Special Edition Crib Notes Newsletter

Please click on the link and check out the February 2010 special edition Crib Notes. To track our progress, please visit loislodge1000.blogspot.com

40 Days For Life Campaign

This spring, from February 17 – March 28, Charlotte will be uniting with 150 other cities across North America and around the world for a massive coordinated pro-life mobilization – the 40 Days for Life campaign. People of faith are praying that, with God’s help, this effort will help bring an end to the tragedy of abortion.

40 Days for Life is a focused pro-life campaign that has generated measurable lifesaving results in hundreds of cities where it has been implemented. Some locations have reported as much as a 28% drop in local abortion numbers and hundreds of new people getting involved in local lifesaving ministry efforts. The 40 Days for Life campaign is made up of three key components:

• Prayer and Fasting: inviting people of faith throughout our city to join together for 40 days of fervent prayer and fasting for an end to abortion

• Peaceful Vigil: standing for life through a 40-day peaceful public witness outside the local abortion facility, “A Preferred Women’s Health Center,” 3220 Latrobe Drive, 28211.

• Community Outreach: taking a positive, upbeat pro-life message to every corner of our city through media efforts, church presentations, petition drives, and public visibility

Learn how you can “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves” here in Charlotte by contacting us at 40daysforlifecharlotte@gmail.com, by phone @ 704-877-2551, or by visiting: www.40daysforlife.com/charlotte

2010 Walk-A-Thon

Make a Difference ~ Walk for Life!
Walk-A-Thon for Lois' Lodge
Saturday, March 27, 2010, 8-11 am

Freedom Park, Charlotte NC

Family Friendly Event! Music Children's Activities

Get Involved:

1. Walk & Raise Sponsorships
2. Donate to Walk
3. Recruit a Team to Walk

All walkers registered by March 1 will receive a t-shirt. If you or your group is walking, please Register to participate by clicking on the link.

Save The Lodge

Letter from the Lois' Lodge Board of Directors. For additional information and ways you can help, please visit www.loislodge1000.blogspot.com

January 13, 2010

“The Lord is your protection; you have made God Most High your place of safety. Nothing bad will happen to you; no disaster will come to your home.”
Psalm 91:9-10

Dear Friends of Lois’ Lodge,

As a valued part of the inner circle of our ministry, we want to keep you informed about Lois’ Lodge. This past year was a lean year for us, just as it was for most other non-profits. In spite of some financial belt-tightening, the maternity home continues to operate soundly on a day-to-day basis, and stays at or near capacity. The needs of the mothers in our care are being consistently met, both spiritually and financially. This is due to the faithful support of donors and volunteers and the solid management of our resources by the Lois’ Lodge staff.

Late last year, Lois’ Lodge found itself in a critical situation. For the past few years, we have been blessed with rent-free facilities in the Dillworth area, but this arrangement must now change. As a result, Lois’ Lodge has the opportunity – and immense challenge – of purchasing these properties within six months. The Lodge must cease operations here if we cannot purchase the property by July. Although the homes are reasonably priced, the total cost will be $1.1 million. This is an unprecedented amount of capital to be raised in an extremely short time frame. We know that God is greater than our challenges, and we look to Him for an amazing victory.

The Board of Lois’ Lodge is reaching out to you at this time for one reason: Support.

Unwavering support may take many forms, with the most important being prayer. Please pray for the young women who come through our doors, for the staff and volunteers who reflect God’s grace to them on a daily basis, and for our fundraising efforts. Although the goal seems overwhelming, we have faith in God’s ability to save the Lodge.

Please watch for our upcoming special Lois’ Lodge newsletter, which will give more details and lots of ideas on how you can join in saving the Lodge. God’s hand will be readily seen through your faithful support.

May God strengthen us for His use,

Members of Lois’ Lodge Board of Directors:

John Marx, President
Falinda Farley
Kathi Ingrish
Gwen Johnson
Zeritha McFadden
Deana Kocylowsky
Verne Phifer

Free Speech and the Choose Life License Plate

Anti-Abortion Activists Want License Plate Rights Tempers Flare Over Polarizing Free-Speech Issue
Posted: Oct, 20 2009 - AOL

Vanity plates -- those alphanumeric jumbles that provide windows into a driver's soul, from "QT PIE" to "NYCEHUH" -- are huge financial bonanzas for states. With more than nine million of them in circulation and registration and renewal fees ranging from $20 to more than $100, some states can rely on yearly revenue beyond seven figures.

Vanity plates are personalized and highly personal -- everyone knows that the message is the driver's alone. If you're tooling through St. Louis and end up behind a car with a plate that reads "BCK OFF," you don't assume that the sentiment is endorsed or supported by anyone at the DMV or the Missouri government. Still, governments have rules about what is and isn't allowed on a plate. A Colorado woman so fond of bean curd that she applied for "ILVTOFU" was declined on the grounds that it could be misread. A librarian in Nevada named Stacy who had the vanity plate "XSTACY" for more than two decades was shocked when Nevada said she couldn't renew it: the state felt that the plate was now more synonymous with the drug than the woman, and illegal references are strictly banned.

You Can't Show Your Support Here
Illinois
New Jersey
New York
In the above states, drivers currently can't show their support (either for or against abortion) according to state laws.

Special interest license plates, or specialty plates, that endorse a specific charitable cause such as California's Coastal Commission plates or Ohio's Pet License plates, present more difficult issues. They often bring in even more money than vanity plates, since the specialty plate fee is assessed on top the vanity plate surcharge. Florida introduced the first vanity plate after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986. Twenty-one years later, in fiscal 2007, the Sunshine State booked $33.5 million in revenues from its 113 specialty plates alone.

In most cases more than half of the fee for a specialty plate, and sometimes almost all of the fee, actually goes to the charitable organization responsible for the creation of the plate. The state then keeps a small percentage for manufacturing and administration.

But the arrival of the Choose Life specialty plate -- another Florida creation -- and the lawsuits that have followed it around the country, have kept many judges in many courts busy trying to decide between the First Amendment and states' rights. The question is, is a specialty plate a matter of free speech, and if so, whose? The individual's, or the state's?

The Choose Life plate was made available to Florida drivers in 2000, after a four year legislative and judicial fight, and in 2007 it was the 8th most popular plate offered. The organization behind it, Choose Life, Inc., has been fighting to get the plate approved in every united state. The court battles that it has been waging for years and increasingly winning usually pit it against the ACLU and Planned Parenthood. According to Choose Life, Inc. as of July 1, 22 states have Choose Life license plates, three states have approved them but they aren't yet available, 13 states are working on it, there are lawsuits in three other states, and in 9 states there is no work being done on the issue. Yet.
Choose Life plate
An example of a pro-life license plate, for the state of Florida, supported by Choose Life, Inc. Debates rage across the nation as to the legality of such plates.

At its most basic, Choose Life, Inc. is a non-profit. As far as the license plate is concerned, though, the charity wants to provide money for crisis pregnancy centers that will provide counseling and avenues for adoption for expectant mothers. Of the $22 paid to renew the plate, $20 goes to organizations supported by Choose Life, Inc. and the plate's success has brought in more than $6 million. What has brought on the lawsuits is that Choose Life, Inc. only supports organizations that do not perform, nor refer, nor counsel on abortions, and the Planned Parenthood and the ACLU have taken issue with that, claiming that any state that issues the Choose Life plate is endorsing one side of a debate -- the anti-abortion side.

The argument being used to counter that is that the Choose Life plate is a matter of free speech -- no one is compelled to buy and display the plate. As such, states aren't at liberty to curtail it, and Planned Parenthood is free to get a Choose Choice plate approved. The Supreme Court has declined to hear any of the cases and create a federal standard, so states are left to decide on their own and that has created a mix of approvals, rejections, and ongoing court hearings. Hawaii does have a Respect Choice license plate, but uptake has been so low that it's in danger of being rescinded. Tennessee, on the other hand, rejected the Choose Choice license plate, and that decision was upheld by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The question is really whether this is about the First Amendment and free speech, or a religious and political debate. Choose Life, Inc. and its supporters have undeniably polarizing stance.

"We are free to speak," said Elizabeth Rex, president of the New York-based Children First Foundation, "whether what we say is controversial or not." But that isn't true when it comes to license plates. When the Knights of Columbus wanted a specialty plate in Arkansas, they were turned down because the state was afraid the KKK would want one as well. A Christian school official in Vermont wanted the vanity plate "ROMANS5" and was turned down. When Colorado added another surcharge to the cost of its Breast Cancer Awareness specialty plate, the organization that got the plate approved had it pulled from circulation.

Clearly, license plates are not uncensored forums.

Nevertheless, Choose Life, Inc. is by no means the only religious-affiliated plate available. Florida has a Family Values plate that supports the Sheridan House Family Ministries, a thoroughly religious organization. Ohio has a One Nation Under God plate supported by a charity focused on keeping God in the Pledge of Allegiance. Pennsylvania has a Knights of Columbus plate -- those same knights that were rejected in Arkansas. And there are many, many more.

The result is that the debate remains muddled enough to give both sides, Choose Life, Inc. and Planned Parenthood, enough legal room to pose credible court cases until the Supreme Court decides to weigh in.

The best solution for both sides in the interim could be the one that's been around even longer than license plates: bumper stickers. They don't have the gravitas of license plates but you can make up for that with sheer volume, they can say anything you want, and they come in every color imaginable.

Good luck getting them off your car, though.


Sign the Petition:

Go to: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ncchooselife/ to sign the petition.

Your email address will not be used for any purpose other than this petition. For the past eight years, the North Carolina General Assembly has failed to allow all members to vote on the Choose Life specialty license plate. Currently North Carolina residents proudly display over 130 specialty plates. We need your help to make the Choose Life license plate a reality. Your signature on the Choose Life petition will show our legislators that there is support for the Choose Life message in North Carolina, and that the bill should be brought to a vote as required for each new tag.