Posts on Media Research Center

Ben Stein’s anti-evolution attack film, “Expelled,” has finally arrived, grossing $3 million over the weekend, thanks to a church-based roll-out by the marketers that brought you “The Passion of the Christ.” Critics have savaged the documentary—which claims widespread persecution of creationists in academia and warns of a direct link between the theory of evolution and the Holocaust—as a dishonest work of propaganda, but, not surprisingly, the movie has a lot of fans among the Religious Right.

“Expelled” has been promoted heavily in right-wing media this month. Stein appeared on Focus on the Family radio, where the movie received the “enthusiastic” endorsement of James Dobson. Producer Mark Mathis appeared on WallBuilders Live, the radio show of premier church-state integrationist David Barton, to discuss “the persecution of the many by an elite few.” Rush Limbaugh exuberantly promoted it on his show; apparently, the movie taught him that “Darwinism, of course, does not permit for the existence of a supreme being, a higher power, or a God.”

Stein was also interviewed by the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow, while executive producer Logan Craft hit WorldNetDaily. Baptist Press, the official outlet of the Southern Baptist Convention, featured an op-ed by Stein and a series of articles pushing the film. The producers gave a private screening to Brent Bozell of the far-right Media Research Center. (He loved it.)

“Expelled” is also featured by the late D. James Kennedy’s Coral Ridge Ministries, which offers its own product line equating Darwin and Hitler. While some “Expelled” cheerleaders express sympathy for the “Intelligent Design” advocates who have been “persecuted” supposedly (the National Center for Science Education has their realistic back-stories here), most on the Right seem to be especially enchanted by the film’s reliance on a half-baked linking of evolution to Nazism and Stalinism.

“Expelled,” wrote World magazine editor and faith-based initiatives architect Marvin Olasky, “rightly equates Darwinian stifling of free speech with the Communist attempt to enslave millions behind the Berlin Wall.”

The real question is: Did Darwinism bulwark Hitlerian hatred by providing a scientific rationale for killing those considered less fit in the struggle for survival?

The answer to that question is an unambiguous yes.

Richard Weikart of the “Intelligent Design” group, the Discovery Institute, defended the Darwin-Hitler connection as critical: “[W]hat is most objectionable about the Nazis' worldview? Isn't it that they had no respect for human life?” Weikart, who wrote a book entitled “From Darwin to Hitler,” added, “the Nazis' devaluing of human life derived from Darwinian ideology....”

Gary DeMar of American Vision was so inspired he branched out on his own, linking evolution to the fundamentalist polygamist cult that’s been in the news recently.

Given the worldview shift that has taken place in America, none of this is of any consequence. Evolutionary and atheistic assumptions are standard worldview thinking in every public school classroom in America. So then, why is it wrong with having forced sex with young girls? It’s evolution in action. …

The secularists should be proud of what these polygamists are doing. They are confirming the evolutionary thesis of Dawkins and his selfish gene hypothesis.

Media Research Center activist accusing "Harry Potter" author of pushing "hip, kaleidoscopic sexual deviancy that is engulfing us from every which way" in revealing gay wizard.

A few years ago, anti-gay activists found themselves having a rough time in their attempts to vilify the gay penguins of Central Park Zoo in New York, but it seems they are always looking for ever-more sympathetic targets.

“There’s good news and bad news in the world of children’s books,” writes Robert Knight, head of the Media Research Center’s Culture and Media Institute, adding that the “good news” involves banning books—a book about penguins, no less:

First, the good news: And Tango Makes Three, a picture book for 4- to 8-year-olds about two penguins who are into homosexual “parenting,” is the “most challenged” book on the American Library Association’s (ALA) Banned Books Week list.

This means some parents are still on the job and are not turning their children over to the tender mercies of the Free Sex Lobby, which effectively runs the ALA.

So, what’s the “bad news,” you ask? According to Knight, formerly a spokesman for Concerned Women for America, it’s that fewer books are being banned, thanks to those (supposedly sex-crazed) librarians and their 25-year campaign against censorship.

One of our correspondents sent this report from the first day of the Family Impact Summit in Florida:

The first panel's topic was "The Homosexual Agenda," and Peter Sprigg, vice president for public policy at the Family Research Council, gave his talk with the aid of a PowerPoint presentation purporting to outline the "Elements of the Agenda." Sprigg lectured the crowd about how “militant gay rights activists” were going about crossing off agenda points, and spoke at length about the gay rights activists' movement to "indoctrinate every student from kindergarten to 12th grade." 

While Sprigg gave the usual compassionate-sounding phrases of the anti-gay movement—with statements like, "We desire the best for homosexuals, and desiring the best for someone and acting to bring that about is the essence of love…"— he "affirmed" the state of Florida for having the strongest prohibition against adoption by gay couples. He made the claim that "most children raised by homosexuals are the result of previous heterosexual relationships," and proceeded to pontificate about how this "undermines the notion that homosexuality is something fixed from birth and cannot change—there are very few homosexuals who have never had a heterosexual relationship."

A CNS News article on the Maryland marriage ruling refers to openly gay State Sen. Richard Madaleno as "an admitted homosexual."

Terence Jeffrey, long-time editor of Human Events, is taking over as editor-in-chief of the Cybercast News Service, which is a project of the Media Research Center: "I am honored to join CNSNews.com. Its ability to debunk liberal bias by delivering legitimate news is unsurpassed. I look forward to seizing new opportunities to perpetuate the mission of Cybercast News Service and the Media Research Center."

In anticipation of Al Gore’s July 7th Live Earth concerts, Brent Bozell, president of the right-wing Media Research Center, issued a statement chastising NBC for televising the event: 

“This isn’t just a big wet kiss to Al Gore and his left-wing agenda, it’s a shameless acknowledgement of NBC’s bias… They might as well re-name it 'Gorestock 2007.' It’s tough to deny what comes from the horse’s mouth. NBC is a self-proclaimed liberal cheerleader.”

If one didn’t know better, one might think Bozell was calling for the revival of the Fairness Doctrine, which the FCC has not enforced since the 1980s, requiring equal broadcast time on television and radio for differing sides of political issues to ensure that the issue receives fair and balanced treatment.

But that can’t be the case since many right-wing groups, including Bozell’s Media Research Center see it as a way to silence right-wing radio. In an earlier press release commenting on the Fairness Doctrine, Bozell defends the partisan and ideologically driven nature of right-wing radio by citing the market for right-wing speech and subsequently condemns those that supposedly want to shut it down:

“The liberals cannot sell their product—liberal talk radio—in the marketplace, so they are planning to use the power of government to stop conservatives from selling their product, conservative talk radio. Liberals don’t believe in free exchange, tolerance, or the marketplace of ideas. They believe in the iron boot of liberalism stamping out any view that upsets the liberal apple cart.”

So what’s the problem with NBC serving as a medium for Gore’s concerts? Given the big-name musical acts performing for Live Earth, the audience and market are certainly there. Somehow, the airwaves carrying partisan right-wing radio are contributing to “free exchange” and a more fruitful “marketplace of ideas” while the airwaves carrying Live Earth are shamelessly pushing the “left-wing agenda.”

Opinions regarding global warming and Al Gore aside, to call out and criticize NBC for carrying his message is simply hypocritical, considering that right-wing radio has given out a few big wet kisses in its day.

At a convening of U.S. religious-right activists and reactionary leaders from around the world, Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey passed along an important message. “I bring you greetings from President Bush!” she told the World Congress of Families in Poland, helping to legitimize the controversial conference. Sauerbrey also specifically thanked the Illinois-based Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society “for all of their hard work in organizing this wonderful opportunity to celebrate and reflect upon the family and its vital role in society.”

Automaker’s financial woes supposedly due to American Family Association.

Group turns 20; ceremony redefines “roast.”

Scientists group calls generous ExxonMobil funding of Heritage, CEI, and Media Research Center part of effort to “manufacture uncertainty” about climate change through an “echo chamber” of “discredited” scientists.

And citation of GLSEN, sponsor of gay-straight alliance clubs.

TV promo sung to tune of “Joy to the World” is “ridicul[ing] and mock[ing] Christ,” according to AFA, Media Research Center. MRC says “liberal side is in retreat” in supposed “War on Christmas.”

And praises right-wing legal groups. Also: Media Research Center makes a list, and ADF writes letters.

Media Research Center ’s Robert Knight called it “tragic.” Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth called it “immoral.” Concerned Women for America ’s Janice Crouse called it “unconscionable.” What are they talking about? A couple deciding to have a kid. If Vice-President Cheney thought that some of his biggest supporters would congratulate him on a new grandchild – or at least restrain themselves from sending out press releases – he had to be disappointed at the right-wing reaction to his daughter’s pregnancy and her plans to raise the child with her lesbian partner.

According to the Right, gays just aren’t fit to be parents – and raising a child is akin to a malicious act. CWA’s Crouse told ABC that Cheney and her partner are “deliberately bringing a child into the world without a father, leaving a great gaping hole” and that leads to “all sorts of negative outcomes — drug use, juvenile delinquency. You name it.” Crouse’s former fellow Concerned Woman Bob Knight went further, claiming that the “child has been conceived with the express purpose of denying it a father,” and “they're shortchanging this child from the start." LaBarbera described the situation as “fatherless by design,” and decry the couple’s plans to “model immoral homosexual behavior before innocent children.”

Carrie Gordon Earll of Focus on the Family was a little more tactful, saying, "Just because you can conceive a child outside a one-woman, one-man marriage doesn't mean it's a good idea. Love can't replace a mother and a father.” She also talked, obliquely, about gay adoption, saying it “intentionally denies children either a mother or a father” and put the “desires of adults” above the “needs of children.” In this she echoed radio talker Kevin McCullough, who wrote that Cheney and her partner were withholding a father “purposefully, simply to stroke one's own desire to have a child - sort of like a new handbag, or pair of shoes.”

Gay advocates pointed out that Mary Cheney’s home state, Virginia, recently passed a constitutional amendment to bar her partner, Heather Poe, from marrying her (or even entering a legal arrangement to approximate marriage), and so the efforts of the right-wing will have a real, deleterious effect on the child’s family situation. “Unless they move to a handful of less restrictive states, Heather will never be able to have a legal relationship with her child,” said Jennifer Chrisler of Family Pride.

But the Right took the opposite view: that Cheney was getting in the way of their anti-gay mission. Crouse told the L.A. Times, “Not only is she doing a disservice to her child, she's voiding all the effort her father put into the Bush administration.” Knight said, "Mary and Heather can believe what they want, but what they're seeking is to force others to bless their nonmarital relationship as marriage" and to "create a culture that is based on sexual anarchy instead of marriage and family values.”