gowns for Muslim patients who did not wish medical staff to see their face while operating or caring for them.

Last night critics slammed the procedure and claimed the NHS would be better off investing its resources in tackling killer superbugs such as C.diff and MRSA.

One experienced nurse working at Dewsbury said: “It would be easier to create Muslim-only wards with every bed facing Mecca than have to deal with this.

“Some people might think it is not that big a deal, but we have a huge Muslim population in Dewsbury and if we are having to turn dozens of beds to face Mecca five times a day, plus provide running water for them to wash before and after prayers, it is bound to impact on the essential medical service we are supposed to be providing.

“Although the beds are designed to be moved, the bays are not really suitable for having loads of beds moved around to face a different direction, and despite our best efforts it does cause disruption for non-Muslim patients.”

The changes have been instigated by Dewsbury and District Hospital’s chief matron, Catherine Briggs, after she held a series of consultation meetings with local Asian GPs, ethnic minority patients groups and Muslim chaplain Ilyas Dalal to find out what staff could do to further improve Muslim patients’ experience of the NHS.

In accordance with the rules of Islam, Muslims are required to pray five times a day. The religion dictates they must wash themselves in running water prior to prayer and must be facing in the direction of Mecca while praying. Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, is revered as the birthplace of the prophet Mohammed, who was born around 570AD.

Turning beds so they face towards Mecca was a key proposal put forward during the hospital meetings, along with suggestions that Muslim women should only be seen by female doctors.

Although the Trust, which also oversees hospitals in Wakefield and Pontefract, could not guarantee women-only doctors, they agreed that “wherever possible” specific patient requests would be carried out.

Mrs Briggs said: “Some of our former Muslim patients suggested that a more informed understanding of the Islamic cultures would help staff to further improve their service.”

Last night Conservative MP David Davies said: “Hospitals should be concentrating on stopping the spread of infections than kow-towing to the politically correct brigade.

“If the need for fresh running water is so great then perhaps family members could be on hand to assist the already overworked medical staff.”

NURSES TOLD TO TURN MUSLIMS’ BEDS TO MECCA (http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/27213/Nurses-told-to-turn-Muslims-beds-to-Mecca)

Hospital Defends Plans to Turn Patients' Beds to Face Mecca
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
December 05, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - A hospital in northern England is playing down media reports saying that nurses have been ordered to stop normal duties five times a day to turn Muslim patients' beds so that they face Mecca.

British tabloid newspapers reported Tuesday that at a hospital in West Yorkshire county, "overworked" nurses in the taxpayer-funded National Health Service (NHS) were struggling to cope with the additional duties required for Muslim patients.

Apart from moving the beds, the nurses also have to provide bathing water for pre-prayer ablutions, the reports said.

The new duties were causing "havoc," said the Daily Express, while the Daily Star said they were "creating turmoil" and quoted a doctor at the hospital as saying it was a case of "political correctness gone mad."

Devout Muslims pray five times daily -- generally before sunrise, after noon, before sunset, after sunset, and after dark -- facing the direction of the Kabaa in Mecca, Islam's most revered site.

The hospital is located in the municipal borough of Kirklees, where 10 percent of the population of 400,000 is Muslim, mostly of Pakistani origin, according to 2001 government statistics.

The media reports were based on a release by the "NHS trust" -- the local corporation responsible for the hospital -- which said that hospital staff were "positioning the beds of very ill Muslim patients to face Mecca if requested by the patient, providing shower facilities for patients, as well as bathing facilities [and] providing halal meal options for patients."

Nurses also taking undergoing training workshops to learn how they could further improve service for Muslims, in line with a "continued commitment to meet the privacy and dignity needs of all their patients," it said.

It quoted hospital matron Catherine Briggs as saying some Muslim former patients "suggested that a more informed understanding of the Islamic cultures would help staff to further improve their service."

"We always do our best to listen to our patients and are willing to adapt our nursing practices where possible to help patients uphold their cultural beliefs," she said.

In reaction to the media reports, the hospital issued a new statement on Tuesday, calling the coverage "entirely inaccurate."

"Nurses are not being removed from their duties to move patients' beds towards Mecca," chief nurse Tracey McErlain-Burns said. "Moving patients' beds for prayer five times a day has not been suggested as part of this workshop and staff have not been ordered to do this."

But, she added, "In the context of responding to requests from patients and families, particularly when faced with a very ill patient, it is entirely reasonable that nurses consider all practical steps to meet a patient's cultural or religious needs. This may include adjusting the position of the bed, or escorting the patient to the chapel or faith center."

Under seven-year-old race relations legislation, NHS trusts are required to promote equality between different ethnicities and to publish data showing that they are complying with the law. A government review published last month found that only 35 out of 394 NHS trusts were fulfilling all of their race relations duties.

Last September, an NHS trust in Lancashire, a county adjacent to West Yorkshire, announced the introduction of burqa-like gowns including a choice of head coverings for patients "whose culture or religion requires them to be more modestly clothed."

In August, a Muslim youth organization complained about plans to cut medical services at a hospital near Manchester, saying that the local NHS trust had not carried out a detailed "Race Impact Assessment" beforehand.

" One of the major impacts of this decision will be on Muslim pregnant women," said the Ramadhan Foundation. "If they are about to give birth, they will under the proposals have to travel over five miles to a hospital -- they are more likely to give birth in a car.

"In Islam in it obligatory that Muslim women that give birth in private," the organization said. "The cultural and religious needs of Muslims have been ignored.""

Hospital Defends Plans to Turn Patients' Beds to Face Mecca (http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200712/INT20071205b.html)
~~~~~~~~~~~~

other sources:

British hospital turns Muslims' beds to face Mecca (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=071204170303.jr6iw4sf&show_article=1)

British Nurses Told to Turn Muslims’ Beds to Mecca (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,315103,00.html)

Muslim patients offering Namaz five times a day leave UK nurses overworked (http://www.topnews.in/muslim-patients-offering-namaz-five-times-day-leave-uk-nurses-overworked-28178)

Girls as young as 12 are given the morning-after pill - without parents' knowledge
By LAURA CLARK -
3rd December 2007

Girls as young as 12 are being given the morning-after pill without their parents' knowledge at chemist shops.

A report shows the powerful contraceptive is available to young girls at High Street pharmacies in almost every area.

It reveals the growing ease with which they can get hold of a pill that has barely been tested on girls under 15 and was previously available only on prescription.

Under a controversial Government scheme to cut teenage pregnancies, youngsters are asked only basic questions in a brief consultation with a pharmacist.

The scheme is operated by a staggering eight out of ten local NHS trusts.

The Family Education Trust, which produced the report, says the policy is having no effect on pregnancy rates and is actually increasing promiscuity, putting girls at greater risk of sexually transmitted diseases.

Campaigner Sue Axon said last night: "I know of a 14-year-old whose boyfriend tried to talk her into having sex by saying he would take her for the morning-after pill.

"Young boys think they have a licence to do whatever they want because of this."

Disclosures under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that 84 per cent of England's 152 NHS trusts allow pharmacies like Boots to hand out the morning-after pill to girls under 16.

Some set lower age limits of 12, 13, 14 or 15, but more than half do not.

Astonishingly, 59 per cent of trusts would consider refusing to licence a new pharmacy unless it promised to provide the pill to children.

Family planning clinics issue more than 20,000 morning-after prescriptions to under-16s every year. But thousands more girls are thought to be getting them without prescription from chemists.

The Family Education Trust said the policy smacked of "sheer desperation or blind ideology" and served only to promote casual sex and undermine parental authority.

Its director, Norman Wells, said: "Over recent years we have witnessed the systematic removal of every restraint which in previous generations served as a disincentive to underage sexual activity.

"There can be no doubt that the free and confidential provision of the emergency pill to girls under 16 is further promoting a casual approach to sexual relationships.

"This will inevitably result in more underage sex, more teenage pregnancies, and more sexually-transmitted infections".

The report, Waking Up to the Morning-After Pill, shows how prescribing to under-16s is becoming widespread.

Schemes allowing chemists to hand out the pill were originally confined to urban areas with particularly high rates of teenage pregnancies.

Now they are commonplace - the Trust found that 128 primary care trusts operate them. Pharmacies are not obliged to participate, but those signing up must abide by the conditions laid down by the PCT.

Boots, which runs more than 2,000 chemists, said it usually took part in such schemes to "support the primary care trust in its aims locally".

Other big retail chains also comply, although Tesco has a policy of restricting morning-after pill provision to girls of at least 16 or with prescriptions.

The supermarket took the stand following a public outcry over 2002 Governmentbacked trials at some stores. It complained last year that NHS trusts were "forcing" its stores to supply the pill to children.

Tesco said it had been warned some instore pharmacies might not be granted licences in future unless they agreed to provide the under-16 service.

Over-the-counter sales to adults have been permitted since 2001.

A Department of Health spokesman said last night:

"Health professionals such as pharmacists can legally provide emergency contraception to under 16s, under local NHS arrangements, if they are satisfied that the young person is competent to understand fully the implications of any treatment and after encouraging them to talk to a parent.

"The decision to develop arrangements for pharmacists to supply emergency contraception is taken by the local NHS."

England and Wales has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in Europe. The biggest recent increase has been among under 16s, with 7,917 such pregnancies in 2005.

Among under-18s there were 39,683, up from 39,593 in 2004 and higher than the 35,400 recorded a decade ago in 1995.

Girls as young as 12 are given the morning-after pill - without parents' knowledge (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=499305&in_page_id=1770&ct=5)
~~~~~~~~~~

Other sources;

'Girls, 12, get morning-after pill' without parents knowledge (http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/health/girls+12+get+morningafter+pill/1135252)

Morning-after pill 'given to 12-year-olds' (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/dec/03/health.nhs?gusrc=rss&feed=11)

Megachurches Targeted for Pro-Gay Campaign
By Nathan Black
Christian Post Reporter
Mon, Dec. 03 2007 04:49 PM ET

Two homosexual groups plan to launch a national campaign targeting the most influential megachurches and its leaders in an attempt to change their views on gays and lesbians.

Soulforce, which promotes "pro-gay" interpretations of Scripture, and COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere) are currently recruiting LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) parents and their children along with other supporters for "The American Family Outing" in 2008. Selected families will visit six major megachurches to "educate" the public on the issue of homosexuality.

"Through our visibility we hope to peacefully challenge the false stereotypes about LGBT people and same-gender families, and educate the public through authentic and personal conversations - real parents sharing their stories and describing the hurtful effects of prejudice and religious condemnation," said a statement describing the national campaign, which will run from Mother's Day weekend in May through Father's Day weekend in June.

Churches being targeted are those led by Joel Osteen, Bishop T.D. Jakes, Dr. Rick Warren, Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr., Bill Hybels and Bishop Eddie Long. Along with most Christian leaders, all have expressed to some degree an opposition to the homosexual lifestyle.

Soulforce contends that these younger generation evangelical leaders "are striving to change the tone of the national political debate with messaging that is less punitive, therefore making religion-based discrimination seem more palatable to the mainstream American public."

The upcoming campaign comes at a time when more evangelical churches are showing compassion toward the homosexual community. While still rejecting homosexual behavior as sin, Christians are increasingly welcoming and loving homosexuals, departing from the hateful and homophobic labels often attached to churches.

Still, churches continue to struggle with the issue of homosexuality in a culture that is more open to gay and lesbian lifestyles.

Participants of The American Family Outing plan to attend a worship service at each of the megachurches and also request time for panel discussions and a chance to engage in informal conversations with congregants of the churches.

Before the visits, 40 recruited families are required to attend a weekend of training in Austin, Texas, in February to prepare for theological dialogue and nonviolent direct action.

Megachurches Targeted for Pro-Gay Campaign (http://www.christianpost.com/article/20071203/30322_Megachurches_Targeted_for_Pro-Gay_Campaign.htm)

Episcopal Church faces possible major defection
Wed Dec 5, 2007 1:35pm EST

By Michael Conlon, Religion Writer

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The U.S. Episcopal Church faces major tumult this week when an entire California diocese with more than 9,000 members decides whether to secede in an unprecedented protest over gay issues.

The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, based in Fresno and consisting of nearly 50 churches in 14 counties, would be the first diocese to bolt from the U.S. branch of the 77-million-member global Anglican Communion if Saturday's final vote passes.

The U.S. church and Anglicanism generally have been in upheaval since 2003 when the Episcopal Church consecrated Gene Robinson of New Hampshire as the first bishop known to be in an openly gay relationship in more than four centuries of church history.

Dissent over that as well as the blessing of same-sex unions practiced in some congregations has caused a number of defections by traditionalists in the U.S. church.

The 2.4 million-member U.S. church says that out of 7,600 congregations 32 have left, meaning that a majority of members of those congregations have departed and the churches are now considered closed. Another 23 have voted to leave, meaning that significant number of members have said they want to leave.

None of the church's 110 dioceses, however, has taken the final step to depart so far. Dioceses in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Fort Worth, Texas, have also taken preliminary votes to leave, but their final decisions are a year away.

Bishop John-David Schofield, head of the San Joaquin Diocese, says leaving the U.S. church is "a sensible way forward" and one that could later be reversed if "circumstances change and the Episcopal Church repents."

In the meantime his diocese has received what he calls a "welcome" invitation to realign itself, should the vote be affirmative, with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone of South America headed by conservative Archbishop Gregory Venables of Argentina.

That, he said, will allow members to remain part of the global Anglican church.

'REMAIN EPISCOPAL'

A year ago the San Joaquin Diocese's preliminary vote to leave the Episcopal Church was overwhelming. The process requires two votes year apart.

But a secession would not be unanimous. An organization called "Remain Episcopal" is opposing it and says its members will remain in place as the duly recognized Episcopal Church even if the bishop, some clergy and other congregants leave.

Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, urged Schofield in a letter earlier this week not to pull his flock out, saying "the church will never change if dissenters withdraw from the table."

She also made it clear what would happen if he did: A process that could eventually allow her to "depose" the bishop, declare the diocese vacant and allow those who want to remain to form a new church leadership.

The Episcopal Church also says it has control over all property and once a congregation leaves it has to find another place to worship. That contention has been challenged in several court cases, including one in Virginia where property dating back to Colonial times and worth millions of dollars is in dispute.

A spokeswoman for the San Joaquin Diocese said the property issue had yet to be addressed.

Episcopal Church faces possible major defection (http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2859889520071205?sp=true)

Dutch government to fight for gay rights, at home and abroad

by Frederic Bichon Thu Dec 6, 10:46 AM ET

THE HAGUE (AFP) - The Dutch centre-left government has made the fight against homophobia a priority at home and abroad in a move applauded by gay rights activists here.

"Never before has a government done so much for the emancipation of gays," said Frank van Dalen, president of the Dutch national gay rights COC, the world's oldest such organisation set up in 1946.

"Homosexuality has never before played a role of importance in foreign development cooperation," he told AFP.

To form his fourth coalition government, in power since February, Christian Democrat Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende teamed up with Labour. This new centre-left team is focussing more on social issues than its leftwing predecessors.

In a letter last month to parliament about Dutch foreign aid strategy, Development Cooperation Minister Bert Koenders stated emphatically that "the Netherlands will promote equal rights for gays as much as possible."

In 18 of the 36 countries, mostly in Africa and Asia, that the Netherlands supports with development aid, homosexuality is an offence, with penalties ranging from a fine to a prison sentence.

The Dutch will plead in bilateral contacts for the legalisation of homosexual contacts, said Koenders, adding: "We will not shy away from difficult discussions."

Relative to its population size, the Netherlands is one of the biggest international donors, giving 0.8 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) or 4.2 billion euros (6.1 billion dollars) in 2006.

A few days after Koenders' announcement, fellow cabinet member Ronald Plasterk, minister of education, culture and science who also has emancipation issues in his portfolio, officially presented his plans to set aside 2.5 million euros between 2008-2011 to promote equal treatment for homosexuals.

Noting that while gays and lesbians have the same rights as heterosexuals in the Netherlands, "socially the acceptance is not automatic among certain ethnic minorities or people who follow a more orthodox religious lifestyle."

The money is intended for campaigns targetting young people, mostly Muslims in schools, sport clubs or neighbourhood associations.

"Here again the government is progressing: we have our own minister whereas in previous governments we only had a secretary of state charged with gay rights," said Van Dalen.

"Also for the first time the coalition agreement had a chapter about emancipation of gays."

But Van Dalen said just stating this is not enough.

"The government has taken a moral position without offering a way to implement its stand. Moral leadership is not enough to change the world," he said.

There is still much work to be done to promote gay rights, according to the activist.

"The Netherlands is not some kind of gay paradise," he said.

"According to surveys 48 percent of the population is shocked by two men kissing and 75 percent of people of immigrant origin believe that a teacher should hide his gay orientation," Van Dalen said.

In a letter sent to parliament last week ahead of a parliamentary debate about the 2008 education budget, the COC asked that six million euros be earmarked to fight homophobia in schools.

Dutch government to fight for gay rights, at home and abroad (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071206/lf_afp/netherlandspoliticsgaysdiscrimination_071206154602)

Netherlands Government Pledges 2.5 m. Euros to Crack Down on Religious Dissent from "Gay Rights"

Dutch citizens who "follow a more orthodox religious lifestyle" to be targetted

By Hilary White

AMSTERDAM, December 7, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Netherlands has led the world in the introduction of the homosexual political movement. Now it is going to be leading the way to cracking down on dissent from the officially "tolerant" position on homosexuality, particularly among those Dutch citizens who "follow a more orthodox religious lifestyle".

The coalition government has agreed to earmark 2.5 million euros from 2008 to 2011 to promote homosexuality as normal in social areas. The government said that the money will be spent on programmes specifically targeting young Muslims in schools, sport clubs or neighbourhood associations.

Ronald Plasterk, minister of education admitted that Dutch homosexuals enjoy the same rights as everyone else, "socially the acceptance is not automatic among certain ethnic minorities or people who follow a more orthodox religious lifestyle."

The Netherlands was the first country in the world to institute same-sex "marriage" and allow homosexual partners to adopt children.

The policy will extend, in as-yet undisclosed programmes, to Dutch foreign aid donations. Development Cooperation Minister Bert Koenders told Parliament, "The Netherlands will promote equal rights for gays as much as possible. We will not avoid awkward discussions about this."

The government told its ambassadors to developing countries to increase pressure on those nations to decriminalize homosexuality.

But it is not merely "religiously orthodox" people who retain at least subconscious objections to public displays of homosexuality. Gay activist Frank van Dalen, president of the Dutch national homosexual lobbyists, Federation of Dutch Associations for Integration of Homosexuality, (COC), complained that a recent poll showed that 48 per cent of the population is shocked by two men kissing and the number goes up to 75 per cent of recent immigrants.

Dutch homosexual activists are powerful at the European Union where pressure is mounting on Poland to adopt the Charter of Fundamental Rights that is seen as a crucial instrument in installing the full programme of gay activism. The EU gay activist group ILGA-Europe praised the increase of pressure to normalize homosexuality by the EU Commission on candidate countries such as Turkey and Serbia.

An ILGA-Europe spokesman said the group "appreciates" such efforts and praised the "clearly positive development in the progress reports as the human rights of LGBT people are explicitly mentioned in a larger number of the eight reports than last year."

Netherlands Government Pledges 2.5 m. Euros to Crack Down on Religious Dissent from "Gay Rights" (http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/dec/07120704.html)

Televangelist won't comply with Senate inquiry
AP: Preacher Benny Hinn said Thursday he will not respond until next year

Dec. 6, 2007

A second Christian ministry is refusing to meet a Thursday deadline for a Senate investigation into preachers' salaries, perks and travel, The Associated Press has learned.

Benny Hinn of World Healing Center Church Inc. and Benny Hinn Ministries of Grapevine, Texas, said in a statement to the AP on Thursday that he will not respond to the inquiry until next year.

A lawyer for preacher Creflo Dollar of World Changers Church International in suburban Atlanta had said Wednesday that the investigation should be referred to the IRS or the Senate panel should get a subpoena for the documents.
Story continues below ↓advertisement

Senator not 'impressed'
Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, sent lengthy questionnaires a month ago to six ministries so he could review whether pastors were complying with IRS rules that bar excessive personal gain through tax-exempt work.

Only Joyce Meyer Ministries of Fenton, Mo., has provided the detailed financial and board oversight information sought by Grassley.

Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said in a Wednesday conference call with reporters that he "can't be impressed" by the argument from some of the preachers that the IRS already monitors them, because his past inquiries have unearthed information that the IRS never knew.

All the ministries preach a form of "Word of Faith" theology, known as prosperity gospel, which teaches that God wants believers to reap material rewards for their faith.

Grassley has insisted his investigation "has nothing to do with church doctrine" and is strictly concerned with making sure nonprofit groups are following the law.

However, several religious liberty watchdogs have said the scope of the inquiry is too broad and warned that it could be unconstitutional.

Televangelists object to inquiry
Ronn Torossian, a spokesman for Hinn, said in a statement that the preacher "plans to facilitate a response to Senator Grassley's inquiry by Jan. 30th, and likewise notified the senator's office of this intent on Nov. 20th." Torossian said Hinn is "in full compliance with government agencies duly authorized to oversee churches and charitable organizations."

Torossian would not elaborate.

The other televangelists have been noncommittal in their public comments, but some have voiced strong objections that echo Dollar's.

The other ministries targeted in the inquiry are Bishop Eddie Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church and Bishop Eddie Long Ministries of Lithonia, Ga.; Randy and Paula White of Without Walls International Church and Paula White Ministries of Tampa, Fla.; and Kenneth and Gloria Copeland of Kenneth Copeland Ministries of Newark, Texas.

Refusals to turn over the information could lead to a court fight, giving a judge the authority to decide whether the committee is entitled to all the information it requested.

"Hopefully these organizations will work with us," said Grassley, who has been investigating nonprofit compliance with IRS rules for years. "I don't think I've had to issue a single subpoena in the five years that I've been trying to get cooperation from organizations."

Televangelist won't comply with Senate inquiry (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22130336/)

Christian biologist fired for beliefs, suit says
Says he was dismissed after telling his superior he did not accept evolution

Dec. 7, 2007

BOSTON - A Christian biologist is suing the prestigious Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, claiming he was fired for refusing to accept evolution, lawyers involved in the case said on Friday.

Nathaniel Abraham, an Indian national who describes himself as a "Bible-believing Christian," said in the suit filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in Boston that he was fired in 2004 because he would not accept evolution as scientific fact.

The latest U.S. academic spat over science and religion was first reported in The Boston Globe newspaper on Friday. Gibbs Law Firm in Florida, which is representing Abraham, said he was seeking $500,000 in compensation.
Story continues below ↓advertisement

The zebrafish specialist said his civil rights were violated when he was dismissed shortly after telling his superior he did not accept evolution because he believed the Bible presented a true account of human creation.

Creationists such as Abraham believe God made the world in six days, as the Bible's Book of Genesis says.

Woods Hole, a federally funded nonprofit research center on Cape Cod, said in a statement it firmly believed its actions and those of its employees in the case were "entirely lawful" and that it does not discriminate.

Abraham, who was dismissed eight months after he was hired, said he was willing to do research using evolutionary concepts but that he had been required to accept Darwin's theory of evolution as scientific fact or lose his job.

The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination dismissed the case this year, saying Abraham's request not to work on evolutionary aspects of research would be difficult for Woods Hole because its work is based on evolutionary theories.

Abraham said this condition was never spelled out in the advertisement for the job and that his dismissal led to severe economic losses, an injured reputation, emotional pain and suffering and mental anguish.

The case underscores tension between scientists, who see creationist views as anti-science, and evangelical Christians who argue that protections of religious freedom enshrined in the U.S. Constitution extend to scientific settings.

Abraham, 35, is now a biology professor at Liberty University, a Baptist school in Virginia founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, a Christian pastor and televangelist.

Christian biologist fired for beliefs, suit says (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22152482/)

Pope in rare meeting with Russian Orthodox cleric
Fri 7 Dec 2007, 13:56 GMT

By Phil Stewart

VATICAN CITY, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Pope Benedict held a rare meeting on Friday with a senior cleric from the Russian Orthodox Church in a bid to improve often strained relations.

Metropolitan Kirill, the head of external relations for the Moscow Patriarchate, was expected to speak with reporters later on Friday. The Vatican did not immediately release any details about the closed-door meeting.

The Russian Orthodox Church split from Rome in the Great Schism of 1054. It had chilly relations with Benedict's predecessor, Pope John Paul II -- a Pole who had campaigned against the atrocities of communism and sought in vain to visit post-communist Russia.

Since Benedict's election in 2005, relations have improved and Vatican officials have said they are working towards an eventual meeting between the Pontiff and Russian Patriarch Alexiy II.

BIG CHILL IS OVER

Kirill recently told Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano "the big chill is over and it's thawing time" for ties. He said the two churches share the same spiritual and moral problems and should work together.

But problems remain. Kirill recently called on the Vatican to reverse a 2002 decision to create new Catholic diocese in Russia, something it considers to be an infringement on the Russian church's local territory and power.

The Russians also walked out of a key Catholic-Orthodox meeting of theologians earlier this year that produced a document with other Orthodox churches that the Vatican hailed as a step on the long road toward reconciliation.

In a joint declaration, the theologians agreed the Pope held the highest rank in the unified Church before the 1054 schism -- a statement that could allow Catholic and Orthodox worshippers to work more closely. It also made clear neither side yet agreed on what power came with that rank.

Still, the Russian Orthodox Church is the largest and most influential in worldwide Orthodoxy, which is organised under national churches totalling some 220 million members.

The Vatican, which leads the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, has said dialogue must include the Russians.

Pope in rare meeting with Russian Orthodox cleric (http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL07590527.html)
~~~~~~~~~

Coming soon, a One World Church near you. :'( Praise God, we won't be here for this..... :D

Iran-Mexico meeting deepens ties to Islam
President Calderon welcomes Khatami in effort to bypass confrontational West
Posted: December 7, 2007
4:50 p.m. Eastern

By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

In a little notice meeting reflecting growing ties between South America and the Islamic world, Mexican President Felipe Calderon welcomed former Iranian President Mohamed Khatami to Mexico City.

The two leaders met Wednesday at Los Pinos, Mexico's official presidential residence, to discuss deepening cultural bonds with the Islamic world in the face of Western notions of a "clash of civilizations.

The visit drew virtually no mention in the press outside of Mexico, even in Iran.

Khatami came at the invitation of the International Center for Dialogue between Civilizations, established in 2006 at the Colegio de San Luis in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi.

A notice on the Colegio de San Luis website said Khatami spoke at the center to oppose the main thesis of Harvard University professor Samuel Huntington's seminal 1996 book "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order."

In his speech, Khatami proclaimed a "Dialogue among Civilizations," a theme echoing a 2001 U.N. declaration.

Similarly, a statement by Calderon emphasized, in diplomatic language, that Khatami was promoting an exchange of opinions "concerning the roads available to promote peaceful co-existence among natures and cultures."

The Mexican newspaper La Jornada echoed the presidential statement: "The government of Mexico shares the conviction that dialogue and negotiation should be promoted as the preferred means to advance agreements."

The radical leftist La Voz de Aztlan in Los Angeles characterized the Khatami-Calderon meeting as "part of a growing alliance between Mexico, South America and Islam."

La Voz de Aztlan also noted, "President Calderon has been worried about the growing racist hostility against Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the USA."

The online publication said the visit "may signal the beginning of a new international alignment that may bring into reality what Patrick Buchanan wrote in his new book, 'Day of Reckoning.'"

In July, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez met in Tehran with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, reflecting Tehran's recent campaign to develop closer ties with Latin America.

In September, Ahmadinejad met with Fidel Castro in Cuba, where the communist dictator endorsed the Iranian leader's efforts to further the goals of the Islamic revolution begun by Ayatollah Khomeini.

The International Center for Dialogue between Civilizations was opened in 2006 by Islamic Dawa of Chauen, a militant Shiite Islamic group originally formed in Iraq, and the radical Junta Islamica of Spain.

Chauen is a city in the Mexican province of Marruecos with historic ties to the Berbers in Morocco. The Junta Islamica derives from the descendents of the Moriscos, the Spanish Muslims expelled from Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a group noted for aggressively promoting the rights of Hispanic immigrants, characterizes the Nation of Aztlan, publisher of La Voz de Aztlan, as a "tiny Chicano group that pushes racism and homophobia."

Aztlan is the name for the mythical place of origin of the Aztec people. In the politics of Hispanic immigration, Aztlan has come to represent the part of the southwestern United States, including a large part of California, sought by the Reconquista movement for Mexico.
~~~~~~~~~~~

There are a lot of Catholics in Mexico, and if they listen to the Pope. They'll think that Muslims worship the same god that they do and accept them with open arms. It's starting to look like the whole world is becoming united against the few.

Talk about shades of hades of Red Dawn!! :-X

Churches offer Halo video game to attract youths
By Melissa Evans, Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 12/08/2007 12:04:50 AM PST

Although the plot involves an ark, a covenant, seven halos and religious prophesies, the thrill-kill video game Halo seems a tad out of place at a Christian youth center.

But every afternoon after school, dozens of teens flock to The Portal center at Coast Christian Fellowship in Torrance, where they huddle around game consoles and battle for control of the cyber-universe.

It's a scene being played out around the country as religious leaders try to use Halo to attract youths. The goal, they say, is to make a connection and build relationships with teens who might not otherwise be interested in church.

"I think people understand that this is part of our outreach," said Guy Takashima, pastor of Coast Christian, an Assemblies of God church.

Even as video games have grown in popularity, the Halo series stands out, selling more than 20 million copies since the trilogy debuted in 2001. Halo 3 sold $300million worth of copies in the first week after its September release, and Microsoft predicts it will become "the No. 1 gaming title of all time."

Halo has spawned novels, games and action figures, with a film based on the series said to be in the works.

Since the release of Halo 3, congregations around the country have hosted "Halo Nights," where hundreds of teenagers came to play the game, eat pizza, listen to a Bible lesson, then play some more.

A Colorado-based youth ministry called Dare2Share sent thousands of primers to parents, church leaders and other subscribers, offering tips on using the language and themes of Halo 3 to spread the gospel.

Lane Palmer, the youth ministries coordinator who authored the guide, said the organization isn't condoning the game or trying to promote it.

"But you have to understand," he said, "everybody's already playing it, so why not use it as a conversation piece?"

With its intricate plot, range of weapons and levels of difficulty, the game takes strategy and patience.

And, players say, it's addictive.

"When Halo 2 came out, I didn't have a life for a long time," said Justin Medina, 19, who plays at Coast Christian.

The concept of using cultural trends to attract members is nothing new. Evangelical leaders, in particular, have been savvy in using print, radio, television, the Internet and podcasting to spread the gospel. Many pastors make a point to use popular movies, music, TV shows and top-selling books in order to present their message in ways people understand.

"One of our goals is to show how the Bible can be applied today," said Chris Nicely, a youth pastor at Shepherd of the Hills Church in Porter Ranch. "We want to try to give (kids) a taste of the fact that God's not boring."

And anything that helps reach this generation is worth exploring, pastors agree.

More than any other age group, the 14- to 30-year-olds are a tough crowd to please. About 20 percent of teenagers in America are unchurched, and 61 percent of those who were raised in a church left in their 20s, according to a 2006 survey by the Barna Group, a Christian research organization based in Ventura.

Efforts to keep teens interested, however, often beg the question: How far should churches go to meet kids where they're at?

"It is a fine line, there's no doubt about that," said Palmer, with Dare2Share. "Any time you show blood and gore, you have to consider whether the end justifies the means.

"It is very subjective, and I think churches have to look at their own traditions and figure out what's right for them."

Bungie Studios, which created Halo, didn't intend for the game to be used for evangelistic purposes, although part of its promotional outreach included pastors, spokesman Frank O'Connor said.

The game is rated Mature, meaning it's restricted to users 17 and older, but the M rating is deceiving, he said.

"The violence in our game is actually very cartoonish," he said. "It's not nearly as bad as some of the other video games out there."

Rolling Hills Covenant Church doesn't have a formal Halo group, but high school pastor Sean Hurley and a couple of other clergy and teens get together every Friday to play and socialize.

"It is a video game, but it's also a great connection point with kids in the ministry and their peers outside the church," he said. "We have this commonality, we can establish relationships."

Creating community so kids could build relationships with each other and adults was the goal of Coast Christian when it opened the youth center this fall, said Janice Arnold, manager of The Portal. They also offer activities such as jewelry making and graphic design.

On a recent afternoon, all but one of the Halo players was not a member of the church - and that's typical, she said. The church does hold youth religious services on Friday nights at The Portal, and many of the unchurched kids have chosen to stay.

"We certainly don't bang them over the head with a Bible," she said. "But most of them want to stay afterward for youth group. We're very excited about that."

Churches offer Halo video game to attract youths (http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_7664909)

Rape case ruling shocks Australia
Monday, 10 December 2007

A judge's decision not to jail nine men guilty of raping a 10-year-old girl in an Aboriginal community has triggered outrage in Australia.

The offenders were either placed on probation or given suspended sentences for the 2005 rape in the Aurukun settlement, in northern Queensland.

In her ruling, Judge Sarah Bradley told them that the victim "probably agreed to have sex with all of you".

A review of sexual abuse sentences in Aboriginal Queensland has been ordered.

Sentencing seven of the accused in Cairns in October, Judge Bradley told them that the girl involved was not forced into sex, according to a report in The Australian newspaper.

She placed six of the offenders, who were minors at the time of the rape, on probation for 12 months, local media said.

The three other defendants were handed suspended six-month prison sentences.

Judge Bradley later defended her sentencing, telling The Australian that the sentences were "appropriate" because they were the penalties sought by the prosecution.

'No excuse'

But Australia's newly-elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has spoken out against the ruling, saying he was "appalled" by the verdict after it was revealed in the Australian press on Monday.

"I am horrified by cases like this, involving sexual violence against women and children. My attitude is one of zero tolerance," he told reporters in Queensland, his home state.

Boni Robertson, an Aboriginal activist in Queensland, said there could be no excuse for the judge's decision.

"There is nothing culturally, there is nothing morally, there is nothing socially and there is definitely nothing legally that would ever allow this sort of decision to be made," she said.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has now announced a review of all sentences given over the last two years in the communities in the Cape York region where the case occurred.

"I am not prepared to just write this off as an unusual one-off case," she said.

"I want to satisfy myself that the people of Cape York, and the people who live in remote indigenous communities, are receiving the same level of justice as we can expect in any other community in Queensland."

The offenders came from some of the most powerful and prominent Aboriginal families in Cape York, while the victim's family had a lower status, The Australian reported.

The case comes six months after a high-profile inquiry into child sex abuse in remote northern Australia said it found problems in every Aborigine community visited by researchers.

That inquiry led to an intervention programme in the Northern Territory.

Rape case ruling shocks Australia (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7136269.stm)

Abortion Leading to Rise in Breast Cancer Cases

by Colin Mason
December 9, 2007

Colin Mason is the Director for Media Production at the Population Research Institute.

Rates of breast cancer are skyrocketing in countries which have legalized abortion. But this suggestion--that abortion causes breast cancer--causes radical feminists, who are otherwise greatly concerned about breast cancer--to go into spasms of denial.

This is why it is vitally important to the pro-life cause that the ABC link be investigated rationally, documented carefully, and presented convincingly. British statistician Patrick Carroll, who is Director of Research at Britain’s Pension and Population Research Institute, has done just that in his new study, "Assessing the Damage," which was just published on October 25th of this year.

Some years ago, Carroll recognized that the U.K., because of the all-pervasive British Medical System and the public funding of abortions, has some of the most complete data on abortion, breast cancer, and other illnesses available anywhere. He used this data, which spans the 40 years since the legalization of abortion in 1967, to see if it showed any connection between abortion and suicide, mental illness, and breast cancer in each of the U.K.'s four regions: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. He also looked at other medical sequalae of abortion, such as the level of mental illness and subsequent suicide rates.

According to official figures, the modal age for abortions in England is 20, while the modal age for live births is 30. Women are marrying later, if at all, and the proportion of pregnancies among unmarried women continues to grow. Many of these women seek abortions. Of the 180,000 abortion in 2006, 100,000 were performed on women who had no prior abortions, while 80,000 were performed on women who have at least one prior abortion.

Carroll's study shows, as one might suspect, that mental illness is more common following first-time abortion. As the number of first-time abortions grows, so has antidepressant use. Thirty-one million prescriptions were written in England in 2006, a nearly 10 million increase over the 21.3 million written in 2001.

Most importantly, however, his study clarifies why there has been a radical upswing in the incidence of British breast cancer since the legalization of abortion. Rates of breast cancer have risen by an incredible 80 per cent since the late seventies.

Carroll begins by noting that upper class women are more likely to develop breast cancer and more likely to have abortions. "The social gradient for female breast cancer is unlike that of other cancers with upper class women having a higher rate of incidence than those from lower social classes," Carroll writes. "As in other countries this is termed a negative or reverse social gradient for female breast cancer . . British official publications report on the social gradient but do not explain it in terms of known risk factors."

This reverse social gradient for breast cancer is far too steep to be explained by the fact that upper-class women are having children later in life, when the risk for breast cancer is more severe. Rather, Carroll explains, "upper class and upwardly mobile women are more likely to choose abortion when they are pregnant and this helps to explain this otherwise inexplicable social gradient. Upper class women tend to postpone childbearing and have a later age at first birth. Abortions before full-term pregnancies are the more carcinogenic nulliparous [first-time] abortions."

The results? After a judicious parsing of the data, Carroll concludes: "Breast cancer can be considered a long term sequel to abortion."

Although the causes of breast cancer are not completely understood, it is commonly accepted that hormonal changes play a large role. Pregnancy causes breast cells to grow and divide. An abortion interrupts this process, leaving large number of undifferentiated cells which are especially susceptible to cancer.

The media in the U.K., not surprisingly, have not been kind to Carroll's study and the British medical establishment has yet to comment. What can they say, after all? The data on abortions and breast cancer come from the government itself, and are not subject to "recall bias," or any of the other shortcomings that normally afflict survey data. The argument is clear and convincing.

While Carroll ends by calling for further study, he also makes it clear that he thinks the facts speak for themselves. "The correlation [between breast cancer and abortion] is much higher than for other known risk factors such as Childlessness, Age at First Birth and Fertility," he says. He goes on to point out that "Modelling using abortion and birth rates as explanatory variables has been used to make forecasts for eight countries for the future incidence of female breast cancer."

When you can not only explain the past, but offer predictions of the future, you are in possession of a very powerful theory indeed. We have long been convinced at PRI that the abortion breast cancer link is fact. Carroll's work should help convince all those who are not blinded by the ideology of choice.

Abortion Leading to Rise in Breast Cancer Cases (http://www.lifenews.com/nat3521.html)

Historic Symposium Focuses on Opposing Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

by Julie Grimstad
December 9, 2007
LifeNews.com Note: Julie Grimstad, director of Life is Worth Living, Inc. (LWL), attended the symposium as a representative of Pro-Life Wisconsin and LWL.

Over three hundred people from various nations met in Toronto, Ontario for a history-making event, The First International Symposium on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: Current Issues, Future Directions. Hosted by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of Canada (EPCC), the symposium was co-sponsored by diverse groups from Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom as well as the Archdiocese of Toronto.

With one thing in common—opposition to legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide—disability rights advocates, medical and legal professionals, pro-life activists, people of various religious faiths and atheists came together to learn from the experts, find common ground and strategize.

Presenters exposed the new directions and strategies of the movement to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide. According to Wesley Smith, who is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, attorney, international lecturer and author of several books on bioethics (just to name a few of his credentials), "The euthanasia movement has become much more sophisticated in the last few years." The "crackpot element" is no longer driving the movement. It is now "a professional model" and "an elitist establishment movement" whose pitch is "just a little extra choice for people who are dying."

The thread running through all the presentations was the urgent need to establish a common response to this world-wide threat. Many of the speakers were key participants in coalitions that defeated pro-euthanasia and assisted suicide legislation in the US and UK. They outlined the lessons they've learned.

Use the Right Language

One lesson learned is that "all social engineering is preceded by verbal engineering," stated Rita Marker, attorney and executive director of the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. "The words used in a debate often determine the outcome of the debate." Assisted suicide activists blame their failures on the use of the word "suicide" and insist on using what they call "value-neutral" terms. Marker advised symposium participants to always use the term "assisted suicide," never terms such as "assisted dying" or "aid-in-dying." The "s" word is powerful

Dr. Peter Saunders, of Care Not Killing Alliance in the UK, helped defeat the "Joffe" bill, an assisted suicide measure. As an example of effective use of language, he cited a disabled person's sound bite: "We don't want assisted dying. We want assisted living!"

Dr. Paul Byrne, a neonatologist and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Medical University of Ohio, insisted that the term "euthanasia," which literally means "good death," should not be used. The term "imposed death," he said, is more accurate.

Emphasize Bad Consequences

Dr. Saunders, as well as the disability rights advocates who spoke, pointed out that changing the law will put pressure on vulnerable people to choose death rather than be "a burden" on others. Also, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) will be used to contain healthcare costs. Oregon pays for PAS as "comfort care" while refusing to pay for certain types of medical care for cancer patients.

In 2007, Dr. Robert Orr helped defeat a bill that would have legalized PAS in Vermont for persons with a life-expectancy of less than six months. "Inaccuracy of diagnosis," he said, should be emphasized. He cited Art Buchwald, who was suffering from kidney failure and refused dialysis. He entered hospice in February 2006 expecting to die, but checked himself out several months later. Buchwald lived for nearly a year and wrote a book entitled "Too Soon to Say Goodbye."

Dr. Orr outlined how, once legalized, euthanasia in the Netherlands slowly expanded from being permitted for patients who are competent and suffering to "patients with no free will" and even infants with disabilities. The slippery slope is real.

Cheryl Eckstein, founder of Compassionate Healthcare Network (Canada) gave a rundown of Canadian "mercy-killing" cases. She said that the notion of "‘compassionate homicide' is about as nonsensical as ‘loving rape.'" And Dr. Bill Toffler, national director of Physicians for Compassionate Care, lamented that his beautiful state of Oregon has "sadly become known for something that is deeply disordered."

Personal Stories

As one participant said, "The shortest distance between a person and the truth is a story."

Soft-spoken Alison Davis, representing No Less Human, a disability rights group in England, told her story. Because of her disability, she has constant pain and is dependent on morphine for relief. She told of times when she had wanted to die due to suffering and depression. If the UK had allowed assisted suicide, she doubted she would be here today. Davis emphasized the danger of legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide: "Pain control is available, but it takes time and effort. Why bother if killing the patient is equally acceptable?"

Henk Reitsema, an articulate young man from the Netherlands representing Cry for Life, told the compelling story of his grandfather's death by involuntary euthanasia in a Dutch nursing home. He said, "The way my grandfather died might be described as ‘palliation with the side effect of death,'" which is a common way of imposed death in his country. We "seem to have made the suffering of pain the only crime worth punishing with the death penalty," declared Reitsema.

The familiar story of Terri Schindler-Schiavo's dehydration death in a Florida hospice was related by her brother Bobby Schindler. There was not a dry eye in the room as he described Terri's last days and the suffering her family endured and continues to endure because of her cruel death.

Dr. Paul Byrne's topic was "brain death." He told of several cases that compelled him to begin evaluating whether "brain death" is true death, or not. The first was in 1975. Joseph, a premature infant, had been on a ventilator for six weeks and an EEG was interpreted as "consistent with cerebral death." Dr. Byrne did not turn off the ventilator; rather, he continued treatment. Joseph is now married with children and works as a fireman and paramedic.

Get Involved

Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are now "medical treatment" in the Netherlands and Belgium. Switzerland does not penalize assisted suicide so long as it is not done for selfish motives, but physicians cannot be involved. In the U.S., PAS is legal only in Oregon. Opposition coalitions have defeated 89 efforts to legalize it in other states.

Compassion & Choices (C&C), the U.S. organization leading efforts to legalize PAS, has adopted the slogan "Oregon Plus One." PAS promoters are determined to legalize assisted suicide in at least one more state in 2008. They are targeting Washington State in particular. Booth Gardner, popular former governor of Washington who now has Parkinson's disease, is putting his popularity and considerable fortune behind the campaign to gather the 225,000 signatures needed by July to place a PAS initiative on next November's ballot.

Rita Marker warned, "Any place that assisted suicide passes will affect the whole world." Everyone who opposes assisted suicide, she said, "is a Washingtonian for the next year.
You are important. Get involved."

As one expert put it, our basic strategy is "We win. They lose."

Conclusion

The sponsors and organizers, in particular Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the EPCC, deserve hearty congratulations for the shining success of this first of its kind symposium.

The event concluded Saturday evening with Mass celebrated by Toronto's Archbishop Thomas Collins.

Historic Symposium Focuses on Opposing Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia (http://www.lifenews.com/bio2289.html)

If you view this as old, I feet it relevant to the times. Considering what's going on over Christmas in most states now.
~~~~~~~~

Christmas in America becomes battleground
As holiday traditions draw national controversy, believers, pagans grapple over Jesus' inclusion
Posted: December 14, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Joe Kovacs
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com

Every December, a call goes out from the nation's pulpits to "put Christ back into Christmas," but growing numbers of Americans – including fundamentalist Christians – are claiming Jesus Christ had nothing to do with the holiday, and news items from across the country this week indicate that the U.S. has become the new battleground for Christmas.

Cases in point:

* A first-grade teacher in Sacramento Co., Calif., says her principal has prohibited instructors from uttering the word "Christmas" in class or in written materials;

* A school superintendent in Yonkers, N.Y., banned, then unbanned, holiday decorations that contained religious themes more than the generic "season's greetings";

* New York City schools are being sued for alleged discrimination against Christians;

* and atheists reposted their vandalized winter solstice sign in the Wisconsin Capitol, as they declare "Christians stole Christmas" from ancient pagans.

All this comes on the heels of a national survey indicating just over a tenth of Americans today believe Jesus Christ of Nazareth is the focus of Christmas, with almost nine out of ten people saying the holiday has become less religious.

Are atheists correct that the very day set aside by hundreds of millions across the world to honor the birth of their Savior is merely a relic of sun worship? And if it is, why would some schools ban it? And even if today's holiday traditions have their roots in heathen practices, should Christians who wish to be true to their faith take part?

Sign of the times

"The real reason for the season is winter solstice," proclaims Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder of the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation which re-erected its atheistic message Monday in the rotunda of the state seat of government.

After six years on display, her placard had been damaged last December by an unknown assailant, and has since been repaired.

The front of the sign states: "At this season of the winter solstice may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."

The back reads: "State/Church: Keep them separate," and carries a little caveat, advising "Thou shalt not steal."

The 23-by-30-inch billboard was OK'd as part of Wisconsin's seasonal display which also features menorahs, angels, and what appears to be a giant Christmas tree more than two stories tall.

"We call it a 'holiday' tree," said Brian Hayes, deputy secretary for Wisconsin's department of administration. "We're trying to be sensitive to [the public]."

That politically correct terminology comes despite the dismissal of a lawsuit last year where the message content of items adorning the state tree had been challenged, yet it's indicative of the thought-conscious age of the 21st century.

Banned in the USA

The fact that atheists view Christmas with disdain is not astonishing, since they've attempted to remove the phrase "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God we trust" from U.S. currency, as well as Ten Commandments displays from numerous publicly owned places.

What may be surprising, though, is that some devout Christians, many dating all the way back to the days of Jesus, never celebrated the birth of Christ, nor sought to. America's early colonists banned observance of Christmas, and still today, there are many Christians abstaining from what millions more of their brethren joyfully celebrate as God's coming in human form.

The Catholic Encyclopedia states, '"the word for Christmas in late Old English is Cristes Maesse, the Mass of Christ, first found in 1038, and Cristes-messe, in 1131."

It explains "Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church," pointing out "first evidence of the feast is from Egypt" around A.D. 200 with attempts by theologians to assign not only the year of Christ's birth, but also the precise date.

Historians agree that through the subsequent centuries, traditions from ancient pagan (non-Christian) religions became intertwined with those of Christianity, and depending upon one's point of view, either paganism became Christianized, or Christianity became paganized.

In 1644, the English Parliament outlawed the holiday, compelling shops to be open that day, and condemning plum puddings and mince pies as "heathen."

In his Pulitzer Prize finalist, "The Battle for Christmas," historian Stephen Nissenbaum at the University of Massachusetts documents the American development of the holiday now ensconced in popular culture.

"In New England, for the first two centuries of white settlement," writes Nissenbaum, "most people did not celebrate Christmas. In fact, the holiday was systematically suppressed by Puritans during the colonial period and largely ignored by their descendants. It was actually illegal to celebrate Christmas in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681 (the fine was five shillings). Only in the middle of the nineteenth century did Christmas gain legal recognition as an official public holiday in New England."

Nissenbaum agrees with other historians that the first recorded observance since the New Testament recounted Christ's birth took place hundreds of years after Jesus' resurrection.

"It was only in the fourth century that the Church officially decided to observe Christmas on Dec. 25. And this date was not chosen for religious reasons but simply because it happened to mark the approximate arrival of the winter solstice, an event that was celebrated long before the advent of Christianity. The Puritans were correct when they pointed out – and they pointed it out often – that Christmas was nothing but a pagan festival covered with a Christian veneer."

Christmas in America saw huge growth during the 19th century, starting with Washington Irving's 1820 book "The Keeping of Christmas at Bracebridge Hall." A week before Christmas in 1834, Charles Dickens published "A Christmas Carol," and in 1860, American illustrator Thomas Nast created Father Christmas, also known as Santa Claus, based on European stories of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children.

Spirit of the rising sun

Today, followers of ancient paganism strive to remind the public about the heathen origins of traditions that many may never have questioned. They've published books, given speeches, and created websites proffering a heathen history of modern customs.

CircleSanctuary.xxx is among the Internet addresses run by nature-worshipping pagans. Wiccan high priestess Selena Fox discusses the state of being pagan and celebrating the lengthening of days during the Northern Hemisphere's darkest time of year.

"Yule, the winter solstice, is a festival of peace and a celebration of waxing solar light. I honor the new sun child by burning a[n] oaken yule log in a sacred fire. I honor the great goddess in her many great mother aspects, and the father god as Santa in his old sky god, father time, and holly king forms. I decorate my home with lights and with holly, ivy, mistletoe, evergreens and other herbs sacred to this season. I ring in the new solar year with bells."

Fox even provides a list of suggestions on how 21st century citizens can take part in the ancient rituals, to "re-paganize" Christmastime:

* Have gift exchanges and feasts over the course of several days and nights as was done of old

* Adorn the home with sacred herbs and colors; decorate in druidic holiday colors of red, green and white

* Hang a sprig of mistletoe above a major threshold and leave it there until next yule as a charm for good luck throughout the year

* Have family/household members join together to make or purchase an evergreen wreath

* If you choose to have a living or a harvested evergreen tree as part of your holiday decorations, call it a solstice tree and decorate it with pagan symbols

* Reclaim Santa Claus as a pagan godform by decorating him with images that reflect his various heritages ranging from the Greek god Cronos (father time) to Odin, the Scandinavian all-father riding the sky on an eight-legged horse

* Place pagan mother-goddess images around your home, possibly including one with a sun child, such as Isis with Horus

* Honor the new solar year with light – light candles, burn a yule log and save a portion for the following year, put colored lights outside your home, and with the popularity of five-pointed stars, consider displaying a blue or white pentagram.

cont'd next post

The greatest story never told?

The pagan connections to Christmas are not news to the likes of Garner Ted Armstrong, a Christian evangelist and political commentator based in Tyler, Texas. Armstrong has been proclaiming such information for the past 46 years on a peak of 135 television and 360 radio stations, stating "it is impossible to 'put Christ back in Christmas,' since He was never in Christmas in the first place!"

"None of the apostles of Christ ever heard of the term; not one of them ever celebrated Christ's birthday," writes Armstrong in his booklet "Christmas ... The Untold Story." "The words Christmas, holly wreath, mistletoe, Rudolph, Santa Claus and Christmas tree do not appear anywhere in the Bible."

Armstrong is among Christians who believe God's plan of salvation for mankind is more accurately depicted through holidays which are frequently mentioned in Scripture, such as Passover and the Day of Atonement. If anything, he thinks Dec. 25 would most likely be Jesus' conception day, thus placing his birth in the autumn, possibly during the Feast of Tabernacles, symbolizing God's "tabernacling" – that is to say, dwelling – with mankind.

Like-minded preachers say the Bible warns extensively about adopting pagan customs, pointing to the 10th chapter of Jeremiah to specifically cite the practice of tree decoration, which some historians date back to ancient Egypt and Babylon:

"Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not." (Jer 10:2-4)

Armstrong says the pagan celebrations, including winter's Saturnalia, or feast of Saturn in ancient Rome, crept into ostensible Christianity over many years, and some writers began urging a celebration at the same time as the secular events "for the simple reason that so many pagans were already accustomed to 'joyous,' sometimes 'riotous' orgies of feasting at the time of the winter solstice."

"It would be a sin for me [to celebrate Christmas], but it doesn't mean it's the unpardonable sin," Armstrong told WorldNetDaily, stressing he doesn't feel at all threatened by the holiday.

"I have no more difficulty walking through Beijing at the Chinese New Year and seeing the dragons and fireworks. It doesn't affect me. ... [the Apostle] Paul says the idol is nothing."

While Armstrong teaches against the observance of Christmas, he adds that most people who celebrate it are doing so with good intentions, simply unaware of the facts regarding its origins, and they should neither be judged nor condemned by fellow believers in Jesus. He encourages people to type words like "origins of Christmas" into Internet search engines to find out for themselves the background on the customs.

Angels in the outfield

For millions of Christians, the story of Christmas in the Bible is among the most beloved, and is one of their foundations of faith – that God came to dwell as a man and offer eternal life to mankind. It is both simple enough to be understood by young children, and has majestic meaning to provide adults with inspiration and awe.

The events surrounding the birth of Christ are recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, which give an almost play-by-play description:

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. (Luke 2:8-14)

The shepherds subsequently found the child in the manger, but unlike depictions on many modern holiday cards and Nativity scenes, there were no wise men present at the birth. The Gospel of Matthew says the Magi arrived at a house, not the manger. And as for the tradition of three wise men, the Bible never mentions their number – only the three gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Those gifts were presented to Jesus, not exchanged with other people.

The accounts don't mention a tree – evergreen or otherwise – nor do they specify the time of year. Some analysts theorize that since the shepherds were still out in the fields by night watching their flocks, the event could not have been in winter, due to plunging temperatures. Still others think Dec. 25 has a valid claim on the actual event.

Spirit of the rising Son

"I believe the celebration of Christmas is a wonderful opportunity to honor Christ and share the gospel," says Rev. Jerry Falwell, chancellor of Liberty University in Virginia and one of America's best known ministers. Falwell is a staunch defender of the holiday he's celebrated for every one of the 69 years he's been alive.

"And I plan to celebrate it on the 'other side,'" he tells WorldNetDaily.

Falwell acknowledges that many of the customs associated with the observance are not found in the Bible, but he doesn't have a problem with that.

"The Christmas tree and Santa Claus don't bother me," he said. "If we can use anything to get people under the sound of the gospel, without violating Scripture, it's a good thing."

While there are some unknowns such as the exact date of birth, Falwell stresses "we do know He was born – virgin-born as the Son of God."

Yet over 2,000 years after that history-changing event, most Americans think Christ is fading from the Christmas picture, at least according to a recent poll.

When the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University asked if "most people focus on the birth of Jesus at Christmas time, or has the holiday become less religious than it used to be?" only 11 percent said they believed Christmas was still about Jesus, with 87 percent responding "less religious."

Close to half of adults – 45 percent – say they personally know someone who doesn't believe in God, but still will celebrate the holiday this year; 62 percent say they'll attend a religious service on Christmas Eve or Day; and 81 percent plan to put a decorated tree in their home this year.

"Do I put up a tree? I have in the past; this year I won't," says Jose Negron, a 34-year-old Christian minister at the Stonehouse Church to the Nations in Toano, Va. Even without the tree, he still plans to celebrate Christmas.

"I grew up in America. It's an historical constant," Negron said.

Indeed, trees and their decoration have played a role in American history, even in the nation's darkest hours. In 1942, just a year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill came to Washington to join President Franklin Roosevelt in lighting the National Christmas Tree, a tradition started by Calvin Coolidge in 1923.

"Against enemies who preach the principles of hate and practice them, we set our faith in human love and in God's care for us all men everywhere," said Roosevelt.

Thousands of citizens turned out for the event, which was broadcast nationwide on radio in the grips of World War II.

"Let the children have their night of fun and laughter," proclaimed Churchill. "Let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play. Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to the stern task and formidable years that lie before us, resolved that, by our sacrifice and daring, these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied the right to live in a free and decent world."

The tree-lighting ceremonies continue to this day, with President George W. Bush having two dedications under his belt.

The history of mankind's fascination with trees long antedates World War II, the founding of America, and even the Middle Ages. Historians have found evidence of tree decoration and tree worship in places such as ancient Rome and Egypt. The Old Testament also records God's displeasure with his own people for following pagan practices involving trees:

* "And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and forgat the Lord their God, and served Baalim and the groves." (Judges 3:7)

* "For the Lord shall smite Israel ... because they have made their groves, provoking the Lord to anger." (1 Kings 14:15)

* "For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree." (1 Kings 14:23)

In the 1800s, Alexander Hislop, a noted historian of antiquity, examined the origins of customs such as the Christmas tree and date of celebration. Writing in "The Two Babylons," Hislop maintains the practice derives from the worship of pagan deities.

cont'd next post

The Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in pagan Rome and pagan Egypt. In Egypt that tree was the palm tree; in Rome it was the fir; the palm tree denoting the pagan Messiah. ... The mother of Adonis, the sun god and great mediatorial divinity, was mystically said to have been changed into a tree, and when in that state to have brought forth her divine son. If the mother was a tree, the son must have been [recognized] as the "Man the branch." And this entirely accounts for the putting of the yule log into the fire on Christmas Eve, and the appearance of the Christmas tree the next morning. ...

Therefore, the 25th of December, the day that was observed at Rome as the day when the victorious god reappeared on earth, was held at the Natalis invicti solis, "The birthday of the unconquered sun." Now the yule log is the dead stock of Nimrod, deified as the sun god, but cut down by his enemies; the Christmas tree is Nimrod redivivus – the slain god come to life again.

"I can count about a hundred trees, wreaths, poinsettia displays, lights, everywhere I look [in my office] complex," says Bob Sipsky, of Stuart, Fla. "Christmas gorge-as-much-food-as-you-can eat-a-ramas every day for two weeks. Enough already."

Sipsky is a Bible believer not affiliated with any organized church. He celebrated Christmas for 35 years before abandoning it, now thinking it an insult to God.

"There are clearly explained festivals that God tells us to observe, which teach how to have peace on earth, and what the true Savior requires of us," Sipsky says, "yet mankind ignores these, and prefers to make up his own festivals and traditions. Christmas is based in deception: its origins; lying to small children about Santa Claus; talking about having peace on earth while ignoring God's instructions on how to achieve it; saying it is biblical, while 99 percent of it is all about commerce and other selfish objectives. Myths and traditions do not please the God of the Bible, a right way of living does. Deception is at the top of the list of what He hates."

That anti-Christmas view is echoed by Tom Moniz of Hobe Sound, Fla. "Being a God-fearing man, I cannot honor a lie, nor do I think adopting a pagan holiday and calling it his birthday does any honor to him."

"Most of these people are killjoys," says Rev. Falwell regarding those who attack the celebration of Christmas. "Most of these tightwads just don't want to [spend] cash. ... I don't take my children or grandchildren near them."

To many Christians, Christmastime is among the most sacred times of the year, and they look to keep it that way.

"It's the reason for being a Christian, because we believe Jesus is God," says Louis Giovino, director of communications for the New York-based Catholic League, the nation's largest Catholic civil-rights organization.

With recent controversies surrounding Christmas in the public arena, the league has issued a list of guidelines to help people understand what kind of religious expression is permissible at this time of year.

Giovino admits the observance has picked up some pagan customs over the years, but says they've been "baptized" by the Church. He notes by the time of Dickens in England, the holiday took on a more raucous tone, with drinking parties and violence, and says the Protestant legislation to outlaw Christmas was in direct response to the riotous revelry.

"The Puritans weren't into celebrating anything," he said.

Giovino stresses the important part of Christmas is the larger picture of the Christian message, the belief that "the Word became flesh."

"It's not like saying 'Happy birthday, Jesus!'" he exclaimed. "I think personally Christmas is ridiculous without Christ. Otherwise, we might as well celebrate the winter solstice as pagans."

The baby with the bathwater?

With the extremes on Christmas observance ranging from total holiday indulgence to complete abstention, there are plenty of people who seek middle ground. Pastor Richard Bucher of the Trinity Lutheran Church in Clinton, Mass., is one of them, asserting celebrating Christmas is not pagan.

"It's laudable that certain Christians care so much about pleasing God to ask the question if it's right," Bucher told WorldNetDaily, "but a lot of arguments they're making are just not sound. They end up placing guilt on Christians celebrating Christmas and do a real disservice."

On his church website, Bucher addresses examples such as the tree decorated with silver and gold in Jeremiah's 10th chapter, and explains upon close examination, it does not refer to anything like a Christmas tree.

"The very next verse, 10:5, goes on to say, 'Like a scarecrow in a melon patch, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good.' This passage and the passages that follow make it crystal clear that the 'decorated tree' that Jeremiah was talking about in 10:3-4, was a tree that was cut down and made into an idol, a very common custom in the ancient world."

"Just because heathens took something God has created for good," he asks, "does that mean such things are off limits [to Christians] permanently?"

He says many have invented sin where God has not said that something is sinful, and adds the issue boils down to what exactly is meant by "Christmas."

"Is it thanking God for the birth of the Savior, or everything that people do associated with it? People just lump everything together."

Despite all the conflict, some believers have little problem with the controversies over Christmas; in fact, they rejoice in them.

"Those who would attempt to take Christ out of Christmas are fighting a losing battle," says Joan Driscoll of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. "The harder they try, the stronger the holy message and meaning of Jesus' birth becomes. The heavenly voices of the angels singing 'Alleluia' will easily drown out the guttural tones of the dissenters."

Quote from: Pastor Roger on December 09, 2007, 09:21:16 PM

Perhaps it's their version of Chinas population control?

Brother,

I've thought about this many times. This is actually a DRIVING force to encourage more immoral, abnormal, and abominable behavior. We have a once great country founded on morals and GOD - plain and simple. However, a substantial portion of the population have turned their backs on GOD. Maybe it boils down to a simple question like this: how many have been given over to the devil for destruction? How many more will go down the path of destruction, and who cares? The "who cares" part of the question is very troubling when you consider the fact that evil forces want to start indoctrinating our children at age 5. This sounds like a bad horror movie, but this is exactly what's happening right now. The number of people dying with dreaded diseases isn't large enough, and there isn't proper respect for the behavior that caused those dreaded diseases.

Christians should already have the answer to this growing problem: NO! - Take your filthy obscene garbage elsewhere! We will NOT tolerate it! There is a recent example that almost defies explanation. Videos were taken at the latest gay pride parade in San Francisco of nudity and open sexual acts on a public street. This type of behavior was the norm instead of the exception, and the police watched these acts. Nothing was done and a group is trying to address this horrible public spectacle. They are having trouble finding any entity willing to do anything about it, even though they have video of many crimes being committed in front of CHILDREN and the POLICE. NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE YET! Further, they can't even find a public official at any level to verbally condemn this behavior - much less file charges. There isn't a SINGLE RESPONSIBLE official at the city, county, or state level willing to address this problem in any way at all. A society of baboons would have more dignity and responsibility than this! AND, they want to teach our children to behave like this! We would be better off by going to the jungle and joining a society of baboons!

Teen girl in critical condition after alleged dispute over hijab
Posted: December 11, 2007, 4:00 AM by Barry Hertz
Crime

UPDATE: Aqsa Parvez has reportedly died.

Chris Wattie filed this earlier story:

A 16-year-old girl is in critical condition after being choked by a man believed to be her father, apparently after a dispute with her family over her refusal to wear the hijab, the Islamic headscarf worn by some Muslim women.

Peel Regional Police arrested a 57-year-old man yesterday morning after receiving a 911 call from a suburban home in Mississauga from a man saying he had killed his daughter. When police and paramedics arrived at the house they found a 16-year-old lying on the floor without any vital signs, police said.

Constable J.P. Valade, a spokesman for Peel police, would not release the names of either the victim or the man arrested and would not give any details about what transpired inside the large, two-storey home in a well-to-do subdivision.

“We are not getting into the details of her injuries at this time,” he said. “We aren’t getting into any details about this case. This investigation is really in its infancy: officers are still canvassing the neighbourhood and talking to family members.”

However, early police reports indicated the teenager had been choked and that the attacker was her father.

The girl was rushed to Credit Valley Hospital and later transferred to the Hospital for Sick Children, where she was listed in critical condition last night with life-threatening injuries.

Her condition is so grave that police have not yet charged the man arrested at the scene until they know whether he will be charged with murder or attempted murder. He was scheduled to appear in Brampton court on Tuesday.

Friends of the teenager, a Grade 11 student at nearby Applewood Heights high school, identified her as Aqsa Parvez and said they were shocked by the attack on the outgoing, likeable girl, but said she had been threatened by her strictly religious family before.

“She got threatened by her father and her brother,” said Dominiquia Holmes-Thompson, who had known Aqsa since they both started high school together. “He said that if she leaves, he would kill her.”

Ebonie Mitchell, 16, another friend of the victim, said the conflict with her father over wearing Islamic dress came to a head at the beginning of this school year. “She just wanted to dress like we do,” she said.

“Last year she wore like the Islamic stuff and everything, the hijab, and this year she’s all Western. She just wanted to look like everyone else. And I guess her dad had a problem with that.”

Ebonie said her friend had left home once before, in September, for about two weeks. She returned home, but the fights with her family over what she wore just got worse.

Dominiquia, 16, said her friend had been arguing with her father for more than a year over the restrictions he imposed on her, including demanding that she wear the hijab at all times. “She wanted to go out with her friends, hang out and just be like a normal person,” she said. “But he was always trying to control her ... he wouldn’t let her go out or do anything.”

The stricken girl’s friends said the fights with her father got so bad that she had left the family home to live with friends about a week ago. “She was going back, but just to get her stuff,” said friend Krista Garbutt. “She was scared to go home, but she had to get her clothes and stuff.”

Neighbours said as many as 11 people lived in the home, which was sealed off by crime scene tape and surrounded by police cars yesterday, all members of an extended Pakistani family. Const. Valade confirmed that there were other people in the home when the teenager was attacked.

“I didn’t really know any of them,” said one woman, who would not give her name. “There were a lot of them living in that house, always coming and going. They didn’t talk to me, maybe just to say hello once in a while. That’s all.”

The home where the teen was attacked is the listed address of Muhammad Parvez, a Mississauga cab driver. “He was Muslim and very devout, very observant,” said one of his fellow drivers at Mississauga’s Blue and White Taxi, who did not want his name used. “He was always stopping to take breaks and pray: three, four times a day.”

His eldest son, also named Muhammad, also worked as a cab driver and lived in the family home with his wife and at least one child, the driver said. Several people inside the home were questioned by police before being allowed to leave.

Neighbours said the family moved in just over a year ago.

Teen girl in critical condition after alleged dispute over hijab (http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2007/12/10/teen-girl-in-critical-condition-after-alleged-dispute-over-hijab.aspx)

Abortionist tells med students he has 'license to lie'
Doc responsible for several women's deaths admits barely washing hands between clients

A video of an abortion practitioner is making its way across the Internet featuring a November appearance by Alberto Hodari at Wayne State University in Michigan. The campus pro-abortion organization invited him to speak and Hodari tells them his status as an abortion practitioner gives him license to lie to women.

Hodari gave the local Medical Students for Choice group a talk entitled, "Why I Am An Abortion Provider" to motivate the pro-abrotion medical students.

The national pro-life student group Students for Life of America obtained a copy of the speech, in which Hodari says, "I have great satisfaction of what I do, and I never feel bad or worried about doing abortions."

Hodari also spoke about how little he washed between abortions because it chafed his hands, even though his doing so puts women's health at risk.

Most upsetting to SFLA director Kristan Hawkins is Hodari's claim that being an abortion practitioner gives him "license to lie" to women who seek him out for abortions.

"To hear Hodari speak, one wonders if Michigan is the third world," Hawkins says in a statement she provided LifeNews.com. "Planned Parenthood complains about 'back-alley' abortions, even though Hodari is running a business where he's barely washing his hands between abortions."

Ashley Tyndall, the president of the pro-life student group, noted that Hodari is responsible for multiple women's deaths from his legal abortions.

"Several women have died while getting abortions with Hodari, and yet the Michigan board of health has never investigated him," she said. "How many women have to die before the bureaucrats start telling Hodari to wash his hands and tell patients the truth."

Hodari was responsible for the abortion death of 15 year-old African-American teenager Tamia Russell.

Taisha Glenn, the sister of Russell's 24-year-old boyfriend, Stacy Glenn, had taken Russell to the abortion facility on January 7, 2004 without permission or notifying Russell's mother or guardian.

Glenn and Russell went to five other abortion facilities before coming to WomanCare, Hodari's abortion center.

Tamiia used an identification card with another woman's picture to state she was 19, as abortions cannot be performed on minors in Michigan without parental consent.

The woman in the picture ID looked nothing like Russell -- but the abortion was done anyway.

The facility gotcha11lly inserted laminaria, a seaweed used to begin dilation. Russell was sent home, where she confessed to her family that she was pregnant and had begun the abortion procedure.

When her mother and aunt called WomanCare, they said the abortion could not be stopped once the laminaria is inserted.

Russell's mother drove her daughter to the abortion facility the next day to finish the abortion, which was performed by Alberto Hodari. Upon her return home, she experienced severe bleeding -- "so much so she soaked an entire mattress," her family told LifeNews.com.

WomanCare told her family that such bleeding was "normal" following an abortion, and not to take her to the hospital.

Concerned for Russell, the family called paramedics who rushed her to Sinai-Grace Hospital. Russell died on the way to the Hospital.

Hodari has also come under fire for misusing the drug Digoxin in abortions.

Preacher Says Islam Isn't Against Christmas

Father Cantalamessa Delivers Advent Meditation

VATICAN CITY - Secularism, not Islam, is behind the war on Christmas, according to the preacher of the Pontifical Household in an Advent sermon.

Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa said this today in his second Advent meditation in the presence of Benedict XVI and his aides in the Roman Curia in the Redemptoris Mater Chapel of the Apostolic Palace.

The priest said the "cultural derision, or at least marginalization, of religious beliefs with the campaign in different European countries and cities against the religious symbols of Christmas."

The preacher said: "The reason often given for this is the desire to not offend persons of other religions among us, especially the Muslims.

"But it is a pretext, an excuse. In reality it is not the Muslims who do not want these symbols but a certain non-believing group in society. Muslims have nothing against the Christian celebration of Christmas, indeed, they honor it."

"We have arrived at a rather absurd juncture: On the one hand, many Muslims celebrate the birth of Jesus and want a crèche in their home and say that 'those who do not believe in the miraculous birth of Jesus are not Muslim,'" Father Cantalamessa said.

"And on the other hand, there are many who call themselves Christians who want to make Christmas a 'winter festival' populated only by reindeer and teddy bears," he continued.

To make his point, Father Cantalamessa commented that the Koran even speaks of the Annunciation.

He also mentioned an article published Dec. 18 in Italy entitled "We Muslims Say Yes to the Crèche," written by Muslim journalist Magdi Allan, deputy director of Il Corriere della Sera.

The article states: "Christmas unites Christians and Muslims. For Islam the figures of Jesus and of Mary are very important and mentioned on several occasions in the Koran itself.

"Therefore, I don't see why Muslim children cannot sing the carols."

Preacher Says Islam Isn't Against Christmas (http://www.zenit.org/article-18517?l=english)

Pope's Response to 138 Muslim Scolars

(29 Nov 07 - RV) Pope Benedict XVI has replied to the letter written by 138 Muslim scholars to Christian Leaders, inviting a group of them to meet with him here in the Vatican.

The letter is addressed to Jordanian Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal, and signed by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. In it the Pope expresses his deep appreciation for the positive spirit which inspired the text from Muslim scholars and its call for a common commitment to promoting peace in the world.
While it is important not to ignore or down play the difference between Christians and Muslims, the Pope says “we can and therefore should look to what unites us, namely, belief in the one God, the provident Creator and universal Judge”.

Reiterating his words to representatives of Some Muslim Communities in Cologne, at the beginning of his pontificate, the pope stressed “we must not yield to the negative pressures in our midst, but must affirm the values of mutual respect, solidarity and peace. Adding there is plenty of scope for acting together in the service of fundamental moral values”.

“The common ground between the two faiths”, he says “allows us to base dialogue on respect for the dignity of every human person on the objective knowledge of the other’s religion, on the sharing of religious experience and, finally, on common commitment to promoting mutual respect and acceptance among the younger generation”.
The letter concludes with an invitation to the Jordanian Prince and to a select group of the Muslim signatories for a papal audience to encourage such initiatives.

The Pope also proposes setting up meetings between the Muslim scholars and Vatican organisations such as the Pontifical council for Inter Religious Dialogue, the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies and the Pontifical Gregorian University.

Pope's Response to 138 Muslim Scolars (http://www.oecumene.radiovaticana.org/en1/Articolo.asp?c=170568)

Vatican nativity does away with the manger

By Malcolm Moore in Rome
Last Updated: 3:35pm GMT 14/12/2007

For 25 years, the Christmas Nativity scene in front of St Peter's Basilica has shown the infant Jesus in a manger in Bethlehem.

This year, however, the Vatican has decided to radically change the scene, shifting it to Nazareth, and placing Jesus in his father's carpentry shop.

When Pope Benedict XVI inaugurates the life-size Nativity scene on Christmas eve, the sheep and hay will be gone.

In their place will be a model of three rooms.

Jesus will lie in Joseph's shop, complete with "the typical work tools of a carpenter".

On one side, the shop will be flanked with a "covered patio", while on the other there will be the "inside of a pub, with its hearth".

The news came in an official statement from the State Department of the Vatican, which organises and builds the giant presepe, or Nativity scene.

The new setting was inspired by two verses in St Matthew's gospel, Chapter 1:24 and 1:25, the Vatican said, which state: "When Joseph woke up, he did as the Angel of God ordered and took Mary into his house. Without them knowing each other, a child was born and he called his name Jesus".

The gospel goes on to mention Jesus' birthplace as Bethlehem, but a spokesman for the Vatican said a decision had been made to place the scene in Nazareth regardless.
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"It was time for a change," said the spokesman "and a return to St Matthew's gospel".

The traditional depiction of Jesus in a manger comes from St Luke's gospel, which said there was "no room at the inn".

But it is Matthew's gospel which forms the basis for the Angelus prayer, and the view of Jesus in a carpenter's workshop matches the Franciscan tradition.

None of the three Vatican departments which organises the Nativity scene could comment on who had taken the decision to shift the location, or for what reason.

However, sources close to the Vatican said there was a desire to crack down on the various "fanciful Nativity scenes" that have sprung up in recent years.

In Naples, a number of Nativity scenes include notorious figures from today, such as Elvis Presley or Silvio Berlusconi, standing amongst the crowd adoring the infant Jesus.

The Nativity scene at St Peter's was started by Pope John Paul II in 1982.

In addition, a giant, fully-adorned Christmas tree has been erected in St Peter's Square.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church has said that it was its "right and duty" to spread the word of Christ to non-believers.

A new document from the Vatican's doctrinal department rejected accusations that the Church aggressively converts its members.

The Russian Orthodox Church has accused Rome of trying to poach souls in the former Soviet Union. However, the Vatican said evangelisation was its "inalienable right and duty".

"The incorporation of new members into the Church is not the expansion of a power group, but rather entrance into the network of friendship with Christ which connects heaven and earth, different continents and age.

"It is entrance into the gift of communion with Christ," the document said.

Vatican nativity does away with the manger (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/14/wrome114.xml)

Vatican defends its 'right to spread its message'
Associated Press
THE JERUSALEM POST
Dec. 14, 2007

The Vatican, which has been accused of aggressively seeking souls in Russia and some other countries, said Friday it has every right to spread its message and accept converts but that non-Catholics must never be forced to embrace the faith.

The Vatican's doctrinal office issued guidelines on the missionary policy of the Roman Catholic Church, saying there is "growing confusion which leads many to leave the missionary command of the Lord unheard and ineffective."

"Often is it maintained that any attempt to convince others on religious matters is a limitation of their freedom," said the document issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

With the fall of Communism and subsequent end to bars on religious practice across Eastern Europe, the Russian Orthodox Church has accused Catholics of improperly seeking converts in traditionally Orthodox areas - a claim the Vatican has always rejected.

Roman Catholics have also faced tensions in several states in India, accused by Hindu nationalists of aggressive attempts to convert Hindus.

The Vatican restated its position that the church "severely prohibits forcing people to embrace the faith or leading or enticing them by improper technique; by the same token, she also strongly defends the right that no one be deterred from the faith by deplorable ill treatment."

The document did not cite particular countries, but it did indirectly refer to Orthodox areas and said "true respect for the tradition and spiritual riches" of such countries is required.

It also said that should a non-Catholic Christian seek to become a Catholic "this is to be respected as the work of the Holy Spirit and as an expression of freedom of conscience and religion."

Vatican defends its 'right to spread its message' (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847338628&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter)

Grant European Jews Refugee Status
By: Elliot Resnick

Reflecting Jewish concern over European anti-Semitism, New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind last week called on the federal government to grant refugee status to Jews from such countries as Belgium, Germany, France and England.

"Incidents of anti-Semitism in all of these countries has gone through the roof," Hikind told 300 assembled guests at the New York Association for New Americans (NYANA) dinner at Manhattan’s Pierre Hotel.

"They have not had numbers like this since 1938," he said.

Hikind cited recent Anti-Defamation League polls showing that 44 percent of Europeans believe that Jews talk too much about the Holocaust, 35 percent believe that Jews have too much power in the business world, and 20 percent blame Jews for Jesus’s death.

Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), an honoree at the dinner, said he would help Hikind in his campaign.

"We have to do whatever we can to protect people," he told The Jewish Press. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere and I think that we cannot sit silent in the United States of America and know that these things are going on and not try and do something about it."

New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson said in his brief remarks that Hikind is someone "who always speaks from the heart and speaks about convictions and principles."

NYANA was founded in 1949 as a resettlement agency for Jewish Holocaust refugees. In its 58 years, NYANA has helped Greek, Egyptian, Rumanian, Cuban, Czechoslovakian, Polish, former Soviet Union, Ethiopian, Iranian, and Syrian Jewish refugees as well as refugees from Uganda, Vietnam, and Tibet – over 500,000 refugees from 147 countries.

The son of refugees himself, Hikind traveled to Europe in June 2007 to gauge the anti-Semitic atmosphere firsthand.

"It was shocking," he said. "I can give you the quotes from leaders of Jewish communities in Berlin, Antwerp and Paris who told us, ‘There is no future for Jews in these countries.’ I was mobbed by people outside of the synagogue [in Paris] pleading with me, ‘Can you do anything to make it easier for us to come to America?’ And these people have good jobs."

Nevertheless, Hikind told The Jewish Press, he’s "realistic" that U.S. recognition of European Jews as refugees would be very difficult to accomplish.

"But I want to create the debate," he said. "I want to create the discussion."

Grant European Jews Refugee Status (http://www.jewishpress.com/displayContent_new.cfm?contentid=26794&mode=a&sectionid=1&contentname=Hikind%3A_Grant_European_Jews_Refugee_Status&recnum=1)

Free people should condemn use of psychiatric hospitals to punish dissent in Russia

Governments, psychiatric and journalism organizations around the globe should be protesting Russia's return to throwing political dissenters into psychiatric hospitals.
This is an old Soviet-era tactic to intimidate and punish anyone who tries to raise a voice against the ruling establishment. It was common back in the days when current Russian President Vladimir Putin worked as an officer in the KGB, the Soviet secret police.

Although the Soviet era is over, Russia's move toward democracy in the 1990s under former president Boris Yeltsin has been halted and pushed backward under the authoritarian rule of Putin, whose appeal is to Russian nationalism, rather than old-time communism.

A number of Russian journalists whose work exposed problems in Russia have been assassinated during Putin's presidency, and some suspect Putin is behind the deaths.

A story reported yesterday by the Associated Press told how 20-year-old Artem Basyrov, an activist with the opposition National Bolshevik Party in the Other Russia coalition, was picked up by authorities on Nov. 23 in advance of planned demonstrations and thrown into a psychiatric hospital, where he remains.

Nine months in a psychiatric hospital was the price paid by Andrei Novikov, a reporter for a news service connected with the Chechen separatists. Other Russia coalition activist Larisa Arap was held for six weeks in a psychiatric hospital for her journalism work critical of the government, the AP story noted.

However correct, or even misguided, critics of Putin's government may be, it is unconscionable to force them into psychiatric hospitals.

Years of keeping a spotlight on such human rights violations by the former Soviet Union helped keep hope alive for dissidents and helped bring about the collapse of Soviet tyranny. That spotlight is needed today.

Freedom is every person's right, and no government should be able to deny that right because people speak freely in dissent. Putin's heavy-handed regime is violating the human rights of those who are being killed or being imprisoned in psychiatric hospitals. It is a terrible, tragic and dangerous step backward in history for Russians.

Free people should condemn use of psychiatric hospitals to punish dissent in Russia (http://www.zwire.com/site/printerFriendly.cfm?brd=1699&dept_id=46368&newsid=19117711)
~~~~~~~~~~

More on this story at.....

http://www.wane.com/global/story.asp?s=7497887

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=502382&in_page_id=1811

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article3253089.ece

Antisemitic Nativity scene sells like hotcakes in UK

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v605/DreamWeaver000/DreamWeaver000/WalledNativity.jpg)

By Stan Goodenough
December 12, 2007

A rabidly antisemitic "Christian" charity organization in England is selling specially modified nativity scenes in the run-up to Christmas this year.

Amos Trust is also spewing a whole lot of slander in a special "Bethlehem Christmas Pack" available from its website.

According to a report by CNS News, the nativity model being sold by the Amos Trust is of Bethlehem at the time of Jesus' birth, with a wall running through the town.

Made by Arabs in Bethlehem, it is meant to depict the security fence Israel has been erecting in order to safeguard its citizens from Palestinian terrorists infiltrating from what the world calls the "West Bank."

Amos Trust says that the wall in its nativity scene will ensure that "the wise men won't get to the stable."

Demand for this model is high, it crows. The first batch is already sold out.

The anti-Israel inference is clear, and echoes similar sentiments echoed at Christmas time in past years.

Israel's enemies in the west - among whom the British rank near the top - often accuse Israel of destroying the "spirit of Christmas."

"If Mary and Joseph tried to enter Bethlehem today Israel's soldiers would turn them away," goes one line of slander.

Vistors to the Amos Trust website can read about how Israel has "taken the land" from the Palestinian Arabs - a bald-faced lie. They can learn that the "Israeli occupation" is a modern-day version of the Roman occupation of Judea in the time of Christ.

Also available to download, free of charge, is a song called "They've cancelled Christmas in Bethlehem."

As the lyrics tell us, "they" are the Israelis who have "locked the little town behind a ghetto wall" and are preventing its people from hearing the singing angels in the "land that is no longer holy."

"And if our Christmas songs and prayers are not to be in vain, we must pull down that wall that is strangling Bethlehem. ... They've stopped the wise men at the checkpoint. ... If peace on earth is to come, the wall must fall."

Two small but proactive British branches of Jerusalem-based Christian organizations have protested the actions of the Amos Trust.

A spokesman for the UK branch of Christian Friends of Israel decried "attempts to make one-sided political capital out of the Bethlehem story."

Geoffrey Smith stressed that "[n]obody wants a security barrier but so long as terrorists continue to threaten the lives of Jews and of Arabs in Israel, the people there have to defend themselves in ways that will stop the bombers."

The London office of the Bridges for Peace organization echoed this statement.

Antisemitic Nativity scene sells like hotcakes in UK (http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2265)

Millions ready to greet Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico

By DUDLEY ALTHAUS
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

MEXICO CITY — As they have for nearly five centuries, millions of Mexicans were preparing to greet the dawn by worshipping the Virgin of Guadalupe, the dark-skinned manifestation of Jesus Christ's mother who won this nation for the Roman Catholic faith.

"She is our protector," said Concepcion Dominguez, 53, who was doing a brisk business Tuesday selling statues of the Virgin, rosaries and other religious items outside a 16th-century Catholic church in southern Mexico City. "As long as she is with us, we are going to be well, both spiritually and physically."

Not all Mexicans agree with her, as many continue to abandon Catholicism here.

But if recent history holds true, the yawning shrine to the Virgin near downtown Mexico City will be packed at sunrise with 1 million people, offering thanks for mercies granted or those yet to come.

Many of the believers will have walked for hours from outlying towns or from adjoining states as a sign of their devotion. Some will have crawled the last hundreds of yards on their knees to the same purpose. All will have shivered in the nighttime cold to be sure to greet the Virgin at sunrise.

Across Mexico, neighborhoods, towns and families were holding their own rites through the night. Fireworks pierced the darkened sky in the Virgin's honor, shattering the stillness.

"She is the mother of all Mexicans," said Raul Trejo, an auto parts salesman whose family erects a home shrine to the Virgin and celebrates every year. "We all adore her."

Well, not quite all, not really anymore.

Conversions syphon faithful

Worship of the Virgin survived nearly 150 years of successive Mexican governments' official hostility to the Roman Catholic Church. But in recent decades, as millions here have converted to various evangelical faiths, her following has come to be viewed by many as idolatry.

"We respect the faith people have in the Virgin, but we really don't believe in those kinds of things," said Ricardo Sevilla, a spokesman for the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, a Brazil-based Protestant denomination that has two large churches in poor Mexico City neighborhoods and 110 others nationwide.

"The Catholic Church used her to win over the people," Sevilla said. "We see these things more as a matter of sociology than of faith."

The faithful believe the Virgin appeared 476 years ago to the Indian peasant Juan Diego on a hilltop called Tepeyac, near what had been the capital of the Aztec Empire. Tepeyac had been a shrine to Tonantzin, the Aztec fertility goddess.

The Virgin referred to herself as the "snake crusher," using an Aztec name that sounded much like Guadalupe, a village in Spain. Perhaps not coincidentally, Quetzalcoatl, or the "Plumed Serpent," was a principal god of the Aztecs and other indigenous nations.

The Virgin assured Juan Diego that God's love was for the vanquished as well as for the conqueror.

"Am I not your Mother?" the Virgin is quoted as asking. "Are you not sheltered underneath my mantle, under the embrace of my arms?"

The ensuing cult of the Dark Virgin enabled the Catholic Church to quickly convert millions of indigenous, who had until then resisted the conquering Spaniards and their creed.

Through the nearly half a millennium since, devotion to the Virgin became an anchor of national identity, an article of faith in a population that at least nominally loyal to the Vatican.

Still a strong icon

The "Guadalupe event," as some Catholic leaders call it, ensured that "Christ's message, through his Mother, took up the central elements of indigenous culture, purified them, and gave them a definitive sense of salvation," recalled Pope John Paul II here in 2002 while marking Juan Diego's canonization.

Juan Diego, the pope said then, "facilitated the fruitful meeting of two worlds and became the catalyst for a new Mexican identity."

Both here and in ethnic Mexican neighborhoods north of the border, the Virgin's image hangs in churches and homes, is tattooed onto countless bodies.

Shrines to her adorn street corners and rural roads, taxi stands and factory floors. Despite the growing ranks of doubters, the Dark Virgin likely will remain a Mexican touchstone for years to come.

The Virgin is "the consolation of the poor, the shield of the weak, the help of the oppressed," the late poet Octavio Paz wrote in the Labyrinth of Solitude nearly five decades ago. "She is the Mother of orphans."

Millions ready to greet Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/5370732.html)

Catholic leader rejects 'Jewish state'
Associated Press
THE JERUSALEM POST
Dec. 19, 2007

Israel's identity as a Jewish state discriminates against non-Jews, the Holy Land's top Roman Catholic clergyman said in a pre-Christmas address on Wednesday.

"If there's a state of one religion, other religions are naturally discriminated against," Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah told reporters at the annual press conference he holds in Jerusalem before the Christian holiday.

In his address, which he read in Arabic and English, Sabbah said Israel should abandon its Jewish character in favor of a "political, normal state for Christians, Muslims and Jews."

"This land cannot be exclusive for anyone," he said.

With his statements Wednesday, Sabbah, a longtime advocate of the Palestinian cause, waded into a debate that has marred the fledgling peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

Israel has defined itself as the homeland of the Jewish people since it was established in 1948. The Palestinians, however, refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, saying that would mean Palestinian refugees who lost their homes after Israel's creation would not have the right to return.

Israel opposes any return of refugees, for fear they would eventually outnumber the Jewish majority. Israeli leaders recently demanded that Palestinians recognize Israel's Jewish character as part of peace talks that got under way last week, but the Palestinians have rejected the call.

Aryeh Mekel, a spokesman for Israel's foreign ministry, had no immediate comment.

Sabbah, who has been the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem since 1987, is the first Palestinian to hold the post and is frequently critical of Israel.

He also lashed out at Israel for visa restrictions he said were unfair to Christian clergy. "A state in this land must...be open to welcoming to all believers of other religions," he said.

According to the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations, there are an estimated 170,000 Christians in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Catholic leader rejects 'Jewish state' (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847383057&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter)

Pope's talks with Muslims scares al Qaeda: Vatican
Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:05pm EST

By Phil Stewart

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican on Tuesday rejected condemnation by al Qaeda of a historic meeting between Pope Benedict and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, saying the militants were afraid of inter-religious dialogue.

Al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, referred to Benedict as a Pontiff who had "insulted Islam and Muslims" and criticized King Abdullah's meeting with him last month.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said Zawahri's video-taped comments, posted on the Internet on Sunday, showed al Qaeda's was worried about the implications of the meeting - the first between a Pope and a Saudi monarch.

The Pope was also pursuing dialogue with a group of prominent Muslim scholars, including Jordanian Prince Ghazi bin Mohammad bin Talal, Lombardi noted.

"These people want dialogue and are working toward peace," Lombardi said. "This worries those who don't want dialogue."

Zawahri has previously denounced the Pope for a speech he made last year at a university in his native Germany, when the Pontiff used a quote that associated Islam with violence.

Muslims around the world complained about the speech, but the Pope said he was misunderstood and has several times expressed his esteem for Muslims.

In the latest message, Zawahri noted that Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdel-Aziz Al al-Sheikh was quick to condemn jihad in Iraq but not the Saudi king's visit with Benedict.

"Wouldn't have it been more appropriate for this mufti who rules according to the school of Bush to reproach his so-called guardian (King Abdullah) for his visit with the Pope," Zawahri asked, quoted by U.S. terrorism monitoring organization IntelCenter.

"Is this how the moderate creed and confrontation of polytheism is supposed to be?", he added.

Lombardi said the entire episode showed that dialogue and pursuit of peace were "gaining more weight and this is undoubtedly a positive factor".

Pope's talks with Muslims scares al Qaeda: Vatican (http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USKRA86130820071218)

Arabs Desecrate Grave of Biblical Prime Minister Joshua
by Ezra HaLevi

Jewish worshippers Tuesday were stunned to find Arabs had desecrated the graves of the Biblical Joshua, Caleb and Nun (Joshua’s father).

Joshua served as the Jewish Nation's Prime Minister from the year 2488 until 2516 on the Hebrew calendar (1272 BCE - 1300 BCE).

Members of the One Shechem organization that organizes visits to the graves arrived in the village of Timnat (Kifl) Haress, near Ariel in Samaria, to prepare for a special prayer gathering, discovered that Arab vandals had desecrated the village’s Jewish tombs. The tombs of Yehoshua (Joshua) ben Nun, Nun, and Calev (Caleb) ben Yefuneh were covered with garbage and feces – both human and animal, and anti-Semitic and Nazi slogans and symbols had been painted in the area.

Nevertheless, worshippers gathered at the tombs Tuesday night for special prayers on the tenth of Tevet, the day Kaddish and other prayers are recited for those whose date of death is unknown, such as Calev ben Yefuneh. Organizers had cleaned up the damage and attendees reported a positive experience.

The prayers were also to mark the end of the 30-day increased-stricture mourning period for murdered Jewish father Ido Zoldan of Kedumim, by a Palestinian Authority police officer.

Organizers reported that a wide array of Jews – hareidi, national religious and traditional – took part in the visit and prayers. They also praised the cooperation of security forces, particularly the Efraim Division of the IDF.

The One Shechem organization issued a call to the public to do everything in their power to preserve the holy sites in Samaria, including Joseph’s Tomb in Shechem and to fight for the right of Jews to visit and worship there freely.

Arabs Desecrate Grave of Biblical Prime Minister Joshua (http://www.web-view.net/Show/0XEBB08221FE8F1542E3ADFB8871BEAAE4BA2505BCBC5FC9530A2BFDDBE467C819.htm#124630)

Pro-gay schools law hit

December 18, 2007

By Jennifer Kabbany - A new law that amends California's education code has many of the state's conservatives in an uproar and taking drastic measures to repeal it, saying the changes go too far in promoting a homosexual agenda in public schools.

The law known as SB 777 is due to take effect in January and forbids any school activity that "promotes a discriminatory bias" on the basis of "gender" or "sexual orientation."

Parents, preachers, conservative lawyers and Sacramento-based pro-family advocacy groups have mounted campaigns against the law in recent weeks, efforts that include pulling children out of school, circulating a referendum petition and filing a lawsuit.

"If this is not repealed, the next step is to get out of California itself — it's like Sodom and Gomorrah," said Pastor Vincent Xavier, one of many church leaders across the state who helped spread the word of a two-day school boycott in late November to protest the law.

The mix of protesters contend the law would allow students to decide whether they are male or female, potentially wreaking "havoc" in campus locker rooms and bathrooms, and bans lessons and any other school activities that are construed as portraying homosexuality negatively.

"People have said enough is enough," said Karen England, executive director of Capital Resource Family Impact, the Sacramento-based nonprofit advocacy group behind the referendum petition. "I think they realize it's gone too far."

At issue is a law signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in October that proponents say clarifies and streamlines — but does not expand — existing civil rights protections for students spelled out in California's education code.

"There has been no change in California law, none at all," said state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, the Los Angeles Democrat who authored the original bill.

An avowed lesbian, Ms. Kuehl said the amendments simply spell out in the education code laws it has referenced for several years in the state's penal code with regard to various forms of discrimination.

"The education code already included all of this by reference to the penal code," she said. "If there was going to be any problem with that, it would have already arisen."

She said the conservative campaign against SB 777 "is nothing but a cynical attempt to exploit their supporters for more money."

Opponents of the measure say they are protecting the state's students and Christian teachers from an overzealous homosexual lobby.

"The special interests are in control in Sacramento," said Bob Tyler, lead counsel for the Southern California-based law firm Advocates for Faith and Freedom, which filed a federal lawsuit against the law in late November. "The homosexual lobby is so powerful, it has passed over 40 bills since 2000 forcing their agenda on society."

Mr. Tyler said the latest law is a "ridiculous" example of that agenda. SB 777 redefines "gender" in the education code so as to include "gender identity" — a potentially dangerous change, he said.

"Any testosterone-driven boy in the midst of his high school era who wants to wreak a little havoc, all he has to do is say, 'I believe I am a girl, and I am entitled to use the girls' locker room, and you can't stop me, or you are discriminating against me,' " he said.

The notion of boys using girls' bathrooms, or vice versa, isn't farfetched, said Mrs. England, pointing to a 2005 Los Angeles Unified School District policy already mandating as much.

Mrs. England also contends the law means "equal time" for all sexual orientations in kindergarten through 12th grade, affecting everything from high school child-development lessons to boys campaigning for prom queen.

Ms. Kuehl said the new wording actually makes it harder to prove discrimination by changing the education code from banning lessons and activities that "reflect adversely" on homosexuality to those that "promote a discriminatory bias."

" 'Promotes a discriminatory bias'is much less vague than 'reflects adversely,' " she said.

However, Mrs. England and Mr. Tyler said the new law will have dire effects on teachers'lessons and students'free-speech rights.

For example, they said, lessons about families that only cover heterosexual situations may be construed as promoting a discriminatory bias. Also, an annual Christian student protest on campuses across the state meant to counter the annual, pro-homosexual "Day of Silence" school campaign might also be construed as promoting bias.

Mrs. England said the law effectively silences Christian teachers and students. "It's crazy," she said. "It's the line in the sand."

The law was to take effect Jan. 1, but the effective date has been pushed back to Jan. 10 because of the referendum petition.

Mrs. England said thousands of volunteers are collecting signatures, and her group needs 434,000 valid signatures by early January in order to put the referendum on the June ballot.

Mary Calgaro, a 64-year-old grandmother who lives in Southern California, is helping with the petition drive. She said she joined the cause because she believes the state's Legislature is "out of control."

"I am really concerned about our schools and our children, how they are being indoctrinated, and how our poor teachers have to contend with all these things," she said.

Mrs. Calgaro is not alone. Joy Stutz, a 64-year-old grandmother who lives in Escondido, Calif., launched a campaign calling on parents to pull their children out of school for two days in late November to protest the law.

She first advertised the campaign on the Internet, she said, but it picked up steam when conservative advocacy groups such as the Sacramento-based Campaign for Children and Families, as well as local churches, helped spread the word, she said.

The effort attracted the attention of local and statewide education officials, who complained that the protest only hurt the students, as they lost out on classroom time. But many parents who participated in the protest said they did so because they felt it was time to take a stand.

Homosexual activists "are getting all kinds of legislation passed in their favor because they are out there in the forefront, taking action, demonstrating, pushing their agenda, pushing for what they want," said Dale Porth, 67, who kept his 13-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son out of school.

"I felt that a majority of us need to start taking a stand against some of these issues that are being pushed forward by a small minority of people who are very militant in their agenda," Mr. Porth said.

Pro-gay schools law hit (http://www.worthynews.com/news/washingtontimes-com-article-20071218-CULTURE-739295251-1015/)

Archbishop of Canterbury Dismisses Nativity Scene as Nothing but 'Legend'

Thursday , December 20, 2007
Ruth Gledhill

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, dismissed the Christmas story of the Three Wise Men yesterday as nothing but "legend."

There was scant evidence for the Magi, and none at all that there were three of them, or that they were kings, he said. All the evidence that existed was in Matthew’s Gospel. The Archbishop said: "Matthew’s Gospel doesn’t tell us there were three of them, doesn’t tell us they were kings, doesn’t tell us where they came from. It says they are astrologers, wise men, priests from somewhere outside the Roman Empire, that’s all we’re really told." Anything else was legend. "It works quite well as legend," the Archbishop said.

Further, there was no evidence that there were any oxen or asses in the stable. The chances of any snow falling around the stable in Bethlehem were "very unlikely." And as for the star rising and then standing still: the Archbishop pointed out that stars just don’t behave like that.

Although he believed in it himself, he advised that new Christians need not fear that they had to leap over the "hurdle" of belief in the Virgin Birth before they could be "signed up." For good measure, he added, Jesus was probably not born in December at all. “Christmas was when it was because it fitted well with the winter festival.”

He said the Christmas cards that show the Virgin Mary cradling baby Jesus, with the shepherds on one side and the Three Wise Men on the other, were guilty of "conflation."

But in spite of his scepticism about aspects of the Christmas story, as told in infant nativity plays up and down the land, he denied that believing in God was equivalent to believing in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy.

"The thing is, belief in Santa does not generate a moral code, it does not generate art, it does not generate imagination. Belief in God is a bit bigger than that," the Archbishop said.

Williams was speaking live on BBC Radio Five to the presenter Simon Mayo when Ricky Gervais, star of The Office and a fellow guest, challenged him about the intellectual credibility of the Christian faith.

He said he was committed to belief in the Virgin Birth "as part of what I have inherited." But belief in the Virgin Birth should not be a "hurdle" over which new Christians had to jump before they were accepted.

He hinted that decades ago he was not "too fussed" with the literal truth of the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. But as time went on, he developed a "deeper sense" of what the Virgin Birth was all about. And he went on to do a literary-critical analysis of the traditional Christmas card that features, as often as not, a Virgin Mary cradling a baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes, with shepherds on one side, the Three Wise Men on the other and oxen and asses all around. Sometimes the stable is depicted with snow falling all around, and often with a bright star rising in the East.

Most of it, the Archbishop said, could not have happened like that.

One of the few things that almost everyone agreed on was that Jesus’s mother’s name was Mary. That is in all the four Gospels. It was also pretty clear that Jesus’s father was called Joseph.

Williams was not saying anything that is not taught as a matter of course in even the most conservative theological colleges. His supporters would argue that it is a sign of a true man of faith that he can hold on to an orthodox faith while permitting honest intellectual scrutiny of fundamental biblical texts.

The Archbishop admitted that the Church’s present difficulties, with the dispute over sexuality taking the Anglican Communion to the brink of schism, were off-putting to outsiders. "They don’t want to know about the inside politics of the Church, they want to know if God’s real, if they can be forgiven, what sort of lifestyles matter more and they want to know, I suppose, if their prayers are heard."

Williams’s views are strictly in line with orthodox Christian teaching. The Archbishop is sticking to what the Bible actually says.

Archbishop of Canterbury Dismisses Nativity Scene as Nothing but 'Legend' (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,317550,00.html)

Sarkozy meets with pope at the Vatican
The Associated Press
Thursday, December 20, 2007

VATICAN CITY: French President Nicolas Sarkozy met with Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday, saying he was personally "moved" by his first audience at the Vatican since taking office in May.

They discussed a range of international issues, including "the drama of hostages," an apparent reference to France's efforts to free Ingrid Betancourt, who is being held by Colombian guerrillas.

Betancourt is a dual French-Colombian citizen and former presidential candidate in the South American country. She has been held for nearly six years and France has been actively seeking her release.

During his daylong visit to Rome, Sarkozy also pitched his idea for a union of Mediterranean countries, gaining support from leaders of Italy and Spain.

The Vatican described the visit as "cordial" and noted what it called the good relations between the French government and the Roman Catholic Church.

Sarkozy, in talks with the pope and a second meeting with the Vatican's secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, discussed themes of "common interest" in France and the "role of religion, in particular the Catholic Church, in the world," the Vatican said.

Before the visit, Sarkozy's spokesman, David Martinon, described the Vatican as "extremely active and influential" in diplomacy.

"It's a partner that counts, and it's a heavyweight ally on a great number of subjects," such as on Lebanon and the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, Martinon said.

The two men held 25 minutes of private talks. Sarkozy then introduced members of his delegation to Benedict, including a priest known for his work with troubled youths and a standup comedian known for his off-color jokes.

The French leader arrived at the Vatican about 15 minutes behind schedule after flying in from Paris. Benedict greeted him outside his study and two men posed for photographers before taking their seats at a desk for their talks.

"Where did you learn your French?" Sarkozy asked Benedict. "In school," the German pope replied.

Sarkozy presented the pope with three books, including one he had written before becoming president on the role of religion in secular France.

After the talks, Sarkozy visited excavations under St. Peter's Basilica.

Sarkozy later visited St. John Lateran Basilica, where he accepted the title of honorary canon.

The title dated back to the kings of France and is one that not all French presidents wanted to accept because of the sensitivities surrounding the separation of church and state.

In a speech at the Basilica, he said that both Christianity and secularism were key elements of French history.

"My presence among you today attests to France's fidelity to its own history and to one of the major sources of its civilization," the president told a group of prelates including the pope's vicar for Rome, Cardinal Camillo Ruini.

Sarkozy drummed up support for his project for a Mediterranean Union in separate talks with Italian Premier Romano Prodi and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

The three leaders issued a joint appeal for increased cooperation in the region, saying the Mediterranean Union "wants to be the heart and engine" of such dialogue.

They announced plans for a summit to be held in Paris July 13-14 gathering countries north and south of the sea, including fellow EU nations.

"It's in the Mediterranean that some of mankind's future will be decided," Sarkozy said at a joint news conference with Prodi and Zapatero. "In the Mediterranean we have to find agreements and put aside hate and destruction."

All leaders insisted the plan, which has drawn some criticism in Europe, would boost ongoing EU dialogue with Mediterranean countries that are not part of the European bloc.

Sarkozy meets with pope at the Vatican (http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=8838521)

The Vatican and Beijing warm up
20/12/2007

The Holy See moves to regain control of the Chinese catholics and rein in the most radicals of the "underground" Church
by Francesco Sisci

The great maneuvers towards the normalization of diplomatic relationships between the Holy See and Beijing are beginning, and Rome looks resolute in resuming control of the Catholic Church in China.

Eight bishops of the “underground” Catholic Church, the one that for decades has been loyal to the Vatican and against the Communist government, are under review and might risk excommunication for having acted against the directions of the Pope’s letter on China issued this past June.

Some bishops in the Gansu and Hebei province, in particular, are at risk for allegedly carrying with ordaining priests without full communication with Rome. The Pope’s letter cancelled the state of emergency of the Chinese Church that was granted in the 1980s because of situation of duress of the local catholic clergy. The state of emergency allowed more freedom of action and initiative to bishops and clergymen, permitting them to ordain bishops and priests of the underground Church without the consent of Rome.

Xinhua reported that on December 18th evening Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Communist Party of China, presided the second plenary politburo meeting after the Congress and it centered on religious issues. Hu gave a positive assessment of religion about its role for a harmonious society and stressed that the Party should pay greater attention in the positive contribution of religion in economic and social development.

Catholics in China are divided into an underground Church, which did not want to register with the state’s organizations, and an official one, organized within the Patriotic Catholic Association (PCA).

According to Chinese catholic sources loyal to the Holy See, the inquiry indicates that the preparation for the normalization of the ties could be quite advanced and the Vatican is working already to shed light on the actual situation of many bishops and priests of the underground Church, which lived for nearly 60 years in a semi-clandestine condition.

The Pope’s letter, however, eliminates this state of emergency, therefore declaring implicitly that there are no more persecutions or communication difficulties with Rome, and offers an important political acknowledgment to the People's Republic of China.

A rapprochement between Rome and Beijing appears also from the ordaining of Beijing’s bishop, Li Shan, in September, who was chosen together by the two parties and the selection of new bishops after that. These appointments are signs that channels between Rome and Beijing are working smoothly.

The inquiry is also connected with to a second aspect of the letter. According to one interpretation of the message, within the Easter period of 2008, the underground Church must come to the open and register with the Chinese authorities.

Some bishops and priests oppose this interpretation. In fact, the issue of official registration is ambiguous as the Holy See does not specify its terms.

Chinese authorities want bishops and priest to register with the Patriotic Association, a semi-governmental body highly controversial for Rome. The Vatican denies any religious role of the PCA, however it is open to admit its civil role.

The Underground Church, who had been confronting officials fro PCA for decades, would want to register directly with the Office of Religious Affairs, the competent government body supervising also the PCA, or not register at all. Here again there are margin of ambiguities as at least in one case, for the district of Fengxian, the bishop was been able to skip the PCA and sign up directly with the local Office of Religious Affairs.

Yet, Beijing may not want to broaden the exceptions. It is an administrative problem: the Patriotic Association enrolls about 10,000 people who might have to find a new role after the normalization and cannot simply be fired.

These people have been loyal to Beijing for decades. They are insiders to the organization of the state, where they have friends and relatives, and the government does not intend to betray them and turn its back to them.

Moreover, Rome’s intention to clarify the situation with the underground Church probably also opens a hot new chapter with the official Church. Some “official” bishops and priests may have grave moral issues, they are rumored to have had wives and sons and daughters.

A final decision on the normalization of the diplomatic relations has not yet been taken. There remains, still, the mutual distrust that generates suspicion on the true intentions of the other part.

Moreover, there are two centers of influence with no interest in normal ties.

From the Chinese government’s side, a wing of the PCA is opposing because it would lose its freedom, it would have to be under stricter review from Beijing and Rome. At the moment, Beijing exercises a mild control over the PCA, and Rome does not exercise any.

Against it is also a part of the underground Church for analogous reasons. Today, adducing the communication difficulties, it answers little to Rome and nothing to Beijing, because it does not recognize its political authority. With the normalization of relationships it should meet demands from both.

Actually, the PCA as such has fully resumed its contacts with Rome, which had been more fragile in past years, and some members of the underground Church have kept in touch with the authorities for a full legalization. Last July, during a government meeting, in the presence of many ministers, the head of PCA Liu Bainian invited the Pope to visit China after the normalization of diplomatic ties.

More time could be necessary in order to create a broad consensus for normalization on the two sides. But there is not much time.

Beijing can have an interest in the establishment of diplomatic relations before the Olympic games, beginning next August 8th. Interest could wane if things were to drag for too long.

The Vatican and Beijing warm up (http://www.lastampa.it/_web/cmstp/tmplrubriche/giornalisti/grubrica.asp?ID_blog=98&ID_articolo=99&ID_sezione=180&sezione=)

Quote from: DreamWeaver on December 20, 2007, 09:31:55 PM

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, dismissed the Christmas story of the Three Wise Men yesterday as nothing but "legend."

There was scant evidence for the Magi, and none at all that there were three of them, or that they were kings, he said. All the evidence that existed was in Matthew’s Gospel. The Archbishop said: "Matthew’s Gospel doesn’t tell us there were three of them, doesn’t tell us they were kings, doesn’t tell us where they came from. It says they are astrologers, wise men, priests from somewhere outside the Roman Empire, that’s all we’re really told." Anything else was legend. "It works quite well as legend," the Archbishop said.

The Archbishop of Canterbury who allegorizes the Christmas Story found in the Bible and calls it a legend is setting the stage for Bible prophecy to be fulfilled.

The fact that the leader of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, can call the Gospel accounts of the Christmas Story a legend says that this major Church leader is willing to forsake the literal interpretation of the Bible accounts of the birth of Christ. In order to say that any part of the birth of Jesus found in Matthew 1 or 2 is a legend states the obvious, the method of interpretation used to come to those conclusions would be the allegorical method and subject to the interpreter's belief, not the Bible as the main source of information.

Though I agree we have no evidence that there were only three wise men, there may well have been three hundred, in any case it is not legend but fact that they came to see the newborn babe who was with His mother Mary, Matthew 2:11. A close study of the account of the priest Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist and when he served at the Temple as recorded in Luke 1 will give absolute evidence that Jesus was indeed born in December. There is a good chance that there might well have been snow, but that report comes from weather history and not a Biblical account. The danger with the claim by the Archbishop of Canterbury that the Story of the Nativity is legend is the method of his interpretation of Scripture, he rejects the literal interpretation of God's Word. This places in danger the literal truth that Jesus who came the first time as prophecy indicated He would, will literally come the second time as foretold by Bible prophecy.

The birth of Jesus Christ as foretold in God's Word is proof
that Bible prophecy will indeed be FULFILLED.

'Gay' plans to target 2-year-olds

5th-grade students could be handed 'Coping With Sexual Orientation'
Posted: December 17, 2007
11:49 p.m. Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

Children as young as two years of age are in the bull's-eye of coming changes in California's school curriculum, which "gay rights" advocates now admit will alter the very foundation of information presented to public school classrooms.

A list of school resources, sponsored by a homosexual-advocacy group called Safe Schools Coalition, suggests that for those who are only two years old, there's "Felicia's Favorite Story," which tells how she was "adopted by her two mothers."

The list also promotes a book called "Are You a Girl or a Boy?" by Karleen Jiminez, a resource for children ages 4-8 when advocating homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism and other alternative lifestyle choices.

It's described as "A sweet book about a gender-different kid."

Other resources being promoted in light of California's adoption of SB 777 as state law include books authored by officials for Planned Parenthood and the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network.

One book, called "Tackling Gay Issues in School," is for kindergarten through grade 12, and offers a "rationale (for the inclusion of les/bi/gay/trans issues in school)." It features recommended "extracurricular" activities for classes.

The promotion of such materials has coincided with the recent admission by Equality California, a homosexual advocacy group that worked to have SB 777 passed by lawmakers and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, that the bill really does edit all school curricula in California.

For months while California lawmakers discussed Senate Bill 777, opponents worried about its usefulness in censoring public school curricula to include a pro-homosexual bias. Supporters, however, steadfastly maintained that it only clarified anti-discrimination laws already on the books. They still hold that stance, with statements this week from both Schwarzenegger's office and Equality California.

Sabrina Lockhart, a spokeswoman for the governor, insisted it is a "technical bill" intended to clarify anti-discriminations laws.

"It simply takes anti-discrimination language used in other areas of [state law] such as employment and puts that in the education code," she said.

And Ali Bay of Equality California told WND the new law "doesn't require that any specific curriculum be included in California's classrooms."

Technically it is correct that the law doesn't "require inclusion." But opponents say it does now ban anything that can be "perceived" as being discriminatory, up to and including references to "mom" and "dad" or "husband" and "wife."

"The terms 'mom and dad' or 'husband and wife' could promote discrimination against homosexuals if a same-sex couple is not also featured," said Meredith Turney, the legislative liaison for Capitol Resource Institute.

"Parents want the assurance that when their children go to school they will learn the fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic – not social indoctrination regarding alternative sexual lifestyles. Now that SB 777 is law, schools will in fact become indoctrination centers for sexual experimentation," she said.

The new law demands, "No teacher shall give instruction nor shall any school district sponsor any activity that promotes a discriminatory bias because of a characteristic [including perceived gender.]"

And Karen England, a spokeswoman for Capital Resource who is a primary organizer behind the Save Our Kids plan to put the issue before voters and ask them to reject it, noted that even Equality California's own materials are assuring constituents the law will ban curriculum that fails to meet the pro-homosexual standard cited.

"All along, Capitol Resource Family Impact has maintained that the true agenda behind SB 777 is to infuse school curriculum with pro-homosexual, and other controversial lifestyles, propaganda. The proponents of the bill countered that this was not true and the law would merely 'streamline' anti-discrimination laws for schools. Based on our 20-year experience with the homosexual lobby, we know that a common tactic is to maintain innocence and then utilize vague language to push a radical agenda. We expected the same of SB 777 and we are already witnessing the same pattern," England said.

"Last week the sponsor of SB 777, homosexual rights group Equality California, released their 2007 legislative scorecard. The scorecard featured a description of the each of the bills the group sponsored or considered homosexual-friendly," she said.

"For the first time, the group admitted that SB 777 'prohibits curriculum that is discriminatorily biased against LGBT people.' Understand that the entire time the group was pushing this bill through the legislature, they vehemently denied that it would affect curriculum. After the bill had passed, they now reveal their true agenda," England said.

The report card specifically said SB 777 "prohibits curriculum that is discriminatorily biased against LGBT people and other protected groups."

"In fact, SB 777 will affect curriculum and public education programs. The proponents lied to lawmakers and to the public," England said.

"One website features curriculum programs for teachers to use in introducing 'homosexual history' to their students as young as 5," she said.

Among titles now being recommended for use in public schools is "A Family Counting Book," intended specifically for those students in pre-kindergarten who are yet learning to count, she noted.

The recommended resources address "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender issues that schools are encouraged to have in their collection. All of these are suitable for classroom and library use to address the prescribed learning outcomes … or any effort to make your school a (sic) affirming space for all students, staff, and families," according to the website.

Another "resource" is about "A 10-year-old [who] asks her lesbian grandmother a heartwarming question," "What's a lesbian?"

Others feature stories about a boy who makes a card for his mother "and her partner" for Mother's Day, and another for "pre-kindergarten" is a coloring book called "Beach Party with Alexis" which is described as "a super story with people of color and gay/lesbian parents."

For older children, such as those in fifth grade, there's a book called "Coping With … Your Sexual Orientation" and it is "especially designed for the public school system."

For those as young as age 3, there's "The Different Dragon," which "shows how the wonderful curiosity and care of a little boy, along with some help from one of his moms, leads to magical and unexpected places …"

There also are offered several elementary school "lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender" lesson plans, produced by the Buena Vista Lesbian and Gay Parents Group, among others.

Rounding out the multimedia offerings are videos such as "Different and the Same," a series of nine videos which is described as good, but not great because none of the videos specifically condemns "homophobia."

GLSEN also has produced another resource, "Tackling Gay Issues in Schools," substantiating the "rationale" for including such teachings in California classrooms.

"Tolerance education is an important first step, but we need to push further," the instructions said. "Infuse LGBTQ curriculum into history, social science, and literature classes," is the organization's plan.

As a result, spokeswoman Denise Kanter told WND that her group is sending out 5,000 DVD packages to churches around the state that include basic "how-to" information to provide parents a direction to turn when they choose to protect their children from the new school agenda.

Another group's website, Discover Christian Schools, has been getting almost 4,000 visits per day as parents seek alternatives, co-founder Harold Naylor Jr. said.

Besides the referendum being pursued by England's organization, WND also has reported on work by the non-profit Advocates for Faith and Freedom to file a lawsuit challenging a SB 777.

Choir drops 'Christmas' from carol

Teachers' Decision; Children to sing: 'Soon it will be festive day'

Tony Lofaro, CanWest News Service Published: Thursday, December 20, 2007

OTTAWA -- One of the more popular Christmas songs is getting a slight retooling by an Ottawa elementary school choir so as not to offend any students.

The teachers leading the Elmdale Public School choir -- made up of Grade 2 and 3 students -- have dropped the word Christmas from Silver Bells and replaced it with the word "festive."

So, when the choir performs the song tomorrow at a singalong assembly, instead of singing the line "soon it will be Christmas day" they will say "soon it will be a festive day."

This bit of revisionist tinkering of a favourite Christmas tune is not sitting well with one parent whose eight-year-old daughter is in the school choir.

"I think it is a silly thing to do," said Betty Clark, about the decision by the choir directors to change the song's lyrics.

She said it's a "shame" the lyric to a traditional Christmas song sung by many people at this time of year was changed to take on a more generic tone.

"It's a sad comment on the state of society today that we do this kind of thing," she said.

Although she said the altering of the lyric was troubling, Ms. Clark has decided not to pull her daughter out of the concert.

"My daughter loves the choir," she said.

Silver Bells is one of four Christmas songs being performed by the choir of 70 students, although it's the only song that has been altered, said principal Paula Marinigh.

The other songs in the musical program are Candles of Hanukkah, Candles of Christmas; Pere Noel and It's Christmas generally reflect the feelings about the holiday season, as well as the themes of Hanukkah and Christmas, she said.

"The choir teachers are trying to be as inclusive as they can be because not everybody is celebrating either Christmas or Hanukkah," Ms. Marinigh said.

The initiative for the lyric change came from the teachers and was not something imposed by the school board, she said.

"They [teachers] wanted to have a song that emphasized the holiday spirit, so they just changed the Silver Bells song to reflect a more generic flavour."

She said she supports the teachers' decision to alter the song, saying their intent in this case was not a problem.

"The idea in public schools is that everybody feels welcome and has a sense of comfort with the celebrations. I think it's being sensitive to not only the students in the choir, but also to the general population," she said.

Choir drops 'Christmas' from carol (http://www.nationalpost.com/most_popular/story.html?id=181191)

Media's two-faced Christmas coverage

Muslims driving Christians out of Bethlehem, but media outlets choose to blame Israel

Aaron Klein
Published: 12.24.07, 15:06
Israel Opinion

Ah, Christmas in Bethlehem. Manger Square is ablaze with colorful lights. The weather is usually a bit chilly. Aggressive merchants bombard passersby with “special sales” on all kinds of cedar wood statues and religious carvings.

And like clockwork, the mainstream media descend upon this city every year to ignore rampant Muslim intimidation of Christians and instead blast Israel - often with completely inaccurate information - for ruining Christmas and for the drastic decline of Christianity in one of the holiest cities for that religion.

Take a widely circulated piece by McClatchy Newspapers writers Dion Nissenbaum and Cliff Churgin.

The piece, published last week, cites Bethlehem's dwindling Christian population and paints a picture that squarely blames Israel.

"For generations, the Holy Land Arts Museum (in Bethlehem) has been selling olivewood manger scenes to thousands of pilgrims wanting souvenirs from the biblical birthplace of Jesus," starts the piece.

"Gone is the olivewood stable shielding the baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph. In its place, looming over the angelic family, are an Israeli watchtower and three towering sections of an adjoining wall."

Outright lying, the McClatchy Newspapers piece stated Bethlehem "remains largely isolated from the outside world by Israel’s 25-foot-tall concrete walls, part of Israel’s separation barrier."

The piece implied the wall caused the crash of Bethlehem's economy and prompted Christians to flee. Similar articles were churned out by Reuters, the BBC online and scores of local newspapers.

ABC News, for example, chimes in: "The (Israeli) wall has cast a shadow over this famous West Bank town."

Now let's get our facts straight. Bethlehem is not surrounded by any wall.

Israel in 2002 built a fence in the area where northern Bethlehem interfaces with Jerusalem. A tiny segment of that barrier, facing a major Israeli roadway, is a concrete wall, which Israel says is meant to prevent gunmen from shooting at Israeli motorists.

The fence was constructed after the outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada, or terror war, launched in 2000 after late PLO Leader Yasser Arafat turned down an Israeli offer of a Palestinian state, returning to the Middle East to liberate Palestine with violence.

Scores of deadly suicide bombings and shooting attacks against Israelis were planned in Bethlehem and carried out by Bethlehem-area terrorists.

At one point during the period of just 30 days in 2002, at least 14 shootings were perpetuated by Bethlehem cells of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorists, killing two Israelis and wounding six.

Many times Muslim gunmen in the Bethlehem area reportedly took positions in civilian homes in the hilltops of Christian Beit Jala, which straddles Bethlehem. Beit Jala afforded the terrorists a clear firing line at southern sections of Jerusalem and at a major Israeli highway down below, drawing Israeli military raids and the eventual building of the security barrier there.

Is this barrier causing Bethlehem's Christians to flee, as the mainstream media claim?

Rampant land confiscation

Simple demographic facts will answer this question. Israel built the barrier five years ago. But Bethlehem's Christian population started to drastically decline in 1995, the very year Arafat's Palestinian Authority took over the holy Christian city in line with the US-backed Oslo Accords.

Bethlehem consisted of upwards of 80 percent Christians when Israel was founded in 1948, but since Arafat got his grimy hands on it, the city's Christian population dove to its current 23-percent. And that statistic is considered generous since it includes the satellite towns of Beit Sahour and Beit Jala. Some estimates place Bethlehem's actual Christian population at as low as 12 percent, with hundreds of Christians emigrating per year.

As soon as he took over Bethlehem, Arafat unilaterally fired the city’s Christian politicians and replaced them with Muslim cronies. He appointed a Muslim governor, Muhammed Rashad A-Jabar and deposed of Bethlehem’s city council, which had nine Christians and two Muslims, reducing the number of Christians councilors to a 50-50 split.

Arafat then converted a Greek Orthodox monastery next to the Church of Nativity, the believed birthplace of Jesus, into his official Bethlehem residence.

Suddenly after the Palestinians gained the territory, reports of Christian intimidation by Muslims began to surface.

Christian leaders and residents told me they face an atmosphere of regular hostility. They said Palestinian armed groups stir tension by holding militant demonstrations and marches in the streets. They spoke of instances in which Christian shopkeepers' stores were ransacked and Christian homes attacked.

They said in the past, Palestinian gunmen fired at Israelis from Christian hilltop communities, drawing Israeli anti-terror raids to their towns.

In 2002, dozens of terrorists holed up inside the Church of the Nativity for 39 days while fleeing a massive Israeli anti-terror operation. Israel surrounded the church area but refused to storm the structure. Gunmen inside included wanted senior Hamas, Tanzim and Brigades terrorists reportedly involved in suicide bombings and shooting attacks.

More than 200 nuns and priests were trapped in the church after Israeli hostage negotiators failed to secure their release.

Some Christian leaders said one of the most significant problems facing Christians in Bethlehem is the rampant confiscation of land by Muslim gangs.

"There are many cases where Christians have their land stolen by the (Muslim) mafia," said Samir Qumsiyeh, a Bethlehem Christian leader and owner of the Beit Sahour-based private al-Mahd (Nativity) TV station.

"It is a regular phenomenon in Bethlehem. They go to a poor Christian person with a forged power of attorney document, then they say we have papers proving you're living on our land. If you confront them, many times the Christian is beaten. You can't do anything about it. The Christian loses and he runs away," Qumsiyeh told WND, speaking from his hilltop television station during a recent interview.

Qumsiyeh himself said he was targeted by Islamic gangs. He said his home was firebombed after he returned from a trip abroad during which he gave public speeches outlining the plight of Bethlehem's Christian population.

One Christian Bethlehem resident told WND her friend recently fled Bethlehem after being accused by Muslims of selling property to Jews, a crime punishable by death in some Palestinian cities. The resident said a good deal of the intimidation comes from gunmen associated with PA President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization.

A February Jerusalem Post article cited the case of Faud and Georgette Lama, Christian residents of Bethlehem who said their land was stolen by local Muslims and when they tried to do something about it, Faud was beaten by gunmen.

One religious novelty-store owner I met recently told me Muslim gangs regularly deface Christian property.

“We are harassed but you wouldn’t know the truth. No one says anything publicly about the Muslims. This is why Christians are running away.”

What? Muslim persecution is driving the Christians out of Bethlehem? One would never know that from the Christmas coverage/annual Israel bash-fest by my "colleagues" in the media.

Media's two-faced Christmas coverage (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3486144,00.html)

Pope's exorcist squads will wage war on Satan
By NICK PISA
29th December 2007

The Pope has ordered his bishops to set up exorcism squads to tackle the rise of Satanism.

Vatican chiefs are concerned at what they see as an increased interest in the occult.

They have introduced courses for priests to combat what they call the most extreme form of "Godlessness."

Each bishop is to be told to have in his diocese a number of priests trained to fight demonic possession.

The initiative was revealed by 82-year-old Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican "exorcistinchief," to the online Catholic news service Petrus.

"Thanks be to God, we have a Pope who has decided to fight the Devil head-on," he said.

"Too many bishops are not taking this seriously and are not delegating their priests in the fight against the Devil. You have to hunt high and low for a properly trained exorcist.

"Thankfully, Benedict XVI believes in the existence and danger of evil - going back to the time he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." The CDF is the oldest Vatican department and was headed by Benedict from 1982, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, until he became Pope in 2005.

Father Amorth said that during his time at the department Benedict had not lost the chance to warn humanity of the risk from the Devil.

He said the Pope wants to restore a prayer seen as protection against evil that was traditionally recited at the end of Catholic Masses. The prayer, to St Michael the Archangel, was dropped in the 1960s by Pope John XXIII.

"The prayer is useful not only for priests but also for lay people in helping to fight demons," he said.

Father Paolo Scarafoni, who lectures on the Vatican's exorcism course, said interest in Satanism and the occult has grown as people lost faith with the church.

He added: "People suffer and think that turning to the Devil can help solve their problems. We are being bombarded by requests for exorcisms."

The Vatican is particularly concerned that young people are being exposed to the influence of Satanic sects through rock music and the Internet.

In theory, under the Catholic Church's Canon Law 1172, all priests can perform exorcisms. But in reality only a select few are assigned the task.

Under the law, practitioners must have "piety, knowledge, prudence, and integrity of life."

The rite of exorcism involves a series of gestures and prayers to invoke the power of God and stop the "demon" influencing its victim.

Pope's exorcist squads will wage war on Satan (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=504969&in_page_id=1811)

It's like they have to come up with some new sensational thing to do every week. If not, people would lose interest and they wouldn't be needed. And of course, whatever they come up with, it requires them to be the only ones who can do anything about it, therefore they need to be obeyed.

A warning for those taking on the casting out of demons.

Acts 19:13-16 Then some of the traveling Jewish exorcists (men who adjure evil spirits) also undertook to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, I solemnly implore and charge you by the Jesus Whom Paul preaches! 14 Seven sons of a certain Jewish chief priest named Sceva were doing this. 15 But [one] evil spirit retorted, Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you? 16 Then the man in whom the evil spirit dwelt leaped upon them, mastering two of them, and was so violent against them that they dashed out of that house [in fear], stripped naked and wounded.

I don't remember this guy speaking out against terrorism as American heads and others were being loped off and video taped for entertainment. What I do remember is this guy chastising the U.S. about Gitmo and protesting capital punishment in the U.S. for true monsters, that earned it and other things like that.

You don't have to be a member of God's eternal family to turn on the news or read the headlines.

But remember, it says in the Holy Book that due to this increase in wickedness, the love of many will grow cold...... Let's try to remember this as we not only talk our talk, but walk our walk. There are alot of depressed, lonely, scared people out there in this crazy world and I'm sure alot of them are being messed-with spiritually.

I pray that they will never rely on man's attempt at fixing them, but is lead Through the Spirit, and possibly with the help of believers shining their light, to Him. There, they will find peace and rest. It sure ain't available in this world!!

Police say Alabama shrimper threw his 4 children off bridge

By GARRY MITCHELL
Associated Press

BAYOU LA BATRE, Ala. — A day after reporting his four young children were missing, a shrimp fisherman broke down and confessed that he threw them off an 80-foot-high bridge to their deaths, authorities said Wednesday.

Lam Luong, 37, was charged with four counts of capital murder, and divers searched the murky waters for the bodies of the youngsters, who ranged in age from a few months to 3 years.

Luong had a drug habit and had argued with his wife, Ngoc Phan, before taking the children, said Phan's brother-in-law, Kam Phengsisomboun.

Authorities said they believe Luong drove on Monday to the two-lane Dauphin Island bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway, stopped at the highest part of the span and threw the youngsters over the side.

Luong reported the children missing Monday, initially telling police that a woman who had the youngsters failed to return them, authorities said.

Missing and presumed dead were 4-month-old Danny Luong; 1-year-old Lindsey Luong; 2-year-old Hannah Luong; and 3-year-old Ryan Phan. Phan is not the man's biological child, but Luong raised him from infancy, authorities said.

About 70 people in boats and helicopters searched water up to 55 feet deep. The search area covered 100 square miles because the current might have swept the children away, Sheriff Sam Cochran said.

Luong was scheduled to appear in court Thursday. District Attorney John Tyson said he did not believe Luong had a lawyer.

Luong came to Alabama from Vietnam in 1984 and worked as a shrimper, Phengsisomboun said. The couple lived with Phan's mother at Bayou La Batre, a fishing village 20 miles southwest of Mobile with a large Southeast Asian community.

Phengsisomboun said the couple had recently moved back to the area from Hinesville, Ga.

They argued Sunday night and again Monday, and Luong left the home with two of the children, then later came back for the other two, the brother-in-law said. Phengsisomboun said he did not know what the couple argued about.

The family initially feared he had traded the children to support his drug habit, Phengsisomboun said. Luong had a crack habit and had run through an insurance settlement from an auto accident, he said. Authorities in Mobile confirmed Luong had a history of drug abuse but had no details.

He was arrested in October in Hinesville on a crack-possession charge.

Phengsisomboun said he was later told by investigators that a witness had seen someone throw a bundle from the bridge and then saw three children in a nearby car.

Phan, 23, was in seclusion Wednesday morning at her mother's brick home, the front porch cluttered with children's shoes.

Police say Alabama shrimper threw his 4 children off bridge (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/5439930.html)

I know PR has probably posted this in Political sub-forum, but this is also Immoral........
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Court Ends Bible Distribution in School

By JIM SALTER
The Associated Press
Wednesday, January 9, 2008; 2:48 PM

ST. LOUIS -- A rural school district's long-standing practice of allowing the distribution of Bibles to grade school students is unconstitutional, a federal judge has ruled.

An attorney for the southeastern Missouri school district said Wednesday he will appeal the judge's injunction against the practice.

For more than three decades, the South Iron School District in Annapolis, 120 miles southwest of St. Louis in the heart of the Bible Belt, allowed representatives of Gideons International to give away Bibles in fifth-grade classrooms.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit two years ago on behalf of four sets of parents. In August, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a temporary injunction against the practice.

The district altered its policy, saying the Gideons and others were still welcome to distribute Bibles or other literature before or after school or during lunch break, but not in classrooms.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry ruled both practices were illegal and granted a permanent injunction.

The purpose of both practices "is the promotion of Christianity by distributing Bibles to elementary school students," Perry wrote. "The policy has the principle or primary effect of advancing religion by conveying a message of endorsement to elementary school children."

Mathew Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based law group that represented the school district, said he would appeal.

"I think the current policy creates an open forum that allows secular as well as religious persons or groups to access the forum to distribute information," Staver said. "The court has clearly misread the First Amendment and the cases regarding free speech."

The parents who sued are Christian but believe religious beliefs should be taught in the home, not school, said Anthony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri.

The South Iron district has about 500 students in the grade school and South Iron High School.

Superintendent Brad Crocker was out of the office Wednesday and did not respond to a call seeking comment.

Gideons International, based in Nashville, Tenn., distributes Bibles in more than 80 languages and 180 countries, according to its Web site. A spokesman did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Court Ends Bible Distribution in School (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/09/AR2008010902166_pf.html)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is just another move towards removing God from our land. I pity those that have cast the vote to stop handing out Bibles, to remove God from the United States of America.

Dad Sodomized Teen Stepson to Avenge Rape of Daughter

Saturday , January 12, 2008

FORT WORTH, Texas —
A father sodomized his 18-year-old stepson to avenge the teenager's alleged rape of the man's 8-year-old daughter, police said.

The father, 32, turned himself into to authorities on Friday and was released from jail Saturday after posting a $17,500 bond. He faces a charge of aggravated sexual assault.

The stepson was arrested Jan. 2 and charged with suspicion of aggravated sexual assault. Police say the father caught him assaulting his daughter, and a subsequent examination at a hospital revealed the girl had been sodomized.

Sgt. Cheryl Johnson, supervisor of the Fort Worth sex crimes unit, said in a story posted Saturday on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Web site that people need to "allow the criminal justice system to work for them."

"This is a very unique case, but we have a criminal justice system in place, and no one can take the law into their own hands," Johnson said.

The Star-Telegram didn't identify the father or the stepson to protect the identity of the girl. Fort Worth police didn't immediately return phone and e-mail messages from The Associated Press.

When the stepson was arrested, the man warned his wife not to get the teenager out of jail. She posted bond for the teen's release. When he called home Jan. 3 after getting released, the father took the call and picked him up, police said.

Instead of taking the teenager home, the Arlington man drove to an abandoned house in Fort Worth, beat his stepson with a baseball bat and sodomized him with a metal tool, police said.

After the man left, the stepson found a pay phone and called police, who searched the abandoned home.

"We did find evidence at the scene to corroborate our victim's story," Johnson said.

Dad Sodomized Teen Stepson to Avenge Rape of Daughter (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,322386,00.html)

Benedict XVI "Opens Heaven" for 13 Babies

Pope Imparts Sacrament on Feast of Christ

VATICAN CITY, JAN. 13, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI baptized 13 babies, giving them the sacrament that he said opened heaven for them.

Amid the crying of eight baby girls and five baby boys resounding in the Sistine Chapel, the Pope expressed his joy at imparting the first sacrament of Christian life to the newborns, "one of the most expressive moments of our faith."

In his homily for the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, the Holy Father reflected on the "mystery of life": of the human life represented here by the newborns and the divine life that God gives to the baptized.

The children's parents, employees of Vatican City, were accompanied by the babies' godparents and a small group of relatives.

Noting Michelangelo's paintings in the chapel, the Pontiff spoke of "the experience of life and what is opposed to it, namely, the reality of death."

He said: "In baptism, the little human being receives a new life, the life of grace, which makes him capable of entering into a personal relationship with the Creator, and this forever, for all eternity.

"Unfortunately, man is capable of snuffing out this new life with his sin, closing himself up in a situation that sacred Scripture calls ‘second death.'

"While in the other creatures, who are not called to eternal life, death means only the end of existence on earth; in us, sin creates a precipice that we run the risk of falling from forever, unless the Father who is in heaven takes us by his hand."

God's hand

This is the mystery of baptism, Benedict XVI explained: "God wanted to save us by going himself into the very depths of the abyss of death so that every man, even he who has fallen so deep into the abyss as to no longer see heaven, can find the hand of God by which he can climb back up out of the darkness to see the light again for which he is made.

"All of us feel, all of us interiorly perceive that our existence is a desire for life that invokes a fullness, a salvation. This fullness of life is given to us by baptism."

Turning to the babies' parents, the Pope said, "Certainly to grow healthy and strong, these children will need material care and much attention; but what will be more necessary for them, indeed indispensable, is to know, love and faithfully serve God, to have eternal life."

The Holy Father celebrated the Eucharist at the ancient altar placed against the wall beneath the painting of the Last Judgment, instead of on the platform with an added altar "so as not to alter the beauty and harmony of this architectural jewel," a Vatican note explained.

That placement of the altar, added the note, implied that in some moments the Pope "had his back to the faithful and his gaze upon the cross, orienting the attitude and disposition of the whole assembly in this way," though he did not use the 1962 missal.

Benedict XVI "Opens Heaven" for 13 Babies (http://www.zenit.org/article-21487?l=english)

Hello DreamWeaver,

Brother Bob, everything does appear to be rapidly shifting toward HUMANISM and away from GOD. Things are becoming so obvious now that they don't even look good on the surface. Mankind can't give us anything except things like POLITICS, and we all know how wonderful that is. SALVATION and SPIRITUAL RICHES can only be found in CHRIST! The stark CONTRAST between man and GOD has never been so OBVIOUS! For the things that are false, glory goes to man. For the things that are TRUE, ALL GLORY GOES TO GOD! - none to man! This has become one of the least complicated and easiest ways to identify the FALSE. Step two is agreement with the teachings of the HOLY BIBLE - GOD'S WORD.

Brothers and Sisters, we live in a day and age where false doctrines and cults receive more attention than the TRUTH! Many people are easily lead astray, especially the lost. This is very sad, and the only way I know to combat it is to tell the blunt TRUTH! The world needs JESUS CHRIST. JESUS CHRIST is the LIGHT, and there is NO darkness in HIM. We place our faith, trust, and HOPE in JESUS CHRIST - not men! JESUS CHRIST is worthy of our complete trust because HE is TRUTH, keeps HIS Promises Perfectly, and NEVER FAILS! We shouldn't need to state the OBVIOUS, but let's do: mankind is the opposite and worthy of NOTHING! So, we can remember two words and keep things simple: ONLY CHRIST! Everything else we need at the core of our lives involves HIS HOLY NAME!

Love In Christ,
Tom

GOOD NEWS!

Thanks be unto GOD for HIS unspeakable GIFT!, JESUS CHRIST, our Lord and Saviour forever!

Relatives of victims of Beslan siege go on trial

· Women had accused Putin of complicity in deaths
· Kremlin 'using extremism law to silence critics'

Tom Parfitt in Moscow
Monday January 14, 2008
The Guardian

A group of women whose relatives were killed in the Beslan school siege are to go on trial in Russia today after they accused President Vladimir Putin of complicity in the deaths.

The Voice of Beslan group has been charged with "extremism" over an appeal to politicians in Europe and the US which implied that Putin assisted terrorists.

The prosecution was launched under legislation introduced last year which civil rights activists warned could be used to attack critics of the Kremlin.

Article continues
More than 1,000 people were taken hostage during the siege in 2004, when militants seized a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, a region bordering Chechnya. The three-day stand-off with security forces ended in a bloodbath when two explosions destroyed part of the school gymnasium and provoked a gun battle. A total of 334 people died, more than half of them children.

No senior official was put on trial, despite numerous witnesses testifying that the rescue attempt was a shambles. An investigation by federal MPs found the militants were at fault for all the deaths.

Relatives of the dead and some local politicians insist security forces fired on the gymnasium before it was fully evacuated. The Voice of Beslan said in its release that Putin was "a president who solves his problems with tanks and flame-throwers". He had become a "guarantor for criminals", it added. Prosecutors, who claimed they found the appeal during routine monitoring of the internet, said the accusations were unlawful.

Voice of Beslan has led a campaign to get security service officials charged over the siege. Last year members of the group erected a sign pointing at the ruins of the Beslan school reading "Putin's Course".

Emma Tagaeva, the chairman of Voice of Beslan, described the prosecution as "an order from Moscow", in revenge for the group's struggle for justice. In a letter to Putin asking him to halt today's prosecution, she wrote: "We consider you guilty of the deaths of our children but does that represent a manifestation of extremism? Will it bring honour to the law enforcement organs to accuse the victims of a terrible tragedy of extremism?"

Human rights activists have spoken out against the trial. Lyudmila Alekseeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said: "This is all happening because Voice of Beslan is making every effort so that the investigation into the deaths of such a huge number of children and adults doesn't go quiet. That's why the might of the state, the court system and administrative methods are being used to battle against these unfortunate women who lost their children."

The law was amended in 2006 to expand the definition of extremist activity to include public slander of a government official while performing his duties. Critics said the changes would be used by the Kremlin to silence opponents. Under Russian law a person who publishes extremist literature can be jailed for up to three years.

Lev Ponomaryov, head of the For Human Rights movement, said: "If this approach to the problem of extremism is taken, then every opposition figure in Russia could be charged."

Relatives of victims of Beslan siege go on trial (http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2240307,00.html)

Audio reports

06.09.04: Nick Paton Walsh reports from Beslan, North Ossetia (http://stream.guardian.co.uk:7080/ramgen/sys-audio/Guardian/audio/2004/09/06/060904walsh.ra)

03.09.04: Nick Paton Walsh reports from Beslan, North Ossetia (http://stream.guardian.co.uk:7080/ramgen/sys-audio/Guardian/audio/2004/09/03/030904PatonWalsh.ra)

News reports

06.09.2004: Bombers' justification: Russians are killing our children (http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,1298075,00.html)

06.09.2004: Russia mourns Beslan's dead (http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,1298245,00.html)

04.09.2004: Bloodbath: up to 200 die as siege ends in mayhem (http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,1297199,00.html)

AUSTRIAN POLITICIAN MAY FACE JAIL TIME FOR TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT ISLAM

Right wing Austrian politician, Susan Winter, is being censured by dhimmis for telling the truth about Islam.

1.) It is true that Mohammed married a 6 year old little girl.

2.) It is true that many muslim men have a propensity for child abuse - one recent example is cited but search the web and you will find a MANY more-worldwide.

True to form the other politician were quick to jump all over Winter and denounce her (fact based) words - so heavily is dhimmification in Austria as well as the majority of Europe. The other typical response is for muslim leaders( to completely ignore the truth) and to immediately begin the "Call to Whine" about supposed Islamophobia and how mistreated they are by Europeans -- even though it has been proven that Islamophobia is a fabrication and there is NO anti-muslim backlash in Europe. (It should be noted that the numbers of muslims will overtake Austrian Protestants by 2010 another indication that muslims are exceptionally well treated in Europe to the point that Europe is being Islamicized.)

Hate crime legislation is being used repeatedly to silence any and all dissenters who speak out against the Islamization of Europe. Freedom of speech and the acknowledgement of truth, in Europe, is under assault by dhimmi politicians & multiculturalists who refuse to accept the facts that their errant ideology is destroying Europe.

Austrian authorities investigate Islam-bashing by rightist lawmaker

Jan 14, 2008, 11:59 GMT

Vienna - Remarks by a right-wing politician denouncing Islam and accusing the Prophet Mohammed of having been a paedophile provoked widespread outrage in Austria on Monday, with authorities investigating whether they constituted hate speech.

Susanne Winter, a candidate for the Freedom Party in local elections in Graz in south-eastern Austria, said on Sunday that Mohammed's marriage to a 6-year-old girl would make the prophet a 'paedophile in today's system.'

Speaking at a rally, Winter demanded that Islam should be 'thrown back where it came from, beyond the Mediterranean Sea.'

Winter later justified her attacks. 'There is widespread child abuse by Muslim men,' she was quoted as saying by the newspaper Oesterreich.

'Why can't I say this? That has nothing to do with hate speech. We want neither Austrian nor foreign paedophiles. I did not want to incite hatred, or offend a religious community,' she said.

Austria's authorities were investigating whether Winter's remarks constituted incitement to hatred, a spokesman from the prosecutor's office said. If found guilty, Winter could face up to two years in prison.

Politicians from all other factions sharply denounced Winter's remarks and called for her resignation.

Muslim representatives in Austria criticized the remarks. Omar al- Rawi, a spokesman for Austria's Muslim community, slammed the lack of respect shown by the right-wing politician.

Attacks against Islam had reached a level that 'made one's stomach turn,' al-Rawi said.

Graz will elect a local government on January 20. In the 2006 general elections the Freedom Party received 13 per cent of the vote.

The affair is reminiscent of the controversy over cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, published in a Danish newspaper in September 2005 that later caused international protests, resulting in a number of deaths.

AUSTRIAN POLITICIAN MAY FACE JAIL TIME FOR TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT ISLAM (http://theopinionator.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/01/austrian-politi.html)
~~~~~~~~~

We need to pray for Susan Winter for telling the truth!!

Quote from: DreamWeaver on January 15, 2008, 02:11:40 PM

If someone goes to jail for telling the TRUTH, let's ALL tell the TRUTH and go to jail - AND KEEP TELLING THE TRUTH OVER AND OVER AGAIN!

1st animal-human embryo trials to go ahead
UK approves research teams to carry out controversial work

Experiments to create Britain’s first embryos that merge human and animal material will begin within months after a Government watchdog today approved two research teams to carry out the controversial work.

Scientists at King’s College London and the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne will now inject human DNA into empty eggs from cows, to create embryos known as cytoplasmic hybrids that are 99.9 per cent human in genetic terms.

The experiments are intended to provide insights into diseases such as Parkinson’s and spinal muscular atrophy by producing stem cells containing genetic defects that contribute to these conditions.

These will be used as cell models for investigating new approaches to treatment and for improving understanding of how embryonic stem cells develop. They will not be used in therapy, and it is illegal to implant them into the womb.

The decision by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to grant one-year licences to both teams ends more than a year of uncertainty for the researchers, who first applied for permission to start the work in the autumn of 2006.

Last January the authority deferred a decision and launched a consultation on the issue, which reported in September that the public was broadly supportive. In late November it again delayed ruling because of concerns about procedures for obtaining consent from the donors of the human DNA to be used.

While the HFEA was deliberating, the Government first proposed a ban on the creation of human-animal embryos, also known as “cybrids”, then backtracked after a revolt by scientists.

The creation of human-animal embryos will be explicitly permitted by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill currently passing through Parliament, subject to HFEA licensing. An amendment that would have blocked such research was defeated in the House of Lords on Monday by a majority of 172.

Stephen Minger, who leads the King’s team, said yesterday he was delighted that he would finally be able to start the experiments. “I am pleased that the HFEA has finally after a year and a half realised the importance that the work that we and the group from Newcastle have been licensed for,” he said.

“I am grateful to the scientific community, patient organisations and disease charities for all of the support we have received over the past 18 months. Their backing has been invaluable. This shows that the scientific community can be involved in and influence government policy.”

Lyle Armstrong, who leads the Newcastle group, said: “The award of the HFEA licence is great news. We initially applied for approval to use cow eggs as a means to understand the way they can convert skin cells into embryonic stem cells. Finding better ways to make human embryonic stem cells is the long-term objective of our work and understanding reprogramming is central to this.

“Cow eggs seem to be every bit as good at doing this job as human eggs so it makes sense to use them since they are much more readily available, but it is important to stress that we will only use them as a scientific tool and we need not worry about cells derived from them ever being used to treat human diseases.”

The HFEA has attached conditions to each of the one-year licences but these are not expected to be a barrier to either research project.

The Newcastle group has been asked to provide patient consent forms and to obtain approval from the university’s ethics committee before working with DNA from donated skin cells but it has been cleared to start work immediately using DNA from the UK Stem Cell Bank.

It had originally proposed to use human tissue from a commercial US bank but this was rejected because the donors had not given explicit consent for their cells to be used for making cloned embryos that would be destroyed in experiments.

The King’s licence requires Professor Minger to complete an HFEA training course, which is a formality as he has previously held similar licences. It also requires approval from a local ethics committee before work can begin, which is expected to be granted now the HFEA has ruled positively.

Some critics of cybrid embryos have argued that their use is no longer necessary, given the recent development of a reprogramming technique that can turn back the clock on adult tissue to make “induced pluripotent” stem cells with embryo-like properties, but the HFEA licence committee rejected this.

“The committee considered the emergence of new technologies for reprogramming adult somatic [non-reproductive] cells and agreed that, while very promising, these new technologies do not obviate the need for the basic research into differentiation of pluripotential embryonic stem cells as proposed in this application,” it said.

The decision was welcomed by independent stem cell expertts. Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, of the National Institute for Medical Research in London, said: “The HFEA’s decision is excellent as it adds to the arsenal of techniques UK scientists can use to provide understanding and eventually develop therapies for a wide range of devastating genetic diseases.

“The cloning method allows a patient’s cells to be reprogrammed back into early embryos from which valuable embryonic stem cells can be isolated, and it is the latter that will be studied. While scientists may prefer to use human eggs, these are in short supply and preference should rightly be for their use in treating infertility.

“It is logical to use animal eggs to refine techniques, provide knowledge of reprogramming and early development, and understanding of disease mechanisms. Furthermore, while there are new methods of reprogramming adult cells back to pluripotent embryonic stem-like cells, namely induced pluripotent stem cells, it is important to pursue all avenues as we cannot know in advance which will succeed. Besides, a comparative approach often reveals the most.”

Ethical storm as scientist clones himself
Creates embryo copies by placing his skin cells in woman's egg

A scientist has achieved a world first... by cloning himself.

In a breakthrough certain to provoke an ethical furore, Samuel Wood created embryo copies of himself by placing his skin cells in a woman's egg.

The embryos were the first to be made from cells taken from adult humans.

Although they survived for only five days and were smaller than a pinhead, they are seen as a milestone in the quest for treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

But critics fear the technology could be exploited by mavericks to clone babies and accused the scientists of reducing the miracle of human life to a factory of spare parts.

Researchers from the Californian stem cell research company Stemagen employed the same technique used to make Dolly the sheep, the world's first cloned mammal, to create the embryos.

They took eggs donated by young women having IVF and replaced genetic material with DNA from the skin cells of two men.

The eggs were then zapped with an electric current to induce fertilisation and the creation of embryos.

Some of the skin cells came from Dr Wood, Stemagen's chief executive officer and a leading fertility specialist, while the others came from another member of staff.

The result was a handful of embryos, at least three of them clones of Dr Wood and the other man.

Although all were destroyed in the process, the technique is seen as a vital step in the creation of cloned embryos rich in stem cells, which are "master cells" capable of becoming any type of body tissue.

Such stem cells could be invaluable in the study of diseases and the testing of drugs.

They could ultimately be used to replace the damaged tissues behind diseases from Alzheimer's to diabetes.

Stem cells taken from cloned embryos would be a perfect match to the patient, whose body would not reject them.

Dr Wood, who has degrees in medicine, psychology, biochemistry and molecular biophysics, called the research "a critical milestone" in the development of treatments.

The unmarried father of two, who is in his forties, is working on extracting stem cells from such embryos - a process that inevitably leads to the death of the embryo.

John Smeaton, of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said: "We have got scientists wandering around in an ethical wilderness, forgetting about matters of justice relating to our fellow human beings.

"We have people creating human beings with the intention of destroying them. That's appalling."

And the Vatican condemned the cloning of human embryos, calling it the "worst type of exploitation of the human being".

"This ranks among the most morally illicit acts, ethically speaking," said Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Vatican department that helps oversee the Church's position on bioethics issues.

Stem cell experts gave the U.S. breakthrough, published in the journal Stem Cells, a cautious welcome.

Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, of the Medical Research Council's National Institute for Medical Research, said: "This is another step along what has turned out to be a tortuous road.

"However, it is still a long way from the goal of achieving embryonic stem cells."

U.S. researcher Professor Robert Lanza questioned the validity of the research and said the embryos looked "very unhealthy".

Josephine Quintavalle, of the campaign group Comment On Reproductive Ethics, said: "Human cloning is unethical, unsafe, and completely unnecessary.

"It is time that scientists started to put some brakes on."

Dr Calum MacKellar, of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, said the creation and destruction of human embryos was "extremely offensive to millions in the UK".

Although Dr Wood's team is the first to create human embryos from adult cells, human embryos have been cloned before.

Scientists at Newcastle University created cloned human embryos in 2005 using cells from embryos rather than adults, seen as less useful in creating potential treatments.

British law says created embryos must be destroyed in 14 days and cannot be implanted in a woman.

The news came as it was revealed that animal-human hybrid embryos will be created in British laboratories within weeks after the research was allowed by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

Two teams have been licensed to make cow-human hybrids for research into incurable diseases.

Scientists say they are needed because of a shortage of human eggs for research.

The embryos would be more than 99 per cent human and would have to be destroyed after two weeks.

But Mr Smeaton said: "It is creating a category of beings regarded as sub-human who can be used as raw material to benefit other members of the human family.

"How wrong can something be before a scientist understands you cannot just do it because of the perceived good for human beings."

District lessons teach 'erotic' sex techniques
Parents group wants halt in 'violations of state law'

A parents group is asking a judge to halt an explicit sex-education curriculum implemented by a Maryland school board that teaches homosexuality is innate and provides depictions of "erotic" sex techniques.

Brandon M. Bolling, of the Thomas More Law Center, told Judge William J. Rowan III that state law requires that information presented in public schools be supported with evidence, and the teaching that homosexuality is "innate" lacks that support.

"The Maryland law says you have to teach something that is factually accurate," he told the judge. "They are not doing that. That is illegal."

He also argued that the lessons required by Montgomery County Board of Education teach students how to use condoms in violation of a state prohibition against material that "portrays erotic techniques of gotcha146."

The judge promised to issue a decision in a written ruling.

At issue is a series of lessons created by the Montgomery County school board for students that, opponents say, conflicts with the facts at hand.

"Declaring homosexuality to be 'innate' is a direct attack upon the ex-gay community and the possibility of changing one's sexual orientation," said Peter Sprigg, a Montgomery County resident and board member for Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays. He also served on the Citizens Advisory Committee that reviewed the curriculum.

"This statement was inserted into the curriculum at the last minute and was never reviewed by the Citizens Advisory Committee. It also directly contradicts the statement elsewhere in the curriculum that 'sexual orientation results from an interaction of cognitive, environmental, and biological factors,'" he said.

Bolling said the Maryland State Board of Education had abdicated its responsibility by allowing Montgomery County arbitrarily to decide that classroom discussions of oral and anal intercourse did not violate a state law against discussions of such "erotic" techniques.

Montgomery County educators have defended their decision to present the explicit sexual instruction to students. They also say any criticism of the curriculum "intrudes" into their right to teach children.

The school system launched its work on the highly explicit sex curriculum six years ago, and it earlier was struck down by a federal judge because of its content that condemned religious perspectives that did not endorse homosexuality. The newest challenge is an edited version of the curriculum that still includes elements to which parents have objected, such as the statement that being "gay" is a natural trait that people have at birth.

"The Montgomery County Board of Education claims that teaching children to 'respect' transsexuality, homosexuality and cross-dressing is a 'civic virtue,'" Regina Griggs, the executive director of PFOX, told WND earlier.

"But they refuse to teach respect for ex-gays or a child's right to not embrace homosexuality," she said.

The organization joined with Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum and the Family Leader Network in filing the request for the stay of the program targeting middle school and high school students in the district.

The court will may take into consideration the recent ruling from the Maryland Court of Appeals that concluded homosexual conduct is not immutable.

According to a blog on Montgomery County school issues, the court ruling "quoted laws from every state in the union except Massachusetts to support its finding that no gay gene exists."

"Don't forget, the sex ed curriculum does not discuss families (although the curriculum is called Family Life) spends much time pushing the gay agenda and directs students to chop off body parts and change their gender," the commentary said.

Plaintiffs in the court challenge have raised concerns regarding "the normalization of anal sex by the curriculum without warning about the increased HIV/AIDS risk of anal sex (even with a condom); the labeling as 'homophobic' for children holding traditional religious or moral beliefs regarding homosexuality; the exclusion of any information regarding ex-gays; the inclusion of transgender as a sexual orientation, even though it is characterized by the American Psychological Association as a mental disorder; the claim that homosexuality is 'innate,' although there is no scientific or medical study that points definitively to its origin."

Lacking, they say, is information from the Centers for Disease Control as well as the National Institute of Health raising concerns about the increased health risks of such alternative sexual lifestyle choices.

Also required is that students memorize "gay bullying" statistics provided by a homosexual advocacy organization, the plaintiffs note.

"Nowhere is abstinence or sex placed within the context of marriage. The word marriage is not mentioned in the 8th or 10th grade lessons," the critique said.

WND has documented a number of earlier cases in which educators have promoted a homosexual lifestyle to children under their charge.

WND reported California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, under whose supervision hundreds of thousands of children are being educated, has used his state position and taxpayer-funded stationery to praise a "gay" pride event used in the past to expose children to sexually explicit activities.

That drew vehement objections from several educators, including Priscilla Schreiber, the president of the Grossmont Unified High School District governing board.

"I am outraged that a person in this high-ranking elected position would advocate an event where diversity is not just being celebrated but where pornography and indecent exposure is being perpetrated on the young and innocent children of our communities," she said.

California's legislature also approved a new law that will ban the use of any words or terms that can be perceived as derogatory to homosexuals, bisexuals, transgenders and those with other alternative lifestyles.

WND also covered the issue when officials in Boulder, Colo., held a seminar for students in which they were told to "have sex," including same-sex experiences, and "take drugs."

Another school event promoted homosexuality to students while banning parents, and at still another, WND reported school officials ordered their 14-year-old freshman class into a "gay" indoctrination seminar after having them sign a confidentiality agreement promising not to tell their parents.

Brothers and Sisters,

It's a sad and evil state of affairs when JESUS CHRIST can't be taught in the classroom, but filthy and perverted sex acts that cause dreaded diseases and death can be. If we left religion out of the discussion entirely, we would still be talking about filthy and perverted sex acts that cause dreaded diseases and death. What IDIOTS want to teach something like this to our children? Do they have a brain cell left in their heads? Why are these BLOOMING IDIOTS allowed to even be close to a public school? The filthy and perverted acts they are promoting was a felony in every state in the land just a few short years ago. It was called a "Crime Against Nature" in many places, and this phrase has several root meanings. FIRST - A perversion of the natural. SECOND - A crime against GOD'S established NATURE! All of CREATION has a NATURE established by GOD.

If one were to look at the millions suffering from disease that will lead to death and the millions that are actually dying, why couldn't these IDIOT SCHOOL BOARDS be charged with ATTEMPTED MURDER of our children? If not that, how about RECKLESS DISREGARD FOR LIFE? As an easy example, there's a common sense reason why we don't teach elementary school children how to use explosives! WHY NOT? There are many laws designed to protect children, and we really need to start filing CRIMINAL CHARGES against these IDIOT SCHOOL BOARDS. They need to spend some time in JAIL or PRISON for RECKLESS CONDUCT WITH CHILDREN! Laws such as this will be known by various names, but you can be sure that they exist. Many other laws carry much heavier penalties if the crime is committed so many feet from a school. In short, there are CRIMINAL STATUTES that apply to what happens in and around our public schools. Once the perverted school board members and teachers are identified, they should be treated exactly like child molesters, listed as sex criminals, and banned from the presence or general area of children. Their names need to go into a national database so that the same applies in all states. If they want to teach something, LET THEM TEACH ANIMALS AT ZOOS OR NOTHING!

Prophet Mohammed cartoon publisher jailed
Pictures caused mass demonstrations across Muslim world
Jan. 19, 2008

BELARUS - Belarus on Friday jailed for three years an editor of an independent newspaper who reproduced cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that first appeared in Denmark in 2005 and caused mass demonstrations across the Muslim world.

The 12 cartoons portraying the founder of Islam, including one showing the prophet with a bomb in his turban, outraged Muslims who saw them as blasphemous. More than 50 people died in protests across the world the following year.

Belarussian authorities shut down the "Zgoda" (Consensus) paper in March 2006, around the time when other European journals began reprinting the cartoons. The security service, still known by its Soviet-era name, the KGB, began an investigation after Muslims in the ex-Soviet state complained.

Editor Alexander Sdvizhkov was sentenced to three years in jail in a closed session of the court for incitement of religious and national hatred.

"May God and the holy cross be with us," Sdvizhkov said afterwards. His lawyer said she would appeal.

Muslims constitute about two or three percent of the 10 million residents of the country wedged between Russia and three members of the European Union. The Muslim community had called for leniency in the case.

Miklos Haraszti, media freedom representative for the 56-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, protested against Sdvizhkov's jailing, calling the case against him "shocking" and saying he should be freed.

"Persecution of journalists for trying to inform the public on important issues is a misuse of hate speech laws," Haraszti said in a statement from Vienna. "In fact the Belarus government has used the international controversy around the cartoons as a pretext to eliminate a critical voice from public life."

President Alexander Lukashenko is accused by the West of ruling the country with an iron grip, jailing opponents, shutting down independent media and rigging polls, including his own re-election to a third term in 2006.

Prophet Mohammed cartoon publisher jailed (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22731177/)

Canada takes U.S. and Israel off torture watchlist
Sat Jan 19, 2008 11:44am EST

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's foreign ministry, responding to pressure from close allies, said on Saturday it would remove the United States and Israel from a watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured.

Both nations expressed unhappiness after it emerged that they had been listed in a document that formed part of a training course manual on torture awareness given to Canadian diplomats.

Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier said he regretted the embarrassment caused by the public disclosure of the manual, which also classified some U.S. interrogation techniques as torture.

"It contains a list that wrongly includes some of our closest allies. I have directed that the manual be reviewed and rewritten," Bernier said in a statement.

"The manual is neither a policy document nor a statement of policy. As such, it does not convey the government's views or positions."

The document -- made available to Reuters and other media outlets -- embarrassed the minority Conservative government, which is a staunch ally of both the United States and Israel.

U.S. ambassador David Wilkins said the listing was absurd while the Israeli envoy said he wanted his country removed.

Asked why the two countries had been put on the list, a spokesman for Bernier said: "The training manual purposely raised public issues to stimulate discussion and debate in the classroom."

The government mistakenly gave the document to Amnesty International Canada as part of a court case the rights organization has launched against Ottawa over the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan.

No one from Amnesty was immediately available for comment.

Under "definition of torture" the document lists U.S. interrogation techniques such as forced nudity, isolation, sleep deprivation and blindfolding prisoners.

It also mentions the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where a Canadian man is being held.

The man, Omar Khadr, has been in Guantanamo Bay for five years. He is accused of killing a U.S. soldier during a clash in Afghanistan in 2002, when he was 15.

Other countries on the watch list include Syria, China, Iran, Afghanistan, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.

The foreign ministry launched the torture awareness course after Ottawa was rapped for the way it handled the case of Canadian engineer Maher Arar, who was deported from the United States to Syria in 2002.

Arar says he was tortured repeatedly during the year he spent in Damascus prisons. An official inquiry into the affair showed Canadian diplomats had not been trained to detect whether detainees might have been abused.

Canada takes U.S. and Israel off torture watchlist (http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1762987120080119?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true)

Spanish priest to lead Jesuits
ROME (AP) — The Jesuits, a Roman Catholic order known for intellectual excellence and missionary work, on Saturday chose a 71-year-old Spanish priest with top academic credentials and extensive experience in Asia to be their new leader.

The Rev. Adolfo Nicolas was chosen to serve as superior general, the 29th successor to St. Ignatius Loyola, who founded the Society of Jesus, as the order is formally known, in 1540. With nearly 20,000 members worldwide, it is the largest Catholic religious order.

The choice of Nicolas followed four days of prayer and discussion among 217 electors who came to Rome from around the world, the Jesuits said.

Pope Benedict XVI was informed of the choice and immediately gave his approval, Vatican officials said. Papal approval is required.

Nicolas succeeds Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, a Dutch priest who was elected leader in 1983 and who was widely credited with improving the Jesuits' often tense relations with the Vatican.

Jesuit leaders traditionally serve for life, but Kolvenbach, who turns 80 this year, had asked to retire because of his age.

A native of Spain, Nicolas was ordained a priest in Tokyo in 1967 after studies in theology in that city and earlier in philosophy in Madrid. He received a masters degree in sacred theology in Rome's prestigious Gregorian Pontifical University.

He then embarked on nearly four decades of work in the Pacific, taking a theology professorship at Sophia University in Tokyo in 1971 and directing a pastoral institute in Manila, from 1978 to 1984. In the 1990s he held leadership positions in the order in Japan and from 2004 to 2007 served as moderator of the Jesuit Conference for Eastern Asia and Oceania.

He also has had experience in Korea.

Nicolas' Asian experience will help him "understand the world, and the church, from a non-European perspective," said James Martin, a priest who is associate editor of America Magazine, a New York-based Jesuit publication, in an e-mailed comment.

In a profile last year on an Australian Jesuit website, Province Express, Nicolas expressed the conviction that the West does not have a monopoly on meaning and spirituality.

"Asia has a lot yet to offer to the church, to the whole church," Nicolas was quoted as saying.

The new leader in his Asia positions has been responsible for training young Jesuits as the order grapples with a drop in a number of new priests, a problem affecting Catholic religious orders in general.

In the same profile, Nicolas said he was wary of missionaries who are more concerned with teaching and imposing orthodoxy than in having a cultural exchange with the local people.

"Those who enter into the lives of people, they begin to question their own positions very radically," Nicolas said.

Intellectual challenges have long characterized Jesuits.

The Jesuits have had a tense relationship with the Vatican on issues of doctrine and obedience. The Vatican occasionally disciplines Jesuit theologians and issues reminders of the their vows of obedience to the pontiff.

In past decades, aspects of their work with the poor in Latin America left the Vatican with the perception that some Jesuits were embracing liberation theology and Marxist political movements.

In 1981, Pope John Paul II named a temporary replacement to lead the Jesuits after its superior, the Rev. Pedro Arrupe, suffered a crippling stroke, brushing aside Arrupe's chosen successor. Paolo Dezza, an Italian who later was made a cardinal, guided the Jesuits until 1983, when Kolvenbach took the helm.

Arrupe, who died in 1991, had pushed for the church to move for a more socially just world while remaining faithful to papal authority.

For many, the Jesuits are synonymous with higher education. In the United States alone, the Jesuits run 28 colleges and universities, including Georgetown in Washington, D.C., Fordham in New York and the University of San Francisco, and dozens of middle schools and high schools.

Spanish priest to lead Jesuits (http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2008-01-19-jesuits_N.htm)
~~~~~~~~~

Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one carries you off as spoil or makes you yourselves captive by his so-called philosophy and intellectualism and vain deceit (idle fancies and plain nonsense), following human tradition (men's ideas of the material rather than the spiritual world), just crude notions following the rudimentary and elemental teachings of the universe and disregarding [the teachings of] Christ (the Messiah).

Do-it-yourself 'spirituality' linked to poor mental health
Study: Young adults believing in higher power other than God at greater risk for depression
Posted: January 20, 2008
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com

The first study examining young adults' religious and spiritual thoughts, behavior and feelings in Australia has found those replacing traditional religious beliefs with trendy, self-focused religions and spirituality are not the happier for their attempts at self-transformation.

Rosemary Aird conducted surveys of 3,705 21-year-olds in Brisbane as part of her Ph.D. studies at the University of Queensland's School of Population Health.

"I had a look at two different beliefs – one was a belief in God, associated with traditional religions, and the other was the newer belief in a spiritual or higher power other than God," Aird told the Brisbane Times.

Her research found the newer non-traditional beliefs linked to higher rates of "anxiety, depression, disturbed and suspicious ways of thinking and anti-social behavior" – results, she suggested, arising from New Age beliefs focused on self-transformation, self-fulfillment and self-enlightenment to the exclusion of community.

"Traditional religion tends to promote the idea of social responsibility and thinking of others' interests, whereas the New Age movement pushes the idea that we can transform the world by changing ourselves.

"The downside is that people are very much on their own and not part of a community, which may lead to a kind of isolation," she said.

Aird, a 51-year-old agnostic, said individualism was the common thread in the shift away from traditional religious thoughts to non-religious spirituality.

In Aird's study, eight percent of respondents attended church once a week, a practice linked to a reduction in antisocial behavior among males, but not females. While those with traditional religious beliefs enjoyed no major benefit in the study, their New Age counterparts were twice as likely to report higher levels of anxiety and depression.

Those coming from Pentecostal backgrounds were less likely than other religions to adopt non-traditional beliefs in adulthood.

"People who are into the New Age spirituality tend to shop around and will often borrow from all sorts of old beliefs, like Wicca, witchcraft or Native American religions," said Aird. "It's a whole mish-mash and changes all the time, where they'll do something for a while before doing something else.

"If there's no sense of any kind of tradition, it means you're kind of cast adrift and means there's no fundamental basic thing to hang on to."

Aird said popular culture has fed the trend toward non-traditional beliefs with a popularization of "spirituality."

"Religion and belief has kind of become mixed up with popular culture," she said.

"Look at television and the kinds of shows that we've got, like 'Supernatural,' 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and 'Medium'. They promote witchcraft, special powers and spirituality and the general population and young people especially are exposed to these things and could see them as very attractive.

"People want to find some way of embedding these things into some sort of belief system."

Aird also singled out popular self-help books for creating a do-it-yourself approach to matters of faith.

"My generation was about social responsibility and collective interests compared to the Me Generation," Aird said. "'New Spirituality' promotes the idea that self-transformation will lead to a positive and constructive change in self and society.

"But there is a contradiction – how can one change society if one is focused on oneself?"

Separated Saudi couple sues to reunite
Woman’s family had marriage annulled, saying she married beneath her
updated 2 hours, 29 minutes ago

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Two years ago, a knock on Fatima and Mansour al-Timani's door shattered the life they had built together.

It was the police, delivering news that a judge had annulled their marriage in absentia after some of Fatima's relatives sought the divorce on grounds she had married beneath her.

That was just the beginning of an ordeal for a couple who — under Saudi Arabia's strict segregation rules — can no longer live together. They sued to reverse the ruling, publicized their story and sought help from a Saudi human rights group.

But the two remain apart and Fatima is considering suicide, she said, if her recent appeal to King Abdullah doesn't reunite her with the man she still considers her husband.

"Only the king can resolve my case," Fatima told The Associated Press by telephone in a rare interview. "I want to return to my husband, but if that is not possible, I need to know so I can put an end to my life."

Fatima's case underscores shortcomings in the kingdom's Islamic legal system _ in which rules of evidence are shaky, lawyers are not always present and sentences often depend on the whim of judges.

Those rules' most frequent — and recently, most high-profile — victims are women, who already suffer severe restrictions on daily life in Saudi Arabia: They cannot drive, appear before a judge without a male representative, or travel abroad without a male guardian's permission.

Rape victim was pardoned
Recently, the king did intervene and pardon another high-profile defendant — a rape victim who was sentenced to lashes and jail time for being in a car with a man who was not her relative.

The two cases have brought Saudi human rights once again into the international spotlight — revealing not only the weakness of the kingdom's justice system, but the scant rights Saudi women have here.

"When I heard that the (rape victim) was pardoned, I couldn't believe it. My case is so much simpler than hers, since my divorce is invalid," Fatima said.

Fatima said her husband, a hospital administrator, followed Saudi tradition in asking her father for permission to marry her in 2003.

"My brother reported good things about him, so my dad accepted his proposal," said Fatima, a computer specialist who was 29 when she married.

She said her father knew that Mansour came from a less prominent tribe than hers, but that he didn't mind because he "cared about the man himself."

A few months after the wedding, several of Fatima's relatives persuaded her father to give them power of attorney to file a lawsuit demanding an annulment, she said.

Then her father died, and Fatima said she'd hoped the case would be dropped.

But on Feb. 25, 2006, police knocked on the couple's door to serve Mansour with divorce papers — which said his marriage had been annulled nine months earlier.

"We were shattered. How did this happen? Why?" Fatima asked.

Fatima took the couple's 2-year-old daughter and 4-month-old son to live with her mother, who had persuaded her to let Mansour deal with the legal issues on his own.

But after three months without her husband, Fatima and the children sneaked out of her mother's house and flew with Mansour to the western seaside city of Jiddah, where they sought to live in anonymity.

Family jailed
Saudi police soon discovered them and imprisoned the family for living together illegally.

"The police told me I either return to my (mother's) family or go to jail," Fatima said. "I chose jail."

"My children and I were thrown in a cell with women sentenced for pushing drugs, practicing witchcraft and behaving immorally," Fatima said. Authorities allowed her to send her daughter back to live with her father, but the infant stayed with Fatima in jail.

"He learned to speak in jail, he learned to walk in jail and his teeth came out in jail," she said.

Meanwhile, Mansour went to court to appeal the divorce ruling, but a Riyadh appeals court upheld the decision in 2007.

Last September, the head of a prominent Saudi human rights group reportedly asked the kingdom's highest court to review the case.

Bandar al-ubgone86ar, head of the National Society of Human Rights, submitted two Islamic studies concluding that the divorce was invalid, according to the Arab News, a Saudi English-language daily.

The studies, conducted by Islamic researcher gotcha98 Al-Zahrani and Bassam Al-Bassam, a counselor at the Court of Cassation in Mecca, said that if a woman's legal guardian represented her at the original wedding, then other relatives have no right to object to the marriage based on compatibility.

Both studies concluded that Fatima married Mansour with her father's permission, and that only the wife can decide whether she wants her marriage annulled, the paper reported.

Despite their legal fight, Fatima and Mansour remain apart.

After nine months in jail, Fatima moved to an orphanage where she and her son share an apartment with several other women.

Fatima said she is holding out hope the king might pardon her, and recognize her as "married to Mansour, before God."

"I love him more than ever. He's the only one who has stood by me," she said.

Separated Saudi couple sues to reunite (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22755046/?GT1=10755)

Teen swimmers' photos put on gay sites
Police investigating whether campus dispatcher photographed kids

Jan. 20, 2008

SANTA ANA, Calif. - Several gay adult Web sites have posted photographs of teenage water polo players from several high schools in Southern California, a newspaper reported.

Some of the pictures, of boys as young as 14, were displayed next to photos of nude young men and graphic sexual content, an Orange County Register investigation found. >:(

Parents, coaches and school officials were alarmed, and parents said some of the boys were traumatized and sought counseling.

"These kids don't look at what they do as shameful," said Joan Gould, an international water polo official and a spokeswoman for a group of Orange County water polo parents. "For someone to come in and take what these kids are doing and take it out of context and exploit these images, these kids and their schools, because you can see the school name on the caps, is just horrible."

Police at the University of California, Irvine, confirmed they are investigating whether a campus police dispatcher had photographed the high school athletes for gay-oriented sites. The man had not been charged, and police Chief Paul Henisey said he remained on duty.

"We're looking into the matter," Henisey said. "We're not exactly sure about what we have or what kinds of issues there are."

It was not clear if posting the pictures constituted an offense.

"With free speech and photography, there's a gray cloud in terms of what is legal, constitutional," said state Assemblyman Jose Solorio, chairman of the Assembly Public Safety Committee.

Solorio said he would have the committee investigate the matter.

The Register said it found photos of players from 11 Orange County high schools plus schools in Los Angeles and San Diego counties on several pages of one gay porn site registered to a London address. Photos were also posted on other sites, the paper reported.

Teen swimmers' photos put on gay sites (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22755552/)
~~~~~~~~

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v605/DreamWeaver000/Animated/snap.gif)

They ought to get some one to hack the website, and destroy this abomination!! These kids are as young as 14!!!!!! I do know there is a law about this in the U.K.!!!

Quote from: DreamWeaver on January 20, 2008, 04:40:50 PM

No kiddin'? Why am I not surprised? Are you surprised? I'm not surprised.

Quote from: DreamWeaver on January 20, 2008, 04:51:22 PM

Row erupts in Australia over 'gay' Jesus play

Sun Jan 20, 1:20 AM ET

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian church leaders have condemned a play shortly to open in Sydney depicting Jesus as a gay man who is seduced by Judas, a report said Sunday.

The play, named Corpus Christi, is due to open next month as part of the city's annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, Sydney's Sun-Herald newspaper reported.

A senior Sydney churchman called the play "historical nonsense".

"It is deliberately, not innocently, offensive and they're obviously having a laugh about it," Robert Forsyth, Anglican bishop of South Sydney, was quoted saying.

Apart from the relations between Jesus and Judas, the play also features Jesus conducting a gay marriage between two apostles.

The play's director Leigh Rowney, who claims to be a Christian, accepted the play would offend some Christians but said he was keen to provoke debate about Christianity.

"I wanted this play in the hands of a Christian person like myself to give it dignity but still open it up to answering questions about Christianity as a faith system," Rowney was quoted saying.

Playwright Terrence McNally, who is gay, received death threats when the work was performed in the United States, the newspaper said.

Row erupts in Australia over 'gay' Jesus play (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080120/ts_afp/australiareligiongay;_ylt=AqlbXE_tlCfFXGOGJUaljwpvaA8F)

And that's just plain sick

Quote from: DreamWeaver on January 20, 2008, 05:16:51 PM

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v605/DreamWeaver000/Animated/snap.gif)

They ought to get some one to hack the website, and destroy this abomination!! These kids are as young as 14!!!!!! I do know there is a law about this in the U.K.!!!

Proving that homosexuality is a PERVERSION and not something you were born with.

Online game rivalry ends with real life murder
A young Russian man has been charged with murder after an internet game jumped off the screen onto the street. It's alleged he killed an internet gaming rival after they met face to face in the city of Ufa.

Violence on screen isn't harmful to anyone. But when virtual reality and real life collide an innocent game can end in tragedy.

It all started when two clans - the Coo-clocks, made up of mostly students, and the so-called Platanium with more experienced gamers of over thirty - started fighting to wipe out each other on screen.

33-year-old Albert used to spend hours in front of his computer. On the web he had his own clan and a dozen of warriors. Just days before the New Year in a virtual battle his clan killed a member of the hostile Coo-clocks.

Days later the enemies agreed to meet literally face to face in the real world.

Their confrontation led to tragedy. Albert was badly beaten and died from his injuries on the way to hospital.

“I think they have confused the game and reality. And after we buried him on December 31, they continued to threaten us,” Albert’s sister Albina says.

The alleged murderer hasn't shown regret and hasn't justified himself. 22-year-old student just calmly explained why he killed his opponent.

On the web each of the clans had its own hierarchy and rules

“Beat everything that moves, and everything that doesn’t move - move and beat!” – this is one of the rules of the Coo-clocks clan.

In this case the rule applied to real people in real life. Members of the internet Coo-clocks clan continue to harass the family of the murdered man, threatening to kill his sister, who hasn’t turned on the computer for days.

In an unrelated case another gamer in his twenties came to Moscow from Ukraine to meet his rival. The confrontation ended in with the Moscow man being beaten to death.

And a twenty-year-old from Petrosavodsk killed his grandmother after she interrupted his game calling him to eat.

However, internet experts say these cases shouldn't be lumped together just because some people can't handle the situation.

“Not many talk about the benefits of internet games for disabled people who don’t have a chance to communicate with others like themselves or able-bodied people. Nobody mentions the benefits the internet can offer in education,” says Aleksandr Kuzmenko of a computer game magazine.

With more and more people logging on to get their fix of virtual reality the experts say incidents like these are rare, and want it to stay that way.

I've already seen 2 different shows (one was Law and Order) along this same type of behavior.

Quote

GrammyLuv Said:

I'm posting this because I'm wondering just how sick this world has to get before the Second Coming? Just when I think I've heard every immoral thing that is going on, up pops something else. Not I've never heard of this kind of thing, but it did catch me unawares tonight.

Sister, I'm sad to say that I think we've only seen the first rounds of evil. I think that things will get MUCH WORSE, but I also think that JESUS CHRIST could come to RAPTURE HIS CHURCH HOME to GLORY at any time. In the meantime, the weirdos, perverts, and evil will have to put up with hosts of Christians who are still quite willing to stand up and call evil what it is - EVIL! It's almost impossible for decent people to imagine how someone would even get the idea to do something like this to an animal. We MUST remember that practices like this are mentioned in the Holy Bible as an ABOMINATION to GOD, so evil people have done sick, disgusting, and perverted things like this long before now. Sadly, evil people are capable of doing worse than this. Most police officers have seen things so horrible that they are impossible to forget.

Sister, I just heard something I loved on the Fox News Channel. I missed part of the story, but it was something about a child dying. The person being interviewed said something like this: It's time for Christians to pray, put on the full armour of GOD, and go forth to do the WILL OF GOD! I heard this while typing the end of the previous paragraph. Sadly, the interview ended, and I didn't get the full details about what they were talking about. The details don't matter! Regardless of circumstances around the world, Christians should be PRAYING, putting on the FULL ARMOUR OF GOD, and going forth TO DO THE WILL OF GOD! If all Christians did this even ONCE, can we even imagine what the impact would be? The GOSPEL OF THE GRACE OF GOD is still the most powerful message in the world!

Love In Christ,
Tom

GOOD NEWS!

Thanks be unto GOD for HIS unspeakable GIFT!, JESUS CHRIST, our Lord and Saviour forever!

Quote from: blackeyedpeas on January 22, 2008, 08:23:09 AM

GOOD NEWS!

Thanks be unto GOD for HIS unspeakable GIFT!, JESUS CHRIST, our Lord and Saviour forever!

well it is nothing new.
and the reason people did not hear about it before is because the news dint not go as far.
and some things should not be repeated.
but today the good and the bad is worldwide and so is the WORD
so I believe that Jesus Christ is at the door.
the young and the weak feed from what comes out of your mouth good or bad.

Canadian Anglican Bishop to Priests: Approve Homosexual Blessings or Resign

By Hilary White

ST. JOHN'S, Newfoundland, January 22, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The deep fissures in the Anglican Communion are increasing as the sides line up in the fight over the "blessings" of homosexual partnerings. A diocese of the Anglican Church of Canada in Newfoundland has announced it will attempt to force its clergy to assent to the blessings, even as the rest of the Worldwide Anglican Communion continues to fracture over the issue.

Clergy were called to a mandatory meeting in the cathedral of St. John's and told that if they supported a breakaway movement that objects to the formal blessing of homosexual partnerings, they should "do the honourable thing and resign".

The retired former bishop of the diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador, Don Harvey as well as Malcolm Harding of Brandon, Manitoba, relinquished their licenses in November 2007 in the Anglican Church of Canada and transferred to the authority of Anglican Province of the Southern Cone of America a jurisdiction of the Anglican Church in South America.

Following Bishop Harvey's defection from the ultra-liberal Canadian Anglican Church, the new bishop, the Right Reverend Cyrus Pitman, had them repeat their priestly vows and exacted a loyalty pledge of sorts from his diocesan clergy and re-issued their licences signed by himself rather than Bishop Harvey.

Bishop Pitman wrote, "I would expect any clergy involved in the network and working to the establishment of a parallel jurisdiction to the Anglican Church of Canada would do the honourable thing and resign their positions, relinquishing their licences to exercise ordained ministry in this church as their leader has done."

The move follows decisions by other dioceses in the country. In October last year, the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa voted to recognize the blessing of marriage for same-sex partners who have been civilly "married" under Canadian law. The diocese of Montreal followed this with a decision to allow blessings for homosexual partners and the diocese of Niagara Falls followed suit in November.

A spokesman for the traditionally Christian group, Anglican Network in Canada, responded at the time, "We are grieved that the synod and bishops of Niagara have chosen to walk away from centuries of Christian teaching and defy the consensus within the Anglican Communion."

The Right Reverend Donald Harvey, Moderator of the Anglican Network in Canada continued, "There is clearly a growing momentum within the Anglican Church of Canada to ignore biblical teaching, disregard the views of the global Church, and even ignore the principles upon which the Canadian Church was founded. These actions have 'torn the fabric' of the Communion at its deepest level just as the Primates warned in October 2003."

In a letter to the Canadian Anglican Primate, the titular head of the Worldwide Anglican Communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams chastised groups of Canadian Anglicans who have broken away from the ultra-liberal mainstream church, accusing them of poaching clergy. Nevertheless, he admitted he has no authority to prevent what he called "interventions and irregular ordinations" by such groups.

Meanwhile, Williams, has announced that the church's dispute over sexual morality will be on the agenda for the next Lambeth Conference to be held in Kent this summer. "We will look at sexuality and the ministry of bishops. We will be reporting back from the listening process that came out of the previous Lambeth Conference." William said.

To date, only 70 per cent of the world's Anglican bishops invited to the ten-yearly Lambeth meeting have indicated they will attend.

A group of Anglican bishops who hold to the traditional Christian moral doctrines have announced they will be holding an alternate meeting in Jerusalem, a move not supported by the liberal Anglican bishop of that city. The week-long Global Anglican Futures or "Gafcon" conference is set for June, the same month as the Lambeth Conference, and will discuss "the future of mission and relationships within the churches of Anglican Communion".

Conservative Anglican commentator, David W. Virtue, summed up the essential division in the Anglican Communion, writing, "Most of the orthodox will stay away from Lambeth thus saying, in so many words, 'We have had enough and we will discuss what it means to fulfill the Great Commission'. The predominant voices at Lambeth will be liberals, not conservatives, with the loudest most strident left wing voices coming from the U.S., Canada, the UK, Wales, Scotland and Ireland."

Virtue points out that some bishops have worried publicly that if the conservative bishops stay away from Lambeth, the liberals will use it as an opportunity to overthrow Resolution 1:10, the lynchpin resolution of Lambeth 1998 that says sexual behaviour is only appropriate between a husband and wife.

Canadian Anglican Bishop to Priests: Approve Homosexual Blessings or Resign (http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2008/jan/08012204.html)

Protestant Head, Pope Unite to Close 100th Christian Unity Week
By
Ethan Cole
Christian Post Reporter
Fri, Jan. 25 2008 09:11 AM ET

Representatives of the two largest Christian bodies in the world will come together Friday evening in Rome to celebrate the centennial anniversary of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and close the worldwide event.

General secretary Rev. Dr. Samuel Kobia of the World Council of Churches – which represents some 560 million Protestant Christians – will meet with Pope Benedict XVI – head of the more than 1-billion-member Roman Catholic Church – for a private meeting and later for an ecumenical Vespers service at the Roman basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

Pope Benedict XVI will preside at the ecumenical service where Kobia will bring greetings on behalf of the fellowship of 347 churches constituting the WCC. The service concludes the traditional Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, celebrated Jan. 18-25 in the northern hemisphere. In the global south, churches favor the days around Pentecost to observe the Christian unity week.

The Roman Catholic Church has been part of the ecumenical event from nearly its inception.

In 1909, the Roman Catholic Pope at the time, Pius X, was approached about joining the event and ended up giving his official blessing to the effort. In 1916, Pope Benedict XV encouraged its observance throughout the Roman Catholic Church.

But it was in 1967 that members from Orthodox, Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches agreed to jointly observe a time of prayer called the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Since 1968, the World Council of Churches and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity has worked together annually to promote prayer for the unity of Christian churches during the designated week.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the annual event celebrated by millions of Christians worldwide. The theme this year was “Pray Without Ceasing,” taken from I Thessalonians 5:17.

On Friday, Pope Benedict XVI and Kobia will be joined by high-level representatives from both parties for the closing day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Protestant Head, Pope Unite to Close 100th Christian Unity Week (http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080125/30972_Protestant_Head%2C_Pope_Unite_to_Close_100th_Christian_Unity_Week.htm)

Countdown Begins to Global Day of Prayer
By
Maria Mackay
Christian Post Correspondent
Sat, Jan. 26 2008 08:59 AM ET

The countdown to the massive Global Day of Prayer (GDOP) event in London began Friday night when hundreds of Christians packed into Westminster Chapel to join in prayer and praise for the capital and the nation.

Around 30,000 Christians are expected to come to Millwall Stadium to pray for the capital and the nation on Pentecost Sunday, May 11, as part of the Global Day of Prayer. The movement brings together millions of Christians each year for a day of repentance and prayer for spiritual revival within the church and the establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth.

London organizers include the Bishop of Barking, the Rt. Rev. David Hawkins, and the head of one of London’s largest Pentecostal churches, Pastor Jonathan Oloyede of Glory House.

Oloyede shared the verse in the Bible, 2 Chronicles 7.14, which inspired South African Christian businessman Graham Power to start world prayer for revival just over eight years ago.

The verse reads, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

Oloyede continued, “If we do what we are supposed to do then God will do what He has to do.”

“We have to take London for Jesus. We have to take the nation for Jesus,” he added.

This year’s event will build on the huge success of the 2007 GDOP which drew 20,000 Christians to West Ham Stadium to pray.

GDOP London will also fall within a sweep of events around the city this year as part of the Pentecost Festival, which is being spearheaded by Share Jesus International (SJI). On May 9-11, Christians will flood to the capital’s churches, streets, theatres, pubs and cafes for a number of events including worship, prayer, campaigning and social action.

SJI head, Andy Frost, hit home the purpose of Pentecost Festival when he told believers, “The church is not dead. The church is alive and the church is active. We are going to show this nation just what Christians are doing.

“It is about making Jesus famous again and showing who He is in this city. The church is alive and we’ve got a message they need to hear.”

This year, GDOP is being rolled out across the UK, with events planned for Birmingham, Manchester, Cambridge, Derby and Stoke on Trent, where Christians have already signed up for 40 days of continuous prayer for the nation.

In 2007, churches across London prayed 24 hours a day, every day of the year, for the capital and the UK as part of the Year for London. This year, churches in the city are repeating the yearlong action, this time calling it the Canopy of Prayer.

The long-term vision is to take GDOP to Wembley Stadium in 2010. “It will be done in Jesus’ Name,” said Oloyede.

Countdown Begins to Global Day of Prayer (http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080126/30986_Countdown_Begins_to_Global_Day_of_Prayer.htm)

Churches Decry Israel's Treatment of Gaza
By
Ethan Cole
Christian Post Reporter
Thu, Jan. 24 2008 09:10 AM ET

Churches in the Middle East denounced Israel’s blockade of Gaza as an “immoral act” that has cut off the entire country from proper food and medicine.

The Rev. Munib A. Younan, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, called the blockade of Gaza “illegal collective punishment, an immoral act in violation of the basic human and natural laws as well as International Law,” in a statement issued Jan. 22 – a day before Hamas militants destroyed the Gaza-Egypt barrier.

Younan and other Holy Land church leaders added that the blockade “cannot be tolerated anymore” and “the siege over Gaza should end now.”

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had ordered the strip sealed off Jan. 17 because of persistent rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. But on Tuesday, the same day the letter was issued, Israel eased the blockade slightly transferring fuel to restart Gaza’s only power plant, according to The Associated Press.

“To deny children and civilians their necessary basic commodities are not the ways to security but rather throw the region into further and more dangerous deterioration. This siege will not guarantee the end to rocket firing, but will only increase the bitterness and suffering and invite more revenge, while the innocents keep dying,” the statement admonished.

The blockade “imprisoned” 1.5 million people “without proper food or medicine,” the church leaders voiced with concern. The punishment left large parts of the Palestinian territory, which also borders Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, without access to electricity.

True to the church leaders’ words, a week after the blockade Hamas-linked militants knocked down the border wall separating Gaza and Egypt. On Wednesday, more than 50,000 Palestinians flooded into Egypt to stock up on needed supplies such as bread, oil, cheese, according to The Associated Press. Others carried crates of Coca-Cola, television sets, tires, furniture, car parts, shoes, generators, cleaning products, goats, chicken, cigarettes and even a motorcycle.

Egyptian officials as of Thursday have not attempted to reseal the broken border. Authorities have only begun to try to control the masses so they don’t move deeper into Egypt.

U.S. and Arab officials said Wednesday that Egypt assured it would soon reseal its border with Gaza, according to AP.

Yet despite sympathy for trapped Gazans, the Christian leaders also acknowledged that Palestinians firing rockets at Israel give reason for people to see justification in the blockade.

The leaders advised Palestinian officials “to unite in ending their differences for the sake of their people in Gaza.”

“Put the differences aside and deal with this crisis for the good of all human beings, demonstrating that you care for your brothers and sisters who have suffered enough already,” they said.

"We pray for the day when the people of Gaza will be free from occupation, from political differences, from violence and from despair. We pray for the Israelis and Palestinians to respect human life and God's love for every human life, and to take all possible measures to end this suffering," said the church leaders.

Heads of churches in the Mideast that signed the statement included (Roman Catholic) Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III, Patriarch Torkom II Manooghian of the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church, Archbishop Anba Abraham of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate and Anglican Bishop Suheil Dawani.

Egypt reportedly told the United States it expected the Palestinian exodus from Gaza to end by midday Thursday.

Churches Decry Israel's Treatment of Gaza (http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080124/30963_Churches_Decry_Israel%5C%27s_Treatment_of_Gaza.htm)

Christians to Protest Outside ESPN HQ Over Anti-Jesus Remarks
By
Alex Sheffrin
Christian Post Contributor
Fri, Jan. 25 2008 10:06 AM ET

Christian groups will gather Friday afternoon for a demonstration and prayer vigil outside the headquarters of ESPN over their disapproval with how the television network has responded to the anti-Jesus remarks made recently by one of their anchorwomen.

Though news anchor Dana Jacobson has been temporally suspended for one week for her Jan. 11 tirade – which reportedly included “**** Jesus” – many Christian groups feel that ESPN has been slow and reluctant to claim responsibility.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue noted that when late sportscaster Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder made disparaging remarks about blacks during a 1988 interview, he was immediately fired by CBS.

"It is obvious, then, that neither Jacobson nor ESPN is dealing with this matter in a professional way," Donohue said in a released statement.

The Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, which plans to lead Friday’s demonstration, also holds a similar view and believes that there is a double standard in the media towards Christians.

"Imagine the outrage if Ms. Jacobson said, '**** Mohammed,' '**** Jews,' or '**** African Americans,'” he said in a released statement. “We would simply ask that the parent company of ESPN, ABC, treat this incident the same way they did when Isaiah Washington publicly used the word 'fag' when referring to a cast member. A week suspension is simply not enough and sends a message that ESPN tolerates this kind of behavior and speech."

Jacobson made her anti-Jesus remarks during a Jan. 11 roast in Atlantic City.

She was reportedly intoxicated during the incident, talking vulgarly about Jesus and a colleague’s alma mater, Notre Dame.

The Press of Atlantic City described Jacobson during the incident as “… swilling vodka from a Belvedere bottle, mumbling along and cursing like a sailor.”

Both ESPN and Jacobson have apologized for the incident.

“Her actions and comments were inappropriate and we've dealt with it," ESPN spokesman Josh Drulewitz said.

Jacobson also released her own statement.

"My remarks about Notre Dame were foolish and insensitive. I respect all religions and did not mean anything derogatory by my poorly chosen words," she explained.

Despite the apologies, some Christians are not yet ready to put the incident behind them.

“Although the faith community can forgive and extend mercy to Ms. Jacobson, she still must assume full responsibility and accept the consequences for her hate-filled rhetoric," Mahoney stated.

Jacobson, a graduate of the University of Michigan and co-host of ESPN's “First Take,” joined ESPN as a regular news anchor in 2002. Per her suspension, she has not appeared on TV this week.

Friday’s demonstration outside the ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn., was scheduled to begin at noon.

Christians to Protest Outside ESPN HQ Over Anti-Jesus Remarks (http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080125/30974_Christians_to_Protest_Outside_ESPN_HQ_Over_Anti-Jesus_Remarks.htm)

Methodists To Mull Divestment From Israel

BY SETH GITELL - Special to the Sun
January 24, 2008

The nation's largest and most prominent mainline Protestant denomination, the 11 million-member United Methodist Church — whose members include both President Bush and Senator Clinton — is set to take up the issue of whether to divest from companies that do business with Israel.

The meeting, which is to be held on Friday in Fort Worth, Texas, will mark the highest level of consideration that the subject of economic divestment from the Jewish state has received within the Methodist denomination.

Key questions hanging over the event will be whether the church will decide to use its $16 billion pension fund as an economic tool against Israel, and whether divestment would shatter the church's traditional relationship with American Jews.

If the church moves ahead with a divestment resolution on the national level, the denomination would become the largest Protestant group to embrace such a measure. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, which has 2.4 million members, voted in favor of such a measure in 2004. Another important liberal denomination, the United Church of Christ, went in the other direction last summer when it opted to engage in a "balanced study" of the Middle East conflict.

"I would counsel a bit of humility. I wonder how much the voice of the United Methodist Church even has in foreign policy or Middle East policy," an executive with the church's General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, the Reverend W. Douglas Mills, told The New York Sun. "I'm concerned about protecting our relationships."

Rev. Mills will be one of four speakers from a variety of perspectives who will address a crowd of church delegates and others at the event later this week and will speak against divestment.

Another speaker will be a member of the New England Conference's Divestment Task Force, Susanne Hoder. She also headed an informational gathering on the Middle East in June, which gave attendees the opportunity to "learn how these companies profit from Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian lands," "examine the impact of the occupation on Israeli and Palestinian society," give an "update on Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Gaza," "discuss apartheid in Israel and the occupied territories, and learn how many organizations, including churches, municipalities, and Jewish groups, are using economic measures to end it."

The New England Conference came out in favor of divestment three years ago, and in June of last year, it released a report urging divestment from 20 specific companies with business interests in Israel, including Blockbuster, General Dynamics, and General Electric.

Rev. Mills said he supported the church keeping a "balanced perspective" on the Middle East. "I would prefer to have, for example, shareholder activism in companies, rather than have no voice at all, which is what you have when you're not a shareholder," he said. Titled "Divestment, the Middle East, and Sudan," the Friday meeting in Texas will be part of a larger assembly beginning today and ending on Saturday in anticipation of the church's general conference in April.

The general conference in April will be the first national legislative gathering of the church since two of its regional groupings — the New England Conference and Virginia United Methodists — passed pro-divestment resolutions in 2005.

While the church did not provide a copy of specific legislation likely to be brought up at the church's general conference in April, the Friday session is an indicator that divestment will be on the Methodist agenda.

"As far as legislation for the conference, I don't believe it's available yet," a spokeswoman for the United Methodist Church, Diane Denton, said. "The briefing [in Texas] is to provide delegates and others with information on issues expected to arise on general conference. It will be up to the conference to determine what if any action may be taken on this issue." Coming out in favor of divestment would likely damage the church's ability to work with American Jewish groups.

"For another church to start down this road is very dangerous and very harmful to the relationship between the Jewish community and the mainline Protestant churches," the American Jewish Committee's U.S. director of interreligious affairs, Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, said.

Rabbi Greenebaum plans to travel to Forth Worth for the meeting. "These are churches that traditionally the Jewish community has gotten along with very well."

It would also likely have consequences for members of the church who favor a different approach. "I love my denomination, and I think this is a stupid move," a senior minister at the First United Methodist Church of Palo Alto, the Reverend Archer Summers, said. Rev. Summers, who plans to attend the April conference, is an executive committee member of Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East, a group of mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics who seek to inject fairness into the discussion of the issue.

A lifelong member of the Harvard-Epworth United Methodist Church in Cambridge, Mass., John Regier, opposed the New England Conference's resolution, and will try to convince his pastor — who will attend the conference — to vote against divestment measures. "The resolution is premised on the idea that the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians is all Israel's fault," Mr. Regier said. "I think the situation is far more complicated than that."

Methodists To Mull Divestment From Israel (http://www.nysun.com/pf.php?id=70089&v=4783731021)

Methodist Lobby Office Unveiling Anti-Israel Divestment Proposal This Week in Fort Worth

"The United Methodist church is discussing anti-Israel divestment when other church groups are moving in the opposite direction. Even if anti-Israel divestment were constructive, which it's not, why jump on a stalled band wagon?" -- Mark Tooley, Executive Director UMAction

WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 /Christian Newswire/ -- The 7.9 million member United Methodist Church's official lobby office is urging church agencies and members to divest their holdings in Caterpillar, Inc for doing business with Israel. The United Methodist General Board of Church and Society will unveil its proposal this Friday in Fort Worth, Texas before leading delegates of the church's governing General Conference in April 2008.

Several United Methodist regional conferences have endorsed anti-Israel divestment. The only major U.S. denomination actively to endorse anti-Israel divestment was the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which, after enormous controversy over two years, revoked its divestment policy in 2006.

United Methodist Communications is sponsoring the quadrennial Pre-General Conference News Briefing for first-elected delegates and communicators this week. The event is for participants who wish to prepare for the 2008 General Conference.

IRD Director of UMAction Mark Tooley commented:

"Like other Religious Left agencies, the United Methodist lobby office thinks that U.S. pressure against Israel is the magic key for a peace settlement. The reality is more complicated, and Israel is not the exclusive obstacle to Middle East peace.

"The United Methodist church is discussing anti-Israel divestment when other church groups have moved in the opposite direction. Even if anti-Israel divestment were constructive, which it's not, why jump on a stalled band wagon?

"Delegates to the United Methodist General Conference should examine a 2006 resolution approved by United Methodism's Pacific Northwest Conference. It noted that 'some church groups have selectively advocated divestment of firms doing business with Israel while ignoring severe human rights abuses by the governments of Israel's neighbors,' affirmed the Jewish state as 'nearly the only long-standing democracy among its neighbors in the Middle East,' and declared that 'selective attention to Israel's mistakes will not create peace in the Middle East.'"

Methodist Lobby Office Unveiling Anti-Israel Divestment Proposal This Week in Fort Worth (http://www.earnedmedia.org/ird0123.htm)

Phony, ignorant Christians
Posted: January 25, 2008
1:00 a.m. Eastern
WorldNetDaily
By Joseph Farah
© 2008

Paul warned us about times like this and the way people – including those claiming to be professing Christians – would act.

"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away," he writes in 2 Timothy 3:1-5.

And a chapter later (2 Timothy 4:3-4) adds: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables."

I strongly believe Paul had in mind the kind of people who run major Protestant denominations like the United Methodist Church.

Today, at an event in Fort Worth, Texas, leaders of the denomination, which boasts membership by President Bush and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, will consider divesting from all companies that do business with Israel.

To say that even considering such an action is hateful, unbiblical, anti-Christian and evil would be an understatement.

(Column continues below)

It's not even understandable except in the context of the kind of morally blind apostasy described by Paul.

Nevertheless, because so many people in our world do not know better and could easily be fooled by such discussions, let me explain in simple terms where the Methodists, and the Presbyterian Church USA and the United Church of Christ before them, are going wrong.

By calling for divestment from one nation in the world, the Methodists are suggesting in the strongest terms possible that Israel is the worst of the world's nations with regard to human rights.

As far as I know, the Methodists have no similar divestment plans for Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Zimbabwe, Cuba, China or any other of dozens of tyrannical hellholes I could name. Israel is their only target.

That in itself is unbelievable. It shows how perverse this action really is. You have to believe up is down, left is right, black is white and right is wrong to accept such a bizarre concept.

The problem with these people is not that they don't understand the Middle East. It is simply that they are no longer able to tell right from wrong. They are no longer able to distinguish between good and evil. They are no longer able to see the difference between freedom and tyranny. They are no longer able to judge between criminal and victim.

They have, in short, completely lost their moral bearings.

This is no longer a church; it is an organization of misguided political activism. This is no longer a house of God; it is a mad house. This is no longer part of the bride of Christ; it is a whore to the world.

I know these are tough words, for which I am sure to be criticized by some of my Christian friends.

Let me say this. We have many problems in this country that need to be addressed first and foremost by the church. So often, I hear church leaders say that their commitment is exclusively to spreading the Gospel, not in making moral pronouncements, not in teaching right from wrong, not in applying the lessons of Scripture to the direction of our nation and world.

Too often the church allows itself to be intimidated by the world, subjugated by tax laws, seduced by government, cowed by the doctrine of feel-good liberalism.

That's what has happened to the Methodists and the Presbyterian Church USA and some other major denominations.

I would urge anyone still associated with the Methodists to divest yourself and your family from this institution. Divest it of your tithes and offerings. Divest it from your last will and testament. Divest it from your time and volunteer work. Divest your children from its Sunday school classes.

For those pastors leading Methodist churches who understand where your denomination is heading, it's time to pack up and divest yourself of links to the denomination.

The biblical principle at stake is the one about avoiding relationships in which we are unequally yoked. As Paul would say, avoid such people and institutions that have turned their backs on God, on the Bible, on what is right, on what is moral.

It's separation time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By calling for divestment from one nation in the world, the Methodists are suggesting in the strongest terms possible that Israel is the worst of the world's nations with regard to human rights. As far as I know, the Methodists have no similar divestment plans for Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Zimbabwe, Cuba, China.

Have you seen anywhere in the articles where anyone questions them on how the bible instructs us 'those that bless Israel will be blessed, and those that curse them, will be cursed'?

I wonder what their answer would be to that question.

Another thought, why are Church's in the business of investing money? That maybe that is common practice but me personally would rather it was given away to the poor.

Gandhi's Grandson Angers Jewish Community

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Jan. 26, 2008(AP) Arun Gandhi said he learned at his grandfather's feet that the world's major conflicts can only be tackled by first solving the little problems.

"It's the little problems that accumulate and become big problems," the fifth grandson of revered pacifist Mahatma Gandhi said when he moved his M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence to the University of Rochester last June.

Now, intemperate remarks about Israel and Jews being "the biggest players" in a global culture of violence have gotten Gandhi removed as president of the peace center he launched in 1991.

"My intention was to generate a healthy discussion on the proliferation of violence," Gandhi said Friday, a day after the institute's board accepted his resignation. "Instead, unintentionally, my words have resulted in pain, anger, confusion and embarrassment. I deeply regret these consequences."

The institute offers courses, workshops and seminars on nonviolence and will "continue its mission" at the University of Rochester, which provides office space and staff support, said the school's president, Joel Seligman.

Gandhi co-founded the center with his wife, Sunanda, at Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tenn., and relocated it to the Rochester campus a few months after her death last February.

Gandhi's resignation "was appropriate" because his remarks "did not reflect the core values" of either the university or the institute, Seligman said in a statement. But a forum will be held later this year to allow Gandhi to discuss issues he raised with Jewish community leaders and other speakers, Seligman said.

"I think it's shameful that a peace institute would be headed up by a bigot," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, an international group that opposes anti-Semitism. "One would hope that the grandson of such an illustrious human being would be more sensitive to Jewish history."

Gandhi was on a panel of scholars, writers and clergy who discuss a new topic weekly on the Washington Post's "On Faith" page and his comments, posted Jan. 7, drew a torrent of criticism, much of it unfavorable.

Gandhi wrote that Jewish identity "has been locked into the holocaust experience - a German burden that the Jews have not been able to shed. It is a very good example of (how) a community can overplay a historic experience to the point that it begins to repulse friends.

"The holocaust was the result of the warped mind of an individual who was able to influence his followers into doing something dreadful. ... The world did feel sorry for the episode but when an individual or a nation refuses to forgive and move on, the regret turns into anger."

Describing Israel as "a nation that believes its survival can only be ensured by weapons and bombs," Gandhi asked whether it would "not be better to befriend those who hate you?"

"Apparently, in the modern world so determined to live by the bomb, this is an alien concept," he wrote. "You don't befriend anyone, you dominate them. We have created a culture of violence (Israel and the Jews are the biggest players) and that Culture of Violence is eventually going to destroy humanity."

Gandhi later apologized "for my poorly worded post," saying he shouldn't have implied that Israeli government policies reflected the views of all Jewish people.

"I do believe that when a people hold on to historic grievances too firmly it can lead to bitterness and the loss of support from those who would be friends," he wrote in a follow-up.

While emphasizing that Jewish suffering, particularly in the Holocaust, "was historic in its proportions" and that "it is also important not to forget the past, lest we fail to learn from it," he stood by his criticism of "the use of violence by recent Israeli governments."

"I have criticized the governments of the U.S., India and China in much the same way," he said, adding that "I want to correct statements that I made with insufficient care, and that have inflicted unnecessary hurt and caused anger."

The institute's research library contains multiple photographs, audio and videotapes, and 100 volumes of writings by his grandfather, who led India to independence in 1947 and was assassinated by a Hindu hard-liner in January 1948.

Gandhi's Grandson Angers Jewish Community (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/25/national/printable3754410.shtml)

Quote from: DreamWeaver on January 26, 2008, 02:12:21 PM

AMEN!

I'm happy to see that WND told the blunt truth in this matter. It's sad that Christian News knows the TRUTH, and churches are debating what's already been decided by GOD in the Holy Bible. There is no excuse for a Christian to be ignorant about Israel. Organized attempts by churches to hurt Israel in any way indicates total ignorance of the Holy Bible and the times in which we live. I must say that I'm impressed with WND more and more. WND is proving over and over again that it can be a source of news that Christians can trust. I'm simply talking about the TRUTH and a BIBLICAL perspective. Christians, I'm talking about a BIBLICAL WORLD VIEW, not a WORLDLY WORLD VIEW. We do have to live in this world, but the BIBLE tells us how to do it.

Brothers and Sisters, I hope that everyone understands the significance of news stories like this. The lost have a Worldly World view, but MORE is expected of Christians.

Congo conflict claims 5 million lives in 10 years
Report cites war, disease and malnutrition; most conflict deaths since WW2

KINSHASA, Congo - War, disease and malnutrition are killing 45,000 Congolese every month in a conflict-driven humanitarian crisis that has claimed 5.4 million victims in nearly a decade, a survey released on Tuesday said.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC), which carried out the study with Australia's Burnet Institute, said Democratic Republic of Congo's 1998-2003 war and its aftermath had caused more deaths than any other conflict since World War II.

"Congo's loss is equivalent to the entire population of Denmark or the state of Colorado perishing within a decade," George Rupp, president of the aid group, said in a statement.

The findings were published on the day Congo's government and warring eastern rebel and militia factions were due to sign a cease-fire in the hope of halting fighting in the east which has raged on since the nominal end of the war.

Rupp said that although Congo's war formally ended five years ago, "ongoing strife and poverty continue to take a staggering toll."

"The conflict and its aftermath, in terms of fatalities, surpass any other since World War II," he added.

Malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition, aggravated by conflict, were the top killers in Congo, the survey said.

"Most of the deaths are due to easily treatable and preventable diseases through the collapse of health systems and the disruption of livelihoods," said IRC director of global health programs Richard Brennan, one of the survey's authors.

Congo has the lowest spending on health care of any country in the world at an average of just $15 per person per year.

"If you're in the United States, we spend $6,000 per person per year," Brennan said.

The study was conducted between January 2006 and April 2007 in 14,000 households in all the country's 11 provinces. It updated previous surveys which estimated the toll from Congo's war at around 4 million.

Hopes for peace
The IRC said an estimated 727,000 people died in excess of normal mortality during the latest survey period. Children under the age of 5 were the hardest hit, accounting for nearly half of all deaths despite making up 19 percent of the population.

Before the latest survey, humanitarian workers had estimated that more than 1,000 people a day were dying in Congo.

"Since our last study in 2004, there's been no change in the national rate, which is nearly 60 percent higher than the sub-Saharan average," Brennan said.

But in the east, where rebel groups, local militia, and Congo's own army prey on civilians with impunity, the mortality rate is 85 percent higher than the sub-Saharan African average.

The vast former Belgian colony's 1998-2003 war sucked in its neighbors, as foreign armies and rebel groups vied for control of the country's rich natural resources. The conflict wrecked infrastructure already weakened by decades of neglect and corrupt leadership and forced millions to flee their homes.

A 2003 peace agreement led to the formation of a transitional government and multi-party elections were held in 2006, won by President Joseph Kabila.

Rupp said he hoped the peace deal for the east, due to be signed on Tuesday by the government, Tutsi rebels and Mai Mai militias, could finally draw a line under Congo's crisis.

"We hope this week's peace agreement in North Kivu will mean an end to the hostilities and a restart of reconciliation and recovery efforts," he said.

The IRC called for security reforms, increased spending on basic services like health care and continued support for the 17,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo.

"Recovery from conflict is clearly a protracted process, particularly when it's on the back of decades ... of economic and political decline," Brennan said.

"There are no quick turnarounds ... So the international community needs to be in there for the long haul," he added.

Congo conflict claims 5 million lives in 10 years (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22781603/)

UCL professor: Terror 'Palestinians' moral right'
jonny paul - london , THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 27, 2008

In a lengthy and fiery debate at Oxford University over the weekend, the student union conceded Israel's "right to exist" by just over 100 votes.

Proposing the motion "This House believes that the State of Israel has a right to exist" were Norman Finkelstein, formally of De Paul University in Chicago, and Ted Honderich, professor of philosophy at University College London.

Questions about the seriousness of the event were raised ahead of the debate, since not only opposers of the motion, but also its proposers, were considered detractors of Israel.

Finkelstein, who had been supporting the motion, voted against it, while Honderich, who had crossed sides during the debate, voted for the motion, adding to accusations that the debate was a farce.

Supporting the motion, Jessica Prince from Oxford's University College spoke about the "absurdity" of the debate title. "I didn't think it was a question that we ask anymore," she said.

Opposing the motion, Lewis Turner from Oxford's New College said that if Israel is supposed to be a safe haven for Jewish people, "it's not working out because it's one of the most dangerous places for them to live."

"I was shocked to hear Honderich actually say that, 'Palestinians have a moral right to terrorism,'" said Olga Belogolova, a Jewish student from Boston University studying at Oxford for the semester.

"It was disappointing to see how many people were applauding the obviously radical speakers who were at times dishonest during the debate," she said. "It was disappointing to see students who agreed with the justification of terrorism and who were not questioning the rhetoric of the speakers."

"The debate was another childish attempt at sensationalism by the Oxford Union," said Yair Zivan, campaign director of the Union of Jewish Students (UJS). "To have a debate about Israel without a single mainstream voice present shows the debate was the farce we expected. The Oxford Union owes better to its membership to allow for intellectual debate and they should try to seriously engage with issues."

The Oxford University Debating Society refused to comment on the debate.

Meanwhile, Jewish and Israeli students at the London School of Economics (LSE) claimed victory after defeating a controversial motion calling for a boycott of Israel and calling Israel an apartheid state, raised at the university's union general meeting on Thursday.

The motion was defeated by seven votes following a mobilization of Jewish and Israeli students on campus.

The motion, proposed by LSE student Emiliano Huet-Vaughn, an International Solidarity Movement activist, branded Israel an apartheid state and called on the LSE student union to start a campaign to lobby the university and National Union of Students to divest from and boycott Israel.

Released 48 hours before the union meeting, the motion created a huge backlash and prompted Jewish and Israeli students to respond to what UJS called "extreme anti-Israel rhetoric on campus."

"Israel is an apartheid state, a state that promotes racism and xenophobia through acts of parliament, a democracy so-called only for people recognized in Israeli laws as 'Jews,' supported by a set of racist laws under which different laws regarding citizenship, housing, land ownership and marriage apply depending on whether someone is classified in law as 'Jewish' or 'non-Jewish,'" the motion read.

"[The year] 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the Nakba, the expulsion of the great majority of Palestinian Arabs from their homes and homeland in historic Palestine between 1947 and 1949. The expulsion, planned and systematically carried out by the founders of the State of Israel, was essential to the creation of an expressly Jewish state in the political Zionist sense of the term," the motion said.

The motion also supported the one-state solution and the end of the Israeli state. "Israel should be a state for all its citizens and stop discriminating against the indigenous Palestinian population. The Palestinians have the right to return to their homeland and receive just compensation and Israel should implement all international laws that it is currently violating," it read.

Following a highly tense and hostile meeting, 292 voted for the motion, 285 against it and 100 abstained.

"It was fantastic to see so many students turn out and show their opposition to this horrific one-sided and unconstructive motion," said Zivan. "Jewish student activists once again showed that they will stand up for Israel in even the harshest circumstances and won't let these kinds of actions go unchecked.

"It was welcome to see so many students with no personal affiliation to the Middle East conflict vote against the motion and reject extremist rhetoric at LSE," he continued. "We hope this sets the tone for a more civilized and balanced debate in the future."

"We only had 48 hours to organize the campaign but the response has been phenomenal," said Sam Cohen, a graduate student at LSE who led the campaign and spoke against the motion at the meeting. "Jewish and non-Jewish students proudly opposed extremist language at LSE and have shown that we want a moderate, sensible and constructive debate around the issues of the Middle East. I really hope this is the last time people try to polarize the student body in this way."

"It's [the motion] a really negative development," said Lior Herman, an Israeli PhD student at LSE. "While I'm very happy with the academic level here [LSE] I don't feel as comfortable. Every day there seem to be posters and slogans against Israel. The motion was the culmination... it did nothing to help the Palestinians or promote understanding.

"Not just Jewish and Israeli students want sensible discussion and bridge-building. Instead we're getting bridge-burning. Instead of doing what they should do, looking after the welfare of students, the [LSE] union meetings have become a platform for a minority to push their sinister agenda. Thus a large number of students, not just Jewish or Israeli, attended [the meeting] to make their voices heard," he said.

UCL professor: Terror 'Palestinians' moral right' (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1201367874283&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter)

Bill irks religious leaders
Proposal would affect hiring by groups that get government funds
By ED SEALOVER
THE GAZETTE
January 28, 2008 - 12:24AM

DENVER - Some services for the needy from Catholic Charities and other religious organizations could end if the General Assembly passes a bill that would forbid hiring based on religious preference, organization leaders warn.

HB1080 applies to religious groups that receive federal or state money to run parts of their organizations. Catholic Charities, for example, gets grants for its soup kitchen.

The measure would prohibit discriminatory employment in those areas that benefit from government funding. The prohibition would extend not just to applicants’ religion but to other protected traits, such as age, gender and sexual orientation.

The bill is a follow-up to a controversial 2007 law that bans hiring, firing, promotion and demotion based on sexual orientation and religion. It included an exemption for religious organizations, but House Majority Leader Alice Madden, who sponsored that law as well as the new bill, said she was questioned about why groups that get government funding should not play by the same rules as everyone else.

Madden, D-Boulder, pulled the bill from the House calendar temporarily while she works on its language. She wants to find a way to exempt employees who may work for, say, a federally funded part of a religious organization but also work in other areas.

“This is about the types of jobs a religious group is using taxpayer money for,” Madden said. “We’re not trying to cause a great deal of problems, but when someone is funded by the government, we think they should follow the law.”
But religious leaders argue that the bill would cause problems.

Archbishop Charles Chaput of the Catholic Archdiocese of Denver wrote a column calling the bill “offensive, implicitly bigoted and designed to bully religious groups out of the public square.”

Though Catholic Charities hires many people who are not Catholic to work in soup kitchens and other areas, the church’s ability to bring in someone who shares the faith and mission of the organization is essential to the program’s existence, he said.

“Catholic Charities has no interest at all in generic dogoodism; on the contrary, it’s an arm of Catholic social ministry,” Chaput wrote of one of the largest charitable organizations in the state. “When it can no longer have the freedom it needs to be ‘Catholic,’ it will end its services. This is not idle talk. I am very serious.”

Bishop Michael Sheridan of the Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs noted that the local arm of Catholic Charities receives far less of its budget from grants — 3 percent to 5 percent, he estimated — but said that he would forgo all government money rather than play by new rules. That would not shut down major missions like the Marian House soup kitchen but would have an impact on how the church could reach out, he said.

“We’ve got people that we’re feeding and families that we’re helping that are going to be left high and dry without our services,” Sheridan said. “It’s my hope that if people could come to see how bad this law is, it’s going to come to die.”

A legislator who worked with Madden on the bill said it’s on hold for the moment because Gov. Bill Ritter, a Catholic, said he would not sign it.

Tom Minnery, a Focus on the Family vice president and board member for the Alliance Defense Fund for preservation of the freedom of religion, questioned whether such a bill is legal. He claimed that despite its nondiscriminatory title, it discriminates specifically against churches. Large groups from the Salvation Army to the Denver Rescue Mission could be affected, and a lawsuit could be prepared if the measure is passed, he said.

Madden, who was alerted to concerns by the Anti-Defamation League, insists she will move forward with the bill as soon as she comes up with the proper language. She did not give a time frame.

“We just want to get to the point where it’s clear that when you’re using tax dollars you can’t discriminate against people, but you do so in a way that preserves liberties,” she said.

Bill irks religious leaders (http://www.gazette.com/articles/catholic_32448___article.html/bill_religious.html)

Holocaust-themed Rio Carnival float causes strain
Tue Jan 29, 2008 2:55pm EST

By Pedro Fonseca

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - A Carnival float with a pile of model dead bodies commemorating the Holocaust is causing unease before the lavish parades in Rio de Janeiro this weekend.

The Viradouro samba organization, or school, plans to feature the grim display when it marches in the Sambadrome parade strip on Sunday, despite objections from a local Jewish group.

"Really, it makes no sense addressing this theme with drums and dancing girls," said Sergio Niskier, president of the Israelite Federation in Rio de Janeiro state, referring to the slaughter of Jews by Nazi Germany in World War Two.

"There are still survivors of that horror who have the marks of that tragedy on their skin," he said.

Rio's Carnival is famed for the parades by samba schools with glitzy floats and costumes and street parties where costumed revelers drink and dance all night.

The elaborately decorated floats are a key part of each samba school's presentation, along with thousands of dancers and drummers led by near naked Carnival queens.

Viradouro insisted its Holocaust float is not meant to offend anyone.

"The float is extremely respectful, it's a warning, it's something shocking that we don't want to happen ever again," said Paulo Barros, Viradouro's artistic director.

Viradouro's parade theme is "Shockers" and it includes floats depicting the shock of birth, the shock of horror and the shock of cold.

Barrossaid the Holocaust float would be the only one without dancers on top.

"If we had people dancing on top of dead bodies that would indeed be disrespectful," he told Reuters.

Traditionally, the use of religious references causes last-minute problems for samba schools. In the past, the Roman Catholic Church has barred floats with figures of Christ and the Virgin Mary and samba schools had to cover or modify them.

Holocaust-themed Rio Carnival float causes strain (http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN2955554720080129?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=22&sp=true)

Sex show returns to college that banished cross
'Our students have wisdom to put such programming in context'

A promotion of the sex industry, G-strings, pasties and nudity included, is returning to the historic College of William & Mary, which earlier removed a cross from the famous Wren Chapel because it could offend visitors.

Gene Nichol, president of the college that was a Christian institution at its founding, was the decision-maker when the cross first was banished from the chapel, then restored to a special secured case when alumni protested. He confirmed he would not alter plans for the Sex Workers' Art Show to be performed twice on Feb. 4.

Last year, the show's appearance on campus provoked outrage from alumni and supporters who accused Nichol of staging an affront to religion and morality in light of his then-recent decision to withdraw the cross from display in the chapel.

He said this year that students requested the show, they voted to spend campus funding for it, and he could not change that because of "the First Amendment and the defining traditions of openness that sustain universities."

Rector Michael Powell said the Student Assembly this year voted to spend $2,200 in student fee funds on the show.

It is scheduled to be performed at the Williamsburg school at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. in the University Center's Commonwealth Auditorium, where strippers, prostitutes and other sex workers will appear.

According to a report in the Newport News Daily Press, the Rev. Jennifer Ryu of Williamsburg Unitarian Universalists would have allowed the show at her church before she learned that it could violate a county ordinance on public nudity, which the show features.

"We have a reputation in town of being an open-minded church," she told the newspaper. "With all the controversy, it's hard to make an informed judgment about the show unless you see it."

However, John Foubert, an education professor who researches sexual violence toward women, said studies confirm that exposing men to pornography made them more likely to commit sexual assault.

"I'm opposed to – and working strongly against – pornography and the industry," Foubert told the paper. "What I believe the Sex Workers' Art Show does is promote the porn industry, and it goes beyond a speech issue. ... The issue here is an issue of public nudity."

The Flat Hat student newspaper noted Foubert expects the sex show "to bring increased ... sexual aggression, and by itself may also lead to a short-term increase in incidents [of] sexual assault at William and Mary as well."

Thomas Chappell, of the class of 2011, objected to the use of mandatory student fees on the sex show.

"Those that choose to attend should bear the full cost of the ticket prices instead of using everyone else's money to help the people that attend pay for admission," he said.

The student newspaper's online forum, however, raised some additional objections.

"Can you imagine if a student Christian organization wanted the university to sanction its evangelistic presentation on campus in the name of First Amendment freedoms that Nichols claims to prize? No way," wrote one participant. "Nichol has already demonstrated his hostility to organize religion quite clearly. But organized porn? Hey, no problem."

"It's laughable for Nichol to insist his hands are tied on this show and there's nothing he can do about it. He could do something about it if he REALLY wanted to. This is the same president who unilaterally made a decision overturning decades of powerful William and Mary tradition with the Wren Cross. He can't have it both ways. His actions regarding institutional or traditional constraints at the college seem to vary according to his personal preferences. Sure his hands may be tied, but he tied them himself this time," added "C.K."

"There was a time when I regarded W&M as the premier school in the state," wrote JM, who identified himself as an art professor. "Stories like these make me revise that opinion."

A year ago, topless dancers, demonstrations of sex toys and Q&As with male and female prostitutes were featured on the campus where former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor serves as chancellor.

Among the performances was a striptease by 200-pound-plus Dirty Martini, who finished in a G-string and pasties. Another performer in military fatigues stripped, used a fake gun as a sex prop and told the audience that sexual favors would be given if "doing so can end the war. Just don't force me."

"It's just so out there and expressive," Josh Campbell, a member of Lamba Alliance, one of six student groups to sponsor the 2007 event, told the local paper. "It's hip, it's in your face, and it's exciting."

William & Mary made the national spotlight in 2006 when WND revealed that university administrator Melissa Engimann circulated an e-mail noting that the cross in Wren Chapel was going to be placed in permanent storage to make the chapel "less of a faith-specific space."

The cross had been in the chapel for decades; the chapel has been on the campus of the second-oldest university in the U.S. for centuries. Nevertheless, Nichol ruled the cross, because of one written complaint, had to go. He later backtracked when students and alumni put together a petition with more than 10,000 signatures.

A special committee later determined the cross should be put on permanent display in a glass case in the chapel,and available for use during "appropriate religious services."

John Grisham and the New Baptist Covenant

Feb 1, 2008 | by David Roach

ATLANTA (BP)--To restore their prophetic voice in the culture, Baptists must reject "narrow" interpretations of Scripture and oppose both the Iraq war and President Bush's tax cuts, plenary session speakers said Jan. 31 at the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant in Atlanta.

The auditorium, which holds 15,000 people, was approximately half full for Thursday's sessions after an estimated attendance of 9,000 for Wednesday night's address by former President Jimmy Carter. Some attendees of the combined winter meeting of the National Baptist Convention of America, the National Baptist Convention USA, the National Missionary Baptist Convention of America and the Progressive National Baptist Convention appeared to have gone home.

Novelist John Grisham said it is time for Baptists to stop reading the Bible with so-called narrow literalness and celebrate diversity.

He criticized the Baptist church he attended during his youth for taking what he said was an inconsistent and intolerant approach to Scripture.

"In the Baptist church of my youth we were taught that the Bible is the infallible, inerrant Word of God -- every word is divinely inspired and it is to be read literally," Grisham said. "It just dropped out of heaven. Five thousand years ago God made the earth in six days, 144 hours. Then He rested on the Sabbath, which is really on Saturday but we're not going to start that debate. Methuselah lived to be a [thousand], and when Paul wrote that women should be submissive, that was the literal interpretation. It was the law.

"However, when Paul told Timothy to have a little wine," he said to laughter, "and when Jesus said in Mark 16 that His followers would be known for speaking in tongues, taking up the serpents with their hands and drinking the poison, well then some things were not so literal."

He called churches holding such beliefs intolerant and harmful to the cause of Christ.

"The church was proudly intolerant of other people, other denominations, other religions," he said. "Sadly, in many ways and in many places, that church still exists today. Many of you know it because you're products of those churches."

Baptists are hated by some people because Baptists "have worked so hard to exclude so many," Grisham said. Citing Galatians 3:28, he said Baptists must restore their image by respecting everyone.

"Who are we kidding when we try to exclude?" he said. "God made all of us. He loves all of us equally, and He expects us to love and respect each other without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, biblical interpretation, denominations or other religions."

He specifically criticized those who limit some roles in the church to men only, citing the church of his youth as one bad example.

"In the Baptist church of my youth, women were expected to stay in their places," Grisham said. "They couldn't preach, couldn't serve as deacons.

"They could run the nursery. They could teach the children. They could sing in the choir, but they could not lead in public prayer. They could be appointed missionaries' wives but not missionaries. And two or three times a year, just for good measure, to remind them of their reduced status, we would hear a long sermon based on the first-century writings of the apostle Paul. How many times have I heard 1 Timothy 2:11-12?"

He remarked of 1 Timothy 2:11-12, "Even as a child I did not understand this."

Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund, called on Baptists to take the lead in lifting children out of poverty.

Millions of children are abused, receive inadequate healthcare, die of preventable causes and lack adequate education, she said. The church must take responsibility for this problem and work for a solution, Edelman said.

"The church ought to be the locomotive and not the caboose in speaking up for the poor children and the neglected children in our country," she said.

One important way the church should help is by rediscovering its prophetic voice to the culture, she said. It is particularly important for the church to speak against making President Bush's tax cuts permanent, she said.

"The number of children in poverty has increased by 2 million since 2000, and our uninsured children have increased by 1 million in the last two years, and our political leaders say we don't have the money to provide five years of $70 billion but say we can afford to give tax cuts to billionaires in the top 1 percent, which costs $76 billion in lost revenue this year alone," Edelman said.

"That money could lift every child out of poverty and provide all uninsured children and pregnant women healthcare. And you need to raise your voices and oppose any efforts to make those tax cuts permanent."

Edelman added that any nation spending more money on defense than social uplift evidences its own spiritual decay.

"Just seven months of our last year's budget on the Iraq war could also lift every child out of poverty and provide every child healthcare," she said. "And we have got to figure out how we find a better balance between protecting our children from the terrors within and protecting our children from the enemies without."

Julie Pennington-Russell, pastor of First Baptist Church in Decatur, Ga., said Baptists must move beyond being politely respectful to people different from themselves and embrace all people with Christ-like love.

"Respect, in the end, has no power to change something that's fundamentally broken in you and me and between you and me," she said. "Only love can do that."

Baptists must love like never before those with different politics or theology, Pennington-Russell said.

"Chances are in some ways they've been blinded toward you, and chances are you've been a little blind toward them too," she said. "And you and I have no power to heal ourselves of our blindness, but love does."

Tony Campolo, professor emeritus at Eastern University, said Christians must make personal sacrifices to help the poor. He asked the hypothetical question, "Can a Christian own a BMW?" and said Jesus would spend His money helping the poor rather than buying an extravagant luxury item.

"Can you imagine Him (Jesus) having to choose between feeding starving kids in Haiti and buying a BMW (and) saying, 'Forget those kids. I'm buying me a status symbol?'"

In the midst of alleviating poverty believers must never forget that telling the message of salvation to all people is the most important duty they have, he said.

"Even as we feed the hungry, clothe the naked -- even as we reach out to the poor and the oppressed of our age, which is the calling of this convocation, we do have to say this: We must also and above all bring the message of salvation, for man (and) woman shall not live by bread alone."

The New Baptist Covenant meeting is scheduled to conclude Friday with an address by former President Bill Clinton.

John Grisham and the New Baptist Covenant (http://www.baptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?id=27309)

Quote from: grammyluv on February 09, 2008, 07:42:10 PM

Jury Duty Scam

This has been verified by the FBI (their link is also included below). Please pass this on to everyone in your email address book. It is spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call. Most of us take those summonses for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of fraud has surfaced.

The caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and bingo; y our identity w as just stolen.

The fraud has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma , Illinois , and Colorado . This (swindle) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving information by pretending they are with the court system. The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web sites, warning consumers about the fraud.

Check it out here: http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm (http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm)

And here: http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp (http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp)

Hello Grammyluv,

Sister, thanks for the information. This one is a very clever con game, and I can see where it would work very well with most people. It might also be difficult to catch and prosecute these people. A method might be devised to appeal to their greed and get them caught. As an example, I might offer to pay a fine in cash. A real court system never rejects cash. However, most real court systems don't do business like this over the phone. The person is required to appear before a judge. Average people might not know things like this and be fairly easy to deceive.

Observation: Little about evangelism from Baptists' Atlanta gathering

Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, says it's no surprise that most of the speeches and workshops coming out of the recent meeting of liberal and moderate Baptists had little or nothing to do with evangelism.

The three-day event, which started January 30, was called "Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant." It was organized by former President Jimmy Carter and featured speeches by former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore. After speaking to the gathering on the topic of global warming, Gore was labeled a "Baptist prophet" by the leader of a Baptist group based in Nashville.

In addition to global warming, topics at the Atlanta meeting included poverty, the war in Iraq, education funding, religious liberty, and religious diversity. Those attending the meeting represented 30 Baptist conventions and organizations, all of which are aligned with the North American Baptist Fellowship. Dr. Land said for most groups at the meeting, evangelism was not a high priority.

"If they were strong on evangelism, then all of these groups would not have declining membership," he observes. "And every one of the groups that was there either has declining membership or is stagnant in its membership growth."

Membership decline is an example, he contends, of what occurs when religious leaders exchange the true gospel for a social gospel. "That's what happens when you don't emphasize evangelism and when you compromise with the culture," Land argues.

"Some call it diversity and worship of diversity; I call it compromise with the culture," the Southern Baptist official continued. "We're going to stand over against the culture and bear witness to the culture, not be seduced by the culture."

Dr. Land also said the timing of the meeting, less than a week before Super Tuesday, was no coincidence. He expects there will be a lot of rhetoric from the "New Baptist Covenant" leading up to the November elections, but not much afterwards.

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The three-day event, which started January 30, was called "Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant." It was organized by former President Jimmy Carter and featured speeches by former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore. After speaking to the gathering on the topic of global warming, Gore was labeled a "Baptist prophet" by the leader of a Baptist group based in Nashville.

The gift of prophet seems to have been a temporary gift given by the Christ for the laying of the foundation of the church. Prophets were foundational to the church (Ephesians 2:20). The prophet proclaimed a message from the Lord to the early believers. Sometimes a prophet’s message was revelatory (new revelation and truth from God) and sometimes a prophet’s message was predictive (Acts 11:28 and 21:10). The early Christians did not have the complete Bible. Some early Christians did not have access to any of the books of the New Testament. The New Testament prophets “filled the gap” by proclaiming God’s message to the people who would not have access to it otherwise. The last book of the New Testament (Revelation) was not completed until late in the first century. So, the Lord sent prophets to proclaimed God’s Word to His people.

If the purpose of a prophet was to reveal truth from God, why would we need prophets if we have the completed revelation from God in the Bible?? If prophets were the “foundation” of the early church, are we still building the “foundation” today? Can God give someone a message to deliver to someone else? Absolutely!! Does God reveal truth to someone in a supernatural way and enable that person to deliver that message to others?? Absolutely!! But is this the biblical gift of prophecy?? NO!!!!!

Whenever a person claims to be speaking for God (the essence of prophecy) the key is to compare what is said with what the Bible says. If God were to speak through a person today, it would be in 100% complete agreement with what God has already said in the Bible. God does not contradict Himself.

1 John 4:1 BELOVED, DO not put faith in every spirit, but prove (test) the spirits to discover whether they proceed from God; for many false prophets have gone forth into the world.

1 Thessalonians 5:20-21 Do not spurn the gifts and utterances of the prophets [do not depreciate prophetic revelations nor despise inspired instruction or exhortation or warning]. 21 But test and prove all things [until you can recognize] what is good; [to that] hold fast.

Compare what is said to what the Word of God says. If it contradicts the Bible, throw it out. If it agrees with the Bible, pray for wisdom and discernment as to how to apply the message!!

2 Timothy 3:16-17 Every Scripture is God-breathed (given by His inspiration) and profitable for instruction, for reproof and conviction of sin, for correction of error and discipline in obedience, [and] for training in righteousness (in holy living, in conformity to God's will in thought, purpose, and action), 17 So that the man of God may be complete and proficient, well fitted and thoroughly equipped for every good work.

James 1:5 If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God [Who gives] to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding, and it will be given him.

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Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, says it's no surprise that most of the speeches and workshops coming out of the recent meeting of liberal and moderate Baptists had little or nothing to do with evangelism.

2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 Let no one deceive or beguile you in any way, for that day will not come except the apostasy comes first [unless the predicted great falling away of those who have professed to be Christians has come], and the man of lawlessness (sin) is revealed, who is the son of doom (of perdition), 4 Who opposes and exalts himself so proudly and insolently against and over all that is called God or that is worshiped, [even to his actually] taking his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming that he himself is God.

'Dear Abby' a shock jock for promiscuity?
'Logical result of advice is fewer marriages, more sexual experimentation'

A new report is warning Americans to beware of reading or following the Dear Abby column, especially when writer Jeanne Phillips dispenses advice about sex.

"Publications that carry Abby might want to consider carrying a label: 'Warning: Although Abby has a reputation as the stern aunt who can deliver a well-placed kick to your backside when needed, on sexual topics her foot will push you further in the wrong direction at least half the time,'" said a report from the Culture and Media Institute.

The organization, which is designed to "advance, preserve, and help restore America's culture, character, traditional values, and morals against the assault of the liberal media elite," has examined the publications of "Dear Abby."

An icon in America, the advice column runs in 1,400 newspapers worldwide and reaches an estimated 110 million readers daily – about three times the combined viewership of ABC, CBS and NBC, the report said.

"Phillips enjoys a tremendous platform to promote her beliefs on everything from wedding etiquette to handling the crazy uncle in the attic," the report, assembled by research assistant Colleen Raezler, said.

However, the CMI analysis noted that 30 percent of her 2007 columns addressed issued associated with sex, and in more than half of those, she took "a distinctly non-traditional approach toward moral questions."

"Many of her columns on sex could have been written by Dr. Ruth (the sex therapist)," the report said.

"Fifty-four columns address sex between unmarried adults, and only one column suggests that sex should be preceded by marriage," the report summary said. "Thirty-six columns address infidelity. In only 10 of these columns does Abby suggest breaking off an affair, or not getting into an affair in the first place. Only once does Abby flatly state that an affair is 'wrong.'"

"At times Abby appears to condone adultery, even homosexual adultery," the report said. "'Confused in Illinois' wrote Abby that she had no interest in intimate relations with her husband, but she is now involved in a 'passionate sexual relationship' with a female friend. Abby told her to 'look at the bright side. At least you now finally understand what has been missing…'"

Of 12 columns dealing with teen sex, only three times did she suggest abstinence, and that was only for teens who were not yet sexually active, the report said.

Ten columns addressed homosexuality, "and Abby never says homosexual behavior is morally wrong. Instead she treats it as normal and ignores the well-documented, associated health risks."

She even adopts as normal quirky behavior. "Twenty of Abby's sex columns address topics such as stripping, nudism and cross-dressing," the report said. To a woman whose "significant other" wanted to dress as a woman, she said, "If I really cared about him, I think I'd ask to spend some time with his 'other self.'"

The column, founded by 1956 by Pauline Phillips and now taken over by her daughter, Jeanne, doesn't view sex as part of traditional morality that is "limited to married, heterosexual couples," the report said. It said a review of columns back to 1981 supported the fact that "Dear Abby … has consistently espoused sexually 'liberated' viewpoints for the past 30 years."

There have been alarms raised in the past. In 1997, W. Patrick Cunningham wrote about "Abby" and her sister, Ann Landers, who until her death in 2002 wrote that advice column.

"Their pithy dictums have seduced many into accepting the reasonableness of moral relativism; they have, over the past 40 years, helped legitimize the revolution in morality that has taken Western culture to the brink of extinction."

Among her other causes, Ann Landers advocated abortion and legalization of prostitution, the report said.

"Abby" regularly refers teens to Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, for information about "family planning.'

And for her work, column founder Pauline Phillips was awarded the Margaret Sanger Award from Planned Parenthood. She explained why she referred to Planned Parenthood.

"I knew that Planned Parenthood would advise her about her entire range of options," she later explained.

Crisis pregnancy centers, however, should be avoided, she said, because of the "color videos of aborted fetuses."

On homosexuality, the 2007 columns were unanimous in their sympathy to the homosexual agenda in the United States. In October, Phillips told the Associated Press that she supports same-sex "marriage." She said, "I believe if two people want to commit to each other, God bless 'em."

On sex between unmarried individuals, she endorsed it 53 of 54 times the subject arose. And the one exception was, in fact, a joke.

"Only once did Abby suggest waiting until marriage before engaging in sexual activity, and that was to a 59-year-old widow who asked how to respond to her 71-year-old widower companions' question about how she feels about sex. Abby suggested, "The next time the gentleman asks how you feel about sex, say, 'I love sex. How do you feel about marriage?'"

The Media Research Center, parent of the Culture and Media Institute, said it was offering a way for concerned newspaper readers to take action. It is providing a link that allows readers to demand that newspapers print a disclaimer above the "Abby" columns, "warning readers that she is not an accredited professional and her advice on sexual morality cannot be trusted."

"The logical result of following Abby's advice is fewer marriages, more sexual experimentation and fewer strong families producing self-governing citizens," the report concluded.

Counselors ordered to argue for homosexuality
Professional association warns doing otherwise may be unethical

The American Counseling Association has ruled that when clients ask for help in changing their sexual orientation, member counselors must offer "gay affirmative" arguments, and if the client persists, counselors must explore the "religious influences that underpin homophobia that may be harming the client."

Now the one-sided demands of the association are being challenged by a coalition of hundreds of counselors as well as a law firm that wants the association to issue a "clarification" in order to avoid "future legal actions."

At issue is a ruling from the association concerning clients who seek help in clarifying their sexual orientation as that matching their physical characteristics.

Such questions from clients need to be met with that "gay affirmative" response, the organization's leaders have stated, and if a client insists on seeking such treatment, a counselor who even refers a client to anyone offering reparative counseling could be violating the association's ethical guidelines.

Dr. Warren Throckmorton, an educator from Grove City College in Pennsylvania, assembled a coalition of about 400 counselors who are having difficulties with the pro-homosexual mandate from the association and have written to tell its chief, Brian Canfield, of their concerns.

Throckmorton noted a complaint had been filed with the ACA's executive committee months ago, and officials there have refused to respond.

"Thus, we, the undersigned are making a formal complaint to the American Counseling Association," he wrote.

The new pro-homosexual agenda, the letter said, "violates pre-existing ACA policy regarding Non-consensus Social Issues of Conscience."

That policy states that the ACA and its members "endorse the members' right to support social, political, religious, and professional actions groups whose values and positions on such issues are congruent with their own …. to truly celebrate diversity, we must be united in our respect for the differences in our membership. To this end, the role of the Association in such matters is to support the rights of members to hold contrary points of views. …"

Throckmorton's letter, however, noted that the ACA Ethics Committee opinion in question "is prejudicial toward clients and counselors who hold traditional beliefs and values regarding sexuality."

"We write because we believe the ACA opinion takes a side against people of conservative and traditional beliefs about sexuality, a domain where social and professional consensus is not clear," the letter said.

ACA officials could not be reached by WND for a comment because the association was closed for the holiday.

But the letter noted the ethics committee opinion stated as fact: "Conversion therapy as a practice is a religious, not psychologically-based, practice. The premise of the treatment is to change a client's sexual orientation. The treatment may include techniques based in Christian faith-based methods such as the use of 'testimonials, mentoring, prayer, Bible readings, and Christian weekend workshops.'"

The ethics committee, instead, demanded the use of "treatments" endorsed by the "association for Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Issues in Counseling," which it described as "a division of the American Counseling Association and the American Psychological Association."

"These treatments are gay affirmative and help a client reconcile his/her same-sex attractions with religious beliefs," the committee wrote.

Throckmorton's letter noted, "Essentially, the entire opinion discourages counselors and clients from attempting to do anything about homosexual desires except affirm them."

Such narrow opinions "stigmatize religious people who might use testimonials, mentoring, prayer, Bible reading and Christian teachings to enable them to live sexually in ways which conform to their beliefs … The teachings of many religions discourage homosexual practice (not Christianity alone) and for the ACA ECO to isolate these practices and in essence to discourage these teachings is prejudicial," the letter said.

The ethics committee opinion clearly makes a statement "of preference for one religious belief regarding homosexuality over another" and in doing so violates the ACA's policy.

The Alliance Defense Fund, a nationwide organization of attorneys dedicated to defending religious liberty, said the ACA "suggests that 'conversion therapy' has no legitimate place in counseling and that those who either engage in such counseling or refer clients for this kind of therapy may violate the ACA's ethics rules."

"It is imperative that the religious beliefs of both clients and counselors are respected and protected. A client's religious beliefs and desire to conform his or her sexual practices to those beliefs should be respected and should not be intentionally undermined by a counselor," said a letter from ADF Senior Legal Counsel Brian W. Raum.

"The ACA Ethics Committee opinion provides no guidance or recognition that counselors may work with clients who do not affirm homosexual behavior in order to pursue lives in keeping with their religious beliefs and values," he wrote.

The ACA ethics requirements, written by Joy S. Whitman, Harriet L. Glosoff, Michael M. Kocet and Vilia Tarvydas, used as an example a client who reports he is "gay" and then states, "I want to change my way of life and not be gay anymore" and specifically asks for help with "reparative/conversion" therapy.

The proper response, according to the ACA, is for the counselor to inform the client "she does not believe reparative/conversion therapy is effective and no empirical support exists for the approach. She further states that this form of therapy can actually be harmful to clients, so she will not offer this as a treatment."

The committee warns if a counselor offers such counseling, they would be in jeopardy of violating the association's code of ethics.

"There also was agreement ... any counselors stating that they can offer conversion therapy must also offer referrals to gay, lesbian, and bisexual-affirmative counselors and should discuss thoroughly the right of clients to seek these professionals' counsel. In doing so, counselors must explore with clients the underlying reasons for their interest in changing their sexual orientation and discuss the social, political, and religious influences that underpin homophobia that may be harming the client," the ACA committee said.

"Christian counselors and the people who receive their counseling shouldn't be penalized for abiding by their beliefs," Raum said. "People have the right to choose the counselor they want, and counselors have the right to suggest what they believe will help. Professional freedom of conscience a crucial element in ensuring that clients receive the help they need."

'Earth worship' on the rise among evangelical youth

Janice Crouse, a senior fellow with Concerned Women for America, says it's disturbing that many young people in evangelical churches are experimenting with the Wiccan religion. Church leaders and Christian parents, she warns, must be ready to counter that growing interest among their youth.

Crouse cites an article in Religion Journal which said youth pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention were worried about large numbers of evangelicals taking part in Wicca, a religion that involves nature worship, stresses moral autonomy, and includes remedies and spells -- beliefs that Crouse points out are distinctly different from orthodox Christianity, not to mention incompatible with the Bible.

"... Wiccans believe in moral autonomy -- [that] 'nobody can tell me what to do.' And I think particularly with young people ... that's a very desirable thing; they don't want the church telling them that there are boundaries, [that] there are things that they can't do," she explains. "Another one is that they don't believe in having authorities beyond human constructs; that we as individuals have the responsibility to shape our own beliefs and there's no evil beyond that."

Crouse, who directs Concerned Women for America's Beverly LaHaye Institute, says the interest in Wicca can be traced to recent books featuring witchcraft and similar topics.

"Some people think this goes back to the books that were so popular up until recently, and so many of the games and television programs that feature witchcraft and magic and fairy tales that have a dimension to it that if you just pull out some kind of spell you can make anything happen," she says. "This has really become quite entrenched in many of the young people's groups and in evangelicals in particular."

According to Crouse, "earth worship" -- as she describes Wicca -- appeals to people who do not want to be bound by any book of authority or have imposed on them any requirements to be "believers."

American Professor, Ousted From DePaul University, Declares Support for Hezbollah in Lebanon

Monday , February 25, 2008

Click here to watch the video. (http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1676.htm)

CHICAGO —
An ousted American political science professor who believes some Jews have exploited the legacy of the Holocaust recently expressed his support for the terrorist organization Hezbollah.

Norman Finkelstein, who resigned from DePaul University last fall amid criticism of his opinions on the Holocaust, told Lebanese television that his view of Hezbollah is "rarely heard" in the United States.

"I have no problem saying that I do want to express solidarity with them, and I'm not going to be a coward and a hypocrite about it," Finkelstein told Future TV. "I don't care about Hezbollah as a political organization. I don't know much about their politics and anyhow, it's irrelevant."

The Jan. 20, 2008, interview was conducted in Arabic; Finkelstein replied in English.

Hezbollah, funded by Iran and Syria, engages in terror operations worldwide. President Bush and other U.S. leaders view the organization as an opposing force to peace in the Middle East, and it is listed by the U.S. State Department as a foreign terrorist organization.

Finkelstein’s support for Hezbollah would be illegal if he were helping raise funds for the organization, said Richard Miniter, a terrorism analyst with the Hudson Institute.

“If terrorists are able to use his name to fundraise in any way, that would be illegal,” said Miniter, who added that only Al Qaeda has killed more Americans than Hezbollah.

Finkelstein, who is the son of Holocaust survivors, said in the televised interview that Jews had to resist the Communists in World War II and the Lebanese people will have to make the same kind of choice about accepting or resisting Hezbollah.

"It's a choice that the Lebanese have to make — who they want to be their leaders, who they want to represent them."

Israel and the United States are resisting Hezbollah's control of the region, Finkelstein said.

"That's the problem," he said. "If Hezbollah laid down its arms and said, 'We will do whatever the Americans say,' you wouldn't have a war.

"That's true, but you would also be the slaves of the Americans. I have to respect those who refuse to be slaves."

He said Israel must suffer a defeat to lead to peace in the Middle East.

Asked to comment on this report, Finkelstein said he was only willing to speak live on air.

Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor and supporter of Israel, said Finkelstein’s comments show that he is anti-American.

“If it’s not literal treason, it certainly is treason in spirit,” Dershowitz told FOXNews.com. “He belongs with Hezbollah."

Finkelstein is supporting an organization that brags about killing Americans, he added.

“This is a man who supports an organization that recently called for terrorist attacks against Jews and Americans all across the world,” Dershowitz said.

Click here to visit Finkelstein's Web site.

Finkelstein initially fought DePaul, a private Catholic university in Chicago, on its decision last September to cancel his courses and deny him tenure after six years as a faculty member.

He threatened to risk arrest by appearing on campus, but negotiations with university officials led to a peaceful exit.

Dershowitz, who weighted in on Finkelstein's tenure process, said Finkelstein’s support for Hezbollah vindicates the decision by DePaul to deny his tenure.

“To have an American citizen endorsing the views of a group of Iranian-funded Lebanese murderers, it shows you that the biggest front in the War on Terror is the propaganda war,” Miniter said. “Days like today, it looks like we’re losing.”

American Professor, Ousted From DePaul University, Declares Support for Hezbollah in Lebanon (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,332360,00.html)

Planned Parenthood: Wanting fewer blacks 'understandable'
Abortion provider says 'yes' when 'donor' wants to reduce minorities

A student-run magazine at UCLA has revealed an undercover investigation in which representatives of Planned Parenthood, the nation's abortion industry leader, admitted willingness to accepting a financial donation targeting the destruction of an unborn black baby.

Lila Rose, who edits The Advocate, previously revealed how Planned Parenthood officials expressed a willingness to conceal statutory rape, an investigative piece that earned her an appearance on the Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor."

Now she's told WND she hopes the taped responses of Planned Parenthood officials in seven states reveal to her local UCLA community and the nation the racist leanings of the organization.

WND calls to Planned Parenthood of Idaho, which was featured in The Advocate report, requesting a comment were not returned.

"Students on campus are shocked and saddened that such a huge organization would have racist leanings in the present day," Rose told WND. "They are surprised to hear the truth about [Planned Parenthood founder] Margaret Sanger, and how the African-American community is being hurt by abortion.

(Story continues below)

"There's a lot of surprise out there. Planned Parenthood does an excellent job of covering up the facts," she said.

Sanger supported eugenics to cull those she considered unfit from the population. In 1921, she said eugenics is "the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems."

At one point, Sanger lamented "the ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all." Another time, Sanger wrote, "We do not want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population."

According to Bryan Fisher, executive director of Idaho Values Alliance, Planned Parenthood, which gets an estimated $200 million annually from U.S. taxpayers, has located nearly 80 percent of its clinics nationwide in minority neighborhoods, and about one-third of all abortions are performed on blacks, even though they make up only 13 percent of the population.

Nationwide, almost half of all black pregnancies end in abortion, officials said.

"It turns out that blatant racism is alive and well in Idaho, but it's not coming from the Aryan Nation types – it's coming from way-left organizations like Idaho's own Planned Parenthood," Fischer said. "If Idaho is in fact a haven for white racism, it turns out that Planned Parenthood and not Richard Butler is to blame."

Richard Butler, who died in 2004, was a notorious white supremacist who founded Aryan Nations in northern Idaho. He lost a 20-acre compound in 2000 when a $6.3 million civil judgment against his group led to a bankruptcy.

"Idaho didn't have room for Richard Butler and shouldn't have room for Planned Parenthood," Fischer said.

The Advocate released a transcript of a conversation between an actor presuming to be a racist and wanting to make a donation, and a woman identified as Autumn Kersey, vice president of marketing for Planned Parenthood of Idaho.

Actor: I want to specify that abortion to help a minority group, would that be possible?
Planned Parenthood: Absolutely.
Actor: Like the black community for example?
Planned Parenthood: Certainly.
Actor: The abortion – I can give money specifically for a black baby, that would be the purpose?
Planned Parenthood: Absolutely. If you wanted to designate that your gift be used to help an African-American woman in need, then we would certainly make sure that the gift was earmarked for that purpose.
Actor: Great, because I really faced trouble with affirmative action, and I don't want my kids to be disadvantaged against black kids. I just had a baby; I want to put it in his name.
Planned Parenthood: Yes, absolutely.
Actor: And we don't, you know we just think, the less black kids out there the better.
Planned Parenthood: (Laughs) Understandable, understandable.
Actor: Right. I want to protect my son, so he can get into college.
Planned Parenthood: All right. Excuse my hesitation, this is the first time I've had a donor call and make this kind of request, so I'm excited, and want to make sure I don't leave anything out.

The investigation included calls to Planned Parenthood in Idaho and half a dozen other states

"I think Idahoans are going to be horrified and shocked at the blatant racism and bigotry exhibited by our local Planned Parenthood affiliate," said Fischer. "I just cannot imagine they're going to stand for that."

He said the timing of the release of the information was intriguing, because the Idaho Legislature is scheduled this week to have its first public hearing on a bill written to prevent Idaho women from being forced into having abortions they do not want.

Rose said students at UCLA now have begun a petition to request the school cut its affiliations with Planned Parenthood.

She said the actor specifically asked about lowering "the number of black people," and each PP branch called agreed to process the racially earmarked donation.

"None expressed concern about the racist reasoning for the donation," The Advocate said.

The Advocate said an Ohio representative, identified as Lisa Hutton, listens to the racist reasoning, but confirmed Planned Parenthood "will accept the money for whatever reason."

Rose said her UCLA campaign has been endorsed by Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King, who said she supports "the student campaign to get UCLA to cease its programs with Planned Parenthood."

Another Planned Parenthood branch, in Kansas, is facing 107 misdemeanor and felonies charges for allegedly violating Kansas abortion law.

WND reported Rose previously posed as a 15-year-old seeking an abortion at a Planned Parenthood center in Santa Monica, Calif. She was equipped with a hidden camera when she met with an employee to discuss her options.

When Rose revealed she was 15 and her boyfriend was 23, the employee informed her Planned Parenthood was legally required to report the statutory rape, a transcript of the conversation shows.

The Planned Parenthood representative then suggested she could say she was 16 and avoid complications.

"Well, just figure out a birth date that works. And I don't know anything," the rep said.

The Texas-based pro-life group Life Dynamics previously conducted an extensive undercover project in which an adult volunteer posing as a 13-year-old called every Planned Parenthood clinic in the U.S., saying she was pregnant by a 22-year-old boyfriend. Almost without exception, the clinics advised her to obtain an abortion without her parents' knowledge and told her how to protect her boyfriend, who would be guilty in any state of statutory rape.

Congressmen call for defunding Planned Parenthood
Taxpayers support teen website promoting pornography, promiscuity

After reviewing materials posted on Planned Parenthood's teenwire.com Web site at the request of Cybercast News Service, three House Republicans are calling for the termination of Planned Parenthood's federal funding. Among other things, teenwire promotes the use of pornography by teenagers.

Rep. Doug Lamborn (R.-Colo.) said teenwire "is another reason we should pull all federal funding from Planned Parenthood," a group that also performs abortions.

"There should be no money that goes to any Internet site that promotes promiscuity or sexual license in any way," Rep. Steve King (R.-Iowa) told Cybercast News Service.

"I don't believe taxpayer funding should be going to groups that put sexually explicit material on the Internet targeted at minors," Rep. Joseph Pitts (R.-Pa.), chairman of the House Values Action Team, said.

The congressmen spoke to Cybercast News Service after reviewing materials from Planned Parenthood's teenwire.com, which says its mission is to provide "medically accurate" information about sex to teenagers.

As Cybercast News Service reported on Feb. 26, teenwire.com recommends viewing "sexy pictures or movies" as a way for young couples to enjoy "safer sex."

The Web site notes that federal law prohibits porn viewing by anyone under 18. "However," it says, "not everyone follows the rules, and you may run across some porn before you turn 18."

It goes on to say that "many people enjoy pornography alone or with a partner as part of sex play. People have different ideas of what is arousing, and there are many different kinds of porn that appeal to people's different interests."

The lawmakers reviewed other content from the site, including graphic illustrations from "Behind the Fig Leaf," a slide show depicting the differing "styles" of male and female genitalia.

Rep. King told Cybercast News Service that he had heard of teenwire.com promoting safer sex. "What you've shown me brings it to my attention in a serious way," he said. "You go back to Margaret Sanger and in the beginning of (Planned Parenthood), she is advocating promiscuity. (Teenwire.com) is advocating promiscuity.

"We should shut off all federal dollars to any organization that provides abortion services or counseling," King added. "There should be no money that goes to any Internet site that promotes promiscuity or sexual license in any way. If there is going to be sexual license promoted, let that happen some place else. But the federal government should not be subsidizing it," he said.

"(Teenwire.com) is another reason we should pull all federal funding from Planned Parenthood," Rep. Lamborn (R-Colo.) agreed. "Time and time again this organization has used taxpayer dollars to promote interests that are not in step with the values of the American people."

"I don't believe taxpayer funding should be going to groups that put sexually explicit material on the Internet targeted at minors," Rep. Pitts (R-Pa.) told Cybercast News Service. "Parents today already have their work cut out for them trying to keep their kids from viewing smut on the Internet.

"The federal government shouldn't be funding groups that produce this sort of material under the pretense that it is educational," he said.

Rep. King said he thinks teenwire.com is evidence of the continued moral decline in America, a decline boosted during the Clinton administration, he said.

"This is a progression of the kind of activity that came from President Clinton's surgeon general (Jocelyn Elders), who advocated gotcha21, and Bill Clinton himself, who argued what sex 'wasn't,' and that has permeated our college campuses and our society. There are now probably millions of people who think [that] what went on between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski was not sex."

King added that teenwire.com is part of Planned Parenthood's wider agenda, which he believes is damaging American culture. "I think it's part of its strategic plan to break down the moral order of our society so that the people on the other side of morality and integrity can take power in this country."

Planned Parenthood and other family planning organizations get federal tax dollars under Title X of the Public Service Health Act.

In its 2005-2006 annual report, Planned Parenthood Federation of America reported that $305.3 million, or 34 percent of its annual income, came from government grants and contracts.

Creationists 'peddle lies about fossil record'

By Lucy Cockcroft
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 28/02/2008

A leading scientist accuses creationists of peddling the lie that there is no fossil evidence of evolution.

Some Christians claim there is a lack of "missing link" fossils, halfway between two major groups of creatures.

They say this proves Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is a fallacy and that God created each living species from nothing.

But, in an essay published in the magazine New Scientist today, geologist Donald Prothero claims that reports of "huge gaps" in the fossil records have been greatly exaggerated.

Dr Prothero, a professor of geology at Occidental College in Los Angeles, said: "Life does not progress up a hierarchical ladder from 'low' to 'high' but is a branching bush with numerous lineages splitting apart and coexisting simultaneously.

"For example, apes and humans split from a common ancestor seven million years ago and both lineages are still around.

"For this reason the concept of 'missing link' is a misleading one. A transitional form does not need to be a perfect halfway house directly linking one group of organisms to another.

"It merely needs to record aspects of evolutionary change that occurred as one lineage split from another."

When Darwin first proposed the idea of evolution by natural selection in 1859, the fossil record offered little support. He even devoted two entire chapters of the Origin of Species to the imperfection of the geological record, but predicted that it would eventually support his theories.

Dr Prothero said the creationists are ignoring a wealth of transitional fossils found since Darwin's era which provide proof of the evolutionary process.

He said: "The idea still persists that the fossil record is too patchy to provide good evidence of evolution. One reason for this is the influence of creationism.

"Foremost among their tactics is to distort or ignore the evidence for evolution; a favourite lie is 'there are no transitional fossils'.

"This is manifestly untrue. We now have abundant evidence for how all the major groups of animals are related, much of it in the form of excellent transitional fossils."

Randall Hardy, the head of the British branch of Creation Research, said last night: "Any attempt to impose evolution stories onto these fossils is just speculation.

"It's all because of the mindset of these people [scientists], which is pre-disposed towards evolution."

Creationists 'peddle lies about fossil record' (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/02/28/scicreation128.xml)

Amen MaryJane!

Sister, this is sickening, especially considering the confusion caused for the lost watching. A lot of things these days actually amount to circus side-shows and carnival games. The lost would be MUCH better off by hearing the GOOD NEWS from very plain Christians who simply love JESUS CHRIST as LORD and SAVIOUR. The Apostle Paul spoke about the importance of knowing little more than CHRIST and HIM Crucified! GOD has work for all of us to do!.

GOOD NEWS!

Thanks be unto GOD for HIS unspeakable GIFT!, JESUS CHRIST, our Lord and Saviour forever!

Carter, Annan to Head Peace Mission

2 days ago

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) — The council of world leaders launched by former President Nelson Mandela is sending a three-person team to help ease tensions in the troubled Middle East, the organization known as The Elders said Friday.

Former President Jimmy Carter, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and former Irish president Mary Robinson will visit Israel, the Palestinian territories, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia from April 13-21.

Launched last year to celebrate Mandela's 89th birthday, the group of 12 world leaders is dedicated to fostering peace and resolving global crises.

Annan noted his recent mission to Kenya in which he mediated a power-sharing agreement in the country's disputed presidential election.

"I have just completed an intense and grueling negotiation in Kenya and learned that conflict is easier than peace, but persistence makes peace possible," said Annan, adding that he was "acutely sensitive to the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis in the mind of many in the Middle East."

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who chairs The Elders, appealed to the Israelis and Palestinians to stop the "cycle of violence."

Tutu said he condemned "unequivocally the dastardly" attack Thursday by a Palestinian gunman on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem that killed eight Israeli students.

He also "equally vehemently" condemned the deaths of civilians in the recent Israeli offensive on Gaza. The campaign, in which more than 120 Palestinians have been killed, targeted militants who have been barraging southern Israel with rockets.

"Peace will not come from the barrel of a gun, as we learned in South Africa," he said. "Peace will only come when the inexorable cycle of reprisal provoking counter reprisal, ad nauseam ends. When the inalienable rights of all, Israeli and Palestinian, are recognized and respected."

Carter, Annan to Head Peace Mission (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5in7S51RNeORdhpp5YvltsB2C4m7QD8V8OOQ00)
~~~~~~~~~

Well they have both sided with the palestinians, so they're already off on the wrong foot. Carters most recent junk shows he is against Israel just like so many others.Whatever comes out of his mouth seems to do nothing but raise my blood pressure lately.

Whatever peace these people dream up, Israel's gonna get the short end of the bargain.

A record 3,000 late abortions in Britain

By Laura Donnelly, Health Correspondent
Last Updated: 11:55pm GMT 08/03/2008

The number of late abortions in Britain has reached a record level, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Almost 3,000 were carried out on women who were at least 20 weeks pregnant, according to the latest annual figures in England and Wales, representing a 44 per cent increase in less than a decade.
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The vast majority were for "lifestyle" reasons; less than a quarter were because of a risk that the child would be born handicapped.

The figures come amid rising concern over the current 24-week time limit for legal abortions. Campaigners who cite research showing improved survival rates for very premature babies, combined with evidence suggesting young foetuses can feel pain, are putting pressure on MPs ahead of a crucial debate on the issue next month.

MPs are planning to add amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill to reduce the limit to 20 or 21 weeks. David Cameron, the Tory leader, has said he would back such a change.

Doctors yesterday blamed failings in sex education for the rise in late abortions. Dr Trevor Stammers, a practising GP from the charity Family Youth Concern, said the Government's approach had left the present generation of young women with the impression that abortions were "like having an appendix out".

He blamed "a very casual attitude towards sex, which is aided and abetted by the medical profession". He said: "Women get the idea it's a trivial matter and as a result they are much more cavalier about presenting to their GP late."

Abortion providers said the rise in late terminations - from 2,041 in 1997 to 2,948 in 2006 - showed that some women were leading increasingly "out-of-control" lives.

Ann Furedi, the chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said: "Sometimes it's women who haven't recognised the symptoms of pregnancy.

"Sometimes it is about women who are living very out-of-control lives, often with alcohol or drug problems, and sometimes it's about women whose lives have suddenly changed, whose guy has suddenly left them, so that a wanted pregnancy becomes unwanted."

But Ms Furedi described the rise as "not necessarily bad news" given that "these are the very women for whom it would be a disaster if they were compelled to continue unwanted pregnancies".

Last month, research published by University College London Hospital showed that survival rates for babies born alive between 22 and 25 weeks had increased from 32 to 71 per cent, in under two decades.

In January, Professor Sunny Anand, a foetal pain expert, presented MPs with a study showing that foetuses can feel pain from 20 weeks, showing changes in their expression, and the withdrawal of limbs from painful stimulation.

A record 3,000 late abortions in Britain (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/09/nabort109.xml)

Obama's pastor denounces United States
Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 3/14/2008 12:30:00 PM

Obama and PastorDemocratic presidential frontrunner Senator Barack Obama's longtime relationship with his former pastor and spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright is coming under increasing scrutiny from some national media outlets.

ABC, MSNBC and Fox News have been airing excerpts from some of Pastor Wright's sermons, including one in 2003 when he denounced the United States for its treatment of blacks. "The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing God Bless America," shouts Wright. "No, no, no, not God Bless America -- God d___ America, it's in the Bible for killing innocent people."

Wright has also raised eyebrows for saying 9/11 was a case of "America's chickens coming home to roost" and that Zionism has an element of "white racism." In addition, he has accused the government of infecting black Americans with HIV.

New Jersey pastor Clenard Childress, founder of the website BlackGenocide.org, says Wright has a long history of spewing anti-American rhetoric and mocking anyone who disagrees with his radical views. "The hypocrisy of that is that he often talks about American policies that have killed innocent people, but yet he and Barack Obama endorse the abortion industry's agenda," he notes. "[The abortion industry] targets African-Americans and has killed far more than 9/11 or many of the other atrocities that he talks about."

Childress says if the mainstream demands more in-depth answers from Senator Obama (D-Illinois) regarding Wright, the pastor will likely resign from Obama's presidential campaign. The pastor believes the Illinois senator needs to do more than just say he does not always agree with Pastor Wright.

"[H]e needs to say [that] indeed he does not agree with the mockery of other Republicans and people who do not have his views [and that] he is not in agreement with the root cause of 9/11," Childress contends.

But according to Childress, the media may not push the issue. "There are many things that Barack Obama could do," he continues, "but as I stated, he'll wait to see [if the] mainstream media is going to give him a pass on this, like they have been doing for quite some time; or [if they will] demand answers and demand some type of explanation, which mainstream media has not done."

Wright, who has said Jesus was a black man who was killed by rich white people, has stated from his pulpit that Senator Hillary Clinton does not understand the struggles of African Americans because she has never been called the "n-word."

Obama's pastor denounces United States (http://www.onenewsnow.com/Election2008/Default.aspx?id=71349)

Pope Issues Strong Appeal for Peace in Iraq

Sunday , March 16, 2008

VATICAN CITY —
Pope Benedict XVI denounced the 5-year-old Iraqi war and issued one of his strongest appeals for peace in the country Sunday, days after the kidnapped Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul was found dead.

"Enough with the slaughters. Enough with the violence. Enough with the hatred in Iraq!" Benedict said to applause at the end of Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square.

On Thursday, the body of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was found near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, from where he had been abducted on Feb. 29. No one has claimed responsibility, but al-Qaida retains its last urban stronghold in the area.

Benedict has called Rahho's death an "inhuman act of violence" that offended human dignity.

On Sunday, Benedict praised Rahho for his loyalty to Christ and refusal to abandon his flock despite many threats and difficulties.

He recalled that Rahho's death came as the Catholic Church opened Holy Week, the most solemn week in the liturgical calendar, in which the faithful recall the suffering and death of Jesus Christ.

Benedict said Rahho's dedication to the Church and his death compelled him to "raise a strong and sorrowful cry" to denounce the violence in Iraq spawned by the war that he said had destroyed civilian life.

"At the same time, I make an appeal to the Iraqi people, who for the past five years have borne the consequences of a war that provoked the breakup of their civil and social life," Benedict said.

He urged them to raise their heads and reconstruct their life through "reconciliation, forgiveness, justice and coexistence among tribal, ethnic and religious groups."

The Vatican strongly opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. In its aftermath, Benedict has frequently criticized attacks against Iraqi Christians by Islamic extremists. Last year, he urged U.S. President George W. Bush to keep the safety of Iraqi Christians in mind.

Benedict is due to preside over a memorial service at the Vatican on Monday in honor of Rahho. Typically, the pope only presides over such services when a cardinal dies.

The pontiff's appeal for peace came at the end of his Palm Sunday Mass. Over the next week, Benedict will preside over the Good Friday re-enactment of Christ's crucifixion and death and the celebration of Christ's resurrection on Easter Sunday.

At the start of Mass, Benedict blessed palms and olive branches with holy water and then processed through St. Peter's Square, wearing intricate, red- and gold-brocaded vestments and clutching a woven palm frond.

In his homily, Benedict urged the faithful to follow God with the innocence and purity of a child's heart.

"To recognize God, we must abandon the pride that dazzles us, that seeks to push us away from God," he said. To find God, he said, "we must learn to see with a young heart, one which isn't blocked by prejudice and dazzled by interests."

Sunday also marked a lead-up celebration to the Catholic Church's annual World Youth Day, and young people were very much on hand during the open-air service on a blustery spring day. A few hundred carried massive palm fronds at the start of the procession through the square.

Benedict plans to attend World Youth Day itself in Sydney, Australia, in July.

Pope Issues Strong Appeal for Peace in Iraq (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,338276,00.html)

Extremists target aid groups in Pakistan

By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer Tue Mar 18, 2:19 PM ET

MANSEHRA, Pakistan - Long-haired gunmen burst into the white stone building and killed four charity workers helping earthquake victims, then wrecked the office with grenades and set it on fire. Police came, but did not intervene.

In a tactic reminiscent of neighboring Afghanistan, Islamic militants are attacking aid groups in the Pakistan's volatile northwest, and local authorities appear incapable — or unwilling — to stop them.

The threat has forced several foreign agencies to scale back assistance to survivors of the October 2005 earthquake that killed at least 78,000 people and left 3 million homeless — risking the region's recovery from the worst natural disaster in the country's history.

The Feb. 25 attack on employees of Plan International, a British-based charity that focuses on helping children, was the worst in a series of threats and assaults on aid workers in the northern mountains where Taliban-style militants have expanded their reach in the past year.

Nearly a month later, menacing letters are still being sent to aid organizations. Although all four victims in Mansehra were Pakistani men, Islamic extremists despise the aid groups because they employ women and work for women's rights.

Local officials in Mansehra, who spoke on condition they not be identified for fear of retaliation, said letters from extremists distributed March 13 and 14 also warned schools to make sure girls are covered from head to toe and to avoid coeducation.

The militants also may be trying to discredit Pakistan's central government, and to enforce a radical religious agenda in a conservative region where jihadist-linked groups were themselves a source of aid after the quake.

Police accuse a local militant, Mohiuddin Shakir, who goes by the alias Mujahid, of masterminding the attack last month on the aid office in Mansehra. He has not been arrested.

Shakir, a former member of an al-Qaida-linked group, has criminal charges against him in Pakistan dating back to 2002, including for murder, according to police records obtained by The Associated Press.

Shakir now leads a jihadist group called Lashkar-e-Ababeel, named after small birds that the Quran says threw stones to defeat an army of 60,000 warriors who sought to destroy Mecca in the 7th century.

Last summer, Shakir wrote a letter to newspapers warning international aid groups about hiring women and warning women to wear an all-encompassing veil.

Yet Abdul Ershad, an officer investigating the attack, said that as recently as late 2007, Shakir had a working arrangement with police in his hometown of Phulra not far from Mansehra. To advance his agenda, he would tell police about residents involved in "un-Islamic" activities — like men selling pornographic videos and socializing with women — and police would arrest them, Ershad said.

Brig. Waqas Iqbal Raja, the chief security official for the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency, acknowledged a growing presence of extremists in the quake zone, including some militants displaced by an army offensive against supporters of a pro-Taliban cleric in neighboring Swat district.

Tribal elders have promised to help protect aid workers, and Raja said he has advised the workers to keep a low profile and stay off the roads at night.

He could not explain why Shakir was still at large.

"I wouldn't want to comment why he is still free. But there were definitely some lapses in police procedure and protection," Raja said.

Distrustful residents did not alert police when six or seven militants with long hair and their faces hidden behind scarves descended in broad daylight on the Plan International compound. The militants ordered the security guard to leave.

Sajjad Mahmood, a clerk working next door, said police arrived after 30 minutes and just stood outside the gate while the assailants were inside. When the gunmen emerged, police did not try to stop them, he said.

"Everyone is scared," said Naeem Awan, whose nearby hair salon had its windows blown out by the force of grenades lobbed by the militants. "They can open fire and attack people and get away. How is it possible?"

Since the attack, aid organizations have withdrawn their female field workers. Authorities are asking them to move their offices into a gated community in Mansehra with its own police post.

Despite the additional security, officials of three international aid groups said they wanted to keep working but felt they could not rely on local police for protection. The officials requested anonymity because they did not want to risk problems by publicly criticizing Pakistani authorities.

Women employees say they fear for their safety.

"It was a real act of brutality and you feel very worried, and still there is no real arrangements from the police for security," said Aneela Tobassam, a Pakistani worker for U.S.-based Mercy Corps who provides vocational training to women. Even inside her office, Tobassam, an ethnic Pashtun, wears a large shawl covering her head.

"I don't feel safe outside right now, but I won't leave. I will stay here and I will do my work even if for now it is inside the office," she said.

The intimidation of aid groups has increased in recent months. They have received anonymous threats, and last October two attacks in nearby Battagram district forced a temporary suspension of relief operations.

There was a bombing outside the office of a local charity, Strengthening Participatory Organization, which wounded eight people. Attackers also sprayed the compound of CARE International with automatic gunfire, but no one was hurt.

Fear that militants are targeting foreigners and their organizations increased over the weekend when a bomb killed a Turkish woman at a restaurant popular with foreigners in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. Twelve other people were wounded, including four Americans.

The quake-hit region, next to Pakistan's part of disputed Kashmir, has long been a haven for militant groups with links to the Pakistani military and intelligence service. The groups have waged a 20-year insurgency in India's portion of Kashmir, a predominantly Muslim region.

The extremist-linked group Jamaat-e-Dawa, a successor to the banned Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, was among the first to help quake victims after the disaster and worked closely with the Pakistan military. It and banned groups like Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen set up medical camps alongside an extensive, and widely welcomed, international relief effort.

Graham Strong, country director for U.S.-based World Vision, which heads an umbrella group of 20 international aid organizations operating in Pakistan, voiced concern that aid workers here will face the same problem as in Afghanistan.

During nearly four years working there, Strong saw the ability of charities to work dwindle due to lawlessness, government incompetence and Taliban assaults that police failed to stop.

"I hope we are not going down the same road here," Strong said in Islamabad. "We are generally concerned that things might be changing."

Extremists target aid groups in Pakistan (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080318/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_charities_under_fire;_ylt=AqxfGmO01jEJhliDlM0_GdSs0NUE)

Riots in Athens as millions strike
Wed March 19, 2008

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Riot police fired tear gas at demonstrators throwing rocks and firebombs in central Athens during a nationwide general strike Wednesday by millions of Greeks protesting government pension reforms.

An estimated 100,000 people marched in downtown Athens, and when the demonstration ended, groups of anarchists fought running battles with riot police in the capital. Clouds of tear gas hung over Exarhia Square and cafe customers scrambled for cover.

Clashes had broken out during the march when a group of demonstrators threw two or three fire bombs and rocks at riot police outside Parliament, and police responded with tear gas.

About 8,000 people also marched in the northern city of Thessaloniki, where protesters set fire to two banks and three automatic teller machines. No injuries were immediately reported in either Athens or Thessaloniki.

Wednesday's walkout, like two other general strikes since December, shut down public services and forced the cancellation of dozens of flights.

"We're marching for a socially just pension system," Socialist opposition leader and former Foreign Minister George Papandreou told AP Television News earlier as he marched through downtown Athens.

He accused the government of eroding "the most basic of pension rights," particularly for women, while offering tax cuts for the rich and benefits for large corporations.

"It's unacceptable. We're fighting and we hope we can win this fight for a much better and much safer Greece," he said.

Opinion polls show most Greeks oppose reforms to the fractured and debt-ridden pension system that would unify pension and health funds, raise the effective retirement age for women and working mothers, and create both incentives and disincentives to keep employees working longer.

"No to the continued robbing of our pension funds and rights," read a banner carried by protesters in Athens. "We will not back down," read another.

Hospital doctors, air traffic controllers, teachers, port workers, hotel employees and gas station workers joined others already striking this week over the fiercely contested reforms.

Thousands of Greek workers walked out Tuesday when a 24-hour strike by rail workers also brought subway and train transport in Athens to a standstill. Banks shut down and most courts were empty because of a weeklong lawyers' strike.

Mounds of trash continued to pile up on city streets Wednesday because of a garbage collectors' strike, while strikes by employees at the main power company have caused rolling blackouts for the past two weeks.

Since winning re-election in September, the government has pushed to change the pension system, warning that it could collapse in a few years' time if it is not reformed.

Yiannis Panagopoulos, head of one of the two main labor unions, GSEE, said unions would continue to resist the changes, even if they are voted into law Thursday.

"The battle doesn't stop with the vote on the legislation," he said Tuesday. "The legislation needs to be implemented when it becomes law. And there resistance will reach its climax."

Riots in Athens as millions strike (http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/03/19/greece.strikes.ap/index.html?eref=rss_world)

California leads the way on sex education

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

It has happened again. California has led the way. This time our neighbor to the south has adopted its first ever standard for what students should be learning about sex education.

The announcement comes a few days after a head-turning study on American teenagers and sexually-transmitted diseases. The recently released federal study discovered that one in four teenage girls has at least one sexually transmitted disease (STD).

Subsequently, a whole lot of parents are asking when children should learn about sex education. How young, many ask, is too young? The California State Board of Education had decided that students should start in fifth grade to learn about the risk of sexually transmitted diseases.

It's reported that four years ago, California state legislators passed a law requiring sex education to be "medically accurate, objective and respectful of gay and lesbian youth." Those who advocated for the new ruling not only want relevant information but to teach the state's six million plus students the skills and procedures requisite to avoiding unhealthy and sometimes life-threatening diseases at present and often later in life.

Fifth graders will learn about STDs while middle school teachers will communicate education about rape and sexual assault. High school curricula will include information about condoms and the morning-after pill.

Absolutely predictable, the conservative nonprofit Campaign for Children and Families immediately began criticizing the new sex education curricula. There as elsewhere, they oppose abortion and same sex marriage and, in this context, encourage abstinence as the best protection against sexual disease and unwanted pregnancy. However, common sense and knowledge of human nature having prevailed some time ago, California state law already prohibits abstinence-only sex education.

Taking this action was apparently no easy decision for the California State Board of Education as it took it two years to discuss and agree on the new curricula. Meanwhile, it's unclear when the fifth grade lessons on STDs will start.

Presumably, teachers will need training and new materials must be developed. When underway, the sex education subject matter will be integrated into current health classes that also include class time devoted to the subjects of drugs and violence. Would it not be grand if the Oregon Board of Education and Superintendent of Public Instruction took a clue from this progressive approach in California to consider a more modern and effective approach to sex education here!

California leads the way on sex education (http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080319/BLOGS13/80319008/1046/OPINION&template=printart)

Easter Threats Against Christians in Indonesia Reported
Patrick Goodenough
International Editor
(CNSNews.com) - Easter will be "a time of great anxiety" for Christians in Indonesia, where radical Islamist have reportedly threatened to attack Christian targets.

The Barnabas Fund, a charity working among Christians in Islamic countries, cited "credible reports" of threats against Christians by Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the terrorist network blamed for a number of bombings in Indonesia in recent years.

"Jemaah Islamiah is dedicated to creating a single Islamic state throughout Southeast Asia under shari'a law," the organization said in a dispatch on Tuesday. "It considers non-Muslims as legitimate targets and is active throughout the region."

Threats linked to important Christian observances are not unusual in Indonesia. In 2000, 19 people were killed in a series of coordinated Christmas Eve church bombings blamed on JI, a group with suspected links to al-Qaeda.

The bombings came at a time of deadly Muslim-Christian clashes in Maluku and Central Sulawesi provinces, northeast of Indonesia's main island of Java. Thousands died in the violence between 1999 and 2002.

Peace accords later were signed in the two affected provinces, although sporadic attacks have occurred since then. In 2005, three Christian schoolgirls in Sulawesi were beheaded by killers -- some linked by police to JI -- who left one of the severed heads in a bag at the door of a nearby church, with a note threatening to kill 100 more young Christians.

Elsewhere in the archipelago, Islamist attacks, threats or pressure on local authorities have forced the closure of scores of churches in recent years.

JI's most high-profile actions were not aimed at Indonesian Christians, however. Its cells were responsible for four major attacks between 2002 and 2005, including two targeting tourists on the resort island of Bali, one at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta and one at an international hotel in the capital. Together they cost more than 250 lives.

Since then the network has sustained heavy losses, including the arrest of key figures. Some leaders are still at large, however, including one who escaped from Singaporean custody late last month and remains the target of a massive manhunt.

Prof. Zachary Abuza, a specialist on South-East Asia terror networks, said Wednesday reports of JI threats against Indonesian Christians this Easter did not surprise him.

"Sectarian violence was JI's bread and butter for years before they engaged in terrorist operations in Bali in October 2002," he said.

Given the security force crackdown after the bombings, many JI members had argued that attacks on Western venues were counterproductive - although not necessarily morally wrong - and "have advocated a return to the sectarian bloodletting that they engaged in" in Maluku and Central Sulawesi.

With setbacks like the arrest of top leaders and seizure of explosives during raids of JI safe houses last year, "a return to sectarian violence makes sense," said Abuza, professor of political science at Simmons College in Boston.

"They create a pool of young indoctrinated recruits, who have fought in defense of their religion, and reinforces their Manichean world view," he said. "Moreover Western governments put less pressure on the Indonesian government to react [than in the case of high-profile attacks against foreigners]."

Sidney Jones, a Southeast Asia-based senior advisor at the International Crisis Group, said Wednesday she had heard nothing to suggest planned attacks linked to Easter - or that JI was capable of mounting one if it wanted to do so.

"But there are some splinter groups here that have long seen local Christians as the enemy," she said.

Jones said local "anti-apostasy" groups had carried out attacks in places where local evangelical groups had been trying to convert Muslims, or where Christians were meeting in homes to sidestep regulations requiring community consent to build churches.

Those attacks were mostly against property rather than individuals, although one splinter group tried to murder a convert priest in October 2006, she said.

Attempts to reach the Indonesian Council of Churches for comment were unsuccessful.

The Australian government is warning its citizens of a "very high threat of terrorist attack" in Indonesia.

"We assess terrorists are continuing active planning of attacks," the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in an advisory. "These attacks could take place at any time and could be imminent."

The department said Jakarta and Bali may be targeted, and strongly advised against all travel to Maluku and Central Sulawesi, "due to the unstable security situation and risk of terrorist attack." Foreigners could be directly targeted, or could be caught up in violence aimed at others, it said, noting that churches were among the potential targets.

More than 90 of those killed in attacks attributed to JI since 2002 were Australians.

Britain's Foreign Office also regards the threat of terrorism in Indonesia to be "high," warns against all travel to Maluku and Central Sulawesi, and says periods like Easter and Christmas are "a time of heightened tensions."

Easter Threats Against Christians in Indonesia Reported (http://www.crosswalk.com/news/11571123/)

Oklahoma lawmaker threatened by 'gays'
Police investigate after legislator badgered with 30,000 e-mails
Posted: March 19, 2008
11:12 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Oklahoma police have begun investigating threats e-mailed to a legislator who discussed the homosexual agenda at a meeting of fellow Republicans.

State Rep. Sally Kern's comments were taped secretly and posted in a YouTube production prepared by the Victory Fund, an ardently pro-homosexual lobby that by its own admission "provides strategic, technical and financial support" to homosexual politicians.

The video pieced togther audio of Kern's comments with slides of statements condemning her speech as well as photographs of various individuals holding "I heard that" signs.

"Rep. Kern expressed her concern that the homosexual agenda was destroying our nation and that young children were being indoctrinated into believing that the homosexual 'lifestyle' is normal," said a statement released by the Thomas More Law Center, which has agreed to represent Kern and investigate whether legal action is advisable after she was flooded with more than 30,000 e-mails, many of them vulgar, abusive and threatening.

"Her comments caused some of the nation's largest homosexual groups to target her for political annihilation," the Thomas More statement said.

The organization said that beside the more than 30,000 vulgar and abusive e-mails, "her life has been threatened, her son falsely accused of being a homosexual, her financial supporters contacted and asked to no longer support her, and a leading homosexual activist entered her husband's church last Sunday and took notes on her husband's sermon."

"As a precaution, a state trooper walks by her side when she enters the State Capitol," the firm said.

"Rep. Kern will not back down, regardless of the attempted hate-mongering intimidation by these national homosexual advocacy groups," said Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center. "Their actions are right out of a playbook developed by radical homosexual activists in the 1980s to manipulate and intimidate the majority of Americans into accepting the normalcy of the homosexual lifestyle."

He said his firm will represent Kern, whom he described as "a courageous Christian woman."

"Radical homosexual groups are attempting to curtail Rep. Kern's constitutional rights to free speech and use that speech as a platform to push for anti-Christian 'hate crimes' laws," Thompson said. "In effect, their goal is to criminalize Christians and Christian beliefs."

WND has reported on multiple attempts in Congress to ram through a "hate crimes" plan that would target those who follow biblical teachings that condemn homosexual behavior. Similar laws already have been imposed in Canada, where people have been charged with the crime of criticizing homosexuality.

"Her comments represent the view of a majority of Americans," Thompson said. "All you need to do is look at all of the states that have overwhelmingly adopted constitutional amendments or statutes defending traditional marriages from the homosexual agenda. Christians believe that homosexual acts are acts of grave depravity, contrary to the natural law and under no circumstances can they be approved.

"However, Christians also believe one must love the sinner but hate the sin," he said.

Victory Fund had condemned what Kern said as "evil."

"Your speech can lead to the murders of more young people," the homosexual lobby warned, connecting her stated views with an advocacy for violence.

"The point of the Victory Fund's releasing your speech was to draw attention to the fact that even elected leaders like you are saying some nasty and potentially dangerous things about your fellow citizens," the organization's Chuck Wolfe wrote.

The Victory Fund's work actually fulfilled a prophecy Kern included when she make the remarks.

"The very fact I'm talking to you like this today puts me in jeopardy," she told the assembly of GOP party members. "I'm not gay-bashing" but just pointing out the facts of the homosexual lifestyle.

"This is a radical element and they want us to accept their lifestyle regardless," Kern told WND.

"In my opinion, this isn't about me, it is about the freedom of Americans to exercise their freedom of speech. [Homosexuals] want to silence us. They want to speak up, but they don't anyone who disagrees with them to speak up. It's about the criminalization of Christianity."

She told WND she's holding up "rather well" under the onslaught the campaign against her has produced.

"I have the prayers of the people in my state and cards and e-mails from people all over the country who are supporting me," she said. "I haven't lost any sleep over this."

cont'd next post

She said the state police investigation actually was launched by another member of the Oklahoma legislature who saw some of the threats contained in e-mails and called authorities.

She was told the investigation was continuing.

"I stand by my statements. Everything I said I can verify. It is a deadly lifestyle," Kern said.

Homosexuals are imposing an agenda on schools and businesses, she asserted.

"I do think because they are so destructive to the basic moral fiber of our country they are more dangerous than radical Islamic terrorists," Kern said.

Her son, Jesse, who had been identified by homosexual advocates as being "gay," issued a statement that he was not, but other impacts of the hate-filled e-mails were not so easily dismissed, according to Thompson.

He told WND the attack – calling supporters to condemn Kern, the flood of e-mails, the accusations of "hate," and the like – all are part of the routine for homosexual advocates.

"What they attempt to do is an old military strategy. They are far outnumbered by Americans who believe homosexual conduct is immoral and not normal and violates the natural law. The vast majority of Americans believe that," Thompson said.

"It's called in the military a concentration of forces. At any given time they can mobilize 27,000 e-mails," he said.

That makes the target feel alone and browbeaten.

"It's important for Christians and those who believe the homosexual lifestyle is wrong and not normal, and who don't want their children to be indoctrinated in that, to speak out and stand with her," he said.

"Gays," Thompson said, "are out to destroy her political career and send a message to other politicians, 'You'd better not take on homosexuality.'"

In chapter one of his best-selling book "The Marketing of Evil," WND Managing Editor David Kupelian exposes the powerful marketing strategies used by the "gay rights" movement to "sell" Americans on homosexuality as a healthy alternative lifestyle. One key tactic for accomplishing this is called "jamming."

"Jamming is pure intimidation," said Kupelian. "And what homosexual activists are doing right now to Sally Kern is a grotesque case of jamming. Basically, they're trying to silence her by threatening, intimidating, harassing and frightening her until she can't take any more abuse. No dialogue, no debate – just crush her. That's their game. It's despicable, and utterly un-American."

Thompson noted:

* In one Massachusetts school district, without informing parents, kindergarten and first grade students were read the story "King and King" about two princes who fall in love and marry. The last page of the book – undoubtedly shown to the children – ends with a picture of the two kings kissing. When outraged parents found out, they sued the school district. Incredibly ─ but not surprisingly ─ the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the teacher’s right to read the book saying, "Public schools are not obliged to shield students from ideas which potentially are religiously offensive."

* A 24-page pro-homosexual booklet is set to be distributed to all 16,000 school districts in the nation. The booklet produced by the National Education Association and the American Psychological Association falsely tells students that homosexuality is a "normal expression of human sexuality."

* Every year, homosexual rights groups, with the blessing of school officials, sponsor a "Day of Silence" when students and some teachers in schools across the nation remain silent ─ with tape across their mouths ─ throughout the school day. This year it's on April 25. The stated purpose is to make others aware of discrimination against homosexuals. In reality, it is a means of propagandizing and pressuring students to regard homosexual, bisexual and transgender behavior as normal.

* In the Montgomery County, Md., School district, eighth and tenth graders are taught that homosexuality is innate─ they're born that way. As if to underscore the point, students are shown a film instructing them on how to use condoms in anal and oral sex.

In 2004, Oklahoma voters passed a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as consisting only of the union of one man and one woman by 76 percent. Of the 28 states where such a plan has been proposed, voters in 27 have approved it.

Kern said, "They are going after our young children, as young as two years of age, to try to teach them that the homosexual lifestyle is an acceptable lifestyle.:"

WND previously reported curriculum for California schools, where making only positive statements about homosexuality now is allowed by law, included recommendations for children as young as 2 years old.

A list of school resources, sponsored by a homosexual-advocacy group called Safe Schools Coalition, suggested 2-year-olds could read "Felicia's Favorite Story," which tells how a girl was "adopted by her two mothers."

Kern also mentioned the health effects of the homosexual lifestyle, and WND has reported how a new drug-resistant superbug infection has been linked specifically to homosexual behavior.

RFID tech turned into spy chips for clandestine surveillance
Sharon Gaudin

March 20, 2008 (Computerworld) An employee looking to steal confidential information from his employer sneaks into what should be a secure back room after hours. He pulls charts and files from a top-level financial meeting and slides them into his briefcase before heading back out.

What the insider doesn't know is that his shoes picked up hundreds of tiny radio frequency identification (RFID) chips that had been scattered across the floor. As he passes by an RFID reader near the front door of his office building, security will be alerted that he had accessed a secure area. The evidence is all over the soles of his shoes.

Sound a little like a scene from a James Bond movie? It's not.

Nox Defense, an arm of SimplyRFID Inc., said it has created an invisible perimeter-defense system designed to track things and people in real time -- all without their knowledge. The system that is made up of several technological pieces -- RFID chips the size of grains of sand and an RFID and video camera surveillance system.

"The key to an effective surveillance system is intelligence in the equipment itself," said Carl Brown, president of Nox Defense. "It does no good to install a thousand video cameras if a thousand people have to watch them all day. ... Everybody is doing surveillance nowadays everywhere. They just don't have a setup that tells them what is important video to look at. RFID technology will tell you when something was moved, where it was moved, and then you can check the corresponding video."

Brown explained that the RFID chips, or spy chips, are perfect for what he calls clandestine surveillance. The RFID readers can be hidden in an office building or warehouse, and the RFID tags can be placed on company products or property -- even on employee name tags or ID badges. Thieves, intruders and even personnel see nothing of the tracking system.

If an employee in the warehouse walks off with a plasma TV or loads seven instead of five computers into the delivery truck, it can be tracked with the RFID technology. And since the RFID chips will tell security what time the equipment was moved, the company can check the digital video archives for that time and that section of the warehouse.

The Nox RFID readers and the digital video cameras are all tied into software that tracks the data feeds and allows security to quickly call up, for instance, all the video shot that day of a particular employee or of the video taken of the area where certain products are stored, explained Brown. The software creates data files of the RFID and video data.

"RFID is perfect for that because it's very inexpensive," said Brown. "RFID tags right now are under 20 cents a tag for passive tags. The technology is cheap enough that you can tag lots and lots of items for a fairly low cost. If you tried to watch every person, you couldn't. But with RFID, you can keep an eye on every single item as it moves through the building -- where it went, when it went there and who was moving it. We've got the tag, we know where it is, and there's the video of the person doing it."

The RFID Dust that Nox Defense also sells is actually made up of tiny RFID chips -- each about the size of a grain of sand, according to Brown. They can be scattered on a floor, so when someone walks through a room, entryway or warehouse, the tags will stick to their shoes or pants cuffs. When they walk past an RFID reader, it will be able to tell where they've been.

"We use it for positive ID. I could have a reader at the exit to tell where you've been in my building," said Brown. "Imagine you're working [with the government] in a drug lord's house in Columbia. You sprinkle it on the floor boards. It gets on their shoes. When they come through customs, there could be RFID readers on the floor mats. It would show that you had been in this drug lord's house. With this, you can figure out which place they visited and what RFID dust stuck to their shoes. It creates data points for you to make decisions. "

Brown also said that someone from airport security could drop a tiny RFID tag into someone's bag or attach it to the bag. "I can't carry around something really obvious to mark the bag, but I can drop a tiny tag into the bag and then we'll be able to see where it goes," he added. "If I'm a CIA guy operating in Columbia, and I put a tag in a bag and it ends up in New York, that information might be useful to me."

He noted that the FBI is one of his company's dozen or so customers. The FBI did not return calls to comment on whether or not it is using the technology or how it might be using it.

When asked about privacy issues or someone using the surveillance technology for malicious intent, Brown said that isn't a concern.

"We're all pretty trackable to begin with. Anyone who has a cell phone can be tracked. If you have a cell, you're giving off a signal at all times," he added. "The thing about it is if you're living a clean life, there's nothing this stuff is really going to do to you. If you're not doing anything illegal, this isn't going to catch you. Is RFID going to catch you stealing? Absolutely it will."

RFID tech turned into spy chips for clandestine surveillance (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyId=13&articleId=9070358&intsrc=hm_topic)

Late-Term Abortionist Admits to Aborting 1 Day Before Delivery
By
Lawrence Jones
Christian Post Reporter
Sat, Mar. 22 2008 05:41 AM ET

George Tiller, who currently faces 19 criminal charges for performing illegal late-term abortions in Kansas, was caught on hidden tape admitting that he has performed abortions as close as one day before the mother's delivery date.

Students for Life of America, a pro-life student group, recently released a video on YouTube with footage of Tiller's comments during and after the Feminist Majority Foundation's annual Women's Leadership Conference held Mar. 9 at the National Education Association in Washington D.C.

The video shows Tiller presenting graphic slide images of fetuses that were aborted for their fetal abnormalities.

"What is most disturbing about this video is the point when Dr. Tiller shows footage of children he has aborted," SFLA director Kristan Hawkins, who taped the video with a colleague, told LifeNews.com.

"One had an extra arm: could not that child have survived and received corrective surgery? Was violently killing the child the only way to go?" she asked.

The crowd at the NEA event applauded Tiller's presentation and Kathy Spillar, vice president of Feminist Majority Foundation, even commended the abortion practitioner's acts as "courageous."

Following the event, Hawkins and another SFLA member questioned Tiller about the 2002 Born Alive Infants Protection Act, a federal bill signed into law that protects born children from murder and illegalizes infanticide.

He said it was "reprehensible" for a doctor performing an abortion to let the baby accidentally slip out alive.

"If the baby is born alive, that is sloppy medicine," Tiller said in the video.

He also expressed objections to the legislation, saying, "Let's say you have 15 or 16, you had one slip out with a heartbeat; that is not a viable fetus, but that is born alive or has a heartbeat. Then you have to take that non-viable fetus and rush it directly to the hospital against the woman's wishes."

Last year, Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison filed 19 criminal charges against Tiller for failing to get the permission of a second doctor who was financially or legally independent of him before carrying out late-term abortion procedures. Morrison had also dismissed 30 more serious criminal charges against the abortionist filed by the former attorney general before he left office.

If convicted under Morrison's charges, Tiller will face up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine for each of the 19 charges. Furthermore, Tiller’s medical license to practice could be suspended or revoked.

The notorious Kansas abortionist has been known nationwide for offering easy late-term abortions, which breaks Kansas laws of only providing abortions if there is a reasonable medical concern.

He has been accused several times of performing illegal late-term abortions and offering only vague reasons why the operation is necessary.

The Kansas Supreme Court is slated to hear arguments on three subpoenas for patient records by the grand jury investigating Tiller's abortion clinic on Apr. 8.

Late-Term Abortionist Admits to Aborting 1 Day Before Delivery (http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080322/31619_Late-Term_Abortionist_Admits_to_Aborting_1_Day_Before_Delivery.htm)

Lawmaker's Comments on Homosexuality Spark Hate Campaign, Death Threats
By Pete Winn
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
March 28, 2008

(CNSNews.com) - An audio clip posted on YouTube earlier this month is responsible for a hate-filled campaign of threats and harassment being directed at an Oklahoma state lawmaker, her family and her Christian faith.

Rep. Sally Kern (R-Oklahoma City) said the clip of a talk she gave on the homosexual political agenda has been accessed "probably a million times" since homosexual activists posted it on the popular online video gallery. It has prompted an outpouring of hatred against her, she told Cybercast News Service.

"We have received close to 30,000 e-mails," Kern said. "When this first hit YouTube, the vast majority of the e-mails were hate mail - vile, vulgar, profane."

A former educator who chairs the Social Services Committee in the Oklahoma House, Kern said the hateful and threatening e-mail and phone calls have given her an education about the vitriolic nature of those who support the homosexual agenda.

"People have called me the most horrible names, saying that they hoped I would die, and worse," she said. "They've used words I've never heard before."

There have also been death threats, which Kern said have been turned over to the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation.

"They haven't just attacked me - they've attacked my family, they attacked the Bible, they've attacked Christianity as being the reason for all the evils in the world," said Kern, who is the wife of a Baptist preacher. "They said the Bible was an archaic book that was no longer relevant."

In the audio clip on YouTube, which was posted March 7 by the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, Kern can be heard comparing homosexual activism's effect on the United States to cancer's effect on the human body, saying: "I honestly think it's the biggest threat that our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat."

The Oklahoma City Republican said her talk, which was delivered at a Republican luncheon, was secretly taped by someone and edited to make her sound - in her words - "wild-eyed."

"They made it sound like I was spewing hate and talking in one long rant against homosexuals," Kern told Cybercast News Service. "I would never do that. I have never done that."

Kern said she was not talking about homosexuals as individuals, as the clip makes it appear.

"I was dealing with their radical agenda," she said. "I was talking about the political homosexual agenda that is funding homosexual and pro-homosexual candidates to run against conservatives."

Kern said she was especially trying to publicize the fact that, in 2006, homosexual activists such as billionaire Tim Gill targeted 70 conservatives running for office and defeated 50 of them.

Homosexual activists are making hay over the clip.

The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund (GLVF), a Washington, D.C.-based political action committee, is using the clip as the centerpiece of a fundraising campaign.

In a letter that accompanies the group's solicitation, GLVF Chairman Chuck Wolfe links Kern's comments to the murder of Matthew Shepard, the openly homosexual University of Wyoming student killed in 1998.

"Comparing gays and lesbians to cancer and terrorism and saying they are the 'biggest threat to America' gives license to others to treat us that way, especially given the leadership position you hold in your community," Wolfe wrote.

Wolfe's group, which backs homosexual and pro-homosexual candidates, has targeted Kern for defeat. Calls to the GLVF were not returned by press time.

Homosexual hate campaign?

The backlash against Kern has become widespread. In the media, Kern's name is being used as an epithet. Bloggers are calling her "bigot" and "hate-monger."

For instance, under the headline, "Sally Kern is Satan's Spawn," writer Emily Michels wrote of Kern in the Michigan Daily newspaper's blog, The Podium, on March 12: "For lack of better words, the woman is a close-minded, discriminatory, hateful b*tch."

"The people of Oklahoma should be planning a militaristic coups (sic)," the University of Michigan journalist wrote. "Instead of realizing that she is a complete idiot who thrives off of destroying any moral fabric left in society, this woman (I am actually so upset I can barely grasp the fact that she is human) defended herself, refusing to apologize."

Michels added: "Our nation would be stronger and more accepting if people like Sally Kern were out of office and forced to live underground. May all of Sally Kern's babies be gay."

Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, an open lesbian, has used her television program to take Kern to task and tried to phone Kern during the broadcast. Comedienne Margaret Cho has called the lawmaker's comments "appalling."

Even Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry denounced Kern, saying that Oklahomans should be "tolerant."

Conservative groups, meanwhile, say the backlash against Kern's so-called hatred is itself a "hate-filled intimidation campaign" that has been ginned up to try to silence any opposition to the "gay agenda."

Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality accused Kern's attackers of being "terrorists."

"They are trying to demonize her - and it is all about destroying her and making her an example to intimidate other politicians," LaBarbera told Cybercast News Service.

LaBarbera defends Kern's assertion that homosexual activism has even tried to reach into kindergarten and nurseries.

Attorney Richard Thompson of the Thomas More Law Center, meanwhile, has volunteered to represent Kern in the legal arena, if need be, against what he calls homosexual "smear" tactics.

"Their actions are right out of a play-book developed by radical homosexual activists in the 1980s to manipulate and intimidate the majority of Americans into accepting the normalcy of the homosexual lifestyle," Thompson said.

Kern, meanwhile, said she stands by her comments that the homosexual agenda is "dangerous" to society in the same way cancer is dangerous to the human body.

"By dangerous, I mean (it's) an unhealthy lifestyle," she said. "It's dangerous to those people who are in it. Statistics prove that they do have shorter life-spans and have more health problems."

But the homosexual agenda itself is dangerous, she said, because activists are targeting their messages to America's children.

"The homosexual agenda is dangerous because they want to destroy the basic moral fiber of this nation, which is traditional marriage and the traditional family," she said.

LaBarbera couldn't agree more.

"Gay activists are trying to reach younger and younger children with their message," LaBarbera said. "It's to the point where they are propagandizing toddlers in the gay agenda. We've known this for years.

"Remember 'Daddy's Roommate?' The book that said that homosexuality is just one more type of love? How can that be an appropriate message for toddlers, who don't even know what sex is yet?"

Kern said gay activists and sympathizers are writing and calling people in her district who have contributed to her in the past and have targeted businesses in her district that have supported her.

Lawmaker's Comments on Homosexuality Spark Hate Campaign, Death Threats (http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200803/CUL20080328a.html)

Woman Arrested After Allegedly Caught Stealing Newborn From Hospital Nursery

Friday , March 28, 2008

SANFORD, Fla. —
A woman on Friday abducted a 1-day-old baby from a secure hospital unit and apparently managed to smuggle the child from the facility inside a tote bag, police said.

Jennifer Latham, 39, of Sanford, was arrested a short time later after being pulled over by police in nearby Lake Mary, said Darrel Presley, deputy chief of the Sanford Police Department near Orlando.

Officials at Central Florida Regional Hospital alerted police of the abduction around 1:45 p.m. after hospital alarms indicated the child had been removed from the newborn unit, Presley said.

The hospital was immediately locked down as officials searched the grounds, but the woman was apparently able to slip by security because she had the child hidden in a bag, he said.

"We believe at this point she had a large blue tote bag that she may have actually placed the child inside," Presley said. "And she just apparently walked out."

Presley said hospital staff acted appropriately and quickly.

"But in just those few minutes that it takes to gather the information and disseminate it, she was able to walk from the maternity ward through the exit and then depart the hospital," he said.

Authorities initially believed they were looking for two women because the suspect wore street clothes into the hospital, then changed into a scrub-like shirt in an apparent attempt to blend in, Presley said.

Police in the nearby town of Lake Mary pulled over a vehicle at about 3 p.m. that matched a description of the vehicle witnesses described Latham driving, he said. The baby was found inside unharmed and has been returned to the hospital and reunited with the parents.

Presley said authorities had no indication the suspect is related to the child. Latham was in custody and being interviewed by detectives.

"It does appear that it could be a stranger abduction, which is very, very rare," he said.

Hospital spokesman Craig Bair said the child was wearing a device that set off an alarm when the infant was taken outside the secure unit.

"We're still putting together the facts," Bair said.

Woman Arrested After Allegedly Caught Stealing Newborn From Hospital Nursery (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,342969,00.html)

Missing NY pastor found in OH strip club

A pastor whose disappearance from a small town in upstate New York triggered a search by police and the FBI was found earlier today -- inside an Ohio strip club.

Police said that when the Rev. Craig S. Rhodenizer, 46, was confronted by an officer, he began crying and said he couldn't remember anything about the 36 hours he was missing.

But dancers at the club remembered Rhodenizer. They told investigators that Rhodenizer spent two hours drinking, soliciting dances and making threatening comments. He also said he wanted to take the dancers back to his motel, according to the police report. In his car was a bottle of Bacardi rum.

Sgt. Frank Previte, an investigator with the Lewiston Police Department, told ABC News it was one of the most bizarre cases he's seen.

"They questioned him a bit. He was very distraught, crying and hysterical," Previte said. "He did not know where he was."

Rhodenizer was discovered more than 400 miles from his Lewiston, N.Y., home by police in Riverside, Ohio, who were checking out-of-state license plates of cars parked at the club in a high-crime section of the city.

When officers ran the New York license plate on Rhodenizer's Toyota Camry, the check showed the pastor as a missing person being sought by New York police and FBI. Riverside police called authorities in Lewiston and were instructed to approach Rhodenizer.

The pastor broke down when police asked if he was Rhodenizer, crying and asking about the welfare of his wife and son, according to a Lewiston police report.

Ohio police took Rhodenizer to a hospital and towed his car.

Previte was relieved the search for Rhodenizer ended safely for the pastor, even if it was under unseemly circumstances.

"Regardless, we don't have any indication that a crime has been committed," Previte said. "And I don't see that changing."

Susan Rhodenizer, the pastor's wife, told ABC News that the family is making arrangements for her husband to return home.

"This was very much a stress-induced emotional crisis," his wife said. "He's never had any of this, historically." The family intends to seek ongoing mental health treatment for Rhodenizer.

Susan Rhodenizer reported her husband missing Wednesday after he said he was going to a Best Buy 30 minutes away to have a computer repaired. The family was scheduled to go on a vacation Thursday.

New York authorities initially feared the pastor may have been kidnapped and the FBI joined the search. They picked up a cell phone signal placing Rhodenizer in northern Pennsylvania Wednesday night, once at 9 p.m. and again at 9:30 p.m. Previte said there was no cell phone or credit card activity throughout Thursday.

Rhodenizer is the pastor of St. John's Lutheran Church in the Village of Lydonville.

Police said the pastor did not have any relevant criminal history. "In our check into his background, we could not come up with anything that indicated this was stress-incuded," Previte said.

Missing NY pastor found in OH strip club (http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/national_world&id=6048160)

1st human-animal stem-cell embryos bring religious protests
'Experiments of Frankenstein proportion' may increase pressure for tougher regulations

The creation of the U.K.'s first part-human, part-animal embryos may increase pressure on Parliament for tougher regulations on stem cell research.

Lyle Armstrong and colleagues at Newcastle University made embryos using human cells and a cow egg, the college said yesterday in a statement on its Web site. Debate in the U.K. over the so-called hybrid embryos increased after Catholic leaders, in Easter sermons, attacked the technique used for making stem cells. Cardinal Keith O'Brien of Edinburgh said creating such embryos were ``experiments of Frankenstein proportion.''

Parliament is discussing changes to a 1990 law that governs stem cell research, including the hybrid work. U.K. scientists, who can conduct research U.S. President George W. Bush restricted in 2001, are concerned that they'll fall behind other countries if legislation before Parliament is defeated. Chinese and U.S. academics already have produced stem cells extracted from part- human, part-animal embryos.

The new hybrids ``will open the door to a better understanding of disease processes without having to use precious human eggs,'' John Burn, head of the Institute of Human Genetics at Newcastle University, said in the statement. ``Cells grown using animal eggs cannot be used to treat patients on safety grounds but they will help bring nearer the day when new stem cell therapies are available.''

Armstrong presented preliminary data last month at a lecture in Israel, and is working to verify the data, the university said yesterday.

Lobbying, Debates

In response to the criticism from religious leaders, medical organizations are organizing supporters to lobby legislators. O'Brien has agreed to a Catholic lawmaker's request that he meet researchers who want to use hybrid embryos. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the leader of Catholics in England and Wales, wants a national bioethics panel established.

Two days after O'Brien's Easter sermon, Prime Minister Gordon Brown agreed to allow lawmakers in his Labour party and Cabinet ministers to vote based on their consciences as opposed to their party's position when they're polled in May or June. Three of Brown's Cabinet ministers are Catholic and may have resigned rather than support the bill.

Among the proposed changes to the 1990 Human Fertilization and Embryology Act is a provision allowing researchers to generate stem cells from hybrid embryos.

How it Works

The embryos are created by inserting DNA from the skin cell of a person into animal eggs whose own nucleus and genetic material have been removed. The law would prohibit developing hybrid embryos beyond 14 days or transferring them to a person or animal.

Embryonic cells are valued because they have the ability to turn into any of the roughly 210 cell types found in the human body. Researchers want to make hybrid embryos using the DNA of humans with incurable conditions such as Parkinson's disease, diabetes and spinal cord injury. The resulting stem cells would give another way to study the diseases and develop treatments. Human eggs are in short supply and donating them can be uncomfortable for women.

The House of Lords passed the bill in January after three hearings. Debate on it is scheduled to begin in the House of Commons in May.

That same month, the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, the agency overseeing embryological research, gave Armstrong and Stephen Minger of King's College London one-year licenses to use hybrid embryos, after the group held public hearings on the matter.

Poll Results

The regulator cited a poll that found 61 percent of Britons it surveyed agreed scientists should be allowed to use hybrid embryos for research that might help them to understand diseases.

The Association of Medical Research Charities and the Genetic Interest Group, which together represent 245 U.K. charities for conditions such as Parkinson's disease, cystic fibrosis and multiple sclerosis, asked the 646 members of the House of Commons to support the bill in a March 19 letter.

``We've got 3 million patients in the U.K. who could potentially benefit from the treatments that could be delivered by this research,'' said Nick Meade, a policy officer for the Genetic Interest Group.

The government-backed Medical Research Council and AMRC member charities, including the Wellcome Trust, have spent about 90 million pounds ($178 million) funding stem-cell research projects in the U.K. since 2002.

Postcard Protests

At Easter Masses, Catholic worshippers were given postcards protesting against the proposals to send to their parliamentary representatives. Catholic leaders in London, Liverpool and Birmingham joined O'Brien in coming out against the bill in their sermons.

``It does seem extraordinary that the HFEA should have granted a license before there has been a full public and parliamentary debate,'' the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales said today in a statement. ``There must be a thorough public discussion about the serious ethical issues raised by the possibility of creating human-animal hybrid embryos.''

The Church opposes all research and procedures that tamper with embryos. Embryonic stem cells haven't produced any cures so far and medical research could do without them or hybrids by focusing on adult stem cells, mature cells that have developed into specific tissue types, the Catholic Bishops' Conference argues.

`Unnecessary'

``Regardless of where you stand on this issue, it's wholly unnecessary to use human embryos'' in stem-cell research, said David Alton, a Catholic layman and House of Lords member who doesn't belong to a political party. Alton unsuccessfully sought to block the hybrid embryo provision in the bill in January.

Charities are arranging meetings with lawmakers to present their case, Kieran Breen of the Parkinson's Disease Society said. His group has asked its members to contact their representatives in Parliament and let them know what is at stake for sufferers.

``If the bill or sections of the bill don't go through, that could put research and our understanding of conditions like Parkinson's back by a number of years,'' Breen, director of research and development, said.

NYC Cabbie Who Runs Anti-American Islamic Web Site Mocks GI Deaths, Calls for Shia Law In U.S.

Monday , April 07, 2008

NEW YORK, N.Y. —
A New York City cabbie who operates an extremist Islamic anti-American Web site that features violent images — including mocking the deaths of GIs in Iraq — says he’s doing the country a service by “exposing the truth.”

Yousef al-Khattab, who runs RevolutionMuslim.com from his home in Queens, told FOX News that he also wants the U.S. to embrace Islam and Sharia Law, which prohibits alcohol and can include stoning to death or severe flogging for pre-marital sex and adultery.

On any given day, log on to al-Khattab's site and a host of startling images appear:

— The Statue of Liberty, with an ax blade cutting through her side;

— Video mocking the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl, entitled "Daniel Pearl I am Happy Your Dead :) ";

— Video of a puppet show lampooning U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq;

— The latest speech from Sheikh Abdullah Faisal, an extremist Muslim cleric convicted in the UK and later deported for soliciting the murder of non-Muslims.

Even more surprising is that al-Khattab runs his site from his home in Queens, New York.

And, because al-Khattab enjoys the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, all the authorities can do is watch.

Formerly known as Joseph Cohen, al-Khattab is an American-born Jew who converted to Islam after attending an Orthodox Rabbinical school, which he later described as a “racist cult.”

The 39-year-old New York taxi driver launched RevolutionMuslim.com with the mission of “preserving Islamic culture,” “calling people to the oneness of God” and asking them to “support the beloved Sheik Abdullah Faisal, who’s preaching the religion of Islam and serving as a spiritual guide.”

In 2003, Faisal was convicted in the U.K. for spreading messages of racial hatred and urging his followers to kill Jews, Hindus and Westerners. In sermon recordings played at his trial, Faisal called on young, impressionable Muslims to use chemical weapons to “exterminate unbelievers” and “cut the throat of the Kaffars [nonbelievers] with [a] machete.”

Authorities believe Faisal’s sermons have influenced 2005 London transport bomber Germaine Lindsay and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, who attended mosques where Faisal preached.

At times, al-Khattab's postings are farcical, such as a picture of him holding the book "Nuclear Jihad" with a wry smile on his face. Other messages call for radical Muslim rule worldwide.

Al-Khattab claims the Sept. 11 terror attacks were an “inside job,” and he blames U.S. foreign policy for spawning the terrorism that carried out the attacks.

He calls Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and beheaded in 2002 by Islamic extremists in Pakistan, “a convicted spy.”

“I could care less about Daniel Pearl,” al-Khattab said in an interview with FOXNews.com. “I’m happy to see that he’s gone.”

The content changes constantly. One reason is that the fast flow of information allows messages to spread through cyberspace quickly. Another, terrorism analysts say, is to make it difficult for law enforcement to monitor the site.

Despite his radical anti-Western views, al-Khattab says he does not support terrorism of any kind.

Yet, RevolutionMuslim.com claims to be the official site of “North American representatives” for Sheikh Faisal, and it appears dedicated to spreading his radical doctrine.

He says Faisal “never said to kill innocent people” and was unjustly imprisoned. He says the real terror organizations are the U.S. Army, the CIA, and the FBI — and the National Coast Guard, “to a lesser extent.”

According to RevolutionMuslim, Faisal — who was deported to his native Jamaica in 2007 — is now receiving donations solicited on the site, including money for a new laptop and DVD burner to spread his message.

It's not illegal to post these messages or collect money for Faisal, but it would be if Faisal were designated a terrorist by the U.S. government. He currently is not listed on any government terror list; a Department of Justice spokesman could not confirm or deny if Faisal is being investigated for any terror related activity.

RevolutionMuslim may look amateurish when compared with other extremist Web sites, but it is no less of a threat, says Mia Bloom, political science professor at the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs.

“It may lead people who become radicalized by it to turn to other, more dangerous Web sites,” such as those run by terrorist organizations, she said.

Bloom characterized al-Khattab’s message as “narrow” and “misinformed” and said he is attempting to “proselytize or radicalize people who share some of these same ideas.”

“[He] has obviously been duped or is duping others because that’s not what Islam preaches,” she said.

On his site al-Khattab appears to condemn the very democracy that guarantees him the freedom to express himself — a freedom he cites in a disclaimer on his homepage:

“We hereby declare and make absolute public declaration that revolutionmuslim.com operates under the first amendment right to freedom of religion and expression and that in no way, shape, or form do we call for war against the U.S. government or adhere to the enemies of the United States elsewhere.”

Under the law FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said it is difficult to bring criminal charges against the operators of Web sites like RevolutionMuslim.com unless specific threats are made against an individual or individuals.

Kolko while not speaking directly about RevolutionMuslim said radical sites like these are not often prosecuted.

"It's usually a First Amendment right if they don't cross the threshold of making any threats," said Kolko. "There's nothing we should or could do."

“Until the rhetoric reaches the point in which it’s no longer protected speech under the first amendment, it’s hard to stop it,” said security expert, Harvey Kushner.

NYC Cabbie Who Runs Anti-American Islamic Web Site Mocks GI Deaths, Calls for Shia Law In U.S. (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,347272,00.html)

Pope seeks JPII intercession

VATICAN CITY (CNS): Pope Benedict XVI has prayed that Pope John Paul II would intercede for him with God, helping him to gather and build on the spiritual gifts that Pope John Paul gave to the Church.

The Vatican police said almost 40,000 people joined Pope Benedict on April 2 in St Peter's Square for a Mass marking the third anniversary of Pope John Paul's death.

"We pray that from heaven he will continue to intercede for each one of us, and in a special way for me, whom providence has called to harvest his invaluable spiritual heritage," the Pope said in his homily.

"May the Church, following his teaching and example, continue his evangelising mission faithfully and without compromise, tirelessly spreading the merciful love of Christ, the source of true peace for the whole world," he said.

The concelebrants included Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow, who had served as Pope John Paul's secretary for almost 40 years.

At an April 1 conference dedicated to the memory of Pope John Paul, Cardinal Dziwisz said he continued to receive hundreds of letters from people who have asked for Pope John Paul's intercession and he, himself, continued to pray for his former boss' assistance.

"I do not miss John Paul," he said. "I accompanied him for almost 40 years and now he accompanies me. When I have a problem, I turn to him and he is with me."

Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the priest in charge of promoting the cause, told Vatican Radio on March 31 that he had completed a 2000-page draft of the "positio", the official position paper explaining why Pope John Paul should be proclaimed a saint.

An official at the Congregation for Saints' Causes is examining the draft, a few adjustments are expected, and then the report will be officially submitted for judgment, Msgr Oder said

Pope seeks JPII intercession (http://www.catholicleader.com.au/index.php?id=4219)

Quote from: DreamWeaver on April 11, 2008, 05:24:12 PM

Brothers and Sisters, I think this is obscene. JESUS CHRIST is the only Mediator between GOD THE FATHER and mankind. JESUS CHRIST is ALIVE! A dead pope or any other dead man can't do a single thing for the living. Further, ALL Christians are already SAINTS! Men don't vote to determine whether a Christian is a Saint. GOD makes us a SAINT when JESUS CHRIST becomes the LORD over our lives. ALL GLORY GOES TO GOD - none to man! WE PRAY TO GOD - not man! JESUS CHRIST IS OUR INTERCESSOR - not man, especially not a dead man!

College Class Trip Takes Tour of Nevada Brothel, With Seminars From Prostitutes

Friday , April 11, 2008

PAHRUMP, Nevada —
College student Nicki Amouri hands her camera to a friend, throws her arm over another and smiles wide as she leans in for a shot with the monument her class came to visit.

It's a typical field trip memento — except that Amouri is in a brothel. The monument is a fluffy, queen-sized bed in a Western-themed party room reserved for VIPs and big spenders.

Amouri was one of a dozen Randolph College students who toured the Chicken Ranch, a legal bordello in the desert (60 miles outside Las Vegas). Thursday's class trip, which included seminars from the prostitutes, capped a course on American consumption and "the ideas that consume us."

"I think it's fascinating, this is fun for me," said Amouri, a third year student at the private liberal arts school in Lynchburg, Virginia, that until last year admitted only women. "Not many people get to do this."

Academic and media inquiries are daily occurrences at many of Nevada's 27 legal brothels. Some shy away from the scrutiny, others, like the Chicken Ranch, welcome the publicity.

"We're always open to trying to educate the public about legalized prostitution," said Chicken Ranch general manager Debbie Rivenburgh, who acknowledged this was the first class tour request she had received in 21 years.

The brothel tour was a natural fit for a class that tells students "don't just study America — live it," said Julio Rodriguez, the director of the college's American Culture Program.

Each semester the course examines a strain of American culture and ends with a class trip. Past destinations included post-Katrina New Orleans, Walt Disney World and the Civil Rights Memorial Center in Montgomery, Alabama.

This year's focus on Nevada started with a professor's interest in water rights and conservation. It grew to include discussions of the wedding and entertainment industries and, inevitably, prostitution.

Nevada is the only state where prostitution is legal. Brothels are allowed in 10 Nevada counties, though not in Las Vegas.

As part of their research, students were assigned "The Beauty Myth," by feminist author Naomi Wolf, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," by Hunter S. Thompson, and a "20/20" episode on prostitution with Diane Sawyer, among other research, professors said.

"We gave them all the option to either opt out or express reservations privately. No one did," said Rodriguez, adding that he received no objections from parents or administrators.

Prostitutes at the Chicken Ranch had plenty of reservations. Most do not jump at the chance to talk to strangers about what they do, Rivenburgh said. They worry about friends or family finding out. They know how others see them. It can be uncomfortable.

"Ninety-nine percent of the working girls will not participate. Each woman's got her reason and her limitations," Rivenburgh said. "I couldn't have done better with the two that said yes, though."

Alexis, 38, and Alicia, "over 30," sat on white folding chairs in front the young, earnest women in the brothel's Victorian-styled parlor, usually the setting for the "lineup." They would not give their last names. The group took close notes as a handful of television cameras and reporters looked on.

A blonde in jeans and platform boots, Alexis talked about the job's flexibility and the free time it has allowed her to write a book about her life. Alicia wore a black-and-white gingham nighty and a tattoo on her left breast that read "Famous."

"I enjoy giving back what some people don't get in their lives, as far as companionship, time, just the touch of a woman," she said. The job allows her to take care of her mother and grandmother. She is also in real estate.

The introductions gave way to questions.

Do you consider yourself a feminist?

Alexis: "Most women in this business wear the pants in the family."

Is there a certain look most men prefer?

Alicia: Every man wants something different. "There's all different kinds of girls."

Why are there no brothels with male prostitutes?

Rivenburgh: Former Hollywood Madame Heidi Fleiss is trying.

Do you still give a military discount?

Rivenburgh: Yes.

What is the worst part?

Alicia: "Being confined, being cooped up. I have to be here 24 hours a day."

With a tour and time to mingle, the students packed up gift bags containing a menu of services, a Chicken Ranch key chain and a brochure. They had to get back to Las Vegas in time for a backstage tour of the risque revue "Jubilee." With any luck, they might get to interview the showgirls.

College Class Trip Takes Tour of Nevada Brothel, With Seminars From Prostitutes (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,350188,00.html)

Belarus workers move bones from Jewish cemetery to dump
By The Associated Press
13/04/2008

Workers rebuilding a sports stadium on the site of an 18th century Jewish cemetery in Belarus say they have no choice but to consign the bones to city dumps.

"It's impossible to pack an entire cemetery into sacks," said worker Mikhail Gubets, adding that he stopped counting the skulls when the number went over 100.

But critics say it's part of a pattern of callous indifference toward Belarus' Jewish heritage that was prevalent when the country was a Soviet republic and hasn't changed.

The stadium in Gomel, Belarus' second largest city and a center of Jewish life until World War II, is one of four that were built on top of Jewish cemeteries around the country.

The Gomel cemetery was destroyed when the stadium was built in 1961, but the remains lay largely undisturbed until this spring when reconstruction began and a bulldozer turned up the first bones.

A Jewish leader in Gomel, Vladimir Gershanok, says he asked the builders to put the bones into sacks for reburial at a cemetery that has a monument to Holocaust victims.

"We know we can't stop the construction but we're trying to minimize the
destruction," Gershanok said.

But city authorities have ruled that the construction can go ahead because the bones are more than 50 years old.

Igor Poluyan, the city official responsible for building sports facilities, says he doesn't understand the problem. "If something was scattered there, we'll collect it and take it away," he said.

A history professor, Yevgeny Malikov, sees the cemetery as part of the city's heritage. He has filled three sacks with bones and pulled aside two of the unearthed marble gravestones. Other gravestones are piled near a trash bin or already carried away. Some of the bones have been carried off by stray dogs.

"The history of the city is being thrown into the dump together with the human remains," Malikov said.

Jews began settling in Gomel in the 16th century and by the end of the 19th century made up more than half of the population. In 1903, they made history by being the first to resist a pogrom, defending 26 synagogues and prayer houses.

Most of Gomel's 40,000 Jews managed to flee before the Nazis arrived. The
4,000 who remained were shot in November 1941. Only a few thousand Jews now live in the city of 500,000.

Oleg Korzhuyev, 38, who lives on Karl Marx Street at the edge of the site, said the workers aren't happy about digging up human bones, but if they find a gold tooth then it's a real celebration.

Another city, Grodno, experienced a similar problem while reconstructing a stadium built on a Jewish cemetery. The excavated earth and bones were
scattered into a ravine.

Jewish graves also have been disturbed in neighboring Ukraine.

"It's not just a Jewish issue, it's this general Soviet legacy," said Ukraine's chief rabbi, Yakov Blaikh. They didn't respect people while they were alive and they don't respect them when they are dead.

This month, the Jewish community in the city of Vinnyntsa was able to stop construction of an apartment building on a pre-World War II Jewish cemetery.

Ukrainian authorities apologized, saying they did not realize the construction would affect the cemetery. Belarus, on the other hand, has been one of the least responsive countries on all Jewish issues, according to Efraim Zuroff, director of the Israeli Simon Wiesenthal Center.

"The government is simply erasing Jewish history from the face of this land," said Yakov Basin, vice president of the Belarusian Jewish Council.

Before the war, about 1 million Jews lived in Belarus and 800,000 of them died in the Holocaust. Today they number 27,000 in the country of 10 million.

Belarus' president, Alexander Lukashenko, has shown little respect for Jewish culture. In a radio broadcast in October that provoked a sharp protest from the Israeli government, he suggested that when Jews were numerous in another town, Bobruisk, they turned it into a pigsty.

"You know how Jews treat the place where they live. Look at Israel; I was there," he said.

Belarus workers move bones from Jewish cemetery to dump (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/974361.html)
~~~~~~~~~

This is all part of the effort to entirely eliminate all signs of Israel around the world. I wish they could have transported the bones to Israel.

Condi Tips Her Hand
by Emanuel A. Winston
04/11/08

Holding back military resupply is an old trick.

Fortunately, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Department of State team have gone a bit too far and exposed their hand.

'Coincidentally,' just after Rice’s team left, it was revealed that America will hold back military resupply to Israel 'until Israel needs it.' This would ostensibly save Israel billions of dollars in storage costs for equipment and weapons 'it may never use.'

Holding back military resupply is an old State Department tactic, used best by Henry Kissinger in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, to ensure that Israel would be "more flexible" when she was forced into post-war negotiations. I remember hearing that Kissinger said: 'Let Israel bleed a little. She’ll give up more in negotiations if she bleeds a little.' Kissinger’s deliberate delay of resupplying Israel until the eighth day of the war led to many needless deaths and endangered Israel severely.

So, on top of the State Department making Israel remove roadblocks in order to give terrorists greater freedom of movement - with more Israelis dead - they also want Israel to incur greater casualties in any upcoming war. Like Kissinger, the State Department and Rice want "Israel to bleed a little" - or a lot.

We can’t help but notice how this comes together nicely with the $60 billion-plus dollars worth of American arms that have been supplied to Egypt in the years since the Camp David Accords. Don’t forget the hundreds of thousands of American tax-payers’ dollars that have gone to Fatah, under Mahmoud Abbas, for weapons - only to be captured by Hamas as soon as they took over Gaza. Remember that George Bush connived with Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert to surrender and evict 10,000 men, women and children from Gush Katif in Gaza; that gave Hamas the terrorist base they needed. Those 21 Jewish communities in Gush Katif were being attacked mercilessly - as is Sderot now - but they were protecting the rest of southern Israel.

The billions to Egypt and millions to the Palestinian Authority continued apace and grew exponentially during the eight Bush-Rice years (Rice was first National Security Advisor and now is Secretary of State). Egypt will have top quality tanks, planes and missiles ready to attack Israel. Why Israel? Israel is Egypt’s only enemy. Why else would Egypt be preparing for war? Egypt has become the military colossus of the Middle East and is now negotiating with Vladimir Putin of Russia to build a nuclear power plant, as Russia did for Iran. One to start with; more to follow.

Egypt has made no secret of its aim to achieve military parity with the Jewish State and to have a regional military projection capability. Cairo has acquired new and more powerful weapons systems, including surface-to-surface missiles, from China and North Korea, WMD capability, fighter aircraft, attack helicopters, naval vessels and, of course, tanks. With no country threatening its borders, only Israel appears to be the likely target of the Egyptian build-up. Some may recall during a prior US administration, while Secretary of Defense William Cohen was observing Operation "Bright Star" (joint military games with US and Egyptian troops), a high-ranking Egyptian general said: "We are preparing for war with Israel."

Of course, resupply takes time, even under the best of circumstances. Egypt will have top quality tanks, planes and missiles ready to attack, while Israel is waiting for American supplies. With 40,000 enemy missiles now in Hizbullah inventory, poised to hit Israel, flights will be delayed. Runways may be hit. America may not want to sent her cargo jets into enemy fire. The State Department may relish the idea of letting Israel "sweat it out."

The State Department and Ms. Rice have shown themselves to be hostile entities when it comes to Israel. It is beneficial for Israel and her friends around the world to know this. Congress may find it necessary to launch an investigation into the State Department’s inner strategy towards Israel.

However, there is another benefit that can come from this. As we proposed in the past, America should build giant prepositioning warehouses in Israel. These will be under American ownership until they are released for either Israel’s use or American resupply to one of the American theaters of war in time of emergency. Having a resupply depot in the Middle East, secured by the Israelis, can be very useful in the volatile Middle East.

Condi Tips Her Hand (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7900)

For sale: 13-year-old virgin

By Sue Ryan in Bharatpur
Last Updated: 2:40am BST 14/04/2008

Thirty miles west of the Taj Mahal, on the road to the pink city of Jaipur, tourists on buses pass a sight that the guide books rarely mention.

A mile beyond the town of Bharatpur in Rajasthan, where the highway is being widened to four lanes, traffic slows down for roadworks. But the workmen who lounge by their bulldozers have their eyes on something else - a cluster of makeshift shelters where girls, several under 18 and at least two younger than 15, can be seen strolling or sitting, in view of the dusty carriageway.

Tonight, one girl in particular is attracting attention as she sits on a stool by a fire so that she can be seen by passing vehicles. Her heavily made-up, striking face and beautiful pink sari make her look as if she were on her way to a party. But the truth is different. Suli, 14, is a virgin and a bidding war is being held for the right to be the first to sleep with her.

The collection of shelters where she lives houses 59 families, all members of the Bedia tribe, which has a long tradition of caste-based prostitution. Girls born here become prostitutes in a rite of passage into "adulthood" as routine as marriage is to the rest of Indian society.

The "first time" is a valued commodity for which the middle-class businessmen who pass this way are prepared to pay a premium.

The normal rate is 100 rupees (£1.30) but a virgin is sold to the highest bidder for anything over 20,000 rupees. If she is very pretty, the community would hope to get up to 40,000 rupees. For this, the man can have access to the girl for as long as he likes - several hours, days, or even weeks. When he tires of her, there is a celebration. Because it is considered unlucky for a girl to keep the money from her first time, it is spent instead on an extravagant party. Jewellery is bought for her and for her relatives, goats are slaughtered and alcohol runs freely. There is dancing, and offerings are made to the gods.

Once a girl has lost her virginity she cannot marry. The choice has been made and the community celebrates it - this is her non-wedding night.

Suli said she was happy to enter the trade. "I chose it," she said, though she admitted being "a little" frightened. "I do not know how it is going to be. I know other girls who are in the trade but I have not asked them how it is."

She claimed it did not matter what the man looked like. "I will go with whoever pays the highest price," she said, before running off as her mother called her for supper.

Nita, a virgin in the hut next door, has four sisters, all prostitutes. She wears jeans and a skimpy top, and giggles a lot. One sister boasts that as Nita is particularly pretty, they hope to get 40,000 rupees (£600). "We have been offered 25,000, but it is not enough."

Nita is only 13 but has opted to follow her sisters into the trade. It is her own "choice", because, she giggled, "I won't have to do any housework."

But in avoiding making chapatis, Nita has signed up to a life in which she will deal with 20 to 30 clients per day, until she reaches her forties. After that, when she is no longer considered desirable, she will depend on any children she may have for support.

Two of her sisters, Ritu, 35, and Manju, 25, have built one of the few stone houses in their village, for which they paid the equivalent of £14,600, and are proud of their success. "There was a lot of poverty, we had nothing to eat," said Manju. "What you see now has come with hard work." They support 50 family members - 35 children and 15 adults.

Elsewhere in India, the birth of a boy is celebrated with dowries paid by the bride's family, one of the reasons given for the high abortion rate for female foetuses. But in the villages around Bharatpur there is a shortage of girls to marry, and the custom is for the boy's family to pay the girl's family a large lump sum before the wedding can take place.

Possibly because the money comes from prostitution, and because any granddaughters will be destined for the trade, the sums are high.

Ritu and Manju paid for four of their five brothers to marry, and now support their sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews.

They earn between 1,000 and 1,500 rupees a day. It was more before the government knocked down their shelters to make room for the highway.

"We need a shelter by the road," they said. "Tell the government to build us somewhere we can work. We used to have 25 or 30 clients a day, now the average is 10 or 15." They said they were able to keep their rates up because they could provide a nice room and running water for their clients, who are mostly married businessmen from Agra.

The prevalence of caste-based prostitution in certain tribes in the region - the Bawaria, Nuts, Bedias, Kanjars and Sansis - came to light after a raid on a brothel in Delhi. Now an attempt is being made to break the cycle by which the girls of each generation enter the trade.

Dr KK Mukerjee, a social work professor at the University of Delhi, who was commissioned by the government to research the scope of prostitution, has founded a group, known as GNK. Supported by Plan International, a child-centred community development agency, the organisation has set up a hostel to look after prostitutes' children.

Many of the women said they did not wish their daughters to follow them into the trade. Ritu and Manju each have a daughter, whose fathers were clients. "My daughter will get educated, and not enter this profession," said Ritu. "I have seen what it is like. I don't want it for her."

A young boy at the hostel told proudly how he had persuaded his grandmother not to push his aunt into prostitution. "My grandmother said that she would kill herself if my aunt did not go into the trade and earn money," he said. "But I persuaded her, and my aunt got married."

For sale: 13-year-old virgin (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/13/wvirgin113.xml)

Quote from: DreamWeaver on April 13, 2008, 10:26:30 PM

I grieve for Israel and for our own country which seems determined to bring judgment on itself but this is my opinion. I'm afraid, it's only a matter of time.............

Hello DreamWeaver,

Brother, we both know what the Bible says will most definitely happen, sooner or later. Anti-Jewish Sentiment and Anti-Christian sentiment will increase around the world, including the two against each other. Anti-Christian sentiment is already escalating by some we consider the LEAST likely - Israel. I might be naive, but I don't think that the same is true in the reverse by Christians. I might also be surprised to find out how little most Christians know about Bible Prophecy. Knowledge of GOD'S WORD is the key to this issue between Jews and Christians, but Christians should expect that most Jewish people DO NOT want to hear the Christian message. On the other side of the coin, Christians should know that GOD most certainly want us to distribute HIS GOOD NEWS to the Jewish people. This is going to be an interesting problem that most Christians should anticipate to grow WORSE - NOT BETTER. As Christians, we should attempt to please GOD, regardless of the consequences.

Brothers and Sisters, what should Christians really expect of our government if these ARE the approaching End Days of this Age of Grace? Let's go even further and wonder how many Christians are familiar with Bible Prophecy. How many Christians actually believe what the Bible says will MOST DEFINITELY HAPPEN? It's a Promise from GOD, so I would think that Christians who doubt Bible Prophecy have a BIG PROBLEM with GOD! It isn't a matter of "IF", rather a matter of "WHEN". The RAPTURE OF THE CHURCH WHICH IS THE BODY OF CHRIST, The Tribulation Period, THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, and the RULE AND REIGN OF CHRIST FROM THE THRONE OF DAVID IN JERUSALEM is AN ABSOLUTE BIBLE FACT!

Brothers and Sisters, let's talk about some BLUNT Bible facts right now that ALL Christians should think about. Any self-professed Christian who doubts or denies any Promise of GOD needs to examine themselves to determine if they REALLY ARE IN CHRIST! If the problem is a matter of ignorance regarding the contents of the Holy Bible, it's far past time for Christians to find out what the Bible and GOD SAYS is ABOUT TO HAPPEN! Bible Prophecy is GOD'S WORD, and ALL recorded Bible Prophecy has a 100% Rate of HAPPENING EXACTLY AS GOD SAYS THAT IT WILL!

Brothers and Sisters, most Christians who have even lightly studied Bible Prophecy think that we are approaching the End Days of this Age of Grace. If we are, what does this mean for you and your family if you are Christians? What does this mean for you and your family if you ARE NOT SAVED? DON'T YOU THINK THAT IT'S TIME TO FIND OUT?

Love In Christ,
Tom

Ephesians 1:18-23 NASB I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

Matthew 24:23-31 NASB
"Then if anyone says to you, 'Behold, here is the Christ,' or 'There He is,' do not believe him. "For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect. "Behold, I have told you in advance. "So if they say to you, 'Behold, He is in the wilderness,' do not go out, or, 'Behold, He is in the inner rooms,' do not believe them. "For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. "Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. "But immediately after the tribulation of those days THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. "And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory. "And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.

Matthew 24:32-44 NASB
"Now learn the parable from the fig tree: when its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near; so, you too, when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door. "Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away. "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. "For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. "For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. "Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. "Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left. "Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. "But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. "For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.

Revelation 11:1-13 NASB
Then there was given me a measuring rod like a staff; and someone said, "Get up and measure the temple of God and the altar, and those who worship in it. "Leave out the court which is outside the temple and do not measure it, for it has been given to the nations; and they will tread under foot the holy city for forty-two months. "And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth." These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if anyone wants to harm them, fire flows out of their mouth and devours their enemies; so if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way. These have the power to shut up the sky, so that rain will not fall during the days of their prophesying; and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every plague, as often as they desire. When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them and kill them. And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. Those from the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations will look at their dead bodies for three and a half days, and will not permit their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb. And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and celebrate; and they will send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. But after the three and a half days, the breath of life from God came into them, and they stood on their feet; and great fear fell upon those who were watching them. And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, "Come up here." Then they went up into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies watched them. And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

Ezekiel 7:1-9 NASB
Moreover, the word of the LORD came to me saying, "And you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD to the land of Israel, 'An end! The end is coming on the four corners of the land. 'Now the end is upon you, and I will send My anger against you; I will judge you according to your ways and bring all your abominations upon you. 'For My eye will have no pity on you, nor will I spare you, but I will bring your ways upon you, and your abominations will be among you; then you will know that I am the LORD!' "Thus says the Lord GOD, 'A disaster, unique disaster, behold it is coming! 'An end is coming; the end has come! It has awakened against you; behold, it has come! 'Your doom has come to you, O inhabitant of the land. The time has come, the day is near--tumult rather than joyful shouting on the mountains. 'Now I will shortly pour out My wrath on you and spend My anger against you; judge you according to your ways and bring on you all your abominations. 'My eye will show no pity nor will I spare. I will repay you according to your ways, while your abominations are in your midst; then you will know that I, the LORD, do the smiting.

Ezekiel 7:14-20 NASB
'They have blown the trumpet and made everything ready, but no one is going to the battle, for My wrath is against all their multitude. 'The sword is outside and the plague and the famine are within. He who is in the field will die by the sword; famine and the plague will also consume those in the city. 'Even when their survivors escape, they will be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, each over his own iniquity. 'All hands will hang limp and all knees will become like water. 'They will gird themselves with sackcloth and shuddering will overwhelm them; and shame will be on all faces and baldness on all their heads. 'They will fling their silver into the streets and their gold will become an abhorrent thing; their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD. They cannot satisfy their appetite nor can they fill their stomachs, for their iniquity has become an occasion of stumbling. 'They transformed the beauty of His ornaments into pride, and they made the images of their abominations and their detestable things with it; therefore I will make it an abhorrent thing to them.

Ezekiel 7:25-27 NASB
'When anguish comes, they will seek peace, but there will be none. 'Disaster will come upon disaster and rumor will be added to rumor; then they will seek a vision from a prophet, but the law will be lost from the priest and counsel from the elders. 'The king will mourn, the prince will be clothed with horror, and the hands of the people of the land will tremble. According to their conduct I will deal with them, and by their judgments I will judge them. And they will know that I am the LORD.'"

Ezekiel 38:14-23 NASB
"Therefore prophesy, son of man, and say to Gog, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "On that day when My people Israel are living securely, will you not know it? "You will come from your place out of the remote parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great assembly and a mighty army; and you will come up against My people Israel like a cloud to cover the land. It shall come about in the last days that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me when I am sanctified through you before their eyes, O Gog." 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "Are you the one of whom I spoke in former days through My servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in those days for many years that I would bring you against them? "It will come about on that day, when Gog comes against the land of Israel," declares the Lord GOD, "that My fury will mount up in My anger. "In My zeal and in My blazing wrath I declare that on that day there will surely be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. "The fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, the beasts of the field, all the creeping things that creep on the earth, and all the men who are on the face of the earth will shake at My presence; the mountains also will be thrown down, the steep pathways will collapse and every wall will fall to the ground. "I will call for a sword against him on all My mountains," declares the Lord GOD. "Every man's sword will be against his brother. "With pestilence and with blood I will enter into judgment with him; and I will rain on him and on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, a torrential rain, with hailstones, fire and brimstone. "I will magnify Myself, sanctify Myself, and make Myself known in the sight of many nations; and they will know that I am the LORD."'

Ezekiel 39:1-7 NASB
"And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog and say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I am against you, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal; and I will turn you around, drive you on, take you up from the remotest parts of the north and bring you against the mountains of Israel. "I will strike your bow from your left hand and dash down your arrows from your right hand. "You will fall on the mountains of Israel, you and all your troops and the peoples who are with you; I will give you as food to every kind of predatory bird and beast of the field. "You will fall on the open field; for it is I who have spoken," declares the Lord GOD. "And I will send fire upon Magog and those who inhabit the coastlands in safety; and they will know that I am the LORD. "My holy name I will make known in the midst of My people Israel; and I will not let My holy name be profaned anymore. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.

Ezekiel 39:17-22 NASB
"As for you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD, 'Speak to every kind of bird and to every beast of the field, "Assemble and come, gather from every side to My sacrifice which I am going to sacrifice for you, as a great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel, that you may eat flesh and drink blood. "You will eat the flesh of mighty men and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, as though they were rams, lambs, goats and bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan. "So you will eat fat until you are glutted, and drink blood until you are drunk, from My sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. "You will be glutted at My table with horses and charioteers, with mighty men and all the men of war," declares the Lord GOD. "And I will set My glory among the nations; and all the nations will see My judgment which I have executed and My hand which I have laid on them. "And the house of Israel will know that I am the LORD their God from that day onward.

Ezekiel 39:25-29 NASB
Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, "Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for My holy name. "They will forget their disgrace and all their treachery which they perpetrated against Me, when they live securely on their own land with no one to make them afraid. "When I bring them back from the peoples and gather them from the lands of their enemies, then I shall be sanctified through them in the sight of the many nations. "Then they will know that I am the LORD their God because I made them go into exile among the nations, and then gathered them again to their own land; and I will leave none of them there any longer. "I will not hide My face from them any longer, for I will have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel," declares the Lord GOD.

Isaiah 2:1-5 NASB
The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now it will come about that In the last days The mountain of the house of the LORD Will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths." For the law will go forth from Zion And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war. Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.

Isaiah 9:2-7 NASB
The people who walk in darkness Will see a great light; Those who live in a dark land, The light will shine on them. You shall multiply the nation, You shall increase their gladness; They will be glad in Your presence As with the gladness of harvest, As men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For You shall break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders, The rod of their oppressor, as at the battle of Midian. For every boot of the booted warrior in the battle tumult, And cloak rolled in blood, will be for burning, fuel for the fire. For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.

Isaiah 65:17-25 NASB
"For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind. "But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; For behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing And her people for gladness. "I will also rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in My people; And there will no longer be heard in her The voice of weeping and the sound of crying. "No longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, Or an old man who does not live out his days; For the youth will die at the age of one hundred And the one who does not reach the age of one hundred Will be thought accursed. "They will build houses and inhabit them; They will also plant vineyards and eat their fruit. "They will not build and another inhabit, They will not plant and another eat; For as the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of My people, And My chosen ones will wear out the work of their hands. "They will not labor in vain, Or bear children for calamity; For they are the offspring of those blessed by the LORD, And their descendants with them. "It will also come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear. "The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox; and dust will be the serpent's food. They will do no evil or harm in all My holy mountain," says the LORD.

Oprah Starting Her Own Cult?

Thursday , April 17, 2008
By Roger Friedman

Oprah Winfrey may have gone too far in exploiting and distributing the teachings of a questionable New Age writer.

On Monday night, Winfrey conducted her weekly Web "event" seminar with New Age writer Eckhart Tolle. His message: "Life is the dancer and you are the dance."

Got that?

The seminar was No. 7 in a series of 10. On the first 90-minute Webcast with Tolle, Oprah extolled the author’s virtues, calling his best-selling "New Earth" book "one of the most important books of our time," the seminars one of "the most exciting things I’ve ever done."

Imagine that Winfrey considers her conversations with Tolle, a man with a shady and un-checkable background, more important than her schools in Africa and Mississippi for underprivileged children, more important than her Angel Charity network or her zillion-dollar syndicated TV show. Tolle must be something else!

But it’s not like Winfrey is endorsing Maya Angelou or Toni Morrison, serious, educated artists with portfolios. Tolle is more like Kilgore Trout, Kurt Vonnegut’s science-fiction crackpot alter-ego.

And what’s different about the Tolle connection for Winfrey is that for the first time in her much-applauded Book Club’s history, she’s gone into business with the author. And the author is not one of a novel, memoir or cookbook; he’s the mysterious creator of a philosophy that Winfrey endorses and suggests her readers live their lives by.

But is Eckhart Tolle an appropriate spiritual leader? He told an interviewer that he stopped going to school at age 13 and didn’t resume any education for at least a decade. In the same interview he says he graduated "with the highest mark at the London University."

The press rep at the University of London says there’s simply no way to verify that. "You might as well say you graduated from here," joked the person I spoke to. Clever.

He says in interviews that he had a personal epiphany in 1977 at age 29 after a life of suffering from suicidal depression. For the next 15 years, no one knows much about what happened to him, and he’s not saying. He says he spent time wandering and sitting in London’s parks, with "no relationships, no job, no home, no socially defined identity," but a sense of "intense joy."

In seminar 1, Oprah’s new guru tells her: "I was living in England, and I had this strong impulse one morning … I had to move to the West Coast of North America without knowing why … So I moved to Vancouver and then I took a Greyhound bus to California, knew only one or two people, and I said, 'Why am I here?'"

"Three weeks passed, somebody put me up in a room near San Francisco, and suddenly this came. I bought a notepad and suddenly the strong stream came through and I wrote, 'What Is Enlightenment?' The beginning of 'The Power of Now.' The moment I wrote that, I knew this is the book that wants to be born. So rather than me wanting to write a book, there was a book that wanted to be written."

And so on.

Oprah’s response to this: "It’s like Michelangelo says the angel’s in the marble and he just cuts away the marble."

Well, not quite.

His books, "The Power of Now" and "A New Earth," are the same gobbledygook as most New Age stuff. They’re all about self-empowering and how to find out who we are. "Awakening" is Tolle’s key word. Tolle is very busy enforcing moments of silence and showing his readers how to find their "pain-body."

Nothing new there. And nothing new for Oprah, who’s now so wildly wealthy that she’s exceeded literally any famous person she might interview. Parade magazine puts her 2007 income at $260 million, the most of any celebrity and $150 million more than Steven Spielberg, the most successful filmmaker of all time. So what can she do besides anoint presidential candidates or start a religion?

Indeed, Winfrey already has flirted with several cult-like New Age deals. She’s enthusiastically embraced the Scientology celebrities like Tom Cruise and John Travolta. She’s even gone into business with Kirstie Alley, whom she’s planning to give a forum in her own talk show.

She’s also promoted televangelist Marianne Williamson’s kooky "Course of Miracles" and a book of New Age clichés by Australian Rhonda Byrne called "The Secret." (There’s a good piece on the latter at salon.com.)

Winfrey is nothing if not gifted at recognizing what’s already popular in the culture and exploiting it. But her association with Tolle is way over the top. It involves sponsorships with General Motors (Chevy), 3M Corp. (Post-Its) and Skype Internet phone service. In one broad stroke, she’s managed to accomplish what Scientology never has achieved: bringing corporate America’s implicit approval into religion.

What’s interesting is not so much Tolle, with his German accent and blank stare, proselytizing his nonsense. He talks a lot, literally, about looking at flowers and trees in a new way, much like Chauncey Gardner in "Being There."

It’s more about Oprah herself, free associating, selling out her own world as she gushes over those flowers and trees. For example, in seminar 1, she socks it to Hollywood, the source of 50 percent of her guests. This is the same Oprah who does a live special the day after the Oscars and often plugs the worst films just to get ratings.

In that segment, Oprah seems to forget who she is to score points with Tolle, or rationalize why she’s involved in this beyond the corporate money being reaped:

"Everyone complains about the media and the movies. I mean, if you just look at the Academy Awards this year, and the kinds of movies that were made this year, and it’s all a reflection of who we are. You say in the book," Winfrey says to Tolle, "that we’re the species that will go and watch people be maimed and killed and murdered for our entertainment."

We can assume she wasn’t talking about "Juno," "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," "The Savages," "Enchanted," "Atonement," "La Vie En Rose," "Michael Clayton," "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," "Into the Wild," "Away from Her" or "Charlie Wilson’s War" — all films that had nominations. Just three films featured overt violence this year — "No Country for Old Men," "There Will Be Blood" and "Sweeney Todd."

But it’s the zealous excitement in Winfrey’s eyes when she says it that makes the difference. Those three films are now the whole Academy Awards, and therefore "the media." You can already feel hearts pounding! She’s right! Hollywood had better look at flowers and trees in a new way.

What makes Oprah’s seminars even more creepy are the "study groups" she has lined up for Tolle at bookstores and other locations around the world. They’re all hooked up to the seminars through Skype, and the members can ask questions. They all have that same glazed-over look as people giving testimonials on late-night infomercials.

"I consider this to be a sacred moment when we can all come together … and share in this work," Winfrey says at the start of seminar 6. And why not? You’ll notice that she, not Tolle, has the sole copyright on the broadcasts. Ka ching!

But don’t worry about Eckhart Tolle. His "power of now" is all about his store. All roads lead to his merchandise, which is prominently featured on his Web site and accessed from Oprah’s.

His is a costly philosophy. Books, tapes, DVDs — all of it becomes quite expensive when added up, making Tolle no different than Scientology, Kabbalah or any other shiny new religion. Tolle even sells teaching tools "for professionals" — "A Guide for the Spiritual Teacher and Health Practitioner" — even though it’s unclear what is the basis of his own educational background.

Are we supposed to take this seriously? As Tolle, himself, says to Oprah, "It’s better to laugh at madness."

Oprah Starting Her Own Cult? (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,351545,00.html)
~~~~~~~~~~~

Y'all may want to check out Cults, Different groups (http://forums.christiansunite.com/index.php?topic=6468.msg91052#msg91052), right here on Christians Unite forum.

Praying Passenger is Removed From Plane at New York Airport

Thursday , April 17, 2008

NEW YORK —
A passenger who left his seat to pray in the back of a plane before it took off, ignoring flight attendants' orders to return, was removed by an airport security guard, a witness and the airline said.

The Orthodox Jewish man, who wore a full beard, a black hat and a long black coat, stood near the lavatories and began saying his prayers while the United Airlines jet was being boarded at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Wednesday night, fellow passenger Ori Brafman said.

When flight attendants urged the man, who was carrying a religious book, to take his seat, he ignored them, Brafman said. Two friends, who were seated, tried to tell the attendants that the man couldn't stop until his prayers were over in about 2 minutes, he said.

"He doesn't respond to them, but his friends explain that once you start praying you can't stop," said Brafman, who was seated three rows away.

When the man finally stopped praying, he explained that he couldn't interrupt his religious ritual and wasn't trying to be rude. But the attendants summoned a guard to remove him, said Brafman, a writer who had been visiting New York to talk to publishers.

The plane, Flight 9 to San Francisco, took off without the man. It landed at its destination as scheduled, Brafman said by telephone from his home there.

Robin Urbanski, a spokeswoman for United Airlines, a subsidiary of UAL Corp. with headquarters in Chicago, confirmed the man was taken off the plane and put on another flight Thursday morning.

Urbanksi said flights cannot depart if all passengers are not in their seats, which risks a delay, and it is important that passengers listen to the instructions of the flight crew.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs area airports, and the Transportation Safety Administration, which handles airport security, said Thursday they weren't involved in the incident.

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,351638,00.html (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,351638,00.html)
~~~~~~~~~

Well, if he was muslim, most likely nothing would have been said.

Methodists defer key Israeli divestment measure

By Michael Conlon, Religion Writer Thu Apr 17, 5:37 PM ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) - United Methodist Church officials on Thursday put aside a proposal that called for the church to divest some of its holdings in companies profiting from Israel's West Bank occupation.

The proposed measure called on the 8 million-member church -- the third-largest U.S. denomination -- to divest any holdings it had in Caterpillar Inc. by January 1.

The Peoria, Illinois, heavy equipment manufacturer sells bulldozers that the Israeli Army has used to demolish buildings in occupied territories.

About $5 million of the church's $17 billion pension portfolio is invested in Caterpillar, according to the church.

The Methodist General Board of Church & Society said it would not present the measure at the church's quadrennial policy-setting General Conference next week in Texas because the dialogue it already sparked with Caterpillar had produced positive results.

Thursday's decision does not mean that the divestment issue is dead when the Methodists meet in Fort Worth from April 23 to May 2. There are several other proposals, including a broader one stating that the church has $141 million invested in several companies "that enable the occupation to continue" and that should be dumped.

The board said the other proposals still deserve consideration by the meeting.

Caterpillar and the proposal from the General Board of Church & Society, however, had been considered a central measure for the debate, according to Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee.

The church and society board said "Caterpillar has opened discussions with the board, issued a statement denouncing immoral use of its equipment, and has agreed to continued dialogue," the board said in a statement.

It said face-to-face discussions beginning in January between the board and Caterpillar executives, including chief executive James Owens, resulted in the company condemning "illegal or immoral use of any Caterpillar equipment."

Owens is a member of the church.

The divestment concept has been considered off and on by several U.S. churches but none has actually dumped any stock in companies they say are making money by selling products or services to Israel.

The statement from the church and society board said the Presbyterian Church USA and the Roman Catholic Dominican Sisters recently withdrew shareholder resolution on human rights they had planned to present at Caterpillar's annual meeting.

That action came "in light of its stated expectations that customers will use its products in an environmentally responsible manner and consistent with international humanitarian law and norms," the board said.

Methodists defer key Israeli divestment measure (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080417/us_nm/methodists_divestment_dc)

Down's syndrome boy charged after playground spat with Asian girl

By NATASHA COURTENAY-SMITH
17th April 2008

Until recently, Fiona Bauld thought her 18-year-old son Jamie had not fully grasped the gravity of the situation he found himself in.

It brought her solace that her child, who has Down's syndrome and the mental age of a five-year-old, hadn't fully comprehended the charges of racism and assault against him, let alone begun to contemplate the consequences.

But one night shortly after Christmas, as the family watched TV, Fiona realised to her horror that Jamie was not as oblivious as she'd hoped.

A scene featuring a prison appeared on screen, at which point Jamie said quietly: "I don't want to go to jail, Mum. Please don't let them take me away." He then burst into tears.

"I rushed over, put my arms around him and told him everything was going to be fine," says Fiona.

"All through this nightmare I've done my best to put on a smile and act normally around Jamie, simply to protect him from everything that was happening. But that night, as he sobbed in my arms, I wasn't sure everything would be OK.

"My worst fear was that Jamie would be taken away somewhere that I wouldn't be able to protect him. I said: 'Jamie, you're not going to prison', but I found myself in tears, too."

When Fiona - who lives in Cumbernauld, Lanarkshire, with her husband James, 46, a telecommunications contractor, and their daughter Stephanie, 17 - uses the word "nightmare" she is making no understatement.

Hers is a situation so ridiculous it would be laughable, had the potential ramifications not been so serious.

Her story also serves as a disturbing example of how extreme political correctness can allow minor of incidents to be blown out of all proportion.

The events which have brought her such anguish in recent months begun with what was effectively a playground spat between two individuals with special needs.

It soon escalated into a seven-month criminal investigation that could have resulted in Fiona's son being hauled before a court and left with a criminal record.

Last September, Jamie - who is 18 but cannot even tie his own shoelaces, needs help on the lavatory, mustn't be left alone in the house and still relies on his mother to tuck him up in bed at night - had an altercation with an Asian girl of a similar age, also a pupil at the special needs department of Motherwell College in Lanarkshire, where Jamie is a student.

Put quite simply - girl irritated boy, boy pushed girl and told her to go away. Then, girl responded by telling her teacher.

The two were sent their separate ways and their parents informed about the falling out.

Given their mental ages, it was no more significant than a playground spat between two five-year-olds. That should have been the end of it.

Instead, a notice was placed in the local newspaper - it is not known by whom - asking for witnesses to a "racial assault" at the college on the day in question.

Whether this notice led to the police investigation, or whether the family of the girl contacted them directly is still not clear. Either way, just over a week later, Jamie was charged with racism and assault.

It was an insane example of overzealous political correctness; a local zero-tolerance policy on racism taken to its extremes without any common sense being applied, let alone consideration for the unusual circumstances of the individuals involved.

After months of stress and fear, the Baulds' ordeal came to an end yesterday when, in a remarkable climbdown, the Crown Office issued a formal apology to the family for any distress caused over the past seven months.

All charges have now been dropped, but this, says Fiona, is not enough.

Not only have they encountered confusion, red tape and a lack of compassion in their dealings with the Scottish legal system, they are left fearing that Jamie will forever have a blot on his reputation as a result of being charged at all.

"Our family has been put through a terrible ordeal over nothing," says Fiona. "It is utterly ridiculous that the authorities brought adult charges against our son, who was not only innocent, but clearly unable to comprehend why he was in trouble.

"For instance, when the police arrived to interview Jamie, he welcomed them with a big smile and a handshake. As they read him his rights, he said thank you for coming to see him, and agreed with everything they said."

Those with Down's syndrome often agree with whatever they are told simply to please other people.

Fiona continues: "I said: 'Do you realise he doesn't understand what you are saying?' while the police officers shifted uncomfortably and admitted they had no training in dealing with anyone with special needs.

"But the official process had by then swung into action. From that point on, it seemed there was nothing my husband or I could do to halt it."

It's clear that Fiona dotes on her son. Not only is she frequently tearful as she recalls the past seven months, but she describes how she happily gave up her career in hairdressing to become Jamie's full-time carer.

It was, she says, the only thing she could do given the circumstances she found herself in.

"We had no idea before Jamie was born that he had Down's syndrome, and we were told the diagnosis when he was just 24 hours old," she recalls.

"At the time, I was deeply upset - to the point where I had to be sedated. But that passed, and if I'd known what I know now, I wouldn't have given two hoots about the diagnosis.

"By the time I fell pregnant with his sister, my attitude was that if she has Down's syndrome too, then that's fine by me. I adored Jamie, and didn't wished things had been different."

Raising Jamie has, nonetheless, been far from an easy task. He has suffered from respiratory and bowel problems, which have seen his parents spend weeks sitting at his hospital bedside.

On two occasions - when Jamie was ten months old and when he was four - Fiona and James were told to prepare themselves for the worst.

"Hospitals have become a second home to me over the years," says Fiona. "I've spent weeks - months even - at Jamie's bedside. But I've always seen him as a fighter, and no matter what the doctors have told me, I've always known I'll be bringing my boy home again.

"Thankfully, he's always proven me right, refusing to give up even when doctors said there was no hope."

Since reaching his teens, Jamie's health has improved and Fiona has watched her son blossom.

"Jamie has got through school, and is now doing a life skills course at Motherwell College, which makes me burst with pride," she says. "He has friends, he's sociable and chatty.

"He's a very loving, kind person. He dotes on his sister, and if she is out, he refuses to go to bed until she gets in."

Indeed, so placid is Jamie, says Fiona, that he steadfastly refused to respond to the provocation of a year of severe bullying at secondary school.

"One boy really started picking on Jamie when he was about 14, and made his life a misery," says Fiona. "He punched him in the face, kicked him on numerous occasions, ripped his clothes and even smashed his glasses.

"Jamie used to come home and tell us he couldn't hit this boy back because they were friends. My son simply has not a got a streak of violence in him, and is so laid back that we always joke that he's horizontal."

With this in mind, Fiona was instantly doubtful when she heard Jamie was being accused of hitting the girl at college. She wasn't, however, surprised to hear a dispute had taken place, because her son had already complained of the girl in question.

cont'd next post

"Before this incident at college, Jamie had told us on a couple of occasions that this girl kept following him, staring at him and putting her face really close to his without saying anything," says Fiona.

"We told him just to ignore her, and she'd soon get bored.

"Then, on September 4, we got a call from the college saying they'd had a falling out and Jamie had hit her. I talked to him, and he was adamant he hadn't hit her, but had pushed her away when he was eating lunch.

"I didn't take the event lightly at all - Jamie was meant to be staying with his aunt that night, but I grounded him, and we took away his Playstation for a few days, too.

"I believed him when he said he hadn't hit her, but I'm not a lax parent and I don't make allowances because of his disabilities. I wanted to make it clear to Jamie that falling out with students and pushing other people was not a good thing."

The family went away on holiday, putting the incident behind them. But on their return, they were notified by the college that the girl's family had contacted the police, who had taken it upon themselves to question other students and staff at the college.

They now wanted to talk to Jamie about allegations of racism and assault.

"I have to say, at first, the whole thing was so ridiculous I didn't take it that seriously," says Fiona. "That said, I was really annoyed about the racism part of things. Jamie is far from racist. He doesn't even realise the difference between skin colours.

"But the college said the police were coming to interview Jamie and I thought: 'OK then, it won't do him any harm.'

"I still wanted to be sure Jamie understood he shouldn't have altercations with other students, and I thought a visit from the police would help him fully grasp that fact."

However, the police interview a few days later, Jamie was charged with racism and assault.

"I was panicking and saying it was crazy, that Jamie doesn't even understand things like upstairs and downstairs, whether a door is open or shut, but Jamie stood up, shook their hands and said: 'Thanks very much'," says Fiona.

"My husband and I didn't know then that we should have insisted the officers return with someone specialised in dealing with people with special needs, or perhaps we could have stopped the entire thing there and then."

The officers, says Fiona, were pleasant enough and advised the family "the case probably wouldn't come to anything".

They said they would explain to the Procurator Fiscal (a public officer in Scotland who prosecutes in petty cases) that Jamie had Down's syndrome.

They revealed that the girl had also admitted to scratching her own face - either to her family or to police officers.

But shortly after the visit, a letter arrived from the Procurator Fiscal saying the authorities had enough evidence to charge Jamie.

2That was when all hell broke loose for us as a family," says Fiona. "I read the letter with shaking hands, and I was crying my eyes out. I phoned the Procurator's office five times and asked if they knew Jamie had Down's syndrome, but no one would talk about the case with me.

"I went to the police, and no one there seemed to know what was going on. I would have been able laugh at the total chaos and incompetence were it not for the fact that I knew that, at 18, Jamie is technically an adult.

"I was genuinely terrified that he would end up in the dock on trial for something he didn't do."

During December, Fiona asked the family lawyer to write to the Procurator Fiscal's office explaining the situation. They did not receive a reply.

"We tried to carry on as normal, but I felt as though we were living on borrowed time, and Jamie was going to be taken away from me," says Fiona.

"It was as though there was an axe hanging over our head the entire time. We were living with this terrible sense of foreboding.

"The lowest point came when we were watching the prison scene on TV and Jamie started crying. It broke my heart because it made me feel as though I'd failed him.

"My natural instinct as a mother, especially a mother of a child with special needs, was to try and protect him from everything around him, and here he was, sobbing his heart out because he was so frightened."

It was only a fortnight ago - seven-and-a-half months after the initial incident - that the family received a brief letter from the Procurator Fiscal saying he would not be proceeding with the prosecution. There was no apology.

And despite the Crown's official apology yesterday, Fiona still feels that they were the victims of "political correctness gone mad".

A spokeswoman for Down's Syndrome Scotland is also horrified by the case and called for better handling and understanding.

She says "I've never met anyone with Down's syndrome who was racist. This incident should have been contained within the college. It has been very badly handled."

Next week, Jamie is due to return to college, and his mother thinks it is likely that he will forget the happenings of the past seven months long before she does.

"Jamie has said he's happy it's all over, and he is back to being his usual sunny self," says Fiona.

"At the moment, I still feel like a nervous wreck, and I'm determined to speak out because I want the people in official positions to think twice about what they are doing, and apply common sense to unique situations like these.

"But at least we can start to get on with our lives again. Last night, as I tucked Jamie up in bed, he asked me once again whether he was going to jail.

"This time, I was able to tell him that no, he definitely, definitely wasn't."

Down's syndrome boy charged after playground spat with Asian girl (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=560226&in_page_id=1770)

Brits fear race violence will erupt

By Paul Majendie in London
April 18, 2008 07:45pm

ALMOST two out of three Britons fear race tensions could spill over into violence and half the population want immigrants to be encouraged to leave, a new poll shows.
In a country where the last serious race riots erupted seven years ago between white and Asian youths, the head of Britain's equality watchdog called the poll findings "alarming''.

"What worries me is if that friction starts to catch fire - if people genuinely believe it's going to catch fire - then we're in trouble,'' Equality and Human Rights Commission head Trevor Phillips said.

Of the 1000 people sounded out by Mori pollsters for the BBC, 60 per cent said Britain had too many immigrants.

A quarter of those polled said their area did not feel like Britain any more because of immigration.

Just 20 percent admitted to being racially prejudiced.

Immigration is a sensitive political issue in Britain where hundreds of thousands of people have come to work in recent years, many from eastern European countries joining the European Union.

The main political parties agree immigration has boosted Britain's economy but critics argue that migration has undercut British-born workers and strained public services.

The threat from radical Islam, rammed home by the 2005 London bombings that killed 52 people, sparked a debate about just how successful Britain has been as a multicultural society and provoked calls for greater integration of ethnic minorities.

The BBC poll marked the 40th anniversary of an infamous "rivers of blood'' speech by Conservative politician Enoch Powell who expressed fears about levels of immigration and how the indigenous population felt "a sense of alarm and resentment''.

"As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding, like the Roman, I seem to see the River Tiber foaming with much blood,'' he said.

Brits fear race violence will erupt (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23561975-23109,00.html)

Children's hospital launches sex change for kids program
'This isn't conjecture, it's happening now'

A doctor at the renowned Children's Hospital Boston has launched a new program to drug children to delay puberty so they can decide whether they want a male or a female body, according to a report today in the Boston Globe.

Pediatric endocrinologist Norman Spack, 64, says he started the Gender Management Service Clinic because he found himself encountering 20-somethings who were "transgendered" and in good shape socially, "but they were having trouble getting their physique to conform to their identity.

"I knew the 20-somethings could have better chances of passing if they were treated earlier," he said.

"We don't think that demonic is too strong a word to describe this," said a statement from the pro-family Mass Resistance organization. "It brings us thoughts of the Nazi doctors who thought they were doing good things."

WND has reported previously on some of the controversies prompted by the belief that a man can be born in a woman's body, or vice versa, including in Montgomery County, Md., where county officials have adopted a law that precludes those who provide public accommodations from discriminating based on that "gender identity."

Voters there have petitioned to have a vote on that law because they fear men who "decide" they are female walking into women's restrooms and locker rooms.

"Is this our future?" asked Mass Resistance in a commentary. "Dr. Norman Spack runs a clinic for young children who've 'decided' they are transgendered. Among other things, the clinic administers powerful hormones to delay (or even stop) puberty in order that the children more easily undergo operations that mutilate their bodies to 'change' them to the opposite sex."

"This is going on at the world-renowned Children's Hospital in Boston – not some backwater clinic. This is the elite of the medical profession," the organization said.

In a question-and-answer session with Globe columnist Pagan Kennedy, she starts the apologetic for doing surgery on children by saying, "Little boys sob unless they're allowed to wear dresses. The girls want to be called Luke, Ted, or James."

"Until recently, children with cross-gender feelings rarely received modern medical care – and certainly not hormone shots. After all, who would allow a child to redesign his or her body?" she asks.

But Spack, she wrote, has started a clinic that "is one of the few in the world to give children treatments that change their bodies."

She reports he uses drugs to delay puberty, "granting them a few more years before they develop bodies that are decidedly male or female."

Spack tells the interviewer he's seen "preadolescents" who have been dressing in underwear of the opposite sex "for years."

"The puberty-blocking drugs work best at the beginning of the pubital process, typically age 10 to 12 for a girl and 12 to 14 for a boy," he said. He's based some of his work on a Dutch model for sex-change, and said the recommendations there are age 16 for hormones that forever change a child's body.

But "for others," he wrote, "you lose opportunities if you wait. [One of my patients, a] transgendered girl from the UK, was destined to be a 6-foot-4 male. With treatment, she's going to end up 5-foot-10."

He said such treatments not only change the physical characteristics of the growing children, but also could leave them sterile for life.

"You have to explain to the patients that if they go ahead, they may not be able to have children. … But if you don't start treatment, they will always have trouble fitting in," he said.

"This isn't conjecture," Mass Resistance' commentary said. "It's happening now. And 'transgenderism' is being promoted to kids by homosexual/transgender activists in the public schools."

Children as young as 12 already have been given the treatment.

Meanwhile, LifeSiteNews has reported that Spack previously acknowledged that only about 20 percent of children who claim to have a confusion over their gender hold those feelings in adulthood.

The hospital itself calls the program "unique in the Western hemisphere."

"This will be the first major program in the country that … [is] also welcoming young people who appear to be transgendered and are considering medical protocols that might help them," Spack said.

Christians clash at Jesus' tomb on Orthodox Palm Sunday :'( :'(

By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer Sun Apr 20, 3:49 PM ET

JERUSALEM - Dozens of Greek and Armenian priests and worshippers exchanged blows at one of Christianity's holiest shrines on Orthodox Palm Sunday, and used palm fronds to pummel police who tried to break up the brawl.

The fight came amid growing rivalry over religious rights at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built over the site in Jerusalem where tradition says Jesus was buried and resurrected.

It erupted when Armenian clergy kicked out a Greek priest from their midst, pushed him to the ground and kicked him, according to witnesses.

When police intervened, some worshippers hit them with the palm fronds they were holding for the religious holiday. The Eastern Orthodox churches, including the Armenians and Greek Orthodox, follow a different calendar from Western Christians and celebrate Easter next Sunday.

Two Armenian worshippers who attacked the Greek Orthodox clergy were briefly detained by Israeli police. Scores of Armenian supporters then protested outside the police station during the questioning of the two, beating drums and chanting.

The Holy Sepulcher is shared by several Christian denominations according to a centuries-old arrangement known as the "status quo."

Each denomination jealously guards its share of the basilica, and fights over rights at the church have intensified in recent years, particularly between the Armenians and Greeks.

Father Pakrad, an Armenian priest, said the presence of the Greek priest during the Armenian observances violated the status quo. "Our priests entered the tomb. They kicked the Greek monk out of the Edicule," he said, referring to the tomb area.

Pakrad accused the Greek Orthodox Christians of trying to step on the Armenians' rights. "We are the weak ones, persecuted by them for many centuries."

The Greek Orthodox Patriarch in the Holy Land, Theofilos III, told The Associated Press that the Armenians are pushing to change the rules, challenging what he said was the dominance of the Greek church in the Holy Land.

"This behavior is criminal and unacceptable by all means," he said. "They wanted to trespass on the status quo concerning the order that regulates the services between the various communities."

The Church of the Nativity in nearby Bethlehem — where Jesus is said to have been born — also falls under the status quo arrangement. Last year, pre-Christmas cleaning in that church turned ugly when robed Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests went at each other with brooms and stones.

Christians clash at Jesus' tomb on Orthodox Palm Sunday (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080420/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_clashing_christians;_ylt=ApYMc0OKdKif4YXi74Stw_ALewgF)

Half man, half chimp - should we beware the apeman's coming?

A LEADING scientist has warned a new species of "humanzee," created from breeding apes with humans, could become a reality unless the government acts to stop scientists experimenting.
In an interview with The Scotsman, Dr Calum MacKellar, director of research at the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, warned the controversial draft Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill did not prevent human sperm being inseminated into animals.

He said if a female chimpanzee was inseminated with human sperm the two species would be closely enough related that a hybrid could be born.

He said scientists could possibly try to develop the new species to fill the demand for organ donors.

Leading scientists say there is no reason why the two species could not breed, although they question why anyone would want to try such a technique.

Other hybrid species already created include crossed tigers and lions and sheep and goats.

Dr MacKellar said he feared the consequences if scientists made a concerted effort to cross humans with chimpanzees. He said: "Nobody knows what they would get if they tried hard enough. The insemination of animals with human sperm should be prohibited.

"The Human Fertilisation and Embryo Bill prohibits the placement of animal sperm into a woman The reverse is not prohibited. It's not even mentioned. This should not be the case."

He said if the process was not banned, scientists would be "very likely" to try it, and it would be likely humans and chimps could successfully reproduce.

"If you put human sperm into a frog it would probably create an embryo, but it probably wouldn't go very far," he said.

"But if you do it with a non-human primate it's not beyond the realms of possibility that it could be born alive."

Dr MacKellar said the resulting creature could raise ethical dilemmas, such as whether it would be treated as human or animal, and what rights it would have.

"If it was never able to be self-aware or self-conscious it would probably be considered an animal," he said. "However, if there was a possibility of humanzees developing a conscience, you have a far more difficult dilemma on your hands."

He said fascination would be enough of a motive for scientists to try crossing the two species.

But he also said there was a small chance of scientists using the method to "humanise" organs for transplant into humans. "There's a desperate need for organs. One of the solutions that has been looked at is using animal organs, but because there's a very serious risk of rejection using animal organs in humans they are already trying to humanise these organs.

"If they could create these humanzees who are substantially human but are not considered as humans in law , we could have a large provision of organs."

He wrote to the Department of Health to ask that the gap in the draft legislation be addressed.

The department confirmed that the bill "does not cover the artificial insemination of an animal with human sperm".

It said: "Owing to the significant differences between human and animal genomes, they are incompatible and the development of a foetus or progeny is impossible.

"Therefore such activity would have no rational scientific justification, as there would be no measurable outcome."

Dr MacKellar disagrees. He said: "The chromosomal difference between a goat and a sheep is greater than between humans and chimpanzees."

Professor Bob Millar, director of the Medical Research Council Human Reproductive Sciences Unit, based in Edinburgh, agreed viable offspring would be possible. He said: "Donkeys can mate with horses and create infertile offspring; maybe that could happen with chimpanzees."

But he said he would oppose any such attempt. "It's unnecessary and ridiculous and no serious scientist would consider such a thing. Ethically, it's not appropriate.

"It's also completely impractical. Chimps would never be a source of organs for humans because of the viruses they carry and the low numbers."

Professor Hugh McLachlan, professor of applied philosophy at Glasgow Caledonian University's School of Law and Applied Sciences, said although the idea was "troublesome", he could see no ethical objections to the creation of humanzees.

"Any species came to be what it is now because of all sorts of interaction in the past," he said.

"If it turns out in the future there was fertilisation between a human animal and a non-human animal, it's an idea that is troublesome, but in terms of what particular ethical principle is breached it's not clear to me.

"I share their squeamishness and unease, but I'm not sure that unease can be expressed in terms of an ethical principle."

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "It's just not a problem. If you inseminate an animal with human sperm, scientifically nothing happens. The species barriers are too great."

HYBRIDS ARE AT CROSS PURPOSES

EVEN though hybrids of humans and animals have never been created, many other creatures have been crossed successfully.

Lions and tigers have been bred to create ligers, the world's largest cats.

And there are also zorses (zebra and horse), wholphins (whale and dolphin), tigons (tiger and lion), lepjags (leopard and jaguar) and zonkeys (zebra and donkey).

As well as these hybrid mammals, there are also hybrid birds, fish, insects and plants.

Many hybrids, such as mules, are sterile, which prevents the movement of genes from one species to another, keeping both species distinct. However, some can reproduce and there are scientists who believe that grey wolves and coyotes mated thousands of years ago to create a new species, the red wolf.

More commonly, hybrids mate with one of their parent species, which can influence the genetic mix of what gets passed along to subsequent generations.

Hybrids can have desirable traits, often being fitter or larger than either parent.

Most hybrid animals have been bred in captivity, but there are examples of the process occurring in the wild.

This is far more common in plants than animals but in April 2006 a hunter in Canada's North-west Territories shot a polar bear whose fur had an orange tint.

Research showed that it had a grizzly bear father, and it became known as a pizzly.

In 2003, DNA analysis confirmed that five odd-looking felines found in Maine and Minnesota were bobcat-lynx hybrids, dubbed blynxes.

I view the attempts for "humanzee" as EVIL!

Bluntly, GOD established nature and the laws of nature. ONLY mankind was formed in the "image of GOD". In fact, this is the interesting and quite appropriate foundation for many of our laws labeled as a "Crime Against Nature" - stated another way - A CRIME AGAINST GOD! Throughout history, there were harsh penalties for "Crimes Against Nature", including this part of the world. In fact, many of our laws have roots in the Laws of GOD.

Some people don't like the Laws of GOD or the adoption of these Laws by man. BLUNTLY, I WOULD SAY THAT MAN'S DISAGREEMENT WITH GOD IS SAD AND MEANS NOTHING TO ME! We've also seen harsh penalties for violations of GOD'S LAWS OF NATURE throughout history - either penalties imposed by mankind or penalties imposed by GOD - or BOTH! As an example, we are currently seeing an epidemic of deadly diseases caused directly by PERVERTED AND UNNATURAL SEXUAL ACTS! Five million people per day are dying with these deadly diseases, and many million more are waiting to die.

I firmly believe that the mixing of humans with apes will have horrible consequences - RIGHTLY SO! It's unthinkable for Christians to support anything like this IN ANY WAY - INCLUDING SILENCE! Our silence is many times the equivalent of calling something EVIL - GOOD!

Isaiah 5:20-23 NASB
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes And clever in their own sight! Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine And valiant men in mixing strong drink, Who justify the wicked for a bribe, And take away the rights of the ones who are in the right!

Brothers and Sisters, we should simply call EVIL what it is - EVIL! We should also make sure that other people hear us. We are not ASHAMED of the Laws and Natural Orders established by GOD HIMSELF! Human beings are unique in that we were formed in the Image of GOD, so we ARE NOT BEASTS.

Christians 'should wear veil'

Natalie O'Brien | April 26, 2008

OUTSPOKEN Muslim cleric Taj Din al-Hilali says the Bible "mandates" the wearing of the veil by Christian women.

Writing in a new book, Sheik Hilali, who lost his job as mufti of Australia after comparing scantily clad women to uncovered meat, argues that the Bible and the Koran make similar demands of a woman's modesty.

Sheik Hilali, who remains the head of Australia's largest mosque, in the southwestern Sydney suburb of Lakemba, says the purpose of the book is to show the commonalities of Islam with the Jewish and Christian faiths when it comes to women's modesty and clothing.

In the soon-to-be published The Legitimacy of the Veil for Women of the Scripture - Evidence of the Veil in the Bible, the cleric points to references in the Old and New Testaments to women wearing a veil.

"Through this I hope to raise awareness and understanding and eliminate apprehensions and misunderstandings about the veil," he writes.

The Anglican Bishop of South Sydney, Robert Forsyth, yesterday challenged Sheik Hilali's comments about the veil being "mandated" in the Bible, saying they were misleading.

"The New Testament does call upon people to dress modestly," he said. "But there is no understanding that women are commanded to wear the veil. But it is mandated that you should dress appropriately for your social context."

Sheik Hilali also says the Virgin Mary is often depicted with a veil covering her head.

"The veil upholds the modesty and protects the dignity of women, whether Muslim or non-Muslim," he writes. "Wearing the veil creates the most realistic similarity with the Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ."

Sheik Hilali caused an uproar with a Ramadan sermon in 2006 in which he talked about immodestly dressed women being like "uncovered meat" and made remarks about Sydney's notorious gang rapes.

He has used the book to hit back at criticisms of his comments, which were given during a lesson to Muslim men and women on theft and adultery, and which he says were misinterpreted with "ill-intent" and with the intention to "slander" him.

He has included an "explanatory statement" to clarify his position, saying that rape is a heinous crime and the perpetrator deserves the maximum punishment. He also says women in Australia, or any Western society, have absolute freedom to wear whatever they like.

"The Muslim has no right to impose the rules of his religion on others. My religious duty is to advise the Muslim woman to be modest and to wear the Islamic dress. It is her choice whether to comply or not."

He said his comments about uncovered meat were drawn from an analogy used by the Arab writer Al-Rafii that uncovering flesh publicly may be degrading to the woman and may make her vulnerable to those with a diseased heart. "Through these words I wanted to protect women from rapists who have lost their humanity, lost their minds and religion.

"Whilst I believe that the rapists are responsible for their crimes, I wanted to protect my daughters by encouraging them to adopt all available lawful means of protection," he writes.

Sheik Hilali concedes that the uncovered meat example was not correct or appropriate for the Western mentality. "I did not mean this analogy to denigrate immodestly dressed women; rather I meant to denigrate those men who set aside their humanity and turn into predators."

Christians 'should wear veil' (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23600400-2702,00.html)
~~~~~~~~

The disrespect islam shows towards women makes any advice the men want to give to western women suspect and worthless. Clean your own house and then we can talk, at Porky's cafe. :D :D

United Methodists Engage in Transgender Talks
By Audrey Barrick
Christian Post Reporter
Sat, Apr. 26 2008 12:06 PM ET

Hundreds of United Methodists have begun looking over some 1,500 petitions that have been proposed by those seeking change in church policies and structures, among other things, during the church's quadrennial gathering.

Much of the media spotlight, however, has fallen on two submitted petitions aimed at changing the United Methodist Church's current position on homosexuality. The church body holds that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.

One petition would state that homosexuality is a subject about which Christians disagree and the other would define marriage as the union of two loving adults.

To support gay and transgender church members, young Methodists from the Mosaic Youth Network are holding a 24-hour "drumming and rally," which began Friday at noon, outside the Fort Worth Conference Center in Texas, where the United Methodist General Conference is taking place. Recent General Conferences have seen protests by gay-rights advocates, some of whom were arrested for disrupting proceedings.

Debates on whether gay Christians can be ordained as clergy have gone on for decades in the denomination and most recently, controversy has erupted over transgendered persons.

The Rev. Drew Phoenix, pastor of St. John's United Methodist Church in Baltimore, sparked debate when the transgender minister was allowed last year to remain pastor of the church. Phoenix, who previously led the church as the Rev. Ann Gordon, underwent surgery and hormone therapy to become male.

The ruling was made by the United Methodist Church's highest council, affirming a 2006 decision to reappoint Phoenix as pastor. The court agreed that while the denomination bars self-avowed practicing gay clergy from ordination and does not support gay unions, the United Methodist Book of Discipline says nothing about gender change.

The Rev. Karen Booth, executive director of Transforming Congregations, an organization she says ministers to “sexually confused, sinful and broken people," believes transgender people exhibit a “deep, psychological conflict,” according to the United Methodist News Service.

While the church should minister to them, she says, leadership should not be an option.

“We recognize that there are, in fact, people who are unfortunately born with a chromosomal blueprint that is ambiguous. That is a valid medical condition that needs to be addressed,” she said, as reported by UMNS. “Most of what we see is more of a psychological state where a person says, ‘I don’t feel like I’m in the right body.’ We believe that’s a blurring of the distinct way God created us as male and female.”

Phoenix argues that transgenderism is compatible with Christian teaching.

"It was in the context of my faith in Christ, led by the Spirit, that I made the transition (of gender)," Phoenix said. “We want to be known as the children God created us to be. That’s been my experience with my church, across the board."

"I can say that I have come home to the child that God created me to me, and I’m very joyful, whole and peaceful,” Phoenix said Thursday at a press conference sponsored by pro-gay group Affirmation during the General Conference in Fort Worth.

Booth, meanwhile, says it's ironic that "gays and lesbians say, 'God created me this way' whereas transgender people say, 'God made a mistake.'"

"There's a real inconsistency here," she said.

Booth submitted petitions to the General Conference for church policy to state that neither transgenderism nor transsexuality "reflects God's best intentions for humankind."

United Methodists Engage in Transgender Talks (http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080426/32129_Transgender_Talks_Begin_at_United_Methodist_Meeting.htm)
~~~~~~~~~

2 Timothy 4:3-4 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

Atheists push own holidays

April 27, 2008

By Karen Goldberg Goff - Now that Earth Day is over, let the planning begin for the summer solstice and World Humanist Day in June.

The Institute for Humanist Studies, an Albany, N.Y.-based nonprofit, is calling attention to its calendar of atheist holidays on its Web site, secular seasons. The group wants nonbelievers (or at least people who don't celebrate religious holidays) to have a handy reference guide of the calendar of holidays honoring free-thinkers, banned books and nature, among other themes.

Matt Cherry, executive director of the Institute for Humanist Studies, said his group is trying to expand options and alternatives for secular holidays. He said he hopes even people affiliated with a particular religion will consider the options.

"Some religious holidays are about culture and tradition, not theology," he says. "Even people who go to church only on Christmas or to synagogue on the High Holidays do so out of cultural heritage, not because they believe the religious doctrines associated with it."

Some of the highlights of the Secular Seasons calendar include Thomas Paine Day (Jan. 29), April Fool's Day (as always, April 1), and Ingersoll Day (Aug. 11) — which celebrates the birthday of 19th-century thinker Robert Green Ingersoll, who was known as "the Great Agnostic." Secular Seasons recommends visiting his birthplace in Dresden, N.Y., for a holiday celebration. (Hey — you live only once.)

The site also breaks down the customs of Festivus, the holiday popularized by Jerry Stiller on "Seinfeld." In that episode, a Festivus pole is plain aluminum, made to contrast with the ornate Christmas trees; the official greeting is "Happy Festivus"; and each person complains to family and friends how they have disappointed the complainer in the past year.

Mr. Cherry said Darwin Day (Feb. 12) is growing in popularity. Charles Darwin's 200th birthday is in February 2009, and next year also will be the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book "The Origin of Species."

Honoring the man who helped us understand science and humanity is a reason to celebrate, said Mr. Cherry. His recommendations: Throw caution to the wind and attend a biology lecture or even have folks bring fossils to a party.

"This year, there will be almost 1,000 events for Darwin Day around the world," he said. "I hope Hallmark would come out with a card. There are lots of photos to celebrate evolution."

William J. Murray, chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition, a Washington nonprofit, said the United States already has plenty of made-up holidays.

"We've got Valentine's Day, although that actually is a saint's holiday," he said. "We've got Mother's Day, Father's Day. If someone wants to make up a holiday, they can be my guest — as long as they are not going to impose that holiday on the vast majority of us who celebrate religious holidays.

"There is no smaller minority in this country than atheists," said Mr. Murray, son of the late Madalyn Murray O'Hair, who was once the nation's best-known atheist and from whom he became estranged when he embraced Christianity. "The proposition of [atheist holidays] is in itself ridiculous."

The recently released Pew Forum U.S. Religious Landscape Survey found that 16 percent of Americans consider themselves unaffiliated. However, most of that number (12 percent) said they were "nothing in particular," as opposed to the 1.6 percent who said they were atheist. Christians of various denominations make up the largest segment at 78 percent.

Meanwhile, Mr. Cherry and Secular Seasons are seeking suggestions from the public on holidays to add to the calendar.

"We've gotten more ideas for free-thinkers to be celebrated," said Mr. Cherry.

Among them: Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister; Mexican revolutionary statesman Benito Juarez; and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, first president of modern Turkey.

Also suggested was an expanded observance of Cosmonautics Day, the Russian holiday on April 12 that celebrates Yuri Gagarin's first manned space orbit.

Since you just missed it, put the vodka and caviar away and get fired up for National Day of Reason in May, organized a few years ago to counteract the National Day of Prayer. Common customs: a day of care to help the elderly or disabled, and a blood drive.

Just don't expect a church service, or candy.

One more thing not to expect with atheist holidays: parades featuring pandering politicians trolling for votes.

Now that's cause for celebration.

Atheists push own holidays (http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080427/NATION/901767056/1001&template=printart)
~~~~~~~

Quote

Atheists push own holidays

I thought they already had April 1^st....... ;D ;D ;D ;D

Quote

He said he hopes even people affiliated with a particular religion will consider the options.

"Some religious holidays are about culture and tradition, not theology," he says. "Even people who go to church only on Christmas or to synagogue on the High Holidays do so out of cultural heritage, not because they believe the religious doctrines associated with it."

Why??

Is there something to be gained by this guy that he wants "religious" people to celebrate his holidays??

Religious homosexuals hold first meeting

HOD group members convene in Jerusalem over weekend to discuss final version of 'gays' letter' seeking rabbis' acceptance. Organizers: It was a historic and exciting meeting
04.29.08

Almost three months have passed since the "gays' letter" was published on Ynet, and members of HOD – Gay Religious Group are forging on in their efforts to gain the religious society's recognition.

Last Thursday, some 70 religious homosexuals convened at a famous Jerusalem theater, in what was defined by the organizers as a "historic and exciting meeting."

The event was initiated by HOD leaders, Itai and Rabbi R., but was attended by representatives of all movements, including Chavruta – the religious section of the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance.

During the meeting, the participants received the amended and final version of the letter sent to Israel's rabbis, after it was softened and changed following recommendations of rabbis, professionals and religious homosexuals.

The letter initiators now plan to ask a large number of rabbis and senior educators in the religious and ultra-Orthodox public to sign it.

"It was a very exciting event, which left people in tears," one of the organizers, Itai, told Ynet. He explained that the conference was aimed at receiving legitimization to operate on the religious homosexuals' behalf and lead the campaign aimed at gaining the religious leaders' support.

"All the activity was done so far behind the scenes, and all the communication with the people was via the internet or by phone. Now we saw the faces, and when we meet with the rabbis they will know that there are not only anonymous voices but a real public."

He added that the main difficulty was to arrange a meeting with the religious leaders, "but when things are viewed face-to-face both sides open up and start working together."

'70 gays together is a huge achievement'

Addressing the limited number of people who took part in the conference, Itai said, "Bringing 70 religious gays to such a conference is something one cannot even dream of. Everyone who posts a message on the website and, all the more so, arrived at the conference – is a huge achievement.

"It was attended by representatives of all the organizations, young religious and haredi people and even Jews from the US and Canada who identify with our situation.

"As far as we, the homosexuals, are concerned, everything is ready. We agreed to the changes in the letter, which have made it compromising and more acceptable, and now all we need is that the rabbis take up the gauntlet," Itai said. "If they refuse to sign it and make it public, it's like we did nothing."

According to Itai, "There are several rabbis who have already taken one step forward, but it's definitely not enough. We expect them to declare that the gays should and can remain religious, that people must not force them to marry, that conversion treatment do not suit everyone, that there is no ban on expressions of love and friendship between men, and particularly that the virtues between a man and his friend also apply to gay people."

The website managers report of close to 100,000 entries since it was launched, and a large number of appeals received via email.

"Many people finally feel like they have support," Itai said, "Many of them have already despaired of the rabbis, but we have put the wind back in their sails. Let's hope these efforts succeed."

Religious homosexuals hold first meeting (http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3537330,00.html)
~~~~~~~~~

Can anyone say, "Sodom and Gomorrah"??

God has some things to say about about PRIDE and they aren't good things!!

Presbyterian Church Clears Minister in Gay 'Marriage' Case

The highest court of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has found that a Northern California minister did not violate denominational law when she officiated at the weddings of two lesbian couples.

Tue, Apr. 29, 2008 Posted: 17:15:52 PM EST

The highest court of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has found that a Northern California minister did not violate denominational law when she officiated at the weddings of two lesbian couples.

The ruling announced Tuesday by the Louisville, Ky.-based court overturns a decision against the Rev. Jane Spahr last year. A regional judicial committee had found Spahr guilty of misconduct and gave her a rebuke — the lightest possible punishment.

The church's high court found that the ceremonies Spahr performed in 2005 and in 2004 were not marriages, so she did not violate the church's constitution.

The church constitution defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

The panel reiterated the church's position that Presbyterian ministers can bless same-sex unions as long as the ceremonies don't too closely mimic traditional weddings.

Spahr, 65, of San Rafael, retired last year. She was the first minister of her faith to be tried for officiating the weddings of gay couples, and one of several Presbyterian ministers facing disciplinary action for similar offenses.

Acting on a complaint brought by a minister in Washington state, the Presbytery of the Redwoods, which oversees 52 churches along the Pacific coast, brought the charges against Spahr in 2005 for marrying the couples from New York and California.

In 2006, a Northern California church court that found Spahr had acted within her rights as a minister when she interpreted the church doctrine to permit her presiding over the weddings. The presbytery appealed the ruling to the church's regional judicial commission.

Many Protestant denominations are divided over how they should interpret what the Bible says about homosexuality. In the Presbyterian Church, several theologically conservative congregations have announced plans to break away from the denomination.

Presbyterian Church Clears Minister in Gay 'Marriage' Case (http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080429/32174_Presbyterian_Church_Clears_Minister_in_Gay_%27Marriage%27_Case.htm)
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Whether the Presbyterians call this "marriage" or "unions" is irrelevant in this case and the only reason that this minister was cleared was because of a technicality on the definition of "marriage." Whatever they call it, the point is that this minister was giving her blessing to a lifestyle that God clearly states is destructive and sinful and by doing so, is like saying that God approves of homosexuality, when He actually condemns it........

Bob

Dutch Gov't to Marriage Commissioners: Won't do Gay "Marriages"? Then No Natural Marriages Either

By Hilary White

THE HAGUE, April 17, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Netherlands equality commissioners have ruled that if a civil marriage commissioner refuses to conduct wedding ceremonies for homosexual partners, they must be barred from conducting ceremonies between men and women as well.

The Equal Treatment Commission (CGB) ruled yesterday that local authorities are "not violating the equal treatment law if it refuses to appoint a marriage registrar who does not wish to marry persons of the same sex on grounds of religion".

The judgment comes after the municipality of Langedijk placed advertisements for two marriage registrars and demanded that applicants be prepared to conduct wedding ceremonies for natural couples and for same-sex partners.

The Christian Union party called the ruling an "unnecessarily harsh approach."

The party, Christen Unie, is a Dutch orthodox-protestant and Christian-social party that holds "conservative" social views and centre left ideas on economic, migration, social and environmental issues.

A party spokesman said, "This ruling does not help us further in the search for a careful balance between groups in society with differing beliefs" about homosexual "marriage".

When it comes to freedom of conscience for Christians and anyone who objects on moral grounds to homosexuality, however, it seems that homosexual political activists are only willing to apply tolerance to those who agree with their views.

In 2007 in Canada, homosexual activists fought efforts to allow marriage commissioners the right to exercise their freedom of conscience. When a Conservative MLA in New Brunswick tabled a piece of legislation meant to protect Christians and others who objected to the imposition of "gay marriage", homosexual activists responded with outrage, saying the legislation would grant rights to individuals who "discriminate" and would be an affront to the "equal marriage" movement.

Dutch Gov't to Marriage Commissioners: Won't do Gay "Marriages"? Then No Natural Marriages Either (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/apr/08041705.html)

'Believe homosexuality is wrong? SHUT UP!'
Damages case from school's ban on student speech goes to appeals court
Posted: April 29, 2008
10:46 pm Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

A case triggered by a school district's instructions to students to "shut up" if they held religious beliefs that did not support the practice of homosexuality is being appealed to the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.

Officials with the Alliance Defense Fund have confirmed they are taking the case involving Timothy Morrison to the next level after a panel decided against a judicial ruling endorsing the student's First Amendment rights in the dispute with the Boyd County, Ky., Board of Education.

"Christian students shouldn't be prohibited from expressing their beliefs," ADF Senior Legal Counsel Joel Oster said. "The school adopted a policy that prohibited students from sharing their beliefs that homosexual behavior was wrong simply because others might find the message insulting.

"If students violated this policy, they not only faced suspension, they could also be turned over to the police," Oster said. "Several students, including Timothy, chose not to speak rather than face such dire consequences. Timothy is entitled to a judicial ruling vindicating his rights."

WND reported earlier when the court was critical of the school district's "gay appeasement" policy instituted as a result of a lawsuit over the establishment of a homosexual student club.

The Boyd County district, in an agreement with the Anti Christian Law Union (ACLU), then mandated a so-called "diversity" program for the students.

"The school district went overboard," Oster said at the time, "...with three days of mandated diversity training."

Included was a rule that students not talk about homosexual behavior from a negative viewpoint, a rule provided explicitly in a video that instructed students to withhold Christian viewpoints about homosexual behavior.

"We all get self-centered and start to think that our way is the right way and our way is the correct way. We all want to believe that we have evidence that our way is the correct way," a clinical psychologist appearing on the video states.

"So … no matter where you go, no matter what you do, no matter who you meet, you are going to find people that you don't like," the psychologist says. "You're going to find people that you disagree with. You're going to find people that you don't like the way they act. It can't be avoided, not, not anywhere in the world, it can't be avoided. You're going to find people that you believe are absolutely wrong. You're going to think … That is so wrong … But here is the kicker, just because you believe, just because you don't like them, just because you disagree with them, just because you believe they are wrong, wholeheartedly, absolutely, they are wrong. Just because you believe that does not give you permission to say anything about it. It doesn't require that you do anything. You just respect, you just exist, you continue, you leave it alone. There is not permission for you to point it out to them."

The Alliance Defense Fund said during the mediation of the case, the district changed its speech policies, but Morrison continued to pursue declaratory judgment and damages claims.

"Plaintiff refrained from sharing his views on homosexual behavior while at school because the district's policies specifically prohibited him from doing so," the petition to the full appeals court said.

"In both the Code of Conduct and the video, the students were told that violating the district police could result in a suspension, with 'a possibility of court referral and local law enforcement agency notified ...'" the law firm said.

"Thus, this case is not about a hyper-sensitive plaintiff who unreasonably feared discipline if he spoke out against homosexual behavior. No, any reasonable student would have silenced his tongue. Students were specifically told by the defendent that if they insulted a person by saying that homosexual behavior was wrong, they could face dire consequences.

"This case is about government policies specifically targeting speech and threatening severe punishment. Plaintiff need not subject himself to punishment before he has suffered an injury-in-fact," the firm said.

The panel's earlier ruling that "chilled speech is not an injury-in-fact" is erroneous, the appeal said.

"Other 'circuits have held, both implicitly and explicitly, that a chill on an individual's ability to exercise his or her right to free speech is a constitutional injury-in-fact," the arguments said. "In our case, the 'government regulation' was a direct prohibition against the exercise of First Amendment rights."

"Students should not be forced to subject themselves to criminal prosecution before they can seek judicial relief from unconstitutional speech policies," the law firm urged.

The appeals court earlier had ruled in favor of the student, then changed its decision.

The pending lawsuit was prompted by an earlier lawsuit that demanded the school allow a "gay" club at the school, which resulted in a solution that has been described as "gay appeasement." The resolution of that case included the required indoctrination for students, which banned them from expressing their religious beliefs, and Morrison's case was launched in 2005.

UT administrator fired for speaking out
Friday, May 09, 2008

WTVG -- Crystal Dixon just received verbal notification from UT that she has been fired for speaking her opinion in a copy of the Toledo Free Press.

A high-ranking University of Toledo administrator has been fired for speaking out. UT's associate vice president of human resources was put on paid administrative leave about 2 weeks ago after writing an opinion column in the Toledo Free Press.

Crystal Dixon just received verbal notification from the University of Toledo that she has been fired. It's all for speaking her opinion in a copy of the Toledo Free Press.

Doug Oliver has been teaching for 23 years. Now, for the first time, he says he's afraid to speak out. "All I know is what Dr. Jacobs wrote, and what he wrote sends a very clear message to me that I better be careful about what I say that doesn't align with political views."

University president Lloyd Jacobs expressed his views in an article in the Toledo Free Press. His column followed one written by the University's associate vice president of human resources, Crystal Dixon. Dixon ignited a debate about whether discrimination against gays is different from other forms of discrimination, including race.

In her April 18th column Dixon wrote: "as a black woman... I take great umbrage at the notion that those choosing the homosexual life style are 'civil rights victims'. Here's why i cannot wake up tomorrow and not be a black woman."

"I disagree with a number of those view points and I stated at least on the face of it. They aren't consistent with University stated values," says UT president Dr. Lloyd Jacobs.

Meanwhile, Dixon is out of a job and some faculty members, like Oliver, say it's just because she voiced her opinion. Late this afternoon 13abc spoke with Crystal Dixon. She says her termination is clearly a violation of her 1st amendment right for free speech, religious discrimination, and race discrimination. Now she is pointing the finger at University leadership. "I am an alumnus. I have worked with a fantastic team. I absolutely love the people I work with and I am disappointed in this and disappointed absolutely. Is this a lack of courageous leadership on the part of the university, absolutely," says Dixon

UT administrator fired for speaking out (http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/story?section=news/local&id=6133465)

Specially designed torch lit on top of Mount Everest
Chinese mountaineers take specially designed torch to the top of Mount Everest
By ANITA CHANG
The Associated Press

BEIJING

An Olympic flame reached the top of the world Thursday. Live television footage showed a Chinese mountaineering team holding up a specially designed torch along with Chinese and Olympic flags Thursday on the top of Mount Everest.

"One World, One Dream," team captain Nyima Cering yelled as he was passed the torch on the final icy incline leading to the peak, repeating the slogan for the Beijing Olympics. "We have lit the torch on top of the world," another climber said.

Organizers hope the dramatic image of the torch atop Everest will counter some of the damaging publicity from protests during the international leg of the torch relay.

Criticized from the outset because of China's often harsh rule over Tibet — where Everest is located — the relay drew more intense scrutiny after Tibetans across western China erupted in anti-government protests in March.

The Everest torch is separate from the main Olympic flame, which was not taken up the mountain because of weather concerns. A delay due to bad weather would have thrown the schedule off for the whole torch relay.

The 19-member team, dressed in red parkas emblazoned with Olympic logos, broke camp before dawn and reached the top of the 29,035-foot mountain a little more than six hours later.

The Olympic flame had been carried in a special metal canister during the ascent. As the team neared the top, they used a wand to pass the flame from the canister to the torch, which had been designed to withstand the strong winds and low oxygen levels at the top of Everest.

The climbers could be heard struggling for breath as five torchbearers each inched a few feet before passing on the flame to the next person. A colorful Tibetan prayer flag lined the path and fluttered in the wind.

The final torchbearer, a Tibetan woman named Cering Wangmo, stood silently on the peak with her torch while other team members unfurled flags Chinese and Olympic flags. They then clustered together, cheering "We made it," and "Beijing welcomes you."

One person was heard breathing heavily, murmuring "not enough oxygen."

The head of the Everest leg of the relay, Li Zhixin, was overcome with emotion as the flame reached the top. "It's so hard," he said at the CCTV studio set up at base camp, choking on tears.

The Everest leg has largely unfolded amid secrecy, in part to deter protesters who have criticized the event as symbolizing China's domination over Tibet.

The 19-member final assault team was comprised of both ethnic Han Chinese and Tibetan members and also included university students. The team captain, Nyima Cering, is a Tibetan, while deputy Luo Shen is Han Chinese, CCTV and the Xinhua News Agency said.

The main Olympic torch is on the opposite side of China. The relay leg scheduled for Thursday, in the boomtown of Shenzhen, was postponed until the afternoon to allow for the Everest ascent. The main flame will cross every region and province of China, returning to Beijing on Aug. 6, two days ahead of the opening ceremony for the games.

The main torch seems to be having a smooth relay through China. After the tour kickoff Sunday, the flame has been greeted by jubilant crowds in such places as the port city of Haikou and the southern city of Guangzhou, also known as Canton.

Relieved corporate sponsors like Samsung and Coca-Cola, whose logos were seldom seen along the torch relay outside China, now are splashing their names everywhere.

While most of the more than 100 stops across China should go smoothly, legs through Tibet and the largely Muslim province of Xinjiang — areas with recent protests against Chinese rule or policies — could test security and crowd control.

Crowds in Haikou were friendly to foreigners, showing little of the angry, anti-Western sentiments of recent weeks after protests in London, Paris and San Francisco that some Chinese saw as an attack against China and the Olympics.

"Welcome to China!" university students called out, some sporting face paint and tooting plastic horns as the convoy streamed by.

Specially designed torch lit on top of Mount Everest (http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4808704)

Christianity without Christ
No creeds, no miracles, no Resurrection: Minister preaches faith without the symbolism

There is a Bible on a pedestal in Gretta Vosper's West Hill United Church in Toronto. She would prefer it did not have a special place, she said, because it is just a book among other books. In a similar way, the cross that is high above the altar has no special meaning, but there are a few older congregants for whom the Bible and the cross are still nice symbols so there they remain.
Though an ordained minister, she does not like the title of reverend. It is one of those symbols that hold the church back from breaking into the future -- to a time "when the label Christian won't even exist" and the Church will be freed of the burdens of the past. To balance out those symbols of the past inside West Hill, there is a giant, non-religious rainbow tapestry just behind the altar and multi-colored streamers hang from the ceiling.
"The central story of Christianity will fade away," she explained. "The story about Jesus as the symbol of everything that Christianity is will fade away."
The head of the United Church of Canada, David Giuliano, who went to divinity school with Ms. Vosper 20 years ago, said if he felt the way that she does, he would not be a minister. But it is not his job to condemn, he said, and the church is structured in such a way that complaints have to come from the congregation before any action can be taken. And so far there have been no complaints. He also sees the United Church, considered the most liberal of the mainline Protestant churches, as broad enough to encompass a wide range of theologies.
Even Rev. Giuliano agrees that the name Christian -- which carries the baggage of colonialism and other ills -- should probably be phased out. Instead, he would replace "Christian" with "Follower of the Way" or "Follower of Jesus."
But it is an absolute certainty that Ms. Vosper would not go for "Follower of Jesus."
Ms. Vosper does not believe in the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the miracles and the sacrament of baptism. Nor does she believe in the creeds, the presence of Christ in communion or that Jesus was the Son of God.
In With or Without God, her book that was formally launched this week, she writes that Jesus was a "Middle Eastern peasant with a few charismatic gifts and a great posthumous marketing team."
The Bible is used in her services, but it gets rewritten to be more contemporary and speak to more people. Even the Lord's Prayer -- also known as the Our Father -- does not make the cut because it creates an image of a God who intervenes in human existence. And then there is the "Father" part that is not inclusive language and carries with it the notion of an overbearing tyrant who condemns people to hell.
So why exactly does she still call herself a Christian, let alone a minister?
"I could leave the Church because I don't hold those orthodox understandings," she said.
"[But] I think that in a generation or so we might stop using the term Christian, and I hope, perhaps we will stop using labels for every religious tradition. There is nothing wrong with a faith tradition evolving.
"And I believe that's what we're doing. It's been evolving for a long time but we're afraid to acknowledge that so this is merely the next iteration of what Christianity needs to be."
She envisions a time when there is no religious divisions and everyone shares in their common values and their only differences are cultural. Still, she said there is no conflict with this and being in the church.
"The church is extremely important because it can be a transformative element in individuals' lives and communities," she said. "And that was the root of what the Christian Church was about: transforming the way people see themselves in relation
to the communities around them and in relation to each other and about living that in community. Christianity took over that story and manipulated it into a very different story."
Ms. Vosper believes most liberal ministers do not really believe in orthodoxy and see things like the Resurrection or the miracles as metaphors, not real events. She is also chair of a group called the Canadian Centre For Progressive Christianity, which also espouses a vague form of religious belief, in which they offer a challenge to the church to do a "complete overhaul of the beliefs it has been carrying about for the last several hundred years.
"It's not that we're trying to do something new. It's that we're trying to catch up on a thousand years of backlogged progress files that have yet to be inputted into the 21st century."
In With or Without God, Ms. Vosper writes: "[It is time to live] in the current paradigm, being progressive enough to let go of the beliefs and traditions to which we've had to tip our hats and curtsy in the past but which can no longer prevail in our contemporary world."
Ms. Vosper did not change her views over time but said she felt the same way when she took her divinity degree at Queen's University in 1990. She said when the creed was mentioned, which contains those declarations of faith that acknowledge basic Christian tenants, it was uncomfortable. "I fled when I had to read the creed," she said.
For all of this, she still feels rooted in the church. She still loves the stories, metaphors though they may be. And she still measures her life against the meaning of those metaphors.
The focus of her "spiritual" life is love. And since love is the common bond between all people, it is really the only thing worth believing in.
"Here in the context of seeking out harmony with all things, the purest understanding of those values that enhance and sanctify life becomes the foremost spiritual practice," she writes.
"We call it love, radically inclusive love. It is here, in the caring, challenging, prophetic role with which it is so familiar that the church can really shine."

Charles Lewis, National Post
Published: Saturday, May 03, 2008

Calif. Episcopal Church to Perform Same-Sex Weddings

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080526/32531.htm (http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080526/32531.htm)

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An Episcopal church in California plans to perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples beginning mid-June.

All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, one of the largest congregations in the denomination, adopted last Thursday the "Resolution on Marriage Equality" in response to a California Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay "marriage."

The 125-year-old congregation "will treat equally all couples presenting themselves for the rite of marriage," said the Rev. Canon J. Edwin Bacon Jr. in an announcement.

"I am honored to serve a church where the leadership demonstrates such stirring courage to move beyond lip service about embodying God's inclusive love to actually committing our faith community to the practice of marriage equality," Bacon commented, according to Episcopal News Service.

On May 15 in a 4-3 ruling, the state high court struck down a ban that prohibited same-sex couples from "marrying." The justices ruled that “domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage."

After the high court cleared the way for same-sex "marriage" in a decision that was a blow to Christian and pro-family groups, churches were faced with the pressing question of whether they must recognize and officiate gay weddings.

California has an estimated 92,000 same-sex couples.

Episcopal Bishop Jon Bruno of Los Angeles is establishing a task force to help clarify the impact of the court's decision on local congregations.

While many bishops in The Episcopal Church support the rights of gays and lesbians, the denomination has not "yet made" the decision to bless same-sex unions, Bishop Jim Mathes of San Diego noted.

"We are in the midst of a challenging but vital conversation about holy relationships in this diocese and indeed across the [Anglican] Communion," Mathes said.

The Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of Anglicanism, had passed a resolution in September 2007 saying they will "exercise restraint" in authorizing public rites of the blessing of same-sex unions. Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori had made it clear, however, that the church will not retreat from the "full inclusion" of gays and lesbians but is willing to "pause" as the Anglican Communion remains divided on the issue of homosexuality.

Meanwhile, Bacon of All Saints Church believes the latest pro-gay move by his congregation "aligns" them with "the Scriptures' mandate to make God's love tangible by 'doing justice and loving mercy.'"

But Richard J. Mouw, president of the conservative Protestant Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena and a friend to Bacon, says All Saints' decision to perform same-sex weddings is "a very serious mistake."

By linking gay "marriage" to issues of "justice and mercy" rather than moral standards, All Saints restricts dialogue with people who have "legitimate questions" about their definition of marriage, Mouw said, according to Pasadena Star News .

"It should be clear to everyone that he's (Bacon) out of step with his global Anglican communion and fostering what many of us sincerely believe is a real threat to the social fabric," Mouw noted.

The global Anglican Communion maintains that homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture.

Quote from: grammyluv on May 31, 2008, 07:23:04 PM

Pope tells young people to trust in Mary

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=12675

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"For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."
1 Timothy 2:5

At a meeting with young people in the northern Italian city of Savona, Pope Benedict XVI recited the Angelus prayer with the young people and invited them to trust in Mary.

He recalled the words the Virgin Mary spoke to shepherd Benedict Pareto in the year 1400 urging him to build a shrine on Mount Figogna, the place where she appeared.

Benedict Pareto, according to tradition, was worried because he did not know how to respond to Mary’s invitation to build a church in a place so remote from the city.

The Pope repeated the Virgin Mary’s words: “trust in me! With me in your midst you will not fail. With my help everything will be easy. Only keep your will firm. Trust in me!”

“This, Mary repeats to us today,” Pope Benedict said. “An ancient prayer, very dear in popular tradition, makes us turn in confidence to You with these confident words, that today we make our own: ‘Remember, O Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, sought your help or implored your intercession was left abandoned.’

“It is with this certainty that we invoke the motherly care of Our Lady of the Guard on your diocesan community, its pastors, consecrated persons, the lay faithful: young people, families, the elderly. To Mary we entrust the entire city, with its diverse population, its cultural, social and economic problems and challenges of our times, and commitment of those who cooperate for the common good.”

WOW! - This is a sad and gross distortion not resembling the GOSPEL at all! The world is desperate for the REAL GOSPEL - THE REAL GOOD NEWS! Mary is just another dead human being and can't help anyone in any way. JESUS CHRIST IS ALIVE and is the ONLY WAY to SALVATION! It's very cruel to suggest otherwise to the lost!

GOOD NEWS!

Thanks be unto GOD for HIS unspeakable GIFT!, JESUS CHRIST, our Lord and Saviour forever!

Oregon University Hosts Talk by Notorious Holocaust Denier, Amid Protest
Monday, June 09, 2008

By Joseph Abrams

David Irving, a British historian accused of Holocaust denial, is set to speak at the University of Oregon, prompting protest from a local rights group.
David Irving, a British historian accused of Holocaust denial, is set to speak at the University of Oregon, prompting protest from a local rights group.
The University of Oregon will play host Monday night to Holocaust denier David Irving, prompting protests from a local rights group.

The Pacifica Forum, a group that holds weekly meetings on the university’s campus in Euguene, Ore., has invited Irving to make an address about free speech. Irving's presentation is part of a nationwide tour which includes what he calls the "real history" of Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler. Irving is the third accused Holocaust denier who will have spoken to the group on campus.

“They cross the line into being anti-Semitic — they create such a comfortable environment for bigotry,” said Michael Williams, a board member of the Community Alliance of Lane County, a local social-justice group.

Williams is helping organize a Monday-night protest vigil against Irving, a prolific historian who has stated that there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz and routinely downplays the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust.

Irving has been barred entry to Austria, Germany, Australia and Canada, and spent 10 months in an Austrian prison for denying the Holocaust. The Anti-Defamation League has called Irving “one of the world’s most effective purveyors of Holocaust denial.”

The university washed its hands of responsibility for the event, saying that it wasn’t sponsoring Irving’s speech and was only serving as a venue. Orval Etter, one of the event's organizers and a former professor at the university, has the authority to reserve a room free of charge.

“The Pacifica Forum is not affiliated with the university — the space is being used under a campus policy that allows retired professors to rent rooms on campus,” said Julie Brown, director of media relations at the University.

Brown said the school would not seek to block Irving’s presence because it has a policy of respecting freedom of speech for all groups.

“The university is really committed to freedom of speech and wanting to make sure that there is a place for groups to be able to express their viewpoints,” she said.

Williams told FOXNews.com he respected the school's obligation to protect free speech, but said the university’s campus was not the right place to air the Pacifica Forum’s bigoted views.

“Their [Pacifica Forum] freedom of speech is adequately exercised on a street corner in the rain,” he said.

Though he said the vigil was not aimed at “shutting down” the forum, Williams hoped to “make it clear that we don’t support the kind of ideology that David Irving represents.”

The president of the university, Dave Frohnmayer, agreed. After a different Holocaust denier and self-described white supremacist visited the campus in 2007, Frohnmayer wrote a letter condemning the “gutter bigotry” of the Pacifica Forum, but defended its right to speak out.

“My own feeling is that these subjects are better expressed . . . than left to fester silently,” he wrote, but stressed that the forum “[did] not speak for the University of Oregon.”

Despite his objection to the content of the presentation Monday, Williams said he wasn’t concerned that students would attend the meeting or be swayed by the forum and David Irving’s anti-Semitic sentiments.

“Students stay away in droves,” he said.

Norway okays homosexual marriages, adoptions
OneNewsNow
6/14/2008 4:35:00

LifsitenewslogoOSLO - Norway has become the sixth country in the world to give homosexuals the legal right to "marry," with all the benefits previously given only to heterosexual couples. The new "marriage" law also allows homosexuals to adopt children and permits lesbians to be artificially inseminated.

Norwegian television reported that Labour party member Gunn Karin Gjul said, "This decision is of an importance comparable to universal suffrage and our law on parity."

Norway began allowing same-sex civil unions in the 1990s and since then its heterosexual-marriage rates have plummeted and its out-of-wedlock birthrate skyrocketed to 80 percent for firstborn children; but the provision allowing homosexuals to adopt children is of gravest concern. In 2006, Ireland's highest court rejected a lesbian couple's demand to have their Canadian "marriage" recognized in Ireland, citing harm to children as one of the determining factors in the ruling.

Justice Elizabeth Dunne expressed concern about the effect of same-sex marriage on children, saying the lack of conclusive research into the results of homosexual parenting made it necessary to reserve judgment on the issue. "There is simply not enough evidence from the research done to date that could allow firm conclusions to be drawn as to the consequences of same-sex marriage particularly in the area of the welfare of children."

An interview by Zenit news service with Dale O'Leary, a writer and researcher for the Catholic Medical Association discussed the dangers of same-sex couples adopting children. O'Leary explained that "a same-sex couple has, by definition, two persons at high risk for psychological disorders. The studies published in the Archives of General Psychiatry found that persons self-identified as homosexual in comparison to the general public had almost double the rate of suicidal ideation or attempts, substance abuse problems and psychological disorders. One of the studies found that 78.6 percent of the gay, lesbian, or bisexual group suffered from multiple disorders."

"And there are other problems," he continued. "Domestic violence is more common among same-sex couples. Men with same-sex attractions are more likely to become infected with a STD, including HIV, hepatitis or HPV, which can lead to cancer. Thus, several studies suggest that 50 percent of men who have sex with men will become HIV-positive before age 50."

Addressing the emotional damage and fragility already present in children put up for adoption, O'Leary said, "Adoption by a happily, faithfully married husband and wife provides a healing environment for the child who has been surrendered by his or her biological parents. The faithful, committed love of the father for his wife and children teaches the adoptive child that all men do not walk away from their responsibilities to their children.

"Because children surrendered for adoption have already suffered one major loss, it is very important that they be placed in the most stable situation possible. Same-sex couples are the least stable arrangement. Because of this, a child placed with a same-sex couple is at greater risk for a second major loss during childhood. The research on the effects of divorce on children is clear and unequivocal-divorce is profoundly damaging. The damage is necessarily greater for the adoptive child."

Norway okays homosexual marriages, adoptions (http://www.onenewsnow.com/Printer.aspx?id=136648)

Biblical message now criminalized
Penalties created for those who criticize homosexuality outside church walls
Posted: June 12, 2008
12:45 am Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

A new Colorado law is helping homosexual activists achieve their goal of forcing Christians to teach biblical condemnation of homosexuality only behind the closed doors of their sanctuaries.

The as-yet untested state law promotes sexual identity "perception" to the level of skin color under state discrimination laws.

Some opponents are calling it a "bona fide censorship law," and top analysts for Focus on the Family, the Christian publishing and broadcast powerhouse, are expressing concern over the "mischief" they expect to follow the signing by Gov. Bill Ritter.

As WND reported, Ritter, a Democrat, struck gender-specific restrooms and locker rooms statewide when he signed the plan into law in May.

The law makes it illegal to deny a person access to public accommodations, including restrooms and locker rooms, based on gender identity or the "perception" of gender identity.

"Who would have believed that the Colorado state legislature and its governor would have made it fully legal for men to enter and use women's restrooms and locker-room facilities without notice or explanation?" said James Dobson, founder of Focus.

"Henceforth, every woman and little girl will have to fear that a predator, bisexual, cross-dresser or even a homosexual or heterosexual male might walk in and relieve himself in their presence," Dobson said.

But now an analyst for Focus, Bruce Hausknecht, has told WND there are other, significant, potential ramifications hidden in the fine print of the new law.

The law provides an exemption allowing religious groups to continue teaching, inside their doors, the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality. But the exemption itself is ultimately harmful to the church, Hausknecht contends.

"It tends to marginalize the church," he said. "They'll say, 'It's just a church.' It will allow gay activists to continue to marginalize Christians. They'll say, 'Keep it within your four walls. That's all.'"

But there's further possible mischief that can result from a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation or "perception" when deciding "full and equal enjoyment of facilities, accommodations" and other factors, he said.

Religious publishers, he acknowledged, could be accused under the law for publishing biblical condemnation of homosexuality. Colorado Springs, where Focus in located, also is home to the huge Christian publishing operations of NavPress and the International Bible Society.

"There are those who simply by publishing Christian materials could find themselves charged with a violation of this statute," he said.

A spokesman for Ritter did not respond to a WND request for comment.

The actual impact of the new ban on people responsible for "public accommodations" expressing beliefs that do not support homosexuality is unclear at this point, largely because charges haven't been brought and challenges weighed regarding the law and its potential impact on First Amendment guarantees of freedom exercise of religion.

However, Hausknecht warned there is "danger" in those waters for any church that provides any service to its community.

It is possible the law's anti-"discrimination" demands could be triggered when outside groups come in to use a church meeting room, auditorium or recreation facility. For the safety of the churches, perhaps outsiders will have to sign a document stating agreement with the church's religious beliefs before being allowed in, he said.

The targets of complaints likely won't be churches themselves, but more likely church schools, programs that offer services to communities and the like, critics of the law said.

"The intent of the homosexual activists who put this law in [was to] marginalize the church, keep it inside the sanctuary," Hausknecht said.

Worse yet is that many small or medium-size churches will have to go out of their way, including halting programs, to avoid a potential conflict, because they don't have the resources to wage a war over their beliefs, he added.

"It's a lot easier to avoid the conflict than incur the costs of fighting," he said.

Dobson earlier had nothing but criticism for Colorado's elected officials.

"This is your government in action. It represents a payback to Tim Gill and two other billionaires who have essentially 'bought' state legislators with enormous campaign contributions. Coloradans deserve better!" Dobson said.

"And by the way, because of the way this bill is written, it is not subject to the initiative process. There is no recourse," Dobson said.

Pastor Bob Enyart, a Denver-area activist on Christian issues, agreed with Focus's concerns over what appears to be a newly minted state discrimination against Christian beliefs. But he went further.

"WND reported on Canada banning opposition to homosexuality; likewise, Colorado's SB200 has 'forbidden' much publishing of Christian teaching on homosexuality, cohabitation, etc.," he said.

"This censorship aspect of the law has been utterly ignored," he said.

"The law exempts churches, but that's not good, that's an insult. I.E., bigotry is allowed only in churches. Whereas every other place of public accommodation including bookstores, retail & wholesale businesses, etc. cannot sell or even 'give away' anything that would advocate discrimination [against] gay adoption, homosexual marriage, etc.," Enyart said.

He cited one part of the new law:

Section 8. 24-34-701. Publishing of discriminative matter forbidden. No person, being the owner, lessee, proprietor, manager, superintendent, agent, or employee of any place of public accommodation... shall publish, issue, circulate, send, distribute, give away, or display in any way, manner, or shape or by any means or method, except as provided in this section, any communication, paper, poster, folder, manuscript, book, pamphlet, writing, print, letter, notice, or advertisement of any kind, nature, or description THAT is intended or calculated to discriminate or actually discriminates against... SEXUAL ORIENTATION, marital status... in the matter of furnishing or neglecting or refusing to furnish to them or any one of them any lodging, housing, schooling, or tuition or any accommodation, right [marriage], privilege [adoption], advantage, or convenience... on account of... SEXUAL ORIENTATION, marital status... [which] is unwelcome or objectionable or not acceptable, desired, or solicited."

The Old Testament condemns homosexuality as an "abomination," Enyart told WND. The New Testament includes a reference in 1st Timothy calling for the use of laws against crimes such as murder and homosexuality.

"There are free speech rights to condemn cohabitation, homosexuality, state that homosexuals should not marry, should not adopt children," Enyart said. "It's now illegal in Colorado for anyone involved in a facility or business of public accommodation to give any communication that would advocate discrimination based on marital status or sexual orientation."

He said many people simply choose not to believe what's happening.

"I have a hard time believing [it myself]," said Enyart.

He said he expects the law to be only "lightly" enforced until "it just becomes an entrenched part of our legal framework. They're not going to go out and arrest somebody for selling a Bible at Barnes and Noble."

But then in a few years, watch out, he said.

Enyart has printed a document he hands out that says, "This Anti-homosexual Flyer is Illegal in Colorado." It condemns the promotion of homosexuality in no uncertain terms.

"Homosexuality should be re-criminalized in Colorado," it states.

Homosexuality takes Congress by storm
Jeff Johnson - OneNewsNow
6/13/2008 10:40:00

The two openly homosexual members of the U.S. House of Representatives have recruited 50 of their colleagues to officially join them in promoting the homosexual agenda in Congress.

Democrats Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin are the only open homosexuals serving in Congress. They have joined with Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Christopher Shays of Connecticut, and 50 other Democrats to create the House Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Caucus. Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, says it is a sad day when Congress enshrines official promotion of sexual immorality.

"How interesting that we now have a homosexual caucusThe two openly homosexual members of the U.S. House of Representatives have recruited 50 of their colleagues to officially join them in promoting the homosexual agenda in Congress.

Democrats Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin are the only open homosexuals serving in Congress. They have joined with Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Christopher Shays of Connecticut, and 50 other Democrats to create the House Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Caucus. Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, says it is a sad day when Congress enshrines official promotion of sexual immorality.

"How interesting that we now have a homosexuality, transsexual caucus – I guess you could call it – at the congressional level. It's just unbelievable that there are this many congressmen who are promoting homosexuality and transsexual perversion," LaBarbera laments.

While LaBarbera criticized the two Republicans for lending the appearance of bipartisanship to the group, he reserved his primary wrath for the Democrats.

"I think what this shows is that the hard-core Democratic Left is extremely pro-homosexual," he states. "Big city populations have many homosexual activists, and they're disproportionately powerful compared to the rest of the people in the district. Do I think that the average person in the district knows that these members are promoting homosexuality in this way? No way! But there are probably powerful homosexual constituencies in each one of these districts," LaBarbera explains.

Christians, according to LaBarbera, could learn something from the success of homosexual activists. With very small numbers, they have managed to create the perception of a much larger constituency and, thereby, have many of their political demands met.

"The gays are all about political power. They know how to vote. They're very committed. They're not apathetic like many Christians," says the activist. "And they've 'earned' this extraordinary total: 52 congressmen coming right out and saying, 'We are going to vote for homosexuality and transsexuality in Congress," LaBarbera contends.

The 52 members of the LGBT Caucus are: Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Barney Frank (D-MA), Rob Andrews (D-NJ), Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Lois Capps (D-CA), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Joseph Crowley (D-NY), Diana DeGette (D-CO), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Mike Honda (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), James McGovern (D-MA), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Linda Sánchez (D-CA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Hilda Solis (D-CA), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Henry Waxman (D-CA), Anthony Weiner (D-NY), Peter Welch (D-VT), Howard Berman (D-CA), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Robert Brady (D-PA), Michael Capuano (D-MA), Susan Davis (D-CA), Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), Phil Hare (D-IL), Rush Holt (D-NJ), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Doris Matsui (D-CA), James Moran (D-VA), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-Washington, D.C.), Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Steven Rothman (D-NJ), José Serrano (D-NY), Chris Shays (R-CT), Pete Stark (D-CA), Betty Sutton (D-OH), Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), Niki Tsongas (D-MA), Robert Wexler (D-FL), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).

LaBarbera argues that the average voter in most of those 52 congressional districts has no idea that their elected representative is openly promoting sexual immorality.

Homosexuality takes Congress by storm (http://www.onenewsnow.com/Printer.aspx?id=134506)

Christian Theologians Prepare for Extraterrestrial Life ??? ??? ???
By BRANDON KEIM
June 15, 2008

Little green men might shock the secular public. But the Catholic Church would welcome them as brothers.

That's what Vatican chief astronomer and papal science adviser Gabriel Funes explained in a recent article in L'Osservatore Romano, the newsletter of the Vatican Observatory. His conclusion might surprise nonbelievers. After all, isn't this the same church that imprisoned Galileo for saying that the Earth revolves around the sun? Doesn't the Bible say that God created man -- not little green men -- in his image?

Indeed, many observers assert that aliens would be bad for believers. Jill Tarter, director of the Center for SETI Research, once wrote that finding intelligent other-worldly life "will be inconsistent with the existence of God or at least organized religions." But such predictions tend to come from outside Christianity. From within, theologians have debated the implications of alien contact for centuries. And if one already believes in angels, no great leap of faith is required to accept the possibility of other extraterrestrial intelligences.

Since God created the universe, theologians say, he would have created aliens, too. And far from being weakened by contact, Christianity would adapt. Its doctrines would be interpreted anew, the aliens greeted with open -- and not necessarily Bible-bearing -- arms.

"The main question is, 'Would religion survive this contact?'" said NASA chief historian Steven J. Dick, author of The Biological Universe. "Religion hasn't gone away after Copernican theory, after Darwin. They've found ways to adapt, and they'll find a way if this happens, too," Dick says.

The central conundrum posed to Christianity by alien contact would involve the Incarnation -- the arrival of Jesus Christ as God's representative on Earth, his crucifixion and the absolution of humanity's sins through his forgiveness.

"It would still be true -- but if there are other races and intelligences, then what is the meaning of this visit to our race at that time?" asked Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno, who in 2005 penned the booklet Intelligent Life in the Universe?

Some propose that the Earthly incarnation of Jesus some 2,000 years ago redeemed all intelligent creatures, in all places and -- since a space-faring race is likely older than us -- in all times. Others have suggested that Jesus could take multiple forms.

"Just as Jesus is human like you and I, you would find an alien-specific Jesus," said Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary professor Ted Peters.

But Peters and others also say that aliens may not have fallen into sin, instead existing in a state of grace, neither having nor needing Jesus. In that case, missionaries would have no call to convert them.

"Would sin be the same on another planet as we conceive of it here? Would there even be sin, or would God be present to that species in a completely different way?" says Richard Randolph, a Kansas City University ethicist.

All this, however, assumes that humanity not only encounters new forms of life but also understands them. Other intelligences may be incomprehensible to us, thus intensifying another doctrinal question: What does it mean to be made, as the Bible proclaims, in God's image?

Many astrotheologians argue that God's image refers to our spiritual nature, with our physical forms being irrelevant. Not everyone, however, agrees.

"If there are aliens, the Bible specifically does not say that they were created in his image," said Mark Conn, pastor of the Noble Hill Baptist Church in Springfield, Missouri. "God created many other intelligent beings on this planet, and they were not created in His image."

Conn's church recently met to discuss the issues posed by extraterrestrial contact, ultimately deciding that "if they're there, they're there. It doesn't change a whole lot."

Unlike Peters, Conn suggested that missionary work may be required, something the aliens may not welcome -- especially if, as many postulate, they are technologically superior to humanity and do not have religions of their own.

"Maybe they'll say that they used to need religion but have outgrown it. Some people say that would be a great blow to religion, because if an advanced civilization doesn't need it, why do we?" said Douglas Vakoch, director of interstellar message composition at SETI.

"I don't buy it, though. I think religion meets very human needs, and unless extraterrestrials can provide a replacement for it, I don't think religion is going to go away," he continued. "And if there are incredibly advanced civilizations with a belief in God, I don't think Richard Dawkins will start believing."

Christian Theologians Prepare for Extraterrestrial Life (http://www.abcnews.go.com/print?id=5065245)

Anglican Church: Gay 'Wedding' Broke Rules

Saturday , June 14, 2008

LONDON —
A "wedding"-like ceremony between two male priests broke the Church of England's rules, a spokesman for the Anglican body said Saturday.

The two clergymen exchanged rings and vows last month at a ceremony in St. Bartholomew the Great in London, according to The Sunday Telegraph, a preview of which was made available Saturday. The paper said the ceremony included traditional marriage liturgy, hymns and a Eucharist.

The ceremony took place in defiance of the Bishop of London, in whose diocese it took place. It is likely to embolden liberal clergy who have been reluctant to offer a full "wedding service" and will open the floodgates to other homosexuals who want a traditional ceremony.

The Rev Martin Dudley conducted the ceremony and said "I believe that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, but I see nothing wrong with blessing a couple who want to make a life-long commitment to one another."

Church of England spokesman Lou Henderson said the service described by the paper violated church guidelines "in just about every respect."

Although civil partnerships between homosexual couples are officially recognized in Britain, the Church of England maintains that marriage should be between a man and a woman and its guidelines ask clergy not to bless such partnerships.

The issue of how to deal with homosexuality — both same-sex partnerships and the ordaining of gay priests — threatens to divide the 80 million-member Anglican Communion, a loose-knit worldwide Christian grouping, including the U.S. Episcopal Church.

The debate came to a head when the Episcopal Church consecrated its first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, in 2003. Most Anglicans are traditionalists who believe Scripture bars gay relationships.

News of the London ceremony — which Henderson said was the first he was aware of — is likely to further irritate the communion's conservatives.

The newspaper quoted the Rt. Rev. Michael Scott-Joynt, the bishop of Winchester, as saying the service was a "wedding" "in all but name," noting the ceremony was modeled closely on the Church's marriage service and thus "flouts Church guidelines." The Most Rev. Henry Orombi, the archbishop of Uganda, called the incident "blasphemous," according to the paper.

"The leadership tried to deny that this would happen, but now the truth is out. Our respect for the Church of England will erode unless we see a return to traditional teaching," Orombi was quoted as saying.

The issue of homosexuality is likely to overshadow the once-a-decade world Anglican summit due to be held this summer. Leaders from five Anglican provinces have already said they would boycott the meeting because of Robinson's ordination.

The bishop of London, the Rt. Rev. Richard Chartres, was outside of the diocese and could not be reached for comment late Saturday, his office said.

Anglican Church: Gay 'Wedding' Broke Rules (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,367106,00.html)

Presbyterians (USA) vote on homosexual ordination today

An official with the Institute on Religion & Democracy says pro-homosexual forces seem to be making inroads at the meeting of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

The General Assembly meets every two years and has been meeting this week in Louisville, Kentucky. Today, delegates at the General Assembly are expected to vote on whether to ordain non-celibate homosexual men and women. Jim Berkley with Presbyterian Action of the Institute on Religion & Democracy (IRD) says if the denomination's highest governing body changes the constitution, it would be a disaster.

"It would allow homosexual persons to be ordained; they would remove our standard that we now have," he states. "They would also go against some of the ... church judicial rulings that have upheld our standards previously. As in one previous General Assembly, one gay activist said, 'We got the whole enchilada.' Well, this year they're going for the whole enchilada again," Berkley explains.

Even if pro-homosexual measures are approved by the General Assembly, Berkley notes the matter would move to regional presbyteries, which are over local churches. However, he believes a renewed push on evangelism could come out of the General Assembly.

"For years we've said evangelism is the number-one priority and have done nothing about it. It's been a ridiculous position, and now it looks like we may be trying to move out to do evangelism to reach out with the good news of Jesus Christ, which is the major responsibility of the church," Berkley points out.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) lost more than 50,000 members last year, the denomination's largest decline since 1981. Since the mid-1960s, it has lost more than two million members -- roughly half of its membership.

According to Associated Press, if the vote passes to change or remove a section within the Presbyterian Book of Order that requires "fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness" for church officers, more local churches will likely leave the denomination.

Quote

The General Assembly meets every two years and has been meeting this week in Louisville, Kentucky. Today, delegates at the General Assembly are expected to vote on whether to ordain non-celibate homosexual men and women. Jim Berkley with Presbyterian Action of the Institute on Religion & Democracy (IRD) says if the denomination's highest governing body changes the constitution, it would be a disaster.

"It would allow homosexual persons to be ordained; they would remove our standard that we now have," he states. "They would also go against some of the ... church judicial rulings that have upheld our standards previously. As in one previous General Assembly, one gay activist said, 'We got the whole enchilada.' Well, this year they're going for the whole enchilada again," Berkley explains.

I would say that this appears to be another sign of the times. CLEARLY, there is NO RULING to be made when the RULING HAS BEEN ALREADY MADE BY GOD! So-called churches should NEVER be in the business of voting to see whether they agree with GOD or not. The RULINGS of ALMIGHTY GOD in the Old Testament and the New Testament could NOT possibly be any clearer, and NOTHING has changed. This is a HIGH CRIME against the Natural Order that GOD HIMSELF established, and GOD says it is an Abomination to HIM. The only difference in the New Testament is there is no longer a GOD-IMPOSED death sentence for same sex perversion or perversion with animals. The lack of a GOD-IMPOSED death penalty for this offense in the New Testament means nothing because man is now responsible for government. The time will come soon that CHRIST HIMSELF will RULE as KING over the earth. Evil will be crushed first and reserved for HIS Eternal Judgment. If you guess that the rulings and laws of men will make NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL - YOU ARE CORRECT! Many don't like or appreciate the THE RULINGS OF ALMIGHTY GOD, and that's simply too bad! As you read this, the time for accepting HIM and seeking forgiveness is growing short. The time will come when it's TOO LATE!

GOOD NEWS!

Thanks be unto GOD for HIS unspeakable GIFT!, JESUS CHRIST, our Lord and Saviour forever!

The moment we took our first breath, we were born into this world..into the very core of what this world offers..sin is not new as there is nothing new under the sun..but the moment a life accepts the Lord Jesus..the moment life was given breath of the Holy Spirit..Christ living in us..the hope of Glory..A christian is not taken out of the world..but through th power of the Holy Spirit the strenth to stand in the midst of evil..Days will get worse and worse in this world..but we will stand even unto death..for to live is Christ to die is gain..Can you imagine how many become christians and do not grasp the meaning of being a christian but have made churches like that of social clubs accepting the evil and justifying it. Then when the consequences of their actions comes..they blame God..I often think of how narrow the gate is and the few that find it..If there is anyting I stess more and more is to study God's word..live it and share it..to have a foundation that cannot be shaken even when our eyes see and ears hear and when evil is thrown at us..we can stand victorious..to never forsake th fellowship that one another is encouraged..We are no better than our Master and He witnessed what we witness today..yet..He said..The poor have the gospel..the lame are healed..and showed us how o ask the Father that whatever we do brings glory to God..to feed the sheep..If there is anyting thing that we have been told to do is to preach the gospel..to preach the gospel is to preach repentance and the day is coming when to preach the gospel there will be persecution and if we think what is happening today is bad..well..it is not near as bad as it can get..but thanks be to God for His mercy on us and for the gift of His Son that gives us the power to stand in the days to come..to focus on the Lord insead of the world..that is how we will stand in the days to come..IWe do not need to fear what God has given us the victory over..

'Gay' McDonald's prompts boycott
AFA urges millions to shun fast-food giant over its promotion of same-sex marriage

The American Family Association, whose earlier boycott of Ford Motor Co. over its promotion of homosexuality was dropped after company sales fell 8 percent per month for two years, now is asking consumers to stop buying Big Macs and Happy Meals at McDonald's.

In a brief announcement today, AFA, whose constituents number in the millions, said it is "asking its supporters to boycott the restaurant chain."

"This boycott is not about hiring homosexuals, or homosexuals eating at McDonald's or how homosexual employees are treated. It is about McDonald's, as a corporation, choosing to put the full weight of their organization behind promoting the homosexual agenda, including homosexual marriage," said AFA chairman Donald E. Wildmon.

AFA pointed out McDonald's donated $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce in exchange for membership in the NGLCC and a seat on the group's board of directors. The NGLCC lobbies Congress on a wide range of issues, including the promotion of same-sex marriage.

AFA had asked the corporation to remove its name and logo from the NGLCC website, where it is listed as a "corporate partner and organization ally." AFA also requested that McDonald's remove the endorsement of NGLCC by Richard Ellis, vice president of communications for McDonald's USA, from the website.

"McDonald's refused both requests," the AFA announcement said. In fact, Pat Harris, global chief diversity officer and vice president of "inclusions & diversity," told AFA the burger-and-fries conglomerate would "reaffirm our position on diversity."

"Ellis, who is openly homosexual, was given a seat on the NGLCC board of directors. … He was quoted as saying, 'I'm thrilled to join the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and ready to go to work. I share the NGLCC's passion for business growth and development within the LGBT community, and I look forward to playing a role I moving these important initiatives forward,'" AFA said.

The AFA initiative followed an exchange of words between the pro-family organization and the corporation. WND reported then that McDonald's was running an e-mail campaign responding to concerns expressed by AFA to constituents.

The restaurant corporation had told consumers expressing opposition to its pro-homosexual stance that the company treats "all our employees and customers with dignity and respect regardless of their ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or any other differentiating factor."

"We are not telling McDonald’s who they can hire to work for the company, nor are we demanding that they stop serving Big Macs to homosexual customers," AFA said then. "This issue is about the world’s largest fast food chain allying itself and partnering with an organization that lobbies Congress to enact laws that we feel can be used to repress religious freedom or undermine the sanctity of marriage."

McDonald's noted, "While one McDonald's employee is affiliated with the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), McDonald's is in no way 'aggressively promoting the homosexual agenda' as suggested in the newsletter."

But AFA said, "To refer to Richard Ellis, who is the vice president of communications for McDonald's, as 'one McDonald’s employee,' as if he is a teenager flipping hamburgers, is disingenuous at best. While 'aggressively' is admittedly a subjective term, AFA believes that giving money to and partnering with a homosexual lobby organization is certainly an enthusiastic promotion of the homosexual agenda."

AFA asked the corporation for honesty in its communications and called its verbal maneuvers "disingenuous."

"As a Christian organization, the American Family Association always seeks to be honest, accurate and completely forthright in the information we pass along to our supporters," AFA said. "We expect corporations in this country, especially those that position themselves as 'family friendly' businesses, to do the same."

McDonald's officials declined to return a WND call seeking comment on the placement of its executive on the "gay" advocacy organization. But the corporation sent a subsequent e-mail confirming its support for the agenda of the homosexual business lobby.

"McDonald's is indeed a Corporate Partner and Organizational Ally of NGLCC. Our vice president of U.S. communications, Richard Ellis, was recently elected to its board of directors," said the brief statement to WND from Heidi M. Barker, senior director of media relations.

A spokeswoman for NGLCC refused to speak with WND except on "background" when asked about McDonald's financial contribution to the group. But she did confirm the organization would not release information on its sponsors.

As WND reported, after joining the NGLCC, Wal-Mart's income later started declining as Christian organizations reacted to the news.

CNN reported Wal-Mart officials later decided to pursue a lower level of homosexual promotions.

"We are not currently planning corporate-level contributions to LGBT groups," Mona Williams, the company's senior vice president of corporate communications, told CNN only months after the issue arose.

WND also reported AFA's suspension of its two-year boycott of Ford after the auto giant met the conditions of an original agreement with the pro-family group.

Wildmon said the original agreement between AFA and Ford contained four items:

* Ford would not renew current promotions or create future incentives that give cash donations to homosexual organizations based on the purchase of a vehicle.
* Ford would not make corporate donations to homosexual organizations that, as part of their activities, engage in political or social campaigns to promote civil unions or same-sex marriage.
* Ford would stop giving cash and vehicle donations or endorsements to homosexual social activities such as 'gay'-pride parades.
* Ford would cease all advertising on homosexual websites and through homosexual media outlets (magazines, television, radio) in the U.S. with the exception of $100,000 to be used by Volvo. The Volvo ads would be the same ads used in the general media and not aimed at the homosexual community specifically.

According to AFA, during the 24 months the boycott was in effect, Ford sales dropped an average of 8 percent per month. The organization said its boycott was not entirely responsible for the drop in sales but played a very significant role. A total of 780,365 individuals had signed AFA's Boycott Ford petition.

Quote from: Pastor Roger on July 03, 2008, 09:42:46 PM

This is definitely immoral to begin with but it is exceptionally bad considering this is a corporation that bases the majority of it's advertising aimed at children and is the area in which it makes most of it's profits.

Brother, thanks for sharing this information. I must comment that the American Family Association is a well-respected Christian organization that's been around for a long time. They have a lengthy track record of being completely honest and correct. As far as I'm concerned, McDonald's is boycotted. I will not call McDonald's good by spending a single penny there, and I will try to make sure that my friends and family get this information. When we spend money at businesses supporting and promoting evil, we are calling evil good and adding our own support. We don't have to do that, and I won't do that.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Favorite Bible Quotes 164 - Hebrews 10:1-10 For the law having a
shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things,
can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year
continually make the comers thereunto perfect. 2 For then would they
not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once
purged should have had no more conscience of sins. 3 But in those
sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. 4 For
it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take
away sins. 5 Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith,
Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou
prepared me: 6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had
no pleasure. 7 Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it
is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. 8 Above when he said,
Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou
wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the
law; 9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away
the first, that he may establish the second. 10 By the which will we
are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
for all.

Teacher suspended for 'punishing children who did not pray to Allah'
By Daily Telegraph reporter
Last updated: 9:12 AM BST 08/07/2008
A teacher has been suspended amid claims she punished two children who refused to worship Allah during a Religious Education lesson.

Alison Phillips, head of RE at Cheshire's respected Alsager High School, allegedly disciplined the Year 7 duo claiming they were disrespectful for refusing to kneel down and pray.

After giving the two boys detention the school was believed to have received several complaints from parents about the long-standing teacher.

Today, a school spokesman said she was suspended over the allegations - but also for "ongoing inquiries centred around other practical issues".

Joan Feenan, director of Cheshire County Council's children's services, said: "This authority is naturally concerned about complaints we have received from parents.

"Together with the school, we will be thoroughly investigating those complaints, in a careful and considered manner, and informing parents of the conclusions reached.

"Educating children in Christian and other religious beliefs is part of the national curriculum in secular schools and I'm sure that the great majority of our parents welcome any efforts to further mutual understanding.

"Having said that, this authority also accepts without question that such teaching should be carried out with awareness, sensitivity and sound common sense.

"Alsager is a high performing school with very supportive parents.

"I am confident that this matter will be resolved equitably."

She also added that suspension was not a disciplinary measure.

One parent, Karen Williams, said after hearing the claims: "I am absolutely furious my daughter was made to take part in it and I don't find it acceptable.

"I haven't got a problem with them teaching my child other religions and a small amount of information doesn't do any harm.

"But not only did they have to pray, the teacher had gone into the class and made them watch a short film and then said 'We are now going out to pray to Allah'.

"And then two boys got detention and all the other children missed their refreshments break because of the teacher."

The incident was believed to have taken place during a practical demonstration of how the prophet is worshipped.

The teacher is liaising with NASUWT, her union, whose spokesman declined to comment.

Teacher suspended for 'punishing children who did not pray to Allah' (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2264139/Teacher-suspended-for-%27punishing-children-who-did-not-pray-to-Allah%27.html?service=print)
~~~~~~~~~

Again we can see the bully tactics of those that are islamic.

Quote from: DreamWeaver on July 11, 2008, 12:53:06 AM

Parents must be informed about what our schools plan to teach our children and how. The parents can then either opt out of intolerable sessions or move their children to a more acceptable school. In my case, I would not tolerate something like this, and I wouldn't give the school a second chance. HOMESCHOOLING IS SOUNDING BETTER AND MORE REASONABLE BY THE MINUTE! There are also many organizations gearing up to cooperate and assist those parents who are determined their children WILL receive a Christian education. As far as I'm concerned the devil can rule and reign over empty classrooms.

McDonald's: Christian boycotters 'hate' homosexuals
CEO says company has obligation to 'make a difference … and we do'

Those who oppose homosexuality for religious reasons are participating in "hate," according to an official for McDonald's, the worldwide purveyor of Big Macs and Happy Meals.

"Hatred has no place in our culture," corporate spokesman Bill Whitman told the Washington Post in response to a campaign by the American Family Association for a boycott of the burger-and-fries outlets because of the corporation's advocacy for the homosexual lifestyle.

"That includes McDonald's, and we stand by and support our people to live and work in a society free of discrimination and harassment," Whitman said.

"Throwing out any pretense of being neutral in the culture war, McDonald's has taken up the rhetoric of gay activists, suggesting those who oppose same-sex marriage (SSM) are motivated by hate," the AFA said in a new alert about its campaign today.

"AFA has asked for a boycott of McDonald's restaurants because of the company's promotion of the gay agenda. AFA asked McDonald's to remain neutral in the culture war. McDonald's refused," the group said.

"McDonald's has decided to adopt the 'hate' theme used by gay activist groups for years," said the AFA alert.

"Mr. Whitman has intentionally avoided addressing the reason for the boycott. This boycott is not about hiring gays or how gay employees are treated. It is about McDonald's choosing to put the full weight of their corporation behind promoting their agenda," the AFA alert said.

McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner said the company will promote issues they approve, the AFA said.

"Being a socially responsible organization is a fundamental part of who we are. We have an obligation to use our size and resources to make a difference in the world ... and we do," Skinner was quoted as saying.

The American Family Association's earlier boycott of Ford Motor Co. over its promotion of homosexuality was dropped after company sales fell 8 percent per month for two years.

AFA said McDonald's donated $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce in exchange for membership in the NGLCC and a seat on the group's board of directors. The NGLCC lobbies Congress on a wide range of issues, including the promotion of same-sex marriage.

AFA had asked the corporation to remove its name and logo from the NGLCC website, where it is listed as a "corporate partner and organization ally." AFA also requested that McDonald's remove the endorsement of NGLCC by Richard Ellis, vice president of communications for McDonald's USA, from the website.

"Ellis, who is openly homosexual, was given a seat on the NGLCC board of directors. … He was quoted as saying, 'I'm thrilled to join the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and ready to go to work. I share the NGLCC's passion for business growth and development within the LGBT community, and I look forward to playing a role I moving these important initiatives forward,'" AFA said.

McDonald's officials declined to return a WND call seeking comment on the placement of its executive on the "gay" advocacy organization. But the corporation sent a subsequent e-mail confirming its support for the agenda of the homosexual business lobby.

"McDonald's is indeed a Corporate Partner and Organizational Ally of NGLCC. Our vice president of U.S. communications, Richard Ellis, was recently elected to its board of directors," said the brief statement to WND from Heidi M. Barker, senior director of media relations.

A spokeswoman for NGLCC refused to speak with WND except on "background" when asked about McDonald's financial contribution to the group. But she did confirm the organization would not release information on its sponsors.

Sex acts on Provincetown beaches prompt outrage
By Katy Jordan
Monday, July 7, 2008 - Updated 3d 8h ago

Frisky sun worshipers are flocking to have sex on the beach in Provincetown - but are sending horrified family vacationers packing, officals said.

Angry Cape Cod National Seashore officials said they are cracking down on public sex acts along the picturesque shoreline after the number of citations for public sex acts more than tripled, from an average of 40 to 132 last year.

“This is not what we’re interested in seeing,” said George Price, Superintendent of the National Seashore. “Over the last couple of years, public (sex) acts like this have been viewed by visitors.”

Price said officials are baffled as to why the vacation mecca has suddenly become a hotbed of public sex for randy exhibitionists.

“Laws and enforcement have not changed - it just seems to be something that some people decided we want to see,” Price said.

Complaints have included whale-watchers sailing past large groups of nude men, and families stumbling upon people engaged in sex acts on the pristine national shore that attracts tens of thousands of vacationers from throughout the world each year.

One complaint, issued in 2007, was from a New Jersey family walking in the dunes who encountered couples and a large group of men having “sex in the nude, including oral and anal sex right out in the open,” the Cape Cod Times reported last week.

“The majority is gay, but we’ve had issues with hetero sex as well. Families are upset and outraged,” Price said.

He added that many gay community members are also appalled about the recent surge in public sex, which is illegal under federal and state laws and can incur heavy fines.

“It’s really two issues, one is the nude sunbathing, which has been around since the ’70s and ’80s, and that issue is being addressed.

“But the issue that we’re talking about today is public sex: It’s a seashore problem and it’s a town problem,” he said.

Sex acts on Provincetown beaches prompt outrage (http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view/2008_07_07_Little_too_much_fun_in_sun:_Sex_acts_on_Provincetown_beaches_prompt_outrage/srvc=home&position=recent)

Pray to Allah in Class or Get Detention

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1031784/Schoolboys-punished-detention-refusing-kneel-pray-Allah.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1031784/Schoolboys-punished-detention-refusing-kneel-pray-Allah.html)

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Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and 'pray to Allah' during a religious education lesson.

Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.

They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent - which included wearing Muslim headgear - was a breach of their human rights.

One parent, Sharon Luinen, said: "This isn't right, it's taking things too far.

"I understand that they have to learn about other religions. I can live with that but it is taking it a step too far to be punished because they wouldn't join in Muslim prayer.

"Making them pray to Allah, who isn't who they worship, is wrong and what got me is that they were told they were being disrespectful.

"I don't want this to look as if I have a problem with the school because I am generally very happy with it."

Another parent Karen Williams said: "I am absolutely furious my daughter was made to take part in it and I don't find it acceptable.

"I haven't got a problem with them teaching my child other religions and a small amount of information doesn't do any harm.

"But not only did they have to pray, the teacher had gone into the class and made them watch a short film and then said 'we are now going out to pray to Allah'.

"Not only was it forced upon them, my daughter was told off for not doing it right.

"They'd never done it before and they were supposed to do it in another language."

"My daughter and a lot of other mothers are furious about their children being made to kneel on the floor and pray to Islam. If they didn't do it they were given detention.

"I am not racist, I've been friendly with an Indian for 30 years. I've also been to a Muslim wedding where it was explained to me that alcohol would not be served and I respected that.

"But if Muslims were asked to go to church on Sunday and take Holy Communion there would be war."

Parents said that their children were made to bend down on their knees on prayer mats which the RE teacher had got out of her cupboard and they were also told to wear Islamic headgear during the lesson on Tuesday afternoon.

Deputy headmaster Keith Plant said: "It's difficult to know at the moment whether this was part of the curriculum or not. I am not an RE teacher, I am an English teacher.

"At the moment it is our enterprise week and many of our members of staff are away.

"The particular member of staff you need to speak to isn't around. I think that it is a shame that so many parents have got in touch with the Press before coming to me.

"I have spoken to the teacher and she has articulately given me her version of events, but that is all I can give you at the moment."

A statement from Cheshire County Council on behalf of the school read: "The headteacher David Black contacted this authority immediately complaints were received.

"Enquiries are being made into the circumstances as a matter of urgency and all parents will be informed accordingly.

"Educating children in the beliefs of different faith is part of the diversity curriculum on the basis that knowledge is essential to understanding.

"We accept that such teaching is to be conducted with some sense of sensitivity."

This is an outrage! You bet your sweet bippy that if a child was forced to pray to God, The TRUE God, in school, heads would be flying right now. This makes me so mad, I could spit!

It was only a matter of time - Gay Man Files $70M Suit Against Bible Publishers Over 'Homosexual' Verses

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080710/gay-man-files-70m-suit-against-bible-publishers-over-homosexual-verses.htm (http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080710/gay-man-files-70m-suit-against-bible-publishers-over-homosexual-verses.htm)

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A homosexual man has filed a $70 million lawsuit against Bible publishers Zondervan and Thomas Nelson, alleging that their version of the Bible that refers to homosexuality as a sin violates his constitutional rights and has caused him emotional distress.

Bradley LaShawn Fowler, an ex-con turned author, filed the federal suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on Monday, the same day a judge refused to appoint him a lawyer for his suit against Thomas Nelson, The Grand Rapids Press reported.

"The Court has some very genuine concerns about the nature and efficacy of these claims," the judge wrote.

Fowler, who is representing himself in both cases, claims that Zondervan manipulated Scripture by using the term "homosexuals" in 1 Corinthians 6:9 of their 1982 and 1987 revised edition Bibles. He also contends that the reference to homosexuality were deleted by the publisher in later versions without informing the public.

He alleges that since the older Kings James Version containing the term "homosexuals" is used by his family pastor, he has been outcast by his family.

The 39-year-old is suing the Grand Rapids publisher for compensation of 20 years of "emotional duress and mental instability," he told WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids.

In a hand-written suit, Fowler lists all sorts of charges against Zondervan including malicious negligence, strict liability, malice, libel, and violating his civil rights. He filed a suit in June against Tennessee-based publisher Thomas Nelson on similar grounds. He's seeking $60 million from Zondervan and $10 million from Thomas Nelson Publishing.

Zondervan issued a statement to The Christian Post that said they do not discuss ongoing litigation. The company's spokesperson Tara Powers, however, pointed out that they only publish Bibles, not translate them.

"Since Zondervan does not translate the Bible or own the copyright for any of the translations we publish, we are not in a position to comment on the merits of how a word should or should not be translated," said Powers.

"We rely on the scholarly judgment of the highly respected and credible translation committees behind each translation and never alter the text of the translations we are licensed to publish. We only publish credible translations produced by credible biblical scholars," she noted.

According to Fowler, Zondervan has 20 days to respond to the claims listed.

Oh PLEASE! We just calls em' as God sees em'

It's a Sick, Sick World - Prepping Kids for Sex Change

http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=8125&print=1

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He has been called “demonic,” “barbaric,” and has been compared to Nazi doctors. And when you read about his work, it is easy to see why Americans are so outraged. Dr. Norman Spack is a pediatric endocrinologist at Boston Children’s Hospital. Not long ago, he opened a clinic for what he terms “transgendered” children. Incredibly, he is giving kids as young as seven drugs that delay the onset of puberty—the first step in sex-change surgery when they are older.

Spack injects children with hormone-blocking drugs to prevent them from developing secondary sexual characteristics, like breasts or facial hair. The idea is to give them a few more years to make up their minds if they want to be male—or female.

When these kids hit their teen years, they are given the option of taking cross-hormones for a few years—which will allow them to develop the characteristics of the opposite sex. Tragically, the treatment will condemn these teenagers to lifelong infertility.

Spack appears to think that that is a reasonable trade-off for teens who feel they are trapped in the body of the opposite sex: After all, the cross-hormone treatments will make it easier for them to “pass” as the opposite sex. For instance, men will not grow as tall as they normally would, nor will they develop beards or Adam’s apples.

In a fawning article about Spack, the Boston Globe referred to his treatment of gender-confused children as “modern medical care.” Medical care, my eye! This is medical mayhem. It is unconscionable.

Dr. Paul McHugh, a distinguished professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, agrees: He says that treating these children with hormones “does considerable harm, and it compounds their confusion. Trying to delay puberty or change someone’s gender,” he added, “is a rejection of the lawfulness of nature.”

Dr. McHugh knows what he is talking about. He and psychiatrist Jon Myer studied men who received sex-change operations at Johns Hopkins. His conclusion? “That Hopkins was fundamentally cooperating with a mental illness.” Better, McHugh thought, to concentrate on fixing their minds instead of taking the more drastic step of changing their sex.

Thanks to the research of Myer and others, this practice was stopped at Johns Hopkins. And it became possible to begin to make sense of the mental disorders that were driving the request for the surgeries.

So why are doctors like Spack altering young bodies instead of treating confused minds?

The answer is that many doctors have embraced the modern teaching that sexual identity, rather than being biologically determined, is a preference or a choice. According to this, people should be allowed to choose whatever sex they want to be.

But both science and the Bible teach otherwise: God created us male and female in His image. Shots and surgeries and politically correct teachings cannot alter this fundamental truth.

Tragically, some parents are now buying into this false teaching—and allowing their children to undergo destructive treatments.

You and I need to be spreading the word that legitimate treatment is available for people suffering from gender confusion—and it is a treatment that does not sacrifice the well-being of children to the political agendas of adults.

Is it just me or is there an exorbitant amount of stuff to post in this thread today? For crying out loud!

Archbishop of Canterbury: 'Christian doctrine is offensive to Muslims'
15th July 2008

Christian doctrine is offensive to Muslims, the Archbishop of Canterbury said yesterday.

Dr Rowan Williams also criticised Christianity's history for its violence, its use of harsh punishments and its betrayal of its peaceful principles.

His comments came in a highly conciliatory letter to Islamic leaders calling for an alliance between the two faiths for 'the common good'.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has admitted that Christian doctrine is offensive to muslims

But it risked fresh controversy for the Archbishop in the wake of his pronouncement earlier this year that a place should be found for Islamic sharia law in the British legal system.

Dr Williams is also facing immense pressures from inside his own Church of England and Anglican Communion.

A gathering of Anglican bishops from around the world, which begins today, is on the brink of a devastating split over whether homosexuality and gay clergy should win their approval.

The Archbishop's letter is a reply to feelers to Christians put out by Islamic leaders from 43 countries last autumn.

In it, Dr Williams said violence is incompatible with the beliefs of either faith and that, once that principle is accepted, both can work together against poverty and prejudice and to help the environment.

He also said the Christian belief in the Trinity - that God is Father, Son and Holy Ghost at the same time - 'is difficult, sometimes offensive, to Muslims'.

Trinitarian doctrine conflicts with the Islamic view that there is just one all-powerful God.

Dr Williams added: 'It is all the more important for the sake of open and careful dialogue that we try to clarify what we do and do not mean by it, and so I trust that what follows will be read in this spirit.'

He told Muslim leaders that faith has no connection with political power or force, and that Christians have in the past betrayed this idea.

'Christianity has been promoted at the point of the sword and legally supported by extreme sanctions,' Dr Williams said.

Islam, he continued, has been supported in the same way and 'there is no religious tradition whose history is exempt from such temptation and such failure.'

The Archbishop appeared to rebuke his colleague, Bishop of Rochester Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, who criticised his sharia lecture and who maintains that Christianity is central to British law, politics and society.

'Religious identity has often been confused with cultural or national integrity, with structures of social control, with class and regional identities, with empire: and it has been imposed in the interest of all these and other forms of power,' he said.

The Archbishop said that faiths which reject the use of violence should learn to defend each other in their mutual interest.

'If we are in the habit of defending each other, we ought to be able to learn to defend other groups and communities as well,' he said.

'We can together speak for those who have no voice or leverage in society - for the poorest, the most despised, the least powerful, for women and children, for migrants and minorities; and even to speak together for the great encompassing reality that has no voice of its own, our injured and abused material environment.'

The Archbishop did not mention sharia at all in his closely-argued 18-page letter. Dr Williams was heavily criticised by MPs and Downing Street after he suggested sharia law could have an established place in British life.

But his letter in reply to last year's Islamic approach, A Common Word for the Common Good, chimes with his view expressed in February that people of faith should be able to work together against secularism despite their differences.

Lambeth Palace hinted that Christians as well as Muslims should listen to Dr Williams' message.

Officials pointed to the Archbishop's call for 'religious plurality' to turn to serving the common good and added: 'This is true even where truth claims may seem irreconcilable'.

A number of conservative and evangelical Anglican bishops are poised to break away from the 400-year-old network of Anglican churches around the world because they believe homosexual behaviour is incompatible with Christian principles.

Among those expected to boycott the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury is Dr Nazir-Ali, whose seat in Rochester is just 20 miles away.

Archbishop of Canterbury: 'Christian doctrine is offensive to Muslims' (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1035420/Why-Christian-doctrine-offensive-Muslims-Archbishop.html#)

Brothers and Sisters,

We are seeing giant pieces of a puzzle getting ready to drop into PERFECT PLACE. The giant puzzle is BIBLE PROPHECY, and you can read all about it in the Holy Bible.

I also could care less about who is offended by the Holy Bible. We shouldn't expect the devil to like the Holy Bible. WE MUST NEVER BE ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL OF THE GRACE OF GOD! The Holy Bible foretells of a short time of freedom for the devil and then the devil's END! The same will be true for all EVIL and all false religions. CHRIST will CRUSH them all at HIS SECOND COMING IN GREAT WRATH and reserve them for final judgment and eternal punishment. It's a matter of LOVE to tell the lost the TRUTH about what they will most SURELY face. If they are firmly entrenched with the devil, they won't like it either. What we care about is that many will accept the TRUTH and ask JESUS CHRIST to rescue them from the curse of sin and death.

The frequency and magnitude of the devil's lies are going to escalate greatly. Many will be deceived and continue in their path away from GOD. Bible Prophecy clearly tells us there will be many false teachers and false prophets, and we are in a time when their numbers are exploding. They will have many agendas that are destructive to GOD and the GOSPEL. In fact, they will be working for the devil, and they won't like the truth of the Holy Bible. Christians shouldn't care what the devil doesn't like.

Now more than ever, this lost and dying world needs the FULL-STRENGTH GOSPEL OF THE GRACE OF GOD! We should already know that there isn't much time left. Withholding the TRUTH from hosts about to face eternal punishment is a very cruel thing to do. In fact, this is the worst thing a Christian could possibly do to a lost person. They might get angry and reject the only TRUTH that can save them. This is their choice, and maybe they've already made it. If so, hopefully their choice for destruction wasn't made because we were ashamed of the GOSPEL or scared to share the TRUTH with them.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Famous Christian Quotes 53 - "No people will tamely surrender their
Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused
and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally
ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their
own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders." -- Samuel Adams

Offend a homosexual ... Go to prison for 5 years
Teachers, pastors facing 'criminalization of homophobia'
Posted: July 16, 2008
9:28 pm Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Christians will face prison for speaking out against homosexuality if Brazil's Senate passes a bill approved unanimously by its House of Representatives.

The measure is considered the country's newest attempt to promote homosexuality, disguised as an act to combat discrimination, the Catholic News Agency reports.

If anyone prevents actions of "homosexual affection" in public or private locations open to the public, they could face up to five years in prison for doing so, the Association of the Defense of Life reports.

The bill also seeks to penalize private and public school administrators with up to three years in prison if they refuse to hire openly "gay" teachers.

According to the CNA, the measure will force prison time for any "moral, ethical, philosophical or psychological expression that questions homosexual practices."

(Story continues below)

The ADL claims the bill could spell disaster for churches and teachers.

"[A] priest, a pastor, a teacher or even an average citizen who says in a sermon, a classroom or public conversation that homosexual acts are sinful, disordered or an illness could be denounced and detained," the association said.

Only weeks ago, WND reported the president of Brazil said "opposing" homosexuality makes you a sick person, and he believes such thoughts need to be criminalized.

Brazilian chief Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who won a narrow re-election following a cash-for-votes scandals, held the First National Conference of Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transvestites and Transsexuals to condemn the biblical belief that homosexuality is wrong.

Lula, on June 5, not only officially opened the event to promote homosexuality across his nation but also issued a presidential sanction for the conference.

Calling for "the criminalization of homophobia," he said opposition to homosexuality is "perhaps the most perverse disease impregnated in the human head."

He said "prejudiced" people need to "open their minds and clean them." Other speakers encouraged homosexuals to claim to be part of a civil rights campaign that already has brought reforms for treatment of blacks, the elderly and the disabled. They also announced the nation's public hospitals soon would begin to perform sex changes on people.

Major U.S. city officially condemns Catholic Church
Instructs members to defy 'Holy Office of Inquisition'
Posted: July 15, 2008
8:48 pm Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

A San Francisco city and county board resolution that officially labeled the Catholic church's moral teachings on homosexuality as "insulting to all San Franciscans," "hateful," "defamatory," "insensitive" and "ignorant" will be challenged tomorrow in court for violating the Constitution's prohibition of government hostility toward religion.

Resolution 168-08, passed unanimously by the City and County of San Francisco Board of Supervisors two years ago, also accused the Vatican of being a "foreign country" meddling with and attempting to "negatively influence (San Francisco's) existing and established customs."

It said of the church's teaching on homosexuality, "Such hateful and discriminatory rhetoric is both insulting and callous, and shows a level of insensitivity and ignorance which has seldom been encountered by this Board of Supervisors."

As WND reported, Resolution 168-08 was an official response to the Catholic Church's ban on adoption placements into homosexual couple households, issued by Cardinal William Levada of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican.

The board's resolution urged the city's local archbishop and the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco to defy the Vatican's instructions, concluding with a spiteful reminder that the church authority that issued the ban was known 100 years ago as "The Holy Office of the Inquisition."

The resolution also took a shot at Levada, the former archbishop of San Francisco, saying, "Cardinal Levada is a decidedly unqualified representative of his former home city, and of the people of San Francisco and the values they hold dear."

The anti-Catholic diatribe had been challenged in U.S. District Court on similar grounds, but District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled in favor of the city, saying, in essence, the church started it.

She wrote in her decision, "The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith provoked this debate, indeed may have invited entanglement" for instructing Catholic politicians on how to vote. This court does not find that our case law requires political bodies to remain silent in the face of provocation."

She ruled that the city's proclamation was not entangling the government in church affairs, since the resolution was a non-binding, non-regulatory announcement.

Since no law was enacted, she ruled, city officials – even in their official capacity as representatives of the government – can say what they want.

"It is merely the exercise of free speech rights by duly elected office holders," she wrote.

Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, which is appealing the District Court decision on behalf of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and two Catholic residents of San Francisco, disagrees with Patel's decision.

"Sadly, the ruling itself clearly exhibited hostility toward the Catholic Church," he said in a statement. "The judge in her written decision held that the Church 'provoked the debate' by publicly expressing its moral teaching, and that by passing the resolution the City responded 'responsibly' to all of the 'terrible' things the Church was saying."

Thomas More attorney Robert Muise will present oral arguments in the case tomorrow morning in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

"Our Constitution plainly forbids hostility toward any religion, including the Catholic faith," he said.

"In total disregard for the Constitution, homosexual activists in positions of authority in San Francisco have abused their authority as government officials and misused the instruments of the government to attack the Catholic Church. Their egregious abuse of power has now the backing of a lower federal court. … Unfortunately, all too often we see a double standard being applied in Establishment Clause cases," Muise said.

Thomas More attorneys argued in the District Court case that the "anti-Catholic resolution sends a clear message" that Catholics are "outsiders, not full members of the political community."

The cultural, and now political, straight-arm to adherents of the Christian faith in San Francisco has been increasingly public in the last two years. Just one week after the anti-Catholic resolution was passed, the San Francisco Board issued a similar resolution against a mostly evangelical group.

Following a gathering of 25,000 teens at San Francisco's AT&T Park as part of Ron Luce's Teen Mania "Battle Cry for a Generation" rally against the sexualization of America's youth culture by advertisers and media, the board spoke out formally again.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution condemning the "act of provocation" by what it termed an "anti-gay," "anti-choice" organization that aimed to "negatively influence the politics of America's most tolerant and progressive city."

Openly homosexual California Assemblyman Mark Leno told protesters of the teen rally that though such religious people may be few, "they're loud, they're obnoxious, they're disgusting, and they should get out of San Francisco."

The Chronicle also reported a San Francisco protester against the evangelical youth rally carried a sign that may sum up the sentiment: "I moved here to get away from people like you."

The Thomas More Law Center hopes the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will decide in the case of Resolution 1680-08 that even if a large portion of the community is at odds with a religion's views on homosexuality, the government cannot be used as a weapon to condemn religious faith.

Currently, as WND has reported, Colorado and Michigan are tackling the question of whether the Bible itself can be vilified as "hate speech" for it's condemnation of homosexuality, and Canada has developed human rights commissions, which have decided people cannot express opposition to homosexuality without fear of government reprisal.
~~~~~~~~

While I disagree with the Catholic Church, the Constitution clearly forbids hostility toward any religion.

Saudi and Spanish kings urge religions to join forces (Roundup)

Jul 16, 2008, 15:52 GMT

Madrid - The kings of Saudi Arabia and Spain on Wednesday urged world religions to join forces in building a more peaceful and harmonious world.

It was time to turn 'a new page for humanity' in inter-religious understanding, which could help the world recover lost values and emerge from confusion, Saudi King Abdullah said on inaugurating the World Conference on Dialogue, a major inter-faith event sponsored by his country in Madrid.

Islam was a religion of moderation and tolerance, the monarch stressed.

Earlier initiatives may have failed because they sought to merge religions, an attempt doomed to failure, because all religions were convinced of their own beliefs despite God being the same for all, King Abdullah said.

Human tragedies were not caused by religions, but by extremism, the monarch explained.

Spain's King Juan Carlos said inter-faith dialogue could help to solve problems including terrorism, hunger, disease and poverty.

Muslim World League Secretary-General Abdullah al-Turki called on delegates attending the three-day conference to produce concrete projects with follow-up plans.

Other guests at the inauguration included Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair and US civil rights figure the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Around 250 Muslim, Christian and Jewish clergy and other experts on inter-religious dialogue, including 15 women, were attending the meeting instigated by Saudi Arabia in what was seen as a ground-breaking move for the highly conservative Muslim kingdom.

Experts and intellectuals including Lebanese Culture Minister Tariq Mitri and Vatican inter-faith specialist Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran were to analyze questions such as the civilizational foundations of inter-faith dialogue, ways to promote it, and common human values.

The conference, which also includes representatives of Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism, is taking place against the backdrop of the Middle East conflict and controversy over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, but it was expected to shun political questions.

The sessions are closed to the media, with a final communique expected on Friday.

Organized by the World Muslim League, the conference was partly inspired by King Abdullah's unprecedented meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican in November 2007, and by the International Islamic Conference for Dialogue in Mecca last month.

Detractors slammed the Madrid conference as a public relations operation by Saudi Arabia after the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States, which were carried out mainly by Saudis inspired by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden.

Critics said it was ironic for a meeting on religious tolerance to be sponsored by Saudi Arabia, where others than Sunni Muslims had few right. There were few Shi'a Muslim participants, and none of the Jewish delegates were listed as Israelis, they added.

Yet others praised the initiative, with the World Jewish Congress describing it as a 'significant and timely development.'

Cardinal Tauran said Saudi Arabia's 'act of great courage' had come surprisingly quickly after King Abdullah's meeting with the pope.

Inter-religious understanding should be promoted with 'prejudice-free' religion studies at universities and by training specialists on inter-faith dialogue, the newsletter of Radio Vatican quoted Tauran as saying.

The organizers were believed to have chosen Spain as the host country, because domestic opposition would have made it difficult to stage the conference in Saudi Arabia.

Al-Turki said Spain had been chosen because of the religious tolerance that characterized it when it was partly under Moorish rule for eight centuries until 1492.

Muslims, Christians and Jews lived in a relative harmony in Moorish Spain, known as al-Andalus. 'The image of al-Andalus made us hold this conference in Spain,' al-Turki told the daily El Mundo.

King Abdullah also praised Spain's support to the Middle East peace process and role in promoting the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.

Zapatero is the sponsor, alongside his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of the Alliance of Civilizations project to improve understanding between the West and the Muslim world, which has been adopted by the United Nations.

Saudi and Spanish kings urge religions to join forces (http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1417464.php/Saudi_and_Spanish_kings_urge_religions_to_join_forces__Roundup_)
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More links on this story;
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27389&Cr=Tolerance&Cr1=
http://www.metimes.com/Politics/2008/07/16/saudi_king_opens_interfaith_conference_with_appeal_for_dialogue/afp/
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/NewsStory.aspx?cpath=20080716%5cACQDJON200807160947DOWJONESDJONLINE000567.htm&&mypage=newsheadlines&title=Saudi%20King%20Opens%20Interfaith%20Conference%20With%20Plea%20For%20Dialogue
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=111904&d=17&m=7&y=2008&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Religion/?id=1.0.2343680502
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This is like a wolf, having a vegetarian conference.

Court says 'gay' rights trump Christian rights
Dismisses free-speech case filed by Philadelphia 11
Posted: July 18, 2008
12:10 am Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

A federal appeals court dismissed a civil rights complaint by 11 Philadelphia Christians, ruling their First Amendment rights were trumped by the First Amendment rights of homosexuals at the city's taxpayer-funded "Outfest" celebration in 2004.

"The city has an interest in ensuring that a permit-holder can use the permit for the purpose for which it was obtained," this week's opinion from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said. "This interest necessarily includes the right of police officers to prevent counter-protestors from disrupting or interfering with the message of the permit-holder."

The decision upheld a lower court's dismissal of the civil action against the city of Philadelphia and its police filed by the "Philadelphia 11," as they have come to be known.

Ted Hoppe, a lawyer allied with the Alliance Defense Fund, had argued in the appeal that speech "cannot be silenced simply because another person or group does not agree with it. City officials must be held accountable for their decision to violate the First Amendment rights of Christians who wanted nothing more than to engage in peaceful assembly on a public street."

Michael Marcavage, founder of Repent America and organizer of the protest, said the lawyers were reviewing the appellate ruling and deciding whether there are further open doors for the plaintiffs.

Members of the "Philadelphia 11" were arrested Oct. 10, 2004, after quoting the Bible and expressing their views against homosexual behavior on a public street during "OutFest," a publicly funded celebration of homosexuality.

The protesters were jailed overnight, but a judge later dismissed any criminal counts as having no basis in fact. The individuals then filed the damage lawsuit against the city.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Stengel had concluded in dismissing the civil rights claim that a "permit" granted by the city to the homosexuals allowed police to silence the Christian activists' message on public streets.

"It is without question that Judge Stengel's decision has set a precedent to eliminate the First Amendment rights of others by citing that a 'permitting scheme' can be used by police and event organizers to 'exclude persons expressing contrary messages' in public areas and at public events," Marcavage said earlier.

Marcavage told WND today the issues of speech rights should have been left to a jury.

"It's very interesting the court affirmed our rights to be at Outfest, but it should have been left to a jury to decide whether or not our presence was disruptive," he said.

He said the appellate opinion cited as fact issues a jury should have been allowed to determine, since the 11 were charged with both felonies and misdemeanors in the original criminal case – but not being a disruption, which was cited in the ruling.

According to Repent America, the Christians on that day "were confronted by a militant mob of homosexuals known as the 'Pink Angels' who blew loud whistles and carried large pink signs in front of them to block their message and access to the event, while others screamed obscenities."

"The Philadelphia police, under the direction of Chief Inspector James Tiano, the city's 'police liaison to the gay and lesbian community,' refused to take any action as the Christians were continuously followed, obstructed and harassed, even though they respectfully cooperated with police, obeying orders to move, short of being directed out of the event," the group said.

The Philadelphia 11 spent 21 hours in jail and faced criminal counts that could have resulted in prison terms of 47 years and $90,000 fines before the counts were dropped.

The civil rights complaint then followed.

"While, in its decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit did ultimately side with the city of Philadelphia, it did make some important rulings which should serve to support the rights of Christians to speak in the public square. In its decision, the appeals court rejected U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence F. Stengel's decision from earlier this year in which he ruled that the Philadelphia 11 should have been prohibited from engaging in their constitutional rights on the public streets and sidewalks because 'once the City issued a permit to Philly Pride for OutFest, it was empowered to enforce the permit by excluding persons expressing contrary messages,'" Repent America said.

Repent America said the appeals court found that despite the fact that the event organizers had a permit, the Philadelphia 11 had a constitutionally protected right to be present on the public streets and sidewalks within the event area and convey their message.

The court's justification for supporting police actions against the Christians was based on "the court's perception that the Philadelphia 11 were 'disrupting the event,'" the organization said. "The court came to this conclusion even though the Christians were not charged, arrested or even threatened with arrest for being 'disruptive.'"

Hoppe said that result is "concerning."

"We believe that a review of the video footage of the event clearly shows that the Philly 11 went out of their way to be cooperative and not be disruptive themselves. The only disruption that occurred, if any, was due to the crowd's reaction to the message that the Philly 11 was conveying," Hoppe said.

"It is encouraging that the court affirmed the rights of Christians to go into the public square and engage in free speech activities. However, it does seem somewhat contradictory to say that, on the one had the Philly 11 had a constitutionally protected right to be present at the event and to speak, but then to also say that if the crowd does not like their message, the Philly 11 can be removed."
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See my post for Re: Offend a homosexual ... Go to prison for 5 years (http://forums.christiansunite.com/index.php?topic=20334.msg251552#msg251552) <--- (link), for how I feel.

Boycott over McDonald's
'gay' promotions grows
Ronald 'needs to end corporate subsidies
for homosexual and transsexual behavior'

Your dollars for Happy Meals and Big Macs could end up paying for sex-change operations of McDonald's employees if the home of the Golden Arches continues its promotion of homosexuality, according to a pro-family group that has joined an expanding boycott of the fast-food restaurants and its Ronald McDonald's mascot.

"If McDonald's restaurants and franchises … follow the small business advice of the company's new homosexual partner – the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), which received a $20,000 grant from McDonald's – there would be chaos," said Peter LaBarbera, chief of Americans for Truth.

His was one of several groups, also including the Culture Campaign, Liberty Counsel, the American Family Association of Pennsylvania and the Illinois Family Institute, that held a news conference at the Chicago headquarters of the fast-food chain to join with a boycott call issued originally by the American Family Association.

LaBarbera told WND that the agenda supported by the NGLCC is pretty extreme. It recommends, for example, companies should "permit the [transsexual/cross-dressing] transitioning employee to use restrooms that correspond to his or her full-time gender presentation, regardless of where the individual is in the transitioning process."

"In other words, if a 'transgender man' or, say, employee at a McDonald's believes his supposed 'gender' is really a woman, so he wears a dress and high heels, he should be able to use the female restroom. That surely would do wonders for the productivity and workplace environment of female employees and customers at a small business, including all those local McDonald's franchises!" LaBarbera said.

He said other advice from NGLCC would include:

* Use politically correct, 'inclusive' language: 'Ensure that invitations to company events use terms like partner or significant other rather than spouse.'

* Provide 'adoption assistance' for homosexual 'domestic partners' – thus the corporate world helps create households for children that are intentionally fatherless or motherless.

* Providing health care coverage to transsexual employees for so-called 'medically necessary surgical procedures' – will your Quarter-Pounder purchase help subsidize 'sex-change' operations for gender-confused men?

The news conference was at the McDonald's restaurant adjacent to McDonald's world headquarters, but LaBarbera said the Chicago media, with one exception, ignored the issue totally.

"Chicago's CBS TV affiliate fields a float every year at the city's bawdy homosexual 'pride' parade, but CBS and other major Chicago secular media were no-shows at AFTAH's pro-family coalition press conference," he said.

"Predictably, I suppose, we were completely blacked out by Chicago's and Illinos' major media – which had no excuse since they were inundated with press releases about the event by four pro-family organizations," LaBarbera said.

He said, however, people are paying attention, since some 200,000 people already have signed the boycott petition.

He noted McDonald's got an 85 percent rating by the Human Rights Campaign's pro-homosexual scorecard indicating both its advocacy for homosexuality as well as its failure to support pro-family organizations.

"McDonald's has wisely chosen to alter its menu to promote healthy eating habits. Now it needs to examine its fiscal priorities and stop rewarding unhealthy lifestyles –– starting with an end to corporate subsidies for homosexual and transsexual behavior," LaBarbera said. "Homosexuality is unhealthy, especially for men: 71 percent of male HIV cases in 2005 involved men who have sex with men, according to the CDC. And syphilis and other STDs continue to afflict men practicing homosexuality at rates astronomically disproportionate to the rest of society."

"Unfortunately, McDonalds has chosen to side with militant homosexual activists over people with traditional values," said Matt Barber, of Liberty Counsel. "The company has further escalated the controversy by lodging a personal attack against the tens of millions of Americans who support traditional sexual morality and legitimate marriage. While referring to Christians and other people with traditional values, McDonald's spokesman Bill Whitman arrogantly told the Washington Post that, 'Hatred has no place in our culture,' thereby suggesting that people who support the historical definition of marriage are simply motivated by 'hate.' This insult is highly offensive, and anyone who supports traditional marriage should boycott McDonalds and tell the company why they’re doing so."

"McDonalds should focus on food quality and safety issues instead of attacking the values held by the majority of people worldwide. Marriage between a man and a woman is the norm throughout the world. McDonalds' personal attack against those who support the traditional definition of marriage, while siding with a narrow group that promotes a radical redefinition, shows that company executives are out to lunch. McDonalds might as well change their signs to read 'billions and billions insulted,'" said Mathew Staver, chief of Liberty Counsel.

"It's a shame that McDonald's would tarnish their family-friendly image," said AFA Chairman Don Wildmon. "But the company has ramped up its support of the gay agenda and it leaves us no option but to call for a boycott."

Wildmon wrote the company with a plea for McDonald's to remain neutral in the culture war by removing McDonald's name and logo from the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) Web site (where McDonald’s is cited as a partner and ally) and withdraw McDonald's VP of Communications Richard Ellis' endorsement from the website. McDonald's ignored both requests.

"To put it politely, the company thumbed its nose at the Christian community," Wildmon said.

McDonald’s donated $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce in exchange for membership and a seat on the group’s board of directors. The NGLCC lobbies Congress on a wide range of issues related to the "gay" agenda including "gay" marriage.

"This boycott isn't about hiring homosexuals, or homosexuals eating at McDonald's or how homosexual employees are treated. It is about McDonald's, as a corporation, refusing to remain neutral in the culture war. The company has chosen not to remain neutral but to give the full weight of their corporation to promoting the homosexual agenda, including homosexual marriage," the AFA said.

The pro-family groups are encouraging families to do two things: sign, print and distribute a Boycott McDonald's petition at www.boycottmcdonalds.com; and call the local McDonald's to politely tell the manager they are boycotting the chain until it stops promoting the "gay" agenda.

LaBarbera told WND neutrality is "the least that pro-family people should expect from a place like McDonald's."

McDonald's officials declined to return a WND call seeking comment on the placement of its executive on the "gay" advocacy organization. But the corporation sent a subsequent e-mail confirming its support for the agenda of the homosexual business lobby.

"McDonald's is indeed a Corporate Partner and Organizational Ally of NGLCC. Our vice president of U.S. communications, Richard Ellis, was recently elected to its board of directors," said the brief statement to WND from Heidi M. Barker, senior director of media relations.

A spokeswoman for NGLCC refused to speak with WND except on "background" when asked about McDonald's financial contribution to the group. But she did confirm the organization would not release information on its sponsors.

Modern day Sodom and Gomorrah in the U.S. Decadence is spreading faster than fire.

San Fran's next step:
Legalized prostitution?
City to vote on ballot measure D.A. calls
'welcome mat for prostitutes and pimps'

Petitioners have succeeded in moving a measure that would effectively decriminalize prostitution in the city of San Francisco to the Nov. 4 ballot.

While prostitution is unlawful under the California Penal Code, the measure – if passed by voters – would ban the San Francisco Police Department from allocating any financial resources for the investigation and prosecution of sex workers on prostitution charges.

Section four of the ballot measure – under the heading "Prostitution Shall Be Decriminalized" – further states that the city, county, and district attorney "shall not subject sex-workers to life long economic discrimination associated with having a criminal record."

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris criticized the measure, unofficially titled "Enforcement of Laws Related to Prostitution and Sex Workers." Harris told the San Francisco Chronicle, "This measure is nothing more than a welcome mat for prostitutes and pimps to come and hang out in San Francisco."

Proponents of the measure are claiming it is needed to give sex-industry workers equal protection under the law and to counter an alleged long-standing cronyism between dance club owners and key decision makers that has resulted in police cracking down on some prostitution outlets but looking the other way from popular nightclubs, even when the clubs were accused of sexual abuses by workers.

Maxine Doogan, founder of the Erotic Service Provider's Union, wrote in an email reported by the Chronicle, "Workers would like it if crimes like rape, robbery, theft and coercion were vigorously investigated and prosecuted. We want the right to make reports of crimes against us without being retaliated against by the police department."

According to the ESPU, the petition to have the measure put on the ballot received 12,763 signatures, 5,000 more than are required. The Chronicle reported that three of the signatures came from sitting members of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors.

The ballot measure also takes aim at two programs currently used by San Francisco authorities to combat sex industry crime.

The first is the use of federal and state funds to reduce human trafficking, particularly of illegal immigrants, into the sex trade. The ballot measure states, "San Francisco's law enforcement agencies shall not apply, nor receive federal and state monies that institute racial profiling as a means of targeting alleged trafficked victims under the guise of enforcing the abatement of prostitution laws."

District Attorney Harris dodged the measure's thinly veiled implication of racism in explaining why the funds and program are valuable. The ballot measure's changes "would make it very challenging to investigate and prosecute human trafficking," she told the Chronicle. "We need to use police resources to investigate where there is a suspicion that women and children, in particular immigrants, are being exploited."

The second program targeted by the measure is San Francisco's First Offender Prostitution Program, which allows men arrested for soliciting a prostitute to pay $1,000 fine and attend a class on prostitution in exchange for having the misdemeanor charge against them dropped. In April, an audit by the U.S. Department of Justice found that men who participated in the program were 30 percent less likely to be arrested for soliciting a prostitute than men who did not.

The ballot measure specifically names the First Offender Prostitution Program and would end it.

The ballot measure quotes and draws credibility from an official task force on prostitution established by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors in 1994. According to a release from the San Francisco City Attorney's Office in February, "The Task Force included representatives from the Mayor’s Office, neighborhood groups, law enforcement agencies, public health agencies, social service agencies, various other City departments, women’s rights advocates and immigrant and prostitute rights groups."

In 1996, the task force released a report recommending, "City departments stop enforcing and prosecuting prostitution crimes. … [and] that the departments instead focus on the quality of life infractions about which neighborhoods complain and redirect funds from prosecution, public defense, court time, legal system overhead and incarceration towards services and alternatives for needy constituencies."

Since 1996, the city has acted on some of the task force's recommendations, but has refrained from following through on its final conclusion – a reallocation of all funds from prostitution enforcement to neighborhood improvement. The ballot measure seeks to see the task force's full recommendation enacted.

If passed, the ballot measure states that it would take effect Jan. 1, 2009.

This reminds me of a sermon by Dr. A. Charles Ware, that was televised from the Answers in Genesis people:

"I'm deeply concerned for the USA. I beleive this country is in deep trouble. As I look at America today, I'm a man that believes the Bible with all my heart, that He's saved me, He's redeemed me, He's called me to teach and preach His Word, so I'll always ask myself a question when I see a situation, 'Is there any Biblical text that I can go to and have that text explain to me what is happening in this country'. I found that scripture in Romans Chapter 1. Here I see the basic problem with America is that we've rejected God and as a result God has turned us over to our own desires. The only thing necessary for a society to commit societal suicide is for God to leave them alone.

When God leaves us alone as fallen sinners, we will do that which will lead to self destruction, and I believe with all my heart that's where America is.

Romans 1:29-31

'...being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parent, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful'

What I see there is the character of a society. In fact in vs. 29 the words 'being filled with' is in the Greek perfect tense, and has the idea that people have come to the point of something you're known for, it becomes a pattern. To me it's like reading the daily newspaper in the USA. It's like interacting with the people in our society and seeing their character and how hard thir hearts have become against the Word of God. It's who can get ahead, and cheat, and be out for themselves, with marriages falling apart - it's becoming characteristic of the majority of our people - their ignorant and callous when it comes to a Biblical lifestyle. That's America.

The character of this society has become an unGodly lifestyle. In vs. 32 it talks about their attitude:

"...who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them."

It would be one thing in America if we were remorseful and repentant, if we were outraged in the sin of our country. But so many people in our country are not outraged, they approve of it. We're in a culture where evil is spoken about as if it's good, and good is spoken about as it it's evil. We're living in a country where a person can wear a 3 piece suit, and drive a BMW, live in the suburbs and be called this wonderful Dr. who helps humanity so much - and he's going in every day to abort babies BUT he's respected, he's educated, he's sensitive. It's only a woman's choice hes' supporting.

In the same country somebody can stand up and say I believe sex outside of marriage is wrong, it's sinful, I believe in God. Now the same people will say '..you're nothing but a hate monger, you're so insensitive and out of touch with reality...'

We don't want to deal with all the sexually transmitted diseases, we don't want to deal with death from AIDS and going back to it's root cause which is immorality. We don't want to deal with the breakdown of the family because we're telling people they just evolved and they just live by their feelings and what they want.

To have someone to say that they believe in a creative design and a creative designer, that we were created by Almighty God and He gave us moral restraints and He gave us so much to enjoy, but He wants us to live within these moral constructs, because if we live in those we'll be healthier and happier and all the statistics support that! Then you're called a bigot that's trying to bring religion into our education.

We live in a generation that will do vile, terrible things and the world will turn around and make a movie about it, and Americans will pay money to see it.

I asked myself the question, 'How did our society get there?' How did the character of our citizens become so corrupt? And yet the attitude of so many would be one of pleasure...applauding them.

Romans 1:28

"And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting,'

They rejected the knowledge of God. They put God to the test and disapproved of Him. We don't want God in our public schools, in our universities, in our entertainment. The 10 commandments can't even stand in our court houses. The ACLU is threatening lawsuits because a kid wants to pray in school. Because of that He's turned us over to a reprobate mind. He's giving our country what it wants.

It's ridiculous - a woman is pregnant, we know it's a baby. We have technology that shows us it's a baby. But the so called 'educated' say no it's not a baby it's a 'fetus'.

We've got men saying they're women trapped in a man's body. It's a gene problem. Well, I know it's a gene problem - it started with Adam we're all sinners, and you've gotta get re-Gene-erated!

Romans 1:25-26

"...who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever, Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. (27) Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men commiting what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due."

Not only did we as a country reject God, we also rejected truth. Isn't that why we can't tolerate anyone saying Jesus is THE way, THE truth and THE life. They'll only accept He's A way, A truth, and A life, among many others. We as a country accept the lie of Satan. Sinners believe they have a strong desire, the Bible doesn't argue that. But we have a choice, to follow the Creator's design over the desires of our flesh. Our flesh desires sin, it all started with Adam. But we have the power of God to deny the flesh and walk after God's instructions.

So if we don't want the truth God will just give us over, because we have a whole country convinced that they can't change, they have to follow their desires...there's a cultural, Godless drift in our society."

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QUEERLY BELOVED
'Gay' marriage battle goes to kindergarten
Voters worry education mandates may reinforce homosexual agenda

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: July 26, 2008
12:00 am Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

A pamphlet set to be distributed by the California secretary of state warns voters that if they do not pass Proposition 8 in November to constitutionally define marriage between one man and one woman, thay will face an unexpected consequence: children as young as kindergarten will be subject to mandatory teaching on the virtues of homosexual marriage.

Opponents of Proposition 8 are calling the education argument a smokescreen, a scare tactic and a fabrication.

Supporters, however, are saying it addresses a reality Californians will face if voters don't stand up and insist on a constitutional, traditional definition of marriage.

Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, told WND, "New California laws are pushing sex education further and further into younger grades, and school districts that provide sex education are mandated by law to teach children to honor marriage. Without Proposition 8 school children in the younger grades will definitely be taught to honor homosexual marriage between two men or two women as married role models."

Attorney Shannon Minter, who represented same-sex couples in the California Supreme Court case that struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage, told the San Francisco Chronicle, "This is pure fabrication. They are trying to inflame people by making up these falsehoods about kids."

Jennifer Kerns, a spokesperson for a Proposition 8 support coalition called ProtectMarriage.com, however, pointed WND to the specific section of California law mandating instruction on marriage in schools.

"The California Education Code clearly states that schools would be required to provide instruction to children as young as kindergartners that same-sex marriage is the same as traditional marriage," Kerns told WND. "The code specifically states that the legal and financial aspects and responsibilities of marriage must be taught."

The voter guide, written by supporters and opponents of Proposition 8, citing arguments both for and against, will be printed and delivered to California residents' homes, barring any court ordered changes to the final wording, but is posted currently for public inspection before mailing.

The education argument, written by proponents of Proposition 8 in the official voter guide, states, "The narrow decision of the California Supreme Court isn't just about 'live and let live.' In health education classes, state law requires teachers to instruct children as young as kindergarteners about marriage. … If the gay marriage ruling is not overturned TEACHERS WILL BE REQUIRED to teach young children there is no difference between gay marriage and traditional marriage.

"We should not accept a court decision that results in public schools teaching our kids that gay marriage is okay. That is an issue for parents to discuss with their children according to their own values and beliefs. It shouldn't be forced on us against our will" (all emphasis in the original).

The official rebuttal, published in the same voter guide, calls the education argument "scare tactics" and "a smokescreen," arguing that Proposition 8 doesn't have anything to do with education.

According to the Chronicle, opponents of Proposition 8 are now considering whether or not to sue over the issue, the only legal way an official ballot argument can be changed before an election.

As WND reported earlier, supporters of homosexual marriage had sued to block Proposition 8 from being on the ballot at all, but were defeated.

Proposition 8, if passed, would effectively overturn the May 15 California Supreme Court decision striking down the state's ban on same-sex marriage by adding the words "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California" to the state's constitution.

Quote from: grammyluv on July 26, 2008, 09:02:56 PM

This is disgusting and must not be tolerated. Decent people either need to take back their state or leave. I would encourage TAKING BACK THE STATE! There will definitely be a "domino" effect. If California falls to the devil - other states will follow. There is no sense in waiting to draw a line. Let's all fight it NOW, and we can fight it together!

Amen, again, blackeyedpeas!

It's time for the American people to begin fighting their elected officials which we put into office and are totally ignoring the people of the United States. We need to begin taking responsibility for our children, our money and our freedoms! We may lose income, because we'll have to homeschool or send our kids to Christian school, but isn't it all about the kids and God? Our possessions have to take a back seat - we need to wake up and take back our 'One Nation Under God'. It's sin, pure and simple, but out government officials have decided that they're not accountable to our God, they are however following their own god, Satan!

We were watching Chuck Missler, speaking about our accountability. He said this:

"Let me talk about another accountability we have while we're talking about signs of the times. I just re-did our Genesis commentary and I was startled to realise how jealous God is of His role as Creator. As New Testament Christians we tend to focus on Redemption and that's fine. We tend to take for granted His role as Creator. I was startled to realise that there is a specific judgment pronounced on a culture that fails to acknowlege God as Creator.

The Creation itself is adequate testimony to hold him accountable to recognise God as Creator, and there is a specific judgment pronounced on a culture for failing to acknowledge Him as Creator, and that judgment is homosexuality. I've always considered homosexuality a sin, an individual choice. I was startled to realise in Romans 1:20 to the end, that 4 times it emphasizes that because they didn't recognise Him as Creator, God gave them OVER to their lusts. And so as we look at America for example, we have a culture in which anyone with any competence in science can demonstrate that evolution is no longer a viable explanation for our origins. And yet, in spite of that, we inculcate our children with obsolete information in textbooks, etc., to sell this evolutionary concept which is false, and then we wonder why they have no sense of destiny, no sense of commitment, and we have all these bizarre gun shootings in school and so forth.

The point is the decay that we're inheriting, the departure from our roots, results in the condition of our culture. Part of our problem is vocabulary. The homosexuals have pawned off this fraud saying, 'we're gay...'. We can think of about 3 or 4 other descriptors of that way of life, but they've sold this idea that they're gay. There's nothing gay about that lifestyle, it's life shortening.

We have the same problem in our politics. We keep calling our adversaries 'liberals'. There's nothing liberal about them. They are totally intolerant unless you agree with them. They have an agenda, and that agenda is to separate us from our heritage. The term is not 'liberal', that term is 'SUBVERSIVE'. And the tragedy is that there isn't anyone in either party that represents what we used to know as 'Patriotism'. "

‘Harassed for being a Christian': Policeman who objected to gay ribbons takes force to tribunal

By Jonathan Petre
Last updated at 8:58 AM on 20th July 2008

A policeman is taking his force to an employment tribunal, claiming that he has been harassed because of his Christian beliefs.

Constable Graham Cogman says he has been persecuted since he objected to wearing ribbons to mark a gay event.

The controversy echoes the case of Lillian Ladele, the Christian registrar who successfully took on Islington Council in London over her refusal to conduct civil-partnership ceremonies for gay couples.

PC Cogman, who attends his local Church of England church with his family in Sea Palling, North Norfolk, said he had been subject to a series of investigations over complaints that he is homophobic, turning his life into a ‘nightmare’.

The 49-year-old father-of-two, who joined the Norfolk force in 1993 after 12 years in the RAF, insists he loves his job but said: ‘Internal politics are making it difficult to do what we should be doing.’

He added: ‘We get more flak from inside the force than outside these days.

'The blatant support for homosexual rights in Norfolk Police makes being a Christian officer extremely difficult.

‘I am not undertaking this action lightly but I have to make a stand when things become so blatantly biased against me just because I hold a faith.’

The officer – who claimed he enjoyed a good relationship with most of his colleagues and has been commended twice for his police work – said the stress was also affecting his wife Elaine, 46, and his children Natalie, 15, and Ryan, 12.

He blamed a small number of officers for using the police’s internal investigations procedures to intimidate him, and claimed his complaints were sidelined.

PC Cogman was working at the force’s eastern headquarters in Great Yarmouth in early 2006 when gay liaison officers circulated an email encouraging staff to pin a pink ribbon on their uniforms during Gay History Month.

He said the station was ‘bombarded’ with gay posters, information about gay events, including a quiz at a local pub, and pink ribbons.

PC Cogman felt he should be allowed to express an alternative view, so he sent round an email in response, quoting biblical texts suggesting that homosexual sex was
sinful.

He was then accused of failing to show respect and tolerance to fellow officers and barred from using the internal message system.

The following year he again objected by email when officers were urged to wear a rainbow ribbon during Gay History Month.

Replying to the sender of the request and copying it to several other officers, he wrote that it was ‘inappropriate, thoughtless and insensitive’ as the rainbow symbolises God’s faithfulness.

He then sent one of the liaison officers a five-page document about the symbolism, which included a few paragraphs criticising homosexuality.

The officer complained and PC Cogman was called before a full disciplinary hearing, which included an interview with the force’s professional standards department.

During the investigation, he was also accused of victimising another gay liaison officer by saying in her presence: ‘Love the sinner, hate the deed.’

But the only charge he admitted was losing his temper with a third officer in an argument over his disciplinary case.

On the advice of lawyers, who said he could lose his job, he pleaded guilty to a breach of the police code of conduct and received the maximum fine, around £1,200 or 13 days’ pay.

A few months later, he was further questioned after he put a biblical text on his computer screen, reading: ‘Jesus is the light of the world, only the enemy kills, steals and destroys.’

And in April, he was interviewed again about his beliefs after he circulated a link to an American Christian helpline on the internal communication system.

PC Cogman said he was trying to help by offering a counselling service for people struggling with their sexuality which a friend had found useful.

But a diversity adviser from the force’s headquarters in Wymondham said the website connected to the helpline was offensive.

He was also accused of breaching the ban on using the internal communications system, and breaching the force’s tolerance policy by sitting near another officer, who found his views offensive, in an ‘intimidating manner’.

Mr Cogman now faces another full disciplinary hearing and says he fears losing his job.

In his claim to the tribunal, being prepared by barrister Paul Diamond – who defended Nadia Eweida after she was suspended by British Airways for wearing a cross – he will argue that the police force, locally and nationally, has become obsessed with inclusiveness to the detriment of those who adhere to Christian beliefs.

But a spokesman for Norfolk Police said: ‘We welcome people of all beliefs and races into the workforce and fully respect everyone’s views.

'However, the force will not tolerate any form of homophobic behaviour.

'While we fully respect the officer has strong beliefs, it is only correct that he respects the beliefs and wishes of others.’

‘Harassed for being a Christian': Policeman who objected to gay ribbons takes force to tribunal (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1036577/8216-Harassed-Christian-Policeman-objected-gay-ribbons-takes-force-tribunal.html)

TV rabbit preaching hatred and telling young Muslims to 'kill and eat Jews'

By Daily Mail Reporter
23rd July 2008

An Islamic TV station using a Bugs Bunny lookalike to preach hatred to children has been slammed by religious leaders in the UK who fear it could brainwash vulnerable British children.

Assud the rabbit, who vows to 'kill and eat Jews' and glorifies the maiming of 'infidels' appears on Palestinian children's show, Tomorrow's Pioneers.

The rabbit is a number of characters who is punished by viewer's vote when he breaches Sharia law.

In one episode, Assud admits stealing money and is seen begging for mercy after young viewers and parents phone in demanding his hands are cut off as punishment.

At that point the 11-year-old presenter intervenes - and rules that the bunny should only have his ears severed because he has repented.

The rabbit is played by an actor in fancy dress and is one of the main characters on the show broadcast in Gaza by the al-Aqsa channel - known as Hamas TV.

Religious leaders across the UK have today spoken out against the controversial show which can be viewed via satellite.

The programme is also easily viewed on internet sites such as YouTube, sparking fears that British children could be subjected to the radical Islamic message.

The Association of Muslim Schools, which represents the UK's 143 Muslim schools, said it was opposed to any shows that incite violence.

Spokesman Dr Mohamed Mukadam said: 'It goes without saying that any programme which promotes the killing or injuring of human beings is wrong.

'Regardless of religion, shows that incite or inspire others to inflict violence of any kind should be condemned.

'Such shows are against the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, and we would urge people of all ages not to watch them.'

Set up as a regional station prior to the Palestinian elections in January 2006, al-Aqsa TV now airs on a satellite slot.

It broadcasts what many call a mixture of news of Islamic propaganda, but has picked up a substantial following across the Arabic-speaking world.

Tomorrow's Pioneers was first aired in April 2007, and features young host Saraa Barhoum and her co-host, a large costumed animal.

The show originally featured a Mickey Mouse-style character called Farfur who urged children to fight against the Jewish community and form a world Islamic state.

Farfur was later replaced by a bumble bee called Nahoul, who told viewers to 'follow the path of Islam, of martyrdom and of the Mujahideen'.

He was 'martyred' earlier this year and replaced by Assud, who tells children in his first episode: 'I, Assud, will get rid of the jews, Allah willing, and I will eat them up.'

In a discussion with 11-year-old host Saraa Barhoum, the young viewers are referred to as 'soldiers'.

Assud asks Saraa: 'We are all martyrdom-seekers, are we not?'.

To which she replies: 'Yes, we are all ready to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of our homeland.'

The phone-in show accepts calls from children as young as nine on topics about life in Palestine.

During one show broadcast in February, Assud vows to kill and eat all Danish people over the cartoon images of the Prophet Muhammad which appeared in a newspaper.

He also pledges to assassinate the illustrator and Saraa also agrees that she would martyr herself for the cause of Palestine.

Saraa, who has seven brothers and sisters, was invited to host the show after entering a singing competition.

But speaking last year, she defended the programme - and insisted it was not responsible for spreading extremism.

She said: 'We are not terrorists. We do not support terrorism. We are normal people, but we are defending our homeland.

'The Israelis hit next door to my house with a shell. I was wounded on my feet and my little brother Youssef was wounded in the legs.

'We, as Muslims, are against suicide bombers. We are against the death of civilians on all sides. We are only the enemy of those who took our land and kill us every day.'

The show is regularly translated and posted online by The Middle East Media Research Institute, an independent media monitoring group based in the United States.

Al-Aqsa was today was unavailable for comment.

TV rabbit preaching hatred and telling young Muslims to 'kill and eat Jews' (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1037512/Pictured-The-TV-rabbit-preaching-hatred-telling-young-Muslims-kill-eat-Jews.html)

Quote from: grammyluv on July 27, 2008, 09:48:46 PM

You are so right. As I read this it made wonder if BEP ever had any problems? Maybe he will comment.
I know that when I worked at Microsoft I wasn't allowed to talk about the Lord, but I we had to have "gay pride" posters hung all over the place once a year!

Hello Grammyluv,

I was very fortunate to serve 25 years on a police department that was nearly all Christian. I only experienced a few problems in that 25 years in determination to remain true to my convictions. Overall, Christian conduct was the norm on my department. We did have rules that we had to follow if we wanted to pray or do other Christian activities on duty, but they were nothing but common sense. Others had to be given a cordial opportunity to leave or otherwise not participate. All of the shifts had prayer before the briefings that started the day, and prayer was common before dangerous assignments. I don't remember anyone not wanting to participate. Further, there was never any attempted promotion or defense of anything immoral, including alternative lifestyles.

Sister, we had all of the rules that are common for public employment, and those rules included just about everything - including the kitchen sink. We just didn't have those problems. The worst I can remember happening is someone getting in trouble for telling some improper jokes in the presence of some women clerks. At least one was offended and complained. The officer was WRONG and did receive disciplinary action. However, this was just common sense, and the officer should have known better. We also had heavy rules about discrimination or mistreatment of minorities in hiring or on the street. We also did not have this problem during this 25 years in my opinion. We had a nice mix of races and gender on the department, and we all worked well together. We did have some suits filed regarding false arrest and discrimination, but this is common on all departments whether they do anything wrong or not. Some were even filed in Federal Court, but all of them that I know about were dismissed. As a Watch Commander, I was involved in the investigation of many complaints about race. Most of them were nothing more than pitiful attempts for a criminal to get even over the arrest. Quite a few of those years involved videos of the incident that we regularly captured from our cars and in the jail. They showed the complainer to be a cheap liar. NO - they were not like the rare few that have been shown on television. Our practice and policy was to take no further action against the obvious liar. The thinking was that action against liars might discourage persons having REAL complaints. Our policies and procedures were much stronger than the law, so the vast majority of all disciplinary actions didn't involve a violation of rights or the law at all - rather a violation of department policy and procedure. The very few I remember being a violation of rights or the law resulted in firing and prosecution. Let me give you an example. Lying during an internal investigation was a firing offense, and it didn't matter how minor the original offense was (i.e. unauthorized coffee break, 10 minutes late for duty). Lying involves a matter of trust. If a person will lie on something minor, they will certainly lie on something major. SO, the person was fired because they could no longer be trusted, and I agree 100% with this practice. Police Officers must be trusted with life and death issues every single day. They are worthless if they can't be trusted. I'll just give thanks that I served on a professional and Christian department. We did have some bad apples, and they were dealt with harshly, so please don't think that I was trying to paint my department as anywhere near perfect. If you can't tell, I'm proud of my department, and I give thanks that I was able to serve with some outstanding officers. It's a hard way to earn a living, but I would gladly do it all again.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Favorite Bible Quotes 203 - Isaiah 54:17 No weapon that is formed
against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against
thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the
servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the
LORD.

Mass. House votes to let out-of-state homosexuals 'marry'
Associated Press - 7/30/2008 6:30:00 AM

BOSTON - The Massachusetts House voted Tuesday to repeal a 1913 law that had been used to block same-sex "marriages" involving out-of-state couples, all but assuring that the state will allow those couples to wed regardless of where they live. The 119-36 vote came after the state Senate approved the repeal earlier this month, and Gov. Deval Patrick has said he will sign the bill. The measure requires one more procedural vote in each chamber before it is sent to the governor.

"Sometimes what you hope and pray for actually happens, which is kind of overwhelming," Michael Thorne, 55, of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, said after telling his 6-year-old son his parents could soon get married. Thorne and his partner of 25 years, James Theberge, have an Aug. 18 wedding planned in Provincetown, although the repeal will not take effect until 90 days after Patrick's signature.

Opponents recoiled at the outcome. "With that protective barrier removed, out-of-state same-sex couples who marry here will sue to seek recognition in their home states, creating a flood of costly lawsuits and further eroding the people's right to define marriage democratically," the Massachusetts Family Institute said in a statement.

Massachusetts became the first state to allow gay marriage in 2004, but then-Gov. Mitt Romney ordered city and town clerks to enforce the long-dormant 1913 law to bar out-of-state same-sex couples from marrying. The law prohibits couples from marrying if the unions would be illegal in their home states. Romney had argued that repealing the ban would turn the state into the "Las Vegas of gay marriage." Since then, California has begun allowing same-sex marriages to both residents and out-of-state couples.

Some proponents say that repealing the law would allow Massachusetts to share in some of the economic boon California is enjoying. Patrick, the state's first black governor, and other supporters also say the old law carried racial undertones from a time when interracial marriage was discouraged or illegal in some states. "The 1913 law is outdated and discriminatory. Repealing it is the right thing to do," Patrick said in a statement after the vote. But Kris Mineau of the Massachusetts Family Institute claims race was not a factor in that law. "Massachusetts legislators voted to abolish a ban on interracial marriage in 1843 -- a full 70 years before the 1913 law was written," he points out.

Opponents said the reasons behind the 1913 law are unclear, and repealing the ban amounted to meddling in the affairs of other states.

Rep. John Lepper, R-Attleboro, said sanctioning a marriage that is illegal elsewhere would "create a relationship and then set it adrift to settle in a disapproving state." He spoke of a homosexual couple from Rhode Island that married in Massachusetts and now is seeking a divorce, saying it was typical of the "legal nightmare" a repeal would create. "They can't divorce in Rhode Island because the law does not recognize [the marriage]," Lepper said. "They can't divorce in Massachusetts because there is a one-year residency requirement for filing."

The repeal effort passed after a relatively quick, 40-minute House debate free of the massive protests that accompanied other homosexual marriage debates in the state. Only seven legislators spoke on the issue, four in favor of the repeal, three who wanted to maintain the ban.

Rep. Byron Rushing, D-Boston, said continuing to ban out-of-state homosexuals from marrying was unfair after the state's highest court ruled in 2003 that homosexual couples have a constitutional right to be married. "This is question of fairness, and it is a question of equity," Rushing said.

Rushing said the 1913 law undoubtedly has not been applied in many cases of marriages by first cousins. Massachusetts allows first cousins to marry, but half the states in the country do not. "The fairness in this question is that we have allowed people to marry in Massachusetts who could not legally marry in their own state for decades, and now we want to change our way we are applying a bit of law we have never enforced. That, I think, is unfair," Rushing said.

Emerging Church leader promotes lifestyle rather than faith

A Christian broadcaster claims that Emerging Church leader Brian McLaren is fulfilling the biblical prophecy that in the latter days men will not put up with sound doctrine – according to II Timothy 4:3.

Brian McLaren recently addressed 650 Anglican bishops attending the Lambeth Conference, a meeting he says was characterized by "a loving atmosphere" and "a deep spirituality centered in Bible study, worship, and prayer." McLaren tells ChristianToday.com that he envisions a new era for Christianity, which "is more about the Christian way of life than it is about a rigid and polemicized systems of belief."

Tom McMahon, president of the The Berean Call ministry, says McLaren is obviously ashamed of the biblical gospel and is bent upon making it accommodate his own ideas about Christianity and "the Christian way of life."

"Once you throw off biblical doctrine, what do you have to guide you? This is to me a reflection of what Satan did with Eve in the Garden – this is Genesis 3:1, 'Yea, hath God said?' In other words, if you undermine what God had said, then what have you got?" he questions. "Well, you've got Proverbs 14:12, 'There's a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death' -- or destruction."

McLaren also tells ChristianityToday.com the future of Christianity will also require Christians to "join humbly and charitably with people of other faiths -- Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, secularists and others -- in pursuit of peace, environmental stewardship," and other things that quote "matter greatly to the heart of God." But McMahon argues that what matters most to the heart of God is that individuals receive salvation on "his terms...through his gospel."

"And that's what people of the world, people of faith desperately need," the ministry leader concludes.

McLaren has joined the Matthew 25 Network, a liberal political action group of Catholics, Protestants, Pentecostals and Evangelicals seeking to get Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois) elected president.

Christian-Muslim Statement Among First Fruits of 'Common Word' Gathering

Following a four-day conference, Christian and Muslim leaders from around the world announced the first fruits of the "Common Word" exchange through a joint statement that affirmed their support for religious freedom and further interfaith dialogue based on their common love for God and neighbor.

Sun, Aug. 03, 2008 Posted: 10:23 AM EDT

Following a four-day conference, Christian and Muslim leaders from around the world announced the first fruits of the "Common Word" exchange through a joint statement that affirmed their support for religious freedom and further interfaith dialogue based on their common love for God and neighbor.

During the "Loving God and Neighbor" meeting at Yale University, the high-profile leaders discussed how Christians and Muslims might work together to address world poverty, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the situation in Palestine and Israel, the dangers of further wars, and the freedom of religion.

On Thursday, over 140 conference participants unanimously approved a cooperative statement that signaled a new beginning of collaboration between Christians and Muslims where stronger assertions of faith would be not just be allowed but required.

Leith Anderson, president of National Association of Evangelicals and Geoff Tunnicliffe, international director of the World Evangelical Alliance were among top evangelical leaders at the July 28-31 conference who agreed to sign the document.

The statement began by affirming the "unity and absoluteness of God" and God's merciful love as central to both religions.

The most weight was placed on the second paragraph in which religious leaders affirmed a mutual respect for each other's faith.

"We recognize that all human beings have the right to the preservation of life, religion, property, intellect, and dignity. No Muslim or Christian should deny the other these rights, nor should they tolerate the denigration or desecration of one another's sacred symbols, founding figures, or places of worship," declared the statement, read by Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan at a news conference Thursday.

The statement also denounced a death threat by Al Qaeda last week against Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah for hosting an interfaith conference this month in Madrid.

The leaders agreed to "denounce and deplore threats made against those who engage in interfaith dialogue."

"Dialogue is not a departure from faith," the statement affirmed. "It is a legitimate means of expression and an essential tool in the quest for the common good."

Additionally, conference participants also planned for a week every year when Muslim and Christian clergy would preach to their congregations the good aspect about the other's faith. Other practical steps to promote understanding between the two faiths included a website with notable Christian and Muslim books and a study guide with frequently asked questions about the two faiths.

The recent four-day gathering stemmed from a letter, titled "A Common Word Between Us and You," issued by 138 Muslim clerics last October calling for sincere dialogue between Muslims and Christians. In November, Christians responded with a statement that agreed to work with Muslims on pressing issues based on their common principles of love for God and neighbor. Over 500 Christian leaders endorsed statement issued by the Yale Center for Faith and Culture.

Some evangelical theologians and Christian leaders had criticized the Christian letter, saying it didn't assert the correct Christian view of God as the trinity.

But as the conference panel discussions would reveal, no one backed away from the core assertions of their faith as they engaged in highly academic and often theological conversations on topics that ranged from God's love to world poverty.

In an opinion piece, Dr. H.A. Hellyer, a consultant in West-Muslim relations, welcomed the "strong evangelical component" at the meeting.

"These were religious people; they weren’t interested in diluting their faiths," he wrote in a commentary published Saturday by The National, a newspaper based in the United Arab Emirates. "And in that, a type of sincerity emerged that was perhaps the greatest benefit of the initiative."

Professor Miroslav Volf, a leading organizer of the conference who also heads the Center for Faith and Culture, said during the news conference that the most important learning between the two communities took place over "coffee, tea and meal conversations."

WEA leader Tunnicliffe, who represents some 420 million evangelicals worldwide, invited Muslim leaders to take their bridge-building initiative one step further by learning more about evangelicals.

"Muslims feel they have been stereotyped and stigmatized in the media. As evangelical Christians we feel the same stereotyping," he said during closing remarks Thursday.

"We are a diverse community of Christians yet we are often portrayed through the media as being tied to one political agenda, one view of eschatology, and intolerant of all others," shared Tunnicliffe.

He said evangelicals share a "commitment to some core biblical truths" but hold a "diversity of views on many issues."

"Just as we promise to seek to move beyond the stereotyping of Muslims found in the media, can I ask you, my Muslim friends, to get to know us beyond what is reported in the newspapers and television programs? If we are going to continue to build this new bridge this must be a part of the architecture."

The "Common Word" conference was the first of a series of conferences to take place in the fall and next year that will center on promoting peace and understanding between the Abrahamic faiths. Future conferences are scheduled in October at Cambridge University, November at the Vatican, March 2009 at Georgetown University, and October 2009 at Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute in Jordan.

Christian-Muslim Statement Among First Fruits of 'Common Word' Gathering (http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080803/christian-muslim-statement-among-first-fruits-of-common-word-gathering.htm)

Loving God and Neighbor Together:
A Christian Response to A Common Word Between Us and You

Preamble

As members of the worldwide Christian community, we were deeply encouraged and challenged by the recent historic open letter signed by 138 leading Muslim scholars, clerics, and intellectuals from around the world. A Common Word Between Us and You identifies some core common ground between Christianity and Islam which lies at the heart of our respective faiths as well as at the heart of the most ancient Abrahamic faith, Judaism. Jesus Christ's call to love God and neighbor was rooted in the divine revelation to the people of Israel embodied in the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18 ). We receive the open letter as a Muslim hand of conviviality and cooperation extended to Christians world-wide. In this response we extend our own Christian hand in return, so that together with all other human beings we may live in peace and justice as we seek to love God and our neighbors.

Muslims and Christians have not always shaken hands in friendship; their relations have sometimes been tense, even characterized by outright hostility. Since Jesus Christ says, "First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye" (Matthew 7:5), we want to begin by acknowledging that in the past (e.g. in the Crusades) and in the present (e.g. in excesses of the "war on terror") many Christians have been guilty of sinning against our Muslim neighbors. Before we "shake your hand" in responding to your letter, we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community around the world.

Religious Peace—World Peace

"Muslims and Christians together make up well over half of the world's population. Without peace and justice between these two religious communities, there can be no meaningful peace in the world." We share the sentiment of the Muslim signatories expressed in these opening lines of their open letter. Peaceful relations between Muslims and Christians stand as one of the central challenges of this century, and perhaps of the whole present epoch. Though tensions, conflicts, and even wars in which Christians and Muslims stand against each other are not primarily religious in character, they possess an undeniable religious dimension. If we can achieve religious peace between these two religious communities, peace in the world will clearly be easier to attain. It is therefore no exaggeration to say, as you have in A Common Word Between Us and You , that "the future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians."

Common Ground

What is so extraordinary about A Common Word Between Us and You is not that its signatories recognize the critical character of the present moment in relations between Muslims and Christians. It is rather a deep insight and courage with which they have identified the common ground between the Muslim and Christian religious communities. What is common between us lies not in something marginal nor in something merely important to each. It lies, rather, in something absolutely central to both: love of God and love of neighbor. Surprisingly for many Christians, your letter considers the dual command of love to be the foundational principle not just of the Christian faith, but of Islam as well. That so much common ground exists—common ground in some of the fundamentals of faith—gives hope that undeniable differences and even the very real external pressures that bear down upon us can not overshadow the common ground upon which we stand together. That this common ground consists in love of God and of neighbor gives hope that deep cooperation between us can be a hallmark of the relations between our two communities.

Love of God

We applaud that A Common Word Between Us and You stresses so insistently the unique devotion to one God, indeed the love of God, as the primary duty of every believer. God alone rightly commands our ultimate allegiance. When anyone or anything besides God commands our ultimate allegiance— a ruler, a nation, economic progress, or anything else—we end up serving idols and inevitably get mired in deep and deadly conflicts.

We find it equally heartening that the God whom we should love above all things is described as being Love. In the Muslim tradition, God, "the Lord of the worlds," is "The Infinitely Good and All-Merciful." And the New Testament states clearly that "God is love" (1 John 4:8). Since God's goodness is infinite and not bound by anything, God "makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous," according to the words of Jesus Christ recorded in the Gospel (Matthew 5:45 ).

For Christians, humanity's love of God and God's love of humanity are intimately linked. As we read in the New Testament: "We love because he [God] first loved us" (1 John 4:19 ). Our love of God springs from and is nourished by God's love for us. It cannot be otherwise, since the Creator who has power over all things is infinitely good.

Love of Neighbor

We find deep affinities with our own Christian faith when A Common Word Between Us and You insists that love is the pinnacle of our duties toward our neighbors. "None of you has faith until you love for your neighbor what you love for yourself," the Prophet Muhammad said. In the New Testament we similarly read, "whoever does not love [the neighbor] does not know God" (1 John 4:8) and "whoever does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen" (1 John 4:20 ). God is love, and our highest calling as human beings is to imitate the One whom we worship.

We applaud when you state that "justice and freedom of religion are a crucial part" of the love of neighbor. When justice is lacking, neither love of God nor love of the neighbor can be present. When freedom to worship God according to one's conscience is curtailed, God is dishonored, the neighbor oppressed, and neither God nor neighbor is loved.

cont'd next post

Since Muslims seek to love their Christian neighbors, they are not against them, the document encouragingly states. Instead, Muslims are with them. As Christians we resonate deeply with this sentiment. Our faith teaches that we must be with our neighbors—indeed, that we must act in their favor—even when our neighbors turn out to be our enemies. "But I say unto you," says Jesus Christ, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good" (Matthew 5:44-45). Our love, Jesus Christ says, must imitate the love of the infinitely good Creator; our love must be as unconditional as is God's—extending to brothers, sisters, neighbors, and even enemies. At the end of his life, Jesus Christ himself prayed for his enemies: "Forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34 ).

The Prophet Muhammad did similarly when he was violently rejected and stoned by the people of Ta'if. He is known to have said, "The most virtuous behavior is to engage those who sever relations, to give to those who withhold from you, and to forgive those who wrong you." (It is perhaps significant that after the Prophet Muhammad was driven out of Ta'if, it was the Christian slave ‘Addas who went out to Muhammad, brought him food, kissed him, and embraced him.)

The Task Before Us

"Let this common ground"—the dual common ground of love of God and of neighbor—"be the basis of all future interfaith dialogue between us," your courageous letter urges. Indeed, in the generosity with which the letter is written you embody what you call for. We most heartily agree. Abandoning all "hatred and strife," we must engage in interfaith dialogue as those who seek each other's good, for the one God unceasingly seeks our good. Indeed, together with you we believe that we need to move beyond "a polite ecumenical dialogue between selected religious leaders" and work diligently together to reshape relations between our communities and our nations so that they genuinely reflect our common love for God and for one another.

Given the deep fissures in the relations between Christians and Muslims today, the task before us is daunting. And the stakes are great. The future of the world depends on our ability as Christians and Muslims to live together in peace. If we fail to make every effort to make peace and come together in harmony you correctly remind us that "our eternal souls" are at stake as well.

We are persuaded that our next step should be for our leaders at every level to meet together and begin the earnest work of determining how God would have us fulfill the requirement that we love God and one another. It is with humility and hope that we receive your generous letter, and we commit ourselves to labor together in heart, soul, mind and strength for the objectives you so appropriately propose.

Harold W. Attridge, Dean and Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament, Yale Divinity School

Miroslav Volf , Founder and Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology, Yale University

Joseph Cumming , Director of the Reconciliation Program, Yale Center for Faith and Culture

Emilie M. Townes , Andrew Mellon Professor of African American Religion and Theology and president-elect of the American Academy of Religion

Signatories to Loving God and Neighbor Together: A Christian Response to A Common Word between Us and You

Harold W. Attridge, Dean and Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament, Yale Divinity School

Miroslav Volf , Founder and Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology, Yale University

Emilie M. Townes, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African American Religion and Theology, Yale Divinity School, President-elect of the American Academy of Religion.

Joseph Cumming , Director of the Reconciliation Program, Yale Center for Faith and Culture

Iain Torrance , President, Princeton Theological Seminary

William A. Graham , Dean, Harvard Divinity School

Robert R. Wilson , Hoober Professor of Religious Studies, Yale University

Frederick J. Streets , The Carl and Dorothy Bennett Professor in Pastoral Counseling, The Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University; Adjunct Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology, Yale Divinity School, Former Yale University Chaplain

Kathleen E. McVey , J. Ross Stevenson Professor of Early and Eastern Church History, Princeton Theological Seminary

Kristen Leslie , Associate Professor of Pastoral Care, Yale Divinity School

Loving God and Neighbor Together: A Christian Response to A Common Word Between Us and You (http://www.yale.edu/divinity/news/071016_news_loving.shtml)

Troopers Run Amok, Conduct Mass Arrest of Pro-lifers In Maryland

Bel Air, MD – Eighteen pro-lifers participating in the Maryland Face the Truth Tour were arrested without warning by Hartford County State Troopers in the city of Bel Air, Maryland on Friday, August 1, 2008.

It was during the last tour stop of the week-long event, sponsored by Defend Life. when a State Trooper named Bradley approached the group and told them to move and put away their signs or they would be arrested. In an effort to comply, group leader Jack Ames gathered the group and moved down the road, into the city limits of Bel Air, Maryland.

The group stood peacefully on public property and did not “march” into the street as one news organization erroneously reported. Without warning, an estimated twenty patrol cars arrived on the scene and began arresting pro-life participants without a word. Those arrested were not told what they were being charged with, nor were they read their rights.

One of the women who participated in the tour overheard a police radio conversation where an unknown person told the troopers to make the arrests and that they would “figure out later” what charges would be filed.

At least two people suffered medical problems after having to sit for over a half hour with metal handcuffs that were too tight.

Two minors in the group were soon released, but the adults were held overnight. The men and women were held in two separate cells, but could hear each other. They passed the hours joining together in singing Christian hymns. The last of the pro-lifers were released on Saturday, August 2, at about 10:45 AM.

The group was eventually charged with loitering, failure to obey a lawful order, and disorderly conduct.

“There was some question about whether or not the group had a ‘demonstration permit.’ Are law enforcement officers now imitating the oppressive tactics that are used in Beijing or Tehran? The First Amendment of the Constitution is demonstration permit enough,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, who had participated in the Maryland tour earlier in the week. “This is an open and shut case of officers who ran amok, and trampled upon the constitutional rights of their victims. Hartford County can expect to have to answer for these civil rights violations in court.”

Troopers Run Amok, Conduct Mass Arrest of Pro-lifers In Maryland (http://www.operationrescue.org/?p=1006)

State senator sues God
Lawmaker asks court to ban Almighty from 'harmful activities,' 'terroristic threats'
Posted: August 05, 2008
9:12 pm Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

A Nebraska state senator is moving forward with his controversial lawsuit against his maker, requesting "a permanent injunction ordering [God] to cease certain harmful activities and the making of terroristic threats."

State Sen. Ernie Chambers, I-Omaha, appeared before Douglas County District Judge Marlon Polk in a scheduling hearing against God on July 28.

Chambers, an atheist, requested that the court acknowledge the presence of God in the courtroom so he wouldn't be required to "serve notice" of the trial, according to the Omaha World-Herald.

The court had previously told Chambers the lawsuit would be thrown out if he was unable to serve notice to his Creator.

Chambers responded by arguing that he attempted to contact God on multiple occasions and that he should not be required to verify His existence when the U.S. government acknowledges Him by printing "In God We Trust" on its currency.

The complaint drew widespread criticism when Chambers filed the lawsuit against God last year for creating "fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects and the like."

Chambers also blames God for causing "calamitous catastrophes resulting in the wide-spread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants including innocent babes, infants, children, the aged and infirm without mercy or distinction."

According to the lawsuit, the Creator "has manifested neither compassion nor remorse, proclaiming that defendant will laugh" when disaster strikes.

Chamber began his grievance as a way to call attention to "frivolous" lawsuits after several senators authored bills barring them. He said the Constitution mandates open courthouse doors to everyone – even those who seek to sue the Almighty.

"This started out as an exercise in the workings of the judiciary," he said. "My point and the crux of the matter is that everyone is entitled to their day in court. That's the whole crux of the matter, and I think people get caught up in the religion end of it – but that's not what this is about."

While Chambers hopes the court will rule against God, he doesn't expect any earth-shaking results from the decision.

"Once the court enters the injunction, that's as much as I can do," he told the World-Herald. "That's as much as I would ask the court. I wouldn't expect them to enforce it."

Quote from: DreamWeaver on August 06, 2008, 01:49:52 AM

I think this is ridiculous and at the very least disrespectful to GOD. Mankind started out in the beautiful and perfect Eden, but mankind was kicked out for good reason. SO, here's an atheist mocking GOD in a courtroom, and he's also making a fool out of himself at the same time. This is about right for the times, but I would try to vote this clown out of office if he was my Senator. I give thanks that he isn't my Senator.

Foremost UK gay activist admits there is no gay gene

One of the untouchable dogmas of the homosexualist movement is the assertion of the existence of a "gay gene", or a genetic marker that causes same-sex attraction. The assertion of a genetic factor in homosexual preference has never been demonstrated by scientists and now at least one prominent campaigner in the British homosexualist movement has admitted this fact, reports Hilary White, LifeSiteNews.com.

Peter Tatchell, an Australian-born British homosexual activist who founded the "direct action" group OutRage! that specialises in media stunts such as disrupting Christian religious services, wrote on Spiked Online that he agrees with the scientific consensus that there is no such thing as a "gay gene."

Contrary to the findings of some researchers who have tried to posit a purely genetic origin for same-sex attractions, Tatchell wrote, "Genes and hormones may predispose a person to one sexuality rather than another. But that's all. Predisposition and determination are two different things."

Homosexual activists have adopted the "gay gene" theory to bolster their assertion that any objection on moral grounds to homosexual activity is akin to objecting to left-handedness or skin colour. It has supported the accusation that Christians and others who object to the homosexual movement are racists and bigots.

Tatchell even went as far as to acknowledge the existence of some who have changed their "sexual orientation." "If heterosexuality and homosexuality are, indeed, genetically predetermined... how do we explain bisexuality or people who, suddenly in mid-life, switch from heterosexuality to homosexuality (or vice versa)? We can't."

Sexuality, he wrote, is "far more ambiguous, blurred and overlapping than any theory of genetic causality can allow."

"Examples of sexual flexibility... don't square with genetic theories of rigid erotic predestination."

Bill Muehlenberg, a Christian writer and philosophy lecturer, called Tatchell's admission a rare and "refreshing" and "very revealing case of homosexual honesty." Muehlenberg said that he has been "howled down" by homosexual lobbyists for years for saying the same things about putative homosexual determinism. Whoever is saying it, he wrote, the conclusion must be the debunking of the myth that homosexuals are "born that way" and cannot help, or change, their inclinations.

The "gay gene" theory has been used by gay activists "to deny choice, to make it appear that homosexuals cannot help it, and to argue that any criticism of the gay lifestyle is as silly as criticism of being left-handed or red-haired."

"And this has been a deliberate strategy by homosexual activists. They have done a very good job to convince a gullible public that homosexuals are born that way and cannot change."

California Legislature Approves 'Gay Day' in Public Schools

Democrats send AB 2567 to Governor Schwarzenegger

Campaign for Children and Families

SACRAMENTO, Aug. 7 /Christian Newswire/ -- Campaign for Children and Families (CCF), a leading California organization protecting parents' rights and children's innocence, condemns the passage of AB 2567, which will instruct all California public schools to "conduct suitable commemorative exercises" in support of the anti-religious, sexual-anarchy agenda of the late San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk.

Today, the California Assembly passed AB 2567 on a 43 to 26 vote, Democrats for, Republicans silently against. Earlier this week, AB 2567 passed the California State Senate on a 22-13 vote, Democrats for, Republicans against. AB 2567 now goes to Governor Schwarzenegger, whose position is unknown.

"If signed into law, AB 2567 will mean an official day commemorating homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality in California government schools," said CCF President Randy Thomasson. "This will harm children as young kindergarten. Every May 22, AB 2567 will positively portray to children homosexual experimentation, homosexual 'marriages,' sex-change operations, and anything else that's 'in the closet.' Governor Schwarzenegger should say no to this very inappropriate bill, which has nothing to do with academic excellence."

AB 2567 comes on the heels of last year's school sexual indoctrination laws. When fully implemented, SB 777 and AB 394 will teach children in California government schools to support homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality via instructional materials, programs and activities, and school "safety" guidelines. In addition, the California State School Board this year implemented SB 71, requiring public schools that provide sex education to promote unmarried sexual activity with no restraints other than mutual consent.

"AB 2567 will further motivate parents to remove their children from the immoral public school system," said Thomasson. "We're encouraging parents to visit RescueYourChild.org to learn how to save their children while they still can. With public schools becoming sexual indoctrination centers, homeschooling and church schools are no longer parental options, they're parental imperatives."

California Legislature Approves 'Gay Day' in Public Schools (http://www.earnedmedia.org/ccf0807.htm)

Nude Dance at Club by Underage Girl ruled "Artistic" 1st Amendment Expression

By Hilary White

HAMBURG, Iowa, August 7, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Nude dancing in strip clubs is "artistic" even when performed by an under age girl, according to an Iowa judge in a ruling issued late last month. Fremont County Judge Timothy O'Grady called the strip club a "theatre" and agreed with the club owner who argued that the state's indecency law does not apply to "theater, concert hall, art center, museum, or similar establishments."

Hamburg, Iowa, a town of 1,200 just across the Missouri River from Nebraska, has one strip club. After the 17-year-old niece of the local Sherriff, Steven MacDonald, did a nude dance at the club, the owner, Clarence Judy, was charged with violating Iowa's public indecent exposure law.

In a one-day trial on July 17, Judy's lawyer said, "Dance has been considered one of the arts, as is sculpture, painting and anything else like that. What Clarence has is a club where people can come and perform."

Fremont County Attorney Margaret Johnson responded that the case was straightforward: an underage girl danced naked at the club, which is illegal.

"Are you saying that minors can't be protected? Can a group of 12-year-olds come down and go in and dance nude and it's OK? I don't think that's what the Legislature had in mind when it made those additional provisions," Johnson said.

The judge ruled, however, that prosecutors failed to prove that the strip club does not qualify as a theatre.

"Given the First Amendment implications of a statute that may limit expression, it is not the role of the Court to judge the taste or quality of the art represented at Shotgun Geniez when determining whether or not it is a theater," he said.

The club has a "raised stage with specialized lighting" and "chairs and tables arranged for patrons to observe the stage presentations," as well as "a separate dressing area" for "performers."

"Shotgun Geniez is a facility for presentation of stage performances, and meets the definition of theatre," he said.

This recent ruling serves as further evidence of the increasing mainstream acceptance of sexual "dancing." Indeed, it is no longer unusual to find ads on the internet, in newspapers and magazines in Britain and North America offering lessons in lewd sexual dancing for housewives and young working women as an alternative to fitness classes.

Dance studios that offer classes in Tango, wedding and ballroom dancing now routinely offer pole dancing and strip dancing classes. A dance studio in Las Vegas advertises its pole dancing classes saying, "Strip away your inhibitions to a whole new FIT you! Learn new exotic dance moves on the floor to work up an incredible sweat and top it off with basic pole movements, tricks, and combinations for a work out you'll have fun with."

Nude Dance at Club by Underage Girl ruled "Artistic" 1st Amendment Expression (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08080705.html)

San Francisco fest features public sex with no arrests
'This is what the gay agenda is all about'
Posted: August 07, 2008
12:35 am Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Nude men engaged in multiple instances of public sex on a municipal street while police officers, on foot and bicycle, congregated nearby making no attempt to enforce public indecency regulations, according to a report on the latest homosexual-fest in San Francisco.

The behavior was documented in photographs of an event called "Up Your Alley," which is sponsored by the same group that organizes the city's fall "gay"-fest, the Folsom Street Fair, on which WND has reported.

"Consider how liberal government authorities like Mayor [Gavin] Newsom have corrupted the men in blue by stipulating that police not prosecute public nudity and indecency at homosexual festivals," said a report from Americans for Truth on the graphic activities documented at the event.

"What honor can there be in protecting the public practice of heinous perversions and nudity in the city's streets? The shame of pandering politicians is transferred to the cops who were intended to be guardians of the law and public order," said the organizer's chief, Peter LaBarbera.

(Story continues below)

His organization is one of the few in the country to call officials from San Francisco on the issue of the obscene behavior, including public acts of sex, documented during the festival in late July.

Americans for Truth previously worked to raise the nation's awareness of the Folsom Street Fair, which last fall broke into the headlines with its promotional image mocking the Last Supper scene of Jesus Christ and his disciples, replacing the biblical leaders with leather-adorned men and the bread and wine with sex toys.

LaBarbera, who had to edit photos to conceal full nudity in images from the public street festival before he could post them as part of his report, said there were exhibitionists who "walked around baring their genitals, with no fear of being arrested." Other websites, to which WND is unable to link because of their graphic content, published fully explicit photographs of various public acts of sex and nudity. They featured explicit photographs of oral and anal sex between men and men urinating on each other, among other activities.

The Americans for Truth report follows the July 27 event, "one of the city's two open-air celebrations of sadomasochism (euphemistically called the 'leather' lifestyle by practitioners)," AFT said. "It is telling to us that the same city whose mayor, Gavin Newsom (D), ignited the 'same-sex marriage' crusade in California by illegally issuing 'gay marriage' licenses – openly tolerates and celebrates gross perversions, nudity and sexual lawlessness on its streets."

The images captured in the photos were described by one WND reader as "vomit-inducing."

"This is what the gay agenda is all about," the reader said. "I'll go even further and call [the images] depraved and disgusting.

"Remember, this is on the public streets of San Francisco," the reader said.

"These photos do not fit in with the slick, national 'gay' marketing plan, to be sure," LaBarbera wrote. "Nevertheless, the pathetic and debased spectacle is as much an offspring of the 'GLBT' movement as the current quest for homosexual 'marriage.' The latter radically redefines and corrupts an ancient institution created by God to order relations between man and woman as the basis for family life. Perverse events like 'Up Your Alley' … mock any notion of right and wrong – as the reckless pursuit of anything-goes 'tolerance' leads governmental authorities to enable and promote evil, turning freedom into sexual anarchy while causing a breakdown in law and order."

WND made multiple attempts to reach officials in San Francisco for a comment on the apparent lack of obscenity and indecency regulation enforcement during the festival.

Officials with the San Francisco police department's media relations office declined to return a message left by telephone. Also declining to return a message requesting a comment was the office of Newsom. Officials in the media office for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who represents the district, also declined to comment at all on the XXX-rated festival.

"One San Francisco policeman told our volunteers that the police were instructed not to make arrests for indecency on the city streets at "Up Your Alley" – but merely to 'contain' the activity to the street fair, which encompassed several city blocks," Americans for Truth reported.

"San Francisco's extreme political correctness has turned cops into impotent Perversion Protectors," the group said.

The organization said the events included whippings, public sex between men, and even advocacy for slavery, with one man wearing nothing but cuffs and chains.

"Homosexual activists mock and deride Americans For Truth relentlessly for exposing sordid realities like 'Up Your Alley' – and showing you what happens when sexual radicals come to dominate a major city," LaBarbera said.

"They don't want Americans to see this side of their agenda … But we must face reality and come to grips with the truth that 'rights' based on aberrant sex are not genuine civil rights," he said.

"Like the pantless perverts wandering around in sneakers-only at 'Up Your Alley,' the liberals' pro-homosexual 'tolerance and diversity' program is now fully exposed as a soulless and bankrupt ideology," LaBarbera said. "According to its precepts, nothing can be judged as wrong (sexually-speaking) – except, of course, normal, historic Judeo-Christian mores."

Westboro Baptist Church members enter Canada, aiming to picket bus victim's funeral

August 8, 2008 | 2:57 PM CT
CBC News

Members of a fundamentalist American church group planning to stage a protest at the funeral for a Winnipeg man brutally killed on a Greyhound bus have managed to enter Canada, a spokeswoman told CBC News on Friday.

Canadian border guards are under orders to prevent members of the Westboro Baptist Church, a controversial Kansas-based sect, from entering the country.

The group intends to picket the funeral of 22-year-old Tim McLean to tell Canadians his slaying on July 30 was God's response to Canadian policies enabling abortion, homosexuality and divorce and remarriage.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day's office sent an alert to border patrol to "look out" for people with signs and pamphlets consistent with the messages that the church promotes and to keep them out of the country.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of church founder Fred Phelps, said a group of church members was turned away from a border crossing at Niagara Falls, but a small group did manage to get into Manitoba overnight.

"They were looking for picket signs and they were looking for leaflets. Well, we don't do leaflets, and the picket signs, you know, Fed Ex ships them overnight," she said.

However, Phelps-Roper said the reaction the group has raised from some police and public officials has her questioning whether the planned protest will go ahead.

"The question to my mind [is] whether or not we ought to get them the heck out of that country, because that's some crazy stuff when you've got your officials talking like they are in a back-alley brawl and not government officials who took an oath to obey the law and so forth."

Phelps-Roper said she would advise church members not to go ahead with the protest if there is a concern they might be arrested or harmed.
Counter-protest planned

A counter-protest against the church's picket plans was launched on the social networking site Facebook on Thursday.

More than 700 people have since joined the group; postings indicate they plan to form a "human wall" around the family to shield them from the church protest, if it takes place.

Winnipeg NDP MP Pat Martin said the group should be "sent packing," and should not try to show up in Winnipeg "for their own safety."

"We're not going to allow these people to compound the tragedy of the McLean family loss, and Canadians simply won't tolerate these lunatics disrupting what should be a respectful service," he told CBC News on Friday. (Praise God DW)

"Your freedom to swing your arm in the air ends when it touches the end of my nose," he added. "What these people were going to do was hurtful, harmful and disruptive to the peace, order and good government that we guarantee to our citizens, so they have no place in this country."
Family in shock, requests privacy

Meanwhile, Tim McLean's mother released a short public statement Friday morning, saying the family is in "complete shock at the horrifying loss of our loved one."

Carol deDelley expressed frustration that some media outlets have not identified McLean's family members properly; the statement identifies Tim's parents and step-parents and the six siblings in his blended families.

DeDelley asked for privacy during the family's time of mourning.

Westboro Baptist Church members enter Canada, aiming to picket bus victim's funerall (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2008/08/08/westboro-protest.html?ref=rss)

More gay men embrace marriage, fatherhood
Changing laws, surrogacy programs create options for same-sex couples

NEW YORK - The cost remains high, and a good lawyer is essential. Yet despite complications, the idea of becoming a biological dad with help from a surrogate mother is gaining allure among gay men as the status of "married with children" grows ever more possible.

With same-sex marriage now legal in California even to nonresidents, and Massachusetts extending its 4-year-old gay-marriage policy to out-of-staters, in-wedlock parenting is suddenly a realistic option for gays and lesbians nationwide, even if their home state won't recognize the union.

Fertility clinics and surrogacy programs report increased interest from gay men, while couples who already have children are getting married — or considering it — to provide more security for those kids.

"We wanted our daughter to know her parents were married — that was the big thing for us," said Tommy Starling of Pawley's Island, S.C., who wed his partner of 12 years, Jeff Littlefield, on July 11 in Hollywood.

Daddy and Dad
Among those at the ceremony was their daughter, Carrigan, who was born in California two years ago.

Starling said he and Littlefield had tried previously to adopt a child in South Carolina, but encountered anti-gay hostility and instead opted to become parents through a surrogacy program run by Los Angeles-based Growing Generations. Since 1996, it has matched hundreds of gay men with surrogate mothers who are paid to carry an implanted embryo produced from a donor egg fertilized with the client's sperm.

"Our journey to parenthood was not easy, cheap or fun," Starling and Littlefield wrote in an account of their family. "The result, however, has been the most amazing experience in the world; being called Daddy and Dad by our loving daughter."

For lesbian couples, biological parenthood is usually a far simpler proposition than for gay men, since there's no need for surrogacy and there are various options for becoming pregnant. A lesbian couple faces neither the cost of surrogacy, which can run as high as $150,000, nor the legal complications which call for a carefully negotiated contract with the surrogate mother.

"All the realms involved with men are much more complex," said Gail Taylor, president and founder of Growing Generations.

But Taylor believes the option of marriage will, over time, lead to more biological gay dads.

"For future generations, knowing they can fall in love, get married, have a child — absolutely, that will become a way of life more than it is," she said.

‘Something to prove’
Starling, 36, and Littlefield, 52, face the likelihood that their marriage will not be recognized anytime soon in South Carolina, one of 26 states with constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriages.

In contrast, Joe and Brent Taravella, who are raising three children in South Orange, N.J., already have a civil union and are optimistic that New Jersey will soon join California and Massachusetts in legalizing same-sex marriages.

"As a couple with kids, you really see the importance of it, trying to get as many protections as you can," Joe Taravella said.

They have a 2-year-old daughter through a surrogacy handled by Growing Generations, and twins born in May 2007 through a surrogacy arranged by a New Jersey lawyer, Melissa Brisman.

"My relatives were screaming with excitement when they found out we were going to be parents," Joe Taravella said. "I think we still have something to prove, to show America we can do a great job with these kids."

Becoming a biological dad
Brisman, who specializes in reproductive legal issues, said laws dealing with surrogacy vary widely from state to state, as do the options for same-sex couples who become parents.

"Legally, being able to get married will help in some states but not others," she said. "I would never tell clients to get married. ... But I tell them straight out, 'If you do get married, it's going to be easier."'

The Taravellas (Brent has taken Joe's last name) both donated sperm — a fairly common practice among gay male couples who say they don't care which partner is the biological dad. Some other couples decide to have two biological babies simultaneously, each providing sperm and using two surrogates.

Among the enterprises offering such services for prospective gay fathers is the Fertility Institutes, which has offices in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Mexico, and plans to open a branch soon in New York City even though New York is among a half-dozen states banning paid surrogacy.

"It's not going to happen in New York as the law stands now," said the Fertility Institutes' director, Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg. "You can't bring the surrogate into the state, but we can make the arrangements, fly the client elsewhere."

Overall, Steinberg says inquiries from gay men to his offices have increased 30 percent in the past six months.

"There are more couples that had been holding off because of the marriage situation who are now starting to show up," he said. "We've definitely seen an upswing."

‘Surrogacy is getting easier’
For now, adoptions, rather than surrogacy, remain the most common way for gay men to become fathers, but Steinberg believes a shift is under way.

"Adoption is not getting any easier — surrogacy is getting easier," he said. "You rarely hear horror stories about surrogacy."

In fact, there are occasional surrogacy cases which become anguishing — including lawsuits by surrogate mothers seeking custody of the child, and wrenching cases in which triplets or quadruplets are conceived, and a debate ensues over whether any of the fetuses should be aborted.

Lawyers say airtight contracts can head off such problems, but legal costs run high. Beyond that, there usually are medical costs in the tens of thousands of dollars, and fees to the egg donor and surrogate that together can exceed $25,000.

Dr. G. David Adamson, director of Fertility Associates of Northern California and president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, says gay couples considering the option of surrogacy should receive thorough medical and psychological counseling, as well as candid legal advice.

"What we've tried to do is have consent forms that make it very clear what the intentions of the people are," he said. "Who's going to be the mom, who's going to be the dad, what might happens if relationship ends, if someone dies."

"If you don't have an exit strategy, the usual result is that you have potentially several years of litigation, which is extremely damaging to the child," Adamson added. "It's incumbent on everyone to be very thoughtful about entering these arrangements."

A social support system
The challenges of gay fatherhood can seem relatively less daunting in gay-friendly communities such as New York, where Jeffrey Parsons and Chris Hietikko are raising a 2-year-old son, Henry. They've also remained in touch with the surrogate mother, a lesbian who lives with her own family in Oregon.

"As gay men, so much depends on where you live, what your social support system is like," said Parsons, a 41-year-old psychology professor at Hunter College.

"Our child will go to school with other kids with gay parents," he said. "I had a job option upstate, but I knew he'd be only kid like that there."

Parsons, who has been conferring with Hietikko about getting married, says he's a rarity among gay men his age — even as a youth, realizing he was gay, he was convinced he'd become a father.

More typical are men like Jeff Littlefield, who said that in his 20s, "I'd completely given up on the idea of ever having a child."

Gay unions gaining global favor
August 10, 2008
Hilary Stohs-Krause

If California were an independent country, it would be among a "Group of 10" economic powers, with a population greater than Canada's or Australia's.

So, when California moves on something as controversial as same-sex marriage, it affects not only other U.S. states, but countries around the world.

A California court decision in May establishing a right to same-sex marriages - which faces a ballot challenge in November - is a major battle in a global culture war that is slowly winning legal acceptance for some form of gay union.

"Every year, a new country is joining the club," said Katharina Boele-Woelki, a professor at Utrecht University in the Netherlands who specializes in international and comparative family law.

About 20 countries and 10 U.S. states now allow either same-sex marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships.

"Worldwide, I think the countries that allow this will increase slowly but steadily," Ms. Boele-Woelki said.

According to the Los Angeles Times, more than 6,300 marriage licenses - more than double the average for that time period - were granted in California in the first week after the state Supreme Court's ruling allowing same-sex marriage went into effect June 16.

However, the issue isn't settled yet. The initiative slated for the November ballot, if passed, would amend the state constitution to define marriage as a union of one man and one woman. While a May 28 Field Poll concluded that a majority of Californians support gay marriage, a first in the state's history, polls since have been inconclusive.

Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, a group that promotes traditional marriage, called the vote the "ninth inning in the World Series of the marriage debate."

Generally, governments that adopt same-sex marriage legislation lean to the left on the political spectrum. They include the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Canada.

In European countries, there's a more laissez-faire attitude toward sex and marriage, said Kimberly Richman, a professor of sociology and legal studies at the University of San Francisco.

Religion also plays a role. While the U.S. religious right has made opposition to same-sex marriage a central tenet of its political agenda, "that just doesn't exist in Canada, or the Netherlands orSpain," said Paula Ettlebrick, executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Campaign.

Sylvia Brasselman, a German scientist living in San Francisco with her partner, Kathy Emery, agrees.

"I think that Americans are generally less tolerant, and I'm talking really about both the left and the right, both liberals and conservatives," she said. "I find this a very split society, and neither group is very willing to compromise. ... That's different in Germany or Europe."

Rights enshrined in the more-than-two-centuries-old U.S. Constitution are hard to redefine. Countries with newer constitutions are finding it easier to adapt.

After operating for more than a century under British rule, Canada adopted a separate constitution in 1982 - and incorporated sweeping anti-discrimination measures.

"We were able to learn from some of the roadblocks in the U.S.," said Hillary Cook, a board member and legal committee chairwoman of Egale Canada, a group that promotes equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual Canadians and their families.

Although sexual orientation isn't specifically protected from discrimination in the Canadian Constitution, it's considered to be on "analogous ground" with those that are listed, such as race, age and religion.

Similarly, South Africa wrote its constitution in 1996, with the wounds of apartheid still fresh.

"South Africa is a specific and kind of unique place in that their national constitution prohibits sexual-orientation discrimination," said Christopher Anders, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union's Lesbian & Gay Rights Project. "It represents the commitment of South Africa and its government to make sure that discrimination of all forms was prohibited."

In Europe, the drive to formulate a uniform set of rights for European Union member states has had an effect, even though marriage rights are left to individual member countries to decide. Now three EU states - Netherlands, Belgium and Spain - allow same-sex marriage, and 10 other countries allow gay civil unions.

Uruguay became the first country in Latin America to legalize same-sex unions with a parliamentary vote in December 2007. Elsewhere in the region, some city and state jurisdictions in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil have voted to extend marriage benefits to same-sex couples.

In Asia, repeated attempts between 2000 and 2006 by advocacy groups to legalize gay marriage in China failed. In many countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, homosexuality itself is illegal, punishable by prison terms, public flogging or even execution - making decriminalization the immediate focus of the rights debate.

In the United States, Vermont was the first to allow civil unions for homosexuals in July 2000, followed by Massachusetts in 2004, by court decree - and now California.

Americans who oppose same-sex marriage say the issue should be left to the states, pointing to the nearly 30 states that have banned the practice in their constitutions or plan to do so.

Advocates of same-sex marriage rights have turned to the courts, and say it's a matter of time before same-sex marriage is permitted throughout the United States.

"I think that having California ... take this step to treat gay and lesbian couples equally will have a huge ripple effect on people in other states," said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights. "We will see people getting used to the reality of having hundreds of thousands of married gay and lesbian couples" living both in California and other states.

However, Ms. Gallagher, of the National Organization for Marriage, said opponents are not giving up.

"It was four judges in California and four judges in Massachusetts," she said, adding that the Massachusetts legislature would never have passed a gay marriage law on its own.

While the future of gay marriage in the U.S. remains unclear, the experiences of other Western nations may suggest a way forward.

Ms. Cook, of Egale Canada, said that by the time the federal government officially sanctioned gay marriage in Canada in 2005, most provinces had already legalized various types of same-sex relationships, beginning with a court ruling in Ontario in 2003. This led to a case of patchwork privileges, similar to that of the United States and the European Union.

As the EU seeks to make more and more policies uniform, the ACLU's Mr. Anders said, continentwide gay marriage will likely be addressed.

"Given the eternally open borders in Europe right now," he said, "we would expect that marriage will be both recognized and allowed throughout Europe very soon."

Ms. Gallaghersaid that if voters in California repudiate the court's decision in November, it will give momentum to a wave of cases and states now considering the issue.

"I think it will be a great and continuing victory," she said. "It will start the next great wave" of legislation outlining conservative definitions of marriage.

"The idea that this 2,000-year-old tradition ... doesn't have legs anymore, I don't buy it," she said flatly. "It's at the front of the culture war, but ... the only certainties are death and taxes."

Gay unions gaining global favor (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/10/gay-unions-gaining-global-acceptance/print/)

'Cult' Starved Toddler Who Wouldn't Say 'Amen'

Monday , August 11, 2008

BALTIMORE —
A toddler whose remains were found inside a suitcase in Philadelphia this spring was starved to death by members of a religious cult, including his mother, in part because he refused to say "amen" after meals, police said.

Ria Ramkissoon, the mother of Javon Thompson, was charged Sunday with first-degree murder in the boy's death, and Baltimore police said Monday that three other members of a group called 1 Mind Ministries have also been charged with first-degree murder. Police and Ramkissoon's family say the group is a cult.

Members did not seek medical care for Javon when he stopped breathing, and the boy died in his mother's arms, according to court documents that described police interviews with a confidential informant and two children. He would have been about 19 months old when police say adults stopped feeding him in December 2006.

Ramkissoon, 21, was being held Monday in the psychiatric ward of Baltimore's Central Booking and Intake Center, and a bail review was postponed until Tuesday. Her public defender declined comment.

The three other people charged in Javon's death — Queen Antoinette, 40, also known as Toni Ellsberry or Toni Sloan; Marcus Cobbs, 21; and Trevia Williams, who turns 21 Tuesday — were already in custody. They were arrested in May in New York City on warrants charging them with failure to appear in court in Baltimore. Those charges stemmed from a scuffle with police in a child custody dispute.

No one answered the phone Monday afternoon in the office of a public defender assigned to Antoinette, Cobbs and Williams.

A fifth alleged cult member, Steven Bynum, has been charged in a warrant with first-degree murder and remains at large, police said Monday. He was believed to be in New York.

Ramkissoon's family said she should not be held responsible for her son's death.

"She had no control over that situation at all," her stepfather, Craig Newton, said Monday.

Ramkissoon's mother, Seeta Khadan-Newton, told The (Baltimore) Sun on Sunday that it wasn't her daughter's decision not to feed the boy.

"My daughter was a victim, just like my grandson," Khadan-Newton said. "Somebody made that decision to not feed that child, and my daughter had to follow instructions."

Members of 1 Mind Ministries wore all white, swore off medical care and referred to some members with titles including queen and princess, according to court documents. The group was also accused of insisting that a pregnant woman give birth without access to doctors.

Ramkissoon joined 1 Mind Ministries after Javon was born. Ramkissoon's mother last saw her in April 2006; she later sued for custody of her grandson, writing in a letter to a judge that "the cult leaders" were preventing her from contacting her daughter.

The documents show police interviewed two school-age children who had been part of the group but were taken away from members by Philadelphia police. The children told investigators that members stopped feeding Javon in December 2006, in part because the boy refused to say "amen" after dinner. Members also viewed Javon as "a demon."

Another unnamed informant told police that after Javon died, Antoinette left the boy's body in a room for more than a week, claiming "God was going to raise Javon from the dead," the documents show.

Afterward, Antoinette burned the boy's clothing and a mattress and placed his body in a green suitcase, which she would periodically open and spray with disinfectant to mask the odor, police claim in the court documents.

In early 2007, the group members left Baltimore for Philadelphia. They left the green suitcase and other luggage inside a shed belonging to a man they befriended while there, police said, and then relocated to Brooklyn, N.Y.

Police recovered the suitcase in April after they got a tip from the confidential informant. The remains of a small child were inside. DNA tests are pending to confirm the boy's identity.

'Cult' Starved Toddler Who Wouldn't Say 'Amen' (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,402004,00.html)

From Chuck Norris' column:

An Affair to Remember
08/12/2008

Now that John Edwards has admitted to his affair with 42-year-old Rielle Hunter, the big test looms again before the American public: Do we care? Do we think it matters? Do we believe that there should be any code of conduct or moral standard for those in public office, even if it is the highest one in the land?

Justifications for political improprieties abound. There are historical ones: "Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, etc. had moral failures, so what's the big deal?" There are also personal ones: "We shouldn't judge. No one is perfect. Who are we to point fingers?"

Don't misunderstand me. I believe in personal redemption. I myself have experienced it, as I wrote about in the chapter "A sin that became a blessing" in my autobiography, "Against All Odds," in which I discuss an adulterous one-night stand in the early '60s that resulted in my wonderful daughter Dina. That is why I hope, as he says, John Edwards truly has asked God and his wife for forgiveness, and I pray for their restoration and the long road that results from it.

But then again, John Edwards continues to minimize his culpability by playing linguistic and moral dodge ball. He lied to his closest colleagues and the public for nearly two years about the affair. And even in his confession last week, he doesn't call it a "lie," a "sin," an "affair" or "adultery." Rather, he repeatedly calls it merely a "mistake" or a "serious error in judgment." Is that all it is?

I believe leadership should be above reproach. I believe those who govern should lead also in civility and decency and that their character should be congruent with their call to office. Like parents to children, a nation's politicians' integrity and character should supersede its citizens. But as long as we the people tolerate leadership immorality and elect corrupt politicians, we cannot expect the heart and character of our nation to improve.

It fascinates me that American naturalization law incorporates "good moral character" as a prerequisite for citizenship but no such legal standard is expected of those who govern our citizens. In a post-Clinton era, government trysts seem to be the rule more than the exception. Immorality is not only tolerated but also expected among public servants now. Have we at last severed or totally compartmentalized their personal and political lives so that never the twine should meet?

Enduring public humiliation is not the only price a political leader should pay for improprieties; I think they should be disciplined and suspended, if not disposed from public service. The consequence of corruption also should be increased restrictions, if not a banning from certain areas of future public service. If one cannot properly handle his private affairs, can we truly expect him to handle political ones? If politicians can't rightly steward the duties and offices granted to them, then they should be removed and kept from the public trust. As Christians, we should be abundant in forgiveness; but as Americans too, we should be diligent in protecting political trusts from those who do or might abuse them.

Exerpt from Chuck's book: (I have taken out the title so as not to advertise his new book)

"Whatever happened to decency, respect, and fair play? Remember when a handshake was the only contract that was needed in negotiations? Whatever happened to the days when fourteen-year-olds (like the young George Washington) set themselves to learn and write out freehand by their own volition the 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation (a book written by Jesuits for the instruction of young gentlemen)?

"Good morals precede good laws, which is why government isn't much help. Unless the people and their legislators are grounded in morality, the best of laws will be broken and the worst of laws will be made, legalizing immorality. We can't look to government to improve decency, civility, and morality. For that we need to look to another source.

"John Adams put it well when he said: 'We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.' …

"Our Founders had a better answer than government or even education. God is the answer. God is the moral compass of America. Or He should be, if we ever want to restore morality in our homes and civility to our land. Our Founders believed morals flowed from one's accountability to God, and that, without God, immoral anarchy would result."

False Prophet Abandons Wife And Kids, Takes Occultianity Circus On Road

Posted on Aug 19, 2008 | by David Roach

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--With controversial faith healer Todd Bentley announcing that he is separating from his wife, charismatic leaders J. Lee Grady and Stephen Strang have reacted by saying someone should have raised questions about Bentley earlier.

Grady, editor of the popular charismatic magazine Charisma, said the way thousands celebrated Bentley despite his moral and theological shortcomings demonstrated a lack of discernment that pervades the charismatic movement.

"We're spiritually hungry -- which can be a good thing," Grady wrote in an Aug. 13 column. "But sometimes hungry people will eat anything."

Bentley, who led a heavily publicized revival in Lakeland, Fla., beginning this spring, announced in a statement Aug. 12 that he and his wife Shonnah were separating. The staff of Bentley's Fresh Fire Ministries said "an atmosphere of fatigue and stress" created by the daily revival meetings "exacerbated existing issues in [his marriage]," according to Charisma. On Aug. 15, the board of Fresh Fire released a statement saying it had learned Bentley had been involved in "an unhealthy relationship on an emotional level with a female member of his staff." The statement said Bentley had agreed to "to refrain from all public ministry for a season to receive counsel in his personal life."

Bentley and his wife had been attending counseling for the past three years, but the counseling was suspended for the last four months while Bentley was away from his home in Abbottsford, British Columbia, Charisma reported. The Bentleys have three children.

Bentley is known for his multiple body piercings and tattoos, his violent healing techniques, his claims of angelic visions and "holy" laughter and "holy" vibrating shakes. He even claims to have raised dozens of people from the dead.

Bentley claims to be visited regularly by angels, including a 20-foot-tall angel in his apartment on one occasion and on another occasion an angel that knocked him out of his body. One angel's name supposedly is Emma. Bentley also says that Jesus Himself appears to him.

Charismatic leaders who endorsed Bentley, Grady wrote, should have known better than to thrust him into the spotlight prematurely and owe the public an apology.

"Many of us would rather watch a noisy demonstration of miracles, signs and wonders than have a quiet Bible study," Grady wrote. "Yet we are faced today with the sad reality that our untempered zeal is a sign of immaturity. Our adolescent craving for the wild and crazy makes us do stupid things. It's way past time for us to grow up."

God TV, the network that televised the Lakeland revival meetings, is particularly blameworthy because it told viewers in a pre-revival segment that "any criticism of Todd Bentley is demonic," Grady wrote, adding that the network's hosts also warned listeners that if they listened to criticism of Bentley, they could lose their healings.

"This is cultic manipulation at its worst," Grady wrote.

Though America needs true revival, any leaders who wholeheartedly endorsed Bentley promoted heresy rather than revival, according to Grady.

"Godly leaders are supposed to protect the sheep from heresy," he wrote, "not spoon feed deception to them. Only God knows how far this poison traveled from Lakeland to take root elsewhere. May God forgive us for allowing His Word to be so flippantly contaminated."

Charisma publisher Stephen Strang also took aim in a column at Bentley and those who supported him. Strang said the charismatic leaders to whom Bentley submitted himself in an accountability relationship -- John Arnott, Ché Ahn and Bill Johnson -- "should have seen it coming." He listed several indications that Bentley's ministry was not of God.

"Anyone who is in services 4 to 6 hours a day, 7 days a week for weeks on end is bound to have some type of breakdown," Strang wrote. "Anyone who covers himself with tattoos while in the ministry raises questions about his stability.

"Anyone who talks about the 'Angel of the Healing Revival' that ministered to A.A. Allen and William Branham must have overlooked the fact that Allen and Branham both were discredited with moral shortcomings. Anyone who baptizes people in the name of the Father, the Son 'and BAM' is playing lightly with the Holy Spirit and is bordering on blasphemy."

While God uses flawed men to do his work, Christians must hold spiritual leaders to the highest standards of conduct, Strang wrote.

"Perhaps some of the problems would have been prevented if men had spoken into Bentley's life several months ago," he wrote. "As good as it is to have an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff to help the injured, it is much better to have a fence at the top of the cliff to prevent someone from going over."

Chad Brand, professor of Christian theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said that while all denominations within Christianity have been touched by divorce, the charismatic movement is particularly susceptible to overlooking its leaders' moral failures.

Brand is the editor of "Perspectives on Spirit Baptism," a book detailing the charismatic and non-charismatic views of baptism in the Holy Spirit. He published several additional papers and articles on issues related to the charismatic movement.

"There is a dynamic that makes charismatic leader situations sometimes treated differently, and it is partly tied to the very term, 'charismatic,'" Brand said. "Because this person is perceived to have charismatic power or anointing, his or her failure in marriage is often easily forgiven and overlooked. So, while in many traditions, a divorce for a pastor or key leader means a loss of prestige or influence, it is not necessarily the case in charismatic circles.

"John Hagee of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio divorced his wife of 15 years in 1975 and the next year remarried, but his ministry and influence only grew in the years after that. Richard Roberts, son of Oral Roberts, also divorced his first wife after 11 years of marriage, and 10 months later remarried. Paula White and her husband Randy divorced last year. It was Paula White's second marriage. While these divorces have had ramifications for their ministries, in every case the ministry only flourished afterwards. In most other evangelical traditions, the impact of divorce has been more deeply felt by the ministers in question."

More important than focusing on Bentley's marital difficulties is noting the fact that he is a false teacher, Brand said.

"We do not know all the details of Bentley's marital situation, and so we should withhold judgment on that matter," he said. "What is plain is that he is teaching false doctrine and that the claims to his ministry's 'successes' seem pretty spurious."

Brand speculated that, like William Branham in the mid-20th century, Bentley relies on hype to promote his meetings but has few real healings.

"I spoke with a very influential Swiss Pentecostal theologian and pastor a few years ago, Walter Hollenweger, who had invited Branham to Zurich to hold meetings in the early 1960s," Brand said. "He said Branham pronounced scores of people to be 'healed' of their ailments, but a half year later not a single one of those persons was actually healed, and many had died. Branham's personal charisma had carried him, and I suspect something similar is happening with Bentley."

False Prophet Abandons Wife And Kids, Takes Occultianity Circus On Road (http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=28727&ref=BPNews-RSSFeed0819)

Hallmark Cards for Gay marriage cards

By SARAH SKIDMORE, AP Business Writer Thu Aug 21, 5:10 PM ET

PORTLAND, Ore. - Most states don't recognize gay marriage — but now Hallmark does.

The nation's largest greeting card company is rolling out same-sex wedding cards — featuring two tuxedos, overlapping hearts or intertwined flowers, with best wishes inside. "Two hearts. One promise," one says.

Hallmark added the cards after California joined Massachusetts as the only U.S. states with legal gay marriage. A handful of other states have recognized same-sex civil unions.

The language inside the cards is neutral, with no mention of wedding or marriage, making them also suitable for a commitment ceremony. Hallmark says the move is a response to consumer demand, not any political pressure.

"It's our goal to be as relevant as possible to as many people as we can," Hallmark spokeswoman Sarah Gronberg Kolell said.

Hallmark's largest competitor, American Greetings Corp., has no plans to enter the market, saying its current offerings are general enough to speak to a lot of different relationships.

Hallmark started offering "coming out" cards last year, and the four designs of same-sex marriage cards are being gradually released this summer and will be widely available by next year. No sales figures were available yet.

"When I have shopped for situations like babies or weddings for gay friends I have good luck in quirky stores," said Kathryn Hamm, president of the Web site gayweddings.com.

"But if you are just in a generic store ... the bride and groom symbol or words are in most cards," she said. "It becomes difficult to find some that are neutral but have some style."

The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law estimates that more than 85,000 same-sex couples in the United States have entered into a legal relationship since 1997, when Hawaii started offering some legal benefits to same-sex partners.

It estimates nearly 120,000 more couples will marry in California during the next three years — and that means millions of potential dollars for all sorts of wedding-industry businesses.

Hallmark, known more for its Midwest mores than progressive greetings, has added a wider variety lately. It now offers cards for difficulty getting pregnant or going through rehab.

It pulled a controversial card that featured the word "queer" in the punch line after it was criticized by some customers and gay magazine The Advocate last year. At any given time, Hallmark has 200 different wedding cards on the market, including some catering to interracial or inter-religious marriages and blended families.

The Greeting Card Association, a trade group, says it does not track how many companies provide same-sex cards but believes the number is expanding.

"The fact that you have someone like Hallmark going into that niche shows it's growing and signals a trend," said Barbara Miller, a spokeswoman for the association.

Rob Fortier, an independent card maker who runs his company, Paper Words, out of New York, added same-sex wedding cards to his mix after thinking about what he would want to receive.

"A lot of people think a gay greeting card needs a rainbow on it," Fortier said. "I don't want that."

But for some time, it was difficult to even find the words for what anyone wanted to say, he said.

His first card poked fun at the challenge. On the outside it featured lines that had been scratched out: "Congratulations on being committed!", "Congratulations on being unionized!" and, finally, "Congratulations on being domestically partnered!" The inside wished the couple congratulations on choosing to be together forever.

"It really comes down to language," he said.

John Stark, one of the three founders of Three Way Design in Boston, which makes gay-themed cards for occasions from adoption to weddings, has several new designs sketched out and ready.

But he has hesitated adding more wedding cards to his mix until after the November election, when California voters will decide a constitutional amendment that would again limit marriage to a man and a woman in the state.

"What is scary is to produce a marriage line and then November comes and it's recalled, then we have thousands of dollars of inventory waiting," he said.

The gay-friendly business can be challenging, companies said.

Hamm said although she has found many vendors willing to work with her company, some have asked to be removed from the Web site because of hate mail or some other backlash.

Hallmark says all of its stores can choose whether they want to add the latest offerings.

Hallmark Cards for Gay marriage cards (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080821/ap_on_bi_ge/gay_wedding_cards)

Cops kill free speech at 'gay' event
Christians file suit over orders to remove shirt, stop talking about Bible
Posted: August 22, 2008
12:40 am Eastern

WorldNetDaily

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed suit against the City of Elmira, N.Y., after police threatened to arrest three Christians if they did not remove a shirt and stop sharing biblical messages during a "gay" pride event at a public park.

John Barnes wore a shirt with the message "Liberated from sin by the blood of Jesus" to the Southern Tier Pride 2008 at Wisner Park – a June 14 event promoted as a celebration of homosexual, bisexual and transgender lifestyles.

According to the complaint filed in a U.S. district court, Elmira police Capt. Michael Marrone ordered Barnes to remove his shirt to prevent a "negative atmosphere" at the event and arouse discomfort in other attendees.

Barnes obeyed the officer and took off his shirt so he could remain at the park without facing arrest.

Another Christian, Julian Raven, carried a Christian newsletter to the event called the Elmira Protestor. Marrone threatened to arrest Raven if he distributed the letter, saying it contained obscene or illegal material, according to the complaint. Raven complied with the order.

Capt. James Wandell and Sgt. Sharon Moyer threatened a third Christian, James DeFerio, with arrest for holding a sign on a public sidewalk adjacent to the park. The sign read: "Thousands of ex-homosexuals have experienced the life-changing love of Jesus Christ" and listed websites for more information about ministry to ex-"gays."

DeFario complied with their demands. However, according to the complaint, officers then told him he was not allowed to talk to anyone at the event about the Bible. Police ordered DeFario to leave the event where Elmira Mayor John Tonello was scheduled to speak about democracy, telling him to cross the street.

"Christians shouldn't be discriminated against for expressing their beliefs," ADF Senior Legal Counsel Joel Oster said in a statement. "Police cannot threaten to arrest Christians at a city park for sharing their viewpoint at an event open to the general public. Respecting their free speech rights is not optional."

The men are claiming officers violated their constitutional rights to free speech, free exercise of religion and equal protection under the law. They are requesting a permanent injunction prohibiting police from "arresting them, forcibly removing them, or otherwise restricting their speech in traditional public fora due to the content and viewpoint of such speech, or because of their religious beliefs."

Oster said police harassed the men primarily because of their Christian beliefs.

"Exercising your First Amendment rights is not a crime," Oster said. "Threatening to arrest Christians simply because they have opposing views and choose to exercise their free speech rights at a public place is unconstitutional."

Quote from: DreamWeaver on August 22, 2008, 11:49:54 PM

Mugger Beating 85-Year-Old Woman in Elevator (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,406182,00.html)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Has anyone else noticed that alot of these big, bad, cowardly, thugs are targeting the elderly?? To bad she wasn't one of them pistol packing grannies. ;D He evidently hasn't run across someone capable of turning the tables on him. I know here in Arizona, one did the other day and made the thug call 911. She held him at pistol point, till the cops arrived. ;D ;D

YES - some criminals these days are complete COWARDS. We've had quite a few cases over the last few years where the elderly victim did turn the criminal into a victim instead. Two from our city stand out in my mind. One was a 1st degree burglar breaking in on an elderly woman through her kitchen window. YES - he knew she was there. She was up in her 80's, calmly shot him twice, watched him leave from the same window, called 911, and calmly waited for police on the front porch with her rifle. She only had one question for the police when they got there, "Did I get him?" YES, she got him with both shots, and he was found a short distance away hollering for medical attention. The second one had like circumstances, but the elderly woman only had a baseball bat. He came through the front door, and she was still beating him with that bat when the police arrived. Both of the suspects lived, but I would imagine they might choose a different line of work. ;D

On the other side of the coin, most elderly victims don't win and are scarred for the rest of their life in many ways. At the very least, they never feel safe again. Some of the crimes are also very violent, and the elderly victim must have constant care from then on. Depending on the crime, it's almost impossible to imagine how horrible it is for some of the elderly victims. Their lives are literally turned inside-out, and their remaining days are in horror. For these reasons and others, able-bodied people should watch out for their elderly neighbors and do their part in trying to keep them safe. The same is true for the children. We live in evil days that are getting worse.

Couple Offered Sex With Girl, 5, for Used Car

Sunday , August 24, 2008

SAN ANTONIO —
A San Antonio couple is accused of trying to trade sex with the woman's 5-year-old daughter for an apartment, a used car and child care for her 10-month old daughter.

Jennifer Richards, 25, and her married boyfriend, Sean Michael Block, 40, appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy Stein Nowak on Friday. Richards is charged with using interstate facilities to transmit information about a minor. Block is charged with distributing child pornography.

Nowak ordered Block held. Richards' detention hearing was delayed until Tuesday, the San Antonio Express-News reported Sunday.

According to an affidavit unsealed last Tuesday, the investigation began when an informant told the FBI about a text message allegedly sent by Block reading: "Nice piece 5 yrs old belongs to my gf and she wants to sell it."

Richards and Block crafted a deal that, in addition to the apartment and used car, included child care for Richards' 10-month-old daughter, whose sexual service the couple intended to sell later, Rex Miller, the FBI's lead agent on the case, testified.

The couple had also hoped to blackmail the informant, Miller said.

Richards "was of the belief that these sexual interactions would be a positive experience for (her daughter) and that Richards would receive sexual gratification" from watching, according to the affidavit.

Authorities said both children are no longer in Richards' custody and that neither child was sold for sex.

After reviewing computers the couple used and listening to taped conversations, Miller determined Block and Richards were making further plans to abduct, rape and "carve up" a teenage runaway.

Block allegedly sent an e-mail with a link to a Russian child pornography site, according to the affidavit.

Ronald Guyer, Block's lawyer, acknowledged the severity of the charges. But Guyer told the judge that there was no evidence that the behavior progressed beyond Block's fantasy.

"There has been no action on his part," Guyer told Nowak.

Richard's attorney did not immediately return a call or e-mail left Sunday by The Associated Press seeking comment.

The couple worked at the Cheesecake Factory at North Star Mall, where he was a bartender and she was a waitress.

Court records show that Block's now-estranged wife Sarah Block filed for a protective order earlier this week on behalf of the couple's 14-month-old child. Her lawyer said she filed for divorce Friday.

Couple Offered Sex With Girl, 5, for Used Car (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,409701,00.html)

A New Moral Code For The United States

Barna Update

American society has become more intrigued by moral issues in recent years, as evidenced by the fact that 55% of adults discuss moral issues with others during a typical week. But a nationwide survey by The Barna Group indicates that Americans have also redefined what it means to do the right thing in their own lives.

Researchers asked adults which, if any, of eight behaviors with moral overtones they had engaged in during the past week. The behaviors included exposure to pornography, using profanity in public, gambling, gossiping, engaging in gotcha146 with someone to whom they were not married, retaliating against someone, getting drunk, and lying. A majority of adults had engaged in at least one of those eight behaviors during the past week.

Cussing is Common

The most common of the eight behaviors evaluated was using profanity in public. Nearly three out of every ten adults (28%) admitted to using such language. Two out of every ten adults (20%) had gambled in the past week (including the purchase of a lottery ticket) and almost as many (19%) admitted to intentional exposure to pornographic images. Slightly more than one out of every ten adults had gossiped (12%), gotten drunk (12%), or lied (11%).

The least common of the activities tested were having gotcha146 with someone to whom the respondent was not married (9%) and 8% said they had engaged in some form of retaliation during the prior seven days.

The survey showed that admission of adultery was far less common than was admission of sex among unmarried adults. Just 1% of married adults said they had sex with someone other than their spouse during the past week. In contrast, 21% of single adults indicated they had sex with someone during the prior week.

Young Adults Ignore Traditional Morality

One of the most stunning outcomes from the Barna survey was the moral pattern among adults under 25. The younger generation was more than twice as likely as all other adults to engage in behaviors considered morally inappropriate by traditional standards. Their choices made even the Baby Boomers - never regarded as a paragon of traditional morality - look like moral pillars in comparison.

For instance, two-thirds of the under-25 segment (64%) had used profanity in public, compared to just one out of five Boomers (19%). The younger group - known as Mosaics - was nine times more likely than were Boomers to have engaged in sex outside of marriage (38% vs. 4%), six times more likely to have lied (37% vs. 6%), almost three times more likely to have gotten drunk (25% vs. 9%) and to have gossiped (26% vs. 10%), and twice as likely as Boomers to have observed pornography (33% vs. 16%) and to have engaged in acts of retaliation (12% vs. 5%).

Liberals Differ from Conservatives

On average, adults who describe themselves as "mostly liberal" on sociopolitical issues were twice as likely as those who describe themselves as "mostly conservative" to participate in activities that conflict with traditional moral perspectives. In particular, liberals were five times more likely to participate in unmarried sex (20% vs. 4%), more than three times as likely to view pornography (30% vs. 8%), more than twice as likely to lie (21% vs. 8) and to get drunk (17% vs. 7%), and twice as likely to engage in retaliation (13% vs. 6%) and gossip (17% vs. 9%).

Men Behave Differently Than Women

Men were significantly more likely than women to engage in six of the seven behaviors evaluated. The biggest gaps between the genders related to getting drunk (22% of men had done so in the past week, compared to 3% of women), use of profanity in public (33% vs. 24%), and gambling (23% vs. 15%). Men were also twice as likely to have had gotcha146 in the past week with someone to whom they were not married (13% vs. 6%).

The only behavior more common among women was gossip. However, the margin of difference was not statistically significant.

The Influence of Faith on Morality

Examining people’s faith perspectives revealed that evangelicals were the group most likely to follow traditional morality while atheists and agnostics were the faith segment most likely to reject those ways.

Among evangelicals, profanity (16%) and pornography (12%) were the most common transgressions. Fewer than 5% of evangelicals had engaged in gossip (4%), inappropriate sex (3%), gambling (2%), lying (1%) or drunkenness (less than one-half of one percent).

In contrast, among skeptics (atheists and agnostics) participation in the eight behaviors ranged from a low of 11% (retaliating) up to a high of 60% (using profanity). While evangelicals averaged 6% participation in each of the eight behaviors mentioned, skeptics averaged five times that level (29%). Other common acts among skeptics included exposure to pornography (50%), gossip (34%) and drunkenness (33%).

People associated with faiths other than Christianity were twice as likely as evangelicals to engage in the behaviors explored. They were most likely to use profanity (33%), view pornography (32%) and lie (18%).

Within the Christian community, there were few differences between Protestants and Catholics in relation to the moral behaviors tested. Catholics were somewhat more likely to gamble (25% vs. 18%) and to get drunk (16% vs. 7%).

A New Moral Code

According to George Barna, who directed the survey, the results reflect a significant shift in American life.

"We are witnessing the development and acceptance of a new moral code in America," said the researcher and author, who has been surveying national trends in faith and morality for more than a quarter-century. "Mosaics have had little exposure to traditional moral teaching and limited accountability for such behavior. The moral code began to disintegrate when the generation before them - the Baby Busters - pushed the limits that had been challenged by their parents - the Baby Boomers. The result is that without much fanfare or visible leadership, the U.S. has created a moral system based on convenience, feelings, and selfishness.

"The consistent deterioration of the Bible as the source of moral truth has led to a nation where people have become independent judges of right and wrong, basing their choices on feelings and circumstances. It is not likely that America will return to a more traditional moral code until the nation experiences significant pain from its moral choices."

Quote

"The consistent deterioration of the Bible as the source of moral truth has led to a nation where people have become independent judges of right and wrong, basing their choices on feelings and circumstances. It is not likely that America will return to a more traditional moral code until the nation experiences significant pain from its moral choices."

I must add that the decline is rapid and appears to be like a runaway train going downhill as we speak. We can look at numbers of all kinds and see that the devil is now winning in many Christian families. In fact, it's many times difficult to tell the difference between a lost person and many self-proclaimed Christians today. The big question is, "Are they really Christians, or are they just paying lip service?" Only GOD knows. Regardless, they are a horrible testimony for CHRIST. They are also quickly viewed as hypocrites and make a good excuse for rejecting CHRIST as LORD and SAVIOUR. It's all very sad and probably a sign of the times. False and cold or luke-warm Christians add to the growing confusion in this evil and dying world. False religions, false cults, and false prophets are easier to believe, and it really doesn't take much to deceive people in the midst of such CONFUSION!

NOW more than even, real Christians need to rededicate their lives to GOD. They can and should be of use in these possible End Days of the Age of Grace. They could be helping their families and friends at a time when the world is still in desperate need of THE GOSPEL OF THE GRACE OF GOD. Believe it or not, the time does grow shorter, and the time to accept CHRIST will run out. The time runs out for people every day in many unexpected ways. Maybe they were thinking about accepting CHRIST, but they had a heart attack or a car accident today. IT'S TOO LATE NOW! GOD won't accept any excuses - JESUS CHRIST IS EITHER YOUR LORD AND SAVIOUR, OR HE ISN'T! The difference is where and how you will spend Eternity.

GOOD NEWS!

Thanks be unto GOD for HIS unspeakable GIFT!, JESUS CHRIST, our Lord and Saviour forever!

Italy horrified by 'Clockwork Orange' assault on monks
August 28, 2008

Richard Owen in Rome

Italians have been left shocked by a ferocious assault on Franciscan monks by hooded thugs at a monastery in the foothills of the Alps, which has been compared to incidents seen in the film 'A Clockwork Orange'.

Father Sergio Baldin, 48, the guardian of the San Colombano Belmonte monastery near Turin, and three elderly monks from the Franciscan order of Friars Minor, were having their evening meal when they were attacked by three hooded men who gagged and bound them before punching, kicking and beating them with clubs.

Father Baldin suffered severe head injuries but also has "serious respiratory problems" because he choked on his food while being assaulted, doctors say. He has had brain surgery and was in a coma.

Father Salvatore Magliano, 86, Father Emanuele Battagliotti, 81, and Father Martino Gurini, 76 suffered less serious injuries, but were still being treated in hospital today.

Speaking from his hospital bed, Father Battagliotti said the monks had been eating "a dish of spinach" when they heard noises outside.

"I got up to have a look, but the moment I got to the door I was attacked - suddenly, immediately. I was struck on the head with a blow which made me totter," he said.

"Father Sergio (Baldin) came to my aid. He put himself in front of me to try and defend me, but he too was knocked down without mercy. They hit him until he stopped crying out. Then they beat Father Salvatore and Father Martin as well. It was terrible."

Cardinal Severino Poletto, the Archbishop of Turin, who visited the victims in hospital, said the attack was "beyond comprehension". The only possible explanation was that the assailants had been "either drugged or possessed, or both", he said.

Police said the motive appeared to robbery, although the monks only had "small amounts of money". A spokesman said: "Presumably the attackers thought they would find riches at the monastery."

Italian media compared the attack to A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess's story of violent young thugs, filmed in 1971 by Stanley Kubrick.

Father Gabriele Trivellin, provincial head of the Friars Minor, said the assault amounted to "mindless, savage and gratuitous violence". He said the hooded men had carried on beating the monks even though they offered no resistance.

Colonel Antonio De Vita, head of the Carabinieri in the province of Turin, said a manhunt was under way for the perpetrators, with road blocks set up in the area of the monastery.

Italy horrified by 'Clockwork Orange' assault on monks (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4625001.ece)

Defending Islam, hacker defaces thousands of Dutch websites
by Andreas Udo de Haes

August 28, 2008, 09:54 AM — WebWereld Netherlands —

A 'hacktivist' has hijacked numerous Dutch sites in retaliation for the anti-Islamic short film "Fitna" which was made and released earlier this year by the Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders.

Over the last six weeks an activist hacker by the name of 'nEt^DeViL' has hacked many Dutch Web sites and posted ideological statements on their home pages. Such an attack is known as a website defacement.

The hacked sites feature an embedded YouTube video dubbed "Anti-Fitna", which the hacker states is "[a] Response to the Fitna Movie by 'Geert Wilders' Cow !" "This hax0ring is to defend ISLAM - The Religion of [ Abraham, Moses, Jesus & Muhammad ( Peace Be Upon Them All ) ] that Insulted by a Cow ! from Netherlands !"

Zone-H.org, a website that tracks website defacement attacks worldwide, has documented thousands of compromised websites over the last months. Zone-H reports that 'nEt^DeViL' has hacked 18,157 websites as of Thursday, August 28.

From July 15 on, the hacker specifically targeted sites in The Netherlands, the home country of politician Geert Wilders. A number have since been restored, but numerous others still feature the forcefully injected ideological messages.

Arnout Veenman of the Dutch hosting providers association ISPConnect, speculates that the hacker exploited a recently published vulnerability in the Joomla content management system (cms). On August 14 the Joomla.org website was defaced after it failed to properly install a security patch. "A lot of the compromised Web sites run on Joomla, so that is a likely attack vector", Veenman told Webwereld, and IDG affiliate. "Web site owners should urgently update their CMS system."

Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch political party PVV an member of parliament, caused international uproar last March when he posted a video montage criticizing Islam. The video was posted on LiveLeak.com and denounced allegedly violent and warmongering passages in the Koran. The video led to political outrage and street protests in the Middle East.

The controversy surrounding the film is reminiscent of the uproar over cartoons featuring the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban in a Danish newspaper in 2006. This event also triggered a mass defacement attack on Danish Web sites. At that time, several hundred sites were compromised.

Defending Islam, hacker defaces thousands of Dutch websites (http://www.itworld.com/security/54552/defending-islam-hacker-defaces-thousands-dutch-websites)
~~~~~~~~~~~

Do they truly expect non-muslims people to take these histrionics seriously?? Their kindergarten temper tantrums would be funny if they didn't lead to such horrific endings. Maybe it would help if some of what they said made an ounce of sense!!

After 1,500 years, pagans plan Acropolis prayer

By NICHOLAS PAPHITIS, Associated Press Writer Thu Aug 28, 3:18 PM ET

ATHENS, Greece - A small group of pagans pledged Thursday to hold a protest prayer among the ruined Acropolis temples, more than 1,500 years after Christians stamped out worship of the ancient Greek gods.

Group spokeswoman Doretta Peppa said the worshippers would pray Sunday to Athena — goddess of wisdom and patron of ancient Athens — to protect the 2,500-year-old site. Peppa said followers of the old religion object to the removal last year of hundreds of sculptural masterpieces from a tiny museum on the Acropolis to a large new building under the citadel.

In a statement, her group, Ellinais, described the landmark glass and concrete structure as "an incredible architectural monstrosity that insults (Greece's) cultural heritage."

The $190 million building is where Greece hopes one day to display the Elgin Marbles beside the other Parthenon sculptures. Greek officials have said it will open next month, displaying some 4,000 artifacts. The Elgin Marbles were removed from the Parthenon temple by Scottish diplomat Lord Elgin in the 19th century, when Greece was still an unwilling part of the Ottoman empire. The British Museum has repeatedly rejected Greek calls for their return.

Peppa told The Associated Press she would prefer the Acropolis sculptures to have stayed at the ancient temples — from where they were removed by Greece over the past 30 years to stop erosion from Athens' polluted air.

"But even if we accept a new museum was needed ... it should be in a style close to that of the ancient buildings," she said. "It's not a museum of modern art."

Peppa's Athens-based group, Ellinais, is campaigning to revive ancient religion and has defied Culture Ministry bans to hold prayers at several ancient temples.

She said she would not seek state permission for the ceremony, to be held near the ancient Parthenon temple, built between 447-432 B.C. in honor of Athena.

"We will just sing three hymns. It won't be a big ceremony," Peppa said. "I don't know how many of us will be there. People are afraid. The fact is that we are subject to religious persecution."

Christianity took hold in Greece in the 4th century. Roman Emperor Theodosius wiped out the last vestige of the Olympian gods when he abolished the Olympic Games in 394 A.D. The Parthenon was converted into a Christian church in the 5th century A.D.

Designed by U.S.-based architect Bernard Tschumi in collaboration with Greece's Michalis Photiadis, the new Acropolis museum has been criticized for its bulk and modern style.

Architects and conservationists have denounced government plans to enhance its view of the Acropolis by demolishing two elegant, early 20th-century houses — one of which belongs to Oscar-winning composer Vangelis Papathanassiou.

After 1,500 years, pagans plan Acropolis prayer (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080828/ap_on_re_eu/greece_pagans_acropolis;_ylt=AspQ86vXZnoh7wt_AqvbIEF0bBAF)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

These people seriously need to learn of Christ!!

'RNC Welcoming Committee' weapons stash meant to disrupt GOP in Twin Cities
Posted: August 30, 2008
6:30 pm Eastern

By Drew Zahn
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Police in Minnesota raided a building in St. Paul and several homes in Minneapolis last night, confiscating materials believed to be stockpiled for protests, vandalism and riots by an anarchist group calling themselves the RNC Welcoming Committee.

Five people were arrested and more than 100 handcuffed, questioned and released when a Ramsey County police force – assisted by the FBI, Hennepin County, and Minneapolis law enforcement – executed a search warrant against a group considered a threat to launch violent protests during this week's Republican National Convention.

Ramsey County Sherriff Bob Fletcher read from a statement this morning, describing the RNC Welcoming Committee as "a criminal enterprise made up of 35 self-described anarchists who are intent on committing criminal acts before and during the Republican National Convention.

"These acts include tactics to blockade and disable delegate buses, breaching venue security and injuring police officers," Fletcher said.

Fletcher's statement also included a list of items found in the searches, including PVC pipe, chicken wire and duct tape – believed by police to be intended for locking protesters together in human barricades called "sleeping dragons" – five-gallon buckets of urine, throwing knives, flammable liquids, homemade caltrops (devices used to puncture tires, presumably bus tires), bolt cutters, sledgehammers, protective padding, and plastic buckets cut into shields.

A video claiming to advertise for the RNC Welcoming Committee's upcoming protests was posted on YouTube, showing a masked female running through streets to the lyrics, "One way or another, I'm gonna find ya, I'm gonna getcha," and distributing riot gear and homemade bombs from materials such as those found in last night's raids. The group did not respond to WND's request that it confirm authorship of the video, though the group's name and website are featured prominently throughout.

Both the video page and the group's website link to another group's stated plan for disrupting the RNC, which includes establishing blockades around St. Paul's Excel Center (where the convention is to take place), immobilizing delegates' buses and blocking the bridges that connect Minneapolis to St. Paul.

"Those plugging into this strategy," the plan states, "will be free to shape their actions as they see fit, using the tactics they consider appropriate."

The RNC Welcoming Committee released a statement late Friday, criticizing the police action.

"The police may claim that the raid was executed according to protocol – however, the violence inherent in this action may only be a hint of the violence to be expected on Monday and beyond, and is only a hint at the violence perpetrated daily by the police," the group said.

RNC Welcoming Committee member Tony Jones read from a statement calling the raids and effort to "derail RNC protest organizing efforts and to intimidate and terrorize individuals and groups converging on the Twin Cities to exercise what are supposed to be their basic civil rights."

St. Paul City Councilman Dave Thune, whose district includes the building rented by the RNC Welcoming Committee, joined the criticism.

"This is not the way to start things off," Thune told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "This is sending the wrong message. Regardless of how you feel about these people … they have a right to be here."

"To me," Thune told the St. Paul Pioneer Press, "this smacks of preemptive strike against free speech."

St. Paul Mayor Christopher Coleman, however, defended the motivation behind the police action.

"We have worked very, very hard to make sure we've protected people's right to exercise free speech," Coleman told the Pioneer Press. "To pick up a protest sign, that's fine. If you're here to pick up a brick or some other instrument, there's a problem."

The Pioneer Press reports that the five people being held in jail are under arrest on suspicion of conspiracy to riot, conspiracy to commit civil disorder and conspiracy to damage property and that the St. Paul building that the RNC Welcoming Committee was leasing, found following the raid to be in violation of fire code, has since been turned back over to the property owner.

Michael Moore: Hurricane Coming During GOP Convention 'Proof There Is a God in Heaven'

Controversial filmmaker admits he's delighted to see a natural disaster potentially interfere with the Republican event.

By Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute
8/30/2008 12:13:18 AM

Sometime you really have wonder at what cost some are willing to see their political ideology advanced.

To liberal documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, the bounds are seemingly endless. Moore has made a recent career out of attacking President George W. Bush, bashing conservatives and criticizing business. His latest outrage occurred on MSNBC’s August 29 “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” and when he commented about the coincidental timing of an unfortunate disaster – the potential for Hurricane Gustav to make landfall at the beginning of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.

“I was just thinking, this Gustav is proof that there is a God in heaven,” Moore said, laughing. “To have it planned at the same time – that it would actually be on its way to New Orleans for day one of the Republican Convention, up in the Twin Cities – at the top of the Mississippi River.”

After that comment, Moore backed off a bit and did say he hoped nobody got hurt and he hoped everybody is taking cover. However, he failed to make note of the $43.625 billion in damage the last hurricane to strike New Orleans caused – Hurricane Katrina in 2005 – and the billions of dollars the storm cost taxpayers.

Moore also took the opportunity to take a dig at President George W. Bush and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain.

“I can’t see what you showed,” Moore said to “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann about a video clip including Bush and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. celebrating McCain’s birthday. “I don’t know if you showed the cake there that they had there, three years ago today – with McCain and Bush. When Marie Antoinette – when she said, ‘Let them eat cake,’ I think she was speaking figuratively. They literally were while New Orleans was drowning – eating cake. So, it’s, um, I don’t know – let’s hope things get better.”

Olbermann, whose opinions tend to fall on the same far left end of the ideological spectrum as Moore, said it was even weirder than Moore observed. Olbermann said “one of” Focus on the Family preachers connected to Chairman Dr. James Dobson’s was allegedly calling for everyone to pray for rain during Sen. Barack Obama’s Democratic convention speech.

Moore told Olbermann he feared McCain would continue the wars that we are in and would start a new one with Iran. He defended Iran’s aggressive tactic with nuclear weapons by suggesting that if Iran invaded Mexico and Canada, as we had with Iraq and Afghanistan, even he and Olbermann would “build whatever we could do defend ourselves.”

Both Olbermann and Moore were full of praise for Obama’s speech and Moore chalked McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to cynicism on part of the Republican Party.

Moore has been a crusader for socialized health care in the United States, especially with his 2007 documentary “SiCKO.” Moore depicted the health care systems used in Canada, France, the United Kingdom and the communist nation of Cuba as what the United States should have – an expensive taxpayer-funded health care system.

Michael Moore: Hurricane Coming During GOP Convention 'Proof There Is a God in Heaven' (http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20080830000004.aspx)

California plans to drug depressed patients to death
'Nothing in the bill prohibits this horror'
Posted: August 29, 2008
11:40 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Just as Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama was in Denver preaching to a crowd of thousands of fans about the "change" he wants to see in the United States, his party compatriots in the California Legislature were making a "change," by approving a controversial plan that would allow nurses to assist terminally ill patients with suicide. >:( >:(

"AB 2747 allows a physician assistant or a nurse to opine that a patient is 'terminal,' and then push for unnatural death by 'palliative sedation,'" said Randy Thomasson, chief of the Campaign for Children and Families shortly after the vote.

"Depressed patients who succumb to this pressure will be drugged unconscious and die from dehydration, usually within five to 10 days. Nothing in the bill prohibits this horror," he said.

Forty-two Democrats in California voted in favor of the plan: 30 Republicans and two Democrats opposed the plan.

"AB 2747 pushes suicide through the back door at the hands of non-physicians taking advantage of depressed patients," Thomasson said. His organization has been alerting Californians to raise their concerns about the plan for sudden death with floor alerts, phone calls and e-mails.

"AB 2747 cheapens the value of human life by endorsing suicide as an option. Gov. Schwarzenegger should pledge to veto this very dangerous bill," Thomasson said, describing how the author, Assemblywoman Pattie Berg of Eureka, "deceptively changed" the bill to appear that "voluntarily stopping of eating and drinking" and "palliative sedation" no longer were on a list of "symptom management" options.

But the final bill "is broad enough to easily include these suicide techniques," Thomasson said.

The specific references to those treatments simply were changed to "other clinical treatments useful when a patient is actively dying."

According to the CCF report, Assemblyman Van Tran of Costa Mesa warned the bill has no protections for patients "who could be mistakenly diagnosed as 'terminally ill' but would have many, many full years of life ahead."

"The bill does not otherwise attempt to expressly define terminal illness that each of these health care professionals would have to diagnose to trigger the offer of counseling end of life options. It is not clear why nurse practitioners and physician assistants could make such a significant diagnosis. It is further not clear from the bill how making such significant diagnoses on a case-by-case basis can be done by such practitioners and assistants based on so-called 'standardized procedures and protocols' not further defined by the bill. The potential effect of AB 2747 is extremely broad and could cause irrevocable harm."

Added Republican Doug La Malfa of Yuba City: "We really go down a slippery slope when we contemplate the ending of life in such a way that it could be coerced. You have people in a very precarious situation, in a very awkward situation, that when thrust upon them with options to end their life, you have people that may feel like they have no use anymore. They feel like they're not of value anymore, and that taking one of these options, they may feel, is the only way out, that they've become a burden to their family or to someone else. I would hate to put people in that kind of position. They're already feeling vulnerable, and now, confronted with ways to end your life – this is a very delicate and, I think, dangerous idea here. You could have people like heirs that are anxious to get the estate started and quietly coercing people into making decisions like this."

"Total sedation (TS) – called by some 'terminal sedation,' 'palliative sedation,' or 'slow euthanasia' – is a protocol recently added to the lexicon of contemporary medical interventions and is a construct actively promulgated by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO)," wrote Dr. Howard M. Ducharme, past chair of the philosophy department at the University of Akron. "It is defined as 'the application of pharmacotherapy to induce a state of decreased or absent awareness (unconsciousness) in order to relieve the burden of otherwise intractable suffering. However, any quick acceptance of TS would be ill-advised because of the many 'devils in the details.'"

Quote from: DreamWeaver on August 31, 2008, 12:52:54 AM

"Depressed patients who succumb to this pressure will be drugged unconscious and die from dehydration, usually within five to 10 days. Nothing in the bill prohibits this horror," he said.

Forty-two Democrats in California voted in favor of the plan: 30 Republicans and two Democrats opposed the plan.

That is MURDER, plain and simple!!

Quote from: DreamWeaver on August 31, 2008, 12:52:54 AM

"AB 2747 pushes suicide through the back door at the hands of non-physicians taking advantage of depressed patients,"

I hope these people, and I use that term loosely, know they will have to answer to God, for their actions.

Quote from: DreamWeaver on August 31, 2008, 12:52:54 AM

"AB 2747 cheapens the value of human life by endorsing suicide as an option. Gov. Schwarzenegger should pledge to veto this very dangerous bill," Thomasson said, describing how the author, Assemblywoman Pattie Berg of Eureka, "deceptively changed" the bill to appear that "voluntarily stopping of eating and drinking" and "palliative sedation" no longer were on a list of "symptom management" options.

But the final bill "is broad enough to easily include these suicide techniques," Thomasson said.

Murder, is still murder, no matter how you try and explain it away!!

Quote from: DreamWeaver on August 31, 2008, 12:52:54 AM

"Total sedation (TS) – called by some 'terminal sedation,' 'palliative sedation,' or 'slow euthanasia' – is a protocol recently added to the lexicon of contemporary medical interventions and is a construct actively promulgated by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO)," wrote Dr. Howard M. Ducharme, past chair of the philosophy department at the University of Akron. "It is defined as 'the application of pharmacotherapy to induce a state of decreased or absent awareness (unconsciousness) in order to relieve the burden of otherwise intractable suffering. However, any quick acceptance of TS would be ill-advised because of the many 'devils in the details.'"

I'm GLAD I have nothing to do with Kalifornia any more!!

Pastor uses cancer hoax to hide porn addiction
Churchman inspired hundreds of thousands of people with fight against terminal disease
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: August 30, 2008
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Michael Guglielmucci
A popular pastor, songwriter and worship leader, whose hit song, "The Healer" – inspired, he said, by his own two-year struggle with aggressive terminal cancer – has confessed he never had the disease, a ruse he created to cover his addiction to pornography.

Michael Guglielmucci, who leads music at Edge Church International near Melbourne, Australia, has gone into hiding after his confession was read from the pulpit by his father, who is founder and head pastor of the church.

"Mike thought he could escape the pain by creating a diversion from his addiction to adult pornography, so he created the cancer scenario," Pastor Danny Guglielmucci said.

"We fully understand the questions, shock, disbelief and even anger you may feel, but Michael is struggling with a different kind of illness and is receiving professional help."

In a television interview, Guglielmucci said he had been "living a lie for a long time.

"I've been hiding who I am for so long. I can honestly say to you that the last two years have been hell for me physically, emotionally, but I never sat down and said ... let's try and fool the world."

While admitting that the disagnosis of terminal cancer was a hoax, Guglielmucci insisted the symptoms of vomiting, pain and hair loss were real – shame over his 16-year obsession with pornography manifesting itself with physical symptoms.

"This is who I am - I'm addicted to the stuff, it consumes my mind," he said.

"I'm sick and this is why I had to come up with some sort of explanation of what was happening in my body. I don't know how you can fake vomiting all over yourself night after night after night, I'm not that good an actor," he said.

But act he did.

Guglielmucci regularly performed "The Healer" wearing oxygen tubes and steadied himself with a cane. His wife, Amanda, 29, quit work to care for him, heating towels in the microwave in the middle of the night to "give him some relief in his back."

"I never questioned it, when you love someone you trust them. I had no reason not to trust him," she told the Sydney Daily Telegraph.

"Perhaps I feel a little bit foolish in this, hindsight's a fabulous thing ... but I'm trying not to beat myself up."

Guglielmucci would have his wife drop him off at the hospital for his medical visits, which she never attended with him. He also created phony doctors who sent e-mails to his family, updating them on his condition.

He spent two years playing Christian rock music to packed audiences, driving his anthem of healing and faith to No. 2 on the Australian Record Industry Association charts when it debuted as part of an album released by Hillsong Church in Sydney.

Police, however, are more interested in the pastor's Facebook page, "Praying Together for Mike Guglielmucci" - now removed - where donations were solicited.
Some donors have voiced their anger.

Alex Saint, 24, a former Edge Church International member, donated a small amount on the website, inspired by Guglielmucci's music, his strength in his disease and the recent loss of his own mother to breast cancer.

"I believed every word he said. I believed he was going through hell," Saint told the Adelaide Advertiser.

"My heart goes out to all the people who have been hurt ... to make all this up is extremely crushing for anyone who has gone through cancer. There's no better script than to be dying of cancer and giving glory to God in a Christian context ... it's the highest form of fraud."

Another donor, a grandmother identified only as Caroline, gave $800 she had saved to take her four-year-old wheelchair-bound grandson on a vacation because she thought more good would come from gifting the money.

"I feel like a real idiot," she said. "I saw Michael talk and sing and he's so very charismatic. ... but what a con."

Pastor Danny Guglielmucci has assured church members restitution will gladly be made "if people want their money back."

Guglielmucci's attorney told The Advertiser last week his client had no plans to report to police despite church officials advising him to reveal details of any cash raised.

Considering the impact of Guglielmucci's public ministry, it's no surprise the news of his fall has generated comment online among fans and foes.

"He will find peace behind bars I think," wrote poster allblackstorm on YouTube.

rastakim16333 was more forbearing, writing, "'Healer' song is God breathed ... I believe that ... and Mike Guglielmucci is one of the millions [of] Christians who are struggling with the same temptation ... I still believe in [Pastor] Mike and love him ... I am praying for him ... God will use this song to heal ... those who are hurting ..."

"Who are we to condemn him? God will forgive him ... Let's pray for his relationship with God instead of shouting stupid things," posted Hansie21, a sentiment echoed by Rev. Andrew Evans, a supporter of Guglielmucci.

"My gut feeling is that people will forgive him," he said.

Quote

Pastor uses cancer hoax to hide porn addiction
Churchman inspired hundreds of thousands of people with fight against terminal disease

Brothers and Sisters,

This is definitely horrible and an example of how skilled the devil is. YES - we should be praying for this man and many others who are being consumed by the devil. YES - he can be forgiven by GOD if he wants to be. He can also be forgiven by man.

I would say that this man has committed criminal acts that must be answered for. I'm guessing from the details in the article that this man isn't ready yet to begin what should be done. The criminal acts are only part of this, small really in comparison to GOD.

It's very sad to know how much the LORD'S Work has been hurt by this. This is a HUGE hypocrisy that the devil will use with great skill for some time to come. It could also be an example of the devil quoting Scripture, but we really don't know at this point. Only GOD knows. As we should all know, all Christians are sinners SAVED BY GRACE! The only unforgivable sin after the CROSS is rejection of JESUS CHRIST!

Love In Christ,
Tom

Favorite Bible Quotes 56 - 1 John 2:20-29 But ye have an unction from
the Holy One, and ye know all things. 21 I have not written unto you
because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie
is of the truth. 22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is
the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. 23
Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that
acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also. 24 Let that therefore
abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye
have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall
continue in the Son, and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise
that he hath promised us, even eternal life. 26 These things have I
written unto you concerning them that seduce you. 27 But the anointing
which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any
man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things,
and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall
abide in him. 28 And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he
shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at
his coming. 29 If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one
that doeth righteousness is born of him.

38,000 Protest Over S. Korean President's Alleged Pro-Christian Bias

Tens of thousands of South Korean Buddhists took to the streets of Seoul last week to protest what they say is pro-Christian bias in the administration of President Lee Myung-bak.

Mon, Sep. 01, 2008 Posted: 10:45 AM EDT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Tens of thousands of South Korean Buddhists took to the streets of Seoul on Wednesday to protest what they say is pro-Christian bias in the administration of President Lee Myung-bak.

Discontent among Buddhists has been brewing for months over Lee's alleged favoritism toward Christianity. Buddhists have criticized Lee, a Presbyterian, for filling most of his Cabinet and top presidential posts with other Christians.

Police estimated that 38,000 people, including 4,000 monks, gathered Wednesday at Seoul's City Hall. Organizers said they would march to the Jogye temple, South Korea's main Buddhist temple, several blocks away.

Buddhist ire was raised again in June when the transportation ministry dropped Buddhist temples from electronic maps of the public transit system and by a photo in which the head of the national police agency posed with a famous pastor at a Christian event.

The ministry said the omission of the temples was a mistake by a lower official and they were later restored to the maps.

Adding fuel to the fire was a police inspection of the car of the Venerable Jikwan, head of the Jogye Order, South Korea's largest Buddhist sect, in July when his car was moving out of the Jogye temple. The temple is harboring some eight civic activists who led weeks of street rallies earlier this year against Lee's decision to resume imports of U.S. beef.

The protests rocked the president's administration, which took office in February, and Lee's approval ratings plummeted.

Monks and other Buddhist officials have called on the government to take steps to end what they say is religious discrimination.

Lee "should fire the head of the national police agency to show his sincerity" toward religious neutrality, said Park Jeong-kyu, a spokesman for one of the Buddhist groups that organized Wednesday's rally.

Park also called for legislation banning religious discrimination.

Buddhism is the oldest major religion in Korea, though Christianity has grown dramatically, especially during the 20th century. According to government figures, Buddhists made up 22.8 percent of the population in 2005, while Christians accounted for 29.2 percent.

In early July, Prime Minister Han Seung-soo, a Catholic, instructed all ministries not to give the mistaken impression that the government favors a specific religion, according to his office.

Han also visited the Jogye temple and expressed regret over alleged discrimination.

38,000 Protest Over S. Korean President's Alleged Pro-Christian Bias (http://www.christianpost.com/article/print/20080901/38-000-protest-over-s-korean-president-s-alleged-pro-christian-bias.htm)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've always thought that buddhists were very peaceful people. I have noticed though, in the past few months that a lot of buddhists are beginning to get a bit rowdy.

Happy Meal profits fund homosexual strategies
McDonald's boycott organizer cites conference to promote 'gays'
Posted: September 04, 2008
12:20 am Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

The profits from families who buy Happy Meals for their children have been used to pay for 56 McDonald's staff members to meet in San Diego to strategize about promoting homosexuality within the company, according to the organizer of a boycott of the fast-food chain.

The American Family Association recently launched a boycott campaign against the company for its anti-family agenda as well as the public condemnation by a McDonald's official of traditional family supporters as being motivatd by "hate."

The AFA's petition to the company seeking a change of policy and other outreaches have been assembled at the website BoycottMcDonalds.com.

The site condemns the company's decision to pay $20,000 to become a member of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and have an executive on the organization's board of directors.

The AFA said it learned McDonald's also has funded a seminar to train homosexuals in promoting their agenda, and now has confirmed the company paid to send 56 employees to San Diego for a "Pioneer Summit."

"The purpose of the meeting was to develop a plan to promote the gay agenda within the company," according to a statement from American Family Association. "Those attending were thrilled that McDonald's showed such support for their agenda."

The AFA cited a comment from Brian Unger, a senior vice president, "It was truly inspiring to see McDonald's Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual and Transgender members come together to share heartfelt, personal stories about their journeys, challenges and personal reflections. Better understanding these journeys … will help us better grow our people in the restaurants and across the company."

American Family Association had asked McDonald's simply to remain neutral in the culture battle in which advocates for homosexuality repeatedly have attacked those pursuing traditional family values.

The response was less than satisfying, AFA reported.

"A McDonald's official (Bill Whitman) went so far as to say that those who oppose the gay agenda are motivated by hate," the group said.

According to a published report from Bob Witeck, co-founder of a communications company who is described as an expert of homosexual issues, the San Diego event was a huge success.

It featured "fully paid travel and accommodations for the first-ever conference" that brought in 56 "LGBT and allied employees" so they could "talk, to learn, and to celebrate one another."

Witech reported the conference provided McDonald's with a mandate "to discover how to make internal education a reality throughout the corporation, how to properly add gender identity and expression to the company's non-discrimination policies and how to handle transitions among their workforce."

The report indicated McDonald's now should push forward with its corporate promotion of homosexuality.

"Champions and allies in the corporate offices include Marcia Vargas, VP of Diversity, and Gus Viano and Kevin Bradley, directors in McDonald’s Corporate Diversity office who are adept at challenging long-held beliefs that a company as deeply embedded in the American consciousness as McDonald’s must tread lightly into this aspect of workforce and workplace diversity," the report said.

WND also has reported on AFA's documentation of McDonald's sponsorship of a homosexual festival featuring public nudity for both men and women.

The AFA revealed McDonald's sponsorship of the 2008 San Francisco "Gay" Pride parade with a television commercial. The ad originally was posted on YouTube by a McDonald's employee, the group said. "After AFA exposed it, it was removed by the McDonald's employee," the AFA said.

"McDonald's says they 'stand by and support our people to live and work in a society free of discrimination and harassment,'" the AFA said. However, "Here is what they won't tell you. McDonald's helped sponsor the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade."

Whitman made his comment about "hate" to the Washington Post.

However, it is McDonald's officials who are at fault, said a spokesman for a family of mutual funds whose managers refused to invest in the company. McDonald's officials, in fact are "neglecting" their "fiduciary" duty to stockholders by their pursuit of homosexual activism, the spokesman said.

"It continues to amaze me that corporations, like McDonald's, continue to publicly and financially support things that alienate their consumer base," said Arthur Ally, the president of the Timothy Plan family of mutual funds.

The company refuses to invest with McDonald's.

"Shareholders as well as customers should be outraged at the blatant position this company has taken on this issue. McDonald's corporation has a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to continue to earn profits and expand their company. By alienating such a large consumer base, the Christian community, they are undoubtedly neglecting this responsibility," he said.

On the AFA's comment forum for boycott participants, thousands of families have promised to stop making purchases at the stores.

"America is tired of corporations and organizations twisting the free speech and actions of its citizens into 'hatred' when we simply oppose the corporation's, or organization's, involvement in areas where we don't want our money going," wrote one participant. "Don't expect any more of my money."

"McDonald's is a thing of the past for me," said another.

"We love your fries, but we will not compromise truth. You have taken money that our family, and millions of others, have contributed to the success of the McDonald's Corp. and chosen to use it for an agenda that defies the foundation of our nation, the family, as created by a man and woman," said a third.

"I will take [my] 10 great grand children to Wendy's, Burger King or some other place. YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN!" said one.

"Yes Wendy's, I will have a Frosty with that," said another.

"Consider my family's patronage 'McGone,'" said one.

AFA Chairman Don Wildmon said, "It's a shame that McDonald's would tarnish their family-friendly image. But the company has ramped up its support of the gay agenda and it leaves us no option but to call for a boycott."

Spain moves to amend strict abortion law

By DANIEL WOOLLS, Associated Press Writer Thu Sep 4, 12:21 PM ET

MADRID, Spain - Spain has taken a first step toward amending its restrictive law on abortion, a government minister said Thursday, moving to fill one of the last big gaps in a drive for sweeping social change in this traditionally Roman Catholic country.

A panel of 13 lawyers, doctors and other experts has been appointed to come up with recommendations for the Socialist government on how to amend the current law, Equality Minister Bibiana Aido told reporters.

She said she expects a bill to be presented to Parliament in the first six months of 2009, but could not specify if it would provide for abortion on demand up to 12 to 14 weeks into a pregnancy, as demanded by pro-choice campaigners.

The current law, which dates from 1985, allows abortion in the first 12 weeks in case of rape, 22 weeks in case of fetal malformation, and at any time if a psychiatrist certifies that the mother's physical or mental health is endangered.

The vast majority of the roughly 100,000 abortions carried out in Spain each year fall into the latter category, according to the Association of Accredited Abortion Clinics. Abortion foes call it a loophole that is grossly abused.

Aido said the current law has to be changed because Spain's 17 semiautonomous regions, which administer their own health care systems, apply the legislation unevenly, with women in some areas having trouble getting the procedure performed or obtaining government financing to which they are entitled.

"This cannot be," Aido said.

When Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero came to power in 2004, he embarked on an ambitious program of social change that eventually saw Spain legalize gay marriage and enact fast-track divorce proceedings. Along the way, he infuriated the church and the conservative opposition.

In the campaign leading up to the 2004 election, Zapatero had promised abortion on demand but after taking power he eventually dropped the issue.

United Left, a small party in Parliament, has said the Socialist Party told lawmakers it had already angered too many people by engaging in peace talks with armed Basque separatists and granting more autonomy to the Catalonia region and did not want to pick another fight.

Zapatero won re-election in March of this year and has been saying ever since that abortion reform would once again be a priority.

During the campaign, however, his Socialists steered way clear of the issue, as did the conservative Popular Party. So sensitive is the issue politically that both were wary of spooking centrist voters.

In January, about 40 abortion clinics went on strike for five days to protest what they called police harassment in raids targeting facilities that were allegedly carrying out illegal abortions.

Some of the clinics targeted were in Madrid, and they blamed the campaign here on conservatives who run the regional government.

Spain moves to amend strict abortion law (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080904/ap_on_re_eu/spain_abortion;_ylt=Aqy9i5ft_Jr4LAZhFBFQ0Qt0bBAF)

Ex-priest in Australia faces 93 child sex charges

Thu Sep 4, 12:23 AM ET

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A former priest has been charged with 93 child sex offences stemming from an alleged paedophile ring at a Catholic boy's school, police said on Wednesday.

The 65-year-old was arrested and charged with the offences police allege took place from late 1970s to the early 1980s, according to a statement issued by the New South Wales police.

Police suspect dozens of boys may have been abused during alleged hypnotic "prayer" sessions at St Stanislaus College, located 75 kilometers (45 miles) west of Sydney, according to local media reports.

The former priest, who was not named in the statement, was charged in May with 33 offences stemming from evidence of alleged victims, and a further 60 offences on Wednesday relating to at least 13 alleged victims, police said.

He was released on bail on Tuesday and is due to appear in court on September 15.

St. Stanislaus' principal John Edwards last week told local media he first became aware of the allegations "several years ago" and referred the claims to police.

The allegations reportedly included claims of late night prayer and chanting sessions in which boys were sexually abused.

A total of 615 boys attend St Stanislaus' and 188 live on the campus as borders.

The priest is the fourth person arrested by the Strike Force Belle police unit, which is investigating a number of sexual assault offences that allegedly occurred at one Catholic and one Anglican secondary school in the town of Bathurst in the 1970s, according to the police statement.

"We are currently sifting through a significant amount of information and as a result we have broadened this investigation," Detective Superintendent Michael Goodwin said in the statement.

"Inquiries are continuing and we cannot rule out further arrests," he said.

The allegations came to light five weeks after Pope Benedict apologized for sexual abuse in the Church during a visit to Sydney.

Sexual abuse by Catholic clergy shadowed the pope's week-long visit to Sydney in July, with emotional pleas by victims and their families for the pope to ensure that the Church deals openly with the issue.

Ex-priest in Australia faces 93 child sex charges (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080904/wl_nm/australia_catholic_abuse_dc;_ylt=AmrazQJ3iGP9Lfn7bKykKmAfYhAF)

O PASTOR IN SEX SCANDAL
REV. WRIGHT DONE ME WRONG: CHURCH LADY

New York Post

September 9, 2008

He almost wrecked Barack Obama's presidential dreams, and now firebrand pastor Jeremiah Wright has helped destroy a Dallas church worker's marriage - and her job, The Post has learned.

Elizabeth Payne, 37, said she had a steamy sexual affair with the controversial, racially divisive man of the cloth while she was an executive assistant at a church headed by a popular Wright protégé.

When word of the unholy alliance got out, Payne's husband dumped her, and she was canned from the plum job at Friendship-West Baptist Church, she told The Post.

"I was involved with Rev. Wright, and that's why I lost my job and why my husband divorced me," Payne said.

She refused to reveal when the adulterous affair started or how she met Wright.

But fellow churchgoers at Friendship-West "found out about the affair in the spring," Payne said.

At the time, she was secretary to the Rev. Frederick Haynes III, a longtime Wright disciple.

In April, Payne organized a series of Texas public appearances by Wright, 67. Weeks before, Obama had disavowed his preacher of 20 years after Wright's anti-government rants came to light.

"Liz was by Rev. Wright's side day and night during those days," a church source said.

"It's all true," said Payne, adding that she has filed a wrongful-dismissal claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to get her job back.

In an ironic twist, Wright last night spoke at an East Orange, NJ, church revival on the subject of "unexpected problems."

"There's no such thing as a problem-free relationship," he told a packed Elmwood United Presbyterian Church. "In life, you'll have unexpected problems."

He punctuated his 45-minute sermon with evocative 1960s hits, including the Supremes' "Where Did Our Love Go," Frankie Beverley's "Joy and Pain," and the Temptations' "Ain't Too Proud to Beg." He's set to speak there again tonight.

Payne's husband, Fred Payne, 64, said he learned of the affair in late February, when he discovered e-mails between his wife and Wright.

"There must have been about 80 of them, back and forth," he said. "Wright said things like he was going to leave his wife for Elizabeth."

Wright has been married to his second wife, Ramah, for more than 20 years.

The preacher reportedly wooed Ramah away from her first husband in the 1980s, when the couple came to marriage counseling at Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

After discovering he had been cuckolded, Fred Payne, who had married Elizabeth in October 2006, headed straight for divorce court.

"I was downright mad about this bull- - - -," said Fred, who said he is "in the oil and gas business," belongs to a hunting club and makes his own bullets in his garage.

"People wouldn't be happy to know that my wife was sleeping with a black man."

He added, "Rev. Haynes doesn't like the interracial thing, either. This was quite an issue for him."

Elizabeth Payne said she has been banished by Haynes and the flock at Friendship-West.

"I'm not a member of the congregation anymore; I'm not even allowed on the premises," she said.

Wright became an embarrassment for Obama after videos of the preacher's old sermons emerged.

In them, Wright blamed the United States for the 9/11 attacks and boomed, "God damn America!"

Record 259 corporations honored for 'gay' support
Foundation lauds businesses toeing line of social campaign
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: September 13, 2008
By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Longtime logo from Campbell's soups. The company has been a perfect score from an organization advocacy homosexual "rights"

The newly released Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Corporate Equality Index, which ranks hundreds of businesses on their "treatment" of employees who have chosen homosexual, lesbian, bisexual and transgender lifestyles, awards a record 259 corporations perfect scores, including newcomers Campbell's Soup and Target.

The total in the 2009 report is up one-third from the 195 corporations so honored in 2008, according to the Human Rights Campaign, which explained that now an estimated nine million workers "are protected from employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression because of their employers' policies on diversity & inclusion, training, health care, and domestic partnership benefits."

The report notes that when the evaluation was begun in 2002, there were 13 corporations with such perfect scores – a total of 100 out of 100 possible – and that rose to 26 in 2003, 56 in 2004, 101 in 2005, 138 in 2006 and 195 in 2008.

The 2009 index "shows that corporate America understands that a diverse workforce is critical to remaining successful and competitive," Joe Solmonese, the foundation chief, said in a prepared statement posted on the organization's website. "In the absence of federal law that prohibits workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression, it is up to employers to take the lead and implement policies that ensure all their employees are protected."

Target's target logo. The company is among 259 given a perfect score for its advocacy for homosexual "rights"

Officials from companies honored in the ranking of nearly 600 companies overall were enthusiastic.

"We are thrilled to share this with our LGBT employees and the loyal customers and diverse communities we serve," said Denise Lynn, an American Airlines vice president.

"Our 100 percent score on the HRC Corporate Equality Index gives us all a shot in the arm and explains why I love the job I do," added Betty Young, an LGBT marketing team member for the airline.

"Barnes & Noble was one of the first retailers to offer domestic partner benefits to our booksellers more than 13 years ago," boasted Michelle Smith, a vice president for her company.

"We are extremely proud to accept this distinction in recognition of Chevron's diversity and inclusion efforts, and the outstanding contributions our GLBT employees and the Chevron Pride Employee Network have made to the company," said spokesman Joe Laymon.

"Recognition always pushes Dell to move to the next level and so we'll continue our efforts advocating for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered equality," said Dell vice president Gil Casellas. "It's part of our global diversity efforts."

The rating "affirms our position that ING has created a welcoming environment," said ING North American Insurance Corp. chief Tom McInerney.

Wilson Dunnington, director of inclusion for J.C. Penney, said the company's perfect score recognizes the company's "inclusive and diverse environment."

"We believe it is a true honor to receive a perfect ranking on the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index for the second year in a row," said David Windley, head of the company's human resources.

"Shell is pleased to have achieved a perfect score on the CEI-rating. This was a priority for us because it further demonstrates our commitment to inclusiveness in the workplace," said Marvin Odum, president of Shell Oil Company. "A 100-percent rating helps us to better attract, recruit and retain diverse talent to contribute to our overall business success."

"Often we are singled out for discrimination and, very often, job termination, solely because of our gender change or gender expression regardless of work history. The significant increase in companies achieving 100 percent on the CEI shows that the business-employee climate is improving, but we know there is still significant progress to be made," said Meghan Stabler, a member of the HRC's business council.

The report also reveals that more than four dozen companies "have taken significant and substantial steps to remove discrimination from at least one of their health insurance plans."

The organization said its other major findings are the of 255 Fortune 500 corporations included, 120 got perfect scores, and the biggest leap for this year was among law firms, which were included in the assessment for the first time in 2006. Those rose from 13 in 2006 to 64 for this report.

The Human Rights Campaign seeks "fundamental fairness and equality" by advocating for the "rights" of people in alternative sexual lifestyles

America's pro-homosexual giants: 2009
259 U.S. businesses recognized for benefiting 'lesbian, gays, bisexual, transgender' employees

September 13, 2008
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Below is the list, in alphabetical order, of companies scoring a perfect 100 percent on the Human Rights Campaign's 2009 Corporate Equality Index, with policies beneficial toward homosexuals:

3M Co.

AAA Northern California, Nevada and Uta

Abercrombie & Fitch

Accenture Ltd.

Aetna

Agilent Technologies

Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld

Alaska Airlines

Alcatel-Lucent

Allianz Life Insurance Co. of North America

Allstate Corp.

Alston & Bird

American Express

Ameriprise Financial

American Airlines

Anheuser-Busch Companies

Aon Corp.

Apple

Arent Fox LLP

Arnold & Porter

AT&T

Bain & Co.

Baker & Daniels LLP

Bank of America

Bank of New York Mellon Corp.

Barnes & Noble

BASF

Bausch & Lomb

Best Buy

Bingham McCutchen

BMC Software

Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals

Boeing

Borders

Boston Consulting Group

BP America

Bright Horizons Family Solutions

Brinker International

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co

Brown Rudnick

Bryan Cave

Campbell Soup Co.

Capital One

Cardinal Health

Cargill

Carlson Companies

Carmax

Charles Schwab

Chevron

ChoicePoint

Chrysler

Chubb

Cisco Systems

Citigroup

Clear Channel Communications

Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton

Clifford Chance US LLP

Clorox

CNA Insurance

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc.

Constellation Energy Group Inc.

Continental Airlines

Coors

Corning

Covington & Burling LLP

Cox Enterprises

Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP

Credit Suisse

Cummins

Debevoise & Plimpton LLP

Dell

Deloitte & Touche

Deutsche Bank

Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP

Diageo North America

Dickstein Shapiro

DLA Piper

Dorsey & Whitney

Dow Chemical

DuPont

Eastman Kodak

eBay Inc.

Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP

Electronic Arts

Eli Lilly & Co.

Ernst & Young

Estee Lauder

Esurance

Faegre & Benson

Fannie Mae

Foley & Lardner

Foley Hoag

Ford

Freescale Semiconductor

Fried, Frank, Haris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP

GameStop

Gap

Genentech

General Motors

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP

GlaxoSmithKline

Hyatt

Goldman Sachs

Google

Harrah's

Hartford Financial Services

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care

Haynes and Boone LLP

Heller Ehrman

Herman Miller

Hewitt Associates

Hewlett-Packard

Hoffman-La Roche Inc.

Holland & Knight

Honeywell International

Hospira

Howrey LLP

HSBC USA

Husch Blackwell Sanders LLP

IndyMac Bancorp

ING North America Insurance

Intel

IBM

Intuit

J.C. Penney

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

Jenner & Block

Johnson & Johnson

Kaiser Permanente

KeyCorp

Kimberly Clark Corp.

Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group

Kirkland & Ellis

KPMG

Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel

Latham & Watkins

Lehman Brothers

Levi Strauss

Lexmark International

Littler Mendelson PC

Liz Claiborne

Lockheed Martin Corp.

Macy

Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP

Marriott International

Marsh & McLennan Cos.

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance

MasterCard

McDermott Will & Emery

McKinsey & Co.

Merck & Co.

Merrill Lynch & Co.

MetLife

Microsoft

Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky & Popeo

Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams

Morgan Stanley

Morrison & Foerster

Motorola

National Grid USA

Nationwide

NCR

New York Life Insurance Co.

New York Times

Newell Rubbermaid

Nielsen Co.

Nike

Nixon Peabody

Nordstrom

Northern Trust

Northrop Grumman

Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp.

O'Melveny & Myers

Oracle

Orbitz

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe

Owens Corning

Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP

Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP

Pepsi Bottling Group Inc.

PepsiCo

Perkins Coie

Pfizer

PG&E

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman

Powell Goldstein

PricewaterhouseCoopers

Progressive Corp.

Proskauer Rose LLP

Prudential Financial

Raymond James Financial

Raytheon

Recreational Equipment Inc.

Replacements Ltd.

Reynolds American Inc.

Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi LLP

Ropes & Gray LLP

Sabre Holdings

Schering-Plough

Sears

Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold LLP

Sempra Energy

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Shell Oil

Sidley Austin

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Sodexho

Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal

Southern California Edison

Sprint Nextel

Squire, Sanders & Dempsey LLP

Starbucks

Starcom MediaVest

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

State Street Corp.

Subaru of America

Sullivan & Cromwell LLP

Sun Life Financial Inc.

Sun Microsystems

SunTrust Banks

Supervalu

Symantec Corp.

Target

Tech Data

Texas Instruments

Thompson Coburn

Time Warner

TJX Cos.

Toyota Financial Services

Toyota Motor Sales USA

Travelport

Troutman Sanders

U.S. Bancorp

UBS AG

Unilever

United Business Media

United Parcel Service

US Airways Group

Viacom

Vinson & Elkins

Visa

Visteon Corp.

Volkswagen of America

Wachovia Corp.

Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

Walgreens

Walt Disney

Washington Mutual

Weil, Gotshal and Manges

Wells Fargo & Co.

Whirlpool

White & Case

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

Winston & Strawn

Wyndham Worldwide

Xerox

Yahoo!

Brothers and Sisters,

It's a sad commentary in a once great country when SEXUAL PERVERSIONS become a PRIORITY and GOD is mocked, ignored, and rejected at the same time. A time for judgment will come, and that time might be soon. As Christians, our priorities haven't changed, and our work for the LORD should continue as usual. Some are elated at new strength and acceptance for EVIL. What they don't realize is it will be like a flash in the pan and be trod underfoot soon by an angry GOD. The end of this age is coming, and all GLORY will go to GOD! GOD will crush EVIL and reserve it for the eternal fires of HELL! GOD foretold this, and all will come to pass most perfectly at HIS Appointed time. The time for SALVATION is also growing short.

GOOD NEWS!

Thanks be unto GOD for HIS unspeakable GIFT!, JESUS CHRIST, our Lord and Saviour forever!

Church to Charles Darwin: We're sorry we doubted you
Archbishop of Canterbury takes heat for 'ludicrous' apology 150 years later

Some say the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is making a monkey of himself with a half-baked apology to Charles Darwin for misunderstanding the author of "Origin of the Species" 126 years after his death.

Nevertheless, that's just what the Church of England plans to do today – make an act of contrition to the godfather of evolution.

Officials of the church said senior bishops wanted to atone for the vilification heaped on Darwin by their predecessors.

The church is also eager to counter the view that its teaching is incompatible with science and distance itself from fundamentalist Christians, who believe in the biblical account of the creation.

"Charles Darwin, 200 years from your birth [in 1809], the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still," says the statement. "But the struggle for your reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests."

The statement is written by the Rev. Dr. Malcolm Brown, the director of mission and public affairs of the Archbishops' Council, headed by Williams.

"People, and institutions, make mistakes and Christian people and churches are no exception," it continues. "When a big new idea emerges that changes the way people look at the world, it's easy to feel that every old idea, every certainty, is under attack and then to do battle against the new insights. The Church made that mistake with Galileo's astronomy and has since realized its error. Some Church people did it again in the 1860s with Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection. So it is important to think again about Darwin's impact on religious thinking, then and now."

Before the statement was even officially released it was under attack.

Former Conservative Minister Ann Widdecombe, who left the Church of England to become a Roman Catholic, told the Daily Mail: "It's absolutely ludicrous. Why don't we have the Italians apologising for Pontius Pilate? 'We've already apologized for slavery and for the Crusades. When is it all going to stop? It's insane and makes the Church of England look ridiculous."

Andrew Darwin, a great-great grandson of the eminent scientist, said he was "bemused" by the apology, which seemed "pointless."

"Why bother?" he said. "When an apology is made after 200 years, it's not so much to right a wrong, but to make the person or organization making the apology feel better."

U.K. Mother Murders Daughter Because "Embarrassed" by Disability

By Tim Waggoner

CHESTER, Wales, September 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - This week, a UK court heard the case of a mother who allegedly deliberately drowned her disabled child in a bath because she was ashamed and embarrassed by her daughter's cerebral palsy.

According to the Telegraph, prosecutor Michael Chambers explained to the court how Joanne Hill's husband had refused to give four-year old Naomi up for adoption, despite Joanne's inability to accept the fact that her daughter had cerebral palsy. He recounted the evening of the murder, November 26, 2007: "When the bath was full she told Naomi she was having a bath, but Naomi didn't want one. The defendant carried her upstairs and undressed her."

"The defendant put her in the bath and drowned her by holding her head under the water for a long time until she was dead."

According to testimony Joanne then put her daughter's clothes back on and after driving around for eight hours while intoxicated, entered the hospital claiming her daughter was unconscious. She was arrested at the hospital an hour later on suspicion of murder.

"The defendant couldn't cope with caring for Naomi and left a lot of the everyday care to her husband Simon," said Chambers.

A representative of the organization that babysat for Naomi reiterated this point, saying that Joanne was ashamed of Naomi and used to dress her in ways that would hide her disability.

Chambers also told the court that Joanne's claims of mental problems as a reduced responsibility defense have not been "entirely honest", describing how she had admitted to lying to doctors about voices in her head.

"She quite simply wanted Naomi dead," said Chambers.

This trial, which is still in progress, comes during a week in which the devaluation of children with disabilities has been very much in the media spotlight, thanks largely to Gov. Sarah Palin's much publicized decision to carry to term her son Trig, who has Down's syndrome.

Prominent bioethicist Wesley Smith recently commented on the media bias against Palin, and says it occurs in part because, "Palin is viewed as 'the other,' symbolized by her and Todd's (Palin's husband) loving acceptance of Trig." Smith said he hopes that the unconditional love the Palin's show to their son Trig will be an example for a world that is evermore justifying murder of the innocent.

"I hope that people will decide to emulate the Palins in their unconditional acceptance and love for their beautiful son, Trig," said Smith.

However, according to a Globe and Mail report from several days ago, Palin's loving and highly-publicized acceptance of her Down's syndrome child has at least one doctor in Canada worried that her example may pressure some mothers to shun abortion after diagnosis of Down's syndrome. "The worry," said Dr. Andre Lalonde, executive vice-president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, "is that this [Palin's example] will have an implication for abortion issues in Canada."

Already in Canada and throughout the West, abortion rates for unborn children diagnosed with Down's syndrome range from between 80% to 95%. In addition, prenatal screening for "abnormalities" other than Down's syndrome is becoming an increasingly popular phenomenon, with the result being that those unborn children deemed to be "undesirable" for various reasons are increasingly aborted.

U.K. Mother Murders Daughter Because "Embarrassed" by Disability (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/sep/08091207.html)
~~~~~~~~

I can't comment on this because I am angry!! I will how ever post this.............

Luke 18:15-17 And they brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them. 16 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. 17 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.

Women Drugged, Sexually Assaulted in 'Prayer Sessions'

Friday , September 12, 2008

SYDNEY, Australia —
Two men were arrested Friday and charged with 230 sex offenses police said they committed during prayer sessions with a woman who believed one of the men could cure her of a religious curse.

The men, aged 61 and 38 years, are highly regarded members of Sydney's Greek Orthodox and Coptic Orthodox communities, New South Wales state police said in a statement. Officials declined to release their names.

The 61-year-old man claimed to be a spiritual mentor who could speak to angels, remove curses and banish evil spirits, police said. After telling the 30-year-old woman she had been cursed, he charged her money to remove the evil and then repeatedly assaulted her over a period of four years, police said.

The 61-year-old was charged with 151 sexual offenses, and the 38-year-old charged with 79 sexual offenses, police said.

At a press conference Friday, Fairfield Police Acting Superintendent Gary Bailey declined to discuss details of the alleged assaults.

"I have never seen anything as bizarre as this or as callous as this before," he said.

The woman told authorities she believed she and her family had been cursed by a member of the Greek community and that they would suffer terrible consequences including death and illness unless the curse was removed. Police said she attended numerous prayer sessions with the men at various hotels in Sydney between 2001 and 2005, during which she was blindfolded and sexually assaulted.

Police said she paid the men up to 70,000 Australian dollars (US$56,200) for the sessions.

The two men were arrested in June — along with the 38-year-old's wife — over allegations of sexual assault on another woman, and charged with similar offenses, including sexual assault and extortion, police said. They were released on bail and the two men re-arrested on the new charges Friday.

Bailey said both women had been assaulted by the men at hotels, and both may have been drugged during the attacks. He declined to say how they might have been drugged.

Bailey said police believe the men also assaulted additional women.

"We will allege these women have been the cruel prey of callous individuals who used religious fear to manipulate and abuse them for their sexual gratification and financial gain," Bailey said in an earlier statement. "Sexual offenses are heinous but an offender who hides behind the cloak of religious respectability is particularly vile."

The men were expected to appear in court later Friday.

The Coptic Church is the native Christian church of Egypt, and has a doctrine similar to the Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox churches.

Bailey said both women come from religious families and were raised to follow the Orthodox faith, which includes a belief in the evil eye — a glance believed to harm those on whom it falls.

"We believe this was a major reason why they were persuaded into believing they were cursed," Bailey said.

Women Drugged, Sexually Assaulted in 'Prayer Sessions' (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,421421,00.html)
~~~~~~~~~~~

2 Peter 2:1-2 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.

Matthew 24:4-5 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. 5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

'Muslim Massacre' Video Game Has 'American Hero' Avatars Wipe Out Followers of Islam
September 13, 2008

A VIDEO game made by an Australian man that encourages players to massacre Muslim people has caused international outrage.

Muslim Massacre is promoted as taking place after the US "declares war" on the religion of Islam and encourages players to wipe out followers.

"The United States of America has declared war on Islam!" the Muslim Massacre website says.

"Take control of the American hero and wipe out the Muslim race with an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons."

The targets appear as bearded men wearing normal clothes or characters in black outfits with facemasks. Later levels include suicide bombers and a "boss" opponent resembling Osama Bin Laden.

Mr Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the UK Muslim youth organisation the Ramadhan Foundation, said the game was unacceptable, tasteless and deeply offensive.

"When kids spend six hours a day on violent games they are more likely to go outside and commit violence," he said.

"If it was the other way around, with a game featuring Muslims killing Israelis or Americans, there would be uproar and rightly so."

Muslim Massacre was developed by Eric Vaughn, known online as "Sigvatr", a 22-year-old from Brisbane. He first released it online in January this year.

The game begins with audio from George Bush speeches, edited together to sound like a condemnation of Muslims.

The graphics are similar to 1990s arcade shooter games, with a bird's eye view showing the protagonist, a tiny pixelated US soldier, running and shooting other characters.

Mr Vaughn's website links to other projects such as a fictional sporting league for real-life massacre shooters and a webcomic.

Muslim Massacre bears a resemblance to two other independently-developed "shock" games released online: V-Tech Rampage (2007), which recreated the Virgina Tech shootings and Super Columbine Massacre RPG! (2005), which was a recreation of the 1999 Columbine High School shootings.

Those who have played Muslim Massacre provided mixed feedback to Mr Vaughn.

"I think it’s brave, because it’s the kind of satire that many people will misunderstand, especially in America and in Islamic countries," said a comment posted on Mr Vaughn's website.

"Still, you can’t be misunderstood any worse than the ‘super columbine massacre’ guy."

The Ramadhan Foundation has asked the British Government to conduct an inquiry into the game and urged internet service providers to block access to it.

'Muslim Massacre' Video Game Has 'American Hero' Avatars Wipe Out Followers of Islam (http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,24335375-5014117,00.html)

Muslims Urinated Next to Torah Scrolls at Cave of Patriarchs
September 15, '08
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

(IsraelNN.com) Muslims converged on the Cave of Patriarchs in Hevron Friday for Ramadan prayers, urinated next to Torah scrolls and left behind Hamas flags.

The Cave of the Patriarchs is the tomb of the biblical founders of the Jewish faith, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their wives, Sarah, Rivka, and Leah.

The desecration occurred on one of the 10 days during the year that the holy site is open only to Muslims and is closed to Jews. The same arrangement also is accorded to Jews on 10 holy Jewish days.

Uri Karzen, a Hevron resident, reported that a Kohen, who recites the priestly blessings during the Sabbath morning service, told him he smelled urine next to the Holy Ark containing Torah scrolls. Karzen and other worshippers moved the table, where the Torah scrolls are placed during the reciting of the portion of the week, in order to avoid the foul smell.

The Hamas flags were discovered in the windows that mark the burial sites of Abraham and Isaac and the matriarchs, Sarah, Rivka and Leah.

Hevron resident Asher Horowitz explained that he and others spotted the flags when they were returning holy books, which had been taken into safe storage before the prohibition from Jews entering the Cave of the Patriarchs went into effect. He used a stick to pull one of the flags from the marker of the burial site of Avraham and friends told him they found flags at other markers.

Ever since Muslims destroyed Torah scrolls in the Cave of the Patriarchs in the 1980s, Jews always remove holy books and lock the Holy Ark when they are prohibited from entering.

Noam Arnon, spokesman for the Jewish community in Hevron, said there is always some sort of damage discovered upon their return every time Jews are prohibited from entering the holy site.

"It is not all the Muslims," he said. "But there always are a few who in the past have ripped mezuzot off the entrances to the rooms of worship or simply leave behind vandalism. Complaints have been filed with the police in the past, but no one ever has been arrested."

He added that two policemen are always on guard when Jews pray, especially when Arabs are prohibited from entering, but there are no policemen present when Jews are excluded.

Surveillance cameras are mounted, but Karzen said the place where urine was smelled may have been out of range of the cameras. The cameras should have caught on film the placement of Hamas flags, according to Horowitz.

Hevron police said they know nothing about the incidents and that an official complaint may not have been filed yet out of respect for the Sabbath.

Muslims Urinated Next to Torah Scrolls at Cave of Patriarchs (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/127508)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, if Jew's or Christians, did that to their almighty koran, there would be a WORLD WAR!!

I remember when they took over the Bethlehem church a few years ago they did something similar. Using books there as toilet paper, defacing inside the church etc. They demand respect but are not willing to give any.

I know, I know, might end up on their hit list for saying something as innocent as this!!

Genesis 16:10-12 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. 11 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with child and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the LORD hath heard thy affliction. 12 And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.

His descendants have certainly, made that Prophecy clearer.

University opens women's dorms to men
'I don't think they've thought through the ramifications'

The University of Pittsburgh has announced plans to apply a new gender identity anti-discrimination plan to its housing facilities, raising eyebrows and prompting a family advocacy organization to lodge a protest with school officials.

Officials with the American Family Association of Pennsylvania told WND they had sent protest faxes to Chancellor Mark Nordenberg and Provost James Maher about the new school practice, which appears to open up women's dorms to those who are physically male but say they are female, and vice versa.

"Student safety should be utmost in the minds of the University of Pittsburgh and other schools," said Diane Gramley, president of the organization. "The addition of 'gender identity' to their policies is anti-safety. This policy change opens the door for sexual assault of female students and lawsuits from concerned parents and students."

She said the fax to Nordenberg and Maher said, in part, "Since this policy also affects housing, what is to prevent a male who says he believes he's 'really a female' from requesting and obtaining housing in the women's dormitory? This policy indicates that will be acceptable and, additionally, this 'man who thinks he is a woman' will be permitted to show and use the restroom in the women's dormitory."

University officials declined comment to WND on the issue, and Gramley said she had not gotten a response to her inquiry to the school.

"Increasingly we see schools such as the University of Pittsburgh become agents of social change. This attempt to validate the lifestyle of the gender confused places their other students at risk. Why can't the institutions of higher education stay within their academic goals and not seek to be agents of political correctness?" she asked.

The announcement about the university's efforts to broaden its anti-discrimination policies appeared in a report by the Associated Press, which quoted a university spokesman saying the new policy will apply to university housing assignments.

The report also quoted a vice president for the school's Rainbow Alliance, an advocacy organization for homosexual students and others with alternative lifestyles.

Rainbow Alliance vice president Kelly Cobern told the reporters the policy is intended to benefit those whose wardrobe or appearance "isn't what most people would expect of their sex."

The school's website diversity page boasts, "Within the Department of Residence Life at the University of Pittsburgh, we acknowledge that human difference takes many forms in the world including factors such as: race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religion, spiritual tradition, political affiliation, age, and ability. We recognize that the knowledge we gain from interacting with and learning from one another has both educational and personal value. This knowledge will move our students and staff toward acceptance of others."

However, such "acceptance" does have limits, the school confirmed, for the next statement on its website said:

We will not tolerate any form of behavior pertaining to racism, sexism, bigotry, harassment, intimidation, threat, or abuse, whether verbal or written, physical or psychological, direct or implied."

Regarding its goals for students' residential life experiences, the school said, "Resident Life is committed to providing you with a safe, comfortable, diverse, student centered living environment that promotes personal and academic success."

"If I had a student at the University of Pittsburgh or any of the satellite campuses, I would be very concerned," Gramley told WND. "This could allow a man to room with young ladies, use a women's restroom. It boggles the mind why a university would think that's okay."

"How could a responsible citizen believe that maintaining the highest quality of life means allowing men who think they are women to live in the women's dormitory, use the women's restroom and shower with female students? How will this provide a safe and comfortable living environment?" the organization asked.

"The AFA of PA is urging the University of Pittsburgh to remove 'gender identity' from its policy and provide a safe living environment for their female students," Gramley said.

WND previously has reported on the extended battle in Montgomery County, Md., where a similar gender identity anti-discrimination plan was adopted by the government council.

Members of the community organized the Maryland Citizens for a Responsible Government to challenged the law through referendum, only to have the state's highest court change the number of petition signatures required for the referendum after the fact.

Anglican church mocks Biblical Creationism with apology to Charles Darwin

World Net Daily
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A senior cleric of the Church of England wants his church to apologize to Charles Darwin in time for the observance of the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth next year. The Rev. Dr. Malcolm Brown, Director of Mission and Public Affairs for the church, made his case in an article entitled, "Good Religion Needs Good Science," published in a special new section of the Church of England's official Web site.

"Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still," Brown wrote. "We try to practice the old virtues of 'faith seeking understanding' and hope that makes some amends."

Apologize to Charles Darwin? The Church of England may well need to apologize, but not to Charles Darwin. If anything, the church needs to apologize for its rightful embarrassment in considering an apology to Darwin. But, it seems, this church is not embarrassed.

Dr. Brown apparently is a big believer in Darwin's theory of natural selection. "Subsequent generations have built on Darwin’s work but have not significantly undermined his fundamental theory of natural selection," he insists. "There is nothing here that contradicts Christian teaching."

Well, Charles Darwin sure thought that the theory of natural selection contradicted Christian teaching. But, then again, he may have had a better understanding of Christian teaching than Dr. Brown.

To the end of his life, Darwin identified himself as a "nominal" Anglican, but by that time he had long abandoned theism and any belief in a personal God. The relationship between Darwin's changing religious beliefs and his developing scientific theory can be read either of two ways, and even Darwin appeared to have been unclear in his own mind how the two were related. The two options are these: Either Darwin's theory of natural selection undermined his belief in a personal God who directed creation, or his abandonment of his belief in a personal God as the agent of creation led to his development of the theory of natural selection. Either way, Darwin himself was clear that the belief that God is Creator and the belief that life is evidence of natural selection are incompatible beliefs.

Darwin differed, for example, with the American botanist Asa Gray over just this question. Gray allowed for God as the agent of design, working through what appeared to be natural selection - a form of what is often called "theistic evolution." But Darwin would have none of that, and he rejected any role for a divine Designer.

As Peter J. Bowler explains in Charles Darwin: The Man and His Influence (Cambridge University Press), "The one thing Darwin could not admit was that God somehow played an active role in controlling the direction of evolution."

Dr. Brown argues that Darwin was misunderstood. In his words: "Darwin’s meticulous application of the principles of evidence-based research was not the problem. His theory caused offense because it challenged the view that God had created human beings as an entirely different kind of creation to the rest of the animal world."

No, his theory caused offense because it challenged the view that God had anything to do with the creation of any species at all. Dr. Brown's version of Darwinism simply isn't compatible with what Darwin actually believed.

Dr. Brown wants to make the apology to Darwin because he is embarrassed that some in his church rejected Darwin's theories. This, Brown suggests, was due to the fact that the church is often fearful of new ideas. "When a big new idea emerges which changes the way people look at the world, it's easy to feel that every old idea, every certainty, is under attack and then do battle against the new insights."

That kind of facile thinking is all too evident in today's doctrinally disarmed church. Here a senior cleric attempts to do public relations by offering a posthumous apology to Charles Darwin, while dismissing any theological concern about his theory and instead insisting that nothing in Darwinism contradicts Christian teaching.

Charles Darwin abandoned belief in God, and he himself traced this loss of faith to his theory of natural selection. He believed that his own doctrine of evolution was a direct contradiction to theism in general and to Christianity in particular.

Darwin argued that belief in miracles was insane and that the Christian doctrine of hell is immoral. In his Autobiography he wrote, "I can hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so, the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine."

There are several points to observe here. First, Darwin clearly expressed confidence that Christianity is not true, and that we should be thankful for this fact. Second, Darwin, unlike some modern reformers of hell, understood that "the plain language of the text," that is, the Bible, points to hell as everlasting punishment. Third, Darwin simply would not believe in a God who would send his relatives and friends to hell - period.

But, by the time Darwin wrote his Autobiography, he had already abandoned belief in any personal deity. As Janet Browne of the British Society for the History of Science and University College, London, explains: "Living out for himself the archetypal Victorian crisis of faith, Darwin perhaps recognized that he had lost the last vestiges of faith when he discovered that biology provided him with the answers he most desired. In the end, in his autobiography, he asserted that religious belief was little more than inherited instinct, akin to a monkey's fear of a snake."

In other words, Charles Darwin was, as he suggested, the original "Devil's Chaplain." In this role he made the same basic arguments now offered by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and other "New Atheists." Does Dr. Malcolm Brown intend to apologize to these atheists, too?

An official with the Church of England rushed to clarify in the press that Dr. Brown was not offering an official apology on behalf of the church. The Telegraph [London] reported that a member of the Darwin family dismissed the apology as "pointless." Andrew Darwin, a great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, asked, "Why bother?" He went on to argue that the "apology" was more about making the Church of England "feel better" than to right a wrong.

Well, Dr. Brown's apology, offered on the official Web site of the Church of England, and in his role as Director of Mission and Public Affairs, may be "pointless," but it certainly makes a point about the Church of England. As a matter of fact, it might go a long way toward explaining how a church that once formed the backbone of British life now holds the attention of less than five percent of British citizens on any given Sunday.

Thought this would be a good place for this weeks update from Bill Koenig:

Connecting the Dots - Ancient prophecy gives warning and hope to nation that presents man's precepts as God's

by Bill Wilson, KIN Senior Analyst

An ancient prophecy of Isaiah appears to be a type and shadow of today's America that gives both warning to those who do not follow and hope to the remnant that stays faithful. Writing more than 2,700 years ago, the prophet Isaiah used the example of Ariel, another name for Jerusalem, to identify the cause and effect of a nation adopting man's version of righteousness and wisdom and presenting it as it it were God's.

The prophecy describes the actions of a nation, nearly identical to that of the United States where emergent church and political leaders have twisted the Word of God and are teaching the doctrines of man as if they were God's.

Isaiah 29:10-13 (NKJV) says that, 'the leaders have entered a deep spiritual sleep, and the Lord "has closed your eyes; the prophets and your rulers the seers has He covered...And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying 'Read this I pray thee;' and he says, 'I cannot, for it is sealed;' and the book is delivered to him that is not learnded, saying, 'Read this i pray thee,' and he says 'I am not learned.' Wherefore the Lord said, 'For as much as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men.'

As politicians use the word of God to justify killing the preborn and give special rights to homosexuals - and the people are going along with it - these are times where God's Word appears sealed.

And when highly touted church leaders are preaching a watered down gospel where there is no sin and God's commandments are mixed with other religions to find common ground for the common good, God's Word is sealed for those who seek to promote their own concepts as God's.

The Lord says in Isaiah 29:3, "And I will camp against thee around about, and will lay seige against thee with a mount, and i will raise forts against thee." Is this not what has happened to America?

Islam has laid seige to our children and our finances. Russia and it's allies are raising forts against us. Our enemies are camped around us.

But the Lord promises the faithful, "Therefore, behold, I will procede to do a marvelous work among this people...for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid...And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness...They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine."

Ephesians 6:19 tells us how to be instruments of God in this day, "That I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel."

Hello Sister Barbara and All,

The entire world is a needy mission field, including our part of the world. In fact, the entire world is an evil mess that's getting worse by the day. There's a mountain of work for every Christian willing to yield themselves to GOD for HIS use.

The evil and the saved will be dealt with according to the Promises of GOD. Israel will be dealt with separately, again according to the Promises of GOD. Because of this, it's important to note that Isaiah 29 is specifically talking about Jerusalem - not America or any other place in the world. I'm only mentioning this because no other place in the world should be confused with Israel. The author hints that connecting the dots could lead to America, but the specific location of Isaiah 29 is Jerusalem.

Isaiah 29:1 Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices.

An interesting study and comparison can be made with verse one. "Ariel" has two meanings that contrast perfectly in Bible Prophecy: 1) Lion of GOD; 2) altar hearth. The contrast regards the once privileged people of GOD who go through meaningless religious motions and rituals that do not honor GOD. Jerusalem was once the "Lion of GOD", but now it is a "flaming altar hearth", and its people are the sacrificial victims.

It should be noted that Israel has the history of burnt offerings, sacrifices, and the Temple. Israel will be dealt with separately and specifically by GOD, and that is the specific subject matter of Isaiah 29. Trying to connect this portion of Scripture with another entity, especially Christians, would cause considerable confusion.

If we were to switch the subject matter to what America deserves, that would not be a pleasant topic. America deserves judgment and destruction - certainly NOT the blessings of GOD. The time is coming soon when the entire world will get what it deserves from GOD. GOD will pour out HIS RIGHTEOUS WRATH on evil!

Love In Christ,
Tom

Christian Quotes 153 -
The tiny glowworm and the shining star
The eye of the Almighty takes in at a glance -
the tiny glowworm and the shining star,
the blade of grass and the towering Alp.
"He covers the heavens with clouds, provides
rain for the earth, and makes the green grass
grow in mountain pastures." Psalms 147:8
"He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name." Psalms 147:4
-- John MacDuff 1895

Hello Brother David and All,

I firmly believe in a very simple Biblical principle: if there is any Glory, ALL GLORY goes to GOD. I also firmly believe this principle SHOULD apply to individuals, groups, and any collection of people. Likewise, individuals, groups, and any collection of people SHOULD Honor, Worship, and Love ALMIGHTY GOD with all of their hearts.

I'm not aware of a single nation in this world that even Honors ALMIGHTY GOD, much less Worships HIM, Loves HIM, and gives HIM all the GLORY. In fact, the opposite end of the scale is more accurate until you get down to talking about individual Christians and groups of Christians. If one talks about nations, the nations hate, reject, mock, and disobey GOD much like they did in the days before Noah and the great Flood. This world is a sad and evil place, and it's getting worse by the day. If we tried to compare nations, I think we would be comparing which nations hate, mock, reject, and disobey GOD the worst. THIS EVIL WORLD IS RIPE FOR THE RIGHTEOUS WRATH OF ALMIGHTY GOD!

If any individual or group has ANY GOODNESS, it came from GOD - SO GOD gets all the GLORY. There are no individuals or groups with reasons to GLORY in themselves. However, there are popular so-called religions that do attempt to glory in man - not GOD. It's fair to say that these so-called religions are growing rapidly right now and are taking over the world. The Holy Bible tells us that they won't be glorying in themselves for long. The time will come when ALMIGHTY GOD will take ALL that is HIS, and I honestly believe that time is growing near. FIRST, evil mankind and their master the devil will be given 7 years to explore the depths of evil and what evil brings. It will be a time of the greatest terror, horror, and bloodshed that man has ever known, and ONLY ALMIGHTY GOD will be able to bring the time to an end. THE ONLY KING OF KINGS WILL MAKE PEACE AND RULE, BUT 75% OF THE WORLD POPULATION WILL DIE FIRST!

Brothers and Sisters, it should be a matter of shame in how our individual nations Love, Honor, Worship, and Obey ALMIGHTY GOD! There is NO GLORY for GOD from how our individual nations treat HIM. The Holy Bible does speak briefly about blessings to nations but much more about blessings to individuals. ONLY a nation whose GOD is the LORD will be blessed. It now becomes a matter of interpreting that. Bluntly, my opinion is that ALL nations deserve NOTHING but damnation and destruction. Israel will be dealt with separately because of GOD'S Specific Promises to Israel, not because of anything that Israel actually deserves. NOW, let's talk about individuals again. If ALL individuals got what they deserved, ALL would be damned to the eternal fires of hell. HOWEVER, JESUS CHRIST died on the CROSS and took the penalty for our sins in HIS OWN Precious and HOLY BODY. Those who BELIEVE and accept JESUS CHRIST as LORD and SAVIOUR have been rescued. We have actually been made MEMBERS of HIS BODY, and there is NO CONDEMNATION for those who are IN CHRIST! This is NOT anything that individual Christians deserve, rather a GIFT from GOD in HIS GRACE and HIS LOVE for us. FOR CHRISTIANS, ALL GLORY DOES BELONG TO GOD - NONE TO MAN! If there is any GLORY, let us GLORY in the Precious NAME OF JESUS CHRIST - OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR FOREVER!

Love In Christ,
Tom

Favorite Bible Quotes 243 - John 10:8-10 All that ever came before me
are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. 9 I am the
door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in
and out, and find pasture. 10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal,
and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and
that they might have it more abundantly.

GOOD NEWS!

Thanks be unto GOD for HIS unspeakable GIFT!, JESUS CHRIST, our Lord and Saviour forever!

Quote from: Pastor Roger on September 21, 2008, 09:12:54 AM

hello daniel1212av,

Are you saying that as a nation the U.S. has been more enlightened that others? There are many other nations that also have a very rich Christian heritage and yet they are also slipping away from it and quite rapidly in the same manner as America is.

Did you know that Canada's official motto is from Psalms 72:8, “He shall have dominion from sea to sea.” Before the fall of 1983, July 1 was called “Dominion Day” which was a recognition of the sovereignty of God. On October 27, 1982 the Canadian Parliament changed the name to “Canada Day.”

Certainly i do not think that America is the only nation that has a strong Christian heritage, though it and no nation was ever fully Christian, but among major nations of the last 400 years i do not know of any nation except England that has been given as much grace and light as America has, and which makes our present state much more manifest by way of contrast.

Yes, Canada has also been given much grace, but the major revivals i know of have started primarily in the England and the US, and out of which countries the greatest number of powerful world changing preachers have come. In addition, the Christianity that was foundational influence on the Gov. and culture of the U.S. was primarily that of Protestantism, while as far i know, R. Catholicism was the major influence on Canada's. And it's government and judicial system more liberal than that of the U.S., though we are also slouching toward Sodom, as England has even more (as it began to fall away first).

As for all nations being worthy of judgment, this is true, but the Biblical point i am making is that the more grace and light realized then greater accountability, and thus Israel was judged so severely (Lam). And this rejection of light need not simply be that of rejecting gospel preaching, but also includes rejecting the light God gives innately and by creation (Rm. 1:19). And as widespread joining together what God has sexually placed asunder (homosexuality) is perhaps the ultimate rejection of that light of nature, and signifies the final formal stage of regeneration before judgment, thus the hour is late.

AMEN DANIEL!

Good morning everyone! I've thought quite a bit about these issues, and I hope that all Christians have. As Christians, we have much to think about in these possible days that will usher in the Tribulation Period soon. Most of all, we have the Promises of GOD that we should desire to share with the lost.

I was just thinking about a few things that I'd like to share. Those who GOD Loves - HE Chastens. HE is the Loving HEAVENLY FATHER who is molding us into better vessels who will be more pleasing to HIM. We do live in a part of the world where we should know that we've had things pretty easy, even though GOD didn't make any promises that things would be easy for HIS Children in this short life. In fact, HE promised us the opposite. Never fear - GOD has many ways of doing HIS bettering and perfecting work within us. HE that began a GOOD WORK in us has Promised to finish it. SO, we should really give Thanks in the midst of our trials and use them to grow closer and stronger in HIM.

Brothers and Sisters, we really are living in a time when the RAPTURE of the CHURCH WHICH IS THE BODY OF CHRIST could happen at any time. There are no Bible Prophecies that must be fulfilled before this GLORIOUS EVENT can take place. Not one of us deserves to be CAUGHT UP and away from the terrible WRATH to come, but GOD has Promised that we will be. We have so much to give Thanks for, especially when we consider the Promises of GOD. The nations will experience the worst of WRATH, but Christians must remember that this world IS NOT OUR HOME - and OUR CITIZENSHIP IS IN HEAVEN. We are already Children of the KING OF KINGS, and we're just waiting to go HOME!

As individual Christians, not one of us deserves to be rescued from the WRATH to come, BUT JESUS CHRIST has already PAID our penalties IN FULL on the CROSS. HE has made us fit for the Promised Inheritance. It is wonderful to know that we are seen IN HIM because we are IN HIM. We were quickened (translated) into the BODY OF CHRIST at the moment of our SALVATION! The HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD lives in our hearts, and HE has SEALED our hearts - setting us APART as PURCHASED POSSESSIONS OF CHRIST. This is already DONE - FINISHED in a most PERFECT WAY! So, WE SHOULD KNOW THAT HE WHO BEGAN A GOOD WORK IN US WILL FINISH IT! Please make a distinction when you hear or see that word "FINISH". SALVATION IS FINISHED, but perfecting is still a work in progress by GOD. The rest of GOD'S Promises to us will be completed most perfectly at HIS Appointed time. We will be given GLORIFIED BODIES at the RAPTURE.

Love In Christ,
Tom

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 NASB
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.

1 Corinthians 15:50-58 NASB
Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. "O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

Episcopal Church Ousts Pittsburgh Bishop For Holding To Bible As Literal Word Of God

christianpost

Conservative Anglicans have expressed their “great sadness” at the decision of The Episcopal Church to depose the Bishop of Pittsburgh.

The Episcopal House of Bishops voted 88 to 35 in a closed meeting in Salt Lake City on Thursday to remove Bishop Robert Duncan from ordained ministry on the grounds of “abandonment of the communion of this church.” There were four abstentions.

Duncan, who has led the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh for 11 years, is the moderator of the Common Cause Partnership, a network of Anglicans in North America disenchanted with the The Episcopal Church's pro-homosexual agenda and moving to break away from the liberal denomination.

His deposition comes ahead of the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s vote on October 4 on whether to secede from the The Episcopal Church and align instead with the more conservative Anglican Province of the Southern Cone in South America. The Pittsburgh diocese said it will move ahead with the secession vote despite Duncan's removal.

In a joint statement, Dr. Philip Giddings, convenor of the conservative Anglican Mainstream, and Canon Dr. Chris Sugden, the group’s executive secretary, said: “To take such action is hardly in the spirit of the reflections at this year’s Lambeth Conference or the Archbishop of Canterbury’s final presidential address.

"We see this vote as further evidence that The Episcopal Church in the USA in its formal decisions and structures 'have denied orthodox faith.'"

Bishops at the Lambeth Conference, a decennial meeting of Anglican bishops that was held in Canterbury in July and early August, agreed on an immediate halt to homosexual consecrations, blessings for same-sex unions, and cross-border interventions. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, spoke in his final address, meanwhile, of the desire among bishops to remain in communion and continue working towards a unifying covenant.

Giddings and Sugden were among the hundreds of conservative Anglicans who met in a separate meeting, the Global Anglican Future Conference, in Jerusalem in June to assess the future of orthodox Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion.

The two leaders pointed in their statement to the Jerusalem Declaration issued by GAFCON leaders at the end of their conference, which stated, “We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed. We pray for them and call on them to repent and return to the Lord.”

Giddings and Sugden added, “Anglicans who adhere to the orthodox faith will continue to welcome and receive the ministry of Bishop Bob Duncan as a faithful Bishop and wish him and the people of the Diocese of Pittsburgh the Lord’s blessing in their faithful witness to the gospel."

The orthodox Convocation of Anglicans in North America also said it would continue to recognize Duncan as a bishop of the Anglican Communion, as Bishop of Pittsburgh, and as the moderator of the Common Cause Partnership.

CANA Missionary Bishop Martyn Minns denounced The Episcopal Church’s “hostile and uncanonical action,” saying it would not be accepted by the worldwide Anglican Communion.

“We hope and pray for the leaders of The Episcopal Church that they would protect the interests of its members by working with – rather than fiercely against – its bishops to proclaim the life-transforming news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That should be the goal of all Christians. Sadly, trying to fire a bishop in good standing with the rest of the Anglican Communion does nothing to save one soul,” Bishop Minns concluded.
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Christians all need to realize that when Jesus came, He clearly condemned the hypocritical religious leaders of His day (e.g. Luke 11:44), more directly than the more obvious sinners (Matthew 9:10-13). This is not to say that other peoples do not have sin or that they will not be punished (for the European Assyrians will clearly also be punished, per Isaiah 10:12), but that the punishment will begin first on those that should have known better—those who claimed to live by the Bible but have repeatedly failed to do so.

For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required (Luke 12:48).

16 But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin (James 4:16-17).

5 O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. 6 I will send him against an hypocritical nation (Isaiah 10:5-6, KJV).

Dangerous Trends: Environmentalism leading many to endorse one child policy and now "Sterilization for Women"

Prophecy News Watch

A popular women’s magazine in the UK recently featured an article entitled, Young, Single and Sterilized, in which women in their 20’s discussed why they had undergone an operation to prevent them from ever having children. The article is little more than PR for a “women’s charity” called Marie Stopes International, an organization that carries out abortions and sterilizations and was founded by a Nazi eugenicist who advocated compulsory sterilization of non-whites and “those of bad character”.

The story appears in a weekly magazine called Love It. One of the women featured in the article, Chloe, explains why she decided to have herself sterilized at the age of just 20.

“By the time I was 18, I knew I was never going to change. I couldn’t imagine letting something take over my body and then my whole life.”

“I couldn’t even look at a baby without feeling uncomfortable.”

Following the sterilization procedure, Chloe celebrates the fact that “I’ve got a lifetime of going out ahead of me now,” presumably meaning going out, getting mindlessly drunk and having sex with random strangers, as is British culture, while not having to worry about the risk of pregnancy or the responsibility of looking after a child.

Despite admitting that she has not told any of her family and not even her own mother about the sterilization, the article ends with Chloe boldly stating that it was, “the most sensible adult decision I’ll ever make.”

Another ’success story’ as the article skews it is Charlie McCann, who was sterilized on her 30th birthday and, we read, “is happy with her choice, insisting the men in her life have to adjust.” Her then boyfriend decided to adjust by ending the relationship because he couldn’t bear never having children.

Ironically, another woman speaks about how she first became interested in the idea of being sterilized after reading about the subject in a women’s magazine.

Jacquelyn Arnold tells of how she felt “irritation” at the sight of children playing in a garden and decided to go ahead with the operation, which is described in routine and straightforward terms. Arnold says she has no regrets and has ‘taken control of her life’.

Sterilization is lauded as an “excellent method of birth control” by Dr. Patricia Lohr of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.

The article includes an advertisement that encourages women to seek “more information about sterilization” by contacting Marie Stopes International. We read that, “Over the past year, a quarter of the women who booked a sterilisation consultation with women’s charity Marie Stopes were aged 30 or under.”

Marie Stopes was a feminist who opened the first birth control clinic in Britain in 1921 as well as being Nazi sympathizer and a eugenicist who advocated that non-whites and the poor be sterilized.

Stopes, a racist and an anti-Semite, campaigned for selective breeding to achieve racial purity, a passion she shared with Adolf Hitler in adoring letters and poems that she sent the leader of the Third Reich.

Stopes also attended the Nazi congress on population science in Berlin in 1935, while calling for the “compulsory sterilization of the diseased, drunkards, or simply those of bad character.” Stopes acted on her appalling theories by concentrating her abortion clinics in poor areas so as to reduce the birth rate of the lower classes.

Stopes left most of her estate to the Eugenics Society, an organization that shared her passion for racial purity and still exists today under the new name The Galton Institute. The society has included members such as Charles Galton Darwin (grandson of the evolutionist), Julian Huxley and Margaret Sanger.

Ominously, The Galton Institute website promotes its support and funding initiative for “the practical delivery of family planning facilities, especially in developing countries.” In other words, the same organization that once advocated sterilizing black people to achieve racial purity in the same vein as the Nazis is now bankrolling abortions of black babies in the third world.

While the issue of abortion is an entirely different argument, most would agree that no matter how extreme it sounds, a woman has the right to sterilize herself if she so chooses, just as a man has the right to a vasectomy.

But when a magazine aimed primarily at young women all but encourages girls as young as 20 to have their fallopian tubes tied in order to prevent the “irritation” of children entering their lives and then advertises an organization founded by a Nazi eugenicist that can perform the operation, something has to be amiss.

Even more shocking than this is the fact that the majority of people in the UK routinely express their support for society’s “undesirables” to be forcibly sterilized by the state, harking back to a time when such a thing was commonplace right up to the 1970’s in some areas of America and Europe.

As we highlighted earlier this month, respondents to a Daily Mail article about Royal Mail honoring Marie Stopes by using her image on a commemorative stamp were not disgusted at Royal Mail for paying homage to a racist Nazi eugenicist, but were merely keen to express their full agreement that those deemed not to be of pure genetic stock or of the approved character should be forcibly sterilized and prevented from having children.

“A lot of people should be sterilized, IMO. It’s still true today,” wrote one.

“Just imagine what a stable, well-ordered society we’d have if compulsory sterilisation had been adopted years ago for the socially undesirable,” states another respondent, calling for a “satellite-carried sterilisation ray” to be installed in space to zap the undesirables.

Shockingly, another compares sterilization and genocide of those deemed inferior to the breeding and culling of farmyard animals, and says that such a move is necessary to fight overpopulation and global warming. Here is the comment in full from “Karen” in Wales;

"We breed farm animals to produce the best possible stock and kill them when they have fulfilled their purpose. We inter-breed pedigree animals to produce extremes that leave them open to ill-health and early death. It is only religion that says humans are not animals. The reality is that we are simply intelligent, mammalian primates".

"The world population of humans has increased from 2 billion to 6.5 billion in the last 50 years. This planet can support 2 billion humans comfortably. 6.5 billion humans use too many resources and leads to global warming, climate change and a very uncertain future for all of us - humans and all other life sharing this planet with us".

Marie Stopes believed in population control and in breeding the best possible humans. So did Hitler. Neither of the aims are bad in themselves. It is how they are achieved that is the problem. The fact that we still remember Marie Stopes is an achievement in itself.

The nature of these comments is so fundamentally sick and twisted that one is tempted to dismiss them as a joke - but these people are deadly serious. Presumably they would also agree with China’s one child policy, which is routinely enforced by intimidation as young pregnant women are grabbed off the streets by state goons and taken to hospitals where forced abortions are carried out.

Now with popular women’s magazines advising women in their 20’s where they can go to be sterilized and ensure a lifetime of partying and carefree sex, it’s no surprise that experts predict that by 2010 one in four western women will be child free for life.

The yearning to have children is the most beautiful, natural and innate emotion either a man or a woman can possibly experience. That is not to say that it’s always wrong for some people not to have children - extreme circumstances can justify such a decision. But to have yourself sterilized because you find children to be an “irritant” and want to live a life free of responsibility or consequences is an awful message to send to young women, especially in the sex-saturated entertainment culture that we are now forced to endure.

Furthermore, the outright promotion of Marie Stopes International as ‘the place to go’ to get sterilized if you’re under 30 is stomach-churning considering the fact that the origins of this organization can be found in Nazi ideology, racist and backward early 20th century eugenics and a long-standing agenda to cull the population of undesirables, an abhorrent belief still held by elites across the planet today.

California approves nurse-assisted suicide
Schwarzenegger signs bill authorizing dehydration, starvation of patients

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has officially approved an assisted suicide measure allowing nurses to sedate, dehydrate and starve depressed or confused individuals they consider to be "terminally ill."

The bill, sponsored by Assemblywoman Patty Berg, a Democrat, passed the California Assembly Aug. 28, and the state Senate Aug. 20. It was signed by the governor yesterday.

The legislation, called the "Terminal Patients' Right to Know End of Life Options Act," or AB 2747, passed by a 42 to 34 vote. An Aug. 20 Senate vote of 21 to 17 ushered the measure to the governor's desk for signing.

Randy Thomasson, chief of the Campaign for Children and Families, said the legislation is dangerous and should have been vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger.

"AB 2747 pushes suicide through the back door at the hands of non-physicians taking advantage of depressed patients," he said in a statement. "AB 2747 cheapens the value of human life by endorsing suicide as an option."

The measure allows physician assistants and nurses to decide whether a person is "terminally ill" and deprive them of basic life-sustaining necessities such as food and water.

"Depressed patients who succumb to this pressure will be drugged unconscious and die from dehydration, usually within five to 10 days," Thomasson said. "Nothing in the bill prohibits this horror."

Thomasson said Berg "deceptively changed" the bill to appear that "voluntarily stopping of eating and drinking" and "palliative sedation" no longer were on a list of "symptom management" options.

"But the final bill "is broad enough to easily include these suicide techniques," he said.

According to the CCF, Assemblyman Van Tran of Costa Mesa warned the bill has no protections for patients "who could be mistakenly diagnosed as 'terminally ill' but would have many, many full years of life ahead."

"The bill does not otherwise attempt to expressly define terminal illness that each of these health care professionals would have to diagnose to trigger the offer of counseling end of life option," Tran said. "It is not clear why nurse practitioners and physician assistants could make such a significant diagnosis. It is further not clear from the bill how making such significant diagnoses on a case-by-case basis can be done by such practitioners and assistants based on so-called 'standardized procedures and protocols' not further defined by the bill. The potential effect of AB 2747 is extremely broad and could cause irrevocable harm."

As WND reported, state Sen. Sam Aanestad, R-Grass Valley, urged Schwarzenegger to veto the bill as well.

He said the legislation was sponsored by a group called Compassion and Choices, which formerly was known as the Hemlock Society and has advocated for physician-assisted suicide legislation in the past. A founder of the group has praised Dr. Jack Kevorkian for helping more than 100 people die.

Dozens of individuals and groups representing cancer patients, minority rights groups, members of religious communities and hospitals spoke before the Senate Health Committee in opposition to the idea. Also, numerous hospitals and other organizations opposed the measure, includeing California Disability Alliance, California Family Council, California Nurses for Ethical Standards, Mercy San Juan Medical Center, Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital and St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco.

Quote from: David_james on October 03, 2008, 07:24:04 AM

What's next? Kill someone who is happy and alert but will never get better, can't contribute to society and a waste of resources?

GOOD MORNING BROTHER DAVID AND ALL!

Brother David, we don't have any idea what we'll hear next these days. EVIL is accelerating and appears that it could be out of control soon. We can look back through history and see many examples of senseless mass murders and attempted genocide. A person's religious or ethnic background was more than enough to exterminate them for Hitler, and there are many other examples just like him. Things will be worse for the future - MUCH WORSE!

It's hard to imagine the depth of evil mankind is capable of, but it's always deeper than we can imagine. The worst examples in history will be nothing compared to what is yet to come. As Christians, we will need to remember that this world is NOT OUR HOME, and we are ALREADY CHILDREN OF THE KING OF KINGS! There is disagreement about the timing and sequence of END DAYS Events, but GOD will be with us regardless. I personally believe there is NOTHING left that must be fulfilled before the RAPTURE. I also believe that the RAPTURE is before the beginning of the Tribulation Period, but I respect those with differing opinions. Our REAL HOME and INHERITANCE with the SAINTS in LIGHT await us! The LIGHT is JESUS CHRIST!

Love In Christ,
Tom

Jesus Mosque - Jordan's latest symbol of interfaith peace - Feature
Posted : Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:12:13 GMT
Author : DPA

Madaba, Jordan - A mosque named after the central figure of Christianity is the latest milestone of interfaith coexistence in Jordan. Both Muslim and Christian leaders expressed delight when the Jesus Christ Mosque opened a few months ago in the tranquil town of Madaba, 30 kilometres south of the capital, Amman.

"This is a message to the world that Muslims consider Jesus Christ their own messenger because he informed humanity beforehand that the Prophet Mohamed was coming," the mosque's prayer leader, Belal Hanini, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"It also proves that Islam is a religion of tolerance and has nothing to do with extremism," he said.

Hanini and other worshippers explained how followers of Islam and Christianity lived for a long time in peace and fostered fraternal ties in this area of the Hashemite Kingdom, an ardent supporter of interfaith dialogue.

Christians make up 10 per cent of Madaba's residents and account for 5 per cent of Jordan's 5.5-million population, they said.

"We have lived in peace for centuries with our Christian brothers and now we feel that this mosque symbolizes our fraternity," Abd Horout, a Muslim lawyer from Madaba said as he finished afternoon prayers.

"We have been ordered by our holy book, the Koran, not to differentiate between messengers. We consider Jesus Christ a brother of our messenger, the Prophet Mohamed," he added.

He pointed to a cluster of inscriptions fixed to the inside walls of the mosque which are enshrined in the Muslim holy book in praise of Jesus Christ and his mother, Mary.

The Jesus Christ mosque was built by the al-Otaibi family, a Muslim clan that has a long history in the Madaba area and a distinguished record of promoting good ties with the Christian community.

"We wanted to set an example to be followed elsewhere for interfaith coexistence," Marwan al-Oteibi told the dpa.

"Giving this name to this shrine is also designed to let the entire world understand that Islam is a religion of tolerance that enjoys innate readiness of communication with other faiths," he said.

Naming an Islamic shrine after Jesus Christ was enthusiastically welcomed by Christian leaders in Jordan, who considered it a new gesture of goodwill from the Muslim majority.

"As monotheists, we are delighted with this move from our Muslim Brothers towards Jesus Christ and his mother, as we realize that the holy Koran has devoted a specific Surah (chapter) to her," Reverend Nabil Haddad from the Greek-Catholic Church told dpa.

"We, followers of Jesus Christ, have been moved by this step which has left us extremely happy at a time when we seek to present Jordan as a model for interfaith coexistence," said Haddad, who chairs the Jordanian Centre for Peaceful Coexistence.

Putting the name of Jesus Christ on a Muslim shrine was endorsed by the Jordanian Ministry of Religious Endowments and Islamic Affairs, which acts as a watchdog for all mosques in the country.

"This gesture falls in line with Jordan's policy to encourage dialogue among religions and civilizations," said Samir Qudah, who is in charge of the Ministry's section that looks after mosques.

Jesus Mosque - Jordan's latest symbol of interfaith peace (http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/235232,jesus-mosque--jordans-latest-symbol-of-interfaith-peace--feature.html)

Televangelist's ex-husband seeks new wife on Web

Prophecy News Watch
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The ex-husband of national televangelist Juanita Bynum, who divorced after a parking lot fight between the two landed him in jail, plans to take his search for a new wife to the Internet with videos featuring dating tips and what he's looking for in a mate.

Thomas W. Weeks III, a minister who runs an Atlanta-area church and is known to his followers as Bishop Weeks, said the 10-episode series will be available starting Tuesday on his Web site.

Excerpts available Friday included Weeks, 41, discussing with aides what he should look for in his third wife.

The group concludes the woman should be at least 25 years old but "with special exemptions for 21 and up if they are classy," Weeks said. She also must want to have children with him.

"This woman has to be very discerning, and very intimate, and very social and very sensual," Weeks says, laughing. "And on the ministry side she has to be very diverse. She can't be ugly."

Bynum, 49, filed for divorce after the couple had an August, 2007, fight in an Atlanta hotel parking lot that landed Weeks in jail on charges that he pushed, choked and beat Bynum.

He pleaded guilty to assaulting her, is serving three years' probation and has completed court ordered community service and anger management counseling.

In a video on the Web site of his Duluth-based church, Global Destiny International Ministries, Weeks said thousands of people have been writing him to ask about his plans as a newly single man.

He said he wants to give people a Christian perspective on dating.

"Who is going to be the next Mrs. Weeks? Well, God knows," Weeks said. In the video, he asks viewers to e-mail him dating advice.

Messages left for Weeks at the church were not returned Friday morning. Bynum's Los Angeles-based publicist also did not return calls.

If Weeks does find love, his attorney Randy Kessler told The Associated Press Friday, "I'd probably do the prenup for free."

Nepal appoints 3-year-old as new living goddess

By YUVRAJ ACHARYA, Associated Press Writer Tue Oct 7, 9:59 AM ET

KATMANDU, Nepal - Hindu and Buddhist priests chanted sacred hymns and cascaded flowers and grains of rice over a 3-year-old girl who was appointed a living goddess in Nepal on Tuesday.

Wrapped in red silk and adorned with red flowers in her hair, Matani Shakya received approval from the priests and President Ram Baran Yadav in a centuries-old tradition with deep ties to Nepal's monarchy, which was abolished in May.

The new "kumari" or living goddess, was carried from her parents' home to an ancient palatial temple in the heart of the Nepali capital, Katmandu, where she will live until she reaches puberty and loses her divine status.

She will be worshipped by Hindus and Buddhists as an incarnation of the powerful Hindu deity Taleju.

A panel of judges conducted a series of ancient ceremonies to select the goddess from several 2- to 4-year-old girls who are all members of the impoverished Shakya goldsmith caste.

The judges read the candidates' horoscopes and check each one for physical imperfections. The living goddess must have perfect hair, eyes, teeth and skin with no scars, and should not be afraid of the dark.

As a final test, the living goddess must spend a night alone in a room among the heads of ritually slaughtered goats and buffaloes without showing fear.

Having passed all the tests, the child will stay in almost complete isolation at the temple, and will be allowed to return to her family only at the onset of menstruation when a new goddess will be named to replace her.

"I feel a bit sad, but since my child has become a living goddess I feel proud," said her father Pratap Man Shakya.

During her time as a goddess, she will always wear red, pin up her hair in topknots, and have a "third eye" painted on her forehead.

Devotees touch the girls' feet with their foreheads, the highest sign of respect among Hindus in Nepal. During religious festivals the goddesses are wheeled around on a chariot pulled by devotees.

Critics say the tradition violates both international and Nepalese laws on child rights. The girls often struggle to readjust to normal lives after they return home.

Nepalese folklore holds that men who marry a former kumari will die young, and so many girls remain unmarried and face a life of hardship.

Nepal appoints 3-year-old as new living goddess (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081007/ap_on_re_as/as_nepal_living_goddess;_ylt=ApFOy8rqYrW6WeuSTFyTo7lBXYh4)

Decision to teach kids to be 'gay' allowed to stand
'This despicable ruling not of the people, nor for the people, but against the people'

A federal court decision approving mandatory public school instruction for children as young as kindergarten in how to be homosexual is being allowed to stand, drawing a description of "despicable" from the parent who unsuccessfully challenged his school district's "gay" advocacy agenda.

The U.S. Supreme Court without comment has refused to intervene in a case prompted by the actions of officials at Estabrook Elementary school in Lexington, Mass., who not only were teaching homosexuality to young children, but specifically refused to allow Christian parents to opt their children out of the indoctrination.

The case on which WND has reported previously involves Massachusetts father David Parker, who with his wife now have withdrawn their children from public schools, for which they continue to pay taxes, and are homeschooling.

The decision by the Supreme Court leaves standing the ruling from the appeals court for Massachusetts, where Judge Sandra Lynch said those who are concerned over such civil rights violations "may seek recourse to the normal political processes for change in the town and state."

Earlier District Judge Mark Wolf had ordered that school officials' work to undermine Christian beliefs and teach homosexuality is needed to prepare children for citizenship, and if parents don't like it they can elect a different school committee or homeschool their children.

According to a new report from MassResistance, a pro-family organization following the case, the dispute was over the "Lexington Schools' aggressive policy of normalizing homosexual behavior to elementary school children and not allowing parents to be notified before or after, or being able to opt-out their kids from it."

The dispute grabbed headlines when Parker, on April 27, 2005, "was arrested and thrown in jail by school officials over his insistence on being notified regarding his son in kindergarten being taught about homosexual relationships by adults," Mass Resistance reported.

Another family was alarmed by a similar situation a short time later as the school not only continued its indoctrination, but "became more hostile to the Parkers, and local liberals and homosexual activists did their best to harass the family," Mass Resistance reported.

In fact, the school, led by Supt. Paul Ash, then stated in school publications they would not "compromise" on any points regarding the homosexual agenda.

"The [Supreme] court did not even bother to notify the Parkers or their attorneys," said Mass Resistance, which said what now will be enforced in the judicial district will be the lower bench rulings that the state has not only the right but "even the obligation … to promote homosexual relationships to young children."

"The unrelenting action of the Lexington schools to push homosexuality in the lower grades, as well as the ugly hostility of local liberals toward the Parkers and their children over this incident has taken its toll," Mass Resistance said. "This year the Parkers removed both of their children from the Estabrook Elementary School and have been homeschooling."

Parker gave no indication, however, he was quitting the overall battle against rampant normalization of homosexuality.

"The federal Supreme Court of the United States has tragically decided to deny our case from moving forward," Parker said in a statement. "We have exhausted all our legal options in the federal system for the protection of young children in the public schools. The Supreme Court has cowardly turned their backs on a parental rights issue that clearly has national significance with profound consequences.

"We believe that parents have the right and sacred responsibility to defend the psyches of their young impressionable children against such child predation. This includes more forceful measures to defend against, the inculcation and penetration, of perversion into their minds, behind the parent's back and against their will," Parker said.

"This despicable ruling is not of the people, nor for the people, and nor by the people – but against them. We, the people, must take back our government for the sake of our children and the sake of this nation," he said.

When Parker asked the Supreme Court for a review he noted the questions raised in the case have not been answered in previous cases. Those include: "Whether objecting parents have a constitutional right to opt their public school children out of, or even to receive notice of, undisputed government efforts to indoctrinate kindergarten, first and second grade school children into the propriety, indeed desirability, of same gender marriage."

Also at issue is whether those schools' "open and specific intention to indoctrinate … children into disbelieving core tenets of their families' deeply held religious faith constitutes a burden on the families' free exercise of religion."

The high court previously found, the request argued, the "primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition. Aspects of child rearing protected from unnecessary intrusion by the government include the inculcation of moral standards, religious beliefs, and elements of good citizenship."

In an earlier interview with WND, Parker warned allowing the appeals ruling to stand would "allow teachers in elementary schools to influence children into any views they wanted to, behind the backs of parents, to a captive audience, and against the will of the parents if need be.

"Teachers are being postured to have a constitutional right to coercively indoctrinate little children [into whatever they choose to teach,]" he noted.

McDonald's surrenders!
Boycott declared over
Family group says fast-food giant
agrees not to promote 'gay' agenda

A corporate executive for McDonald's restaurants who had been on board of directors of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce has stepped down following a boycott of the chain organized by the pro-family American Family Association.

McDonald's officials confirmed today to WND that Richard Ellis, who had been named to the "gay" chamber board after McDonald's contributed $20,000 to the organization, "made a personal decision to step down" after he accepted a new position with McDonald's Restaurants of Canada.

McDonald's officials also told AFA the company has no plans to renew its membership in the special interest group when it expires in December.

"We appreciate the decision by McDonald's to no longer support political activity by homosexual activist organizations," AFA chairman Donald E. Wildmon said in a prepared statement.

WND reported in May when McDonald's signed onto the "gay" agenda, and one executive for the fast-food chain later accused Christian advocates of the traditional family of being motivated by "hate."

The AFA called for a boycott and established a website to facilitate the effort. However, AFA officials today said the boycott was being called off after the company notified the AFA Ellis has resigned from the board and "his seat on the board will not be replaced by McDonald's."

"McDonald's stated that the company would remain neutral in the culture war surrounding homosexual marriage," the AFA said.

The pro-family group noted that in an e-mail to McDonald's franchise owners, the company said, "It is our policy to not be involved in political and social issues. McDonald's remains neutral on same sex marriage or any 'homosexual agenda' as defined by the American Family Association."

McDonald's statement, from media relations vice president William Whitman, said the company "stands by and supports our people. Diversity and inclusion are integral components of our brand and our heritage. We continue to have strong employee networks throughout our company and will continue to align our brand with individuals and organizations that share our belief in supporting our people and the communities we serve."

The "gay" chamber said, "Like all our corporate relationships, McDonald's USA has been a good partner … there has been no discussion between the NGLCC and McDonald's regarding continuing membership, nor has the NGLCC been notified of any move not to renew our work together."

The organization continued, "The NGLCC will continue to align with corporate America in support of equal opportunity for all of America's worker (sic) and small businesses."

When Ellis joined the NGLCC board he proclaimed: "I'm thrilled to join the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce team and ready to get to work. I share the NGLCC's passion for business growth and development within the LGBT community and I look forward to playing a role in moving these important initiatives forward."

Ellis had only recently joined McDonald's USA, previously holding the position of vice president of communications and public affairs for McDonald's in Canada, a division to which he now apparently is returning.

The American Family Association is one of the largest pro-family organizations in the nation with between 2 and 3 million online supporters.

As WND previously reported, after Wal-Mart joined the NGLCC, its income started declining as Christian organizations reacted to the news.

CNN reported Wal-Mart officials later decided to pursue a lower level of homosexual promotions.

"We are not currently planning corporate-level contributions to GLBT groups," Mona Williams, the company's senior vice president of corporate communications, told CNN only months after the issues arose.

The chamber group describes itself as promoting the LGBT community first and always.

Under a "What we do" page is listed a variety of goals, including "disseminate news and information central to the success of LGBT businesses … ensure increased opportunity and equality for LGBT professionals … help LBGT businesses gain more procurement opportunities …. provide strong lobbying efforts for LBGT business causes."

Other corporate sponsors of the NGLCC include Coors Light and Kodak, who have been leaders in advocating homosexuality, as well as IBM, Wells Fargo, JPMorganChase, Motorola, Intel, Avis, Pepsico, OfficeMax and Coldwell Banker.

It also was revealed Happy Meals profits had been used to send 56 McDonald's staff members to a meeting in San Diego to strategize about promoting homosexuality within the company.

But the AFA had sought only a statement of neutrality in the culture wars from the company, not an abandonment of its workers or communities.

WND also has reported on AFA's documentation of McDonald's sponsorship of a homosexual festival featuring public nudity for both men and women.

The AFA revealed McDonald's sponsored the 2008 San Francisco "Gay" Pride parade with a television commercial. The ad originally was posted on YouTube by a McDonald's employee, the group said. "After AFA exposed it, it was removed by the McDonald's employee," the AFA said.

The original McDonald's position supporting the NGLCC agenda, however, came down to a matter of dollars and cents for officials for a family of mutual funds.

They accused McDonald's officials of "neglecting" their "fiduciary" duty to stockholders by their pursuit of homosexual activism.

"It continues to amaze me that corporations, like McDonald's, continue to publicly and financially support things that alienate their consumer base," said Arthur Ally, the president of the Timothy Plan family of mutual funds.

The company refuses to invest with McDonald's.

"Shareholders as well as customers should be outraged," Ally said, "at the blatant position this company has taken on this issue. McDonald's corporation has a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to continue to earn profits and expand their company. By alienating such a large consumer base, the Christian community, they are undoubtedly neglecting this responsibility."

The AFA's boycott site comment forum had attracted thousands of comments such as:

* "America is tired of corporations and organizations twisting the free speech and actions of its citizens into 'hatred' when we simply oppose the corporation's, or organization's, involvement in areas where we don't want our money going. Don't expect any more of my money."

* "McDonald's is a thing of the past for me."

* "We love your fries, but we will not compromise truth. You have taken money that our family, and millions of others, have contributed to the success of the McDonald's Corp. and chosen to use it for an agenda that defies the foundation of our nation, the family, as created by a man and woman."

* "I will take [my] 10 great grand children to Wendy's, Burger King or some other place. YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN!"

* "Yes Wendy's, I will have a Frosty with that."

* "Consider my family's patronage 'McGone.'"

Connecticut court overturns same-sex marriage ban
Finds law discriminates by limiting matrimony to heterosexual couples

Connecticut's Supreme Court ruled Friday that same-sex couples have the right to marry, making that state the third behind Massachusetts and California to legalize such unions.

The divided court ruled 4-3 that gay and lesbian couples cannot be denied the freedom to marry under the state constitution, and Connecticut's civil unions law does not provide those couples with the same rights as heterosexual couples.

"I can't believe it. We're thrilled, we're absolutely overjoyed. We're finally going to be able, after 33 years, to get married," said Janet Peck of Colchester, who was a plaintiff with her partner, Carole Conklin.
Story continues below ↓advertisement

Justices overturned a lower court ruling and found in favor of the plaintiffs, who said the state's marriage law discriminates against them because it applies only to heterosexual couples, therefore denying gay couples the financial, social and emotional benefits of marriage.

"Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice," Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote in the majority opinion that overturned a lower court finding.

"To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others," Palmer wrote.

The Family Institute of Connecticut, a political action group that opposes gay marriage, called the ruling outrageous.

"Even the legislature, as liberal as ours, decided that marriage is between a man and a woman," said executive director Peter Wolfgang. "This is about our right to govern ourselves. It is bigger than gay marriage."

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said the ruling goes into effect Oct. 28 when it is implemented by action of the of the Superior Court. There will be no appeal, he said.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell said she disagreed with the ruling.

"The Supreme Court has spoken," she said. "I do not believe their voice reflects the majority of the people of Connecticut. However, I am also firmly convinced that attempts to reverse this decision — either legislatively or by amending the state Constitution — will not meet with success."

Law to go into effect
State Sen. Michael Lawlor, chairman of the legislature's Judiciary Committee, said he expects the General Assembly will pass a gay marriage law next year codifying the Supreme Court ruling.

"It's important that both the legislature and the court weigh in," he said. "The court is saying that it's a constitutional requirement that marriage should be equally available to gays and straights and the legislature should weigh in saying whether or not it's constitutionally required, it's the right thing to do."

The court was sharply divided in the decision, with three justices issuing separate dissenting opinions.

Justice Peter T. Zarella wrote that he believes there is no fundamental right to same-sex marriage, and the court's majority failed to discuss the purpose of marriage laws, which he said is to "privilege and regulate procreative conduct."

Zarella added, "The ancient definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman has its basis in biology, not bigotry. If the state no longer has an interest in the regulation of procreation, then that is a decision for the legislature or the people of the state and not this court."

'Dreamed of being married'
The lawsuit was brought in 2004 after eight same-sex couples were denied marriage licenses and sued, saying their constitutional rights to equal protection and due process were violated.

They said the state's marriage law, if applied only to heterosexual couples, denied them of the financial, social and emotional benefits of marriage.

Supreme courts in Massachusetts and California also have ruled in favor of gay and lesbian couples, concluding the domestic partnerships were unequal to the rights given in heterosexual marriage.

Civil unions and a similar arrangement, known as domestic partnerships, are offered to same-sex couples in Vermont, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Oregon, Hawaii, Maine, Washington and the District of Columbia.

Peck said that as soon as the decision was announced, the couple started crying and hugging while juggling excited phone calls from her brother and other friends and family.

"We've always dreamed of being married," she said. "Even though we were lesbians and didn't know if that would ever come true, we always dreamed of it."

School takes 1st-graders
to see lesbian teacher wed
'This is an overt indoctrination
of children who are too young'

A public school in San Francisco bused 18 first-graders to City Hall yesterday, so the youngsters could scatter rose petals in celebration of their lesbian teacher's wedding.

The students, from Creative Arts Charter School, waited on the steps for their teacher with bags of pink rose petals, bottles of bubbles and, at least for some, with political buttons asking Californians to vote down Proposition 8, a ballot measure that seeks to define marriage in the state as a union between one man and one woman.

"She's a really nice teacher. She's the best," 6-year-old Chava Novogrodsky-Godt told the San Francisco Chronicle, wearing a "No on 8" button on her shirt. "I want her to have a good wedding."

As WND reported, supporters of California's Proposition 8 have claimed that combining legalized same-sex marriage with the state's mandate that schools "teach respect for marriage and committed relationships" would result in kindergartners being taught the virtues of homosexual marriage. Opponents have called such arguments fabrications and scare tactics.

Yesterday's field trip wasn't quite kindergartners, but it was close.

"It shows that not only can it happen, but it has already happened," said Chip White, press secretary for the Yes on 8 campaign.

"It's just utterly unreasonable that a public school field trip would be to a same-sex wedding," White told the Chronicle. "This is overt indoctrination of children who are too young to have an understanding of its purpose."

The school's interim director Liz Jaroflow, however, defended the field trip to a homosexual wedding as academically justifiable.

"It really is what we call a teachable moment," she told the Chronicle. "I think I'm well within the parameters."

Jaroflow also told the Chronicle that despite the potential objections of some the decision was not controversial for her, and that "it's certainly an issue I would be willing to put my job on the line for."

According to the Chronicle, the field trip was a surprise to the teacher, Erin Carder, and originally proposed by a parent.

"How many days in school are they going to remember?" asked parent Mark Lipsett. "This is a day they'll definitely remember."

Carder married Kerri McCoy on the office balcony of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who officiated the ceremony.

As the couple held hands on the balcony overlooking the City Hall's rotunda, Carder proclaimed, "With this ring I thee wed!" shouting the last word for emphasis.

The couple told the Chronicle that they have participated in campaigning against Proposition 8 and planned to travel around the city after the ceremony in a motorized trolley car with banners reading "Just Married" and "Vote No on 8."

Two families of children in the class chose not to give permission for the trip, their children remaining at the school with another first-grade class.

Connecticut's same-sex marriage may not be settled
Voters consider once-in-20-year opportunity for constitutional convention

Now that the Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled same-sex couples have the right to wed, opponents of gay marriage are pinning their hopes on an infrequent ballot question in a longshot bid to block the unions.

Every 20 years, voters can force a convention during which delegates can rewrite the entire constitution. It's a long, painstaking process that could cost millions and, by coincidence, it's on the ballot this November.

"This is our one opportunity for the people to have a voice, for the people to be heard, for them to decide whether marriage will be protected as between a man and a woman," said Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut.

On Friday, the state Supreme Court ruled that Connecticut would be the third state, after California and Massachusetts, to allow gay marriage. The court said Connecticut's 2005 civil union law doesn't give same-sex couples the same status as married heterosexual couples.

Unlike California, where next month's ballot referendum will decide whether to outlaw gay marriage, Connecticut voters are being asked to consider only if they want a constitutional convention. If so, convention delegates would be appointed by the state General Assembly, which is largely comprised of Democrats who are sympathetic to same-sex issues.

State Rep. Mike Lawlor, co-chairman of the legislature's Judiciary Committee, said he's not sure everyone understands the constitutional convention process.

"It is a very elaborate, months-long process in which a group of people basically rewrite the whole state constitution," he said. "It costs millions of dollars and requires a special statewide election. If you just want to make a specific amendment to it, which it sounds like they are talking about, then there is a lot easier way to do it."

That would be the legislative amendment process, which typically requires a three-quarters vote of both General Assembly houses to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot.

There have been 30 amendments passed since 1965, the last time the state held a constitutional convention.

Wolfgang said his group has not ruled out seeking an amendment from lawmakers, but is focusing on getting out the "yes" votes in November.

"The real battle will be Election Day," he said. "Even in a state with a legislature as liberal as ours, we have defeated our opponents year after year through the legislative process. They could never have gotten same-sex marriage through the Democratic process. Democracy is gay marriage's worst enemy."

Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell, a gay marriage opponent who also supports amending the Constitution to allow for initiatives and referendum, said she is "firmly convinced that attempts to reverse this decision either legislatively or by amending the state constitution will not meet with success."

Andrew McDonald, the Judiciary Committee's Senate co-chairman, said he expects the General Assembly to take up gay marriage next year - but only to codify the Supreme Court's ruling, and not to attempt to change the state's constitution.

"I continue to expect a bipartisan effort to eradicate any remaining vestiges of discrimination," he said.

Lawmakers will have some issues to discuss, such as what to do with state's civil unions law, which remains in effect. More than 1,500 civil unions have been granted since the General Assembly approved them in 2005.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said new marriage forms eventually will be needed, but in the interim, clerks can make them more gender neutral by simply crossing out references to man and woman or husband and wife on current forms.

The ruling does not mean churches or synagogues must perform same-sex marriages, but some are expected to embrace the new law.

"I think there is great rejoicing, although we are aware that for some people this is troubling and difficult," said. Rev. David Foy Crabtree, Connecticut conference minister for the United Church of Christ. "People come out all over the map on it, but among our clergy there is a very, very high percentage who will respond very favorably to this."

UK's largest teachers' union lobbies to legalise sex with students
Christian Telegraph

The largest UK teachers' union wants the government to decriminalise sex with students who are over the legal age of consent, reports Hilary White, LifeSiteNews.com. Chris Keates, the general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), said that teachers who have sex with pupils over the age of consent should not be placed on the sex offenders register. Keates called prosecution for statutory rape "a real anomaly in the law that we are concerned about."

NASUWT complained that media reports had misrepresented their position. "To describe the NASUWT's comments on this as 'teachers want the right to bed pupils' as one report has done, simply for pointing out an anomaly which criminalises a teacher but would leave any other adult free from prosecution for the same type of relationship, is a travesty."

Gregory Carlin, however, a child protection activist and head of the Irish Anti-Trafficking Coalition, said that such ideas were another sign of the erosion of legal protections for young people against exploitation.

"If the NASUWT philosophy has its day," he said, "exploiting a 16 year old in a brothel would carry no extra penalty." Under the same logic, he said, "Jail guards would be able to take their pick from their charges and foster parents would be spared prosecution for having sex with foster children."

In an official statement dated October 6th, Keates said, "From the time the Sexual Offences legislation was first drafted in 2001 the NASUWT consistently raised the significant anomaly within its provisions. A teacher having a consensual relationship with a pupil over the age of 16 on the roll of the school in which they teach is liable under the Act to prosecution and being placed on the sex offenders register.

"However, if the same teacher has a consensual relationship with a young person of the same age who attends another school they would not be prosecuted or classed as sex offenders."

Carlin told LifeSiteNews.com that Keates "knows what she was asking for," which is simply to "legalise sex crimes."

List 99 is a secret register of men and women who are barred from working with children by the Department of Education and Skills. Carlin said, "Thousands of teachers are referred to List 99 each year, most of them from the NASUWT. In fact, the referrals doubled between 2003 and 2005."

City leaders to recommend approval of gay high school
Studies show increased dropout risk because of stigma, fear of violence

By Carlos Sadovi | Chicago Tribune reporter
October 9, 2008

Pointing to studies showing that gay high school students are at greater risk of dropping out because of stigma and fear of violence, Chicago Public Schools leaders said Wednesday that they will recommend opening a campus aimed at these students.

Final approval of the School for Social Justice Pride Campus, designed as the city's first school for gay, lesbian and transgender teenagers, along with 17 other schools, is expected to come Oct. 22 when the Board of Education votes.

Schools chief Arne Duncan said he will ask the board to approve the schools, which are expected to open in the fall of 2009 and 2010, to give greater choice to parents and students. "We want to create great new options for communities that have been traditionally underserved," he said. "If you look at national studies, you see gay and lesbian students with high dropout rates. . . . I think there is a niche there we need to fill."

About 50 people attended a public hearing Wednesday night, with most supporting the school.Supporters said they envision a high school with a maximum of 600 students. It would have the same staffing and oversight requirements as other district schools. Students would be admitted from throughout the city on a lottery basis, officials said. A site has not been chosen.

Chad Weiden, an assistant principal at the Social Justice High School who would be principal at Pride Campus, said the school would incorporate lessons about sexual identity in literature and history classes and offer counseling. The school would be prohibited under state and federal laws from asking about a student's sexual identity, officials said.

A 2003 district survey shows that gay and lesbian youths are three times more likely to miss school because they feel unsafe. On Wednesday, the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network released a national survey of more than 6,000 middle and high school students that found that nearly 90 percent were harassed at school and about 61 percent felt unsafe.

At an earlier public hearing, some gay rights advocates said the school would segregate these students and that the district should work to foster acceptance.

City leaders to recommend approval of gay high school (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/content/education/chi-gay-school-09oct09,0,6688471.story)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It seems like everyday our society reaches a new low and if you think that is bad wait till Barack Obama is our President. Well I think the obvious comment of where this is heading doesn't need to be said. I'm waiting for the hail of fire to come down.

Teens hit cyclist on purpose
October 11, 2008 - 11:52AM
LANCE BENZEL
THE GAZETTE

Teenagers joyriding in a stolen pickup intentionally slammed into a 64-year-old bicyclist in Colorado Springs Friday night, seriously injuring the man on his birthday, police said.

The hit-and-run attack occurred about 9:45 p.m. at 2132 E. Bijou St., near the intersection with Iowa Avenue just east of downtown.

Virgil Weixelman, of Colorado Springs, was westbound on his bicycle when a Dodge pickup drove up behind him and someone opened the passenger door, knocking him to the ground, said Colorado Springs police Sgt. Steve Noblitt.
The truck sped away, and was spotted minutes later driving with its headlights off.

Weixelman suffered a broken collar bone and other injuries and was admitted to a Colorado Springs hospital in serious condition Friday night, police said. An updated condition was not available Saturday.

Two teenage boys - ages 14 and 15 - were arrested Friday night on suspicion of first-degree assault on an at-risk person and placed in Spring Creek Youth Services Center, a juvenile jail, police said.

Four additional youths were in the pickup when it was pulled over on Union Boulevard 15 minutes after the hit-and-run.

Police plan to consult with prosecutors before pursuing other arrests.

The truck was stolen from the 1400 block of Potter Drive earlier Friday.

Police believe the teens may have been responsible for an attempted auto theft on Motor City Drive and another hit-and-run in which a pickup struck a parked vehicle on University Drive.

Witnesses told police they saw teens in a similar pickup drinking beer earlier Friday, officers said.

Teens hit cyclist on purpose (http://www.gazette.com/news/teens_41768___article.html/hit_driving.html)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Teens use to think it was funny to wreck peoples mailboxes. Now they are hitting bicyclists this is sad. This says a lot about how children are being raised, in these dark days.

Published Wednesday October 15, 2008
Chambers' may appeal after his suit against God is tossed out

You can't sue God if you can't serve the papers on him, a Douglas County District Court judge has ruled in Omaha.

Judge Marlon Polk threw out Nebraska Sen. Ernie Chambers' lawsuit against the Almighty, saying there was no evidence that the defendant had been served. What's more, Polk found "there can never be service effectuated on the named defendant."

Chambers had sued God in September 2007, seeking a permanent injunction to prevent God from committing acts of violence such as earthquakes and tornadoes.

The senator said today that he is considering an appeal of Polk's ruling.

"It is a thoughtful, well-written opinion," Chambers said. "However, like any prudent litigator, I want to study it in detail before I determine what my next course of action will be."

Polk dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, which means it can't be refiled. But his ruling can be appealed.

Although the case may seem superfluous and even scandalous to others, Chambers has said his point is to focus on the question of whether certain lawsuits should be prohibited.

"Nobody should stand at the courthouse door to predetermine who has access to the courts," he said. "My point is that anyone can sue anyone else, even God."

Chambers, a political independent who has served in the Nebraska Legislature for 38 years, said he decided to make that point after at least two attempts by other senators in the Legislature to limit "frivolous lawsuits."

"I was able to fend them off," Chambers said. "A lawsuit is not frivolous until a court declares it so."

The senator did have a day in court on the case. In August, he argued that Polk should take judicial notice of the existence of God. The senator cited the facts that U.S. currency says "In God We Trust," God is invoked during oaths in court hearings, and chaplains offer prayers before legislative bodies.

"If God is omnipresent," Chambers said in that August hearing, "then he is here in Douglas County and in this courtroom."

Polk was not persuaded.

His Tuesday ruling said Chambers' motion to take judicial notice of God "is denied as moot."

(http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x125/luvmarley_bucket/super_smilies007.gif)

The 'how-to' plan to criminalize Christianity
'Homosexuals know they must silence the church and that's what's behind this'

A growing movement that experts believe could end up in the criminalization of Christianity in the United States is being exposed in a new documentary being prepared for airing on October 26, officials at Coral Ridge Ministries have announced.

"Hate Crime Laws" is a half-hour exposé that shows how Christians in America, Canada, Australia, and Sweden have been arrested and prosecuted for expressing opinions that are rooted in the Bible regarding homosexual conduct, Islam or other topics about which Scriptures express clear teachings.

"On the surface, hate crime laws might sound like a good idea," said Jerry Newcombe, of Coral Ridge, who hosts the special. "After all, none of us advocates hatred or violence against another person. But if you look below the surface, suddenly you realize that these laws are really thought crime laws."

The program will air on The Coral Ridge Hour time slot and local airing times are available online.

WND has reported previously on hate crimes plans at the local level. In Colorado, for example, Gov. Bill Ritter signed into law earlier this year a plan that analysts believe effectively bans publication of the Bible in the state. The gender "anti-discrimination" law bans publication of statements that can be perceived as being negative toward those individuals choosing alternative sexual lifestyles.

WND also has reported when family groups with alarm have warned constituents about pending plans in Congress to institutionalize nationwide such laws.

Pro-homosexual advocates long have sought such a law, but opponents fear it would be used to crack down on those who maintain a biblical perspective that condemns homosexuality as sin. Observers note it would criminalize speech and thought, since other criminal actions already are addressed with current statutes.

Canada already has an aggressive "hate crimes" law, and there authorities have gone so far as to tell a Christian pastor he must recant his faith because of the legislation that bans statements that can be "perceived" as condemning another person.

Some states already have similar statutes, too, and in New Mexico, a photography company run by two Christians was fined $6,600 by the state for declining to provide services to a lesbian couple setting up a lookalike "marriage" ceremony.

The documentary cites the New Mexico case, as well as others.

"Canadian youth pastor Stephen Boissoin wrote a letter to the editor in 2002 criticizing homosexual activism and offering compassion and hope for people trapped by homosexuality. A human rights tribunal took notice and slapped him with a $5,000 fine, ordered him to apologize in writing, and snuffed out his free speech rights by placing a prior restraint on his public expression of any 'disparaging' opinions about homosexuality," Coral Ridge officials said.

"In Sweden, Pastor Ake Green spoke out against homosexual conduct in a 2003 sermon and was prosecuted for 'hate speech,'" the announcement continued.

In Australia, all it took to bring two ministers into a courtroom on charges of vilifying Islam was a seminar in their own church about Muslim beliefs.

The late Coral Ridge founder D. James Kennedy repeatedly had warned such developments would endanger Americans' civil rights.

"This will silence churches, which is their great desire – that churches ... may not be able to say anything negative about homosexuality," he said in an earlier presentation.

An online presentatiion on the issue features Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.

"Homosexuals know they must silence the church in this country, and that's what's behind this," he warns.

Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Media Institute, also appears.

The goal, he said, is the "criminalization of Christianity. If you say traditional morality is now a form of hate and bigotry, and bring the full weight of the government, you have criminalized basic Christian moral doctrine."

Other guests include Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention; Matt Barber, director of cultural affairs at Liberty Counsel; and Tristan Emmanuel, a Presbyterian minister who resigned from the pulpit to found the Equipping Christians for the Public Square Centre.

Opponents of such actions note the deceptiveness of some of the proposals. In Colorado, for example, "Section 8 of the bill makes it a crime to publish or distribute anything that is deemed a 'discrimination' against the homosexual and transsexual lifestyle," according to the Christian Family Alliance.

Mark Hotaling, executive director for the Alliance, said initially supporters and even some opponents of the bill explained that there was an exception for churches and church organizations. However, lawmakers then attached to the bill a state "safety clause" which is supposed to deal with laws that are fundamental to protecting the lives of residents.

That, he said, simply stripped away any potential allowances for churches and church groups.

"Anyone who claims that there's an exception for churches really doesn't know the ins and outs of the bill," Hotaling told WND.

"So the religious exemption is purely window dressing and very deceptive," he said. "The Word of God literally now is banned, and that's a legitimate slam-dunk First Amendment issue there."

President Bush has fended off at least one federal plan by deciding it was unnecessary and promising a veto if Congress would pass it.

Police charge student for faking anti-Muslim 'hate crime'
Authorities say white gunman, bathroom attack … never happened
Posted: October 18, 2008
6:20 pm Eastern

By Drew Zahn
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Police in suburban Chicago have arrested a Muslim college student for allegedly faking a racist attack by a masked gunman, an attack police now say never happened.

Earlier this month, Safia Jilani, 19, was found by friends in the basement bathroom of the Schaible science building of Elmhurst College, claiming she was clubbed with a gun by a masked assailant. Anti-Muslim epithets were found scrawled on a nearby mirror, similar to a hate-filled graffiti that had been found on Jilani's locker only a week earlier.

The college locked down the campus after the alleged attack and, according to the Chicago Tribune, later released an advisory warning students of a 5-foot, 8-inch, white male attacker guilty of committing a "hate crime."

According to a joint statement just released from Elmhurst Police, the college and the state's attorney's office, however, there was no gunman, and the attack was staged.

"The totality of all the evidence, and interviews with staff and students at the college … concluded that this incident never happened," Elmhurst Police Chief Steven Neubauer told the Tribune, though he refused to elaborate.

Word of the attack spread when Jilani, one of approximately 25 Muslim students out of 3,300 enrolled at Elmhurst College, sent a text message to friend Carly Notorangelo on the evening of Oct. 9, begging for help.

According to the Elmhurst Press, the text read, "Emergency. Basement of Schaible. Bathroom."

Notorangelo told the Press she found Jilani unconscious on the floor of the bathroom with the words "Kill the Muslims" scrawled on a nearby mirror.

Jilani's friends later reported that she had suffered bruised ribs and a concussion, though Jilani refused emergency medical care immediately following the incident.

Notorangelo told Chicago's WBBM-TV, "I found my friend, my sister, one of the most courageous people I know, unconscious on the floor, because somebody hit her with a gun. Because they don't think it's okay for her to express her love for God by wearing a piece of cloth on her head."

The next day, hundreds of students at the campus held a sit-in to protest the alleged hate crime and show their support for Jilani.

News of Jilani's arrest and the staged attack has left students at the campus baffled.

"We had a rally," said Richie Palys, a freshman jazz studies major, to the Tribune. "People cried over what happened, and her best friends gave speeches for her. I don't even know what to believe anymore."

Jilani has since surrendered to the authorities and has been booked on filing a false police report, a felony punishable by one to three years in prison.
~~~~~~~~

Yup looks like Jilani, wanted to create civil unrest for the muslim population. That or he was trying to create himself as a victim of Christians.

India Soldier Hacked To Death For Protecting Christians; New Violence In Orissa
20 October 2008

Security forces clashed with angry Hindus in the Indian state of Orissa Monday, October 20, just days after a paramilitary soldier protecting Christians was reportedly hacked to death by an angry Hindu mob.

Several people, mostly women, sustained injuries when tense police dispersed a Hindu crowd blocking a road in Orissa’s Kandhamal district, the epicenter of attacks against Christians and security personnel in which scores of people were killed, Indian media said.

Protesters said they blocked the road to demand the arrest of those involved in a recent attack on Hindu villager Manoj Pradhan, who was shot and injured near his home at Laburigaon village late Saturday, October 15. Attackers fired five rounds, but only one bullet hit him, and Pradhan was undergoing treatment in a government hospital, media reports said.

The incident sparked fears of new attacks against Christians and security personel in Orissa. where bishops said at least 60 Christians were killed over the past two months, in retaliation for the murder of a revered Hindu leader and four of his followers. Authorities claim 36 people died so far.

HACKED TO DEATH

In one of the latest incidents, a paramilitary soldier assigned to protect Christians from Hindu violence, was hacked to to death and his body mutilated by a mob in Sisapanga village in Kandhamal district, last week, Monday, October 13, the Times of India (TOI) newspaper reported.

The murdered man was identified as 45-year-old Bakshis Singh of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). His death marked the first known time a member of security personnel was killed in Orissa in riots that have been raging for one-and-a-half months.

"Singh had been to Sisapanga village, accompanied by a driver, to buy provisions. A group of six-seven men attacked him from behind, dragged him into the jungle and hacked him to death," TOI quoted District Superintendent of Police S. Praveen as saying. "The driver fortunately managed to escape."

Police suggested the murder was a message from mobs to security forces not to protect Christians. Several arrests have been made in recent days, but it was not clear Monday, October 20, whether those responsible for the murder of the paramilitary soldier were among those detained.

GROWING PRESSURE

There is growing pressure on Orissa's government to further improve security in the state and to compensate churches at a time when tens of thousands of Christians have been displaced by the deadly violence, and new reports of attacks against churches.

However on Monday, October 20, the Orissa government rejected in the Supreme Court a plea seeking over $600,000 in compensation for demolition of churches in anti-Christian riots saying "it is against the secular policy of the State to pay any compensation to religious institutions".

Responding to the plea filed by the Archbishop of Cuttack, the state government said that "compensation towards religious institutions is not [part] of the secular policy of the Orissa government."

NUN RAPED

Earlier the Orissa government on Friday, October 17, told the Supreme Court that the Archbishop of Cuttack must substantiate allegations that activists of the Hindu group Bajrang Dal were behind the recent rape of a nun, an incident that came to symbolize some of the atrocities during the anti-Christian violence in Orissa's troubled Kandhamal district.

Some eight people were reportedly detained following the August 25 incident at a Non-Governmental Organization in Kanjamendi village, but investigations still continue. The nun has so far refused to come forward to identify any of the suspects, apparently for fear of retribution, but prosecutors told media they were hopeful of making their case.

In a related development, a judge probing the August 23 killing of Hindu leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and four of his aides that speked the attacks on Christians, said Monday, October 20, his investigation could take one and a half years to complete.

SC Mohapatra, a retired judge of the Orissa High Court, is on a four day tour, visiting inmates and several villages where churches and houses were burnt. He also held discussions with district and administration officials, Indian media reported.

India Soldier Hacked To Death For Protecting Christians; New Violence In Orissa (http://www.bosnewslife.com/news/3861-india-soldier-hacked-to-death-for-protecting)

San Francisco weighs decriminalizing prostitution
Oct 21 05:48 PM US/Eastern
By EVELYN NIEVES
Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - In this live-and-let-live town, where medical marijuana clubs do business next to grocery stores and an annual fair celebrates sadomasochism, prostitutes could soon walk the streets without fear of arrest.

San Francisco would become the first major U.S. city to decriminalize prostitution if voters next month approve Proposition K—a measure that forbids local authorities from investigating, arresting or prosecuting anyone for selling sex.

The ballot question technically would not legalize prostitution since state law still prohibits it, but the measure would eliminate the power of local law enforcement officials to go after prostitutes.

Proponents say the measure will free up $11 million the police spend each year arresting prostitutes and allow them to form collectives.

"It will allow workers to organize for our rights and for our safety," said Patricia West, 22, who said she has been selling sex for about a year by placing ads on the Internet. She moved to San Francisco in May from Texas to work on Proposition K.

Even in tolerant San Francisco—where the sadomasochism fair draws thousands of tourists and a pornographic video company is housed in a former armory—the measure faces an uphill battle, with much of the political establishment opposing it.

Some form of prostitution is already legal in two states. Brothels are allowed in rural counties in Nevada. And Rhode Island permits the sale of sex behind closed doors between consulting adults, but it prohibits street prostitution and brothels.

In 2004, almost two-thirds of voters in nearby Berkeley rejected decriminalization. But proponents of Proposition K say their proposal has a better shot in San Francisco, which they believe is more sexually liberal than the city across the bay.

After all, the world's oldest profession has long been established here. During the Gold Rush, the neighborhood closest to the piers was a seedy pleasure center of sex, gambling and drinking known as the Barbary Coast.

These days, on certain corners, prostitutes sell their bodies day and night, ducking into doorways and alleys when police pass by. One recent afternoon in the Mission District, six prostitutes were plying their trade on a single block.

Police made 1,583 prostitution arrests in 2007 and expect to make a similar number this year. But the district attorney's office says most defendants are fined, placed in diversion programs or both. Fewer than 5 percent get prosecuted for solicitation, which is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail.

Proposition K has been endorsed by the local Democratic Party. But the mayor, district attorney, police department and much of the business community oppose the idea, contending it would increase street prostitution, allow pimps the run of neighborhoods and hamper the fight against sex trafficking, which would remain illegal because it involves forcing people into the sex trade.

The San Francisco Chronicle editorialized against the measure, saying it could make the city a magnet for prostitution.

If the proposal passes, "we wouldn't be able to investigate prostitution, and it's going to be pretty difficult for us to locate these folks who are victims of trafficking otherwise," said Capt. Al Pardini, head of the police department's vice unit. "It's pretty rare that we get a call that says: 'I'm a victim of human trafficking' or 'I suspect human trafficking in my neighborhood.'"

The proposition would also prohibit police from accepting federal or state funds for sex trafficking investigations that involve racial profiling. Such investigations often arise from raids on brothels that advertise as Asian massage parlors.

"We feel that repressive policies don't help trafficking victims, and that human rights-based approaches, including decriminalization, are actually more effective," said Carol Leigh, co-founder of the Bay Area Sex Workers Advocacy Network and a longtime advocate for prostitutes' rights.

But San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said the ballot question mistakenly assumes prostitution is a victimless crime.

"The crime of prostitution does not exist by itself," Harris said. "Along with it come pimps, johns and other crimes that really impact the safety of neighborhoods."

If the measure passes, supporters say, prostitutes would not feel the need for pimps as protection. But opponents insist it would embolden pimps who trap drug addicts into prostitution by plying them with drugs.

"The proponents usually paint a fairly rosy picture of two consenting adults and a monetary exchange at the end," Pardini said. "They don't factor in the people that are being exploited and people that are being controlled, the ones manipulated both physically and chemically."

San Francisco weighs decriminalizing prostitution (http://www.breitbart.com/print.php?id=D93V4U0O0&show_article=1&cat=0)

Dawkins Supports 'No God' Ads

Professor Richard Dawkins has once again shown that atheists (or “secular humanists,” as some have dubbed themselves) live in a kind of bubble—one in which history can be skewed, and only their own definitions matter.

The prominent atheist boasted to the BBC about a new advertising campaign that will feature London bendy-bus banners proclaiming, “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” The British Humanist Association (BHA) came up with the “no God” slogan to counteract ads encouraging salvation through Jesus Christ. The weaker word choice that God “probably” doesn’t exist, rather than the bolder claim “There is no God,” makes Dawkins’ support of the ads something of a curiosity. Nonetheless, the BHA hopes to have 60 buses carry the signs for four weeks.

Dawkins told the BBC, “Religion is accustomed to getting a free ride—automatic tax breaks, unearned respect and the right not to be offended, the right to brainwash children.”1

“Unearned respect”? Just how impervious is Dawkins to the words and history of his own people?

Dawkins lectures at the same university as a past and prominent Oxford faculty member: C. S. Lewis. The former atheist and author of numerous works—including The Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity, and the enduringly popular The Chronicles of Narnia series—has impacted countless individuals with his literary expositions that demonstrate a serious dedication to the Bible and its Author. Lewis’ death was overshadowed by the assassination of John F. Kennedy that November day in 1963, yet his life’s work continues to inspire generations to read and intellectually investigate the Word of God.

Another famous and highly-respected Brit was William Wilberforce who, along with many other evangelical Christians, devoted his wealth, reputation, and even health to champion the abolition of the slave trade, which led to the eventual end of slavery in Britain. His motivation for making so grand a mark on world history is clear: “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners [moral values].”2

And reaching a tad farther back in history, Isaac Newton—the past president of the prestigious Royal Society, discoverer of calculus, and inventor of the Newtonian telescope—was as much a student of the Bible as he was of science. His convictions, like Wilberforce’s, are also unambiguous: “God is the same God, always and everywhere.”3

Dawkins, the BHA, and other atheists might say the convictions of Lewis, Wilberforce, Newton, and the countless others who have made real and lasting contributions to the betterment of humanity are “anathema” to rational thought. But such claims would hold about as much water as the tip of a tack, for it was those very convictions that spurred these gentlemen’s great accomplishments.

Luke, a skilled physician and writer in Jesus’ day, chronicled Christ’s teaching that men and women are known by their deeds in the same way that a tree is known by its fruit.4 The “no God” ads will disappear after a few weeks. But the Word of God will remain forever,5 and the faithful works that it has inspired great men and women to achieve are incontestably deserving of the highest respect.

Effort aims to counter Christian Zionism

Association will distribute a brochure saying the movement fosters hatred of Muslims and opposition to Mideast peace. A movement leader says the brochure presents a stereotype of Christian Zionists.
By Nathan Olivarez-Giles

9:50 PM PDT, October 24, 2008

Before the year is up, nearly 45 million people will get more than a sermon at their churches -- they'll get a brochure titled "Why We Should Be Concerned About Christian Zionism."

The brochure says Christian Zionism "fosters fear and hatred of Muslims and non-Western Christians" and "can lead to the dehumanization of Israelis and Palestinians." Its distribution reflects the concerns of Christians who are trying to combat what they call the growing influence of Christian Zionism in the U.S.

"If we don't speak up against it -- Christian Zionism -- then people will think we don't care or that we agree with it," said the Rev. John Hubers, supervisor of mission programs in the Middle East and South Asia for the Reformed Church in America.

The Reformed Church in America is one of the 35 Christian church bodies that make up the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, which wrote the brochure and began distributing it this month.

"To say we're dehumanizing Israelis and Palestinians with our support for Israel dehumanizes us," said David Brog, executive director of Christians United for Israel, one of the most prominent Christian Zionist organizations in the United States. The group was started in 2006 by controversial televangelist John Hagee, senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio.

But what exactly do Christian Zionists believe?

Christian Zionists say they believe that the creation of Israel was ordained by God.

Detractors say Christian Zionism fosters the belief that the return of Jews to Israel has fulfilled one of the steps that will set the stage for Armageddon and the return of Jesus Christ to Earth. These detractors say Christian Zionists want to hasten that end time by promoting conflict in the Middle East.

About 20 million to 40 million people in the U.S. are Christian Zionists, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

The National Council of Churches includes more than 100,000 individual churches, made up of about 45 million churchgoers, and is hoping it can use its membership to curb the political and social influence of Christian Zionism, said Antonios Kireopoulos, the group's director of interfaith relations.

The brochure will be handed out in member churches.

As a resource for those churches, the council is also creating an analysis of parts of the Bible that Christian Zionists use to justify their views, he said.

"We have to wake up Christians," said the Rev. Gwynne Guibord, of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, also a member of the council.

"We have to show Christians and others that there is another way of looking at these things, a way that isn't so antithetical to who Jesus was," she said.

Guibord and other Christian and Jewish leaders in Southern California formed Christians Concerned About Christian Zionism, which held a conference on the issue Oct. 4.

The conference, "Christian Zionism: Rapture and the Holy Land, Theology and Politics," was held at Pasadena Presbyterian Church. Among its speakers was Rabbi Haim Beliak, who teaches at the Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles and spoke on the influence of Hagee and Christians United for Israel.

"My religion and my Zionism have been hijacked by Christian Zionists and their Jewish friends," Beliak said. "Most of us have the view that the outline for the possibility of peace has been sitting in a drawer ready to be implemented for at least 15 years, and most of us think Christian Zionism is an impediment toward peace in the Middle East."

Beliak said at the conference that Hagee and other Christian Zionist leaders are using Israel to further their own Armageddon agenda.

The brochure, which was passed out for the first time at the conference, says Christian Zionism leads to a conclusion that "involves the death of all non-Christians, including Jews, through apocalyptic warfare or divine judgment" and "is not based on traditional teaching or doctrines of the Church."

Brog said Christians United for Israel rejects the brochure.

"I would say the whole flier seems to me to be describing a stereotype of a Christian Zionist," Brog said. "There are some Christian Zionists who are opposed to the peace process in the Middle East, but that does not define a movement of millions of Christian people."

He said the group believes simply that Israel should make all decisions regarding its land use and peace effort -- not the U.S., Palestinians or anyone else.

"Once we start discussing how we go about supporting Israel is when the disagreements come in," he said. "When you get beyond that, there are lots of disagreements, and that's why we don't really speak about that."

As for the argument over Israel's status as political body or godly appointment, Brog said, there is room for disagreement.

"America is a shining city on the hill ordained by God. We have that tradition right here in America, and we do see Israel's promise in the Scripture," he said.

Brog said that one way the group urges the federal government to support Israel is through "A National Night for Israel," in which members of Christians United for Israel gather in Washington to meet with lawmakers. In 2007 about 3,000 members made the trip, he said.

Brog, who is Jewish, said that he's always felt "complete comfort" working with Christians United for Israel and that the group has the best interests of Israel and Jews at heart.

"I wish [the council] would be more fair and respectful of our teachings," he said. "If they have a problem with us, shouldn't they be the ones to invite us to a debate? We've never attacked the National Council of Churches, and I think it would be fair for them to start that dialogue if they really want it."

Brog said a debate might surprise those who oppose Christian Zionist beliefs.

"If we were sitting in a room together, we might find we don't disagree as much as they might think we would," he said.

Effort aims to counter Christian Zionism (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-beliefs25-2008oct25,0,4395688,print.story)

Foreign preachers of hate must renounce views or be banned from UK
Foreign-born "preachers of hate" must renounce their views or be banned from entering the UK, under Government plans.

By Matthew Moore and Jon Swaine
Last Updated: 6:15PM GMT 28 Oct 2008

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, has announced a package of measures aimed at making it harder for extremists to enter the country. The new rules will also affect anyone suspected of advocating illegal action to stir up tensions, including anti-abortionists, far-right groups and animal rights activists.

"Through these tough new measures I will stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country," Miss Smith said. "Coming to the UK is a privilege and I refuse to extend that privilege to individuals who abuse our standards and values to undermine our way of life. "

Under the new plan, foreign-born extremists will be forced to retract controversial statements, and will have to refute specific allegations made against them. Currently, the burden of proof lies with the authorities, who must show that alleged extremists still hold the views ascribed to them.

Those accused of advocating illegal action may also have to make a public statement of their support for democracy if they want to stay in Britain.

The new rules also hand new powers to the Home Office to name people blocked from entering Britain and share their details with other countries. Currently individuals involved are guaranteed anonymity unless they choose to go public and fight their ban.

On Monday, Miss Smith said the Government planned to "name and shame" some extremists banned from entering the UK.

"Where it is in our interest we will name these people," the Home Secretary told MPs in the House of Commons. Coming to the UK is a privilege, and I don't want to extend that privilege to individuals who abuse our standards and values to undermine our way of life."

In the past three years, 230 people have been barred from entering the country on grounds of national security and for "unacceptable behaviour" - including inciting hatred and stirring up or glorifying terrorism.

Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical Muslim cleric, was banned following the terrorist attacks against London in July 2005, on the grounds that his presence was "not conducive to the public good".

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egypt-born preacher described as "dangerous and divisive" by David Cameron, the Conservative leader, was banned earlier this year.

Patrick Mercer, a Conservative MP on the Home Affairs Committee, said he feared the plan could see resources devoted to targeting low-priority cases.

"It's the people who are working undercover, who aren't known about, who are working inside the community and influencing people there, they are the really dangerous people," Mr Mercer said,

He added that the authorities should focus on advocates of illegal extremism already living here. "Let's try to get rid of them rather than trying to keep new people out," he said.

The Liberal Democrats described the plans as inadequate and also warned that they would not deal with the problem of people already in the UK.

Chris Huhne, the party's home affairs spokesman, said: "The main problem with these sort of eye-catching gimmicks is they don't make us any safer at all. What we're looking for is delivery.

"[The plan] doesn't deal with the people who are already here or indeed the people who are preaching hate over the internet," Mr Huhne said.

Foreign preachers of hate must renounce views or be banned from UK (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/3274108/Foreign-preachers-of-hate-must-renounce-views-or-be-banned-from-UK.html)
~~~~~~~~~~

How long before Christianity is "unacceptable behaviour"??

Pastor charged with felony for spanking son
Teacher calls social services on father after he paddles child for lying
Posted: October 25, 2008
1:00 am Eastern

WorldNetDaily

A Wisconsin pastor has been charged with felony physical abuse of a child after he spanked his 12-year-old son for lying and a teacher notified social services.

Barry W. Barnett Jr., 43, of Poynette, Wis., is free on a $10,000 bond, but he could face up to three years in prison and fines for disciplining his son, the local Portage Daily Register reported.

At the pastor's hearing, Barnett's son said his father was right to spank him .

"He gave me a chance to tell him the truth, and I just kept lying to him," the boy said.

The boy said his father gave him two "swats" that "hurt a little" on his rear end in June. He told authorities both he and his dad cried while he was disciplined.

The 12-year-old said he was warned he might receive a spanking if he continued to act up and that he understands what he did was wrong.

"You should not lie to your parents and you should not go to places (where you are not allowed)," he said.

One of his siblings mentioned the spanking to a teacher, who called social services, according to the report.

A June 7 report from the Divine Savior Healthcare emergency department indicated that the boy had slight bruising on his buttocks, but it said there was no swelling and he was not experiencing pain. The medical paperwork said the boy told physicians he didn't think he was abused and he loves his father.

The documents show the boy's doctor does not believe he was abused, and he called the event a "social services fiasco."

Barnett is a pastor at Lighthouse Family Ministries in Poynette, Wis. A father of nine children, he founded Guardian Christian Academy.

A judge ruled Thursday that the case will head to trial. Now jurors at the Columbia County Courthouse will decide whether the spanking constituted "reasonable discipline" permitted under state law. The pastor's 21-year-old daughter, Amber, stood outside with a sign that read, "Thank you for spanking me dad" as a showing of support for her father.

District Attorney Jane Kohlwey told the Portage Daily Register the spanking was not reasonable, because it left bruising, though Barnett's attorney claims photographs only reveal red marks.

"We feel that he went beyond reasonable discipline and that it's a pattern," Kohlwey said.

Barnett has been forbidden from spanking any child as part of his bond.
~~~~~~~~~

When my kids did good they were praised, and rewarded. When they were bad, I spanked them.

Teacher gives kindergartners 'gay' pledge cards
Asks 5-year-olds to promise to defend transgender, bisexual students

A California school system refuses to say what action, if any, it will take after it received complaints about a kindergarten teacher who encouraged her students to sign "pledge cards" in support of gays.

During a celebration of National Ally Week, Tara Miller, a teacher at the Faith Ringgold School of Arts and Science in Hayward, Calif., passed out cards produced by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network to her class of kindergartners.

The cards asked signers to be "an ally" and to pledge to "not use anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) language or slurs; intervene, when I feel I can, in situations where others are using anti-LGBT language or harassing other students and actively support safer schools efforts."

The school has acknowledged that the exercise was not appropriate for kindergartners.

Parent Adela Voelker, who declined to be interviewed in depth for this report, said she was furious when she found her child's signature on one of the cards. She said she contacted a non-profit legal defense organization specializing in parents' rights.

Meanwhile, a school board member, Jeff Cook, says some type of action should be taken.

"We have a general rule that all instruction should be age appropriate, and this clearly was not," said Cook, who has served on the school board for five years.

Val Joyner, a school district spokeswoman, told FOXNews.com in an e-mail that when deciding what to teach on this subject matter, educators "gather materials from community agencies and other education groups" and that "the materials have grade level indicators which help determine what is age-appropriate."

The district said the pledge cards were intended for middle school and high school students.

Asked last week if the district planned to take action against Miller, Joyner said she would have to look into the incident. On Thursday she told FOXNews.com that she did not have an answer for the question and that she would no longer be doing any media interviews.

Joyner said in an e-mail that Miller, the teacher, "planned to teach students how to become an ally and conflict-mediation through various activities." She added that the district doesn't advocate for a specific cause and/or lifestyle, and it has "no curriculum for gay, lesbian and transgender lifestyles."

The district employs a "Professional Learning Specialist: Equity," who is in charge of gathering material and helping teachers decide what should be taught on the subject matter.

Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute, the group representing Voelker, said parents at the Faith Ringgold School weren't notified of what was going to take place in the classroom.

He said that teaching students as young as pre-school about gay, lesbian and transgender issues is common in California, but that there are "all kinds of material the average parent could find highly objectionable or potentially harmful" to their children.

When asked if the school district did anything wrong, he said, "possibly," but he declined to go into detail or say whether Voelker would sue the district.

Dacus would not comment specifically on whether children who signed the pledge could be held responsible if the school determined that they were not honoring it. He said they are minors and there are certain degrees of limited liability, but from a psychological and emotional perspective, it's a whole different ballgame.

"[There is] tremendous peer pressure put on children to accept a pro-homosexual philosophy and attitude," Dacus said.

Meanwhile, opponents of gay marriage are up in arms over the incident, which occurred as California voters prepare to vote Tuesday on Proposition 8, which would overturn the state Supreme Court's ruling legalizing gay marriage.

"How do you teach a 5-year-old to sign a pledge card for lesbian, gay and transgender issues without explaining what transgender and bisexual is?" asked Sonja Eddings Brown, a spokeswoman for Protect Marriage California.

TV networks battle FCC indecency rules
'Fleeting expletives' revive debate
Kara Rowland (Contact)
Monday, November 3, 2008

Attorneys for the government and the four big TV networks face off before the Supreme Court on Tuesday over regulation of profanity on the public airwaves, marking the first time in 30 years that the nation's high court has considered broadcast indecency rules.

Associated Press Lead U2 singer Bono's comment on winning a 2003 Golden Globe award has led to a review of indecency on television.

At issue is whether the isolated broadcast of a curse word can be considered indecent and punishable by hefty fines. A lower court rejected the policy last summer as an "arbitrary and capricious" departure from long-standing Federal Communications Commission (FCC) precedent.

The stakes in the debate over "fleeting expletives" are high, both sides say. Networks warn that the regulations produce a chilling effect that risks the very existence of live broadcast television. The FCC, meanwhile, said its policy prevents broadcasters from having free rein to air curse words at any time of day.

The last time the Supreme Court considered broadcast indecency was in 1978's FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, a case that stemmed from a New York radio station's afternoon broadcast of comedian George Carlin's "Filthy Words" monologue.

In a 5-4 decision, the court justified government censorship at hours when children are likely to be watching, based partially on the "first blow" theory that indecent material on the airwaves enters a person's home uninvited and without warning.

Specifically, the Supreme Court said indecency is "intimately connected with the exposure of children to language that describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory activities and organs, at times of day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience."

In the wake of Pacifica, the FCC limited its enforcement to material that mirrored Mr. Carlin's monologue, involving the repeated use of swear words "for shock value." In 1987, the agency noted that material could be indecent even if it did not contain profanity so long as it was functionally equivalent to verbal "shock treatment."

A 2001 policy statement articulated a two-pronged indecency test taken largely from Pacifica: 1) The material must fall within the subject matter scope, describing or depicting sexual or excretory organs or activities; and 2) It must be patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium.

Three decades after Pacifica, FCC v. Fox Television Stations Inc. involves several instances in which the FCC concluded that "fleeting" uses of curse words were indecent. The most notable example involved the January 2003 broadcast of the Golden Globe Awards on NBC. Accepting the award for best original song, singer Bono said, "This is really, really [expletive] brilliant."

In response, the FCC concluded that the particular expletive, though it was not being used to describe or depict sexual or excretory organs or activities, is indecent because it "inherently has a sexual connotation." Noting that this represented a change in policy, the commission didn't issue a fine.

The agency used the same reasoning in 2006 when it issued a sweeping order that included numerous findings of indecency, including two separate Fox broadcasts of the Billboard Music Awards to be indecent. In 2002, Cher, speaking about her critics, said, "[expletive] 'em." The following year, Nicole Richie asked: "Have you ever tried to get cow [expletive] out of a Prada purse? It's not so [expletive] simple." Again, the commission didn't levy fines.

The2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling against the FCC last summer hinged on its finding that the agency violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) because it did not give a reasonable explanation for its change in policy. Although the court did not base its decision on First Amendment grounds, it did question whether the policy could withstand constitutional scrutiny.

The government is urging the court to limit its review to the APA. U.S. Solicitor General Gregory Garre, who is arguing in favor of the FCC's position, declined to comment on the case, citing Justice Department policy not to discuss pending litigation. But the government's brief refers to the 2nd Circuit's decision as an "inappropriate second guessing of policy judgments committed to the agency by Congress."

As for criticisms of the FCC's finding the same expletive indecent in one case, such as the Golden Globes broadcast, but not indecent in others, such as a broadcast of the movie "Saving Private Ryan," the government defends the agency's weighing of "contextual factors."

Family groups that have filed amicus briefs in the case supporting the FCC's policy on fleeting expletives stressed the importance of protecting children from curse words. The Parents Television Council, an advocacy group that encourages its members to file complaints with the agency over perceived indecency violations, said broadcast television is still "uniquely pervasive in America and accessible to children."

Broadcasters contend that the FCC did not follow its own contextual analysis in finding the expletive used by Bono indecent.

"In lieu of analyzing whether Bono's words actually depicted or described sexual or excretory activity - as required by the first step of the commission's test - the commission held that 'any use of [expletive] or a variation, in any context, inherently has a sexual connotation,' " according to the joint brief for NBC Universal Inc., CBS Broadcasting Inc. and ABC Inc.

In addition to supporting the 2nd Circuit's finding that the FCC violated the APA, the networks are calling for the court to rule on the First Amendment implications of the case.

In an interview, Carter Phillips, a lawyer at Sidley Austin LLP, which is representing Fox, said it would be "totally artificial" for the court to divorce the APA from the First Amendment.

"At some point, the commission has to explain why it is prohibiting more content and whether that explanation is adequate without the First Amendment concerns seems to be a completely academic issue that the court ordinarily would not decide," Mr. Phillips said. "I think there is a strong likelihood that the court will address the First Amendment issue at least to the extent that it imposes a burden on the FCC to do more than simply announce that it has changed its policy."

The Fox brief makes the case that the FCC's policy has chilled speech. Mr. Phillips said small stations that cannot afford time-delay equipment will be disproportionately affected.

Broadcasters and their supporters further argue that things have changed since Pacifica. They say advances in technology mean that over-the-air television is no longer a "uniquely pervasive" medium given the rise of the Internet, and they cite parental controls and devices like the V-chip that they say can protect children.

Legal analysts are divided when it comes to the chances that the Supreme Court will limit the scope of its decision to the APA or wade into constitutional issues.

"I think that revisiting the 1978 Pacifica decision, which is essentially what would happen if the court opens up the First Amendment questions, is incredibly complicated and challenging," said Stephen Wermiel, an adjunct professor at the American University Washington College of Law.

Mr. Wermiel said his "hunch" is that the court will rule in favor of the FCC's authority.

On the other hand, Jerome Barron, a professor at the George Washington University School of Law, said the fact that the court agreed to hear the case indicates at least four justices probably see the case as a First Amendment issue.

He noted, however, that even if four justices were interested in revisiting the constitutionality of the FCC's indecency policy, it doesn't necessarily mean a majority would support doing so.

"If the broadcasters can convince five of them to see it as a First Amendment issue, I think they're likely to decide against the FCC," he said. "I think the FCC is out on a limb here, and I think that the court might take its First Amendment sword and cut them down."

TV networks battle FCC indecency rules (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/03/tv-networks-battle-fcc-indecency-rules/)

Somali rape victim, 13, stoned to death

Sat Nov 1, 11:34 am ET

MOGADISHU, Somalia – A 13-year-old girl who said she had been raped was stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery by Islamic militants, a human rights group said.

Dozens of men stoned Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow to death Oct. 27 in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo, Amnesty International and Somali media reported, citing witnesses. The Islamic militia in charge of Kismayo had accused her of adultery after she reported that three men had raped her, the rights group said.

Initial local media reports said Duhulow was 23, but her father told Amnesty International she was 13. Some of the Somali journalists who first reported the killing later told Amnesty International that they had reported she was 23 based upon her physical appearance.

Calls to Somali government officials and the local administration in Kismayo rang unanswered Saturday.

"This child suffered a horrendous death at the behest of the armed opposition groups who currently control Kismayo," David Copeman, Amnesty International's Somalia campaigner, said in a statement Friday.

Somalia is among the world's most violent and impoverished countries. The nation of some 8 million people has not had a functioning government since warlords overthrew a dictator in 1991 then turned on each other.

A quarter of Somali children die before age 5; nearly every public institution has collapsed. Fighting is a daily occurrence, with violent deaths reported nearly every day.

Islamic militants with ties to al-Qaida have been battling the government and its Ethiopian allies since their combined forces pushed the Islamists from the capital in December 2006. Within weeks of being driven out, the Islamists launched an insurgency that has killed thousands of civilians.

In recent months, the militants appear to be gaining strength. The group has taken over the port of Kismayo, Somalia's third-largest city, and dismantled pro-government roadblocks. They also effectively closed the Mogadishu airport by threatening to attack any plane using it.

Somali rape victim, 13, stoned to death (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081101/ap_on_re_af/af_somalia;_ylt=Asq59Ukqh__w4knqLBoU50u96Q8F)

Scientists, Theologians Gather for Vatican Conference on Evolution

Pope Benedict XVI opened a five-day Vatican meeting on evolution Friday morning by affirming that the world did not emerge out of chaos but was intentionally created by "the First Being."

Sat, Nov. 01, 2008 Posted: 12:09 PM EDT

Pope Benedict XVI opened a five-day Vatican meeting on evolution Friday morning by affirming that the world did not emerge out of chaos but was intentionally created by "the First Being."

"In order to develop and evolve, the world must first be, and thus have come from nothing into being,” the pontiff told an audience of 80 scientists, philosophers and theologians who have gathered for the conference, themed "Scientific Insights into the Evolution of the Universe and of Life."

“It must be created, in other words, by the First Being who is such by essence," he added, according to Zenit News.

Benedict also went further to assert that the Creator was not only involved in the origins of the universe but continually sustains the development of life and the world.

The Creator, he said, “is the cause of every being and all becoming.”

The five-day conference, sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, is the latest initiative in an effort by the Vatican to promote dialogue between scientists and theologians. It also comes as debates over creation and evolution continue to rage on.

Like many Christians today, most members of the Catholic Church accept a brand of evolution known as "theistic evolution," which teaches that evolution was a tool used by God in the creation process.

During a press gathering in September, the Vatican said the theory of evolution was compatible with the Bible and that it was even planning to hold a new interdisciplinary conference to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species next March in Rome.

The Catholic Church rejects a fundamentalist interpretation of the Creation story in Genesis, regarding the six-day account as an allegory. Though this view aligns with that of many Protestant Christians, many conservatives maintain the belief in a literal six-day Creation.

On Friday, Benedict said he saw no contradiction between believing in God and empirical science.

"There is no opposition between faith's understanding of creation and the evidence of the empirical sciences," he said, quoting from Popes Pius XII and John Paul II.

He also cited Galileo, whom, he said "saw nature as a book whose author is God in the same way that Scripture has God as its author."

"It is a book whose history, whose evolution, whose ‘writing’ and meaning, we ‘read’ according to the different approaches of the sciences, while all the time presupposing the foundational presence of the Author who has wished to reveal Himself therein," said the pontiff, according to Catholic News Service.

Following Benedict’s opening remarks, world renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, a professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, was scheduled to give a lecture Friday afternoon entitled "The Origin and Destiny of the Universe."

The physicist’s appearance was to mark his second at a Vatican scientific conference since 1981, when Hawking had attended at Vatican conference on cosmology.

Though he has never professed a belief in God, Hawking has never denied the existence of God either. Furthermore, in his 1988 publication, A Brief History of Time, Hawking discussed the possibility of a creator.

"So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator,” wrote Hawking, who later said that his theories show the possibility for the laws of science to dictate how the universe began.

The world renown physicist has also admitted to being religious, though not “in the normal sense," in an interview with Reuters last year.

"I believe the universe is governed by the laws of science," he told Reuters.

"The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws," he added.

Aside from Hawking, other notable scientists scheduled to speak at the five-day Vatican conference, which concludes Nov. 4, include Swiss chemist Albert Eschenmoser, who will discuss the search for the chemistry of life’s origin; U.S. biologist David Baltimore, who will examine evolution at the genetic level; and Greek biologist Fotis Kafatos, who will speak on evolution and the insect world.

Those addressing the theological and philosophical aspects of evolution will include Italian Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini and Father Stanley L. Jaki, a professor of physics and the philosophy of science at Seton Hall University.

Scientists, Theologians Gather for Vatican Conference on Evolution (http://www.christianpost.com/article/print/20081101/scientists-theologians-gather-for-vatican-conference-on-evolution.htm)

Indonesians appease volcano gods with sacrifices
By DITA ALANGKARA, Associated Press Writer Dita Alangkara, Associated Press Writer Sun Nov 2, 4:20 pm ET

MOUNT BROMO, Indonesia – Indonesian legend has it that six centuries ago, a princess hurled her youngest child into a fiery volcano to appease mountain gods who had granted her fertility.

Today thousands of pilgrims flock to Mount Bromo on East Java each year to offer the spirits food, live animals and money and ask for prosperity and health. Bromo, a 7,641-foot volcano, is one of Java's most popular tourist attractions.

The poor arrive days ahead of the ceremony, carrying fishing nets to catch money and anything edible. They camp under tarps in the crater atop the mountain's chilly slopes.

Yadnya Kasada, as the ritual is known, started in the 15th century in the final days of the Majapahit Hindu empire. As the story goes, Princess Roro Anteng and her husband, Joko Seger, settled in the foothills of the volcano.

Unable to have children, the ruling couple went in despair to pray to the mountain gods who, according to the tale, agreed to help in exchange for the ultimate sacrifice of their last child.

The couple consented and had 25 children. But when the time came to give up their son, they refused and the gods became furious. They threatened disaster and the destruction of the village unless the couple made good on the deal.

Kesuma, as the boy was named, was flung into the depths of Mount Bromo. The dying child is believed to have called out to villagers to visit the mountain each year and bring gifts to express their gratitude.

Indonesia straddles the "Pacific Ring of Fire," a system of faultlines stretching across the tropical archipelago, that give it more active volcanoes than any other country. Bromo usually roars to life once a year, often blasting pumice, smoke and ash into the sky. The last major eruption in 2004 killed two hikers.

Indonesians appease volcano gods with sacrifices (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081102/ap_on_re_as/as_indonesia_volcano_sacrifice/print)

Catholics, Muslims open landmark talks at Vatican
By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor
Nov 4, 12:27 pm ET

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Senior Vatican and Islamic scholars launched their first Catholic-Muslim Forum on Tuesday to improve relations between the world's two largest faiths by discussing what unites and divides them.

The three-day meeting comes two years after Pope Benedict angered the Muslim world with a speech implying Islam was violent and irrational. In response, 138 Muslim scholars invited Christian churches to a new dialogue to foster mutual respect through a better understanding of each other's beliefs.

In their manifesto, "A Common Word," the Muslims argued that both faiths shared the core principles of love of God and neighbor. The talks focus on what this means for the religions and how it can foster harmony between them.

The meeting, including an audience with Pope Benedict, is the group's third conference with Christians after talks with United States Protestants in July and Anglicans last month.

Delegation leaders Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran and Bosnian Grand Mufti Mustafa Ceric opened the session with a moment of silence so delegations, each comprising 28 members and advisers, could say their own prayers for its success.

"It was a very cordial atmosphere," one delegate said.

Tauran, head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, told the French Catholic daily La Croix on Monday that the Forum "represents a new chapter in a long history" of often strained relations.

He said discussing theology was difficult because of different understandings of God. The closed meeting started with a Catholic official spelling out the Christian teaching that humans can only approach God through Jesus Christ.

Muslim theologian Seyyed Hossein Nasr responded that such a view excluded non-Christians from salvation and suggested ways to see Islamic parallels to Christian views of God's love.

Delegates said the discussion that followed was friendly and respectful, not a clash of opinions. "We need to speak openly so we get to know each other," said one Muslim delegate.

NEW URGENCY

Christianity is the world's largest religion with 2 billion followers, just over half of them Catholic. Islam is next with 1.3 billion believers.

Saudi King Abdullah visits the United Nations next week to promote a parallel interfaith dialogue he launched last summer.

These and other meetings reflect a new urgency among Muslims since the September 11 attacks, the "clash of civilizations" theory and Pope Benedict's Regensburg speech showed a widening gap between the two faiths.

The Vatican was at first cool to the Common Word initiative, arguing that talks among theologians had little meaning if they did not lead to greater respect for religious liberty in Muslim countries, where some Christian minorities face oppression.

"We can only have a real dialogue if all believers have equal rights everywhere, which is not the case in some Muslim countries," said one Catholic delegate who requested anonymity.

The agenda reflects the different views. Tuesday's talks centered on theological issues proposed by the Muslims, Wednesday's meeting will focus on religious freedom issues the Vatican wants to raise.

The Vatican delegation includes bishops from minority Christian communities in Iraq, Syria and Pakistan. Among the Muslims are Sunnis and Shi'ites from around the world and converts from the United States, Canada and Britain.

There are three Catholic and two Muslim women participating.

The delegations will have an audience with Pope Benedict on Thursday and hold a public discussion that afternoon, the only session open to the media.

The Forum is due to meet every two years, alternately in Rome and in a Muslim country.

Catholics, Muslims open landmark talks at Vatican (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081104/ts_nm/us_religion_dialogue/print)

Hold on to your pumpkins, nude runners invading Boulder
Submitted by SHNS on Thu, 10/30/2008 - 17:59.

By LANCE VAILLANCOURT
BOULDER,Colo. -- Feel that draft?

Dozens of hearty runners expected to bare it all - except for the carved-out pumpkins placed over their heads - and run naked down the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, Colo., on Halloween night certainly will.

Halloween marks the 10th anniversary of the Naked Pumpkin Run, and organizers and participants are gearing up for another brisk night of in-the-buff fun downtown.

"Once the pumpkin goes on your head, it's definitely such a group mentality that you just have to go with it," said Winston Voigt, a recent University of Colorado graduate who participated in last year's run for the first time and intends to do so again this year.

"It's super liberating," he said. "It just feels like we're all in this together and we're all having fun together."

Yet those donning pumpkins might want to watch out for the cops.

Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner said his department won't send officers out specifically to bust participants. But he noted that officers who observe the nude sprinters do have the option to enforce indecent-exposure laws.

"I would not recommend anyone participating in it," Beckner said of Friday's night's run. "We certainly do not condone the behavior."

The Naked Pumpkin Run's origins date back to 1999, when - according to the event's Web site - two men, having worked their way through an undisclosed number of six packs, came up with the idea of running nude with "20 pounds of orange flesh thrashing atop their heads."

Since then, the event has grown - 150 people participated last year - and spread to locales such as Seattle, Phoenix and Bloomington, Ind., according to the run's Web site.

The Boulder installment begins Halloween night at one of the organizer's homes, Voigt said. That person hosts a pre-run festivity, where participants enjoy music, home-brewed beer and socializing as they design and carve their pumpkin headgear.

Then, at a designated time -- Boulder police say they're not sure when it will start -- everyone is given a trash bag and told to file out to meet at a separate location near where the run begins

."Then there's a count, and everybody strips down, puts their clothes in the bag, and runs down Pearl street," Voigt said.

Because of the difficulty in holding a pumpkin over one's head with one hand while grasping a trash bag full of clothes in the other, Voigt described the event more as a "leisurely jog rather than a run."

Hold on to your pumpkins, nude runners invading Boulder (http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/37584)
~~~~~~~~~~

Never mind the children that also inhabit the city. Don't worry about them.

Hmmmmmmmm, is it already snowing there yet?? I have a little bit of a mischievous streak in me. I'd never do anything though....... :o :o ;) :o :o

Human Rights Commission: "Kill the Christian" Lyrics OK, but Criticize Homosexuality? No Way
November 3, 2008
By Hilary White

RED DEER, Alberta, November 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Alberta Human Rights Commission (HRC) has come under scrutiny again for what critics are calling a brazen double standard in its treatment of "hate" and discrimination.

Blogger, lawyer and democratic activist Ezra Levant has revealed that Alberta Human Rights Commissioner Lori Andreachuk, who in a ruling earlier this year ordered a Christian pastor to publish a renunciation of his Christian views in the local newspaper, in 2003 dismissed a complaint against a rock music group who used lyrics in one of their recordings that urged listeners to "kill the Christian."

Andreachuk dismissed the case saying that Christians are not "vulnerable" enough and the group in question not a "credible" threat.

Levant is calling foul, however. Bluntly calling Andreachuk an "anti-Christian bigot" he points to the ruling by the same commissioner against Rev. Stephen Boissoin, who was ordered to pay heavy fines and publish an apology and renunciation of his religious views.

Andreachuk's ruling, he wrote, is a "smokescreen." "It's not jurisprudence; it's not coherent; it pretends to adhere to precedent, but it clearly doesn't. It's legal mumbo-jumbo to cover up the bald political fact here: Comrade Andreachuk thinks it's fine to call for the murder of Christians. And this same anti-Christian bigot sentenced Rev. Boissoin to a lifetime of silence about his faith."

The 2003 case was that of "Quintin Johnson vs. Music World." Johnson, the complainant, was browsing for CDs at a Music World shop in Red Deer, Alberta, and found an album from the group "Deicide" containing a track called "Kill the Christian."

Song lyrics began, "Kill The Christian/You are the one we despise/Day in day out your words compromise lies/I will love watching you die." Levant comments dryly, "Pretty hard to find any nuances there."

As a Christian, Alberta resident Quintin Johnson brought a complaint against the store saying he had been discriminated against. Lori Andreachuk, however, while agreeing that the "content and tone" of the lyrics "appear on the face of them to be discriminatory," concluded that Christians had nothing to complain about.

"There is very little vulnerability of the target group," Andreachuk wrote. The rock group, she wrote, "lacks credibility and has a small circulation. The context of the publication is not presented as a debate or any purportedly authoritative analysis and the target group is not vulnerable."

Under this reasoning, Levant wrote on his blog, "a neo-Nazi could never be guilty of spreading hate, because by definition a neo-Nazi is obscure, not credible, and listened to only by those who seek them out."

Rev. Stephen Boissoin, wrote in an email he forwarded to LifeSiteNews.com, "I guess a music store that sells music which shouts out 'Kill the Christian, Kill the Christian' is totally acceptable in Canada."

"I am certainly not one to suppress freedom of speech but it would appear that Christians are not assured the same standard of protection via these Human Rights Commissions as the rest of Canadians. After all, where did I ever say 'Kill the Homosexual, Kill the Homosexual?'" Rev. Boissoin said.

Boissoin was found guilty last year by an HRC panel, headed by Andreachuk, of having exposed homosexuals to "hatred and contempt" by publishing a letter in the Red Deer Advocate warning against the dangers to the social order of homosexual activism.

Rev. Boissoin was prohibited for life from preaching sermons that are critical of homosexuality and was told that he cannot criticise homosexuality even in his private communications such as e-mails. Rev. Boissoin was also ordered to pay a total of $7,000 in fines. As the respondent in the case, moreover, he was obliged to pay his own court costs while the complainant had the costs covered by the state.

Ezra Levant, who has had two HRC cases against him dismissed and dropped, maintains that even if the HRC decides in favour of the respondent, the "process is the punishment" with his own expenses having exceeded $100,000 and civil suits still pending.

Levant became an international internet celebrity when he published the proceedings against him on the video website YouTube. He resoundingly defended the democratic principle of freedom of speech and told investigating HRC commissioner Shirlene McGovern that he would "rot in hell" before he violated those principles and apologised for anything he had published in his magazine.

Levant said the Alberta HRC's dismissal of the music store case was a brazen case of a double standard, in which only Christians and social conservatives can be guilty of "discrimination" but attacks on Christians by others are acceptable.

"So it doesn't matter if Christians are exposed to hate - they're not vulnerable. So says Comrade Andreachuk. By definition, she writes, a Christian cannot be the victim of hate speech," Levant wrote.

Human Rights Commission: "Kill the Christian" Lyrics OK, but Criticize Homosexuality? No Way (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/nov/08110303.html)
~~~~~~~~~~

Has it started........................

John 15:18-19 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

My own thoughts are yes, it is now starting...................... :'(

Obama Expected to Join Forces with UN in Global Pro-Abortion Agenda

Austin Ruse

NEW YORK, NY, November 7, 2008 (C-FAM) - The pro-abortion law group the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) has already called for President-elect Obama to renew America’s commitment to “reproductive rights” which, according to CRR, prominently includes a right to abortion. It is likely the new president will work almost immediately to correct what his ideological allies like CRR view as multiple mistakes of the Bush administration with regard to international social policy on this issue.

Obama has in the past spoken out against the so-called Mexico City Policy, which forbids US money from supporting groups overseas that promote or perform abortions. This is a Reagan era policy that was struck down during the Clinton years and resurrected on the first day in office of George W. Bush. No one should be surprised if Obama strikes this down on his first day in office and that US money will begin to flow again to pro-abortion groups overseas.

Obama has spoken out against US refusal to fund the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), a United Nations (UN) agency that promotes population control, fertility reduction, and abortion all over the world. UNFPA helped the Chinese government set up and run its one-child policy, which has resulted in upwards of 100 million abortions, many of them forced or coerced.

A US law called Kemp-Kasten mandates that US money cannot support groups that cooperate in coerced abortions. The US State Department has repeatedly determined that UNFPA is complicit in the coercive policies of the China government and has therefore refused funding for the past eight years. Congress has for many years voted to resume UNFPA funding and has been overruled by President Bush. It is expected that Obama will resume funding.

There is the question of UN treaties that the US has refused to ratify. These treaties include the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Convention of the Rights of the Child, the Kyoto Treaty on the Environment, the International Criminal Court and the Landmines Treaty. While various US presidents have signed some of these treaties, the Senate under both Democratic and Republican rule has ratified none of them. It is unclear that the left has enough votes in the Senate to meet the necessary two-thirds needed for ratification. Still critics fear that an Obama administration will try to move the Senate toward ratification. Obama’s UN and European allies will certainly pressure Obama to do so.

Although there was a frenzy of global UN conferences back in the 1990s, including such massive affairs as the Cairo Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Conference on Women, the time of the Bush administration has been relatively quiet. There was a global conference on disabilities, a racism conference in South Africa, and a two-year negotiation on human cloning, but not much more. The left at the UN counseled quiet during the Bush years for fear of losing ground in the documents that would have come under negotiation. With an Obama administration this fear is removed and one can expect a veritable flood of UN conferences to be announced beginning as early as this year.

Obama Expected to Join Forces with UN in Global Pro-Abortion Agenda (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/nov/08110702.html)

Michigan liberals attack Lansing congregation in the middle of Sunday worship

By Nick, Section News
Posted on Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 01:33:05 PM EST
This is what we're up against.

On Sunday morning, amidst worshiping congregants and following unifying prayers that our President-elect be granted wisdom as he prepares to lead our nation through difficult global, social and economic challenges, the Michigan left declared open war on peaceful church goers.

They did it with banners, chants, blasphemy, by storming the pulpit, by vandalizing the church facility, by potentially defiling the building with lewd, public, sex acts and by intentionally forcing physical confrontations with worshipers.

This didn't take place in some dystopian, post modern work of fiction and it didn't take place in San Francisco or Berkley. This was the scene at a Bible believing church in Lansing, Michigan.

On Sunday, November 9, 2008 Michigan liberals sat peacefully through announcements, worship and prayer for the sick, our nation and our President-elect before staging a coordinated, disgusting and repulsive attack on worshipers and the broader concept of the church itself at Lansing's Mount Hope Church.

The lefties were a part of a liberal organization known as Bash Back Lansing and their collection of radical blogs, including one of the state's most widely read "mainstream" progressive blogs (and none which will receive a link on this website) called on "queers and trannies" from across the state and the region to converge on Lansing for what they refer to as an "action." While many of the members claim to be anarchists (they drove on roads, ate non-garden grown foods, printed materials on products created by government protected free markets, wore clothing, talk incessantly about "organization," etc etc etc) their broader goal is stated plainly on one of their lefty blogs.

Mount Hope, for the record, is an evangelical, bible believing church whose members provide free 24 hour counseling, prayer lines, catastrophic care for families dealing with medical emergencies, support groups for men, women and children dealing with a wide variety of life's troubles, crisis intervention, marriage ministries, regular, organized volunteer work in and around the city, missions in dozens of countries across the globe, a construction ministry that has built over 100 churches, schools, orphanages and other projects all over the world and an in-depth prison ministry that reaches out, touches and helps the men and women the rest of society fears the most. They also teach respect for all human life and the Biblical sanctity of marriage as an institution between one man and one woman.

This is what Michigan liberals label a "radical right wing establishment," and over 30 of them showed up in force yesterday. Wearing secret-service style ear pieces and microphones they received the "go" from their ringleader and off they went.

Prayer had just finished when men and women stood up in pockets across the congregation, on the main floor and in the balcony. "Jesus was gay," they shouted among other profanities and blasphemies as they rushed the stage. Some forced their way through rows of women and kids to try to hang a profane banner from the balcony while others began tossing fliers into the air. Two women made their way to the pulpit and began to kiss.

The "open minded" and "tolerant" liberals ran down the aisles and across the pews, hoping against hope to catch a "right winger" on tape daring to push back (none did). And just in case their camera missed the target, they had a reporter in tow. According to a source inside the church yesterday there was a "journalist" from the Lansing City Pulse along for the ride, tipped off about the action and more interested in getting a story than in preventing the vandalism, the violence and anti-Christian hatred being spewed by the lefties. We'll see what he files and what his editors see fit to print.

Props were readily on display too, though some of the condoms may have been put to even more nefarious use.

An hour after police and security had collected and removed who they thought were the last of the liberals, a volunteer security person discovered two more, hiding, together, in a public restroom. While their compatriots engaged in openly violent protest in front of everyone these two snuck away to potentially stage their own protest of sorts, and only by the grace of God did one of the hundreds of kids at the church not happen upon that particular restroom in those moments. Precisely how long they'd been there and precisely what they'd been up to we don't know.

The church's response? After things settled down, the blasphemy ended, the lewd props removed and the families safe from fear of additional men and women running into and past them the pastor took the stage and led the congregation in one more prayer... not for retribution, or divine justice or a celestial comeuppance (that's what I'd have prayed for) but instead that the troubled individuals who'd just defiled the Lord's house, so full of anger and hate, would know Jesus' love in their lives and God's peace that exceeds human understanding.

Yesterday morning defined the difference between a church of believers and Michigan liberals. It also illustrated in shocking, painful detail precisely what we're up against.

Michigan liberals attack Lansing congregation in the middle of Sunday worship (http://www.rightmichigan.com/story/2008/11/10/13335/904)

'Why Believe in a God? Just be Good' Ads Set to Run Next Week On D.C. Buses

Tuesday , November 11, 2008

Washington, D.C. —
You better watch out. There is a new combatant in the Christmas wars.

Ads proclaiming, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake," will appear on Washington, D.C., buses starting next week and running through December. The American Humanist Association unveiled the provocative $40,000 holiday ad campaign Tuesday.

In lifting lyrics from "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," the Washington-based group is wading into what has become a perennial debate over commercialism, religion in the public square and the meaning of Christmas.

"We are trying to reach our audience, and sometimes in order to reach an audience, everybody has to hear you," said Fred Edwords, spokesman for the humanist group. "Our reason for doing it during the holidays is there are an awful lot of agnostics, atheists and other types of non-theists who feel a little alone during the holidays because of its association with traditional religion."

To that end, the ads and posters will include a link to a Web site that will seek to connect and organize like-minded thinkers in the D.C. area, Edwords said.

Edwords said the purpose isn't to argue that God doesn't exist or change minds about a deity, although "we are trying to plant a seed of rational thought and critical thinking and questioning in people's minds."

The group defines humanism as "a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism, affirms our responsibility to lead ethical lives of value to self and humanity."

Last month, the British Humanist Association caused a ruckus announcing a similar campaign on London buses with the message: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

In Washington, the humanists' campaign comes as conservative Christian groups gear up their efforts to keep Christ in Christmas. In the past five years, groups such as the American Family Association and the Catholic League have criticized or threatened boycotts of retailers who use generic "holiday" greetings.

In mid-October, the American Family Association started selling buttons that say "It's OK to say Merry Christmas." The humanists' entry into the marketplace of ideas did not impress AFA president Tim Wildmon.

"It's a stupid ad," he said. "How do we define 'good' if we don't believe in God? God in his word, the Bible, tells us what's good and bad and right and wrong. If we are each ourselves defining what's good, it's going to be a crazy world."

Also on Tuesday, the Orlando, Fla.-based Liberty Counsel, a conservative Christian legal group, launched its sixth annual "Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign." Liberty Counsel has intervened in disputes over nativity scenes and government bans on Christmas decorations, among other things.

"It's the ultimate grinch to say there is no God at a time when millions of people around the world celebrate the birth of Christ," said Mathew Staver, the group's chairman and dean of the Liberty University School of Law. "Certainly, they have the right to believe what they want but this is insulting."

Best-selling books by authors such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have fueled interest in "the new atheism" -- a more in-your-face argument against God's existence.

Yet few Americans describe themselves as atheist or agnostic; a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life poll from earlier this year found 92 percent of Americans believe in God.

There was no debate at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority over whether to take the ad. Spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said the agency accepts ads that aren't obscene or pornographic.

'Why Believe in a God? Just be Good' Ads Set to Run Next Week On D.C. Buses (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,450445,00.html)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When is man going to learn, our own righteousness is like filth compared to God.

Schwarzenegger Assures Same-Sex Couples Previous "Marriages" Intact
Legal scholars divided on fate of same-sex "marriages" contracted under Supreme Court decision

By Kathleen Gilbert

SACRAMENTO, California, November 11, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Despite continued dispute of legal scholars on the issue, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Sunday affirmed that he believed same-sex "marriages" effected prior to the passage of Proposition 8 would certainly remain intact.

Asked on a CNN interview whether existing same-sex "marriages" would be "in jeopardy in any way," Schwarzenegger answered, "No, not at all, no," adding that the true marriage amendment of Proposition 8 would only last until "the Supreme Court turns it over."

Schwarzenegger said that one reason why California voters upheld true marriage may have been because Proposition 8 "had a strong campaign ... and I think that the people that tried to defeat it did not have maybe as good a campaign or as much money behind it."

The Los Angeles Times reports, however, that Proposition 8 supporters raised approximately $36.1 million for their campaign, while the opposition raised about $38.4 million, putting same-sex “marriage” supporters over $2 million ahead of Prop 8 supporters in funds raised.

The governor also stated that "because the Supreme Court very clearly in California has declared this unconstitutional" it is "not the end" of the fight against true marriage, and expressed hope that the state would "move forward" after Proposition 8 would be overturned in the courts.

Three separate court battles have been filed against Proposition 8. Anti-marriage lobbyists claim that adding the true definition of marriage to the state constitution is an illegal revision, rather than an amendment.

According to the Washington Post, some legal experts say Proposition 8 could be overturned if opponents convince judges that it constitutes a breach of California's equal protection law. Others believe the lawsuits stand on shaky legal ground.

One reason Proposition 8 will likely survive, according to Vikram Amar, a law professor at the University of California at Davis, is that judges are expected to uphold the will of the voters as per the democratic process. "We have this track record in California of holding our justices accountable to the popular will," he told the Post. "As a predictive matter, I just don't see this challenge as likely to prevail."

Legal experts are also divided as to whether state law will continue to recognize current same-sex "marriages," or render them null under the marriage amendment.

Anti-marriage activists are requesting California to withhold issuing all marriage licenses, including licenses for heterosexual couples, while the litigation proceeds.

Yesterday Liberty Counsel filed a motion to intervene to defend against the three lawsuits filed at the California Supreme Court by same-sex marriage advocates. Mathew D. Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, commented: "The proponents of same-sex marriage have thrown a 'Hail Mary' pass with no receivers down field. The law suit seeking to block Proposition 8 is patently frivolous.

"The people have a right to amend their constitution," said Staver. "It is amazing how much effort has been put in this battle to keep the people from deciding the future of marriage.

"It makes no sense that four judges can re-write the historic definition of marriage and more than 5 million people cannot restore it to its common understanding as the union of one man and one woman."

Schwarzenegger Assures Same-Sex Couples Previous "Marriages" Intact (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/nov/08111102.html)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well I know one thing for sure, in Arizona their marriage will not be recognized. Arizona voted to pass a constitutional amendment that insures that, marriage is between one man, and one woman. 1,039,606 - 56% voted yes, while 801,729 - 44% voted no. 12% was the difference.

May God Help the Congregation

By Martin Beckford and Nick Britten
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 12/11/2008

Her fellow clergy may have turned the other cheek when they saw their new female vicar wore leather jackets and rode a motorbike.

But when the Rev Teresa Davies admitted after a Christmas lunch that she and her husband had an open relationship and enjoyed wife-swapping holidays in the south of France, her colleagues' Christian ideals of tolerance and forgiveness were tested to the limit.

Her parish also took objection when the 37-year-old mother-of-two also held three church services while drunk, smelling of alcohol and swaying from side to side, with the result that the choir "fell apart under her direction".
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At a tribunal yesterday, Oxford-educated Mrs Davies was found to have "acted in a manner that is unbecoming or inappropriate to the office and work of a clerk in holy orders" and was barred from ministry for 12 years.

A spokesman for the Diocese of Peterborough said: "It is always a matter of regret when any clergy fail to set an example of Christian behaviour in word and deed. We are very sorry that Teresa Davies has failed to set such an example."

Mrs Davies, who studied theology at St Stephen's House, part of the Oxford University, was ordained as a Church of England priest in 2002 and first worked as a curate at a church in Worcester.

She was appointed Team Vicar in Daventry, Northants, in 2006 and was given "special responsibility for children's work", becoming a governor at a local primary school. But at a Christmas lunch that year she told two fellow priests that she and her husband Mick, an IT consultant, had been on trips without their children in an area of the south of France "noted for the casual exchange of sexual partners".

"The witnesses claimed [she] had explained that she and her husband sought sexual gratification this way, and felt no guilt because both partners had agreed to taking part," the tribunal heard.

Mrs Davies later claimed she was just trying to be "laddish" and "shocking" but rumours spread in the parish about her open marriage. Further investigation uncovered 12 pages of comments on websites "for sexual contact", involving a couple called "Tess and Mick, Daventry".

She admitted she and her husband were swingers who met strangers for sex, with the tribunal concluding her behaviour was "scandalous and a serious breach of the guidelines". In addition, at an evensong service in September 2006 a clergyman noticed Mrs Davies "smelled heavily of alcohol and her appearance was dishevelled", and could not lead the choir as required.

Canon Owen Page said: "Musically, it was chaotic, and deeply embarrassing." At evensong later that year, another vicar said she did not appear to know the order of service and had to keep asking for help.

During an Advent service, three people noticed she smelled of drink. "She was unsteady on her feet sitting in the congregation, at times with her head in her hands, clearly unwell (with a hangover as she admitted after the service)," the tribunal heard.

After the complaints were made against her, Mrs Davies fled the parish with her husband to a new home in Birmingham where she is now training to become an RE teacher. She turned up to a disciplinary hearing late, and without any other relevant papers, but admitted the allegations against her very serious and regretted her actions and the fact that she had not sought help for her drinking problem.

Mrs Davies married her husband Mick, a 39-year-old former RAF engineer, in 1989. He runs an IT firm called Mad Computer Solutions from their home and the couple are fanatical motorcyclists.

Last year they completed the 8,000-mile Round Britain Rally, while messages on internet chatrooms show they regularly spend weekends riding around the countryside on their Honda Blackbird, staying at campsites.

One friend wrote: "I was perfectly alright until Mick and Teresa forced me to drink beer all morning, (night had already finished by the time we got back)."

Steve Nightingale, a neighbour of the Davies' in Daventry, said: "They were a very nice couple, we were invited to their housewarming and they were very friendly.

"It made everyone laugh that we had a vicar who rode around on a Harley Davidson. "I can't think that she would be involved in any kind of scandal, she was a lovely lady."

Last night Mrs Davies, clad in full leathers, refused to comment as she returned home on her motorbike.

May God Help the Congregation (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/global/2008/11/12/noindex/vicar.xml&source=EMC-exp_12112008)

Australia Votes Against Israel

November 10, 2008
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AUSTRALIA has switched its position to vote against Israel on two resolutions at the United Nations, ending the Howard government's unswerving alignment with the United States and raising concern from the Jewish community.

The move also signals to the incoming Obama administration that the Rudd Government plans to take a different approach to the Howard government on the international stage.

In the weekend vote in New York, Australia supported a resolution calling on Israel to stop establishing settlements in the Palestinian territories and a resolution calling for the Geneva Conventions to apply in the Palestinian territories.

The resolutions on the Middle East peace process are held annually and the Howard government had backed both from 1996 to 2002 but in 2003 began to vote against or abstain. It was a move that aligned Australia with only the US, Israel, the US Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau and Micronesia and put the country at odds with Britain, Canada, New Zealand and France.

Australian officials told the UN the Government had changed its position because it supported a two-state resolution of the conflict to deliver a secure Israel living beside a viable Palestinian state and that Australia believed both sides should abide by their obligations under the Road Map for Peace.

Australia said it was concerned activity in the disputed settlements undermined confidence in the negotiations. It was among 161 countries that supported both resolutions, with two abstaining and six against.

The president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Robert Goot, last night was concerned over the Government's switch. "We are concerned that the vote has changed, we do not understand the basis for the change," he said.

The Foreign Affairs Minister, Stephen Smith, last night said there had been no change to Australia's policy on the Middle East. He said he had met the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, and the Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, in Jerusalem two weeks ago and told them Australia was a strong supporter of Israel and the Middle East peace process.

"Australia's friendship with Israel is longstanding and enduring and we understand completely Israel's legitimate security concerns," he said.

"As a staunch and longstanding friend of Israel, we want its people to be able to enjoy the fruits of a normal, peaceful existence, within a Middle East that recognises Israel's right to live within secure and internationally recognised boundaries. That is an approach that has strong bipartisan support in Australia and it's an approach that will continue."

The Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman, Helen Coonan, called on Mr Smith to explain why Australia changed its vote. "The change in emphasis is concerning unless it can be better explained as giving effect to a bipartisan and balanced approach," she said.

Australia maintained its vote on seven other UN resolutions relating to Israel, in particular opposing a resolution criticising Israel on Palestinian human rights. Australia said it believed the resolution was too one-sided against Israel and failed to take account of Israel's legitimate security concerns or reflect the responsibility of Palestinians to end attacks against Israel. Australia was one of eight countries, including Canada, to vote against this resolution that was supported by 87 countries with 70 abstaining.

Last month Australia announced new sanctions on Israel's rival Iran but backed down on a pledge to force the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, before an international court on charges of inciting genocide.

Australia Votes Against Israel (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/11/09/1226165386581.html)

Teacher 'berates' student for supporting John McCain
Pete Chagnon
11/13/2008

A spokeswoman for the Independent Women's Forum says a YouTube video has surfaced that highlights the problem of political indoctrination in U.S. schools.

teacher and students smallA recently published YouTube video shows a North Carolina teacher discussing the presidential election in her classroom of young students. At one point the teacher asked the students to raise their hands and state who they were voting for in the school's mock presidential election.

Student 1: "Obama."

Teacher: "You're pulling for Obama. Who are you pulling for? And if you're pulling for John McCain, that's fine; say him as well."

Student 2: "Barack."

Teacher: "Obama."

Student 3: "John McCain."

Teacher: "John…oh Lord, John McCain."

Student 4: "John McCain."

Teacher: "Oh, Jesus. John McCain, okay."

The entire video can be seen here (http://www.onenewsnow.com/Blog/Default.aspx?id=315228)

Amy Watson, a spokeswoman with the Independent Women's Forum is surprised at how this teacher conducted her classroom under the circumstances.

"Yeah, this woman knew she was being videotaped, and this is how she acted," she says. "Can you imagine what's going on in classrooms where, particularly when they are talking about something as sensitive as what party affiliation or what candidate you'd select, can you imagine how the teachers are behaving when they are not being videotaped?"

Watson notes the teacher went on to further berate one of the students for supporting McCain.

Teacher: "What do you all know about that war in Iraq? Talk to me because your daddy's in the military; talk. It's a senseless war. And by the way, Kathy, the person that you are picking for president said that our troops could stay in Iraq for another hundred years if they need to. So that means that your daddy could stay in the military for another hundred years."

Watson believes the teacher was being unfair to the student who probably has enough stress in her life without dealing with the teacher's harassment. She also encourages parents to be aware of these types of political indoctrination attempts.

The superintendent of Cumberland County Schools has responded to the teacher's actions, stating that he was "disturbed" to see the "uncomfortable position" in which the students were placed due to the "inappropriate" actions of the teacher. "Most disconcerting was the military slant that made its way into this discussion," says Dr. William Harrison. The superintendent says he has launched an investigation into the matter and that he will take appropriate action upon its completion.

Teacher 'berates' student for supporting John McCain (http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=315596)

Radical homosexuals plan day of 'intolerance'
Charlie Butts nd Marty Cooper
11/14/2008

Activist homosexual leaders are planning a day of protest this Saturday over losing the traditional marriage battles in three states. ;D

The homosexual movement for special rights has become louder, and in some cases violent, in the aftermath of losses at the ballot box in Florida, Arizona, and California. Florida Family Association notes the increased intensity in rhetoric from the self-proclaimed "champions of tolerance" and diversity. The National Day of Protest's logo is a clenched fighting fist and features phrases such as "Fight the H8" (Fight the Hate) and "Ready to Rumble."

Florida Family Association notes the irony in that the homosexual movement that formerly preached diversity and tolerance has now become increasingly disorderly and aggressive, even intolerant, of supporters of traditional marriage by vandalizing property and staging protests at and inside churches. Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel says the demonstrations ought to be taken seriously, especially this Saturday.

"There have been threats of church burnings. There have been threats of violence, even murder against Christians," he explains. "There has been vandalism already of a number of churches."

According to an alert issued by the Florida Family Association, the "radical gay leaders" have two goals in mind through the upcoming protest: one being to normalize homosexuality in all areas of American society, and the second being to "silence everyone who disagrees with them." The notice adds that the homosexual activists are refusing to accept the final vote as an expression of the will of America's people.

"It really amounts to homo-fascism, and so what we're seeing [is] they don't want to let the democratic process play out," Barber adds. "These people are anti-democracy, clearly."

Florida Family Association also believes the radical homosexual agenda is "unapologetically 'me' centered" and does not feature discussions about what is best for families, children, or the common good of society. Barber points out the Bible's contrasting view. "Scripture says specifically, of people who are trapped in the homosexual lifestyle, ...that they are given over to a reprobate mind," he concludes.

Radical homosexuals plan day of 'intolerance' (http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=319266)

Quote

The homosexual movement for special rights has become louder, and in some cases violent, in the aftermath of losses at the ballot box in Florida, Arizona, and California. Florida Family Association notes the increased intensity in rhetoric from the self-proclaimed "champions of tolerance" and diversity. The National Day of Protest's logo is a clenched fighting fist and features phrases such as "Fight the H8" (Fight the Hate) and "Ready to Rumble."

Florida Family Association notes the irony in that the homosexual movement that formerly preached diversity and tolerance has now become increasingly disorderly and aggressive, even intolerant, of supporters of traditional marriage by vandalizing property and staging protests at and inside churches. Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel says the demonstrations ought to be taken seriously, especially this Saturday.

They are not very "tolerant" of people of Faith, are they?? I have been noticing an underlying undertone of militancy here of late, from the homosexual movement.

Although they wouldn't dare try this in Arizona... There are too many itchy trigger fingers here that are willing to fight, to protect their neighbors.

With every passing day there is less tolerance for us of faith, and not just from the radical homosexuals.

Leviticus 18.22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.

Romans 1:27-29 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

American Christians will have to learn to take a stand. In many places today like the Sudan or China, Christians know what it is really like to be persecuted. Americans have had it easy in comparsion. We have slowly seen our society dissolve into moral decay and done little about it. Over the years we have let judges redefine our constitution and now our country has little resemblance of what our founding fathers intended.

In other words as a nation we have lost our foundation. We are on shifting sand as a nation. Christians in our nation going forward will have to face persecution or just go with the flow. We might risk physical harm by pagan zealots but we certainly will be made fun of and told how intolerant we are. Are you willing to do that? The homosexual movement is just a symptom, our country is lost and depraved. The only hope is to tell people about Jesus.

Pro-'gay marriage' rallies planned nationwide
Protests in all 50 states aim to pressure California Supremes to overturn Prop. 8
Posted: November 15, 2008
12:00 am Eastern

By Drew Zahn
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

DES MOINES, Iowa – Same-sex marriage advocates have marked today as a "National Day of Protest" and are planning marches around the country to rally against California's Proposition 8, a voter initiative that passed on Election Day, defining marriage in the state as strictly between one man and one woman.

Organizers have march leaders and groups coordinated in all 50 states, even in towns as small as Decorah, Iowa, population 8,172.

"Guess the whole 'Yes We Can' Obama thing got something started," writes poster kgongre, advertising the event on OpEdNews.com. "Too bad so many who voted for progress with one hand tried to shove us back in the closet with the other. No. Not going to work that way this time.

"Seems a lot of us Gay folk are just about fed up with being told who we can and can't marry," kgongre writes.

The planned day of protest is being coordinated through a website called Join the Impact, which states its movement seeks to "look forward toward what needs to be done now to achieve one goal: Full equality for ALL."

Join the Impact has served as a clearinghouse for international supporters of the protest, enabling the groups to coordinate their marches to begin at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time, across the U.S. and in at least nine other countries.

Ed Reggi, organizer of the St. Louis protest, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the goal is to pressure the California Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8.

"If California can rewrite its constitution to specifically target gays and lesbians, then whose civil rights could be next?" Reggi asked.

Seattle activist Amy Balliett, founder of Join the Impact, told the website 365gay, "When we're backed into a corner, as we have been with these propositions, we cannot let ourselves be silenced. Protest is a way to bring that conversation back to a national level."

Learn about the intimidating tactics and brilliant marketing techniques being used by "gay rights" activists – read David Kupelian's controversial blockbuster, "The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom."

As WND reported, following Proposition 8's passage, protest marches in California began and grew to near-riot levels. Photos in the Los Angeles Times showed protesters climbing the fences of a Mormon temple, screaming through the chain link, while marchers shouted "bigot" and "shame on you" through the gates.

Thousands have taken to the streets in California, leading to arrests and confrontations – including one in which an elderly lady carrying a cross was verbally assaulted, her cross stripped from her and trampled on the ground.

WND has also reported how Christian churches have been targets of hateful, angry rhetoric, even while homosexual marriage advocates have marched carrying signs reading "Love thy neighbor" and "Separation of church and hate."

Join the Impact insists, however, that today's protests are intended to be peaceful.

"Our mission is to encourage our community to engage our opposition in a conversation about full equality and to do this with respect, dignity, and an attitude of outreach and education," says the website. "JoinTheImpact, as an entity, will not encourage divisiveness, violence, or disrespect of others and we do not approve of this. We do not stand for pointing the finger at one group and placing blame."

Homosexual madness: Attacking Catholics and Mormons
Posted: November 15, 2008
1:00 am Eastern

By Pat Boone
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

On TV last night and again today, I saw it. I hope you did too. All Americans need to see what happened – and is continuing to happen.

It was in Palm Springs, Calif. A little white-haired lady, carrying what looked like a Styrofoam cross, suddenly found herself engulfed in a demonstration raging on the sidewalk. It seemed to be happening in front of a Catholic church, and the angry yelling was in response to the results of the California election, in which a majority of voters ratified a state constitutional definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.

According to the news reporting, the elderly lady was simply trying to make her way past the demonstrators, not aggravating or arguing with them. But the sight of the cross she was carrying made her a target for their anger. Instantly, the homosexual agitators saw her as a symbol of their enemy, perhaps even a Catholic or Mormon. So they jostled and ridiculed her, barring her way and nearly knocking her to the pavement. I watched as she was forced off the sidewalk into the street, and the cross was knocked out of her hands.

The news report didn't say how she was rescued, or what her emotional condition was after the incident, but I was furious at the demonstrators, as any decent person would be. What kind of twisted freaks would take out their fury at being denied special privileges on a defenseless older woman who probably had absolutely nothing to do with their issue?

I'll tell you what kind of twisted freaks – furious homosexual activists. Almost immediately after Proposition 8 won decisively in our California election, as its functional equivalent, Proposition 22, had previously, the street demonstrations began. How dare the voters defy the wishes of this sexually defined group? How dare the people of California require that marriage continue to be defined in such narrow terms, just one man, one woman? We'll show 'em … We'll take to the streets!

And that's what they did, in jarring numbers. They'd learned that Catholic and Mormon church members and others across the state had donated personally to an organized campaign to defend the humanly essential institution of marriage. And the activists were livid.

Over $70 million was spent on the campaign, 30 of it from supporters, and 40 or more from opponents of the measure and its implications for homosexuals. That in itself was appalling – $70 million spent attacking and defending the most elemental unit of society, the institution of marriage. How could this be happening, especially in America, intended and long-defined as a Christian nation?

One of the most telling pro-Prop 8 TV spots began with the insolent, in-your-face proclamation of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome, on the courthouse steps just after a little black-robed coterie on the State Supreme Court had declared the California law against same-sex marriage, enacted in 2000 as Proposition 22, unconstitutional. "Well, it's happening now," brayed Newsome, "whether you like it or not!" He was directing his derision at the voters of California, who had declared their support for traditional marriage already, and now were seeing their wishes repudiated by four small-minded, prejudiced appointees. They had just ruled that no matter what the voters said, California would allow two men or two women to "marry," tossing thousands of years of precedent and religious and moral thought into the garbage.

Newsome, who had personally officiated at "marriage" ceremonies in San Francisco, when it was officially illegal, was defiantly saying that neither he nor his constituents would be bound by existing law or the democratically expressed will of the people.

And now, that very attitude, multiplied a thousand times, is compelling hordes of demonstrators to picket in front of Mormon temples and churches, to march angrily through the streets of Los Angeles, to disrupt quiet neighborhoods that contain Catholic churches – and to vent at black churches and Christians, who voted 70 percent or more for Prop 8.

Whatever happened to the democratic process? To the will of the people, expressed at the polls? To the rule of law, to say nothing of normal decency? Has it not occurred to the activists that arrogant ranting and civil disturbances turn people against them and their goals? That acting out this way reveals the kind of social order they want to force on America?

Ed and Al are two 60-something guys who share an apartment in a modest part of town. Ed can't work because of a disability, and Al quit his job after his wife died. They're longtime friends, and they decided two could still live cheaper than one – so they moved in together and pooled their pensions and retirement funds. They're just good pals, and they enjoy all their individual rights and freedoms.

Kyle and Brian are two 40-something guys who share a much nicer apartment in a better part of town. Kyle is a tenured professor and Brian manages a jewelry shop. They live "the good life," pooling their salaries and job benefits. They also have their individual rights and privileges, like all other citizens. There's only one difference between the two pairs: Kyle and Brian pleasure each other sexually.

Because of this one difference, Kyle and Brian believe they occupy a special place in society, equate themselves with blacks and other racial minorities, and demand "rights" that previously have been granted only to properly married couples, pairings that create children and families, and perpetuate civilization.

Kyle and Brian desire the legitimacy of marriage, the total approval of the public, and all the tax advantages and privileges of the married. No matter that this arrangement, as it spreads across the nation, will place an even greater tax burden on the majority of Americans who reject the homosexual practices that define Kyle and Brian's relationship. Kyle and Brian want their "rights," and they intend to have them. If they can't get what they want through the democratic process, like other citizens do, they'll intimidate Christians, create civil disturbance and pervert the legal process till they prevail.

We the people have a fight on our hands – and these crazed activists are forcing it on us. This is not a "civil rights" issue. It's an issue of rebellion, intimidation and – painful to say – anarchy. It's getting close to classic gangland extortion: "Do it our way, or we'll ruin you."

Cyber-Hackers Break Into IMF Computer System

Friday , November 14, 2008
By Richard Behar

Another major international financial institution has had its computer system attacked by unknown cyber-hackers, FOX News has learned.

The discovery of the assault last week threw into crisis the Washington, D.C. based International Monetary Fund (IMF), which offers emergency financial aid to countries faced with balance-of-payments problems, and provoked a shutdown of IMF computers that lasted for several days.

In October, FOX News reported that the computer system at the World Bank had also been hacked over a period of months.

FOX News has been unable to determine what, if any, information may have been obtained by the hackers. The IMF denies any critical intrusion took place.

The spyware discoveries came at a particularly sensitive time for the international bailout institution, which along with the World Bank is expected to play a central role in trying to combat global financial turmoil. The pair of institutions are described on the IMF's website as the "twin intergovernmental pillars supporting the structure of the world's economic and financial order."

Both will be intensively discussed at this weekend's meeting of G-20 nations in Washington, hosted by President Bush, in the effort to put global finance back on a stable basis.

Europe in particular is promoting an expanded role for the IMF, which traditionally has a European CEO, in that future architecture. IMF computers contain highly sensitive information not only on distressed nations, but also on currency payments and central bank balances around the world, all of which could be invaluable to outsiders.

What the IMF intrusion also shows is that the physical wiring of the world's financial systems is increasingly vulnerable — and getting worse.

"Electronic safety in the financial sector is in dire jeopardy," says Tom Kellermann, a former head of computer security at the World Bank's ultra-sensitive treasury unit — which FOX News reported last month had been penetrated by illicit spyware. "What people don't realize is that the financial sector is the most heavily targeted sector of all critical infrastructures."

Kellermann today is the commissioner of the Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency, a unit of the Center for Strategic and Internal Studies — a Washington-based security think tank — that is preparing to issue recommendations in early December to President-elect Barack Obama on how to keep the country's computer systems from being penetrated.

IMF officials clamped down on their computer systems on November 7, after they discovered spyware that was quickly spreading through the institution's high-security computer system. Spyware is software that is secretly installed on a computer to intercept information or take control of the system.

The IMF's network link to the World Bank, the world's largest anti-poverty agency, was also temporarily severed, a move that IMF spokesman Bill Murray described as a "precaution."

But IMF officials strenuously deny that any lockdown of its computers took place, and insist that no important or sensitive financial information had been affected.

"There was no lockdown as far as I'm aware" says Murray. "I'm not aware of any major breaches, but enhanced security measures have been taken."

Prodded further as to the discovery of spyware, Murray responded: "As part of our ongoing [security] regime, we've had a scan of Fund personal computers and laptops and we found some workstations that did have malicious software, but absolutely no evidence that any sensitive information or systems were breached."

That is not, however, the version given by other IMF insiders and World Bank security officials, who requested anonymity.

According to them, the November 7 lockdown came only days after the World Bank moved more than 100 of its employees into an empty floor of one of the IMF's two buildings on Washington's Nineteenth Street, N.W., just across from the World Bank headquarters.

As FOX News reported on October 10, the World Bank itself suffered a series of cyber-attacks starting in the summer of 2007, both at headquarters and at other offices around the world. The World Bank strenuously denies that the intrusions took place, and none of the bank's 24 board members contacted by FOX News would discuss the matter. But sources told FOX News that at least one of those breaches also involved spyware, penetrating the World Bank's ultra-sensitive Treasury unit, which manages a $75 billion portfolio for itself and for several nations

The World Bank, however, did not take the dramatic step of shutting down all its computer systems to eliminate any spyware. Security experts say it is possible that the bank may have inadvertently infected the IMF — simply by sharing some wires in the IMF's sublet building. Moreover, as FOX News reported last month, hundreds of workers previously employed by an Indian contractor that is barred from Bank contracting work on security grounds still work at the institution, either as regular staffers or as employees of other contractors.

Shortly before the spyware was discovered, the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group — a unit responsible for critiquing the quality of bank projects—was moved into the IMF's headquarters building, where it is now taking up an entire floor.

"Before the move, there was a single point of access — a server that acted as a firewall between the IMF and the bank," explains a technology expert at the bank. "The IMF was allowed into the World Bank's network, but not vice-versa. After the move, World Bank data, or packets, intermixed with the IMF data because they were all on the same wires."

Belatedly, it seems, the World Bank is attempting at least a partial cleaning of its systems. A bank insider tells FOX News that, in the wake of the FOX articles about its security penetrations, "all of the computer systems are being 'changed out' and overhauled in the Dept of Institutional Integrity [the bank's internal investigative arm]."

In fact, the computer assaults on the World Bank and the IMF are only part of a rash of sensitive cyber-burglaries that even reached into the U.S. presidential campaign. Both London's Financial Times and Newsweek recently reported that the computer network of the White House, and the Obama and McCain campaigns, were seriously breached.

The Pentagon claims the Chinese army has established units to develop viruses to attack enemy computer systems. Chinese hackers penetrated the Pentagon last year, in an attack that obtained e-mails from the system serving Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Despite vigorous Chinese denials, "everyone in the intelligence community knows that China is the biggest player in cyber espionage," says John Tkacik, a former head of China intelligence for the U.S. State Department. Tkacik told FOX News that later this month, President-elect Obama will be presented with a new top-secret National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report that "will cause the scales to drop from his eyes" regarding Chinese cyber-espionage.

"What the Chinese are particularly interested in at the IMF is what loans the IMF is likely to give to other countries," says Nick Day, a former British intelligence officer who runs Diligence, a private investigative firm that does extensive work for many international corporations and institutions.

"The geopolitics of this is that essentially you've got a few countries in the world that are stacked on huge foreign capital reserves — Russia, China, Japan, the Middle East — and the rest of us are pretty much borrowers to those lenders.

"And what the Chinese are looking to do is to get influence over a number of third world countries where there are assets in particular, where there's minerals, oil, etc. — where there's wealth that would be strategically useful. And if the IMF is not going to bail them out, or is going to bail them out at a rate which is fairly punitive, then the Chinese can go into those countries and say, "Don't go to the IMF. Come to us. We'll bail you out and we want exclusive deals over the next 20 years to all your mining concessions in your country, access to mineral wealth, access to oil'— all the raw materials that China is going to need to keep carrying its economy forward."

At the World Bank, water-cooler speculation about Chinese intelligence-gathering has taken another turn. FOX News has learned that the bank's internal watchdogs have recommended sanctions against five major Chinese government-owned companies for corruption on roads-building projects in the Philippines.

"People in the bank are wondering about the coincidental nature of all this," a well-placed bank security expert told FOX News. "The cyber-attacks ramp up just as these guys are heading right into the Sanctions Board."

Asked to comment on the impending possibility of sanctions, a World Bank spokesman instead offered FOX News an exclusive on the "full and complete story" if FOX would delay publication of the news well beyond this weekend — when world leaders would be discussing the institution. FOX News declined.

Cyber-Hackers Break Into IMF Computer System (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,452348,00.html)

South Carolina priest: No communion for Obama supporters
Nov 13 2008

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil."

The Rev. Jay Scott Newman said in a letter distributed Sunday to parishioners at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville that they are putting their souls at risk if they take Holy Communion before doing penance for their vote.

"Our nation has chosen for its chief executive the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president," Newman wrote, referring to Obama by his full name, including his middle name of Hussein.

"Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exits constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ's Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation."

During the 2008 presidential campaign, many bishops spoke out on abortion more boldly than four years earlier, telling Catholic politicians and voters that the issue should be the most important consideration in setting policy and deciding which candidate to back. A few church leaders said parishioners risked their immortal soul by voting for candidates who support abortion rights.

But bishops differ on whether Catholic lawmakers—and voters—should refrain from receiving Communion if they diverge from church teaching on abortion. Each bishop sets policy in his own diocese. In their annual fall meeting, the nation's Catholic bishops vowed Tuesday to forcefully confront the Obama administration over its support for abortion rights.

According to national exit polls, 54 percent of Catholics chose Obama, who is Protestant. In South Carolina, which McCain carried, voters in Greenville County—traditionally seen as among the state's most conservative areas—went 61 percent for the Republican, and 37 percent for Obama.

"It was not an attempt to make a partisan point," Newman said in a telephone interview Thursday. "In fact, in this election, for the sake of argument, if the Republican candidate had been pro-abortion, and the Democratic candidate had been pro-life, everything that I wrote would have been exactly the same."

Conservative Catholics criticized Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004 for supporting abortion rights, with a few Catholic bishops saying Kerry should refrain from receiving Holy Communion because his views were contrary to church teachings.

Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said she had not heard of other churches taking this position in reaction to Obama's win. A Boston-based group that supports Catholic Democrats questioned the move, saying it was too extreme.

"Father Newman is off-base," said Steve Krueger, national director of Catholic Democrats. "He is acting beyond the authority of a parish priest to say what he did. ... Unfortunately, he is doing so in a manner that will be of great cost to those parishioners who did vote for Sens. Obama and Biden. There will be a spiritual cost to them for his words."

A man who has attended St. Mary's for 18 years said he welcomed Newman's message and anticipated it would inspire further discussion at the church.

"I don't understand anyone who would call themselves a Christian, let alone a Catholic, and could vote for someone who's a pro-abortion candidate," said Ted Kelly, 64, who volunteers his time as lector for the church. "You're talking about the murder of innocent beings."

South Carolina priest: No communion for Obama supporters (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D94EB4BO0&show_article=1&catnum=-1)

Nudity still in at Seattle parks
09:41 AM PST on Friday, November 14, 2008

SEATTLE - When it comes to public nudity, Seattle may be the most liberal city in the country, but a number of organized, naked bike rides prompted the parks department to reconsider nudity on beaches and city parks.

But Thursday night, the city's parks board refused to ban non-offensive public nudity despite some complaints from the public.

Nude events will therefore likely continue in the future, although perhaps under tighter scrutiny.

The parks board decided that to limit nudists would be to single them out. If nudists follow the rules, they can continue to use the parks.

Naked bike rides are a Seattle tradition. In Seattle it's illegal to flash someone, but perfectly legal to run around nude and police officers take action only if a nudist is lewd or obscene.

"The bare facts of the law are that if you knowingly show yourself naked with the intent to alarm and offend people that's illegal, said Sergeant Sean Whitcom, of the Seattle Police Department. "Just being nude is not against the law."

The city issues permits for a variety of naked events.

"We've issued permits for picnics, for indoor pool rentals and for bike rides," spokesperson Joelle Ligon said.

It's a touchy topic. The police chief even wrote a letter explaining to citizens that his officers can intervene only if a nudist engages in conduct that's likely to cause reasonable affront or alarm.

That line was apparently crossed in July when motorists got an eyeful of nude cyclists hanging out at Dexter and Mercer. And Seattle Center visitors saw others skinny dipping in the Seattle Center fountain.

One family holding a birthday party for a 9-year-old says the boys were suddenly surrounded by middle-aged men wearing nothing but their birthday suits. >:(

The ban would only apply to nudity in parks and beaches. People could still book public pools after hours for nude swims, and naked bike rides would be allowed as long as people keep moving and don't stop or hold picnics in the parks.

The parks board agreed to closely monitor the permitting process and said in the future it may consider establishing a clothing-optional beach.

Nudity still in at Seattle parks (http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_111308WAB_parks_nudity_KS.1ac93ea38.html)

Pastor Preaches Sex That is Free from Sin

The Song of Songs is said to be the most erotic and exciting book in Scripture yet its contents are hardly preached on. When the book is taught in church, it is usually taught as an allegory, and not literally as an intimate relationship between a husband and a wife.

Thu, Nov. 13, 2008 Posted: 12:44 PM EST

The Song of Songs is said to be the most erotic and exciting book in Scripture yet its contents are hardly preached on. When the book is taught in church, it is usually taught as an allegory, and not literally as an intimate relationship between a husband and a wife.

Although sex and intimacy are subjects many ministers feel uncomfortable with, Mars Hill Church pastor Mark Driscoll says they exceedingly important to preach on especially at a time when Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan are promoted as examples for girls and porn stars like Jenna Jameson are featured in video games for boys.

"At Mars Hill Church, we believe that 'all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable' (2 Tim. 3:16), therefore we do not hesitate to discuss anything that the Bible addresses," stated Mark Driscoll, preaching pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle.

And that includes sex – of course, within the context of marriage.

"We got a whole book of the Bible talking about this issue, and even sometimes good faithful Bible teachers won't touch this book and I've asked them why. And they're like 'because it's got some parts in there that are pretty dicey,'" Driscoll said early on in his "The Peasant Princess" sermon series, which launched in September.

Sex sermons are nothing new but more pastors have decided to deal more frankly and openly with the issue, some even advertising their teaching series to the public and others challenging the married couples in their congregations to be intimate every day for a week or a month.

But Mars Hill's Driscoll is hitting more touchy topics through the study the Song of Songs, giving "MH-17" warnings for some of his sermons.

In his latest sermon last Sunday, Driscoll preached on what he believes is the "most erotic, passionate, free section in all of Scripture" – Song of Songs chapter 6.

"Before we get into the details, this is a Bible, OK?" Driscoll made clear, as he reiterated the church's belief that all Scripture is divinely inspired by God.

In this chapter, the wife dances for her husband and is "exceedingly visually generous to her husband," Driscoll explained. All the while, the husband is verbally generous as he pays her compliments of her body and then "proceeds forward."

"Your first reaction: this is inappropriate," Driscoll said to thousands of congregants in Seattle and at satellite campuses.

"It's in the Bible," he stressed. "This is an example of marital freedom."

The 10-week "Peasant Princess" sermon series comes at a time when traditional marriage is being challenged in courts, Americans are daily inundated with sexual images, and more money is being spent on pornography than foreign aid.

Driscoll believes sex is the greatest threat to Christianity and wants to replace Christian porn, adultery and divorce with "hot, hetero, covenantal monogamy."

According to Driscoll, sex has three "denominations," which are Straight, Gay and Bisexual, each of which have websites, "houses of worship" (bars, clubs, strip joints), and "followers who vigorously evangelize and recruit new members."

Through the Song of Songs study, he says people can learn "how to have sex that is free – free from sin, idolatry, guilt, shame, condemnation, death, and separation from God – by having free and frequent marital intimacy." At the same time, Christians can learn "how to worship God the Creator and enjoy his creation and not worship his creation (our bodies and their pleasures) as a false god."

"Our study of the Song of Songs is meant neither to kill our desires nor permit them to flow into deadly sin. Rather, this series is an attempt to cultivate our desires and channel them toward our spouse according to the wisdom God gives us in his Word," he explained.

In addition to preaching, Driscoll and his wife, Grace, are taking questions from congregants via text and e-mail immediately after each sermon – a daring session of unscripted answers that began at Mars Hill in January. With a no-holds-barred attitude, Driscoll has answered some of the more explicit sex questions on his blog.

Pastor Preaches Sex That is Free from Sin (http://christianpost.com/article/print/20081113/pastor-preaches-sex-that-is-free-from-sin.htm)

Gay advocates protest marriage ban across nation
By JAY LINDSAY, Associated Press Writer Jay Lindsay, Associated Press Writer Sun Nov 16, 3:30 am ET

BOSTON – Gay rights supporters waving rainbow colors marched, chanted and danced in cities coast to coast Saturday to protest the vote that banned gay marriage in California and to urge supporters not to quit the fight for the right to wed.

Crowds gathered near public buildings in cities large and small, including Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Fargo, to vent their frustrations, celebrate gay relationships and renew calls for change.

"Civil marriages are a civil right, and we're going to keep fighting until we get the rights we deserve as American citizens," said Karen Amico, one of several hundred protesters in Philadelphia, holding up a sign reading "Don't Spread H8".

"We are the American family, we live next door to you, we teach your children, we take care of your elderly," said Heather Baker a special education teacher from Boston who addressed the crowd at Boston's City Hall Plaza. "We need equal rights across the country."

Connecticut, which began same-sex weddings this past week, and Massachusetts are the only two states that allow gay marriage. The other 48 states do not, and 30 of them have taken the extra step of approving constitutional amendments. A few states allow civil unions or domestic partnerships that grant some rights of marriage.

Protests following the vote on Proposition 8 in California, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman, have sometimes been angry and even violent, and demonstrators have targeted faiths that supported the ban, including the Mormon church.

However, representatives of Join the Impact, which organized Saturday's demonstrations, asked supporters to be respectful and refrain from attacking other groups during the rallies.

Seattle blogger Amy Balliett, who started the planning for the protests when she set up a Web page three days after the California vote, said persuasion is impossible without civility.

"If we can move anybody past anger and have a respectful conversation, then you can plant the seed of change," she said.

Balliett said supporters in 300 cities in the U.S. and other countries were holding marches, and she estimated 1 million people would participate, based on responses at the Web sites her group set up.

"We need to show the world when one thing happens to one of us, it happens to all of us," she said.

The protests were widely reported to be peaceful, and the mood in Boston was generally upbeat, with attendees dancing to the song "Respect." Signs cast the fight for gay marriage as the new civil rights movement, including one that read "Gay is the new black."

But anger over the ban and its backers was evident at the protests.

One sign in Chicago, where several thousand people gathered, read: "Catholic Fascists Stay Out of Politics."

"I just found out that my state doesn't really think I'm a person," said Rose Aplustill, 21, a Boston University student from Los Osos, Calif., who was one of thousands at the Boston rally.

In San Francisco, demonstrators took shots at some religious groups that supported the ban, including a sign aimed at the Mormon church and its abandoned practice of polygamy that read: "You have three wives; I want one husband."

Chris Norberg, who married his partner in June, also referred to the racial divisions that arose after exit polls found that majorities of blacks and Hispanics supported the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

"They voted against us," Norberg said.

In Salt Lake City, where demonstrators gathered just blocks from the headquarters of the Mormon church, one sign pictured the city's temple with a line adapted from former Republican vice president candidate Sarah Palin: "I can see discrimination from my house."

More than 500 demonstrators in Washington marched from the U.S. Capitol through the city carrying signs and chanting "One, two, three, four, love is what we're fighting for!"

A public plaza at the foot of New York's Brooklyn Bridge was packed by a cheering crowd of thousands, including people who waved rainbow flags and wore pink buttons that said "I do."

Protests were low-key in North Dakota, where people lined a bridge in Fargo carrying signs and flags.

Mike Bernard, who was in the crowd of hundreds at City Hall in Baltimore, said Proposition 8 could end up being a good thing for gay rights advocates.

"It was a swift kick in the rear end," he said.

In Los Angeles, protesters gathered near City Hall before marching through downtown. Police said 10,000 to 12,000 people demonstrated.

Supporters of traditional marriage said the rallies may have generated publicity but ultimately made no difference.

"They had everything in the world going for them this year, and they couldn't win," said Frank Schubert, co-manager of the Yes on 8 campaign in California. "I don't think they're going to be any more successful in 2010 or 2012."

In Chicago, Keith Smith, 42, a postal worker, and his partner, Terry Romo, 34, a Wal-Mart store manager, had photos of a commitment ceremony they held, though gay marriage is not legal in Illinois.

"We're not going to wait for no law," Smith said. "But time's going to be on our side and it's going to change."

Gay advocates protest marriage ban across nation (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081116/ap_on_re_us/gay_marriage/print;_ylt=AuCYTP_dSwBCbBfztfrvgHNK2ocA)

Another atheist group takes the billboard route
November 12, 2008 - 7:36 PM
MARK BARNA
THE GAZETTE

Colorado Springs is about to get another dose of atheism.

Later this month, an umbrella organization of 11 atheist groups from Colorado will begin to pepper the Front Range with 11 billboards that say, "Don't Believe in God You are not alone." One will be in Colorado Springs and 10 will be in the Denver area. The billboards will be up four weeks, but their exact locations won't be announced until Monday.

On Nov. 5, in an unrelated campaign, the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation erected a billboard on North Academy Boulevard proclaiming "Imagine No Religion." That billboard will be up through Dec. 4.

The Colorado Coalition of Reason, which is responsible for the 11-billboard campaign, is hoping its message will reach out to like-minded people.

"Some of the people who adhere to no religion think they are all alone," said coalition head Marvin Straus, who founded an atheist group in Boulder. "But they are not. Nonbelief is on the rise."

In recent years, atheists have become more vocal in questioning long-held beliefs within the Abrahamic faiths. Atheist books by Christopher Hitchens, Daniel C. Dennett, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins have had long runs on the New York Times Best Sellers list.

Other signs of the times include the Freedom from Religion Foundation's efforts to install anti-religious billboards in 46 states, and the American Humanist Association's so-called "Godless Holiday Campaign," which it launched Monday with ads in two major newspapers reading "Why Believe in God Just be good for goodness sake."

The latest U.S. Census and other studies suggest that about 30 million Americans follow no religion.

Groff Schroeder, president of the 33-member Freethinkers of Colorado Springs, which is part of the coalition, compares the rising atheist movement to gays who have come out of the closet.

"For people who are closeted nonbelievers, we want them to know there are other people out there who think the same way," Schroeder said.

The Colorado Coalition of Reason is renting its billboards for $5,000 from CBS Outdoor after cutting a deal to buy up its unused space, Straus said.

Similar billboard campaigns have been waged by other groups in New Jersey, Philadelphia, Kansas City and Los Angeles.

Another atheist group takes the billboard route (http://www.gazette.com/articles/colorado_43306___article.html/atheist_religion.html?orderby=TimeStampDescending&showRecommendedOnly=0&oncommentsPage=3#slComments)

'Israel Liberation Week' Ends Violently at Berkeley
Cheshvan 20, 5769 / November 18, '08
by David Shamma

(IsraelNN.com) Israel Liberation Week, which was organized last week by the Zionist Freedom Alliance (ZFA) at the University of California at Berkeley, ended violently Thursday night in an altercation between ZFA activists and anti-Israel students. The incident took place during a concert featuring Black, Jewish and Mexican hip hop artists promoting, according to the organizers, "freedom for the nation of Israel from Western pressure and influence."

As Zionist rapper Kosha Dillz was performing before a crowd of Berkeley students, members of the SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) draped PLO flags from a balcony directly over the stage. When ZFA activist Gabe Weiner attempted to remove the flags, he was punched in the head, he says, by SJP member Husam Zakharia who was then beaten to the ground by Weiner and Yehuda De Sa.

Local ZFA member Yehuda told Israel National News: "Several other members of SJP, including female students, attempted to attack Weiner and De Sa but when three more ZFA activists entered the scene, the male members of SJP – who regularly use physical intimidation to silence Zionist students – hid behind female members of their group and refused to step forward and fight."

The local student press published the SJP version of events on Friday but would not quote any of the ZFA activists interviewed following the incident. UC Berkeley Dean of Students Jonathan Poullard has asked for student leaders from both groups to attend a meeting with one another but ZFA students have told Israel National News that they will make their attendance conditional on the University dropping its double standard when disciplining pro-Israel and anti-Israel student groups.

Meanwhile, the anti-Israel group is planning to file a petition to remove pro-Israel Student Senator John Moghtader from office, who tried to break up the fight.

Israel National News spoke with ZFA director Yehuda HaKohen, who said that although he had initially discouraged his activists from responding to the flags and would have preferred to have avoided the conflict altogether, he believed that ZFA’s victory in the physical altercation will show the anti-Israel activists that some Jews cannot be intimidated.

“In many ways it felt very similar to how things go down in Israel. Arabs attack Jews and then hide behind women. When Jews take defensive action, a biased media paints us as aggressors. The fact that our students at Berkeley had to experience this gives them a better appreciation for some of the challenges confronting us in our own country. Even though I wanted to avoid the altercation, I recognize the value in anti-Israel activists getting put in their place by the very students they so often try to bully into silence.”

HaKohen said that he generally tries to reach out to Muslim and Arab students when running programs on campuses but that the Muslim Student Association and SJP at Berkeley were completely unwilling to dialogue on any level.

“ZFA hosted Israel Liberation Week at Albany a week before and there, we were able to hold meaningful discussions with the MSA [Muslim Students Association]. We obviously didn’t agree on every issue but they recognized the Jewish people’s national rights. They acknowledged that there really is no distinct Palestinian Arab nation and that in order for Jews and Arabs to make peace we need to halt Western interference in the Middle East. They even gave me a head covering as a gift for my wife.”

“But at Berkeley there was no interest in dialogue at all. Instead, the SJP and their supporters tried to paint Israel as a Western power and accuse us of occupying another people’s homeland. They refused to listen to anything we had to say, which is unfortunate because our message is in no way anti-Arab. We simply demand that our rights to self-determination be respected. This was our first event at Berkeley. We expected the campus to be more hostile than others, but we didn’t expect the level of ignorance or close-mindedness that we encountered.

"Anti-Israel students at Berkeley can spit out the exact number of Arab villages they claim were destroyed during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War but they can’t name the countries that participated in that war. None of them knew that Jewish freedom fighters drove the British from our soil and none had even known that the British had oppressed us and tried to prevent the re-establishment of a Jewish state. None of them had even heard of the British White Paper. They knew nothing outside of their anti-Israel propaganda and they were completely unwilling to listen to a different view or acknowledge that Jews are an indigenous Middle Eastern people. But they’re entire cause is based on lies. Husam Zakharia [the SJP student who had initiated the violence] told me on Tuesday that his family lived in Gaza city until 1994 and then moved to California. What kind of Arabs left Gaza in 1994? Obviously people who were relatively fine living under Israel but had to flee from Gaza once Arafat took power. So now Husam, the phony revolutionary whose family most likely fled from Arafat, attacks Israel from the safety of California and tries to bully Jewish students into silence. ZFA might not have started the violence but we definitely finished it. I hope Husam and his crew think twice next time they want to get physical with any of our students.”

'Israel Liberation Week' Ends Violently at Berkeley (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/128401)

Here is another aricle in connection to one posted in "Politics"......

Sparks fly as 'gay' activist mob swarms Christians
Residents of homosexual district: 'We're going to kill you. We know who you are'
By Chelsea Schilling
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Hundreds of homosexual activists rushed out of bars and swarmed a group of Christians who were singing songs in San Francisco's Castro District – and some even threatened to kill the worshippers.

A group of Christians had been singing and praying in the "gay" district for several days, but they never expected an angry mob would run them out. However, that's what happened Friday night.

One woman who was attacked told her story with Pastor Lou Engle at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. She said the group's fellowship had been peaceful for several nights before the riot.

"People would come stand with us and join us," she said. "We got to pray for some people."

But then angry men began yelling profanities and warning the Christians to leave the district.

One asked, "Why are you here?"

The leader of the group said, "We're here to worship God, and we're here because we love you."

A group of men approached the Christians and covered them with a large cloth, backing them into a corner. Then the angry mob began swearing and growing larger. The bars began emptying out, and a crowd completely surrounded the Christians.

The worship group began singing "Amazing Grace," while an estimated 500 "gay" advocates sang, "We Shall Overcome."

The woman said she and her friend were doused with hot coffee. One man took a Bible from her friend, hit her on the head with it, pushed her to the ground and began kicking her. People began lunging at the Christian group, blowing whistles in their ears.

"They started saying, 'We're going to kill you,'" she said. "They started taking our pictures and saying, 'We're going to kill you. We know who you are."

Then she said a man jumped through the crowd and pushed her forehead.

Just then, a squad of police officers arrived in riot gear, surrounding the Christians and forming a protective human wall.

She said the police told them, "You have to leave if you want to make it out."

When the group continued praying, an officer came back and said, "You don't have a choice anymore. We're going to escort you out."

The officers then took the Christians to their cars. The angry mob began lunging at them through the riot gear and chanting "Shame on you!"

Some yelled, "We are going to follow you all the way home!" Others called the Christians "hypocrites."

One man screamed into a camera, "We don't ever want them coming back. Do you understand that, other Christians? Do you understand that, other Mormons? I'm talking to you, people. Yeah, you. Stay out of our neighborhood if you don't like us. Leave us alone!"

Sparks fly as 'gay' activist mob swarms Christians
Residents of homosexual district: 'We're going to kill you. We know who you are'
Posted: November 17, 2008
10:16 pm Eastern

By Chelsea Schilling
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Hundreds of homosexual activists rushed out of bars and swarmed a group of Christians who were singing songs in San Francisco's Castro District – and some even threatened to kill the worshippers.

A group of Christians had been singing and praying in the "gay" district for several days, but they never expected an angry mob would run them out. However, that's what happened Friday night.

One woman who was attacked told her story with Pastor Lou Engle at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. She said the group's fellowship had been peaceful for several nights before the riot.

"People would come stand with us and join us," she said. "We got to pray for some people."

But then angry men began yelling profanities and warning the Christians to leave the district.

One asked, "Why are you here?"

The leader of the group said, "We're here to worship God, and we're here because we love you."

A group of men approached the Christians and covered them with a large cloth, backing them into a corner. Then the angry mob began swearing and growing larger. The bars began emptying out, and a crowd completely surrounded the Christians.

The worship group began singing "Amazing Grace," while an estimated 500 "gay" advocates sang, "We Shall Overcome."

The woman said she and her friend were doused with hot coffee. One man took a Bible from her friend, hit her on the head with it, pushed her to the ground and began kicking her. People began lunging at the Christian group, blowing whistles in their ears.

"They started saying, 'We're going to kill you,'" she said. "They started taking our pictures and saying, 'We're going to kill you. We know who you are."

Then she said a man jumped through the crowd and pushed her forehead.

Just then, a squad of police officers arrived in riot gear, surrounding the Christians and forming a protective human wall.

She said the police told them, "You have to leave if you want to make it out."

When the group continued praying, an officer came back and said, "You don't have a choice anymore. We're going to escort you out."

The officers then took the Christians to their cars. The angry mob began lunging at them through the riot gear and chanting "Shame on you!"

Some yelled, "We are going to follow you all the way home!" Others called the Christians "hypocrites."

One man screamed into a camera, "We don't ever want them coming back. Do you understand that, other Christians? Do you understand that, other Mormons? I'm talking to you, people. Yeah, you. Stay out of our neighborhood if you don't like us. Leave us alone!"

Learn about the intimidating tactics and brilliant marketing techniques being used by "gay rights" activists – read David Kupelian's controversial blockbuster, "The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom."

The woman said her group had merely organized a peaceful fellowship and wasn't there to condemn homosexuals.

"We hadn't preached," she said. "We hadn't evangelized. We worshipped God in peace, and we were about to die for it."

"Their rights were respected," Joe Schmitz, an opponent of Prop. 8, told San Francisco's KTVU Channel 2. "They got a chance to go ahead and pray on the sidewalk, and I had the opportunity to express my freedom of speech, which is telling them to get out of my neighborhood."

The following day, approximately 20,000 people marched in San Francisco to protest passage of California's Proposition 8 protecting traditional marriage. Several thousand people conducted other protests around the nation in cities such as Manhattan, Chicago and Los Angeles. According to reports, many protesters feeling emboldened by the recent election chanted, "Yes we can!" – a slogan popularized by the Barack Obama campaign.

eHarmony.com to match 'gays'
Dating site promoted by James Dobson bows to lawsuit, creates special service
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Internet dating service eHarmony has officially agreed to begin matching homosexual couples, beginning next year.

The popular California-based service has been known for focusing on long-term relationships, especially marriage, which has been said to align with founder Clark Warren's early work with Focus on the Family's evangelical Christian base and perspective.

Warren, a psychologist with a divinity degree, has had three of his 10 books on love and dating published by Focus on the Family. It was an appearance on James Dobson's radio program, in 2001, that triggered a response of 90,000 new referrals to the website, starting a climb of registered participants on the site from 4,000 to today's 20 million clients.

As WND reported, the company originally said it was " based on the Christian principles of Focus on the Family author Dr. Neil Clark Warren." It stood firm on its decision to reject homosexuals from its profiling and matching services. Its entire compatibility system is based on research of married heterosexual couples.

In 2005, Warren told USA Today the company's goal is marriage and that same-sex marriage is illegal in most states.

"We don't really want to participate in something that's illegal," he said.

But now the company has been compelled to changed its nationwide policy as part of a New Jersey lawsuit settlement.

On March 14, 2005, Eric McKinley filed a lawsuit against eHarmony, claiming the company discriminated against him when it refused to accept his advertisement for a "gay" partner.

McKinley's complaint triggered a state investigation into the dating service.

Last week, eHarmony agreed to begin providing an eHarmony-affiliated "Compatible Partners" service to gays and lesbians, with listings labeled "male seeking male" and "female seeking female" by March 31, 2009.

For complying, the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights has dismissed the complaint against eHarmony, and Warren is considered "absolved of liability." Also, the dating site has been ordered to pay the division $50,000 for investigation-related administrative costs and give McKinley $5,000. It has agreed to provide a free one-year membership to its "gay" service to McKinley, plus free six-month memberships to "the first 10,000 users registering for same-sex matching within one year of the initiation on the same-sex matching service," according to the settlement.

A new release by New Jersey's Office of the Attorney General reveals that eHarmony has also agreed to the following terms:

eHarmony, Inc. will post photos of same-sex couples in the "Diversity" section of its website as successful relationships are created using the company's same-sex matching service. In addition, eHarmony, Inc. will include photos of same-sex couples, as well as individual same-sex users, in advertising materials used to promote its same-sex matching services

eHarmony, Inc. will revise anti-discrimination statements placed on company websites, in company handbooks and other company publications to make plain that it does not discriminate on the basis of "sexual orientation"

The company has committed to advertising and public relations/ marketing dedicated to its same-sex matching service and will retain a media consultant experienced in promoting the "fair, accurate and inclusive" representation of gay and lesbian people in the media to determine the most effective way of reaching the gay and lesbian communities.

In addition to McKinley's complaint, a California lesbian also filed a lawsuit against the company in May 2007.

Linda Carlson submitted her complaint to Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging discrimination based on sexual orientation. Lawyers have attempted to turn it into a class-action lawsuit on behalf of homosexuals who wanted to use eHarmony's services.

Carlson's lawyer told Reuters the complaint was "about changing the landscape and making a statement out there that gay people, just like heterosexuals, have the right and desire to meet other people with whom they can fall in love."

Antone Johnson, vice president of legal affairs at eHarmony, said the new settlement could compel California complainants to drop their lawsuit.

"We believe that this case is now essentially moot, and we're confident that we will prove that in court," Johnson said. "Now that we're entering the same-sex matching market, we fail to see what the Carlson plaintiffs could achieve through further litigation."

Former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, outside counsel to the company, said, "Even though we believed that the complaint resulted from an unfair characterization of our business, we ultimately decided it was best to settle this case with the Attorney General since litigation outcomes can be unpredictable. eHarmony looks forward to moving beyond this legal dispute, which has been a burden for the company, and continuing to advance its business model of serving individuals by helping them find successful, long-term relationships."

An attorney for eHarmony told WND legal battles required a great deal of effort and resources from the dating organization.

"The company spent three years defending against this proceeding," he said. "It was a burden in terms of the high costs of litigation and the time and resources management devoted to it."

Teacher suspended for letting class vote out autistic boy
Mother now homeschooling son, claims instructor violated his civil rights

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

A Florida kindergarten teacher was suspended for polling her students on whether an autistic boy should remain in class.

Alex Barton, 5, lost the vote 14 to 2.

Barton, a former student at Morningside Elementary School in Port St. Lucie, Fla., had received two discipline referrals to the principal's office May 21, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. The school was aware that Barton was in the process of being tested for Asperger's Syndrome.

This week, the St. Lucie County School Board voted unanimously to suspend his tenured teacher, Wendy Portillo, for one year without pay. Superintendent of Schools Michael Lannon recommended discipline after Portillo took Barton to the front of the class and asked students to tell the boy what they didn't like about his behavior and how it impacted them.

Barton said the teacher allowed his classmates to call him "disgusting" and "annoying."

The teacher then asked her students to vote on whether Barton would be allowed to stay. When Barton lost the vote, he was instructed to spend the rest of the day in the nurse's office.

According to a police report, "Portillo said she did this as she felt that if (Alex) heard from his classmates how his behavior affected them that it would make a bigger difference to him, rather than just hearing it from adults."

But Lannon said Portillo's actions "caused community and, in fact, worldwide outrage and condemnation." He said her attempt to influence a 5-year-old's behavior by subjecting him to the scrutiny of his peers was "fatally flawed" and violated professional ethics.

"Causing 5- and 6-year-old peers to pass judgment on one of their own, to state the reasons for their 'vote' and then to act on the outcome is a true failure to apply professional judgment at best," Lannon wrote. "Very often we, as teachers, provide the safest and most protective environment many children have. We cannot abandon that duty."

Portillo has been re-assigned to district offices and plans to contest the vote with the state's Division of Administrative Hearings, according to the report. If she is successful, she will resume teaching and receive back pay.

Criminal charges will not be filed against Portillo, because authorities determined the incident did not amount to emotional child abuse. However, the boy's mother, Melissa Barton, said she plans to file a civil lawsuit, claiming discrimination and violation of the child's civil rights.

"This woman needs to be fired," she said. "There is no reason for someone with that mentality to be around children. I think nothing less than her being terminated needs to happen."

She is now homeschooling her son, and claims his self-esteem has seriously suffered. He begins screaming when she brings him with her to drop his siblings off at school.

"It's going to be very, very hard to get him in a classroom setting," she said. "He does not want to go."

TV newsgal-wannabe goes bonkers when fired
'You don't know where I'm from. I'll mess you up, b----'
Posted: November 20, 2008
1:10 am Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

A young TV news intern is now facing charges after allegedly going on a bleep-worthy, destructive rampage when her station in Minnesota fired her for not being able to handle her duties.

Jennifer Nicole Anato-Mensah, 21, a University of Minnesota student, started working part-time in early September in a paid internship for KSTP-TV, the ABC affiliate in St. Paul. She was responsible for logging and organizing videotapes for newscasts.

But on Oct. 13, things reportedly went bad. Very bad.

"This is a young girl who was not understanding concepts in a television newsroom," Danielle Prenevost, 33, executive producer of the station's early evening newscasts, told the Pioneer Press. "I said, 'I don't think your level of college experience is enough for this job.'"

At that point, Prenevost said, Anato-Mensah "just lost it."

According to the criminal complaint published by the Pioneer Press:

Several newsroom employees heard Anato-Mensah shouting, yelling obscenities and threatening Prenevost, saying, "You don't know where I'm from. I'll mess you up, b----."

Prenevost attempted to walk away from Anato-Mensah, but the intern followed her. A male employee stepped between her and Prenevost, who went into a nearby conference room. The male employee tried to get Anato- Mensah to calm down and pack up her things, but Anato-Mensah left her desk and again tried to get to the conference room, the complaint said.

Several male employees then stood at the conference room door as Anato-Mensah continued to yell and swear and try to push her way in. At one point, she kicked at and broke a window in the conference room door. She had to be restrained to keep her out of the room, the complaint said.

"The whole situation was very scary," Prenevost told the paper.

Police arrived after Anato-Mensah was already gone. She has since been charged with criminal damage to property and disorderly conduct, both of which are misdemeanors. Her first court appearance is scheduled for Dec. 30.

The case is already getting plenty of public reaction at the newspaper's website, with comments including:

* Welcome the new generation to the workplace! We can look forward a great deal more of this sort of behavior. There is a word, which begins with the letter "e" which accurately describes them. It's not "excellent." It's not "exceptional." Try "ENTITLED." And if they do not get their way, look out!

* I'm sure the attorneys are already lined up at her door to file the discrimination lawsuit against KSTP. Even though the station has countless witnesses to her inappropriate criminal behavior, I'm sure they'll settle out of court, much to the delight of "Miss way too many names" and her attorneys. Which is what this was all about to begin with.

* Her parents must be so proud. Oh, but wait, this is the age where you tell your children they never do anything wrong, so is anyone surprised that this happened? Maybe if her parents had guts she wouldn't be such an idiot.

* If you are going to work at a job that requires some professionalism, perhaps you should acquire that skill before looking for work. Grow up. If your work was not up to expectations, the company has every right to terminate you. Welcome to the real world! By the way, obscenities are how the ignorant express themselves.

* Seems to me she has missed her calling as a professional protester. Being a minority female combined with a "Super ----- " personality she would have been great at putting the "Man" in his place at the RNC. I would suggest she find a radical or terrorist group looking for help.

Public school teachers wild on social networks
Students see instructors in explicit photos, drinking alcohol, discussing sex online© 2008 WorldNetDaily

As part of a disturbing new trend, America's public-school teachers are increasingly posting questionable and even sexually explicit information on video-sharing websites and social networks frequented by youth.

According to several nationwide reports, students often search for their teachers on MySpace and Facebook, and some find more information about their instructors than they ever expected.

Looking for an alternative to public education? Read "The Little Book of Big Reasons to Homeschool"

The National Education Association listed a number of cases, while news outlets have been consistently reporting similar incidents, including the following:

Virginia – Monacan High School art teacher Stephen Murmer posted pictures of what he called "butt art" on YouTube in January 2007. He painted his buttocks and genitals and pressed them onto canvas. Many students saw his painting before the school fired him. He then contacted the ACLU and sued the district, saying it violated his First Amendment rights. Murmer reached a $65,000 settlement with the district.

A kindergarten teacher from Prince William County, Va., posted a video of a half-nude man having an gotcha12 in the shower, the Washington Post reported. Another Prince William County substitute teacher used MySpace to post photos of a woman lifting her dress, showing lingerie and flashing breasts.

Florida – Band director Scott Davis of Broward County posted explicit material about sex and drugs on his MySpace profile. He was later dismissed by the school.

Also, Florida middle-school teacher John Bush was fired from his position after officials discovered "offensive" and "unacceptable" photos on MySpace.

Palm Beach County, Fla., kindergarten teacher Meghan Buckley posted photos on Facebook of herself drinking and having a friend spank her buttocks, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. Special-education teacher Andrew Summerlin, also of Palm Beach County, described himself as "super horny" and an "A++" in bed.

Colorado – An English teacher was fired for posting explicit sexual poetry on MySpace.

Tennessee – Nashville teacher Margaret Thompson posted "racy pictures" on her MySpace profile.

Massachusetts – Teacher Keath Driscoll referred to women as "whores" and posted photographs of alcohol consumption and "sexually suggestive" pictures. He was originally fired, but the Massachusetts Teachers Association sued. Driscoll received his job back, with back pay, seniority and benefits.

Georgia – Atlanta high school football coach Donald Shockley used his school computer to store pictures of an assistant principal wearing lingerie and posing provocatively. Shockley asked a student to use his computer for work, and the teen posted the pictures on the Internet and distributed them to his peers. The coach was later fired.

Ohio – According to the Columbus Dispatch, one teacher described herself as "an aggressive freak in bed," "sexy" and "an outstanding kisser," while another instructor said she had "gotten drunk," "taken drugs" and "gone skinny-dipping" in October last year. Both teachers posted their accounts on MySpace.

Maryland – In April, Montgomery County special education teacher posted a picture of talking sperm on her Facebook profile and used a slang term for oral sex, the Washington Post reported. Another teacher, Alina Espinosa of Clopper Mill Elementary School, included the following in her "about me" section: "I only have two feelings: hunger and lust. Also, I slept with a hooker. Be jealous. I like to go onto Jdate [an online dating service for Jewish people] and get straight guys to agree to sleep with me."

North Carolina – In the latest case, the Charlotte Observer reports a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools teacher may be fired for "posting derogatory comments about students on Facebook." According to the report, four other instructors have been disciplined for using the social network for posts showing "poor judgment and bad taste." One teacher listed drinking as a favorite hobby and described her job as "teaching chitlins in the ghetto of Charlotte."

Another special-education teacher reportedly used Facebook to write, "I'm feeling p---ed because I hate my students!"

Teachers in several states have been fired or suspended for their postings on social networks, and some challenge their termination in court, citing exercise of free speech. Now teachers' unions are warning instructors about displaying questionable material.

Michael Simpson, assistant general counsel for the National Education Association, told the Washington Post teachers should think twice before claiming free speech protection under the First Amendment, as the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that governments may terminate employees if their speech harms workplace function.

"I hate to think of what's out there," Ken Blackstone, a Prince William, Va., schools spokesman, told the Post. "But as public employees, we all understand the importance of living a public life above reproach."

Dad links son's suicide to 'The God Delusion'
Says atheism-promoting book hidden under mattress, last page bookmarked
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

A New York man is linking the suicide of his 22-year-old son, a military veteran who had bright prospects in college, to the anti-Christian book "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins after a college professor challenged the son to read it.

"Three people told us he had taken a biology class and was doing well in it, but other students and the professor were really challenging my son, his faith. They didn't like him as a Republican, as a Christian, and as a conservative who believed in intelligent design," the grief-stricken father, Keith Kilgore, told WND about his son, Jesse.

"This professor either assigned him to read or challenged him to read a book, 'The God Delusion,' by Richard Dawkins," he said.

Jesse Kilgore committed suicide in October by walking into the woods near his New York home and shooting himself. Keith Kilgore said he was shocked because he believed his son was grounded in Christianity, had blogged against abortion and for family values, and boasted he'd been debating for years.

Discover how atheism and immorality are being cleverly sold to Americans in David Kupelian's controversial best seller, "The Marketing of Evil."

After Jesse's death, Keith Kilmore learned of the book assignment from two of his son's friends and a relative. He searched Jesse's room and found the book under the mattress with his son's bookmark on the last page.

A WND message seeking a comment from Dawkins or his publisher was not returned today.

The first inkling of a reason for the suicide came, Keith Kilgore told WND, when one of Jesse's friends came to visit after word of his son's death circulated.

"She was in tears [and said] he was very upset by this book," Keith Kilgore said. "'It just destroyed him,' were her words.

"Then another friend at the funeral told me the same thing," Keith Kilgore said. "This guy was his best friend, and about the only other Christian on campus.

"The third one was the last person that my son talked to an hour before [he died,]" Keith Kilgore told WND, referring to a member of his extended family whose name is not being revealed here.

That relative, who had struggled with his own faith and had returned to Christianity, wrote in a later e-mail that Jesse "started to tell me about his loss of faith in everything."

"He was pretty much an atheist, with no belief in the existence of God (in any form) or an afterlife or even in the concept of right or wrong," the relative wrote. "I remember him telling me that he thought that murder wasn't wrong per se, but he would never do it because of the social consequences - that was all there was - just social consequences.

"He mentioned the book he had been reading 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins and how it along with the science classes he had take[n] had eroded his faith. Jesse was always great about defending his beliefs, but somehow, the professors and the book had presented him information that he found to be irrefutable. He had not talked … about it because he was afraid of how you might react. ... and that he knew most of your defenses of Christianity because he himself used them often. Maybe he had used them against his professors and had the ideas shot down."

He then explained to Jesse his own personal journey of seeking "other explanations of God's existence" and told of his ultimate return.

"I told him it was my relationship with God, not my knowledge of Him that brought me back to my faith. No one convinced me with facts. ... it was a matter of the heart."

Keith Kilgore believes it was a biology class that raised questions for his son, and a biology professor at Jefferson Community College in Watertown, N.Y., where his son was attending, who suggested the book.

A school spokeswoman told WND that the "God Delusion" was not a part of the biology curriculum, and several of the professors she contacted said they had not even read the book. However, the spokeswoman was unable to contact all of the professors in the department and could not state that none of them had suggested the book to Jesse.

Local police also did not respond to WND inquiries about the investigation into the death.

"One of his friends, and his uncle (they did not know each other) both told me that Jesse called them hours before he took his life and that he had lost all hope because he was convinced that God did not exist, and this book was the cause," Keith Kilgore told WND.

Keith Kilgore, a retired military chaplain who has dealt with the various stages of grief and readily admits he's still in the "anger" stage over his son's death, said his son apparently had checked the "Delusion" out of the college library.

"I'm all for academic freedom," Keith Kilgore said. "What I do have a problem with is if there's going to be academic freedom, there has to be academic balance.

"They were undermining every moral and spiritual value for my [son]," he said. "They ought to be held accountable."

He suggested the moral is for Christians simply to abandon public schools wholly.

"Here's another thing," he continued. "If my son was a professing homosexual, and a professor challenged him to read [a book called] 'Preventing Homosexuality'… If my son was gay and [the book] made him feel bad, hopeless, and he killed himself, and that came out in the press, there would be an outcry.

"He would have been a victim of a hate crime and the professor would have been forced to undergo sensitivity training, and there may have even been a wrongful death lawsuit.

"But because he's a Christian, I don't even get a return telephone call," the father told WND.

He said he tried to verify the book assignment himself several times, without getting a response from the school.

Jesse Kilgore blogged on NetPotion and Newblog, and the writings that remained mostly addressed social ills and how anti-Christian many of the world's developments appeared to be.

He used the pen name JKrapture because, his father said, "He believed in the rapture, the evangelical concept of the Lord coming back."

On the Web, Jesse described himself as "conservative and mainly independent. I am a culture warrior and traditionalist. I have been debating since I was in 5th Grade, and never looked back. It is a habit I can't let go of."

One of Jesse's uncles, writing on the same website as Jesse, wrote: "While I knew he was having struggles with his faith, I had no idea that it ran that deep. … There are not enough words to describe how devastated I am at his loss. I know that some of you got to know him pretty well and (since I already started getting some questions about him) felt that you all should know that he is no longer with us."

From among the online community came these responses: "I am shocked and so sorry for your loss – our loss. My prayers are with you and all of your family at this difficult time," and "I AM at a loss of words.....I am sooooo sorry to hear your loss. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family."

Keith Kilgore told WND he feels, by allowing his son to move into the atmosphere of a secular school, like "I put a toddler in the front of my car."

"My son is the Adam Walsh of the culture war. That's who my son is," he said, referring to the child abduction victim whose case was used to create a wide range of amber alert and other programs to protect children.

He said he has a wake-up call over the anti-Christian agenda of public education. And he has some goals.

"I want to hold schools accountable for what they're teaching our kids. This was malpractice," he said.

Dawkins, considered one of the world's most outspoken atheists, is a professor in the United Kingdom. He came to prominence in 1976 with his book "The Selfish Gene," promoting evolution.

In his "Delusion" treatise he claims that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that faith qualifies as a "delusion" – a fixed false belief.

Sweden sets date for gay church weddings

6 Nov 08 10:17 CET

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has said Sweden may allow homosexuals to marry in the Church of Sweden from May 2009 pending the adoption of a new law.

While heterosexuals in Sweden can choose to marry in either a civil ceremony or a church ceremony, homosexuals are only allowed to register their partnerships in a civil ceremony. But this could all change should parliament pass legislation due to be presented shortly

"Sweden could have a gender neutral marriage law by May 1, 2009," Reinfeldt told Swedish Radio.

Civil unions granting gays and lesbians the same legal status as married couples have been allowed in Sweden since 1995.

If the new legislation is adopted, Sweden, already a pioneer in giving same-sex couples the right to adopt children, would become the first country in the world to allow gays to marry within a major church.

The Lutheran Church, which was separated from the state in 2000, has since January 2007 offered gays a religious blessing of their union. It has previously said it wants the word "marriage" reserved for heterosexual unions.

Pastors who do not want to perform a gay wedding ceremony may however have the right to refuse, something gay rights' activists have criticized.

In 2007, 74 percent of Swedes were members of the Lutheran Church.

Sweden's four-party centre-right government has been split on the issue, with the junior partner Christian Democrats also opposed to the use of the word "marriage" for homosexual unions.

However the three other parties, the conservative Moderates, the Liberals and the Centre Party, are in favour of a gender neutral law that eliminates the current reference to marriage as something between a man and a woman.

The opposition Social Democrats, the country's biggest party, also support such a law, and together the parties would garner enough support to adopt the legislation in parliament.

The issue has been a tricky one for Reinfeldt and the leader of the Christian Democrats, Göran Hägglund.

"The coalition government has agreed that we will present a basic marriage bill to parliament. The three parties in favour of a gender neutral marriage law will then present an accompanying motion seeking to have such a law in place by May 1, 2009," Reinfeldt said.

Hägglund said he was disappointed the coalition had failed to reach a compromise, telling news agency TT "there should have been a way to find a joint agreement."

Sweden sets date for gay church weddings (http://www.thelocal.se/15504/20081106/)

Quote from: DreamWeaver on November 21, 2008, 11:37:09 PM

No matter where someone stands on the issue, I would pray that, most people could agree that a church should not be FORCED to do something that's so against their beliefs.

Hello DreamWeaver,

Brother, all of the pastors I know would refuse, and that would be the end of the story - EVEN if it meant they had to stop all weddings. All of the pastors I know consider marriage to be a Holy Bond between a man and a woman with CHRIST over the home. Many even refuse to do STRAIGHT weddings where CHRIST won't be the head over the home. Many Christians in all lines of work will refuse to call evil good, nor will they accept evil as good. That's just a statement of fact that won't be changed, even if it means being put to death. This is probably the most reasonable Biblical precept for all Christians to follow, regardless of what the consequences are.

Isaiah 5:20 ESV Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

Brothers and Sisters, the time is coming when evil enemies of JESUS CHRIST will be crushed and reserved for eternal judgment in the fires of hell. The HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD lives in our heart and is a guide for the discernment of right and wrong. As Christians, our MASTER is ALMIGHTY GOD HIMSELF. We must remember that the devil is only the master for the lost and this world is NOT our HOME. As Christians, we are no longer of this world because we were QUICKENED (TRANSLATED) into THE BODY OF CHRIST at the moment of our Salvation.

Love In Christ,
Tom

1 John 4:9-11 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

Iowa College Bases Musical on Bible's 'Terror' Stories

Saturday , November 22, 2008

DES MOINES, Iowa —
Don't expect to hear these Bible stories at church.

Cannibalism, rape, a bear that mauls children — this is the Bible?

They're among six stories from the Old Testament acted out in "Terror Texts," a musical at Northwestern College in Orange City.

Adding to the shocking nature of the stories are the theatrics, with actors decked out in Goth attire, a rock band and a mosh pit.

Theater professor Jeff Barker said the obscurity of the stories belies their value.

"We believe we have discovered something that has been lying dormant for many, many centuries," said Barker, who created and directs "Terror Texts."

The musical was first performed at the 1,200 student Christian college in northwest Iowa in February and came back for an encore this fall, with a last performance slated for this weekend.

Barker uses the King James version of the Bible, and actors speak each verse word-by-word. It is not an interpretation or adaptation, like "Godspell" or "Jesus Christ Superstar."

"There's tremendous power waiting when you simply speak and act these stories aloud with faithfulness to the text, not trying to adapt them or add a lot of bits, but just simply play what's written there," Barker said.

Barker views the Bible as a "repository of ancient plays," and when performed they can be seen in a whole new light — even the dark stories.

"I was looking for terror text, stories I can say are thematically tied together because they are frightening and mysterious and terrifying," Barker said. "That's part of what we're saying with this whole project that life and God himself are mysteries."

William Dyrness, a professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., specializes in visual arts in relation to religious tradition.

He said biblical scholars have proposed that much of the Old Testament is poetry and was designed to be sung, especially in the temple as part of worship.

"It's not far from that to think of it as a play," he said. "Theologians have argued the best way to understand the Bible is in terms of it being a great dramatic performance."

He called "Terror Text" a creative variation of that idea.

"This is obviously a very Protestant approach where you're attempting to understand this story so that you can see the way the Bible applies to your life," he said. "You carry it on in your life. You become part of the story."

Student Hannah McBride has several roles in the performance, including as a virgin who gets kidnapped at the end of a story of rape, murder and war. McBride said it has shown her something about herself.

"This particular project has affected the way I view negative emotions — grief, anger, bitterness and spite and hate. We are meant to be emotional people. The Bible in a lot of ways shows us that that's OK," she said. "We need to embrace that we're going to be very, very sad and we won't know what to do with that."

In her role as a virgin, McBride wears a wedding dress that has been destroyed. She describes her look as a "corpse bride."

"It has that image of what could have been great, I ruined," she said.

In a world in which religion often is practiced privately or individually, Barker said he hopes people will understand the Bible better through his performance.

"These mysterious, dark stories of the Old Testament, they bring us face-to-face with the suffering of the world," Barker said. "It says we are capable of great evil and we must not forget these stories and we have some serious things to be accountable for in our own lives as a group and individually."

Iowa College Bases Musical on Bible's 'Terror' Stories (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,456446,00.html)

People Said to Believe in Aliens and Ghosts More Than God
Robert Roy Britt
Nov 24, 9:48 am ET

More people believe in aliens and ghosts than in God, a new survey finds, according to a British newspaper.

The survey, however, was done by a marketing firm in conjunction with the release of an X-Files DVD, and details of how the poll was conducted were not reported in the Daily Mail. Survey questions, depending on how they are written, can greatly skew results, along with how subjects are sampled.

That said, the poll of 3,000 people found that 58 percent believe in the supernatural, including paranormal encounters, while 54 percent believe God exists. Women were more likely than men to believe in the supernatural and were also more likely to visit a medium.

Indeed, humans are prone to believing in things they can neither see nor find logical evidence for.

A survey of U.S. college students done in 2006 found 23 percent of freshmen had a general belief in paranormal concepts - from astrology to communicating with the dead. Interestingly, the number jumped to 31 percent among seniors and 34 percent among graduate students.

Researchers who have compared various human belief systems say our tendency to believe is deeply rooted.

"While it is difficult to know for certain, the tendency to believe in the paranormal appears to be there from the beginning," said Christopher Bader, a Baylor University sociologist. "What changes is the content of the paranormal. For example, very few people believe in faeries and elves these days. But as belief in faeries faded, other beliefs, such as belief in UFOs, emerged to take their place."

Religion and belief in the paranormal are not linked as one might imagine. A handful of surveys show just the opposite, in fact.

"Paranormal beliefs are very strongly negatively related to religious belief," said Rod Stark, another Baylor researcher. Some scientists think this is so because religions tend to discourage paranormal beliefs, and indeed most devout practitioners of a religion have been shown to be the least likely to believe in Bigfoot, ghosts or aliens.

People Said to Believe in Aliens and Ghosts More Than God (http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20081124/sc_livescience/peoplesaidtobelieveinaliensandghostsmorethangod/print;_ylt=AuCYTP_dSwBCbBfztfrvgHOzvtEF)

Shooting During Services at New Jersey Church
Sunday , November 23, 2008

CLIFTON, N.J. —
A gunman drove across the country to confront his estranged wife, then killed her in a church vestibule as Sunday services let out, authorities said. Two other people were injured in the attack, which sent churchgoers scrambling for safety.

The gunman fled, and authorities were searching for him and warned people that he was believed to be armed.

About 200 people were attending services inside St. Thomas Syrian Orthodox Knanaya Church in Clifton when the gunman opened fire before noon. Churchgoers described bedlam after the shots rang out.

"Kids were crying. People were screaming," Suja Alummoottil told The Record of Bergen County. "It was chaotic."

Police Detective Capt. Robert Rowan identified the slain woman as 24-year-old Reshma James and the gunman as 27-year-old Joseph M. Pallipurath of Sacramento, Calif.

Police did not identify the other two victims, but Rowan told The Star-Ledger of Newark that all three were shot in the head and that the other two, a 47-year-old woman and 23-year-old man, were in critical condition.

A spokeswoman for St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center in Paterson, where the victims were being treated, declined to comment on their conditions.

Alummoottil, 40, said Pallipurath appeared angry when he confronted James in the vestibule as the service was concluding. Alummoottil said she went to get help and, a few seconds later, heard three shots.

Rowan said James had recently moved from California to New Jersey to escape an abusive marriage and had filed a restraining order against Pallipurath.

Members of the church are mostly first-generation immigrants and their children from the southern Indian state of Kerala, according to the church's Web site.

Shooting During Services at New Jersey Church (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,456512,00.html)

'Gay' adoption ban ruled unconstitutional
Judge allows homosexuals to become legal parents of boys, 4, 8

A Miami-Dade circuit judge today ruled Florida's 30-year ban on "gay" adoption unconstitutional, allowing a homosexual man to adopt two foster children who have been in his care since 2004.

Judge Cindy Lederman issued a 53-page order allowing Frank Gill, 47, and his "gay" partner to legally adopt the 4- and 8-year-old boys they've been raising, the Miami Herald reported.

''This is the forum where we try to heal children, find permanent families for them so they can get another chance at what every child should know and feel from birth, and go on to lead productive lives,'' Judge Lederman told the court. "We pray for them to thrive, but that is a word we rarely hear in dependency court.''

She continued, ''These children are thriving; it is uncontroverted."

Attorneys for Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum immediately announced they would appeal Lederman's ruling.

''We respect the court's decision,'' attorney Valerie Martin told the Herald. But, she said, "Based upon the wishes of our client, the Department of Children & Families, we have filed a notice of appeal this morning.''

According to the report, McCollum's office argued that homosexuals are more likely than heterosexuals to experience substance abuse problems and mental illness. Foster children are already experiencing a great deal of stress, and, according to the argument, they should not be forced to live under such circumstances.

Gill told reporters he is "elated" with Lederman's ruling.

''I cried tears of joy for the first time in my life,'' he said.

Gill said the state's "gay" adoption ban does not help children by placing them only in homes with heterosexual families.

"It results in more children being left without any parents at all," he said. "They don't have a mom or a dad.''

Lederman's ruling is not the first to declare the ban unconstitutional. In August, Monroe Circuit Judge David John Audlin Jr. wrote that the restriction was a product of "unveiled expressions of bigotry" after "gays" called for civil rights protections in 1977.

''Disqualifying every gay Floridian from raising a family, enjoying grandchildren or carrying on the family name, based on nothing more than lawful sexual conduct, while assuring child abusers, terrorists, drug dealers, rapists and murderers at least individualized consideration, " Audlin wrote, is "disproportionately severe'' and violates the Florida and U.S. Constitutions.

According to the Herald, Lederman said children have "fundamental" rights to have permanent adoptive parents if birth parents are no longer in the picture.

''The challenged statute, in precluding otherwise qualified homosexuals from adopting available children, does not promote the interests of children and, in effect, causes harm to the children it is meant to protect,'' she wrote. "There is no question the blanket exclusion of gay applicants defeats Florida's goal of providing [foster] children a permanent family through adoption.''

Lederman said sexual orientation is no indicator of a person's ability to parent.

"Sexual orientation no more leads to psychiatric disorders, alcohol and substance abuse, relationship instability, a lower life expectancy or sexual disorders than race, gender, socioeconomic class or any other demographic characteristic," she wrote. ''The most important factor in ensuring a well-adjusted child is the quality of parenting.''

Minorities fear trend from California gay marriage ban
Mon Nov 24, 2008 7:46am EST

By Peter Henderson

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's gay marriage ban could open the door to legal discrimination against unpopular groups if the state Supreme Court allows the voter-approved measure to stand, blacks, Latinos, Asians and other minorities said. (They sneak it in now and then act like it's a fact later. DW)

The November 4 vote, supporting an end to legal same-sex marriage in the most populous U.S. state, has caused a nationwide furor as opponents of the measure decry what they consider a civil rights violation.

California's highest court agreed on November 19 to hear a challenge, based on whether the state constitution requires support from the legislature -- as well as a majority vote of the people -- to strip rights from any group. (If they get away with this then it will lead to all kinds of stuff. Pedophiles wanting protection as a minority. >:( DW)

The court had recognized such marriages in May, and about 20,000 same-sex couples wed before the November vote. Those marriages may now hang in the balance. Connecticut and Massachusetts are the only states that allow gay marriage.

Legal scholars say the measure, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman, breaks new ground by limiting the courts' ability to protect minorities.

"They could take away any right from any group," said University of Southern California Law Professor David Cruz, who filed a brief in favor of gay marriage in an earlier case.

EQUAL PROTECTION 'SUBVERSION'

The ban, California Proposition 8, amended the constitution with 52 percent support -- less than is required to approve some state bond measures.

"The entire purpose behind the constitutional principle of equal protection would be subverted if the constitutional protection of unpopular minorities were subject to simple majority rule," read a brief by black, Asian and Hispanic groups challenging the ban. "This case is not simply about gay and lesbian equality."

It is unlikely that relatively liberal California would approve restrictions on racial and religious minorities, especially ones that clash with the protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, Cruz and others say.

"We are past that as a realistic matter. We just elected an African-American president, for Christ's sake," said University of California, Berkeley, law professor Jesse Choper, who also filed on behalf of gay advocates in the original gay marriage case.

Other groups -- from prisoners to undocumented workers -- might not have public opinion on their side.

"The history of California demonstrates with sobering clarity the potential for disfavored minorities to be subjected to oppression by hostile majorities," the minority groups say in their brief, pointing to segregation laws and one excluding Asian-Americans from land ownership as examples.

'TRACK RECORD'

"It is not hypothetical. It's a track record," said Stanford University law professor Jane Schacter, who has not filed briefs in the case.

Indeed, a central argument in support of the gay marriage ban is that majority-vote constitutional amendments can change rights.

"That power is broad and deep and, by nature, populist. It has often been used to be make significant changes in state government and to override judicial interpretations of the Constitution with which the people disagree -- including interpretations involving basic constitutional rights," lawyer Andrew Pugno argued in court papers.

He also argued that defining marriage as between a man and a woman simply re-established the situation before the court recognized gay marriage in May.

The California high court could hear arguments in March. Berkeley's Choper says it will be an uphill battle to persuade the judges that the measure requires legislative action.

Choper said he understands why the groups are fighting the ban and he is sympathetic, "but that's not the way the system works."

Minorities fear trend from California gay marriage ban (http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USTRE4AN0WC20081124)

Hostages said dead in Mumbai Jewish center
By RAVI NESSMAN, Associated Press Writer Ravi Nessman, Associated Press Writer – 3 mins ago

MUMBAI, India – Commandos who stormed the Mumbai headquarters of an ultra-orthodox Jewish group found the bodies of five hostages inside, including a New York rabbi and his wife, officials said, as a fresh battle raged at the luxury Taj Mahal hotel and other Indian forces ended a siege at another five-star hotel.

More than 150 people have been killed since gunmen attacked 10 sites across India's financial capital starting Wednesday night, including at least 14 foreigners.

Early Friday night, Indian commandos emerged from a besieged Jewish center with rifles raised in an apparent sign of victory after a daylong siege that saw a team rappel from helicopters and a series of explosions and fire rock the building and blow giant holes in the wall.

Inside, though, were five dead hostages.

A delegation from Israel's ZAKA emergency medical services unit entered the building after the raid and reported through an Indian aide that five hostages and two gunmen were dead, a ZAKA spokesman in Israel said. The spokesman had no information on the hostages' identities or whether there were wounded inside.

Jewish law requires the burial of a dead person's entire body, and the mission of the ultra-Orthodox ZAKA volunteers is to rescue the living — and in the case of the dead, carry out the task of gathering up all collectable pieces of flesh and blood.

Numerous local media reports, quoting top military officials, also said five hostages and two gunmen had been killed in the Jewish center.

The airborne assault on the center run by the Jewish outreach group Chabad Lubavitch was punctuated by gunshots and explosions as forces cleared it floor by floor.

Late Friday, Rabbi Zalman Schmotkin, a spokesman for the Chabad Lubavitch movement, said that Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, were among the dead.

Holtzberg was one of at least three Americans killed in the attacks. Rivka was born in Israel and lived for many years in New York but it was not immediately clear if she had U.S. citizenship.

The couple's toddler son, Moshe Holtzberg, was smuggled out of the center by an employee, and is now with his grandparents.

By Friday evening, at least nine gunmen had been killed and one had been arrested, said R. Patil, a top official in Maharashtra state, where Mumbai is the capital. Media reports said one or two were thought to still be in the Taj Mahal.

Patil said a total of more than 150 people had been killed and 370 injured. Local officials said earlier that 22 foreigners were killed, but that number could not be confirmed.

After hours of intermittent gunfire and explosions Friday at the Taj Mahal, a hotel with 565 rooms, the battle heated up at dusk when Indian forces began launching grenades at the hotel, where at least one militant was believed to be holed up inside a ballroom, officials said.

CNN reported the government had cut off their live transmissions from the scene in Mumbai. Authorities have asked not to show live footage of their battle with the militants because they believe the gunmen were monitoring the news. Most channels have largely obliged.

Commandos had killed the two last gunmen inside the nearby Oberoi earlier in the day.

"The hotel is under our control," J.K. Dutt, director general of India's elite National Security Guard commando unit, told reporters, adding that 24 bodies had been found. Dozens of people — including a man clutching a baby — had been evacuated from Oberoi earlier Friday.

Security officials said their operations were almost over.

"It's just a matter of a few hours that we'll be able to wrap up things," Lt. Gen. N. Thamburaj told reporters Friday morning.

The group rescued from the Oberoi, many holding passports, included at least two Americans, a Briton, two Japanese nationals and several Indians. Some carried luggage with Canadian flags. One man in a chef's uniform was holding a small baby. About 20 airline crew members were freed, including staff from Lufthansa and Air France.

"I'm going home, I'm going to see my wife," said Mark Abell, with a huge smile on his face after emerging from the hotel. Abell, from Britain, had locked himself in his room during the siege.

The well-coordinated strikes by small bands of gunmen starting Wednesday night left the city shell-shocked.

Late Thursday, after about 400 people had been brought out of the Taj hotel, officials said it had been cleared of gunmen, but they later said two to three more were still inside with about 15 civilians.

Early Friday, Thamburaj, the security official, said at least one gunman was still alive inside the hotel and had cut of electricity on the floor where he was hiding. Shortly after that announcement, another round of explosions and gunfire were heard coming from the hotel.

On Friday, India's foreign minister pointed an accusing finger across the border at rival Pakistan.

"According to preliminary information, some elements in Pakistan are responsible for Mumbai terror attacks," Pranab Mukherjee told reporters in the western city of Jodhpur.

"Proof cannot be disclosed at this time," he said, adding that Pakistan had assured New Delhi it would not allow its territory to be used for attacks against India. India has long accused Islamabad of allowing militant Muslim groups, particularly those fighting in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, to train and take shelter in Pakistan. Mukherjee's carefully phrased comments appeared to indicate he was accusing Pakistan-based groups of staging the attack, and not Pakistan itself.

Earlier Friday, Pakistan's Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar, in Islamabad, denied involvement by his country: "I will say in very categoric terms that Pakistan is not involved in these gory incidents."

Indian home minister Jaiprakash Jaiswal said a captured gunmen had been identified as a Pakistani and Patil, the Maharashtra state official, said: "It is very clear that the terrorists are from Pakistan. We have enough evidence that they are from Pakistan."

Neither provided further details.

Pakistan's government said Friday that it will send its spy chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, to India to help probe the attacks.

The gunmen apparently came to Mumbai by boat, and Indian forces expanded their investigation to the sea. Authorities stopped a cargo ship off the western coast of Gujarat that had sailed from Saudi Arabia and handed it over to police for investigation, said Navy Capt. Manohar Nambiar.

They also stopped a cargo ship that had come to Mumbai from Karachi, Pakistan, but released it when nothing suspicious was found on board.

The British government, meanwhile, was investigating whether some of the attackers could be British citizens with links to Pakistan or the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir, a British security official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his work.

The gunmen were well-prepared, apparently scouting some targets ahead of time and carrying large bags of almonds to keep up their energy.

"It's obvious they were trained somewhere ... Not everyone can handle the AK series of weapons or throw grenades like that," an unidentified member of India's Marine Commando unit told reporters, his face wrapped in a black mask. He said the men were "very determined and remorseless" and ready for a long siege. One backpack they found had 400 rounds of ammunition inside.

He said the Taj was filled with terrified civilians, making it very difficult for the commandos to fire on the gunmen.

"To try and avoid civilian casualties we had to be so much more careful," he said, adding that hotel was a grim sight. "Bodies were strewn all over the place, and there was blood everywhere."

A U.S. investigative team was heading to Mumbai, a State Department official said Thursday evening, speaking on condition of anonymity because the U.S. and Indian governments were still working out final details.

India has been shaken repeatedly by terror attacks blamed on Muslim militants in recent years, but most were bombings striking crowded places: markets, street corners, parks. Mumbai — one of the most populated cities in the world with some 18 million people — was hit by a series of bombings in July 2006 that killed 187 people.

These attacks were more sophisticated — and more brazen.

They began at about 9:20 p.m. with shooters spraying gunfire across the Chhatrapati Shivaji railroad station, one of the world's busiest terminals. For the next two hours, there was an attack roughly every 15 minutes — the Jewish center, a tourist restaurant, one hotel, then another, and two attacks on hospitals. There were 10 targets in all.

Hostages said dead in Mumbai Jewish center (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081128/ap_on_re_as/as_india_shooting;_ylt=AiySDIY.iECMolfKu2JmAfes0NUE)

Another Shephard slain, but no outcry follows
'Silence of homosexuals is deafening when it comes to their own murdering innocent people'
Posted: November 28, 2008
1:35 am Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

A pro-family organization in Pennsylvania is raising questions about the lack of outrage over the murder of a man named Shephard in a dispute involving homosexuality.

No, not Matthew Shepard, whose murder in Wyoming a decade ago has been used by "gay" activists ever since as a reason to demand enhanced "hate" crimes for anyone who perpetrates criminal activity against a homosexual.

This case involves an innocent man who was murdered by a homosexual when the victim resisted his attacker's sexual advances.

The latest case involves Jason Shephard, 23, who was attacked and killed by Bill Smithson, an openly homosexual man, who slipped the victim the date rape drug GHD and attempted to rape him.

"When the young man resisted his sexual advances, he was strangled," reported the American Family Association of Pennsylvania.

"The American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA), remembers another Shepard who was murdered 10 years ago in the state of Wyoming and homosexual activists used that murder to push for hate crimes laws to include 'sexual orientation,' the organization said yesterday, following Smithson's sentencing to life in prison.

But unlike with Matthew Shepard's death, there's been no outcry from the ranks of homosexual activists.

"The silence of homosexuals is deafening when it comes to their own murdering innocent people. The murders of both Matthew Shepard and Jason Shephard were tragic, but one murder is being used by homosexual activists to push their agenda of special rights. No additional laws are needed – murder is murder, but apparently the murder of Matthew Shepard was more important for those pushing an agenda," said Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA.

The organization reported homosexual activists say that Matthew Shepard was specifically targeted to be killed because he was homosexual, yet the evidence shows something else.

"An ABC 20/20 investigation which included interviews with the two murderers revealed that Shepard's murder resulted from a botched robbery," the organization said.

In fact, a commentary by John Aman, a writer for Coral Ridge Ministries and author of the book, "Ten Truths About Hate Crimes Laws," reveals the truth about the case.

"It was the perfect 'hate crime.' Backers of hate-crime legislation in Washington – and their allies in the homosexual lobby – could not have hoped for anything better. Suddenly, here was evidence of America's 'hate-crime epidemic' blasted to the nation and the world via wall-to-wall media coverage. The need to pass hate crime legislation immediately was evident." he wrote.

"Matthew Shepard, it was reported, had died at the hands of two bigots enraged by his homosexuality. They mercilessly beat him with a .357 magnum pistol, stole $30 and left him tied to a split-rail fence outside Laramie, Wyo. Alone, in near-freezing nighttime temperatures, the 21-year-old college student fell into a coma and was not found until 18 hours later. He died on Oct. 12, 1998, six days after the brutal attack," he continued.

"Homosexual-rights groups, some in the media and even a few politicians charged that Christians who oppose homosexuality were to blame for Matthew Shepard's death. Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest homosexual advocacy group, charged on NBC's 'Today' show that Shepard was murdered because 'people's minds have been twisted with cruel stereotypes about gay and lesbian people.' Birch blamed a pro-family ad campaign featuring men and women who had left homosexuality, for having 'poisoned' the atmosphere," Aman wrote.

Learn about the brilliant marketing techniques being used by "gay rights" activists – read David Kupelian's controversial blockbuster, "The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom."

Even today, Aman noted, Matthew Shepard's name is synonymous with the campaign to enact hate-crime laws. Supporters of the "Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007" want to add "sexual orientation" to the list of groups granted special protection from so-called hate crimes, he said.

Only the story isn't accurate.

Money for drugs, not 'homophobia,' was the motive for Matthew Shepard's murder, Aman noted. The ABC report said Aaron McKinney, sentenced in 1999 to two life sentences for Shepard's murder, was on a sleepless week-long methamphetamine binge and in search of money for more drugs when he and his accomplice, Russell Henderson, met Shepard at a bar.

McKinney himself has said, "All I wanted to do was beat him up and rob him."

Henderson also denied the hate-crime charge. "It's not because me and Aaron had anything against gays or anything like that," he said.

The American Family Association of Pennsylvania said there are similar instiances. In Benton County, Ark., 13-year-old Jesse Dirkhizing was sodomized by two homosexuals and allowed to die in his own vomit in 1999, the group said.

"Jason Shephard was a young college student targeted by a homosexual man to fulfill his sexual desires. Homosexual activists are silent on this murder – yet they still use Matthew Shepard as the poster child for their campaign to write 'sexual orientation' into hate crimes laws. Hate crime laws are not needed - Wyoming still does not have one and Pennsylvania's was thrown out this summer," the organization said.

"Matthew Shepard's murderers are spending the rest of their lives behind bars just as the murderers of Jason Shepherd, Jesse Dirkhising and Mary Stachowicz are. Murder is murder and increased penalties for attacking a specially protected group listed in a hate crimes law is a waste of everyone's time and resources. Such a law creates unequal protection under the law," said Gramley.

According to Philly.com, a website for the Inquirer and Daily News, Smithson, during his trial and sentencing, never admitted to the murder, nor did he express sorrow to the victim's parents.

He blamed his behavior on his struggles with drugs, too.

Testimony at his trial revealed he held a ligature around his victim's neck for up to two minutes after he lost consciousness due to lack of oxygen, assuring his death.

WND also reported after voters in Florida, Arizona and California joined residents of 27 other states with constitutional protections for traditional marriage – and homosexual activists responded with terroristic threats against Christians and their churches.

"Burn their ***** churches to the ground, and then tax the charred timbers," wrote "World O Jeff" on the JoeMyGod blogspot after California officials declared Proposition 8 had been approved by a margin of 52 percent to 48 percent. Confirmation on voter approval of amendments in Florida and Arizona came earlier.

The amendments in all three states essentially limit marriage to one man and one woman. In California, the measure states the only marriages "valid and recognized" in the state are those between one man and one woman.

On a blog website, "Tread" wrote, "I hope the No on 8 people have a long list and long knives."

Another contributor to the JoeMyGod website said, "While financially I supported the Vote No, and was vocal to everyone and anyone who would listen, I have never considered being a violent radical extremist for our equal rights. But now I think maybe I should consider becoming one. Perhaps that is the only thing that will affect the change we so desperately need and deserve."

A contributor identifying himself as "Joe" said, "I swear, I'd murder people with my bare hands this morning."

Matt Barber, director of cultural affairs for Liberty Counsel, called the statements "hate crimes" for their intent to create violence against someone based on their beliefs.

"This is not just a matter of some people blowing off steam because they're not happy with a political outcome. This is criminal activity," he said. "The homosexual lobby is always calling for 'tolerance' and 'diversity' and playing the role of victim. They claim to deplore violence and 'hate.' Here we have homosexuals inciting, and directly threatening, violence against Christians."

Vatican thanks Muslims for returning God to Europe
By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor
November 28, 2008

PARIS (Reuters) - A senior Vatican cardinal has thanked Muslims for bringing God back into the public sphere in Europe and said believers of different faiths had no option but to engage in interreligious dialogue.

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Catholic Church's department for interfaith contacts, said religion was now talked and written about more than ever before in today's Europe.

"It's thanks to the Muslims," he said in a speech printed in Friday's L'Osservatore Romano, the official daily of the Vatican. "Muslims, having become a significant minority in Europe, were the ones who demanded space for God in society."

Vatican officials have long bemoaned the secularisation of Europe, where church attendance has dwindled dramatically in recent decades, and urged a return to its historically Christian roots. But Tauran said no society had only one faith.

"We live in multicultural and multireligious societies, that's obvious," he told a meeting of Catholic theologians in Naples. "There is no civilisation that is religiously pure."

Tauran's positive speech on interfaith dialogue came after a remark by Pope Benedict prompted media speculation that the Vatican was losing interest in it. Some Jewish leaders reacted with expressions of concern and the Vatican denied any change.

The "return of God" is clearly seen in Tauran's native France, where Europe's largest Muslim minority has brought faith questions such as women's headscarves into the political debate after decades when they were considered strictly private issues.

"GOD IS AT WORK IN ALL"

Tauran said religions were "condemned to dialogue," a practice he called "the search for understanding between two subjects, with the help of reason, in view of a common interpretation of their agreement and disagreement."

That seemed to clarify Benedict's statement on Sunday that interfaith dialogue was "not possible in the strict sense of the word". Church officials said a strict definition would include the option that one side is ultimately convinced by the other.

Dialogue participants could not give up their religious convictions, Tauran said, but should be open to learning about the positive aspects of each others' faith.

"Every religion has its own identity, but I agree to consider that God is at work in all, in the souls of those who search for him sincerely," he said. "Interreligious dialogue rallies all who are on the path to God or to the Absolute."

The uncertainty about the Vatican view coincided with increasing contacts among world religions.

Early this month, the Vatican held a pioneering conference with a delegation from the "Common Word" group of Muslim scholars who invited Christian churches to a new dialogue.

A week later, Saudi King Abdullah gathered world leaders at the United Nations as part of a dialogue he launched with a conference of faith leaders in Madrid last July.

Christianity and Islam are the world's two largest faiths, with two billion and 1.3 billion followers respectively. The latest interfaith efforts are meant to counter growing tensions between these two after the Sept. 11 attacks.

An Indian prelate, speaking after the Mumbai attacks began, said in Rome that a lack of courage to meet across faith lines was often behind religious violence in his country.

Archbishop Felix Machado of Nashik diocese, just east of Mumbai, told Italian priests the violence was caused by "inequality, a lack of justice and understanding and, above all, a lack of courage to dialogue," the Vatican daily reported.

Vatican thanks Muslims for returning God to Europe (http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/11/28/worldupdates/2008-11-28T184158Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-367653-1&sec=Worldupdates)

Abortion rates rocket to record high as Britain set to overtake US
By Daniel Martin
28th November 2008

The number of women having an abortion in England and Wales exceeded 200,000 for the first time last year.

There has been an increased figure almost every year since the legalisation of abortion in 1967 – and the indications are this year's figure will be even higher.

Britain's termination rate is already the highest in Western Europe, and if trends continue it will bypass the U.S. within a decade as the place where the greatest proportion of births are terminated.

The shocking figures came just months after MPs rejected moves to restrict abortion to under 20 weeks only, in a bid to call a halt to the year-on-year rises.

The limit for social abortions stayed at 24 weeks.

Pro-life MPs say the figures prove that abortion has become so commonplace that hundreds of women are using it as a form of contraception.

Nadine Dorries, Tory MP for Mid Bedfordshire, said: 'Abortion is wrongly seen as an easy and trouble-free way of ending a pregnancy. It has moved from a resource that women turn to in an emergency and a point of crisis to becoming a form of contraception.

'This has been brought about as a result of an ill-conceived notion that it is just a minor procedure with no side or lasting effects, but this is not the case.'

The Office for National Statistics revealed yesterday that there were 205,600 abortions last year, with 198,500 carried out on Britons and the rest on women who had travelled from other countries.

Most abortions – 57,000 – were carried out on the 20 to 24 age group. However, there were 4,400 on the under-16s and 700 on those aged more than 45. Some 62.7 per cent of abortions were performed within nine weeks.

In the first six months of 2008, there were 105,000 abortions, slightly more than half last year's figure, indicating the annual total is likely to exceed that of 2007.

Pro-life campaigners are also becoming increasingly concerned with the number of repeat abortions.

The most recent figures for this from 2006 show that nearly 4,000 women have had four or more abortions – and dozens have had eight or more. There were 82 teenagers on their third abortion.

Overall, the number of women having repeat abortions has reached record levels.

In 2006, 59,687 abortions were performed in England on women who had already had one.

A third of terminations are now repeats, and the number has gone up by 5 per cent in two years.

Abortion rates rocket to record high as Britain set to overtake US (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1090057/Abortion-rates-rocket-record-high-Britain-set-overtake-US-world-termination-capital.html#)

292 Kids Killed as Terrorists
by Maayana Miskin A7News

Almost 300 children have been killed while taking part in terrorist attacks over the past eight years, a new study conducted by Palestinian Authority researcher Mahdi Jaradat has revealed. A total of 3,973 PA Arabs died in the past eight years while committing acts of terrorism, he found.

Fatah had the most fatalities, with a total of 1,437 terrorists, 128 of them children, killed since September 28, 2000. Hamas was in second place with 1,410 killed in the same time period, 96 of them minors. Fifty-three children were killed while taking part in Islamic Jihad operations, five were killed as members of the PFLP, four died with the DFLP, and three with PRC.

Women, too

Women were increasingly numbered among terrorists as well. A total of 95 women were killed while carrying out attacks, Jaradat found. Thirty-four women were killed working with Hamas, and 30 with Fatah. Islamic Jihad, which had a much lower casualty rate than Hamas and Fatah overall, counted 24 women among its casualties.

Hamas carried out more suicide bombings than any other group over the past eight years, with a total of 72. Islamic Jihad was next with 48 suicide bombings, and Fatah was third with 42. Each of the three groups used women as suicide bombers, a move that was initially controversial due to traditional Muslim views that saw warfare as out of bounds for women.

According to the IDF, 29 suicide bombers were PA youths under the age of 18. Several youths as young as 14 and 15 have been caught attempting to approach checkpoints with bombs. One such would-be bomber told soldiers that terrorists offered him NIS 100 to transport explosives; another said terrorists had threatened him and told him they would accuse him of providing information to Israeli security forces—a capital offense in PA-controlled areas—if he did not do as they said. A third youth arrested while wearing a bomb belt was mentally disabled. He was safely disarmed.

Incitement

Israeli and American researchers have warned that many PA youths are encouraged to die as terrorists. While more blatant incitement to murder and death as a terrorist can be found in media outlets such as Hamas' TV station for children, another common source of incitement and hate is PA textbooks, which often leave Israel off of Middle East maps and hail slain terrorists as “martyrs.”

Respect for child suicide attackers can be found within the PA parliament as well: Legislator Maryam Farhat, more commonly known as Umm Nidal, sent three of her sons to commit suicide attacks. One was only 17 when he took part in a suicide attack in the town of Atzmona in which five Israeli teens were murdered.

292 Kids Killed as Terrorists (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/am-israel/message/12687)

Voodoo festival offers respite in troubled year
In the U.S., Haitians enjoy a condensed version of 'sacred carnival'
Nov. 29, 2008

MIAMI - Goat meat stewing on the stove and sweet potatoes baking in the oven. Cooked fish, complete with bones and eyeballs. Spicy peppers soaked in bottles of rum.

The food is an offering to the spirits expected to dance among the revelers at Voodoo priest Erol Josue's Miami home that night.

Josue's belief: Provide spiritual sustenance to both the living and dead in Haiti and the U.S. to help the linked communities cope with disasters that have embroiled them the past year. Worldwide economic turmoil, the ruin and death left in Haiti by four tropical storms and a school collapse that killed 90 all have left an imprint.

Josue's night-long celebration of the dead, a condensed version of the two-day festival in Haiti that opened November, was repeated in other homes in Haitian-American communities during the month. Vodouisants believe the Gede, or the dead, rituals honor their ancestors and the spirits and help clear the pain of recent tragedies. About 1 million Haitians live in the U.S., most in Florida. Large communities are also in New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

"Artists and advocates for Haiti have been doing relief concerts to bring money for Haiti, which is very good, but as a spiritual person, as a priest, I think first of all we have to pay respect for our brothers and sisters, for those souls who have died," Josue said.

Hours before the "sacred carnival," Josue and a handful of vodouisants gathered before a small altar to pay special homage to the nearly 800 storm victims and those killed in the Nov. 7 school collapse.

He had expected at least 20 people for the daytime service.

Many hoarding extra cash
But many have reserved their extra cash to help relatives in impoverished Haiti. They told Josue they couldn't afford the gas for driving to the outskirts of Miami twice in the same day. And when they came for the night service, they would wear the same black and purple clothes they had on last year, not being afford new things.

"And there's only one goat," Josue said and sighed.

In the past, many guests laid offerings on the altars adorned with decorative skulls in black top hats. This year, they spent what they could to honor the dead, while still trying to support the living, Josue said.

"I don't think the Gede will be offended," Josue said. "They will be concerned about the condition of the world, because they have a lot of work to do now."

Voodoo, a blend of Christian tenets and African religions, was sanctioned as an official religion in Haiti in 2003. It is widely practiced in the Caribbean country of nearly 9 million people, and emigrants continue traditions fused by slaves in Haiti's colonial past.

Believers look to the celebration of the dead as a way to relinquish the pain of the past year and "start the new year with a positive attitude and let go of anything that is going to weigh you down physically and emotionally," Raymonde Baptiste of Miami said after the requiem at Josue's home. "This is a way of moving on."

Worries left at the door
All worries seemed to be abandoned at Josue's front door by 10 p.m., when the festivities began. About 75 people, from young adult to old, crammed into his living room, emptied of its furnishings to make room for four conga drummers and a central pole draped in black and purple, the colors of death and strength. More guests, including a few wearing skull T-shirts, spilled onto a sun porch and into the front hallway.

Josue and a few initiates, now dressed in black and purple, began calling the spirits with dancing and singing around the pole. When the spirits overtook their bodies, they staggered and lurched in the small space, supported by the outstretched arms of the crowd.

The drummers maintained an upbeat, sometimes frenzied pace well into the early morning. The air grew thick with incense and the sweaty crush of guests joining the other dancers in the hip-swiveling gyrations that reflect the Gede's joking, vulgar nature.

The Gede festival, believers say, is a time to say and do things usually discouraged the rest of the year. It's just the fix for a tough year at home in the U.S., and at home in Haiti. Haitians abroad sent about $1.83 billion home last year, amounting to about 35 percent of the country's gross domestic product, according to the Inter-American Development Bank.

"When you do the Gede, it's like therapy," said Ingrid Llera, a Voodoo priestess who lives in Homestead, Florida. "You just let it all out."

Voodoo festival offers respite in troubled year (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27957550/)

Police Reviewing Video to Identify Shoppers in Wal-Mart Stampede That Killed Worker

Saturday , November 29, 2008

NEW YORK —
Police were reviewing video from surveillance cameras in an attempt to identify people who trampled on a Wal-Mart worker killed when a crowd of post-Thanksgiving shoppers burst through the doors at a suburban store and knocked him down.

Criminal charges were still possible, but identifying anyone in the store's videos may prove difficult, said Nassau County police spokesman Detective Lt. Michael Fleming on Friday.

Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers stepped over him and became irate when officials said the store was closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.

At least four other people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were taken to hospitals for observation or minor injuries, and the store in Valley Stream on Long Island closed for several hours. It reopened shortly after 1 p.m.

Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. called the incident a "tragic situation" and said it had tried to prepare for the crowd by adding staffers and outside security workers, putting up barricades and consulting police.

"Despite all of our precautions, this unfortunate event occurred," senior Vice President Hank Mullany said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those impacted."

But Fleming said the store didn't have enough security.

Police said about 2,000 people were gathered outside the Wal-Mart doors before its 5 a.m. opening at a mall about 20 miles east of Manhattan. The impatient crowd knocked the employee, identified by police as Jdimytai Damour of Queens, to the ground as he opened the doors, leaving a metal portion of the frame crumpled like an accordion.

"This crowd was out of control," said Fleming, who described the scene as "utter chaos."

Dozens of store employees trying to fight their way out to help Damour were also getting trampled by the crowd, Fleming said. Witnesses said that even as the worker lay on the ground, shoppers streamed into the store, stepping over him.

Kimberly Cribbs, who witnessed the stampede, said shoppers were acting like "savages."

"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, 'I've been on line since yesterday morning,"' she said. "They kept shopping."

The 34-year-old Damour was taken to Franklin Hospital Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at about 6 a.m., police said. The exact cause of death has not been determined.

Damour came from a temporary agency and was doing maintenance work at the store, Wal-Mart said.

The 28-year-old pregnant woman was taken to a hospital, where she and the baby were reported to be OK, said police Sgt. Anthony Repalone. At least three other people were taken to hospitals with minor injuries.

Suffolk County police said a shopper at a Wal-Mart in Farmingdale, about 15 miles east of the Valley Stream location, reported being trampled by overeager customers at around the same time Damour was killed. The woman suffered minor injuries but finished shopping before she filed the report, police said.

Wal-Mart security varies by store. Officials wouldn't say how many security workers were at the Valley Stream location.

The retail giant has rigorously resisted being unionized. But the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500 termed the death "avoidable" and called for federal and state labor authorities to investigate. Union president Bruce Both said the store had failed to provide a safe workplace.

The National Retail Federation, the industry's largest group, was unaware of any other store workers ever dying on the job in the post-Thanksgiving rush, spokeswoman Ellen Davis said.

Shoppers around the country line up early outside stores on the day after Thanksgiving in the annual bargain-hunting ritual known as Black Friday. It got that name because it has historically been the day stores broke into profitability for the full year.

Many stores open early and stay open late on Black Friday. The Valley Stream Wal-Mart usually opens at 9 a.m.

Items on sale at the Wal-Mart store included a $798 Samsung 50-inch plasma HDTV, a Bissel compact upright vacuum for $28, a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69 and DVDs such as "The Incredible Hulk" for $9.

The store was crowded Friday afternoon after the store reopened, but shoppers were more subdued. It wasn't immediately clear whether there was additional security.

Police Reviewing Video to Identify Shoppers in Wal-Mart Stampede That Killed Worker (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,459068,00.html)

New 'Bible': Heterosexuality is sin
'There are many different versions; I don't see why we can't have one'
Posted: December 02, 2008
9:25 pm Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

A filmmaker who recently released an independent project about a formula that turns all heterosexuals into "gays" now has announced he's working on "The Princess Diana Bible" in which "God" ordains homosexuality as the better lifestyle.

"There are many different versions of the Bible; I don't see why we can't have one," stated Max Mitchell in a statement on a website for his new project.

The "gay Bible," produced by the New Mexico-based Revision Studios, states God instructs "it is better to be gay than straight."

Mitchell said he developed the idea for the "Bible" from his new movie project, called "Horror in the Wind," in which an airborne substance "reverses the world's sexual orientation."

He said it's named "The Princess Diana Bible" because of Diana's "many good works."

The website offers a preview of the project, which is forecast to be available in 2009.

In Mitchell's version, Genesis talks about Aida and Eve:

"And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Aida, and she slept: and he took one of her ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from woman, made he another woman, and brought her unto the first. And Aida said, 'This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of me. Therefore shall a woman leave her mother, and shall cleave unto her wife: and they shall be one flesh.' And they were both naked, the woman and her wife, and were not ashamed."

The new version continues:

And Eve conceived, and bore Cain, and said, we have created a child in God’s image. And God said the male was different than the woman because he was fathered by the serpent. … And Eve again conceived with the serpent and bore Cain's brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

According to the pro-homosexual website Queerty.com, Mitchell has described his work as divinely inspired.

"Jesus was gay. In Biblical times homosexual relationships were so commonplace that no one gave it a second thought. It was heterosexuality that was considered sinful," he told the website.

On the website's comment page, one participant said, "Aida and Eve are a breath of fresh air upon the face of repressed homosexulity (sic) in America. Finally, a version of the bible everyone can relate to."

At Belieftnet.com, a commentator expressed opposition to the project.

"Every once in a while, art doesn't transcend truth as much as it distorts it, and that's where I draw the line. Hence my opposition to the upcoming 'Princess Diana Bible.'

"This book is inspired by a political agenda and one person's desire to contort not only the text but the very context of it to suit his own perspective. That, you may say, is what commentators do – and perhaps even translators – but this guy is making himself an 'author,' which makes it a book, not a Bible," the commentator wrote.

____________

How much more of this garbage must we endure. Lord please come soon!

School cancels Christmas nativity in favour of Muslim Eid celebrations
A junior school has cancelled its Christmas performances because they got in the way of the Muslim children celebrating Eid.

By Nick Britten
Last Updated: 4:06PM GMT 04 Dec 2008

Greenwood Junior School sent out a letter to parents saying the three day festival of Eid al-Adha, which takes place between 8-11 December, meant that Muslim children would be off school.

That meant planning for a traditional pantomime were shelved because the school felt it would be too difficult to run both celebrations side by side. The move has left parents furious.

Janette Lynch, whose seven-year-old son Keanu attends the school, in Sneinton, Nottingham, said: "The head has a whole year to plan for Eid and so she should be able to plan for both religious festivals.

"I have never heard of this at a school. It is the first year my son has been there and a lot of the mums like me were really looking forward to seeing the children on stage.”

She said a letter, sent from “The staff at Greenwood Junior School', said: "It is with much regret that we

have had to cancel this year's Christmas performances. This is due to the Eid celebrations that take place next week and its effect on our performers.”

Following outrage from parents, the school was forced to send out a second letter saying that the Christmas play would be done in January.

Sent by the head teacher, Amber Latif, and Yvonne Wright, chair of governors, it apologised for “any misunderstanding” but said it had to respect “the cultures and religions of all the children”.

It added: "The Christmas performance has not been cancelled outright but has been postponed until the New Year.”

Parents said they were originally told the performance was cancelled because children wanted to celebrate Eid

with their families at home, and planning of the school year made it difficult to move performance dates to another week.

Sajad Hussain, 35, of who has two children at Greenwood Junior, said: "My children will be off for the two days next week to see their family.

"It's not that complicated; they could have one event on one day and another on another day, they should have

both celebrations at the school.

"If you do not have both it becomes a racist thing and that's why you have to be careful If an issue is made out of it, it could become nasty."

Yesterday, a statement issued by Greenwood Junior, said: "We would like to apologise for any confusion caused as a result of [the original] letter we sent out and would like to reassure parents and the community that Christmas has not been cancelled at Greenwood Junior School.

"For very practical reasons we have taken the difficult decision to re-arrange some significant events on the school calendar to ensure maximum pupil and staff attendance.”

School cancels Christmas nativity in favour of Muslim Eid celebrations (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/3545246/School-cancels-Christmas-nativity-in-favour-of-Muslim-Eid-celebrations.html)
~~~~~~~~~~

And still more, special treatment for a group that will destroy them. if I had kids in school still I would take them out of school. This is another reason to home school kids. The muslims feel they have right, to take away the rights of others and force their religion on others. America was founded UPON being Christian nation.

Church Ad Banned for Being Offensive to Gays

An advertising watchdog has banned a newspaper ad – run by a Belfast, Ireland, church – condemning homosexuality. The Advertising Standards Authority ruled that the ad was offensive and indecent.

Wed, Dec. 03, 2008 Posted: 10:27 AM EST
by Jennifer Gold

An advertising watchdog has banned a newspaper ad – run by a Belfast, Ireland, church – condemning homosexuality. The Advertising Standards Authority ruled that the ad was offensive and indecent.

Sandown Free Presbyterian Church ran a full page ad entitled “The Word of God against Sodomy” in the Belfast Newsletter to coincide with Belfast’s Gay Pride parade.

The ad states that homosexuality is an “abomination” and warns of “God’s judgment upon a sin.” It also says that it is “a cause for regret that a section of the community desire(s) to be known for a perverted form of sexuality.”

The church said it had been “obliged under God to publicly challenge the vices of this generation.”

The Belfast Newsletter said that not publishing the ad would have been an “infringement of freedom of expression on a matter of public interest.”

The Advertising Standards Authority upheld complaints from seven members of the public who felt the ad was homophobic, ruling that it had “caused serious offense to some readers.”

The ASA determined that the ad went “further than the majority of readers were likely to find acceptable,” although the Rev. David McIlveen of Sandown church said there was no evidence of this.

It also rejected some complaints that the ad would incite hatred and violence against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

"The ad did not in itself incorporate language likely to incite a violent emotional response," the ASA ruled. But it went further to say the ad should not appear again in its current form.

McIlveen said ASA’s ruling on this point was “a vindication of the true spirit in which the statement was formulated.”

“However, we believe that the part of the adjudication in which the ASA upheld the complainants position shows a basic and fundamental ignorance of the teaching and application of God's Word on the subject of sodomy,” he continued.

“By adjudicating on what is in effect the message of the bible on the code of decency is, in our opinion, the setting of a very dangerous precedent.”

He also rejected ASA’s ruling that the ad was indecent.

“Many thousands of people throughout the UK are in possession of scriptures that declare sodomy as an abomination, a perversion of sexuality and a sin before God.

“Therefore by determining that quotations of bible texts and their application have breached CAP Code clause 5.1 (Decency), the ASA is taking the view that the printing and publishing of certain biblical texts is indecent.”

He continued: “This is an offense to every bible believer. It is ironic that an authority that seeks to prevent others from being offended appears to have no scruples in offending those who hold to the plain teaching of the word of God.”

McIlveen said it would not heed ASA’s recommendation that it seek advice from its copy team before publishing material in the future.

“We see as an unwarranted interference into church affairs. It is totally unacceptable for any church to look to an outside body for their approval to print gospel tracts that are based on the word of God. This we cannot and will not do.”

Church Ad Banned for Being Offensive to Gays (http://www.christianpost.com/article/print/20081203/church-ad-banned-for-being-offensive-to-gays.htm)

Doctor-assisted suicide
ruled 'a patient's right'
'We put animals out of their misery
– we can do it for human beings'

A state district court judge ruled yesterday that patients have a right to doctor-assisted suicide.

Montana's First District Court Judge Dorothy McCarter, the Associated Press reports, declared in the case of Baxter et al. v. Montana that mentally competent, terminally ill Montanans may self-administer life-ending medication and that doctors who prescribe such medications need not fear criminal prosecution.

Robert Baxter, 75, a retired truck driver from Billings who suffers from lymphocytic leukemia, filed the lawsuit along with four physicians in the state's district court system on Nov. 1, 2007. They were aided in the case by the assisted suicide advocacy group Compassion & Choices, formerly known as the Hemlock Society.

"It's always been a very important thing with me," says Baxter in Compassion & Choices Magazine. "I've just watched people suffer so badly when they died, and it goes on every day. You can just see it in their eyes: 'Why am I having to go through this terrible part of my life, when we do it for animals? We put them out of their misery.'

"I just feel if we can do it for animals," Baxter said, "we can do it for human beings."

Baxter's lawsuit asserts that Montana residents have a right under the state constitution's privacy and dignity clauses to control their own death and seeks a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief to prevent the doctors from being prosecuted should they move ahead with the suicides of Baxter and another patient, Steven Stoelb, whose name was dropped from the case due to disputed facts of his disease.

"A mentally competent, terminally ill Montanan should have the right to choose a peaceful death, when confronted by death," Kathryn Tucker, Compassion & Choices director of legal affairs, told KTVQ-TV, Billings.

But Montana Assistant Attorney General Anthony Johnston disagrees.

Johnston told the television station, "The laws governing the medical profession say the medical profession is to heal, not to kill."

Attorney Mark Connell, who filed the suit on Baxter's behalf, told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, "The question in our minds is whether the Montana State Constitution's explicit guarantees of privacy and human dignity give the patient the choice to decide how his life is going to end."

Indeed, the Montana Constitution does have clauses regarding privacy and dignity, including the statement in Article II, Section 4: "The dignity of the human being is inviolable."

Compassion & Choices argues that those constitutional guarantees imply a right of patients to decide with their doctors how to achieve a peaceful death.

But some say extending those guarantees to cover physician-assisted suicide is manipulating the state constitution's clauses to create a phantom "right."

"They have based their lawsuit on the right to privacy in the Montana Constitution," writes Steven Ertelt of LifeNews.com. "Originally meant as a means of protecting citizens from governmental snooping, state courts, including the Montana Supreme Court, have misused the clause to create an unlimited right to abortion. Pro-life advocates fear the same problem will occur vis-a-vis assisted suicide."

Wesley J. Smith, an attorney who specializes in bioethics issues, told LifeNews that a Montana Supreme Court decision in 1999 did, in fact, stretch the privacy and dignity clauses to create a virtually unlimited abortion "right," but that the courts ought to defer to the state legislature's already created laws on assisted suicide.

"It should be hard for a court to throw out a law passed by the legislature of the kind that has never been found in any court in any litigation to be unconstitutional," Smith said. "Still, the case is certainly no sure thing – either way. But I do know it is likely to be a legal fight to the finish that could eventually grab the attention of the entire world."

If Judge McCarter's decision in favor of Baxter's case holds through possible appeals and is enacted by the state, Montana will join Washington and Oregon as the only states in the U.S. that allow doctors to help terminally ill patients end their lives.

This is from the Answers In Genesis lecture series, 2005:

Dr. A. Charles Ware

Sr. Pastor of Crossroads Bible Church and Pres. of Crossroads Bible College, Indianapolis, IN

"I am deeply concerned for the United States of America. I believe this country is in deep, deep trouble. And I believe part of the solution, if this country's going to be turned around, is sitting out here tonight. And as I look around in America today, I'm a man that believes the Bible with all my heart, God's saved me, He's redeemed me, He's called me to teach and preach His Word, so I always ask myself the question when I see a situation, 'Is there any Biblical text that I can go to and interpret that text witin context, and have that text explain to me what's happening in this country.'

I found that scripture in Romans Chapter I. I see the basic problem in America right now, the thing that frightens me most about America right now, the basic problem with America is that we have rejected God, and as a result God has turned us over to our own desires.

The only thing necessary for a society to commit societal suicide is for God to leave them alone. When God leaves us alone as fallen sinners we will do that which will lead to self destruction. And I believe with all my heart that's where America is. And I want to start off with this description of a society which rejected God.

The Bible says in Romans I:29-31

"being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickednedd, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil mindedness; they are whisperers backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful"

What I see there is the character of a society. And in fact, in vs. 29 where it says 'being filled with' in the Greek original language that's in the perfect tense, and it has the idea that people have come to this state and they continue in that state so it's not just that you make a mistake once in awhile, but it becomes characteristic, it becomes your pattern, it becomes what you're known for. And as I read these verses, of this particular society that Paul had in mind when he penned these words, to me it's like reading the daily newspaper in the United States of America. It's like sitting down and listening to the news.

It's like interacting with the people in our society and seeing where their character is, and how hard they've become to the Word of God and to the God of the Word. And you can talk about school shootings, you can talk about lying, you can talk about embezzlement, you can talk about murder, you can talk about adultery, you can talk about homosexuality - you can talk about anything you want, it has become the main thing in America today.

We don't take anybodies word anymore, we have 15 lawyers to see the contract will be honored. We get sued for this and sued for that. People don't have loyalty to their company anymore because their company doesn't have any loyalty to them anymore. It's who can get ahead and cheat, and I'm out for myself. Marriages and homes are being torn apart and homes ripped apart. It's becoming characteristic. We're finding that the majority of our people are ignorant and callous when it comes to a Biblical lifestyle. That's America - the character that's out there.

I do want to say this, not only is this society, the characteristic of it is just an ungodly lifestyle - but I'm also intrigued by the attitude. In Romans vs. 32 it says:

"who, knowing the righteous judment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them."

It would be one thing in America if we were remorseful or repentant, if we were outraged in the sin of our country. But so many people in our country are not outraged - they approve of it. Let me tell you something, those who hate God and hate his Word have done a good job in educating our culture. You live in a culture where evil is spoken about as if it's good, and good is spoken about as if it's evil. You're living in a culture where a person can have a 3 piece suit, and drive a BMW living out in the suburbs, and be called this wonderful Dr. who helps humanity so much, and he goes in everyday and aborts babies BUT - he's respectful to them, he's educated, he's sensitive, it's only a woman's choice he's trying to help with.

In the same culture, somebody can stand up and say, 'I believe sex outside of marriage is wrong, it's sinful...' The same people will say you're nothing but a hate monger, you're so insensitive, you're out of touch with reality, how could you take such a stand?

Yeah, people stand up and say, 'I'm a PhD, I've studied in this field, and this discipline, and I believe in millions of years, and I believe in evolution, and there's no design, and there's no moral standard, and we're just all going through the evolutionary process, and who's to say what's right and wrong, and the people say, 'Oh you're so educated, and you're so wise.'

We don't wanna deal with the statistics, how a society without morality is commiting societal suicide. We don't wanna deal with all the sexually transmitted diseases, and it's root cause of immorality. We don't wanna deal with the breakdown of the family because we're telling people that they've just evolved, and they're just animals, and they can live by their feelings and whatever they want, just do it - we don't wanna deal with that because they say 'we're educated, we're beyond all that'.

Have somebody say, 'No, i believe in a creative design and a creative designer, that we were created by Almighty God. He gave us moral restraints and He gave us so much to enjoy. But we must live within these moral constructs because if we live in those we'll be healthier and happier and all the statistics support that.' But the people say, 'no, no, no - you're some weakminded, uneducated, bigoted individual that has the audacity of trying to bring religion into our education.' Oh, the world's done a good job.

It amazes me that we live in a world in which people can speak vulgar, immoral, statanic things in our schools, and they'll be defended on the basis of freedom of speech. And a person can say, 'I wanna read the Bible, or I want to pray', and there's an outcry. 'We can't have it!' The world's done a good job.

We live in a generation the not only does the same, but they applaud those who do the most vile, wicked things - total immorality and what do we do with it? We turn around and make a movie about it. And the American people will pay money to see it.

Cont'd....

Dr. A. Charles Ware

Cont'd...

"I asked myself the question, 'How did this society get there? What is it that brought this society to such a state where the character of it's citizens are so corrupt, and yet their attitude of others would be one of pleasure, supporting them, applauding them?' Romans vs. 1:28:

"And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting"

How did they get there? They rejected the knowledge of God. In the Greek this means they put God to the test and they disapproved of Him. And I'm asking the question, 'Has America put God to the test and disapproved of Him?' Is it not true America, that we've said we don't want God in our public schools; we don't want God in our universities; we don't want God in our politics; we don't want God in our entertainment?
We have disapproved of God. People get more irrate and irritated about people that say, 'I'm a Christian, I believe the Bible and Truth that's absolute...' They get more irritated about that than some statanic worshipper or gays coming out of the closet.

Do we not live in a country where the 10 Commandments can no longer stand before our courthouses? We've gotta tear it down because it's an image of some preconceived idea that somebody's come up with, of separation of church and state. We live in a country where the ACLU is running around and threatening lawsuits because a kid wants to pray in a highschool. A country where the people will let 'In God We Trust' taken off our money. We want God thrown out of EVERYTHING. God is not good for anything but the little time you spend in the church with Him on Sunday, they say. 'Dont' try to bring God into the workplace, don't try to bring God into public affairs, don't try to bring God into education. You take your God and keep Him out of society. We have put God to the test and disapproved of Him...'

And because of that God's turned us loose, He's turned us over to a reprobate mind, a debased mind - that is a mind that is void of the ability to reason morally. That's why PhD.'s come to the dumbest conclusions. It's ridiculous. I mean you can take a 6th grader and show him a problem and he'll tell you what's right and wrong. Take a PhD. and 'Oh, no, that's not it, it's something altogether different.'

I believe that God has given us over to a reprobate mind.

It's ridiculous! A woman is pregnant. We know it's a baby - we've got technology that shows us it's a baby. You can look at it and see it's a baby. If it's aborted you see it's a child. Then we've still got people, PhD's, educated, saying, 'No, it's not a child' 'What is it? It's a fetus.' Well what is it that's got hands and eyes, ears and feet, a body like ours..... They say 'No, you don't understand - you've gotta get educated to understand what we do...'

Where are we comin' from? You've got homosexuality - I'm lookin' at you - YOU ARE A WOMAN! They say, 'I don't feel like a woman...' The psychiatrist says, 'Don't let them tell you you're a woman - you're a man trapped in a woman's body... it's genetic, it's a gene problem'.

Well I understand it's a gene problem folks. For the alcoholic they say, '..you've got the alcoholic gene, that's why it's a problem for you...' '...there's an adultery gene, that's why you have a problem with adultery...' '...there's a homosexual gene that's why you can't help how you feel...'

Listen, I'd say, I know it's a gene problem! It started with Adam - we're all sinners - and you need to get RE-GENE-ERATED!!! It's no big revelation that people wanna sin! You've gotta go pay a person $100 an hour to find out you wanna sin? You can get that from the Bible!! It is a debased mind, a mind incapable of moral reasoning that comes with all this stuff in the name of education and our society's been seduced by it.

Well, I'm afraid that God has given us over to a reprobate mind and that's why our society is the way it is. So how did we get to this place where we put God to the test, and especially a country like America that's been so blessed by God, how did we get to the place where we put God to the test and we disapproved of Him - and now God's the bad guy, God's the evil guy and now somehow statanic deceptions have all of a sudden become so good?

Cont'd....

Dr. A. Charles Ware

Cont'd...

"Romans 1:25 - 26

"...who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural used for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due."

Not only did we as a country reject God, we disapproved of Him and we pushed Him out of our public lives and many of our private lives, but also we, as a country, rejected Truth and true worship. Is it not in America we're told you can't know anything absolutely to be true? Is it not true that we cannot say Jesus Christ is THE way, THE truth and THE life? I mean you could say Jesus Christ is A way, He's A truth, He's A life, we could deal with that because we're and 'educated society'. But what we cannot deal with is these narrow minded people who are gonna tell us that there is THE way, THE truth and THE life, that means that everybody else is going to hell but you. Well Hello, you're right, you got something right.

But our country has pushed that truth away. That's why there's confusion over male and female roles, because we don't know anything to be absolutely true. The truth of the matter is, when we rejected God's truth, when God said this is the way I did it, we said, 'forget that, we don't wanna know God, we wanna believe the lie, that is the lie from satan, and that is we'll worship the creature more than the Creator'.

The Bible says, 'God gave them over to vile passions', strong desires. Homosexuals will say, 'I have a desire', the Bible doesn't argue that you don't have a desire. BUT here is the difficulty that we're into right now in this country, and that is simply this - we have to make a choice between the Creator's Design or the creature's desire. And as a country we've chosen to side with the creature's desires over the Creator's Design. We live in a country with all kind of knowledge. I was intrigued watching a program about homosexuals, and here's a man that's been married, he's got kids, but he's finally in this place where he wants to be his 'true self'. He's known for years that he wants to be a woman. So he leaves his wife and kids - and this wonderful society of ours, with incredible knowledge, we choose to take this knowledge and tell a person like that, 'we can give you hormone treatments so you can begin to develop the features of the woman that you believe yourself to be...'

And I'm asking the question, 'If you've got all this medical knowledge, if you psychiatrists know so much, how come you can't use that treatment to help them accept the way the Creator made them? Because underneath of it there's a rejection of God's Truth, and we know worship and serve the creature more than the Creator. And so we run around, there is no moral truth, there is no sexual distinctions, there no right and wrong it's just whatever we feel and whatever we wanna do, and so peple come out and say, '..this is the way I feel, and this is the way I wanna be, and I can't accept anything else...' And the creature cries out against the Creator, and we worship the creature and we give the creature what they desire, rather than try to work with the Creator's design - thats where America is and because of that God said, 'If that's the way you want it, if you don't want my Truth, if you're gonna believe the lie, if you are gonna worship the creature more than the Creator, fine, I'll just give you over...' And now you've got people running around saying 'I can't change'. I've got this disposition...' - That is a MORAL choice.

We've got a whole country convinced - they can't change themselves. We've got religious people - here's a Bishop - openly gay, been ordained - and I'm saying to myself, 'Even beyond that he was married you know, if a heterosexual divorced their wife they wouldn't ordain them.' And they portray this guy as so kind - How's he so kind - he divorced his wife? Where is the 'love your wife as Christ loved the church? Even if your desires are different, SACRIFICE YOUR DESIRES for your wife. No, the creature was unhappy, so we have to make the creature happy, even if we defy the Creator's moral command.

I'm afraid it's just a manifestation that God's given us over. If you say this is wrong, well you're a homophobic! You're scared of them, that's your problem. No, I'm not scared of them. I'm not homophobic but I am THEOPHOBIC, and I've got a fear that God's taken His hand off this country. And it's being manifested by the cultural drift that's out there.

How did we get to this place where we would change the TRUTH of GOD for the lie? And get in all this redefinition and rewriting of history and truth? How did we get there anyway?

Romans 1:22-23

"Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man - and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves."

Before we got to this place where we'd raise questions like 'What is family? Whoever said family was a man and a woman and children? Where would an idea like that come from? No, I believe it's relationships. It could be a man and a man, a woman and a woman...' It's not some arbitrary conception. We, as a country, began to raise these questions a while ago and we're redefining. I'd tell them 'Go to Answers in Genesis, it's all there in Genesis 1 - 11. GOD SAID IT! And He knows a little bit more about life than you do.

Cont'd...

Dr. A. Charles Ware

Cont'd...

"But that's where America's going now. America, America, America... More education than we've ever had but we're educated beyond our own good. We're educated to the fact that the Bible says, 'Professing themselves to be wise THEY BECAME FOOLS...' They begin to say 'Who said we were created, we weren't created we just evolved, we came about by the Big Bang or some other thing. Who's to say what's right and what's wrong, we're no better than animals - we're just here...' And the glory that should've gone to Almighty God has been stripped from Him and we put it on man, men with education, PhD's, people who've studied and are supposed to know something. They can tell us where we came from, they can tell us why we're here, they can tell us where we're going. And they have ruled out God - 'Professing themselves to be wise' the Bible says 'they became fools'. And the foolishness was manifested in the fact that we say no more, 'In God We Trust', no more 10 commandments, no more prayer, no more worship and praise of the Living God. Now we worship and praise ourselves.

After all, it's about the creature, for the creature to be comfortable, the creature's desires being fulfilled. Even in our churches we're saying 'God would want me happy. I'm not happy in my lifestyle so I'm gonna divorce my wife'. Who said God wants you happy before He wants you Holy? God wants you Holy, if you get Holy long enough you'll get happy. Holiness always preceeds happiness. But when we've got a country that's so bent and so twisted and saying, 'I've gotta have my desires, and have things my way', the only thing that happened is God says, 'I'll just turn you over - I'll just let you do what you wanted to do'.

The Bible is explicitly clear. Back in Genesis we sinned. When we say we can't figure out why someone does something, I say 'I can figure it out - they're a sinner'. The Bible told us in Genesis that man's a sinner, that every man since Adam has been born a sinner. With all the philosophies about man, the only one that explains it all is Genesis. The Bible is right.

So if we turn a society loose to it's own desires, that society will self-destruct. And that's all that's happening to America. God said, 'Ok - you want your pornography, you want your free love, you can have it. There's uncleanness among you - you're gonna get sexually transmitted diseases, you're gonna get broken hearts and broken homes, you'll have kids without direction in life, hurt and abused, you're gonna go on and on and on. But listen, if you don't want to listen to Me, you don't want to hear about Me, if your too wise for me, well then you can do it your way - but then you'll reap your consequences'. That's where America is.

Romans 1:18

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness."

Now that's the cover verse for the rest of it. What's going on in vs. 19 to 32 is a manifestation of God's wrath and God's wrath is manifested simply by just turning people loose and letting them do what they wanna do. And they continue to slide downhill. God's wrath isn't spitting fire from heaven, He's not burning people up, but it is manifested in simply letting people do what they wanna do and therefore enslave themselves in sin and reap the consequences of it. They are rejecting the mercy and grace of God.

Romans 1:19

"because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened."

It's this part right here that gives me some hope. Because these Scriptures are telling us that it didn't begin in Romans 29 when they were being filled with all unrighteousness, and ungodliness and the characteristics that dominated that society - it didn't begin there. That was the result. Where the drift began was when they took creation, and when the message of creation was distorted so it would no longer declare the personhood of God, and the power of God, but it was distorted in order to please the creature and to bring his pleasures to the forefront. And to reject the creation and the purpose for which He created it. They were not in awe of Him, they did not give Him the glory. The problem with this world is that we've sinned, we've broken our moral relationship with God, the God that created you to whom you are morally responsible.

But He so loved us that He sent His son, Jesus Christ, to die for us. He was buried, He rose from the dead. If you put faith in Him you'll be saved and be part of the family of God. And if you honor God by going to His Word and to live out His Word for the glory of God, then God can protect you from this moral decline. God can turn this country around if we can get people back to Genesis. That's what this is all about. It's our only hope!

I believe the only hope for America right now is that somehow we can get a mass movement of people who can glorify God as God, put Him above any kind of man. I like to say to young people, 'Listen, don't talk to me about anybody. Nobody is better than God. Nobody is greater than God. Nobody is more awesome than God. I love to talk about my God!'
Oh, I had a young person a few years ago, tell me that Michael Jordan was in his second retirement. He said, 'I went to the game last night, Michael did this and Michael did that, he made the shot - he was hanging up there 6 seconds' he said, '...that's hang time!'
I said, 'Boy, get a life. Jesus Christ went home 2,000 years ago and He hasn't come down yet - THAT'S HANG TIME!!!!!'

You see you and I live in a culture that's just about scared you half to death. You're scared to talk about the truth. The culture won't accept you, the culture will reject you, they'll call you ignorant, bigoted, stupid, call you all these things. But you've got to articulate the truth - not just to win an argument, to be better - but you are fighting for the very heart of this country. You're fighting for the glory of God. You're trying to help people see that the devil's deceived them by robbing them of the authority of God and taking them from the Word of God. He's deceived you into putting your confidence in man and these lies, and immoralities and it's killing our nation. We want to get you right - to make Him the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and make His Word the Authority upon which you stand. You wanna read His Word and study His Word and believe His Word - to glorify Him as God. There's no mind too great that should not give itself to the study of the transcendent GOD - that's what we ought to be thinking about!!

When you begin to see Him for who He really is. He is your Creator. He is the one that holds this whole thing together. He's given you moral principles, not to make life bad for you but to make it better for you. He is the God who saved you. He is the God who transformed you. He's the God who loves you. He can put marriages back together. He can make children grow up in a healthy environment. He and He alone is the hope of America!

I am more passionately convinced today than I ever was that America is right there - at God giving us up to a reprobate mind. I'm convinced more than I ever was. Politics won't save this country. Sexual education won't save this country. Psychiatrists won't save this country. Entertainers won't save this country. You say but Brother Ware, we're so few. We're so few. There was a song we used to sing called 'Little is Much' when God is in it. You and God make a majority.

I remind you, read Genesis 18 when God told Abraham, 'I'm gonna destroy Sodom and Gomorrah'. Abraham interceded for Sodom and Gomorrah. But he didn't say, 'God, if there are only 100,000 homosexuals, will you spare this land? If there are only so many adulteries, would you spare Sodom and Gomorrah...'
Abraham never mentioned the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah - God did. Abraham said, 'God, if there's 50 righteous...' God said 'for 50 I'll save it'. But the numbers got lower and lower. The amazing commentary is that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, which means there wasn't 10 righteous among them.

It doesn't take many to move the heart of God. But the few need to be commited to glorify Him. You don't know what you can do for America as you learn to take the principles of Genesis and teach them to people. Bring them to gorifying God and being thankful and reversing the Romans 1 slide. Just perhaps, the hand of God may look down and say, 'Because of their righteousness I'm gonna revive America'.

Father we ask that the Spirit of God, would take the Word of God and speak to the hearts of the people of God that we might live our lives for the Glory of God. Oh God, be merciful, be gracious, send revival. We desperately need it! In Jesus name. Amen."

Video clip shows girls laughing during shooting

By Luke Broadwater
Examiner Staff Writer 12/12/08

Two girls leaned casually against the wall of a Baltimore Chinese food carryout.

When two robbers burst into the store, sticking guns to a customer’s head, the girls didn’t shriek. They didn’t cry in fear. Instead, they laughed during the holdup before a man was shot.

“[The victim] is left crumpled on the floor of the carryout, bleeding,” prosecutor Jen Rallo said at a Dec. 1 court hearing in which she played the video for Baltimore Circuit Judge Shirley Watts.

“He is left to live or die on his own. ... No one helps [him],” Rallo said. “He is in pain. He asks to go behind the counter because he is afraid these individuals will return and shoot him again. And the store actually continues serving customers as [the victim] is bleeding on the floor.”

The shooting occurred Aug. 6 at 12:12 a.m., shortly after a 46-year-old man entered the Chinese Cuisine carryout on Harford Road in Northeast Baltimore, according to charging documents.

Two 17-year-olds entered the store — first one, then the other — with blue bandannas covering parts of their faces, Rallo said in court, describing the video to the judge. They rummaged through the customer’s pockets, held guns pointed at his head and then both shot at him, striking him in the left knee, Rallo said.

“The victim could have lost his life,” the prosecutor said. “There was no need to shoot this victim. There was no need to attack this man.”

Darren Brown, of the 3300 block of Ellerslie Avenue, and David Jefferson, of the 2700 block of Tivoly Avenue, are charged as adults with first-degree attempted murder in the crime — a charge that carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Judge Watts ordered the two teens tried as adults, after viewing the video of the crime.

“We have a video of the offense ... a brazen public offense committed in the presence of spectators in a small convenience store,” Watts said. “Onlookers stood by and laughed as this offense was going on.”

Brown’s attorney Lewyn Garrett said his client should be tried as a juvenile, keeping with a recommendation from court medical services. He said Brown suffers from lead poisoning and has a learning disability. He added that his client is 5 feet 9 inches, not 5 feet 6 inches as stated in the police report.

“He’s clearly not 5-foot-6,” Garrett said. “They can’t show a picture of Shaq and say, ‘Well, Darren Brown is Shaq.’ ”

Garrett also complained that prosecutors have not turned over the names of their witnesses to him, calling them “phantom” witnesses.

“Mr. Space Ghost saw Mr. Brown shoot this person,” he said. “Well, I don’t believe there is a Mr. Space Ghost.”

But Rallo argued that Brown’s admitted full-time job — drug-dealing — shows he’s acting as an adult.

“He was selling drugs, making $200 a day,” Rallo said.

The 46-year-old man is undergoing physical therapy and continues to have trouble bending his knee or walking, Rallo said. He is also suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the prosecutor.

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon first aired concerns about the shooting and the bystanders’ reaction at Wednesday’s meeting of the Baltimore City Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, when she requested a study on the recommendations made to judges by court medical services about whether suspects should be tried as adults or as juveniles.

“Girls standing there. They continued to laugh. Blood’s all over him,” Dixon said. “People come back in and get their orders. It’s like business as usual. Clearly ... we have some very mentally disturbed individuals in the city.”

Video clip shows girls laughing during shooting (http://www.baltimoreexaminer.com/local/crime/121208laughbalt.html#)

Quote from: DreamWeaver on December 14, 2008, 12:11:42 AM

Matthew 24:12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

Need I say anything more............. :'(

Hello Brother Bob,

Your quote speaks volumes, but I would like to add some more. The Jews require a SIGN, and JESUS CHRIST knows this. The disciples asked JESUS CHRIST three questions:

1 - When would the temple be destroyed?

2 - What would be the signs for the SECOND COMING OF CHRIST HIMSELF?

3 - What would be the signs of the end of the age?

Brother, please allow me to quote some more Scripture. This is something that I've been reading about again because I like to review the Promises of GOD often. Please keep in mind that the disciples of JESUS were thinking about the RULE AND REIGN OF CHRIST - HIS KINGDOM, not the RAPTURE OF THE CHURCH WHICH IS THE BODY OF CHRIST. The REIGN of JESUS CHRIST is something that Israel has been waiting thousands of years for, and the doctrine of the CHURCH WHICH IS THE BODY OF CHRIST would have been unknown and foreign to them. CHRIST had not been to the CROSS yet, and HIS CHURCH was still a mystery. Take a look at the cross references, and I think that you will have a very nice Bible Study. Our SAVIOR didn't answer the question about the destruction of the temple directly - rather he merged a similar siege (but tiny in comparison) of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. (Luke 21). One must keep in mind that the disciples were brought up as Jews and given more than they could bear in a short period of time.

Matthew 24:3-14 KJV And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? 4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. 5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. 6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows. 9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. 10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. 11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. 12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. 13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

Please notice that JESUS CHRIST did not mention the RAPTURE OF HIS CHURCH in Matthew 24. WHY? - It was still a complete mystery.There are several commonly believed teachings about the timing and sequence of the RAPTURE. I personally believe that it's before the beginning of the tribulation period. That isn't a matter for argument here, just a statement that there is more than one reasonable opinion. See: John 14:1-6, 1 Corinthians 15:51-57, 1 Thessalonians 1:10, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, 1 Thessalonians 5:9, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12, and Revelation 3:10.

Note that Matthew 24:4-14 actually describes the first half of the Tribulation Period - the first 3 1/2 Years.

Luke 21:20-24 KJV And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. 21 Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. 22 For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. 23 But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. 24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

Please pay particular attention to Luke 21:24, and you will see an example of JESUS CHRIST giving Prophecy. Jerusalem has been subject to either Gentile rule or Gentile invasion since 70 A.D. and will remain subject to these things until the SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. Further, the Jews have never occupied their full inheritance and won't until GOD'S Appointed Time.

Romans 11:7-13 KJV What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded 8 (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. 9 And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them: 10 Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway. 11 I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. 12 Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness? 13 For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:

Please read all of Romans 11 for much greater understanding. I'm not going to list great detail about here forward, but I will list a few Scriptures and References:

Jeremiah 30:7 KJV Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.

Mark 13:8-10 KJV For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows. 9 But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them. 10 And the gospel must first be published among all nations.

2 Peter 2:1-3 KJV But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. 3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.

See Revelation 6:1-11 for the coming of great evil described as four horsemen. See Revelation 6:12-17 for a description of the times JUST PRIOR TO CHRIST'S SECOND COMING.

In conclusion, I believe these times are NEAR!

Love In Christ,
Tom

Ephesians 3:2-7 NASB if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace which was given to me for you; 3 that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. 4 By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; 6 to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, 7 of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God's grace which was given to me according to the working of His power.

Brothers and Sisters,

The only reason I see for all of the radical changes is EVIL. Some would laugh hearing a statement like this, but it isn't funny. There isn't anything unique about this part of the world, especially when you consider that most of the world has been much worse for some time. I'm not hinting that we're far behind. Those who don't believe in the devil will probably be changing their minds soon. I think we are watching the devil being turned loose. As Christians, we HAVE A BETTER HOPE that isn't of this world! This doesn't hint that we're going to have any fun watching things fall apart.

I would hope that each one of us decides on a pleasing LIVING TESTIMONY for CHRIST Our best path will be serving GOD and trying to yield to HIS Will. I'm sure that GOD still has work for us to do because we're still here. Our best path will always be the one GOD wants for us - not what we want for ourselves. If you were GOD the CREATOR, think about how you would feel if you saw most of your CREATION headed for hell and getting worse by the minute. Add open MOCKERY and HATRED to the equation. There are examples in the Holy Bible about GOD loosing HIS Holy and Righteous WRATH! We have seen the patience of a Loving GOD who has showered mankind with HIS GRACE for thousands of years now. HE is the MASTER and CREATOR of the Universe, so we know that HE could have just considered punishment instead of Salvation. INSTEAD, JESUS CHRIST died on the CROSS for us - MORE GRACE AND MORE LOVE THAT WE DIDN'T DESERVE! On the other side of the coin, we have the Promises of HIS SECOND COMING in GREAT WRATH, AND that time is probably soon. In the meantime, mankind is getting worse, more blatant, and more evil. Don't we have a repeat of the times of the GREAT FLOOD - OR WORSE? Most of mankind is DEPRAVED AND HATES GOD!

I read something beautiful the other day about GOD knocking on the door - over and over - simply because HE wants to invite the LOST to SALVATION. In other words, it's because of HIS GREAT LOVE that HE'S Already shown to us. Most of mankind didn't appreciate it, and many get angry just hearing HIS HOLY NAME! HE doesn't want any many to perish in their sins, but HE has grown weary in inviting those who hate and disobey HIM. The Bible states that HE will stop at a time probably in the near future. HE will give them up to the own lusts and evil desires. This time is known as the "Fullness of the Gentiles", a time when HIS CHURCH will be complete. The lost have shown HIM rudely many times that they prefer EVIL, and HE will give them what they desire the most - EVIL! In the meantime, the KING HIMSELF is still hand-delivering personal invitations. Mankind does have an emergency to face soon: TO ACCEPT OR REJECT CHRIST! This emergency is real - NOT some con game like global warming. By far, the most important GLOBAL CRISIS IS WHAT WILL MAN DO WITH THE LAW OF FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST!

Love In Christ,
Tom

2 Corinthians 4:1-18 AMP THEREFORE, SINCE we do hold and engage in this ministry by the mercy of God [granting us favor, benefits, opportunities, and especially salvation], we do not get discouraged (spiritless and despondent with fear) or become faint with weariness and exhaustion. 2 We have renounced disgraceful ways (secret thoughts, feelings, desires and underhandedness, the methods and arts that men hide through shame); we refuse to deal craftily (to practice trickery and cunning) or to adulterate or handle dishonestly the Word of God, but we state the truth openly (clearly and candidly). And so we commend ourselves in the sight and presence of God to every man's conscience. 3 But even if our Gospel (the glad tidings) also be hidden (obscured and covered up with a veil that hinders the knowledge of God), it is hidden [only] to those who are perishing and obscured [only] to those who are spiritually dying and veiled [only] to those who are lost. 4 For the god of this world has blinded the unbelievers' minds [that they should not discern the truth], preventing them from seeing the illuminating light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ (the Messiah), Who is the Image and Likeness of God. 5 For what we preach is not ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves [merely] as your servants (slaves) for Jesus' sake. 6 For God Who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts so as [to beam forth] the Light for the illumination of the knowledge of the majesty and glory of God [as it is manifest in the Person and is revealed] in the face of Jesus Christ (the Messiah). [Gen. 1:3.] 7 However, we possess this precious treasure [the divine Light of the Gospel] in [frail, human] vessels of earth, that the grandeur and exceeding greatness of the power may be shown to be from God and not from ourselves. 8 We are hedged in (pressed) on every side [troubled and oppressed in every way], but not cramped or crushed; we suffer embarrassments and are perplexed and unable to find a way out, but not driven to despair; 9 We are pursued (persecuted and hard driven), but not deserted [to stand alone]; we are struck down to the ground, but never struck out and destroyed; 10 Always carrying about in the body the liability and exposure to the same putting to death that the Lord Jesus suffered, so that the [resurrection] life of Jesus also may be shown forth by and in our bodies. 11 For we who live are constantly [experiencing] being handed over to death for Jesus' sake, that the [resurrection] life of Jesus also may be evidenced through our flesh which is liable to death. 12 Thus death is actively at work in us, but [it is in order that our] life [may be actively at work] in you. 13 Yet we have the same spirit of faith as he had who wrote, I have believed, and therefore have I spoken. We too believe, and therefore we speak, [Ps. 116:10.] 14 Assured that He Who raised up the Lord Jesus will raise us up also with Jesus and bring us [along] with you into His presence. 15 For all [these] things are [taking place] for your sake, so that the more grace (divine favor and spiritual blessing) extends to more and more people and multiplies through the many, the more thanksgiving may increase [and redound] to the glory of God. 16 Therefore we do not become discouraged (utterly spiritless, exhausted, and wearied out through fear). Though our outer man is [progressively] decaying and wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day after day. 17 For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory [beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!], 18 Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting.

Italian MP says Vatican didn't do enough to help Jews in WWII
By Reuters
17/12/2008

One of Italy's most prominent conservative leaders said on Tuesday the Roman Catholic Church did not do enough to oppose Fascist-era race laws under dictator Benito Mussolini.

"We must ask ourselves why Italian society wholly embraced the anti-Jewish legislation and why, beyond laudable exceptions, there were not demonstrations of real resistance. Not even, it hurts me to say, by the Catholic Church," said Gianfranco Fini.

Fini, himself a former Fascist, was speaking at an event marking the 70th anniversary of Mussolini's race laws.

Introduced in 1938, the laws expelled Jews from public schools and offices and eventually led to the deportation of thousands to Nazi concentration camps.

Fini's remarks were challenged by Catholic scholars and reignited debate about the Vatican's wartime record.

Church scholars say Pope Pius XI opposed the race laws at the time and they also defend his successor, Pius XII, from accusations he turned a blind eye to the Holocaust.

"I can't see any reason to accuse the Church, which instead openly and firmly condemned the anti-Jewish legislation," said professor Agostino Giovagnoli at Catholic University.

He added that Pius XI, who died in 1939, gave public speeches against the race laws that "led in July 1938 to an open conflict with Mussolini".

Often the debate has involved Pius XII, who Jewish groups accuse of turning a blind eye to the Holocaust.

They are lobbying the Vatican to freeze his sainthood process even though Vatican officials say he worked silently behind the scenes and helped save many Jews.

Fini convinced his own party in the mid-1990s to dump neo-fascism and enter the mainstream of Italian politics. He has also visited Israel and the death camp at Auschwitz.

Italian MP says Vatican didn't do enough to help Jews in WWII (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1047228.html)

~~~~~~~~~~~

The Vatican is not alone, there are alot of other countries that didn't do enough to help save the Jews from the Holocaust.

Fake ministry e-mails push Christians toward porn
'Please pray that no one will be fooled by these attacks'

A cyber war has been launched on Ted Baehr's MOVIEGUIDE®, which with its sister organization the Christian Film & Television Commission, advocates throughout Hollywood for clean movies.

Baehr told WND that he's gotten a series of reports about e-mails being distributed, or blog comments being posted, that purport to be from him or his organization. But they provide links to pornography, including homosexual sites.

Baehr, who also serves as a columnist for WND, said he's asking anyone who sees such activity to report it.

"This is a criminal attack on our ministry," he said.

"We are looking at legal and criminal action," Baehr said. “But, in the meantime, we urgently ask all of our partners and supporters to please pray that no one will be fooled by these attacks and that the attacks will stop."

He said the FBI and police have been contacted, and investigators already are tracking computer address of the unit used.

He told WND the attack might be related to his public statements in favor of California's Proposition 8, which allowed voters on Nov. 4 to adopt a state constitutional amendment that limits marriage to couples of one man and one woman.

He reported that other Christian groups and churches also have experienced "vicious attacks and hate mail" from supporters of the homosexual lifestyle. The state Supreme Court in April ruled that same-sex duos could be "married" in the state, but the vote of the people on Nov. 4 overturned that.

MOVIEGUIDE® and the Christian Film & Television Commission are dedicated to "redeeming the values of the entertainment industry according to biblical values by influencing industry executives and by informing and equipping the public about the influence of the entertainment media."

Thus, it would be a target for "the leftist extremists [who] have staged angry demonstrations outside and inside churches and businesses, begun boycotts and even forced artistic leaders to resign from their posts," the MOVIEGUIDE organization said earlier.

"Sadly, no one in the mass media is speaking out against these vicious blacklists and boycotts," Baehr said. "Apparently, blacklists and boycotts against anti-American communists in Hollywood are bad, but blacklists and boycotts against Christians, Mormons and conservatives are welcomed."

"Homosexual activists like to complain about hatred toward homosexuals, but their hatred of Bible-believing Christians is palpably disgusting," he said.

He said the attack on his ministry is "a concerted effort at slander, libel, identity theft and harassment."

Christians and Muslims ought to work together to defend life and the family, says Pope
12/18/2008

In receiving the first Bahraini ambassador, Benedict XVI mentioned that the kingdom was the first country in the Gulf to authorise the building of a church. But respect for religious freedom also “means that people can change religious, if their conscience so dictates.”

Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Whilst acknowledging the “differences” that separate Christians from Muslims as well as their “different approaches” to a number of issues, it “is important” that in today’s world, they “work together to defend and promote the essential values of life and the family, which allow man to live in faithfulness to the one God and society to assert itself in peace and solidarity.”

Benedict XVI reaffirmed today the value of Christian-Muslim co-operation in his address to the first ambassador of the Kingdom of Bahrain to the Vatican, Naser Muhamed Youssef Al Belooshi, who presented his Letters of Credit.

Speaking on the issue of inter-faith relations the Pope mentioned King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa’s visit to Castel Gandolfo in July and the fact that it was in Bahrain that the first Catholic church (pictured) was built in a Gulf country in 1939.

“The Kingdom of Bahrain has an old tradition of tolerance and openness,” the Holy father said. “It has welcomed many foreign workers who are taking part in the building of the country, and many of them are Catholic,” he added.

As grateful as he is for the church already in place, the Pontiff also said that “everyone is aware today that because of the rising number of Catholics, it would be desirable for them to have more places of worships.”

“Freedom of religion, which is among the rights guaranteed in your country’s constitution, is of primordial importance because it affects what is deepest and most sacred to man: his relationship to God,” the Pope noted. Indeed, “religious freedom, which allows each one of us to live our faith alone or with others, in private or in public, means that people can change religious, if his conscience so dictates.”

Lastly Benedict XVI said that “the changes the kingdom has experienced in the last few years are indicative of an ongoing concern for progress towards a society that is open to the world and to more fraternal relations with other nations, whilst at the same time as it remains faithful to its own rightful traditional values.”

Benedict XVI addressed this matter in his appech to the ambassadors of Malawi, Sweden, Sierra Leon, Iceland, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Belize, Tunisia, Kazakhstan, Bahrain and Fiji whom he had already met individually for the presentation of their Letters of Credence.

“At times diversity causes fear, which is why [. . .] human beings prefer the monotony of uniformity. Some political-economic systems, ostensibly with pagan or religious origins, have afflicted humanity for too long, attempting to homogenise it through demagogy and violence. These systems have reduced and continue to enslave human beings to serve single ideologies or inhuman and pseudo-scientific economic systems,” he said.

“We all know that no single political model exists, that no absolute ideal can be put into place. Political philosophy evolves over time and is expressed differently as human intelligence changes for the better and lessons are learnt from political and economic experiences. Each nation has its own ethos as well as its own ‘demons’. Each creates itself, sometimes through its own painful experiences, but always with the eye on its own prize. It is my hope that each nation can develop its own character, enhancing it for the good of all, and that each might rid itself of its own ‘demons’, keeping them better under control until they are turned into positive and creative values like harmony, prosperity and peace so as to defend the greatness of human dignity.”

Christians and Muslims ought to work together to defend life and the family, says Pope (http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=14042&theme=5&size=A)

Catholics and Muslims should increase mutual trust and educate young people to peace
12/17/2008

Conclusion of a meeting at the Vatican with the World Islamic Call Society. Preventing possible crises from degenerating into interreligious dialogue. The encouragement of Benedict XVI.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Educating the young so that they may not become victims of religious fanaticism, but may become builders of peace, and working to increase understanding, awareness, and trust among religious leaders, in such a way as to confront together the crises that might arise, preventing these from degenerating into religious conflict. These are the main points of the concluding statement of the meeting on "Responsibilities of Religious Leaders especially in Times of Crisis," organized at the Vatican by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and by the World Islamic Call Society, based in Libya. The meeting concluded today.

The participants at the meeting - twelve Catholic personalities and experts, and twelve Muslim, from various countries, under the presidency, respectively, of Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and of Mohamed Ahmed Sherif, secretary general of the World Islamic Call Society - were received today by Benedict XVI, at the end of the general audience.

The pope expressed "satisfaction and strong encouragement," as stated in a note from the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

The final joint statement affirms, among other things, that "considering the role religions can and should have in society, religious leaders also have a cultural and social role to play in promoting fundamental ethical values, such as justice, solidarity, peace, social harmony and the common good of society as a whole, especially the needy, the weak, migrants and the oppressed.

"Religious leaders have a special responsibility towards youth, who require particular attention so that they do not fall victim to religious fanaticism and radicalism, receiving rather, a sound education thereby helping them to become bridge builders and peace makers."

Keeping in mind the possibly that "crises of diverse nature" could arise on the national and international level, religious leaders should "learn to prevent, cope with and remedy these particular situations, avoiding their degeneration into confessional violence. This requires a mutual respect and reciprocal knowledge, both cherishing personal relations and building confidence and mutual trust, so as to be able to confront together crises when they occur."

Finally, it was decided that the next meeting will be held in Tripoli, within the next two years. The meeting follows other organized encounters, in various locations, in 1976, and since 1989 until today on a regular basis.

Catholics and Muslims should increase mutual trust and educate young people to peace (http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=14033&theme=5&size=A)

One of the greatest dangers to Christianity today is the deliberate suppression of biblical truth for the sake of unity. The danger intensifies as we see many highly visible and influential Christians are jumping on the Vaticans bandwagon. Instead of warning believers that this false unity is the emergence to the "last days" apostate church, evangelicals are embracing and applauding those who are engineering it.

Rarely are false teachers, who seductively lead people away from the true faith, exposed. These apostates are appearing as ministers of righteousness and are facing very little opposition. They successfully deceive the undiscerning because pastors and church leaders are not speaking out against them. Very few Christians are warning the church of these ferocious wolves dressed in sheeps clothing. The twenty-first century church needs strong leaders like the apostle Paul warned the early church. Throughout the Scriptures we are exhorted to test every spirit, every teacher and every doctrine because men are so easily deceived.

Acts 20:30-31 Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. 31 Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.

As the ecumenical movement gathers momentum, we must be strong and continue to contend for the faith, no matter what others might do or say. Let us pray for our church leaders to return to the authority of Scripture for every issue of faith. Let us use Gods Word to lovingly admonish any church leader who encourages unity with apostates or unbelievers. And finally, let us resist the pressure to participate in any activity or event that will deliberately suppress or compromise biblical truth for the sake of unity. We must return to the infallible, inerrant and inspired Word of God to heed its warnings and obey its commands.

1 John 4:1,6 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. 6 We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.

Titus 1:9,13 Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. 13 This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;

Romans 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.
Titus 3:10 A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject;

Religious unity is the false unity of the Antichrist (Revelations 17-18) and should be resisted by Gods people. Biblical unity is based on apostolic truth (Ephesians 4:3,13) and is a work of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13). Biblical unity is not man-made, but man is exhorted to keep it. Biblical unity is impossible apart from the one true and settled faith taught by the Apostles. Gods people are called upon to "earnestly contend for the faith once delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3). There is no spiritual unity whatsoever between those who believe the Gospel and those who do not. True Christian unity is modeled when believers are united together in mind, faith and purpose to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, while submitting to the authority of His Word.

Link between child porn and Muslim terrorists discovered in police raids

Paedophile websites are being used to pass information between terrorists

Richard Kerbaj and Dominic Kennedy

A link between terrorism plots and hardcore child pornography is becoming clear after a string of police raids in Britain and across the Continent, an investigation by The Times has discovered. Images of child abuse have been found during Scotland Yard antiterrorism swoops and in big inquiries in Italy and Spain.

Secret coded messages are being embedded into child pornographic images, and paedophile websites are being exploited as a secure way of passing information between terrorists.

British security services are also aware of the trend and believe that it requires further investigation to improve understanding of terrorists’ methods and mindsets. Concerns within the Metropolitan Police led to a plan to run a pilot research project exploring the nature of the link. One source familiar with the proposal said that this could eventually lead to the training of child welfare experts to identify signs of terrorist involvement as they monitor pornographic sites.

Concerns have already been expressed at Cabinet minister level about the risk of vulnerable Muslim youths being exploited by older men.

Officers have noted that child sex abuse images have been found during investigations into some of the most advanced suspected plots. However, it is understood that the proposed research project was never implemented because the AntiTerrorism Branch was overwhelmed by the sheer number of cases it was having to deal with.

It is not clear whether the terrorists were more interested in the material for personal gratification or were drawn to child porn networks as a secure means of sending messages. In one case fewer than a dozen images were found; in another, 40,000.

British security sources confirmed that such a link had been discovered in several cases. They noted the contradiction between people supposedly devoted to theocracy and Islamic fundamentalism and their use of child pornography. “It shows that these people are very confused,” a source said. “Here they are hating Western decadence but actually making use of it and finding that they enjoy this stuff.”

Baroness Neville-Jones, Conservative security spokeswoman and former chairwoman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, said: “The information about a possible link between extremism and child pornography potentially provides useful insight into three things: the methods that extremists use to communicate; the methods they use to target vulnerable people in society; and the techniques they seek to use to conceal their online activities.” She added: “There is no doubt that these possible linkages should merit further research.”

Andrew Dismore, the Labour MP and chairman of the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, said: “This is an important development. We have to do more than just the police work. It needs child protection, criminological and psychological work. It could become a very important weapon in the fight against terrorism.” He urged researchers to review cases where terrorists had been convicted to look for this link.

The first British suspicions of a link between child sex abuse and jihadis emerged in London in 2006 when antiterrorism police in two unrelated investigations were shocked to find computerised images of hardcore child pornography. The key case that tipped off the security services to a plausible link involved the “White-chapel Rapist”, Abdul Makim Khalisadar. A former Mujahidin and a preacher at the East London Mosque, he was being examined for his links to a hardcore Islamic militant who was later convicted of terrorism. Khalisadar was never convicted of terrorist offences. The other investigation involved a young religiously observant Muslim.

The Times has learnt that a criminal investigation also found child pornography on computers after a raid in 2001 at a mosque run by an al-Qaeda recruiter in Milan. Italian police believe that the images were encoded with messages. At a forthcoming terrorism trial in Spain, the alleged mastermind of a Muslim cell has also been accused of downloading hundreds of child sex abuse pictures and videos.

Meanwhile, police uncovered a right-wing terrorist plot when they raided a home after being tipped off about pornographic images. This June, the Nazi sympathiser Martyn Gilleard was jailed for 16 years after being found guilty of terrorism. Police found 39,000 indecent images of children at his flat in Yorkshire.

Link between child porn and Muslim terrorists discovered in police raids (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4959002.ece)

Amsterdam's gay Christmas features Mary in drag

By ARTHUR MAX – 3 days ago

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — Amsterdam hosted a Christmas celebration for its gay community on Sunday featuring a nativity tableau with a male Mary in drag that church organizations denounced as an affront to traditional values.

Organizers said the event was meant to raise Amsterdam's profile as a gay capital at a time when homosexuals feel threatened.

Christians for Truth, an independent religious group, had asked the city council to cancel the "Pink Christmas," event, saying it made a mockery of Christian tenets. The city did not comment.

A male entertainer known as Wendy Mills posed as Mary in a blonde wig and high-heeled black boots and holding a plastic doll. Another man played Joseph in black leather trunks and a silver shawl.

The five-person manger scene was staged off the street, in the courtyard of a nightclub. Visitors were invited to be photographed with the group. The first was 3-month-old Lily Pink Albers, Mills' niece.

"By portraying Joseph and Mary as homosexuals, a twisted human fantasy is being added to the history of the Bible," Christians for Truth said in a statement ahead of the event.

A few dozen visitors wandered through the 100-yard (meter) long Pink Market past stalls selling leather goods and Christmas cards with gay themes on a downtown street known for its gay nightlife and popular restaurants.

Frank van Dalen, chairman of Pro Gay, which organized the event, said gays were not satisfied with being tolerated, but wanted to be "socially accepted as an indivisible part of society."

He said the Amsterdam city council sponsored the euro15,000 ($21,000) event, which he hoped would become a regular event, like the annual floating summertime gay pride parade through the city's canals that attracts tens of thousands of visitors.

"Our objective is not to be offensive. This is about visibility," he said.

Van Dalen pointed to a report last month that said homophobia was an ingrained problem in Amsterdam, despite the city's freewheeling reputation.

The study by the University of Amsterdam reported 67 violent attacks against gays in 2007, which police said was about average.

Van Dalen said gays were feeling increasingly uncomfortable in public in recent years, and that they perceived Dutch society as more assertive about "classical values."

Amsterdam's gay Christmas features Mary in drag (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iva43d-lfl63sidX_vszLh2AzBtgD9577CN80)
~~~~~~~~~~~~

I pray that they come to accept you as Lord and Savior, and turn from their wicked ways, before your patients and mercy run out.

Man in Santa suit kills at least eight at Covina party
By Ari B. Bloomekatz, Tami Abdollah and Joel Rubin
6:57 PM PST, December 25, 2008

A distraught man dressed as Santa Claus opened fire at a Christmas Eve party and then set the house ablaze, killing at least eight people, authorities said. Several hours later, the shooter killed himself.

Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, 45, who had recently been divorced and is believed to have lost his job, knocked on the front door of a home owned by the parents of his ex-wife in Covina around 11:30 Wednesday night, said Police Chief Kim Raney.

An 8-year-old girl ran to the door to answer Pardo's knock, police said. He shot her in the face, stepped into the house and began to fire indiscriminately with a semiautomatic handgun.

Pardo was carrying what appeared to be a large present but was what police described as a home-made pressurized device used to spray some kind of flammable substance. Pardo is thought to have worked in the aerospace industry as an engineer, police and acquaintances said.

Partygoers fled the house on Knollcrest Drive in panic, running to neighbors' homes and frantically calling police. A teenage girl, according to a neighbor who later helped her, leaped out of a second-floor window, breaking her ankle. The 8-year-old girl and a 16-year-old girl who was shot in the back escaped the house and were transported to local hospitals, officials said.

Police Lt. Pat Buchanan said the injuries were not life-threatening and that none of the dead had been identified, saying that the bodies were badly burned. Pardo's ex-wife and her parents, however, are considered among the dead or missing, officials said.

Tom Minter, 78, who lives a few doors down on the placid, middle-class street, said he was washing dishes when he heard a loud bang. Soon after, police SWAT officers rushed a man and two women who been at the party into his home, sat them down in the hallway and turned off all lights in the house, Minter said. Both women were crying and the man was talking into his cellphone, saying 'They're all dead, he shot them all,' " Minter said. Paramedics came a few hours later, treated them for their injuries and escorted them out.

Robin Myers, 50, who lives with her mother in the house behind the one Pardo attacked, was at home working on her computer when the attack happened.

"I heard an explosion and I went out to investigate because it was pretty loud," Myers said. "I went outside and saw a wall of flames."

The two-story house, located at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, was fully engulfed by fire, Los Angeles County fire officials said. About 80 firefighters were initially kept at bay by police who feared that the gunman was still in the area. They battled flames that soared 40 to 50 feet high for an hour and a half before extinguishing the fire, according to Capt. Mike Brown. Amid the ruins, the second floor of the house had collapsed onto the ground.

"It was a very dynamic situation," he said.

Shortly before 3:30 a.m., Pardo's brother summoned Los Angeles police to his Sylmar home -- about 25 miles away from the carnage. Officers arrived to find Pardo dead from a single gunshot to the head, police officials said. When the officers ran Pardo's name through a law-enforcement database, they were alerted that he was wanted by Covina police.

By 9 a.m., a pair of Covina detectives had arrived at the tan stucco house in Montrose that Pardo owned and lived in, cordoning it off with tape. Candy cane decorations were affixed to the fence and a holiday wreath hung on the front door. An SUV and a military-style Hummer were parked in the driveway. The detectives sat in their car awaiting a judge to sign a search warrant for the house. "Maybe there's some [sign of] planning, maybe letters or anything that will give us more clues about the state of his mind," said Det. Antonio Zavala.

At 3 p.m., members of the Los Angeles County sheriff's bomb squad and other detectives came to the house. Several of the police approached the house with guns drawn, calling out, "We're police! We have a search warrant!" When no one responded, they used a battering ram on the door and entered.

One detective, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to news media, said they had found evidence inside that Pardo had prepared for the attack. He did not elaborate.

Pardo had lived at the home alone, Zavala said. Court records show that his wife divorced him last September. He "was apparently going through a bad time in his marriage," Buchanan said. Neighbors said that until earlier this year, Pardo lived in the house with his ex-wife and her three children. They were often seen walking their dog through the neighborhood.

Pardo was, by many accounts, an unassuming, religious man, who tended to his garden and served regularly as an usher at evening Mass at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Montrose.

"Bruce?" said an incredulous Jan Detanna, the head usher at the church, when told about the attack. "I'm just -- this is shocking. He was the nicest guy you could imagine. Always a pleasure to talk to, always a big smile." Pardo, Detanna said, had volunteered to usher at the midnight Mass on Christmas Eve -- which began as the rampage was unfolding in Covina.

Bong Garcia, Pardo's next door neighbor, said he last saw Pardo between 9 and 10 p.m. and exchanged brief greetings. Pardo told him he was on his way to a Christmas party and walked down the street dressed in regular clothes, Garcia said

Gazing at the eerie scene of destruction, Frank Castillo, 46, stood at the yellow police tape trying unsuccessfully to obtain information about relatives he said had been at the party.

Castillo said a family member had called to tell him that his former sister-in-law, Sylvia Castillo, who is her 30s, had died in the attack. His nephew, Sal Castillo, 19, whom family members called Baby Sal, and a niece, Selina Castillo, were also in the house, he said.

"I want to make sure my nephew and niece are OK," he said, choking back tears.

Man in Santa suit kills at least eight at Covina party (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-santa-shooting26-2008dec26,0,6505439.story)

Belgian TV comic's makes Holocaust jokes
By The Associated Press
25/12/2008

Jewish groups have condemned a Belgian public broadcaster for airing a show in which a standup comedian jokes about the Holocaust and the persecution of Jews.

The protest marked the third time in two months the VRT broadcaster was
accused of gross insensitivity toward Jews. On October 27, protests forced it to scrap a TV show about Adolf Hitler's supposed favorite dish - alpine trout in butter sauce - as part of a series about famous people's favorite foods.

In the 2008 review show Het Besluit - which aired December 21 and is available on the VRT web site - comedian Philippe Geubels accused Belgians Jews of overreacting to the food show.

"What are they going to do if there is a big gas leak in Antwerp?" asked Geubels referring to the Belgian port city, which has a large Jewish community. "Take the city to court for provocation? Preemptively file charges against anyone who dares joke about that?"

Geubels also said the Holocaust cannot happen again because Jews are much
smarter now.

"They have spread across the world. Try rounding them up! Most are in America so you cannot send them by train to Germany to die in gas chambers."

"What a comedian does is up to him, but the VRT decides to include it in the show. At that point, the question can be asked, is this the task of a public broadcaster?" asked Michael Freilich, the head of the Jewish group Joods Actueel.

The VRT also came under criticism for a recent ad about a travel show focusing on Berlin.

It showed a drawing of Hitler as a male stripper giving the Nazi salute in front of a swastika flag, the banner of Nazi Germany. That incident triggered a protest by the German embassy, which called it totally tasteless.

The CCOJB, a Jewish umbrella organization, said the VRT's multiplication of anti-Semitic provocations disguised as humor dishonored its role as a public broadcaster.

It said it planned legal steps against the VRT and asked the government of Dutch-speaking Belgium, which is responsible for the VRT, to act against those responsible for the broadcast.

Repeated phone calls and two messages left with the VRT were not immediately answered.

Belgian TV comic's makes Holocaust jokes (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050092.html)

4 arrested in N. California gang rape of lesbian
33 mins ago

RICHMOND, Calif. – Two men and two teens have been arrested on suspicion of gang-raping a woman last month in the San Francisco Bay area while allegedly taunting her for being a lesbian, police said Thursday.

Officers arrested Humberto Hernandez Salvador at his Richmond home Wednesday night, Richmond police Lt. Mark Gagan said. The 31-year-old is being held without bail on gang rape, kidnapping and carjacking charges.

Police on Wednesday also arrested a 15-year-old Richmond boy and a 16-year-old Hercules boy, who were being held at a juvenile detention center on similar charges. Their names were not released.

Josue Gonzalez, 21, turned himself in Thursday after police announced they were searching for him. He was wanted on charges of gang rape, kidnapping and carjacking.

Gagan said Gonzalez asked for an attorney when he turned himself in but said nothing about his alleged role in the attack.

"We feel that while these four suspects were at large, a large cross-section of our population felt unsafe," Gagan said. "Now that the fourth one is behind bars, we can all breathe a sigh of relief."

Police would not detail each person's alleged involvement. Tips from local residents led to the arrests.

Detectives say the 28-year-old victim was attacked on Dec. 13 after she got out of her car, which bore a rainbow gay pride sticker. The alleged attackers made comments indicating they knew she was a lesbian, police said.

Authorities have characterized the case as a hate crime. Police said the victim lives openly with a female partner.

The 45-minute attack started when one of the men approached the woman in the street, struck her with a blunt object, ordered her to disrobe and sexually assaulted her with the help of the others, according to detectives.

When the group saw another person approaching, they forced the victim back into her car and took her to a burned-out apartment building. She was raped again inside and outside the vehicle and left naked outside the building while the alleged assailants took her wallet and drove off in her car, police said.

4 arrested in N. California gang rape of lesbian (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090102/ap_on_re_us/lesbian_rape/print)

European Jews Attacked in Response to Gaza Conflict

Tuesday , January 06, 2009

PARIS —
Signs are mounting that the conflict in Gaza is starting to spill over into violence in Europe's towns and cities, with assaults against Jews and arson attacks on Jewish congregations in France, Sweden and Britain.

Assailants rammed a burning car into the gates of a synagogue in Toulouse, in southwest France, on Monday night. A Jewish congregation in Helsingborg, in southern Sweden, also was attacked Monday night by someone who "broke a window and threw in something that was burning," said police spokesman Leif Nilsson. Neighbors alerted rescue services before the fire took hold.

Someone also started a blaze outside the premises last week. And on Sunday slogans including "murderers ... You broke the cease-fire" and "don't subject Palestine to ethnic cleansing" were daubed on Israel's embassy in Stockholm.

In Denmark, a 27-year-old Dane born in Lebanon of Palestinian parents is alleged to have injured two young Israelis last week, opening fire with a handgun in a shooting that police suspect could be linked to the Gaza crisis.

France has Western Europe's largest Jewish and Muslim communities and a history of anti-Semitic violence flaring when tensions in the Middle East are high. In 2002, some 2,300 Jews left France for Israel because they felt unsafe.

President Nicolas Sarkozy warned in a statement Tuesday that France would not tolerate violence linked to the Gaza crisis. A day earlier, his interior minister said she was concerned about the prospect of contagion and met with the heads of the two main Muslim and Jewish groups and police officials to stress the need to "preserve national unity."

Damage to the synagogue in Toulouse was limited to a blackened gate, and there were no injuries even though a rabbi was giving a course to adults inside, authorities said. They said unlighted gasoline bombs were also found in a car nearby and in the synagogue's yard. A local Jewish leader, Armand Partouche, said he believed the assailants had planned to torch the synagogue, but fled when the building's alarm went off.

"It could have been very, very serious," Partouche said in a telephone interview. "There were people inside; there could have been deaths."

He said Jewish leaders are asking Toulouse authorities for reinforced security for the city's synagogues.

"We really fear that anti-Semitism will spring up again and that the current conflict will be transposed to our beautiful French republic," he said.

In Britain, the Community Security Trust, a Jewish defense group, said it had seen a rise in anti-Semitic incidents since the start of Israel's offensive against Gaza. The group said it had recorded 20-25 incidents across the country in the past week that it believed were connected with Gaza, including an arson attempt on a synagogue in north London on Sunday.

London police are investigating the attack, in which suspects splashed flammable liquid on the door and set it on fire.

Community Security Trust spokesman Mark Gardner said that in another incident last week a gang of 15-20 youths walked along the main street in Golders Green, a largely Jewish neighborhood in north London, shouting "Jew" and "Free Palestine" at passers-by.

"It could get worse," Gardner said. "We tend to see these things happen in waves."

The government in Belgium on Tuesday ordered police in Antwerp and Brussels to be on increased alert after recent pro-Palestinian protests ended in violence and dozens of arrests. Police said burning rags were shoved through the mailbox of a Jewish home in Antwerp last weekend. Damage was limited and no arrests were made.

In the Danish shooting, one Israeli man was shot in the arm and another in the leg as they were selling hair care products in a shopping mall. Eli Ruvio, who owns the company that operated the stands, said his employees have been harassed by Muslim youths since they set up three kiosks in the shopping center in August.

"They kept cursing and shouting at us," Ruvio told The Associated Press. He added that the Muslim youths also threw mud and firecrackers at the employees and spat at them.

Ruvio recalled an episode Dec. 27 when some of the youths shouted "slaughter all the Jews."

"I told my employees not to speak in Hebrew and lie about where they come from, they should say there were from Spain or somewhere else. If people ask you where you are from, never say you're from Israel," he said.

European Jews Attacked in Response to Gaza Conflict (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,476866,00.html)

Has Pepsi gone 'gay'?
'Something for everyone' marketing takes on whole new meaning

One of America's favorite soft drink brands has donated more than a million dollars to homosexual groups – and refuses to give to organizations opposes to homosexuality, one group claims.

Pepsi gifted $500,000 to the Human Rights Campaign, or HRC, a group that described itself as "America's largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality," the American Family Association reports.

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation gave PepsiCo a 100 percent rating for the fifth year in a row on its 2009 Corporate Equality Index – a system that ranks employers on a scale from 0 to 100 percent on their treatment of LGBT employees, consumers and investors.

PepsiCo has also given $500,000 to the Straight for Equality program run by Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, or PFLAG.

"We are delighted to continue our partnership with PFLAG," announced Jacqueline Millan, director of PepsioCo Corporate Contributions. "The Straight for Equality in the Workplace training program is unique in that it is promoting the necessary message of inclusion to untapped groups within the local community, and that is a crucial step towards building a healthy work environment."

According to a PepsiCo bulletin, the company also won a Workplace Excellence Award at the Out & Equal Summit on Sept. 15 – an annual event that promotes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workplace equality.

PepsiCo requires that its employees attend sexual orientation and gender identity/expression training. It also has an employee-resource group for people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender called Equal.

"The PepsiCo LGBT network (EQUAL) represents 160,000 employees worldwide and its four chapters span all company brand holdings," PepsiCo reveals.

In 2002, the company amended its equal employment opportunity statement to include sexual orientation. In 2004 it added "gender identity and expression," and "domestic partner benefits." PepsiCo also offers insurance coverage for transgender employees, including leave after surgery, counseling, hormone therapy, medical visits and surgical procedures.

On June 29, 2004, online magazine "The Gully" documented PepsiCo's participation in the 35th annual Lesbian and Gay Pride Parade on New York's Fifth Avenue following its formation of Equal. Floats featuring drag queens and "muscle boys" promoted 80 "gay"-friendly businesses. Pepsi employees jogged the route next to the company float, giving away cans of Pepsi alongside members of the local "gay" softball league.

In 2002, PepsiCo's Doritos brand released a "gay" tease commercial with Enrique Iglesias, where the singer appeared to be falling in love with a man in his audience. The viewers quickly learn that Iglesias is after the man's bag of chips.

In 2003, PepsiCo's Lay's potato chips released a satirical commercial showing four men watching football on TV. They make concerted efforts not to touch one another – immediately pulling their knees back when they touch and recoil when their hands reach for the same soda bottle. When their team scores a touchdown, the men are rolling all over the couch and hugging.

In Canada, a "bisexual" man came out of the closet on a commercial and declared his love for Pepsi and Diet Pepsi. In a more recent spot aired in the UK, a man drinks a Pepsi to find courage to ask someone out. He passes up two women and expresses interest in a man.

The "gay" community cheered when the company featured "Queer Eye" star Carson Kressley, gaping at an attractive man on the street in its 2005 Super Bowl spot.

PepsiCo, a company that owns Frito Lay, Tropicana orange juice, Gatorade and Quaker oatmeal, was one of the first sponsors of PrideVision, a 24-hour gay TV network launched in Canada.

Also, Diet Pepsi scored No. 2 behind Absolut vodka as the most popular brand in a 2005 gay.com survey. In the same year, the company sparked major controversy when the soda giant's president likened the U.S. to a middle finger.

Upon hearing news that its major competitor, Diet Coke, was also entering the "gay" market, PepsiCo spokesman Dave DeCecco told Commercial Closet in March 2007, "We were first. We recognized the importance of the gay market and hope that the community will reward that."

"PepsiCo has refused a request by AFA to remain neutral in the culture war," writes AFA Chairman Donald Wildmon in an e-mail alert. "The company indicated that it will continue major financial support of homosexual organizations."

AFA wrote to PepsiCo two times, on Oct. 14 and Oct. 29, asking to meet with the company to discuss its support of homosexual groups. According to the group, PepsiCo refused to discuss its ongoing support and promotion of homosexuality.

PepsiCo's Paul Boykas responded, "Among the values promoted by the PepsiCo Foundation is ensuring a work environment that is respectful and where associates are valued for their contributions." Now Wildmon is seeking people who will contact PepsiCo and ask it to "stop supporting the gay agenda."

PepsiCo's DeCecco told WND he would "look into" the issue of the company's alleged refusal to support organizations that oppose homosexuality. However, he never responded to requests for comment.

Like it or not, you pay for faith in evolution
'This is classic example of what Founding Fathers did not want'

Whether a public university can use taxpayer funds from the federal government for a website that overtly endorses the beliefs of some religious groups regarding evolution and creation – but not others – is the focus of a case that's being prepared for submission to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"This is a classic example of what the Founding Fathers did not want," Brad Dacus, of the Pacific Justice Institute, told WND.

His organization is working on the case that revolves around a University of California-Berkeley website that advocates for a single perspective in the arguments over evolution – and highlights a list of religious groups whose beliefs agree with that perspective.

The site, funded by a federal grant and aimed at influencing teachers to promote evolution, excludes and ridicules perspectives – and religious groups that hold those perspectives – that fail to align with its stated beliefs.

"Some religious beliefs explicitly contradict science (e.g., the belief that the world and all life on it was created in six literal days); however, most religious groups have no conflict with the theory of evolution or other scientific findings," states the website.

"This [website] injures religious freedom in this country," Dacus said. "The government is playing a role that is overtly hostile to some religious groups and denominations while favoring and giving greater recognition towards others."

He continued, "This case involves the ability of the state to use taxpayer money to overtly endorse and encourage support of one set of religious denominations over others."

The case is being brought to the U.S. Supreme Court after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded the plaintiff, a mother whose children could be subjected to website indoctrination, didn't have standing to complain about the promotions of the American Jewish Committee, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Humanist Association of Canada, the Lexington Alliance of Religious Leaders, the Lutheran World Federation and others.

"It's our conviction that the government has no place decreeing that some religious views are more correct than others," Dacus told WND. "The website points to some denominations while ignoring other groups that believe in a literal creation."

According to Pacific Justice Institute, the website is funded by a federal grant and targets public school teachers.

"The website urges teachers to challenge students' religious beliefs that evolution contradicts their faith. Moreover, the site points teachers to statements from religious groups and denominations that support evolution, while ignoring religious groups that believe in a literal creation," PJI said.

PJI Chief Counsel Kevin Snider argued the case at the appeals level, and said, "It's troubling when the courts decree that some government actions – in this case, taxpayer dollars funding one side of a theological debate about the origins of life – are immune from legal challenge. This decision raises the question to what extent government can get away with constitutional violations via the Internet."

"We are hopeful that the U.S. Supreme Court will recognize the implications of the Ninth Circuit's ruling and act to reverse it," Dacus said.

"Creationism is not scientific; it is a purely religious view held by some religious sects and persons and strongly opposed by other religious sects and persons," said a highlighted statement from one religious group. "Evolution is the only presently known strictly scientific and nonreligious explanation for the existence and diversity of living organisms. It is therefore the only view that should be expounded in public school courses on science, which are distinct from those on religion."

Said another, this one from a Unitarian Universalist organiziaton, "Be it resolved … [to] uphold religious neutrality in public education, oppose all government mandated or sponsored prayers, devotional observances, and religious indoctrination in public schools; and oppose efforts to compromise the integrity of public school teaching by the introduction of sectarian religious doctrines, such as 'scientific creationism,' …"

"Antievolutionists have tried to confuse science and religion, leading to … misconceptions in the minds of some members of the public," the Berkeley website said. "A debate pitting a scientific concept against a religious belief has no place in a science class and misleadingly suggests that a 'choice' between the two must be made."

The website indoctrination continues: "Evolution is science. The study of evolution relies on evidence and inference from the natural world. Thus it is not a religion.

"Scientists do not debate whether evolution took place (evidence supporting the theory of evolution is abundant); however, details of how evolution took place are hotly debated…"

The site, launched with more than $500,000 in federal taxpayer money, also denies that existence of any "flaws" in the theory of evolution.

"Scientists have examined the supposed 'flaws' that creationists claim exist in evolutionary theory and have found no support for these claims. These 'flaws' are based on misunderstandings of evolutionary theory or misrepresentations of evidence. Scientists continue to refine the theory of evolution, but that doesn't mean it is 'flawed,'" the site alleges.

WND reported earlier on the dispute over the University of California-Berkeley website that uses the views of certain religious denominations to promote evolution.

The protest focuses on the website section that arms teachers to counter student "misconceptions" about evolution. The site warns that questions aimed at exposing weaknesses in evolutionary theory "may be designed to disrupt the learning process" and are "a bit different from legitimate inquiry."

Roy Caldwell, a UC-Berkeley professor named in the suit, said earlier the website helps teachers answer questions.

"One of those questions is, 'Aren't religion and evolution incompatible?' and we say, 'no,' and point to a number of sites by clerics and others who make that point," he said.

BLUNTLY, the theory of evolution is a tool being used by the devil to cast doubt on GOD'S WORD and GOD'S ACCOUNT of HIS CREATION. The devil is very skilled in using tools like these, especially with people who have rejected GOD and hate the thought of an ALL-POWERFUL CREATOR - ALMIGHTY GOD!

Some have made humanism or themselves god with their so-called science, so the existence and CREATION by GOD is a personal attack on them that refutes their baloney. This is why they don't want the REAL ACCOUNT OF CREATION competing with their baloney account. The REAL TRUTH OF CREATION is powerful and dangerous to the so-called scientific community pushing the last existing threads of the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution has been unraveled and is falling apart as JUNK! It's never been more than a theory, but many so-called scientists have risked their reputations to support it. The time will come when all is exposed, and that time might be soon.

Let's tell things like they are and state clearly that GOD'S WORD is powerful and dangerous to many men teaching things that the Bible reveals as FALSE! GOD'S WORD will always be the measurement of all TRUTH, so that's why many men want it hidden or destroyed. This is also why much of the world wants Christians to sit down and shut up. GOD'S WORD is sharper than any two-edged SWORD, and it does cut many things of mankind to pieces. This is why much of the world can't stand GOD'S WORD and Christians using GOD'S WORD.

Love In Christ,
Tom

1 John 1:1-4 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; 2 (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) 3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

Nurse suspended for offering to pray for elderly patient's recovery
A nurse has been suspended from her job for offering to pray for an elderly patient's recovery from illness.

By Andrew Alderson, Chief Reporter
01 Feb 2009

Caroline Petrie, a committed Christian, has been accused by her employers of failing to demonstrate a "personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity".

She faces disciplinary action and could lose her job over the incident.

Mrs Petrie, a married mother of two, says she has been left shocked and upset by the action taken against her.

She insists she has never forced her own religious beliefs on anyone but politely inquired if the elderly patient wanted her to pray for her – either in the woman's presence or after the nurse had left the patient's home.

"I simply couldn't believe that I have been suspended over this. I knew I hadn't done anything wrong. All I am trying to do is help my patients, many of whom want me to pray for them," she said.

Mrs Petrie, 45, is a community nurse employed by North Somerset Primary Care Trust to carry out home visits to sick and elderly patients.

The incident which led to her suspension took place at the home of a woman patient in Winscombe, North Somerset.

"It was around lunchtime and I had spent about 20 to 25 minutes with her. I had applied dressings to her legs and shortly before I left I said to her: 'Would you like me to pray for you?'.

"She said 'No, thank you.' And I said: 'OK.' I only offered to pray for her because I was concerned about her welfare and wanted her to get better."

However, after the incident on December 15, she was contacted by the trust and asked to explain her actions.

The woman patient, who is believed to be in her late 70s, is understood to have complained to the trust.

Mrs Petrie will not disclose the woman's name or reveal the precise nature of her ailment because it would breach patient confidentiality.

Mrs Petrie, who lives in Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset, said she was initially confronted the next day by a nursing sister who said the patient had been taken aback by her question about prayer.

"I said: 'I am sorry. Did I offend or upset her?' The sister said: 'No, no. She was just a bit taken back. You must be aware of your professional code of conduct. I would be careful.'

"But the next day my coordinator left a message on my home phone and I realised this had been taken further."

Mrs Petrie said that she often offers to pray for her patients and that many take her up on it.

She either prays with them or after she has left their home. The nurse has been a committed Christian since she was ten – after her mother died of breast cancer.

Initially, she was Church of England but she switched to the Baptist faith nine years ago. "My faith is very important to me," she said.

Mrs Petrie had previously been reprimanded for an incident in Clevedon last October when she offered to give a small, home-made prayer card to an elderly, male patient, who had happily accepted it.

On this occasion, the patient's carer, who was with him, raised concerns over the incident.

Alison Withers, Mrs Petrie's boss at the time, wrote to her at the end of November saying: "As a nurse you are required to uphold the reputation of your profession.

"Your NMC [Nursing Midwifery Council] code states that 'you must demonstrate a personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity' and 'you must not use your professional status to promote causes that are not related to health'."

In the letter, Mrs Petrie, who qualified as a nurse in 1985, was asked to attend an equality and diversity course and warned: "If there is any further similar incident it may be treated as potential misconduct and the formal disciplinary procedure could be instigated."

Mrs Petrie said: "I stopped handing out prayer cards after that but I found it more and more difficult [not to offer them]. My concern is for the person as a whole, not just their health.

"I was told not to force my faith on anyone but I could respond if patients themselves brought up the subject [of religion]."

It is the second incident – the offer to pray for a patient – that led to the disciplinary action. She was suspended from her part-time job, without pay, on December 17.

She faced an internal disciplinary meeting last Wednesday and expects to learn the outcome this week.

At last week's hour-long meeting, Mrs Petrie says she was told the patient had said she was not offended by the prayer offer but the woman argued that someone else might have been.

The nurse had her representative from the Royal College of Nursing present Mrs Petrie's husband, Stewart, 48, works as a BT engineer and they have two sons, aged 14 and ten.

The couple attend Milton Baptist Church every Sunday and Mrs Petrie said: "Stuart and I have decided to put God first in our lives."

Mrs Petrie, who has worked for the trust since February last year, has already taken legal advice from the Christian Legal Centre, which seeks to promote religious freedom and, particularly, to protect Christians and Christianity.

The centre, in turn, has instructed Paul Diamond, the leading religious rights barrister. Andrea Williams, the founder and director of the centre, said: "We are backing this case all the way."

A spokesman for North Somerset Primary Care Trust said: "Caroline Petrie has been suspended pending an investigation into the matter.

"She is a bank nurse and she has been told we will not be using her in this capacity until the outcome of our investigation is known.

"We always take any concerns raised by our patients most seriously and conscientiously investigate any matter of this nature brought to our attention.

"We are always keen to be respectful of our patients' views and sensitivity as well as those of our staff."

Nurse suspended for offering to pray for elderly patient's recovery (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/4409168/Nurse-suspended-for-offering-to-pray-for-patients-recovery.html)

Hello DreamWeaver and All!

I really don't know much about other states. I used to make an assumption in my 25 years of law enforcement: a trend on the East or West Coast will work its way to Middle America in about 7 years. We all know that assumptions aren't very accurate, and they're completely wrong many times. However, this assumption in law enforcement was GENERALLY TRUE.

Generally, the worst and most evil trends of all kinds start on the West Coast. Feelings aren't a very good way to evaluate the relative good things of any particular state. By good things, you probably already know that I'm talking about ways of life that relate to the Bible and the attempt to live in a way that would please GOD. I hope that nobody thinks I was trying to brag about Oklahoma. There are a lot of things that are WRONG here also. I just found that story shocking that ALL of the ill and dying would be denied the comfort of GOD in the name of "Political Correctness".

Brother, I've heard many good things about other states, including Arizona and many others. On the other side of the coin, I've heard a lot of bad things about most states, including my own. I should have left my state name out and simply given THANKS that Christians can still do many things for the LORD in this part of the world. I'll make a more bold and specific statement: THE MORE THAT GOD IS EXCLUDED IN ANY SPECIFIC PLACE - THE WORSE THAT PLACE WILL BE.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Romans 1:16-19 ASV For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 17 For therein is revealed a righteousness of God from faith unto faith: as it is written, But the righteous shall live by faith. 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hinder the truth in unrighteousness; 19 because that which is known of God is manifest in them; for God manifested it unto them.

Yes, it used to be that you could gauge things according to what was going on in the coastal states to what was coming to the other states in that manner. Anymore it is not a big time delay like 6 to 7 yrs as it used to be. In many cases it is more like 6 to 7 weeks now if not less.

Immorality is running rampant getting worse by the day and the following is just one of the many reasons:

Al Gore: Don't listen to your parents
Ex-VP tells kids' conference 'older people don't know'

Former Vice President Al Gore has been tape-recorded telling a conference of young people in Washington, D.C., just before President Barack Obama's inauguration that they know more than their parents.

The story appeared via Glenn Beck's television show on the Fox News Channel, where he had Caitlin Glenn and her father, Andy, discussing the speech today. A video of the program segment was posted on Beck's The Hope For America website.

On the tape, Gore states: "When I was your age and the civil rights revolution was unfolding, and we kids asked our parents and their generation, 'Explain to me again why it's okay for the law to officially discriminate against people because of their skin color?'

"And when our parents' generation couldn't answer that question, that's when the law started to change. There are some things about our world that you know that older people don't know," he continued.

"Why would that be? Well in a period of rapid change, the old assumptions sometimes just don’t work anymore because they're out of date," Gore said.

Caitlin had been invited months before the election to the event that featured Gore as a speaker, and she was excited to attend the invitation-only event.

Her father said the family thought it an "incredible opportunity" for her.

The discussion about taping the speech came up late in the fall when Obama had won the election and was headed toward the White House, Andy Glenn said.

"We realized what she would be facing … Caitlin and I started having a lot of discussions," Andy Glenn said.

The talks focused on what Gore would say.

"I wanted to hear what he has to say to you," Andy Glenn recalled telling his daughter.

Caitlin Glenn said she was shocked by the instructions essentially to ignore her parents.

"We're only teens and preteens and he was telling us to do these things," she said.

Andy Glenn said when he picked up his daughter, he popped the tape into the player in his car.

"That section you just played actually was one of the first sections," he told Beck. "Right after [I heard] that I stopped it. I was so upset. I was yelling … he just told my daughter not to listen to me.

"Even coming from Al Gore I was absolutely shocked to hear that," he said.

Gore could not be reached tonight by WND for a comment.

... and this is another primary reason as not all of these cases end even close to being good:

Educators: Explore homosexuality but not Bible
Lawsuit alleges Christians face policy discrimination

A New York school district faces a lawsuit for encouraging students to explore homosexuality while trying to prevent them from studying the Bible.

The action has been brought by the Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of a student identified only as A.Q. against the Lindenhurst Union Free School District near New York City.

The suit alleges the district allows and encourages homosexuality by providing special services to organizations including the Gay-Straight Alliance, Key Club, Chess Club, Fishing Club and Ski Club. It contends the district illegally has discriminated against students seeking a Bible Club, instead forcing them to apply for permission to use school facilities as an outside group.

"Christian student groups shouldn't be discriminated against for their beliefs," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman. "The First Amendment and federal law both prohibit such actions on the basis of religion, and this has been established by years of court precedent."

The public interest law firm said for more than four months, Lindenhurst High School officials repeatedly have refused to grant official recognition to the club because of its religious nature, despite the presence of other non-curriculum-related student clubs that are given benefits and privileges.

In fact, the lawsuit said, the district refuses to permit members of the Bible Club to use classrooms to meet on the same basis as other clubs. Instead, the students were forced to apply for access permission "as a local community organization."

Joshua Bolinger, litigation counsel for the ADF, said the Bible Club should be given the same recognition and benefits as other student-led clubs.

Attorney Charles E. Holster III of Mineola is serving as local counsel in the case.

"Defendants have denied a fair opportunity, have discriminated against, and have denied Plaintiff equal access to all school facilities, benefits, and privileges, because of the religious content of the speech and association at Bible Club meetings," the complaint states.

"Defendants' conduct cannot be justified by a compelling governmental interest, nor is it narrowly tailored to advance any such interest."

The case claims Supt. Neil Lederer "grants official clubs status to non-curriculum related student clubs" including those addressing "issues involving, among others, promoting respect and dignity for students at LHS; premarital sex, including homosexual behavior; community service; and leadership."

The district allows students in those groups to hold meetings during non-instructional time, be listed in the yearbook, participate in student club fairs, have access to an adviser, take club field trips, use the public address system and bulletin boards for announcements and participate in fund-raising activities and district funding for student clubs, according to the lawsuit.

However, "Defendants have denied, and continue to deny, Plaintiff the right to official recognition of the Bible Club at LHS, as well as all of the attendant rights, privileges and benefits equal to all other non-curriculum related clubs."

The lawsuit alleges violation of free speech and equal access requirements as well as viewpoint discrimination.

The school referred WND's request for comment to a public relations firm, which claimed the district is willing to provide "this group" with space to meet, but it "has not filed the proper application."

On the same day the new New York case was announced, Liberty Counsel, another prominent public interest law firm dealing with constitutional rights, announced a settlement of a similar case on behalf of Child Evangelism Fellowship against Cobb County School District in Georgia.

The district had a discriminatory policy that denied equal access to religious groups, and Liberty Counsel filed a case in January, requesting an immediate court hearing.

"As the hearing was soon approaching, the district agreed to settle the case and entered into a Consent Decree which the federal court approved on February 4th," Liberty Counsel said. "Under the settlement, the district will repay CEF the overcharged fees it collected for use of the facilities, pay attorney's fees and costs, and grant CEF equal access to district facilities, in terms of free use and time of use, as is granted to similar organizations."

"We are pleased that the school district responded quickly after the lawsuit was filed to settle this case," said Mathew D. Staver, founder of LC and dean of Liberty University School of Law. "Equal access is the law, and equal access means equal treatment in every respect. Equal access applies to use of the facilities, fees for use, the time of meetings and advertisements for the meetings. Good News Clubs are great for children. The children and the parents are the real winners in this settlement."

Hello Pastor Roger,

Brother, I saw a news spot about Al Gore brainwashing children and telling them to ignore their parents. THIS MADE ME SICK AND ANGRY! Many entities want access to our children and grandchildren for the same purpose - GOVERNMENT INDOCTRINATION AND BRAINWASHING! Loving and caring parents are dangerous to the AGENDA OF WEIRDOS, and WEIRDOS ARE TAKING OVER OUR GOVERNMENT! They can't convince us with their BALONEY, so they will go around us to convince our children and grandchildren. As far as I'm concerned - NO THEY WON'T! I won't let them get away with it. Does GOD'S WORD speak about family members being given up and/or reported by other family members? YES! - These things will happen! This does not HINT that Christians should lay down and give up - JUST THE OPPOSITE! CHRISTIANS SHOULD STAND UP AND REFUSE TO SHUT UP! Further, our Biblical obligations to our children have NOT changed!

Love In Christ,
Tom

Ephesians 6:1-4 ASV Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. 2 Honor thy father and mother (which is the first commandment with promise), 3 that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. 4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord.

Proverbs 14:26-27 ASV In the fear of Jehovah is strong confidence; And his children shall have a place of refuge. 27 The fear of Jehovah is a fountain of life, That one may depart from the snares of death.

Psalms 103:15-17 ASV As for man, his days are as grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. 16 For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; And the place thereof shall know it no more. 17 But the lovingkindness of Jehovah is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, And his righteousness unto children's children;

Psalms 34:8-17 ASV Oh taste and see that Jehovah is good: Blessed is the man that taketh refuge in him. 9 Oh fear Jehovah, ye his saints; For there is no want to them that fear him. 10 The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger; But they that seek Jehovah shall not want any good thing. 11 Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of Jehovah. 12 What man is he that desireth life, And loveth many days, that he may see good? 13 Keep thy tongue from evil, And thy lips from speaking guile. 14 Depart from evil, and do good; Seek peace, and pursue it. 15 The eyes of Jehovah are toward the righteous, And his ears are open unto their cry. 16 The face of Jehovah is against them that do evil, To cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. 17 The righteous cried, and Jehovah heard, And delivered them out of all their troubles.

Proverbs 22:6 ASV Train up a child in the way he should go, And even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Marriage commissioner wants courts to reverse human rights tribunal decision on same-sex marriage
Canwest News Service
December 05, 2008

REGINA -- A Regina marriage commissioner who was found to have violated the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code for declining to perform a same-sex marriage three years ago is asking the courts to reverse the decision.

Orville Nichols, a marriage commissioner for 25 years, appeared in Court of Queen's Bench Chambers on Thursday seeking a judicial review of the decision that pits the rights of same-sex couples to be married against his religious beliefs not to be compelled to perform their civil marriage ceremony.

In May, a human rights tribunal ruled Nichols had discriminated against a gay couple when he refused to perform their marriage ceremony. The tribunal ordered him to pay $2,500 to the couple.

The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission (SHRC) took the position Thursday that the case was not about religious freedom but about ensuring public officials do not discriminate against anyone because of sexual orientation.

"The argument presented by the commission was that Mr. Nichols was acting pursuant to a statutory appointment that required him to provide a government service,'' said SHRC lawyer Janice Gingell.

"Governments are required to respect the Charter which guarantees individuals' equality. The equality that M.J. was denied was for the service he didn't have (which) was his same-sex marriage being performed (by Nichols). The marriage commissioner declined to perform the same-sex marriage because it contravened his own religious views.

"The (SHRC) argues that when you are acting as a public official, your own views don't take precedence over the service that you are providing. So Mr. Nichols has the right to hold and act on his beliefs in all other aspects of his life but because governments have to provide non-discriminatory services in that particular scenario, his views can't take precedence over the service.''

Gingell said evidence showed that Nichols knew there were other marriage commissioners who could provide the service but it is not Nichols' service, it is a government-mandated service.

"My point is that whenever we experience discrimination, it doesn't matter that we can later deal with (a different marriage commissioner), a different store or take a different cab if we are disabled. The denial deprives us of the right to equality,'' she said.

The complainant M.J. and his partner B.R., who by tribunal order can only be identified by initials, were married in May 2005 by another marriage commissioner after Nichols, a devout Baptist, declined to perform the ceremony.

"It appears both of the parties had their rights upheld. M.J. received his same-sex civil marriage ceremony on the day he expected by a civil marriage commissioner and Nichols' religious rights were respected and he didn't perform the ceremony,'' said Nichols' lawyer, Mike Megaw.

"The arguments advanced on behalf of the appellant were that Nichols has a religious freedom. That religious freedom was recognized at the tribunal level that found that he had a sincere and genuine religious belief.''

Megaw added Nichols recognizes the complainant in this case has rights as well, in the form of the right to equality based on sex orientation.

"Because there is a clash of those rights, there needs to be a balancing of those rights. The way to balance those rights in Nichols' submission is to permit him to refrain from performing the same-sex marriage and continue on as a marriage commissioner,'' Megaw said.

Citing a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision, Megaw argued that if a religious official cannot be compelled to perform same-sex civil marriages (under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms) then neither can any other official.

"Because in a pluralistic society no one has better rights or more rights. We all have the same rights,'' he said.

Queen's Bench Justice Janet McMurtry reserved her decision.

Marriage commissioner wants courts to reverse human rights tribunal decision on same-sex marriage (http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1037082)

Churches Protest Sexual Festival At Hotel
Saturday, February 7, 2009 8:19 AM
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WORTHINGTON, Ohio — Churches and area residents were upset about a sexual festival called "Winter Wickedness" taking place at a hotel on Friday and Saturday.

The event is being held at the Holiday Inn Columbus-Worthington, located on North High Street. Paper and trash bags covered the doors and windows of the hotel during the event, 10TV's Brittany Westbrook reported.

Dave Daubenmire, of Pass the Salt Ministries, was among the people trying to stop the event from happening.

"The fact that they would bring it into a public venue, not in the privacy of a hotel room but out in a conference room where the next day there could be a banquet in that room or people coming there with their children," Daubenmire said.

Winter Wickedness acknowledged those issues. In the event rules, participants were reminded to respect those who may be offended by the activities and given cleanup instructions.

Opponents of the festival notified Columbus Public Health.

"Once we reviewed the activities taking place we had some concerns and what are doing is our staff is actually on site," said Jose Rodriguez of Columbus Public Health.

The health department also sent a letter to the hotel, reminding the facility about Ohio's laws regarding body piercing and proper disposal of infectious waste, Westbrook reported.

Alliance Hotels & Resorts, which owns the Holiday Inn, decided to maintain the reservation. In a statement to 10TV, Alliance said, "The Holiday Inn brand did not endorse nor approve the reported activities associated with this group. The property has taken every measure to isolate the group to a limited area."

Opponents tried to stop the event with e-mails and phone calls, but Alliance Hotels & Resorts decided to stick to its contractual obligation, Westbrook reported.

A representative for the event spoke to 10TV by phone. She said it is a social and educational event and they brought along their own security to ensure that other guests and employees are not exposed to any of the activities. She also said they do strict checks to make sure no one is under the age of 19.

Churches Protest Sexual Festival At Hotel (http://www.10tv.com/live/content/local/stories/2009/02/07/story_festival_protest.html?sid=102)

Camps of San Diego County, California - A Crime Against Humanity inside the U.S.A.

The articles here below describe one of the largest known child and youth sex trafficking cases in the United States to date. In one of several related cases, hundreds of Mexican girls between 7 and 18 were kidnapped or subjected to false romantic entrapment by organized criminal sex trafficking gangs. Victims were then brought to San Diego County, California. Over a 10 year period these girls were raped by hundreds of men per day in more than 2 dozen home based and agricultural camp based brothels.

A Latina medical doctor employed by a U.S. federal agency provided condoms to the victims for years, and was told by her supervisors not to speak out and organize efforts to rescue the victims. This doctor was ordered under threat of legal action to keep quiet about the mass victimization of children in "rape camps."

When a joint FBI, INS and San Diego Sheriff's raid was finally organized and executed, ten years after local law enforcement first learned about local trafficking, many of the criminal traffickers and johns escaped. The 50 johns and traffickers who were captured were later released when the intimidated child victims refused to accuse their enslavers. Most of the victims were then deported to Mexico without being provided with any victim services.

A number of murdered immigrant teen girls have been found in San Diego, possibly linked to trafficking rings.

The San Diego child sex trafficking case continues to evolve. In June, 2003 one of the key trafficking ringleaders was convicted of a charge that would bring him 18 months in jail. The rural rape camps continue to exist and were filmed by a local TV station (see below).

The San Diego Sex Trafficking Case deserves the full attention of the criminal justice system, social service providers and victim advocates. Previous to the notoriety of this case, anti-trafficking advocates noted that some concerned members of Congress and other decision makers would ask "if 50,000 enslaved persons are trafficked into the U.S. each year, where are they?"

That question still needs to be researched and answered on a national basis. In the present, the San Diego case provides the "smoking gun" that documents the true horror of the Latin America to U.S. trafficking crisis.

The San Diego case represents a large tip of the national trafficking 'iceberg,' and this case must be addressed with aggressive legal zeal. The San Diego child sex trafficking case is a true abomination in the eyes of the creator and in the eyes of the entire the human race!

Failure to deal with this case effectively will send a clear message to traffickers that the U.S. does not care about the lives and mass-rape of the hundreds of 7 to 18 year old girls who have been, and are today, victimized in this international criminal enterprise. To accomplish an end to such trafficking, cross-cultural compassion and an end to anti-immigrant hostility in U.S. society will have to take place. Otherwise, such hostility and apathy will allow traffickers to continue their criminal violence against these victimized women and children with impunity.

I can't post the link because of solicitation.

Quote from: blackeyedpeas on February 07, 2009, 07:15:09 PM

The times are rapidly getting more evil. Things are headed toward everyone having rights - EXCEPT DECENT PEOPLE AND CHRISTIANS.

We are also watching a list of huge changes happening all at once with the ABOMINATION. This should be easy to figure out. There is going to be a parade to PRISON, but nobody knows how many or when. A good percentage of the CRIMINAL PARADE should be PUBLIC OFFICIALS - so-called servants of the people and defenders of the CONSTITUTION.

Brothers and Sisters, Let's get real and wake up!

Pope to visit Jordan mosque during Holy Land tour

By JAMAL HALABY,
Feb 17

AMMAN, Jordan – Pope Benedict XVI will visit Jordan's largest mosque during his first papal tour of the Holy Land in May, a local Roman Catholic priest said Tuesday.

The pope's stop at the Hussein bin Talal Mosque in Amman will be his second visit to a Muslim place of worship since becoming pope in 2005, said Rifat Bader, a Catholic priest in Jordan who is the spokesman for the Jordanian leg of the pope's Holy Land tour. In 2006, Benedict prayed at Turkey's famous Blue Mosque in Istanbul.

"He will also meet there with Muslim leaders and religious scholars at the mosque, underlining the coexistence between religions," Bader told The Associated Press.

The mosque, built in outskirts of Amman nearly four years ago, is named after the late King Hussein, who died in 1999.

Jordan will be the pope's first stop on the Holy Land tour from May 8-15, Bader said. He will also travel to Israel and the West Bank, making stops in cities including Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Bader said discussions were under way to possibly add Gaza on the pope's itinerary.

During his three-day stay in Jordan, the pope will also visit biblical sites including Mount Nebo, where Moses is said to have first seen the promised land, and a spot on the Jordanian River, where Jesus is believed to have been baptized, Bader said.

The pope also plans to hold a public Mass in Jordan, where 3 percent of the country's 5.8 million people are Christians.

Benedict will then travel to Israel, where President Shimon Peres is expected to escort him. Bader said the pope will stop at the recently renovated Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum during his visit to Jerusalem and will meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.

The late Pope John Paul II came to the Holy Land in a 2000 pilgrimage, visiting Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The visit to the Mideast comes at a time of strained relations between the Vatican and Israel. The fragile relations worsened last month when the German pope reinstated an excommunicated bishop who has questioned the extent of the Holocaust. Benedict later condemned the bishop's remarks and spoke out against anti-Semitism.

Relations between the Vatican and the Muslim world have also been tense in recent years. In 2006, Benedict made remarks on Islam and holy war during a speech in Germany that angered many Muslims, leading him to backtrack and declare himself "deeply sorry."

Pope to visit Jordan mosque during Holy Land tour (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090217/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_mideast_pope;_ylt=AgygHGHPhZaar1Nx3bm9KnMLewgF)

Prince of Wales calls for 'bridges' to be built between faiths
26 Feb 2009

The Prince of Wales called for bridges to be built between faiths as he addressed members of a centre for Islamic studies at a special dinner.

He talked of the need for society to develop understanding and find strength in diversity to help overcome "dangerous prejudice".

The Prince was speaking at a reception hosted by The Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, a recognised independent Centre of Oxford University.

Established in 1985 the Centre encourages a better understanding of the culture and civilisation of Islam and of contemporary Muslim societies.

The Centre, of which the Prince is patron, pursues academic excellence through teaching, research and publication, and the cultivation of sustained dialogue and collaboration within the global academic community.

The Prince, who was invited in celebration of his 60th birthday, last night addressed an audience including local dignitaries, scholars and other guests including Jack Straw at the university's Magdalen College.

He told them: "One of the challenges we face is the process of integration which in many ways is a dynamic one, evolved with each successive generation.

"To be successful in developing a truly harmonious society in which everyone's talent can be recognised and developed on its own merits, we have to find the right ways to derive strength from our diversity.

"As inhabitants of this country we all have a role to play in shaping our society on the basis of one fundamental principle and that is understanding."

The Prince said the great faiths needed to concentrate on what they shared in common rather than "an obsession with the differences between them" and the chasms that creates.

He added: "The future surely lies in rediscovering the universal truths that dwell at the heart of these religions.

"All I have ever wanted to do is build bridges that span these chasms."

The Prince said he was delighted by the Centre's work in increasing understanding and breaking down barriers.

He also talked about the Centre's positive response to raising awareness of the need to protect the environment and "human stewardship" of the natural world.

He thanked the Centre for helping conduct research into conservation practices in the Islamic world including methods of preserving rainwater.

At present Centre Fellows teach in a range of departments and faculties of the University of Oxford including Politics, International Relations, Development Studies, Theology, Anthropology, History and Continuing Education.

It attracts visiting scholars from all parts of the Muslim world.

It is currently constructing a new building including a library, auditorium, prayer hall, dining hall and exhibition gallery.

Next year it will begin a scholarship programme for young British Muslims.

Dr Farhan Nizami, the Director of the Centre, paid tribute to the Prince's "guidance and encouragement" and said they owed him a great debt of gratitude.

He said: "These great environmental practices are examples of how the centre is trying to learn from the works of his Royal Highness.

"We wish to contribute to a society where people work together for the common good and equality and mutual respect."

Prince of Wales calls for 'bridges' to be built between faiths (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/4837248/Prince-of-Wales-calls-for-bridges-to-be-built-between-faiths.html)

PERV GROUP PUTS 10G 'HIT' ON ANDY
By FREDRIC U. DICKER
March 9, 2009

ALBANY - A $10,000 In ternet bounty was placed on Attorney General An drew Cuomo's head by a suspected agent of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, The Post has learned.

The shocking death threat by the infamous organization of pederasts was posted three weeks ago on an Internet news-group bulletin board that originated in The Bronx, law-enforcement sources said.

The threat, described by a source as "unprecedented" because it is believed to come from an organization, prompted a sweeping and ongoing criminal probe by the Attorney General's Office and at least one other law-enforcement organization, and subpoenas were issued, sources said.

The "reward" was offered under the headline: "$10,000 to shoot Andrew Cuomo in the face!"

"I am an official of NAMBLA, and I can confirm that we have raised the cash to reward any individual who manages to accomplish this task. Thank you," read the message, a transcript of which was obtained by The Post.

The message, which investigators have linked to an imprisoned pervert with strong NAMBLA ties - and whom Cuomo's office is seeking to keep behind bars under a "civil commitment" law - was spotted by a citizen who brought it to the attention of Verizon, his Internet service provider. Law-enforcement sources declined to reveal the imprisoned man's identity.

But an informant connected to the man's case told investigators NAMBLA is, in fact, out to kill Cuomo, sources said.

"He said he believes the death threat on the Internet is connected to an effort by NAMBLA to kill the attorney general," an investigative source said.

"It is our understanding that people in the, and I hate to call it this, 'pedophile community' are angry at Cuomo's office because he's been making the [Internet service providers] take responsibility for policing child pornography - and he's been very aggressive in seeking to keep NAMBLA types behind bars through civil commitment."

Verizon security officers quickly removed the posting and notified police agencies, including Cuomo's office, sources said.

"An aggressive criminal investigation" was then launched with subpoenas issued targeting the Internet site and the person who sent the message, the sources said.

Security around Cuomo - normally light to nonexistent - was immediately tightened.

The attorney general, who has recently garnered national and international attention through his investigation of huge bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch executives as their firm was being acquired by Bank of America, is now being accompanied during public appearances by several armed investigators who work for his office.

Criminal investigators, working with Verizon, tracked the message to a news group maintained by a woman living in a private home in The Bronx.

The woman denied any knowledge of the message, allowed investigators to examine her personal computer, and was eventually told she was not a suspect, sources said.

"She was clearly not involved," one source said.

Investigators, meanwhile, tried to track the source of the message itself - locating a partial e-mail address - but computer-tracing efforts "led to a dead end," according to the source.

Cuomo's office has kept at least 75 convicted sexual predators, including several linked to NAMBLA, in state prison under a tough, new civil-commitment law approved in 2007. The measure allows sexually violent offenders to be confined even when their sentences would otherwise be up.

A Cuomo spokesman called the threat "an ongoing security matter that we take very seriously."

Security surrounding public officials is a sensitive subject rarely discussed openly, but in early 2007, after then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer authorized State Police protection for former Gov. George Pataki, it was revealed that Pataki had been the subject of 146 "high-risk" threats during his 12 years in office.

NAMBLA, once a publicly active organization with chapters in New York City and on the West Coast, has largely been driven underground by a series of criminal prosecutions, civil lawsuits and aggressive infiltration by law-enforcement organizations.

PERV GROUP PUTS 10G 'HIT' ON ANDY (http://www.nypost.com/seven/03092009/news/columnists/perv_group_puts_10g_hit_on_andy_158663.htm)

Violent Intruders Attack Brooklyn Synagogues
Adar 15, 5769 / March 11, '09
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

(IsraelNN.com) For the second time in less than a week, a packed Brooklyn, New York, synagogue has been the target of threats of violence by intruders.

On Monday, according to Yeshiva World News, an Arab man in his mid-30s entered Boro Park's 'Sephardish Shul' and began making proclamations of jihad. Members of a Jewish volunteer security organization, the Shomrim, apprehended the threatening individual. They held him until police officers arrived at the scene, arresting the suspect. Detectives spoke with the "Middle Eastern man" at a station house near the synagogue.

Police officials reminded the community, "If you see something, say something." Security in Brooklyn's heavily Jewish Boro Park area has been stepped up during the Purim holiday.

Just two days earlier, a man wielding a butcher's knife burst into a Kerestir Chassidic synagogue in Williamsburg. He initially turned up unarmed and began throwing soda cans at the gathered worshipers, which hit one of them, and returned shortly thereafter with the bladed weapon.

The attacker was prevented from using the butcher's knife on anyone by a young man, described as a "friend" of the knife-wielding intruder, who then fled together with him.

The recent attacks come just over a month after Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn was targeted in a series of English-language jihadist videos posted on the Internet. The videos and accompanying texts singled out "770," but also intimated that all Orthodox Jewish organizations were equally worthy of attack by Muslims. The threatening material included images of the 770 synagogue and study house, pictures of the police van out front, and indications of which parts of the building are crowded at what times.

The source of the thinly-veiled threats, a group called Revolution Muslim, is domestic to the United States.

Violent Intruders Attack Brooklyn Synagogues (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/130358)

Teen kills 15 in Germany before taking own life
Vanessa Gera, Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 37 mins ago

WINNENDEN, Germany – A 17-year-old wielding a Beretta 9 mm pistol burst into classrooms at his former high school Wednesday and gunned down students — some of whom died with their pencils still in hand — in a rampage that ended with 15 dead before he took his own life, authorities said.

There was no immediate indication of motive, but the gunman's victims were primarily female: eight of nine students killed were girls, and all three teachers were women. Three men were killed later as the suspect, identified by police as Tim K., fled.

"I heard two shots and then screaming," said a 15-year-old student who gave her name only as Betty. "At first I thought it was a joke, but then someone called 'Run, run!' and I saw students jumping out of the windows and took off running."

The gunman — dressed in all black — took students in the first classroom completely by surprise, evidenced by the morbid scene that awaited the first officers to arrive, said regional police director Ralf Michelfelder.

"Children were sitting at their tables, with pencils still in their hands, their heads fallen over on the table," he said. "Most of them had shots in their head — it must have all happened in seconds."

The dark-haired teen, shown wearing glasses in pictures on German television, apparently took the weapon from his father's collection of 16 firearms along with a "multitude of ammunition," police said. His father was a member of the local gun club and kept the weapons locked away except for the pistol, which was kept in the bedroom.

Police said the suspect was a German teen who was a below-average student at the school of about 1,000 pupils, but managed to graduate last year.

"He was lower than average, and he wasn't engaged in school events," Michelfelder said.

A sister of the suspect attends the school.

Police received an emergency call from the school at 9:33 a.m. The first officers responded about two minutes later, said Baden Wuerttemburg state interior minister Heribert Rech. They heard shots on the second floor and ran upstairs, catching a glimpse of the suspect on a staircase, Rech said.

He fired a shot at the police and then fled, killing his last victims in the school — two teachers — on his way out, Rech said.

"Our officers were very quick," Rech said. "Through the immediate police intervention they were able to prevent a further escalation of the crime."

After fleeing the school, the suspect ran into downtown Winnenden, a town of 28,000, where he shot two people walking by a psychiatric clinic, killing one and wounding the other, police said.

The gunman then hijacked a car and forced the driver to head south while threatening his life from the back seat, triggering a land and air manhunt involving 700 police officers and four helicopters, according to Stuttgart prosecutors.

The driver swerved off the road to avoid a police checkpoint and managed to escape, while the suspect fled from the car into an industrial area in the town of Wendlingen, about 24 miles (40 kilometers) from Winnenden.

He entered a car dealership, where he shot and killed his final victims — a salesman and a man shopping for a car — and then went back outside, prosecutors said.

He opened fire on police swarming the area, who shot back and hit the suspect, who fell wounded to the ground, Michelfelder said.

But he got back up, reloaded his weapon, and fled into what turned out to be a dead-end street. Police found him there dead, having apparently shot himself in the head.

Two police officers suffered serious, but not life-threatening, injuries.

The death toll was close to that of Germany's worst school shooting.

In the 2002 shooting, 19-year-old Robert Steinhaeuser shot and killed 12 teachers, a secretary, two students and a police officer before turning his gun on himself in the Gutenberg high school in Erfurt, in eastern Germany.

Steinhaeuser, who had been expelled for forging a doctor's note, was a gun club member licensed to own weapons. The attack led Germany to raise the age for owning recreational firearms from 18 to 21.

German Chancellor Angel Merkel called the shooting "a horrific crime."

"It is hard to put into words what happened today, but our sadness and sympathy goes out to the victims' families," Merkel said.

The European Parliament, meeting in Strasbourg, France, stood in silence for a minute, to honor the victims.

"It is our task as responsible politicians in the European Union and, indeed, all the member states to do our utmost that such deeds can be prevented," said EU assembly president Hans-Gert Pottering, a German.

Teen kills 15 in Germany before taking own life (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090311/ap_on_re_eu/eu_germany_school_attack)

'Sex-y' sermons cause stir in rural Alabama
March 11, 2009 - 8:58 AM
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

GOOD HOPE, Ala. - It's one thing for a church in a big city like Dallas or Atlanta to tackle the ticklish topic of sex. It blends in with the urban scene.

It's another thing when a small-town congregation puts up billboards with the phrase "Great sex: God's way" on rural highways to promote a sermon series. You can't even legally buy beer in Cullman County, and a preacher is talking about S-E-X on Sunday morning?

Daystar Church, whose congregation has grown dramatically under pastor Jerry Lawson, has run up against the sensibilities of a conservative north Alabama community with a monthlong focus on sex.

Sex just isn't an appropriate topic for church, some say, and others are upset over the church's signs, which advertise the sermon series and accompanying Web site.

"It's really stirred up the people here," said Good Hope town clerk Joann Jones.

Evangelist Roland Belew, a self-described fundamentalist and former trucker who now preaches at a truck stop, said the whole idea goes against the teaching of New Testament apostles.

"Paul said preach the Gospel," said Belew. "Talking about sex ain't gonna get nobody to heaven."

The controversy is a bit ironic considering the church's overall point is about as straight-laced as they come: That God intends for sex to be enjoyed solely within a heterosexual marriage, and that anything else - adultery, pornography, homosexuality, even "sexual arousal" outside of marriage - is sin.

Churches have been talking about sex and sexual purity more often. In November, the Rev. Ed Young of the Fellowship Church based in Dallas drew nationwide attention by challenging married couples to have sex for seven straight days in the name of strengthening marriages.

But an expert who tracks evangelical Christianity, Larry Eskridge, said few are addressing the subject as directly as Daystar.

"It sounds like an example of one of those church-growth, market-savvy campaigns going out to an area where you wouldn't normally see it," said Eskridge, associate director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College in Illionis. "I could see where in that particular setting, that could raise some eyebrows."

City Hall has gotten a few complaints about the church's sexy signs from a handful of people like Belew, 71, who preaches in a trailer off Interstate 65.

Even the 22-year-old mayor, Corey Harbison, worries that the "great sex" message will force parents to talk about the birds and the bees with inquisitive young children before either is ready.

"I understand what they're trying to do. I get it," said Harbison. "(But) some people just aren't ready for that. Good Hope is just a good old, country town."

Lawson, the pastor at the center of the debate, said the purpose of his sermons and the billboards was to get Christian parents talking to their kids about sex before they learn too much immorality from TV or playground buddies.

"I think some people are kind of missing the point," said Lawson.

Lawson is the lead pastor at Daystar Church, which is affiliated with the Church of God and draws about 2,000 people on Saturday nights and Sunday to its $5.7 million campus on a hilltop beside I-65. People come from as far away as the northern suburbs of Birmingham, 45 miles to the south.

The church's attendance is slightly larger than the entire population of Good Hope, which has three other churches in its town limits and five others within a stone's throw. The community is a mix of farm homes, middle-class subdivisions, mobile home parks and a few McMansions.

Daystar was a country church called Glory Hill Church of God when Lawson arrived nearly nine years ago. The church "relaunched" itself in the pattern of an urban megachurch in 2002 - there's Starbucks coffee in the lobby and video screens everywhere - and took off.

"In the next seven years 100 people became 2,000 people," said Lawson, who sports the hip, young megachurch look - short hair, a goatee and dark clothes, minus a tie.

The church has a second-hand clothes shop for needy neighbors, and Lawson said it sends out 100 volunteers at a time for local work days. Members even are trying to raise $10,000 to put new sod on the baseball field at the local high school.

But it's the "great sex" series - timed to coincide with Valentine's Day - that got people talking about Daystar. More than anything, people noticed the blue billboard along Alabama 69 with the "GreatSexGodsWay.com" Web address beside a drawing of a bride and groom.

Belew worries that vulnerable teenagers will get the idea from the sign that God says it's OK for them to have sex.

"It's a delicate subject. Preach the word of God and people will live right and get right," said Belew, who has a big wooden cross and U.S. flag in his front yard.

The mayor said some longtime residents already were a bit leery of Daystar because it's gotten so big so quickly, drawing members from other cities and dwarfing everything else in town. The focus on sex - particularly the billboards - turned some off even more.

Lawson said his sermons are more than marketing at Daystar, which dreams of opening satellite churches in big cities. The church needs to be out front on the topic of sex when even kids' TV shows depict illicit relationships and homosexuality, he said.

"It comes down to God saying the most healthy place for sex and the only right place for sex is within a marriage - one man, one woman, and one marriage," Lawson said.

Ed Scarborough's landscaping company is almost directly beneath one of Daystar's "great sex" billboards. He doesn't go to Lawson's church, and he likes the idea behind the signs and the sermons. But still ....

"For Christian people I think it's portraying the message God sent in the Bible," Scarborough said. "But I do wonder if a non-Christian would get it."

'Sex-y' sermons cause stir in rural Alabama (http://www.gazette.com/articles/sex_49724___article.html/church_people.html)

Coed showers going statewide?
Family group says 'gender identity' bill threatens women, children
Posted: March 11, 2009
11:35 pm Eastern

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

A "gender identity" plan for coed showers, locker rooms and other public facilities already implemented in one suburban Maryland county could be going statewide, according to alarmed members of a pro-family organization.

Maryland Citizens for a Responsible Government says a measure is pending in the state legislature that is similar to Montgomery County's permissive ordinance and now presents "one of the greatest threats to privacy, safety and security that Maryland residents have ever known."

"The proposed law adds a broadly defined category of 'gender identity' to the state's existing anti-discrimination law," the organization said in an alert. "Because the bill's broad definition of 'gender identity' includes 'expression and behavior,' men are not required to have undergone a sex change operation."

Ruth Jacobs, chief of the organization, said, "The effect of this bill is to give special rights to men who want to dress like women, but completely disregards the safety of vulnerable women and children.

"Restrooms and showers will be opened up to cross-dressing or female affirming men, thereby allowing undressing in front of women and children in a woman's locker room," she said.

"We believe that the bill should be dropped," she said. "Even the senator sponsoring the bill admits that he does not understand gender identity issues."

The pending proposal, HB474/SB566, which has begun working its way through the state House already, would impose fines for "discriminating" in public accommodations and allows imprisonment and fines for housing violations.

The bill provides a "private cause of action" giving any cross-dressing employee the right to sue employers in state court, which could result in judgments of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the citizen group said.

MCRG said the proposal would force individuals, employers, religious institutions, roommates, schools and public accommodation facilities "to ignore reality and disregard a person's legitimate 'assigned sex at birth.'"

"Johns Hopkins Hospital stopped sex reassignment surgeries because it does not cure Gender Identity Disorder, yet HB474/SB566 enforces ideology over opinions of respected medical professionals and the needs and concerns of citizens," said a 10-point MCRG fact sheet.

The measure also would protect a circumstance that changes, the group said.

"How can employees and citizens know what 'gender choice' is being made or even which pronouns 'should be used?'" the group said. "'Appearance, expression and behavior' can change from moment to moment and with each different situation."

Significantly, the opposition group points out, it could create dangers.

"With the bill's vague wording, all an adult male has to do to gain legal access to facilities normally reserved for women and girls is to indicate, verbally or non-verbally, that he has a sense of being female at the moment," the organization said.

"If HB474/SB566 passes, the use of sex (male or female biology) in such diverse areas as all-girls’ schools, school games, sports teams, bathrooms, locker areas, showers, or in sleeping and living areas in homes, prisons, and shelters will become a crime and subject to compensatory damages up to $400,000, as well as punitive damages," the organization said.

"In Montgomery County, women were afraid and outraged when a man in a blue dress went into female locker areas in a health club. He would have been protected under this proposed law," the group said.

It was the Montgomery County measure that originally had enraged citizens' groups. Nearly 27,000 county residents signed petitions to allow voters to decide on the county's similar plan when it was adopted by elected officials.

The officials, however, spent more than $80,000 on legal fees to obtain a court ruling that the petition signature number provided to organizers was incorrect, so the initiative ultimately was not put before voters.

"Bills such as these will require schools as 'public accommodations' to begin tolerance training. In Montgomery County, children are taught that transgenderism is doing anything outside of the gender norm and that one can change their body to match the way they feel. There is no mention of the risk of steroids, that gender identity confusion is a disorder or that some transsexuals regret their decision. No one has studied the effect on a child’s developing gender identity of having a kindergarten teacher begin the school year as a male and end as a female. HB474/SB566 plays Russian roulette with vulnerable children," the group said.

According to state records, the bill's goals are to begin "prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity with regard to public accommodations, housing, and employment; prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in commercial leasing; … (and) making specified remedies and procedures regarding discrimination applicable to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity."

Game for 6-year-olds pushes same-sex marriage
Online version of children's classic features new twist

The online version of a popular board game from many Americans' childhood includes an option for players to choose homosexual marriage and child-rearing as a way of life.

Through the Shockwave.com website, even children can download and play a free trial version of The Game of Life, the first game ever created by Mr. Milton Bradley in 1860.

The player's first option in the online version is to choose a persona based on pictures that clearly depict men and women. Shortly thereafter, the game invites players to choose a spouse, regardless of the potential spouse's sex.

One concerned mother wrote to WND about her experience with downloading the game to play with her daughter.

"You know how kids are," the mother told WND. "My daughter noticed right away (even before I did) and clicked on one of the girls instead of one of the men and then asked, 'Mom, how come I can marry a woman?' And then that led into a lot more questions that, quite frankly, I was not ready to talk to my 6-year-old about."

WND followed the mother's example and played a game as "Jennifer," who chose to marry another woman. The course of the game eventually added four children to WND's lesbian couple.

The mother claims to have posted an objection on the game's review board, only to have it removed by an administrator.

"I went back to the web site and left a very respectful review of the game just stating that this kind of thing should be left out of kids' games, and the Shockwave.com administrator removed my post, stating it was inappropriate," the mother told WND. "I had no idea how insidious they were being with pushing the homosexual agenda."

WND again followed the mother's example, posting the following comment under the screen name "newseditor1":

"Your guidelines ask us to 'keep your language safe for the kids,' yet here's a game where children may choose homosexual marriage and child-rearing," WND wrote. "Many sections of society accept this as normative, but many also would consider this too mature a theme for children. Others would consider this downright offensive. Is it appropriate to include, for example, lesbianism in this game?"

Shortly thereafter, WND's comment was posted, but the word "homosexual" was altered to "****sexual," presumably because the stand-alone prefix "homo" is sometimes used in a derogatory fashion.

WND sought comment from Hasbro, the company that now owns the rights to Milton Bradley games, but received no response.

The original 1860 Milton Bradley game, known as the Checkered Game of Life, was completely redesigned in 1960, bearing almost no resemblance to the original. The new game board included the winding track, spinner and plastic buildings familiar to many.

The redesign also included car game pieces that could be filled with plastic pegs representing a player's growing "family." The board game did not prevent players in any way from placing two pink or two blue pegs in the front seat, thus depicting a homosexual couple.

Webster's dictionary redefines 'marriage'
Now includes references to same-sex relationships

One of the nation's most prominent dictionary companies has resolved the argument over whether the term "marriage" should apply to same-sex duos or be reserved for the institution that has held families together for millennia: by simply writing a new definition.

"I was shocked to see that Merriam-Webster changed their definition of the word 'marriage,' a word which has referred exclusively to a contract between a man and a woman for centuries. It has now added same sex," YouTube user Eric B. noted to WND.

"The 1992 Webster's Dictionary does not mention same sex at all," he wrote.

The new definition references "marriage" as the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife. But the definition also includes "the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage."

One commenter on the YouTube site said it's just part of the campaign by homosexual activists to take control of the definition of the word and make it align with their goals.

"The word 'marriage' has never been synonymous with same sex relationships," said the forum participant. "What is happening is the meaning is being changed to trigger it becoming synonymous, not the other way round."

A dictionary version from 1913 that has been posted online not only didn't mention same-sex "marriage," it supplemented its definition of traditional marriage with references from the Bible.

Learn here what "The Gay Agenda" means to you, your family, your church and your nation!

"Marriage," it said, is "the act of marrying, or the state of being married; legal union of a man and a woman for life, as husband and wife … Marriage is honorable in all. Heb. xiii.4."

It also references a quote from "Matt. xxii. 2," "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king which made a marriage for his son."

But today, even the basic Webster's New World College Dictionary lists "same-sex marriage," and the Learner's Dictionary cites "a similar relationship between people of the same sex."

A WND e-mail requesting a comment or an explanation from Webster on its process of changing definitions did not generate a response.

Rick Warren disavows support for Prop. 8

California mega-church pastor and author of The Purpose Driven Life Rick Warren says he apologized to his homosexual friends for making comments in support of California's Proposition 8, and now claims he "never once even gave an endorsement" of the marriage amendment.

Monday night on CNN's Larry King Live, Pastor Rick Warren apologized for his support of Prop. 8, California's voter-approved marriage protection amendment, saying he has "never been and never will be" an "anti-gay or anti-gay marriage activist."

"During the whole Proposition 8 thing, I never once went to a meeting, never once issued a statement, never -- never once even gave an endorsement in the two years Prop. 8 was going," Warren claimed.

However, just two weeks before the November 4 Prop. 8 vote, Pastor Warren issued a clear endorsement of the marriage amendment while speaking to church members. "We support Proposition 8 -- and if you believe what the Bible says about marriage, you need to support Proposition 8," he said.

The following is a complete transcript of Warren's comments just weeks before the Prop. 8 election:

"The election's coming just in a couple of weeks, and I hope you're praying about your vote. One of the propositions, of course, that I want to mention is Proposition 8, which is the proposition that had to be instituted because the courts threw out the will of the people. And a court of four guys actually voted to change a definition of marriage that has been going for 5,000 years.

"Now let me say this really clearly: we support Proposition 8 -- and if you believe what the Bible says about marriage, you need to support Proposition 8. I never support a candidate, but on moral issues I come out very clear.

"This is one thing, friends, that all politicians tend to agree on. Both Barack Obama and John McCain, I flat-out asked both of them: what is your definition of marriage? And they both said the same thing -- it is the traditional, historic, universal definition of marriage: one man and one woman, for life. And every culture for 5,000 years, and every religion for 5,000 years, has said the definition of marriage is between one man and a woman.

"Now here's an interesting thing. There are about two percent of Americans [who] are homosexual or gay/lesbian people. We should not let two percent of the population determine to change a definition of marriage that has been supported by every single culture and every single religion for 5,000 years.

"This is not even just a Christian issue -- it's a humanitarian and human issue that God created marriage for the purpose of family, love, and procreation.

"So I urge you to support Proposition 8, and pass that word on. I'm going to be sending out a note to pastors on what I believe about this. But everybody knows what I believe about it. They heard me at the Civil Forum when I asked both Obama and McCain on their views."

During his CNN interview on Monday, Warren expressed regret for backing Prop. 8. "There were a number of things that were put out. I wrote to all my gay friends -- the leaders that I knew -- and actually apologized to them. That never got out," he admitted.

Additionally, Pastor Warren said he did not want to comment on or criticize the Iowa Supreme Court's decision last week to legalize same-sex "marriage" because it was "not his agenda."

Bryan Fischer with the Idaho Values Alliance says Warren is abdicating his biblical role as a pastor. "For Pastor Warren to say that shoring up marriage is not something that's on his agenda is just something that's hard to believe for somebody who believes the Bible is our rule for faith and practice," Fischer notes.

Dr. Jim Garlow, the senior pastor of Skyline Wesleyan Church in the San Diego suburb of La Mesa, helped spearhead the Prop. 8 effort in California. Garlow admits he is confused and troubled by Pastor Warren's decision to apologize for supporting Prop. 8.

"Historically when institutions and individuals back away from convictional biblical truth, it is driven primarily by one single factor -- and that is the respectability of other people. In other words, much more caring about what other people think about them than what God thinks about them," he concludes.

Pastor Warren did not respond to a request from OneNewsNow for an interview.

You made a difference: ChristianU2uber
Concerned readers help police find boy persecuted on YouTube

A 12-year-old boy who had been mercilessly ridiculed and even told to kill himself by members of the YouTube.com community has removed himself and his videos from the website, thanks in part to people reporting the cruel treatment to the authorities.

As WND reported, the boy, known for certain only by his screen name ChristianU2uber, made a series of videos about himself and about his faith for a popular video-sharing website, YouTube, which generated over a million views and tens of thousands of comments.

His video "Gay Marriage – Is It Right or Wrong?", however, started a fierce backlash from the online community, as harsh and often profane comments poured in ridiculing the boy, calling him names and even calling for the boy's death.

"Kill Christianity, and then kill yourself," responded a YouTube community member identified as greenacidfusion.

A commenter calling himself WizzyBoy 520 added, "How do you know the Bible isn't full of lies? You, just like everyone who is against gay marriage, is a mentally retarded bigot. No exceptions. Now go to h---."

The response was so brutal, many WND readers, bloggers and concerned YouTubers began seeking protection for the boy, including intervention by the police.

Upon hearing the outcry, WND has learned, Internet crime specialists in Texas were able to locate the boy and his family and persuade ChristianU2uber to remove the videos and receive counseling.

"I wanted to update you that we have located this 12-year-old, and we spoke to him and his parents," said Sgt. Chris Meehan of the Collin County Sheriff's Office's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, in an email. "The minor has decided to remove his videos from his site and delete his YouTube account. Further, we will be providing him with counseling to get through this matter."

Meehan explained that the attention generated by WND and concerned bloggers resulted in "numerous cybertips reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding ChristianU2uber."

"How many times have we heard about – after the fact – the warning signs were there on websites, Facebook, MySpace, where if people had taken the time, perhaps tragedy could have been prevented," wrote Lyndon Evans on his FOCUS blog, when he learned of the treatment ChristianU2uber was getting on YouTube. "Please, contact whoever you feel can help this young man."

Evans, who publishes news links, blogs and other information of interest to lesbian, "gay," bisexual and transgender readers, was joined by several voices in the LGBT community in issuing a call to help, not condemn, ChristianU2uber.

"In the world of Internet blogs and commentary, there's a wide field upon which the left, right and center can mix it up, argue and point up and hammer out their differences – sometimes with the use of fairly harsh language," writes Kilian Melloy, a contributor to Boston's EDGE. "But recently, both left and right seem to have come to an agreement in the case of a 12-year-old boy identified as ChristianU2uber."

"The consensus," Melloy continues, "ChristianU2uber, also known as Scott, needed some form of intervention on his behalf, given the tone and tenor of his postings and other Internet communications, as well as the often rough-and-tumble comments that his postings have drawn from anonymous users."

According to Sgt. Meehan, many people heeded that call for intervention, and Scott – if that's ChristianU2uber's real name – has stepped out of YouTube's harsh spotlight for now, with others around to help him.

"I know that you and numerous others have expressed concern over his well-being and safety," Meehan wrote to WND. "I can tell you that he is doing well, and he will receive any help he needs to deal with any issues he is having."

______________________

The ones that need to be tracked down and counseled are those that were attacking this young man.

Flags Over Nazareth

Islamists Prepare For Papal Visit
By David Bedein & Samuel Sokol, Middle East Correspondents
Friday, May 08, 2009

Nazareth, Israel — Next Thursday, May 14, Pope Benedict XVI will visit Nazareth and appear at the Church of the Annunciation.

The Muslims of Nazareth are split in their reactions, but some have responded viscerally.

Multiple Islamic signs, in both Arabic and English, with some bearing the image of the Dome of the Rock, have been hung in the large plaza outside of the church in anticipation of the Pope’s arrival.

One such sign reads: “And whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers.”

While another sign reads: “In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful Say (O Muhammad): He is Allah, (the) One and Only Allah, the Eternal, Absolute. He begetteth not nor was He begotten And there is none Like unto him,” in a quote attributed to the Quran.

As The Bulletin reported on April 21, Islamists in Nazareth have handed out thousands of flyers denouncing the Pope and stating that he is unwelcome.

“We announce from Nazareth that we are oppose to the Pope’s visit. A person who cursed the prophet, who stood at the head of the effort to convert Muslims in Darfur, Indonesia and the Muslim world, attacked Islam, praised America and drew near and fraternized with the butcher of Gaza is unwanted here,” the flyer read.

There has been no action on the part of the municipality to remove these signs prior to the Pope’s arrival.

Flags Over Nazareth (http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/05/08/news/world/doc4a0418e146df8993019064.txt)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Matthew 12:31-32 "Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. 32 "Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.

Sri Lanka artillery barrage kills 378, doctor says
By KRISHAN FRANCIS, Associated Press Writer Krishan Francis, Associated Press Writer Sun May 10, 2:15 pm ET

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – An unrelenting hail of artillery in Sri Lanka's war zone killed at least 378 civilians, according to a government doctor who survived the attack as shells flew near the makeshift hospital. More than 100 of the victims were children, the U.N. said Sunday.

A rebel-linked Web site blamed the attack on the government, while the military accused the beleaguered Tamil Tigers of shelling their own territory to gain international sympathy and force a cease-fire.

The attack marked the bloodiest assault on ethnic Tamil civilians since the civil war flared again more than three years ago. Health officials said a hospital in the war zone was overwhelmed by casualties, and the death toll was expected to rise.

Reports of the fighting are difficult to verify because the government bars journalists and aid workers from the war zone, but the U.N. confirmed a heavy toll from the attack.

"It seems beyond dispute that hundreds of civilians were killed overnight including more than 100 children," U.N. spokesman Gordon Weiss said.

The first shells slammed into the tiny strip of rebel-controlled area along the northeast coast Saturday evening, soon after a Red Cross ship that had been evacuating wounded civilians left the area, health officials said.

About 50,000 civilians are crowded into the 2.4 mile- (4 kilometer) long strip of coast along with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam fighters, who have been fighting for 25 years for a homeland for minority Tamils.

Artillery pounded the area throughout the night, forcing thousands to huddle in makeshift bunkers, said Dr. V. Shanmugarajah, a health official in the region.

Hours after the attack, the dead and wounded continued to pour into the hospital, he said. As of Sunday afternoon, the bodies of 378 civilians had been brought in and were being buried by volunteers, but the death toll was likely far higher since many families buried their slain relatives where they fell, he said.

The rebel-linked TamilNet Web site said rescue workers had counted 1,200 civilians killed in the attack. Among the dead, was the rebels' military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan, according to TamilNet.

Bodies were laid out in rows on the mud outside the hospital, some of their faces covered with mats and sheets, according to photos from the area. One small boy was stripped to the waist, his head covered in a bloody bandage and his mouth agape.

The hospital was struggling to cope with the 1,122 wounded civilians.

The government had recently sent medical supplies, but a shortage of physicians, nurses and aides made treatment difficult, Shanmugarajah said.

"We are doing the first aid and some surgeries as quickly as we can. We are doing what is possible. The situation is overwhelming; nothing is within our control," he said.

More than half the hospital staff did not turn up for work because their homes were attacked and many of the wounded went untreated for more than 24 hours, said another health official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The shelling had subsided early Sunday, but a new bombardment began about 6 p.m., the official said.

Sri Lanka artillery barrage kills 378, doctor says (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090510/ap_on_re_as/as_sri_lanka_civil_war/print;_ylt=AqKmHYM8f8C8qbN8t3G2gDT9xg8F;_ylu=X3oDMTB1MjgxN2UzBHBvcwMxNARzZWMDdG9vbHMtdG9wBHNsawNwcmludA--)

Home: No place for Bible study
County demands pastor spend thousands on 'Major Use' permit to host friends
Posted: May 22, 2009
5:13 pm Eastern

By Drew Zahn
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

A San Diego pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a county official and warned they will face escalating fines if they continue to hold Bible studies in their home.

The couple, whose names are being withheld until a demand letter can be filed on their behalf, told their attorney a county government employee knocked on their door on Good Friday, asking a litany of questions about their Tuesday night Bible studies, which are attended by approximately 15 people.

"Do you have a regular weekly meeting in your home? Do you sing? Do you say 'amen'?" the official reportedly asked. "Do you say, 'Praise the Lord'?"

The pastor's wife answered yes.

She says she was then told, however, that she must stop holding "religious assemblies" until she and her husband obtain a Major Use Permit from the county, a permit that often involves traffic and environmental studies, compliance with parking and sidewalk regulations and costs that top tens of thousands of dollars.

And if they fail to pay for the MUP, the county official reportedly warned, the couple will be charged escalating fines beginning at $100, then $200, $500, $1000, "and then it will get ugly."

Remind the world who's really in charge with the "Worship GOD, not GOV" magnetic bumper sticker from WND.

Dean Broyles of the Western Center for Law & Policy, which has been retained to represent the couple, told WND the county's action not only violates religious land-use laws but also assaults both the First Amendment's freedom of assembly and freedom of religion.

"The First Amendment, in part, reads, 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,'" Broyles said. "And that's the key part: 'prohibiting the free exercise.' We believe this is a substantial government burden on the free exercise of religion."

He continued, "If one's home is one's castle, certainly you would the think the free exercise of religion, of all places, could occur in the home."

Broyles confirmed the county official followed through on his threat. The pastor and his wife received a written warning ordering the couple to "cease/stop religious assembly on parcel or obtain a major use permit."

"The Western Center for Law and Policy is troubled by this draconian move to suppress home Bible studies," said the law center in a statement. "If the current trends in our nation continue, churches may be forced underground. If that happens, believers will once again be forced to meet in homes. If homes are already closed by the government to assembly and worship, where then will Christians meet?"

On a personal note, Broyles added, "I've been leading Bible studies in my home for 13 years in San Diego County, and I personally believe that home fellowship Bible studies are the past and future of the church. … If you look at China, the church grew from home Bible studies. I'm deeply concerned that if in the U.S. we are not able to meet in our homes and freely practice our religion, then we may be worse off than China."

Broyles also explained to WND that oppressive governments, such as communist China or Nazi Germany, worked to repress home fellowships, labeling them the "underground church" or "subversive groups," legally compelling Christians to meet only in sanctioned, government-controlled "official" churches.

"Therein lies my concern," Broyles said. "If people can't practice their religious beliefs in the privacy of their own homes with a few of their friends, that's an egregious First Amendment violation."

WND contacted a spokeswoman for San Diego County, who acknowledged the description of the incident seemed "bizarre," but who was unable to locate the details of the account. She simply could not provide comment yet, she said, until she could become familiar with the case.

Broyles said the WCLP is nearly ready to file a demand letter with the county to release the pastor and his wife from the requirement to obtain the expensive permit. If the county refuses, Broyles said, the WCLP will consider a lawsuit in federal court.

Broyles also told WND the pastor and his wife are continuing to hold the Bible study

Gay issues may splinter churches this summer

www.debka.com/

The nation's mainline Protestant denominations have quarreled for years over the role of gay men and lesbians in church life, but those debates promise to grow even more intense and acrimonious this summer.

The conflicts, which come as California and other states wage legal fights over same-sex marriage, could well influence whether some of the religious denominations remain intact or splinter into smaller factions.

For the faithful in a number of American churches, the hard-fought legal battle over civil marriage for gay and lesbian couples runs parallel to religious struggles that are strikingly similar and often just as heated.

One of the most visible denominational skirmishes will occur in July, when leaders of the 2.2-million-member Episcopal Church consider proposals at their national convention in Anaheim to sanction a religious rite for blessing same-sex unions and ease restrictions on the ordination of gay and lesbian bishops.

If approved, the steps could further alienate theological conservatives, giving them reason to join four Episcopal dioceses and hundreds of parishes that split last year to form a separate church.

The country's largest Lutheran denomination, meanwhile, is scheduled in August to consider a long-anticipated statement on human sexuality that, among various elements, says that Christian tradition recognizes marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman.

Even as they acknowledge deep divisions over homosexuality, members of the 4.7-million member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will decide at their meeting in Minneapolis whether they should enable local congregations to recognize same-sex unions and allow "practicing homosexuals" in committed relationships to serve in the ministry.

Other Protestant groups are embroiled in similar struggles, including the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Methodist Church. Another, the American Baptist Churches USA, is scheduled to hold its biennial convention in Pasadena in June but is not expected to consider any action related to same-sex marriage, a spokeswoman said.

But scholars are watching the Episcopalians and Evangelical Lutherans especially closely, seeing them as a gauge for other denominations. The experts are waiting to see if the intensified debate and turmoil leading up to the national conventions produces any consensus on issues that have long divided U.S. Protestants.

"What has been emerging for the last several years is becoming even clearer now: We're on a trajectory toward the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people," said the Rev. Jay Johnson, a professor of theology at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley and director of academic research at its Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry.

But Johnson added: "It may mean, when there are breakthroughs in these churches, we see more breakaways."

U.S. Christians remain stubbornly split over homosexuality. One recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 56% of all mainline Protestants believe it should be accepted by society. Just 26% of Evangelical Protestants felt that way.

Few denominations have been as torn by the issue as the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion, a 77-million-member fellowship. Theological conservatives are a minority in the Episcopal Church but a large majority among Anglicans worldwide. The conflict between church liberals and conservatives escalated in 2003 with the consecration of an openly gay priest, V. Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire. Amid pressure from traditionalists within the U.S. church and Anglican officials elsewhere, Episcopal leaders agreed at their last General Convention in 2006 to urge local church authorities not to consecrate any bishop "whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church." Still, 700 conservative parishes in the United States and Canada defected last year and formed a new church affiliated with overseas Anglicans.

Now, as Episcopalians approach their July convention, dioceses around the country are submitting resolutions to ease restrictions on gay bishops and to authorize same-sex marriage blessings. The issue of blessings is now left up to local Episcopal authorities.

The convention's host, the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, has tried to send a message by approving a policy at its December convention that gives local priests permission to officiate at rites of blessing for same-sex couples.

"I think it's about time we get about the business of having marriage equality in the church," said the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, bishop of the Los Angeles Diocese. "I am waiting with bated breath to see what happens" at the Anaheim meeting.

Conservative Episcopalians argue that liberalized policies will not only alienate U.S. parishes but will also add further strain to the church's troubled relationship with church leaders in Africa and elsewhere in the global Anglican Communion.

This month, one of the communion's worldwide leadership bodies affirmed its support for moratoriums on consecrating non-celibate gay bishops and on blessings for same-sex couples. The group was led by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the communion's spiritual leader, who is scheduled to attend the Anaheim convention.

Resisting those mandates will "turn up the flame," said the Rt. Rev. Edward S. Little II, bishop of the Diocese of Northern Indiana and a leader in a group of clergy trying to strengthen Episcopal ties to the Anglican Communion. "If we take a step at General Convention that takes us down the road, we will lose more people," he said.

Still, the Episcopal Church's presiding bishop, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, said she believes the U.S. church and its global partners can co-exist even if they disagree on the rights of gay men and lesbians in the church. She also said she did not expect this year's convention, at which bishops, clergy and lay leaders are allowed to vote, to reach a decision on the issue of same-sex blessing rites.

"We're not afraid of people watching over our shoulders," Jefferts Schori said. "We live with diversity on issues that get people charged up."

Evangelical Lutherans are weathering an equally emotional debate as they prepare for their Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis, a gathering that many predict will expose deep divisions over homosexuality and biblical authority.

Denomination leaders will vote on a lengthy social statement -- "Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust" -- that has been eight years in the making and identifies marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Such statements are intended to guide church members in setting policy and forming judgments about social issues, officials have said.

Lutheran leaders also will consider a new policy that asks whether the church "should commit itself" to finding ways to allow local congregations, if they choose, to recognize "life-long, monogamous, same-gender relationships."

Another policy asks whether the church should find a way to allow gay people to serve in ordained positions. Current Lutheran policy bars "practicing homosexuals" from ministry.

Consensus has been elusive, a point readily acknowledged by those who developed the sexuality statement and ministry proposals.

Lutherans Concerned/North America, a gay rights group, praised the sexuality paper for extolling the importance of committed relationships but criticized it for failing to include a marriage blessing for same-sex couples.

"We have . . . a blessing of liturgical furnishings, including chairs and kneelers. Surely we can find our way clear to have a rite of blessing for two people, good Christians, who wish to commit themselves to each other until death do they part," said Phil Soucy, a spokesman for the group.

Conservatives, meanwhile, argue that the any such shift in policy will alter fundamental biblical teachings about homosexuality.

A coalition of Evangelical Lutheran members and congregations issued a letter last week to voting members of the upcoming Churchwide Assembly meeting, urging them to defeat proposals they believe would put the denomination at odds with fellow Lutherans in Asia and Africa.

"There are going to be some congregations that leave," said the Rev. Mark Chavez of the Lutheran Coalition for Reform, a group that supports traditional Lutheran positions on marriage and other issues.

The church's presiding bishop, Mark S. Hanson, said he believes the Evangelical Lutheran tent can accommodate a spectrum of views, even as he laments that the debate has obscured the other works of the church and the common faith shared by Lutherans.

"I'm not naive about the possibilities that those who do not support the decisions will find it difficult to stay in this church body, but I'm committed that we will engage one another," Hanson said.

Church of Scotland upholds gay minister's appointment

www.christiantoday.com/

The Church of Scotland’s General Assembly has upheld the appointment of a gay minister to an Aberdeen church.

After more than four hours of debate last night, the General Assembly voted by 326 to 267 in support of the Rev Scott Rennie.

Rev Rennie’s appointment to Queen’s Cross was backed by most of the church’s members and the Aberdeen Presbytery but faced strong opposition from conservatives within Queen’s Cross and the wider Kirk.

Rev Rennie told Sky News that there were "many" gay ministers in the Church and that homosexuality did not contradict Scripture.

"We don't stone women, we don't stone adulterers, we've moved on from that," he said. "The living word is Jesus and I think the question is, what would Jesus have done?"

Spokesman for the evangelical group Forward Together, the Rev Ian Watson, expressed his disappointment at the vote on BBC Radio Scotland on Sunday.

He said the Church could not adopt a "pick and mix attitude" to Scripture and said he would wait until Monday to reassess his relationship with the Church.

"We haven’t moved. We still adhere to the Westminster confession of faith ... We’ve been where the Church has been since the Reformation," he said.

More than 5,000 Church members reportedly signed a petition calling for the General Assembly to overturn the appointment of Rev Rennie, who plans to live in the manse with his male partner.

The Fellowship of Confessing Churches, a fellowship of conservative congregations in the Church of Scotland, said his appointment would “publicly declare such [homosexual] behaviour as acceptable and honourable for a leader in Christ’s church”.

“This would mark a historic departure for our Church from the teaching of the Christian faith, and a radical deviation from the clear Scriptural pattern that recognises the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman as the only proper place for sexual intimacy - a pattern which our Church has hitherto always publicly affirmed,” the fellowship said in a statement ahead of the vote.

Rev Rennie, who was previously married and has a child, is currently at Brechin Cathedral where he has been for the last 10 years.

Mandatory 'gay' day for K-5 students
Board imposes homosexual curriculum on classes
Posted: May 28, 2009
11:50 pm Eastern

By Chelsea Schilling
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

'And Tango Makes Three' book about homosexual male penguins who name their chick Tango because 'It takes two to make a Tango.'

A California school district has approved a mandatory homosexual curriculum for children as young as 5 – and parents will not be allowed to remove their children from the lessons.

The mandatory program, officially titled "LGBT Lesson #9," was approved May 26 by the Alameda County Board of Education by a vote of 3-2. Students from kindergarten through fifth grade will learn about "tolerance" for the homosexual lifestyle beginning next year.

The curriculum is in addition to the school's current anti-bullying program and is estimated to cost $8,000 for curriculum and training.

Parents will not be given an opportunity to opt-out of lessons that go against their religious beliefs. Some parents are threatening to sue the school board and mount a recall. Opponents presented a petition with 468 signatures from people who don't want the homosexual lessons in the curriculum.

At the board meeting, parent Julie Kim said, "The topics covered in this curriculum for all the grades should be left up to the parent to discuss with their children."

The district's legal counsel recommended against giving parents an opportunity to opt out of the lessons, claiming only health or sex education topics require opt-out provisions:

[T]he most prudent course of action for Alameda Unified School District's Board of Education in regards to the proposed lesson is to recommend providing notice to parents, not to allow an opt out of the instruction.
The school district claims it will re-assess the curriculum, but only after it has been in place for a full year.

According to the Island of Alameda, trustee Tracy Jensen addressed a crowd at City Hall following the vote.

"We are not telling anyone what to think," Jensen said. "We are letting children know that gay people exist and they deserve to be treated with respect, regardless of whether or not you believe that homosexuality is acceptable."

But Capitol Resource Institute's Karen England explored the curriculum and released a statement condemning the program before the board's vote.

"This curriculum ignores the fact that every child has a mom and a dad, to redefine ideas like 'family.' School absolutely should be a safe place, but this isn't just about safety. Students have to embrace highly controversial social values or risk being labeled as bigots," she warned. "Five year old kids aren't ready to think on their own about sexuality – and their families' values will be dismissed. That's not an education in critical thinking. It's social activism."

In kindergarten, children will be introduced to "The New Girl … And Me" by Jacqui Robins. The book is about a young girl who is new at a school and strikes up a friendship with another girl after a popular boy refuses to play with her.

In first grade, students will read "Who is in a Family?" By Robert Skutch. It explores different types of families. One page states, " … Robin's family is made up of her dad, Clifford, her dad's partner, Henry, and Robin's cat, Sassy."

Curriculum for 1st grade students includes 'Who's in a Family?'

Teachers will ask children to "identify and describe a variety of families" and "to understand that families have some similarities and some differences."

"If a student responds that one family in the book is made up of a mother, a father and two children and a cat, you may acknowledge that some families look like this," the curriculum states, "but also ask students for other examples of what a family can look like."

Teachers are told to reflect and "reinforce to students that in our school and our community there are many different types of families that provide love and care to each other. Remind the students that all family structures are equally important."

Second grade students will read about two homosexual penguins that raise a young chick in the book "And Tango Makes Three" by J. Richardson and P. Parnell.

The two male penguins, Roy and Silo, are described as being "a little bit different."

"They didn't spend much time with the girl penguins, and the girl penguins didn't spend much time with them," the text states.

When the male penguins nurture an egg, it soon hatches. "We'll call her Tango," it states, "because it takes two to make a Tango."

The book declares, "Tango was the very first penguin in the zoo to have two daddies."

3rd grade students will watch 'That's a Family' film

In the third grade, students will watch a film called "That's a Family," featuring some homosexual couples in addition to traditional families.

According to the lesson plan, it aims to "assist students in developing sensitivity to gay and lesbian family structures" and teach "respect and tolerance for every type of family."

Fourth graders will be required to read an essay titled, "My School is Accepting – but Things Could be Better" by Robert, an 11-year-old who has two lesbian mothers.

They are introduced to terms such as "ally," "gay," "lesbian" and "LGBT."

Teachers are instructed to ask, "How do you think Robert feels when he hears people say things like, 'this is gay' or 'You're so gay'?"

By fifth grade, students learn to "identify stereotypes about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people." They are told that "LGBT people have made important contributions within the United States and beyond."

Teachers are asked to write the acronym LGBT and ask students the meaning of each letter. Students discuss why stereotypes are "incorrect and hurtful" to LGBT people and people with LGBT family members.

The children are provided with a list of famous LGBT people, including novelist James Baldwin, singer Elton John, comedian Ellen Degeneres, pop singer Christina Aguilera, Rep. Tammy Baldwin, poet Walt Whitman, singer Lance Bass, figure skater Rudy Galindo, homosexual politician Harvey Milk, Army veteran Jose Zuniga and basketball player Sheryl Swoopes.
Teachers then ask if students are surprised to learn that those famous people are members of the LGBT community.

The curriculum also provides a list of LGBT vocabulary words for students, including the following: bisexual, transgender, gay, LGBT and lesbian.

Waving God Goodbye -- The Tale of the Unbelieving Bishop
Prophecy News Watch

Richard Holloway is a Bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church. There seems to be on obvious problem -- he doesn't believe in God. In the Scottish Episcopal Church, that must not be a problem.

Bishop Holloway served for years as Bishop of Edinburgh and primate of the Scottish church. The Scottish Episcopal Church is part of the Anglican Communion -- the Scottish sister church of the Church of England. During his years as Bishop of Edinburgh Holloway regularly offended the faithful, promoting one heresy or scandalous teaching after another.

In 2000 he took early retirement, but did not resign his ordination or consecration. He remains a bishop, even as he has become an agnostic.

As the Sydney Morning Herald reports:

Holloway, contrary to popular belief, has not left the Episcopal Church, as Scottish Anglicanism is known. He may have taken early retirement as Bishop of Edinburgh but the writer remains an ordained priest and consecrated bishop, who still preaches from the pulpit, performs baptisms and weddings and even presides at communion.

That last word astonished even the secular press. The paper explained:

That he still presides at communion - indeed, as recently as three weeks ago - raises the thorny question of how an agnostic, unconvinced about the divinity of Jesus, can consecrate the bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ. Surely, it becomes a mere gesture? "It very much depends on the interpretation you put on it," he explains.

The obvious question is this -- How can any church retain a minister who denies belief in God? That astonishing question points to what so many Christians have not yet seen. There is no shortage of churches and ministers whose theology is heretical and, as evidenced by Bishop Holloway, even agnostic.

Nevertheless, there are churches and denominations that are all too willing to allow a minister to remain and to serve even if doctrine is reduced to what the paper calls "mere gesture."

Bishop Holloway claims a right to interpret Christianity as he sees fit. This is a claim commonly offered in some churches. The truth of the Christian faith, the great doctrines of the Bible, the creeds and confessions of the church -- all these are instantly relativized by a claimed right to private interpretation. The case of Bishop Holloway serves to demonstrate that this right of private interpretation is destructive of the very concept of truth and doctrine. Here we meet a bishop who has "interpreted" the faith all the way down to agnosticism. Many others have interpreted the faith down to something that is not recognizably Christian.

"I am not trying to persuade people in the church to adopt my angle," Holloway argues. "I just want space enough to be honest about my own convictions. The congregation I belong to in Edinburgh knows my position and is hospitable enough to include me."

How open-minded. His congregation in Edinburgh is hospitable to agnosticism and his church allows an unbeliever to preside at Christian worship.

Bishop Holloway represents the scandalous loss of doctrinal conviction that marks so many churches and denominations. He must enjoy the limelight as an agnostic bishop. His publicized status draws attention to the complete doctrinal laxity of his church.

This agnostic bishop is not the first, nor is he likely to be the last. He provides cover for slightly less scandalous heretics who seem tame by superficial comparison. He now travels the world as a speaker and writer and retired bishop.

Note this: When the truth of theological statements is exchanged for gesture, you can count on any number of folks waving goodbye to God.

Quote from: grammyluv on June 08, 2009, 11:50:08 AM

We can see the spread of Satan's disease everywhere in this world right now for he knows his time is short. The rapid increase of his activities makes me dizzy and sick at heart but I know that it's all for God's purpose to bring all of His home soon, once and for all!

Sister,

What's happening in this world right now is stomach-wrenching, but I love to think about and know about GOD'S Promises to us. YES, I think that the time is near for GOD to take us HOME. This is one of my favorite things to think about every day.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Philippians 3:7-21 NASB But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. 13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you; 16 however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained. 17 Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. 18 For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, 19 whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. 20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; 21 who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

Kids attend prom from 'sexual hell'
You won't believe how children as young as 12 years old partied

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: June 12, 2009
10:50 pm Eastern
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Note: This story contains material that readers might consider graphic and offensive.

Family advocates are outraged by a prom held at Boston City Hall that was open to children apparently as young as 12 featuring crossdressers, homosexual heavy petting, suspected drug use and a leather-clad doorman who teaches sexual bondage classes.

Children from middle schools and high schools across Massachusetts on May 9 attended a Youth Pride Day event ending with a prom inside of Boston City Hall sponsored by the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Youth, or BAGLY, a group seated on the Massachusetts Commission for GLBT Youth.

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino issued a proclamation welcoming homosexual and transgender youth to the celebration. A man in drag introduced a homosexual activist from Menino's office to read the letter.

MassResistance, an organization that describes itself as a pro-family action center, sent a 20-year-old college student named Max to the prom to take pictures and learn more about what Massachusetts children were doing there.

Brian Camenker of MassResistance said Max was astonished by the number of children who appeared to be between 12 and 14 years old.

"They look pretty darn young," Camenker told WND. "He said there were a lot of middle school kids there. It really bothered him."

The day's events began with a transgender Elvis and a parade. Attendees were given condoms and pro-homosexual material such as a bookmark for kids on how to get involved with several homosexual groups and "Transgender Rights Now" stickers. Then many children attended the prom that evening at City Hall.

"I remained in the building for an hour and a half and found the events inside disturbing, depraved and outright criminal," Max reported. "The line included kids wearing the rainbow regalia of the gay movement, teenage boys wearing dresses and high heels, hugging their 'boyfriends,' extremely young looking girls, not much older than 14 or 15, with 'Out and Proud' inscribed in rainbow letters on the front of their T-shirts.
Max continued, "On the flower pots and stairs leading up to the subway entrance, I saw dozens of kids aged 12-17 smoking cigarettes and making out with each other."

He said three middle-aged lesbians with military haircuts shouted from megaphones at the more than 300 youth attendees in line for the event. They barked: "If we find you bringing alcohol, you're going home!"; "Don't have sex on the dance floor!" and "Are you ready to party?"

Two men helped the lesbians herd youth into City Hall. One of the men reportedly wore exceptionally tight pants and eyeliner while calling the children "sweetie" and everything around him "fabulous." The other man wore leather bondage gear.

While BAGLY advertised the event for youth 22 and younger, Max said identification was not checked – even for people who were obviously older than 22.

"Why would 22-year-olds be mingling with 14 and 15-year-olds?" Camenker asked, troubled by the details of the event. "As we saw, they pay no attention to any age limit at all. It was full of all of these strange adults."

A doorman, with a Mr. Boston Leather sash, had BAGLY's official chaperone credentials around his neck, Camenker noted. He identified himself as a "leather BDSM (bondage discipline and sado-masochism) fetishist" and handed out business cards to youth.

His card asked, "What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

Mr. Boston Leather's MySpace profile describes him as a single, middle-aged gay male who attends spanking parties and waxes for leather dancing events.

"Starting in April I am teaching month BDSM classes at the MALE Center in Boston, and I will be running an event called Kinky Kamp ... in Upstate New York at Easton Mountain Retreat Center," it stated.
Max said he also saw a prominent transsexual activist who specializes in recruiting middle and high school children enter the building.

Despite its announcement stating,"Do not bring drugs, weapons, or alcohol into the space, and do not come to the space under the influence of drugs or alcohol," Max said no measures were taken to stop anyone from sneaking prohibited items into the building.

He entered City Hall as two floors shook with earsplitting music and began taking numerous photographs of the event. Max spotted teen homosexual couples, with hair painted rainbow colors, making out in almost every corner of the room.

As Max moved through the crowd, he said he observed several adult homosexuals wearing T-shirts with "recruiter" written in rainbow colors.

"The intention of these individuals, and of the entire event, is made plain by the slogans on those shirts," he noted.

Max claims one girl appeared to be holding water pipe or bong used to smoke marijuana

Max moved into a smoking section where he claims he saw people of all ages smoking cigarettes and marijuana.

"Chaperones clearly witnessed these things occurring but did nothing to stop them," he wrote of his experience.

"He said that there was absolutely, definitely marijuana," Camenker told WND. "We have a picture. … He said that here was no question that the girl in his picture was smoking marijuana. A ton of people around her – that whole area of the room – just reeked of marijuana smoke."

WND contacted the Boston Police Department to ask whether officers on duty were aware of attendees smoking marijuana.

Boston Police Department spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said, "We don't have any reports on that.
Boston City Hall spokesman Nick Martin reviewed the photos with Driscoll and told WND, "There were both City Hall security on hand and also undercover Boston police officers. The allegations in terms of smoking both cigarettes and marijuana are unfounded. City Hall has hosted the event for at least 15 years and never ran into issues of that sort."

He said such illicit behavior would never be tolerated.

"People can make allegations about anything they want. The individual who claims that the person was holding paraphernalia might have an agenda of their own," Martin said. "But, as far as we are concerned, there weren't any problems with the event."
Camenker told WND this event takes place every year and the state of Massachusetts originally budgeted $850,000 last year for the Massachusetts Commission for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth. He said members, such as BAGLY, usually receive funding from that commission. However, that funding for the homosexual lobby was later slashed as part of an effort to cut costs in response to the state's budget shortfall.

The Massachusetts Commission for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth sponsors programs in public schools such as Gay-Straight Alliance clubs, he noted.

"The kids are contacted and brought in through this network of Gay-Straight Alliance clubs and the money that funds that," he said. "There are also buses that often bring kids in. We're not sure if they used buses this year, but they usually do. That's basically how the kids get there."

Camenker said he objects to the city hosting the event at City Hall and sanctioning it by providing a taxpayer-funded police presence.

Another spokeswoman with Boston City Hall property and Construction Management Department told WND the prom was funded entirely by BAGLY and that the group received no special discounts on its use of the City Hall building.

Transgender youth? Max talked to both and said these are two young boys around middle school age. Boy in dress has 'free kisses, free hugs and gropes' written on his body.

After his experience, Max said it is difficult for anyone who has never attended such an event to truly grasp the "perversion and disturbing nature" of the prom hosted by the city and welcomed by the mayor.

"As a young person who has been exposed to many disturbing things within today's youth culture, I believed I was prepared to deal with what I saw at the 2009 BAGLY Prom," Max wrote.

"Minutes after entering the event, I discovered that I was not."

Camenker agreed that the affair was shocking.

"This stuff doesn't happen by accident. You don't have these kinds of really weird people around these kids by accident. These guys actually think that this is what these kids should be experiencing," he said.

"This movement has an obsession with kids, and there are no boundaries. It's worse than anybody thought."

Outrage Over US Military Bible Burnings In Afghanistan
Posted on: 2009-05-22 04:44:37
By Worthy News Chief International Correspondent Stefan J. Bos with reports from the United States and Afghanistan

WASHINGTON/KABUL (Worthy News)-- The president of a US-based group helping Christians persecuted for their faith has expressed outrage that United States military personnel have burned confiscated Bibles in Afghanistan.

"It really should shake the core of every Christian to realize that Bibles are being burned," said Carl Moeller President of Open Doors USA in an interview with Mission Network News monitored Friday, May 22, by Worthy News.

The Bibles, printed in the two most common Afghan languages, were burned amid concern they would be used to try to convert Afghans, the Cable News Network (CNN) quoted a a Defense Department spokesman as saying.

The unsolicited Bibles sent by a church in the United States were confiscated about a year ago at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan because military rules forbid troops of "any religion" from proselytizing while deployed there, Lt. Col. Mark Wright said.

Such religious outreach can endanger American troops and civilians in the devoutly Muslim nation, Wright added.

"FORCE PROTECTION"

"The decision was made that it was a 'force protection' measure to throw them away, because, if they did get out, it could be perceived by Afghans that the U.S. government or the U.S. military was trying to convert Muslims," Wright said.

The military said a soldier at Bagram received the Bibles and didn't realize he wasn't allowed to hand them out. The Al Jazeera network has shown footage of the Bibles at a prayer service where an unnamed soldier says members of his church raised money for them.

The chaplain later "corrected" the soldier and confiscated the Bibles, Wright said.

However military analyst and Pentagon adviser, Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis, criticized the move. "There is no need to burn the Bibles. They could have been shipped back," he said. "Just imagine if we, the same the United States military, were to take a bunch of Korans and burn them. I can imagine the ramifications across the world."

MILITARY OFFICERS

In a statement, the Pentagon said military officers considered sending the Bibles back to the church, but they worried the church would turn around and send them to another organization in Afghanistan -- giving the impression that they had been distributed by the U.S. government.

There is reportedly a tiny Christian minority in Afghanistan, however especially former converts can faith death because of their faith, several rights investigators have confirmed.

The row over the Bible burning comes shortly after the Pentagon announced this week that it no longer includes a Bible quote on the cover page of daily intelligence briefings it sends to the White House as was practice during the George W. Bush administration.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he did not know how long the Worldwide Intelligence Update cover sheets quoted from the Bible. Air Force Maj. Gen. Glen Shaffer, who was responsible for including them, retired in August 2003, according to his biography.

PSALMS QUOTED

On Thursday, April 10, 2003, for example, the report quoted the book of Psalms "Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him. ... To deliver their soul from death." and featured pictures of the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down and celebrating crowds in Baghdad, reported the Associated Press news agency.

"Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand," read the cover quote two weeks earlier, on March 31, above a picture of a U.S. tank driving through the desert, according to the magazine, which obtained copies of the documents.

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, has said U.S. soldiers "are not Christian crusaders, and they ought not be depicted as such."

"Depicting the Iraq conflict as some sort of holy war is completely outrageous," Lynn said in a statement. "It's contrary to the constitutional separation of religion and government, and it's tremendously damaging to America's reputation in the world."

While the policy was controversial, supporters said it was aimed at relieving some of the stress faced by President Bush, as the death toll of American troops continued rising in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Outrage Over US Military Bible Burnings In Afghanistan (http://www.christianpersecution.info/index.php?view=5740)

QUEENS, New York (BNO NEWS) — Two New York City women have been charged after allegedly carrying out a shocking voodoo ritual on a 6-year-old girl, prosecutors said on Thursday.

Marie Lauradin, 29, who is the mother of the girl, has been charged with first-degree assault and endangering the welfare of a child. Sylvenie Thessier, 70, who is the grandmother of the girl, has been charged with first-degree reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child.

The 6-year-old girl was transported to William Randolph Hearst Burn Center on February 6 with life-threatening burns over 25 percent of her body. “During the performance of a Haitian voodoo practice known as ‘Loa,’ the child’s mother is alleged to have intentionally poured an accelerant over her young daughter’s body, causing her to be engulfed in flames,” Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said. “Despite the child’s cries for help and the severity of her injuries, both defendants are accused of failing to seek immediate medical attention for the child,” he added.

According to the charges, the girl was home on February 4th with Lauradin, Thessier and a family friend known as “Sketch” when the mother poured an accelerant on her head and in a circle on the floor, better known as a voodoo practice called “Loa.” The mother then set the circle on fire and placed the girl, who was naked, inside the ring of fire, at which point the accelerant on her body ignited and flames engulfed her. Thessier and “Sketch” were allegedly present in the room during the voodoo ritual but neither intervened - even after the girl cried out for help.

Instead of seeking immediate medical attention for the girl, the grandmother allegedly bathed her with cold water and placed her in bed at around 4 p.m. local time, where she was discovered the following evening by another relative who insisted that the child be taken to hospital. “The child has suffered permanent scarring — both physically and emotionally,” Brown said.

The girl was admitted to hospital with second- and third-degree burns covering 25 percent of her body, including her face, torso and legs. As part of her treatment, the girl was placed in a medically-induced coma and hooked up to a respirator. Her current condition is unknown although she was released from hospital in May.

At the time, the mother told police that, in the early afternoon of February 4th, she was in the kitchen preparing rice on the stove and that as she was transferring the pot from a front burner to a back one, the girl approached her from behind and hit her hand, causing her to spill the pot of boiling water on the child. The girl’s grandmother, Thessier, was said to have been in the bathroom at the time of the incident. The mother told police that she “did not see any burns” on her daughter until they arrived at the hospital. After the girl was released from the hospital and placed into foster care, however, she told her foster family a different account of what had happened.

If convicted, the mother faces up to 25 years in prison and the grandmother faces up to seven years in prison. The investigation was conducted by Detective Michael McNelis of the New York City Police Department’s Queens Child Abuse Squad, under the supervision of Sergeant Robert Garrity. Although the identity of the girl is known, it is BNO News’ policy to not identify victims.

The defendants are awaiting arraignment in Queens Criminal Court and both deny the allegations. The girl remains in foster care.

Church blesses fathers with beer

Bottles of beer will be given to fathers who attend church, in an alternative "blessing" for Father's Day. ???

By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent
Published: 9:00PM BST 20 Jun 2009

A senior bishop has backed the move, which is part of a Church of England initiative to put a Christian emphasis on the annual celebration of fatherhood.

Concerns over the lack of men attending services year-round has led clergy to offer a range of incentives today, including free beer, bacon rolls and chocolate bars.

It is the first time that the Church has attempted to treat Fathers' Day in the same way as Mothering Sunday, which has traditionally formed part of its calendar.

The plan to distribute ale has upset groups working to tackle alchohol abuse, but the Rt Rev John Inge, the Bishop of Worcester, said that it could help churches to attract more men.

He argued that the free beer was intended to be symbolic of "the generosity of God".

Men at St Stephen's church in Barbourne, Worcester, will be handed bottles of beer by children during the service. A prayer will be said for the fathers before the gifts are distributed.

The Ven Roger Morris, archdeacon of Worcester, who will be leading the service at St Stephen's today, said that it was a practical way of sending a message to fathers.

"I don't see any other time that we can stop and remember fathers, and this is a gesture saying 'Here's something that will bless you,'" he said.

"Posies of flowers are given to mums on Mothering Sunday and we wanted to give a laddish, blokeish gift to the men. A bottle of beer hits the mark. The whole of life is to be celebrated in church."

However, Don Shenker, chief executive of Alcohol Concern, criticised the Church, claiming that it was acting irresponsibly.

"Bearing in mind the country is facing rising health harms from its high level of alcohol consumption, anyone in a position of authority or respect should perhaps think twice about promoting alcohol to the public," he said.

Bishop Inge said that it was wrong to claim that the move would encourage alcholism, and encouraged churches to use it as a way to reach out to men.

"Jesus created a lot more wine at a point in the party when some thought that there had already been enough drinking. He was all in favour of partying," the bishop said.

"We give wine away every Sunday, so giving away beer could be said to going downmarket a bit, but it's an attempt to speak of God's generosity.

"It's something that could be used as part of a service to encourage fathers to come. Once they are in church, hopefully they will be challenged by the deeper questions around fatherhood."

The bishop said that the Church was keen to support fathers and "to do everything possible to encourage them to take their responsibility very seriously".

A survey conducted by Opinion Business Research (ORB) found that less than a fifth of men claim to attend some type of church service once a month, compared with more than a quarter of women.

Some churches are trying to lure men back with the offer of free food. St Michael's, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, is holding a Hog Roast on the church forecourt and St Mary's, Arnold, Nottingham, will serve bacon rolls as men arrive at its service.

The Church has also published resources for clergy to use to hold special Fathers' Day services, including prayers for children to thank their fathers.

Church blesses fathers with beer (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/5587035/Church-blesses-fathers-with-beer.html)

Minister compares fight against homosexual clergy to resistance of Nazis

A minister in the Church of Scotland, Rev Ian Watson, has compared an increasingly bitter campaign against homosexual clergy to the war against the Nazis.

By Alastair Jamieson
Published: 9:44AM BST 13 May 2009

The preacher gave a sermon condemning homosexual lifestyles, claiming any acceptance of them by the church would "turn the grace of God into a licence for immorality."

His comments will widen divisions within the Kirk over the appointment of an openly gay minister to a parish church last year. The row threatens to overshadow next week's annual General Assembly, which is due to debate a petition signed by one third of ministers calling for a ban on homosexuals in the pulpit.

Rev Kenneth MacKenzie, the minister at Crathie Kirk, near Balmoral, which is attended by the Queen, has warned a schism would occur if his appointment was confirmed.

"Life in the Church will never be the same again and my fear is that a sizeable minority of the clergy, and perhaps a majority of its people, may consider leaving the church, causing a rift felt in every parish," he said.

The row is similar to that in the Anglican Church about the ordination of homosexuals between conservatives who cite Bible texts that condemn homosexuality and liberals who argue many traditional teachings in the Bible are no longer observed literally.

Rev Watson has posted on his blog a sermon he delivered at Kirkmuirhill Church in Lanark in which he mentioned the failure of the French Army to stand up to the Nazi annexation of the Rhineland in 1938. "[Hitler] guessed correctly that the French had no stomach for a fight. If only they had, then the tragedy of a Second World War might have been avoided."

Rev Watson is a prominent opponent of Scott Rennie, a divorced father of one who now lives with his partner, David, and has the support of his Aberdeen Presbytery.

The motion at next week's General Assembly urges the Kirk not to "train, ordain, admit, readmit, induct or introduce to any ministry of the church anyone involved in a sexual relationship outside of marriage between a man and woman".

Rev Peter Macdonald, the leader elect of the Iona Community and minister of St George's West, Edinburgh, told The Times he found the sermon disturbing while Rev Lindsay Biddle, chaplain of Affirmation Scotland, a pro-homosexual group, said: "If you don't like homosexuals, then get on with it – but don't use the Bible to justify opinions."

Rev Watson defended his sermon: "There is no doubt that there is a conflict," he said. "I was trying to explain why I am engaged in this. People say to me, 'This is not a hill to die on', but I think it is a fight worth fighting. "Evangelicals seek to defend the historic and orthodox Christian faith. If we don't what are we? I am a man of convictions."

Minister compares fight against homosexual clergy to resistance of Nazis (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/5316960/Minister-compares-fight-against-homosexual-clergy-to-resistance-of-Nazis.html)

Churches prepare in case gun violence shows up at the altar

latimes.com

One Sunday in March, a man strode down the aisle of the First Baptist Church in Maryville, Ill., pulled out a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol and fired at the pastor.

The Rev. Fred Winters deflected the first bullet with his Bible, sending bits of it into the air like confetti. But the next three rounds hit Winters, killing him.

It wasn't the first church shooting of 2009 -- in February, a man knelt before a cross at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove and killed himself with a gun -- and it wasn't the last. This month, Dr. George Tiller, a Kansas physician who performed late-term abortions, was shot to death in the foyer of his Wichita church by an anti-abortion protester.

Violence in churches is on the rise, experts say.

As more shootings at houses of worship make headlines, churches around the country are stepping up security, training their staff on how to detect and confront violent assailants, and asking congregants with licenses to carry guns during services.

That's what brought 15 Southern California church leaders to Garden Grove last week to attend an "Interfaith Intruder Response" course.

"I think that we're living in a violent time and we have a duty to ensure the safety of our flock," said Fred Rodriguez, a senior pastor at Elsinore First Assembly in Lake Elsinore.

Rodriguez said he came to the seminar because he worries that church violence will get worse. "The Scripture says we're living the last days," the clergyman said. "A person doesn't have to look too far to see evidence."

"There are practical things we can do," he added, "and we let God take care of the rest."

The class, which met in a nondescript hotel conference room, was led by Vaughn Baker, who owns a security company called Strategos International. Baker is one of several church security consultants who travel the country like itinerant preachers, teaching seminars and writing up security plans for church leaders.

After an opening prayer, Baker offered some grim statistics. In the last decade, he said, 50 people were killed and 30 wounded in 35 church shootings. In 2007, there were six church shootings. In 2008, there were 18.

In most cases, the shooter was someone with a connection to the church.

"You guys know the world's not getting better," said Baker, who, along with many church security consultants, is a churchgoer and has a background in law enforcement. "We've got to protect ourselves. . . . The trick of it and the art of it is protecting the congregation and ministry without compromising their sense of worship and refuge and sanctuary."

Traditional security measures, like metal detectors or pat-downs, might compromise that sense of sanctuary, Baker said. So he proposed other, subtler methods. He suggested that churches organize undercover security teams -- and recommended that some members come armed with concealed weapons.

If violence breaks out at church, it could take minutes for even the fastest police and rescue crews to respond, Baker said, "and there's a whole lot of bad that can happen in two to three minutes."

Baker, like other security consultants, said churchgoers need to fight back instead of hiding if they're being attacked, as many students have been coached to do in the event of a school shooting. "If I'm going to get beat, I'm going to get beat doing something," Baker said. "I'm not going to get beat doing nothing."

Seminar attendees -- all men except for two women -- nodded as Baker spoke.

One attendee, Al Brown, of Abundant Living Family Church in Rancho Cucamonga, said the pastor at his church at first was reluctant to let parishioners carry firearms into services. But with some persuasion from Brown, the former police chief at UC Irvine, the pastor came around. "He saw what was happening around the country," Brown said.

Brown said he had attended three church security seminars. He said he did so in part because he worried that his church might be victimized because of its support for Proposition 8, the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

Some of the churches that have been the scenes of recent shootings appear to have been targeted because of their stances on political issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion. Last year, a gunman who police said had a "stated hatred of the liberal movement" killed two people during a children's performance at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville because the church advocates for gay rights.

Other shootings have been acts of domestic violence that just happened to occur in a church. That was the case last year when a man shot and killed his estranged wife at St. Thomas Syrian Orthodox Knanaya Church in Clifton, N.J.

Synagogues and black churches, frequent targets of racial vandalism and violence, have long had security measures in place. Even so, some are now boosting their efforts in the wake of several high-profile hate crimes, including this month's shooting at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

"For us, it's an old threat that's just lifting its head again," said Paul Goldenberg, the director of the Secure Community Network, which provides security training to Jewish communities. "We have to do all we can."

No matter the shooter's motivation, churches are easy targets, experts say.

"During a church service, you've got a large number of people in a very confined and close space, and an armed gunman can put a lot of lead down the range in a very short amount of time," said Greg Crane, who owns a security consultant firm called Response Options.

"If the devil comes to visit someday," he asked, "how ready are you going to be?"

How the ELCA Left the Great Tradition for Liberal Protestantism

christianitytoday.com

During last week's biennial Church Wide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the church affirmed major policy recommendations to allow for the blessing of same-sex unions (which practice will soon inflate to same-sex marriage) and the rostering of gay and lesbian pastors in partnered relationships.

Earlier in the week it also passed by one vote—out of over 1,000 total votes cast—a Social Statement on Sexuality that admitted there was no consensus on the moral evaluation of homosexual conduct, and offered no compelling biblical or theological reasons to support the policies it later in fact adopted. The Statement was firm and bold on issues that everyone agreed upon—the moral condemnation of promiscuity, pornography, sexual exploitation, etc.—but indecisive and vague about contested issues—co-habitation, premarital sex, the importance of the nuclear family, and, of course, homosexual conduct.

Right before the vote on the Social Statement a totally unexpected tornado hit the Minneapolis Conference Center where we were meeting as well as the huge Central Lutheran Church next door, knocking the cross off one of its towers. Orthodox voting members saw the work of God in the tornado's cross-toppling effects and in the vote that passed with a .666 majority. Revisionists noted that the sun came out after the vote. In response the orthodox quipped that the sun comes out almost every day, but rogue tornados are pretty rare!

Those in the orthodox camp warned the assembly not to vote on binding church doctrine, especially if it had no convincing biblical or theological arguments to overturn the moral consensus of the one holy, catholic, and apostolic church held throughout the ages and by 99 percent of the world's Christians. Such action would identify the ELCA with a rapidly declining liberal Protestantism while departing from orthodox teaching and practice. Strong arguments against the Social Statement and policy recommendations were made by pastors and laypersons—bishops were for the most part silent—to no avail. The church left the Great Tradition of moral teaching to identify with the United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church.

How did this come to be? On the one hand, the fact that the largest American Lutheran church body had become the first confessional church to accept homosexual conduct was a traumatic shock to many. There was much anger and anguish. On the other hand, the decision was not at all unexpected by those of us who have fought against the underlying currents operating in the ELCA from its very inception. The fight has been long yet predictable. Liberal Protestantism was the ELCA's destination. Indeed, its presiding Bishop, Mark Hanson, is fast becoming the charismatic leader of liberal Protestantism.

"There is nothing but the social gospel," shouted a voting member at the assembly. But that is certainly not Lutheran doctrine. The various programs of social change taken to heart by the church are human works in God's left-hand reign, having to do with the Law, not the gospel. Rather, the real gospel is clear: the grace of God in Jesus Christ is offered to repentant sinners condemned by the Law and then called to amendment of life by the Spirit. Liberating efforts in the realm of social and political change are possibly effects of the gospel, but certainly not the gospel itself.

But the ELCA has accepted the social gospel as its working theology, even though its constitution has a marvelous statement of the classic gospel. The liberating movements fueled by militant feminism, multiculturalism, anti-racism, anti-heterosexism, anti-imperialism, and now ecologism have been moved to the center while the classic gospel and its missional imperatives have been pushed to the periphery.

The policies issuing from these liberationist themes are non-negotiable in the ELCA, which is compelling evidence that they are at the center. No one can dislodge the ELCA's commitment to purge all masculine language about God from its speech and worship, to demur on the biblically normative status of the nuclear family, to refuse to put limits on abortion in its internal policies or to advocate publicly for pro-life policies, to press for left-wing public domestic and foreign policy, to replace evangelism abroad with dialog, to commit to "full inclusion" of gays and lesbians at the expense of church unity, and to buy in fully to the movement against global warming. Though it is dogmatic on these issues, it is confused about something as important as the assessment of homosexual conduct. Yet, it acts anyway because of the pressure exerted by those who want to liberate church and society from heterosexism.

But how did the liberal Protestant agenda replace the Christian core? There are many reasons, a good number that many American evangelicals share with Lutherans: a culture moving quickly toward permissive morality; the self-esteem movement leading to cheap grace; lay individualism combined with apathy toward Christian teaching; an obliviousness to church tradition and to the voice of the world church; and, above all, the loss of an authentic principle of authority in the church. This last item I will address in more detail later.

The ELCA has a particular history that has compounded these problems. The mid-1980s planning stage of the ELCA was dramatically affected by a group of radicals who pressed liberationist (feminist, black, multiculturalist, gay) legislative initiatives right into the center of the ELCA structures.

Among them was a quota system that skews every committee, council, task force, synod assembly, and national assembly toward the "progressive" side. (There are quotas for representing specific groups in all the organized activity of the church. Sixty percent must be lay, 50 percent must be women, 10 percent must be people of color or whose language is other than English. The losers, of course, are white male pastors; our Virginia delegation to the assembly, for example, had only one male pastor among its eight elected members.)

Further, the prescribed structure distanced the 65 bishops from the decision-making of the church. The bishops have only influence, not power. (Aware of their divisiveness, the bishops voted 44-14 to require a two thirds majority for the enactment of the Sexuality Task Force's policy recommendations, but were ignored by both the church council and the Assembly.) Theologians were given no formal, ongoing, corporate role in setting the direction of the ELCA. They, too, were kept at a distance and actually viewed as one more competing interest group.

The radicals so decisive in the defining moments of the ELCA intended to smash the authority of the influential theologians and bishops who had informally kept both the American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in America on course. The radicals wanted many voices and perspectives, especially those of the "marginalized," put forward in the ongoing deliberations of the ELCA. They were so successful that now, after 20 years, there is no authoritative biblical or theological guidance in the church. There are only many voices. The 2009 Assembly legitimated those many voices by adapting a "bound-conscience" principle, according to which anyone claiming a sincerely-held conviction about any doctrine must be respected. The truth of the Bible has been reduced to sincerely-held opinion.

What was truly chilling about the assembly's debates was that the revisionists seemed to quote Jesus and the Bible as knowledgeably and persuasively as the orthodox. Passages reinforcing their respective agendas were selected and then brilliantly woven into their arguments. Both sides seemed to have the Bible on their side. The revisionists "contextualized" and relativized the relevant texts. The orthodox claimed a plain sense reading of Scripture. The Lutheran confessions were utilized effectively by both sides. There was no authoritative interpretation conveyed by any agent or agency in the church. The church was, and is, rudderless.

Sola Scriptura, a Lutheran principle adopted by evangelicals, did not seem to be sufficient in such circumstances. An authoritative tradition of interpretation of the Bible seemed to be essential. More was needed than the Bible alone. Protestants seem to lack such an authoritative tradition, so they fight and split. In this situation, the option of swimming the Tiber seems all the more tempting.

The fallout of these historic moves by the ELCA is hard to predict, mainly because the Lutheran orthodox have no group of dissenting bishops around whom to rally. There will be a profusion of different responses by congregations and individuals. Many congregations and individuals will leave the ELCA. Others will bide their time to see what Lutheran CORE (Lutheran Coalition for Renewal) will become as it strives to articulate and then embody the best of Lutheranism. Many will withdraw from involvement in the ELCA and its synods and live at the local level. Many others will try to live on as if nothing has happened. Others will approve of the new direction. But a tectonic shift has taken place, and it wasn't primarily about sex. The ELCA has formally left the Great Tradition for liberal Protestantism.

I don't need to hear the "wars and rumors of wars" or even the "rise of Islam"....it's garbage like this that convinces me that Christ is coming soon.

9 and 12 year Olds Boys Return To School As Girls

telegraph.co.uk

The unidentified Year Five child left school as a boy and returned the next day as a girl, in female uniform with a ponytail tied in pink ribbon.

The case comes after reports a 12-year-old boy had started secondary school as a girl.

Both children are too young to have had a sex change operation or hormone therapy as this is only given to people aged 18 or over.

There was a mixed reaction from gender experts.

A spokesman for transgender group the Beaumont Society said: "This child is vulnerable to bullying and teasing. They and their family have been seriously misadvised. It is hard enough for an adult to change gender. To go to the extent that this nine-year-old has gone is unique."

But James Caspian, who counsels people on gender issues, said: "People should not be surprised that a child so young has these feelings.

"What is more of a surprise is that the child has been able to express them openly and that because of changes in society those around the child have been so supportive."

The mother of a boy at the same school as the nine-year-old told The Sun newspaper: "My son came home from school and asked why one of his friends had become a girl.

"I thought he was joking, but he kept asking... that's when alarm bells began ringing.

"The pupil's classmates were told he had left and that a new girl would be starting in his place this term."

Children were initially told the boy had left and a new girl had arrived, but at a special assembly the head teacher, class teacher and the pupil's special needs teacher appeared to realise the child would be recognised.

The mother said: "They were told the new girl would be using the girls' toilet and that no one should tease or bully her. If anyone saw the new girl being bullied they should stick up for her.

"My son is too young to really understand the significance of what's happening. It's hard to explain to him. I'm terrified he'll ask me if he can become a girl as well."

A school source said the boy had "always been rather feminine" and a decision had been taken to support the child and family "after his case was confirmed by five doctors".

Parents who criticised the school and child's parents on a social networking website were warned by police they could be prosecuted for harassment.

Comic-Strip Artist R. Crumb Mocks Book of Genesis
October 21, 2009

LOS ANGELES"I think that all humans have that need for some spiritual meaning but,I don't think you're going to find it in 'Genesis."'

His religious upbringing might well be as unorthodox as the psychedelic-inspired comic-strip characters that have made R. Crumb the most famous underground artist of his time.

Which, come to think of it, may have made Crumb the perfect artist for his latest project, an illustrated, comic-book version of "The Book of Genesis," the work that comprises the first 50 chapters of the Bible.

Raised in a secular household that was headed by a rigidly strict, ex-Marine father who was actually a closeted atheist, Crumb was sent off to Catholic school at age 6 because his father had always admired the discipline Catholic nuns were famous for instilling in their students.

"We nEver got a lot of religion at home," Crumb says of himself and his siblings. "But we certainly got the whole indoctrination and brainwashing in school."

Sixty years later, the creator of comic book characters like the R-rated Fritz the Cat and the bizarre Mr. Natural has finally put that religious training to good use.

"The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb" was published last month, and on Oct. 24 the stunningly detailed, beautifully crafted black-and-white drawings that comprise its 201 pages will go on display at Los Angeles' Hammer Museum. After the exhibition closes in February it will move on to other cities, including New York and Portland, Ore., a circumstance that has the normally circumspect Crumb shaking his head in disbelief.

"The Bible! Jesus! Incredible," Crumb says in a voice filled with awe as he reflects on the project that has consumed the last five years of his life.

Indeed, the project does raise an obvious question: Why would the guy famous for drawing voluptuous women and nerdy looking, well-endowed men, who put the phrase "Keep on Truckin"' into the national vocabulary with his posters of a big-footed oddball out for a walk, and who by his own admission owes much of his artistic inspiration to his extensive use of LSD in the 1960s, take on the Bible?

"It's kind of complicated," Crumb guffaws during a phone interview from his home in the south of France.

"I don't think 'Genesis' is a good place to look for spiritual guidance or moral guidance," he continues. "I don't beliEve it's the word of God.

"At the same time," he continues, "I think the stories are very powerful. I'm not out to ridicule them or belittle them."

Although done in the same, unmistakable style that Crumb has brought to such comic books as Zap, Weirdo and Dirty Laundry, "Genesis" is also surprisingly respectful, as well as faithfully loyal to the Bible's original text.

"He could have done something really satiric but he didn't," says Ali Subotnick, who is curating the exhibit. "He's not bastardizing the stories at all."

Which is not to say Crumb hasn't added his own unique touch here and there.

While historical characters like Noah and the Pharaoh don't look that much different from how they have been portrayed by other artists, God and the serpent are another story.

Crumb's Creator is one mean-looking old dude, an angry, finger-pointing father figure with a flowing white beard and no sense of humor. The serpent, meanwhile, looks as much like a snake-oil salesman as a snake.

"He's a con man," Crumb says of the reptile that got Adam and Eve booted from the Garden of Eden. "The serpent represents that part of clEverness and persuasion and deception and flattery, all those qualities which humans are so good at but that we don't consider our finest virtues."

It was teachings like those that fascinated him and drew him to the project, Crumb says. He spent a couple of years doing the research before setting to work, secluding himself in a cabin in the mountains for weeks at a time so he could draw uninterrupted.

Not an atheist like his father, Crumb describes himself as a Gnostic, a member of that ancient movement searching for spiritual enlightenment.

"I've spent a lot of time studying different religious traditions and I meditate," he says. "I think that all humans have that need for some spiritual meaning.

"But," he adds with a hearty laugh, "I don't think you're going to find it in 'Genesis."'

Often described as reclusive, and by his own admission very shy, Crumb is actually an engaging conversationalist when he will sit down to talk. He's at turns witty, unpretentious and unfailingly friendly.

"Hi, I was just doing the dishes," he says upon picking up the phone. Minutes later, he lets out a loud, unembarrassed after-dinner belch.

The Philadelphia native has reluctantly agreed to come to the United States to promote the book and exhibition with a lecture at UCLA on Oct. 29 and a handful of other appearances. He says he's dreading all of them.

"I won't do TV," he adds flatly. "Don't want no cameras on my face. Hate that. Won't do it."

He is likely most recognizable from the 1994 documentary "Crumb" that showed him emerging from a frighteningly dysfunctional family to become a reluctant celebrity.

His older brother, Charles, who had inspired him to draw, committed suicide shortly after that film was completed. His younger brother, Max, also an artist, lives in seclusion, as does Crumb's son, Jesse. He speaks warmly of all three.

He fairly radiates with pride, howEver, at the mention of his daughter Sophie's name.

"She's a really good artist, in many ways she's a better artist than I am," he says. "But she's already feeling kind of self-consciousness about it because, being my daughter and all, she gets a lot of flak."

His wife, Aline, Crumb says, doesn't get the credit she's due as an artist. He says she's really the comedic force behind the pair's popular collaborative cartoons.

After he returns from the U.S., the pair plan to finish a forthcoming book.

After that: Who knows?

Crumb could return to more serious work, like the series of old-time musicians he admires that he profiled in the 2006 book "R. Crumb's Heroes of Blues, Jazz, & Country" or the illustrated version he did of 18th century essayist James Boswell's "London Journal."

Or he could just do something silly.

"I guess next I'll tackle the Quran. See how that goes over," he says, bursting out laughing.

Comic-Strip Artist R. Crumb Mocks Book of Genesis (http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2009/10/21/comic-strip-artist-r-crumb-mocks-book-genesis/?test=faces)

Nobel winner slams Bible as 'handbook of bad morals'

(AFP) – Oct 19, 2009

LISBON — A row broke out in Portugal on Monday after a Nobel Prize-winning author denounced the Bible as a "handbook of bad morals".

Speaking at the launch of his new book "Cain", Jose Saramago, who won the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature, said society would probably be better off without the Bible.

Roman Catholic Church leaders accused the 86-year-old of a publicity stunt.

The book is an ironic retelling of the Biblical story of Cain, Adam and Eve's son who killed his younger brother Abel.

At the launch event in the northern Portuguese town of Penafiel on Sunday, Saramago said he did not think the book would offend Catholics "because they do not read the Bible".

"The Bible is a manual of bad morals (which) has a powerful influence on our culture and even our way of life. Without the Bible, we would be different, and probably better people," he was quoted as saying by the news agency Lusa.

Saramago attacked "a cruel, jealous and unbearable God (who) exists only in our heads" and said he did not think his book would cause problems for the Catholic Church "because Catholics do not read the Bible.

"It might offend Jews, but that doesn't really matter to me," he added.

Father Manuel Marujao, the spokesman for the Portuguese conference of bishops, said he thought the remarks were a publicity stunt.

"A writer of Jose Saramago's standing can criticise, (but) insults do no-one any good, particularly a Nobel Prize winner," the priest said.

Rabbi Elieze Martino, spokesman for the Jewish community in Lisbon, said the Jewish world would not be shocked by the writings of Saramago or anyone else.

"Saramago does not know the Bible," the rabbi said, "he has only superficial understanding of it."

The author caused a scandal in Portugal in 1992 with "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ."

The book depicted Jesus losing his virginity to Mary Magdalene and being used by God to control the world.

Saramago quit Portugal at the time and moved to Lanzarote, in the Spanish Canary Islands.

Nobel winner slams Bible as 'handbook of bad morals' (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jz7ZtcEKZzrizGRpwp7t77X41qrg)
!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

See my comments above!!

Confirmed: Skin cream
contains fetal proteins
Company's anti-aging products built
on cells harvested from aborted baby

A pro-life organization is blasting a Switzerland-based cosmetics manufacturer whose website openly admits some of its products were developed from the tissues of an aborted baby.

Children of God for Life is a non-profit organization focused on the bioethics of embryonic tissue use in medicine and manufacturing. One of its current campaigns includes petitioning pharmaceutical companies to produce safe, effective alternatives to vaccines derived or cultivated from aborted fetal tissue.

But the organization's attention has now turned Neocutis, a company with offices in San Francisco which has developed a line of anti-aging products that include an ingredient the company has trademarked as Processed Skin Cell Protein, or PSP, developed from skin cells harvested from an abortion.

"It is absolutely deplorable that Neocutis would resort to exploiting the remains of a deliberately slaughtered baby for nothing other than pure vanity and financial gain," said Debi Vinnedge, executive director of Children of God for Life, in a statement. "There is simply no moral justification for this."

The website for Neocutis, which is privately held with estimated annual sales of in excess of $2 million, explains that its research began years ago, when scientists discovered fetal skin's unusual ability to heal without scarring. Scientists at the University Hospital of Lausanne, Switzerland, then created a process to extract proteins from fetal cells in the attempt to obtain an optimal, naturally balanced mixture of nutrients.

The scientists then infused those nutrients into a line of cosmeceutical anti-aging products: Neocutis skin cream, Journée day cream, Lumière eye cream and Bio-Gel bio-restorative hydrogel – products Vinnedge is advising women to throw in the garbage before contacting Neocutis to voice their concerns.

"There is absolutely no reason to use aborted babies for such selfish motives," Vinnedge said. "It is anti-life, anti-woman and counter-productive, as Neocutis is about to find out!"

Children of God for Life boasts that it has been a watchdog on pharmaceutical companies using aborted fetal cell lines in medical products and has received thousands of inquiries from the public on the use of aborted fetal material in cosmetics. But this is the first time, the organization says, that any company was bold enough to put the information right on its own website and in product literature.

In fact, the Neocutis website openly explains the history of its PSP ingredient:

"A small biopsy of fetal skin was donated following a one-time medical termination," the website states, "and a dedicated cell bank was established for developing new skin treatments. Originally established for wound healing and burn treatments, today this same cell bank also provides a lasting supply of cells for producing Neocutis' proprietary skin care ingredient Processed Skin Cell Proteins."

The company adds, "No additional fetal biopsies will ever be required."

But Children of God for Life finds little consolation in the company's statement.

"You note in your literature that 'no further fetal biopsies will be needed,' as though the life of the one child you have exploited has no value," wrote the organization in a letter to Neocutis' CEO. "It is deplorable that you would attempt to mollify the public and whitewash your badly tarnished image so thoughtlessly."

Vinnedge also told WND that companies aren't required to disclose their research history to the public, so there may be facts conveniently omitted from the Neocutis story.

"What we don't know is how many other fetuses were involved before they perfected that one cell line," she surmised. "There's a possibility there were more."

WND contacted Neocutis repeatedly for comment, but phone messages were not returned. A Businessweek web report says the company was founded in 2003 and its directors were identified as Frederic-Edouard Koehn, Patrick Hohlfeld, Diego Braguglia and Jennifer Pearson.

Children of God for Life, however, is actively calling for a boycott of all Neocutis products, beginning a campaign to contact the company's investors and even offering free publicity to companies that will certify in writing their products are free from ingredients derived from aborted babies.

"We know there are companies using moral sources for collagen and skin proteins," Vinnedge said. "We intend to publicly promote these other cosmetic companies competing with Neocutis that are willing to step forward and contact us."

Teen Gets Abortion With Help of Her Seattle High School
The 15-Year-Old Was Reportedly Taken During School Hours in a Taxi to get an Abortion
By EMILY FRIEDMAN

March 24, 2010 —

A Seattle mother is irate after she said her 15-year-old daughter's school arranged an abortion for her daughter without her knowledge.

The mother, whose name has been withheld at her request to protect her privacy, told ABC News' Seattle affiliate KOMO-TV that the clinic gave her daughter a pass and helped her get a taxi that took her to a facility where she underwent an abortion.

The mother did not immediately return messages left by ABCNews.com. It was not immediately clear how far along in the pregnancy the teen was at the time of the abortion.

The mother said that she had signed a consent form that permitted her daughter to go to the teen health center on the campus of Ballard High School for what she believed were ailments like earaches, or for routine physicals, but not for an abortion.

"She took a pregnancy test at school at the teen health center," the mother told KOMO. "Nowhere in the paperwork does it mention abortion or facilitating abortion."

The form also allowed her daughter to receive birth control from the school's health clinic, the mother said.

But even so, the mother is furious that her daughter, who is on the school's honor roll, was given an abortion without the school notifying her parents.

"We had no idea this was being facilitated on campus," said the mother. "They just told her that if she concealed it from her family, that it would be free of charge and no financial responsibility."

A spokeswoman for the Seattle School District, which includes Ballard High School, declined to comment and referred all questions to the King County Health Department, the administrator of school-based health programs.

Angry as the mother is that she was not informed about her daughter's quest and receipt of an abortion, the health clinic at the school did not break any laws.

Under Washington state law, parental consent is not required when providing health care to minors, even when that care includes abortion.

"Minors may receive an abortion and abortion-related services at any age without the consent of a parent, guardian or the father of the child," the law states.

Minors who are older than 13 can also receive testing for sexually transmitted diseases, both inpatient and outpatient mental health care, and prenatal care without having parental consent, under the law.

T.J. Cosgrove, a representative of the King County Health Department, told KOMO that it's "always best if parents are involved in their children's health care, but they don't always have a say."

"At any age in the state of Washington, an individual can consent to a termination of pregnancy," said Cosgrove.

A representative of the Swedish Medical Center, which runs the clinic at Ballard High, referred ABCNews.com to the King County Health Department but did confirm that Swedish runs the clinic where the abortion was said to be arranged.

The mother told KOMO that she is speaking out so that other parents will become aware of the services that are provided at high school health clinics.

On a MySpace page that appears to belong to the mother, a status message apparently referring to KOMO-TV's coverage of her daughters abortion, reads, "komonews.com front page story! I'm shouting a top my soapbox of justice and human/parental rights!" ABC News could not independently confirm who wrote the post.

Teen Gets Abortion With Help of Her Seattle High School (http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=10189694)

What business does the school have in this anyway. Schools have NO BUISINESS concerning themselves with a students health, unless he/she has injuries due to home abuse or has reported abuse at home. And THEN they should only report it to the cops The girl was only 15, the parents should have been in on this. This is so wrong all the way around.

God will hold these people accountable for the blood of that child.

House members to Clinton: Resolve crisis with Israel

327 members of Congress sign letter addressed to Clinton in which Obama Administration urged to resolve differences with Israel 'quietly, as befits longstanding strategic allies'
Yitzhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON – Three days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama met at the White House, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received a letter signed by 327 members of the House of Representatives expressing concern over the growing tensions between Israel and the US over construction in east Jerusalem.

The letter, initiated last week by a bipartisan slate of leaders, including US Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the US House of Representatives majority leader, and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the House minority leader, says, "differences are best resolved quietly, in trust and confidence, as befits longstanding strategic allies."

We are writing to reaffirm our commitment to the unbreakable bond that exists between our country and the State of Israel and to express to you our deep concern over recent tension. In every important relationship, there will be occasional misunderstandings and conflicts," read the letter.

The letter warns that the tensions are jeopardizing international efforts aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear program, adding that in every relationship there are misunderstandings and differences.

The representatives added that they accept Netanyahu's apology to the Obama Administration for the announcement on the construction of 1,600 apartments in east Jerusalem, which came during Vice President Joe Biden's recent visit to the Jewish state.

"We are reassured that Prime Minister Netanyahu's commitment to put in place new procedures will ensure that such surprises, however unintended, will not recur," they wrote.

The members of Congress further wrote that it is in the interest of the US to safeguard Israel's security while also preserving its independence.

"The United States and Israel are close allies whose people share a deep and abiding friendship based on a shared commitment to core values including democracy, human rights and freedom of the press and religion. Our two countries are partners in the fight against terrorism and share an important strategic relationship," said the representatives.

"A strong Israel is an asset to the national security of the United States and brings stability to the Middle East. We are concerned that the highly publicized tensions in the relationship will not advance the interests the U.S. and Israel share. Above all, we must remain focused on the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear weapons program to Middle East peace and stability," they wrote in the letter.

House members to Clinton: Resolve crisis with Israel (http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3868712,00.html)

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Theology => Prophecy - Current Events => Topic started by: Shammu on November 07, 2007, 09:15:34 PM