Stopping the naughty cheerleaders

USA Today reports that you can all rest a little easier. Bare midriffs for cheerleading costumes will be banned nationwide, starting in 2006. And there won't be as many sexy moves, either. Some coaches, school administrators and even state lawmakers are concerned that skimpy skirts, revealing tops and MTV-inspired routines are becoming too hot for the crowds in the stands. At some school districts in Georgia, policies limit suggestive gestures and outline appropriate attire for cheerleaders, band members, drill teams and pep squads. A national organization that oversees such activities has banned bare midriffs effective next fall. And a Texas legislator stirred up a national debate when he tried to pass a law prohibiting suggestive performances by cheerleaders, drill teams or dance teams. The proposal was referred to by some as the "cheerleader booty bill."

"I can't describe what 'sexy' is to you or somebody else," says the bill's sponsor, Rep. Al Edwards. "But if you're an adult, you know it when you see it."

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Sexuality entered the cheerleading domain with the 1972 debut of the transformed Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, dressed in hot pants, white boots and cleavage-revealing tops. Their gyrations were viewed as entertainment, says Natalie Guice Adams, an associate professor in the college of education at the University of Alabama and co-author of Cheerleader! An American Icon.

"The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders were absolutely instrumental in changing cheerleading from being the All-American girl next door to the idea of a cheerleader as an erotic sex symbol."

We know how traumatized some of you have been by being forced to watch those Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders at halftime. But if things keep going the way they are, soon your helpful legislators will save you from having to watch such blatantly suggestive displays.

Source: Pleasant Morning Buzz

It's more than a mere cup of coffee

If you've got homosexual tendencies,

-- that doesn't diminish your dignity as a human being in any way
-- that doesn't give anybody any reason to show you disrespect
-- that doesn't mean you ought to give in to those tendencies
-- that doesn't mean that a life of genuine fulfillment and deep joy is out of reach

Homosexual men and women, like anyone else, deserve to be encouraged toward affirming their dignity as human beings.

But homosexuality and its practice are not something to be encouraged, celebrated or distorted into being regarded as manifestations of freedom.

What are we doing to correct the distortions?

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Starbucks promotes homosexual agenda with coffee cup
Aug 12, 2005
By Erin Curry
Baptist Press

Starbucks activism? One of the latest coffee cups being sold at Starbucks has a pro-homosexuality message. Click on image to enlarge. (Baptist Press has censored an expletive.) Photo courtesy of Concerned Women for America

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--After nearly a decade of lying low, Starbucks has reentered the homosexual rights movement in a few ways that have put at least one conservative watchdog group on alert.

The world’s most famous coffee shop chain has begun a program called “The Way I See It,” which is a collection of thoughts, opinions and expressions provided by notable figures that now appear on Starbucks coffee cups, according to the chain’s website.

But one particular quote -- #43 -- blatantly pushes the homosexual agenda. It’s by Armistead Maupin, who wrote “Tales of the City,” a bestseller-turned-PBS drama advocating the homosexual lifestyle, and it reads:

“My only regret about being gay is that I repressed it for so long. I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don’t make that mistake yourself. Life’s too [expletive] short.”

Concerned Women for America, one of the nation’s leading conservative public policy organizations, is sounding the alarm about the cups after one of its employees received one when she purchased coffee from one of the stores.

Meghan Kleppinger, assistant to the national field director at CWA, wrote a column about Starbucks’ involvement in the homosexual movement which was posted by WorldNetDaily Aug. 10.

Kleppinger, who had been a frequent patron of Starbucks until recently vowing to stop, was put on notice about Starbucks earlier this summer when she received an e-mail from the California arm of CWA describing an annual “gay pride” parade in San Diego. The parade sounded like a typical event, she thought, until she read on.

“I read where there would be children’s gardens and basically in the midst of all of this sexual activity there would be events for children,” she said Aug. 8. “And then I read that two registered pedophiles were volunteers at this event. When I scrolled to the bottom I saw who the sponsors were, and the one that jumped out was Starbucks because that is a favorite company of mine. So it just frustrated me that a company was giving money to something like this where children would be exposed to this sort of thing.”

If Starbucks knowingly was sponsoring a parade that put children in danger, that would be “blatant irresponsibility,” Kleppinger wrote in her column. And if they were doing it unknowingly, they should have investigated before handing over the money, she said.

Kleppinger then found that the company is listed on the website of pro-abortion rights Planned Parenthood under this introduction: “The following companies all generously match employee donations to Planned Parenthood Federation of America. If your employer is on this list, then you can make your gift go as much as twice as far.”

Full story

More words would be superfluous

The message is clear enough.

Let's help women sell themselves?

Seven or eight years ago, I saw one of those back page interviews on Newsweek. It featured Nelia Sancho, a Filipina former beauty queen who later took to the mountains with the leftist movement. She has since abandoned that cause and has, of late, been devoting her efforts to women's causes.

Reading the interview prompted me to write a reaction to Newsweek, since the gist of Sancho's words was the "need" to legalize prostitution. Doing this, according to her, would provide the prostitutes with legitimate work permits (or something like that) and thus help them get better treatment. I cringe even now.

My letter was brief, but the idea that I hoped to put across was that taking measures to legalize prostitution would be tantamount to telling women that that is all that they can be, that that is all they are able to do. Sancho's idea of protecting women's welfare sure is warped. Does she hope to do wonders to these women's self-esteem?

Okay, enough ranting. Here is a relevant article from MercatorNet.

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Porn 'fuels prostitution'
Anna Hodgekiss
AUGUST 10, 2005

Sex abuse expert Mary Anne Layden will tell a NSW parliamentary forum today how Australia's increasing appetite for prostitution has led to more women being trafficked into the country than ever before.

Dr Layden is a psychotherapist at the University of Pennsylvania who specialises in treating victims and perpetrators of sexual violence and addiction.

"Internet pornography and the legalisation of prostitution have driven up demand through a set of beliefs that imply that this behaviour is normal, acceptable, common and doesn't hurt anyone so the person has permission to continue to behave in that way," she will tell the forum, hosted by state Labor backbencher Kristina Keneally and the NSW Working Party on Illegal Non-Citizens in the Sex Industry.

"Examples include 'All men go to prostitutes', 'Women like sex mixed with violence', and 'Children enjoy sex with adults'."

Dr Layden warns that as the demand for prostitution increases, with internet porn being both anonymous and available 24 hours a day, supply is failing to meet demand. "There are not enough women in Australia who have been raped as a child, are homeless, or have a drug addiction, to be prostitutes, because in reality these are the women who end up in this situation.

"In this case, you have to deceive or kidnap women and children from other countries, take their passport, beat them up and put them into sex slavery.

Full story

A quote to note

"Our science tells us there is a unique, never to exist again, human individual in a mother's womb. Why, in America, have we come to the place where we can kill that individual to solve our problems?" -- Raymond Ufford, M.D.

Source: PhysiciansForLife.org

The choice

If you choose to destroy:

- the children born or unborn, you destroy love and the future
- the sick or disabled, you destroy compassion
- the elderly, you destroy wisdom, respect and the past

Can we really do without these? Have you never been young, sick or injured? Will you never be old in someone's eyes? Therefore, do unto others as you wish to have done to you.

-- Anne Bauer, M.D.

From Physicians for Life