DriveThru – Get What You Need

A new Public Mind Poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University (3-11-2010), surveyed more than 1000 adults nationally about gambling issues.

The bottom line? Keep Las Vegas in Las Vegas!

• 67% – or two-thirds – of respondents want Internet gambling to remain illegal

• 46% said casinos have a negative local impact, while 38% say casinos have a positive impact (remaining didn’t know)

• A majority also opposed sports betting and legalizing sports betting for government revenues.

Memo to Rep. Barney Frank:
The majority of people (67%) do not want Internet gambling legalized.

Please stop being a finger puppet for the foreign, online gambling cartel. Stop your reckless push to legalize and tax online gambling.

If Americans don’t want a single casino in their own town, they certainly don’t want several thousand online casinos piped into their homes!

Please represent the U.S. citizens who elected you – not the foreign gambling cartel (and their money). Please stop gambling with our economy and being irresponsible. Put this issue to bed.

Please do implement UIGEA regulations that prohibit illegal, online gambling payments. This allows states to decide what forms of gambling are legal, gives voters a voice and offers greater protection for families and children.

Thank you for listening.

Sincerely,
Responsible citizens who care more about families and the future of our Nation than we care about foreign gambling interests and poker

__________________

Read more about the battle to keep families protected from online gambling predators.

The U.K. Guardian reported that Britain is sending 42 million condoms to South Africa for the expected 40,000 prostitutes being trafficked into the country for the month-long World Cup event.

The Guardian reports that an estimated 5.7 million South Africans are living with HIV, which is about one in every five – or 20% – of adults, a truly sobering statistic.

Casual sex outside of marriage is never a wise choice, and it’s particularly risky in Africa. But if Britain is sending 42 million condoms, one would expect that condoms are extremely effective in preventing HIV, right?

According to research, condoms are only effective against preventing HIV transmission 85% of the time. And consider that here, in the U.S., approximately one in every four people with HIV is undiagnosed and unaware that he or she is infected with HIV. Even more African sex workers are likely unaware of their HIV-positive status.

Perhaps abstinence while in HIV-laden South Africa is a better alternative than being part of the 15% or so who fall into the condom-failure zone, who will return home potentially – and unknowingly - infected with HIV. Wouldn’t you agree?

And, contrary to growing popular belief, HIV/AIDS infection is still lethal. The HIV “treatments” only delay the death of those who are infected. There is no “cure” or vaccination for HIV/AIDS at this time.

Are you traveling to see the World Cup games in South Africa? My advice: watch the games, enjoy South Africa and avoid playing Russian roulette with HIV/AIDS.

The U.K. Federal Commission for Children and Youth (FCCY) discovered that 12- to 14-year-old boys are having sex without condoms. The solution? 

The “Hotshot,” a small condom specifically designed to fit 12-year-old boys. Because handing out Jr. Condoms to Junior at school will fix the slightly more-than-concerning problem of pre-teen boys having sex, right?

The U.K. Telegraph reports that Family Planning groups along with the Swiss Aids Federation, lobbied to have the smaller condom produced. No surprise here. International Planned Parenthood wants to “help” children as young as 10.

Even Joe Leprechaun doesn’t have to eat Bangers and Mash to know that throwing condoms – even little condoms – to lads and lassies will not fix the U.K.’s core behavioral problem of kids having sex with kids.

Sex should never be promoted as an acceptable activity for children, little condom or not. Government and schools should not be teaching to the lowest standard, unless they hope to “achieve” the lowest standard.

Isn’t it due time the FCCY and other government entities to raise the standard, rather than listen to “Family Planning” groups, whose very existence depends on children having sex with children and propagating dire, desperate circumstances?

What children need is more parental communication - including instruction about sex – and more school advocacy for higher sexual standards and a touch (perhaps a load) more discretion from the media. What they don’t need is a smaller condom.

See Focus President Jim Daly’s blog on this subject.

We know times are bad when state legislatures want to milk citizens dry through expanded gambling. 

But more gambling for state revenues, especially in today’s climate, is a bad hand. A sucker bet. Fool’s gold.

The Gambling Cash Cow is running dry, but states are slow to learn. As of early March, Maryland alone had 26 new gambling bills introduced just since 2010.

The Gambling Empire takes dollars and exports pennies and addiction. This makes gambling a bad neighbor, and gambling also fails the cost-benefit test.

In a recent Parade Magazine article, Robert Ward of the Rockefeller Institute of Government concluded, “Gambling has grown because it is less unpopular than other steps, like broad-based tax increases … Plugging the hole this way just pushes the problem down the road.”

The Rockefeller Institute published a grim forecast on the Luck Cartel’s future. Nearly 30 states, all banking on more gambling to save the day, must have missed the report, however, alongside multiple headlines describing gambling’s persistent decline.

According to the Nevada Gaming Abstract 2009, the new generation of Nevada tourists is drinking more than they are gambling. Nightclubs and alcohol are in, gambling is out.

Are you frustrated by your state officials banking the budget on more gambling? Want to make a difference today?

Educate your elected officials by sending them the Rockefeller report.   Print off a double-sided (8.5×14), color fact-filled flyer. Send these items to your state officials and urge them to put the Gambling Cow out to pasture. She’s going dry!

A great deal of interest has been expressed on the former blog regarding International Planned Parenthood’s (IPPF) Stand and Deliver report.  I’d like to address some of the comments I’ve received all at once, so here you go.

How do I substantiate my claim that “young people” in this report includes 10-year-olds?

On page 10 of the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s (IPPF) Stand and Deliver  report, they use  the term “young people” to refer to those who are between 10 and 24 years of age. So, yes, 10-year-old children are considered eligible for IPPF’s “services” for young people.

Why do I “pick on” (not so) poor Planned Parenthood and other liberal-sex groups?

Because sex without boundaries – even with a condom – is dangerous, not only to children, but also to teens and adults.

Planned Parenthood (PP) promotes casual sex, homosexual sex, outer-course, inner-course and most any other course that “freely expresses sexual pleasure.” It’s unconstrained sex without boundaries. Heaven forbid we should “impose tremendous boundaries” on sex by encouraging abstinence or marriage!

In our view, sexuality is not a public playground to be shared, taken for granted, exploited, exposed and abused multiple times by multiple people. But, to PP and casual-sex groups, sex is just that: a public playground.

Research tells us a child’s brain lacks the ability to make fully rational decisions and discern good from bad. Thus, protective boundaries are particularly important for children and sexual behaviors, unless children are to become victims of sexual predators or fall prey to harmful pornographic and sexual addictions.  

Focus on the Family believes  that sex is a sacred union to be shared between one man and one woman for a lifetime. Yes, we proudly support traditional marriage and great sex within that context.

What about sexually active kids?

These kids need their parents’ attention, love and communication ASAP - alongside a qualified doctor and counselor -  to have some very serious conversations about their current actions and future direction. Schools simply handing children condoms does little to reduce or change risky sexual behaviors; rather, it’s the parents who need to initiate this change in direction.

Am I just “over-reacting” and afraid that children “will learn the names of his/her sexual organs?”

Look for yourself, ”young people” will learn MUCH more, to the extent of being suggestive and provocative. 

Consider the following examples:

• Comprehensive Sex Education Curricula review   (Note the references to explicit materials, lack of medical accuracy and lack of effectiveness.)

And if that doesn’t give you an idea of the kind of crude, explicit content on their website, check out this site designed specifically for teens [Warning: crude, explicit content]:

•  takecaredownthere.org  - (video clips)
• plannedparenthood.org/teen-talk - (Masturbation section)
• plannedparenthood.org/teen-talk/- (phone sex, online porn)
• plannedparenthood.org/health-topics - (abortion)

Still want your kids getting Planned Parenthood’s “safe” sex education? You’re the parent, you decide.

Gambling proponents would have us believe that the days of organized crime and gambling are over. Nothing could be further from the truth. The only thing that has changed over time is the nature of the gambling being done in the casinos – it’s much more addictive  today than in the 1930’s.

Gambling proponents are trying to wedge their way into Alabama, but former Alabama Governor Patterson warns, “You don’t want that in your town.” Listen and watch as a former governor tells the gripping story of how gambling corrupted state officials in Alabama and ended in the cold-blooded shooting of his father. Watch the video clip of his story here.  

Find out more by going directly to the Citizens for a Better Alabama (CBA) site or link to from the gambling Alabama Take Action site.

The International Planned Parenthood Foundation released a report,  “Stand and Deliver: Sex, Health and Young People in the 21st Century,” which classifies children as “sexual beings” and promotes “pleasurable sexual lives” in children as young as 10 years old – mere sexual objects to be exploited.

This should make parents across the nation feel really comfortable with their school’s Planned-Parenthood-comprehensive-condom-based-safe-sex-if-it-feels-good-to-children curriculum, now shouldn’t it? YIKES! Parents, keep your children and schools far away from the sexually debased Planned Parenthood organization.

Jeanne Monahan, Director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council, has perhaps the most concise observations about Planned Parenthood’s true agenda:

“This report isn’t about doing what is right for young people and certainly not about offering them the very best options in life. It is about advancing an ideological agenda that is hostile to traditional families, religious faith and the good of children.

“‘Stand and Deliver’ dangerously oversexualizes children as young as ten. Not only are the recommendations developmentally inappropriate, but they advocate behaviors in ten year-olds that can lead to such disturbing problems as pedophilia and statutory rape. Why can’t Planned Parenthood let kids be kids?

“Polls show parents overwhelmingly believe that sex education should reflect the values taught at home. However, Planned Parenthood’s report downplays the role of parents in transmitting values to their children. …”  Read FRC’s entire press release …

 Parents, you are the primary communicators to children about sex. Be intentional about communicating your family values, and don’t hesitate to express your approval and disapproval of certain behaviors.

More on Planned Parenthood 

• Planned Parenthood’s Campus Crusade
• Leaving Planned Parenthood (Part 1 of 2)
• The Planned Parenthood, Kinsey Morality Heist
• Planned Parenthood’s Origins (chart)
• Condom Cover-Up
• Take Twelve: Top 12 Sexual Myths Refuted
  

One in three teen mothers (34%) do not graduate from high school, according to Child Trends new fact sheet, Diploma Attainment Among Teen Mothers, while only 6 percent teen females who did not become pregnant never finished high school.

Consider this. What guarantees a teen will not become pregnant? Abstinence.

Abstinence, then, is also a sure-fire behavior for increasing teen women’s chances of graduating and reaching educational milestones. Moreover, the lead author of the Child Trends study notes that higher educational attainment can not only reduce teen pregnancy, it can also break inter-generational cycles of teen pregnancies.

So we must ask, do we want to provide our daughters and granddaughters the best possible chance of fulfilling their brightest and most beneficial potential? Helping teen girls to remain abstinent from sex – not merely “safer” when having sex – is a policy with guaranteed returns!

Other related Child Trends Research Briefs:

• Ten Reasons to Still Keep the Focus on Teen Childbearing
• Estimated Percentage of Females Who Will Become Teen Mothers: Differences Across States

 In a recent gambling-news article, Tribal leaders called Barney Frank’s online gambling bill, H.R. 2267 , “…the greatest threat to Indian gaming in 20 years.”

Tribal leaders clearly feel threatened by the possibility of more competition. “… the threat of Congressional legislation that will transfer billions of dollars from Indian Reservations to foreign offshore internet casinos,” said Daniel Tucker, leader in the California Nations Indian Gaming Association and chairman of the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation.

 Tribal opposition to Frank’s bill is expected to escalate in coming weeks and months, as is the opposition from pro-family groups. Frank’s bill would pipe thousands of online, virtual casinos into approximately 91 million U.S. homes via the Internet.

About 230 million men, women and children access the Internet for business, school and information. Many feel that Frank’s sponsorship of policy legalizing online gambling is irresponsible legislation that is being pushed by foreign, online gambling interests and their U.S.-based front-group, Poker Player’s Alliance.

If you want to learn more about this issue, visit our Internet Gambling Take Action site.

Sex is a tough subject to approach with your children, no doubt. You stutter, they squirm. But if parents don’t present the truth about sex and solid family values, plenty of sexually harmful messages are waiting in the shadows, classrooms and school halls.

Recent research in Pediatrics indicates that teen sexual activity is beginning before parents ever approach the subject – not good!

Research Findings:

• Less than one-third of parents had ever talked to their children about reasons for not having sex.
• By the time teens were engaging in genital touching with a partner, only 17% of parents had talked to their girls and 6% to their boys about how to refuse unwanted sexual advances.
• Parents had not yet discussed refusal skills and the importance of not pressuring a partner into sex in about 25% of girls and 40% of boys by the time that they had engaged in sexual intercourse.

The Talk:

Be open, vulnerable, get involved and be real. Don’t be afraid to laugh and admit it’s awkward. This is one of the most important conversations you’ll ever have with your child.

Good resources for quick information:

• Dear Parents – Let’s Talk About Doing
• Before The Talk: Dealing with Our Past
• Talking to Pre-Teen or Teen About Waiting
• Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs)
• Sex is never “safe,” even with a condom or the pill
• The Medical Institute- information on sexually transmitted diseases
• The Medical Institute FAQ
• STD Wizard can calculate risks of sexual behaviors (a real eye-opener for teens)
• Trouble with pornography? Visit Pure Intimacy
• Tough questions, good answers
• Teen Sexual Behavior Quick Facts
• Oral Sex Quick Facts