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.

Sometimes you just have to laugh at the bias one often spots in liberal publications–you know, the usual ape-like caricatures of socially conservative Christians contrasted with the usual sympathetic portrayals of reasonable-sounding liberals. Is this purposeful or just the result of living in an echo chamber? It’s hard to tell.

I couldn’t resist pointing out one small example of this biased approach to news. An article published in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine goes into great detail describing the “shiny pate” and other characteristics of a conservative Christian sitting on the Texas State Board of Education.

Despite all this detail though, information is noticeably sparse on one of the main sources—Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network— used by the Times to counteract the social conservatives’ viewpoints.

It’s rather humorous—in a sad kind of way—that the Texas Freedom Network (TFN) is described by the Times with only two words— “watchdog group.” A simple internet research reveals that TFN—which adamantly opposes mainstream ideas like school choice and abstinence teaching— has strong links to Planned Parenthood. It was founded by Cecile Richards, former deputy chief of staff for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and daughter of the famously liberal former Texas Governor, Ann Richards. Cecile Richards is also the current president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and still serves on the board of TFN.

Kathy Miller, the current president of TFN—also sparsely identified by the Times as “the watchdog”—formerly served as a public affairs director for a Planned Parenthood state affiliate. So a more honest description of TFN would have been a “liberal pro-abortion group.”

Despite this obvious bias however, the Times did acknowledge some objective facts about our nation’s history.

There’s been renewed interest in the legalization of “medical marijuana” ever since the Obama administration indicated it would conveniently look the other way when it comes to conflicts between federal policy on this issue and state laws.

So far at least 14 states now have laws legalizing marijuana use. Cities are also joining the ranks. (This week, our city council is currently debating the issue —which drew my attention to this subject!)

In all of this dicussion, has anyone given serious thought about how this will impact public schools? A Christian Science Monitor article brings up concerns about how we are going to handle “high schoolers bringing pot to school” complete with legal, medical permission slips!  Actually, as the article points out, school officials wouldn’t even have to be notified.

A school counselor in New Jersey, one of the states to most recently legalize marijuana, mourned the fact that “students already faced intense peer pressure to experiment with marijuana”—and this just gave them all the more incentive to do so, reported The New York Times.

I guess now it’s “just say no” –unless you have a medical excuse slip.

“It’s millions of dollars … And it will help education,” Florida’s Gov. Crist told the press in regard to his new compact with the vastly wealthy, gambling-saturated Seminole Tribe.

Gov. Crist’s compact would give the Seminole Indians a gambling monopoly on blackjack and Vegas-style slots outside Broward and Miami-Dade. In return, the tribe pays Florida $150 million annually. Oh, and don’t forget, “… it will help education.”

Funny. That’s what the Florida Lottery claimed in order to dupe voters into legalizing state-operated gambling, or the Florida lottery. Today, the lottery has supplanted – or replaced – state funding for education and now Florida education and thousands of children are held hostage to the lottery’s uncertain performance!

Nobody told citizens that education would be DEPENDENT on unstable lottery proceeds, or else the bill never would have passed. States should not use education to justify the legalization of more gambling.  Don’t handcuff vice to virtue.

Many in the Florida Legislature expect this compact will fail. But what other types of gambling are looming in the shadows, waiting to be sold to the public to “help” education?

Citizens beware, there are a lot of gambling crooks selling “snake oil” to the Florida Legislature and to you, the citizens. Don’t buy into their lies about gambling profits. This is a losing bet! Gambling is in decline , and banking on gambling revenues could break the state.

Snake oil! Snake oil! Get your snake oil here! Snake oil, anyone?

Peggy Noonan wrote in the WSJ about institutions—the government, journalism, Wall Street, education and the church, and about how they seem to have “forgotten their mission”.  She says it like this:

Maybe the most worrying trend the past 10 years can be found in this phrase: “They forgot the mission.” So many great American institutions—institutions that every day help hold us together—acted as if they had forgotten their mission, forgotten what they were about, what their role and purpose was, what they existed to do. You, as you read, can probably think of an institution that has forgotten its reason for being. Maybe it’s the one you’re part of.

The social institution of marriage wasn’t listed, but it could easily be added to the list.  Marriage is diminished in American culture in part because we seem to have forgotten the mission.

As strange as it might seem to the romanticized notions of Americans—marriage didn’t come about as the epic event for predestined soulmates.  At its core, marriage is much more practical. It channels sexual fidelity and financial resources toward caring for the next generation.  This is best for a child, her parents, and the community in which the family lives.

In 2010 Focus Action will continue one of the original missions of Focus on the Family since 1977: for every child, a married mom and dad.

All of the DriveThru bloggers want to wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Back in 2008, the New Mexico Human Rights Commission fined a young Christian couple $6600 for refusing, for reasons of religious conscience, to photograph a lesbian commitment ceremony. The couple appealed the decision to a state trial court, which has now also ruled against them:

“Plaintiff, by refusing to photograph the commitment ceremony of a same sex couple, violated the Human Rights Act. Specifically, Plaintiff, a public accommodation, discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation. In enforcing the HRA (the New Mexico Human Rights Act), the Commission did not violate Plaintiff’s freedoms of expression or religion. The NMRFRA (New Mexico Religious Freedom Restoration Act) is not properly applied to this case and, even if it was, Plaintiff can not prevail because there is no showing the NMHRA improperly impacts religious practices.”

The court’s entire opinion, which also recaps the history of the case, can be found here.

I’m almost certain the decision will be appealed. The Alliance Defense Fund is on the case. (UPDATE – Yes, they will.)

This decision is a wake-up call for people of faith. If neither the First Amendment nor a state Religious Freedom Restoration Act is sufficient to protect religious beliefs, the country has reached an ominous tipping point in the clash of values between gay activism and religious freedom. We’re going to need new protections to restore a precious liberty that is being taken away from people of faith.

GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight and Education Network), and its founder Kevin Jennings, have come under renewed fire in the blogosphere for a book list that recommends extremely sexually graphic content for kids as young as middle-school age. Actually, some might even consider the content Triple-X level.

Many of the books give graphic depictions of homosexual activity between youth—and even between kids at the preschool or elementary level—and several also contain descriptions of adult-teen sexual activity. Some of the depictions are so extreme that you would not expect to find them anywhere but in an adult porn store. For that reason, we aren’t even going to link to those descriptions in this blog.

However, you can read Focus on the Family Action’s report on GLSEN’s  booklist to get a summary of the indoctrination and sexualization of children contained in these books.

Keep in mind that GLSEN has promoted these books as “the highest quality resources” for students in schools. Which is leading many to question whether “safe schools czar” Kevin Jennings—who birthed GLSEN and oversaw the creation of resources like this one—is really qualified to oversee federally funded “safe schools” curricula and projects. For more information  on Kevin Jennings and how to protest his appointment,  click here.

My favorite line of the day so far has come from Democrat Louise Slaughter of the House Rules Committee commenting on the allegedly “pro-life” language that Rep. Brad Ellsworth is trying to put into the health care bill:

None of us really had any objections to the Ellsworth language. (Subscription required).

I’ll take “duh” party of one, please.

That’s because the amendment doesn’t do anything to ban abortion funding.  (Note: you know there’s something amiss when pro-abortion Democrats have zero objections to a “pro-life” amendment).

Rather, it proposes a scheme of outside contractors to handle the money so that Democrats can pretend the government isn’t funding abortion.  And while Ellsworth may mean well—he has historically voted pro-life—good intentions don’t matter when preborn lives are at stake. 

What’s more, his language may just well peel off some of the 40 Democrats who said they’d vote against a procedural rule to bring the health care bill to the floor unless abortion funding was addressed. 

Note to Rep. Ellsworth: you’re not helping the cause.  Kindly reverse course.

C.S. Lewis called it “chronological snobbery,” the belief that somehow people today are more “advanced” than our ancestors – that we’ve learned something about human nature that older generations didn’t know. 

Our President, on two separate occasions now, has said to gay activists, “There are still fellow citizens, perhaps neighbors, even loved ones –good and decent people – who hold fast to outworn arguments and old attitudes; who fail to see your families like their families…”

In his latest speech to gay activists he adds, “You will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman.” 

Such statements reflect a presumptuous chronological snobbery.  And, it’s a slap in the face those of us who follow Scriptural teaching.  But even worse, these statements trample on Scripture’s teaching about God’s created intent for humanity and sexuality, swapping the truth for lies and exchanging real wisdom for political expedience and cultural trendiness. 

To read my longer analysis, and the transcipts of these speeches, please visit the CitizenLink commentary.