Pro-Family Group Wants Values Voters Registered, Informed, Motivated
by Allie Martin and Chad Groening
October 6, 2006
(AgapePress) - - The Tupelo, Mississippi-based American Family Association (AFA) is encouraging Christians to register to vote in time for next month's elections. A recent survey of AFA supporters found that about half are not even registered, which is one reason the organization has unveiled a website to help pro-family individuals be well informed voters.
The website, ValuesVoters.com, carries state by state information and resources, such as voter registration forms, election dates, and deadlines. AFA Executive Assistant Buddy Smith says the upcoming election is pivotal. "We're facing issues in the upcoming election that could very well bring huge change to your state and to Washington, DC, to our nation," he asserts, "so we would just encourage our listeners to pray about this matter of good citizenship and about this charge from the Lord to be salt and light in our culture."
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as many as 35 percent of eligible Americans are not registered to vote, studies show that less than half of the voting age population actually votes in any given election. Smith believes people of faith in particular need to buck these trends.
After all, the AFA official asks, "How are we going to get those men and women elected to office who can bring the right kind of change, Christian men and women who stand for truth and principle, unless we are going to the polls and exercising our right to vote?"
Smith says he and other ministry officials were shocked to learn the results of the recent survey, revealing that 50 percent of the AFA's supporters that are eligible to vote are unregistered. "God is counting on us," he contends. "Christians are called to be salt and light everywhere, including in the political realm, and the only way for believing citizens to do that is to exercise this right and privilege that we have to vote."
Some political analysts have suggested that many "values voters" may be feeling discouraged and may not even choose to vote because of their disappointment with certain conservative elected officials or their dismay over recent highly publicized scandals, like the one involving former Republican Congressman Mark Foley. However, one conservative media watchdog says he cannot believe values voters would stay home en masse this election for that reason.
Media Analyst Blasts Liberals' Exploitation of Foley Scandal
Tim Graham of the Media Research Center (MRC) says his group obviously does not condone the behavior of Mark Foley, and it was right for the disgraced Republican lawmaker to resign after his alleged inappropriate e-mail and instant message exchanges with underage Congressional pages came to light.
The former lawmaker has been rightly denounced, Graham contends; however, he feels the liberal media is using this story to try to demoralize conservatives and discourage them from voting. He says the mainstream media networks have far more stories on Mark Foley than they have done on Democratic Congressman Bill Jefferson, who under FBI investigation for corruption.
"And the networks have done way more stories on Mark Foley's Internet messages than they did on [the alleged] prostitution ring running in Barney Frank's house," the media expert observes, referring to a 1990 incident. At that time, the House of Representatives voted to reprimand Frank after it was revealed that a male prostitute he had hired and befriended had conducted a prostitution ring from the Congressman's apartment while he was away from home.
The Democrats, Graham insists, "have a complete and total double standard on these issues." But he believes Foley's alleged misconduct should not even be the issue that many in the Democratic Party and the liberal media are making it, since it really has nothing to do with any of the political elections being decided this fall, with the possible exception of the race between Foley's replacement, State Representative Joe Negron, and his Democrat opponent, Tim Mahoney.
The scandal simply is not relevant in any of the other 467 races happening this November, the MRC spokesman says. "I don't understand," he continues, "why conservative voters would look at a story like this and say, 'You know what? I'd rather have the Democrats in charge of selecting the judges; I'd rather have the Democrats in charge of abortion policy; I'd rather have the Democrats in charge of whether gays can marry, because of Mark Foley."
Clearly, the mainstream media is willing to do whatever it takes and to use "any bullet, hammer, nail, staple anything they can find, to get the Republican majorities defeated in this election," Graham says. But the strategy of using the Foley scandal is "weak" he says, and the suggestion that it is a pertinent issue in all of the other elections this fall is ridiculous.
Allie Martin and Chad Groening, regular contributors to AgapePress, are reporters for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
