Bush Gives Heartfelt Speech at Service for Dallas Officers

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Former President and native Texan George W. Bush gave a somber speech Tuesday at an interfaith ceremony honoring the five Dallas officers murdered last week.

Discussing the recent discord the country is facing, Bush started off by acknowledging how hopeless things can seem, especially in the face of such a horrible tragedy.

“At times, it seems like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together,” he said. “Argument turns too easily into animosity. Disagreement escalates too quickly into dehumanization.”

However, his speech wasn’t all grim. The former president used the reminder of his time to remind the audience on what it is that truly unites us — American values.

“We have never been held together by blood or background,” he said. “We are bound by things of the spirit, by shared commitments to common ideals. At our best, we practice empathy, imagining ourselves in the lives and circumstances of others.”

His speech was a message of respect and honor for those who wear a badge, and a reminder of the things that make this country great.

“Your loved ones’ time with you was too short. They did not get a chance to properly say goodbye, but they went where duty called,” Bush said. “They defended us, even to the end.”

President Obama’s tone, however, was a bit different. He used his time to discuss race relations, lecturing the attendees, admitting that bias still remains. But he assured Americans that we are “not as divided as we may seem.” (For more from the author of “Bush Gives Heartfelt Speech at Service for Dallas Officers” please click HERE)

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Since When Does Planned Parenthood Have a Constitutional Right to Taxpayer Funds?

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Once again, we have Republican dominance of a state’s political branches of government rendered moot by the council of revision aka the federal court system.

Utah, like many GOP-controlled states, moved to cut off taxpayer funds to Planned Parenthood after their associates were caught on video discussing the trafficking of fetuses. The liberals in the legal profession have successfully placed temporary injunctions on many of these acts. After the district judge withdrew a stay on Utah Governor Gary Herbert’s action, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals today reversed that decision and blocked the common sense action on the part of the state of Utah.

Writing for the three judge panel (consisting of Reagan, Clinton, and Obama appointees) in Planned Parenthood v. Herbert, Judge Mary Briscoe determined that Planned Parenthood was likely to succeed on the merits because “a reasonable finder of fact is more likely than not to find that Herbert issued the directive to punish PPAU for the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights it has identified in this litigation.”

While one judge disagreed with another constitutional point, they all agreed that the governor violated … you guessed it … the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The Equal Protection Clause was merely designed to reiterate the basic life, liberty and property negative rights that applied to everyone else and ensure that they were granted to freed slaves. As I note in Chapter 4 of Stolen Sovereignty, Rep. James F. Wilson, R-Iowa, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee back in the 1860s who helped draft the 14th Amendment, spoke emphatically that it was “establishing no new right, declaring no new principle.” “It is not the object of this bill to establish new rights, but to protect and enforce those which belong to every citizen,” declared Wilson in 1866.

Yet, we have now moved onto a post-constitutional judicial oligarchy that believes the 14th Amendment not only creates a right to an abortion, but a positive right for a private organization under criminal investigation for trafficking baby parts to secure taxpayer funding.

What is further ironic is that we have a legal profession that now agrees that not giving a criminal enterprise taxpayer funding is tantamount to blocking their First Amendment rights, but taking negative action (imprisonment or fines) against private business owners who don’t service gay weddings or transgenderism is the highest order of mankind. Oh, and let’s not forget that the pesky document from 1776 declares that fundamental rights come from natural law and nature’s God, of which the sexual identity movement repudiates.

We have reached a point in time when the judiciary has voided out the elected branches of government even to the point when it must keep taxpayer funding flowing to criminal enterprises that engage in immoral behavior that is well within the historical powers of a state to regulate. We have a judiciary that green lights liberal state officials to infringe upon inalienable negative rights of property, conscience, and self-defense, but impedes conservative state officials from regulating positive privileges.

As I noted last week, this is part of a growing trend from the lower courts tossing out every last regulation of abortion facilities and mandating funding for Planned Parenthood. It’s time conservatives realize that we are not just one election away from winning back the courts. The courts are irremediably broken. Even if we succeed in appointing judges who will never expand upon existing breaches in the Constitution, a task that is dubious at best, there is enough existing post-constitutional precedent embedded just in the bastardization of the 14th Amendment alone to void out every policy initiative we could possibly hope to achieve from a Republican president and GOP-controlled states. That existing “precedent” is respected by most GOP appointees, except for the few in the mold of Clarence Thomas. We will never win the judiciary game a half century into this post-constitutional Gomorrah.

It’s time to ignore the courts and the first step to delegitimizing their ill-gotten power is for Congress to use its existing constitutional authority, pursuant to Article III Section 2, to regulate the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary. They must protect the states in their ability to pass common sense immigration enforcement laws, abortion regulations, define marriage, protect religious liberty and protect the franchise from fraudulent voting.

The lower courts are even worse than the Supreme Court, yet they are created by Congress and can easily be swatted down. The notion that one federal district judge could rule over a state or even a congressional statute fully in the spirit of our Constitution, history, and traditions is absurd, given the fact that Congress can abolish those courts altogether. As for the Supreme Court, Congress can prevent all but a few spheres of original jurisdiction granted to it by Article III from becoming precedent through narrowing their power of adjudication.

Let’s not forgot the timeless admonition of Abraham Lincoln in his first inaugural address:

[t]he candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.

In this spectacularly hyped election season that will determine control of the presidency, Congress and state governments, let’s remember that if we fail to alter the perception of the court’s power, the outcome of every major political and social question of our time will be placed in the hands of that eminent tribunal. Their ill-gotten power as the council of revision, in conjunction with their anti-constitutional ethos used to make those decisions, will ensure that we no longer have individual, state or national sovereignty to be governed by the consent of the governed. (For more from the author of “Since When Does Planned Parenthood Have a Constitutional Right to Taxpayer Funds?” please click HERE)

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Man Who Wants to Marry Computer Files Suit Against Kim Davis

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A federal lawsuit was filed earlier this month against Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis for denying a man a license to marry his laptop computer.

Mark “Chris” Sevier of Vanderbilt Law School has a history of being litigious, despite the suspension of his law license in 2011.

Sevier previously filed similar suits in Texas and in Florida. He has told reporters that he is trying to prove that marriage between a same-sex couple has the same legitimacy as a human marrying an inanimate object. (Read more from “Man Who Wants to Marry Computer Files Suit Against Kim Davis” HERE)

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Fox News Roger Ailes Allegedly Sexually Assaulted Multiple Women

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It appears Fox News chief Roger Ailes has a problem reaching Bill proportions – meaning Bill Clinton or Bill Cosby.

Following the filing of a lawsuit by former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson about a series of unwanted sexual propositions from her boss, her attorney says other women are coming out of the woodwork with similar stories dating back to the 1960s . . .

The new accounts from New York Mag include the following:

Kellie Boyle, 54, former Republican National Committee field adviser: “This was back in 1989. I was 29 and living in New Jersey. My husband worked at CNBC and he said, ‘Roger Ailes is coming in to be interviewed, would you like to meet him?’ I said yes! I’d worked in political communications for the Republican National Committee; so Roger Ailes was like a God. I’d read his book, ‘You Are the Message,’ and I used it for a lot of training I did for candidates. I introduced myself in the green room and he was very charming and said, ‘Would you like to visit my office downtown sometime?’ A week or two later I went in and mentioned to him I was going down to D.C. the following week to sign a major contract with the National Republican Congressional Committee. He said, ‘I’m going to be in D.C. too. Would you like to have dinner before you go in?’ So we had a nice dinner at a restaurant in Union Station. There was nothing untoward about it at all. He had a driver and a car, and after dinner he said, ‘Can I take you to your friend’s?’ So we get in the car and that’s when he said, ‘You know if you want to play with the big boys, you have to lay with the big boys.’ I was so taken aback. I said, ‘Gosh I didn’t know that. How would that work?’ I was trying to kill time because I didn’t know if he was going to attack me. I was just talking until I could get out of the car. He said, ‘That’s the way it works,’ and he started naming other women he’s had. He said that’s how all these men in media and politics work – everyone’s got their friend. I said, ‘Would I have to be friends with anybody else?’ And he said, ‘Well you might have to give a blowjob every once in a while.’ I told him I was going to have to think about this. He said, ‘No, if you don’t do it now, you know that means you won’t.’ The next morning I show up to get my assignment and was told the guy I was supposed to be meeting with was unavailable. Back in New Jersey I got a call from Roger Ailes. He said, ‘How’d your meeting go?’ I said, ‘Actually he wasn’t available and I’m hoping to hear back from him.’ He said, ‘Ah, well, I’m sure you will. Have you changed your mind yet?’ I said, ‘I’ll have to pass, Roger. I’m married and really committed to my husband. No offense.’ He said, ‘Well, we’ll be in touch.’ And that was that. A couple weeks later, I called a friend who was very high up in the RNC and I asked him what happened. He said, ‘Word went out you weren’t to be hired.’

Marsha Callahan, 73, former model: “This was either ’68 or ’67. At the time he was producing ‘The Mike Douglas Show,’ and I had a call from my modeling agency about the show. I got a call directly from Roger asking me to come down and to make sure I wore a garter belt and stockings. This was right after pantyhose came into use, and I said, ‘Why would you want me to do that instead of pantyhose?’ He said, ‘If your legs look good in a garter belt, I’ll know you have great legs.’ So I go into his office and right away he says, ‘Sit on the sofa and lift your skirt up.’ I had to do these different poses. And then, I recall very clearly, he said he’d put me on the show but I needed to go to bed with him. I was a really shy girl, but I was a little cheeky so I said, ‘Oh yeah, you and who else?’ And he said, ‘Only me and a few of my select friends.’ I said, ‘Well, if you think I have star quality and you can make money off my looks, I don’t think it’d matter if I went to bed with you or not.’ And he said, ‘Oh, pretty girls like you are a dime a dozen.’ The interview ended quickly. I was called in to do the show and I remember passing Roger in the hallway. He pretended not to know who I was.”

(Read more from “Fox News Roger Ailes Allegedly Sexually Assaulted Multiple Women” HERE)

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Why Young Adults Both Want and Fear Marriage

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When we interviewed Carly, 31, in the summer of 2010, she had been in an on-again, off-again cohabiting relationship with the father of her child for about 12 years. Never married, she called marriage a “piece of paper.”

One year later, however, she had broken up with her longtime boyfriend and was engaged to a different man.

Why did she accept his marriage proposal?

Contradicting what she said a year before, Carly (not her real name) told us: “Everybody says, ‘Oh, it’s just a piece of paper.’ But that piece of paper is … more binding than just really being together.”

She explained that her experience in a long-term cohabiting relationship had taught her that marriage was indeed different.

As we learned in our interviews with over 100 young adults in a mostly white working-class town in Ohio, most young people are neither adamantly opposed to marriage nor completely supportive: They are conflicted about marriage. They hope to get and stay married, providing for their own children the family stability that many of them did not have growing up.

One national study found that in 2001-2002, more than 80 percent of young adults said that marriage was important in their life plan. But many are also uncertain about how to achieve that aspiration and unsure about whether marriage retains the meaning they believe it should have.

Many of them witnessed the separation or divorce of their parents as children, or barely knew their dad or mom. Others saw their parents stay in marriages marked by abuse, drinking, drugs, or misery. Others admired their parents’ marriage but were shaken by the divorces of relatives or friends, or by hearsay about high divorce rates.

The legacy of the divorce culture is trauma and a crisis of trust. A study conducted in the mid-2000s found that of 122 working–and middle-class young people in cohabiting relationships, more than two-thirds expressed concerns about divorce that were related to their views about marriage. Many respondents said that they were reluctant to marry because they wanted to “do it right,” by which they meant marrying only once.

That legacy of divorce is reinforced by the cultural deregulation of sex and dating. As divorce-weary young people form their own romantic relationships, they hear from the culture that “sex is sex, regardless of who it’s with,” love should be “effortless,” and “you got one life to live, and you got to live it the way you want to live it.”

Those messages undermine their pursuit of a trusting and resilient lifelong relationship.

As a result, many young Americans are left on the outside looking in, admiring marriage but paralyzed with anxiety about becoming another divorce statistic or worried that their boyfriend or girlfriend is not trustworthy. Thus, more Americans are delaying marriage longer, and more (though still the minority) are forgoing marriage altogether.

In other words, the declining marriage rate is not so much a reflection that marriage is no longer desired, but that, in a culture of distrust and divorce, it is fragile.

The bad news is that young Americans have less confidence in marriage than their grandparents did and are carrying profound wounds. The good news is that, as one adult child of divorce said of his peers from fragmented families, “They lived it and they want a change.”

As another adult child of divorce told us, “I think my home life as a kid made me more driven to be like, ‘I’m not gonna have a broken home.’”

Many young people are afraid of marriage, but that does not mean they are giving up on it. If anything, they possess a hard-earned understanding about the suffering wrought by family fragmentation. They want a better life for their own children, and they deserve the support of everyone from cultural leaders to policymakers to business leaders as they seek that better way. (For more from the author of “Why Young Adults Both Want and Fear Marriage” please click HERE)

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I’m a Mom. Here’s What I’m Doing to Fight Obama’s Transgender Agenda.

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Because I’m passionate about our country, I dedicated years of my life to government service. Later, that same passion led me to focus on raising my three young children to become the finest citizens they can be, becoming a stay-at-home mom.

Nevertheless, I have jumped back into the world of politics and policy far earlier than I expected to because President Barack Obama’s school bathroom mandate is endangering the safety, security, and privacy of my children and yours.

I cannot remain silent.

Like many Americans, I was shocked to learn the Obama administration had sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to our nation’s schools threatening them with loss of federal funds unless they adopt radical new gender identity policies. The letter twists Title IX—a law banning sex discrimination in education—and opens the door to a myriad of real dangers to women and girls Title IX was meant to help.

To put it simply, a boy claiming gender confusion must now be allowed in the same shower, bathroom, or locker room with my daughter under the president’s transgender policies. When I learned that predators could abuse these new policies to hurt children in school lockers, shelters, pool showers, or other vulnerable public places like remote bathrooms in national parks, I realized I had to do something.

I instinctively knew that I needed to speak up to protect those who cannot speak for themselves: our children. As I learned more about the issue, I realized that I also needed to speak up for victims of sexual assault who would be re-traumatized by having biological males undress in front of them, women who may now feel themselves powerless to do anything about it, due to legal concerns and fear of being labeled a bigot.

Not wanting to see any policy that would lead to more victims of sexual violence and trauma, I started calling my federal, state, and local representatives to see where they stood on the issue and to urge them to fight against Obama’s edict. I even met with my daughter’s vice principal to express concern.

But what I found dismayed me. People were being bullied into silence by the threats from the federal government and LGBT activists. And I was saddened by how few people in the general public really knew what was really going on today in our nation’s schools.

Through conversations with friends and family, the “United We Stand” campaign was born. Our simple effort to educate parents exploded into a national campaign to tell the White House and Obama “No.”

Our message was that this radical agenda of subjective “gender fluidity” and unrestricted shower and bathroom access actually endangers all.

The “United We Stand” campaign coincides with other efforts to combat Obama’s lawless reinterpretation of Title IX. North Carolina and several other states, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, have fought back with lawsuits against the administration’s overreach. Groups advocating boycotting Target, which announced in April that “transgender team members and guests … [may] use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity,” continue to affect the retailer’s bottom line. Church activists are seeking to help ensure our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion aren’t being curtailed so churches would be, for example, free to make their own bathroom policies inside their houses of worship and child care centers. Parents, concerned citizens, and other defenders of freedom are banding together to ensure the safety, security, and privacy of our children.

Because the national edict was approved by the White House, it can be stopped by the White House, so I knew that our outcry had to start there. My plan of response is simple. On Tuesday, July 12 at 1:00 p.m. EST, I and legions of others will inundate the White House comment line to respectfully say “NO” to Obama’s bathroom policies. And we will do so in numbers that will certainly get the White House’s attention.

But we will not stop there.

We will actively engage state and local government lawmakers and officials to inform and persuade them that they shouldn’t give in to the Obama administration’s threats to withhold educational funding from our children. The safety of bathrooms and other intimate facilities must be protected from predators seeking any vulnerability to commit heinous criminal acts.

Let me be clear: It is not transgender persons who I am concerned about hurting my children. Instead, I’m concerned about those who will abuse these new policies.

Some might consider me just a mom, but it’s a title I wear with pride: I believe it’s the most important job I will ever have. But that title also gives me a certain credibility when it comes to protecting children, because I know the dreams and fears that only parents can have for their kids.

As parents, we have the privilege and duty to educate and protect our children so that they can lead our nation on to further greatness when it’s their turn to do so. Until that time, I will boldly stand up to ensure the safety, security, and privacy of my children and yours so that together we all can stand united, safe, and free. (For more from the author of “I’m a Mom. Here’s What I’m Doing to Fight Obama’s Transgender Agenda.” please click HERE)

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Liberals Rip George Takei for Not Liking His Star Trek Character Being Made Gay

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In a moment of supreme irony, progressives on social media are sharply criticizing former Star Trek actor George Takei for disapproving of the decision to make the character “Sulu” gay in the upcoming Star Trek movie.

Takei played “Hikaru Sulu” in the original Star Trek television series. He came out as gay in 2005 and has since been a very high-profile advocate for gay rights, with a very active presence on social media.

In tribute to both Takei and the progressive politics of series creator Gene Roddenberry, the creators of Star Trek Beyond revealed that the rebooted Star Trek’s version of Sulu is a gay man raising a young daughter with his husband.

Takei, though, surprised many by revealing he disapproves of the move. He said it was disrespectful to Roddenberry to suddenly reveal “Sulu” as gay when the show’s creator always viewed him as a straight man.

“I’m delighted that there’s a gay character,” Takei told The Hollywood Reporter. “Unfortunately, it’s a twisting of Gene’s creation, to which he put in so much thought. I think it’s really unfortunate.”

“Sulu” never had a romantic interest in the original Star Trek, but he did have a daughter named “Demora” who first appeared in the movie Star Trek: Generations. Takei told The Hollywood Reporter that “Demora” was born from a fling with “a very athletic, powerful and stunningly gorgeous woman.”

Takei said he learned of Sulu’s planned outing last year, and urged filmmakers to make a new character gay instead.

“I said, ‘This movie is going to be coming out on the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, the 50th anniversary of paying tribute to Gene Roddenberry, the man whose vision it was carried us through half a century,’” Takei said. “Honor him and create a new character, I urged them. [Director Justin Lin] left me feeling that that was going to happen.”

Takei’s sentiments have appalled many of his fellow progressives, who bashed him for not being fully on-board the progress train. Said one representative tweet:

I’m so mad @GeorgeTakei. How dare you wish to take away what little positive movement we have in LGBTQ representation! You, of all people.

(For more from the author of “Liberals Rip George Takei for Not Liking His Star Trek Character Being Made Gay” please click HERE)

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Billionaire Child Sex Offender Epstein Co-Founded Clinton Foundation per Alan Dershowitz Letter

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Attorneys for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein touted his close friendship with Bill Clinton and even claimed the billionaire helped start Clinton’s controversial family foundation in a 2007 letter aimed at boosting his image during plea negotiations, FoxNews.com has learned.

The 23-page letter, written by high-powered lawyers Alan Dershowitz and Gerald Lefcourt, was apparently part of an ultimately successful bid to negotiate a plea deal before Epstein could be tried for using underage girls in a sex ring based in Palm Beach, Fla., and his private island estate on the 72-acre Virgin Islands home dubbed “Orgy Island.” Epstein spent 13 months in prison and home detention after agreeing to a plea deal in which he admitted to soliciting an underage girl for prostitution.

“Mr. Epstein was part of the original group that conceived the Clinton Global Initiative, which is described as a project ‘bringing together a community of global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges,” read the July 2007 letter to the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of Florida. “Focuses of this initiative include poverty, climate change, global health, and religious and ethnic conflicts.”

The hedge fund magnate’s true role in creating the foundation could not be confirmed. Whether Epstein was an actual founder of the foundation or exaggerated his role in a phony effort to appear altruistic is not clear.

Epstein is not cited in official paperwork filed by the Clinton Global Initiative as a founder or director. Neither The Clinton Foundation nor Dershowitz responded to FoxNews.com’s inquiry as to the extent of Epstein’s involvement. FoxNews.com first reported that flight logs show the former president flew on Epstein’s private plane dozens of times. But Clinton has publicly credited longtime assistant Doug Band, now counselor and director of the foundation, as conceiving of the idea. (Read more from “Billionaire Sex Offender Epstein Once Claimed He Co-Founded Clinton Foundation” HERE)

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Pastor Says State Law Threatens His Right to Teach the Bible in His Church

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An Iowa pastor, saying the government needs to stop “meddling in religious affairs,” is at odds with the state over a law focused on sexual orientation and gender identity that he says hinders his First Amendment right to teach on matters of sexuality.

“The state of Iowa is not the self-appointed pope of all churches,” Cary Gordon, pastor of Cornerstone World Outreach, a nondenominational church with around 900 members in Sioux City, Iowa, told The Daily Signal.

An Iowa Civil Rights Commission brochure on sexual orientation and gender identity says churches are places of public accommodation and generally are not exempt from the law, according to First Liberty Institute, a legal organization that defends religious freedom and represents Gordon’s church.

The brochure says the Iowa Civil Rights Act, Iowa Code Chapter 216, “was expanded to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected classes.” The change took effect in July 2007.

“It is now illegal in Iowa to discriminate against a person because of his/her sexual orientation or gender identity,” the brochure says.

Gordon told The Daily Signal:

As it reads, according to their interpretation of the Iowa code, if you discuss anything out of the Scripture that relates to sexuality or marriage … you’re not in compliance with the law and you can be sort of treated like a criminal.

Gordon, senior pastor of his church for over 21 years, said his greatest concern with the issue is the “flagrant disrespect for the First Amendment of the Constitution, where the state retains the power to correct or control what I say and teach out of the Bible.”

“It’s fundamentally wrong and I can’t comply with that,” Gordon added. “I’ve taken an oath to the Lord Jesus Christ, and I obey the Bible above all men. … I have to obey God, and that puts me in a precarious position.”

The state Civil Rights Commission’s brochure “also indicates that the government has the authority to force churches to allow men in women’s restrooms,” First Liberty Institute says in a case summary.

“The Iowa Civil Rights Commission has not made any changes in its interpretation of the law, nor does it intend to ignore the exemption for religious institutions when applicable,” Kristin Johnson, the commission’s executive director, wrote in an email to The Daily Signal. Johnson wrote:

The Iowa Civil Rights Commission enforces Chapter 216 of the Iowa Code, which in part prohibits discrimination by public accommodations. The code also provides for an exemption for ‘Any bona fide religious institution with respect to any qualifications the institution may impose based on religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity when such qualifications are related to a bona fide religious purpose.’ This law was enacted in 2007 and has been consistently enforced, and the exemption consistently applied, since its enactment.

First Liberty Institute’s letter requests that the civil rights panel publically acknowledge that Gordon’s church will be exempt from enforcement action.

“I would hate to see a day when a pastor for doing his duties is arrested or something and taken to jail,” Gordon said, adding:

What we’re facing right now is quite literally a pastor being drug into court and having to spend a lot of church money to defend himself for doing something that pastors have been doing faithfully for hundreds of years and that’s teaching orthodox, Christian doctrine.

“I think this is really important that we stay true to our founding principles,” he said.

A federal lawsuit was filed July 4 on behalf of Fort Des Moines Church of Christ in Des Moines, Iowa, against members of the state Civil Rights Commission over concerns similar to those expressed by Cornerstone World Outreach.

Gordon, the father of three girls and two boys, said the state doesn’t “have any right to tell us what to teach or how to teach it or how to apply our beliefs in real life.”

“The state needs to stay out of our business,” he said.

Over the long term, the pastor said, this issue should affect all Christians:

The Bible teaches us to be modest and it teaches us certain roles that are honorable and beautiful about both sexes, male and female. You have to try to survive in a world that seems more and more hostile to what you believe whether you’re at church or at the shopping center.

Chelsey Youman, chief of staff and counsel for First Liberty Institute, told The Daily Signal it is hoping to avoid litigation.

“We … wanted to give the state commission a chance to do the right thing here,” Youman said.

The Iowa Civil Rights Commission has by 10 a.m. Aug. 5 to respond.

“We think it’s an absolute wake-up call to churches across America that we’re now having a state government say what you can and cannot say about your own doctrinal beliefs within the confines of your church, let alone having to open your facilities up in a way that is against your doctrine,” Youman said. (For more from the author of “Pastor Says State Law Threatens His Right to Teach the Bible in His Church” please click HERE)

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Survey Finds Excess Health Problems in Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals

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Gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals reported more health problems than straight men and women, in a large U.S. survey.

For the first time since its launch in 1957, the National Health Interview Survey in 2013 and 2014 included a question about sexual orientation.

With nearly 69,000 participants, the survey revealed that lesbian, gay and bisexual adults “were more likely to report impaired physical and mental health, heavy alcohol consumption, and heavy cigarette use, potentially due to the stressors that (they) experience as a result of interpersonal and structural discrimination,” researchers wrote online June 28 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Overall, 67,150 survey respondents were heterosexual, 525 lesbian, 624 gay and 515 bisexual. The average age was about 47.

Gilbert Gonzales of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville and colleagues found that compared to heterosexual women, lesbians were 91 percent more likely to report poor or fair health. Lesbians were 51 percent more likely, and bisexual women were more than twice as likely, to report multiple chronic conditions, compared to straight women. (Read more from “Survey Finds Excess Health Problems in Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals” HERE)

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