U.S. Supreme Court Upends Arkansas Supreme Court’s Good Birth Certificate Ruling

Family, Marriage, , ,

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, June 26, 2017

LITTLE ROCK, AR – On Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the State of Arkansas must list two “mothers” on a child’s birth certificate if the child’s birth mother is legally married to another woman. The ruling overturned a good decision the Arkansas Supreme Court handed down last December.

Family Council President Jerry Cox issued a statement saying, “The U.S. Supreme Court is asking Arkansas to ignore basic facts about biology. Birth certificates exist to record that a child was born and who the child’s biological parents are presumed to be. As the Arkansas Supreme Court correctly noted last year, no child can have two biological mothers, but the Arkansas Department of Health will now be forced to operate as if that is possible because of this court ruling.”

Cox said the ruling sets a dangerous precedent. “The U.S. Supreme Court is treating the names that appear on birth certificates like some sort of marriage benefit. Birth certificates are issued for the sake of children—not for the sake of adults. They are not simply pieces of paper. They are vital records that need to be accurate and deserve respect. We should not let them become mere political ploys in the ongoing debates about marriage.”

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Photo Credit: By Brian Turner (Flickr: My Trusty Gavel) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Focus on the Family Offers Parents’ Guide to Pokemon Go

Videogames, ,

If you are a parent or grandparent looking to understand the Pokemon Go craze, Focus on the Family has a guide that may help.

The team at Focus has reviewed the game along with its potential pros and cons.

Focus on the Family author Adam Holz writes about the game’s fun elements as well as possible pitfalls parents need to understand, saying,

“I was flabbergasted to discover how many people — perhaps 50 or so — were playing at a local park. I interacted with more than a dozen folks over the course of a two-hour walk. So there’s potential for community and relationship with other players who are out and about playing the game. On the other hand, the idea of young fans interacting with random strangers out on the streets should give parents considerable pause, too.”

You can find Holz’s entire article and guide for parents here.

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Helping Kids With Difficult Passages of Scripture

Christianity,

We have highlighted several resources produced by our friends at Focus on the Family intended to help you teach your children and your church about important truths found in scripture.

Today, we want to share a resource intended to help parents teach their children about difficult passages of scripture.

There are plenty of stories in the Bible that, especially if taken out of context, appear confusing or downright evil. In fact, arguably much of the books of Genesis and Judges falls into this category.

Jessica Thompson at Focus on the Family’s “Thriving Family” magazine writes,

It’s easy to look at a lot of Bible stories and imagine them in some sleazy supermarket tabloid:

“War hero vows to sacrifice first thing he sees after deployment. It’s his daughter!” (Judges 11)

“King takes soldier’s wife as his own. Has her husband killed.” (2 Samuel 11)

“Jealous brothers sell their younger brother into slavery, tell father he was killed by wild animal.” (Genesis 37)

The headlines could go on. Rape, incest, homosexuality. Murder and polygamy. It can be difficult to answer our kids’ questions about these troubling scriptural passages. What is the moral? Where is the hero? Can God be both good and in control of this mess?

So what are we supposed to do when our children ask us to explain these confusing or difficult passages of scripture? Again, Jessica writes,

We need to help our children learn how to read God’s Word — how to understand what’s going on in individual stories and how to frame those tales within the big picture. This isn’t a collection of moral stories meant to inspire us to be better people. Rather, the Bible is a realistic depiction of the condition of the human race. While there are moments of heroism and moral clarity, the Bible isn’t about larger-than-life people making flawless decisions and reaping the reward for their perfection. Humanity has an ugly history, and the Bible doesn’t ignore it, but rather takes hold of it, owns it and gives us a Savior who makes things right.

“Thriving Family” lists age-appropriate talking points you can use in discussing these passages of scripture with your children. I hope you will check them out; besides equipping you to educate your children, they may help you gain a deeper appreciation for God’s word as well. Click here for more information.

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