The Social Conservative Review: October 31, 2013

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Dear Friends,

There will never be a time when conservatives can heave a sigh of relief, sit back, and declare victory in the battle for our country and our culture.

There can be victories, of course, significant ones, but the only permanent victory in all of history was achieved on Calvary. In that triumph, we find the courage and confidence to keep making persuasive arguments about the benefits of faith, family, and freedom.

There's a lot happening on every front. But the eternal battle already has been won. Let's never lose sight of that as we seek to "do good to all people" (Galatians 6:10).

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

P.S. Our fall lecture series has begun! Watch online at no charge, here.

Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling

• "Houston County Says Homeschoolers Should Register," Home School Legal Defense Association
• "Home-schooled option gains favor in Florida," Bradenton Herald
• "Home Schooled Children Leaner Than Traditionally Schooled Kids," Science Daily

Legislation and Policy Proposals

• "EdReform: Going beyond good intentions," AEIdeas.org
• "Some Perspective on Common Core," Education Next
• "Rain of Errors," Thomas B. Fordham Institute
• "Teachers Deserve (But Have to Earn) Their Seat at the Table," Education Week
• "The Federal Takeover of Catholic Education," Crisis Magazine
• "When Outsiders Take Over Schools: Lessons From Memphis," The Atlantic
• "Competition in American Education," The American Spectator

College Debt

• "New data on tuition prices: Is it possible it's even worse than we thought?," AEIdeas.org
• "Student Loans Are Becoming a Drag on the US Economy," Time
• "College Costs Slow Down, But Aid Falls And Average Student's Debt Hits $27K," Forbes

Government Reform
Regulation

• "How 'Debt Ceilings' Increase Debt," Hoover Institution
• "Increasing Number of Regulations Challenge Manufacturers," IndustryWeek
• "Government-Coerced Electric Car Demand," The Acton Institute

Waste/Fraud/Abuse

• "Public Pensions Are Not Property," OpenMarket.org
• "Rand Paul: 'Government is chock-full of waste'," Cincinnati.com
• ""Good government pleases God": Shutdowns, budgets, and the common good," Mirror of Justice

Health Care
Abstinence

• "Beauty and Values, Miss World 2013 Advocates Pro-Life, Abstinence," Townhall.com
• "Condoms should be more available to teens, doctors say," NBC News
• "Defining Bigotry Down," First Things
• "Michael Jensen asks: Is Chastity Possible?," The Bible Society

Health care reform: ACA/Obamacare

• "Obamacare Problems Much Worse than Technical Glitches," Family Research Council
• "Five Reasons Obama and HHS Are to Blame for Healthcare.gov," RealClearTechnology
• "Obamacare's Next Bout: More Legal Challenges," The American
• "HHS mandate: 'fiery rafter in burning house'," Baptist Press
• "Cornerstone University Sues Feds Over HHS Mandate," The Acton Institute
• "How to Cut Medical Costs 101," Commentary Magazine
• "Creating a 'Good Samaritan' Network of Charity Clinics," The Galen Institute

Homosexuality

• "Opposing California's Co-Ed Bathroom Law," National Review Online
• "Sexual Radicalism: Imperial Project, Global Goliath," The Public Discourse
• "Does same-sex parenting really make "no difference"?," MercatorNet
• "U.S. Olympic athletes must promise to fight 'discrimination' based on 'sexual orientation'," LifeSiteNews

Human Life and Bioethics
Abortion

• "Pro Abortion Subsumes Pro Choice," National Review Online
• "Hey journalists: Please look up 'fetus' in a dictionary," GetReligion
• "Gynecology before Roe v. Wade," MercatorNet
• "EU: While 1.3 Million Sign the Pro-Life Petition, Radical Pro-Abortion-Politicians Don't Want to Learn the Lesson.," Turtle Bay and Beyond
• "Think forced abortion doesn't happen in America? Think again.," LifeSiteNews
• "Catholic University to Teach Students How to Promote, Protect Obamacare-Covered Abortions," The College Fix
• "Free Morning-After Pill Does Not Reduce Abortion and Pregnancy Rates," The Leading Edge
• "The most undervalued argument in the prolife movement," JoshBrahm
• "Oklahoma anti-abortion law explained," SCOTUS Blog
• "Supreme Court moves a step closer to next abortion case," WORLD Magazine

Bioethics and Biotechnology

• "'A Flight From Human Intimacy'," The Acton Institute
• "Fecundophobia: The Growing Fear Of Children And Fertile Women," The Federalist
• "Stop 'eugenic' creation of 3-parent embryos: Council of Europe Members to Britain," LifeSiteNews

Euthanasia and End of Life Issues

• "More Media Support For Death Panels," National Review Online
• "Eleventh Week Eugenics: On killing children with Down syndrome," ERLC
• "Assisted Suicide Backers Create Phony Disability Rights Groups to Promote Euthanasia," LifeNews.com

Stem Cell Research
To read about the latest advances in ethical adult stem cell research, keep up with leading-edge reports from FRC's Dr. David Prentice, click here.

• "Did brain tumor stem cells originate from malignant neural stem cells?," Phys.org
• "'Sex drive slows' after stem cell transplantation," Medical News Today
• "New encapsulation stem cell technique could be used to treat damaged hearts," UPI
• "Lou Gehrig's Disease: From Patient Stem Cells to Potential Treatment Strategy," ScienceDaily

Human Trafficking

• "A Map of the World's Slave Workforce," The Atlantic
• "'Chosen': Documentary featuring local woman aims to educate girls about sex trafficking," Q13Fox.com
• "Tackling the Problem of Human Trafficking of Runaway and Foster Youth," Texas GOP Vote
• "Bill would clear prostitution convictions for victims of human trafficking in Maine," Bangor Daily News
• "Billboards will help draw line on sex trafficking," Las Vegas Review-Journal

Marriage and Family
Adoption

• "Adoption: Evangelical Enthusiasm Gone Wrong?," Values & Capitalism
• "'Have You Ever Thought of Adopting?'," New York Times
• "Inspiration: An Adoption Story," The Patriot Post

Family Economics

• "The Real Reasons We Have a Public Pension Crisis," The American
• "More needing food stamps may be new normal," Breitbart.com
• "What the Poor Need Most," The Acton Institute
• "Avari ce: Desiring more Wealth than one's Soul can Support," The Imaginative Conservative
• "Work is Not the Way it's Supposed to be," The High Calling
• "The Millennials: An Economically Lost Generation," The American Thinker
• "The Evangelical Work Ethic," Christianity Today

Family Structure

• "Gallup: Higher Marriage Rate Could Boost the Economy," CNSNews.com
• "How the Sexual Revolution is Harming Kids," Values & Capitalism
• "A Lesson on Marriage from a Polyamorist," National Review Online
• "When a Child Is a Second Chance," Acculturated
• "A Married Mom and Dad Really Do Matter: New Evidence from Canada," Crisis Magazine
• "The Down-to-Earth Gospel for Parenting," The Gospel Coalition
• "'Selfish' Parents & Cultural Policing," The American Conservative
• "Marriage Makes Our Children Richer - Here's Why," The Atlantic
• "The Perfect Storm of Family Instability and Disrupted Attachment," Family Studies
• "38 Percent of Children Under the Age of 2 Use Mobile Media," Religion Today

Media
Pornography

• "Anti-Porn Group Observes 'White Ribbon Against Pornography' Week," The Christian Post
• "Getting Wrecked: Miley Cyrus to Direct Porn?," PornHarms.com
• "The Secret Women's Porn Problem," Christianity Today

Religion and Public Policy
Religious Liberty

• "Military Training Document: Anti-Christian SPLC a Trusted Source to Define 'Extremism'," Breitbart.com
• "Ecumenism in the Chaplaincy," First Things
• "'God' May Be Removed from U.S. Air Force Academy Oath," Persecution.org
• "Faith and freedom depend on each other," The Washington Times
• "Using Public Information to Protect Religious Liberty," Crisis Magazine
• "Are Church Signs Next?," Touchstone Magazine
• "ACLU's Opposition to Pre-Game Prayer Shows it is No "Champion" of Students' Rights," Alliance Defending Freedom
• "10-Year-Old Shelby County School Student Finally Permitted to Write About Her Hero - God!," Liberty Institute
• "Freedom to Flourish: Is Religious Freedom Necessary for Peace, Prosperity, and Democracy?," Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs

Religion in America
Check out Dr. Kenyn Cureton's feature on Watchmen Pastors called "The Lost Episodes," featuring how religion has had an impact on our Founding Fathers.

• "Friendship After Christ," First Things
• "Should We Pull Back from Politics?," Moore to the Point
• "Faith is not about Intelligence," Acculturated
• "World Council of Churches Stands By As Christians Perish, Churches Wither," The Gatestone Institute
• "Religion and the Foundations of Morality," The Public Discourse
• "Can a Christian Commit Suicide?," The Gospel Coalition
• "Out of the Mouth of Babes," The Fixed Point

Secularism

• "Oliver O'Donovan on the Secular-Spiritual Life," The Acton Institute
• "Faith and (Dorm) Life," The Public Discourse

International
Israel

• "Israel and Evangelical Christians," Commentary Magazine
• "Israel's blind watcmen," CarolineGlick.com
• "'The Jewish State of Israel'," The American Thinker

International Economy and Family

• "Japan puts China on notice," AEIdeas.org
• "Fleeing France's Failing Economy," The Acton Institute
• "Venezuela's Ministry of Happiness," Commentary Magazine

Religious Persecution

• "State Department Stays Mute on Persecuted Religious Minorities Worldwide," Family Research Council
• "Dozens Feared Dead As Boko Haram Attacks State Capital in Coordinated Terror Campaign," Persecution.org
• "Christian Faith In The Face Of Persecution," The Acton Institute
• "The Next Human Rights Revolution," The Public Discourse
• "Do Christians in the Middle East have a prayer?," Rare

The Courts
Constitutional Issues

• "Affirmative Action and the Supreme Court," First Things
• "To Whom It May Concern: Supreme Court Case to Determine Acceptable Public Prayers," Alliance Defending Freedom
• "New Mexico High Court Hears Arguments in Same-Sex Marriage Battle," The FedSoc Blog

Other Issues

• "A House Divided Cannot Stand: On Social and Economic Conservatism," First Things
• "Grand Old Problem," Eidos
• "Philanthropy's Original Sin," The New Atlantis
• "Chart of the Week: The geography of the House's conservative core," Pew Research Center

Book reviews

• "Jan Plamper's The Stalin Cult: A Study in the Alchemy of Power has been named the outstanding monograph by the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies," Hoover Institution
• "A Case for the Moral Consideration of Animals," National Review Online
• "Intellectual Courage and the Bitter Truth," The University Bookman
• "The World of the Rings," Touchstone Magazine
• "Test of Faith," Claremont Review of Books