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President Barack Obama issued an executive order Monday prohibiting workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity for federal contractors. What does this mean for Christian organizations that remain faithful to the biblical teaching on homosexual behavior? Here are two main points that those groups need to be aware of: First, the order only applies to government contractors and sub-contractors, it does not apply to groups that receive government grants. Most religious non-profits that provide services for the government do so through a government grant. They would not be affected. A grant recipient is awarded money for general purpose,...

Michael Sam may not be a distraction this week at the St. Louis Rams training camp, but the same cannot be said about Tony Dungy. The former coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Indianapolis Colts found himself drawing criticism for telling the Tampa Tribune that, if he were still coaching today, he wouldn’t have drafted Sam “(n)ot because I don’t believe Michael Sam should have a chance to play, but I wouldn’t want to deal with all of it.

I have never in my life encountered a religion as oppressive, cold, and stiff as Progressivism. I’ve never known a faith more eager to burn heretics at the stake. Even a fundamentalist Iranian Muslim would flinch if he came face to face with a western liberal’s rigid dogmatism. I imagine that even a Saudi Arabian Islamic cleric would take one look at how American left wingers react when anyone deviates ever so slightly from their established orthodoxy, and say to himself, “man, these people REALLY need to chill.” The Cult of Leftism has many tenets, and it demands full compliance...

In the Hobby Lobby decision handed down last month, the Supreme Court was asked to strike a balance between women’s rights and religious freedom. But the major conflict that has erupted in the wake of that decision has been between religious freedom and gay rights. The resulting controversy has split gay-rights and faith groups on the left, with wide-ranging political fallout that some now fear could hurt both causes. One chapter of the controversy is set to close on Monday, when President Obama plans to sign a long-awaited executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against gays and lesbians, according...

The existence of gay Republicans is hardly a new phenomenon. The Log Cabin Republicans, an organization for gay men and women within the party, was founded back in 1977 in California. But every so often, the existence of gay conservatives gets media attention, particularly during election cycles. In more recent years, gay conservatives have been getting more attention as the Republican Party struggles with its identity. American opinion has shifted significantly to support top issues among gays and lesbians, particularly in support of marriage recognition. Support for gay marriage among evangelical Christians has doubled over the past decade, according to...

As it has for decades, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week released its annual National Health Interview Survey on the health of Americans. But this year, there was a difference: For the first time, the respondents were asked about their sexual orientation. Of 34,557 adults ages 18 and older, the survey reported, 1.6 percent said they were gay or lesbian. Some critics say the numbers are low, but they fall in the range of other surveys. In the new survey, however, only 0.7 percent of respondents described themselves as bisexual; other studies have reported higher numbers.

A Monroe County judge yesterday said a Key West couple can't marry despite his ruling that Florida's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional. Chief Judge Luis Garcia said in an appeal by the state of Florida, "The automatic stay, currently in place, shall remain in place until completion of appellate proceedings or until further order of this Court."

Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.) announced his support for gay marriage Monday, saying that he believes it is "fully appropriate" for a state to recognize both same-sex marriages and "traditional" ones, even though he, as a Christian, believes in the the latter. When asked by The Washington Post whether he supports gay marriage, in light of a Florida judge's decision last week to overturn the state's ban, Jolly said that his personal views on marriage are that it should be limited to one man and one woman. But, he added, states should not be defining the "sanctity" of marriage.

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I have a sensitive, inconvenient, and undoubtedly politically incorrect question: Why aren’t there more gay people? I ask because there’s something confusing about our “culture war.” Given the prominence of the issue, you would expect homosexuality to be rampant in America. When asked to estimate how many gay people there are, most people guess that it’s on the order of 20% to 25% of the population. But yet another study has been released by the CDC giving a more scientific estimate, and it finds that almost 97 percent of Americans describe themselves as straight — the actual number who describes...

"I wouldn’t have taken him. Not because I don’t believe Michael Sam should have a chance to play, but I wouldn’t want to deal with all of it. “It’s not going to be totally smooth … things will happen.’’ That's what former NFL defensive back and head coach Tony Dungy told Ira Kaufman of the Tampa Tribune when asked about the prospects for rookie defensive end Michael Sam. Of course, Sam is the league's first openly gay player, and though many league executives and players may feel exactly that way, Dungy may feel the courage to speak to his own...

President Barack Obama's executive order of July 21 has installed workplace rules forbidding the firing of gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people by the federal government and federal contractors -- a key provision in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act languishing in Congress. The U.S. bishops have opposed the bill, known as ENDA, which was passed by the Senate last November but was never scheduled for a vote in the House. The bill has been introduced in almost every Congress since 1994. "Today's executive order is unprecedented and extreme and should be opposed," said Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, chairman of...

Results of a new study show HIV rates have declined in the US. According to the report, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), from 2002 to 2011 there was a 30 percent decline in diagnosis of HIV nationwide. Despite the decrease in diagnosis, challenges still remain. Trends in HIV The study authors looked at trends in HIV during the time period among persons age 13 and older, finding 493,372 persons were diagnosed with HIV in the US. The results came from data that is part of the National HIV Surveillance System of the CDC. The biggest...

President Barack Obama held a signing ceremony for an executive order that will prohibit employment discrimination against those workers by the federal government and its contracting agencies

Conservative groups have denounced the recently signed executive order by President Barack Obama on LGBT employment discrimination, arguing that the measure does not offer sufficient religious liberty protection. Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council, said in a statement that with the executive order "Obama has ordered employers to put aside their principles, and practices in the name of political correctness." "This level of coercion is nothing less than viewpoint blackmail that bullies into silence every contractor and subcontractor who has moral objections to homosexual behavior," stated Sprigg. "This order gives activists a license to...

It’s hard to tell if the near-constant stream of millennial-centric political think-pieces are perpetuating or reflecting growing curmudgeonly fears about the future of the country. Maybe it’s a little of both, and Fox is probably observing within its competency when it pegs more than a handful of us as “deluded narcissists” – but it appears there’s room for some political optimism among all the moral panic and the reign of the religious right. With millennial religious and political attitudes in flux compared to our predecessors, the upcoming years could be the Christian left’s big moment. Which isn’t to say the...

A Missouri woman who is civilly married to a female Lutheran minister has sued Bishop Robert Finn and the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph after she was dismissed from her position as her parish’s coordinator of social ministry. Colleen Simon said that she told both the current and former pastor of St. Francis Xavier Church, a Jesuit parish in Kansas City, that she was part of a same-sex marriage, and neither objected. After her relationship was discussed in a local newsmagazine, she was dismissed, the Kansas City Star reported. Simon, whose same-sex marriage ceremony took place in Iowa,...

A new report offers good and bad news about the AIDS epidemic in the United States: The annual diagnosis rate of HIV, the virus that causes the disease, has dropped by one-third in the general population but has climbed among young gay and bisexual males. Significantly fewer heterosexuals, drug users and women were diagnosed each year with HIV, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the annual diagnosis rate more than doubled for young gay and bisexual males. The push for safer sex may be falling on deaf ears in a generation too...

I never thought it would happen to me. I’m technologically savvy, hyper-vigilant about parental controls, and frequently check the search and browser histories of my kids’ electronic devices. As a writer for LSN, I’m more aware than most people of the filth that’s out there and the harmful effects it can have on a developing brain (not to mention a developing soul). So that’s why I was surprised and heartbroken the day I discovered my ten-year-old son had been watching hardcore pornography on his iPhone. It was the first day of final exams. At the bus stop that morning, my...

WASHINGTON — President Obama, declaring himself on “the right side of history,” called on Congress on Monday to ban job discrimination against gay and lesbian Americans as he signed an executive order doing so for workers of federal contractors. In a ceremony at the White House, Mr. Obama noted that in much of the country, companies can fire employees based on their sexual orientation. “That’s wrong,” he said to an audience of supporters. “We’re here to do what we can to make it right — to bend that arc of justice just a little bit in a better direction.” President...