OUR COLUMNISTS Have We Lost the Culture War? Commentary by Joe Murray What is the state of our Union's culture? Poor. In regards to Christian values, Jesus has not just been moved to the back of the bus, he has been thrown out the emergency exit door. m...m...m...Married? Commentary by Jane Jimenez Big things are happening for marriage! A national conference just concluded in Atlanta, with experts from around the country sharing ways to support and save healthy marriages. Seeking a Savior Commentary by Brad Locke Our sports heroes will err, sometimes so egregiously that we can't justify or ignore it. Yet we continue to raise up new idols for worship, placing them precariously on the rubbish of the last fallen idol. Out-of-Bounds Campus Drinking Commentary by Mark Creech Eliminating alcohol outlets, not adding them on college property, is a proven, successful strategy for protecting students.

...No state institution is above the law, says a pro-family activist in Michigan -- and that's why his organization and a legal group in Ann Arbor have filed a lawsuit against Michigan State University (MSU). Voters in the Wolverine State overwhelmingly approved a marriage protection amendment to the state constitution in 2004. But Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, alleges that MSU's policy providing spousal-type benefits to school employees' homosexual partners violates the now-amended constitution because it uses taxpayer monies to subsidize those same-sex relationships as if they are equal or similar to marriage. MSU and other state universities, says Glenn, "cannot constitutionally single out government employees involved in homosexual relationships for special treatment, or force Michigan taxpayers to subsidize and incentivize such relationships in violation of our constitution and state law." But that is exactly what the school is doing, he states. The AFA-Michigan leader asks: "If MSU doesn't allow an employee to put her elderly grandmother or little sister on the university's health insurance, how do they justify singling out employees involved in a homosexual relationship for special treatment?" Glenn believes he knows how school officials justify the policy. He says despite what Michigan voters decided and what the constitution now says, "... university officials believe that ... homosexual relationships should be recognized as equal or similar to a marriage." Therefore the lawsuit, filed by the Thomas More Law Center, asks the state Supreme Court to inform all government employers, including Michigan State University, that they are not above the law and not exempt from abiding with the state constitution. [Jody Brown]

...The Episcopal Diocese of Dallas has joined a growing rejection of the church's newly elected bishop because she supports same-sex relationships. Bishop James Stanton, the head of Dallas' Episcopal diocese and its 40,000 members, wrote a letter asking Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams for a "direct pastoral relationship" from overseas instead of being under the American church and its new leader. At the Episcopal General Convention last month, Nevada Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was chosen as the church's presiding bishop-elect. She supports ordaining homosexuals and blessing same-sex relationships. She will be installed in November. Dioceses in Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Illinois, Florida, South Carolina and California have taken similar actions and called for Williams to assign another leader. [AP]

...A pro-family group in Massachusetts is hoping to help derail the state legislature's plan to quadruple funding for homosexual programs in schools. The Article 8 Alliance says the Massachusetts Legislature is about to increase funding for homosexual school programs from $425,000 to $2 million. A new Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth would oversee the spending of the money. Article 8 director Brian Camenker says no government in history has attempted to do what the legislature plans. "This is the first year that they've had a Speaker of the House who is pro-homosexual all the way, and the President of the Senate is," Camenker explains. "And they figure that they can go and get anything they want." Elected officials who advocate homosexual rights are "very bold, very arrogant," he notes. "And even in Massachusetts they've never done anything like this -- two million dollars and probably more that we haven't even been able to uncover," Camenker adds. The Article 8 leader, however, believes Republican Governor Mitt Romney will veto the funding increase. The challenge, he says, will be making sure that the veto sticks. "Unfortunately the ... Republicans don't have enough members in the legislature by themselves to uphold a veto. That's how pathetic that is," he says. "And so it's going to be up to us, not the Republicans, to be able to make sure that the veto upholds. Last time, we didn't work fast enough and hard enough and it just steamrolled through." Last year the legislature raised funding for homosexual programs by 70 percent. [Jim Brown]

...Results from South Dakota's recent primary elections show that the citizens of that state are overwhelmingly in favor of protecting unborn children, says one pro-life activist -- even if some of the politicians in the state aren't. Four Republican state senators who voted against South Dakota's abortion ban lost their primary bids. In March Republican Governor Mike Rounds signed legislation banning all abortions in the state, unless the mother's life is in danger. Leslee Unruh of the Sioux Falls Alpha Center, which counsels women on alternatives to abortion, says the results should send a strong message to politicians who lack the courage to support a ban. "It's clear that South Dakota wants to protect women and its children, its youngest citizens," says Unruh. "And it was very clear, and it was very exciting, on that [election] evening when we started seeing what was going on -- that South Dakotans were standing up, and they were sending a message to the legislature as to what's going to happen November 7. We are going to be an abortion-free state." Unruh says voters in the state of South Dakota who care about the sanctity of every human life will have their voices heard in the November election. [Rusty Pugh]

...An Alabama pro-life advocate says while it's good news that another Birmingham abortion clinic recently closed, the goal is to have them all shut down. The Summit Medical Center recently surrendered its license following an investigation that found incidents of gross malpractice, including women being given abortion-inducing drugs by non-physicians. Jim Pinto, who heads the Birmingham-based Sanctity of Life Ministries, is demanding a criminal investigation of the personnel at Summit -- but he is also working toward having an abortion-free city. "We're calling for investigation of the remaining clinics [in the city]," he says, noting that the number of abortion clinics in Birmingham has dropped from six to two. "But we keep hearing from girls who are saying people are making a diagnosis who are not doctors, people are giving ultrasounds who are not doctors -- and that is required by our law here in Alabama. People are doing abortions or giving anesthetics who are not doctors." The pro-life activist says he knows of four girls who have died in Birmingham since he began his work there in 1988. Pinto says it is bad enough that innocent children would die at the hands of licensed abortionists, but even worse that the clinics carry on such reckless disregard for existing laws. [Rusty Pugh]

...A bioethics says prenatal genetic screening may put parents in a tough spot. Dr. Peter Lawler, a member of the President's Council of Bioethics, is concerned that prenatal genetic screening may prompt more parents to abort children with disabilities. Although he believes such screening could protect children's health, Lawler says too much genetic information could overwhelm parents, causing them to rethink a pregnancy. He contends the only way parents can remain committed to the pregnancy in the face of test results is if they "really believe that they should have the children that they've been given, none of us is perfect, all of us are defective in some ways, many genetic defects don't automatically produce unhappiness, and basically all children are given to us to love." Lawler encourages parents to view prenatal screening as they would post-natal screening -- as a way to improve their child's health. [Natalie Harris]

...The father of a Columbine victim is trying to educate America about its heritage through DVDs. Darrell Scott is the father of the late Rachel Scott and the founder of Christian ministry RachelScott.com. Scott's latest project is a DVD series documenting the faith of America's founders. He says the DVDs may seem "shocking" to those who are uninformed about the nature of America's founding. "I did the series because I run into so many history teachers and students who really don't know a lot about the foundation of our country," he shares. "I'm amazed at how few people really remember even five of the founding fathers -- and especially that they've forgotten that America was founded on Christian principles." It is time, says Scott, to correct the common omissions, revisions, and slanders of the truth of American history. The DVD series is scheduled for release in two months. [Natalie Harris]

...Foreign bishops in the US-based African Methodist Episcopal Church say the future growth of their denomination lies in underdeveloped nations, where more attention must be paid to poverty, hunger, war and AIDS. Those attending a bishops' conference in Charleston, South Carolina, said the three-million-member denomination has grown rapidly in recent years in Africa and the Caribbean. The new president of the AME bishops' council, Bishop Preston Warren Williams, said that while he was a bishop in Africa about 150,000 new Christian converts joined the church. Bishop Wilfred Messiah of Cape Town, South Africa, said "the real future of the AME Church is outside the United States" and it "needs to become more aware of that." African bishops said they are trying to develop homegrown leaders to make the church more influential in Africa. [AP]

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