It is not true to say that scientists are in agreement on these issues. Here is an article by a researcher at Johns Hopkins that questions current approaches to treatment: http://www.wsj.com/articles/paul-mchugh-transgender-surgery-isnt-the-solution-1402615120.

My kids have gotten into top-ranked colleges with none of these things. What they have had is close to perfect test scores and grades, lots of advanced classes (12 APs plus CC classes beyond AP level), great recommendations from CC profs, a national award, and an internship.

Spanish is one of the most popular exams. It shouldn't be hard to find a place to take it.

I have finished a novel and am thinking about entering. I'm not sure which category it would fit best in, though -- Young Adult or Historical. My story is a coming-of-age novel set in the late 19th century. I have always thought of it as aimed at teens, but it doesn't have to be. The main character is 17 when most of the story takes place. If anyone had entered or is planning to enter this year, I'd love to talk!

I usually just serve whatever I am serving for adults but make sure there are a few kid-friendly sides (e.g., mac and cheese, baked apples). If I want to do a really fun, kid-focused meal and don't mind some chaos and mess, make-your-own pizzas are always a hit. For the crust you can make your own dough or use bagels or refrigerator biscuits or naan or whatever. Then have sauce and a variety of toppings and let the kids each make their own.

I thought the book was much better than the movie. You should definitely read it!

I've never heard of someone having amniocentesis and not learning the sex of the baby. If there was anything other than xx or xy there, it would be discovered.

I've wondered the same thing. People have often encouraged me to write my curriculum and sell it. Honestly, though, I came up with very little of it on my own. I got an idea here and an idea there and put it all together. There's no way I could figure out where it all came from.

Prenatal genetic testing is common enough that if this occurred as often as some claim, it would show up there. What is key here is that these are birth defects. If a child is born with one, you treat them with love and compassion and do whatever you can to help them have a satisfying, healthy life. If someone has a psychological disorder that makes him very unhappy with his gender, you do the same. That doesn't mean these conditions are normal and that parents should be raising their kids looking for signs of them. It is also dangerous, I think, to lead kids to believe that their gender is fluid.

Walmart is a big company and they have a generous return policy because it makes good business sense. They took the bike back without a receipt because of that policy: the money they might lose in returns like this is worth it to keep customers happy. I wouldn't give it another thought.

We have one. We love it, but even better is buying dvds from http://www.goodmediadvds.net/. Then you can play them in any player.

It was metal, but there was glass on top, over the dial (or gauge or whatever you call it).

We are -- my ds applied EA to Yale and was deferred.

I had a meat thermometer that I got as a wedding gift, I think, close to thirty years ago. I always stuck it in the meat and stuck it in the oven and everything was fine. Until yesterday. When it shattered into a gazillion tiny shards of glass. All over my beef wellington. Yup, beef wellington. A four pound tenderloin wrapped in duxelles, prosciutto, and puff pastry. Easily $100 of food, not to mention all the work I put into making it. I almost cried. After lots of intense discussion, some internet research on the dangers of digesting glass (Did you know the FDA only prohibits glass shards over 0.3 inch in prepared foods? Ours were way tinier than that), and more intense discussion (the males were all on the side saying we should eat it), we decided to err on the side of caution and throw it out. Did I say I almost cried? I will never put a meat thermometer in the oven again!

We talked about this when the kids were learning German. They thought it was strange that pants is singular and then we all came to realize that our word is really the strange one!

This year my family decided that instead of buying for each other, we'd adopt a couple of local families. I thought it was a great idea until my mom (who was organizing it all) brought me an envelope with $200 and a list of what to buy. She said this was her gift to dh, the two kids still at home, and me. She bought the gifts "from" the college kids. Then if felt a little weird. I'm not sure why, but buying a bike for the kid myself was great, but taking my mom's money and buying one seemed like I just had one extra errand to run. Also, some of the nieces and nephews are pretty young. My brother lives in another state and mom bought gifts (a doll, etc.) for the little girl in the family "from" youngest niece and sent a picture of it to her. Like I said, it just feels a little weird. I decided that my Christmas gift to my mom will be to humor her in her old age and just be all sunshiny and bright about this and maybe next year I can get her to do it a little differently. =)

In the other tread (I think), I asked if a baker should be forced to bake a cake for an FRC fundraiser and people agreed that he shouldn't be. Or maybe I asked if a venue should be forced to rent their space to the FRC for a fundraiser. Either of these activities is showing approval in the way that buying flour or providing soda is not. You might have to write "Congratulations Bob and Steve" on the cake. You might have to put a little figure of two guys on top of it. Someone might post a photo of the cake on their blog saying you made it and how wonderful it was. This shows your approval of the wedding. I'm done here. If you don't see it, you don't see it. This conversation has inspired me to make a big donation to the FRC. Seriously. We need to fight against having sexual preferences included along with race on list of protected groups.

You're missing the point. It's the difference between baking a cake for someone who has gossiped and making a cake for a convention celebrating gossips. No baker is asking the sexual orientation of his customers when they come in to get a cup of coffee. He's just not baking cakes for their weddings, which would be approving of them.

From Romans 1: 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. That's the key. Baking a cake for a homosexual wedding signifies approval of the event. As a Christian, I can't do that. And yes, if I knew that baking a cake for some other person/group was giving support for something sinful, I'd refuse to do that as well. For example, I strictly keep the Sabbath as a day for rest and worship. If I had a cake business, I wouldn't sell cakes for Sunday events.

I remember thinking this when my oldest dd was in a first grade magnet class. I know it was true in some cases, because the kids even said their parents had drawn the pictures, etc. Then, when my ds was in the same first grade class, I overheard parents talking about HIS project, saying it had obviously been done by an adult. Well, it hadn't; he had done it all himself. It just happens that he was doing work far above what the average kid was capable of. After that, I stopped making assumptions.

The difference between this sin and others is that society isn't forcing us to accept that lying, adultery, and gluttony are perfectly normal and acceptable behaviors.

But what if society was suddenly trying to define murder as appropriate? Shouldn't we stand up and fight against that? Not very long ago most people saw homosexuality as inherently inappropriate.

So, you can refuse service to someone if what they stand for violates your morals?

So -- if you own a venue and the FRC wants to rent it to hold a fundraising dinner, should you be allowed to refuse them? If you don't rent to them, you are discriminating on the basis of their religion.

There is a difference between selling to a customer and participating in/promoting something you find morally repugnant. If you own a bookstore and the Duggars walk in, you'll sell them a book. Does that mean the government should force you to sell books by the Pearls and Bill Gothard? If you have a wedding venue and a gay couple gets married there and posts pictures on facebook, it looks like you are condoning gay marriage. You should have the freedom to avoid that association.