Friend,
Welcome to the Friday Five! Every Friday we share our top five
articles, stories, and quotes for you to read and share with your
friends and church families.
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1. WRAL: Coronavirus
Coverage
"The first identified case of a novel coronavirus, known as
COVID-19, in North Carolina was linked to a man in Wake County on
March 3.
As of March 12, there were at least 1,700 cases and 31 deaths in
the United States, with 17 reported presumptive positive cases in
North Carolina.
Symptoms are similar to those of the flu and include fever, cough
and shortness or breath. They can manifest any time between two and 14
days after exposure."
Here are some other stories and resources related to the COVID-19
pandemic:
2. CHRISTIAN HEADLINES: Biden Unveils
Vast LGBT Plan Overturning Trump's Religious Liberty
Protections
"Former Vice President Joe Biden unveiled a sweeping plan for the
LGBT community last week, pledging to overturn Trump-era religious
liberty policies if he becomes president and promoting passage of the
Equality Act – a bill opposed by some gay and lesbian Americans
because of its negative impact on women’s sports.
Biden’s
7,000-word plan would also ban conversion therapy, guarantee
transgender students access to bathrooms and locker rooms of their
choosing, and add a “third gender” option on government forms for
non-binary individuals.
The plan lists the accomplishments of
the Obama-Biden administration for the LGBT community, such as ending
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and promoting the legalization of same-sex
marriage."
3.
ADF MEDIA: School district policy to deceive parents about children’s
claimed gender identity prompts legal
challenge
"Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys, together with lead
counsel from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, asked a
state court Wednesday to immediately halt a Madison Metropolitan
School District policy that instructs school teachers and staff to
assist and encourage children of any age in the adoption of
transgender identities without parental consent or even notice. The
policy even instructs district employees to deceive parents about the
gender identity their son or daughter has adopted at
school."
4. TODD STARNES: Middle
School Approves Gay Pride Flag but Rejects Gadsden
Flag
"There’s a big controversy in the small
town of Marshall, Minnesota. School administrators recently hoisted a
Gay pride flag in the cafeteria – alongside the American flag and a
number of international flags. The Thomas More Society, a religious
liberty law firm, said that some students opposed the presentation and
presented a petition urging school leaders to remove the flag.
However, administrators rejected the student petition. Administrators
also rejected a request to fly the Gadsden flag, known historically as
the bright yellow 'Don’t Tread On Me' banner."
5. LADYLIBERTY: Wake County High School
English teacher assigns a very “graphic” novel (Update: NOVEL
PULLED)
"On the reading list of an English III
class at Apex Friendship High School in Wake County sits a book that
holds a consistent place on the top ten list of most challenged books
in the country. That book is the graphic novel Fun Home: A Family
Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel."
"Fun Home is graphic in the
pictorial sense and in overall content. Some have even called it
pornographic – and they aren’t wrong. For example, there are multiple
sex scenes, an explicit depiction of lesbian oral sex, nudity, and
masturbation."
WEEKLY PRAYER: CORONAVIRUS
LORD, we pray to you regarding the health pandemic facing our
nation and the world. Christ—you are the Great Physician—and we bring
to you a solemn petition in regards to our physical, social, and
economic health.
Protect our bodies and our nation as we combat the coronavirus.
We pray that our leaders in office will be blessed with wisdom to make
decisions in the interest of public health and saving lives. We pray
in particular for the elderly, who are most at risk to experience
complications when infected. We pray for all the medical
professionals on the front-lines of battling this virus. LORD, protect
our elderly from infection, and may you provide a supernatural
constitution to doctors and nurses who are likely to experience great
fatigue and risk as they medically serve the vulnerable in our nation.
We pray that this virus will quickly die out, that our public
efforts—as communities and neighbors—will slow the virus' spread and
impact. LORD, we ask for you to work through those individuals
currently developing a cure, and plead that it may come soon. We also
pray for all those who will be impacted by the economic fallout of the
measures taken to combat the viruses. Be with individuals nearing
retirement who will have their savings ravaged; be with small business
owners and employees—particularly those in recreation, dining,
part-time employment, and vacation industries—who may face bankruptcy
and financial stress related to economic decline; be with our nation
as a whole, as it sets itself on the difficult path of recovering
physically and economically from this virus.
LORD, we acknowledge you are good, and that your provision for
your children is unquestionable. May your inspired words remind us in
this time of panic and anxiety:
"Be not anxious
for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for
your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food,
and the body than the raiment? Behold the birds of the heaven, that
they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your
heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they?
And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the measure
of his life? And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the
lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they
spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not
arrayed like one of these. But if God doth so clothe the grass of the
field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he
not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Be not therefore
anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or,
Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the
Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of
all these things. But seek ye first his kingdom, and his
righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not
therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for
itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." (Matthew
6:25-34)
Amen
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Sincerely,
North Carolina Values Coalition
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