Gary Bauer

We haven't heard much from John Hagee ever since he was uncerimoniously dropped by John McCain back in 2008.

But he is still around, as evidence by this new letter from a variety of right-wing leaders demanding that Congress impose tough sanctions on Iran:

There is an overwhelming bipartisan consensus in Congress in favor of these sanctions. President Obama’s December 31 deadline is days away. And the IAEA has concluded that diplomatic efforts have reached a dead end. It is time for you to bring legislation implementing these sanctions to the floor for a vote. Additionally we urge you to make your actions and concerns known to the United Nations Security Council and our allies in the international community who share a common interest in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

As the clock runs out, we must remember that Iran remains the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, is funding Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon and Gaza, has sought to destabilize democratic and Western-leaning regimes throughout the Middle East, is currently arresting and detaining political opponents, actively persecutes its Christian citizens, has shot protestors in cold blood in the streets, and its president has denied the Holocaust and vowed to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. We speak out today on behalf of millions of Christians who believe that the interests of peace and security would best be served by our elected representatives sending a powerful signal that this tyrannical Iranian regime shall never threaten the world with nuclear weapons.

The letter is signed by Hagee along with a variety of other right-wing leaders including Pat Robertson, Chuck Colson, Richard Land, Tom Minnery, Wendy Wright, Mat Staver, Bill Donohue, Lou Sheldon, Jordan Sekulow, and Gary Bauer.

On a related note, did you know that Hagee's book "Jerusalem Countdown" is being turned into a movie starring Randy Travis?  Well, apparently it is:

Filming for the upcoming Pureflix Entertainment movie Jerusalem Countdown continued Thursday in downtown Manistee, with crews shooting scenes involving country music super star Randy Travis. The scenes were shot in a large, empty downtown storefront.

The film is based on a book by the same name, written by John Hagee. The movie version features a plot full of romance and a lot of action. It is the fourth movie to be filmed in Manistee.

It seemed like lately, whenever Gary Bauer issued a press release, he made sure to note that he "was one of the first conservatives to endorse Doug Hoffman in his bid to take the New York house seat" and that his Campaign for Working Families had "committed tens of thousands of dollars in contributions and independent expenditures ... to promote conservative candidates and mobilize conservative voters."

Bauer was obviously counting on a Hoffman win to boost his own profile, but that didn't happen ... and Bauer has an explanation:

Hoffman ran a simple campaign with a single message, 'I will not be a vote for Nancy Pelosi.' With the Republican establishment against him, with the media against him, with the Democratic establishment against him, Hoffman pulled in 46 percent of the vote on a confusing ballot on which he was not listed at the GOP's candidate. If Hoffman's performance is combined with the numbers of failed Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava, who was listed as the GOP's candidate, he would have carried the day.

Hoffman would have won if a) he had been the Republican candidate because b) then the ballot wouldn't have been so confusing and thus c) the people who voted for the actual GOP candidate, Dede Scozzafava, would have voted for him.  

In Bauer's fantasy world, "the fact that a district which went so solidly for Obama came so close to electing an unknown third party candidate shows the power of [conservative] ideas."  

It should be pointed out that this congressional seat had been held by a Republican for the last 138 years.

It is now held by a Democrat.

And somehow that is a victory for conservatives.

I think this column by Mark Creech, based largely on a speech that Gary Bauer delivered 15 years ago, gives a lot of insight into the mentality of the Religious Right:

Bauer said that most Americans fail to understand just how removed lawmakers typically are from the values of the people they represent. He said many believe that government can create a utopia on earth. They believe that morals are relative and not absolute. They argue for a radical individualism, yet also demand that a strong central government be in control of every area of life. Bauer said the people of this country believe very much in personal responsibility, truth, virtue, and faith, but the “elites” in government want something of a new world order which isn’t impeded by tradition or religious conviction.

Bauer said, “I know that all of us worry about the economy…We worry about having decent jobs and a living wage, and the chance to own a home and educate our children.” But economic worries, continued Bauer, are not the biggest problem. “I am not worried about America economically; I’m worried because something seems to have gone wrong with the heart and soul of our nation. And millions of our fellow Americans know that something has gone wrong, even if they don’t share our faith perspective. You can hear them talk about it at school-board meetings, at the grocery store in their neighborhoods; all of them know something has gone wrong. And our leaders…don’t have the answers. They don’t even know the right questions to ask.”

Bauer also noted that when Martin Luther King, Jr. made his famous speech on the Washington Mall, he argued that his dream was that this country would one day judge its citizens by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. But most unfortunately, the government, the media, and the liberal education establishment, are telling our nation’s children that character is irrelevant. Bauer said that this fraud perpetrated on the nation’s next generation is a violation of King’s dream, and that those who send this message to our young people, whether directly or indirectly, should be ashamed.

Bauer asked: “What happened in America between the time that we understood personal responsibility and a time when there are a thousand reasons to escape the consequences of our acts?” Then Bauer said, “What happened in America is that we forgot God. And having forgotten God, we have unleashed the hounds of hell in our streets, in our homes, and on our children. And until America realizes that, there is no turning back.”

Whether it’s state or federal government, the focus today is still erroneously on the economy. But as Bauer concluded in his speech, the real problem in this nation is not the economy. “A nation unable to distinguish between right and wrong,” said Bauer, won’t solve the budget deficit. “A nation of moral misfits eventually will become economic misfits. The economy and our moral fiber are linked together, and the politicians just don’t get it.”

Creech says that Bauer's speech is "relevant even today" ... and indeed it is, in that it demonstrates that whenever this nation has a Democratic president, the Religious Right's core message is that government is corrupt and incompetent, immorality is rampant, and America has abandoned God and is therefore on the road to ruin.

For the last several years, every time a Religious Right leader or conservative politician or nominee was criticized for their positions or views, the immediate response from the Right was to accuse the critics of attacking that person's faith (see, for example, the Family Research Council's first "Justice Sunday" event.) And these sorts of direct attacks on someone's faith, according to the Religious Right, amounted to a personal affront that was beyond the pale of accepted political discourse.

But then Barack Obama ran for president and suddenly that standard went completely out the window.

So now we have Gary Bauer writing entire op-eds for Politico directly criticizing President Obama's use and interpretation of Scripture:

Obama has referenced the Sermon on the Mount in support of special rights for homosexuals, despite the Scriptures’ clear support of marriage between one man and one woman and its admonitions to celebrate sex inside the married relationship only.

While the Bible details that human beings are fearfully and wonderfully made, and that life is a gift from God, Obama uses Scripture to support a mentality in support of abortion rights. Explaining his decision to lift an executive ban on federal funding of embryo-destructive stem cell research, Obama said, “As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering. I believe we have been given the capacity and will to pursue this research — and the humanity and conscience to do so responsibly.”

At the University of Notre Dame, he told graduates, “Maybe we won’t agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions.”

Obama has played the faith card during the health care debate, too. When prospects for passing Obamacare started to go south, Obama framed the debate as “an ethical and moral obligation.” “We are God’s partners in matters of life and death,” he told rabbis during a conference call to sell his reform proposals.

Life and death issues became the spark igniting the public backlash against Obama’s plans. They arose from concerns over possible death sentences for the ill and elderly should care be rationed and from concerns about tax-payer funded abortions, to name a few. Obama wrapped himself in Scripture to combat opposition to his plans. At one point, he alleged that Obamacare opponents were not just mistaken but also immoral and “bearing false witness” for worrying about taxpayer funding of abortion under his plan.

Bauer says that he believes that "elected officials should talk about faith" ... but apparently that doesn't apply to cases where the use of Scripture does not reinforce Bauer's right-wing interpretation of it:

I don’t mean to question the sincerity of Obama’s faith. This is a discussion of language. Increasingly, it seems as though the president’s deepest belief is in his own ability to disregard his critics’ moral objections by touting abstract religious principles and embracing empty religious symbolism. Obama seems to think that Americans will accept his out-of-the-mainstream views on moral issues as long as he claims those views arise in part from his religious beliefs.

Of course, if someone were to have written that "Bauer seems to think that Americans will accept his out-of-the-mainstream views on moral issues as long as he claims those views arise in part from his religious beliefs," he and his allies in the Religious Right would have wasted no time in proclaiming the remark to be an attack on Bauer's "deeply held beliefs" and held it up as evidence of anti-Christian bigotry.