Poll: Arkansans Favor Pro-Life Laws, Overwhelmingly Oppose Same-Sex Marriage

Abortion, Homosexuality,

The 2015 Arkansas Poll released by the University of Arkansas today shows Arkansans overwhelmingly oppose recognition of same-sex marriage.

According to the poll, 64% of likely voters said same-sex marriage “should not be recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages.”

The poll comes as little surprise. Arkansans made it abundantly clear in 2004 they favor defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman; virtually every poll conducted since then has shown continued support for that definition among Arkansans.

The poll also shows 47% of likely voters favor laws making it “more difficult for a woman to get an abortion”–the highest percentage since 2003. Only 12% said it ought to be “easier” to get an abortion.

This number coincides with declining abortion levels in Arkansas–which have fallen drastically since the 1990’s–and new pro-life laws.

You can see the entire poll summary here.

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Researchers Try to Label “Homophobia” a Mental Disorder

Religious Freedom, , ,

A new column from our friends at the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview highlights recent “research” attempting to peg homophobia as a psychological disorder.

Eric Metaxas writes,

“‘Live Science’ reports that researchers at the University of Rome Tor Vergata asked 560 university students to report their feelings about homosexuality, then gave them a standard psychiatric evaluation. . . . .

“Lead researcher Emmanuele Jannini concluded, ‘After discussing for centuries if homosexuality is to be considered a disease, for the first time we demonstrated that the real disease to be cured is homophobia.’

“Well, this was red meat for progressive websites and news outlets, who gladly trumpeted the results.

“I can’t help but think of C. S. Lewis’ chilling and prophetic essay, ‘The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment.’ Lewis believed that persecution in the future would look less like jack-booted thuggery, and more like therapy: ‘…certain schools of psychology already regard religion as a neurosis,’ he wrote. ‘When this particular neurosis becomes inconvenient to the government, what is to hinder the government from proceeding to “cure” it,’ with mandatory re-education or other forms of treatment?”

Of course, as Metaxas points out, there are a number of problems with how this “research” is being analyzed and applied–not the least of which being the fact a phobia is “an irrational and debilitating fear,” something that is not the basis of Christians’ objections to homosexual behavior and same-sex marriage.

Christians object to same-sex marriage not because they are afraid of something; they object in large part because same-sex marriage ignores two the fundamental truths about marriage: That men and women are each made distinctly in the image of God, and that marriage unites these two halves of God’s image.

You can listen to Metaxas’ full commentary below–or click here to read it.

[audio:http://www.breakpoint.org/images/content/breakpoint/audio/2015/102815_BP.mp3|titles=Diagnosing Dissenters–Is Homophobia a Disorder?]

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Young Adult Literature “Disproportionately Gay”

Homosexuality

daily_commentary_10_02_15Eric Metaxas has written a commentary at BreakPoint.org discussing a growing trend in literature geared toward children and young adults.

Metaxas writes that the literature is disproportionately portraying homosexual relationships, saying,

“If you know the statistics on rates of homosexuality in the real world, you know that it’s somewhere around 3 percent, maybe less. Not so in the world of Young Adult fiction; there, it’s far more pervasive.

“Book reviewers on the Youth Reads page at our website BreakPoint.org, are noticing that the subject is coming up in more and more contemporary teen novels. It doesn’t matter if they’re romances or fantasy novels or any other genre—the theme runs through all kinds of books for this age group. Acclaimed author Rainbow Rowell is just one prominent recent example. She wrote a bestselling young adult book about a college girl who writes stories about a gay couple—and then Rowell wrote her own young adult book about the gay couple in her character’s stories!

“Given the state of the culture, all this isn’t surprising, but it’s worth a closer look. There are two main factors at work here. Authors who work to normalize homosexuality are trying to promote what they see as compassion, understanding, and acceptance. I believe they’re also trying to break down sexual boundaries of all kinds, to push what they see as ‘freedom’ as far as they possibly can.

“The result is far from healthy or edifying for young readers.”

You can listen to Metaxas’ full commentary below or click here to read it.

[audio:http://www.breakpoint.org/images/content/breakpoint/audio/2015/100215_BP.mp3|titles=Disproportionately Gay]

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