Several Items of Interest

Marriage and Civil Rights

Pew Research Center released a report showing that media coverage of the debate over the redefinition of marriage was biased by a factor of 5 to 1 in favor of same-sex marriage.  The report also showed that for those supporting the redefinition of marriage "the central argument...was one of civil rights."  Even President Obama makes these arguments.  With so much of the debate about marriage centering on civil rights, it's important to think clearly about the issue.
  All Americans stand equally before the law and have their civil right equally protected.  All have equal protection of their rights to free speech, religious liberty, free association, and every other traditional civil liberty.  But there is no civil right for the government to  redefine marriage.  There is no civil right for the government to coerce all citizens into recognizing the consenting adult relationship of your choice as a marriage.
   (by Ryan T.Anderson, The Heritage Foundation, newsletters@heritage.org)

Marriage Keeps Kids Out of Poverty
In 1965, the U.S. Department of Labor produced a report arguing that "the decline of the black nuclear family would significantly impede blacks' progress toward economic and social equality."  The document, known as the Moynihan Report, stirred heated controversy.  This year, The Urban Institute revisited the subject WORLD reports.  The new study again focused on the African-American community and its disproportionately high poverty rate, and once again, it found that increasing single-parent households lead to poverty  -  but now the percentage of black children born to unmarried mothers is three times higher than it was in the 1960s.  The share of white children living without fathers has also increased, but rates remain significantly higher among blacks.  In 2009, nearly three-quarters of African-American children were born outside of marriage, resulting in 40 percent of black children living below the poverty line.  Regardless of race, single-parent families are far more likely to live in poverty, with four of every 10 single-mother families in poverty,and only one of 12 two-parent homes in poverty. Another study by the Heritage Foundation found that most poor children are from single-parent families.  The new Urban Institute study gives a sobering perspective: "Over the past five decades, the statistics that so alarmed Moynihan in the 1960s have only grown worse, not only for black, but for white and Hispanics as well."  Things are bad, but they don't have to stay that way: marriage, which is available to everyone, drops the proabability of child poverty by 82 percent.

Brazil: Evangelicals Rally for Marriage
A rally that attracted more than 40,000 people last week to stand against homosexuality and abortion highlights the growing presence of evangelicals in Brazil, South American's largest country, WORLD reports.  According to Reuters, there are 44 million mainly Pentecostal evangelicals in Brazil.  Also, "in the last national election in 2010, evangelicals increased their presence in Congress by 50 percent and now have 68 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and three in the Senate.  Though belonging to a dozen different parties, evangelicals have begun to act as a caucus in Brazil's fragmented legislature where only the farm lobby tends to speak with one voice."

Gender-Based Violence  "Wielded Mercilessly" In Muslim Countries
The conclusion of a new report by the U.S. Hudson Institute researcher Lela Gilbert is clear and unequivocal: gender-based violence plays a key strategic role in the plans of those who wish to eradicate  Christians and Christian belief from Muslim lands, Open Doors USA reports. "Gender-Based Violence as an expression of Christian Persecution in Muslim Lands," written for the World Watch List, describes how a profound lack of equality between men and women in Muslim countries means that all women in these societies are structurally vulnerable to systematic violence and discrimination in their daily lives.  A parallel review of statistics on Christian persecution in these lands is made in order to infer a picture of the plight of Christian women in Muslim lands. The resulting image is striking: the combined status of being both Christian and female significantly increases the likelihood of experiencing aggression and repression in society and at home. Gilbert focuses on Iran,Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt in her disclosure of the appalling legal and social situation for women living in sharia law-based societies.
  (Above articles from ReligionToday@crosswalkmail.com)