Religious parents in Montgomery County, Maryland, have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate their right to opt their children out of lessons on gender and sexuality. The case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, brings a legal challenge to the Montgomery County Board of Education’s decision to deny parents the ability to exempt their children from exposure to storybooks that include topics such as gender transitions and same-sex relationships.
Vermont families challenge state’s foster-care policies in federal lawsuit, alleging discrimination based on religious beliefs about human sexuality.
It is greater and more defining than the shootings of JFK, Reagan or even 9/11 because it is, for the first time, a global marker in time; one of a shared moment of terror they all experienced together.
Today, California lawmakers introduced legislation (SB 277) that would eliminate the “personal belief” exemption for parents who choose not to vaccinate their children.
“The right and duty to preserve life cannot co-exist with a right or duty to destroy it. The right and duty to preserve and protect the cherished relationship between mother and child cannot co-exist with a right and duty to destroy it.”
– South Dakota House Concurrent Resolution, HCR 1004, passed 2/5/15
By Jason Hines, PhD – The Court will answer two questions. First, ?does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex?? Second, ?does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state?? These questions create three possible outcomes.
The legal status of the unborn child is not as clear as most people think. There are glaring inconsistencies in the way that the law is practiced, even in states with liberal abortion policies. For instance, if a person kills a fetus in California without the consent of the pregnant woman or for medical necessity it is considered murder under Penal Code section 187. This is why Scott Peterson was convicted for double-homicide when he killed his pregnant wife, Laci, in 2002. This January in Florida, John Andrew Weldon was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison when he tricked his pregnant girlfriend into taking abortion-causing drugs, leading to the miscarriage of her 6-week-old fetus.
A campaign against the state of California mandating abortion coverage in insurance plans is intensifying. Several complaints have been filed with the federal government to keep it from violating what Christian legal groups consider American’s fundamental rights and go against their religiously held beliefs and conscience.
According to a survey released September 22, 2014 by Pew Research Center, 72% of Americans think that religion is losing its influence on American society while only 22% believe that it is increasing its influence. Of these, 56% believe that this loss of influence is a “bad thing.” Of the 22% who believe that religion is gaining influence, 12% say that it is a “good thing” while 10% say that it is not.
A three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals last week unanimously struck down state bans on same-sex marriage in Indiana and Wisconsin. In a 40-page opinion (http://www.scribd.com/doc/238675754/14-2386-212#download), Judge Richard Posner blasted the two states for arguing that the reason why gay marriages were prohibited while heterosexual marriages were encouraged was that heterosexuals needed marriage to make couples take responsibility for their unplanned children. The states had argued that since homosexual couples could not accidentally conceive children, the state had no interest in them being married.