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As the 81st Texas Legislature gets underway, important deliberations affecting Texas families will take place every day. While most news stories and politicians will focus on pragmatic issues such as taxation, a variety of moral issues will also arise. Moral issues have a practical aspect, to be sure. That is sometimes the problem. The profit motive is the only reason that some issues, laws regarding local option liquor elections, gambling, and so forth, even come to a state legislature. Our role is to be more heavenly minded than that. We can direct the debate toward “should” questions rather than just “can” questions.
God’s people in a free country have a responsibility to ensure that governments help rather than hinder the crucial institutions of our society. Your church is on point as these matters arise at the local level. Your state convention works to influence those men and women who govern Texas.
Our convention has a standing committee that oversees our work on public policy issues. The Texas Ethics and Religious Liberty Committee’s work is governed by these principles:
?Where the convention has spoken, the committee is free to express that opinion in the public forum. Convention resolutions, our constitution, and our statement of faith provide a selection of opinions convention messengers have expressed. The committee is basically quoting the convention messengers on these issues. Our committee and legislative consultant do not speak to the convention in an effort to pull the churches in one direction or another. Those people only say what you’ve said.
?The TERLC works on the assumption that we cannot effectively rise to every issue. If SBTC representatives express an opinion on every matter addressed in a bill, our voice becomes background noise. Each year, we choose a few issues that are most crucial and likely to come up in proposed legislation. Even important issues where there is nothing close to a consensus within our convention will not appear on our agenda. That’s why you don’t see us fighting for or against a particular tax or energy plan.
?Our churches and people cannot rally for every issue under discussion. We also don’t have an extensive staff to work full time in Austin. Our convention puts its priority elsewhere. The convention’s work in public policy will be more effective if we use our moral voice in a prioritized manner.
?We also work on the assumption that no party is reliably on God’s side. Politics is a business of pragmatics. Ethical issues are often more absolute than the thinking of politicians. In a conservative state like ours we are often reminded that assumptions about Democrats and Republicans formed by reading the national news do not always apply. While one party might be more often with us on one issue, the other will agree with us on another. The line between right and left in Texas is more blurred and located far to the right of that same line in Washington D.C.
The SBTC has employed a consultant to work with us in Austin during the legislative session. He tracks bills, makes suggestions as to the best way we might express our opinions, and passes on whatever message we give him.
After discussing the current session with our consultant, the TERLC has come up with the following items for our legislative agenda for this year:
1. Marriage and family. The constitutional referendum of 2006 pretty well settled (for Texas) the definition of family. Homosexual marriage has never been the biggest problem faced by the American family. Marriage is a devastated institution because of divorce and unfaithfulness. Initiatives such as covenant marriage can provide some encouragement to highlighting the significance of marriage to our culture. At the very least, government at all levels can be directed to do no harm to families.
2. Life issues. These will always come up because there is money in abortion. Last session saw efforts to work around parental consent, and an attempt to impose draconian penalties on not-for-profit pro-life counseling centers. Embryonic stem cell research is also always of interest to some lobbyist or another. We may see places where our voice can be applied to hold the line or better our position where the law is pro-life, or resist new pro-abortion laws.
3. Gambling. Again there’s money to be made, although there is much confusion regarding who’s going to actually make money. Our last session saw bills intended to legalize casinos, legalize thousands of gambling machines at already existing horse and dog tracks, redefine certain kinds of gambling so that it’s not called gambling, and to privatize the state lottery. If every one of these initiatives pass this year (they won’t), our next session will have to address bills intended to relieve casinos and gambling establishments of some of their tax burden. Pro-gambling bills will come up every session in the same old way and we will fight them every session in the same old way.
4. Freedom of religion. The rights of churches and individuals may be threatened by unconstitutional repression of the free speech of students, whether in prayer or in witnessing.
Churches may face challenges to free expression and tax-exempt status. These issues have arisen more frequently in local laws, but state government may have a role in upholding these rights. Laws that affect religious freedom will always be of inter
