William Murray

Gays Cause Train Crashes

Submitted by Kyle on September 14, 2009 - 9:15am

Last year, a Metrolink commuter train collided with a Union Pacific Corp. freight train in Los Angeles, causing several fatalities.

Over the weekend, William J. Murray, chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition, had a column in WorldNetDaily complaining that there has been no coverage of the fact that the crash was due to the fact, literally, that the engineer gay:

The engineer, Robert M. Sanchez, 46, was a homosexual, and he was sending a text message to a teenage boy when he blew through a red light, crashing head-on into an oncoming freight train. Because being "gay" is a media cause in America, and particularly in California, virtually no gay crime is reported. Domestic violence involving gays is rarely if ever reported in California newspapers despite the fact that it represents a disproportionate number of police calls. Simply put, the minute the individual who caused the train crash was identified as being homosexual, reporting on the disaster came to a virtual stop.

On Sept. 21, 2008, the New York Times did publish a 40-paragraph, sympathetic story about the killer engineer, Robert Sanchez, which centered on his diabetes and the suicide of his "partner" in 2003. The dead and injured passengers were not mentioned. In paragraph one of the story, titled "Several Portraits Emerge of Engineer in Crash," it is mentioned that he was sending a text message to a teenage boy at the time of the accident, saying, "He encouraged teenagers who showed their own enthusiasm for the rails. ..." Later, in paragraph five, the Times article mentions that he suffered "grief" over the death of his partner in 2003, the first indication that he was gay. Near the end of the article, in paragraph 39, an individual is quoted as saying, "If he was texting those teenagers, he'd have to have loved his job and wanted to share it with people."

There are lots of older men and women who are "rail" enthusiasts. In fact, there are numerous magazines published for railroad and model railroad buffs. At age 63, I continue to build a model train layout that is slowly taking over the basement of my home. The average subscriber to Model Railroader magazine is by no means a teenager.

Yet in none of the articles is it mentioned that Sanchez sent text messages to mature rail enthusiasts, or that he belonged to any model rail clubs. It seems his only interest was in "sharing the rails" with teenage boys. Let's get real: Bob Sanchez was using his position as a railroad engineer to pick up teenage boys who had an interest in railroads. In his excitement in communicating with a teenage boy by text message he took his eyes off the rails in front of him and killed himself and 24 others while leaving dozens with permanent injuries, some crippled for life.

Murray seemingly has absolutely nothing on which to base his allegation that "Sanchez was using his position as a railroad engineer to pick up teenage boys" ... other than the "known fact" among Religuious Right groups that all gays are pedophiles.

And that was apparently good enough for WND.

Kyle's blog

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Huckabee: A New Kind of Evangelical?

Submitted by Kyle on January 16, 2008 - 8:22am

Several articles have appeared in recent months suggesting that Mike Huckabee is some sort of “new breed” of evangelical – one who is not committed only to opposing abortion and gay rights, but also cares about the environment and the poor. And Huckabee has worked hard to play up the idea that he is nothing like traditional demagoguing Religious Right preachers such as Pat Robertson or the late Jerry Falwell.

As Huckabee likes to say, while he may be conservative, he’s “just not angry about it” – or, to put it another way, he drinks “a different kind of Jesus juice. To the press, this seems to be enough to qualify Huckabee as a “different kind of evangelical,” and exempts him from having to explain himself when he proclaims that we need to “amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards.”

An example of this sort of coverage appeared on the New York Times over the weekend:

Much of the national leadership of the Christian conservative movement has turned a cold shoulder to the Republican presidential campaign of Mike Huckabee, wary of his populist approach to economic issues and his criticism of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. But that has only fired up Brett and Alex Harris.

The Harris brothers, 19-year-old evangelical authors and speakers who grew up steeped in the conservative Christian movement, are the creators of Huck’s Army, an online network that has connected 12,000 Huckabee campaign volunteers, including several hundred in Michigan, which votes Tuesday, and South Carolina, which votes Saturday.

They say they like Mr. Huckabee for the same reason many of their elders do not: “He reaches outside the normal Republican box,” Brett Harris said in an interview from his home near Portland, Ore.

The brothers fell for Mr. Huckabee last August when they saw him draw applause on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” for explaining that he believed in a Christian obligation to care for prenatal “life” and also education, health care, jobs and other aspects of “life.” “It is a new kind of evangelical conservative position,” Brett Harris said. Alex Harris added, “And we are not going to have to be embarrassed about him.”

The article noted how Huckabee’s rise in the polls has occurred “without the backing of, and even over the opposition of, the movement’s most visible leaders, many of whom have either criticized him or endorsed other candidates.” While Religious Right powerbrokers like Tony Perkins, James Dobson, and Gary Bauer have credited Huckabee for energizing evangelical voters, all have made clear that they do not support his candidacy and seemingly have no intention of doing so.

But just because the most prominent right-wing activists are reluctant to climb aboard the Huckabee bandwagon doesn’t mean that those already on board are in any way moderates or representative of some sort of new, more moderate evangelical movement. In fact, most of Huckabee’s backers are even more radical.

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Religious Right Urges Activists to 'Rat Out' Liberal Churches to IRS

Submitted by Ezra on October 2, 2006 - 3:59pm

The Religious Right has embraced the issue of the tax-exempt status of churches and other non-profits that promote political candidates and issues, decrying what they call an effort to “silence” them or deny their religious liberty. At the Values Voter Summit, the name of Rev. Barry Lynn, head of Americans United for Church and State, rang out in anger from the stage almost every hour, and Rick Scarborough threatened to burn his 501(c)3 non-profit registration form. But as groups like Focus on the Family ramp up electoral work in states with contentious Senate races and promise to defy the tax regulation that makes political contributions non-deductible, William Murray of the Religious Freedom Coalition is taking the opposite tack, with a web site dedicated to “ending radical left-wing politics in the pulpit” and offering visitors the opportunity to file an IRS complaint against churches. According to Murray, this effort is in the spirit of ecumenicalism:

Mr. Murray said he collected more than 30 complaints against liberal, mostly black, churches on his Web site during the last presidential contest. He referred several cases to the IRS, he said, and has received two more during this year's midterm contests.

"I actually believe that what I'm doing with this is wrong, but I'm doing it in a defensive nature," said Mr. Murray, executive director of the Religious Freedom Action Coalition. "Somebody has to defend the conservative churches and the only way to protect them is to attack the liberal churches."