Afghanistan, violence against children
Topic: Children and Family
Source: CNN
Statistics quantifying crimes against children are hard to come by in Afghanistan, an impoverished nation ravaged by three decades of war. In March, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission said that deteriorating security in large parts of the country, a growing culture of criminal impunity, weak law enforcement institutions, poverty and other factors had contributed to increasing violence against women, such as rape and torture. The commission also said that Afghan girls are often forced into marriages against their will. (08/07/08)

Prop 8 not retroactive, Jerry Brown says
Topic: Gay/Lesbian Issues
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
If voters approve a November ballot measure banning same-sex marriages in California, thousands of gay and lesbian weddings conducted since the state Supreme Court legalized the unions on May 15 will probably remain valid, Attorney General Jerry Brown said Monday. The potential effect of Proposition 8 on existing same-sex marriages is already being debated among legal scholars and opposing sides in the Nov. 4 ballot measure campaign. Brown's position is significant because his office will represent the state in lawsuits over Prop. 8's validity and meaning if it passes. The measure would amend the state Constitution to declare that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." It would overturn the court's ruling that the previous ban on same-sex marriage - established by statutes rather than a constitutional amendment - discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation and violated the right to marry one's chosen partner. (08/05/08)

Iowa, nude dancing decision
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: Life Site News
Nude dancing in strip clubs is "artistic" even when performed by an under age girl, according to an Iowa judge in a ruling issued late last month. Fremont County Judge Timothy O'Grady called the strip club a "theatre" and agreed with the club owner who argued that the state's indecency law does not apply to "theater, concert hall, art center, museum, or similar establishments." Hamburg, Iowa, a town of 1,200 just across the Missouri River from Nebraska, has one strip club. After the 17-year-old niece of the local Sherriff, Steven MacDonald, did a nude dance at the club, the owner, Clarence Judy, was charged with violating Iowa's public indecent exposure law. (08/07/08)

Germany kidnaps homeschooled kids
Topic: Children and Family
Source: WorldNetDaily
Five children taken into state custody by police in Germany will remain under supervision of government agents because their parents provide homeschool education. The Gorber family spent much of the day in German Family Court hearings only to learn the judge ordered the state to retain custody of five children, releasing only a 3-year-old back into his parents custody. The parents were ordered to be evaluated by a psychologist. The six children had been taken by police in a surprise raid on the family's home in January. (08/08/08)

Opposition to Harvey Milk Day
Topic: Gay/Lesbian Issues
Source: KTVU
The state Assembly passed the bill, AB 2567, which sets aside a day each year to remember Milk. The bill declares May 22, Milk's birthday, a "day of significance" in his honor. Milk, the country's first openly gay man to hold a prominent public office, was assassinated in 1978. The state Senate passed the bill on Tuesday. Now "The Campaign For Children and Families" is urging Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to veto the bill. "This bad bill will teach impressionable schoolchildren the anti-religious, homosexual-bisexual-transsexual agenda of Harvey Milk," said Campaign for Children and Families President Randy Thomasson in a statement released Thursday. (08/08/08)

Hurdle in Troyer sex tape case
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: Yahoo News
Verne Troyer is finding out the hard way that you can't copyright a sex tape that doesn't exist. Or at least, that has no paper trail. The erstwhile Mini-Me has hit yet another snag in his quest to prevent the sex tape made with former girlfriend Ranae Shrider from becoming public fodder, coming up empty in his search to locate a copy of the X-rated footage, thereby copywriting it and, ideally, preventing its distribution. (08/08/08)

Europe ignoring French role in genocide
Topic: Violence Against Women
Source: Truth Out
A damning report has accused France of knowing that a genocide was being planned as early as 1990. It also claims that French soldiers took part in rape, sexual harassment and torture during the period in 1994 when 800,000 people were killed in ethnic violence. In an interview with The Telegraph, Rosemary Museminali, the Rwandan foreign minister, said that the people responsible for the murders still needed to be brought to justice. (08/07/08)

More women donate eggs for $
Topic: Children and Family
Source: CNN Money
As the nation's economy is slumping, some fertility clinics say interest in donating has surged. "We are seeing an increase in inquiries but we're not sure if it's due to the economy or increased awareness," said Dr. Susan Willman, a reproductive endocrinologist at the Reproductive Science Center of the Bay Area. Last July, the Reproductive Science Center received 120 calls inquiring about egg donation. This year that number jumped to 158 calls. (08/06/08)

Photo, Edwards and his love child
Topic: Children and Family
Source: National Enquirer
The NATIONAL ENQUIRER is releasing the photograph that the world has been waiting for – the first-ever picture of John Edwards and his love child! The stunning “spy photo” shows the former presidential contender holding his infant daughter Frances Quinn Hunter at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles – where the ENQUIRER caught him visiting the baby’s mother, his mistress Rielle Hunter. [Ed.: this is news worthy because of Edwards' use of family in his political career and his promotion of policies re: 'family values'. He should live up to the standards he would impose on others. (08/07/08)]

NJ, Justices lift curfew on sex offender
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: Everything New Jersey
The New Jersey Parole Board violated a repeat sex offender's constitutional rights by imposing an all night curfew without giving him a chance to challenge it, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled yesterday. The court found the board violated his due process rights and must provide offenders notices and a "meaningful opportunity to be heard." "The loss of freedom occasioned by home confinement is not as complete as imprisonment in a penal institution, but it is, nevertheless, a deprivation of liberty. Meaningful procedural protections that would lessen the likelihood of mistaken imposition of a curfew ... serve both the interests of the supervised offender and the state," Justice Barry Albin wrote. (08/07/08)

Church knew of sex abuse?
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
Attorneys for four men who filed a priest sex abuse lawsuit on Monday released letters yesterday that they say suggest church officials knew of the allegations for more than a decade. According to the letters, officials of the Rev. Dennis Killion's order, the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, met in April and in 2002 with one of the four alleged victims whom he is accused of sexually abusing in the 1980s at Salesianum High School, an all-boys school in Wilmington. A news release that the order issued Monday said its leader put Killion on administrative leave after learning of the lawsuit that day. (08/07/08)

Harsh justice under resurgent Taliban
Topic: Violence Against Women
Source: Wach
As the two women hunkered down in the dark, enveloped in blue burqas, they thought the gun-toting Taliban might free them despite accusations they had run a prostitution ring for a U.S. base. The recent execution of the two women, witnessed in central Ghazni province by an Afghan journalist who contributes to The Associated Press, reflects the Taliban's resurgent presence in Afghanistan and their growing ability to dispense an extreme version of Islamic justice. (08/06/08)

Malaysia, Anwar charged with sodomy
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: KMWU
Malaysia's leading opposition figure Anwar Ibrahim was charged with sodomy at a court hearing on Thursday in a move that could damage his chances of staging a political comeback in the majority Muslim country. nwar, 60, denied the charge that he had sex with a 23-year-old male aide and was bailed until his next court appearance on September 10. This will allow Anwar to contest a by-election on August 26 in which he is the favorite. (08/07/08)

Another fat headed exercise
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Times Online
Author: Mick Hume
It appears my wife and I have upset the government, as part of the small minority of parents who refused to have our 11-year-old child weighed and measured in school last term. The authorities worry that it was the parents of fat children who opted out. Or it could have been parents like us, who object to being conscripted into a fat-headed crusade against child obesity that is heavy on political intrusion and light on proven effectiveness... (08/06/08)

What not to wear, drink, eat or say
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Spiked Online
Author: Alan Miller
New York’s ‘mayor of morality’ has banned trans-fats in the city’s restaurants, attempted to introduce a toll on drivers entering Manhattan and aimed his sights at strip clubs. Now, Bloomberg is joining forces with Microsoft magnate and philanthropist Bill Gates to launch a $500million campaign to persuade smokers in Asia, Africa and the rest of the globe to stop their nasty habit. The presidential candidates, of course, won’t be left behind. Not wanting to be eclipsed by Barack Obama’s European pop-style tour, Republican nominee John McCain held a meeting with cycling superstar Lance Armstrong in Ohio where he also promised he would push to help smokers quit. Never mind the much more important but difficult debate about what it would take to provide a truly comprehensive universal healthcare system; instead, we are offered advice on how to behave. (08/07/08)

1 brave judge resists feminist agenda
Topic: Men's Movement
Source: Phyllis Schlafly
A New Jersey judge recently confronted an issue that courts have been avoiding for years: Are restraining orders constitutional? Accused criminals have "due process" and many other constitutional rights, but feminists have persuaded many judges to issue orders that restrain actions of non-criminals and punish them based on flimsy, unproved accusations. These restraining orders are issued without the due process required for criminal prosecutions, yet they carry the threat of a prison sentence for anyone who violates them. (08/08/08)

Obama on abortion may divide Catholics
Topic: Abortion
Source: New York Times
Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, lost the Catholic vote badly to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who, like Mr. Obama, is a supporter of abortion rights, during the primaries in states like New Hampshire, Missouri and Ohio. In Pennsylvania, Catholic voters preferred Mrs. Clinton to Mr. Obama by a 40-point margin. The Obama campaign is being close-mouthed about its convention plans and would not confirm whether Mr. Casey would be given a prime-time speaking slot. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said that the call was Mr. Obama’s, but that a prominent speaking role for Mr. Casey would assist in the candidate’s efforts to woo Roman Catholic voters. (08/06/08)

Larry Flynt, the right to be left alone
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: Los Angeles Times
As seen in “Larry Flynt: The Right to Be Left Alone,” a new documentary premiering on the Independent Film Channel...Flynt has become the de facto spokesman for politically progressive publishers of what may still be called "men's magazines." The war against pornography having been won -- by pornography -- Flynt, who sued the Department of Defense to allow reporters on the front line in Afghanistan and dug up dirt on Clinton-bashing Congressman Robert Livingston during the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal, now concerns himself with the fates of the nation and the press, which are for him the same thing. (08/07/08)

Feminism past and present
Topic: Women's Studies, Scholarship, and History
Source: Arion
Author: Camille Paglia
What precisely is feminism? Is it a theory, an ideology, or a praxis (that is, a program for action)? Is feminism perhaps so Western in its premises that it cannot be exported to other cultures without distorting them? When we find feminism in medieval or Renaissance writers, are we exporting modern ideas backwards? Who is or is not a feminist, and who defines it? [Ed. please note, the link is to a .pdf] (Spring/Summer 2008)

China, the one child disaster
Topic: Children and Family
Source: WendyMcElroy.com
Author: Wendy McElroy
The one-child policy has stirred worldwide controversy both for its violation of civil rights (including the forced abortion of “extra” children) and for its unintended consequences (for example, a preference for sons has created a sex ratio of almost 120 boys to every 100 girls born). The one-child policy has been a devastating failure that was based on a shaky assumption: namely, that the world is overpopulated, and so reproduction must be controlled. (08/05/08)