In This Issue:

• Register Now for STAR Interfaith Leadership Training- Prices go up on August 1st.
• Looking more deeply into same sex marriage
• CALL YOUR SENATORS TO OPPOSE NOMINATION OF CORNELIA PILLARD

www.urbanlifetraining.org
  202-558-5550

Register Now for STAR Interfaith Leadership Training-
Prices go up on August 1st

Graduates, Family & Friends-04-14-13 View the slide show on Flickr

STAR Interfaith Leadership Training raises youth to be leaders who are confident in their decision to remain sexually abstinent before marriage.

• Who should attend?
  Youth Workers, Mentors, College students, Middle & High School Youth and Parents

• When:
  Each Sunday from September 29, 2013 through December 1, 2013,
  From 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

• Where:
  The Emergence Community Arts Collective,
  733 Euclid St. NW , Washington, DC 20001

• Cost for the entire 10 week program:

• 	Before August:	In August	After August:
  Middle School students | High School students/Adults: Parents can attend for free with their child	$40	$45	$50
  College Students	$10	$10	$10
  Young Adults (non-students)	$15	$20	$25

  
  Complete 8 out of the 10 weeks to receive STAR Guide Certification.
  Make a Difference! STAR Guides help middle & high school youth make right choices.

for STAR Interfaith Leadership Training and save 20% off the regular price.

Urban Life Training Blog
by Richard Urban

Looking more deeply into same sex marriage

Rights, such as those granted in the Bill of Rights, are traditionally viewed as inalienable rights, or God-given rights.  The Supreme Court's decision last month to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage at the Federal level as being only between and man and a woman (who would think that would ever be controversial?), and to allow a lower courts overturning of the people of California's decision to define marriage as only between a man and a woman is a low water mark for the Supreme Court.  Shame on the Supreme Court to use the court as a bully pulpit for homosexual activists.

The greatest irony that I see is the almost unspoken of fact that some 46% of homosexual men report having been sexually molested, versus only 7% of heterosexual men:

In research with 942 nonclinical adult participants, gay men and lesbian women reported a significantly higher rate of childhood molestation than did heterosexual men and women. Forty-six percent of the homosexual men in contrast to 7% of the heterosexual men reported homosexual molestation. Twenty-two percent of lesbian women in contrast to 1% of heterosexual women reported homosexual molestation. Archives of Sexual Behavior as referenced at conservopedia.com.

  So, a strong indicator for same sex attraction is sexual molestation.  But instead of attacking and eliminating arguably the greatest cause of same sex attraction (sexual molestation), we say, "let's make 'marriage' a 'right' for those who have become same sex attracted", arguably largely becasue of sexaul abuse occuring during childhood or adolescence. This is crazy.  We should be outraged at the abuse of vulnerable children and youth, yet instead we normalize the resultant aberrant behavior.  And now California wants to criminalze therapy that helps those who want to change their sexual orientation.

Let's focus on the cause of same sex attraction and stop normalizing it and pushing it on our children.  And speaking of rights, what about the rights of those childen adopted by same sex couples?  Who asked the children if that is what they wanted?  Speak up and speak out.  Love is defined biologically by nature, and nothing can change that.  Marriage is defined by the sexual union of a man and a woman in an excluive relationship that is at its core.  The Supreme Court can rule whatever it wants, but that will not change how men and women are created.  I hope that the Suprem Court returns to defending inalienable rights and eschews creating new "rights" based on dubious legal premises.

Post your comments at the Urban Life Training Blog.

Advocacy

URGENT:  CALL YOUR SENATORS TO OPPOSE NOMINATION OF CORNELIA PILLARD

 
Cornelia “Nina” Pillard was recently nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President Obama. On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to question Ms. Pillard on the many controversial positions she holds on matters of constitutional interpretation. One such position is her view that abstinence education is unconstitutional, based on her inaccurate view that "prescribing chastity and maternity for women while assuming lustfulness and autonomy for men, is at the heart of today's abstinence-only education movement."*
 
Ms. Pillard's nomination to the second-most influential court in the nation gravely concerns NAEA, especially since many Supreme Court justices are selected from the DC Circuit.  if she is confirmed, her extreme views could have a chilling effect on the freedom of local school districts to implement abstinence education programs, effectively criminalizing an approach that offers optimal health outcomes to America's youth.
 
NAEA does not believe she is fit to hold the position for which she is nominated for the following reasons: 

1. Lack of objective research.  Her lack of objective and accurate research on abstinence education before  recommending a judicial  opinion calls into question her ability to divorce her radical ideology from her responsibility to be an objective judge.
 
Her view that abstinence education espouses and forces a double sexual standard for students is absurd and untrue.  Federal abstinence education programs have long promoted  a single sexual standard - beginning in the early 1900's when women suffragists first supported the abstinence education approach.
 
2. Extreme Activism.  As evidenced from her view on abstinence education, her aggressive and out-of-the-mainstream ideological lens  trumps objectivity.  In addition, her proposed legal recommendations promote unprecedented federal reach into decisions typically reserved to local community school boards and curriculum committees.
 
Pillard’s visceral opposition to abstinence education, coupled with her copious misinformation on the subject, calls into question her fitness for the position.
Her spurious charge ignores the fact that abstinence education programs seek optimal heath outcomes for all students - male and female.  She maligns an approach that explicitly advocates a single sexual standard, prides itself in empowering young men and women, and that promotes health and well being of the individual and society in general.
 
The Senate will vote on Cornelia Pillard's nomination so ongoing outreach to your Senator is essential
 
Find your Senator here.
 
ACTION Items:

1. Call today to urge your Senator to oppose the nomination of Cornelia Pillard.
2. Urge your colleagues, freinds and family to make similar calls
3. Post this action alert to social media sites, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter
 
*A copy of Cornelia Pillard’s views on abstinence education can be found here.

From the National Abstinence Education Association