Texas law on children seeing porn being challenged

The Associated Press news story came out today that we worked on yesterday with Dallas AP reporter John McFarland.

The story will go national later today!

CBS11 TV story about Crystal Buckner’s fight goes national

Our campaign to help Dallas mom Crystal Buckner to make it illegal for Texas parents to force their children to view porn has gone nationwide via CBS.

Read this story from CBS2 TV in New York City!

Dallas-area mother challenges Texas law allowing parents to show children pornography

Investigative reporter Brooks Egerton of The Dallas Morning News has just broken the story for us about Crystal Buckner’s fight to prevent parents in Texas from being able to get away with forcing their children to view porn!

We hope and expect to hear from many other news sources shortly!

Irish abuse victims march to demand justice, Catholic Church repents

 

The Roman Catholic Church is in the news again for sexual and physical abuse of children after its Irish Bishops Council admitted and apologized for widespread acts of abuse of children committed and covered up by priests and nuns in Ireland during the last Century.

The Pope has also apologized and asked that victims be assisted. 

Over 7,000 concerned citizens, including hundreds of victims, marched silently on the Irish Parliament in Dublin last week to protest the government’s and church’s lack of action.

Read the stories here by Reuters. 

So many Catholic Church priest and leaders have been found guilty of abuse and cover-ups that I have to ask…is there any doubt that God washed his hands of their denomination years ago, if ever He was involved with their faith?

If you want to learn how extensive the abuse and cover-up has been, read the investigative report here by The Dallas Morning News. This report was issued in 2002. There have been many more revelations about abuse since. It says that roughly two-thirds of top U.S. Catholic leaders have allowed priests accused of sexual abuse to keep working.

How could anyone continue to be a practicing Catholic? It cannot be the church of God or Jesus Christ. It has become so corrupt. And the cases are not just isolated.

Luther, Calvin, Huss, Zwingli, Tyndale and many others risked and sacrificed their lives to call for reform in the Church, beginning in the 1500s. The corruption and perversion appears to be just as bad now, if not worse! 

No small wonder that the books and movies ”Angels & Demons” and “The Da Vinci Code” have become so popular, since they theorize cover-ups in the Catholic Church for centuries.

There are so many alternative denominations for those of you who want to worship God and Christ.

Stepfather won’t answer questions at Baby Grace trial

According to a video news report just in from the Houston TV affiliate of WFAA-TV in Dallas, the stepfather who is accused of murdering Baby Grace refused to answer any questions from his wife’s attorneys today at his trial in Galveston.

The video shows a photo of Royce Clyde Zeigler II with his two-year-old stepdaughter, as well his wife, Kimberly Dawn Trenor.

My first thought upon viewing it was they sure look like normal people – not a couple capable of doing such horrendous things as Kimberly has already admitted to. It goes to show that child abusers often look normal – like everybody else.

Watch the video here and see what I mean.

“Healthy Families Dallas” succeeding to prevent, reduce child abuse in DFW

There are several programs in DFW which are succeeding to prevent and reduce child abuse/neglect.

For example, Healthy Families Dallas, part of Healthy Families America, has achieved success in the inner city by assisting families at high risk for perpetrating child maltreatment. Working with other agencies, such as the Exchange Clubs in Dallas, health and nurse practioners visit homes and teach parents one-on-one how to properly raise children.

According to TexProtects, which has been instrumental in lobbying for reforms to protect children in Texas, Healthy Families spends only $3,000 per family per year to prevent child abuse, while the state of Texas spends $34,000 annually per family after a child is abused or neglected.

They propose that if the State would invest just $360 million to increase funding for Healthy Families initiatives – before maltreatment even becomes an issue – then the investment would prove to be a cost savings to the state within one to four years, let alone the good it would do for children and families.

TexProtects claims that for every dollar we spend on treating child maltreatment victims, if we would spend seven to nine cents to prevent victimization, we would then save millions of dollars dealing with the after-effects, plus save thousands of lives and the futures of children at risk.

We agree!

The Dallas-based agency suggests offering prevention programs such as Healthy Families Dallas to approximately 120,000 Texas families to make a measureable impact.

Why would any legislator not agree to try this proven approach?

Child abuse continues to rage across Texas and America

About one million confirmed cases of child abuse/neglect, such as “Baby Grace,” occur each year across the U.S.

Four  children die every day in America, as a result.

In Texas, over 50,000 children are confirmed victims each year.

Two hundred thirty-three children died in the Lone Star state in 2007.

Tragically, experts believe there are actually three or four times more cases than reported.

Neglect occurs more often – in about 60 percent of cases, according to the nation’s CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention).

Over 90 percent of child abuse/neglect is performed by the biological parents – about 60 percent by young mothers.

Children under four are most at risk, who are growing up in stressful situations, frequently caused by family violence, alcohol and drug use, health problems and poverty. Black, Hispanic, American Indian and mixed race children are also at a higher risk than Causasian.

Unfortunately, the rate of unwed teen pregnancies increased this year – after years of decreasing pregnancies. These parents are at particularly high risk of abusing their children.

Research clearly reveals that babies born to unwed mothers will have far better lives if placed for adoption. But most mothers and grandmothers keep the babies, who generally grow up in poverty and stressful situations – all adding to the likelihood of abuse or neglect.

Convincing unwed mothers, the fathers and their parents to offer babies up for adoption would go far towards reducing child maltreatment and give many more children a better chance in life.