Current Events – Family Council

Prohibiting Parlays, Protecting the Preborn (Plus Plenty More)

Mar 13, 2026Jerry CoxCurrent EventsUpdate, Weekly Rewind

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Here’s a quick recap of the week’s top stories from Family Council and our friends:

From Family Council

From Prop Bets to Proper Rules, Here are Eight Ways Arkansas Could Stop Predatory Sports Betting: Nationwide, sports betting is now legal in 39 states — including Arkansas, where people wager an average of nearly $1.8 million on it every day. But a growing body of evidence shows sports betting is harmful. Here are eight examples of common sense steps the State of Arkansas could take to rein in out-of-control sportsbooks. Keep Reading.

Nearly Half of NCAA Basketball Players Harassed by Sports Bettors: A recent NCAA study found that 46% of Division I men’s basketball players reported harassment from bettors on social media. Keep Reading.

Florida Lawmakers Add Surrogacy Ban to Foreign Interference Measure: Unlike most nation’s, the United States has few restrictions on commercial surrogacy arrangements, and that means commercial surrogacy agencies are able to hire women to bear children for paying customers — some of whom may be overseas. But lawmakers in Florida recently proposed legislation that would prevent some foreign nationals from entering into commercial surrogacy agreements in their state. Read More.

Building a Culture of Life One Resolution at a Time: Family Council has created a free toolkit to assist anyone who is interested in securing passage of a pro-life resolution in Arkansas. Be a part of this growing movement and help your community pass a pro-life resolution! Keep Reading.

Safe Haven Baby Box Dedications set for Morrilton and Jacksonville March 9 & 10: The new surrender locations mark the 419th Safe Haven Baby Box in the nation and the 35th in Arkansas, expanding access to safe, anonymous surrender options for mothers in crisis. Keep Reading.

A Christian Reflection on the Dangers of Marijuana and THC: Marijuana and drugs made from THC have spread across the nation, and marijuana’s supporters often say these products are completely harmless. But the evidence tells a very different story. Keep Reading.

From Our Friends

Biden Administration Endangered Women With Abortion Pill Change, Research Finds. From Daily Citizen.

U.S. Rejects UN Document Sidestepping Biological Womanhood amid Global Gender Ideology Push. From The Washington Stand.

Assisted Suicide Becomes a Leading Cause of Death in Canada. From Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

Marijuana, Marriage, and More: New This Week

Mar 6, 2026Jerry CoxCurrent EventsUpdate, Weekly Rewind

Here’s a quick recap of the week’s top stories from Family Council and our friends:

From Family Council

Arkansas State Police Seize Hundreds of Pounds of Illegal Drugs in February Traffic Stops: In one stop alone, troopers found 600 pounds of illegal marijuana and 15 boxes of THC products in a van traveling from Los Angeles to North Carolina. Other stops netted 45 pounds of marijuana from Oklahoma City, 19 pounds of marijuana from Memphis, and 115 pounds of methamphetamine from Dallas. Keep Reading.

Marijuana Use Reduces Brain Activity: Research reminds us that heavy marijuana use is associated with reduced activity in regions of the brain that are critical for young adults. Keep Reading.

Revisiting How Sports Betting Hurts Young Adults: Research shows that gambling is more addictive for college-aged individuals. Player prop bets let college students to engage in “micro-betting,” a more repetitive — and therefore more addictive — form of sports betting. Keep Reading.

Research Reminds Us Marriage Still Matters: A recent study from Barna reveals that fewer Americans are getting married today, but most still believe marriage is important and they want to get married someday. Keep Reading.

Supreme Court Sides with Parents Against California Public Schools’ Secret Gender Transition Policies: On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with a group of parents who challenged California’s secret social gender transition policy. The policy requires public school teachers and administrators to hide children’s gender dysphoria and social gender transition from parents. Keep Reading.

Spain’s Top Court Says 25-Year-Old Woman Paralyzed After Attempted Suicide Now Qualifies for Assisted Suicide: Noelia, 25, from Barcelona, attempted suicide multiple times before an October 2022 attempt left her paralyzed and in chronic pain. Two years later, she received approval for assisted suicide under Spain’s euthanasia policies. Keep Reading.

Western Civilization is Worth Defending: Marco Rubio has made a name, and a meme, for himself as the indispensable figure in the American government. Keep Reading.

Kansas Legislature Overrides Governor’s Veto, Protects Women’s Privacy in Public Restrooms: Kansas Senate Bill 244 requires public buildings—including schools and universities—to maintain single-sex private spaces “for use only by individuals of one sex.” The law also mandates that birth certificates and driver’s licenses designate gender based on biological sex, not subjective gender identity. Keep Reading.

Canada’s Alarming Milestone: 100,000 Deaths from Assisted Suicide: According to the country’s most recent Report on Medical Assistance in Dying, 76,475 Canadians had died via assisted suicide as of December 31, 2024. With an average of 45 assisted suicide and euthanasia deaths every day, Canada is projected to surpass its 100,000th death by early June. Keep Reading.

From Our Friends

Why Gen Z “Nones” Are Reconsidering Religion. From Daily Citizen.

Indiana School District Pays Former Music Teacher $650,000 to Settle Religious Discrimination Case. From Alliance Defending Freedom.

South Dakota Committee Passes Bill to Ban Mail-Order Abortions. From LifeNews.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

Western Civilization is Worth Defending: Guest Column

Mar 2, 2026John StonestreetCurrent EventsCurrent Events, Western Civilization

Marco Rubio has made a name, and a meme, for himself as the indispensable figure in the American government. Last week, the Secretary of State added to his reputation at the Munich Security Conference, offering a statesman-like defense of the West, emphasizing the historic and religious foundations shared by America and Europe. He also critiqued a false and misleading view of civilizational history.

The fall of the Soviet Union, Rubio said, led to the dangerous delusion,

that we had entered, ‘the end of history;’ that every nation would now be a liberal democracy; that the ties formed by trade and by commerce alone would now replace nationhood; that the rules-based global order—an overused term—would now replace the national interest; and that we would now live in a world without borders where everyone became a citizen of the world.

Here, Rubio referenced, without naming, political scientist Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History” thesis. Fukuyama adopted G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophy of “History,” as the record of inevitable human advancement from one age to the next.

Though Fukuyama’s view helps explain why progressive politicians constantly claim to be on “the right side of history,” Rubio soundly rejected such thinking as “a foolish idea that ignored both human nature and . . . the lessons of over 5,000 years of recorded human history.” Such thinking, Rubio added, “has cost us dearly.”

Like Winston Churchill’s 1941 appeal to the United States—where he rallied the New World to partner with the Old World amid World War II—Rubio grounded a similar call in our shared heritage:

The men who settled and built the nation of my birth arrived on our shores carrying the memories and the traditions and the Christian faith of their ancestors as a sacred inheritance, an unbreakable link between the old world and the new.

We are part of one civilization—Western civilization. We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir . . .

We want allies who are proud of their culture and of their heritage, who understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization, and who, together with us, are willing and able to defend it.

Rubio’s speech appealed to a different understanding of civilizational history and stressed two key points. First, civilizations decline if they are not stewarded and protected. They must be protected from threats from within. Second, civilizations conflict with other civilizations that are built on alternative visions. Thus, they must be defended from threats from without.

In response to Rubio’s speech, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) stated that Western culture has a “thin” foundation, and that culture itself is an “evolving thing that is a response to the conditions that we live in.” Instead, it is “material, class-based” interests which should prevail.

Ocasio-Cortez’s views of social Darwinism and neo-Marxism also adopt a Hegelian philosophy of “History.” All is explained by the economic class struggle between the oppressors and the oppressed. After stumbling around a good bit, the Congresswoman advocated a rehashed form of Critical Theory, which radically misunderstands human nature and historical facts. For quick reference to the terror, torture, famine, massacres, and atrocities that result when history and culture are reduced to class struggle, see The Black Book of Communism, published by Harvard University.

In contrast, Rubio spoke to why America was committed to defending Western Civilization. Because doing so was defending “a way of life” that provided more freedom and opportunity than any other civilization in history. While not perfect, Western civilization “. . . has every reason to be proud of its history,” Rubio said.

Even more, it is the choices we make, not blind historical trends, that will shape the future. According to Rubio, “our predecessors recognized that decline was a choice, and it was a choice they refused to make . . ..[W]e in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline.”

Christians should be the first to defend and promote what is good and worthy of preserving. We should also reject the delusion that blind historical forces canbring inevitable progress to the world. As Os Guinness and others articulated in the recent documentary Truth Rising, Western civilization is at a critical moment. How will we respond?

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Andrew Carico.