Peter Montgomery's blog

NEW PAC TO FUNNEL ANTI-GAY ‘WHITE SUBURBAN CHRISTIAN REPUBLICAN’ MONEY INTO DC POLITICS

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Friday, 7/16/2010 10:40 am

The National Organization for Marriage and allies like Bishop Harry Jackson have been looking for some way to overturn marriage equality legislation that became law in the District earlier this year with overwhelming support from the city’s elected leadership. But NOM and Jackson haven’t been doing so well. On the legal front, they were handed one more major defeat this week. The DC Court of appeals rejected their claim that the Board of Elections and Ethics was wrong to prevent an anti-marriage initiative from going before voters, which the BOEE ruled would violate the city’s Human Rights Act. 

From a legal perspective, that leaves only the U.S. Supreme Court as a possible avenue for appeal, which Jackson’s lawyers at the Alliance Defense Fund say they’re “strongly considering.”   But NOM is not leaving things to the courts. We’ve reported that in recent months that the National Organization for Marriage has been pouring money into DC elections. Turns out that was just a start.
 
Now they’re planning an even bigger investment in DC politics. In an email yesterday, NOM’s Brian Brown took a break from bragging about the launch of his anti-equality bus tour across America to announce this: 
One final bit of news: Something else big has just been birthed here in this country, the D.C. Values PAC. Bishop Jackson's heroic leadership has lead to something no one has ever seen before: a coalition of black Democrats leaders and white suburban Christian Republicans to help elect pro-marriage and pro-life black Democrats in the District of Columbia. 

On Monday I was at Georgia Brown's in D.C. in a room that was 80 percent African-American leaders, including two local commissioners and a candidate for the D.C. City Council. God is making amazing things happen. Old barriers are breaking down, new ideas are springing up--and you are the ones making all of this possible.

NOM pouring $ into DC elections

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Monday, 6/14/2010 11:09 am

We noted last month that flyers sponsored by the National Organization for Marriage had been appearing on front doors around the District of Columbia. The flyers urged people to vote against every elected official who supported marriage equality in DC and is up for reelection this year.

NOM, which has been pouring money into campaigns around the country to punish pro-equality elected officials, was particularly stung by marriage equality’s victory in the nation’s capital. It has been working to overturn that victory in the courts, and it’s now clear just how much NOM is invested in trying to take down at least one pro-equality elected official.  
 
DC’s Gay & Lesbian Activist Alliance has noted a recent campaign finance report in which NOM reported paying outspoken anti-marriage-equality activist Bob King more than $60,000 for distribution of those flyers.  King is an elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner in DC’s Ward 5, where anti-marriage-equality rhetoric was strident. Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. cast what was almost certainly the riskiest pro-equality vote on the DC Council.  NOM and local anti-gay activists are trying hard to make an example of Thomas, who narrowly won a straw poll at Saturday’s DC Democratic State Convention. Thomas defeated challenger Delano Hunter, “who was well-organized and drew voters who want a referendum on gay marriage,” according to the Washington Post. According to GLAA, King was reportedly working with Bishop Harry Jackson to bus their supporters to the convention.
 
NOM has been bragging about the hundreds of thousands of dollars it dropped into robo-calls against former Rep. Tom Campbell, who opposed California’s Prop. 8 and was recently defeated in the GOP senatorial primary. But on a per-capita basis, the $400,000 NOM spent attacking Campbell pales in comparison with the $60,900 it has already reported spending in DC, with the District's September 14 primary still three months away.

Liberty U. Announces Investigation of Caner Claims

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Tuesday, 5/11/2010 1:32 pm

We recently noted the energetic conversation on Muslim and Christian blogs about documented discrepancies in the dramatic “Jihad to Jesus” life story told by Dr. Ergun Caner, head of Liberty University’s seminary. 

Just last week, Liberty broke its months-long silence with a dismissive waving away of the controversy. Christianity Today magazine reported that Elmer Towns, dean of the school of religion, “says the Liberty board has held an inquiry and directors are satisfied that Caner has done nothing theologically inappropriate.” Furthermore, Towns said, the questions raised about Caner were neither moral nor ethical issues, a claim that had the opposite of its intended effect among Baptist bloggers who had been calling for Caner and Liberty to come clean. How can publicly and repeatedly lying not be a moral or ethical issue, they asked? Towns’ response also generated a damaging story by the Associated Baptist Press. Early this week, I wrote a piece for Alternet noting that Liberty University had dug in its heels and asking why Caner wouldn’t take advantage of the path from public repentance to redemption that has been well-worn by misbehaving evangelical leaders
 
Yesterday, Liberty changed its tune and announced that Ron Godwin, the university’s provost, “is forming a committee to investigate a series of accusations against Ergun Caner, president of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary.” The brief official statement included a quote from Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr. dissing the very bloggers who have documented the holes in Caner’s story. “Liberty does not initiate personnel evaluations based upon accusations from Internet blogs,” Falwell said. “However, In light of the fact that several newspapers have raised questions, we felt it necessary to initiate a formal inquiry.”
 
But didn’t Towns say that the university’s board had already looked into it? Well, it turns out that the board “inquiry” that Towns described to Christianity Today was just a “passing discussion” at a March meeting of the board’s seminary subcommittee. It “wasn’t an inquiry or anything like that,” says Liberty spokesman Johnnie Moore.
 
 Liberty says it will complete its investigation by June 30. Stay tuned.

NOM Takes Anti-Gay Message Door-to-Door in DC

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Saturday, 5/1/2010 1:44 pm

I was looking forward to getting back to my home in northeast Washington, D.C. after a few hours among the prayer warriors at the May Day 2010 rally -- only to find tucked into my front door a flyer from the National Organization for Marriage attacking local elected officials who supported D.C.'s new marriage equality law.

The flyer focuses on the bogus "right to vote" message that NOM has been pushing since it became clear that efforts by NOM and Bishop Harry Jackson to prevent DC Council passage of marriage equality legislation were doomed to failure.

It will be interesting to see whether and how NOM reports this spending to DC campaign authorities. Because unlike a lot of NOM's anti-marriage-equality messaging, this flyer is making a direct electoral appeal, urging voters to vote against Mayor Adrian Fenty, Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, and councilmembers who supported equality.
 

May Day on the Mall: Lifting The Curse That Obama's Election Has Brought Upon America

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Thursday, 4/29/2010 1:17 pm
 
On Saturday, May 1, Religious Right leaders and public officials will gather at the steps below the Lincoln Memorial to beg God to forgive America for having elected wicked leaders like President Obama. If you can’t make it to the national mall on Saturday morning, you can watch live on God TV or via webcast thanks to the American Family Association.
 
The "May Day - A Cry to God for a Nation in Distress" event is the brainchild of Janet Porter, a Religious Right activist/conspiracy theory-promoting radio host, and member of presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee’s inner circle. Porter believes America is under a curse for having “made the choice of death” by electing President Obama (even though God TV warned us not to). She announced the May Day event at last fall’s How to Take Back America conference.  
 
Since then, Porter has lined up support from a significant number of Religious Right heavy-hitters like former Focus on the Family head James Dobson, who recorded an audio message recruiting pastors to get involved, and at least five members of Congress, including  Randy “Pray Against Health Care” Forbes (Virginia), Trent “Obama is an enemy of humanity” Franks (Arizona), Louie “Hate Crimes Act is a Pedophile Protection Act” Gohmert (Texas), and Steve “Know Your Enemies” King (Iowa).  
 

Is Religious Right’s Star Ex-Muslim a Serial Liar?

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Wednesday, 4/28/2010 11:37 am

Dr. Ergun Caner, the president of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, has been a rising star on the Religious Right, entertaining audiences at major Religious Right gatherings with his hip, irreverent stories about his upbringing as a radical Muslim and his conversion to Christianity. Just this week, his story was featured on Focus on the Family’s broadcast, “From Jihad to Jesus.”

Turns out, according to a growing chorus of critics – many of them Southern Baptists and other Christians – Caner has apparently been lying for years about his childhood and his life story. It’s hard to even summarize the extent of the deceptions being described by his critics, but they include his claims to have grown up in Turkey and to have personally involved in Islamic Jihad, when court records from his parents’ divorce place him in Columbus, Ohio when he was just a few years old. Check some of the critical websites for voluminous debunking of Caner’s colorful (and apparently fanciful) stories about  learning about America through TV broadcasts in Turkey and more. Some charges are even more directly related to his ministry, such as his claims to have debated top Muslim scholars around the world. Caner’s critics say there’s no evidence of those debates. 
 
These are no vague or reckless charges, but carefully documented exposes that draw from Caner’s sermons, speeches, and online videos, and other public records.  Liberty doesn’t seem to have responded publicly, but recently posted a revised version of Caner’s bio with disputed claims removed. 
 
Some of Caner’s critics are willing to forgive him, but only if he owns up to his massive deceptions.  Meanwhile, Caner and his supporters have been trying to get his critics to shut up. Caner himself has pulled the Religious Right’s favored religious persecution card, reportedly saying in a memo to his Liberty colleagues, “I never thought I would see the day when alleged ‘Christians’ join with Muslims to attack converts.”
 
Meanwhile, others are starting to raise questions about the extent to which Ergun’s brother Emir, who heads a Baptist college in Georgia, may have assisted in Ergun’s deceptions, whether actively or by passively allowing false claims to go unchallenged.
 
It doesn’t look like Liberty University is going to be able to shove this under the rug. Stay tuned.

Sputtering Start to Religious Right's Rebranding

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Tuesday, 4/20/2010 9:47 am

The Freedom Federation’s “Awakening” conference convened at Liberty University on April 15 and 16  with the ambitious goal of transforming America by touching off the greatest religious revival that America or the world has ever known.   Short of that, the gathering was all about rebranding the Religious Right political movement as a “multiracial, multi-ethnic, transgenerational” movement that cares about social justice (sorry, Glenn Beck). In short, the conference was meant to send a message to young and non-white evangelicals: this ain’t your father’s Religious Right.

Given the gathering’s audacious goals, and the number and firepower of participating Religious Right leaders (who it was claimed represented 40 million Americans), attendance was dismal. In fact there’s probably never been a conference with a higher ratio of featured speakers (52) to attendees (a couple of hundred at best, not counting the session that used a regularly scheduled student convocation to give speaker Sam Rodriguez a larger audience). 
 
Of course, there were plenty of signs that the old Religious Right and its focus on divisive fear-driven politics haven’t gone anywhere.  Speaker after speaker portrayed faith and freedom under relentless attack in America. In spite of repeated assertions that the movement was nonpartisan and would not be co-opted by any political party, it was clear that the top political priorities for these leaders are to help Republicans take back at least one house of Congress in 2010 and to defeat the tyrannical Barack Obama in 2012. Ending abortion and turning back progress toward equality for LGBT people are top policy priorities.
 
Despite the low turnout, the conference served as an opportunity for organizers to meet and strategize for the 2010 elections, and to try out some new messaging and public relations strategies. Here were the conference’s main themes:
  • Tyranny! Red Alert! America is in big trouble. Freedom is under attack by President Obama and his allies in Congress. And since Obama is no friend of Israel, we’re in trouble with God.
  • Fight! Big threats mean we have to be ready to fight, fight fight. The tea party movement was invoked favorably and, given the turnout, a bit wistfully.
  • Unify. A major theme of the event was the need to ignore major theological differences among speakers and focus on common values such as ending abortion and the Obama administration.
  • Diversify. The conference made a major effort to showcase the Freedom Federation’s claims to be a multiracial, multiethnic, multigenerational movement. 
  • Seek Social Justice. Watch out, Glenn Beck, these right-wingers are eager to portray themselves as a social justice movement.
  • Millennial Generation, saving America is your job.

And A Nazi New Year

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Friday, 1/15/2010 12:39 pm

One of the most notable responses to the election of Barack Obama has been the virtually endless parade of right-wing warnings that his administration is leading the nation down the path to communism, socialism, Nazi tyranny, or somehow all the above. The latest example is the eye-catching cover of the January 2010 issue of the American Family Association Journal. It’s a large bright red Nazi flag against a dark cloudy sky, with the headline, “THE EVIL LIVES.” The cover points to two related stories inside, one on secularism and another on abortion:

The secularism story, “What Hitler Knew,” is punctuated by a picture of the dictator in a stiff-armed salute. The article attacking church-state separation is essentially a reprint of the speech given by AFA’s “director of issues analysis” Bryan Fischer at last fall’s Values Voter Summit making the case that the First Amendment does not apply to the states or any entity other than Congress:

It is constitutionally impossible for a governor, a state legislature, a mayor, a city council, a principal, a teacher or a student speaking at graduation to violate the First Amendment, for one simple reason: they’re not Congress.

Perhaps Fischer apparently failed to take into account the 14th Amendment which makes the First Amendment applicable to the states.

Fischer equates Hitler’s efforts to silence Christian opponents of Nazi evils with American church-state separationists:

Secular fundamentalists in the United States know the same thing that Hitler knew. The only thing that stands in their way of the total takeover of our culture, the final removal of any mention of God from the public arena, and the shredding of the last remains of our Judeo-Christian value system, is the church of Jesus Christ.

Fischer also has an extremely narrow interpretation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause as it applies to Congress. He writes that the only way Congress can violate the First Amendment would be “to select one Christian denomination, make it the official church of the United States, and compel citizens to support it with their tax dollars.”

Apparently, according to Fischer’s dubious constitutional analysis, there would be no federal constitutional problem with a state government declaring itself a Baptist state and requiring state taxpayers to support a particular denomination. (In fairness, it should be noted that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas also believes the First Amendment's establishment clause does not apply to the states.)

According to Fischer’s analysis, it would seem that the First Amendment’s protections for free speech would also apply only to Congress and not to governors or state or local governments. If Fischer finds that the least bit troubling, he doesn’t let on.

After all the Bluster, Religious Right 'Rally' on Hate Crimes a Bust

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Monday, 11/16/2009 7:37 pm

For weeks, the most anti-gay fringe of the Religious Right has been building up Monday's "rally” in front of the U.S. Department of Justice as an in-your-face challenge to the hate crimes law and the Obama administration.  Organizers like Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission promised some fire and brimstone in order to see whether the DOJ would have the cojones to arrest them: 

"We're basically going to defy the law, and challenge it," Cass told WND. "We're going to declare the whole counsel of God, including those parts that some may consider 'inciting a hate crime' to see if the attorney general is going to come down and arrest a group of peaceful clergy exercising their First Amendment rights."
 
The parade of players on the far anti-gay fringes of the Religious Right grew seemingly by the day. Among those whose participation suggested some fireworks were Scott Lively, author of The Pink Swastika and supporter of anti-gay repression in Uganda; Rick Scarborough, a self-described “Christocrat” who railed against “Sodomites” at the recent How to Take Back America conference, and Gordon Klingenschmitt, who had responded to the signing of the hate crimes law by quoting Bible verses that call homosexuals worthy of death. Before the event started, Klingenschmitt saw my People For the American Way pin and said he wanted to make sure I had a copy of his statement. It included these verses:
 
Romans 1:32 – “Men with men working that which is unseemly…who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death.”
 
Leviticus 20:13 – “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a  woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”
 
But Klingenschmitt didn’t utter any of these verses. Neither did anyone else.   Maybe someone  decided that footage of Religious Right leaders reading scripture calling for death for gays was not, perhaps, a great public relations move. Or perhaps the presence of a dozen or more college-age counter protestors holding up signs saying “My love is legit” threw them off message.
 
Indeed, a number of speakers seemed to be tailoring their remarks to the counterprotestors, welcoming them to the event, inviting them to pray and repent along with the speakers.   Speaker after speaker insisted that they were motivated only by love for gay people and their desire to protect their right to offer homosexuals hope and God’s word.
 
Sure, we heard many of the Religious Right’s standard lies about the hate crimes bill being an effort to silence Christians, and, of course, Janet Porter waving her book about “the criminalization of Christianity.” We heard the inflammatory and inaccurate characterization of the bill as the “Pedophile Protection Act.” We heard from a Philadelphia grandmother with Repent America who in the Right’s inaccurate retelling, was arrested only for sharing the gospel with attendees at a gay pride event. We heard essentially irrelevant examples of anti-gay preachers being suppressed in other countries which don’t have the First Amendment protections Americans enjoy.  And we heard some preaching that God and the Bible say homosexuality is wrong. In other words, we heard standard and typically false Religious Right talking points about the hate crimes law, and a bit of standard anti-gay theology that is unquestionably protected by the First Amendment.
 
But there was nothing that anyone could remotely consider incitement to a hate crime, and nothing that even these speakers could say with a straight face had any chance of getting them arrested. Even Matt Barber, who typically does not shy away from disparaging comments about gay people and their supporters, gave a relatively dry recitation of the Liberty Counsel’s assertions that the law is unconstitutional.
 
So, what happened?  Did these culture warriors essentially chicken out? Did they feel outnumbered? In spite of the event being billed as a “rally,” the number of speakers gathered behind the microphone seemed to outnumber the number of people attending in support of their message. The “love is legit” folks had the most visible presence. Maybe the organizers just figured out that a “we love the homosexuals” message would play better than “God wants them dead.” 

We'll have some video posted soon.

Right Wing Law Prof Challenged on Deceptive Anti-Marriage Testimony

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Friday, 11/13/2009 12:38 pm

Among those who testified against marriage equality legislation before the Council of the District of Columbia was Washington & Lee University Law Professor Robin Fretwell Wilson.  Wilson is also a member of the Virginia Marriage Commission, which is affiliated with the Family Foundation of Virginia, a Religious Right group.

Councilmember David Catania has written Prof. Wilson a hard-hitting letter challenging her "blatant mischaracterization" and misapplication of previous court cases.  Wilson said that court cases had required that police officers be allowed to claim religious exemption to avoid having to defend a casino or an abortion clinic, but according to Catania's letter, she got the cases absolutely wrong.
 
Catania pulled no punches:
 
I am further concerned that your misrepresentations may not have been accidental or inadvertent. Rather, your purported legal analysis and ethical judgment appear to be clouded by your political agenda. You are a member of the Virginia Marriage Commission, an organ of the Family Foundation of Virginia. The Family Foundation's stated goal is to promote the ideal that marriage "is the union between one man and one woman, [and] is an institution of God and a foundation of civil society." One of your colleagues at the Foundation is Maggie Gallagher, one of this country's most virulent opponents of marriage equality. The Foundation's partners include other well known right-wing organizations including the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, and the Alliance Defense Fund. In addition to opposing marriage equality, the Foundation opposes embryonic stem cell research, opposes the use of emergency contraceptives, and promotes the defunding of Planned Parenthood. Your failure to disclose your involvement with this organization, combined with your blatant misrepresentations before the Council, leads me to question the independence of your analysis.
 
Ouch!
 
Wilson’s uber-lame response, as reported by the Washington Post’s DC Wire was to call Catania’s letter “kind of nasty” and to say “it’s possible I misstated something.”
 
You think? She may have some other opportunities to defend her flawed testimony. Here’s how Catania’s letter ends.
 
 In closing, I am concerned about the ethical implications of your behavior and strongly caution you to consider your professional obligations of competency and candor. The democratic process depends upon an honest dialogue and open disclosure. As a professor of law, you should know better.
 
And, as DC Wire notes, Catania did not restrict his letter to Wilson herself:
 
To make his point, Catania sent a copy of his letter to Robert A. Smolla, the president of Washington & Lee, and Rodney A. Smolla, the dean of the law school. He also copied the letter to the Chief Disciplinary Council for the State Bar of Texas, where Wilson is licensed to practice law.
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