by Emily Bridges, Director of Public Information Services

 Have you heard of The Family?

- It is a powerful religious fundamentalist group housed in Washington, DC.
- It is a bipartisan organization with at least 20 current members of Congress, and many other high-placed government officials, as members.
- Its members act in full cooperation with one another, believing that God has chosen them as tools.
- It has been involved in a dazzling series of horrors, from anti-abortion legislation, to abstinence-only requirements, to homophobia and transphobia.

And get this:  both Representative Bart Stupak and Representative Joe Pitts, authors of the Stupak-Pitts amendment banning any insurance companies which cover abortion from receiving subsidies under the new healthcare plan, are members.

Stupak lives in the residence on Washington DC’s C Street owned by The Family – and Pitts is in even deeper.  Pitts is a “core member,” meaning that according to Family beliefs, he is entitled to a special relationship with and message from Christ that others are not privy to. 

Pitts elevated abortion on The Family’s agenda, bringing in key state legislators as partners so that Family members would in turn offer him their support on this issue.  Because of the value The Family places on power consolidation, we are now facing draconian restrictions on abortion.

(Stupak and Pitts have worked together before on projects, including ensuring that the  President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief forced abstinence-only education onto recipients of foreign aid for HIV prevention.  And The Family is directly involved in proposed legislation in Uganda that would mean homosexuals could be put to death.)

Personal foibles don’t bar one from membership in The Family – Mark Sanford, fallen South Carolina governor, is a member, and philandering Senator John Ensign lived there.  When the husband of the woman Ensign had an affair with approached The Family to demand consequences for Ensign’s behavior, they advised him to remain quiet, and advised Ensign that payment to the husband was appropriate reparations for an affair with the wife. An unusual penalty, perhaps imparted in one of Jesus’s special messages to members of The Family?

Members of The Family are controlling women’s futures – YOUR future – with little or no accountability.  Who would have thought that a single row house in a quiet DC neighborhood could wield so much power? 

Here’s the problem in a nutshell: the Family's “unique” vision of Jesus Christ seems to justify any action they deem politically necessary or that furthers the reach of their collective influence.  And that means that members of The Family answer only to each other – NOT to principles, NOT to their fellow lawmakers, and certainly NOT to the constituents who elected them.