Family issues

The Washington State Senate voted to approve a same-sex marriage bill late Wednesday night, effectively clearing the final obstacle to becoming the seventh state to redefine traditional marriage.

The Senate voted 28-21 in favor of the bill, with four Republicans voting in favor and three Democrats opposed. The bill's supporters have long viewed the Senate as the biggest hurdle to pass as the state's House of Representatives and Gov. Christine Gregoire have both expressed support for legalizing same-sex marriage.

The final recourse for those opposed to the bill is to force a referendum onto the November ballot. In order to do so, opponents will have to collect 120,577 signatures by June 6. more >>

Pro-family group "One Million Moms" is urging customers to contact J.C. Penney and demand that the company drop openly homosexual Ellen DeGeneres as its spokesperson.

One Million Moms is an offshoot of the American Family Association (AFA), "one of the largest and most effective pro-family organizations in the country, with over two million online supporters…" according to its website. The AFA's mission is "to inform, equip, and activate individuals to strengthen the moral foundations of American culture, and give aid to the church here and abroad in its task of fulfilling the Great Commission."

The group finds fault with J.C. Penney's recent decision to hire DeGeneres as its new spokesperson. In an announcement from the company's president last month, Michael Francis told the press, "Importantly, we share the same fundamental values as Ellen. At J.C. Penney, we couldn't think of a better partner to help us put the fun back into the retail experience." more >>

A man is a portrait of what has been invested in him, said Crawford Loritts, pastor of Fellowship Bible Church in Roswell, Ga., said at Desiring God ministry's annual conference today.

The theme of the conference, held at the Minneapolis Conference Center, was "God, Manhood & Ministry – Building Men for the Body of Christ." Prominent evangelical pastor John Piper is hosting the event, and speakers are exploring the role of manhood in ministry and culture.

Loritts preached in Minneapolis shortly after participating in The Elephant Room conference last week. At this conference though, he spoke about something much more personal: his own father. more >>

Numerous stories have emerged recently about parents who have chosen to raise their children as "gender neutral." The parents have received widespread criticism with many questioning whether they have a political motive and are just using their children to enforce their own agendas.

Lorraine Candy, editor-in-chief of Elle magazine's U.K. edition, recently commented on the topic warning that using a child to make political statements is harmful to the child.

Beck Laxton and Kieran Cooper kept the gender of their son Sasha a secret to the public for the first five years of his life. "I wanted to avoid all the stereotyping," said the mother Laxton to U.K.-based Cambridge News. "Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?" more >>

Good church leadership begins at home, the first speaker of this year's annual pastors conference hosted by the Desiring God ministry at the Minneapolis Convention Center said Monday.

"The apostle Paul considers the fruit of a man's behavior in his home as one of the central qualifications for pastoral office," Pastor Doug Wilson of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, told those in attendance and an online viewing audience.

"He says that if a man does not know how to manage his household well, then how will he know how to care for the church of God as he says in 1 Timothy 3-5? From this we learn that fatherhood in the home and pastoral care in the church are analogous activities." more >>

An Iowa woman gave birth to one of the biggest babies a hospital had ever seen Jan. 26. At nearly 14 pounds and 23-and-a-half inches, newborn Asher Stewardson is one big baby.

And he was born completely naturally: no painkillers, no cesarean section.

The parents of the infant, Kendall and Joshua Stewardson, say they've been blessed to have not one, but two children born completely healthy, and very, very big. Their other son, Judah, was born at a whopping 12 pounds. more >>