From Abortion By Mail to EFA Hearings to Gambling Legislation, Here’s a Look Back at the Week

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

From Family Council

💊 Family Council Launches Grassroots Effort Urging Trump Administration to End Mail-Order Abortion Drugs. On Thursday, Family Council launched a grassroots effort calling on the Trump administration and members of Congress to end former President Joe Biden’s dangerous mail-order abortion policies and restore the in-person doctor’s visit requirement that must be met before a woman can obtain chemical abortion drugs. Keep Reading.

🏛️ Lawmakers to Hold Hearing on EFA Rules Monday. Lawmakers on the Administrative Rules Subcommittee will hold a hearing to discuss new Educational Freedom Account rules in Little Rock this Monday, June 15. The meeting will be open to the public, and homeschoolers may have an opportunity to testify at the meeting. Keep Reading.

📜 Here is an Overview of Some of the Concerns Homeschoolers Have Raised About New EFA Rules. Since late last year, homeschoolers have expressed concerns about the new rules again and again to the Department of Education and other policymakers. Here are a few examples of the concerns that homeschoolers, our organization, and others have raised about the rules. Keep Reading.

💍 Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders Declares June “Fidelity Month.” Learn More.

💵 Congressmen Introduce Bipartisan Proposal to Investigate Harm Caused by Sports Betting. Last week, Congressmen Blake Moore (R-UT) and Dan Goldman (D-NY) introduced the bipartisan Gambling Disorder Health Study Act. The proposal would direct the federal government to conduct a comprehensive, long-term investigation into gambling disorder and evaluate “prevention, treatment, and intervention strategies.” Keep Reading.

🪝 Children, Teens Getting Hooked on Gambling. Researchers and news outlets are sounding the alarm over concerns about kids getting hooked on sports betting. Keep Reading.

🧠 Study Shows Marijuana May Interfere with Adolescent Brain Development. In a study published by the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, researchers from Bradley Hospital in Rhode Island found marijuana use during adolescence is linked to differences in brain regions related to motivation and reward. Experts say the brain is more sensitive to the effects of marijuana during teenage development, which raises serious concerns about the long term effects of using marijuana during adolescence. Keep Reading.

🏆 Biological Male Wins Girls Shot Put Championship in West Virginia. A biological male recently won first place in the girls shot put at a West Virginia state track and field championship — beating the second-place finisher by more than two feet. Keep Reading.

📉 Why is Support for Same-Sex Marriage and Other Pro-LGBT Issues Falling? For years, survey data indicated a growing share of Americans were pro-LGBT and supported same-sex marriage. That trend seemed to culminate in 2015 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned state marriage laws nationwide with its Obergefell v. Hodges decision. But since 2024, polling data has showed a drop in support for same-sex marriage. Keep Reading.

🏫 LifeWise Academy Expands Rapidly Across Arkansas in 2025-26 School Year, Serving Hundreds of Students. In Arkansas, LifeWise currently serves approximately 1,260 students with 12 live programs in 16 schools, reflecting significant year-over-year growth as more families see the significant benefits of released time religious instruction. Keep Reading.

💉 Guest Column: The Slippery Slope Keeps Slipping. Back in April, a reckless assisted suicide bill looked like it was going to pass and be made British law. Instead, it was shut down by the House of Lords. Then, in May, the Irish parliament rejected an expanded abortion bill by a vote of 85-30. On this side of the Atlantic, things are headed in the opposite direction. Keep Reading.

🧱 President Reagan: “Tear Down This Wall.” On June 12, 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan visited the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin. There he famously delivered a speech calling on Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” Watch the Video.

From Our Friends

Yes, Gay ‘Pride Month’ Most Certainly IS After Our Kids. From Daily Citizen.

When mob action is overlooked, you get more mob action. From American Family News.

Why Do Americans Oppose Suicide But Support Assisted Suicide? From LifeNews.

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

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Guest Column: From ‘Liberalism’ to ‘Progressivism’

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In March, with an 8-1 majority vote, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “counseling conversations are speech and that states cannot silence viewpoints in the counseling room.” The majority included all but Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who claimed in dissent that states should be able to use “police powers to establish and enforce the standards of care that bind medical professionals,” including what she called “professional medical speech.” Apparently, for Justice Jackson, that power also includes the ability to determine what should count as “scientific consensus,” given the collapse of consensus on the issue of “gender-affirming care.”  

In a concurring opinion, liberal Justices Kagan and Sotomayor noted that the Colorado law in question, which banned conversion therapy for minors, was not “viewpoint-neutral.” Had it been, they said, it would raise a different and more difficult question.” In another instance last summer, Justice Sotomayor did not agree with a Trump administration policy but also believed it was not the place of the Court to decide. Justice Jackson, on the other hand, described her appointment to the Supreme Court as an opportunity “to tell people in my opinions how I feel about the issues.” 

This is an example of an ongoing fissure between liberals and progressives on the political and ideological Left in America. As Colson Center Senior Fellow Dr. Glenn Sunshine has previously described, part of this difference is that standpoint epistemology, the liberal idea that each has our own truth from our own perspective, has devolved into expressive individualism, the idea that “our truth” should be imposed on everyone else as a matter of human dignity.  

The implications of this shift from “liberalism” to “progressivism” are significant, especially for rights of speech and conscience. On April 22, Lois McLatchie Miller posted a clip of a British police officer informing a street preacher that he could not share the Gospel in places or ways that “may” cause offense or dissuade people from seeking abortions. 

Back in March, Päivi Räsänen, a lawmaker in Finland, was found guilty of “inciting hatred” for calling homosexuality a “disorder” in 2004. No riots or hatred were actually incited in the over twenty years since. She was guilty of believing and expressing the wrong things. Also in March, the Chicago Bulls waived guard Jaden Ivey “due to conduct detrimental to the team.” Given the conduct regularly tolerated by sports franchises, it is notable that Mr. Ivey’s “offense” was posting a video of himself critiquing the NBA’s promotion of “Pride Month.” 

Many progressives left Twitter when it was purchased by Elon Musk, not because their ideas would be suppressed but because contrary ideas would not be. But the move to alternate social media platform Bluesky has turned out to be a mess. The progressive drive for ideological purity has stunted any real conversation. As biologist Colin Wright noted:  

I’m blocked by thousands of accounts on Bluesky I’ve never even interacted with, since I almost never post. People over there block on first contact with any ideological friction. That results in a bunch of small isolated communities. Not ideal for a social media app.  

This kind of intolerance is a feature of progressivism, not a bug. Though people often use “liberal” and “progressive” interchangeably, they are not the same thing. Like the new “dissident Right,” which devolved out of classic conservatism and rejected core tenets of it, progressivism and liberalism are not the same either.  

Liberalism calls for tolerance. Progressivism silences dissent and calls it tolerance. Progressivism claims to be about moving forward, but “forward” is just a rejection of anything old, traditional, and settled. To modern progressives, progress is transgression. They sense the world is not as it should be but are threatened by the idea that there is a way it should be. 

Divorced from reality and reason, compliance with this vision cannot be argued. Rather, it must be enforced. Thus, the shift from “encouraging all viewpoints” to punishing all dissent.

Copyright 2026 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

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Federal Grand Jury Charges Southern Poverty Law Center with Fraud, Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering

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Last week, a federal Grand Jury in Alabama charged the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) with 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.

The SPLC has spent decades opposing white supremacy while also branding Christian organizations like Family Research Council and Focus on the Family as “hate groups” on par with Neo-Nazis and the KKK.

The group has also urged financial institutions to de-bank conservative organizations.

But last week an indictment from a federal Grand Jury said the SPLC has secretly funneled more than $3 million to a covert network of informants affiliated with groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

According to the indictment, the SPLC laundered donations through shell companies to people in the very groups the SPLC claimed it was working to dismantle.

The indictment says one SPLC contact from the National Alliance was paid more than $1,000,000 between 2014 and 2023. According to the indictment, the informant helped fundraise for the National Alliance while also providing the SPLC with stolen documents.

The indictment says the SPLC paid another informant $270,000 while helping plan and coordinate transportation to the 2017 “Unite the Right” event in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Other informants were listed on the SPLC’s own “Extremist File” fundraising webpage at the same time the SPLC was secretly paying them.

The indictment says the SPLC also used these informants to indirectly funnel money to other violent extremist group leaders.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche put it plainly: “The SPLC is manufacturing racism to justify its existence.”

What the SPLC did isn’t just hypocritical. According to federal prosecutors, it’s fraud.

Arkansas families and churches should pay attention. The SPLC’s “hate group” list has been used to pressure banks, employers, and government agencies to treat Christians and conservatives like dangerous extremists. This indictment should make it clear that the SPLC’s “hate group” list isn’t trustworthy.

Family Council plans to continue monitoring this case as it moves forward.

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

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