A federal judge has blocked enforcement of a new ordinance in New York City requiring pro-life pregnancy centers to posts signs announcing that they do not perform abortions or make referrals to abortion providers. U.S. District Judge William Pauley (picture, left) made his ruling on July 13, a day before the new law was to go into effect.

As the state of New York prepares to officially legalize homosexual marriage on July 24, at least one local government official has made the decision to put moral principle above political expediency. On July 11, Laura Fotusky, clerk in the Town of Barker in central New York, submitted her resignation to the town board, explaining that her Christian beliefs would not allow her to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, as her position would require. Municipal clerks in New York issue and sign marriage licenses, and under the state’s new same-sex marriage law, Fotusky would eventually have found herself faced with the dilemma of following the new mandate or obeying a higher authority.

With a falling birth rate in a country having one of the world’s highest abortion rates, concerned Russian lawmakers passed a bill on July 1 requiring that all abortion advertisements carry health warnings. “Under the new law approved by the lower house of parliament [Duma, pictured left], 10 percent of the space used in abortion ads must carry a list of possible negative consequences for women, including infertility,” reported Reuters News. Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, is expected to follow the Duma in approving the measure, and President Dmitry Medvedev will likely sign the legislation into law.

A coalition of pro-family, anti-porn, and decency organizations have banded together in an effort to convince NBC that it should scrap one of its new fall programs, The Playboy Club. NBC is touting the show as a “provocative new series [that] captures a time and place that challenged the social mores, where a visionary created an empire, and an icon changed American culture.”

A campaign to expose the connection of Stericycle, one of the nation’s leading medical waste disposal companies, with the abortion industry is heating up as two major truck leasing firms have vowed they will not allow the company to use their vehicles to service abortion clinics. A press release from Repent America, the group behind the campaign, reported that the international truck-leasing company Ryder System Inc. had “informed the Campaign to Stop Stericycle (CSS) of its decision to stop Stericycle Inc. from using its trucks to service abortion facilities.” That announcement followed last year’s decision by another truck company, Penske Truck Leasing, to stop hauling abortion-related materials for Stericycle.

On June 24 New York became the third state to legalize homosexual marriage through legislation, after the Republican-controlled state Senate voted 33 to 29 to approve a “gay marriage” bill that had earlier sailed through state assembly. Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo, who had made the issue a major component of his campaign for election last year, quickly signed the bill into law.

As the battle for marriage intensifies in New York, a new survey by the pro-family Alliance Defense Fund has found that a solid majority of Americans believe that “marriage should be defined only as a union between one man and one woman.” The ADF survey, which in mid-May polled 1,500 Americans about their opinions on marriage, found that 62 percent agreed with the traditional definition of marriage, with 53 percent “strongly” agreeing.

Mere minutes before a midnight deadline, the Alabama State Senate approved the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, becoming the sixth state to pass a ban on abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy. Following an earlier 66 to 19 vote approval by the state House of Representatives, the Senate passed the bill by an overwhelming 26 to 5 vote margin.

Homosexual activists are gloating over the recent statement by Focus on the Family (FOTF) President Jim Daly (left) that pro-family leaders are “losing” the battle for traditional marriage among younger generations of Americans.

In an interview published in WORLD magazine, Daly was queried on the efforts of organizations like FOTF to protect families, marriages, children, and the pre-born. While Daly was optimistic on such initiatives as adoption and beefing up crisis pregnancy centers, when asked about efforts to convince younger Americans on the importance of protecting traditional marriage, he appeared much less optimistic.

Born-again Christian who have been wondering all these years just why they are so different from the rest of the crowd may now have an answer via a new study out of Duke University Medical Center. Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Templeton Foundation found that individuals who identify themselves as “born-again” Christians tend to have smaller brains than Protestants who claim no such experience.