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Valuing Speech
Valuing Speech
Sunday, June 24, 2007
by George Will
WASHINGTON — Marriage is the foundation of the natural family and sustains family values. That sentence is inflammatory, perhaps even a hate crime.
At least it is in Oakland, Calif. That city’s government says those words italicized here constitute something akin to hate speech, and can be proscribed from the government’s open e-mail system and employee bulletin board.
Jun 30, 2007
Topic: Family, Marriage, Sexual Purity, Homosexuality, Life, Abortion, Citizenship, Christian Citizenship, Religious Liberty
Gene Shopping? - Dallas Morning News
Dallas Morning News
David Brooks: America’s new pastime: gene shopping
About 40 percent say they’d use genetic engineering to upgrade their offspring
08:26 AM CDT on Saturday, June 16, 2007
At this very moment thousands of people are surfing the Web looking for genetic material so their children will be nothing like me. They are looking through files at sperm bank sites with Jetson-like names such as Xytex, which have become the new eBays for offspring.
Jun 18, 2007
Topic: Family, Children, Parenting, Life, Science, Bioethics
Graven images? Pornography in the Church - KC Star
http://www.kansascity.com/255/v-print/story/142253.html
Jun 18, 2007
Topic: Faith, Bible, Ministry, Family, Sexual Purity, Pornography
Study: Religion is Good for Kids
Live Science
By Melinda Wenner
Special to LiveScience
posted: 24 April 2007
09:39 am ET
Kids with religious parents are better behaved and adjusted than other children, according to a new study that is the first to look at the effects of religion on young child development.
The conflict that arises when parents regularly argue over their faith at home, however, has the opposite effect.
Apr 26, 2007
Topic: Faith, Apologetics, Family, Children, Parenting, Science
Sex Offenders Test Churches’ Core Beliefs
On a marquee outside and on a banner inside, Pilgrim United Church of Christ proclaims, “All are welcome.” Sustained by the belief that embracing all comers is a living example of Christ’s love, Pilgrim now faces a profound test of faith.
Apr 10, 2007
Topic: Faith, Family, Sexual Purity, Citizenship, Christian Citizenship
TIME: The Case for Teaching the Bible
The same might be said about public-school courses on the Bible nationwide. There aren’t that many. But they’re rising in popularity. Last year Georgia became the first state in memory to offer funds for high school electives on the Old and New Testaments using the Bible as the core text. Similar funding was discussed in several other legislatures, although the initiatives did not become law. Meanwhile, two privately produced curriculums crafted specifically to pass church-state muster are competing for use in individual schools nationwide. Combined, they are employed in 460 districts in at least 37 states. The numbers are modest, but their publishers expect them to soar. The smaller of the two went into operation just last year but is already into its second 10,000-copy printing, has expressions of interest from a thousand new districts this year and expects many more. The larger publisher claims to be roughly doubling the number of districts it adds each year. These new curriculums plus polls suggesting that over 60% of Americans favor secular teaching about the Bible suggest that a Miss Kendrick may soon be talking about Matthew in a school near you.
Mar 28, 2007
Topic: Faith, Bible, Family, Education, Citizenship, Christian Citizenship, Religious Liberty
For Some Black Pastors, Accepting Gay Members Means Losing Others
When the Rev. Dennis Meredith of Tabernacle Baptist Church here began preaching acceptance of gay men and lesbians a few years ago, he attracted some gay people who were on the brink of suicide and some who had left the Baptist faith of their childhoods but wanted badly to return. At the same time, Tabernacle Baptist, an African-American congregation, lost many of its most loyal, generous parishioners, who could not accept a message that contradicted what they saw as the Bible’s condemnation of same-sex relations.
Mar 27, 2007
Topic: Faith, Family, Marriage, Sexual Purity, Homosexuality, Citizenship, Christian Citizenship
Believing Scripture but Playing by Science’s Rules
There is nothing much unusual about the 197-page dissertation Marcus R. Ross submitted in December to complete his doctoral degree in geosciences here at the University of Rhode Island. His subject was the abundance and spread of mosasaurs, marine reptiles that, as he wrote, vanished at the end of the Cretaceous era about 65 million years ago. But Dr. Ross is hardly a conventional paleontologist. He is a “young earth creationist” — he believes that the Bible is a literally true account of the creation of the universe, and that the earth is at most 10,000 years old.
Feb 12, 2007
Topic: Science, Creation/Evolution
Cheerleading for Divorce
National Review
January 23, 2007, 6:00 a.m.
Cheerleading for Divorce
Socially irresponsible reporting.
By Jennifer Roback Morse
“51% of Women Are Now Living Without Spouse,” the New York Times trumpeted last week. Is this something to celebrate, as the paper of record seemed to do? And more importantly, is it even true?
There is certainly a trend away from marriage, but the numbers reported by the New York Times are deliberately misleading.
These data come from the American Community Survey for 2005, whose website is here. If you go directly to the simplest table, S1201, you will find, contra the NYT, that 51 percent of women are married. (Run your eye down the first column to the row which lists “females.” Scoot over to “Now married, (except separated).”) Voila! 51 percent of women are now married.
Jan 30, 2007
Topic: Family, Living, Marriage, Divorce/Remarriage, Pop Culture, Singles
Bible Class Can Be Difficult, But Legal
Thursday, January 25, 2007 9:20 AM CST
Editor’s Note: This is the second in a three-part series looking at issues surrounding a proposed elective looking at the Bible as a cultural document. Friday’s report will examine the history of the Bible in the classroom.
By Amy Sherrill
TIMES RECORD • ASHERRILL@SWTIMES.COM
The Bible can be taught in a secular manner in public schools, according to law professors, First Amendment advocates and religious leaders, but teachers and school districts must walk a fine line to do it legally.
In Fort Smith Public Schools, no classes incorporate the study of the Bible in history and literature, but a Fort Smith group hopes that the school district adopts its proposal to do so.
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The Rev. Richard Land, Southern Baptist Convention, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said that a public school attempting to teach a course on the Bible is fraught with difficulties that are exacerbated because schools deal mostly with minors.
“A lot of these questions are different questions when you’re dealing with college students,” Land said. “Even as an elective course, I don’t know how you’re going to teach the Bible objectively and fairly in a secular school. If you teach it as a secular subject, well, that’s going to be perceived as being an approach to the Bible that is not balanced or fair by people of religious faith.”
He added that when the school board gets ready to make its decision, members should ask the litmus test question: If the school board is willing to have an elective course on the Bible, is it also willing to have an elective course on the Koran?
Jan 25, 2007
Topic: Faith, Bible, Family, Children, Education, Citizenship, Church and State, Religious Liberty