Atlantic Magazine: Boy Scouts must be taken “out behind the barn” and put down with a “shotgun”

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The website of The Atlantic magazine [last week] carries an article shocking in its use of incendiary and hateful rhetoric laden with violent imagery, all aimed at the Boys Scouts of America.

The article, by James Hamblin, a medical doctor and an editor for the magazine, attacks the BSA for its policy of not admitting gays as members or leaders. Hamblin also proposes that organizations like the Boy Scouts – a private organization – be forced to bend to the demands of the Left on gay rights based on a dangerous concept that could mean the end of First Amendment freedoms like the freedom of religion, speech and assembly.

Hamblin writes:

Boy Scouts is an organization that was and is so close to being great. Remember when they had to put Old Yeller down because he got rabies? It’s not like he was a bad dog, but he got a brain infection and he tried to eat Travis. He looked the same and wasn’t about to die, but the good dog who used to save him from bears and boars just wasn’t there anymore. The policy is embarrassing and archaic, sure. … But the real value in speaking against it is that it’s dangerous. When a group as massive (2.7 million youth members) and respected as the Boy Scouts makes a move like this, it stands to exacerbate a public health hazard in such a way that we can’t just agree to disagree.

Perpetuating a culture where gay teenagers — who are already commonly battling notions of inferiority and self-hatred — can be openly and decidedly told they aren’t welcome among a preeminent organization that purports to represent and define a standard of behavioral ideals, is dangerous. It’s a decided step back in rejecting the culture of gay bullying. We will see more depression, and more suicide. We’ll see more discrimination of every sort, and more hatred.

If the BSA won’t change, then the burden falls on a just society to take them out behind the barn with whatever sort of shotgun revokes credibility.

Imagine the outrage – justifiable – if the BSA issued a statement demanding gays be taken “behind the barn with whatever sort of shotgun” would convince them to stop being gay.

Read more from this story HERE.

 

Pakistani Christian with Down’s Syndrome arrested for blasphemy

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Photo credit: Omer Wazir

Pakistani police have arrested a mentally disabled 11-year-old girl after a mob accused her of desecrating pages of the Koran. The mob demanded the Christian girl’s arrest and threatened to burn down Christian homes outside the capital Islamabad, local media say.

Officials said the girl could not properly answer police questions.

Her parents have been taken into protective custody following threats and other Christian families have fled.

It is thought that the girl has Down’s syndrome. Paul Bhatti, Pakistan’s minister for National Harmony, told the BBC that the girl was known to have a mental disorder and that it seemed “unlikely she purposefully desecrated the Koran”. “From the reports I have seen, she was found carrying a waste bag which also had pages of the Koran,” he said.

“This infuriated some local people and a large crowd gathered to demand action against her. The police were initially reluctant to arrest her, but they came under a lot of pressure from a very large crowd, who were threatening to burn down Christian homes.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Girl almost ‘kicked out of school’ because she wouldn’t take home military pics of her MP brother

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A school binder decorated with pictures of a 13-year-old’s older brother and her softball team nearly led the girl being kicked out of school, her mother claims.

Seen in his military uniform, a photograph of Brianna Gentry’s older brother Derrick who is stationed in Montana as a military policeman is one of several pictures on her school binder.

‘My brother is very important to me. I haven’t seen him in a while,’ Brianna told KTLA on her reasoning behind the photo’s placement. Around him are also pictures of her softball team.

Both pictures, however, as Brianna recently learned, do not comply with her school’s rules with the eighth grader’s membership of their AVID programme for top or advanced students.

‘The counsellor took me out of class twice telling me that the pictures aren’t AVID material,’ Brianna said. ‘But they haven’t pulled out any other students with pictures out from their class. Just me.’

Read more from this story HERE.

Cared for family by 21 years, women beaten into coma by illegal alien husband dies

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A mother-of-three has died, 21 years after her drunken husband beat her into a coma, from which she never woke up. Bernadette Jones was kept alive by her distraught family in a specially designed basement room at their Buffalo house.

They brought her comatose body home from hospital eight months after the attack by her spouse, Patrick Guiteau, vowing not to give up on her life.

That first night her children climbed into bed with her and for the next two decades relatives would face court to fight for health care coverage and for Guiteau’s deportation.

Researching the Haiti-born husband’s citizen status, Ms Jones’ family discovered that he was an illegal alien, which led to his deportation.

In her unconscious state Ms Jones fought countless infections that plagued her vulnerable body before finally succumbing to pneumonia on Sunday, aged 51.

Read more from this story HERE.

All Planned Parenthood Charges Dropped After Sebelius Document Shredding

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All of the charges against a Planned Parenthood abortion business have been dropped after one of the most politically biased cases pro-life groups say they can remember. The case was embroiled in controversy after it was found documents critical to it were destroyed during the administration of former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

Earlier this month, a Kansas judge dismissed dozens of misdemeanor charges alleging that the abortion business failed to test whether an unborn child was viable (as required by state law) before doing a late-term abortion, and that it manipulated records it submitted to the state to cover up those crimes.

Planned Parenthood filed motions seeking to dismiss the criminal case involving 58 counts related to illegal late-term abortions. It wanted all charges dropped and Judge Stephen Tatum dismissed them all.

Now, prosecutors announced today they are dismissing the rest of the charges as Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe and Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt made the joint decision today about dropping the final 32 charges.

Peter Brownlie, president of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri applauded the dismissal, telling the Kansas City Star: “The dismissal of these charges is a strong blow against those who have been using this case to further their political agenda to eliminate access to abortion care and harm Planned Parenthood. It makes clear what Planned Parenthood has said throughout this case: that Kline, Brownback and their supporters are willing to use any means they can to accomplish their ends, including misusing the law enforcement and judicial systems at great taxpayer expense.”

Read more from this story HERE.

DNC Rejects Bid to Include Pro-Life Democrats in Abortion Plank

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The Democratic National Committee has officially rejected an effort by pro-life Democrats to get the party to include them in its platform that calls for keeping unlimited abortions legal and paid for at taxpayer expense.

Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats For Life of America, says the platform panel refuses to acknowledge any difference of opinion on abortion within the Democratic Party.

“For the good of the Democratic Party, we will continue to advocate that the platform language should reflect the true diversity of views within the Democratic Party,” said Kristen Day, Executive Director of Democrats For Life of America. “Our message is simple: If you are pro-life and a Democrat, you can make a difference, thus the case for recognition. Inclusion can make a critical difference in this fall’s election.”

“If we are going to increase our members and win the majority, we must recognize the contributions of pro-life Democrats within our party and the diverse position of Democrats on the issue of abortion,” said Day.

According to Day, almost one-third of all Democrats self-identify as pro-life. In the 2008 Election, about one-quarter of Obama’s supporters self-identified as pro-life.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Myth That Paul Ryan’s Pro-Life Views Will Hurt Romney

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By Dan Riehl. The media and Democrat spin machine are looking for everything they can to attempt to tarnish Republican Vice Presidential nominee Rep Paul Ryan. One part of that campaign is the claim that Ryan’s strong pro-life views may hurt Romney’s chances in the Fall.

The Hill speculates how Ryan may hurt Romney on the issue. The article relies on a number of abortion-rights supporters, including the Obama campaign as sources.

In reality, it’s wishful thinking, myth creation and advocacy, not journalism. It is an accepted truth in Presidential politics that Vice Presidential candidates do not win, or lose national campaigns. While 2008′s Palin-bashing is one example of Democrats trying to spin and hurt the GOP ticket, one should also consider the case of Dan Quayle.

Despite his having had an accomplished and capable career in the House prior to running for Vice President, the media destroyed his image during the campaign. It did nothing to impact the outcome. If Americans seriously voted for Vice President, one can only imagine how badly Barack Obama would have lost in 2008 with Biden along for the ride to assure old hand political insiders.

In reality, it is quite possible that Ryan will help Romney with women voters. They aren’t all eighteen years old, after all.  Read more from this story HERE.

This is what Fox News says about Ryan attracting an older female demographic to Romney:

[T]he Republican vice presidential candidate is far more popular among seniors than he’s given credit for.

Same goes for women. And independents.

Surveys conducted shortly before Mitt Romney’s VP roll-out show Ryan actually polls fairly well among all three of these groups. And while Democrats claim to be ecstatic at Romney’s choice — they say he’s an easy target, and they’ve already gone to town portraying him as “extreme” — the bookish lawmaker from Janesville, Wis., could end up bringing more votes to the ticket than he turns away.

A recent Rasmussen poll showed that 31 percent of likely senior voters gave Ryan a “very favorable” rating, compared with 21 percent of all legal-age voters giving him that rating. Just 16 percent of seniors gave him a “very unfavorable” rating.

So while Democrats are chipping away at Romney in Florida as the GOP candidate visits the Sunshine State on Monday, drawing attention to Ryan’s controversial Medicare overhaul plan, polling suggests seniors might be at least amenable to the VP pick.

 

 

Catholics for Obama attempt to hide Obama’s abortion record again

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Left-leaning academics at Catholic colleges and universities are heading up the Obama’s campaign’s outreach to Catholics, according to Matthew Archbold:

Among those leading the group are several pro-abortion rights politicians along with faculty members at Catholic colleges including Sister Jamie Phelps, director of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University in New Orleans; Nicholas Cafardi, a canon and civil lawyer who teaches at the Duquesne Law School in Pittsburgh; Thomas Groome of Boston College, a theologian; and Stephen Schneck, director of the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at Catholic University of America.

Cafardi just last week took to the pages of the National Catholic Reporter to convince readers that Obama was more pro-life than Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He didn’t mention in that piece that he would soon be publicly affiliated with the Catholics for Obama group. Presumably, that affiliation will be pointed out in future writings.

Schneck is on the board of directors of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, which was co-founded by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ director of faith-based programs, Alexia Kelley, to generate Catholic support for President Obama’s policies. Last year Schneck led a faculty effort to embarrass Republican House Speaker John Boehner, when he delivered the commencement address at The Catholic University of America. In February Schneck joined with other politically liberal Catholics in an open letter “celebrating” the “accommodation” proposed by President Obama with regard to the HHS contraceptive mandate — a compromise that the U.S. bishops have explained is entirely unacceptable to Catholics, and which has still not been written into the regulations.

Also involved in the group are pro-abortion politicians — including Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro of Connecticut, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland. DeLauro is a former head of a state affiliate of NARAL, a leading national pro-abortion group.

The outreach page for the new pro-Obama group says nothing of his pro-abortion record:

In 2008, Catholics from all walks of life and backgrounds came together to help elect Barack Obama as President of the United States. Today, we join together as Catholics who are committed to our faith and our country to endorse President Obama for re-election.

As Catholics, we believe that every human being is made in the image of God. From this we discern that, individually and as a nation, we share a moral obligation to care for one another. As the President has so passionately affirmed throughout his career. President Obama understands Catholics and our values, because he understands the importance of an active faith in pursuit of the common good.

Read more from this story HERE.

Missionary couple’s quintuplets weigh 2lbs each, doing well after ‘flawless’ delivery

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A Christian missionary couple have become the proud parents of one of the country’s first set of quintuplets this year at Dallas’ UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Born at 27 weeks and five days, on August 9th, Will Edward, David Stephen, Marcie Jane, Seth Jared, and Grace Elise weigh between 1lb, 12oz and 2lbs, 11oz.

Despite their size and predicted premature arrival, mother Carrie Jones, 34, told MailOnline that the three boys and two girls are in stable condition at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit after a trauma-free delivery.

Thanks to meticulous preparation at the hospital that consisted of arming doctors with pagers, colour coding, and running drills in the weeks leading up to their birth, when it came to the delivery, Dr Patricia Santiago told the couple it had gone smoother than she had ever predicted.

In fact she had all five babies out of Mrs Jones’ womb by emergency C-section in under four minutes.

Read more from this story HERE.

Poll shows atheism on the rise in the US, religion declining

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The poll, called “The Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism,” found that the number of Americans who say they are “religious” dropped from 73 percent in 2005 (the last time the poll was conducted) to 60 percent.

At the same time, the number of Americans who say they are atheists rose, from 1 percent to 5 percent.

The poll was conducted by WIN-Gallup International and is based on interviews with 50,000 people from 57 countries and five continents. Participants were asked, “Irrespective of whether you attend a place of worship or not, would you say you are a religious person, not a religious person, or a convinced atheist?”

The seven years between the polls is notable because 2005 saw the publication of “The End of Faith” by Sam Harris, the first in a wave of best-selling books on atheism by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and other so-called “New Atheists.”

“The obvious implication is that this is a manifestation of the New Atheism movement,” said Ryan Cragun, a University of Tampa sociologist of religion who studies American and global atheism.

Read more from this story HERE.