Posts on Tony Perkins

I have nothing to add to this quote regarding Sarah Palin’s political future … other than my fervent prayers that the Religious Right actually believes it is true:

"She is the future of the party. She can bring in those independents, those who have not historically voted Republican, like Ronald Reagan did," said Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council.

A week or so ago, Politico reported that various right-wing leaders were set to gather following the election to plot strategy on how to move their agenda forward and revitalize the conservative movement.  Now Politico is adding a few more details regarding who will be in attendance and what will be on the agenda:

A group of prominent conservatives will meet tomorrow at the Virginia weekend home of Brent Bozell to discuss the future of the movement and the GOP.

Bozell, chairman of the conservative watchdog group, the Media Research Center, is convening the group along with longtime GOP strategist and conservative pr executive Greg Mueller.

“There will be roughly twenty leaders at the meeting all of whom have been successful fundraisers and grassroots organizers, combined with a few conservative political and media strategists," said Mueller.

As I reported last week, on the agenda will be the role of conservatives in the party, how to go forward in a capital dominated by Democrats and ultimately what path to take to recapture power in the mid-term elections and beyond.

In addition to Mueller and Bozell, other conservatives attending the private session will be: Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the conservative Federalist Society, and a leading figure in the movement on judicial and Catholic issues; Grover Norquist, the anti-tax crusader who heads Americans for Tax Reform; and Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Center and one of the most high-profile social conservatives.

It has been less than twelve hour since the historic election that saw Barack Obama become President-elect of the United States and the Democratic Party widen its margins in the House and Senate, and while we are still months away from them actually taking office, the Religious Right is already warning that their first order to business will be to presecute Christians:

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, believes Senator Obama was elected, in large part, because the church in America has failed to address sin in its own ranks and also in society.

Perkins says Christians should pray for and return to a biblical model of holiness and righteousness. And believers in America, he adds, should prepare for persecution.

Tony Perkins"We are going to see, I think, unprecedented attacks against our faith through measures like the hate crimes [legislation] to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act," he says. "We're going to see attacks on innocent human life through the Freedom of Choice Act, trying to erase all the gains that have been made in the pro-life movement. And I think even our freedoms are going to come under attack."

And before that happens, other right-wing leaders are rallying the troops to launch their own right-wing attacks with Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, declaring that Obama has already "failed miserably":

"Americans have made a grave mistake in electing Barack Obama to the presidency," Fr. Pavone wrote. "He said during the campaign that he does not know when a human being starts to have human rights. How can one govern from that starting point of ignorance? Governing is about protecting human rights; to do it successfully, you have to know where they come from, and when they begin. The President-elect has already failed that test miserably."

Fr. Pavone sounds a note of defiant confidence, declaring that the pro-life movement is winning in the culture and that "a new chapter of the pro-life movement has just begun. ...We will keep marching toward that pro-life America we seek, and won't stop until we get there."

For its part, the Christian Defense Coalition has announced its own "The Birmingham Letter Project" which they plan to use to "challenge the radical pro-abortion policies of President-elect Barack Obama":

"We will be coming to Washington, D.C., as President-elect Obama is sworn in, to boldly stand as public and prophetic witness for life. As the pro-life community, we will not go silently into the night and allow the violence to continue. Instead, we are issuing this national call for the pro-life community to come to the streets of our nation's capital and be a prayerful voice for those who have no voice.

As for the "conservative movement" that was so badly damaged by President George Bush, Phyllis Schlafly declares that they are already in the process of rebuilding:

"I think we’re going to be looking for new leaders who express conservatism across the board – whether its sovereignty, limited spending, limited government, cuts in spending, cuts in taxes, the social issues – to simply reject these groups who are trying to muscle into the driver’s seat of the Republican Party, such as the multinationals with their ‘free-trade globalism’ agenda ... We have about 30 very good members of Congress who are destined to become good leaders.”

Among the myriad of excuses the Religious Right will roll out tomorrow should John McCain lose will be the idea that McCain just didn’t energize the base and so they stayed home.  That may very well be the case, but it certainly won’t be because right-wing leaders sat on the sidelines and didn't do everything in their power to mobilize their base.  

Case in point: the God TV Election Special, which has been airing in constant rotation over the last several days.  

Because it is my job to watch these things so that you don’t have to, that is exactly what I did and I can say that I have never seen one program that included so many high-profile Religious Right leaders coupled with such egregious nuttiness.

Traditionally, when you see people like James Dobson and Tony Perkins, people like Pat Robertson and “prophetic intercessors” like Cindy Jacobs are nowhere to be found.  But in the case of the God TV Election Special, they have all come together to plead with Christians to pray, fast, and above all, vote:

GOD TV's 2008 US Election Special is a passionate call for GOD TV's viewers in America and around the world to pray for the election and to encourage all American believers to exercise their right to vote. The two-hour program features many high-profile Christian leaders such as: Pat Robertson, Founder of CBN; Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice; Bishop Wellington Boone, Pastor, Father's House Church; Luis Palau, Evangelist; Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council; Rick Joyner, Senior Pastor, Morningstar Fellowship Church; Jill Austin, Founder, Master Potter Ministries; John Hagee,  Senior Pastor, Cornerstone Church; Cindy Jacobs, Founder, Generals International; Lou Engle, Co-founder of TheCall; Mike Bickle, Director of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, (IHOP-KC);  Harry Jackson, Founder and Chairman of the High Impact Leadership. Coalition (HILC); and Jim Garlow, Senior Pastor of Skyline Wesleyan Church.

Below is a ten-minute synopsis of the two hour program featuring Rick Joyner proclaiming that they will see a “dramatic victory of light over dark,” but only if the church will finally stand up; Bishop Harry Jackson saying that an Obama victory will signal that “we have not chosen God’s best” and predicting that there will be riots in Washington, DC if Obama loses; John Hagee warning that the righteous cannot get into positions of authority if the righteous do not vote; Jill Austin recounting a vision she received from the Lord of the forces of evil commiserating at a casino in the sky where they smoked cigars and drank whiskey and had the faces of dogs; Rep. Trent Franks sharing God’s blessing with the entire world; Harry Jackson (again) saying that the only way John McCain will get elected is if Christian rise up to put him in office despite his failure to adequately reach out to them, in which case he owes them big time; Cindy Jacobs getting increasingly worked up over the need to pray to let God’s will be done in America as it is in Heaven; Election Special co-host Wendy Alec lamenting to Pat Robertson that he was not running for president this cycle; Tony Perkins explaining that we are in a “spiritual battle”; James Dobson asking for worldwide prayer because “absolutely everything” is on the line; and finally Lou Engle, well, being Lou Engle.

So while you are waiting for the polls to close and the election results to start rolling in, sit back and enjoy ten minutes of unfettered Religious Right hysteria (or at least fast forward and watch the Jill Austin and Cindy Jacobs portions):

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal have a long history dating back to Perkins' days in the state legislature that continues to this day, with Perkins working closely with the Governor during the Hurricane Gustav recovery efforts earlier this year:

Governor Jindal is a friend of mine with whom I worked closely during my time in the legislature when he was the Secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals. Having the opportunity to work alongside him and his staff in the last several days from sun-up to past sundown, I am greatly encouraged and impressed with his leadership and the dedication of his staff to getting essential relief to the citizens of the state and restoring critical infrastructure.

On Friday, Jindal announced his appointments to the Louisiana Commission on Marriage and Family, and guess who was among those he chose?

Tony Perkins, of Baton Rouge, is the president of Family Research Council, a family advocacy organization.. Perkins will serve as an individual with expertise in community programs and assistance, as required by statute.

As Bayou Buzz put it, "Jindal ran and was elected as a social conservative and a number of his appointments appear to reflect that political agenda" and that includes not only Perkins but also Mike Johnson, senior legal counsel for Alliance Defense Fund.

If Jindal is planning his own presidential run in 2012 should McCain-Palin lose, it is probably safe to assume that he'll have Perkins and the extremely influential Family Research Council in his corner from the get-go.   

Sarah Posner has a good piece up at Religion Dispatches on Lou Engle, founder of The Call, and his recent branching out from this militant anti-abortion proselytizing and into the marriage debate and the upcoming election. 

Engle, as Posner explains, is best known for his efforts to turns hordes of young men and women into warriors for Christ and “raise up of an army of spiritual warriors for revival” and is becoming something of a regular figure in the political Religious Right movement, appearing with notable figures such as Tony Perkins and Mike Huckabee before and during his recent “The Call” rally in Washington, DC:

The Call’s advisory board is stacked with prominent Pentecostal and charismatic preachers, leading figures in the controversial apostolic movement, which is elevating a new generation of self-appointed prophets and apostles, African-American and Latino religious leaders, charismatic publishing giant Stephen Strang, and religious right leaders like Perkins, Harry Jackson, and Gary Bauer.

The religious right political leadership’s keen interest in Engle was evident at The Call held on the National Mall in August. The day before the event, the public relations firm Shirley Bannister introduced Engle, flanked by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins and former Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, at a press conference just a few blocks from the White House. Perkins, one of the most visible political leaders on the religious right, noted Engle’s influence on young evangelicals, who he claimed were even more conservative on abortion than their parents, though he cited no surveys or polls to support the claim.

…

Engle, per his custom, likened his crusade against abortion to Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement. He rocked back and forth, as though davening, preached against Roe v. Wade, and shouted, as the crowd prayed and spoke in tongues, “this is a Passover Day for America. Today, we plead the blood of Jesus on the doorpost!” Purity covenants, requiring abstention from even thinking about sex outside of marriage, were distributed. Participants were urged to consecrate themselves, to be ready for the moment when Jesus “is going to rule over Washington, DC and the world.”

“Repentance and revival cannot start in the building behind me,” said Huckabee, his back to the Capitol, “until it starts in the temple inside me.”

But when he’s not leading day-long rallies such as this or the anti-gay marriage one scheduled at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium this weekend, Engle and his army can be found at International House of Prayer he co-founded in Kansas City where they direct their prayers toward things like remaking the US Supreme Court … and rather successfully at that, according to Engle: 

Engle unabashedly credits prayer for George W. Bush’s presidency and his subsequent appointment of Supreme Court Justices who upheld the ban on so-called “partial birth abortion.” “The praying church deals with the demonic realm, so that God raises up one and brings down the other,” Engle said in a recent video on The Call’s web site, explaining how prayer proved victorious over satanic forces in the spiritual warfare of an election, adding, “I directly attribute [Bush’s election] to the prayers of the saints.”

Young people at his House of Prayer, said Engle, had been praying about judges for three years when Sandra Day O’Connor retired and William Rehnquist died. As if to prove to his acolytes that their prayer and fasting is not in vain, Engle maintains that their prayers and prophecies shaped the Supreme Court. “One of the young ladies had a dream,” Engle asserted, “that a man named John Roberts would be the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.” He beams with pride. “Don’t you think those kids were baptized with confidence? Their prayers, I believe, were literally moving a king to appoint a justice who has now led a court that has banned partial birth abortion. Don’t tell me prayer doesn’t shape a nation.”

That is what Tony Perkins told the New York Times:

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian lobby based in Washington, said in an interview, “It’s more important than the presidential election.”

“We’ve picked bad presidents before, and we’ve survived as a nation,” said Mr. Perkins, who has made two trips to California in the last six weeks. “But we will not survive if we lose the institution of marriage.”

So dire is the threat that Lou Engle is gathering his prayer warriors in an effort to call forth divine intervention and save America from the forces of evil:

Preachers from other parts of the country have dropped everything and moved to California in recent months. Lou Engle, who leads TheCall, a charismatic prayer ministry in Washington and Kansas City, Mo., with a large following among youth, moved with his seven children to California in September. He is holding large prayer rallies up and down the state, urging people to pray and fast for the 40 days leading up to the election. Some people are giving up solid foods; others are giving up clothes shopping or their favorite television shows.

“We believe there is a spiritual battle in an unseen realm, and that’s why I’ve called for united prayer for divine intervention,” Mr. Engle said. “It’s a defining moment for the definition of marriage in American history.”

For his part, Perkins begins laying the blame should McCain go down in defeat, saying that he’s failed to make marriage an issue in the campaign and is therefore failing to secure the electoral support of the anti-gay movement:

Mr. Perkins of the Family Research Council said the Proposition 8 forces had not benefited from the Republican presidential campaign of Senator John McCain of Arizona or even by his selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, an outspoken Christian conservative, as his vice-presidential running mate.

“He’s not helping, and he’s not being helped by the support for the marriage amendment,” Mr. Perkins said, in contrast to the campaigns of President Bush.

I expect that we’ll be seeing a lot more of this finger-pointing from the Right if McCain loses next week.

When Rep. Michelle Bachmann basically accused every Democratic member of Congress of being un-American last week, it unleashed a wave of financial support for her opponent and scared off the National Republican Campaign Committee, which pulled its advertising on her behalf ... and the Family Research Council is not happy about it and threatening to shut down their own efforts to raise money for the NRCC: 

The Family Research Council's (FRC) political arm ripped Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) Thursday for withdrawing ad spending on behalf of two endangered Republican candidates.

FRC President Tony Perkins said in a letter to Cole, chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC), that the committee "is abandoning social conservative candidates" by pulling ads from the reelection races of Reps. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.) and Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.).

...

Perkins, an influential conservative leader, said in his letter that he believes Cole, whose committee has been hemorrhaging money in an uphill battle against Democratic congressional candidates, "made a grave error in judgment" by pulling ads from Musgrave's and Bachmann's districts.

"The left is attacking both of these outstanding women because they are true conservatives," Perkins said. "They vote pro-life and pro-family."

Perkins wrote that both candidates are in "winnable districts," and that "pulling funds from their campaigns sends the wrong message to their supporters and gives their opponents a chance to produce headlines that the NRCC has undermined these campaigns."

"This is no time to cut and run from a fight," Perkins wrote.

He added that he will "urge supporters" of the FRC to stop contributing to the NRCC "until it starts supporting and fighting for conservative candidates in close races."

Coral Ridge Ministries unveils a new video featuring Matt Barber, Jordan Lorence, Robert Knight, Tony Perkins, and others warning Christians that if Hate Crimes Laws get enacted, Christianity will be criminalized and churches will be destroyed.

In this excerpt, Knight declares that such laws will result in the “criminalization of Christianity” and that, if passed, American will “have criminalized basic Christian moral doctrine” while Perkins says that hate crimes laws will lead to hate speech laws which will “ultimately silence the churches in the country” and that is no accident because “homosexuals know they must silence the church in this country” in order to enact their agenda.

Time Magazine's Massimo Calabresi just wrote an entire blog post lamenting the fact that "in the three presidential debates, McCain and Obama have completed a surprising sweep: no mention of 'God,' the 'Lord,' or even a higher power."

Calabresi concludes by declaring that this is especially "noteworthy" to "people who care about the presence of religion in politics."  And whom would those people be? 

"Whether intentional or not the discussion of God and the role of faith appears to have been relegated to the Saddleback forum in this general election,” says Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, who calls the development “troubling.”

Of course Perkins is troubled by it - his whole purpose in life is to equate God with the Republican Party and if the candidates aren't talking about God or the social issues the Religious Right care about, then his role in the process is diminished. 

If Calabresi is going to make bold declarations regarding "people who care about the presence of religion in politics," he might want to try and find examples beyond Religious Right activists who've dedicated their entire careers to trying to mix the two in a very dangerous way.

Frankly, I don't have anything to add to this quote from Tony Perkins which I assume is supposed to be some sort of defense of Sarah Palin: 

Some leading opinion makers traditionally on the right - from George Will and Peggy Noonan to Kathleen Parker and David Frum - have questioned whether Mrs. Palin has the right stuff or any stuff at all to command the armed forces, direct foreign policy and guide domestic economic policy if Mr. McCain, at 72 and with a history of cancer, wins and then suffers some medical incapacity.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said that whether swing voters and blue-collar white ethnic voters like the way she answers moderator Gwen Ifill's questions Thursday night will depend in part on whether her handlers let "Sarah be herself."

Mr. Perkins said his biggest concern is that she not be "overscripted," adding that Mr. Will and Miss Noonan make important contributions but are applying an overly demanding standard for articulateness to Mrs. Palin.

"Not everybody's an intellectual," he said.

For the last week or so, I've been mocking the Right's claim that somehow our current economic crisis is actually due to abortion, homosexuals, and an overall breakdown in the family. 

I assumed that this was just some knee-jerk default response they were giving, since their inclination is to just assume that everything can be related to gays and abortion and families and that once they gave it a bit of thought, they'd realize how ridiculous it is and they'd stop saying it.

And, of course, I was wrong:

Conservative U.S. Christians say the culture has gone to hell and it has taken the economy and Wall Street down with it.

...

The narrative goes roughly like this: the "collapse" of the traditional family, widespread divorce and a "permissive" culture have led to a disregard for personal responsibility.

A culture focused on instant gratification -- through the overuse of credit cards to buy consumer goods, for example -- has also lost other "traditional values" such as thrift and hard work.

"You can't have a strong, vibrant society when you don't have strong, vibrant families. It's a crisis of commitment, it's a crisis of responsibility," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative lobby group with strong evangelical ties.

"If you don't live up to your responsibility you are going to see that in the broader culture. You see this on Wall Street," he told Reuters.

Lesson learned - next time you are tempted to think that the Right can't possibly believe the ridiculous things they say, rest assured that, in fact, they do.

There have been several articles recently suggesting that with John McCain’s decision to name Sarah Palin as his running mate, the focus of the election was shifting toward wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage and that the so-called “culture war” was about to be reignited, to the benefit of the Republican Party.

But that was before the economy went into a meltdown and became the primary issue in the campaign.  Of course, just because the focus has shifted away from their issues doesn’t mean that the Religious Right isn’t desperately trying to find ways of exploiting the current economic crisis to further their own agenda:

While the economy clearly is at the forefront of voter priorities, conservative Christians also draw a connection between traditional social issues like abortion and gay marriage and the economy, said Tony Perkins, president of the Washington-based Family Research Council.

"As there's a breakdown in the family and the family weakens, it's only logical it will hit Wall Street," Perkins said. "A nation cannot be strong just because of a financial structure alone. It has to have strong families and values."

Obviously, as soon as women stop having abortions and gays stop trying to get married and adopt children everything on Wall Street will turn right around.  It’s as simple as that.

Over at their iVoteValues website, the Family Research Council has posted a series of videos on the hot-button social and election issues that drive their agenda like gay marriage, abortion, and the courts.

For instance, in this video Tony Perkins explains that “based on the evidence, everything changes when same-sex marriage becomes legal” and then cites Massachusetts as proof that gay marriage “effects every family and every child, including yours.”

Elsewhere, Perkins discusses the importance of the Supreme Court, saying that “we need more conservative judges on every court in the land” and urging people to “elect those that share your values because how the Supreme Court looks after the makeover depends a lot on how we vote this November.”

FRC also cleverly implores us to “Be Straight on 8.” 

The videos, coupled with their recent Values Voter Summit and the announcement that they are launching their own PAC, makes it pretty clear that FRC is doing all they can to rally their base heading into November.

Adelle M. Banks of the Religion News Service had an interesting article the other day looking at the issue of why Religious Right leaders who tend to think that wives should submit to their husbands and that women can't be church leaders are nonetheless gung-ho about Sarah Palin's VP candidacy: 

There may never be a female pastor leading Tony Perkins' Southern Baptist congregation in Louisiana, but there could be a woman taking over the vice president's mansion in Washington.

And as Perkins sees it, there's no contradiction there whatsoever.

"It's not a spiritual role," said Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and a church elder, who calls Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a "brilliant pick" for the Republican ticket.

"An elected official is not a spiritual leader -- and that's what the Scripture speaks to."

As Richard Land explains, "where the New Testament is silent, we're silent. Where the New Testament speaks, we're under its authority." And, as such, Palin is allowed to serve as Vice President because the Bible doesn't say she can't.  But if her husband decides he doesn't want her to be VP, then she can't: 

Land's wife works as a psychotherapist, but he said he couldn't see himself as "first dude" (a term used by Palin's husband). Still, he thinks decisions about roles are up to each husband and wife -- including Sarah and Todd Palin.

"The only thing that would disqualify Gov. Palin from being governor or vice president, in my opinion, would be if her husband didn't want her to do it," he said.

This issues seems to be especially difficult for Southern Baptist leaders like Land who, after all, are the primary proponents of the idea that wives must submit to their husbands, which is why we end up getting confusing pieces like this from Al Mohler:

When Gov. Palin was announced as Sen. John McCain's choice as running mate I was elated about her pro-life commitments and political philosophy, and I remain so. I also told The Wall Street Journal that, if I were her pastor, I would be concerned about how she could balance these responsibilities and what this would mean for her family and her roles as wife and mother. The news that broke over the weekend would make me only more concerned. But my concern would be for her and for her family -- not for the nation.

I am doing my best to be honest -- and not hypocritical -- about how I see this new situation. I could not imagine this in my own family, nor, I am confident, could the vast majority of those conservative Christians who are celebrating the nomination of Gov. Palin as Vice President. I have full confidence that my wife Mary can lead and run anything, from General Motors to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Nevertheless, I also know that I, along with our children, would find our worlds turned upside down. Beyond this, I believe that she would be less happy, less fulfilled, and less strategically deployed. She runs a program that influences the lives of hundreds of women and serves on the board of directors of our local crisis pregnancy center, but her most significant impact will be on the lives of two children who cannot imagine life without her -- and without her active engagement and motherly love.