Marriage & Family Headlines

Mercury News (AP): "The daylong religious event titled, 'The Call to Conscience,' was led by Lou Engle as well as other pastors and speakers to protest gay marriage, pornography and abortion. Many of those attending slapped red 'Life' stickers over their shirts and set up blankets and folding chairs facing a large stage with banners that read: 'Only One Hope God.'"

New York Post (video): "Although 'Big Love' has already humanized many of plural marriages most confusing practices, there is a lot left to demystify. Thankfully a pair of new projects aim to do just that. On September 13, Lifetime will debut 'The 19th Wife' -- a TV movie about a murder inside the fundamentalist sect First Church of Latter Day Saints -- starring Patricia Wettig, Matt Czuchry, Chyler Leigh and some serious AquaNet. 13 days later we are gifted with TLC's new docu-series 'Sister Wives,' which looks to be a real life 'Big Love,' following one family -- a single father, three mothers -- as they live, learn and prepare to welcome a fourth wife into the mix."

Marcia Segelstein writing at OneNewsNow: "It feels as though it's getting more and more difficult to escape the subject of sex. It's everywhere! . . . How did we get here? And how do we turn around?"

Mercury News: "Oakland Pride, a daylong music, food and culture event drew at least 50,000 people, organizers said, to celebrate the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. The last such Oakland event was held in 2004."

Chicago Tribune: "Berwynites — from the mayor to Paul to everyday citizens — are trying to alter that view, using an aggressive marketing campaign in Chicago neighborhoods such as Lakeview and Andersonville to convince people that their suburb is both affordable and amenable to people in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community . . . The broader, $70,000-a-year campaign — titled 'Why Berwyn?' — targets people of all walks of life and features billboards and radio advertisements across the Chicago area. But part of it is directed specifically at the LGBT community."

OneNewsNow: "Maggie Gallagher, chairman of the board for the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), explains that while her organization respects the former RNC chairman's right to his personal life, his active support for homosexual marriage is a different matter as it is now very public . . . She says Mehlman is part of a larger group of elitist Republicans who want to support efforts to make homosexual 'marriage' legal throughout the land."

San Diego Union-Tribune: "The county is attempting to get into the case, utilizing the pro bono services of Advocates for Faith and Freedom, a conservative legal group based in Murietta that advocates for religious causes. But the county faces an uphill battle, legal experts say. It has to show that it has a particular legal interest in the case, and that allowing the decision to stand would cause the county some kind of recognizable harm. That may be hard. But there are questions about whether the sponsors of the proposition, who defended the measure in court, have the legal basis to pursue an appeal."

Drew Zahn writing at WorldNetDaily: "[S]tatistics show the number of homeschooled students in the U.S. has nearly doubled over the past 10 years, making learning at home the fastest growing form of education in country. 'Homeschooling grew from 1.7 percent of the school age population in 1999 to 2.9 percent in 2007, a 74 percent relative increase over 8 years,' states Dr. Brian D. Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute."

St. Petersburg Times: "St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster is taking a responsible and appropriate step by extending same-sex health benefits to the city's rank-and-file police officers in a union contract ratified Friday."

LifeSiteNews: "As the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) prepares to receive a report on the controversial funding practices of their anti-poverty arm, one diocese has proposed a plan to cut off the group's shadier associations. The diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph also suggested in a Monday post on its Catholic Key blog that its plan to reform the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), which it has implemented on a local level, could be used as a template for revamping national CCHD operations . . ."

CitizenLink: "LifeWay Research released its latest survey on Millennials – Americans born between 1980 and 1991 –and found that 61 percent either strongly agreed or somewhat agreed with same-sex marriage."

CitizenLink: "Carroll Conley recently joined the Maine Family Policy Council as its new executive director. A native of Maine, Conley understands his audience and the issues; yet, he also brings a fresh perspective to the challenges he will face in defending the biblical concepts of family, faith and freedom."

Robert VerBruggen writing at National Review Online / Phi Beta Cons: "Democracy and capitalism are hardly 'natural,' but these institutions have done a great job of channeling humanity’s natural drives into productive and peaceful pursuits. So it is with monogamy. Men may have a natural urge to stray, and women may have a natural urge to pursue higher-status men than their current partners, but the institution of marriage does us a service by putting the brakes on these tendencies."

OneNewsNow: "There appears to be a growing acceptance of children being conceived out of wedlock among the nation's youth. In 2002, 25 percent of teenage males admitted to never having sex, the main reason for abstaining being the possibility of pregnancy. However, the latest figures show that number has dropped to 12 percent. Moreover, more male teenagers agree that it is okay for an unmarried female to have a child. That number rose from 50 percent to 64 percent in 2006-2008."

MassLive.com (The Republican): "Christine M. Judd, who lost her job as dean of students at Cathedral High School after marrying her female partner in August, said Friday she will take no legal action against the diocese . . . She clarified, however, that she keeps open the possibility of legal action against a person who shared information with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield that triggered the pressure from the diocese for her to resign."

David W. Kirkpatrick writing at EducationNews.org: "In its Beck decision in 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that workers can only be required to pay dues or fees for costs directly related to collective bargaining. The decision awarded a dues reduction of 79 percent to Harry Beck, who had been an active union member and who launched the appeal. It shouldn't surprise you that neither unions, including teacher unions, nor government agencies such as the National Labor Relations Board, make any effort to notify workers, including teachers, of this right. A telling example of pro-union bias where neutrality should be expected was demonstrated by, of all positions, President Clinton's Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, who has been quoted as saying, 'In order to maintain themselves, unions have got to have some ability to strap their members to the mast.'"

At the Volokh Conspiracy, Eugene Volokh provides excerpts from the ruling in In re Wean (Tex. Ct. App. Aug. 31).

The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer: "Fortunately, Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, falls Sept. 10 this year, when New York City schools will already be closed for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year observance. Choudhury is not sure what she'll do in mid-November for Eid al-Adha, an annual observance that concludes the period when Muslims make the hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca. Her dilemma is shared by hundreds of thousands of Muslim students around the country, except for those enrolled in the dozen or so school districts that recognize one or both of the Eids."

re . . . The grim employment picture is familiar, but what's less widely known is that they are losing not only jobs but also their connections to basic social institutions such as marriage and religion. They're becoming socially disengaged . . .

ChristianWebNews: "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is being urged by republican lawmakers to defends California's gay marriage ban, Prop. 8. There were 37 members of the Assembly's Republican caucus who wrote to him asking for an appeal on a federal ruling that struck down Prop 8. as unconstitutional."