The Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas has released a document detailing their public policy priorities for the upcoming 81st session of the Texas Legislature.
Here’s a note from the CLC:
While the number of issues and priorities is long, it is by no means exhaustive or fully inclusive of all the advocacy work the CLC will do. Each legislative session is unique and poses its own challenges and opportunities for a positive impact at the capitol and in the state. Many bills will be filed in each issue area and the CLC will be monitoring their progress and taking appropriate action as the session develops.
And a few of the CLC’s public policy priorities are listed below:
Alcohol and Addiction
- Fund programs for at-risk youth so they do not enter the juvenile justice system
- Fund substance abuse and mental health programs for youth incarcerated in TYC facilities
Children and Family Issues
- Provide access immunizations and health insurance for all children in Texas
- Ensure that the public and private eligibility system of the CHIP and Children’s Medicaid eligibility system work well together
Criminal Justice
- Advance prison chaplains within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
- Support special drug treatment prisons, substance-abuse treatment centers, treatment diversion programs, and halfway houses for minor offenders
Education
- Promote the expansion of adult literacy and learning through workforce development, postsecondary access and expansion of ESL
- Oppose providing public money for private sectarian use including vouchers
Environment
- Support renewable energy technology as one source for Texas’ rising energy needs
- Support recycling of electronic waste
- Promote incentives for energy efficiency and measures that reduce air pollution
Gambling
- Oppose casinos and other gambling expansion as a business model for Texas
- Oppose electronic bingo machines, VLTs, and the legalization of poker tournaments
Health and Long Term Care
- Support quality of care improvements and strengthen Texas’ long term care infrastructure
- Support small businesses coverage plans for high-quality health coverage Support statewide outreach programs for health coverage and health care
Immigration and Trafficking
- Support efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform on the national level
- Support border security and law enforcement policies consistent with humanitarian values
- Support efforts to protect and care for victims of human trafficking
- Support law enforcement to pursue those who trade in and profit from human trafficking.
Read the entire list of public policy priorities here.
Lear more details about these priorities here and here.
Sign up for the CLC’s E-mail Newsletter here.
The CLC also has several Church-State priorities for the upcoming Texas legislative session. I will devote a future post in the next few days to those.
The Texas CLC may be the last of the really good CLCs in Baptist state conventions. It was the catalyst for turning the SBC Social Services Commission into the great (pre-takeover) SBC CLC. Best on the Texas CLC for their continued good work.
I hope they continue their efforts on prison reform and death penalty abolition, too.
The CLC was instrumental in getting the life without parole sentencing option passed in Texas (signed in 2005). Prior to that, the options were death penalty or option for parole after 40 years.
(just saw this web bit – Stephanie)
The NEWEST Pretrib Calendar
Hal (serial polygamist) Lindsey and other pretrib-rapture-trafficking and Mayan-Calendar-hugging hucksters deserve the following message: “2012 may be YOUR latest date. It isn’t MAYAN!” Actually, if it weren’t for the 179-year-old, fringe-British-invented, American-merchandised pretribulation rapture bunco scheme, Hal might still be piloting a tugboat on the Mississippi. roly-poly Thomas Ice (Tim LaHaye’s No. 1 strong-arm enforcer) might still be in his tiny folding-chair church which shares its firewall with a Texas saloon, Jack Van Impe might still be a jazz band musician, Tim LaHaye might still be titillating California matrons with his “Christian” sex manual, Grant Jeffrey might still be taking care of figures up in Canada, Chuck Missler might still be in mysterious hush-hush stuff that rocket scientists don’t dare talk about, John Hagee might be making – and eating – world-record pizzas, and Jimmy (“Bye You” Rapture) Swaggart might still be flying on a Ferriday flatbed! To read more details about the eschatological British import that leading British scholarship never adopted – the import that’s created some American multi-millionaires – Google “Pretrib Rapture Diehards” (note LaHaye’s hypocrisy under “1992″), “Hal Lindsey’s Many Divorces,” “Thomas Ice (Bloopers)” and “Thomas Ice (Hired Gun),” “LaHaye’s Temperament,” “Wily Jeffrey,” “Chuck Missler – Copyist,” “Open Letter to Todd Strandberg” and “The Rapture Index (Mad Theology),” “X-Raying Margaret,” “Humbug Huebner,” “Thieves’ Marketing,” “Appendix F: Thou Shalt Not Steal,” “The Unoriginal John Darby,” “Pretrib Hypocrisy,” “The Real Manuel Lacunza,” “Roots of (Warlike) Christian Zionism,” “America’s Pretrib Rapture Traffickers,” “Pretrib Rapture – Hidden Facts,” “Dolcino? Duh!” and “Scholars Weigh My Research.” Most of the above is written by journalist/historian Dave MacPherson who has focused on long-hidden pretrib rapture history for 35+ years. No one else has focused on it for 35 months or even 35 weeks. MacPherson has been a frequent radio talk show guest and he states that all of his royalties have always gone to a nonprofit group and not to any individual. His No. 1 book on all this is “The Rapture Plot” (see Armageddon Books online, etc.). The amazing thing is how long it has taken the mainstream media to finally notice and expose this unbelievably groundless yet extremely lucrative theological hoax!