A bill being debated in the California legislature is a cocktail of political disasters. Combining separate debates over parental rights and emergency powers, it creates one of the most direct assaults on parental rights in American history.
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the so-called Respect for Marriage Act, legislation that would officially repeal the bipartisan Defense of Marriage Act and enshrine into federal law a radical redefinition of marriage. Forty-seven Republicans joined Democrats in passing the bill, leading to speculation that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer might be able to find enough Republican votes to pass the legislation in the upper chamber.
When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, it felt like the beginning of the end for many conservative causes. The court was already moving left. Obergefell, the case in which liberal justices invented a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, was still fresh in our memory. Chief Justice John Roberts, the most recent Republican nominee to the court, was unreliable, and Justice Anthony Kennedy, the moderate on the bench, had become a reliable vote for the sexual revolution. Justice Scalia's death seemed likely to make the situation worse. After all, President Barack Obama was in the final year of his term and was poised to replace one of the court's most reliable conservatives with someone decidedly not conservative.
In a world filled with strange developments, perhaps one of the strangest is America's new fascination with connecting kids with drag queens. Evidently, like turkey at Thanksgiving, it just isn't Pride Month if there aren't any men dressed like women twerking in front of children.
On Pentecost Sunday in Owo, Nigeria, a horrifying massacre took place. \r\r"Streaks of blood on the floors and walls, sandals abandoned in a desperate rush to escape, a well-thumbed Bible lying among shards of glass," Reuters reported on June 6. "Those were some of the disturbing sights inside St. Francis Catholic Church in the Nigerian town...after unknown assailants attacked the congregation with guns and explosives during Sunday mass, killing and injuring dozens of people."
It's Pride Month again, which means everybody will be asked to show their fidelity to the gods of the sexual revolution. Those who fail will be thrown into the Twittery fiery furnace.
When it comes to police reform, President Joe Biden is now caught in a trap of his own making. In an attempt to appease the radical base of his party before the midterm elections, the president recently signed an executive order that would establish a national registry of officers who've been discharged for misconduct and restrict the transfer of certain kinds of equipment to law enforcement agencies.
There's been much discussion in recent years about what it means to be "conservative." The state of Oklahoma recently gave us an example of what it means to govern conservatively, and that begins by refusing to let the law tell lies.
The recent horrifying death of Deborah Emmanuel Yakubu, a Nigerian college student, focused international attention on Nigeria's Christians and their persistent abuse by radical Islamists. Thanks to social media, reports and videos of Deborah's vicious beating and burning in Sokoto were widely circulated for several days.
or weeks, the nation debated over whether teachers in Florida should be allowed to talk to young children about sex. It turns out that many adults see it as a matter of human dignity. As a result, when the Florida legislature passed a law prohibiting lessons about sex and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, some teachers in the state said they would quit. One such educator, Nicolette Solomon, told NBC News, "Nobody would be able to know, which then puts me in the closet, and I'm there seven hours a day, if not more, five days a week. I wouldn't be able to be who I am."
On April 25, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) launched its Annual Report describing events in 2021- a detailed document focusing on more than two dozen countries that are engaging in or tolerating religious freedom violations. Their report also offers suggestions and recommendations, while providing information regarding 15 specific prisoners of conscience, for whom USCIRF Commissioners have personally advocated.
Right now, the fight for control of Ukraine is taking place in the skies above Kyiv and in the streets of Mariupol. However while the conflict between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the sky and on the land has ground to a stalemate, Vladimir Putin and his virtual war machine dedicated to sowing disinformation are decidedly losing the information war.
President Joe Biden is desperate to skirt the blame for his own economic blunders -- but finding a convincing scapegoat is proving to be an arduous task.
Indisputable evidence of Russian war crimes has stunned the world as gruesome scenes continue to be exposed in Bucha, Ukraine-a town near Kyiv. The sprawled remains of more than a dozen civilians, abandoned along a road, have been clearly photographed. An elderly woman was found beheaded. One group of nine, all in civilian clothes, were scattered around a site that residents said Russian troops used as a base. "We have already buried 280 people in mass graves," said Bucha Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk. "These people were shot, killed, in the back of the head."
In today's unsettled world, breathless headlines turn our eyes from one dangerous site to another-from Russia to Ukraine, from North Korea to China. And we hardly have time to focus on hotspots that flash, flare, and fade in the Middle East.
The sign is written in Russian. It contains one word: "Children." It was painted on both of the parking lots surrounding a theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, to safeguard the hundreds of people, including scores of children, sheltering inside it. But it didn't stop Russian planes from bombing the theater, trapping those seeking safety under tons of bricks and cement.
Should children in kindergarten through third grade receive lessons about sexual orientation and gender identity? After a bizarre national debate, the state of Florida says no. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed the bill into law, said in a statement, "Parents have every right to be informed about services offered to their child at school, and should be protected from schools using classroom instruction to sexualize their kids as young as 5 years old."
"Stranger Danger." This phrase is used by parents to warn their children about predators. In this election year, it is also an appropriate warning for vulnerable citizens who could be targeted by activists who will try to suppress or steal their votes.
"Kill all you see, whether children or adults." That was the instruction one Burmese soldier recalled receiving from his superior as the Burmese military destroyed approximately 20 villages, dumping the bodies of their victims in mass graves. It's a grotesque scene that was replicated across Burma's Rakhine State during a massive 2017 campaign against the Rohingya people, an ethnic and religious minority in Burma. Last week, the United States government officially recognized this atrocity for what it was-genocide.
In a 2022 statement to stockholders, the investment banking firm Citigroup stated, "We believe all parents deserve time to adjust to parenthood and bond with the newest member of their family." Citigroup said that this belief had led them to expand their paid parental leave policy in 2020 to guarantee 16 weeks of paid maternity leave or four weeks of paid parental leave.
According to the NCAA, Lia Thomas is a national champion. After touching the wall first at the conclusion of the 500-yard freestyle, Thomas's win was heralded by ESPN, The New York Times, and CNN as historic. And it's true. Thomas' championship-clinching swim at last week's NCAA women's national championship meet capped off a record-breaking season in which the University of Pennsylvania swimmer set multiple pool, school, and league records.
For weeks, a shocked world has been transfixed by Russia's murderous invasion of Ukraine. The killing and maiming of innocents by the thousands - unarmed women, children and the elderly - has been stunning. Resourceful Ukrainian soldiers have demonstrated enormous courage. And nation after nation has responded with rage, reprimands, armament, financial sanctions and threats of further recourse. Few members of the international community have remained unmoved.
A decision in a high-profile European religious freedom case is expected to be handed down by month's end. Finnish Parliament member P\u00E4ivi R\u00E4s\u00E4nen is charged with three counts of "ethnic agitation" under a hate speech law in the criminal code for articulating a Christian understanding of marriage and sexuality in a tweet, a radio show, and a 20-year-old pamphlet. At stake in this important case is not only freedom of speech but also the freedom to believe and express fundamental tenets of the Christian faith. So, even if Finland chooses not to side with religious freedom in this case, we must do so.
It was reported this week that negotiations aimed at restoring the 2015 Iran nuclear deal were "back on track" in Vienna following a brief pause that resulted from Russia's sudden imposition of new demands related to the sanctions on its invasion of Ukraine. Moscow asked that the United States provide guarantees that those sanctions no interfere with Russian-Iranian trade or security agreements. It is not clear exactly how the issue was resolved so quickly, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed to have received the relevant guarantees, and thus fueled further speculation that Western participants in the Vienna talks are readily handing out concessions to their adversaries.
As their radical policy regime comes under threat at the Supreme Court, abortion supporters now want to change the terms of discussion. In the name of avoiding "bias," they've begun to play Orwellian language games, instead of working to make things better for America's women and children.
While Russia continues to attack civilian areas and fire projectiles at residential areas in Ukraine, it has sparked the largest humanitarian disaster in Europe since World War II. It's already estimated that one million Ukrainians have fled the country, with more on the way.
Americans are identifying as LGBT at higher rates than ever before. At least that's what a recent poll claims. According to Gallup, the number of those who say they are something other than what God designed them to be has risen to 7.1 percent, a more than 100 percent increase from 10 years ago, when Gallup first began asking the question, and a 26 percent increase from just last year.
Why would a major, international news service attempt to smear peaceful parents by linking their attendance at school board meetings to a few anonymous threats by crackpots? Take, for example, the recent Reuters investigation posted and reposted on February 15. Breathless coverage is offered under a screaming headline: School boards get death threats amid rage over race, gender, mask policies. The investigation was reposted with a corrected headline, adding "amid rage" for context.
There is nothing new under the sun - especially when it comes to communism. As Russia, a country historically steeped in Communist influence, has set the world on edge by violently invading Ukraine, it is high time for the United States to purge the evil influence of communism wherever it may be found.
The militant Left is attacking the principled public service of Justice Clarence Thomas again; this time by targeting his wife Ginni in a malicious attempt to delegitimize Supreme Court decisions that are faithful to the original meaning of the Constitution.
Most people are ready to return to normalcy, but the pandemic has given Washington bureaucrats a chance to extend their reach. They won't relinquish that power without a fight.
The Islamic Republic of Iran never seems to disappear from headlines, while its misdeeds persist-often out of sight and out of mind. A primary example is the regime's ceaseless abuse of religious minorities-Sunni Muslims, Zoroastrians, Baha'is, atheists and Christians, and even at times government recognized Assyrian and Armenian churches. These abuses are often hidden from view. Yet the highly respected Open Doors World Watch List consistently places Iran among the world's top 10 persecutors of Christians.
While millions of people around the world were watching the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, in the very same city the ceremony was taking place, Xu Yonghai was being put under house arrest at a motel.
While most Americans were still asleep Monday morning, Finnish member of Parliament P\u00E4ivi R\u00E4s\u00E4nen and Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola entered a courtroom in Helsinki, Finland. They are on trial for their faith in court proceedings that began three weeks ago, concluding an almost three-year-long campaign of legal harassment from the Finnish government. They and the prosecution made their final arguments Tuesday.
On the day of this year's March for Life, congressional Republicans sent a letter to Acting U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Janet Woodcock. Prompted by a recent New York Times expos\u00E9 reporting that prenatal genetic screening tests are incorrect 85 percent of the time, the letter asks Woodcock whether the FDA will be taking any steps to regulate these prenatal screenings in light of the concerningly high rate of false positives.
Today, Americans of all stripes are constantly bombarded with an insidious propaganda campaign against our shared history. From Critical Race Theory to ripping down historical statues, our national story is being rewritten as irredeemably sinful. These efforts have taken a particularly racialized characteristic by implying that Black history is somehow distinct from, or in opposition to, "American history" itself, rather than an integral part of it.
The Left and their liberal media allies love to point to the low number of election crimes prosecuted as proof that there is little to no voter fraud. They claim these low figures prove we have secure elections and that we do not need election integrity reforms.
Politico reached out to me for a conservative perspective on Joe Biden's first year in office, but when I hit their favored president too hard, they proved yet again that the establishment media continue to cover for this failed president as shills for Democrats and the far left.
Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom Rashad Hussain spoke at the launch of Open Doors' World Watch List report last week. Last month, the Senate confirmed Hussain in an 85-5 vote. He is assuming office at a time when government restrictions on religion across the globe remain at a peak, according to the Pew Research Center. During his confirmation hearing, Hussain noted, "A staggering 80 percent of people worldwide live in environments with high or severe restrictions on religious freedom." The challenges are great, but so are the opportunities.
When moving homes recently, I had a conversation with the mover that cut through a lot of what passes for sophisticated discourse about abortion. He asked me what I did for a living, and I said I was a lawyer who focuses on pro-life policy. He was confused and asked what that entails. I told him I work to make abortion illegal.
Have you ever listened to the news, and come across a story that really makes you angry? Some stories just touch a nerve.
Tens of thousands of Americans from all walks of life will gather Friday in Washington, D.C., for the 49th annual March for Life.
It is a shocking statement that could easily be attributed to a third world dictator. When asked about election legislation this week, the president of the United States of America stated, "It's not who can vote, but who gets to count the vote. Who counts the vote-that's what this is about."
During his 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden promised to implement a national plan to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. As the calendar turns to 2022, the highly-transmissible Omicron variant is resulting in the highest daily case rates yet. When examining the actions from President Biden's first year in office, it would seem that his administration has focused less on concrete solutions to tackle COVID-19 and more on promoting abortion in unprecedented ways.
The Declaration of Independence is America's charter. It's the foundation on which our republic rests, which is why its most critical assertion remains relevant to every American.
As a former Division I women's basketball player, I am no stranger to playing against men. My high school team wanted to win a state championship, so we trained against boys. In college, I wanted to walk on at Notre Dame, so I practiced against men. After three years of watching from the stands, I made the team. Once on the team, our coach, Muffet McGraw, wanted to win a national championship, so we played against "the practice squad."
As cheerful greetings of "Happy New Year" fade across the world, life gradually settles back into "the new normal." And alongside various concerns about yet another pandemic season, new issues emerge. For those of us who follow international religious freedom, the plight of Christian believers-the most widely targeted faith group in the world-comes back into focus.
Democrats in Congress are unable to move forward on their massive spending bill because of bipartisan opposition. Polling showed President Biden's Big Government Socialism Bill was wildly unpopular with the American people. That is no surprise when you consider it did not address any of the significant issues facing American families today like sky-high gas prices, rising food costs, spikes in violent crime, and a shortage of products because of a failing supply chain.
President Biden's administration and Congress should be wary of warming up to Kazakhstan, a country ablaze right now with mass protests and unprecedented chaos. We just might get burned.
When Martin Luther King Jr., envisioned an America of equality in human dignity, he certainly didn't anticipate racial lines being drawn around one of our country's most sacred holidays. Sadly, that's where we find ourselves today.
Nearly a decade ago, a florist from rural Washington State turned her world upside down by respectfully refusing to use her creative talents in the service of a same-sex wedding. Thanks to a recent settlement, Mrs. Stutzman no longer faces the threat of losing her home or retirement, but before we let her return to the peace and quiet she has always deserved, we should make sure we understand what happened.
The age of mask and vaccine mandates has sparked important conversations about what employers, businesses and our government can ask about our personal health decisions. These discussions often reveal widespread misconceptions about who is responsible for keeping that information confidential and secure. Clarity on this issue is of utmost importance for consumers, especially with the rise of smartphone apps hungry for health data.
A federal judge has struck down one of President Joe Biden's four COVID vaccine mandates, ruling that it violates federal law to force healthcare providers to fire doctors and nurses who object to the vaccination. One mandate down, three to go.
Only six nations in the world allow abortion on demand through nine months of pregnancy. Among those six are countries guilty of placing religious minorities in concentration camps, starving their own people, imprisoning political opponents, and offering people with disabilities an option for assisted suicide but not for care-and, the United States.
On December 1, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, a case that has the potential to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion on demand in America. In the lead-up to the case, abortion will once again be in the national spotlight, and when the court announces its decision sometime next year, it will generate massive media attention.
During a rendezvous at the United Nations General Assembly, the Iranian regime's foreign minister lodged a formal complaint with his Swedish counterpart about the trial of Hamid Noury, a former Iranian official, in Stockholm. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told Sweden's Ann Linde that all the documents provided to the court are "fabricated." A month prior, a spokesman for the regime's Foreign Ministry had warned, "We will naturally use all our diplomatic means to obtain and enforce Hamid Noury's rights."
After decades of disturbing eyewitness reports, today's international religious freedom observers have become deeply concerned about Nigeria's imperiled Christian communities.
Cancel culture is real, and it's not about "accountability"
Today's America is facing moral and political divisions that especially challenge our Christian communities. During these times of increasing uncertainty, we need to be aware of dangers that could affect our families and the future our faith.
It is time for parents to believe what the architects and central planners of American public education are telling us.
"If you tell them that you went to a church and believed in Jesus, they would not stop at just beating you." These are the words of North Korean defector Lee Kang In, quoted in a report released last week by UK-based human rights group Korea Future. The report adds substantial evidence to what the world already knows-North Korea is not just a national security threat; it is the world's worst violator of human rights.
On Tuesday, the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law publicly demanded the University of Massachusetts address an antisemitic incident that the university has tried to keep under wraps since June. Per the Brandeis Center, a reporter was "accosted, spat at, shoved and called a Nazi and a pig solely based upon his perceived identity as a Zionist." The culprits were local affiliates of a group familiar to anyone studying antisemitism on campus: Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
At a community meeting last week, D.C. Assistant Police Chief Chanel Dickerson revealed that as a pregnant 18-year-old police cadet in the late 1980s, she was told to have an abortion or face termination from the program. The next day, another police officer, 24-year veteran Karen Arikpo, disclosed that she, too, had an abortion to save her job.
The American people must never lose sight of what makes our country great as we march toward victory in our ongoing efforts to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic. We must defeat this enemy while being true to our highest values, upholding the religious liberty and civil rights of our fellow citizens by rejecting vaccine mandates.\r\r
Small victories are still victories, and worth celebrating. So, as we - all Americans - come to realize just how much critical race theory has come to permeate our discourse and our dialogues, we are fighting back. We are reclaiming that most self-evident of truths- all men are created equal.
On October 5 and 6, eight Chinese house church Christians were denied asylum in South Korea. One was Pan Yongguang, a beleaguered pastor who had fled increasing government harassment, raids, and interrogations in China.
Last week a mom read aloud to the Fairfax County School Board excerpts from library books found in an FCPS library.
Last Friday afternoon, U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra quietly announced a new set of actions in response to the implementation of Texas' Heartbeat Act, a pro-life law the U.S. Supreme Court recently allowed to go into effect while further litigation plays out.
This week, the Iranian theocracy's president, Ebrahim Raisi, gave a brazen virtual "speech" at the United Nations General Assembly. His barefaced lies and shameless claims once again raised the question, why is the UN allowing a madman and a mass murderer to take over the international podium? Which world leader is truly willing and ready to shake Raisi's blood-drenched hands?
The Biden administration's disastrous retreat from Afghanistan has raised fresh concerns about this administration's military leadership. Amid the chaos and mere hours before 13 U.S. service members were killed in a bomb attack at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, the Army's top enlisted general was tweeting about diversity and quotas in celebration of "Women's Equality Day."
Women's sports will no longer exist in Afghanistan under the Taliban's regime, according to the deputy head of the Taliban's cultural commission. Ahmadullah Wasiq told an Australian reporter that it was "not necessary" that women play cricket or other sports. "In cricket, they might face a situation where their face and body will not be covered. Islam does not allow women to be seen like this," he said. For the women who blazed the trail that led to the development of women's sports that did not previously exist in Afghanistan, the announcement confirmed their fears about Taliban rule.
Across America today, intense arguments and quarrels that flared up during the urgent removal of all American forces from Afghanistan - abruptly announced by President Joe Biden on Aug. 16 - are still roiling. The angry uproar increased when retrospectives began to appear as Sept. 11 approached. This included poignant reminders that al-Qaida, under Osama bin Laden's direction, orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. It is well known that al-Qaida remains a Taliban ally today.
Those who relish the unyielding power of the state over the individual have had a good year. Lockdowns by tyrannical governors and state and local bureaucrats, along with expansive authority seized out of thin air by the CDC and other arms of the federal government, have made America almost unrecognizable as a bastion of freedom.
In June, just days before the U.S. Senate was to vote on Democrats' federal takeover of elections deceptively named the 'For the People Act,' West Virginia's Senator Joe Manchin drew a red line in the sand.
The question is being raised everywhere - in daily emails, WhatsApp messages or texts from people on the ground in Afghanistan. "Why are our efforts being blocked?" is repeatedly voiced by NGOs, philanthropists and everyone else who is trying to help thousands of would-be Afghan refugees. Why are these refugees becoming refuseniks?
During the height of the COVID-19 lockdown controversy, Grace Community Church in Southern California, led by John MacArthur, got a lot of attention because they defied Governor Gavin Newsom's order to stop having church.
As thousands of desperate Afghans hope to make their way onto airplanes headed anywhere outside the country, millions more are devastated to see their country revert to strict Sharia law brutally enforced by the Taliban. This feeling of devastation isn't limited to the Afghan people. For Americans, especially those who care about religious freedom, the Taliban takeover is heartbreaking.
This month the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released a new report that documents religious freedom violations occurring in North Korea. Based on interviews with North Korean survivors, witnesses, and even perpetrators of religious freedom violations, the report concludes that "the denial of religious freedom is absolute" in the hermit kingdom. This brutal reality must inform the Biden administration's foreign policy approach to North Korea.
This past Tuesday, on a straight party-line vote, Congress passed the John Lewis Voting Rights Act or H.R. 4. This bill is a blatant power grab and an attempt to federalize our elections. It's also an effort to make states unable to defend safeguards like voter ID in court.
Watching the unfolding tragedy and pain has caused American allies and enemies to wonder where the United States stands regarding other longstanding U.S. commitments. After the withdrawal from Afghanistan, can America be trusted to keep any of its promises?
We often expect politicians to enact constitutionally dubious laws and executive orders, but usually they at least pretend their actions are legal.
Big Tech has become one of the major areas of concern for conservatives. Whether it's bias against conservatives, using their platforms to advance liberal policies, or turning a blind eye to the actions of hostile regimes like China, conservatives are united in their anger at these companies. That anger goes beyond conservatives as well.
Fifteen years ago, the Family Research Council advocated for Abdul Rahman, an Afghan Muslim man who had converted to Christianity and was being persecuted. Even in the face of a new Constitution, supported by the U.S. and purported to protect religious freedom, the Islamist headwinds blew strongly enough that Rahman's safety was only ensured by the intervention of the international community, who at the time had been helping to rebuild Afghanistan. At that time, we had critiqued the Bush administration for failing to stand up for people like Mr. Rahman and called for pressure on the U.S.-backed Afghan government to ensure his protection. Eventually, Mr. Rahman was shuttled to Italy, not without much effort by his international defenders (he certainly lacked them within his own country).
Big Tech has become one of the major areas of concern for conservatives. Whether it's because of these companies' bias against conservatives, using their platforms to advance liberal policies, or turning a blind eye to the actions of hostile regimes like China, conservatives are united in their anger at Big Tech. That anger goes beyond conservatives, as well.
After days of increasing disbelief, America watched on Aug. 16 as President Joe Biden officially abandoned Afghanistan. We listened to his awkward speech as he publicly dismissed a 20-year American investment in blood and treasure while putting at risk untold thousands of Afghan lives.
Big Tech has become one of the major areas of concern for conservatives. Whether it's bias against conservatives, using their platforms to advance liberal policies, or turning a blind eye to the actions of hostile regimes like China, conservatives are united in their anger at these companies. That anger goes beyond conservatives as well.
How much can lack of election integrity cost you? It's $3 trillion and rising, and it's all that stands between you and the socialist takeover of America. Unsecure elections are the gateway to socialism.
It's becoming increasingly clear that we need to thoroughly examine what happened during the 2020 elections and take steps to make sure it can't happen again.
Big Tech has become one of the major areas of concern for conservatives. Whether it's bias against conservatives, using their platforms to advance liberal policies, or turning a blind eye to the actions of hostile regimes like China, conservatives are united in their anger at these companies. That anger goes beyond conservatives as well.
Seventeen Senate Republicans seem determined to save President Joe Biden from his disastrous policies by backing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's (D-NY) infrastructure bill, reducing the GOP's ability to go after the inflation caused by Democrats' runaway spending when it hits everyday Americans' weekly budgets, as it is sure to do.
It's back to school season. Like every year, children are excited about new teachers, new experiences, new clothes, and maybe even some new friends. But for many families, back-to-school is not business as usual this year. In many cases, the temporary changes to education brought on by COVID-19 have become permanent.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is a constant fixture in world news. Yet, this summer he has been making the news for something unexpected - his crackdown on youth culture. Recent decades have seen elements of South Korean culture seeping through the Chinese border via the black market. And according to Kim Jong Un, South Korean slang and fashion borrowed from K-pop and K-dramas harm "the new generation's ideological mind-set." The regimes' reaction to harmless South Korean terms exposes a weakness that the free world should exploit.
An international firestorm broke out last week surrounding Simone Biles. Biles landed in the news not for winning medals, per her custom, but for dropping out. Biles cited "mental health" as the reason for leaving her team in the middle of the women's gymnastics competition. All sorts of conversation ensued.
On Aug. 5, the new Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, will be inaugurated. Raisi was a member of the infamous Death Commission in Tehran in 1988.
As I make clear in my brand-new book, Christianity and Wokeness, nothing will be left untouched by the woke revolution. One of the key targets of this movement, which is currently sweeping the West: boyhood and girlhood.
Last week in Washington D.C., a young Nigerian woman named Joy Bishara described the horrifying moment in 2014 when she and 275 other Chibok schoolgirls were kidnapped by Boko Haram.
Authoritarians confiscate guns. Why? Because gun rights are the linchpin protecting citizens from loss of all rights.
It doesn't cost anything to engage in dialogue with one's political opponents. The Democrats, however, would rather spend millions of donor dollars on a partisan crusade.
These days, the younger generation is encouraged to despise their American birthright. According to this worldview, the United States was a force for oppression in centuries past, and racism, baked into the very structure of the republic, constitutes the true narrative of the American people. And what is this worldview's solution to our country's alleged ills? To tear down the existing order, cleanse it of its sins, and reeducate the youth such that they become activists against democracy, free speech, and free thought.
Election integrity recently won a pivotal battle against an attempt by Democrats to hijack the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) for partisan reasons. They failed when the Supreme Court in Brnovich v. DNC laid a foundation to restore Americans' confidence in their elections so that everywhere in this nation it can be easy to vote, but hard to cheat.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is celebrating its 100th anniversary, and even state-approved churches are being compelled by the government to celebrate the centennial of the atheistic, totalitarian regime. Unfortunately for the Chinese people-and especially for religious believers-China's economic advancements and increased global prominence have been stained by religious persecution and political oppression at the hands of the CCP.
Hong Kong's well-known pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily was forced to run its final edition on June 24 after authorities used the new national security law to freeze the company's assets without a court order. It is yet another sign that the light of the city's freedom is flickering out. The free expression of ideas that support democracy from outlets like Apple Daily would only be considered a national security threat to a totalitarian government that fears the truth. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the Chinese government is.
With a mass murderer, Ebrahim Raisi, planted as the Iranian regime's next president, the international community should both hear the regime's message as well as send its own. Needless to say, the outcome of an undemocratic election is not inherently remarkable, not to mention that the president is completely subservient to the supreme leader, who wields ultimate power in Iran.
This week, the Democrats' bill to federalize our elections, S.1, failed in the U.S. Senate. Thanks to the filibuster, the bill fell short of its needed sixty-vote threshold.
In 2019, a small Chinese house church's congregation fled together to South Korea in search of relief from the persecution they had endured at the hands of the Chinese government. Sadly, the South Korean government has rejected the group's asylum bids, and the once-successful Chinese Christians are relegated to working on farms as they appeal the decisions.
With a stunning lack of self-awareness, The New York Times recently published an extraordinary piece about the modern Americans Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Presidential elections in prominent countries tend to reverberate across the world. And the results sometimes echo in op-eds and interviews long after the results are announced. Certainly, the U.S. presidential election in November 2020 still remains a hot topic for discussion in some circles, and it may be so for a very long time.
Following decades of forced abortions and sterilizations carried out under Beijing's infamous one-child policy, and five years of a two-child policy, Chinese couples are now allowed to have three children. But this should not be confused with a move toward liberalization. The Chinese state will do whatever suits its goals, disregarding the dignity and basic human rights of its people. For now, the government wants more future workers, so childbearing is a priority.
The release of the State Department's annual International Religious Freedom Report this month confirmed the dire situation of many religious believers around the world. The evidence of widespread suffering is a call to action for world leaders, and the U.S. Congress should take note. Although the executive branch is ultimately in charge of U.S. foreign policy, members of Congress nevertheless have an influential role to play.
Democrats are pushing another federal takeover of elections with the so-called John Lewis Voting Right Advancement Act. This one is a power grab forcing states to get permission from the Democrat-controlled federal government before implementing election integrity measures like voter ID and other constitutional safeguards.
The latest news reports are focused on the explosive results of Iran's investment in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas-a divisive and distressing confrontation to be sure. But while all eyes are on the Middle East, Iran has not been idle elsewhere. Its persistent and growing influence in Africa has flown under the radar for many observers.
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (MBS) should have left the snark on the playground. Their churlish, childish response to reasonable questions from Arizona State Senate President Karen Fann is unbecoming of elected officials. Their constituents deserve better.
If you ask a mom to use one word to describe all of her children, most likely she will respond: "unique." Every mother knows that from the moment of conception, none of her children were the same.
Senate Democrats are cramming a federal takeover of elections through a key vote on the Corrupt Politicians Act this week, part of their plan with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to transform America into a permanent one-party socialist nation.
A high priority for the radical left is a national takeover of our elections. They want the bureaucrats in D.C. running our elections. This is what S.1 or The Corrupt Politicians Act is all about-another big government power grab.
When the Financial Times reported that China is set to announce its first population decline since the famine that accompanied Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward, Chinese authorities rushed to dispel the report. After decades of coercive implementation of its one-child policy, which was intended to limit population growth, now the government does not want to admit population decline.
In his first few months in office, President Biden's administration has either canceled or put on hold some of the religious freedom programs conducted by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). This is deeply unfortunate. The Biden administration must solidify the promotion of international religious freedom in its development projects. Doing so will serve the mission of USAID, which is to "promote and demonstrate democratic values abroad, and advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world."
A South Korean law that threatens human rights activists with fines of nearly $27,000 or up to three years in prison has prompted international concern about the status of free speech in South Korea and the future of human rights advocacy. Passed in December by South Korea's parliament, the law bans civilians from floating balloons with informational leaflets and sending bottles with rice and USBs over water.
Last year, the annual National Day of Prayer was marked by the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.
Just over a hundred days ago, Joe Biden became the 46th president of the United States of America. In his inaugural address, the new president promised to unify the nation.
The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will decide a core gun rights issue: Whether the Second Amendment requires states to give permits to law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons.
In a 1974 interview with the Washingtonian, 31-year-old Senator Joe Biden quipped, in reference to Roe v. Wade, "when it comes to issues like abortion...I'm about as liberal as your grandmother. I don't like the Supreme Court decision on abortion." In 1974, Senator Biden was indeed about as "liberal" as my grandmother-in fact, he and my grandmother had a lot in common.
Though the COVID-19 pandemic impacted business as usual across the world, it has not stopped our work on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
Many on the left claim that voting integrity measures, such as voter ID, are throwbacks to the Jim Crow era. Since Jim Crow laws were enacted by Southern Democrats to force racial segregation and block economic and political power among Black Americans, Democrats should know their current claims are preposterous. As the old saying goes, "they have a lot of nerve."
A notorious bill moving through Congress - H.R. 1 - contains a swarm of bad ideas. But little noticed is a provision that makes Election Day obsolete. We've lost so many unifying cultural events that bring Americans together, it is no surprise that H.R.1 not only would start the election weeks earlier but also prolong the election well after Election Day.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, recently introduced a bill to prohibit funding for the United Nations Population Fund. American funding for the UNFPA has long been controversial due to the organization's link to coercive abortion and sterilization, especially in China. America's recent genocide determination against China over its forced sterilizations of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang makes the effort to cut U.S. funding with the UNFPA even more urgent.
The Biden administration has abandoned women by supporting the removal of the Food and Drug Administration requirements surrounding the distribution of the mifepristone abortion regimen. Based on extreme lobbying efforts of the pro-abortion movement on this issue, Americans might conclude these regulations-the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies, otherwise known as the REMS-were overly protective and put into place by the pro-life Trump administration; however, that is not the case.
Democrats' Corrupt Politicians Act pending in the Senate is a frontal assault on our Constitution's federalist recipe for freedom which has served our nation well for centuries, putting Congress in complete control of its own elections. The American people must oppose the Radical Left's hostile takeover of our right to vote, and with it the death of American Exceptionalism.
The Chinese Communist Party recently imposed sanctions against us for our work on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. It's part of a desperate attempt to silence international scrutiny of Beijing's abysmal human-rights record, particularly its genocidal policies against the Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang and its persecution of other religious minorities.
In late February, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the so-called "Equality Act" (H.R. 5), one of the most anti-life, anti-family and anti-faith bills in American history. The legislation passed by a vote of 224-206, with only three Republicans supporting it. As of press time, the bill had moved to the Democrat-controlled Senate, and President Joe Biden had urged Congress to pass the measure in concert with many of the executive actions he has already taken unilaterally.
The biblical worldview teaches that all people are made in God's image and possess inherent value and dignity. Furthermore, Christians are told to do justice (Micah 6:8), love our neighbor (Mark 12:31), and reject partiality (James 2:1). Therefore, Christians should oppose unjust discrimination. But does that mean Christians should support the Equality Act?
Outrage from Democrats, corporations and Major League Baseball about voter identification requirements and Georgia's "Election Integrity Act of 2021" feels like leftovers reheated for the third time. Whenever Republicans propose commonsense voter ID measures to help safeguard our elections, liberals react by shouting that it is voter suppression and Jim Crow 2.0.
Corporate titans tripping over themselves to be "woke" by condemning election integrity laws like Georgia's SB 202 are failing in their duty to focus on running their companies profitably, ironically instead pushing an agenda that other nations show destroys private business under one-party socialist rule.
The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JPCA) is a bait-and-switch attempt that claims to help conservative news sources but would instead purge them from the marketplace of ideas. Congress should reject it for the freedom-killer it is.
No greater hoodwinking of America has ever been proposed than through a dangerous and deceitful piece of current federal legislation that will create a one-party rule.
Africa has long been a dream destination for intrepid globe trotters. Generations of adventurous souls have embarked on safaris, explored vast savannas and photographed exotic wildlife. Colorful cultural traditions and ethnic foods have added to the continent's allure. Nowadays, however, international reports are casting worrisome shadows across Africa, especially for those of us who focus on international religious freedom.
In second grade, my teacher, Sister Rose, had each student create a poster of our favorite things and career aspirations. My favorite subject-math; my favorite color-blue-green; my dream-to play basketball in the NBA.
Elections have been center-stage for two weeks, starting with the Supreme Court's abdicating its duty to resolve serious problems with our elections, to former President Donald Trump's CPAC speech, to the House's passing H.R. 1 on a party-line vote. Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett disappointed the nation, but Republicans must unite to stop the illegal problems of 2020 from permanently becoming legal, which will happen if H.R. 1 passes the Senate.
Unity has been an early theme of President Biden's term. However, one of his early legislative priorities is the Equality Act, one of the most divisive pieces of legislation ever seriously debated.
On Thursday, the House of Representatives will vote on the Equality Act, reminding evangelicals and Catholics who voted for Trump why their gamble was worth it.
Last year, we heard a lot about peaceful protests that, in reality, were not peaceful. This year, we are going to hear a lot about the Equality Act that, in reality, creates inequality. If the past is any indication, proponents of the Equality Act, which is set for a Thursday vote in the House of Representatives, will shamefully attempt to usurp the civil rights movement's history and legacy as they do.
Congressional Democratic leaders are considering a permanent, military-style barrier around the U.S. Capitol even as we learn that 7,000 National Guard soldiers and airmen will stay another month in the city and 5,000 troops will thereafter remain indefinitely.
In today's troubled world, religious persecution is widespread while anti-Christian abuses are increasing globally. And according to Open Doors' 2021 World Watch List, Iran is the 8th worst global persecutor of Christians.
After observing the first few weeks of the Biden administration, the CEO of American's largest abortion chain Planned Parenthood says she is "over the moon" about the Biden/Harris administration's "vision" for expanding abortion. And it's easy to see why.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) is dead wrong when he says that former President Donald Trump can be impeached for political speech that is protected by the First Amendment, and it speaks volumes about this unconstitutional sham of a Senate impeachment trial.
Today marks the beginning of former President Donald J. Trump's unconstitutional impeachment trial. Without his appearance, the media will not be able to concoct an excuse not to cover his lawyers' presentations on the constitutional and statutory violations that cast a shadow on how the November 2020 election was conducted.
We are less than a week away from a congressional event that will be a pivotal moment on our nation's history as a constitutional republic, and former President Donald Trump should use this unconstitutional impeachment trial to force a national conversation on democratic principles and election integrity.
The fact that Democrat Sen. Pat Leahy - not Chief Justice John Roberts or Vice President Kamala Harris - will preside over former President Donald Trump's impeachment trial should draw bipartisan condemnation as an assault on the very same democracy and U.S. Constitution that Democrats claim to be vindicating through that trial - and that Democrats know they're headed to a political setback.
Among the flurry of executive orders President Joe Biden signed during his first week in office was one declaring that "gender identity should not be a bar to military service." Of course, both males and females have long been able to serve. What Biden means is that "transgender" people - those who psychologically identify with the opposite sex - should be allowed to serve, and to serve as their preferred sex.
On this day 76 years ago, Soviet troops liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp where Nazi forces murdered more than 1.1 million people, the vast majority of them Jews. Greeted by starving prisoners rejoicing at their arrival, piles of corpses, and unthinkable living conditions, unknowing Soviet troops were horrified by what they saw. As more became known about its extermination center (Auschwitz-Birkenau), Auschwitz came to represent what may be the greatest anti-humanitarian crime in history: the systematic effort to destroy the Jewish people wherever they could be found on the globe.
Most Americans are familiar with such federal departments as Defense and Treasury. Their names indicate what they do. Fewer know much about the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). But they should. The size and scope of HHS is vast, which is why the person leading it is so important.
With Joe Biden's inauguration as president this week, discussion of what to expect in his administration has been obscured by ongoing debate over the election itself.
On his last full day in office, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo formally declared that China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity through its campaign of repression against Uighur Muslims. Pompeo's declaration is the strongest rebuke from any government of China's atrocities in Xinjiang, and one that is sure to affect how the incoming Biden administration interacts with China.
For nearly three decades, the United States has observed January 16 as Religious Freedom Day. America's "First Freedom" has historically enjoyed near-universal and bipartisan support. Nevertheless, contemporary challenges to religious freedom do exist.
Five months ago, I had a miscarriage. It was, and still is, devastating. Like most women who have never experienced a miscarriage before, I had never envisioned what it would be like to lose a baby. Although I had always known having a miscarriage must be difficult, I could never have imagined the heartbreak, the overwhelming number of questions or the memory of the exact moment my little one left this world for the next.
Government restrictions on religion around the world have reached the highest point in the past 11 years, as revealed in the Pew Research Center's annual report on religious freedom released last week. A global trend of government policies impeding individuals' peaceful expression of their faith is disturbing, and it ought to motivate advocates of free speech and religious freedom to action.
As we prepare to celebrate Christmas this year, may we remember persecuted Christians across the globe who do the same, though at great risk to themselves.
Since the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden has reiterated his desire to unify the country. "I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify; who doesn't see red states and blue states, [who] only sees the United States," Biden promised after the election.
To those who cares about faith, family, and freedom, Joe Biden's announcement that he will nominate Xavier Becerra to be his head of the Department of Health and Human Services should set off alarms. Here are three things you need to know about this nomination.
The eyes of the political world are on Georgia, where a pair of runoff Senate races will decide control of the U.S. Senate for the 117th Congress.
Americans cherish religious freedom. And the COVID-19 crisis has reminded people of faith, especially how much they value this critical First Amendment right. For me, a Christian, the past eight months of lockdowns have underscored the importance of in-person worship or, rather, the importance of fellowship in nurturing one's spiritual life.
In response to an upward surge in COVID-19 cases this fall, state and local governments are issuing new mandates intended to mitigate the spread of the virus. However, some of these well-intentioned mandates unfairly target houses of worship and infringe on the religious liberty of millions of Americans. Because some state and local governments have treated churches and other houses of worship unequally during the pandemic, it begs the question:
Patriot. Friend. Teacher. Student. Husband. Father. Legendary thinker. Christ follower. On this day of profound mourning for Professor Walter E. Williams, it is difficult to summarize the life and legacy of my friend with only a few words.
Principles critical to the foundational freedom of this nation and its citizens must be preserved and vigorously defended regardless of who takes the presidential oath every four years. With our "three-layer cake" of government responsibilities at the federal, state, and local levels, America's unique shared governance is defined by the U.S. Constitution. After this election and its nearly endless allegations of vote fraud, no role is more important than state legislators, who hold sole power to determine election policy and procedure.
The pieces are finally coming together, and they reveal a masterpiece of electoral larceny involving Big Tech oligarchs, activists, and government officials who prioritize partisanship over patriotism.
On November 10, Al Jazeera posted a breathtaking headline: "ISIS-linked attackers behead 50 people in northern Mozambique."The subhead was equally horrifying: "Witnesses say the assailants herded victims onto a football pitch in the village of Muatide where the killings were carried out."
Even as chaos and litigation over the presidential election persist, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has not skipped a beat in his effort to counter the Chinese government and its human rights abuses.
In March 2018, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a story reporting that two Christian foster care agencies - out of 30 operating in the city - declined to certify same-sex couples as foster parents.
The convoluted 2020 election did make one thing clear: pro-life issues are winning in America. Pro-life candidates have outperformed their pro-abortion opponents in several battleground states, and pro-life women in particular garnered a significant amount of support from voters in the 2020 elections.
Come January, the U.S. House of Representatives will have at least 25 Republican women, all of whom have demonstrated or pledge strong support for the sanctity of human life.
Even as people spilled into the streets of Washington D.C. over the weekend to celebrate the proclaimed defeat of President Trump, political insiders on the Left were feeling a bit unsatisfied. This was supposed to be their year. All the stars had aligned for that big blue wave to usher in their wildest progressive dreams.
Voters proved the Senate Democrats wrong by reelecting the vast majority of senators who had voted to confirm Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
CRT seeks to con Americans into thinking our nation and our people are fundamentally racist.
On Thursday morning, a man armed with a knife entered the largest church in Nice, France and brutally stabbed three people to death. The incident has shaken France, and the government officially raised its terrorism threat warning to the maximum level. Tensions have been high since an Islamist refugee beheaded a schoolteacher earlier this month and Muslim countries criticized the French government for its attempts to deal with Islamist terrorism.
Liberals are tying themselves in knots trying to explain President Trump's growing popularity among Black and Hispanic voters.
When a Chinese Christian, Chen Yu, was caught boldly selling religious publications not authorized by the government, his punishment was a seven-year prison sentence and an approximately $30,000 USD fine, handed down by a court last month.
President Trump is delivering on his promise to appoint judges that respect our Constitution. Before his election, he vowed to restore the judiciary and name Supreme Court nominees whose judicial philosophy reflects that of the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
Over the next several weeks, the Department of Labor will begin to sift through the public comments on their recently proposed rule "Fiduciary Duties Regarding Proxy Voting and Shareholder Rights," seeking the best course of action to ensure that pension beneficiaries across this country receive the benefits they deserve. This rule reaffirms the fiduciary obligations that ERISA-backed pension fund managers owe to their beneficiaries, and puts forward much needed reforms in a proxy advisory industry that for too long has neglected to serve the best interest of pensioners.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are redefining the words "court packing" in a manner worthy of George Orwell's 1984, ironically previewing how a packed (i.e., expanded) Supreme Court would redefine the Constitution's words, abolishing our democratic republic.
No matter how loudly or how clearly President Trump condemns racists and extremists, his critics obnoxiously insist that he is somehow encouraging them.
On Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee began confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett. A few weeks ago, President Donald Trump nominated Judge Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the vacancy left by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. At her nomination, President Trump described Barrett as one of the "nation's most brilliant and gifted legal minds" and praised her "unyielding loyalty to the Constitution."
The Commission on Presidential Debates will become irreversibly illegitimate unless it reverses course on in-person debates, which alone can force Joe Biden to answer the single most important question in this election: Whether Biden would pack to the Supreme Court with additional seats, forever transforming our Constitution's three-branch form of government into a two-branch system.
Two weeks ago, I was in a meeting with Vice President Mike Pence to talk about some of the issues facing our great nation. Our discussion ranged from the Supreme Court nomination to the COVID-19 pandemic and included an outline of the America First Health Plan, President Trump's plan for the future of our health care system. I have to say, I was impressed with the Trump administration's approach to health care, and I think Ohioans have a lot more to look forward to when it comes to improving our access to quality care.
Shortly after President Donald J. Trump announced plans to have Judge Amy Coney Barrett succeed the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, Democrats took to the airwaves attacking the president's pick. For a full week before her nomination, Democrats attacked her faith and her family but have apparently moved on to attacking her based on the assumption she'd favor repealing Obamacare.
Vice President Mike Pence has a relatively straightforward job to do: help the American people understand the true nature of Senator Kamala Harris.
Even before President Trump formally announced Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, she was already taking fire on religious grounds. Virtually every description of her starts with the fact that she is a "devout Catholic." Even worse, it seems she has been part of a group called People of Praise. Since they can't imagine joining a group called that, they have no choice but to conclude its dangerous and scary. So obviously she's unqualified to be on the Supreme Court.
President Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court not only ads another wrinkle into an already unusual election cycle, but renews the debate over the appropriateness of the deliberation. Lindsey Graham was against confirming Supreme Court nominees before an election before he was for it. On the other hand, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Barack Obama were in favor of it before they were against it.
Do Christians have a moral or Biblical obligation to participate in government? Is there a distinctively Christian way to engage in the political process? Do Christians have a duty to vote, and if so, what principles should inform them as they cast their ballots?
While both presidential candidates have changed their views on abortion over the past decades, their actions in recent years clarify the direction that they would likely take while in office. President Trump has maintained a consistent pro-life record in office that affects the regulations of various executive agencies and American leadership on the world stage. On the other hand, former Vice President Biden has moved to support his party's current position of actively promoting federal funding for the abortion industry and cementing abortion as a constitutional right.
"One evening in late June, gunmen stormed a village in northern Burkina Faso," the Washington Post reported, "and ordered people who had been chatting outside to lie down. Then the armed strangers checked everyone's necks, searching for jewelry. They found four men wearing crucifixes - Christians. They executed them..."
George Washington was so essential to the founding of our country that historians have called him "the indispensable man." His courage, leadership, and deep convictions about freedom, honor, and self-government sustained a revolution that seemed on the verge of failure more often than not.
A 14-year-old Christian girl was driven to tears in a Pakistani courtroom this month when a judge ruled that she must return to the Muslim man who kidnapped her. Maira Shahbaz shares the traumatic saga of many young Christian and Hindu girls in Pakistan who are kidnapped and forcefully converted to Islam and married to their abductors.
President Donald J. Trump has delivered on his promise to make concrete, measurable accomplishments in the creation of opportunities for, and empowering improvements in, the quality of life of black Americans.
With their overwhelming lack of common decency, concern for fellow citizens, and disrespect for the law, why would anyone trust the political left to protect votes?
When Joe Biden chose Kamala Harris to be his running mate, the New York Times referred to Harris as a "pragmatic moderate" and ABC News personality George Stephanopoulos said, "Kamala Harris comes from the middle of the road, moderate wing of the Democratic Party."
A recent United Nations human rights report exposes the horrors experienced by women brave or desperate enough to flee North Korea. Most North Korean defectors pass through or remain in China, a country whose government is responsible for many human rights violations of its own. But as trying as life is in China, there is a worse fate to be had - being caught by authorities and extradited to North Korea.
When Chinese Ambassador to the United Kingdom Liu Xiaoming was recently asked to explain footage from the Xinjiang region showing hundreds of restrained, blindfolded men waiting to be loaded onto a train, he awkwardly evaded the question. The reality is that these men were being transferred through China's network of internment camps, where an estimated 1 to 3 million Uighur Muslims are currently detained due to their ethnic and religious identity.
There is no better time to make a change than right now, when public education is in chaos.
On Tuesday, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden announced California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate. By doing so, he solidified the most liberal, anti-life, anti-family ticket in American history.
Hong Kong advocates for democracy are being targeted and arrested as China seeks to stamp out dissent.
A13-ton shipment of hair weaves and other products was seized earlier this month by federal agents over allegations that the individuals making them were suffering human rights abuses. Authorities believe the products consist of human hair taken from detainees held in China's now-infamous internment camps in Xinjiang. This is just the latest evidence that points to a growing forced labor problem in China-a trend that should concern American businesses, consumers, and politicians alike.
The supposed popularity of "Black Lives Matter, Inc." is a complete fantasy - willfully repeated ad nauseam by the left and the media - that is distorting public discourse around the wave of radicalism that has ravaged our cities this summer.
"Would you like your steak well done, medium, or rare?" For many, a rare steak is a favorite dish, reserved for special occasions or relished after a long week at work. Yet the inclusion in Acts 15:29 of "abstain from . . . blood and what has been strangled"-among a list of forbidden practices for Gentile believers-may give some pause. The passage raises a host of historical, hermeneutical, and moral questions. Are these prohibitions permanent for all Christians? If the prohibition is permanent, how do we reconcile it with Romans 14, where Paul tells his readers not to judge one another by what they eat? These are questions that deserve careful consideration.
"Cancel culture" is a double entendre of the dangerous kind. It is not just about canceling individuals or entities who offend leftist activists and their myopic group of minions; it is about fundamentally canceling America.
The radical-left doesn't just want to destroy statues. It wants to rewrite history using politically convenient narratives.
Amid the debate over America's monuments, a new poll reveals that an overwhelming majority of voters disapprove of the removal of historic statues perceived by some as offensive. The poll, which equally surveyed registered Democrats and Republicans, showed that 74% of respondents agree with President Trump that monuments should not be removed.
Carbery Campbell taught in Spain this spring and unfortunately contracted the coronavirus while traveling back to Florida. She did the right thing and got tested at her local hospital. Thankfully, Carbery beat the coronavirus but was punished with a bill of $6,545 for simple tests and a few hours spent in a waiting room. The lack of price transparency in our health-care system leads to unexpected bills like the one Carbery received.
One of the architectural wonders of the world, the Hagia Sophia cathedral was conquered once before. It was converted into a mosque by its Ottoman conquerors; minarets were added, and its ancient Byzantine mosaics were whitewashed. More recently, it has functioned as a museum for decades. Now, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has decreed that the historic Hagia Sophia church should be reverted into a mosque once again.
In a strong show of support for the pro-democracy movement, more than 600,000 people voted in the Hong Kong opposition's unofficial primary elections. Now, Beijing has declared the primaries illegal and accused voters of violating its sweeping new national security law.
In recent days, much has been written about Turkish President Recep Tayip Erdogan's decision to convert the ancient Christian church Hagia Sophia-the Church of the Holy Wisdom-into a mosque.
U.S. Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin, majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and the rest of the U.S. Senate are working on a new COVID relief bill the Legislative Branch will consider in July. This raises the question: what should the new plan look like?
BLM, Inc., Joe Biden and the DNC own the death and destruction of this past weekend, in cities like Atlanta, New York and Cleveland.
Black Lives Matter doesn't really care about saving or improving black lives - just look at the wave of violence that took dozens of black lives - including three children - over the Independence Day weekend, with hardly a murmur of protest from BLM leaders.
Turkish aggression in at least five countries has been headlined in international news reports just this month, June 2020. These accounts focus on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's latest intrusions into Israel, Libya, Iraq, Syria and Greece.
On Monday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch issued the Roe v. Wade of religious liberty. Just as that ruling upended scores of state ordinances and laws concerning abortion based on a "right" that can be found nowhere in the U.S. Constitution, in the same way the court's decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, has redefined words to suit a political agenda. An agenda that would impose extreme ideas about human sexuality throughout our society. There's no way to put a spin on this.
On May 25, 2020, I watched the beginning of a great American tragedy. As the nation began to open up after the long COVID-19 lock-down a horrifying incident involving a rogue cop took the life of a 46-year-old African-American man named George Floyd. Three other officers watched and did nothing. And chaos erupted nationwide.
In recent weeks, Americans have watched radical leftist anarchists and Antifa thugs engage in extreme violence and murder that will haunt many people for the rest of their lives.
Believers in many countries face severe challenges, according to the State Department's annual Report on International Religious Freedom, released last week.
Churches and other charitable organizations have been on the front lines of the coronavirus response. A few examples are Samaritan's Purse building a field hospital in New York City's Central Park and churches hosting food drives and conducting coronavirus testing. One Alabama church tested 1,000 people in two days! Despite the active role these nonprofits have taken in meeting the health and economic needs of our country, they still rely on donations-at a time when many Americans face financial hardship due to job loss, limited working hours, or increased medical costs. Such hardships may lead to a decline in charitable donations. Thankfully, some leaders on Capitol Hill are championing the important role churches and charitable organizations play in helping local communities.
It has been a bad few weeks for law enforcement in America. In late May, Americans were appalled by a video showing a white police officer kneeling for several minutes on the neck of a black man, George Floyd, until he died. Two autopsies confirmed that Floyd died from asphyxiation.
On June 10, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) hosted a crucial hearing in response to numerous reports of religious freedom violations in Northeast Syria.
As the world seeks a sense of normalcy following the coronavirus outbreak, Americans are once again turning their attention to the 2020 election. In November, voters will elect a new Congress and weigh in on dozens of state amendments and referendums. Thirty-five U.S. Senate seats, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, and ten gubernatorial races are on the ballot. Additionally, eighty-six of the nation's ninety-nine state legislative chambers are holding elections. But most importantly, voters will decide whether President Donald J. Trump has earned a second term, or whether former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, will become the next president.
For good reason, there has been a national outcry about the brutal death of George Floyd, a black man who died under the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis. The video of Floyd's struggle for life continues to shock and horrify viewers. Anyone with a sense of human decency is appalled by his story and by all racially motivated law enforcement injustices.
The Latin phrase Primum non nocere meaning "first, do no harm" is part of the Hippocratic oath medical students recite during their symbolic white coat ceremony. Perhaps politicians and government officials proposing massive changes to the critical supply lines of medicines ought to take such an oath as well.
As an African American who has held elected office at the state and local level, and served as the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, I believe a full and frank discussion on issues of race and injustice is important.
Seventy-six years ago, with the outcome of World War II hanging in the balance, Allied forces launched Operation Overlord, one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history. On June 6, 1944, under the direction of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, approximately 160,000 soldiers landed along a 50-mile stretch of fortified coast in northwestern France. After a day of fierce fighting, the Allies secured a hard-fought victory and a foothold in Europe. The battle proved to be a turning point in the war
Cities across the country are in ruin, and the fear that took root when stay-at-home orders went into effect is being compounded by violent protesters who've abandoned reason and justice in the wake of George Floyd's wanton death allegedly at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.
Police brutality and mob violence spring from the same fountain. The disturbing video of a veteran police officer kneeling on the neck of a subdued suspect and, thereafter, the spreading wave of violence and looting in the name of George Floyd are painful. Yet these things are not surprising.
During the wonderful decade I lived in Jerusalem I received an education that no university could have possibly provided. To this day, I'm still amazed by the many living lessons of Israel's remarkable history, its worldclass accomplishments, and its vibrant joie de vivre.
How is a church different than a marijuana dispensary? In Oregon, one can open (the hallucinogenic drug store) and one (the church) can't.
India is one of the world's most enticing tourist destinations, offering photogenic locales and an enticing and vibrant culture. Today, however, the sub-continent's teeming population has been assaulted by COVID-19, stifling tourism and most recently hosting more confirmed coronavirus cases than the total reported by China- about 90,000.
The ACLU is suing to block Arkansas's order requiring any person seeking an elective surgery to test negative for COVID-19 test within 48 hours prior to the procedure. This commonsense rule applies across the board to all elective procedures, but abortion centers do not want to abide by the same health and safety standards as all others in the medical profession.
Today, the Little Sisters of the Poor were back at the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping finally to bring their eight-year legal battle to an end. While several of the justices seemed inclined to side with the Trump administration's expanded religious exemptions to the contraceptive mandate, I've been surprised to see much of the opposition to the Little Sisters and other religious entities who adhere to the teachings of the Church coming from some of my fellow Catholics. This odd trend raises troubling questions about the November election: how many Catholics will vote for or against Catholic politicians whose policies contradict our faith?
"Far more people appear to suffer alone," according to an article on The Washington Post. A tragic consequence of the coronavirus pandemic? Yes, to be sure, but this quote comes from a story filed in 2006 about a study on social isolation.
As Foster Care Awareness Month begins, the impact coronavirus is having on some of the most vulnerable children and those trying to help them cannot be ignored.
For most of us, Mother's Day marks an annual occasion for celebrating the blessings of family. While celebrations will be different this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, most of us can still look forward to a family video chat, surprise bouquets and gifts, and the promise of hugs and kisses for mom and grandma once the world returns to normal.
As we have faced the COVID-19 crisis over these last several weeks, one thing that has become crystal clear is the importance of fast and reliable Internet connections.
For 68 years, on the first Thursday in May, Americans have observed the National Day of Prayer. As the country continues to grapple with the fallout of the coronavirus and faces an uncertain road to recovery, it has never been more appropriate to pray for the health and well-being of our nation.
As we mark yet another National Day of Prayer, our freedoms here at home remind us of the need to pray for those who lack them around the world. In the United States, we can offer a prayer of thanks that religious freedom is not yet obliterated and faith is not yet coerced. As we acknowledge our blessings and lift our supplications to our Creator, this is an opportune moment to look outside ourselves and beyond our borders to pray for the needs of others - including those being persecuted for their faith around the world.
In early July 2018, as the national debate was raging over who would fill Justice Anthony Kennedy's seat on the Supreme Court, a law professor named Justin Walker penned a column for National Review. The column was about one prospect who was then sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Fellowship is to Christianity as air is to the body. It is not just a social nicety, something secondary or even frivolous. Followers of Christ are called to a shared life in their Lord in spiritual community. Not to be in communion with others is to see your spiritual life begin to atrophy.
After eight years of government hostility to religion under the Obama administration, President Donald Trump signed an executive order which has turned out to be a stunning victory for religious freedom. Signed three years ago today, the Executive Order Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty (EO) has routed the secularist regime and ushered in a restoration of religious freedom protections for all Americans.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's Jewish-oriented coronavirus tweet of this past week is bad enough. When placed in context of growing global anti-Semitism, it is tragic.
The COVID-19 crisis has taken a huge toll on all Americans, and not only in terms of physical health. The grieving families of those lost to the illness. The psychological toll of being housebound for weeks on end. The health care workers who daily are exposed to a life-threatening disease. The elderly who are prevented from seeing loved ones.
This week the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended that India be designated a "Country of Particular Concern"-a recommendation reserved for the world's worst religious freedom violators. In its 2020 annual report, USCIRF found, "[t]he national government allowed violence against minorities and their houses of worship to continue with impunity," and government actors engaged in "incitement to violence." Despite repeated denials by Indian officials, identifying India among the world's worst violators of religious freedom is entirely justified. After bloody, religiously-motivated riots shook New Delhi just last month, and Indian authorities stood aside or even took part in the violence against Indian Muslims, it is increasingly clear that religious freedom is on the decline in India.
This pandemic may seem like it's changed everything, but it has not changed the rules of our constitutional republic. Let's keep it that way.
When mysterious reports surfaced last week that the health of North Korea's young dictator Kim Jong Un was in question following cardiovascular surgery, media outlets were quick to speculate about the future of the regime. If Kim were to die-particularly without a successor-the implications would be significant. In such a scenario, what would become of North Korea's Christians?
How much do Westerners know about Nigeria? Do we recognize it as Africa's largest nation? Are we aware of its considerable economic importance? Are Western Christians alert to the dangers faced by our fellow believers in Nigeria?
As churches adopt drive-in worship services as a creative way to comply with bans on large gatherings, some local authorities have gone too far in restricting religious gatherings.
On April 2, an urgent appeal was sent to the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO). It was signed by Bassam Said Ishak, co-chief of the US Mission of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) and two colleagues, pleading for test kits to detect coronavirus infections in war-torn northeastern Syria.
Where is God in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic? Believers may ask this question in pain and in grief for those suffering. Unbelievers may ask the same question in scorn and cynicism.
The coronavirus is turning people in the United States away from many things. Thousands of workplaces are empty. Shopping malls are vacant. Movie theaters, restaurants, schools, and even many public beaches are closed.
Just a year ago on Easter Sunday 2019, at precisely 8:45 a.m., the clock on St. Anthony's Shrine in Columbo, Sri Lanka stopped keeping time. A terrorist's bomb struck the church at that precise moment, one of six jihadi attacks targeting Christian worshippers across the city. Reports were grim:
China now reports close to zero new cases of COVID-19 in Wuhan, the one-time epicenter of the new coronavirus outbreak. This latest claim follows a string of other positive reports, leading many to extol China's drastic containment measures and hold it up as an example of a country successfully fighting the coronavirus.
After assembling a state-wide conference call with pastors, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts explained he needed their help. "Government can do a lot of things, but what it can't do is show love and compassion," he told me recently. And one way to do that at such a time as this is to respect the social distancing requested of churches to halt the spread of a dangerous virus.
Call it COVID-19. Or novel coronavirus. Or the now-politically incorrect term "Chinese flu." But thanks to the virus's unrivaled global threat, all eyes are now fixed on China and its Communist administration. The world is watching how President Xi Jinping behaves, what he seeks, and what is hidden behind his regime's fiercely protected public face.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine's early and aggressive response to the coronavirus pandemic helped Ohio minimize the damage from a public health perspective. Similarly, President Trump is preparing the entire country for a rapid post-COVID economic resurgence, even while he works to provide state and local leaders the resources they need to fight the virus.
Rarely are Christians in the United States confronted with the kinds of challenges faced by believers around the world whose governments regularly persecute the faithful. Yet, both are now facing the coronavirus. Churches around the world - even those in places where persecution abounds - have been forced to adapt to this unexpected and unnerving external pressure, meeting in new and creative ways in the era of social distancing. As churches across America begin to wrestle with new challenges, we can be inspired by the church in China, which has managed be a light to their society during the coronavirus despite continuous pressure from their own government.
"The new coronavirus kills one person every 10 minutes in Iran," according to Kianush Jahanpur, Iran's health ministry spokesman tweeted. "Based on our information, every 10 minutes one person dies from the coronavirus and some 50 people become infected with the virus every hour in Iran." On Tuesday, March 24, the death toll in the Middle East's worst-affected country climbed to 1,934. More than 24,811 Iranians are currently infected.
Public gatherings throughout the U.S. continue to be shut down in anticipation of the new coronavirus COVID-19. Churches, too, are widely canceling their weekly services.
For the first time in the lives of many American Christians, routine was interrupted as church services were canceled across the country to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Many churches chose to broadcast online instead. Some churches are getting creative and organizing "drive-in" worship services. Rarely are Christians in the West faced with external pressures that affect our weekly public worship gatherings. This inconvenience-and the fear that surrounds it-may give us a glimpse into what many Christians around the world face as they are forced to worship in hiding, and as their worship services are curtailed due to intense external pressure.
A troubling report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) was released on Mar. 13, 2020. It accused the People's Republic of China of using Uighur Muslims (alternatively spelled Uyghur) for what amounts to slave labor in China's massive textile manufacturing industry.
The 24/7 coverage of the coronavirus on cable news spreads even more quickly than the virus itself, leading many to wonder if we're facing a plague of perhaps Biblical proportions. In almost real-time, the world is giving the tally of confirmed cases globally, as well as the casualties. And as 22 nations have closed schools, including in the U.S., the United Nations is reporting that some 290 million children are home from school, giving parents a daily reminder of the fears of infection.
The first venue that comes to mind when Purim celebrations are being organized is not likely to be the White House.
Deadly inter-religious violence has flooded into Delhi in recent days, leaving more than 30 people dead. U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Commissioner Anurima Bhargava stated, "reports are mounting that the Delhi police have not intervened in violent attacks against Muslims, and the government is failing in its duty to protect its citizens."
Can Louisiana require abortionists to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital? This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in June Medical Services v. Russo, to answer this question.
More than 10,000 women walk through the doors of Louisiana's abortion clinics every year - and any one of them could face life-threatening complications. Unfortunately for these women, their abortion providers can't admit them to a hospital if their abortion goes wrong.
Vladimir Putin relishes using Russia's political and economic power to destabilize and disrupt nations. One example of such activity is in Venezuela, where Russia has been propping up Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro through billions in loans and buying oil with the Russian company Rosneft.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has decided to bring the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act up for consideration in the Senate; meanwhile, over 80 times in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has blocked efforts to bring up for a vote this bill that will simply require life-saving medical care to be given to infants who survive abortion.
Black History Month should be a celebration of African Americans who have helped transform our nation. Sadly, that is not the case. To be included in the Black History Month celebration, one must be a "progressive" or, at the very least, not conservative. No doubt that is why Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the most influential black men in America, is routinely ignored, even marginalized instead of celebrated as a man who has played a decisive role in American history as well as black history; and serves as an inspiration to the African American community.
The House Judiciary Committee recently marked up H.J.Res.79, and will soon get a floor vote. This joint resolution seeks to remove the congressional deadline for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. When Congress originally passed the ERA, they put a deadline in place for states to ratify it. The ERA failed to win ratification in enough states before the deadline passed and is thus legally dead, but this stale effort is back to enshrine abortion-on-demand at the expense of hard-won protections for women.
As political and ideological divisions in our nation become more polarized, it seems religious intolerance has become a tool of choice for many waging war on traditional American values.
At 24 years old, Samia Yousaf was forced into marriage. She was promised an escape from poverty in Pakistan, but her new Chinese husband abused her, denied her food, and eventually separated her from her own baby.
What would happen if a child were to spend most of his waking hours, during most of his formative years, in an institution bent on persuading him to adopt certain fundamental beliefs?
January is both Human Trafficking Awareness Month and Sanctity of Human Life Month. These issues have more in common than people may realize. Across numerous global studies of sex-trafficking survivors, abortion is a consistent part of the story. Both abortion and sex-trafficking are businesses that exploit women, sometimes in tandem as organizations such as Planned Parenthood enable the abuse for profit. And both are an affront to human dignity.
Today, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the world remembers the 6 million European Jews murdered by the Nazis during World War II and renews its commitment to ensure the tragedies of the Holocaust are never repeated.
Today in our nation's capital, hundreds of thousands of people will mark the 47th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion by participating in the 47th annual March for Life. The pro-life movement has been gaining momentum in recent years, driven by increased pro-life sentiment nationwide. Two days ago, a new Marist poll indicated that 65 percent of Americans are likely to vote for a candidate who supports significant restrictions on abortion. Notably, 47 percent of respondents who identify as "pro-choice" support restrictions on abortion (compared to 98 percent who identify as "pro-life"). The Marist poll also revealed that 76 percent of Americans (including 61 percent of Democrats) oppose using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion overseas.
Forty-seven years ago, the United States Supreme Court handed down the infamous Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion throughout the country. Since then, approximately 60 million babies have died as a result of abortion.
Once enjoying near universal respect, religious freedom in America has fallen on hard times.
Hypocrisy in politics is typical, but every so often, it reaches a new low. Such is the case with a recent political ad attacking dark money's influence in politics - an ad funded by dark money. The group Future Majority did exactly that as part of their 2018 efforts to elect Democrats to Congress. Now groups like Future Majority are focused on denying President Trump re-election in 2020.
In the spring of 1997 my parents sat me down, told me it was time to get a job and nudged me to apply to Chick-fil-A. At first, I was uncertain about working in fast food, but I liked Chick-fil-A's sandwiches and I embraced the company's biblical values.
The self-pity of liberal journalists is proof that President Trump is winning his fight against Fake News by exposing the rampant media bias against his administration.
A nineteenth-century humorist once warned that a bigger problem than knowing little is "to know so many things that ain't so." Well, Americans know "many things that ain't so" about cohabitation and marriage.
The secret ingredient to a truly healthy and happy Thanksgiving isn't found on the menu. Modern research has confirmed what the Pilgrims knew and practiced: Deliberate thankfulness in even the most difficult and challenging circumstances leads to greater happiness, better health, enhanced relationships and better resilience. It's a discipline that looks past hardship toward hope and a future.
A widely-held paradigm in Western intellectual history is that religious freedom originated with enlightened intellectuals during the seventeenth century. By this telling, philosophers fatigued by Europe's never-ending wars of religion introduced new concepts about toleration and religious freedom which helped usher in the modern age. It was only as institutional religion weakened and religious beliefs diversified that the state saw liberty of conscience as a right worth protecting. Christian theology is usually seen as an unhelpful impediment to the emergence of today's liberal consensus on religious freedom, if it is considered at all.
Around the world, Christians increasingly face harassment, arbitrary imprisonment, and even death because of their faith. An independent review in the U.K. found this summer that Christians were on the receiving end of 80% of religiously motivated discrimination around the world. Open Doors USA estimates that 245 million Christians currently face persecution for their faith. Despite the severity of this problem, the American church has not always given this issue the attention it deserves.
Celebrity culture makes headlines out of all kinds of unlikely bits of information. From favorite foods to pet choices, from dating to shoes, people seem obsessed with celebrities.
In a victory for free speech on college campuses, Speech First, a nonprofit focused on defending the exercise of First Amendment rights, has agreed to a settlement with the University of Michigan that protects students' free-speech rights and resolves the issues prompting the lawsuit.
"North Korea is the one country where people, the moment they are born, have no freedom." Ji Hyeon-a was born there; she should know. Ji suffered for being a Christian because the North Korean regime is determined to eradicate the Christian faith. North Korea is the single most dangerous place in the world to be Christian, according to Open Doors' World Watch List. Christians should pray for their persecuted brothers and sisters in North Korea every day, but especially on the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, November 3.
In light of the imprisonment, torture and death of Kayla Mueller, who was a victim of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ISIS terrorist who ended his life when faced with capture in a U.S. mission named for Kayla, the timing of an almost sacred, annual remembrance is almost painful.
Imagine the world's largest supply of recoverable oil falling into the hands of Russia and China. And with that, a fleet of warships docked on the coast of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, positioned to threaten the American national security. If America eventually surrenders its influence in Venezuela, this scenario could become reality.
The Trump administration's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) kicked off the first day of November's National Adoption Month by proposing a rule change that will provide much needed relief to the over 440,000 children in foster care. By eliminating burdensome and restrictive requirements placed on faith-based providers in the final days of the Obama Administration, President Trump is ensuring that faith-based adoption and foster care agencies will be able to once again focus on helping children in need, not using their resources to fight government attempts to shut them down. With this change, children will have the maximum number of diverse placement agencies working on their behalf. This is good policy that will serve the well-being of children and families around our country.
I live in Fairfax County, which is the 10th largest public-school district in the nation. But I never focused on our public schools. My kids go to Catholic schools, and that was the center of our universe. I never focused, that is, until I heard that the Fairfax County School Board voted to let boys into the girls' bathrooms.
Though the evidence is mounting that the strategy is ineffective and unpopular, the Democratic Party seems generally committed to making it clear that people of faith are not welcome in their vision of America.
We are Christian women, mothers of college students and college-bound children, who have serious concerns about how the "gender fluidity" movement has taken root at public schools and universities.
At his third visit to the United Nations General Assembly, President Trump impressed upon world leaders the importance of religious freedom, a topic rarely discussed at the U. N. Specifically, the president noted that "80 percent of the world's population lives in countries where religious liberty is in significant danger or even completely outlawed." (He focused extensively on China and Iran). He promised "Americans will never tire in our effort to defend and promote freedom of worship and religion."
Only two days after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, New York Times columnist Mark Oppenheimer called for the removal of tax-exempt status for churches that refuse to endorse court-created same-sex marriage.
The abortion industry's utter disdain for human dignity is on grotesque display in the bizarre legacy of Ulrich Klopfer. A week after the longtime, disgraced abortionist died, his family discovered 2,246 medically preserved fetuses on his property in Illinois. Klopfer, an infamous abortionist in Indiana, performed tens of thousands of abortions over the course of 40 years before his medical license was suspended in 2016.
This September, President Trump will once again address world leaders at the annual United Nations General Assembly. The president has previously used the opportunity to call out foreign heads of state for human rights abuses, although not explicitly on religious freedom.
The LGBT movement has asked for the repeal of its favorite new law in New York City. In a public statement on Thursday, the Speaker of the City Council agreed. Why? Because free speech matters. And elections have consequences.
Today, former homosexuals and transgender individuals will gather for a Freedom March in Orlando, Florida to tell their stories of finding freedom in Christ. To a nation engulfed in the sexual revolution, their stories are both inspirational and counter-cultural.
With the approach of Patriot Day on the 9/11 anniversary, we are reminded of the dangerous and volatile world in which we live. We are also thinking of the incredible sacrifice and service of the men and women in our military and in the ranks of first responders who have answered the call to defend America against terrorists.
Buried deep in a recent Buzzfeed News story targeting the well-respected Catholic fraternity Knights of Columbus for allegedly padding its insurable-membership roster is the real issue eating away at the left-leaning "news" organization: that the charity in recent years has given millions of dollars away in support of pro-life causes.
The PureFlix film Unplanned just became Amazon's bestselling DVD, even while it is playing in theaters in Canada and Australia. Despite rejection by the Hollywood establishment, censored advertising, and an R rating, this faith-based movie has grossed almost $19 million since its March release.
By now, you'd think the abortion industry would be out of ideas that endanger women. And yet, they are pushing Senate Bill 24 in the California legislature, which would require student health centers (SHCs) in California's 34 public universities to dispense abortion pills for free. This bill is so radical that then Democratic Governor Jerry Brown vetoed it last year.
Increasingly, few if any genuinely safe places exist as a refuge from armed, angry, addicted young men pumped up on violent video games and suffering from the absence of a moral core. Schools, churches, shopping centers, businesses, and almost every place people gather have become targets for deranged individuals who are set on perpetrating evil and in possession of lethal weapons. At what point will we have the courage to acknowledge that our nation has a problem?
There has been a lot of online chatter recently about Joshua Harris, a former best-selling Christian author and former pastor of a Maryland mega-church who has been rapidly abandoning his previous life commitments.
Still grappling with the blackface controversy, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam is trying to salvage his political career by banning free speech. It's far savvier than it sounds.
Business credibility is in the tank. Results of a recent Pew Research survey depict a society-wide erosion of trust - especially for business leaders and elected officials. Only 46% of adults categorized as "medium trusters" (respondents were divided into low, medium, and high "trusters") had "a great deal" or "fair amount of confidence" that business leaders would "act in the best interests of the public." For a group that wants to sell to everyone, these poll numbers are a disaster.
As President Trump returns to Cincinnati today, he brings with him an impressive record of accomplishment. Not only has the president delivered results for Americans across the board, he has done so specifically for the African American community.
"Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Those were the words of Jesus from His Sermon on the Mount, as he taught a lesson about how to value the things of heaven and the things of this world. How does that admonition apply if you're talking about a treasure that is borrowed? And does this only apply to people or should governments pay attention?
The world recently learned that the American Psychological Association promotes "polyamory," "swinging," and "relationship anarchy." Their experts say it's healthy and ethical. They're crazy.
The 2020 presidential campaign has begun in earnest. President Trump has officially launched his campaign for re-election, and 20 Democrats running for their party's nomination have participated in the first primary debate.
China is harvesting human organs from political prisoners, according to the independent China Tribunal, which has determined "beyond reasonable doubt" that crimes against humanity have been committed against Uyghurs and Falun Gong, two of the country's religious minorities. The world has known of China's religious-freedom abuses for decades but done little.
Government representatives, advocates, and religious leaders of all faiths from around the globe descended on Washington, D.C., to attend this week's State Department's second Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom. Last year, the event encouraged international leaders to reaffirm their commitment to promote the fundamental human right of religious liberty.
Just when you thought the American Psychological Association couldn't get any more psychologically unbalanced, along comes their next task force. It's for what they call "consensual non-monogamy."
The Supreme Court's decision in American Legion v. American Humanist Association no doubt broadly pleased conservative constitutionalists who thought the Peace Cross should remain standing under the First Amendment. It likely irked those, such as the challengers to the constitutionality of this memorial, who believe the establishment clause should eliminate much religious expression and symbolism (often Christian) from the public square. The real significance of the decision and many opinions in the case, however, is that they put Lemon v. Kurtzman on the ropes and lay the groundwork for its test to be felled in the future - perhaps sooner than we think.
The fundamental human right of religious freedom is under attack around the globe today like never before. While this disturbing trend should concern everyone, it should be particularly alarming for Christians, because a Christian worldview requires us to care about religious freedom - including the religious freedom of others.
If hypocrisy equals people, Democrats in Washington are China. The latest example of such bold duplicity by the Democratic Party is the secret "A-list" of potential Supreme Court (SCOTUS) judges Democrats refuse to reveal while they turn blue on Capitol Hill screaming for more transparency from the Trump administration.
One of the first major successes of the "gay liberation" movement in the United States was the American Psychiatric Association's (APA's) 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the "DSM"). Early activists in the movement knew they would never persuade the public that they were normal as long as doctors said they were sick. The fact that the decision was more political than scientific complicates the history, but the goal was clear.
While other states get national headlines for abortion limits, a radical proposal to expand abortion in California is quietly advancing. California's proposed mandate to transform educational institutions into abortion facilities has passed out of the Senate (SB 24) and now heads to the Assembly. This abortion mandate would force all 34 of California's public universities to dispense the abortion pill from student health centers (SHCs). Serious concerns go unaddressed in the measure, indicating it may have been rushed through to appease special interest groups.
With the end of Roe now in sight, we must prepare more urgently for a future America where adoption is seen as both the lawful option and the loving one. This is a thrilling and encouraging moment for the pro-life movement in the U.S., as American society shifts further away from abortion in both its attitudes and policies. Last month, Alabama governor Kay Ivey signed into law the strongest pro-life measure in America, and Louisiana and Missouri recently enacted their strongest-ever pro-life laws, bringing to seven the total number of states that have this year banned abortion after six weeks' gestation.
President Trump's enemies are providing yet another disturbing glimpse of the veritable fake news factory into which the mainstream media has morphed.
The theory that people are "born gay" has been used to argue that sexual orientation is similar to race - that "gay is the new black." Based largely on this premise, the proposed "Equality Act," which is currently under consideration in Congress, would treat sexual orientation exactly like race under federal civil rights laws. But is it true that sexual orientation is determined at (or before) birth?
The In-Equality Act, unfortunately, isn't about equality at all. Rather, it's about government-imposed ideology and unfairness. When discussing her agenda for this Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "if there is some collateral damage for some others who do not share our view so be it."
Democrats and their abortion industry allies have shown in 2019 how absolutely they have devoted themselves to their abortion agenda. They have pushed into overdrive their efforts to expand the right to an abortion in law. They even oppose requiring health care professionals to provide infants born alive after surviving a botched abortion with the same care as any other infant at the same stage of development.
President Trump is taking heat for comments he made at a Wisconsin rally where he described what happens to a child after she is born alive following a failed abortion, saying, "The baby is born. The mother meets with the doctor, they take care of the baby, they wrap the baby beautifully, and then the doctor and the mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby. I don't think so. It's incredible."
By presidential proclamation, today marks the National Day of Prayer. This year's official theme draws on the words of Jesus in John 13:34, "Love One Another."
These are tough times if you are a big-government, economic liberal. Since President Trump has taken office, unemployment rates have remained below 4%, hiring among African Americans are at their highest levels in decades, our energy and manufacturing sectors are booming, and employers are scrambling to fill millions of job vacancies by offering competitive salaries.
A free-market economy-the freedom of willing employers and willing employees, willing vendors and willing customers, to contract with each other-has made our country prosperous. There is a role for government in the economy, but government intervention to dictate how American businesses operate should require the most compelling justification.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI recently surprised church observers by weighing in on the Roman Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal. In an almost 6,000-word article published in Germany, Benedict argued that clerical sexual abuse could be traced to the moral transformation that transpired during the sexual revolution of the 1960s. The rejection of biblical morality and absolute truth, Benedict said, has led to the "dissolution of the Christian concept of morality."
The California state Senate Education Committee recently approved Senate Bill 24, known as the "College Student Right to Access Act." The bill would add a new chapter to state education code to require student health care clinics at all 34 California public colleges and universities to "offer abortion by medication techniques"-aka "the abortion pill"-starting on Jan. 1, 2023.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), under the direction of Dr. Ben Carson, is taking aggressive legal action against social media platforms for enabling online housing discrimination. Democrats, meanwhile, are pushing flawed legislation that would only increase the power and influence of their Big Tech allies.
The FDA has updated their adverse events reports on Mifeprex, also known as "the abortion pill," with two additional deaths since December 2018.
As Washington negotiates with Beijing to end the tariff standoff, the United States must also demand the Chinese government stop its sinicization of religion, a program designed to make all religious groups extinct.
President Trump's recent announcement that the United States would "fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights" is an acknowledgement of political reality that will strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship, provide greater security and stability in the region and further cement support among the president's evangelical base. Recognizing Israel's sovereignty over this land is yet another bold policy step that sets the Trump administration apart.
News that Planned Parenthood lost a few million dollars to a pro-life healthcare company has sent a shockwave through an abortion industry that, up to now, had a virtual monopoly in Title X family planning money.
News that Planned Parenthood lost a few million dollars to a pro-life healthcare company has sent a shockwave through an abortion industry that, up to now, had a virtual monopoly in Title X family planning money.
In the latest example of the Left's growing hostility toward Christianity and public displays of faith, the New York Times published a "news analysis" piece over the weekend questioning the extent to which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's Christian faith is influencing American diplomacy, particularly the Trump administration's dealings with Israel.
In 2008, the Advocate, the leading LGBT news magazine in the U.S., ran a cover that starkly declared, in all capital letters, "GAY IS THE NEW BLACK." It was a dramatic illustration of an assertion (explicit or implicit) that has been at the heart of the LGBT rights movement-the idea that "sexual orientation" is "immutable," or incapable of change.
The United States is once again taking the lead on true "family planning," and that doesn't include aborting unwanted children - especially with taxpayer money. From the start, the Trump administration has worked to build a wall between taxpayers and abortion-on-demand.
The discharge petition for the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act will be filed by Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) during that day's first vote series. Members of the House will be confronted with this question: Do we let babies who survive abortions lie there and die, or do we provide life-saving care to them?
Does New York City allow residents to have "gender-neutral" birth certificates? The idea seems so absurd that the question was posed to Snopes - the website best known for debunking various urban legends. In this case, however, the claim - that "New Yorkers can select a gender-neutral option on their birth certificates" - received a rating of "True."
Samantha Elauf was the face of the 2015 United States Supreme Court decision EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch,[1] which vindicated her right under Title VII to be free from religious discrimination in hiring because of her faith-based decision to wear a headscarf. In 1990, the Supreme Court decided that the Free Exercise Clause does not require exemptions from generally applicable laws in Employment Division v. Smith;[2] this decision, which denied Alfred Smith the right to use a controlled substance in a religious ceremony, resulted in the bipartisan passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to protect religious actions like Smith's at the national level. More than a century earlier, in 1860, Rabbi Morris Raphall was the first rabbi to deliver a prayer opening Congress' legislative session. "[P]iously bedecked in a white tallit and a large velvet skullcap," he invoked the blessing of "Lord God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob," thanked God for "establish[ing] a Commonwealth after a model of . . . the tribes of Israel, in their best and purest days," and gave a traditional blessing in Hebrew.[3] What do a Muslim millennial teenage girl, a middle-aged Klamath Native American man, and a nineteenth century rabbi have in common? They each exemplify the accommodation and acceptance of religious minorities in America under the law and in our nation's history.
For the last eight years, world calendars have set aside March 21 to acknowledge that those with disabilities matter and are valuable members of society. World Down Syndrome Day reminds us that disabled does not mean disposable. Disabled may just mean a less comfortable life. Discomfort does not prevent a person from living a full and rewarding life. Plus, this life is not all there is.
A controversy surrounding the surreal question of whether Vice President Mike Pence is "a decent guy" signals the next round of liberal culture shaming that has the potential to galvanize those who make up President Trump's often castigated supporters. Consider that if the "deplorables" from 2016 become the "indecents" in 2020, not only will Democratic political ambitions suffer, the nation's decorum and ability to have rational debate will devolve to a new low.
The past two weeks have seen good news for Americans who care about their religious liberty, as strong statements came from the Supreme Court and the state of Colorado in defense of the First Amendment's guarantees of religious expression.
Free markets, whether they be economic markets or the marketplace of ideas, represent American ideals. The free exchange of ideas communicates that for the most part, all are welcome to share their unique points of view - until recently. Certain American freedoms seem to be approaching "endangered species" status as big, powerful interests increasingly choose to manipulate their platforms to control speech.
If your loved one died in service to their country, how would you honor their memory? In Bladensburg, Md., a committee that included Gold Star mothers and veterans wanted to remember their fallen of World War I with a monument in the shape of a cross.
We Americans now disagree over the construction of a border wall to be placed between the United States and Mexico. In the first week of her Speakership, Nancy Pelosi declared that such a wall would be "an immorality." She does not appear to be alone in that assessment. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) compared such a wall to the Berlin Wall while calling it a "moral abomination."
Imagine the reaction to a diet and exercise plan that claimed for just five minutes a day in the gym, you could consume six hours' worth of Twinkies a week. When it comes to food, people understand the need for discipline and balance between what goes into your body and how to process it.
Raise your hand if you're a white Democrat who has NOT worn blackface. I'm sure that's a question that went through a lot of people's minds after both the Virginia Governor and the state attorney general admitted to wearing racist costumes in the past.
Next week, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument from advocates for and against the preservation of a World War I-era veterans memorial, the Peace Cross, in Bladensburg, Md. The crux of the case, American Legion v. American Humanist Association, is the question whether a two-county commission offends the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution by maintaining the cross-shaped memorial.
Faith-based educational institutions might see a welcome change in federal regulations on the horizon. This week, the U.S. Department of Education concluded its public comment period for a proposed rule that would make several changes to federal regulations regarding the law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex-based exclusion from, denial of benefits by, or discrimination by any education program or activity receiving public assistance. As Family Research Council argues in its formal comment supporting the proposed rule, at least one recommended change means good things for faith-based universities' religious freedom rights.
In a surprising op-ed, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), who has announced she is running for President, called out fellow Democrats for fomenting "religious bigotry" during the confirmation of some of President Trump's recent judicial nominees.
This day and week mark the 233rd anniversary of Virginia's act for religious freedom, in which members of the 1786 General Assembly declared that "our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry." Can we still say the same today?
Vice President Pence's wife Karen has come under withering attack in recent days from many in the media. From this "reporting," one might think she has transgressed some obvious social boundary of a civilized society. In reality, the big "scoop" is that this Christian wife and mother, whose Christian beliefs are important to her, is teaching at a Christian school, which being Christian, holds to Christian beliefs about marriage.
Our annual Jan. 16 celebration of Religious Freedom Day, commemorating the passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom 233 years ago, reminds us of the roots of cultural acceptance necessary for religious freedom to truly flourish in any society. While modeled in the formation of the U.S., religious freedom is not exclusively an American idea, but a human right for all people. Halfway around the world, the saga of Asia Bibi's blasphemy case in Pakistan is not yet over, but it is already highlighting the cultural deficit of religious freedom in that country for the world to see. More unexpectedly, this case is exposing the religious freedom rot in other nations through their inability to respond effectively to the crisis.
Since 1993, the president has formally recognized January 16th as Religious Freedom Day. The day marks the anniversary of the passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which cut formal ties between the Church of England and the state of Virginia.
Immigration has been ingrained in the American consciousness from our earliest days, as many people left foreign lands to make a new life here. While President Trump did not invent the concept of making America great, his call for protecting that greatness stands in sharp contrast to those who see nothing special in our nation at all. But when you consider that so many have come together to make this place their home, a wall with a door that opens to those we want in not only makes sense, its purpose is clear.
Last year, the GOP in Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed into law the Tax and Jobs Act, one of their signature legislative accomplishments. The Jobs Act generally reduced the tax rates for businesses and individuals, and included a number of pro-family provisions. As a result, Americans paid less in taxes this year, workers received raises and bonuses, and the economy has roared.
This time of year, public officials utter a collective groan as the steady stream of complaints about Christmas-themed events and displays spread their usual holiday mischief. In recent years, cities have been slapped with legal letters for displays of the nativity, like in Dover, Ravenna and Streetsboro, Ohio, and in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. A recent letter claimed that it was because the nativity would "confer endorsement and preference for one religion over others," and thus violate the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
President Trump's recent announcement that he will withdraw U.S. military forces from Northern Syria aims to fulfill a campaign promise that he will defeat ISIS and bring home our troops. Yet it stands to put Syria's Christian community - who have been a target of ISIS - in mortal danger.
As Americans plan their holiday purchases, many are also considering their healthcare options on the Obamacare exchange. The 2019 enrollment period started on November 1 and runs through December 15 in most states. For the fifth year in a row, Family Research Council and the Charlotte Lozier Institute have joined forces to bring transparency to Obamacare by providing consumers with information about which plans on the 2019 exchanges cover elective abortion.
As we approach the New Year and an incoming Congress, it bears noting that in the past five years there have been several major legal victories supporting armed services personnel prosecuted for acting consistently with their religious beliefs about marriage. Going forward, military commanders must study these cases involving uniformed believers fighting to live out their faith.
It's Christmas time. And according to the National Retail Federation, Americans are on pace to spend a record amount of money on holiday gifts this year, $465 billion or an average or $700 a person. But as Americans spend billions of dollars on toys and goodies for one another, they are also expected to donate a record amount to charity this year, surpassing the previous record of $410.02 billion given to charitable organizations in 2017.
The eyes of the nation widened with shock when New York announced that its new abortion law - the Reproductive Health Act (RHA) - would allow a baby to be aborted up until the day of birth. This "progress" as New York sees it doesn't even recognize a human being as a person until he or she is out of the womb!
The midterm elections has Christians in churches throughout America once again considering what their faith teaches about cultural and political engagement, and how their beliefs should influence how they vote.
While midterm voters provided America with a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, an expanded Republican victory in the Senate is a mandate for the solid pro-life policies we have been seeing from President Trump and congressional leadership over the past two years.
Religious freedom and pro-life advocates will doubtless spend the next two years checking the radical left's agenda as it unfolds in the Democrat-controlled House. But we can still be encouraged by keeping the Senate. In doing so, we keep the momentum behind the confirmation of constitutionally conservative judges who will restore our religious freedom rights.
So do biological gender differences matter, or is any reference to "biological sex" bigoted?
Another critical election. Another electoral failure in Florida. Another vote counting disaster in Broward County.
While millions of American were voting, Philadelphia foster parents were in court fighting the government's attempt to shut down Catholic Charities adoption and foster care services because it is faith-based. Nearly half of all Catholic Charities adoptions nationally are for special needs children, so their permanent closure would be especially devastating. It was a somber launch to National Adoption Month for children seeking families.
"The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth," the New York Times reported recently.
The release of Pastor Andrew Brunson and his return home to the United States was an answer to the prayers of millions and the result of an administration that has reset our foreign policy by fearlessly engaging on issues that other administrations only talked about addressing.
Beto O'Rourke's recent comments are only the latest salvo.
Now that Pastor Andrew Brunson's time in Turkey has come to an end, here are six takeaways.
When the stunned political class woke up to a world in which Donald Trump was president, plans began almost immediately over what they would do when they held power again. Even civility and basic human decency could wait until left-leaning leaders gained control of the country, opined Hillary Clinton. This culture clash was on full display during the confirmation process of now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh, but those saying that the Supreme Court controversy is the lever motivating the electorate in the midterms are missing the bigger picture.
Perhaps no international religious freedom case has gotten more attention in the United States in recent years than that of imprisoned American Pastor Andrew Brunson, who Turkey detained for over two years on politically motivated charges of espionage and terrorism. Labeled as a hated American spy, Pastor Brunson's case attracted even more attention within that country, most of it not welcome. I was visibly reminded of this as I drove past the armed troops stationed along the road leading to the detention center near Aliaga, Turkey, upon which I descended with others to monitor the latest hearing in the case against him as part of my work on religious freedom.
Results in a handful of House races are still being counted. The Democrats returned to power in the House. And the GOP expanded its power in the Senate. The GOP holds in the Ohio, Florida, and Iowa governor races also loom large for 2020.
The midterm results are in, and while much media attention is focused on the House switching to Democratic control, Republicans have not only held but gained ground in the Senate.
If there is anything our country has learned from the hype, drama, and antics surrounding Judge Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing, it is that the Supreme Court is far too important in our nation's political system. The high price we pay for politicizing the confirmation process includes not only destroyed trust in our system of government or the decorum of the Senate, but also the totally unnecessary emotional toll on families like those of Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford.
Very soon, the Supreme Court could announce its decision to hear an appeal over whether the 40-foot "Peace Cross" - as it is known by locals in Bladensburg, Md. - is too tall and too Christian for a government to own and maintain in accordance with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Every year, without fail, the Islamic Republic of Iran is ranked as one of the worst countries in the world for religious freedom. Persecution of religious minorities is rampant and deeply ingrained in government institutions, and Christians are high on the list of those at risk, especially Christians who have converted from Islam.
There were plenty of good reasons to vote against California's AB 2943.
We sometimes quip that we would sell our house and get a double-wide down by the river rather than send our daughters to a government school.
It was worthy of a Saturday Night Live skit, but Lorne Michaels probably would've turned it down. SNL has leaned heavily left since Donald Trump's election, and the show's creator and executive producer would've understood the humor in how clueless Senate Democrats came across during Judge Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing - but he probably wouldn't bring himself to showcase how awful they really looked.
Brown University, perhaps the quirkiest of the Ivy League schools, recently removed from its website information about a peer-reviewed study on gender confusion.
Linus, from the Peanuts cartoon, once famously declared, "I love mankind ... it's people I can't stand!"
Spoiler alert: it's easy to predict much of what will happen this week during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. That's because Democrats showed their hands almost immediately after Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the Court, when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) took to the Senate floor to motivate his left-wing base.
A groundswell of opposition from churches, pastors, and ordinary citizens in California may have delayed but ultimately could not prevent the passage of AB 2943 by the California Senate on Aug. 16.
LGBT activists are nothing if not creative. Their latest approach involves inviting high school students into, in their words, a "big, gay booth" to talk about sex.
In 2001, Enron, then one of the most admired companies in the United States, collapsed in scandal and bankruptcy. Questions began emerging a year earlier regarding the energy giant's accounting practices after investors, analysts, and reporters became concerned by Enron's massive amount of debt. In the years following, details came to light about the lengths to which Enron's leadership went to cover up losses and maintain an artificially high stock price. When the dust had finally settled, 20 people were convicted of crimes for their actions, Enron's stock was worthless, and thousands lost their pensions. Arthur Andersen, previously a "Big Five" accounting firm, surrendered its CPA license and 85,000 of its employees no longer had jobs.
Earlier this month, in a first-of-its-kind case, a federal judge ruled that a Christian adoption provider's religious freedom claims must submit to the government's sexual and moral standards.
Later this week, the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will host the first-ever "Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom" at the State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. The fact that this meeting is being held is about as important as what will come out of it.
A wave of celebrities is leading the charge to expose sexual abuse in the entertainment industry and support those who bravely come forward with their stories - and rightly so. The industry is apparently riddled with it, and no one should suffer abuse. Yet some of the the same celebrities claiming to advance the #MeToo movement also use their platforms to support Planned Parenthood, which has been shown to be a useful tool for sex traffickers and rapists.
The House Appropriations Committee marked-up the fiscal 19 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies appropriations bill. Rep. Robert Aderholt's (R-Ala.) amendment to protect faith-based child welfare providers from government discrimination passed 29-23.
Candidate Donald Trump had many Republican critics. Some voted for him only out of concern for judges. With the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, he repaid their confidence in full.\r
President Trump kept another promise when he nominated Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to fill the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy. Trump's supporters will appreciate that Kavanaugh's name was on a list of candidates from which he pledged to draw his nominees.
Today America dominates the globe. It's easy to forget that the United States almost didn't exist.\r\r
Last week during the height of the media's fixation on the United States' southwestern border, some accused the evangelical leaders who advise President Trump, of whom I'm one, of staying silent about children being separated from their parents. While this is not a new problem, the media's attention has brought it to the forefront of public discussion, and I have been a part of that discussion.
In Texas, you can advertise adult shops-it's church promotion they find offensive. That's the unbelievable predicament First Baptist Dallas finds itself in after it tried to buy a billboard for upcoming sermon topics. What's offensive about a message on the Christian heritage of America? Plenty, according to the Dallas mayor.
Recently there was an effort to rescind the invitation for Vice President Mike Pence to speak at this year's gathering of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) held in Dallas. About two-thirds of those present and voting overwhelmingly defeated the effort, according to reports from the parliamentarian. The vice president came and gave a well-received message that underscored the unique and essential role of pastors in America.
The final vote was a foregone conclusion. No one thought deeply ideological Fairfax County (VA) School Board would vote any other way than 10-1 for what is among the most radical sex-ed curriculum in the country.
Recently, President Trump and National Security Adviser John Bolton selected Fred Fleitz to be Mr. Bolton's deputy at the National Security Council. Fred is the right man for this critical job, especially given the ongoing negotiations with Kim Jong-un of North Korea. Fred is one of the most experienced analysts in the U.S. and a true patriot who understands and supports the president's agenda.
There's a lot to dislike about many public schools-and right now, student safety is at the top of the list. "After a gunman opened fire on students in Parkland, Florida," a new Washington Times feature explains, "the phones started ringing at the Texas Home School Coalition, and they haven't stopped yet."
Your tax dollars aren't the only thing supporting Planned Parenthood-proceeds from your daily coffee may be, too.
In July 1950, during the Battle of Taejon early in the Korean War, enemy forces cut off and trapped a number of wounded U.S. troops who could no longer move across the difficult terrain. One Army chaplain, Herman Felhoelter, provided physical and spiritual care even as North Korean soldiers approached. After ordering the medic assisting him to flee, the chaplain continued to minister to the wounded up until the moment he was shot along with his men.
If you're ambivalent about the crisis of pornography in America, The New York Times can change that. Almost instantly. The paper jolted an entire nation into caring with its jarring February expos\u00E9, "What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn" (warning: extremely graphic). If their stories don't shock, repulse, sober, and motivate you, nothing will.
Americans owe a debt of gratitude to President Trump and the good people in his administration. After nearly 50 years, the law marking a bright line between "family planning" and abortion will finally be respected.
If all Donald Trump did with these four years was balance the courts, his presidency would still be a success. Lucky for us, he's got his sights set on a lot more than that-and a pile of accomplishments to prove it.
Last week, Colorado Mesa University gave the Class of 2018 a lot more than their diplomas to celebrate. The Grand Junction campus finally decided to let Karissa Erickson quote the Bible in her speech. But not without a fight.
For Robert Rho, destroying tiny lives was all in a day's work. He performed so many abortions, more than 40,000, that one more death probably seemed insignificant-until 2016, when that death was one of his 30-year-old patients.
They came by the hundreds, one newspaper said-"perhaps thousands." Some traveled hours, others waited hours, all for the opportunity to protest one of the most outrageous homeschooling bills ever introduced: California's AB 2756.
Parents across the country pulled their children out of public schools on Monday for the "Sex Ed Sit Out"-a grassroots awakening of frustrated parents who are sick of the sexualization of children in their taxpayer-funded schools.
You don't have to be a Trump nominee to face the Christian inquisition. Just ask Iowa conservatives. The bad blood that's turned the hearings of Mike Pompeo, Russell Vought, and Amy Barrett into anti-faith slugfests seems to be spilling over into state politics, too. And at least one military wife is out of a job because of it.
Mike Pompeo has the leadership, experience, instincts, and training to be successful as the next Secretary of State. In fact, he is the most prepared and capable nominee for Secretary of State since Colin Powell. The State Department is desperate for a leader who has a vision for taking the Department in the right direction. After eight years of abysmal leadership from Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, the world has become a more dangerous place. North Korea and Iran now have nuclear weapons, Russia has crossed many red lines including their attempts to impact U.S. elections, and China increases every day as an economic and military threat to this nation. This is all due in no small measure to failed leadership at the Department of State. Furthermore, Secretary Tillerson failed to provide a clear vision and strong leadership during his tenure, but Mike Pompeo is poised and experienced, ready to lead and represent America on the world stage.
The craziness continued at the recent meeting of the Fairfax County sex-ed advisory committee. That's the group responsible for creating over 80 hours of sex-ed for every public-school child.
They may not have had any evidence against American pastor Andrew Brunson, but that didn't stop Turkish officials from holding a 13-hour hearing. For the North Carolina father, who's spent the last 500 days in jail, it was another grueling chapter in the persecution of an innocent man.
When the news broke on Tuesday night that CIA Director Mike Pompeo had met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, I was not surprised. Pompeo had long ago established his importance to this administration and his understanding of geopolitics. Pompeo's skills are precisely why the president nominated him to be the next Secretary of State. It's absurd that Democrats are reluctant to confirm him.
During Mike Pompeo's confirmation hearing for secretary of State, he showed he is well qualified to lead foreign policy for the United States.
America's most pro-life generation is at it again. Pro-life students across the country partook in a planned school walkout on Wednesday morning.
Cultivating religious freedom worldwide is a major ingredient for our national security here at home. Mike Pompeo understands this, and will act on it, if confirmed as our next Secretary of State.
Congressional Democrats are in a panic over Title X, the federal government's family planning program. That's because even though the recent omnibus spending bill once again allotted $286.479 million to fund the program, Republicans in Congress held the line on ensuring the Department of Health and Human Services has flexibility to change regulations governing how it is spent.
Among the Trump administration's early successes, two stand out particularly, and incoming National Security Advisor John Bolton has the chance to take both to the next level.
Ken Blackwell\rThe left hates President Donald Trump for many reasons. One of the most important is because he really believes in America first. He doesn't just say it. He bases his policies on that principle.
Today, the Supreme Court hears its second case this term on compelled speech in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra. In December, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission addressed a similar free speech question.
"For all the progress since 1973, I just know in my heart of hearts that this will be the generation that restores life in America." These inspiring words were spoken by our very own Vice President Mike Pence at a pro-life luncheon held on February 27th.
Today, the Supreme Court hears its second case this term on compelled speech in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra. In December, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission addressed a similar free speech question.
While college teams vie for basketball's biggest prize, it looks like ESPN is trying to do some rebounding of its own. After more than two years of bleeding profits, the Disney-owned network wants to prove that it can do better. Pitching politics instead of baseball has been a costly decision for the company, which has been a financial drag on parent company Disney for the last several months. Left without viewers (or options), ESPN decided to downsize, laying off at least 100 staffers to try and make up some of the company's losses.
While viral videos may capture attention, they do not paint an accurate picture of those whom the president has chosen for the federal bench. President Donald Trump's nominees to the federal judiciary are among the most qualified in recent memory.
Breaking the law doesn't help your chances for earning federal dollars-but apparently, it doesn't hurt them either. If there's one thing Planned Parenthood's learned over the last few years, it's that crime does pay. A lot, according to the Government Accountability Office.
You might never support a pro-abortion candidate, but what if your tax dollars are?
Through all of the cultural ups and downs, country music has always been a place conservatives felt welcome. While so many other celebrities started picking up activist causes and shaming fans who held Christian beliefs, Americans could always count on Nashville to stay true to their values (or at least tolerate them).
Much has already been said in tribute to Billy Graham, the renowned preacher and public evangelist who recently passed away at the age of 99. Much more is still likely to be said. In the midst of all this, we should not forget that among the many aspects of his legacy is the very fact that he chose to make his faith a public faith, proclaiming it clearly, boldly and visibly. This was a hallmark of his rallies and how he lived, and America was better off for it.
There will be thousands of words used to describe Billy Graham, but there was only one that he cared about: faithful. Asked what he would want the first line of his obituary to say, the greying pastor saidsimply, "That I loved God with all mind, heart, and soul."
The Trump administration is bringing back sexual risk avoidance, or abstinence-based, education, and many on the Left are not happy. When the administration's 2018 budget proposed cutting former President Obama's ineffective and expensive Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPP), which uses the comprehensive sex education model of sexual risk reduction, the mainstream media predicted an apocalypse signaled by unplanned pregnancies.
ABC got at least one thing right about "The View" - its name. As far as the hosts are concerned, there is only one view: theirs. Sure, they'll invite a token "conservative" on to add fireworks, but even that doesn't get in the way of the hosts' daily routine of smug Middle America-bashing. If the idea is to offend viewers, it's working.
Most Americans have probably never heard of Beloit, Ohio. But this month, they're starting to hear from them. It may be a small town (less than 1,000 people at most), but it's mighty. And in the face of the bullies at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, that's all that matters.
Barely a day goes by that Democrats don't demand President Trump's resignation - or, if they're feeling particularly feisty, impeachment. It's such a routine cry of the Left that some Americans are probably tempted to yawn their way through the threats. But, as Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) tried to warn conservatives yesterday, there's nothing empty about them.
Kids see plenty of offensive things at school-but when did fathers become one of them? Ask New York's Department of Education. As far as its officials are concerned, nothing can damage a child more than hosting a special event for dads.
I've heard the allegations about Donald Trump's past moral failures. I don't pretend to know what's true and what isn't. But there is a truth I do know: Faith in Jesus Christ calls us to live with moral clarity. And that means calling sin - sin.
This year, like every year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the nation looked back to a ruling from seven men on the bench while tens of thousands of people came to Washington to the March for Life.
If there's one thing I've always said, it's that Christians should never check their faith at the door when they enter the public square. So, let me start by practicing what I preach. Like you, I've heard all of the allegations about Donald Trump's past, his years of baggage and personal failings. I don't pretend to know what's true and what isn't -- certainly not now, in an environment as toxic as ours. But there is a truth I do know: faith in Jesus Christ that calls us to live with moral clarity in everything we do. And that means calling sin -- sin.
In 1973, the Supreme Court believed it had resolved the abortion debate, but decades later it's clear the court failed to settle the issue. Why? Abortion runs contrary to the laws of nature.
Now is as good a time as any to reflect on the Trump administration's domestic religious liberty record over the past year-highlighting its accomplishments and observing what still needs to be done.
Plenty of movements have tried to hitch their wagon to the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. For years, people across the political spectrum have claimed him as one of their own-in part because it's convenient and in part because he isn't here to dispute it.
A Northern Virginia public school held a school-wide assembly before Christmas break featuring transgender crusader Amy Ellis Nutt.
As Vice President Mike Pence prepares for his visit to Egypt, Jordan and Israel that begins at the end of this week, concerns continue to mount for the Middle East's persecuted Christians - especially for refugees who are looking for the assistance promised by the United States to help them survive ISIS' relentless assault on their homelands.
As if North Korea weren't taking up enough headlines, Open Doors USA just added another one: Kim Jong Un's country is topping the list of the world's "Most Dangerous Places to Be a Christian."
The dresses and buttons and speeches at the Golden Globes notwithstanding, every new revelation of abuse and sexual assault in Hollywood begs the question: "Why didn't anyone notice and stop this sooner?" Surely the friends of mega-producers Harvey Weinstein and Brett Ratner, colleagues of news "celebrities" like Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose, co-stars of celebrities like Kevin Spacey or hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons could see something was amiss, that under the surface something ugly and evil was happening?
When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rolled back President Barack Obama's "net neutrality" policy, Chairman Ajit Pai told reporters, "It's not going to kill democracy."
For every parent who's tried to tell their teenage kids that "everyone's not doing it," here's proof! According to the CDC's new nationwide report, the number of high school students who said they've ever had sex dropped from 47 percent in 2005 to 41 percent in 2015. The good news is even better for African American students, who showed improvements across the board, followed by Hispanics who practiced more abstinence in three of the four grades.
On Thursday, thousands of Iranians protested against the ruling regime in Iran's second-largest city, Mashhad. Chants of "death to dictator" and "death to Rouhani" were brave and resounding.
November's election was not good for Virginia Republicans. Their 66-seat majority in the 100-member House of Delegates fell dramatically. To 50 or 51, depending on whether the equivalent of a coin flip comes up heads or tails. Really.
If this has been "one of the most successful Congresses" for the pro-life agenda, then the states deserve some of the credit.
There may be fake news, but there's no making up the media's loathing of President Donald Trump.
When it comes to advertising on the D.C. metro, free speech is in for a bumpy ride.
Do you remember voting for Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in the presidential election? Neither does anyone else. But somehow the local district judge thinks she should be able to do President Donald Trump's job.
New York City Council just barred adults from getting the sex therapy they seek - unless it agrees with the personal views of members of the council.
A year ago the Department of Justice was finishing up eight long years of a scandal-plagued term under Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, as President Obama's political arm. A year later, the department has done a complete 180 degree turn back to upholding - instead of undermining - the rule of law, and restoring law and order.
Each year, as battlefield correspondents begin anew to report the "War on Christmas," different eyes roll in different directions. Many agnostics, progressives, "indifferents," and Christians skeptical of "those other Christians," will tend to dismiss it and cast eyes heavenward. But should they? Is it all as easily dismissed as one would like?
When Heather Wilson was picked to be secretary of the Air Force, she told the Senate: "Air Force policy must continue to ensure that all airmen are able to choose to practice their particular religion." Now, she has a chance to prove it.
On Monday night, the GOP tax bill took another step toward President Donald Trump's desk when Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., named nine members to the conference committee, including Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a case over whether cake artist Jack Phillips can be forced by the state to design and create a cake celebrating a same-sex wedding in violation of his religious beliefs on marriage.
There've been a lot of wise men in the White House. But this Christmas, there are three more in the East Room, where the Trumps are highlighting a Nativity scene.
At Tuesday's oral argument in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission-which will decide whether baker Jack Phillips can be forced by the state to design and create a cake celebrating a same sex wedding-it became apparent quite early on that the Court was grappling not merely with Jack's case, but with a number of potential conflicts between religious freedom and same-sex marriage on its hands.
Planned Parenthood's biggest nemesis isn't the GOP - or even pro-lifers. Lately, it's the democratic process. When abortion groups started moving into the extreme territory staked out by Barack Obama - pushing late-term, taxpayer-funded, and unregulated abortions - most Americans didn't move with them. So, like most liberals with unpopular agendas, Planned Parenthood turned to the only place capable of giving them the victories they couldn't win legislatively: the courts.
There've been a lot of wise men in the White House. But this Christmas, there are three more in the East Room, where the Trumps are highlighting a Nativity scene.
As the Dec. 5 oral argument date for his case grows near, the drumbeat proclaiming Jack Phillips must be forced to create a same-sex wedding cake against his conscience grows louder.
Don't say we didn't warn you, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told Democrats at a rocky Senate Judiciary meeting last week.
Air Force Col. Leland Bohannon needed reinforcements-and thanks to eight senators, he got them.\r\r
It may have been unintentional, but a recent lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union could nonetheless result in many children being displaced from adoption agencies who would otherwise have been happy to care for them and find families to adopt them.
Most of us didn't need a poll to show us that liberals have lost their grip on reality. But Pew Research Center is providing one anyway.
After flying in the B-2 bomber, Air Force Col. Leland Bohannon knows a thing or two about stealth. And the attack against his faith isn't it. In fact, the military seems to be going out of its way to punish the Christian dad of five, despite a distinguished career defending the same freedom the Air Force is intent on taking from him.
It was a small sentence-"I will pray for you"- but it meant big trouble for Cony High School technician Toni Richardson. When Richardson offered that comfort to another Christian on staff in private, she was hauled before school officials and warned not to utter a word about her faith again.
Does the First Amendment allow the government to force a cake baker to make custom cakes in violation of his own conscience and religious beliefs?
During a CNN health-care debate on September 25, 2017 Sen. Bill Cassidy stated, "You know, first, most Planned Parenthood settings are in urban areas, urban areas that have lots of OB/GYNs...Now, as it turns out, the folks who don't have access to those cancer screenings live in rural areas. They live in areas where there are not enough physicians. So the idea is that we want someone to have to drive - a lower-income person drive - three hours to a Planned Parenthood facility there to get her screening, or would we rather take that money and put it back in the rural area to allow her to get her health care there?"
Open enrollment for ObamaCare is under way, having started November 1 and running through December 15, 2017. For the fourth year in a row, the Family Research Council and the Charlotte Lozier Institute have partnered to uncover exclusive 2018 information at ObamaCareAbortion.com revealing abortion coverage in ObamaCare plans.
This Veterans Day, millions across America will celebrate the sacrifice and service of millions more who have laid down their time and treasure-and in many cases their lives-for our country. At a time when our nation daily worships at the altar of self-fulfillment, and honor for such service increasingly falls by the wayside, those in Bladensburg, Maryland now have to contend with federal judges who want to take away their veterans memorial.
Adversity does not build character, James Lee Allen wrote, it reveals it. That's become painfully clear in the last 24 hours, as many liberals seem intent on showing the country just how little they've learned about Americans since last year's election.
"White boys could soon self-identify as black girls in Delaware." So begins one of the latest columns of Fox News' Todd Starnes, reporting on what parents probably wish was fake news. Unfortunately for the families in The First State, reality may soon be optional for kids in Delaware public schools.
With so much political tension across the country, it would probably help to sit down and have an open conversation. There's just one problem. According to 71 percent of America, political correctness is silencing the discussions we need to have.
What's so controversial about Catholics believing Catholic teaching? A lot, according to some students at Georgetown University.
The NFL owners are desperately trying to put the anthem controversy behind them after weeks of slumping ratings, sales, and horrible PR. But the damage, say most Americans, has already been done. Some fans are more determined than ever to stick it to the league that dishonored our flag, country, and millions of U.S. troops.
President Trump used Twitter to announce on July 26 that "the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military." U. S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, appointed to the federal bench by then-President Clinton, has now substituted her own judgment about how to run the military for that of our nation's elected Commander-in-Chief.
"We believe everyone should have a voice," YouTube has said. Everyone, it seems, but conservatives.
In today's bitter political climate, there are few labels more intellectually lazy than "hate group." When you label an entity as a "hate group," you automatically demonize it and remove from your shoulders any mantle of responsibility to dialogue or engage in civil discourse with this denounced entity.
Liberals didn't mind when former President Barack Obama forced his radical social policies on our military, but they certainly don't want President Donald Trump rescinding them. So where do they turn? Unelected judges.
"Remember, we are talking about a child here."\r\rWhen a federal judge with pro-abortion leanings lets loose such a nugget of truth, it is often accidentally uttered. This appears to be the case with this darkly ironic statement, Judge Patricia Millet made in her concurrence in the D.C. Circuit's Tuesday en banc decision in Garza v. Hargan, ordering an underage girl to be permitted an elective abortion after being detained while unlawfully trying to cross the border into the U.S.
They're no longer with us, but I can still remember them marching every Fourth of July parade when I was a kid.
Texans have a saying for people who talk big but act small: All hat, no cattle. It's hard to think of someone better fitting that description than Rep. Frederica Wilson, the Florida Democrat with a multitude of colorful hats but no decency.
"How times have changed. But you know what? Now they're changing back again, just remember that!" Nothing encapsulates President Trump's message at the recent Values Voter Summit more than those words.
The usual suspects have discovered that Christopher Columbus was no 21st century liberal. Of course, that shouldn't surprise anyone since he lived in a time of empires, slavery, monarchies, and ignorance.
This weekend, thousands will descend on Washington for the 12th annual Values Voter Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. They are coming to D.C. ready to seize a moment that was delivered with the election of Donald Trump and significant conservative gains in both the House and Senate. These voters are coming energized by a president who is working to keep his promises but exasperated by the U.S. Senate that has become the graveyard of promises.
Planned Parenthood wants you to think they are the champion of women. But if they achieve their goals, there may not be very many women left to champion.
There is currently a petition before the U.S. Supreme Court which presents critical constitutional questions relating to California's enforcement of surrogacy contracts under the state's statute.
Earlier this month, during a judicial confirmation hearing for 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Amy Barrett, who is a Catholic law professor, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., questioned whether Barrett could be a Christian and a judge at the same time:
Look back on the great men and women of history. Most of them fare poorly when subjected to modern scrutiny. They launched wars, murdered rivals, enslaved enemies, enriched allies and violated most every moral norm valued by people today.
Recently, a professor at the University of Chicago wrote that intentionally killing babies after birth who are "severely deformed or doomed" should be permitted.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order to stop subsidizing cities which obstruct immigration law. Chicago filed suit in response. Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to continue collecting federal dollars while ignoring federal policy.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions showed today why he's one of the best leaders President Trump has selected to move our country forward; no one doubts after today that he will bring to justice those who have put our national security at risk with unauthorized leaks of classified information. Already four people have been charged and there are numerous criminal referrals.
At a campaign event with veterans in Virginia, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump responded to a question about "social engineering and political correctness" in the military - including "transgender rights" - by saying, "We're gonna get away from political correctness ... some of the things they're asking you to do and be politically correct about are ridiculous."
The Religious Right and Left may disagree on a lot of things, but the importance of prayer shouldn't be one of them. Yet when a picture circulated of evangelical leaders laying hands on Donald Trump in the Oval Office, even self-described Christians pitched a fit.
Why has the case of British 11-month-old baby Charlie Gard struck an international nerve? At its core, this controversy is about state infringement on parental rights. The question is, whose child is Charlie: his parents' or the state's? Why is the hospital holding him hostage and by what authority can it override his parents' wish to pursue therapy that could help Charlie?
President Donald Trump's critics fixate on his tweets and then wonder why he spends so much time responding to their attacks. But why do they devote so much attention to his tweets in the first place? Maybe they realize that many Americans are happy to finally have a president who fights back.
More than 200 years ago, the young United States was learning to walk in its freshly won freedom and the Constitution born of it. Our experiment in self-governance, based on the idea that our Creator endowed all of us with certain inalienable rights as reflected in our Declaration of Independence, was unique in the history of the world.
Last year, without any systematic study of the consequences, the Obama administration reversed longstanding policies that excluded those who identify as transgender, on both psychological and medical grounds, from serving in the U.S. military. The armed services immediately stopped discharging existing service members who suffer from gender dysphoria (unhappiness with their biological sex at birth). Phase Two of this policy-allowing persons who identify as transgender to join the military-was scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2017.
"[L]aws . . . that single out the religious for disfavored treatment" are not permissible. So held a large majority of Supreme Court justices on Monday in Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer. The Court ruled 7-2 that excluding a group from a Missouri grant program just because of its religious nature violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.
For the first time in years, House staffers didn't need the blow-up mattresses they probably stashed in their offices for last night's debate. The Armed Services Committee wrapped up one minute shy of midnight - setting a new record in what is traditionally one of the longest days in Congress. That's not to say that yesterday's mark-up of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was an easy one. Members put in a grueling 14-hour day - marked at times by intense back-and-forth on how to best clean up the military mess left behind by Barack Obama. At 11:59 p.m., members were rewarded for their hard work with a near-unanimous vote (60-1) that sent them to bed hours before dawn.
No thanks to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., President Donald Trump's pick for the Office of Management and Budget is one step closer to his new job.
If abortion groups are trying to keep a low profile, they're not doing a very good job of it. While Congress debates whether taxpayers should fund the likes of Planned Parenthood, the industry has spent the last six months trying to avoid headlines. That will be impossible now, thanks to a federal judge who's threatening to send the man responsible for exposing the grisly business to jail.
While the Left promotes fake scandals, President Donald Trump proposes real change. Congressional Republicans should keep their eyes on the ball and enact his reforms into law.
It is the height of irony that Senator Bernie Sanders, in declaring Office of Management and Budget deputy director nominee Russell Vought's beliefs as "bigotry" during his confirmation hearing (see 44:20) last week, expressed blatant bigotry toward Vought by refusing to vote for him for nothing but Vought's religious views.
It was true before the U.S. presidential election and it remains true today: The problems we face are not just political and cultural; at their core, they are spiritual. I believe we received a reprieve from our worsening cultural condition by avoiding the election of Hillary Clinton. With the election of Donald Trump, we may have a window of opportunity. But this window will not be open long. God certainly hasn't placed us here at this time in history to sit passively on the sidelines hoping that things will change. He has given us the opportunity to act while we still have the freedom to do so.
What does a man's theology have to do with the U.S. economy? A lot, if you're Russell Vought.
A recently leaked draft rule indicating President Trump's response to President Barack Obama's oppressive contraceptive mandate made the rounds. In short, if it becomes the final rule, it is a big win for religious freedom.
The abortion pill has been around for years and has become a highly common form of abortion.
The Department of Health and Human Services is shaping up to be a huge headache for the radical Left. This week, the administration is adding another solidly pro-life, pro-abstinence leader to a roster that's already a who's who of the conservative movement. Valerie Huber, a longtime leader in sexual risk avoidance circles, is taking a job as the chief of staff for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health at HHS.
It's a good thing the House and Senate are out this week. Judging by the headlines, they'll need their rest to navigate choppy waters of the health care repeal when they return. Like Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), who managed to hold the shakiest of coalitions together for a May 4 vote, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has his hands full juggling the personalities and agendas of 52 very different Republicans.
The head of the United States Pacific Command, Admiral Harry B. Harris, Jr., testified before the House of Representatives in late April that the threat posed by North Korea has grown sufficiently to endanger the Hawaiian Islands. All around the globe, serious national security problems are coming to the fore in places like Iran, Venezuela, Afghanistan, and the South China Sea. Yet, because of holdover personnel from the Obama administration, and damaging Obama-era policies remaining in place, our military continues flailing.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Ca.) says there is something "tragically wrong" with President Donald Trump. His advisers and friends are "a bunch of scumbags." He is creating "chaos and division."
Memorial Day is a time for Americans to remember the sacrifices made for the freedoms we enjoy. Those sacrifices include the lives of many young men and women who paid the ultimate price for our continued liberty.
Democrats dug themselves into quite a hole with the party's hardline social platform last summer. And climbing out hasn't exactly been easy. By almost everyone's estimation (including Nancy Pelosi's, D-Calif.), the Left's extremism on issues like abortion and transgender bathrooms cost them the White House. But months after the loss no one saw coming, the party is still struggling to rebound.\r
President Trump's public vows to "totally destroy" the Johnson Amendment started during his campaign, continued through election night, and have persisted during his presidency - most recently appearing in his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast this past February.
The House Oversight and Government Reform's Subcommittees on Government Operations and Health Care, Benefits, and Administrative Rules recently held a hearing, Examining a Church's Right to Free Speech.
President Donald Trump is nearing his 100th day in office. Unlike his predecessor, President Trump doesn't spend much time on the golf course. He's busy issuing executive orders, appointing strong conservatives, bombing Islamist terrorists, and safeguarding our borders.
It's not every day that you get such a collection of entertaining quotes from Supreme Court justices. Last week's oral arguments in Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer will decide whether a state can exclude a religious entity from a public grant program just because the entity is religious. These four entertaining moments from those arguments indicate the court will likely rule for the church in this case.
With the Senate poised to vote this week on Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Neil Gorsuch's nomination to replace the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, one quality of Judge Gorsuch has been widely overlooked by scribes and talking heads throughout cable news coverage.
In the first two days of the Supreme Court confirmation hearings, senators pressed nominee Neil Gorsuch on a variety of issues that may be before the court, from antitrust lawsuits to campaign finance.
In the opening statement of his confirmation hearing, Judge Neil Gorsuch pledged that he will do all in his power "to be a faithful servant of the Constitution." While we cannot be sure how he will rule on abortion, his tone was measured and we can expect a textual, neutral, faithful application of the Constitution. This type of originalist approach will translate into rulings protecting all human life and not activist abortion rulings making up rights which are nowhere to be found in the Constitution.\r\r
Abortion is not healthcare. Our laws should reflect this basic principle, no matter which political party happens to be in power.
March 8 is International Women's Day. What it should be is a day to celebrate women and the feminine genius in economic, political, and social achievements. And there are many.
On February 22, the Trump administration released a statement rescinding previous Obama administration guidance dealing with students who identify as transgender.
That warm breeze you feel is the collective sigh of relief by the nation's moms and dads, now that the reckless Obama bathroom mandate has been rescinded.
Republicans agree that Obamacare has failed and must be repealed. But they can't agree on the replacement "plan."
President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch is a solid originalist and textualist when it comes to interpreting the Constitution and statutory authority.
On January 11, then-President-elect Donald J. Trump nominated David J. Shulkin, M.D., to be his administration's first Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). At the time, Dr. Shulkin was serving as the agency's Under Secretary for Health Administration. On February 1, the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs held a fast-tracked confirmation hearing for Dr. Shulkin. As an Obama appointee for his current position, Shulkin is expected to be confirmed in the general session of the Senate.
President Trump is doing something relatively rare in American politics - he is fulfilling his campaign promises. One of the several promises made by candidate Trump was to eliminate the problems for churches and religious leaders caused by the Johnson Amendment. Exactly what is the Johnson Amendment? How has it been used? And how should it be fixed?
"Mainstream". We are having a country-wide civics lesson on who is or is not out of our mainstream: Senate Democrats or the Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch.
Donald Trump isn't the first Republican president denounced as "illegitimate." The Left spent eight years refusing to get over George W. Bush's victory in 2000. It was the same issue. He won the election by the rules, but Al Gore had more "popular" votes.
As we commemorate Religious Freedom Day 2017, on January 16th, we mark a year of much change and a season of much opportunity for religious freedom.
Eighty-eight years ago almost to the day, the famed African-American civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. was born. Named for the monk who started the Reformation over four hundred years earlier, Dr. King would go on to become a Baptist minister and arguably the most important civil rights figure of the twentieth century.
The confirmation of a president's nominee for a Cabinet post should be based on that individual's character and qualification for the office. Sen. Jeff Sessions has devoted decades to defending the rights of all Alabamans, and should be confirmed as U.S. attorney general.
"Religious Freedom Day" is observed each year on January 16.\rThis year, perhaps surprisingly, Hollywood has given us a reminder of why the principle of religious freedom is so important - to avoid the persecution of religious dissenters that has stained so much of world history.\r\r\r
On January 21, women from around the country will come together in our nation's capital for the Women's March on Washington. Hundreds of thousands of women will fill the streets near the U. S. Capitol with their Rosie the Riveter arms flexed and their "woman power" signs bouncing in the air. They'll stand tall and confident, filled with determination for their voices to be heard during the next four years of a Trump presidency.\r
It may be a new year, but there's nothing new about the concerns surrounding the State Department's liberal activism. While Americans were busy unwrapping presents, conservatives were tearing into something else: Obama's record on social issues. After eight years of watching the State Department operate as a global base for abortion and sexual activism, most Republicans are ready to get back to the real business of diplomacy. That's a tough job under normal circumstances, but after two terms of President Obama, the Trump team will have its hands full.
Dishonest media attacks against President-Elect Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, won't derail his confirmation. But it's important to discuss where they come from because not everyone who realizes their origin is comfortable with that conversation.
What a gift it would be this Christmas in the United States if we simply came together to remember and pray for the Christians being persecuted in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world.
With only a few weeks left of Barack Obama's presidency, his administration is doing all it can to solidify the radical changes it has introduced - especially in the armed forces. After winning repeal in 2010 (from a lame duck Congress) of the law against homosexuality in the armed forces, the administration set out in 2016 to complete its extreme LGBT makeover of the military by opening the doors to transgender service members as well. Defense Secretary Ash Carter revoked longstanding policies against transgender military service on July 1, 2016, and a year later, on July 1, 2017, the armed forces are currently scheduled to begin actively recruiting persons who identify as transgender.
Open enrollment for Obamacare plans is well under way, having started Nov. 1 and running through Jan. 31, 2017. Not only is Obamacare proving unaffordable to millions of Americans-it is proving unconscionable for pro-life Americans who don't want to pay for health care plans that cover abortion on demand or lack transparency about such coverage.
Donald Trump's election as president, and the reelection of a Republican House and Senate, have created an opportunity for America "to rebuild our military" - a pledge that Trump made during his campaign.
As the dust settles after Election Day, it is clear that religious liberty bore significant weight on the minds of many as they entered voting booths this year. Donald Trump was propelled into the presidency in part by voters concerned about the curtailing of religious freedom by the Obama administration, a process Hillary Clinton would have continued into her presidency.
Bullying Christians may be a favorite strategy of the left-but it's not necessarily an effective one. Chip and Joanna Gaines of HGTV's popular show "Fixer Upper" may be sending that message without ever opening their mouths.
Last week, religious challengers and the government both filed another round of briefswith the Supreme Court on a question it asked the parties in Zubik v. Burwell. This is the legal challenge by the Little Sisters of the Poor and dozens of other religious organizations objecting to being forced to provide certain drugs and services, mandated as part of Obamacare health insurance coverage, against their sincere religious beliefs. (Family Research Council joined an amicus brief in the case.)
It's probable that most of the readers of this piece, including those in my own family, use Pay-Pal. It's efficient, quick, and reliable.\rPay-Pal has also just announced it has "canceled its plans to open a new global operations center in Charlotte, following passage of a North Carolina law that prevents cities from creating non-discrimination policies based on gender identity."\r
Efforts to defund Planned Parenthood Federation of American (PPFA) on the end of the fiscal year 2015 Continuing Resolution have been blocked in the Senate due to the 60-vote cloture threshold, but we believe an effort to defund a significant portion of PPFA's government revenue is possible on the budget reconciliation bill which requires only 51 votes. We believe such a provision is consistent with the Byrd Rule, which restricts "extraneous" provisions in reconciliation bills.
For more than thirty years, former Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran proved that black lives matter. In a city 54% black, it was natural to show this concern day after day. It's safe to say that over his 30-year career in Louisiana and Georgia, Chief Cochran was responsible for saving thousands of black lives. And white, Hispanic and Asian lives as well. It would be inconceivable that a respected major city Fire Chief would do otherwise.
"To get the full value of joy," Mark Twain wrote in Following the Equator, "you must have someone to divide it with."
Common-sense criminal sentencing reform is gaining momentum. Presidential candidate Jeb Bush and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins are among the signers of the Right on Crime Statement of Principles, which argues for applying "conservative principles to criminal justice policy" as "vital to achieving a cost-effective system that protects citizens, restores victims, and reforms wrongdoers." Earlier this year, a collation of extraordinary political bedfellows-ranging from Hillary Clinton and Martin O'Malley to Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz-published a book of essays titled, "Solutions: American Leaders Speak Out on Criminal Justice Reform."
Earlier this year, the Catholic Diocese of Richmond fired the executive director of an associated charity known as the Saint Francis Home after the man disclosed he was in a same-sex marriage. The executive director subsequently filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claiming sexual orientation discrimination. While such EEOC complaints (and federal lawsuits) have been filed before, only this past summer did the EEOC rule inBaldwin v. Foxx that sexual orientation discrimination could constitute sex discrimination which is prohibited by Title VII. Despite its jumbled logic, this ruling increases the likelihood that the executive director's claim against the Richmond Diocese will find traction with the EEOC.
Much of the media today roundly disparage any business-person who even voices their religious beliefs regarding same-sex marriage. This is the consistent narrative by which many presumptuously judge small business owners' (often wedding vendors) motives in affirming their religious convictions as animating their business lives.
Most liberals and even some conservatives are arguing that Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis must either issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples or quit her post. Where you stand on this issue too often comes down to a case of where you stand on the question of whether same-sex nuptials are now "the law of the land" because Justice Tony Kennedy and four of his black-robed cohorts say so.
We should all want our troops in Afghanistan to intervene to stop the rape of boys, right? Surely, we don't want our U.S. Army to act like morally neutered crew members of the Starship Enterprise from the famed "Star Trek" TV series. Those fictional time and space travelers had a Prime Directive that forbade them from interfering in the development of less technologically advanced beings they encountered as they went "where no man had gone before."
It's been said that bedtime is the perfect time for kids to ask questions, request food, require additional bathroom breaks and need a nightlight.
In the midst of the distressing stories of Planned Parenthood's heartless abortion industry and the gruesomeness inherent in destroying a child within the womb, compassionate and committed people in our country and in many other places in the world are putting their lives and incomes on the line in adopting children who desperately need families and homes.\rRead more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/3-encouraging-stories-of-adoption-146571/#cD7uYv2OFqCgI9qw.99
Most liberals and even some conservatives are arguing that Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis must either issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples or quit her post. Where you stand on this issue too often comes down to a case of where you stand on the question of whether same-sex nuptials are now "the law of the land" because Justice Tony Kennedy and four of his black-robed cohorts say so.
Selma Cohen is not dead.\r\rWho is Selma Cohen and why is this news?\r\rDue to a computer error, Medicaid declared Mrs. Cohen deceased. Here's what happened:
President Obama's remarks upon greeting the Pope at the White House generally were lovely. There was also, within them, a great deal of moral irony.\rConsider the following excerpts:\r
When Blaine Adamson, owner of Hands On Originals printing company in Lexington, Kentucky, declined to print tee shirts for the Lexington Gay Pride Festival, the city's Gay and Lesbian Services Organization filed a complaint. That was in March 2012. Here's what happened next: "In October 2014, after 24 months of back-and-forth, Lexington's Human Rights Commission issued its ruling, finding the business guilty of breaking the town's 'fairness' ordinance and ordered re-education known as 'diversity training' as punishment."
States are recognized in the Constitution as powerful entities. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people," says the Tenth Amendment. In other words, whatever the Constitution does not specifically authorize the federal government to do lies within the authority of the states.
Over the past half-century, America has gone from "Father Knows Best" to Father Knows Nothing. That path has been strewn with sorrow for millions of families in this country. The reality shows that play to diminishing audiences today tend to show the seamier side of life and to revel in the revealing.
"Power of Prayer, and a president." It's not often you read that kind of headline on the front page of the Washington Post. But the story-a powerful one of crushing political defeat and personal spiritual redemption-is what commanded our attention a couple of weeks ago.
Planned Parenthood does not offer any women's health services that are not offered by other health care centers. None.
Dehumanization - the diminishment of human dignity through objectification and commodification - has become much too routine in American daily life.
Last week, the Texas Supreme Court again had to hold Houston Mayor Annise Parker and her City Council in check for attempting to interfere with their own residents' ability to get a fair shake at the polls and vote on the city's divisive "Equal Rights Ordinance." Hopefully, this judicial intervention will be the last that is needed in this saga.\r\rAfter Mayor Parker imposed her sweeping ordinance containing religious liberty concerns on the local population last year (and meddled in internal church affairs by issuing an overbroad subpoena for local pastors' writings and communications), Houston area residents, led by a number of pastors, pushed back and rightly demanded a vote on the matter.
We face a crisis of conscience today - a crisis forced upon us by elites in Washington who would pick and choose who is allowed to follow their deeply held beliefs and who is to be punished by the government for doing so.
Caroline Glick is a columnist for the Jerusalem Post. Raised in the U.S., she made Aliyah several years ago and now lives and writes in Israel. Glick spoke to a huge "Stop IRAN" rally in New York City in late July. She passionately appealed to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D) and Reps. Jerry Nadler (D) and Elliott Engel (D) to oppose the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry. "If you are men of honor," she said, "you must oppose this dangerous deal." At a time when Chuck Schumer's office was saying the designated future leader of Senate Democrats was carefully analyzing the details of the deal, Caroline Glick boldly told him not to immerse himself in the details, but to look instead at "the big picture."
A recently released poll shows significant public support for the protection of religious liberty-especially when special rights based on sexual orientation are being advanced at its expense.
It didn't take long for a federal judge to block some of the Planned Parenthood footage - and now we may know why.
The Old State House in Annapolis has just re-opened its historic Senate Chamber to public view. After a seven-year project of historic restoration, the Chamber now features a life-size statue of Gen. George Washington.Tourists and state lawmakers alike can see how they "measure up" to the Father of our Country.
A recent video from the Center for Medical Progress's investigative journalism project shows abortionists using forceps to separate out the organs of an unborn child they have freshly killed. On television, of course, it's only described as "fetal tissue" because they want to estrange their victims from us, the folks who walk around, breathe freely and watch CNN.
Finally, our distinguished President, our Nobel Peace Prize Laureate has spoken out about the infamous scandal of body parts being trafficked. "It is infuriating and I have no patience for it," President Obama said in a strong show of righteous indignation.
Granted, it was when she was first lady. And admittedly, she didn't think we should do anything about the wrong of abortion. But she did say it. Hillary Clinton told Newsweek Magazine she thought "abortion is wrong" (October 31, 1994).\r
President Reagan went to West Berlin in 1987 and called upon Soviet Communist ruler Mikhail Gorbachev to "Tear Down this Wall." The President was also working against a near-total blackout of Western media coverage of the Berlin Wall. As former PBS news anchor Robert MacNeil said at the Newseum in 2009, the only time mainstream reporters covered the Berlin Wall was when U.S. Presidents-JFK and Reagan-went there. Then they had to.
A new Facebook profile photo is beginning to spread on the Internet, especially among members of the rising millennial generation. It's a picture of a baby within the womb. Superimposed on the baby is an equal sign.
Earlier this year, National Geographic's ran a cover story called, "The War on Science." In the feature article, writer Joel Achenbach addressed a number of issues about which many people dispute the received scientific wisdom.
President Obama's sentimental journey to East Africa should have been a harmonious one. He used the occasion of a toast to Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta to joke about his own search for his birth certificate. The usual round of VIP visits and dinners were marred, however, by this president's insistence on pushing his radical social agenda on Africans.
Planned Parenthood pays no taxes. Under President Obama, made more than $500 million in profits, but they claim to be a "non-profit" organization. They kill more 800 children every day. And they have from the earliest days targeted minority women. They once had a "Negro Ministers" project designed to recruit black pastors to push first birth control and then abortion in minority neighborhoods.
The recent Washington Summit of Christians United for Israel - the 2-million strong organization dedicated to promoting American evangelicals' support for the Jewish State - offered a powerful lineup of politicians and pundits. Half a dozen presidential candidates made appearances, either in person or via video.
In an 1820 letter to his friend, American diplomat William Jarvis, an aged Thomas Jefferson reflected on how the courts should function in our republican system of representative self-government. "To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions," he wrote, "would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy."
What do you have to do to lose your government funding these days? Try believing in natural marriage or running a pro-life charity. But defraud taxpayers, cover-up child sexual abuse, botch abortions, and scavenge babies for body parts, and you're untouchable. Or at least you used to be.\r
Christians disagree about many things, some more important than others.\rAmong Evangelical Protestants, there is universal concurrence on the core issues of the faith. The key aspects of our theology are well-expressed in the historic Lausanne Covenant, for example.\r
Many of our fellow conservatives are saying that President Obama's deal with Iran is a "nuclear Munich." That is, they are comparing the Iranian settlement negotiated over these many months by Secretary John Kerry in that Austrian capital with the Munich capitulation negotiated over mere days in September, 1938, by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.
The Supreme Court has asserted that the U. S. Constitution mandates all 50 states to license civil "marriages" between same-sex couples. You are a pastor who believes that God ordained marriage to be exclusively the union of one man and one woman. You know research shows that, on average, husbands and wives-and children raised by a married mother and father-are happier, healthier, and more prosperous than people in other living situations.
Jonathan Rauch, one of the more thoughtful writers of the Left, has called Evangelicals "the last gay marriage hold-outs." He posits that "most American Catholics support gay marriage. So do most mainline Protestants."
Kelly Shackelford's debate with Evan Wolfson on Fox News Sunday highlights the battle lines for religious liberty in America now that the Supreme Court has grossly overstepped its authority by declaring same-sex "marriage" a constitutional right. The issue is whether religious liberty extends to how you earn your living, get an education, and run a business.
Do you feel like America has gone crazy?\r\rThe Supreme Court's outrageous decisions in the Obamacare and same-sex marriage cases, in which the Court simply ignored the plain meanings of words and the Constitution, and thumbed its nose at the most basic facts of life, are only the latest examples of our nation turning its back on truth and common sense.
Writing on Time.com, Mark Oppenheimer, a New York Times religion columnist, argued that in light of the Supreme Court's recent decision to legalize same-sex marriage in all 50 states it was time to end tax exemptions for religious institutions.
Throughout America, "gay pride" parades took place over this past weekend in many major cities.\r\rSadly, such parades are nothing really new. Consider Augustine's commentary about a "gay pride" parade of what he calls "effeminate" pagan priests that he witnessed early in the fifth century A.D.:\r\r
On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that states must license same sex marriages and recognize such licenses issued by other states. There are four reasons for this decision:
If there's one thing the Supreme Court accomplished last Friday (besides unleashing cultural chaos on America), it was ending the liberal media's charade. Whatever scrap of journalistic impartiality existed flew out the courtroom window Friday when the press decided five justices not only invented a right to same-sex marriage but to censorship, too.
In one breathtaking move, the nation's highest court took for itself the power reserved for its people-overturning the votes of millions of Americans and demanding that they walk away from millennia of human history, human nature, and the explicit teachings of Scripture in the process. Exactly two years after this court took a sledgehammer to federal marriage law, the same Justices came back to finish the job-inventing a sweeping "right" to same-sex marriage no Founding Father intended.\r
Roe v. Wade created social upheaval of historic proportions. The five justices who just ruled in favor of same-sex marriage show the Supreme Court has learned nothing in the intervening 42 years.
Observant Christians - and adherents of other faiths - are reeling from the Supreme Court's declaration of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage and preparing for an unprecedented struggle for their right to express their beliefs and live their lives accordingly, as new battles will now be waged unless and until a future Supreme Court reverses course.
Ruling ensures continued conflict\r\rThousands of years of human history cannot be overruled by a court - even if it is the U.S. Supreme Court. While five justices can change the law, they cannot change the enduring truth about what marriage is. Natural marriage has consisted of a man and a woman since the beginning of time, and so it will remain.\r
Throughout the Middle East and North Africa today, Christianity is under attack. Terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are destroying some of the oldest and most sacred Christian communities and relics in the world on the very lands where Christianity was born and first took root. They are committing brutal atrocities against Christian communities in Syria and Iraq, persecuting religious minorities and destroying entire towns and local economies. Christians are fleeing their homes in increasing numbers, creating an exploding refugee crisis that will have grave ramifications on the stability and security of the entire region.
Last week, after Tony Campolo announced that he now supports same-sex marriage (a logical progression given the long-time devaluation of biblical authority in his "Red-Letter Christian" initiative), former Christianity Today editor David Neff affirmed the same thing.
Like two speeding trains heading toward the same collapsed bridge, the dangers and failures of Barack Obama's foreign, economic, and social policies are heading rapidly toward implosion. Our vital security interests, our economic well-being, our religious liberties, and the very fabric of American family life are all at grave risk of becoming casualties of the extreme ideological agenda and simple incompetence of the current Administration.\r
If same-sex marriage comes to America, it will not be because Americans asked for it.\rIn the last 15 years the question was put to the people in nearly every state of the union. Even in liberal states like California, even on ballots in purely democratic primaries, the people voted overwhelmingly to keep the definition of marriage unchanged.\r
On June 21, families across America will fire up their barbecues and take time out to honor dads. As a father of five children, I look forward eagerly to this annual paternal celebration we call Father's Day.
Last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and 44 other original co-sponsors introduced the Senate version of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (S. 1553). Last month, identical legislation passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 242-184.
When the Supreme Court heard arguments involving one of the most contentious social issues in modern American history, one side asked the court to choose winners and losers in the same-sex marriage debate, the other asked the people of each state to be allowed decide for themselves.
June 12 has been dubbed "Loving Day." It commemorates the anniversary of a Supreme Court decision-in the 1967 case of Loving v. Virginia-in which the court declared that state laws barring interracial marriage were unconstitutional.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ will always be true, life-giving, refreshing, glorious, stunning. But it will never be cool.
Tim Keller's gracious and biblically faithful article on human sexuality and the drive by some to re-interpret Scripture's teachings concerning homosexuality is important. An Evangelical "Cardinal," as it were, has spoken clearly and firmly, albeit with great civility, on the immutable teaching of the written Word of God on sexuality and sexual intimacy. This is meat to my soul.
Just over one month ago, at oral arguments for the same-sex marriage cases before the Supreme Court, President Obama left no doubt as to his legal strategy to marginalize and punish people for their belief in natural marriage.
What must it be like to know that your name is on a list of thousands of people to be shot? What is it to know that your family will be hustled off to a concentration camp where few if any will emerge alive? How do you prepare for your country coming under the heel of a ruthless killer supported by all the latest technology?\rRead more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/praying-for-deliverance-dunkirk-1940-139882/#MtYjLiiHMOgdYoI5.99\rRead more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/praying-for-deliverance-dunkirk-1940-139882/#CRqVEVOsXDp11CRE.99\rRead more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/praying-for-deliverance-dunkirk-1940-139882/#COo31isec0cYOGQi.99
President Obama, you recently gave an interview to Israeli television claiming you are "the closest thing to a Jew that has ever sat in this office." That's so far from the truth even a GPS cannot find it.\r
Bruce Jenner now calls himself "Caitlyn" and appears in a photo on the cover Vanity Fair. Here are some obvious but under-reported facts about him:
My grandfathers were men of tools. One was a plumber and builder of houses, the other an interior craftsman and designer at a department store. I have the head of the latter's hammer displayed on a shelf in my home office.
At last week's "summit" event of religious leaders on poverty, President Obama made some remarks that deserve comment.\r\rIn his view, Christian churches should "go to the mat" on poverty. He suggests, seemingly, that Evangelicals and Catholics who focus on "reproductive issues, or same-sex marriage, or what have you" should instead concentrate more intently on poverty:\r\r
Leslie Loftis is an attorney (J.D., University of Texas) whose primary role these days is a wife and mother of four young children (good call on the priorities, Leslie). In The Federalist, she has written one of the most thorough analyses of the potential of religious entities losing their tax-exempt status should the Supreme Court miraculously find a "right" to same-sex "marriage" in the U.S. Constitution in their ruling on the issue next month.
London's Big Ben celebrated the arrival of a royal princess by lighting up pink. The birth of Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana to Prince William and Kate has set Londoners in a festive mood. And it has thrilled avid watchers of the Royals around the world.\rRead more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/big-ben-gets-it-right-139173/#x79cqVkt2qtFT8pH.99
In an interview with The Washington Post timed to a high-level summit on combating poverty, Harvard professor Robert Putnam makes an assertion about what he terms "organized religion," its agenda and the use of its "resources." Specifically:\r"The obvious fact is that over the last 30 years, most organized religion has focused on issues regarding sexual morality, such as abortion, gay marriage, all of those. I'm not saying if that's good or bad, but that's what they've been using all their resources for. This is the most obvious point in the world. It's been entirely focused on issues of homosexuality and contraception and not at all focused on issues of poverty."\r
Two years ago on May 13th, late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell was found guilty of first degree murder in the deaths of three infants and involuntary manslaughter of Karnamaya Mongar, a young woman he butchered during an abortion. While he was convicted on only four counts, hundreds of similar incidents were reported. He was also convicted of twenty-one felony counts of illegal late-term abortion beyond Pennsylvania's twenty-four week abortion limit.
In January, as hundreds of thousands of people streamed into our nation's capital for the annual March for Life, a simple pro-life measure in Congress was caught in a quagmire. On the anniversary of the tragic Roe v. Wade ruling, the House of Representatives was supposed to vote - and pass - the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. It had passed with significant support in the last Congress, and was expected to do so again this year, with a much higher chance of actually making its way through the Senate this time around. But somewhere, something went wrong, and what had been a united front splintered into chaos and finger-pointing and misinformation.
Family Research Council is a pro-family organization, which is why we're concerned about the costs government imposes on families.
The rioting in Baltimore is disturbing to all Americans, as the unresolved cause of Freddie Gray's death while in police custody should be as well.
Last Tuesday's Supreme Court arguments on same-sex marriage showcased the need for a new federal law to protect private organizations that hold a view on marriage different from our growing and increasingly powerful federal government.
While I was at the Supreme Court for the hearing on same-sex marriage, a daughter of former Senator and current presidential candidate Rick Santorum got up to speak at a podium in front of the large crowd in front of the building. Immediately, a young man behind me began to shout "UGLY! UGLY! UGLY!"
The biggest news from Tuesday's Supreme Court arguments isn't news at all to conservatives: Same-sex "marriage" is a threat to religious freedom. For once, that revelation didn't come from one of the lawyers on our side but from the Obama administration's own attorney. In a rare moment of candor, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli sent a clear signal on where this debate is headed, and it isn't to the marriage altar.
The legal profession typically affirms its proud tradition of defending the unpopular. Lawyers will often agree to represent a reviled defendant because they understand that our adversarial system requires vigorous representation on both sides if justice is to prevail.
Today the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments involving one of the most contentious social issues in modern American history. One side will ask the court to choose winners and losers in the same-sex marriage debate. The other will ask the court to let the people of each state decide for themselves.
Thousands of years of human history cannot be overruled by three hours of debate before nine imperfect people. But today that is the best liberals can hope for in the race to upend nature's law -- and nature's God. Outside the U.S. Supreme Court, where the future of civilization was on trial, people from both sides of the marriage debate soaked in the sun while inside clouds gathered over the question that's shadowed America for the last 11 years: does the court have a right to force same-sex "marriage" on every state in the union?\rRead more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/courting-for-marriage-left-tries-to-woo-scotus-138349/#LBMThGKWTg8ILvsP.99
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a set of cases, including Obergefell v. Hodges on Tuesday, challenging state laws and constitutions that define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. One of the arguments made by those who wish to redefine marriage nationwide is that classifying same-sex couples differently from opposite-sex couples for purposes of civil marriage violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
On April 28th, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges to determine whether states may define "marriage" as only the marriage of one man and one woman.
It is a conceit of the young to believe that because something has occurred to them, it is a novel idea, one unknown to previous, plodding generations. This tendency cuts across the board and includes young Christians.
"Sometimes we're too machista and don't allow room for the woman" was Pope Francis' heartfelt response in January to a young Filipino girl who shared with him her harrowing tale of life on the street and questioned the meaning of suffering. "But the woman is able to see things with a different eye than men. Women are able to pose questions that we men are not able to understand," the Pope continued.
It was one of the most gratifying exchanges in recent political memory.\r\rWhen U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) announced his presidential campaign recently, he made a standard campaign stop in New Hampshire. While there, a reporter trotted out one of the standard questions any Republican receives when he declares he is running for national office: What are the exceptions to your views about preventing abortions?
On April 28, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges and three other appeals in key marriage cases.
CNN journalist Carol Costello recently interviewed Kent State University students about marriage. While the (heterosexual) students, both male and female, all looked forward to getting married, the interview highlighted their limited understanding on the impact marriage has on their own lives and on society. Thus, despite their own intentions, they seemed unsure of its importance for the future of children and society.\rConsider the facts.\r
Whenever I read such things as "Why the Founding Fathers Wouldn't Have Been Anti-Vaxxers," I cringe a bit. Not only are these rather desperate speculations, but they are supercilious: We know the things the Founders were for and against, and to infer from their stated convictions and known actions their allegiance to or antipathy toward a contemporary political issue trivializes these remarkable men and the causes for which they fought and, in some cases, died.
Recently, the news has been tough for Christians here at home. Stories involving the erosion of religious liberty in America, as in the failure in Indiana to protect the rights of business persons who don't wish to participate in same-sex weddings, have persuaded some that the chips are not only down but depleted.
Recent nationwide polling shows that 81 percent of Americans agree that the government should leave people free to live and work in accordance with their belief that marriage is between a man and a woman.
By now the horrific story about Michelle Wilkins' 7 month old preborn Aurora being ripped from her mother's womb in Colorado has dominated headlines throughout the country. Dynel Lane, the perpetrator, was charged with eight felonies by the Boulder County District Attorney's office. Yet one charge was visibly missing: the murder of baby Aurora. A new poll reveals that 76% of Americans agree that an attacker who causes the death of a woman's preborn child should be charged with murder. Colorado has devastatingly failed Aurora.
What if one person can make a big difference? He can.\rMeet Pastor Lee Jong-rak. He is the unlikely lead character in a new award-winning documentary called The Drop Box which narrates his heroic efforts to save children at risk of dying by abandonment in his native South Korea. Inspired by his son with a disability, Pastor Lee built a baby box embedded in the side of his house that can be opened from both the exterior and the interior to save other vulnerable children. It is a padded, heated box with sensors that alert Pastor Lee and his staff when someone places a baby inside.\r
There is a "Back to the Future" quality to the current culture clash going on in Indiana, in the country at large, and throughout the Western democracies over marriage and over the gay lobby's insatiable demands.
Last month, USA Today reported that Facebook is now recognizing 58 distinct gender options, with a 59th for "fill in the blank."
Hysteria over Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act has drowned out one critical question: Who are the florist and baker that ABC's George Stephanopoulos hounded Gov. Mike Pence about?
Openly gay New York Times columnist Frank Bruni made clear in his Easter Day column that the efforts in Indiana to defeat religious freedom protections provided for individuals and business owners under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) was just round one. Bruni is signaling that no sanctuary will be given to those who hold to a biblical view of sexuality and isdemanding that the Christian faith jettison its 2,000 year allegiance to the clear teaching of the Bible concerning human sexuality.
Having lived in the Seattle area for more than half a century, my family has enjoyed some wonderful meals at Ivar's Salmon House and other Ivar's restaurants. It's a summertime tradition for us to gather for chowder and fried clams at the little Ivar's outlet at the southern end of Lake Washington.
Indiana recently adopted a Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), defining a legal standard for cases in which government action affects someone's First Amendment right to religious freedom. Critics, though, deceitfully attacked it as a "license to discriminate" against homosexuals, leading legislators to gut their own law. On March 30, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced he would ban state-funded travel to Indiana because of RFRA.
Should the Supreme Court alter the law concerning same-sex "marriage" later this year, it will be even more important to protect those who do not believe such relationships can be "marriages" at all from being forced to violate their beliefs. These would-be dissenters must be afforded the right to disagree and the freedom to live in accord with their religious convictions.
Abraham Lincoln had two portraits displayed in his study: One was of Andrew Jackson, who as president had preserved the Union by preventing South Carolina from leaving it, and the other was of the British statesman John Bright.
The American Psychological Association (APA) and the American Sociological Association (ASA) submitted friend of the Court briefs in the Windsor case. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled portions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional. If the Windsor Court majority relied on those briefs, it was reliant on snake oil, not science.
A professing Evangelical church in California has jettisoned its commitment to orthodox Christian teaching on homosexuality.
The foreign policy clerisy in this country was loud in its denunciation of Arkansas freshman Sen. Tom Cotton (R) when he circulated a Round Robin letter with the signatures of 47 GOP senators. Sen. Cotton's letter simply states the obvious truth that no "executive agreement" with Iran can be guaranteed past the expiration of Mr. Obama's constitutionally limited term of office.
Starbucks has launched a well-meaning campaign designed to foster dialog about race and racism. Called "Race Together," it is being hailed by some as potentially disastrous and others as brilliant.
Advocates of redefining "marriage" to include same-sex couples use a number of arguments that can best be described as "myths." The reality is often quite different.
We have previously argued that President Obama's policies in foreign policy are Islamisant (iss-lam-i-ZONT). That is, we do not say he is Islamic, or Islamist, to be sure. What we argue instead is the effect of his policies is to favor Islam.
So, Burger King has dropped soda from its kids meals menu. So have such other fast food restaurants as McDonald's and Wendy's.\r
As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to consider whether to overturn the marriage laws of all the states-as some activist federal judges have already done in some of the states--conservatives are naturally calling for judicial restraint. We must warn the court against another exercise of "raw judicial power" like that handed down with its infamous 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. That cruel and unjust ruling is viewed as illegitimate by tens of millions of Americans. Young people, especially, are turning against abortion-on-demand. We see this in every pro-life march. And this public outcry is being translated into a bumper crop of pro-life legislation bubbling up in state legislatures.
By an almost 2-1 margin, Americans in a recent poll declared they agree that "States and citizens should remain free to uphold marriage as the union of a man and a woman and the Supreme Court shouldn't force all 50 states to redefine marriage."
Some might say he was clinging to his guns and religion. On March 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln began his Second Inaugural Address with a reference to the military situation. Gen. Grant's powerful army then held the rebel Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in a death grip, besieging it at Petersburg, with the Confederate capital of Richmond sure to fall to Union forces.
Iran is the gravest danger to the U.S. and the world. Not ISIS. Not Boko Haram. Not Kony. Not Al Shabab. Iran on the path to a nuclear weapon.
The persecution of Christians around the world has drawn sharp focus given the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians on a Libyan beach last month.
The Jewish Festival of Purim, celebrated this year on March 5th, "commemorates the salvation of the Jewish people in ancient Persia (modern day Iran) from Haman's plot 'to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in a single day.'" Instead, Queen Esther, a Jewess, stepped forward and bravely saved her people.
ISIS is a theological movement grounded in a very specific kind of Muslim eschatology.\r\rIn his groundbreaking analysis in The Atlantic, Graeme Wood argues that ISIS "has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam."
Even in a Senate then controlled by Democrats, President Obama's National Security Adviser, Susan E. Rice, could not be confirmed as his second term Secretary of State. That's because she notoriously went on five Sunday television news talk shows to claim that the September 11, 2012 attack on our diplomatic compound at Benghazi was provoked by an anti-Islamic video. It soon became clear that cover story was false. She was then our Ambassador to the UN.
"A University of Illinois at Chicago student leader has been charged with sexually assaulting a 19-year-old female student in what Cook County prosecutors say was a re-enactment of scenes from the film 'Fifty Shades of Grey.'"
How much is your religious liberty worth? Try $2,001. That's the going rate in Washington State, according to its attorney general. If Barronelle Stutzman wants to exercise the freedom already guaranteed to her by the First Amendment, she'll have to fork over a couple thousand dollars (which she doesn't plan on doing any time soon).
ISIS is motivated by its deeply-held religious convictions.\r\rWe can argue ad infinitum about whether or not ISIS's interpretation of the Koran is correct, or whether or not Islam is a religion of peace. But what is unarguable is that ISIS is animated by deeply-held beliefs about God, His will, and the future of humankind.
We Americans have been puzzling over our President's curious inability to see twenty-one ISIS terrorists cutting off the heads of twenty-one Coptic Christians on a beach in Libya and call the horrible deed what it is -- an Islamist atrocity. Not, you will note, Islamic. By using the adjective Islamist, we are distinguishing this brutal and savage action from those billions who claim to be adherents of the Islamic religion.\r\r
It is oddly unfitting that Valentine's Day is also when the film "Fifty Shades of Grey" is being released and marketed aggressively. One of the marketing tools being used for the film is a little Teddy Bear holding not roses or a box of chocolates but handcuffs. Another is jewelry: For example, jeweler Janet Cadsawan is selling a "double handcuff necklace" for a mere $150.
"The shadow of crisis has passed, and the State of the Union is strong."
The descendants of black slaves have the potential to be the saviors of modern America if the black church can rise to the challenge of restoring Christian marriage within its families.
Most of the media is blaming the current chaos in Alabama over whether same-sex couples will or will not be issued marriage licenses on Judge Roy Moore, Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.
With just days remaining before the deadline to enroll in a health-insurance plan under Obamacare, Americans who have not yet done so will be hurrying to finish researching their best options for themselves and their families. For many, this research will include the question of whether a plan covers elective abortion. And this is indeed a critical question for many reasons, not the least of which is that enrollment in a plan that covers it would require members to pay a separate monthly abortion surcharge.
'Tis the season to face down the chubby, flying angel-babies armed with bows and arrows; to indulge in high-calorie confections of cocoa and sugar; and browse over Groupon ads for outrageously discounted diamonds.
Last week people around the world were horrified when a gruesome video emerged of ISIS terrorists burning a Jordanian pilot alive in a cage. King Abdullah of Jordan responded to these barbaric acts quickly and decisively, promising and delivering a severe response. Meanwhile back in Washington, President Obama responded in a different way. At the National Prayer Breakfast he took to the podium and self-righteously compared the acts of ISIS to Christians during the Crusades as if to justify current day world turmoil and the spread of Islamic jihad.
"Confession is good for the soul," said Mark Twain, "but it's bad for the reputation." Candidate Barack Obama in 2008 confessed to his top advisor, David Axelrod, "I'm just not very good at bull____ing." Actually, he was very good at it. He told millions of Americans that he believed marriage was "a sacred union" between a man and a woman. He answered about marriage in Rick Warren's question famed Civic Forum, going even further to say that "God is in the mix."
We haven't heard what the Common Core curriculum has planned for foreign language instruction, if anything. But we offer this German lesson as an introduction and a warning to all those who want central control over what is taught and what it thought in this country: "Wir sind nicht preu\u00DFischen" We are not Prussians!\r\r
Americans seeking health care coverage on the Obamacare exchange system have two weeks left in the 2015 open enrollment season. For individuals and families seeking to avoid purchasing coverage of elective abortion, the process has been - and continues to be - tricky.
Another long-time Evangelical pastor, Stan Mitchell, has decided that homosexuality is acceptable to the God of the Bible; TIME magazine makes quite a story of it. In his self-disclosing comments about his decision, it is noteworthy that he talks a lot about love and "conversation" and "journeys" but little or not at all about truth and the Bible.
Good for Michelle Obama! She refused to cover up during a recent snap visit to Saudi Arabia. And our First Lady showed more grit than the entire Obama administration. She is also closer to a correct U.S. posture vis \u00E0 vis the Mideast.
What could be more American than letting moms and dads decide where their kids go to school?
"Netanyahu's Contempt for President Obama," reads the headline of the online version of Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen. The print edition toned it down somewhat, calling the Israeli prime minister's acceptance of a speaking invitation from Speaker Boehner unwise and an example of "Israel Goes Partisan."\r\rRead more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/01/liberals_israel_crisis.html#.VMtoPLDHun0.mailto#ixzz3QJme40Ob \rFollow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, a time when Americans are reminded to awake to the sobering reality of modern slavery in our time, around the world - and here at home.
"It's time to plant the flag on school choice," Sen. Ted Cruz told a Capitol Hill briefing sponsored by the Heritage Foundation recently. Sen. Cruz told of his efforts to reach across the aisle-willing to work with the very liberal Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee (D) to help parents choose good schools for their kids.
The 2014 midterm elections was one for the history books. When President Barack Obama said all of his policies were on the ballot, voters rushed to the voting booths to give Republicans an extraordinary landslide victory. And as we know now, one of the biggest motivating factors was Obama's illegal executive actions on immigration policy.
Many visitors to Maryland's historic Old State House are eager to see the Senate Chamber where Gen. George Washington resigned his commission to the Congress, meeting there in December, 1783. There are, as well, many other significant events associated with this beautiful and classically proportioned Capitol, America's oldest continuously used legislative building.
Federal judges may have the last word on marriage -- but they won't have the final one. That's becoming abundantly clear in Alabama, the latest state to feel the sting of a runaway court invalidating the will of the people on marriage. In a letter to Governor Robert Bentley (R-Ala.), Chief Justice Roy Moore made that quite clear -- explaining that this isn't an issue that the federal courts will resolve. Rather, he said, it "raises serious, legitimate concerns about the propriety of federal court jurisdiction over the Alabama Sanctity of Marriage Amendment."
It was a stunning sight. President Obama was in London for a summit meeting in early 2009. He bowed low before King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. President Obama had apparently never learned that Americans do not bow and the American President, especially, should never bow to a King.
President Obama's State of the Union Address made it clear he is no Lame Duck. Despite his midterm election drubbing, the President came out swinging. The economy has come off the mat. Ironically enough, he is benefiting from crash of oil prices. But in his case, he did everything he could do to prevent the surge in domestic oil and natural gas production.
The theological basis for asserting personhood at conception has been articulated at great length. Given that one of the Enemy's central delights is murder (John 8:44), the defense of human life is altogether fitting and proper for Christians at a time when, minimally, 2,700 unborn children lose their lives each day within America's borders.
The abortion industry is predatory.\r \rMany women who are considering abortion are in a vulnerable position. Struggling with a decision about ending the life within one's womb and worrying about the physical, psychological and spiritual effects of that decision create an inner emotional landscape replete with rough places that are difficult to make plain.
A number of thoughtful Evangelical commentators (captured here by my brave and faithful friend Owen Strachan) have responded pointedly to Elizabeth Dias's Time story, "Inside the Evangelical Fight Over Gay Marriage." They have demonstrated logically, theologically and philosophically why the movement to abandon Scripture's teaching on human sexuality in order to accommodate supposedly Evangelical advocates of normalizing same-sex "marriage" and attraction is an offense to God and the Gospel.
On Thursday, hundreds of thousands of people will march peacefully up Constitution Avenue to remind their fellow citizens of a silent tragedy that pierces the heart of a nation.
"Black lives matter" has become the slogan of anti-police protests across the nation, but the target of the protests is so misplaced that the motives of the so-called civil rights leaders behind the movement must be questioned. Do they really care about black lives? Or are they cynically exploiting isolated incidents, such as the death of Michael Brown, to inflame the black population and advance their own political interests?\r\r
We hear it all the time from the liberal left: those of us who legitimately question man's impact on alleged global warming and call out the scandal plagued, phony facts used to support their hypothetical theories, are routinely labeled as, "Climate Deniers."
The poker-faced NBC News anchor Brian Williams has viewed, with apparent dispassion and even amusement, scenes of his actress daughter Allison committing bizarre and debasing sexual acts on the HBO series "Girls."
Throughout 2014, as news outlets consistently highlighted threats to religious freedom overseas, many Americans became increasingly aware of concerns surrounding religious freedom at home. Entering 2015, we have the opportunity to clarify our focus on this issue as we celebrate our First Freedom anew on January 16-Religious Freedom Day.
On January 12th, I attended Supreme Court oral arguments in a case-Reed v. Town of Gilbert-which will determine how easily the government can restrict signs giving directions to church services. Specifically, the Court is set to decide whether, under free speech protections of the First Amendment, a local government's mere assertion that its sign code (despite on its face discriminating based on content) lacks a discriminatory motive renders the sign code content-neutral and justifies the code's differential treatment of signs pointing the way to a church's meeting location.
CBS News gave an early report on the terrorist attacks in Paris. It included this telling sentence:\r"A reporter for Britain's Telegraph newspaper in Paris told Sky News that the first two officers to arrive, who were apparently unarmed, fled after seeing gunmen armed with automatic weapons and possibly a grenade launcher."\r
No, he hasn't stepped down from the presidency, but President Barack Obama has effectively abdicated his role as "Leader of the Free World." With the headlines in newspapers all over the world focusing on the leaders who gathered in Paris for the massive solidarity march last weekend, the absence of President Obama-and any other top administration official-could not have been more glaring.
Apparently, The New York Times is in favor of faith in the public square -- if the purpose is to mock it. Editors at the Times poured gasoline on the fire of Atlanta's latest controversy with an editorial that should shock even their most liberal readers. Just when you thought the media couldn't sink any lower, the Times takes on the same First Amendment that gives it the freedom to print these vicious attacks on Christians.
The left in the U.S. and throughout Western democracies are excited, of course, over President Obama's decision the week before Christmas to restore "normal" diplomatic relations with Cuba. This has been a long-sought goal of the left wing of the Democratic Party here and among the Socialists in Europe.\r
At a press conference held on Tuesday this week, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed fired Atlanta Fire Rescue Department Chief Kelvin Cochran. How did we get here?
With the new year comes a new Congress, and, as always, energy policy will be a major priority for this 114th session. Now that Republicans have regained control of both the Senate and the House, and with President Obama looking to establish his legacy, there is a unique opportunity to build positive momentum on energy security and reduce America's vulnerability to the historically volatile oil market.
A couple of years ago, I wrote that those who contend for a less-populated world due to food shortages are wrong. The data indicate that there are, and will remain, ample food resources for an ever-growing human population for as far as realistically we can project.
The New Testament starts with the story of two pregnancies. Disgrace is part of each of them. In one case, disgrace is removed; in the other, disgrace is imposed. But in each, we see miraculous demonstrations of God's amazing grace in offering salvation to all men.
Since last month's election, the President has been a busy fellow. He's traveled to China, heralded what he called a "turning point" in American military affairs, "signed a Presidential Memorandum that prohibits future oil and gas drilling in Alaska's Bristol Bay" and land areas near it and announced a new director for the White House Council for Strong Cities, Strong Communities, to boot.
Thinking of this latest diplomatic blunder, we have to recall Ron Radosh's poignant and mordantly funny story in his book, Commies: A Journey through the Old Left, the New Left, and the Leftover Left. Young Radosh, then a Communist Party member, went to Cuba with a group of American psychiatrists. These Marxists were given a tour of one of Castro's mental hospitals.
Domestic abuse scandals have rampaged through the NFL: Greg Hardy, Rod Smith, Anthony Ray Jefferson, and most recently, Ray Rice. In response, the NFL launched a "thorough review" of its personnel conduct policies, management assembled "critical response teams" to address future violence, and Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) called a congressional hearing to discuss policies related to domestic violence. Unfortunately, however, violence will not wane until efforts are taken to mitigate its cause rather than just control its effects.
Well, here's the problem. No wonder the U.S.-Iranian nuclear talks are going nowhere. Sec. of State John Kerry has had to kick the can down the road - again. He just gave Iran another extension on the West's deadline to come to an agreement about Iran's drive for a nuclear weapon. Deadline? Red line? Dead red line?\r\r
Christmas celebrates a miracle.\r\rIt's not just "Jesus' birthday." And it's not just that Mary gave birth to the baby Jesus when she was still a virgin (although Christians believe that she was, and that the birth was miraculous).
Around this time of the year, the "War on Christmas" and the "War on the War on Christmas" once again enter the public discourse, with each side claiming support from assorted statistics and anecdotes.
The Obama administration has obviously decided to go silent on human rights abuses in Iran in hopes of concentrating like a laser on arms control. It is true that it is urgently necessary to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. The last three administrations -- Clinton, Bush, and Obama -- have agreed on that if on little else.\r\r
In a rather wistful, even elegiac piece in the December 2, 2014 edition of National Journal, political analyst Charles Cook describes how leading to last month's election, the Democratic Party "paved the way for their own defeat." Describing as "noble" such priorities as "health care, the environment, and civil rights," Cook notes that "an argument can be made that it is because Democrats have subordinated their traditional focus on helping lower- and working-class Americans move up the economic ladder" that there has been a "decline in support for Democrats among certain groups."
What are your thoughts on fundamentalism and Islamic extremism and the reasons for its expansion?
Winston Churchill famously said "Jaw-Jaw is better than War-War." He was right, of course. But with Iran, the mullahs have made War-War while engaging us in Jaw-Jaw. They have played us along with these nuclear talks.
In announcing his new nominee for Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter, President Obama noted that his choice for Pentagon chief was a great fan of Motown. Especially, Mr. Obama noted, Ash Carter likes the Four Tops.\r\r
The West Virginia Intergovernmental Task Force on Juvenile Justice last week exposed policies that are damaging families, communities and taxpayers in West Virginia.\r\rThose policies include approaches that remove youth from their families at alarming rates, even those with no prior contact with the courts. I am very troubled by these findings.\r\r
I love dogs. Having had five dogs over the course of my life, and in caring for many other dogs for friends when they're on vacation or whatever, I've concluded that if man is a little lower than the angels, canines are only somewhat behind us.
The 2014 midterm election euphoria continues for Republicans this week with Dan Sullivan's win Wednesday in Alaska, giving the party eight Senate seat pick-ups with potentially a ninth in Louisiana next month. But the GOP can't bask in these victories, it's time to get to work. Here's what the new majority should do, and not do.
Is college still America's best friend? Defeated for re-election last month, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) may not be so sure. A racially-charged college paper of his surfaced to his great embarrassment and may have helped to bring him down.\r\r
President Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared before a joint session of Congress on this day in 1941. Looking stern and resolute, the President wore a black armband, as if to memorialize the thousands of U.S. sailors, Marines, Army and Coast Guard personnel who had been killed and wounded the day before in a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
Democratic candidates trotted out the cliched "war on women" theme in the midterms. Advocates of abortion-on-demand worked to convince voters they had women's interests at heart. It hasn't worked in the past and, in 2014, it really didn't work.
Egg freezing is being marketed as the new and hip thing to do among New York and Silicon Valley socialites. Freezing one's eggs is touted as a means of delaying motherhood for the sake of one's career.
British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli famously said: "The Lord deals with the nations as the nations deal with the Jews." Winston Churchill was an avid student of Disraeli's "Tory Democracy" and passed Disraeli's test easily, as Steven Hayward wrote recently in the Weekly Standard.\r\rRead more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/12/can_president_obama_pass_disraelis_test.html#ixzz3MI6zs7Yc \rFollow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
Scan a crowd of Republicans, and a significant majority of those you see will be white. While in itself this is innocuous, it is also unrepresentative of American demographics.
Candidate Barack Obama went to Berlin in 2008. He addressed an adoring crowd of tens of thousands there and told these Europeans he was "a citizen of the world." It was an almost unprecedented event.\r\r
Next month, believers in Jesus will celebrate the virgin birth of their sinless Savior. We will think of the annunciation and Mary's hymn of praise, the cattle stall and the extraordinary star in the sky.
The Plymouth Separatists, Protestant Puritan believers we now call the Pilgrims, were theologically minded in a way difficult for many of us to grasp. "These were biblical theologians," write theologians Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones in their book A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life. They were "biblical in the sense that they quarried their theology from the Bible, but also biblical in the more modern sense of understanding and being concerned to expound the unified flow of the story of salvation and to see each element of it in its proper place in the story."
Nearly two years ago, these writers urged President Obama to "Chuck Hagel." Today, it seems, the hapless Secretary of Defense is on his way out. We wish him no ill. And we certainly don't rejoice in his forced resignation. The timing of his dismissal could hardly be worse. It comes on the eve of another "deadline" in our dealings with an Iran bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.
In his Tuesday presentation at the International Colloquium on the Complementarity of Man and Woman, evangelical pastor Rev. Dr. Rick Warren reiterated a vital fact that has been lost in the marriage debate: the fundamental good of the family is a timeless truth impenetrable by society's transient whims.
Earlier this week, Jeb Bush passionately defended Common Core in Washington D.C. at his Foundation's annual education conference. While Bush remarked that testing is a critical component of Common Core, he noted that fewer tests should be administered to students overall.
For defenders of natural marriage, the long wait for a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit was worth it. Three months to the day after hearing oral arguments on cases out of four states (Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee), a three-judge panel issued a 2-1 ruling on November 6 upholding the states' rights to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
"This Marriage is not ours to alter. It is ours, however, to encourage and celebrate...this we affirm." These were the final words recited from a new affirmation on marriage at the conclusion of the three-day conference of international religious leaders at the Vatican on the complementarity of man and woman. The atmosphere was almost euphoric as the attendees from six of the world's seven continents broke from the historic gathering to return to their respective nations renewed in their stand for marriage.
Conservatives are very pleased with the results of the recent elections. For some, there is the partisan satisfaction of Republican wins across the nation. For others, the Administration's failures in economic, military and foreign policy have caused great concern; it can be hoped that the GOP will take measured steps to redress them, to the extent possible. And for social conservatives, there is the nascent if modest hope that some good things can be advanced and some others be stopped.
Despite Congressional efforts in the past several years to address religious liberty issues in the military, and DoD assertions that the problems are not all that bad, restrictions on service-members' expression of their religious faith continue to this day.
Today, the Vatican's colloquium on the complementarity of man and woman in marriage moved from laying a theoretical groundwork to take on the tone of a half-time locker room pep talk for those advancing the cause of natural marriage. In message after message today, from Sikh, Muslim, Mormon, and others (including American evangelicals Rick Warren and Russell Moore), there was a clarion call to renew the effort to uphold marriage as God intended it to be.
Pope Francis began the gathering of international religious leaders this morning with a clear message that marriage and family are in trouble in large part because some are yielding the truth to trends. "In our day," he said to the gathering of international religious and cultural leaders, "marriage and the family are in crisis. We now live in a culture of the temporary, in which more and more people are simply giving up on marriage as a public commitment."
"In an average week, one-in-five Americans share their religious faith online, about the same percentage that tune in to religious talk radio, watch religious TV programs or listen to Christian rock music. And nearly half of U.S. adults see someone else share their religious faith online in a typical week."
Brittany Maynard's story has faded into the background, but the work of the euphemistically named pro-assisted suicide organization "Compassion & Choices" (C&C), formerly known as the Hemlock Society, is actively working harder than ever before to bring assisted suicide to your doorstep.
With already dismal approval ratings, this has been the most difficult month for President Barack Obama yet. After voters from coast to coast soundly rejected Obama-supporting Democrats on Election Day, video was leaked of left-wing economist Jonathan Gruber - the chief architect of Obamacare - admitting that the sweeping health care bill became law because Americans are "stupid."
Not since the Kermit Gosnell murder trial has the mainstream press labored so diligently to ignore a hot story. Rush Limbaugh delights in calling them "the drive-by media," but in the case of Kermit Gosnell's trial for the negligent death of a poor young woman and for killing many infants born alive, the liberal media mostly drove around the story - staying as far away from it as they could. Conservative websites showed the row upon row of empty seats reserved for the press in that Philadelphia courtroom. There were, of course, most honorable exceptions among liberal journalists. Kirsten Powers wrote in USA Today of the horrors. And Conor Friedersdorf wrote this powerful column on the website of The Atlantic. \r\r
In a 2-1 decision last Thursday, a panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that constitutional provisions in four states defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman did not violate the U.S. Constitution. The decision in DeBoer vs. Snyder is controlling in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton wrote the opinion and was joined in the majority by Judge Deborah L. Cook.
"All politics is national" now, which made this midterm election yet another referendum on President Obama, and it has turned out to be another overwhelming repudiation of the president, who already suffered one debacle back in 2010. This appears to have been a baffling rejection to this supremely detached president ...
A new survey finds only 26 percent of those in the military community approve of the performance of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. But the blame for this low approval rating extends higher up the chain of command.
The goals of the LGBT movement are not malleable. They are absolute and aggressive. The bakers, wedding photographers, florists and others throughout the country who have declined to provide services for same-sex weddings, knowing that such provision constitutes tacit endorsement, have become targets of often the vilest of attacks, not to mention legal action and media scorn.
When a panel of judges from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals pulled the nation back from the brink this week, they provided a rare glimpse of common sense in the debate over ending marriage. The majority opinion asks us to - Imagine a society without marriage. It does not take long to envision problems that might result from an absence of rules about how to handle the natural effects of male-female intercourse: children. May men and women follow their procreative urges wherever they take them? Who is responsible for the children that result? How many mates may an individual have? How does one decide which set of mates is responsible for which set of children? That we rarely think about these questions nowadays shows only how far we have come and how relatively stable our society is, not that States have no explanation for creating such rules in the first place.
"Remember," said Ronald Reagan, "we have opponents; we don't have enemies." That's why President Reagan was so successful in gaining the respect and affection of the American people. Even people who did not like his policies liked him.
When former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) ran for President in 2004, he liked to joke that his campaign was pitched to "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." It was a jab at his rivals, whom he charged with being too cozy with Wall Street, too popular in corporate boardrooms. Long before there was an Occupy Wall Street movement, there was Howard Dean.
Some propositions for Christians in a nation of representative self-governance, a republic composed of 50 states, three branches of government, such semi-autonomous bureaucracies as the Fed, FARC, Fannie Mae, and the IRS, and uncounted numbers of city, county, state and other spheres of governance:
Houston Mayor Annise Parker's original demand that five Houston pastors turn over their sermons and communications under the threat of fines and/or incarceration created a First Amendment firestorm. She's now withdrawn her demand. However, given the history of Parker's tenure as mayor, it's clear this was never about sermons or speeches -- or even about biblical teaching on human sexuality -- it was about political intimidation.
A search of "adult obscenity cases" on the FBI's website brings up three cases since Barack Obama became President. One involves jail time for a man who made films featuring bestiality and scatological sex acts, and one notes a $75,000 fine and two years of probation for a pornography distributor who sent obscene DVDs in the mail.
Feathers are flying-in Washington and in Jerusalem-over the off-the-record comments by a senior Obama administration official to the respected Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. The unnamed dovish Obama policy maker said "the thing about Bibi [Netanyahu] is he's a chicken****!" Direct quote, characterization included.
Imagine being torn apart, limb from limb until you bled to death. That would be excruciating pain, right? This is not a mere cruel thought about the medieval act of quartering. A modern day punishment is being inflicted on innocent, vulnerable human beings who can feel pain. The 1999 U.S. Supreme Court case of Stenberg v. Carhart reveals the ugly reality of abortion of pain-capable pre-born children via dismemberment, where the child's arms and legs are twisted off by the abortionist using a steel clamp. Dr. Carhart, the abortionist on trial, confirmed that the preborn child can be alive at the beginning of the dismemberment process and can survive for a time while her limbs are being torn off.
Pornography, human trafficking, abortion, sexually-transmitted disease, and prostitution are polluted streams pouring into the cesspool of human pain. They are mutually reinforcing evils, each widened and deepened by the others.
President Obama!\r\rWhen he was first running for statewide office in Illinois, state Sen. Barack Obama said he could not support marriage for same-sex couples because "I am a Christian." When, just four years later, in 2008, he was asked about this issue at Rev. Rick Warren's Civic Forum, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama said marriage was between one man and one woman and that "God is in the mix."\r
Tavis Smiley raised a lot of eyebrows this weekend when he spoke on ABC-TV's "This Week" news show, hosted by George Stephanopoulos.
The substantial majority of readers of this site do not care for Barack Obama's presidency. This assertion is to understatement something like a kitchen faucet is to Niagara Falls.
There is a point where decision on contentious, difficult issues is unavoidable. With respect to homosexual conduct, the American Evangelical church has reached that point.
Several years ago, the Israeli satirical series, Latma, produced this funny sketch on the Iranian mullahs' push for a nuclear bomb. "The bomb, the bomb, I'll get the bomb. Listen to me, Honey, it ain't gonna be too long" sings the frolicking mullah in the online version of this humorous look at a most serious subject.
Houston is home to one of NASA's most sophisticated space centers -- but even it would have trouble finding signs of intelligence in the local Mayor's office. The city's highest official is blowing past the First Amendment at warp speed -- and lighting a political powder keg in the process.
Advocates of Common Core State Standards for all our schools regularly boast that 45 states are already "on board." Sounds like a railroad, doesn't it? How could such a thing happen with so little public debate and informed discussion?
An incident in suburban Maryland occurred this week that should serve as a wake-up call to all concerned mothers (and dads). An Anne Arundel County, Maryland, school bus was stolen by two drunken pranksters who said they were looking for cigarette money.
An incident in suburban Maryland occurred this week that should serve as a wake-up call to all concerned mothers (and dads). An Anne Arundel County, Maryland, school bus was stolen by two drunken pranksters who said they were looking for cigarette money. Bus 874 was trashed and smashed up and left in the woods in Davidsonville. Local moms are incensed-and they should be. How can we know that these people would not have driven around picking up special needs kids? For them the bus would have seemed a safe and welcoming sight. How could anyone gain access to a school bus parking lot under cover of darkness and make off with a bright yellow vehicle without being stopped at locked gates?
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for public education are often in the news, and Family Research Council has taken a strong stand against them (see, for example, http://www.frc.org/commoncore).
With those six words, a 27 year-old Sudanese mother opened her address to the audience of the 2014 Values Voter Summit Saturday night. It was only four short months ago that a shackled Mariam Ibraheem gave birth to a baby girl in a disease-ridden Khartoum prison as she faced a death sentence -- all because she refused to renounce her faith in Christ.
Contemplation is valuable. It fosters the prudence good decisions usually require.
A few months ago, he was one of the most powerful people in Washington, indeed the country. Head of a massive Cabinet department with a budget of nearly $80 billion, when the Secretary left his downtown government office Secret Service agents scurried, memo-laden aides scrambled around wondering who would ride in the lead car and who would be forced to go in the longer caravan. Officials from governors to small town mayors would wonder who would get grants and what projects they could tout as promises of benefits fell from the Secretary's lips.
Attorney General Eric Holder, who announced his resignation on Thursday, leaves a dismal legacy at the Justice Department, but one of his legal innovations was especially pernicious: the demonizing of state attempts to ensure honest elections.
Dan Snow is what they call a "presenter" for BBC television. He has called the agitation over the Scottish independence referendum a Neverendum.
An article in the Washington Examiner on September 18 carried the headline:\r\r"Census: Marriage rate at 93-year low, even including same-sex couples."\r
Vice President Biden is being urged by liberal activists to "brush up his Shakespeare." His friends are trying desperately to clean up the latest mess that Joe Biden has caused. He recently told a group at a Legal Services Corporation event that his son, Beau Biden, had worked to protect our soldiers from "Shylocks" -- whom he described as unscrupulous lenders.
After numerous requests by members of Congress, including U.S. Reps. John Shimkus (R-IL) (on not one but two occasions), Andy Harris (R-MD) and Diane Black for clarity about abortion coverage in the state exchanges, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a non-partisan government agency, released a report detailing its findings.
The respected Pew Research organization recently published studies of how Americans feel about religion in our country. It's clear from the Pew surveys that millions of our fellow citizens are both ambivalent and deeply concerned about the status and role of faith in their personal lives and in the public life of the nation.
Decrying what he deemed a "pageant of empathy" in emotionally driven rulings nationwide, this month a federal district court judge from our home state of Louisiana issued a ruling upholding our state's marriage law. Notably, Judge Martin Feldman's decision represents the first federal court opinion to uphold a state marriage law since the Supreme Court's ruling in United States v. Windsor in June 2103, that struck down the portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman for all purposes under federal law.
Where there is no vision, the people perish. Americans have been shocked to see the brutality and barbarism of the Islamic militants of ISIS. Americans been stunned by the revelations that their fellow Americans have joined the ranks of ISIS are taking up the cause of the caliphate.
The writer of Ecclesiastes said there is nothing new under the sun.
Over the past few months, the Family Research Council (FRC) has reached out to insurance companies in various states to find out whether or not their Obamacare-exchange plans cover elective abortion. If they did, we sought to find out how much the abortion surcharge is (plans that cover abortion do so through a "surcharge" that is not federally subsidized) and how that surcharge is billed.
Open enrollment for Obamacare is right around the corner. With a November 15 start date, Americans deserve to know whether the plans they're considering on the insurance exchange cover elective abortion and if so, how much they are paying for the abortion coverage, and how the abortion surcharge will be billed. Obamacare's abortion subsidy section contains a secrecy clause and it requires a person who signs up for a plan that covers elective abortion to pay an abortion surcharge of at least $12 per year. We investigated Colorado, for example, and discovered that it was very difficult to obtain accurate information.
Open enrollment for Obamacare, beginning on November 15th, is rapidly approaching. This means time is running out for hopes that transparency will be brought to abortion coverage in Obamacare plans on the exchanges.
Stet is that proofreader's mark that means "keep it that way." We say keep it ISIS. President Obama was at pains on Wednesday night to reassure the world that ISIS is not Islamic.
Earlier this week, the organizing committee of the New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade announced it will permit "Out@NBCUniversal" - a group composed of gay NBC employees - to march in its annual parade under an identifying banner.
Atheist writer Richard Dawkins' Twitter message to the world regarding an unborn child with Down syndrome was, "Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice."
Few virtues have obtained the cultural cache that justice now possesses (just ask anyone in the pro-chastity movement). Compelling books, valuable Christian ministries, and innumerable blogs proliferate in its name.
It seems the Export-Import Bank of the United States is once again putting up walls to keep the duly-elected representatives of the American people from getting a look at their inner workings.
Uncle Sam claims to knows best - even how best to cook.
"Don't forget about me," Joe Biden pleaded earlier this summer. With all the focus then on Hillary Clinton's disastrous book launch, the Vice President wanted everyone to remember that he is standing by, ready and willing to step into the breach.
In September 1914, the Battle of the Marne launched what would become more than four years of hellish warfare throughout much of Europe.
As Americans celebrated Labor Day and the freedom to provide for their families, let's hope they didn't spoil the holiday yesterday by pausing to consider whether government today is making their lives easier or more difficult.
There is a growing trend among Christians that claims this promise from Genesis 12 has expired that it is no longer valid. There are others in the Evangelical world, myself among them, who would rather stake our future and the future of our nation on the unchanging word of God.
President Obama's reaction to the brutal televised murder of American journalist Jim Foley was heartfelt, to be sure, but it missed the mark. The president deplored such barbarous acts and called them out of place in "the Twenty-First Century."
With some state governors pushing to increase gambling, and with some Americans understandably confused about states' rights and federalism, it's time to consider whether legalized gambling should be encouraged or not. Can states ease pressure on hard-hit taxpayers by legalizing various forms of casinos and off-track betting on horse racing? And should it spread to the Internet?
The fact that some people change their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual (some as a result of professional therapy) is a problem for the homosexual movement. It seriously undermines the myth that homosexuality is a characteristic like race, which people are born with and can never change.
Browbeating is not the way of Jesus.
Last fall the United States began, for the first time in almost 20 years, to produce more crude oil than it imported. Around that same time, the International Energy Agency altered its previous predictions to show that the U.S. would become the world's number-one oil producer by 2015, producing 11 million barrels of crude a day. The headlines - and their implications - were hard to miss. American energy was making a comeback in a huge way.
What's the difference between a Playboy magazine and Fremont Unified School District's sex-ed curriculum?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is too strong. PLO boss Mahmoud Abbas is too weak. That's why we can't get a peaceful settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict, says President Obama in an interview with the ever-serious Tom Friedman of the New York Times.
A groundbreaking meta-analysis study was just published in State Politics & Policy Quarterly showing\rthe positive impact of state-level pro-life laws in reducing abortion rates.\r
Sculptors, put down your chisels. Painters, stow your brushes. We don't need any artists to do the official State Portrait of Secretary of State John F. Kerry.
"Girls Grow Up Faster than Boys Do". So asserted the Brooklyn-based R&B group The Cookies in 1962. And it looks like they were right.
According to the New York Times, the Democratic Party has found a new theme with which to animate and expand its base: abortion and homosexuality.
Hillary Clinton's famous "listening tour" of Upstate New York in 2000 eased her way into the U.S. Senate. She was the first liberal politician in years to discover there was an Upstate New York. Who knew?
"Isn't the bigger point . . . that it disparages the voters-the votes of citizens of Michigan?"
A prominent Christian leader recently said to me that for Evangelicals and traditional Catholics and Orthodox, the metaphor of putting our fingers in the dike as holes of evil burst through it is anachronistic.
The dramatic evidence pointing to the extermination of Christians and Christian culture in Iraq by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham's (ISIS) is impossible to ignore.
Sir Elton John is world famous, deservedly so. This billionaire singer is one of the most creative talents we have. But when he attacks Christian missionaries in Africa and other Third World regions, his message is off-key. Instead of Crocodile Rock, he's peddling a Crocodile Crock.
The inhumane practice of forced or "coercive" sterilization, favored by eugenicists and population controllers, can involve varying degrees of coercion.
The Federal Communications Commission is looking to raise revenue - and the agency is in full pitch mode. The company is injecting itself as the middlemen between buyers (wireless carriers) and sellers (TV broadcasters) of spectrum, hoping to take a large commission check as a result.
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that oversees Michigan will hear oral arguments this week regarding a series of decisions striking down state laws that define marriage as the union of a man and a woman, preventing recognition of same-sex "marriages" from other states, or both. The most interesting may be DeBoer v. Snyder, in which Judge Bernard A. Friedman ruled the Michigan Marriage Amendment unconstitutional.
Same-sex marriage is a novel concept that is not as old as Google or Facebook, yet it is leading some courts to re-imagine the rights endowed by the U.S. Constitution and re-write human history.
When discrimination against faith-based organizations prevails, it is children who first and most...
People tend to romanticize the past. Whether we are thinking of departed loves ones or a treasured national history, we easily over-rouge the blemishes that mar any life or any heritage.
So says Politico magazine earlier this month concerning purported trends among Evangelicals who are changing their minds on homosexuality. Some of this supposed change is being spearheaded by Matthew Vines, who recently wrote a book attempting to dissuade Evangelicals from believing what the Bible teaches about homosexual behavior.
"We have your back," President Obama told Israelis when he visited the embattled country recently. Way back, apparently. Mr. Obama's administration famously claimed to "lead from behind" in overthrowing Libya's strongman, Gaddafi. Young Sergeant Benjamin Anthony spoke to the Christians United for Israel (CUFI) Washington Summit this week.
Despite hysterical rhetoric to the contrary, the Supreme Court last month did not deny a single woman access to contraception. Neither was any method of contraception made illegal, as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi falsely claimed. In fact, the Hobby Lobby case was not about "access" or legality at all, but about who can be forced to pay for contraceptives.
Security was tight (and needed) at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in downtown Washington, D.C. This year's conference of Christians United for Israel brought thousands to the nation's capital. Planned a year in advance, conferees could hardly have expected more dramatic events in the world to highlight their 9th Annual Washington Summit.
How does same-sex marriage affect my life? Why can't we live and let live?
In the court cases which have upheld the one-man-one-woman definition of marriage (yes, there have been many, though not in the last year), the "rational basis" that judges have found for the laws has been the state's interest in promoting "responsible procreation."
Anyone who claims that the Catholic Church is anti-woman knows little about her rich history and Tradition in proclaiming the beauty and greatness of womanhood. There is no more pro-woman institution than the Catholic Church. And here are five reasons why.
It may have been the most effective political ad in history. President Reagan's 1984 "Prepared for Peace" ad was a 30-second spot featuring a bear. It put the essential question to the American voters and let them decide who was right. They decided that Reagan was right: It was best to be as strong as the bear, if there is a bear. President Reagan carried forty-nine states that year.
Our esteemed Family Research Council (FRC) colleague, Dr. David Prentice has lectured around the world on the wonders of ethical stem cell research. Dr. Prentice has catalogued the more than seventy treatments that bring needed relief to more than 60,000 persons a year.
Connecticut's liberal Sen. Richard Blumenthal wants no one to have to worry about aborting unborn children late in pregnancy, very late.
The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Sen. Richard Blumenthal's (D-CT) overreaching bill, ironically called the "Women's Health Protection Act" (S. 1696).
Wikipedia, that encyclopedic shaman of our Internet age, defines "War on Women" as "an expression used in United States politics that characterizes certain Republican Party policies as a wide-scale assault on women's rights, especially reproductive rights."
Christians have concluded that the accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John -- early followers of Jesus and witnesses of His life, death and resurrection -- are true.
Last week, the Washington Post ran a headline typical of the Western liberal media:
President Obama's petulance grows. For proof, look no further than media reports. Two quotes from Peggy Noonan's disturbing-because-it-is-accurate piece on Barack Obama's seeming "running out the clock" presidency in The Wall Street Journal
Among its many implications, the Supreme Court's recent decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores means, at least for now, that government can't require people of faith to become hypocrites when they walk through the front door of their businesses.
Joshua stood on the bank of the Jordan River contemplating the enormous task ahead of him. He was about to lead millions of his fellow Israelites across the flooded river in a quest to finally conquer the land that had been promised to his people, the Jews. Canaan was part of the covenant that Yahweh had made with Joshua's ancestor, Abraham.
One of Obamacare's most controversial provisions was just dealt a blow by the Supreme Court: the heavy-handed mandate that forces America's job-creators to buy insurance coverage for a list of the White House's favorite contraceptive drugs and devices, regardless of someone's sincere conscientious objection.
In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, the Supreme Court held in a five-to-four decision that closely held for-profit corporations can bring claims under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act ("RFRA"), and that the HHS mandate violated these corporations' rights under RFRA by requiring them to provide contraceptives which they believe end human life.
With Meriam Ibrahim and her children facing torture and impending death, a surprising collection of activists have fought to save them.
In an unusually fair article, the New York Times last week ran a front page story titled, "Colleges and Evangelicals Collide on Bias Policy."
Tuesday's unexpected and historic defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor stunned the political class and official Washington. A little-known and underfunded challenger prevailed against one of the most powerful men in Washington and one of the most visible Republican leaders in the country.
Louisiana's "Ragin' Cajun,"James Carville, was the mastermind behind the first Clinton presidential campaign. He drew the Republicans off their winning strategy back in 1992 with his "It's the economy, stupid!"
For too long, the U.S. taxpayers have been forced to shell out money to the PLO -- the Palestinian Liberation Organization. For nearly a quarter of a century, the PLO -- repackaged as the Palestinian Authority -- has been raking in billions of dollars from credulous officials in the U.S. State Department and the European Union. All the while, the PLO has never truly renounced its objective of destroying Israel.
When my uncle, Pfc. Walter Neske, landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944, he was far away from his youth in Ridgewood, N.J.
Even Democrats are beginning to yell "incompetence!" And it's a nightly refrain on Fox News. We are certainly seeing signs of incompetence in the deplorable VA scandal, and the rollout of Obamacare was a world-class case of "glitch."
Watching the recent film "Gravity," starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, is a gripping, stay-in-your-seat experience. In sum, it's about a pair of astronauts who must grope their weightless way through space to find space stations from which they can get back to earth.
What do Toni Braxton, Sharon Osbourne, Sherri Shepherd, Sinead O'Connor, Stevie Nicks, and Charlotte Dawson have in common?
Moral indignation without compassion is little more than petulance and self-righteous smugness.
When Sen. Barack Obama went to Berlin in 2008 and proclaimed himself a "citizen of the world," he was acclaimed by hundreds of thousands of young Germans. They were as excited as many young Americans were by this avatar of Hope and Change.
Some thoughts about President Obama's lengthy foreign policy speech at West Point a few days ago:
Activists and some news outlets have expressed anxiety over reports that Texas abortion facilities are closing because they fail to meet new regulations enacted by Texas last year. These reasonable standards were recently upheld by the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The National Journal reported, "The added difficulty of finding qualified doctors, getting new licenses, and navigating state health department regulations is a hurdle higher than most closed clinics are likely to clear."
First Lady Michelle Obama recently appeared on the Web holding a sign:##BringBackOurGirls. She was presumably acting with the full approval of her husband. President Barack Obama is the Commander-in-Chief of what was once known as a Superpower. In London, Prime Minister David Cameron similarly resorted to the Internet to express the concern of a nation once known as Great Britain. These fatuous responses to the kidnapping of nearly three hundred Christian girls by the Islamist Boko Haram in Nigeria have met with widespread derision, as they should.
News, foreign and domestic, is grim more often than not.\r\r
If you need proof that same-sex "marriage" is about more than "love," look no further than Montgomery County, Maryland.
The Wall Street Journal recently showed Vladimir Putin in Crimea. There was the saturnine Slav in an unusually ebullient mood. He was standing in front of a banner ostensibly celebrating the victory of the USSR in what Russians still call "The Great Patriotic War" against Hitler in 1945.\r\r
In January, President Obama was asked about his views on marijuana. He opined that it is "not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life." And, he said, "I don't think it is more dangerous than alcohol."\r\r
With Iran on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons and Russia wanting to re-assert itself as a world power through the Ukrainian crisis, a strong military presence in the world is more important for America than ever. A critical way the military does this is by remaining a global leader in ballistic missile technology.\r
Outrage over three horrific abortion-related news stories is moving the public toward protecting human life.\r\r
Earlier this week, in Town of Greece v. Galloway, the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision holding that a legislative prayer practice permitting local ministers to offer prayers (un-edited by the government) before a local assembly did not violate the Establishment Clause. This is a major win for religious liberty, and for the free expression of religion in public spaces. Numerous commentators have somehow missed the fact that this benefits those of all faiths.\r\r
Evangelical leaders across the country are grappling with how to address the issue of homosexuality.