Kansas Family Policy Council News
May 17, 2013
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News from across Kansas
and the nation
Your Weekly Update on Family Policy News
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Christian Adopt Shun? 
FRC Washington Update 5-13-13
The Left has a funny way of celebrating Mother's Day. First, the President issues a bizarre tweet reminding moms that his gift is free birth control -- presumably so they never have to become mothers again. Then, of course, there was Secretary Arne Duncan's announcement that the Department of Education would stop acknowledging moms' existence altogether. Starting in 2014, the DOE is replacing "mother" and "father" with "Parent 1" and "Parent 2" on its student aid forms in an effort to be more politically correct (and anatomically incorrect).
Now, some in Congress want to get in on the act with a bill that would intentionally deprive children of a mother. Under this legislation, the government would punish any adoption agency that gives priority to married, heterosexual couples. The bill, co-sponsored by Reps. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), would cut off the federal funding of any agency -- including faith-based charities -- that seek the safest and most nurturing home for kids. If it passes, the official policy of the U.S. government would be to penalize organizations who take the well-being of children into account in adoption placement.
Read more HERE.
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Another Gosnell: Report Shows Texas Abortion Doc Kills Babies Born Alive 
by Operation Rescue at Lifenews.com 5/15/13
The article at this link contains graphic Images of post-abortive babies - discretion advised
After the conviction of late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell on murder charges, Operation Rescue has been repeatedly asked if there is any evidence that similar practices exist at abortion clinics elsewhere in the nation. That documentation has now been released.
Operation Rescue arranged to have Life Dynamics, Inc. produce a video interview, released yesterday, with three informants who came to Operation Rescue as the result of our Abortion Whistleblowers Program, which offers a reward of $25,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of abortionists who are breaking the law.
The three informants, Deborah Edge, Gigi Aguliar, and Krystal Rodriguez, have come forward to tell of their horrific experiences working for abortionist Douglas Karpen, at one of three of his Texas abortion clinics, the Aaron Women's Clinic in Houston. A fourth informant has co-operated with Operation Rescue, filing an affidavit about her experiences, but remains at this time anonymous.
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Abortion Clinic Employees
"Babies born alive daily."
Discretion advised this interview
contains graphic descriptions
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As shocking as their stories are, these women did more than just talk; they brought forward evidence of illegal late-term abortions in the form of photos taken on their cell phones at the Karpen's clinic on Schumacher Lane in Houston.
The photos were scandalous. They depicted two babies aborted well beyond the legal limit of 24 weeks in Texas. Their necks had been cut.
Read more HERE.
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Engaging Gay Activists on Campus: A Primer 
by Rosaria Butterfield Intercollegiate Review 5/13/13
The name of Jesus made me recoil in anger. Oh, I was OK with a certain range of "live and let live," but I was also in a war against stupid. "Live and let live" meant to keep your religious practice in the closet. While Freud considered the Christian faith pathological, I considered it applied cultural phobia, and it was not welcome in my classes.
It was 1998. I was a newly tenured professor in the English department of a large university. My field was queer theory.
From a Christian perspective, I was the vampire and you were the fresh blood. Let me be clear. I had a lesbian partner and I wasn't cheating on her. I didn't want to hop into bed with you. I wanted you to hop the worldview fence and see the enlightened path that feminist theory and LGBT advocacy alone could offer you. I wasn't thumping tolerance. Nothing short of a cosmological paradigm shift was my focus.
The Article Continues...
All that changed when a Christian pastor and his wife became my friends. Our friendship began in an odd way. I had written an editorial in the local newspaper protesting the Promise Keepers. Pastor Ken Smith wrote me a letter in response. It was a kind and inquiring letter. Our correspondence led to dinners together and book exchanges. We talked openly about sexuality and politics. My new Christian acquaintances did not act as though such conversations were polluting them. They encouraged me to read the Bible (which I needed to do to write my book on the Religious Right anyway), and they discipled me in real Christian grace (by being my neighbor and my friend). They showed me how people leaned hard on the Bible. And after two years of meeting with my Christian neighbors, getting to know some of their church members, and reading the Bible multiple times through in a year, I noticed something about this text.
It was different from all the rest.
It had an integrated revelation, a vast and capacious philosophy about sin and redemption, and a God-man who was no effeminate runway model or martyr. I also noticed something about these Christians: they had an inner capacity to withstand trials and agonies without blame shifting or depression. Finally, I noticed something about me: I was a lot like Eve. The Bible promised understanding after obedience, not the other way around (John 7:17). That stopped me in my tracks: Did I want to understand why homosexuality was a sin from God's point of view, or did I just want to argue with Him? After two years of this, the Bible got to be bigger than me. It overflowed into my world. I realized that the Bible was my holy highway to a living God; that through it I could learn what God wanted of me and why, and through it I could send my pleas to His throne of grace. The Bible transmitted the language and lexicon of a Holy God, transforming me to grow in His likeness. It truly was the only way.
Read more HERE.
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Deceit in the Boy Scouts 
By Cathy Ruse Town Hall.com 5/8/13
There is deception in the ranks of the Boy Scouts of America.
A faction in the national leadership of the BSA wants to get rid of the longstanding membership policy against "open and avowed" homosexuality. But the way it's going about it is not worthy of the Boy Scouts.
The BSA Executive Committee recently released a resolution which will be presented to the National Council for a vote on May 23. To the surprise of many, the resolution addresses only "youth membership," leaving in place the prohibition on open homosexuality on the part of leaders.
It has been widely characterized as a "compromise," but no Boy Scout should be fooled. The tension this incoherent policy would create would make it practically and legally unsustainable, and those pushing the resolution surely know that.
Under the policy, open homosexuality would be officially consistent with the Scouting code throughout a Scout's career until the moment he turns 18, when it suddenly becomes inconsistent with the code. And then what? No troop leader would want to put himself in the position of enforcing such an irrational rule, and likely few would. A de facto change in leadership rules would occur almost immediately.
But it won't stop there. This move could forfeit the legal victory the Scouts won at the Supreme Court over a decade ago. When the organization was sued for unlawful discrimination, the Court ruled in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale that the BSA has the right to maintain its membership policy under its First Amendment speech and association rights. But if the Scouts' new "speech" is incoherent - open homosexuality is consistent with the Scouting code except when it isn't - there may be no legal basis left for courts to uphold one part of the code over another. It will be a lawsuit nightmare for the Scouts.
Red more HERE.
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Student debt delays spending, saving - and marriage
by Blake Ellis CNN Money 5/9/13
Student loan debt is leading some borrowers to put off buying a home, saving for retirement or even getting hitched -- and many now regret taking out the loans in the first place.
About three-quarters of student loan borrowers surveyed said they -- or their children -- have been forced to make sacrifices in order to keep up with student loan payments, according to a survey from the American Institute of CPAs.
Forty-one percent of the more than 200 people surveyed said they have delayed saving for retirement, 40% have put off buying cars, while 29% have postponed home purchases.
Even marriage has been put on hold, with 15% of respondents saying they delayed tying the knot because of student loan debt.
Read more HERE.
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Mapping Unwed Motherhood 
by Catherine Rampell New York Times 5/2/13
The share of births to unmarried mothers is up, according to a new report from the Census Bureau.
In 2011, of the women who reported having had a birth in the previous 12 months, 35.7 percent were unmarried. That number has been tracked in the American Community Survey since 2005, when 30.6 percent of recent births were to unmarried women.
"Nonmarital fertility has been climbing steadily since the 1940s and has risen even more markedly in recent years," Rose Kreider, a family demographer with the Census Bureau and one of the report's authors, said in a news release accompanying the report.
Rates of out-of-wedlock births vary tremendously by demographics like age and education. Among women 20 to 24 years old, for example, 62 percent of those who gave birth in the previous 12 months were unmarried. Among those 35 to 39, the share was 17 percent. The rate of births out of marriage were also lower for women with higher income and more education.
Read more HERE.
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From Uncle Sam to Uncle Scam
FRC Washington Update 5/13/15 
When President Obama delivered the keynote at Ohio State's graduation last weekend, who knew how ironic his words would be? "Unfortunately," he told the class of 2013, "you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems... They'll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices."
Well, turns out, the voices were right. Only now, the tyranny is no longer lurking around the corner--it's officially arrived. In an unfolding government corruption scandal that may very well eclipse Watergate, the IRS is finally admitting what some congressmen suspected all along: that the administration was using the agency as a hired thug to punish and silence conservatives.
The conspiracy, which started as early as 2010 and may have affected as many as 500 conservative and Christian groups, used the IRS to antagonize organizations seeking non-profit status. Unlike liberal organizations, which, in USA Today's words "got a pass," the IRS demanded reams of sensitive--and often irrelevant--information from tea party, religious, and conservative groups to intimidate or otherwise frustrate the President's opponents. According to Politico, agents asked shockingly private questions, ranging from donors lists (which were later leaked), Facebook posts, and media interviews to minutes from board meetings, resumes of officers, tweets, political blog posts, and even a list of student trainees.
Read more HERE.
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