The Social Conservative Review: February 27, 2014

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Dear Friends,

Religious liberty is under attack.

The Attorney General of the United States is calling on state attorneys general not to defend their states' laws prohibiting same-sex "marriages." As FRC President Tony Perkins rightly asked this week, "If the Attorney General can pick and choose which laws to uphold, then can the rest of us pick and choose which laws to follow?"

With respect to the wildly misrepresented Arizona bill concerning religious liberty, Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Kellie Fiedorek captured the real issue well when she wrote, "a Muslim caterer shouldn't be forced to serve pork sandwiches at a Christian wedding on Saturday just because the couple asks for them. And a religious photographer shouldn't be required to use her creative talents to promote the message of an atheist group."

Recently, a panel of United Nations "experts" demanded that the Roman Catholic Church reevaluate its teachings on such issues as abortion and to consider jettisoning 2,000 years of Christian moral teaching on this and other difficult social issues (we're having an important panel discussion on this next week).

And as Dr. Todd Johnson of Gordon-Conwell Seminary will discuss at FRC in a couple of weeks, "the global persecution of Christians" is widespread.

These threats are why Family Research Council works hard to defend and advance religious liberty at home and abroad. It's a right that comes from God, not the state or any political leaders. It's worth protecting.

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

P.S. On March 13, U.S. Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) will be giving a lecture at FRC titled, "Health Care and Conscience Rights." Please join us here or watch online at no charge.

Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling

• "HSLDA to U.S. Department of Education: Leave Homeschoolers Alone!," Home School Legal Defense Association
• "A wild ride from homeschool to Sochi," WORLD Magazine
• "Home-schooling numbers and opportunities grow," The Stamford Advocate

Legislation and Policy Proposals

• "The Pre-K Problem: A Great Investment or Passing the Buck?," EducationNext
• "Community, Contemplation, and Computers: The Role of Technology in Education," The Public Discourse
• "Setting standards for schools: A cautionary tale," AEIdeas.org
• "The Common Core Is Tough on Kids With Special Needs," The Atlantic

College Debt

• "Should Pell Grants Target the College-Ready?," EducationNext
• "Federal Reserve confident in economy despite high student debt," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• "Illinois leads multistate probe of Sallie Mae's student loan practices," Reuters
• "Texas's Cost-Benefit Guide to Choosing a College," The Atlantic

Government Reform
Regulation

• "Regulation blizzard: Government adds 1,516 pages to the Federal Register," The Daily Caller
• "The danger of encroaching government regulation," Verde Independent

Waste/Fraud/Abuse

• "The Federal Government Makes $100 Billion a Year in Improper Welfare Payments," National Review Online
• "The FCC's Dubious Study of American Media," The Atlantic
• "The FCC Wades Into the Newsroom," The Wall Street Journal

Health Care
Abstinence

• "Abstinence programs face pop culture head on," USA Today
• "Chastity Is About More Than Abstinence from Sex," The American Conservative
• "The economics of sex," MercatorNet

Health care reform: ACA/Obamacare

• "White House Obfuscates on ObamaCare and Jobs," The American Spectator
• "Young avoid coverage in Colorado, posing problem for health care law," The Denver Post
• "ObamaCare and My Mother's Cancer Medicine," The Wall Street Journal
• "Catastrophic Coverage: The Media Overreact to Obamacare's Glitches," Commonweal Magazine
• "Colorado nuns file challenge on birth control," The Washington Times

Homosexuality

• "The Brave New World of Same-Sex Marriage," The Federalist
• "Is Homosexual Orientation Sinful?," Canon and Culture
• "European Court of Human Rights Hears Case on Same-Sex "Marriage"," Turtle Bay and Beyond
• "Facebook offers 56 new ways of being You," MercatorNet

Abortion

• "The Essential Pretense," The Federalist
• "NYC: More Black Babies Killed by Abortion Than Born," CNSNews.com
• "Abortion: Making Money by Killing," The American Spectator
• "Is Contraception the Hill We Want to Die On?," Crisis Magazine
• "Botched Arguments: Hurting or Helping the Prolife Cause?," Commonweal Magazine
• "Elective Genocide," The Catholic Thing
• "Bolivia Upholds Abortion Ban, Snubs UN Committee," C-FAM
• "Former Planned Parenthood nurse: Abortion clinic 'evil, sad place'," Catholic San Francisco
• "Report: US 1 of only 7 countries that allow elective abortions after 20 weeks," The Daily Caller
• "The Next Battle in the Abortion Wars," Politico

Bioethics and Biotechnology

• "FDA Moving Toward OK for 3-Parent Embryos," National Review Online
• "The kids are OK," BioEdge
• "The Rights of Children: Biology Matters," The Public Discourse

Euthanasia and End-of-Life Issues

• "Mocking Compassion: Euthanasia Beyond Belgium," Crisis Magazine
• "5 Facts About Euthanasia in Europe," Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission
• "Study: 16% of People Killing Themselves in Assisted Suicide Clinics are Perfectly Healthy," Townhall.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.

• "Human lung made in lab for first time," CNN
• "'Largest ever' trial of adult stem cells in heart attack patients begins," Medical News Today
• "Adult stem cells can boost healing of your joints," The San Francisco Examiner
• "Immune cells regulate blood stem cells," Phys.org

Human Trafficking

• "UK Airports To Have Anti-Trafficking Teams," The Acton Institute
• "Human Trafficking Brings Easy Money, Hard Lives For Teenage Girls," CBS Sacramento
• "Happy Birthday Abe! What We Learned From President Lincoln," Shared Hope International

Marriage and Family
Adoption

• "Adoption and Foster Care: An Issue We Can't Ignore," Values and Capitalism
• "When should a child be told he is adopted?," MercatorNet

Family Economics

• "The Zombie Numbers That Rule the U.S. Economy," The Atlantic
• "Obama's Stimulus: Five Years of Keynesian Fairy Dust," The Federalist
• "How to Think About Economics Like a Conservative Evangelical," The Acton Institute
• "Inequality's Inconvenient Truths," Commentary Magazine
• "Investing the Warren Buffett (Biblical) Way," The Cripplegate
• "The U.S. Middle Class Is Turning Proletarian," New Geography

Family Structure

• "How to Save Marriage in America," The Atlantic
• "Being Married With Kids And Young Now Deemed "Alternative Lifestyle"," The Federalist
• "Gentlemen Speak: The Real Deal on Submission in Marriage," Verily Magazine
• "Finding the Fatherless: A Call to Fill the Gap," DesiringGod
• "How Can We Make Our Marriage a Better Friendship?," The Gospel Coalition
• "What daddy's little girl learns from her father," MercatorNet
• "Why Privatizing Marriage Won't Work," The Catholic Thing

Media
Pornography

• "How Porn is Rewiring Our Brains," The Daily Telegraph
• "'Malarkey': Expert reacts to sexpert's claim that there's no such thing as porn addiction," LifeSiteNews

Religion and Public Policy
Religious Liberty

• "Arizona lawmakers pass bill to allow faith-based refusal of services," Reuters
• "DoD to Continue Using Liberal Southern Poverty Law Center as Training Resource," CNSNews.com
• "Holding the Ropes," First Things
• "Of Bakers and Beliefs: Kirsten Powers' Faith-Work Disconnect," The Acton Institute
• "Where Does "Separation of Church and State" Come From and What Does It Really Mean?," The Gospel Coalition
• "Biblical Case for Freedom of Conscience," The Manhattan Project
• "The silent war on religious liberty," MercatorNet
• "Walgreens Fires Pharmacist for Refusing to Violate His Religious Beliefs," Thomas More Society

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.

• "Shape Your Life with the Words of Life," DesiringGod
• "The Flower and Life of True Religion," The Cripplegate
• "The Christian Leader in the Digital Age," AlbertMohler.com
• "How the West Won -- but 'Western Civ' Lost," Intercollegiate Review
• "Justice Scalia: Good Government Needs Religion," The Acton Institute
• "Religion, the Corporate Life, and the Court," The Catholic Thing

Secularism

• "Secularism Is Good for America -- Especially Christians," The New Republic
• "Reasonable Hope for Our Secular Age," The Gospel Coalition

International
Israel

• "The Myth of Israel's Refusal to Make "Tough Decisions" for Peace," Commentary Magazine
• "The intra-Islamic conflicts and Israel," The Jerusalem Post
• "Abortion Stirs Little Debate in Israel," The Jewish Daily Forward

International Economy and Family

• "Ukrainian Bishop: Government Must Respect Human Dignity, Sanctity of Life," The Acton Institute
• "The American public's indifference to foreign affairs," MercatorNet
• "Ukraine's New Interim President May Surprise You," Touchstone Magazine

Religious Persecution

• "Kenyan Pastors Protest Pay-to-Preach Laws," Christianity Today
• "Violence rages along tribal fault lines in Central African Republic," Baptist Press
• "UN Commission Finds Severe Human Rights Abuses, Including Religious Persecution, In North Korea," Religion Clause

The Courts
Constitutional Issues

• "What Belgium's Child Euthanasia Law Means for America and the Constitution," The FedSoc Blog
• "The Enduring Presence of the Founders: Old Rebukes to Tyranny Still Refresh the Love of Liberty," The Washington Times
• "Do We Deserve the Constitution of 2014?," Library of Law and Liberty

Other Issues

• "It Takes a Certain Kind of Village," City Journal
• "The War on Humans," First Things
• "Time for a Return of Fusionism," The Public Discourse

Book reviews

• "Unsmiling Faces," Claremont Review of Books
• "Original Jesus," The Gospel Coalition
• "The Rights of Aphrodite," Touchstone Magazine
• "Blessed be the Peacemaker," The Catholic Thing