December 7, 2007

• Support Abstinence Education in Ohio

   Please support abstinance education in Ohio.

  “This e-letter from the Center for Moral Clarity provides information about local and state events of interest to you and other ‘values voters’ in the state of Ohio.
  
  Please forward this to other pastors and Christian leaders you know, or send their e-mail addresses to info@centerformoralclarity.net so they can receive this important communication.
  
  Make a Call for Common Sense – Support Abstinence Education in Ohio
  Since his inauguration in January, Gov. Ted Strickland has made no secret of his contempt for family-friendly values. Now, his actions to abandon abstinence education put Ohio public-school students at risk for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and early pregnancies, as well as the emotional toll associated with casual sex.
  
  Critics of abstinence education have long slandered it and its supporters by calling it nothing more than religious training in sheep’s clothing. In fact, it’s nothing less and nothing other than old-fashioned common sense. Abstinence is the only proven method for avoiding teen pregnancy and contracting STDs; to ignore its benefits is pure folly. The federal government, recognizing this fact, has made abstinence education funds available to the states. Gov. Strickland is now declining to accept and spend those funds – even though he supported abstinence education during his tenure in Congress.
  
  Instead of promoting abstinence in public schools, Gov. Strickland is supporting less comprehensive programs that don’t provide the tools and instructions students need to help students make the responsible choice to delay sexual activity for marriage. By rejecting federal abstinence education support, Gov. Strickland is weakening the health message offered to Ohio students at a time when sexually transmitted diseases are rampant (click here for a recent report from The Columbus Dispatch on the subject).
  
  It’s time for values voters to respond! CMC is asking members to call the governor and their member of the Ohio House of Representatives to voice their support for this important health initiative. Our objective is a veritable flood of phone calls and e-mails before the campaign ends on Wednesday, Dec. 12. Here’s what to do:

  1. Call Governor Strickland’s office at (614) 466-3555. Ask the governor to stop weakening student sexual health education in Ohio by diverting funds away from abstinence education, and begin again to accept federal money for abstinence education — the only proven way for young teens to stay safe and develop healthy relationships.
  
  
  2. Click here to send an e-mail to the governor’s office on this important subject.
  
  
  3. Call your member of the Ohio House of Representatives, asking him or her to sign the “Dear Colleague” letter being circulated by Reps. William Batchelder and Lynn Wachtmann, asking Gov. Strickland to accept federal funds for abstinence education. Click here to find the name and office phone number of your state representative. If you don’t know the name of your representative, you can find it using your ZIP code.
  
  
  4. Click here to send an e-mail to your state representative, reinforcing your support for abstinence education.

  Be sure to make your telephone calls and send your e-mails no later than next Wednesday, Dec. 12, for maximum impact. Together, we can show Gov. Strickland and the General Assembly that Ohioans want abstinence education to remain in our children’s schools!
  
  Casino Backers Hopeful for State’s Approval to Circulate Petitions – With a Twist
  Like the science-fiction icon The Terminator, backers of legalized gambling in Ohio seemingly never die – they just keep coming back and trying again. This week, the Ohio Ballot Board heard the latest effort to bring a casino to the Buckeye State. As a result, Ohio voters can now expect to be asked to sign petitions that would bring one or more gambling issues to next fall’s election season.
  
  The board considered an initiative petition proposing a constitutional amendment for the 2008 ballot. At the request of a lawyer for another gambling-based business – Beulah Park in Franklin County – the board split the original petition into three issues. That means organizers now must get signatures for three issues instead of one, increasing their costs and possibly making the issues much more complicated for voters this fall.
  
  If organizers get enough valid signatures, Ohio voters would consider constitutional amendments that would place a casino in Clinton County in southwestern Ohio.
  
  The backers in this case are two Beachwood men, who have plans in hand for a 300,000-square-foot complex that would include a convention center, golf course and motor speedway. In an interview with The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, one of the would-be developers claims the casino would handle about $1 billion in bets each year. The state’s cut would be 30 percent, and the funds would be parceled out to Ohio’s 88 counties on a per-capita basis with no strings attached.
  
  Beulah Park’s lawyer also raised the prospect that the racetrack’s owner would respond with a competing proposal.
  
  You’d think they’d learn. Ohioans soundly rejected proposals to expand legalized gambling in 1990, 1996 and 2006 – each time demonstrating the clear understanding that the societal costs of crime and bankrupted families make the costs of gambling markedly higher than the benefits.
  
  It looks like “values voters” may have yet another chance to drive that point home in 2008. We’ll keep you posted.
  
  In spite of Marriage Amendment, ‘Partner Registries’ Moving Forward
  We recently reported that the city of Toledo was poised to establish a “partners registry” that would allow homosexual and other unmarried “couples” to officially have their relationship recognized by municipal officials. Well, they did it!
  
  Last week, by authority of the signature blessing of Mayor Carty Finkbeiner, gay partners (as well as unmarried heterosexual couples) in Toledo can now file a “declaration of domestic partnership” with the Clerk of Council. In doing, so they will affirm under penalty of perjury that they have an intimate relationship, live together, are not married to anyone else, are at least 18 years old and not blood relatives. For a $25 fee, they will even get a certificate of registry.
  
  In an attempt to maintain constitutionally in the face of the Ohio Marriage Protection Amendment, the Toledo council astonishingly drafted the ordinance with a provision that states that nothing in the new law should be perceived to consider these domestic partnerships actual marriages. Yet no one in Toledo’s government seems to be able to answer the question, “what’s the difference between these registered partnerships and actual marriages?”
  
  In a society that outlaws murder, yet allows abortion on demand, should we really be surprised? Laws are only as good as the willingness of officials at the local level to enforce them. Toledo city officials have put a thumb in the eye of Ohio voters who, in 2004, overwhelmingly voted to establish marriage as a one man to one woman relationship. Hopefully the courts will strike down this farce quickly.
  
  Yet Toledo is not the only Ohio city that is devaluing traditional marriage by encouraging homosexuality. Just 150 miles to the south on I-75, Dayton officials last week declared homosexuality to be a recognized protected class. Was ever the words and intent of anyone more twisted and misused than when, at the signing of the new law, Dayton Mayor Rhine McLin quoted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., saying “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”? We’re confident the Rev. King would have been horrified.
  
  The new law prohibits discrimination against gays in employment, housing and other areas of public accommodation. In spite of the pleas of hundreds of ministers and Christians lay persons, Dayton becomes Ohio’s 15th city to make homosexuality a protected class.
  
  With the general election, Ohioans had the opportunity this past November 6 to have a major impact on the composition of our state’s local councils and mayor’s offices. Yet very few counties in the state reported a turnout of greater than 30 percent and there were hardly any notable shakeups among the leaders of our state’s hundreds of cities and villages.
  
  For inasmuch as we complain about what happens at City Hall or the Statehouse, we also must be willing to be agents of redemptive change by using our voice and our vote to take righteousness into the public square.
  
  Does Your Vote Make a Difference?
  Did you vote in the Nov. 6, 2007 election? Mayor’s seats, city councils, townships trustees, school boards, and many local issues and tax questions were considered by Ohio voters. Every election, somewhere in Ohio, one or two votes make all difference in the outcome of an election.
  
  In the southwest Ohio village of New Richmond (Clermont County), Gary Skeen and Jack Conners got 179 and 178 votes respectively, to edge out Pat Hornschemeier who received 176 votes.
  
  Elsewhere in Clermont County, Leroy Ellington beat Michael Scharf 267 to 264 to become the new Amelia Village mayor. In the race for West Clermont School Board, Barbara Hartman beat Denise Smith 3,021 to 3,019.
  
  In the central Ohio village of Urbancrest (Franklin County), official elections results showed a tie in the race for mayor and the outcome had to be determined by a flip of a coin.
  
  In the northwest Ohio village of Beaverdam (Allen County), the 1 percent tax increase proposal resulted in tie and thus by Ohio law, the issue failed.
  
  So do you think your vote only has an impact in local contests with fewer voters? Think again. Back in 1990, in a statewide race, Lee Fisher beat out Paul Pfeifer to become the state’s Attorney General by a slim margin of 1,234 votes. That’s about 1 vote per every 10 precincts that ultimately made the difference.
  
  Your vote is indeed powerful. You can do a lot to help influence the culture for Christ, by simply exercising your civic duty — vote! Click Here to register to vote.
  
  Proposed Laws Would Tell Truth to Women Seeking Abortion
  Three bills now before the Ohio General Assembly would assure that a woman considering abortion receives important information about the procedure before she endures it.
  
  Sen. Gary Cates, R-West Chester, is the sponsor of S.B. 230, which would require a physician to permit a woman seeking an abortion to view the active ultrasound image of the baby and provide a physical picture of the ultrasound image, if an ultrasound exam is provided prior to or as part of an abortion procedure. The bill also authorizes the State Medical Board to take disciplinary action against physicians who fail to comply with the bill. Cates’ bill has eight co-sponsors and has been assigned to the Senate Health, Human Services and Aging Committees.
  
  In the House, Rep. Shannon Jones, R-Springboro, is sponsoring H.B. 314, which is identical to S.B. 230. The House bill has 28 co-sponsors. It has been referred to the House Health Committee.
  
  Cates also has sponsored S.B. 231, which sets criminal penalties for instances of domestic violence in cases where the offender knew the victim was pregnant at the time of the violation, and provides for notices to be conspicuously posted at facilities where abortions are performed.
  
  The notices are to state that:

  • No one can force another person to have an abortion.
  
  
  • Abortion cannot be performed legally on anyone, regardless of age, without the female’s voluntary consent.
  
  
  • Before she participates in an abortion, the pregnant female must sign a consent form which states she is having the procedure done voluntarily and without coercion from anyone else.
  
  
  • If the pregnant female feels coerced into having the abortion, she should tell an employee of the facility the facts of the situation.

  The bill also permits the State Medical Board to take action against physicians or facilities that fail to comply with the proposed law. S.B. 231 has nine co-sponsors and is now before the Senate Judiciary-Criminal Justice Committee.
  
  To find the text of the bills, click on the link to the sponsor’s name, then click on the link to the sponsored bill.
  
  CMC supports the concepts of these bills and encourages the House and Senate leadership to make them a priority for consideration in 2008.
  
  Thanks for all you do to uphold the cause of Christ in your congregations and communities!
  
  God bless you!
  
  
  Pastor Rod Parsley
  
  

  email: rodparsley@centerformoralclarity.net
  phone: 800-637-2288

  web: http://cmc.rodparsley.com ” Email I recieved today.

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