OrthodoxNet.com Blog

Why is the Orthodox Church silent on this? Why aren’t the Orthodox bishops taking a public stand against FOCA and Obama’s abortionist policies?
NCR | JOHN L. ALLEN JR. | Nov. 13, 2008

America’s Catholic bishops have been talking about abortion and politics at least since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, but their discussion this week in Baltimore had a special sense of urgency – driven by what many bishops and their pro-life advisors regard as a looming nightmare scenario under the new Obama administration in the “Freedom of Choice Act,” or FOCA.

Candidate Obama pledged to support the Freedom of Choice Act, which was first introduced in congress in 2004 but to date has not made it out of the committee stage. It acknowledges a “fundamental right” to abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy and at subsequent stages for health reasons. It would also bar discrimination in the exercise of the right “in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services or information.”

In effect, FOCA could undo most, or even all, of the existing restrictions on abortion under a patchwork of state and federal laws. Experts say that around the country there are currently some 300 such restrictions, including parental notification laws, waiting periods, requirements of full disclosure of the physical and emotional risks inherent in abortion, and limits on partial birth abortion. more »

Boston.com | Foon Rhee | Nov. 18, 2008

Obama is pledging to make America more energy independent and to also slash carbon emissions by focusing on alternative sources such as wind and solar. He is also vowing to work more cooperatively with other nations on climate change.

“Few challenges facing America — and the world – are more urgent than combating climate change,” he says in the video. “The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We’ve seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season. Climate change and our dependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken our economy and threaten our national security. more »

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American Thinker | Bruce Walker | Nov. 16, 2008

It has been sixty years since George Orwell wrote his chilling dystopian classic, 1984, and it has been thirty years since we saw the creepiest example of educated and free people willingly walking into a living dystopia. November 18, 1978, three decades ago, 918 people drank Kool-Aid laced with cyanide. Jim Jones, the communist leader of Jonestown, Guyana, had become “Big Brother.” Soviet and Communist Chinese propaganda films and condemnations of capitalist and imperialist America blared continually to the subjects of this island of Leftist Hell. more »

CNA.com | Nov. 14, 2008

The Spanish daily “La Razon” has published an article on the pro-life conversion of a former “champion of abortion.” Stojan Adasevic, who performed 48,000 abortions, sometimes up to 35 per day, is now the most important pro-life leader in Serbia, after 26 years as the most renowned abortion doctor in the country.

“The medical textbooks of the Communist regime said abortion was simply the removal of a blob of tissue,” the newspaper reported. “Ultrasounds allowing the fetus to be seen did not arrive until the 80s, but they did not change his opinion. Nevertheless, he began to have nightmares.” more »

CNSnews.com | Julie Stahl | Nov. 14, 2008

Palestinian Christians are suffering “severe blows” at the hands of Muslims, a Palestinian wrote in an exceptionally candid column about the situation of Christians in Arab countries.

“Let us be honest with ourselves and courageously say out loud that Palestinian Christians are taking many severe blows, yet are suffering in silence so as not to attract attention,” wrote Abd Al-Nasser Al-Najjar in the P.A. daily Al-Ayyam. more »

American Thinker | Gary Larson | Nov. 14, 2008

Intolerance on modern college (and even high school and junior high) campuses is not new, it is plainly clear, in these supposed bastions of free inquiry. They’ve become politicized to the core. Free speech itself is imperiled by their codes. Professors rule. Conservatives are muzzled. It runs one-way on most campuses, fiercely anti-Republican and, in general if not more so, wildly against all conservatives. What happened to 18-year old Annie Grossmann was perhaps a double whammy, of racism and ideological hate. Either way, or both, it’s reprehensible to its heart-of-darkness core, banality of evil to be deplored by all right-thinking Americans. more »

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OrthodoxyToday | Michael Cook | Nov. 13, 2008

Euthanasia is back in the headlines. The US Supreme Court has reviewed Oregon’s assisted-suicide law. The UK’s House of Lords is debating a private members bill for euthanasia. And the Dutch government has approved a plan for the involuntary euthanasia of terminally ill infants. Shocking? Perhaps it depends on your point of view. In some places euthanasia is looked upon as a “progressive” cause. more »

More signs of “tolerance” from homosexual activists.
CBNNews.com | Nov. 12, 2008

Several churches have been vandalized by apparent supporters of same-sex marriage since the idea was banned in California last week, local police have reported.

Proposition 8, which defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman, was passed 52 to 47 percent on Nov. 4. Since then, local authorities have reported a protest or vandalized property nearly every day. more »

American Thinker | James Lewis | Nov. 14, 2008

Europe would crumble like a soggy crouton without America’s commitment to its defense. We saw that happen three times in the 20th century, and the bad news is that it’s starting again. Real danger is at the gates; Europe’s Ruling Class is in denial; and half of it is preparing to surrender to the Russians or the Muslim fascists, whichever gets there first. more »

Coming to a church near you. Lessons in “tolerance” from homosexual activists who show us just how peaceful, loving, understanding, fair, and unbiased they really are.

Catholic Online | Deacon Keith Fournier | Nov. 12, 2008

This past Sunday, during a Worship Service at the Church, a group of loud and intentionally disruptive homosexual activists stood outside of the sanctuary of Mount Hope dressed in strange pink attire. Using megaphones for amplification, they shouted epithets at those entering the service such as “Jesus is a homo”. They also mockingly carried an upside down pink cross.
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Salvo Magazine | Greg Koukl | Nov. 10, 2008

So you’ve decided to become a moral relativist. Good for you! What could be better than doing whatever feels right? What could be worse than letting someone tell you what you should and shouldn’t do? Plus, it’s one of the easiest worldviews to adopt: Just leave everyone else alone and demand that they do the same for you, and you’ll never have to worry again about whether your actions are right or wrong. In fact, there are really only seven things that you can’t do as a moral relativist. Simply follow the rules below, and you’ll be free from absolutes forever! more »

It’s not even day one of Obama’s presidency but the promised actions of our future Marxist in Chief will spell disaster for this country.

Investor’s Business Daily | Nov. 10, 2008

President-elect Obama isn’t planning to wait for Congress to pass his agenda. On Day One, he plans to rescind Bush executive orders on everything from embryonic stem cell research to offshore drilling. more »

Guardian UK | John Vidal and Nick Rosen | Nov. 9, 2008

Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.

The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground. more »

TouchstoneMag | editors | Nov. 2008

There has been a steady campaign by some Christians who regard themselves as orthodox and conservative to persuade the rank and file of their Christian brothers and sisters to rethink their predictable support for political candidates who are pro-life. They bring other issues to the fore—war, torture, taxes, education, health care, and poverty—in an attempt to undermine the claim that conscientious Christians must always support pro-life candidates. They imply that such “single-issue” pro-life voting is unsophisticated, often in lockstep with the mostly uneducated “religious right,” and perhaps not even very moral in the long view. more »

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LifeNews.com | Wesley J. Smith | Nov. 6, 2008

I am having trouble keeping up: Every day now almost, it is one once unthinkable thing after another. In the UK, a woman tried to commit suicide by swallowing anti-freeze, and doctors refused to save her! more »

American Thinker | C. Edmund Wright | Nov. 6, 2008

Conservatism did not lose last night, as it was not on the ballot. The big winner was ignorance and the biggest loser was the Bush-Rove-McCain brand of watered down Republicanism. Yes, the Bush-Rove-McCain brand. They gave us each other. Much as the two men cannot stand each other, they are ironically much the same. And the result is indeed a new tone in Washington, and it is a scary dreary leftist tone.

We will never beat it back until the watered down bi-partisans are flushed from the system. Thomas Jefferson loved partisanship. Hugo Chavez does not. That should tell us all we need to know about this flawed path our party has been on for many years. Tuesday, our aisle-crossing chickens came home to roost. more »