Several Items of Interest

Christian, Jewish Persecution Up in Muslim Nations
The U.S. State Department's International religious Freedom Report for 2012 shows persecution against Christians and Jews is on the rise, especially in Muslim countries, CBN News reports.  Egypt, Nigeria, Sudan, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia are among the many countries where non-Muslims are suffering persecution. Saudi Arabia prohibits any religion except Islam and enforces state restrictions on religious freedom.  In Sudan, Muslim rioters burned down an evangelical church compound, in Libya, terrorists bombed an Orthodox church, and in Nigeria, Muslim radicals murdered hundreds of Christians.  The report also devotes a section to the ongoing global increase in anti-Semitism, citing Venezuela, Egypt and Iran as countries with political and religious leaders who openly espouse Holocaust denial and anti-Israel rhetoric.

Department of Justice Forcing Federal Employees to Publicly Affirm Homosexuality
The Obama administration is apparently requiring federal workers to not only tolerate homosexuality, but to "publicly embrace and affirm" it, according to the religious liberty law firm Liberty Counsel, Charisma News reports.  Last week, a whistleblower from the department of Justice sent Liberty Counsel a copy of a brochure sent to all DOJ employees entitled "LGBI inclusion at Work: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Managers"  The directive requires employees to vocally affirm homosexuality: "DON'T judge or remain silent.  Silence will be interpreted as disapproval."  The DOJ also instructs managers to "use inclusive words like "partner," "significant other" or "spouse" rather than gender-specific terms like "husband" and "wife" and to "use a transgender person's chosen name and the pronoun that is consistent with the person's self-identified gender."  According to Liberty Counsel, "No longer can Christians quietly dissent or remain neutral to same-sex relationships.  Now the DOJ is requiring federal employees to affirm sexual behaviors that every major religion throughout history has deemed immoral."

Soldier Killed Near London Barracks in Suspected Terror Attack
A man thought to be a serving British soldier was killed by two armed men in a frenzied attack on a London street Wednesday in what the government is treating as a suspected act of terrorism, CNN reports. Witnesses told of a gruesome scene in which the man was hit by a car, then hacked with cleavers before his body was dumped in the middle of the road.  The two suspects in the killing were injured in a confrontation with police and have been taken to two hospitals, where they are being treated.  CNN affiliate ITN aired a video showing a man holding a meat cleaver and saying, "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you.  The only reasons we killed this man is because Muslims are dying daily. This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for tooth."  The government is treating the gruesome killing as a suspected terrorist attack,  Prime Minister David Cameron's office said.  He has called a meeting of the country's civil emergency committee, known as COBRA, to discuss the incident and authorities' response.

Gosnell Horrors "Standard Operating Procedure" In Abortion Industry
The pro-life group Live Action wants a series of undercover videos taken at abortion clinics to result in federal investigations and possible criminal charges,  One News Now reports.  Last week, Live Action sent a woman who was 24 weeks pregnant into three abortion clinics  -  one each in D.C., the Bronx and Phoenix  -  posing as someone seeking a late-term abortion.  "{In our videos} these workers are describing how, in order to kill these babies, they either cut the umbilical cord of the child and wait for it to asphyxiate, to suffocate in the womb, how they rip that child out piece by piece using forceps, or how they pucture the chest with a needle and insert poison into the baby's heart to make it slowly die in over a half an hour," said Live Action president Lila Rose.  In each case the clinic workers  -  and in one instance the abortionist himself  -  were asked what they would do if the baby were born alive, and they answered that it would be allowed to die.  "So what these abortionists are saying is they're willing to ultimately kill these children, drowing them in jars of toxic solution, or just discarding them and leaving them to die while they're struggling to survive in the abortion clinic,"  Rose said.  "This is infanticide, this is murder, as well as abortion.......The horrors of the Kermit Gosnell trial are a widespread problem in this industry.  Dismembering and destroying innocent children, leaving born babies to die, injecting poison into the chest of a tiny child so that he slowly dies in his own mother's womb  -  this is all standard operating procedure in the abortion industry."
  (All above articles from Religion Daily Headlins, www.ReligionToday@crossroads.com