Randy Forbes

Earlier this year, there was a short right-wing freak-out when the State Department announced that the spaces for "mother's name" and "father's name" on passport applications will be replaced with "parent one" and "parent two."

The State Department quickly backtracked but that wasn't good enough for Rep. Randy Forbes who quickly introduced legislation to require the use of "mother" and "father" on all federal forms.

Today, Forbes showed up on "Wallbuilders Live" with David Barton and Rick Green to discuss the importance of stopping these sorts of changes at the source while Barton warned that is was an example of the unholy contaminating the holy:

Barton: And it really is important. A little bitty deal like changing the mother and father designation on a passport, those are not small deals.

Green: Even though it sounds small, isn't it a fundamental change? It's really at the heart of this question of is the family going to continue to be the major nucleus of our culture and is there a definition of family and marriage that we're going to stick with or are we going to go to anything counts?

Barton: Well, it becomes death by a thousand paper cuts, is what it amounts to. Nothing really enough to cut to the bone, but you just bleed to death a drop at a time. And that's what this is because you say "man, we're so busy with the President trying to get DOMA defended, we don't have time to mess around with what they're writing on passports." Well, when it comes at you from a hundred directions, you may repel ninety-eight of the attacks, but if two of them get through, that's two more than you had when you started this thing. And those are attacks that you have to push back on every single one of these fronts one hundred percent of the time. You cannot give ground.

The minor prophets talked about the fact that if you take something holy and put just a drop of unholy in there, does the holy make the unholy become holy? Or does the unholy make the holy become unholy? And the answer is: the unholy contaminates the holy.

Forbes: The other big thing that we're worried about is, as you know, the slippage of these kinds of things and how they work their way in and then ripple throughout all of government. If we let this stand, the next thing we know is there's going to be another agency that does it and then another agency and then before you know it they're going to come back and say "we've done this with the State Department and we did it with such and such. We ought to make it in all federal documents everywhere." And that's the way these things happen unless you try to put them out at the source.

And the other thing, imagine with children. You know, for how long have we said "who's your mothers?" and "who's your father?" and now we're going to say "well, who's your parent one and who's your parent two?"And these are the kinds of things that have huge ripple effects through the federal government if gone unchecked.

Earlier this week we noted that Rep. Randy Forbes had been a guest on James Dobson's new radio program where he unveiled his plan to create a series of state-level "prayer caucuses" that would monitor legislation, court rulings, and elected officials and mobilize activists to fight them.

The latest issue of World Magazine profiles Forbes and his Congressional Prayer Caucus and reports that he has already created one state-level caucus in Mississippi, with others in Virginia and Florida coming soon: 

Forbes says anti-faith groups have raised vast sums of money to pick fights with religious organizations. "For decades now people of faith have said, 'We are just working our own ministries, and we are going to wait and play defense when they come after us.' Our strategy is different. We think we need to push back."

To do so Forbes set up the nonprofit Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation to raise both awareness and money. The foundation's website, which asks churches and individuals to sign up to pray for the nation on a "digital prayer wall," also offers $5,000 annual memberships to a club called the "300"—a reference to Gideon's army in Judges.

The money funds Forbes' signature strategy: franchising out the Congressional Prayer Caucus concept to state legislatures.

Mississippi became the first state to partner with the caucus. Mississippi's GOP Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant spearheaded the effort after Forbes visited his office in February. At that meeting Forbes enticed Bryant by telling him Mississippi could help spread the movement around the country. "I immediately accepted the challenge because Mississippi is one of the most religious states in the nation," Bryant told me.

On April 22, a bipartisan group of more than three dozen Mississippi lawmakers crowded onto steps inside the state Capitol for a press conference on prayer. To make it official the state legislature even put it to a vote, unanimously passing in both the House and Senate a resolution that formed the state caucus. Next year a Senate Republican will lead the weekly prayer group while a House Democrat will take over in 2012.

Legislatures in Virginia and Florida are at work on similar partnerships.

It is through these state groups that Forbes hopes to change the debate over religion in public life. Many of the nation's legislatures already have prayer groups, but Forbes wants to bring them together into a nationwide network that tracks threats against religion. The D.C. caucus would serve as the clearinghouse where policy makers formulate and coordinate strategies.

"Here is the new world, if you send 100 lobbyists against us, we send two and a half million emails raising this issue," said Forbes. "Do you really want to fight that battle?"

Last Friday, a judge struck down Arkansas' law banning adoption by unmarried couples but, interestingly, the decision has not yielded an outpouring of outrage from the Religious Right - at least, not yet.

And the reason for that seems to be due to the fact that they are still too busy being outraged about the other ruling from last week finding the National Day of Prayer to be unconstitutional.

Dave Welch of the US Pastor Council says the ruling "is grounded in a fundamental hostility against public expression of the Christian faith" and the result of the fact that the nation continues to "reject the existence and/or sovereignty of God," while Focus on the Family's Stuart Shepard made the issue the focus on his latest "Stoplight" video (note Mike Huckabee's appearance in the very beginning):

And while Fox News' Megyn Kelly can't seem to understand how a day designed to "acknowledge the role that God has played in the formation of this country and its laws" could ever be seen as promoting religion, The Christian Defense Coalition's Rev. Patrick Mahoney and Faith 2 Action's Rev. Rob Schenck are planning a press conference to demand that the Obama administration appeal the ruling:

President Obama has a unique chance to build a bridge to the faith community by acting quickly on this matter and reaffirming his commitment to public expressions of faith and the National Day of Prayer. It is not enough for Mr. Obama to make wonderful speeches about protecting religious freedom around the world.

"Now is the time to act on protecting religious freedom in America.

"Sadly, the President's record concerning the Christian community and religious liberty is not a good one.

Meanwhile, Rep. Randy Forbes is telling Focus on the Family that the decision should be a "wake-up call" to all Americans about the importance of keeping "activist judges" off the bench:

The federal judge’s decision to call the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional represents a movement we are seeing across the country of a small minority who want to exclude faith, religion and morality from the marketplace of ideas. In so doing, they may be depriving us of the very principles we need to secure our freedom.

...

While we cannot speculate how the Supreme Court would rule on this case, one thing this particular decision should make clear is how dangerous it is to appoint activist judges. This federal judge has essentially said that the Declaration of Independence – a document that very clearly states that our rights were given by a Creator – is unconstitutional. Is there any question this judge would have declared the Declaration of Independence unconstitutional if it were written today, since it proclaims all our rights come from the Creator? It is regrettable that we would have a federal judge essentially rule against the very premise of the nation's foundational document of freedom. The decision should be a wake-up call to Americans across the country.

But not to be outone is the Family Research Council, which is demanding the impeachment of the judge and that the nation fall on its knees to pray for our nation during these "darkest days":

Make no mistake. This judicial mutiny lies directly at the feet of the Left, including President Obama, who has created an atmosphere in which the Constitution is silly putty in the hands of liberal activists. Slowly but surely, he is making American soil more fertile for the radical redefinition of society. This cannot be tolerated. We must ensure that the President's bench nominees have a reverence for the Constitution that this judge lacks. In the meantime, we call on Congress to start the impeachment proceedings for Barbara Crabb, as she violated of her sacred oath of "administering justice... under the Constitution and laws of the United States." What she has done to repress, we will use to revive. What she meant to undermine prayer, we will use as the reason why it's necessary. When the great men and women of our past bent their knees to God on behalf of the "sacred fire of liberty," it was often during the nation's darkest days. My friends, it is time we join them.

Vision America hadn't sent out its "Rick Scarbough Report" in several weeks, but today the most recent email showed up in my inbox and it is carrying an exciting new addition to its name:

In the latest update, Scarborough informs us that his appearance at the National Tea Party Convention was a massive success and that he intends to merge Tea Party activism with his standard Religious Right activism, changing the TEA Party's "Taxed Enough Already" acronym to "Truth Exalts America" and launching a "Patriot Pastors' Tea Party" with the support of David Barton.

Also, he's been regularly hosting weekly conference calls with Republican members of Congress including Michele Bachmann, Steve King, Randy Forbes, Jim DeMint, David Vitter, and others.

VISION AMERICA AT THE FIRST NATIONAL TEA PARTY CONVENTION

On February 4-7, I attended the First National Tea Party Convention at the Gaylord Hotel in Nashville, which brought together over 600 leaders of various local Tea Party groups. These are the folks who've wrought an overnight revolution and I was honored to be with them.

The Convention included speeches by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Roy Moore, former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, and a host of other national leaders.

On the first evening, I spoke to the Convention and led a prayer service. The following day, I conducted an hour-long breakout session on "Why Pastors and Churches Must Engage In Politics." Every chair in the room was filled and people stood around the walls in a hall estimated to hold 300.

To say our message was well received is somewhat of an understatement. The press reported that audience cheered as I explained how this nation has fallen as we have drifted further and further from our Judeo-Christian roots.

We made many friends and allies. I believe the seeds we sowed in Nashville will bear fruit in the months ahead, resulting in a growing alliance between Vision America and the Tea Party movement.

On Saturday morning, I had a closed-door meeting with 16 pastors and several laymen. Some traveled hundreds of miles to be with us. We discussed ways in which pastors can become more involved with local Tea Parties, including organizing their own Tea Party. Former syndicated columnist Don Feder talked about effective communications techniques.

LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE CALLS

As we have for the past year, we are continuing to do our Thursday afternoon leadership, networking conference calls (3pm Central Time).

Last week, we heard from Congressman Steve King (Iowa) on mega-deficits, taxes and looming fiscal calamity. This week's presenter was Congressman Randy Forbes (Virginia), founder and chair of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, which leads its members in national efforts to protect prayer and America's spiritual heritage. Rep. Forbes spoke on the work of his Prayer Caucus and the sham of a health-care "compromise."

Past presenters have included Senators Jim DeMint (S. Carolina) and David Vitter (La.), Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, and Congressmen Louie Gohmert (TX),Lamar Smith (TX), and syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin.

...

PATRIOT PASTORS TEA PARTY?

More than 60 pastors have been involved in an effort to organize a Patriot Pastors' Tea Party, just for Pastors. I have been conducting weekly conference calls for the past three weeks to explore the possibility of having a Patriot Pastors' Tea Party in San Antonio, at the Alamo, on July 7th. We have adopted the acronym Truth Exalts America for our TEA Party.

On the last call, the pastors heard from Wallbuilders' David Barton on the role pastors (the "Black-Robed Regiment") played in generating popular support for the American Revolution.

I promise to keep you informed of our progress on all of the foregoing, and earnestly solicit your prayers and support.