by Hans Johnson

At a time of viral videos, there has been a photo that has gone viral twice in the same year: first in January, and again this June. It is of Bre and Josh Curtas from Lynchburg, Virginia holding hands in prayer just before their wedding on August 11, 2012.

In a touching blog post, Bre described this moment:

Right around the corner sat my soon to be husband. I  was so nervous he might see me, yet secretly hoping to catch a glimpse of him. In my excited state I was the first to speak, “Hi sweetie! We’re getting married today!”

“I know baby and I want to pray with you before we do.”…

My husband prayed that God would bless our marriage, that through thick or thin together we would never lose hope in one another. That instead of focusing on each other’s imperfections we would always rely on Christ’s perfection. That we would wake up every day and choose to love one another not through our own strength but by the power of Christ’s perfect love.

With our hands clenched tightly to one another together we said “Amen”, both with shaky voice and just like that I was whisked away to blot the tears off my face and put on my veil.

Here is a report on the couple from WSET:

WSET.com – ABC13

You can see a video montage of Josh’s life here, and one of both bride and groom through the engagement period here.

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: TheBlaze]

Don’t forget to vote in the poll at the bottom of this post!

In January Jivin J reported on pro-abortion Portland, Maine, businessman Mike Fink, who began sponsoring counterprotests and offering free food to abortion supporters who rallied against pro-lifers protesting in front of the Planned Parenthood next door to his restaurant.

But Fink has decided to throw in the towel. According to the Portland Daily Sun, May 6:

Mike Fink, pawnbroker, notary public and owner of Mike’s restaurant at 437 Congress St., and Guitar Grave pawn shop at 441 Congress St., Portland, announced Monday that he would not renew a lease for Mike’s Restaurant, blaming turmoil caused by protesters outside of a neighboring Planned Parenthood clinic.

“I’ve decided to close the restaurant and sell the equipment if I do not find a buyer. I have also lowered my asking price to $10,000, which is close to the value of the equipment and inventory. I am very close to giving up selling the restaurant because every time anyone sees the stupid anti-abortion protesters they decide to NOT consider this location,” Fink wrote in an email message.

More from TheForecaster.net, May 14:

Last winter Fink attracted widespread attention for staging what he called “anti-anti-abortion” rallies, in which he asked people to carry signs or honk car horns to show their opposition to the anti-abortion demonstrations.

More than 100 people, including dozens of protesters on both sides of the divisive abortion issue, showed up for the dueling demonstrations on Jan. 4. But after several more of the counter-protests, Fink said, “things just got worse.”

He eventually called off his protests.

“The more I protested, the more people came, and the worse it got for clients (of Planned Parenthood) and my customers,” he said. “So I decided I needed to ignore the protesters. It’s like reverse psychology.”….

For another business on the block, Antoine’s Tailor Shop & Formal Wear at 435 Congress St., the protests are less of a problem.

“It hasn’t really affected us,” said Perry Perkins, assistant to the store owner, noting that his shop also opens at 10 a.m. “I can’t say that (the protesters) are really loud, and it’s been generally peaceful.”

However, Perkins – who lives in an apartment in the building – said that there are occasional problems, and that residents often leave by the building’s back door to avoid the protesters.

“A lot of us don’t like it,” he said. “I haven’t heard a positive thing.”

Perkins said he understands Fink’s frustration.

“When the protests started, the first thing I thought about was Mike’s, because that’s a food place and those pictures are disgusting,” he said. “I couldn’t eat my food if I had to look at that.”

What are your thoughts on collateral damage inflicted on businesses located near abortion clinics where pro-lifers are protesting?

[Top photo via The Forecaster; middle photo via Bangor Daily News; bottom photo via pressherald.com]

While obviously less important than her actions, it was hard not to notice the pink sneakers Texas State Senator Wendy Davis wore (with her Erdem dress) during her 11-hour filibuster on Monday….

A search on the FEC’s political donations database reveals that Mizuno President Robert Puccini has donated at least twice to the Republican National Committee and voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. So, that could have something to do with the company’s lack of enthusiasm.

~ Fashionista.com, June 28

[HT for post title: Fashionista.com]

by Kelli

We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! Email Susie@jillstanek.com.

• Right to Life of Michigan says abortion advocates like to portray their views as mainstream, but they aren’t – not even among women:
  

  According to the 2013 Gallup poll on abortion, 57% of women believe abortion should be illegal or legal in only a few circumstances, along with 59% of men.

  Only 28% of women agree with abortion advocates that abortion should be legal in every circumstance.

• ProLife NZ debunks the myths behind why women abort – with a little help from Guttmacher’s own statistics (click graphic to enlarge):
  

  Many people think that women obtain most abortions to save their lives or physical health, for rape and incest, or to avoid birth defects. This is a fallacy that pro-abortion groups continue to cultivate because it helps them spread abortion in nations with pro-life laws and helps them retain abortion-on-demand once they have achieved it.

• At Reproductive Research Audit, Dr. Jacqueline Harvey dissects a 2012 Lancet study which likely jumped the gun in claiming contraceptives reduce maternal mortality rates:
  

  The article makes the bold claim that contraceptive use has cut the maternal mortality rate (MMR) by 40% by decreasing the rate of pregnancies and the number of unsafe abortions. While it is unknown why this article is only now attracting media attention, this conclusion is questioned by the findings of other recent publications, as well as discredited MMR statistics and equally-invalid calculations of “unmet need” for contraception.

• RealChoice discusses the latest hashtag used by pro-choicers on Twitter – #ExposeCPCs – which pro-lifers are working to counteract. Christina Dunigan shares some great, fact-based examples of Tweets for pro-lifers to use.

• ProWomanProLife highlights Save the Storks, a mobile outreach to pregnant women which offers free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds, and also connects them with pro-life resources to help them through pregnancy and beyond. The group has had a great number of women change their minds about aborting after seeing ultrasounds of their children – which would explain why abortion proponents strongly dislike the organization.
• Women’s Rights Without Frontiers reveals the serious health complications suffered by Chinese women who have multiple abortions. Whether forced or elective abortions, the complications remain the same, and exist for women in the United States, as well.
• The SPUC youth blog, Why I am Pro Life, says one theme at the recent Women Deliver conference, which was espoused by infanticide proponent Peter Singer, seemed to be that women have the right to kill via abortion but may not have right to conceive in the first place. Singer proves that abortion isn’t really about “women’s reproductive rights” but about those in power having the ability to control population.

by LauraLoo

Dannah Gresh is a sexuality educator and author of many books, including Get Lost: Your Guide To Finding True Love.

As a resident of the hometown of Penn State, Gresh coaches college students seeking to define their sexual and relationship choices.  She has found that students who feel most discriminated against are those who choose to reserve sex for one mutually monogamous lifetime partnership.  In other words, they’re (gasp!) virgins. 

Her recent calculations found that there may be as many as 8,360 virgins (about 20%) on the Penn State campus, but they tend to conceal it.  Could it be that the banner of tolerance does not include them?  She has a passion to change that and to communicate that people who have sex with only one person aren’t missing out on anything. In fact, it’s just the opposite.

She recently delivered a TEDx Talk entitled “The Walk of Fame v. The Walk of Shame”:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C24CmKxRPdQ[/youtube]

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: eHarmony]

Who are we to say that children born in the worst of circumstances can’t grow to live successful lives? In fact, even the woman who filibustered the Senate the other day was born into difficult circumstances. She was the daughter of a single woman, she was a teenage mother herself. She managed to eventually graduate from Harvard Law School and serve in the Texas senate.

It is just unfortunate that she hasn’t learned from her own example that every life must be given a chance to realize its full potential and that every life matters.

~ Texas Governor Rick Perry pointing out the irony that Texas lawmaker Wendy Davis, of abortion filibuster fame, failed to see the value of human life despite her own difficult life experiences, via Hot Air, June 27

[Video at the link]

National Review has the Left’s meltdown following Perry’s statements.

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• Planned Parenthood is using Obamacare to expand its outreach into the Hispanic community:
  

  Outreach efforts will particularly target Hispanic women, 38 percent of whom lack insurance coverage in Florida, according to a 2009 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Nearly 20 percent haven’t been screened for cervical cancer in the past three years, and nearly one-third haven’t had a mammogram in the past two years, according to Planned Parenthood.

  Except Planned Parenthood doesn’t do mammograms.

• Is this an AP story or an editorial by Will Weissert on Gov. Rick Perry’s call for a second special session to pass a Texas bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks and hold abortion clinics to higher standards?
  

  It sought a statewide ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, the point at which anti-abortion activists claim a fetus can feel pain — despite a lack of scientific evidence to support that.

  Because I’m sure Weissert carefully reviewed the scientific evidence.

• I’m hoping Newsbusters’ Matthew Balan will do a comparison between the March for Life coverage and the coverage of Wendy Davis on the nightly newscasts. I’m guessing they spent more time covering a woman standing for 10 hours than hundreds of thousands of pro-lifers marching in D.C. He notes how the morning shows gushed over her filibuster in support of late-term abortions.
• Charles Cooke doesn’t #StandwithWendy:
  

  But dress it up as they might, the truth remained ghastly: What Wendy and her team of protesters were trying to do was block a bill that would have made it illegal to deliberately kill an unborn child after 20 weeks of pregnancy. And that is a disgrace….

  As a rule, people winning wider political battles do not invade their legislatures and scream. On Tuesday night, demonstrating a combination of genuine media savvy and animalistic frustration at not getting their own way, the diehards in the crowd shouted loudly enough to kill a bill that the majority wants. They will not prevail for long.

• Abortionist and convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell has refused a plea deal for federal drug charges.:
  

  Federal prosecutors say Gosnell flooded Philadelphia streets with more than 700,000 oxycodone or OxyContin pills by selling prescriptions to addicts, dealers and others who lined up at the clinic.

[Photo by Eric Gay/AP, via NBCNews.com]

by Hans Johnson

In India, where the giving of dowries is still a widespread custom, the government often holds mass weddings for poor women. Recently in the village of Harad in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, more than 450 women are said to have been given virginity tests prior to the ceremony to screen out married women trying to commit fraud. Around ten (nine of whom were pregnant) didn’t “qualify.” They had their registrations removed and were forced to return their gifts (totaling about 100 British pounds) to the government:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/kmQjIWB6twk[/youtube]

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: Laura Loo]