Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny

As we have noted several times in the past, Jesse Lee Peterson of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND) has carved out a very unique niche as a black right-wing activist who specializes in accusing Democrats, and especially black Democrats, of being racist while defending white people who are accused of racism.

Earlier this year, Peterson made news when he declared that he would like "to take all black people back to the South and put them on the plantation so they would understand the ethic of working." So it comes as no surprise that Peterson has now decided to weigh in on the Trayvon Martin tragedy by declaring that the outrage over his death is not about justice but rather "about getting even with whites and gaining political power": 

"It's hypocritical for so-called black 'leaders' to call for the prosecution of George Zimmerman and accuse the police of racism without knowing the facts. Black-on-black crime takes place every day. And blacks kill whites in far greater numbers than whites kill blacks. Yet, we only see these leaders and their hypnotized black followers worked up when a black is victimized by another race. This is racist and evil.

"Where were the NAACP, Al Sharpton, the Black Caucus and black ministers when black flash mobs were terrorizing the city of Philadelphia and attacking whites and others? It was so bad that Mayor Michael Nutter threatened to jail parents if they were not willing to get their thug children under control. In Kansas City, a 13-year-old white kid was attacked by two black teens who poured gasoline on him and set him on fire saying, 'you get what you deserve, white boy.' If these leaders were sincere, they would condemn crime across the board.

"I've said for the last 22 years that most black Americans are brainwashed. The recent actions of these black leaders and their followers are not about justice—it's about getting even with whites and gaining political power. This is black hatred of white people and a result of more than fifty years of brainwashing by racist civil-rights leaders.

Jesse Lee Peterson of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny has carved out a unique niche for himself as the far-right's arbiter of who/what is racist and who/what is not racist in today's political environment.

Thus, we see him declaring that "Barack Obama hates white people – especially white men" and claiming that he was elected by "by black racists and white guilty people" while defending the racist rants of people like Michael Richards and Duane Chapman.

Given Peterson's rather limited role, I was a little confused when he announced that he was launching a petition to defeat RNC Chair Michael Steele if he runs for re-election ... until I realized that he was doing so in order to reassure and provide cover to those who have "fears of being called 'racists'" for opposing Steele: 

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, Founder and President of BOND Action, a national 501 (c) (4) nonprofit organization created to educate, motivate, and rally Americans to greater involvement in the moral and political issues that threaten America, announced today that his group is launching a "Michael Steele Must Go!" petition drive. Rev. Peterson was one of the first Republicans to publicly call for embattled RNC Chairman Michael Steele to step down last January, citing his financial mismanagement and lack of conservative convictions to lead the committee.

"I am encouraging the national committee members to vote Michael Steele out in January," said Rev. Peterson. He added, "Steele has shown with words and by his actions that he is a liability to the party. Republicans cannot afford to go into the 2012 presidential election cycle with a weak and potentially corrupt committee head."

...

Rev. Peterson said, "I'm encouraging Republicans around the country to sign our petition and send a message to the voting committee members to get over their fears of being called 'racists' or any other apprehension they have and replace Steele with a qualified conservative Republican."

Peterson is hoping to get 10, 000 signatures for his petition.  He currently has 13:

Despite all of the predictions that the Religious Right was on its deathbed, they sure do seem to be extremely active of late.

Of course, they don't seem to have any new ideas or desire to change their agenda in any way, but in last few months have seen a flurry of new groups popping up designed to fill some unseen void that has been apparently responsible for their current predicament.

In the last few months we seen the arrival of the Faith and Freedom Institute, which was followed by Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition, while Newt Gingrich was unveiling his Renewing American Leadership effort, and Lou Engle was announcing his Call to Action.

And now we come to find out via Pam that pretty much every Religious Right group has joined together under the umbrella of something called The Freedom Federation, incuding Renewing American Leadership and Call to Action, which were just recently created - so now you have two new groups created specifically to fill this void joining a new coalition effort ... designed to fill this very same void:

Press Conference to discuss the formation of the Freedom Federation and its purpose.

The Freedom Federation is a new and unique federation of some of the largest multi-ethnic and transgenerational faith-based organizations in the country committed to plan, strategize, and work together on common interests within the Judeo-Christian tradition to mobilize their grassroots constituencies and to communicate faith and values to the religious, social, cultural, and policymaking institutions.

-- American Association of Christian Counselors
-- American Family Association
-- Americans for Prosperity
-- Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND)
-- Campaign for Working Families
-- Catholic Online
-- Concerned Women for America
-- Conservative Action Project
-- Eagle Forum
-- Exodus International
-- Faith and Action
-- Family Research Council
-- High Impact Leadership
-- Liberty Alliance Action
-- Liberty Counsel
-- Liberty University
-- Life Education and Resource Network (LEARN)
-- Marc Nuttle
-- Morning Star Ministries
-- National Clergy Council
-- National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference
-- Renewing American Leadership
-- Strang Communications
-- Teen Mania
-- The Call to Action
-- Traditional Values Coalition
-- Vision America

Wow - did they put this coalition together by going through our list of right-wing organizations and simply inviting all the groups and individuals we write about most frequently to join?  Sorry,  Christian Anti-Defamation Commission  - if only we had written about you a few more times, maybe you would have been deemed worthy of inclusion in this ground-breaking new effort by the Religious Right ... to do whatever it is this new organization is going to do.

Honestly, what purpose can this possibly serve?  Are the Council for National Policy and the Arlington Group somehow lacking and so these groups decided that what they really needed was yet another coalition to carry out the same work?

Anyway, this effort seems to be organized by Rick Scarborough ... or at least he is the first to send out a press release trying to take credit for it:

Today, representatives of some of America's largest faith-based groups gathered in the nation's capital to announce that they will organize and mobilize their grassroots constituencies in a common cause.

At the National Press Club, Vision America President Pastor Rick Scarborough joined other conservative leaders, including Mat Staver, dean of Liberty University Law School and the Federation's convener, to formally announce the formation of the Freedom Federation.

The Federation encompasses individuals of different races, faiths and backgrounds who are committed to the preservation of freedom and American values, founded on the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Freedom Federation is not a separate organization, but an association of like-minded national organizations with large and unique religious and political constituencies.

...

Scarborough commented: "These organizations represent some of the nation's largest constituencies of youth, Hispanics, African-Americans, women, pastors and churches, who are uniting to defend a tradition increasingly under attack."

The Freedom Federation is committed to defending and extending core values expressed in the Declaration of American Values, the organization's founding document. These include the right to life, the institution of marriage, parental rights, religious liberty, an environment free of pornography and indecency, the right to property, freedom from excessive taxation, and national sovereignty. The statement is posted on the Vision America website at www.visionamerica.us.

And here is their Declaration of American Values, which they vow to protect with their lives:

We the people of the United States of America, at this crucial time in history, do hereby affirm the core consensus values which form the basis of America’s greatness, that all men and women from every race and ethnicity are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We adhere to the rule of law embodied in the Constitution of the United States and to the principles of liberty on which America was founded. In order to maintain the blessings of liberty and justice for ourselves and our posterity, and recognizing that personal responsibility is the basis of our self-governing Nation, we declare our allegiance –

1. To secure the sanctity of human life by affirming the dignity of and right to life for the disabled, the ill, the aged, the poor, the disadvantaged, and for the unborn from the moment of conception. Every person is made in the image of God, and it is the responsibility and duty of all individuals and communities of faith to extend the hand of loving compassion to care for those in poverty and distress.

2. To secure our national interest in the institution of marriage and family by embracing the union of one man and one woman as the sole form of legitimate marriage and the proper basis of family.

3. To secure the fundamental rights of parents to the care, custody, and control of their children regarding their upbringing and education.

4. To secure the free exercise of religion for all people, including the freedom to acknowledge God through our public institutions and other modes of public expression and the freedom of religious conscience without coercion by penalty or force of law.

5. To secure the moral dignity of each person, acknowledging that obscenity, pornography, and indecency debase our communities, harm our families, and undermine morality and respect. Therefore, we promote enactment and enforcement of laws to protect decency and morality.

6. To secure the right to own, possess and manage private property without arbitrary interference from government, while acknowledging the necessity of maintaining a proper and balanced care and stewardship of the environment and natural resources for the health and safety of our families.

7. To secure the individual right to own, possess, and use firearms as central to the preservation of peace and liberty.

8. To secure a system of checks and balances between the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches within both state and federal governments, so that no one branch – particularly the judiciary – usurps the authority of the other two, and to maintain the constitutional principles of federalism which divide power between the state and federal governments.

9. To secure our national sovereignty and domestic tranquility by maintaining a strong military; establishing and maintaining secure national borders; participating in international and diplomatic affairs without ceding authority to foreign powers that diminish or interfere with our unalienable rights; and being mindful of our history as a nation of immigrants, promoting immigration policies that observe the rule of law and are just, fair, swift, and foster national unity.

10. To secure a system of fair taxes that are not punitive against the institution of marriage or family and are not progressive in nature, and within a limited government framework, to encourage economic opportunity, free enterprise, and free market competition.

We hereby pledge our Names, our Lives and our Sacred Honor to this Declaration of American Values.