News

By Gudrun Schultz

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 17, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The largest Protestant denomination in the United States will concentrate on protecting the sanctity of human life, traditional marriage and basic human rights as the top priorities for public policy in 2006.

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission released the legislative agenda for 2006 earlier this week, highlighting the issues the commission will be concentrating on this year.

The ERLC said it would advocate for the passage of the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, a bill that would require abortionists to inform mothers of the pain their unborn child will feel during abortion.

The commission will also support the Child Custody Protection Act, which would prevent minors from being transported to another state by someone other than their parents for an abortion, and a ban on human cloning for research or reproductive purposes.

The ELRC will work to protect traditional marriage by advocating the passage of the Marriage Protection Amendment, a constitutional amendment to protect the definition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

“Mounting pressure from special-interest groups around the country to legalize same-sex marriage makes it imperative that we secure passage of this amendment and them take it to the states for ratification,” wrote Richard Land and Barrett Duke, the president and vice president of the ERLC.

Other Christian lobbying groups in Washington have been working to ensure the passage of the amendment, launching petitions in its favour. A two-thirds vote in both the Senate and House is required for the amendment to pass Congress. Three-fourths of the states must then ratify the amendment for it to become part of the Constitution.

Religious freedom will be addressed by the commission through its support of the ADVANCE Democracy Act, a bill for the peaceful promotion of democracies in other countries, and the Workplace Religious Freedom Act, which would provide workplace protection for people of faith.

Read the full ERLC statement under “public policy” at:
www.erlc.com