OUR COLUMNISTS Destiny of America in Hands of Faith Community Guest Commentary by James L. Lambert Some prominent conservatives offer their views on the importance of people of faith registering to vote -- and then voting wisely. One says "we can't affect the culture if we refuse to engage in the process." Money Ball Commentary by Brad Locke Professional athletes aren't the only citizens of the sporting community susceptible to greed and posturing. All it takes to uncover that truth is a historic home run ball, an item that's been flooding the market the past six years. The More Things Change, the More They Change Commentary by David Sisler Bush bans stem-cell research. Bush is to blame because North Korea is producing nuclear warheads. The list of things for which the Kerry campaign places blame on President Bush is staggering. A Tragedy the World Does Not Know Commentary by Mark Creech It's truly disturbing that if we went entirely by the news provided by the mainstream media, we would be convinced the prognosis for success in Iraq is hopeless. But there are sources where the truth is getting out.

...It appears certain religious groups who openly support Democrat John Kerry have no fears of losing their tax-exempt status. For the second time in as many days, Kerry has gone before a religious audience to denounce the policies of President Bush. On Sunday, the Democratic presidential candidate have a campaign-style speech at a black church in Cleveland; then on Monday, he met with 100 black clergy in Philadelphia. The president of the National Baptist Convention USA, William Shaw, was part of Monday's meeting and left no doubt about his backing of Kerry. "I'm fully supportive of Brother Kerry's election because I think that we've got to make a change," Rev. Shaw stated. Meanwhile, Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) spokesman Dr. Richard Land says churches in his denomination are warned about openly endorsing candidates. "One of the things we say most often to our churches is that you should never endorse candidates for office, you should never endorse [political] parties -- but you should be looking for candidates and parties who endorse you and endorse your values and endorse your beliefs," the SBC official says. Land adds that there is a difference between a candidate going to church to worship and a candidate going to church to campaign. [AP/Fred Jackson]

...A new study from the Heritage Foundation reports that teenagers who pledge to abstain from sexual activity until marriage "have better life outcomes and are far less likely to engage in risky behaviors" than non-pledgers. Domestic policy experts who reviewed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health learned that such "virginity pledges" can help keep young people safer, and in fact, these pledges appear to have a strong and significant effect in encouraging positive and constructive behavior among youth. The analysts found that pledgers are less likely to become pregnant, less likely to give birth out of wedlock, and less likely to engage in unprotected sexual activity. Teen pledgers will also have fewer sexual partners and are far less likely to engage in sexual activity during their high school years. [Jenni Parker]

...Holistic Education for the Advancement of Teens, an outreach of Metro Atlanta (Georgia) Youth for Christ, is reporting significant success in promoting healthy sexual decision-making among teens through a U.S. government-funded program called Adolescent Parents Promoting Abstinence (A.P.P.A.). This character-based abstinence education program is designed to equip youth ages 10 through 19 to choose abstinence. Using teen parents and former teen parents as peer educators, the program lets young participants hear about the emotional, physical, social, and financial consequences of sex before marriage for young people. Many of the actual consequences associated with teen premarital sex are often glossed over by the mainstream media and by some school sex-ed programs that focus on condoms, contraception, and promoting the "safe-sex" myth. Participants in the A.P.P.A. program are encouraged to consider their future hopes and dreams, taking into account the risks of teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, and emotional issues that could significantly alter or delay their aspirations, and the youth are encouraged to make a personal pledge of abstinence. [Jenni Parker]

...Ousted Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore says he's "disappointed but not surprised" that the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected his appeal. Moore was removed from office last year after defying a federal order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama state courthouse. In a statement, Moore accuses the Supreme Court -- which opens its own sessions with the words, "God save the United States and this honorable court" -- of "hypocrisy," but says he has "no regrets." He says, "God is sovereign and will remain so" regardless of court rulings. Moore urges Congress to pass legislation stripping the Supreme Court and other federal courts of jurisdiction over official acknowledgment of God. [AP]

...New York Times best-selling author and conservative political analyst David Horowitz says his new book exposes what he calls the "unholy alliance" between U.S. liberals and radical Islam. The author says the only way to win the war on Islamic terrorism is to defeat the enemy at home -- a Democratic Party that is opposed to disarming terrorists and protecting America. Horowitz, a former leftist himself, has recently published a book called Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left. He says U.S. liberals have been perfectly willing to defend monsters like Saddam Hussein, and that the new left in America has created a culture of hatred which blames the U.S. for the terrorist attacks against it. "We're always going to have the Noam Chomskys, the Michael Moores, the Jane Fondas ... these Communists will always be with us, but we don't always have to have the Democratic Party run by them," Horowitz says. Still, according to the author, radical liberal thinking has so permeated American society that some 350 cities have passed resolutions refusing to cooperate with the Homeland Security Department. [Chad Groening]

...A conservative activist organization has had its full-page ad in USA Today pulled by the national newspaper. A spokesman for the group RightMarch believes the paper's decision was an attempt to censor the right-wing group's message. RightMarch had paid for the advertisement, but the day before it was to run, executive director Bill Greene was notified that the ad had been pulled. "This particular ad simply was calling on accountability from CBS News regarding the recent 'Memogate' scandal," Greene explains, "basically demanding that, if it was Dan Rather's bias that pushed the story through, that Dan Rather needed to be let go." Initially, USA Today told the group it yanked the ad on the recommendation of its legal department, but Greene claims that explanation changed in a few hours. "They changed their story from being a legal decision to a marketing decision," he says, adding that he was told the newspaper officials "had just decided they were going to only accept ads at full-rate card prices for advertising during the political season, which they'd never done before." RightMarch's spokesman says USA Today will not give his group a reason in writing for their decision to pull the ad. Green speculates it is because the paper itself ran a series of stories based on the memos. [Bill Fancher]

...Conservative black community spokesman Jesse Lee Peterson believes President Bush's strong polling numbers are partly the result of many black voters switching their support from the Democratic Party to the GOP. Peterson, founder and president of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND) is very encouraged with the showing Bush has had since the Republican National Convention and says black voters are contributing to the president's positive ratings in the polls. "I know for a fact that President Bush has had an impact on changing their minds about the Republicans and turning away from the Democrats," Peterson says. "President Bush has high-profile black Americans in his administration -- Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, and others -- and that has influenced black Americans. I think we are going to have more blacks voting for the Republicans this time than we have had in the last 40 years or so." The founder of BOND says most black people support conservative issues like waging the war on Islamic terrorism, defending traditional marriage, and cutting taxes for working Americans. For that reason he expects Bush will get a higher percentage of the black vote this November. [Chad Groening]

...Gospel singers from all over the U.S. and Southern California are set to attend the Heritage Music Foundation's 19th Gospel Music Conference next week in Los Angeles. This year's conference, which runs October 18-23, will carry a theme in response to the contentiousness of the current political climate in America. That theme is an appeal to the spiritual remedies offered in "I Will Heal Your Land," a song from the newly released album, "Dr. Margaret Douroux Presents Heritage in Worship." According to Douroux, founder of Heritage Music Foundation and one of the nation's foremost songwriters and gospel music educators, the answer to America's problems is "to look to God to bring a healing and coming together as promised in 2 Chronicles 7:14," she says. That is the "joyous musical message" Douroux says the conference will present, and it will reach its high point on Friday with a Grand Finale Concert, which is free to the public. The conference will feature daytime seminars, including Douroux's popular seminar on the art of gospel music, as well as live music from the HMF Mass Choir, the Heritage Youth Choir, youth gospel dancers, up and coming new artists, and many other guest composers and performers. [Jenni Parker]

© 2004 AgapePress all rights reserved.

E-mail this page to a friend

Printer-Friendly Version

Read all of our current headlines