Texas Abortion Bill Falls After Dispute Over Late-Night Vote

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Texas’ lieutenant governor acknowledged early Wednesday that Republicans missed their deadline to pass new abortion restrictions after protesters screamed down lawmakers as the final 15 minutes passed before the special legislative session’s deadline.

Senators from both parties emerged from a private meeting with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and said they were about to officially acknowledge that fact.

Initially, Republicans insisted they had started voting before the midnight deadline and passed the bill that Democrats spent much of Tuesday filibustering. But after official computer records and printouts of the voting record showed the vote took place on Wednesday, and then were changed to read Tuesday, senators convened for a private meeting.

An hour later, Dewhurst was still insisting the 19-10 vote was in time, but said, “with all the ruckus and noise going on, I couldn’t sign the bill.”

He denounced the more than 400 protesters who staged what they called “a people’s filibuster” from 11:45 p.m. to well past midnight. He denied mishandling the debate.

Read more from this story HERE.

Military Promotes Gay Pride Month; Directives Sent to Commands

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The U.S. military is embracing a celebration of homosexuals in the ranks this month by sending out a gay pride poster and a directive to commands, while planning a Pentagon symposium that will be attended by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

In the aftermath of ending the ban on open gays in the military, the Pentagon last June recognized Gay Pride Month for the first time in a subdued recognition of uniformed and civilian gays. As defense secretary at the time, Leon E. Panetta gave a public statement, and a Pentagon event featured an active-duty gay Marine, a gay Air Force civilian lawyer and a lesbian who had served in the Army.

Pride month is low-key again this year. The Pentagon has handed off planning for the event to DOD Pride, an organization of gay military and civilian employees. Directives that have been issued do not say commands must hold similar celebrations.

“Secretary Hagel looks forward to participating in this year’s DOD Pride event at the Pentagon on Tuesday, June 25 to celebrate LGBT Pride Month,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said.

“Secretary Hagel is also looking forward to welcoming [senior White House adviser] Valerie Jarrett to the Pentagon, who will represent President Obama in delivering the keynote address at the event,” Mr. Little said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Pediatricians Have a New Mission: Fight ‘Homophobia’

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

In its first sexual-orientation policy update in nearly a decade, the nation’s largest pediatricians group said its members should do more to fight “heterosexism” and “homophobia,” as well as step up their care of teens with same-sex attractions.

“Sexual-minority youth should not be considered abnormal,” the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) said in its new materials on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youths, released Monday.

The policy statement and technical report — which updates a 2004 policy — is nonbinding but recommends that pediatricians create offices that are “teen-friendly and welcoming to all adolescents, regardless of sexual orientation and behavior.”

Doctors can signal their openness to LGBTQ youths by putting out brochures with pictures of “both same- and opposite-gender couples” or posting a “rainbow” decal on an office door or bulletin board. The report also suggests that medical questionnaires be changed to be gender-neutral, and that staff be trained to not ask a boy about his girlfriend, but to ask him to “tell me about your partner” instead.

AAP’s new guidelines are not filled with “gloom and doom” about LGBTQ youths, said Dr. David A. Levine, lead author and member of the AAP’s Committee on Adolescence.

Read more from this story HERE.

U2’s Bono’s on Jesus Christ

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Lisa Cadman

Photo Credit: Lisa Cadman

Growing up in Ireland with a Protestant mother and a Catholic father, Bono imitated C.S. Lewis in “Mere Christianity,” where Lewis argued that Jesus was a lunatic, liar or Lord.

“When people say ‘Good teacher,’ ‘Prophet,’ ‘Really nice guy,’ … this is not how Jesus thought of himself,” Bono said. “So, you’re left with a challenge in that, which is either Jesus was who he said he was or a complete and utter nut case.”

“And I believe that Jesus was, you know, the Son of God,” Bono said, according to a transcript provided to Religion News Service. “I understand that for some people and we need to … if I could be so bold, need to be really, really respectful to people who find that ridiculous.”

In the interview that will be broadcast on Tuesday (June 25), Bono made comparisons between biblical characters and music.

“First of all, David’s a musician so I’m gonna like him,” Bono said. “What’s so powerful about the Psalms are, as well as they’re being gospel and songs of praise, they are also the Blues. It’s very important for Christians to be honest with God, which often, you know, God is much more interested in who you are than who you want to be.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Texas House Approves Severe Abortion Restrictions in Early-Morning Vote

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Republicans used their majority to cut short debate and give preliminary approval early Monday to some of the toughest abortion restrictions in the country as time was running out on the Texas Legislature’s special session.

Many members of the conservative majority had flyers on their desks that read “Psalm 139:13-14,” which reads in part, “You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made”…

Supporters say the bill will raise the standard of women’s health care, but opponents point out the bill would shut down 37 out of 42 abortion clinics in the state.
“If this passes, abortion would be virtually banned in the state of Texas, and many women could be forced to resort to dangerous and unsafe measures,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund and daughter of the late former Texas governor Ann Richards.

Democrats used parliamentary tactics to draw out the debate for 15 hours, pointing out technical mistakes in the process or trying to tack on amendments to fundamentally change the bill. Republicans remained largely silent, until finally passing a motion to stop accepting amendments and force a vote, a highly unusual and partisan move…

Republicans…needed to end debate and move the process forward if they hope to make a midnight Tuesday deadline, when the session ends. House members must still give final approval to the bill, and then it must sit for 24 hours before the Senate can consider it.

Read more from this story HERE.

Colorado Civil Rights Division Rules that Six Year Old Boy Who Identifies as a Girl May Share Girl’s Restroom in Public School

/10 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: hunnnterrr

Photo Credit: hunnnterrr

The Colorado Civil Rights Division has ruled an elementary school discriminated against a transgender 6-year-old child by barring her from using the girls’ bathroom.

KDVR reports the New York-based Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund announced the ruling Sunday, and said they would hold a news conference Monday to explain the decision in the case of Coy Mathis, who was born a boy but identifies as a girl.

The fund filed the complaint on behalf of the child’s parents Kathryn and Jeremy Mathis, claiming that Coy has been discriminated against at Eagleside Elementary School, which is south of Colorado Springs.

Kathryn Mathis said in a statement that the family is “thrilled that Coy can return to school and put this behind her.”

Coy, who had attended the school since kindergarten, had been allowed to use the girls’ restroom until December 2012, Reuters reports. The school’s principal informed the child’s parents that after the holiday break Coy must either use the boys’ restroom or a gender-neutral one.

Read more from this story HERE.

Going Galt: Why Men are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood and the American Dream

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

[According to Dr. Helen Smith, the author of the new book, Men on Strike,] men are checking out of society . . . because we are making rational decisions about changing incentives.

Let’s take marriage, for example, where higher-educated women seem to be having a harder and harder time finding men worthy (or willing) to tie the knot. “[T]he incentives to marry have changed for men,” explains Smith, “and they are no longer willing to risk so much more than in previous years to gain potentially less.”

In the old days, Smith explains, a man might expect to be king of the castle. Now days, she says, he might be relegated to a “man cave” in the basement, and — if lucky — granted missionary position sex once a week. Or he becomes, as she told me, “some shlub, carrying around a flowered diaper bag.”

But if the benefits of marriage have declined for men, the downsides haven’t. Men who marry can expect to pay disproportionately for a divorce, even if the wife cheats. And as Smith points out, sometimes men are on the hook for child support, even after DNA tests prove they aren’t the father.

“[T]he new world order is a place where men are discriminated against, forced into a hostile environment in school and later in college, and held in contempt by society,” she writes. ”Maybe there is no incentive to grow up anymore,” she continues.

Read more from this story HERE.

Reports of Homosexual Assaults in America’s Schools Skyrocketing

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: ANDREW SAVULICH/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Photo Credit: ANDREW SAVULICH/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Anal hazing is apparently a thing in American high schools now

By Eric Owens. In the last year, there have been more than a dozen hazing incidents around the country involving high school boys who have sodomized other boys with foreign objects, reports Bloomberg. Over 40 boys have been reported victims. Most have been younger students.

There’s a dearth of data concerning the size and scope of the national boy-on-boy anal hazing problem. Astonishingly, though, a study published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence has claimed that nearly 10 percent of high school males report suffering some form of sexual assault including, in some cases, forced oral sex or rape.

Social media plays a big role in the spread of hazing in high schools, asserts Susan Lipkins, a New York psychologist who has studied the phenomenon. High schoolers learn new and more brutal ways to haze thanks to virtual communities.

“Each time a hazing occurs, the perpetrators add their own mark to it by increasing the pain or humiliation,” Lipkins told Bloomberg.

A sampling of recent incidents certainly demonstrates creative cruelty. Read more from this story HERE.

________________________________________________________________

Third-grade boy forced to perform oral sex on three male classmates at Harlem school: suit

By Kerry Burke and Corinne Lestch. A third-grade boy was dragged into a bathroom at his Harlem elementary school and forced to perform oral sex on three male classmates, including one who was involved in an attack on a female student two years earlier, according to a bombshell lawsuit.

The 8-year-old boy had just finished lunch at Public School 194 and was in a hallway waiting for class to start when a fifth-grader, the ringleader, and two third-graders pushed him screaming and pleading for help into a bathroom stall, the lawsuit says.

He said one boy held his hands behind his back during the March 2012 attack while another forced him to his knees.

The three culprits then took turns pulling their pants down and demanded that the victim perform oral sex, according to court papers.

“When I was going on line three kids drag me to the bathroom and they pull down there (sic) pants,” the lawsuit says he wrote in a statement to the school. “I told them no but they didn’t listen to me.” Read more from this story HERE.

School Apologizes for Threatening Constitution-Citing Valedictorian’s Naval Academy Appointment

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Mr. T in DC

Photo Credit: Mr. T in DC

A Texas school district has apologized to a high school valedictorian whose appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy was threatened after he delivered a speech that referenced God and the U.S. Constitution — in defiance of district policies.

Remington Reimer, a senior at Joshua High School, made national headlines on June 6 when officials cut off his microphone in mid-speech after he strayed from pre-approved remarks and began talking about his relationship with Jesus Christ…

The following day the principal, Mick Cochran, met with Reimer’s father and …”threatened to send a letter to the United States Naval Academy advising them that Remington has poor character or words to that effect,” Sasser told Fox News. “The principal said he wanted to try to ruin him for what he did – for talking about the Constitution and his faith.”

Fran Merek, the superintendent of the Joshua Independent School District, issued a carefully worded statement apologizing for the incident.

“On behalf of the school district, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to Mr. Todd Reimer and Remington Reimer for any interpretation of a threat by Mr. Cochran in expressing his displeasure at a meeting on Friday morning between Mr. Todd Reimer and Mr. Cochran following Remington Reimer’s valedictory address,” Marek wrote in a statement. “The District has never intended to nor will take punitive action against Remington Reimer for deviating from the prior-reviewed speech. The District endorses Remington Reimer’s appointment to the Naval Academy and wishes him success for all future endeavors in his naval career. District officials will ensure that district policy is followed at future graduation ceremonies.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Chelsea Clinton Stuck on Stupid: Laments Great-Grandmother’s Lack of Access to Planned Parenthood

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: LifeNews

Photo Credit: LifeNews

From the stage at the recent Women Deliver conference, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s daughter Chelsea revealed that her much-admired maternal grandmother was the child of unwed teenage parents who “did not have access to services that are so crucial that Planned Parenthood helps provide.”

Chelsea’s grandmother was born of an unintended pregnancy. And new research shows that her family is not alone in treasuring a person who – if Planned Parenthood had been successful – would not have been born.

“Every child a wanted child” is the rallying cry of family planning organizations that promote abortion as a way to achieve that goal. The New York Times Magazine recently described a study of women who were turned away from abortion clinics because their pregnancies were too far along. Researchers found that in the vast majority of cases – 95% – the mothers bonded with their babies. A significant percentage later denied having ever sought an abortion, despite the fact they were included in the study on that basis.

In a different long-term study, Dr. Rebecca Callahan observed a similar change in attitude among mothers with unwanted pregnancies in rural Bangladesh. Although 42% of the women initially labeled their pregnancies as unwanted, over half of them changed their views retrospectively. Over 60% of women who originally stated their intention to have no more children classified subsequent births as wanted or, at worst, mistimed. Callahan presented her findings at the 2013 meeting of the Population Association of America.

Instead of focusing on the positive finding that women’s initial aversion or ambivalence about pregnancy does not mean the child will be unwanted, Callahan expressed concern that “the rationalization of births as wanted distorts the true level of unintended pregnancy.”

Read more from this story HERE.