Children

“A Triumph for Human Rights”

United Nations Population Fund Leader Says Family Breakdown is a Triumph for Human Rights

A leader in the United Nations Population Fund UNFPA has declared that the breakdown of traditional families, far from being a “crisis,’ is actually a triumph for human rights.

Speaking at a colloquium held last month at Colegio Mexico in Mexico City, UNFPA representative Arie Hoekman denounced the idea that high rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births represent a social crisis, claiming that they represent instead the triumph of “human rights” against “patriarchy.”

“In the eyes of conservative forces, these changes mean that the family is in crisis,” he said. “In crisis? More than a crisis, we are in the presence of a weakening of the patriarchal structure, as a result of the disappearance of the economic base that sustains it and because of the rise of new values centered in the recognition of fundamental human rights.”

“Day after day, Mexico experiences a process of this diversity and there are those who understand it as a crisis, because they only recognize one type of family,” one of the speakers on the panel also told the audience.

This must be one of those stories buried by the regular press.

Maybe they just missed it.

HT: The Berean Call

Baby, Beware!

This morning, LifeNews is reporting:

President Obama Starts Process of Removing Doctors’ Protections on Abortions

The White House quietly announced on Friday that President Barack Obama is starting the process of overturning protections President Bush put in place to make sure medical staff and centers are not forced to do abortions.

I checked the White House site but didn’t find any mention of it yet.

Cannon Fodder from America?

American Somali children join jihad

Several Somali children have left the US to join the ‘jihad’ against foreign forces in Somalia, it has been reported.

According to the MidEast News Source, the children, mainly from Minneapolis and Minnesota left the country in secret, with one mother claiming that the first she knew of it was when her son called her from Mogadishu. She had earlier reported her son missing to police.

[…]

Observers believe that American children are now joining the jihad, and they have suggested that some were involved in a string of suicide attacks in Somaliland and Puntland.

It seems that their involvement coincided with the arrival of Ethiopian troops, who defeated the Islamic Courts Union. Following the recent peace deal, the Ethiopian troops have now departed.

Most of the children appear to have links with Abubakar Alsiddiq mosque in Minneapolis. But the imam there, Sheikh Abdirahman Ahmed, claimed the accusations were baseless and denied that he was recruiting fighters. There are also concerns in Europe and other continents that children are leaving for jihad in Somalia.

Right to Life in Mexico

From yesterday’s good news:

Colima Amends Constitution to Protect Right to Life

In an overwhelming 19-0 vote, legislators in the state of Colima, Mexico, decided Tuesday to amend the state’s constitution to protect the right to life “from the moment of conception.”

Article one of the state’s constitution now reads: “Life is a right inherent in every human being. The State will protect and guarantee this right from the moment of conception. The family constitutes the fundamental base of society. The State will encourage its organization and development. For the same reason, the home, and particularly the children, will be the object of special protection on the part of the authorities. Every measure or disposition for protecting the family will be considered to relate to public order…”

[…]

Similar amendments have been passed recently in the states of Baja California, Sonora, and Morelos. However, the constitutionality of the Baja California amendment is now being contested in the nation’s Supreme Court. If the Court rules negatively in the case, all similar amendments could be negated as well, making it impossible to defend the right to life at the state level.

I don’t know if amending a state constitution in Mexico is as simple as that. If it is, then that must be the law of the state.

And if it is, it’s too easy. Nineteen votes in favor is an awfully small number…especially when there were no votes against.

Maybe their Supreme Court will decree similar sentiment.

In any event, thank the Lord for good news like this.

Under Siege in Egypt

Daughter of Convert Attempts Suicide

Mariam Azmy Fouad, a Christian secondary school student in the satellite city of Tenth of Ramadan east of Cairo, narrowly escaped death when she attempted suicide after being required by her school to sit for an Islamic religion test paper even though she is Christian. Mariam’s father had converted to Islam making her, according to Egyptian law, automatically a Muslim. She was shocked and greatly humiliated at the sarcasm of her classmates which brought on hysterical tears and apparently made suicide a welcome idea.

She repeatedly cried she was Christian and would not answer the test, insisting that her faith had nothing to do with her father. After swallowing some pills, Mariam was moved to hospital where she was given a gastric lavage to save her life.

[…]

Mariam was finally allowed to take the Christian religion exam on January 29, the last day of the school term.

Pray for her strength. And her faith. And her hope. And her joy. And her peace. And her….

Consecrating a Child to God

That’s the title of our Sunday School lesson this morning.

It’s about Samson before he was born or even conceived. So it’s really about his parents, and his mother in particular.

She was supposed to restrict her diet because of her yet-unconceived child’s separation to God. (Hers may have been her own body, but that didn’t trump the “tissue mass” soon to be within her!)

This lesson made my mind jump ahead to Samson in later life. He saw a girl not of his people that he wanted for his wife. He disregarded their appeals to select a wife from among their people. He told his folks to get her for him because she pleased him well.

He despised his Nazariteness. He despised his heritage. Did he also despise his parents?

And what were they supposed to do? (I used to look down on them for going along with his demands.)

And did one or both of them treat their parents that way so now they were reaping what they had sown?

Questions with no answers available to us.

Samson — a child from God and for God.

Samson — a vision trampled, a mission botched, a commission abandoned.

Samson — redeemed in the end?

I don’t know that either.

Above all, love God!