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Feminism has slain our protectors

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Psalm 51:17
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« on: September 13, 2014, 10:14:29 am »

http://www.wnd.com/2014/09/feminism-has-slain-our-protectors/
Feminism has slain our protectors
Exclusive: Patrice Lewis on why 'the barbarians at the gates' are more dangerous today

9/12/14

I admire men.

Specifically, I admire men who are controlled, confident and who fulfill their biological destiny as protectors and providers. Men are essential for training boys to tame the testosterone and channel their natural strengths and aggressiveness in appropriate ways. Trained men are, in the words of columnist Dennis Prager, the glory of civilization. (It goes without saying that untrained men are its scourge, but that’s another column.)

Men – trained, manly men – are necessary for a balanced society. They take on the tough ugly hard jobs women can’t or won’t do. They mine our coal and fight our fires and protect our shores and fix our engines and rescue our butts when we’re in danger. They truck our goods and clean our pipes and wire our homes. They plow fields and grow food. They butcher livestock so we can buy meat in tidy sanitized packages in the grocery store and pretend it never came from a cow.

I’m not saying women can’t be found in those fields; but let’s be honest: The vast majority of workers in hard, dangerous, dirty and heavy fields are men. They deserve our praise and gratitude.

Which is why I get so ticked off when feminists belittle men. These kinds of women don’t admire manly men who protect and provide. Feminists don’t want warriors; they want servants who will kowtow to their emotions and feeeeeeelings. They prefer emasculated androgynous guys who wouldn’t know one end of a rifle from the other. Guys who watch chick flicks with them. Guys who know what temperature to wash the dainties. Guys who are preoccupied with “social justice” and bringing their carbon footprint down to zero.

Now of course I’m taking things to extremes, but it’s to make a point. For the last 50 years – essentially my lifetime – there has been a war on manliness. Women were told they didn’t need a man, even to raise children. The family unit was attacked, mocked and dismantled so that children lost their mooring and grew up disoriented and adrift, unsure of their biological roles.

The result is we’ve lost a great number of our nation’s providers and protectors. We’ve raised generations of boys who were encouraged to embrace their feminine side, to be sensitive and emotional, and to look with horror at anything aggressive. Indeed aggressiveness, no matter how properly channeled, is still looked at with revulsion by feminists. Boys are punished for being boys and indulging in boyish activities. Instead, boys are trained to be girlish.

WND Books’ latest release on feminism confronts the harridans head on – the Politichicks team up in “What Women Really Want”

Consequently, America has become a wimpy society dominated by women. Women (y’know, those “strong confident women”) don’t want protection from men – that’s too old-fashioned and barbaric. Warriors in uniform are turned away lest those uniforms “offend” someone. Our society thinks we’ve “progressed” beyond the need to protect ourselves. It claims we’ll be “safer” if we don’t have access to those evil awful nasty guns … which, as everyone knows, are merely phallic representations of the male ego. Yuck.

Feminism and its corollary, political correctness, have slain our protectors – not literally (unless you count abortion) but metaphorically. Feminism has had such a strong influence on everything from how boys are raised to what national policy is instigated that we have achieved a state of spectacular wimpiness. Political correctness has now such a strong grip on our country that we can no longer call an enemy an enemy because that’s “intolerant.”

But now we’re facing a threat … and we have no warriors to protect us.

Ever hear the term “the barbarians are at the gate”? It refers to the Mongol “horde” that ravaged Asia and eastern Europe during the Middle Ages. The Mongols were tough uncivilized warriors who brutally cut down anyone who stood in their way. The “civilized” countries of Europe looked at the approaching horde with panic because they knew their courtly, politically correct knights had no way to repulse these violent bands of men who had a simple, single goal: to conquer. In short, when the barbarians were at the gate, you had something to worry about.

It’s not hard to draw parallels to America today. Our warriors are gone. Our men are too courtly and politically correct to repulse the barbarians at the gate who have a simple, single goal: to conquer.

Ironically, feminists have gotten what they wanted: a neutered society where men are deprived of the means and motivation to protect us. They’ve made testosterone something to be ashamed of, which means we’re leaving ourselves wide open to men who aren’t ashamed of their testosterone and who don’t have self-control or civilizing influences. These are men who don’t care about feeeeelings and emotions, about feminism or political correctness or carbon footprints or social justice. These uncontrolled, uncivilized men are inside and outside of our borders, poised and waiting. Without our warriors, our nation is laid bare to savages who will not hesitate to use their testosterone-induced strength to conquer and enslave.

Where will women be then?

It’s important to remember: With the exception of superior firepower and military strength, a nation cannot be conquered when it is disciplined, controlled, responsible, self-reliant and has a strong warrior class. But when a nation is rotting from within, it is ripe for conquest. I ask you: Who is causing our nation to rot from within?

I leave you with the sobering quote from Marcus Tullius Cicero, attributed to a speech in the Roman Senate around 58 B.C.:

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”

We don’t need feminism. We need our protectors back.

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« Reply #1 on: September 13, 2014, 11:11:25 pm »

Yeah, had a feeling the NFL is (potentially)using this Ray Rice fiasco to further push feminist agendas(if the Hobby Lobby agenda hasn't been enough)...

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/24708412/report-womens-rights-group-will-fly-goodell-must-go-banners-sunday
Report: Women's rights group will fly 'Goodell Must Go' banners Sunday
9/13/14

A women's rights group named Ultraviolet plans to fly anti-Roger Goodell banners over three NFL stadiums on Sunday.

Per Bloomberg, the women's rights group will fly banners saying "@Ultraviolet: #GoodellMustGo."

Those banners will fly over MetLife Stadium in New Jersey before the Giants and Cardinals play, as well as above the Saints-Browns game in Cleveland and the 49ers-Bears game on Sunday night in San Francisco.

Bloomberg also reports the group plans to fly one above the Colts-Eagles game on Monday night.

The planes are set to fly for two hours ahead of the security restrictions (one hour before kickoff) are imposed on aircraft over NFL stadiums.

Ultraviolet, along with the National Organization of Women, called for Roger Goodell to resign in the wake of the Ray Rice scandal that erupted following the release of graphic video on Monday and the NFL's decision to suspend Rice indefinitely.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FYI - there really wasn't much outrage when a previous videotape months ago showed Rice dragging his wife across the c@sino room floor - this part of the video is MUCH worse than the one leaked out last week(where he punched her in the elevator).

And look at the timing of all of this(ie-when ISIS, ebola, Obama's approval ratings plummeting, etc were forcing the hands of the MSM prior to do alot of reporting on it).
« Last Edit: September 13, 2014, 11:13:11 pm by BornAgain2 » Report Spam   Logged
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« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2014, 09:22:13 am »

http://time.com/3319652/feminism-comes-to-the-forefront-of-swedish-politics/
9/12/14
Feminism Comes to the Forefront of Swedish Politics

Sweden is already known for its progressive policies, but on Sept. 14, this Scandinavian country could be among the first in the world to elect a feminist party to its parliament.

Feministiskt Initiativ—a left leaning and anti-racist political party that was founded in 2005—has gained popularity in recent months: polls show the party close to or passing the 4% bar needed to obtain seats in Stockholm’s parliament. If the left leaning parties—with the Social Democratic party in the lead—secure enough votes and the feminists get 4%, they will likely help form the next government.

With its slogan “Out with the racists, in with the feminists,” the party has broadened traditional feminist values to also fight discrimination on the basis of race, sexual identity and physical disabilities. The party has grown from about 1,500 members in January to more than 17,000 members in July, said Gudrun Schyman, party leader and one of the founders of Feministiskt Initiativ.

“We haven’t reached the goals when it comes to gender equality,” Schyman said. “There has been a myth that we are so advanced, that we have come so far in Sweden that we don’t have to talk about it, we don’t have to do anything.”

While Sweden ranks number four in the 2013 Global Gender Gap Index, which measures equality in the areas of economics, politics, education and health, 95% of Swedish top leaders in listed companies are men. Recent studies also show that Swedish women have 85% of men’s wages and 66% of their pensions.

Sweden is also known for its groundbreaking laws on maternity and paternity leave. But the feminist say that more reforms are needed to make parental leave equal and they propose it should be individualized to fit all kinds of families, including transgender and same-sex ones. While parents are entitled to 480 days of paid leave and the days can be split between parents, a 2012 study shows that dads took only 24% of the total leave.

Schyman, 66, says that the feminist party’s success is due to a carefully crafted door-to-door campaign: during the last twelve months, Schyman visited every Swedish home where the host pledged to gather a crowd of at least 25 people. During the two-hour long meetings, Schyman would talk about the growing racism in Swedish society, the need for better pensions and equal pay. The party also plans to set up an equality ministry as a permanent government organ. These talking points resonated strongly with a group of Swedish society—where 16% of the population is foreign-born, a higher percentage than in the U.S.—that feels alienated by more established parties.

Feminist Initiativ also gained attention by riding a wave of anti-racist feelings that have emerged after increasingly anti-immigration parties, like Sverigedemokraterna, began to gain seats in the national parliament in the 2010 election.

Feministiskt Initiativ has also had success in European politics. In May, the feminists got 5.3% of the Swedes’ votes and a Roma woman, Soraya Post, was welcomed as the first member of a feminist party to sit in the European parliament.

Schyman believes her party can spur a movement throughout Scandinavia and Europe: she hopes that by 2019, the year of the next European Parliament election, there will be enough feminist voters in other European countries to form a European Feminist party group. Poland, Germany, France and Italy are among countries that already have organized feminist parties in their individual states.

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« Reply #3 on: September 14, 2014, 09:48:22 am »

Islamic State attracts female jihadis from U.S. heartland
http://news.yahoo.com/islamic-state-attracts-female-jihadis-u-heartland-120507632.html
9/14/14

 MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - U.S. law enforcement is investigating a new phenomenon of women from the American heartland joining Islamic State as President Barack Obama vows to cut off the militants' recruiting at home.

At least three Somali families in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area have female relatives who have gone missing in the past six weeks and may have tried to join Islamic State, said community leader Abdirizak Bihi. He said that while the reasons for their disappearance were unclear, he had told the families to contact police.

In a separate case, a 19-year-old American Somali woman from St. Paul snuck away from her parents on Aug. 25 saying she was going to a bridal shower. Instead, she flew to Turkey and joined IS in Syria.

Home to the biggest Somali community in the United States, the Twin Cities area of Minnesota has been plagued by terrorist recruiting since the Somali group al-Shabaab began enlisting in America around 2007.

This year, law enforcement officials say they learned of 15-20 men with connections to the Minnesota Somali community fighting for extremist groups in Syria. They included Douglas McAuthur McCain, a convert to Islam, who was killed in battle this summer.

The St. Paul woman is the first case of an area female joining IS that has been made public although her family have asked for her name to be kept private because it fears retaliation from Islamists.

Greg Boosalis, FBI division counsel in Minneapolis, said law enforcement was investigating the possible recruitment in the area by Islamist extremists of other females, as well as males, but refused to comment on specific cases.

"We are looking into the possibility of additional men and women travelers," he said.


Somali leaders and sources close to police worry that the reports of female would-be jihadis from the region could mark a new trend.

The St. Paul woman is highly likely to have been recruited by IS through Islamist sympathizers in the United States, rather than joining the group on her own, they said. At least one other woman is suspected of helping her leave the United States.

Another U.S. teenager, nurse's aide Shannon Conley, 19, from Colorado, pleaded guilty this week to trying to travel to the Middle East to enroll in IS. She was arrested at Denver International Airport in April with a one-way ticket and had been recruited online by a male militant in Syria.

Nipping domestic extremism in the bud before Americans try to join terrorist groups is part of Obama's strategy against Islamic State announced in a televised address last week.

Along with an aerial bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria, Obama pledged that the government would "intervene with at-risk individuals before they become radicalized toward violence and decide to travel abroad to Syria and Iraq to join ISIL."

He said authorities would offer "tailored domestic programs to prevent violent extremism and radicalization" but gave no more details.

The Somali woman from St. Paul who traveled to Syria attended a mosque near the eastern bank of the Mississippi River which had previously attracted suspected extremists. In June, the mosque banned an Egyptian-American man it said was spreading radical ideology.

The woman told a relative after leaving the United States that she wanted to help children in IS-controlled territory in Syria.

"The nature of the recruitment of these crazy organizations is how they use the element of surprise. Now they have surprised us again by going for the girls," said Bihi, speaking about the St. Paul woman who he said was targeted by recruiters.

Bihi's teenaged nephew was killed in Somalia in 2009 after being persuaded to join al-Shabaab while in Minnesota.

"BABY FACTORIES"

While foreign women who join Islamic State often envision aiding a holy war or at least playing an active role in establishing a purist Islamic nation, the reality can be more mundane.

Monitoring of extremists' social media accounts and other writings shows that male jihadis regard women counterparts as little more than mating partners, said Mia Bloom, from the Center for Terrorism and Security Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

"ISIS is recruiting these women in order to be baby factories. They are seeing the establishment of an Islamic state and now they need to populate the state," Bloom said.

Scores of European Muslim women, mostly from Britain and France, have joined IS in the Middle East.

Denver teenager Conley became engaged to an Islamic State militant in Syria who she met online. Jihadist groups like al Qaeda and IS usually only put women near the frontline in emergencies, Bloom said.

Some young foreign women have been deployed to Islamic State checkpoints in northern Syria where they pat down other women to search for weapons and force local females to abide by strict Islamic dress codes.

But snapshots on social media of the female jihadis' lives in Syria more often show that, "the girls go around making cookies. It's almost like a jihadi Tupperware party," Bloom said.

The main worry for law enforcement is that U.S. militants will one day return to the United States and attack targets.

"The obvious fear is of individuals coming back and committing a terrorist act here," said the FBI's Boosalis. The FBI has been working with the Somali community in Minnesota for years to help it combat radical Islamists.
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« Reply #4 on: September 15, 2014, 12:43:14 pm »

Read this in my paper this morning(Dallas Morning News)...

http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/books/20140913-local-novelist-merritt-tierce-turns-pain-into-literary-pleasure.ece
9/13/14
Local novelist Merritt Tierce turns pain into literary pleasure

NEW YORK — Marie, the self-loathing protagonist of Merritt Tierce’s autobiographical debut novel, Love Me Back, hurts herself as a way of life. She cuts and burns her body. She drinks and drugs, passes out and wakes up to do the same all over again. Mostly she floats through a series of anesthetizing sexual encounters — with friends, with colleagues, with strangers.

The buzz about Love Me Back, a scalding book with a disarming sense of gallows humor, surrounds Marie’s long stint working at a high-end, bacchanalian Dallas steakhouse. Tierce, now 35, did indeed work at such a steakhouse and lived much as Marie did: fast, hard, reckless. But her novel, which will be published Tuesday by Doubleday, is above all the story of a young woman driven to punish herself.

“She has internalized a really enormous psychic wound,” Tierce says in an interview at BookExpo America in May. “It’s not necessarily personal. It’s just being a woman and growing up in the culture she grew up in. She’s taking it in, and she doesn’t know how to get it out. I think Marie hurts herself to figure out if she’s still alive.”

Love Me Back is an uncompromising read, one reason why it’s so hard to put down. Marie describes her own misadventures and the frat house culture of “The Restaurant” with brutal self-awareness and a matter-of-fact tone.

All of this comes with an encouraging caveat: The person who wrote Love Me Back is clearly in command of her craft and in a much better place than her literary alter ego. To write about the hard stuff, it helps to live through it and come out the other side.

“There’s not a whiff of sentimentality in Merritt’s work,” says Dallas’ Ben Fountain, a National Book Award finalist for his 2012 novel, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. Fountain published Tierce’s short story “Suck It” (now a key chapter in Love Me Back) when he was fiction editor at the Southwest Review. “She goes straight to the heart of whatever situation she’s writing about and does it with a coolly merciless clarity that few writers have the guts or talent to pull off.”

Today Tierce lives in Denton with her second husband, Evan Stone, and her two daughters. She’s a graduate of the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and last year the National Book Foundation selected her as one of its 5 Under 35, a huge honor for a young writer.

Tierce was always a brain. She grew up in a series of small towns in Central and West Texas, then moved to Denton when she was 15 to attend TAMS, the University of North Texas residential math and science program where high school-age students earn college credits. She earned her undergraduate degree when she was 19 and was accepted to Yale Divinity School.

She never got there. Around the same time, she got pregnant, got married, and entered the darkness of her 20s. “If you weren’t lost in your 20s, you’re probably not that interesting,” she says.

So how much of Tierce went into Marie? “The real fiction about fiction is that all of it’s true,” she says. “It does come from a lot of my experiences in Dallas, but it’s not a memoir.”

She pauses.

“I need to find a go-to answer to that question. It’s the first thing people ask not just me, but anyone whose novel is in any way recognizable.”

But she leaves no doubt that life at the steakhouse, where she worked from 2005 to 2011, was completely nuts. Big money flowed from famous clients — twice, Rush Limbaugh left her $2,000 tips. “That’s like blood money to me,” she says.

It’s well-known that she worked at Nick and Sam’s, but she doesn’t want scenes from The Restaurant read as an exposé, or even pinned to a particular place. The culture was ubiquitous, she says. “It’s not unique in Dallas as a scene or a restaurant. At the time I worked there, of the fine-dining steakhouses in Dallas it could have been the raunchiest, most over-the-top, hateful, misogynist hot mess around. I don’t know, because I didn’t work at the other ones.”

It’s a good bet she never will. She eventually “got out of the habit of destroying” herself, she says. “If you’re lucky enough to catch some glimpse of hope or see that you can be living in the world a different way, it’s natural to not want to go back the other way.” In the novel’s acknowledgments she thanks her second husband “for seeing me, wanting me, knowing me, trusting me, making me laugh enough to dispel two decades of sadness, loving me right, and letting me be deeply happy for the first time in my life.”

She doesn’t live on the edge anymore. To find more time for writing, she recently stepped down from her job as the executive director of the Texas Equal Access Fund, a nonprofit group that helps low-income women pay for abortions. Remember those Rush Limbaugh tips? A big chunk of them went to the TEA Fund. “Which felt like laundering it, in a good way,” she says.

She survived her days of self-destruction, and she doesn’t miss the thrills.

“I love my life now,” she says. “It’s really boring and great.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John 12:25  He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
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« Reply #5 on: September 15, 2014, 12:52:45 pm »

^^(Merritt Tierce)

Look at the positioning of her hands - it's in a downward position(as like an upside down triangle), and look at the darkness in the image where her hands are.

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« Reply #6 on: September 15, 2014, 06:21:01 pm »

Roger Goodell will have four women help with league's domestic violence policies
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/roger-goodell-will-have-four-women-help-with-league-s-domestic-violence-policies-181124466.html
9/15/14

The NFL, which has been greatly criticized the past few weeks over not caring enough about women in its fan base, will have four women help shape the league's domestic violence and sexual assault policies, USA Today's Tom Pelissero reported.

Anna Isaacson, the league's vice president of community affairs and philanthropy, will be promoted to vice president of social responsibility. Pelissero reported that Lisa Friel, the former head of the sex crimes prosecution unit in the New York County District Attorney's Office, NO MORE co-founder Jane Randel and Rita Smith, the former executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, will be retained as senior advisers.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced the moves in a letter to owners, which USA Today published in full.

Now, you know what's coming next. Cynics will wonder if this is a PR stunt by the embattled Goodell, who has been under extreme pressure since the full video of former Baltimore Raven Ray Rice punching his wife was released on Sept. 8. What better way to show the NFL cares about women than to promote one of them and hire three, right?

That's probably unfair. Goodell spoke in his letter about developing and implementing a domestic violence and sexual assault workplace policy, training and educating all NFL personnel, and engaging leading experts in providing "specialized advice and guidance" to shape the league's programs. That's probably an honest effort. The NFL has had a deplorable history with domestic violence for decades, and Goodell likely realized through all the criticism that it had to improve.

The problem is most fans have lost all trust for Goodell. He comes off as disingenuous, especially after how the Rice suspension was flubbed. Even a legitimate effort to have strong female voices in the NFL's new policies will come off as pandering to turn public opinion (and perhaps the owners' confidence?) back in his favor.

Assuming Goodell weathers the storm and stays on as commissioner, he'll have a long way to go before his best efforts are taken at face value.

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« Reply #7 on: September 15, 2014, 06:51:46 pm »

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2014/09/14/ESPN-Commentator-We-Need-to-Reprogram-How-We-Raise-Men
9/14/14
ESPN Commentator: We Need to Reprogram How We Raise Men

On ESPN’s “SportsCenter” earlier this week, espnW columnist Kate Fagan argued that the big picture in the controversy surrounding former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice’s domestic violence allegations.

According Fagan, the problem needs to be tackled at the so-called grassroots level when men are in their formative years.

“Well, I think right now we're talking so much about firing Goodell or punishments. You know, should it be a three game, a two game, a six game, a full year ban? But I think that's a little reactive and not proactive. Domestic violence is something that happens in anger, in the moment and it’s very unlikely that perpetrators are worried about whether it will be a two, a six, a 12-game suspension. This is behavior that is happening at the grassroots level that is born through years of our culture like raising like men to want to not be like women and using language like ‘sissy’ and ‘you throw like a girl’ that demean women. These are all contributing factors. And I think if we want to hold the NFL’s feet to the fire over this issue, we shouldn't be looking at the number of game suspensions because I don't think that will change the problem. I think it should mean getting them to throw the kitchen sink at domestic violence. To invest millions of dollars in grassroots organizations, in going into middle schools and high schools and colleges and talking to young men about dealing with anger, about how they treat women. I think that’s where you're going to see change. I think that right now all of this reactive behavior is not going to change it, as much as going in and going into the school system and the younger spaces and really reprogramming how we raise men.”
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« Reply #8 on: September 16, 2014, 06:05:10 pm »

Make no mistake, even the NFL is playing their part in this Hegelian Dialectic...

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/nfl-may-lose-out-big-due-to-recent-controversies-195109350.html
NFL may lose big due to recent controversies
9/16/14

Recent controversies surrounding NFL athletes are keeping the organization on the defensive. First, there was Baltimore Ravens’ running back Ray Rice and his domestic abuse video making headlines. This was followed by the indictment of Minnesota Vikings’ star running back Adrian Peterson for child abuse. On Tuesday, Anheuser-Busch (BUD) expressed deep concern about the recent incidents and the NFL's handling of the situations.

In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, the company's spokesperson wrote:

"We are disappointed and increasingly concerned by the recent incidents that have overshadowed this NFL season. We are not yet satisfied with the league's handling of behaviors that so clearly go against our own company culture and moral code. We have shared our concerns and expectations with the league."

Anheuser-Busch is a major sponsor of the NFL. The company has been the official beer sponsor since 2011, and CNBC reported that the company sponsors 88% of the NFL's teams, second only to Gatorade. If Anheuser-Busch were to cutback or pull its sponsorship, that would be by far the boldest statement by any of the NFL's major corporate sponsors to date.

So far, other sponsors have taken some specific, player or team-related action in response to recent incidents. On Monday night, the Radisson hotel chain announced it is suspending its sponsorship of the Vikings. The company issued a statement saying, "We are closely following the situation and effective immediately, Radisson is suspending its limited sponsorship of the Minnesota Vikings while we evaluate the facts and circumstances." The hotel logo appeared on the backdrop at the team’s news conferences.

The Associated Press reported that some Nike stores in the Minneapolis area had pulled merchandise with Adrian Peterson's name and number from the shelves.

Yahoo Finance Columnist Michael Santoli says that the NFL has not yet felt the fallout because corporate sponsors are still trying to figure out if they should distance themselves from the league. The key metric, according to Santoli, is the order book for Super Bowl Sunday. NBC has the broadcast rights to the game this year and they are charging a stupendous $4.5 million for a 30 second spot. “To me it’s telling to monitor just exactly how much the order book is being filled-- it’s largely filled already even before the season really starts. I think you want to see exactly whether the big companies pay up for that in an aggressive way…and we’ll know in the next couple of months,” he says. 

Santoli thinks corporate sponsors won’t stay away from the Super Bowl in droves but they may not be willing to shell out huge sums of money to place ads on the network if the scandals don’t die down.

Sports analysts say it’s not good business sense for companies to cut ties with the NFL now and then come back later to negotiate on even more expensive terms.

Instead it’s much easier for companies to cut ties with individual players such as Ray Rice. Electronic Arts Sports (EA) and Nike (NKE) have dropped him completely. "With Ray Rice's indefinite suspension from the NFL, he will be removed from 'Madden NFL 15,'" EA Sports announced.

Nike rarely cuts contracts completely with the athletes it endorses. Sometimes an athlete gets a second life with the brand after the scandal dies down. Santoli says he doesn’t see that being the case with Rice, “This athlete’s personal brand is permanently impaired; you really can’t see it coming back,” he says.

Adrian Peterson, who has appeared on Wheaties boxes, was removed from the cereal maker's website Monday. Meanwhile, major league-wide sponsors such as Anheuser-Busch and PepsiCo (PEP) are sticking by the league, for now.
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« Reply #9 on: September 18, 2014, 02:44:48 pm »

Allred is a famous feminist attorney, FYI.

http://www.csnchicago.com/bears/gloria-allred-blasts-nfl-handling-brandon-marshall-case?p=ya5nbcs&ocid=yahoo

Gloria Allred blasts NFL for handling of Brandon Marshall case
September 17, 2014, 2:30 pm

Domestic violence accusations against Brandon Marshall in 2006 have been brought to the surface after Wednesday's press conference in Atlanta involving celebrity attorney Gloria Allred.

Allred, who is representing Marshall's ex-girlfriend Rasheedah Watley, made claims that the NFL and Roger Goodell were contacted about an incident in 2006 involving Marshall, but failed to follow up with the victims. No new charges have been brought forward for Marshall.

The NFL has been in the spotlight the past few weeks for dealing with a few domestic violence cases.

Chicago Bears general manager Phil Emery issued this statement on Marshall:

“Brandon has the full support of the Chicago Bears. We were aware of his personal background when we traded for him in 2012 and equally aware of the tremendous efforts he made to bring positive changes in his life and in the lives of all the people around him. Since his arrival, Brandon has thrived in an environment that has been supportive. He has been a very positive, thoughtful and proactive leader and role model. He has acknowledged his past struggles and shared his story in an effort to help others improve their daily lives. Brandon has been at the forefront of mental health awareness and has extended himself in an unprecedented way to help fellow players across the NFL. He has helped himself through helping others and we are proud to have him as a teammate.”
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« Reply #10 on: September 18, 2014, 03:54:06 pm »

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58426085-78/women-church-lds-priesthood.html.csp
Ordain Women will take its message local to Mormon congregations
Group seeking priesthood for women will go to neighborhood stake centers instead.


By Peggy Fletcher Stack

| The Salt Lake Tribune
First Published Sep 17 2014 06:21 pm • Updated 6 hours ago

Leaders in the Ordain Women movement have announced a new tactic — rather than making a big public statement by marching to Salt Lake City’s Temple Square, they are going local.

In October 2013 and again in April, hundreds of women walked en masse to the heart of Mormonism to ask for standby tickets to the all-male priesthood session of the semiannual LDS General Conference as a sign that they were ready to take on the responsibilities of ordination, currently reserved for men and boys starting at 12 years old.

Both times the women were politely turned away at the door of the LDS Tabernacle.

At next month’s conference, participants will go instead to watch the proceedings at a nearby LDS stake center (regional church building).

"Men and women who hope for women’s ordination in the LDS Church will gather together in regional groups with Ordain Women and attend the General Priesthood Session on October 4, 2014," the group announced on its website Wednesday. "We trust that women will be welcome at their stake centers."

These feminists believe they have reason to be hopeful that they will be allowed to join their LDS husbands, fathers, brothers and sons in Mormon chapels everywhere.

After all, a year ago, officials in the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent a letter to all its local leaders, saying that if women came to a stake center and asked to be admitted, the male leaders were "to inform them that the meeting is for men and that men are invited to attend."

However, Mormon meetinghouses "should be places of peace, not contention," the letter went on, so if women "become insistent" about entering the priesthood session "to the point that their presence would be disruptive, please allow them to enter and view the conference."

When asked if that will again be the instruction to local LDS leaders, church spokeswoman Jessica Moody said in a statement, "The church encourages men and boys to attend the priesthood session and girls and women to attend the general women’s meeting. All are invited to the general sessions of conference."

In the fall of 2013, the LDS Church also announced that it would broadcast the priesthood session live on the Internet for all to see — a move Ordain Women applauds.
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« Reply #11 on: September 19, 2014, 08:21:24 am »

http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/procter-****-backs-out-of-breast-cancer-initiative-with-nfl-domestic-violence-cases-091814
Report: Procter & G@mble pulls out of major cancer initiative with NFL
9/18/14

In recent years, the NFL has become synonymous with Breast Cancer Awareness Month every October.

Players across the league can be seen donning pink shoes, towels, wrist bands and socks, the field and footballs are adorned with the cause's pink ribbon -- heck, even the coin used for the opening coin toss is pink -- and fans can even buy pink NFL gear to support the cause. 

But now, after several off-field incidents involving players and domestic violence, at least one major sponsor who planned to partner with the NFL on its breast cancer awareness initiative has reportedly decided to pull out.

As CBS Sports reports, Procter & **** has backed out of a "significant, league-wide" campaign for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The campaign -- sponsored through the company's Crest brand -- was going to include "multiple players" on each of the league's 32 teams, with one player being deemed an official "ambassador" of the initiative. Players would have worn pink mouthguards and interacted with fans on social media as part of the campaign.

Now, those players have been informed the program has been completely cancelled, the reports states.

The company also informed the players that money slated to be contributed to cancer charities as part of the campaign would still be donated, but otherwise the campaign is a no-go, the report states.

Earlier Thursday, Pepsi became the latest sponsor to publicly express displeasure with the NFL and its recent handling of domestic violence cases involving players, following Anheuser-Busch, McDonald's, Visa and Campbell Soup Co.

**All globalist entities, we might add.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mat 12:25  And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand:
Mat 12:26  And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?
Mat 12:27  And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges.



Don't be fooled by this whole puppet show.
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« Reply #12 on: September 19, 2014, 07:08:26 pm »

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/nfl-restructure-personal-conduct-policy-193847060.html;_ylt=AwrBT7wothxU0oEAaY9XNyoA
9/19/14
Goodell Toughens NFL Conduct Code for Abuse, Won’t Resign

National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell rejected calls for his resignation and said the league will strengthen its personal conduct code by this season's Super Bowl following several high-profile cases of domestic abuse by players.

"We will get our house in order," Goodell, 55, said at a news conference in New York.

Goodell said the NFL, the most popular U.S. professional sport with almost $10 billion in annual revenue, will create a personal conduct committee and hire experts to help make sure the league has a set of clear and transparent rules to govern personal conduct for players, coaches and team owners.

Goodell's announcement is the latest step by the league in response to criticism by the public, and sponsors such as Anheuser-Busch (ABI) InBev NV and Procter & **** (PG), of its handling of the domestic abuse case involving former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice. The league in the past week also announced partnerships with a pair of national programs that combat domestic violence and sexual assault, and hired four women to its management team to help shape domestic-violence policies and programs.

"I'm here now because our rules, policies and procedures on personal conduct failed," said Goodell, who added he's acknowledged the mistakes he's made and hasn't considered stepping down from his job that paid him $35 million in salary last year.

'Too Late'

David Johnson, the chief executive officer of Atlanta-based public relations firm Strategic Vision LLC, said while Goodell's news conference was a step in the right direction, it came 10 days too late.

"He came across beleaguered. He didn't come across strong and forceful," Johnson said in a telephone interview, adding it would have sent a better message if Goodell was accompanied by a representative from the NFL Players Association. "It was very prepared, very nuanced, very legalistic."

Goodell's news conference lasted for almost 45 minutes and was carried by most major U.S. television networks, which broke into their regular programming. Goodell, who hadn't spoken publicly since a Sept. 9 interview with CBS News, said the new personal conduct committee won't be restricted in its scope.

"Nothing is off the table," he said.

Goodell said the league will punish "totally unacceptable" behavior such as domestic violence -- including child abuse -- sexual assault, irresponsible ownership or handling of firearms, and illegal use of alcohol or drugs.

Education, Discipline

"These activities must be condemned and stopped through education and discipline," Goodell said. "Our standards and consequences of falling short must be clear, consistent and current. They must be implemented through procedures that are fair and transparent."

The personal conduct committee will be based on the competition committee, a group of team executives that reviews and evaluates on-field rules to ensure the sport remains competitive, entertaining and fair, Goodell said.

"We go to enormous lengths to make players, coaches, officials, fans and our broadcast partners fully understand playing rules and how they are enforced," he said. "That must now be our model when it comes to personal conduct."

Commissioner's Role

Goodell said his role in investigating personal-conduct violations will be re-evaluated while the new committee will also address how to balance legal and due process rights with holding league personnel to the "highest standards." The commissioner has previously had latitude in determining punishment for personal conduct violations.

Goodell received pressure to step down from women's advocacy groups, politicians and some fans in the past two weeks after saying he mishandled the situation involving Rice, who assaulted his then-fiancee in an Atlantic City casino elevator following a night of drinking in February.

Goodell initially suspended Rice for two games and then banned him from the NFL indefinitely the day the website TMZ released a seven-month-old video of Rice punching Janay Palmer - - who is now his wife -- and knocking her unconscious. Rice was released by the Ravens the same day and Goodell has insisted no one at the NFL saw the video of the punch until it was made public last week.

Outside Investigation

Two days after Rice was suspended indefinitely, an unidentified law-enforcement official told the Associated Press that he sent a copy of the video to the NFL in April, raising questions about whether the NFL was intentionally negligent. Goodell then hired former FBI Director Robert Mueller to examine the league's handling of the case, Goodell said.

Goodell said today he wasn't satisfied with how the NFL handled its investigation into the Rice incident and, as it awaits Mueller's report, will re-evaluate its reliance on law enforcement for information.

Johnson, the crisis management expert, said there were times Goodell seemed confused or unprepared, including one question about how TMZ obtained the video with "one phone call" but NFL investigators were unable to acquire it. Another question centered on public-records requests to the police in New Jersey that show no electronic contact with the NFL.

‘Unanswered Questions'

"There are unanswered questions, like the one about the video and the Atlantic City Police Department," Johnson said. "I also don't think he did enough to say why he should stay. The thing we expect from any leader is that you're held to the same accountability everyone within your organization is held to. And I don't think he dealt with that forcefully enough. People aren't going to feel like he fell on his sword."

Criticism of Goodell has grown into concern over the depth of the problem within the league, with sponsors such as Anheuser-Busch, McDonald's Corp. and PepsiCo Inc. (PEP) voicing their displeasure.

Anheuser-Busch, whose five Super Bowl commercials for Budweiser and Bud Light last season were more than any other company, said it was "increasingly concerned by the recent incidents that have overshadowed this NFL season." The NFL reaps about $1 billion a year in revenue from its sponsors.

Won't Resign

Goodell said he wouldn't bow to calls for him to step down because he had acknowledged his mistakes. Women's advocacy group UltraViolet reiterated its demand that he resign.

"We call on all of the NFL's sponsors to take a stand against domestic violence by withdrawing their support for the NFL until Goodell is out of office," the group said in an e-mail after today's press conference. "Goodell ignores domestic violence. He has made it clear he will not even consider resigning, bringing into question his basic judgment."

The NFL on Sept. 16 hired Cynthia C. Hogan, who previously worked as deputy assistant to President Barack Obama. Hogan's hiring followed criticism by politicians including U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Kirsten Gillibrand of Goodell, who has also been asked to resign by the National Organization for Women.

The day before Hogan was hired, the NFL brought in three female advisers. Lisa Friel, formerly the head of the Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit in the New York County District Attorney's Office; Jane Randel, co-founder of "NO MORE," a national domestic violence awareness initiative, and Rita Smith, the former executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, were selected for the unit to shape domestic abuse policies.

Partnerships, Education

Goodell yesterday sent a memo to all 32 franchises announcing partnerships with the National Domestic Violence Hotline and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC). It also outlined a push by the NFL to provide all players, coaches and league personnel with more education regarding the issues.

"These are by no means final steps," Goodell said in the memo. "We will continue to work with experts to expand and develop long-term programs that raise awareness, educate, and prevent domestic violence and sexual assault both within the NFL and in our society in general."

While Goodell didn't provide details of the financial commitment, he said the NFL would provide "significant resources" for the two national programs.

The hotline received 84 percent more calls during the week of Sept. 8-15, with more than 50 percent of those calls going unanswered due to lack of staffing, Goodell said. The surge came after the video of Rice punching Palmer was released to the public, sparking a national dialogue about domestic violence and raising questions about whether other active players recently accused of abusing women, such as Carolina's Greg Hardy and San Francisco's Ray McDonald, should remain on the field.

"I understand accountability," Goodell said at today's news conference. "I understand the challenges before me and I will be accountable for meeting them."
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« Reply #13 on: September 19, 2014, 07:12:49 pm »

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/nfl-domestic-violence-not-dissuading-most-football-fans-from-watching-games-134618657.html
NFL domestic violence not dissuading most football fans from watching games
9/19/14

Are Americans bothered by the recent rash of domestic abuse cases that have plagued the NFL? No, it appears they're rather unbothered, at least in terms of how it affects their enjoyment of professional football action.

According to an NBC News/Marist poll, nearly 90 percent polled say the recent scourge of violence hasn't had much of an effect on their football viewing, and fewer than a third of those polled believes commissioner Roger Goodell needs to resign.

So there's that.

These are football fans who feel this way — nearly six out of 10 polled called themselves as much. Interestingly, the majority (53 percent of Americans, 57 percent of football fans) do disapprove of the way the league has handled the domestic-violence incidents.

Another "wow" number: The percentage of men disapproving of the NFL's handling of the domestic abuse cases (55 percent) is higher than than women (50 percent) who feel that way.

When you see numbers as low as these — 29 percent believe Goodell should resign — it's hard to think that he'll lose his gig unless new, more damaging news emerges.

The bottom line of the poll spells things out pretty clearly: None of this ugliness has really made a big hit on people's TV-watching habits as they relate to the NFL. A whopping 86 percent of fans say the amount of pro football they watch hasn't changed. Only 11 percent of fans claim they’re less likely to watch games, and 3 percent — who are these people ... wrestling fans? actual Vikings? — say they actually are now more likely to watch NFL action.     
« Last Edit: September 19, 2014, 08:25:14 pm by BornAgain2 » Report Spam   Logged
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« Reply #14 on: September 19, 2014, 07:15:16 pm »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Goodell

Roger Stokoe Goodell was born in Jamestown, New York,[5] the son of United States Senator Charles Ellsworth Goodell of New York, and Jean (Rice) Goodell of Buffalo, New York. He graduated from Bronxville High School where, as a three-sport star in football, basketball, and baseball, he captained all three teams as a senior and was named the school's athlete of the year.[6] Injuries kept him from playing college football.[7] Goodell is a 1981 graduate of Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania with a degree in economics.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Goodell is married to former Fox News Channel anchor Jane Skinner[72] and they have twin daughters. He has four brothers; among them are Tim, who works for the Hess Corporation; and Michael, long-time partner of Jack Kenny, creator of the short-lived NBC series The Book of Daniel. The Webster family on the show was loosely based on the Goodell family.[73]
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« Reply #15 on: September 19, 2014, 09:53:52 pm »

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/call-to-end-sexual-assault-on-campuses-enlists-star-power/2014/09/19/91ff1eb2-3e8d-11e4-b0ea-8141703bbf6f_story.html?wprss=rss_national
White House call to end sexual assaults on campuses enlists star power

When President Obama and Vice President Biden urged Americans Friday to end sexual assaults on college campuses, the event included a standard feature for this White House: celebrities.

In a video, Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love, actors Jon Hamm and Connie Britton and other big names tell their fans to heed the president’s call, suggesting that people need to take responsibility for preventing **** among U.S. college students.

Stars have become an integral part of the White House messaging operation, from urging Americans to eat healthier to decrying the wage gap between men and women. While presidents have hobnobbed with celebrities for decades — Ronald Reagan once brought Princess Diana and John Travolta together on a dance floor — Obama and his aides have taken such relationships to a new level, systematically working with Hollywood actors, professional athletes and music stars to help raise money and promote the administration’s top domestic policy priorities.

The effort amounts to a separate publicity branch for the White House — at no extra charge. After several YouTube stars met with the president in late February to discuss the Affordable Care Act, they created 25 videos touting the law — garnering more than 32 million total viewings.

White House officials see such efforts as a way to reach key demographic groups, especially those who eschew traditional political media. The celebrity push, which encompasses issues ranging from sexual orientation to climate change, is in part an outgrowth of the administration’s campaign to enroll young people, African Americans, Latinos and women under Obama’s health-care law.

“Our purpose here is to meet people where they are,” said White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett in an interview this week. “We’re extremely strategic in how we engage and deploy validators, and we’re very fortunate that people who have tremendous followings across the country are willing to be very effective messengers.”

Republicans, for their part, said it shows how the president is out of touch with everyday Americans.

“For years Obama and the Democrats have seemingly put more time and emphasis on celebrities than their policies and for years we’ve questioned the value in that priority,” said Republican National Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski, whose boss dubbed Obama the “Celebrity-in-Chief” during the 2012 campaign. “With 57 percent of the country disapproving of Obama and his policies, it’s a good thing he has celebrities behind him.”

Some Republicans have also blasted the president for spending time on the golf course with professional athletes and for inviting Beyoncé and Jay Z to the White House.

But with Obama now well into his final term, his aides are less worried about whether bringing Hollywood types into his orbit could backfire politically.

Tommy Vietor, who served as the National Security Council spokesman during Obama’s first term, said “there are people who will reflexively attack the president for spending time with celebrities.”

“We were conscious of that during the campaign and the first term,” he said. “But if inviting George Clooney to the White House helps get press attention about Darfur, that’s clearly worth it to the president, and he could care less about cynical political attacks.”

Some of these efforts might take time to pay off. The creators of “Funny Or Die” produced a video starring Kristen Bell, “Mary Poppins Quits,” in favor of raising the minimum wage that received nearly 3 million hits online — yet the issue remains moribund in Washington. And the president’s approval ratings among 18- to 29-year-olds — the target audience for much for this Hollywood-tinged outreach — has dropped to just 43 percent.

Republicans have criticized Obama for his Hollywood connections and his own celebrity status from the start of his presidential candidacy. His 2008 rival, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), ran an ad juxtaposing photos of Obama with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, saying, “He’s the biggest celebrity in the world. But can he lead?”

Last month, Alabama Republican Party chairman Bill Armistead wrote in an e-mail to supporters: “Since 2009, the president has played more than 185 rounds of golf. Expensive vacation homes, fine dining, spontaneous trips, private concerts by the world’s top music artists; Obama’s life seems more like that of a celebrity than a president.”

But Republicans are not immune to the lure of famous people. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) let Kevin Spacey shadow him to learn about whipping votes for the Netflix series “House of Cards,” and he attended the series’ second-season premiere. The party had Clint Eastwood give an unscripted speech at its 2012 convention, regularly features country music stars and NASCAR drivers at GOP events, and calls on famous coaches such as Lou Holtz for pep talks behind closed doors.

Traditionally, presidents of both parties have enlisted celebrities at fundraisers and publicity events. Brookings Institution senior fellow emeritus Stephen Hess, who served under presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon, recalled how Ethel Merman helped raise money for Eisenhower (“probably because her husband was the president of an airline”) and how Democrats such as the Kennedys “had bushel baskets of starlets” in their orbit.

President Clinton appeared regularly with Hollywood stars, including Spacey, director Steven Spielberg and singer Barbra Streisand.

“In the Clinton White House, we sometimes reached out to the entertainment community for private advice,” former Clinton adviser Paul Begala wrote in an e-mail. “I can recall getting thoughtful insights from Spielberg and [director] Gary Ross, for example. . . . But the Obama White House uses celebrity supporters in a more strategic way.”

“Funny Or Die,” a comedic Web site, illustrates the approach. The company’s president of production, Mike Farah, said in a phone interview that the site’s partnership with the administration began when he and others attended a White House meeting around the time of the 2013 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

“It just sounded like they needed a touch of help selling this dream,” said Farah, whose firm produced 11 videos in cooperation with Obama aides in the past year and has another set to be released soon. Outside of campaigns, he said, “government, as it’s set up, isn’t really about selling things to the public.”

Farah declined to say how much his company spent producing the videos, saying it folds the expenses into its monthly budget and focuses on producing “funny, topical content that’s relevant.” He added he hopes some of the videos make viewers think about today’s pressing political issues, but added, “I don’t have scientific evidence for this.”

The most successful collaboration so far was arguably an episode of “Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis,” a spoof talk show featuring an interview with Obama. The online video has been seen more than 24 million times and drove up traffic to the online federal health-care marketplace by 40 percent in a single day.

Some of the White House’s recruits have been surprised they made the list. Hannah Hart is a YouTube personality with 1.5 million subscribers who came to fame when a friend uploaded a video of her cooking while tipsy in her kitchen. When she got an e-mail inviting her to come to a meeting at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., she recalled her response was, “Is this real?”

Hart has signed up for insurance on California’s health-care exchange and hosted a livestream event on the topic. When she realized she would be sitting across from Obama in the Roosevelt Room, she said, “beads of sweat began to form along my brow.” But she came away impressed with the exchange, posted a couple of videos, and said in an interview that she would be open to doing it again “on issues I feel strongly about.”

On rare occasions, celebrity endorsers fumble their message. Pop singer Lance Bass visited the White House in the spring to discuss health care — and went on a rant after he tweeted an incorrect address for HealthCare.gov. “Grow up people!” he wrote in disgust.

Kimball Stroud, a consultant who helps connect artists to political causes in D.C., said there is typically “a vetting process” to make sure the star in question has a connection to the issue. The White House is “working with celebrities who are social-media savvy,” she said, helping to amplify the message even further.

Many of these stars also help fill Democratic campaign coffers. In March 2013, Obama attended a Democratic National Committee reception at the New York City home of film studio executive Harvey Weinstein that also included stars such as Justin Timberlake and Steve Martin.

In July, he headlined a DNC fundraiser at the Los Angeles home of “Scandal” creator Shonda Rhimes, which was co-hosted by the show’s star, Kerry Washington. R&B artist Janelle Monae performed at the event, prompting the president to joke that she “can blackmail me at any time” because she has video of him on the dance floor.

DNC spokeswoman Rebecca Chalif said in a statement that star-studded events offer “ways to connect with our supporters.

“Our well known supporters can be an invaluable asset to help us engage voters — especially voters who may not always turn out in midterms,” Chalif wrote.
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« Reply #16 on: September 19, 2014, 11:06:43 pm »

Research suggests that family violence is two to four times higher in the law-enforcement community than in the general population. So where's the public outrage?
Conor Friedersdorf Sep 19 2014
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-officers-who-hit-their-wives-or-girlfriends/380329/?single_page=true

Should the National Football League suspend or ban any player caught assaulting a wife or girlfriend? That seems to be the conventional wisdom since video emerged of running back Ray Rice knocking his wife unconscious in an elevator, even as reports surface that many more NFL players have domestic-abuse records.

While I have no particular objection to a suspension of any length for such players, the public focus on NFL policy seems strange and misplaced to me. Despite my general preference for reducing the prison population, an extremely strong person rendering a much smaller, weaker person unconscious with his fists, as Rice did, is a situation where prison is particularly appropriate. More generally, clear evidence of domestic abuse is something that ought to result in legal sanction. Employers aren't a good stand in for prosecutors, juries, and judges.

Should ex-convicts who abused their partners be denied employment forever? I think not. Our notion should be that they've paid their debt to society in prison. Pressure on the NFL to take a harder line against domestic abuse comes in the context of a society where the crime isn't adequately punished, so I totally understand it. Observing anti-NFL rhetoric, you'd nevertheless get the impression that other employers monitor and sanction domestic abuse incidents by employees. While I have nothing against pressuring the NFL to go beyond what the typical employer does, I fear that vilifying the league has the effect of misleading the public into a belief that it is out of step with general norms on this issue. Domestic violence is less common among NFL players than the general population.

And there is another American profession that has a significantly more alarming problem with domestic abuse. I'd urge everyone who believes in zero tolerance for NFL employees caught beating their wives or girlfriends to direct as much attention—or ideally, even more attention—at police officers who assault their partners. Several studies have found that the romantic partners of police officers suffer domestic abuse at rates significantly higher than the general population. And while all partner abuse is unacceptable, it is especially problematic when domestic abusers are literally the people that battered and abused women are supposed to call for help.

If there's any job that domestic abuse should disqualify a person from holding, isn't it the one job that gives you a lethal weapon, trains you to stalk people without their noticing, and relies on your judgment and discretion to protect the abused against domestic abusers?

The opprobrium heaped on the NFL for failing to suspend or terminate domestic abusers, and the virtual absence of similar pressure directed at police departments, leads me to believe that many people don't know the extent of domestic abuse among officers. This is somewhat surprising, since a country shocked by Ray Rice's actions ought to be even more horrified by the most egregious examples of domestic abuse among police officers. Their stories end in death.

There's the recently retired 30-year veteran police officer who shot his wife and then himself in Colorado Springs earlier this summer. There's Tacoma Police Chief David Brame, who perpetrated another murder-suicide in April. (Update: it's in fact the tenth anniversary of this crime, which I missed in the ABC story.) Also in April, an Indiana news station reported on "Sgt. Ryan Anders, a narcotics officer," who "broke into his ex-wife's home and fatally shot her. He then turned the gun on himself." In February, "Dallas police confirmed ... that a Crandall police officer shot and killed his wife before killing himself." Last year, a Nevada police officer killed his wife, his son, and then himself. And Joshua Boren, a Utah police officer, "killed his wife, their two children, his mother-in-law and then himself" after receiving "text messages ... hours earlier threatening to leave him and take their kids and confronting him for raping her." That isn't an exhaustive survey, just a quick roundup of recent stories gleaned from the first couple pages of Google results. And statistics about "blue" domestic abuse are shocking in their own way. What struck me is how many of the relevant studies were conducted in the 1990s or even before.

As the National Center for Women and Policing noted in a heavily footnoted information sheet, "Two studies have found that at least 40 percent of police officer families experience domestic violence, in contrast to 10 percent of families in the general population. A third study of older and more experienced officers found a rate of 24 percent, indicating that domestic violence is two to four times more common among police families than American families in general." Cops "typically handle cases of police family violence informally, often without an official report, investigation, or even check of the victim's safety," the summary continues. "This 'informal' method is often in direct contradiction to legislative mandates and departmental policies regarding the appropriate response to domestic violence crimes." Finally, "even officers who are found guilty of domestic violence are unlikely to be fired, arrested, or referred for prosecution."

What struck me as I read through the information sheet's footnotes is how many of the relevant studies were conducted in the 1990s or even before. Research is so scant and inadequate that a precise accounting of the problem's scope is impossible, as The New York Times concluded in a 2013 investigation that was nevertheless alarming. "In many departments, an officer will automatically be fired for a positive marijuana test, but can stay on the job after abusing or battering a spouse," the newspaper reported. Then it tried to settle on some hard numbers:

    In some instances, researchers have resorted to asking officers to confess how often they had committed abuse. One such study, published in 2000, said one in 10 officers at seven police agencies admitted that they had “slapped, punched or otherwise injured” a spouse or domestic partner. A broader view emerges in Florida, which has one of the nation’s most robust open records laws. An analysis by The Times of more than 29,000 credible complaints of misconduct against police and corrections officers there strongly suggests that domestic abuse had been underreported to the state for years.

    After reporting requirements were tightened in 2007, requiring fingerprints of arrested officers to be automatically reported to the agency that licenses them, the number of domestic abuse cases more than doubled—from 293 in the previous five years to 775 over the next five. The analysis also found that complaints of domestic violence lead to job loss less often than most other accusations of misconduct.

A chart that followed crystallized the lax punishments meted out to domestic abusers. Said the text, "Cases reported to the state are the most serious ones—usually resulting in arrests. Even so, nearly 30 percent of the officers accused of domestic violence were still working in the same agency a year later, compared with 1 percent of those who failed drug tests and 7 percent of those accused of theft."

The visualization conveys how likely it is that domestic abuse by police officers is underreported in states without mandatory reporting requirements–and also the degree to which domestic abuse is taken less seriously than other officer misconduct:

The New York Times

For a detailed case study in how a police officer suspected of perpetrating domestic abuse was treated with inappropriate deference by colleagues whose job it was to investigate him, this typically well-done Frontline story is worthwhile.

"Even officers who are found guilty of domestic violence are unlikely to be fired, arrested, or referred for prosecution."

It would be wonderful if domestic violence by police officers was tracked in a way that permitted me to link something more comprehensive and precise than the National Center for Women and Policing fact sheet, the studies on which it is based, the New York Times analysis, or other press reports from particular police departments. But the law enforcement community hasn't seen fit to track these cases consistently or rigorously. Says the International Association of Chiefs of Police in a 2003 white paper on the subject, "the rate of domestic violence is estimated to be at least as common as that of the general population and limited research to date indicates the possibility of higher incidence of domestic violence among law enforcement professionals." Their position on the evidence: "The problem exists at some serious level and deserves careful attention regardless of estimated occurrences."

An academic study highlighted by Police Chief Magazine relied on newspaper reports for its universe of 324 cases of officer involved domestic violence, or OIDV in their report.

Here's what they found:

    The cases involved the arrest of 281 officers employed by 226 police agencies. Most of the cases involved a male officer (96 percent) employed in a patrol or other street-level function (86.7 percent). There were 43 supervisory officers arrested for an OIDV-related offense. One-third of the OIDV victims were the current spouse of the arrested officer. Close to one-fourth of the victims were children, including a child or a stepchild of the officer or children who were unrelated to the arrested officer. There were 16 victims who also were police officers. Simple assault was the most serious offense charged in roughly 40 percent of the cases, followed by aggravated assault (20.1 percent), forcible **** (9.9 percent), intimidation (7.1 percent), murder/non-negligent manslaughter (4.6 percent), and forcible fondling (3.7 percent).

    Data on final organizational outcomes were available for 233 of the cases. About one-third of those cases involved officers who were separated from their jobs either through resignation or termination. The majority of cases in which the final employment outcome was known resulted in a suspension without job separation (n = 152). Of those cases where there was a conviction on at least one offense charged, officers are known to have lost their jobs through either termination or resignation in less than half of those cases (n = 52). More than one-fifth of the OIDV cases involved an officer who had also been named individually as a party defendant in at least one federal court civil action for depravation of civil rights under color of law pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §1983 at some point during their law enforcement careers.

Think about that. Domestic abuse is underreported. Police officers are given the benefit of the doubt by colleagues in borderline cases. Yet even among police officers who were charged, arrested, and convicted of abuse, more than half kept their jobs.

In the absence of comprehensive stats, specific incidents can provide at least some additional insights. Take Southern California, where I keep up with the local news. Recent stories hint at an ongoing problem. Take the 18-year LAPD veteran arrested "on suspicion of domestic violence and illegal discharging of a firearm," and the officer "who allegedly choked his estranged wife until she passed out" and was later charged with attempted murder. There's also the lawsuit alleging that the LAPD "attempted to bury a case of sexual assault involving two of its officers, even telling the victim not to seek legal counsel after she came forward."

Evidence of domestic-abuse problems in police departments around the U.S. is overwhelming.

The context for these incidents is a police department with a long history of police officers who beat their partners. Los Angeles Magazine covered the story in 1997. A whistleblower went to jail in 2003 when he leaked personnel files showing the scope of abuse in the department. "Kids were being beaten. Women were being beaten and raped. Their organs were ruptured. Bones were broken," he told L.A. Weekly. "It was hard cold-fisted brutality by police officers, and nothing was being done to protect their family members. And I couldn’t stand by and do nothing.”

Subsequently, Ms. Magazine reported, a "review of 227 domestic violence cases involving LAPD officers confirmed that these cases were being severely mishandled, according to the LAPD Inspector-General. In more than 75 percent of confirmed cases, the personnel file omitted or downplayed the domestic abuse. Of those accused of domestic violence, 29 percent were later promoted and 30 percent were repeat offenders. The review and the revelation led to significant reforms in the LAPD's handling on police officer-involved domestic violence."

Will these incidents galvanize long overdue action if they're all assembled in one place? Perhaps fence-sitters will be persuaded by a case in which a police officer abused his daughter by sitting on her, pummeling her, and zip-tying her hands and forcing her to eat hot sauce derived from ghost chili peppers. Here's what happened when that police officer's ex-girlfriend sent video evidence of the abuse to his boss:

Here's another recent case from Hawaii where, despite seeing the video below, police officers didn't initially arrest their colleague:
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There have been plenty of other reports published this year of police officers perpetrating domestic abuse, and then there's another horrifying, perhaps related phenomenon: multiple allegations this year of police officers responding to domestic-violence emergency calls and raping the victim. Here's the Detroit Free Press in March:

    The woman called 911, seeking help from police after reportedly being assaulted by her boyfriend. But while police responded to the domestic violence call, one of the officers allegedly took the woman into an upstairs bedroom and sexually assaulted her, authorities said.

Here is a case that The San Jose Mercury News reported the same month:

    Officer Geoffrey Graves, 38, who has been with the Police Department for six years, was charged by Santa Clara County prosecutors with forcible **** in connection with a Sept. 22 incident. The incident began when Graves and three other San Jose officers responded to a family disturbance involving a married couple about 2 a.m., prosecutors said. The officers determined that both spouses had been drinking and had argued, but that no crime had occurred, authorities said.

    The woman, who works as a hotel maid, told officers that she wanted to spend the night at a hotel where she had previously worked. About 2:30 a.m., Graves drove the woman to the hotel, where she went to her room alone and fell asleep, authorities said. Fifteen minutes later, the woman heard knocking and opened the door.

Then he allegedly raped her.

There is no more damaging perpetrator of domestic violence than a police officer, who harms his partner as profoundly as any abuser, and is then particularly ill-suited to helping victims of abuse in a culture where they are often afraid of coming forward. The evidence of a domestic-abuse problem in police departments around the United States is overwhelming. The situation is significantly bigger than what the NFL faces, orders of magnitude more damaging to society, and yet far less known to the public, which hasn't demanded changes. What do police in your city or town do when a colleague is caught abusing their partner?  That's a question citizens everywhere should investigate.
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« Reply #17 on: September 25, 2014, 12:43:14 pm »

Read this in my paper this morning(Dallas Morning News)...

http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/books/20140913-local-novelist-merritt-tierce-turns-pain-into-literary-pleasure.ece
9/13/14
Local novelist Merritt Tierce turns pain into literary pleasure

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/24/rush-limbaugh-tipped-waitress-she-donated-to-abortion-nonprofit_n_5876754.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
Former Waitress Says She Donated Rush Limbaugh's Tips To Abortion Nonprofit
9/24/14

If hyper-conservative media personality and flagrant misogynist Rush Limbaugh gave you $4,000, what would you do with it?

Writer and abortion activist Merritt Tierce had the perfect answer when this happened to her: Donate the money to an abortion nonprofit.

The mother of two served Limbaugh twice when she was a waitress at Dallas steakhouse Nick & Sam's, she said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News. Both times, he tipped her $2,000. Both times, she gave a sizable portion of the money to the Texas Equal Access Fund, a nonprofit that helps pay for abortions for women who cannot afford them. At the time, Tierce was also the executive director of the TEA Fund.

“It felt like laundering the money in a good way,” she says in the interview. “He’s such an obvious target for any feminist or sane person. It was really bizarre to me that he gave me $2,000, and he’s evil incarnate in some ways.”

Tierce -- whose autobiographical debut novel, Love Me Back, hit shelves Sept. 16 -- recently penned an op-ed for the New York Times about her personal experience with abortions.

"In spite of my awareness of our miserable present and inevitably doomed future, I didn’t really want to have an abortion," she wrote of her decision to have a second abortion. "I wanted the man to love me or at least be forced to publicly acknowledge our relationship existed. But he didn’t want to have a baby with me, and I knew that having that baby would have been a terrible thing for my children. And for me."

Meanwhile, back at the far-right ranch, we wonder what Limbaugh is thinking now that he knows his money has gone toward turning women into "abortion machines." And, yes, that's a thing he actually said about women.
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« Reply #18 on: September 25, 2014, 12:54:45 pm »

http://time.com/3422624/report-millennials-marriage/
Why 25% of Millennials Will Never Get Married
9/24/14

A new report from Pew Research predicts that more folks under 35 will be single forever. Here's why

The number of Americans who have always been single and will never marry is at a historic high, says a new Pew Research report, partly because they don’t have jobs and partly because marriage is becoming less highly-regarded. Most people think it’s important for couples who intend to stay together to be married, but the number of single Americans who want to get married has dropped significantly even in the last four years.

The report, based on census data and Pew’s surveys, is the latest in a series of indicators that marriage’s stock is on a sharp downward trajectory. Fewer young people are getting married and many are getting married later. About 20% of Americans older than 25 had always been single in 2012, up from 9% in 1960. In the black community, the numbers are even starker: 36% of black Americans older than 25 have never been married, a fourfold increase from 50 years ago.

The one number that hasn’t really budged is the percentage of 64 year olds who have never been married. In 1960, it was 8% and in 2012, it was 7%. But the report’s authors Wendy Wang and Kim Parker say this might be changing. Each decade, the percentage of people of marriageable age who are single has grown. “When today’s young adults reach their mid-40s to mid-50s, a record high share (roughly 25%) is likely to have never been married,” they write. “This is not to say that adults in their mid-40s to mid-50s who still haven’t married will never marry, but our analysis suggests that the chance of getting married for the first time after age 54 is relatively small,” adds Parker.

Why aren’t people getting married anymore? The three main reasons people give for their singleness are that they haven’t found the right person (30%), aren’t financially stable enough (27%) and are not ready to settle down (22%). Many more young people are eschewing tying the knot, at least for a while, for shacking up. The researchers don’t see that as the new normal yet. “Cohabitation is much less common than marriage and cohabiting relationships are much less stable than marriages,” says Parker.”It’s hard to imagine marriage being replaced any time soon.”

But the Pew researchers teased out a bunch of other reasons by asking what people wanted in a partner.

The quality most women want in a husband, somewhat unromantically, is a secure job, followed very closely by similar ideas on raising kids, which was the quality most men wanted in a spouse. The problem is, the report points out, that young men are increasingly less likely to be employed. “In 1960, 93% of men ages 25 to 34 were in the labor force; by 2012 that share had fallen to 82%.” Those young men who are employed are not bringing home as much bacon as they once did. In fact, if you adjust for inflation, the median hourly wages of men aged 25 to 34 are a fifth less than they were in 1980.

Compounding that issue is that women have entered the labor force in much higher numbers. So while there are more men than women who are single and available, there are far fewer employed men who are single than employed women. Fifty years ago there were 139 single young men with jobs for every 100 single young women; that ratio has now dropped to 91:100. “If all never-married young women in 2012 wanted to find a young employed man who had also never been married, 9% of them would fail,” says the report, “simply because there are not enough men in the target group.”

But lest that bum all the single ladies out too much, the report points out that single young women don’t have to marry single young men: they can marry guys who are divorced, widowed or much older. Should they bother? Now that comedian Sarah Silverman has declared marriage barbaric, is it done? The Pew researchers don’t think so.

“Marriage hasn’t fallen out of favor,” says Parker, “but financial constraints and imbalances in the marriage market may be holding people back from taking the plunge.”
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« Reply #19 on: September 28, 2014, 09:11:42 pm »

Disclaimer: The writer of this article(and the man who she interviewed) used a Jesuitical terms in a positive light like "social justice"(who knows, they could be playing their part in this Hegelian Dialectic, I don't know).

But nonetheless - this is a VERY good read(and drives home some important points. And it was written in 2006!).

http://magazine.biola.edu/article/06-spring/the-feminization-of-the-church/

The Feminization of the Church

Why Its Music, Messages and Ministries Are Driving Men Away


By Holly Pivec

The leaders of a new, Christian movement think they’ve solved a centuries-old mystery: why men are absent from church. But their answer isn’t politically correct.

They believe Christianity has become feminized.

There are generally more women than men in every type of church, in every part of the world, according to church growth experts like Patrick Johnstone, author of Operation World.

A traditional explanation is that women are more spiritual than men. But the leaders of this new movement suggest that the church’s music, messages and ministries cater to women. One of the leaders is David Murrow, author of a provocative book Why Men Hate Going to Church (Nelson Books), who spoke with Biola Connections.

The result of this feminization is that many men, even Christian men, view churches as “ladies clubs” and don’t go — or they often go to please their wives. Murrow’s solution is to restore a masculine ethos. Many men’s ministers, including some Biolans, agree.

But isn’t the reverse true — that the church is controlled by men?

True, 93 percent of senior pastors in America are men, according to evangelical pollster George Barna. But, the majority of attendees in a typical church are women. Barna goes so far as to refer to women as “the backbone of the Christian congregations in America.”

t’s not too hard to discern the target audience of the modern church: a middle-aged to elderly woman,” Murrow said in an interview with Faithreader.com.

The same claim was made by an earlier, more academic book, The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity (Spence Publishing Company), by Leon J. Podles, a senior editor of Touchstone Magazine. But Murrow’s book has had a bigger impact among evangelicals and has been featured by the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

The book has resonated with many men — like Max West, from Payson, Ariz., who wrote in a review on Amazon.com: “[It] opened my eyes as to why I have had such a miserable church experience for the last 30 years.”

Robert York, from Tigard, Ore., wrote: “It has … helped me identify why I've been so frustrated with church so many times.”

But Murrow said he addressed his book mainly to women, including married women who have been disappointed over their husbands’ lack of involvement and to single women who have bemoaned the lack of single, churchgoing men. He said women — who have felt powerless getting men to attend church — actually have the most influence in the churches and, thus, the most power to reverse the feminization.

Even Murrow’s critics — who accuse him of promoting a “hypermasculinity” — agree that Murrow has drawn attention to an alarming gender gap.

Mind the Gap
The gender gap began as early as the 13th century, according to some church historians. Others say it began during the Industrial Revolution. Nancy Pearcey, a visiting scholar at Biola, outlines this theory in her book Total Truth: Liberating Christianity From Its Cultural Captivity (Crossway Books).

Pearcey said industrialization forced men to seek work away from home, in factories and offices, which created a split between the public and private spheres of life. The public sphere became secularized through the new values of competition and self-interest, and the private sphere came to represent the old values of nurturing and religion, Pearcey said. Thus, religion came to be seen as for women and children and not as relevant to the “real” world of business, politics and academia, she said.

Soon, in churches, women began to outnumber men, Pearcey said. So, male pastors began to adapt churches to their female demographic, she said.

But, interestingly, the gender gap is distinct to Christianity, according to Murrow and Podles. Other religions seem to have a gender balance or even more men than women — including Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Islam, they said.

Men’s absence is especially noteworthy, they said, given that men were a strong force in the early church.

An exception to the gender gap may be found in some Muslim countries, like Morocco, where churches of Muslim converts are sometimes almost entirely men, according to Johnstone. But he estimates that, worldwide, the church is 66 percent women.

In America, among evangelical churches, 57 percent of members are women and, among mainline Protestant churches, 66 percent are women, according to a 1998 book American Evangelicalism (University of Chicago Press).

The imbalance is greatest in rural churches, small churches, older churches, traditionally black denominations, and in liberal churches, Murrow said, citing research from the 1998 National Congregations Study. It’s smallest in non-denominational and Baptist churches, he said.

About 23 percent of married women attend without their husbands, according to Murrow.

The men who do attend show less commitment, including less participation in Sunday School, small groups and service activities, according to Barna. Men also report less practice of spiritual disciplines like tithing, Bible reading, evangelism and prayer.

**Hmmm...maybe that's why these pastors will target and manipulate women to "tithe"?

Ladies Clubs
Gender differences explain why more women are drawn to church than men, according to Murrow and Podles. They believe these differences are revealed by the Bible, biology, anthropology, psychology and human experience.

Stereotypical gender differences have become so accepted that they are assumed in standardized psychological tests. The MMPI, for example, seeks to measure whether a person is more masculine or more feminine based on the person’s interest in activities that are typically preferred by men or women.

To describe many women, Murrow lists traits like “relational,” “nurturing” and “peace-making.” He describes many men as “goal-driven,” “competitive” and “adventurous.” These differences show up in the types of movies many women and many men like: romantic vs. adventure films, Murrow said. In sum, women thrive when secure, and men thrive when challenged, he said.

But Dr. Gary Strauss, a professor in Biola’s Rosemead School of Psychology, warns that Murrow may be promoting a “hypermasculinity” — the idea that all men should fit the stereotypical norm of a “man’s man,” like the Marlboro Man — tough, outdoorsy and self-reliant.

“He seems to place such a strong emphasis on the hypermasculine image that he doesn’t adequately affirm men of a different type,” Strauss said. “To me, from the hyperfeminine woman, on the one end of the human spectrum, to the hymermasculine man, on the other, and every person in between (assuming psychological health), reflects the breadth and image of God,” he said.

Strauss added that a study by Sandra Bem, of Cornell University, indicates that men (or women) with a blend of both masculine and feminine traits may be more psychologically prepared to handle the range of challenges life presents than “hypermasculine” men (or “hyperfeminine” women).

Yet, because churches have more women, Murrow believes their stereotypical strengths are more valued — and are even seen as more godly. Masculine strengths are often seen as unneeded or as threats to the peaceful status quo, he said.

Johnstone believes the feminization of the church reflects a feminization of the larger culture.

“Our whole society has tended to deprive men of their biblical and creational strengths and empower women,” Johnstone said.

As a result, many people think of church only as a nurturing place that addresses personal needs, Pearcey said. Think: sitting in circles, sharing feelings, holding hands, singing softly, comforting members.


Love Songs and Feminine Spirituality
An example of the feminization of the church is its music. Typical praise songs refer to Jesus as a Christian’s lover and praise his beauty and tenderness. Rarely do they praise his justice or strength, or refer to him as the head of an army leading his church into spiritual battle, like “Onward Christian Soldiers.”

There’s definitely a trend toward a more intimate music style, like the music from the Vineyard,” said Dr. Barry Liesch, a professor of music at Biola and author of The New Worship (Baker Books).

Feminized music concerns Steve Craig (’05), a graduate of Biola’s degree completion program and the director of a men’s ministry of over 400 men at Yorba Linda Friends Church in Yorba Linda, Calif.

“In our men’s ministry, we’re beginning to take out the flowery songs and replace them with the warrior-type lyrics and more masculine things that men identify with,” Craig said.

Mike Erre (M.A. ’04) — the director of a men’s ministry of over 400 men at Rock Harbor Church in Costa Mesa, Calif. — said feminine expressions of spirituality are more validated than masculine expressions.

“The classic example is the worship pose of the eyes shut and the arms raised in this tender embrace, singing a song that says, ‘I’m desperate for you. You’re the air I breathe.’ Guys don’t talk to guys like that,” Erre said.

A feminized spirituality began in the 13th century, Podles said in his book The Church Impotent. One cause, he said, was women mystics who popularized “bridal imagery,” the metaphor of an individual Christian as the bride of Christ. (The biblical metaphor is of the corporate church as the bride of Christ, not the individual person.) They also used erotic imagery to describe their soul’s relationship with Christ. This feminization explains the abrupt departure of men from the church beginning in the 13th century, according to Podles.

Today the bridal imagery continues. Many books, for example, have titles like Falling in Love With Jesus: Abandoning Yourself to the Greatest Romance of Your Life (Nelson Impact), released, ironically, by the publisher of Murrow’s book. This may be because Christian publishers know women are the main consumers of Christian books. Seventy percent of customers in Christian retail stories are women, according to Bill Anderson, the president and CEO of the Christian Booksellers Association and a member of Biola’s School of Business Advisory Board.

Even some men’s ministries have encouraged feminine expressions of spirituality, like Promise Keepers, whose advertisements in the 1990s showed men singing, holding hands, hugging and crying, Murrow said. But Promise Keepers is now using more masculine tactics. The advertisements for their 2006 conference, titled “Unleashed,” depict flashes of lightening and say: “It is not about learning how to be a nicer guy. It's about becoming the powerful man God designed you to be.” Whether their new approach works remains to be seen.

Men’s Ministry — A Church’s Lowest Priority
Another example of feminization is a lack of ministries for men. Women have Bible studies, prayer groups, support groups, teas, and retreats and, of course, children have a plethora of programs. But some churches offer only an annual retreat for men. Yet, this is the opposite of the way Jesus did ministry, according to Murrow. He said Jesus focused on men, knowing that women and children would follow.

According to an oft-quoted statistic from Promise Keepers, when a mother comes to faith in Christ, her family follows 34 percent of the time, but when a father comes to faith his family follows 93 percent of the time.

“It’s very seldom you have a man in church whose wife is staying home,” said Dr. Erik Thoennes, a theology professor at Biola and the teaching elder at Grace Evangelical Free Church in La Mirada, Calif.

So, what will it take to get men into church?

They need to see the greater purpose — their role in the advancing the kingdom of God, according to Erre.

“The gospel that Jesus and Paul preached is revolutionary, and it’s worth giving your life to,” Erre said. “But part of the reason guys aren’t involved is that we’ve sold them a milquetoast gospel. We don’t paint it as big enough — or God as awesome enough — to be compelling,” he said.

Instead, the church often leaves the impression that, once people get saved, their role is to bide time until they go to heaven, Erre said.

“If men think they’re going to church to check off a box, that leaves them totally uninspired,” said Danny Wallen (’88, M.Div. ’93), a director for Every Man Ministries in Trabuco Canyon, Calif. Wallen was raised in a Christian home, but said he was bored by church into his adult years. Looking back, he realizes he didn’t see purpose.

Also, many church service opportunities are geared for women — like working in the nursery, teaching children, cooking and hospitality. So, many men feel their options are limited to ushering, directing parking, or sitting on a committee — activities that might not allow them to use their skills or challenge them.

When men can’t contribute, they feel worthless,
according to Gentry Gardner (’83), the founder of Sure Passage, a men’s ministry in Colorado Springs, Colo.

“Once they feel discouraged, they pull back and disconnect,” he said.

Even professionals who join church committees, like a building or finance committee, often complain that the skills they contribute to the corporate world — like taking risks, making hard decisions, and thinking outside the box — aren’t welcome in many churches, whose governing boards tend to play it safe, according to Murrow. As a result, less gets accomplished, which can be frustrating to men who are results-driven, he said.

For example, some businessmen might suggest that a church cut an ineffective program that is costing time and money and replace it with a more effective one. But inefficient programs often remain because a more feminine value — of not hurting people’s feelings — wins out.

The reason younger churches typically have more men than older churches may be because more of men’s gifts — like vision casting and risk taking — are needed until a church becomes settled.

One way Murrow’s church involves men is through an automotive ministry that takes donated vehicles, fixes them, and gives them to single mothers and the working poor. A side benefit is that men develop friendships with other men in the context of doing things together, which is more natural for them than sitting in a circle talking — the typical church format, according to Murrow.

Social justice ministries — that allow men to use their skills to help the weak and provide interaction with business and politics — are especially appealing to men, Podles said.

Craig said mission trips are exciting for many men in his church because they offer challenge, adventure and specific goals: “like construction projects, where they can get their hands dirty and see a finished project in the end,” he said.

Touchy-Feely Sermons
Another turn-off for men is touchy-feely sermons. Pearcey said the modern church stresses emotions and inner spiritual experiences while neglecting the intellectual side of the faith.

“The more traditionally masculine side of Christianity enjoys crossing swords with hostile secular worldviews. So, as long as Christianity appeals to the emotional, therapeutic, interpersonal, relational areas, it’s not going to appeal to men as much as to women,” Pearcey said.

Churches should engage men’s intellects to help them see the relevance of Christianity to the “real” world of politics, industry and business, Pearcey said.

“We have to recover the notion that Christianity is true on all levels, not just for your emotional life or repairing relationships, as important as those things are,” she said.

Many churches emphasize Jesus’ softer teachings, like his love and his desire to save, and they ignore the doctrines of sin and hell, according to Podles. But men dislike liberal Christianity — “a mild religion of progress and enlightenment” as opposed to a battle between good and evil, Podles said.

Men want to expend their lives for a great cause, even if it involves risk, according to Murrow. He said that’s why the U.S. military’s “Army of One” campaign was effective. But American churches rarely teach about Christian suffering and martyrdom, Murrow said. Instead, today’s Christianity is presented as an antidote to these things, he said.

“Men are more attracted to religion if it presented as a quest, an adventure, a heroic exploit,” Pearcey said. “They want something challenging, bracing, demanding.”

To reach men, churches should stress the cost and dangers of following Christ — including Christians’ conflict with the world, the flesh and the devil, according to Podles.

Yet, men should be reminded that the sacrifice won’t always be a “huge, glorious display like William Wallace stepping out on a battlefield,” Erre said. Many times it will be staying in a troubled marriage, raising a handicapped child, or working a hated job to provide for a family, he said.

Girly-Men Pastors
Touchy-feely sermons come from touchy-feely pastors. A feminized church tends to attract more “gentle, sensitive, nurturing” leadership,” according to Pearcey.

“If religion is defined primarily in terms of emotional experience and is therapeutic, then who is it going to attract as ministers?” she said.

Pearcey said to consider a typical youth pastor.

“He’s really into relationships, very motivating, but is he teaching good apologetics? Is he teaching youth to use their minds and to understand deeper theological truths? At least the ones I’ve known haven’t,” she said. “Today, the common trajectory is for youth pastors to become senior pastors,” she added.

Murrow argues that the church needs strong, masculine leadership because men follow men. He said Jesus’ disciples are a prime example of this principle.

“Bold leadership attracts men. But even more attractive than a dynamic pastor is the sight of men in the pews who are true followers of Jesus Christ,” Murrow said in his book.

Morrow anticipates concern from some women that he is promoting unilateral male leadership. He said he is not seeking male dominance, but male resurgence.

Thoennes is also concerned about a lack of strong, male leadership in the church. But he said, if the church has become feminized, then he doesn’t see that as the fault of women or the church — but of men — who, he believes, have abdicated the involvement they should have.

“If the church doesn’t have enough strong male influence, that’s not a reason for men to stop going, but a great reason for them to go,” he said.

To help male Biola students become leaders, Student Ministries plans to launch a chapter of Men’s Fraternity next fall, led by Jonathan Morrow, a seminary student at Biola.

Yet, much of the church is seeking further feminization, through attempts to increase female clergy and to create gender-neutral Bibles and hymns. Many liberal seminaries now graduate equal numbers of women and men, or more women than men, like Yale Divinity School and Harvard Divinity School.

**Remember the T-NIV bible that was put in the market 3 years ago.


(Currently, Biola’s seminary, Talbot School of Theology, is about 76 percent men.)

Johnstone believes the feminist movement in mainline churches has contributed to the decline in male membership.

Restoring Balance
Murrow said churches that seek to reverse this feminization might face opposition, as the leaders in his church first did.

But he and other leaders in the men’s movement, like Gardner, believe a masculine spirit will bring men, and gender balance, to the church.

“Once you start attracting a man’s full heart, soul, mind and strength — and he sees that there are ways he can use all those in the church — then we’re going to start seeing a turnaround of the absent man,” Gardner said.
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« Reply #20 on: September 28, 2014, 09:13:00 pm »

Titus 2:3  The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
Tit 2:4  That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
Tit 2:5  To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

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« Reply #21 on: October 01, 2014, 06:26:57 pm »

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58462897-78/women-general-lds-meeting.html.csp
LDS meeting: Feminists seeking change find it in subtle wording
Religion » Uchtdorf’s message to “blessed disciples” of Christ harbors hope of shift in stance.


By peggy Fletcher stack

| The Salt Lake Tribune
First Published Sep 27 2014 10:05 pm • Last Updated Sep 29 2014 04:57 pm

Mormon feminists may have been surprised by some subtle changes in vocabulary and approach Saturday night at the general women’s meeting for all LDS females age 8 and older.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf addressed the female audience — sitting in the giant Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City or watching via satellite in LDS chapels across the globe — not just as "sisters" but also as "blessed disciples of Jesus Christ."

In a speech about living out one’s faith joyfully, Uchtdorf, second counselor in the LDS Church’s governing First Presidency, referred twice to women as "daughters of heavenly parents," alluding to the Mormon belief in male and female deities.

And, for the first time, the charismatic German leader described the meeting as the opening session of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ 184th Semiannual General Conference. Until now, General Conference has referred only to the two-day gatherings held during the first weekends of April and October, with the women’s meeting seen as a separate event.

Saturday night’s meeting also featured the first-ever prayer at a session of General Conference by a black woman, offered by South African Dorah Mkhabela, a member of the LDS Young Women’s General Board.

These changes come in the wake of wide-ranging conversations about the role of women in the LDS Church, including efforts by Ordain Women, a movement pushing to open the church’s all-male priesthood to females. Women prayed for the first time at General Conference in April 2013, and female LDS leaders decided a year later to unite the women’s auxiliaries into a single meeting to parallel the men’s priesthood meeting.

Some feminists also have urged church leaders to talk more openly and often of a Heavenly Mother, who is considered equal to Heavenly Father.

At Saturday’s night’s meeting, three women auxiliary leaders talked about being prepared for temple rituals, making covenants and building faith in Jesus Christ, and included "wage earner" among women’s roles.

Linda K. Burton, General Relief Society president for adult women, recounted the biblical parable of the 10 virgins, five of whom were "wise" because they kept their lamps filled with oil and five considered "foolish" because they did not.

Church attendance, monthly fasting, preaching, deeds of kindness, chastity and charitable giving, Burton said, build the "oil of spiritual preparation…drop by drop."
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« Reply #22 on: October 06, 2014, 02:05:10 pm »

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/meet-elise-stefanik-candidate-youngest-woman-congress/story?id=25963324
Meet Elise Stefanik, the Candidate Who Could Become the Youngest Woman in Congress
10/4/14

She's been called the new "poster candidate" of the Republican Party, and this weekend New York congressional candidate Elise Stefanik was selected by House Speaker John Boehner to deliver the GOP's weekly address.

"One month from today, all Americans face a clear choice: stick with the status quo of more government, more spending, and higher taxes or choose a new direction of new ideas to unleash job creation and economic growth," she said.

A spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said Stefanik was "a puppet for John Boehner and the far right wing."

Stefanik is not only seeking to represent New York's 21st Congressional District, but also help the Republican Party reach a demographic that tends to vote Democratic: young women. If she wins in November, Stefanik, 30, would be the youngest woman in Congress.

Republicans are particularly eager to win back the district, which they held for a century until they lost it five years ago. Stefanik's Democratic opponent, Aaron Woolf, is a multimillionaire documentary filmmaker who spent most of his adult life outside of the district and has been able to pour some of his own money into the campaign.

For those curious about the young U.S. House hopeful, here are 10 facts about her:

1. She's a Small Businesswoman

Elise Stefanik previously worked for Premium Plywood Products, Inc., her family's company founded in upstate New York more than 20 years ago. There she focused on North Country sales, marketing and management.

2. She Has a Degree From Harvard

Stefanik graduated with honors from Harvard University in 2006. She was also one of three women honored with the Women's Leadership Award. As the first of her immediate family to graduate from college, Stefanik spent her time at the university serving on the student Advisory Committee of Harvard's Institute of Politics and contributed to The Harvard Crimson as an editorial editor, writing pieces on everything from matters of love to criticism of student protesters (the headline: "Political Vomit").

3. Though She's Young, She's No Stranger to D.C.

Even at 30 years old, Stefanik is no newcomer to politics. She was an aide in the final years of the Bush administration and helped work on Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. Stefanik cites the 2012 race as her inspiration for making the transition from operative to politician.

4. She's a Seasoned Debater

As the former Director of Vice Presidential Debate Prep to Paul Ryan, Stefanik is likely to come prepared to the three debates scheduled before Election Day.

5. She's a Proud Instagrammer

Stefanik not only understands the importance of social media, but knows how to use it. With vibrant Twitter and Instagram accounts, Stefanik shares the details of her campaign with her supporters. Stefanik tweeted early on that she was the first candidate to Instagram her Congressional filing.

6. She's Not Afraid to Get Her Hands Dirty

She posts Instagrams asking for recommendations on hikes in the Adirondacks -- "in between parades of course" she comments. And she participated in a milking contest at the Essex County Fair.
 
7. Stefanik Is an Avid Reader

She posts images of books she reads along the campaign trail.

8. She, Too, Is a Fan of the Fall Pumpkin Craze

9. Though She Says She's Single, She Has a Sweetheart

She says it's her dog, Nala.

10. Stefanik Has a Double-Digit Lead

A poll, released Oct. 2 by WWNY-7 News and the Siena Research Institute, found that Stefanik leads Woolf by a 46 percent to 33 percent margin. Two-thirds of Republicans -- 68 percent -- said they support Stefanik. Of Democratic voters, 56 percent say they side with Woolf. Despite her current lead, the race remains a virtual tie among independent voters, 39 percent of which say they will stand with the GOP candidate and 38 percent sticking by her Democratic opponent.
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« Reply #23 on: October 06, 2014, 02:21:23 pm »

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/389616/failure-feminist-word-police-katherine-timpf
Failure of the Feminist Word Police
Hypocrisy alert: Feminists at UNM offers workshops in BJs and “negotiating boundaries.”

10/6/14

Modern feminists seem dedicated to teaching us uncultured regular people that many of our favorite common expressions are actually offensive slurs. “You guys.” “Oh, man!” “Man up!” They say these phrases create a male-centric society that oppresses women sexually and professionally, whether we intend them to or not. 

You might think that these language-vetting philosopher-cops would make sure that their movement’s own language was coherent and appropriate. But you would be wrong.

As part of its “Sex Week,” the Women’s Resource Center at the University of New Mexico invited a “sex and relationship expert” slash pornographic puppeteer to teach workshops with titles such as “How to Be a Gentleman and Get Laid,” “Negotiating Successful Threesomes,” and “BJs and Beyond.”

Watching a man use puppets to demonstrate sexual encounters might not do much good in terms of achieving the program’s goal of promoting “healthy relationships,” but the women’s center stood behind the events.

The center, which claims to be based on a “feminist model of empowerment,” insisted the workshops would “help prevent sexual assault” — even though their descriptions actually used the same kind of language that feminist activists have been claiming causes sexual assault.

The “Negotiating Successful Threesomes” workshop, for example, promises to teach students to “negotiate boundaries . . . to make your next menage a trios tré bien! [sic].”

“Negotiate boundaries?” Wait, doesn’t that sound like “**** culture”? I thought sexual “boundaries” were whatever the woman says they are, and that any further discussion, questioning, or “negotiating” beyond that was unacceptable and contributed to a culture of pervasive sexual violence.

Then to that, add that that the “sex week” included a workshop on how to perform oral sex on males but not one teaching how to perform oral sex on females (a clear manifestation of the feminist critique that our culture is focused on the sexual satisfaction of males only), and it seems as though this group just might not have any coherent message whatsoever

The workshop instructor, Reid Mihalko, has worked closely with top “sex positive” feminist activists such as Susie Bright (contributing editor to publications such as Jezebel and Salon) — and yet even Mihalko couldn’t adhere to its impossibly strict language rules. Feminists could argue that it was okay for Reid to use the phrase “negotiating boundaries” because he meant it in an open-dialogue, sex-positive way and never intended to hurt anyone. But here’s the thing: You can’t argue that and also insist that a guy who says “Oh, man!” when he loses his keys is oppressing people whether he intends to or not.

Amid intense controversy surrounding the content of the workshops, the school has since apologized for spending student fees on them. But the women’s center has responded only by saying that it intended for the events to promote sexual health.

Apparently, the language vetters didn’t do such a good job vetting the language of their own initiatives. This movement, so obsessed with semantics that it equates the use of longstanding common phrases to oppression against women, might want to be more vigilant — or, better yet, focus on more important issues.
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« Reply #24 on: November 01, 2014, 11:23:59 am »

This tv show came out when I was in high school - it was very popular among children(like myself then) b/c it was the first "sitcom" for kids and teenagers. It aired on Saturday mornings(when kids were not in school).

This show was predictive programming b/c it had a BIG feminist slant in it - feminist/masculine female characters, and effeminite male characters. I was a lost person then - but nonetheless there was just something that felt WEIRD about this show - yeah, when I thought about it recently, they just craftily pushed the whole sodomy agenda(without mentioning anything about it explicitly).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tobly-mcsmith/how-saved-by-the-bell-helped-me-with-my-gender-transition_b_6060936.html
How Saved by the Bell Helped Me With My Gender Transition
11/1/14

There were no lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender students at Bayside High (but I think we can all agree that Slater was a little gay for Zack). Saved by the Bell, the first-ever Saturday-morning sitcom for kids, was not progressive or challenging in any way; there's no mention of "gay" or "lesbian," not even in Saved by the Bell: The College Years. I should know: As the co-writer of Bayside! The Musical!, a musical parody of Saved by the Bell, I've seen every episode more times than I'd like to admit.

The closest Saved by the Bell came to "handling social issues" was Jessie Spano's crippling addiction to caffeine pills so she could study more. Could you imagine a "very special episode" where the new kid was a transgender youth? Their heads would probably explode.

Saved by the Bell taught me absolutely nothing about gender transition, but co-creating and producing Bayside! has taught me to take big leaps of faith, learn from my mistakes, and believe in myself -- all the tools I needed to come out as transgender several months ago.

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but there was a time in my life, about seven years ago, when the subject of transgender people would come up I would get on my righteous (mostly drunken) soapbox and say, "You're born with a body and gender, and it's up to you to accept and learn to live in that body and gender," which sounds like a "lesson" one would learn at the end of an episode of Saved by the Bell. It's obvious that the only person I was trying to convince of this ridiculous theory was me. It's not surprising that I was unhappy, abusive with my alcohol and drugs, and ended up trying to kill myself.

Luckily, I sucked at suicide.

It took me several years to come to terms with my gender dysphoria and start talking about it. I was scared that I was too late in the game. I was 34 years old; how could I make this big of a change now? What would my family think of me? My corporate job? My cats?

Creating art (yes, I'm calling a parody musical about Saved by the Bell "art" right now) and transitioning have a lot in common. They are both processes that require trust and patience. I had to take huge leaps of faith, like investing my life savings into the musical and letting the HR department at my workplace send out a letter to the entire company detailing my gender transition. I had to let go of the results and let people have their own process around it. I have no control over the reaction of the critics and audiences who come to Bayside! every night, just as I had no control over my mom's reaction when I called to tell her I was transitioning. She handled it with love and acceptance -- A-plus parenting. She actually said, "You go, girl!" and then, "I guess I can't say that anymore?"

The most surprising thing about transitioning? Liking my body -- for the first time ever. At night I take off my clothes and look at myself in the mirror. I used to hate my body. I would push and press at it, wanting for something else. I would run millions of miles and starve it down. But I like what I see now.

Zack and Kelly and the students of Bayside will never change. I think we like them that way. There's a certain comfort in that. But I will continue to change -- inside and out. It's messy. It's beautiful. It's imperfect in the most perfect way.

As far as the future is concerned, in the words of Jessie Spano in the grips of her caffeine-pill addiction, "I'm so excited! I'm so excited!" I'm so not scared of what's next.
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« Reply #25 on: November 13, 2014, 11:38:22 am »

https://celebrity.yahoo.com/blogs/celeb-news/kirk-cameron-urges-women-to-save-christmas-by-cooking-decorating-singing-141250143.html
Kirk Cameron Urges Women to Save Christmas by Cooking, Decorating the House, and Singing
11/13/14

Oh, Mike Seaver, we miss you so!

One-time '80s heartthrob Kirk Cameron reminded us just how long ago it was that we crushed on him on Growing Pains when the evangelical Christian posted a Facebook message — directed at women — instructing them on how to prioritize their lives this holiday season. According to the 44-year-old, all the wives and moms out there should be focused on keeping their homes clean and families happy.

"If you are a mom, if you are a wife, if you're the keeper of your home, I want you to know that your joy is so important this Christmas," says Candace Cameron Bure's big brother. "Because Christmas is about joy and if the joy of the Lord is your strength, remember, the joy of the mom is her children's strength, so don't let anything steal your joy. If you let your joy get stolen, it will sap your strength."

So what are moms supposed to do in the ideal world of Kirk Cameron? Hang garland around the house, bake pies, and sing "A Holly Jolly Christmas," of course. Oh, and have a lot of people over.

"Let your children, your family, see your joy in the way you decorate your home this Christmas, in the food that you cook, the songs you sing, the stories you tell, and the traditions that you keep," he instructs. "Invite your whole neighborhood into your Christmas and invite the world into our story of our king and his kingdom."

There are two reasons why Cameron, who was an atheist until finding religion at age 17, is preaching on this topic. For one, it's for a paycheck. The father of six has a limited-release movie, Saving Christmas, coming out this week about putting "Christ back in Christmas."

Two? He likes to share his conservative beliefs. In 2012, he ruffled feathers speaking out against homosexuality, calling it "unnatural," "detrimental," and "ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization." Earlier this year, he spoke out about the Grammy Awards, which featured a performance by Macklemore during which 33 couples (gay and straight) were married, calling it an "all out assault on the traditional family" during which "the lines were drawn thick and dark." He used the opportunity to rally people to "work together to create the world we want for our children." (The latter comments were tied to another Christian movie he was promoting at the time.)

While he wasn't a fan of the Hollywood display at the Grammys, there is one famous family out there he thinks gets it right: 19 Kids and Counting stars the Duggars. He recently attended Jessa's wedding and spoke about her decision to wait to have her first kiss at her wedding, calling it, "moral excellence" and a "purity [that] is rare today."

Well, we hope the Duggar ladies have a lot of time to devote to their Christmas preparations to stay on Cameron's good side.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Uhm, you're WRONG, Kirk...

Titus 2:3  The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
Tit 2:4  That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
Tit 2:5  To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
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« Reply #26 on: November 19, 2014, 07:36:37 pm »

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« Reply #27 on: November 28, 2014, 08:09:32 pm »

https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/the-unintended-effects-of-divorce-on-kids-103483542077.html
The Unintended Effects of Divorce on Kids
11/24/14

It’s long been known that children can suffer when their parents divorce — and new research has found the fallout to be surprisingly powerful, with effects ranging from poor test scores to the onset of eating disorders. But the good news, according to Resolution, the U.K. organization behind the survey, is that it’s the level of angry fighting, and not the divorce itself, that appears to cause the most fallout.

“It’s not so much the fact of parental separation, it’s the conflict,” Resolution director Jo Edwards tells Yahoo Parenting. “A lot of it is the way that parents manage their conflict.”

The organization of 6,500 family lawyers, mediators, and therapists in England and Wales is one that believes in a non-confrontational approach to divorce and other family conflicts. It surveyed 500 young people ages 14 to 22 about the effects of divorce, and discovered, among other findings, that one in five said that the split negatively impacted their GCSE scores (similar to SAT scores here). One in eight, meanwhile, said they tried or newly considered trying drugs, and one in three noted having a change in eating patterns and the possible beginnings of an eating disorder. In addition, nearly a third of respondents reported that one parent had attempted to turn them against the other; one in four said parents tried to involve them in their dispute; and almost a quarter said they found out on social media that one of their parents had a new partner.

“We were surprised and quite shocked by the extent of some of the findings,” Edwards notes, particularly when considering the impact of the 230,000 people in England and Wales, many of whom are parents, who divorce each year. That number is even larger in the more highly populated U.S., of course, which sees more than 800,000 divorces annually. “Many think that court is the only way” to hammer out the details of custody and visitations during a divorce, she says. But when both parents use mediation or therapy, and agree to go through their divorce in “a more civilized way, focusing mainly on the good of the family,” she says, children fare better.

“It’s the hostility and anger that so often puts kids in the middle — and young kids, in particular, blame themselves,” Ken Neumann, a child psychologist and founder of the New York City based Center for Family and Divorce Mediation. “Then they believe they’re bad and incorporate that belief into their lives, which leads to low self-esteem, doing poorly in school, eating disorders, drugs.”

The trick, he notes, is to not ever put your kids in the middle, and to “never fight in front of the kids — not even over the phone.” Further, Neumann advises, “Don’t empower them to make decisions, like, ‘Do you want to spend the holiday with me or your dad?’ Children don’t feel taken care of if they’re given the choices. They want to see their parents in charge and making decisions, which makes them feel safe.”

Barbara Rothberg, a New York­–based divorce coach and family therapist, takes a particular tack when it comes to helping parents keep their anger at each other away from the kids. “I try to help them separate out the two roles, and to remind people that they are divorcing as spouses, not as parents,” she tells Yahoo Parenting. “I try to redefine it as a business relationship of parenting.” Because, she explains, unless there is abuse, the goal should be to help both parents be good parents. “Kids do very well if parents do not put them in the middle — if you don’t use them, do not express anger in front of them, don’t ask questions like ‘who was daddy with last weekend?’ That’s not to say you’re not furious, but you keep that separate. If you really care about your kids, you need to do this.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Matthew 19:9  And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
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« Reply #28 on: February 01, 2015, 12:10:32 pm »

http://news.yahoo.com/turmoil-church-england-consecrates-first-woman-bishop-104827218.html
After turmoil, Church of England consecrates first woman bishop
1/26/15

YORK, England (Reuters) - The Church of England consecrated its first woman bishop on Monday, the culmination of years of efforts by Church modernizers to overcome opposition from traditionalists - one of whom briefly shouted a protest during the service.

More than two decades after the Church allowed women to become priests, 48-year-old mother-of-two the Reverend Libby Lane became Bishop of Stockport in a ceremony at York Minster, a Gothic cathedral in northern England.

The protest came as John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, asked the congregation whether Lane should be consecrated as Bishop.

As the congregation chorused its approval, a lone man's voice shouted above them: "No, not in the Bible."

When Sentamu asked the question again, there was no dissent and the ceremony went ahead.

During the service, which ended in applause, Sentamu and other bishops ceremonially laid their hands on Lane and prayed for her.

Earlier, Lane had spoken of what she hoped her consecration would achieve for women.

"If my appointment encourages a single young woman to lift her eyes up a bit and to realize that she has capacity and potential and that her environment or those around her don't need to dictate what is possible for her, then I'd be really honored" she said in an interview published by the Church.

Her appointment, announced in December, has been hailed as a step forward for gender equality by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, spiritual head of the Church, and by many others including Prime Minister David Cameron.

However, a conservative minority say the Bible demands male leadership.

The worldwide Anglican community has been deeply split over the issue of women clergy. Women already serve as bishops in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but Anglican churches in many developing countries, particularly in Africa, do not ordain women as priests.

After years of debate, an attempt by the Church of England to bring in women bishops failed in 2012 when it was narrowly defeated by traditionalist lay members in a vote in the General Synod, the Church's governing body.

After that setback, the Church came up with new proposals which gained wider acceptance and were approved by the Synod last year.

Women have served as priests in the Church of England since 1994. Lane was ordained in 1994. She has been vicar of a church in the outskirts of Manchester since 2007, as well as Dean of Women in Ministry in the diocese of Chester.
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« Reply #29 on: February 14, 2015, 10:00:50 am »

http://news.yahoo.com/box-office-dominatrix-fifty-shades-nabs-30-2m-152323164.html;_ylt=AwrBT76Pb99UvHwA7wVXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEzODNla3JyBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDU01FNjEyXzEEc2VjA3Nj
Box Office Dominatrix: 'Fifty Shades' Nabs $30.2M Friday for Record $80M-Plus Debut
2/14/15

Fifty Shades of Grey is easily seducing the North American box office, grossing a potent $30.2 million Friday for a possible $80 million-plus debut over the long Valentine's Day and Presidents Day weekend.

Universal's R-rated film adaptation of EL James' S&M-laced romance novel will easily best the $63.1 million launch of Valentine's Day in 2010 to tie up the best showing of all time for the holiday. Universal is playing it safe and estimating $76.1 million for the four days, although other box office pundits believe Fifty Shades could land in the $84 million range, thanks to what's expected to be a huge turnout on Valentine's Day.

On Friday, females made up the vast majority of the audience and appear to be divided over the movie, giving it a C+ CinemaScore. That's not surprising, considering the subject matter. Regardless, Fifty Shades' performance is a major win for Universal and James.

The weekend's second new release, Matthew Vaughn's Kingsman: The Secret Service, is no slouch either. The Fox film, earning a B+ CinemaScore, opened to an estimated $10.5 million on Friday for $38 million-$40 million debut, well ahead of expectations. Combined, the two movies should help deliver the best Presidents Day weekend of all time in terms of overall revenue.

Fifty Shades is playing in 3,646 locations, the widest release to date for an R-rated film. Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, Fifty Shades stars Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan.

In terms of advance ticket sales, Fifty Shades is the top Valentine's Day release of all time??and has become Fandango's No. 4 advance seller of all time, behind The Twilight Saga: New Moon, the final Harry Potter movie and The Hunger Games.

While women dominated on Friday, it appears that many are convincing their partners to make the movie a Valentine's Day destination. According to MovieTickets.com, 80 percent of tickets for Valentine's Day (Saturday) are being purchased by couples. That compares to 26 percent for Friday.

Fifty Shades is likewise doing seductive business overseas, where it could gross $75 million-plus after earning $28.6 million on Wednesday and Thursday from its first 34 territories.

To say the movie's global launch would be a blockbuster start is an understatement, taking into account that it cost a relatively modest $40 million to make. James' trilogy is a global phenomenon, and it looks like the film will follow suit. The Fifty Shades books have been translated into 52 languages and sold more than 100 million copies worldwide. Already, the film has racked up more than 4.5 million in advance ticket sales internationally, mostly in Europe.

Thanks to its racy subject matter, Fifty Shades won't be playing everywhere, of course. Malaysia, a predominately Muslim country, has banned the film, while other??Muslim countries aren't likely to play it either.
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