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CITIZENLINK
April 7, 2005


CONGRESS SPRINGS INTO ACTION:
Many pro-family initiatives are being discussed -- and
voted on.
http://family.org/cforum/feature/a0036128.cfm

SENATE OVERTURNS MEXICO CITY POLICY:
Reagan-era pro-life policy is likely to be upheld in the
House, however.
http://family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0036134.cfm

NATIVE AMERICAN FAMILIES IN CRISIS:
American Indian children are bearing the brunt of family
breakdown.
http://family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0036133.cfm

FAMILY ADVOCATES FIGHT FOR ABSTINENCE EDUCATION:
Once again, some senators are trying to divert
"abstinence-only" funding.
http://family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0036132.cfm

NEWS BRIEFS:
-- Schiavo Memo Author Revealed
-- Pat Robertson, U2's Bono Team Up to End Poverty
(Please see "News Briefs" section below.)

Support this effort to promote the family in the public
policy arena:
https://www.family.org/giving/givenow.cfm?refcd=CE05DCZLD&DonType=One-Time&op=clinkupdate

Encourage a friend to sign up for this e-mail:
http://www.family.org/cforum/clinksignup.cfm

To visit our Web site:
http://www.citizenlink.org

To contact your congressman or senators:
http://www.family.org/cforum/action_center.cfm?capwizurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efamily%2Eorg%2Fcitizenaction

To learn more about judicial tyranny:
http://www.family.org/cforum/judicial_tyranny/

To register to vote:
http://www.capitolconnect.com/fotf/default.asp


++++++++++++++++++++++++++
EDITOR'S PICKS: Resources for Impacting (and Living in)
Your World.

"The Key to Your Child's Heart"
by Gary Smalley
http://www.family.org/resources/itempg.cfm?itemid=3601&refcd=CE05DCZL&tvar=n

Marriage and family expert Gary Smalley cuts to the heart
of the anger and alienation that mar so many families. He
offers practical advice on opening up a child who has shut
you out, family-tested ways to set and enforce limits,
plus more. Learn proven parenting methods that can make
the difference between an angry, rebellious, distant child
and a happy, cooperative one

Item Code: BD728

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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CITIZENLINK BREAKING NEWS:
----------------------------------------------
Congress Springs into Action
by Pete Winn, associate editor

SUMMARY: There are many pro-family initiatives being
discussed -- and voted on -- in the House and Senate
before summer vacation.

Congress is back from Easter recess, and you can expect
plenty of pro-family legislative action until members go
home for the summer -- especially from the Senate.

Part of the action will center on the problem of the
courts. Arrogant, activist judges have become a major
issue for lawmakers, and angered representatives in both
chambers -- especially so in the aftermath of the legal
wrangling that took place in the Terri Schiavo case.

Dealing with the aftermath of the Schiavo case -- in which
the federal courts refused to hold new hearings on whether
she should be starved and dehydrated to death, despite
Congress passing a law authorizing them to do so -- will
be a top priority for some lawmakers. Legislation is
possible, though the Republican congressional leadership
seems conflicted over how it will respond to the
judiciary's inaction.

On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told
reporters that he thought that the federal courts had
acted fairly in the Schiavo case.

"I believe we have a fair and independent judiciary
today," said Frist. "I respect that."

But House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican,
promised action in response to Schiavo's court-imposed and
-affirmed death sentence.

"We will look," he said, "at an arrogant, out-of-control,
unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at the
Congress and president when given jurisdiction to hear
this case anew."

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., promised that, at the very
least, the Schiavo situation will prompt hearings to
investigate what he told CitizenLink was "a confrontation
between the legislative and the judicial branches."

"Here the judicial branch just walked all over the
legislative branch," he explained. "There was no effort .
. . to determine what the legislative intent was. It was
just that the court made up its mind, and we're the court
and we can do it."

Brownback said there is now an actual battle between the
legislative and judicial branches -- and its effects will
be unmistakable.

"This is something that's going to be going on for some
period of time," he said. "It was highlighted in the
Schiavo case, it has been highlighted for some time in
terms of the life issue and the unborn, and it has come
forth clearly in marriage. The legislative and executive
branches need to reassert some of the balance of power
here. I plan on holding hearings on that."



Dealing with an out-of-control judiciary is just one side
of the courts issue for Congress. The other side, breaking
Democrat filibusters against the president's judicial
nominations, is about to heat up, as well.

Amanda Banks, federal issues analyst for Focus on the
Family, said virtually everyone expects some movement in
the next month on a GOP plan to end the blockades liberals
have erected to stop the president's conservative nominees
from receiving confirmation votes.

In late 2004, President Bush re-nominated seven of the 10
original nominees blocked by Senate Democrats -- and a key
vote is expected soon on Priscilla Owen's nomination.
Owen, a Texas Supreme Court justice, was first selected in
2001 for a post on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
-- but never received an up-or-down vote. Three cloture
votes failed to break the Democratic filibuster and move
her nomination to the floor of the Senate.

"In the past couple of years," Banks said, "the minority
party, the Democrats, has obstructed the confirmation
process with filibusters, blocking President Bush's
judicial nominees from receiving up-and-down votes."

Banks said Frist is likely to institute "the
constitutional option" -- a procedural move to restore the
tradition of 51-vote majorities for the confirmation of
judicial nominees. In response, however, the Democrats are
threatening to shut down the Senate, and block all
legislation save for key issues like terrorism and
defense.

"In effect the Senate wouldn't get anything done if they
stay true to their word," Banks explained, "so we would
see next to nothing out of the Senate."

Just this week, nearly 200 conservative leaders from
across the nation sent a letter to Senate leadership
asking them to invoke the constitutional option and to
restore Senate tradition.



In addition to dealing with the judiciary, Congress could
take up several key pieces of pro-family legislation in
the next few months.

"There's been word that (senators) will possibly take up
the Child Custody Protection Act, the Broadcast Decency
Enforcement Act and welfare reform," Banks said. "We're
looking for some key votes out of the Senate in the next
couple of months regarding pro-family legislation."

Pro-family members of Congress are also going to take
another shot at passing the Child Custody Protection Act
(S. 8) and a similar, but slightly different version in
the House, called the Child Interstate Notification Act
(H.R. 748).

"What this legislation would do," Banks said, "is prohibit
the transportation of a minor across state lines to obtain
an abortion, if doing so would circumvent their own state
laws to notify parents."

Banks added that she's hopeful that this is the year for
the legislation to pass.

Another bill which failed to pass but is back again is the
Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act (S. 193), sponsored by
Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.
The House version, H.R., passed in February by a vote of
389-38.

The bill, which originally grew out of the nation's
outrage over the infamous 2004 Super Bowl half-time show,
during which singer Janet Jackson's breast was exposed,
would increase Federal Communications Commission fines for
broadcast indecency. Under the Senate version, fines would
increase tenfold, to $325,000 per incident -- with a cap
of $3 million for any given broadcaster per day.

"This bill has bipartisan support, and is an issue which
doesn't divide by party," Banks explained. "But it does
get complicated and bogged down with detail, and that's
what happened last year -- with some members wanting to
add certain provisions, and others wanting to subtract
provisions, so we ended up at an impasse, going nowhere.
Hopefully, they can work through those details this year."

Meanwhile, a third legislative hope, welfare-reform
reauthorization, is something the Senate has been working
on for months now.

"The two provisions in that bill that we're most concerned
about are marriage-promotion funding -- which is part of
President Bush's original plan -- and also abstinence
education funding," Banks said. "Abstinence education is
something that always requires quite a bit of work from
the pro-family camp."

Current funding for "comprehensive sex education," which
includes condom education, exceeds abstinence-education
funding by a margin of 12 to 1.

"We simply want to maintain, and in future years increase,
the amount of federal funding going to abstinence," Banks
said. "We do expect efforts, though, to try to change the
very definition of abstinence education -- which would be
extremely detrimental to the movement and would, in
effect, end abstinence education funding through the
federal government."



Retaining funding for programs which promote marriage to
welfare recipients is important, but perhaps the most
important piece of legislation affecting marriage and
family, the Marriage Protection Amendment (S.J. Res 1)  --
which last year was called the Federal Marriage Amendment
-- probably won't come up for a vote before July, Banks
said.

"Whether it's this year, or in 2006, when the time is
right we certainly anticipate another vote on the Marriage
Protection Amendment," she said.

One good sign is the fact that the amendment today has
more cosponsors than the legislation had last July, when
senators voted on it -- and failed to pass it.

The bill was given the number S.J. Res. 1 -- an indication
of its importance to Senate leadership, Banks said.

TAKE ACTION: Please take a moment to contact your
congressman and U.S. senators and urge them to cosponsor
the pro-family bills identified in this story. For contact
information, including an easy-to-use e-mail form, visit
the CitizenLink Action Center and type your ZIP code into
the space provided.

http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/dbq/officials/

---------------------------------------------
FAMILY NEWS IN FOCUS STORIES:
---------------------------------------------
To listen online to the radio versions of these stories,
click on the link below:
http://www.oneplace.com/Ministries/Family_News_in_Focus/
---------------------------------------------
Senate Overturns Mexico City Policy
by Steve Jordahl, correspondent

SUMMARY: Reagan-era pro-life policy is likely to be upheld
in the House, however.

Congress continues to play politics with the ban on aid
for overseas abortion clinics.

The Senate on Wednesday voted to overturn the ban -- known
as the Mexico City Policy -- which withholds funds from
the United Nations and other pro-abortion international
organizations.

Now Republican leaders, who fell four votes shy of
upholding the ban, will once again count on their House
colleagues to uphold it.

The policy was first formulated in the 1980s, by
then-President Reagan, and was named after Mexico City
because Reagan announced the plan while attending a world
population conference there.

Because of the policy, the United States is withholding
$25 million a year from the United Nations Population Fund
(UNFPA), according to Austin Ruse of the Catholic Family
and Human Rights Institute. Although the U.N. group
doesn't actually operate abortion clinics, he said, it
works hard to support abortion.

"UNFPA spreads their wily ways all over the globe," Ruse
noted. "They're working to force governments to change
their laws, they're working on the spread of abortion and
U.N.-style family planning, which tends to be coercive."

Every year, some pro-abortion senator proposes lifting the
ban, he said. Despite that, Republicans didn't lobby very
hard against the effort.

"If this was a serious vote, it would have lost," Ruse
said. "But it is not a serious vote because it's not going
to last, and so therefore, a lot of people were able to
jump in."

U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., one of a new crop of
conservatives elected in November, said even he was not
surprised the amendment passed.

"Unfortunately, the amendment did pass the Senate," he
said, "but it always passes the Senate, and the House is
where we're able to hold our ground."

He added that he joins other new pro-life members of
Congress in a commitment to strengthen pro-life efforts in
the Senate.

"I don't think we can ever let our guard down," Vitter
said. "I don't think we can ever take these things for
granted. Hopefully, we will have a different result in the
House, but we shouldn't depend on that."

TAKE ACTION / FOR MORE INFORMATION: Please take time to
contact your representative in the U.S. House of
Representatives, and ask him or her to take a stand
against what the Senate has done -- and to vote in favor
of retaining this important policy (the Mexico City
Policy).

For help in contacting your lawmaker, please see the
CitizenLink Action Center and type your ZIP code into the
space provided.

http://www3.capwiz.com/fof/dbq/officials/

To learn more about the issue of abortion, we recommend
the Focus on Social Issues Web site.

http://www.family.org/cforum/fosi/bioethics/abortion/index.cfm

---------------------------------------------
Native American Families in Crisis
by Josh Montez, correspondent

SUMMARY: American Indian children are bearing the brunt of
family breakdown.

American Indian children have extremely high suicide
rates, are more likely to get in fights at school and have
high rates of substance abuse, according to studies.

Some, like Terry Cross of the National Indian Welfare
Association, think the solution is more government money.

"American Indian families," Cross said, "deserve the same
kinds of support and help as anyone else to meet the needs
of their children."

But others see a different cause of the problem -- broken
families. The New York Times reports, for instance, that
fewer than half of the 1,500 children on the Lummi Indian
Reservation in Washington live with a parent full-time.

Some Native Americans, such as Gab Mulitauopele, say
keeping their families together is not easy. He became a
Christian himself the hard way -- in juvenile hall.

"For us it's a battle," Mulitauopele said. "We have six
kids and we have to battle just making sure we have time
for the family and time with God."

Rusty VanDuesen, of North American Indian Ministries
agreed that money is "not the answer." Dads are.

"On the Native reservation, there is a vacuum of Native
fathers," he said.  "Fathers who stay involved with their
families."

FOR MORE INFORMATION: You can obtain a clear look at why
fathers are key for child development in the article, "How
Fathers, As Male Parents, Matter for Healthy Child
Development," by Glenn T. Stanton, senior analyst for
marriage and families at Focus on the Family.

http://www.family.org/cforum/fosi/marriage/fatherhood/a0026230.cfm

In addition, we recommend the following resource: "The
Complete Marriage and Family Home Reference Guide."

http://www.family.org/resources/itempg.cfm?itemid=1830&refcd=CE05DCZL&tvar=no

-----------------------------------------------
Family Advocates Fight for Abstinence Education
by Terry Phillips, correspondent

SUMMARY: Once again, liberal senators are trying to divert
funds designated for "abstinence-only" education.

Nearly three dozen well-known family organizations have
signed on to a letter to U.S. senators protesting any
attempt to hijack funds designated for abstinence
education as part of the reauthorization process of the
Welfare Reform Act.

The funds, amounting to $50 million each year, are part of
what's called Title V.

Title V precisely spells out eight criteria that a
public-school sex-education program must adhere to in
order to qualify for funding, according to Leslee Unruh,
president of the Abstinence Clearinghouse.

"Those programs are exclusively for the purpose of
teaching abstinence," she said.

But backers of so-called "abstinence-plus" programs, she
added, are trying to get their hands on Title V money by
amending those criteria -- called the A-to-H definition --
to tap into Title V funding. Sen. Max Baucus, R-Mont., has
sponsored an amendment to the welfare bill that would
jeopardize true abstinence-only education.

"There is, of course, no abstinence in the 'plus,' it's
the latex-only (condom education) approach," Unruh said.
"This approach has been hurting our kids. It's been
causing us to have more teen pregnancies in the country,
not less."

Adding the word "abstinence" is a popular tool used by
comprehensive sex-ed proponents to siphon money from true
"abstinence-until-marriage" programs, according to Andrea
Lafferty, who heads up the Traditional Values Coalition.

"They say they're abstinence, but they're either called
'comprehensive sex education', 'abstinence-plus',
'abstinence-first,' " Lafferty said. "Unless it's
'abstinence-only,' it's not abstinence education."

What's particularly galling to those who support true
abstinence education is that the other side gets most of
the money anyway, even without Title V funding, according
to Linda Klepacki, an analyst at Focus on the Family:

"Comprehensive sex-education gets 12 dollars for every 1
dollar that we get for abstinence 'til marriage," Klepacki
said. "How much money do they need?"

FOR MORE INFORMATION: To learn more about the real
differences between "abstinence-only" and
"abstinence-plus" education, please see "Frequently Asked
Questions (FAQs)" on the Focus on Social Issues Web site.

http://www.family.org/cforum/fosi/abstinence/faqs/a0026978.cfm

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NEWS BRIEFS:
----------------------------------------------
Schiavo Memo Author Revealed

The author of the mysterious talking-points memo that was
circulated during Senate debate about Terri Schiavo's case
has been revealed. Brian H. Darling, legal counsel to Sen.
Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), admitted to the senator's staff
that he penned the document.

Martinez, former secretary of housing and urban
development for most of President Bush's first term, told
the Washington Post he had not read the one-page memo. He
said he inadvertently passed it to Sen. Tom Harkin,
D-Iowa, who had worked with him on the issue. After that,
Senate aides gave the memo to reporters.

"This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base
will be excited that the Senate is debating this important
issue," the document noted.  "This is a great political
issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already
refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue
for Democrats."

Darling resigned immediately after acknowledging
authorship.

"It was intended to be a working draft," Martinez said.
"(Darling) doesn't know how I got it."

----------------------------------------------
Pat Robertson, U2's Bono Team Up to End Poverty

The ONE Campaign -- the Campaign to Make Poverty History
-- has enlisted a cast of very recognizable figures in the
effort to eliminate world poverty and AIDS.

Pat Robertson of the 700 Club, Bono of U2 and Christian
singer Michael W. Smith are just a few of the celebrities
who have joined forces to end global suffering.

"ONE is not a celebrity cause. It's something that people
from all backgrounds and political leanings can agree on,"
said Brad Pitt, who recently visited Ethiopia and South
Africa with ONE.

"God calls us to lift up the poorest people of the world,"
Robertson said. "We've come together with one voice
through the ONE campaign to do just that."

"While The ONE Campaign is honored to have spokespersons
like Jamie Foxx, Pat Robertson, and Michael W. Smith,
Americans from cities like Louisville, Chicago, Tucson and
Seattle are going to make the difference for the world's
poorest people," said Paul Dioguardi, national coordinator
for The ONE Campaign.

The campaign is composed of eleven non-profit and
humanitarian organizations, including Bread for the World,
Save the Children and World Vision.

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QUOTEWORTHY:
----------------------------------------------
"Give me the steady, uniform, unshaken security of
constitutional freedom. Give me the right to trial by jury
of my own neighbors, and to be taxed by my own
representatives only. What will become of the law and
courts of justice without this? I would die to preserve
the law upon a solid foundation; but take away liberty,
and the foundation is destroyed."

-- Alexander Hamilton, 1774

CE05CCZL

===================

Gary Schneeberger
Editor

Pete Winn
Associate Editor

Aaron Atwood
Assitant Editor

Wendy Cloyd
Editorial Coordinator

Peter Brandt
Senior Director, Government & Public Policy

Tom Minnery
Vice President, Government & Public Policy

Jim Daly
President and CEO, Focus on the Family

Dr. James C. Dobson
Founder and Chairman, Focus on the Family

---------------------------------

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