Posts on Rod Parsley

During the Values Voter Summit, Gary Bauer told his audience that terrorists were poised to detonate a nuclear dirty bomb here in the US and so they had better vote for John McCain.  

Now, via Sarah Posner, we see that Bauer issued an even more dire warning when he recently appeared on Rod Parsley’s “Breakthrough”

Religious-right honchos are girding the troops for political apocalypse. Townhall magazine, owned by Salem Communications, one of the largest Christian broadcasters in the country, ran a September feature, "Obamageddon: Could We Survive a Barack Presidency?" This month evangelical publishing giant Stephen Strang, whose magazine Charisma endorsed McCain, predicted that "life as we know it will end if Obama is elected." Last week, the political arm of James Dobson's Focus on the Family sent out a "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America", a 16-page parade of horribles, and talk radio show host Janet Porter imagined that Christians will be imprisoned with Obama in the Oval Office.

Christian right activist and McCain supporter Gary Bauer openly worried to televangelist Rod Parsley that an Obama presidency could mean that "God could take his hand of protection off of America." Further economic woes? A national security or military crisis? Don't blame the morally bankrupt party that the religious right has enabled for the past three decades. Blame Obamageddon.

Here’s the video in which Bauer explains to Parsley that America was founded on the idea that “only a virtuous people could remain free” and that, for the last several decades, we’ve been “throwing the idea of virtue right out the window.”  Bauer warns that if the nation does not re-discover the idea that it is to be a nation governed by “ordered liberty under God” we will face disaster because “at some point, God could take his hand of protection off of America”:

If you thought that Rod Parsley was going to drop out of politics after being humiliated by John McCain, think again.  Earlier this week, Parsley aired a special “election edition” of his program “Breakthrough” with special guests Janet Parshall and Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America.

Parsley opened the broadcast recounting fond memories of how “values voters” saved America during the 2004 election and declared that that was “only the beginning.”  He then turned the discussion over to Wright and Parshall to explain to his viewers why this upcoming election was even more important than the last.

Parshall, after calling Washington, DC “Babylon,” decried the “spiritual warfare” being waged against Sarah Palin, saying that if you “dare to proclaim to a watching world that you follow Christ Jesus, you have opened the gates of Hell” and suggesting that she is actually being attacked by Satan.  When Parsley asked her what the big issues of the election are, Parshall said the question is really “what are the big issues to God?”  As it turns out, the big issues to God just happen to be the same as the big issues to the Religious Right: abortion and gays.  

For her part, Wright urged Parsley’s viewers to elect candidates who will “follow the Biblical principles of how a nation should be governed.”  And, of course, the primary principle was abortion, which Wright compared to the Holocaust, as well as the future of the Supreme Court.

Parsley concluded the program by telling his viewers that it is their votes that will determine if this country will continue to allow the “unconscionable murder of unborn babies, whether it will “stand up for marriage as God intended and his Word declares,”  and whether it will continue to drift toward “silencing the voice of every single Christian.”

In short, it was “values voters” who saved the day in 2004 and it will be “values voters” again in 2008 who will “stop the downward spiral of decadence and immorality in our nation once and for all.”

We noted yesterday that the Alliance Defense Fund is moving ahead with its “Pulpit Initiative” effort whereby dozens of pastors and churches will risk their tax-exempt status by openly defying IRS rules against explicitly endorsing candidates from the pulpit – but it looks like at least one high-profile pastor won’t be joining them:

The Rev. Rod Parsley's 12,000-member World Harvest Church in Columbus won't be participating, said Debbie Stacy, director of Parsley's Center for Moral Clarity.

Considering that the church has already had its own run-ins with the IRS and Parsley has already been humiliated on the national stage, it’s not very surprising that he decided to sit this one out.

Now that a large group of Religious Right activists have come forward in support of John McCain, the candidate might be tempted to sit back and relax. But as McCain learned from his experience with televangelists John Hagee and Rod Parsley, it’s not easy to be both a beloved “maverick” and a right-wing champion.

McCain was happy to campaign with Hagee and Parsley, until the media started to pick up their extreme views—thus risking McCain’s “moderate” image among many independent voters.

So what happens if and when people start hearing about McCain’s new friends? If Hagee and Parsley are too much for McCain, voters may begin to wonder, what about these right-wing activists, some of whom are even further out there?

Does McCain endorse David Barton’s partisan pseudo-history of America as a “Christian nation”? Does McCain share Phil Burress’s view that Ohio’s anti-gay marriage amendment should have invalidated the state’s domestic violence law? What are McCain’s thoughts on Tim LaHaye’s warning that “Brilliant Jewish minds have all too frequently been devoted to philosophies that have proved harmful to mankind”? Does McCain believe, like Phyllis Schlafly, that women cannot be raped by their husbands, that the U.S. government is secretly plotting to merge with Mexico and Canada, or that Mexican immigrants are “invading” the U.S. and spreading disease? (For that matter, does this mean Schlafly has successfully “worked over” McCain?)

McCain will be tempted to ditch them, as he did Parsley and Hagee, but that only managed to anger the Religious Right. Mat Staver, who organized the recent pro-McCain meeting, complained of McCain’s abandonment of the televangelists he’d courted, “He threw them under the bus.” Right-wing strategist Mark DeMoss called it a “slap in the face to evangelicals who are already somewhat suspect of Senator McCain.” But keeping his Religious Right friends along may be a slap in the face to his poll numbers.

John McCain’s messy break-up with televangelist Rod Parsley had the potential to hurt him most in Ohio, a swing state necessary for McCain and the place where Parsley built a network of electorally-charged “Patriot Pastors” in 2004 and 2006. Now McCain is making amends by delving deeper into the state’s Religious Right.

Ken Blackwell, the former Ohio secretary of state who helped Bush win there in 2004, is a close ally of Parsley; the two campaigned heavily together during Blackwell’s losing bid for governor in 2006. In an AP story today, Blackwell was critical of McCain’s ham-handed efforts to enlist the Religious Right:

"He has never identified with the evangelical and Christian movement and therefore he can, at times, misread or misinterpret certain activities in the political field of play or certain comments that are offered," said Blackwell, now at the Family Research Council, a conservative think tank. "I personally would like for John to get to the point of comfort with some of our issues and policy positions, through understanding and genuine acceptance."

Despite these warnings, Blackwell is a Republican politician at heart and is supporting McCain (who endorsed Blackwell in 2006)—he even recorded a robo-call for the Arizona senator before the Ohio GOP primary in February. But other activists are even more cagey about how much they’ll work for McCain.

In the same AP article, Chris Long of the Ohio Christian Alliance (which broke away from the Christian Coalition when it got too soft) warned, “There’s certainly a little reservation about Mr. McCain.”

Phil Burress, a leader of Ohio’s Religious Right, has been skeptical of McCain’s judges promises and emphasized in March that McCain had a lot more sucking up to do:

Burress, who heads Cincinnati-based Citizens for Community Values, says although he would vote for McCain in the general election, the Arizona lawmaker has thus far failed to energize the bloc Burress refers to as "values voters."

"They are not mobilized right now -- and in fact, they're just going to be sitting back waiting to hear what he has to say to try to get these people to engage in his campaign," explains Burress.

Burress contends McCain needs to apologize to evangelical Christians and values voters for the way he has treated them over the years. He says because the senator is not likely to make that apology, he must strengthen his pledge to appoint strict constructionist judges to the Supreme Court.

Jack Willke, the former National Right to Life leader who has been called the “grandfather” of the anti-abortion movement, also made “clear” to McCain the unhappiness of the Right, as the Wall Street Journal reported last month.

Nevertheless, Willke, like the others, is supporting McCain. But McCain is still worried enough to set up a meeting today with Burress, Wilke, Long, and others, as Jake Tapper reports.

Lori Viars, executive director of the Family First PAC … told the Dayton Daily News that her fellow conservatives "would probably hold our nose and vote for McCain."

Apparently before said mass nose-holding can transpire, this meeting was required.

Shortly after Sen. John McCain publicly rejected the endorsements of John Hagee and Rod Parsley, Parsley released his own statement rescinding his endorsement and then sort of disappeared from sight.  Sometime since then, Parsley apparently decided that he had a bit more to get off his chest and so he released a video on his Center for Moral Clarity website in which he reiterated many of the points he made in his initial statement but added some attacks on what he claimed were the "politically vicious and misguided" hit-squads who exposed his radical views, claiming that his views on Islam are “very much in the mainstream” and insisting that he made a “clear distinction between Muslim terrorists and the vast majority of peaceful Muslims.” 

Of course, Parsley is on record having told his congregation and massive TV audience that "America was founded in part with the intention of seeing this false religion [Islam] destroyed" and "Islam is an anti-Christ religion that intends through violence to conquer the world," as well as writing that so-called "Muslim extremists" are really "mainstream believers who are drawing from the well at the very heart of Islam."

Video and transcript:

I’d like to take a few moments and respond to the recent media reports regarding my statements in the book “Silent No More” about Islam.  It doesn’t surprise me that, as I continue to engage the culture with a thoroughly Biblical worldview that political hit-squads have begun to describe some of my views in the most ominous and extreme terms. I expected that opponents of that worldview would try to make a connection between myself and the extreme views of other ministers such as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. This is what we’ve seen play out over the past few days. Certainly, I’m disappointed with those in the media who have misrepresented my views for political gain and who have lied in pursuit of political power.  It’s a sad moment in American politics; one of the many in the recent election cycle.   

My views on Islam, which have come under such scrutiny and misrepresentation, are very much in the mainstream.  Anyone who has read the entire chapter on Islam in my book “Silent No More” understands that what I have said is echoed from the White House to the State Department, from leading universities to the pulpits of our nation. I believe that radical Islam is one of the greatest threats to Western civilization and that conflict has roots in our American history.  I have always, and I will continue, to make a clear distinction between Muslim terrorists and the vast majority of peaceful Muslims who are appalled at the bloody results of suicide bombers and mass murders. Once again, I unapologetically denounce those who spread death in the name of Allah while I continue to believe peace-loving Muslims need the full of all Christians, and Christians must provide understanding, cooperation, and friendship to peace-loving Muslims throughout the world who share our desire for democracy and peace.

I understand that the raw truth of the pulpit cannot survive untempered in the political sphere. Still, I believe that clergy of all faiths should be able to speak into the lives of our political leaders without every doctrine and statement of those religious leaders being transformed into political weapons by the politically vicious and misguided.

Soon after breaking with televangelist John Hagee, John McCain rejected another right-wing pastor who had campaigned with him, Rod Parsley. While Parsley, like Hagee, subsequently withdrew his endorsement, it remains to be seen whether he will put his Ohio-based “Patriot Pastors” machine in motion on behalf of the Republican candidate before November.

But the McCain campaign may be more concerned about fallout greater than these two pastors and their television audiences. In working for the Hagee endorsement and incorporating Parsley into the campaign, McCain was no doubt hoping to solidify the Religious Right credibility he has been sweating over for the past two years. While Hagee and Parsley are influential and well-connected, meeting with the president and lobbying Congress, they are active primarily outside of D.C., in the megachurch, “prosperity gospel” world of Trinity Broadcasting Network. As this blog and others revealed some of the pastors’ rough edges—just a sample—McCain was forced to walk a fine line between losing his “maverick” reputation among independent voters and alienating the right-wing base he feels he needs.

McCain’s decision to dump Parsley and Hagee has prompted some warning shots from the Right. “This move may cost him the mainstream evangelical vote. At the very least it will make the Senator suspect to other pastors and millions of unconvinced believers,” wrote Bishop Harry Jackson, who added that the two televangelists have “10 times the outreach muscle” of Barack Obama’s controversial ex-pastor Jeremiah Wright.

Star Parker wrote, “John McCain wants Americans to elect him to provide tough leadership in a dangerous world. But when it just takes some mud slung from a few left-wing websites to drive him under a rock, you have to wonder.”

And Gary Bauer, an ally to both McCain and Hagee, said that “radical left” blogs managed to “drive a wedge” between evangelicals and McCain.

But as CBN’s David Brody reports, the McCain campaign is at the same time stepping up its efforts to woo the Religious Right by running weekly meetings with Bauer and other activists and consulting right-wing groups such as the Family Research Council and the Eagle Forum. Brody writes:

Look, here's the bottom line: The McCain campaign is gearing up for a true battle over Evangelicals this fall. They are NOT taking them for granted. They know they have work to do but what we are seeing here is a ramped up effort that is fully supported by the head guy, John McCain. The Hagee endorsement and subsequent retraction was not the campaign's best moment but the system they have in place now is starting to make headway.

It’s likely McCain’s efforts will pay off in getting the support, explicit or implicit, of the Religious Right groups and activists who have long wedded their politics to the GOP’s—especially if he keeps meeting their demands on judges and other issues. But as they continue to pull McCain to the right, the conflict between the base and independent voters—the conflict McCain saw with Hagee and Parsley—will expand.

Back in February of 2007, John McCain was proud to be developing relationships with far-right leaders such as Jerry Falwell, Richard Land, and John Hagee. In particular, McCain pursued Hagee—whose Armageddon-driven Middle East war advocacy seemed to mesh well with McCain’s neoconservative foreign policy ideas—and eventually scored his endorsement.

When the Catholic League pushed back against Hagee’s anti-Catholic reputation, McCain tried to distance himself from the pastor while still bragging about the endorsement. McCain further admitted it was a “mistake” to court Hagee, but insisted he was still “glad” about it. But while Hagee was making time with the Catholic League, more and more of the televangelist’s views were coming out: on Katrina, on the economy, on welfare, and so on.

McCain had apparently decided that his path to the Republican presidential nomination lay with people like Hagee or Rod Parsley, but perhaps he wasn’t prepared for the rough edges of these megachurch pastors compared to media-savvy D.C.-based activists. The last straw, it seems, was Hagee’s explanation that God had appointed Hitler in a prophetic role to “hunt” the Jews and spur the creation of Israel. CNN reported today:

“Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well,” McCain said in a statement to CNN Thursday.

Within minutes, Hagee responded with a version of “You can’t fire me! I quit!”

Ever since I endorsed John McCain for president, people seeking to attack Senator McCain have combed my records for statements they can use for political gain.  They have had no qualms about grossly misrepresenting my position on issues most near and dear to my heart if it serves their political ambitions. 

I am tired of these baseless attacks and fear that they have become a distraction in what should be a national debate about important issues.  I have therefore decided to withdraw my endorsement of Senator McCain for President effective today, and to remove myself from any active role in the 2008 campaign. 

I hope that the Senator McCain will accept this withdrawal so that he may focus on the issues that are most important to America and the world.

McCain has been trying to have it both ways, walking a line between the far Right and the mainstream. While the candidate has apparently abandoned the uncouth Hagee—and is downplaying his association with firebrand Ohio televangelist Rod Parsley—there’s only so much of the Right he can slough off without alienating its leaders or its constituency. Unless they swallow their pride and count on his promises of a far-right Supreme Court.

Last week, there was speculation swirling that John McCain was considering choosing one-time presidential rival Mike Huckabee as his vice-presidential running mate and over the weekend, Huckabee himself made it abundantly clear that he really, really wants this job:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said yesterday he’d like to be John McCain’s running mate.

“There’s no one I would rather be on a ticket with than John McCain,” said Huckabee, who was a stronger than expected challenger against McCain for the Republican presidential nomination.

“All during the campaign when I was his rival, not a running mate, there was no one who was more complimentary of him publicly and privately. . . . I still wanted to win, but if I couldn’t, John McCain was always the guy I would have supported and have now supported.”

The conventional wisdom is that picking Huckabee would go a long way toward helping McCain shore up the right-wing base that has been somewhat reluctant to support him, given that McCain’s own outreach to that community has little to show so far beyond the controversy generated by the endorsements of John Hagee and Rod Parsely.   

Considering that McCain’s own efforts to woo the Right have been such a disaster, it might behoove his campaign to think long and hard about bringing Huckabee on board because if he climbs aboard the Straight Talk Express, he’ll be bringing his own right-wing baggage along for the ride. 

Although it wasn’t surprising to see John McCain spend much of the past few years courting the Religious Right in advance of securing the Republican presidential nomination, he continued to pander even after his primary victory was all but finalized. Beginning with his speech to the right-wing activists at CPAC—which followed shortly after his main rival, Mitt Romney, dropped out—McCain seemed to step up his embrace of the fringe, picking up more and more endorsements, campaigning with apocalyptic televangelist John Hagee and “Patriot Pastor” Rod Parsley, and reaching out to the Council for National Policy.

McCain’s search for religious-right support might have raised a few flags. Hagee, for example, frames his support for Israel in terms of the end times, going as far as warning that any U.S. foreign policy decision that isn’t “pro-Israel” enough will result in God bringing a “blood bath” of terrorist attacks to America. Hagee also identifies the Catholic Church as the “great whore” of Revelation (a characterization he now denies) and said Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment on a sinful city.

When confronted with some of Hagee’s extreme views, McCain simply responded “all I can tell you is that I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee’s support.'’ After a lot of pressure from the Catholic League, McCain finally issued a bland statement: “I repudiate any comments that are made, including Pastor Hagee’s, if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics.”

Indeed, McCain would have had difficulty criticizing Hagee any further—much less call the pastor out on his “profoundly distorted view of this country,” to quote Barack Obama’s critique of Rev. Jeremiah Wright—because McCain had sought out Hagee precisely for his extreme stance and the religious-right constituency he can reach.

Just as McCain sought out Hagee for his political clout, it was politics that brought McCain and Ohio televangelist Rod Parsley together on the campaign. When McCain brought Parsley on stage and called him a “spiritual guide,” that didn’t mean the senator had sent the Word of Faith preacher a financial “seed” in hopes that God would bolster his campaign contributions. Instead, McCain was embracing Parsley’s far-right political views and the political machine of “Patriot Pastors” he leads.

David Limbaugh, one of the many right-wing commentators who dismissed Obama’s speech on his pastor, claimed there was a “double standard” when it came to conservatives: “When the remotest connection can be inferred between a conservative and a bigoted supporter, there is always hell to pay.”

But in fact the opposite double standard seems to be in play: While Obama continues to be attacked for his personal relationship with a pastor whose controversial political ideology he’s rejected, McCain’s ongoing ideological relationship with the far Right—consisting, in essence, of him telling them he embraces their political views—remains unconnected to McCain’s political reputation.

A number of media outlets have picked up on John McCain’s embrace of fringe televangelist John Hagee, although (thanks in part to the Catholic League’s efforts) the focus has been on Hagee’s anti-Catholic sentiment rather than the pastor’s far-right political views or his obsession that Israel must be defeated by a Russian-Arab military alliance, perhaps preceded by a U.S. invasion of Iran, in order to usher in Armageddon and the second coming of Jesus.

But few have paid attention to the other far-right televangelist McCain embraced last week, Rod Parsley.

You won’t hear Parsley rail against Catholics, but you will hear him rail against gays, abortion, Islam, judges, and People For the American Way. And in Ohio, he has built a political machine of partisan “Patriot Pastors” who will turn their churches into get-out-the-vote campaigns.

“A spiritual invasion is taking place!” shouted Rod Parsley at the “War on Christians” conference in 2006. “… Man your battle stations! Ready your weapons! Lock and load!” Parsley, an Ohio megachurch pastor and televangelist, promised to build an army of “Patriot Pastors” to march to the polls, an even bolder political machine than the one he led in 2004 that helped pass an anti-gay amendment in the state and nudge George W. Bush to reelection. Parsley’s 2006 candidate, Ken Blackwell, ultimately lost the governor’s race, but the televangelist remains an outsized political force, and his “Patriot Pastors” machine is still a model for church-based electoral organizing—as demonstrated by Mike Huckabee’s surprise win in Iowa.

Thus far, Parsley has kept his distance from the presidential race, while continuing to use his TV show to oppose abortion and hate-crimes protections. But now he’s jumped in to help John McCain lock up the Republican nomination. From the Columbus Dispatch:

McCain campaigned yesterday in Cincinnati, where he appeared with the Rev. Rod Parsley of World Harvest Church of Columbus. McCain called Parsley a "spiritual guide," while Parsley later labeled McCain a "strong, true, consistent conservative." …

Parsley shared the stage with McCain during a rally at Hamilton County Memorial Hall in Cincinnati but didn't speak.

In a later interview, Parsley said he supports McCain because the senator will be tough on national security and "protect the unborn."

The megachurch pastor, criticized in the past for mixing religion and politics, acknowledged that McCain isn't the ideal candidate for evangelical Christians, who overwhelmingly backed President Bush in 2004.

"Yet at the same time, when you put John McCain up against Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, the ideological and philosophical differences are overwhelming," Parsley said.

While the results of next Tuesday’s GOP primary vote in Ohio are all but certain, Parsley’s intervention suggests that he may deploy his “Patriot Pastor” machine on behalf of McCain ahead of November, when the state is likely to be a closely-fought “battleground” yet again.

Recent polling suggests that no matter how much time McCain has spent recently pandering to far-right activists, he still retains the positive image of a political “maverick.” That air of bipartisanship is difficult to reconcile with McCain’s decision to campaign side-by-side with Parsley, a figure who has taken partisanship to apocalyptic levels, translating the Republican-Democrat divide into spiritual warfare.

(AP photo of McCain and Parsley.)

The infamous Dred Scott Supreme Court decision—declaring enslaved blacks to be property and presaging the Civil War—is often invoked by opponents of abortion rights, who make the analogy that Roe v. Wade is to fetuses as Dred Scott is to African Americans. Rod Parsley does them one better, arguing that Roe v. Wade is to African Americans just as Dred Scott is to African Americans.

Last week, the Ohio televangelist used his TV show to claim that reproductive health-care providers were trying to “exterminate” African Americans. On Sunday he aired a sermon version of the same argument—and paired it with a get-out-the-vote message for his viewers in Super Tuesday states. Warning that a candidate victorious in today’s primaries will likely become president, and will appoint Supreme Court justices and sign or veto abortion legislation, Parsley’s show told viewers, “Our democracy is too important for Christians to be silent any more.”

Parsley appears to have largely abstained from campaigning around the presidential election so far, but it’s hard to imagine him being apolitical in the coming year. In 2004 and 2006, Parsley and Russell Johnson, another Columbus-area megachurch pastor, teamed up to run a church-based political machine driving the successful anti-gay marriage initiative and the unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign of Ken Blackwell. Calling themselves “Patriot Pastors,” they vowed to wage war against their political opponents—“secular jihadists,” the “forces of darkness,” and the “hordes of hell.”

The Cleveland Plain Dealer caught up with Parsley’s comrade Johnson, who headed the Ohio Restoration Project alongside Parsley’s Reformation Ohio. The groups promised to save souls while moving hundreds of thousands of voters to the polls, all while hosting candidate Blackwell at events around the state. Johnson promises more “Patriot Pastor”-style organizing—but without being so blatant about it:

Johnson said he expects that Ohio's Christian leadership will become more active once primary season is over, with varying emphasis on social issues, economics and national security from a conservative point of view. …

Johnson said political activity among preachers might look a little different than it did in the past, when he and the Rev. Parsley and their Patriot Pastors movement drew accusations of violating their churches' tax-exempt status by campaigning for Blackwell. (The pastors denied that they officially backed any particular candidate.)

In any case, leaders don't want to become "an easy target," Johnson says, so they are unlikely to give themselves a moniker. But they will be spreading information through e-mail networks, creating discussion groups and voter guides, and urging people to "get registered, get informed, go vote and take somebody with you."

As the nation celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. last week, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council wrote of what he called the “irony” of the fact that anti-abortion activists choose the same day to rally in Washington: Hoping to piggyback on the civil rights movement, historically never allied with the Religious Right, Perkins implied that reproductive health-care providers are really motivated by a desire to “exterminate” black people.

Tandem with efforts by the Religious Right to recruit African American churches, the idea that abortion providers are trying to wipe out blacks is being heavily promoted on the far right, thanks to the efforts of the Life Education and Resource Network (LEARN) and BlackGenocide.org. (The group was featured on this “700 Club” report in 2006.)

Johnny Hunter of LEARN was a guest on televangelist Rod Parsley’s show this week:

“Roe v. Wade doesn’t have to be overturned. The hearts and minds of this nation must be overturned,” said Hunter.

In their opposition to the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007, which extends federal protections to victims of violent crime targeted because of sexual orientation, many religious-right activists have taken a rhetorical short-cut, skipping claims of a “slippery slope” and asserting—against the explicit text of the bill—that it would target speech or religion. Ohio televangelist and megachurch pastor Rod Parsley, an increasingly influential political figure on the Right, dedicated his cable show to advancing this idea last week. From Wednesday’s “Rod Parsley” show on TBN (re-run on Friday):