FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Dan Wilson

September 8, 2010 Shirley & Banister Public Affairs

703-739-5920/800-536-5920
dwilson@sbpublicaffairs.com

GOP LEADERS WARNED: DON’T RUN FROM SOCIAL

ISSUES
Washington, DC –The American Principles Project today delivered a coalition letter to the Republican
leadership in Congress and RNC Chairman Michael Steele warning them that the Republican “resurgence” will
not happen if the “third leg” of the party’s platform disappears due to pressure from Republican elites. Social
issues, it says, are essential for their survival this November and beyond.

“We must send a message to Republican leaders and candidates that we will not accept this weak-willed retreat
from social issues—religious liberty, traditional marriage, and the right to life must be defended from attacks and
promoted as a social good,” said Andy Blom, executive director of the American Principles Project (APP).
“We will not accept a party that cannot see the link between moral values, fiscal conservatism, and a strong
national defense. To abandon one will threaten the well-being of the others.”

The letter coincides with a nationwide grassroots campaign urging Americans to encourage these officials to sign
on to the group’s statement of principles, called “Plank 1.” APP is joining with other organizations throughout the
country in launching a massive petition drive. For more details, please visit www.goplank1.com. The Plank
includes:

Our nation is only as strong as its core components: families, neighborhoods, churches and other religious
communities, marriage and the voluntary associations of many types that make for a vibrant civil society. We
pledge to:

• Protect religious liberty and celebrate the role of religious institutions in the formation of our nation’s most
cherished and most basic principles;

• Move strongly toward the nationwide reversal of abortion on demand, by enacting a permanent,
comprehensive “Hyde amendment” restrictions on abortion funding;

• Protect marriage as the union of husband and wife, recognizing that children do best with a married
mother and father and that our laws and our judges should respect and defend this most fundamental
institution of society;

• Protect the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children and strengthen parental options to
choose and finance the education of their children;

• Preserve the Innocence of our children by increasing parental and local control over sex and civics
education and by promoting abstinence education programs;

The American Principles Project is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to preserving and propagating the
fundamental principles on which our country was founded - universal principles, embracing the notion that we are
all, "created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness."

For further information, please contact Dan Wilson with Shirley & Banister Public Affairs at (703) 739-5920
or (800) 536-5920.
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