Palmetto Public Square

An event you won’t want to miss!

Palmetto Family encourages you to attend this important rally at the State House.

Spread the word to help ensure a good turnout!

Stand Up for Life: Pro-Life March and Rally

Featuring: Damon Owen, New Jersey Director for the National Organization for Marriage and spokesman for L.E.A.R.N., the independent network of African-American Pro-Life organizations.

Stop the Abortion Agenda

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Columbia, SC

Master of Ceremonies, Dr. Tony Beam

Host of “Christian World View Today” on WLFJ Radio

Music by “Joyful Sound”

11:00 am – Line up for the march, USC Russell House, Greene Street

11:30 am – Knights of Columbus lead marchers to SC State House

Noon – Rally begins at the State House, Gervais Street side

For more information, contact SC Citizens for Life, 803-252-5433 (sccl@sclife.org)

Book Excerpt:

During the lifetime of William Wilberforce at the turn of the 19^th century, animals were everywhere. They were in the streets pulling wagons, they were grazing in the town square, they were squawking and flapping around every corner. Animals were a loud, unavoidable part of regular, day-to-day life. Certainly, for twenty-first century Americans, that is no longer the case. Generally speaking, we don’t see bulls and hogs and roosters in our daily existence. However, like in Wilberforce’s day, animals in our modern life can still face the brunt of man’s cruel or mercenary impulses, albeit in ways that are less visible to the public-at-large.

Although our general sentiment towards animals has improved a great deal since those days of publicly approved dog-fights and bull-baiting, the practical application of those good sentiments still falls short of the ultimate goal. To help us determine the proper course of action as Christians in this fallen world, we must continually look to scripture, but we can also be confident in following the biblically-sound example of William Wilberforce.

As a Christian philanthropist and British Member of Parliament, Wilberforce’s inclusion of animal welfare in his life’s work of alleviating all manner of suffering is a resounding endorsement of this endeavor’s importance. His efforts in establishing the world’s first organization dedicated to animal protection—the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals—can serve as a model for what we ought to strive to achieve as Christians in this area. …

Like Wilberforce, we cannot tolerate animal fighting in our day and age. Read more…

Gambling Law in South Carolina:
An Analysis of National Opinion and the South Carolina Code of Law

by Jacob Davis

Enforcement in the Spotlight

It was big news in April 2006 when Mt. Pleasant police cited 22 people after breaking up a high-stakes poker game in what papers called a “raid.”[1] In April 2008, it even made the news in Columbia when Hanahan police raided another underground game, citing an assistant prosecutor and seizing more than $40,000.[2] This kind of strict law enforcement, of laws that some say “go too far,”[3] has helped prompt state legislators to push for a loosening of gambling restrictions in South Carolina.

After a long and bitter fight to ban video poker, and perhaps an even uglier battle to establish a state “Education Lottery,” South Carolina citizens could be forgiven for shouting “Enough already!” to arguments over legalized gambling.  Unfortunately, the recent well-publicized “raids” on “underground” poker games have brought the issue back to the forefront.  Scarcely does an article appear in the newspapers (or online for that matter) without including the old saw that South Carolina law prohibits “playing Monopoly at [the] kitchen table.”[4] Never mind that it probably doesn’t, or that no evidence exists that anyone has ever even been ticketed for something so preposterous.  Even the South Carolina Attorney General’s office is forced to joke that, “Candyland…is safe” in South Carolina.[5] Read more…

Stem Cells: Hope, Hype and Holding Back
by G. Steven Suits, MD

Bob, a 70 year-old resident of Atlanta, Georgia, had been through two open heart operations because of heart problems. His condition deteriorated again, but his doctors told him he could not have a third procedure. Rather than give in to the “there is nothing that can be done” mentality, he sought help outside the United States and received stem cell injections into his heart tissue. Now, he can go for 30-minute walks, and has vacationed in Florida and Antigua. The stem cell injections generated new blood vessels and heart muscle in his heart. Stories such as this one are becoming more common, and centers in the United States, such as the well-renown Texas Heart Institute, are using stem cell technology to offer hope in previously little hope situations.

Read more…

“Children have a primal need to know who they are, to love and be loved by the two people whose physical union brought them here. To lose that connection, that sense of identity, is to experience a wound that no child-support check or fancy school can ever heal.”

–David Blankenhorn,
President of the Institute for American Values,
in TIME magazine.

Last Saturday, I had the joy of speaking to the graduation of the South Carolina Association of Independent Home Schools (SCAIHS).

Tiffany Deierlein’s valedictory speech was so impressive, I asked her for permission to post it on our blog.

I know you’ll be as impressed as I was.

-Oran Read more…

Frank Page has had quite a week…and it’s only Thursday.

Dr. Frank Page, immediate past president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of Taylors First Baptist Church, SC, was appointed in February to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Dr. Page flew to Washington this week for the first substantive meetings of the group concerned about where this Council was headed and whether he should stay on. Just looking at the first dozen or so religious leaders appointed earlier this year shows Page had good reason for concern. He may very well be the only pro-life choice…on a faith-based panel. (Fellow panel member Joel Hunter might hold to the biblical view if pressed, but that is another story.)

Dr. Page’s week turned out to be a roller coaster. The initial hope that Super Bowl Champion Coach and devout Christian Tony Dungy would be coming on board the Council for this week’s meeting was dashed. Not only was Dungy not appointed (amid speculation that his opposition to gay marriage may have played a role)—instead, Harry Knox of the Human Rights Campaign (a Washington-based gay rights organization) would be joining the group. Dungy had supported the campaign for traditional marriage in California, Knox had opposed.

But after a few days of the usual Obama Administration party line, a ray of sunshine: the public comment period on healthcare right of conscience had ended and the Administration would not reverse the Bush policy after all. Healthcare providers would still, under Executive Order from the President, be able to refuse to perform procedures or prescribe drugs the physician considered immoral.

On behalf of the people of South Carolina—Thank you, Dr. Page, for your leadership. You are in our prayers.

At the Governor’s Prayer Breakfast a couple of weeks ago, those in attendance had the pleasure of hearing from SC Commissioner of Agriculture Hugh Weathers. He spoke about the honor and privilege of public service, and the humbling gift of prayer.

You may never have noticed it before, but as Commissioner of Agriculture, Hugh Weathers’ name is printed on the inspection sticker found on every gas pump in this state. In his talk at the Prayer Breakfast, The Commish told us about the prayers fueled by those stickers:

Read more…

State Prayer Breakfast
Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Our Father in Heaven, we thank you for the time we have spent together this day. You have said where two are three are gathered together, you are there. We have felt your presence this morning already and we are grateful.

Oh Creator, we praise and adore you. We know that with your very Word you spoke our universe into existence. And now by your grace, you sustain us.

But as we exalt your name and celebrate your light, You know the darkness of our hearts. We confess our sins to you now and ask for your forgiveness.

We are thankful…

Read more…

by Bill Connor, guest blogger
The often controversial Sen. Robert Ford of Charleston recently announced that he will run for governor in 2010 on a platform centered on bringing back video poker.

Sen. Ford has said that his gubernatorial bid would be different because he believes bringing back and taxing video poker will provide South Carolina with the money it needs to serve the state’s neediest while keeping taxes low.

Sen. Ford claims video poker will solve South Carolina’s woeful financial situation, generating $750 million by taxing the industry that was outlawed here nearly a decade ago. After reviewing Sen. Ford’s appeal for video poker, I had to ask myself: How can a State Senator be so passionate about a quick, yet ultimately detrimental, short-term gimmick? Leadership means looking beyond the “now” of the superficial gains to the “future” of second and third order effects. This includes economic leadership. 

As Henry Hazlitt put it best: “The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy.”

A true leader will not stay lost in a forest, looking to cut down the next tree to claim “progress.” A true leader climbs a tree to see the whole forest, develops a vision for getting out, and leads people toward that long-term vision. 

Read more…