Dear Pro-Family Friends,
Summer is a critical time of the year financially for IFI. Summer schedules often keep people busier than usual and some simply forget to make the contributions they planned to make. Our work and our financial needs are a bit more intense during this time of year — as giving drops and gasoline prices make it more expensive to travel throughout the state.
So I’m asking for your help now, to continue to protect your values by becoming a $10, $15 or $20 per month Sustaining Partner. (Click HERE for the mail-in Sustaining Partner form.)
In the March Primary election, Illinois Family Institute distributed well over 90,000 printed voter guides across Illinois to help people vote their values, and who knows how many copies were printed off of the IFI web site.
With the Primary Election behind us, it would be nice to think we can take some time to catch our breath. But that is impossible, seeing that the Spring Session of the Illinois General Assembly is in full swing now. Given the fact that more than 30 lawmakers have announced their retirements, and given the fact that voters have decided to retire a few more last month, we must deal with a large number of unaccountable lawmakers from now until the end of the year.
We are currently doing all we can to convince lawmakers in the Illinois House to oppose HB 3027, a radical sex education bill which would promote condom training with our tax dollars. The ACLU of Illinois and their friends at Planned Parenthood continue to work at gaining support for their radical sex education bill, HB 3027. This bill has already passed in the Illinois Senate, and must be stopped in the Illinois House.
Contraception-centered sex-education curricula encourages children and youth into early sexual experimentation. They mislead youth and create a false hope that condoms will provide sufficient protection from the physical, emotional and social consequences of early sexual activity. The bill contained a provision requiring all sex education materials and instruction be free of bias in compliance with the Illinois Human Rights Act. This means that all sex education courses that portrayed romantic and dating heterosexual relationships would have to present same-sex relationships, same-sex marriages and civil unions to students as young as 11 years old.
Authentic abstinence education programs, on the other hand, provide youth with life and character skills, rather than condom skills. Sexual activity among youth is far too costly for adolescents, families, society and taxpayers. If we hope to see the bill fail, we must continue to work to convince key lawmakers that the ACLU’s idea of sex education is bad for our children. With your support, we will do just that.
Well-funded liberal groups are working tirelessly to jump the first hurdle to full legalization of marijuana in Illinois, by legalizing it for “medical” purposes. Consider this quote from Richard Cowan, former director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana: “The key to it is medical access, because once you have hundreds of thousands of people using marijuana under medical supervision, the whole scam is going to be bought. Once there’s medical access…then we will get full legalization.”
IFI joined law enforcement groups and the Christian Medical and Dental Association to lobby lawmakers on the harm of legalizing marijuana for any purpose, including “medical”. Fortunately, HB 30 was called for a vote and failed. We praise God for this! But we must be vigilant and keep up the pressure. We know for certain that this issue will not go away.
IFI’s Laurie Higgins has done a fantastic job exposing the liberal indoctrination taking place in many public schools. Her article exposing a new anti-bullying bill in Springfield is helping us educate lawmakers on the agenda that is being pushed by homosexualists trying to indoctrinate our school children
And in response to a new school-based health clinic in District 116 in Round Lake, Laurie has written and talked to a group of concerned citizens about the dangers of these clinics. Laurie points out how liberals in the education and health care fields try to put innocuous, non-controversial aspects of school-based health clinics front and center, hoping that they can distract gullible taxpayers from their real agenda, which is to promote and facilitate adolescent sexuality, to sever sexuality from moral considerations, to undermine the ties between children and their parents, and to render sexual activity immune from all consequences.
Laurie and I have been regular guests on WMBI and have been quoted in various newspapers across the state and interviewed by numerous radio and TV shows.
On the Federal level, we not only have a president who is waging a war against the faith community with a mandate requiring all employer health plans to include free contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs, regardless of any moral or religious objections, but who is proudly campaigning on a position of repealing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), calling it discriminatory against gay and lesbian couples. President Barack Obama also campaigned on a pledge to support adoption by same-sex couples. The door to the destruction of natural marriage and religious freedom is wide open and the path to undermining the traditional family is clear.
The good news is that you have an interest group in the battle for you! Trusting in God to go before us, the Illinois Family Institute is on the front lines protecting and defending traditional families, the institution of marriage, life and religious liberty against the onslaught of those who would seek to quash them. All of our efforts to educate the public and legislators and to mobilize pro-family forces require resources. And that’s why we need your help.
I fully understand that families across Illinois and around the country are struggling to make ends meet. The current economic crisis has left no corner untouched, and yet, particularly during this difficult time, it is imperative that we not allow the traditional family to be weakened any further.
In order to sustain our crucial work, IFI must grow its base of regular monthly supporters and establish a more consistent budget intake. As you can imagine, the ebbs and flows of donations for non-profit organizations like ours leave us with uncertain expectations of support. Frankly, a predictable and dependable stream of monthly support is a crucial component of running a non-profit ministry like IFI.
Moreover, increasing our monthly support will help us operate even more efficiently and effectively, especially when it comes to planning our annual budget.
That is why you are receiving this appeal — in hopes that you will become a $10, $15 or $20 per month Sustaining Partner. (Click HERE for the mail-in Sustaining Partner form.)
Would you please consider becoming a regular monthly giver to help me and IFI reach its goal of consistent monthly support? Any size monthly commitment would greatly help us continue to expose and battle the liberal ungodly ideology that is sweeping our state.
Former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt once wrote: “People acting together as a group can accomplish things which no individual acting alone could ever hope to bring about.” I wish to demonstrate that truth here.
Would you please seriously consider joining me, my mother, friends, other family members and pro-family citizens by making a monthly commitment of $10, $15 or $20 to IFI and the Illinois pro-family cause? (Click HERE for the mail-in Sustaining Partner form.)
IFI currently has a minimum monthly budget need of approximately $25,000. That includes utilities, staff salaries, several contracted employees including two lobbyists, robo calls, publication costs, postage, insurance, legal, and other miscellaneous office needs. Our budget dictates how proactive we can be and what projects we can take on.
I sincerely hope and pray that you will take that extra step and pledge faithful, monthly support. My goal is to continue growing IFI’s influence in the state. That will not be possible without increasing and stabilizing our bottom line. Simply put, without these sustaining funds, our effectiveness on behalf of you and your family will be severely limited.
IFI is committed to being a strong and effective voice for Judeo-Christian values and biblical principles. That will not change. Help us become a stronger and more influential voice for Christian values in the public square of Illinois by becoming a Sustaining Partner. Your tax-deductible gifts to IFI are vitally important in the fight to preserve the family and righteousness in the culture.
If you are not able to support our work and ministry as a Sustaining Partner, would you please consider making a one time contribution to our cause? Click HERE to make a secure donation today!
I promise to be a good steward of both your donations and your trust. Thank you in advance for considering my appeal. I am,
For the family,
David E. Smith
Executive Director
P.S. Please pray about my request. IFI has a 20-year history of fighting for pro-family values, and it is important that we keep on fighting. Together we can make a difference!
P.P.S. I hope you will be able to join me and the IFI staff on Friday, September 7th to celebrate our 20th Anniversary and Fall Banquet featuring historian and founder of Wall Builders – David Barton! (Click HERE for more information.)
