Christian schools threatened
Pro-family groups in California reacted in August with shock and dismay after learning that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had signed a bill giving new and far-reaching powers to those supporting the homosexual agenda.

The bill, SB 1441, added sexual orientation to existing provisions in the state’s law that prohibits discrimination in state programs. The measure was promoted by a lesbian member of the California Legislature.

Pro-family opponents of the new law say the measure requires any program or activity that receives any financial assistance from the state to support homosexuality, bisexuality, and transexuality – or risk losing that funding. The law allows no exemptions for faith-based colleges, universities, schools or child-care centers that receive any amount of state money.

One of those pro-family opponents, the Capitol Resource Institute (CRI), responded with sharp criticism of the bill and the governor. A CRI press release said the law “will prevent parochial schools, such as private, Christian, Catholic, Mormon and many other religious universities from receiving student financial assistance if they also maintain a student code of conduct preventing behavior deemed immoral by their religious beliefs.”

CRI Executive Director Karen England said SB 1441 was not “even a veiled attempt at subtly advancing the radical homosexual agenda,” but “an outright, blatant assault on religious freedom.”

Randy Thomasson, spokesman for Campaign for Children and Families, said there may be even more bad news to come for California families. Two more pro-homosexual bills are heading toward the governor’s desk. SB 1437 would prohibit textbooks, instructional materials and school-sponsored activities from “reflecting adversely” on homosexuality. AB 606 authorizes the state to withhold funds from any public school district that does not adequately promote homosexuality, transexuality, and bisexuality in its school policies.

CHRISTIAN ACTIVISM
Campaign for Christian heritage continues
Bruce Barilla is on a mission. Since 1992, the quiet White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, man has led a campaign to urge government leaders at all levels – local, state and national – to designate America’s Christian Heritage Week.

Barilla suggests Thanksgiving Week, November 19-25 this year, as a logical time for the observance. Various cities and states have selected other times. Many governors and mayors have issued official proclamations, but Barilla’s biggest disappointment is in failing to see a national observance of our nation’s Christian heritage.

Learn more about how to promote a Christian Heritage Week in your state or community at www.achw.org or call Barilla at 304-536-9029.

In December each year, Barilla is busy encouraging businesses and private citizens to display nativity scenes in public places. AFA’s Center for Law and Policy (CLP) has also offered pointers to help ensure that such displays are legal.

Barilla points out that, contrary to what the ACLU and other liberal entities would have people believe, displaying nativity scenes is not illegal when certain guidelines are followed. Contact Barilla or the CLP (662-680-3886, www.afa.net).

CULTURE
Parents clueless about teen party scene
Parents today are out of touch with the reality of their teens’ party lives, according to the 11th annual survey of teenagers and parents recently released by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA).

The findings revealed that 50% of teens admit alcohol, drugs or both are available at the parties they attend, while 80% of parents believe such substances are not present at the parties.

“They smell no pot, they see no drinking and they hear nothing of the drugs that their kids are using,” said Joseph Califano, CASA chairman. “I think they really have no sense of how awash their teens’ world is in alcohol and drugs. There is a terrible disconnect.”

The disconnect is evident in the 99% of parents who claim they would not serve alcohol at their teens’ parties, and the 28% of teens who claim they have attended adult supervised parties where alcohol was available.

Although parents may be home while their children are having a party, Califano said they rarely walk through or into the party area.

“We live in a world where 8 out of 10 kids are going to drink alcohol before they get out of high school, and 50% will have tried marijuana,” said Carol Falkowski, director of research communications at the Hazelden Foundation, a drug treatment facility in Minnesota.

Falkowski believes parents need to catch up with the teenage world and not allow their own adolescent party experiences to color the reality of their kids’ party scene.     

Falkowski suggests that parents should talk regularly to children. In other words, “Be nosy and stay engaged.”

EDUCATION
Teachers can leave NEA, groups say
Some Christian teachers in the National Education Association (NEA) are turning to an alternative group to provide them with liability insurance and legal services in light of the NEA’s endorsement of same-sex “marriage.”

The liberal union has come under fire in recent years for its promotion of homosexuality and other leftist issues. For example, at the NEA’s annual convention this summer, the union: overwhelmingly passed a resolution endorsing gay marriages and adoptions; recommended that homosexual, bisexual and transgender issues be required educational content for teachers before they can receive credentialing; and voted to replace the word “tolerance” toward homosexuality with “acceptance and respect” in union policies.

Teachers who disagree with such radical policies are checking out their options. One day after AFA alerted its members that the union was planning to endorse homosexual marriage (See AFA Journal 8/06.), Christian Educators Association International (CEAI) reported receiving 5,000 more visits to its Web site than the group’s daily average.

Finn Laursen, executive director of CEAI, said many teachers are withdrawing from the NEA because they simply do not want to invest their money in an organization so blatantly opposed to their values.

“We have been receiving e-mails, phone calls, and a lot of interaction through our Web site with a level of frustration like I have never seen before,” Laursen said. “It almost seems like this open endorsement of same-sex marriage is the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

The Association of American Educators (AAE, www.aaeteachers.org) is another option for teachers who are unhappy with the NEA. Trace Bailey, spokesperson for AAE, said teachers who are unhappy with NEA policies often stay with the union because they feel they have no other professional recourse, but they do.

“They can get twice the [insurance] coverage for about a third of the price from other organizations like ours,” Bailey told CitizenLink.org. “They can also choose to be a religious objector. They can send all of their union dues to a charity. We can help them understand how to exercise their legal rights.”

MEDIA
Media bias evident in coverage of gay studies
A psychologist said media bias was never more obvious than when one study that purported to link homosexuality to biology was heralded, while an earlier study with conflicting results was ignored.

Dr. Warren P. Throckmorton, associate professor of psychology at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, made the charge in August, following the media’s embrace of a study of sibling relationships. The study was conducted by Canadian psychologist Anthony Bogaert of Brock University in Ontario, and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Bogaert apparently claimed to have found evidence that homosexuality may be biologically determined.

Throckmorton said the mainstream media ignored another study from 2001, which strongly supported the significance of social influences in determining sexual orientation. That study was conducted by researchers Peter Bearman and Hannah Bruckner, and focused on opposite-sex twins and adolescent same-sex attractions.

The Bearman/Bruckner study, published in 2002 in the American Journal of Sociology, was largely ignored by the press, however. The reason for the media’s reaction to the study, according to Throckmorton, was because the findings contradicted the mainstream media’s assumption that homosexuality is an innate biological or genetic orientation.

PORNOGRAPHY
White Ribbon Against Pornography campaign begins October 29
Protection from Pornography Week and the White Ribbon Against Pornography Campaign begin October 29. The project is coordinated by Morality in Media.

At their Web site, www.moralityinmedia.org, the group also offers resources including what the private citizen can do to combat pornography during Protection from Pornography Week, information on the White Ribbon Campaign, a quick primer on obscenity laws and a model letter to the editor. Model sermons for porn awareness and a model proclamation observing the week are also there.

Morality in Media is a national, not-for-profit, interfaith organization established in 1962 to combat obscenity and uphold decency standards in the media.

It maintains the National Obscenity Law Center, a clearinghouse of legal materials on obscenity law, and conducts public information programs to educate and involve concerned citizens. (Phone: 212-870-3222).

Additional resources:
• www.faithfulandtrueministries.org – Dr. Mark Laaser offers five-day intensive workshops for those struggling with sexual addictions.

• www.purelifeministries.org – premier ministry to those dealing with sexual sin or pornography addiction. Pure Life offers a 6-12 month live-in recovery program.

• www.AFAFilter.com – powerful Internet filter developed by Bsafe and endorsed by AFA.

Porn: promoted, not accepted
Although widely promoted, viewing pornographic Web sites is considered to be morally unacceptable by approximately 73% of U.S. adults.

The findings are based on a survey conducted by Harris Interactive and commissioned by Morality in Media. The levels of acceptability fluctuate depending on the demographic variables of gender, age, education, income, political affiliation, marital status and religion.

When posed with the question: “Do you consider it to be morally acceptable to view pornographic Web sites and videos?” Twenty-one percent of the 997 respondents said “yes,” 73% said “no,” 4% said “not sure,” and 2% refused to answer.

Findings also revealed that older female Americans are more likely to consider viewing pornography unacceptable, whereas younger male Americans are more likely to consider it acceptable.

“It is disturbing that so many younger males think it is morally acceptable to view pornography,” said Robert W. Peters, president of Morality in Media. “Since males are vulnerable to visual depictions of sex, however, perhaps it should not come as a surprise.”

In addition, the lower the education level of a respondent, the higher the acceptability, and the lower the income, the lower the acceptability. Married adults also find viewing pornographic Web sites and videos less morally acceptable than single adults.

Peters points out that many long-term porn users who are addicts actually hate what they do.

But despite their hate, Peter explained that, “In the ‘2006 State of the Industry’ report, the Free Speech Coalition (the ‘trade association of the adult entertainment industry’) states, ‘Adult entertainment has become widely accepted by Americans across the nation, especially in recent years.’”

Therefore, this perceived acceptability only spurs the entertainment media to promote pornography and porn stars.

PRO-LIFE
Doctors affected by euthanasia practice
A new study reported by the Physicians for Compassionate Care reveals severe effects on doctors who perform physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and euthanasia.

“Many doctors who participated in euthanasia and/or PAS are adversely affected emotionally and psychologically by their experiences,” as concluded in the study.

“Doctors describe being profoundly adversely affected, being shocked by the suddenness of the death, being caught up in the patient’s drive for assisted suicide, having a sense of powerlessness and feeling isolated. There is evidence of pressure on and intimidation of doctors by some patients to assist in suicide,” as further concluded in the report.

Dr. Kenneth Stevens, an Oregon cancer specialist with the Christian Medical and Dental Association (CMDA), describes these effects as substantial.

Helping patients die “represents a shift away from the sentimental values of medicine to heal and promote human wholeness and moves to a position where the doctor is causing the death,” Stevens explained. “So, the doctors are shocked by the sadness of death.”

Similar feelings are shared by doctors in the Netherlands and in Oregon – both places where euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are legal.

One doctor from the Netherlands said, “Many physicians who had practiced euthanasia mentioned that they would be most reluctant to do so again.” Another one said that he felt “awful” the first time he performed euthanasia. And Peter Admiral, a leader of Holland’s euthanasia movement, said, “You will never get accustomed to killing somebody. We are not trained to kill. With euthanasia, your nightmare comes true.”

Sex-selective abortion practiced in Canada
Western Standard magazine, known as a conservative publication in Canada, recently exposed the sex-selective abortion practices of Women’s Hospital in Vancouver in an investigative piece written by Andrea Mrozek and Sean Ollech. An internal document revealed that parental dissatisfaction with the sex of a child justifies abortion at the expense of taxpayers.

The document indicates that one of the hospital clinics held a February presentation on sex selection that included a rationale for justifying the practice. The example given told the story of expectant “Mary,” who had four boys and wanted a girl. According to the document, “during her routine 18-week ultrasound [she] was told she is carrying another boy. She would like to terminate the pregnancy and try one more time for a girl.”

“Being pro-choice means supporting a woman’s right to decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy for whatever reason, even if one personally does not agree with her reason,” as stated in a position paper on sex-selective abortion by the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada.

But according to Mrozek, the Canadian public overwhelmingly opposes sex-selective abortion.

Abortion brings suffering
In the event of an unintended pregnancy, teenagers suffer more from aborting a baby than from giving birth to the child, as concluded in a study conducted by research psychologist Dr. Priscilla Coleman of Bowling Green State University.

Coleman used data from a survey of more than 1,000 women to determine the difference between teens who aborted and teens who  gave birth following unexpected pregnancies. She found abortion can cause severe mental health problems in young women.

For example, Coleman found that those who aborted their babies were five times more likely to seek help for psychological and emotional problems afterward than those girls who carried their pregnancies to term.

“Specifically, we found that only one adolescent who delivered an unintended pregnancy, for every five adolescents who aborted, sought counseling for psychological problems,” Coleman said.

She recognized the hardships a teen mother will experience by bringing a child into the world, but said she believed “there are more psychological problems with abortions, even more than with delivering a baby.”

According to Coleman, research also indicates that:
• “Just slightly under every four adolescents with an abortion reported frequent sleep disturbances,” as compared with every one adolescent with a birth experience;

• “Only one adolescent with a birth – in excess of every six adolescents who aborted – reported more frequent marijuana use.”

She concluded that the scientific evidence is now both “strong and compelling” that abortion “poses more risks to women than giving birth.”

In addition, for “women who feel forced into abortion by others or by life circumstances, negative post-abortion outcomes become more common,” Coleman explained. She went on to note that adolescent girls, being generally far less prepared to assume the responsibilities of parenthood, are logically more vulnerable to being pressured to abort.

Other researchers, including Dr. David Reardon of the Elliot Institute, affirm the importance of Coleman’s distinctive study and the validity of her findings. However, Reardon points out that pro-abortion individuals and groups regularly dismiss such findings that link higher rates of mental illness and behavioral problems to abortion as compared to giving birth.

“Coleman’s study … shows that the facts don’t support abortion advocates’ speculations,” Reardon said.

Brendan Malone, spokesman for the New Zealand pro-life group Family Life International, agreed. He said Coleman’s study is “part of a growing body of research which scientifically dispels the myth that abortion is better for a young woman than [is] carrying a pregnancy to full term.”

RELIGION
Holy Land in U.S. entertains, informs
An exhibit titled “From Abraham to Jesus” kicked off a U.S. tour September 15 in Atlanta, Georgia. It will appear in 28 cities before concluding at The Meadowlands, New Jersey, in December 2008. The exhibit features more than 350 sacred texts and artifacts from the Holy Land, the largest collection ever displayed in the U.S.

It is a high-tech experience, using thematic sets, digital surround sound, photo murals, state-of-the art lighting and narration, and an original musical score. The multimedia approach provides an entertaining and informative look at 2,500 years of Biblical history.

“So few people get to go to the Holy Land,” said Cary Summers, president of Way Makers, one of several international partners sponsoring the tour. “The whole world is focused on Israel now. We’ve found there is a great deal of interest not only in Israel, but also in the country’s history and artifacts.” Other sponsors include the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Institute of Archeology.

Included in the exhibit are the Isaiah Scroll (one of the Dead Sea Scrolls) and the ossuary (or bone box) archaeologists believe held the remains of a son of Simon the Cyrene, who carried Jesus’ cross. Original Holy Land art by America’s Thomas Kinkade will also be featured. Kinkade is known as the “Painter of Light.”

The 30,000 square-foot exhibit requires 12 semi-trucks to move from city to city, 12 full-time personnel, and 400-600 volunteers in each city. It requires three days to erect and to break down at each location. For more information, visit www.FromAbrahamToJesus.com or call 888-896-8687.

Irish tenor releases hymn project
Ronan Tynan’s striking presence causes folks to sit up and take notice. The 6’4” broad-shouldered man is almost always either smiling broadly or singing beautifully. He is probably best known as one of the famed Irish Tenors. In 2005 Tynan launched a solo career and recently released The Dawning of the Day, a collection of hymns.

Tynan’s story is both miraculous and inspiring. Born with leg deformities, he had to have both legs amputated at age 20. Within three weeks, he was walking on prosthetic legs and determined to become a world class athlete. Eventually, he set 14 world records and won 18 gold medals in the Paralympics.

During his athletic career, he decided to go to medical school and later practiced medicine for a number of years. But he found his passion in music. After secretly taking voice lessons, at age 33 he won Go For It!, an Irish television talent show.

His new CD includes “Be Still My Soul,” “Faith of Our Fathers,” “Via Dolorosa,” and “God Bless America.”

New apologetics magazines released
“Defending your faith just got easier,” says a press release from Legacy Road, and it’s not just hype. The group is promoting two new top-notch magazines that are meant to help believers engage in the defense of Christianity.

Produced by authors Larry Chapman and Rick James in conjunction with Campus Crusade for Christ, the publications are called Y-Zines, and are intended to be a combination of magazine and book. Slickly done, the Y-Zines are colorful, graphically interesting and compellingly laid out.

But it’s the content that makes these publications first rate. Y-Origins deals with the critical issues surrounding the debate over evolution, creationism and intelligent design, while Y-Jesus focuses on the existence, ministry, and divinity of Christ, as well as the reliability of the New Testament.

The articles are written in-depth, but are not too technical for the average reader. Chapman and James have a great idea on their hands, and one can certainly hope there will be a dozen more issues coming down the pipe.

To find out more about Y-Zine, visit their Web site, www.y-zine.com, or ask for them at your local bookstore.

New Episcopal bishop stirs controversy
When the 2.3-million-member Episcopal Church consecrated an open and practicing homosexual, Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003, it began a controversy that may very well lead to schism.

The Episcopal Church did something else controversial at this summer’s general convention: It elected a pro-homosexual female bishop from Nevada, Katharine Jefferts Schori, to be the denomination’s presiding bishop. And Schori’s radical beliefs may make matters worse for Bible-believing Anglicans both here and abroad.

In an op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times, Charlotte Allen, author of The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus, said the Episcopal Church is “disintegrating,” and Schori’s election hurts even more.

Allen said Schori “voted for Robinson, blessed same-sex couples in her Nevada diocese, prayed to a female Jesus at the [general convention] and invited former Newark, New Jersey, bishop John Shelby Spong, famous for denying Christ’s divinity, to address her priests.”

Furthermore, in an interview with Time magazine, Schori made comments sure to infuriate conservatives. Concerning the subject of evolution, for example, Schori said, “I firmly believe that evolution ought to be taught in the schools as the best witness of what modern science has taught us. To try to read the Bible literalistically about such issues disinvites us from using the best of recent scholarship.”

What about the subject of salvation? When Time asked, “Is belief in Jesus the only way to get to heaven?” Schori said no.

 “We who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine,” she said. “But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box.”

Allen said the Episcopal Church is no longer “a serious Christian church. It’s a Church of What’s happening Now, conferring a feel-good imprimatur on whatever the liberal elements of secular society deem permissible or politically correct.”