World Family Policy Center Newsletter

1. Stem-cell science stirs debate in Muslim world, too

By Christl Dabu

The Christian Science Monitor

June 22, 2005

CAIRO AND TORONTO – Egypt is joining the ranks of nations where scientists conduct stem-cell research. The private Egyptian IVF (in vitro fertilization) Center in Cairo is preparing to start such work in October, using stem cells from umbilical cord blood with the permission of newborns' parents. It won't delve immediately into the controversial realm of embryonic stem cells or therapeutic cloning - a way of deriving stem cells from cloned embryos.

But as technology and cost barriers come down, clinical director Gamal Serour says he'd like to eventually use surplus "early embryos" from consenting couples who no longer need them for in vitro fertilization.

That could spark the same kind of ethical debate in Egypt that's now raging in the United States, and the prospect provides a window onto the Muslim world's divided views about the issue.

To read entire article:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0622/p15s02-wogi.html

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2. 'Make Abortion History' challenges U.N.

Group combats 'Make Poverty History' effort pushing population control

June 21, 2005

WorldNetDaily.com

A British pro-life group has begun a "Make Abortion History" to combat a "Make Poverty History" campaign the organization says promotes abortion around the world.

"Christians are signing up and supporting the [Make Poverty History] campaign without seeing the hidden agendas behind it," Grace Mason of United for Life told WND, "so they are actually supporting the killing of children in poor countries by abortion while at the same time saying they want to help children of those same nations."

The Make Poverty History campaign hopes to push the reform of trade policies, the lessening of debt owed by poor countries and a greater level of aid to the developing world. It blames poverty on "man-made factors like a glaringly unjust global trade system, a debt burden so great that it suffocates any chance of recovery and insufficient and ineffective aid."

One of the organization's plans is to rally in Edinburgh, Scotland, during the meeting of the G-8 nations next month.

"Make Poverty History" is part of the effort to implement the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals, eight goals that proponents hope will be met by 2015. They include promoting "gender equality and empowerment of women" and improving "maternal health" – encompassing veiled references to legal abortion.

To read entire article:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44891

Related Article: Nurse fired for refusing to give abortion pill

June 25, 2005

WorldNetDaily.com

A nurse is suing a hospital that fired her after she refused to administer the "morning after" abortion pill.

Toni Lemly says the St. Tammany Parish Hospital in Louisiana violated the state's Employment Discrimination Law.

Lemly, represented by the non-profit Alliance Defense Fund, says she had informed hospital supervisory staff that she objected to administering the abortion pill because of her sincerely held religious beliefs.

The hospital responded by firing her from her full-time position and reducing her to part-time status, working only three days a week. The demotion to part-time status caused a substantial reduction in her pay as well as loss of employee benefits.

To read entire article:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44970

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3. Virginity Pledgers Have Lower STD Rates and Engage in Fewer Risky Sexual Behaviors

by Robert Rector and Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D.

Heritage Foundation, WebMemo #762

June 14, 2005

For more than a decade, organizations such as True Love Waits have encouraged young people to abstain from sexual activity. As part of these programs, young people are encouraged to take a verbal or written pledge to abstain from sex until marriage.

An article by professors Peter Bearman and Hanna Bruckner in the April 2005 issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health strongly attacked virginity pledge programs and abstinence education in general. The article stated that youth who took virginity pledges had the same sexually transmitted disease (STD) rates as non-pledgers. It also strongly suggested that virginity pledgers were more likely to engage in unhealthy anal and oral sex. The report garnered widespread media attention across the nation. A reexamination of the data, however, reveals that Bearman and Bruckner’s conclusions were inaccurate. Moreover, in crucial respects they misled the press and public.

Bearman and Bruckner tested the long-term effects of virginity pledge programs, examining the health and risk behaviors of young adults (with an average age 22) who had taken a virginity pledge as adolescents. Their analysis was based on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (“Add Health”), a database funded by the federal government. We used this same database to reexamine the issues they raised.

Several discrepancies were immediately apparent. For starters, the Add Health data clearly reveal that virginity pledgers are less likely to engage in oral or anal sex when compared to non-pledgers. In addition, virginity pledgers who have become sexually active (engaged in vaginal, oral, or anal sex) are still less likely to engage in oral or anal sex when compared to sexually active non-pledgers. This lower level of risk behavior puts virginity pledgers at lower risk for sexually transmitted diseases relative to non-pledgers.

To read entire article:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/wm762.cfm

Related Article: Abstinence Program Under Attack by ACLU

by Wendy Cloyd

Focus on the Family

June 24, 2005

The federal funding of a program encouraging teens to pledge abstinence until marriage is being challenged.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed suit to shut off federal support for the Silver Ring Thing (SRT), a group that encourages students to pledge abstinence until marriage. The ACLU claims it's unconstitutional to fund any program with a faith-based component.

The Silver Ring Thing encourages teens to wear a ring as a physical reminder of their vow. SRT is not presented in public schools and attendance is voluntary. The group offers a secular presentation of the benefits of abstinence, then later offers the group a choice to break out into two separate sessions—one that continues the secular view and one that adds a faith-based message.

"The courts have repeatedly said that taxpayer dollars cannot be used to promote religion," Julie Sternberg, senior staff attorney for the ACLU said. "The 'Silver Ring Thing' blatantly violates this principle."

Daniel Mach, a partner at Jenner & Block LLP, which joined in the suit with the ACLU, went even further.

"It is alarming that the federal government pours so much money into ineffective and dangerous abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that promote religion," he said. "This misuse of public funds not only harms young people but impermissibly constitutes government-funded religion."

To read entire article:

http://www.family.org/cforum/feature/a0036985.cfm

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4. West Virginia Supreme Court Redefines Family

American Family Association

Press Release: 6/21/2005

Tupelo, MS - The court “has once again demonstrated the lethal effects of judicial activism,” said Stephen M. Crampton, Chief Counsel for the AFA CLP.

Last Friday, June 17, 2005, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals redefined what a parent is by declaring a lesbian partner the “psychological parent” of her deceased lover’s young child. In Tina B. v. Paul S., the court removed custody of the child from his maternal grandparents and gave it to the lesbian partner, Tina B..

“This court has once again demonstrated the lethal effects of judicial activism on the nuclear family, which is the cornerstone of our civilization,” said Stephen M. Crampton, Chief Counsel for the AFA Center for Law & Policy, which authored a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of two legislators in the case. “While the court pretended to limit itself to interpreting the laws passed by the legislature, in reality it made law and acted as a superlegislature,” Crampton noted.

“West Virginia’s creation of a new ‘right’ for a same-sex partner to obtain custody of her deceased lover’s child without any written agreement, a Will, or any attempt at adoption is but a stepping stone to recognition of same-sex marriage,” Crampton warned.

To read entire article:

http://www.afa.net/clp/ReleaseDetail.asp?id=94

Related Article: 'Mother's Day' too offensive?

June 24, 2005

By Ron Strom

WorldNetDaily.com

A pre-school in Maryland has lost at least one customer after a student's father working on the school's newsletter was told he must change a "Happy Mother's Day" greeting in the publication to "Happy Parent's Day."

David Becker of Kensington, Md., had a 3-year-old son at the Kensington Forest Glen Children's Center, which is overseen by the umbrella organization Montgomery Child Care Association.

"My wife and I have always been very involved with the school and with the teachers," Becker told WND.

The trouble began when Becker, while typing the newsletter, changed a hand-written greeting from "Happy Parent's Day!" to "Happy Mother's Day!" After submitting the final draft, a teacher contacted Becker and said the greeting would have to be changed back to "Happy Parent's Day!"

Becker says originally it was one of the teachers who talked to him about the issue. When he asked why, he says he was referred to an administrator.

Becker said he was told: "We cannot say 'Mother's Day' because we might exclude someone. . . .

"You are insulting all the parents – the mothers, the fathers, the two-mother families, the two-father families – you're insulting all of them."

The administrator responded, according to Becker: "That's our policy."

To read entire article:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44953

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5. Maryland Court Rules Ten Commandments Display Constitutional

By Melanie Hunter

CNSNews.com

June 21, 2005

(CNSNews.com) - A federal district court in Maryland ruled Tuesday that a Ten Commandments display in a park in Frederick is constitutional.

The display, owned by the Fraternal Order of Eagles, was challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union, which ended up dropping its lawsuit, but Americans United for the Separation of Church and State filed a suit in June 2003 challenging the validity of the sale of the monument and the land on which it stood from the city to the FOE.

"As there is no evidence of religious purpose for Frederick's display, and no indication that its secular purpose was insincere, the Court finds that Frederick had a secular purpose in displaying the monument," the court said in its ruling.

"In light of these historical and secular considerations, and the FOE's freedom to remove the monument at any time, no reasonable observer would believe the continued display on the Memorial Ground was intended to advance religion," the court added.

To read entire article:

http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200506\NAT20050621c.html

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6. New Jewish Group Forms to Fight Anti-Christian Bias

by Bill Fancher and Jenni Parker

June 22, 2005

(AgapePress) - Attacks on Christianity have led to the formation of a group of defenders of the faith -- that is, Jewish defenders of the Christian faith.

According to Boston radio talk-show host, author and commentator Don Feder, the recently organized "Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation" (JAACD) was formed to respond to negative criticism and attacks against Christians, and to combat prejudice against that group in Hollywood, the news media, academia, politics and the courts. The group primarily exists, he explains, to educate the public about the "toxic nature of what has been called the last acceptable form of prejudice."

Feder is president of JAACD, which was organized, he says "because a group of Jewish Americans -- authors, scholars, columnists, radio talk-show hosts, people in the media and politics -- decided that it was important for Jews as Jews to speak out against anti-Christian bias and discrimination." The Jewish organization recognizes the value of the support the Christian community has shown Israel throughout the years and wants to express general solidarity with those who hold to biblical values as followers of Jesus.

At a press conference last April, Feder noted that Christian believers in America "are under assault because of the values they embrace; but the morality of Christianity is also the morality of Judaism." The group's spokesman says it is by maintaining their loyalty to the eternal values revealed at Mt. Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments, that Christians "have become pariahs in the eyes of the establishment but heroes in our eyes."

To read entire article:

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/6/222005f.asp

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7. No child custody for 'gay' dad

Court rejects argument based on Texas sodomy case

June 22, 2005

WorldNetDaily.com

The Maryland Court of Appeals upheld an order that prevented a divorced man from having custody of his child if he lived in a homosexual relationship.

Ulf Hedberg, represented in court by the National Center for Lesbian Rights, contended that the Supreme Court decision striking down Texas sodomy laws in 2003 invalidates any court order or legislation that has a "moral base."

But the appeals court rejected that argument, ruling that where minors are involved in visitation disputes, courts may take into account the "sexual conduct of a parent to determine whether it has an adverse impact on the child."

The dispute arose after Hedberg left his wife, Annica Detthow, to pursue a same-sex relationship. A court in Virginia, where the family lived, granted custody to Hedberg with liberal visitation to Annica but specified that Hedberg no longer live with his partner.

Hedberg did not appeal the order, but one year later, he moved 26 miles to Maryland and asked the state's courts to remove the cohabitation restriction.

He appealed after the Maryland Circuit Court refused to modify the custody order.

Hedberg's attorneys argued that the 2003 sodomy decision, Lawrence v. Texas, rendered the cohabitation restriction unconstitutional.

But the Maryland Special Court of Appeal court sent the case back to the trial court where Hedberg will now bear the burden of proving there has been a change in circumstances that makes it harmful to the child to not allow him to cohabit with his same-sex partner during visitation.

To read entire article:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44912

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8. Higher, higher education

By Naomi Schaefer Riley

USA Today

June 22, 2005

For most high school seniors, going to a college that bans alcohol and premarital sex, and requires chapel once a week, seems like a raw deal. But the skills students absorb at religious colleges might be giving them an edge in the job market.

Schools with strong faith identities with strict behavioral codes - such as the evangelical Wheaton College outside of Chicago, Brigham Young University and the Catholic Thomas Aquinas College near Los Angeles - are not succeeding despite their religious mission, but because of it. The faith of students at schools like these provides them with an additional perspective on subjects from English literature to environmental studies.

When asked how teaching at a religious college differs from their experience teaching at secular ones, dozens of professors have offered me the same answer: The students here do the work, and they come to class. The students I have observed and interviewed tend to approach their studies with a sense that God is calling them to study hard, to find their vocation.

Susan Bratton, the chair of the environmental studies department at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, who has taught at several Christian and secular universities, puts it bluntly, "One thing I like about schools like Baylor, and Christian institutions generally, is that I don't have kids coming to class stoned at 11 in the morning."

To read entire article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20050622/cm_usatoday/higherhighereducation/nc:742

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9. ACLU Now Defends Polygamy, Further Eroding Traditional Marriage

By James L. Lambert

June 24, 2005

(AgapePress) - In comments at an Ivy League school, the president of the American Civil Liberties Union has indicated that among the "fundamental rights" of people is the right to polygamous relationships -- and that the ACLU has defended and will continue to defend that right.

In a little-reported speech offered at Yale University earlier this year, ACLU president Nadine Strossen stated that her organization has "defended the right of individuals to engage in polygamy." Yale Daily News says Strossen was responding to a "student's question about gay marriage, bigamy, and polygamy." She continued, saying that her legal organization "defend[s] the freedom of choice for mature, consenting individuals," making the ACLU "the guardian of liberty ... defend[ing] the fundamental rights of all people."

The ACLU's newly revealed defense of polygamy may weaken the pro-homosexual argument for changing the traditional definition of marriage. Proponents of same-sex "marriage" have long insisted that their effort to include homosexual couples in that definition would only be that. However, conservative and traditional marriage advocates predict "other shoes will drop" if homosexual marriage is legalized -- perhaps including attempts to legalize polygamy and to changed current legal definitions of child-adult relationships.

To read entire article;

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/6/242005c.asp

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10. Test reveals gender early in pregnancy

Ethicists fear use in sex selection

By Carey Goldberg

Boston Globe

June 27, 2005

A new blood test being marketed to American women offers them the chance to find out whether they are having a boy or a girl almost as soon as they realize they are pregnant, as early as five weeks along.

Just two or three days after mailing the test overnight to a Lowell lab for processing, a pregnant woman can know what color to paint the nursery -- or even decide whether to get an abortion if she wants a child of the opposite sex, a prospect that worries ethicists.

The $275 test works by detecting and analyzing fetal DNA floating in the mother's blood, a method that researchers say holds promise for serious clinical uses, from cancer testing to prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome. . . .

But ethicists asked about this early, commercial application of fetal DNA testing say it raises concerns about sex selection, particularly in societies and immigrant groups where boy babies are preferred.

''You can tiptoe around it, but the fact is that if you're sending information about sex, then you're in the sex-selection testing business," said bioethicist Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania. He would not ban the test, he said, but ''I would condemn it."

To read entire article:

http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/women/articles/2005/06/27/test_reveals_gender_early_in_pregnancy/

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COMING EVENTS

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Sixth World Family Policy Forum

July 11 - 13, 2005

Provo, Utah

Sponsored by the World Family Policy Center, Brigham Young University. The theme for this year’s Forum is “Building on Doha: Marriage and Parenting in the Third Millennium.” Participation and attendance at the Forum is by invitation only. For further information, contact Emily Parks 801-422-8549 or e-mail wfpf@byu.edu.

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Note: The preceding article excerpts are highlights of current events and

do not necessarily represent the views of the World Family Policy Center

or Brigham Young University.

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Newsletter created and distributed by:

World Family Policy Center

J. Reuben Clark Law School

Brigham Young University

Managing Director: Richard Wilkins

Executive Director: A. Scott Loveless

Newsletter Editors: Joy S. Lundberg and Gary B. Lundberg

If you have any articles, editorials, or papers you would like

circulated through the WFPC News network, you may submit them to

lundberg@lawgate.byu.edu

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