Welcome to the Friday Five! Every Friday we share our top five articles, stories, and quotes for you to read and share with your friends and church families.
1. NC VALUES: 📗 The Standards are no Better
The NC State Board of Education is in the process of revising the standards for health education. Standards are the educational goals required to be achieved in each course. This process will impact what your children are or are not taught in public school sex ed classes for the next decade. We could use your help again. It will take about 5 minutes.
We need individuals who are able to submit feedback to this second draft (we’ve provided directions in the link below).
Read more: https://ncvalues.org/the-standards-are-no-better/
2. OP-ED: Christian Voters by Laura Macklem
The primary season for the 2024 election has started, and during this time you will hear many candidates in Republican primaries claim to be conservative.
But as Christians we need to look beyond the talking points and slick ads to answer the question–will this candidate stand up for Biblical values?
Read more: https://ncvalues.org/op-ed-christian-voters/
NC Values Coalition also launched its first endorsements this week for the 2024 election, including an endorsement for Mark Harris running in North Carolina’s Congressional District 8, and Fred Von Canon running in Congressional District 13.
3. NEWS & OBSERVER: Conservative Group Marshaled the Opposition
“Others, by going to the website of the N.C. Values Coalition, sent their representatives in the House and Senate emails urging them to vote ‘for a pro-values budget WITHOUT predatory gambling.’ The conservative Values Coalition was a major supporter of many GOP priorities this year, including the state’s new 12-week abortion ban, but strongly opposed the push for casinos that had delayed a budget for nearly three months that contained funding for crisis pregnancy centers and universal school choice.”
They’re talking about your efforts. Thank you all so much for participating in these important click-to-contact campaigns. They go a long way towards amplifying your voice to your legislators.
Read more at: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article281886888.html
4. CAROLINA JOURNAL: Our law requiring age verification for pornography websites is working
“Late last year, the General Assembly passed legislation that required pornographic websites to verify the age of those visiting the site. We didn’t want anyone under the age of 18 to have access to such content. This was a commonsense measure, and I was proud to help get it across the finish line. Our message was clear: We need to be protecting our children. That law took effect on Jan. 1. But shortly before that happened, one of the largest pornography sites in the world, Pornhub, announced it would be blocking user access in North Carolina. Other sites have since disabled access as well. This is a positive development for children and families in North Carolina. It also shows that the conservative-led General Assembly is keeping true to its mission of protecting the youth.”
5. WRAL: New NC law on parents and schools begins shaky rollout. Opponents and supporters aren’t happy
“Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the North Carolina Values Coalition, said some school boards are fleshing out their policies in ways she believes contradict the state law. Orange County Schools and Buncombe County Schools, for instance, now have policies that instruct staff to consult first with students or counselors before notifying parents of a request to change a student’s name or pronoun.” “’The absolute right of a parent to know about a name or pronoun change is spelled out in this law,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘And this is important because parents need to know about major medical decisions that are being implemented in their child’s life.”
Weekly Prayer: Family
LORD, we cry out to you as Father. You are a model of the love, mercy, and authority of the perfect parent. We thank you for modeling for us what every parent should strive for, and for creating this wonderful institution called family.
LORD, we thank you for creating us with a basic nature designed to not be alone. You made us to desire the intimacy of relationships, and it is here where we experience joys indescribable: the joys of marriage, the joys of having children; the joys of seeing our children have children. What a blessing and mercy you gave us in the family! In it we find our first teachers, our first guardians, and our first authorities.
LORD, we recognize how deeply you love your children, and how deeply it pains you when they go astray. Alongside our adoration and thanksgiving, we pray in confession—as individuals and as members of larger communities—over any sins we may have committed that undermine your beloved institution. Forgive us when we endanger your institution through selfishness and arrogance. Forgive our communities and nation for attempting to redefine some of the most basic and deepest parts of being human—being made male and female, having lifelong marriage vows and responsibilities, and having parental rights over educating one’s children.
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:12-17)
Amen
NC Values
