Scrolling around...August 30, 2013

Massive Lawsuit Filed Against Boy Scouts Of America Includes Local Charters
A lawsuit filed Thursday in King County Superior Court alleges that the Boy Scouts of America continues to cover up a culture that ignored serial pedophiles in its ranks.

The suit was filed on behalf of 12 alleged victims and names 13 scout leaders or volunteers accused of sexual assault. The abuses alleged in the lawsuit include multiple instances of rape of boys as young as 11 years old.

Seattle Attorney Tim Kosnoff says some of the allegations date back to the 1960s. Others are as recent as 2005. Kosnoff called the alleged victims, all of whom are former scouts, courageous for coming forward.

“They did what the Boy Scouts of America did not do. They took the public interest seriously," said Kosnoff. "The Boy Scouts of America have continued to deny, minimize and outright conceal the true nature and scope of pedophile infiltration in scouting."...

Homosexualist and leather retreat in diocese of Sacramento
...The Defenders describe themselves as “a Catholic leather club,” and the About Us section of their webpage says “The Defenders/SF is a club for individuals who value and wish to celebrate both their Leather sexuality and their Christian spirituality.” The webpage of Dignity USA says “The Defenders believe that the leather experience can, when integrated and spiritually informed, actually produce a richer spirituality for us, and for the Church.”

The Leather Spirituality section of the Defenders webpage elaborates on just how a “richer spirituality for the Church could be produced: “What we notice about our sexual experience as leather people is that much of what turns us on sexually has to do with such things as power exchange (dominance/submission); trust in s/m scenes where we feel the power of vulnerability and even fear, whether our own or the placing of another’s in our hands; and the intimacy of intense physical bonding which carries deeper meaning beyond the outward act itself. Words we use in the leather community such as “honor” and “respect” reflect that as well…. For us this has taken us into acknowledging the deeper meanings of our sexuality and its connection to the interior life. We choose to identify that dimension of our life as our spirituality. For us, that connection both grounds ‘spirituality’ in a healthy, freely given sexual life and acknowledges our capacity in sexual activity to have deep and soaring, even ecstatic, experience…”...

U.S. military officers have deep doubts about impact, wisdom of a U.S. strike on Syria
...Some questioned the use of military force as a punitive measure and suggested that the White House lacks a coherent strategy. If the administration is ambivalent about the wisdom of defeating or crippling the Syrian leader, possibly setting the stage for Damascus to fall to fundamentalist rebels, they said, the military objective of strikes on Assad’s military targets is at best ambiguous.

“There’s a broad naivete in the political class about America’s obligations in foreign policy issues, and scary simplicity about the effects that employing American military power can achieve,” said retired Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold, who served as director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the run-up to the Iraq war, noting that many of his contemporaries are alarmed by the plan...

Albert Mohler: “It is the price of citizenship”?—An elegy for religious liberty in America
...Although Justice Bosson concurred with the decision against them, he seemed to understand the plight of the Huguenins:

As devout, practicing Christians, they believe, as a matter of faith, that certain commands of the Bible are not left open to secular interpretation; they are meant to be obeyed. Among these commands, according to the Huguenins, is an injunction against same-sex marriage. On the record before us, no one has questioned the Huguenin’s [sic] devoutness or their sincerity; their religious convictions deserve our respect. In the words of their legal counsel, the Huguenins “believed that creating photographs telling the story of that event [a same-sex wedding] would express a message contrary to their sincerely held beliefs, and that doing so would disobey God.” If honoring same-sex marriage would so conflict with their fundamental religious tenets . . . how then, they ask, can the State of New Mexico compel them to “disobey God” in this case? How indeed?

After asking exactly the right question, Justice Bosson then proceeded to give exactly the wrong answer—and to give it in a way that is both elegiac in tone and tragic in result. Since Elane Photography is a business offering services to the public, it cannot operate on the basis of the Huguenins’ sincerely held Christian principles. According to Bosson, the New Mexico Human Rights Act trumps religious liberty rights when the two come into collision...

IRS continues to hound Tea Party Patriots, demands more data for tax-exempt status
The initial firestorm surrounding the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups may have subsided, but tea party leaders say the situation has only become worse and may lead to more lawsuits against the embattled agency.

New documents show the depth of information the IRS is seeking from Tea Party Patriots, a leading conservative group that first applied for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status in late 2010 and one of many organizations singled out for extra scrutiny by the Obama administration...

The Culture’s War on Women
Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall” describes two neighbors who meet every spring to walk the fence dividing their properties. After a hard winter, damage has to be assessed and repaired. Perhaps, after Miley Cyrus’ controversial and crass performance at the VMA awards, it is time to assess today’s culture and seriously consider how to repair the damage to the nation’s girls and women. The objectification and exploitation of women — as seen in all its crudity in Cyrus’s performance — is a wake-up call for us all. Is that what women really want? Is that what any of us really want? But isn’t that the inevitable result of our anything-goes, sex-and-drugs saturated culture?...

Is Homeschool the Best Preparation for College? Experts Say It Strengthens Students Independence
...David Halbrook, director of communications at Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Va., said that homeschooling, if done well, offers a broad foundation of knowledge, security in the faith, and greater self-assurance. He told CP that "67 percent of this year's incoming freshmen" at Patrick Henry were homeschooled – a low from five years ago, when it reached "75 to 80 percent."

The large homeschooling population did not force the school to lower its standards, however. Halbrook listed rigorous high school academics, SAT and ACT scores as prerequisites for admission. All students take a core curriculum in the classics, founding principles, and economics, in what the director called "the format of a lot of the founding fathers."

Patrick Henry students scored highest on the Inter-Collegiate Studies Institute's American Civic Literacy Test, surpassing Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, Halbrook noted.. Also, on the national Educational Testing Service Proficiency Profile, this school's students ranked first out of 261 schools. Halbrook said that Patrick Henry students who went from homeschooling to public school – for sports or extracurricular activities – often became bored and required extra studies at home to keep them interested...


Michigan State LB Chris Norman pursues seminary instead of the NFL

Dear son, don’t let Robin Thicke be a lesson to you
...A few days ago a mom blogger wrote a letter to her daughter entitled “Dear daughter, let Miley Cyrus be a lesson to you.” Well, I have a daughter, and I echo this woman’s sentiments. But I also have a son, and I don’t want the boys to get off the hook here. My little man isn’t old enough to read yet, but one day he will be, and one day I’ll give him this letter. I don’t know if he’ll get the Robin Thicke reference at that point, but the message, I suspect, will still be urgent and relevant...