Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 10/31/2011 4:41 pm
Today on Focal Point, after discussing the Supreme Court’s announcement today that it won’t hear an appeal regarding the placement of crosses on Utah state highways, Bryan Fischer said that he has concluded that progressives are driven by a demonic “dark energy.” The American Family Association spokesman, who earlier argued that gays and Islamists are powered by the “spirit of anti-Christ” and the “same dark energy” and that “liberals hate God,” said that this “dark” spirit is behind the entire progressive movement.
Fischer said that progressives “hate religious liberty” and “hate freedom” and solely seek to “destroy” everything God has condoned. Fischer said that the “energy that is animating the progressive mindset” does not come from God but that there is an opposing “dark energy behind that is out to destroy everything that God is for.” He went on to compare progressives to “a juvenile delinquent who gets a malicious kind of pleasure out of just destroying stuff,” concluding, “There is something mindless and irrational and dark about the energy that motivates the liberal movement in America, it’s not a good thing, and right now they’ve got tremendous momentum in our country and they are shredding our moral fabric.”
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 10/31/2011 3:20 pm
Last night, Politico broke the news that during Herman Cain’s tenure as director of the National Restaurant Association in the late 1990s, two women left the trade association after settling sexual harassment claims against Cain. Cain has since denied the charges, accusing the media of leading a “witch hunt” against him and responding to one reporter by asking, “Have you ever been accused of sexual harassment?”
Like clockwork, the Right’s major media critics are rallying to Cain’s defense.
Brent Bozell of the Media Research Council even tied the allegations against Cain to the discredited accusations that Bill Clinton raped Juanita Broaddrick when he was attorney general of Arkansas. Bozell argues that while the Cain story is a “hit piece,” the media should have given more coverage to the Broaddrick allegations:
Sadly, Herman Cain’s predictions have come true. In May he stated that he was ‘ready for the same high-tech lynching that [Clarence Thomas] went through -- for the good of this country.’ That's what Politico is doing with its unsubstantiated and thoroughly hypocritical hit piece against him. Anyone in the press that gives this story oxygen is equally hypocritical.
In the eyes of the liberal media, Herman Cain is just another uppity black American who has had the audacity to leave the liberal plantation. So they must destroy him, just as they tried destroying Clarence Thomas. The richest irony here is that the same media that refused to cover evidence of an alleged rape by a state Attorney General who became President now are running stories based on unnamed sources, about offenses that aren’t a fraction as grave. But one was a liberal Democrat, the other a conservative Republican -- hence the double standard.
You know, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, folks. After all of these years, none of us should be surprised, but I still am. Look at how quickly what is known as the mainstream media goes for the ugliest racial stereotypes they can to attack a black conservative. You know who's laughing himself silly today is Bill Clinton. (imitating Clinton) "Yeah, I really did it. Ha-ha. They praised me and they went as far out of their way as they could. Even my old buddy Carville is out there and he's saying, 'Look what happens when you drag a dollar bill through a trailer park, you get Paula Jones.' I have everybody defending me and they're going after this black guy, and they're going after him with some of the ugliest racial stereotypes I have ever seen. That's how our side does it; we get away with it. I just love it. I love watching it."
What's next, folks? A cartoon on MSNBC showing Herman Cain with huge lips eating a watermelon? What are they gonna do next? No, Snerdley, I'm not kidding. The racial stereotypes that these people are using to go after Herman Cain, what is the one thing that it tells us? It tells us who the real racists are, yeah, but it tells us that Herman Cain is somebody. Something's going on out there. Herman Cain obviously is making some people nervous for this kind of thing to happen.
Not to be outdone, Ann Coulter said on Fox News that the left is twisting civil rights laws that were meant “to protect blacks from Democrats from the South” to help “white women from Scarsdale”:
“It’s outrageous the way liberals treat a black conservative,” she told Geraldo. “This is another high-tech lynching.
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Nothing liberals fear more than a black conservative. Ask Allen West. Ask Michael Steele. Ask Clarence Thomas. And even what the allegations are here, I mean, just shows you how the civil-rights juggernaut has gone off the rails. The idea of civil rights laws to begin with ironically was to protect blacks from Democrats from the South who won’t protect them. Now it’s you know, white women from Scarsdale who say, ‘Oh, I don’t like that he called me honey.’” Coulter also questioned some of the details of the report and if they merited the definition of harassment.
“It’s not groping, it’s not touching or demanding sex,” Coulter said. “It’s that he had remarks that they found inappropriate. One is he had inappropriate gestures that were not overtly sexual. Well, what were they then? This isn’t dropping your pants and saying ‘kiss it.’ This is an outrageous attack on a black conservative who is doing extremely well and will be our vice-presidential candidate.”
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 10/31/2011 2:10 pm
In a column today, The Alliance Defense Fund’s David Cortman called New York City’s comprehensive sex education plan a case of “inmates running the asylum.” The city is “encouraging schools to use two vetted, evidence-based, age-appropriate, comprehensive sex ed curricula: HealthSmart and Reducing the Risk,” which “are providing the curricula for free, and offering training and technical assistance to schools on the implementation process.” The programs teach abstinence, but since they also include lessons about safe sex, right-wing groups like the ADF are enraged. Cortman argues that the highly reputable program is essentially “an orchestrated public school porn push”:
Nearly every week, I come across an article where parents in some community are in an uproar over school districts promoting inappropriate sexual materials to our kids. Whether it’s related to homosexual behavior or other age-inappropriate sexual issues, there seem be school districts across the land intent on sexualizing our kids.
Honestly, it’s as if there’s an orchestrated public school porn push taking place.
This week’s example can be found in a New York Post article concerning New York City schools. Under a mandatory “sex ed” curriculum, the department of education wants middle and high school students taught their version of the birds and the bees.
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And look at what else they want to teach our 11 and 12 year olds – the students will be given “risk cards” to rate the “safety” of several activities, which include intercourse with a condom, mutual masturbation, oral sex and anal sex. (Did I mention that this was for 11 and 12 year olds?)
What about teenagers in high school? It gets worse. They’ll be required to go to stores and study condoms – brands, prices and features. And they’ll be referred to wholesome resources like Columbia University’s Go Ask Alice web site, which includes discussions on different sexual positions, sadomasochism, phone sex, porn stars and bestiality. Not kidding.
The alleged “justification” for this porn push, I mean “sex ed,” is to curb unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. Really? Since when does telling kids to have sex reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies and STDs?
In reality, it appears to be just another vehicle the government can use to sexualize our children.
Unsurprisingly, Cortman’s column is more grounded in right-wing ideology than factual accuracy.
Natalie Ravitz of the New York City Department of Education writes, in response to a report in the New York Post, that teenagers aren’t referred to Go Ask Alice or that middle school students will receive “risk cards”:
For example, contrary to what The New York Post reported, the risk card activity that 11 and 12 year olds will supposedly be doing is actually one of the lessons we removed from HealthSmart because we didn't think it was age-appropriate.
Another error in their reporting -- New York City DOE does not refer teens to resources such as Columbia University's GoAskAlice.com website. GoAskAlice.com is listed in teacher materials as one of many in a list of possible resources that teachers can utilize for tips on answering questions on sexuality. We do not direct students to the website. But far be it for facts to get in the way of a good "XXX" headline.
Reducing the Risk is a research-based sex risk reduction curriculum that is shown to help delay the initiation of sexual intercourse, increase the use of contraception among teens who do initiate sexual intercourse, and increase parent-child communication about abstinence and contraception.
Both HealthSmart and Reducing the Risk emphasize that abstinence is the best way to avoid risk. Students are encouraged to talk to their families about these topics in the context of their family values. They both state that students should use protection correctly and consistently if they currently are or will choose to become sexually active later in their lives.
Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Monday, 10/31/2011 1:35 pm
Daniel Avila is the self-described "marriage guy" for the Catholic bishops. More formally, he is the policy advisor for marriage and family to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops' Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage. He thinks people are gay because Satan was messing around with them while they were in their mothers' wombs. God, he says, has nothing to do with it.
Therefore, whenever natural causes disturb otherwise typical biological development, leading to the personally unchosen beginnings of same-sex attraction, the ultimate responsibility, on a theological level, is and should be imputed to the evil one, not God.
Writing in The Pilot, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston, Avila cites one scientist’s theory that homosexual orientation is the result of fluctuations in maternal hormones. To that thesis, he adds a gigantic leap: the devil must be doing it.
In other words, the scientific evidence of how same-sex attraction most likely may be created provides a credible basis for a spiritual explanation that indicts the devil. Any time natural disasters occur, we as people of faith look back to Scripture's account of those angels who rebelled and fell from grace. In their anger against God, these malcontents prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. They continue to do all they can to mar, distort and destroy God's handiwork.
Avila gave no hint of his satanic origin theory of homosexuality when he spoke at the Values Voter Summit in October, though it (and the reference to natural disasters) does sound like the kind of thing one would hear from anti-gay conservative evangelicals. At the Values Voter Summit, Avila urged people not to accept that marriage equality is inevitable. He claimed that anti-equality forces in Massachusetts are building political strength toward repeal of marriage equality, a notion rejected out of hand by equality advocates familiar with the state.
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 10/31/2011 11:15 am
In January of last year, Lisa Miller fled the country, likely to Central America, with her daughter Isabella after refusing to obey a court-ordered custody arrangement that gave custody to her former partner Janet Jenkins. A Mennonite pastor was recently arrested in connection with the kidnapping, and the Associated Press reports that Miller “appears to have had the support in the Mennonite community outside [Nicaragua’s] capital of Managua.” Andrew Harmon of The Advocate reports that the charges against the pastor, Timothy Miller (no relation), have now been dropped as he has agreed to cooperate with the kidnapping investigation:
In a stunning development, government attorneys have dropped charges against a Mennonite missionary accused of aiding in the kidnapping of a young girl at the center of a high-profile child custody case.
Though the reason for the decision is not yet clear, documents filed in federal court late Friday indicated that Timothy “Timo” Miller, who was arrested in April and later charged with aiding and abetting in the international kidnapping of Isabella Ruth Miller-Jenkins, is cooperating with the ongoing investigation.
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In the Friday order, U.S. Attorney Tristram J. Coffin dismissed the grand jury indictment against Timo Miller in the kidnapping.
“In light of Timothy Miller’s role in the international parental [kidnapping], and his agreement to cooperate with the investigation of the United States government, including an agreement to return to the United States and to provide truthful testimony as requested in any proceedings in this matter, further prosecution is not in the interests of the United States at this time,” the order, signed by Coffin and U.S. district judge Christina M. Reiss, read.
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Lisa Miller entered into a Vermont civil union with Jenkins in 2000, one that ended in 2003. Following the break-up, she moved to Virginia with Isabella, joined an evangelical church, and began reading books on ex-gay reparative therapy. Miller was later represented in custody proceedings by the social conservative legal group Liberty Counsel, but was ordered to transfer full custody of Isabella to Jenkins after she repeatedly refused to grant her former partner court-ordered visitations. Liberty Counsel attorneys Mathew D. Staver and Rena Lindevaldsen have said that they have not had contact with Miller since her disappearance and did not advise her to break the law, the New York Times reported earlier this year.
According to the April FBI affidavit, Victoria Hyden, an administrative assistant at the Liberty University School of Law, had been asked by her father "to disseminate a request to get Lisa Miller supplies" in Nicaragua, where she and her daughter had allegedly been staying at a beach house owned by Hyden’s father. Liberty Counsel has offices on Liberty University’s Lynchburg, Va. campus.
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 10/31/2011 11:05 am
With few Mississippi politicians speaking out against a proposed “personhood” amendment on the state’s ballot next week, Personhood USA is hoping that the Magnolia State will be the first to adopt its radical anti-choice legislation, which has been resoundingly defeated multiple times in Colorado. Personhood USA’s Keith Mason said on Friday that Mississippi’s Initiative 26, “looks like it’ll be the first one to pass in this country.”
Mississippi already has some of the most restrictive anti-choice laws in the United States. But opponents of the personhood initiative have started succeeding in educating voters over the far-reaching consequences of the proposed law, which would not only criminalize abortions without exceptions for rape, incest or health of the mother, but also potentially ban certain forms of birth control, the treatment of ectopic and problem pregnancies and in-vitro fertilization. One opponent of Initiative 26 said that polling shows that the more voters learn about the full impact of Initiative 26, the less likely they are to support it: “It’s the largest movement on numbers I’ve seen, in terms of the undecideds. It reverses the position…They’ve given us all the ammunition we need to defeat it.”
On Friday, Rachel Maddow discussed the grassroots campaign to defeat the personhood amendment and investigated the amendment’s radical roots – specifically, the role of Personhood Mississippi’s leader, Les Riley. As Maddow noted, Right Wing Watchfirst uncovered that Riley previously blogged for a secessionist group that wanted to create an independent theocratic state in South Carolina. In addition, Riley heads Mississippi’s far-right Constitution Party and is a past member of the neo-Confederate League of the South.
Maddow had as her guest Cristen Hemmins, who shared her story as a rape survivor who twenty years ago was kidnapped and raped by two men who shot her when she tried to flee. Hemmins told the Huffington Post that one of the bullets pierced her uterus, but if she had gotten pregnant and ifthe personhood law had been in effect at the time, she would have been prohibited by law from terminating the pregnancy.
But according to Christian researcher Jill Martin Rische, who co-authored The Kingdom of the Occult with her father, the evangelist Walter Ralston Martin, Halloween actually has Christian roots. While Rische laments what the holiday has become in contemporary America, she told Christian broadcaster Janet Parshall earlier this month that the day is not in fact from the occult:
Rische: I started searching for what Halloween was and oh, ran across some very fascinating thing, the most fascinating of all is, recently, over the last ten to fifteen years, secular historians’ views of Halloween have changed. They used to promote the fact that this was a pagan holiday and that the Church took it over to wipe out what the pagans were doing and you’ll find this all over the place, all over the net, all over different sites, a lot of information that says this is a pagan holiday that was taken over by the Church. But in reality, you have these scholars now, some from Harvard and other places that have gained a lot of respect, big names, saying that this is not true. They’re saying that there is no historical evidence whatsoever for the witches’ holiday of Sowan. None.
It was the Church actually, there was more evidence for the Church, and this relates to All Saints Day. Now as far as being celebrated all over the world, there were different feasts that were celebrated and there is evidence that there were feasts celebrating the beginning of winter when animals were killed and there was a lot of partying, but again there is no evidence for what went on during that time. None. So it’s all kind of been lumped together under something bad but really All Hallow’s Eve, which comes before All Saints Day the First of November, was meant to be a great time of celebration, celebrating the lives of those who have really lived for Christ and often have given their life.
And Green had some stiff competition in the regard as host Kirk Cameron - yes, that one - tried to stump the audience with a trick question by asking if they knew the difference between the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and which one contained the phrase "four score and seven years ago."
The answer, of course, is that neither document contains that phrase, which Cameron admitted ... before mistakenly claiming that it appeared in the Emancipation Proclamation when, in actuality, is was the opening line of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address:
