Powerful presenters spoke on watershed concerns facing us all

By: American Decency Staff

In recent weeks, my youngest son Chris (20)  has joined us at our headquarters.  We are waiting upon the Lord as to God’s leading in his young life.  Chris, as some of you know, was recently married. Chris eagerly desired to attend the Values Voter Summit with us and we asked him to write about his experience at this powerful weekend event. By Chris Johnson Last weekend, September 18 –20, Dad, Mom, Lisa and I made the seven hundred mile journey from our headquarters in Fremont to Washington DC for this year’s Values Voter Summit. There in the nation’s capitol, with thousands of other concerned Americans from almost every state of the union, we had the opportunity to hear the titans of the conservative movement: Gov. Mike Huckabee, Bill O’Reilly, Tony Perkins, Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. John Boehner, Bishop Harry Jackson, Star Parker, and many, many more. I don’t think the staff at the Omni Shoreham Hotel had any idea what to expect when the weekend of the Summit rolled around. The majority of the two thousand attendees were not the average customer of the Omni. They weren’t the busy lawyers or high-strung businessmen or even the vacationing families that I imagine are the usual clienteles. We were truly the grassroots, everyday American. We were the conservative representatives of 49 states. We were the kind of people who had to ask how the valet parking worked. We weren’t there for a vacation, we were there to hear the truth. As I walked into the main auditorium Friday morning, still dreary because my parents get up and make way too much noise way too early, I noticed something in the air. Something energizing. It was expectancy. These people were waiting with the attitude of a fighter saying “hit me, come on!â€Â We were not disappointed, and I couldn’t stay tired for long. The summit was one week after the huge TEA party in D.C. where an estimated 1.8-2.5 million people gathered on the Mall to express themselves to our heads of government. That fact and the fact that this was the biggest VVS so far really helped to excite the event. Rep. Mike Pence summed up the attitude, calling our gathering “the beginning of the comeback… for our values.â€Â It was in that spirit that the weekend moved forward. There are a lot of problems in our nation and our world right now. But I was reminded that what the media reports is not what really is. Our main inlet for news is so heavily filtered that by the time it gets to us, it tells a completely different story than the truth. So while we hear that our culture is overwhelmingly liberal, the truth is that that’s what we need to hear to become liberal. If we hear there is no hope and that our battle is already lost or that we are swimming upstream, we are that much more likely to give in. This weekend, however, we heard real news outside of the filter. Here are some of the stories we heard this weekend. Lila Rose, a twenty-one year old from California is the president of Live Action, a youth-led, pro-life movement for human rights. Live Action has been very successful in calling out Planned Parenthood’s inherent corruption in Clinics all over the US. Through Lila’s Mona Lisa Project where she goes into a Planned Parenthood office undercover as an under-aged pregnant girl, she has over and over again caught Planned Parenthood employees on tape telling her to hide the age of her older boyfriend and not having any qualms about hiding statutory rape.  She has been  on  Fox  News  several times, and her videos have been seen by thousands through Fox News and YouTube. We also heard from Star Parker who was once a welfare-dependant single mother in inner city Los Angeles. She admitted to having four abortions during that time. Today she heads the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education. She regularly appears on national television and before Congress to speak of the dangers of both welfare and abortions. Dr. Ergun Caner gave one of the most powerful accounts. Raised as a devout Muslim, in Ergun’s senior year of high school he converted to Christianity. He is now the President of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. God truly works through people of every shape, size, and color! And these were only some of the messages. Every speaker and every message expressed hope and expectancy as we stand for the founding principles of our nation. The biggest thing that I took away from the 2009 Value Voter’s Summit was that we are not the minority.  We aren’t going down fighting. We are rising up for the first time in a long time, and we are going to take back our country.  Mitt Romney closed his speech with this: “We don’t get to choose the tests and the trials that are ahead, but we do get to choose how to meet those tests and we’ll meet them as conservatives have done before. We will find strength in each other and we’ll answer our opponents with good will and honest words. And we will go forward committed to our ideals, confident of victories to come, and certain that God does bless America.â€Â Amen A special praise and thanks to so many of you!  Thanks. We made the match challenge that extended from June 15 through September 30! Within recent days, we received very few gifts but a couple of you were especially determined to push us over the goal giving substantial gifts to insure that our goal was met. A special thanks to a special anonymous donor! Here were the details for the match! (For your information) 1. it must be new money-from someone who hasn’t given in 2008 or 2009. Or, any amount given in 2009 which was more than what someone gave in 2008. E.g. donor gives $400 in 2008 but cumulatively gives $1000 in 2009 by the end of the match period, we will match $600 2. we will match up to $15,000 3. the funds must be received between June 15 and September 30. https://secure4.afo.net/ada/main.php?f=donate/display9 ============= American Decency Association Bill Johnson, President P.O. Box 202 Fremont, MI 49412 ph: 231-924-4050 www.americandecency.org http://www.twitter.com/billwjohnson

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