CONGRESS IN RECESS

HOUSE AND SENATE

As the House and Senate are in recess, there is no legislative update news this week. The House and Senate return to session on September 3rd and we will return to our normal reporting on social conservative legislation.

SOCIAL ISSUES

SPECIAL SCHOOLS FOR HOMOSEXUALS?

Last week our executive director, Peggy Birchfield, wrote about the lawsuit brought by Rev. Ruben Diaz in New York City, against the school district for establishing a homosexual high school. Dr. Diaz is an old friend of mine with whom I have worked over the years. Numerous times he has brought busloads of Hispanic pastors to Washington, DC to assist the Religious Freedom Coalition in encouraging Congress to vote for social conservative, pro family legislation. When I originally met Dr. Diaz, he was the president of the New York Hispanic Clergy Association. Since that time he has been elected to the state Senate in New York. Although a Democrat, he is more conservative than some Republicans I know. I am sure the Democrat party leaders in New York wish that he were not a Democrat.

Rev. Diaz is "pro-choice" but not the kind of "pro-choice" politician that liberal Democrat leaders like. He is pro-choice when it comes to school vouchers for inner city kids trapped in failing schools. What outraged Dr. Diaz was the plan to spend $3.2 million dollars a year of tax money on a school for about 170 "gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth." The city claims they will have a graduation rate of 95% from the Harvey Milk School for gays. (The school is named after a homosexual San Francisco city councilman who was gunned downed by another loony councilman who claimed he committed the crime because he ate too much junk food that day and it drove him to kill. - Only in San Francisco)

New York City claims the school provides homosexual youth with a "safe and supportive environment." Don't all children deserve this kind of educational environment? Should those kids who claim to be homosexuals receive a better education at a higher cost in a safer environment than all other kids in the city? Oddly, Democrat leaders stand against Senator Diaz. They don't want minority kids from the Hispanic or African-American community to have the same freedom of choice to go to a school that can get them into college as will homosexuals.

In an editorial on the issue the Wall Street Journal said, "Though the headlines have had a field day playing up the issue of sexual orientation, a lawsuit just filed by a Hispanic state senator exposes the real scandal here: a city public school system willing to deliver choice to a politically influential group while subjecting hundreds of thousands of others to education triage."

Liberals claim to want everyone to be "equal" and at the same time demand that African-Americans be given preferential treatment in higher education over Chinese or Japanese. Why? Is it because most Orientals are Republicans? Now Democrat leaders want special high cost public schools for their homosexual supporters. What next, special high schools for the kids of union teachers? If public education is not going to be uniform then it should be abandoned and vouchers handed out so parents can choose the right schools for their kids. A normal heterosexual family should have the same choices in education for their kids as a dysfunctional family that produces messed up kids who can't figure out whether they are male or female.

MORE CORPORATE GAY TIMES

American Airlines can't pay its pilots, but it can pay to sponsor a bisexual conference in California which will include masturbation demonstrations. This year American Airlines said it would have to reduce pay to all employees in order to stay out of bankruptcy. But the company has plenty of funds available to promote the homosexual agenda. The auto rental firm, Avis, is also sponsoring the event in San Diego. The key note speaker for the event is Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-CA). To contact the congresswoman to tell her how you feel about her participation in the event call 202-225-2040 or e-mail the congresswoman at susan.davis@mail.house.gov.

Concerned Women of America of San Diego County has asked the hotel involved what it was doing to protect other guests, particularly families, from the activities planned at the conference. Some of the names of the "workshops" are so X-rated the hotel has been forced to inform the group that they cannot place signs on the doors of the meeting rooms until the wording is "toned down."

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

Thousands of Christian demonstrators have come to the Alabama Supreme Court to support Justice Roy Moore and help "protect" the Ten Commandments. Many vow to be arrested rather than to have the granite monument to the Commandments be removed. Unfortunately it did not have to come to this.

Many of the Christians who are so shocked at the court ordered removal of the Ten Commandments refuse to become involved in the political process. Most evangelical Christians are not registered to vote. Most of those who are registered to vote don't bother to go vote. Only a minority of evangelical Christians actually go to the polls and vote. Of those, 99% are not dues paying members of a political party. Very few evangelical Christians give financial support to political candidates and even fewer support organizations such as the Religious Freedom Coalition. In summary evangelical Christians do a great job of complaining when the other side wins, but are unwilling to participate in society to stop the liberal march toward victory in the public square.

For several sessions of Congress Congressman Robert Aderholt (R-AL) has proposed legislation to protect the display of the Ten Commandments. The current version of the bill, the Ten Commandments Protection Act of 2003, sits on a table somewhere awaiting a vote by Congress yet again. The bill is stalled for lack of public pressure. Although polls indicate that Christians, and the public in general, believe the Ten Commandments should be displayed in public, there is little effort on the part of the Christian community to pass Congressman Aderholt's bill. Christians can blame the ACLU and courts for the removal of religion from the public square, but it is their own lack of participation in the political process that is the real problem.

MISSION TRIPS

EMERGENCY OPERATION

My daughter, Katie, had emergency surgery in a small town in Guatemala last week. She was on a mission trip with her High School Spanish teacher and a church group. The mission team Katie was with was assisting an orphanage for severely handicapped children in Chimaltenango which is west of Guatemala City. There is a public hospital there; however, the local missionaries recommended that Katie be operated on in a small private clinic. Because there was a possibility of a ruptured appendix there was no time to take her to a private hospital in Guatemala City. Only the truly impoverished use public hospitals in Guatemala, which are among the worst in the world.

I learned of Katie's condition about an hour before she was operated on late last Wednesday and managed to get to Chimaltenango before noon the next day. Her mission team left the day I arrived. Within a week Katie was well enough to make the trip back to the United States. Her biggest regret is that she may not be able to run the Army Ten Miler and the Marine Corps Marathon with me this year. Katie is very active in ministry work and produced a video entitled Holy Land Teenagers during a mission trip to Israel. She is a senior this year.

BRUSSELS MEETING STILL A GO

I am scheduled to participate in a major conference on religious liberty to be held in Brussels, Belgium next month. In coming weeks more details about the conference will become available. This is a major opportunity for the social conservative view to be taken to liberal Europe. The conference will be covered by major media worldwide.

RFC ONLINE

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William J. Murray, Chairman - Religious Freedom Coalition

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