AUSTRALIAN PRAYER NETWORK NEWSLETTER

* U.S. ELECTS NEW PRESIDENT WITH WINS & LOSSES ON SOCIAL AND MORAL POLICIES IN REFERENDA

* NICARAGUA PRESSURED ON ABORTION

* INDIAN PRIME MINISTER AFFIRMS PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY IN NATIONAL HERITAGE

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U.S. ELECTS NEW PRESIDENT WITH WINS & LOSSES ON SOCIAL AND MORAL POLICIES IN REFERENDA

(Editors note: The following article gives a broad summary of the results in the American elections held on 4th November. As well as electing a new president Americans voted on a large number of referendum questions covering many issues. We seek in this article to give a summary of the voting on most major referendum issues.)

Democrat Barack Obama made history by becoming the first African American elected to the U.S. presidency, but the victory left many evangelical Christians and social conservatives concerned his administration will undermine pro-life and pro-family policies. The U.S. senator convincingly won the electoral college vote by a margin of 364-163 votes, and had a 53% to 47% advantage in the popular vote. According to exit polls, McCain gained the white vote with 55 percent, but Obama easily won among African Americans, 95 percent; Latinos, 66 percent; and Asians, 61 percent. Social conservatives expressed concern that Obama’s victory, combined with his party’s gains in both the Senate and House of Representatives where they also have clear majorities, could result in the rollback of federal restrictions on funding of abortions, embryonic stem cell research and could also produce advances for homosexual rights and “gay marriage,” Whilst echoing such concerns many conservative Christian leaders nevertheless applauded Obama’s election as the first African American President as, “a hallmark moment in history for all Americans”. Pro-life and pro-family efforts in the states produced mixed results on election day. Pro-life advocates lost on a variety of initiatives in California, Colorado, Michigan, South Dakota and Washington, but constitutional amendments to protect marriage as the union between a man and a woman won in California, Florida and Arizona. Most significantly,California voters overturned their Supreme Court’s May ruling that legalized “gay marriage.”

Despite the loss, McCain, with running mate Sarah Palin, easily won the vote of white Americans who identified themselves as evangelical or born-again Christians. In exit polling by CNN, McCain won this group over Obama by74-24 percent. Evangelicals constituted 26 percent of the electorate, according to CNN. In CNN’s exit poll, McCain also led among Protestants nationwide with 54 percent, but Obama, with running mate Joe Biden, gained 54 percent of the Roman Catholic vote and 78 percent of the Jewish vote.

Californian voters overruled the state Supreme Court’s legalisation of “gay marriage.” They voted in a constitutional amendment by a margin of 52% – 48% stating “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” It is uncertain what will happen to the thousands of licenses already issued. It is reported that some 18,000 same-sex couples had got married in the past four and a half months. Gay-rights advocates have already filed a legal challenge in California’s Supreme Court, claiming the result was an illegal attempt to change the state’s constitution. The victory was one of four “gay rights” ballot initiatives where conservatives were victorious. Florida adopted a marriage amendment by 62-38 percent, surpassing the necessary 60 percent supermajority, while Arizona passed its own marriage amendment, 56-44 percent, after two years earlier citizens had voted to defeat such an amendment. 60% of American states have now adopted a marriage amendment. The fact that marriage amendments passed in California and Florida, two states carried by Democrat Barack Obama, is considered especially noteworthy.

Meanwhile, a ballot initiative in Arkansas prohibiting adoptions by cohabitating heterosexual and homosexual couples passed, 57-43 percent. The only loss of the night for conservatives pertaining to “gay rights” came in Connecticut, where voters by a margin of 59-41 percent rejected a once-every-two-decades question asking whether a constitutional convention should be held. Conservatives had hoped to use the convention to legalize direct initiative in the state and then to gather enough signatures to place a marriage amendment on the ballot.

Voters in five states cast their ballots on measures dealing with life issues, but pro-lifers came up short in all fivecases. California and South Dakota voted down ballot initiatives concerning abortion while Colorado defeated a constitutional amendment granting legal protections to “any human being from the moment of conception.” Michigan voters approved a constitutional amendment allowing embryonic stem cell research. In Washington state, voters passed an assisted suicide initiative permitting doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medication for terminally ill patients.

Voters in Arkansas approved a measure preventing adoptive or foster care children from being placed in homes with couples who live together out of wedlock, whether those adults are heterosexual or homosexual. Nearly 57 percent of voters supported the ban. The vote came against a backdrop of research showing that the average cohabiting union lasts only two years. Thus children living with cohabiting parents — even if the parents later marry — are thus likely to experience considerable instability in their living situations.

The elections also brought mixed results for anti-gambling activists, with three statewide gambling initiatives turned down but three others adopted. Victories for anti-gambling forces included rejections of casinos in Ohio and Maine and outlawing of greyhound racing in Massachusetts. However, voters approved a lottery in Arkansas, repealed gambling restrictions in Missouri and OK’d the return of slot machines to Maryland.

Marijuana was embraced in two states. In Massachusetts, voters approved a ballot initiative for a $100 civil fine to possession of an ounce or less of marijuana to replace criminal penalties. In Michigan, voters approved the use of marijuana for medical conditions, making it the 13th state in the nation to open a door for marijuana via the disputed medicinal rationale.

In Washington voters made Washington the second state to give terminally ill people the option of medically assisted suicide. The ballot measure, patterned after Oregon’s “Death with Dignity” law, allows a terminally ill person to be prescribed lethal medication, which would be self-administered. Since it went into effect, more than 340 Oregon patients have used the law to end their lives. Outside of Oregon, advocates of similar laws haven’t fared well.

California, Michigan and Maine voters rejected the idea. Source:

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NICARAGUA PRESSURED ON ABORTION

(Editors note: This article outlines why we are losing the battle against abortion in the west. Past methods of seeking to hold the ground are no longer adequate in the face of such stringent and well organised opposing forces and require a re-think of strategy on the part of the Christian community on how to turn back the advancing tide of human secularism. The battle for hearts and minds is daunting however we know we have the victory when our strategies line up with those of the Lord’s. It is time to go up to the mountain of the Lord and receive fresh instructions on the way forward.)

Nicaragua has came under fire for its laws protecting the unborn. Members of the Human Rights Committee (HRC) – the treaty body that monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) – repeatedly grilled the Central American nation for outlawing abortion as Nicaragua presented its third periodic report detailing progress in implementing the treaty. Nicaragua banned all abortion in 2006 and rejected a “therapeutic” abortion amendment last year.

The HRC asked Nicaragua questions concerning its abortion law. Among the queries was how, if Nicaragua were a “secular state,” a ban on abortion could be reconciled with secularity. The delegation responded by pointing out that though the state is secular, the “social reality” is that 90 per cent of the country’s 5.6 million people profess Christianity, implying that the laws reflected the value choices of a majority of Nicaraguans. The delegates added that if there came a time when a majority desired to change the country’s abortion laws, they could do so via the political process.

When Nicaragua strengthened its legislation protecting the unborn, it came under unprecedented pressure. A letter signed by government officials from Canada, the five Scandinavian countries, and several UN agencies – including the Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Children’s Fund (UNICEF) – accused Nicaragua of violating rights set forth in various international documents such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, or CEDAW.

More than a letter-writing exercise, the Swedish government severed aid last year to Nicaragua and three other pro-life Latin American nations, and Finland earlier this year linked a continuation of aid to changes in Nicaragua’s abortion law. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega was a proponent of abortion when the revolutionary Sandinistas first came to power in the late 1970s. Since winning the presidency via democratic election in 2006, however, he has consistently defended Nicaragua’s pro-life position against foreign critics.

Some have attributed his change of heart to his re-embrace of his baptismal Catholic faith. Even more outspoken has been the First Lady of Nicaragua, Rosario Murillo. She recently made a fiery speech denouncing proponents of abortion from the Global North who engage in cultural imperialism by seeking to impose the values of a soulless society where adults “prefer to raise pets instead of children.” The Geneva-based HRC meets three times a year to review countries’ progress in implementing the ICCPR, with every third session held in New York.

The committee also asked El Salvador for information on how the government was implementing a previous recommendation to allow abortion. Myanmar was asked to explain whether “women have a right to terminate a pregnancy resulting from sexual violence.” The committee also criticized Uruguay’s law criminalizing abortion, which the committee says “has not helped reduce secret and unsafe abortions,” and asked Poland how it was implementing its new law which permits government-funded therapeutic abortions during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.

At the end of the session, the committee will issue its recommendations for each country. While these recommendations are non-binding, abortion activists have brought litigation throughout the world citing the ruling of United Nations human rights treaty bodies, like the CEDAW Committee, in challenging laws against abortion. Such arguments helped convince Colombia’s constitutional court to liberalize that country’s restrictions on the practice. In recent years CEDAW committee members have pressured more than 60 nations on their abortion legislation. According to guidelines, the 23 members of the CEDAW committee should be “independent” and “of high moral standing and competence.” A recent survey of the committee revealed, however, that half of the CEDAW committee members are direct employees of such radical non-governmental organizations as the Latin America and Caribbean Committee for the Defence of Women’s Rights (known by its Spanish acronym CLADEM), the International Council of Women and the Global Fund for Women.

Source: Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute

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INDIAN PRIME MINISTER AFFIRMS PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY IN NATIONAL HERITAGE

India’s Prime Minister has hit out at Hindu groups that claim Christianity is a foreign religion by hailing it as part of the country’s heritage. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh made the statement at a meeting with Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in New Dehli, saying: “Christianity is part of our national heritage.” He noted that Christianity in India has a longer history than in many Western countries and made reference to the Indian constitution which states that India “guarantees freedom to practice and propagate one’s faith.”

The statements are a strong rebuttal of the views of Hindu nationalist groups who have described Christianity as a foreign religion to justify recent attacks on Christians in India. More than 5,000 Christian houses, along with 142 churches and dozens of Christian institutions have been attacked by Hindu fundamentalists following the death of Hindu leader Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati in August. At least 54 Christians have been killed. Singh assured Kobia that his government will take measures to restore the confidence of the Christian community. He has also promised to extend financial assistance from the federal government to rebuild destroyed and damaged churches – and to support Christian families that have lost everything in the violence.

Source: Council for World Mission News

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