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New gay rights law are forcing the Church to pull out of adoption services in every diocese in Wales.The St David's Children's Society, which covers the three Welsh dioceses of Cardiff, Menevia and Wrexham, will cut ties with the bishops and become an independent charity so it can comply with the Sexual Orientation Regulations. It is the third largest of the 13 Catholic adoption agencies in England and Wales and finds new families for about 35 children a year - about 14 per cent of all cases in Wales.Its loss will be a massive blow to the Church, which founded...

Like the women two decades ago who decided to become mothers on their own — sparking a redefinition of family, not to mention a culture war — single men, gay and straight, hear the ticking biological clock. And they are moving beyond looking for Ms. or Mr. Right. Now, with fertility technology or adoption, the men are becoming single fathers. Last month, the singer Ricky Martin, 36, became the father of twins by surrogacy. Mr. Martin intends to be the sole parent, his publicist, John Reilly, said. Statistics on single fathers by choice are few, but there are indications that...

Jamie Lee Curtis on Sarah Palin: I couldn't hold my own for one minute in a debate on any issue with someone like a Barack Obama or Joseph Biden and neither can Sarah Palin. When the call comes at 3AM I want a mind who was at the top of their class, who has gravitas and a real intellect. I want a leader who is a scholar who can hold the history of civilization in his head and will read and learn from the past as he charts the future. Real debates, where issues are explored, are the only way,...

A ban against unmarried couples becoming foster or adoptive parents is scheduled to appear on Arkansas ballots this fall – and some say the measure is geared at denying homosexuals the chance to raise children. The Arkansas Family Council Action Committee submitted 85,389 of the required 61,974 voter's signatures to place the proposal on the Nov. 4 ballot, according to Associated Press reports. Family Council President Jerry Cox said getting the proposed act on the ballot is a significant step for families. "Arkansas needs to affirm the importance of married mothers and fathers," he said. "We need to publicly affirm...

A proposal aimed at effectively banning gays and lesbians from becoming foster or adoptive parents was cleared Monday to appear on this fall's ballot in Arkansas. The measure would prohibit unmarried couples living together from fostering or adopting children....

The same California Supreme Court that created a "right" to homosexual "marriage" earlier this year has now ruled that the state may force healthcare professionals to provide services that support an immoral and physically dangerous lifestyle. California's highest court was unanimous in its decision on Monday that Christian doctors may not refuse to perform artificial insemination for homosexual patients. (See "California court says no religious exemption for doctors") Attorney Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), reacts to the ruling. "This is a clear violation of the fundamental rights of individuals to live and practice their faith," he...

Proof was uncovered tonight that Obama was adopted. Images of the scanned adoption papers are at this link.

In what the employment bar is calling a “bombshell decision,” the MCAD has quietly announced it will apply the Massachusetts Maternity Leave Act to both women and men. The revelation came at a recent Foley Hoag client event at which the guest speaker, MCAD Commissioner Martin B. Ebel, told the crowd of about 200 surprised lawyers and corporate officials that, effective immediately, his office plans to prosecute MMLA cases in a gender-neutral fashion. In a follow-up interview with Lawyers Weekly, Ebel confirmed that he made the statements and that, for the first time in the history of the statute, the...

Europe Catholic adoption agency’s new policy will allow homosexuals to adopt London, Jul 27, 2008 / 05:57 pm (CNA).- The largest Catholic adoption agency in England and Wales has decided to implement an adoption policy that does not rule out same-sex couples in the face of new laws that forbid such screening. The change in its adoption policy was made with the full support of the bishops who oversee the agency.

In the debate over gay marriage, strikingly little attention has been paid to the impact on children. Some question the wisdom of having children raised by two homosexuals, but the best they can seem to argue is that serious flaws vitiate the literature defending it. Almost no attention has been devoted to what may be the more serious political question of who will supply the children of gay "parents," since obviously they cannot produce children themselves. A few will come from sperm donors and surrogate mothers, but very few. The vast majority will come, because they already do come, from...

“I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family, so, no, I don’t believe in gay adoption,” McCain said in a weekend interview with the New York Times. "I encourage adoption, and I encourage the opportunities for people to adopt children. I encourage the process being less complicated so they can adopt as quickly as possible. And Cindy and I are proud of being adoptive parents."

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - A man convicted of murdering his adoptive parents was put to death by lethal injection in Texas on Thursday, the second prisoner executed in the state since the U.S. Supreme Court lifted an unofficial death penalty moratorium in April. Carlton Turner's was the first of three executions scheduled for July in Texas -- the country's busiest death penalty state. Texas has 14 more executions slated for this year. Turner, 29, was convicted of fatally shooting his adoptive parents -- Carlton Sr., 43, and Tonya, 40 -- in their Irving, Texas, home in August 1998. Turner, 19...

Portland, Maine - An adult adoption involving lesbian partners and a claim to a share of a family fortune built on IBM has been annulled, bouncing the case to Maine's highest court. At issue is whether it was legal for a judge to allow Olive Watson to adopt Patricia Spado in 1991 in Knox County, where the longtime partners spent several weeks each summer on an island in Penobscot Bay. Watson was a daughter of Thomas Watson Jnr, who took International Business Machines Corp from punch cards into electronic computing. The relationship between Spado and Watson ended a year after...

by Laura Echevarria I learned something new about John McCain this week. I knew that he and his wife had an adopted daughter and that Cindy McCain had brought her home as an infant after visiting Mother Teresa in India. What I did not know was that when they brought their little girl back to care for her and save her life, they brought back another little girl as well. She was adopted by one of McCain's aides. Read the full story at: http://www.LifeNews.com/nat4026.html

The UK's Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has warned that an initiative of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will bring the EU closer to mandating unrestricted legal abortion for its member states. PACE has proposed a draft resolution on the problem of the abandonment of children, particularly newborns, in Europe. But as with most discussions of the problems facing mothers, the resolution quickly reveals the strong pro-abortion mindset of its drafters, who call on member states to push for greater liberalisation of abortion restrictions. The resolution reads, "To fight against abandonment, the Assembly...

This is an interesting article as not much was known about her. She was on Leno the other night and it was an interesting interview. It turns out that she is a character as she is or has been a race car driver and is also a pilot. She flies John around the country to his rallies. After hearing that about her and reading this I now have a lot of respect for her. Election 2008 : Cindy Hensley McCain has been disparaged as a trophy wife, a Barbie, an heiress with fancy purses, even the Paris Hilton of politics....

Adoptees use DNA to find surname By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News The tests read a number of genetic markers on the Y chromosome Male adoptees are using consumer DNA tests to predict the surnames carried by their biological fathers, the BBC has learned. They are using the fact that men who share a surname sometimes have genetic likenesses too. By searching DNA databases for other males with genetic markers matching their own, adoptees can check if these men also share a last name. This can provide the likely surname of an adoptee's biological father. The genetic similarities between...

A Roman Catholic adoption agency headed by Britain's most senior Catholic churchman is to defy the Government over its controversial gay equality laws. The Westminster Catholic Children's Society, whose president is Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, will ignore new rules that require it to place children with same-sex couples. While other Catholic adoption agencies are caving in to the legislation by severing their ties with the Church or even closing, the Westminster Society will continue its policy of placing children only with married heterosexuals and single people. Its stance will set the Cardinal - who welcomed Tony Blair into the Catholic Church...

London, Jun 7, 2008 / 09:32 pm (CNA).- A Catholic adoption agency in Britain has ended its service of placing children in new homes because a new anti-discrimination law forbids the agency from turning away homosexual couples. A Minister of Parliament has said the new law “smacks of a secular attack on the Catholic Church.” The Equality Act, which will come into effect on January 1, outlaws discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the provision of goods and services. Then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has since converted to Catholicism, wanted Catholic adoption agencies to be exempted from the...

Minority children in foster care are being ill-served by a federal law that plays down race and culture in adoptions, a report released on Monday said. The report, based on an examination of the law’s impact over a decade, said that minority children adopted into white households face special challenges and that white parents need preparation and training for what might lie ahead. The report points out that transracial adoption itself does not produce psychological or other social problems in children, but that these children often face major challenges as the only person of color in an all-white environment, trying...

SMH Can't be posted due to copyright issues. Heard on Fox news.

I'm surprised nobody posted this. I rarely listen to Laura, although I always enjoy when I do. Today on her show she announced she has just adopted a 3 year old Guatemalan girl. Just a little late night nice story. I'm so tired of the other ones...

GIBSONVILLE, N.C. (WGHP) – Ashley and Robert Thurman have found when it comes to adopting a child, borders and politics outweigh parenthood. Vietnam is ending a child adoption agreement with America after the U.S. embassy accused Vietnamese officials of baby selling and other corrupt adoption practices. Ashley and Robert have spent the last two years trying to adopt a child. They claim to already have spent $10,000, money they probably won't see again whether their adoption comes through or not.

A man who was adopted as a child and spent the past year researching his ancestry discovered that his biological father is on Ohio's death row for killing a corrections officer and two others in the state's worst prison riot. Sean Baker, 41, met his father, George Skatzes, 62, for the first time in March at the Mansfield Correctional Institution, where Skatzes is being held while he appeals his death sentence. Baker, a truck driver who lives in Henderson, Ky., said he was initially disturbed to learn that his father is a convicted murderer but now believes in his innocence....

im Caviezel, the star of the blockbuster film The Passion of the Christ, told an interviewer that he had been challenged by a friend who was not pro-life to live up to his professed pro-life convictions and adopt a disabled child. The friend told Caviezel that if he did that, then he would change to the pro-life position. When Caviezel and his wife, Kerri, went to China to adopt not one, but eventually two orphans suffering from brain tumours, the friend reneged on the deal. Caviezel, however, said, "It didn't matter to me because the joy that we had from...

(HANOI, Vietnam) — Vietnam has failed to police its adoption system, allowing corruption, fraud and baby-selling to flourish, the U.S. Embassy says in a new report obtained by The Associated Press. The nine-page document describes brokers scouring villages for babies, hospitals selling infants whose mothers cannot pay their bills, and a grandmother giving away her grandchild — without telling the child's mother. "I'm shocked and deeply troubled by the worst of the worst cases," said Jonathan Aloisi, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi. Vietnam's top adoption official called the concerns "groundless." Bribery of orphanage officials may...

Spotting irregularities is a tactic that is drilled into the minds of Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldiers throughout training and in practice while in Iraq. Soldiers recently watched as a car pulled up to an entry control point at Forward Operating Base Callahan in northern Baghdad. They continued to watch as a woman stepped out of the car holding a bag. Once the woman dropped the bag near the gate, internal alarms were ringing and a careful search was called for and conducted... ...That search yielded a newborn baby wrapped tightly in several cloths. Soldiers raced to the bag, retrieved...

A Ronald Reagan radio address from 1975 addresses the topics of abortion and adoption. This comes from a collection of audio commentaries titled "Reagan in His Own Voice." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo7WTBlo86s

For a mother, there can be no greater horror than having a baby snatched away by the State at birth. The women to whom it has happened say their lives are ruined for ever - and goodness knows what longterm effect it has on the child. Most never recover from this trauma. Imagine a baby growing in your body for nine months, imagine going through the emotion of bringing it into the world, only to have social workers seize the newborn, sometimes within minutes of its first cry and often on the flimsiest of excuses. Yet this disturbing scenario is...

Adoption into the House of AbrahamChris DeWeese Gal 3:26-29 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to promise. The only covenant that is to be found in the Bible that is not with Abraham or Israel/Judah is the covenant God...

Communist Party Status Is Revoked for 500 People; Social-Inequality Concerns By NICHOLAS ZAMISKA WSJ, January 8, 2008; Page A14 HONG KONG -- Chinese officials have revoked Communist Party membership for 500 people in the country's central Hubei province as punishment for violating the country's one-child rule. ***** The one-child policy is simultaneously criticized for its harshness and intrusiveness and revered for its pragmatic approach to reining in a surging population, which now tops 1.3 billion people, or roughly a fifth of the world's population. ***** Prof. Zhou found through her research that for those who can't afford the fines, the...

When Faith Allen wanted to adopt a baby, she turned to the yellow pages. Allen, 37, a professional writer from North Carolina in the US, had suffered many painful years of infertility and in 1999 decided to adopt. A friend recommended a nearby adoption agency but the three- to five-year waiting period seemed much too long to wait. That's when Allen decided to turn to the phone book. "I wound up stumbling upon a wonderful agency," said Allen who admits that she "got lucky" with her find. Nearly two years and $12,000 (E8,000) later, Allen's dearest wish was finally realised...

After six years of childless marriage, John and Cynthia Burke of Newark decided to adopt a baby boy through a state agency. Since the Burkes were young, scandal-free and solvent, they had no trouble with the New Jersey Bureau of Children's Services—until investigators came to the line on the application that asked for the couple's religious affiliation.

You can look at the box office results from last weekend and easily see that National Treasure: Book of Secrets took the #1 spot, but that's nothing. There's another movie that isn't that high up on the chart yet is still performing extraordinarily - Juno. On Friday alone, December 28th, Juno made $3.285 million on 998 screens, a per-theater-average of $3,292. This total box office earnings for Juno have now reached $25.7 million. This incredibly impressive, nearly record breaking, for a lil' indie film from Jason Reitman. Unfortunately $3.3 million on Friday isn't the absolute biggest take in history. As...

Psychologists have long believed that growing up in an institution like an orphanage stunts children’s mental development but have never had direct evidence to back it up. Now they do, from an extraordinary years-long experiment in Romania that compared the effects of foster care with those of institutional child-rearing. The study, being published on Friday in the journal Science, found that toddlers placed in foster families developed significantly higher I.Q.’s by age 4, on average, than peers who spent those years in an orphanage. The difference was large — eight points — and the study found that the earlier children...

Oh my, what a tear jerker! FYI, this mom and son will be interviewed on Fox & Friends tomorrow morning. From the Grand Rapids Press, December 18: For years, Steve Flaig, a delivery truck driver at the Lowe's store on Plainfield Avenue, had searched for his birth mother. He found her working the cash register at the front of the store. For several months, he and Christine Tallady had known each other casually as co-workers. Last Friday they met for the first time as mother and son.... For Flaig, it was the reunion he had dreamed of for much of...

Steve Flaig wasn't sure how to approach his co-worker with his big news. It would seem brash to walk up and say, "Hi, I'm Steve, your son." How would she react to that, he wondered. Flaig's long search for his birth mother ended in early October when he learned that she was the woman he previously knew only as Chris, the head cashier at a Lowe's home-improvement store just outside Grand Rapids, in Kent County's Plainfield Township."I would walk by her, look at her from a distance, not knowing how to approach her," Flaig, 22, told The Grand Rapids Press...

Michigan man reunited with birth mother at work 12/19/2007, 4:29 p.m. EST The Associated Press PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Steve Flaig wasn't sure how to approach his co-worker with his big news. It would seem brash to walk up and say, "Hi, I'm Steve, your son." How would she react to that, he wondered. Flaig's long search for his birth mother ended in early October when he learned that she was the woman he previously knew only as Chris, the head cashier at a Lowe's home-improvement store just outside Grand Rapids, in Kent County's Plainfield Township. "I would walk...

Every child is a gift, as the saying goes. But in a case that has stoked outrage on two continents, a Dutch diplomat posted in Hong Kong has been accused of returning his eight-year-old adopted daughter like an unwanted Christmas necktie. The story, which first appeared in the South China Morning Post on Dec. 9, began seven years ago, when Dutch vice consul Raymond Poeteray and his wife, Meta, adopted then-four-months-old Jade in South Korea. The couple, who also have two biological children, brought Jade with them to Indonesia and then to Hong Kong in 2004, although Poeteray never applied...

SAVANNAH, Ga. - Marine Cpl. Dustin Jerome Lee and his German shepherd, Lex, scoured Iraq for roadside bombs together, slept next to each other and even posed in Santa hats for a holiday photo. When a mortar attack killed the 20-year-old Marine in Fallujah a few months later, Lex, whimpering from his own injuries, had to be pulled away, Lee's father was told. That strong bond compelled the slain Marine's family to adopt 8-year-old Lex even though the military said he still had two years of service.

Directed by Roy Royland, this movie (These Wilder Years) has some good actors in it (and familiar names. They are: Jimmy Cagney, Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Pidgeon, and Dean Jones. But the show stealer is the character Suzie, played by Betty Lou Kiem. It is like Bella, but then it is different, as Jimmy Cagney plays a very rich man, but with something in his past that he wants to find out about. That is a son that he abandoned all responsibility years ago when the pregnant came to him for help... Barbara Stanwyck plays the heroine, but is Cagney the...

A senior European diplomat in Hong Kong has promoted outrage by giving up the seven-year-old Korean girl he adopted with his wife as a baby. The unnamed diplomat handed the girl to social workers in Hong Kong, saying the adoption had not worked out. The man and his wife adopted the girl as a four-month-old in Korea, where he was working at the time, when they thought they could not conceive. The wife since had two children and decided to hand the girl to social workers because the diplomat said the adoption had gone wrong, the Sunday Morning Post reported....

Yahoo! Rating of Movies Currently Playinghttp://movies.yahoo.com/mvc/top10 1. Bella [B+] 2. Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married? [B+] 3. Enchanted [B+] 4. August Rush [B+] ... Top Rated Movies of All Timehttp://movies.yahoo.com/mvc/top10?lid=1 1. The Shawshank Redemption {A-} 2. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King {A-} 3. The Godfather {A-} 4. Star Wars {A-} 5. Raiders of the Lost Ark {A-} 6. Schindler's List {A-} 7. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring {A-} ... 22. Bella [B+] Note that a number of the movies on the All Time [Star Wars Trilogy, Lord of the Rings,...

A BIZARRE row is set to erupt over claims that reproductive donors will be given the right to direct their sperm or eggs not go to certain groups such as Muslims, Jews, single mothers or lesbians...

ONANCOCK Before they sit down to dinner today, Mike and Meg King will take a moment to give thanks for their children. Olivia, Claire, Sara-Grace, Natalie, Jessica, Jack, Mark, Liz-Marie, Molly, Mary Catherine . . . . . . They might want to put the turkeys back in the oven so they don't get cold . . . . . . Christina, Victoria, Anastacia, Rachael, Rebecca, Julianna, Maddox, Yana Noelle, Sawyer, Maia. "We didn't really set out to adopt 20 children," said Mike. But that's precisely how many will be gathered around the table today -- plus two boyfriends --...

Bush Urges Americans to Adopt Orphans By Melissa Charbonneau CBN News November 21, 2007 Adopt Us Kids CBNNews.com - The White House is reaching out to faith-based and community groups to find homes for the nation's 115,000 children in foster care, waiting to be adopted. Dawn Cooper, a single mom of four adopted teenage girls, says misperceptions abound - especially regarding the adoption of older children. Watch for more on adopting foster care children, from Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family. Daly talks about his experiences in foster homes. Some of those misconceptions include the belief "that there's...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) -- It's among the most divisive questions in the realm of adoption: Should adult adoptees have access to their birth records, and thus be able to learn the identity of their birth parents?</p> <p>In a comprehensive report being released Monday, a leading adoption institute says the answer is "Yes" and urges the rest of America to follow the path of the eight states that allow such access to all adults who were adopted.</p>

"Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." --Albert Einstein Secularists today love to frame the religion vs. science debate as one of "superstitions" against fact as if theistic truth, morality and the spiritual aspect of humanity is meaningless fluff not to intersect with the hard fact and incontestability of science. But, as I quoted Einstein, the patron saint of scienceists, there is a part of science that dangerously crosses over into religion's realm of morality even as secularists try to deny that fact. And here is a story that does, indeed, show scientists crossing over into the...

New Delhi (CNSNews.com) - In a new twist to the outsourcing for which India has become renowned, poor Indian women are renting out their wombs to foreigners. Surrogate motherhood -- carrying to term and giving birth to another woman's baby - once was limited in India to helping close relatives who couldn't complete a pregnancy due to medical difficulties. But leading gynecologist Dr. Kamla Selvaraj says it's now becoming a regular "profession" in India, with more and more women willing to carry babies for others, for a fee. India has for years been providing foreigners with in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment...

The moment Julie Jarman set eyes on Zahina she was smitten. The seven-year-old girl from Tanzania was desperate for a loving home and Julie felt sure that she and her 11-year-old daughter could provide it. In turn Zahina would become the second daughter Julie longed for. "When I met her for the first time, she was a bit shy. I saw her hiding behind her social worker's skirt, peeping out at me with an enormous grin on her face. She was gorgeous. "She was with her foster parents in Somerset. Laura and I spent a week with them, taking things...