August, 2007

Two years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and other stretches of the Gulf Coast. At the time, the response by many on the Right was to blame the victims and/or social-service programs, and to take advantage of the “golden opportunity” to advance a far-right economic agenda. Remember Pat Buchanan, who criticized the “failure” of the “character and conduct” of the population of New Orleans, who “waited for the government to come save them” and “screamed into the cameras for help”? Then-Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) called for “tougher penalties” for those who were stranded when the storm hit and the city was flooded. Bill O’Reilly saw video footage of the tragedy as an ideal object lesson for young people: “If you refuse to learn, if you refuse to work hard, if you become addicted, if you live a gangsta-life, you will be poor and powerless just like many of those in New Orleans.” (Watch the video.)

Yesterday, we wrote about the upcoming “Values Voter Presidential Debate” being held in Florida next month where a “majority of the Republican candidates” have agreed to be publicly grilled by the likes of Phyllis Schlafly, Don Wildmon, Roy Moore, Janet Folger, and Rick Scarborough.  

Of course, the question was just which candidates this “majority” included – and now, thanks to the American Family Association and the most recent “Rick Scarborough Report,” we know that it doesn’t include any of the top tier candidates:

On September 17, Vision America will join forces with some of the largest pro-family organizations in America to host the first ever, Values Voter Debate. Eight republican candidates to date have agreed to be there, and we are in hopes of seeing every candidate participate. Every sponsoring group will be allowed to ask one question. I am seeking your input as to the question I should ask. Please click here to vote on your favorite question. We will announce the results of this poll next week.

We also need your phone calls to the not yet confirmed candidates. Their phones need to be ringing off the hook in a demonstration of the amount of people they are snubbing if they refuse to come and our determination to be heard and have our concerns addressed! Please take the time to call.

Rudy Giuliani - 212-835-9449

Mitt Romney - 857-288-6400 (850-254-7959 Florida office)

John McCain - 703-418-2008

Fred Thompson - 615-390-9944

As the organizers of the event recently said: “All of the candidates who place our values (and our votes) as a priority will be there.” 

So do Giuliani, McCain, Romney, and Thompson value these self-described “values voters” enough to cave to the pressure now being put on them to attend this debate?  That remains to be seen.    

It is hard to say, but that seems to be what Vision America’s Rick Scarborough is suggesting in this recent piece on the retirement of D. James Kennedy:

In Isaiah 3, God pronounces nine things that happen to a nation that turns its back on God. Included in the list are such things as rampant homosexuality, (Is. 3:9); apathy among the citizenry, (vs. 6-7); crime (v.5); and immature leaders (v. 4). At the beginning of the list, and perhaps as a precursor to all that follows leading up to judgment, is the removal of the prophets and the judges … During the past 21 months God has taken three of America's prophets off the national scene--two by death and one by infirmity. Elsewhere, at length, we have discussed the sorry state of affairs concerning the judiciary in America. But the retirement of my friend and and [sic] a man whom I considered in many ways to be a mentor, D. James Kennedy, and the death of two great champions, Dr. Falwell and Dr. Adrian Rogers during the two years, should give everyone reading this Report pause. God is taking away our prophets, and tragically, their replacements on the national scene are in large measure preaching another Gospel, one that the world can more easily swallow that doesn’t tackle the big sins of abortion-on-demand and homosexuality, which Scripture refers to as an abomination.

Vision America's Rick Scarborough thanks "CNN for being fair and balanced in presenting our efforts" on their series and says "had I personally edited the footage to tell our message to the church, I couldn’t have done a better job."

It looks as if the “Values Voter Debate” we mentioned a few weeks back is moving ahead, judging by this new press release:

A Values Voter Presidential debate will be held at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts on Monday, September 17th at 7:30 p.m. The majority of the Republican candidates have confirmed their attendance at the event.

30 of the nation's most influential groups will asking the questions of the presidential candidates that matter most to the Values Voters - the largest voting block in America.

Also participating will be key pro-family leaders including:

    * Phyllis Schlafly, President of Eagle Forum,

    * Don Wildmon, Chairman of the American Family Association,

    * Paul Weyrich, President of the Free Congress Foundation,

    * Judge Roy Moore, Chairman of the Foundation for Moral Law,

    * Janet Folger, President of Faith2Action,

    * Rick Scarborough, President of Vision America,

    * Mat Staver, Chairman of Liberty Counsel,

    * Star Parker, President of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education,

    * Bobby Schindler of Terri's Fight, and

    * Stephen Bennett of Stephen Bennett Ministries.

The debate will reportedly be aired on Sky Angel television and be streamed live on the ValuesVoterDebate.com  and AFA.net websites.  

The organizers say that “All of the candidates who place our values (and our votes) as a priority will be there” though they have yet to provide any confirmation about just which Republican hopefuls will actually be attending.  Not too long ago, the organizers were claiming that “seven of the nine Republican presidential candidates” had agreed to participate, but that has since been reduced to “a majority of the Republican candidates.” 

Thus, it still remains to be seen just which candidates will agree to travel to Florida in order to rub elbows and be publicly grilled by this group of right-wing zealots.  

That is the advice of WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah: "At least part of the city has been destroyed. And it should never be rebuilt, again. You know who is calling for it to be rebuilt at any cost? The same idiots who didn't lift a finger to evacuate the city."

Rev. Rob Schenck of Faith and Action offers some unsolicited advice to Sen. Larry Craig and even pens a sample statement for him that concludes: "I hereby resign my seat in the United States Senate. Thank you."

Last week, The Barna Group, an evangelical Christian research and publishing outfit, released a poll saying that the priorities of evangelicals are far different than those of other Americans.

Other polls suggest that many evangelical Christians in fact have priorities that are closer to the public at large than to those of the Religious Right’s self-proclaimed leaders.  So why would an organization whose purpose is “to be a catalyst in moral and spiritual transformation in the United States” proclaim that evangelicals are out of the political mainstream?

It could be about the struggle within the Religious Right over who speaks for evangelical Christians.  Movement leaders like James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council insist that criminalizing abortion and opposing legal equality for gay people must remain the overriding priorities for Christian involvement in the public square.  The emergence of an active pro-environment movement among evangelicals has provoked foot-stomping outrage from the likes of Dobson and Perkins.

Barna weighs in with the supposed finding that evangelicals consider the environment a low priority:

… evangelicals stood out regarding their views on the environment. Only 35% said that protecting the environment should be a top priority - the lowest score recorded among any of the 80 subgroups studied. The national average was 60%.

But the environment is not the only issue in which Barna finds evangelicals out of the mainstream:

The American Family Association still appears to be targeting Hindu chaplain Rajan Zed, who was shouted down when he delivered the opening prayer in the United States Senate in July. Zed recently delivered a prayer in the California Senate and the AFA had this to say about it: "We're not opposed to the ability of people to worship their own gods or god, but when it comes to our civil government … it's always been the recognition of the God of the Bible. Every religion is not equal. That's my belief. That's logic."

D. James Kennedy, who built up Fort Lauderdale, Florida megachurch and television empire over the last half-century, has officially retired, eight months after he was first hospitalized following a heart attack. Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church has nearly 10,000 members, and his broadcast ministry claims 3.5 million listeners and viewers, but he is best known as one of the founding figures of the Religious Right in the early 1980s, known as the “Ivy League Jerry Falwell.”

Kennedy, who once said that “the diabolical mission” of People For the American Way was “to crush the influence of the Christian religion in American society,” became active in political issues from battling pornography, “secularized” education, abortion, and civil rights for gays to supporting Reagan administration policies like SDI, Iran-Contra, and the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. His involvement grew in the 1990s and 2000s, as he organized national conferences for religious-right activism and expanded his influence in Washington.

The 76-year-old Kennedy’s retirement comes just a few months after the death of Jerry Falwell, and again heralds the inevitable passing of the older generation of religious-right leaders -- Falwell, Kennedy, 71-year-old James Dobson, 69-year-old Don Wildmon, and others who built the infrastructure and set the pattern for fundamentalism-charged politics.

Much more on D. James Kennedy’s political career below.

As a number of right-wing activists—and presidential candidates—have pounced upon a tragic multiple-homicide in Newark as a rallying point for mobilizing anti-immigrant sentiment and pushing a mandate for local police to vigorously enforce immigration status violations, it’s no surprise to see Pat Buchanan join in denouncing so-called “sanctuary cities.” Buchanan, a host and frequent commentator on MSNBC, writes that the incident “has the makings of a Willie Horton issue in 2008”—a reference to an infamous racially-tinged attack ad used against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election.

At this point, one would expect Buchanan to launch into a diatribe against Hispanic immigration, which he has blamed in part for “The Death of the West,” the title of his most recent book. But surprisingly, Buchanan takes a different turn: Jumping to a Washington Post article on a study showing that nearly half of murder victims are black, he complains that “[u]tterly absent” are “white victims.”

The real repository of racism in America -- manifest in violent interracial assault, rape and murder -- is to be found not in the white community, but the African-American community. In almost all interracial attacks, whites are the victims, not the victimizers.

Earlier this month, Vision America President Rick Scarborough derided Democratic candidates who attended a forum sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign and Logo TV by writing, “What’s next? The Cross Dresser Debates? Or perhaps the NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Lovers Association) Debates? Or here’s one for the ages -- The Bestiality Debates.”

Now, Scarborough has revealed that he will take time away from his 70-week electoral “crusade” to join Phyllis Schlafly, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, and Janet Folger in interrogating at least 7 Republican candidates at the so-called “Values Voter Debate” next month in Florida, leading those of us following the parade of GOP contenders wooing the Religious Right to ask: What’s next?

Writes Scarborough:

It's time for the candidates to be asked whether homosexuality is a sin. It's time for them to declare whether the killing of the unborn is ever right. It's time for them to answer whether their Justice Department would prosecute preaching biblical truths as hate crimes.

For candidates nervous about appearing before these far-right luminaries, Scarborough has posted a crib sheet of potential questions he may ask:

With the retirement of D. James Kennedy, Coral Ridge's "emphasis [on politics] will diminish short term for sure" while it focuses on "increasing its worldwide audience to 30 million by 2012, mainly by expanding its Internet, TV and print presence." Also, FRC and ADF send their regards.

The 2007 Conservative Leadership Conference is coming up in October in Nevada. Speakers include: Grover Norquist, Dick Armey, Richard Viguerie, and Chris Simcox of the Minuteman Project, among others.

Viguerie offers President Bush some suggestions on replacing Alberto Gonzales: Miguel Estrada, Priscilla Owen, Charles Pickering, William Pryor, or Rick Santorum.

CNN's Christiane Amanpour interviewed Vision Americas’ Rick Scarborough for her series "God's Warrirors" amidst his seventy-week “crusade” to save America and rally right-wing voters ahead of next year’s election. In this clip, Scarborough rails against sex education, hate crimes legislation, and gay marriage while calling for the impeachment of federal judges.

Transcript after the jump

"Confront the Democrats, don't 'reach out' to them," says Richard Viguerie. "Confronting the Democrats and rallying the conservative base is also a way for Bush to raise his approval ratings from the 30s, perhaps even into the 50s. And that would help him and Congressional Republicans on their entire agenda."

Now that Alberto Gonzales has resigned from his position as Attorney General, the Right is desperately trying to put together some complimentary parting remarks about his pathetic performance in office  - and so far this is the best they have been able to come up with:

"Alberto Gonzales' work as White House counsel filling judicial vacancies with qualified nominees who respect the Constitution will have a lasting effect in bringing integrity back to our courts," said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, a conservative lobbying group. "His example, coming from humble beginnings as one of eight children and as the son of migrant workers to becoming U.S. attorney general, should inspire others to achieve the American dream."

This, of course, provides us with an opportunity to take a look back at 2005 when Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement.  At the time, rumors swirled that President Bush was considering nominating Gonzales to fill her seat and the Right was apoplectic:

Newsweek correctly states that “Gonzales is the only A-list contender who religious conservatives pledge, upfront, to fight.” The article quotes Tom Minnery of Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family saying outright about a potential Gonzales nomination: “We'd oppose him.”

In the same article, Manuel Miranda, head of the recently formed coalition of extreme conservative groups called the “Third Branch Conference” and a former Frist staffer fired for unethically reading internal Democratic judiciary staff communications, warned that a Gonzales nomination could doom the Republican Party in upcoming elections: “If the president is foolish enough to nominate Al Gonzales, what he will find is a divided base that will take it out on candidates in 2006.” Miranda went on to threaten retribution against Florida Governor Jeb Bush, if he decides to run for president. “We're not Republican patsies,” he said. “Jeb Bush can go sell insurance.”

…

In the same article, Phyllis Schlafly, a longtime radical and extreme right leader, said “Bush was very clear, and certainly his constituents believed him, when he said he would appoint justices like Scalia and Thomas. We are not in favor of Gonzales.” One of the reasons for the intensity of the opposition to Gonzales is that the Right feels that they were betrayed by President Reagan with his nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor who was, according to Schlafly, “a terrible disappointment.”

The National Review made its opposition to a Gonzales nomination clear in an editorial entitled “No to Justice Gonzales”: “[The] president has to know that conservatives, his supporters in good times and bad, would be appalled and demoralized by a Gonzales appointment. It would place his would-be successors in the Senate in a difficult position, forcing them to choose between angering conservatives by voting for Gonzales and saying no to him. If Democrats attack Gonzales . . . conservatives will not rally to his defense.”

At the time, the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins warned that if President Bush nominated Gonzales “what you would hear would be [what] sounds like slashing the tires of the conservative movement” and stated that “our position on Attorney General Gonzales is, he holds great promise as an attorney general.” 

Well, Perkins’s first prediction was probably accurate, but his second couldn’t have been more wrong.

The Alliance Defense Fund reports that "Missouri Governor Matt Blunt’s administration has retained attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund for legal representation after Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit against a new state law" and that ADF considers "it a privilege to legally represent Governor Blunt’s administration in this matter free of charge.”