Sept. 28, 2019: New Christian's Bible, abortion legal across Australia, birth mother can't identify as 'father'
Saturday, Sept. 28, 2019:
Here are the latest headlines, brought to you by The Christian Post.
— Over 1,000 incidents of Christian persecution in India reported since 2014
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Over 1,400 incidents of persecution against Christians in India have been reported since the year Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party rose to power, human rights advocates told congressional staffers this week.
Sean Nelson, legal counsel for global religious freedom with the rights group ADF International, urged members of Congress to bring up issues of religious freedom when meeting with India’s political leaders. He also suggested the U.S. government use sanctions and restrictions on foreign aid to push India to enforce religious freedoms for minority groups.
— Judge spares Catholic adoption agency from violating beliefs on same-sex marriage
A federal judge in Michigan has ruled that faith-based adoption organizations that contract with the state can refuse to place children with same-sex couples until their lawsuit against the state is fully litigated.
On Thursday, Judge Robert Jonker issued a preliminary injunction against a court settlement reached earlier this year between the state and two lesbian couples represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU sued the state in 2017 over a 2015 Republican-backed law that protected child-placement agencies from having to violate their religious convictions by being forced to place children with same-sex couples.
A month later, a lawsuit against the settlement was filed on behalf of St. Vincent Catholic Charities and parents Chad and Melissa Buck, alleging that the terms of the settlement violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. St. Vincent Catholic Charities is one of the state’s most successful adoption agencies.
— Crossway releases ESV New Christian's Bible to help new believers
A Christian ministry that publishes the English Standard Version Bible has released a new translation titled the New Christian’s Bible, an edition created to help new believers navigate God’s word.
The new edition includes access to 30-day and one-year reading plans, as well as introductions to each book of the Bible, along with sidebars along each passage explaining core Christian beliefs.
The English Standard Version was created by a team of more than 100 leading evangelical scholars and pastors, and is described as a “literal translation of the Bible in contemporary English.”
— Abortion is now legal across Australia
Abortion is now legal in every state in Australia after lawmakers in New South Wales voted Thursday to overturn a 119-year-old law criminalizing abortion. The bill, known as the Abortion Law Reform Act 2019, makes it legal for women to have abortions up to 22 weeks into their pregnancy. The bill also overturned a penalty of 10 years in prison for women who administered their own abortions.
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, said the state’s legalization of abortion was “a defeat for humanity.”
— Birth mother who identifies as transgender man is not legally a ‘father,’ judge rules
A U.K. court has ruled that a woman who gave birth while identifying as a man cannot be recognized as her baby's “father" on the child's birth certificate and other legal documents.
The birth mother, who goes by the name Freddy McConnell, says she has suffered from gender dysphoria since childhood and underwent testosterone treatments to look more like a man before deciding to find a sperm donor and get pregnant. McConnell, who works for The Guardian newspaper and is in a relationship with a woman, was the subject of a 2019 documentary, titled “Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth.”
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