Summer is here, and everyone expects to pay a little more to keep the temperature in the house bearable. But do you expect to pay eight times as much as you have in previous years? Unfortunately, that is exactly what will happen to consumers in some parts of the country unless Congress stands up to the insane regulations on coal put forth by the Environmental Protection Agency.

During the last few years there have been hundreds of families in my denomination who have had trouble keeping basic utility bills paid. In warmer cities, the impoverished elderly routinely run the risk of heat strokes and occasional deaths in the summer. Why would the EPA enact policies that would cause many Americans—already affected by the recession—to go nearly bankrupt paying their utility bills? These problems are avoidable. Poor energy policies affect the poor disproportionately.

Nearly everyone agrees that the environment is important, but most of us also agree that it is not more important than the human beings who live in it. Taking care of your house is important, but you would not stop buying food for your children so that you could replace your windows.

When looking at measures to protect our air, water and other natural resources, we must weigh the cost of those measures against the benefits we can realistically expect. The EPA’s new Utility MACT (Maximum Achievable Control Technology) rule is supposed to protect us from mercury emissions, and the agency readily admits it is the most expensive regulation in the EPA’s history. Let us start by looking at the projected costs and benefits.

The EPA estimates the new regulations will cost $10 billion a year, and they estimate the total benefits of mercury emissions that would supposedly be reduced by compliance with the regulation to be between $500,000 and $6 million. (Other touted benefits come from reducing particulate matter emissions that are already regulated separately.)

So the EPA is already telling us that it makes sense to pay tens of billions of dollars to save hundreds of thousands of dollars. But it’s even worse than that. The estimated cost of the regulation is almost certainly an understatement. For example, a study released last year found that the cost of a particular 1998 regulation known as the Cluster Rule was 34 percent higher than the EPA’s original estimates.

The estimated benefits may be even smaller: Mercury emissions circulate globally, and according to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, U.S. power plants emit less than 48 tons of mercury per year, compared to 400 tons per year from Chinese power plants (and if you want to include Mother Nature in the mix, we can also mention the 9,000 tons per year that come from volcanoes, sub-sea vents and other natural sources).

Although the Utility MACT rule is not set to take effect until 2015, we have already observed several negative developments in response to these new regulations. First, power companies confirm that the Utility MACT makes it impossible for new coal plants to be built in the United States. Current coal plants are facing closures and are already generating less power, which means higher energy costs for everyone and thousands of lost jobs.

The National Economic Research Associates estimate that the EPA’s Utility MACT will cost 180,000 to 215,000 jobs over the next 2 1/2 years. Including manufacturing jobs affected by coal regulations, job losses could top 1.4 million! Although the EPA touts a few hundred jobs created by this rule, most of those jobs would be temporary manufacturing jobs, and the total number would not come close to compensating for jobs lost. In an already struggling economy, the regulation seems almost suicidal.

As I have written for years, hikes in energy prices disproportionately hurt the poor and working class. It may irritate the wealthy to pay extra to keep their summer homes cool and their winter homes warm, but it will devastate those who already pay between 20 and 35 percent of the income just to keep the lights on. The EPA’s latest assault on coal-fired power plants and coal-fueled manufacturing merely illustrates that they are happy to force poor Americans into a Stone Age lifestyle for the possibility of a miniscule improvement in air quality. The only thing standing between us and this astronomical spike in energy costs is our legislators.

We can have both clean air and affordable energy, but only if the EPA is willing to face the realities about the limits and costs of regulations. It’s time that we call a truce in the energy war on the poor!

Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr. is the senior pastor of Hope Christian Church, a 3,000-member congregation in the Washington, D.C., area. He is also founder and president of High Impact Leadership Coalition, which exists to protect the moral compass of America and be an agent of healing to our nation by educating and empowering churches, community and political leaders.

The Supreme Court ruled Obamacare constitutional, and I’m concerned about its effect on the poor and vulnerable. They are the ones who need quality health care the most.

The Court, of course, was not called upon to determine whether Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act, would actually have its intended effect. While the White House appears to have consulted many experts during Obamacare’s formative months, they also hung up twice on Dr. Ben Carson as he offered his advice.

Why did the White House hang up on the world-renown African-American neurosurgeon? Because he admitted to being an Independent, not a Democrat. Dr. Carson, who is director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins, has been openly critical of the U.S. current health care system. He has also made it clear, however, that he thinks Obama’s Affordable Care Act is not the answer.

Dr. Carson should understand better than almost anyone in the White House the importance of affordable access to health care for the poor and needy. He was born in Detroit and raised by a single mother. He overcame early struggles in his life to graduate from Yale and University of Michigan’s Medical School and made medical history in 1987 when he successfully separated the Binder Twins, who were conjoined at the head.

So why doesn’t Dr. Carson believe Obamacare will provide better outcomes for people in circumstances similar to those of his own childhood? Because countries like Canada and Great Britain have already tried similar plans for decades, and those plans are now failing their patients.

In an April interview with World Magazine, Dr. Carson explained, “Great Britain and some other places with socialized medicine are looking at privatization because they’re running out of money. The problem with socialized medicine is that you can’t seem to keep up with costs over the course of time, so you have to ration.”

In addition to running out of money, the European and Canadian health care systems have poorer results for what they spend. According to the National Center for Policy Analysis, both Europe and Canada have worse cancer survival rates than Americans do under our current system.

Furthermore, Americans are more likely to get screened, and once diagnosed we have faster access to treatment. As someone who survived esophageal cancer, I am grateful for the superior treatment I received here. And every time I entered Johns Hopkins, I saw people from all over the world—including Britain and Canada—who had come to America for higher quality healthcare.

What’s more, there is growing evidence that government-controlled systems not only fail to close the health care gap between whites and minorities, but may even exacerbate racial differences in health outcomes. The Centre for Health Services Studies at the University of Kent recently released a study of racial disparities in the British health care system, which has been under government control for more than 50 years. It found that racial minorities still had the highest rates of mortality from coronary heart disease and were less likely than white patients to receive coronary revascularization according to need.

Racial minorities in Britain also have the highest rates of diabetes and diabetes-related mortality, as well as AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Patient surveys also indicated multiple problems with minority access to cancer screenings and treatment.

The Wellesley Institute of Canada recently released a paper called “Colour Coded Health Care: The Impact of Race and Racism on Canadian Health,” which raised serious questions about racial disparities in Canada’s system. It noted that immigrants come to Canada in generally better health than their Canadian racial counterparts, but shortly after settling there, their health declines significantly.

Studies showed a large disparity between health care providers’ perception of racial equality and the actual experience of ethnic minorities in the Canadian health care system: ethnic minorities reported being discriminated against in the healthcare system, whereas the majority of family doctors studied reported that racial differences created no social tensions in their offices. Given these pathetic realities, there is no reason to expect that a government takeover of American health care will have any positive effect on the health of racial minorities in this country.

At the end of the day, Obamacare survived the Roberts Court because its attorneys argued what President Obama specifically denied before the bill was passed: Obamacare is a tax. Not only that, it is the largest tax increase on the middle class in the history of the nation. In such a fragile economy, it will bring harm to people of all races.

Blacks and Hispanics will not only lose financially because of this new policy, but the experience of other countries indicates they will receive inferior care. In other words, the president’s crowning legislative achievement will hurt the people he claimed to want to help. Society as a whole will have to pay for an expensive new bureaucracy to administer this inferior care.

Leaders like Dr. Carson warned the White House about these impending problems. The administration’s response was to hang up the phone. No one wanted to hear the truth. Politics as usual? No! It’s politics at its worst.

Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr. is the senior pastor of Hope Christian Church, a 3,000-member congregation in the Washington, D.C., area. He is also founder and president of High Impact Leadership Coalition, which exists to protect the moral compass of America and be an agent of healing to our nation by educating and empowering churches, community and political leaders.

Several years ago I came across a well-written book that outlined a step-by-step process for personal change. The book, Change Or Die, actually explored the psychology of change. The author, Alan Deutschman, helped me to focus several important health changes in my personal life. I chose to “change,” not “die.”

The Obama administration is at an important crossroads—or a “change or die” moment—as well with regard to energy. The president wants to be seen as a job creator but his green policies have squandered resources and disillusioned all but the most ardent energy zealots. The president could ease the burden of the average American citizen by simply backing away from his rigid ideology concerning energy.

Ironically, his energy policies have begun to exacerbate the cash problems of our hardest-working citizens. I bear no ill will toward President Obama, and I defend him whenever I can; but there are a few areas where his policies are simply indefensible.

We have all heard the administration’s cronies exhort us that, “We must not balance the budget on the backs of the poor.” I most heartily agree. Neither must we attempt to save the planet by sacrificing the poor on the altar of environmental extremism. For all the administration’s rhetoric concerning working-class folks, they have initiated an energy war on the poor.

For almost four years, the president’s energy policies have not truly focused on conservation or saving the earth; they have been about placating the lobby of environmental radicals who view mankind as parasites on the environment—not stewards of it. As unbelievable as it sounds, these extremists actually want energy to be more expensive.

Let me be more specific. Earlier this year, the Obama administration rejected a proposal to build a pipeline between Alberta, Canada, and Texas. The “Keystone Pipeline” would have reportedly brought in about 830,000 barrels of oil a day and created tens of thousands of jobs for Americans. Although the proposal had received bipartisan support, the administration claimed it needed more time to gather and review information.

The initial application, however, was filed in 2008, and the Department of State has already conducted a three-year environmental impact review. At a time when everyone in the country needs more affordable energy and jobs, the White House rejected both. Why? Because environmental extremists care more about soil composition than people.

The Keystone decision was the latest in a long series of policy choices that prevents Americans from obtaining the affordable energy we all need, and increases our dependence on petroleum from the Middle East. This policy not only drives up fuel prices, but also further weakens our already struggling economy. Who suffers most as gasoline creeps steadily toward $5 a gallon and heating and air conditioning costs rise? Not the folks making the decisions to keep it that way, I can promise you that.

Meanwhile, the White House’s two best ideas seem a little less than brilliant. First, it wants to combat our energy problems by investing heavily in “green” energy for the long term. Second, it wants to open the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the short term. Even a casual observer can see that the president’s green energy initiative has been financially disastrous.

From the failures of flagship companies like Solyndra, which went bankrupt despite hundreds of millions of dollars of federal aid, to the cost of each green job actually created, legislators from both sides of the aisle no longer view federally funded green energy projects as the future of economic growth.

To add insult to injury, a recent investigation by The Wall Street Journal discovered that most of the jobs reportedly “created” with countless dollars of stimulus money were temporary, and some are not even real! For example, $4.3 billion went to 36 wind farms, which reported the creation of 7,200 jobs, but now employ only 300. That is a cost of more than $14 million per permanent job!

As for tapping into the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, James L. Jones and Jason S. Grumet of the Bipartisan Policy Center weighed in through The New York Times, saying that this is a bad idea.

“The oil reserve,” they explain, “should be preserved to address an emergency disruption in supply.” They go on to state the obvious solution: “Despite the traditional election-year rancor, there is actually considerable bipartisan agreement on what needs to be done. Increasing domestic oil production is extremely important to our economy and to reducing our trade deficit.”

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Grumet and Jones’ analysis is the fact that Jones is a former Obama adviser. Affordable energy must be a vital part of putting Americans back to work. Unfortunately, the man in charge appears to be brainwashed by environmental activists.

The Declaration of Independence says we need a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” If we accept this foundational truth, we must demand better from our president, his administration and our legislators. It’s time to call for a real change.

Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr. is the senior pastor of Hope Christian Church, a 3,000-member congregation in the Washington, D.C., area.

I have always appreciated President Obama as a family man. He and first lady Michelle have popularized several healthy family practices. For example, his practice of date night is something that thousands of congregations have taught for several decades. In some ways, he is the nation’s father in chief! He has had the opportunity to serve the U.S. as the nation’s paternal role model.

When a father stands for and lives by truth, “the blessing” of the Scriptures comes upon both the man and his family. In addition, a good father figure emulates the character of God and in special circumstances can be an instrument of healing for wounded hearts far beyond his own family.

Unfortunately, the president’s politically motivated “revelation” concerning same-sex marriage has forced his staunchest supporters (black churchgoers) into a compromising position. They have to choose between their faith and the historic presidency of Barack Obama.

Entire black denominations are officially denouncing the president’s stance on marriage. More practically, secular leaders wonder what could happen to the definition of the word father. Would the role of a father get diminished, eviscerated or ignored by homosexual marriage? Some educators question, “How does reading the book Heather Has Two Mommies affect a child’s understanding of his or her own family? How will a child with a ‘fluid’ understanding of families interpret their own future role in a family? Further, where will the next generation find role models for fathering?”

For the sake of clarity, let’s define the word father. Miriam Webster’s Student Dictionary defines “father” as follows: a male parent; an ancestor; one who cares for another as a father might; a person who invents or begins something ; a priest—used especially as a title.

After reading Webster’s current definitions, I concluded that fatherhood matters. It matters in three dimensions: literally, figuratively and spiritually. They are needed on many different levels in a modern society.

Please don’t mistake this observation for misogynism. My affirmation of fatherhood is not meant to demean women or the traditional feminine role in a family. In fact, the average person knows that it takes both a mom and a dad to raise consistently healthy children.

I understand the president’s desire to bring moral clarity to his children. I also empathize with his desire to remain relevant and contemporary. Like the Obamas, my wife and I chose to send our daughters to private school, in our case at a considerable financial sacrifice. But President Obama’s recent “evolution”on the issue of the definition of marriage highlights not only a stark difference in our view of life and truth, but in our understanding of fatherhood.

When explaining his apparent change of heart on the meaning and essence of marriage, President Obama did not delve very deeply into political philosophy. He might have offered an explanation of his changing understanding of the state’s proper relationship to the individual and where homosexual behavior fits into that equation.

Instead he talked about his personal interaction with homosexuals, including parents of his daughters’ friends. He alluded to being swayed by his daughters’ opinions on marriage, saying to ABC’s Robin Roberts, “And Malia and Sasha … it wouldn’t dawn on them that somehow their friends’ parents [in same-sex relationships] would be treated differently. It doesn’t make sense to them and frankly, that’s the kind of thing that prompts a change of perspective. You know, not wanting to somehow explain to your child why somebody should be treated differently, when it comes to the eyes of the law.”

Of course, no one is saying that homosexuals should not be treated with dignity and respect. Retaining the age-old definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is not bigotry. Redefining the institution of marriage to offer legal and public approval of homosexual behavior is a different matter entirely.

I am happy to give the president the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn’t reverse his opinion on this foundational issue simply to avoid an uncomfortable conversation with his daughters. But his answer reveals that he has a very different understanding of his role as a father than I have.

Fathers should serve as the moral leaders in their home. They should model and instruct their offspring on the difference between right and wrong, and healthy and unhealthy choices. The very fact that, according to the president, Sasha and Malia could not understand what was different about two homosexual men raising a child versus a married mother and father raising a child, points to a rather significant failure in their moral instruction.

Whatever a family’s beliefs about marriage and sexuality, they are matters about which parents must clearly teach their children, not send them into the world to figure it out on their own.

In this week after Father’s Day, let’s affirm the role of fathers everywhere! Let us also challenge both the president and the Department of Justice to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. If you would like to add your name to a letter to the president, please visit .

Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr. is the senior pastor of Hope Christian Church, a 3,000-member congregation in the Washington, D.C., area.

The scene in North Carolina was a familiar one: Traditional marriage supporters were outspent two to one and were subjected to smear campaigns that painted them as bigots for merely upholding their moral convictions. Yet despite irresponsible and deceptive media coverage, North Carolina voted overwhelmingly to affirm the traditional definition of marriage, 61 percent to 39 percent.

Once again, black voters—many of whom are Democrats and voted for President Obama in 2008—proved pivotal in passing the amendment to the state constitution, which defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman. NBC News noted that areas like Hertford County, which is 60 percent black, supported Amendment One with 70 percent of its vote. All this was despite a concerted effort by Gay, Lesbian, Transgendered and Bisexual (LGBT) activists to sway black opinion and the compromise of a handful of high-profile black pastors on the issue.·

The victory for traditional marriage enraged LGBT activists, whose money and insults were unable to buy public approval of their lifestyle choices in North Carolina. Then on May 9, President Barack Obama sat down with ABC News’ Robin Roberts and stated, “I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” And so Obama revealed to the nation what many of us worried was in his heart for quite a while: He does not believe that marriage is the fundamental unit of society, existing primarily to raise and nurture children. Instead he sees it as a legal arrangement that exists for the emotional gratification of adults.

Within hours of the interview, fundraising letters went out on behalf of President Obama’s reelection campaign, highlighting the courage of his statement. The pro-homosexual marriage crowd worked hard to overshadow the press. None of this should surprise us too much. Remember that last July, Obama declared his belief that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) should be repealed.

DOMA, signed into law by Bill Clinton, affirmed the rights of states to refuse to recognize gay marriages performed in other states. Shortly after Obama’s statement on same-sex marriage, Sen. Harry Reid expressed enthusiasm for the idea of repealing DOMA. According to Politico, he also voiced his expectation that the Democratic Party’s national platform will be revised to include a stance in support of gay marriage.

So LGBT activists have learned that money and bullying tactics can buy you a few black leaders—some pastors even—but they cannot buy you the conscience of black America. I can already hear leftists wringing their hands, declaring that the real needs of the black community are economic, not the protection of traditional values.

Next, an army of black “civil rights” leaders came forth supporting same-sex marriage, culminating with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Despite the multi-million dollar campaigns for homosexual marriage, the net result is that grass-roots black and Hispanic Christians are not going along with “politics” as usual. The lesson here is that LGBT activists can buy a few black leaders—some pastors even—but they cannot buy the conscience of black and brown America.

Many leaders in our country are beginning to believe that restoring the family and defending the institution of marriage could be the first steps to a social reclamation of marriage. More specifically, studies show that families consisting of married parents actually reduce a child’s chances of living below the poverty line by 80 percent.

During the 1990s, redefining marriage to include same-sex couples sparked a well-documented explosion in out-of-wedlock births in Scandinavian countries. Many wise people have noted that words that mean everything mean nothing; the more broadly marriage is defined, the less powerful it is to bind families together. And the weaker family bonds become, the more children suffer.

Countless leaders suspect that the president made his announcement in May in order to placate activists disappointed by the marriage amendment passed in North Carolina. He also hoped that the distractions of Memorial Day, graduations, family vacations and a host of other things would give Americans of all races a “convenient amnesia” by November.

His plan won’t work! Why? There are several factors to which his advisers may not have given enough attention. First, his open affirmation of the redefinition of marriage confirms to anyone apathetic about the issue that there is a real threat to traditional marriage; I truly hope this will add fuel to the fire in states like Maryland, where we have fought to get the issue on the ballot in November.

Second, while it is true that many blacks will support the president regardless of his position on marriage, the entire black community does not need to become disillusioned with President Obama for him to be in trouble in the general election. Those of us who were paying attention will remember that President Bush won Florida and Ohio in 2004 because of a 7 to 11 percent shift in the black vote.

Blacks and Latinos have suffered more under President Obama’s economic policies than almost anyone else, and they are among the most vocal opponents of his “evolving” views on the sacred institution of marriage. If Republicans are smart, they will make both economic growth and protecting marriage a central part of their agenda this November.

As far as next steps are concerned visit my website, , for more information.

Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr. is the senior pastor of Hope Christian Church, a 3,000-member congregation in the Washington, D.C., area.

Last week (May 23 and 24), 175 Christian leaders from around the
country gathered for a 24-hour marriage summit in the Washington,
D.C., metro area. The small group represented nearly 100,000
individual churches and several denominations. The purpose of the
summit was to strategize how we would respond to President Obama’s
endorsement of same-sex marriage.

The group, which included pastors, community activists and
denominational leaders, decided to send out a group letter to the
president and to develop a pro-biblical marriage resource that could
be used around the country.

The summit culminated with a press conference in which black,
Hispanic, white and Asian leaders stood shoulder-to-shoulder. We
wanted to let the nation know that Christian leaders will not be
silent on the issue of same-sex marriage. We also wanted to ask the
president and the legislators of both parties to convey to us their
specific strategies.

Many of the leaders who attended our press conference voted for
President Obama in 2008; nonetheless, they wanted clarity on what the
president, the Senate and the Congress planned to actually do as a
result of the president’s “evolution” concerning same-sex
marriage.

We are deeply concerned about what this means for the future of
the already dangerously weakened social fabric of our country. The
first media responses to our press conference were predictable. Many
outlets seemed to dismiss us as simply anti-Obama “Neanderthals.”
One of CNN’s press team even accused Tony Perkins, president of
Family Research Council, of having a personal hatred for homosexuals.

While traditional news outlets continue to create and misread
their own tea leaves (polls), pro-biblical marriage masses are
rallying. For example, I was present Tuesday when marriage advocates
delivered 113,000 petitions to the Maryland State House in order to
add a marriage amendment to the 2012 ballot (twice as many petitions
as needed, delivered five weeks early).

Those who misconstrue our concern about same sex marriage as rank
bigotry would do well to keep in mind several facts:

First, we must be clear that this is not primarily a political
issue. Democratic President Bill Clinton understood this when he
signed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. People across the
political spectrum believe that marriage is the union of one man and
one woman. It is a shame that an issue of such magnitude is being
intellectually suffocated and pushed into a partisan political
package.

Second, African-Americans have been among the most difficult to
sway on this issue. While some may indeed change their minds because
of President Obama’s endorsement, word of mouth around our
community indicates that many more no longer feel they can
wholeheartedly support the president. They may not become
Republicans, but their sentiments may be similar to those of a former
president who said famously, “I didn’t leave the Democratic
Party. The party left me.” The Obama endorsement seemed like a slap
in the face to grass-roots black and Hispanic Christians.

Third, the overwhelming majority of African-Americans do not
believe that the redefinition of marriage to include homosexual
unions is in keeping with the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) activists have
repeatedly attempted to hijack the moral authority of racial
minorities who suffered under centuries of legalized racial
discrimination at the hands of the government.

Americans as a whole should know that most black Americans find
this deeply offensive. At the core of this new coalition is a
commitment to biblical marriage that transcends race, class or
culture. The Hispanic community shares the common-sense understanding
that same-sex marriage is not a civil right.

Both major minorities understand that rights must be granted from
some superior source such as the Constitution or the Bible. To make
same-sex marriage a 14th amendment issue would desecrate the
sacrifices of black and brown champions of yesteryear.

Further, the Bible can hardly be seen to endorse either
homosexuality or same-sex marriage. Therefore, our group realizes
that same-sex marriage is a request for special rights. As a result
of this kind of thinking, black and Hispanic Christian leaders have
become uniquely aware that they are the last stronghold of protection
for traditional, biblical marriage as we know it.

Fourth, many Americans who do not profess religious faith are
deeply concerned about the social effects of redefining marriage.
Similar legislative decisions in Scandinavian countries in the 1990s
have been associated with skyrocketing out-of-wedlock birthrates and
an overall decline in marriage. Common sense reminds us that words
that mean everything mean nothing. The broader the definition of
marriage becomes, the weaker it becomes as an institution.

This new coalition has not yet been given a formal name, but the
concept has gripped our hearts. We have agreed to take three
immediate steps of action:

1.) Join in a 40-day fast through which we will beseech God to
heal the soul of our nation.

2.) Recruit a diverse group of churches around the nation to
affirm traditional marriage on Father’s Day (June 17). They will do
this by preaching an appropriate message on marriage and by reading a
declaration of commitment to defend and uphold God’s first
institution.

3.) Participate with the High Impact Leadership Coalition, City
Action Coalition, Renewing American Leadership (ReAL), Charisma Media
and the National Hispanic Leadership Conference, along with others of
faith, in a “vertical vote” campaign this election season
designed to inform, inspire and register groundswell Christians to
vote. (More information to follow.)

In conclusion, if you want to be part of this growing coalition
that transcends traditional ethnic boundaries, party lines and
denominations, go to . Click on the
Stand for Marriage graphic, read the information and sign the letter
to the president. Next, you should order the DVDs and CDs (available
June 7) and take the important three steps listed above. Together, we
can make the difference in our communities and nation!

Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr. is the senior pastor of Hope Christian Church, a 3,000-member congregation in the Washington, D.C., area.

The president’s decision to endorse same-sex marriage is a great
disappointment for many people. His statement—which he announced Wednesday—is of great concern to
those who still believe in traditional marriage.

These people fall into two major categories—those whose belief
systems are informed by their spiritual background and those who have
been convinced that redefining marriage will be a horrible social
experiment that will further weaken America’s declining structure.

Many in the faith community have suspected for some time that the
president’s announcement was coming. It seems as though the
administration feels that this moment will bolster the same-sex
marriage movement from the crushing
defeat it experienced in North Carolina.

There are two outcomes I believe the president’s advisers have
not anticipated: (1) His announcement will strengthen future
campaigns for the remaining states pushing a marriage amendment. In
the state of Maryland, in particular, the already-successful petition
process will be injected with a new fuel of enthusiasm and intensity.
(2) Although many political analysts believe this announcement will
blow over by November, they seem to forget that President Bush won
Florida and Ohio in 2004 because of a 7 to 11 percent shift in the
black vote alone.

In this election season, we all are aware that the economy will be
the big story of the day. Nonetheless, current polls show a small
margin of difference between both the presidential candidates and
numerous other races around the country.

It may well be that a shift in support will be precipitated by the
president’s untimely decision in light of his failure to lift the
economic standing of both blacks and Hispanics. These two groups are
some of the nation’s most vocal opponents of same-sex marriage. A
critical mass of these voters may be pulled from their political
moorings, creating an opportunity for the defeat of numerous
candidates around the country, including President Obama.

Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr. is the senior
pastor of Hope Christian Church, a 3,000-member congregation in the
Washington, D.C., area.

I remember sitting at the dinner table with my parents at 8 years
old. During that season, the “no elbows on the table” rule was in
full force. In addition, my mother constantly chided me for using
slang as opposed to proper English. Those three to four years seemed
like hell on earth. Nonetheless, years later, I could trace my
success in school to my family dinner table and a few great teachers.

My parents always said, “For a black man to do half as well, he
must be twice as good!” For them, education was almost a “sacred
privilege,” which had been denied my ancestors because of the black
and Native American social status. Today, I am shocked by the almost
unfathomable swing from my black community’s sense of excellence
and purpose to an entitlement mentality.

Not long ago, both The Washington Post and The New York
Times reported a growing national trend: Black students are
suspended and expelled from school at two to five times the rate of
white students. Both articles highlighted the unintended bias of
teachers and administrators, zero-tolerance school discipline
policies and school leadership styles as possible causes for this
development—and undoubtedly they are contributing factors.

But I wonder whether forcing teachers to sit through another
mandatory sensitivity seminar or lobbying to relax school discipline
policies will improve the long-term prospects of black students in
America?

Five years ago, Harvard’s Dr. Alvin Poussaint courageously
addressed the elephant in the living room when he brought up the role
that parents and family play in the success or failure of black
students. Poussaint discussed a shocking study by Yale’s Edward
Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy, which noted
that black children were expelled from pre-school at twice the
rate of white children and five times the rate of Asian children.
Clearly, if discipline issues show up in children as young as 3 or 4,
the school is not entirely to blame.

Unfortunately, when those obsessed with political-correctness are
forced to confront the importance of the family and parenting, they
brilliantly miss the forest for the trees. They overlook the obvious
problems of out-of-wedlock births and fatherless homes in search of
elusive “root causes.”

Even Poussaint, despite his brilliance, actually blamed the
practice of corporal punishment for the misbehavior of some black
children in preschool. Black parents are more likely to spank their
children than white parents. In addition, columnist Clarence Page
responded with an article entitled “Sparing the Rod May Save Black
Kids.” Like so many critics of corporal punishment, both men failed
to distinguish between physical abuse and controlled physical
chastisement.

At the end of the day, anyone with common sense knows that black
children do not act out because they are being disciplined too
strictly at home. They act out because of a lack of structure
and discipline. Others who want to skirt the central role of parents
will quickly attempt to turn the discussion of the black family to
poverty. While I agree—for the most part—that black families need
better economic opportunities to increase their wealth and relieve
the financial stress so many are facing, that issue, too, is
secondary.

Missing in the hand-wringing and ideological declarations is the
obvious question: What are black parents of successful children doing
right? America is full of black parents doing a good job,
including many single parents. Rather than looking outside of our
community for answers, we need to examine where black parents are
doing well and determine what we can do to reproduce that success in
the parts of our community that are struggling.

Patrick Fagan, a sociologist with the Marriage and Religion
Research Institute, has uncovered a key factor in successful black
parenting even under challenging circumstances: regular church
attendance. Fagan’s research shows that even when problems like
divorce and low income are factors, black children who attend
religious services regularly have more positive outcomes in nearly
every measurable area, including academic achievement.

Regular churchgoers in inner cities were much less likely to use
drugs or alcohol, commit a crime, drop out of school, become
depressed or become pregnant out of wedlock. What is even more
interesting is that the more challenging the child’s
circumstances—the lower the income, the less frequently the father
was around—the stronger the positive influence of church attendance
became.

This is not actually new information. Fagan notes that a Harvard
University study in 1985 “revealed that attendance at religious
services and activities positively affected inner-city youth school
attendance, work activity and allocation of time … youth who
frequently attended religious services were five times less likely to
skip school, compared with peers who seldom or never attended.”

Church attendance provides benefits to low-income children of
single parents that secular after-school programs and other
government-sponsored interventions do not: a loving, structured
environment that communicates a transcendent set of moral values.
Churchgoing children have access to mentors and positive peer
pressure to encourage them to make good decisions and avoid peers who
would bring a self-destructive influence.

While The Washington Post and The New York Times wring
their hands about the number of black children being suspended from
school, they continue to ignore the fact that the black children—even
those living below the poverty line in single-parent homes—who are
attending church regularly are faring much better. Maybe it’s time
to stop looking for a “fresh” solution, and time to start
directing more folks to the old solution that is actually working.

Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr. is the senior
pastor of Hope Christian Church, a 3,000-member congregation in the
Washington, D.C., area. He is also the guest editor of the
January-February 2012 issue of Ministry Today about social
transformation.

As we mourn Trayvon Martin’s death, we should remember another black teenager killed just four years ago.

On March 2, 2008, high school senior Jamiel Shaw was gunned down in
Los Angeles. According to police, Shaw was walking home when two men he
had never met jumped out of a car and one shot him. A talented football
player, Shaw had scholarship offers from Stanford University and
Rutgers. The man who shot him was Petro Espinoza, an illegal immigrant
and member of a gang with a history of extensive violence against
African-Americans. According to the Los Angeles Times, “Espinoza had been released from jail 28 hours before the shooting, after serving time for an earlier [violent] offense.”

Why did the nation not mourn Jamiel the way we are mourning Trayvon?
Was it because the media knew immediately that Shaw’s killers were
Latino, not white?

The slaying of Trayvon Martin opened a Pandora’s box
of emotions in the black community. Blacks of my generation remember
all too well when one of our own could be lynched by whites, and law
enforcement would look the other way. Those were terrible times in our
nation’s history, and Trayvon’s death provoked many to assert that
nothing had changed.

I am deeply sympathetic to the outrage felt by blacks over this
tragedy, but I must point out that this is not our grandparents’ world.
Things have changed, as the most basic facts of this case reveal.

When this story broke, the media led us to believe that Trayvon had
been hunted down like a dog by a skinhead white supremacist gun nut. In
reality, Trayvon’s killer, like 16.3 percent of the United States’
population, is Latino. He is relatively light skinned, but hardly a
wealthy child of white privilege and certainly not a member of a Latino
gang known for violence against blacks, as Shaw’s killer was. To the
degree that race was involved in this crime, its involvement was
undoubtedly complex—far too complex for reporters determined to fit the
tragedy into their predetermined narrative.

For decades, both the media and politicians have tried to lump blacks
and Latinos together, as if individuals from both groups automatically
share common history and interests. Latinos are grouped with blacks far
more often than with Asian-Americans, even though they often share the
experience of immigration and learning English as a second language. Yet
an honest look at the slayings of Martin and Shaw challenge the notion
that blacks and Latinos are interchangeable minorities whose differences
aren’t worth noting or exploring.

Reality is far more complicated than most reporters or politicians
care to contemplate. For example, several studies have shown that when
immigration laws are enforced more strictly, black employment rises. The
simple fact is that many Latino immigrants undercut black wages in
lower-skilled jobs.

On the other hand, government quotas for minority-owned contracting
have been shown to discriminate against Latino-owned businesses in favor
of black-owned businesses. The Hispanic Chamber of Commerce recently
filed a complaint in Milwaukee alleging that they were being punished
for their industry and success. This doesn’t even begin to explore the
competition for college admissions spots made more complex by racial
quotas.

As a pastor, I am proud to have blacks and Latinos worshipping side
by side in the churches that are part of my new network of churches
(International Communion of Evangelical Churches). I have learned on the
job that you cannot lump Puerto Ricans in with Mexicans or Guatemalans
any more than you can lump Nigerians in with Kenyans, or blacks from the
Bronx in with blacks from South Carolina.

Race relations are complicated, far more complicated than the “whites
oppressing blacks and others” narrative allows us to appreciate. There
is no cheap policy fix for racial ignorance and hatred, and I’ve learned
that the only way trust can be built between people of different
backgrounds is through meaningful dialogue and relationships.

Although race relations in the United States have a long way to go, Juan Williams rightly pointed out in the Wall Street Journal
that young black murder victims are far more likely to be killed by
other blacks than by members of other races. He correctly calls the
entertainment industry to task for perpetuating the stereotype of young
black males as violent gangsters.

All of us can recognize that it is difficult for black crime victims
to find justice, whoever their assailants, and still know that there is
much work the black community needs to do on itself.

There are no easy answers in the Trayvon Martin
case—this was not Emmett Till, Part II. The black community has a
different set of challenges to face today than we did in the days of
lynching, and we will only make progress if we can face them honestly.

Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr. is the senior
pastor of Hope Christian Church, a 3,000-member congregation in the
Washington, D.C., area. He is also the guest editor of the
January-February 2012 issue of Ministry Today about social
transformation.

I often am asked questions by the
media on choices the government makes about our society. It is an anomaly to me to see the drift in government to control
in micro-detail certain aspects of our society, and yet determine to
be hands-off on other key issues. Recently the American public was given an
edict that affects many religious nonprofit organizations.

The debate over the new Health and Human Services regulations,
which require all employers to pay 100 percent of the cost of
contraception including abortion-inducing chemicals, has been rightly
cast as an intrusion on religious liberty. Opponents of such
regulations are no more advocating a ban on contraceptives than
vegetarian restaurants are advocating a ban on meat. They are simply
saying that companies shouldn’t have to pay for services to which
they object for moral reasons.

But black Americans in particular would be wise to pay close
attention, since the age old contraception battle has special
historical significance to them. For more than a century,
“reproductive services” have been special code words for the
constant, silent effort of the powerful to control black breeding.
And this control has often come in the form of a “helping hand.”

From the earliest days of our nation, people in power have wanted
to control black reproduction. Before the Civil War, slave owners had
a financial interest in increasing the birthrate among their slaves.
This was a matter of simple economics; even before the transatlantic
slave trade was outlawed, it had become cheaper to “breed” your
slaves than to import new ones. Female slaves were pressured to
become pregnant (often they were raped).

After emancipation, black birthrates (and marriage rates) were
higher than whites, causing great concern in the growing movement
known as Eugenics. An elite group of whites began to see the growth
of the black population as a direct threat to their community. Blacks
at this time actually had a higher employment rate than whites,
because black men were willing to work for lower wages. In a time
when many intellectuals were becoming paranoid about overpopulation,
some began to fear that blacks would compete with whites for the
resources needed to survive.

Powerful whites no longer wanted blacks to make more babies that
they could enslave; now they wanted blacks to stop having babies that
would compete for their jobs or overcrowd their cities. Their goals
changed from forcing them to breed to preventing them from breeding.

Thus in modern times, no people group has been plied with more
contraceptives than African-Americans. People willing to turn a blind
eye to the obvious still aren’t convinced about whether abortion is
aggressively marketed to blacks. But there can be no confusion about
contraception being pushed on black women from the time they are
middle school students to even the most highly educated married
women. And in a way it is working: Despite a terrifyingly high 70
percent illegitimacy rate, the black American population continues to
decline as a percentage of the American population.

But all of this was marketed as freedom, not control. Universal
access to birth control, we were told, was to give women the freedom
that men had supposedly enjoyed all along: consequence-free sex.
Methods became increasingly convenient: first the pill, then the
shot, then the implant. When Depo Provera (the contraceptive
injection) was being developed between 1972 and 1978, poor black
women in Atlanta were used as laboratory rats in the clinical trial.
More than 9,000 women were injected with Depo Provera at Grady
Hospital in Atlanta, in what became known later as the Grady Trials.
Years later it was revealed that the women were not given sufficient
information about the risks of the drug, nor were they informed that
they were part of a trial to test the drug’s fitness for human
usage.

According to a 2004 report from the Centers for Disease Control,
black women are still twice as likely to be prescribed Depo Provera
as white women. And while no one has studied the effects of Depo
Provera on black women, one of its riskiest side effects is blood
clots, and recent studies suggest that African-Americans are at least
30 percent more likely to suffer from blood clots than members of
other races.

We now face a terrible irony about childbearing in the black
community: Fatherless teenagers often intentionally have a baby so
that someone will love them, while college-educated black women fear
that a baby will ruin their lives. In addition to teens failing to
properly use the free birth control thrown at them daily in our
schools, married black women abort their babies five times as often
as married white women.

The black community does not need more birth control. We need men
and women who respect their bodies and raise their children to do the
same. We should put more energy and effort into educating people to
make wise choices in relationships and being a family instead of
mandating how they make those choices. Let’s let our
representatives know how we feel!

Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr. is the senior
pastor of Hope Christian Church, a 3,000-member congregation in the
Washington, D.C., area. He is also the guest editor of the
January-February 2012 issue of Ministry Today about social
transformation.