Posted by
Katie Favazza on Monday, January 22, 2007 1:01:54 PM
It has been an eventful past 24 hours for me and the next 24 are sure to compare.
Last night, Senator Sam Brownback spoke to the Catholic University College Republicans. This morning, I attended the Blogs4Life conference at Family Research Center. I will get to the Blogs4Life conference in my next post, but first...
Here is my photo album from last night and this morning:
(This album will be updated again tonight after the afternoon session of the conference--and posted again in my Blogs4Life posts.)
Here are some notes and quotations from Senator Brownback last night:
Partially due to the anniversary of Roe v. Wade bringing so many pro-life people to town and partially due to his own personal priorities in his coming campaign, the senator spoke largely on the pro-life issues. "We are now a majority pro-life country," he stated last night. "Roe v. Wade will be no more."
He spoke of his adopted daughter and noted that he frequently prays for his daughter's birth mother (even though he will probably never meet her) because she "fought a system that would have paid for an abortion."
A growing concern amongst the pro-life community is of course the effect of prenatal diagnoses. (See this previous post for more.) Many babies diagnosed with down syndrome, for example, while still in the womb are aborted. Sen. Brownback reminded the audience that despite this growing cultural shift to eliminate disabled persons from our community, "There is a waiting list in this country to adopt Down Syndrome children."
Relating to this, he also spoke of massive population decreases in Russia and suggested that "when we get our moral values together," we can engage in a worldwide values discussion with other countries.
[Sidenote: He did make one pretty outrageous claim, but we will get to that later. If I forget, remind me to talk about "American-sized goals."]
The senator drives a hybrid Honda Civic, in case any of you were wondering. He also joked that he gets great mileage--but that his 16 year old daughter does not get that same great mileage. "How you drive matters."
Sen. Brownback made it obvious that the preservation of the family is vital to him. "The best place to raise a child is between a woman and a man bonded together in marriage." He continued, "Families are the basic units of societies." I couldn't help but laugh out loud when he said he wasn't "taking sides" and that "it takes a family
and a village."
He spoke of the need to bring a stricter conservatism back to DC in the coming years and particularly throughout the next elections: "This is going to be a very principled discussion. You know the principles."