American Principles Project

Robert George, the Chairman Emeritus of the National Organization for Marriage and founder of the American Principles Project, today on James Dobson’s show Family Talk accused President Obama and the left in general of using the federal government as a “weapon” to “undermine religious liberty.” He claims that the “massive assault on religious liberty” is necessary for the left to win political debates on legal abortion, stem-cell research and marriage equality. George specifically called the mandate for insurance plans to cover contraception a “pure declaration of war on the Catholic Church” and also “on the evangelical community and people of faith across the spectrum.”

There’s a massive assault on religious liberty going on in this country right now, it is coming from the left and the Obama administration’s coming to power three years ago placed a powerful weapon, the entire apparatus of the federal government, at the disposal of those whose agenda it is to undermine religious liberty. Now they’re not doing this simply because they dislike religious liberty, they’re doing it for reasons that are deeper than that. They understand that there is no way that you can completely win the victory they want to win on the issue of abortion, on the issue of embryo-destructive research, on sanctity of human life issues generally including assisted suicide and euthanasia, or prevail as they wish to prevail on redefining marriage without undermining religious liberty.

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This is an unprecedented attack Jim on the religious liberty and the rights of conscience on all Americans, it is really an outrage. The Catholic bishops who have said it are absolutely right; it is a pure declaration of war on the Catholic Church and not only on the Catholic Church but on the evangelical community and people of faith across the spectrum.

The first panel discussion of the day at CPAC was entitled "Do 'We Still Hold These Truths?': The Future of the Conservative Movement" and featured remarks by Jeffrey Bell, the Policy Director at the American Principles Project who explained that the ultimate goal of "the Left" is not socialism or equality but rather the destruction of religion and the family ... and it has been ever since the movement was formed during the French Revolution:

After Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent a letter declaring that Gay-Straight Alliances and similar groups are protected under the 1984 Equal Access Law, which was passed with the help of Religious Right activists, the Religious Right was unsurprisingly enraged. Many anti-gay organizations forcefully oppose the creation of such clubs, and the Family Research Council even urged schools to encourage clubs that support ex-gay therapy. Now, American Principles In Action (APIA) is denouncing Duncan’s letter as a threat to “the innocence” of children.

APIA is the political arm of the American Principles Project, an anti-gay group that is best known for launching the boycott of the Conservative Political Action Conference over the participation of GOProud and the alleged sidelining of the social conservatives. Even though APIA took on leading conservative groups with its CPAC boycott, recently presidential candidates Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Gary Johnson and Rick Santorum signed up for their Iowa “Tea Party Bus Tour.”

In a statement, the APIA charged Secretary Duncan with bullying for supporting students who want to form clubs that actively fight school bullying and harassment. The group instead claimed that it was part of the Obama Administration’s “sexual agenda” and need to “pander to the gay lobby,” requesting the Supreme Court overrule the decision:

Today, American Principles in Action (APIA) criticized Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan for another attempt to bully local schools into accepting the Administration’s sexual agenda. On June 14, he sent a “Dear Colleague” letter notifying schools across the country that they are prohibited from denying the formation of “Queer-Straight” and “Gay-Straight” Alliance groups.

“This is a situation where local school boards have been making their own decisions about how to protect the students entrusted to their care,” said Andy Blom, Executive Director of APIA. “It is simply unacceptable for Sec. Duncan to push local school districts around and force them to accept their sexual agenda, especially when case law is so conflicted on the issue.”

In his letter, Secretary Duncan backed up his decision by citing a July 2008 decision made in Gonzalez vs. School Board of Okeechobee County where a Florida federal judge prohibited the local school board from preventing a Gay-Straight Alliance Group from forming under the Equal Protection Act.

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“What we really need is for the Supreme Court to weigh in to protect the ability of local school districts to manage the innocence of their children without interference from federal courts,” said Blom. “Instead, Sec. Duncan has used yet another opportunity to pander to the gay lobby. It is time for the Supreme Court and Congress to step forward and reign in this overaggressive Department of Education.”

While the Conservative Political Action Conference may be over, the controversy over the gathering’s handling continues. RedState Editor-in-Chief and CNN commentator Erick Erickson first criticized GOProud, the gay conservative group whose involvement in CPAC sparked a Religious Right boycott, for attacking prominent right-wing leaders. Now, Erickson is going after Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform and a GOProud adviser who knocked CPAC boycotters as “loser organizations.”

Norquist has long been a target of far-right groups for his outreach to Muslim Americans and gays and lesbians, and Erickson believes that his fellow conservatives should abandon and replace the Norquist-led ATR and Wednesday Meetings over his role in the CPAC controversy:

Are you a loser? If you are the Heritage Foundation, Media Research Center, Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, the American Principles Project, Jim DeMint, Jim Jordan, Rush Limbaugh (given his comments yesterday on CPAC), and others — you are losers.

Grover Norquist says so. Norquist, last week, called those who chose not to participate in CPAC and those who share those views “losers.”

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The source of Grover Norquist’s power comes from two things: (1) Americans for Tax Reform’s Tax Pledge, which could easily be duplicated by an organization not headed by someone who picked up checks written by a man serving 23 years in jail for financing jihad activities; and (2) the Wednesday morning meeting in which tons of conservative groups participate.

(By the way, did Grover ever give that money back or send it to a charitable cause?)

For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, Grover Norquist has an off the record meeting every Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. in which candidates come to pitch themselves, conservative organizations come to promote their wares, and even Al Gore and George Soros have come to.

It’s become a “see and be seen” sort of meeting and information exchange. Mitch McConnell typically sends someone. The House Republicans send someone. Etc., Etc., Etc.

Grover Norquist’s latest remarks, both regarding principaled [sic] social conservatives and Congressman West, are deeply troubling. If you aren’t troubled yet, google Jack Abramoff Grover Norquist.

I suggest a new Wednesday morning meeting of conservatives — one that combines the fiscal conservative organizations that constantly see their legs cut out from under them when Grover sides with UPS and the unions against FedEx, the national security organizations that continue to be concerned about Grover Norquist’s ties to possible jihadists, and the social conservative organizations Grover Norquist would like to purge from the movement.

Make it the place to plan and strategize within the conservative movement — something that does not really happen any more at Grover’s place. Make it the first step to taking back the conservative movement and moving away from the pay to play concerns that have so plagued the few, but taint so many.

It is time. Losers Unite!

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.

CPAC boycotters, angered over the upcoming event’s inclusion of the gay conservative group GOProud, have taken out a full page ad in the right-wing Washington Times to ask, “What would Ronald Reagan think of CPAC today?”

Rick Scarborough’s Vision America was behind the ad which accused CPAC of “betraying conservative principles and threatening conservative unity by creating the false impression that gay activism is somehow compatible with conservativism” by allowing GOProud to be a participating organization:

The self-proclaimed gay Republicans support hate crime laws (which will be used to bludgeon the church) and oppose the Federal Defense of Marriage Amendment, without which judges will ultimately legislate homosexual “marriage”—making the natural family an endangered species.

Last year, GOProud advocated for homosexuals serving openly in the military, which will devastate our armed forced and sacrifice unit cohesion on the altar of “inclusiveness.”

Ask yourself: Would CPAC allow participation by the Democratic Socialists of America? Why is the free market an inviolable conservative principle, but not family values?

Would organizers invite George Soros to address the gathering? Then why associate with groups who share his worldview?

What does it profit us to gain tax cuts and lose the family—the foundation of a free society?

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President Reagan used to say that he didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left him. Sadly, that’s the way many conservatives increasingly feel about CPAC’s current direction.

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In the war on the family, Judeo-Christian morality and authentic conservative principles, neutrality is impossible. We call for a return to first principles.

While the boycott movement has had some notable successes by pushing Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) to decline to attend the conference, other Religious Right luminaries like Rick Santorum, Timothy Goeglein, Tom Minnery, and Phyllis Schlafly are still slated to address CPAC. In fact, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is giving the conference’s keynote address.

Notably, some of the most prominent groups boycotting CPAC have not signed on to Scarborough’s letter, including the Heritage Foundation, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women For America, and the Media Research Center. The signatories include:

Mark Andrews, (Casino Watch)
Pastor Paul Blair, (Reclaiming America for Christ)
Susan Carleson, (American Civil Rights Union)
Brian Camenker, (MassResistance)
Mandi Campbell, (Liberty Center for Law and Policy)
Frank Cannon, (American Principles Project)
Chris Carmouche, (GrassTopsUSA)
Joseph Farah, (WorldNetDaily.com)
Don Feder, (Don Feder Associates)
Diane Gramley, (American Family Association of Pennsylvania)
Bishop EW Jackson Sr., (STAND America PAC)
Phillip Jauregui, (Judicial Action Group)
Gordon James Klingenschmitt, (Pray In Jesus Name)
Robert Knight, (American Civil Rights Union)
Mike and Cris Kurtz, (The USA Patriots)
Peter LaBarbera, (Americans For Truth About Homosexuality)
Shelli and David Manuel, (Resurrect America Project)
William J. Murray, (Religious Freedom Coalition)
Rev. Rick Scarborough, (Vision America)
Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, (Traditional Values Coalition)
Sharon Slater, (Family Watch International)
Mat Staver, (Liberty Counsel)
Mike Valerio and Helen Valerio, Americans
Tim Wildmon, (American Family Association)

As we have been noting over the last several week, more and more right-wing groups are dropping out of CPAC, angry that organizers have allowed the gay conservative group GOProud to participate.

Many of these same groups have also been angry at Gov. Mitch Daniels ever since he called for a "truce" in the culture war, so I guess it was only a matter of time before groups like the American Principles Project (which kicked off the boycott of CPAC) would start attacking Daniels for agreeing to participate in CPAC:

"Unfortunately, while Governor Daniels is slated to speak at CPAC's 'Reagan Dinner,' he has failed to understand how Ronald Reagan fused the three critical legs of the conservative movement into one coherent governing philosophy," says Andy Blom, executive director of the American Principles Project. "Discarding one makes the whole obsolete."

..."Governor Daniels' selection is an affront to the millions of conservatives who believe that social issues such as abortion and traditional marriage are non-negotiable."

According to CPAC organizers, Haley Barbour, Liz Cheney, Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell, Tim Pawlenty, Rick Perry, Paul Ryan, Rick Santorum are all "confirmed speakers" at this year's event, as is Michele Bachmann.

So is their participation an "affront to the millions of conservatives" as well?  Will the Religious Right start also attacking them for participating in CPAC too? 

UPDATE: Upon reading the entire APP statement, it turns out that they were slamming CPAC for inviting Daniels, not Daniels for attending CPAC (which, frankly, makes even less sense): 

The American Principles Project today blasted the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) for giving a major platform to potential 2012 presidential candidate Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who recently called on Republicans to make a “truce” on social issues, abandoning a key tenet of the conservative movement.

“Unfortunately, while Governor Daniels is slated to speak at CPAC’s ‘Reagan Dinner,’ he has failed to understand how Ronald Reagan fused the three critical legs of the conservative movement into one coherent governing philosophy,” said Andy Blom, executive director of the American Principles Project. “Discarding one makes the whole obsolete.”

In November, the group organized a coalition of conservative organizations protesting CPAC’s inclusion of GOProud because it is “fundamentally incompatible with a movement that has long embraced the ideals of family and faith,” it wrote in a letter to CPAC Chairman David Keene and his fellow board members.

“Governor Daniels’ selection is an affront to the millions of conservatives who believe that social issues such as abortion and traditional marriage are non-negotiable.”

Since APP launched the coalition, concern has grown and other groups have pulled out of the conference, including many past sponsors.

“The Beltway wisdom among Republican insiders boils down to a simple mantra: Social issues are a thing of the past. But this theory falls apart outside of the Washington bubble. The Republican sweep in the House was dominated by pro-life, pro-family candidates, and polling shows large majorities want to see action on these issues,” said Mr. Blom.

APP has already announced that it is boycotting CPAC because it is insufficiently socially conservative.  So what exactly do they think they are going to accomplish by slamming CPAC for inviting someone, like Daniels, who they also think is insufficiently socially conservative?

Incensed over the participation of the conservative gay-rights group GOProud in the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, far-right activists are now trying to connect the major conservative event to the Muslim Brotherhood. The American Conservative Union (ACU), which hosts CPAC, has been the target of Religious Right groups and leaders over their handling of GOProud’s involvement, with Joseph Farah even calling for conservatives to “purge” the ACU from the movement. Already, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women For America, American Values, the American Principles Project, the Capital Research Center, the Center for Military Readiness, Liberty Counsel, Liberty University, and the National Organization for Marriage have announced their boycott of CPAC.

Now, the conservative news site WorldNetDaily, a major cheerleader for the groups boycotting CPAC, is giving right wing activist Frank Gaffney a platform to charge the ACU with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamist group. Gaffney is no stranger to conspiracy theories, as he previously claimed that the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell “amounts to a vote for reinstating the draft,” maintained that Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan is tied to an “ominous campaign” to “bring Shariah to America,” and said that Barack Obama is “America’s first Muslim president.” He is joined by WorldNetDaily’s Paul Sperry, who wrote a book asserting that radical Muslims were infiltrating the government through the congressional internship program.

Gaffney outlines a theory that since the ACU is allowing the leader of an organization known as Muslims for America, a conservative group with ties to the GOP, to participate in CPAC, the ACU is supporting a “stealthy effort to bring Shariah” to America. He is also outraged that Grover Norquist, the head of the highly influential Americans for Tax Reform and a GOProud board member, is involved in CPAC as well. But mostly, Gaffney directs his vitriol at Suhail Khan, the chairman of the Conservative Inclusion Coalition. Both Khan and Norquist are ACU board members, and in 2009 Khan received the Young Conservatives Coalition’s Buckley Award at CPAC. But according to Gaffney, Khan has ties to radical Islamists and, along with Norquist, wants to promote a “seditious totalitarian political program” in the U.S.:

With the Conservative Political Action Conference under fire for allowing participation by a homosexual activist group called GOProud and for a financial scandal in which some $400,000 was misappropriated under the watch of current leadership, Frank Gaffney, a leader of the conservative movement for the last 30 years, charges that CPAC has come under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is working to bring America under Saudi-style Shariah law.

Gaffney, deputy assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan, is founder and president of the Center for Security Policy and co-author of the new book "Shariah: The Threat to America." He told WND that Islamism has infiltrated the American Conservative Union, the host of CPAC, in the person of Washington attorney and political activist Suhail Khan and a group called Muslims for America.

Khan is a member of the ACU board and, according to Muslims for America, will assist the group's presence at CPAC during the 2011 meeting Feb. 10-12.

Gaffney also accuses another ACU board member, leading conservative political organizer Grover Norquist, of helping the Muslim Brotherhood spread its influence in the nation's capital.

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Paul Sperry, author of "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington" and "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America," says Khan is running "an influence operation on Capitol Hill that's quite sophisticated and slick."

"Suhail is the firstborn son of the late Mahboob Khan, a founding father of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in America," said Sperry, a Hoover Institution media fellow. "Suhail has been a consultant to CAIR [The Council on American-Islamic Relations] and served on committees at ISNA [the Islamic Society of North America], both of which the government says are fronts for Hamas and its parent the Muslim Brotherhood."

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Gaffney describes Norquist, who, ironically also serves on the board of the controversial GOProud, as the enabler for Muslim Brotherhood associates, providing them with access into the highest reaches of the conservative movement and the Republican Party through his many contacts. Norquist, the founder of Americans for Tax Reform, hosts a weekly political organizing meeting attended by many of the leading conservatives in Washington.

"This is a ticking time bomb for the conservative community," said Gaffney. Using language reminiscent of the Cold War, Gaffney declared, "An influence operation is contributing materially to the defeat of our country, supporting a stealthy effort to bring Shariah here.

"Grover Norquist is credentialing the perpetrators of this Muslim Brotherood influence operation," he adds. "This is part of tradecraft, to get people who have standing in a community to give it to people who lack it, so they can do what they're assigned to do in terms of subversion. We are in a war, and he has been working with the enemy for over a decade."

Norquist declined to respond to WND requests for comment.

Said Gaffney, "What's going on in conservative circles should give everyone real cause for concern. What it bespeaks is an effort to penetrate and influence conservatives, who are the most likely and perhaps only community in America who will stand up to and ultimately help ensure the defeat of this seditious totalitarian political program."

The American Conservative Union’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), one of the largest gatherings of right wing activists and a platform for Republican presidential candidates, continues to lose participants as a result of GOProud’s sponsorship of the event. GOProud is a conservative organization that supports gay rights that broke off from the Log Cabin Republicans for allegedly moving “way too far to the left.”

In November, the far-right American Principles Project instigated the CPAC boycott over GOProud’s involvement back in November, and groups such as American Values, Capital Research Center, the Center for Military Readiness, Liberty Counsel, Liberty University, and the National Organization for Marriage followed the APP’s lead in boycotting the conference.

Today, WorldNetDaily, which has provided support for the boycott movement, reports that the Family Research Council and Concerned Women For America have decided to boycott CPAC. FRC and CWA are easily the largest groups to join the boycott movement, and FRC hosts a similar conference that is geared to Religious Right activists, the Values Voter Summit. WorldNetDaily reports on their decision and the ensuing praise from anti-gay rights activists Peter LaBarbera and Mat Staver:

"We've been very involved in CPAC for over a decade and have managed a couple of popular sessions. However, we will no longer be involved with CPAC because of the organization's financial mismanagement and movement away from conservative principles," said Tom McClusky, senior vice president for FRC Action.

"CWA has decided not to participate in part because of GOProud," CWA President Penny Nance told WND.

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"Excellent. It is gratifying to see FRC and CWA respond appropriately to CPAC's moral sellout of allowing GOProud as a sponsor," said Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, the nation's best-known organization dedicated exclusively to opposing the homosexual political agenda.

"By bringing in GOProud, CPAC was effectively saying moral opposition to homosexuality is no longer welcome in the conservative movement," said LaBarbera. "Would CPAC bring in an organization specifically devoted to promoting abortion and pretend it's conservative?" LaBarbera has formerly participated in CPAC, but said he may protest the conference this year.

"Shame on CPAC for defending the absurd proposition that one can be 'conservative' while embracing moral surrender – in this case the idea espoused by GOProud of the government granting 'rights' and benefits based on sinful sexual conduct long regarded as anathema to biblical and Judeo-Christian values," LaBarbera added.

"[ACU has] gone libertarian, that's their focus," said Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, a public interest law firm. "Libertarianism is right on the economy, often wrong on national defense, and doesn't care about social conservatism. Libertarians only respect one leg of the Reagan revolution, and you can't stand for long on one leg."

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"We said GOProud is not a conservative organization," said Staver. "They are undermining the military" by promoting open homosexuality, and "undermining marriage" by opposing the Defense of Marriage Act, which preserves the traditional definition of marriage by limiting it to one man and one woman.

"Anything that undermines marriage also undermines our freedom and economy," said Staver. "It is contrary to our fundamental values to have as a cosponsor an organization that promotes same-sex marriage."

"GOProud doesn't fit in any of the areas of conservatism within CPAC," Staver continued. "We asked CPAC to disassociate themselves from GOProud, but they refused to.

"The only way we would return to CPAC now is if CPAC openly disassociated itself from GOProud and carried on a pattern of activity that convinces us they are truly broad-based conservatives."

The decision by Family Research Council and Concerned Women For America may spur other groups and speakers to join the boycott, although others could take the path of Ryan Sorba of Young Americans for Freedom who used his speech at CPAC to attack homosexuality and condemn GOProud’s participation: