June 2007

Alliance for Marriage Recruits California Latinos

Submitted by Anonymous on Friday, 6/29/2007 6:19 pm

After last year’s mid-term elections dimmed its hopes that a federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage would pass the Congress, the D.C.-based Alliance for Marriage announced it was decamping for the field, to drum up anti-gay “caucuses” in the states. On the road to its “50-state strategy,” AFM crowed that a “Marriage Protection Caucus (TM)” was established in each of South Carolina, Maryland, and New Mexico, and its map claims several more, but it’s less clear how many actual legislators signed up in these states.

When AFM announced its “two-year plan” back in November, it also announced that it would be “deploying a diverse group of spokespersons,” claiming that its coalition was “unique and unprecedented in the degree to which it cuts across racial, cultural and religious boundary lines.” Now, AFM has begun to “deploy” Latinos, launching a California Latino Steering Committee to Protect Marriage.

AFM may have an uphill struggle recruit Latino support for an anti-gay amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A 2004 Field poll found that 57 percent of Hispanic voters in California opposed such an amendment. A 2006 poll by the Center for American Values in Public Life showed that Hispanics in the U.S. favor granting committed gay and lesbian couples the same rights as married couples in areas of hospital visitation, health insurance, and pensions by a two-to-one margin – a higher margin of support than non-Hispanics. In addition, a majority of Hispanics favor recognizing same-sex couples in either marriage or civil unions.

Other right-wing groups attacked AFM for supposedly being soft on civil unions and “counterfeit marriage,” but AFM is apparently focusing its efforts in California on a bill that would expand the rights of domestic partnerships – an act that would “erase the legal road map for marriage and the family from state law,” according to a member of AFM’s Latino committee. Nevertheless, the group’s ultimate goal remains to amend the U.S. Constitution. Speaking of efforts in some other states to erode domestic partner benefits, AFM President Matt Daniels said, "When the dust settles, we'll have a national standard for marriage. What is going on in the states is a dress rehearsal.”

One Poll, Two Headlines

Submitted by Anonymous on Friday, 6/29/2007 3:30 pm

New York Times, on a recent New York Times/CBS/MTV poll: “Young Americans Are Leaning Left, New Poll Finds.”

Focus on the Family’s Citizenlink, on the same poll: “Young Americans Hold Conservative Views.” The article notes that “Fifty-four percent of young adults expressed opposition to same-sex marriage.” That’s one way of looking at it. On the other hand, both young people and adults in general support either same-sex marriage or civil unions – and young people are significantly more in favor of same-sex marriage than other adults:

Youth and gay rights

Viewpoint Neutrality for Me, But Not for Thee

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 6/29/2007 1:17 pm

Earlier this month, we wrote about a controversy regarding the Albemarle County School Board in Virginia and its "backpack mail" program. As we explained then, the Jerry Falwell-affiliated Liberty Counsel had sent a letter to the school board, citing an earlier 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling striking down a Montgomery County (MD) “backpack mail” policy after it refused to distribute fliers for Child Evangelism Fellowship’s “Good News Clubs.” 

The Liberty Counsel warned the Albemarle board that its refusal to distribute fliers about a church-sponsored vacation bible school via its own "backpack mail" program was unconstitutional and the board quickly changed its policy.  

The Right was quite pleased with itself – at least until fliers for a summer camp for atheists and freethinkers started showing up in students’ backpacks.  

With that, Vision America swung into action, saying it was “outrageous to force teachers to distribute these flyers” and apparently its activists so overwhelmed the Albemarle County School Board that the board has decided to do away with the backpack mail program entirely:

This fall, the load of papers coming home with Albemarle County kids in backpack mail will be lighter: no Boy Scouts recruitments, no YMCA sign-ups, no mention of vacation Bible school. And no fliers touting atheist camp.

…

Superintendent Pam Moran told the School Board her email inbox shut down when a national organization-- Vision America headquartered in Lufkin, Texas-- got wind of the "beyond belief" Camp Quest fliers and flooded her with messages protesting school-abetted "atheistic indoctrination." Technicians had to work over the weekend to get her email back up and running.

So to recap: Liberty Counsel eagerly embraced “viewpoint neutrality” in order to get evangelical Christian materials into the schools’ “backpack mail” program, but once that neutrality extended to include atheists, Vision America stepped in and shut the program down all together. 

Hate to Say I Told You So

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 6/29/2007 12:19 pm

Washington Post editorial, September 18, 2005: Confirm John Roberts

Judge Roberts represents the best nominee liberals can reasonably expect from a conservative president who promised to appoint judges who shared his philosophy. Before his nomination, we suggested several criteria that Mr. Bush should adopt to garner broad bipartisan support: professional qualifications of the highest caliber, a modest conception of the judicial function, a strong belief in the stability of precedent, adherence to judicial philosophy, even where the results are not politically comfortable, and an appreciation that fidelity to the text of the Constitution need not mean cramped interpretations of language that was written for a changing society. Judge Roberts possesses the personal qualities we hoped for and testified impressively as to his belief in the judicial values. While he almost certainly won't surprise America with generally liberal rulings, he appears almost as unlikely to willfully use the law to advance his conservative politics.

Washington Post editorial, January 15, 2006: Confirm Samuel Alito

Humility is called for when predicting how a Supreme Court nominee will vote on key issues, or even what those issues will be, given how people and issues evolve. But it's fair to guess that Judge Alito will favor a judiciary that exercises restraint and does not substitute its judgment for that of the political branches in areas of their competence. That's not all bad.

Washington Post editorial, June 29, 2007: A Blow to Brown

Justice Kennedy's concurring opinion correctly took the four-justice plurality to task for its glib assertion, in the opinion written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., that the "way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." As Justice Kennedy noted, "Fifty years of experience since Brown. . . should teach us that the problem before us defies so easy a solution." There is reason to doubt whether the leeway that Justice Kennedy would give school systems would be adequate for the task, and, even if it were, to worry how long that uneasy equipoise would hold on a court tilting as far to the right as this one is.

Poll: GOP Base Not So Far Right on Wedge Issues

Submitted by Anonymous on Friday, 6/29/2007 11:16 am

While the national Republican Party, with the help of right-wing interest groups, has largely purged itself of moderate politicians in recent years, a new survey finds the Republican voters have not necessarily followed. GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio surveyed 2,000 self-described Republicans and found that 77 percent said employers should not have the right to fire an employee over their sexual orientation; nearly half would let gays serve openly in the military. While 61 percent called themselves “pro-life,” only 28 percent want to ban all abortions, and 72 percent said the decision should be up to the woman, her family, and her doctor, not the government. Overall, 60 percent said they would be likely to vote for a presidential candidate whom they disagreed with on abortion but who agreed with them on most other issues.

Fabrizio’s poll also showed that the economic wing of the GOP has shrunk by two-thirds in the last ten years – replaced by those concerned primarily with foreign policy and national security. Marc Ambinder has more details.

Keyes Group Responds to Washington Times Criticism

Submitted by Anonymous on Friday, 6/29/2007 11:13 am

When the anti-immigrant Minutemen emerged onto the national scene, Washington Times reporter Jerry Seper wrote glowing profiles of the border vigilantes, but over the past year, relations have soured as Seper investigated allegations of shady finances from within the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. In Seper’s reports, one mysterious factor has been the numerous ways MCDC is intertwined with a host of non-profit and for-profit organizations associated with Alan Keyes. While Chris Simcox, head of MCDC, responded once last year with some unconvincing filings, the groups and leaders implicated have remained silent.

Now, one Keyes group is responding. Although only briefly mentioned in the Times, RenewAmerica – a web site featuring writing by Keyes and like-minded commentators – calls a recent article “an obvious (and unprovoked) effort to discredit the organization.” In the article, Seper examines the FEC filings of the Minuteman PAC and discovers that 97 percent of the money it spent went to “operating expenses,” including many payments to for-profit consulting and fundraising companies associated with Keyes. These filings – as well as filings for a second Minuteman PAC – are publicly available.

In listing some of these PAC expenditures, Seper mentions RenewAmerica in passing:

Politechs Inc., a Los Angeles-based political consulting firm headed by Mary Parker Lewis, a key adviser to MCDC and a top official in several tax-exempt fundraising organizations led or founded by Mr. Keyes. In the report, the Minuteman PAC said it paid $10,000 for fundraising to Politechs. Mrs. Lewis served as chief of staff for Mr. Keyes' 1996 and 2000 presidential runs and in his 2004 senatorial race against Barack Obama in Illinois. She also is executive director of Declaration Foundation and chief of staff at Renew America, another tax-exempt fundraising group founded by Mr. Keyes.

According to RenewAmerica counsel Steven Voigt, “Ms. Lewis--a longtime colleague of Alan Keyes--is in fact Keyes' Chief of Staff, not RenewAmerica's. She's not an officer of RenewAmerica.”

What’s more interesting, though, is Voigt’s angry denial that RenewAmerica is even a non-profit at all. “RenewAmerica is not tax-exempt,” he writes. This may come as a surprise to those who have donated to the company. In the fine print, the group says that “to avoid federal government intrusion, your donation to RenewAmerica.us is NOT tax deductible.” Registered non-profits, which don’t pay taxes, are required to report publicly their revenue, their expenditures, and the salaries of the top officials.

Voigt parlays this mention of RenewAmerica – as a biographical detail of Keyes associate Mary Lewis – into a broadside against Seper’s “bad journalism,” and adds suggestively, “I am left to wonder whether the rest of his article is equally unreliable.” But since the Keyes groups actually implicated in this article on the Minutemen’s suspicious finances have yet to respond (perhaps preoccupied with drafting Keyes to run for president), and Voigt is unwilling to look into it (“I am not counsel to any of the other organizations mentioned in that article, so I don't know”), Voigt’s editorial raises more questions than it settles.

Brownback Crashes John Wayne’s Birthday

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 6/28/2007 3:48 pm

The Des Moines Register reports that some towns in Iowa are trying to keep presidential aspirants away from local parades and other events because of the logistical and security nightmares their presence causes.

As one organizer explained, “We've spent three years creating these events and celebration. We want it to be for the people."

But apparently Sen. Sam Brownback was not one to be deterred:  

Restrictions were also placed on candidates at the John Wayne celebration in Winterset last month. No speeches, for one.

…

Trask said U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback skirted the speech restriction in Winterset by purchasing a $100 ticket for the VIP dinner during the John Wayne celebration.

"We let him speak for four minutes, and he kept his remarks to John Wayne," Trask said. "He was a favored candidate of the Wayne family.

Is Brownback really so desperate for votes in Iowa that he plunked down $100 dollars in an attempt to circumvent Winterset’s restrictions?  It sure looks that way.  Or maybe he just really, really wanted to be a part of the John Wayne Birthday Centennial Celebration.   

Standard Operating Procedure

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 6/28/2007 3:44 pm

As we have noted repeatedly over the last several years, the Right has developed various means to defend controversial Bush administration nominations against those who raise concerns about a nominee’s views by accusing anyone who might voice such concerns of being in some way a bigot. 

As we noted recently, the Right has routinely accused those who opposed nominees such as Miguel Estrada, Priscilla Owen, and Janice Rogers Brown of being, respectively, anti-Latino, anti-woman, and straight out racist. 

Perhaps the most common accusation is that those who raise concerns about a nominee’s views are motivated by anti-religious bias, which is a charge they’ve thrown around multiple times, most notably regarding opposition to William Pryor and John Roberts.  

And they are at it again, this time in defending Dr. James Holsinger, President Bush's nominee for surgeon general, who has exhibited an open hostility to homosexuals.

Paul Weyrich levels the accusation:

In spite of his qualifications, radical homosexual activists are intent on defeating his nomination, in blatant violation of Article VI of the Constitution, because of his religious beliefs

So does Al Mohler:

In other words, Dr. Holsinger's opponents are not directing their attention to his medical experience or qualifications, but to his beliefs and responsibilities as a Christian and a member of the Judicial Council of the United Methodist Church.

…

The nomination of Dr. James Holsinger promises now to be a defining moment in American history. Will it now be necessary for a nominee to deny the teachings of his or her own church in order to be confirmed by the United States Senate?

It seems that, for the Right, any criticism of a nominee is out-of-line if the views for which the nominee is being criticized are, in some way, rooted in his or her religious faith, thereby allowing them to ignore the issue at hand, which is the nominee’s actual writings and record. 

But for some reason, the Right seems to have a different standard for Democrats and feels free to openly disparage not only their views, but their respective faiths directly.  

For example, not too long ago, the National Clergy Council openly declared that “[Sen. Barack] Obama's Christianity woefully deficient.” 

Or what about Don Feder’s recent broadside:

Democrats are to traditional religion what Islam is to tolerance.

…

It's not that Democrats aren't religious - rather that they practice a religion alien to both Christianity and Judaism.

Its doctrine includes support for abortion on demand, hate crimes legislation, the Kyoto Treaty, driver's licenses for illegal aliens, multiculturalism and a socialism of property and values.

Its priesthood is feminists, environmentalists, gay-activists and radical secularists, presided over by its college of cardinals --Rosie O'Donnell, Bill Maher, Barbra Streisand and Al Franken.

It calls for atonement for the sins of sexism, homophobia, the religious right, the gun lobby, pharmaceutical companies, big oil, Guantanamo, Halliburton and trans-fatty acids.

Its vision of Kingdom Come looks a lot like San Francisco on a Saturday night.

Or what about Paul Weyrich himself, who once attacked John Kerry, Tom Harkin and Dick Durbin for being “nothing but hypocrites” who were” trying to take advantage of their Catholic faith when its suits their purposes on the campaign trail, but shirking the obligations that really come with that faith” and called on the media to differentiate between “politicians [who] have taken stands in accordance with their faith and are therefore ‘observant,’ true Catholics and which ones are non-observant, only claiming to be Catholic.”

Apparently, for the Right, opposing a Bush nominee is proof of blatant religious bigotry, whereas directly denigrating the faith of Democrats is perfectly acceptable.   

National Right to Life Welcomes Thompson Today, But Reviled Him Ten Years Ago

Submitted by Anonymous on Wednesday, 6/27/2007 6:24 pm

Former Sen. Fred Thompson, who is reportedly going to announce his candidacy for president soon, recently offered his video greetings to the annual convention of the National Right to Life Committee, an organization that endorsed him when he ran for Senate in 1994. While Thompson has so far been favorably received by the Religious Right– with the possible exception of James Dobson – the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act is a reminder that groups like NRLC may have second thoughts about him.

The case, FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, limited parts of the campaign-finance law that regulated “issue ads” implicating a candidate for office. While anti-abortion activists were not the only critics of the law to appreciate the decision, the case had a particular relevance for them with an NRLC state affiliate’s name on the docket. And such activists have also made campaign finance into a campaign issue for presidential candidate John McCain, the co-author of the bill – despite McCain’s fervent opposition to abortion.

When it comes to Thompson, these activists might remember his role as sherpa for John Roberts during his contentious confirmation to be chief justice of the Court, and Roberts was the author of the Wisconsin Right to Life decision. But, as National Journal reporter Marc Ambinder reminds us, Thompson was also a major backer of campaign reform during his time in the Senate, when he chaired the committee investigating campaign finance – and he picked a nasty fight with a handful of advocacy groups, including the same National Right to Life Committee.

In 1997, Thompson used a Senate government affairs committee hearing to probe the electioneering of National Right to Life and other groups, and his subpoena request for internal NRTL documents was strongly resisted by counsel -- including James Bopp, Jr., who now advises Mitt Romney.

In addition, Thompson wrote a friend-of-the-court brief in 2003 in support of the law’s overturned provisions:

Thompson wrote that "sham issue advocacy by non-party groups" was a "problem" that BCRA "addresses." Congress, Thompson wrote, "had a compelling interest in enacting the BCRA reforms. The rapidly increasing practices of raising and spending soft money (with a significant focus on sham ‘issue ads’ that unquestionably influence federal elections) fully justify the BCRA reforms.”

Thompson and McCain were the only two Republican senators “firmly committed” to campaign reform, as the New York Times reported in 1997, and that advocacy has apparently cost McCain much support from a part of the right-wing base that would seemingly take to him. Will Thompson’s campaign reform past come back to haunt him?

Survey: Americans Support Positive Options

Submitted by Anonymous on Tuesday, 6/26/2007 5:02 pm

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has been skulking around the Republican presidential primary race in recent months, saying that announcing this early is “stupid”  and, in the mean time, attempting to build grassroots support by running a separate campaign, ostensibly not on behalf of himself, but for “the future.” On the web site of his futuristic organization, called “American Solutions for Winning the Future,” you can count down the days until September 27, when Gingrich will apparently let the cat out of the bag. Meanwhile, he’s been rebuilding contacts (confessing adultery to James Dobson, for example) and working to reestablish his “intellectual firebrand” reputation on the Right that he lost after the unpopularity of the government shutdown and the Clinton impeachment – along with his own scandals – led him to resign from the House.

Gingrich’s operation recently commissioned a poll to prove support for his ideas; according to Gingrich, “By 84 to 12, the American People Support the Key Proposition of American Solutions.” Just what are these ideas? From Gingrich’s newsletter:

92% believe we need to provide long-term solutions instead of short-term fixes (only 5% believe it is unimportant);

80% believe we must strengthen and revitalize America's core values (only 9% believe that is unimportant); and

67% favor moving the government into the 21st Century (only 15% believe that is unimportant).

That’s right: The people of this nation prefer “solutions” to “fixes,” are in favor of our “core values,” and generally support a government located in the same time period as its citizenry. Other results from the poll show widespread support for “Defeating America’s enemies” and belief in the prediction that “new technology and science” will “open up incredible possibilities” – in “a variety of fields”!

Since Gingrich -- famous for pushing the far-right “Contract with America” and for his aggressive, no-holds-barred attack on the Clinton Administration -- is not going to be running on the Care Bears ticket, it’s unclear why he’s spending so much money promoting these vague platitudes. While he retains his “gut connection” with the GOP’s right-wing base, he understands that playing to that base “drives away the non-base.” Perhaps “winning the future” means forgetting when the name Newt Gingrich meant partisan rancor and a 24 percent favorability rating.