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Dear WCF Update Subscriber:
We hope you enjoy the family issues, facts and analysis that are shared with
you through our weekly email service, the World Congress of Families Update.
This service is provided by the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society,
free of charge to over 11,000 pro-family supporters around the world.
Unfortunately, the cost of writing, producing and emailing this weekly letter is
not free. As we begin a new fiscal year this month, we remind you that we need
to raise about $60,000 per month to keep operating all of the pro-family
programs at the Howard Center. Accordingly, I invite you to make a new gift or
pledge to the Howard Center for the 2004 Fiscal Year. To donate online, visit us
at: <www.profam.org/thc/thc_join.htm>.
Why help us now?
Our goals are clear: We proclaim and celebrate the natural family as
the fundamental social unit. Through our work, we show how family and religious
faith are the foundations of a virtuous and free society. We defend the autonomy
and fecundity of the natural family from its foes: the sexual radicals;
militant feminism; the population controllers; and the socialist left.
The time is critical: The forces working to dismantle the natural
family are pushing again. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court's recent Lawrence
decision opens the door to “gay marriage”, a concept that trivializes and
mocks this ancient and vital institution.
We are at the forefront of debate. In his 2003 book, Marriage &
Modernization, the University of Chicago's Don Browning highlights,
Although located in
the small Midwestern city of Rockford, Illinois, and under the savvy leadership
of its President, Allan Carlson, this little-known organization is at the
center of our emerging conservative religious and political world strategy on
families. In its publications, books and international conferences …, the
Howard Center has developed a distinctive position on family issues.
In August, the Center's Kohler Fellow Brian Robertson saw his new
book, Day Care Deception: What the Child Care Establishment Isn't Telling Us,
appear from Encounter Books. It has already been chosen as a Main Selection by
the Conservative Book Club and promises to change debate on the “day care”
issue, in favor of stronger and more autonomous families.
And we have more ideas in the pipeline. Editor-In-Chief Steve Forbes, writing
in the July 21, 2003 issue of Forbes Magazine, notes that “Allan
Carlson… has made an intriguing proposal” to help young adults escape from
the burden of student debt that is preventing marriages and discouraging the
birth of children: a $5,000 credit for each child born within marriage. Forbes
adds: “The White House should run with Carlson's idea.”
We are frugal, "lean," and spirited. Operating out of a
modest Midwestern city, we avoid the huge overhead and swollen salaries of New
York and Washington, DC. With a budget averaging about $700,000 during the last
few years, we produce three influential monthly periodicals (The Family in
America, The Religion & Society Report, and New Research), convene or
support major international and national conferences (e.g., The World Congress
of Families in Geneva, Switzerland and regional meetings in Arizona, California,
Australia, and The Philippines), author books and articles that change the
public debate (alongside Brian Robertson's new book, the year 2003 will see
three of my own appear, including The 'American Way': Family and Community in
the Shaping of the American Identity from Intercollegiate Studies Institute
Press), and provide facts and analysis to policy- and opinion-makers (most
recently in a lecture to the staff of the Office of Population's Affairs, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services.)
We need additional help. We are now laying plans for the third great
World Congress of Families to be held in Mexico City, March 29-31, 2004. We also
want to expand distribution of The Family in America and Religion & Society
Report to opinion leaders across this land and accelerate efforts to bring
justice to young families that honor marriage and commit to abundant
children.
To review more of our recent accomplishments, see our September Newsletter
at:
<www.profam.org/THC%20News/thc_news0309.htm>.
And so I ask: Please extend or renew your support of The Howard Center for
Fiscal Year 2004. Please consider an increase if you can. We have no vast
development staff, nor do we mount massive, manipulative "direct mail"
campaigns. Instead, we focus on working in favor of the family and we rely
simply on the support and encouragement of good citizens like you.
In anticipation, I thank you for your help and encouragement. Working
together, we can make a positive difference for the family in America. For now,
I remain,
Faithfully yours,
Allan C. Carlson President
P.S. Help us defend the natural family! Make your donation online at: <www.profam.org/thc/thc_join.htm>
or call us at 1-800-461-3113.
The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society
934 North Main Street Rockford Illinois 61103 USA
Call 1-800-461-3113 USA or 1-815-964-5819
Fax: 1-815-965-1826
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