News & Views - Commentary

News & Views - Commentary | FACT In our commentary, read about the political and cultural issues affecting Tennesseans written from a conservative perspective. Columns are typically written by Dr. Kent DelHousaye, a trained political theologian and a longtime pastor and the current FACT president. David Fowler https://fluxconsole.com/files/image/96845.png https://fluxconsole.com/files/item/441/56004/apple-touch-icon.png 2026-10-28T03:16:24-05:00 https://www.factennessee.org/feed FeedWriter 2026-10-22T03:16:24-05:00 2026-10-22T03:16:24-05:00 ‘No Place in Tennessee’ – Where Each Gubernatorial Candidate Stands on Marijuana
The Tennessean recently asked all four gubernatorial candidates polling above 1% where they stand on medical and recreational cannabis. We hope their answers will help you cast an informed vote.

Marsha Blackburn (R)

Supports Medical Marijuana? Leans toward no.
- “As governor, I will review medical and clinical research on medical marijuana as it comes out, but I remain concerned about the potential for misuse of this substance.”
Supports Recreational Marijuana? No.
- “Recreational marijuana has no place in Tennessee. Due to its addictive nature and other troubling effects, it would be completely irresponsible to legalize it.”

Jerri Green (D)

Supports Medical Marijuana? Yes.
- “While neighboring states progress, Tennessee is moving backward by maintaining a cannabis ban that fuels mass incarceration and disproportionately criminalizes Black and brown people for nonviolent offenses.”
Supports Recreational Marijuana? Yes. Would tax sales to fund the state’s infrastructure backlog.

David Hatley (I)

Supports Medical Marijuana? Yes.
- “It will be a priority. Forty-one states allow medical cannabis. Tennessee is not one of them.”
Supports Recreational Marijuana? Defers to voters.
- “I don’t believe that should be the decision of the governor. I would however be in favor of putting this on the ballot for Tennesseans to vote yes or no.”

Lauren Pinkston (I)

Supports Medical Marijuana? Yes.
- “I support legalizing medical cannabis, and it would be a priority in my first legislative session.”
Supports Recreational Marijuana? Not yet.
- “I am more interested in decriminalizing than legalizing at this moment, and here’s why: Recreational marijuana is much safer than other drugs sold on Tennessee streets. If we take away the income from sellers and put all forms of cannabis in stores, we open up a vacuum for more dangerous drugs to fill that gap. I know a majority of Tennesseans support recreational legalization, and I take that seriously.”

Three of the four candidates for governor would make medical cannabis a year-one priority, despite ample evidence of where that road leads. Only Marsha Blackburn has held the line against recreational legalization.

The Evidence

There’s an important distinction to be made between the marijuana that exists on the street today versus what was available a generation ago. Before the 1990s, “weed” averaged less than 2% THC. By the mid-1990s, it reached 4%. Between 1995 and 2015, THC content in marijuana rose 212%, and the most popular strains in Colorado dispensaries now test between 17 and 28%. Concentrates reach 95%.

“There is absolutely no research that indicates this level of THC is beneficial for any medical condition,” Dr. Libby Stuyt, an addiction psychiatrist, wrote in a research paper. “The purpose of these products is to produce a high, and the increased potency makes them potentially more dangerous and more likely to result in addiction.”

Opposition to legalization is not a purely conservative stance; even traditionally “liberal” medical institutions have maintained longstanding opposition. For instance, the American Medical Association’s (AMA) official policy states that “cannabis is a dangerous drug and as such is a serious public health concern,” and holds that cannabis sales for adult use “should not be legalized.”

Columbia University researchers followed more than 34,000 American adults for three years and found that marijuana users were more than twice as likely to begin using prescription opioids nonmedically. “Cannabis use appears to increase rather than decrease the risk of developing nonmedical prescription opioid use and opioid use disorder,” the authors concluded.

The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety examined a decade of fatal crashes in Washington state and found that the share of drivers testing positive for THC roughly doubled after legalization, from an average of 8.8% before the law took effect to 18% after. By 2017, an estimated 21% of drivers in fatal crashes were THC-positive, the highest share in the 10 years studied.

Following legalization, Michigan’s poison control center logged 387 reports of children under age 6 ingesting or being exposed to cannabis in 2024 – a state record. Of those, 105 were hospitalized, and 23 required critical care. The rate of reported pediatric exposures doubled in the five years after Michigan’s legal recreational sales began.

Legalizing marijuana, medically or recreationally, does not mitigate its social harms – it exacerbates them. We need a governor who will stand firm against mounting pressure and say no to the marijuana lobby. Cast your vote wisely!

Early voting in Tennessee runs through Thursday, October 29, and Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. FACT is proud to partner with iVoterGuide to provide a reliable resource for voters of faith. Please review the guide before you cast your ballot!
]]> https://www.factennessee.org/news-views/commentary/2026/no-place-in-tennessee-where-each-gubernatorial-candidate-stands-on-marijuana FACT info@factn.org 2026-10-19T03:16:24-05:00 2026-10-19T03:16:24-05:00 Your Tennessee Election Guide is Here more than HALF of them say that the primary reason WHY is because they lack a reliable source of information on candidates.

In other words, many more Christians say that they would participate and vote IF they only had a trustworthy voter guide with solid reconnaissance on the candidates’ track records, political affiliations, and personal beliefs.

According to brand new research from George Barna’s Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, only 55% of Christian voters bother to vote down ballot because they don’t know enough about the local races and candidates closest to home.

They admit that they skip the local races down the ballot and don’t even finish filling them out BECAUSE they don’t know which candidates really share their biblical convictions and Christian worldview.

Unfortunately, these are often the most consequential races that have the most direct impact on our daily lives such as district attorneys, mayors, judges, and county commissioners, as well as city council and school board members.

At Family Action Council of Tennessee, we understand that the down ballot matters. Not only do we need to mobilize Christian voters to get to the polls. We also need to motivate them to complete their ballots.

One way we can do that is by equipping them with a reliable resource that provides them the relevant insight they need to be confident going to the ballot box and voting their Christian values all the way down the ballot.

FACT partners with iVoterGuide to provide this important resource to our state, and we want to encourage you take advantage of its proven research to get informed and to help others engage this upcoming mid-term election.

There are candidates and issues up for vote this election season that will impact the people of Tennessee—our families, our schools, our neighborhoods, and our communities, and we must show up and speak out to protect them at the ballot box.

This being the case, we are sharing the Tennessee Voter Guide with you and implore you not only review it yourself but to also share it with others. As Christian citizens, let’s use this important resource to vote with conviction for the candidates up and down the ballot who share our conservative Christian values. Click here to view the guide.

FACT is an education and advocacy organization, and though we are not an endorsing organization, we are deeply invested in the political process and do support candidates who share our Christian beliefs and conservative values.

For this reason, as a state-wide ministry, we are expressly interested in the executive office of Tennessee, and we understand the importance of electing a godly leader to sit in the governor’s chair as supreme executive authority in our state.

Therefore, we do urge you to please look closely at the candidates in the gubernatorial race and notice that there is only ONE proven conservative candidate on the ballot for our state’s highest office who publicly shares our beliefs and values.

We encourage you to prayerfully steward your vote this election season to choose the most qualified and the most trusted candidate not only for the state’s highest office but also all the other offices down the ballot.

]]> https://www.factennessee.org/news-views/commentary/2026/your-tennessee-election-guide-is-here Dr. Kent DelHousaye info@factn.org 2026-10-15T03:16:24-05:00 2026-10-15T03:16:24-05:00 ‘Peddling Fool’s Gold’ – Twenty Months, No Answers from the FDA on Abortion Pill Safety “I believe abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.” – Bill Clinton, 1992
For decades, the abortion lobby purported that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” Bill Clinton was responsible for popularizing the phrase during his 1992 presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton was still using it in 2008, adding, “and by rare, I mean rare.”

Then, as the movement became more and more radicalized, everyone suddenly stopped using the full phrase. The Democrat Party cut the word “rare” from its platform in 2012. By 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign had trimmed the slogan down to “safe and legal.” Today there is an organization called “Shout Your Abortion” that encourages women to be proud of how many babies they’ve killed. Their website states, verbatim, “Shout Your Abortion is normalizing abortion and elevating safe paths to access, regardless of legality.”

A report released last month by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute tragically found that “1,129,020 abortions occurred within the formal U.S. health care system in 2025, an increase from 1,108,810 in 2024.”

Over one million abortions per year is anything but “rare.” Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, the abortion industry’s new weapon of choice is mail-order pills, which accounted for 28% of all abortions in 2025, up from 22% in 2024. The number of online-only abortion operations grew from 20 to 34, shipping into all fifty states even when it violates pro-life laws like Tennessee’s.

As the Lozier report explained, state health departments “mistakenly claim these pro-life states with life-at-conception laws are abortion-free because the number of in-person abortions has decreased to almost zero in most of these states. However, the latest data shows that these states are anything but abortion-free.”

The Mifepristone Battle

When mifepristone, the first of a two-drug protocol used to induce abortions, was approved by the FDA in 2000, it was limited to the first seven weeks of pregnancy and had to be dispensed in person by a certified provider. In 2016, the FDA raised the gestational limit to ten weeks and eased distribution rules, approving the drug for later use with less oversight than before despite countless reports of adverse events. A federal court suspended the in-person requirement in July 2020, and the Supreme Court restored it that January – but in April 2021 the FDA chose on its own not to enforce it, and in December 2021 removed it outright, clearing the way for abortion pills to be sent by mail despite growing alarm over safety risks associated with the pill.

A study by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) reviewed an all-payer insurance claims database covering 865,727 mifepristone abortions between 2017 and 2023 – the largest body of real-world mifepristone data that has ever been examined – and found that “10.93 percent of women experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious or life-threatening adverse event within 45 days following a mifepristone abortion” – more than twenty times the rate printed on the drug’s own label, which puts the figure at less than 0.5%.

The groundbreaking study prompted 22 state attorneys general to submit a letter in July 2025 demanding the FDA reinstate the safeguards it had abandoned or pull mifepristone from the market until it finished researching the full effects of the drug.

In September 2025, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded that the agency was conducting a comprehensive review of the medication, acknowledging the study pointed to “potential dangers that may attend offering mifepristone without sufficient medical support or supervision.”

Last week, on October 7, over a year and a half after the study was first announced, the FDA told a federal appeals court that the safety review will not be finished until next year. The study is expected to wrap up in mid-December, and a finalized report will follow “no later than March 2027,” and only then will the agency decide whether any restrictions are warranted.

Marjorie Dannenfelser of SBA Pro-Life America put the announcement in perspective:

“The FDA’s court-ordered update on its abortion-drug study is alarming. Twenty months after first promising this review, administration officials continue to describe it as, in Secretary Kennedy’s words, ‘grounded in gold-standard science.’ FDA nominee Dr. Heidi Overton echoed that claim last week, testifying that the study is being conducted in ‘the most durable, scientific way possible.’

But instead of the promised gold-standard study, the FDA is trying to peddle fool’s gold. There is no indication that the agency has obtained commercially available data.

Even under the FDA’s current timeline, the study will not be completed for at least another six months. Without action, that means 90,000 additional abortions in states whose strong protections for unborn children are being circumvented by the mail-order abortion-drug policy. It also means more women left vulnerable to coercion and abuse because basic medical oversight is absent, denying women the healthcare they deserve and instead empowering abusers. Action is long overdue.”

Safe, legal, and rare was never a serious promise. Twenty months into a safety review with no end in sight, over a million abortions a year, and pills crossing state lines in defiance of pro-life laws – not one of the three pillars has survived. What we have known for years is now impossible to deny: the true mission of the abortion movement is not about women’s safety, or even women’s “healthcare” – it’s about profit at the expense of both.

We urge the FDA to take a stand where Big Abortion will not. Mifepristone is harming tens of thousands of women and killing hundreds of thousands of babies every single year. It’s time to put an end to this scourge on our nation. Click here to take action.
]]> https://www.factennessee.org/news-views/commentary/2026/peddling-fools-gold-twenty-months-no-answers-from-the-fda-on-abortion-pill-safety FACT info@factn.org 2026-10-08T03:16:24-05:00 2026-10-08T03:16:24-05:00 The Johnson Amendment Myth – Politics Is Not Off Limits from the Pulpit "When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan." – Proverbs 29:2
On November 3, Tennessee voters will choose a new governor, a U.S. senator, and nine members of our congressional delegation. All 99 Tennessee House seats and 17 of the 33 state Senate seats are up for grabs. Three constitutional amendments are on the ballot.

The results of this election could reshape Tennessee's political landscape on everything from abortion and marriage to education and parental rights. With this much at stake, two things are eminently clear: every Christian should make a serious effort to vote on or before November 3, and it’s time for churches to take a biblical stance on cultural issues – including political ones.

Many modern-day pastors are convinced that preaching about politics from the pulpit is illegal, immoral, or outside the bounds of what they are called to do. On the contrary – we believe that churches and pastors have a fundamental obligation to provide clarity on the pressing issues of our day in order to combat the darkness and delusion the enemy is promoting in our culture. If the church stays silent, who will speak the truth?

Pastors are called to disciple their congregations on biblical principles – that includes the sanctity of human life, traditional marriage and sexuality, the role of parents and children, and much more. Every election has the ability to significantly change our state and nation's laws on topics like abortion, drug legalization, assisted suicide, online gambling, and gender ideology.

Pastors don't need to make political endorsements to discuss what the Bible says about these important topics. Church members can then research and draw their own conclusions about who to vote for. The key is that their pastor grounds them in biblical truth and encourages them to engage civically and act as a wall of protection for the church, their children, and their communities.

Southern Baptist Convention President Willy Rice made that case last week on Fox News:

"Should pastors engage in the political process? They absolutely should. Because there are many political issues that are, at their heart, theological issues and moral issues that strike at the very center of what we believe to be true and what we believe people need to know in order to flourish personally and as a culture.

[Abortion, the definition of marriage, gender identity and immigration] are deeply, profoundly theological issues. They go back to the creation; they go back to Genesis 1 and 2. They go back to our understanding of what it means to be a human being, and our understanding of what God's creative purpose is for us as human beings."

Rice argues the church's retreat is the result of Christians being counseled by those outside and inside the church to "be more quiet" and "withdraw from the political process."

"Now, the interesting thing is that those on the theological and political left did not [withdraw], and they had no intention of doing so. And in fact, statistics show that people on the political and theological left are actually more politically engaged than those on the right. So what you had was, for a period of time, I felt like you had an almost a vacuum that kind of developed, a silence that was there with a lack of Christian leaders leaning in."

In 1954, Congress amended section 501(c)(3) of the tax code at the urging of then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson. The provision – known ever since as the Johnson Amendment – bars tax-exempt organizations from participating or intervening "in any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office."

Seventy years later, the law has been extrapolated on and used to fearmonger pastors into believing that mentioning an election, an issue, or a candidate's record could cost their church its tax-exempt status.
In seven decades, however, only one church has ever lost its tax-exempt status over politics – the Church at Pierce Creek in Binghamton, New York, which took out a newspaper ad opposing Bill Clinton in 1992.
For years afterward, pastors deliberately mailed endorsement sermons to the IRS hoping to provoke a test case. The IRS declined to take the bait.

Johnson Amendment Specifics

Alliance Defending Freedom publishes a free legal guide for churches, Pastors, Churches & Politics: 5 Things to Know. We encourage all pastors to review this guide for a clear understanding of what the Johnson Amendment does and does not allow.

For example, discussion of issues and nonpartisan voter education is permitted. Support for specific legislation is permitted up to an "insubstantial amount." Only support for or opposition to candidates is off limits.

Churches and pastors, ADF explains, "can speak about the public, social, and moral issues of the day without restriction." They may also "discuss the positions of candidates on issues as long as the discussion does not support or oppose a candidate." Churches may run nonpartisan voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, distribute unbiased voter guides, host candidate forums where every candidate is invited on equal terms, and even serve as polling places.

An additional point of clarification – the Johnson Amendment restricts the church, which includes a pastor speaking as the church's representative, but it does not restrict a pastor acting as a private citizen. In his personal capacity, a pastor may support or oppose candidates, contribute to campaigns, and speak as freely as any other American.

As ADF puts it: "Pastors do not check their individual First Amendment rights at the door when they agree to lead a ministry."

Allen Jackson, pastor of World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro, noted that Scripture is full of preachers engaging in politics and confronting rulers, from the Hebrew prophets to John the Baptist, beheaded for criticizing Herod.

"John the Baptist could have lived to be a very old man if he'd had no comments about current events," Jackson said.

The Bible does not advise against spiritual leaders engaging in politics – quite the opposite!

Tennesseans face a consequential ballot in the midterms. We hope pastors across the state will be emboldened to speak the truth without hesitation, and to encourage their congregations to exercise their right to vote on November 3.

"But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare." – Jeremiah 29:7

]]> https://www.factennessee.org/news-views/commentary/2026/the-johnson-amendment-myth-politics-is-not-off-limits-from-the-pulpit FACT info@factn.org 2026-10-01T03:16:24-05:00 2026-10-01T03:16:24-05:00 2,293 Stolen Medals – The Fight for Women's Sports Isn't Over
Concerned Women for America's Legislative Action Committee released a report last week revealing the depth of injustice on this issue, drawing on four decades of records compiled by HeCheated.org. Male athletes have stripped $501,498 in prize money from women competing professionally. They have invaded more than 14,301 female sporting events, both amateur and professional. In California alone, more than 611 women and girls have been robbed of a first-place finish they rightfully earned.

This problem has been persistent for decades, and the frequency of injustice is only increasing as the transgender ideology becomes normalized in America.

"It is shockingly unfair for biological women to have to compete against trans-identifying men," said Penny Nance, CEO and President of Concerned Women for America LAC. "Biological men have distinct advantages over biological women. This reality not only puts women in harm’s way, but it eliminates opportunities for biological women to earn a living and win competitions.”

On June 30, the US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox that states may limit girls' and women's sports to biological females without violating Title IX or the Equal Protection Clause. Writing for the majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted that "the two States here—along with 25 other States, the IOC, the USOPC, and the NCAA—have concluded at this time that women and girls should be allowed to compete for those life-changing opportunities on an equal playing field."

While this landmark ruling gave states the ability to protect female athletes, it did not establish a mandatory requirement for all states or athletic organizations to bar biological men from female competitions.

On September 23, sports attorney William Bock testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that "current NCAA rules are not based on biology, do not use sex verification testing, and do not hold NCAA member institutions accountable for protecting women against male competitors." He added that the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee's rules do "not include prescriptive terms, timelines for compliance, or sanctions for non-compliance," leaving national governing bodies including USA Swimming, USA Gymnastics, USA Volleyball, USA Cycling, and the U.S. Tennis Association with policies that still contain loopholes.

"Democrats did not show up to today's hearing on protecting women's sports," Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn said. "They had no witnesses and asked no questions because they know their position is indefensible. We are going to keep defending Title IX and the opportunities our daughters and granddaughters have earned."

Tennessee has been at the forefront of this battle for years. In 2021, Governor Bill Lee signed SB 228, requiring that eligibility for middle and high school sports be determined by a student's sex at birth. The following year, the General Assembly extended those protections to intercollegiate and intramural athletics at public and private universities and attached financial penalties for noncompliance.

On August 4, Sen. Blackburn introduced the Title IX Clarification Act, which would write into federal law that "sex" under Title IX means biological sex and nothing else.

"President Trump restored common sense in Title IX, and now Congress must codify these protections for women into law to prevent future abuse," Blackburn stated.

Americans aren't divided on this issue. A 2025 New York Times poll found that 79% of Americans oppose allowing biological men to compete in women's sports – including 67% of Democrats.

Executive orders can be reversed. Court rulings define what states may do, not what athletic associations must do. Only Congress can shut the door for good, and we call on them to do so.

FACT remains committed to defending the God-given differences between men and women and the integrity of women's sports in Tennessee. If this news concerns you, please consider supporting our work.

]]> https://www.factennessee.org/news-views/commentary/2026/2293-stolen-medals-the-fight-for-womens-sports-isnt-over FACT info@factn.org