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Dear Friends,

Despite his claim of finding a “compromise” on requiring religious organizations that offer health insurance to include contraception and abortifacients, President Obama has only superficially cost-shifted the burden of payment.

Religious leaders across the spectrum understand the threat: If Uncle Sam can mandate that they violate their consciences through an obvious fiscal sleight-of-hand, religious liberty and the free exercise of conscience experience erosion not easily repaired and all too easily exploited. Such respected scholars as Harvard’s Mary Ann Glendon and Princeton’s Robert George – and FRC’s own Dr. Pat Fagan – have published an open letter stating, in part:

“The simple fact is that the Obama administration is compelling religious people and institutions who are employers to purchase a health insurance contract that provides abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization. This is a grave violation of religious freedom and cannot stand. It is an insult to the intelligence of Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other people of faith and conscience.”

Last week, FRC President Tony Perkins hosted a distinguished panel of leaders from across the theological, educational, and political spectrum to discuss the grave implications of this threat. You can view a video of the webcast, titled “Healthcare Mandate: Violating the Separation of Church and State,” here.

FRC also urges you to sign the Manhattan Declaration’s “Mr. President, I Still Believe” to let Mr. Obama know that social conservatives will not accept the diaphanous and condescending coverlet of faux accommodation. Are you prepared to take action – at the least, to write, speak out, and pray – to retain our precious liberties of religion and conscience?

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

P.S. February is the month when we celebrate Valentine’s Day – which is the latest publication of FRC’s Marriage and Religion Research Institute, “162 Reasons to Marry,” is so timely. You can download a copy for free here.

Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling

• “Education a la Carte,” Rod Dreher, The American Conservative
• “HSLDA to Appeal Criminal Conviction for Homeschool Family,” Home School Legal Defense Association

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Dear Friends,

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) is one of America’s most respected and learned journals. It is a forum in which some of our finest minds publish articles on everything from “Evidence for the extraterrestrial origin of a natural quasicrystal” to “In-feed antibiotic effects on the swine intestinal microbiome.” To a non-scientist like me, even the titles are intimidating.

In the most recent edition of PNAS, three Stanford University scholars argue that both liberals and conservatives engage in a “dramatic projection of one’s own views onto those of Jesus.” While it is only human for us to want the Savior to confirm our own predilections, there can be no doubt that, objectively, Jesus affirmed the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman, Old Testament teachings about human sexuality and personhood within the womb, or the dignity of every person such that liberty — religious, political, and economic — should be the normal state of society.

As theologian Andreas Kostenberger wrote in his recent FRC booklet, “The Bible’s Teaching on Marriage and the Family:”

Marriage and the family were God’s idea, and as divine institutions they are not open to human renegotiation or revision … the Bible clearly teaches that God instituted marriage as a covenant between one man and one woman, a lifelong union of two partners created in God’s image to govern and manage the earth for him. In keeping with his wonderful design, the Creator will normally bless a married couple with children, and it is his good plan that a family made up of a father, a mother, and several children witness to his glory and goodness in a world that has rejected the Creator’s plan and has fashioned a variety of God-substitutes to fill the void that can properly be filled only by God himself.

We all like it when people agree with us. Yet it’s more important that we agree with the God of the Bible, Whose path for human relationships and sexuality is clear in His written Word and evidenced in the natural order.  It’s up to each of us to choose whether or not to take it.

Sincerely,
Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

P.S. FRC President Tony Perkins has been offering some sage counsel about the current state of American politics in a series of recent television interviews. To view Tony’s comments, click here.

Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling

• “Why Urban, Educated Parents Are Turning to DIY Education,” Linda Perlstein, Newsweek
• “‘Tim Tebow homeschool law’ gains momentum in Virginia,” Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post
• “Catholic Homeschool Group’s Appeal will be Argued Before the Indiana Civil Rights Commission (ICRC),” Christian NewsWire

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Dear Friends:

A Massachusetts judge’s decision to order the abortion of “a mentally ill woman’s unborn baby and sterilize her – if it meant she had to be ‘coaxed, bribed, or even enticed … by ruse’ into the procedure” has drawn appropriate fire from officials in the Bay State.

Judge Christina Harms, who retired from the bench last week, not only wanted to compel the woman known only as “Mary Moe” to have an abortion – a procedure serious Catholic Ms. Moe said, explicitly, she did not want – but also to sterilize her. Thankfully, State Appellate Court Associate Justice Andrew R. Grainger has reversed Judge Harms’ ruling, stating that ‘No party requested this measure … and the judge appears to have simply produced the requirement out of thin air.” Justice Grainger has now given the case to another judge.

The forced sterilization of roughly 30,000 Americans occurred in our own country in the years leading up to World War II (U.S. Holocaust Museum). The inherent injustice and cruelty of the practice was not only odious to most of our fellow citizens, but its barbarity was cast into horrible relief with the rise of Nazism in Germany. Hitler’s “Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases” (July 14, 1933) compelled “the sterilization of all persons who suffered from diseases considered hereditary, such as mental illness (schizophrenia and manic depression), retardation (‘congenital feeble-mindedness’), physical deformity, epilepsy, blindness, deafness, and severe alcoholism.” In addition to the estimated 400,000 persons sterilized, by 1945 up to 250,000 people had been murdered for their real or perceived physical or mental problems.

All of this poses a troubling question: Our society’s outrage over Judge Harms’ decision, while admirable, is much too muted when it comes to the ongoing death of more than 3,000 unborn children daily in the U.S., as is our culture’s compassion for their mothers, who often are “left uninformed” of the other, non-abortion related options they have.

At FRC, we work with dedicated people across the country to provide those better options. That’s why, on Monday, January 23 – the day of the annual “March for Life” here in the nation’s capital – FRC will launch the second edition of our “A Passion to Serve: How Pregnancy Resource Centers Empower Women, Help Families, and Strengthen Communities.” Make sure to visit our website, A Passion to Serve, where you will be able to download your own free copy on January 23.

Sincerely,
Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

P.S. Be sure to watch the Webcast of FRC’s annual “ProLifeCon,” the premier gathering of online pro-life activists, on January 23.

Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling

• “Major Victory for Homeschool Graduates Enlisting in the Military,” William A. Estrada, Esq., Home School Legal Defense Association
• “Relative’s “Complaint” Launches State-Level Inquiry,” Home School Legal Defense Association

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“When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles Hammond, August 18, 1821

Dear Friends:

The size and scope of the federal government continues to expand.  The larger government has become, the more constraints it has placed on the way we live our lives.

Most particularly, to pay for its many programs, Washington has placed a substantial tax burden on citizens and the companies where they work. As a result, families are able to retain less of their incomes and not only become more reliant on government for benefits, but also have fewer resources to provide for their own daily needs.

Economic growth and family stability are interwoven.  The extensive data available on FRC’s Marriage and Religion Research Institute website prove it.  As the 2012 campaign season – for everything from President to county resource commission – begins in earnest, policymakers (including would-be ones) should come to understand this.

As FRC’s distinguished Senior Fellow for Family Empowerment, Ken Blackwell, wrote recently, “We who are pro-life and pro-marriage know that families need jobs. They need a growing economy. But economic conservatives need to recognize that stable married families having children are what drive economic growth.”

Family, growth, life, and hope – they’re all part of the same package.  And since it was designed by God, a wonderful package it is.

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

P.S. FRC began the new year with a bracing lecture by scholar Michael Brown on the homosexual social and political agenda and the need for Christians to stand for the truth about human sexuality in our culture.  Click here to watch.

Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling

• “What the U.S. Census says about homeschool families,” Julie Mack, Mlive.com
• “Arlington Stumbles on Switch from Exemption to Notice of Intent,” Home School Legal Defense Association

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Dear Friends,

We at the Family Research Council hope you and yours have a Christmas season that is rewarding, memorable, and Christ-focused.

Perhaps few have captured the magnitude of the Incarnation better than poet Christina Rossetti. In the second verse of her poem, “In the Bleak Midwinter,” she writes:

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

He came as a baby, and went on to grow “in wisdom and stature” (Luke 2:52). That growth began in the womb: As science documents, babies in the womb are capable of absorbing much information. In the words of science writer Annie Murphy Paul:

The fetus, we now know, is not an inert blob, but an active and dynamic creature, responding and adapting as it readies itself for life in the particular world it will soon enter … The recognition that learning actually begins before birth leads us to a striking new conception of the fetus, the pregnant woman and the relationship between them.

The Savior Who was virgin-born was unique: Fully God and fully man. Yet all infants share a remarkable commonality with Him–they are sacred to God. Whether in the womb or outside of it, they deserve protection in law and welcome in life. The Bible teaches it. Science proves it. The Incarnation vindicates it.

Merry Christmas,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

P.S. For a moving presentation on the sanctity and dignity of every person, watch FRC’s lecture, “Down Syndrome: Death Sentence or Divine Smile,” hosted by the Director of FRC’s Center for Human Dignity, Jeanne Monahan.

Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling

• “Homeschool still a popular option,” Matt Sabo, The Daily Press

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Dear Friends,

The likeability of a presidential candidate is important to both political parties and to the American people. Some of us will vote less on the content of a candidate’s character and convictions than whether or not he seems “nice.”

The cover story of this week’s Time Magazine is titled, “Why They Don’t Like Mitt (Romney).” A Los Angeles Times poll last month found Newt Gingrich to be “one of the least likeable candidates.” And in a poll reported by the Des Moines Register, Michele Bachmann was rated as the “least likeable” of the Republican presidential candidates.

During one of the 2008 presidential debates, this exchange occurred between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama:

Then-Senator Hillary Clinton was asked about her deficit of “likeability” and joked that the question hurt her feelings but she would “try to go on.” The audience laughed and Clinton , looking over at fellow candidate for the Democratic nomination Barack Obama, admitted “he’s very likable – I agree with that.” “I don’t think I’m that bad,” Clinton said, smiling. Obama barely looked up from his notes. “You’re likeable enough, Hillary,” he said.

In one respect, these perceptions are meaningless: Many of us like people for whom we would not vote for President, and support presidential contenders we might not want for neighbors. Moreover, one person’s likeability is another’s distaste: Subjective impressions about likeability should be far down the list on our electoral criteria.

Character counts far more than likeability. A person can be winsome, charismatic, and funny, and also be a serial adulterer.  On the other hand, someone might be socially stiff and a bit awkward and be an exemplar of sterling virtues. Ideally, we want to be able to support someone both pleasant and principled. But should not principle triumph over a ready smile, if it comes to that?

“A vote is like a rifle,” wrote Theodore Roosevelt in his autobiography. “Its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.” As each of us thinks and prays about our vote in the 2012 primaries and general election, let’s bear in mind that our choices will reflect our own character as much as that of those for whom we vote.

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

P.S. It’s been two months since the military opened its doors to homosexuality.  Lt. Col. Bob Maginnis (USA-Ret.) was a member of the 1993 Pentagon team that wrote the so-called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy. In his new paper Looking Back, Looking Forward: Homosexuality and Military Service, Maginnis details how America’s armed forces have become a cultural battleground for advancing the radical gay agenda.

Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling

• “Public School Standards For Homeschoolers,” Home School Legal Defense Association
• “Home schooling: a growing trend in East Texas,” Jennifer Heathcock, KYTX

Legislation and Policy Proposals

• “Making sense of the whole “Are teachers overpaid?” thing,” Rick Hess, Education Week
• “Where are the Christians in Academia?,” Qideas
• “Graduation Rates Can Be Predicted More Precisely by Examining Student Characteristics, Report Says,” Jennifer Gonzalez, The Chronicle of Higher Education
• “A Plea to College Presidents: Exercise Your Moral Leadership,” Cathy N. Davidson, The Chronicle of Higher Education
• “Best and Worst in American Education, 2011,” The Hoover Institution
• “Christie makes education reform bills a priority for December,” Diane D’Amico, Press of Atlantic City
• “Jury still out on success of Teach for America,” Christine Armario, Associated Press
• “Want cheaper tuition? Find religion,” Blake Ellis, CNNMoney

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Dear Friends,

Harry Truman once said that a “statesman is a politician who’s been dead for 15 years.” In other words, our view of the nobility and wisdom of our political leaders grows the further we get from their public service. Remember that the next time you see a bumper sticker with a photo of George W. Bush, bearing the legend, “Miss him yet?”

If we want a virtuous and just society, we cannot afford to concede that statesmanship is a lost art. As King’s College professor David C. Innes notes, politics “politics is more than just good intentions. It requires knowledge, judgment and an ability to move people so that they want to follow you. Essentially it requires statesmanship. Statesmanship is the just, prudent and persuasive exercise of authority.”

As statesmanship declines, public life becomes more tawdry. The personal corruption of political leaders deepens our cynicism, and the unwillingness of many officials to make tough but necessary policy choices seems more animated by their chances for re-election than the best interests of the country.

Speaking of the American Revolution, Queen Elizabeth II said, “We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the manner of yielding what is impossible to keep.” Statesmanship, or the lack thereof, can have profound consequences for the moral health of the nation and for the very existence of the political and social order.

Our Founders understood this. Writing in 1789, James Madison observed, “If individuals be not influenced by moral principles, it is in vain to look for public virtue; it is, therefore, the duty of legislators to enforce, both by precept and example, the utility, as well as the necessity of a strict adherence to the rules of distributive justice.”

“Distributive justice,” to Madison and his colleagues, meant a government that ensured fairness and dignity for all its citizens – justice that would be distributed equally, without favoritism.

Christian statesmanship involves the prudent application of justice. It also means that Christians must pray for elected and appointed public servants, that they would make such an application with courage and consistency.

Prayed for our government’s leaders lately?

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice-President
Family Research Council

P.S Be sure to watch FRC’s Webcast of our forum on international religious liberty, featuring five experts whose comments drew media coverage in The Washington Post.

Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling

• “Parents in action: More parents homeschooling their children,” Deiah Riley, ABC Action News
• “Homeschool Dad Opens up About ‘Blind Spots’,” Jeff Schapiro, The Christian Post
• “Getting grace,” Susan Olasky, WORLD Magazine

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Dear Friends,

We are made in the image and likeness of God. Since God is a moral actor, those bearing His image are responsible to act morally, as well. Christians are to be “conformed to the image” of Christ (Romans 8:29), but if government constrains religious liberty, the public expression of who we were made to be is repressed. This is a denial of our essential humanity.

Christians are called to worship their Lord in fellowship with one another. If a government disallows this, we cannot worship in the manner to which He calls us. Consequently, it is only prudent and, more importantly, honoring to God that we avail ourselves of the religious freedom our Constitution guarantees to live as He requires and also to use the liberties assured us to safeguard our ability to continue to enjoy them. Only through participation as conscientious citizens can we protect the liberties we need to fulfill the duties imposed on us by our Maker and Redeemer.

This applies also to non-Christians. As long as religious believers impose no threat on public order or security, they should be able to practice their faiths without government interference. Buddhists should be able to speak freely about their beliefs. Muslims should be able to worship in mosques undisturbed. New Agers should be able to contemplate the chrysanthemums in the local park without hindrance.

Why? Because God embedded the conscience and mandates the obligation of worship, not government. However inappropriately or unwisely one’s religious fidelity might be expressed, religious liberty is truly the “first freedom” and is grounded in the very nature of man and his relationship with his Creator. As Americans, let’s use our liberty to sustain and advance it, now and always.

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

P.S. The Director of FRC’s Center for Religious Liberty, Ken Klukowski, writes frequently about issues affecting faith and freedom. Learn more about FRC’s efforts to defend and strengthen religious liberty by clicking here.

Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling

• “Home schooling,” Liberty Davidson, WORLD Magazine
• “Leaving Home: New Law Forces Home- schoolers to Fight or Flee Sweden,” Alex Newman, Liberty Magazine

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Terrorism works because some politicians will eventually accommodate terrorist behavior in the hopes that in so doing a “greater good” will emerge from their moral compromise. Police Officer Lance Eldridge

Compromise is a loaded term. Often, it connotes sleaziness, payoffs, moral cowardice, the breeding ground of cynicism and political corruption. Compromise with terrorists, for example, will lead only to greater acts of terrorism, as Officer Eldridge and many others have noted.

However, appropriate compromise is part of all facets of life. For vacation, you want to go to Civil War battle sites, your wife wants to go to Hawaii . You end up in Orlando . Without such compromise, marriages would fail even more than they already do.

In politics, wedding allegiance to principle with prudent good judgment is a daily struggle. Critical legislation is seldom drafted to anyone’s full satisfaction. That is why principled compromise is so important.

Wisdom, prudence and good judgment, combined with accurate information and a willingness to decide, are all necessary for the making of sound decisions. Political philosopher Bruce Frohnen observes, “Prudence is the necessary tool for the attainment of virtue … (it) is the practical wisdom necessary if one is to judge rightly how to respond to particular circumstances.”

Such principled compromise is a matter of both honor and judgment – of the wisdom and prudence articulated in Scripture, affirmed in the conscience, and demonstrated in daily life. As Jesus said, “Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds” (Matthew 11:19).

Genuine wisdom is grounded in truth – truth that teaches the sanctity of life, the dignity of marriage, the importance of religious liberty. Thanks for standing with Family Research Council as we apply that truth, with wisdom, in the public square.

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

P.S. FRC’s Values Voter Summit is coming up soon — it’s a “don’t want to miss” forum of presidential candidates and conservative leaders from across the country. Click here to register.

Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling

• “Educational pioneers,” Tiffany Owens, WORLD Magazine
• “Homeschool Gets Better Report Card Than Public Schools,” R. Leigh Coleman, The Christian Post
• “Homeschooling Magnifies Family Problems (and That’s a Good Thing),” Jennifer Fulwiler, National Catholic Register
• “Homeschool Co-ops Tap Pooled Resources,” Jim Carlton, The Wall Street Journal
• “Entrepreneurial homeschooling co-ops,” Rod Dreher, The American Conservative

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Dear Friends,

America’s Founders believed that unless public leaders are persons of high character, they will be motivated by self-interest. This fosters cynicism among citizens, who then become disengaged from the political sphere and all the more vulnerable to political abuse by those in power.

Theologian David Wells describes virtue as having both private and public dimensions: First, virtue is “the domain of character, the practice of private virtue, such as honesty, decency, the telling of truth, and all the other kinds of moral obligation.”

Second, says Wells, there is “the domain of public virtue, such as civic duty, social responsibility, philanthropy, the articulation of great ideals and good policies.”

The Founders of our country believed that “the domain of public virtue” was essential to the success of political self-government through representative democracy. Only if citizens are persons of virtue will they govern their own behavior with sufficient wisdom to live in a just and free society. And only if they possess personal virtue will they elect persons whose own moral caliber is sufficient to ensure that integrity and wisdom are applied to public policy decisions.

“Without virtue, there can be no political liberty,” wrote an aged John Adams to his friend Thomas Jefferson in 1819. That was true at the founding of our Republic, and is no less true today.

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

P.S. Urge retailers to resist pressure to discriminate against customers with a traditional and biblical view of marriage.

Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling

• “Back in the home school classroom: First day of school,” Lynn R. Mitchell, SWAC Girl
• “Teen opts for home schooling to further education,” Sue Bero, The Times
• “Cardus Survey–The Rest of the Story,” Jeremiah Lorrig, Home School Legal Defense Association

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The central irony of Christian citizenship is that no country will find better citizens than those willing to defy its laws if those laws demand a loyalty to the state greater than that owed to the God of the Bible. As Declaration of Independence signer and Princeton president John Witherspoon put it,

Another reason why the servants of God are represented as troublesome is, because they will not, and dare not comply with the sinful commandments of men. In matters merely civil, good men are the most regular citizens and the most obedient subjects. But, as they have a Master in heaven, no earthly power can constrain them to deny his name or desert his cause.

In other words, to be good citizens in time, Christians must be ever mindful that they belong to an eternal kingdom.

Political engagement by Christians is, at a foundational level, unavoidable. If you pay taxes, if you serve in the military, if you get a driver’s license, if you sign a property deed, if you have medical or life insurance, if you turn on the shower or pay a heating bill, what you are doing is in some way touched by government regulation and law.

This engagement does not need to be consuming, of course.  Not everyone is called to be equally active in the public square. However, the other extremes — of passivity and pretending politics neither matter nor really exist, or of withdrawal and despair after one’s (false) expectations are dashed – are a matter of either an impoverished grasp of Scripture or, worse, mere religious pretense, not fidelity to the Bible. Never to vote, never to speak, never to defend those without a voice, the weak and powerless and helpless, is to accede to evil.

“Do good unto all men,” writes Paul the Apostle (Galatians 6:10). This is a charge with an active voice. Christians cannot fulfill this command unless, in the public arena, we stand for truth with a gracious but undauntable spirit. Our fellow citizens, and our country as a whole, deserve no less.

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

P.S. What is the status of conservatism in America?  Family Research Council’s Senior Fellow for Family Empowerment, Ken Blackwell, appeared on CNS News August 12, 2011 to discuss the conservative movement in our country today.

Educational Freedom and Reform

Homeschooling

• “DNPE Softens Impact of New Policy,” Home School Legal Defense Association
• “Why choose to homeschool?,” Kate Kerman, Sentinel Source
• “Home school students learn year round,” CBC News

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Dear Friends,

This week’s riots in Britain have reminded us that human nature is a volatile thing. As former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once put it, “The veneer of civilization is very thin.”

Man is a fallen being, yet capable of great nobility of character. The Bible’s teachings about man had an especially profound affect on the Founders as they considered how imperfect men could govern themselves.

Although they affirmed human fallenness, they also affirmed human dignity. If persons are made in God’s image and likeness, then they have value before Him which should be honored by those political powers He ordains to govern them.

“Through the Judeo-Christian tradition, human rights are rooted in the moral worth with which a loving Creator has endowed each human life,” writes scholar A. James Reichley, “and social authority is legitimized by making it answerable to transcendent moral law.”

This cannot be understated. Without a grounding in biblical revelation and natural law, which is itself reliant on a belief in communicated transcendent truth, we have no basis for proclaiming human uniqueness and dignity.

“Religious liberty is a divine right, immediately derived from the Supreme Being, without the intervention of any created authority,” New Hampshire preacher Israel Evans proclaimed in 1791. The same can be said for the rights to life and property, and the “pursuit of happiness,” as articulated in our Declaration of Independence.

At the Family Research Council, we work to strengthen the veneer of which Mrs. Thatcher spoke through advancing measures that encourage faith, family, and freedom. For the sake of civilization, we believe there can few more important works.

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling

• “Ranks of homeschooled kids in Arizona expected to rise,” Eugene Scott, The Tucson Citizen
• “School Board: Homeschooling Disorganized and Isolationist,” Home School Legal Defense Association

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Dear Friends,

As the White House and Congress continue to debate how to restrain spending and curtail the size and reach of the federal government, American families are concerned with the economy we will be leaving our children.

Family policy is tied directly to economic policy. A society in which the unborn are expendable means we will not have the quantity of workers we need to help our economy grow or the tax base necessary to sustain programs on which many have come to depend, let alone vital needs like national defense. FRC President Tony Perkins recently made this point at a conference here in Washington, DC — social, security, and economic policy are intertwined, and cannot be divorced from one another.

There’s a reason why the Psalmist reminds us that “children are a heritage from the Lord” (Psalm 127:3). It’s for the sake of that heritage that FRC continues to work in partnership with you for faith, family, and freedom.

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

Educational Freedom and Reform

Homeschooling

• “Different children, different educations,” Krissy Proctor, Knoxville News-Sentinel
• “Many options for parents who want to homeschool kids,” Monica James, The Lighthouse

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Our country is grounded on the proposition that God has made each of us and given every person the “right to life,” as stated in the Declaration of Independence. Yet human dignity is being diminished increasingly in our culture. Whether discussing the unborn, the disabled, or the elderly, utility and power too often trump respect and compassion.

Our bodies are precious to God. “You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” writes David in the 139^th Psalm. If the God of the universe took such tender care with each of us, should we not also care for the most vulnerable among us, and put that care into practical action?

In his new book, Earthen Vessels: Why Our Bodies Matter to Our Faith, Matthew Lee Anderson reminds us, “We cannot speak of the body without speaking of its mortality, for the God who became flesh did so in order that he might die. For Jesus, death was the precursor to the resurrection. For us, it is the power of Christ’s resurrection that allows us to stare death in the face” (p.165).

Staring death in the face, unflinching: That’s the power of the Gospel. Defending personhood, at all its stages: That’s fidelity to our Creator.

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

P.S. Next Thursday, join FRC and Liberty University at our DC headquarters or via Webcast as we host the Washington, DC book launch of Resurgent: How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America, by FRC Senior Fellows Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski.

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Dear Friends,

Welcome to a special Fourth of July edition of the Social Conservative Review.

As our nation prepares to celebrate Independence Day, our gratitude for our country and the brave men and women who defend it is great. There is no nation like American, one founded upon the belief that our rights are gifts of God, not bestowals of the state.

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Dear Friends,

“As fiscal pressures mean the public sector must contract, organized religious groups are stepping into the void.” So argues Lewis M. Andrews in “Religious Alternatives to the Public Sector” in The American: The Journal of the American Enterprise Institute.

Andrews notes that “congregations of all faiths” are helping in many ways, ranging from initiatives to help young women who have been sexually trafficked to providing food to needy families. Churches provide homeless shelters, job training programs, free clothing and household goods, marital counseling, palliative care for the sick and dying, and a host of other expressions of Christ’s compassion.

This goes on throughout the country, in communities large and small. But it is not new: from its earliest days, Christians have sought to help those in need, whether those needing assistance are themselves Christian or not. The early church leader Tertullian, writing in 197 AD, wrote that he and his fellow Christians gave “to support and bury poor people, to supply the wants of boys and girls destitute of means and parents, and of old persons confined now to the house.”

In addition to serving in your own local church, visit FRC’s www.RealCompassion.org for links to ministries that are addressing the great needs of our time, at home and abroad. The early Christians reshaped their culture through persistent, effective ministries to those society had rejected. Let’s all follow their example.

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

P.S. Today, Dr. Carol M. Swain came to FRC to speak about her book, “Be the People: A Call to Reclaim America’s Faith and Promise.” Click here to watch her remarks.

Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling

• “GOING DEEP: The athletic, homeschooling Gelbaughs hope to reinvent the image of homeschoolers,” Stefanie Loh, The Patriot-News
• “Home schooling hit by Austin diocese and in article by renowned priest,” Patrick B. Craine, LifeSiteNews
• “13 virtual programs can teach across Va. Divisions,” Hattie Brown Garrow, The Virginian-Pilot

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Dear Friends:

In an era when divorce rates are high and 55 percent of America’s children live in homes missing at least one biological parent, the imperative of strong marriages — of one man and one woman becoming “one flesh” — has never been higher. Family Research Council is committed to strong marriages, which is why the work of our Marriage and Religion Research Institute, led by internationally recognized scholar Dr. Pat Fagan, is so important.

As Dr. Fagan has written, “the overwhelming majority of social science data supports the premise that the intact married family that worships weekly is the greatest generator of human and social goods and the core strength of the United States.”

Take a few moments to visit the MARRI Web site to find a trove of materials demonstrating why worship, marriage, and family are so vital to one another and to society. A strong, vibrant America needs strong, vibrant marriages. There are no substitutes.

Sincerely,
Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

P.S. Read FRC scholar Peter Sprigg’s executive summary of his thoughtful and compelling publication, “The Top Ten Harms of Same Sex Marriage,” here. You can download the entire booklet, at no cost, at this same site.

Educational Freedom and Reform
Homeschooling

• “School District Targets Homeschooled Students for Money,” Home School Legal Defense Association
• “Clamp Down in the Mountaineer State?,” Christian NewsWire
• “Home-schooling on the rise for a good reason, say advocates,” Craig Crosby, The Morning Sentinel

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Dear Friends,

In May 1607, the first Anglican service ever held in North America took place in the nascent colony of Jamestown, Virginia.

This reminds us that from our earliest days, religious liberty has been the cornerstone of all our freedoms. Why? Because if our rights come from God, then it is safe to assume our first duty is to Him — and, thus, that religious liberty is the foundation of all other liberties.

Yet just this week, the Department of the Navy sought to require its chaplains either to perform same-sex unions or refer those desiring them to someone who would. As FRC president Tony Perkins commented, “Opening the military to same-sex weddings would not only violate federal law but also seriously threaten the religious liberty of military chaplains. If the Navy enforces its referral policy, any chaplain declining to perform a same-sex wedding would be required to find someone who would perform the wedding.”

Thankfully, the Navy has backed away from its plan, and the House Armed Services Committee has passed a measure that states, in the words of the bill’s author, U.S. Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), ” U.S. military bases may not be used to solemnize same-sex unions, nor may military chaplains perform these unions in the course of their official duties.”

In 1776, Princeton theologian and Declaration of Independence signer John Witherspoon wrote, “There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire.” He was right, and the implication of his observation is profound: The defense of religious liberty is essential.

That’s our challenge and our calling. Thank you for joining Family Research Council in working to fulfill it.

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

Educational Freedom and Reform

Homeschooling

• “School District Says Parent Needs License To Homeschool,” Home School Legal Defense Association
• “Bill to ease homeschool restrictions gets support,” Tom Humphrey, Knoxville News-Sentinel

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Dear Friends,

Welcome to the one-year anniversary edition of The Social Conservative Review! Over the past 12 months, our twice-monthly compilation of the articles most relevant to faith, family, and freedom has grown into a reliable, and relied-upon, source of news and information for social conservatives across the country.

One of our recurrent concerns is one that affects every American: Religious liberty. In a letter to a congregation in New York City shortly after the British surrender at Yorktown in 1783, General Washington wrote, “The establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the Motive which induced me to the Field; the object is attained, and it now remains to be my earnest wish and prayer, that the Citizens of the United States would make a wise and virtuous use of the blessings placed before them.”

Family Research Council remains committed to these principles, which is why we are coordinating a nationwide support effort for the State of Utah in the case Davenport v. American Atheists, one of the most important religious liberty cases to be offered to the U.S. Supreme Court in decades.

The State of Utah permits the Utah Highway Patrol Association (UHPA) to commemorate patrolmen who die in the line of duty by erecting a roadside cross at the site of the tragedy with the patrolman’s name and badge number. A militant atheist organization, American Atheists, Inc., sued the State of Utah in federal court for allowing UHPA to erect these crosses.

If successful, this suit could require not only the removal of religious symbols on public buildings and lands but even that crosses and Stars of David be excised from the headstones at Arlington Cemetery. We are supporting legal efforts to overturn a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit that held any stand-alone cross on public land is automatically an unconstitutional endorsement of Christianity in violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

To help us, please join our effort to send a message to the U.S. Supreme Court that they need to hear the Utah case and make clear America’s allegiance to the public expressions of faith which are an essential part of our birthright.

George Washington would be proud to stand with you for our God-given rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” as we are here at FRC.

Sincerely,
Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

Educational Freedom and Reform

Homeschooling

• “From School Choice to Educational Choice,” Frederick M. Hess, Olivia Meeks, Bruno V. Manno, American Enterprise Institute
• “Teaching the Trivium,” Mollie Hemingway, Get Religion
• “A Star Is Born,” James Taranto, The Wall Street Journal

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Dear Friends,

In 2009, Barack Obama appointed then-Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. This was a troubling pick for conservatives, given her support for abortion-on-demand and support from abortion giant Planned Parenthood. Since her appointment, Sec. Sebelius has justified these concerns, as she has advocated for federal funding of abortion, abortifacient drugs and stem cell research using human embryos.

Yet there is a significant bright side to Sec. Sebelius’ departure from Topeka: Former Senator Sam Brownback, a champion for life, is now Governor of Kansas. And what a difference that has made.

Yesterday, Gov. Brownback signed legislation that “strictly limits abortions after 22 weeks based on the fact that fetuses can feel pain beginning after the 21st week of pregnancy” and another measure, “the Abortion Reporting Accuracy and Parental Rights Act,” which “requires minors who seek abortions to obtain consent from both parents and places certain prohibitions on late-term and partial birth abortions.”

Kathleen Sebelius would have fought these bills from their introduction. Sam Brownback not only signed but celebrated them.

To those who say that Christians should withdraw from political engagement and concentrate on private acts of charity or work solely with church or ministry groups, consider Sam Brownback and his allies in the Kansas Legislature.

These bills are part of a larger legislative mosaic that is building, gradually but steadily, a culture where the personhood of the unborn child is being recognized in law and in the American conscience.

Does political engagement bring complete resolution of every problem? No. But political action can make a decisive, if incremental, difference in a host of areas — most importantly those involving the sanctity of life from conception until natural death, the dignity of marriage, and the centrality of religious liberty to American public life.

Elections matter. Just ask Sam Brownback — and, in years to come, the children whose lives are saved through the bills he just signed into law.

Sincerely,
Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice-President
Family Research Council

P.S. Be sure to read FRC President Tony Perkins’ Daily Caller op-ed on the budget crisis, Planned Parenthood, and the effects of abortion. To learn more about Planned Parenthood’s assault on the American family, read, “Planned Parenthood–What Every Parent, Teacher, Woman, Community Leader and Elected Official Needs to Know,” by FRC’s Director of the Center for Human Dignity, Jeanne Monahan.

Educational Freedom and Reform

Homeschooling

• “HSLDA Arrives; Superintendent Does 180,” Home School Legal Defense Association
• “The Heroism of Motherhood,” Gretel Deem, Crosswalk

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