Enter the Religious Right with an array of services and support that could no longer be found elsewhere. For struggling families, the support churches offered was an oasis in the desert, everything from home-cooked meals delivered to women and their families after a new child was born to free maternity clothes, baby clothes, and furniture, a supportive community of willing babysitters, women's gatherings during the week, book discussion groups, men's and women's aerobics, food and clothes bank programs, weekly meetings in homes for Bible study and "fellowship," men's basketball and softball teams, choirs, worship orchestras, child and adult musical and drama presentations and "living Christmas tree" projects, grief support, and a host of programs for people of all ages. Best of all? It was all free....This level of support in a society lacking even minimal support for young families can be hard to resist.

From the latest issue of Off Our Backs, qouted by the liminal librarian