Post Alleging Center City Starbucks Refused to Let Police Sergeant Use Restroom Goes Viral

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24905278_BG1A downtown Philadelphia Starbucks is at the center of controversy this weekend after a Facebook post alleging that an employee of the coffee shop refused to allow a uniformed Philadelphia Police sergeant use the restroom went viral.

The post, which does not identify the sergeant involved, says he walked into the Starbucks at 13th and Chestnut streets and asked to use the restroom, for which a key code is required. The employee, according to the post, “State[d] in a loud voice … that the bathroom is for paying customers only.” The post goes on to say that the sergeant asked politely to use the restroom anyway, and that the Starbucks employee declined to grant access.

Officer Joe Leighthardt, who knows the sergeant, was the first to share his fellow officer’s post about the incident, which happened Thursday or Friday of last week. Leighthardt said he personally has been to that Starbucks location several times on calls for service, but never as a customer.

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“I didn’t intend for it to go viral,” Leighthardt said, adding that most people who have responded to the post have been supportive.

In reply to Leighthardt’s post on Starbucks’ official Facebook page, Starbucks wrote in part, “We are aware of this situation, and it is certainly not in line with the experience we want any of our customers to have in our stores. We are taking all necessary steps to ensure this doesn’t happen in the future.” (Read more from “Post Alleging Center City Starbucks Refused to Let Police Sergeant Use Restroom Goes Viral” HERE)

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Penn State Removes Bibles From Hotel Rooms After Atheists Say They Encourage ‘Killing Nonbelievers,’ Gays

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Penn-State-BiblePenn State has removed Gideon Bibles from hotel rooms after a complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) accused the Bibles of advocating the killings of nonbelievers.

“The bible [sic] calls for killing nonbelievers, apostates, gays, ‘stubborn sons,’ and women who are not virgins on their wedding nights,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor said in a statement last week. “What is obnoxious in a private hotel, however, becomes inappropriate and unconstitutional in state-run lodgings.”

A spokesperson from the university has confirmed to Campus Reform that the Bibles have been removed from individual guest rooms following an inquiry from FFRF earlier in the summer.

“The decision to remove Bibles from individual guest rooms was made following questions from the Freedom From Religion Foundation,” Lisa Powers, director of strategic communications at Penn State told Campus Reform in an email. “It raised our awareness and we took the opportunity to review our hotel practices. We wish to be respectful of all religions, and also of those who have differing beliefs, yet we still want to make the publication available to those who desire to read it while staying with us.”

FFRF claims in their statement that Penn State officials confirmed to them that the Bibles have been removed from the two university-run inns, but Powers confirmed to Campus Reform that the Bibles can still be found by guests in public areas. (Read more from “Penn State Removes Bibles From Hotel Rooms After Atheists Say They Encourage ‘Killing Nonbelievers,’ Gays” HERE)

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According to a Study, Parents With This Many Children Are the Happiest

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family_reunion_-_thinkstock1The happiest parents are—drumroll, please—parents with four or more kids.

Parents of large families were found to have the most life satisfaction, according to a study by Australia’s Edith Cowan University. Dr. Bronwyn Harman, of the psychology and social science school at the university, spent five years studying what types of families are most content.

“[The parents] usually say they always wanted a large family, it was planned that way, and it was a lifestyle they’d chosen,” Harman told The Sydney Morning Herald.

During her five-year study, Harman interviewed hundreds of parents from different family makeups. Her findings are based on resilience, social support, self-esteem, and life satisfaction.

Her research points out that parental happiness relates to how much effort has been put into growing the family.

“What is important for kids are things like consistency, boundaries and [to] know that they are loved, no matter what,” Harman tells ABC Australia.

Prior to the study, Harman thought parents with more children would be less happy.

Though larger families may have more chaos and expenses than a smaller family, Harman’s research shows that these issues are balanced by the amount of joy received from having more children.

Her findings show that children who grow up in large families learn independence at a young age and always have someone to play with. (For more from the author of “According to a Study, Parents With This Many Children Are the Happiest” please click HERE)

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Dismembering Unborn Babies Is ‘Very Humane,’ Planned Parenthood Backer Tells Congress [+video]

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Screen_Shot_2015-09-11_at_11.14.48_AM_810_500_55_s_c1This week, the Congressional Judiciary Committee conducted its first hearing on the investigation of Planned Parenthood.

Titled “Planned Parenthood Exposed: Examining the Horrific Abortion Practices at the Nation’s Largest Abortion Provider,” this first hearing included four witnesses, one of which was Ms. Priscilla Smith, a Director and Senior Fellow at the Program for the Study of Reproductive Justice at Yale Law School. Her comments before the committee were truly horrifying.

During the questioning period, Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte read from Justice Kennedy’s dissent in the U.S. Supreme Court Stenberg v. Carhart decision. Kennedy had quoted the testimony of Dr. Leroy Carhart, a famed and brutal late-term abortionist.

Carhart testified that he had personally “observed fetal heartbeat” on an ultrasound screen, even after substantial portions of the baby had been dismembered and pulled apart. This type of abortion is known as a D&E abortion, or a “dismemberment abortion,” as the baby is literally torn and ripped apart, limb from torso . . .

As an abortion activist with decades of experience, Smith is fully aware of exactly what happens during a D&E abortion. And yet she easily declares that it is “humane.” (Read more from “Dismembering Unborn Babies Is ‘Very Humane,’ Planned Parenthood Backer Tells Congress” HERE)

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The Postal Service’s War on Religion Continues

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458169256-e1441993099600U.S. Postal officials said Friday it was strictly “a business decision” when they opted to offer customers no new religiously themed holiday stamps in 2015, and not part of an effort to reduce religion’s influence in the U.S. Postal Service’s commemorative collection.

Mark Saunders, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service issued the comment in a letter to yesterday’s Daily Caller News Foundation report disclosing that the postal service will not be printing new religiously-oriented holiday stamps in 2015. Such stamps have been issued almost every year for more than half a century.

Saunders said in the letter that postal officials decided to end the practice of printing new religious stamps every year for Christmas, Chanukah, the Muslim Ramadan holiday of EID and Kwanzaa. The special stamps will now only be offered every other year.

Saunders did not say when the decision was made of who made it, but decisions about proposed commemorative stamps have been made since 1950s the Postal Service’s Citizens Advisory Stamp Committee.

No evidence was found of any public notice of denoting a change in postal policy, or any attempts to solicit public comment before implementing the new printing schedule. (Read more from “The Postal Service’s War on Religion Continues” HERE)

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UTTER INSANITY: San Francisco Jails to House Transgender Inmates Based on Gender Preference

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Screen-Shot-2015-03-31-at-5.12.29-PMBy the end of the year, San Francisco’s county jails will be among the first in the nation to house transgender inmates by their gender preference, Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi said Thursday.

Currently, San Francisco County puts transgender inmates in an isolated wing of its downtown jail facility. But under the policy announced Thursday, Mirkarimi said, he hopes to have transgender inmates living with their preferred population before 2016.

But transgender inmates who choose to remain in segregated housing or to continue living with other inmates who share the gender they were assigned at birth can do so, according to Kenya Briggs, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office . . .

Inmates who seek to have their housing status changed will be subject to a review process, but Mirkarimi said housing decisions will not be solely based on an inmate having gender reassignment surgery or a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

“It’s not going to be based on genitalia alone. We will have an advisory committee, experts that help represent the transgender population,” he said. “There will be complicated incidences where we’ll have to decide if this is the proper fit or not.” (Read more from “San Francisco Jails to House Transgender Inmates Based on Gender Preference” HERE)

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Schools Scramble to Deny Responsibility for Paltry Michelle Obama Breakfast

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Frenship-breakfastThere’s a controversy brewing around Lubbock regarding an unappetizing school breakfast photo depicting what appears to be a tortilla shell with three tater tots and a few bacon bits.

KCBD reports the meal photo was shared by local parents on Facebook as an example of the puny offerings served up in schools under Michelle Obama’s “healthy” school food regulations, and the news site attempted to track down where the image originated.

Officials in several area school districts, however, are denying responsibility for the failure as area parents continue to flood KCBD’s Facebook page with other examples.

Lubbock resident Maria Mendoza appears to have first posted the image to Facebook on Sept. 8 with a caption that read:

“My daughter sent me a picture what her school is serving them this morning(.) This isn’t enough food for high school kids. And during lunch they get 35 mins and there is (sic) so many kids that come don’t get through the line and than (sic) they’re late for class. Not enough seating either some have to sit on the floor to eat their lunch”

(Read more from “Schools Scramble to Deny Responsibility for Paltry Michelle Obama Breakfast” HERE)

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14-Year-Old Bravely Rejected Abortion After Rape, Then Bullies Spray-Painted This Horrific Word on Her House

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kaliIt was a cool night in September. One of the last of summer, but you could feel that fall was coming. I snuck out of my parents’ house in my small town to meet a boy I had been talking to on the internet. He was a really nice boy who said he was my age. I knew my parents would never approve. So after they fell asleep, I snuck out.

I never met that boy. Instead, a 66 year old man was waiting for me. He raped me that night. Violently . . .

The very first thing I heard [when I visited the doctor] —“there are always opportunities to have other children.” Another doctor told my parents that I was a “wild child” incapable of making any decision about my own baby. It never occurred to any of those doctors that I would do anything other than have an abortion. The police caught the monster who viciously raped me and today he is in jail. But still that man stole my body. And now the doctors were trying to steal my baby! . . .

The kids at school mocked me mercilessly. When they found out I was having a boy, they told me “he will grow up to be a rapist too.” One even told me that my son was going to rape me. Another time a boy cornered me and told me he would show me “what rape really was.” My parents took me out of school. Still the kids would not leave me alone.

We woke up one morning to see “WHORE” and “PROSTITUTE” spray painted on our house. For a while it seemed like everything in life was spiraling completely out of control. And then I found CHOICES4LIFE. It’s an organization run by someone who was conceived in rape. Juda Myers’ mom was raped by 8 men and she said her mom had felt the same way I did. She put me in touch with other women who had been raped and kept their baby. (Read more from “14-Year-Old Bravely Rejected Abortion After Rape, Then Bullies Spray-Painted This Horrific Word on Her House” HERE)

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California Assembly Approves Right-To-Die Legislation

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brittany-maynard-terminally-ill-cancer-patient-twitterAfter nearly a quarter-century of efforts in California to afford terminally ill patients the right to end their lives with a doctor’s help, state lawmakers and the governor may be on the verge of granting the dying that authority.

The state Assembly on Wednesday passed a bill that would allow physicians to prescribe life-ending drugs to the terminally sick. The End of Life Option Act, which the Catholic Church and others oppose, awaits final approval by the Senate — three months after that chamber passed a similar bill by a thin margin.

The fate of the legislation is likely to rest with Gov. Jerry Brown, a former Jesuit seminary student who has yet to articulate his position on the measure. Brown has expressed concern about it, based more on legislative procedure than his own beliefs.

Modeled after an Oregon law enacted in 1997, California’s aid-in-dying proposal generated passionate, often deeply personal, debate among lawmakers that cut across party lines. Their discussions touched on questions of morality and mortality; trust in doctors and God’s grace; and the right of the dying to determine their own fate versus protection for the elderly and vulnerable . . .

Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown (D-Rialto) opposed the measure, arguing that doctors may be too hasty in declaring patients terminal. She told lawmakers about her son, who was near death with an infection. Physicians urged her to let him go, and she refused. Nineteen days later, he came off life support and is now a husband and father. (Read more from “California Assembly Approves Right-To-Die Legislation” HERE)

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Firefighter Killed in Hit and Run While Collecting for Charity

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B9318782370Z.1_20150909190305_000_G4QBSG1VT.1-0Dennis Rodeman survived a tour of duty in Iraq with the U.S. Marines.

He was killed on Wednesday while collecting donations for a charity in Lansing, the victim of what police are calling a deliberate hit-and-run crash on the city’s south side.

Rodeman, 35, was a seven-year veteran of the Lansing Fire Department. He was married two months ago and expecting his first child. When the incident happened at about 3:40 p.m ET, he was collecting money for muscular dystrophy research near the intersection of Cedar Street and Jolly Road, police and city officials said.

The suspect — a 22-year-old Lansing man — drove away from the scene and was caught near the intersection of Holmes and Waverly roads after a car and foot chase, police said. Lansing police originally said the man was 32 . . .

“The suspect came by, was upset for whatever reason (and) circled back around” before running into the firefighter, Kraus said. “The preliminary investigation is that he deliberately hit the firefighter who was standing in the road, collecting for the charity.” (Read more from “Firefighter Killed in Hit and Run While Collecting for Charity” HERE)

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