Yesterday’s election in Virginia marked the first time a transgender individual has won a state legislature seat.

According to MSN.com, Virginia House of Delegates Democratic candidate Danica Roem defeated Republican Robert Marshall for a seat in Virginia’s House of Delegates for the 13th District.

As ChristianHeadlines.com previously reported, Roem’s win comes amidst a widespread political win for Democrats in the state of Virginia, including the victory of Democratic Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ralph Northam.

Roem was formerly a reporter for the Gainesville Times as well as the Prince William Times. Her opponent, Marshall, had been in the state legislature since 1992.

Viginia House Democratic Caucus Leader David J. Toscano and Caucus Chairwoman Charniele Herring praised Roem’s credentials:

“Danica will bring a reporter’s eye to Richmond, and we eagerly anticipate her results-oriented approach to deliver for her constituents in the 13th,” Toscano and Herring said in a statement.

“As a journalist, Danica Roem has covered the issues critical to Virginians and listened to a wide range of perspectives. During her campaign, Danica expanded this approach by listening to area residents’ concerns and making them integral to her own policy platform,” they added.

LGBTQ supporters celebrated Roem’s victory as well. Chad Griffin, the Human Rights Campaign…

Popular Christian recording artist Steven Curtis Chapman, along with his wife, Mary Beth, are calling on Republicans to keep the tax deduction for adoptions in the new tax reform bill.

To the Chapmans, the adoption tax credit is a personal issue since they adopted three children themselves.

As RelevantMagazine.com reports, the adoption tax credit allocates about $13,000 to families who have adopted. This greatly helps with adoption expenses, which can be as high as $40,000 or even higher.

“Losing the adoption tax credit, a vital and practical approach to overcoming the financial cost that prohibits many families from adopting, would be catastrophic for thousands of American parents hoping to adopt and the precious children waiting for a family,” the Chapmans wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post.

“In a divided political and cultural climate, issues like the adoption tax credit should unite us. The adoption tax credit can mean the difference between a child being adopted or remaining in foster care…Without continuing support for this credit, children, families, communities and our society will certainly carry the loss,” they continued. “If Congress truly wants to reform our tax structure to benefit American families, preserving the adoption tax credit is an obvious step in the right direction.”

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A decade after Muslims attacked and displaced Christians in a town in northern Nigeria, Kano state officials have forbidden church buildings to be rebuilt there, sources said.

 

Eight church buildings destroyed in late September 2007 in predominantly Muslim Tudun Wada Dankadai, Kano state, are still in ruins, a Morning Star News correspondent observed earlier this month.

 

The buildings of St. Mary’s Catholic, Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), Baptist, Assemblies of God, .tic Renewal, Mountain of Fire and Miracle and Deeper Christian Life Bible churches, along with that of another  church, have not been rebuilt because local Muslims have refused to allow it, Joseph Opeyemi Ibinkule, a 42-year-old a Christian resident of Tudun Wada Dankadai, told Morning Star News.

 

“Christians who have braved it and returned after the attacks in 2007 have no worship buildings up to today,” Ibinkule said. “The reason is that the government of Kano state has banned us from rebuilding our churches.”

 

No pastor lives in the town, he said, and only a few come to lead services to a smattering of church members in the hostile environment.

 

“These are the ECWA pastor and the Catholic priest,” he said. “Both of live in the city of Kano and only come to conduct services under trees for their members.”

 

Kano state officials declined to comment…