No More Abstinence Funding

House Follows Obama's Plan to Replace Abstinence Grant with Contraceptive Funding

by Kathleen Gilbert, www.LifeSiteNews.com

The U.S. House of Representatives Friday voted to eliminate $99 million in grant funds that would have bolstered abstinence education in the U.S. The House's decision to cut the funds and to approve a new grant towards contraceptive-promoting sex education had been sought by President Obama in his budget recommendations earlier this year.

House lawmakers voted 264-153 to approve the annual health and education spending bill that cut funding for Community-Based Abstinence Education. Also according to the Obama recommendations, Congress in late June chose not to renew the smaller abstinence-education funding initiative known as Title V.

Instead, the Departments of Health and Human Services, Education and Labor money will be directed to a new $114 million initiative to promote contraceptives and explicit sex education.

Read the full article here.

Obamacare and Abortion

from New York Times:

An Obama administration official refused Sunday to rule out the possibility that federal tax money might be used to pay for abortions under proposed health care legislation. Peter R. Orszag, the White House budget director, asked whether he was prepared to say that “no taxpayer money will go to pay for abortions,” answered: “I am not prepared to say explicitly that right now. It’s obviously a controversial issue, and it’s one of the questions that is playing out in this debate.”

Read the full article here.

Judge Sides with Christian Student

by Peter J. Smith, www.LifeSiteNews.com

A US District Judge has blocked the Los Angeles Community College District from enforcing its sexual harassment policy, which the judge ruled had promoted a hostile environment for the free speech rights of a Christian student.

U.S. District Judge George H. King agreed with Jonathan Lopez, a student attending Los Angeles City College (LACC), that the District's policy as written had created the environment that emboldened his speech professor to call Lopez a "fascist ba***rd" for explaining his Christian beliefs and how they related to his views against same-sex "marriage."

King stated in a ruling handed down last week that key sections of the policy were "unconstitutionally overbroad" and then issued the preliminary injunction on the policy, saying that the way the policy was constructed meant it "cannot be rendered constitutional by excising words or severing sections."

Represented by lawyers with the Alliance Defense Fund, Lopez had filed a lawsuit against the District and LACC back in February after he had been censored and threatened with expulsion by Professor John Matteson, who had assigned the members of his public-speaking class in mid-November to give an informational speech on any topic.

Lopez decided to give an informational speech to students on his own Christian beliefs, including Christian views on marriage. Lopez had read aloud the definition of marriage from the dictionary and had also quoted two verses from the Bible, when Matteson interjected in the middle of the speech and called Lopez a "fascist ba***rd" before his classmates.

Matteson refused to let Lopez finish, and instead invited other students to leave if they felt offended. But with no student taking up Matteson's invitation to depart, Matteson ordered the class dismissed. Instead of giving the assignment a grade, Matteson mocked Lopez on his written evaluation, taunting, "Ask God what your grade is."

Read the full story here.

Original post here and the story from the L.A. Times here.

Updates From the Front Lines

From UFI:

"There are new disturbing developments within New England and Washington, D.C. and a new battleground has opened up in the state of New York. The current administration has made bold moves in direct defiance of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and a new development has begun in contravention of California’s recent state Supreme Court victory."

Read the details here.

Marriage & Divorce

Massachusetts sues feds over definition of marriage

by Denise Lavoie, AP, www.OneNewsNow.com

Massachusetts is suing the federal government over a law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

State Attorney General Martha Coakley filed the lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in Boston. It says the federal Defense of Marriage Act interferes with the right of Massachusetts to define marriage as it sees fit.

Read the full story here.

Obama Administration Calls for Universal Access to Abortion at UN Meeting

by Samantha Singson, www.LifeSiteNews.com

At the United Nations (UN) headquarters last week, the Obama administration continued its push for increased access to legal abortion around the world. The Obama team has introduced language that has thrown a high level negotiation into a roil. The US proposal calls for "universal access" to "sexual and reproductive health services including universal access to family planning."

Read the full story here.

CA school forces LGBT curriculum on students

by Pete Chagnon, www.OneNewsNow.com

The chief counsel with the Pacific Justice Institute is fighting for the rights of parents to opt out of a controversial curriculum.

San Francisco Bay-area Alameda Unified School District has approved a "lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender" (LGBT) curriculum for use with kindergarten through fifth-grade students. The curriculum is intended to deal with issues such as bullying and harassment.

Alameda Unified School District is not allowing parents to opt their children out of the curriculum.

Read the full story here.

Coming Soon to a High School Near You

by Hilary White, www.LifeSiteNews.com

"Distributing condoms in schools "in the context of combating AIDS" "trivializes" sexuality and education and must be fought by concerned parents says a high-level Vatican official. In an official statement released last week, Agostino Cardinal Vallini, the pope's Vicar General of the diocese of Rome, responded to a decision by the civil authorities of the province of Rome to allow the distribution of condoms from vending machines in high schools."

Read the full article here.

Help Protect Parental Rights

From parentalrights.org:

Dear Friend of Parental Rights,

Monday in a Harlem middle school, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told a group of 120 students that administration officials are actively discussing “when and how it might be possible to join” (that is, ratify) the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). As before, she also communicated what a disgrace it is that the U.S. would stand with only Somalia against such a widely-accepted treaty.

This is the first direct public statement by the Obama administration that it will seek ratification of the UN CRC.

In my 30 years of political involvement, I have learned to recognize this as what is called a “trial balloon.” Like in World War I trench warfare, our opponents have “sent up a balloon” to see if it will draw fire. If things remain quiet, they will proceed with their plans to push for ratification of the CRC in the U.S. Senate.

To discourage them from doing so, we need to make sure that our voices are heard with unmistakable clarity. We must let the Obama administration know that we oppose this anti-family, anti-American treaty.

Here’s what we need you all to do:

1. Call the White House comments line at 202-456-1111. Tell them you heard the administration wants to ratify the CRC, and you strongly oppose this giving away of U.S. sovereignty to the UN. Also keep in mind that this treaty gives the government jurisdiction to override any decision made by any parent if the government thinks that a better decision can be made—even if there is no proof of any harm.

2. Call Ambassador Susan Rice’s office at the United Nations. Tell her that you want her to represent the United States to the world rather than trying to get the United States to go along with international law initiated by the UN. The US Mission at the United Nations can be reached at 212-415-4000 (press 6 to leave your message). This number has been disconnected through our efforts. You can also contact the Public Diplomacy Office at 212-415-4050.

3. Contact your Senators and urge them to oppose ratification of this treaty. (Find your Senators’ contact information by typing your zip code into the box here.) Ask them also to defeat it once and for all by cosponsoring SJRes 16 – the Parental Rights Amendment.

It is very important that we speak up right now. Please call before you close this email!

Sincerely,

Michael Farris

Original letter posted here.