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California Supreme Court Forces Homosexual Marriage on California: Activist Judges Defy Will of People and Overturn Proposition 22

Christian Newswire reports In a 4-3 decision, the California Supreme Court ruled today that homosexual marriage bans are unconstitutional. California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 22 in 2000, defining marriage as between one man and one woman. California's highest court decided the law was unconstitutional.

AP reports The city of San Francisco, two dozen gay and lesbian couples and gay rights groups sued in March 2004 after the court halted the monthlong wedding march that took place when Mayor Gavin Newsom opened the doors of City Hall to same-sex marriages.

The Christian Post reports In the court’s opinion, Chief Justice Ron George ruled that the ban on same-sex “marriage” was “discriminatory” and that “domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage.” The court's decision overturns state laws prohibiting same-sex nuptials.

One News Now reports a coalition of pro-family groups have submitted to the California secretary of state more than a million signatures favoring a November vote on a constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage. The minimum number of valid signatures needed is 694,354.

AP reports If the court does not grant the request, gay marriages could begin in California in as little as 30 days, the time it typically takes for the justices' opinions to become final.

Christian Newswire reports In striking down Proposition 22, the initiative passed in 2000 – by 61.4% of voters – to define marriage in California as only between a man and a woman, the Court declared a right to "same-sex marriage" under the California Constitution.

Christian attorney Steve Crampton says the California Supreme Court abandoned the rule of law and common sense with its decision today that re-defined marriage.

Randy Thomasson, an official party in the consolidated marriage cases and president of Campaign for Children and Families, a statewide pro-family leadership organization said "... the California Supreme Court has destroyed the civil institution of marriage between a man and a woman, and law-biding Americans must condemn it in the strongest terms.

"The future of marriage in California should be determined among the 36 million residents of the State of California -- not by the personal, closed-door deliberation of seven judges," said Rev. Sam Rodriguez, Jr., an Advisory Board Member of the Alliance for Marriage Foundation.

A One News Now video reports on the decision.

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The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: For all their talk of staying true to the spirit of C. S. Lewis's novels, the makers of the Narnia films have frequently deviated from the books in ways both big and small, and the liberties they take with Prince Caspian—which echo but go far, far beyond the liberties they took with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe—both help the film and hurt it.

Christianity Today reports They help because you can sense that co-writer and director Andrew Adamson is finally making the big epic fantasy battle movie that he really wanted to make the first time around, and his devotion to that vision holds Prince Caspian together and makes it a more consistent, and consistently entertaining, sort of film than Wardrobe was. But in steering the film closer to his own vision, Adamson steers it away from Lewis's, and so it loses some of the book's core spiritual themes.

Christian Today reports A review by The Associated Press describes “Prince Caspian” as “simultaneously darker and funnier, more substantive and more engaging, more violent and more technically accomplished” than its predecessor.

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Abortionist in Court Over Using 'Stink Bomb' Against Pro-Life Picketers: Representatives of Women's Health Care Services, the infamous late-term abortion mill owned and operated by George Tiller, were in small claims court on Tuesday where they are being sued for using a "stink bomb" to sicken and intimidate sidewalk counselors outside the clinic's gate.

Life Site News reports Pro-lifer Mark Gietzen, director of the Kansas Coalition for Life and a driver of Operation Rescue's Truth Truck, is seeking $4,000 in damages after an incident last September when Rayburn placed a "stink bomb" on the parking lot side of a cedar plank fence directly next to where pro-life supporters usually stand.

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‘Honor Killing’: Indian Father Strangles Pregnant Daughter and Her Lover: The girl's mother "did not express any regrets over the killing of her daughter and claimed that she is happy they did it."

Breitbart reports via video.

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Abortionists defend agreeing to target blacks: The Ohio branch of the leading player in the nation's abortion industry, Planned Parenthood, is blaming the callers for a fiasco in which a local official was caught on tape agreeing to take a donation designated to eliminate blacks.

WND reports Rose told AP the conversations simply reflected Planned Parenthood's agreement with racist requests.

Shortly after the audio recordings by the Advocate were released and started appearing on YouTube, a coalition of black leaders demonstrated in Washington demanding that Congress defund Planned Parenthood.

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Obama ads in Kentucky stress that he's a Christian: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign has ramped up its efforts to emphasize his Christian faith in a series of new radio and television ads, as well as in a flier that volunteers have distributed.

The Lexington Kentucky Herald-Leader reports Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, who endorsed Obama on Sunday, narrated a new radio spot for Obama that highlights the Illinois Senator’s upbringing and values, including how Obama is “a strong Christian.”

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Bush Warns Against Those Who Would Negotiate With Terrorists: President George W. Bush, speaking to Israel's parliament on Thursday, criticized people who "seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals."

CNS reports Although Bush did not mention anyone by name, the Obama campaign took his comments personally, accusing Bush of making a "false political attack."

The speech text is here. A video is here.

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Peter Beste's book contrasts Norway's beauty with the darkness of its metal music: Norway's black-metal scene earned a ghastly reputation in the '90s, when it was associated with a spate of church burnings and the notorious murder of one musician by another.

The Houston Chronicle reports For many in Norway, the worst offense occurred when Fantoft stave church, a centuries-old, wooden structure, was burned to the ground. Beste calls the act "a horrible tragedy that infuriated people; the news got around the world."

Because there's "very little separation between church and state" in Norway, Beste says the church became the obvious target for those who wished to rebel. An unexpected consequence of the metal scene was to galvanize Christians in the country.

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Judge says school must let Christian club air messages: A federal judge ordered the Deer Valley Unified School District to allow a Christian student club to air upcoming meetings during Mountain Ridge High School's morning announcements.

The Arizona Republic reports Krestan's lawsuit will move forward. Campbell said she is likely to "prevail" because the Equal Access Act requires the school to air the video in the same manner it airs other organizations' videos. Campbell also disagrees with officials that the video violates the First Amendment.

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evangelical intelligentsia: For decades, Boston University sociologist Peter Berger says, American intellectuals have looked down on evangelicals.

AP reports Now, his university's Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs is leading a two-year project that explores an "evangelical intelligentsia" which Berger says is growing and needs to be better understood, given the large numbers of evangelicals and their influence.

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UC Berkeley Staff Face Lawsuit Over Pro-Evolution Bias: Staff members at the University of California-Berkeley are being sued in court over a pro-evolution Web site, hosted by the school’s science program, that ridicules religious denominations that do not agree with evolution.

The Christian Post reports The Pacific Justice Institute, a religious liberties group, claims that the Web site – which was designed with $500,000 in federal backing – endorses religious views that support evolution while deriding those that do not, thus constituting an illegal and public endorsement of religion by the university.

The group also points to parts of the site that feature pro-evolution religious denominations alongside faiths that the site says adhere to creationism and "explicitly contradict science.”

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Willow Creek's 'Huge Shift': After modeling a seeker-sensitive approach to church growth for three decades, Willow Creek Community Church now plans to gear its weekend services toward mature believers seeking to grow in their faith.

Christianity Today reports The change comes on the heels of an ongoing four-year research effort first made public late last summer in Reveal: Where Are You?, a book coauthored by executive pastor Greg Hawkins. Hawkins said during an annual student ministries conference in April that Willow Creek would also replace its midweek services with classes on theology and the Bible.

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Just how many animals actually traveled on Noah's Ark?: Estimates of the number of species on earth are surging into apparently hull-busting millions as biologists find new life almost everywhere they look, from African swamps to Antarctica.

Reuters reports Even so, wider research means finds of new species such as a legless lizard in Brazil or a Tanzanian shrew are testing biblical scholars' calculations on how Noah squeezed all animals aboard the Ark.

"It's of course physically impossible," James Edwards, executive director of the Encyclopedia of Life, said of the biblical account.
The Encylopedia is cataloguing all identified species, 1.8 million so far, in a free online service (http://www.eol.org/).

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Christian Group Tells Vets: Use G.I. Bill to Pay for Missionary School: While Congress debates an expanded G.I. Bill, one Christian group is encouraging veterans to use their existing educational benefits -- to become missionaries in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

Wired blogs In advertisements on military websites, North Carolina-based The Master's Mission (TMM) invites servicemembers and their families to enroll in an eleven-month, $17,600 program to get the "training and resourcing necessary to become effective missionaries." According to TMM's "Active Duty Missionary" site, the group has active community-building projects in

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Atheism and Child Murder: So perhaps atheism has found an able advocate. But unbelievers may want to think twice before lining up behind Singer, who argues in favor of infanticide, euthanasia and (this is not a joke) animal rights!

Town Hall's Dinesh D'Souza comments One of Singer's interesting proposals concerns what may be called "fourth trimester" abortions, i.e. the right to kill one's offspring even after birth!

"My colleague Helga Kuhse and I suggest that a period of twenty-eight days after birth might be allowed before an infant is accepted as having the same right to life as others."

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Muslim 'numbers game' deadly for Christian converts, says expert: Inflated estimates of Muslims converting to Christianity are putting the lives of these vulnerable followers of Jesus Christ at risk, warns an expert on Islam and Christianity.

The Christian Post reports In response, many Muslims believe the shame is best removed by the shedding of blood of not only the convert, but those who seek to convert Muslims, he said. Some may even go further to take revenge and restore honour to Islam by attacking anyone associated with the “Christian” West.

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Plass hands awards to some of UK's best Christian writers: Renowned Christian author and speaker Adrian Plass announced the three winning titles of the 2008 UK Christian Book Awards to a packed audience at the Christian Resources Exhibition (CRE) at Sandown Park in Surrey on Wednesday.

Christian Today reports The awards went to Philip Yancey for best ‘Christian Living’ (Prayer. Does it make any difference? Published by Hodder & Stoughton); Richard Taylor for best Biography (To catch a thief, published by New Wine); and the winner for the children’s/youth title went to Jonathan Brant (yp’s Guide to knowing God, published by CWR).

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Lutherans gather to elect new bishop: "Many individuals and congregations are operating in a crisis, and many are focused primarily on the scarcity of resources," the report read.

The Journal News [NY, USA] reports The New York synod includes about 200 churches in New York City, Long Island and the Hudson Valley and about 75,000 members - down 10,000 in the past decade. The synod faces many of the same challenges that hobble other mainline denominations, particularly disputes over theology and homosexuality, the need to improve ministries to the young and unchurched, and the weakening of many congregations from a gradual loss of membership.

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Obama wins pro-abortion sweepstakes: Democratic presidential frontrunner Barack Obama has won an endorsement from one of the country's leading abortion advocacy groups -- the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, which is known formally as "NARAL Pro-Choice America."

One News Now reports Calling him "the candidate of the future," NARAL president Nancy Keenan lauds Obama's pro-abortion stand on issues the group believes are closely related to their cause: "comprehensive" sex education, women's access to abortifacients (e.g., RU-486) at pharmacies, and women's increased access to abortion clinics and the services they offer.

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New Outreach Casts Wider Net for After Abortion Care: America's churches are filled with worshippers who have been deeply affected by an abortion experience. The Alan Guttmacher Institute reports that one in every three women will have had an abortion by age 45.

Christian Newswire reports Forty-three percent of women who obtain abortions identify themselves as Protestant, and 27% as Catholic. This means that the majority of people who attend services every Sunday have personally experienced abortion or know someone whose life has been touched by an abortion.

Michaelene Fredenburg, creator of the new outreach effort Abortion Changes You(TM), is one of them.

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University's religious promotions challenged: 'It is inappropriate for the government to declare some denominations better'

WND reports A taxpayer-funded University of California-Berkeley website that uses the views of certain religious denominations to promote evolution in the classroom is being challenged in a federal appeals court.

The Pacific Justice Institute, a legal defense group specializing in religious freedom and parental rights, will argue tomorrow before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the website is a blatant government endorsement of some religions.

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“Neural Buddhism” as religion’s future: These recalibrated emphases on neuroscientific studies could shift the atheism-theism debate from believer and nonbeliever to Bible (or Quran) believer and Buddhist (or Wiccan, or Scientology) believer.

World's Clint Rainey blogs In his column yesterday, The New York Times’s David Brooks, lately on a neuroanthropological kick, tackles the religious implications of modern neuroscience, saying its research portends disaster for orthodox believers—Christians, Jews, Muslims—although perhaps accommodating a generalized belief in some non-God supreme being.

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The Ned Testament: Ned Flanders, The Simpsons' zealous next door neighbor presents his theology in Flanders' Book of Faith, part of the long-running, animated comedy's Library of Wisdom series based on each of the show's characters.

Christianity Today reports There is also an ongoing dialogue in which the children of The Simpsons ask him deceptively simple questions that require profound responses. "If God is love," Lisa asks, "why does he send people to hell?" Ned thinks a moment, and then explains, "Technically, God doesn't send anyone to hell, Lisa. People send themselves there. It's what we call 'free will.'" Bart scoffs that the Bible "is filled with trick questions."

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'Spiritual' dentist fined $10,000: Geelong dentist Paul Gardner wanted to do more than treat his patient's teeth. He wanted to save her soul.

The Age [AU] reports The Christian convert told a schizophrenic patient in 2006 that she was oppressed by "spirits of fear" and should go to his church for "spiritual healing". During a dental examination and clean, Dr Gardner told the woman his spiritual adviser could help her get off medication.

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Marriott officials meet with pro-family leaders: Pro-family leaders have wrapped up what is being called a "productive" meeting with officials of Marriott International.

One News Now reports The meeting focused on the hotel chain's practice of selling in room pornographic movies at some of its properties

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'Secular Sunday Schools' to be launched in US: The Kochhar Humanist Education Center (KHEC), which was launched yesterday by the American Humanist Association, is to develop a curriculum for the humanist equivalent of Sunday schools.

Ekklesia reports This will include programs in ethics geared to serve the children of atheists, agnostics and freethinkers. It is also developing similar curriculums to serve high school and college students, parents and older adults.

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Soldiers Secure Piece of Iraqi Religious History: Multinational Division Baghdad soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team are safeguarding a piece of Iraqi religious history while operating from a combat outpost next to a Christian-based seminary in southern Baghdad’s Rashid district.

American Forces Press Service reports The soldiers of Troop B, 7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, ensure the preservation of the seminary, college and chapel that encompass the St. Peter Seminary of Chaldean Patriarchate in the predominantly Muslim community of Abu Tshir.

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Google Bans Religious Ads, Faces Court: A Christian group in the United Kingdom is taking Google to court for blocking a pro-life advertisement, earlier this year.

CBN reports In March, the search engine goliath refused to deploy a pro-life ad for The Christian Institute because of the religious content of the ad. The UK group is a nondenominational Christian charity.

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Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens: Believing that the universe may contain alien life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican's chief astronomer said in an interview published Tuesday.

AP reports The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted as saying the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.

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Firing raises 1st Amendment, equal protection issues: A team of lawyers from the Thomas More Law Center is working on a response to a decision by University of Toledo school chief Lloyd Jacobs to dismiss an administrator for her statements and beliefs about homosexuality.

WND reports that The situation developed when now-former Associate Vice President of Human Resources Crystal Dixon wrote a letter to the local newspaper, the Toledo Free Press, regarding the newspaper editor's complaint that homosexuals weren't being treated equally.

"The public position Ms. Dixon took in the Toledo Free Press is in direct contradiction to university policies and procedures, as well as the institutional core values as defined in our strategic plan, and called into question her continued ability to lead a critical function within the administration as personnel actions or decisions taken in her capacity as associate vice president for human recourses could be challenged or placed at risk," said the statement, attributed to Lawrence J. Burns.

Robert A.J. Gagnon, the author of "The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics" and "Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views," said, "Ms. Dixon is absolutely right that sexual orientation is not akin to race or sex.

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