Home > Newsletter > February 2002

MIXED WHITE HOUSE SIGNALS

Can a president be all things to all people? President Bush's advisors seem to think so. Great news came out of the White House the week of January the 28th. Secretary Tommy Thompson of Health and Human Resources (HHS) announced that he would seek to change policy to allow State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to cover unborn children. This would for the first time since Roe vs. Wade give a fetus the standing of a human being under law.

Abortion activist Kate Michelman of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League immediately attacked the change saying it is a "...commitment to the strategy to undermine a woman's right to choose by ascribing legal rights to embryos." In other words, to the pro-abortion fanatics their own agenda is much more important than giving poor women the chance to get pre natal care.

We salute the President and his team for moving toward recognizing an unborn child as a human being.

However ... the same day HHS made the above announcement, the White House agreed to change President Bush's "Faith Based Initiative" in all states to force religious groups to hire homosexuals and lesbians. In other words "Charitable Choice" is dead. Under the real Charitable Choice, religious groups could bid for government contracts such as drug rehabilitation programs. Under the provisions the White House now approves of, a Christian boys' home would be forced to hire openly homosexual men and provide benefits for their "domestic partners" in order to obtain federal funds.

The provisions now approved of by the White House will mean that few if any truly Christian organizations will opt for the federal money. Instead, the funds will go to even more secularized programs that don't work.

Was this really a "mixed message" from the White house or was it a dual event planned to woo both social conservative Christians and homosexuals at the same time? Indeed, I have learned the dual announcements were planned for the same day to "prove" the President understood the base concerns of both social conservatives and homosexuals. We got the message.