2/1/2010 - February 2010 SLI Newsletter

February 2010

Dear Friends and Supporters,

This month’s Educational Update identifies six pro-life bills which have been filed in the Alabama Legislature. As you know, we have struggled with pro-life legislation for the past three years due to the pro-abortion makeup of the Alabama Legislature, particularly Senate leadership. In that this is the last year of the quadrennium, we are hopeful of making some progress. Please be in prayer about and acquaint yourselves with pro-life candidates for the general election coming up in November of this year. That will be an opportunity to make a significant change in the pro-life votes.

Late last year we brought to homeschoolers’ attention the September 24, 2009 memo by Dr. Joe Morton at the State Board of Education. The memo addressed how to report truancy. We received at least one complaint that a truant officer misinterpreted the memo. If you are a homeschooler, or if you know of a homeschooler, who has encountered a problem with this, please let us know. It appears it did not cause confusion, as we expected. We believe the Department of Education would have properly clarified any inquiries it may have had.

The first legislative action on gambling was Bill HB154. This bill is a stop gap measure attempted by gamblers to prohibit the Governor’s Task Force from closing down operations until the November 2010 general election, when gamblers hope to have a constitutional amendment which will enshrine their rights to expanded bingo gambling. We provided testimony to the House Tourism Committee that the bill is unconstitutional. It is a statute attempting to permit expanded bingo, as well as, exempting the gamblers from tax and even paying proceeds to charity, the real purpose of constitutional bingo. We expect more gambling bills to follow and will give a more complete report in upcoming updates.

On the national scene, I know we are all grateful for the election of Scott Brown, the new Republican and, hopefully, conservative United States senator from Massachusetts. We cannot help but feel it is pure poetic justice that the state of the liberal Teddy Kennedy has elected an opposite replacement who returns to the United States Senate 41 votes, enough to stop the juggernaut of liberal socialism. Senator Brown was right to say he was not the “41st vote,” but that all of the 41 senators stand for that 41st vote.

We are always thankful for your support. As you can see, we have very much to do. Your financial support and your prayer support are invaluable to us. With personal regards, I am,

Yours very truly,

A. Eric Johnston

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