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The nearly 1,300 pro-family Virginians who gathered at the Greater Richmond Convention Center last night at The Family Foundation of Virginia’s Annual Gala were treated to a fantastic evening of inspiration, motivation and topped off by a wonderful keynote address by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. The host of the Fox News Channel hit Huckabee was in great form with an inspirational speech filled with philosophy, morality, Biblical principles, humor (lava soap, anyone?) and capped with a moving exposition as to what happens when people ignore the tragedies around them (see Washington Post Virginia Politics Blog). 

Just a week before election day, it was abundantly clear that pro-family citizens are excited about the future and are mobilized to act. The energy in the convention center was palpable. From the beginning of the program with an inspirational rendition of our National Anthem by eight-year-old Alana Springsteen to the final special music by April Lee, no one could leave room last night not feeling excited about the future of Virginia and the future of The Family Foundation.

Governor Huckabee combined humor with personal stories and an emotional challenge to the crowd, encouraging them to fight for our freedom, regardless of the cost. Touching on his time as a pastor and then as a politician, he made it abundantly clear that there is no time when Christians should abandon politics and government. Instead, we must continue to fight for our values to ensure a prosperous future.

As Family Foundation of Virginia President Victoria Cobb told the audience:

We look forward to election day this year with cautious optimism. One might even say we look forward to the future with hope for change. Yet, while we may anticipate electoral victory, we realize that it is just one small part of the cultural renewal that we seek, and there is so much more to be done. The Family Foundation has had one of the busiest years in our history, but the results on Election Day are not the completion of our work – just a new beginning. 

The Family Foundation Gala has become the largest pro-family gathering of its kind in Virginia and Governor Huckabee’s message was perfect for the evening. Joining the him in the program were our emcee, and new Chaplain to The Family Foundation’s Pastors For Family Values, Bishop Earl Jackson; Speaker of the House Bill Howell, who introduced Governor Huckabee; and Pastor Jonathan Falwell of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, who gave the invocation and voiced strong support for the Family Foundation’s work.

Also last evening, Delegate Glenn Oder (R-94, Newport News) was honored with The Family Foundation’s Legislator of the Year Award for his leadership on payday lending reform (see The Shad Plank). Delegate Oder showed principled leadership and an ability to work with a diverse coalition of organizations and legislators to get results on a tough issue. The compromise bill he was able to craft has significantly reduced the number of payday lending stores in Virginia and helped protect families from predatory lenders.

That was the the gist of a comment left on TimesDispatch.com today by a wit named Dave. I was going to blog on Governor Kaine’s whine in today’s T-D about the stress of taking on the DNC chairman job (here) when I saw Dave’s hilarious take on it. It’s priceless, really, calling out the liberal do-gooding spirit.

My take is more standard: Remember when Governor Kaine said it was no big deal doing both jobs? From the T-D on January 28:

“The governor again defended accepting the DNC position given the demands of his current job in a state facing hard economic times and wrestling with a budget deficit of at least $3 billion.

“‘How do they do it? They have great staff,’ Kaine said. ‘Being involved in politics is a good thing, not a bad thing. We need national unity right now.

“‘. … trying to be involved in a way, at the president’s request, to help him promote his agenda and have him be successful is something that I consider very important.’”

He would be governor at day, DNC chair at night and on weekends, keeping tabs as need be, and letting the staff run it day-to-day until his term expired. Now, it turns out, it’s much more than that. From today’s T-D:

“He thanked them (the DNC executive committee) for their support and patience as he tries to tend to both tasks during a difficult time. ‘I am trying to juggle two pretty challenging jobs,’ he said. ‘It’s not an easy time to be a governor.’”

When is it ever easy, even in good times? The recession started last fall, and he still took the DNC chairman job in January. Is Governor Kaine saying he did not realize the difficulties and conflicts involved then? Perhaps it’s no wonder he has missed each one of his budget projections — even with the so-called “stimulus” money — since his extracurricular activity started.

Since early 2008, the governor denied he was shirking his responsibilities here to campaign across the country for Barack Obama. Even with the state deficit rising and missing his revenue forecasts (despite General Assembly warnings), he kept campaigning. Now it’s getting worse according to the latest figures, creating the need for still more spending cuts — or more printed (inflated) bailout money from his boss in D.C.

What gives, governor — Virginia or the DNC? As Dave said, you’re multi-tasking, which means doing nothing well. So, perhaps, in such a crisis, maybe it’s time to help out a Democrat down on his luck  . . . and give him a job — your spare one.

Perhaps an unfortunate choice of words, but that’s what he said. Now, excuse me if this video is a couple weeks old but, believe it or not, I’m not exactly an Oprah viewer, nor had I ever heard of Dr. Mehmet Oz until someone sent me a link of this Oprah clip. Regardless, I can say of him that he puts objectivity and honesty first. Would that extreme abortion-at-all-cost types were that honest, the same people who say, “science, not politics.” Okay, then, live up to your credo. The science is in (actually, it has been for some time): 70-plus cures via adult stem cell research (and two methods for adult stem cell conversion to emulate embryonic stem cells), and zero cures from embryonic stem cell research. If one is a success and the other isn’t, if there’s a way for one to be created without the destruction of embryos, then what, other than politics, can be the reason for the persistence of embryo destruction? Other than the liberal sacrament of abortion, that is? Because once life is affirmed at the embryonic level, it must be affirmed at the next step in the birth development process, that’s why and the hard left can’t have that.

Now, if a FOO (Friend of Oprah) says it, and she’s TV’s Queen of Liberalism, shouldn’t liberals finally admit it so we can move on? Shamefully, in the face of all this evidence, the Obama administration decided against life by authorizing the destruction of embryos, not for science, but for crass politics — to appease his hard left supporters.

Here are three ways to see the (offending to liberals) video, in order of which provides the most of the interview. The second and third versions offer commentary as well:

Oprah’s site won’t let us share, so click here to see the meat of the segment uncut.

Here’s the video from podcasters Life Report:

Here’s a video report from CitizenLink:

Pastors and attorneys have a lot in common. Or at least a lot of common interests. Maybe its a minimal distinction. Still, both are true. In short, both do a lot of public speaking in hopes of convincing people to a certain truth or point of view. The two also have complementary connections, especially in this age of aggressive secularism that seeks to preclude religious expression wherever possible.

In light of that, and the era in which we live where religious liberty and the rights of religious expression in the public square are under constant attack, we have partnered with the Alliance Defense Fund to host a Regional Litigation Academy. This one-day continuing education seminar for attorneys, pastors and church administrators is Wednesday, April 22, at the Westin Richmond, 6631 West Broad Street. We invite all attorneys and pastors to attend.

Sessions include:

» Vindicating God Talk: Winning Religious Expression;

» Litigation, Politics and the Pulpit: Can a Pastor Really Say That??!!;

» The City of God Meets The City of Man: Defending Public Invocations; and other topics of pastoral concern. 

Registration on the 22nd will begin at 8:15 a.m. and the academy will end at 3:15 p.m. The registration fee is $50 and includes all materials and lunch. You can register online by April 15 by clicking here. You also may register through ADF by calling Leah Rose at 480-444-8067 or by e-mailing her at lrose@telladf.org.

The Alliance Defense Fund is a legal alliance that defends the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding and litigation. ADF has been a key ally in the battle for traditional values and constitutional protections across the nation and, most recently, provided important testimony to the Virginia General Assembly on behalf of religious liberty legislation (see video here).

The Family Foundation is honored to partner with ADF to sponsor this timely, informative and mutually beneficial event for attorneys and pastors. Based on our experience, attorneys will find this to be one of one of their most worthwhile continuing legal education opportunities. For pastors, it will be a great chance to learn more about the threats to religious liberty and what can be done to stop those threats.

The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot’s Pilot on Politics blog recently reported on a Commonwealth Poll (see here) conducted in late December which showed Virginians by large margins preferring Democrats over Republicans on a range of issues, such as transportation, education and the budget. The latter is a bit surprising since it is the Kaine Administration whose utter incoherent forecast of tax revenue brought us to the mammoth deficit we face today.

Aside from that, however, the survey found that:

Republicans are more apt to keenly observe the General Assembly session than Democrats or independents.

We don’t know how that makes the House leadership feel, but for those of us conservative state policy and politics bloggers, it’s nice to know that

A. There’s a large audience out there from which to draw; 

B. Perhaps we and the other conservative bloggers are the reason our universe of interested voters is larger; and

C. Conservatives are more thoughtful and interested in issues, contrary to the stereotypes perpetuated by liberals and their media allies.

As for C, here’s exhibit A:

Aside from the overspent state budget and resulting deficit, the biggest news coming out of the capitol this week has been the House Republican Caucus’ decision to record sub-committee votes (see Richmond Times-Dispatch, here). (As the GOP is the majority, the rule change will pass, although House Dems favor recorded sub-committee votes as well.)

This certainly will spice up a session already promising to be electric because of factors ranging from the budget deficit to the 2009 statewide and House elections. It certainly will give us more fodder for our e-mail alerts. (More on that in the next post.)

Another issue that promises to bring a lot of heat and fireworks to the cold of January and February, is an issue that ties all of this (i.e., transparency, the budget and politics) together — bills to bring the state budget online so that all Virginians will have the opportunity to see how their hard-earned tax dollars are spent. Not only is this an issue that should win on principle (the people have a right to know) but in these times of economic disaster caused by unaccountable people and institutions, what better safeguard is there than to have millions of citizen watchdogs perusing the use of billions of their own tax dollars? Although online budgets are in effect in several states now, and Virginia should be embarrassed it is not leading on this issue, since we bill ourselves as the “Digital Dominion,” sometimes great opportunities only arise from trying times, which we surely are in.

However, last year the House Republicans only went so far as to study the matter in committee. A combination of Republicans and Democrats teamed up to kill the bill in a Senate committee, ostensibly afraid of the cost to implement the project, with one senior Democrat invoking “the children” as a reason to kill the measure. Ostensibly, because, they are afraid to let the people take a peak inside their palace of power, which is the budget itself.

Now that House Republicans are in a reform mode, the only question is how far will they and their Senate colleagues go? Or, should the question be, why wouldn’t they be for budget transparency given it’s wide appeal (and Founding Fathers’ wisdom)? It’s a winning issue and it is an election year. You don’t need easy to understand budget numbers to figure how those add up.

There’s an expression in basketball about players who put in practically unnoticed, but incredibly effective performances — as in, ”he scored a quiet 20 points.” Across the country last week a story made headlines, but not in proportion to its significance or even the buzz at the grassroots level.

It had nothing to do with the socialization of our economy through ongoing bailouts of failed industries, nothing to do with politics or the peaceful transition of power. But it quietly was the story. It is about a church schism, an activity which went out of vogue about 500 years ago. Still, this was about as telegraphed as a cross-court pass by point guard who fails first to look away his teammate’s defender.

The schism is the break-up of the American Episcopal Church, which is in communion with the Church of England. Traditional dioceses and individual parishes, including 21 in Virginia, had separated under the auspices of a provincial arm of the more orthodox Nigerian Anglicans and other African dioceses. Now, they and some Canadian parishes, are poised to form their own authority, the Anglican Church in North America (see AP article here), with their own bishops. 

Although the Mainstream Media portrays this as “conservatives leaving the church,” and although it is the “conservatives” who are doing the physical separation, this, rather, is the classic, “We didn’t leave them, they left us,” syndrome, for the Episcopal Church for decades has drifted irreproachably into nothingness. Despite its creep into irrelevancy by condoning  homosexuality and other doctrines only recently considered heretical, the “conservatives” gave the Episcopal Church every chance at reconciliation. But the ordination of an openly homosexual bishop living with his “partner” was the last straw.      

What makes this all the more relevant to Virginia is that the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia (or the remnant thereof) is the successor to the Anglican Church set up by the  Jamestown colonists. The Rev. Robert Hunt, the chaplain of the colony, would not recognize his church today. With good reason — and it’s not just about openly homosexual clergy, flaunting the Word of God. That is only a symptom of the problem; the problem being irrelevency through its moral, scriptural and theological relativity. 

This is what one of the Virginia diocese’s most respected leaders, the Rev. Canon Robert G. Hetherington, the retired rector of historic St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond (which sits across the street from the capitol, known as the “Cathedral of the Confederacy”), told the Richmond Times-Dispatch last week (see article here; read the reader post after the article by an orthodox Episcopal priest):

In my view, the great thing about the Episcopal Church is we’re not a doctrinal church. You’re not a member based on some narrow set of beliefs. It’s a place where divergent views can be expressed and held and you’re still part of the same body. (Emphasis added.)

So, exactly why did this man get ordained? Does he not think it matters that a body of faith believe in something? Is it okay for Episcopals to accept into their church people who do not believe Jesus was the Christ, but rather a really cool dude who told some really impressive parables? It cannot be a body of Christ. For what is a church if not a body that shares a foundational understanding, a common belief  and an accepted faith? Otherwise, the Rev. Canon Hetherington simply is running a community center — come join the club and socialize, ladies and gents!

There are plenty of social and networking organizations and clubs, many of which also do good work in their communities. You don’t have to believe in a doctrine to join them, only a desire to make friends, have fun and perform a perfunctory community service project (although some probably have more adherence to principles than, apparently, the Episcopal leadership). In other words, why go to church if not for doctrine? How can you be in communion with each other if there is no commonality, a sense of spiritual purpose?  It was the Church of England, after all, which gave us the Book of Common Prayer.

By definition, it is impossible to worship together with no unifying purpose or reason. Now, however, Anglicans of the Church of North America have both purpose and reason — and they can still socialize before and after each service on Sunday.

This has been a turbulent year. The last two months alone have been enough to make the sun spin. The year comes to a close with a lot of uncertainty and certainly with a political twist many of us do not look forward to.

However, there will be time to fight those battles and, yes, win them, with all of us pulling together. However, the timing of this most gracious and warm approaching holiday could not have come at a better time.

Like you, we too look forward to the warmth and love of the company of our family and friends this time of year; of great food, fun times and just relaxing. We appreciate the time, however mandated by the calendar, to pause, reflect and give thanks for all this country and commonwealth provides us and means to us; and we pray for and help those whose lives need help.

We pause and pray to The Almighty God for his abundant blessings and goodness to us and this country and commonwealth. We offer thanks to Him for all that we are and have, and to pledge to Him to work to reciprocate that love year-round by making our world a better place, a place worthy of His grace and Word, through charity to those less fortunate than us, in refecting in ourselves His Word to others by example, as well as actively engaging the public at large for policies that protect the enduring values of civilization — doing it all one small accumulative step at a time.

From the staff, board and volunteers of The Family Foundation of Virginia, please accept our warmest and sincerest wishes for a blessed, safe and meaningful Thanksgiving holiday.

A recent Richmond Times-Dispatch article on voter guides was interesting, not so much for which organizations provide them — but tellingly — which do not.  It seems that the policy groups and

special interests which research and provide voter guides and report cards, like The Family Foundation Action, gladly do so, unafraid to promulgate which candidates stand where on issues of concern and importance to those who share each particular group’s vision as well as the general public.

 Except . . . it seems certain leftist groups do not provide such information.  Perhaps approving grades by liberal groups would blow the cover of their favorite candidates who, for electoral survival, contort their real records into a “moderate” image during campaign season (while demonizing conservative opponents).  Surely, voters wouldn’t recognize a stellar rating from a liberal report card from a candidate’s carefully crafted campaign brochure.  Nor would they appreciate it come election day.  Talk about unintended consequences.

 There’s nothing like the truth about candidates’ records — not by groups viewed as antagonistic, but by friendly ones.   If their message is as broadly accepted as they claim, these liberal organizations should paper the Commonwealth with information on exactly which General Assembly candidates stand shoulder to shoulder with them and not act embarrassed about exposing alleged “moderates” in swing districts.