ACL compiles a daily media monitoring service of stories of interest to the Christian constituency relating to children, family, drugs and alcohol, marriage, human rights, religious freedom etc. Visit the ACL’s website each day to see what’s of interest in the news. Please note that selection of the articles does not represent ACL endorsement of the content.
Abortion
Women’s health advocate calls for better termination services in regional NSW
Melinda Hayter – ABC
The CEO of Women’s Health New South Wales says a lack of access to pregnancy termination services in the Central West is a form of discrimination against rural women.
New campaign attempts to gloss over the devastation abortion causes women
Dave Andrusko – LifeNews
The title of the piece at the pro-abortion Thinkprogress.org site is “Abortion Stigma Hurts Women, But Here’s How We Can Start Getting Rid of it.” And the immediate form that this attempt to destigmatize abortion is something called a “1 in 3 Week of Action.” It’s intended “to get the conversation going,” Tara Culp-Ressler tells us. The campaign “will mobilize more than 100 communities and campus across the country to help highlight individuals’ abortion experiences. College activists are planning events to provide a space for their peers to openly share their stories.”
Popular Mars Hill pastor: Abortion is not a choice; it’s murder
Kristi Burton Brown – Live Action
Last week, Live Action highlighted a bold op-ed by Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Driscoll, writing for Fox News, discussed the illogical state of laws in the U.S., where unborn children are protected from being killed by everyone but their mothers. Driscoll painted a picture of just how many people we are missing because of abortion – 55 million in the U.S. alone.
Drugs & Alcohol
Study probes why truckers use booze, illicit drugs
Health Day News
The use of psychoactive substances, including alcohol, amphetamines, and marijuana, appears common in truck drivers, particularly when working conditions are poor, according to research published online Oct. 21 in Occupational & Environmental Medicine.
Environment
150 Environment Department jobs axed under Labor efficiency dividend
Sid Maher – The Australian
The Environment Department has this morning announced it will cut 150 jobs over the next two months as a result of Labor’s efficiency dividend and has implemented an immediate freeze on hiring and promotions as it prepares for the Coalition’s clamp on the public service.
Euthanasia
Euthanasia bill’s defeat gives hope
Paul Dobbyn – Catholic Leader
The narrow defeat of Tasmania’s legislation to enable voluntary euthan-asia was a triumph for effective lobbying of the state’s MPs and the effective education of the electorate. HOPE Australia director Paul Russell, who was among those involved in co-ordinating the campaign against the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2013, also said the campaign carried a warning against over-reliance on polling.
Marriage
Commonwealth to launch High Court challenge over ACT same-sex marriage laws
ABC
The Federal Government has confirmed it will go ahead with a High Court challenge after the ACT today became the first Australian jurisdiction to legalise same-sex marriage. The ACT Labor Government passed its Marriage Equality Same-Sex Bill in the Legislative Assembly with the help of Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott says he will attend sister’s wedding, but not support the marriage
News Ltd
Tony Abbott says he will “do the right thing” and attend his gay sister’s wedding but could never support the marriage. And his sister Christine Forster’s engagement to partner Virginia Edwards will not dim his Government’s fight against the country’s first same-sex marriage laws in the ACT.
Council of Churches supports High Court challenge to ACT same sex marriage law
Christian Today
Prime Minister Tony Abbott is to be commended for his Government’s support of uniform national marriage. laws and the decision to vigorously challenge the ACT Government’s new same sex marriage laws in the High Court, according to the NSW Council of Churches. “We can’t have States and Territories passing laws that deeply divide Australians and that are guaranteed to face expensive legal challenges,” the President of the NSW Council of Churches, the Reverend Dr Ross Clifford, said today.
Love and marriage in the time of uncertainty
Mark Kenny – The Age
The ACT’s same-sex marriage laws aren’t set in stone, but that’s not quelling optimism. The low point in an adoring hour between Julia Gillard and her supporters last month came when a boy bluntly asked, ”How come you didn’t let gay people get married?”
Overseas and Local Aid
Salvation Army release $500,000 to aid bushfire victims
Christian Today
The Salvation Army today released more than $500,000 to aid the bushfire relief and recovery effort and continues to provide care and support to those affected by the fires. Salvation Army personnel, mostly volunteers, have been feeding fire fighters and those affected at evacuation centres in the Blue Mountains, Lithgow, on the central coast, and at Raymond Terrace.
Politics
Is moral hazard destroying the social contract?
Revelly Robinson – On Line Opinion
Moral hazard is all around us. We see it in the actions of the bankers on Wall Street who took on excessive risk on loans that were completely disproportionate to the collateral being offered. We see it in the insistence of mining companies to fight against putting a price on carbon in order to maximise the profits of resource extraction. We see it in the class war rhetoric thrown at the previous government that created a middle class entitlement mentality which, in turn, impeded income redistribution policies to tackle inequality. Moral hazard is a natural phenomenon of human nature. It arises as a result of innate selfishness, lack of ethics and a complete irresponsibility for the consequences of one’s actions.
Former Foreign Minister Bob Carr has announced his retirement from politics
Amanda Cavill – World News Australia Radio
Former Foreign Minister Bob Carr has announced his retirement from politics. The announcement follows weeks of speculation that he would quit despite being elected for a six-year term at the September 7 election.
Religious Freedom & Persecution
Islamist agenda enforced in Nigerian states amid anti-Christian violence
Barnabas Aid
As Christians in Nigeria continue to suffer violent attacks at the hands of Islamic extremists, they are also facing official opposition as the authorities enforce an Islamist agenda in a number of states. In Kano state, sharia law is being imposed on all citizens, including Christians. Islamic police are deploying 10,000 officers to ensure that rules regarding “indecent dress” and gender mixing are enforced.
Sexualisation of Society
New York tightens rules for child models
ABC
New York has passed into law tough new rules governing how child models can work that have been hailed by campaigners as a step toward ending rampant exploitation.
Private School Girl star Ja’mie King ‘nails’ her first men’s mag shoot
Alison Stephenson – News Ltd
It’s been described as “confusing” and “possibly illegal” but Ja’mie of Summer Heights High fame has gone ahead and done her first men’s mag shoot. The Private School Girl star has posed in a “world exclusive” for Zoo, raunching it up in her uniform and long socks. Chris Lilley, the man behind the character says he was shocked at how good the final shots were.
The female male model
The Age
See that gorgeous bikini model on the left? And then the dashingly handsome male model on the right? Well they’re the same person. Yes, at 31, model Elliott Sailors realised that her work was drying up, and she’d have a better chance of continuing to bag lucrative gigs if she re-branded as a male model.
Other
National Others Week
Global Care
Global Care’s motto is “Mates helping mates” – and a great way to help a “mate” is to get involved in National Others Week (NOW) to be held from the first Sunday in November 2013. Our society is so ingrained with selfishness, greed and violence. NOW is a chance to replace selfishness with generosity, greed with compassion and violence with kindness.