World News for July 19, 2006

July 19, 2006

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  • Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed his nation concerning the current fighting in the north. “Israel did not ask for these confrontations, but there were those who interpreted our will for peace as a sign of weakness. . . . Israel will not be a hostage-not of terror organizations and not of sovereign states. . . . We have the right to our freedom, and when we have to, we know how to fight for and defend that freedom.”
  • Two recent victories for those opposing gay marriage have been reported. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a judge’s ruling of last year that a Nebraska voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage was too broad and deprived gays and lesbians of participation in the political process. In 2000, 70 percent of voters had approved the ban as a constitutional amendment. Also, the Tennessee Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) contending that the state failed to meet its own notification requirements for a ballot measure asking voters to ban gay marriage.

  • An Oklahoma state lawmaker is calling on teachers to leave the state affiliate of the National Education Association (NEA) over its support of same-sex marriage. At its recent convention in Orlando, Florida, NEA delegates overwhelmingly passed a resolution endorsing homosexual marriage and civil unions in states where they are legal. Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern says the NEA is trying to thwart the will of the voters in places like Oklahoma, where the majority of citizens strongly support traditional marriage.
  • A federal court decision is forcing Southern Illinois University (SIU) to recognize a Christian student group. SIU had denied official recognition to the campus’s Christian Legal Society, arguing that the group violated the university’s affirmative action and nondiscrimination policies because it limited its membership to Christians. The Christian Legal Society has chapters in more than 1,100 cities across the United States. Attorney Brian Fahling of the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy noted that other clubs at SIU have discriminatory characteristics, such as women’s clubs and Hispanic clubs. Such exclusions, maintained Fahling, are appropriate “because it preserves the character of those particular groups.” Fahling contended that to force groups to admit into membership those who do not subscribe to their beliefs or share their commitments and values deprives them of their identity and their freedom of association.
  • Germany is threatening to deport an Iranian asylum seeker back to Iran, though he may face execution there because he converted from Islam to Christianity. The Iranian is currently working as a Christian evangelist in Germany. An administrative court said Reza Mamipourabri “would not face any danger in Iran if he does not openly express his Christian faith” and tries to remain unnoticed. Supporters said that would be difficult. Iran ranks third on the Christian rights group Open Doors’ World Watch List of countries with the worst persecution of Christians.
  • Brittany McComb, a Nevada high school valedictorian whose microphone was cut off as she gave an address referring to Jesus Christ, has filed a lawsuit against school officials, claiming her rights to religious freedom and free speech were trampled. The suit names the principal, assistant principal, and employee who allegedly pulled the plug.
  • Family and friends are searching for two missing Christian workers for the government in Bhutan who were jailed for showing the Jesus film. Authorities are said to keep moving them from jail to jail, “and nobody knows their current whereabouts.”
  • Concerns mounted this month over hundreds of Christian prisoners in Vietnam following reports that at least two of them have died because of torture.
  • The family of a boy in Florida has enrolled him in kindergarten this fall as a girl, said to be the country’s youngest transgender child. The family has been reportedly allowing the boy to dress, act, and live as a girl. Gay groups feel the school system is exemplary because of its “progressive policies.”
  • Casinos may soon have a Gettysburg address, with a gambling company wanting to build less than a mile from the Civil War battlefield, according to a report in Citizen, which notes that the proposal is “ripping the town in two.” Some citizens feel casinos are sleazy. Others are allured by the promise of new tourism jobs and tax revenue.
  • A Memphis area church unveiled a Biblically themed 72-foot-tall “Statue of Liberation,” patterned after the Statue of Liberty. Prominent on the statue are two tablets representing the Ten Commandments.”We just wanted to send a message to let people know that God established this nation,” said Pastor Alton Williams, who believes the nation’s downward spiral began when prayer was taken out of school in 1962 and 1963. Williams hopes that people will not be able to drive past his congregation’s statue without thinking about their relationship with God. He says the “Statue of Liberation” represents the true freedom found in Jesus Christ.
  • The recent general convention of the Episcopal Church refused to even consider a resolution that affirmed Jesus Christ as the “only name by which any person may be saved.” A leading theologian called the resolution a “type of language [that] was used in 1920s and 1930s to alienate the type of people who were executed. It was called the Holocaust.”
  • A new Howell, Michigan, school board member has been sworn in, and her position is unique: she homeschools her kids. While Wendy Day does so with her husband’s deployment to Iraq last year, she is also concerned with what is happening in schools. Issues within her districts’ schools, she says, “do not line up with my morals and my values.” Day said she doesn’t like evolution being taught as fact instead of theory. She also disagrees with the display of a diversity club rainbow flag and is against her districts’ new sex education curriculum.