FIC Blog

Elect a politician who is a fiscal-conservative-but-not-a-social-conservative and you will soon find that she is not even a fiscal conservative.

This week several Connecticut Congressmen will be holding public meetings in the state concerning the health care bills in Congress. The independent organization FactCheck.org confirms that Obamacare would indeed use public monies to pay for abortions.

FIC, CT Right to Life and every other pro-life group in our state needs your help to tell our congressmen that abortion is not health care! It must not be mandated or funded by taxpayer dollars or insurance premiums paid into the government health care plans! Please attend these forums this week and ask every pro-lifer you know to join you!

Below is a list of town hall forums. Please plan to arrive early, as health care plan supporters are being told to show up at least one hour early and seating at several of the forums will be limited. Please be respectful to our congressmen at all times.

Politely ask your congressman to vote for language that explicitly bans abortion in any health care plan and forbids the use of government funds, whether from taxes or from health insurance premiums paid to the government or to private insurance companies, from being used to pay for abortion.

House committees have already repeatedly refused to approve amendments that would ban abortion in health care. Do not be fooled if your congressman brings up the Capps amendment! As FactCheck.org makes clear, the amendment would use public monies to fund abortion while claiming to prohibit it.

The schedule is as follows:

GREENWICH - Monday, August, 31 - WGCH News Director Tony Savino will moderate this health care town hall meeting with Congressman Jim Himes to be broadcast live by WGCH - 6:30-8:00 PM - Greenwich Town Hall Meeting Room, 101 Field Point Rd., Greenwich - seating may be limited

WEST HARTFORD - Congressman John Larson - Wednesday, September 2 – 6:00 PM at West Hartford Town Hall  (50 South Main Street) - seating will be limited.

WASHINGTON,CT – Congressman Chris Murphy - Wedenesday, September 2 - Shepaug Valley High School, Washington, CT (159 South Street).  6:30 p.m. -seating will be limited.

NORWALK - Congressman Jim Himes - Wednesday, September 2 - NOTE LOCATION CHANGE - originally scheduled for Norwalk City Hall, because of a large turnout expected, the hearing has been moved to Norwalk City High School Auditorium, 23 Calvin Murphy Drive, Norwalk.  The forum will be from 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM

MONTVILLE - Congressman Joe Courtney - Wednesday, September 2, Montville High School at 800 Old Colchester Road (Oakville section of Montville). 6:30 PM - seating will be limited.

BRIDGEPORT - Congressman Jim Himes - Wednesday, September 3, Bridgeport City Hall Council Chambers at 45 Lyon Terrace, Bridgeport.  6:30 PM - 8 PM - seating will be limited.

FIC has also learned of an invitation from Congressman Chris Murphy to his constituents to “join me for breakfast Tuesday September 1 through Friday, September 4, from 8 to 9am, to talk about health care reform. I’ll bring the coffee, you bring the conversation.” Here are the locations:

WATERBURY - Tuesday, September 1, 8 AM - 9 AM, Library Park, 267 Grand Street at Meadow Street.

DANBURY - Wednesday, September 2, 8 AM - 9 AM CityCenter, Danbury Green.

DANBURY - Thursday, September 3, 8 AM - 9 AM, CityCenter, Danbury Green.

WATERBURY - Friday, September 4, 8 AM - 9 AM Library Park 267 Grand Street at Meadow Street.

This is the last week of Congress’ summer recess before they return to Washington, D.C. to resume consideration of the health care bills. Now is the time to speak out in defense of human life! Please plan to attend one of these health care forums and to make your voice heard! Please forward this ACTION ALERT to all pro-lifers you know in Connecticut!!!

Twenty-five years ago in The Naked Public Square Richard John Neuhaus argued that an aggressive secularism was pushing religiously-grounded reasoning out of public discussion. In New Haven, it seems, police have been cracking down on the very expression of religion on public property.

But the city of New Haven has just agreed to a court order, issued Monday, that will allow one Jesse Morrell to resume expressing his Christian faith on public sidewalks.  In 2005, Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed a lawsuit against the New Haven Police Department after officers threatened to arrest the man for “annoying” passersby for preaching on public ways. You can read the ADF’s press release on their victory here. We could find nothing about ADF’s victory on the websites of The Hartford Courant or The New Haven Register.

The Courant did run a correction last Saturday on its botched story  falsely reporting that FIC had asked DCF to remove website links to “churches that welcome gays.” And then they botched the correction, saying that the article incorrectly stated that FIC sought the removal of gay-friendly “religious organizations,” rather than “churches.”

On Sunday, the paper ran a letter by our attorney, Vince McCarthy, underlining the point the correction made. But the Sunday Courant also published a letter by someone criticizing FIC based on the faulty story that the Courant and Vince had both already corrected. Nice.

That did, however, leave me the opening to finally tell the Courant’s readers what the paper had been hiding from them: the real content of our complaint against DCF. That information appears in my letter to the editor today.

Some questions linger. Who lied to the Courant about the content of our complaint? (DCF? True Colors?) Why did the paper not ask us about this other version of the story? And, given the dishonesty of those who spun the Courant, how confident can we be that DCF will honor its written assurances to us and not try to violate the First Amendment again?

So the Courant writes this story saying that FIC made DCF remove website links to “churches that welcome gays” and you can guess what happened next. Colin McEnroe’s already out of the gate with his usual combination of debating points (does Faithworks violate the First Amendment?) and smarminess (FIC’s the “Washington Nationals” of political activism, even though we defeated the opposition every year until a 4-3 court ruling redefined marriage). The inevitable Susan Campbell column for next Sunday practically writes itself (”Why can’t those poor dears at FIC escape their misbeggoten fundamentalist upbringing and go on to write feminist dribble like me?”) which will probably be followed by more “tsk tsk”ing from a Courant editorial and, if we’re really lucky, an Englehart cartoon.

There’s just one problem. The story is false. We sent a five page letter to DCF asking that they remove certain religious materials from their website and threatening legal action if they did not. They wrote us back a letter saying they would comply. Neither letter made any mention of churches. In a lengthy interview with the Courant for the article linked to above I never made any reference to churches and neither did the reporter. Imagine my surprise when I saw the article. Jennifer Warner Cooper is right to object to the suggestion that churches “indoctrinate children…into beliefs.. their parents are utterly opposed to.” That quote, from me, is taken utterly out of context.

What FIC objected to were one-sided religious materials and links on the website of Safe Harbor Project–a collaboration between DCF and True Colors–and DCF-sponsored True Colors religious workshops aimed at youth, which present only the revisionist view that the Bible and religion approve of homosexual activity and attacking those churches which disagree. TC’s DCF-sponsored workshops included An Ex Gay Primer: Homo No Mo! (presented ex-gay ministries as religiously oppressive and illegitimate); Christianity and Sexuality; What the Bible Really Says; Gay and God: Reconciling Your Sexual Orientation With your Childhood Religion (aimed especially at homosexuals who were raised Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon or Evangelical); LGBTs and the Real Jesus in the New Millennium (projects on to Jesus what they would have him say on sexuality); Looking at GLBTQ issues Facing Catholic Education; and Introduction to Tantra for Teens. 

DCF had, in effect, taken sides in a theological debate by using SHP and True Colors, which it sponsored, to promulgate a particular interpretation of the Bible and Christian doctrine regarding homosexuality. That is a violation of the First Amendment and that is what our complaint to DCF was about.

Our attorney sent the Courant a letter to the editor yesterday, shortly after 9 am. It is not in today’s edition but we hope it will be published soon. I also spoke with the reporter today, who said she would speak to her editor about a possible correction.

It’s a question we get every so often: Do the blog posts and comments on FIC Blog represent official FIC policy? To be sure, the question is generated in part by selective quoting of this site by those left-wing bloggers whose relationship to the truth is, at best, complicated. But perhaps some clarity is in order.

The answer is no, FIC Blog does not represent official policy - but our e-mail alerts (which sometimes appear in this space) do. Think of it in terms of an opinion magazine. Those magazines publish viewpoints with which they are in general sympathy. But not every article published in National Review or The Weekly Standard (or their web sites) are to be taken as the magazine’s official position. The editorials, on the other hand, obviously are official positions. FIC’s e-mail alerts are like editorials and our blog posts and comments are like articles in an opinion magazine.

From October, 2004 until July, 2007 I posted near-daily entries in this space. After becoming executive director it was no longer possible to maintain that pace. But Dave and I post when we can and we appreciate all of you who take an interest!

That’s the question asked by a (Danbury) News-Times article this past weekend and I am inclined to answer yes–when every unborn child is welcomed in law and protected in life. A day that will never come, you say? The News-Times quotes me on the present darkness…and the glimmers of hope:

Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, credits the increase [in abortion in CT] to the lack of restrictions on those seeking abortions in the state. In Massachusetts and Rhode Island, teenagers need parental consent before getting an abortion. In Connecticut, they don’t. “If you’re a minor in Connecticut, you need your parent’s consent to get a tattoo or an aspirin in school,” Wolfgang said. “You don’t need it for an abortion.”…

But Peter Wolfgang of the Family Institute of Connecticut said the polls [showing a majority are now pro-life] may reflect a real change in American opinion. “I’m sure sonograms have had a lot to do with it,” he said. “When you see one, it’s impossible to deny the baby’s humanity.”

Several recent missteps by Connecticut’s senior U.S. Senator have caused some to question his integrity. Today, it’s my turn:

Peter Wolfgang, who leads the Family Institute of Connecticut, said that Dodd’s reversal was motivated by political expediency.

“He took a position against same-sex marriage when he was running for president because that was the most politically palpable position,” Wolfgang said. “Now suddenly he’s in favor of same-sex marriage because he is in a very tight campaign for re-election. … He needs every dollar he can get and he cannot afford to alienate the very well-heeled cultural left.”

You can read Dodd’s history with the issue–and FIC’s history with Dodd–here. FIC Action Committee does not make endorsements in federal races.

Yesterday’s Parade magazine ran an article by President Obama, touting the importance of fatherhood. Media reports pushing the article described it as part of his wider strategy of not alienating social conservatives–a strategy noticeably absent during a high profile visit to Hartford. 

In fairness, the new president has given more attention to the topic of fatherhood than most politicians. And it is easy to see why:

But I observe this Father’s Day not just as a father grateful to be present in my daughters’ lives but also as a son who grew up without a father in my own life. My father left my family when I was 2 years old, and I knew him mainly from the letters he wrote and the stories my family told. And while I was lucky to have two wonderful grandparents who poured everything they had into helping my mother raise my sister and me, I still felt the weight of his absence throughout my childhood…I came to understand that the hole a man leaves when he abandons his responsibility to his children is one that no government can fill.

In other words, no substitute–be it a person or a government–can make up for the absence of a father in a child’s life. It is a point FIC–indeed, the entire pro-family movemement–has made repeatedly in our fight against the redefinition of marriage, the scourge of divorce and so forth. Is the president about to join us in the fight to restore a marriage-based culture for the sake of our children and of society?

Not quite. The only solution offered by the president to the crisis he rightly laments is that fathers be…”involved.”

As fathers, we need to be involved in our children’s lives not just when it’s convenient or easy, and not just when they’re doing well—but when it’s difficult and thankless, and they’re struggling. That is when they need us most.

Not a single word about marriage–the best guarantor of fatherly involvement–in an article on how “we need fathers to step up.” Thanks for the profile in courage, Mr. President.

Connecticut’s Episcopal Diocese would rather sell off a 245-year-old church in Watertown than give in to its pro-family dissenters. From Tuesday’s (Waterbury) Republican-American:

And last year Palmer was there [at Christ Church] when nearly all of the congregation left to form their own church because of the national Episcopal Church’s stance on homosexuals and other issues.

On Sunday, Bishop Laura J. Ahrens of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut told the congregation the final services in the building will be July 26. It is closing.

Today’s Rep-Am has a follow up story peddling the line of Christ Church’s current leadership, that the closing would have occurred regardless of controversy over homosexuality and scripture because of money troubles. And yet there is this:

Even before the split [over practicing gay clergy], Christ Church had fewer than 100 members. On Jan. 6, 2008, when it held its first service without the break-off members, only three worshipers were in the pews. In the six months since Kemmerer has been there, Sunday morning worship has inched up to between 20 to 30 members — an improvement but not nearly enough to sustain the church.

The article cites national data to back up Rev. Kemmerer’s claim that Christ Church simply fell victim to the decades-long trend of a membership decline in mainline denominations–without any discussion of the role of theological liberalism in causing that decline. From a portion of the article not available to non-subscribers:

“Episcopalians do not define themselves by what they believe, but by how they worship,” said Bradley.

Or, as Jesus never put it, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of Whatever, teaching them not to observe all that I have commanded you; only to not define themselves by what they believe but by how they worship.”