In his State of the Union Address last night, President Obama pledged to "work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are" and Religious Right groups wasted no time in pledging to fight his "sexualize the military":
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins released the following statement in response to President Obama's first State of the Union Address:
"At a time of enormous economic challenge, two on-going wars in which Americans are fighting and increased terrorist threats to Americans at home, President Obama seems untethered from that reality as he called on Congress to force the military to allow open homosexuality. As a veteran of the Marine Corps, the timing of the President's call in the midst of two wars shows that he is willing to jeopardize our nation's security to advance the agenda of the radical homosexual lobby.
"The military is a warrior culture for a reason: Our service members wear the uniform to fight and win wars, not serve as liberal social policy guinea pigs. The sexual environment the President is seeking to impose upon the young men and women who serve this country is the antithesis of the successful warfighting culture and as such should be rejected.
Come ‘on, let’s be grown ups. There’s a reason the military doesn’t have men and women showering together. Please don’t dismiss this one as a childish vestige of a now distant Victorian past. The fact is you don’t want people around you in a shower that are erotically stimulated by your naked body. Now, I may be betraying my naïve ignorance here about how gay people get excited, but none of my gay acquaintances have ever said it works terribly different for them then it does for straights. The site of an attractive nude body probably does for gays what it does for straights. (Unless, of course, you are gifted with a disinterest in sex, period. That’s another matter.) For most of us, testosterone, estrogen and libido are forward moving forces that need at least a modicum of external controls, including segregated showering and dressing spaces.
I’ve purposely left until last the most incendiary element of this State of the Union attack on personal, moral, social and religious sensibilities—its affect on our relations with the Muslim world. When I participated in my first face-to-face formal dialogue between Christian and Muslim leaders in an Islamic country, I was asked at the start, “Do you accept homosexuality?” Homosexuality is a deal-breaker for the vast majority of Muslims. I know, we don’t want to kowtow to oppressive religions, no matter how many adherents they have, but, again, if we’re looking to solve problems, this is not the way to do it.
Nothing says "welcome to Washington, Senator Brown" like arriving in town only to be met by Religious Right activists such as Rev. Rob Schenck who will inform you are not a very good Christian:
In the hours since Mr. Brown won the Super Bowl of special elections, a lot about him has come to light. In yesterday’s post I told you about the Senator-elect’s family church. Well, it looks like it may indeed be more of his family’s church than his own. A source that once worked for Mr. Brown in the state legislature described him as a “non-church-going Protestant.” Apparently, Mr. Brown has the reputation of doing something other than worship on Sunday mornings.
Even if Mr. Brown taught Sunday school every week, it wouldn’t necessarily mean he’s a “good Christian,” nor that he understands Christian doctrine or moral instruction–and it appears he’s quite deficient on at least the latter. He explicitly recognizes Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision de-criminalizing the killing of pre-born children, as “the law of the land.” (Before coming down too heavily on him for that, though, remember “pro-life” Chief Justice John Roberts said the same thing during his confirmation hearing.) What betrays even more his lack of good Christian moral formation is Mr. Brown’s support of so-called “civil unions,” which has as a consequence, whether intended or unintended, of granting social sanction to immoral behavior.
A few of my readers have concluded that because of these serious deficiencies, Mr. Brown is either a fake or a uselessly flawed individual that shouldn’t occupy this seat any longer than necessary. Well, I’m not quite so condemnatory or dismissive. What Mr. Brown appears to me to be is a Massachusetts politician. He may or may not be a Christian, but that doesn’t change his profession.
"He comes off as humble, genuinely interested in what he is doing and the people he will serve. My concern is for his interior moral formation. I told him he can count on our prayers and our pastoral advice. My first impression is that there's nothing guaranteed with Scott Brown, but it seems he has a conscience, and I intend to work on developing that conscience."
I never would have imagined that the ultra-radicalism and violence of the anti-choice movement in the 1980s and 1990's was something of which right-wing anti-choice groups would be particularly proud, but apparently it is, as next month the American Center for Law and Justice is going to be releasing a documentary all about it entitled "Choosing Life: The History of the Pro-Life Movement" featuring recollections from the ACLJ's Jay Sekulow, Rev. Rob Schenck of Faith and Action, and Rev. Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, and clips of them all back in their days in Operation Rescue with Randall Terry, including the episode where Schenck and others were arrested for thrusting a fetus at Bill Clinton.
It is one of the most powerful and influential movements in America. Intensified by the Supreme Courts landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion, the battle to protect the life of the unborn has spanned decades, yet still remains one of the most critical and provocative issues of our day.
Now, experience the history of the pro-life movement like youve never seen before. Years of struggle the victories and setbacks as chronicled by pro-life leaders who waged the legal, legislative, and public relations battles to protect the sanctity of human life. This compelling story of the pro-life movement includes never before seen video of protests and demonstrations from the archives of the American Center for Law and Justice.
Featuring interviews with pro-life leaders including ACLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow, Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, and Rev. Rob Schenck of Faith and Action.
Choosing Life provides a unique behind-the-scenes look at history in the making a movement that transformed the nation. After watching Choosing Life we know you'll agree that protecting the life of the unborn is more important now than ever before.
Now that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing has been set to begin on July 13, you know what comes next: Rob Schenck has to anoint the room with oil.
The Christian group "Faith and Action in the Nation's Capitol" has made its way to Capitol Hill and Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor might be interested in what they did. They blessed the doors of Senate Hart Building Room 216 with prayer and oil because they believe this will be the room most likely used for her confirmation hearing which begins July 13th.
Here is the video Faith and Action has posted of Schenck in action, along with an alert the organization is sending out to its members:
You probably heard the news that US Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy has set the start date for confirmation hearings surrounding Judge Sonia Sotomayor as President Obama's nominee to the United States Supreme Court. They will begin Monday, July 13, and probably last through that week. I waited for that announcement before making one of my own:
A firm foundation of prayer has been laid for this confirmation process. Wednesday morning, June 3, about 8:00, I went to the US Senate Hart Building across the street from our ministry center where the last two Supreme Court nomination hearings took place. Once there, I proceeded to Committee Room 216, the very same chamber where we have held numerous prayer and worship services over the years. This will most likely be the venue for the Senate hearing.
I went to the hearing room doors, and, following biblical and long-held Christian traditions, anointed them with oil as a symbol of consecration, or a setting apart for God's purpose. In respect for Judge Sotomayor's strong Catholic background, I used oil specially formulated for this purpose. It was also blessed by a Catholic priest at the St. Francis Monastery here in Washington, DC.
As I prayed, I touched the doors in three spots, making the sign of the cross. I prayed for God to superintend over the entire confirmation process and mark them with truth because Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life," and He prayed to His Father, saying, "Thy Word is Truth." Of course, in the end, we always pray that God's will be done.
There is so much we can do as part of this enormously consequential exercise, including letting our senators know how we feel about this nomination. Nothing, though, is as important as prayer. I invite you to join me in praying as often as you can during the entire hearing process beginning Monday morning, July 13.
I will keep you informed.
Your missionary to Capitol Hill,
Rev. Rob Schenck President Faith and Action in the Nation's Capital
This is the first time Schenck has done this sort of thing alone, as he has traditionally been joined by Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition in the anointing ceremonies they carried out before the hearings for John Roberts and Samuel Alito and the inauguration of President Obama.
In Rob Schenck's latest video update, which we mentioned earlier, he said that he was going to be participating in a press conference pressing for passage of the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, a piece of legislation introduced by Rep. Trent Franks that would "prohibit discrimination against the unborn on the basis of sex or race, and for other purposes."
Franks introduced the same legislation last year, but it never went anywhere, so he is apparently back to give it another try and has brought some of the more right-wing anti-abortion activists on board to rally support:
Congressman Trent Franks (AZ-02), a Member of the House Judiciary Committee, will host a press conference on Tuesday to introduce the Prenatal Nondiscrimation Act (“PreNDA”). PreNDA would prohibit knowingly performing or soliciting funding for race- or sex-selection abortion.
What: Press conference introducing the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act
Who:
· Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ)
· Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN), Republican Conference Chairman
· Congressman Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE)
· Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-CO)
· Day Gardner — President, National Black Pro-Life Union
· Reverend Clenard Childress — Northeast Region President of the Life Education And Resource Network (L.E.A.R.N.)
· Wendy Wright, President, Concerned Women for America
When: Tuesday, March 31, 2009, 1:00p.m. EST
Faith and Action has now posted some photos from the press conference and indeed Wright, Gardner, and Childress were all there, as was Schenck.
Wright and Schenck are already well-known to readers of the blog, but you may not know much about the others, like Childress, who is listed as being associated with LEARN but is better known for his BlackGenocide.org website and the movement of the same name that he leads. Gardner is also active in that movement and known for making statements, such as she did before the election, that "Christians who vote for Obama are voting against the word of God."
In his most recent video update, Faith and Action's Rob Schenck reports that among the things he has on his schedule today is a "prayer service in the office of one of the better known US Senators," but that is all the information he is able to give because ... well, we're watching (fast forward to the 2:00 mark):
"This very video blog is followed by People For the American Way, which finds reason to criticize just about everything that anybody does who has any belief in God or morality. And you can see that they actually track me and these reports for their constituency and they do it always in a critical manner. I can't recall ever being complimented ... well, maybe once."
Now, in our defense, we are not criticizing Schenck because he has a "belief in God or morality" (which is itself a rather offensive insinuation that we are a bunch of immoral God-haters) but rather because of his actions, his ties to other hard-line right-wing groups, and especially his rather radical past.
But in fairness to Schenck, he is correct to note that we have probably never complimented him, so let me take this opportunity to do so by saying that the omelet he is making looks delicious.
Over the last few days, we've writtenseveralposts about an upcoming meeting at the White House between Joshua DuBois, head of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and representatives of Concerned Women for America, the Family Research Council, and other right-wing groups.
Now, in his daily video update, Faith and Action's Rob Schenck reveals that his organization is also trying to set up a meeting with DuBois.
Schenck explains that he has a busy day ahead of him, entailing a meeting with Tim Goeglein, the former Bush Administration aide who was forced to step down after admitting to plagiarism and was recently hired by Focus on the Family to be their chief lobbyist in DC and with whom Faith and Action shares office space. He then has a meeting with the Salvation Army and then another meeting with the leaders of a new Congressional Prayer Caucus and finally a reception with "Christian members of Congress."
Then, around the 2:50 mark, Schenck reveals that they will also be talking to the White House today about a meeting with the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives and Josh DuBois. After a bit of rambling, Schenck says that Christian conservatives are losing credibility because when the opposition says or does the right thing, they are reluctant to commend them.
Schenck says he is "finding some stuff that is really good here and I've quoted President Obama recently on his statement that marriage is reserved for a man and a woman. Hey, I 've got to applaud that and I'm using it and I'm complementing him on it and, in fact, using it to reinforce our argument that the sanctity of marriage requires that it be reserved for a man and a woman, exclusively."
Interestingly, before the election the Obama campaign was supposed to participate in an event hosted by Schenck and his group but pulled out at the last minute, which turned out to be a smart move, as Sarah Posner explained:
The meaning of the Declaration of Independence was supposed to take center stage at a forum for religious outreach representatives from both presidential campaigns yesterday, but the lunchtime crowd of conservative activists and congressional staff at the Capitol Hill Club was instead treated to a lineup of speakers tossing out apocalyptic rhetoric about Barack Obama.
The event was sponsored by the Capitol Hill-based Faith and Action's Reese Roundtable, an annual luncheon about the moral meaning of the Declaration of Independence. Faith and Action's motto is "bringing the word of God to bear on the hearts and minds of those who make public policy in America." One of its goals is to "restore the moral foundations of our American culture" through placing Ten Commandments displays in public buildings.
Faith and Action's Rob Schenck, a perennial religious-right adviser and gadfly, moderated and wasted no time in lambasting the Rev. E. Terri LaVelle, the Obama campaign's senior religious adviser, who had committed to attend but cancelled at the last minute. "A snub!" protested Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America.
With McCain's conservative-coalitions director Robert Heckman looking on, and at one point chiming in that Obama's recent faith and values outreach was a "colossal flop," Obama was portrayed by speakers as a figure of evil and doom. No one came right out and called him the Antichrist, but the apocalyptic message was clear.
Bernie Reese, the octogenarian founder of the Reese Roundtable, said, "I grew up during [the] days of Hitler; we've almost got a blueprint to what brought Hitler to power. He rode in on an economic crisis and promised the moon to the middle class. He was a man who had glittering rhetoric; he could sit in the room and have his audience in his hand." Alveda King, niece of the civil-rights icon and an adviser to Priests for Life, the militant anti-abortion group, said abortion in the African American community had been done "deliberately, by genocide." We're "beyond chastisement," she went on. "We're in judgment."
"Lord," prayed Johnny Hunter, an African American pastor who gave the benediction, don't let us elect someone who might "bring this nation down."
The Obama campaign didn't want to be seen with Schenck and Faith and Action during the election—good choice—and let's hope that nothing has changed since then.
We have written about Schenck and his ties to a variety of different right wing groups a number of times, most recently when he, Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, and Rep. Paul Brown anointed the door at the Capitol before Barack Obama’s inauguration. While far from a household name, Schenck has seemingly been becoming more influential over the last few years – he met privately with John McCain during the campaign and even received a VIP invitation to McCain’s announcement that Sarah Palin would be his running mate, where he had the opportunity to speak with both of them.
He also has a history of harassing Democratic politicians, especially former President Bill Clinton, having been arrested back in 1992 for thrusting a fetus at him during the campaign and being stopped by the Secret Service after confronting him outside of the Washington Cathedral in 1996. He was also deeply involved in the early 1990’s in protesting women’s health clinics, including targeting one where a doctor was eventually assassinated.
A few weeks back, Faith and Action's Rob Schenck provided a video update in which he reported that Focus on the Family's new lobbyist to Capitol Hill, former Bush administration aide Tim Goeglein, would soon be sharing office space with them.
Shortly after we highlighted the video, Faith and Action yanked it down, but in it Schenck related how their office was actually the office of several allied ministries as well including the Christian Defense Coalition, Priests for Life, the National Pro-Life Action Center, the Judicial Action Group, and the Life Education and Resource Network.
In fact, there are so many different organization operating out of that office and being run by people with ties to Faith and Action that it is almost impossible to tell them apart. For instance, Schenck and Christian Defense Coalition Director Patrick Mahoney regularly work together, like when they got together to annoint the door through which Barack Obama would walk on his way to his inauguration.
Priests for Life is run by Frank Pavone, who is also a trustee at Faith and Action, as well as president of the National Pro-Life Religious Council and Pastoral Director of Rachel’s Vinyard.
The National Pro-Life Action Center is run by Paul Schenck, Rob's twin brother, who is Chairman of Faith and Action as well as the Chief Operating Officer for National Pro-Life Radio, which itself was founded by Stephen Peroutka, who just so happens to also be the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the National Pro-Life Action Center. National Pro-Life Radio's on air broadcasters include Frank Pavone, Paul Schenck, and Rob Schenck, as well as other allies like Day Gardner of the National Black Pro-Life Union and Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice who has his own close ties to Rob and Paul Schenck.
All of which is a long way of saying that it looks like we'll soon have yet another Faith and Action-related group to try and keep an eye on because Dull is set to announce that he is starting his own new right-wing organization to confront the problem of godlessness in America:
Why is the USA in the midst of a great economic crisis? Why is there so much corruption in government? Why are American marriages breaking up at the rate of nearly 50%? Could it be that there is a root cause that many are overlooking? Could it be that the America we love is facing the judgment of God due to rejecting His laws regarding abortion, same-sex marriages, the public display of God in public spaces, trying to borrow our way into wealth, and the funding of godless programs? It appears that we too often attempt to fix the symptom of the problem, as the root of the problem continues to eat at the very core of the nation.
Today, Faith and Action in the Nation's Capitol, HOPE Ministries of Hickory, NC, and The Way of Truth Ministries of Altoona, PA are announcing the formation of THE FAITH AND FREEDOM INSTITUTE for the purpose of motivating religious, governmental, and community leaders to call our nation back to its basic values defined in historical documents. The vision of TFFI will be to perpetuate true patriotism and generate a genuine desire for biblical values in churches, schools and governmental entities within the USA.
...
Today (March 5) at 4:00 PM, a press conference will be held by the organizers to TFFI at the headquarters of the Faith and Action Ministry at 109 2nd Street, NW Washington (behind the Supreme Court) to explain the mission and objectives of the organization.
In December, the Oklahoman reported that Sen. James Inhofe had regularly been making trips to Africa, using taxpayer money, in order to spread the gospel of Christ
In the past decade, Sen. Jim Inhofe of Tulsa has made at least 20 trips to Africa as part of a mission that he frequently describes in religious terms.
Inhofe’s African trips have cost taxpayers more than $187,000 since 1999, according to a review of expenses Inhofe and staff members have submitted through the Armed Services Committee.
Inhofe insists that his trips have either been paid for personally or stemmed directly from his work in Congress on humanitarian, national security and economic matters. But Inhofe’s own words make it sound as if these trips are more about using his office and standing as a US Senator in order to evangelize:
Some of the trips have been taken on military planes that cost thousands of dollars an hour to operate. The military does not disclose the cost of flying members of Congress to their destinations.
The trips — which Inhofe has referred to publicly as "a Jesus thing” — have spanned the continent, though the senator has spent most of his time in a few countries, including Uganda and Ethiopia.
In an interview with an Assemblies of God publication in 2002, Inhofe said, "I’ve adopted 12 countries all the way from Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Togo, and Gabon in West Africa as far east as Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. I’m planning to meet with nine presidents in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. My focus will be to meet in the spirit of Jesus.”
…
Inhofe said he wasn’t trying to push a specific religious agenda in Africa and that he considered Jesus "a common denominator” in his meetings with African leaders of different faiths … I’m guilty of two things. I’m a Jesus guy, and I have a heart for Africa.”
In fact, in this video posted today by Faith and Action’s Rob Schenck, it sounds an awful like Inhofe is using these trips for exactly that purpose, as he relates how, before his first trip to Africa, he found out that his daughter was also going to be there doing missionary work and told her that “if you go with me, it’s free.” He also explains that the trips are part of the “politics of Jesus” whereby Christians are instructed to take the name of Jesus to the kings. Being a US Senator, Inhofe says, means Africans think he is important and so he can always get in to see the kings, where he can tell them that he has come “in the spirit of Jesus.” Inhofe even holds up a copy of the Oklahoman featuring the above-mentioned article to defend himself, saying the article is an example of “persecution” and insisting that he is doing this work as a private citizen before trumpeting the fact that, through his work, he has managed to bring entire African villages to Jesus:
There is nothing particularly ground-breaking contained in this latest video update from Rob Schenck of Faith and Action, but it does provide some interesting insight into how closely many of the right-wing groups we write about here are intertwined.
Schenck is discussing the expansion of their ministry into new space and, at the 1:40 mark, he begins to relate all of the various groups who currently occupy space in Faith to Action’s Washington DC headquarters, among them the Christian Defense Coalition, Priests for Life, the National Pro-Life Action Center, the Judicial Action Group, and the Life Education and Resource Network.
Schenck also states that they recently had a new addition, saying they are now sharing the space with the man who is the "eyes and ears of Focus on the Family for Capitol Hill." That would be Tim Goeglein, the former Bush Administration aide was forced to step down after admitting he plagiarized numerous columns when he was writing for The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne, Indiana and last week was hired by Focus to be their chief lobbyist in DC. In fact, in its announcement, Focus explicitly referred to Goeglein as the man who would “be our eyes and ears in Washington.”
We have written about Schenck a number of times, most recently when he, Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, and Rep. Paul Brown anointed the door at the Capitol before Barack Obama’s inauguration. While far from a household name, Schenck has seemingly been becoming more influential over the last few years – he met privately with John McCain during the campaign and even received a VIP invitation to McCain’s announcement that Sarah Palin would be his running mate, where he had the opportunity to speak with both of them.
He also has a history of harassing Democratic politicians, especially former President Bill Clinton, having been arrested back in 1992 for thrusting a fetus at him during the campaign and being stopped by the Secret Service after confronting him outside of the Washington Cathedral in 1996. He was also deeply involved in the early 1990’s in protesting women’s health clinics, including targeting one where a doctor was eventually assassinated.
And now Focus on the Family’s lead lobbyist will apparently be sharing office space with Schenck and the gaggle of fringe Religious Right groups who inhabit his orbit.
