A RIGHT ATTITUDE TO SEX: MARIA GORETTI’S LIFE

Though published 3 years ago. The ideas are very much relevant today.
Enjoy and share

VERITAS PROJECT

Through movies, advertisement, songs, videos, and even cartoons, most mainstream media in conjunction with governments are propagating a universal right to sexual indulgence; as if we were mere animals, governed only by instinct, lacking all self-control. Unfortunately, this way of thinking is gradually becoming the new norm and has spiked the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

Young men and women now have, as it were, an unfettered license to play with sex. Among adolescent girls, the world over, teenage pregnancy is on the rise and since they are often not ready for motherhood, abortion rate is consequently on the rise.

The media and world leaders are lying when they treat us like animals living only by instincts. Apart from having intellect, we also have free will–an ability to choose and we can control our passions, desires and even our sexual urges. However, this can only come…

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BAN KI-MON TOLD TO RESIGN

Lagos lawyer Mr. Sonnie Ekwowusi has called for the immediate resignation of United Nations Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-Mon  following the diplomatic row trailing the newly-released UN gay stamps. Mr. Ekwowusi also calls on the UN chief to tender unqualified apology to the UN member States for unilaterally deciding to release the gay stamps without clearance from the Member States.

On 5^th February 2016 the United Nations Postal Administration  officially released four homosexual and transgender postal stamps for  public use ostensibly aimed at promoting gay and transgender rights in the world. One of the postal stamps depicts a homosexual couple carrying a child. Another is a putrid display of two naked lesbians frontally holding each other, caressing and kissing. Another postal stamp shows two homosexuals embracing and kissing, while the fourth stamp shows a butterfly that symbolizes transgenderism.,

According to Mr. Ekwowusi, International law binds upon consensus, and not on unilateral decision of the minority. If nations have not come together and agreed that homosexuality and transgenderism should become a binding international law, why should Ban Ki-Mon and a few others go from behind and impose homosexuality and transgenderism on the rest of mankind? The consensus reached at the various United Nations Conferences, is that all policies and action programs of the United Nations must conform to the purposes and Charter of the United Nations and must reflect the diverse social, economic and environmental conditions of each country, with full respect for their religious, cultural backgrounds and philosophical convictions. Mr. Ekwowusi therefore stated that it is a big scandal, probably, the biggest scandal in the history of the United Nations for Ban Ki-Mon and a few others to unilaterally release the aforesaid offensive gay stamps without a clearance from the UN Member States.

In the same vein, Nigeria’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Usman Sarki has berated the United Nations under Ban Ki-Mon for releasing gay stamps that assault the religious and cultural sensibilities of the UN Member States. According to Sarki, “… we wish to remind the UN to limit itself strictly to activities mandated by Member States and especially to promote issues that are beneficial to mankind rather than lend itself as tool to promote aberrant behavior under the guise of promoting human rights”

AMBASSADOR SARKI UNDER ATTACK FOR OPPOSING UN POSTAL STAMPS SUPPORTING GAY RIGHTS

The United Nations Postal Administration(UNPA) on the 4^th of February released six new postage stamps promoting equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The new stamps, which seeks to celebrate the diversity of the LGBT community, marks the first time the United Nations has issued stamps with this theme.

The artist, Sergio Baradat who designed them, in an interview said “We live in a world where even though developed nations have embraced marriage equality and LBGT equality, we still have a far, far, far way to go, but we are making some strides,” he added “There are some countries in the world right now where not only are we not celebrated or respected, but we are beaten and killed. And I thought that it would be a wonderful opportunity using art, to use postage stamps as a vehicle – using art to change hearts and minds.” He also stressed that LGBT rights are human rights and that all individuals deserve to be treated equally and fairly under the law.

The fact of referring to LGBT rights as Human Rights and also using the United Nations to push such propaganda hasn’t gone down well with many member states who feel this arbitrary act is an affront to the sovereignty of member nations who share different views.

In anticipation of the unveiling of the stamps, the Deputy Permanent Representative Of Nigeria To The United Nations Ambassador Usman Sarki relying on the charter of the UN condemned the action of UN Secretary General and the UN bureaucracy.

He told a meeting of Member States that “It is in that regard that we wish to remind the UN to limit itself strictly to activities mandated by Member States and especially to promote issues that are beneficial to mankind rather than lend itself as tool to promote aberrant behaviour under the guise of promoting human rights.” “The UN should not take unilateral decisions on such sensitive matters that offend the sensibilities of the majority of its Member States, and contradict their religious beliefs, cultures, traditions and laws. If it must act in this fashion, the UN should promote issues that enjoy consensus and, at the same time, advance the dignity of people and their genuine human rights. In the light of this concern, we call upon the UN not to proceed with this event and to put an end to all processes that are currently in place in all its agencies, funds and programs, that promote and legitimize this tendency on which there is no consensus among member states.

Since delivering his address – which is in line with the spirits of International Law and reason – Ambassador Sarki has been under attack by several persons. Some are saying that he is pushing a homophobic agenda at the United Nations.

Kenny Brandmuse, a Nigerian homosexual and activist has also criticised Sarki. Kenny is in usual way sought to remind Sarki that Nigerian was neither a Christian or Muslim country that it’s a secular country therefore sodomy laws cannot be imposed on them. While I agree with Kenny that Nigeria is a secular country, this is even provided for in Section 10 of the Constitution as follows “The Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any religion as State religion.” It 1999 Constitution of Nigeria merely prescribes secularism. Secularism does not mean atheism and the Nigeria Constitution, laws and practices, recognize and acknowledge God. The Preamble to the 1999 Constitution proclaims Nigeria as “one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign nation under God”. It guarantees “freedom of thought, conscience, and religion”. Secularism under the Nigerian constitution does not mean moral neutrality but religious neutrality. Our laws recognize and integrate norms of morality which are distilled more from the moral imperative of social co-existence (which may be coincidental with the moral norms of native law and custom and Christian or Islamic moral injunctions) rather than predicated on any religion as such. As such it would utopic to claim that morality doesn’t affect our Laws. Even the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 is an embodiment of Natural moral law etc.

Leo Igwe on the other hand has accused the Nigeria government of misplacing Her priority, that instead of tackling issues like poverty, unemployment, and insecurity, they are wasting time fighting homosexuality, he even posited that Sarki is not representing the position of millions of Nigerians that support without reservation and hesitation the efforts of the UN to protect the rights of religious, ethnic or sexual minorities. This is a big lie, when the Law prohibiting homosexual marriage was assented to in 2014, it received a thunderous applause from Nigerians so Leo Igwe assertion is unfounded.

I think Leo Igwe and his cohorts are misled as to the Nigerian Stance against homosexuality; the law that was passed was targeted against Homosexuals contracting a valid marriage and enjoying the rights that accrue to marriages, it was also targeted towards prohibiting public show of homosexual tendencies so as not to offend the public morality which the government is compelled to under the constitution to protect. That doesn’t mean that the government is encouraging hatred against homosexuals, as such the government is ready to prosecute anyone who assaults anyone for the singular fact of their LGBT status.

On the issue of misplacement of priority, I think it’s the United Nations that has misplaced its priority long ago, created to sustain peace around the globe, it has left its raison d’être of its creation and now they are now pursing anomalies in the name of widening Human Rights. As regards people being killed because they are homosexuals the data is very minimal, on the other hand there are graver human right violations in China, Syria, Iran, Nigeria(Boko Haram) and the UN is just playing lip service.

It’s not in doubt that homosexuality is an aberrant behaviour, there is no conclusive empirical evidence proving that such individuals are born that way, it’s a way of life just the same way somebody chooses to be a criminal, should we then legalise criminality because it makes some people happy? We can’t.

We stand with Ambassador Sarki, he is doing a great job, and we are proud that a Nigerian is challenging the World to align itself with reason.

CHIMPANZEES AT THE SUPREME COURT

By Sonnie Ekwowusi

Our world has become one big theatre for the celebration of theatrics and absurdities of all sorts under the cover and in the name of “human rights”. Nearly three months after the American Supreme Court ruled that a man can “marry” a man, and a woman can “marry” a fellow woman, two New York chimpanzees called Hercules and Leo have taken the Stony Brook University to the New York Supreme Court for “detaining” them in the university zoo and using them for scientific experiment. The seemingly recondite area of law which the Supreme Court was invited to resolve was whether the two animals who are not human beings can bring a legal action against the University. Whereas under the common law and English law (which borrowed heavily from Roman Law), only physical persons (that is, human beings) and juridical persons (that is, legal and corporate entities, limited companies, partnerships, NGOs etc ) can sue and be sue and can enjoy legal personhood.

But in their legal submission before the New York Supreme Court, the two chimpanzees through their lawyer, Steven Wise Esq., prayed the Court to release them from “illegal detention” at the zoo because they were “non-human persons” subject to law and entitled to the enjoyment of legal personhood and therefore eligible for the writ of habeas corpus and release from illegal detention.

In its defence, the Stony Brook University through Assistant Attorney-General Christopher Coulston urged the Supreme Court to dismiss the application of the two chimpanzees for lack of merit. He submitted that the two animals were not human beings recognized by law to enjoy human rights. He told the court that there was no legal precedent anywhere in the world permitting animals to enjoy the same rights as human beings.

After listening to the arguments from both sides, Justice Barbara Jaffe of the Supreme Court ruled in her 33-page judgement that all animals including chimpanzees Hercules and Leo and other “highly intelligent” mammals, are not persons under the law but properties, and therefore, “they are accorded no legal rights beyond being guaranteed the right to be free from physical abuse and other mistreatment.”. According to the judge, in law, “persons” are defined as those who have “rights, duties and obligations that things do not.”

After the judgment, the lawyer to the two chimpanzees Steven Wise Esq., left the court in annoyance. He has vowed to appeal to the American Supreme Court

What the above reveals once again is the depravity of our fallen condition, at least, in recent times. An Igbo lawyer friend simply described it in Igbo as uwa mmebi (meaning, a topsy-turvy world or a world that is upside down). And he is right. We live in a strange world. One danger in between the Scylla and Charybdis of the 21^st Century “secularism” and “progressivism” is that it has reduced the human being to the level of an animal. From legalization of gay “marriage” in the U.S, we are now witnessing animals taking human beings to court to enforce their “rights”. The paradox is that the same society that weirdly argues that unborn babies are “human non-persons” who are not entitled to legal protection under the law are now glibly maintaining that  animals are “non-human persons” that are entitled to legal protection under the law. What a warped and irrational quasi-syllogism.

The pertinent question is: What is happening to our world? For example, in 2008, Senator Emie Chambers living in Nebraska, U.S, filed a law suit against God, seeking a perpetual injunction against what he alleged as God’s harmful activities. Of course, the judge dismissed the suit because he said that God could not be properly served with the court process since he has no physical address on earth. According to the Judge, “Given that this court finds that there can never be service effectuated on the named defendant this action will be dismissed with prejudice“.

Anyway, back to the suit filed by chimpanzees Hercules and Leo at the New York Supreme Court. While dismissing the suit for lack of merit, Justice Jaffe issued a prediction. She said that attempts to extend human rights to animals may not succeed today but might succeed in the future. Note that the case of the two New York chimpanzees is not the first of its kind. For example, in December 2014, an Argentine Court of Criminal Appeals granted a writ of habeas corpus to Sandra, an animal living in a zoo in Buenos Aires. That was the first time an animal was recognized as having legal rights—personhood—in a court of law. The appeals court held that Sandra’s right to liberty was violated. The court also held that “it is necessary to ascribe to the animal the character of the subject of rights, since non-human subjects (animals) are rights-bearers…”. But on January 2, 2015 a contrary decision was handed down: the New York State Supreme Court, (Fourth Judicial Department) refused to grant a writ of habeas corpus for Kiko, a privately owned chimpanzee living in New York. Around the same time, the New York Supreme Court held that animal Tommy was not a “legal person” eligible for a writ of habeas corpus.  Relying on its interpretation of what constitutes “legal personhood,” the court held that a legal person must be capable of having both rights and duties. And animals do not have rights and duties.

The judgment of the New York Supreme Court is praiseworthy.  I hope it would not be upturned by the American Supreme Court. Legal personhood only inheres in a person, created by God in his image and likeness and endowed with freedom and intelligence. It doesn’t inhere in animals. Because human beings are created in the image and likeness of God and endowed with freedom and intelligence, they are far superior to animals. This superiority of the human being above animals is what allows us to talk about the “dignity of the human being“. And the foundation of human rights is rooted in the dignity of the human being.   That is why every human being is considered as a subject of law capable of acquiring rights and duties under the law. This is something that belongs to him (is his): it is an attribute of human nature, and not a concession of law.

Having said this, it is worthy of note that the Universal Declaration on Animal Rights 1978, Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare, some international treaties, conventions, protocols, and some countries’ municipal laws have accorded certain rights to animals in order to respect the environment and treat animals with dignity and respect as Pope Francis is urging  in his Encyclical, Laudato Si. Specifically, Article 1 of the Universal Declaration on Animal Rights 1978 stipulates that “all animals have equal rights to exist within the context of biological equilibrium…”; Article 6 states that “experiments on animals entailing physical or psychological suffering violate the rights of animals…”while Article  8 states that “the massacre of wild animals, and the pollution and destruction of biotopes” constitute animal genocide.

In Nigeria, sections 20 and 44(2)(f) of the 1999 Constitution, sections 450, 456 of the Criminal Code, the National Environmental Standard Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) Act  and other Nigerian laws frown at the abuse and maltreatment of animals. In fact, Section 7(c) of the Act mandates the Agency to enforce compliance with the provisions of international agreements, protocols, conventions and treaties on the maltreatment of animal and use of the environment.

But granting animal rights from physical abuse and from unnecessary maltreatment, torture and extermination as adumbrated above is completely different from granting legal personhood to animals. Steven Wise Esq. and other animal rights advocates passionately argue that legal personhood should be granted to chimpanzees, apes and the so-called intelligent animals on the ground that even though they are “non-human persons” they have rights, duties and obligations that things do not have under the law. This is flawed. A human person is a man or woman created by God in his image and likeness and endowed with will and intelligence. It is settled law that legal persons are either natural persons (that is, human beings or human persons) or artificial persons (that is, body corporate, limited liability companies, partnerships, registered non-governmental organizations and other juristic entities )  who can sue and be sued in their names and who are capable of exercising legal rights, duties and obligations  under the law. Animals do not have these legal attributes.  Therefore I agree with Justice Jaffe that “beyond being guaranteed the right to be free from physical abuse and other mistreatment.” chimpanzees, apes and the so-called intelligent animals do not enjoy legal personhood.

However the prediction of Justice Jaffe of the New York Supreme Court merits a deeper reflection. Justice Jaffe predicts in his judgment that even though attempts to extend legal personhood to animals may not succeed today it might succeed in the future.  This is definitely a good prediction. One of the consequences of the questioning of the anthropological configuration of man and woman in this epoch is the erasing or blurring of the essential differences between a human being and an animal. Today in many western cultures man is equated with an animal. Man is depicted as one more animal without any higher destiny; without self-control and without any supernatural end. He is also depicted as a beast of pleasure that merely exist today to only satisfy the sensual appetites and dies tomorrow.

In her article, Pro-Animal, Pro-life, Mary Eberstadt writes that following Jeremy Bentham and other utilitarians, Peter Singer forcefully argues in his book, Animal Liberation, that the capacity to suffer is “the vital characteristic that gives a being a right to equal consideration”. In other words, since animals also suffer like human beings they should enjoy the same rights with human beings.  According to Singer, “in short, when properly understood, animals have rights of the same sorts as humans-and in some cases, depending on the state of sentience, rights that trump those of certain humans…there will be some non-human animals whose lives, by any standards, are more valuable than the lives of some humans”

Some think that somehow Nigeria is immune from all these absurd ideas we come across in America and other places abroad. They forget that we now live in a global village that is out to forge out one global behavior and global attitude for all irrespective of cultural and religious differences. They forget that America has a strong influence on the rest of the world and that anything that happens in the U.S is easily exported across the world. For example, gay cartoons targeted at kids below age six are currently being exported from the U.S to the rest of the world including Nigeria. Why? To expose them to gay cartoons and gay movies early in life so that they grow up they will not find anything wrong with gay practices. Now, if for any reason the American Supreme Court wakes up one day and rules that Chimpanzees, apex and so-called other intelligent animals are legal persons sharing the same rights, duties and obligations with human beings under the law, it will become another legal precedent capable of being exported to Nigeria. And if exported to Nigeria and later embraced as part of the Nigerian law, the owners of dogs, goats, sheep, rams, fowls and other animals in Nigeria would not be allowed to kill them and eat them as meat. No rams will be killed during Sallah. No goats and fowls will be killed at Christmas. No animals would be kept in the Zoo. No dogs in Calabar.

 

CHIBOK GIRLS, UNFPA AND ABORTION (2)

By Sonnie Ekwowusi

Therefore under the pretext of preventing maternal deaths in Nigeria, the United Nations Population Funds (UNFPA) has been reducing human capital in Nigeria through its aggressive distribution of dangerous pills and abortificients especially among Nigerian teens. I keep on repeating that the UNFPA organised a very shameful gathering last year dubbed “third Family Planning Pre-Conference”. It was held at the Reiz Continental Hotel, Abuja. In that gathering, the UNFPA launched a condom-safe-sex campaign entitled, “No Hoodie No Honey”. This campaign was widely reported in the Nigerian media and posted on twitter, Face book and on other social media.  The campaign was targeted at young Nigerians especially young Nigerian girls in the age bracket of 14-18. It was aimed at supplying condoms and contraceptives to young Nigerians and luring them into believing that “safe-sex” is their right and therefore they shouldn’t be ashamed to practice “safe sex” even if the different cultures and religions teach otherwise. One of the inscriptions on the No Hoodie No Honey roll-up stand which posted on Twitter read: “Lets push for easy access to the female condom and that a woman may buy condoms without being shamed”

Now, it has been widely reported that the UNFPA is offering pregnant Chibok girls abortion and sterilization for the rest. It was also reported that some women and girls in the displacement camps in Borno State Nigeria are visibly pregnant and receiving support from UNFPA, and that the UNFPA is providing them with so called “reproductive health (RH) kits and dignity kits”. “Reproductive health” or “reproductive health services” or “family planning services” is a dodgy phrase used by the UNFPA to promote abortion and contraceptives in Nigeria. This is understandable. Because the word “abortion” is repugnant in the highly-sensitive Nigerian religious and cultural milieu, the UNFPA avoids using the word, “abortion”, but instead use dodgy words such as “reproductive health services” and “family planning services”.  To understand the real meaning of “reproductive health services” or “family planning services”, one must read the publications of the Center for reproductive Law and policy, 120 Wall Street, New York, United States. In this publication, the phrase: “decide when to have children, and how many, or “timing and spacing of children” has been interpreted to mean recourse to legal, safe, and accessible abortion services by women.

Prof Babatunde Osotimehin readily admits that the UNFPA offers abortion and contraceptive services in order to reduce the human capital of a nation. For example, while fielding questions from the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Sunday, May 31 2015, Prof Osotimehin announced that the UNFPA had budgeted $75 million to boost reproductive health services or abortion and contraceptive services in Nigeria. In a country plagued by genteel poverty, youth unemployment, disease all that, it is a big scandal that the UNFPA is budgeting a whooping $75 million to boost abortion and contraceptives for young people.  Prof Osotimehin is even trying to win over President Muhammadu Buhari to endorse the UNPFA. Buhari should not listen to Osotimehin. The UNFPA is destroying our cultural and religious values, and it is high time it is sent packing from Nigeria. The UNFPA promotes forced abortion and coercive sterilization.  It has been implicated in some abortion and sterilization scandals in Mexico, China, Peru and other countries. Abortion and sterilization are illegal in Nigeria. The Bible condemns the murder of children and the corruption of young children. The Holy Koran detests anything capable of putting young people in moral jeopardy. The universal fundamental right for humanity which Islam stipulates that must be observed and respected in all circumstances and at all times is sacredness of life. In fact, the first and foremost basic right in the Holy Quran is the right to life. In Islam, the Mohammadiya, the Ahmadiyya, the Quadiniya, and the Shiite Moslems all denounce killing of children. Quran 17:31 stipulates: “slay not your children, fearing a fall of poverty, we shall provide for them and for you, lo the slaying of them is greater sin”.

A society that allows its children to be killed is heading for extinction. If adults are entitled to the enjoyment of right to life, why not children?. Mankind owes the child the best it can give it because it is the leader of tomorrow. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) 1989, signed and ratified by Nigeria, states that every child, before and after birth, should have a right to life

Trouble for Africa:Randy Berry appointed first US special envoy for LGBT right.

In a ground-breaking move the United States has appointed Randy Berry the first US special envoy for gay and lesbian rights.
At the announcement of the creation of this new office, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that “Defending and promoting the human rights of LGBT persons is at the core of our commitment to advancing human rights globally -– the heart and conscience of our diplomacy,”
Currently in some 75 countries, mostly in Africa. consensual same-sex activity is banned. So this new envoy has been charged with the duty of ensuring that these laws are changed.
This move by the US under the administration of Obama though not surprising only goes to show again their misplacement of priority.
Currently we are inundated with information of hundred of persons dying from the activities of Boko Haram and ISIS, two weeks ago ISIS killed 21 Christians etc, Boko Haram have been killing in their hundreds and yet USA our supposed big brother is talking of LGBT rights.
Lets all be alert to ensure that our laws reflect the spirit of the people( volkgeist) and refuse any form of international intimidation to forget the right use of our senses.

LAGOS LAWYER FAULTS NEW ABORTION BILL

A Lagos-based lawyer, Mr. Sonnie Ekwowusi has faulted the new abortion Bill. The Public Hearing on the new abortion Bill comes up at the Senate on Monday March 2, 2015. Euphemistically coined Violence Against Persons Prohibition Bill (VAPP), the new abortion Bill, seeks to allow Nigerian girls and women unimpeded access to abortion. The import of the VAPP Bill is that abortion is a woman’s choice. Women are entitled to have access to all safe, effective means of controlling their family size, including abortion. A woman has a right to make decisions regarding her own body. Denying women access to abortion is a form of gender discrimination. Safe abortions services protect women’s right to health.

IPAS, an international abortion lobby group, together with the DFID, UNFPA and others, has been mounting pressure on the Senate to pass the VAPP Bill so that President Goodluck Jonathan should assent to it before the swearing in of a new President. The VAPP Bill has already passed through the House of Representatives.

It will be recalled that Imo State Governor Owelle Rochas, passed an abortion law entitled, Imo State Law of Nigeria Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) law No 12, about four years ago but was forced by the citizens of Imo State to get the Imo State House of Assembly to repeal it.

Mr. Ekwowusi describes the new abortion Bill as a big set-back for the empowerment of Nigerian women. According to Mr. Ekwowusi, what Nigerian women need to stay alive is authentic educational, political, economic, social, cultural and spiritual empowerment not abortion empowerment. Abortion is not like food or essential medicine that every woman needs to consume in order to stay alive; in fact abortion is the greatest violence  against women, he said. More importantly, abortion is illegal in Nigeria. It is unconstitutional. Besides, the VAPP Bill is ill-timed. It is coming at a time Nigerians are preparing for elections. Therefore, Mr. Ekwowusi urged the Jonathan government not to succumb to the pressure being mounted by IPAS, DFID, UNFPA and other international agencies to get abortion legalized in Nigeria especially at this election period.

An Aging Europe in Decline

This article was culled from The New York Times

By, Arthur C. Brooks

I’VE fallen and I can’t get up.”

These words, shouted by an elderly woman, were made famous in a medical alert device ad in the 1990s. In 2015, they might be Europe’s catchphrase.

As the United States economy slowly recovers, analysts across the political spectrum see little to cheer them from Europe. The optimists see the region’s economy growing by just 1 percent in 2015; many others fear that a triple-dip recession is in the offing. Germany is widely viewed as a healthy country whose prosperity helps compensate for Europe’s weakness, yet over the past two quarters for which we have data, it has experienced no net growth at all. Predictions of decade-long deflation, low productivity and high unemployment are becoming conventional wisdom.

What does the Continent need? Most economists and pundits focus on monetary and fiscal policy, as well as labor-market reform. Get the policy levers and economic incentives right, and the Continent might escape the vortex of decline, right?

Probably not. As important as good economic policies are, they will not fix Europe’s core problems, which are demographic, not economic. This was the point made in a speech to the European Parliament in November by none other than Pope Francis. As the pontiff put it, “In many quarters we encounter a general impression of weariness and aging, of a Europe which is now a ‘grandmother,’ no longer fertile and vibrant.”

But wait, it gets worse: Grandma Europe is not merely growing old. She is also getting dotty. She is, as the pope sadly explained in an earlier speech to a conference of bishops, “weary with disorientation.”

Some readers might regret the pope’s use of language — we love our grandmothers, weary with disorientation or not. But as my American Enterprise Institute colleague Nicholas Eberstadt shows in his research, the pope’s analysis is fundamentally sound.

Start with age. According to the United States Census Bureau’s International Database, nearly one in five Western Europeans was 65 years old or older in 2014. This is hard enough to endure, given the countries’ early retirement ages and pay-as-you-go pension systems. But by 2030, this will have risen to one in four. If history is any guide, aging electorates will direct larger and larger portions of gross domestic product to retirement benefits — and invest less in opportunity for future generations.

Next, look at fertility. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the last time the countries of the European Union were reproducing at replacement levels (that is, slightly more than two children per woman) was the mid-1970s. In 2014, the average number of children per woman was about 1.6. That’s up a hair from the nadir in 2001, but has been falling again for more than half a decade. Imagine a world where many people have no sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts or uncles. That’s where Europe is heading in the coming decades. On the bright side, at least there will be fewer Christmas presents to buy.

There are some exceptions. France has risen to exactly two children per woman in 2012, from 1.95 in 1980, an increase largely attributed to a system of government payments to parents, not a change in the culture of family life. Is there anything more dystopian than the notion that population decline can be slowed only when states bribe their citizens to reproduce?

Finally, consider employment. Last September, the United States’ labor force participation rate — the percentage of adults who are either working or looking for work — reached a 36-year low of just 62.7 percent.

Yet as bad as that is, the United States looks decent compared with most of Europe. Our friends across the Atlantic like to say that we live to work, while they work to live. That might be compelling if more of them were actually working. According to the most recent data available from the World Bank, the labor force participation rate in the European Union in 2013 was 57.5 percent. In France it was 55.9 percent. In Italy, just 49.1 percent.

One bright spot might seem to be immigration. In 2012, the median age of the national population in the European Union was 41.9 years, while the median age of foreigners living in the union was 34.7. So, are Europeans pleased that there will be new arrivals to work and pay taxes when the locals retire?

Not exactly. Anti-immigrant sentiment is surging across the Continent. Nativist movements performed alarmingly well in European Parliament elections last year. Europe is less like a grandmother knitting placidly in the window and more like an angry grandfather, shaking his rake and yelling at outsiders to get off his lawn.

None of this should give Americans cause for schadenfreude. At a purely practical level, a European market in further decline will suppress American growth. But more important, European deterioration will dissipate the vast good the Continent can do in spreading the values of democracy and freedom around the world.

So what is the prescription for Europe’s ills — and the lesson for America’s future?

It is true that good monetary and fiscal policies are important. But the deeper problems in Europe will not be solved by the European Central Bank. No matter what the money supply and public spending levels, a country or continent will be in decline if it rejects the culture of family, turns its back on work, and closes itself to strivers from the outside.

Europe needs visionary leaders and a social movement to rediscover that people are assets to develop, not liabilities to manage. If it cannot or will not meet this existential challenge, a “lost decade” will look like a walk in the park for Grandma Europe.

*Arthur C. Brooks, is a contributing opinion writer, is the president of the American Enterprise Institute.

LETS PRAY AND SAVE MERIAM IBRAHIM’S LIFE

Dear all, lets pray for the release of Meriam Ibrahim. She was sentenced to death by the Sudanese government for marrying a Christian and for refusing to denounce the christian faith. Her sentence includes 100 lashes for adultery and death for apostasy.
Because she was pregnant, the implementation of this obnoxious sentence was halted.
She gave birth finally yesterday to a beautiful girl, so any time from now she would be flogged 100 lashes and then she would be killed.
Lets pray that this does not happen.
Please pray and ask others to do the same by sharing this post.

We are resorting to prayer, because despite international condemnation and pleadings the Sudanese government has refused to have a rethink.

We believe prayer is our last hope.

So lets pray

THE GAY DICTATORSHIP

By Sonnie Ekwowusi

It is no longer news that the co-founder and former  CEO of Mozilla Corporation Brendan Eich has recently been forced or coerced to resign from Mozilla Corporation following his anti-gay stance, specifically, for doling out $1,000 in 2008 in support of California anti-gay marriage law Proposition 8. 

This, for me, is another clear case of intolerance being unleashed in the name of curbing intolerance. There are two highly-abused words in the gay dictionary: discrimination and tolerance. Whereas gay people complain of being discriminated against they are the ones discriminating against those who do not endorse their gay lifestyle. By succumbing to the pressure that Eich should resign because of his anti-gay views, Mozilla is officially declaring that it is a pro-gay corporation that doesn’t tolerate a contrary view. It has also displayed its open bias and intolerance against Eich for his anti-gay stance.

Procuring the resignation of Eich through violence and intimidation is a fragrant violation of his constitutional right to personal liberty. Liberty is the essential idea that is America. It is America’s greatest achievement, in fact America’s bounteous gift to mankind. You will recall that at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln noted that before America embraced the principle of equality it had already been conceived in liberty. That is why every American dreams liberty today. Surely, if Eich drags Mozilla to court today over his forced resignation he would certainly pull his way through.

Obviously gay dictatorship is being imposed on an unwilling world. This is very disturbing. The gay population, compared to the rest of world population, is negligible but it is a “conquering” population. Last year in London I ran into a UK lawyer who specializes in defending accused persons prosecuted for exercising their right to their conscience and conviction. It was this lawyer who defended the lady fired by the British Airways a few years ago for wearing a crucifix to work. The same lawyer defended the Pastor who was arrested and charged to court, I think in the same London, for openly preaching against gay. The pertinent questions are: Why are gay people becoming more powerful today? Why are they infiltrating the most powerful organizations in the world today, from the United Nations to powerful multi-nationals to embassies, down to even ordinary football clubs? Why are they stakeholders in the British and American governments? Why is the CNN, BBC, New York Times, The London Economist and other liberal media increasing becoming the gay mouthpieces? In response, a friend jokingly said that Lucifer has come down and has challenged Archangel Michael to a second battle, and that if Lucifer wins this second battle all of us will become his slaves. Don’t laugh. It sounds like a pedestrian conspiracy theory but there is a resemblance of truth in the comment. Truth to tell, there are plots to deconstruct the human anthropology in favour of “orientation essentialism”. Very soon the World Bank and the IMF would start forcing developing countries to become gay complaint failure for which they would be denied financial aid. What am I saying? This is already happening. We now live in a new gay international order. Being gay is now synonymous with civility.  Leaders of countries whose countries are not yet gay complaint are looked down or treated with contempt at international Conferences as backward leaders unwilling to comply with their “international obligation”. See what they are doing to Uganda for refusing to join their gay madness. There is also the conspiracy to make the world a genderless world. No difference between a man and a woman. Some are now agitating that the tags, “male” and “female”   on the doors of male and female toilets in public places should be removed. In New York City last March, a man was caught in a female toilet. When quizzed, he said that even though he was originally created a man, he had changed his gender and become a woman. It is not unlikely that very soon Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and others will be quizzed for not reserving jerseys for gay players. I doubt if any person who openly expresses an anti-gay view can become a Nobel Laureate today.

So, we are in trouble in this age of gay dictatorship. What do we do? To insist that sanity should prevail. To insist that tolerance doesn’t mean compromising gay aberration. To agree with Michael W. Hannon that the natural architecture for human sexuality; the longstanding teleological tradition is not replaced with the “absurd taxonomy of sexual orientations”. To admit that gay is a big threat to human survival and that the baptism of homosexual activity in whatever form paves the way for the destruction of the old marital-procreative principles without offering a viable alternative.

 If we do not wish that the human family should perish, then we need to remind the world, as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni are already doing, that it can only find an anchor in the safe harbor of sexual ethics of man-woman marital relationship that spurns the animalistic exaltation of the gay aberration.