Kyrgyzstan (MNN) ― Censorship on religious literature could soon
be so restrictive in Kyrgyzstan that anyone wanting to "import, publish
or distribute religious literature will have to seek prior permission
from the authorities," reports Forum 18 News Service.
Despite being a reasonably free nation in regard to religious freedom
after the fall of the Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan has been imposing more
and more restrictions to religious communities over the years. The
behavior follows suit with the rest of neighboring former Soviet
nations, but it is making religious communities increasingly cautious.
In 2009, Kyrgyzstan created a Religion Law, but it did not impose
censorship on all religious literature, notes Forum 18. Now, amendments
to the law have been proposed to tighten censorship by September.
The new amendment technically reads like this: "Control on the import,
production, acquisition, storage and distribution of printed materials,
film, photo, audio and video productions, as well as other materials
with the purpose of unearthing religious extremism, separatism and
fundamentalism is conducted by the plenipotentiary state organs for
religious affairs, national security and internal affairs."
Many Kyrgyzstanis agree that would mean all-out censorship of all religious materials.
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Friday, July 6, 2012
Ohio ... November's big prize
The head of an Ohio-based political action committee says President
Barack Obama's bus tour through Ohio is more evidence of how essential
the Buckeye State is in winning the White House.
Obama's two-day, 250-mile "Betting on America" bus tour is taking him through several northern Ohio communities where he received strong support in 2008. The tour also includes stops in western Pennsylvania. Republicans are countering by dispatching Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty to some of the same towns along Obama's tour.
Phil Burress is chairman of the Citizens for Community Values Action Political Action Committee. He says the key in November will be for rural, conservative Ohioans to show up in large numbers like they did in 2004 when George W. Bush won the state.
READ MORE
Obama's two-day, 250-mile "Betting on America" bus tour is taking him through several northern Ohio communities where he received strong support in 2008. The tour also includes stops in western Pennsylvania. Republicans are countering by dispatching Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty to some of the same towns along Obama's tour.
Phil Burress is chairman of the Citizens for Community Values Action Political Action Committee. He says the key in November will be for rural, conservative Ohioans to show up in large numbers like they did in 2004 when George W. Bush won the state.
READ MORE
Bourbon Street sex industry is ministry's focus
NEW ORLEANS (BP) -- New Orleans' Bourbon Street is awash nightly in neon
light and lewd images. Some in the crowd disappear into the strip clubs
that line the street. Others come only to gawk. One Crossover team
prior to this year's Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting -- all
women -- came to pray.
Three couples from First Baptist Church in Florence, Ala., joined with Mosaic, a church plant in New Orleans' Mid-City area, during Crossover to serve alongside Inward, a ministry of women from New Orleans churches that is reaching women in the sex industry.
The Florence team served in New Orleans days after a strip club dancer was found brutally murdered and one day after Inward successfully helped another woman escape her pimp.
"These women [of Inward] are on the frontlines of ministry," said Rickey "Ric" Camp, pastor of First Baptist Florence and vice chairman of the North American Mission Board's board of trustees.
Inward, in its third year of operation, goes into the clubs to show God's love. As a result, several have left the sex industry. One dancer came to faith in Christ.
The Florence team women, two of them retired, prayerwalked along Bourbon Street while Inward members delivered gift baskets with gift cards and snack items to club dancers and workers.
While the women prayerwalked, husbands gathered at Mosaic to pray. Camp said he texted Scripture verses such as Joshua 1:7, "Be strong and courageous," to his wife, Lisa Camp.
"I was really frightened at first," Lisa Camp said. "These women showed us how to look at people and see them as God sees them."
Ric Camp said that while the men prayed, the women sent text message updates. One message read, "Pray that we get into the club," and later, "We're in."
The murder victim worked at the club where Inward has hosted six breakfasts after closing time in order to share the Gospel with club workers.
"We felt an urgency to pray," Ric Camp said. "There is a sense of lostness and darkness there."
READ MORE
Three couples from First Baptist Church in Florence, Ala., joined with Mosaic, a church plant in New Orleans' Mid-City area, during Crossover to serve alongside Inward, a ministry of women from New Orleans churches that is reaching women in the sex industry.
The Florence team served in New Orleans days after a strip club dancer was found brutally murdered and one day after Inward successfully helped another woman escape her pimp.
"These women [of Inward] are on the frontlines of ministry," said Rickey "Ric" Camp, pastor of First Baptist Florence and vice chairman of the North American Mission Board's board of trustees.
Inward, in its third year of operation, goes into the clubs to show God's love. As a result, several have left the sex industry. One dancer came to faith in Christ.
The Florence team women, two of them retired, prayerwalked along Bourbon Street while Inward members delivered gift baskets with gift cards and snack items to club dancers and workers.
While the women prayerwalked, husbands gathered at Mosaic to pray. Camp said he texted Scripture verses such as Joshua 1:7, "Be strong and courageous," to his wife, Lisa Camp.
"I was really frightened at first," Lisa Camp said. "These women showed us how to look at people and see them as God sees them."
Ric Camp said that while the men prayed, the women sent text message updates. One message read, "Pray that we get into the club," and later, "We're in."
The murder victim worked at the club where Inward has hosted six breakfasts after closing time in order to share the Gospel with club workers.
"We felt an urgency to pray," Ric Camp said. "There is a sense of lostness and darkness there."
READ MORE
Tenn. law restricting sex-ed could serve as national model
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) -- State legislators in Tennessee have made it
official: Sex toys and graphic promotions of sexual activity are not
welcome in public schools.
With the signing into law of SB 3310 by Gov. Bill Haslam, public schools that teach sex education classes must emphasize abstinence, and teachers are barred from promoting "gateway sexual activity" that encourages students to sexually experiment.
"We are very pleased with the passage of the Tennessee law, and we think that it could and should serve as a model for other states to follow," said Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association.
Tennessee only mandates sex education in school districts where the teen pregnancy rate exceeds a certain rate. But before the new law, some districts brought in speakers and curriculum that included explicit depictions of sexual conduct.
The Family Action Council of Tennessee (FACTN) documented a 2010 incident at Hillsboro High School in Nashville when a speaker with Nashville CARES, an AIDS awareness and education program, taught a sex education class at the school. The speaker used anatomically correct models to show students how to perform a graphic sex act. FACTN also noted that in some schools, Planned Parenthood presented sexual education curriculum that included links to its national website.
Huber added that some organizations claim they teach abstinence, but their curriculum goes in a decidedly different direction.
"It's asking students to creatively think of what kind of sexual activities they can still engage in and not get pregnant," she said. "Well, that's not how you and I define abstinence."
The new law, signed in May, specifically prohibits promoting sexual experimentation and forbids materials that "condone, encourage or promote student sexual activity among unmarried students," as well as "devices manufactured specifically for sexual stimulation." It also gives parents the option to sue if a teacher violates the law's guidelines.
While the law prohibits distribution of contraceptives on school property, it allows "medically-accurate" information about contraception to be provided as long as it is consistent with the law's other provisions and emphasizes that only abstinence eliminates all risk.
Tennessee's efforts take their place among a larger national struggle over sex education, one that Huber argues is filled with misinformation. She says the NAEA sought to counter that misinformation with a two-part study called "Considerations for Protecting Teen Health" released on June 19. It looks at both so-called comprehensive" sex education (CSE) programs and abstinence-centered sexual risk avoidance (SRA) sex education.
READ MORE
With the signing into law of SB 3310 by Gov. Bill Haslam, public schools that teach sex education classes must emphasize abstinence, and teachers are barred from promoting "gateway sexual activity" that encourages students to sexually experiment.
"We are very pleased with the passage of the Tennessee law, and we think that it could and should serve as a model for other states to follow," said Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association.
Tennessee only mandates sex education in school districts where the teen pregnancy rate exceeds a certain rate. But before the new law, some districts brought in speakers and curriculum that included explicit depictions of sexual conduct.
The Family Action Council of Tennessee (FACTN) documented a 2010 incident at Hillsboro High School in Nashville when a speaker with Nashville CARES, an AIDS awareness and education program, taught a sex education class at the school. The speaker used anatomically correct models to show students how to perform a graphic sex act. FACTN also noted that in some schools, Planned Parenthood presented sexual education curriculum that included links to its national website.
Huber added that some organizations claim they teach abstinence, but their curriculum goes in a decidedly different direction.
"It's asking students to creatively think of what kind of sexual activities they can still engage in and not get pregnant," she said. "Well, that's not how you and I define abstinence."
The new law, signed in May, specifically prohibits promoting sexual experimentation and forbids materials that "condone, encourage or promote student sexual activity among unmarried students," as well as "devices manufactured specifically for sexual stimulation." It also gives parents the option to sue if a teacher violates the law's guidelines.
While the law prohibits distribution of contraceptives on school property, it allows "medically-accurate" information about contraception to be provided as long as it is consistent with the law's other provisions and emphasizes that only abstinence eliminates all risk.
Tennessee's efforts take their place among a larger national struggle over sex education, one that Huber argues is filled with misinformation. She says the NAEA sought to counter that misinformation with a two-part study called "Considerations for Protecting Teen Health" released on June 19. It looks at both so-called comprehensive" sex education (CSE) programs and abstinence-centered sexual risk avoidance (SRA) sex education.
READ MORE
"NOT Your 'Grandma's DEMS!" ‘You Can Call it Communism, Progressivism, Socialism, Marxism, or Statism’: Rep. West Defends His ‘80 Communists in the House’ Claim
During a Fox July Fourth special
featuring Rep. Allen West (R-FL) and political strategist Frank Luntz,
an audience member asked the Florida congressman how he expects to heal
the America political system when he says divisive and “absurd” things like there are “70 Communists in the House of Representatives.”
(Related: Watch an apparently drunk heckler curse out Allen West on the 4th of July)
“I think one of the things that’s really ruined our politics is rhetoric,” said Aaron, the audience member. “And I think for a congressman to make the accusation that are 70 Communists in the House of Representatives is an absurd statement and it doesn’t really reflect the story you just told.”
Rep. West disagreed.
“But it does reflect the story I just told because it reflects a person that has studied political theory and ideology. I have a Bachelor’s degree and two Master’s degrees in political science, political theory, political ideology. And the thing is you have to be able to understand the two competing principles of philosophies of governance in this country,” Rep. West said.
READ MORE
(Related: Watch an apparently drunk heckler curse out Allen West on the 4th of July)
“I think one of the things that’s really ruined our politics is rhetoric,” said Aaron, the audience member. “And I think for a congressman to make the accusation that are 70 Communists in the House of Representatives is an absurd statement and it doesn’t really reflect the story you just told.”
Rep. West disagreed.
“But it does reflect the story I just told because it reflects a person that has studied political theory and ideology. I have a Bachelor’s degree and two Master’s degrees in political science, political theory, political ideology. And the thing is you have to be able to understand the two competing principles of philosophies of governance in this country,” Rep. West said.
READ MORE
Pro-Christian, Anti-Obama & Anti-Gay Marriage Letter That Actor Brad Pitt’s Mother Wrote to a Local Newspaper
Considering their overwhelming support for gay marriage and President
Barack Obama, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt probably won’t be too happy
about this story. The Springfield News-Leader, a newspaper in
Springfield, Missouri, has confirmed that an anti-Obama, anti-gay
marriage letter that urges Christians to vote for Republican
presidential candidate Mitt Romney, was penned by Pitt’s mother, Jane
Pitt.
In her note, Pitt responded to another writer’s post that was critical of Romney and Mormonism. In her brief letter, she claimed that she’s a Christian and she urged other believers to strongly consider voting for the GOP candidate, despite potential ideological differences concerning his theology.
“I think any Christian should spend much time in prayer before refusing to vote for a family man with high morals, business experience, who is against abortion, and shares Christian conviction concerning homosexuality just because he is a Mormon,” she wrote.
But the letter went beyond merely supporting Romney. Pitt also spent some time explaining her reasons for opposing President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.
“Any Christian who does not vote or writes in a name is casting a vote for Romney’s opponent, Barack Hussein Obama — a man who sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church for years, did not hold a public ceremony to mark the National Day of Prayer, and is a liberal who supports the killing of unborn babies and same-sex marriage,” Pitt continued.
READ MORE
In her note, Pitt responded to another writer’s post that was critical of Romney and Mormonism. In her brief letter, she claimed that she’s a Christian and she urged other believers to strongly consider voting for the GOP candidate, despite potential ideological differences concerning his theology.
“I think any Christian should spend much time in prayer before refusing to vote for a family man with high morals, business experience, who is against abortion, and shares Christian conviction concerning homosexuality just because he is a Mormon,” she wrote.
But the letter went beyond merely supporting Romney. Pitt also spent some time explaining her reasons for opposing President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.
“Any Christian who does not vote or writes in a name is casting a vote for Romney’s opponent, Barack Hussein Obama — a man who sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church for years, did not hold a public ceremony to mark the National Day of Prayer, and is a liberal who supports the killing of unborn babies and same-sex marriage,” Pitt continued.
READ MORE
Thursday, July 5, 2012
GLSEN kicked out of elementary school classrooms
Alliance Defense Fund (ADF)
has issued a legal memo in support of an Illinois school district that
recently elected to discontinue using pro-homosexual materials in its
elementary schools.
Attorney Jeremy Tedesco says the Erie Community Unit School District voted 5-2 to stop using pro-homosexual curricula from the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) after several parents voiced concerns about the content of "Ready, Set, Respect!"
The "toolkit," according to CitizenLink, encourages teachers to invite students as young as kindergarten age to "draw pictures of favorite TV or storybook characters and dress them in clothes that are different … from what they would typically wear," such as "Cinderella in a knight's armor" or "Spiderman wearing a magic tiara." It also suggests that teachers incorporate examples of homosexual relationships into classroom activities, such as writing math problems to include "a variety of family structures and gender-expressions." Parents felt the material raised issues of religious freedom and parental rights.
Tedesco is proud of the district for taking a stand.
"Public
schools should not be coerced by outside groups into indoctrinating
students into homosexual behavior by exposing them to inappropriate
sexual materials," the attorney asserts. "Schools are supposed to be
places of learning, not places where schools push propaganda on
students."
READ MORE
Attorney Jeremy Tedesco says the Erie Community Unit School District voted 5-2 to stop using pro-homosexual curricula from the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) after several parents voiced concerns about the content of "Ready, Set, Respect!"
The "toolkit," according to CitizenLink, encourages teachers to invite students as young as kindergarten age to "draw pictures of favorite TV or storybook characters and dress them in clothes that are different … from what they would typically wear," such as "Cinderella in a knight's armor" or "Spiderman wearing a magic tiara." It also suggests that teachers incorporate examples of homosexual relationships into classroom activities, such as writing math problems to include "a variety of family structures and gender-expressions." Parents felt the material raised issues of religious freedom and parental rights.
Tedesco is proud of the district for taking a stand.
"Public
schools should not be coerced by outside groups into indoctrinating
students into homosexual behavior by exposing them to inappropriate
sexual materials," the attorney asserts. "Schools are supposed to be
places of learning, not places where schools push propaganda on
students."READ MORE
Philippines becoming dangerous for foreign missionaries
MANILA, Philippines - Several human rights advocacy groups based in New Zealand condemned the latest killing of a Dutch community worker in Angeles City.
The Philippines Solidarity Network of Aotearoa, Auckland Philippines Solidarity, and Wellington Kiwi Pinoy said they are outraged by the recent murder of Dutch Willem Geertman, a 67-year-old community worker.
"Now with two killings of European nationals under Aquino, the government’s failure to stop impunity is turning the Philippines into one of the most dangerous places for foreign missionaries," the groups said, referring also to the killing of 59-year old Italian missionary Fr. Fausto “Pops” Tentorio in Mindanao more than a year ago.
PSNA secretary Murray Horton said the President Benigno Aquino III's administration has failed to protect and secure foreigners who serve the indigents in the Philippines.
"It's not fun when foreign nationals serving amongst poor and deprived sectors in the Philippines are also targeted by armed forces that operate in defense of the interests of government, mining, big business and landlords instead of the protection of the rights of the poor," Horton said.
APS spokesperson Cameron Walker said their group will lead a protest action this weekend in one of the landmarks in Auckland, New Zealand to call for justice and end to impunity in the Philippines.
Shot while kneeling down
Meanwhile, rights group Karapatan said Geertman was a staunch supporter of Hacienda Luisita farmers in Tarlac and the indigenous peoples who are against the APECO project in Aurora province.
"He is the 95th victim of extra-judicial killing under Aquino," Karapatan spokesperson Cristina Palabay said.
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