Issues
Illogical Reasons for Decriminalizing Marijuana
Source: Paul Hammel, “Ideas to ease pot laws just blowin’ in the wind,” Omaha World-Herald, 20 November 2012. People continue to promote illogical fixes to problems. Iowa Representative Bruce Hunter wants to decriminalize marijuana possession. His reason? “He is pushing decriminalization of pot because sending users to prison contributes to overcrowding. It also doesn’t make…
Read MoreMarijuana Impaired Drivers
Source: “Cops ponder how to deter stoned driving,” Omaha World-Herald, 18 November 2012 Now that Washington and Colorado have legalized casual marijuana use, the concern has been raised about driving under the influence. “Marijuana can cause dizziness and slow reaction time, and drivers who are high are more likely to drift and swerve.” The question raised…
Read MoreAdultery: An Outdated Crime?
Source: Ethan Bronner, “Adultery: Ancient crime still on many states’ books,” The New York Times, reported in the Omaha World-Herald, 15 November 2012. The core of Mr. Bronner’s article is that adultery laws are no longer enforced and have been removed from half the state’s books. The reason most other states have not removed the laws is…
Read MoreSustainable Agriculture Opposed
Source: “Amid uproar, college euthanizes farm ox,” Omaha World-Herald, 12 November 2012. “Sustainable agriculture is a way of raising food that is healthy for consumers and animals, does not harm the environment, is humane for workers, respects animals, provides a fair wage to the farmer, and supports and enhances rural communities” [“What Is Sustainable Agriculture?”]. Sounds…
Read MoreRecreational Use of Marijuana Approved in Two States
Source: “Marijuana tourism: A budding industry?” Omaha World-Herald, 12 November 2012. As predicted, the push for legalizing marijuana under the guise of medical need was merely a rouse to get recreational use legalized. Both Colorado and Washington have voted to legalize the use of marijuana in their states so long as the drug is bought and…
Read MoreTax Payers in San Francisco Now Fund Sex Change Operations
Source: “Gender spenders: San Francisco to foot bill for sex changes,” FoxNews.com, 09 November 2012 San Fransico has long been noted as a town lacking in moral restraint. Now, residences of this town are being told they must fund sex-change operations. Actually, this is a misnomer. A person cannot change their sex. Their DNA remains the…
Read MoreGovernment Argues Businesses Are Secular
Source: Steven Ertelt, “Obama Admin Tells Court: Hobby Lobby Must Obey HHS Mandate,” LifeNews.com 01 November 2012. The government continues to push for change by insisting that businesses pay for birth control pills and “morning after” pills as a part of their employee’s insurance plans, even if the owners of the company object to such…
Read MoreShould Gay Rights be Voted On?
Source: Juan Perez Jr and Erin Golden, “Churches push to get Omaha vote on gay rights,” Omaha World-Herald, 14 October 2012 This is an issue local to my region, but arguments reflect a national trend. The Omaha city council last spring, by a close vote of 4 to 3, passed a measure that gave lesbian, gay,…
Read MoreChanges in Alcohol Use Improves in Teens, Worsens in Adults
Source: Rick Ruggles, “‘Good, bad, ugly’ in alcohol report,” Omaha World-Herald, 11 October 2012 The good news is that alcohol use is declining among teenagers. Nationally alcohol use within the preceding 30 days declined from 51% in 1991 to 39% in 2012. Binge drinking, defined as having several drinks in one sitting, in the preceding 30…
Read MoreWhy Teenagers Take Risks
Source: “Teens more likely to embrace unknown,” The Omaha World-Herald, 3 October 2012 An interesting study finds that teenagers are more likely to take risks when they don’t know what the odds are, but if they know the odds are poor will avoid dangerous situations. Adults will do the opposite. They will avoid situations where…
Read MoreDrunk Driving Down Among Teens
Source: “Drunken Driving Down,” Omaha World-Herald, 3 October 2012 It is nice to have some good news once in a while. “In 2011, 10 percent of high school students reported drinking and driving, compared with 22 percent in 1991.” More notable is that this change is attributed in part to enforcing the law. “The legal…
Read MoreDoctors Push for Teenage Girls to Use Birth Control Devices
Source: Lindsey Tanner, “Teenage Girls Should Get IUDs or Hormonal Implants for Birth Control, Says American College of OBGYNs,” CNSNews.com, 20 September 2012 Logic has not been the strong point among liberal policymakers for decades. It seems that whenever it is found that people are ignoring moral common sense, the outcry is for society to give…
Read MoreSexting Is Associated with Risky Sexual Behavior
Source: Eric Rice, et al, “Sexually Explicit Cell Phone Messaging Associated with Sexual Risk Among Adolescents,” Pediatrics, 17 September 2012. Source: Genevra Pittman, “”Sexting” again linked to risky sex among teens: study,” Reuters, 18 September 2012. Source: Genevra Pittman, “Teen sexting: Strong link to risky sexual behavior,” Christian Science Monitor, 17 September 2012. Basic common sense has been once more confirmed.…
Read MoreMarijuana Use Linked to Testicular Cancer
Source: Bill Briggs, “Dude, it’s your junk! Pot linked to testicular cancer,” NBC News, 10 September 2012. “Scientists at the University of Southern California say they’ve detected a link between recreational marijuana use and a greater chance among males in their early teens through their mid-30s of contracting a particularly dangerous form of testicular cancer –…
Read MoreIslamists Stone a Couple Engaged in Fornication
Source: “Islamists in Mali stone young couple to death,” The New York Times, 31 July 2012 “Islamists stoned a young couple to death after accusing them of having children outside of marriage, said a local official who was one of several hundred witnesses. … They were forced into holes about 4 feet deep, with their heads…
Read MoreMarijuana Permanently Lowers IQ
Source: Stephen Adams, “Cannabis smoking ‘permanently lowers IQ’,” The Telegraph, 27 July 2012. Source: Madeline Meier, et al, “Persistent cannabis users show neuropsychological decline from childhood to midlife,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 30 July 2012. “Researchers found persistent users of the drug, [marijuana], who started smoking it at school, had lower IQ scores…
Read MoreProfanity Is Unprofessional
Source: David Mielach, “How Swearing at Work Could Ruin Your Career,” Business News Daily, 26 July 2012 “New research has found that 64 percent of employers think less of employees who swear at work and 57 percent said they would be less likely to promote a worker who swears in the office. A majority of bosses said…
Read MoreSexting Is Now Called “Normal Dating Behavior”
Source: Matt Roush, “UM Study: Sexting May Be Normal Dating Behavior For Internet Generation,” CBS Detroit, 24 July 2012. Source: Deborah Gordon-Messer, et al, “Sexting Among Young Adults,” Journal of Adolescent Health, 24 July 2012. “For young adults today who were weaned on iPods and the Internet, the practice of “sexting,” or sending sexually explicit photos or messages…
Read MoreIn England, Christians Cannot be Foster Parents
Source: Michael Brown, “The Precipitous Decline Of Christian England,” TownHall.com, 22 July 2012 “And then there was the case of Eunice and Owen Johns, a Christian couple in their 60’s who had cared for 15 foster children in the past. Last year, England’s High Court ruled that they could no longer take in children after a gay activist organization…
Read MoreThe Boy Scouts Continue Their Ban on Homosexuals
Source: “Boy Scouts reaffirm ban on gays,” The Los Angeles Times, 18 July 2012. After a two-year review by a special committee, they “came to the conclusion that this policy is absolutely the best policy for the Boy Scouts.” The policy is to exclude homosexuals from the organization. “The Boy Scouts have faced repeated protests concerning…
Read MoreConfidence in Religious Institutions at a 39-Year Low
Source: Christopher Burbach, “Are We Losing Faith in Religion?,” Omaha World-Herald, 18 July 2012. Gallup does a yearly survey called “Confidence in Institutions” since 1973. One question is whether those surveyed had confidence in the church or organized religion. What exactly constitutes a church or an organized religion is not defined. The peak response was back…
Read MoreWhy the Episcopal Church Is Collapsing
Source: Rob Kerby, “Why is the Episcopal Church near collapse?” BeliefNet 12 July 2012. Losing Membership “Somehow slipping out of the headlines is a harsh reality that the denomination has been deserted in droves by an angry or ambivalent membership.” “Among the old mainstream denominations reporting to the National Council of Churches, the Episcopal Church suffered the worst loss…
Read MoreEpiscopals Approve Transgender Clergy
Source: “Episcopal bishops approve blessing for same-sex unions,” Associated Press, Omaha World-Herald, 10 July 2012. “In a separate vote Monday, the full convention approved new anti-discrimination language for transgender clergy candidates and church members. Some dioceses already ordain transgender people or elect them to positions of parish leadership. But advocates for the amendment argued that…
Read MoreEpiscopals Approve Blessing for Homosexual Unions
Source: “Episcopal bishops approve blessing for same-sex unions,” Associated Press, Omaha World-Herald, 10 July 2012. Episcopals have been permitting marriages for homosexuals for many years. Where local politics don’t permit such marriages they have been getting around the roadblock by saying it is just a blessing on the civil union of the couple. In 2009,…
Read MoreMarriages in the U.S. Continues to Decline
Source: “Cut wedding spending? Hardly,” The Los Angles Times, Omaha World-Herald, 09 July 2012. “The ConvergEx Group report “points out that the number of U.S. marriages continues to drop, to 2.06 million last year from 2.21 million in 2007. That’s due partly to sociological factors but also may reflect couples postponing the big day for financial…
Read MoreYou Need Standards and Guidance to Reduce Risky Behavior
Source: “Research Finds Parallels Between Sexual Risk Avoidance Approach and Successful Public Health Campaigns to Prevent Teenage Drinking, Smoking, and Reckless Driving,” House Energy and Commerce Health Committee, 06 July 2012. Source: “A Better Approach to Teenage Pregnancy Prevention: Sexual Risk Avoidance,” U.S. House of Representative Committee on Energy and Commerce, July 2012. The Energy and Commerce Health…
Read MoreOver a Quarter of All Teens Send Nude Photos of Themselves
Source: “28% of teens polled send nude photos of selves,” Bloomberg News, Omaha World-Herald, 2 July 2012. Source: “New Study Says Nearly 30 Percent of Teens Are Sexting,” Matthew Grant Anson, American News Report, 2 July 2012. “In a poll of nearly 1,000 students, 28 percent of teens – over one in four – admitted…
Read MoreBoys Do Better When Raised by a Traditional Family
Source: Graeme Paton, “Boys raised by traditional families ‘do better at school’,” The Telegraph, 3 January 2012 Source: Marianne Bertrand and Jessica Pan, “The Trouble with Boys: Social Influences and the Gender Gap in Disruptive Behavior,” National Bureau of Economic Research, No.17541, October 2011 A study has found that the structure of a boy’s family has a significant impact…
Read MoreNo “Gay” Gene According to the American Psychological Association
by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Science in its ever-fickle way has come to the conclusion that Christians have known all along: There is no gene that causes homosexuality. The attempt to prove that homosexuality is determined biologically has been dealt a knockout punch. An American Psychological Association publication includes an admission that there’s no homosexual “gene”…
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