This Week’s Featured Article

Marriage/Family

Having Pets Not Kids Robs us of ‘Humanity’.

Pope Francis risked the ire of the world’s childless dog and cat owners Wednesday, suggesting people who substitute pets for kids exhibit “a certain selfishness.” Read more

Hungary’s birth rate highest in nearly three decades thanks to Viktor Orbán’s pro-family policies.

“We strongly believe in families, so we have done everything in the last decade to help families have children … and improve their standards of living,” Rétvári told Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet’s Friday. Read more

What makes families flourish or flounder? 5 studies you might have missed.

A slew of sociologists, demographers, academics, psychologists and others are trying to understand the factors that help people to thrive. And, of course, what does the opposite. Read more

Parenting/Parental Rights

The elite war on biological sex.

That our cultural oligarchy has so speedily and so willingly traded in the scientifically validated view of biological sex for a non-binary, genderfluid fantasy speaks profoundly to its lack of moral foundation. Unless this fantasy is seriously challenged it is only a matter of time before the trans view of the world becomes the norm. Read more

It’s Time for Parents to Lead on Education Because They ‘Know Their Children Best’.

As the mother of four kids herself, Laura Zorc has been fighting for education reform since 2013, when her home state of Florida began adopting Common Core education goals. She successfully rallied a group of parents to stand against the federally funded learning standards. Now, she is training parents across the nation to be advocates for their own children in the classroom. Read more

Three Steps Toward Raising Tough Kids.

I addressed the need for us to raise tough kids in a recent article for Intellectual Takeout. After doing so, a friend asked me, “So how do we do that?” An answer to that question lies in the Boy Scout Oath, where each Scout promises “to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.” Read more

Sanctity of Life

I was 16 when I had my abortion and ended the life of my baby – but there is hope and healing.

Don’t be fooled, people. Yes, I made the decision. Yes, I owned it. But had even one person in that clinic offered me another choice, I might’ve taken it. I saw my baby’s heartbeat. In the same way that newly expectant mothers see it, joyfully, for the first time. I saw it, but with shame. Did you know they make you wait past a certain point in pregnancy before abortion is an option? To make sure they “get it all”? But, they told me it wasn’t “life”, that it was just a mass of cells. Then they have to examine it all, once you’re done, to ensure the process is completed. I won’t describe the gruesome details, but just stop here. Pause and think what they’re examining.

Life or not-a-life. A mass of cells or a baby. Read more

Record number of abortion restrictions passed in 2021, Guttmacher Institute reports.

A pro-abortion think tank is decrying 2021 as “the worst year” for abortion rights in nearly 50 years as dozens of laws aimed at restricting access to abortion have passed at the state level in 2021.

The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice research organization formerly affiliated with Planned Parenthood, released a report earlier this month titled “State Policy Trends 2021: The Worst Year for Abortion Rights in Almost Half a Century.” Read more

Joe Biden Uses American Tax Dollars to Fund UN Agency Killing Babies in Abortions.

One of the ways in which Biden is promoting abortion worldwide is something most people don’t know about. He made the decision earlier this year to give taxpayer funds to a UN agency that promotes abortions across the globe. Not only does this agency promote abortion it also manufactures drugs and devices that are used to kill babies in abortions. Read more

Religion

Online religious services and activities led by foreigners to be banned in China.

The new law states that Chinese Christians need a state permit to publish religious content, which “should not incite subversion or oppose the communist party leadership”. Read more

The Christian presence in the Middle East is ebbing away.

The Vanishing focuses on four places where Christians are under extreme pressure: Iraq, Gaza, Syria and Egypt.

In both Iraq and Syria, Christians (usually Eastern Rite Catholics or Orthodox, along with smaller denominations) have come under assault as the regimes of authoritarian rulers have collapsed. Read more

Alcoholics Anonymous Group Disciplined for Praying at Meetings.

An Alcoholics Anonymous group is facing internal scrutiny after being caught reciting the Lord’s Prayer at the start of their meetings.

“AA was founded by Christians to save and transform lives,” said the 69-year-old Palmer, who attended his first meeting in the 1980s, when he was an “addicted wreck” who’d spent years struggling with alcoholism. “Over the years, I have seen Christianity being eroded and marginalized from the organization as a whole. It is sad to see, and I think AA is having less of an impact on people’s lives as a result.” Read more

Sexuality

New U.S. Fund to Push Transgender Policies Internationally.

The U.S. State Department announced a new fund to promote LGBT advocacy internationally by linking LGBTQI+ issues with democracy. The fund objectives include increasing the participation of individuals who identify as LGBTQI+ in politics and public life, creating political narratives that promote LGBTQI+ issues, and engaging supportive political, business, and religious leaders.

According to the description of the programs under the new fund, programs funded by the new initiative must work to label opposition to the LGBTQI+ agenda as “anti-democratic” and characterize their opponents’ messaging as “disinformation.” Read more

Leaked Biden Plan Would House Violent Men In Women’s Prison Cells.

Buried toward the end of the extensive planned action to get soft on crime is a small paragraph of anodyne bureaucratic language that orders the U.S. attorney general to “within 30 days of the date of this order, begin the process of identifying any necessary changes to the [Bureau of Prisons] Transgender Offender Manual … to enable BOP to designate individuals to facilities in accordance with their gender identity.” Read more

Despite San Francisco Chronicle sermon, parents oppose teachers hiding LGBTQ evangelism.

What would parents say if their kids were being recruited into a religious groups without their knowledge? We know the answer. So the next time you write about teachers recruiting kids for anything sexually related, consider digging out factual material linked to this analogy.

With religion, the rules of engagement have been established via many court cases. Not so with efforts to involve under-age kids in gay or trans exploration. The recruitment is out there; one of my friends in Portland (Oregon) saw her two granddaughters sucked into this trend. One has decided to transition to become a boy; the other is now describing herself as gender-fluid. One of the two girls is autistic, which brings up huge ethical questions in that larger percentages of autistic kids are gay or transgender. Read more