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Australian Bishops Urge Government to Ban Pornography, "One of the Most Evil Uses of the Internet"

Sydney Morning Herald spent two months charting this new social phenomenon which it said was "poisoning couples and destroying families"

By John-Henry Westen

SYDNEY, May 2, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "One of the most evil uses of the Internet is the ready availability of pornography," warn the Bishops of Australia in a new pastoral letter on Internet safety which appropriately has a YouTube video promoting it. 

The letter explains that "the relative anonymity of the Internet and its private nature means that there is a real danger of pornographic addiction." The Bishops warn that "All of these images are humiliating and degrading, most often towards women."

The letter points to "a growing body of research about the damage that Internet pornography is doing to marriages and relationships. In 2007, the Sydney Morning Herald spent two months charting this new social phenomenon which it said was "poisoning couples and destroying families". The investigation found that counselors were reporting that an increasing number of clients had begun to cite Internet pornography as a factor in their relationship breakdowns."

The Bishops point out moreover that while it is damaging to marriages, "addiction to Internet pornography is no less damaging to single people or to those dedicated to living a life of celibacy."

The letter explains: "The Church commends the intimate giving of spouses to each other. Pornography undermines this. It injures the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world."

The bishops urge parents to discuss the dangers of pornography - "its damaging impact on human dignity and on relationships" - with their children, and call for the government to ban such degrading materials.

"Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials, and that includes, as far as possible, distribution on the Internet," says the letter.

The full pastoral letter is available online here:
http://www.acbc.catholic.org.au/documents/200804271910.pdf

See the bishops short YouTube video narrated by Robert Ingham
http://www.youtube.com/ACBCcomms

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Furious Britons Give Brown and Labour Worst Electoral Pummeling in Forty Years

Ghettoized Britain where citizens live in isolated communities in fear of violating a "cult of political correctness"

By Hilary White in England

WESTMINSTER, UK, May 2, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In today's local council elections around the country, British voters delivered a devastating blow to Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the ruling Labour party, a signal that many believe may translate into a Tory win, even a majority, in the next general election. Experts say that the Labour party has not received such an electoral pummeling in forty years and estimate that more than 100 Labour MPs will now be fighting to keep their seats at the next election.

Elections were held in 137 English local council authorities in England and in all 22 Welsh councils giving a total of 4,023 seats up for election. The BBC reported at six pm. GMT that Labour had won only 24 per cent of votes putting them third behind the Conservatives with 44 per cent and Liberal Democrats with 25 per cent. Labour has lost 331 council seats and control of nine councils with the Tories picking up 12 councils and 256 seats.

The May 1st elections had long been anticipated as the first electoral test of Gordon Brown's premiership since he took power without an electoral mandate when Tony Blair left office last year. Local councils guide the general political thrust of the country with councils responsible for a wide array of day to day services from garbage collection to adoptions and family services. The local elections are looked upon as a signal to the central government at Westminster and are used in the political trade to calculate vote shares in some seats in the House of Commons in a general election.

Brown, who is rumored to have lately developed the habit of throwing mobile phones against walls, is now expected to attempt to hold on to his mandate until the last possible moment when in 2010 he will be obliged by law to call an election. But one senior Labour MP, Ian Gibson, has warned that Brown has six months to turn things around or face a possible leadership challenge before the party's conference this autumn.

Brown told media that he was "disappointed" at the result and that it had been a "bad night".

"My job is to listen and to lead," Brown said. He blamed "difficult economic circumstances" for Labour's losses, the worst the party has seen in forty years, and claimed that the party would "listen" and make changes.

"I think people want to be assured, and indeed people are questioning and want to be assured, that the government will steer them through these difficult times."

But Labour's drubbing is widely considered, even in senior Labour party circles, to be a massive backlash from voters furious with the party's policies, not just under Brown, but over the last decade of their rule under Tony Blair. So angry are Britain's voters with Labour that one analyst in the Guardian noted that in some ridings they were specifically voting for any candidate, regardless of party, likely to defeat the Labour candidate. 

Especially alienated is the party's traditional constituency of the white middle and working class, who have grown increasingly exasperated with Britain's heavy taxation, rising cost of living, the growth of the "surveillance state", and the increasingly detailed and arbitrary regulation of daily life.

Since coming to power in 1997, analysts, both in favour and against, agree that the "New" Labour party under Blair has utterly transformed British society.

Stories abound in the press of a Britain labouring under the rule of an obsessive "nanny state" that controls and regulates every minute detail of life. While council tax rises, some councils have reduced the number of garbage collections to once in a fortnight and installed microchips in wheelie bins and hired "rubbish police" to ensure that citizens are not throwing away too much or the wrong kind of trash; violators can be fined or face charges.

Britain's millions of close circuit TV cameras monitor citizens everywhere, even in the smallest country villages. The various agencies of the state, particularly the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), have banned or attempted to ban everything from smoking in pubs to children playing with conkers to the bagpipes. 

"Anti-discrimination" laws put in place by Labour have seen children and students, journalists, shop keepers and housewives investigated and interviewed by police for possible "hate crimes" for suggesting that immigrants ought to learn English or that homosexual partners should not be allowed to adopt children, or even for selling "politically incorrect" toys in their shops.

At the same time, violent crime, so rare in Britain until the 1970's that English policemen were famed for being unarmed, has risen to crisis proportions in the last ten years and teenage sexual activity has risen to put Britain at the head of the teen pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted disease list for Europe. 

Labour's constitutional compromises with the European Union have culminated in most of Britain's laws being made not at Westminster by British parliamentarians, but from the European Parliament in Brussels and various unelected EU regulatory agencies.

As the news slowly leaked out in recent months that over 70 per cent of British legislation now comes from Europe, a movement grew to hold Gordon Brown to the Labour party's promise of a referendum on the new European constitution, now called the Lisbon Treaty. The Lisbon Treaty is understood to give even more legislative powers over to Brussels.

This winter, Brown's determination to refuse a referendum grew in proportion to the demand that the people should have a say. In the end, a series of parliamentary tricks and party intimidation pushed the Lisbon Treaty ratification bill through the House of Commons without a referendum.

Baroness P.D. James, the novelist and life member of the House of Lords who spent thirty years in various departments of the civil service, told an audience at Westminster yesterday that British society had become "more fractured than I in my long life have ever known it."

In a speech on policing in the 21st century, Baroness James described a ghettoized Britain where citizens live in isolated communities in fear of violating a "cult of political correctness" with little loyalty to the rest of the country.

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

"Brown's Bottled It": the Fall of Labour under Gordon Brown
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/mar/08031413.html

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Alveda King - Niece of Great Civil Rights Leader - to Kick off Canada's National March for Life May 8

Regional marches already underway across Canada

By John-Henry Westen

OTTAWA, May 2, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Thousands of students and adults are gearing up for the much anticipated March for Life 2008, set to rock the national capital next Thursday, May 8.  Meanwhile, March for Life activities have already begun around the nation.  In Regina the pro-life March is underway today and the Marches in Edmonton and Winnipeg are set for Sunday.

African-Americans have brought a new vitality to the pro-life movement in the United States as they have seen the fight for the right to life as the greatest human rights struggle of the 21st century.  Alveda King, with all the fire and stamina of her late uncle Martin Luther King Jr., has rallied thousands to speak out, to march, to lobby and to pray that unborn children may be recognized in law as human beings and given full legal protection.

In Regina today, Stephanie Gray of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform addressed the March for Life recalling the example of Martin Luther King Jr.  Following his example, she stressed that we engage in defending the lives of the countless infants killed by abortion not with violence but with love and perseverance. 

Gray said: "In 1963, a group of high school students gathered in Birmingham, Alabama, and organized the 'Children's Crusade for Freedom'.  They marched through the streets to speak against racism and segregation. Today, May 2, is the anniversary of their first march. They returned the following day to march again.  And as they peacefully walked and sang gospel songs, they were brutalized by authorities: police dogs were let loose on the marchers; they were attacked with clubs; they were sprayed with fire hoses, smashing them into buildings, ripping their clothes, and blasting them down the street."

The great civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. responded to this injustice by saying the following:

"We will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering.  We will meet your physical force with soul force.  We will not hate you.

"Do to us what you will.  Threaten our children and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and our churches and we will still love you.  We will wear you down by our capacity to suffer.

"In winning the victory, we will not only win our freedom.  We will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process."

On May 8, Alveda King will raise the call to continue the struggle for human life and freedom at the March for Life.  In its call for Canadians to attend the March for Life, the pro-life arm of the Canadian Conference of Bishops noted that this year marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  "LIFE - The FIRST Human Right" is the theme of this year's March for Life.

As Pope Benedict XVI put it: "The fundamental right, the presupposition of every other right, is the right to life itself. Abortion, consequently, cannot be a human right - it is the very opposite."

For more information on the March for Life see:
http://MarchForLife.ca

Stephanie Gray's CCBR website is here:
http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca

There are still some seats on buses coming from various regions of Ontario to the march
See locations and contact numbers at
http://www.campaignlifecoalition.com/Bus%20for%20MFL.pdf

See numerous photos from last year's March for Life events
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jun/07060803.html

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Grand Theft Culture: The Entertainment Industry Goes for the Jugular

A game that glorifies brutal criminality and enables players to fantasize their participation in mind-numbing barbarism

Commentary By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

May 2, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The debut of "Grand Theft Auto IV", a highly-realistic video game in which players "win" by committing violent criminal acts, is notable for several reasons, but most importantly because of what it says about a society that is engaged in an orgy of self-destruction, and cannot even recognize what is happening.

The Grand Theft Auto series makes the player into a criminal who wins points by stealing cars, assassinating rivals, killing police, running over pedestrians, and even murdering a prostitute with a baseball bat rather than paying her.  It is, in short, a game that glorifies brutal criminality and enables players to fantasize their participation in mind-numbing barbarism.

The fact alone that Grand Theft Auto IV is expected to earn more than $400 million during its run, rivaling the most popular movie releases, speaks volumes about what has happened to the U.S. during the last fifty years.  What would once have seemed like a blatant and massive assault on our society by a commercial interest, is now a blockbuster form of entertainment.

Mainstream publications such as Business Week yawn at the moral objections raised against such software, and instead rave about the realistic graphics, referring to the game as "Grand Theft Awesome".  "We have a hard time imagining anyone picking up this game and not feeling like this is one of the best $60 purchases they've made in a long time," says the reviewer, seemingly unconcerned that he is talking about a murder simulator.

The new version of the game and the mentality it promotes have already claimed their first victim.  A man standing in line waiting to purchase the game on the first night of sales in south London stabbed a passer-by.  "It was a scene straight from the game itself," said one witness. 

"Grand Theft Auto", as monstrous as it is, is only a single example of the Culture of Death that is overwhelming what is left of Anglo-American civilization.

For decades, moviemakers and broadcasters have competed with one another to create the most perverse and shocking kinds of violence, explicit sexual scenes, and human degradation that the mind can imagine.  The music industry has fed generations of teenagers and young adults with music that glorifies murder, rape, and every kind of immorality.  

Americans watch, stupefied, as children and adults who were fed on this poisoned cultural diet enter their schools, workplaces and even their churches and open fire against their peers, attempting to kill as many people as possible before taking their own lives.  Such events never happened before the modern cultural onslaught from the electronic media, despite the availability of firearms, but virtually no one seems to make the connection.

The violence that increasingly appears in public places is only a pale reflection of the atrocities that occur thousands of times a week in "clinics" across the United States, where doctors tear babies to pieces inside their own mothers wombs, and in hospitals, where the sick and infirm are put to death in cold utilitarian fashion.

"Grand Theft Auto IV", is, simply put, a symptom of a civilization in decline, a society that is being consumed by the Culture of Death.  The fact that the symptom goes virtually unrecognized tells us how advanced the illness is.  The utter moral debasement of the Anglophone world can only presage its eventual political, economic, and military collapse, following the iron law of history that the fall of a civilization is always preceded by internal decay. 

The only question left is: how much longer can a society last after having reached such depths of depravity?  Sadly, we can only wait, and watch, hoping that somehow the United States and its cultural satellites will awaken before it is too late.

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Lesbian Break-in and Riot During College Speech on "Born-Gay Hoax" Forces Cancellation

Example of homosexual movement forcing "their social and sexual agenda on others," say observers

By Michael Baggot

NORTHAMPTON, MA, May 2, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "We're here, we're queer, get used to it!" cried a group of lesbians at Smith College Tuesday night in the midst of a riotous protest that met little resistance from on-looking police and security officials and forced scheduled speaker Ryan Sorba to prematurely end his "The Born-Gay Hoax" talk.

Shortly into his speech, the protesters tried to drown out Sorba's words with loud chants and clanging of pots and pans.  As Sorba strove to continue his lecture, protesters invaded from a back window, flooded the podium, and began noisily dancing and clapping in front the speaker.

A Smith College official told Sorba that he needed to leave, while two police officers and a security guard watched the protesters continue in triumphant chants.

Because protesters remained in the room, Sorba was not able to return to conclude his talk.

The conservative organization Mass Resistance decried the Tuesday night fiasco as an example of "how the homosexual movement views free speech and civil rights in their march to force their social and sexual agenda on others and intimidate and terrorize anyone who would criticize or disagree.  Truth and freedom become subjected to the whims of thought police and rioters."

Mass Resistance argued that the protesters clearly violated the Massachusetts Civil Rights statutes by interfering with Sorba's constitutional right to free expression.

According to the statues, "No person, whether or not acting under color of law, shall by force or threat of force, willfully injure, intimidate or interfere with, or attempt to injure, intimidate or interfere with, or oppress or threaten any other person in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the constitution or laws of the commonwealth or by the constitution or laws of the United States."

Wednesday morning, Smith President Carol Christ issued a statement expressing her disappointment "that some members of our community chose not to uphold our own commitment to freedom of expression."

"We are investigating possible violations of college policy, including the policy on the conduct of demonstrations and protests," Christ assured the Smith community.

Kristen Cole, Media Relations Director of Smith College, told LifeSiteNews.com that no protester has yet been punished, but that there is an "open-ended" investigation into any possible violations.

The Smith Republican Club had invited Sorba to speak on his soon-to-be released book debunking the claim that homosexual orientation is genetically determined, and hence, worthy of social acceptance and legal protection.  Homosexual activists routinely use the notion of the "gay gene" to argue that any opposition to their lifestyle is unjust discrimination.

In a March 31 presentation of his "The Born-Gay Hoax" lecture at Framingham State College, Sorba noted that the notion of "homosexual" did not begin until the middle of the 19th century.

Sorba traced the "born-gay" strategy to the 1980s propaganda efforts of Harvard graduates neuropsychiatry researcher Marshall Kirk and public persuasion expert Hunter Madsen.

Sorba added that many researchers attribute homosexuality to environment causes, such as sexual abuse during youth.

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Eminent Psychiatrist Says Homosexuality is a Disorder that Can be Cured
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/may/08050110.html

Search for "Gay Gene" Is "Bad Science" Says Nebraska Professor
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/aug/07080805.html

"Homosexuality Is Not Hardwired," Concludes Head of The Human Genome Project
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/mar/07032003.html

Watch footage from the Smith College fiasco:
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen/08a/born_gay_hoax/smi...

Learn more about Sorba's "Born-Gay Hoax" talk and book:
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen/08a/born_gay_hoax/ind...

Contact the president of Smith College:
Carol T. Christ, President
Smith College
Northampton, Massachusetts 01063
(413) 585-2100

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Washington Pharmacists May Refuse to Fill Plan Prescriptions B-For Now

By Michael Baggot

SEATTLE, WA, May 2, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A federal appeals court upheld Washington state pharmacists' right to refuse the "emergency contraceptive" Plan B on Thursday.

According to Board of Pharmacy regulations, state pharmacies must supply patients will all legally prescribed drugs in a timely manner, including the potentially abortifacient Plan B.

The Thursday ruling upheld U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton decision to delay enforcement of the Board of Pharmacy policy because it violated the pharmacists' first amendment right to the free expression of religion.

The case originated in July 2007, when pharmacists Rhonda Mesler and Margo Thelen, accompanied by the Stormans Inc. that owns Ralph's Thriftway in Olympia, filed a lawsuit criticizing the Board of Pharmacy policy for forcing them to choose "between their livelihoods and their deeply held religious and moral beliefs."

Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for June 3 in Seattle.

When the Board of Pharmacy was considering its policy in early 2006, Governor Christine Gregoire threatened to remove any board member supportive of measures that would have allowed for conscientious objection to certain prescriptions.

"No one should be denied appropriate prescription drugs based on the personal, religious, or moral objection of individual pharmacists," Gregoire insisted.

Critics of the Board of Pharmacy decision against a conscience clause argue that the current policy is unconstitutional.

"The debate is not about the Church imposing its views.  Opposition to the rule by believers and non-believers alike is based on the right of conscience, a right affirmed in our federal and state constitutions," stated Seattle Archbishop Alexander J. Brunett in an April 2007 Seattle Times editorial.

As of an August 2006 Food and Drug Administration decision, Plan B is available over the counter, but still requires a prescription when used by women under 18.

Plan B is a set of two pills to be taken within 72-hours of sexual intercourse in order to prevent unwanted pregnancies.  The manufacturer of Plan B, admits that the pills can kill an already conceived human embryo by robbing him of necessary nutrients and oxygen in his mother's uterine lining.

According to the official Plan B website, the drug may act "by preventing attachment (implantation) to the uterus (womb)" (http://www.go2planb.com/ForConsumers/TakingPlanB/faqs.aspx#A...).

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Pharmacists Sue Washington State for Forcing Them to Sell Morning After Pill
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jul/07072701.html

Plan B Manufacturer Admits Morning After Pill Can Cause Death of an Embryo
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/sep/06090701.html

To contact Stormans, Inc.:

1932 East 4th Ave.
Olympia, WA 98506
Phone: 360-754-2203
Email: kevin@stormans.com

To contact the Governor's office to respectfully voice concerns:

Governor Chris Gregoire
Office of the Governor
PO Box 40002
Olympia, WA 98504-0002
Phone: (360) 902-4111
Fax: (360) 753-4110
Email via "web form": http://www.governor.wa.gov/contact/

Read the ruling:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/F1AD783C30A6...$file/0736039o.pdf?openelement 

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Australian Prime Minister Explains Why He Opposes Euthanasia

By Hilary White

CANBERRA, May 2, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The recently elected Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, has made a familiar argument over euthanasia, saying that he is personally opposed to it, but that MPs should have a free vote.

Rudd told a radio interviewer that he was "concerned about the way in which these things can drift over time".

Rudd said, "Particularly in the attitude taken by older people themselves, or people with terminal illnesses, who then conclude that they are being an increasing burden to their families and then conclude that it's in other people's interests, not their own best interests, to seek euthanasia."

Anti-euthanasia campaigners also argue that legalized euthanasia or physician assisted suicide creates a medical and social atmosphere in which pressure can be put on vulnerable patients and elderly to end their lives out of fear of pain or loss of dignity.

Two states in Australia are considering legalizing euthanasia for terminally ill patients. Senator Robert Brown, leader of the Green party in the Northern Territory, is introducing a private members' bill in the Federal Parliament that would reinstate the 1995 Rights of the Terminally Ill Act overturned by federal law in 1996. At the same time, in the state of Victoria, Liberal MP Ken Smith has agreed to introduce a Bill to allow physician-assisted suicide, a move supported by the Green party.

The federal government is considering dropping a prohibition that makes it impossible for the Northern Territory to pass legislation on euthanasia.

Rudd supported the decision by John Howard's government to make the change in federal law. He told Macquarie Radio Network he had personal experience that led to his opposition to euthanasia.

"I say that as someone who has ... been in family circumstances where you've seen people very near and dear to you, in the case of myself, my mother, who died of cancer."

"It's not pretty to watch," he said.

But he insisted that the issue is one for a conscience vote: "All these life matters, including euthanasia, have historically been the subject of a conscience vote on the part of our government's members."

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Australian State and Territorial Governments to Introduce Euthanasia Bills this Year
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/feb/08022105.html ;

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LifeSiteNews.com Newsbytes

* Disclaimer: The linked items below or the websites at which they are located do not necessarily represent the views of LifeSiteNews.com. They are presented only for your information.

Benedict and the Human Face of God By Richard John Neuhaus
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=1060

If you no longer know what you stand for, how can you know what you stand against? MARK STEYN
http://www.macleans.ca/canada/opinions/article.jsp?content=2...

‘Fear of fertility is an evil that dehumanizes us,’ says Mexican archbishop
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=12532

CRS chairman says agency practices church teachings on condoms
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0802401.htm

Why Jeremiah Wright doesn't get my Irish up By Peggy Noonan
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120966911007860195.html?mod=...

Astounding TV Commentary: 'End of the Ethanol Dream'
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/05/02/astoun...

Chill Out on Climate Hysteria. The Earth is currently cooling.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTc1MzdjOWEwMWUyNGMwYzk...

How UN structures were designed to prove human CO2 was causing global warming
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/2840

Procter & Gamble wants to know if you approve of its support of the homosexual lifestyle
http://www.afa.net/pg050208.asp

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