Marc Estes

I received an email today regarding from Chuck Colson, who I admire greatly.  He is a sharp thinker and has spent much of his latter years discussing dangerous cultural trends that have an impact on our country. This one issue, was one worth passing forward.  I am saddened at the decline of our educational institutions and their lack of knowledge or concern regarding issues that affect the lives of those they are called to educate. On the other hand, I am excited about the few that are willing to stand up and say that, “Enough is enough!”  This is truly one of those articles that will make you  mad AND glad at the same time. In my personal opinion; Yale University has taken their liberties way too far! You can quote me on that!

So Long, Sex Week at Yale?
Students Fight Back

November 29, 2011

It is evident that there has been a colossal shift in the morals of the world as we know it today. What used to be considered outlandish has become the accepted norm. As Christians, we look to the rapid decline of morals and may never consider that the decline may be partially our fault. Before you click off this post, give me a few seconds. I am not saying that you personally have bad morals, but maybe the absence of your convictions being lived out and intentionally communicated in society could contribute to the reality our current disastrous situation. Edmun Burke, the Irish Political Philosopher, said centuries ago and his words still remain true, “All the it needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

Here is an interesting statement made by John Stott where he deals with decisive issues facing us Christians today. He states, “Our Christian habit is to bewail the world’s deteriorating standards with an air of rather self-righteous dismay. We criticize its violence, dishonesty, immorality, disregard for human life and materialistic greed. ‘The world is going down the drain,’ we say with a shrug. But whose fault is it really? Who is to blame? Let me put it like this. If the house is dark when night fall comes, there is no sense in blaming the house, for that is what happens when the sun goes down. The question is to ask is, ‘Where is the light?’ If the meat goes bad and becomes inedible, there is no sense in blaming the meat, for that is what happens when bacteria are left alone to breed. The question to ask is, ‘Where is the salt?’ Just so, if society deteriorates and its standards decline, until it becomes like a dark night or stinking fish, there is no sense in blaming society, for that is what happens when fallen men and women are left to themselves, and human selfishness is unchecked. The question to ask is, ‘Where is the church? Why are the salt and light of Jesus Christ not permeating and changing our society?’ It is sheer hypocrisy on our part to raise our eyebrows, shrug our shoulders or wring our hands. The Lord Jesus told us to be the world’s salt and light. If therefore darkness and rottenness abound, it is our fault and we must accept the blame.”

I do believe that we must begin to align our behaviors with our beliefs and truly become a positive influence and role model to those around us. People need to see the Christian faith lived out in everyday living, in our relationships, in our marriages, in our parenting, in our finances, in our social behaviors and yes, our confessions.  2 Chronicles 7:14 says it best, “if MYpeople,  MYGod-define people, respond by humbling themselves, praying, seeking my presence, and turning their backs on their wicked lives, I’ll be there ready for you: I’ll listen from heaven, forgive their sins and restore their land to health.” (MSG, emphasis mine).  Note that it is what WE do that restores the land, not what the world does.  Jesus labeled us as salt and light, as well as challenged us that if we don’t fulfill the intent of our lives, we are ‘good for nothing.’ Pretty tough words, but maybe they are worth considering and applying to our lives?

Let’s make it our aim to challenge and inspire anyone that comes within our range to start a “Living out our Faith” revolution. You never know, we just might turn nations around!

Let us face reality, TV has become a part of life for billions of people. The truth of the matter is, it is here to stay. The TV industry continues to expand in its influence as well as the viewing options that are available for any home. There are channels which teach us how to read and write, in addition to giving us 24 hour weather. We are inundated with a variety of entertainment which range from preaching the gospel to pornography. The tragedy is that we allow more people into our homes through our TV that we would never allow in through the front door.

You might want to consider the affect of television on your life and the lives of your family members. Listed below are some statistics sorted by category, followed up by some of the influnces of television. Please understand that I am not on a “Throw Your TV Away” campaign, but do suggest that you monitor what is being viewed in your home and make some decisions to minimize its affect.

According to the A.C. Nielsen Co. (Compiled by TV-Free America):

• The average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day
• Or 28 hours/week
• Or 2 months of nonstop TV-watching per year.
• In a 65-year life, that person will have spent 9 years glued to the tube. Compiled by TV-Free America

 I. FAMILY LIFE

• Percentage of households that possess at least one television: 99
• Number of TV sets in the average U.S. household: 2.24
• Percentage of U.S. homes with three or more TV sets: 66
• Number of hours per day that TV is on in an average U.S. home: 6 hours, 47 minutes
• Percentage of Americans that regularly watch television while eating dinner: 66
• Number of hours of TV watched annually by Americans: 250 billion
• Value of that time assuming an average wage of S5/hour: S1.25 trillion
• Percentage of Americans who pay for cable TV: 56
• Number of videos rented daily in the U.S.: 6 million
• Number of public library items checked out daily: 3 million
• Percentage of Americans who say they watch too much TV: 49

 II. CHILDREN

• Approximate number of studies examining TV’s effects on children: 4,000
• Number of minutes per week that parents spend in meaningful conversation with their children: 3.5
•  Number of minutes per week that the average child watches television: 1,680
• Percentage of day care centers that use TV during a typical day: 70
• Percentage of parents who would like to limit their children’s TV watching: 73
• Percentage of 4-6 year-olds who, when asked to choose between watching TV
• and spending time with their fathers, preferred television: 54
• Hours per year the average American youth spends in school: 900 hours
• Hours per year the average American youth watches television: 1500

 III. VIOLENCE

• Number of murders seen on TV by the time an average child finishes elementary school: 8,000
• Number of violent acts seen on TV by age 18: 200,000
• Percentage of Americans who believe TV violence helps precipitate real life mayhem: 79

IV. COMMERCIALISM

• Number of 30-second TV commercials seen in a year by an average child: 20,000
• Number of TV commercials seen by the average person by age 65: 2 million
• Percentage of survey participants (1993) who said that TV commercials
• Aimed at children make them too materialistic: 92
• Rank of food products/fast-food restaurants among TV advertisements to kids: 1
• Total spending by 100 leading TV advertisers in 1993: $15 billion

V. GENERAL

• Percentage of local TV news broadcast time devoted to advertising: 30
• Percentage devoted to stories about crime, disaster and war: 53.8
• Percentage devoted to public service announcements: 0.7
• Percentage of Americans who can name The Three Stooges: 59
• Percentage who can name at least three justices of the U.S. Supreme Court: 17

VI. INFLUENCE OF TELEVISION 

For decades, research and studies have demonstrated that heavy television-viewing may lead to serious health consequences. Now the American medical community, which has long-voiced its concerns about the nation’s epidemic of violence, TV addiction and the passive, sedentary nature of TV-watching, is taking a more activist stance, demonstrated by its endorsement of National TV-Turnoff Week.

The average child will watch 8,000 murders on TV before finishing elementary school. By age eighteen, the average American has seen 200,000 acts of violence on TV, including 40,000 murders. At a meeting in Nashville, TN last July, Dr. John Nelson of the American Medical Association (an endorser of National TV-Turnoff Week) said that if 2,888 out of 3,000 studies show that TV violence is a casual factor in real-life mayhem, “it’s a public health problem.” The American Psychiatric Association addressed this problem in its endorsement of National TV-Turnoff Week, stating, “We have had a long-standing concern with the impact of television on behavior, especially among children.”

Millions of Americans are so hooked on television that they fit the criteria for substance abuse as defined in the official psychiatric manual, according to Rutgers University psychologist and TV-Free America board member Robert Kubey. Heavy TV viewers exhibit five dependency symptoms–two more than necessary to arrive at a clinical diagnosis of substance abuse. These include: 1) using TV as a sedative; 2) indiscriminate viewing; 3) feeling loss of control while viewing; 4) feeling angry with oneself for watching too much; 5) inability to stop watching; and 6) feeling miserable when kept from watching.

Violence and addiction are not the only TV-related health problems. A National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey released in October 1995 found 4.7 million children between the ages of 6-17 (11% of this age group) to be severely overweight, more than twice the rate during the 1960′s. The main culprits: inactivity (these same children average more than 22 hours of television-viewing a week) and a high-calorie diet. A 1991 study showed that there were an average of 200 junk food ads in four hours of children’s Saturday morning cartoons.

According to William H. Deitz, pediatrician and prominent obesity expert at Tufts University School of Medicine, “The easiest way to reduce inactivity is to turn off the TV set. Almost anything else uses more energy than watching TV.”

Children are not the only Americans suffering from weight problems; one-third of American adults are overweight. According to an American Journal of Public Health study, an adult who watches three hours of TV a day is far more likely to be obese than an adult who watches less than one hour.

Sometimes the problem is not too much weight; it’s too little. Seventy-five percent of American women believe they are too fat, an image problem that often leads to bulimia or anorexia. Sound strange? Not when one takes into account that female models and actresses are twenty-three percent thinner than the average woman and thinner than ninety-five percent of the female population.

Over the past few weeks, I have been spending a great deal of time looking into the horrific problem of sex-trafficking in our city. I fully understand the depth of this issue globally and am thankful for the countless ministries and social agencies that have dedicated their lives to stopping this unimaginable tragedy. However, I have become passionate for the issue in our city and looking for ways in which to be involved personally, as well as working with my Pastor, Frank Damazio as to what we might do as a local church.

For those of you that do not yet understood the magnitude of this issue in the Portland/Vancouver area, I wanted to post an article by The Huffington Post. It is listed below along with a link to a short video by Dan Rather on the Portland-Pornland area (located at the bottom of this post). Here it is:

Child prostitution has become a national problem in this country. Yes, I know that you have trouble believing that. You don’t want to believe it, so you tend not to.

“Widespread sex trafficking in children?”, you may be saying to yourself. “Sure, it happens overseas in places like Thailand and Moldova, and while there may be some of it here there’s not that much of it in our country.”

Based on a months long investigation and some reportorial digging, I’m here to tell you that you are wrong. We all are. We’re in denial.

In covering news for more than 60 years, I’d like to think that few stories shock me anymore. But this is one of them. We ran across it late last year and the more we dug, the more disturbing it became.

Eighty-year-old men paying a premium to violate teenage girls, sometimes supplied by former drug gangs now into child sex trafficking big time? You’ve got to be kidding. Nope. That’s happening and a lot more along the same lines.

The business is booming. One of the worst areas for it runs along lines running roughly from Seattle to Portland, to San Francisco and Los Angeles, to Las Vegas. But no place in the country is immune.

To pick just one example among many, Portland, Oregon is without doubt one of the nation’s treasures. It has been voted one of the best places to live and work. But according to police, the city and its outlying communities has become a hub for the sexual exploitation of children. In a recent nationwide sting by Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, Portland ranked second in the country for the number of rescued child prostitutes. And according to Doug Justus, the workhorse sergeant in charge of Portland’s tiny Vice Detail, many of the children caught up in this are middle class kids from the area.

The girls, sometimes as young as 12, often 13-16, are lured by a “front man” in his mid-to-late teens. He becomes her “boyfriend,” taking her to dinner, buying her nice things, sometimes meeting her parents. The girl eventually moves in with him. Then he says they need money to continue being together. First, she’s enticed to sleep with his friends to pay the rent. Soon she’s turning tricks for what police say is an endless supply of older men willing to pay top money for sex with very young girls. Other times convincing the young adolescent girls to sell themselves happens very quickly.

“It is an out-of-control problem. It’s unbelievable,” say Justus. “I’ve only done this vice-squad job for three years. I’ve been a cop for 29. If you had told me three years ago that a 14-year-old girl would go to a food court, meet a guy, and three hours later be selling herself, I’d a said, no frigging way. It happens every single day, every day.”

It is a very lucrative business, according to Justus. “An average pimp with one kid will make between $800 and $l,000 a day. That’s seven days a week, 30 days a month,” he said. And the pimps usually have a stable of young girls. No wonder so many criminals in the drug trade have turned to it which they have in droves. There’s less chance of being caught, less chance of being prosecuted if caught, lighter sentences — if any — if convicted.

There is, and has been for a long time, a national “War on Drugs.” There isn’t one on child prostitution and what amounts to a slave trade. Only feeble efforts at best.

Justus is frustrated that the Portland police have only two full-time vice investigators, compared to dozens of drug investigators.

“I’m not a politician. I’m just a cop. But if I’m a criminal and I got busted for drugs and I had a regional (drug) task force over here. And there’s another task force over there, and there, and then I know there’s only two vice investigators in the city of Portland, let me think. I think I’ll sell women because what are the chances of me being caught?”

The story we’ve prepared is not about prostitution per se. This is about child abuse. This is also about statutory rape and compelling prostitution among the young. All are difficult to prove. A major reason, according to police, is that it’s extremely difficult to convince a young girl to testify against their pimps and “johns”. They are afraid.

Sgt. Justus told us the story of a 16-year-old girl whom he convinced to “roll” on her pimp. But before she could testify against him she disappeared — and her pimp walked free. Justus has spent the last year looking for her and fears she’s dead.

How many children are being peddled on the streets of Portland and in other cities and towns, to say nothing of the Internet (Justus and other law enforcement people say Craigslist, along with other Internet sites, are major factors in the spread of child prostitution)? Hard to know about the real numbers. The most conservative estimates are that at least 100,000 American children are being victimized. Many experts say they believe it’s closer to 300,000 or more.

Whatever the number, it is a national outrage and disgrace. And the problem is growing, not diminishing.

Based on our investigation, we’ve prepared an hour long program on this problem. We’ve spoken with parents who never dreamed their young daughter would be caught up in underage prostitution but was. We’ve also interviewed several girls who lived to tell about their experiences of being sold. Tuesday night at 8pm Eastern time on HDNet, via satellite and cable.

PORNLAND VIDEO WITH DAN RATHER CLICK HERE

The battle for Christian morals and values continues to escalate on every front. It is almost impossible to go a day without hearing of another confrontation taking place that targets our Christian values. It is ironic that it is now illegal to hand out Bibles in a classroom, but you can hand out condoms. It is a tragedy that a child needs a permission slip to take an aspirin but can have an abortion without a permission slip, or even further without their parents knowledge or consent. To push the line even further, we now have children that are forced to sit in classrooms and be told about what is right and wrong sexual orientation when they are just learning how to write their name!

When is enough, enough? When do we finally make a stand for the sake of our nation and the next generation? When do we get back to the roots of what this country was founded upon and realize the challenges we are facing today are a result of our wandering from the values and truths that made us great?

Well, here it is… a recent post by Chelsea Schilling from the World Net Daily. Put on your seat belt, it is a chilling ride!

A California school district has approved a mandatory homosexual curriculum for children as young as 5 – and parents will not be allowed to remove their children from the lessons.

The mandatory program, officially titled “LGBT Lesson #9,” was approved May 26 by the Alameda school district by a vote of 3-2. Students from kindergarten through fifth grade will learn about “tolerance” for the homosexual lifestyle beginning next year.

The curriculum is in addition to the school’s current anti-bullying program and is estimated to cost $8,000 for curriculum and training.

Parents will not be given an opportunity to opt-out of lessons that go against their religious beliefs. Some parents are threatening to sue the school board and mount a recall. Opponents presented a petition with 468 signatures from people who don’t want the homosexual lessons in the curriculum.

At a meeting, parent Julie Kim said, “The topics covered in this curriculum for all the grades should be left up to the parent to discuss with their children.”

The district’s legal counsel recommended against giving parents an opportunity to opt out of the lessons, claiming only health or sex education topics require opt-out provisions:

[T]he most prudent course of action for Alameda Unified School District’s Board of Education in regards to the proposed lesson is to recommend providing notice to parents, not to allow an opt out of the instruction.

The school district claims it will re-assess the curriculum, but only after it has been in place for a full year. According to the Island of Alameda, trustee Tracy Jensen addressed a crowd at City Hall following the vote.

“We are not telling anyone what to think,” Jensen said. “We are letting children know that gay people exist and they deserve to be treated with respect, regardless of whether or not you believe that homosexuality is acceptable.”

But Capitol Resource Institute’s Karen England explored the curriculum and released a statement condemning the program before the board’s vote.

“This curriculum ignores the fact that every child has a mom and a dad, to redefine ideas like ‘family.’ School absolutely should be a safe place, but this isn’t just about safety. Students have to embrace highly controversial social values or risk being labeled as bigots,” she warned. “Five year old kids aren’t ready to think on their own about sexuality – and their families’ values will be dismissed. That’s not an education in critical thinking. It’s social activism.”

In kindergarten, children will be introduced to “The New Girl … And Me” by Jacqui Robins. The book is about a young girl who is new at a school and strikes up a friendship with another girl after a popular boy refuses to play with her.

In first grade, students will read “Who is in a Family?” By Robert Skutch. It explores different types of families. One page states, ” … Robin’s family is made up of her dad, Clifford, her dad’s partner, Henry, and Robin’s cat, Sassy.”

Teachers will ask children to “identify and describe a variety of families” and “to understand that families have some similarities and some differences.”

“If a student responds that one family in the book is made up of a mother, a father and two children and a cat, you may acknowledge that some families look like this,” the curriculum states, “but also ask students for other examples of what a family can look like.”

Teachers are told to reflect and “reinforce to students that in our school and our community there are many different types of families that provide love and care to each other. Remind the students that all family structures are equally important.”

Second grade students will read about two homosexual penguins that raise a young chick in the book “And Tango Makes Three” by J. Richardson and P. Parnell. The two male penguins, Roy and Silo, are described as being “a little bit different.” “They didn’t spend much time with the girl penguins, and the girl penguins didn’t spend much time with them,” the text states. When the male penguins nurture an egg, it soon hatches. “We’ll call her Tango,” it states, “because it takes two to make a Tango.” The book declares, “Tango was the very first penguin in the zoo to have two daddies.” 

In the third grade, students will watch a film called “That’s a Family,” featuring some homosexual couples in addition to traditional families. According to the lesson plan, it aims to “assist students in developing sensitivity to gay and lesbian family structures” and teach “respect and tolerance for every type of family.”

Fourth graders will be required to read an essay titled, “My School is Accepting – but Things Could be Better” by Robert, an 11-year-old who has two lesbian mothers. They are introduced to terms such as “ally,” “gay,” “lesbian” and “LGBT.” Teachers are instructed to ask, “How do you think Robert feels when he hears people say things like, ‘this is gay’ or ‘You’re so gay’?”

By fifth grade, students learn to “identify stereotypes about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.” They are told that “LGBT people have made important contributions within the United States and beyond.” Teachers are asked to write the acronym LGBT and ask students the meaning of each letter. Students discuss why stereotypes are “incorrect and hurtful” to LGBT people and people with LGBT family members.

The children are provided with a list of famous LGBT people,including novelist James Baldwin, singer Elton John, comedian Ellen Degeneres, pop singer Christina Aguilera, Rep. Tammy Baldwin, poet Walt Whitman, singer Lance Bass, figure skater Rudy Galindo, homosexual politician Harvey Milk, Army veteran Jose Zuniga and basketball player Sheryl Swoopes.

 Teachers then ask if students are surprised to learn that those famous people are members of the LGBT community. The curriculum also provides a list of LGBT vocabulary words for students, including the following: bisexual, transgender, gay, LGBT and lesbian.

There is an annual survey put out by the Chronicle of Higher Education that surveys the attitudes of professors abroad, which includes their political persuasion as well.  I was surprised to find that Liberals far outnumber the Conservatives in the academic arena by more than two to one and there is even a much higher percentage in the two areas of social sciences and humanities. These stats even escalate when you isolate the study to the elite universities. Is this trend due to that fact that Liberals are just more intelligent that Conservatives?

Dinesh D’Souza states an interesting perspective on this issue. He says, “Conservatives tend to go into business because they care more about money; liberals tend to go into the academy because they care more about power. One reason for this divergence of interests is that conservatives in general are practical people – they emphasize what works – while liberals are theoretical people – they emphasize what ought to work.”

I do understand that there is some balance to this statement but would love to hear your perspective and opinion on this issue. What do you think the result of this study would be on our current academic and business sectors? How do you think this line of thinking has affected society today? Let me know your thoughts.