Mike Farris Meets with President Bush

A few minutes before addressing a California audience about homeschooling, Mike Farris's cell phone rang. One question: did he want to meet with President Bush before the signing ceremony of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act? "I wasn't planning on being dead, so I said yes and headed back to the East Coast," Farris said.

Two days later, Farris joined four other nationally known Christian leaders to discuss the details of the historic Act: Dr. James Dobson, founder and chairman of the board of Focus on the Family; Don Hodel, president of Focus on the Family and husband of PHC trustee Barbara Hodel; Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council; and Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship.

Farris recalls the friendly comments the President made to each of the attendees as the meeting began, "When he first saw me, he asked if I'd been pumping iron. I have lost ten pounds since he saw me in June … maybe it was because I was wearing cowboy boots and looked taller. Whatever the reason, I was surprised by the detail of his memory." The room was set up for an intimate meeting, two chairs and two couches for the five invitees and the President. The exception was the additional seats for the White House staff and press corps who circled the President and his five guests. President Bush was sitting between Farris and Colson.

"We thanked him for taking a right stand on human rights," Farris said. "And abortion is a human rights issue." The five also commented on the negative press that the President and the partial-birth abortion issue had been receiving. Bush replied that he didn't read or watch the news. The reason, he said, was because he sees his job as one that gives hope to the country, and he wants to keep an optimistic view of life. A reporter countered Bush's comment by asking the President how he would know what people were thinking if he wasn't reading the news. Bush responded by commenting that people don't think what they think because of what was being written in the papers. "It was an interesting exchange," Farris said.

When the 2004 election was mentioned, Bush didn't dwell on the topic. Instead he asked for prayer. He said to the group that the most important thing about being President was that people pray for you, and prayer matters.

At the end of the half-hour meeting the men stood, joined hands, and Dr. Dobson closed in prayer. Walking out to the motorcade, the President turned to Farris and told him about visiting some houses that had been burned by the wildfire in California a few days before. At one destroyed home, the President had noticed three little desks amidst the rubble and correctly guessed the home belonged to a homeschool family. The father of the family told Bush, God is taking care of us. As Bush finished his story, he said to Farris, "Michael, that's one of your flock."

The President, his five guests, and members of the White House staff then joined the presidential motorcade and headed to the signing ceremony at the near-by Reagan Building. Farris thought that the place was electric. Because they arrived at the last minute, Farris, Dobson, Perkins, and Hodel stood in a balcony instead of sitting in the front row with other nationally known conservative leaders. "We didn't mind," Farris said. "We had the best seats in the house."