Ballot Battles, Marijuana, and More: Weekly Rewind

Current Events

Here’s a quick recap of the week’s top stories from Family Council and our friends:

From Family Council

Pregnancy Centers Help Countless Families: A new report from our friends at the Charlotte Lozier Institute shows pro-life pregnancy resource centers provided hundreds of millions of dollars in goods and services to families last year. Keep Reading.

Illicit Marijuana Still a Serious Problem: Last week, Arkansas State Troopers seized 1,987 pounds of illegal drugs made from marijuana. Keep Reading.

Ballot Measure Safeguards are Under Fire: Last week U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks in Fayetteville blocked a slate of anti-fraud safeguards the Arkansas Legislature enacted regarding the ballot initiative process. Keep Reading.

New Evidence That Sex-Change Procedures Hurt Children: On November 19, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a peer-reviewed report confirming what most Americans already knew: Sex-change procedures are dangerous for children. Keep Reading.

Some Bad Ideas Simply Will Not Go Away: Planned Parenthood is still pushing its sex-education agenda despite past failures. Keep Reading.

How Arkansas Helped Pave the Way for Thanksgiving: On October 12, 1847, Arkansas Gov. Thomas Drew issued the state’s very first Thanksgiving proclamation and helped pave the way for the national holiday we now enjoy every year. Keep Reading.

From Our Friends

Is Sports Betting Okay? From the Colson Center.

US State Department classifies pro-abortion policies as human rights abuses. From Live Action.

Planned Parenthood Abortion Biz Closes 45th Center in 2025 Thanks to Defunding. From LifeNews.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Planned Parenthood Still Pushing its Failed Sex-Education Agenda

Sex Education,
Above: A graphic Planned Parenthood recently posted on Facebook promoting its sex-education agenda.

Planned Parenthood is still pushing its sex-education agenda despite past failures.

The abortion giant recently took to Facebook, saying “Sex Education Shouldn’t Be Political” and claiming “Research shows that evidence-based sex education gives young people the information and skills they need to grow up safe and healthy.”

Arkansas has been down this road before, and we know from experience that Planned Parenthood’s comprehensive sex-education does not work.

In the 1980s and 1990s, public officials in Arkansas promoted comprehensive sex-education, but the programs failed to have a meaningful impact on teen pregnancy and abortion in the state.

But in 1997 the Arkansas Legislature and Governor Mike Huckabee began promoting abstinence education in Arkansas.

From 1997 to 2005, Arkansas’ teen birthrate decreased 17%, and Arkansas’ teen abortion rate plummeted a staggering 48%.

Governor Huckabee’s abstinence education model was so successful in Arkansas that it drew national recognition.

Family Council was pleased to support Arkansas’ good abstinence education program. The program continued into the early 2000s, but was gradually scaled back as a result of budget cuts and changes in state and federal government.

After President Obama’s election in 2008, the Obama Administration gave Planned Parenthood millions of dollars in funding for “evidence based” teen pregnancy prevention programs.

Experts later found students who went through Planned Parenthood’s sex-education program were often more likely to become pregnant or cause a pregnancy afterwards.

In other words, Planned Parenthood’s multimillion dollar sex-education program did exactly the opposite of what it was intended to do.

Those are just some of the reasons Family Council opposes Planned Parenthood’s approach to comprehensive sex-education.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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How Arkansas Helped Pave the Way for the Thanksgiving Holiday

Thanksgiving

On October 12, 1847, Arkansas Gov. Thomas Drew issued the state’s very first Thanksgiving proclamation.

Gov. Drew’s proclamation is significant because it came at a time when Thanksgiving was not formally recognized by Congress or the President. Each state had to decide whether or not to set aside a day for giving thanks.

In his proclamation, Gov. Drew highlighted the many blessings Arkansas had enjoyed—including Arkansas’ great people, abundant crops, prosperity, and good health.

He concluded by calling on Arkansans to thank God for these blessings.

Below is a copy of Gov. Drew’s proclamation:

Whereas, an all wise and merciful Providence has dispensed blessings of the most bountiful and diversified character among the people of this state, in the abundance of the various agricultural crops, the universal prosperity of our people and their unexampled good health, it is deemed worthy of a greatful people to make public manifestation of their sense of the renewed obligations under which we have been placed, by the appointment of a day of general THANKSGIVING throughout the state.

Be it known, therefore, that I, Thomas S. Drew, Governor of the State of Arkansas, have appointed Thursday, the 9th day of December next as a day of THANKSGIVING, which is hereby proclaimed and recommended to the good of people in every county and town in the state as a fit day and proper time to acquit ourselves, each and every one, of a high and praiseworthy duty to the Bountiful and Merciful Providence.

Given under my hand at Little Rock and to which is affixed the Great Seal of the State of Arkansas, this 12th day of October, 1847, and the Independence of the United States the seventy-second year.

By the Governor,
Thomas S. Drew

Above: Gov. Thomas S. Drew signed Arkansas’ first official Thanksgiving proclamation in 1847.

Of course, the question everyone always asks when we talk about that first Thanksgiving is, “What did Arkansans eat at that first Thanksgiving?“

The Department of Arkansas Heritage has said that families likely ate bacon, beef, mutton, pork, veal, and geese.

Butter, eggs, cheese, honey, potatoes, onions, beets, apples, and turnips would have been plentiful as well.

Because states like Arkansas recognized Thanksgiving, the federal government eventually made it an official holiday for the entire nation. Without proclamations like Gov. Drew’s, Thanksgiving as we know it might not exist.

As we take time to give thanks for the many blessings we enjoy, it’s good to know Arkansas played a part in the history of one of the most important holidays that our country observes.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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