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Don’t trust the secular media or their commercials. Just because something is said on television doesn’t make it so. Political ads are rife with half-truth and innuendo. No wonder they call it “mud-slinging.”

You wouldn’t want to drink muddy water. So you ask, “How would you clear the muddy water?” You run the water through a filter to catch the particles that cause the muddiness.

Run every candidate through the three-fold filter of common sense on these issues:
1. Is this candidate an advocate for the sanctity of life? Those of us who believe life is a sacred gift from God have learned over the course of decades that it is not enough for a candidate to state he/she is pro-life. We want to know if a person is determined to be an active voice to protect children in the womb and with end-of-life issues.
There are plenty of candidates who will say they are pro-life and then waffle on important votes. It is time we had candidates that we elect to office who are on the frontlines of advocacy for innocent children, the ones yet-to-be born, the ones who need protection from predators and the ones who are born with significant physiological or psychological impediments.
2. Is the candidate an advocate for the sanctity of marriage between one woman and one man? The advocates for alternate forms of marriage and family are aggressively seeking legitimization. They want and are willing to pay for candidates who will give their agenda a platform for articulation. What they despise are candidates who believe that the biblical standard for a marriage, the only legitimate standard, is a life-long relationship between one man and one woman.
Every time people deviate from that standard, that choice generates huge problems for people and for cultures. If a candidate begins with excuses about marriage and family, how can he/she be confident advocates for the basic element of society, the family?
3. Is the candidate an advocate for Constitutional religious liberty that accommodates faith in the public square? After thoroughly reading many of the documents by the Constitutional framers (not reading what others have said they say), it is clear that their idea was never a government sterilized of expressions of faith. The majority of the framers were men of deep faith and they expressed their faith. However, they emphatically did not want a government faith, a particular church. It was beyond their comprehension that this form of government could survive under the dominion of a hierarchal church or a secular worldview.
So we must ask, “Does this particular candidate stand on the side of defending the right of conscience for every person? Or does political expediency outweigh this precious freedom?”

Filters help us see things more clearly. Some of the political noise simply muddies the landscape. So before you step into the ballot box check out every candidate on these three non-negotiables

The 2011 Louisiana Legislature adjourned sine die. Now, it is time to look back over our shoulders and see what significant things happened that impact the faith and family aspects of our state’s culture. I collaborated with several others to monitor about 10% of  over 700 bills that were filed this session. There were some things that were positive. And there were some issues that should give Louisianans a renewed sense of alertness.

As the LBC director of communications and public policy, I am grateful for the support of Louisiana Baptists who have adopted strong biblical resolutions. These form the parameters needed to address the moral and social issues impacting the decisions at the legislature. I’m grateful for the collaboration of several faith and family groups in Baton Rouge including the Moral and Civic Foundation (Dr. Ken Ward), the Louisiana Family Forum and Louisiana Right to Life Federation.

As to some of the positive actions, one only has to look at the leadership of Baptist Representative Frank Hoffman. There are other strong, convictional Baptists in the legislature but Rep. Hoffman (member of First West Monroe) carried the water for one of the most significant pro-life bills in the United States.

Signs of Hope
Hoffman’s bill was HB 636 “Signs of Hope.” This bill requires every abortuary to place in prominent locations signs that communicate the rights of every woman who enters the clinic. The signs look like this:

The legislature passed the measure with broad support and Governor Jindal signed the measure into law.

Sex Offenders
With the expansion of Internet pornography and the rise in the number of sex offenders in Louisiana, the state needed to authorize the formation of a Sexual Assault Task Force for the purpose of establishing criteria for arrest and prosecution of offenders. SB 232, authored by Senator Sherri Cheek, was one of several protection bills that Louisiana Baptists could support. However, an amendment was attached to this bill that singled out ministers who might be accused of said crimes as a special class of potential offenders. Creating a special class of offenders is not constitutionally viable. In the last days of the legislative session the amendment was pulled and the bill passed.

Homosexual Agenda
This is not positive. Surely by now every Baptists has read or heard the sad news from New York about the state legislature and the Governor of New York collaborating to pass a bill sanctioning same-sex marriages. Thankfully in Louisiana we have a Constitutional Amendment that clarifies, defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

However, in spite of the fact it was approved by an overwhelming majority of voters, the Forum for Equality is using several issues to potentially cripple our Constitutional amendment. All the homosexual advocates need is one statute to sanction the civil rights of a person claiming to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered.

This year we had the same bill as the previous year to allow a “second parent” on the birth certificate of a child. In Louisiana law, we only allow a married heterosexual couple or a single parent to appear on the birth certificate. The phrase “second parent” is code for a person in a homosexual relationship. While there are several individuals who would benefit from such a law, without specific language prohibiting same-sex relationships, this would be all the courts need to overturn the Louisiana Marriage Amendment.

When SB 211 came before the committee, the Senate Labor Committee chaired by Senator Neil Riser, had a strong majority of pro-family Senators. Yet Senator Morrell said that he was using this bill to bring Louisiana into 21st century with a progressive measure that forbids any state agency or department from negative employment policies related to homosexual behavior. The primary aim of this bill was to establish homosexual behavior as a civil right. Baptists and a majority of our state voters do not believe that homosexual behavior should granted civil rights status.
When I spoke to the committee, I reminded them that not too many years ago such behavior was considered by the public to be immoral and illegal. Now, without shame, it is flaunted in public and this bill would sanction it with employment civil rights protections. The homosexual community knows if they can ever get one statute to sanction their behavior as a civil right, it will have a domino effect on many other areas, including the protection of marriage. After some procedural delays, this bill failed in committee.

The 2010 legislative session passed an excellent bill giving public school districts some very important guidelines relating to bullying. School districts across the state worked with citizen, parents and law enforcement to develop comprehensive policies. Some districts are still in the process of establishing viable guidelines to make school facilities safer.
However, the homosexual community rushed into the 2011 legislative session with HB 112 authored by Representative Austin Badon. The goal was to bring in sweeping regulations that required teaching kindergarten through high school students the message of neo-tolerance characterized as “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” In essence, the Forum for Equality and their fifty or so young advocates present in the hearing room were attempting to hijack the current bullying statutes before the guidelines established in 2010 had time to work through the system.
What really crushed my heart was the 11 year old they brought to the table to testify for the new guidelines. With tears in his eyes, he said he was bullied because he was gay. While I emotionally sympathized with the young man’s trouble, I wanted to scream, “Who told this young boy he was gay? Has a grown adult, a teacher or counselor funded with tax-payer dollars, told this young boy he was gay?” They don’t have a right to do that. Has someone in authority used the power of their position to fill this boy with all the wrong answers about his confusion.

Ten Commandment Monument
Due to the hard work and testimony of Ruston pastor Mike Holloway, it appeared, for a little while during this session, that the Louisiana Capitol would eventually host a Ten Commandment Monument among the naturalistic/secularism icons that already exist. However, the House bill, HB 211, that passed the House 92-0, was rift with Constitutional language problems that caused the Senate to defer it. Perhaps next year people of faith, whose forefathers built the best of this state, will have opportunity for a monument.

Term Limits
This session marks the end of service for about 20 percent of the legislature. This means that new faces will occupy these very important positions of service and it will be because of your vote this fall. May I exhort you to vote principle and vote pro-life. Is it possible the Lord is leading you toward a ministry of justice through an elected office? If you are a person of principle and biblical conviction, go for it!

Praise Report
Today I witnessed history. The Louisiana House Welfare Committee adopted without objection HB 586. This bill prohibits people or abortuary employees from coercing women to terminate the baby in her womb. The bill also is specific about guaranteeing moral freedom for medical and pharmaceutical personnel. It is a very good bill that informs women about the support network that exists for her and her baby.

Representative Frank Hoffman (Louisiana Southern Baptist from West Monroe) is the author of the bill and at the end of the hearing today most of the members of the House Health and Welfare Committee requested to become co-sponsors. Representative Rick Nowlin (another Louisiana Baptist from Natchitoches) led the questioning of the Planned Parenthood lobbyist and thoroughly poked gapping holes in her argument against the bill.

On the federal front.
I took part in a U. S. Rep. Steve Scalise conference call today. Pro-life leaders across the state joined to discuss H.R. 3, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. Right after the phone call that ended at 3pm, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 251-175 today on the bill that would convert some pro-life policies — also known as riders — into law.

Reps. Chris Smith, R-N.J., and Daniel Lipinski, D-Ill., who chair the Pro-Life Caucus, are behind the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act (H.R. 3). It had 227 co-sponsors in the House, including Rep. Scalise and others from the Louisiana delegation. The sad part is that the bill is unlikely to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate. The leadership there will do everything in their power to not allow a vote. Part of the reason they won’t allow a vote is because 23 Senators are up for reelection and this measure would record whether the Senator is pro-life or an advocate for perpetuating the American holocaust.

As a part of the discussions and debate today, I learned from the Louisiana Secretary of Health that at least 8,867 yet-to-be-born children died in 2010 at the eight Louisiana abortuaries. That calculates into 24.29 children per day or one child is legally terminated every hour of every day in our state.

Our heart grieves for the innocent blood that is shed. Our tears flow at the thought of the circumstances these women face that would cause them to terminate their pregnancy surgically or with pharmaceuticals. May the Lord have mercy on our cultural iniquity.

Pray for the Louisiana House of Representatives Health and Welfare Committee, meeting Wednesday, May 4 beginning at 10 am. One of the items under consideration is HB 587 by fellow Southern Baptist Rep. Frank Hoffman. This bill protects women from being coerced into aborting the developing child in the womb. The bill also protects medical personnel from violations of conscience then a procedure or a pharmaceutical violates moral values. Pray for the passage of this bill.

I just picked this note up from our friends at the Louisiana Family Forum and wanted to share the celebration with others. The violations pertaining to health code violations at some of the abortuaries in Louisiana do not rise to the standards of cleanliness for a veterinarian clinic. These regulations were not only needful but now enforceable. Health clinics should be about life not death and disease for women or their babies.

Federal court dismisses attack on La. abortion clinic regulations
ADF is co-counsel with La. Dept. of Health in defense of Outpatient Abortion Facility Licensing Law
Friday, February 25, 2011

BATON ROUGE, La. — A federal court Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by abortionists against a Louisiana law requiring them to meet certain patient health and safety regulations. Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund are co-counsel together with Louisiana Department of Health lawyers in defense of the law.

(For all the Louisiana Baptists out there, you might note that the Alliance Defense Fund was the former employer for Michael Johnson, the new dean for Louisiana Colleges’ Paul Pressler School of Law.)

“A patient’s health is more important than an abortionist’s bottom line,” said ADF Senior Counsel Steven H. Aden. “The court was right to reject this attempt to escape common-sense health and safety regulations. If abortionists truly cared about the people who enter their doors, they wouldn’t be attempting to tear down these types of laws.”

In November of last year, abortionists represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights filed suit against Act 490, Louisiana’s Outpatient Abortion Facility Licensing Law enacted in June 2010.

The law states that Louisiana’s secretary of health “may deny a license, may refuse to renew a license, or may revoke an existing license, if an investigation or survey determines that the application or license is in violation of any provision” of the regulations governing outpatient abortion facilities “or in violation of any federal or state law or regulation.” The law also allows the Department of Health to immediately suspend a license if “the violation[s] pose an imminent or immediate threat to the health, welfare, or safety of a client or patient.”

In its ruling dismissing the lawsuit Bossier City Medical Suite of Texas v. Greenstein on multiple grounds, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana wrote, “The Court finds that the Plaintiffs will not suffer any significant hardship. Plaintiffs claim that they will suffer severe hardship because they will be required to make ‘immediate and significant, but unascertainable, changes in their operations.’ However, nothing in Act 490 requires Plaintiffs to alter their conduct; instead, it alters the State’s conduct in detecting and addressing violations.”

“Though this provision potentially subjects Plaintiffs to a stricter standard of review for violations of state or federal law,” the ruling adds, “Plaintiffs were legally obligated to adhere to those statutes and regulations notwithstanding Act 490.”

ADF attorneys representing Allen County, Indiana, succeeded in securing a settlement this week in a lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union against that county’s Patient Safety Ordinance. The settlement upholds virtually all of the law, introduced by lawmakers last year to extend regulations protecting women to itinerant physicians, including abortionists