PRO-S.O.C.S. was founded by Jo and Dave Martin to maintain Separation of Church and State. PRO-S.O.C.S. was conceived after its founders attended as first time delegates their GOP Senatorial District Convention in 1992. They felt as if they had been transported back in time to Nazi Germany in the late 1930s.
In a quest to understand how the GOP had been taken over and who was behind these extremists, contact was made with other activists, and a network was formed with Marghe Covino and Jerry Sloan of Project Toxin, Sacramento, CA; Kathy Fraska of Mainstream Voters Project, San Diego, CA; Fred Clarkson of Planned Parenthood Federation, NY; Skip Porteous and Barbara Simons of Institute For First Amendment Freedoms, Great Barrington, MA; and Jody Ripper of Des Moines, IA. This network and affiliation with other national anti-extremist organizations provides intelligence about the activities, connections, and intentions of various facets of the radical right and their handlers. PRO-S.O.C.S. is involved in collecting and analyzing data from the extreme right, developing data bases of right-wing groups, and their myriad of shared members. PRO-S.O.C.S. monitors extremist articles in local newspapers and attempts to get opposing views printed, extremist authors identified, and their connections exposed. PRO-S.O.C.S. maintains subscription to many anti-extremist conferences on the internet and is able to monitor domestic and international activities. PRO-S.O.C.S. writes material for public education and awareness, speaks publicly, provides support to educators under attack by extremists, and builds coalitions of groups with various First Amendment concerns.
More recently PRO-S.O.C.S. has worked in cooperation with the Texas Family Planning Association organizing the Texas Freedom Alliance in southeast Texas and with the formation of the Greater Houston Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. PRO-S.O.C.S. encourages interested groups and individuals throughout the country to network and share information, newspaper articles, membership list of radical right organizations, and experiences successful and otherwise dealing with this threat to democracy.
Jo Martin of Houston, Texas is a researcher and writer for PRO-S.O.C.S. The Righteous Revolution was printed in a three part series in the San Francisco Bay Area Reporter, and is listed as a reference on the Religious Right in a publication by Culture Watch of Oakland, California.
Dave Martin of Houston, Texas is a researcher and writer for PRO-S.O.C.S. Dave is a frequent contributor to The Houston Chronicle’s View Point section.
Jo and Dave covered the Texas GOP Convention, June 10, 1994 as media representatives for Church & State Magazine. Jo and Dave are board members of Project Tocsin’s Sentinel Institute for Research and Education (SIRE), Sacramento, CA. and members of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.