The Arizona State Capitol Rose Garden was warm on Tuesday morning. The legislators, the pastors, the ministry partners, they all knew the data was going to be sobering. What they did not fully know was how much hope was about to be poured out from that podium.
Senate President Warren Petersen welcomed the crowd and named the stakes plainly. The legislature can pass bills, he said, but no statute can replace a mother and a father at the dinner table. CAP President Peter Gentala framed the moment: Arizona families are not statistics on a chart. They are the foundation of every neighborhood, every school, every business, every church in this state. And after years of watching the foundation strain, Arizona finally has the data and the partnerships to start renewing it.
Then the pastors stepped up.
Pastor Ben Lee of Living Waters Bible Church in San Tan Valley reminded the room what fifteen years of sitting across kitchen tables from moms and dads had taught him.
“A house is built on a slab. A home is built on a covenant.”
That line travels. Living Waters opened in 2009 with five people; this year it is opening an auditorium that will welcome thousands. Pastor Lee is in. He asked five hundred more pastors across Arizona to step up alongside him.
Pastor Andrew Cunningham of SouthGate Church followed with the words of a man who has married, blessed, and even buried Arizonans for decades. He read the report not as news, he said, but as confirmation. He honored the single parents whose love shines as an example for us all. And he asked three things: pastors, read this report and teach what it confirms; churches, open the doors of every marriage and family resource to every Arizonan who wants to build or strengthen a home, member or not; and every Arizonan listening, invest in the family in front of you today.
By the closing prayer, the press conference had stopped feeling like a research rollout. It felt like the first day of something.
That evening, more than a hundred Arizonans gathered online for the Renewing Arizona Families webinar. Dr. Brad Wilcox of the University of Virginia and the Institute for Family Studies — lead author of the report — walked attendees through the research with the clarity that has made him the country’s most trusted voice on marriage and family. The American Dream is in trouble; he told the audience. But the single strongest correlate of upward mobility for poor children is community family structure. That is not opinion. That is data-tested reality. Alan Mullaly, one of the most transformational CEOs of the 21st century, was famous for saying “facts and data set you free.” He’s right. They set us free as individuals and as a community to focus on what matters most—Arizona’s families.
Arizona ranks 35th nationally on the Family Structure Index — but has climbed four places since 2020. Marriages today are more durable than they were two decades ago. The nonmarital birth rate has leveled off. The share of children living with married parents is rising. The trendline is moving in the right direction. The question Dr. Wilcox asked is what Arizona will do to accelerate it.
State Representative Nick Kupper spoke to the legislative pathway ahead. Pastors Brian LeStourgeon and Eli Moreno added the pastoral voice from their corners of the state. And Peter Gentala closed with a reminder of Arizona’s state motto: Ditat Deus — God enriches. Strong families are how that promise is kept.
This is not a CAP project. It is an Arizona movement. And the work has only begun.
To learn more, read the full report, share it with your pastor or your legislator, or invest in this initiative so the work keeps moving, visit www.renewingazfamilies.org. Strong families. Thriving Arizona. The trendline is climbing. Help us climb faster.
Decline to Sign: A Reminder Worth Repeating
If you have spent any time at a grocery store, fairground, or strip-mall parking lot this week, a paid signature gatherer may have approached you. The pitch sounds reasonable — accountability, transparency, and common sense. Read the fine print first.
The proposed anti-ESA ballot initiative would disrupt the education of tens of thousands of Arizona K-12 students, including the nearly 20 percent who have special needs. It would impose an arbitrary $150,000 household income cap that disqualifies a typical firefighter and nurse from supporting their children’s education. It would confiscate the savings of families who responsibly carry funds across years. And it would do all of this in the name of accountability — even though Arizona’s ESA program already runs a misspending rate under 2 percent, with so-called egregious misspending at just 0.3 percent. Medicaid and SNAP run 7 to 14 percent.
Arizona’s 102,000-plus ESA students are not statistics. They are firefighters’ kids. Special-needs students who finally found a school that fits. Military children whose parents serve on active duty. And thousands of students who had been struggling in public school until an ESA opened a door.
When a clipboard appears, decline to sign. Visit azlovesesas.com to take the pledge.
Mifepristone at the Supreme Court: A Setback — and the Arizona Answer
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 to allow mail-order mifepristone to continue nationwide. The majority did not weigh the merits, only that Louisiana lacked legal standing to sue the FDA. In sharp dissent, Justice Thomas invoked, called the abortion pill mail-order trade a “criminal enterprise.” Justice Alito wrote that the Biden-era policy allowing abortion by mail is a “scheme to undermine (the Supreme Court’s) decision” in Dobbs, the ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade. The federal road to stopping this terrible drug has narrowed. The road to changing hearts in Arizona has not.
Help us build an Arizona culture that honors every unborn life. Hearts changed for life end the abortion pill — no matter what arrives in the mail.
ICYMI
- Renewing Arizona Families. Read the full report, see Arizona-specific findings and county-level data, share it with your family, your friends, your pastor, and/or your legislator, and invest in the work at renewingazfamilies.org.
- Decline to Sign ANY ESA ballot measure. Take the pledge, download yard signs and shareable graphics, and equip your community to defend educational freedom at com.
- Engage Arizona Podcast. New episodes of CAP’s flagship podcast with President Peter Gentala publish regularly. Find the latest conversations on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or at https://www.azpolicy.org/engage-az-podcast/.
- 2026 Voter Guide — Coming Soon. Arizona’s Primary Election is Tuesday, July 21. The CAP Voter Guide and Education Voter Guide will publish in the coming weeks at com — nonpartisan, faith-informed, and free.
Doe v. Twitter at the Supreme Court. Five powerful amicus briefs — from the Tim Tebow Foundation, Sen. Josh Hawley, NCMEC, child-protection coalitions, and 16 states — urge the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of two trafficking survivors whose CSAM were posted on X. CAP President Peter Gentala serves as counsel for the survivors. The Court will make its decision soon. It is conferencing this case today, May 15. Please continue to pray for the Court.