Signs and Wonders 06.27

Colorado Springs fire. Though I live in North Carolina, the Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado Springs hits close to home. For one thing, my son graduated last month from the Air Force Academy, which was partially evacuated yesterday because of the fire. Also, I regularly speak at Summit Ministries in Manitou Springs. The Summit staff, the 200 students there, and the entire town have been evacuated. They are among at least 32,000 under mandatory evacuation orders. Colorado Springs has one of the largest concentrations of Christian ministries in the country, so many of us at WORLD have friends and colleagues there. I've been getting a lot of my news about the fire by following Heather Skold, an anchor at KRDO News Channel 13 in Colorado Springs. Heather is also a graduate of our WORLD Journalism Institute. She and her colleagues have been on the air for at least the past 24 hours straight. My Twitter and Facebook feeds have gone wild with reports from the Springs, and the most common request is simply this: Please pray.

Obama's man gap. There's been lots of talk about Mitt Romney's "woman gap." Gary Bauer thinks President Obama has a "man gap." In a recent article at Human Events, Bauer aggregates some of the recent polling into this statement: "The latest WSJ/NBC poll has Obama's approval/disapproval among men at 44/50. It also showed Obama losing to Romney among men, 49 percent to 40 percent. POLITICO's battleground poll of key swing states gives Romney a statistically significant 7-point lead among men." Bauer goes on to say, "Unless you're a gay man, or a male union member with a picket sign, Obama's got nothing for you." Writer Toni Morrison called Bill Clinton America's "first black president." Washington Post writer Kathleen Parker recently called Obama America's "first woman president." One presumes that for Parker, who wrote Save The Males: Why Men Matter and Why Women Should Care, the irony is not entirely unintended.

Not so black and white. The election of Fred Luter as the first black president of the Southern Baptist Convention made news across the country, as well it should. Less reported was the fact that the denomination also approved a resolution reaffirming that marriage is "the exclusive union of one man and one woman." The resolution also rejected attempts to equate same-sex "marriage" with the civil rights movement. This statement has particular resonance now that Luter is president of the SBC, and given that one of the authors of this resolution is the Rev. Dwight McKissic of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas. McKissic is also black. In fact, about 20 percent of the Southern Baptist's 15 million members are members of a racial or ethnic minority. That's another unreported fact, which just goes to show that the mainstream media have yet to learn what the Southern Baptists have apparently already learned: Old stereotypes die hard.

Mayor Big Gulp. New York had its big "gay pride" parade on Sunday, with marchers following a lavender line painted down Fifth Avenue. One of the more surreal moments came when New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the crowd, "The government should get out of your personal life! New York is a place where you can do whatever you want to do." Really, Mr. Mayor? Aren't you the same mayor who outlawed school bake sales because the baked goods had too much sugar and fat, and who is now attempting to outlaw oversized soft drinks? That sounds like you do want to get into our personal lives. Bloomberg claims to have our best interests at heart, saying all he really wants to do is improve life expectancy. If that's so, says Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council, he wouldn't be such a vocal supporter of homosexual behavior. Sprigg says homosexual behavior is one of the greatest public health hazards in America, adding that New York City's AIDS rate is three times the national average. HIV, according to the New York Health Department, is the third leading cause of death for residents from age 35 to 54.