This is a story that needs to be told. My wife and I recently watched an advance copy of October Baby and we were really impressed. This is a powerful film that is both honest and redemptive. I encourage you to take your youth groups to go see it and spread the word on Facebook and Twitter. It opens friday March 23rd.
Find where it is playing near you…
Jay Richards and James Robison argue yes, they do.
“We’re told that the 2012 election is all about jobs and the economy. So-called social issues such as marriage, abortion, and religious freedom have been moved to the back burner.
Don’t count on it. Social issues will also figure prominently in the coming months. President Obama has made sure of that.
The most obvious example involves the recent U.S. Department of Health and Human Services rule mandating that religious organizations provide health insurance that covers sterilization, contraception and drugs that induce abortion. Only the most zealous pro-choicers think people should be forced to fund abortions, even when they have moral objections to them. Not surprisingly, the mandate has sparked uproar.
In response, the president has now offered a “compromise.” Instead of employers paying directly for services to which they are morally opposed, HHS will mandate that their insurance carriers provide them “free of charge.”
Birth control pills, IUDS, and abortion-inducing drugs aren’t free, however, so the insurance companies will offset these costs with higher premiums (even though the mandate will supposedly prohibit this). This accounting gimmick does nothing to resolve the moral problem. The New York Times admitted as much in its headline, “Rule Shift is Concession to Obama Allies,” not, in other words, to opponents.
The President may have provided cover for a few allies on the religious left, such as Sister Carol Keehan,
but the US Bishops aren’t buying it. In fact, rather than divide Christians over contraception, Mr. Obama has helped unify orthodox Catholics, evangelicals, and even many civil libertarians. They rightly see the HHS mandate as an attack on religious freedom. ObamaCare was already an affront to freedom itself. Now it has a sharp anti-religious edge to boot.
Forced coverage for abortion drugs? Check. Attack on religious freedom? Check. For the culture war trifecta, all we need is an attack on marriage.
In 1996, President Clinton signed the bipartisan Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). It protects states from being forced to recognize same sex “marriages” performed in other states. President Obama claimed before he was elected that, as a Christian, he believed marriage was between a man and a woman. As soon as he took office, though, we learned that his view is “constantly evolving.” It evolved fast, since the Justice Department…” (read the rest of this article)
Ross Douthat’s Op-Ed yesterday in the New York Times is worth a read. Here is an excerpt from the article in which he mentions several uncomfortable truths you won’t hear reported on in the media.
“In the most recent Gallup poll on abortion, as many Americans described themselves as pro-life as called themselves pro-choice. A combined 58 percent of Americans stated that abortion should either be “illegal in all circumstances” or “legal in only a few circumstances.” These results do not vary appreciably by gender: in the first Gallup poll to show a slight pro-life majority, conducted in May 2009, half of American women described themselves as pro-life. But if you’ve followed the media frenzy surrounding the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation’s decision — which it backpedaled from, with an apology, after a wave of frankly brutal coverage — to discontinue about $700,000 in funding for Planned Parenthood, you would think all these millions of anti-abortion Americans simply do not exist. From the nightly news shows to print and online media, the coverage’s tone alternated between wonder and outrage — wonder that anyone could possibly find Planned Parenthood even remotely controversial and outrage that the Komen foundation had “politicized” the cause of women’s health…..” (more)
This is pretty amazing…
Where do human rights come from? What makes you the same person from conception to natural death? In this video, Jay Watts of www.prolifetraining.com makes the case that all human beings have a right to life using critical thinking, logic, and philosophy. For more on the philosophical case click here for more on the scientific case for life click here.
Think Christianly with Jonathan Morrow
