Wendy McElroy's blogspot
Topic: Individualist Feminism
Source: WendyMcElroy.com
You are cordially invited to visit the homepage and blog of individualist feminist and libertarian Wendy McElroy

Child Online Protection Act overturned
Topic: Children and Family
Source: ABC News
A federal appeals court struck down as unconstitutional a Clinton era law that would have forced websites with adult material to verify visitors ages, dealing another blow to the government in a 10 year court battle over net censorship. The 3rd U.S. Circurt Court of Appeals upheld on Tuesday a 2007 lower-court decision that the Child Online Protection Act violated the First Amendment since it was not the most effective way to keep children from visiting adult websites. (07/23/08)

MI, 100s of criminals provide child care
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Detroit Free Press
Michigan’s oversight of child care providers was so ridden with deficiencies that state regulators licensed hundreds of convicted sex offenders, child abusers and criminals during a three-year period ending in 2006, according to an audit released today by the state auditor general. The Department of Human Services authorized 1,900 unsuitable day care providers during the period placing 4,600 children at risk, auditors found. (07/22/08)

Transgender woman sues GA lawmakers
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: Atlanta Journal Constitution
A former state employee living as a transgender woman on Friday filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against leading Georgia lawmakers and the supervisor who fired her. Vandiver Elizabeth Glenn, a former employee in the General Assembly Office of Legislative Counsel, was fired after she told supervisors she no would no longer come to work as a man. (07/22/08)

TX, polygamist sect members indicted
Topic: Children and Family
Source: MSNBC
A Texas grand jury on Tuesday indicted polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs and five of his followers. Jeffs was charged with felony sexual assault of a child. Four of his followers were charged with one count of sexually assaulting girls under the age of 17. One of the four faced an additional charge of bigamy, Attorney General Greg Abbott said. A fifth follower was charged with three counts of failure to report child abuse, Abbott said. (07/22/08)

IL, Abortion mega clinic targeted again
Topic: Abortion
Source: WorldNetDaily
City officials in Aurora, Ill., who in 2007 allowed construction of a massive Planned Parenthood abortion mega-clinic in apparent violation of their own zoning codes, now are being challenged by pro-life activists who previously filed a lawsuit on another front. Thomas More Society, which has been battling the abortion business and is pursuing a lawsuit over the issue, says it now has filed formal appeals to both the Aurora Building Code Board of Appeals and the Zoning Board of Appeals on behalf of Fox Valley Families against Planned Parenthood. (07/23/08)

Iranian women rights activist vows to fight on
Topic: Gender Discrimination
Source: Gulf Times
She has been sentenced to jail twice and her passport has been confiscated, but Parvin Ardalan, a prominent Iranian activist, refuses to give up her struggle for women’s rights. Ardalan, 41, is a leading figure in a campaign to collect 1mn signatures in support of improving women’s rights in Iran, whose government rejects Western accusations of abuses. Campaigners say dozens of them have been detained since the drive began in 2006, in what Western diplomats see as part of a wider clampdown on dissent by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government. (07/23/08)

Archbishop confirms anti gay sex stance
Topic: Gay/Lesbian Issues
Source: Times Online
The Archbishop of Canterbury has continued his quest for Anglican unity with a strong statement against living in sin and gay sex. Dr Williams said: "I do not believe that sex outside marriage is as God purposes it." And he said he remained "committed" to the Church's official stance against gay sex, which aims to preserve Biblical norms. (07/22/08)

LA to SC on child rape
Topic: Children and Family
Source: USA Today
Louisiana prosecutors asked the Supreme Court on Monday to reconsider its recent decision outlawing the death penalty for people convicted of raping children. The unusual request is based on the failure of anyone involved in the case, lawyers on both sides as well as the justices, to take account of a change in federal law in 2006 that authorized the death penalty for members of the military who are convicted of child rape. (07/22/08)

Child porn charge for ND expert on sex offenders
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Yahoo Daily News
A former psychologist who evaluated sex offenders at North Dakota's state mental hospital faces federal charges of possession of child pornography. Joseph Belanger, 61, pleaded not guilty Monday to three counts, including possession and receipt of materials involving the sexual exploitation of minors....In Iowa, The Des Moines Register reported in a copyright story that revelations about Belanger led to reviews of more than 145 cases in which he was involved, and to new trials for two sex offenders in that state. (07/21/08)

Pakistan, taboos hinder AIDS fight
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: New York Times
In Pakistan, seven times as many men as women are reported to be infected with the AIDS virus, but taboos about sex make it very difficult to even address the epidemic, researchers are reporting this week. The findings, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, are by researchers at two Pakistani universities, who said India and Bangladesh, with similarly conservative Muslim cultures, had addressed the issues more openly. (07/22/08)

Lawmakers urge Bush to halt abortion proposal
Topic: Abortion
Source: ABC News
More than 100 members of Congress wrote President Bush today, urging him to halt all action on a proposal they argue would change the definition of abortion, and drastically limit women's access to birth control. The Department of Health and Human Services draft proposal, which began circulating around Capitol Hill last week, would require hospitals receiving federal funds to certify that, in their hiring, they do not discriminate against people who refuse to provide forms of contraception, such as birth control pills, due to personal religious beliefs. (07/21/08)

Pakistan, young victims belong to kidnappers
Topic: Children and Family
Source: WorldNetDaily
A Pakistani judge has ruled two young girls from a Christian family who were reported kidnapped cannot be "restored to their family of origin' because they "converted" to Islam. WND reported earlier when the kidnappers filed in court for custody of Saba Younis, 13, and Aneela Younis, 10, who were kidnapped on June 26 in the small town of Chowk Munda. The father then was summoned by police to hear that the kidnappers had filed with the court for custody of the girls, alleging they had "converted" to Islam and the father no longer had jurisdiction over them. (07/18/08)

Laboring to save home births
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Christian Science Monitor
The Amish here in Lancaster County may go to the hospital if they break an arm or need surgery, but when it’s time to give birth they stay home. Usually, they deliver their babies with the aid of a midwife, and the women in this waiting room half-joke that if Ms. Goslin goes out of business, they are through with childbearing. It appeared to be coming to just that last fall when the Pennsylvania Board of Medicine ordered Goslin to cease and desist assisting her mothers, deeming it “practicing medicine and nurse midwifery without the appropriate licensure.” (07/22/08)

Anti gay comic book targets AG
Topic: Gay/Lesbian Issues
Source: UPI
An Oklahoma county commissioners re election campaign is distributing an anti gay comic book that links the state attorney general to the homosexual agenda. Legal Newsline reported Monday that in one of the drawings, Oklahoma Attorney General W.A. Drew Edmondson is depicted holding a sign that says, "Gay rights now!" A caption says Edmondson "put Oklahoma on record to force the Boy Scouts to accept homosexuals as scout leaders, a pedifile's (sic) dream come true." (07/21/08)

You don’t have to love your maternity leave
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Spiked
Author: Jennie Bristow
At last, someone has said it: Extended periods of maternity leave and flexible working rights are not all they are cracked up to be. In her monthly column, Jennie Bristow sends today’s parenting fads and panics to the naughty step. This month, she argues that extending maternity leave is a poor substitute for a social solution to the problem of childcare. (07/17/08)

McCain, war on women
Topic: Gender Discrimination
Source: In These Times
Author: Kate Shepperd
Sen. John McCains (R-Ariz.) campaign and the media would have us believe that herds of disaffected women voters will be stampeding to the Republicans this year because a woman candidate will not be on the presidential ballot in November. McCain’s campaign has been making a clear play for women voters in recent weeks, hosting conference calls with Republican women and touting that his policies on national security, the economy and healthcare appeal to women voters. But the suggestion that women — and feminist women, at that — will be lining up behind him is a fairytale. At least, it should be. McCain’s record and policies on issues of importance to women are neither moderate nor maverick. (07/21/08)

NOW and the villians of victimhood
Topic: Women's Studies, Scholarship, and History
Source: TownHall
Author: Karin Agness
Superwoman made a curious appearance this weekend, gracing the program cover of the National Organization for Women (NOW) National Conference, which was themed, “No Capes, No Masks, No Boundaries: Feminist Super-Women Unite!” Besides revealing an inflated view of their own organization, the superhero analogy demonstrates the destructive attitude dominating feminism today. It is the attitude that everyone is against women, out to get them. To feminists, women must take on the entire world. (07/21/08)

Psychic nearly destroys family
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Live Science
What happens when the psychic lies to the client, or is wrong, telling her information that is not true about something with real-world consequences? Consider the case of Colleen Leduc, a single mother of an autistic eleven-year-old girl in Barrie, Ontario. On May 30, she left her daughter Victoria at her elementary school. Leduc was soon called back to the school urgently, and confronted by the principal, Victoria's teacher, and a teacher's aide (educational assistant, or EA). Puzzled and alarmed, Leduc asked what was going on. The group told her that they believed that Victoria was being sexually abused. They had contacted the Children's Aid Society, a case file had been opened, and her daughter might be taken from her "for her own safety." (07/17/08)

Authors expose a steamier side of Scripture
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: Salt Lake Tribune
Author: Ashly McGlone
Most believers would say the Bible is the word of God, or at least a divinely inspired book written by divinely inspired men. But what if the Bible had been mistranslated or censored to remove the tawdry bits about pimps, cross-dressers or, ahem, a Brazilian wax as punishment? That's what biblical scholars John Kaltner and Stephen L. McKenzie of Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., were wondering, and they set out to investigate a handful of unorthodox interpretations of Old Testament tales. (07/19/08)