What is the Idaho wedding chapel story all about? Same-sex marriage became legal in the state of Idaho earlier this month after a federal court ruled in the case of Latta v. Otter that the state’s statutes and constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. This ruling affected an anti-discrimination ordinance in the city of Coeur d’Alene, which was enacted last year to cover “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” (Since there is currently no similar state or federal non-discrimination laws,...

For a country that talks incessantly about “the economy”, a surprisingly large number of Americans are confused about how an economy actually functions. To help close that educational gap, Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan Productions and documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock’s Cinelan have produced a series of 20 short films that explain economic issues. “At its core, the vision of this project is to fuse artistry and storytelling with economic expertise to engage the public in a truly informed dialogue...

Religious shareholder activists continuously sing from a counterintuitive hymnal that asserts genetically modified organisms somehow are detrimental to the environment, the financial well-being of panies relying on GMOs and those people who eat foods containing GMOs. For example, religious shareholder activist group As You Sow boasts on its website: As You Sow has organized an investor letter sent to the top 50 corporate opponents of GMO labeling ballot initiatives in California (Proposition 37) and Washington (Initiative 522). The letter to...

Teaching our children about the value and virtues of hard work and sound stewardship is an important part of parenting, and in a privileged age where opportunity and prosperity e rather easily, such lessons can be hard e by. In an effort to instill such virtues in my own young children, I’ve taken to a variety of methods, fromstories to choresto games, and so on. But one such avenue that’s proven particularly effective has been taking in Walt Disney’s Silly...

I’ll say it again: surrogacy is a bad idea. It’s bad for the child, it’s bad for women, it’s bad for families. Even when everything goes “well,” it’s still a situation where a woman has been used for rental of her womb for 9 months. Using a fellow human being’s body because you want something is wrong, even if you pay them. Tennessee’s state Supreme Court is trying to untangle a knotted mess of surrogacy nonsense – which is made...

Remember the Hobby Lobby case when the Supreme Court ruled that an employer could not be required to provide employees with certain types of abortifacients if it was against their religious beliefs? Remember also how some plained that such exemptions in health care plans should be allowed only for churches and religious ministries? Apparently, the state government of California thinks that both of those claims are absurd. They think that every employer — including churches — should be required to...

Christian’s Library Press recently releasedThe System Has a Soul: Essays on Christianity, Liberty, and Political Lifeby Hunter Baker, a collection of reflections on the role and relevance of Christianity in our societal systems. To celebrate the release,CLP will be giving awaythreecopies of the book. To enter, use the interface below. To get started, all you need to enter is your email address! After that, there are four ways to enter, and each will increase your odds. The contest will end...

By giving us the ability to buy and sell, says Wayne Grudem, God has given us a wonderful mechanism through which we can do good for each other. Buying and selling are activities unique to human beings out of all the creatures that God made. Rabbits and squirrels, dogs and cats, elephants and giraffes know nothing of this activity. Through buying and selling God has given us a wonderful means to bring glory to him. We can imitate God’s attributes...

Children in poor and war-torn countries are often trafficking victims. They are lured from their homes with promises of making money in factories or at farms. Sometimes they are kidnapped. And sometimes, they are recruited for war. Tom Burridge of BBC News reports on the war in South Sudan, and the prevalence of “recruiting” young boys to fight. On a normal school day, Burridge says that more than 100 boys are kidnapped from their classroom and told they must fight...

It’s no secret that I, like all good perfectionists, love a good list. And this is a good one: Paul Handley at Church Times gives us the 100 best Christian books. Of course, like any good list, we can debate the merits of inclusion and exclusion (that’s part of the fun of a good list!) but certainly, for any serious Christian, this offers great food for thought. Just to get whet your literary appetite, here are the top ten: Confessions,...