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Stiegler Sees Coming Fight In Annapolis

Family Protection Lobby Director Doug Stiegler told the following story at Timonium Presbyterian Church July 10:

At an elegant dinner at a top- flight hotel in the nation's capital one evening, an impeccably liveried waiter passed around the magnificent dining room, bearing a silver plate, from which he dispensed a single pat of butter on the plate of each of the prominent guests.

Senator Bill Bradley, who was one of those guests, crooked a finger at the waiter as he dealt Bradley his pat of butter.

"I'd like another pat, please," he said.

The waiter replied firmly that he couldn't do that -- only one pat of butter was allowed per diner.

Bradley was flabbergasted.  

"Why, you don't realize who I am!" he sputtered.  "I'm a former basketball star and a U.S. senator --"

"I know exactly who you are," the waiter said respectfully.  "But you don't know who I am.  I'm in charge of the butter plate."

"We're in charge of the butter plate," Stiegler told his audience:  in the State House in Annapolis, the local school board, and wherever governing bodies are enacting laws or regulations affecting the family and morality.

“The problem is, our side doesn't know that there's a war going on.  The other side -- the secular humanists, the Communist, fascist and Marxist liberals -- have known there is a war:  They've been attacking us for 50 to 60 years," he said.

During every session of the General Assembly in Annapolis, Doug and his wife Barbara lobby the legislators for laws based on Christian moral principles and against laws that oppose those principles.

The Family Protection Lobby backs up its lobbying efforts with prayer.  

On the Sunday prior to the start of the legislative session last January, with much legislation pending affecting marriage, about 80 pastors prayed inside the State House, while over 350 people circled the building outside in prayer.

Doug and Barbara also maintained a House of Prayer in Annapolis as a spiritual haven for legislators and their aides during the 90-day session.

And they published a prayer chart, with 15 Senators and delegates listed each week of the legislative session, so families could pray for legislators by name.

The efforts of the Family Protection Lobby and their supporters have met with mixed success, Stiegler reported.

Two bills that would have protected marriage never got out of committee.  One called for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as valid in Maryland only when it is between a man and a woman.

The second bill provided that same-sex "marriages" performed in other jurisdictions were invalid in Maryland.

But four bills supporting the homosexual agenda passed.  

Gov. Robert Ehrlich vetoed two of them, however:  the Medical Decision Act, which created "life partnerships," giving couples medical benefits; and a bill to create domestic partnerships for tax purposes.

Both bills allowed partnerships of same-sex couples.

The partnerships "look just like marriage; the courts would have no reason not to say they are equivalent to marriage," said Stiegler.

The FPL decided to take the remaining two bills that passed to referendum.

The Safe Schools Reporting Act adds sexual orientation to a list of types of harassment which teachers must report.  Homosexual activists would use reports of harassment against homosexual students as justification for teaching homosexuality in schools, Stiegler said.

The Hate Crimes bill equates sexual orientation with race, color and religion in defining a "hate crime."

Efforts to bring the bills to referendum failed.

"It is very difficult in Maryland to get bills to referendum," said Stiegler; "we didn't get enough signatures."

The two bills will become law July 1 and October 1, he said.

Another bill of concern to the Family Protection Lobby called for $25 million in funding for embryonic stem cell research.

It passed the House, but died in the Senate, brought down by a threatened filibuster by pro-life senators.

"Embryonic stem cell research has one goal:  to suck away all the research money," said Stiegler.

Amazingly, he said, the lead researcher in that field, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Dr. John  Gearhart, testified that the researchers all knew that the cures were only going to come from adult stem cells; but they wanted the money for embryonic stem cell research, because they wanted to know how those cells worked.

The stem cell and marriage bills will be coming back at next year's legislative session, he warned.

"Usually, in the third year of a four-year election cycle, the legislators want to stay under the radar; they don't want to do anything to alienate voters," he pointed out.

"So we need to be involved, writing letters, calling, voting.  When they get 30 to 50 phone calls in Annapolis in a day, they sit up and take notice.

“Your church should have a social concerns committee that finds out about these issues and has people ready to testify in Annapolis."

As law-abiding, Christian, moral people, we need to be involved, said Stiegler.

"A lot of times, Barb and I feel like -- why bother?  This thing is going like a freight train, and we're standing there in front, trying to stop it!  But God wants us to be there.

"We'd sure like to have a few more people standing with us, though."