May 30 2008 Prophecy News Watch

A group supporting North American integration is holding its fourth annual "North American Model Parliament" for 100 university students from the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

The North American Forum on Integration, or NAFI, began is "Triumvirate" sessions Monday in Montreal's City Hall with a plan to conclude Friday.

According to the NAFI website, "Triumvirate 2008" brings together the students "to participate in an international negotiation exercise in which they will simulate a parliamentary meeting between North American political actors."

Participants are assigned to play one of three roles: a legislator, representing a country other than their own; a journalist; or a lobbyist.

Four themes were selected as subjects of the mock parliament's debate: Fostering Renewable Electricity Markets; Countering North American corporate outsourcing; Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative; and NAFTA's Chapter 11 on investments.

A major goal of the model parliament, according to the NAFI Triumvirate website, is to "develop the participants' sense of belonging to North America."

WND contacted the NAFI office in Montreal requesting comment but received no reply.

As WND previously reported, Raymond Chretien, the president of the Triumvirate and the former Canadian ambassador to both Mexico and the U.S., was quoted as claiming the exercise was intended to be more than academic.

"The creation of a North American parliament, such as the one being simulated by these young people, should be considered," Chretien told WND.

Among the NAFI board of directors are Robert A. Pastor, Ph.D., former director of the Center for North American Studies at American University; and M. Stephen Blank, Ph.D., director of the North American Center for Transborder Studies at Arizona State University.

Pastor has written extensively on his proposal for the creation of a "North American Community," while denying he has intended to form a North American Union modeled after the European Union."

In January, Pastor resigned his position at American University's Office of International Affairs amid a reorganization. Pastor announced he was taking a one-year sabbatical in which he planned to work as co-director of The Elders, a group of 13 world figures, including Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan and Jimmy Carter.

As WND previously reported, Pastor's 2001 book, "Toward a North American Community," presents an argument that North American integration should advance through the development of a "North American consciousness" by creating various institutions which include a North American customs union and a North American Development Fund for the economic development of Mexico.

Pastor also was vice chairman of the May 2005 Council on Foreign Relations task force report, "Building a North American Community," that presents itself as a blueprint for using bureaucratic action though trilateral "working groups" constituted within the executive branches of the U.S, Mexico and Canada to advance the North American integration agenda.

Critics contend the working groups are pursuing a stealth process to transform the SPP into a North American regional governmental structure.

June 3 2008 Christian Newswire

The Alliance for Marriage Foundation today celebrated the efforts of California voters for successfully placing the California Marriage Amendment on the November ballot.

The state constitutional amendment would define marriage as a union "between a man and a woman" if successful, and would overturn the recent California Supreme Court decision legalizing "same-sex" marriage.

"The future of marriage in California should be determined among the 36 million residents of the State of California -- not by the personal, closed-door deliberation of seven judges," said Rev. Sam Rodriguez, Jr., an Advisory Board Member of the Alliance for Marriage Foundation.

The California Supreme Court last month struck-down the state's democratically-approved Proposition 22, the California Defense of Marriage Act, which statutorily defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

"In 2000, the Latino community played a determining, critical role in approving Proposition 22 at the ballot box," said Rodriguez. "As the largest "minority" community in California, the Latino community holds the key to protecting marriage in California - and preventing the attack on marriage here from having national fallout."

"For several decades, America has been wandering in a wilderness of social problems caused by family disintegration," added Rodriguez. "Tragically, as bad as our current situation may be, it could soon become dramatically worse. This is because California courts and the legislature are poised to erase the legal road map for marriage and the family from state law."

During the petition effort to place the Amendment on the ballot, Californians for Marriage, an all Latino-led coalition organized by the Alliance for Marriage Foundation, delivered signatures in support of the California Marriage Amendment, and is poised to fill a pivotal role in the ballot campaign this fall.

June 3 2007 Jeff Johnson OneNewsNow

The California Supreme Court will not stay its decision authorizing homosexuals to "marry" in that state, even though voters will consider a constitutional amendment to ban the practice in November. The court issued its 4-3 decision Wednesday.

The justices had ruled last month that the state must allow homosexuals to marry under the same terms and conditions as heterosexuals despite a state law defining marriage as the union of only one man and one woman. But Staver believes Wednesday's decision allowing that ruling to take effect as scheduled is a very temporary victory for homosexual activists.

"This particular battle is not over," he states emphatically. "It's not going to be decided by four judges -- it's going to be decided by the people in November. I believe when the passage of the marriage amendment happens in November, all of the marriage licenses, if any, that have been issued will become invalid and invisible."

And Staver, who is also dean of the Liberty University School of Law, says this case should make a point to elected executives who answer to the people for who they appoint to the bench. "I think this particular issue really focuses on the importance of judges understanding their role as judges," he shares. "Whether it's the president or the governor of each state, it is important that those who are appointing these judges understand that judges need to be judges and not political legislators, as these four justices in California have indicated themselves to be."

An Episcopal church in California plans to perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples beginning mid-June. All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, one of the largest congregations in the denomination, adopted last Thursday the "Resolution on Marriage Equality" in response to a California Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay "marriage." The 125-year-old congregation "will treat equally all couples presenting themselves for the rite of marriage," said the Rev. Canon J. Edwin Bacon Jr. in an announcement.

Under the decision issued Wednesday, homosexuals will be able to receive civil marriage licenses in California beginning June 16 at 5:00 p.m. (Pacific).

June 3 2008 Free Market Foundation

The language has been in place for over 20 years but is now under attack due to unidentified liberal pressure against the State Board of Education. Without objective, academic freedom in Science, a majority of people might still believe that the Earth is flat! The State Board of Education will be meeting next month to begin the process of approving new Science curriculum standards.

Texas Principal Promoting ‘Islam 101’ Has New Job

June 5 2008 ToM McGregor

June 4 2008 Texas Insider

Senator Cornyn’s opponent announced his support for the Boxer Climate Tax Bill, which would impose government mandates on carbon dioxide emissions.

The legislation would cost an estimated $6.7 TRILLION. That's trillion, not billion, not million; but trillion -- $6.7 trillion dollars.

The price tag is so high, it actually increased the costs of energy, gasoline and electricity alike, rather than reducing it.

Can you imagine that? Gas is four bucks a gallon and Rick Noriega wants you to pay MORE?

Senator Cornyn was left to wonder today on the Senate floor that the legislation “simply does not make any sense to me…What could be the possible rationale for a piece of legislation that would do this to my state and have this sort of draconian impact on the economy of our country?”

Noriega claims the boondoggle would provide Texans with much needed tax relief, which sounds pretty good...if it were only true.

The alleged “tax relief” Noriega and his liberal allies speak of is a non-binding Sense of the Senate that says some funds “should be” used to protect consumers from the coming “increases in energy and other costs.”

Do Democrats really expect Texans to fall for this ruse?

May 30 2008 Prophecy News Watch

The Church of England is divided over a proposed motion for it to proclaim Christianity as the only way to salvation and offer strategies on how to evangelize Muslims.

Senior church leaders as well as some Muslim figures have voiced anger at the motion proposed by Paul Eddy – a lay member of the church’s General Synod, according to BBC. Eddy, along with traditionalist Anglicans, argues that the church should stop avoiding hard questions about its beliefs.

The Church of England must make it clear that it believes in what the Bible says about Jesus being the only way to salvation, he said. Currently training to become a priest, Eddy believes that being upfront about the church’s beliefs will be helpful to Muslim-Christian relations.

“Most Muslims that I’ve talked to say, ‘I really wish that Christians would stop watering down their faith and expecting us to do the same,’” Eddy said on BBC Radio Four on Sunday. “Until we start really saying what we really believe in our faith, there will be no respect.”

Also, Muslims expect Christians to believe that Jesus is the only way to God, Eddy noted.

“They will expect us – if we’re true Christians – to try to evangelize them, in the same way they will expect us, if they’re true Muslims, to adopt their faith,” he said.

But the problem is that the church, in an effort to be inclusive and to avoid offending people of other faiths, has “lost its nerve” and has “not doing what the Bible says,” he noted.

"Both Christianity and Islam are missionary faiths," Eddy pointed out. "For years, we have sent missionaries throughout the whole world, but when we have the privilege of people of all nations on our doorstep, we have a responsibility as the state church to share the gospel of Jesus Christ."

He urges Anglican bishops to give church members advice on how to evangelize, and how to better support Muslims who have converted to Christianity and are now ostracized by their communities.

The proposal is expected to be discussed at the General Synod summer meeting, July 4 to 8, in the city of York in central England.

Plan Transforms Doctors from Healers to Killers as State bill Mandates Physicians tell Patients about Assisted Suicide

May 30 2008 Prophecy News Watch

By just two votes, the California State Assembly passed a bill yesterday that detractors say allows doctors to push patients toward medically assisted suicide.

The bill, AB 2747, enables doctors to provide a patient declared to have less than one year to live with a long list of end-of-life options, including a last-moments option that looks suspiciously like euthanasia.

Critics of the bill point to a provision that adds "palliative sedation" and VSED (voluntary stopping of eating and drinking) to a patient's end-of-life options, extreme measures that have been previously reserved for patients within a few hours to a few days of death.

If the bill becomes law, critics say, a doctor could pronounce a patient within a year of death, encourage him to consider complete (sometimes irreversible) sedation, then proceed with VSED until the patient, unconscious and unaware, is starved and dehydrated to death. In effect, the critics argue, this is physician-assisted suicide for anyone deemed "within a year of death."

Assembly member Patty Berg, who co-sponsored the bill, wrote in California's Capitol Weekly that AB 2747 merely "requires healthcare providers to give complete answers to their terminal patients."

The bill itself states that "lack of communication between health care providers and their terminally ill patients can cause problems" and that "those problems are complicated by social issues, such as cultural and religious pressures." Further, "a recent survey found that providers that object to certain practices are less likely than others to believe they have an obligation to present all of the options to patients and refer patients to other providers."

Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, a California-based pro-life group, insists, however, "This deceptive bill will cause death and shorten life, despite its claims."

Thomasson sees an imminent danger that unscrupulous or cost-driven doctors might use the bill's provisions for communication as license to tell patients their death is coming within the year and move them toward life-ending choices.

"Some people are told they have a year to live," he points out, "then go on to live healthily for 12."

He also points out that in a state in which food and hydration are considered "extraordinary measures" in living wills, patients stunned by the news they have less than a year to live may opt for choices that lead directly to their death. Depressed or confused patients might agree to the sedation, then die through VSED.

"Drying up and shriveling to death through dehydration is a fate worse than lethal injection," says Thomasson. "By transforming palliative sedation into a vehicle for assisted suicide, AB 2747 would transform doctors and nurses from healers and comforters into killers."

The bill marks the fourth time in four years that Berg has attempted to pass legislation on end-of-life circumstances. Her previous attempts were more clearly euthanasia-related, including a bill last year that would have permitted death by lethal injection.

Berg insists AB 2747 is not of the same mold: "Unlike my previous end-of-life bill," she wrote, "my new bill doesn’t give anyone any new options. …Some, however, are still fighting last year’s battle and are trying to convince the gullible that my new bill is a Trojan horse, designed somehow to legalize aid-in-dying."

Thomassom sees the value Berg's places on "knowing all the options" as misguided.

"People who are ill need support, spiritual care and counseling," he says, not dire predictions of death and options for dying. "Just as the assisted-suicide bills of the last three years have been rejected, so should the California Legislature reject AB 2747. Assisted suicide by total sedation ignores the sanctity of human life and violates life-affirming medical ethics."

Christians Face 'Hate Crime' for Preaching Gospel in Muslim Area

June 3 2008 Prophecy News Watch

Two American-born pastors handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham, England, were threatened with arrest and warned of being beaten for committing what an officer called a "hate crime."

Arthur Cunningham, 48, and Joseph Abraham, 65, were handing out the leaflets and talking with local youths when they were approached and questioned by a police community support officer, or PCSO.

When the officer discovered the two Birmingham pastors were born in the U.S., he began a heated criticism of President Bush and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cunningham explained that the gospel message was not linked to American foreign policy, but the officer reportedly became belligerent.

"He said we were in a Muslim area and were not allowed to spread our Christian message," Cunningham told the London Telegraph. "He said we were committing a hate crime by telling the youths to leave Islam and said that he was going to take us to the police station."

In England a PCSO is a full-time employee of the police charged with community peacekeeping, but the officers do not have the power of arrest without a constable. In this case, the pastors refused to accompany the PCSO into the presence of a constable or to divulge their home addresses as, they said, the officer grew "threatening and intimidating."

The ministers also claim the PCSO bullied them, saying, "You have been warned. If you come back here and get beaten up, well, you have been warned."

The local police station has since announced that the matter was fully investigated and that the PCSO would be given corrective training, but the incident fuels concerns that there are areas in Britain where the Christian message is increasingly unwelcome.

In April, Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, bishop of Rochester and the Church of England's only Pakistan-born bishop, wrote in the Telegraph that certain pockets of England were becoming "no-go" zones, places too dangerous for non-Muslims to enter.

Joseph Abraham, one of the threatened pastors agrees. He told the paper, "I couldn't believe this was happening in Britain. The bishop of Rochester was criticized by the Church of England recently when he said there were no-go areas in Britain, but he was right; there are certainly no-go areas for Christians who want to share the gospel."