In preparation for
our “Advance Spotlight” in tomorrow’s “Advance Report” weekly e-newsletter,
Daniel Herbster was able to conduct an interview with Micah Clark who is the
Executive Director of the American Family Association of Indiana. Below is the text of the interview.
For more
information on AFAIN and the great work they do for Hoosier families, check out
their website (www.afain.net). To subscribe to AdvanceUSA’s email services
and to receive your own issue of the Advance Report, check the “Get Involved”
box in the left margin.
DH: Thanks
for taking the time to share this information with our readers. What is the mission of the American Family
Association of Indiana?
MC: AFAIN
is Indiana’s only statewide decency organization. We exist to educate Hoosiers on the moral,
cultural, and political issues of the day and how those issues impact Hoosier
families. We are a voice for family
values at the local, state, and federal levels.
DH: How
did it get started? How long has it been around?
MC: AFA of
Indiana was founded in Northeast Indiana near Auburn in 1993 as a state
affiliate of the National American Family Association (based in Tupelo, MS). However, AFA IN is a locally funded and
locally governed non-partisan, non-profit 501c 3 organization. AFA of Indiana is a donation-run
organization, which has become one of the leading and most influential
pro-family organizations in the state.
AFA of Indiana was originally created to work at the local city
level to address the problem of pornography.
Specifically, AFAIN worked with city councils and county commissioners
to zone and regulate sexually oriented businesses in order to protect schools,
churches and neighborhoods from the harmful secondary effects of such
establishments. Since 1993 many things
have changed concerning the distribution of and access to pornography in our
technological age. Today, AFAIN deals
more broadly with this issue by educating Hoosier families to the dangers of
Internet porn.
DH: What
is your position at AFA of IN and what does it involve? How long have you
been there?
MC: Vickie
Burress, currently the Chair of its Board of Directors, founded AFA of
Indiana. In 2001, I became AFA’s Executive
Director. I’ve had the distinction of
being the only person to have worked for all three of Indiana’s largest
pro-family organizations. For ten years I
was the Director of Public Policy for the Indiana Family Institute. After an internship with the Indiana House
and working as a campaign manager for a State Senator from Kokomo, I worked for
Citizens Concerned for the Constitution, now Advance America, Indiana’s oldest
largest pro-family organization. And Governor
Frank O’Bannon twice appointed me to the Governor’s Education Roundtable.
DH: On
what issues does your organization work?
MC: We
moved to Indianapolis from Northeast Indiana in 2000 in order to better deal
with a variety of legislative and state issues in the state capital. AFA deals
with a wide variety of issues impacting Hoosier families, churches and
neighborhood and the values that sustain them, including marriage, life
(abortion), decency, abstinence education, religious liberty and crime (sexual
predators).
DH: What
have been some of your organization’s greatest successes?
MC: We’ve
been involved in dozens of legislative victories from the passage of various
pro-life or pro-family bills to the defeat of legislation that threatened those
values. A recent example of our
legislative success involved the Director of AFA’s significant role in the
creation and design of Indiana’s National Motto automotive license plate. Today, over 1.6 million “In God We Trust”
plates are on Hoosier highways.
AFA of Indiana has also seen numerous victories outside the State
House like the passage of adult business regulations in over two-dozen Indiana
cities.
We’ve also seen some significant victories that are known only to
AFA supporters such as negations with billboard companies and the Outdoor
Advertising Association to create guidelines preventing or removing offensive
billboards with sexually graphic ads.
AFA also negotiated with a large gas station chain in Ohio and Indiana,
which led to their agreement to halt the sale of all pornographic magazines in
their stores.
AFA is a respected organization that has a long track record of
success and is known for consistently standing up for Hoosier families
regardless of the odds or the intensity of the battle. AFA has stood up to both Democrat and
Republican politicians in defense of conservative values.
DH: We’ve
been hearing a lot about the Indiana Marriage Amendment. Why did it fail?
MC: SJR 7
failed because the Speaker of the House, Rep. Patrick Bauer and many of the
Democrat leadership in that chamber support same-sex marriage and the radical
gay rights agenda. As anyone familiar
with the legislative process in Indiana knows, it is always much easier to
block or defeat a bill than it is to pass one through all the necessary steps
in order for it to become law, or in the case of the Marriage Protection
Amendment to go before Hoosier voters as a ballot question.
Twenty-seven states have amended their constitutions in order to
protect their state laws from groups like the ACLU, homosexual activists and
runaway judges who seek to twist and turn the institution of marriage like
Playdough to meet the demands of any fringe group.
Marriage is not merely the bringing together of two, three four or
ten people, it is the bringing together of the two sexes for the purpose of
children and the best interest of society.
Marriage matters because gender: husbands and wives, mothers and fathers
matter. If government policies and laws
can be drastically altered to say that Sally and Susie are the moral and legal
equivalent of Sally and Steve, then the message is sent that Steve doesn’t
matter. In the last fifty years we have
seen what happens to the family, the size of government, the welfare state, to
schools and to crime levels when society says fathers are optional, and it’s
not been a positive change. If marriage can mean anything it will ultimately
mean nothing.
In countries where same-sex marriage was allowed, like the Netherlands,
marriage has suffered. Out-of wedlock
births and cohabitation rate rose and marriage rates declined as the
institution was devalued. Children
suffer from such changes. Adults do as
well; domestic violence rates are higher among non-married cohabitants
including homosexual couples than traditional married homes. Substance abuse rates are lower among
marrieds than their cohabiting, divorced or homosexual counterparts. The same is true for mental and emotional
health comparisons. Interestingly, same-sex
marriage does not stabilize the unstable.
In the Netherlands, the rate of divorce among the relatively small
number of homosexuals who choose to marry is twice the rate of their
heterosexual counterparts.
Indiana has an interest in protecting its marriage laws for future
generations of Hoosiers. Hoosiers know
this and it is why a majority support marriage protection and why the Indiana
Senate has passed SJR 7 four separate times with 80% support. It is a shame that a small segment of the
Indiana House leadership denied the will of the people and the vote of two
million Hoosier voters this fall, which could have put this issue to rest. Now, this issue will come up repeatedly over
the next four years as an effort to put the definition of marriage as only
between one man and one woman on the 2012 ballot.
DH: How
could our readers help the cause?
MC: Visit
AFA of Indiana’s web site (afain.net) and
sign up for our free weekly e-mail to learn about issues facing Indiana.
DH: What
are the greatest challenges to AFA of IN?
MC: Our
greatest challenge is growth in numbers of people who will stand with us simply
by receiving our information and making their voices heard when necessary. Churches, for example are full of people who
share AFA’s values but are not informed or engaged in the cultural and moral
battles of the day because they don’t think they can make a difference or don’t
understand what is at stake.
Many people don’t understand that the phrase “you can’t legislate
morality” is a total lie. Legislation
is always written with someone’s moral view.
The question is not if morality
is legislated but ”whose morality”
will prevail. There are a wide variety
of voices and values in the legislative process and media. The challenge to those who share our values
is to make sure our voice is represented and heard in the debate.
DH: How
can AdvanceUSA’s readers help the work you do in Indiana?
MC: Simply
by telling people of the work we do and encouraging them to stand with us and to
sign up for our weekly e-mail so we can keep people informed and when necessary
engaged in the battle.
Most people do not realize that their e-mail or phone call to
their legislator really can have an impact on the outcome of a bill or an issue
in our system of government. That letter
to the editor you wrote really can influence people.
DH: What
are of your hopes and concerns for the future?
MC: I am
very worried that too few people today realize the broad implications of our
sex-saturated culture and the dangers it poses to children and the family. The ideology of our post-modern “anything
goes” mentality has serious ramifications for the future of our society but too
few people understand this fact. As a
society we do not seem to see the moral decline around us and we dismiss the
warning signs and mock as “prudes” or “religious nuts” those who dare speak out
against it. Perhaps worse, much of the
moral consciences of our nation, its churches, have purposefully or
subconsciously placed “cultural relevance” above Biblical truths that can
permanently change lives.
DH: Thanks
for taking the time to share with us. Keep up the great work.