Posts on Bill Owens

Just days after the Religious Right’s B-team gathered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to question Republican candidates for president (including the ones who didn’t show up), a number of more prominent right-wing figures are convening in Tampa for the Family Impact Summit, sponsored by the Focus on the Family-affiliated Florida Family Policy Council, the Tampa-based Community Issues Council, the Family Research Council, and the Salem radio network.

Advertised topics range from “Christian Citizenship” to “Homosexual Agenda,” but the focus will no doubt be on the 2008 election, and in particular, the effort by Florida’s Right to put a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage on the ballot—even though gays are already prohibited from marrying by statute.

Below is some background on the featured speakers, from Tony Perkins and Richard Land to Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell.

Bishop Harry Jackson’s High Impact Leadership Coalition ran an ad in the D.C. newspaper Roll Call last week to oppose the Hate Crimes Prevention Act under consideration in Congress. Raising the tired right-wing canard that “prosecutors and anti-Christian groups will use loop holes in this proposed legislation to muzzle the church,” the ad sought to drive a wedge between blacks, who are covered by federal hate-crimes law now, and gays, who seek the same protection against violent crime motivated by hatred: