FIC Blog

The best social conservative talk radio host in Connecticut is a man who once performed a lesbian “wedding” underneath a Family Institute of Connecticut billboard. His name is Vinnie Penn and his journey from there to here tells us something about the current state of talk radio in Connecticut—and the future of the pro-family fight.

In 2004, FIC’s political action committee paid for billboards throughout East Haven that said “Protect Marriage Vote McCann” and “A vote for Mike Lawlor is a vote for same-sex ‘marriage’…period.” To protest our message, Vinnie, then a KC101 morning DJ, performed a live on-air “wedding” of a lesbian couple below one of the billboards. It was a media spectacle, with FIC members across the street protesting Vinnie’s protest of us. When Vinnie’s KC101 gig ended, he penned an article for the New Haven Advocate in which he listed the lesbian “wedding” as one of his finest moments.

Fast-forward to 2011. FIC is fighting the Bathroom Bill, the law that allows men who say they are “transgendered” to use women’s public restrooms. A grassroots organization, the Kids Innocence Coalition, arranges for me to appear on “the Vinnie Penn Project,” Vinnie’s new 960 WELI morning talk show. Much to my surprise, Vinnie is outraged by the Bathroom Bill and becomes our strongest talk radio ally against it.

Fast-forward again to 2013. In January, Vinnie strongly protested the pressure being put on the Boy Scouts by gay activists to reverse its policy and allow open homosexuality in Scouting. Searching the dial, I heard nothing about this from Connecticut’s other right-leaning talk radio hosts.

Finally we come full circle to this morning, with Vinnie lamenting that he cannot watch television with his ten-year-old daughter without a show gratuitously inserting a lesbian couple into the storyline, exposing her to things he is not ready to discuss with her at her age. (Ironically, I had to turn the station so that my own children, in the car with me at the time, would not hear the details of Vinnie’s lament.)

At the same time that Vinnie has moved right on family issues, many of Connecticut’s formerly conservative talk radio hosts have moved left. Brad Davis was a firebrand against same-sex civil unions in 2005 but in 2007 he wanted nothing to do with the fight against full same-sex “marriage” and by 2012 he was singing the moderate Republican tune that the GOP should not fight back on social issues (a tune that helped cost Mitt Romney the election).

Indeed, the remarkable thing about conservative talk radio in Connecticut these last few years is how close it hugs the moderate wing of the GOP. John Rowland’s show, initially titled “State and Church,” now focuses on fiscal issues and is vaguely disdainful of cultural conservatism. When social issues do come up, Rowland sounds less like the repentant ex-prisoner from 2006 who found Jesus and more like the cynical politician from 1990 who flip-flopped on abortion.

Jim Vicevich, certainly, is a pro-life powerhouse. But he avoids same-sex “marriage” and related issues, perhaps owing to his libertarian streak (a huge blindspot for libertarians, given that same-sex “marriage” increases state power). And Dan Lovallo, the one talk show host most attentive to pro-family issues in Connecticut? Buckley Radio fired him in 2012.

So why did Vinnie Penn move right on family issues while everyone else moved left?

The answer, I think, is that Vinnie Penn is younger than these other talk show hosts by decades. If I’ve heard him correctly, Vinnie has a six year old son and a ten year old daughter and I think it very likely that their births made him more conservative.

Vinnie’s social conservatism is not, to borrow a phrase, your father’s social conservatism. He reasons towards his conclusions and expresses himself in ways that may be unfamiliar, even jarring, to those whose social conservatism is rooted in religious faith.

Even so, Vinnie may find more in common with pro-family activists than he knows. It may surprise him that I am actually a few years younger than him, that most of the people who work or volunteer for Family Institute of Connecticut are younger than me or that I have been an avid comic book collector since I was eight (another favorite topic of Vinnie’s).

The key takeaway from all of this is that the most socially conservative host in (secular) talk radio in Connecticut is also the youngest. Remember this the next time they tell you same-sex “marriage” is inevitable because the young support it, as if parenthood doesn’t modify their views.

St. Joseph’s College Betrays Pro-Lifers, Again

The Food and Drug Administration has announced that it will allow the Morning After Pill–the potentially abortifacient Plan B drug–to be sold over-the-counter without a prescription to 15 year old girls. Family Institute of Connecticut is quoted in The Hartford Courant today against the decision:

“It’s put the safety of young girls at risk because there is very little scientific data available about how the drug affects young girls who are still going through puberty. It interferes with the rights of parents by coming between parents and their underage daughters,” said Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the pro-family advocacy organization based in Hartford.

But on the Ray Dunaway Show this morning, University of Saint Joseph School of Pharmacy Professor Maria Summa voiced support for providing Plan B to 15 year old girls.

Prof. Summa said that it was “ideal” for women to take Plan B within 72 hours after intercourse. She dismissed any suggestion of negative side effects from the drug, cautioning only that it should not be used as a regular form of contraception. She strongly recommended other forms of contraception, in contradiction to Catholic teaching.

The University of Saint Joseph is a Catholic institution and the Family Institute of Connecticut is not. We have never considered it our place to speak publicly about the Catholicity or lack thereof of entities claiming to be Catholic.

But we are a pro-life and pro-family organization and the University of Saint Joseph has repeatedly betrayed the cause.

Its president, Pamela Trotman Reid, told The Hartford Courant in 2008 that she wanted Barack Obama elected not in spite of his pro-abortion stand but because of it. She subsequently promised Archbishop Mansell that she would uphold the Catholic values of the school but then accepted an award from a pro-abortion organization. You can read about it here.

Enfield man gets probation for death threats sent to same-sex marriage opponent

By Alex Wood Journal Inquirer | Posted: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 1:36 pm

Calling Daniel Sarno “clearly a disturbed individual who needs a great deal of help,” a federal judge on Tuesday sentenced the Enfield man to five years’ probation for mailing death threats to the executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut over the group’s opposition to same-sex marriage.

In making his sentencing argument, Assistant Federal Defender Gary D. Weinberger said he “was touched” by a letter to the judge from Lawrence Taffner, the Hartford-based Family Institute’s operations director, which spoke of the need to temper justice with mercy and prayer.

After court, Peter Wolfgang, the Family Institute’s executive director, who was the primary target of Sarno’s harassing and threatening letters, said he agreed “with every word” of Taffner’s letter, “including mercy.”

“I do forgive Mr. Sarno,” Wolfgang said.

But he also expressed concern about “a growing campaign of intimidation with respect to those of us who advocate traditional values, in an effort to silence us.

“And we will not be silenced,” he added.

Wolfgang said he learned of Sarno’s intention to plead guilty to mailing the threats on the same day last August that Floyd Lee Corkins II was charged in the non-fatal shooting of a security guard at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. Corkins’ political agenda is believed to have been similar to Sarno’s.

Federal sentencing guidelines called for Sarno, who is 54, to receive 10 to 16 months’ confinement, although they also authorized the judge to imprison him for only half that time and put him in a halfway house or under house arrest for the remainder.

Prosecutor John H. Durham called on the Senior Judge Ellen Bree Burns, who imposed the sentence in U.S. District Court in New Haven, to impose a sentence consistent with the guidelines.

Durham said Sarno sent hundreds of harassing letters to the Family Institute over six months.

Wolfgang is married, with six young children, and has co-workers and neighbors, all of whom were also victims of Sarno’s threats, the prosecutor argued.

“You change your whole lifestyle” in the face of death threats, the prosecutor said.

He also argued that “the body politic” is a victim of threats like Sarno’s.

While Sarno was free on bond after his guilty plea, Enfield police arrested him based on the accusation that he had sent his brother, with whom he lives, a letter threatening to eviscerate him, the prosecutor said. State judicial records, available on the Internet, contain no record of such a case, indicating that Sarno hasn’t been convicted.

The defense lawyer said in his sentencing memorandum that a probation officer’s report on Sarno’s background and a psychological evaluation demonstrate that Sarno “suffers from significant mental illness.”

He attached a letter from Dr. Jonathan Greenberg, a psychiatrist, and psychologist Coleen Dobo, both of Community Health Resources, who said Sarno is under their care for treatment of a “mood disorder.”

“Mr. Sarno has a long history of struggles with anxiety and depression and managing relationships,” they wrote. “He has an extensive trauma history. These symptoms and psychosocial stressors in combination with notable deficits in his coping abilities would make him vulnerable to victimization and a disintegration of his mental status should he be imprisoned.”

The defense lawyer wrote, “It is beyond dispute that his mental and emotional problems contributed to his offense conduct. They permeate every part of his life.”

Weinberger told the judge Tuesday that the threatening letters “were cries of anguish that are difficult to understand without the insight of the psychological evaluation,” which was submitted to the judge but hasn’t been made public.

Reprinted by permission of the Journal Inquirer

Meanwhile opponents of same-sex marriage are also gearing up. The National Organization for Marriage is holding a march in Washington Tuesday. The Family Institute of Connecticut is a sponsor of the event and its members will be traveling by charter bus to the nation’s capital to attend the gathering.

Well, The Courant ignored the 615 people FIC gathered in front of Hartford’s federal court house a year ago this month to rally for religious freedom and against the HHS Abortion-Drug Mandate, and they gave significant attention to a pro same-sex “marriage” rally at the same spot yesterday attended, by some media accounts, by “dozens.” But kudos to our local paper for at least including the above quote. The Courant is also now reporting the truth about same-sex “marriage” in Connecticut: that it was enacted by our state supreme court in 2008 and not, as frequently and erroneously reported, by the legislature in 2009.

Getting the media to report accurately on what really happened in Connecticut’s same-sex “marriage” fight only took five years. Perhaps it will take them another five years to report on the other untold story: that what the legislature really did in 2009 was to tag the strongest religious liberty exemptions to same-sex “marriage” in the entire nation on to the court’s judicial fiat.

Of the nine states that have same-sex “marriage,” none has a prouder record of defiance to it than Connecticut. Pro same-sex “marriage” activists failed every year they attempted to enact it through the legislature, it only came about by a vote of a single judge filling in on the high court after two mysterious vacancies, and we secured the strongest religious liberty exemptions against it in the entire nation.

That proud tradition continues with FIC members who are present at the March for Marriage in Washington, DC right now. I will be on 1500 AM WSDK at 7:17 am tomorrow to tell their stories.

Join the March for Marriage in our nation’s capital

On March 26th the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the question of same-sex “marriage” and the right of Americans to protect marriage will be decided. We believe it is imperative that political leaders, the media, and the culture see that we care about protecting marriage enough to stand up and march for it. That’s why marriage supporters from across the country will converge on our nation’s capital on Tuesday, March 26.  Family Institute of Connecticut is proud to be a sponsor of the March for Marriage.

Our sister organization, Massachusetts Family Institute, is sponsoring a Deluxe Coach bus to bring a New England delegation down to DC for the Marriage March. The bus will be leaving the MA North Shore at 10:00 pm Monday night and arriving in DC on Tuesday morning in time for the March for Marriage from 8:30 am to 1:00 pm. At 4:30 pm that afternoon the bus will travel back to MA, arriving around 2:30 am Wednesday morning, March 27. Cost is $60 per person and partial scholarships are available to those who have need.

Please contact FIC at 860-548-0066 if you desire to go to the March for Marriage.

[This blog post was originally an email alert sent to our members last week.]

Family Institute of Connecticut Action opposes S.B. 374, An Act Requiring Behavioral Health Assessments for Children. This bill will have a public hearing this Friday, March 8th. Read all about it here.

In addition to the aids provided in the previous link, the campus coordinator of Regina Caeli Academy, Erika Ahern (pictured above) has submitted a letter that our members can use as one possible model when contacting their own state legislators:

Dear Senators and Representatives:

As a concerned Connecticut parent of 3 home-schooled children and as the Hartford campus coordinator for the nationally-accredited Regina Caeli Academy, I would like to submit my own observations and testimony against the proposed Bill No. 374. This testimony may be read at the March 8 public hearing.

S.B. No. 374 is an unjust and uncalled-for invasion of the rights of both public school families and home-school families for three primary reasons.

1) The bill would force (“require”) parents to submit their children to psychological evaluation by an unspecified and state-selected representative of the health profession. This far over-reaches the purpose of the State Board of Education, which is to provide an equal, that is public, education to children, not to oversee their psychological health. Requiring children to undergo these invasive evaluations violates the parental right to monitor to which ideologies regarding healthcare their children are exposed at young ages. Furthermore, the materials used and questions asked during these evaluations may in fact violate the conscience of the parents whose children are being examined.

2. The bill is so vague that it leaves open-ended the question of to whom access to the results of these evaluations would be given. The phrase “the results of which shall be disclosed only to the child’s parent or guardian”, in no way protects the family from disclosure of confidential medical information to the state should the physician (who is state-appointed) deem it necessary.

3. While recent events in Newtown, CT, and other academic institutions are tragic and horrible, the state is ill-equipped and has no right to take violence as an opportunity to assume a parental role of our children. As local head of a home-school support program and as a mother “on-the-ground”, I can testify that it is the parents and the grassroots community of Connecticut that is most able to offer support, oversight, and correction of behavioral and mental health issues. Home-schooled children generally have more contact with a wide age-range of people, more one-on-one interpersonal conversations with adults (especially their parents), heavy involvement in social activities that require healthy behaviors, and more time to be physically active each day than their public school counterparts. Home-schooled children with special needs have personalized contact with non-special-needs children who love them and are required to help them (again, by parents and adults from the community). This profile suggests that the home-school model in fact has the potential to promote mental and behavioral health more effectively than any state-sponsored evaluation.

Cf. Dr. John Wesley Taylor, Self-Concept in Home Schooling Children (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International), Order No. DA8624219. This study was done as part of a dissertation at Andrews University. The results of the testing of the 224 home-schooled students was compared to the testing results of 1,183 conventionally schooled children.
also, Cf. Dr. Mona Delahooke, “Home Educated Children’s Social/Emotional Adjustment and Academic Achievements: A Comprehensive Study,” unpublished doctoral dissertation, California School of Professional Psychology, Los Angeles, 1986.

In short, this bill contains a poorly defined requirements that violate parents’ rights as the primary educators of their children. While I commend the public school system for providing services to previously diagnosed children with special needs, the state should leave the question of diagnoses to the parents and their freely chosen healthcare professionals.

Thank you.

Sincerely, Erika Ahern

Campus Coordinator

Regina Caeli Academy CT

 

Family Institute of Connecticut is pleased that the Wolcott Board of Education has given into the ACLU’s demand that student Seth Groody be allowed to wear a shirt protesting the Day of Silence event that is ironically forced on public school students to fight bullying. But we are struck by the discrepancy in news reporting on this incident.

According to The Courant, what is at issue is an “anti-gay T-Shirt.” How is it “anti-gay,” you ask? Reports The Courant:

The front of the shirt, depicted a rainbow with a slash through it. The back showed a stick figure of a male and a female holding hands and the words, “Excessive Speech Day.”

As will be obvious to anyone without a pro same-sex “marriage” bias, Seth Groody is not attacking people with same-sex attractions, he is attacking an ideological agenda being forced on him and his fellow students against their will. The Republican-American, though including the “anti-gay” canard in a headline, gets it right in the body of its story:

Groody told administrators, who questioned him about the shirt, that he wore it to express his opposition to gay marriage and to protest the Day of Silence, according to the ACLU.

The Courant left out any reference to Groody’s pro-traditional marriage motivation in yesterday’s story. “Same-sex ‘marriage’ is inevitable because the young support it,” the liberal media keeps telling us. And if the young don’t support it, well, the media just won’t tell us.

[3/4 Update: The Republican-American reports that Seth Groody is designing a new short to protest the same-sex "marriage" agenda during the Day of Silence and that his fellow students are already placing orders to buy the shirt (the school is now considering canceling the event.) The Hartford Courant, meanwhile, has run two subsequent items on this story (here and here) neither of which make any reference to the youths opposition to same-sex "marriage."]

The New England School of Theology will present a conference at Christian Heritage School in Trumbull, Does God Exist?
It will be held on Saturday March 23rd, 8:45am – 3:00pm.

They will present 6 speakers and have a panel discussion at the end. (Pastor Cliffe Knechtle, Chip Anderson, Dr. Ray Pennoyer, Dr. Dwane Kellogg, Dr. Wayne Detzler, and Dr. John DeMassa). The cost will be $26 and include a lunch.

See the conference website for more information and to register for this event.

International events are understandably occupying the religious news headlines this week. But closer to home, flying under the radar, a very significant spiritual movement has been building here in Connecticut. It will reach a crescendo of sorts this Friday, February 22nd at First Cathedral in Bloomfield, with the appearance of acclaimed speaker Chuck Pierce. FIC encourages attendance at that event. Our friend, Pastor Rick McKinniss of Wellspring Church, explains:

Dear Partner for the Kingdom in Connecticut,

The Seven Nights of Worship have been amazing!! Thanks to all who helped in the efforts to organize, promote, attend and generally make happen this run of unity worship and prayer gatherings across our state for the past seven months! God showed up at every one! Here are some highlights:

We packed out the Rome Ballroom on UCONN’s Storrs campus and prayed for the advance of the Kingdom there. Over 200 students were part of that gathering, sponsored by the campus ministries and area churches.

We joined in with the Connecticut Night of Worship at the Shubert in New Haven and packed it out beyond capacity to 2,000!  Over 300 people were turned away, but many of them stayed and worshiped on the sidewalk for over an hour on that cold night. Inside worship was led by over 100 different worship leaders from churches across the state.

Just last month we gathered a mile from the Newtown border at Walnut Hill Church and worshiped together and prayed for the awakening of our state in the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary.

Now, for an encore, we have invited Prophet Chuck Pierce back for an eighth gathering. On Friday February 22, at The First Cathedral in Bloomfield at 7:00 PM we will gather from across the state to continue to press in for the move of the Spirit here in Connecticut.

Chuck Pierce artwork for flyers and posters that you can use in your ministry to let others know of this gathering are available here. We have planned for many of the worship leaders who were at the Shubert in November to lead us in worship–along with the team from The First Cathedral. It will be awesome. We are expecting the Lord to speak into the momentum that has been generated and for the release of even greater anointing and effectiveness in the work of the Kingdom here in our state. The cathedral is a big place, but we are expecting a full house, so you will want to come early to get your seat.

The Boy Scouts of America will be deciding next week whether to change its policy to allow openly homosexual men to hold leadership positions in its organization:

Peter Wolfgang, director of the conservative Family Institute of Connecticut, said that members have been calling the organization to express their concern over the proposed change. ”The concern is that we’re forcing adult notions of sexuality on young boys,” Wolfgang said.

FIC encourages all our members to follow the advice of our friends at the Family Research Council:

If you’ve tried to get through to the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), you know it’s been tough. If you’ve wanted to express your concern about the BSA abandoning their longstanding policy of safeguarding Scouts by restricting openly homosexual Scout leaders from holding leadership positions, you may have been greeted by an endlessly ringing phone. This may be one instance in which the Boy Scouts were not prepared.

The BSA national leadership were not prepared for the thousands of Americans who were shocked to hear that an organization that could always be counted on for standing for what’s right was about to cave-in to homosexual activists and corporations which have been threatening the organization’s funding.

For generations, the BSA has shaped our nation’s moral character by teaching young men to do their duty to God and country. This is why, when the BSA board begins its annual meeting on Monday of next week, it is so important that you keep the pressure on, to show them how devastating this moral collapse will be for the Scouts and the country.

Please call the members of the BSA Board of Directors (sample call script below) and kindly urge them to stand strong and true to their timeless values:

Select BSA Board Members:

• David L. Beck: (801) 240-1000
• R. Thomas Buffenbarger: (310) 967-4500
• Keith A. Clark: (717) 763-1121
• William F. “Rick” Cronk: (925) 283-7229
• John C. Cushman III: (904) 393-9020
• R. Michael Daniel: (412) 297-4989
• Jack D. Furst: (972) 982-8250
• T. Michael Goodrich: (205) 328-9445 ext. 200
• Earl G. Graves: (212) 242-8000
• Aubrey B. Harwell Jr.: (615) 244-1713
• Stephen Hemsley: (800) 328-5979
• Larry W. Kellner: (713) 468-4050
• Robert J. LaFortune: (918) 582-2981
• Joseph P. Landy: (212) 878-0600
• Francis R. McAllister: (406) 373-8700
• Scott D. Oki: (425) 454-2800
• Arthur F. Oppenheimer: (208) 343-4883
• Tico A. Perez: (407) 849-1235
• Robert H. Reynolds: (317) 231-7227
• Matthew K. Rose: (909) 386-4140
• Nathan O. Rosenberg: (949) 494-4553
• Roger M. Schrimp: (209) 526-3500
• Marshall M. Sloane: (781) 395-3000
• Rex W. Tillerson: (972) 444-1000
• David M. Weekley: (713) 659-8111
• Togo D. West, Jr.: (202) 775-1775

Sample Phone Script:

Hello, my name is _________, from __________.

Thank you for your service as a board member of the Boy Scouts of America.

As you’re aware, a new proposal indicates that the Boy Scouts of America may revoke their longstanding policy of safeguarding Scouts by restricting homosexuals from holding leadership positions over boys. For decades, your national organization has kept the interest of the boys it serves as the focus of all its actions. No matter what, the Boy Scouts of America could be counted upon to do the right thing and not yield to any social pressure, and has thus far stood strong.

Please do not jeopardize the safety and moral integrity of Scouting in the interest of social activism. The proposal to relegate the decision on homosexual leaders to local chartered organizations sends the wrong signal from the national body: that political correctness ultimately triumphs over character.

Please retain the current long-held and time-tested policy regarding homosexual leadership and membership. America stands with you. Lead the way. Please stand strong.

Thank you, and God bless you.

Together, we can make a difference in turning the tide and keeping an honorable organization on an honorable path.