By Christy Barritt

Congress Among Least Trusted Professionals

A new Gallup survey shows that only one in 10 Americans rates the honesty and ethical standards of members of Congress as “very high” or “high.” Congress’s rating is only slightly better than that of car salespeople, a profession that hit the bottom of the list of 22 careers used in the survey.

Fifty-four percent of Americans said lawmakers on Capitol Hill have low or very low ethical standards. Members of Congress have had a consistently low approval rating for more than three and a half decades, Gallup noted. Journalists came in right behind politicians.

Professions with the highest honesty ratings included nurses, pharmacists, medical doctors, engineers, police officers, and clergy.

Senators Reject U.N. Disability Treaty

The U.S. Senate voted down a United Nations treaty that would have codified international standards for the treatment of disabled persons and, according to some, would have compromised parental rights.

President Obama signed the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and sent it to the Senate. The Senate voted on the treaty in December 2012 but fell short of the votes needed to pass.

Many conservatives and parental rights groups, such as Michael Ramey from ParentalRights.org, were pleased with the outcome.

“We are grateful to these brave senators who stood firm to protect parental rights and American self-government even in the face of a loud and emotional plea from those who favored the treaty,” wrote Ramey in a statement.

Others fought for the treaty, saying it protected wounded veterans traveling abroad.

Romney and Level of Evangelical Support

A new report by the Barna Group, a Christian polling organization, shows that during the presidential elections of 2012, Mitt Romney received the lowest support among evangelicals of any Republican presidential candidate since Bob Dole in 1996.

According to Barna’s polling, Romney received the support of only 81 percent of evangelicals, compared to 88 percent for John McCain in 2008, and 83 and 85 percent, respectively, for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. Dole received only 74 percent when he ran for presidential office nearly two decades ago.

A sample of 1,008 adults was polled for this survey from November 6-10 of last year.

Student Forced to Remove “God” from Poem

A first grade student in a North Carolina elementary school was recently forced to remove a reference to God from a poem she’d written.

The girl was scheduled to participate in a Veterans Day assembly at her school. She’d written a poem as a tribute to her two grandfathers who both served during the Vietnam War.

The parent of another student at the school became aware of the girl’s intention to reference God and complained to school officials.

In response, school officials told the girl to remove the line from her poem.

Alliance Defending Freedom, a national legal organization that assists Christians whose constitutional rights are violated, sent a letter to the school informing them they couldn’t censor a student simply because her speech contained a religious perspective.

They’re hoping the letter will promote change in the way the school makes decisions on such matters.

Christy Barritt is an award-winning author, freelance writer, and speaker living in Chesapeake, Virginia. She and her husband Scott have two sons. 
www.christybarritt.com