Saturday, October 11, 2008

Homosexual "Marriage" in Connecticut

I got this in an e-mail from Free Market.

This morning, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that the existing ban on homosexual marriage did not offer the protection needed for “families” to live securely as mandated by the Connecticut Constitution, and voted to legalize same-sex marriage. The state was one of the first to allow civil unions, and is now the third to legalize homosexual marriage. Please remember to keep our brothers and sisters in Connecticut in your prayers as they are experiencing this assault on traditional marriage.
CLICK HERE to read more.

I am getting so tired of these judges trumping the people. ARRGH!

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Scientists Doubt Darwin

A few days ago, I posted about Texas' law stating that strengths and weakness of neo-Darwinism were supposed to be taught in public school textbooks. Since then I found Dissent from Darwin. It is a website were scientists that are professors or PhDs can sign a statement saying, "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." You can also download the pdf of all of the signers. The list last updated August 2008 is 18 pages long. Here are the opening few just to give you a taste.

Philip Skell Emeritus, Evan Pugh Prof. of Chemistry, Pennsylvania State University, Member of the National Academy of Sciences

Lyle H. Jensen Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Biological Structure & Dept. of Biochemistry University of Washington, Fellow AAAS

Maciej Giertych Full Professor, Institute of Dendrology, Polish Academy of Sciences

Lev Beloussov Prof. of Embryology, Honorary Prof., Moscow State University Member, Russian Academy of Natural Sciences

Eugene Buff Ph.D. Genetics Institute of Developmental Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences

Emil Palecek Prof. of Molecular Biology, Masaryk University; Leading Scientist Inst. of Biophysics, Academy of Sci., Czech Republic


I Got In Trouble in Bible Class

It is true. I got in trouble in Bible class last night. The director of the children's ministry even came to chastise me. I will get into why in a minute, but first you need a little background.

I signed up as an assistant for the creation science for kids class a couple of months ago. When I signed up, I was given a packet of stuff including what to do with unruly kids. We have just finished the first six weeks (4th grade). This was the first week of the new rotation of 3rd graders.

So what did I do? I took a belligerent kid to his mom. I know you are all horrified. Normally in a church with 5,000 members that would be a virtually impossible thing to do, but in this case I know the family and knew exactly where the mother would be. When we got to her, the mother seemed grateful and asked to keep the son with her. So I said OK and left him with her.

A few minutes later, the main teacher excuses herself and asked one of the assistant teachers to take over. She returned with the director in tow. The director told me in no uncertain terms that we are not to involve the parents except under very extreme circumstances. The proper response is to talk to the child at least twice about proper behavior. (Silly me. Here I was thinking that one warning was plenty for a third grader that has grown up coming to church and already knows how to act.) The next course of action is to find the person in charge of elementary or the childhood director herself.

Now of course I had read this weeks ago in the packet of stuff. I had assumed that this was because parents in a huge crowd of people are almost impossible to find. But no. The director explained that it was because parents feelings would be hurt if their child is brought to them.

So what do you think of this story? Am I a naughty, crazy teacher or what?

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Keepers of the Faith




My family recently started a family club of Keepers of the Faith. It is a Christian scouting organization that can be used by single families, home school groups, church groups, etc. Since our children are little we are using the program for ages 4-6.



For the girls, it is called Little Keepers at Home. There are 4 categories of badges for Little Keepers: Godly Girlhood, Basic Skills, Homemaking, and Nature. In each category there are quite a few badges. We are working on Birds from the Nature category and Cooking from the Homemaking category.

For the boys, it is called Little Contenders for the Faith. The categories are the same except there is no Homemaking. My son is working on Birds as well. He is also doing Coloring from the Basic Skills section.

We are really enjoying it so far. The badges and sashes are high quality. The badges are just challenging enough to be fun. The best part is the godly emphasis of it all.

Monday, October 6, 2008

On the Privatization of America's Schools

There is a great guest post over at A Keyboard and a .45 by Peter W. Wickham, Jr. about what is needed to fix our education system.

My suggestion to permanently fix the problem is to take away the public schools' authority to tax and make them earn their money the old-fashioned way by satisfying the customer.

In order to raise funds they will have to collect fees from those who actually use their services. If a parent/customer chooses not to send her child to the school, that school receives no money. When a business fails to accommodate its customers' wants and needs, it loses it customers. When the customers leave, they take their money with them. Without any funds coming in, a business usually goes out of business. The threat of starvation is as good a motivator as the desire for profit and will drive people to improve their service to others. This is what the public schools need and need badly.

Go check it out. And while you are thinking along these lines. . . There is another site called Alliance for the Separation of School and State. It is worth a read.