American Family Association

Ever since Ron Paul won the CPAC straw poll, traditional Religious Right activists have been arguing that the event was overtaken by Libertarians and therefore did not represent "true" conservatives ... a belief that was only reinforced by the fact that Young Americans for Freedom's Ryan Sorba was booed by the audience for his attack from the stage on the conservative gay group GOProud.

For decades, CPAC has been the conservative gathering in Washington, but this year a man who for years had been relegated to the sidelines of the movement suddenly won the event's straw poll thanks largely to the support from Tea Party activists, which re-exposed a basic rift between the economic conservatives and social conservatives that in recent years the movement has been trying hard to bridge ... apparently without much success:

The rise of a new conservative grass roots fueled by a secular revulsion at government spending is stirring fears among leaders of the old conservative grass roots, the evangelical Christian right.

A reeling economy and the massive bank bailout and stimulus plan were the triggers for a resurgence in support for the Republican Party and the rise of the tea party movement. But they’ve also banished the social issues that are the focus of many evangelical Christians to the background.

And while health care legislation has brought social and economic conservatives together to fight government funding of abortion, some social conservative leaders have begun to express concern that tea party leaders don’t care about their issues, while others object to the personal vitriol against President Barack Obama, whose personal conduct many conservative Christians applaud.

“There’s a libertarian streak in the tea party movement that concerns me as a cultural conservative,” said Bryan Fischer, director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy at the American Family Association. “The tea party movement needs to insist that candidates believe in the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage.”

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There’s no centralized tea party organization, and anecdotes suggest that many tea party participants hold socially conservative views. But those views have been little in evidence at movement gatherings or in public statements, and are sometimes deliberately excluded from the political agenda. The groups coordinating them eschew social issues, and a new Contract From America, has become an article of concern on the social right.

The contract, sponsored by the grass-roots Tea Party Patriots as well as Washington groups such as FreedomWorks and Americans for Tax Reform, asks supporters to choose the 10 most important issues from a menu of 21 choices that makes no mention of socially conservative priorities such as gay marriage and abortion.

“They’re free to do it, but they can’t say [the contract] represents America,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, a veteran of the Christian right. “If they do it they’re lying.”

Groups such as FreedomWorks, said Perkins, bring a libertarian bias that doesn’t represent the “true tea parties.”

As we noted a few weeks ago, social conservatives like Perkins have long been at war with Tea Party/economic conservatives like Dick Armey, but had recently swallowed their pride and linked up with Armey's FreedomWorks in an attempt to get in on the Tea Party activism which Armey's activism has come to represent:

Tea party activism is so entirely driving the right-wing movement at the moment that the most influential Religious Right organization is willing to co-host an event with a group lead by a man who publicly and repeatedly insulted them as stupid, shallow demagogues just to get in on the action.

If that doesn't tell you just where the Religious Right fits in to the conservative movement, I don't know what does.

And now you have Perkins claiming that FreedomWorks doesn't represent the "true tea parties," which is laughably pathetic and just goes to prove, as we have been arguing all along, that the Religious Right is desperately trying to co-opt the Tea Party narrative and graft their own religious agenda on to a movement that, from its founding, has had no real interest in such issues.

While it is quite common for Religious Right leaders to root their public policy positions in Biblical teachings, they generally refrain from citing chapter and verse as the literal framework for our laws and regulations. But twice in the last week, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association had done just that. 

He started out by blaming the death of a trainer at Sea World on the fact that the Bible is too often ignored:

If the counsel of the Judeo-Christian tradition had been followed, Tillikum would have been put out of everyone's misery back in 1991 and would not have had the opportunity to claim two more human lives.

Says the ancient civil code of Israel, "When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner shall not be liable." (Exodus 21:28)

So, your animal kills somebody, your moral responsibility is to put that animal to death. You have no moral culpability in the death, because you didn't know the animal was going to go postal on somebody.

But, the Scripture soberly warns, if one of your animals kills a second time because you didn't kill it after it claimed its first human victim, this time you die right along with your animal. To use the example from Exodus, if your ox kills a second time, "the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death." (Exodus 21:29)

And today he is back,  making "The Biblical Case For the Death Penalty" which consists of several Biblical citations aimed at making the case that God supports the death penalty ... but it also contains this remarkable passage declaring that our criminal justice system ought to operate on "biblical standards of evidence": 

There is still no evidence that an innocent man has ever been executed in the U.S. But one of the reasons we occasionally find the innocent convicted of other crimes is that we have abandoned biblical standards of evidence. In Israel’s civil code, no one could be executed based on circumstantial evidence, or on the evidence of just one witness.

“On the testimony of two or three witnesses a man shall be put to death, but no one shall be put to death on the testimony of only one witness" (Deuteronomy 17:6). Ignoring this standard of evidence is how innocent people wind up convicted for crimes they did not commit. It goes without saying that capital cases should require that the highest standards of evidence be met.

Given that Fischer believes our laws ought to literally be based upon the rules set down in the Bible, it raises some questions about this series of posts he wrote a few weeks back about how "homosexual behavior" should be against the law.

Considering that Fischer explicitly advocates the idea that our current laws ought to be built upon Old Testament rules and regulations and thinks that gays ought to be punished for their "criminal sexual conduct," it is not unreasonable to wonder if he would support efforts to make our legal code conform to Leviticus 20:13.  And if not, why? 

Presumably, Fischer would stand by his claim that when he says it should be illegal, he merely believes that gays should be treated exactly the same as intravenous drug abusers (whatever that means) ... but that seems rather inconsistent. After all, if Fischer thinks that our laws regarding issues like animals and standards of evidence should conform to Biblical dictates, then why not our laws regarding gays? 

By now, we are all used to out-of-state Religious Right groups descending on places like Maine, Washington, DC, and elsewhere in order to set up shop in their nonstop effort to fight marriage equality ... but I have to admit that I never expected them to start exporting their efforts abroad.

But here they are, setting their sights on now fighting marriage equality in Mexico:

In response to a move to institute same-sex marriage in the Federal District which includes Mexico City (on March 4), more than 120 pro-family/pro-life leaders from 35 countries have signed the "World Congress of Families Leadership Petition To Save Marriage In Mexico City."

The Petition notes that "Mexico's Constitution defines marriage as between a man and a woman." Further, that all social ills begin with the decline of the family. Also "marriage substitutes ... undermine marriage and the family." The Petition observes that "children need both a mother and a father" and that those raised by two men or two women are "psychologically and socially disadvantaged."

The Petition calls on the government of Mexico City to refrain from implementing same-sex marriage and demands that the issue be decided at the national level, "with due regard to the nation's religious traditions, the wishes of the Mexican people and the needs of children and families, and consistent with Mexico's Constitution." Click here (www.worldcongress.org/special/wcf.mexpetsig.1002.pdf) to access the full Petition along with a list of signers.

U.S. signers (signing as individuals) include: Gary Bauer (American Values), Allan Carlson (World Congress of Families), Tom DeLay (former Majority Leader, U.S. House of Representatives), Joseph Meaney (Human Life International), Tony Perkins (Family Research Council), Michele Velasco (Priests for Life), Don Wildmon (American Family Association), Wendy Wright (Concerned Women for America), Maggie Gallagher (National Organization for Marriage), Dr. Paige Patterson (Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary),Yuri Mantilla (Focus on the Family) and Dr. Jerry Newcombe (Coral Ridge Ministries).

Last week we posted this video of California Young Americans for Freedom's Ryan Sorba blasting CPAC organizers for allowing the gay conservative group GOProud to serve as a conference co-sponsor:

Not surprisingly, Sorba is now being hailed as a hero by the likes of Peter LaBarbera:

I am so proud of this young man, Ryan Sorba of California Young Americans For Freedom, for having the guts to hold CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, accountable for allowing a homosexual activist group, GOProud, to sponsor its conference. Organized homosexuality has no part in a truly “conservative” movement. We need a few dozen more Ryan Sorbas in our pro-family movement to put the “queer” activists on their heels for a change – instead of constantly being put on the defensive by a perversion lobby that equates sexual misbehavior and gender confusion with “civil rights.

The AFA's Bryan Fischer likewise praised him:

Sorba showed the courage of his convictions by simply declaring the truth. Said Sorba, "Civil rights are grounded in natural rights, and natural rights are grounded in human nature...and the intelligible end of the reproductive act is reproduction...civil rights, when they conflict with natural rights, are contrary..."

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Sorba was certainly right to condemn CPAC for this move. The bottom line here is if conservatives are looking for an annual convocation of genuine conservatives - those who are fiscal, national security and social conservatives - the place to be is the Values Voter Summit.

VVS, sponsored each fall by the Family Research Council and the American Family Association, will never waver on the truth that protecting one man - one woman marriage is the most fundamental conservative value of all.