World Family Policy Center Newsletter

*News relative to protecting the family worldwide*

Volume 7 Issue 144 - March 14, 2007

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Quote of the Day: "We have no government armed with the

power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled

by morality and true religion. Our constitution was made only

for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the

government of any other."

—John Adams

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Today’s Contents:

A. Featured News Articles

1. Gen. Pace: Don't focus on 'personal moral views'

Related Article: Gay Indoctrination Infuriates Chicago Parents

Related Article: Gay Activists Take Aim at Tony Dungy

2. Portugal Parliament Approves Bill to Legalize Abortions,

Scrap Pro-Life Law

Related Article: College Men Psychologically Affected by Abortion

3. Colorado Legislature Considers Gay Adoption

4. Americans get an 'F' in religion

5. Americans see media aiding moral decline

6. State Abstinence Programs Under Attack

C. Coming Events

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FEATURED NEWS ARTICLES

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1. Gen. Pace: Don't focus on 'personal moral views'

By Tim Dillon, USA TODAY

March 14, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon's top general said Tuesday he should not have voiced his personal view that homosexuality is immoral and should have just stated his support for the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy in an interview that has drawn criticism from lawmakers and gay-rights groups.

The written statement by Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not apologize for his stance on homosexuality. In a newspaper interview Monday, Pace likened homosexual acts to adultery and said the military should not condone it by allowing gays to serve openly in the armed forces.

After a flurry of condemnation Tuesday, Pace issued a statement acknowledging that the Defense Department's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays is a sensitive subject and said: "I should have focused more on my support of the policy and less on my personal moral views."

The military lets gay men and lesbians serve if they keep their sexual orientation private. Commanders may not ask, and service members may not tell. More than 10,000 troops, including more than 50 specialists in Arabic, have been discharged since President Clinton signed it into law in 1994.

In an interview with the Pentagon Channel, the military's in-house television station, Defense Secretary Robert Gates declined to answer a question on his opinion of the policy but made what seemed to be a mild rebuke of Pace.

"Now look, you know I think personal opinion really doesn't have a place here," Gates said. "What's important is that we have a law, a statute that governs 'don't ask, don't tell.'"

He added: "That's the policy of this department, and it's my responsibility to execute that policy as effectively as we can. As long as the law is what it is, that's what we'll do."

To read entire article:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-03-13-pace-homosexulaity_N.htm

Related Article: Gay Indoctrination Infuriates Chicago Parents

by Steve Jordahl and Wendy Cloyd

Mandatory class for freshmen includes section on accepting homosexuality.

Parents of freshmen at Chicago's Deerfield High School say students are required to attend lectures on gay sexuality, and then sign a contract forbidding them to talk about it afterward.

Ellen Waltz's son and his friends told her about the lectures -- delivered by other students -- and the contract.

"[They said,] 'We had to sit there and listen to them tell us about their feelings and what it's like to be gay,' " Waltz said. "They make them sign a contract stating that they won't say anything that's in the room."

Lora Sue Hauser, a school-issues adviser for North Shore Student Advocacy, said a group of boys told her school officials threatened those who were reluctant to sign the contract.

"[They were told] 'You will sign this or you will go to the dean,' " Hauser said.

Dr. Sue Hebson, vice-superintendent of the school district, told Family News in Focus that there is no contract. She also denied that the classroom discussions involve sexuality.

"That's not part of the conversation," Hebson said.

But Hauser said that's just not so.

"During the semester they have a panel of gay, transgender (and) bisexual students who speak to these freshmen," she said. "Sometimes they talk about statistics and causality."

Parents complained last year when the school asked students to match sexually deviant terms with their definitions. The school responded by posting the curriculum information behind a password-protected page on the school's Web site.

Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues at Concerned Women for America, said this year’s freshmen orientation is part of an aggressive plan to corrupt American sexual practices.

"If you can maintain control of undeveloped and impressionable youth and spoon-feed them misinformation -- lies and half-truths about dangerous, disordered and extremely risky behaviors -- then you can control the future and ensure that those behaviors are not only fully accepted, but celebrated," Barber told World Net Daily.

To read entire article:

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A000004132.cfm

Related Article: Gay Activists Take Aim at Tony Dungy

by Pete Winn

Citizenlink

March 14, 2007

Indianapolis Colts coach's Christian pro-family beliefs challenged.

Homosexual activists are upset that Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy will appear next week at a banquet sponsored by an organization that supports the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Jim Buzinski, co-founder of OutSports.com, a Web site aimed at the homosexual audience, claims that Indiana Family Institute (IFI) is a political organization.

"He is speaking at the dinner next week in front of group that is very much a political organization," Buzinski said.

IFI President Curt Smith said neither the dinner nor the award is political.

"The purpose of this award is to celebrate those who live out the family ethic that we think is at the heart of a healthy and successful society," Smith said. "There was no five-point quiz where he had to agree with us on a number of public policy questions. In inviting him and then following up with a letter, we didn't discuss public policy."

Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family Action, said gay groups would like to silence anyone they perceive as opposing the gay agenda -- even a celebrated athlete or coach.

It's called "Christophobia."

"Unfortunately, this is becoming a pattern for those that oppose Christianity," he added. "They want to control our speech in the public square, embarrass us and try to belittle us. It really is a form of fascism."

Dungy was not available for interviews, but the Colts organization issued a statement saying that the coach is free to speak to any group he wishes.

"The club does not take positions in political issues in which it is not directly involved," the statement said. "The Colts do not endorse any political or religious position taken by any group that any Colts employee decides to speak or lend his or her name to."

The Rev. J. Peter Gallagher, a chaplain for the Colts, told CitizenLink that Dungy has been up-front all along about who he is -- and Indianapolis is very comfortable with the coach and his beliefs.

To read entire article:

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A000004115.cfm

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2. Portugal Parliament Approves Bill to Legalize Abortions, Scrap Pro-Life Law

by Steven Ertelt

LifeNews.com

March 9, 2007

Lisbon, Portugal -- The Portugal parliament has given final approval to a bill that would legalize abortions there up to 10 weeks into the pregnancy. The vote officially scrap's the nation's pro-life life and removes it from a list of a handful of nations in Europe that prohibit abortions.

Now, Poland, Ireland and Malta are the lone nations on the continent to offer legal protection for unborn children from abortion.

The Republican Assembly's vote on Thursday night came just one month after Portuguese voters failed to approve a ballot proposition to legalize abortion.

Some 58 percent of those voting said they favored making abortion legal but the vote didn't count because half of the European nation's voters needed to participate. Examined another way, just 26.2 percent of Portuguese voters backed legalizing abortion.

In allowing abortions up to 10 weeks, the new abortion law would also include a three day waiting period. It will go into effect sometime this summer.

In the parliament, the ruling Socialist Party joined with members of the Communist Party, the Left Block and the Green Party to support legalizing abortion. The Social Democrat Party and the Christian Democrat Party, both conservative opposition parties, opposed the bill.

To read entire article:

http://www.lifenews.com/int206.html

Related Article: College Men Psychologically Affected by Abortion

CitizenLink

March 7, 2007

A UCLA psychiatrist has noted that many college-aged men she's counseled appear to have been impacted by abortion.

Dr. Miriam Grossman noticed a significant number of young men reported a sleeping disorder. She began asking whether they had participated in an abortion. Most said "Yes."

"I had a young man a few weeks ago who was very surprised that I was asking him," she said. "But, he did say, 'Yeah, about a month ago my girlfriend had an abortion. It was a whole big story, and he was pretty upset about it."

There's little research on abortion's impact on men, but a study by Drexel University revealed 80 percent of men who were at the clinic the day their child was aborted called it one of the worst days of their lives.

Dr. Karl Benzio, a psychiatrist with the Christian Medical Association, said it's no surprise the issue hasn't been properly studied, due in part to how abortion's impact is largely ignored.

"We still have some difficulty in our country and the mental health profession understanding what a tragedy abortion is," he told Family News in Focus. "We don't appreciate the impact that that has on the father of the child."

Article from:

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLNews/A000004081.cfm

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3. Colorado Legislature Considers Gay Adoption

by Pete Winn

CitizenLink

March 7, 2007

Family advocates gear up for a fight.

Liberal Colorado lawmakers unveiled a bill Tuesday that would allow homosexual couples to adopt children.

House Bill 1330, sponsored by House Majority Leader Alice Madden, D-Boulder, would also include cohabiting couples and relatives of unwed mothers.

"It's about parental responsibility and protecting our kids and providing them with the most economically stable homes they can have," she told the Rocky Mountain News.

But Jim Pfaff, president of Colorado Family Action, said the legislation exploits single parents in order to promote homosexual adoption.

"All the high-minded discussion of 'protecting children' and 'parental responsibility' is merely a smokescreen for the true intent of this legislation: paving the way for homosexual adoption," he said.

The measure ignores the wishes of Colorado voters, who last year overwhelmingly defeated an initiative that would have legalized domestic partnerships and gay adoption, Pfaff added.

"Why can't the sponsors of this bill just say straight up what their intent is?" he asked. "Because they know the people of Colorado would reject the measure if they did."

The bill isn't driven by a desire to find homes for kids, he said. It's all about radical politics.

"Let's be honest about who this bill would serve," Pfaff said. "Homosexual activists are pushing this measure, not Colorado adoption agencies or unmarried heterosexuals."

Rep. Amy Stephens, R-Colorado Springs, said similar bills have been voted down in the past. But defeating this bill may be more difficult, since the balance of power in the state Capitol has shifted to liberals.

To read entire article:

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A000004079.cfm

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4. Americans get an 'F' in religion

By Cathy Lynn Grossman

USA TODAY

March 9, 2007

Sometimes dumb sounds cute: Sixty percent of Americans can't name five of the Ten Commandments, and 50% of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were married.

Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University, isn't laughing. Americans' deep ignorance of world religions — their own, their neighbors' or the combatants in Iraq, Darfur or Kashmir — is dangerous, he says.

His new book, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — and Doesn't, argues that everyone needs to grasp Bible basics, as well as the core beliefs, stories, symbols and heroes of other faiths.

Belief is not his business, says Prothero, who grew up Episcopalian and now says he's a spiritually "confused Christian." He says his argument is for empowered citizenship.

"More and more of our national and international questions are religiously inflected," he says, citing President Bush's speeches laden with biblical references and the furor when the first Muslim member of Congress chose to be sworn in with his right hand on Thomas Jefferson's Quran.

"If you think Sunni and Shia are the same because they're both Muslim, and you've been told Islam is about peace, you won't understand what's happening in Iraq. If you get into an argument about gay rights or capital punishment and someone claims to quote the Bible or the Quran, do you know it's so?

"If you want to be involved, you need to know what they're saying. We're doomed if we don't understand what motivates the beliefs and behaviors of the rest of the world. We can't outsource this to demagogues, pundits and preachers with a political agenda."

Scholars and theologians who agree with him say Americans' woeful level of religious illiteracy damages more than democracy.

"You're going to make assumptions about people out of ignorance, and they're going to make assumptions about you," says Philip Goff of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University in Indianapolis.

Goff cites a widely circulated claim on the Internet that the Quran foretold American intervention in the Middle East, based on a supposed passage "that simply isn't there. It's an entire argument for war based on religious ignorance."

"We're impoverished by ignorance," says the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, former general secretary of the National Council of Churches. "You can't draw on the resources of faith if you only have an emotional understanding, not a sense of the texts and teachings."

But if people don't know Sodom and Gomorrah were two cities destroyed for their sinful ways, Campbell blames Sunday schools that "trivialized religious education. If we want people to have serious knowledge, we have to get serious about teaching our own faith."

To read entire article and to test your religious literacy:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2007-03-07-teaching-religion-cover_N.htm

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5. Americans see media aiding moral decline

By Cheryl Wetzstein

The Washington Times

March 8, 2007

Most Americans think culture is becoming more immoral, and they view the media -- both entertainment and news -- as prime culprits, according to a new survey.

If the media continue to "singularly promote" secular values while undermining orthodox faith and values, it will be very difficult to reverse America's moral decline, said the National Cultural Values Survey, released yesterday by the Culture and Media Institute (CMI) of the Media Research Center.

"Americans who care about the nation's moral condition should insist that the media strive to more fairly represent all views, including those of the orthodox," the report stated.

The survey of 2,000 American adults shows that the nation's culture war is grounded in disagreements over religious issues, such as God's role in life and whether religious belief is essential for a good and moral life, CMI Director Robert H. Knight said.

About 31 percent of Americans, regardless of political stripe, are "orthodox" -- faithful Bible-believers who strive to live by "God's teachings and principles," see "a clear set of right and wrong behaviors" in every issue and believe government should be allowed to follow religious principles.

Seventeen percent of Americans, again regardless of political affiliation, are at the "progressive" end of the religious spectrum -- many believe in God, but they strongly disagree that religion is "the most important factor" in forming their values or that religion is "the most essential ingredient" of a good, moral life. Progressives don't want the government to follow religious principles and don't believe that people "should always live by God's teachings and principles."

The largest group of Americans -- 46 percent who described themselves as "independents" -- do not fully identify with either of the other groups. However, they tend to align with the orthodox regarding belief in God, sexual morality and spiritual issues. They reject, for instance, progressive efforts to replace "Merry Christmas" with "Happy Holidays" -- but side with progressives about using personal principles, not "God's teachings," to make certain moral decisions.

The culture war, according to the CMI report, occurs because the "morally absolutist" orthodox Americans are fighting to uphold values such as honesty, personal responsibility, sexual restraint and "classical character virtues."

Progressives, with their secular views and "situational ethics," collide with the orthodox over some of these issues, and both groups work to attract independents to their side, the report stated. This makes independents the main battlefield in the culture war, it added.

Surprisingly, all three religious groups are likely to see the media as negative influences on America's moral culture.

To read entire article:

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20070308-123726-1902r.htm

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6. State Abstinence Programs Under Attack

by Pete Winn

CitizenLink

March 8, 2007

Washington state Senate votes for Planned Parenthood pleasing curriculum.

Lawmakers in several states have launched an offensive to eliminate abstinence-only education. That campaign has advanced furthest in Washington.

The state Senate there passed a bill on Wednesday, 30-19, that will mandate all public schools teach Planned Parenthood-endorsed sex-ed curriculum that's used in Seattle schools.

"We're just sick about it," Sen. Val Stevens told CitizenLink. "It's probably the worst piece of legislation that we've passed in the 15 years I've been in the Legislature."

The measure would specifically ban local districts from teaching the value of purity.

"The bill will eliminate the opportunity for the schools to teach abstinence education, unless they also present the 'medically correct' -- as it is being called -- curriculum that will be developed by the state superintendent of public instruction," said Stevens, a Republican from Arlington.

LeAnna Benn, director of Spokane-based Teen-Aid, said the curriculum requires that students be taught about condoms and contraceptives.

"The state has already done training on a program called, 'Making Sense of Abstinence,' " she said. "Two of the chapters are on birth-control measures and how to have access for an abortion."

Benn said the legislation is being pushed by Planned Parenthood, NARAL and a gay-activist group, Equal Rights Washington.

Shepherd Smith, president of The Institute for Youth Development in Washington, D.C., said what's happening in the Pacific Northwest is just a symptom of a larger effort to undermine true abstinence programs.

To read entire article:

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A000004096.cfm

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COMING EVENTS

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WORLD CONGRESS OF FAMILIES IV

Warsaw, Poland - May 11-13, 2007

Meeting in Rockford, Illinois (October 23-25, 2005), a planning committee of the World Congress of Families chose Warsaw, Poland as the site of the 4th World Congress. The Warsaw Congress will be held May 11-13, 2007 in the Palace of Culture and Science.

The Polish Federation of Pro-Life Movements, an organization with over 130 affiliates throughout the nation, will serve as the local host for WCF IV.

The Congress theme will be “The Natural Family: Springtime for Europe and the World.” Sub-themes will include:

1. We Will Renew Cultures of Marriage

2. We Will Celebrate More Babies and Larger Families

3. We Will Nurture Free, Vital, and Productive Homes.

For more information: Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.

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Note: The Featured Articles 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 (www.worldfamilypolicy.org)

J. Reuben Clark Law School

Brigham Young University

Acting Managing 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

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