World Family Policy
Center Newsletter
* News relative to protecting the family
worldwide *
Volume 4 Issue 12 -
April 4, 2005
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Quote of the Day:
"The most important¼work that you will ever
do will be the work you do within the
walls of your own home."
— Harold B. Lee
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Today’s Contents:
A. Featured Articles:
1. Leavitt Defends Agency
Web site on Sexual Abstinence for Teens
Related
article: Bush Official Says Teens
Choosing Abstinence Need Support
2. Senate Bill Sets
Rules for Stem Cell Research
3. Marketers Tap Chatty
Young Teens, and Hit a Hot Button
4. 'Anti-gay' Students
Must Keep Quiet
5. Teacher Rejected
Because Kids at Christian School
6. Sri Lanka May Outlaw all Missionary Efforts
7. 'She' TV Gives Voice
to Arab Women
B. Coming Events
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FEATURED ARTICLES
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1. Leavitt Defends
Agency Web site on Sexual Abstinence for Teens
By Kevin Freking
Deseret Morning News
WASHINGTON — How should you talk to your children about sex? Tell them no
sex, says a new government Web site that proclaims "abstinence is the
healthiest choice." That's dictating values, say organizations including
the American Civil Liberties Union and gay rights groups, and they want the
site taken down.
Michael Leavitt,
secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, says the Web site is
right on target.
The site was designed
for parents who are embarrassed about talking with their children about sex,
Leavitt said in a statement.
"Parents have a
tremendous amount of influence on their children, and we want them to talk with
their teens about abstinence so that they can stay safe and healthy," he
said.
Promoting abstinence is
fine, said Monica Rodriguez of the Sexuality Information and Education Council
of the United States, but the government should also address the needs of
teenagers who are already sexually active, gay or lesbian, or who have been
sexually abused.
For example, she said
Thursday, the site should promote the proper use of contraceptives, and it
should not imply that homosexuality is wrong by encouraging parents of gay or
lesbian children to consult a therapist.
"By and large,
it's a Web site that believes in abstinence until marriage," said
Rodriguez, whose advocacy group promotes comprehensive sexual education.
"Everything on the Web site is designed to promote that value and help
parents communicate that value to their children."
To read entire article:
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600122831,00.html
To visit US government
Web site on abstinence:
http://www.4parents.gov/topics/abstinence.htm
Related article: Bush Official Says Teens Choosing Abstinence
Need Support
Also, Lawyer Notes
School's Unlawful Censorship of Pro-Abstinence Student Speech
By Jim Brown
April 1, 2005
(AgapePress)
- A Bush administration official overseeing the President's Abstinence
Education Initiative says no amount of federal funding can make a teenager
choose not to have premarital sex -- it's a decision young people have to make
on their own. And, apparently, many are doing just that: recent statistics show
that more than 50 percent of teens graduate high school without losing their
virginity.
Harry Wilson is the
associate commissioner of the Family and Youth Services Bureau of the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services. He says research shows more teenagers
are remaining abstinent until marriage; but still, every day in America, 10,000
to 11,000 young people contract sexually transmitted diseases.
"A lot of those
kids are kids that have come through the condom promotion teachings,"
Wilson observes, "and still we only have 37 percent condom use, even among
the kids who gone through comprehensive sex education. So the only 'magic
bullet' is not to have sex."
Of the teenagers the
government has surveyed, the government official says, almost all who have had
premarital sex said they regretted not waiting until marriage. Nevertheless, he
acknowledges that choosing abstinence is a difficult in challenge for youth in
contemporary America, remarking that "the air young people breathe"
is filled with casual attitudes toward sex.
To read entire article:
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/4/12005c.asp
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2. Senate Bill Sets
Rules for Stem Cell Research
Backers uncertain they
can beat veto
By Scott S. Greenberger
Boston Globe
March 29, 2005
State senators unveiled
a bill yesterday that would proclaim the Bay State's firm support for embryonic
stem cell research, but require scientists conducting certain cutting-edge
research to obtain licenses from the Department of Public Health. . The bill
also would set fines as high as $1 million for those who violate new state
rules governing stem cell work.
The measure is an
attempt to keep stem cell researchers from decamping to other states, while
assuaging the ethical concerns of uneasy legislators on Beacon Hill.
The Senate is expected
to approve the bill tomorrow, and the House is likely to follow suit soon after
that. But top lawmakers said yesterday they were uncertain if they had the
two-thirds majorities in both bodies that would be needed to override Governor
Mitt Romney's expected veto.
The crux of the debate
is likely to be what is called somatic cell nuclear transfer, or therapeutic
cloning, which supporters say is a promising form of stem cell research that
could lead to cures for Parkinson's disease and other illnesses. Romney opposes
that form of stem cell research because he says it involves the creation and
destruction of human life. Supporters of the bill strongly disagree but, in a
nod to uneasiness about therapeutic cloning, they would require researchers to get
state licenses to conduct it.
To read entire article:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/03/29/senate_bill_sets_rules_for_stem_cell_research/
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2. Obesity Weighs
Down Progress in Index of Youth Well-being
By Greg Toppo,
USA TODAY
March 29, 2005
Despite drops in drug,
alcohol and tobacco use, lower teen birth rates and lower rates of juvenile
crime, the overall well-being of young people is barely better than it was
nearly 30 years ago.
And childhood obesity
is a big factor, according to a report released today by a New York-based
philanthropic foundation.
Researchers at Duke
University found that despite progress in several key areas, a few important
indicators, such as obesity and childhood poverty, have worsened.
In the meantime, the
percentage of young adults with a bachelor's degree rose only marginally from
1975 to 2003.
The latest version of
the annual Index of Child Well-Being uses government data from 2003 to track 28
indicators, some of which were projected to 2004.
Kenneth Land, a
professor of demographic studies at Duke and the developer of the index, says
more attentive parenting by baby boomers probably has helped reduce risk
factors such as juvenile crime and teen drug, alcohol and tobacco use.
To read entire article:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-03-29-youth-well-being_x.htm
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3. Marketers Tap
Chatty Young Teens, and Hit a Hot Button
By Clayton Collins
The Christian Science Monitor
Think your talkative,
trendy, Web-surfing 13-year-old might have a future in sales? She might already
be in business. New forms of peer-to-peer, buzz-marketing campaigns - ignited
and fanned by firms - are growing fast.
In a practice still
widely unregulated, marketers enlist youths they see as having real sway over
friends. The goal? Solicit the help of these
influential kids in broadening sales in exchange for products and the promise
of a role in deciding what the marketplace will offer.
Review a
not-yet-released CD, score free concert tickets. Talk up a movie at a party,
earn a DVD. The stakes are high: The 12-to-19 set reportedly spends about $170
billion a year.
Marketers insist their
efforts are transparent, that kids' reactions are unscripted,
and that word of mouth, done right, is inherently authentic.
At its first conference
this week, the new Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) will invite
input on an evolving code of ethics aimed, in part, at protecting children.
But opponents call the
industry's youth-targeted component the odious next step in the
commercialization of childhood, one that eyes ever-younger age groups, bribing
them in a bid to cement brand loyalty and prompting them to wring friends for
useful market data.
To read entire article:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0330/p11s01-lifp.html
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4. 'Anti-gay' Students
Must Keep Quiet
Lawsuit filed against
district's 'diversity training'
March 29, 2005
WorldNetDaily.com
In its mandatory
"diversity training" classes, a school district has instructed
students who believe homosexual behavior is wrong to keep their opinions to
themselves, prompting a federal lawsuit.
The Arizona-based
Alliance Defense Fund filed a motion for preliminary injunction [PDF file]
yesterday to immediately prohibit the Boyd County, Kentucky, Board of Education
from restricting the free-speech rights of its students.
"We are filing
this motion because students are being forbidden from expressing their own
viewpoint on this matter," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Kevin Theriot. "That's unconstitutional, and it must
stop."
The motion was filed in
a Feb. 15 lawsuit brought by Timothy Allen Morrison and other students and
their parents against the education board.
The training itself
began as a result of the settlement of another lawsuit filed against the board
by the Boyd County High School Gay-Straight Alliance, represented by the
American Civil Liberties Union.
To read entire article:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43526
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5. Teacher Rejected
Because Kids at Christian School
Wins discrimination
suit after application for vice principal nixed
March 29, 2005
WorldNetDaily.com
A federal grand jury
punished a public school superintendent for rejecting a vice-principal
applicant because she refused to remove her children from a private Christian
school.
The jury unanimously
said the constitutional rights of Karen Jo Barrow were violated and ordered
former Greenville, Texas, Independent School District Superintendent Herman
Smith to pay back wages of $15,000 and $20,000 in punitive damages.
"This is truly a
victory for every teacher and administrator in America," said Kelly
Shackelford, chief counsel for Texas-based Liberty Legal Institute. "The
jury sent a strong message that this type of behavior is not permitted within
school districts."
To read entire article:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43525
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6. Sri Lanka May Outlaw all Missionary Efforts
By Elaine Jarvik
Deseret Morning News
"Anti-conversion"
legislation in Sri Lanka could target missionaries and faith-based humanitarian
aid workers, according to The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
Among the faith-based
groups affected by the bill would be The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, which has missionaries in the Southeast Asian country and has provided
disaster relief there in the wake of last winter's tsunami. LDS humanitarian
workers do not proselytize, says church spokesman Dale Bills, but the proposed
law targets all relief workers linked to any religion, according to Becket Fund
legal counsel Roger Severino.
"If you tie aid to
religious identity, then you will run afoul of the law. You don't have to be
there preaching as you hand out aid. You only have to have a religious identity
and an aid component," Severino says. "The
law would be an unmitigated disaster for religious liberty if it's passed"
and would affect many tsunami relief groups, he says.
The Becket Fund, based
in Washington, D.C., is an international, interfaith law firm that defines its
mission as "protecting the free expression of all religious
traditions."
"Anti-conversion
hysteria has been building" in Sri Lanka in recent years, Severino says, and has led to violence. More than 150
churches have been burned to the ground, pastors have been beaten in front of
their congregations, and female Christian workers have been sexually assaulted.
"It's coming from,
believe it or not, militant Buddhists," he says. A particular
strain of Buddhist theology on the island — which is now 70 percent Buddhist —
believes that Buddha himself visited Sri Lanka and established a sanctuary for
"pure" Buddhism.
The fear among these
Buddhists, he says, is that foreign religions will try to dominate the island.
But the percent of religious minorities there has actually held constant for
decades, and the percentage of Christians in particular has actually declined,
he says. The country is currently 15 percent Hindu, 8 percent Muslim and 7
percent Christian.
To read entire article:
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600122500,00.html
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7. 'She' TV gives
voice to Arab women
By Will Rasmussen
The Christian Science
Monitor
April 4, 2005
BEIRUT, LEBANON –
Television talk-show host Matilda Farjallah shifts
forward in her chair and looks the white-bearded Sunni sheikh sitting across
the table directly in the eyes. "Tahzeeb al-mara ["instructing the woman"] is discussed in
the Koran. Does it allow instructing a woman by beating her?" she asks.
Men, the sheikh
responds, can instruct women - but "only with words." Yet, the sheikh
adds, if the woman doesn't seem to get the message, the husband can strike her.
"But only lightly with a ruler," the sheikh says, "and only on
the rear end."
Ms. Farjallah
grows animated, her elbows lifting from the table. "Some men," she
says, "take advantage of the Koran and say: 'It is written, We can beat women. It is within our rights.' "
Dialogue like this
isn't common in the Middle East, but it's being dished out every day by Heya (Arabic for "she") satellite television
station, broadcast to an estimated daily audience of 15 million women, from
illiterate denizens of remote villages in Egypt to Prada-clothed
fashionistas in Beirut.
Tune in to Heya during the day, and you'll find shows on fashion,
cooking, or home decoration. But the station, carried on the digital Nile
Satellite television channel, is bent on more than just entertainment.
"Our goal is to
empower women," says Heya's founder, Nicolas Abu
Samah, who launched the station two years ago.
To read entire article:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0404/p11s02-wome.html
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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.
.
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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
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