Teacher suspended for class voting out autistic boy
Topic: Children and Family
Source: WorldNetDaily
An autistic kindergarten boy is being homeschooled, and his teacher has been suspended for asking his peers to vote on whether he could remain in the class. Alex Barton, 5, lost the vote 14 to 2. The school was aware that Barton was in the process of being tested for Asperger's Syndrome. This week, the St. Lucie County School Board voted unanimously to suspend his tenured teacher, Wendy Portillo, for one year without pay. Criminal charges will not be filed against Portillo because authorities determined the incident did not amount to emotional child abuse. However, the boy's mother, Melissa Barton, said she plans to file a civil lawsuit, claiming discrimination and violation of the child's civil rights. (11/20/08)

Prophet cartoon row in Indonesia
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: BBC
The two cartoons, which are several pages long, each tell a sexually explicit story involving the Prophet, interspersed with verses apparently lifted from the Koran. Indonesia's communications minister described the cartoons as "very unethical and very inappropriate".He said the ministry was asking the website to remove them. And if necessary, he said, it would ask internet service providers to block access to the website itself. (11/19/08)

CA, SC to hear gay ban case
Topic: Gay/Lesbian Issues
Source: Yahoo Daily News
California's Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear a legal challenge against the state's voter-approved ban on gay marriage and let the ban stand in the meantime. A decision by the same court in May opened marriage to same-sex couples in America's most populous state, one of a handful of states, provinces and mostly European countries where such unions are recognized. When state voters passed the ban on November 4, social conservatives celebrated, but nationwide protests by gays and other ban opponents since then have given the debate new life. The court case also pits two fundamental concepts of U.S. democracy against one another, with gay marriage advocates saying the proposition would open the doors to systematic repression of minorities and opponents saying courts must recognize the will of the people under separation of powers doctrine (11/19/08)

eHarmony to create same sex service
Topic: Gay/Lesbian Issues
Source: CNN
Online dating site eHarmony will create a service for same-sex matching in a settlement of a 2005 complaint that the company's failure to offer such a service was discriminatory. The new same-sex matching service from eHarmony, Compatible Partners, is set to debut by March 31. Under terms of the agreement with the New Jersey attorney general's office, eHarmony Inc. will start the service, called Compatible Partners, by March 31. "With the launch of the Compatible Partners site, our policy is to welcome all single individuals who are genuinely seeking long-term relationships," said Antone Johnson, eHarmony vice president of legal affairs. The company and its founder, Neil Clark Warren, admit no wrongdoing or liability. (11/19/08)

UK, Sex offenders challenge register
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: Shields Gazette
In a case with important general implications, their lawyers have argued the law breached their human rights because currently they had no right to periodic reviews and the chance to prove they no longer posed a risk of reoffending. His lawyers pointed out that - because there was no review process - he could still be on the register "aged 70 or 80", even if he committed no further offence. (11/19/08)

France, virginity ruling struck down
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: Women's eNews
In a case that has sparked a national controversy here, a French appeals court in the northern city of Douai handed down a decision on Nov. 17 that virginity could not be considered as an "essential quality" for a valid marriage, overturning a lower French court's decision. The case involves an April 1 decision from a judge in the northern city of Lille to annul a French Muslim couple's 2006 union because the bride was not a virgin as she had claimed to be. The ruling said the bride should not have lied about her virginity because it was an "essential quality" in her husband's culture. That raised concerns among some legal observers that the ruling could pave the way for a wider recognition of virginity as a legal obligation to marriage if a husband or family demanded it. (11/18/08)

Hunt is on for men to lead classrooms
Topic: Gender Discrimination
Source: Boston Globe
At his Ferryway School, where boys slightly outnumber girls, male teachers are a rare species, presiding over only four of the 35 classrooms. "The district has a job fair every year, but we don't see a lot of guys," DeVito said. The problem is especially acute, he said, when it comes to hiring elementary teachers at his school, which spans kindergarten through eighth grade. For those jobs, he said, "I don't think I've interviewed any males in the last five or six years." The same scenario is playing out across the state and the nation, where the number of male teachers is dwindling despite a recent focus on drawing more men into classrooms. (11/18/08)

GOP, Do not fund UNFPA
Topic: Abortion
Source: CNS News
Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported that Arzigul Tursun had been released from enforced hospitalization in China’s far northwestern Xinjiang region and allowed to return home to continue her pregnancy. The episode has directed a spotlight on China’s coercive “one child” program at a time when the U.S. policy of defunding the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) because of its work in China is set to change. UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) The U.N. agency has lost around $240 million since President Bush in 2002 invoked legislation that denies funding for any organization supporting or participating in forced abortion or involuntary sterilization programs. (11/19/08)

Taboo lifts on sex in nursing homes
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: Yahoo Daily News
"Most staff have the same mindset many of us do, which is 'I don't want to think about my parents having sex, let alone my grandparents,'" Gayle Doll, who directs Kansas State University's Center on Aging, told LiveScience. The researchers suggest educating staff about sexuality and making sex in nursing homes less hush-hush. In the long run, they hope federal guidelines will help all nursing homes deal with sexuality in a positive way, especially as baby boomers age and bring their 1950s and 1960s attitudes about sex with them to the facilities. (11/18/08)

Ark. seizes 21 more kids
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Yahoo Daily News
The children, all younger than 18 and part of the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries, were taken while custody hearings were being held for six girls seized during a September raid of Alamo's compound in Fouke, in southwest Arkansas. The court must decide whether the girls should be returned to their parents or remain in state care. Authorities took three children into custody Tuesday at the courthouse in Texarkana, 130 miles southwest of Little Rock. Police seized the other 18 children from two vans during a traffic stop, said Julie Munsell, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Human Services. (11/18/08)

UK, shake up of vice laws
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: Rasen Mail
Men who have sex with women who have been trafficked or forced into prostitution will face prosecution under a shake-up of vice laws unveiled by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. Ms Smith said that the tough new approach will mean there are "no more excuses" for men who use the country's estimated 80,000 prostitutes. Under the changes, paying for sex with a woman "controlled for another's gain" will become a "strict liability offence" in England and Wales, meaning prosecutors will not have to prove that the man knew a prostitute was being exploited in order to charge him. (11/19/08)

Protests over a rule to protect health providers
Topic: Abortion
Source: Herald Tribune
A last-minute Bush administration plan to grant sweeping new protections to health care providers who oppose abortion and other procedures on religious or moral grounds has provoked a torrent of objections, including a strenuous protest from the government agency that enforces job discrimination laws. The proposed rule would prohibit recipients of federal money from discriminating against doctors, nurses and other health care workers who refuse to perform or to assist in the performance of abortions or sterilization procedures because of their “religious beliefs or moral convictions.” It would also prevent hospitals, clinics, doctors’ offices and drugstores from requiring employees with religious or moral objections to “assist in the performance of any part of a health service program or research activity” financed by the Department of Health and Human Services. (11/18/08)

China, mom facing forced abortion flees
Topic: Abortion
Source: ABC News
Arigul Tursun is scheduled to undergo the abortion against her will because authorities say she is entitled to only two children, according to the Uyghur Human Rights Project. Tursun managed to escape from her hospital room according to her husband. "Arzigul ran away while the village official who was guarding her went to get her dinner," her husband said in an interview. "She left with her slippers, a shirt, and a sleeveless jacket. She didn't take her bag or her other clothing." She was later captured by authorities. (11/18/08)

The Vatican versus Obama?
Topic: Abortion
Source: Time
It's a good bet that the new U.S. President will meet Pope Benedict XVI sometime next year, perhaps in early July to coincide with the G-8 summit in Italy. It promises to be one of the great photo ops of 2009. Benedict sent a personal message to Obama the day after his victory, which referred to the "historic occasion" of his coming presidency; Obama subsequently telephoned the Pope as part of a round of calls to world leaders. But well before the two men have their historic handshake, the ground is already shifting underneath U.S.-Vatican relations. (11/18/08)

Prop. 8, judges or voters
Topic: Gay/Lesbian Issues
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
It's the same court that ruled 4-3 on May 15 that the California law defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman violated fundamental rights of gays and lesbians under the state Constitution: the right of equal treatment and the right to marry the partner of one's choice. The legal controversy now is much different. Rather than considering the constitutionality of prohibiting same-sex marriage, the court would decide whether inserting that prohibition into the Constitution was such a basic change that it amounted to more than an amendment. (11/19/08)

Do not outlaw boisterous banter
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Spiked Online
Author: Helene Guldberg
This year’s anti-bullying week in the UK – with its theme of ‘Being different, belonging together’ – kicks off today. And it provides a powerful reminder that official fretting over children’s wellbeing, over the supposedly terrible dangers of bullying in the playground, can do more harm than good, stunting children’s developmental growth and harming their social interaction with others. (11/17/08)

Is P for prole?
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Spiked Online
Author: Tim Black
In Haringey, London, on 3 August 2007, after a short life of wilful neglect and horrific abuse at the hands of his mother, his stepfather, and their lodger, a 17-month-old child, who for legal reasons is known only as Baby P, was found dead in his cot. All three of his carers have since been convicted of ‘causing or allowing’ his death. It is desperately sad. Unfortunately, the case of Baby P is being treated not as an isolated tragedy, but as evidence of something else, of a deeper social and moral malaise. (11/18/08)

Who am I?
Topic: Individualist Feminism
Source: WendyMcElroy.com
Author: Ken Gregg
You probably don't know my name, but that's all right. In all of the books that I wrote, my name was almost never put on them, and never my full name. I understood many things of my time and world, including the prejudice that I would face. My books were very popular. My book on chemistry, for example, went through dozens of reprints in England and abroad (at least two in French and at least 16 editions in America alone) and it is estimated that there were 160,000 copies printed and was considered the most popular book on chemistry in the first part of the nineteenth century.

Canada, stripper charges age discrim
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: National Post
Exotic dancer Kimberlee Ouwroulis has filed a complaint against a Mississauga strip club, New Locomotion, saying she was fired because of her age. The 44-year-old, who has taken an age discrimination complaint to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, spoke to the Post's Rob Roberts (11/17/08)

We keep children safe to let them run wild
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Frank Furedi
Author: Frank Furedi
About half of 2,021 grown-ups polled by YouGov for Barnardo’s indicated that children should be regarded as dangerous; a majority of them went so far as to state that children behaved like animals. This survey is confirmed by interviews I have carried out with men and women in their thirties and forties, who frequently acknowledge that they feel intimidated and sometimes scared when they encounter groups of adolescents. At first sight, this perception of children does not make any sense. How can grown-ups possess such depressing attitudes towards youngsters when we are meant to be more “child centred” than ever before? The truth is that the negative sentiments are the direct consequence of the mistrust and suspicion fuelled by the prevailing paranoid regime of child protection. It is our obsessively protective parenting culture that is responsible for the erosion of inter-generational relationships. (11/18/08)