AFA ACTIVISM

Casinos recover quicker than Coast citizens

Mississippi Gulf Coast casinos are flourishing again two years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the region. Eleven of Biloxi’s 13 casinos have re-opened, putting them far ahead of the recovery rate among residents whose homes were destroyed.

“The casinos are going up at an astronomical pace,” said Chad Hills, Focus on the Family analyst for gambling research and policy. “But the people are still having difficulty getting materials or even affording drywall or lumber to rebuild their homes.”

Another unfortunate circumstance is that the state of Mississippi allowed post-Katrina casinos to move onto land. Originally, casinos were allowed to operate only on waterways as giant, floating gambling dens permanently tethered to land. Once allowed inland, the casinos gobbled up vast tracts of storm-ravaged land before other businesses had a chance.

Evelio Silvera, executive director of Casino Watch, told Family News in Focus, “[Casinos] are able to be on land and turn these communities in Mississippi into casino cities instead of cities with casinos. … They took advantage of devalued land and opportunities to create a dependency upon their particular brand of business.”

CULTURE
Pediatricians say it’s OK to spank
The American College of Pediatricians (ACP) has concluded that reasonable corporal punishment administered by loving parents is not harmful to the children on the receiving end.

While most parents would probably yawn at such an announcement, the fact is that the parental practice of including spanking as one tool in the disciplinary repertoire has come under intense scrutiny from parenting “experts.”

The ACP said in a policy statement, “Although 94% of American parents spank their 3- and 4-year olds at least occasionally, most of the current literature advises against the practice.”

The recommendations against spanking often insist that the practice increases aggression in children. But after the ACP conducted a review of the available scientific studies, it said the data did not warrant that conclusion.

“Longitudinal behavioral studies of three to ten years duration have demonstrated that a parent’s use of disciplinary spanking is not linked to childhood aggressiveness,” the ACP said.

After critiquing the studies that are usually cited against spanking, the ACP policy statement said, “In clinical field trials that meet the rigorous requirements for evidence-based medical practice, spanking proved effective and preferred as an enforcer to time-out with clinically oppositional children.”

More adults online
Findings from a new Harris Poll reveal that almost 80% of U.S. adults go online and spend an average of 11 hours on the Internet each week. The percentage drawn from a survey of 2,062 adults extrapolates to about 178 million adults – a figure that has steadily risen since 2000.

“That’s a pretty impressive figure,” said Regina Corso, director of the Harris Poll.

Harris Interactive, a marketing research firm, began tracking adult online usage in 1995 and discovered that only about nine percent of the population went online then.

In the past 12 years, there has been tremendous growth among adults who use the Internet at home and at work. Corso said that people are finding whatever ways they can to get on the Internet, which indicates, demographically, that the online population is aligning more with the general population.

 EDUCATION
California teacher ‘rants’ against Christianity
Chad Farnan, a student at California’s Capistrano Valley High School, said he was stunned when one of his teachers said on the first day of school that the U.S. was not founded on Judeo-Christian principles. Subsequently, Farnan began recording the lectures of Dr. James Corbett, teacher of Farnan’s European history class.

When Farnan let his mother listen to some of the teacher’s comments, she contacted Advocates for Faith and Freedom (AFF) and instigated a federal law suit charging Corbett with violating the constitutional rights of students.

“In the complaint, we allege just one day’s worth of comments,” said AFF attorney Jennifer Monk. “And in that one day ... for about 20 minutes to half an hour, [Corbett] spoke about different current events and [used] many derogatory comments toward Christianity and conservatives.”

Monk quoted Corbett as stating that “when you put your Jesus glasses on, you can’t see the truth.” Charges further contend that he made other derogatory comments about Christian views on homosexuality, birth control and teen sex.

An AFF press release said students come to school to learn, “not to be forced to listen to the personal, demoralizing rantings of their teacher.”

 

Colleges lead students from spiritual to secular
College students are less likely to attend church than they were during their high school years according to a new study by retired UCLA professors Alexander and Helen Astin.

The Astins did a multi-year study of the influence college has on a student’s spiritual development. They surveyed more than 14,000 students on 136 campuses when they entered college, then again at the end of their junior year in 2007.

As freshmen, 43.7% said they frequently attended religious services. After three years of college, only 25.4% did so.

The Astins believe that colleges are neglecting the needs of students when it comes to emotional maturity, spirituality and self-understanding. They conclude that colleges are actually “fostering some of these changes” that lead students away from a spiritual foundation.

“Colleges are considered sort of bastions of secularism,” Alexander Astin said. One positive indicator of the Astins’ findings is a significant increase in the number of college juniors who highly value helping others and “reducing suffering and pain in the world.”

HOMOSEXUALITY
Author testifies of misery that comes from gay parenting
A Christian woman from Canada has written a new book that details the trauma she suffered during her childhood as a result of her father’s homosexual behavior.

In Out from Under: The Impact of Homosexual Parenting, Dawn Stefanowicz (www.dawnstefanowicz.com) recounts her story of growing up in a homosexual home in Toronto, Canada, during the 1960s.

Stefanowicz said she was prompted to write the book in 2004 after testifying before a Canadian senate committee against hate crime legislation and expressing public opposition to the sexual diversity curricula used in her country’s schools.

The author and speaker said writing down her memories about being raised by a father who welcomed numerous male sex partners into the family’s home on a regular basis was a painful process. Stefanowicz said her father’s destructive homosexual behavior created confusion about sexuality in her own life. In the book she chronicles how, as a young girl, she often wished she were a boy.

“It’s a very difficult thing to describe,” she said. “You doubt your own sexuality because you’re looking at your parent’s example. And for me, when I looked at my father I did not feel affirmed as a young girl growing up, nor as a woman. My own femininity was denied in that kind of situation. Women were not valued.”

However, Stefanowicz also said writing about her childhood helped her to heal, and that she hoped the book would aid other children in homosexual homes to “find truth and their own healing.”

“Children are impacted long-term in homosexual environments – not just while they’re growing up, but throughout their adulthood,” said the author. “Children [of homosexuals] who have been in touch with me, even into their fifties and sixties, still describe certain difficulties that they are facing long-term.”

Stefanowicz said it was her faith in Jesus Christ that enabled her to face her traumatic past and forgive her father, who died of AIDS in 1991.

MEDIA
Survey, study: Media is biased
It was not exactly shocking, but both a poll and a Harvard study reiterated what by now must surely be an axiom of American cultural life: the news media is biased in favor of liberals and against conservatives.

The poll was conducted by the Pew Research Center, and found that more than half of Americans believed that news organizations were politically biased, inaccurate, and don’t care about the people about whom they are reporting, according to an article on Breitbart.com.

In contrasting public opinion in 2007 with that in 1985, the Pew survey found a substantial rise in negative attitudes. “Two decades ago, public attitudes about how news organizations do their job were less negative,” said a statement released by Pew. “Most people believed that news organizations stood up for America … [and] a majority believed that news organizations got the facts straight.”

Meanwhile a study jointly conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, a Harvard University research center, seemed to confirm the public’s suspicion of the news media.

In highlighting the results, an Investor’s Business Daily editorial said the study found “that in covering the current presidential race, the media are sympathetic to Democrats and hostile to Republicans.”

In front-page newspaper coverage, for example, in the 11 newspapers examined the study revealed that “the tone [was] positive in nearly six times as many stories about Democrats as it was negative.”

PORNOGRAPHY
Porn access now easier at work
Pornography in the workplace is becoming more easily accessible partly due to wireless technology. Portable devices such as laptop computers and cell phones, which are capable of connecting to the Internet wirelessly, allow employees to view adult material undetected.

These handheld devices are causing the porn-at-work problem to get worse despite a more aggressive attempt by employers to use blocking software. Even portable devices that are company-owned and outfitted with this software are still causing companies to fear possible lawsuits from other employees who are offended by co-workers viewing such material while on the job. Not to mention the threat caused by employees’ use of their own wireless devices while at the office.

“This issue is huge,” said Richard Chaifetz, CEO of ComPsych, a Chicago-based employee-assistance provider. “It’s becoming a bigger and bigger problem.”

Richard Laermer, CEO of the public relations firm RLM, said that the close monitoring of workers is impossible now because of wireless devices.

“Liability is the thing that keeps me up at night, because we are liable for things people do on our premises. It’s serious,” Laermer said. “I’ll see somebody doing it, and I’ll peek over their shoulder, and they’ll say, ‘I don’t know how that happened.’ It’s like 10-year-olds. And it’s always on company time.”

Various surveys taken over the years reveal that many workers encounter adult material while at work, but only a few of them say it was intentional.

According to a 2006 Harris Interactive survey for Websense, 16% of men and 8% of women said they have seen porn at work. Of those percentages, only 6% of men and 5% of women admitted that they viewed it on purpose.

Those who view porn at work do so because they get a rush out of taking risks, are self-delusional and/or addicted, as concluded by researchers and psychologists who study the behavior of Internet users.

“This dilemma is going to get much worse, given the capacity of handheld, electronic devices to download porn,” said psychotherapist Carleton Kendrick. “That will eliminate an employer’s opportunity to check which workers have been going to porn sites on company computers.”  

Porn becoming mainstream for emerging adults
The preliminary findings of a Brigham Young University study on pornography showed increased acceptance and use by college students, including women.

The data from a survey of 813 individuals appear to support the recent statements of a well-known researcher who linked female exposure to pornography to an increase in sex crimes committed by women. The study, called Generation XXX: Pornography Acceptance and Use Among Emerging Adults, also indicated an acceptance of pornography as a means of sexual expression by nearly 50% of females surveyed.

Lead author Jason Carroll told the Deseret Morning News, a Salt Lake City, Utah, newspaper, that women who label use of porn as acceptable can also be linked with risky behaviors such as binge drinking and having multiple sexual partners.

Dr. Judith Reisman, a researcher whose award-winning 1970s- and 1980s-era studies looked at links between sexual stimulation and neurological responses, noted that the rash of female teacher-student abuse cases is another negative outcome of widespread porn acceptance.

“So now we’ve moved into a social epidemic that involves women who are becoming sexual predators in larger numbers than ever before,” Reisman said. “And the major change is exposure to sexually explicit material.”

Carroll said one explanation for more female exposure could be that the current generation is the first to have wide-scale access to pornography through computers and wireless devices.

Potential rise in mobile porn
A pro-family activist said concerned Christians could play a key role in making it tough for mobile phone companies to offer pornography.

According to Juniper Research, revenues from mobile adult services are poised to approach $3.5 billion by 2010. It was also concluded in the report that as cell phone technology advances, porn will become easier to obtain.

But Pat Trueman, special counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), said concerned consumers could still limit the reach of mobile porn.

“People have some say-so with their members of Congress … because Congress can pass a law prohibiting this,” Trueman explained.

The ADF special counsel points out that former congressman Steve Largent, president and CEO of CTIA, a nonprofit organization that represents all sectors of wireless communications, has vowed to do all he can to keep porn from becoming widely available on mobile phones.

Trueman also suggested that parents regulate their child’s use of the phone. He said many children send pornographic e-mails to each other.

“It’s a regular thing in high school and college, [and] I fear it’s a regular thing in grade school,” said the attorney.

www.onenewsnow.com, 12/13/07

PRO-LIFE
Euthanasia becoming more common practice
Australian doctors removed life support from 29-year-old Paulo Melo despite the fact that the auto accident victim was trying to speak and was responding to his family. The family was denied a court injunction to save Melo’s life. Pro-life activist Janet Folger of Faith 2 Action said the case gives evidence of the trend toward more commonplace euthanasia.

“We’re talking about a 29-year-old man who is … moving his eyes and head in response to his family’s visits,” Folger said. “And doctors say, ‘Hey, his life is futile, so we’re going to remove the care he needs.’ In this case, everybody wanted this young man to live except the doctors.”

Folger said the December 2007 case in Australia reflects what is happening in the U.S., recalling the Terry Schiavo case in which Schiavo’s life support was removed at the insistence of her husband, but against the wishes of her parents and others.

Also, Folger pointed out that a Futile Care Law in Texas jeopardizes the life of patients on life support, even those on food-and-water support. She contends that the trend must cease or patients will routinely die for the convenience of others or because insurance companies pressure hospitals to discontinue expensive care.

www.onenewsnow.com, 12/27/07

 Abortion articles prompt painful responses
News reporter Ann Marie McQueen wrote a four-part series on abortion in the Ottawa Sun, a Canadian newspaper, and was “taken aback” by the responses she received from post-abortive victims.

According to LifeSiteNews.com, the series ran “leading up to the 20th anniversary of the 1988 Supreme Court of Canada decision that swept away any legal restrictions on abortion.”

 McQueen expected to be bombarded by responses from pro-lifers, but she never expected to receive so many comments from both men and women who were deeply hurt by abortion.

“It is not just about the woman,” one reader responded.

“It seems that men are left out at this stage … as if we did not exist,” another reader wrote. “Only after the child is born are expectations and responsibilities placed on us. I would have done anything to have kept my son or daughter.”

While McQueen rests on the pro-abortion side of the debate, she covered all angles of the issue in the series.

For example, she interviewed both pro-life advocates and abortionists. She quoted post-abortive women and examined the attitudinal shift toward abortion as portrayed through the entertainment media.

Abortion increases future chances of low birth weight
According to a study published in the January 2008 issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, women who have had an abortion are three times more likely to deliver a baby with low birth weight.

The study is titled “Previous abortion and the risk of low birth weight and preterm babies,” and it shows that the more abortions a woman has, the more chances she will deliver an underweight or premature baby. Low birth weight and preterm births are two significant factors in the deaths of newborns and infants.

The findings are the result of the assessment of more than 45,500 mother-and-child pairs in which two-thirds of the mothers were between the ages of 20 and 29. LifeSiteNews.com summed up the findings of the study as follows:

The authors admit that previous research on the topic has been inconclusive due to a range of results between “no increased risk” to a “significantly increased risk.” However, the actual research report reads: “Unlink other studies, this study identified previous abortion as a significant risk factor to LBW [low birth weight], TLBW [term low birth weight] and PB [preterm birth], and the risk increased with the increasing number of abortions.”

www.lifesite.net, 12/18/07