Concerned Women for America
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Concerned Women for America is a conservative Christian group that is active in politics in the United States. The group was founded in 1979 by Beverly LaHaye, and currently has 500,000 members. It attempts to advance its views on six key issues, which are (as of November 2006) [1]:
- Family - "CWA believes that marriage consists of one man and one woman. We seek to protect and support the Biblical design of marriage and the gift of children."
- Sanctity of Human Life - "CWA supports the protection of all innocent human life from conception until natural death. This includes the consequences resulting from abortion."
- Education - "CWA supports reform of public education by returning authority to parents."
- Pornography - "CWA endeavors to fight all pornography and obscenity."
- Religious Liberty - "CWA supports the God-given rights of individuals in the United States and other nations to pray, worship and express their beliefs without fear of discrimination or persecution."
- National Sovereignty - "CWA believes that neither the United Nations nor any other international organization should have authority over the United States in any area. We also believe the United States has the right and duty to protect and secure our national borders."
Concerned Women for America says of itself: "We are the nation's largest public policy women's organization with a rich 27-year history of helping our members across the country bring Biblical principles into all levels of public policy." [2]
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[edit] Controversy and criticism
[edit] Homosexual programs
Recent initiatives sponsored by CWA has placed increased emphasis on preventing discussions and programs geared towards homosexual teens.
[edit] Abstinence-only sex education
In addition, strong abstinence-only stances taken up by CWA based upon Christian principles have been demonstrated to have little substantiation when compared against the secular democracies of Western Europe in terms of preventing unwise teenage sexual activity and sexually transmitted diseases among teenage segments of the population.[3]
[edit] Hotel pornography
On August 22, 2006 CWA announced they "strongly believe" hotel porn is prosecutable, and have issued an "urgent appeal" to the Department of Justice to "immediately investigate" two leading in-room adult movie distributors.[4]
In a joint effort with thirteen other groups, it released an ad "DOJ and FBI should immediately investigate whether 'adult' videos being sold in hotels by OnCommand and LodgeNet violate long-established Federal and State laws regarding distribution of obscene material." The ad continues, "Adult hardcore pornography can tragically lead to sex crimes against women and children," the ad explains. "Yet sex videos are available in millions of U.S. hotel rooms which we strongly believe are prosecutable."[5]
[edit] Principals
- Beverly LaHaye, Founder and Chairwoman, wife of best-selling author Tim LaHaye[6]
- Wendy Wright, President, a frequent guest on national and international media discussing moral, social and political issues[7]
- Lee LaHaye, Chief Financial Officer
