In the clash of ideas and worldviews, it is relatively easy to solicit praise from one’s allies and friends.  More telling, perhaps, is the grudging respect granted by one’s foes.

In this light, consider an article in the Fall 2004 issue of Ms. Magazine, America’s premier feminist journal.  It reports that the Howard Center’s World Congress of Families project has “brought together the leadership of an increasingly trenchant and powerful wing of the international conservative movement.”  Our Mexico City Congress, held in March 2004, “was teeming with crowds that reflected the organization’s growing luster,” a venue where “for the first time, the U.S. government gave its explicit endorsement of the so-called pro-family agenda.”  

Or consider this description from the book, Globalizing Family Values (University of Minnesota Press, 2003), authored by two law professors with open “feminist” and “lesbian” sympathies:  “The Howard Center functions as a research think tank…and produces material that gives the [pro-family] movement its intellectual sustenance”; adding “A notable example of this potent mix of devotion and data is the work embraced and produced by the Howard Center, a leading [Christian pro-family] organization domestically and internationally.”

Or consider this 2004 commentary from The Sexual Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), the voice of the “sexual revolution” in America, which describes our Mexico City World Congress as a threatening effort “to empower conservative forces in the [Latin American] region to be better organized and more vocal within their own countries” and as a place where “the policies and ideologies of the Bush Administration played a key role.” 

In a longer November report, SIECUS adds: “groups [opposed to our agenda] continue to claim that marriage benefits individuals, children and society….Arguably the most prominent international meeting of opposition forces is the World Congress of Families, held in 1997, 1999, and 2004.”

More neutral analysts offer similar testimonies to our Center’s influence.  As the University of Chicago’s Don Browning concludes in his book Marriage and Modernization (Eerdmans, 2003):  “The Howard Center is at the center of an emerging conservative religious and political strategy for families.” 

And, of course, our friends do chime in, as well.  National Review, for example, reports: “Much bolder measures are necessary, says Carlson, if American culture is again to be put on a family—and community—centered footing.  In [his book] The ‘American Way’ he provides a stirring foundation and blueprint for just such measures.” 

Just what is that blueprint?  Very specifically, The Howard Center pursues four goals:

1. To articulate and promote a morally sound natural family worldview that can serve as a reliable guide to culture, law, and public policy;

2. To encourage  primary research on natural family themes;

3. To provide open communication between scientific research on the family and grass roots interest and religiously motivated engagement on family issues; and

4. To rally an effective global voice in favor of the natural family that will counter the destructive elements within the emerging international “post family” culture.

In pursuit of these goals, we publish two monograph series (The Family in America and The Religion & Society Report), write books and essays for policy journals (the next book being Dr. Carlson’s Fractured Generations: Crafting a Family Policy for 21^st Century America, February 2005), directly support new pro-family scholarship, build two pro-family databases (The Swan Library and The Family & Society Database), craft two extensive pro-family websites (www.profam.org and www.worldcongress.org), issue each week the Family Update Online! to thousands of policy leaders and activists, and convene the World Congress of Families.

However, for this work to continue and grow, we dearly need your support.  Lean and frugal, operating out of a small Midwestern city, refusing to accept government funds, we rely on the generosity of good folk such as you.

So please consider a new gift for 2005.  As foes and friends testify alike, The Howard Center is specially positioned to protect those things—traditional marriage, children, grandchildren, the home, vital faith—that you hold dear.  Your collaboration and your help at this time would be deeply appreciated.

Sincerely yours,

Lawrence D. Jacobs

Vice President The Howard Center