'MARRIAGE' In The NEWS- September 2008: The REAL Proposal For Marriage magazine

33 Pastors Flout Tax Law With Political Sermons Washington Post, By Peter Slevin, September 29, 2008
-- Defying a federal law that prohibits U.S. clergy from endorsing political candidates from the pulpit, an evangelical Christian minister told his congregation Sunday that voting for Sen. Barack Obama would be evidence of "severe moral schizophrenia." The Rev. Ron Johnson Jr. told worshipers that the Democratic presidential nominee's positions on abortion and gay partnerships exist "in direct opposition to God's truth as He has revealed it in the Scriptures." Johnson showed slides contrasting the candidates' views but stopped short of endorsing Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain. Johnson and 32 other pastors across the country set out Sunday to break the rules, hoping to generate a legal battle that will prompt federal courts to throw out a 54-year-old ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship. The ministers contend they have a constitutional right to advise their worshipers how to vote. As Johnson put it during a break between sermons, "The point that the IRS says you can't do it, I'm saying you're wrong." The campaign, organized by the Alliance Defense Fund, a socially conservative legal consortium based in Arizona, has gotten the attention of the Internal Revenue Service. The agency, alerted by opponents, pledged to "monitor the situation and take action as appropriate.". . .

RELATED ARTICLE & COMMENTS: Pastors Preach Politics, Risk Tax-Exempt Status FOX News.com, September 29, 2008
Pastors in 22 states participate in "Pulpit Freedom Sunday" -- a protest of the 54-year-old Supreme Court ruling that spelled out the separation of church and state -- by telling parishioners what they expect from their presidential candidates. . . . . "Pastors have a right to speak about Biblical truths from the pulpit without fear of punishment. No one should be able to use the government to intimidate pastors into giving up their constitutional rights," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley. . .

The Rev. Ron Johnson Jr. told his flock in Crown Point, Ind., an Obama vote would show 'moral schizophrenia.' (Click for Related Video)

RELATED INFO & VIDEO: The Pulpit Initiative: Reclaiming pastors’ constitutional right to speak Truth from the pulpit Alliance Defense Fund

RELATED ARTICLE: Should Christians Argue Politics? Townhall.com, By Frank Pastore, September 30, 2008
For the past several months I’ve heard two recurring themes from critics of my show: “You’re too political and unloving, Christians shouldn’t argue about politics,” and “You’re not fair and balanced, you’re close-minded and too biased against liberals.” Perhaps many Christians believe these things because they don’t understand politics is really an exercise of theology applied—one way we love our neighbors as ourselves. Our political and social policies should grow out of our theology, not vice versa.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Gay Activists Are Headed For The Churches Townhall.com, By Harry R. Jackson, Jr., June 2, 2008
So why did they come to our church along with TD Jakes’ Potter’s House, Eddie Long’s New Birth Community Church, and Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church? And why are they going to Willow Creek Community Church and Saddleback Community Church? The answer is simple. Their goal is to force us to accept their lifestyle by slowly desensitizing us to their aberrant theology and practices. This change in tactics is an attempt to play the pity card.

RELATED ARTICLE: California's Epic Battle for Marriage and Religious LIberty Townhall.com, By Maggie Gallagher , May 21, 2008
They say we are tired of culture wars. Tell that to the California Supreme Court, which didn't sound tired at all when it lobbed a big, fat hand grenade into the marriage debate. Ideas have consequences. And the California court endorsed two big, brand-new, very bad ideas. The first idea is that the internationally recognized human right to marry includes same-sex marriage. . . . So the second big idea endorsed by the California court is even less promising: Sexual orientation should be treated just like race under the California equal protection amendment, subject to "strict scrutiny." This is another historic first for a U.S. court. This is a ruling which, if left undisturbed, means that Protestants, Catholics, Jews and Muslims who see marriage as the union of husband and wife, and view sexual activity as best confined to marriage so defined, are in the exact position as racists under California law.

RELATED ARTICLE: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Townhall.com, By Harry R. Jackson, Jr. May 19, 2008
I first learned that my church was scheduled for a visit by SoulForce last December. The PR campaign about the event was announced long before this group asked for an opportunity to have a discussion on this topic of gay inclusion in the Church. This tactic seems to be a continuation of a four-year strategy. . . . The mission statement of this organization was surprising to me. It reads as follows: “The mission of Soulforce is to cut off homophobia at its source --- religious bigotry. . . . . Since when is preaching gospel morality for all people a form of oppression?

Google urges voters: Trash traditional marriage. 'We should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights to marry the person they love'

Google urges voters: Trash traditional marriage
'We should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights to marry the person they love' WorldNetDaily, By Bob Unruh, September 29, 2008
Google, the Internet search behemoth, is urging Californians to trash traditional marriage with a new website statement that campaigns against a constitutional amendment proposal that would define – again – marriage in California as being between one man and one woman. Voters in 2000 approved, with support from 61.4 percent of the people, that definition. But it was summarily thrown out in May by the state Supreme Court in an opinion written by Judge Ron George who said, "an individual's sexual orientation … like a person's race or gender … does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights." More than a million Californians signed a petition to put the same definition into the state constitution, a move that would take it further than the state law approved in 2000 and beyond the reach of activist judges. That has been approved for the 2008 election ballot. Google, however, says the judges were right to disregard the will of California voters on the issue and create "marriage" for same-sex duos. . . . . . . "Google should focus on technology instead of warring against marriage and family values held by the majority of people worldwide," said Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of the Liberty University School of Law. . . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Marriage Opponents Expand Efforts: Polls touted by the mainstream media claim the three amendments could be in jeopardy. CitizenLink.org, By Jennifer Mesko, September 30, 2008
With the election just 34 days away, those opposed to traditional marriage are pulling out all the stops in the three states that will vote on the definition of marriage. In Florida, homosexual activists have turned a "gay pride" event into an anti-Amendment 2 rally. Come Out With Pride 2008, set for Oct. 12 in Orlando, also will feature an Obama campaign booth. And in California, Google and Levi Strauss & Co. have joined the Hollywood elite in opposing Proposal 8. Earlier this year, Pacific Gas & Electric gave $250,000 to defeat the amendment. Some polls touted by the mainstream media claim the three amendments could be in jeopardy. But a recent Field Poll revealed that past polls have underestimated support for marriage amendments by as much as 21 percentage points.

RELATED BLOG: Our position on California's No on 8 campaign GoogleBlog- The Official Google Blog, Posted by Sergey Brinn, CoFounder & President, September 26, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE: Record 259 corporations honored for 'gay' support: Foundation lauds businesses toeing line of social campaign World Net Daily, By Bob Unruh, September 13, 2008
The newly released Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Corporate Equality Index, which ranks hundreds of businesses on their "treatment" of employees who have chosen homosexual, lesbian, bisexual and transgender lifestyles, awards a record 259 corporations perfect scores, including newcomers Campbell's Soup and Target. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: America's pro-homosexual giants: 2009: 259 U.S. businesses recognized for benefiting 'lesbian, gays, bisexual, transgender' employees World Net Daily, By Bob Unruh, September 13, 2008
Below is the list, in alphabetical order, of companies scoring a perfect 100 percent on the Human Rights Campaign's 2009 Corporate Equality Index, with policies beneficial toward homosexuals: . . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Queer Inc.: How Corporate America fell in love with gays and lesbians. It's a movement. CNN Money (Fortune magazine), By Marc Gunther- Fortune senior writer, November 30 2006
. . . Last June the gay rights movement quietly achieved a milestone: For the first time, more than half of Fortune 500 companies - 263, to be precise - offered health benefits for domestic partners, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Ten years ago only 28 did. Along with health benefits for their families, many workers also get bereavement leave when their same-sex partner dies, adoption assistance or paid leave if they have children and relocation assistance for their partners if they are transferred. Put another way, gay marriage - an idea that has been banned by all but one of 27 states that have voted on it - has become a fact of life inside many big companies. . .

Screen and Real-Life Hero Paul Newman Dies at 83

Legendary Actor Paul Newman Dies PopEater, By John Christoffersen- AP, September 27, 2008
- Paul Newman, the Oscar-winning superstar who personified cool as the anti-hero of such films as "Hud," "Cool Hand Luke" and "The Color of Money" — followed by a second act as an activist, race car driver and popcorn impresario — has died. He was 83. Newman died Friday at his farmhouse near Westport following a long battle with cancer, publicist Jeff Sanderson said. He was surrounded by his family and close friends. In May, Newman dropped plans to direct a fall production of "Of Mice and Men" at Connecticut's Westport Country Playhouse, citing unspecified health issues. The following month, a friend disclosed that he was being treated for cancer and Martha Stewart, also a friend, posted photos on her Web site of Newman looking gaunt at a charity luncheon. But true to his fiercely private nature, Newman remained cagey about his condition, reacting to reports that he had lung cancer with a statement saying only that he was "doing nicely.". . . . . Newman sometimes teamed with his wife and fellow Oscar winner, Joanne Woodward, with whom he had one of Hollywood's rare long-term marriages. "I have steak at home, why go out for hamburger?" Newman told Playboy magazine when asked if he was tempted to stray. They wed in 1958, around the same time they both appeared in "The Long Hot Summer." Newman also directed her in several films, including "Rachel, Rachel" and "The Glass Menagerie.". . . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Dad Paul Newman Was a 'Rare Symbol of Selfless Humility' People magazine, September 27, 2008
His characters onscreen were monumental, but it's at home where Paul Newman’s death may leave the biggest void. "Paul Newman played many unforgettable roles. But the ones for which he was proudest never had top billing on the marquee," his daughters said in a statement following their father's death. Calling Newman a "devoted husband,” “loving father," "adoring grandfather” and a “dedicated philanthropist," the women paid tribute to the head of their family. The statement continued, "Our father was a rare symbol of selfless humility, the last to acknowledge what he was doing was special. Intensely private, he quietly succeeded beyond measure in impacting the lives of so many with his generosity." Newman leaves behind five adult children: Stephanie and Susan with his first wife, Jacqueline Witte, and Clea, Nell, and Lissy with his wife of 50 years, Joanne Woodward. . . . "Always and to the end, Dad was incredibly grateful for his good fortune," they said. "In his own words: 'It's been a privilege to be here.’

RELATED PHOTO ESSAY: Remembering Paul Newman: The man behind the famous baby blues leaves behind a legacy of film, family and philanthropy People magazine, September 27, 2008

Perhaps his proudest accomplishment: Newman's 50-year marriage to actress Joanne Woodward

Dad Paul Newman Was a 'Rare Symbol of Selfless Humility.' Pictured here with daughters Lissy and Clea in 1995

It's Not a Debate, It's Marriage Counseling (Click for Related Video)

It's Not a Debate, It's Marriage Counseling Hartford Courant, By Roger Catlin on September 26, 2008
I've heard what you said. Now can you say it to each other? Can you turn and look at him? Can you respond directly to him? How do you feel about what he just said? The strange new debate techniques introduced by Jim Lehrer at the first of the Presidential debates Friday wasn't getting much traction from the two candidates. After months of stump speeches and the traditions of past debates -- where candidates talk blankly in stentorian terms to an audience but are less used to exchanging with their opponents -- John McCain and Barack Obama were slow to warm to the style of the debate. (Like many a participant in marriage counseling, McCain also threatned not to show up, before showing up after all). (So which one is the feminine side of the pair? Well McCain twice said he wasn't Miss Congeniality. Is he Miss Something Else?). . .

RELATED VIDEO: McCain, Obama Face Off in First Debate Associated Press

RELATED ARTICLE: How to Grade the Presidential Debates: From body language to bluster, learn what to watch for when the candidates face off. WebMD Health News, By Sherry Rauh, September 25, 2008
What is special about presidential debates, says executive coach Carol Kinsey Goman, PhD, is that they offer a chance to glimpse the candidates unscripted. In scripted speeches, "body language cues as well as rhetoric are honed by coaches," says Goman, who is the author of The Nonverbal Advantage: Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work. In debates, "people are much more vulnerable and their body cues are much more available." Ideally, debates "should be all about the content of the message," Roberts says. "However, research shows about 70% of our message comes from what we do nonverbally -- posture, the use of space, how we use our voice, how we gesture and use our bodies."

RELATED BROADCAST: Leadership Crisis in America LightSource.com, By Adrian Rogers, June 22, 2008
From the Series: Whatever happened to the American Dream?

RELATED ARTICLE: How to Pick a President: Why Virtue Trumps Policy Christianity Today, By Daniel Taylor & Mark McCloskey, June 6, 2008
Taking a country to war is not automatically wrong. But grave decisions of war and peace, life and death, prosperity and privation—on the domestic and international fronts—are made by Presidents during their time in office. At election time, we the people decide who our decision makers will be. And we too often decide poorly, because we ask the wrong questions. . . . . There's value in hearing a candidate's plans and proposals, but it's of secondary or even lesser importance. Few if any of those plans and proposals will survive the political process intact. Voting for Obama's health plan or Hillary's economic scheme or McCain's immigration policy is virtual-reality voting, positing an intriguing alternate world, but having little to do with this one. . .

Lifestyles of the 2008 Presidential Candidates
How Our Potential Leaders Live in Real Life WalletPop.com, September 26, 2008
As the presidential and vice-presidential candidates tour the country trying to inform Americans about their political beliefs and policy agendas, we take a look at how these public figures lead their private lives. Click through our gallery as we round up information from the Associated Press 'personal sides' series, Web sites, like Votesmart.org, and writers, like freelance author Jonathan Berr, to take a peek at the White House hopefuls' homes, cars, families, churches, hobbies and more. First Up: Their Homes
* Barack Obama, Democrat: Obama has a large, stately brick home on Chicago's South Side with an estimated value of $1.9 million. The Chicago Tribune describes it as a "96-year-old Georgian revival home that has four fireplaces, glass-door bookcases fashioned from Honduran mahogany, and a 1,000-bottle wine cellar.". . .
* Joseph Biden, Democrat:
Long-standing allegations have dogged Delaware Senator Joe Biden regarding whether or not he unduly profited from the sale of his previous home in 1996. Today the vice-presidential candidate lives in Greenville, Del. Pictured to the left are both his main home and the smaller carriage house where his mother lives. . .
* John McCain, Republican: According to Architectural Digest, Senator John McCain and his wife, Cindy, live with their family in a southwestern-style residence in Phoenix. "My husband's favorite part about the house is probably the casual style of it," remarks Cindy McCain. "The feel is very comfortable, and he enjoys that, because he’s not a formal person." McCain has taken heat for not knowing how many houses he owns. . . .

Lifestyles of the 2008 Presidential Candidates: How Our Potential Leaders Live in Real Life

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden's Financial History Disqualifies Him For High Office Townhall.com, By Michael Medved, September 24, 2008
If a candidate for high office does a spectacularly poor job in managing his own family's finances, why on earth should we trust him in a national leadership position at a time of acute economic crisis? Senator Joe Biden's recently disclosed tax returns display a consistent pattern of poor judgment and shabby values that ought to disqualify him for the vice presidency or any other post of significant responsibility. . . . As the Washington Post sympathetically observed: “Biden has spent virtually his whole life in public service and does not have much else aside from a small array of mutual funds and cash accounts.” In June of 2008, he even listed significant liabilities including a loan up to $50,000 against his life insurance policy and line of credit indebtedness of more than $100,000 to the Wilmington Savings Fund Society. . . . . What, exactly, did the Senator do with the literally millions of dollars he earned in recent years? . . .

Comedian and author Finesse Mitchell explains why he got married to Jessica (Click for Related Video)

Why ‘I did’: One man’s case for marriage
Author and newlywed Finesse Mitchell reflects on his life as a spouse MSNBC.com, September 25, 2008
Ninety-five percent of Americans are married by age 55 — yet half of all marriages end in divorce. A divorce rate that high begs the question: Why get married at all? Well, experts say that one of the most fundamental drives that humans have is the drive to be attached to somebody. Other benefits include family stability, having an emotional outlet and partnership. Take it from Finesse Mitchell — a comedian and newly married man who is also the author of Your Girlfriends Only Know So Much: A Brother's Take on Dating & Mating for Sistas and a relationships columnist for Essence magazine. Here, Mitchell gives a personal peek into his recent transition from single to married life.

Q: You got married just two weeks ago. So far, what advantages have you noticed as a married man? Disadvantages?

A: I do feel that people have been extremely nice to me since the wedding. Everyone has been calling me to check on me to make sure I was either still alive or to reinforce that I did a great thing with my life. .

RELATED VIDEO: Why I got Married Lessons on Love & Marriage MSNBC.com

RELATED ARTICLE & PHOTOS: Comedian Finesse Mitchell Ties the Knot Essence.com, By Kenya N. Byrd, September 25, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE: When Marriage Means More to Your Family Than to You AlterNet, By Wendy Atterberry , The Frisky, September 26, 2008.
There are plenty of reasons to marry, but it's not something that always makes couples happier. Why can't my family understand that?. . . . I used to think it was generational -- this obsession with couples tying the knot and "making it legal," but lately, even my 25-year-old sister is asking when we plan to marry, if we'll get engaged or just secretly elope instead. "Why do you ask?" I said to her yesterday on the phone when she brought it up again. "I just want you to be happy," she answered. "I am happy," I replied and resisted the urge to ask her why she thinks marriage, of all things, could make me any happier. Kick-ass boots for fall, a trip to the South of France, calorie-free fudge brownies -- these things would all make me happier. But marriage? Meh.

RELATED ARTICLE: Till death do us part: why marriage remains popular: Paul Vallely ponders the surprising resilience of institutionalised monogamy The Independent- UK, By Paul Vallely, September 16, 2008
How very modern we are. There is a temptation to think that with fewer people getting married, more divorces, more cohabitation and now civil partnerships for gays we have, in recent decades, overturned a traditional view of marriage that goes back thousands of years. But history tells another tale.

RELATED ARTICLE: Why it's rubbish being single: There’s a myth that being single is great The Times Online- UK, By Stefanie Marsh, August 2, 2008
If only there was some service that would reliably predict when any period of non-voluntary solitude would end, it would cut out the anxiety and allow single people to enjoy the good things about their lives: increased lucidity, productivity, creativity and self-awareness. More time. Not being welded together in some smug symbiotic ticking relationship time-bomb. Having your own personality. Less risk of divorce. But drinking cocktails whenever you like with three single and neurotic friends for company is for most people a definition of hell.

RELATED ARTICLE: Six things to ask yourself before you say ‘I do’: Sure you know your partner? Here’s some help to avoid unwanted surprises MSNBC.com, By Carley Roney- TheKnot.com, May 14, 2008

How can I convince my heartbroken wife I still love her and will never cheat on her again?

How can I convince my heartbroken wife I still love her and will never cheat on her again? The Daily Mail- UK, By Clare Campbell, September 25, 2008
Recently in the Mail, Stephanie, a 37-year-old former financial adviser and mother of two, revealed her heartbreaking discovery that her husband of ten years was having an affair with a female colleague. Readers responded in their thousands to her agonised question: 'Should I stay or should I go?' Now, in a desperate attempt to hold his marriage together, her husband Ian, a 40-year-old hedge fund manager - who shares the family's large five-bedroom home in South-West London, attempts to explain his behaviour. . . . . After ten months, my affair really is over for good, but I don't expect my wife, Stephanie, to believe me. Neither do I blame her for continuing to be suspicious that I'm still in contact with my former lover. But I told Stephanie I wouldn't see or contact Kate again - the woman I was having an affair with - and I've kept to my word. My wife and family are what matter now. Reading even a few of the thousands of messages and letters my wife received from Mail readers about my betrayal has been a painful and shaming experience. One piece of advice in particular leapt out at me: 'Once the trust is gone, it's too late to save your marriage.' I can only hope this isn't true. There isn't a single moment I haven't been haunted by guilt since that first night, back in March, when I saw my mobile phone - which had text messages from Kate on it - in my wife's hand, and realised that she'd found out I had deceived her. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Your verdict on husband's plea for forgiveness after having an affair The Daily Mail- UK, September 25, 2008
Recently in the Mail, Stephanie, 37, a mother-of-two, revealed how she was haunted by her husband's affair and asked: 'Should I stay or should I go?' On Wednesday, we published her husband Ian's plea for forgiveness. Here are some of your emailed responses ...

RELATED ARTICLE: Should I stay or should I go? A cheated wife's plight had you responding in your thousands... The Daily Mail- UK, By Daily Mail Reporter, August 21, 2008
Yesterday, the Mail told the story of Stephanie, 37, who has discovered her husband of ten years is having an affair with a colleague. She is now torn between wanting to provide a stable home for her two young sons and a suspicion that her husband has restarted his affair. It provoked an astonishing reaction on our website with more than 4,000 people voting in our online poll - with almost 3,400 urging Stephanie to leave her husband and around 700 telling her to stay. Many of you also shared your own heartfelt stories. Here, we present a choice selection...

RELATED ARTICLE & COMMENTS: Should I stay or should I go? One woman's dilemma after discovering her husband's affair The Daily Mail- UK, By Clare Campbell, August 20, 2008
What do you do when you discover your husband of ten years is having an affair? Throw him out and call a divorce lawyer? Try to forgive him for the sake of your children's future? Like countless others, that's the agonising choice 37-year-old Stephanie is facing after she discovered her wealthy husband is having an affair with a female colleague. She's been married to her husband, Ian, a 40-year-old hedge fund manager, for a decade and they have two sons, Jake, seven, and Isaac, four, and live in a large, fivebedroom house in South-West London. They also have a country cottage in Devon. Here, Stephanie describes how she discovered her husband's infidelity, and how she has spent months wrestling with the question: should she stay or should she go?

Parenting Issues: School Board Changes Yearbook Policy After Lesbian Photos Published FOX News, September 25, 2008
CLOVIS, N.M. — The Clovis board of education will have final say on content in student publications under a new policy adopted about four months after the high school yearbook published pictures of lesbian couples. The board voted 3-2 to pass the new publications code Tuesday. The code also gives school principals authority to review students' work before publication. Clovis Municipal School District Superintendent Rhonda Seidenwurm said the school district's previous publications code did not allow principals to review student publications. She said the need for such a review surfaced after community groups criticized last year's edition of the high school yearbook, the Plainsman, for photographs of lesbian couples in a segment about relationships. Under the code, students can appeal a decision regarding content. The board of education will have the final say in the appeals process. . .

School Board Changes Yearbook Policy After Lesbian Photos Published

RELATED ARTICLE: Area high school in controversy over gay couples KVII- The Texas Panhandle 24/7, May 27, 2008
Clovis High School is in the middle of a controversy surrounding the publication of photos and interviews with gay couples in the yearbook. . . . The student yearbook editor says they wanted to show diversity. The article also features heterosexual couples.The teen says that to not put gay couples in the yearbook would be discrimination. The yearbook supervisor says the content didn't violate any policies. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: "Gay" Sex Kills Townhall.com, By Matt Barber, Monday, April 21, 2008
By recently admitting that “HIV is a gay disease,” Matt Foreman, outgoing Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, acknowledged what the medical community has known for decades: the homosexual lifestyle is extremely high-risk and often leads to disease and even death. . . .On April 25, 2008, the pro-homosexual indoctrination of your children comes to a boil. Homosexual activists and like-minded liberal educators will be pushing the so-called “Day of Silence” on kids in thousands of schools across the country. . . . To be sure, bullying and harassment should not be tolerated against anyone, anywhere for any reason, and those who engage in such activities should be firmly disciplined. However, DOS has very little to do with “bullying” and has everything to do with propaganda. . .

RELATED ARTICLE (PDF): The Non-Factsheet NARTH.com, By Dale O'Leary, Dean Byrd, Ph.D., Richard Fitzgibbons, M.D.
The APA and the other 12 organizations that comprise the Just the Facts Coalition recently published a new edition of Just the Facts about Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators, and School Personnel. The Coalition has mailed copies of the factsheet to all 16,000 public school superintendents in the United States. It is important that parents understand the threat this document poses and are able to respond to the so-call “facts.” The factsheet claims to present accurate scientific information, which will help schools protect at-risk students, and prevent violations of the separation of Church and state. The factsheet fails to accomplish any of these objectives.
1) It is not a factsheet, but a political statement.
2) It puts youth at risk – particularly adolescent males experiencing SSA.
3) It violates separation of church and state.
What are the facts?. . . .

Playboy Prince Albert of Monaco, 50, to finally settle down and marry... and then produce a 'legitimate' heir to the throne. He is pictured here with girlfriend of 2 years, South African swimming champion, Charlene Wittstock

Playboy Prince Albert to finally settle down and marry... and then produce a 'legitimate' heir to the throne By Daily Mail Reporter, September 24, 2008
Prince Albert of Monaco is set to marry his girlfriend in the hope she will finally provide the playboy ruler with an heir to the throne. The 50-year-old prince has been dating South African swimming champion Charlene Wittstock, 31, for two years. He has children from two previous relationships - but under Monaco's constitution neither can take the throne because they are 'love-children'. Only 'direct and legitimate' descendants born within marriage are allowed to rule the tiny Mediterranean tax-haven. The couple are expected to announce their engagement 'within days' and marry in 2009, sources revealed to glossy French magazine Gala. . . . . 'Albert has never settled down in the past, but knows that the time is now right to produce the next ruler of Monaco.' Albert has dated some of the world's most famous and beautiful women, including Angie Everhart, Brooke Shields, and supermodel Claudia Schiffer. He has also battled persisent rumours he is gay. . . .

Clay Aiken has officially come out of the closet as a gay man in the new issue of People magazine (Click for Related Video)

Clay Aiken: I'm a Gay Dad People magazine, By David Caplan, September 24, 2008
Following the Aug. 8 birth of his son Parker, singer Clay Aiken is following through on a promise he made to himself as a new dad: to publicly acknowledge that he's gay. "It was the first decision I made as a father," Aiken, 29, tells the upcoming issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday. "I cannot raise a child to lie or to hide things. I wasn't raised that way, and I'm not going to raise a child to do that." . . . . The born-again Christian singer also reveals how he told his mother Faye he's gay four years ago. . . . As for his own child, Aiken tells PEOPLE that Parker – who was conceived via in vitro fertilization with his best friend, music producer Jaymes Foster – will be raised in an environment that is "accepting and allowing him to be happy." Says Aiken: "I have no idea if he'll be gay or straight. It's not something I'll have anything to do with, or that he'll have anything to do with. It's already probably up inside the code there ... No matter what the situation you're in, if you're raised in a loving environment, that's the most important thing.". . .

RELATED ARTICLE & VIDEO: Clay Aiken Discusses Family, Raising a Child and the Future Aiken: 'We'll Kind of Play It by Ear' ABC NEWS- Good Morning America, By Lee Ferran, September 26, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE: Jaymes Foster: Clay's a 'Natural' Dad People magazine, By David Caplan, September 25, 2008
Clay Aiken's best friend – and the mother of their 7-week-old son Parker – music producer Jaymes Foster, 50, chatted with PEOPLE during the magazine's photo shoot at Aiken's home in North Carolina, where Foster is currently staying. While Aiken tended to Parker, who was conceived via in vitro fertilization, Foster dished about her pregnancy, being an older mom, and who's better at changing diapers. . .

RELATED VIDEO: Clay Aiken: I'm a Gay Dad ABC News—GMA

RELATED ARTICLE: Half of Women "Would Have a Baby with a Friend" The Telegraph-UK, By Kate Devlin, September 15, 2008
More than half of all women would consider having a baby with a friend if they were single after a certain age, a new survey shows. . . .The report, commissioned by Vitabiotics, the vitamin supplement firm, was based on a survey of 3,103 men and women. The survey comes a week after it was warned that twenty-something women were testing their fertility by not using contraception.

RELATED ARTICLE: The "Gay Gene" Controlling The Media The Real Proposal magazine, April 1, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE: "Homosexuality Is Not Hardwired," Concludes Dr. Francis S. Collins, Head Of The Human Genome Project NARTH, By A. Dean Byrd, Ph.D, MBA, MPH, April 4, 2007

RELATED ARTICLE: How Might Homosexuality Develop? Putting the Pieces Together NARTH.com, By Jeffrey Satinover, M.D.
It may be difficult to grasp how genes, environment, and other influences interrelate to one another, how a certain factor may "influence" an outcome but not cause it, and how faith enters in. The scenario below is condensed and hypothetical, but is drawn from the lives of actual people, illustrating how many different factors influence behavior. Note that the following is just one of the many developmental pathways that can lead to homosexuality, but a common one. In reality, every person's "road" to sexual expression is individual, however many common lengths it may share with those of others. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Liberals Reveal 'Hidden Politics': The hidden politics of mental health associations are revealed in what some call "the most important book of the decade." Family.org, By Aaron Atwood
In "Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The well-intentioned path to harm" William T. O'Donohue and Christine E. Caselles explain that there is more to this removal than meets the eye. "Psychiatry, which had previously defined homosexuality as a disease and diagnosed homosexuals as mentally ill," they write, "was considered a formidable but politically and strategically important obstacle in the struggles of homosexuals for social and political status.". . . . O'Donohue and Caselles put it plainly when they write, "(T)hese changes were produced by political rather than scientific factors . . . the revision represented the APA's surrender to political and social pressure, not new data or scientific theories regarding human sexuality."

RELATED BOOK REVIEW: Homosexuality and the Truth First Things- The Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life, By Elizabeth Moberly, March 1997
. . . This pattern of pressuring institutions and researchers to produce results favorable to homosexuals and then claiming the results as objective evidence occurs again and again in pro-gay literature, and is perhaps one of the most curious features of scholarship in our times. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: 'Homosexuality Cannot Be Changed': Is homosexuality really fixed and immutable as some argue? Family.org, By Joe Dallas
Social justice argument #1: 'Homosexuality is inborn':
Social justice arguments are effective because they sound so good. They demand an end to homophobia and insensitivity; who wants to say they are against such goals? But just as the question “When did you stop beating your wife, Mr. Jones?” assumes (without proof) that Mr. Jones has been beating his wife, so the pro-gay social justice arguments assume (without proof) that gays are victims, and that the conservative church is largely responsible for their victimhood. . .

AUDIO: Lindsay Lohan FINALLY Confirms Relationship With Samantha Ronson Defamer.com, By Kyle Buchanan, September 23 2008
After months of open canoodling with celebrity DJ Samantha Ronson, Lindsay Lohan has stopped playing coy about whether the two of them are in a relationship, finally confirming the news on (of all places) last night's episode of the radio show Loveline. And she wasn't even prompted by the harsh interrogation techniques of Dr. Drew, either! No, Lohan — who had the phone passed to her after Ronson called in to discuss her hospitalized friend DJ AM — was caught flat-footed after an innocent question by Dr. Drew's cohost, Stryker. Asked, "You and Samantha have been going out for how long now?" Lohan giggled and demurred, but Stryker pressed on. "Like two years?" he asked. "One year? Five months? Two months?" Finally, Lohan allowed, "A very long time.". . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Pop Tarts: Lindsay Lohan's Dad Wants Samantha Ronson Out of Her Life FOX News, By Hollie McKay, September 24, 2008
— Lindsay Lohan's newly confirmed girlfriend is to blame for her personal and professional problems, her father Michael Lohan says. Michael, in an e-mail to Pop Tarts, wrote that he has reason to believe that recent blog posts condemning him on his daughter's Web site were actually written by celeb DJ Samanth Ronson, even though they were said to have been written by Lindsay. . .

AUDIO: Lindsay Lohan FINALLY Confirms Relationship With Samantha Ronson

RELATED ARTICLE: The Hetero-flexible Gene Townhall.com, By Jennifer Roback Morse, February 20, 2006
There is actually plenty of data that supports the position that sexual orientation is not a fixed trait. I know, I know, I can hear the howls already. Everybody knows that homosexuality is genetically determined. Actually, everybody who knows anything about the subject knows exactly the opposite. . .

RELATED ARTICLE (PDF): Female Homosexual Development NARTH.com
It is often claimed that sexual orientation is an innate and normal variation of sexuality and therefore immutable or unchangeable aspect of a person's core self or identity. But there is no conclusive evidence that female homosexuality is innate or solely genetic or biologically based. Most respected scientists agree that homosexuality is due to a combination of social, psychological, and biological factors. . .

'America's sweetheart,' Meg Ryan's back (Click for Related Video)

America's sweetheart: Meg's Back! In Style magazine, September 23, 2008
Meg Ryan, 46, has always had mixed feelings about the label "America's Sweetheart"—a term dreamed up by Nora Ephron around the time of When Harry Met Sally, which Ephron wrote. In fact, the actress spent the better part of the 1990s as a beloved comic heroine, yet playing the role of America's Sweetheart left Ryan a bit bemused. "…I understood it was a compliment about being lovable…but it also felt like ideas were being projected onto me that had nothing to do with me. The girl next door to what? I never felt like a very conventional person.". . . . Ryan’s freedom from conventional values revealed itself when she began an affair in 2000 with Russell Crowe, her co-star in Proof of Life, as her nine-year marriage to Dennis Quaid was falling apart. Suddenly, much of the enormous public affection for her turned to anger, and everything was affected: her image, her career, her sense of self. "It was a great story," she says. "But what wasn't in the story was the reality of my marriage..." And what was the reality? After a pause, Ryan says quietly, "Dennis was not faithful to me for a long time, and that was very painful...". . . . She knew she could have filled in the details of Quaid's cheating, which would have made it clear that she was not the one who wandered over the many years of their relationship. And she now wonders about her choice to say nothing at all: "I think I made a mistake in not talking more specifically.". . .

RELATED VIDEO: Sneak Peek at Meg Ryan's new movie, The Women People magazine, August 07, 2008

In the dog house? What couples argue about -- then and now

What couples argue about - then and now
We quarry the 70-year archives of counsellor Relate to reveal what our grandparents argued about - and what we row over now The Times Online- UK, By John Naish, September 20, 2008
Bad sex, jealousy, interfering in-laws, suicidal husbands, loose wives, spouses hiding in boxrooms and ladies who are unfortunate enough to come from Reading... it was all in a day's work for marriage counsellors in the earliest days of Relate, the nation's largest provider of relationship counselling and sex therapy, which celebrates its 70th anniversary this month. When you delve through its archive of case notes from the 1940s, then read Relate's latest survey of couples' complaints - as revealed exclusively to Body&Soul - it becomes clear that over seven decades of bust-ups and bickering, much of our bad behaviour in relationships has changed - but human nature doesn't seem to have advanced one jot. . . . . In the best music hall tradition, husbands tended to blame the wife's mum for their troubles. A third of couples in a 1948 study on “marital disharmony”, published in the National Marriage Guidance Bulletin, felt stressed by in-law tensions. As this exasperated counsellor records: “They have the mother-in-law living with them and he complains that she is the cause of all the trouble. I don't think that the mother-in-law is by any means the whole of the problem. The sexual relationship seems to be far from satisfactory. In fact, he eventually admitted that full intercourse had never taken place. I am anxious to see the wife, but so far she has not replied to any of my letters.” Bad sex again. It was rife: the 1948 study found that two-thirds of couples seen were “affected by sexual maladjustment” and a quarter “showed gross ignorance of sex - nearly 300 of the wives were sexually unsatisfied”. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Save marriage with 'friendly' aid Washington Times, By Cheryl Wetzstein, September 14, 2008
For decades, we've heard the advice. "Marriage in trouble? Go see a counselor." But did you know that more than a few mental health professionals think marriage counseling may be hazardous to your marital health? "The counseling profession is trying to help you through the divorce, not help you repair the marriage," says James D. Wright, a sociologist at the University of Central Florida. In that sense, he says, "marriage counseling is more like divorce counseling."

A Purpose-Driven Movie: Fireproof Townhall.com, By John Hanlon , September 19, 2008
“Marriages aren’t fireproof.” So states Caleb Holt, the lead character of the new motion picture Fireproof, the third in a series of films created by the Sherwood Baptist Church community in Albany, Georgia. This film, like its predecessors, contains powerful themes about faith, religion and morality—issues that are slowly becoming more prevalent in today’s films. Fireproof, a low-budget -- but high quality film -- about a marriage on the brink of divorce, is the latest film to attempt to prove that movies can be entertaining, and at the same time, instill values. . . . . . The general consensus seems to be that message media can -- and does -- succeed if the stories that hold up these messages are engaging and entertaining. A broader audience also must be open to the story itself. First and foremost, the story of the movie or show has to be good enough to get people into their seats at the multiplex or in their living rooms. Then the message will be able to reach that desired larger audience. Fireproof contains a great story in it that has a purpose (not the other way around) and hopefully, because of that, this film will be able to reach a larger audience than the one that normally fills in the pews every Sunday morning during church.

FIREPROOF: A Purpose-Driven Movie (Click for Related Video)

RELATED MOVIE TRAILER: FIREPROOF YouTube.com

RELATED SITE: Welcome To FireproofTheMovie.com - In Theaters September 26, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE: Kirk Cameron: I Only Kiss My Wife ... Even on Screen FOX News, September 24, 2008
When it comes to smooching, Kirk Cameron only has lips for his wife. The former star of the TV sitcom "Growing Pains" refused to kiss the actress who played his wife in his new movie "Fireproof," he told the "Today" show on Monday. “I have a commitment not to kiss any other woman,” he told the morning show. So his real wife, actress Chelsea Noble, was the body double for the onscreen kiss. "So when I’m kissing my wife, we’re actually husband and wife honoring marriage behind the scenes,” Cameron told "Today."

RELATED ARTICLE: Fireproof: Q&A with Kirk Cameron Hollywood.com, By Emily Christianson, September 23, 2008
HW: Is fireproof a metaphor in this movie?
KC: It is. In the movie the word fireproof is used a couple of times from one firefighter to another specifically talking about marriage. What he says is, “Look when something is fireproof it doesn’t mean that fire is never going to come to it, it is that when fire comes you are going to be able to withstand the heat.”. . .So in a nutshell this is a love story about a firefighter and his wife and a marriage that is going up in flames…[My character is] about to get a divorce when his dad steps in and says, I want you to put it off for 40 days, “I am going to send you something.” So he sends him something in the mail, this hand written book called The Love Dare and it is a 40 day challenge to see if he really understands what love is in its purest sense and then challenges him to see if he can demonstrate it for 40 days even in the face of her constant rejection…It is a real book that is coming out in book stores on Sept. 26 the opening weekend of the film…I’m actually going through it in real life at home. It is a great book, I’m on like day 10. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Kirk Cameron talks about faith, marriage and his new movie ‘Fireproof’ Boston Herald.com - The Edge, By Sue Nowicki / McClatchy Newspapers, September 23, 2008
Kirk Cameron, who rose to fame as Mike Seaver in ABC’s "Growing Pains" from 1985-92, switched from atheism to Christianity in 1990, married his onscreen girlfriend, Chelsea Noble, in 1991, and is dad to six children - four of them adopted. Despite his Hollywood background, he had to audition for the role of Caleb Holt in "Fireproof," which opens Friday in theaters nationwide. The movie is the latest from Sherwood Pictures, a nonprofit ministry of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Ga. It previously put out the popular "Facing the Giants" and the lesser-known "Flywheel."

A Liberal Democrat speaks out: Protecting marriage protects children

Protecting marriage to protect children
Marriage as a human institution is constantly evolving. But in all societies, marriage shapes the rights and obligations of parenthood. Los Angeles Times, By David Blankenhorn , September 19, 2008
I'm a liberal Democrat. And I do not favor same-sex marriage. Do those positions sound contradictory? To me, they fit together. Many seem to believe that marriage is simply a private love relationship between two people. They accept this view, in part, because Americans have increasingly emphasized and come to value the intimate, emotional side of marriage, and in part because almost all opinion leaders today, from journalists to judges, strongly embrace this position. That's certainly the idea that underpinned the California Supreme Court's legalization of same-sex marriage. But I spent a year studying the history and anthropology of marriage, and I've come to a different conclusion. . . . . . . The liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin famously argued that, in many cases, the real conflict we face is not good versus bad but good versus good. Reducing homophobia is good. Protecting the birthright of the child is good. How should we reason together as a society when these two good things conflict? Here is my reasoning. I reject homophobia and believe in the equal dignity of gay and lesbian love. Because I also believe with all my heart in the right of the child to the mother and father who made her, I believe that we as a society should seek to maintain and to strengthen the only human institution -- marriage -- that is specifically intended to safeguard that right and make it real for our children. Legalized same-sex marriage almost certainly benefits those same-sex couples who choose to marry, as well as the children being raised in those homes. But changing the meaning of marriage to accommodate homosexual orientation further and perhaps definitively undermines for all of us the very thing -- the gift, the birthright -- that is marriage's most distinctive contribution to human society. That's a change that, in the final analysis, I cannot support.

RELATED RESOURCE: Candidate Match Game USA Today

RELATED RESOURCE: On the Issues- Every Political on Every Issue: Barack Obama

RELATED RESOURCE: On the Issues- Every Political on Every Issue: John McCain

RELATED ARTICLE: Dads DO matter: Why children brought up by BOTH parents are happier and more successful The Daily Mail- UK, By Jenny Hope, February 13, 2008
Children behave better, learn more and are better adjusted if their father is involved in their lives, a major study shows. Researchers found that a good relationship between youngsters and fathers had a positive effect that could last for two decades. In low-income homes, regular contact was also seen to lead to less juvenile crime.

RELATED ARTICLE: Adult children speak out about same-sex parents TownHall.com, By Maggie Gallagher, July 7, 2007
It was the TV pictures that first got to Bronagh Cassidy. Same-sex couples marrying in San Francisco: "They were so proud of themselves. And then they had these little children with them." Cassidy, a 27-year-old married mother of two, sighs. "Something inside of me wants to be able to help those kids, because I know they are going to have problems." Sound ignorant, maybe even bigoted? This week, as the Senate is expected to begin debate on a constitutional amendment to protect marriage, many voices will try to convince you that people like Cassidy are, as Cheryl Jacque, head of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, put it in a recent letter, "hate-filled people who will stop at nothing to achieve their discriminatory, offensive goals." But Cassidy knows better: She is one of the first generation of "gayby boom" babies, raised by two moms. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Two Mommies Is One Too Many Time magazine, By James C. Dobson, December 10, 2006
Love alone is not enough to guarantee healthy growth and development. The two most loving women in the world cannot provide a daddy for a little boy--any more than the two most loving men can be complete role models for a little girl. The voices that argue otherwise tell us more about our politically correct culture than they do about what children really need. The fact remains that gender matters--perhaps nowhere more than in regard to child rearing. . . . . But set aside the scientific findings for a minute. Isn't there something in our hearts that tells us, intuitively, that children need a mother and a father?

RELATED ARTICLE: Are Same-Sex Families Good For Children? But we must all ask if these changes in our understanding of family are harmless. Family.org, By Glen T. Stanton
Same-sex advocates are quick to assure us that children with same-sex parents are happy and healthy. But is it true? Research tells us no such thing, simply because there is no reliable body of research that compares children being raised in same-sex versus mother/father homes. We are just beginning the same-sex family experiment; therefore there are not significant populations of such families for scientists to observe over long periods of time. . .

On the Front Lines of the Credit Crisis
Families Seek To Borrow More, But Loans Are Harder to Come By WalletPop, By Jonathan Berr, September 19, 2008
A credit squeeze among financial institutions has lately been creating a panic on Wall Street. In one week we've seen the forced liquidation of Lehman Brothers, the sale of Merrill Lynch and a government takeover of AIG. But the same dynamic has more quietly been creating havoc in the lives of ordinary Americans for the past year: A person (or a firm) takes on too much debt and finds with a shock that they can't pay their bills and they can’t borrow any more money. It's not a pretty sight. Consider the working-class couple in their 40s who recently visited the office of Stephanie Bittner, director of community outreach and education for the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of the Delaware Valley. The residents of Philadelphia were eager to move into a dream house in New Jersey they had recently purchased. It was financed with an adjustable-rate mortgage which they reasoned they could afford once they sold their old house. As the real estate market soured, the Philadelphia house would not sell. They soon fell behind in both mortgages. When they sought credit counseling, Bittner quickly realized that the couple could not afford their dream house even if they sold their property in Philadelphia. The news came as a shock. . .

Families seek to borrow more, but loans are harder to come by

RELATED ARTICLE: In Crisis, Wall Street Turns to Prayer: Financial meltdown triggers prayer sessions citywide   Christianity Today, By Tony Carnes, September 19, 2008
Starting early last Sunday morning, the turmoil in New York's financial markets triggered a spiritual response among Christian leaders reminiscent of the response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. . . . .Mac Pier of the New York Leadership Center started getting calls from friends who were losing their jobs. "Of course, I prayed with them that God would give them the spiritual and financial resources they need." Pier says that the Wall Streeters who called him were stunned. "It was unnerving to them because of the speed [at which] it happened.". . . . .Rice says the emotional impact of the current crisis on Wall Streeters is amplified by attitudes like those described by the chief operating officer. "There is an element of, 'I am master of my fate. I put in 18-hour days and am making it.' Then, this crisis pulls the rug out from under them. This may be the first dislocation of their lives. Their savings have disappeared in 15 minutes.". . .

RELATED ARTICLE: 100 resumes later, Josh gets a job  CNN Money.com, By Tami Luhby, September 10, 2008
When we last met Josh Hager, he had recently lost his job as a mortgage underwriter. Six months and hundreds of resumes later, he's back on track. . . . . It took six months and hundreds of resumes, but Josh Hager has finally landed a job. The Jersey City, N.J., resident is finishing his third week as a commercial credit analyst at Eastern Funding, which provides financing for Laundromats, dry cleaners and delis. When we last met Hager, he had recently lost his job as a mortgage underwriter for Aurora Loan services, a subsidiary of, now bankrupt, Lehman Brothers.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Key to Wedded Bliss? Money Matters   New York Times, By Tara Siegel Bernard, September 10, 2008
If you ask married people why their marriage works, they are probably not going to say it’s because they found their financial soul mate. But if they are lucky, they have. Marrying a person who shares your attitudes about money might just be the smartest financial decision you will ever make. In fact, when it comes to finances, your marriage is likely to be your most valuable asset — or your largest liability. . . . . Not everyone is married to a financial twin, and that’s not necessarily a problem. There are several ways that you and your significant other can become more compatible, and ultimately more prosperous, when it comes to money. These guidelines are compiled from the successfully married and from experts on psychology, divorce and finance. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: John McCain or Barack Obama? For us, there’s only one option   The Real Proposal magazine, August 18, 2008
At election time, it is "we the people" that decide who our decision makers will be. But, as Daniel Taylor & Mark McCloskey point out in their recent article, How to Pick a President: Why Virtue Trumps Policy, all too often we decide poorly, largely because we ask the wrong questions. Typically, we demand to know details of how political candidates are going to solve our problems. How are they going to stop the continued slide of the United States dollar? How are they going to get the troops home from Iraq? How are they going to fix Social Security, or Healthcare for that matter — essentially, what's in it for me? However, while there is value in hearing a candidate's plans and proposals, this ought to be of secondary or even lesser importance since history and experience bear evidence to the fact that few, if any, of those plans and proposals will survive the political process intact. Indeed, many crucial political decisions of the future will revolve around unpredictable events and issues. . .

Ashley Madison.com's purpose? To enable potential adulterers. Their slogan? 'Life is short. Have an affair' (Click for Related Video)

Life is short. Have an affair (trademark) The Times Online- AlphaMummy Blog, September 19, 2008
Internet cheating is nothing new. (It's been around since, oh, about 5 minutes after Al Gore invented the Internet.) But you may be surprised to know that there is a social networking/dating site for people looking to cheat on their spouses. I was surprised, which just goes to show that I'm not as sophisticated nor as jaded as I think I am. Ashley Madison's slogan is "Life is short. Have an affair", nicely sandwiching in sex and death into a call to action. You may not be surprised to hear that the company's ads have been rejected by US TV and billboard space. . . . Even if you don't plan on having an affair, the site can provide if not hours of entertainment, a solid 20 minutes of diverting, if unsettling, surfing. There are pictures with the heads cropped out to ensure anonymity, profile descriptions such as "not interested in a relationship right now", and pull-down menus of what members are looking for. These include dating-site standards such as "classical music" juxtaposed with "teasing with a feather", "will take control" and the all-important "good personal hygiene". . .

RELATED VIDEO: Adultery TV ad : ESPN pulls a racy commercial YouTube.com, August 23, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE: Life Is Short. Have an Affair, New York: What adultery site Ashley Madison was thinking when it scandalized Times Square The Village Voice, By Bonnie Ruberg, August 21, 2008
When Ashley Madison, a social networking site for married people looking to have affairs, put up a billboard in Times Square, the owners of the building across the way threatened to burn it down. Soon major news teams like Fox were reporting on the complaints the advertisement stirred up among offended passersbys. By Thursday, July 24, only three days after it went up, the billboard was removed. Positioned among sexy Victoria's Secret ads, the Naked Cowboy, and events like National Underwear Day, the image that so scandalized New Yorkers was an open hotel room door with a couple embracing inside. On the door, a sign read, “Life is short, have an affair.”. . .

RELATED VIDEO: AshleyMadison.com Ad YouTube.com

RELATED ARTICLE: Do men cheat for the thrill? Or the sex? If your partner has an affair, that doesn’t mean the end of your relationship MSNBC.com, Dr. Gail Saltz, May 15, 2007
When men have affairs, they tend to be motivated by sex — new sex, more sex, different sex. Women cheat for many reasons: companionship, romance, more security, and, of course, sex. But are men’s motivations really that simple? No. Even for men, cheating is far more complex.

RELATED ARTICLE: 'Life's Short. Get A Divorce' Billboard Yanked: Lawyers Complain There Wasn't Due Process NBC San Diego, May 9, 2007
City workers have stripped the sign from its perch after a week of complaints from neighbors and from other attorneys who said it reflected poorly on their profession. A city alderman Burton Natarus, who lives near the sign, said he called the building inspector, and that the law firm's ad was taken down because the firm didn't have a permit, and not because of what it said -- or because of the scantily clad man and woman on it.

RELATED ARTICLE & POLL: Many cheat for a thrill, more stay true for love MSNBC.com/iVillage survey shows fidelity can be a tough promise to keep MSNBC, By Jane Weaver, April 16, 2007

New Study Shows Polling Significantly Understates Support for Traditional Marriage MarketWatch.com- The Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2008
-- A new study comparing polling in 26 states -- including California -- measuring voter opinion on ballot initiatives to define marriage as being between a man and a woman, shows that support for these measures has been under-estimated by an average of seven percentage points. In some cases, polls have under-estimated support for traditional marriage by as much as 21 percentage points. . . ."I can't say for sure why polls almost always understate support for traditional marriage," said Schubert, who has twice been named the nation's most valuable consultant by the American Association of Political Consultants, "but I believe it is because the media portrays same-sex marriage as being politically correct. Supporters of traditional marriage don't want pollsters to consider them intolerant, so they mask their true feelings on the issue.

Brad Pitt donating $100,000 to fight gay marriage ban Los Angeles Times, By Tina Daunt, September 18, 2008
Brad Pitt announced Wednesday that he's donating $100,000 to fight California's Proposition 8, a November ballot initiative that would eliminate same-sex couples' right to marry. "Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn't harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8," the actor said in a statement. Pitt's donation marks the largest thus far to the anti-Prop. 8 campaign by an A-list celebrity.

RELATED ARTICLE: CAUSE CÉLÈBRE: Hollywood's in slo-mo on Prop. 8 fight Los Angeles Times, By Tina Daunt, September 26, 2008
The liberal-leaning show-business industry would seem a natural opponent of the measure that would ban same-sex marriage, but campaign contributions have been sluggish. Is Hollywood afraid of Proposition 8 -- or has it just been slow to notice its presence on the California ballot?

Brad Pitt donates $100,000 to fight gay marriage ban

RELATED ARTICLE: Spielberg, wife donate 100,000 dlrs to fight gay marriage ban AFP—Google, September 23, 2008
Hollywood heavyweight Steven Spielberg and his wife have donated 100,000 dollars to help defeat a California referendum seeking to outlaw same-sex marriage, his spokesman said Tuesday.

RELATED ARTICLE: Cynthia Nixon Praises Brad Pitt for Supporting Gay Marriage People magazine, By Jessica Gold Haralson, September 19, 2008
Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon says Brad Pitt's recent $100,000 donation to fight a gay marriage ban is "inspiring.". . . Nixon, who has said she'd marry her longtime girlfriend Christine Marinoni if gay marriage were legal in New York, applauded Pitt's recent donation to fight Proposition 8 – a ballot initiative that, if passed, would make same-sex marriages illegal in California.

RELATED ARTICLE: Mega A-Gays Missing in Fight Against Prop 8 INmagazine, By Karen Ocamb
The cause for marriage equality couldn’t have asked for better publicity. However, marriage equality is on the chopping block in November, and close scrutiny of the California Secretary of State’s Campaign Finance website indicates that [Ellen] DeGeneres has not contributed to the fight against Prop 8.

RELATED ARTICLE: Brad Pitt Gives $100,000 to Fight Gay Marriage Ban People magazine, September 18, 2008
A spokeswoman for the organization ProtectMarriage, which supports passage of Proposition 8, said of Pitt, "We certainly respect his right in the political process, but we don’t believe he is the most exemplary figure on the issue of marriage."

RELATED ARTICLE: Utah philanthropist kicks in $1M to fight California gay-marriage ban Salt Lake Tribune, September 17, 2008
But in one fell swoop, Orem resident and WordPerfect co-founder Bruce Bastian has trumped their efforts - almost tenfold. He gave a whopping $1 million to the Human Right Campaign's "No on Prop. 8" committee. Bastian, a former Mormon and openly gay man, said he, too, was prompted by the LDS Church to donate - but to the other side. He gave a more modest $5,000 check to the cause in May, but upped the ante in July after the church issued a formal statement, backing the ballot measure.

RELATED ARTICLE: Marriage Proponents Physically Assaulted in Santa Rosa, California Christian News Wire, September 17, 2008
-- Volunteers with the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP) were assaulted on September 5th while distributing literature in support of traditional marriage at Santa Rosa Junior College. TFP volunteers are participating in a 30-day tour of cities and colleges across California to educate the public on the importance of preserving traditional marriage. After shouting obscenities at a TFP volunteer, a supporter of same-sex marriage slapped him as he filmed the demonstration. Although he managed to avert the blow, the assailant hit his camera disabling the settings. In a separate incident at the same demonstration, another supporter of "gay marriage" threw hot coffee at the face of a different volunteer. "This shows the contempt for First Amendment rights of proponents of gay marriage," said Cesar Franco, TFP Asst. Student Action Director. "While demanding tolerance for what they call 'diversity,' they are utterly intolerant of opposing viewpoints.". . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Pastors rally for Marriage Protection Amendment. If approved, the proposal would make marriage between a man and woman the only ‘legal union’ in Florida NWFlorida Daily News, By Tom McLaughlin, September 17, 2008
About 30 pastors were at the First Baptist Church of Crestview to hear the marketing pitch. The Rev. Clayton Cloer, pastor of Orlando's First Baptist Church of Central Florida, urged them to "wake up" to the notion that the sanctity of marriage needs protection, "speak up" about Amendment 2 and "show up" to vote for its passage. Cloer, backed by the Christian Law Association, which also had a member in attendance, urged the church leaders to speak out boldly in favor of Amendment 2. "You are free to speak to this issue, and dear friends, we must speak," Cloer said.

RELATED ARTICLE: California gay marriage decision: The battle is on for our freedoms! The Real Proposal magazine, May 22, 2008
Anyone who thinks that the watershed issue of same-sex marriage is ultimately about what consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms or a fundamental constitutional right to marry whomever we fall in love or want to form a family with, regardless of their gender, is being either naive, misinformed, misled...or, simply, disingenuous.

RELATED ARTICLE: Angelina, Still Wild, Still a Lesbian. Haven't we heard this one before, like, ages ago? Softpedia.com, By Elena Gorgan, August 13, 2007
Over the weekend, 'Public', the French magazine I was telling you about earlier, covered Angelina's bisexuality and made public her intention to stop swinging both ways, as the saying goes. 'I've never hidden my bisexuality, but since I've been with Brad, there's no longer a place for that or S&M in my life. He lets me talk to whoever I want. He has complete blind faith in me', the actress was quoted as saying. Well, excuse me, but Jenny, former Calvin Klein model and occasional actress, would like to differ!

RELATED ARTICLE: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s Altruism Needs More Oomph National Ledger, By John W. Lillpop, Sept 9, 2006
Regarding his plans to marry Angelina Jolie, Pitt said, "Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able." . . . . . He is obviously referring to gay marriage and while Pitt undoubtedly deserves some sort of an award for altruistic good intent, his actual deeds need more 'Oomph.' To really make a difference, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt should declare themselves totally celibate until men can marry men, women can wed women. There's your real sacrifice. . .

Sarah and Todd Palin's serence acceptance of their Down syndrome fifth child, Trig, as a 'gift' stirs controversy in abortion circles

Barbara Kay: Sacrificing conscience to the sanctity of abortion National Post, Posted by Kelly McParland, September 17, 2008
Time was, even as abortion became widely available, one’s beliefs around the morality of the practice were one’s own business. Today, unconditional support for unfettered access to abortion seems to be the litmus test of an individual’s or an institution’s moral standing within the community. Resistance can result in a form of politically correct “shunning” reminiscent of totalitarian regimes. . . . . But the push for moral clarity around publicly funded abortion stubbornly persists: a Dr. Seuss-like cat in our cultural house that keeps coming back. This time, it padded back in with Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s serene acceptance of her Down syndrome fifth child, Trig, as a “gift.” The image of a politically ascendant woman drawing strength from two allegedly incompatible female traits -- soaring personal ambition and reproductive selflessness-- challenges the self-righteous certainties of politically correct ideologues, fuming at the marketing implications of Ms. Palin’s story. This was evident last week in a declaration from the notionally disinterested Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada. Their executive vice-president, Dr. André Lalonde, worried aloud, with thinly veiled contempt for Ms. Palin, that “[Her decision to carry Trig to term] will have an implication for abortion issues in Canada.” His subsequent disclaimer that, “We offer the woman the choice … We’re coming down to a moral decision and we all know moral decisions are personal decisions,” rings hollow. For if Dr. Lalonde himself really believes “moral decisions are personal decisions,” Ms. Palin would not have been held up for public chastisement. . .

RELATED BLOG: Trig Palin’s threat to the abortion industry HotAir.com, By Ed Morrissey, September 11, 2008
This sounds more like the abortion industry worrying over a declining demand than a physician caring for a patient. Parents of DS children manage to have fulfilling lives, and they would say because of their child and not despite the decision to give birth. The Palins do provide a role model in that manner, as do the millions of other parents with such children who get no special attention for their love and sacrifice. What kind of doctor looks at this situation and says, “The worry is that this will have an implication for abortion issues in Canada”?

RELATED ARTICLE: Why She Really Scares Them Townhall.com, By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, September 12, 2008
Democrats can't stomach seeing the feminist movement's impetus for greater female political participation and empowerment "hijacked" by a pro-life woman who espouses traditional values. They must obliterate her, lest her popularity eat away at their party's core. . .

Till death do us part: why marriage remains popular
Paul Vallely ponders the surprising resilience of institutionalised monogamy The Independent- UK, By Paul Vallely, September 16, 2008
How very modern we are. There is a temptation to think that with fewer people getting married, more divorces, more cohabitation and now civil partnerships for gays we have, in recent decades, overturned a traditional view of marriage that goes back thousands of years. But history tells another tale. It is true that throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as the population of Great Britain grew, the number of marriages rose steadily, reaching a peak around 1970 as the bulge of babies born after World War II reached child-rearing age. Since then the overall number of people marrying has been declining. Moreover, close to two in five marriages in the UK now ends in divorce one of the highest rates in Europe. Yet what we regard as the traditional institution of marriage may merely be a Victorian middle-class invention and all we're doing now is reverting to an even more traditional pattern of behaviour. . . . History, boringly, shows that monogamy has been the norm; indeed, the numerical balance of the sexes, the overpowering force of human jealousy, and the welfare of children would seem to suggest that monogamy is not just normal, but dictated by evolution. "Between husband and wife friendship seems to exist by nature," as Aristotle put it in his Nicomachean Ethics, "for man is naturally disposed to pairing." The institution through which human society has regulated sexual activity, and minimised the social conflicts that can arise from it, is marriage. That is what turns sex from a carnal indulgence into a form of social cement that brings legal, social, and economic stability to the pleasures of procreation. . . . It was only with the coming of the Industrial Revolution that marriage began to be legally codified. It was the Marriage Act of 1753 that demanded a formal ceremony of marriage, with the publishing of banns, and parental consent for minors. . .

If the external pressures to marry have declined, the inner ones remain strong

RELATED ARTICLE: PARADE POLL SPECIAL REPORT: The Truth About American Marriage. Nobody really knows what goes on behind closed doors Parade magazine, By Leslie Bennetts, September 21, 2008
Judging by recent headlines, it's been a very bad year for American marriages. John Edwards admitted to cheating on his cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth, and lying about his affair to the public. Because of his use of a high-priced call-girl service, Eliot Spitzer lost his job as New York's governor. His successor, David Paterson, then announced that both he and his wife had had affairs while they were separated. Comedian Bill Murray and his wife, Jennifer, divorced amid allegations of his infidelity and sexual addiction. Model Christie Brinkley battled her husband in court over his affair with a teenager and his online porn habit. Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez's wife, Cynthia, accused him of running around with everyone from strippers to Madonna. The obvious conclusion to draw from these stories is that marriage in the U.S. is a toxic mess. But are deception and betrayal really more common today than marital love and respect? Not according to the findings of a new national poll commissioned by PARADE. . .

RELATED SURVEY RESULTS: The Truth About American Marriage Parade magazine, September 21, 2008
Survey results based on interviews with 1001 married Americans (501 men, 500 women), ages 18 and over, conducted from May 28 to June 7, 2008, by Insight Express.

RELATED POLL: How's Your Marriage? Take our online poll PARADE magazine, September 2008

Wall Street Journal fails to identify GOP-bashing author as gay activist

Wall Street Journal Fails to Identify GOP-Bashing Author as Gay Activist Townhall.com, By Robert Knight, September 15, 2008
This past Tuesday (Sept. 9), The Wall Street Journal allowed a homosexual activist to criticize GOP “gay-bashing” on the top of its op-ed page – but didn’t let readers know the author has a dog in the fight. In his lengthy article, “The GOP Should Kiss Gay-Bashing Goodbye,” James Kirchick is identified simply as “assistant editor of The New Republic.” But Mr. Kirchick is not just another opinion writer. Kirchick was named the 2007 Journalist of the Year by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA). In 2006, he won the NLGJA’s Excellence in Student Journalism Award. Last month, he spoke at a session on opinion writing at the NLGJA convention in Washington, D.C. Kirchick argues that Republicans should embrace homosexual rights because the “national mood” favors legal recognition of gay couples, but more importantly, because the GOP is “on the wrong [emphasis added] side of history.” Opposition to the homosexual agenda is thus defined as bigotry. Rather than focusing on the GOP’s interests, Kirchick devotes most of his column to promoting the notion that homosexuals are an oppressed minority group, victimized specifically by the GOP’s social conservatives. . . . . Portraying homosexuals as victims comes straight out of the gay activist playbook. Mr. Kirchick is following the approach laid out by public relations experts Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen in their 1989 book After the Ball. One of their primary strategies is to define homosexuals as “victims” deprived of equal rights, in order to recast the debate over homosexuality as a civil rights issue rather than a moral issue. If homosexuals are viewed as victims, then anyone who disagrees with the homosexual agenda can be smeared as a bigot. . . . . Mr. Kirchick’s article is effectively a warning: Utter one word against the rising sexual dystopia and you will be called a bigot and banished from polite society.

RELATED ARTICLE: The GOP Should Kiss Gay-Bashing Goodbye Wall Street Journal, By James Kirchick, September 9, 2008; Page A25
Political conventions are memorable not only for what the party grandees say, but for what they leave out. What was noticeably absent from last week's Republican gabfest? Gay-bashing. This is not an insignificant development for Republicans.

RELATED ARTICLE: Barney Frank and the politics of family values Townhall.com, By Star Parker, September 15, 2008
Barney Frank isn't just another liberal. And he is much more than just an openly gay congressman. He is a powerful legislator who happens to be chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. This makes Frank a central and influential player in government's response to the current mortgage crisis that has rocked our financial markets. The decisions that Frank, a Democrat, makes can put taxpayers on the hook for not just billions, but trillions of dollars. These are decisions that effect our pocketbooks but also our freedom. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Selling Homosexuality to America Regent University Law Review, By Paul E. Rondeau
This article explores how gay rights activists use rhetoric, psychology, social psychology, and the media--all the elements of modern marketing--to position homosexuality in order to frame what is discussed in the public arena and how it is discussed. . . . The economics and education of homosexuals makes them prime players in a capitalistic society. Money means power, and education means the knowledge to use that power to gain more. Homosexuals have demonstrated they have access to the leadership in media, government, education, business and other centers of influence as well as access to capital. These are hardly traits of an oppressed minority. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: How America Went Gay Leadership U, By Charles W. Socarides, M.D.
Gays said they could "reinvent human nature, reinvent themselves." To do this, these reinventors had to clear away one major obstacle. No, they didn't go after the nation's clergy. They targeted the members of a worldly priesthood, the psychiatric community, and neutralized them with a radical redefinition of homosexuality itself. In 1972 and 1973 they co-opted the leadership of the American Psychiatric Association and, through a series of political maneuvers, lies and outright flim-flams, they "cured" homosexuality overnight-by fiat. They got the A.P.A. to say that same-sex sex was "not a disorder." It was merely "a condition"-as neutral as lefthandedness.

In May, 'Californication' actress Natascha McElhone suddenly lost her surgeon husband, Martin Kelly, leaving her with two young sons and a baby on the way (Click for Related Video)

Interview: Natascha McElhone
In May, the actress’s surgeon husband died suddenly, leaving her with two young sons, a baby on the way - and a determination to ‘grab life by the throat’ The Times- UK, By Margarette Driscoll, September 14, 2008
Four days earlier it had been the couple’s 10th wedding anniversary but they had decided to delay their celebrations until the following week, when Kelly would be flying out to America. They planned to spend a night at the historic San Ysidro ranch, in California, then go for the 20-week scan on the baby McElhone was carrying, a brother or sister for their sons Theo, 8, and Otis, 5. “He left me this message, full of the joys . . . he couldn’t wait to come out the next week, he was so excited about the scan, so excited about the baby,” she says. “Thank God, a lovely last message.” Little more than 10 minutes later - McElhone calculates it as 13 - Kelly was dead. The tall, handsome doctor, who played in a band and had been snowboarding five weeks beforehand, was found by his friend lying in the hallway, one foot wedging open the front door. His heart had suddenly and inexplicably given out. . . . . Before he died, Kelly had been working with fellow surgeons on developing a gel to treat postoperative scarring, appropriately called Heal. In testing it on patients, they found that it not only reduced scarring but could be used to treat everyday injuries such as sprains, sunburn and bruises. They believed it deserved a place in every bathroom cabinet. . . “We’d always had this thing of, ‘Oh, when we’re old and grey we’ll go and live in the Third World’ and I would try and teach English or do something useful and he could train local surgeons. And he said, ‘Well, why wait? Let’s try and find a way of doing some of this now.’ ” The result was Facing the World, a charity founded with a group of leading craniofacial surgeons, which has treated children with disfigurements from around the globe. . . . . No wonder McElhone’s tribute painted him as a Renaissance man. He continued to play with fellow surgeons in a band called Tuck That and was a keen sportsman. “He taught [the boys] chess, surfing, drawing, foreign languages, his version of truth, what it is to risk, to have integrity, manners - beautiful, manly manners - and how to leap into the unknown at least once a day, because not knowing what you might find was the real gift of life,” according to McElhone. Her greatest sadness was how much their sons would lose out on. “Their world for now has been halved: I cannot become him,” she said. . .

'Californication' actress Natascha McElhone with late husband, humanitarian surgeon Martin Kelly of 'Facing The World' renown (Click for Related Video)

RELATED VIDEO: Facing The World YouTube.com, June 26, 2008
It is with great sadness that we acknowledge the tragic death of one of Facing The World's co-founders, Martin Kelly. Our thoughts are with his family to whom he was so devoted. This is a short clip of Martin and the team in action.

RELATED SITE: Facing The World
A new children's charity. It has been set up by the UK’s leading cranio-facial surgeons so that children in desperate need, living without hope in the world's poorest countries, can have access to the very best surgery that can transform their faces and radically change their quality of life. Should you who wish to donate online to Facing The World in Martin Kelly's name click here.

RELATED SITE: HEAL: Advanced Healing Formula
An advanced formula gel that reputedly speeds up recovery, soothes. Speeds up healing and softens scars. It treats bruises, reduces swelling, minimises scar, reduces inflammation.

Are high school pregnancies like Bristol Palin's becoming a badge of honor?

How a small US town hailed its teen mums The Observer- UK, By Elizabeh Day, September 14, 2008
High-school pregnancies, once a mark of shame, have become a badge of honour - and proved no barrier to Sarah Palin's campaign. The new mood, fostered by Bush's family and economic policies, is not confined to the rural South, but is apparent even in affluent Massachusetts. Now many fear the trend is threatening to erode hard-won women's rights. . . . . . When John McCain's vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, revealed that her 17-year-old daughter was expecting her first child it contributed to a 4 per cent Republican lead in the polls. Pregnancy plays well in the US. When Britney Spears's younger sister, Jamie Lynn, gave birth in June at the age of 17, she promptly signed an exclusive magazine deal and was photographed on the cover, holding her child and extolling the virtues of being a 'mom'. The hit film Juno, which features a teenage girl who chooses to go through with an unplanned pregnancy, grossed more than $229m and won a 2008 Academy Award. In a country with a strong evangelical streak, there are a growing number of social conservatives who are, like Palin, fervently anti-abortion. Increasingly teenage motherhood is seen as a responsible social decision rather than the shameful consequence of a regrettable mistake. . . . The sub-text is clear: that, far from being victims of deprivation and ignorance, young girls are choosing to become mothers in a society that increasingly celebrates teenage parenthood as the wholesome alternative to abortion. Not everyone agrees. In the days after Palin announced that Bristol was expecting, Democratic bloggers accused her of exploiting her own daughter to further her 'regressive' pro-life policies. Is Bristol Palin's pregnancy to be applauded, or is it evidence of an uncomfortable cultural shift that has seen a substantial and irreversible erosion of women's rights over the past decade?

RELATED ARTICLE: Jamie Lynn Spears makes motherhood look glamorous... but what are the real costs? WalletPop, By Barbara Bartlein, August 11, 2008
Jamie Lynn Spears (sister of Britney) is on the cover of the latest edition of OK! Magazine holding her newborn daughter, Maddie. Looking beautiful and rested, she is quoted as saying "Being a mom is the best feeling in the world." A teenage icon, Jamie Lynn is the star of Nickelodeon's "Zoe 101," and idolized by millions of young girls. Pregnant at 16 and a mother by age 17, Jamie Lynn is described in the article as living in "domestic bliss." Great message for the kids. Maybe it works this way for wealthy celebrities, but for most teens the happily ever after ending doesn't happen.

RELATED ARTICLE: Teen girls reportedly make pregnancy pact CNN.com, June 20, 2008
GLOUCESTER, Massachusetts (AP) -- A pact made by a group of teens to get pregnant and raise their babies together is at least partly behind a sudden spike in pregnancies at Gloucester High School, school officials said. Principal Joseph Sullivan told Time magazine in a story published Wednesday that the girls confessed to making the pact after the school began investigating a rise in pregnancies that has left 17 girls at the school carrying a child.

RELATED ARTICLE: Pregnancy: Boom for Box Office, Boon for Starlets: Hollywood Embraces (Almost) All the Gory Details of Pregnancy ABC News, By Sheila Marikar, May 14, 2008
It used to be that a film starring a painfully pregnant women was one of the more unpleasant parts of sixth grade health class, not something to be enjoyed with a bucket of popcorn and Milk Duds. Not anymore. Movies spoofing pregnancy, fertility and abortion are bigger than ever in Hollywood, proving to be a boon both for the industry and the actresses who star in them.

Key changes: Gospel singer Ray Boltz shares coming out journey in this Blade exclusive Washington Blade, By Joey Diguglielmo, September 12, 2008
Ray Boltz wanted to do something nice. He’d visited the mostly gay Jesus Metropolitan Community Church in Indianapolis and liked Rev. Jeff Miner, so he decided to give him a copy of his 1997 holiday recording, “A Christmas Album.”It was one of 16 albums Boltz, 55, recorded during a nearly 20-year recording career that saw the Muncie, Ind., native become one of the better-known singer/songwriters in Contemporary Christian Music, a genre born out of the Jesus Movement of the early 1970s that made singers like Amy Grant, Sandi Patty, Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman superstars in religious music with occasional excursions into mainstream pop culture. Boltz, with about 4.5 million LPs, cassettes and CDs sold, never made a splash outside of Christian circles but he never really tried. . . . Boltz brought the Christmas CD with him to MCC-Indianapolis on that cold, sunny December 2007 day and slipped it to Miner on his way out with a note taped to it on which he’d jotted his e-mail address. Ostensibly it was an innocuous thing to do, but for Boltz it was a big step. It eventually led to him opening up to Miner, one of the first times anybody outside Boltz’s circle of family and friends knew his long-kept secret: Ray Boltz is gay. . . . His 33-year marriage to ex-wife Carol was, he says, largely a happy one. It produced four children — three daughters and a son who are now between 22 and 32 — but family life and going through the motions of being straight had grown so wearying to Boltz, he was in a serious depression, had been in therapy for years, was on Prozac and other anti-depressants and had been, for a time, suicidal. . . . continuing to pretend, Boltz says, was no longer an option. “I’d denied it ever since I was a kid. I became a Christian, I thought that was the way to deal with this and I prayed hard and tried for 30-some years and then at the end, I was just going, ‘I’m still gay. . . . He and Carol Boltz remain close (their divorce was finalized early this year). She’s become involved with the gay advocacy group Soulforce but declined, through Boltz, to be interviewed for this story. . . .

Gospel singer Ray Boltz shares coming out journey in this Blade exclusive (Click for Related Video)

RELATED VIDEO & COMMENTS: Reaction to Ray Boltz Gay Lifestyle Choice OneNewsNow, September 15, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE: Boltz shocks Christian community with homosexuality admission OneNewsNow, By Jim Brown, September 15, 2008
There is shock and sadness in the Christian community over word that famed Christian music singer Ray Boltz has publicly announced he’s living a homosexual lifestyle. "If this is the way God made me, then this is the way I’m going to live...I really feel closer to God because I no longer hate myself." Those were the words of Ray Boltz in an interview with the Washington Blade about his decision to engage in homosexuality. Boltz, a father of four who was married for 33 years before officially divorcing his wife this year, is well-known for his widely acclaimed songs "Thank You" and "I Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb."

Editor's Note: Joe Dallas—a former homosexual and gay rights activist with the Metropolitan Community Church, a well known, well funded pro-homosexual organization, largely staffed by openly gay and lesbian clergy— is the Founder of Genesis Counseling, a nationally recognized ministry dealing with sexual addiction recovery and homosexuality. He is the author of several books on homosexuality:
* A Strong Delusion: Confronting the "Gay Christian" Movement
* Desires in Conflict
* Unforgiven Sins
* The Game Plan: The Men's 30-Day Strategy for Attaining Sexual Integrity
* When Homosexuality Hits Home: What to Do When a Loved One Says They're Gay

RELATED ARTICLE: Responding to Homosexuality & Gay Marriage: “Love the Sinner. Hate the Sin” The Real Proposal magazine, March 21, 2008
How can Christians and conservatives in America today — those desperately trying to walk the tightrope cliché to "Love the sinner. Hate the sin" — find balance in this homosexuality/gay marriage debate? To be sure, we don't have all the answers. However, we believe there is much wisdom to be garnered from a powerful address given by Joe Dallas, Founder of Genesis Counseling at a Love Won Out conference in Orlando, Florida. Joe Dallas says many Christians are afflicted with the "Jonah Syndrome," meaning they hold homosexuals in contempt and resist demonstrating to them the love of Christ. Dallas — a former homosexual — calls on the church to repent of its sin and to reach out to the gay community with a message of grace that is compassionate, consistent and clear.

ABC's Charlie Gibson Interviews GOP Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin (Click for Related Video)

Full Excerpts: Charlie Gibson Interviews GOP Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin ABC News, September 13, 2008
This story contains the full excerpts of all three exclusive interviews with Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin conducted over two days by ABC News' Charlie Gibson on Thursday, September 11 and Friday, September 12.

Sarah Palin on Experience:
GIBSON: Governor, let me start by asking you a question that I asked John McCain about you, and it is really the central question. Can you look the country in the eye and say "I have the experience and I have the ability to be not just vice president, but perhaps president of the United States of America?"

PALIN: I do, Charlie, and on January 20, when John McCain and I are sworn in, if we are so privileged to be elected to serve this country, will be ready. I'm ready.

GIBSON: And you didn't say to yourself, "Am I experienced enough? Am I ready? Do I know enough about international affairs? Do I -- will I feel comfortable enough on the national stage to do this?"

PALIN: I didn't hesitate, no.

GIBSON: Didn't that take some hubris? . . .

RELATED VIDEO: Gov. Sarah Palin: The Full Interview-- Gov. Sarah Palin says success on a local level exemplifies experience ABC News.com, Interviewer Charlie Gibson, September 12, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE: The Gibson Doctrine Townhall.com, By Dennis Prager, September 16, 2008
Asking the same unanswerable question three times had one purpose -- to humiliate the woman. That was not merely partisan. It was mean. I couldn't answer it -- and I have been steeped in international affairs since I was a Fellow at the Columbia University School of International Affairs in the 1970s. I have since been to 82 countries, and have lectured in Russian in Russia and in Hebrew in Israel. Most Americans would consider a candidate for national office who had such a resume qualified as regards international relations. Yet I had no clue how to answer Gibson's question. . . . . All the interview did was reconfirm that Republicans running for office run against both their Democratic opponent and the mainstream news media. This year it is more obvious than ever.

RELATED ARTICLE: Charlie Gibson's Gaffee Townhall.com, By Charles Krauthammer, September 13, 2008
"Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what he was talking about. Mr. Gibson, sounding like an impatient teacher, informed her that it meant the right of `anticipatory self-defense.'" -- New York Times, Sept. 12
I know something about the subject because, as the Wikipedia entry on the Bush doctrine notes, I was the first to use the term. . . . Yes, Palin didn't know what it is. But neither does Gibson. And at least she didn't pretend to know — while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, "sounding like an impatient teacher," as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the phenom who presumes to play on their stage.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Top Seven Reasons Conservatives Love Sarah Palin Townhall.com, By John Hawkins, September 12, 2008
When Sarah Palin was selected as John McCain's VP pick, it caught the mainstream media completely flatfooted. Most of them acted as if they'd never even heard of her, despite the fact that conservative bloggers had already selected her and Mitt Romney (they tied) as their most desired VP picks for John McCain. Moreover, the reaction of conservatives to Sarah Palin, while not quite as rapturous as the liberal reaction to Barack Obama, is surprisingly strong and positive -- and again, the press seems puzzled. Why in the world are conservatives so enthused about someone who has never done Meet the Press or been to a single Washington cocktail party? So, in an effort to help out our elitist liberal brethren who've been trying in vain to figure out what's so appealing about Sarah Palin, I decided to put together a little list that explains why conservatives love Sarah Palin so much. . . . . Palin comes across as much more of a self-actualized version of a regular person than most politicians. She isn't a lawyer, she didn't go to Yale, and she isn't rich. However, she's an attractive woman with a big family and a cool husband. She's a hunter and she started out as a PTA mom and worked her way up to the governorship of Alaska. I think for the average person, that's a much more comforting picture than, say -- got a law degree, served as a community organizer, hung around with Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, and Tony Rezko -- then voted the liberal line in the Senate for two years before starting a run at the presidency. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: 'She's one of us': Palin wins over Obama women The Times Online- UK, September 13, 2008
If Mr Obama should be in any doubt how gravely the vice-presidential nomination of the Governor of Alaska has imperilled his White House ambitions, then a day spent in Macomb County will make this clear: white women who voted for John Kerry in 2004 are suddenly deserting the Democratic Party.

RELATED ARTICLE: Why She Really Scares Them Townhall.com, By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, September 12, 2008
Democrats can't stomach seeing the feminist movement's impetus for greater female political participation and empowerment "hijacked" by a pro-life woman who espouses traditional values. They must obliterate her, lest her popularity eat away at their party's core. . . But the Fox News poll of Sept. 8-9 indicates a deeper reality of Palin's popularity. On the question of which of the four candidates best understands what day-to-day life is like in America, Palin finished first, with 33 percent. . . . She may become the first woman in national office - yet the Democrats, feminists and liberals can't control her, and that burns them up.

RELATED ARTICLE: Palin: wrong woman, wrong message: Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger Los Angeles Times, By Gloria Steinem, September 4, 2008
Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. . . . But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere.

Undercover story of the sexless marriage

Undercover story of the sexless marriage The Telegraph- UK, By Lucy Atkins, September 13, 2008
When Carole T, a 51-year-old from Essex, wrote to Weekend's problem page saying that her husband had not made love to her since she was 38, agony aunt Ruby Wax's advice was basically "grin and bear it". This, as our bulging postbag attests, is easier said than done. So, what do the experts say? Can a sexless relationship ever be successful, or is it always doomed to misery and frustration? There is no solid evidence to show how many people are living in sexless marriages, but in her bestselling book, The Sex-Starved Marriage, Michele Weiner Davis cites research indicating that around one in 20 couples are making love fewer than 10 times a year. She believes that these marriages, while not exactly doomed, are certainly on shaky ground. Paula Hall, sex and relationships therapist with Relate and founder of therelationshipspecialists.com, agrees: "A sexless marriage is fine as long as both people are happy with it. Unfortunately, this is rare." . . . . . Studies also show that women are genetically programmed to have a high sex drive for the first 18 months to two years of a relationship in order to form a "pair bond". This enthusiasm will typically then gradually decline, as will a man's - though at a slower rate. A permanent loss of desire is a different matter, and the causes are complex. "Some couples slip into a 'brother-sister' relationship," says Hall. "Psychologists call this 'enmeshment' - you love each other dearly, but just no longer see each other as sexual beings.". . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Q & A: Pillow Talk: Ruby Wax's take on the sexless union The Telegraph- UK, September 13, 2008
Q: Dear Ruby: We have been together for about 18 years and are both very fit and active. By choice, we have not had children, so I have managed to remain a slim size eight and look after myself without being obsessive about it. I assume other men find me attractive, as they flirt with me. The problem is that my husband lost interest in sex a long time ago - we last indulged in anything remotely physical when I was just 38. . . . . Please don't tell me to try to rekindle a romantic life with my husband - it has been so long since we last had sex that we are now like best friends, brother and sister even. It would be too ridiculous. Carole T, Essex

RELATED ARTICLE: Can 365 Nights Of Sex Bolster A Marriage? When Their Marriages Fell Into The Doldrums, Two Long-Married Couples Took Action CBS News- WebMD, September 12, 2008
If you decided to have sex every day, would your relationship benefit? Two long-married couples decided to find out. When lovemaking fell off their respective "to-do" lists, they ditched the sweats, bought sex toys and books, stepped up exercise, lit candles, and took trips. Then they chronicled their "sexperiment" in two recently released books, Just Do It: How One Couple Turned Off the TV and Turned On Their Sex Lives for 101 Days (No Excuses!) by Doug Brown and 365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy by Charla Muller with Betsy Thorpe.

Man accused of assault of wife in coma JS Online- Milwaukee, By Marie Rohde, September 11, 2008
Prosecutors can’t use secret videotapes of a Watertown minister having sex with his comatose wife while she was in a nursing home, the 4th District Court of Appeals ruled Thursday. The man faces eight felonies — four counts of second-degree sexual assault of an unconscious person and four counts of third-degree sexual assault — as well as a misdemeanor. The case raises a number of issues, including a nursing home’s obligation to protect the health and safety of a patient, an individual’s right to privacy and questions of marital sexual abuse. According to the appellate decision and other court records: In June 2005, after David W. Johnson, 59, had been loud and abusive with employees at Divine Savior Nursing Home in Portage, an employee reported that Johnson had touched his wife in a way that may have been sexually inappropriate. Johnson’s wife, now 53, had suffered a stroke earlier in 2005 and required total care. The home’s policy and the state administrative code provides residents and their spouses a right to private visits, but the Divine Savior administrator obtained a waiver of the state rule from the Department of Health and Family Services. She then went to police. Johnson, who had had closed-door visits with the home’s knowledge in the past, was not told of the waiver. Police obtained a search warrant allowing them to place a hidden video camera in the woman’s room. During three weeks of surveillance, Johnson was seen having sex with his wife, and he was charged July 21, 2005. Johnson’s lawyer argued that his client had a legitimate expectation of privacy while visiting his wife. . . . Linda Morrison, director of the Wisconsin Coalition on Sexual Assault, said that any sex with a person unable to consent is rape. “Sex is not a right in a marital relationship,” Morrison said. “A woman is not property; a man is not property.”. . . .

Is Pornography Adultery?
It may be closer than you think. The Atlantic, By Ross Douthat, October 2008 Issue
The marriage of Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook collapsed the old-fashioned way in 2006, when she discovered that he was sleeping with his 18-year-old assistant. But their divorce trial this summer was a distinctly Internet-age affair. Having insisted on keeping the proceedings open to the media, Brinkley and her lawyers served up a long list of juicy allegations about Cook’s taste in online porn: the $3,000 a month he dropped on adult Web sites, the nude photos he posted online, the user names he favored (“happyladdie2002,” for instance, and “wannaseeall”) while surfing swinger sites, even the videos he supposedly made of himself masturbating. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the porn-related revelations, though, was the ambiguity about what line, precisely, Cook was accused of having crossed. Was the porn habit a betrayal in and of itself? Was it the financial irresponsibility that mattered most, or the addictive behavior it suggested? Was it the way his habit had segued into other online activities? Or was it about Cook’s fitness as a parent, and the possibility that their son had stumbled upon his porn cache? . . . . The notion that pornography, and especially hard-core pornography, has something to do with marital infidelity has been floating around the edges of the American conversation for a while now, even as the porn industry, by some estimates, has swollen to rival professional sports and the major broadcast networks as a revenue-generating source of entertainment. . .

RELATED RESOURCES:
* In The Shadows of The Net: Breaking Free from Compulsive Online Sexual Behavior By Patrick Carnes

* Virtual Addiction: Help for Netheads, Cyberfreaks, and Those Who Love Them By David Greenfield

* Caught in the Net: How to Recognize the Signs of Internet Addiction—and a Winning Strategy for Recovery By Kimberly Young

Is Pornography Adultery? It may be closer than you think.

RELATED ARTICLE: Addiction to Internet Pornography Reliable Answers.com, By Kelli Simkus
Internet pornography has been called the, "gateway drug to sexual addiction," by Dr. Victor Cline, a psychologist at the University of Utah. Dr. Cline states there are four stages of addiction: addiction, escalation, desensitization and acting out. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Internet porn has created a class of lost souls Canada.com, August 21, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE: Sex addiction: Jonesing for a rogering? You're not alone. Canada.com, By Jennifer Parks, September 12, 2008
- Sex was his fix, his high - his way out from thinking about an abusive past that haunted him. Then the abyss of addiction he fell into nearly destroyed his life. "My drug of choice was whatever you got - a smorgasbord of pornography, hookers, anonymous partners. My goal was (to score) every day. It was like being a junkie,'' says Jim, a 34-year-old Edmonton executive and married father of two. In his darkest hours, he was a Jekyll and Hyde in a three-piece suit, skipping work to troll for prostitutes or hook up for free sex with someone he'd met online. "It was like a second job. I felt completely out of control, utterly hopeless. I'd become a passenger in my own life,'' says Jim, whose infidelity and lies started before his marriage, and continued for years before a regular sex partner contacted his wife in a jealous rage one night and blew his cover.

RELATED ARTICLE: David Duchovny not alone in sex addiction: More men and women becoming addicted to ‘quick click’ self-gratification MSNBC.com, By Ian Kerner, Ph.D. — Sex therapist and relationship counselor, September 4, 2008
For years David Duchovny, in the form of FBI agent Fox Mulder, chased down aliens and told us that we’re not alone. So what should he be told now, after publicly admitting that he doesn't just play a sex addict on TV, but also struggles with the issue in real life? He’s not alone either.

RELATED ARTICLE: Help for the Sexually Desperate: More and more, Christian men are admitting they've been caught in a vicious cycle Christianity Today, By John W. Kennedy, March 7, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE: The Girls Next Door are anything but reality! Crosswalk.com, By David Burchett, May 21, 2007
I rarely open the regret lock-box these days. But a recent news story about a reality TV show on the E! Network sent me there. The show is called the Girls Next Door and the premise is to look inside life at the Playboy mansion. Another sign of the apocalypse is that this is the third season of this show. I was blissfully unaware of the show until just recently. Here is why I opened the regret box. I am unlocking a personal regret to plead with any young man who might read this to not get hooked by the “playboy” lure. I did. I regret that.

RELATED ARTICLE: Porn in the pews - Churchmen wrestle with addiction The Jamaica Gleaner, By Dale McNish, November 25, 2006

RELATED ARTICLE: Bottling Up Smut-- Cleaning Up the Public Square Breakpoint.org- By Chuck Colson, June 27, 2005
According to a new book, we have failed our children because we haven't fulfilled "our function as guardians of their cultural environment." The "American media's obsession with sex," says the author, "has gotten so out of hand" that "even the provocateurs are being provoked." Whose words are these? Chuck Colson? Jim Dobson? No. They're the conclusions of a "provocateur" himself, a "staunch believer in the First Amendment" and a "member of the American Civil Liberties Union" -- someone who opposes "any element of government control of human expression." That's how Gil Reavill describes himself in his new book, Smut: A Sex-Industry Insider (and Concerned Father) Says Enough is Enough.

The ordination of gay Bishop Gene Robinson divided Anglicans

California's top Episcopal bishops oppose gay marriage ban
The state's six highest bishops go on the record against Prop. 8, the fall ballot measure that would reverse the California Supreme Court's decision to allow same-sex couples to marry. Los Angeles Times, By Duke Helfand, September 11, 2008
California's six most senior Episcopal bishops Wednesday unanimously declared their opposition to a constitutional amendment on the statewide November ballot that would ban same-sex marriage. The bishops argued that preserving the right of gays and lesbians to marry would enhance the "Christian values" of monogamy, love and commitment. "We believe that continued access to civil marriage for all, regardless of sexual orientation, is consistent with the best principles of our constitutional rights," said the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. Bruno, flanked at a news conference by fellow clergy members and gay and straight couples, added: "We do not believe that marriage of heterosexuals is threatened by same-sex marriage." By going on the record against Proposition 8, which would reverse the California Supreme Court's decision in May to legalize same-sex marriage, the bishops waded into a volatile political and religious controversy. Gay marriage has strained the Episcopalians' international body, the Anglican Communion, with hundreds of bishops from Africa and elsewhere threatening to break away over attempts to change church doctrine and practice. The issue has created theological fissures in other Protestant denominations. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: The Archbishop of Canterbury has claimed that active homosexual relationships are "comparable to marriage" in the eyes of God The Telegraph- UK, By Jonathan Wynne-Jones and Martin Beckford, August 7, 2008
In private correspondence, seen by the Daily Telegraph, Dr Rowan Williams, refutes the Anglican Communion's traditional teaching that homosexuality is sinful.

RELATED ARTICLE: US Church splits over gay rights BBC News, December 8, 2007
A Californian diocese has voted to become the first to break away from the US Episcopal Church in protest at its support for gays in the Church.

RELATED ARTICLE: Ministers define marriage at forum San Diego Union Tribune, By Sandi Dolbee, September 15, 2008
– In what is becoming the most religiously charged proposition on the Nov. 4 ballot, Christian ministers yesterday highlighted what may be the central question for them – whether God only wants marriage to be between a man and a woman or if it is right to expand the definition to include same-gender couples. . . . For the Rev. Michael Wilson of New Bethel Baptist Church in San Diego, his support for traditionally defined marriage is likewise unswerving. “The Bible says the times will change. The Bible says people will change. But the Bible says his word will remain the same,” Wilson said.

RELATED ARTICLE: Anglican Church offshoot founded by traditionalists in Jerusalem The Telegraph- UK, By Martin Beckford, June 29, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE: Are the Anglicans About to Split? Time magazine, By David Van Biema, June 20, 2008
The schism long forecast for the Anglican Communion over the church's liberal stand on homosexuality may be getting closer. . . . Just days before the group's conference is set to begin in Jerusalem, GAFcon's leader, Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, declared in a 94-page theological statement: "There is no longer any hope, therefore, for a unified Communion ... Now we confront a moment of decision ... We want unity, but not at the cost of relegating Christ to the position of another wise teacher, who can be obeyed or disobeyed. We earnestly desire the healing of our beloved Communion, but not at the cost of rewriting the Bible to accommodate the latest cultural trend. We have arrived at a crossroads; it is, for us, the moment of truth.". . .

RELATED VIDEO: Vicar: 'No regrets' on gay vows BBC News, June 15, 2008
Two gay clergymen have had their partnership blessed in a church. The Reverend Martin Dudley gave the rites at St Bartholomew the Great Church in the City of London for the Reverend Peter Cowell and the Reverend Dr David Lord. He told the BBC that there is a 'very large number' of gay people and gay clergy in the Church of England.

RELATED ARTICLE: "Values Voters" Anarchy Good News for Gays The Advocate.com, October 20, 2007- October 22, 2007
Such divisions work to the benefit of LGBT people, diminishing if not yet conquering the voices of the country's most virulently antigay spokespeople.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Dangers of Same-sex "Marriage" BreakPoint.org- By Regis Nicoll, May 26, 2006
Before we examine the societal effects of gay “marriage,” we need to set the record straight about the moral teachings of Jesus. While it’s true that Jesus said nothing explicitly about homosexuality, it’s also true he never mentioned the evils of bestiality, incest, pedophilia, rape, slavery, wife-beating, or substance abuse, to name a few. In fact, the New Testament records very few things that Jesus specifically condemned. It would be reckless, therefore, to assume that anything not specifically prohibited is permitted. What the scriptures do record, however, is Jesus’s shift from old-covenant particulars to core moral principles. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: What does the Bible actually say about being gay? Confused how two groups of church-goers can have such conflicting views about whether it's OK to be gay? BBC News- UK, October 23, 2003

RELATED ARTICLE: Judaism's Sexual Revolution: Why Judaism (and then Christianity) Rejected Homosexuality OrthodoxyToday.org, By Dennis Prager
When Judaism demanded that all sexual activity be channeled into marriage, it changed the world. The Torah's prohibition of non-marital sex quite simply made the creation of Western civilization possible. Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Homosexual Theology Probe.org, by Kerby Anderson
Scientists may indeed discover a clear biological predisposition to sexual orientation. But a predisposition is not the same as a determination. Some people may inherit a predisposition for anger, depression, or alcoholism, yet we do not condone these behaviors. And even if violence, depression, or alcoholism were proven to be inborn (determined by genetic material), would we accept them as normal and refuse to treat them? Of course not. The Bible has clear statements about such things as anger and alcoholism. Likewise, the Bible has clear statements about homosexuality.

RELATED ARTICLE: Responding to Pro-Gay Theology Leadership U, By Joe Dallas
This three-part series will address the pro-gay theology by dividing its arguments--or tenets--into three categories: social justice arguments, general religious arguments, and scriptural arguments. A brief description of these arguments will be provided, followed by a response/rebuttal to each.

Major denominations ordaining homosexuals, priests and clergy presiding over same-sex weddings, sanctuaries invaded by boisterous gay activists, debates over homosexuality ripping congregations apart-who would have guessed we would ever reach such a point in church history? . . . . When God is reputed to sanction what He has already clearly forbidden, then a religious travesty is being played out, and boldly. Confronting it is necessary because it (the pro-gay theology) asks us to confirm professing Christians in their sin, when we are Biblically commanded to do just the opposite.

9/11 book seeks to explain tragedy amNY, By Scott A. Rosenberg, September 10, 2008
Alissa Torres is not looking for your pity. She just wants you to understand what happened. Seven years ago today, Torres' husband Eddie was killed in The World Trade Center. He was on his second day of work at Cantor Fitzgerald at the top of North Tower when tragedy struck, leaving her a widow -- and seven months pregnant. Her experience is chronicled in the new graphic novel, "American Widow," written by Torres and drawn by Sungyoon Choi. The book explores her budding relationship with Eddie, coping with her loss, her grief and her recovery process. Torres, 42, is able to tell her tragic tale, but manages to not make it a sob story, so you're really not going to need to keep the tissue box nearby. "I realized that's just not in my nature," Torres says. "One of the things I hated the most was when people actually pitied me. And being this object of pity. I just wanted to write something that is real, and I guess my goal is to have people understand what this experience was and I think it's about somebody who doesn't want people to pity them." Torres set forth trying to explain what happened and what grief looks like. It included coming to terms with death, putting your life back together and digging through the documents you encounter when someone dies. Torres decided to tell her story in graphic form after receiving a condolence card from NASA. The organization had sent 10,000 U.S. flags into space and back, and then sent them to the families as a gesture. "[It was] simultaneously beautiful and absurd," Torres says. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: 'American Widow' pours out 9/11 grief in graphic images USA Today, September 8, 2008
— Eddie Torres, a Colombian immigrant who worked his way up from being a delivery boy, thought he had found his dream job as a currency broker for Cantor Fitzgerald. His first day at the World Trade Center was Sept. 10, 2001. Alissa Torres, his wife, was nearly eight months pregnant with their first child when she became a widow the next day. Seven years later, she has written a 210-page graphic memoir, or as she calls it, "an adult, literary comic book," about her marriage and first year as a widow and single mother.

RELATED ARTICLE: Out of the ruins of Sept. 11, a love story emerges: Widow, widower of those who died at Pentagon find new life together Chron.com-Houston Chronicle, By Nick Miroff- Washington Post, September 7, 2008
— On Monday nights, the two groups met in the classrooms of Messiah United Methodist Church in Springfield, Va., pushing the chairs into a circle. The men and women who came were not there to cope with addiction or bankruptcy, but to seek the company of the few others who knew their extraordinary misfortune. Once husbands and wives, they had become widows and widowers on the same day. Ben Salamone in one group, Donna Teepe in the other. . . . . The love story of Donna Teepe and Ben Salamone is not wrapped in golden bows or ringed with little red hearts. There were no smoldering glances or torrid weekend trysts. Theirs has been a cautious courtship and an imperfect embrace, formed from the ruin and wreckage of Sept. 11, when their spouses died at the Pentagon. . . . But it also took time for Salamone and Teepe to make the relationship all right with themselves, to not wake up in the middle of the night and feel guilty.

Man who lost family finds peace in helping others CNN.com, Contributor Kyra Phillips, September 10, 2008
Story Highlights:
* Robert Rogers' wife and four children died in flash flood five years ago
* Rogers chose not to "wallow in pity" and became a minister with a message of hope
* His mission is to establish five orphanages in five continents to honor his family
* One named after his wife, Melissa, exists in Russia, another planned in Rwanda

-- Five years ago, Robert Rogers was driving home with his family from a wedding when a flash flood took his wife and four children from him in an instant. Rainfall from a torrential downpour swept the Rogers' minivan off a Kansas highway. As water filled the van, Rogers kicked out a window in a last-ditch effort to save his family. Instead, he and his wife, Melissa, and daughter, Makenah, were sucked out of the van. Hours later, the bodies of children Zachary, 5, Nicholas, 3, and Alenah, 1, still buckled in their car seats, were found inside the van. Rogers survived. Instead of falling into despair, he became a minister dedicated to honoring his family by preaching messages of hope in the face of adversity. "It was a huge choice of faith," Rogers told CNN. "It was a determination to live life to honor God, to honor my heavenly family, and to make something productive out of it and not just to wallow in my pity.". . . . "We are not guaranteed the next five seconds," Rogers said. "Life is very fragile and I hope my stories and inspirations are compelling people to live that life of no regrets."

At Home with John McCain People magazine, By Sandra Sobieraj Westfall, September 10, 2008
For all the political snickering over how many houses John McCain owns, his daughter Meghan, 23, says the heart of her family lies in just one place: The creek-side collection of cabins and sheds near Sedona, Ariz., where she and her siblings whiled away their weekends, holidays and summers. "It's a really beautiful part of my childhood because it's so pure and so unjaded," Meghan tells PEOPLE. There, the Budweiser is on tap (an homage to mom Cindy's family beer empire) and the walls are hung with the children's old artwork. "They're everywhere. It's really embarrassing," says Meghan. "But my mom is obsessed with it all." In a series of recent interviews, Cindy and John McCain and their daughter Meghan opened up to PEOPLE about the joys, heartbreaks and everyday details of their life together with Bridget, 17, a junior in high school; Jack, 22, a cadet at the U.S. Naval Academy; and Jimmy, 20, a Marine home between deployments to Iraq. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Polls show John Mccain’s veep pick led to surge Boston Herald, By Mike Underwood, September 10, 2008
GOP White House contender John McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate helped fuel a surge of support from independent voters, according to the latest polls. The Gallup Daily Tracking poll of 2,733 registered voters showed McCain’s support from independents surged from 40 percent to 52 percent after picking Palin and his speech at the Republican National Convention. The poll also has McCain leading his Democratic rival Barack Obama 49-44 percent among all registered voters.

RELATED ARTICLE: Paul Declines to Endorse McCain AOL News- By Suzanne Gamboa- AP, September 10, 2008
Earlier, Paul called the presidential elections a charade and said voters are faced with the "lesser of two evils."

RELATED ARTICLE: McCain Surges In National Polls US News & World Report, September 9, 2008
There are five new national polls out in the last 24 hours, and four of them show Sen. John McCain opening a lead over Sen. Barack Obama, while the fifth shows the race tied.

RELATED ARTICLE: John McCain or Barack Obama? For us, there’s only one option The Real Proposal magazine, August 18, 2008
The sad reality is that both presumptive candidates for the presidency of the United States — chosen, ultimately, from a decidedly tainted pack from both sides of the Democratic-Republican divide — constitute a less-than-stellar reflection of our spiritual and moral condition as a nation, and it is delusional to believe that there isn't a leadership crisis in America. . . At election time, it is "we the people" that decide who our decision makers will be. But, as Daniel Taylor & Mark McCloskey point out in their recent article, How to Pick a President: Why Virtue Trumps Policy, all too often we decide poorly, largely because we ask the wrong questions.

Junk in the Trunk Bishop's Blog- TD Jakes.com, September 9, 2008
Continuing our theme of the decision making process, I’d like to talk to you about something that is very near and dear to my heart as a pastor, as a father, as a friend. That is the process by which people make one of the most important decisions of their lives: who to spend the rest of their lives with! Even after all of my many years counseling people, it never fails to amaze me how very little work, how very little RESEARCH, people do when they are “shopping” for a new spouse. Folks spend longer researching the next car they’re going to buy than who they’re going to be spending the rest of their lives with. I cannot tell you how many times newly married couples come to me for guidance, and one of the first complaints I hear is that one, or both, of them feels deceived by their partner. The wife feels deceived because she did not know that her husband had bad credit before she married him and now they can’t get that house she wanted. Or the husband feels deceived because his wife did not divulge that she’d been engaged before. Whatever the reasons, finding out important facts like this AFTER the wedding never does anyone any good. . . . . In my new book, “Before You Do: Making Great Decisions You Won’t Regret” I deal with this issue in Chapter 3. Nobody can be a good partner, a good friend, a good mate, if they are full of emotional junk. . . .

TD Jakes' new book 'Before You Do' urges you to check out the 'junk in the trunk' of a potential partner

RELATED BLOG: Regret Bishop's Blog- TD Jakes.com, September 3, 2008
And speaking of decisions, this entire electoral process and the decision making aspect of it especially intrigues me as I have just finished writing a book titled, Before You Do: Making Decisions That You Won’t Regret. Don’t worry, the book isn’t about political decisions. I wrote a book about making life decisions. In this book, I write about personal decisions like marriage, career, associations, divorce and the decisions you and I will make without the benefit of news commentaries and political pundits. . . .Over and over again, we all have decisions to make—rich or poor, black or white, saint or sinner, there is no avoiding it. The decisions you make today will tailor the times of your tomorrow! Before You Do will hopefully give you a template to help you with those everyday decisions that often have extraordinary consequences.

RELATED BLOG & WEBISODE: Before I Did Bishop's Blog- TD Jakes.com, By Sarah Henson (TD Jakes' newly-married daughter), August 28, 2008
Several weeks ago my dad shared his thoughts and feelings on my recent marriage. I thought it would be fun to share my side of the story.

Hungary's declining marriage rates leaves a population growing old

LETTER FROM EUROPE: The new Hungary finds a population growing old International Herald Tribune, By Celestine Bohlen- Bloomberg News, September 9, 2008
Like many Hungarian women her age, Anna Kalmar doesn't see the point of getting married, at least not before she turns 30. "I want to work now, earn some money," said the 25-year-old, stopping at a Budapest café on her way from work at a marketing agency. "I am not in such a rush. Besides, it is just a piece of paper." While such talk, Kalmar says, would horrify her Roman Catholic mother, it explains social changes taking place in Hungary. Since 1980, the number of marriages has dropped 50 percent, a key reason for a continuing decline in the country's fertility rate to an estimated 1.35 children per woman this year - among the lowest in Europe. With the fall of Communism in 1989, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Poles and other East Europeans have been behaving more like their western neighbors: marrying later, if at all, and having fewer babies. That - together with mortality rates above the European Union average, higher emigration and virtually no immigration - is shrinking their populations, feeding national angst. "The demographic situation in Hungary borders on the catastrophic, threatening our economic sustainability," said Miklos Soltesz, 45, a member of Parliament from the Christian Democratic People's Party. According to projections by Eurostat, Hungary's population may drop 13 percent to 8.7 million in 2060 from 10 million now. The trend is similar across Eastern Europe. . . . . What has changed since 1989 is the decision by more and more young adults to stay single longer and have children outside of marriage, according to Olga Toth, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Sociology in Budapest. "It is a very hot issue in Hungary," Toth said. "It is a real shock for society that people are postponing getting married.". . .

Jordin Sparks doesn't regret promise ring remarks at VMAs Hollywood Insider- Entertainment Weekly, By Shirley Halperin, September 9, 2008
Katy Perry may have covered "Like A Virgin" at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, but Jordin Sparks was living it — loudly. Attending the show for the first time, the American Idol winner went off-script after being agitated by host Russell Brand's repeated mocking of the Jonas Brothers' promise rings. "It's something I feel strongly about," she tells EW.com. "I wish I would've worded it differently — that somebody who doesn't wear a promise ring isn't necessarily a slut — but I can't take it back now. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Jordin Sparks Doesn’t Want to Be a Slut! - VMA Awards - VIDEO MJS Big Blog.com- American Idol, September 8, 2008
While Jordin Sparks was shut out of the fan-voted Best New Recording Artist VMA by Tokyo Hotel (Who?!?), she still managed to have a water cooler moment at the MTV Video Music Awards last night. Before her introduction to a performance by T.I., Jordin went off-script to respond to VMA host Russel Brand goofing on the Jonas Brother’s promise rings during his opening monologue. She says, “I just have one thing to say about promise rings. It’s not bad to wear a promise ring, because not everybody – guy or girl – wants to be a slut.”

Jordin Sparks defends promise rings at 2008 VMAs (Click for Related Video)

RELATED VIDEO: Jordin Sparks Defends Promise Rings MTV.com, September 8, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE: The Pursuit of Teen Girl Purity Time magazine, By Nancy Gibbs, July 17, 2008
There are some mothers and some uncles among the 150 people in the ballroom of the Broadmoor hotel, but the night belongs to fathers and daughters. The girls generally range in age from college down to the tiny 4-year-old dressed all in purple who has climbed up into her father's arms to be carried. Some are in their first high heels--you can tell by the way they walk, like uncertain baby giraffes. Randy Wilson, co-inventor of the Father-Daughter Purity Ball, offers a blessing: he calls on the men to be good and loving listeners, tender, gracious and truthful. And he prays that the girls might "step into the world with strength and passion, to lead this generation." . . . . Word of the event spread fast: soon the camera crews came, and so did Tyra Banks and Dr. Phil. . . .

RELATED RESOURCE: I am Worth the Wait - Sex Education Program Univ. of Texas Dept. of Obstetrics & Gynecology
Being a teen can be exciting, confusing, and scary all at the same time. We're here to help you sort through the mixed messages and conflicting emotions you face every day. We have solid facts, figures, suggestions and advice to empower you to choose what is best for you when it comes to sexual activity.

FACT: 55% of boys and 72% of girls who had sex wished they had waited.

Howard Stern in virgin territory NY Daily News, Rush & Malloy, September 9th 2008
Look for Howard Stern to shock again on Tuesday morning when he's due to kick off the auction of a 22-year-old beauty's virginity. Expected to step on the block, so to speak, of Stern's Sirius radio studio is a San Diego woman who says she wants to sell her maidenhood to pay her college tuition. "I don't have a moral dilemma with it," says the pretty brunette, who's using the pseudonym of Natalie Dylan "for safety reasons." "We live in a capitalist society," she tells us. "Why shouldn't I be allowed to capitalize on my virginity?" Dylan was introduced to Stern by Dennis Hof, proprietor of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, Nevada's famed legal brothel (seen on HBO's hit series "Cathouse.") Hof says the auction will be conducted online via bunnyranch.com, and that the deal will be consummated at the Bunny Ranch, where Dylan's sister already works. "I think it's a tremendous idea," he says. "Why lose it to some guy in the backseat of a Toyota when you can pay for your education?" There won't be any questions about Dylan's virtue: The lass says she's willing to submit to a polygraph test and a gynecological exam to confirm her virginity. . . . . Dylan told us she got the auction idea after reading about a Peruvian woman who needed to pay for her mother's medical bills. A Canadian man made a whopping $1.5 million bid, but the woman reportedly decided not to go through with the sex. Dylan says the winner won't necessarily be the highest bidder. "I want someone with chemistry. We'll take bids until I find a suitor I'm happy with.”

RELATED ARTICLE: Italian model plans to sell virginity for 1m euros: An Italian model who swears she has never had sex plans to sell her virginity for one million euros, or £792,000. The Telegraph- UK, By Nick Squires in Perugia, September 19, 2008
Showgirl and men's magazine model Raffella Fico, 20, told an Italian magazine: "I can't wait to see who's going to pull out the money to have me." . . . . I don't know what it's like to have sex," she told the magazine, Chi, adding that if the man who bought her virginity was ugly then she would quickly get over it. "If I don't like him I'll just have a glass of wine and forget about it," said the aspiring actress from Naples - hometown of screen siren Sophia Loren.

'Natalie Dylan' - in conjunction with Howard Stern - auctioning her virginity to pay college tuition

RELATED ARTICLE: Film documents sale of virginity on eBay auction The News Record- U of Cincinnati's independent newspaper, By Kaitlin McClellan, May 26, 2005
Virginity for sale! That's what one winning film from the Cannes Film Festival explored. Buy It Now, winner of the Cinéfondation Award, revolves around a 16-year-old girl who decides to bypass the anxiety that can be associated with having sex for the first time by auctioning off her virginity to the highest bidder. Somehow, having sex for the first time with a complete stranger doesn't seem like it would be anxiety-free. But maybe I'm too uptight.

RELATED ARTICLE: Casual sex left me feeling worthless: How a one-night stand left one woman emotionally destroyed: New research says women bitterly regret one-night stands. But the emotional damage can go deeper than you think... The Daily Mail- Uk, By Helen Weathers, July 3, 2008
When seen in the cold light of the morning after the night before, what had seemed like a rather thrilling idea at the time suddenly felt anything but for 28-year-old PR executive Aisling.

Queen Anne:
Despite her highly publicized personal trials, Anne Hathaway is emerging with more confidence both in her roles and in her life. W magazine, By Danielle Stein, October 2008 Issue
Though our interview has been planned for weeks and confirmed repeatedly by her publicist, it’s still something of a surprise when Anne Hathaway walks through the doors of the rustic New York cafe she’s chosen as our meeting place. It is less than a month since her highly publicized breakup with her boyfriend of four years—the man with whom she’d been house hunting, whom she seemed to think she’d marry—30-year-old Italian businessman Raffaello Follieri. And it’s less than three weeks since Follieri was arrested for allegedly scamming his investors by falsely claiming ties to the Vatican and placed in prison with a $21 million bail on charges that could result in a life sentence. Meanwhile, the press is having a field day. Headlines like THE PRINCESS AND THE CON MAN, blinded by love and burned by a loser coat the newsstands. The New York Post publishes regular reports from “friends” of Follieri about how Hathaway sold him out to the Feds. Even the ever sensitive Donald Trump has issued a statement to ABC News criticizing the actress for failing to stand by her man; he then appeared on Access Hollywood, sneering: “So when he had plenty of money, she liked him, but after that, not as good, right?” Perhaps the worst zinger came from Newsweek, of all places, which titled its report WHAT SHOULD HAVE TIPPED ANNE HATHAWAY THAT HER EX-BOYFRIEND WAS BIG TROUBLE? A—CROOKED DAD. B—BAD CHECKS. C—ALLEGED POPE SCAM. D—ALL OF THE ABOVE. . .

Despite her highly publicized personal trials, Anne Hathaway is emerging with more confidence both in her roles and in her life (Click for Related Video)

RELATED VIDEO: David Letterman Grills Anne Hathaway on Ex-Boyfriend YouTube - The Tonight Show, October 1, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE: Anne Hathaway's Ex Pleads Guilty to Fraud People magazine, By Kathy Ehrich Dowd, September 10, 2008
Anne Hathaway's ex-boyfriend, Raffaello Follieri, pleaded guilty to all 14 counts against him Wednesday morning in a Manhattan federal court. Dressed in a navy prison outfit, the Italian businessman looked calm and told the judge, "I know what I did was wrong.". . . He could be sentenced to up to 265 years in prison. Follieri, 30, agreed not to appeal a sentence less than 63 months in prison.

RELATED ARTICLE: Anne Hathaway's Ex Arrested People magazine, By Alyssa Shelasky and Kathy Ehrich Dowd, June 24, 2008
Italian businessman Raffaello Follieri, whom Get Smart actress Anne Hathaway broke up with earlier this month, has been arrested for fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Follieri, no stranger to scandals, has been accused of lying to investors, claiming to be the CFO of the Vatican, the Associated Press reports.

First the marriage, then the courtship: Arranged marriages like that of David Weinlick and Elizabeth Runze are becoming a small but growing trend in the US (Click for Related Video)

First the marriage, then the courtship
Arranged marriages have moved beyond their traditional base and are becoming a small but growing trend in the US. Christian Science Monitor, By Gloria Goodale, September 9, 2008
Whisper the words "arranged marriage," and images of women signed over as chattel are likely to rise in the minds of many Westerners. But, say culture watchers and sociologists, there's a rising interest in this age-old practice in the West, as shown by at least two books and three upcoming television series on the topic – as well as a growing number of matchmaking sites devoted solely to arranging unions. More important, couples with no cultural or family tradition of arranged marriages are entering into matrimony with proper strangers in what is being called a "turbo-charged back to the future." While the number of nuptials consummated in this way is still small, there's evidence that some of the principles of these traditional pacts are drawing attention and respect from both scholars and singles who are anxious to move into a married state. . . . .Internet dating has exhausted many people, she adds, suggesting that if online courtship is the yin of modern relationships, then arranged marriages are the yang. "People are saying to themselves, 'I'm tired of a whole bunch of cheap Hershey bars. I want gourmet chocolate and a connoisseur to tell me which of the top two brands I should choose.' " But, she points out, arranged marriages in countries such as the United States are "not the old routine of dads selling daughters for a dowry; these kids have veto power.". . . Nick Gilhool, casting director for the impending Lifetime cable show "Arranged Marriage," in which four couples will take the plunge and allow cameras to film their first year together, says applicants share a frustration with dating and a desire to "be proactive" about their love lives. "Marriage is being repositioned and reexamined," he says. . .

RELATED SITE: Arranged Marriage — The Television Show — Magical Elves & Lifetime Television

RELATED VIDEO: Arranged Marriage TV
Hear about successful arranged marriages - it may just surprise you what these happy couples and the experts have to say!

RELATED ARTICLE: Is Arranged Marriage Really Any Worse Than Craigslist? A Modern Indian Woman's Struggle with Arranged Marriage New York Magazine, By Anita Jain, September 5, 2007

RELATED ARTICLE: Marriage: Is love necessary? How does the institution of arranged marriage, the culturally preferred way of Indians to establish the couple, square with the powerful dream of love? Little India, By Sudhir Kakar, June 15, 2007
For in India the consensus in favor of arranged marriage through the centuries has been truly astonishing; in fact the only ancient Hindu text that considers love marriage as the highest form of marriage is the revolutionary Kamasutra. Arranged marriages are not only a pan Indian norm, cutting across the divides in education, social class, religion and regions but, more important, they are rarely seen as an imposition by the young people concerned who overwhelmingly prefer them to the love marriage typical of contemporary Western societies.

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Q & A: Christian Marrying a Non-Christian? Marriage: FAIL Croxswalk.com, By John Shore, September 09, 2008
A 23-year-old Christian woman wrote to ask what I thought about her dating a non-Christian. "It's a problem plaguing my life," she wrote. "This man treats me like a queen. I just want to talk to him all the time and blah blah gush gush so forth. The problem is that he is not a Christian, and my family ... well, they are, and don't like this relationship of mine one little bit. As far as they're concerned, any non-Christian man is a rapist or murderer waiting to happen. I love my family; I love my boyfriend. My question is: Is it right for me to date a non-Christian? And if I do, how do I deal with others who make clear that they think my doing so is wrong?". . . . As to whether or not it's okay for you to date a non-Christian: Of course it is. It's just dating, which is all about what amounts to noncommittal exploration. But it doesn't sound like you're just dating this guy. It sounds like you're in love with him. And when a 23-year-old woman is in love with a man, it usually means she's thinking about that man as a potential husband. And marrying someone who doesn't share your religious faith is one heck of a big problem. You can't really be with someone who doesn't share your most profound, intimate, and vital convictions. . .

Same-sex marriage may become key issue in November elections

Same-sex marriage may be key issue in November San Francisco Chronicle, By John Wildermuth, September 9, 2008
-- With same-sex marriage bans on the ballot in three high-profile states in November, presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama could find themselves stuck in a fight they'd rather avoid. California, Arizona and Florida will ask voters to approve constitutional amendments limiting marriage to a man and woman, and the high-priced election clash over the issue could help decide who becomes the nation's next president. Polls show Obama and McCain running neck and neck in much of the nation, which means that any issue that could bring out voters in a swing state such as Florida has to be taken seriously by both parties. But with the economy, the war in Iraq and health care drawing the most attention in the race for president, same-sex marriage isn't a battleground either candidate would choose, said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College. "Both men need to appeal to moderates," he said. "And neither candidate seems comfortable talking about this." The question of same-sex marriage has been especially vexing to Obama, who needs to hang on to his progressive Democratic base, which sees same-sex marriage as a human rights issue, while not offending moderate blue-collar Democrats and independents, who might not be comfortable seeing two men or two women holding hands and saying, "I do.". . .

RELATED ARTICLE: McCain Surges In National Polls US News & World Report, September 9, 2008
There are five new national polls out in the last 24 hours, and four of them show Sen. John McCain opening a lead over Sen. Barack Obama, while the fifth shows the race tied.

RELATED ARTICLE: Barack Obama's Problem With White Female Voters US News & World Report Blog, By Bonnie Erbe, September 9, 2008
Are Democratic leaders getting just what they deserve? Quite frankly, should they have been able to predict this wave of GOP support when they nominated an inexperienced, far-left candidate for president on the Democratic ticket?

RELATED ARTICLE: John McCain or Barack Obama? For us, there’s only one option The Real Proposal magazine, August 18, 2008
The sad reality is that both presumptive candidates for the presidency of the United States — chosen, ultimately, from a decidedly tainted pack from both sides of the Democratic-Republican divide — constitute a less-than-stellar reflection of our spiritual and moral condition as a nation, and it is delusional to believe that there isn't a leadership crisis in America. . . At election time, it is "we the people" that decide who our decision makers will be. But, as Daniel Taylor & Mark McCloskey point out in their recent article, How to Pick a President: Why Virtue Trumps Policy, all too often we decide poorly, largely because we ask the wrong questions.

RELATED ARTICLE: Obama: America's first Gay President? Townhall.com, By Kevin McCullough, March 2, 2008
If William Jefferson Clinton was America's first "black" president, could it be that Barack Obama is positioning himself to be the nation's first "gay" president? His supporters have argued vehemently for months that Barack Obama does not represent the interest of the radical homosexual activists. . . . . Yet as someone who has followed his career since long before he was a national stage player, I have warned that his aggressive support for the radical homosexual activist agenda in America is a part of the overall picture of who he is. In this way he may be more "gay" than Clinton was "black" - and by a wide margin at that.

Newlyweds Rachel Bird and Gideon Codding refuse to be recognized legally as 'Party A' and 'Party B'

QUEERLY BELOVED: California bans 'brides,' 'grooms'
License rejected for couple seeking traditional marriage World Net Daily, September 8, 2008
– "Brides" and "grooms" are no longer allowed to marry in the State of California. That privilege is only extended to individuals who allow themselves to be called "Party A" and "Party B" on marriage licenses. Pastor Doug Bird of Abundant Life Fellowship in Roseville, Calif., was alarmed to find the state now rejects the traditional terms after he officiated his first marriage ceremony last week following the California Supreme Court decision to overturn Proposition 22. The couple had written the words "bride" and "groom" next to "Party A" and "Party B" because they wanted to be legally recognized as husband and wife. However, the Placer County marriage license was denied. "I received back the license and a letter from the Placer County Clerk/Recorder stating that the license 'does not comply with California State registration laws,'" Bird said in a statement from the Pacific Justice Institute. . . "What's next?" Bird wrote in a Sept. 4 letter. "Will the State of California force [ministers] to use the terms "Party A" and "Party B" in the ceremony itself?". . .

The Gaystapo Townhall.com, By Mike S. Adams , September 8, 2008
Last Thursday, at 1:58 p.m. EST, I received an email message from a bi-sexual reverend from West Virginia. In the text following the subject, “You're a con man,” the queer preacher had this to say: Your recent "Fat Lesbians on Crack" piece is an example of grossly irresponsible rhetoric that serves ideology, not mental health. It is appalling to me that someone with your lack of intelligence and indifference to professional consensus is actively employed in a teaching role. . . . And I’m also glad whenever I’m lectured about “professional consensus” by queer preachers from West Virginia. Those who actually read my “Fat Lesbians on Crack” piece remember that it was about a counselor who was fired from her job because of her objections to homosexuality. That is exactly how this “consensus” that homosexuality is not a mental illness is emerging in the counseling profession. Radical homosexual activists are simply having all the people who hold a contrary view fired. . . . Of course, the queer preacher from West Virginia was not going to confine himself to just writing me one nasty little missive. He had to write all of the professors in my department as well as everyone in the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences to suggest that I should be fired from UNCW. Here’s the full text of his email – written under the subject line “Mike Adams’ hate speech insults UNC”:. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Fat Lesbians on Crack Townhall.com, By Mike S. Adams, August 19, 2008
What this case – taken by the Alliance Defense Fund - all boils down to is the unreasonable accommodation of gay activists who simply cannot tolerate the existence of anyone, anywhere who does not accept the gay lifestyle. And to the extent that we accommodate them, we are helping to create a very “uncivil” rights movement. And it is a trend with dangerous implications. . . . I’m not claiming that the gay rights movement has taken over the country. But, clearly, when it comes to gays, the patients are the ones who are running the therapists. And, before long, the inmates really will be running the asylum.

RELATED ARTICLE: Beyond Tolerance 365Gay.com, By John Corvino, August 15, 2008
"Why do you need other people’s approval?” The question came from an old (straight but gay-supportive) friend, as we sat over breakfast discussing progress in the gay-rights movement. He meant it sincerely. “After all,” he continued, “if you like rap music, and I hate rap music, you don’t need my approval to pursue your tastes. Indeed, even if I think listening to rap music is a mind-numbing waste of time, so what? Live and let live.” That’s true. But when it comes to gay rights, “live and let live” may no longer be enough. The difference between what he describes and what I seek is sometimes described as that between tolerance and acceptance. Roughly, “tolerance” involves leaving people alone to live as they choose, even when you don’t approve, whereas acceptance involves somehow affirming their choices. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: California gay marriage decision: The battle is on for our freedoms! The Real Proposal magazine, May 22, 2008
Anyone who thinks that the watershed issue of same-sex marriage is ultimately about what consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms or a fundamental constitutional right to marry whomever we fall in love or want to form a family with, regardless of their gender, is being either naive, misinformed, misled...or, simply, disingenuous.

RELATED ARTICLE: Responding to Homosexuality & Gay Marriage: “Love the Sinner. Hate the Sin” The Real Proposal magazine, March 21, 2008
Closer scrutiny of [such reports] is more likely to reveal a portentous, well-orchestrated, well-funded campaign by over reaching gay rights activists to further their cause in having opinions that speak against their lifestyle criminalized as "hate speech" and, thereafter, silenced by law. For, to be sure, the gay rights movement has mastered obfuscation techniques, including the ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument to the man", "argument against the man"), which consists, essentially, of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument, or producing evidence against the claim. The process of proving or disproving the claim is thereby subverted, and the argumentum ad hominem works effectively to change the subject. Hence, dissenting voices to the homosexual lifestyle and agenda are reduced to "homophobic bigots" and "haters" and the real issues at hand fall by the wayside, including the well documented facts, even by our own national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that homosexual activity is unhealthy and ultimately generates health risks for the rest of the population.

Palin's Church Promotes Conversion Of Gays
Advertises Conference That Claims Prayer Has Power To Change Homosexuals Into Heterosexuals CBS News, September 7, 2008
Gov. Sarah Palin's church is promoting a conference that promises to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer. "You'll be encouraged by the power of God's love and His desire to transform the lives of those impacted by homosexuality," according to the insert in the bulletin of the Wasilla Bible Church, where Palin has prayed for about six years. Palin's conservative Christian views have energized that part of the GOP electorate, which was lukewarm to John McCain's candidacy before he named her as his vice presidential choice. She is staunchly anti-abortion (opposing exceptions for rape and incest), and opposes gay marriage and spousal rights for gay couples. . . . Gay activists in Alaska said Palin has not worked actively against their interests, but early in her administration she supported a bill to overrule a court decision to block state benefits for gay partners of public employees. . .

Sarah Palin's church, Wasilla Bible Church, promotes conversion of gays

RELATED ARTICLE: All You Need to Know About the Assemblies of God: A primer for Palin watchers and others. Christianity Today, By Rich Tatum, September 16, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE: The Gay Activists Are Headed For The Churches Townhall.com, By Harry R. Jackson, Jr., June 2, 2008
So why did they come to our church along with TD Jakes’ Potter’s House, Eddie Long’s New Birth Community Church, and Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church? And why are they going to Willow Creek Community Church and Saddleback Community Church? The answer is simple. Their goal is to force us to accept their lifestyle by slowly desensitizing us to their aberrant theology and practices. This change in tactics is an attempt to play the pity card.

RELATED ARTICLE: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Townhall.com, By Harry R. Jackson, Jr. May 19, 2008
I first learned that my church was scheduled for a visit by SoulForce last December. The PR campaign about the event was announced long before this group asked for an opportunity to have a discussion on this topic of gay inclusion in the Church. This tactic seems to be a continuation of a four-year strategy. . . . The mission statement of this organization was surprising to me. It reads as follows: “The mission of Soulforce is to cut off homophobia at its source --- religious bigotry. . . . . Since when is preaching gospel morality for all people a form of oppression?

RELATED ARTICLE: Responding to Homosexuality & Gay Marriage: “Love the Sinner. Hate the Sin” The Real Proposal magazine, March 21, 2008
How can Christians and conservatives in America today — those desperately trying to walk the tightrope cliché to "Love the sinner. Hate the sin" — find balance in this homosexuality/gay marriage debate? To be sure, we don't have all the answers. However, we believe there is much wisdom to be garnered from a powerful address given by Joe Dallas, Founder of Genesis Counseling at a Love Won Out conference in Orlando, Florida. A former homosexual and gay rights activist with the Metropolitan Community Church,** a well known, well funded pro-homosexual organization, largely staffed by openly gay and lesbian clergy, Dallas has authored three books on homosexuality.

RELATED ARTICLE: Kinsey's Secret: The Phony Science of the Sexual Revolution Catholic Culture, By Sue Ellin Browder
Alfred C. Kinsey had a secret. The Indiana University zoologist and "father of the sexual revolution" almost single-handedly redefined the sexual mores of everyday Americans. The problem was, he had to lie to do it. The weight of this point must not be underestimated. The science that launched the sexual revolution has been used for the past 50 years to sway court decisions, pass legislation, introduce sex education into our schools, and even push for a redefinition of marriage. Kinseyism was the very foundation of this effort. If his science was flawed — or worse yet, an outright deception — then our culture's attitudes about sex are not just wrong morally but scientifically as well.

RELATED ARTICLE: “This is the Way God Made Me” A Scientific Examination of Homosexuality and the “Gay Gene” TrueOrigin.com— Apologetics Press, Inc., By Brad Harrub, Ph.D. and Bert Thompson, Ph.D. and Dave Miller, Ph.D.

Britney's mum, Lynne Spears, tells all on her daughter (Click for Related Video)

Parenting Issues: Britney's mum tells all on her daughter The Sun- UK, By Emily Smith- US Editor, September 4, 2008
Troubled Britney Spears began boozing aged 13, lost her virginity at 14, then started taking drugs at 15, according to a shocking tell-all book by her mum. Wild child Britney allegedly first hit the bottle after joining Disney’s squeaky-clean Mickey Mouse Club. Mum LYNNE claims 14-year-old Britney then had sex with an 18-year-old high school footballer soon after she quit the TV show. And she had her first taste of drugs at 15 when she went to Los Angeles to record her debut album Baby One More Time. The sensational revelations were leaked last night ahead of publication of Lynne’s memoir, titled Through the Storm. Lynne, 53, tells how she regrets handing over control of Britney’s career to managers and allowing her daughter to be promoted as a sex object in raunchy videos at such a young age. She believes Britney’s wild behaviour as a teenage star is the root of her current problems. Britney, now 26, has twice been admitted to a hospital psychiatric ward this year. . . . As Britney later pursued her pop career, Lynne let her 16-year-old daughter sleep with teen sweetheart JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE, despite claiming she was a virgin. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Britney Spears’ mother: ‘It’s been a whirlwind’: Lynne Spears talks about Brit’s breakdown, Jamie Lynn’s pregnancy MSNBC.com- TODAY, By Mike Celizic, September 17, 2008
Lynne Spears, whose daughters Britney and Jamie Lynn found both fame and infamy in a dizzyingly short amount of time, said her new book is an attempt to set the record straight. “I think there was the tabloid version of our lives,” she told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira in an exclusive interview Wednesday. “I wanted people to see our family as we really are.” Spears had begun the book, “Through the Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World,” five years ago as a collection of poems and memories. But when controversy and scandal erupted first around Britney and then around Jamie Lynn, she decided she needed to tell the story the way it really happened to real people.

RELATED VIDEO: Britney Spears' mom tells all MSNBC.com, September 17, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE: Lynne Spears: 'Every Mother Makes Mistakes' People magazine, By Alicia Dennis, September 10, 2008
Lynne Spears says that even knowing what she knows now, she would still let her daughters Britney and Jamie Lynn pursue stardom. "I think you have to let them follow their dreams," she says in a new interview with PEOPLE. "I think it would be worse in the end if you didn't." But she does express regrets about not listening to her "gut" at times: "Was I the perfect mom? No."

RELATED ARTICLE: Britney Spears: Dad saved my life Marie Claire- UK, September 5, 2008
Britney Spears has revealed she believes her dad saved her life after giving up his job to look after his daughter when she had a breakdown. Jamie Spears, a chef by trade, dropped everything to help look after Britney when she reportedly became suicidal and had to be whisked off to a psychiatric hospital. The pop princess admitted that she rejected his offer of help at first, but that his care and attention was what eventually got her through her dark spell, which saw her shave her head and lose custody of her children.

RELATED ARTICLE: Jamie Lynn Spears makes motherhood look glamorous... but what are the real costs? WalletPop, By Barbara Bartlein, August 11, 2008
Jamie Lynn Spears (sister of Britney) is on the cover of the latest edition of OK! Magazine holding her newborn daughter, Maddie. Looking beautiful and rested, she is quoted as saying "Being a mom is the best feeling in the world." A teenage icon, Jamie Lynn is the star of Nickelodeon's "Zoe 101," and idolized by millions of young girls. Pregnant at 16 and a mother by age 17, Jamie Lynn is described in the article as living in "domestic bliss." Great message for the kids. Maybe it works this way for wealthy celebrities, but for most teens the happily ever after ending doesn't happen.

RELATED ARTICLE: Moms Gone Wild: Sure, mothers always get blamed for everything. But—as a look at the women behind Paris, Lindsay, and Britney reveals—if your child is your meal ticket and career booster, it's hard to be the parent she needs Vanity Fair.com, By Judith Newman November 2007

Cindy McCain commends her husband as a father and leader Dallas Morning News, By Carl P. Leubsdorf, September 4, 2008
Cindy McCain commended her husband to the nation's voters as a loving husband and father, and a patriot who will always do the right thing. "If Americans want straight talk and the plain truth," she said, "they should take a good close look at John McCain, a man tested and true who's never wavered in his devotion to our country, a man who's served in Washington without ever becoming a Washington insider, who always speaks the truth no matter what the cost, a man of judgment and character, a loyal and loving and true husband and a magnificent father.". . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Cindy McCain Focuses on Giving, Leadership CBNNews.com, September 4, 2008
- On the night her husband accepted the GOP presidential nomination, Cindy McCain spoke of America's duty to lend a helping hand. . . . Cindy McCain has spent much of her life helping with humanitarian efforts in other countries. Thursday night, she described Americans as "the most generous people in history." "That generosity of spirit is in our national DNA. It's our way of doing things. It's how we view the world," she said. Mrs. McCain added that the U.S. should not only think of how it is viewed by other countries, but also what "our forefathers make of us and what...our children say of us." "I know of no one who better defines how to do that...than the man I love...my husband, John McCain," she said.

Cindy McCain commends her husband, John McCain, as a father and leader (Click for Related Video)

RELATED VIDEO: Cindy McCain's Entire RNC Speech CBNNews.com, September 4, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE & COMMENTS: Cindy McCain's $300,000 Outfit Vanity Fair, September 4, 2008
(All prices except Laura’s shoes and Cindy’s watch are estimates, and the jewelry prices are based on the assumption that the pieces are real.)

RELATED ARTICLE: Exclusive: Cindy McCain's Straight Talk: McCain's Wife Defends Temper, Prepares for Second White House Bid ABC News, By Jennifer Rubin, May 25, 2007
Cindy McCain wants to dispel a misconception about her husband's famous temper. The way she sees it, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is misunderstood. "[People] misunderstand passion and call it temper," McCain told ABCNEWS.com in an exclusive interview. "He is passionate, and a very patriotic man. When he sees his country or the president -- of either party -- maligned, he takes it personally. It is not temper."

RELATED ARTICLE: How Cindy McCain was outed for drug addiction Salon magazine, By Amy Silverman, October 18, 1999
When an attempt to get tough with a whistleblower backfired in 1994, the McCain spin machine went into overdrive, and the candidate's wife confessed to problems the media was already poised to reveal.

RELATED ARTICLE: In The Grip Of A Deeper Pain: Opioids: For People With Chronic Suffering, These Powerful Pills Are A Godsend. For Others, They're A Prescription For Abuse And Misery Newsweek, By Jerry Adler, October 20, 2003 Issue

Meet Todd Palin, Alaska's 'First Dude' (Click for Related Video)

Meet Todd Palin, Alaska's 'First Dude' People magazine, By Mike Fleeman, September 04, 2008
At the Tailgater sports bar in Wasilla, Alaska, the crowd cheered when the six televisions showed Gov. Sarah Palin at the GOP Convention on Wednesday night – and beamed with pride when the cameras focused on her husband, Todd. "That," said bar patron Martin Chapoton, "is our 'First Dude.' " Alaskans embrace Todd Palin as one of their own: a tough, blue-collar outdoorsman who calloused his hands with two decades of hard work at the North Slope oil fields and the Bristol Bay commercial salmon fishery – and who has earned a reputation for steely nerves and endurance as a championship snowmobile racer. "I have to trust my life in his hands, and I do," his racing partner Scott Davis told the Associated Press last year. "A lot of teams certainly don't have fun when they're doing it, and I like to think Todd and I do." Palin, who turns 44 on Saturday, put his toughness to a test last February when he crashed his snowmobile during a race and went flying 70 feet. The smashup, caused when he hit a barrel lodged in the snow, "sent a minor tremor across the state," the Anchorage Daily News reported at the time, citing his role as the husband of the state's new governor. But for Palin, it was just a part of racing. . . . . Todd Palin's latest challenge, of course, began just days ago when Sarah, 44, became the surprise choice of GOP vice presidential candidate with John McCain – thrusting her, and Todd, into the spotlight. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Todd Palin, husband of Sarah Palin: a 'true Alaskan' Los Angeles Times, By Marjorie Miller, September 7, 2008
A moose hunter, oil worker, snowmobile racer and hockey fan, 'first dude' Todd Palin is not a typical campaign spouse.

RELATED ARTICLE & VIDEO: Sarah Palin's Husband: The "First Dude": Todd Palin's Nickname May Change To "Second Dude," If His Wife Becomes Veep! CBS News, September 4, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE & VIDEO: Meet Todd Palin, Potentially America's First Second Man ABC News, By Kiran Khalid and Lee Ferran, September 5, 2008

RELATED VIDEO: Mrs. Palin's First Dude You Tube—CBS News, September 4, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE: The Sarah Palin explosion: Has the Web seen anything like it? Los Angeles Times- Web Scout blog, September 5, 2008
Why do I now know more about Sarah Palin’s life than I do about Abraham Lincoln’s? It just doesn’t seem right. In addition to the hours of Palin-oriented TV and radio coverage I consumed this week, and the dozens of Palin-focused online videos I watched, I must have read at least 50 stories about John McCain’s VP pick in the last few days (not to mention the ones I wrote and edited). It's worth pointing out, too, that except for one or two of those stories, everything I read was on a computer screen. With respect to my colleagues down at the printing press, this is a saga not designed for the morning paper. Who'd want to wait that long? Palin, it seems, has a magical quality that makes you want more Palin.

RELATED ARTICLE: Can Palin Escape the Parent Trap? Time magazine, By Nancy Gibbs, September 4, 2008
Almost overnight, Sarah Palin replaced Hillary Clinton as the screen on which we project our doubts and hopes about women and success. In noisy public forums, everyone seemed suddenly certain of beliefs they used to reject: of course a woman can manage five kids and the vice leadership of the free world, said conservative defenders previously known for asserting a woman's need to submit to her husband. Of course she has no business putting her family through this, said liberal opponents better known for insisting women should submit to no one. But in quieter places, such as my inbox and my subconscious, there has been nothing like that kind of certainty. Instead, it has been the conversation that never ends — the one about how we juggle and who we judge — and I don't think I know any woman, working or not, who feels she has gotten it exactly right. I do know we share a deep revulsion at having choices made for us and values thrust upon us, which is why Palin has our instincts tied up in such intricate knots. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: McCain/Palin ticket still has some unanswered questions CTV, By Tom Clark, September 2, 2008
Sarah Palin knew her daughter was pregnant well before she was asked to join the McCain ticket. She knew that because of her bid to get to the White House, her daughter's most painful private ordeal would inevitably be thrown into the cauldron of the campaign, and that Bristol's life would never be the same. She could have turned down the offer to join McCain's ticket, and saved her daughter and her family from world wide scrutiny and from some quarters, ridicule. But she didn't. Why would a mother do that to her child? Was her ambition so great that she was prepared to throw her daughter under the bus of presidential politics? The answer appears to be yes. Palin needs to tell Americans why that was an acceptable choice, and more, she needs to tell voters what it says about her moral and ethical compass.

RELATED ARTICLE & COMMENTS: About Sarah Palin: an e-mail from Wasilla Crosscut Seattle, By Anne Kilkenny, September 2, 2008
Anne Kilkenny, a suburban Anchorage homemaker and activist, who once did battle with Alaska governor Sarah Palin when she was mayor, recounts what she knows of Palin's history. Hardly "a friend," Kilkenny claims Palin has hated her since back in 1996, when she was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the city librarian against Palin's attempt at censorship.

RELATED ARTICLE & COMMENTS: Palin’s Start in Alaska: Not Politics as Usual New York Times, By William Yardley, September 2, 2008

Dream Catcher:
Jennifer Lopez, the avatar of personal style, plays both the muse and icon to some of her favorite designers—visionaries who dressed her as they see her: earthy, regal, and above all, inspiring Elle magazine- Cover Story, By Peter Rubin, October 2008 Issue
. . .Yet today, in her office, Lopez seems happier than she’s ever been. “I feel like my life’s just begun,” she says. “It’s the beginning again. And I just love that.” She easily slides through emotions from giggly to serious to deflective. (If you’d been interviewed as many times as she has, deflective would be one of your emotions too.) There’s a calm surrounding her. She chalks it up to the birth of her twins, Max and Emme, now seven months old. “All of a sudden,” she says, “the world is very clear. ‘This is important, this is not, this is okay, this is not.’ That’s what the world comes down to.” . . . . The pregnancy itself was a surprise, as the couple had all but given up on the possibility of having children. They had wanted to start a family as soon as they got married in 2004, she says, “then it just didn’t happen.” Despite rumors to the contrary, Lopez says that they never pursued in vitro fertilization. “We knew nothing was wrong with either one of us—I had been checked, and he had kids already,” she says. “I knew, Something’s not ready here, in my head or in my life, and when it is, I know it’s going to happen.” And it did, almost exactly three years later. . .

Jennifer Lopez: 'I feel like my life's just begun. It's the beginning again. And I just love that.'

RELATED ARTICLE: Courting Trouble NY Post- Page Six, February 27, 2008
-- Dayanara Torres plans to spill the beans on her short and tumultuous marriage to Marc Anthony, reports The Post's Sandra Guzman. The former Miss Universe is writing "Married to Me: How Committing to Myself Led to Triumph After Divorce," which will chronicle how she got over her painful union with the Skeletor - who left her for Jennifer Lopez - to find true happiness. But let's hope Torres has good lawyers. When Ojani Noa, J.Lo's first hubby, tried doing the same, he was shut down in court by Lopez's lawyers.

RELATED ARTICLE: Why babies can't wait News.co.au, By Jeremy Laurance, February 9, 2008
Celebrities give the impression that getting pregnant in your 40s is child's play, but for the rest of us it's not always so easy. How many resort to IVF? Doctors have warned that women who delay motherhood are "defying nature" and increasing the risks for themselves and their babies, provoking a backlash in some quarters from women who smell a conspiracy against older mothers.

RELATED ARTICLE: The risks - and rewards - when motherhood begins at 40 The Sydney Morning Herald- Life & Style, By Kate Benson Medical Reporter, January 9, 2008
Geena Davis did it. So did Emma Thompson and Susan Sarandon. Now, Nicole Kidman is joining the swelling ranks of women who have their first baby after the age of 40. . . . . Maturity can bring a satisfying career, a healthy bank balance and a well-rounded sense of self, but women who become pregnant later in life also have a much greater risk of miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies and stillbirths. Older women are also more likely to have induced labour, epidural anaesthesia, forceps or vacuum deliveries, and caesarean sections. They have a one in 100 chance of having a child with chromosomal abnormalities such as Down syndrome.

RELATED ARTICLE: Reproduction of the rich and famous: Forget golden statuettes. In the new, family-friendly Hollywood, the real status symbols are sonograms and diamond solitaires Salon.com, By Daniel Harris, November 20, 2006

'Good News' on marriage: Couples improve with age

'Good News' on marriage: Couples improve with age USA Today, By Nanci Hellmich, September 3, 2008
Married couples in their later years often show a great deal of affection, says best-selling author Maggie Scarf, 77, who has spent more than 30 years studying relationships. "There's intimacy.There is pleasure in each other's company. They say to each other, 'I love you more than ever.' " Scarf's new book is September Songs: The Good News About Marriage in the Later Years, out today. She has been married for 55 years to Herb Scarf, 78, a Yale professor. They have three daughters. Scarf shares her insights with USA TODAY.
Q: How would you describe your marriage?
A: Like any other couple, we've had our ups and downs at times. We haven't ridden through 55 years on a cloud of bliss. But the fact is we have always remained committed to each other. We have a lot of fun. My husband has a tremendous sense of humor, and we laugh a lot. He is my best buddy. Herb is the person who knows everything about me. And I know everything about him. At least we think we do.
Q: What is the U-shaped curve in marriage that you describe in the book?. . .

RELATED BOOK EXCERPT: September Songs: Growing older, staying married longer: Interviews with couples reveal good news about marriage and aging MSNBC.com, September 3, 2008
As their average life expectancy increases, today's adults experience a whole new stage of life — the years after their children have left home and before the onset of old age. Often, they are experiencing these "bonus years" with their significant others. In "September Songs," journalist Maggie Scarf shares the findings of her extensive interviews with older couples, revealing how these extra years change married life. An excerpt:

Chapter one: Lynn and Carl McBride
My interview with the McBrides began — as did all my interviews — with a short discussion of the “bonus years”: the recent and phenomenal change in the human life span. I stated that in 1900, in the industrialized West, the average person’s life expectancy was not quite fifty years, while in the year 2006 it stood at a record high of 77.6. In a single century, a full thirty years had been added to the time that the average person could be expected to live. . .

Now the bad news on Teenage Marriage as proposed for pregnant teenager, Bistol Palin and her boyfriend/baby daddy, Levi Johnston

Now, the Bad News on Teenage Marriage New York Times, By Sarah Kershaw, September 3, 2008
In announcing on Monday that her daughter Bristol was five months pregnant, Sarah Palin, John McCain’s choice for a running mate, added a quick qualification that might, in another era, have eliminated the potential for embarrassment: The 17-year-old girl was to be married to the 18-year-old father of the baby. He would be the gentleman, she would be the lady, and with the backing of a strong family they would do what was expected of them. That would, of course, be consistent with the views of Ms. Palin, a mother of five children (including one with Down syndrome) who opposes abortion. Bristol’s impending nuptials to Levi Johnston (no date has been given) did not stir up nearly the same hullabaloo as the revelation of her pregnancy, on the eve of the Republican convention. But it is teenage marriage today, not teenage pregnancy, that is the rarity. And, statistics show, teenage marriages tend not to endure. . . . Both Dr. Sternheimer and Dr. Wilcox said that the debate over whether teenagers are prepared for marriage was being framed through the lens of a middle-class, well-educated demographic, for whom marrying before being able to drink legally now may look alien, or hillbillyish. In fact, they said, 18-year-olds in working-class and immigrant families in particular already shoulder a lot of adult responsibilities, including fighting the war in Iraq, supporting their families and raising children. “We like to infantilize teens, or focus on their bad behavior . . .

RELATED ARTICLE: Sexually active teenage girls 'twice as likely' to become depressed The Daily Mail- UK, By Jonathan Petre and Jo Macfarlane, September 20, 2008
Young girls who are sexually active are far more likely to suffer from depression than those who remain virgins, according to a controversial new study.

RELATED ARTICLE: What Our Daughters Must Know Townhall.com, By Dr. Miriam Grossman, M.D., September 4, 2008
With the brouhaha over Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, here’s a plus no one’s considered: should this young woman go to college as a married mom, she’ll be spared four years of the campus hook-up culture. That’s no small thing.

RELATED ARTICLE: Marriage Off the Table for Most Pregnant Teens Chicago Tribune, By Bonnie Miller Rubin and John Keilman, September 3, 2008
It wasn't long ago, however, that shotgun marriages were considered the norm, a way for a boy to make an "honest woman" out of a girl who got caught having premarital sex. In the first half of the 1960s, almost 70 percent of white pregnant teens, ages 15-19 tied the knot--compared to 19 percent by the early 1990s. For black teens, the rate fell from 36 percent to less than 7 percent, according to the Center for Law and Social Policy in Washington, D.C. But a confluence of trends, including contraception and increased career opportunities, has turned forced matrimony into a relic of another era, like typewriter mechanics--and certainly not the route to domestic bliss. The combination of unplanned pregnancy and youth raises the risk for divorce, said Stephanie Coontz, a historian at Evergreen State University. Yet Kay Chase, who works with teen mothers at the DeKalb County Health Department, said that even without a walk down the aisle, they long for stable lives with the fathers of their children. But it usually turns into an empty dream.

RELATED ARTICLE: Who IS Levi Johnston, Anyway? The Frisky, Posted by Amelia, September 3, 2008
The bummer for Bristol and their bundle of joy is that Levi says on his MySpace page, “I don’t want kids.” Well you’re gettin’ one anyway!

RELATED ARTICLE & PHOTOS: Levi Johnston's Tattoo: "Bristol" On Ring Finger Huffington Post, September 3, 2008

RELATED ARTICLE: Palin-drama: Is Teen Marriage Best for the Coming Child? US News & World Report, By John Aloysius Farrell, September 02, 2008
Say what you will about Sarah and Bristol and Twig. I'm feeling sorry for Levi. There are no scarier words for a 17-year-old boy than "I'm late." Except perhaps, "I'm late, and my mother is governor of Alaska and commander of the National Guard and running for vice president and thinks we should get married." Or, "I'm late, and my mother knows her way around a shotgun."

RELATED ARTICLE: Palin case highlights teenage pregnancy BBC News- UK, September 2, 2008
The US is said to have one of the worst annual rates of teenage pregnancies in the developed world. According to a report by Population Action International, published at the end of last year, there were 44 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 in the US for 2000-2005. This compares with figures in the UK - itself said to be the country with the worst teenage pregnancy rate in Europe - of 27 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19. Put differently, America is estimated to have some 750,000 teenage pregnancies a year. According to America's leading health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): "About one-third of girls in the United States get pregnant before age 20."

RELATED ARTICLE & PHOTOS: Levi Johnston: Bristol Palin's Baby Daddy Revealed Huffington Post, September 1, 2008

Palins Announce Daughter is Pregnant Townhall.com, By Amanda Carpenter, September 1, 2008
John McCain’s newly-minted vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin revealed her daughter, Bristol, is 5 months pregnant amid intense rumors the governor “faked” her pregnancy earlier this year to cover an out of wedlock child. . . . Ever since Palin was tapped to become McCain’s VP rumors have been swirling on the internet that her son Trig, a child with Down’s Syndrome, was actually her grandson. A blogger at the DailyKos, ArcXIX, wrote a vitriolic post titled "Sarah Palin is NOT the Mother" that accused Bristol, a fit-looking adolescent teen, of having a "baby bump" in a photo they allege was taken March 9th of this year. "Sarah, I'm calling you a liar" wrote blogger ArcXIX. "And not even a good one. Trig Paxson Van Palin is not your son. He is your grandson. The sooner you come forward with this revelation to the public, the better. "Photos of Bristol with detailed commentary about her abdomen are contained in the post. . .

RELATED ARTICLE & COMMENTS: Palin says daughter, 17, is pregnant Townhall.com- AP, By Liz Sidoti, September 1, 2008

Palins announce 17 year-old daughter, Bristol, is 5 months pregnant (Click for Related Video)

RELATED VIDEO: Celebrating Life Coral Ridge.org May 15, 2008
Is abortion ever a good idea? Should we celebrate life regardless of the situation? Learn about 2 families [including Alaska governor Sarah Palin's] and the decisions they made after a Down’s syndrome diagnosis during pregnancy.

RELATED ARTICLE: What Standards? Townhall.com, By Cal Thomas, September 4, 2008
We are such hypocrites. When it was announced that Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant, the media pounced. Did this damage Palin's preference for abstinence-only policies? Shouldn't she be staying home at this difficult time in her daughter's life? What about Palin's new baby, who has Down syndrome? Shouldn't he be getting much more of her time and attention? How can she be vice president and a good mother? Haven't critics forgotten that Palin has a husband to help? Speaker Nancy Pelosi has five children. No one has asked her such questions. . .

RELATED ARTICLE: The Kids Aren't Alright Poz magazine & AIDS MEDS, by Tim Murphy, January 2007
Amid the heated, fiercely politicized debate between sex ed that teaches condom use versus sex ed that preaches abstinence, young people who have contracted HIV through sex share what they wish they’d learned beforehand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Study: Abstinence pledges may trigger risky sexual behavior USA Today, March 18, 2005
— Adolescents who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are more likely to substitute high-risk sexual behaviors that increase the likelihood of transmitting sexually transmitted diseases, according to researchers who studied the sex lives of about 12,000 teens.

RELATED ARTICLE & STUDY: Teens Who Make Virginity Pledges Have Substantially Improved Life Outcomes The Heritage Foundation- Center for Data Analysis, By Robert E. Rector, Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D., and Jennifer A. Marshall, September 21, 2004

RELATED ARTICLE: Mom, I'm Pregnant Family Life Today, By Leslie Barner
When the truth came out in the pediatrician's office, her words pierced my heart like fiery arrows. "Pregnant?" I thought, blinking back sudden tears. My heart pounded furiously, and my head was reeling with her announcement. I couldn't even hear the words that followed. So many anxious thoughts entered my mind that I struggled to grasp hold of any of them. Finally, in desperation, I reached out and grabbed denial. I thought, No! This can't be true. There must be some terrible mistake! But it didn't take long for denial to slip away and reality to set in, followed by feelings of sadness, disappointment, fear, anger, and ultimately feelings of failure. I was devastated. As I drove our teenage daughter, Desirée, home in silence that afternoon, I felt like all of the dreams we had for her life had been left behind in that examination room—shattered like broken glass. In only a moment, everything had changed.

RELATED BROADCAST: Sex Has a Price Tag (Part 1)   TruthsThatTransform.org
What have you always wanted to tell your kids about sex? "If you are not married, don't do it. If you are married, go for it with the person you are married to." That is according to author and speaker Pam Stenzel. . .

RELATED BROADCAST: Sex Has a Price Tag (Part 2)   TruthsThatTransform.org
What does every parent want their teenage daughter to know? If you want respect, you have to demand it. If you demand respect, you get it. That is not something you are going to hear in the popular media but it needs to be told! Pam Stenzel tells you and your teens what you need to know about the facts of life. . .

RELATED BROADCAST: Sex Has a Price Tag (Part 3)   TruthsThatTransform.org
Guess who is having the best sex in this nation? Married Christian monogamous women! What a message for our teenagers! Sadly, they won't hear it in the mainstream media! So, how do you share this vital information with your teen? Pam Stenzel shows you how. . .

RELATED DVD TRAILER: Sex Still Has A Price Tag Featuring Pam Stenzel

RELATED ARTICLE: Q & A: What is the answer to curbing teenage sexual activity? Family.org
From these studies and others, we can conclude that the people who are most effective in steering their children away from the precipice of premarital sex are those who understand that parenting adolescents is a delicate art. They are the parents who are present and involved, who communicate and exemplify their own values and attitudes, who ask questions, who carefully supervise their kids' choice of escorts and points of destination, and who insist on a reasonable curfew. But they also keep a light touch as far as it's possible to do so, because they know that the rod of iron comes with problems of its own. The bottom line? There is no sex-education program, no curriculum, no school or institution in the world that can match the power and influence of this kind of parental involvement.

Monogamy Gene Links Men's DNA to Happily Ever After in Marriage Bloomberg.com, By Michelle Fay Cortez, September 1, 2008
-- Wedded bliss for men may depend on the same gene that keeps little prairie rodents faithful to their mates, according to researchers studying the so-called monogamy gene. Investigators have long known the gene that controls the hormone vasopressin is responsible for monogamy in prairie voles, small animals common in the grasslands of North America. Now researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm have uncovered it in men -- and showed it may play a role in whether they and their spouses are happily married. The researchers ran genetic tests on 2,186 participants in the Twin and Offspring Study in Sweden and had them fill out a survey about the quality of their marriage. Men with a genetic variation scored significantly lower on a scale of partner bonding. One in three reported a crisis in their marriage within the past year, twice the number as those without the variation. . . . Paul Lichtenstein, the senior author of the paper from the Karolinska Institute, said people shouldn't over-interpret the results. The gene alone can't predict a successful relationship, and should never be used as a litmus test before marriage. "This doesn't explain how you succeed in a relationship, but it gives us an understanding of why people bond,'' said Lichtenstein, a professor of genetic epidemiology. "It gives you a predisposition, but it doesn't determine how successful you will be in marriage.'' . . .

The gene could explain the Casanova tendencies of Rod Stewart, who has been married three times and fathered seven children by five different women

RELATED ARTICLE: Who you calling a sinner? My "Addiction" Made me Do it National Post, By Jonathan Kay, Barbara Kay, August 20, 2008
We live in a "therapy culture" today. Here's how it works: You do something bad, but you don't want to feel ashamed of yourself. Solution? Reach for the nearest addiction, syndrome or compulsion. Result: That bad thing you did? Not your fault, bub - the devil made you do it. Or rather, it used to be the devil, but traditionally the devil, whether literally or figuratively has implied free will and a choice: You can resist him and choose God. But an addiction, a syndrome, a compulsion? Whaddya gonna do? It's beyond your ability to control. So you see, free will is no longer an option. Ta da. Conscience clear. This is the kind of rationalization for bad behaviour we expect to hear from therapists and politicians (did you notice how cleverly recently-disgraced former Democratic presidential nomination contender John Edwards shifted the blame for his adulterous liaison last year on to his "narcissism"? Oh sure, he's beating himself up over it, but in fact he's letting the world know he hasn't really sinned; no no, he has this kind of affliction, you see, brought on by too much celebrity. Could happen to anyone, eh?) As I say, we're used to this kind of talk from self-serving moral relativists and stakeholders in the therapy racket.

More "Marriage" News: August 2008

"Marriage In The News" is not a representation of The Real Proposal magazine...