The North Dakota House of Representatives has passed the first personhood amendment in the United States, 57-35. Read more
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How a Mississippi Bill Could Help the Case fo Prolife
Supporters of Personhood Amendment Make Case to Mississippi Voters
Fresh off a win at the Mississippi Supreme Court, backers of a so-called “Personhood Amendment” are looking forward to making their case to voters.
On Nov. 8, voters across the state will decide whether or not to amend the Mississippi constitution so that in the words of the proposed amendment, “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization.”
A number of pro-choice groups, including the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, sued to keep the initiative off the November ballot. In ruling to allow it, the Mississippi Supreme Court held, “Just as this Court cannot prohibit legislators from offering proposals in the House or Senate, this Court cannot impede voters from submitting proposals through the voter initiative process.” The Court did not address the content of the ballot initiative.
Opponents warn that the measure will radically interfere with women’s most personal healthcare decisions. “This measure is harmful to women,” Brian Atwood, legal director of the ACLU said.
Atwood characterized the proposed amendment as something that could “severely limit women’s access to birth control, in vitro fertilization and life-saving medical procedures.”
Keith Mason, president of Personhood USA, said those claims are simply false.
“We are planning to take these arguments head-on in Mississippi,” Mason says. He also argues that many of the groups that oppose measures like the one in Mississippi stand “to profit” from abortion, and that accounts for at least part of their motivation.
Although a similar ballot measure has failed twice in Colorado, Mason is optimistic about success in Mississippi.
“Around 80 percent of the electorate is pro-life,” Mason said. “The only way we could see defeat in Mississippi … is if folks just sit at home and do nothing.”
Though it was among the losing parties at the Mississippi Supreme Court, the Center for Reproductive Rights believes it will ultimately prevail. It is urging voters to defeat the Personhood Amendment and warning, “This measure should raise all kinds of alarms.”
Should voters approve the measure, legal fights are guaranteed and opponents feel confident the content of the amendment will not survive legal scrutiny.
Supporters plan to forge ahead. They hope to have Personhood Amendments on at least a dozen state ballots by Election Day 2012.
by Shannon Beam
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/12/supporters-personhood-amendme…Planned Parenthood loses bid to stop Mississippi pro-life personhood amendment
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/planned-parenthood-loses-bid-to-stop-mi…
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Planned Parenthood loses bid to stop Mississippi pro-life personhood amendment
by Jeremy Kryn
JACKSON, MS, September 12, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday rejected an appeal by Planned Parenthood to keep a “Personhood Amendment” off the November 2011 general election ballot.
Mississippi’s Personhood Amendment 26 would amend the Mississippi Constitution to define the word “person” or “persons” to “include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.”
“With the first two hurdles overcome, only the third hurdle of Election Day remains for us to claim victory in our state’s personhood movement,” said Yes on 26 Executive Director Brad Prewitt. “We need Mississippi’s prolife public officials, pastors, and patriots to stand up and be counted in the days ahead as we seek to become the first state in the nation to grant civil rights to the unborn.”
The national pro-life organization Personhood USA collected more than 106,000 certified signatures in favor of putting Measure 26 on the November ballot. This was despite Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood’s interpretation of the law that resulted in an early cutoff date, which prevented a number of signatures from being counted.
According to Mississippi law, for an initiative measure to be placed on the ballot, a minimum of 89,285 certified signatures must be gathered, with at least 17,857 certified signatures from each of the five congressional districts as they existed in the year 2000. This required number of signatures represents 12% of the total number of votes cast for Governor in the last gubernatorial general election.
In July of 2010, Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit to disallow Mississippi voters from voting on the Mississippi Personhood Amendment, claiming that it was an improper attempt to modify the Bill of Rights. The Hinds County Circuit Court and now the State Supreme Court, with a 7-2 vote of the justices, have rejected their challenge.
“Our law provides that this court cannot interfere with the legislative act of the people, just as this court cannot interfere with the attempt of the Legislature to pass a law,” Associate Justice Randy Pierce said in the majority opinion.
Associate Justices James Kitchens and Leslie King said in their dissent that the measure is an attempt to add “a new section” to the Mississippi Bill of Rights, not possible through a ballot measure.
An ACLU representative called Measure 26 “extreme.”
“This initiative is extreme and could severely undermine women’s access to birth control, in-vitro fertilization and life-saving medical procedures,” said ACLU of Mississippi legal director Bear Atwood.
A Colorado initiative that would have given personhood status in the state constitution to all human beings “from the beginning of biological development” made it onto the state ballot but failed the popular vote in 2008 and in 2010.
Mississippi to vote on 'personhood' of unborn
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=343025
State Supreme Court clears path for issue to be on November ballot
Posted: September 09, 2011
1:30 am Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2011 WND
Mississippi rally to add personhood amendment to state’s constitution
The Mississippi Supreme Court today cleared the way for voters to decide on a “personhood” ballot initiative in November that would threaten the state’s abortion industry and the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision that nullifed state laws banning abortion.
An organization called Personhood Mississippi explains that if Ballot Measure 26 instituting a personhood amendment is approved, all human beings in the state would be afforded equal rights and protection from the time of conception. The law would effectively outlaw abortion, cloning and human embryo research in a way that would “challenge Roe v. Wade at its very core.”
The measure had been challenged by abortion interests who contended that voters were not allowed to “change” the definition of “person.”
But Justice Randy G. Pierce said that assertion was incorrect.
“To be clear, it is the province of this court to interpret the meaning of the Mississippi Constitution, and no opinion issued by this court has interpreted the meaning of the word ‘person’ as it is used throughout the constitution,” he wrote. “The dissent worries that Measure 26 ‘seeks to modify the definition’ of ‘person or persons’ as they appear in the Mississippi constitution. But those terms have never been defined. Therefore, Measure 26 cannot modify a definition that does not now exist.”
(Story continues below)
The concept of declaring an unborn infant a person under the law to defeat the abortion industry comes from the original Roe v. Wade decision itself. The court in 1973 noted that should the “personhood” of the unborn be established, then they would be protected by the constitutional provisions afforded everyone.
The Mississippi court’s opinion said, too, that the court in Mississippi “cannot interfere with the legislative act of the people, just as this court cannot interfere with the attempt of the legislature to pass a law.”
“Nothing in our constitution as it exists today gives this court the authority to review the validity of a proposal prior to its enactment, which is exactly what plaintiffs request this court to do. This court is without power to interfere with pre-election proposals, because to do so may place the administration of government at the footstool of the judiciary,” the ruling said.
The American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood lost their legal challenge at the district court level and then again at the state Supreme Court.The one-sentence amendment reads, “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.”
“We believed that the court would uphold the rights of Mississippi voters, and we are thankful that they have done so,” said Keith Mason, president of PersonhoodUSA. “Mississippians volunteered thousands of hours of their time to ensure that voters would have the right to vote on this prolife amendment, and their voices should be heard.”
More than 106,000 certified signatures were turned in to place the measure on the ballot for the Nov. 8 election.
“When passed, Measure No. 26 to the Mississippi Constitution would define ‘person’ to include ‘every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof,’” explained Brad Prewitt, executive director of the American Family Association. “This simple definition would not only bring the legal definition of personhood into line with what the overwhelming majority of Mississippians already believe, but would also be consistent with current law on crimes against pregnant women and the unborn.
“The unborn, whether naturally or artificially created, would then have the same legal rights that others already have,” he said.
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Read more: Mississippi to vote on ‘personhood’ of unborn http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=343025#ixzz1Z81ptISh
Miss. court upholds election on ballot initiatives
http://www.chron.com/news/article/Miss-court-upholds-election-on-ballot-...
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Miss. court upholds election on ballot initiatives
JACK ELLIOTT JR., Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — An amendment that seeks to define life as beginning at conception and one about eminent domain can appear on the Nov. 8 general election ballot, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.
A majority of the nine justices reinforced a 2000 ruling that said they cannot rule on the constitutionality of measures until voters or legislators have had a chance to pass them. The court dismissed challenges filed by opponents.
Eminent domain is the process that government uses to take private land for projects ranging from road construction to industrial development. The proposed amendment would prohibit state and local government from taking private land to give to another person or business.
An initiative to require people show proper ID to vote also will be on the ballot. The state Election Commission meets Friday to finalize the sample ballot that will be sent to counties.
“Over 100,000 Mississippi citizens expressed their desire to have a voice on the Personhood and Eminent Domain constitutional initiatives. The Supreme Court has decided to allow the initiatives to stay on the ballot. Voters will now determine whether these initiatives will be part of our constitution,” Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said in a statement.
Two Hinds County circuit judges had earlier rejected opponents’ arguments against the amendments dealing with life beginning at conception or “personhood” and eminent domain. The judges said each had gotten the proper number of signatures to be placed on the ballot. The judges did not address the constitutional issues raised in either lawsuit.
“This court is without power to determine the constitutionality of a proposed statute, amendment, or initiative prior to its approval by the Legislature or electorate,” wrote Justice Randy Pierce in a 7-2 decision.
While abortion has been central in the debate about personhood, those in the lawsuit have clashed over whether it oversteps the boundaries for proposed state constitutional amendments.
Groups that support abortion rights — Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the state and national chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union — helped sue.
“A measure will be on the ballot that will allow the government to dictate what is a private matter that’s best decided by a woman, her family and within the context of her faith. Mississippi voters should reject this intrusive and dangerous measure,” said Nsombi Lambright, executive director of the ACLU of Mississippi.
Others — such as Pro-Life Mississippi, the American Family Association and the Mississippi Baptist Convention — support it.
Keith Mason of Arvada, Colo., co-founder of Personhood USA, said Mississippi is the only state with such an amendment on the ballot this fall. He said people are gathering signatures in Montana, Florida and Ohio to try to put nearly identical initiatives on ballots in 2012. He said similar efforts will start soon in Colorado, California, North Dakota, Nevada and Arkansas.
Mason said the Mississippi personhood amendment could lead to a challenge of Roe v. Wade.
“This will send shockwaves around this country, then around the world,” Mason said Thursday in Mississippi.
An attorney for proponents said his group needs to “celebrate this hard-won victory, but tomorrow we roll up our sleeves and return to work.
“Our opponents are discouraged, but not yet ultimately defeated,” said Stephen Crampton. “They will be back, spreading fear, confusion, and dire ‘sky-is-falling’ warnings about this simple amendment, and we must be ready to rebut their baseless charges and set the record straight.”
Pierce also said in his opinion that the Supreme Court couldn’t review a constitutional question that was not addressed by the Hinds County court.
Opponents were asking the court to rule on whether a proposal was constitutional before it had been adopted into the constitution, he said.
“As a matter of judicial policy, this court does not issue advisory opinions. Moreover, this court has found that advance opinions will not be issued to remove alleged clouds or uncertainties from proposed statutes or constitutional amendments,” Pierce said.
Justice Jim Kitchens, in a dissent joined by Justice Leslie King, said he believed the personhood proposal was an attempt to modify the Bill of Rights.
The politically powerful Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation sponsored the eminent domain initiative and gathered signatures to place it on the ballot. Supporters have said the amendment will protect property rights.
Opponents were led by businessman Leland Speed. He is director of the Mississippi Development Authority, but said he was acting as a private citizen, not as a public official, when he legally challenged the measure.
Speed said Mississippi does not have a history of an abuse of property rights or eminent domain for economic development. Speed said the amendment, if passed, would take power away from the courts to determine what is public use for economic development. He said it also would prevent the Legislature, the governor and local officials from getting together to pursue economic development for the state.
Justice Ann Lamar, writing for the majority in an identical 7-2 decision, said the court would not issue an improper advisory opinion. Lamar said the court also would not be rushed into deciding the constitutional merits.
Mississippi voters can decide 'personhood' of the unborn, court rules
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/09/09/mississippi.personhood/index.html
By Bill Mears, CNN
September 9, 2011 7:47 p.m. EDT
(CNN) — Voters in Mississippi will be given a chance to decide whether life begins at conception, a controversial abortion-related ballot initiative that the state’s highest court has refused to block.
The Mississippi Supreme Court late Thursday allowed Measure 26, also known as the Personhood Amendment, to appear on the state ballot November 8. The decision was a rejection of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and abortion-rights groups.
The 7-2 ruling said those groups had not met the legal burden required to restrict the right of citizens to amend the state constitution.
“We cannot invade the territory of the legislature or the electorate to review the substantive validity of a proposed initiative, and thereby, we will honor the maxim embodied in the constitutional mandate of separation of powers,” said Justice Randy Pierce for the court.
He said any challenges to the constitutionality of such statutes can come only after they are enacted or approved by voters.
The measure would amend the constitution to extend “personhood” to the unborn, likely rendering abortions illegal in the state if upheld.
Anti-abortion forces hope the amendment, if passed, would ultimately be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, providing another opportunity for the justices to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
“Although our opponents were beaten in this lawsuit, we know that they will not stop in their desperate attempts to deny the obvious truth that life begins at conception and that every life deserves to be protected in the law,” said Steve Crampton, general counsel of the conservative legal group Liberty Counsel. “Not only Mississippians, but all Americans, should support this commonsense amendment.”
A coalition of abortion-rights groups — including Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Center for Reproductive Rights — expressed disappointment in the opinion.
“A measure will be on the ballot that will allow the government to dictate what is a private matter that’s best decided by a woman, her family and within the context of her faith. Mississippi voters should reject this intrusive and dangerous measure,” said Nsombi Lambright, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi.
Mississippi is the only state with a “personhood” initiative on the ballot this year. Similar measures are being planned for next year in Florida, Montana and Ohio, say supporters. Efforts it at least five other states are in the planning stages.
The state high court also allowed separate ballot initiatives on eminent domain and voter identification.
The property rights initiative would block the state from taking private land and giving it to another person or business. Eminent domain has traditionally been used to acquire a citizen’s land for such projects as transportation and infrastructure improvements, but the U.S. Supreme Court has recently given local governments the power to use eminent domain for private economic development.
The other measure endorsed by the Mississippi court would require voters to present state-issued identification when they vote.
The “personhood” case is Hughes v. Hosemann (2010-1949).
Breaking: Mississippi Supreme Court Rules on Amendment 26!
Fantastic news out of Mississippi! Amendment 26 will be on the November ballot as the State Supreme Court ruled today to dismiss the plaintiff’s case!
Justice Randy G. Pierce issued the majority opinion in which he wrote:
“To be clear, it is the province of this Court to interpret the meaning of the Mississippi Constitution, and no opinion issued by this Court has interpreted the meaning of the word person as it is used throughout the Constitution. The dissent worries that Measure 26 “seeks to modify the definition” of “person or persons” as they appear in the Mississippi Constitution. But those terms have never been defined. Therefore, Measure 26 cannot modify a definition that does not now exist.”
Further…
“Ultimately, the judiciary’s power is restricted in reviewing the constitutionality of a proposal, regardless of whether that proposal is proffered by a legislator or through a voter initiative. Our law provides that this Court cannot interfere with the legislative act of the people, just as this Court cannot interfere with the attempt of the Legislature to pass a law.”
“Nothing in our Constitution as it exists today gives this Court the authority to review the validity of a proposal prior to its enactment, which is exactly what Plaintiffs request this Court to do. This Court is without power to interfere with pre-election proposals, because to do so may place the administration of government at the footstool of the judiciary.”
“Just as this Court cannot prohibit legislators from offering proposals in the House or Senate, this Court cannot impede voters from submitting proposals through the voter initiative process.”
Read the entire opinion here: http://www.mssc.state.ms.us/Images/Opinions/CO71836.pdf
More to come…
Personhood Report: U.S. and International News!
The Huck to Headline Amendment 26 Event
Personhood USA President Keith Mason invites you to join him next Thursday, September 8th in Jackson, Mississippi for the Yes on 26 Campaign Kick-off Banquet. Please come and give a warm welcome to keynote speaker and former presidential candidate Gov. Mike Huckabee. Special guests include bestselling author and activist, Deanna Favre, and musical guest, multi-platinum selling artist, Mark Schultz.
Who: Gov. Mike Huckabee, Deanna Favre, and Mark Schultz
What: Vote for Life, Yes on 26 Campaign Kick-off Banquet
Where: First Baptist Church, East Fellowship Hall, 431 N. State St., Jackson, MS
When: Thursday, September 8th, 2011, 5:30-7:30 PM
To register, go to https://yeson26.thedonortree.com/event
Portugal on the Move for Personhood
In response to the liberalization of the nation’s abortion laws and a proposal by the leftist party to decriminalize euthanasia, a group of concerned Portuguese citizens has begun a petition to protect every person “from conception to natural death.” A 1984 law decriminalized abortion for the cases of rape, life of the mother, or deformity up to 12 weeks. In 2007, Parliament went further by allowing abortion on demand through the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.
"The current Prime Minister said if there was a group of citizens who wanted to raise the question of the value of life, support for it in parliament would be available. We hope they honor the commitment,” said Portuguese physician, Daniel Serrão. “This group of citizens is responding to an invitation.” The group must collect 75,000 signatures to put the issue to a national vote.
In a statement on the diocese website, the Bishop of Lamego, D. Jacinto Botelho, offered his “wholehearted support.” Bishop of Porto D. Manuel Clement added, "It is essential and a priority."
Polish Abortion Ban Falls by a Handful
LifeSiteNews.com is reporting that a total abortion ban—which was the result of a citizen-led petition campaign in Poland—fell by the narrowest of margins yesterday. Polish parliamentarians voted down the measure 191-186. The bill would have removed the remaining exceptions in Polish abortion law and provided protections for every human being from conception.
600,000 petition signatures were submitted in June to bring the bill before lawmakers. Sponsors were required to collect 100,000 signatures in three months, but instead collected the total in just two weeks. In July, it survived a vote on a motion to dismiss by an overwhelming majority, 254-151.
Pro-life commentator Tomasz Terlikowski told LifeSiteNews.com that Polish pro-lifers “will not rest” and that they “will re-submit the bill.”
Also this year, a petition to amend Colombia’s national constitution garnered an incredible 5 million signatures. The amendment will read: “Life in Colombia is inviolable, and will have the same protection from fertilization until natural death.”
In America, Personhood USA has gathered nearly one million signatures championing personhood. Mississippians submitted 130,000 signatures to amend the state constitution to affirm the personhood rights of preborn babies. Residents are set to vote on Amendment 26 on November 8th.
Personhood Report: News of the Week!
Pro-life Blogger Gerard Nadal on Personhood
Dr. Gerard Nadal, author of the pro-life blog Coming Home, writes in an August 20th post that he favors personhood for the strategy’s potential to ensure protections--not only from abortion--but a host of issues of grave concern to the pro-life movement.
“Personhood encompasses all of the life spectrum and speaks to the issue of one’s fundamental human identity, dignity, and standing under the law. I think we make a colossal error when we speak of personhood only in terms of abortion,” said Nadal.
“While we dither on the front end of the life spectrum, a wildfire is growing out of control on the other end of the life spectrum,” he continues.
“Pro-life had better mean more than just anti-abortion, and while one needs to pick one’s battles carefully and focus to be effective, the bishops as a body do not have the luxury of myopia.” Continue reading here.
Judie Brown Refutes Amendment 26 Opposition Rhetoric
In a letter appearing in the Biloxi-Gulfport and South Mississippi Sun Herald last week, American Life League President Judie Brown shot down an attempt to dissuade Mississippians from voting in favor of the Mississippi Personhood Amendment. Brown counters the accusation of “possible legal fallout” in that the measure would require legislators to enact criminal penalties for mothers participating in abortion.
“Once the state approves the amendment, and it survives a challenge at the Supreme Court level, the state legislature will have to examine how it wants to develop the criminal law that would be put in place to provide legal protections for the child not yet born. Whether or not criminal charges would be assessed for the expectant mother who pays an abortionist for the act itself remains to be seen,” she writes.
“However, using the specter of possible criminal penalty to scare Americans into voting against a proposed amendment that would do nothing more than recognize the human rights of persons prior to birth is not only ridiculous but misleading and deceptive.”
Eugenics: Aborting Children with Down Syndrome in Denmark and the U.S.
Danish newspaper Berlingske is reporting that an analysis of the country’s abortion rate indicates that the last child with Down syndrome could be born around the year 2030. 61 babies were born with the genetic disease in 2004 when the government of Denmark began offering screenings through the socialized health program. The following year, the number was less than half of that. Today, 99 of 100 children with Down syndrome are aborted in the European nation.
“We should not have an ethnic cleansing type of situation, which this resembles,” said Ulla Brendstrup, mother of a child with Down syndrome. “They are going after one specific handicap. What’s next? Will it be children with diabetes who will be rejected?”
A 2002 study found a similar rate in the U.S.
“At least the Danes are raising this issue. In North America, it’s estimated that more than 90 per cent of unborn babies with Down syndrome are aborted,” said Margaret Somerville, founding director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University. “Widespread, publicly endorsed and paid for prenatal screening to eliminate people with Down syndrome implicates values of respect for both individual human life and human life in general, and respect for disabled people. Collectively, these decisions implement negative eugenics regarding disabled people. It’s a ‘search and destroy’ mission to wipe them out.”
Help us restore dignity to all people regardless of age, health, function, physical or mental dependency, or method of reproduction!
LifeSite News Helps Personhood USA Expose Planned Parenthod 'Chaplain'
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/intellectually-dishonest-baptist-conven…
‘Intellectually dishonest’: Baptist Convention repudiates Planned Parenthood pastor’s claim
by Christine Dhanagom
JACKSON, August 16, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The claim of a clergyman who is also a chaplain for Planned Parenthood that he is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention has been repudiated by a spokesman for the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board in comments to LifeSiteNews.com
Rev. Vincent Lachina
Dressed in a clerical collar, Rev. Vincent Lachina urged the crowd gathered for the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Personhood Amendment Hearing last Wednesday to vote against the pro-life amendment.
He prefaced his remarks by saying, “I am an ordained Southern Baptist minister with 47 years of service to the family of God. I wish to state quite clearly that I am both an evangelical Christian and I am committed to a woman’s right to her own reproductive choices.”
“I consider myself both pro-choice and pro-life and I see no conflict in those two convictions,” he continued.
Lachina also noted that he grew up in Jackson and had a “Mississippi heritage.”
After he was finished, however, audience member Jacob Dawson of the American Family Association took to the microphone to fill in some information that Lachina had left out of his introduction.
“A quick Google search reveals a January 2006 article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer stating that Mr. Lachina is from Seattle, and is a chaplain for Planned Parenthood,” Dawson announced.
Subsequent research by the pro-life group Live Action has further called into question Lachina’s claim to affiliation with the Southern Baptist Convention, a denomination known for its pro-life stance.
In a blog post yesterday, the organization revealed that a biography of Lachina found on the website of Planned Parenthood Votes! Northwest states that he is affiliated with the American Baptist Conference and the United Church of Christ.
The profile, which has since been removed from Planned Parenthood’s site, reads: “For seven years he served the Southern Baptist Convention as a consultant and editor for youth leadership and special ministries at the Baptist Sunday School Board (now Lifeway). He is now aligned with the more progressive American Baptist Conference and the United Church of Christ. “
A screenshot of the original page is still available on Live Action’s website. As of this writing, the image is also stored in Google cache, in a snapshot dated August 4th.
Also available online is a video uploaded in July of 2007 onto Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s YouTube channel in which Lachina identifies himself as an “American Baptist clergy person from Seattle, Washington.”
William Perkins, Spokesman for the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board, told LifeSiteNews.com that since ordination in the Southern Baptist Convention is inherently tied to autonomous local congregations, claiming to be a Southern Baptist minister is dishonest if a person is not currently affiliated with a Southern Baptist congregation.
According to Perkins, Lachina was courting sympathy in a conservative state where Southern Baptists maintain the highest percentage of any Christian denomination.
“I would characterize it as intellectually dishonest,” he said. “He left out very important parts of his introduction when he got up to speak in Mississippi. He didn’t mention that he was affiliated with Planned Parenthood in any way, because he knows that’s a third rail in the South and in Mississippi. So, he started off by being deceptive and then progressed to being just simply intellectually dishonest.”
“I’ve never seen a Southern Baptist pastor in a collar,” Perkins added.
He also said that his attempts to locate the Southern Baptist church that had ordained Lachina were so far unsuccessful.
According to Roger Oldham, Spokesman for the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, Lachina’s name does not appear in any of the voluntarily submitted lists of ordained ministers that the SBC requests from its cooperating churches.
Personhood USA, a pro-life organization which is backing the Mississippi amendment, released a statement last Friday on the controversy.
“It appears that Planned Parenthood flew a man from Washington to Mississippi, put him in a clerical collar, and asked him to appeal to the voters with deep Southern Baptist roots. It’s just wrong,” said Personhood USA President Keith Mason.
“His attempts to dissuade voters from voting for Amendment 26 will not be successful. Yes on 26 is an honest campaign for a pro-life measure. No posturing or dress-up is necessary to see that all human beings are people, and that all people have a right to life,” Mason concluded.
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