The United State Senate is considering a so-called "hate crimes" bill (SB 1145 entitled the "Local Law Enforcement Act of 2005"), which was quietly passed by the House in September. The bill allows federal prosecution for crimes based on "actual or perceived" sexual orientation and, if signed into law, would pose a grave threat to ministers and religious organizations. Now is the time to sign an Urgent Petition to Congress to stop the hate crimes bill.

If passed by the Senate, the hate crimes bill would be the first and only law by the federal government that in any way gives special protection or benefits based on the status of sexual orientation. Giving special protection to certain groups and devalues the lives of others who are not members of those groups. All crime victims suffer, and all should be treated equally under the law.

On a more sinister note, if the hate crimes bill passes the Senate, it will be coupled with the Hate Crimes Reporting Act of 1990 which mandated that the FBI include intimidation in its reporting of statistics on hate crimes. Therefore, because intimidation may also be considered a hate crime, ministers or religious organizations who speak out against homosexuality are in danger of being labeled with a hate crime. Such speech is already under attack:

• Eleven Christians were jailed under Pennsylvania's hate crimes law in 2004 for singing in a public park and preaching against homosexuality.
• In 1998 the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a Resolution blaming religious people for hate crimes, declaring: "It is not an exaggeration to say that there is a direct correlation between these acts of discrimination, such as when gays and lesbians are called sinful and when major religious organizations say they can change if they tried, and the horrible crimes committed against gays and lesbians."
• A Canadian citizen was fined over $6,000.00 for running an ad in the newspaper where he quoted Leviticus 18:22, which states that homosexuality is a sin.
• A mayor in Canada was found to violate a human rights ordinance when she refused to declare Gay Day.
• A minister in the United Kingdom was fined £20,000 (approximately $35,000.00) for an ad that described homosexuality as an abomination.
• A complaint was filed in a Dutch court against Pope John Paul, II for his statement that "homosexual acts are contrary to the laws of nature." The Dutch court ruled the Pope's status as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican State afforded him immunity from prosecution. Other religious leaders would not be immune.  ëTOP

You may or may not be aware that the scheduled speaker at the Log Cabin Republicans of Dallas' Grand Ol' Party on Saturday October 15 is Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. According to a press release from The Log Cabin group funds raised at the event will go to support the defeat of Proposition 2, the Texas Marriage Amendment.

Should you be a financial supporter of Americans for Tax Reform, you should be aware of it.

The press release states: "The local group is paying part of the salary for a field director representing Log Cabin Republicans to work helping defeat Proposition 2."

Support of Americans for Tax Reform is supporting the effort to defeat Proposition 2, and by contrast to help promote homosexual marriage in Texas.  ëTOP

GENEVA, Switzerland, the European Union announced plans last week to end the unilateral control of the Internet currently exercised by the United States.

David Hendon, director of business relations for the UK’s Department of Trade and Industry, outlined the preparations for the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society next month. Hendon explained that as a result of the EU’s actions a new body would be put in place to run the Internet.

Currently the US Department of Commerce (DoC) controls the "root servers" through a private company called the "Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann).

A number of countries, including some of the world’s most notorious violators of human rights, such as China, Cuba, Iran, Brazil and several African states, requested that the US relinquish control. The DoC refused. As a result the EU has announced that it will create a new forum that would decide public policy, and a "cooperation model" comprising governments that would be in overall charge.

The proposal will be tabled at the UN next month and if there is international consensus then the US will have no choice but to acquiesce.
While Hendon insisted that the movement is only focused on "issues setting the top-level framework" others are not so confident. Human rights issues are a concern with China and Tunisia both being known for filtering internet content and silencing online discussion. The fear of unnecessary bureaucracy restricting business is another issue at stake.

Internet expert and author of Ruling the Root, Milton Mueller, was quoted in the Guardian Unlimited saying "The idea of the council is so vague. It's not clear to me that governments know what to do about anything at this stage apart from get in the way of things that other people do."  ëTOP

Many readers of this report let us know how much they appreciated the excerpts of the president's speech yesterday on the war against terrorism. The moral clarity he demonstrated in this conflict was striking. At the same time, a few folks were also struck by the contrast between this speech and the nomination of Harriet Miers. Some lamented that the president has not been as clear in the culture war over our values here at home as he has been in the struggle for freedom overseas.

For an administration seemingly committed to the "stealth strategy," it is interesting to see the lengths to which it has had to go in order to convince pro-family, pro-life activists that Ms. Miers is a "home run."

Judge Nathan Hecht considered the most conservative member of the Texas Supreme Court and a close personal friend of Ms. Miers, has given numerous interviews attesting to her pro-life beliefs and her strong faith. The public record is increasingly full of glowing statements by pro-family leaders in praise of Harriet Miers.

All this seems so contrary to the "stealth strategy" that I'm left wondering why the White House didn't select Janice Rogers Brown or Edith Jones or Emilio Garza in the first place! If you don't want a judge, what about Senator Mel Martinez of Florida? Garza and Martinez would have had the added benefit of appointing the first Hispanic to the Supreme Court. There were numerous candidates with demonstrated records who would have instantly unified the conservative movement. There would have been no need to "sell" us; we didn't want to be "sold."

Unfortunately, I see little evidence the administration's sales efforts are working. Criticism continues to mount from conservative columnists such as Ann Coulter, Pat Buchanan, Bob Novak, George Will, Mona Charen, Charles Krauthammer and others. Republican senators, usually eager to support their president's nominees, have distanced themselves and pointedly declined to endorse Miers.

Again, I am left asking, "Why?" Even if Miers is confirmed and turns out be a pleasant surprise, her nomination has validated the "stealth strategy," which is a risky double standard. The risk is obvious. The stealth strategy gave us Souter and Kennedy, and suggests that the nominations of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas were mistakes. The double standard is that liberal presidents have no fear of nominating liberal judges.

When Justice Byron White retired, Bill Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In doing so, Clinton replaced a pro-life dissenter in Roe v. Wade with a radical ACLU lawyer who advocated taxpayer funding of abortion and lowering of the age of sexual consent to 12 - too close to pedophilia in my view. Nobody screamed about balance, nobody even imagined filibustering Ginsburg. But why is it that Ruth Bader Ginsburg can get 96 votes, and conservative presidents must nominate blank slates? President Bush, in my view, should have been as bold as Bill Clinton by nominating someone with a record as clearly conservative as Ginsburg's was liberal. We need a national debate over the role of the courts; we need the president's moral clarity in the culture war over our values. But this nomination won't do it.

To be fair, this concern over strategy says nothing about Harriet Miers. But conservatives who are being asked to trust the president's judgment on Miers are also being asked to trust the process that gave us Harriet Miers - we are being asked to endorse the "stealth strategy" and that is something I cannot do. It gives us no assurances at all about the next nominee, if indeed this president is fortunate enough to have another vacancy to fill.  ëTOP

Let’s stop the ACLU from being paid to remove Religious symbols
(Sam Kastensmidt Center for Reclaiming America)

Louisiana's Governor Says 'No' to Expanded Gambling to New Orleans
(Oct. 13, 2005 Citizen Link)

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco has refused to include a plan to expand gambling in the call for a special legislative session in her state. The mayor of New Orleans had proposed an increase in gambling to help rebuild the hurricane-ravaged city.

Blanco is proposing tax credits for individuals and businesses and a stronger educational system as the best way to stimulate economic growth.

Because the gambling industry has provided thousands of jobs, some people argue it has been a success. But the truth is: Gamblers' losses fill bank accounts outside the state while the poorest people in Louisiana keep getting poorer.

Jeff Crouere, a political analyst in New Orleans, said the history of gambling in Louisiana has not been a very good one.

"The voters were sold a bill of goods when they approved the lottery back in the early 90s," he said. "It was supposed to fix education and the money never materialized."

In spite of that track record, Mayor Ray Nagin proposed expanded gambling as a way to alleviate the financial hardships brought on by Hurricane Katrina. But Blanco countered that she has "never believed that gambling should be the base" on which to build — or rebuild — the state's economy.

"I just think Governor Blanco is right on target," Crouere told Family News in Focus. "If we should be doing anything it should be cutting back, not adding more gambling."  ëTOP

Effort to strip the Casino Tax-Credits from Gulf Opportunity Zone
(Oct. 4 2005 American Family Association)

In his economic package to help the victims of hurricane Katrina, President Bush has included approximately a half-billion (yes, billion) dollars in tax credits for the casinos on the Gulf Coast.

In the past, government has avoided including the gambling industry in government aid programs. But the President now proposes, in his Gulf Opportunity Zone (GO Zone) package, to take that half-billion from tax payers and give it to the gambling industry.

Here is the kicker: The casinos didn't even ask for the tax credits!

"The casinos don't need this," said William F. Shughart II, an economist at the University of Mississippi. "If they (casinos) are [eligible], that would be a complete waste of money."

Please email your Representative and ask him or her to support the effort by Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia to strip the casino tax-credits from the GO Zone legislation. The casinos on the Mississippi Gulf Coast don’t need this windfall. They were making $5,000,000 a day before Katrina!

The Republicans have been courting the gambling industry for years, and this appears to be an effort to bring that alliance even closer.

Please send your email to your Representative today. Ask him or her to support Rep. Frank Wolf's from the GO Zone legislation.

Click Here To Email Your Representative Now! Thanks for caring enough to get involved.  ëTOP

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has already handed in her resignation, but she sat in her appointed seat yesterday as the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Gonzales v. Oregon. The issue the High Court will be called upon to decide is whether the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) can be enforced in Oregon.

CSA prevents physicians from prescribing deadly drugs with the intent of killing their patients. From her questions, it seemed clear that if Justice O'Connor continues to sit when this crucial case is decided in January, American doctors may have a dread new right-- the "right" to help kill their patients even after they are born. Two of FRC's top legal experts--Bill Saunders and Pat Trueman--attended the High Court session yesterday. "O'Connor is leaning toward Oregon," says Saunders.   ëTOP

It appears the U.S. Air Force may be backing down from a policy that would have allowed military chaplains to witness to Air Force personnel who are not affiliated with other religions.

According to a document circulated at a school for Air Force chaplains, the military clergy pledged: "I will not proselytize from other religious bodies, but I retain the right to evangelize those who are not affiliated." But now, the Air Force seems to be caving in to a lawsuit filed by 1977 U.S. Air Force Academy graduate Mikey Weinstein.

Mr. Weinstein has accused Academy leaders of pressing cadets to embrace Evangelical Christianity. These developments raise disturbing questions about the rights of Christians in uniform. The Academy's Commandant, an Evangelical Christian with an excellent record, was "passed over" for promotion following the complaints. When cadets take the oath to defend the Constitution of the United States--shouldn't their First Amendment rights be a part of what they defend?  ëTOP

PJI Sues UC Berkeley for Using Federal Funding to Distort Religious Beliefs
(Oct. 12 2005 Pacific Justice Institute)

San Francisco, CA— A parent, Jeanne Caldwell, is filing a federal lawsuit today against officials of the University of California at Berkeley and the National Science Foundation over religious statements on the "Understanding Evolution" website (http://evolution.berkeley.edu), which was created with more than $500,000 in federal funding.

According to the lawsuit, the website, which describes itself as the "ultimate evolution resource for K-12 teachers," includes "classroom strategies" and exercises for public school teachers to use in science class to change the religious convictions of students. A web page called "Misconceptions" makes the theological claim that "most Christian and Jewish religious groups have no conflict with the theory of evolution." This statement is illustrated by a cartoon depicting a scientist shaking hands with a pastor holding a Bible with a cross on it.

The lawsuit alleges that the state and federal governments are promoting religious beliefs to minor school children in violation of the First Amendment. The suit seeks injunctive relief to remove these government-endorsed religious beliefs. The website exclusively directs instructors to statements by seventeen denominations and groups that adhere to the doctrine that there is no conflict between their religious beliefs and evolution. A core claim of many evolutionists is that the origin of all life forms through evolution, including humans, was "unplanned" and "undirected." This claim clearly contradicts the teaching of all of the world’s major religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, that life on earth was created by design.

The lawsuit alleges that officials are using government funding and resources to actively promote the religious beliefs held by a private organization, the National Center for Science Education, which has a "long history of religious advocacy" on the evolution issue. Attorney Larry Caldwell, President of Quality Science Education for All, who is co-counsel with PJI in the suit, stated, "In this government-funded website, the same people who so loudly proclaim that they oppose discussion of religion in biology are advocating ‘teaching strategies’ in science classrooms to convert students to government endorsed religious beliefs."  ëTOP

The researchers concluded that "the MPAA [Motion Picture Association of America] applied less stringency in its age-based ratings over time for the period of 1992-2003." In other words, as time went on, a PG rating became more and more meaningless, and was no guarantee that the film was free of the graphic sexual imagery that parents would not normally be comfortable allowing a 13-year-old to watch.

In the same period since 1992, a similar study found that G-rated movies had become eleven times more profitable than their R-rated counterparts. Since 1968, 60 percent of all movies made have been given an R-rating, whereas only 3 of the top 25 movies of all time were R-rated movies, according to a four-year study conducted by the Dove Foundation. The Dove Foundation awards a blue and white Dove Seal to any movie or video that is rated "family-friendly" by its film review board.

A separate study examining the top 200 movies of all time revealed that the consequences of so-called casual sex as depicted in movies, such as unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease, was never portrayed in the movies.  ëTOP

Although China's Constitution allows citizens to believe in religion, it does not guarantee the right to practice that religion. Therefore, Chinese Christians are usually arrested for the "illegal" religious activities that are a natural outgrowth of their faith. When adult believers are arrested, they face severe consequences. But because "belief" is legal, they generally are not required to deny their faith.

When children are caught, however, officials take a different approach. In an attempt to weaken their faith, children are often encouraged to deny Jesus altogether. What Chinese officials don't realize, however, is that God is able to make believers "strong, firm and steadfast" (1 Pet. 5:10) regardless of their age.  ëTOP

International Day of Prayer November 13^th

Don't forget to mark your calendars for this year's International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church! Join hundreds of thousands of Christians and churches worldwide on November 13 to pray for the 200 million believers who are suffering for the sake of Christ.

2005 Philadelphia Outfest Outreach Ministry without Interruption
(Dennis Green Oct. 9, 2005 Life and Liberty Ministries)

Please pray for those who stood around to hear the preaching, those who we had conversations with, and those who were convicted by the large presence of Gospel messages on banners and in our literature.

We ask for your prayers for our continued protection as we take the message of the Gospel to the streets and Campuses here in Philadelphia.

Lastly, we give thanks to the Father for his protection today. During the outreach at Outfest today, an enraged man went after a brother who was preaching. After shoving the preacher, the police intervened. It the ensuing scuffle, the man tried to gain possession of an Officer's handgun. The attempt was foiled when nearly a dozen officers leap upon the man and hauled him off to jail.

The Gospel, clearly presented, often enrages those who hate the message.

Halleluiah! What a great day of sowing the seeds of good news to a lost and dying world.  ëTOP

In a pastoral letter published in the Calgary Sun on September 11, Bishop Henry warned that "Same-sex marriage proponents use the language of openness, tolerance and diversity, yet the foreseeable effect of their success will be to usher in an era of intolerance and discrimination the likes of which we have rarely seen before."

He warned that same-sex "marriage" and relations will be considered the norm, and that any school, for example, that fails to incorporate homosexual relations into their curricula, will be deemed discriminatory. "The impact of the social re-engineering is bound to filter down to school classrooms," he wrote. "The educational impact of laws on attitudes is undeniable. Ordinary words such as ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ will be replaced by ‘partner’ and ‘spouse.’ Children will have to be taught about homosexual acts. Every person and every religion that disagrees will be labeled as bigoted and openly discriminated against and dragged before Human Rights Commissions. Parents who complain will be branded as homophobes and their children will suffer."

The bishop illustrates his point with the example of a same-sex BC couple who initiated a human rights suit alleging that their provincial ministry of education does not adequately "address issues of sexual orientation," claiming that "there is systemic discrimination through omission and suppression of queer issues in the whole of the curriculum." The complainants want the so-called queer studies to be mandatory, stripping parents of the right to pull children from the offending classes.

"Traditionally only those matters, where there was a large measure of consensus in society would be taught in the public school system," Bishop Henry explained. "The rest was left to the home, to the church or to other institutions. The adoption of a new constitutional norm means that, in respect of homosexuality at least, this strategy is to be abandoned and students are to be confronted on the issues."

Bishop Henry adds the example of Chamberlain v. Surrey School District No. 36, where the Supreme Court refused a school board’s attempt to deny use of a kindergarten text that included positive portrayals of same-sex families. "The refusal was on the basis that a significant number of parents and others in the school district would consider them to be incompatible or inconsistent with their moral and religious beliefs on same-sex relationships," the bishop explained. "The case marked a significant moment in the debate about parental rights in education."

BC Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin wrote in her opinion, "Parental views, however, important, cannot override the imperative placed upon the British Columbia public schools to mirror the diversity of the community and teach tolerance and understanding of difference."  ëTOP

Managers at Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax England have asked visitors to the maternity wing not to stare into cots or question mothers about their labor.

The staff on one of the wards put up a display of a doll in a cot with a message saying: "What makes you think I want to be looked at?" But not all mothers are so keen to have the privacy of their child protected.

Lynsey Pearson, 26, who gave birth to her daughter Hannah four weeks ago, said: "This ludicrous idea is taking patient confidentiality to the extreme." If people did not ask me questions about my baby I would be offended.

Debbie Lawson, a ward sister at the special care baby unit, said: "We know people have good intentions and most cannot resist cooing over new babies but we need to respect the child.

"Cooing should be a thing of the past because these are little people with the same rights as you or me.   ëTOP