February 2009

• California State Senator Dennis Hollingsworth, one of Proposition 8's strongest supporters, has maneuvered his way into the leadership of the Republican caucus after state Senator Dave Cogdill was ousted for his support of last week's budget deal.
• The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission proclaims that Hollywood has declared war on God and that "to say that God loves everyone regardless of their willful, sinful rebellion is blasphemous."
• The Arkansas Times profiles Jerry Cox, executive director of the Arkansas Family Council, and his role in helping to pass the state's anti-gay adoption measure last November.
• Tom Tancredo says that Gov. Bobby Jindal's presidential aspirations are over and that Grover Norquist ought to be in jail.
• Finally, among the individuals Fl. Gov. Charlie Crist appointed to the state's census panel is Dennis Baxley, director of the Christian Coalition of Florida.

UPDATE: Here is the actual footage of her saying it:

 Here is the footage from the end of Michael Steele's address to CPAC where, according to CNN, event moderator Rep. Michele Bachmann told Steele he was “da man"

“Michael Steele! You be da man! You be da man,” she said.

Unfortunately Bachmann's remark is drowned out by the applause and music.

The NRA's Wayne LaPierre tells the CPAC audience that the 2nd Amendment is the foundation of all of our freedoms and that all rights and freedoms are nothing but "stains on a rotten piece of parchment paper in a museum somewhere" until they are "guarded by the blued steel and dry powder of a free and armed people."

He also proclaims that he knows it is not politically correct to say so, but he doesn't care "if their butts pucker from here to the Potomac, the Founding Fathers understood that the guys with the guns make the rules":

You know, if her political career doesn't pan out, Rep. Michele Bachmann could always considering making the jump to television, where she'd be sure to quickly find work announcing contestants on a game show:

The Liberty Counsel's Mat Staver explains to the CPAC audience that "same-sex marriage sets forth a fatherless policy" and says that you don't need a bunch of scientific data to know that that is bad. After all, kids without fathers tend to fare poorly ... and if you need proof, all you have to do is take a look at the prison population.

Thus, the logic seems to go, letting two women get married will lead to a whole generation of fatherless children who will inevitably become violent criminals:

After blasting the bank bailouts for giving taxpayer money to "the geniuses that got us into this mess," Mike Hucakbee took a swipe at all the fiscal conservative who dismissed him during the GOP primary as some sort of populist for daring to suggest that there was a "Wall Street to Washington axis of power that was out of control" and wondering when they will all apologize to him, as his warnings "seem prophetic now."

He then called out those in the conservative movement who are trying to use the GOP's recent string of electoral losses and the economic crisis to throw the social conservatives under the bus, saying that social conservative's values are the key to creating a fiscally conservative government and that the GOP "didn't lose because of social conservatives," but rather because it became the party that forgot what it stood for.

He doesn't say anything particularly radical in this clip, but it is interesting to note that, when he ran for president, Huckabee didn't get much support from the Religious Right power-brokers in Washington DC and got absolutely no support from the limited government/fiscal conservative organizations.  It looks like, as he positions himself for a possible 2012 presidential bid, Huckabee has decided that the group he most needs to win over are the social conservative leaders ... an effort that will undoubtedly be complicated by the fact that, in his last book, he spent several pages calling those leaders a bunch of sell-outs:

Sarah Posner has more on Huckabee's speech.

Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid, tapped to introduce Rep. Mike Pence, regaled the audience with tales of CPACs past, when the country had a president who was not a communist and was actually born in the United States ... oh, how times have changed.

He also praised Pence for being a conservative before it became "stylish and popular for ... House Republicans and others to suddenly discover fiscal sanity" under Obama.  And to prove it, Kincaid hailed Pence as one of the few Republican members of Congress willing to stand up to "pseudo-socialist president George W. Bush."  Pence then came out and thanked Kincaid for his kind words:

The Conservative Political Action Conference is currently underway and the first speaker, Congressman Paul Ryan, sought to rally the GOP's shock troops by proclaiming that "the Republican Party's road out of the wilderness leads through CPAC" and then offering up a rather convoluted explanation of why they have been devastated at the polls in recent elections.

One of the articles of faith among those on the Right is that their party has suffered at the polls in recent years because the GOP has abandoned the conservative agenda, not that voters have rejected that agenda. 

Of course, in order for that sort of argument to make sense, you have take it to its logical conclusion by arguing that the massive Democratic wins in the last two election cycles were, in reality, wins for conservative values - which is exactly the argument Ryan made during his speech:

If you are so inclined, you can watch CPAC's live stream here.

Today's best reporting on the Right from around the web:

• RH Reality Check notes that, despite the fact that abstinence-only program are "an unmitigated disaster, proven ineffective in study after study," they are still receiving funding in federal budgets.
• On a related note, Sarah Posner highlights this new Texas Freedom Network report on the dire state of sex-ed in the Lone Star State.
• Think Progress reports that the Log Cabin Republicans are not happy with Michael Steele's statement that you'd have to be "crazy" to support civil unions.
• Good as You posts a letter from ProtectMarriage.com asking for donations because they are under attack from Hollywood and liberal activists like Sean Penn.
• Finally, CREW has filed an ethics complaint against Sen. Sam Brownback over the fund-raising letter sent out by his allies, saying by "deliberately attempting to mislead recipients of Catholic Advocates’ fundraising appeal into believing they have received a letter from Sen. Brownback in his official capacity, Sen. Brownback has engaged in improper conduct which may reflect upon the Senate."

In December, the Oklahoman reported that Sen. James Inhofe had regularly been making trips to Africa, using taxpayer money, in order to spread the gospel of Christ

In the past decade, Sen. Jim Inhofe of Tulsa has made at least 20 trips to Africa as part of a mission that he frequently describes in religious terms.

Inhofe’s African trips have cost taxpayers more than $187,000 since 1999, according to a review of expenses Inhofe and staff members have submitted through the Armed Services Committee.

Inhofe insists that his trips have either been paid for personally or stemmed directly from his work in Congress on humanitarian, national security and economic matters. But Inhofe’s own words make it sound as if these trips are more about using his office and standing as a US Senator in order to evangelize:

Some of the trips have been taken on military planes that cost thousands of dollars an hour to operate. The military does not disclose the cost of flying members of Congress to their destinations.

The trips — which Inhofe has referred to publicly as "a Jesus thing” — have spanned the continent, though the senator has spent most of his time in a few countries, including Uganda and Ethiopia.

In an interview with an Assemblies of God publication in 2002, Inhofe said, "I’ve adopted 12 countries all the way from Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Togo, and Gabon in West Africa as far east as Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. I’m planning to meet with nine presidents in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. My focus will be to meet in the spirit of Jesus.”

…

Inhofe said he wasn’t trying to push a specific religious agenda in Africa and that he considered Jesus "a common denominator” in his meetings with African leaders of different faiths … I’m guilty of two things. I’m a Jesus guy, and I have a heart for Africa.”

In fact, in this video posted today by Faith and Action’s Rob Schenck, it sounds an awful like Inhofe is using these trips for exactly that purpose, as he relates how, before his first trip to Africa, he found out that his daughter was also going to be there doing missionary work and told her that “if you go with me, it’s free.”  He also explains that the trips are part of the “politics of Jesus” whereby Christians are instructed to take the name of Jesus to the kings. Being a US Senator, Inhofe says, means Africans think he is important and so he can always get in to see the kings, where he can tell them that he has come “in the spirit of Jesus.”  Inhofe even holds up a copy of the Oklahoman featuring the above-mentioned article to defend himself, saying the article is an example of “persecution” and insisting that he is doing this work as a private citizen before trumpeting the fact that, through his work, he has managed to bring entire African villages to Jesus:

Kathryn Joyce, author of “Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement,” has a good piece up on “Religion Dispatches” on the effort by anti-choice activists to convince Americans that reproductive freedom is actually a plot to commit genocide against minorities:

Lately, however, antiabortion groups don’t simply seize the mantle of abolitionism, but argue directly that abortion is a concerted attack on people of color. Black and brown populations are, according to the new rhetoric, allegedly targeted for aggressive population control by abortion providers who deliberately place clinics in inner-city, low-income neighborhoods, resulting in higher rates of abortion among Latina and black women in the United States compared to white women.

[A]ntiabortion activists continue to claim that providers are targeting black and Latino populations, and have leafleted inner-city neighborhoods with denunciations of “Klan Parenthood,” juxtaposing images of lynchings and aborted fetuses with the slogan “lynching is for amateurs.” The argument’s popularity is climbing, spurring numerous rallies, publications and organizations devoted to spreading word of abortion providers’ supposedly racist motives. Indeed, Rep. Franks, the lead sponsor of the Susan B. Anthony bill, said he was inspired by a Washington, DC abortion clinic protest last April that denounced the “black genocide” of abortion.

Among the most prominent names in the movement are Day Gardner, of the National Black Pro-Life Union; Rev. Clenard Childress and Johnny Hunter of the group Life Education and Resource Network (LEARN, at the website Black Genocide.org); and Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King. King, the media darling of the bunch, addressed the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 38th Annual Legislative Convention this summer, arguing that “fully 1/4 of the black population of the US has gone missing” due to abortion.

This is something we’ve mentioned several times before and Joyce does a good job of explaining how this message was developed and who is pushing it, so be sure to read the whole thing.

There have been several articles speculating, as far back as last year, that the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins might be considering a challenge to Louisiana Senator David Vitter stemming, in large part, from Vitter's ties to a prostitution ring.  

As such, as he looks ahead to his re-election campaign, Vitter has been working hard to seal off his right flank from any potential challenge, such as Perkins, by unleashing a flurry of legislation aimed at establishing himself as one of the Religious Right’s most committed and vocal allies on Capitol Hill.

But it looks like it might not be enough, because Politico has gotten Perkins to go on the record for the first time about his interest in possibly challenging Vitter ... and while Perkins is non-committal at the moment, he certainly sounds like someone who senses an opportunity:

Perkins tells POLITICO he just might [present a serious challenge for Vitter].

“I will say this: I have people in Louisiana encouraging me to consider it,” said Perkins, a former Louisiana legislator who joined the FRC after losing to Vitter in the 2002 Senate primary.

When Vitter’s name turned up in the phone book of “D.C. Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey in 2007, Perkins said “there’s room to make a mistake and come back” — and said that even he’d vote for his friend Vitter again if Vitter could show that he had “moved on” from the scandal.

Two years later, however, Perkins says it’s still a problem for Vitter.

“I don’t think he needs to say anything else about it, but I don’t think he can do anything else about it,” Perkins said. “Can people feel a sense of trust in him to publicly stand with him and support him and help him? Maybe he has [gotten to that point]. I know I still get some questions. I think he is certainly vulnerable [to] a challenge from the right — a candidate without issues.”

While Perkins is not generally known for making the sorts of outrageous statements that plague many of his Religious Right allies, if he thinks that he’d be a “candidate without issues,” he is sorely mistaken.

For its part, the National Republican Senatorial Committee says it'll be supporting Vitter in his re-election bid, but Perkins seems to sense that he just might be able to suck up enough of the right-wing vote in the primary to knock Vitter off:   

Having spent the past five years at the vanguard of the social conservative movement, Perkins could stand between Vitter and the conservative base he needs.

Perkins wouldn’t say for certain whether he’ll enter the race. He said he could decide to stay out of it for the sake of his family.

At the same time, however, he said: “Politically, it may be an advantageous time for me to run.”

Today's best reporting on the Right from around the web:

• Pam slaps down Donald Douglas absurd claim that nobody has been comparing gay marriage to bestiality.  And speaking of Pam, she was also profiled in the Washington Post today, so check it out.
• Andrew Sullivan asks a good question: if Michael Steele is the face of Republican moderation, "what would the face of extremism look like?"
• Republican Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, who has been suggesting that he might reject some of the money slated for his state in the economic recovery bill, was confronted by a caller from his state who said they needed to money, to which all Sanford could offer was his prayers.
• AU debunks Bill Keller's absurd claims that he was not trying to influence the election with his attacks on Mitt Romney.
• Bill Berkowitz exposes "The Most Influential (and Self-Promotional) Christian Zionist You've Never Heard Of."
• The Box Turtle Bulletin reports that "A Uganda-based anti-gay group has announced that American Nazi revisionist and anti-gay extremist Scott Lively will appear at a three day conference in Kampala, Uganda beginning on March 5th."
• Marc Fisher profiles Bob McDonnell, Virginia's Republican Attorney General who hopes to become its next governor. Despite the fact that McDonnell graduated from Pat Robertson's Regent Law School, he "is positioning himself as a moderate who shares the growing popular disenchantment with the GOP."
• Finally, Dan Gilgoff wonders if Bobby Jindal is starting to become a victim of the same sorts of "secret Muslim" claims that plagued Barack Obama.

Last week, after Utah state Senator Chris Buttars compared gays to Islamic radicals and America to Sodom and Gomorrah, and said that gays have no morals and that acceptance of their lifestyle will bring about the destruction of the nation, he was stripped of his position as chairman of the Senate's judiciary committee ... but it doesn't look like that has put the controversy to rest.

Yesterday, the Utah Seante shut down for two hours as Republicans continue to try and figure out what, if anything, to do about Buttars:

The Utah Senate stopped working for about two hours Monday as Republicans privately met to discuss a lawmaker's recent comments that gay people don't have morals and that gay activists are among America's greatest threats.

Not a single bill was debated on the Senate floor Monday morning, increasing the backlog of bills that may never become law simply because lawmakers will run out of time to approve them before the 45-day session ends.

...

Buttars' comments and his removal from the judiciary committee have created a rift in the Senate Republican caucus, prompting the private meeting. Senate leaders said Buttars wouldn't face any more sanctions and that no position was taken on the issue during their meeting.

While Republicans struggle to deal with this, it also looks like Democrats in the state aren't making it any easier for them:

Utah Senate Democrats on Tuesday called for the ouster of a GOP lawmaker from two additional key committee posts because of his anti-gay comments.

...

Democrats — outnumbered by Republicans 21 to 8 in the Senate — called Tuesday for additional sanctions, including removal of Buttars from the rules committee, of which he is vice chairman. The rules committee is one of the most powerful in the Legislature because it decides which bills lawmakers will debate.

Democrats also requested that Buttars lose his chairmanship on the health and human services committee, although they didn't propose he be removed from that panel entirely.

For his part, Buttars remains unrepentant and vows never to resign:

I was disappointed to learn of the Utah State Senate’s censure on Feb. 20, 2009. However, this action will not discourage me from defending marriage from an increasingly vocal and radical segment of the homosexual community.

In recent years, registering opposition to the homosexual agenda has become almost impossible. Political correctness has replaced open and energetic debate. Those who dare to disagree with the homosexual agenda are labeled "haters," and "bigots," and are censured by their peers. The media contributes to the problem. Increasingly, individuals with conservative beliefs are targeted by a left-leaning media that uses their position of public trust as a bully pulpit. This pattern of intimidation suppresses free speech.

For the record, I do not agree with the censure I see it as an attempt to shy away from controversy. In particular, I disagree with my removal as Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, since my work there is entirely unrelated to my opposition to the homosexual agenda.

Still, I’m a grown man and I can take my knocks. When it comes right down to it, I would rather be censured for doing what I think is right, than be honored by my colleagues for bowing to the pressure of a special interest group that has been allowed to act with impunity.

Thanks to the many citizens who have written and called to express their support. Please know that I’ll live through this to fight another day. In years to come, we’ll all look back at this point in history and see it as a crossroads. I have no intention of resigning.

A few weeks ago, Peter LaBarbera unleashed a pre-emptive attack against new Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, warning him not to even consider meeting with the Log Cabin Republicans, whom he called "homosexual activists whose agenda would restrict our precious religious and First Amendment freedoms by using the government to promote aberrant sexual lifestyles."

On a related note, we mentioned last week that John McCain's daughter and former campaign manager are scheduled to speak at the LCR's convention in April ... and guess what?  LaBarbera is not happy about that either:

Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, says McCain is taking the wrong message to young voters.

"I'm afraid that some Republicans are going to think, 'Hey, we have to go pro-gay and try to be hip to get the youth vote,'" suggests LaBarbera. "Look, the kind of youth who are going to be the long-term heroes in the Republican Party are going to be the principled youth of today -- and the principled youth don't want us to play around or go half-way on homosexuality, or just fight gay marriage and not anything else."

Also speaking April 17 at the Log Cabin conference will be Steve Schmidt, John McCain's former campaign manager. The topic of Schmidt's address is "Moving Forward." LaBarbera admits he feels "very sorry" for people like Schmidt, who has a lesbian sister who is living in a domestic-partner relationship.

"They believe that they're showing love for their family member by promoting homosexuality and embracing homosexuality -- and that's just not the case," the Christian activist emphasizes. "Homosexuality is a sin whether your sister or brother or son is engaged in it. We want to hope that those people will come out of that lifestyle because it's wrong."

This latest salvo comes amid a feud LaBarbera is having with Jamie Ensley, the president of the Georgia Log Cabin Republicans, who responded to LaBarbera's attack on the LCR and Steele by calling LaBarbera's Americans For Truth About Homosexuality a “radical Christian domestic terrorist group” and comparing it to Nazis.

Yesterday, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported that Mike Huckabee is working hard to hold on to the influence he gained during the Republican primary via his political action committee, Huck PAC.  Unfortunately, Huckabee's popularity with grassroots conservatives has not necessarily been translating into significant funding, and so Huck PAC is focusing, at the moment, on building up an army of volunteers:

The former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate this week will boost his political action committee's effort to string together a nationwide web of grass-roots organizers.

That network, with foundation-laying parties set for more than 120 homes Thursday night, is meant to push conservative causes forward and to fight much of the work supported by a similar - and larger - coalition topped by President Barack Obama.

...

Looking ahead, Huckabee's outfit appears ready to focus less on dollar signs than on door knockers. During his presidential run, Huckabee surprised the political world by stretching his low-budget campaign into a second-place showing, with much of his support swelling up from evangelical Christians and those who favor a national sales tax.

So far, that combination of light wallets and devout followers seems to be propping up Huck PAC.

The PAC has been outpaced both in fundraising and in direct candidate support by that of Romney ... Romney's Free and Strong America PAC, begun roughly at the same time as Huckabee's, spread more than $230,000 to 80 congressional candidates last year. Huckabee spent about $49,000 to support political causes last year, including 30 candidates ranging from Republican presidential nominee John McCain to an Iowa state legislative hopeful.  

Given his relatively small fundraising totals, perhaps what Huckabee needs to generate some cash for his PAC is some new controversial issue he can start hammering away on in order to scare up donations, kind of like he tried to do a few weeks ago with the stimulus bill. 

Maybe something like the Freedom of Choice Act ... and as Marc Ambinder reports, that seems to be exactly what he's doing:

Ex-AR Gov. Mike Huckabee has recorded an automated telephone call warning pro-lifers that Democrats and President Obama plan to eliminate all state and federal laws restricting abortion. The calls have been reported in Virginia and Washington State. The caller identification traces the origin of the recording to a Northern Virginia telephone number, 703-263-0488; that number is used by FiSERV, Inc. an automated call center used by conservative groups. Huckabee's statement refers to the Freedom of Choice Act, which President Obama has promised to sign into law, although it has not yet been introduced in the new Congress. Proponents say the law would simply codify the regime that Roe v. Wade allows and would reduce abortions; opponents insist that it's not constitutional and would effectively reduce the latitude that states have to restrict abortion. A spokesperson for Huckabee's PAC did not return an e-mail seeking comment.

You've got to hand it to Huckabee; for all his talk of bringing a new message to the Republican Party, he sure does have a knack for trotting out the standard right-wing tropes whenever he needs to raise some money or remind everyone that he is still around.

Update: We have been informed by FiSERV that they were not the originator of this call:

In fact, Fiserv was not the originator of those calls, nor are we an automated call center or a telemarketer. Fiserv is the leading technology company for the financial services industry.

We operated a data center in Virginia using that number for incoming calls, but last year we sold that business, and no longer own that number. When we contacted the phone carrier about why our name was still on the caller ID, they said the number is now used by ccAdvertising, who may be conducting the Robocalls. The carrier is working to remove the Fiserv name, as it is not correct.

• Always wanted to spend several minutes listening to Focus on the Family's Tom Minnery ramble on and spread misinformation about hate crimes legislation?  Well, you are in luck.
• Ed Whelan is not happy that the Obama administration is consulting with the American Bar Association about the role that the ABA will play in evaluating judicial nominations.
• Utah Sen. Chris Buttars may be refusing to apologize, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is doing its best to distance itself from him and his views.
• Finally, via this post on TPM Cafe, I learned an interesting and telling fact that I had not known; namely, that Rebecca Hagelin, a Senior Communications Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, was formerly vice president of communications for WorldNetDaily.

The National Catholic Register reports that a fund-raising letter on behalf of Catholic Advocate, a project of the Washington-based Morley Institute for Church and Culture, is being distributed "in an envelope that bears [Sen. Sam] Brownback's signature in a manner similar to official Congressional correspondence." The letter questions the Catholic bona fides of several other members of Congress:

Kansas Republican Senator Sam Brownback, in a fundraising letter for a new Washington-based antiabortion group distributed under his signature, questioned whether six of his Democratic colleagues and the Speaker of the House are genuine Catholics.

"Real Catholics need a new voice — not the likes of Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi who have campaigned as Catholics while voting to undermine the values that we hold most dear," according to the undated Brownback letter.

NCR received the letter in the mail Feb. 17.

"The same can be said for the five 'Catholic' senators sponsoring the Freedom of Choice Act," continues the letter, which then specifically cites Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), John Kerry (D-Mass.), Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as among those who "openly and unabashedly claim to be Catholic — every year at election time" but who then "once in office … willfully cast life-destroying votes at every turn."

The letter, carried in an envelope that bears Brownback's signature in a manner similar to official Congressional correspondence, was distributed on behalf of Catholic Advocate, a project of the Washington-based Morley Institute for Church and Culture, publisher of Inside Catholic, a conservative Catholic Web site.

Of course, Brownback's staff is now denying that they had anything to do with it:

But Brownback spokesman Brian Hart said, "Our chief of staff ... had never seen, heard of, or approved it." Hart said Brownback's Senate staff has "reached out to both the organization responsible and the mail house [responsible for printing and distributing the letter] and directed them not to use Sam Brownback's name, signature, likeness or representation in any way moving forward and expressed that we are not pleased with the content of the letter."

Alan Keyes was in Nebraska the other day where he was the featured speaker at a fundraiser for the Triple A Crisis Pregnancy Center.  Outside of the event, KHAS-TV's Curt Casper caught up with the perennial presidential candidate to get his thoughts on his one-time campaign rival and current president, Barack Obama.

Needless to say, Keyes is not a fan:

"Obama is a radical communist and I think it is becoming clear. That is what I told people in Illinois and now everybody realizes it is coming true. He is going to destroy this country and we are either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist," said Keyes.

KHAS also released the video of the four-minute interview and it is really worth watching, especially when Keyes starts getting upset that the interviewer is not taking seriously his claims that Barack Obama's presidency is illegitimate, saying "it's not a laughing matter ... we're in the midst of the greatest crisis this nation has ever seen and if we don't stop laughing about it and deal with it, we're going to find ourselves in the midst of chaos, confusion, and civil war":

Earlier this week we posted on the extended interview Utah state Senator Chris Buttars gave as part of a documentary on Proposition 8 in which he spent fifteen minutes comparing gays to Islamic radicals and America to Sodom and Gomorrah,while proclaiming that gays have no morals and that acceptance of their lifestyle will bring about the destruction of the nation.

Buttars' remarks are not going over well with some of his fellow Republicans, who are apparently getting tired of being embarrassed by him, and so it looks like they are preparing to strip him of his position as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee:

An anti-gay diatribe by Sen. Chris Buttars will cost him his spot on the Senate Judiciary Committee, The Tribune has learned.

Senate Republicans, prompted by complaints from minority Democrats, held a frank discussion of Buttars' actions in a closed-door caucus Thursday. Afterward, senators would not discuss what action, if any, might be taken against the West Jordan Republican.

Part of it, Senate leaders said, depends on what Buttars, who left the Capitol after Thursday's caucus to be with his family, decides to do. He did not return a phone message. But Senate President Michael Waddoups said the action he plans to take is clear.

"I've made up my mind what I'm going to do," Waddoups, R-Taylorsville said, but he would not elaborate.

Sources familiar with the Senate discussions, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Senate Republican caucus decided to remove Buttars from the Senate Judiciary Committee, a panel which he currently chairs ... A news conference has been scheduled for Friday morning to discuss the Buttars situation.

Of course, Buttars' right-wing allies are defending him:

Gayle Ruzicka, president of the Utah Eagle Forum, a conservative organization that has been among Buttars' most strident supporters, said she did not expect any action against the senator.

"It's a free speech issue," she said. "I'm sure they'd defend anybody's right on that floor to say what they want to say."

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that "a news conference has been scheduled for Friday morning to discuss the Buttars situation" where it will be announced, according to ABC 4, "that Buttars will likely be stripped of his chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And some we talked to even suggest resignation is not entirely out of the question."

Update: Buttars has been stripped of his chairmanship:

Senator Chris Buttars has been censured for his comments about homosexuals.

The Utah Senate announced in a press conference Buttars has been removed from his chair of the judicial committee.

Today's best reporting on the Right from around the web:

• Box Turtle Bulletin has a complete transcript of Utah Sen. Chris Buttar's interview, which we mentioned here. Relatedly, Andrew Sullivan points out that in addition to being a homophobe, Buttars is also the former Executive Director of the controversial Utah Boys Ranch.
• Steve Benen reports that Republicans in Congress have suddenly discovered the importance of the White House preserving its emails.
• Pharyngula has a post on the University of Vermont's Nicholas Gotelli and his great response to an invitation he received to debate David Klinghoffer from the Discovery Institute.
• The Washington Blade reports that anti-gay forces are hard at work trying to regain their national influence, stemming from their fear that Congress will advance gay rights legislation.
• Finally, Kathryn Joyce, author of "Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement," has a piece on Babble explaining just what the movement is all about:

[T]he most important thing to understand about the Quiverfull movement [is that] in order for a woman to be Quiverfull, she must embrace a life of absolute submission and obedience to God, her husband, and the cause of Christian revival — winning the culture wars — by having more children than the "other side." At the heart of this call is Quiverfull's insistence that women's individual rights and desires are of secondary importance to the larger cause.

Every once in a while, Legal Times produces a lengthy article that pulls back the curtain and take a look behind the public rhetoric of some right-wing group to expose the sometimes sordid dealings that are going on internally.

Back in 2005, it published just such a piece about Jay Sekulow and his work at the American Center for Law and Justice yet, oddly, the article generated very little coverage and Sekulow continues to ply his trade at the ACLJ to this day. 

With that in mind, I doubt that this new article about the in-fighting that it taking place at Judicial Watch will generate much coverage, though it certainly should as it contains a variety of allegations regarding financial improprieties and maritial infidelity, primarily on behalf of the organzation's founder Larry Klayman:

The quarrel stretches back to Sep­tem­ber 2003, when Klayman announced he was leaving Judicial Watch to stage a Senate campaign in Florida, which would ultimately end with him finishing last in the Republican primary. In his April 2006 complaint, Klayman alleged that before departing as chairman, he had discovered that [current Judicial Watch president Tom] Fitton had never earned a college degree. According to the complaint, Fitton allegedly promised to find a “distinguished and qualified” chairman to lead the group, but instead grabbed control of Judicial Watch and tried to push his former boss out of the public spotlight.

As he put it in an affidavit filed later in the case, Klayman believed that Fitton had done “everything he could to harm and financially weaken” Klayman to keep him from taking back command of the group. Among the complaint’s many allegations, Fitton had supposedly threatened media organizations with legal action to keep Klayman off the air, fired employees loyal to Klayman, and damaged his reputation with former clients. The complaint also contended that Judicial Watch had lied on its tax forms by claiming that Klayman owed it money.

All the while, the complaint alleged, the organization’s war chest under Fitton’s management shrunk to between $8 million and $9 million, down from about $20 million when Klayman left.

Judicial Watch shot back with a counter­claim accusing Klayman of failing to cover the debts he had accumulated as chairman and of violating the terms of his severance agreement. As part of a negotiated goodbye package, Judicial Watch had paid Klayman a total of $600,000, including $200,000 in return for signing a noncompete clause, according to the counterclaim. By founding Freedom Watch, Klayman had violated that part of the contract, the counterclaim stated. And by waging a public campaign to oust Judicial Watch’s current leadership—an effort that included letters to Judicial Watch donors, ads in major newspapers, and a Web site titled savingjudicialwatch.com—Klayman had also allegedly broken a clause barring him from disparaging the group, while infringing on a handful of trademarks along the way, the counterclaim alleged.

The June 2006 document also suggested a different reason for Klayman’s departure, stating that “Judicial Watch discovered circumstances that necessitated Klayman’s resignation from the organization.” The group made its meaning explicit in May 2007, when it filed an amended version of its counterclaim stating that Klayman had been forced to resign after admitting to an inappropriate relationship with a Judicial Watch staffer. Judicial Watch alleged that the relationship was about to come to light because of Klayman’s impending divorce, meaning he would no longer be able to serve as the head of a “pro-family” organization. The document also referenced accusations by his ex-wife, with whom Klayman is locked in a bitter child custody battle, that he had physically assaulted her.

If Michael Steele gets his way, we will soon have to say goodbye to the GOP's traditional image of older white Americans lining up at the polls to vote for tax cuts, a super-tough military, and against gays and abortion, as it is about to be replaced by a groundswell of young African American and Hispanic voters lining up to vote for that same agenda.

It will be, as the kids are saying these days, quite off the hook:

Newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele plans an “off the hook” public relations offensive to attract younger voters, especially blacks and Hispanics, by applying the party's principles to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”

...

“We need messengers to really capture that region - young, Hispanic, black, a cross section ... We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-surburban hip-hop settings.”

But, he elaborated with a laugh, “we need to uptick our image with everyone, including one-armed midgets.”

Steele insists that the GOP will pull this off without changing its core message or ideology thanks to some ultra-hip PR and things so futuristic and wild that they'll blow your minds:

Under Mr. Steele's helm, the “old” may seem inappropriate in the Grand Old Party's affectionate nickname. He said he is putting a new public relations team into place to update the party's image.

“It will be avant garde, technically,” he said. “It will come to table with things that will surprise everyone - off the hook.”

Does that mean cutting-edge?

“I don't do 'cutting-edge,' “ he said. “That's what Democrats are doing. We're going beyond cutting-edge.”

This can only mean one thing: we must all be prepared to defend ourselves from the horde of sentient robots capable of telepathically beaming the GOP's "limited government" message directly into our brains.

Either that, or Steele is thinking of dusting off Max Headroom

• Focus on the Family Action has launched a petition drive calling on Congress and President Barack Obama to prevent taxpayer money from funding the abortion industry.
• Speaking of Focus, the organization is also upset about the marriage of two women on the soap opera "All My Children."
• Liberty University School of Law hosted Howard Phillips, founder and chairman of The Conservative Caucus (TCC) as well as the Constitution Party, who was praised by Jerry Falwell, Jr. for being "instrumental in encouraging Liberty students to become involved in politics."
• Personhood USA reports that seven states have introduced bills affirming the personhood rights of pre-born humans from the moment of fertilization.
• "Atheists Attack in Texas!" So says the Free Market Foundation.
• What does it mean that Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger both performed during the Inauguration ceremonies? Nothing, except that they are both communists and Seeger is a Unitarian Universalist, which is "a false religion that emphasizes tolerance and respect."
• Finally, Tobin Grant, an associate professor of political science at Southern Illinois University — Carbondale, asks if the stimulus bill is "anti-religious." No, it is not, he says:

However, the language in the stimulus bill is neither new nor unusual, since restrictions have been part of federal higher education policy for over 40 years. Rather than inhibit religion, these restrictions make possible federal funding to religious colleges and universities ... The only facilities that would not qualify are chapels, church buildings, and others that are most often used for explicitly religious purposes. The key is to define the primary purpose of a facility. If its purpose is religious teaching or worship, then the building is ineligible. If the facility is used for classes, housing, or study, however, then it can be renovated using funds from the stimulus bill.

The legislature in Colorado is currently considering a bill (SB 88) that would add domestic partners to the list of dependents eligible for coverage under state employee group benefit plans.

Of course, Religious Right groups oppose such efforts and are running radio ads urging people to call their state Senators and tell them to vote against it. 

Here is an ad being run in the state by Focus on the Family Action and the Colorado Family Institute (which just so happens to be an organization that Focus created and which serves as one of its affiliated family policy councils) where they argue that, in these tough economic times, the state just can’t afford to be “experimenting” with equality:

According to Governor Bill Ritter’s office, Colorado must shut down two prisons, cut $225 million from school funding, and suspend property tax breaks for senior citizens just to keep our state afloat financially. And while the global economic crisis continues to take its toll, our legislature is considering a bill that would use our tax dollars to fund benefits for the same-sex partners of state employees.  We’re being told these benefits will cost over $100,000, but many fear that number has been grossly underestimated.  The city of Aurora is debating a similar policy and they estimate it will cost them just under fifty grand a year, and that is for the employees of just one city.

Coloradans can’t afford this social experiment.

Please call the Senate main office at 303 866-2316 and ask your Senator to vote “no” on SB 88.

Let them know it is not okay to use our tax dollars in such an irresponsible way.

This message brought to you by Colorado Family Action and Focus on the Family Action.

Utah state Senator Chris Buttars seems to generate news whenever he opens him mouth because you can be sure that whatever comes out it going to be idiotic or offensive or both.  

Buttars has been making news since back in 2006, when he proclaimed that the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education was "wrong to begin with” and again last year when he voiced his opposition to an education bill by saying “this baby is black…this is a dark, ugly thing." In December he was named the “Worst Person in the World” by Keith Olbermann for his effort to make sure everyone said “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays.”

And I have a feeling that once this audio clip from Good As You starts to get around, Buttars will once again find himself in the running for Olbermann’s honor.  

ABC 4 in Salt Lake City, which first reported the story, reports that the audio comes from an interview Buttars did with filmmaker Reed Cowan for his upcoming documentary called "8: The Mormon Proposition.” In it, Buttars compares gays to Islamic radicals, compares America to Sodom and Gomorrah, that gays have no morals and that acceptance of their lifestyle will bring about the destruction of the nation. 

The entire rambling clip is over 15 minutes long, but we’ve taken the highlights and edited it down and provided this rough transcript (if the player isn't working, you can listen to the audio here):

I believe in the Constitution being something that was inspired of God and the way these people are destroying the Constitution is they’re saying the Constitution is a living document, that means it’s subject to change.  But truth don’t change, it does not change, and I won’t accept any of that.  So they say, well, marriage is between a man and a women and that’s changed, look around, look at all these combinations. Combinations of abominations, as far as I’m concerned. To me, homosexuality will always be a sexual perversion and you say that around here now and everybody goes nuts, but I don’t care.  

They want to talk about being nice, but they’re the meanest buggers I’ve ever seen. It’s just like the Muslims.  Muslims are good people and their religion is anti-war, but it’s been taken over by the radical side and the gays are totally taken over by the radical side. You don’t see the gay out there saying “let’s not do this gang.” You see them marching around with signs and everything else.

I believe the whole thing is immoral and I believe you're moving towards … you see, if you say to me “quit shoving your morals down my throat, Buttars” my answer back is “you know my morals. What’s yours?” What is the morals of a gay person? You can’t answer that, because anything goes. So now you’re moving towards a society that has no morals and there’s never been a nation that survived that’s done that.

There’s a lot of dollar costs. You take their trying to have insurance rights the same as a man and a woman. Now, when you’re married, insurance companies can quantify, we got this many married people so they run their underwriting.  You have no way to do that with gay people and you’re going to take on paying for all the extra, most often, diseases, and that’s huge. And now you, as a straight, get to share that cost. That’s what I’m talking about. Those kinds of diseases are not exclusive with gays, but they represent the huge majority.

I believe that you will destroy the foundation of American society because I believe the cornerstone of it is a man and a woman and a family.  It is, in my mind, the beginning of the end. Oh, it's worse than that. Sure, Sodom and Gomorrah was localized, this is world-wide.  You can’t tell me that something was going on in Sodom and Gomorrah is not going on wholesale right now and to a large degree among the gay community … The underbelly is they do not want equality, they want superiority.

Today's best reporting on the Right from around the web:

• Dan Savage dismembers an absurd claim from Ted Baehr and Tom Snyder that movies with "anti-communist" content are raking in big bucks from American audiences.
• Remember last week with the American Family Association was throwing a fit because a television station in Michigan refused to air its "Speechless" program.  Guess what?  Tips-Q reports the AFA head Don Wildmon just happens to be releasing a new book by the same title.   Purely coincidental, I am sure.
• Good as You uncovers something I bet you probably didn't know about anti-gay marriage zealot Matt Barber.
• Steve Benen continues to make a convincing case that Rep. Michelle Bachmann deserves the title of single most ridiculous member of Congress.
• Bill Berkowitz provides another good round-up for Religious Right opposition to a variety of President Obama's nominees.

Exodus Mandate, an organization created to “encourage and assist Christian families to leave Pharaoh's school system (i.e. government schools) for the Promised Land of Christian schools or home schooling,” is not particularly impressed with the current crop of Religious Right organizations.

You see, Exodus Mandate believes that “fresh obedience by Christian families in educating their children according to Biblical mandates will prove to be a key for the revival of our families, our churches and our nation” and, as such, it is now publically calling out the likes of Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, the American Family Association, Vision America, and Wallbuilders all of whom have failed to adequately encourage their members to flee the public school system and are thereby responsible for losing the culture war:

Chaplain E. Ray Moore issued a Report Card at the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) in Nashville, Tennessee, on Feb 10, 2009, at a news conference, on how effectively major Christian ministries and organizations support K-12 Christian education or home schooling. Nine organizations were rated, many of which have actively engaged in the cultural war in the US for the past several decades. Moore said, "Even though these organizations have been valiantly fighting the culture war, they have suffered terrible defeats. They have not been able to arrest and reverse the moral and cultural slide by protests, lobbying, voting and legislative remedies. It's time for these ministries to revisit their methodology and ask themselves if there is a biblical model for spiritual and cultural renewal." The nine criteria used to rate the organizations in the K-12 Christian education Report Card included: promoting a Christian worldview and not promoting K-12 public schools as morally equivalent to Christian and home schools.

The nine ministries generally earned high scores for promoting a Christian worldview, for promoting K-12 Christian education or home schooling and for warning about the dangers of public schools, but they received poor grades for wasting their efforts on public-school reform, on justifying keeping Christian children in public schools to be salt and light, and on promoting a moral equivalence between K-12 public, Christian and home schools. Moore said, "The failure in these criteria is largely due to the fact that some Christian ministries have not yet come to believe that there is an explicit biblical theology of Christian education in the Holy Scriptures. These same ministries have promoted a Christian worldview, and many Christian families, taking this teaching to its logical conclusion, have now outstripped the ministries."

You can see the report card here [PDF], where Coral Ridge Ministries come out on top with a grade of B:

The Smoking Gun has the sordid details:

A Fox News producer who covered Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign for the cable network is facing child porn charges after federal agents discovered photos and videos on his computer depicting "children under the age of ten being sexually abused by adult men and women."

Dan Gilgoff has written a couple of posts in response to the recent article in which Religious Right leaders complained that everyone kept calling them the Religious Right, explaining that use of the term is acceptable because it is “descriptive” and that “journalists … shouldn't abandon [such labels] just because they don't serve the political purposes of Christian Right leaders.”

A good point, but maybe we should just leave it up to the Religious Right to determine an objective, even handed name … how about something like “Pro-Family Americans?”  That’s already what they are calling themselves according to this alert from the Family Research Council that just showed up in my RSS Reader:  

And not only does President Obama plan to “exclude” them; he and “the Left” have something known as “The Agenda” that will silence them entirely and the only thing that can stop it is, of course, donations to FRC:  

President Barack Obama has unveiled his massive plan to silence the moral voices of America and reshape our country. He calls it "The Agenda."

Please stand with me now and send an immediate donation to help Family Research Council fight back.

Obama says we are divisive-because we object to immoral and dangerous behavior.

He implies that we are not patriotic-because we won't compromise our values to suit the radical advocates of the homosexual agenda.

We must be silenced, the Left says, and "The Agenda" lays out their plans to do that.

    * Hate crimes laws that could lead to penalties for Christians who publicly criticize homosexual behavior

    * Employment laws forcing businesses, even churches, to hire homosexuals (and indoctrinate employees)

    * Abolish the federal Defense of Marriage Act and other laws against counterfeit marriage

Yet most Americans disagree with the President's extremist views. Most want to:

    * Preserve the biblical definition of marriage

    * Be free to voice their concerns and Christian values

    * Protect schoolchildren from indoctrination that promotes dangerous sexual behavior

If we work together-we can stop "The Agenda."

Dozens of new congressional Democrats in Congress now represent moderate and conservative districts. They-and most Republicans-are open to our concerns.

Your prayerful support enables FRC policy experts to educate citizens and these members of Congress who can stop this disastrous plan.

So please send your most generous gift immediately. The radical homosexual activists have a champion in the White House, and they are demanding action.

Thank you for standing for faith, family and freedom. It is an honor to serve alongside you in this critical hour for our nation.

As far as I know, progressive advocates for equality generally don’t refer to work as part of an “agenda” being pushed by “the Left” in order to “indoctrinate” Americans to accept the “immoral and dangerous behavior” of “radical homosexual activists.” 

For a group that was just complaining that the phrase “Religious Right” was too pejorative, there certainly seem to be an awful lot of pejorative terms in this alert. 

For the last few weeks, the Religious Right has been going on and on about a supposedly “anti-religious” provision first “discovered” by the American Center for Law and Justice.

Bogusly claiming that the provision would prohibit religious groups from using any university facility that is renovated or repaired with stimulus funding, the Right has been warning that it would lead to religious students being barred from campus and threatening to sue to get it declared unconstitutional through a restraining order.

But then last week, it was reported that the entire section regarding funding for institutions of higher education had been stripped from the bill in order to shrink its cost and the Right seemed content to proclaim victory and move on.

Well, the final version emerged from conference and was passed by both the House and Senate last week and is now awaiting President Obama’s signature today, and guess what?  Higher education funding was re-inserted and, along with it, so was this provision, though in slightly altered form:

SEC. 14004. USES OF FUNDS BY INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION.

(a) In General.--A public institution of higher education that receives funds under this title shall use the funds for education and general expenditures, and in such a way as to mitigate the need to raise tuition and fees for in-State    students, or for modernization, renovation, or repair of institution of higher education facilities that are primarily used for instruction, research, or student housing, including modernization, renovation, and repairs that are consistent with a recognized green building rating system.

(b) Prohibition.--An institution of higher education may not use funds received under this title to increase its endowment.

(c) Additional Prohibition.--No funds awarded under this title may be used for--
      
           (1) the maintenance of systems, equipment, or facilities;

           (2) modernization, renovation, or repair of stadiums or other facilities primarily used for athletic contests or exhibitions or other events for which admission is charged to the general public; or

           (3) modernization, renovation, or repair of facilities—

                     (A) used for sectarian instruction or religious worship; or

                     (B) in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are      subsumed in a religious mission.

For all the Right’s screaming and yelling about this when the Senate refused to strip the provision from the bill, they have been oddly silent about the fact that it was re-inserted into the legislation during conference negotiations and is now about to become law.  As of this point, the ACLJ, Liberty Counsel, Traditional Values Coalition, and every other right-wing group that had been complaining about this for the last two weeks have said nothing.. 

Where is the outrage?  Where are the cries of “discrimination”?  Where are the promises of lawsuits?

If, when all is said and done, the Religious Right fails to file suit, that would be pretty shocking considering that they’ve spent the last two weeks railing against this provision as an unconstitutional attack on “religious activity at universities and colleges.”  If the Right, especially the ACLJ, does decide not to sue, that is pretty much all the evidence anyone could need that this was a phony “controversy” from the start, spread by people who fully knew that everything they were saying was simply untrue and ginned up only to try and throw a wrench into the legislative process in order to derail President Obama’s agenda.

• The scheduled airing of the American Family Association's "Speechless: Silencing Christians" on a television station in Grand Rapids, Michigan has been cancelled.
• Speaking of the AFA, they have rolled-out something called "Project Push Back" but I have no idea what its purpose is supposed to be.
• The President of the Virginia State Bar recently visited Liberty Law School and proclaimed that "the Virginia State Bar is thrilled with Liberty University" and told the students that faith and law are not contradictions.
• The Right is not happy that the Republican Governor of Utah has come out in support of civil unions.
• Sarah Palin is not amused by people making donations to Planned Parenthood in her name. Palin is also poised to name a new justice to the state supreme court and appears to be a bit boxed in, as neither of the candidates chosen by the Alaska Judicial Council meet her conservative standards, so this will definitely be worth keeping an eye on.
• Finally, Frank Schaeffer, whose father Francis was influential in the rise of the Religious Right, has penned an open letter to Barack Obama to tell him that they cannot be worked with:

As someone who appeared numerous times on the 700 Club with Pat Robertson, as someone for whom Jerry Falwell used to send his private jet to bring me to speak at his college, as an author who had James Dobson giveaway 150,000 copies of my one of my fundamentalist "books" allow me to explain something: the Republican Party is controlled by two ideological groups. First, is the Religious Right. Second, are the neoconservatives. Both groups share one thing in common: they are driven by fear and paranoia. Between them there is no Republican "center" for you to appeal to, just two versions of hate-filled extremes.

The Religious Right supply the kind of people who at McCain and Palin rallies were yelling things such as "kill him" about you. That's the constituency to which your hand was extended when looking for compromise on your financial bailout bill.

There's only one thing that makes sense for you now. Mr. President, you need to forget a bipartisan approach and get on with the business of governing by winning each battle. You will never be able to work with the Republicans because they hate you. Believe me, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are the norm not the exception. James Dobson and the rest are praying for you to fail.

We've mentioned before that new RNC Chairman Michael Steele is walking a fine line as he tries to adhere to his pledge to honor the Republican Party's right-wing platform as well as his own slightly more moderate views and desire to build bridges with moderates within the party.

And while we have seen nothing to suggest that Steele has any current plans to actually engage in any outreach beyond the GOP's anti-gay, anti-choice core, Peter LaBarbera is taking no chances and demanding that, under no circumstances, should Steele even contemplate meeting with the Log Cabin Republicans:

Americans For Truth (AFTAH) President Peter LaBarbera today urged Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele not to promote the divisive agenda of the homosexual activist group 'Log Cabin Republicans' - which has just 20,000 members nationwide -- at the expense of the huge, grassroots pro-family conservative GOP base.

AFTAH is encouraging Republicans and pro-family citizens nationwide to contact Steele and the RNC to urge them not to sell out the conservative GOP platform by courting an organization that works to undermine traditional marriage and supports anti-religious, pro-homosexual special-rights legislation.

...

"Michael Steele and the GOP need to do the math: it is foolish and impractical to risk alienating millions of pro-family, pro-life, conservative grassroots Republicans to appease a tiny homosexual special interest group with fewer members than the population of Liberal, Kansas," LaBarbera said. "If the Republican Party is to turn itself around, it must reach out aggressively to real, pro-family minorities like Steele himself -- not homosexual activists whose agenda would restrict our precious religious and First Amendment freedoms by using the government to promote aberrant sexual lifestyles."

When Steele was elected to head the RNC last month, he declared that his goal was to bring "a brand new message to the American people," and it looks like he can expect the full support of the GOP's anti-gay base ... so long as his new message in no way differs from the traditional GOP message.  

Yesterday we reported that the "controversial" provision in the stimulus bill that we have been writing about for more than a week had been dropped because the section covering spending for higher education had been cut in order to shrink the cost of the legislation.

But, just because it is no longer part of the legislation, that apparently doesn't mean that the Religious Right is done complaining about it.

For instance, the Family Research Council continues to hammer away:

Today there is new evidence that liberals will use Obama's bill to usher in a new era of religious censorship, welfare, and universal health care. Despite Sen. Jim DeMint's (R-S.C.) best efforts, the religious discrimination component still exists in the bill, which punishes schools that allow spiritual activities in their facilities.

Rick Scarborough has also gotten in on the fun:

To put it simply, Christianity is being targeted for discrimination ... it is clear that the intended effect of this portion of the bill is two-fold. First, it discriminates against and minimizes the practice of religion. Second, it attempts to keep religious institutions from being the beneficiaries of federal dollars ... The radical secularists in America are using the power of the Federal government to confiscate the funds of both Christians and non-Christians and use them to force compliance with their anti-Christ agenda.

As has Lou Engle (via email):

There are countless Christian groups that sponsor events and activities on secular campuses all around the country. This small provision, buried so no one could find it, would pressure school administrators to ban these groups, effectively destroying their ability to conduct outreach and evangelization to students who hunger for it.

These very subtle moves by anti-family forces in Congress indicate their long-term strategy to drive religious groups off campus and out of the mainstream.

We should point out that, during the conference on the bill yesterday, there was some wrangling over the fact that spending for school modernization had been cut and that some sort of compromise was reached that puts at least some of that spending back in, so it might very well be that when the final version of the bill comes out, this provision will have been re-inserted.

Not that it matters really, because apparently the Right is going to continue to complain about this provision whether it is actually in the legislation or not.

• Concerned Women for America, Operation Rescue, and the Christian Defense Coalition are already opposing the idea that Gov. Kathleen Sebelius might be Obama's nominee to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.
• Speaking of CWA, they are also opposing efforts to add sexual orientation to South Dakota's hate crime laws, saying "What about obese people or short people or bald-headed men?"
• The Pacific Justice Institute is suing a California school district for allegedly forcing a twelve year old girl to take a pregnancy test, an accusation the school vehemently denies.
• Gordon Klingenschmitt continues his crusade to defend police chaplains in Virginia Virginia who want to pray in Jesus’ name, delivering thousands of petitions to Gov. Tim Kaine.
• Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has been chosen to delivers the national Republican response to President Barack Obama's first speech to Congress.
• The National Republican Trust PAC is threatening to finance primary challenges to any of the Republicans who vote for the stimulus bill - so far, that is only three and, of those three, only Sen. Arlen Specter is up for re-election in 2010.
• Mike Huckabee says everyone needs a good Christian education because "greed caused the collapse not only of our economic system but of our ethical system."
• Finally, Alan Keyes apparently has a blog called Loyal To Liberty where he likens himself to Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill and proclaims:

I have an ominous feeling about the years ahead. With Obama, we have crossed the line that separates civil politics from civil war disguised as politics. Occupying the White House is a man known for his support and association with people for whom that line appears never to have existed. I predict that American politics as we have known it is gone. And unless we Americans wake up, more than civil politics will end up dead.

The American Center for Law and Justice, which was entirely responsible for starting the “controversy” over a supposedly “anti-religious” provision in the stimulus bill, reports that the provision, along with many others, was cut from the legislation that passed the Senate earlier this week as part of the effort to shrink the bill’s size and price tag:

As you may know, the Senate voted and approved an economic stimulus package yesterday by a vote of 61-to-37. The version that was approved underwent dramatic budget-cutting representing billions of dollars cut from a wide variety of programs that were eliminated from the final version that was approved by the Senate. Among those programs cut, billions of dollars for colleges and universities, including the discriminatory provision that we opposed.

It’s unfortunate that the Senate lacked the courage to remove this provision because of its discriminatory nature. At the same time, though, we’re pleased it was eliminated - even if for budget-cutting reasons - from the final package that was approved.

Now, budget conferees are working to reconcile that Senate-approved version with the measure already passed by the House. What comes out of this process will be the final version that ultimately will be signed into law by President Obama. It’s our hope that this discriminatory provision will never see the light of day in this final version. We will keep you posted on developments.

Indeed, it looks like the ACLJ is correct. If you look at the version of the bill [PDF] passed by the Senate, this is what you see:

It’s disappointing to see the provision go, for a variety of reasons ... but mostly because it would have been fun to watch ACLJ’s lawsuit get laughed out of court.

Anyone who have been reading this blog over the last week knows, I have spent a great deal of time trying to knock down the misinformation swirling around regarding a provision in the stimulus bill that would prohibit funds for being used to upgrade or repair university facilities when said facilities function is primarily religious.

But, despite my efforts, this fraud keeps cropping up on right-wing website, with the Christian Coalition now spreading it and the Family Research Council continuing to peddle it:

First, we know that the current stimulus legislation in Congress is a disaster for the free market economy. But, did you know that there are limitations in the legislation against religious liberty? David French of Phi Beta Cons on National Review Online finds some disturbing facts restricting religious liberty within the stimulus legislation.

The Higher Education, Modernization and Renovation component of the bill requires that the money allocated in the stimulus would not be spent on religious instruction, worship, or any department of divinity, or any building that would be devoted for religious purposes on college campuses.

So, this leaves the question: where will religious groups meet on campus? I guess this means it will be back to dorm rooms or nearby churches. However, this ban would not apply to groups, like Amnesty International, College Feminists, Greenpeace, etc., who can meet in any room on campus. Seems odd, doesn't it? I guess it is 24/7 liberal indoctrination...thanks to the Obama's stimulus plan.

FRC doesn't provide a link to French's post ... but if they did send their readers there, they'd find out that French, who happens to be Senior Legal Counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, links to our first post about this whole issue and says that we are right:

One clause indeed prohibits funding for buildings only when a "substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission." (emphasis added). The meaning here is obvious, and it clearly applies to buildings like chapels, or perhaps divinity schools, or many facilities at religious universities. It has no real application to secular, public universities that open up classroom buildings to student groups.

Another clause, however, prohibits funding for buildings that are "used" for "sectarian instruction" or "religious worship." It does not say "primarily used." It simply says "used." For People for the American Way's reading to be correct, one has to assume that the drafters intended "used" to be read as "primarily used."

I have to give French credit, as his post on this issue is the only one that I have seen that actually seeks to understand the provision instead of simply proclaiming it anti-Christian.  And he raises an interesting point regarding the meaning of the word "used" in the section that proclaims that "no funds awarded under this section may be used for ... modernization, renovation, or repair of facilities used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity."

French is correct to note that the provision does not say "primarily used" ... but neither does it say "occasionally used" and yet, for some reason, that is how the Right is interpreting it.  Despite the fact that, as Sen. Dick Durbin pointed out last week, this sort of language "has been in the law for 40 years [and] is the result of three Supreme Court decisions," the Right's interpretation of this standard, boilerplate language is that it means that any building on campus that is ever occasionally "used" for religious worship (i.e., a student group meets in their dorm for a Bible study) would be prohibited from using stimulus funds, as opposed to the more straightforward and logical interpretation that "used" refers to a building's primary function (i. e., a church is occasionally "used" for potluck dinners and Bingo nights, but its primary function is religious worship).

The language of this provision is clearly concerned with facilities in which a "substantial portion of the functions ... are subsumed in a religious mission" and it is within that context that the word "used" must be understood.  

Only an intentionally obtuse reading of this provision could lead one to conclude that the word "used" in this context was intended to mean "occasionally used" rather than "primarily used." Yet that is exactly what the Right is claiming ... and I, in turn, have had to spend hours of my life rebutting false claims that hinge entirely on their nonsensical understanding of the meaning of the word "used."

I feel so used.

Again, I feel compelled to ask why the folks at the Judicial Confirmation Network, an organization created by Jay Sekulow back in 2005 in order to press for the confirmation of President Bush's judicial nominees, is suddenly leading the charge against President Obama's Department of Justice nominees.

Considering that the JCN was founded "to ensure that the confirmation process for all judicial nominees is fair and that every nominee sent to the full Senate receives an up or down vote," I fail to understand how it has suddenly establish itself as the voice of the Right in opposing David Ogden, Elena Kagan, Dawn Johnsen, and Thomas Perrelli - especially since, until last summer, the organization had been entirely non-existent for more than a year. 

But somehow they have and now, on top of yesterday's ad in "Roll Call" blasting Sen. Pat Leahy for moving too quickly on these nominations, the JCN's Wendy Long has an op-ed in The Washington Times making the same points:

The hearing last Thursday on the appointment of David Ogden to be deputy attorney general - the spot just under Attorney General Eric Holder - showed the Obama-Leahy confirmation strategy for legal appointees whose views are far outside the American mainstream.

...

Don't expect any more transparency today, when Elena Kagan, the Obama nominee for Solicitor General, takes the stand. She has charmed many in the conservative legal community, particularly in the academic world, by hiring a couple of conservative law professors in her capacity as dean of Harvard Law School.

...

The list of far-left extremists poised to take over the Justice Department goes on: Dawn Johnsen, nominated to serve as head of the Office of Legal Counsel, worked at NARAL and the ACLU. She opposes even modest regulation of abortion, such as partial-birth abortion bans and parental notification for teenagers. She's argued that restrictions on abortion violate the Thirteenth Amendment, which banned slavery, because "forced pregnancy requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state's asserted interest." Thomas Perrelli, nominated to be Assistant Attorney General, worked with the Florida ACLU to cut off basic food and water to Terri Schiavo, causing her to die, and later expressed disdain for the American people making laws through elected representatives that undo the work of legal extremists and activist courts.

President Obama promised "change" but has so far only nominated a slew of far-left activists to the Justice Department. If this is the change he believes in, President Obama will lose the support of the sensible moderates who voted for him.

The Right has a variety of these sorts of phony front groups who give themselves principled-sounding names and claim to represent thousands of grassroots activists, only to completely disappear once the issue on which they work is no longer on the front burner.  Anyone remember the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary? That one-woman "organization" hasn't so much as issued a press release since November 2006.

And the JCN appeared to be this same sort of group, spending millions of dollars to press for the confirmation of President Bush's judges and do away with the filibuster, only to more or less fall silent following the confirmation of Justice Samuel Alito.  But then it suddenly popped-up against last summer and has slowly managed to establish itself as the leading voice of opposition to President Obama's DOJ nominees, thereby positioning itself as the go-to organization once the battle over judicial nominees heats up again.  

At some point, the Judicial Confirmation Network will change its name and mission statement once it realizes that its Bush-era "principles" are now direct conflict with its current work - but until then, we are stuck with the odd reality that a group created to ensure that the confirmation process was fair and efficient is now committed to obstructing that same process.

I honestly don't even know how to go about describing Janet Porter's latest column in which she exposes the current economic recovery efforts as part of a Communist conspiracy to take over the United States ... a conspiracy that has apparently been in the works for nearly twenty years and directly involves Barack Obama.

You see, Sam Webb, chairman of the Communist Party USA is apparently pleased with President Obama's handling of the economic crisis and, Porter reports, he might not be the only Communist rejoicing.  Because, as it turns out, a few months ago Porter received an email from her friend, Wiley Drake (you know, the guy who ran as Alan Keyes' vice president and once called for imprecatory prayers against Americans United) but she didn't write about it at the time because "it just seemed too extreme." But now, in light of recent developments, it seems downright prophetic.

As it turns out, the email from Drake was actually written by a guy named Tom Fife who claims to have regularly traveled to Russia in the early 1990's, where he reportedly met a woman who was active in the Communist movement ... and it was from her that he first heard the name "Barack."

As Porter admits, she "can't prove whether it's true or not, but in light of all that is happening, it just doesn't seem that far-fetched anymore" and then proceeds to re-print Fife's email in which he describes how he came to be informed by this unnamed Russian woman that America "will have a black president very soon and he will be a Communist."

We'll let Fife take it from here:

"Yes, it is true. This is not some idle talk. He is already born, and he is educated and being groomed to be president right now. You will be impressed to know that he has gone to the best schools of presidents. He is what you call 'Ivy League.' You don't believe me, but he is real and I even know his name. His name is Barack. His mother is white and American and his father is black from Africa. That's right, a chocolate baby! And he's going to be your president."

She became more and more smug as she presented her stream of detailed knowledge and predictions so matter-of-factly – as though all were foregone conclusions. "It's all been thought out. His father is not an American black, so he won't have that social slave stigma. He is intelligent and he is half white and has been raised from the cradle to be an atheist and a Communist. He's gone to the finest schools. He is being guided every step of the way and he will be irresistible to America."

...

She was full of little details about him that she was eager to relate. I thought that maybe she was trying to show off that this truly was a real person and not just hot air.

She rattled off a complete litany. He was from Hawaii. He went to school in California. He lived in Chicago. He was soon to be elected to the Legislature. "Have no doubt: he is one of us, a Soviet."

...

She continued with something to the effect that America was at the same time the great hope and the great obstacle for Communism. America would have to be converted to Communism, and Barack was going to pave the way.

So there you go, all the way back in 1992 some unnamed woman in Moscow knew all about Barack Obama and the intricate Communist plot to take over America ... and all it took was fifteen years and a group of borderline lunatics like Folger, Drake, and Fife to unravel it in the pages of WorldNetDaily.

I know that I should probably just start ignoring Porter, as I do all the other insanity that appears on WND, but I can't because I am still terrified by the fact that this woman was a close adviser to Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign and Huckabee himself praises her in his book, citing her as among the "new wave of leaders" who will remake the Republican Party.

Today's best reporting on the Right from around the web:

• Media Matters and News Hounds take on the Fox News and Neil Cavuto for continuing to spread lies about the stimulus bill.
• Pam's House Blend discovers that the American Family Association's "Speechless … Silencing the Christians" is set to air on local television in Grand Rapids, MI tonight.
• The Florida Bar Association has come out in support of the ruling that the state's ban on gay adoption is unconstitutional and the Liberty Counsel's Mat Staver is not happy, Good as You reports.
• Via Tips-Q, we get this piece on an Americans for Truth led protest in Ohio:
  

  Our neighborhood in old Worthington is a close-knit, tolerant and faithful community. So it was shocking this morning on the drive home from grade-school wrestling practice, to see a small group of protesters lined up outside of the Holiday Inn on Wilson Bridge Road waving “God Hates Fags” signs ...

  “Is it a homo paper?” asked a scruffy 50+ man who spoke broken English with an Appalachain twang. In one hand he waved a large sign with the anagram “Gross Anus Yearning Sodomists” (whatever in the world that means) and in the other, he had two naked Ken dolls taped together in the position commonly referred to as “doggy style” ...

  None of the protesters were guests at the hotel. None of them live in the Columbus metro area. They were picketing on behalf of the a national right-wing extremist group calling itself "Americans for Truth."

In the past, I have taken issue with the conventional wisdom that there is some sort of “new breed” of evangelicals emerging on the political scene led by figures such as Mike Huckabee or Rick Warren. As we’ve tried to point out repeatedly, just because there might be a new batch of conservative religious leaders on the scene who talk about issues like poverty or human rights, that doesn’t mean that they are any less opposed to equality or reproductive rights.

As such, I have tended to dismiss such stories and will continue to do so until there emerges a bona fide movement or organization that can demonstrate an ability to get a significant number of traditionally conservative sectors of the electorate to start embracing more moderate positions on contentious political issues.  

I don’t have much faith that this is anything we are going to be seeing any time soon … but then again, I don’t work with traditionally conservative students on a daily basis, whereas Albert Mohler of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary most certainly does.  And in this discussion with radio host Hugh Hewitt, Mohler seems downright scared that the Religious Right is on the verge of losing the next generation of evangelicals and, along with it, the culture war:

AM: I’ll tell you, the older Evangelical leadership is in danger right now of looking really old, and old not just in chronological terms, but more or less, kind of acting as if the game hasn’t changed, as if we’re not looking at a brand new cultural challenge, and a new political reality. And so I would say that the younger Evangelicals that I look at every single day, and they are so deeply committed, so convictional, they’re basically wondering if a lot of the older Evangelical leaders are really looking to the future, or are really just kind of living in the 80s while the 80s are long gone. So I think there’s a crucial credibility issue there.

…

HH: Okay, now having…I want to skip back again, focusing on this younger generation of Evangelical leaders. Do they esteem the old leadership, and by esteem, I don’t mean merely honor, but listen to them? And in this regard, well, there are usual suspects. I’m not going to run down them, we all know who they are. Do they still listen?

AM: You know, I think the honest answer to that is they listen occasionally. And you know, when you look at some of the older names, it’s just amazing what kind of generational transition we’re looking at now. Jerry Falwell has now been dead for as long as some of these people have been adults. It happens so quickly. And then you start looking at some of the other big names, they love so many of the big names. They love John McArthur and John Piper and so many others. But when it comes to many of the people who have been deeply involved in the issues that you and I are talking about, the reality is that they are not listening to them in the same way.

HH: Do they care about them? Do they care about abortion?

AM: They care deeply about abortion. And looking at the students on my campus, they are passionately concerned about abortion. They’re not just concerned about not having abortions, they’re concerned about having babies. This is a generation ready to have a much larger family than the average Evangelical family of the last twenty or thirty years. They’re pretty comprehensively pro-life. They’re afraid, however, that just being anti-abortion sends a signal that’s just not enough. And so I’m glad to say that they’re very, very pro-life, and I must give a word of warning, that among some younger Evangelicals, that’s just not true. So the ones who come here, they know where we stand on these issues. But the reality is that especially on the issue of homosexuality, even more than the issue of abortion, this is a generation that is thinking in different terms. Not necessarily about the theological or Biblical status of homosexuality, but about how we should respond to it in the culture.

HH: Well, I’ve had that said to me many, many times at the Prop 8 referendum in California, may have been the last victory for a pro-marriage agenda, because the rising age cohort just doesn’t care. Are you confirming that, Albert Mohler?

AM: I’m definitely confirming that, but not…I wouldn’t put it in the fact they don’t care. I wouldn’t say that. I would say that what you have is a group of younger Evangelicals, and I disagree with them on this, Hugh, and they know it, a group of younger Evangelicals, many of whom simply don’t think that’s the right fight to fight.

HH: Wow.

I don’t know how much of this is real and how much is just your typical right-wing “the sky is falling” rhetoric, but I am inclined to believe Mohler when he says they are losing many of these battles, especially as it pertains to homosexuality.

Granted, there could be a myriad of explanations, caveats, and rebuttals to Mohler’s assessment of what sort of transformation is taking place, if any at all.  But Hewitt and Mohler don’t seem to have any idea why this is happening, as evidenced by the fact that “they kids today are expecting the End Times and so they don’t care” is the best explanation they could come up with:  

HH: Let me ask you about a pretty controversial proposition. I’m not sure if I believe it or not. Dispensationalism, in other words, End Times theory, for those who are not in this world. Do you think that’s sapped some of the energy and purposefulness out of the commitment of Christians to politics in the here and now?

AM: Well, I think it’s part of it. I don’t think that’s a ridiculous argument at all. I think if you are focuses on the fact that you are absolutely certain that the Lord’s going to be coming imminently, very soon, and that this age is going to come to a conclusion very soon, then you’re not going to give much to investment in building a culture for the future. And I really think that is a matter of Evangelical concern.    

Actually, I suspect that it is exactly that sort of answer that is leading the current generation to ignore the “old leadership.”

Last week I wrote a post about the Right’s opposition to a handful of President Obama nominees to serve in the Justice Department and speculated that this was partially an effort to test their strength under the new administration, but also an effort to start laying the groundwork for their full-blown opposition to his judicial nominees.

The more I see them write about this issue, the more convinced I become that this is actually the case ... and that what they are really preparing for is a Supreme Court battle.  For instance, here is Ken Blackwell writing today about these nominees and why they must be stopped:

Three people in particular are getting close scrutiny this week because their names are before the U.S. Senate. Mr. Obama has nominated David Ogden, Elena Kagan and Dawn Johnsen to be deputy attorney general, solicitor general, and the assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), respectively. These positions, in addition to being three of the highest-ranking posts at the Justice Department, are also common stepping stones to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The deputy attorney general is the number two at Justice. The solicitor general is the lawyer who argues for the government in the Supreme Court when the United States is a party to a suit. And OLC issues official legal positions for the federal government.

Each of them - Mr. Ogden, Ms. Kagan and Ms. Johnsen - are committed liberals whose views on a whole range of issues are on the far left. Each of them could argue anti-gun views in our federal courts, and if any of them end up on the bench, could enshrine those views in the law books.

Right-wing pundits and activists are piling on in their opposition to these nominees, primarily David Ogden, and frequently tying the issue to the future of the judiciary and the Supreme Court.

And now the Judicial Confirmation Network has taken out an ad in Roll Call, blasting Sen. Patrick Leahy for moving too quickly and demanding that he slow the confirmation process down. While the JCN's ad doesn't mention the judiciary specifically, considering that the organization's central focus in on the issue of judicial confirmations, it is not too difficult to piece together the obvious connection:

Senator Leahy is trying to ram through the Senate confirmation process the nominations of David Ogden for Deputy Attorney General, Elena Kagan for Solicitor General, and Thomas Perelli for Associate Attorney General. Leahy's abuse of the process makes a mockery of the Senate as the "world's greatest deliberative body." The American people have a right to know about the nominees who have been chosen for the most important legal positions in the executive branch. The Senate has been entrusted with this constitutional responsibility. So why is Senator Leahy forcing a rush to judgment on Department of Justice nominees especially when the vetting process for top jobs in the Obama administration has been so lacking? What is it the Senate needs to know about these nominees that Senator Leahy prefers to brush past? What do you have to say, Senator Leahy?

Below is a copy of a full page ad that we ran in today's copy of Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper. We hope you will join us in asking Senator Leahy . . . why the rush to judgment on these crucial nominations?

What will you have to say, Senator Leahy?

Senator Leahy is trying to ram through the Senate con­firmation process the nominations of David Ogden for Deputy Attorney General, Elena Kagan for Solicitor General, and Thomas Perelli for Associate Attorney General. Leahy's abuse of the process makes a mockery of the Senate as the "world's greatest deliberative body." The American people have a right to know about the nominees who have been chosen for the most important legal positions in the executive branch. The Senate has been entrusted with this constitutional responsibility. So why is Senator Leahy forcing a rush to judgment on Department of Justice nominees – especially when the vetting process for top jobs in the Obama administration has been so lacking? What is it the Senate needs to know about these nominees that Senator Leahy prefers to brush past?

What do you have to say, Senator Leahy?

Until recently, the JCN’s mission was limited to supporting “the confirmation of highly qualified individuals to the Supreme Court of the United States [and working] to ensure that the confirmation process for all judicial nominees is fair and that every nominee sent to the full Senate receives an up or down vote.” 

But now that President Bush is no longer in office, that mission has apparently broadened and now includes weighing in on Executive Branch nominees as it seeks to position itself to lead the opposition once President Obama starts putting forth judicial nominees.

As we’ve noted before, perhaps the Judicial Confirmation Network should just go ahead and change its name, as the “confirmation” part no longer seems to apply.

• In yesterday's installment of Right Wing Leftovers we mentioned that Utah Eagle Forum President Gayle Ruzicka was opposing Equality Utah's Common Ground Initiative which would extend some legal protections to same-sex couples, saying it was a slippery slope to undoing Utah's anti-marriage amendment. But even authors of the amendment say the right-wingers are over-reacting because the amendment was "drafted very carefully to allow the extension of certain benefits."
• Tony Perkins's latest video update is, not surprisingly, dedicated to bad-mouthing the stimulus bill.
• The Liberty Counsel's Mat Staver blasts the Ninth Circuit's DOMA ruling, calling it "an opinion of an activist judge based on nothing else than his personal bias is no law at all and [that it] commands no respect."
• The Eagle Forum is angry at Sen. Kay Hagen for voting against Sen. DeMint's stimulus amendment, saying she has already turned "into a yes-woman for the intolerant secular-progressive forces in Washington."
• Gary Bauer warns Barack Obama that if his "actions lead to the obliteration of a U.S. city, the words 'I screwed up' won’t be enough."
• Did "angelic beings" save Ronald Reagan on not one, but two occasions? A new book says "yes, they did."
• Finally, Rick Warren was asked if he was surprised when he was asked to deliver the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration. He says it was entirely unexpected and that he "could name several dozen wonderful pastors who would have done a better job." Yeah, so could we.

The AP reports that legislators and right-wingers in Georgia are citing budget shortfalls as the justification for trying to fire college professors who teach things they don't like:

Upset House Republicans are mounting a campaign to purge Georgia's higher education system of professors with an expertise in racy sexuality topics as the state grapples with a $2.2 billion shortfall.

State Rep. Charlice Byrd of Woodstock took House well on Friday to announce a "grass-roots" effort to oust professors with expertise in subjects like male prostitution, oral sex and "queer theory."

"This is not considered higher education," she said. "If legislators are going to dole out the dollars, we should have a say-so in where they go."

Byrd and her supporters, including state Rep. Calvin Hill, said they will team with the Christian Coalition and other religious groups to pressure fellow lawmakers and the Board of Regents to eliminate the jobs.

"Our job is to educate our people in sciences, business, math," said Hill, a vice chairman of the budget-writing House Appropriations Committee. He said professors aren't going to meet those needs "by teaching a class in queer theory."

I can't tell you how many times over the years I have been watching the Religious Right that they have threatened to bolt the Republican Party if the GOP doesn't fully embrace its cultural and political agenda.  And then, every election season, the Right backs down and goes all-out to help elect Republican candidates to office.

Most people think that the GOP is already inexorably linked and fundamentally beholden to the movement, but apparently Religious Right leaders see it differently ... and from their perspective, if the GOP does't get its act together and start doing their bidding, then they are going to see their decade's long symbiosis soon come unraveled all together.  That, at least, seems to be what Tony Perkins is telling Dan Gilgoff.

Apparently, the latest "last straw" stems from the fact that the RNC elected Michael Steele as its next chairman, with Perkins complaining that some of Steele's statements and positions are "less than encouraging" and proclaiming that "social conservatives are not going to be banging the door down to establish a relationship with the GOP. The party leadership is going to have to show a good-faith effort" to keep them in the fold:

[S]ocial conservatives are still committed to the issues and still involved in the political process, but don't see the GOP as the only means to affect things in this culture. And to the degree that the party is not moving with them, they are not going to move with it. There is not the strong connection to the Republican Party that there once was. I'm more representative of the younger generation and I don't have as strong allegiance to the Republican Party. And to the degree that they try to avoid the values issues and put them at the back of the bus, I don't have a lot of desire to mess around with that.

...

It's quite clear that the Republicans in the last few years have tried to move away from those issues and deemphasize those issues. You saw it in the presidential election, with more emphasis on religion and its role in the public square more from the Democratic Party than from the Republicans. I'm not saying it's genuine from the Democrats. It's yet to be seen. Obama has overturned the Mexico City Policy, a clearly pro-abortion move. But the Republicans can't just assume that because social conservatives are not supportive of Democrats means they'll support Republicans.

Gilgoff then asked Perkins just when the relationship went sour:

It is something that happened after 2004, when there was a great emphasis by the Republicans and the president on the need to protect marriage. It was used to secure a second term for President Bush and to expand Republican control of Congress. And after the election, the issue was basically dropped.

That, combined with corruption that distracted the Republican Party, Mark Foley—it all added up to where people began to scratch their heads and say, "This is not the party that is really reflecting our values."

Of course, we've had two national elections since then and, both times, the Religious Right has fully supported the GOP's candidates and pressed its grassroots activists into getting out the vote on their behalf.

So one has to ask just how much longer will the Right go on supporting a Republican Party that isn't "really reflecting our values"? Of course, the answer to that question is "forever" because they have nowhere else to go.  They know it, the GOP knows it, and so does everyone else who pays attention to these sorts of things. 

Hopefully, this will be the end of this ridiculous saga, as Sen. DeMint's absurd effort to get this provision stripped from the stimulus legislation has failed by a vote of 54-43.

With the exception of Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, every Republican voted for it ... and they were joined by Democrats Evan Bayh, Kent Conrad, Byron Dorgan, Ben Nelson and, of course, Joe Lieberman:

Today's best reporting on the Right from around the web

• Bill Berkowitz chronicles the concerted right-wing effort to take down David Ogden.
• Good as You takes on Mat Staver, who says that gays are fundamentally incapable of maintaining committed relationships.
• Sarah Poser examines the Obama administration's newly announced Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
• Pam's House Blend comments on today's 9th Circuit ruling on DOMA.
• Americans United reports that Virginia legislators are coming to the resuce of police chaplains who claim they were forced to resign rather than stop praying in Jesus's name.

Earlier today I wrote about the fact that a plethora of right-wing groups were publicly and vehemently opposing the nomination of David Ogden and several others to serve in the Justice Department.  In that post, I took a shot at Focus on the Family for penning an article about the opposition entitled "Obama's Judicial Nominees Stand on Anti-Family Principles," pointing out that people nominated to serve in the DOJ are not "judicial nominees."

But now I'm wondering if that that choice of phrase, despite being inappropriate, was actually quite accurate in that it signals that the fight over these Justice Department nominees is really just a precursor to the battle the Right is anticipating once President Obama starts putting forth nominations for the federal judiciary.  Because this quote from Tony Perkins certainly makes it sound that way:

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins said Obama's latest nominations only foreshadow a series of "hard left-wing ideologues" to come.

"These people will not only be extremely influential in the application of law. They will also play key roles in filling judicial vacancies on the nation's highest courts," he said.

Perkins added that their selection shows "Obama's rhetoric doesn't meet with reality." He says the country's highest courts would now be "packed" with "left-wing judicial activists bent on imposing personal and political agendas upon the American people."

Last week, I wrote a couple of posts pointing out that the Right had more or less been saving its ammunition as it awaits the battle over judges and had been busy laying the groundwork for its coming obstruction - and now it appears as if the coordinated campaign against Ogden and the others just might be the first salvo in that fight.

Earlier this week, we noted how, after eight years of claiming that the Senate's role was to rubber stamp the President's nominees, a gaggle of Religious Right activists had suddenly discovered the importance of checks and balances and the chance to provide an opportunity for "serious deliberation" on potential appointees ... mainly because they didn't like some of President Obama's choices to serve in the Justice Department.

A lot of this initial opposition was driven by the right-wing Catholic group Fidelis, which has been targeting David Ogden with press releases and reports and the Family Research Council, which has been targeting him as a man who "has built a career on representing views and companies that most Americans find repulsive."

And now it looks like the fight against Ogden, Dawn Johnsen, whom the Right hates because she worked at NARAL, and Thomas Perrelli, whom they hate for representing Terry Schiavo's husband, has become the first full-fledged test of the Religious Right's influence under the new president:

Christian conservatives are challenging President Barack Obama's picks for top Justice Department positions, charging that past clients like Playboy taint their resumes.

The criticism comes ahead of a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing Thursday for David Ogden, Obama's pick for deputy attorney general, the No. 2 position at the Justice Department.

...

The challenge to Obama's Justice picks come as conservative evangelicals seek to limit the power of the new Democratic administration and maintain their own within the Republican Party.

Some Republicans believe a tight embrace of social conservative values turns off independents and moderates, but many Christian right leaders resist compromise and contend that, if anything, the GOP has strayed too far from its principles.

For it's part, the Right is throwing all of its standard accusations at the nominees: 

"Ogden has been an activist in the support of a right to pornography, a right of abortion and the rights of homosexuals," said Patrick Trueman, a former Justice Department official during the first Bush presidency who is now in private practice.

"It isn't so much that he's represented pornographers or that he's been a porn attorney, but it's his world view, and his world view reflects President Obama's world view," said Trueman, echoing criticism from conservative activist groups like the American Family Association and Focus on the Family.

...

Tom Minnery, a vice president at Focus on the Family, charges that through the nominations, the new Democratic administration is not depoliticizing, but re-politicizing the Justice Department.

"They take our breath away the more we learn about these people," said Minnery. "This is left-wing politicization of the Justice Department. This is not a Justice Department that looks like America."

As a side note, Focus on the Family has an article up opposing these nominees on its CitizenLink website that carries this title: "Obama's Judicial Nominees Stand on Anti-Family Principles"

Memo to Focus: people nominated to work in the Justice Department are not "judicial nominees" - people nominated to be judges are. 

Today we are starting a new feature highlighting other good posts from progressive blogs that relate to the issues we work on.  

So, without further ado: 

• The Texas Freedom Network has released it’s annual “The State of the Religious Right” report, which explains that while some “might assume the religious right’s influence [in the state] will be much weaker in the 81st Legislature ... that would be wrong … the religious right will not easily give up its long-standing influence over public policy.”

• Media Matters catches BOND’s Jesse Lee Peterson declaring that “most black Americans, 96 percent of them, are racists who (unintelligible) white Americans. And white folks feel guilty and they are afraid of being called racists.” Pam's House Blend has more.

• Good as You highlights Tony Perkins voicing concerns about new RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

• Tips-Q takes on Matt Barber's latest insanity.

• Sarah Posner points to Focus on the Family's Stuart Shepard asserting “that conservatives' failure to speak up for poor Rush Limbaugh in the face of the fascistic criticism from all those ‘wild-eyed liberals’ is like not speaking up against Nazism.”

• Finally, Dan Schultz (aka Pastor Dan) writes in Religion Dispatches that efforts to find a common ground between conservative, moderate, and liberal Christians tend to overlook the basic fact that the views of each group are often antithetical to one another and that “to think that they can be resolved in due time around the kitchen table not only underestimates their importance, it underestimates the people behind them.”

It looks like the ACLJ’s entirely bogus attack on the stimulus bill is making its way around the right-wing hemisphere – in addition to Sen. Jim DeMint, the “drop the anti-Christian provision” call has now been taken up by the Liberty Counsel:

The highly controversial "stimulus" package is a monolithic spending bill containing language designed to stimulate the narrow interests of extreme left-wing activist organizations. The latest political payback tucked away in the estimated 1.1 trillion dollar spending bill will prove stimulating to religious censors and anti-faith groups like the ACLU.

Both the House and Senate versions contain anti-faith language that will censor religion and force people of faith from the public square … President Obama supports the package, but he could still request that Sen. Reid and Speaker Pelosi stop this blatant attack on people of faith.

Mathew D. Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, commented: "The so-called stimulus bill will lead to the banning of all religious activity from all public facilities by forbidding the use of funds to improve any facility where religious instruction or worship occurs. In order to receive stimulus money our public schools will have to expel after-school Bible clubs and weekend religious meetings. People who want to speak about their faith will be unwelcome in public places. Apparently, President Obama's idea of faith-based initiatives is to remove faith from all initiatives."

The Traditional Values Coalition has also come out against the provision, citing the same bogus reasons:

Among the prohibited uses of “greening” funds is the “modernization, renovation or repair” of higher learning facilities where sectarian religious activities or services may be conducted. “The economic crisis is being used as a pretext to curb religious liberty at institutions of higher learning.  Religious activity is already scarce at most of our colleges, the Obama people want to make sure it is extinct.

The ultimate impact will be to drive religious activities out of public education altogether. If higher education institutions worry about not getting part of this federal grab bag, they’ll simply eject religious activities from their campuses so they can easily get the money.

By rejecting religion, these educators can also avoid costly ACLU lawsuits that will inevitably be filed. This section of the bill should be called the ACLU Full Employment Act since it will be a boon for their anti-Christian litigation.

Interesting, isn’t it, how the ACLJ’s false initial claim that religious groups would be barred from using university facilities under this provision has now expanded into a warning that Bible clubs would be expelled entirely and “all religious activity [at] all public facilities” would be forbidden.

It was a lie when the ACLJ said it, and it's even more of a lie now that Liberty Counsel and TVC are piling on with their own misrepresentations. 

It’s like watching a game of Telephone gone horribly awry as one right-wing group unleashes an absurd fabrication and then other right-wing groups pick it up and mangle it further. 

And now this "controversy" has worked its way up to Fox News:

Democrats in Congress have declared war on prayer, say conservative groups who object to a provision in the stimulus bill that was passed by the House of Representatives last week.

The upside of this, at least, is that it affords those who actually know what they are talking about the opportunity to point out that the right-wing outcry is fundamentally ridiculous:

The American Civil Liberties Union also defends the constitutionality of the restriction, which they say has been the law since 1972.

"It's almost a restatement of what the Constitution requires so there's nothing novel in what the House did in its restriction," said Christopher Anders, senior legislative counsel to the ACLU. "For 37 years, the law of the land is that the government can't pay for buildings that are used for religious purposes."

Every once in a while I run across things that are just so bizarre that there is nothing I could possibly add.  This article by Ben Fenwick from the OK Gazette about Oklahoma Rep. Sally Kern’s appearance at the John Birch Society’s recent “Clouds Over America” conference is one of those things:

The crowd in the banquet hall at the Character Conference Center, housed in an old Holiday Inn in downtown Oklahoma City, sat packed, rapt with attention as Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, told them she’d found it: the gay agenda.

Kern said the agenda is in a book called “After the Ball,” by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, a book named after a musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s “Lady Windermere’s Fan.” She recounted the bullet points of a secret public relations campaign to have gays accepted by the general public — step by step — with the final goal being not just acceptance of gays by heterosexuals, but eventual triumph of homosexuality as a superior lifestyle.

Among the items in the agenda, Kern said, was getting the public to view homosexuality as a matter of taste, like a preference for strawberry or vanilla ice cream. She quoted the text: “The masses should not be shocked and repelled by premature exposure to homosexual behavior itself.”

“You know,” Kern said. “I’ve done a lot of reading on this. I wish I could describe to you their behavior. I will not because I would be redder than this suit. It’s their behavior that we oppose.

“This theme of equality and freedom is the approach that the homosexuals are using today — totally perverting the true intention of what our Constitution meant. … The homosexuals get it — it’s a struggle between our religious freedoms and their right to do what they want to do.”

Around the banquet hall, Kern’s speech met with applause and calls of “Amen!” from a crowd stoked in a crucible of conspiracy and intrigue. For the whole day, the “Clouds Over America” conference, run and organized by the John Birch Society, held lecture after lecture Jan. 23 and 24 dedicated to explaining their various conspiracy-laden tenets. Here’s one — that a godless secret society, the Illuminati, has been battling against the founding of the United States of America and decent citizens to live in peaceful, worshipful freedom.

Kern called for a new “Great Awakening,” referring to a period of religious revivals from the 18th century considered precursor to the American Revolution.

“The solution is another Great Awakening, folks,” Kern said. “We need a spiritual revival, and that will only come if God’s people, especially you pastors, will stand in your pulpits and vocally preach the word of God and thus declare the Lord this sin, and preach it in love, only then does our nation have a chance of overcoming the scourge of AIDS, HIV and the devastating destruction that the homosexual lifestyle is bringing on your children and our grandchildren.”

Be sure to read the whole thing, because it just gets crazier from there, with speakers explaining that America is not really at war with Islamic fundamentalists, but rather a vast Communist conspiracy that includes the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Trade Organization, the Federal Reserve, the United Nations, and every US Secretary of State.

Earlier this week, Doug Bandow penned a piece for The American Spectator that took as its starting off point a recent edition of the Rick Scarborough Report in which Scarborough declared that “the persecution of Christianity in America has begun.” Bandow took issue with Scarborough’s hyperbole, writing a piece about how Christians are being persecuted all over the world, but not in America:

There may even be "growing hostility against religion in America and particularly against Christians," as Scarborough asserts, at least in the cultural realm. But this hostility does not amount to persecution. After all, America's outgoing president is an avowed evangelical, the Republican Party's 2008 vice presidential nominee was an outspoken evangelical, and the new president is a self-identified Christian. The last chose a high-profile evangelical minister to pray at the inaugural. Some Christians may be treated badly, but Christians are not being persecuted … not in America. Cultural and social hostility doesn't count. Christians still enjoy a privileged existence in America. We should use our advantages here to help believers in other countries who face persecution and sometimes death for their faith. Even if all we can do is pray, we must seek to be our brother's keeper.

Now, Scarborough has struck back, saying that just because the persecution of Christians in America isn’t as bad as it is elsewhere around the world, doesn’t mean that they aren’t still under attack:

Nowhere have I ever asserted that the persecution of Christians or Christianity in America is equivalent to that in many parts of the world, and I pray that I will never be compelled to say as much, but to summarily dismiss my contention that it has “begun” is to be less than fair with the facts.

Scarborough goes on to recount several of the standard right-wing horror stories they trot out whenever they are playing the victim, before finally rehashing the usual lies about ENDA and hate crimes and threats of worse to come: 

Barack Obama has made it clear that a top priority for his new administration is the passage of ENDA and Hate Crimes Legislation including sexual orientation as a special protected class.  In fact, while he was holding his hand on the Bible swearing to uphold the Constitution of the United States which guarantees freedom of religious expression, our new “Christian” President’s staff was changing the official White House website to reflect his commitment to pass new laws which if enacted, will limit my free speech as a Pastor and will “ENDA” the rights of Christian business owners from prohibiting “transgendered” people from using the restroom of their choice or choices depending on which sex comes to work in the transgendered’s body that day.

I agree that we are not now experiencing the kind of persecution that many in many parts of the world are experiencing, but ask million of Americans who work for companies who have forced them to attend sensitivity training seminars, if they feel comfortable reading their Bibles during lunch hours or sharing their deeply held Biblical convictions regarding politically incorrect issues, if they think their experiencing persecution.  Ask a Christian public school teacher if they feel persecuted during staff meeting when sex education or gay pride events are discussed.  Ask the Christian students who are being told every day that what their pastor taught them and their parents believe about creation is a lie, how they feel about persecution in America.

Shame on anyone who would dare to say that the persecution of Christians has not begun in America!  And if we refuse to speak out about it now, while we still have the right to speak, we will see the day when we cannot speak out, without experiencing REAL persecution.  Mark my word.

Once upon a time, it was an article of faith among right-wing groups that the President was entitled to deference regarding his choices to fill the various governmental positions, especially the cabinet and sub-cabinet positions, and it was the Senate's role merely to confirm or reject these nominees. 

Of course, that time just happened to coincide with President Bush's time in office ... and now that it has passed, so too apparently has that standard:

Thirty pro-life leaders and representatives of pro-life groups representing millions of Americans have authored a letter to Senate leaders opposing the fast-tracking of the next set of nominees. They say President Barack Obama has appointed people to key positions who are pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia.

According to the letter they provided to LifeNews.com, the groups are specifically opposed to Dawn Johnsen, David Ogden, and Thomas J. Perrelli, each of whom are top Justice Department picks.

Predictably, they are now concerned about the "politicization" of the Justice Department and demanding that these nominees face "serious deliberation" and be required to give "serious answers":

"If confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve in high offices within the Department of Justice, Dawn Johnsen, David Ogden, and Thomas J. Perrelli could have a dramatic impact on the state of this nation's legal order," the letter says.

"Each of these nominees has made public comments or has taken positions indicating strong support for a shift in national policy regarding the culture of life. Whatever one thinks of the culture of life, dramatic shifts in policy on such important national questions should not happen without serious deliberation ... [now] without any debate or discussion, the Obama Administration is putting forward an absolute political zealot from two of the nation's most Leftist groups."

...

The letter concludes by asking that ample time be given to question the nominees "and demand serious answers so that the American people can continue to play a part in defining the cultural fabric of our nation."

Some of the signers of the letter include representatives of the Family Research Council, National Right to Life Committee, Americans United for Life, Susan B. Anthony List, Life Issues Institute, Eagle Forum, Thomas More Society, American Values, Heartbeat International, Presbyterians Pro-Life, Culture of Life Foundation and Human Life Alliance.

Isn't it amazing how, only after they have lost control of the government, the Right has suddenly started caring about checks and balances and the need for "serious deliberation"? 

Purely coincidental, I am sure.

Imagine that you want a job running a right-wing news aggregator and came across this article about Ron Huberman being named to head the Chicago Public School system.  The article is nearly a thousand words long and, in the middle, contains this section:

At 15, while attending Lyons Township High School, Huberman made a declaration that, at first, was difficult for his parents to accept: He's gay.

"It's always difficult for kids. It was difficult for my parents at first. But they've become very accepting and very supportive," said Huberman, who lives with a partner who's a friend from college. They reconnected four years ago.

"It has given me a great sensitivity for the need to be inclusive. If I didn't grow up being part of a group that was viewed differently, I may not have that sensitivity. It makes me in tune to individuals, groups and others who are not fitting in and may need extra support."

While he has an unusual perspective on the issue, Huberman refused to say where he stands on the stalled proposal for a gay high school.

To parents who might be uncomfortable with a gay CEO running the public schools, he said, "There are always those who will look to divide us. I'm focused on what unites us. What I believe unites every Chicagoan is the need to have a world-class educational system for our kids."

Since Huberman's homosexuality is in no way the focus of the article or particularly relevant to his new position, how would scare your right-wing readers into clicking on the article?  If you answered "title it 'Man who engages in homosexual behavior to run Chicago public schools,'" then congratulations, you can now get a job running the Alliance Defense Fund's Alliance Alert site:

• Cornerstone Christian School, which is connected to John Hagee's Cornerstone Church, is suing after it was dropped from the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools' athletic league, saying it is being discriminated against because it is a religious school, while the league counters that it was dropped due to Cornerstone's "ongoing problem with illegal recruiting of foreign students for athletic purposes."
• The American Conservative magazine reports on the state of the anti-choice movement, saying it "has endured for so long precisely because it has failed" and cites offers this anecdote: "Alan Keyes soon leapt to the stage and addressed the audience of about 100 people. He compared Obama to Cain, who killed his brother; to a 'bad tree' in Christ's parables; and to Hitler."
• What do Liberty University professors do when they are not teaching? Search for Noah's Ark, of course. Archaeologist Randall Price is set to travel to Mt. Ararat in Turkey to search for it based on claims by a Kurdish shepherd who says he has seen the ark, and even climbed on top of it, when he was a boy: "They found the spot, Price said, but it now is covered by an estimated 60-foot-deep pile of boulders. Price believes the landslide may have resulted from attacks against Kurdish rebels on the mountain, or perhaps from explosives that were set off to cover up the ark."
• Finally, just let me say that I hope Andy Schlafly starts writing more posts for the Eagle Forum's blog:

Notice how Springsteen skipped his song "Born in the U.S.A." at the Super Bowl?

Bruce Springsteen is a liberal rock star who sang during the halftime of the Super Bowl last night. He has working class appeal.

Springsteen sang nearly all his top hits ... except there was one glaring omission. He did not sing "Born in the U.S.A.," one of his most popular tunes of all.

Wonder why??? The Obama mind controllers would not have been happy if he sang that title! Obama still has not proven that he was born in the U.S.A.

Ever since the passage of Prop 8 in California during the November election, there has been an effort underway to figure out just how much money the Mormon Church dumped into the effort.  For weeks, the Church denied giving more than a few thousand dollars but last week, facing an investigation by California’s Fair Political Practices Commission, the church reported nearly $190,000 in contributions.

On a related note, just last week AU reported on the influence that the Mormon Church has over the Utah legislature and now it looks like it might be expanding its reach into neighboring Wyoming, as the Casper Star-Tribune reports:

Mormons comprise more than 10 percent of the membership of the Wyoming Legislature, yet Mormon lawmakers are not known for voting as a bloc or working together to promote legislation.

That may be changing.

Mormons are taking a higher profile this session in promoting bills linked to controversial social issues including assisted suicide, gay marriage and abortion.

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are the primary sponsors of bills dealing with all three topics, and a cadre of about eight LDS lawmakers have teamed up as the original co-sponsors of six related bills.

The Mormon legislators insist that their support of this raft of bills is just a coincidence, but the Star-Tribune reports that it may also be the result of targeted lobbying efforts from the WyWatch Family Institute:

Some of the LDS lawmakers said they were approached about getting more involved in social-issue legislation at meetings WyWatch held in months leading up to the session.

WyWatch chairwoman Becky Vandeberghe said her group recruits lawmakers to sponsor and support legislation based on voting records and responses to campaign questionnaires, not on religious affiliation.

"We honestly don’t look at religion," she said.

The evangelical group Focus on the Family Action is also trying to influence some of the bills.

LDS lawmakers say they agreed to sponsor the bills for a variety of reasons, including their religious beliefs.

Mormon lawmaker Rep. Allen Jaggi, R-Lyman, a co-sponsor of several social-issue bills, said he signed on to the measures because of his "Christian values" on issues including gay marriage and abortion, not because he collaborated with other LDS lawmakers.

The WyWatch Institute is the group that is currently pressing for passage of a marriage amendment in the state and is working closely with Focus on the Family and the Alliance Defense Fund to get it passed.