Two Parents are a Right — Not a Privilege
[link removed]
[link removed]
Two Parents are a Right — Not a Privilege
By: Jim Daly
For the last few decades, it seems that when it comes to the social science concerning the family, progressives have modeled well the famous observation of the late Arthur Conon Doyle, the beloved British writer and physician best known for creating Sherlock Holmes.
“There is nothing more deceptive,” he once wrote, “than obvious fact.”
Facts concerning the family have been self-evident for years: strong nations are comprised of healthy and secure families — and secure families are made up of married mothers and fathers who devote themselves to one another and their children.
But then along came the sexual revolution and all the norms that served society so well for so long were questioned, challenged, and in many cases, upended and outright discarded. The “success sequence” — the belief that education, marriage, and then children, should flow in that order — was cast aside as some relic of a distant era.
Today, more than 40% of children are born outside of marriage.
[link removed]
Read More ...
For more articles, follow The Daily Citizen on
[link removed]
Facebook,
[link removed]
Twitter and
[link removed]
Youtube !
[link removed]
[link removed]
Many Americans Unaware of Key Facts about U.S. Constitution, Study Finds
By: Zachary Mettler
Many Americans have little knowledge of the U.S. Constitution, a survey has found.
The Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania has conducted its annual civics survey for the past 18 years. The survey focuses on civic knowledge and is released every year in time for Constitution Day — September 17.
The 2023 Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey found disheartening statistics; many Americans are entirely unaware about the basic freedoms they enjoy and are ignorant about key facts of the U.S. Constitution.
The survey found that two-thirds of American adults can name all three branches of the federal government — executive, legislative and judicial. However, 10% can name just two; 7% can name only one; and 17% could not name any branches.
The survey found that a majority of Americans could name only one of five rights guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
When asked to name their First Amendment rights, the survey found:
- Three-quarters (77%) name freedom of speech.
- Less than half (40%) name freedom of religion.
- A third (33%) name the right to assembly.
- Just over a quarter (28%) name freedom of the press.
[link removed]
[link removed]
Michael Harrison, ‘Father of Fetal Surgery,’ Offers Three Steps to a Fulfilling Life
By: Paul Batura
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, Michael Harrison, M.D., also known as the “Father of Fetal Surgery,” would often accompany his father, a small-town country doctor, on house calls.
“We’d sit in the car and wait for him,” he said from his San Francisco home on Tuesday, where he and his wife, Gretchen, have spent the last forty years of their lives. Now eighty years-old, Dr. Harrison is Director Emeritus of the Fetal Treatment Center, and Professor Emeritus of Surgery, Pediatrics, Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences out of the University of California San Francisco (UCSF).
It’s been forty-two years since Michael Harrison made world headlines by performing the first fetal surgery, i.e., an operation on a preborn baby still in his mother’s womb.
At the time, Dr. Harrison called it “a first small step on the way to bigger things.” He wasn’t kidding. For the next three decades, he and his team would establish the UCSF Fetal Treatment Center. Tens of thousands of parents would travel to California from all over the world in the hope of finding help for their preborn children suffering from various adverse and often potentially fatal conditions.
Like many pioneers, Dr. Michael Harrison’s journey from childhood to medical royalty was uneven, uncertain, and surely unpredictable. Even Michael himself didn’t start out to become a doctor at all, let alone a world-famous surgeon whose mind and hands have been used by God countless times to help preserve and sustain fragile preborn life.
[link removed]
[link removed]
New Survey: Mainline Protestant Pastors Notably More Liberal Than Congregants
By: Daily Citizen Staff
A new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) in Washington, D.C. finds that mainline Protestant pastors are significantly more liberal than their congregations by political affiliation and on important social issues.
Specifically, the majority of mainline Protestant clergy identify as liberal at 55% and only 22% report being conservative.
This is in stark contrast to those who occupy the pews; 43% of congregants report being conservative while only 23% report being liberal. About one-third of white mainline churchgoers (32%) identify as moderate while only 22% of their pastors do.
The PRRI survey also finds that mainline clergy are more supportive than their congregations of LGBT politics.
Ninety percent of mainline Protestant clergy favor pro-LGBT laws while 77% of their congregants do. Seventy-nine percent of clergy support gay marriage while 72% of their flocks. Nearly 70% of mainline Protestant clergy oppose religious citizens refusing to use their creative services in practices that violate their conscience, while 57% of those who listen to them on Sunday mornings do.
Abortion
Mainline pastors are also more likely to be more liberal on abortion than their congregations. Seventy-three percent of mainline pastors opposed the overturning of Roe v. Wade while 67% of mainline churchgoers did.
[link removed]
[link removed]
Religious Liberty Déjà Vu
By: John Stonestreet
In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that to deny a church “an otherwise available public benefit on account of its religious status” is to violate the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution.
In that case, Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer, a Missouri church that operated a licensed preschool and daycare facility applied for state “funds for qualifying organizations to purchase recycled tires to resurface playgrounds.”
Trinity Lutheran met all the qualifications of the program, but the state informed them that a grant would violate a state constitutional provision that:
“[N]o money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, section or denomination of religion.”
Trinity Lutheran sued, claiming that because of the Free Exercise clause in the First Amendment, a government benefit cannot be withheld solely because of religion.
In his majority decision, Chief Justice Roberts agreed, writing, “the exclusion of Trinity Lutheran from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution all the same, and cannot stand.”
The Trinity Lutheran case was only six years ago but, in a case of “those who forget history are doomed to repeat it,” Colorado is the latest state to “forget” something about which the Court has been very clear.
[link removed]
SHARE THIS EMAIL  
[link removed]
[link removed] Parents are a Right — Not a Privilege [link removed]
mailto:?Subject=Check out this email from Focus on the Family&Body=I saw this and thought of you! [link removed]
[link removed]
Marriage |
[link removed]
Parenting |
[link removed]
Today's Broadcast |
[link removed]
Family Store |
[link removed]
Focus Careers
You are subscribed as
[email protected]
.
We apologize if someone else has submitted your address without your permission. Make sure you receive Focus emails — add
[email protected] to your address book.
This is the Daily Citizen e-newsletter.
[link removed]
Manage Preferences |
[link removed]
Unsubscribe From All Focus Emails |
mailto:
[email protected]
Contact Us
(c) 2023 Focus on the Family,
[link removed]
8605 Explorer Dr Colorado Springs, CO, 80920-1051
tel:8002326459
1-800-A-FAMILY (232-6459)
Source Code: 1744201
This email was sent by:
Focus on the Family
8605 Explorer Dr Colorado Springs, CO, 80920-1051, US
[link removed]
Update Profile
