This Week‘s Featured Article

Marriage/Family

Great news from Washington about American families.

“For years, we have witnessed a concerted effort by activists on the Left to abolish the natural family,” Miller said. “Today, I am launching the Congressional Family Caucus because I believe we have a moral obligation as servant representatives to protect and conserve the family. The natural family, a man and a woman committed for life to each other and to their children, is essential for a nation to prosper because the family is the root of self-government, service, community, and personal responsibility.” Read more

Marriage, Then Mortgage.

One issue that Sowell has focused on—the steep decline in marriage and family formation among blacks—seems especially relevant to the latest homeownership data. Though marriage rates have slowly declined in America, marriage as a factor in homeownership remains enormously significant. Among married couples, the overall homeownership rate is consistently around 80 percent. Married households are more likely to have two wage earners and consequently find it easier in general to get credit. Married couples are also more likely to follow what City Journal’s Kay Hymowitz describes as a life “script,” which includes an expectation that homeownership will follow marriage.

That’s partially why homeownership among married couples is strong across all races, including African-Americans. For blacks, the married homeownership rate has hovered recently around 64 percent, not so far from the rates for other groups. Read more

Vice belatedly joins liberal media in denouncing ‘Tradwife’ trend in which young women embrace monogamy, motherhood, and homemaking.

Although leftists now strain to define what a woman is, they nevertheless appear confident detailing what behaviors biological females with two X chromosomes should avoid in this day and age.

Among the lifestyles dogmatists in the liberal media have determined is unacceptable is that of the homemaker or “traditional wife” — she who regards monogamy, motherhood, and homemaking as personally enriching and civilization-stabilizing goods, not backward constrictions of a bygone era. Read more

Parenting/Parental Rights

No, Age-Appropriate Library Restrictions Are Not ‘Book Bans’.

The issue is primarily a cultural tug-of-war taking place in public school libraries. The discovery of sexually explicit books on school bookshelves nationwide has sparked controversy.

Pen America is easily the most cited organization when it comes to book bans. The self-proclaimed “free speech” advocacy group is mentioned in almost every media report on the subject. Yet few Americans understand the very expansive definition of a “book ban” utilized by the organization. Pen America considers books “challenged for review,” but still available for student use, as “banned” even if the books haven’t been removed from the library. Pen America considers any book that’s available but age-restricted as “banned.” Moreover, several school districts have refuted the popular book ban list produced by Pen America, claiming the list contained books that were never removed from circulation in their respective libraries. Read more

Thousands of Schools Won’t Tell Parents About Kids’ Gender Transition: Report.

A total of 5,904 schools in 168 school districts nationwide allow, or require, teachers to conceal children’s transgender “social transition” — in which children change their name or preferred pronouns, or begin using the locker rooms of the opposite sex — from their parents. School districts keeping legal guardians ignorant about their children’s life-altering decisions stretch from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon, and from Alaska to Arizona. Read more

Biden Proposes Federally Regulated ‘Universal Pre-K’ for Children as Young as 3.

President Joe Biden’s $6.9 trillion proposed budget would have the hand of the government rock the cradle by creating a federally regulated, universal pre-K program for children as young as three.

Government agencies have quietly begun normalizing the notion of federal bureaucracies overseeing the childrearing of infants by changing the educational nomenclature from “k-12” (kindergarten through high school) to “p-12.”

The administration says it funds government-run childrearing programs so parents can “go to work or pursue training with the peace of mind that their children are being set up for a lifetime of success.” Yet decades of social science conclusively shows children raised by their own parents have the best life outcomes, while children raised in preschools suffer a variety of physical and emotional harms. Read more

Sanctity of Life

This Jerusalem-Based Pregnancy Center Is Fighting to Help Women and Their Unborn Babies.

“When a woman comes to us, we tell her, ‘You have an option to abort. It is legal in Israel. But you also have the option to have a child,’” he said. “And that is the unique proposition of Efrat.”

Efrat was founded by the late Holocaust survivor Herschel Feigenbaum, who believed “that our children are our future.” Feigenbaum wanted to create a nonprofit encouraging childbirth to replace the many Jewish children slaughtered throughout the Holocaust, the organization’s website explains. Read more

UK Govt targets over £200 million for programmes that provide abortions and fund ‘pro-choice’ campaigns in Africa.

The Women and Girls Strategy was launched on International Women’s Day and up to £200 million of taxpayer money will be spent on the Women’s Integrated Sexual Health programme. The programme is implemented by international abortion providers MSI Reproductive Choices (previously Marie Stopes International) and International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).

A Government paper called ‘International Women and Girls Strategy 2023–2030‘ accompanying the launch of the initiative explains that one of its goals is to “prioritise the often-neglected issue of safe abortion”. Read more

Why being truly pro-woman must include being pro-life.

Here is the troubling irony: when women fight for their rights, they seek to rectify ways in which men have unfairly dominated them. As the more vulnerable party, they seek equal treatment.

Yet in abortion, who is the more vulnerable party—the pregnant woman who is distressed about an unplanned pregnancy, or the tiny human being who is utterly dependent on her for his or her very life?

Framing abortion as a “women’s rights” issue means adopting a double standard. It’s saying that women who are oppressed by men deserve rights, yet preborn children—by far the most vulnerable members of society—do not. Read more

Religion

Chinese province’s new ‘Smart Religion’ app makes Christians register to attend worship services.

Christians in China’s populous Henan province are now reportedly required to register on a government app to attend worship services and must make online reservations before taking part in worship, according to a report from a U.S.-based human rights group.

The app, called “Smart Religion” and developed by the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Commission of Henan Province, asks believers to give personal information, including their name, phone number, government ID number, permanent residence, occupation and date of birth to receive approval to attend a service, ChinaAid reported this week. Read more

Christian School That Forfeited Game Over Trans Player Banned From Future Tournaments.

Mid Vermont Christian School forfeited the Feb. 21 game, with the head of the school, Vicky Fogg, stating at the time that competing against “a biological male jeopardizes the fairness of the game and the safety of our players.” She added, “Allowing biological males to participate in women’s sports sets a bad precedent for the future of women’s sports in general.”

The executive council of the VPA determined the decision by MVCS violated the policies to which member schools are bound, rendering the girls’ basketball team ineligible to continue competing. Read more

New Kentucky Bill Would Expand Religious Freedom in Schools.

Donnie Wilkerson, a social studies public-school teacher from Jamestown, Kentucky, commented, “I’m happy to see that my Christian friends now will be able to proudly display the Ten Commandments on their desk if they so choose … that it would also allow my Mormon friends to have their copy of the Book of Mormon should they so decide, or a picture of Joseph Smith or the Main Angel Moroni about their personal space. That my Muslim friends would be able to display the Quran.”

Advocacy Director Kate Miller from the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky believes the bill may create a gray area, and schools could see increased litigation if the legislation is passed. The bill now heads to the state Senate after sailing out of the House on a 81-12 vote. Whether the policy will solidify religious liberty at the state level or create increased litigation remains to be seen. Read more

Sexuality

Women and ‘Non-Binary’ People Can Go Topless in Berlin Pools, Diversity Ombudsman Rules.

Officials decided that, as men are allowed to go topless, the woman had been discriminated against, ruling that henceforth women and the “non-binary” will also be allowed to swim with their chests uncovered.

Dr Doris Liebscher, who heads the city’s ombudsman office, hailed the change, saying: “The ombudsman very much welcomes the decision of the bathing establishments because it creates equal rights for all Berliners, whether male, female or non-binary and because it also creates legal certainty for the staff in the bathing establishments.” Read more

Another European country just dealt a devastating blow to the transgender movement.

The Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board (NHIB) is the latest European body to announce that the so-called “affirmative model of care” for gender dysphoric minors is not supported by evidence and is advising against the use of cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and “sex change” surgeries for minors. The NHIB recommended that these “treatments” be classified as experimental and noted that the spike in children identifying as transgender is concerning. Read more

Biden Says It’s ‘Close to Sinful’ to Restrict Child Transitions – Most Americans Disagree.

President Joe Biden on Monday once again waded into the ever-contentious transgender issue, calling restrictions surrounding children who identify as trans “cruel” and “close to sinful.”

Secretary Jason Weida of the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration specifically targeted Biden’s “Daily Show” claim about it being “close to sinful” to restrict child transitions, noting the long-term and even irreversible impact such medicalization can have on young people.

“What is ‘sinful’ is the establishment pushing harmful surgeries and treatment with long-term effects on minors with no accountability or transparency,” Weida told Fox News. Read more