Same-Sex Couples Flood Immigration Offices For Visas

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Kori Kirkbride didn’t get that immediate feeling of joy and relief when she heard the Supreme Court had struck down the Defense of Marriage Act.

Instead, it hit after she talked to her attorney, and found out that the court’s decision will allow her Polish wife, Kasia Kurzatkowska, to apply for a green card, putting an end to a heart-wrenching seven years in which the two have been periodically separated by immigration laws.

“When we sat with our attorney, it became real,” said Kirkbride, 40, of Walnut Creek, Calif. “Waiting for this decision was like waiting to find out if you are pregnant – your whole life can change if you are. Now, we can have a future and buy a house, and have a child.”

Kirkbride and Kurzatkowska are among an estimated 26,000 same-sex couples in the U.S. with one partner who is not a U.S. citizen. Under the law, a subset of these couples – those who are married or considering marriage – had been prevented from applying for green cards for their spouses or fiances.

In the last decade, some of those non-citizens have been deported, even though they were legally married. Many others have been in a legal limbo, with one partner living undocumented in the United States. Some couples have left the country entirely to be somewhere they can both work and live legally.

Read more from this story HERE.

Abortion Clinic Describes Room-Service Abortions: ‘Just Sit On the Toilet and Wait’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

As the Texas legislature reconvenes for a special session to consider late-term abortion restrictions, the pro-life group Live Action released more undercover video of a late-term abortion clinic in neighboring New Mexico.

In an edited audio recording release Monday by Live Action, a counselor at the Southwestern Women’s Options clinic in Albuquerque tells a 27-week-pregnant undercover “investigator” that she can just sit on the toilet of her hotel room and wait for assistance should she deliver her still-born infant early.

“If we can’t catch [the delivery] early enough, which it has happened… If you’re feeling pressure, it’s moving down or something coming out, the pregnancy coming out, then you’ll want to unlock the door to the hotel room, get your cell phone, and just sit on the toilet,” the unnamed counselor advises.

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Jimmy Carter Compares Catholic Church to Islam on Women’s Rights

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter says religious leaders, including those in Christianity and Islam, share the blame for mistreatment of women across the world.

The human rights activist said Friday religious authorities perpetuate misguided doctrines of male superiority, from the Catholic Church forbidding women from becoming priests to some African cultures mutilating the genitals of young girls.

Carter said the doctrines, which he described as theologically indefensible, contribute to a political, social and economic structure where political leaders passively accept violence against women, a worldwide sex slave trade and inequality in the workplace and classroom.

“There is a great aversion among men leaders and some women leaders to admit that this is something that exists, that it’s serious and that it’s it troubling and should be addressed courageously,” Carter said at an international conference on women and religion.

The 39th president is hosting representatives from 15 countries at The Carter Center, the human rights organization he launched in 1982 after leaving the White House.

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Students: Professor Forced us to Wear ‘Gay’ Ribbons

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Photo Credit: gernhaex

Photo Credit: gernhaex

Several students are demanding a Tennessee community college psychology professor be disciplined for persistently pushing her pro-”gay” views on her students and even forcing students to identify themselves as in favor of the LGBT agenda in a mandatory project.

The Alliance Defense Fund is representing the students who objected to the classroom tactics of Columbia State Community College professor Linda Brunton. The students say any views opposed to Brunton’s were not welcome, and any opposition to the homosexual agenda was considered to be the thinking of “uneducated bigots” who “attack homosexuals with hate.”

But one assignment in particular triggered the protests.

“She assigned the class to wear rainbow coalition ribbons in support of homosexual behavior for at least a day on campus and wherever they went off campus. Students then had to write a reaction paper from wearing those ribbons and how they were allegedly discriminated against while wearing the ribbons,” Alliance Defense Fund attorney David Hacker told WND. “Several students contacted us, just objecting to this. It’s a very clear case of a government official, a state college professor, compelling students to speak in a way they disagree with.”

Hacker said it’s fine for teachers to have students consider ideas from different perspectives, but Brunton clearly crossed the line.

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Wichita Teachers Union Refuses Agreement Including Lesson-Plan Requirements

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Representatives of United Teachers of Wichita reached a tentative one-year contract agreement on Friday, following a heated dispute in which the union balked at a proposed clause that would require teachers to keep well-crafted daily lessons plans. The Wichita Eagle reports that the agreement was reached late Friday, and it is not yet clear which side prevailed in the lesson-plan fight.

A deal proposed by the district would require teachers to prepare lesson plans containing various mandatory details such as learning objectives and pacing references, according to the Eagle.

The current labor contract requires teachers to make lesson plans “only in sufficient detail to provide guidance to the teacher,” which leaves room for a range of different planning methods. Teachers must also provide their lesson plans and other teaching materials to school principals if asked.

Leaders of United Teachers of Wichita, which represents some 4,000 currently vacationing teachers, call compulsory daily lesson plans “busy work.”

“That’s going to take away the art of teaching, and it almost becomes like they’re doing cookie-cutter lessons,” Randy Mousley, president of the teachers union, told the Eagle.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ted Cruz Tells National Right to Life Convention: Democrats Don’t Care About Infanticide (+video)

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ted cruz immigrationDuring a speech at the National Right to Life convention on Friday, pro-life Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Democrats in the Senate don’t really care that abortionists like Kermit Gosnell kill babies in what is essentially infanticide.

Cruz opened by thanking pro-life advocates for their efforts.

“Thank you for that commitment to those who are most vulnerable among us, despite the ridicule of the mainstream media,” he said.

Cruz recalled the story of when his older daughter was getting ready for her unborn younger sister to be be born. And he remembered how his daughter offered his unborn child her blanket to cuddle with and chew on for security.

“It is amazing that, as a two-year-old, child, Caroline was able to understand something that Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid don’t understand.” Read more from this story HERE.

Here’s Obama’s record on infanticide:

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Abortionist Killed Baby Born Alive After Abortion, Hid Evidence Cremating Body

Some time ago, Live Action published a series on babies born alive after abortions. The series highlighted cases where children were born after abortions and not allowed to survive. One article discussed the accusations made by a former clinic worker against Dr. Tommy Tucker, who has since lost his license after being implicated in the death of a woman at his clinic. Many people in the pro-life movement are aware of the allegations against abortionist Douglas Karpen. Three abortion clinic workers released a video in which they testified that the abortionist has killed many babies who were born alive.

Less widely known are the allegations of infanticide brought against Dr. Shelley Sella, who was employed by the late term abortionist Dr. George Tiller. (Dr. George Tiller’s death at the hands of an anti-abortion extremist was a perversion of what the pro-life cause stands for. Taking the life of a human being for a cause is never justified, and all the major pro-life organizations have spoken out against the killing.)

Women came from all over the country to kill their third trimester babies at Dr. Tiller’s clinic. Some of the children were handicapped, many with down syndrome or other manageable conditions. Others were perfectly healthy. Former clinic worker Luhra Tivis, who left her job at the clinic and became pro-life, testified that the majority of babies killed by Dr. Tiller and his cohorts were healthy.

Dr. Tiller and the other abortionists who worked at Women’s Healthcare Services were under no illusions. They knew that that babies were dying in their clinic. The clinic website said the following to parents who came to abort their handicapped children:

“If you wish to see the baby, we call this an identification and separation encounter. After we deliver and after the twilight anesthesia has worn off so that you will remember the process we will bring the baby to you either at the bedside, or we will go to our quiet room and we will bring the baby to you there. During this encounter we will describe to you what’s right with your baby we will identify what’s wrong with your baby you may hold the baby, we will take pictures of you and the family holding the baby if you wish and that is not an uncommon request.… The identification and separation encounter may involve two or three hours of bonding with the baby. The idea the identification that this is your baby and you have had a delivery. We understand beyond a shadow of a doubt that the difficult part of this process is not premature delivery of a stillborn…. The difficult part of the process is saying goodbye to the relationship you have with your baby, saying goodbye to the hopes and dreams you had… You have placed this baby in your life someplace and you simply have to start the process of saying goodbye.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Michelle Obama Compares Her Upbringing to that of an African Child’s

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Photo Credit: Getty

Photo Credit: Getty

In Dakar, Senegal, speaking at the Martin Luther King Middle School, First Lady Michelle Obama likened her upbringing to the upbringing of the Senegalese children at the school. Obama told the children of her “experience,” and how it was similar to theirs.

“I know that what you all are doing here isn’t always easy,” the first lady said to applause. “I know that some of you may be the first in your families to attend a school like Martin Luther King, so there might be people at home who don’t quite understand what you’re going through as you work to succeed here. And I know that for some of you, just sitting in these classrooms each day requires great sacrifices by your families.”

“I know a little bit about this from my own experience. See, like many of you, I didn’t grow up in a family with a lot of money. My parents had to work hard every day to support us, so they never had the chance to get the kind of education they wanted for themselves. But they had big dreams for me. And more than anything in the world, they wanted me to graduate from secondary school and attend a university. So they, too, made tremendous sacrifices to make that dream come true,” the first lady continued.

My father worked at the city water plant nearly every day of his life — a job made more difficult because of his illness called Multiple Sclerosis, which damaged his muscles and made it harder for him to walk as he got older. But no matter how tired he was, no matter how much pain he was in, every morning, my father would pull himself out of bed would go to work to support our family. (Applause.)

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Breast-Fed Babies Achieve Higher Social Status

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Studies suggest that breast-feeding can be good for a baby’s health, and now there’s fresh evidence that it may help children to climb the social ladder as well.

What does breast-feeding have to do with social status? According to the researchers from University College London, who reported their findings in the journal BMJ, breast-feeding can impact cognitive development, and that accounted for just over a third of nursing’s effect on improvements in social status. What’s more, the practice also seemed to lower the chances of downward mobility.

To assess the impact of breast-feeding on later social status, the researchers compared two cohorts of people, including more than 17,400 individuals born in 1958, and over 16,700 people born in 1970. When their kids were about 5 years old, mothers in both groups were asked if they had breast-fed their children. The researchers used the children’s fathers’ income and job to determine the youngsters’ initial social status when they were about 10 to 11 years old and compared this with their social status decades later, when they reached age 33 or 34. And to get some idea of the way in which breast-feeding might be influencing social status, the scientists also evaluated the children’s cognitive skills and stress responses when they were about 10 or 11.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Admin. Tells Egyptian Christians to not Protest Muslim Brotherhood

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Photo Credit: FrontPagemag

Photo Credit: FrontPagemag

As Egyptians of all factions prepare to demonstrate in mass against the Muslim Brotherhood and President Morsi’s rule on June 30, the latter has been trying to reduce their numbers, which some predict will be in the millions and eclipse the Tahrir protests that earlier ousted Mubarak. Among other influential Egyptians, Morsi recently called on Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II to urge his flock, Egypt’s millions of Christians, not to join the June 30 protests.

While that may be expected, more troubling is that the U.S. ambassador to Egypt is also trying to prevent Egyptians from protesting—including the Copts. The June 18th edition of Sadi al-Balad reports that lawyer Ramses Naggar, the Coptic Church’s legal counsel, said that during Patterson’s June 17 meeting with Pope Tawadros, she “asked him to urge the Copts not to participate” in the demonstrations against Morsi and the Brotherhood.

The Pope politely informed her that his spiritual authority over the Copts does not extend to political matters.

Regardless, many Egyptian activists are condemning Patterson for flagrantly behaving like the Muslim Brotherhood’s stooge. Leading opposition activist Shady el-Ghazali Harb said Patterson showed “blatant bias” in favor of Morsi and the Brotherhood, adding that her remarks had earned the U.S. administration “the enmity of the Egyptian people.” Coptic activists like George Ishaq openly told Patterson to “shut up and mind your own business.” And Christian business tycoon Naguib Sawiris—no stranger to Islamist hostility—posted a message on his Twitter account addressed to the ambassador saying “Bless us with your silence.”

Indeed, the U.S. ambassador’s position as the Brotherhood’s lackey is disturbing—and revealing—on several levels. First, all throughout the Middle East, the U.S. has been supporting anyone and everyone opposing their leaders—in Libya against Gaddafi, in Egypt itself against 30-year U.S. ally Mubarak, and now in Syria against Assad. In all these cases, the U.S. has presented its support in the name of the human rights and freedoms of the people against dictatorial leaders.

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DOJ Defunds Youth Programs that Reference God

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A Louisiana lawman is livid over the federal government’s decision to cut off funds for two programs to help troubled young people, all, he says, because he refused to sign a pledge to bar prayer or any mention of God at their meetings.

Julian Whittington, the sheriff of Bossier Parish, La., told Fox News the Department of Justice Office of Civil Rights defunded $30,000 for their Young Marines chapter as well as a youth diversion program. Federal officials objected to a voluntary student-led prayer in the department’s youth diversion program and an oath recited by the Young Marines that mentions God, according to Whittington, who blasted what he considers the government’s “aggression and infringement of our religious freedoms.”

“We were informed that these are unacceptable, inherently religious activities and the Department of Justice would not be able to fund the programs if it continued,” Whittington told Fox News. “They wanted a letter from me stating that I would no longer have voluntary prayer and I would also have to remove ‘God’ from the Young Marine’s oath.”

The DOJ and the Office of Civil Rights are aware of the controversy but did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Fox News obtained an email written by an attorney for the DOJ’s Office of Civil Rights raised questions about references to God and church along with the phrase “love of God.” The attorney also raised questions about one of the five elements of the Young Marines Creed – “Keep myself clean in mind by attending the church of my faith.”

Read more from this story HERE.