September 2007

"Miller Brewing will now be known as S&M Miller," cracks wiseguy Donohue. Background here.

In an interview with Christianity Today, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney addresses the questions some readers may have about a Mormon candidate. But Romney apparently blames the media and those “who would like to establish a religion of secularism in this country to replace all others”:

[Q.] How do you think relations between Mormons and Trinitarian Christians have changed during your lifetime?

I don't know that there's been a significant change relating to doctrine. [But] several months ago, not long before he died, I had the occasion of having the Rev. Jerry Falwell at our home. He said that when he was getting ready to oppose same-sex marriage in California, he met with the president of my church in Salt Lake City, and they agreed to work together in a campaign in California. He said, "Far be it from me to suggest that we don't have the same values and the same objectives."

[Q.] Have you seen changes between 1968, when your father ran for President, and now?

In terms of the relationship between the faiths, I don't see any particular differences. I know the media today focus far more on people of faith. In some circles, the bias against believers is pronounced. There are some people who would like to establish a religion of secularism in this country to replace all others. So people of faith are routinely scrutinized in a way they were not when my dad ran in 1968.

Blaming the media for questions about Romney’s religion is something we’ve seen before (although blaming people who want to “replace all religion” with “secularism” may be a newer one). But if Romney is looking for someone to blame, perhaps he should start with the religious-right activists he’s been trying hard to court. As we posted before:

Richard Land isn’t the only religious-right leader carrying water for Fred Thompson following James Dobson’s anti-endorsement of the former senator and TV prosecutor. Gary Bauer—a former senior vice president at Dobson’s Focus on the Family and former president of the Focus spin-off Family Research Council—called Dobson’s comment’s unhelpful in avoiding the “nightmare scenario” of a Giuliani-Clinton race.

Bauer has been a Thompson booster for a while now. Back in April, Bauer was one of the first to urge Thompson to run, saying that religious-right favorites Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback had dim electoral prospects. In July, Bauer was quick to call reports of Thompson’s lobbying for a pro-choice group a “nonissue,” and in August, Bauer was again out front trying to deflect a potential hazard after Thompson appeared to retract support for a federal anti-gay marriage amendment, although these efforts weren’t enough to sway an endorsement from the influential Arlington Group, which includes both Dobson and Bauer as well as Land and occasional Thompson-booster Tony Perkins.

Now, as Dobson, Perkins, and others have backed away from Thompson, the best Bauer can do is say that such leaders are taking the approach of “Let the marketplace choose which one ends up being the best candidate.” “It’s a very fluid situation, and it’s possible that a very significant number of people will say, ‘I’m going to work with all of them and wait,’” he added.

In the meantime, Bauer wants to narrow that marketplace down, calling on second-tier candidates—like Huckabee and Brownback—to withdraw:

"[W]e've got a bunch of other candidates who can't get above five percent -- and some of them are very good [and] are saying things we like. But the longer they stay in the race, the more likely [it] is we are going to wake up next year with nobody we can vote for," he says.

Of course, at this point in his own second-tier presidential campaign in 2000, when Bauer was 45 points down from then-Gov. George W. Bush, he had a different idea: “I intend to be the last guy standing.”

[Bauer] said he’s listening to the “marketplace” and it’s telling him: “Go, Gary, go.” (Washington Times, “Bauer not deterred by polls,” 11/1/1999)

Hillyer gushes over man and his anti-gay, anti-affirmative action Supreme Court opinions.

Newt Gingrich says he will run for president if he can convince people to donate $30 million, according to the Washington Times. As hard as it is to believe, Gingrich claims that “more and more people have been approaching me about running.” (Apparently Mike Huckabee didn’t get the memo: the struggling second-tier candidate is letting Gingrich guest-blog on his campaign web site.)

The former House speaker has been dancing around the 2008 campaign for almost a year, practicing his platitudes through a project called American Solutions for Winning the Future, which has also allowed him to gather a mailing list. Gingrich threatened to announce his candidacy if the GOP’s “pathetic” bunch of “pygmies” don’t shape up, but only after Solutions Day, his futuristic holiday scheduled for this very week, when Gingrich “will outline the challenges facing our country and how to address these challenges through fundamental transformational change. Real change requires real change.”

Most of the “workshops” organized for Solutions Day appear to be house parties hosted by Gingrich fans, but at least one features a far-right celebrity: The Texas chapter of the anti-tax group Americans for Prosperity will feature David Barton, a Republican activist and pseudo-historian known for promoting the idea of a “Christian nation” and the claim that the separation of church and state is a “myth.”

For supporters of American Solutions—aside from those who were bowled over by the “Real change requires real change” rhetoric—Gingrich may represent a conservative ideal embodied in his reputation for hard-line partisanship during the Clinton Administration. But that ideal is also embodied in the career Gingrich pursued after his growing unpopularity and scandal-ridden fall from grace—a novelist of books in which the Confederacy beat the Union at Gettsyburg. “Alternate history” may be effective in fiction, but such a strategy seems likely to be less compelling in a real political campaign, even with Gingrich’s futuristic makeover.

Which leads Newsweek’s Jonathan Darman to speculate that Republicans may nominate Gingrich as a “postmodern Goldwater”—a reference to the 1964 candidate who stuck by his far-right principles and went down in electoral flames, but inspired the Right to create the conservative movement that would elect Ronald Reagan 16 years later. Gingrich, writes Darman, may be positioning himself as “a candidate conservatives can be proud to vote for in a year when they face near-certain defeat.” But before GOP voters take that step, they may want to listen to the advice of one reviewer of Gingrich’s book: “Readers should be forewarned … they may come away from this exciting novel believing events really did happen this way.”

As Alan Keyes’ quixotic vanity presidential campaign moves forward, he’s busy making the rounds at the requisite right-wing venues:

Presidential candidate Alan Keyes spoke before a crowd of students at Liberty University’s Vines Center Monday morning, saying that true victory is only found through faith in God.

Keyes, who announced his candidacy Sept. 14, said Monday he lives his life based on Christian morals, and those who believe must also persevere.

“The truth is not just about what we believe,” he said. “It’s very much about how we live and what we do.”

But no amount of speaking engagements or debate appearances is going to help him overcome this basic obstacle:

The Michigan presidential primary is set for January 15, 2008. The law requires the state Democratic and Republican Parties (the only parties entitled to a presidential primary in Michigan) to submit a list of presidential candidates by September 11, 2007.

Alan Keyes declared for the Republican nomination on September 17, 2007, too late to be included on the Republican Party’s list. Therefore, if he wants to be on the ballot, he must submit 11,569 signatures by October 23, 2007. Any registered voter can sign. The formula is one-half of 1% of the Republican presidential vote in November 2004.

Considering that, to date, only 25 people from Michigan have pledged to support Keyes’ campaign, it is unlikely that he’s going to be able to get the 11,000+ signatures necessary in less than a month.  But who knows - maybe his campaign will be able to convince the Michigan Secretary of State that his handful of committed supporters really are "worth hundreds, if not thousands, of just nominal supporters.” 

Sam Brownback says he has to come in at least fourth place in the Iowa caucuses if he wants to continue his campaign: "It doesn't mean that I'll drop out, but I think it will be hard to continue from that point on forward. We'll appraise it because you don't know what other dynamics are going to be in place at that time."

The St. Petersburg Times reports that turnout for the Family Impact Summit was "smaller than expected: fewer than 130 people. Many were senior citizens; almost all were white. And nearly all of them shared a vision of a culture tilting out of control." But those in attendance were at least treated to a speeh by Katherine Harris: "Speaking at an auctioneer's pace, she advised the audience on what to expect if they ran for office. 'I come before you not as an exemplar of Christian citizenship, but as one who has learned lessons from the fire,' she said. Prepare to be attacked in the press and to feel the burden of responsibility, she said. She told them to educate themselves on the upcoming presidential race, but not to read newspapers."

A second dispatch from the Family Impact Summit:

Gary Bauer, a former Reagan administration official who led the Family Research Council before a failed run for the presidency, gave the keynote address at the Summit.

Bauer argued that America is engaged in two simultaneous wars in defense of western civilization – the war against "Islamofascists" and the "war of ideas" in America – and that if we lose either of them, we lose everything.

Bauer typically demonized "the radical left" in America for not supporting the first war and saying that feminist organizations in America say nothing about the Taliban killing girls who want to get an education because they are too busy whining about a woman's right to choose here in America, that last phrase delivered in a high-pitched whiny caricature of a woman's voice.

Regarding the second war, the one at home, Bauer described liberals as "deluded" for thinking that they are free to do whatever feels good. Describing the founding fathers' vision of "ordered liberty under God," Bauer's dismissal of the concept of separation of church and state drew chuckles from the audience.

Bauer, though, exuded confidence, especially regarding the Religious Right's decades-long campaign to criminalize abortion:

"Do you know how close we are to ending the tragedy of abortion? We need one more Supreme Court justice. If we get a few lucky breaks next year, I believe you will walk down your driveway and pick up a newspaper that says 'Roe Overturned, Supreme Court Affirms Right to Life'."

The Dayton Daily News profiles the Grand Avenue Church of God Choir, which sang "Why Should God Bless America?" at the Values Voter Debate: "But those who are concerned about family values and moral values appreciate it [said choir director Melanie Clark]. We didn't mean to cause any problem ... People just love it. We just keep getting requests for it."

Medved asks a good question about Alan Keyes' third vanity run for President in light of his statement that he'd consider Mike Huckabee or Sam Brownback as possible vice-presidential candidates: "How can Dr. Keyes on the one hand praise his two rivals for their moral clarity and decency then on the other hand condemn the entire Republican field as so lacking in morality and decency that he needed to join the fray yet again? "

Stem cell research, abortion, and euthanasia are evidence that America is being taken over by "death cults," says Richard Land: "We must stand up and face the reality that we face a deadly threat beyond our borders from a death cult called radical Islamic jihadism and we face a similarly deadly threat [at home] to our future, to our children's future and our nation. Our nation's future hangs in the balance and depends on how we respond as believers to these death cults."

While efforts by the Right to build a religious coalition on immigration never panned out, anti-immigrant activists in California have been steadily building their own version of a relationship with the religious community. Activists with the San Diego Minuteman group spent their summer staging over-the-top protests at an area Catholic church accused of offering breakfast to day-laborers. And now, in Simi Valley, activists protested another church, this time for sheltering an undocumented mother and her U.S.-born son, in a reenactment of Elvira Arellano’s stand-off with authorities last year.

Activists with Save Our State reportedly planned on making a “citizen’s arrest” of the Simi Valley mother, reports the Ventura County Star. "I'm here because I'm for the movement for the illegals to go home,” explained one protester. The protest apparently became violent, as one anti-immigrant protester allegedly pepper-sprayed a pro-immigrant counter-protester, and several neo-Nazis showed up to hold their own mini-rally. The group “Mothers Against Illegal Aliens” also apparently made an appearance.

(Photo: Ventura County Star.)

But the confrontation took its strangest twist after the protest. The city of Simi Valley sent a bill for almost $40,000 to the United Church of Christ to cover increased police presence. Although the church did not plan the protest—it was organized by Save Our State, a group that inspired cities like Hazleton, Pennsylvania to pass their own anti-immigrant ordinances to fend off a “Third World cesspool”—and although the church did not call for any police presence, Simi Valley Mayor Paul Miller blames the church for “harboring an illegal immigrant” and “any potential violence as a result.”

Simi Valley apparently want to send a message: that they are on the side of Save Our State.

The City Council made it clear it doesn't want Liliana in a Simi Valley church.

"This city is not going to be known as sanctuary city,'" Miller said.

Right-wing stalwarts want former gov., who recently dropped out of pres. race, to replace retiring Sen. Warner.

Given the radical right’s longstanding obsession with denying legal recognition or protections to LGBT Americans, it’s not surprising that several questions at the "Values Voter Debate" were about protecting America from the gays. Also not surprisingly, these candidates lined up to oppose equality.

The first question of the night, from the American Family Association’s Buddy Smith, was about “protecting” marriage.  Every candidate except libertarian Ron Paul pledged to push for a federal marriage amendment.  Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee touted his record of pushing a marriage amendment in his state and promised to lead an effort to have a constitutional amendment that would affirm marriage as “one man, one woman, for life.”  Rep. Tom Tancredo pledged to do everything possible to pass a federal constitutional amendment, warning that Americans are just “one kooky judge” away from having homosexual marriage forced on them.  Sen. Brownback bragged of his efforts in the Senate to pass the FMA and complained that President Bush had not done more to pass it.  Alan Keyes, who had just tossed his hat in the ring, took a shot at the absent Mitt Romney, calling him “single-handedly responsible” for gays getting married in Massachusetts (not, shall we say, a view widely shared among marriage equality activists).

Paul Weyrich, a founder of the modern Religious Right political movement, closed the first section of the program by asking what candidates would do to counteract “the homosexual agenda.”  Most candidates went back to the need for a marriage amendment to prevent, in Keyes’ typically tempered words, the “destruction of traditional marriage.” Brownback and Rep. Duncan Hunter talked about keeping gays from serving openly in the military.  Libertarian Ron Paul, while saying he is opposed to legislating morality, called for eradicating hate crime laws. Brownback also attacked hate crimes laws as criminalizing thought and moving into an agenda of not allowing people to speak their beliefs.  Businessman John Cox talked about common sense but spouted nonsense, talking about opening floodgates to bestiality and polygamy and warning darkly of “transvestite” teachers in public schools as a reason to support “school choice” and homeschooling.

During the “yes or no” segment of the program, Stephen Bennett, self-proclaimed “former homosexual,” argued that homosexual behavior is immoral and dangerous, and asked whether, as president, candidates would support legislation ensuring that schools would forfeit federal funding if they expose children to “homosexual propaganda” that puts them at risk. All the candidates clicked their green lights to answer “yes.”   A later question asking whether they would pledge to veto ENDA also won unanimous support.  

During a segment in which questions were directed at a single candidate, anti-gay zealot Peter LaBarbera asked the absent Mitt Romney why voters should trust him when he spent so much of  his career promoting “anti-life” and “pro-homosexual” policies and not challenging Marriott’s providing pornography in its hotels as a member of its board.  But perhaps the most memorable anti-gay question came from Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver, who cited Abraham Lincoln in criticizing Fred Thompson’s “federalist” approach to marriage, essentially making marriage equality the moral equivalent of slavery:

While you were senator you opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment, but recently you stated that you would support a marriage amendment that would prevent judges from imposing same-sex marriage, so long as it would not prohibit state legislatures from adopting same-sex marriage. This reasoning is like saying that you favor a constitutional amendment that prohibits judges from imposing slavery, so long as the state legislatures were free to do so. Does not your position fundamentally misunderstand the universal importance of marriage in the same way my latter example about slavery indicates a misunderstanding of human dignity?

Right-wing pseudo-historian David Barton will be addressing the Regent Law School chapter of the Federalist Society today.

During last evening’s Values Voter Presidential Debate, debate organizer Janet Folger displayed an ultrasound image to the candidates and asked the candidates what they would do, if elected, to “restore legal protection and the full rights of personhood to every American waiting to be born.” 

The candidates quickly tried to outdo one another, with Sam Brownback proclaiming that he wanted to opportunity to nominate the Supreme Court judge who would overturn Roe v. Wade and Tom Tancredo explicitly pledged to have a specific abortion litmus test for choosing judges, while Duncan Hunter went so far as pledge to show a sonogram to any potential judicial candidate and only appoint those who see a “viable human life.” 

Alan Keyes, for his part, promised to issue an executive order committing the entire Executive Branch to protecting “life in the womb,” while Mike Huckabee talked mostly about his pro-life credentials and made some odd comparison to trying to save “six coal miners in the womb of a coal mine in Huntington, Utah.” 

The top-polling GOP presidential candidates may have snubbed last night’s “Values Voter Debate” hosted by the American Family Association and a collection of B-list to D-list Religious Right leaders, but debate organizer Janet Folger (author of “The Criminalization of Christianity”) was ecstatic because her prayers had been answered.  She had been praying for God to reveal “the David among Jesse’s sons.”  And David turns out to be Mike – former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

Folger declared Huckabee the “clear winner” of the straw poll taken by attendees at the event, apparently hand-picked by the organizers and right-wing leaders and activists who lined up to ask questions in the 3-hour marathon.  Religious Right leaders have been frustrated by the fact that the somewhat pro-choice and pro-gay rights Giuliani is leading in GOP polls, and that no consensus candidate has emerged that excites the movement’s leaders. Folger is out to change that, and to make her event the moment at which God’s anointing of Huckabee as the candidate to rally around was revealed.  It’s not yet clear whether the movement’s major political players like James Dobson and Tony Perkins will join the bandwagon.  Folger’s co-panelist Phyllis Schlafly, for one, wasn’t letting herself be bullied into saying who she would vote for, even after Folger’s revelation.

“We won huge,” Huckabee himself boasted. “I’m pleased, and proud, and honored to have this historic endorsement from America’s leading social conservatives who believe, as I do, in the core values which define American culture and life. This overwhelming vote affirms that conservatives are coalescing around one candidate and that candidate is me.”

It’s no surprise that the folksy Huckabee was popular among the far-right faithful at the event – he answered every question to their liking, while touting his populist, blue-collar credentials.  On marriage, he would lead an effort to pass a constitutional amendment affirming marriage as “one man, one woman, for life.”  On abortion, he needled the missing candidates and said “on this issue our culture rises or falls.”  He backed the Iraq war, calling it a “theological war” against people “whose religious fanaticism will not be satisfied until every last one of us is dead, until our culture, our society, is completely obliterated from the face of the earth.”

During an interminable “yes or no” segment, Huckabee pledged himself to a long  far-right wish-list: support for Roy Moore’s court-stripping bill to keep federal courts from meddling with public officials who use their office to promote religion, vetoes of hate crimes, ENDA, and the fairness doctrine; stripping schools of federal funding for exposing children to “homosexual propaganda,” repealing IRS restrictions on churches endorsing candidates, bringing back Bush’s social security privatization plan, imposing a ban on federal funding for any U.S. group that performs or advocates for abortion, boosting federal abstinence spending to match contraceptive funding, and more.

Huckabee closed by telling Janet Folger, Roy Moore, Rick Scarborough, Phyllis Schlafly, and the rest, that “many [other candidates] come to you. I come from you.” 

Yesterday we noted that Rudy Giuliani was scheduled to be in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on the very day that the Values Voter Presidential Debate was taking place, though he and the other top-tier candidates had all declined to participate.  While the other candidates all gave excuses about scheduling conflicts, the Giuliani campaign didn’t even bother trying to come up with an excuse.  

Needless to say, his refusal to attend the event when he was in town campaigning just four miles away did not endear him to the organizers of the debate, with Janet Folger saying he was essentially telling them "I’m here in town, but I don’t care enough about your values to actually show up."

Apparently, the Giuliani campaign is starting to think that sticking a finger in the eye of the GOP’s right-wing base might not have been a very good idea and so Giuliani is desperately trying to come up with an excuse about why he didn’t make it:

Giuliani was slated to meet with supporters at a Tampa cafe and attend a fundraiser.

Asked why he wasn't attending the debate, Giuliani said, “I wasn't aware of it.''

Oh really?  That is odd, since his campaign sent a letter to the organizers weeks ago declining the invitation:

The Giuliani camp didn't even bother with the scheduling-conflict ruse, providing the Sun with the text of a letter the former mayor's campaign manager, Michael DuHaime, sent to the debate's organizers on Friday. "Thank you for your kind invitation for Mayor Giuliani to attend a presidential debate hosted by Values Voters," Mr. DuHaime wrote. "Unfortunately Mayor Giuliani will be unable to accept your invitation."

And in case it has slipped his mind since then, his campaign also shared the letter with CBN’s David Brody just last week when he inquired why Giuliani would not be attending.  

If Giuliani thinks his excuse is going to convince anyone, he’d better think again.  

Religious-right activists—and some sympathetic politicians—have frequently compared abortion to slavery, not only in asserting that fetuses are morally analogous to chattel slaves in the antebellum South, but also in proclaiming themselves the heirs to noble abolitionists.

While the Religious Right depends on politics driven by the social wedge issues of abortion and gay rights, even voters who agree with the Right think other issues are more important to the country.  So it’s not so surprising that activists would try to ride the coattails of what was undoubtedly the most important political and moral issue of its time, if not of all U.S. history.

But while we’re accustomed to abortion-slavery comparisons, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention offers a new twist on exploiting slavery history: comparing it to the threat of gay marriage. Land, decrying a recent decision in favor of gay marriage by an Iowa state judge, writes:

While some opponents of "same-sex marriage" argue that this is a state issue, I believe at its heart it is a national issue. In fact, I believe events in American history support this position.

I suspect that Abraham Lincoln was a staunch Federalist. While he believed most issues should be decided at the state level, there are some issues that are so compelling and basic ("first principles") that they have to be decided at the federal level. Lincoln understood the moral dilemma that would unfold if each state was able to decide for itself whether it would be "slave" or "free." …

The slavery analogy is apt when it comes to the marriage issue. America's families -- and the culture at large -- cannot survive as a union of states with half embracing "same-sex marriage" and half accepting only traditional marriage. The U.S. government will not disintegrate, but eventually the nation will have one definition of marriage binding us all. …

Slavery was outlawed in the federal Constitution. It was not going to be an issue decided by each state.

I respect the Constitution, and I don't believe it should be amended unless it is absolutely necessary. We have reached the point regarding marriage that we once reached regarding slavery. Rulings like this one in Iowa reveal the urgent need for a federal Marriage Protection Amendment.

Land recently said he wrote his book—“The Divided States of America?”—because he was “concerned about the debasement of debate in this country.” I suppose that was running through his mind when he compared gay couples who want to marry to “slaveholders” [who] “would not be content to continue owning slaves in the states where they held them. They wanted to force everyone in the country to acknowledge their right to have slaves anywhere in the United States.”

With the Values Voter Presidential Debate sponsored by a collection of second-tier Religious Right leaders scheduled for tonight, the organizers are still pressing hard to get top-tier candidates who have refused to participate (Thompson, Giuliani, Romney, and McCain) to change their minds, claiming that the straw poll being held at the debate will “decide the nominee” and warning them that if they don’t show up, “they're going to be hurt substantially.”

When asked a few weeks back why they weren’t going to be attending this debate, most of the top candidates made excuses about scheduling conflicts, except for Rudy Giuliani:

The Giuliani camp didn't even bother with the scheduling-conflict ruse, providing the Sun with the text of a letter the former mayor's campaign manager, Michael DuHaime, sent to the debate's organizers on Friday. "Thank you for your kind invitation for Mayor Giuliani to attend a presidential debate hosted by Values Voters," Mr. DuHaime wrote. "Unfortunately Mayor Giuliani will be unable to accept your invitation."

Apparently, the reason the Giuliani campaign didn’t bother with the scheduling conflict excuse is that, according to this recent update in the AP Daybook, he is actually going to be in Fort Lauderdale today: 

NEW* GIULIANI in Fort Lauderdale, FL: At 3:30 PM Rudy Giuliani holds a press availability at Advanced Roofing, located at 2100 NW 21st Ave. [Associated Press Daybook, 9/17/07]

Was Giuliani just keeping his options open in case other leading candidates decided to participate? Or perhaps he has decided to trek down to Florida in order to meet with the debate organizers in private in an attempt to placate them before the debate without having to answer for joining them publicly?

If not, then this is a rather staggering slap-in-the-face to the debate organizers, because rather than schedule Giuliani to be somewhere that would at least provide a plausible excuse for not attending tonight’s debate, his campaign’s decision to drop him less than 4 miles away from the debate venue on the very day it is being held can only be seen as attempt to send an unmistakable signal to these leaders that he does not want or need their support.  

So which is it?  Is Giuliani in Florida today to secretly pander to the very right-wing leaders he has publicly blown off or is he there taunting them and sending them a very clear message that he plans to run without seeking their support?    

After urging President Bush to pick a fight over the next Attorney General, Richard Viguerie blasts Bush for nominating Mukasey: "President Bush has blown another chance to energize the discouraged, disheartened, and disillusioned base of the Republican Party by picking an ideological fight ... Bush is now the lamest of lame ducks."

Anti-choice groups, such as the Christian Defense Coalition and The Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, announce plans to hold "demonstrations, prayer vigils, and rallies surrounding the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado in August 2008."

Below are short biographies of those who have been mentioned as participating in tonight's "Values Voter Presidential Debate" in Fort Lauderdale, Florida:

They are not much of a surprise if you announce them ahead of time, now are they? "SURPRISE! Questions will be posed not only from national pro-family leaders, but from such surprise guests as the wife of a border agent who was jailed while preventing a drug smuggler from entering our country! Hear questions from an abortion survivor, victims of the homosexual agenda, parents whose children were once frozen embryos and a former slave in Sudan!"

The name Danny Harvey will probably start showing up in a lot of right-wing outlets, as he is claiming that he was fired by the Leesburg Regional Medical Center in Florida for praying "in Jesus name." The hospital says it was because he refused to be "respectful of the different religious beliefs of our patients and ... lead them in their faith in their time of need." In what comes as a surprise to absolutely nobody, former Navy Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt is already on the case and will be joining a march in protest of Harvey's firing this weekend.

The American Family Association recently took time out from its work against hate-crimes protections for gays and religious pluralism to launch an attack on a series of sleazy TV ads for hamburgers. In urging its supporters to contact local TV stations to halt the Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s ads, however, AFA’s automatic-outrage-generator unfortunately left letter-writers with the option of demanding satisfaction from all media outlets, leading one frustrated newspaper editor to pen an editorial titled “Please quit sending these generic letters.” From the Salem, Oregon Statesman Journal:

I haven't taken time to watch the commercials, but they must be pretty tasteless (no pun intended). …

But I digress. My point is not the commercials; it's the letter-writing campaign. The generic letter is from the American Family Association web site. It's to be sent to TELEVISION STATIONS; they air commercials, newspapers don't.

One has to wonder about the smarts of these letter writers, if they don't follow the directions on the Web site, if they misspell the Statesman Journal's name and Hardee's name, if they send the letters to towns that don't have a Hardee's or Carl's Jr. -- and if they participate in a generic letter-writing campaign, which usually gets ignored.

From what people have told me, the commercials are awful. Still, don't expect to see any of these letters in print anywhere in the country. Opinion editors automatically toss generic letters.

UPDATE: More from the Lebanon, Pennsylvania Daily News and the Spartanburg, Georgia Herald-Journal.

UPDATE 2: More from the Racine, Wisconsin Journal Times, the Arizona Daily Star, and the Bakersfield Californian.

USA Today reports on a new poll from the First Amendment Center, showing that a disheartening 55 percent of Americans believe that “The Constitution establishes a Christian nation.” For this we can no doubt thank, in part, the efforts of pseudo-historian David Barton and other religious-right activists who have made “Christian nation” a catchphrase, meant by them to signify that the separation of church and state is a “myth.”

Just today, in fact, Roy Moore rebuked those who consider the Constitution to be “a ‘secular’ document.” Moore is scheduled to question Republican candidates for president at the Values Voter Debate on Monday, and he added, “The recognition of the sovereignty of God is an essential prerequisite for liberty. … If presidential candidates do not clearly understand that God is the source of liberty, they will not protect those liberties from intrusive bureaucracy.”

Moore, the former chief justice of Alabama, has his own version of the First Amendment: He lost his position on the state’s Supreme Court and became a right-wing hero for refusing an order to remove a two-ton Ten Commandments monument from the courthouse, placed there to instruct petitioners that the Bible formed the “foundation” of U.S. law. He also called on Congress to prevent the first Muslim member from assuming office, and when a Hindu chaplain gave a guest convocation in the U.S. Senate, Moore asserted, “Our senators must acknowledge that one, true God in Whom America has trusted.”

Not really, finds a new report from Media Matters: "The results show that in paper after paper, state after state, and region after region, conservative syndicated columnists get more space than their progressive counterparts."

The Christian Defense Coalition is holding a rally Thursday that will feature "a public display of red stained gloves, laid out on the lower Capitol terrace, symbolizing the blood of thousands of religious minorities that will be on our hands if we do not protect religious liberty in Iraq."

Kent Hill, an official with the U.S. Agency for International Development, recently appeared on Pat Robertson’s “700 Club” to tout the efforts made by the Bush Administration’s global AIDS initiative (called PEPFAR) to fund faith-based groups and abstinence outreach.

As we’ve noted, PEPFAR provided increased funding for AIDS relief, but also came with controversial restrictions seemingly keyed to ideology, most prominently a requirement that two-thirds of money for prevention of HIV transmission—including preexisting funding channels—go to programs dedicated exclusively to promoting abstinence-until-marriage and fidelity. This anti-condom measure was seen as a sop to the Religious Right, as were grants awarded to politically-connected faith-based groups. The Center for Public Integrity has a long report on the issue.

Although there was support among aid groups for the “ABC” strategy (“Abstinence, Being Faithful, and Condoms”) in principle, the requirements heavily favoring abstinence caused confusion and program cuts for condoms and mother-child transmission prevention. Hill, however, characterizes it as “a debate as to whether behavior change is possible” which has brought “some criticism from all sides.”

Hill, a history professor and former president of Eastern Nazarene College, served from 1986-1992 as head of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a right-wing group founded to support President Reagan’s Cold War efforts in Central America, mainly by insinuating ties between the mainline National Council of Churches and communist groups or the KGB. IRD was known in the 1980s as “the official seminary of the White House” (Nation, 4/17/89, via MT).

(AP photo via Center for Public Integrity.)

“Dual-language classes give U.S. an edge,” read the headline of an AP story printed last Tuesday in the right-wing Washington Times, lauding New York City’s 67 schools that offer instruction in English plus immersion in a foreign language to student bodies comprised of about half native English speakers and half children with a background in the other language. The two-way immersion approach has not been without pedagogical controversy, but programs in French, Spanish, Chinese, Creole, and other languages have not produced widespread criticism. That changed with the proposal of a dual-language program for Arabic.

It looks as if the Right has taken some time out of its never-ending war against gays, abortion, and the secular culture to issue a “Declaration” calling on the US to stay in Iraq and warning of “catastrophic consequences” should US forces withdraw.   

Operating under the name The Forgotten American Coalition, Gary Bauer, Don Wildmon, Pat Robertson, Paul Weyrich, John Hagee, Lou Sheldon, Tim and Beverly LaHaye, Janet Folger, Rick Scarborough, Wendy Wright, Morton Blackwell, Gary Cass, Star Parker, Mathew Staver and other have issued the following Declaration:

Fred Thompson discusses the Supreme Court with the National Review: "It’s important that the president not only know and understand and learn about the people he’s going to have to choose but he understands the underlying issues and hopefully knows how to read a case and knows who’s following precedent and who’s not and who’s doing it from the seat of their pants based on their own views of social equity, versus the Constitution and the law. I like Roberts and Alito and Scalia and Thomas."

Suppose you are the President of the United States and you are nearing the end of your time in office with dismal approval ratings and a history of seeing a bunch of your controversial judicial nominees run into opposition in the Senate for a variety of reasons, so much so that you had even been forced to withdraw more than one nominee to the Fourth Circuit because of such opposition.  

Would you, in an attempt to find nominees that could win widespread support, consider listening to home state Senators when they make bipartisan recommendations for filling vacancies to that circuit?  

Not if you are George W. Bush:

As we’ve chronicled several times over the last few weeks, the “Values Voter Presidential Debate” is scheduled for September 17 in Florida.  Featuring a variety of right-wing leaders, the event is designed to give Republican presidential candidates an opportunity to directly address the concerns of, and answer questions from, figures like Phyllis Schlafly, Don Wildmon, Paul Weyrich, Roy Moore, Janet Folger, and Rick Scarborough.

Unfortunately for the organizers of the event, not one of the four top GOP candidates is willing to be seen with them:

The festivities, however, look likely to go off without a marquee name. Queried yesterday by The New York Sun, the McCain campaign cited a scheduling conflict. "We are not attending," a spokeswoman for Mr. McCain, Brooke Buchanan, replied by e-mail. "It's the last day of the No Surrender tour — we will be in South Carolina."

Likewise, the Romney campaign's Florida spokeswoman, Gail Gitcho, told the Sun that the former Massachusetts governor had "declined due to a scheduling conflict."

Mr. Thompson's press office also is citing "another event on his calendar that day."

The Giuliani camp didn't even bother with the scheduling-conflict ruse, providing the Sun with the text of a letter the former mayor's campaign manager, Michael DuHaime, sent to the debate's organizers on Friday. "Thank you for your kind invitation for Mayor Giuliani to attend a presidential debate hosted by Values Voters," Mr. DuHaime wrote. "Unfortunately Mayor Giuliani will be unable to accept your invitation."

Undoubtedly, that snub is not sitting well with them – and it is probably only being made worse by this:

Today FRC Action announced that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney will speak in a prime-time slot at the Washington Briefing 2007: Values Voter Summit on Friday evening, October 19.

So Romney is willing to show up at a “values voters” event hosted by the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, American Values and others that features the likes of Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Gary Bauer, Robert Knight, and Richard Land but won’t have anything to do with the other Values Voter folks?  

It seems as if Romney is willing to accept an invitation to speak to right-wing leaders and activists but is unwilling to actually take questions from them.  While FRC and FOF tend to be considered more “reputable” right-wing groups than the Eagle Forum or Vision America, there is, in actuality, no substantive difference between the views, rhetoric, or mission of these groups.  In fact, several of the participants in the Values Voter Debate are also participating in FRC’s Values Voter Summit, including Star Parker, Bobby Schindler, and Phyllis Schlafly.

So why is it that Romney is willing to pander to the Right at the Values Voter Summit, but is unwilling to actually answer questions from them at the Values Voter Debate? 

Could it be because, while they want their support, they hope to achieve it in a way that allows them to avoid publicly pandering to them by answering questions such as “Do you believe the Ten Commandments should be posted on public property?" or “Do you believe that homosexuality is a sin?”

After months of “testing the water,” Fred Thompson finally made it official last night that he is indeed seeking the Republican presidential nomination. Seeking to make a splash in the race, Thompson skipped the scheduled GOP debate in New Hampshire, choosing instead to appear on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” to make the announcement  -  a move that seems to have irked his fellow Republican hopefuls.

While Thompson’s entry into the race and the manner in which he made it were expected, what would have really shaken up the Republican primary was if he could have walked onto the scene with the backing of the extremely influential Arlington Group, which very nearly happened, according to various sources.  

On the September 5 edition of “Special Report with Brit Hume,” Fox News Chief Political Correspondent Carl Cameron reported:

[Thompson] has four months now to court conservatives that others have spent the whole year wooing. One example, the highly-influential Arlington Group, which is made up of various conservative and religious organizations and leaders, including Gary Bauer, a former presidential candidate and former head of the Family Research Council.

Sources say the Arlington Group had planned to throw its support behind Thompson tomorrow when he announces. That is now on hold because last week on the "National Review Online," Thompson aides said he would oppose a constitutional amendment that religious conservatives support banning gay marriage.

The National Review’s “The Campaign Spot” reports the same:

A reliable source has told me of huge, potentially bad news for the Thompson campaign — there is a very influential group of social and religious conservatives called the Arlington Group. Thompson addressed them earlier this year and, I was told, wowed them. It looked like he was going to collect a slew of impressive endorsements.

I've just been told that that group may be ready to say that they're not impressed with Thompson in recent months.

The Arlington Group is a coalition of dozens of powerful and influential right-wing organizations, which includes the likes of the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, the American Family Association, American Values, the Free Congress Foundation, Vision America, and others.  

The Boston Globe reported earlier this year that Republican candidates were eagerly courting the Arlington Group precisely because of the tremendous influence its members possess:

Leaders of the group have interviewed Huckabee, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, US Representative Duncan Hunter of California, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who hasn't entered the race but may later this year. It's not clear which other candidates have been or will be interviewed. The group has not yet questioned Romney, Senator John McCain of Arizona, or former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, according to those campaigns.

Because the Arlington Group is made up of many nonprofit organizations and ministries -- which, by law, cannot officially advocate for political candidates -- the coalition is not expected to explicitly endorse anyone. Instead, according to members of the group and two Republicans close to it, the conservative leaders hope to coalesce around one candidate that prominent members such as James Dobson, who heads Colorado-based Focus on the Family, could endorse individually. Dobson, for example, is free to say as a private citizen that he supports a certain candidate, a personal endorsement sure to influence many of his followers.

The group or its leaders might not even reach a consensus -- a similar effort in the 2000 race ended without agreement, and many conservatives have expressed frustration at the lack of a clear choice in the 2008 contest. But if they do, the political potential for that candidate would be significant. The Arlington Group encompasses roughly 70 grass-roots organizations around the country said to reach tens of millions of people collectively.

"It is our desire that all of us, in a united effort, could marshal our resources to the same end," said one member of the group, who spoke on condition of anonymity, because members agreed not to disclose the discussions publicly.

In a Republican primary in which the current candidates are actively courting support from the right-wing political leaders and organizations, receiving the stamp of approval from the Arlington Group would have been a significant development in Thompson’s campaign and delivered a tremendous boost for his chances of winning the nomination.  

But it appears as if, at least for the time being, Thompson has lost that opportunity primarily because of his waffling on the question of whether he would “actively push a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage” were he to be elected president.  

Salon reviews "God's Harvard," a new book about Patrick Henry College, an institution that serves homschoolers and seeks to "train them to occupy the highest offices in the land, to upend the conventional wisdom that seizing worldly power requires compromising spiritual principles."

The Chicago Tribune notes that Rudy Giuliani is utilizing the Federalist Society in an attempt to assure the Right that he'll appoint their kind of judges and that he isn't the only one courting the groups: "Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson also have recruited members to high-level positions in their organizations."

"Iowa's Own Robert Hanson Breaches Trust on Marriage" - that is the title of a recent Family Research Council "Washington Update" on a recent ruling striking down a marriage ban in Iowa. Is FRC comparing the judge in this case, Robert Hanson, to FBI spy Robert Hanssen, focus of the film "Breach"?

The Chicago Tribune profiles Jay Sekulow and his work at Pat Robertson's Amercian Center for Law and Justice, highlighting its $35 million budget, staff of 130, and Sekulow's role in picking and supporting President Bush's judicial nominees. More importantly, it reports that the ACLJ is focusing its efforts on winning lower-profile but no less influential cases: "You really don't see the pro-life protests on the courthouse square or in front of the abortion clinic. Now it's more these kinds of cases. Nuanced. There's federal legislation involved in this. There's state legislation. There's state regulatory issues. It's Title VII. So it's much more nuanced."

D. James Kennedy, the longtime leader of the Coral Ridge megachurch in Florida has died at the age of 76.

Since suffering a heart attack late last year, Kennedy’s health had steadily declined, leading to the shuttering of his Center for Reclaiming America for Christ in April and his official retirement from Coral Ridge Ministries last week, after which we put together a profile of his lengthy and influential career.

PFAW has long monitored Kennedy and his affiliate organizations, leading him, at one point, to claim that “the diabolical mission” of People For the American Way was “to crush the influence of the Christian religion in American society.”  

Below are some other memorable quotes from his years as a leading right-wing figure: