More Than 100 Pastors Sign "Marriage Pledge" to Preserve Traditional Marriage

/2 Comments/in , /by

2011-04-21T023646Z_01_GUY01_RTRIDSP_0_GUYANAThe Reverends Ephraim Radner and Christopher Seitz have published in First Things what they’ve dubbed the “Marriage Pledge.” The pledge would effectively separate civil marriage from the religious ceremony—signers of the pledge would refuse to sign marriage certificates, for instance. The pledge has been signed by more than 100 members of the clergy, as well as laypersons in support of the pledge and came about due to fears of pastors being forced to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies.

As Christian ministers we must bear clear witness. This is a perilous time. Divorce and co-¬habitation have weakened marriage. We have been too complacent in our responses to these trends. Now marriage is being fundamentally redefined, and we are ¬being tested yet again. If we fail to take clear action, we risk falsifying God’s Word.

The new definition of marriage no longer coincides with the Christian understanding of marriage between a man and woman. Our biblical faith is committed to upholding, celebrating, and furthering this understanding, which is stated many times within the Scriptures and has been repeatedly restated in our wedding ceremonies, church laws, and doctrinal standards for centuries. To continue with church practices that intertwine government marriage with Christian marriage will implicate the Church in a false definition of marriage.

Read more from this story HERE.

Abortion Activist & Founder of Human Rights Campaign Arrested for Allegedly Raping 15-Year-Old Boy

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: LifeNews

Photo Credit: LifeNews

A nationally-known pro-abortion activist has been arrested on charges of raping a 15-year-old boy. Terrance Patrick Bean is the founder of Human Rights Campaign, a group that pushes other political issues but also takes a steadfastly pro-abortion position.

Human Rights Campaign, in addition to advancing abortion, has also lobbied Congress to end all federal funding for abstinence education, and hailed one piece of legislation that cut off funding because it “would end abstinence-only-until-marriage programs once and for all.” Bean is also a prominent supporter of pro-abortion President Barack Obama.

The Portland Oregonian newspaper has more on Bean’s indictment, reporting that “Detectives from the Portland police Sex Crimes Unit arrested Portland developer Terrence Patrick Bean on Wednesday on a Lane County indictment stemming from alleged sex abuse involving a teenage boy in 2013.”

Bean was arrested at his home in Southwest Portland and booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center yesterday morning.

Read more from this story HERE.

US Announces Release of 5 Guantanamo Prisoners

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

The Obama administration has released five Guantanamo Bay prisoners after an administration task force determined they no longer posed a threat.

The Department of Defense announced Thursday that three of the men were sent to Georgia and two to Slovakia for resettlement. The Pentagon identified the three now former prisoners resettled in Georgia as Abdel Ghaib Ahmad Hakim, Salah Mohammed Salih Al-Dhabi and Abdul Khaled Al-Baydani. The two sent to Slovakia were Hashim Bin Ali Bin Amor Sliti and Husayn Salim Muhammad Al-Mutari Yafai.

Hakim was the first prisoner from Yemen to be released since 2010. Yemenis make up the majority of men cleared for release because the U.S. is reluctant to send prisoners to the unstable country.

The group was among dozens of low-level prisoners at Guantanamo who were determined to no longer pose a threat by an administration task force in 2009.

Their release brings the total prison population to 143, about 100 fewer than when President Barack Obama took office pledging to close the detention center.

Read more from this story HERE.

States Can Handle Disasters Better than FEMA, Cato Study Finds

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Getty / Spencer Platt

Photo Credit: Getty / Spencer Platt

Congress should abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency because it has politicized and bureaucratized how the nation responds to major disasters like Hurricane Sandy, according to a new think tank study.

“The large amount of federal disaster aid that is potentially available to the states has created a political dynamic that has pushed up federal costs. After even small, local disasters, governors, state politicians and congressional delegations often lobby the White House to declare the event a “major disaster’ so a state can access federal aid,” the Cato Institute’s Chris Edwards writes in a study made public Wednesday.

“As a consequence, the number of disaster declarations has soared in recent decades. The annual average number was 51 in the 1970s, 29 in the 1980s, 74 in the 1990s, 127 in the 2000s, and 139 so far in the 2010s,” Edwards says.

Read more from this story HERE.

ICE Readies 2,400 Beds for Surge of Illegal Immigrants Through Texas

/1 Comment/in , /by

606x404-ff81cd80f6ea257ba36a5470d777fa96The Obama administration is bracing for another surge of illegal immigrants next spring, bringing online a family detention center that will have 2,400 beds.

“We must be prepared for traditional, seasonal increases in illegal migration. The Dilley facility will provide invaluable surge capacity should apprehensions of adults with children once again surge this spring,” said Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Thomas S. Winkowski.

In advance of the president’s new pro-immigrant announcement set for Thursday night, ICE is readying its strategy for next year when over 100,000 illegals are expected to flood over the U.S.-Mexico border.

Read more from this story HERE.

________________________________________________________________

A fee to go into Mexico? Pilot program underway

By Barbara Medina.

If you are a United States citizen and cross the border frequently you may have to pay a fee to go into Mexico.

The National Immigration Institute in Mexico (INAMI) has started a pilot program in which foreigners that enter Mexican territory for more than seven days or they will be involved in paid work, they will have to pay 306 pesos, or about 28 US dollars.

“We are doing what should be done,” said Rudolfo Figueroa, representative of INAMI in Baja California. “Foreigners who enter Mexico have the obligation to register; if they will be in national territory for more than seven days, they have to pay the right of non-residents.”

Read more from this story HERE.

NSA Chief: China, Other Countries Can Hack Into U.S. Electric Grid

/1 Comment/in , /by

Red China flag 2 SCChina and at least one other country are capable of hacking into critical infrastructure such as the electric power grid or water systems, potentially causing “catastrophic failures” that could kill Americans or damage property, the head of the National Security Agency confirmed publicly for the first time Thursday.

“The cyber challenges we’re talking about are not theoretical. This is something real,” said Adm. Michael Rogers, who also leads U.S. Cyber Command.

He said his agency has detected “nation-states” probing critical infrastructure and industrial control networks, looking for vulnerabilities, and investing in the capability to damage or destroy those systems.

“All of that leads me to believe it is only a matter of the when, not the if, that we are going to see something dramatic,” Rogers said.

Though U.S. officials have long warned of a potential “cyber Pearl Harbor,” this was the first time a senior official has confirmed that hackers working for a foreign government have the capability to pull it off.

Read more from this story HERE.

90 Percent of the World Age 6 and Older Will Have a Cellphone in Less Than Six Years

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

If you think kids’ use of technology is stunning today, consider the latest statistic from a communications technology company about how many people by a certain age will own cellphones in five years.

According to Ericsson, 90 percent of the whole world’s population older than 6 years old will have a mobile phone by 2020.

“The falling cost of handsets, coupled with improved usability and increasing network coverage, are factors that are making mobile technology a global phenomenon that will soon be available to the vast majority of the world’s population, regardless of age or location,” Rima Qureshi, senior vice president and Ericsson chief strategy officer, said in a statement. ”The Ericsson Mobility Report shows that in 2020 the world will be connected like never before.”

Read more from this story HERE.

ISIS Planning Gold, Silver Currency to Displace Dollar, International Banking

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: DailyMail

Photo Credit: DailyMail

ISIS wants to introduce its own currency and plans to bring back solid gold and silver dinar coins, it has emerged.

The Middle East terror group apparently wants to introduce its own Islamic currency as part of its attempts to solidify its makeshift caliphate.

Militants are said to want to bring back the original dinar, which is an ancient currency from early Islam, and religious figures in Mosul and Iraq’s Nineveh province have apparently announced its return in mosques.

The currency known as the dinar, which once consisted purely of gold and silver coins, is today used by a variety of countries, but the coins are created from different materials to the originals.

However, the jihadi group is understood to be planning to return to the original gold and silver coins, which were first introduced during the Caliphate of Uthman in 634 CE.

Read more from this story HERE.

Billy Graham: In Our ‘Lawless and Wicked Age … We've Taught the Philosophy of the Devil — ‘Do As You Please’

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: CNS News

Photo Credit: CNS News

World renowned evangelist Rev. Billy Graham, the founder and chairman of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said that our children are growing up in a “lawless and wicked age,” infused with the “philosophy of the Devil, who says, ‘Do as you please.’”

Further, rearing children in this culture is difficult because “we have taken God out of our educational systems and thought we could get away with it,” said Rev. Graham. “We have sown the wind, and we are now reaping the whirlwind. We have laughed at God, religion and the Bible.”

Reverend Graham’s commentary, first broadcast in August 1955, was published in the November 4, 2014 issue of Decision magazine, under the headline “Raising Children in a Godless Age.”

“Many Christian parents are becoming fearful that they cannot properly train their children in this lawless and wicked age,” and are asking, “What can I do with my son? My daughter?” said Rev. Graham.

“We are beginning to reap what has been sown for the past generation,” he said. “We have taught the philosophy of the Devil, who says, ‘Do as you please.’ Behaviorism has been the moral philosophy of much of our education in the past few years.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Report Finds VA Clinics ‘Missed Opportunities’ To Prevent Vietnam Vet’s Suicide

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

A newly released government investigation has found that three Veterans Affairs health clinics “missed opportunities” to prevent a Vietnam veteran’s suicide, with failures ranging from “communication breakdowns” to completely ignoring his “multiple suicide risk factors.”

The unnamed sixty-something patient, who had previously attempted suicide in 1989, shot himself in the head in 2013. He’d been receiving treatment for chronic shoulder, neck and back pain; osteoarthritis, degenerative discs in his lower back, low bone density and a variety of nerve conditions exacerbating pain and weakness in his neck and back, and had had cervical spine surgery in the fall of 2012.

The patient bounced around from clinic to clinic beginning in 2011, when the VA reassigned him from his usual primary care clinic to one nearer his home. A year later he requested another transfer, and another six months after that.

He was also diagnosed with PTSD related to his service in Vietnam, depression, anxiety, “intermittent explosive disorder,” bipolar depression, steroid-induced mood disorder and alcohol abuse.

According to the investigation, “the patient was generally compliant and motivated for MH [mental health] treatment and medication management; he rarely cancelled an appointment.”

Read more from this story HERE.