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LONDON (CNS) -- The Catholic bishops of England and Wales said they could be at risk of prosecution under a proposed law unless they accept women, sexually active gays and transsexuals as candidates to the priesthood. They made their claims in a briefing for Catholic members of the House of Lords, Britain's upper political chamber, ahead of a scheduled Dec. 15 debate on the Equality Bill, which aims to stamp out discrimination in the workplace. The bishops said the bill defines priests as employees rather than officeholders. Under the terms of the bill, the church would be immune from prosecution...

WND reports that "A school district in Arizona has come under fire after a newspaper columnist highlighted the district's newly adopted racial policy and called it a "two-tiered form of student discipline: one for black and Hispanic students; one for everyone else." According to the columnist [Doug MacEachern] "TUSD [Tucson Unified School District] principals and disciplinarians…are being asked to set two standards of behavior for their students…Some behavior will be met with strict penalties; some will not. It all depends on the color of the student's skin." School district officials claim they are just trying to correct racial discrimination in...

In an era where our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero-sum game," Obama said. "No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. That is the future America wants."

Liberal Professor Mr. Tugan-Baranovsky is on the war path against socialism. This time he has approached the question, not from the political and economic angle, but from that of an abstract discussion on equality (perhaps the professor thought such an abstract discussion more suitable for the religious and philosophical gatherings which he has addressed?). "If we take socialism, not as an economic theory, but as a living ideal," Mr. Tugan declared, "then, undoubtedly, it is associated with the ideal of equality, but equality is a concept . . . that cannot be deduced from experience and reason." This is the...

Nodding to Professor Henry Louis (Skip) Gates Jr. at his Whaling Church panel discussion Achieving Equality in the Age of Obama last night, Princeton professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell shook her head and said: ”If you had told me this time last year, when we were all pretty emotionally up and excited, even though George W. Bush was still our President, that we would actually feel worse a year later, when Barack Obama was our President, about questions of race in America, I would have told you you were lying.” Yet Mr. Gates acknowledged his part in bringing down the mood nationwide...

KANO, Nigeria -- As military rule ended in Nigeria a decade ago, an Islamic legal system was swept into place on a wave of popular support...It has turned out in a way few expected. The draconian amputation sentences have mostly not come to pass. But neither has the utopia envisioned by backers of sharia law, who believed politicians' promises that it would end decades of corruption and pillaging by civilian and military rulers. The people are still poor and miserable and politicians are still rich. How the battles over sharia play out could have effects beyond Nigeria, a nation pivotal...

URGENT- Petition Congress Join us in sending this petition to the U.S. Congress! Demand that they enroll under the President's Healthcare System if they want it for us! They have exempted themselves from the proposed healthcare system. If it is good enough for us- it is good enough for them. Send it to your family and friends! Click on the link: http://www.healthtransformation.net/cs/goodenoughforcongress

What exactly does Mr. Obama mean by disproportionately? African Americans and Latinos make up 28% of the U.S. population, but commit 60% of the crimes in the country. A non-racist would have said that he didn't have the facts and could not comment. He let the proverbial cat out of the bag. We now know exactly what he thinks. All the spinning by the White House can't change what he believes. "Now, I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that," Mr. Obama continued. "But I think it's fair to...

Today in our society's quest for racial equality all we have accomplished is allowing one double standard to merely be replaced by another double standard. This is hardly progress.

STATE GOVERNMENT HAS NEVER BEEN SO CLOWNISH, SO EVIL, SO IRRELEVANT Having witnessed the anarchy, chaos and lack of leadership that has engulfed the state Capitol during the past month, I have a painful confession to make. After three decades as a journalist covering state government, if I had to do it all over again, I'd find another job. I've covered Govs. Hugh Carey, Mario Cuomo, George Pataki, Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson and for New York to wind up like this after 35 years of modern leadership, it's clear to me that my real job has been to chronicle...

From a best-selling novelist, a heartfelt and deeply provocative message for the Cabinet's equality zealot. Last week, I had lunch with a group of remarkably successful women. They worked in advertising, and among them were the creative director of a major firm in New York, the head of research of a company in London, and the copywriting chief of one of the biggest firms in Manhattan. All of them were married and had a child or two, and they all clearly earned a lot of money and had plenty of fun, in and out of the office. You might think...

A native of Mozambique has sued a New Jersey medical school, saying he was suspended for defining himself in class as a "white African-American." Paulo Serodio, 45, is of Portuguese descent. But his family has lived in Mozambique for several generations. He told ABC News that he got into trouble at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark in March 2006 when an instructor, Dr. Kathy Ann Duncan, led students in a discussion, asking them for self-definitions. Serodio's description of himself upset some other students, and he said Duncan later told him never to call himself...

For the past few years, I’ve been arguing that those who like to be called “liberals” should instead be called statists. You know these people. They are the ones who, full of righteous indignation, speak incessantly of injustice and oppression in America. They also speak, in sentences full of smug self-assurance, as if they and only they possess the empathy and intellectual fortitude necessary to provide “solutions” to a host of social “problems” thrust upon a good people by a bad “society.” Edmund Burke was talking about these statists when he said “by (their) unprincipled facility of changing the state...

Why do the most deliberate and sustained attacks on the family so often come from the socialist side of the political spectrum? While modern industrial capitalism puts pressure on the family, this pressure is incidental to the main structures of the market economy. By contrast, the most profound attacks on the family, including easy divorce, abortion and same sex marriage, have come deliberately from Socialism, not as its unintended by-product. My purpose today is to show that the socialist ideal of equality has played an independent role in the breakdown of the family. Socialism, which has grown up in parallel...

They called it history-making here in Minneapolis. Yesterday, Elissa Reinsma became the first female to compete in the state high school wrestling tournament. It was not a step forward. Some cultures spend a thousand years unlearning the brutality of men toward women.

E.J. Dionne asked a question in his column yesterday that would seem to allow for a quick and easy answer, especially to those who don't bother to think about what he's really asking: Do We Want a More Equal Society? The central issue in American politics now is whether the country should reverse a three-decade long trend of rising inequality in incomes and wealth. Dionne begins this exercise by establishing as fact something that may be true to numbers, but is certainly not true to truth. First, Dionne completely ignores the fact that every group has increased its time adjusted...

Old, but fascinating analysis of what modern liberalism is about: "Modern liberalism is a leftist and nihilistic rebellion against the inherently unequal nature of the human condition. If we conservatives named this ideology for what it is, we would have a fair chance to defeat it or at least stem its advance. But if we go on imagining that leftists are liberals who share with us a common moral consensus as Americans—if we continue to regard their hateful assaults on us and our institutions as expressions of "silly" political correctness rather than of their fundamental drive to abolish our system...

With President Obama’s signing today of a new federal law, the size of your paycheck may become just a little more interesting to your co-workers. Enactment of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is likely to spark many employees’ interest in possible pay discrimination. The measure will remove obstacles to lawsuits on the issue by reversing a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that refuted pay-discrimination charges by Lilly Ledbetter, a supervisor at a Goodyear Tire and Rubber plant in Alabama. The high court had rejected Ms. Ledbetter’s claim because it wasn’t filed within the 180-day statute of limitations. The new legislation...

On election night the majority voted that marriage is acceptable only for heterosexual couples. But most registered domestic partnerships in California are heterosexual as well. Some heterosexuals choose this over marriage because the federal government does not recognize domestic partnerships. Thus an individual can qualify for certain federal benefits, such as supplemental security income, in a domestic partnership but not in a marriage. Couples in domestic partnerships can also file federal tax returns as individuals and avoid the marriage penalty. Excerpt from California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility

VAY — The U.S. Secret Service is being asked to review a sign a Bonner County landowner put up which suggests a "free public hanging" of President-elect Barack Obama and several other political figures. The handmade cardboard sign also features a noose fashioned from a length of nylon rope. "That's a political statement. They can call it whatever they want, a threat or whatever," said Ken Germana, who installed the sign on his property off Golden Gate Road in southwestern Bonner County. Obama's name is the most prominent on the sign, although it also bears the names of former Democrat...

Two solitudes In Canada, the expression "two solitudes" was traditionally used to describe relations between the English and French, two founding "nations" (in the French sense of the word) "warring within the bosom" of our one "nation" (in the English sense). This has become somewhat dated, for under our official state policy of "multiculturalism," today it would be more accurate to refer to "innumerable solitudes." The idea of "two solitudes" itself we lifted from Benjamin Disraeli (our invisible Father of Confederation, in so many ways), who applied it to the "two nations" he thought had formed within early Victorian Britain,...

"There is a special place in hell for women who do not help other women," former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once remarked. Where, then, are the liberal women when it comes to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin? Palin became the first woman to grace a Republican ticket on Friday, August 29, when Senator John McCain selected her as his running mate. The following day, a diarist at the mainstream left-wing Daily Kos (Barack Obama himself appeared as a Kos diarist back in 2005) suggested without any evidence whatsoever that Sarah Palin's son, Trig, recently born and with Down syndrome, was...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) -- Nine-year-old Jericho Scott is a good baseball player -- too good, it turns out. The right-hander has a fastball that tops out at about 40 mph. He throws so hard that the Youth Baseball League of New Haven told his coach that the boy could not pitch any more. When Jericho took the mound anyway last week, the opposing team forfeited the game, packed its gear and left, his coach said. Officials for the three-year-old league, which has eight teams and about 100 players, said they will disband Jericho's team, redistributing its players among other...

To avoid recent rules which insist on better women’s representation on company boards, a number of firms are changing their status from public limited companies (ASA) to ordinary limited companies (AS), which have no such requirements. Recent rules require more women on company boards. Sanctions for not reaching a minimum 40 percent of both sexes, include companies being forced to disband. From 2006 to the present, 199 ASA’s have reregistered as AS-companies. A total of 138 companies have done the opposite, writes daily newspaper Aftenposten. Social scientist Marit Hoel thinks that it is primarily smaller companies which have changed status...

This morning, I read the magazine What Is Enlightenment that Glenn picked up for me from a local health food store because the cover had a number of articles about men including "Constructing the New Man," "19 Powerful Women Tell the Truth about Men," and "A Scandalous Look at Scandinavia: Where women are women and men are too." Uh, okay, I thought, this can't be good, it's a magazine from a crunchy organic healthfood store with what I assumed would be a somewhat biased picture of the male gender complete with articles describing how men should be more like women....

“Comparable Worth” = Government Wage Control! The House of Representatives is gearing up for a vote this week on a bill that would institute the longtime feminist dream of comparable worth. Decades ago, in order to address the so-called gender pay gap in America, the feminists invented the code words “comparable worth,” “pay equity,” and the elusive “glass ceiling.” Contrary to feminist dogma, the gap is not created by a conspiracy of male chauvinists, but by the voluntary division of domestic labor. Clearly, a degree in education or women’s studies simply doesn’t earn the same pay as a degree in...

MADRID (AFP) - Women have historically suffered discrimination in the name of religion, and the world's great faiths must do more to encourage gender equality, theologians told a seminar at a Saudi-organised conference Thursday. "Women have been forgotten and marginalised in religions," Juan Jose Tamayo, director of theology at Madrid's Juan Carlos III university, told a roundtable on the second day of the World Conference of Dialogue in Madrid, aimed at bringing the great monotheistic faiths closer together. "They are organised hierarchically and patriarchically, excluding women in all fields of knowledge and religious matters." Now, at the start of the...

The anthropologist Margaret Mead once observed that in the 1930s, when she was busy remaking the idea of culture, the notion of cultural diversity was to be found only in the 'vocabulary of a small and technical group of professional anthropologists'. Today, everyone and everything seems to have its own culture. From anorexia to zydeco, the American philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah has observed, there is little that we don't talk about as the product of some group's culture. In this age of globalisation many people fret about Western culture taking over the world. But the greatest Western export is not...

Anything in these remarks that does not stray from the truth is indebted to the American Founders, who bequeathed these ideas to us, to Abraham Lincoln, who preserved and ennobled them in the country's greatest crisis, to Harry V. Jaffa, who has done more than anyone since Lincoln to recover them, and to the late Tom Silver, the wisest and best of those who founded the Claremont Institute for the sake of these ideas. American children are not born understanding the principles of their country, and most American college students—if reports can be believed—are still largely unfamiliar with them...

While Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has vowed to make pay equity for women a top priority if elected president, an analysis of his Senate staff shows that women are outnumbered and out-paid by men. That is in contrast to Republican presidential candidate John McCain's Senate office, where women, for the most part, out-rank and are paid more than men. Obama spoke in Albuquerque, N.M. last week about his commitment to the issue and his support of a Senate bill to make it easier to sue an employer for pay discrimination. "Mr. McCain is an honorable man, we respect his...

Racial-Preference Ballots Go National Initiatives in four states could shape the presidential election. 16 April 2008 With race looming as a key issue in the fall elections—perhaps a pivotal one, assuming that Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee—diehard defenders of the racial status quo are going to unprecedented lengths to prevent voters from having their say on government-sponsored racial preferences. Leftist activists are lining up to fight four state ballot initiatives that, if passed on November 4, will outlaw preferential treatment based on race, gender, and national origin in public university admissions as well as government hiring and contracting. Knowing...

The eruption of outrage, shock and fear that is flowing over Barack Obama’s campaign like hot lava because his pastor has preached some strident sermons tells us one thing for certain: Many white people don’t know black people at all. If they did, they would know that Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago is hardly the only black minister who uses the pulpit to rant against racial duplicity and injustice. The black church has always been the place for letting our hair down and speaking our peace -- a safe haven from the criminations outside. It’s how and why the black...

Iran dissident defies jail fighting for equality By Kay Biouki in Tehran, and Gethin Chamberlain Last Updated: 12:31am GMT 02/03/2008 A woman facing jail in Iran for speaking out against the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has denounced the country's Islamic revolution for "destroying a generation" of Iranians. Parvin Ardalan: 'Resistance has become a way of life for us' Parvin Ardalan, 41, said women and religious and cultural minorities faced discrimination under the hard-line policies adopted by Tehran after the mullahs seized power in 1979. Miss Ardalan is due to fly to Stockholm this week to receive the Olof Palme...

Some liberals ask “if Obama loses is it because he’s black?” But I think the better question should be “if Obama wins was it because he’s black?” If Obama and his followers want equality then there is no such thing as going too hard against him. he should be criticized like all the others who have gone before him, Republican and Democrat. He should be scrutinized like all the others before him, Republican and Democrat. He should be treated like anyone else. But if the MSM is pulling punches on Obama its because THEY are the ones who are acting...

The question I’d like to pose this Martin Luther King Day weekend is: Are we likely to witness the end of racial preferences soon — not just in our lifetimes, not just within the 25 years that Justice O’Connor “expected” in 2003, but in the next, say, 5 to 10 years? I think there is a good chance that we will. But I’m a non-determinist, so nothing is inevitable. In other words, I think we’ll win, but I know that we can still lose. There are different ways to think about this question, and different factors to consider. Demographics, Law,...

"All’s fair in love, war, and paternity cases. When child support is sought, there is scarcely any deceit that courts won’t push aside under the “best interests of the child” test."Courts have ruled that boys who were statutorily raped by older women must pay child support. Courts have ruled that when a woman has taken the semen from a condom a man used for sex with a different woman and has inserted it in herself, the man must still pay child support. Courts have ruled that when a woman has concealed her pregnancy (denying the man the right to be...

Appeals Court Rejects Michigan Man's Abortion-Child Support Case Email this article Printer friendly page by Steven Ertelt LifeNews.com Editor November 6, 2007 Lansing, MI (LifeNews.com) -- A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court's decision making a Michigan man pay child support for his ex-girlfriend's baby. Matthew Dubay, a 26 year-old computer programmer, says men should have the same rights as women do under Roe v. Wade to exempt themselves from responsibilities for a child they don't want. The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued its decision on Tuesday and sided with U.S. District Judge David Lawson, who...

It already appears, that there must be in every society of men superiors and inferiors, because God has laid in the constitution and course of nature the foundations of the distinction. -- John Adams (Thoughts on Government, 1776). Reference: The Works of John Adams, Charles Adams, ed., 427.

Socialism kills By Dennis Prager - September 2, 2003 -© 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc. Europe has given the world Marxism, communism, fascism, Nazism, racism and socialism, all rotten ideas that have caused immeasurable human suffering. But for Europeans and their ideological twins on the American left and at universities, ideas are not judged by their ability to ameliorate human suffering or reduce evil, but by their complexity and apparent profundity. An idea is not good because it produces good – that's unromantic American pragmatism – it is good because it sounds good. First, the socialist mind loathes work. Second, socialism...

Attacking "God" has become a lucrative book business. But there's not much substance behind the latest atheist tracts. There is nothing new under the sun," proclaims the Book of Ecclesiastes. The rise of the new new atheism confirms this ancient biblical wisdom. Of course the famous words of Ecclesiastes should not be taken in a slavishly literal sense, a technique that is all-too-common among those who think they can refute belief in God by showing that the Bible abounds in demonstrably false and self-contradictory statements.

Jordanian Warrant Officer Emad instructs trainees from the second class of female Iraqi Army soldiers on proper breathing techniques while firing an AK-47, part of their basic training at the Jordanian Royal Military College in Jordan. Defense Depart. photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Ashley Brokop Iraqi Women 'Move History Forward' Iraqi lawyer's speech highlights women?s history celebration. By Spc. Carl N. Hudson Combined Press Information Center CAMP TAJI, Iraq, March 26, 2007 -- The 615th ?Cold Steel? Aviation Support Battalion hosted a Women?s History Month celebration here March 19. U.S. Army Lt. Col. Holly Cook, 1st Cavalry...

The day When the media will not be anti Israel biased1) When there is an account of every single Arab Muslim terrorism.2) When Israeli victims of terror will turn to human from being "tanks" in media's dehumanization.3) When the (BBC, NPR, etc.) reporter will finally visit an Israeli hospital for a change.4) When a rare (if/when) abuse by an Israeli soldier won't be overblown any more than that of any other westerner's case.5) When those drama words, bigoted slurs (like: "apartheid", "racism") invented by Arabism, Palestinianism upon Israel's war on fascists' terror won't be used.6) When it will remember to...

High school cheerleaders must now cheer for girls' teams as often as for boys' teams thanks to federal education officials' interpretations of Title IX, the civil rights law that mandates equal playing fields for both sexes. According to The New York Times, almost no one directly involved wants this -- not the cheerleaders, not the fans, not the boys' teams, and not even the girls' teams. But it doesn't matter: The law coerces cheerleaders to cheer at girls' games. Of all the myths that surround Left-Right differences, one of the greatest is that the Left values liberty more than the...

'This has given Israeli Arabs a sense of belonging' http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1167467834590&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull When Avraham Burg retired from the Knesset, he left behind the dubious honor of receiving the top slot in the Labor list twice, but never receiving a cabinet appointment. On Sunday, Burg's replacement in the Labor Party, MK Ghaleb Majadle, proved that the third time could be the charm when he was approved as the country's first Arab minister.

Liberals worry about equality of outcome. They don’t worry about whether equality of outcome is merited; they just worry about equality of outcome. One of the worst things about the midterm election of 2006 could be the fact that liberals like Barney Frank of Massachusetts are now in a powerful position to inflict equality of outcome on the American People. The concept of equal outcomes seduces the vapid mind with a sinister charm. On the surface, it eliminates jealousy, envy and insecurity, and engineers peace among mankind. On the surface, so should Marxism and Fascism. In truth, equality of outcome...

Ideas can be dangerous. I have learnt that the hard way. But I know that when it comes to freedom and human rights these precious ideas, so valued in the West, are worth fighting for. As a young Muslim woman, born in Somalia, I abandoned my family to avoid an arranged marriage to a distant cousin and fled to Holland. I was just 23 and I had no idea back then that my refusal to submit to a traditional Muslim woman’s life would come to dominate my whole career. So for me, the debate that is raging about the veil,...

Unveiled women who get raped deserve it. That’s the pedagogy preached by the Mufti of Australia, Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali, who recently sparked an international stir by pronouncing that women who do not veil themselves, and allow themselves to be “uncovered meat”, are at fault if they are raped. This is nothing new, of course, and it is somewhat mysterious why the Sheikh’s comments have caused any shock at all, since his view is legitimized by various Islamic texts and numerous social and legal Islamic structures. And that is why back in September 2004 in Denmark, al-Hilali’s Australian counterpart, the...

Equality California (EQCA) released its 2005-2006 Legislative Scorecard today, ranking 120 legislators and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on their support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality. Lawmakers passed a record-breaking 15 pieces of EQCA-sponsored legislation during the session, including 14 bills and one resolution. A total of 66 members of the California Senate and Assembly voted in support of EQCA-sponsored legislation 90 percent of the time, or more. Those lawmakers represent more than half of the state's entire legislative body. In addition, 51 legislators stood up for every EQCA-sponsored measure that came up for a vote. The Legislature continues...

HARRISONBURG, Va., Oct. 5 — The James Madison University men’s and women’s cross-country teams had run especially well against an elite field during a competition late last month in eastern Pennsylvania. Afterward, Coach Dave Rinker gathered a giddy, excited group of athletes with tears in his eyes. Rinker’s runners noticed he was not smiling. In the middle of the meet, back here on the James Madison campus, the university had announced it was eliminating men’s cross country and track, along with eight other, mostly men’s, sports to comply with Title IX, the federal gender-equity law. “Title IX was created in...

Growing income disparity doesn’t presage a new labor movement at home — but it may signal more terrorism for us abroad. In 1914, Henry Ford paid his factory workers $5 a day, twice the going rate, with the aim of creating a broad middle class able to buy the cars they were building. Today, that project isn’t faring so well: The Economist reports that in the U.S. “the gap between rich and poor is bigger than in any other advanced country.” And it’s growing. According to the Congressional Budget Office, from 1979 to 2001, the after-tax income of the...