December 2008

I came across this article earlier, but didn't think any element of it warranted a blog post:

A Florida woman says she was fired from her job for refusing to comply with a policy requiring employees to say "Happy Holidays" to callers ...Tonia Thomas says she was terminated two weeks ago from her job at Counts Oakes Resort Properties in Panama City after balking at the rule because it went against her religion. She is suing for lost wages, she said.

Thomas offered to use a generic greeting or say "Merry Christmas" to callers instead, but that offer was denied by company President Andy Phillips, according to the Liberty Counsel — the Christian-based legal group representing her.

My first thought upon reading this was that there had to be more to this story - the company in question insists that Thomas was dismissed for other reasons - but that probably won't stop the Religious Right from seizing on this episode as further proof that there is a "War on Christmas/War on Christians."

Then I came across this article in CNS based on a report from the Catholic League claiming that there have been nearly 30 documented episodes of anti-Christmas vandalism and violence in recent weeks.  Among the instances cited is this:

[I]n Riverside, Calif., a pastor was brutally beaten and robbed behind his church as he went to a supply room to get a Christmas bulb.

According to The Press Enterprise, 49-year-old Pastor James Dennis Warman was struck repeatedly in the head by two assailants on Dec. 7. He is now in a medically induced coma and not able to speak, and he may have brain damage, according to his wife, Mendy Warman.

Apparently the Right is chalking this assault up to rapid anti-Christmas sentiment ... while the local police are treating it as an act of robbery:

Along with his wife and daughter, James Dennis Warman stopped by the Base Line Rd. church to finish his sermon for Sunday morning, but figured he'd also fix a broken bulb on the Christmas tree. He walked out the back door to retrieve a replacement from storage. Then his family heard a scream - two robbers were attacking the 49-year-old elementary school teacher with a blunt object, repeatedly striking his head.

...

As Warman lay defenseless on the ground, bleeding, his wife ran at the attackers with a bass guitar she had found by the back door. Finally they ran off, taking the victim's wallet ... "I don't think they were lying in wait for him," sheriff's Sgt. Don Lupear said of the suspects. "But I think it was a crime of opportunity, which was bad."

While there is absolutely no justification for claiming that this has anything at all to do with the supposed "war on Christmas," apparently the Right is intent on going ahead and doing exactly that.

In was just a few months ago when the Wall Street Journal published this op-ed explaining that President Bush was really just like Batman:

There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.

Apparently, the ridicule they received for that has now died down enough that the paper felt bold enough to unveil its newest absurd comparison - Sarah Palin is a lot like Margaret Thatcher:

[A]s it happens, I know Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher is a friend of mine. And as a matter of fact, Margaret Thatcher and Sarah Palin have a great deal in common ... Mrs. Palin has a long way to go to match [Thatcher]. Circumstances may never give her the chance to do so. Even if she gets that chance, she may lack Mrs. Thatcher's depths of courage, firmness and stamina -- we only ever know such things in retrospect.

But she has plenty of time, probably eight years, to analyze America's problems, recruit her own expert advice, and develop conservative solutions to them. She has obvious intelligence, drive, serious moral character, and a Reaganesque likability. Her likely Republican rivals such as Bobby Jindal and Mitt Romney, not to mention Barack Obama, have most of these same qualities too. But she shares with Mrs. Thatcher a very rare charisma. As Ronnie Millar, the latter's speechwriter and a successful playwright, used to say in theatrical tones: She may be depressed, ill-dressed and having a bad hair day, but when the curtain rises, out onto the stage she steps looking like a billion dollars. That's the mark of a star, dear boy. They rise to the big occasions.

Whatever ... I wonder how this flattering comparison ranks against her recent honor of being named Human Event's Conservative of the Year?

And speaking of Palin, the Ancorage Daily News reports that contrary to earlier report, she has not yet agreed to attend this year's CPAC:

Now the 2009 convention is just two months away, and Palin is expected to speak to the thousands of conservative activists and college students that attend each year, director Lisa De Pasquale said in a phone interview Monday.

A Palin spokesman said it's no sure thing.

...

But Palin spokesman Bill McAllister said Palin has merely been invited and that she has not confirmed. "It's not scheduled, she's not told them yes."

Now that Saddleback has stripped its anti-gay language from its website, Pastor Rick Warren appears in a new video to Saddleback Church members to set the record straight.  In the video, Warren blames the controversy that has erupted over his inclusion in Barack Obama's Inauguration on a) the media, which always tries to generate controversy  and b) "bloggers who really need to get a life. A lot of people think that because they can sit in the quietness of their own home and hide behind the screen, they can hurl all kinds of bombs at people and get away with it.  Well, no - they are just being rude." 

Warren goes on to say that he has never equated gay relationships to incest or pedophilia, but understands how some people might think that based on his recent Beliefnet interview.   Warren attempts to clarify, declaring that his point was merely to make clear his opposition to attempts to change the definition of marriage to include anything other than one man and one woman.

Warren then explains his views of gays: 

Gay partnerships are typically between consenting adults.  While I believe that the gay view of sexuality is contrary to God's word, I do believe that God gives us free choice. He gives us the choice to obey his word or disobey it .  And you know what, God has given me that choice? He's given me the free will that I can choose to follow him, and his ways, his rules, and his precepts, or I'm free to not follow them.  And because of that, I believe I must give everybody else that same freedom of choice. I'm opposed to forcing people to act the way I believe I ought to act - that's not what it's about.  It what I believe God wants me to act and it's the way I believe God wants other people to act, but God has given me the choice and there have been times that I didn't act the way God wanted me to act.

He concludes that the Bible commands him to love everyone "regardless of the choice they make" and that while "we're all free to make choices, I think gays should use another term for their consenting adult relationships and partnerships - I oppose the redefinition of the meaning of marriage." 

In a separate video, Warren says they will respond to all the "hate speech" he and his church have received by "overcoming evil with good" and says they are being targeted because of "Christ-ophobia" and "people who are afraid of any Christian."

KCMB in Kansas City, MO has this story about a Catholic school pulling two books about Barack Obama from its library - see if you can follow this logic: 

A reverend at a Blue Springs parish and school has removed two books about President-elect Barack Obama from the Catholic school's library.

The Rev. Ron Elliott at St. John LaLande School said someone complained about the content of the books, and he wanted to review them.

In a phone interview, the reverend told KMBC he was concerned about Obama's position on abortion.

"I am very pro-life," Elliott told KMBC's Maria Antonia. "Because of his stance on certain issues, I was asked to look into that matter."

Elliott said the books he pulled were printed shortly before Obama was elected president.

Elliott said he has read the books and didn't find anything wrong with them. He said he will put the books back on the shelf in February or March, "after the dust kind of settles."

In a different article, Elliott admits there the two books in question are written for elementary school students and contain absolutely nothing anyone could find objectionable, but he still removed them from the library just to be safe and plans on keeping them away from students for another few months:

He said the slender books, written on an elementary level, covered Obama’s childhood up to his nomination for president. Elliot, who said he is strongly anti-abortion, noted it is his responsibility as pastor to respond when concerns are raised, given Obama’s pro-abortion-rights stance.

“They don’t begin to touch on that. They don’t touch on anything controversial at all,” Elliott said. “They’re just about him growing up, with pictures of him smiling.”

Last week, The Washington Times reported that William White, who is openly gay, was being considered for a position as Secretary of the Navy.  And because any story having anything to do with gays and the military seems to require a quote from Elaine Donnelly,  she was asked her opinion and it was, not surprisingly, disapproval:

Supporters of the ban said nominating Mr. White would send the wrong signal.

"It's a matter of judgment, and I think that would be very poor judgment on the part of the commander in chief," said Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, which opposes gays serving in the military. "It would be very demoralizing to the troops."

Today, Donnelly takes her complaints in a slightly new direction, telling OneNewsNow that her main concern is that, on top of White's homosexuality, he doesn't have any military experience:

Donnelly says while there is no requirement that a Naval secretary have military experience, she thinks it would be better if they did. That way, she argues, the individual would better understand the stresses and burdens imposed on those who volunteer to serve in the military.

"I don't think it ought to be a purely political appointment," she says of the Navy secretary's position. "[But] the fact that there is no military experience there would argue that he was appointed for some other reason -- and if that reason is perceived to be support for repeal of the law on gays in the military, that would be the problem."

Of course, as we've pointed out before and as her own bio make clear, Donnelly also has no military experience.  Yet, for some reason, she considers herself an expert on what is and is not "demoralizing to the troops" and what sort of experience is required of potential nominees.

One of the things that Republican politicians start complaining about during election cycles is "lawsuit abuse," the idea that trial lawyers are clogging the judicial system with pointless lawsuits in order to extort money from corporations and other public entities. 

But for some reason, they never seem to complain about groups like Judicial Watch which, asPolitico notes, for many years existed almost solely for the purpose of harassing the Clinton administration, along with the Clintons themselves, and is dusting off its briefs now that Hillary Clinton is poised to become Secretary of State and preparing to get back to its incessant lawsuit-filing roots:

[Last week, Judicial Watch President Tom] Fitton announced his group was considering filing suit to prevent Hillary Clinton’s Foggy Bottom appointment, based on the Ineligibility Clause of the Constitution ... this latest saber-rattling over the secretary of state appointment calls to mind the habits of the [Larry] Klayman era. Thus, the Clinton world collectively took a heavy sigh last week as some Clintonites wondered aloud whether Hillary Clinton’s nomination and the cast of former Bill Clinton staffers in Obama’s White House could breathe new life into Judicial Watch.

...

As the group ponders its latest legal action, it still awaits a pending FEC complaint it filed back in April against the junior New York senator over a fundraising event where Elton John performed. The complaint alleged that John wasn’t permitted to help Clinton raise money because he is not a citizen of the United States. (Fitton notes that his organization had also filed a similar suit against John McCain, after he hosted a fundraising event in London. That case was dismissed.)

Also, last week a Judicial Watch investigator went down to Bill Clinton’s Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., to comb through papers that had been released on account of a Freedom of Information suit. The group expects more papers to be released in the future.

Fitton defends his group against charges that its litigation is excessive and political.

“We don’t file our lawsuits unless we think we’re going to win them and we’re pleased by the attention brought to our lawsuits,” Fitton says.

Jake Siewert, who served as Bill Clinton’s White House press secretary, tells Politico that they "initially underestimated the amount of damage that [Judicial Watch] could do through the press and nuisance lawsuits," which is a lesson I hope that he has imparted to the incoming White House staff, who'll not only have to deal with these Judicial Watch's lawsuits, but seemingly an avalanche of lawsuits from the conspiracy theorists who still refuse to accept that Barack Obama is qualified to become the next president.

As Alan Keyes' running mate, Wiley Drake, tells the OC Weekly, that they intend to make this issue dog the Obama administration "much like the Monica Lewinsky controversy dogged the rest of Bill Clinton’s presidency":

[I think] it will be even more so than the Lewinsky thing. I think it will dog him because one of our attorneys, Gary Kreep [of the United Justice Foundation] said we will do everything we can to fight this battle. If we win this case, we will keep him out of the White House. If we lose, Gary and his committee of lawyers, and many of us are supportive of this, if Mr. Obama is indeed inaugurated, we will file a lawsuit against the inauguration for being illegal and against the chief justice of the Supreme Court for swearing in a usurper. And then, typically on the first day of office, the president signs a bunch of bills. Every bill or document he signs, we will file a separate lawsuit. For every decision he makes, it’s gonna to be tied up in court.

It looks like the Bush Administration has decided to use its final days in office to enforce its anti-choice agenda under the guise of protecting "conscience" of health care workers:

The Bush administration, in its final days, has issued a federal rule reinforcing protections for doctors and other health care workers who refuse to participate in abortions and other procedures because of religious or moral objections.

Critics of the rule say the protections are so broad that they limit a patient's right to get care and accurate information. For example, they fear the rule could make it possible for a pharmacy clerk to refuse to sell birth control pills and face no ramifications from an employer.

Under longstanding federal law, institutions may not discriminate against individuals who refuse to perform abortions or provide a referral for one. The administration's rule, issued Thursday, is intended to ensure that federal funds don't flow to providers who violate those laws.

"Doctors and other health care providers should not be forced to choose between good professional standing and violating their conscience," said HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt.

The rule requires recipients of Health and Human Services funding to certify their compliance with laws protecting conscience rights.

Not surprisingly, the Family Research Council is tickled by the move:

"This is a huge victory for religious freedom and the First Amendment. No one should be forced to have an abortion, and no one should be forced to be an abortionist. These regulations will ensure that conscience protection statutes will be strongly enforced by the government in the same manner as our other civil rights laws.

"Protecting the right of all health care providers to make professional judgments based on moral convictions and ethical standards is foundational to federal law. These regulations will implement conscience protections that have been embodied in U.S. statutes for over three decades. This is also a victory for the right of patients to choose doctors who decline to engage in morally objectionable practices.

...

"Family Research Council urges President-elect Barack Obama to stand up to pro-abortion forces maneuvering to compel health professionals to participate in abortion. The scope of conscience must be defined by individuals and not the government."

Of course, this rule change will immediately be reviewed and presumably reversed as soon as Barack Obama becomes president, so FRC's rejoicing will probably be rather short-lived.

Barack Obama's team has released talking points in an attempt to quell the outrage that followed the announcement that Rick Warren would be delivering the invocation at his inauguration, defending the decision by saying that while Obama disagrees with Warren's anti-gay views, the two "agree on many issues vital to the pursuit of social justice, including poverty relief and moving toward a sustainable planet" and, as such, the president-elect is committed to hosting "the most open, accessible, and inclusive Inauguration in American history."

I think Sarah Posner gets right to the heart of what is wrong about this decision and this explanation:

Warren represents the absolute worst of the Democrats' religious outreach, a right-winger masquerading as a do-gooder anointed as the arbiter of what it means to be faithful. Obama's religious outreach was intended, supposedly, to make religious voters more comfortable with him and feel included in the Democratic Party. But that outreach now has come at the expense of other people's comfort and inclusion, at an event meant to mark a turning point away from divisive politics.

Presumably, the purpose of Obama's evangelical outreach was to try and make evangelicals comfortable with progressive Democratic positions by demonstrating that such views can be rooted in faith, not attempting to make evangelicals comfortable with the party by abandoning those positions for the sake of appeasing a key part of the electorate. 

Yet, by tapping Warren for this high-profile role in his inauguration, this is exactly what Obama is threatening to do.  After all, Warren has made it explicitly clear that, for all his work on poverty and HIV, it is the social issues like choice and marriage that are non-negotiable and define his worldview, proclaiming that it is "wishful thinking" on the part of Democrats if they think that evangelicals "are going to drop the other issues ... they're not leaving [their] pro-life" or anti-gay views behind them. 

We take Obama at his word when he says that he and Warren disagree on these and other issues and that he remains committed to equality for all.  But, as Steve Benen points out, by legitimizing Warren in this manner, it threatens to undermine Obama's own efforts to promote that agenda:

When Obama advances a progressive agenda on social issues, as he's certain to do, Warren will continue to speak out on the other side -- only now, he'll do so with the added authority that comes with being the president's hand-chosen pastor for the inauguration's invocation. Warren's status will soar, and his criticism of Obama's policies -- or Democrats' in general -- will resonate that much louder.

Sharing the stage with a man who fundamentally disagrees with him on the most contentious issues of the day and who has vowed to fight any effort to ensure that women have a right to make their own choices regarding their reproductive health and gays and lesbians are accorded full and equal rights runs the risk of hamstringing Obama's efforts to promote that agenda.

Some are arguing that the choice of Warren is little more than symbolism and that it shouldn't be taken that seriously - but this sort of symbolism matters and, with this choice, Obama is signaling that those who hold militantly anti-gay, anti-choice views are going to be welcome in his White House.

 Ezra Klein sums the problem up nicely:  

The tolerance Obama is asking for, in other words, is not from Warren. It's from the LGBT community, and women. He is asking them to be tolerant of Warren's intolerance. It's a cruel play, framed to marginalize the legitimate anger of those who Warren harms and discriminates against ... Pro-choice women and gays were a significant part of Obama's coalition, and they're being forced to accept that the candidate they worked for will use the election they won to elevate a powerful religious leader who works often and publicly against their interests.

Ben has announced that voting for our 2008 Equine Posterior Achievement Award is now open. 

There are many worthy nominees, each of whom individually deserve this coveted award - including Rep. Michelle Bachmann, Sen. John Kyl, soon-to-be former Senator Elizabeth Dole, soon-to-be former Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, and others.  

But I am personally pulling for Janet Porter because, well, she deserves it more than anyone else:

It's impossible to catalogue Janet Porter's increasingly severe break from reality in just a few sentences, but to get the flavor of her work, check out her self-produced video entitled "A Newscast From a Future We Must Never See." (Be sure to watch for future-First Lady Michelle Obama teaching children about blowing up the Pentagon.) Porter also repeatedly warned Christians that voting for Obama will send them to Hell. And, of course, she continued her repeated claims that if Prop 8 failed, Hillary Clinton was elected president or anyone reads her book, she would be thrown in jail.

I would also be quite content were Oklahoma Rep. Sally Kern to win this honor because anyone who proclaims that gays are the "biggest threat our nation has" and then proceeds to get re-elected has more than earned the right to call this award her own.

So, at the risk of stuffing the ballot box, just keep Porter and Kern in mind as you look over the nominees and cast your own vote.

A few weeks ago, we here at People For unveiled our Dump DOMA campaign, asking those who care about equality to contact Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and urge them to pass legislation repealing the Defense of Marriage Act:

It’s time to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). At this moment of change and progress, it’s time to undo a serious mistake made by Congress 12 years ago. The federal government has no business discriminating against loving families by selectively withholding the 1,300 or so legal protections that only legal civil marriage affords.

It’s time for Congress to show leadership on this issue and send President-elect Obama legislation repealing DOMA which he has said he would sign.

Now, via On Top Magazine, we see that the Alliance for Marriage has unveiled their own Protect DOMA website to press for just the opposite:

The Alliance for Marriage Foundation, the group who drafted the Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA) in Congress, has begun a national campaign to protect the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the upcoming 111th Congress.

The diverse coalition has also unveiled www.ProtectDOMA.org a new online resource to protect DOMA – and the marriage laws of every state where voters have spoken on the issue of marriage – from attack at the federal level.

“The repeal of DOMA is the legislative Holy Grail for activists who want to impose their radical social agenda upon America through the courts,” said Rev. Sam Rodriguez, Jr., an AFM Advisory Board Member and President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC).

“As demonstrated in California, over 70% of the African-American community rejects the utterly false argument that gay activists have a ‘civil right’ to redefine marriage for our entire society,” said Niger Innis, an AFM Advisory Board Member and National Spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality.

The AIM initiative announced that it is going to be especially focused on mobilizing Latinos:

The Alliance for Marriage Foundation will work to continue to expand our education and mobilization efforts – especially within the Latino community – so that both marriage and freedom of conscience will remain protected in our nation.

The prize in this historic struggle is nothing less than the future of our children and grandchildren.

...

Groups on the Left generally take Latino votes for granted. But the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life is the latest research foundation to document that this dynamic does not apply with respect to marriage and the family. On the contrary, support for marriage and family within the Latino community runs deep. This support is expressed when Latinos are given an opportunity to vote on the issue of marriage itself.

U.S. Census data shows that Latinos are the fastest-growing ethnic group, representing the largest minority in the country. According to data from 2005, there are approximately 42 million Latinos in the United States, which represents approximately 1 in every 8 residents. In fact, a majority of children entering high school, workers entering the workforce and newly-eligible voters will be Latino by 2020.

In the years ahead, the ProtectDOMA.org will continue to build a broad movement – with a positive message that has mainstream appeal --- in order to deliver the margin of victory in the struggle to protect marriage for the sake of our children and grandchildren. At the same time, we will also continue to develop leaders who can give winsome expression to the timeless values that are essential to the well-being of our nation.

Maybe now would be a good time to add your signature to our Dump DOMA petition.

As we noted a few weeks ago, former Ohio Secretary of State and current Family Research Council fellow Ken Blackwell is seeking the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee.  In recent days, he's secured several "high-profile endorsements from the Club for Growth, Gun Owners of America and prominent conservatives like Steve Forbes" and now it looks like he is taking the next step in his attempt to consolidate his standing as a front-runner by announcing that he's found a like-minded running mate:

Texas Republican Party Chairman Tina Benkiser has teamed up with Ohio´s Ken Blackwell in the contest to lead the Republican National Committee over the next two years.

The Washington Times has learned Mrs. Benkiser has decided to forgo a run for RNC national chairman and instead to run for co-chairman, a traditionally less powerful position that historically, with one exception, has been held by a woman.

“If I ran for chairman, I decided after looking over the field, it might contribute to dividing the conservative vote and allowing a moderate to win,” she told The Times in a phone interview Tuesday.

In the draft of a letter to be sent to other voting members of the national committee, she writes that she “decided to run for the co-chair position because a chairman candidate has emerged who has everything it takes to help us restore our party and return to our winning ways. Ken Blackwell has the courage and experience to both lead and inspire us to achieve great things as a party.”

Mrs. Benkiser, a practicing attorney in Houston, is an evangelical Christian who, like Mr. Blackwell, opposes same-sex marriage and legalized abortion but, also like him, emphasizes “pro-growth” economic polices of low-taxes, small government and reduced regulations on business where possible.

Like Mr. Blackwell, she maintains the GOP doesn't need to be less conservative to win future elections but needs to have its elected officials at all levels of government adhere to the principles of spending restraint, low taxes and respect for family values and personal honesty for which the GOP claims to stand.

“Our national party grew and was entrusted with leadership when it stayed true to its conservative principles,” she says in her letter to other members. “Focusing on fiscal responsibility, a strong national defense and traditional family values brought unprecedented growth to the party not that long ago. America was and still is a center-right country.”

As we noted before, Blackwell came to national prominence back in 2006 when he hooked up [PDF] with Rod Parsley and his Reformation Ohio movement:

With Blackwell’s gubernatorial campaign in full swing, the “Patriot Pastor” events have featured Johnson and Parsley highlighting Blackwell and extolling the candidate’s virtues. At a rally on the state Capitol steps, Parsley boomed over a Jumbotron screen, “Let the Reformation begin! Shout it like you’re going to carry the blood-stained banner of the cross of Christ the length and breadth of the Buckeye State!” Parsley then introduced Blackwell as “a man of great conviction, consistently standing for family, life, marriage, and faith throughout his public service.” At other events, Johnson followed Blackwell’s speech to pastors by presenting the man he called a “leader of leaders” with a “courageous leadership award” in the form of a large, gilded-eagle trophy—a ritual he repeated a number of times before different audiences of pastors.

Considering that it was just a few months ago that John McCain was forced to publicly repudiate the endorsements he had received from Parlsey and John Hagee, it seems rather odd that the next head of the RNC could be someone like Blackwell, who has had a long and very public alliance with Parsley:

Whereas McCain barely knew the men and courted them purely for political purposes, Blackwell was deeply involved in Parsley's Patriot Pastors movement and regularly participated in their events during his run for Governor in 2006, so much so that the IRS was asked to investigate those churches involved for potential violations: 

Parsley and Johnson hosted Blackwell as the featured guest speaker at numerous events, in which the candidate was honored with some award or endorsed explicitly from the stage. Parsley even flew Blackwell to one “Patriot Pastor” function on a church-owned plane. This campaign was only part of a broader agenda to promote Blackwell at bigger and bigger rallies featuring famous religious-right leaders, leading up to the primary election and beyond, and indeed including radio spots featuring Blackwell. The radio spots and the rallies with James Dobson never materialized, but far from being a “baseless allegation,” this plan was posted publicly on Johnson’s “Ohio Restoration Project” web site in 2005.

We understand that many in the Republican Party feel that their recent electoral losses stem from a failure to adequately adhere to the Religious Right's agenda.  If turning the RNC into a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Religious Right is what they think is in the best interest of the party, then they couldn't find a better chairman than Ken Blackwell.

Back in October, Accuracy In Media announced the formation of its "Boycott The New York Times" Campaign, a project that was to be run by B-list right-wing pundit Don Feder.

Though initially launched to combat what it saw as the paper's "persistent leftist bias" during the election, it appears as if the campaign and its accompanying website are still in operation and yesterday Feder penned an attack on the "paper’s moral relativism applied to the war on terrorism" and proclaimed that the Times has a lot in common with terrorists around the world:

[W]hile The Times may be appalled by terrorists’ acts, it frequently agrees with their goals.

Like Al-Qaeda, it believes there should be no U.S. presence in the Middle East. Like Hamas, it believes Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land. Like jihadists around the world, it believes we brought 9/11 on ourselves by our arrogance and cultural insensitivity, and an imperialist foreign policy.

Some acts of terrorism are committed with bombs and bullets, others with newsprint and ink.

Ignoring the inanity of that claim for a minute, what struck me was a much more basic question:  why is Don Feder reading the New York Times?  As the head of the "Boycott The New York Times" project, Feder doesn't seem to be doing a very good job of actually boycotting the paper.

After all, the purpose of any boycott is to, you know, actually boycott the product/organization in question and is, in fact, AIM's stated goal for its project:

[O]ur goal is to expose The Times and to rally the public against it through a boycott. In so doing, we seek to progressively limit its influence ... those who sign our petition are putting The New York Times and its advertisers on notice that they won’t subscribe to The Times, buy the paper or visit its website.

Presumably, Feder has signed his own petition which leads one to wonder just how he manages to find articles to complain about on a regular basis, considering that he's pledged not to read or buy the paper or visit its website. 

It just seems a little odd that Feder is dedicated to running a website committed to getting people not to read the New York Times - a website that just happens to consist entirely of content derived from that paper and which regularly provides links to its articles. 

Highlighting NYT articles and driving traffic to its website just doesn't seem like a particularly effective boycott strategy if your goal is to get people to stop reading the NYT and visiting its website.

It seems that Joseph Farah, founder, editor and CEO of the right-wing rag WorldNetDaily, is not much of a fan of Wikipedia:

"Joseph Francis Farah is an Evangelical Christian American journalist and noted homosexual of Lebanese and Syrian heritage."

– the first line of my bio in Wikipedia

The Internet has brought the world some wonderful sources of information.

And it has brought us some perfectly dreadful sources of misinformation.

Wikipedia falls into the latter category. And this column is my latest effort to demonstrate just how abusive this so-called "online collaborative encyclopedia" really is.

It is not only a provider of inaccuracy and bias. It is wholesale purveyor of lies and slander unlike any other the world has ever known.

...

If ever there were a website to avoid at all costs, it's Wikipedia. No good can possibly come from using this vast wasteland of error and deliberate deceit. You should get off of it and warn others away. You should make sure your children and grandchildren know what a corrupt and morally bankrupt institution it truly is.

We have no reason to question Farah's insistence that he is not gay, and the Wikipedia entry has reportedly been corrected, so it seems as if this little controversy will soon evaporate ... but still, you have to admit that it is pretty funny that Farah, of all people, is screaming that Wikipedia is a "vast wasteland of error and deliberate deceit" considering what is posted on his website at the moment:

Veteran psychiatrist calls liberals mentally ill

Just when liberals thought it was safe to start identifying themselves as such, an acclaimed, veteran psychiatrist is making the case that the ideology motivating them is actually a mental disorder.

"Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded," says Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of the new book, "The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness." "Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave."

Economic crisis stalls NAFTA superhighway

Amid an economic storm, there is good news for opponents of North American integration under the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or SPP, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.

Join exploding demand for citizenship documentation

More than 185,000 people have signed a petition urging authorities to investigate Barack Obama's eligibility to be president prior to his inauguration, and the list is growing hourly.

WND's electronic petition calls on all controlling legal authorities to take seriously the matter of where and when and to whom Obama was born and whether he qualifies as a "natural-born American citizen," according to Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution.

And, of course, who can forget one of WND's most striking pieces of investigative journalism - soy makes you gay:

Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because "I can't remember a time when I wasn't homosexual." No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can't remember a time when excess estrogen wasn't influencing them.

And yet it is Wikipedia, proclaims Farah, that is "not only a provider of inaccuracy and bias [but a] wholesale purveyor of lies and slander unlike any other the world has ever known."  

Last week we highlighted President Bush’s recent interview with ABC News in which he stated that he didn’t believe, among other things, that the Bible was literally true and that his answers, not surprisingly, did not much impress Religious Right activists like Rob Schenck who saw it evidence of the “President’s eroded spiritual condition.”

To the list of those unimpressed with Bush’s theological views we can now add Richard Land, who asserts that Bush’s understanding is flat out wrong and says it’s a good thing that he’s merely the “commander-in-chief, not theologian-in-chief”:

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said that upon hearing Bush's latest comments, he had the same reaction as to when Bush "has said similar things."

"I am very grateful that we have a president who is a person of personal and deeply committed faith in Jesus Christ, but statements like these remind us that he is indeed commander-in-chief, not theologian-in-chief," Land told Baptist Press. "I know the president, and he is a person of strong faith and has sort of a C.S. Lewis Basic Christianity kind of faith that is very deep and profound in his personal life, but he is not a theologian. In this particular instance, he is wrong. The Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is not Allah, and there are not many paths to God."

You at least have to give the Right some credit for consistency - if your personal faith and understanding fails to meet their standards, they’ll let you know that you are ignorant and wrong.  

Of course, there is a slight difference: when President Bush’s faith doesn’t meet the Religious Right’s standards, it is just chalked up to the fact that Bush is just kind of a bad Christian, whereas when Barack Obama fails to meet their standards, they take it as further evidence that his Christianity is entirely phony and that he has no right to even call himself a Christian.

Back in July, we wrote about the then-upcoming 9th Annual Freedom21 National Conference where a bevy of second, third, and fourth string right-wing activists were gathering to blow the top off the nefarious plot behind the idea of sustainable development.

Now, the SPLC has published an account of the gathering … and it was apparently every bit as unhinged as one would expect:

"Environment is not about saving nature," the founder of Freedom Advocates, Michael Shaw, sternly warned an audience of antigovernment "Patriots" and far-right conspiracy theorists during a mid-July conference. "It's about a revolutionary coup in America. [Environmentalism] is to establish global governance and abandon the principles of Natural Law." Sustainable development policies, Shaw argued, will require "a police state" and ultimately "turn America into a globally governed homeland where humans are treated as biological resources."

Shaw's fearful call to arms against environmentalism was sucked in whole hog during the Ninth Annual Freedom 21 conference held in a Dallas-area Crowne Plaza hotel. Co-hosted by the Texas Eagle Forum, a hard-line Christian Right organization, and the anti-"New World Order" American Policy Center (APC), the three-day convergence included such right-wing heavyweights as the error-prone conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, gay- and feminist-hating Phyllis Schlafly, and the far-right Constitution Party's presidential candidate, Chuck Baldwin.

One former popular Freedom 21er was disinvited. Bob Barr, a former conservative Republican congressman from Georgia, was asked not to return by the head of APC, Tom DeWeese, because Barr had talked to Al Gore about global warming. "This is not some nice little debate," DeWeese said he told someone in Barr's office. "This is war."

The SPLC recounts that while Phyllis Schlafly was content to deliver her anti-judges stump speech, the other speakers were committed to exposing how instituting sustainable development policies was the ultimate goal of those shadowy one-world government figures who are behind the (non-existent) efforts to create a so-called North American Union so that they can institute a new worldwide false religion based on “earth worship”:

Michael Coffman, executive director of the United Nations-hating Sovereignty International, took on something called Agenda 21, which was drawn up in 1992 for the UN Commission on Sustainable Development. Agenda 21 is a comprehensive blueprint of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the UN, governments, and major groups in every area in which humans impact on the environment (21 refers to the 21st century). In Coffman's eyes, Agenda 21 is a menace.

"An anti-human document, which takes aim at Western culture, and the Judeo-Christian and Islamic religions," is how Coffman referred to it. Coffman also alleged that Agenda 21 would lead to a kind of communist reallocation of property rights and redistribution of assets. Using a big word, Coffman labeled the proposed changes "usufructual," which he said means the government would own everything. Michael Chapman of Ed Watch, a group that opposes public education, reiterated Coffman's allegations that Agenda 21's real aim is to redistribute wealth. Coffman added that economic development is not being restricted in order to protect the environment, but rather to give power to the government.

"The new world theology is pantheism," Coffman said, "Nature is God."

The John Birch Society (JBS), a group that once insisted that President Eisenhower was a Communist Party member but now focuses on immigrant-bashing, agrees with Coffman. JBS was on hand to warn that environmentalists are really out to get your children. The JBS handed out cards featuring a strange depiction of a group of children holding hands under a large, glowing, balloon-like mockup of the earth that warned of "The New False Religion, Worshipping the Earth." "Advocates of a UN world government have drafted an Earth Charter, which they compare to the Ten Commandments and keep in an 'Ark of Hope,'" warns the JBS without any apparent reference to reality. "Will you let the United Nations or any other group undermine the faith of your family?" The JBS is so concerned with this that is has created a new website, www.getusout.org/earthworship, to battle "Earth Worship."

It should be noted that Rep. Michelle Bachmann was initially listed as scheduled to appear, but the SPLC article makes no mention of her being in attendance, nor does the official conference webpage.

It was just yesterday that I was just asking "how many more times [Richard] Cizik can get away with repudiating and alienating the traditional Religious Right movement and its agenda before the powers-that-be at the National Association of Evangelicals finally succumb to the pressure and fire him."

Apparently, the answer was zero more times:

Richard Cizik has resigned as Vice President of Governmental Affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). His resignation, which takes effect today, concludes 28 years of service and leadership in the Washington, DC office of NAE.

Over the past three decades he has been a tireless advocate for a broad variety of issues important to the evangelical community including passage of anti-persecution legislation, laws against human trafficking, nurture of family life, protection of children, justice and compassion for the poor and vulnerable, sanctity of human life, opposition to abortion on demand, peace and the restraint of violence in our world, creation care and others. He gave leadership to the writing and implementation to the landmark document, For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility.

Leith Anderson, President of the National Association of Evangelicals, explained in a letter to the members of the board of directors of NAE that “in a December 2, 2008 broadcast interview on National Public Radio, Richard responded to questions and made statements that did not appropriately represent the values and convictions of NAE and our constituents. Although he has subsequently expressed regret, apologized and affirmed our values there is a loss of trust in his credibility as a spokesperson among leaders and constituents.”

Last week we noticed the American Life League’s Katy Walker declaring that "the idea of personhood … is really the only option left" to the anti-choice movement and declaring that she was emboldened to press forward with their agenda because the "personhood" amendment on the ballot in Colorado only managed to lose by a 3 to 1 margin there.

As we noted then, considering that the amendment was trounced throughout the state and even lost badly in Focus on the Family's stronghold in Colorado Springs, then it didn't seem like there was a particularly strong chance that it would do well elsewhere.

But it looks like "personhood" is going to be a central part of ALL's mission going forward, starting with their upcoming conference:

American Life League will feature two of the most innovative new voices in the pro-life movement at their Training and Activism Week and Personhood Conference Jan. 21-23.

...

The Personhood Conference on Jan. 23 will also feature ALL president Judie Brown, Ambassador Alan Keyes, David Bereit of 40 Days for Life, and Kristi Burton, architect of the Colorado Personhood Initiative.

"The pro-life movement has always had personhood for the preborn as our ultimate objective and the recent elections have made that an even more urgent objective," Hahnenberg said, "and we're excited to be able to start the year with a conference that will focus on just that."

Richard Land weighs in on the controversial sign placed in the Washington state capitol by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, saying that he has always believed that governments should "maximally accommodate" religious groups seeking to place messages on public grounds, but complains that the FFRF sign is an "improper attack on religion" because it is "denigrating and disrespectful to the Christian faith": 

One does not honor pluralism by disrespecting other people’s faiths in such hostile ways ... The current display is hostile and disrespectful. In accommodating peoples’ wish to have their faith acknowledged in the public square, one must understand that such displays must not attack other faiths.

Apparently, Land's concerns are limited to messages that he personally considers disrespectful, because he certainly doesn't seem to have any qualms about unleashing his own hostile and disrespectful attacks against other faiths::

"There is not a country in the world where Muslims are in the majority that they don't severely restrict the freedom of religion of every other faith. They seek to impose their religious beliefs on everyone else at the point of a sword or the barrel of a gun. They kill people who disagree with them or who dare to convert to another faith.

"I'll take Islam as a peaceful religion seriously when I see followers of Islam in America protesting and condemning suicide bombers, anti-Semitic hate speech and genocide in the Sudan," Land said.

...

"Was it just happenstance that every person who flew one of those planes into a building and every person that was part of the planning was an Islamic fanatic?" Land asked.

Earlier this week, President Bush sat down for an interview with ABC’s Cynthia McFadden during which he was asked about his views regarding the Bible and evolution:

MCFADDEN: Is it literally true, the Bible?

BUSH: You know. Probably not ... No, I'm not a literalist, but I think you can learn a lot from it, but I do think that the New Testament, for example is ... has got ... You know, the important lesson is "God sent a son."

MCFADDEN: So, you can read the Bible...

BUSH: That God in the flesh, that mankind can understand there is a God who is full of grace and that nothing you can do to earn his love. His love is a gift and that in order to draw closer to God and in order to express your appreciation for that love is why you change your behavior.

MCFADDEN: So, you can read the Bible and not take it literally. I mean you can -- it's not inconsistent to love the Bible and believe in evolution, say.

BUSH: Yeah, I mean, I do. I mean, evolution is an interesting subject. I happen to believe that evolution doesn't fully explain the mystery of life and ...

MCFADDEN: But do you believe in it?

BUSH: That God created the world, I do, yeah.

MCFADDEN: But what about ...

BUSH: Well, I think you can have both. I think evolution can -- you're getting me way out of my lane here. I'm just a simple president. But it's, I think that God created the Earth, created the world; I think the creation of the world is so mysterious it requires something as large as an almighty, and I don't think it's incompatible with the scientific proof that there is evolution.

For Rob Schenck of Faith and Action, this just serves as final proof of what he has known all along – that President Bush is not a very good Christian:

To begin with, for me the President’s comments are not stunning. Early into his first term, I saw that Christians, particularly Evangelicals like me, had jumped to some conclusions about what Mr. Bush believed and how he lives his faith. I had E-mail corresponded with one of his pastors back in Texas, and through it learned that the Bushes lived out a fairly common Methodist, middle-of-the-road Protestant, but never-the-less meaningful Christianity.

The Bushes have never been the Sunday-morning-Wednesday-night, Gospel-tract-leaving, Praise-the-Lord-saying, Christian-radio-listening, Bible-bookstore-shopping, born-again-believers that a lot of Christians assumed them to be.

I also saw a gradual erosion of the President’s faith over the time he was in office. My first alarm bells went off when he and the First Lady decided not to continue attending the Lincoln Park United Methodist Church, near our ministry center. Lincoln Park UMC is a predominantly African-American congregation pastored by the very evangelical Reverend Dr. Harold D. Lewis. Pastor Lewis has been with us for a number of ministry events, including our delegation to the White House that presented a Ten Commandments sculpture for display there. Dr. Lewis has also been associated with our good friend of many years and fellow pro-life activist, Dr. Johnny Hunter, of the Life Education and Resource Center, America’s largest and fastest growing African-American pro-life and pro-family organization.

Instead of Lincoln Park UMC, President and Mrs. Bush chose the so-called “Presidents’ Church,” St. John’s Episcopal, just a block from the White House. While the congregation there has a venerable history as one of the oldest continuous churches in Washington, and one that has well-served presidents of the past, it has lately become a theologically moderate to left-leaning liberal church, and, is, of course, affiliated with the Washington Diocese of the Episcopal Church USA. It’s been known to sport a rainbow flag outside. I do know there was quite a debate within the parish on the question of same-sex “marriage.” I don’t know how it was resolved.

I did admonish the President about his choice of churches, respectfully calling his attention to the potentially deleterious effect that certain types of spiritual company can have on the state of one’s soul. He defensively dismissed it, saying it was a Secret Service decision. Odd, because the Secret Service is obligated to protect the president wherever he may decide to go, even to places like Iraq. I would think St. John’s would be an easier exercise.

All this to say that we must continue to pray for President Bush–and anyone who occupies this high office; the Bible commands it and our natural impulse should be to do it. Some have suggested Christians are to blame for the President’s eroded spiritual condition because we didn’t adequately pray for him. Well, I’m just Reformed enough in my theology to think that the President’s spiritual state lies securely in the hands of God, not in ours.

It is no secret that Religious Right leaders have had it out for Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals for some time now, starting back in 2007 when they tried to get him fired for branching out into the global warming debate because they feared it was undermining the focus on their traditional anti-choice, anti-gay agenda. 

He certainly didn’t make any friends before the election when he blasted John McCain for selling out to the Religious Right … and now he has even fewer friends among the old-guard right-wing leaders thanks to this recent interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s “Fresh Air” where he all but admitted that he voted for Barack Obama, said that Dick Armey had good reasons for calling people like James Dobson bullies and thugs, predicted that climate change is going to become an issue on which evangelicals become increasingly active, pledged to work with the Obama administration to find ways to reduce unwanted pregnancies in this country, and admitted that his opposition to marriage equality is “shifting”

GROSS: Let me ask you; you say that you really identify with the concerns and priorities of younger evangelical voters and one of those priorities is uh—it’s more of an acceptance of homosexuality and gay marriage. A couple of years ago when you were on our show I asked you if you were changing your mind on that and two years ago you said that you were still opposed to gay marriage. But now as you identify more and more with the younger voters and their priorities, have you changed on gay marriage?  

CIZIK:  I’m shifting; I have to admit. In other words, I would be willing to say I believe in civil unions. I don’t officially support redefining marriage, from its traditional definition, I don’t think. WE have this tension going on in our movement between what is church-building and what is nation-building, and I lean in this spectrum at times, maybe we should concentrate on building our values in our own movement. WE have become so absorbed in the question of gay rights and the rest, we fail to understand the challenges and threats to marriage itself—heterosexual marriage. Maybe we need to re-evaluate this and look at it a little differently.

Not surprisingly, his statements have generated controversy in evangelical circles, forcing the NAE’s president to assure its board that the organization’s priorities remain the same:

The president of the National Association of Evangelicals reassured the organization’s Board of Directors as well as media outlets this past week that the group remains fully committed to its long-held stance on abortion, marriage and other biblical values after several controversial statements were made by the group’s vice president.

In a letter to the NAE’s Board of Directors, the Rev. Leith Anderson said that the wording of the Rev. Richard Cizik, NAE’s vice president for governmental affairs, during a recent interview with NPR (National Public Radio) “did not appropriately reflect the positions of the National Association of Evangelicals and its constituents.”

“Our NAE stand on marriage, abortion and other biblical values is long, clear and unchanged,” Anderson wrote in the letter to the directors, a portion of which he forwarded to several news agencies including The Christian Post, on Saturday.

He added, “Richard has strongly assured to me of his own support and agreement with our NAE values and positions. This was not understood by listeners from what he said.”

Tony Perkins, for one, isn’t buying it, saying that Cizik “left the reservation a long time ago” and wanting to know why he is still employed by the NAE:

How else can you explain enthusiastic support for what will probably be the nation's most pro-abortion, anti-family president in our nation's 232 year history?

The question, however, remains. If Cizik does not speak for the NAE, as the Rev. Anderson has said, why is he on Capitol Hill representing NAE and claiming to speak for Evangelicals? Is it possible for a human being to come with a disclaimer?

The Institute on Religion and Democracy wants to know the same thing:

"Is Richard Cizik representing typical members of the Assemblies of God, the Salvation Army, or the Presbyterian Church in America, along with millions of other evangelicals, when he suggests, even momentarily, support for liberal issues like civil unions? If not, then why is he NAE's chief spokesman? Should not that spokesman consistently espouse traditional evangelical beliefs?"

As do representatives of Concerned Women for America:

Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America, said, “Mr. Cizik claimed that his views are five years ahead of his constituency, but these views are not anywhere close to Biblical orthodoxy, traditional Christian theology nor the bulk of Evangelicals who ground their faith in the Bible. Perhaps this is why he espouses them in forums to which most of his supposed 'constituency' do not listen.”

Janice Shaw Crouse, Director and Senior Fellow of Concerned Women for America’s Beverly LaHaye Institute, said, “The NAE consists of 45,000 churches, 50 denominations and 30 million constituents. I cannot believe that they are happy to have a spokesperson, who supposedly represents them, expressing views that are contrary to Biblical authority and contradict theological orthodoxy. I think, perhaps, my dear friend Rich has been inside the Beltway for too long and has swallowed too much of the NPR and Vogue Magazine Kool-Aid.”

One has to wonder just how many more times Cizik can get away with repudiating and alienating the traditional Religious Right movement and its agenda before the powers-that-be at the NAE finally succumb to the pressure and fire him.

I guess it’s worth posting this because it is kind of newsworthy … and will only become more so when he inevitably changes his mind:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal says he’s not interested in a 2012 run for president and will seek re-election in 2011.

At a news conference Wednesday with Bob McDonnell, Virginia’s 2009 Republican candidate for governor, Jindal was asked if he was interested in being president.

Jindal’s reply: "No."

He elaborated that he intends to run for re-election as Louisiana’s governor. He did not preclude the prospect of changing his mind, however.

The Wall Street Journal reports that right-wing anti-choice advocates are changing the direction of their efforts to de-fund Planned Parenthood away from pressuring state and local governments to gut the organization’s funding because of its mission in favor of pressuring them to stop funding to organization because it is too rich and doesn’t need the money:

Abortion opponents are pressing state and local governments to stop sending taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood, arguing that the nonprofit group has plenty of cash and shouldn't be granted scarce public funds at a time of economic crisis … [T]he new lobbying effort, backed by conservative Christian groups such as the Family Research Council, focuses more on economic than moral concerns. The campaign paints Planned Parenthood as a wealthy organization that doesn't need taxpayer help. Planned Parenthood reported record revenue and a $115 million budget surplus last year, and it is building a network of elegant health centers to attract middle-class clients.

…

The Family Research Council is developing a kit to help grass-roots activists dig through financial reports so they can make detailed presentations to elected officials about the assets and revenue of local Planned Parenthood chapters. The council has sent letters to 1,200 state legislators describing Planned Parenthood's strong financial position and urging "a second look" at public funding.

With a Democratic president soon to take office, "we're very limited as to what we can do" on a federal level, said Thomas McClusky, vice president for government affairs at the Family Research Council. "But on the local level, there are a lot of victories to be had." The group has been courting elected officials who they think would be receptive in states including Indiana, Ohio, Virginia and Kentucky.

We haven't really written much about the fringe figures alleging a conspiracy to cover up the fact that Barack Obama is not a natural-born US citizen and is therefore ineligible to be President of the United States other than to note that Janet Porter, former co-chair of Mike Huckabee's Faith and Family Values Coalition, was among them because, frankly, the whole thing was ridiculous and driven by borderline lunatics. 

But Porter has resolutely maintained her ties to them and dedicated her last six WND columns to pressing her case and has turned her daily radio program into a gathering place for the conspiracy theorists to expound upon their delusions, hosting the likes of Philip Berg, Shelli Baker, and Bob Schulz on multiple occasions in recent weeks.

Just yesterday, the Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit on the issue and Slate covered a press conference held by the citizenship-deniers which offers a telling look at just what sort of people make up this movement:

On Friday, about two dozen of them gathered outside the Supreme Court to talk to reporters, wave flags, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Some of them questioned whether they could prosecute Obama for spending "foreign money" they alleged had been donated to his campaign. One questioned whether Barack Hussein Obama Sr. was the president-elect's real father or whether his real filial relationship to Frank Marshall Davis or Malcolm X had been covered up.

"There aren't a lot of people out here today," admitted Steve Brindle, a Pennsylvanian huddling in the cold. "There are a lot of people talking about this back home. Really, everyone's asking questions."

Robert Schulz, whose We the People Foundation had bought full-page newspaper ads questioning Obama's citizenship, was ready for the high court outcome. On Monday afternoon he asked Donofrio and two other lawyers with outstanding suits about Obama to come to the National Press Club to discuss their next steps. Donofrio didn't show, but Pennsylvania attorney (and occasional 9/11 skeptic) Philip J. Berg joined California attorney Orly Taitz at the podium of the club's Murrow room.

The room filled up early: About half of the small room's overflow crowd consisted of worried Obama skeptics who gasped and nodded at the testimonies of the attorneys and their litanies of facts that the press had covered up. Most members of the media were, themselves, part of the Obama Truth squad. Shelli Baker, the host of AM radio's Morning Song, spent five minutes unspooling a theory that tied Obama to Arab sheiks and world government. "I would be willing to testify," said Baker, "that, indeed, the media has been corrupted by foreign oil money."

Thus corrupted, reporters spent two full hours listening to Schultz, Berg, and Taitz describe their allegations accusing Obama of document forgery, arrogance, radical ties, and "foreign allegiance" to Kenya. "This is the largest hoax in 200 years," said Berg. "Obama knows where he was born. He knows he was adopted in Indonesia. Obama places our Constitution in a crisis situation, and Obama is in a situation where he can be blackmailed by leaders around the world who know he is not qualified."

Slate goes on to report that, after the lawyers had had their say, they turned the podium over to some of their more colorful supporters, at which point an already bizarre press conference when completely off the rails:

Schultz recognized Rev. James David Manning, the Harlem preacher who has called Obama a "long-legged mack daddy," and a member (alongside Jeremiah Wright and Oprah Winfrey) of the "Trinity of Hell." For some reason, Shultz gave Manning a microphone to talk about Obama's parents.

"It is common knowledge," explained Manning, "that African men, coming from the continent of Africa—especially for the first time—do diligently seek out white women to have sexual intercourse with. Generally the most noble of white society choose not to intercourse sexually with these men. So it's usually the trashier ones who make their determinations that they're going to have sex."

Manning grew more intense as he went on. Berg and Taitz seemed to squirm in their chairs; Berg started taking quiet cell phone calls before Manning evoked the memories of Africans who lost their lives "packed like sardines" onto slave ships, now in "a watery grave." "Do you think we want to wake those people up and tell them that the womb of a 16-year-old white girl has produced your redeemer? Has produced your savior? I don't think they want to wake up to that. I think they want to keep sleeping in that grave until true justice might be given."

Not to go all "guilt by association" here, but just keep in mind that Janet Porter willingly associates herself with these people ... and Mike Huckabee willingly associates himself with Porter, praising her in his new book as "one of the main catalysts" for his success in the Republican primary and haling her as among a "new wave of leaders" who will remake the Republican Party in their own image.  

Just something to keep in mind should Huckabee decide to make another run for president down the road.

Faith and Action's Rob Schenck has never been shy about exploiting his interactions, no matter how fleeting, with Washington DC's power-brokers in order to convince his supporters that he is actually influential and that their donations aren't going to waste.  In fact, his willingness to dish about his run-ins with legislators is one of the main reasons we monitor him - no other right-wing activist that we know of is as eager to openly share his strategies and activities with the general public.

This tendency of Schneck's should probably be kept in mind by any public officials who happen to meet or otherwise come into contact with him because it is entirely liklely that whatever they say to him will eventually be made public in a form much like this press release he just issued alleging that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has confessed to him that there is indeed a "war on Christmas": 

Schenck is a missionary to elected and appointed officials on Capitol Hill and was a VIP guest at the recent US Capitol Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony held on the Capitol's West Lawn, near the presidential inaugural platform that is under construction.

Following the ceremony that included traditional Christmas carols played by a US Air Force band, Rev. Schenck thanked Speaker Pelosi for keeping, as he said it, "Christ-mas" at the US Capitol, emphasizing "Christ." Speaker Pelosi politely acknowledged the remark, then pursued Rev. Schenck to tell him she had been "mugged" for doing so.

Rev. Schenck commented, "At first I didn't understand what Mrs. Pelosi was saying, so I simply nodded and thanked her again, but she repeated it emphatically. I realized the Speaker was saying she had paid a serious price politically for allowing the Christmas celebration to go on. She obviously took some political heat for it. For that, Nancy Pelosi deserves to be commended, and I made sure I did so."

Schenck also said, "The fact that Nancy Pelosi said she was assailed for allowing a Christmas observance at the US Capitol confirms the war against Christmas is not a figment of the so-called religious right's imagination. If one of the most liberal, arguably left-wing political leaders in our country, the woman third in succession to the presidency, is getting pummeled for lighting a Christmas tree and allowing Christmas carols on the lawn of the Capitol, that would qualify as a war against Christmas."  

Obviously, it is impossible to know just what Pelosi meant - even Schenck doesn't seem to know - but that hasn't stopped him from turning a passing remark into a full-blown press release and using Pelosi's words to further his own agenda.

Does this claim from Focus on the Family make any sense at all?

Ninety percent of Americans pray every day, according to a study released Thursday by Brandeis University. Half pray several times a day, according to the analysis of four public prayer books filled by patients and visitors at Johns Hopkins University Hospital.

Three-quarters of those studied prayed for themselves, families and friends, with about a quarter praying for themselves alone, The Washington Times reported.

“This is a testament to our belief that prayer is a vital part of our walk with the Lord," said Brian Toon, vice chairman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force. "Examples of answered prayer are more common than many believe. Whole communities have seen crime, suicide and unemployment drop as a result of Americans coming together in prayer."

How exactly does one go about determining that 90% of Americans pray daily, and that many pray several times daily, by analyzing prayer books in a hospital in Baltimore?  

FOF is obviously relying on this Washington Times article which makes the same claim:

Politicians come and go, fashions evolve and the culture shifts with alarming frequency. One thing remains constant, though.

Americans pray. A lot.

Ninety percent have a spiritual interlude with God every day, according to a study released Thursday by Brandeis University. Half pray several times a day, in fact.

"Most prayer writers imagine a God who is accessible, listening, and a source of emotional and psychological support, who at least sometimes answers back," said Wendy Cadge, a sociologist who directed the research.

I haven’t read the study itself because it requires a subscription, but here is the abstract:

Researchers in sociology, medicine, and religion ask whether prayer influences health, but pay little attention to the content or experience of personal prayer. This paper draws insights from cognitive studies of religion to ask what kinds of requests people make of God in their prayers, how they construct God in their prayers, and what kinds of responses they believe possible from God based on how they frame their prayers. We analyze the prayers patients, visitors, and staff wrote in a prayer book at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital between 1999 and 2005. Prayers are primarily written to thank God (21.8%), to make requests of God (28%), or to both thank and petition God (27.5%). The majority of prayer writers imagine a God who is accessible, listening, and a source of emotional and psychological support. Rather than focusing on specific discrete outcomes that could be falsified, writers tend to frame their prayers broadly in abstract psychological language that allows them to make multiple interpretations of the results of their prayers.

Apparently, the study focused on what sort of prayers people offer, not on how many Americans are praying on a given day.  Given that the study was limited to prayers left in prayer books at Johns Hopkins University Hospital over a six years period, it is unimaginable that the author could have deduced that 90% of Americans pray daily based on such narrow and obviously biased source material.  

In this piece by Cadge on Religion Dispatches about her study, she mentions in passing that “close to 90% of Americans pray” but she in no way suggests that this is a finding that came out of her study … yet somehow both the Washington Times and Focus on the Family have convinced themselves that that is exactly what Cadge has found, leading FOF to excitedly crow: “Good News: Study Shows 9 in 10 Americans Pray Every Day.”

Who could ever have predicted that when Newsweek decided to run its cover story, “The Religious Case for Gay Marriage,” that Religious Right leaders would react negatively:

Leading social conservatives blasted Newsweek for its current cover story, "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage," which they said misinterprets both biblical scripture and their own political movement.

“It doesn’t surprise me. Newsweek has been so far in the tank on the homosexual issue, for so long, they need scuba gear and breathing apparatus,” said Richard Land, who heads the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. “I don’t think it’s going to change the minds of anyone who takes biblical teachings seriously.”

Tony Perkins, president of the socially conservative Family Research Council, agreed, calling Newsweek’s cover story “yet another attack on orthodox Christianity” … “If they think they’re going to cause Evangelical Christians or Bible-believing Christians of different stripes to somehow say, oh, the Bible doesn’t matter on marriage, I think they’re mistaken,” Perkins said. “I don’t think too many in the Evangelical world are too concerned about what Newsweek has to say.”

Over the weekend, Family Research Council fellow Ken Blackwell announced that he was seeking to become the next chairman of the Republican National Committee:

Ken Blackwell, a former U.N. ambassador and former Ohio secretary of state, has become the second black man to plunge into the heated contest for Republican National Committee chairman, The Washington Times has learned.

Mr. Blackwell, 60, joins former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, the other black Republican seeking to be the next national chairman when the 168-member Republican National Committee meets Jan. 28-31 in Washington.

Mr. Blackwell has worked with economic, national security and religious conservatives in his party.

"I am a full-portfolio conservative," Mr. Blackwell, 60, said in a phone interview Saturday from his home in Cincinnati. He noted that he is a board member of of the National Taxpayers Union, the Club for Growth and the National Rifle Association and holds fellowships at the Family Research Council and the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

In a letter to RNC members announcing his candidacy, Mr. Blackwell notes that he "vocally opposed tax increases offered" by his state's Republican governor and "helped to successfully lead the fight to amend the Ohio Constitution to ban government recognition of same-sex marriages."

Blackwell first made a name for himself back in 2006 when he linked up with the “Patriot Pastors” [PDF] in Ohio run by Rod Parsley and Russell Johnson:  

It was during the Issue 1 campaign that Parsley and Johnson began a fruitful collaboration with the amendment’s chief proponent, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell. Blackwell’s close association with Parsley and Johnson has continued since the passage of the anti-gay constitutional amendment, ranging from public rallies and “Patriot Pastors” policy briefings to flying on a church-owned plane.

With Blackwell’s gubernatorial campaign in full swing, the “Patriot Pastor” events have featured Johnson and Parsley highlighting Blackwell and extolling the candidate’s virtues. At a rally on the state Capitol steps, Parsley boomed over a Jumbotron screen, “Let the Reformation begin! Shout it like you’re going to carry the blood-stained banner of the cross of Christ the length and breadth of the Buckeye State!” Parsley then introduced Blackwell as “a man of great conviction, consistently standing for family, life, marriage, and faith throughout his public service.” At other events, Johnson followed Blackwell’s speech to pastors by presenting the man he called a “leader of leaders” with a “courageous leadership award” in the form of a large, gilded-eagle trophy—a ritual he repeated a number of times before different audiences of pastors.

And today, Mike Huckabee’s campaign manager Chip Saltsman has announced his own bid for the RNC chairmanship and Huckabee is already doing what he can to generate support for his close ally:  

I am proud to endorse Chip Saltsman for RNC Chair.  Chip has proven to be a dynamic leader within the Republican Party over the years.  His youth and experience are combinations that are vital to leading the Party into the 21st Century.  Over the last two years I have seen Chip in action and have observed and admired his talents as a tactician and strategist.  Chip Saltsman's management of my Presidential campaign showed Chip's skills to operate in a very frugal manner, something that will greatly benefit the RNC.

As the Party searches for the leadership skills necessary to lead the Republican Party forward I believe that they will find that Chip Saltsman is the right person for the position of RNC Chair.  Chip's technological skills will be an important part of his accomplishments with the RNC. The national party needs to function so as to empower and assist local and state party organizations and become a more ground-up, grassroots army.  Chip Saltsman will bring energy and a willingness to listen and open doors to new ideas.  I urge you to visit Chip's website at www.chipsaltsman.com and learn more about this uniquely talented man.

Last week, we made a few mentions of the kerfuffle brewing up in Washington over the sign placed in the state Capitol by the Freedom From Religion Foundation that reads "Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

And you just knew that if there was some right-wing battle brewing in the state that Ken Hutcherson was going to show up … and so he did:

Several hundred people rallied at the state Capitol on Sunday to protest a holiday display inside that provoked a national outcry by disparaging religion and declaring there is no God.

…

Organizers pleaded with Sunday's crowd to keep their messages positive, but there were still signs portraying Gregoire as a Grinch. Even scheduled speakers took political pot shots.

"You have led the state of Washington to be the armpit of America. And I'm afraid that our governor is the one adding the offensive odor to the armpit," said the Rev. Ken Hutcherson, a Christian preacher known in the region for his commentary on social issues.

One of Hutcherson’s latest rallying cries is for Evangelicals to stop being “Evan-jellyfish” and start standing up for themselves and declare that they are not going to take it anymore:

“We want to be respected also, and it looks as though Christianity and religious people are the only ones that you can be intolerant against and everyone thinks it’s OK,” he said. “The only reason why that’s going on is because we have allowed it, and I think it’s time for us to say enough’s enough.”

And speaking of Hutcherson, it looks as if he is still committed to his one-man crusade to take over Microsoft so that he can dictate how the company donates to charity:

Last year Ken Hutcherson, pastor of Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland, Washington, asked concerned Christians to purchase shares in Microsoft and send him a share so he could address the company at its annual shareholders meeting about its support for homosexual causes. During the annual meeting last month, Hutcherson was able to address Microsoft executives, including founder Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer. Hutcherson says he brought up the recent protests by homosexuals against California's voter-approved Proposition 8.< /p>

And my question to Microsoft this year was, our company is supporting, with millions and millions of dollars, a group that has proven to be intolerant, that has proven to be hateful, violent, and [prejudiced] towards African Americans," he explains. "[Opponents of the voter initiative] are now calling African Americans who voted for Prop. 8 by 'the N-word.'"

The outspoken pastor and former NFL player calls reaction from Microsoft executives lukewarm. "You know what they said afterward? It was all quiet and they said, 'Well, we have voted to continue our charitable gifts,'" Hutcherson points out. "That's why I'm saying I'm not going to stop because they have proven to be hypocrites. And if it was any other group, they would have stopped it immediately."

Still, Hutcherson is urging concerned Christians to purchase shares in companies like Microsoft who support the pro-homosexual cause and to request that they stop supporting intolerant groups.

The Times-Picayune reports that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is heading to Texas for some "private events" that will raise a little money for his re-election bid:

As Gov. Bobby Jindal continues to draw attention as a rising star and possible national candidate for Republicans in 2012 or 2016, he insists that he has the job he wants right here in Louisiana. But that doesn't mean he won't leave the state to raise a little cash for his campaign account.

His next such trip starts today, with plans for a fundraiser tonight in San Antonio and Friday afternoon in Houston.

The fundraisers were described in his official schedule only as "private events" for Jindal's re-election campaign. Melissa Sellers, Jindal's communications director, declined to share more information about where the events would be, who is hosting and how much is being sought from potential donors.

Since he won't say who he'll be hobnobbing with, I feel it is worth pointing out that the last few times Republican presidential hopefuls ended up traveling to Texas to raise some cash and support, we ended up seeing Mike Hucakbee hanging out with a guy who believed that "all disease and disability is caused by the sin of Adam and Eve" and John McCain ended up winning the endorsement of John Hagee, whom he then had to publicly humiliate before the end-times enthusiast could do any more damage to his campaign.

But while Jindal doesn't want to say who he'll be schmoozing with in Texas, he is apparently less than reluctant to be seen with the likes of David Vitter:

Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter has lined up a hefty list of Louisiana’s current and former members of Congress to help him with a fundraiser next week.

Headlining the Washington, D.C., fundraiser is Gov. Bobby Jindal. Listed as co-chairs of the event — called “Mardi Gras in December” — are all the Republican members of Louisiana’s congressional delegation and six former GOP congressmen from Louisiana.

...

The list of support for Vitter’s 2010 re-election bid could help Vitter toss aside speculation that the senator may have trouble maintaining support from GOP leaders after his involvement in an escort service scandal.

So Jindal will gladly be seen with a "family values" congressman caught frequenting prostitutes but won't say who he'll be meeting with in Texas? Does that seem odd to anyone else?

One of the central tenets of family law has always been finding solutions to contentious issues that protect the best interest of children involved in such disputes.

For instance, when a Florida judge recently ruled that the state's ban on gay people adopting children was unconstitutional, it allowed two brothers to stay with the couple that had cared for them for over four years and officially become a family:

The ruling means that Martin Gill, 47, and his male partner can adopt two brothers, ages 4 and 8, whom he has cared for as foster children since December 2004.

"I've never seen myself as less than anybody else," Gill said. "We're very grateful. Today, I've cried the first tears of joy in my life." 

Of course, the Religious Right doesn't see it that way, which is why they'd prefer to see the boys ripped away from the fathers and presumably placed back into foster care:

A group of conservative preachers representing the Christian Coalition said they support removing adopted children of gay parents from stable homes, rather than let a ruling stand that overturns the Florida’s anti-gay adoption law ... When asked whether the group supported removing Gill’s children from his home, [Rev. Paul Carbalho] said that he would support placing them in the homes of straight parents regardless of the fact that Lederman and eight expert witnesses from across the nation agreed that it was in the children’s best interest to remain with Gill.

I seem to remember a time, not all that long ago, when any effort by Democrats or liberals to try to forge unified a approach with Republican neocons and right-wing leaders on how to deal with the issue of terrorism would have been shot down amid screams from the Right that they had no intention of working with a bunch of America-hating, terrorist-appeasing traitors. 

But times have changed and now it looks like Gary Bauer, who has recently been fancying himself something of a national security expert, has taken it upon himself to round up a bunch of other Religious Right leaders and magnanimously offer to meet with President-Elect Barack Obama so they can share their suggestions:

Gary L. Bauer, president of American Values, and 12 other conservative leaders are seeking to work with President-elect Barack Obama on a unified agenda designed to produce an enduring national consensus in support of policies designed to defeat Islamist terrorism.

In a letter sent today to President-elect Obama, the conservative leaders write: "In a heartfelt spirit of cooperation, we are eager to work with you and your administration to identify, advocate, and implement an innovative and robust agenda designed to achieve a lasting victory over the violent Islamists committed to killing Americans on a mass scale."

In addition to Mr. Bauer, signatories include: Donald E. Wildmon, Chairman, American Family Association; Chuck Donovan, Executive Vice President, Family Research Council; Paul Weyrich, Chairman, Free Congress Foundation; Jonathan Falwell, Pastor, Thomas Road Baptist Church; Janet Parshall, Nationally-Syndicated Talk Show Host; Tom Minnery, Senior Vice President of Government and Public Policy, Focus on the Family; Rod D. Martin, Chairman, TheVanguard.Org; Chris Brown, Executive Vice President, National Federation of Republican Assemblies; Bishop Harry Jackson, Chairman, High Impact Leadership Coalition; John Hagee, National Chairman, Christians United for Israel; Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring; and Phil Burress, Chairman, Citizens for Community Values Action.

The letter concludes: "It is imperative that Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, join together, first, to recognize the threat and, second, to forge a national policy embraced by a broad coalition. We stand ready to work with you to advance a policy agenda designed to challenge radical Islam wherever it jeopardizes the interests of America and her allies."

Commenting on the letter, Mr. Bauer remarked, "In the spirit of President Truman's efforts to unite the nation against Soviet communism, it is time to forge the enduring national consensus that will be needed to sustain an unshakable, long-term commitment to prevailing over Islamist terrorism. Many conservatives are eager to work with President-elect Obama in advancing the objective of defeating Islamist aggression. I hope he will embrace this effort to build a unified policy premised on the recognition of radical Islam as a distinct, immediate, and fundamental threat to our nation."

While Obama is all for working with those who disagree with him and forging consensus, I fail to see what he could possibly learn from meeting with a gaggle of socially conservative, militantly anti-Islamic right-wing leaders such as Bauer, Hagee, Falwell, Weyrich, and Wildmon other than that he should hurry up and bomb Iran.

But more importantly, just when did the Religious Right decide that they were now experts on national security and foreign policy? 

Do you suppose that President Bush would have agreed to meet with People For, Americans United, NARAL, the NAACP, the Alliance for Justice, the ACLU, and others if we'd wanted to share our views about an issue like this ... or any other issue, for that matter?  I kind of doubt it.

There is a truly exceptional review of Mike Huckabee's latest book up on Religion Dispatches that argues that the driving forces behind Huckabee, his campaign, and his new book tour are resentment and bitterness.  I have to say that I completely agree with that assessment ... probably because I happen to be the one who wrote it:

Billed as an inside look at “the movement that’s bringing common sense back to America,” the book is part campaign memoir, part policy statement, and partly a challenge to all Americans to stop being so fat, lazy, and mean. But mostly it is a means for Huckabee to settle scores with all those who failed to support his candidacy, see its genius and, consequently, to save America from itself.

From the very beginning, Huckabee makes no effort to conceal his disdain for his presidential rivals and seemingly goes out of his way to invoke Mitt Romney wherever he can, mentioning the former Massachusetts Governor by name more than sixty times in the first one hundred pages. While Huckabee doesn’t have anything particularly nice to say about Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, or John McCain—the others barely rate a mention—it is Romney who personifies everything that is wrong with the Republican Party.

It’s clear that Huckabee resents Romney’s wealth and the millions of dollars he pumped into his own campaign. Huckabee and his staff, who were often just scraping by, at one point blasted Romney for attempting “a leveraged buyout of the Republican presidential nomination,&r