Dear Friends of the Family,

This week we received the news we partially expected, but had hoped would not come. Attorney General Martha Coakley has determined that the newly passed casino bill is an appropriations bill and thereby, per the MA Constitution, exempt from a citizens petition effort to repeal the law. In a voluminous 104 page bill authorizing three casinos and slots at one racetrack, the legislative leadership and Governor Patrick craftily folded in two minor funding lines to once again ensure the citizens were locked out of the process. In response to the ruling, the Repeal the Deal Committee will shift its focus to fighting the issue in potential host community referendums and preparing for a 2014 initiative that will not face the same obstacle.
 
This was not an easy decision to make, given the tremendous social and economic costs that will result from expanded predatory gambling. However, we are confident that it was the right decision under the current circumstances. 
 
It is appalling, but not surprising, that our elected officials—the same ones that denied the people the right to vote on the definition of marriage—would pass a casino law that the people were banned from voting up or down.
 
The backdoor dealings on Beacon Hill have not only resulted in this expanded predatory gambling bill, but also given us the “transsexual rights” bill rammed through the Legislature last month and signed into law the same day as the casino bill. Small wonder that the last three House Speakers have been indicted, yet the backroom dealings continue. We may be a iPod nation, but our state government remains a broken old record of bad policy and a continual disdain for the people and their rights.
 
Though the lack of a casino referendum next November is regrettable, it will allow MFI and other pro-family organizations to concentrate our efforts and our resources towards defeating the doctor-prescribed suicide question that will be on the ballot. 
 
Wesley J. Smith had this to say in First Things about the failure of guidelines to protect a vulnerable patient:
 
Here’s the problem: legalizing assisted suicide changes mindsets 180 degrees. Once the law states that it will countenance doctors prescribing death, the details about who receives the poison–and the circumstances surrounding the prescribing (or administration)–increasingly don’t matter.  Ending suffering–as defined by the suicidal person–becomes the paradigm.  In that milieu, people stop caring because protecting the vulnerable doesn’t matter.
 
Approving doctor-prescribed suicide would fit hand-in-glove with government-run “Death Panels” and accelerate our movement down the dark and dangerous path that leads to a total culture of death, not only for those at the beginning and end of life, but throughout a lifespan. 
 
For our families,
 
 
P.S. In a front page story on Sunday, the Boston Globe covered the story of twin boys in Maine that are now a sister and brother thanks to controversial hormone treatments, parents abrogating their responsibilities to their “son’s” true gender, and a radical doctor at Boston’s Children’s Hospital. This profile is nothing more than a one-sided propaganda piece in support of a radical sexual agenda. Dr. Norman Spack is quoted as saying both, “We can do wonders if we can get them early” and that a “very significant number of children who exhibit cross-gender behavior” before puberty “do not end up being transgender.” To which we ask, “Which is it Doctor Spack? How can you justify trying to alter a child’s gender when it is not required?” You can read the full article HERE, and I encourage you to write a letter to the editor by emailing letters@bostonglobe.com.