Want a good laugh? Here’s one. The United Nations (U.N.) has published its first “World Happiness Report.”  Yes, within 158 pages the U.N. has “measured” citizens’ happiness levels and then ranked their respective nations.  The U.N. ranked the United States 11^th in the world.  Apparently, Americans are only mildly happy.  But, how sound can the U.N.’s study be?  If it’s sunny in Denmark and raining in Thailand on the days of the study, where would you be happier?  The U.N.’s report is outlandish, but sadly, today’s secular culture measures happiness in terms of external factors that inevitably leave people unfulfilled.

Consider how today’s women are told to measure happiness: career status, material possessions, and independence from men.  Yet, these goals consistently leave women feeling disappointed.  On the cusp of the 1960’s, women were told that sexual liberation would make them happier.  Despite advances in sexual promiscuity, education, and career status, a recent study shows that women’s happiness has declined in the past 35 years.  Why?  Happiness was based on superficial goals and falsehoods.

Not much has changed in recent years.  At the start of the Obama Administration, women were told they would be happier with a “Feminist in Chief” fighting for greater “equality” in the workplace.  Again, women are left disappointed.  Obama’s job policies have actually hurt women more than men, despite what he preaches.  A recent study shows that women have lost seven times more jobs than our male counterparts.

Additionally, the Obama Administration is working tirelessly to convince women that they will be happier with taxpayer-funded health care and contraception.  Despite how pretty the left packages the individual health care and contraception mandates, women (and men) are losing their freedom of conscience and look to inherit an additional $340 billion in national debt.  Perhaps these factors contributed to the 26 percent of American women who are on some type of anti-anxiety medication.

What secular society must understand is that true happiness cannot be based on the external things in our lives, such as money, status, and possessions.  Nazi resistance leader and German theologian  Dietrich Bonheoffer explained that, “Earthly possessions dazzle our eyes and delude us into thinking that they can provide security and freedom from anxiety.  Yet all the time they are the very source of anxiety.”

Let us recall that God’s Word reminds us, “For You [God] are our glory and joy,” and the message to us from Psalm 40:1-3, “I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry.  He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.  He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.”

According to a recent report published by a U.K.-based Christian Medical Fellowship, on average, Christians live healthier, happier, and longer lives.  This isn’t a coincidence.  After all, those fuzzy feelings of happiness will always come and go along with life’s trials.  But life’s true joy is a daily gift from our loving Heavenly Father.

Whenever there is a lull in perceived slights to complain about, or a lag in legislation to trumpet their inequities, radical feminists trot out the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).  They are baffled, they say, as to why this amendment to the U.S. Constitution has not been ratified.

Presidential advisor Tina Tchen recently wrote a blog “Supporting the Equal Rights Amendment” on the White House website.  She pretends ignorance as to the reasons why the ERA went down in spectacular flames — lit by activists like Beverly LaHaye and Phyllis Schlafly, fanned by state legislatures who felt the heat from conservative women, and blow-torched by the Supreme Court.

Tina writes that, “Its premise is quite simple: men and women shall have equal rights under the law. It is hard to imagine an argument against this basic concept.”

The last time the ERA was trotted out, Concerned Women for America dusted off our arguments and added updated evidence in the article, “Equal Rights Amendment Strips Women of Their Rights.”

Tina claims that women are “underpaid and underrepresented in our country” and credits Barack Obama with “advancing the role of women and girls in every aspect of society.”

Tina ironically overlooks, however, one significant population of women who advanced because of President Obama: Conservative women who ran for — and won — office to oppose his disastrous policies.  The election of 2010, the first after he took office, has been called the Year of the Conservative Woman.  Pro-life women moved from their homes to the House of Representatives, Senate, and governors’ mansions.

And they didn’t need the Equal Rights Amendment to do it.

Abortion advocates at the United Nations (U.N.) were embarrassed in their latest attempt to hijack efforts to decrease pregnancy-related deaths.  At a high-level panel on maternal deaths chaired by the head of U.N. Women, a new agency on women’s issues, Chile — a country where abortion is not legal — announced that it has received an award for achieving the lowest maternal mortality rate in Latin America.

The International Protect Life Award was presented to Chile a few days before by 30 organizations, including Concerned Women for America.  The award celebrates that more Chilean women have safely delivered their babies than ever before.

Chile protects unborn children in their Constitution and through programs, including an ad campaign that promotes awareness that unborn children are members of the family.  Chile’s representative told the U.N. panel that this campaign was begun under the administration of former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, the current head of U.N. Women and the moderator of the panel.

At least one panelist and several countries brashly declared abortion is a human right and a means to reduce maternal mortality.  Yet none provided evidence that abortion reduces maternal deaths.

Chile’s representative pointed out that its success comes from promoting safe pregnancies, not abortion.

The U.N. has named reducing maternal mortality (the death of women during pregnancy or childbirth) as a top priority since 2000.  Funding is channeled to eight priorities, known as the Millennium Development Goals.  Abortion groups have pushed the U.N. and individual countries to adopt abortion as a means to reduce maternal mortality in order to gain legitimacy for the deadly procedure and channel development funds to their groups.

The CEDAW Committee (which implements the U.N.’s women’s rights treaty) criticized Chile in 1999 for prohibiting abortion, claiming the law increases maternal mortality.

Chile proves that protecting life and promoting women’s health go hand-in-hand.  Sacrificing unborn children by legalizing abortion does not improve maternal health or a nation’s development.

Here’s an easy savings for Congress: Do not approve new funding for a newly created United Nations (U.N.) agency.

Last year, the U.N. created a new agency to promote women’s issues called simply “U.N. Women.”  The U.N. spun off its four existing departments that dealt with women’s issues into this one agency and gave it a bump in status.  The director will come right under the Secretary General, similar to a cabinet level position in the U.S.

The previous departments were funded through the regular U.N. budget — of which the U.S. supplies about 22 percent.

But U.N. Women will get 1.4 percent of its $500 million budget from the U.N. budget.  The remaining 98.6 percent will come from voluntary funding.  For its first year, 2011, that comes to $494 million in voluntary funding.

The U.S. already funds programs that help women internationally, and Americans generously fund charities overseas.

With the creation of U.N. Women, feminists have unintentionally provided an easy savings for the U.S.  Our overall dues to the U.N. should rightfully drop by the percentage that had been subsidizing the previous four women’s departments.  And there is no good reason, especially during the economic crisis, for the U.S. to initiate new spending for a boondoggle U.N. agency that will promote controversial ideologies.

The United Nations Population Fund + $55 million = ... well ... check out the links in the story below.

If Americans do not want to pay for the elective abortions of fellow citizens, they’ll be appalled to learn we’re paying for forced abortions — in China.  And yet, liberal members of Congress — shamefully led by women — peddle the line that the organization responsible for creating China’s one-child policy, and continues its work in China, promotes “voluntary” abortions.

The UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) is scheduled to get $55 million in federal funding.  Just what do they do?

Listen to Rep. Chris Smith (R-New Jersey) to learn where your money is going.  Then send it to others.

• Rep. Chris Smith on UNFPA’s involvement in China’s One Child Policy
• Rep. Chris Smith response to claims in support of UNFPA

Here’s the transcript to use this information in letters, school reports, speeches, and water-cooler conversations.  Few people have Rep. Smith’s knowledge and passion — but we can spread his.