Cher’s Mom Almost Aborted Her

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Photo Credit: Michael Lavine[Cher’s Mom, Georgia] Holt, born in rural Arkansas to a 13-year-old mother, first sang in Oklahoma saloons for change (“My pockets were so full of money, they almost pulled my pants off,” she says in the special).

Strikingly beautiful, Holt sought fame in Hollywood as a singer and actress and barreled through six marriages. After wedding truck driver John Sarkisian, she seriously considered abortion. They divorced soon after Cher’s birth. Struggling financially, Holt briefly placed Cher in a Catholic orphanage, where nuns urged her to give up the baby for adoption.

“I heard the abortion story when I was a teenager,” Cher says. “The orphanage story has been a touchy one for my mom her whole life, and she didn’t want to talk about it. I said, ‘Mom, why didn’t you just march in and take me?’ She said, ‘I didn’t have the power. I didn’t have any money or a job, and the church was so strong. I’d go see you every day and you’d be crying. You don’t know what it was like.’ It was harder for women then.”

Cher initially flinched at the rattle of family skeletons in Dear Mom.

“I thought, this could be tricky,” she says. “But what’s anyone going to do to me now? So I come from a poor white trash background. It doesn’t make any difference.”

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Education Dept. Eliminates ‘Father,’ ‘Mother’ From Student Aid Forms

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Photo Credit: APThe U.S. Department of Education announced Thursday that beginning with the 2014-2015 federal student aid form, the Department will — for the first time — collect income “from a dependent student’s legal parents regardless of the parents’ marital status or gender, if those parents live together.”

The new FAFSA form will use terms like “Parent 1” and “Parent 2” instead of gender-specific terms like “mother” and “father.”

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Colorado Dems Adopt ‘Kermit Gosnell Enabler Act’

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Photo Credit: WNDOn the heels of Kermit Gosnell’s extended abortion murder trial in Philadelphia, in which he was accused of killing infants who had been born alive by using a scissors to cut their spinal cords, majority Democrats in Colorado have adopted a strategy to prevent any such prosecution in Colorado

The Democrats are led by Senate President John Morse, majority caucus chair Jeanne Nicholson and House Speaker Mark Ferrandino. One opponent has come up with a striking name for House Bill 1154, which repeals certain state criminal statutes regarding the abortion procedure.

“Under guise of protecting pregnant women, this bill repeals the Colorado criminal abortion statutes, which in some respects, makes this the Kermit Gosnell Enabler Act,” Colorado Rep. Lori Saine, R-Dacono, told WND.

“In addition, HB 1154 repeals part of the statute that protects freedom of conscience – severing the rights of hospitals, doctors and medical staff to refuse [to participate] in abortions.”

Gosnell’s case attracted attention from even the generally pro-abortion establishment media with its horrific testimony of babies born alive, left on shelves breathing for 20 minutes then summarily killed with the spinal column snip.

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School Bans Religious Graduation Songs After Complaint They Were “Bullying”

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Photo Credit: schwglrA Georgia school district will no longer allow prayers or songs with religious references at graduation ceremonies after a Wisconsin group threatened to file a lawsuit and suggested that forcing non-Christian students to listen to religious music was a form of bullying.

“If the valedictorians want to thank their parents, grandparents and god, that’s freedom of speech,” Houston County Superintendent Robin Hines told the Macon Telegraph. “We can’t stop that. As long as it’s not lewd, they can say whatever they want.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation sent the school district a letter complaining that last year’s graduation ceremony included prayers and a musical performance of a song written by a Christian artist.

“It is wholly inappropriate for Christian worship songs to be performed in a public school setting or at public school events,” wrote FFRF attorney Andrew Seidel. “There are a multitude of secular songs that would be appropriate.”

The FFRF took offense to “Find Your Wings,” a song written by well-known Christian artist Mark Harris, arguing that it was a blatantly religious song that “belongs in a church, not a public school event.”

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Congressman: ‘I Was Almost Aborted’

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Photo Credit: Greg GroeschOn a cold December night in 1975, a 17-year-old girl sobbed on the bedroom floor of a neighbor’s house. Her own home had just burned to the ground, destroying everything she had. But that wasn’t the only weight she carried that night. She had just discovered that she was a few weeks pregnant with her first child. In the dark, alone and terrified, she decided to find a way to Kalamazoo, Mich., 40 miles away, to “take care of her situation.”

That young girl was my mother, and if she had gone to Kalamazoo that night, you wouldn’t be reading this today. I would have been aborted.

Recently, after speaking on the House floor about the horrors of Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s abortion clinic in Philadelphia, I began wondering if my mother had ever thought about ending her unplanned pregnancy. My parents never gave any indication that it was ever a consideration, but was it?

I gave her a call. When she answered, I talked to her about my speech on the House floor and then asked gently, “Mom, did you ever think about .” There was a tense pause, and then, through tears she said, “Marlin, I’m so sorry!” As we cried together, I was no longer a congressman, but a son understanding for the first time the heartache and struggles my mom had gone through before I was born. As we talked about her fear of driving 40 miles alone, I had to think, “What if a ‘Gosnell‘ clinic was only four miles away instead of 40?”

She asked if I could forgive her. I answered, “Yes, with all my heart.” I said that I couldn’t imagine how scared she must have been, and how thankful I was for her and Dad’s strength to do the right thing and protect my life. It could have ended so differently. At home with my wife and two children that night, my heart ached at the thought that all of this might never have been.

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Texas Judge Rules for Cheerleaders in Bible Banner Suit

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Photo Credit: APA judge ruled Wednesday that cheerleaders at a Southeast Texas high school can display banners emblazoned with Bible verses at football games.

But the ruling might not have settled the issue of whether the banners are protected free speech, according to an attorney for the cheerleaders’ school district.

State District Judge Steven Thomas determined the Kountze High School cheerleaders’ banners are constitutionally permissible. In the ruling, Thomas determined that no law “prohibits cheerleaders from using religious-themed banners at school sporting events.”

The Kountze school district had initially said the banners could not be displayed after receiving a complaint about them in September from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The foundation argued the banners violated the so-called First Amendment Establishment Clause that bars government — or publicly funded school districts in this case — from establishing or endorsing a religion.

Thomas ruled that the establishment clause does not prohibit the use of such religious-themed banners at school sporting events.

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Delaware: 11th State to Legalize Gay Marriage

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Photo Credit: joseanavasBy a slim margin, a divided Delaware state Senate voted Tuesday to make their state the 11th in the nation to allow same-sex marriage.

The Senate’s 12-9 vote sends the bill to Democratic Gov. Jack Markell, who supports the measure and planned to sign it later in the day. It would go into effect July 1. “I think this is the right thing for Delaware,” the governor said after the vote, while posing for pictures with supporters outside his legislative office. “It took an incredible team effort.”

Gay rights activists and their supporters in the chamber erupted in cheers and applause following the Senate vote. Delaware’s same-sex marriage bill was introduced in the Democrat-controlled legislature last month, barely a year after the state began recognizing same-sex civil unions. The bill won passage two weeks ago in the state House on a 23-18 vote.

While it doesn’t give same-sex couples any more rights or benefits under Delaware law than those they have in civil unions, supporters argued same-sex couples deserve the dignity and respect of married couples. They also noted that if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars married gay couples from receiving federal benefits, civil unions would not provide protections or tax benefits under federal law to same-sex couples in Delaware.

Opponents, including scores of conservative religious leaders from across the state, argued same-sex marriage redefines and destroys a centuries-old institution that is a building block of society.

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The Mass Exodus of Christians From the Muslim World

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Photo Credit: APA mass exodus of Christians is currently underway. Millions of Christians are being displaced from one end of the Islamic world to the other.

We are reliving the true history of how the Islamic world, much of which prior to the Islamic conquests was almost entirely Christian, came into being.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recently said: “The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year.” In our lifetime alone “Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt.”

Ongoing reports from the Islamic world certainly support this conclusion: Iraq was the earliest indicator of the fate awaiting Christians once Islamic forces are liberated from the grip of dictators.

In 2003, Iraq’s Christian population was at least one million. Today fewer than 400,000 remain—the result of an anti-Christian campaign that began with the U.S. occupation of Iraq, when countless Christian churches were bombed and countless Christians killed, including by crucifixion and beheading.

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Obama Surrenders in ObamaCare Battle

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Photo Credit: WNDBy Bob Unruh. The Obama administration has surrendered in a key fight with a Christian publisher over the abortion pill mandate in Obamacare, asking a federal court to dismiss an appeal of a ruling that prevented application of the mandate.

The move was confirmed today by the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing Tyndale House Publishers.

Tyndale, of Carol Stream, Ill., went to court because it objects to providing abortifacients, as Obamacare requires of every health coverage plan.

Tyndale, the world’s largest privately held Christian publisher of books, Bibles and digital media, won in a lower court, which ordered that the abortifacient requirement not be applied to the publishing company.

The Obama administration appealed the ruling, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has dismissed the appeal at the request of the famously pro-abortion Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Admin Gives Up Forcing Bible Publisher to Obey HHS Mandate

By Steven Ertelt. In a huge victory for pro-life advocates taking on the controversial HHS mandate, the Obama administration is giving up its effort to force a Bible publisher to obey it.

The mandate has generated massive opposition from pro-life groups because it forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception under threat of heavy penalties.

The Obama administration opposed an order a judge gave temporarily stopping enforcement, arguing that Tyndale House Publishers isn’t religious enough for an exemption from the mandate, a component of ObamaCare that forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception under threat of heavy penalties.

Now, at the Obama administration’s request, a federal appellate court Friday dismissed the Obama administration’s appeal of an order that stopped President Barack Obama from enforcing his abortion pill mandate against a Bible publisher. The administration’s retreat marks the first total appellate victory on a preliminary injunction in any abortion pill mandate case.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing Tyndale House Publishers say the administration is apparently nervous about trying to defend its position that a Bible publisher is not religious enough for a religious exemption to the mandate. Read more from this story HERE.

Outrage after Democrats Insult Nikki Haley’s Indian Heritage Saying they’ll Send the Republican Gov. ‘Back to Wherever the Hell She Came From’

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Photo Credit: Getty Images Conservatives are outraged after a Democrat in South Carolina allegedly insulted Republican Gov. Nikki Haley’s Indian heritage at a party gathering in Columbia on Friday.

The state’s Democratic Party Chairman, Dick Harpootlian, is believed to have said the party will take on the Conservative in the next gubernatorial race and send ‘Nikki Haley back to wherever the hell she came from.’
Gov. Haley was born in the U.S. but her parents are from India.

Yahoo political reporter Chris Moody tweeted on Friday that Mr Harpootlian made the comment, in support of Democrat challenger Vince Sheheen, who has declared he will run for governor.

There were no details on the venue or context for the comment but Harpootlian is at the helm the 2013 Dem Weekend in Columbia, South Carolina.

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