March, 2008

Just three weeks after the American Family Association declared victory in its boycott against Ford Motor Company, the anti-gay group has a new target: General Motors. From an e-mail alert titled “General Motors Supports The Gay Agenda”:

General Motors has made a decision to help promote the homosexual agenda. The automaker supports the gay agenda with advertising in homosexual publications and on the gay TV cable channel LOGO.

GM's Cadillac regularly places full-page ads in The Advocate, a magazine dedicated to pushing the homosexual agenda. The LOGO TV network carries programs promoting the lifestyle.

AFA is urging its activists to sign a petition that GM should “not involved in promoting an aberrant, anti-family lifestyle,” but that may be just the beginning for the boycott-happy group.

When Matt Barber of Concerned Women for America announced recently that he had discovered “proof” of the “gay agenda”—in the form of gays and lesbians looking for government jobs—we had a hard time taking him seriously. But vigilant anti-gay activist Brian Camenker is on the case, searching for intrigue in the appointment of a gay administrative judge:

Brian Camenker, a pro-family advocate in Massachusetts, is questioning why a prominent homosexual activist was appointed to judge, amidst controversy over a political donation and more than $120,000 in campaign funds.

The Massachusetts governor's council recently voted 6-to-1 in favor of appointing former state senator Cheryl Jacques as an Industrial Accidents Board Judge. Prior to her appointment, Jacques served as the president of the pro-homosexual organization the Human Rights Campaign. As president, she helped the HRC defeat the Federal Marriage Amendment. Jacques was also an outspoken proponent for homosexual causes as a state senator.

Opponents of Jacques claim the appointment is nothing more than a political payoff for the $500 dollars she donated to Governor Deval Patrick's campaign and the subsequent support he received from the homosexual movement. Opponents also question why Jacques still has $127,000 in campaign funds since she has not run for office for some time.

Leaving aside the issue of how one could pursue "the homosexual agenda" from the Industrial Accidents Board, Camenker raises some important questions, like: Is $500 all it takes to secure an appointment in Massachusetts? And to what positions will Gov. Patrick appoint the other 8,850 people who gave him $500?

Alternatively, Camenker—whose group MassResistance was recently labeled a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center—could be focusing his attention on Jacques for some other reason.

Last year we noted the creative reasons the Religious Right came up with to join their economic-right brethren in opposing expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The National Right to Life Committee raised the specter of Medicare “rationing” and “involuntary euthanasia,” while Focus on the Family complained that there was no money in the proposal earmarked for abstinence-only sex ed. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council said the problem with the SCHIP expansion was that it provided health coverage to “pregnant mothers” rather than to “unborn children”—a “calculated move,” according to Perkins, “to open the door to federal taxpayer-funded abortions.”

This month, retiring Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colorado) revived his attempt to “classify the unborn child as a patient” under existing SCHIP coverage. The attempt failed, much to the dismay of Rod Parsley’s Center for Moral Clarity.

For the second time in less than a year, the U.S. Senate has rejected an amendment that would allow states to financially help poor pregnant teens and their unborn children. In effect, the vote will help encourage abortion.

The Center for Moral Clarity echoes Perkins in making a nebulous connection between not assigning insurance policies to fetuses and increasing abortion, but while the Family Research Council argued that more federal dollars for children’s health care would “free[] up states” to pay for abortions “with their own state money,” CMC’s point remains mysterious.

By assuaging the “financial concerns” of young women, CMC claims, “[t]hese girls are far more likely to be persuaded or coerced into an abortion.” But given that the Senate did pass expanded coverage for pregnant women and their children, it’s unclear what more “recogniz[ing] unborn children as patients” would do—except advance the legal agenda of abortion opponents.

Efforts to expand the emerging, nebulous concept of anti-abortion health-care providers’ “right of conscience” were dealt a setback this week, as a Wisconsin appeals court upheld the state Pharmacy Examining Board’s rebuke of Neil Noesen. Noesen, a “traveling pharmacist,” was working temporarily at a Menomonie Kmart when he refused to fill a woman’s prescription for birth control pills—and refused to transfer her prescription elsewhere.

Noesen, 34, of St. Paul, Minn., told regulators that he is a devout Roman Catholic and refused to refill the prescription or release it to another pharmacy because he didn't want to commit a sin by "impairing the fertility of a human being."

The Pharmacy Examining Board ruled in 2005 that Noesen failed to carry out his professional responsibility to get the woman's prescription to someone else if he wouldn't fill it himself.

The board reprimanded Noesen and ordered him to attend ethics classes. He was allowed to keep his license as long as he informs all future employers in writing that he won't dispense birth control pills and outlines steps he will take to make sure a patient has access to medication.

Noesen, whose “conscience” about the woman’s “fertility” told him he had to keep the prescription slip away from her, is an extreme case, but the line between respecting the religious observance of health providers and maintaining individuals’ access to health care is being disputed in a variety of cases. Last year we wrote about a “conscience” case where doctors refused to provide artificial insemination to a lesbian. But for the most part, the movement is focused on birth control and abortion.

Last week, a federal court dismissed a lawsuit by the state of California challenging the Weldon Amendment, which denies funds to states that “discriminate” against health services that do not refer patients for abortions, and which Casey Mattox of the Christian Legal Society described as “a critical protection for the rights of conscience of pro-life healthcare workers.”

And the Bush Administration is wading in to the debate: Michael Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services, is leaning on the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology to rescind a report he claimed “would force physicians to violate their conscience by referring patients for abortions or taking other objectionable actions.”

It is no secret that John McCain prides himself on being a straight-talkin’ maverick and that the media eats it up, which is why his cozying up to the likes of Rod Parsley and John Hagee received so little coverage.  For that matter, it is probably also why McCain’s recent speech to the Council for National Policy received so little attention  … well, that and the fact that the CNP is notoriously secretive and limited press access to his address. 

But now, several weeks after the event and with absolutely no fanfare, the CNP quietly posted a transcript of his remarks on their threadbare website and while McCain would most certainly deny that he addressed the gathering with any attempt to pander for their votes, he certainly did a lot of telling them what they wanted to hear.  

McCain offered up a litany of issues the Right cares about on which he completely shares their views: federal spending (too high), taxes (bad), dependence on foreign oil (also bad), the border (too porous), Iraq (a success) and, most importantly, judges:

I want to just mention a couple other things with you very briefly.  Judges.  I am proud to have played a role in the appointment of two of the finest judges I think that may have ever been appointed to the United States Supreme Court in Justices Alito and Roberts.

I commit to you, as I have for many years, I will appoint, nominate Judges to the United States Supreme Court who strictly interpret the Constitution of the United States and do not legislate from the bench. 

McCain then opened the floor to questions and assured those in attendance that he intends to use his campaign to “articulate a strong and conservative vision for the future of this country” and bring the party together.  He also reiterated his pledge to secure the borders, defeat terrorism, fight the Fairness Doctrine, control health care costs, and “change the culture in America to respect the rights of the unborn.”  He also promised to throw his weight behind efforts to prevent gays and lesbians from being treated equally when it comes to marriage:

ATTENDEE:  Senator, we are from Ohio, and in 2004, many say that the marriage amendment made the difference for Bush. This coming election, you are going to have - Florida is already on the ballot.  Arizona is more than likely going to be on the ballot, and California.  Will you openly support the marriage amendments in those three States?

SENATOR McCAIN:  Yes, sir.  And as I say, I am proud to have been the honorary chairman of our effort last time, which was narrowly defeated, as you know, because there was a misinterpretation of the language, and we are going to clear that up.  I think we can win it this time.

McCain’s “straight talk” reputation is based, at least implicitly, on the assumption that he tells it like it is and won’t hesitate to tell audiences things they might not want to hear.  But so far in this campaign, McCain has addressed three purely right-wing audiences (the CNP, the Values Voter Summit, and CPAC) and each time he has used the opportunity not to demonstrate his “maverick” ways but to humbly seek their support by constantly reminding them of the principles and positions they share, touting his conservative record, and all around telling them what they want to hear.

When he was running for president, Mike Huckabee made no secret of his displeasure with the current leadership of the Religious Right, regularly chiding them for refusing to support his candidacy.  It was, at least in part, because of their glaring lack of support that Huckabee’s campaign eventually folded, forcing him to drop-out of the race and it looks as if Huckabee is not particularly prepared to let bygones be bygones:

Mike Huckabee can't definitively explain why he couldn't win the Republican presidential nomination, but he thinks the desire of Christian leaders to be "kingmakers," media coverage and Mother Nature all had something to do with it.

"Rank-and-file evangelicals supported me strongly, but a lot of the leadership did not," the former Arkansas governor says. "Let's face it, if you're not going to be king, the next best thing is to be the kingmaker. And if the person gets there without you, you become less relevant."

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson backed Rudolph W. Giuliani; American Value President and former presidential hopeful Gary Bauer endorsed Sen. John McCain; and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins remained neutral, even as Mr. Huckabee was wowing their supporters and winning the values voter straw polls they organized.

Huckabee seems particularly galled by Religious Right’s allegations that he was weak on foreign policy issues and didn’t fully comprehend to threat posed to this country by “Islamo-fascism,” which he says was nonsense since he was the only one who really understood the true nature of the threat:

"I was the one person who talked about this being a theological war, not just a geopolitical war [because] it was unlike a traditional war over borders and boundaries," he says.

While Huckabee remains bitter over his inability to win over the Right’s current leadership, it appears as if various other right-wing outsiders are equally bitter over the prospect of having to support John McCain and are considering defecting to the Constitution Party:

[I]is 2008 the year when a third-party candidate would find some traction among those disaffected by the abortion, marriage and national security stances found in the records of the three front-runners left in the race?

Charles Lewis, national outreach director for Christian Exodus, is one of those behind the launch of the new Save America Summit website, and believes it's not only time, it's overdue.

Among those participating in this third-party-seeking Save America Summit are Flip Benham, Wiley Drake, Bill Federer, Gordon Klingenschmitt, Howard Phillips, Chris Simcox, as well as representatives of organizations such as Gun Owners of America, the Council for National Policy, and Stop the ACLU and others who are convinced that McCain, Obama, and Clinton all plan "an EU-style unification of America with socialist Canada and Mexico during the next administration."

Sadly for Huckabee, he can't seem to get any love from these right-wing activists either, since they seem to have already narrowed down their choices for president to four people: Alan Keyes, Roy Moore, Jerome Corsi, and former Sen. Bob Smith.

While the debate over federal immigration reform has been on hold, anti-immigrant activists continue to push for legislation on the state and local levels. At a recent hearing of the Maryland state House Judiciary Committee regarding several bills seeking to crack down on undocumented immigrants, one activist found her testimony that day cut short after she tried to distribute fliers to the committee depicting the chairman in a gaudy sombrero under the phrase “Wanted for Aiding & Abetting.”

The activist, Susan Payne, announced herself as the executive director of the new Maryland Coalition for Immigration Reform, but we remember her as the co-founder of Citizens Above Party, which had at least one other member. Last year, Payne was testifying to the state legislature over REAL ID, warning that her hometown of Gaithersburg—a wealthy suburb of D.C. best known for its New Urbanist planned villages—was “becoming the first authentic barrio in the county.” Payne is one of a few anti-immigrant activists in the state who seem to be quoted in the media again and again.

But Payne doesn’t seem to have trouble finding allies among legislators: Del. Warren Miller is calling on his colleague Joe Vallario, the committee chairman depicted in the sombrero, to resign for interrupting Payne. “I would suggest he move to another country and run for office there,” said Miller.

(Susan Payne with flier. Photo from Maryland Thursday Meeting.)

Literally: " A Senate candidate has legally changed his name to Pro-Life and will appear on the ballot that way this year, state election officials say. As Marvin Pro-Life Richardson, the organic strawberry farmer from Letha, 30 miles northwest of Boise, was denied the use of his middle name when he ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2006 because the state's policy bars the use of slogans on the ballot. Now, though, officials in the Idaho secretary of state's office say they have no choice because Pro-Life is his full and only name. He says he will run for the highest state office on the ballot every two years for the rest of his life, advocating murder charges for doctors who perform abortions and for women who obtain the procedure."

Robert Knight weighs in on the Jeremiah Wright controversy, saying it is unfair to compare to Jerry Falwell to Wright because "Falwell was no hater. After his most controversial moment, when he blamed pro-abortion and pro-homosexual groups for 9/11 as God's punishment on America for abandoning moral standards, he apologized." Of course, Falwell did nothing of the sort.

A few voices on the Right have expressed partial praise for Barack Obama’s speech on race, but by and large, right-wing commentators have stuck to the script, picking over the parts where Obama mentioned the country’s racial wounds, excoriating him for failing to disavow affirmative action or liberal economic policies, and generally promoting the idea that Obama is some kind of Manchurian candidate who secretly hates both America and white people.

But if Obama hoped to start a national conversation about race, he succeeded, in a way. Many right-wing commentators have proved willing to redirect their attacks on Obama to a discussion of their views on African Americans in general. Cal Thomas opined that “black people should be listening to” Bill Cosby, not Rev. Wright. Ann Coulter announced that she had had enough of blacks talking about racism:

But the "post-racial candidate" thinks we need to talk yet more about race. How much more? I had had my fill by around 1974. How long must we all marinate in the angry resentment of black people? …

We treat blacks like children, constantly talking about their temper tantrums right in front of them with airy phrases about black anger. I will not pat blacks on the head and say, "Isn't that cute?" As a post-racial American, I do not believe "the legacy of slavery" gives black people the right to be permanently ill-mannered.

Unfortunately, the online videos of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church appear to be the first exposure some on the Right have had to blacks or the African American church. Human Events reporter Ericka Anderson admitted as much: “Those of us outside the black community lack any deep knowledge of black churches. The only black minister we are very familiar with was Martin Luther King, Jr.” Anderson added, “He never damned America.”

George Neumayr, editor of the Catholic World Report, was apparently scandalized by what he described as the “feverish” church-goers in the videos “hopping up and down like hyperactive children” as they follow their “buffoonish[],” “sashaying” pastor.

Perhaps we should leave the final word to Pat Buchanan, who has made a career out of claiming that “white America” is under constant threat from other ethnicities. Before Obama’s speech, Buchanan pined for the “Negroes” of the 1950s:

That Wright is a revered preacher in black America also tells us that, far from coming together, we Americans are further apart than we were in the 1950s, when Negroes could be described as Christian, conservative and patriotic. Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad did not speak for black America then. Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young and Dr. Martin Luther King did. But Jeremiah Wright makes Stokely Carmichael and Rap Brown sound like the Mills Brothers.

After the speech, Buchanan was more blunt, writing that “Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.”

What is wrong with Barack's prognosis and Barack's cure?

Only this. It is the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission blamed the riots in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and a hundred other cities on, as Nixon put it, "everybody but the rioters themselves."

Was "white racism" really responsible for those black men looting auto dealerships and liquor stories, and burning down their own communities, as Otto Kerner said -- that liberal icon until the feds put him away for bribery.

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.

Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.

This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard.

Medill News Service, a project run by Northwestern University graduate journalism students, recently ran a story about the Uniting American Families Act, legislation that “would allow same-sex partners to be united legally through the U.S. immigration process. The bill would correct the bias in the [Immigration and Nationality Act] by adding the term ‘permanent partner’ to the law’s definition of family members; therefore, same-sex partners of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents would be eligible for green cards and immigrant visas available to spouses and other family members.”

The piece profiles a couple, Tim Miller and Alistair McCartney, who have been together for fourteen years who may be forced to separate or leave the country altogether when McCartney, an Australian citizen, sees his work Visa expire next year.  

Reporter Sirena Rubinoff then interviewed Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council who explained his organization’s opposition to the legislation:

We oppose this bill because it is, although it may be at the margins, part of an assault on the definition of family ... I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society.

Although it wasn’t surprising to see John McCain spend much of the past few years courting the Religious Right in advance of securing the Republican presidential nomination, he continued to pander even after his primary victory was all but finalized. Beginning with his speech to the right-wing activists at CPAC—which followed shortly after his main rival, Mitt Romney, dropped out—McCain seemed to step up his embrace of the fringe, picking up more and more endorsements, campaigning with apocalyptic televangelist John Hagee and “Patriot Pastor” Rod Parsley, and reaching out to the Council for National Policy.

McCain’s search for religious-right support might have raised a few flags. Hagee, for example, frames his support for Israel in terms of the end times, going as far as warning that any U.S. foreign policy decision that isn’t “pro-Israel” enough will result in God bringing a “blood bath” of terrorist attacks to America. Hagee also identifies the Catholic Church as the “great whore” of Revelation (a characterization he now denies) and said Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment on a sinful city.

When confronted with some of Hagee’s extreme views, McCain simply responded “all I can tell you is that I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee’s support.'’ After a lot of pressure from the Catholic League, McCain finally issued a bland statement: “I repudiate any comments that are made, including Pastor Hagee’s, if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics.”

Indeed, McCain would have had difficulty criticizing Hagee any further—much less call the pastor out on his “profoundly distorted view of this country,” to quote Barack Obama’s critique of Rev. Jeremiah Wright—because McCain had sought out Hagee precisely for his extreme stance and the religious-right constituency he can reach.

Just as McCain sought out Hagee for his political clout, it was politics that brought McCain and Ohio televangelist Rod Parsley together on the campaign. When McCain brought Parsley on stage and called him a “spiritual guide,” that didn’t mean the senator had sent the Word of Faith preacher a financial “seed” in hopes that God would bolster his campaign contributions. Instead, McCain was embracing Parsley’s far-right political views and the political machine of “Patriot Pastors” he leads.

David Limbaugh, one of the many right-wing commentators who dismissed Obama’s speech on his pastor, claimed there was a “double standard” when it came to conservatives: “When the remotest connection can be inferred between a conservative and a bigoted supporter, there is always hell to pay.”

But in fact the opposite double standard seems to be in play: While Obama continues to be attacked for his personal relationship with a pastor whose controversial political ideology he’s rejected, McCain’s ongoing ideological relationship with the far Right—consisting, in essence, of him telling them he embraces their political views—remains unconnected to McCain’s political reputation.

Recently, the Human Rights Campaign released a statement on a hearing in which the "American Red Cross, the American Association of Blood Banks and America’s Blood Centers [testified] that the ban on blood donations from men who have had sex with men since 1977 should be lifted,” in which HRC President Joe Solmonese commented:

Twentieth century prejudice shouldn’t keep us from 21st century health standards. Our nation’s leading blood services organizations agree that there is no rational justification for treating gay and bisexual men different than straight men. Given modern testing and the fact that anyone can be vulnerable to infection, there is no medical or scientific rationale for this discriminatory policy.

Predictably, Concerned Women for America’s resident anti-gay “expert” Matt Barber weighed in and, instead of criticizing the groups that actually delivered this testimony, chose to attack Solmonese for intentionally endangering the nation’s blood supply:

"Joe Solmonese's demand is incredibly reckless and selfish," said Matt Barber, Policy Director for Cultural Issues with Concerned Women for America (CWA). "Unfortunately, it's a common demand among his fellow extremists.

"In South Africa, militant homosexual activists have been deliberately and surreptitiously violating that nation's blood ban, planning to flood blood services with 70,000 units.  Who knows how much blood has been contaminated or how many innocent people have been infected," said Barber, "This isn't a protest; it's an act of violence.

…

"Joe Solmonese has severely damaged his credibility here, and he should immediately withdraw his demand.  It's unconscionable that he would place a deceptive and dangerous political agenda above the health and well-being of American men, women and children. 

Barber has been a busy man lately, working to turn anti-gay Oklahoma legislator Sally Kern into a right-wing cause célèbre after she was recorded saying that the gay agenda is the “biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam,” so it is no surprise that Barber would cite HRC’s position as proof that Kern was indeed correct in her assessment:

In recent days, Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern has been viciously attacked and maligned, even receiving death threats, for saying that homosexual activism poses a grave threat.  This represents but one example of many which illustrate her point.  She can rest her case. 

After Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern’s anti-gay speech—in which she warned that the “homosexual agenda” is “the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam”—was made public and Kern became the center of attention, some right-wing activists rushed to her defense, including Matt Barber of Concerned Women for America and Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth, the sources she cited for proof that gays are out of destroy America. CWA’s Barber complained that Kern had been subjected to “tremendous assault” by “homosexual anti-Christian hate groups.”

But the Oklahoma chapter of CWA has its own take:

An Oklahoma State Representative is being "jammed" by homosexual activists and a sympathetic media for taking a stand on homosexuality, and she is not backing down.  The term "jamming" refers to the public smearing of Christians, traditionalists or anyone else who opposes the "gay" agenda.

According to CWA Oklahoma director Linda Caswell, “Rep. Kern represents the vast majority of Oklahomans.”

With the passing of right-wing luminaries such as Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy in recent months, coupled with the aging of many of the Right’s traditional leaders, the movement itself appears to be in flux and some are getting worried about just what will become of it in the future.  Just last week, James Dobson voiced these concerns while addressing the National Religious Broadcasters Convention:

“It causes me to wonder who will be left to carry the banner when this generation of leaders is gone. The question is, will the younger generation heed the call? Who will defend the unborn child in the years to come? Who will plead for the Terri Schiavos of the world? Who’s going to fight for the institution of marriage, which is on the ropes today.”

The emerging conventional wisdom is that the Religious Right is on the verge of being replaced by a “new evangelical” movement that shares the old-guard’s opposition to gays and abortion, but also cares about issues like poverty and the environment.  The standard-bearer of this “new breed” is Mike Huckabee who, as he puts it, drinks “a different kind of Jesus juice” than the traditional leaders and routinely says things like this: 

I don’t see [the right-wing movement] going into decline. I see it going into a maturing process. I think the issues are going to broaden and force Evangelicals to expand their horizons of concerns to poverty, disease, issues of education and homelessness. These are issues that I think are going to become increasingly important along with the environment as part of an overall focus that you’re going to see from - I would use a broader term - values voters - that would include not only Evangelicals but also Catholics and conservative Jewish voters as well.

Of course, just because a bunch of young upstarts think that caring about the environment is important doesn’t mean that the old-guard has any interest in broadening their agenda.  As we noted last year, when the National Association of Evangelicals started to voice concerns about the environment and global warming, right-wing stalwarts like Dobson, Tony Perkins, Don Wildmon, Gary Bauer, Rick Scarborough, and Paul Weyrich dashed off an angry letter essentially demanding that the NAE fire its own Vice President over it.

The NAE didn’t back down, but the Right didn’t give up.  Instead, they formed their own organization, the American Environmental Coalition, and now seek "to bring balance to the debate by being an alternative source of reliable information to Americans who seek the best way forward for our country.” 

McCain adviser Lawrence Eagleburger says the Right is a "serious problem" and the Washington Post has the video: "I must tell you we fought it there, fought hard against it. There's no question that in the Republican Party it is a serious problem...Among the hard-right conservatives in the Republican Party John McCain was, shall we say, less than enthusiastically received. In fact, I myself, by complaining about the way they were treating McCain on television, I myself said something on television about Rush … whatever his name … Limbaugh, excuse me. And the next thing, I was being attacked by Limbaugh on his radio program. So believe me, personally I have lived with it. The Senator is living with it and what you see is what you get. You are not going to see him moving to assuage the concerns of these conservatives."