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.

Granted, President Obama is facing multiple issues on numerous fronts — state budget crises in Wisconsin and Indiana, the threat of a government shutdown, violence in several countries of the Middle East, oil prices escalating, the looming debt ceiling crisis, and violence in Africa and other nations.  Take your pick of any of these crises and you’ll find a president who is painfully inept, emotionally disengaged, dangerously detached, and inexplicably passive.  There is growing speculation that the president is in way over his head and that his silence is because he doesn’t know what to do — that he doesn’t have a personal compass directing his policy decisions.  The end result is that America seems powerless and without influence, both at home and in world affairs.

To make matters worse, the First Lady just returned from an expensive skiing vacation, and the White House just had a huge and loud party celebrating “all things Motown.”  Earlier, the White House hosted a workshop in the State Dining Room for teenagers to study the history of the Motown genre.  As the First Lady put it, Motown music was the “color-barrier-shattering music” that transcended soundtracks to become a “heartbeat.”  In the White House’s recounting, Motown not only was the foundation for modern music, it was a “force for change” that prepared the way for racial harmony, peace, and goodwill around the world.

We could certainly use a little of that kind of influence and leadership today.

We need White House leadership in articulating clear and consistent U.S. policy both at home and abroad; instead, we have an administration that focuses on its radical agenda while crises are erupting all around and an administration that enjoys its personal (and expensive) fun while the rest of its citizens have to tighten their belts.  Reminds me … Nero fiddled while Rome burned.

It’s a sad day in America when our president is so beholden to the abortion industry that he defaults to talking points when confronted with evidence of child abuse and sex trafficking.  That is what happened recently when, in an interview with a Richmond, Virginia, TV station, President Barack Obama was asked about the controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood, caused by the release of several undercover videos by the pro-life group Live Action.

Rather than show horror, concern, or disgust, Obama resorted to talking points on the economy.  According to LifeSite News, he responded, “I will tell you, the vast majority of people right now, what they’re thinking about are jobs, the economy — I think sometimes these issues get manufactured, and they get a lot of attention on the blogosphere.”

This is not the response we want from our political leaders when confronted with video footage of Planned Parenthood staff members at seven different facilities offering advice to an undercover investigator disguised as a “pimp” on how to obtain secret abortions, STD testing, and contraception for his underage prostitutes. 

The president also felt compelled to add that he believed Planned Parenthood “in the past has done good work.”

It appears as if, even as president and leader of the free world, standing for what’s right is just one more thing “above his pay grade.”

See all the Live Action videos here, www.exposeplannedparenthood.com. Concerned Women for America (CWA) is one of the coalition members.

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.

A recent dust up between political candidates, manufactured by the media and followed by a call from a reporter asking “are you a feminist,” caused me to really think about the term and my own identity.

Words matter. However, it has become clear that the term “feminism” has been revamped to mean something completely different than its original concept.  Dictionary.com says it’s an ideology “advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.”  Well that’s hardly helpful.  What about the rights of women still in utero? 

If one asks the average woman on the street what it means to be a feminist, she may say one must support equal pay for equal work.  Were that true, we would all be feminists. 

Unfortunately, that’s neither the historical meaning, nor the philosophy of the ubiquitous female branch of the professional left.  No, true feminist ideology is steeped in Marxist thought.  The government must redistribute wealth, control businesses to make them hire us, and even take on the responsibility of raising our children via government daycare for us to be equal. 

Essentially entwined in that idea is government-funded abortion, because women can never be free without breaking the heavy bonds of motherhood.  By their reckoning, those darned kids are keeping us down, and frankly, capitalism is the enemy.  They are NOT proud of our country or its Founding Fathers.  

And finally, they are anything but orthodox in their religious beliefs, if they believe in any kind of God at all.  I was blown away by the radical notions of religion espoused at the Fourth U.N. Conference on Women in Beijing, China, in 1995.  It was a rude awakening for this southern belle to the ugly intentions behind the pretty words.   The word “patriarchy” was used to describe any Biblical tradition, and, instead, they advocated a “re-imagining” of religion to embrace goddess worship.  In fact, Christianity was specifically cited to be the main culprit in the subjugation of women.

No, I am not a feminist. I stand with the strong traditionalists who, throughout history, have seen the world quite differently.  Women like Abigail Adams contributed to the founding of our nation but sought no official title.  Susan B. Anthony advocated for the right to vote but believed in the rights of the unborn.  I can’t be a feminist, because I love my family and make choices based on what’s best for all of us.  I love my country and believe both capitalism and democracy are the essential building blocks for a healthy economy and prosperity for all citizens.  And most importantly, I love my God and believe that He sent His Son to free us all.  Galatians gives us the message of real freedom and equality: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

I am a traditionalist, and I hope others will join me in rediscovering and embracing that label.

Concerned Women for America (CWA) calls on President Obama to ensure religious liberty in Egypt and to protect that nation’s Christian minority.  I worry, as do many others, that in the chaos of the “Egyptian Moment,” an ugly force of intolerance will hijack events and install a regime against which the Mubarak government may pale in comparison.  Even under Hosni Mubarak, Christians in Egypt were targets of barbarism, persecution and savagery.  How much worse will even that be under a Muslim Brotherhood-style ayatollah regime if that should take root?  Right now in Iran, Christians are routinely rounded up, arrested and abused in the worst ways.  It is up to President Obama and his Secretary of State Clinton to ensure that the same fate does not befall Egypt.  We call on the Administration to defend all segments of Egyptian society, but especially to ensure that we do not abandon Egypt’s Christians.

Two Notre Dame professors, Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker, analyzed data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, the National Survey of Family Growth, and the College Social Life Survey (and others), in their effort to understand premarital sex among young Americans. Their book, Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, and Think about Marrying, is a 312-page review of the current sexual situation for contemporary young adults. Naomi Schaefer Riley reviews the book for Commentary. Miss Riley reports:

• Young adults today do not associate sex with marriage.
• An “increasing share” of young adults don’t even think about getting married.
• 84 percent of 18- to 23-year-olds have had premarital sex.
• College students are less promiscuous than those who are not in college.
• Serial monogamy is the typical pattern for today’s young adults.
• Men tend to overestimate their peers’ sexual activity.
• Half of the women, and 25 percent of men, engaged in “unwanted” sexual activity in the two weeks prior to the survey conducted by one study.
• Young adults have bought into some significant myths:
  • They believe married sex is a “let down,” when, in truth, married couples have more and more satisfactory sex than unmarried couples.
  • They are under the mistaken impression that cohabitation is a good “testing ground” for marriage, when numerous studies disprove that myth and, in fact, show that cohabitation is more a guarantee of divorce and unhappy married relationship.
  • Pornography is a major source of sexual information and attitudes and has, in fact, replaced sexual activity with a real woman for many young men.
• Women continue to control access to sex (though many young women do not realize their power in the sexual realm); women are still the ones to decide if and when sex occurs.
• Regnerus and Uecker conclude that women are poor “sexual economists” — that is, they think their sexual power is their control over sexual desire in men (actually, men are thinking about sex all the time). In fact, women’s sexual power consists of establishing the terms and conditions for sexual interaction — a fact of which many young women are unaware.
  • On campuses with more women (the situation on most of today’s college campuses), there is more sexual activity (women have less power within the context of that environment than in situations where there are fewer women).
  • When the environment pushes women to have sex, they make choices that end up making them unhappy.
  • One study revealed that 70 percent of young adults regret the circumstances and timing when they lost their virginity, with women having the most regret.
  • Women are more unhappy the more partners they have (but men are not). And, regrettably, the younger the loss of virginity, the more sexual partners young people tend to have.

Source: “Premarital Wrecks,” by Naomi Schaefer Riley, a review of Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, and Think About Marrying, by Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker, Commentary, February 2011, pp. 59-61.