Contact: J.P. Duffy or Darin Miller, 866-FRC-NEWS; both with Family Research Council

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Democratic National Committee announced today a new director to resurrect its religious voter outreach effort in support of President Obama in the 2012 election.  

Family Research Council Action President Tony Perkins responded with the following comments:

"A Barna Research Survey conducted earlier this year shows that President Obama has a 6 percent favorability rating among evangelicals. A more recent Quinnipiac survey reports that the President has a 39 percent favorability rating among Catholics. The DNC and the President may hope this effort will reverse his falling poll numbers among religious voters, but I predict that as the fruit of this administration is examined by Christian voters, the President will find little support.   

"This is a President who speaks little of freedom of religion; and instead says it is freedom of worship that our government defends. He acknowledges the right to worship for an hour or two on Sundays, but fails to defend the right to live out life according to the dictates of one's orthodox faith.  This is a radical departure from our nation's history, one that threatens to make true religious liberty vulnerable, conditional and limited.

"The President's policies that promote abortion also undermine family formation. Abortion does this by contributing to infant mortality, victimizing women, and encouraging the abdication of responsibility by men. He has issued executive orders to fund foreign abortion organizations and use tax dollars for experimentation on human embryos. He is even opposed to commonsense parental notification laws. These laws reaffirm the unique role that a mother and father have in the life of a child.

"Real outreach would be defending life, and marriage. It means encouraging the freedom of religion over the freedom of worship. And most importantly, real outreach is not only mastering the language of faith but giving it voice in public policy.

"Over the next year, FRC's Values Voter Bus will travel the country alerting and engaging Christian voters with the message that what America needs is a President that will help make America militarily strong and secure, economically prosperous and free, and socially healthy and virtuous," concluded Perkins.

Examples of President Obama's failing record on life, religious liberty and marriage:

* Ignoring basic conscience rights protections, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ruled that Belmont Abbey College, a Roman-Catholic institution, must provide insurance coverage for abortion and contraceptives.

* The Obama administration has worked to overturn other countries' pro-life laws.

* President Obama has issued executive orders that erode conscience protections for healthcare providers, use taxpayer dollars to fund foreign abortion organizations, and use taxpayer dollars for experiments that encourage human embryo destruction.

* President Obama has supported the restoration of funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in spite of the program's poor human rights record and support for China's coercive abortion policy.

* Obamacare bypasses the long standing policy of the Hyde amendment by directly spending money on new programs without any abortion funding restriction and creates tax subsidies for plans with abortion.

* President Obama and his U.S. Justice Department abdicated its responsibility by refusing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court. The Obama administration routinely ignores and undermines DOMA such as allowing same-sex 'weddings' to be conducted on military bases, and by military chaplains.