Crazy World: Pope Francis May Push Gay Civil Unions, American Academy Of Pediatrics Says Gay Marriage Good for Kids

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Photo Credit: Patrick Semansky/AP

Pope Francis pushed civil unions for gays in 2010 as cardinal

By Cheryl K. Chumley. Gay rights supporters may have found a friend in Pope Francis.

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio — now Pope Francis — came out in support of civil unions for gay couples in 2010, Newser reports. It was during a time of spiritual chaos in Argentina, as the church there was battling attempts to legalize gay marriage. And Cardinal Bergoglio came forward with what he described as the “lesser of two evils” solution, Newser reports.

“He wagered on a position of greater dialogue with society,” his authorized biographer says, in the Newser report. He publicly criticized the gay marriage bill winding through Argentina’s legislature, but quietly supported same-sex union rights.

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Gay marriage is good for kids: American Academy of Pediatrics.

By Cheryl Wetzstein. The nation’s largest pediatricians’ group said Thursday that it supports gay marriage, noting that, to a child, the parents’ sexual orientation is not as important as other elements related to family well-being.

If a child has two living and capable parents who want to marry, it is in the best interests of the child that legal and social institutions allow and support the parents to do so, “irrespective of their sexual orientation,” the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) said in its new policy statement.

Therefore, AAP “supports marriage equality for all capable and consenting adults, including those who are of the same gender, as a means of guaranteeing all federal and state rights and benefits and long-term security for their children.”

Adoption placements and foster parenting also should be conducted without regard to sexual orientation of the parents, the academy added.

The announcement comes less than a week before the U.S. Supreme Court considers two cases that will determine whether the federal Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, which each define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, are constitutional.

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So Much for Iraqi Freedom: Christians, Churches Disappearing From Iraq Since US Invasion

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Photo Credit: Reuters

The head of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq says that the number of Christian houses of worship there has dwindled alarmingly in the decade since the U.S. invaded and ousted Saddam Hussein from power.

There are just 57 Christian churches in the entire country, down from more than 300 as recently as 2003, Patriarch Louis Sako told Egyptian-based news agency MidEast Christian News. The churches that remain are frequent targets of Islamic extremists, who have driven nearly a million Christians out of the land, say human rights advocates.

“The last 10 years have been the worst for Iraqi Christians because they bore witness to the biggest exodus and migration in the history of Iraq,” William Warda, the head of the Hammurabi Human Rights Organization told the news agency.

Many Christians live in the provinces of Baghdad, Nineveh, and Kirkuk, and Dohuk and Erbil, which are both in the autonomous region of Kurdistan. Warda said some 1.4 million Christians lived in Iraq prior to Hussein’s ouster. Under the democratically-elected government that now oversees the war-torn, but oil-rich nation, Islamic extremists have been able to operate more freely.
“More than two-thirds [of Christians] have emigrated,” Warda noted.

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Newly Revealed Evidence That Iran Crossed Nuclear ‘Red Line’

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Iranian scientists are working on nuclear warheads – and trying to perfect them – at an underground site unknown to the West, according to a high-ranking intelligence officer of the Islamic regime.

The officer, who has been assigned to the Ministry of Defense, not only provided the coordinates to this vast site but also details of its operation. The site, approximately 14 miles long and 7.5 miles wide, consists of two facilities built deep into a mountain along with a missile facility that is surrounded by barbed wire, 45 security towers and several security posts.

The new secret nuclear site, named Quds (Jerusalem), is almost 15 miles from another site, previously secret but exposed in 2009, the Fordow nuclear facility. The power to this site comes from the same source as Fordow – the Shahid Rajaei power plant – with high power towers surrounding the site.

Construction of the site started about the same time as Fordow, and in the second half of 2010 all industrial tests were completed. The site became 60 percent operational in 2011.

Gen. Ahmad Vahid Datjerdi, who works in the supreme leader’s office to protect the regime’s information and counterintelligence, manages the site. His deputy, Hojatolislam Ramezani, was appointed to the protection of intelligence at the Defense Ministry after several leaks about the country’s nuclear operations.

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DHS Questioned Over Decision To Let Saudi Passengers Skip Normal Passport Controls

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A Department of Homeland Security program intended to give “trusted traveler” status to low-risk airline passengers soon will be extended to Saudi travelers, opening the program to criticism for accommodating the country that produced 15 of the 19 hijackers behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Sources voiced concern about the decision to the Investigative Project on Terrorism, which issued a report Wednesday on the under-the-radar announcement — which was first made by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano after meeting in January with her Saudi counterpart. According to the IPT, this would be the first time the Saudi government has been given such a direct role in fast-tracking people for entry into the United States.

“I think you have radical Wahhabism in certain elements in Saudi Arabia, and I think to be more lenient there than in other places would be a mistake,” Rep. Frank Wolf told the Investigative Project on Terrorism. “There were 15 [hijackers] from that country, and there is a lot taking place in that region.”

Only an exclusive handful of countries enjoy inclusion in the Global Entry program — Canada, Mexico, South Korea and the Netherlands. According to the IPT, some officials are questioning why Saudi Arabia gets to reap the benefits of the program, when key U.S. allies like Germany and France are not enrolled; Israel has reached a deal with the U.S., but that partnership has not yet been implemented.

Any Saudi travelers cleared through the program will be able to bypass the normal customs line after providing passports and fingerprints. The status lasts for five years.

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Jerusalem Post Editor: ‘We Can’t Figure Out What He’s Doing Here’ (+video)

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Caroline Glick, Senior Contributing Editor of the Jerusalem Post said the Israeli people consider President Obama “a hostile president overall,” on “Mornings on the Mall” on WMAL-FM in Washington DC…

Appearing with Brian Wilson and myself Wednesday morning, Glick said the Israeli people “can’t figure out what he’s doing here,” when asked about the mood in Jerusalem as the President’s plane touched down for the first time in his presidency.

Watch video here:

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Official Chinese Gov’t Stats: a Staggering 330 Million Abortions Since 1971

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Photo Credit: Alex E. Proimos

New data from China’s health ministry has revealed that approximately 330 million abortions have been performed in the country since 1971, according to AFP.

According to Chinese government researchers, currently about 13 million abortions occur annually, or about 1,500 every hour on average. As well, over the past 40 years Chinese officials have sterilized nearly 200 million men and women, and inserted 400 million intra-uterine devices.

Under China’s one-child policy, which was introduced in the late 1970s, Chinese couples are allowed to have only one child, although in some circumstances rural couples may be permitted to have a second, if the first is a girl.

The policy is enforced through brutal forced abortions and sterilizations, and the levying of crippling fines, sometimes amounting to several times a family’s annual income.

Concerns have been mounting, including in China, that with a rapidly aging population as well as a significant gender imbalance due to the prevalence of sex-selective abortion, the one-child policy is setting the country up for economic and social collapse.

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Cyprus Rejects Bailout Deal Leaving Eurozone Facing Fresh Crisis

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The Cypriot parliament has thrown out a controversial plan to skim €5.8bn (£5bn) from savers’ bank accounts, in a move that risks plunging the eurozone into a fresh crisis and heightens expectations that the cash-strapped country will seek a funding lifeline from Russia.

Cyprus has just 24 hours to find a solution to its funding gap before its banks are due to reopen following the dramatic no vote on Tuesday night, which failed to support a hastily renegotiated change to the original deal.

Late on Tuesday night the eurozone governments said that despite the vote Cyprus would still need to raise the €5.8 bn – a third of the €17bn bailout.

With the crisis escalating, an RAF flight carrying €1m in low-denomination notes landed in Cyprus to provide cash for 3,000 British service personnel based on the Mediterranean island. The banks have been shut since Friday and electronic transactions halted, although cash machines are still working and the Ministry of Defence said the euros were being flown in as “contingency measure”.

About 2,000 of the military staff, typically posted to the island for 18 or 24 months, have their salaries paid into local accounts. The MoD said it was “approaching personnel to ask if they want their March, and future months’ salaries paid into UK bank accounts, rather than Cypriot accounts”.

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US Flies Nuclear-Capable B-52 Bombers Over South Korea Amid Rising Tensions With North Korea

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The United States is flying nuclear-capable B-52 bombers on training missions over South Korea to highlight Washington’s commitment to defend an ally amid rising tensions with North Korea, Pentagon officials said Monday.

Pentagon press secretary George Little said one B-52 flew over South Korea on March 8, and the deputy defense secretary, Ashton Carter, said during a visit to Seoul that another bomber mission is scheduled for Tuesday.

B-52 bombers are capable of launching nuclear-armed cruise missiles, but Little said those participating in the Korean exercise are not armed with nuclear weapons.

The use of Air Force warplanes as part of an annual U.S.-South Korean military exercise called Foal Eagle is not unusual. But the Pentagon used the occasion to draw attention to the role B-52 bombers play as part of an American nuclear “umbrella” over South Korea and Japan — both of which feel threatened by North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

“We’re deeply concerned about North Korean behavior and rhetoric,” Little told reporters.

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Making Crime Pay: Norwegian TV Station Reveals EU Paying Salaries To Imprisoned Palestinians

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A Norwegian public television investigation that found taxpayer-funded developmental aid to the Palestinian Authority is being funneled to convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons has ignited controversy in Norway and could be the tipping point for the European Union’s reconsideration of aid, according to an activist group.

The PA is using foreign aid to pay salaries as high as $3,111 per month to imprisoned terrorists, according to the in-depth report by the NRK, a Norwegian public broadcasting station. The salaries reportedly start at around $400 per month and increase with length of prison time.

The PA has maintained the payments are actually “social welfare” for the families of terrorists, not rewards for murderers of Israeli citizens. But Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide acknowledged last week that the PA mischaracterized the payments.

“It is unfortunate that the incorrect information obtained from the Palestinian Authority was communicated to the Parliament,” said Eide. Members of the Norwegian parliament have called for a reconsideration of funding, and are investigating the issue.

Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli-based activist organization that helped uncover the payments, said the Norwegian government’s response to the controversy could influence policy for the entire E.U. Norway chairs the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, which coordinates Palestinian developmental aid policy. Other participants include the E.U., the U.S., and the United Nations.

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FBI Arrests NASA Contractor Employee Trying To Flee To China

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Bo Jiang, the Chinese national scientist employed by a NASA contractor for work at the space agency’s Langley Research Center, was arrested Sunday by the FBI at Dulles International Airport as he tried to flee to China, according to Rep. Frank Wolf, R-VA.

Wolf said during a Capitol Hill news conference today that Jiang’s work at the NASA facility had given him access to information that “would be of the greatest interest to foreign spies, including China.”

Wolf is chairman of a House Appropriations Committee subcommittee that has budget oversight authority for NASA.

He made Jiang’s name public for the first time last week during a subcommittee hearing where he also charged that Jiang had taken “voluminous sensitive” NASA documents back to China on a trip in 2012.

Jiang was employed by the National Institute of Aerospace, a Hampton, VA-based NASA contractor. The position afforded Jiang virtually unlimited, unescorted access to the NASA Langley facility, which is the location for classified research programs related to U.S. space defense technologies.

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