UNDER THE DOME
National Legislation
Marriage Protection Act:
On August 4 of last year a judge in Seattle ruled that defining marriage between a man and a woman was unconstitutional, overturning the will of the legislature and the people to keep marriage in their state between a man and a woman. In July, the US House of Representatives voted by a margin of 233-194 to pass Rep. John Hostettler’s (R-Indiana) bill that keeps the courts from forcing states to accept same sex marriages conducted by their states. The bill withdraws the jurisdiction of the federal courts to hear a case that makes the claim that the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution can be invoked in the cases where an alternative form of marriage is in question. This bill must now pass the Senate and we need your help! Use CWA's sample letter and take action to alert our senators of the need to pass this legislation in the Senate.
Restriction on Cable TV
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) are calling for decency laws to be applied to cable TV. These two legislators are chairmen of committees that oversee communications. Senator Stevens favors adding such restrictions to the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, S 193, sponsored by Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) that increases broadcasting indecency infringements ten-fold. . CWA is working for passage of this bill. Senator Stevens feels there is a strong possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold the proposed restrictions. Currently the House has passed HR 310, the Broadcast Decency enforcement Act of 2005 which raises the minimum penalty for broadcast indecency to $500,000 and also includes provisions to deny licensure to repeat offenders.
Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act
HR 235 is a bill re-introduced this year, which restores First Amendment protections for religious leaders. Lanier Swann, director of governmental relations for CWA states, “Under the current tax code, houses of worship risk losing their tax-exempt status if they engage in any activity that might be perceived as partisan voter education. As a result, religious leaders have been restricted in their ability to educate their congregations on moral and political issues like same-sex marriage and abortion during a campaign season due to the threat of penalties by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). She also pointed out that the intention of separation of church and state stemmed from the desire to keep the state out of the church, not the church out of the state. “The hope was to ensure freedom of religion, not freedom from religion,” she stated.
CWA’s Project 535, a group of people who live in the Washington D.C. area, has lobbied legislators on this bill last week. It is important that our legislators see that we too are aware of this bill being reintroduced. We need to contact our legislators. This amplifies the 535 Project’s impact in Washington.
CWA sees this bill as fundamental to religious liberty. The tax status of churches is, strictly speaking, a privilege rather than a right; but if a church could be put out of business by the adverse decision of an IRS official, then the state has the power to suppress a church. Government should not have the power to suppress the free speech of anyone, and that should include churches and pastors. It is true that there have been few instances of the IRS going after churches, but in the last election cycle in Kansas, a moderate group sent spies into the churches to monitor their speech with the threat of turning them in to the IRS for investigation.
Action: Call your representative and ask him to sponsor HR 235. Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121.
Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act
HR 738 is a bill that stops the practice of transporting minors across state lines for an abortion in order to evade parental consent or notification laws in the state of residence. Hearings were held in the House Subcommittee on the Constitution this past week. A woman from Pennsylvania testified that her teenage daughter was lured to another state by a boyfriend’s parents for a secret abortion. She feels that this law could have prevented that from happening. The girl had decided to keep her baby, when her boyfriend’s parents took her to a New Jersey abortion facility to get around the Pennsylvania parental notification law. Once she got to New Jersey, the family refused to take her home until she complied. She was fourteen. The bill makes an exception for girls who have received authorization from a judge n their home state and for girls whose lives are endangered by the pregnancy or for a danger to a major bodily function due to physical disorder, disease, or illness. The stated intent of those who introduced the bill is to protect the health and safety of minor girls and to protect the right of parents to be involved in the medical decisions of their minor daughters.
Action: Tell your representatives that you support this bill and ask them to support it too. Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121.
Concerned Women for America of Kansas
P. O. Box 11233
Shawnee Mission, KS 66207
Phone/Fax: 913-491-1380
Email: director@kansas.cwfa.org
Web site: kansas.cwfa.org
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