Home ›

Robert George

Printer-friendly version Send to friend

New Religious Right Video: Secularism Means Doom For America

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on October 13, 2011 - 9:53am

One of the sessions at the recent Values Voter Summit featured a showing of a new half-hour video produced by the American Family Association called “Divorcing God: Secularism and the Republic.” (Back in the summer it was being promoted as "Divorcing God: Secularism, Sexual Anarchy, and the Future of the Republic.") The video features an array of Religious Right leaders and academics, whose argument can be summarized this way:  America, whose greatness is decaying because the country has turned its back on the God who inspired the founding fathers, is doomed if it continues to allow secularists to push religion into the closet.  It's time for Christians to fight back.

And just to be clear, the God in “one nation under God” isn’t any old generic God, but the same Christian God who made western civilization possible.  It’s familiar to anyone who has followed the Religious Right’s “Christian nation” rhetoric, filled with founders’ quotes about religion and  attacks on the Supreme Court’s rulings on church-state separation.

Among the stars of the video is Princeton University’s Robert George, the Religious Right’s favorite intellectual. George, a leader of the National Organization for Marriage, is one of the authors of the Manhattan Declaration, whose signers fancy themselves potential martyrs for opposing abortion and LGBT equality in America. Others include Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute; Michael Farris, homeschooling advocate and chancellor of Patrick Henry College; and Matthew Spalding, of the Heritage Foundation. The founders clearly believed that God punishes nations, says Dacus, and when countries allow their societies to become amoral, there’s a price to be paid, not just by those individuals but society as a whole.  The video suggests that the current fight between secularists and those who want to preserve the country’s divine foundation is the last stand for the future of freedom on planet earth.

Another DVD being handed out at the Values Voter Summit hit similar themes about the importance of the nation’s foundation on biblical principles.  It features a 2010 “State of the Nation” speech delivered by Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis at the Creation Museum in Kentucky.  Ham argues that the nation is threatened by the teaching of evolution and by the Supreme Court. “There really is no such thing as separation of church and state,” says Ham, who warns that “Christianity in this nation is becoming outlawed more and more in various quarters.”  Ham blames the decline more on church leaders than on secularists.  The Bible is the “absolute authority,” he says, but too many Christians have undermined the authority of scripture by compromising on the truth of the 6,000 year-old earth and great flood described in Genesis.  And that means quoting the Bible in policy debates on abortion and gay marriage has lost its effectiveness.

Meanwhile, French scholar Denis Lacorne has just published Religion in America: A Political History (Columbia University Press, 2011), in which he examines two competing narratives about American identity.  One derives from the secular values of the Enlightenment and reflects a desire to preserve liberty by freeing it from the power of an established church.  The second ties American identity to the Puritans and Protestantism.  These two narratives are reflected in competing notions of church-state separation evident today in our politics and on our Supreme Court.  At a presentation at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. this week, Lacorne suggested that what he calls the neopuritan narrative was developed in the first half of the 19th century by historians who wanted to resurrect the influence of the Puritans, who he says were generally ignored by the founding fathers in their debates over religious liberty and whether or not to make the Constitution an explicitly Christian document.  (They chose not to.)

 

PFAW Foundation
Filed under:

George: Andrew Cuomo Can't Be Catholic Because He Supports Marriage Equality

Submitted by Brian Tashman on June 29, 2011 - 12:36pm

Robert George, founder of the American Principles Project and Chairman Emeritus of the National Organization for Marriage, said that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo shouldn’t be considered a Catholic because he signed marriage equality into law. In an interview with Kathryn Lopez of the National Review, George also attacks Gov. Cuomo for living with but not marrying his companion Sandra Lee, saying that “no one takes him to be a serious Catholic” and that he “flouts his Catholic principles.” Using George’s logic, more than half of Catholics in America would not be “real Catholics” because they favor marriage equality.

LOPEZ: How significant is it that this governor is Catholic?

GEORGE: Is he? There are many devout Protestants and even Jews and Muslims whose moral beliefs and practices are far more closely in line with Catholic teachings than Andrew Cuomo’s are. Andrew’s father’s views and policies gave scandal (as Catholics use that term) precisely because people took him to be a serious Catholic. No one is scandalized by Andrew’s beliefs or conduct because no one takes him to be a serious Catholic, that is, a Catholic who is serious enough about his faith to live by its tenets. Indeed, he quite publicly flouts Catholic principles, and doesn’t even seem to wrestle with it or be anguished about it, as his father at least liked to give the appearance of being. In word and deed, he has made it clear that he simply does not believe what Catholicism teaches about sexual morality and marriage. There is no reason to suppose that he regards the Catholic Church as having the authority to teach definitively on these issues or anything else. If there is a sense in which he is a Catholic, it does not involve believing what the Catholic Church teaches or even that the Catholic Church has any authority to teach. So I don’t see Cuomo’s Catholicism as a significant part of this story. He doesn’t even pretend to be serious enough about it to make anyone care or even take much notice.

PFAW
Filed under:

GOP Presidential Candidates Join Far-Right Group For Iowa Tea Party Bus Tour

Submitted by Brian Tashman on June 8, 2011 - 4:20pm

According to the Des Moines Register, Republican presidential candidates Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Gary Johnson and Rick Santorum will take part in Iowa’s Tea Party Bus Tour. The bus tour is led by a coalition of right-wing groups: the Leadership Institute, FairTax Nation, and the American Principles Project’s affiliated groups, Preserve Innocence and American Principles in Action.

Founded by noted anti-gay activist Robert George, the group is also closely linked to the Manhattan Declaration and the National Organization for Marriage, which it worked with to defeat marriage equality in Maine. Thomas Peters, the APP’s communications director, even participated in a conference tied to the notoriously anti-Semitic Polish broadcaster Tadeusz Rydsyk of Radio Maryja.

The APP is best known for instigating the boycott of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference due to its inclusion of GOProud, a group of gay conservatives, and rallied other Religious Right organizations to leave the summit.

Preserve Innocence is the APP’s education watchdog and is mainly a voice against comprehensive sex education and anti-bullying programs. The group outspokenly opposed the role of Kevin Jennings, the White House’s outgoing Assistant Secretary for the Department of Education’s Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools and the founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, asserting that his views represent a “moral atrocity”:

Kevin Jennings aggressively advocates using our schools to teach children—including young children—about homosexuality and homosexual practices. He is the author of a Foreword to a book called Queering Elementary Education, and as the former Director of GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Educational Network), he supports a radical agenda that includes bringing sexual liberationist teachings into public schools. That’s what he means by “queering” elementary education.

“Queering” our elementary schools means destroying the innocence of our children. Please help us to stop that moral atrocity from happening.

The APP also bizarrely claims that President Obama was establishing “death panels” and working with Planned Parenthood to encourage students to have abortions:

“There is a frightening disconnect between what American parents believe their children should be taught about sex and by whom, and the liberal, even promiscuous sex education the Obama administration wishes to inflict upon our children through Planned Parenthood”, stated Andy Blom, Executive Director of the American Principles Project and American Principles in Action. “But this goes beyond sex education. This is opening the doors of our schools and their health programs to the nation’s largest abortion provider.”

…

President Obama’s Health Care plan threatens babies through Government mandated, taxpayer funded abortion. It threatens parental rights, pre-teens and teenagers through Planned Parenthood SBHC sex indoctrination. It threatens the elderly and disabled through rationed health care and end-of-life “Death Panels.”

PFAW
Filed under:

CPAC Boycotters Kick Off Anti-Gay "Full Power Conservativism" Campaign

Submitted by Brian Tashman on February 9, 2011 - 11:22am

With CPAC beginning tomorrow with the inclusion of GOProud, a group which represents gay conservatives, the American Principles Project is launching a last-ditch effort to discredit the conference and express their outrage over the participation of a group with gay and lesbian members. Even some conservatives planning to address CPAC, such as Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum, Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness, and Colin Hanna of Let Freedom Ring, signed on to a “Conservatives for Unity” letter condemning GOProud’s involvement in CPAC. The letter “was signed by about two dozen leaders,” including Ken Blackwell of the Family Research Council and Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center, who both represent groups boycotting CPAC, and “argued that there can be no common ground between gay rights conservative activists and social-issues conservatives.”

The APP, which was founded by anti-gay marriage activist Robert George, was the first to demand a boycott of the American Conservative Union’s CPAC over GOProud’s inclusion, launched a new website, GetConservative.com.

The mission of GetConservative is to create a “unified” and “full power conservativism” that would leave out groups sympathetic to LGBT rights like GOProud. Religious Right organizations like the APP have also been angered by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels’s call for a social issues “truce,” which they see as part of “an increasing trend among GOP elites to try to undermine social issues.”

For the APP, CPAC’s inclusion of GOProud was “slap in the face to social conservatives and an injury to conservatism as a whole,” and giving Daniels a speaking spot made matters even worse. According to their mission statement:

Get Conservative is an initiative of the American Principles Project (APP), an organization dedicated to upholding the fundamental principles on which this country was founded. During the 2010 election cycle, APP noticed an increasing trend among GOP elites to try to undermine social issues like traditional marriage, the right to life, and religious liberty and thereby quiet the voice (and influence) of social conservatives. In response to these efforts, the American Principles Project found itself with a new mission–to defend and promote social conservatism and be sure that it remains a vibrant part of the conservative movement.

When it became clear that the organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) had joined the effort to marginalize social conservatives by allowing GOProud to be a prominent part of their 2011 event, APP led a boycott of CPAC to protest the inclusion of a group that actively opposes fundamental conservative principles (like the defense of traditional marriage). The point of the CPAC boycott was not to urge others not to attend, nor was it an effort to dictate who should be permitted to be part of the conference. The point of the boycott was to state unequivocally that for conservatism to have meaning, the fundamental principles of it (including the defense of traditional values) must be respected, and that to invite an organization that actively worked against one of those principles was a slap in the face to social conservatives and an injury to conservatism as a whole. The problem was then compounded when CPAC invited Mitch Daniels (who in 2010 famously called for a “truce” on social issues) to be the speaker at the Reagan dinner. This was an invitation that underscored the second-class status to which CPAC was assigning social issues and social conservatives.

But despite the furor that arose from the CPAC boycott, the American Principles Project remains committed to being part of a strong and vibrant conservative movement. This site challenges all conservatives to stand together and speak out in defense of social issues.

PFAW
Filed under:

NOM Compares SPLC To Joseph McCarthy

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on December 2, 2010 - 10:27am

If you think the Religious Right is over the fact that the Southern Poverty Law Center has added several new organizations to its list of anti-gay hate groups, think again.

Even though pretty much every group mentioned in the report has already weighed in to voice their outrage, activists continue to blast the SPLC, with the AFA of Pennsylvania accusing them of "attempting to silence" Christians and WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah calling them a "marginal, fringe, extremist organization."

But the latest response from National Organization for Marriage really takes the cake, as Robert George compares the SPLC to Joe McCarthy while Maggie Gallagher complains that they are being treated like racists:

In a Nov. 29 e-mail to CNA, Princeton University law professor and National Organization for Marriage chairman emeritus Robert P. George compared the action to Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s smearing of opponents by accusing them of being communist sympathizers.

While the Law Center continues to do some good work in the area of civil rights, its “tarring” of those it opposes “reveals itself to have become an ideologically partisan organization bent on shutting down dissent by intimidating into silence those with whom it should be engaged in honest debate.”

...

Gallagher saw the Law Center’s action as a vindication of her past statements.

“I wish they would stop proving that we’re right so consistently. I’m not surprised. This is what I predicted would happen. I’m a little surprised it’s happening so fast.

“They believe you should be treated like a racist if you think marriage is a union of a man and a wife,” she said.

Asked to explain the difference between having racist views and having views opposed to homosexual acts, Prof. George said that debates about sexual ethics are about whether certain acts are “consistent with the dignity of human beings.”

However, this debate assumes “the equal and inestimable worth and dignity of all human beings” because it asks whether certain acts are worthy of them. Racist ideology rejects this, basing itself on “skin pigmentation” or other “morally irrelevant factors.”

“We need to face squarely the goals of this movement, the rhetoric of this movement, and the fact that this is an issue,” Gallagher remarked.

She added that Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic bishops have made clear that “it doesn’t get better” if opponents of same-sex “marriage” stand down.

“The next fight is going to be whether or not our religious institutions and parents and schools are going to be stigmatized in the public square as racists, and face legal disabilities that racists face.”

PFAW
Filed under:

Religious Right Thrilled With Its Few Scraps From The GOP

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on September 23, 2010 - 10:26am

For the last several weeks, Religious Right leaders had been warning Republicans that social issues had better be included in the agenda GOP leaders were going to lay out for the party moving forward.

House leaders have finally released their "Pledge to America," so how did the social conservatives fare? 

[T]he “Pledge” turned out to have little of substance for the value voters movement.

“We pledge to advance policies that promote greater liberty, wider opportunity, a robust defense, and national economic prosperity. We pledge to honor families, traditional marriage, life, and the private and faith-based organizations that form the core of our American values,” it said in the introduction.

The only specifics that followed in the subsequent 21 pages, however, were a promise to “permanently end taxpayer funding of abortion and codify the Hyde Amendment,” and to pass conscience clauses into law for physicians and medical workers.

So you'd think that the Religious Right would be livid that the GOP so blatantly simply threw them a few superficial bones in order to keep them quite ... but you'd be wrong, because they are overjoyed with the few scraps they received:

“We are pleased that the Republican leadership saw the wisdom of honoring our demand for a clear statement of commitment to life, marriage, and the free and full participation of religious believers and faith-based institutions in our public life.

The American Principles Project, Susan B. Anthony List, American Values and Let Freedom Ring submitted more than 20,000 petitions. Supporters and signers of the Manhattan Declaration made thousands of phone calls. The GOP leadership clearly got the message.

Once again, social conservatives have proven that they are the conscience of the party. They have stood up for the sanctity of human life in all stages and conditions; the dignity of marriage as the union of husband and wife; and religious freedom and the rights of conscience.”

And of course Ralph Reed is declaring victory as well: 

House Republicans rightly rejected the idea that Tea Party issues like cutting spending and delimiting government are somehow at odds with the pro-family agenda of honoring marriage and unborn life. Nothing could be further from the truth. Pro-family candidates are the most likely to be fiscal conservatives, and Tea Party candidates are the most likely to be pro-life. The agenda embraces time-honored values like traditional marriage and ending taxpayer-funded abortion as well as lower taxes and reduced spending. The message was unmistakable: we will not be divided by a false choice between fiscal responsibility and strong families. We will fight for both, and indeed we must do both if we are to restore America’s promise.

This is absolutely laughable - there is one throwaway mention of marriage and one passing mention of religious liberty in 21-pages of text and yet the Religious Right is acting like it pulled off a major coup.

PFAW
Filed under:

Religious Right Continues To Warn That They Will Not Be Ignored

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on September 10, 2010 - 9:28am

We've noted over the last several days that the Religious Right is growing increasingly worried that GOP leaders are intentionally ignoring social issues as they lay out their agenda.  This fear was reinforced earlier this week when Haley Barbour, head of the Republican Governor's Association, said that the GOP wasn't going to use up valuable time and resources talking about issues like abortion and gay marriage because those are not things that voters care about.

Needless to say, that is not sitting well with the groups who care about abortion and gay marriage, with LifeNews responding that "if Barbour begins telling pro-life voters they need to take a back seat and that the issue of abortion won't determine how they vote, his potential campaign may be dead before it begins."

Likewise, Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council took Barbour to task in their most recent Washington Update:

On Wednesday Mississippi Governor Hailey Barber, who is also the chairman of the Republican Governors' Association, spoke to reporters here in Washington and cautioned Republican candidates against bringing social issues into their campaign. He said that if candidates go beyond economic issues, they "are using up valuable time and resources that can be used to talk to people about what they care about." My experience in the political arena is that politicians want to avoid issues that they are not very comfortable with. However, just because issues are not important to a candidate does not make them unimportant to voters.

I've repeatedly said that economic issues are currently at the forefront of the minds of most voters, but the electorate, especially social conservatives, have the ability to consider a candidate's view on more than one or two issues. Most self-identified, pro-life Americans, the number of which have been increasing over the last 30 years, will decide their vote not on where a candidate stands on a flat tax or a value added tax, but on where a candidate stands on the value of human life.

...

A nation's economy will never have greater stability than its core economic unit--the family, and the stability of the family is determined by more than money. Family matters and if the Republicans want to succeed where they failed last time, they had better remember that fact.

And Robert George, who has been raising his own alarms that conservative leaders are distancing themselves from social issues, echoes Perkins' argument that defending the family is the key to economic stability, which is the standard Religious Right response whenever this tension between economic and social conservatives flares up:

If our society goes down the tubes—and may God protect us from any such eventuality—but if we go down the tubes, if our cause is lost, it will not be in the end because of bad economic decisions (though bad economic decision cause tremendous harm and suffering). It will be because we let misguided but determined people undermine the institution of marriage and destroy the innocence of our children.

Now some will counsel that economic conservatives have no horse in this race. They will say that issues such as marriage and the sanctity of human life are moral, culture, and religious questions about which business people, and people concerned with economic freedom, need not concern themselves. That’s bad thinking! The reality is that the ideological movements today that seek to redefine marriage and abolish its normativity for romantic relations and the rearing of children, are the very same movements that seek to undermine the market system and replace it with statist control of vast areas of economic life.

Conservatives may be unified in opposing President Obama and the Democrats, but that doesn't mean that they actually have a unified agenda or even a coherent coalition, so we can expect this gulf between the economic and social conservatives to continue to widen as we approach the coming elections and their aftermath.

PFAW
Filed under:

Authors of Manhattan Declaration Put Pressure On GOP

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on September 9, 2010 - 10:24am

The other day we noted how the Religious Right was beginning to grow alarmed at the possibility that Republicans were going to focus solely on economic issues as they set out their electoral strategy and governing agenda, ignoring things like abortion and marriage because, as Haley Barbour says, talking about social issues just means the GOP is "using up valuable time and resources that can be used to talk to people about what they care about."

Well, the fear appears to be quite real, prompting the architects of the Manhattan Declaration to send out an email warning that "some high-profile conservative leaders have in recent weeks weakened their support of traditional marriage" and urging activists to contact Republican leaders and demand that they refuse to "backtrack on the Republican Party's commitment to life, liberty, and traditional marriage":

We have just learned that the Republican congressional leadership--feeling supremely confident that they can win back Congress campaigning only on economic issues--seems poised to promote a mid-term election agenda that does not even mention the party's historical commitment to life, marriage, and religious liberty.

The Manhattan declaration is a non-partisan movement of Christians from all denominations and political persuasions. Our fidelity to Scripture, however, compels us to speak on public issues which affect our most fundamental moral commitments--as well as the common good of our nation.

We long for the day when both of our great political parties embrace a culture of life, a defense of the traditional family, and a commitment to religious liberty. For the one party which has in recent years officially supported these issues to now retreat would be a dreadful and highly symbolic act.

So we urge you in the strongest terms possible to talk to or e-mail your congressmen and senators, Democrat and Republican alike, urging them to support the Manhattan Declaration.

We also ask you to e-mail the offices of Republican House leader John Boehner and Republican Whip Eric Cantor urging them not to backtrack on the Republican Party's commitment to life, liberty, and traditional marriage. Or you can call Rep. Boehner's office at (202) 225-4000, or Rep. Cantor's office at (202) 225-0197.

Some high-profile conservative leaders have in recent weeks weakened their support of traditional marriage. We know the supporters of so-called gay "marriage" are well-financed and aggressive. But this struggle within the Republican Party tells us we've got to do a better job of making our case.

Use the arguments so well articulated in the Manhattan Declaration. And remember, your job is not just to sign a statement or even get others to do so, important as that is; it is for you to become an advocate.

This alarming news has been verified to be true. But if you act right now, we believe there is a good chance that the Republican Party will stand by its principled positions.

God bless you, and continue to follow the Manhattan Declaration website for reports on this issue and other resources.

Respectfully,

Chuck Colson
Dr. Robert George
Dr. Timothy George

PFAW
Filed under:

The Right's Plan For Stopping Gay Marriage: Intimidate The Supreme Court

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on August 6, 2010 - 11:18am

Take one guess what the topic of James Dobson's radio program was yesterday: 

With his ruling this week that Proposition 8 is “unconstitutional,” Judge Vaughn Walker nullified the will of 7 million Californians who voted to pass the state constitutional amendment in November ’08. On today’s broadcast, Dr. Dobson is joined by Chuck Colson, Dr. Robert George, and Professor Timothy George in a passionate discussion regarding imperious judges, what this ruling means, and what America might look like in the future if Judge Walker’s ruling is not overturned by a higher court of law. The panel also points out that this dramatic turning point in our nation’s history might finally stir believers to stand up and defend religious liberties in America.

Aside from all the outrage and hand-wringing about how the ruling is destroying religious freedom in American, the discussion did provide an interesting revelation into how the Religious Right plans to lay the groundwork for fighting gay marriage as this case makes its way to the Supreme Court.

It seems that for the Right, the role of the Supreme Court is not to make decisions based upon the Constitution's fundamental principles and values, but is rather to hand down decisions that reflect the baises of the people.  As such, the Right plans to start laying the groundwork now to make it clear to the Justices on the Supreme Court that they will not tolerate any decision that recognizes marriage equality:

Chuck Colson: The Supreme Court has not, ever, handed down a decision which flew into the face and teeth of a strong moral consensus against it. I don't think, if we build a real groundswell of opinion now over the next several months, that the Supreme Court will rule in supporting what happened in California two days ago. I don't believe it; I believe that this is an opportunity that we have to build a groundswell of support that will cause the Supreme Court not to legalize gay marriage.

Robert George: What we have here is an unconstitutional, indeed anti-constitutional decision, of a lower court judge and we have to hope that the Supreme Court of the United States, when the issue reaches them, will reverse the judge's holding. Chuck Colson's right: it might very well depend on whether we make clear to the Justices that the redefinition of marriage, the destruction of historic understanding of marriage as the union of man and woman simply will not be accepted by us, we the people, as legitimate.

Colson: I think we have to make an appeal to our secular neighbors and I really believe that if we present this case well, Jim ... believe me, if we present it well and if we speak to the common good and we speak to what is just and right in society, if we do that, we're going to get a lot of people joining us. And we're going to see those polls continue to show what they have been showing consistently, and that is that the American people do not want marriage to be anything other than a man and a woman. And when this case gets to the Supreme Court, if we have built a groundswell, we're going to win this case.

It seems that for the Religious Right, the only legitimate court decisions are ones that support their agenda and so the proper way to make sure that courts issue correct decisions is to seek to intimidate judges by making clear that any decision they don't like "will not be accepted by us, we the people, as legitimate."

So keep that in mind the next time you hear the Religious Right talking about the sanctity of the Constitution and the proper role of the courts.

PFAW
Filed under:

A Few Right-Wing Leaders Vow To Be More Civil

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on March 26, 2010 - 3:17pm

Yesterday, Jim Wallis and Sojourners announced the release of something called "A Covenant For Civility: Come Let Us Reason Together,” which seeks to create a more civil discourse on controversial issues of the day and consisted of seven specific vows:

1) We commit that our dialogue with each other will reflect the spirit of the Scriptures, where our posture toward each other is to be “quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:19).

2) We believe that each of us, and our fellow human beings, are created in the image of God. The respect we owe to God should be reflected in the honor and respect we show to each other in our common humanity, particularly in how we speak to each other. “With the tongue we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God …. this ought not to be so” (James 3:9, 10).

3) We pledge that when we disagree, we will do so respectfully, without impugning the other’s motives, attacking the other’s character, or questioning the other’s faith, and recognizing in humility that in our limited, human opinions, “we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror” (1 Corinthians 13:12). We will therefore “be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2).

4) We will ever be mindful of the language we use in expressing our disagreements, being neither arrogant nor boastful in our beliefs: “Before destruction one’s heart is haughty, but humility goes before honor” (Proverbs 18:12).

5) We recognize that we cannot function together as citizens of the same community, whether local or national, unless we are mindful of how we treat each other in pursuit of the common good in the common life we share together. Each of us must therefore “put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body” (Ephesians 4:25).

6) We commit to pray for our political leaders—those with whom we may agree, as well as those with whom we may disagree. “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made … for kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Timothy 2:1-2).

7) We believe that it is more difficult to hate others, even our adversaries and our enemies, when we are praying for them. We commit to pray for each other, those with whom we agree and those with whom we may disagree, so that together we may strive to be faithful witnesses to our Lord, who prayed “ that they may be one” (John 17:22).

More than 100 leaders signed on, but only a handful were recognizable Religious Right leader:  Harry Jackson, Samuel Rodriguez, Robert George, and Chuck Colson.

Let's see, Rodriguez recently particiapted in the right-wing anti-health care reform "prayercast" where he declared "the same spirit of Herod who 2000 years ago attempted to exterminate the life of the Messiah today lives even America. The legislation that incorporates death and infanticide all under the capopy of reform."

Jackson has been militantly crusading against marriage equality in Washington DC , declaring that it is an effort by gays to oppress blacks and warning of "bloodletting" if the issue is not put to a vote.

And Colson, who believes that gay marriage causes terrorism, recently teamed up with George to produce The Manhattan Declaration, which they sold as Christians' last hope for preventing America from sliding into totalitarianism and Nazi-like dictatorship.

So you'll have to forgive me if I'm a little skeptical of their pledge to "be mindful of the language" they use and to stop "impugning the other’s motives, attacking the other’s character, or questioning the other’s faith."

PFAW
Filed under:
Syndicate content