Concerned Women for America

The Religious Right loves manufacturing controversies that “prove” the victimization of Christians in the United States. When NBC left the words “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance in the broadcast of a golf tournament, Religious Right groups jumped to proclaim that the network was in the pocket of God-hating liberalism. When an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery included an image of Christ’s suffering made by a gay artist, the Religious Right called it “hate speech” and got the work of art pulled.

Recently, we’ve been reminded of one of these made-up controversies that may have more sinister consequences. In 2009, a Department of Homeland Security report on the threat of violent right-wing extremists was leaked. The report dealt exclusively with violent racist and anti-government groups – your Timothy McVeighs and Hutaree militias – but the Religious Right saw an opportunity to play the victim and do some fundraising. Groups including the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America and the American Center for Law and Justice labeled the report an attack on American Christians, ginned themselves up some allies in Congress, and ultimately got the report pulled. (But not before Liberty Counsel had a chance to print up some “I’m Proud to be a Right Wing Extremist” membership cards).

Now, the main author of the DHS report, who left his job after the fallout from the controversy made it “difficult to get any work accomplished,” is speaking out. Daryl Johnson tells California State University’s Brian Levin that he is a gun-owning, anti-choice Republican Mormon who started work on the report under the Bush Administration. And he’s worried that the manufactured controversy over the report continues to hinder DHS’s ability to combat violent right-wing extremism:

Do you have any political antagonism towards conservatives, military veterans or religious people?
Absolutely not. I am a conservative. I'm married, have children and am a lifetime third generation registered Republican. I have military veterans in my extended family. I'm also a Mormon. I respect people of all faiths. I feel so strongly about our religious freedoms, that I served two years as a missionary for my church.

Would you consider yourself prolife?
Yes. I believe in the sanctity of life including the preborn.

Do you support a broad right to individual gun ownership by competent non-felons?
Yes, I am a gun owner myself and enjoy target shooting and experienced game hunting in my youth.

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Why interview now?
Obviously, I couldn't discuss this with the media while employed at DHS. It took me a year after leaving to finally decide that this was truly the right thing to do. I also wanted to give DHS adequate time to determine whether or not it wanted to reconstitute the domestic non-Islamic terrorism effort. It never did.
Since Obama took office, there have been nearly twenty extremist rightwing attacks and plots, including the killing of almost a dozen police officers in six separate attacks. There have also been militia plots in places like Alaska and Michigan that targeted government officials such as a judge and police. Package bombs were mailed in the DC area. In recent months we had three sovereign citizen related shootings in Florida, Arizona and Texas.

How many people worked on your team?
Six worked directly for me with two others in support roles.

How many analysts at DHS worked Muslim extremism issues?
A: In 2008, there were close to 40. A year later that number had decreased to around 25. There were additional analysts working other topics such as critical infrastructure, border security and weapons of mass destruction.

How does the threat from radical Muslim extremists in the U.S. compare with that of right wing domestic extremists?
During the past 10 years there have been five successful attacks in the U.S. by Muslim extremists, but in the last three years there have been 20 attacks attributed to domestic right wing extremists and the number of fatalities is about equal between the two. There were more firearms possessed by the Hutaree [an alleged extremist] militia than by all 200 of the Muslim extremists arrested in the U.S. since 9/11.

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What happened at DHS as a result of the criticism?
My team was dissolved. All training courses and briefings presentations were stopped. DHS leaders made it increasingly difficult to release another report on this topic.
Why would DHS leaders dissolve your team and stop these analytic activities?
The subject had become too politically charged. As a result, DHS leaders adopted a risk adverse approach toward this issue. Perhaps they thought it was a matter of organizational preservation.

Do you think the dissolution of your unit that you discuss has negatively affected State and local law enforcement?
Certainly. There is one less agency to assist state and local law enforcement with this growing and dangerous problem at a time of heightened activity.

Why did you leave DHS?
I could no longer effectively do my job. New processes made it increasingly difficult to get any work accomplished.

Have the conditions which affected your conclusions changed since the report was issued?
No. The factors have remained the same - the economy remains sluggish and uncertain; unemployment hovers around 10 percent nationally; Obama is still President; and the 2010 Census results show a changing demographic in America shifting away from a predominantly Caucasian nation.

Has the leak had a chilling effect on the analyst community?
Within the intelligence community at-large, I don't think so. Inside the Department of Homeland Security, I believe it did. Other DHS analysts saw what happened to us - saw leadership backing away from supporting the report and those responsible for writing it. Many left the agency as a result.

 

The American Family Association today announced that more traditionally pro-GOP Religious Right organizations are joining them in hosting The Response prayer rally with Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Kyle reported that Focus on the Family founder James Dobson is on board, and now Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America have been named co-chairmen. Even though Perry and the AFA are adamant that the prayer rally is apolitical, the fact that leaders of three of the most prominent Religious Right political groups in the country are hosting the event along side a potential presidential candidate makes us think otherwise.

In addition, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission’s Richard Land has already endorsed the rally, and other endorsers — Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and megachurch pastor Tony Evans — have also signed on as co-chairmen.

American Family Association says three more respected Christian leaders have been named as co-chairpersons of the upcoming The Response: a call to prayer for a nation in crisis prayer event.

The new co-chairpersons are Penny Nance, President and CEO of Concerned Women for America; Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council; and Frank Wright, President of the National Religious Broadcasters.

The prayer event will be held at the Reliant stadium in Houston on August 6. Several thousand individuals are expected to attend the event, according to Donald E. Wildmon, founder of AFA which is sponsoring the event.

...

Co-chairpersons announced earlier include Dr. James Dobson and his wife Shirley, Rev. Sammy Rodriquez, Dr. Tony Evans, and Dr. Richard Land.

When the Chicago Cubs made an It Gets Better video to send an anti-bullying, anti-suicide message, Peter LaBarbera of the Illinois-based Americans for Truth About Homosexuality was unsurprisingly outraged. Already numerous Religious Right groups such as the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission and Mission America have condemned the It Gets Better project, which works to prevent suicide particularly among LGBT youth, and now LaBarbera wants to tell LGBT youth: “it doesn’t get better.” The anti-gay activist tells WorldNetDaily that baseball teams like the Cubs “are using that stature to encourage kids to practice an immoral and destructive behavior”:

Peter LaBarbera, president of the ministry Americans for Truth, told WND the slogan may sound nice, but it "doesn't match the reality." "It doesn't get better. … There are not just the physical complications. We can't ignore the biblical reality that we're dealing with eternal judgment," he said.

"Whether they like it or not, professional athletes are role models for young men and now many yong women. They basically are using that stature to encourage kids to practice an immoral and destructive behavior."

He said the other complications are that baseball, previously associated with wholesomeness and competition, now is "rushing headlong into the embrace of immorality."

"Think of all these kids, with their sports heroes telling them it's okay to be gay, with no connection to the reality. They're all caught up in pretend propaganda that has no relationship to the lifestyle," said LaBarbera, whose ministry is in the Chicago area.

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LaBarbara said he's already heard complaints about the campaign from traditional families, who plan to no longer patronize the Cubs.

The Religious Right’s favorite Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is the “honorary host” of a Virginia fundraiser for Concerned Women for America. Cuccinelli won plaudits from right-wing activists for using his Virginia post to challenge anti-discrimination protections based on sexual orientation, attack scientists who believe in climate change, undercut health care reform, and censor the official state seal over nudity.

It makes sense that Cuccinelli is hosting a fundraiser for a group which believes that health care reform violates the Ten Commandments, gays are discriminatory bullies who hate democracy, climate change science is a duplicitous effort to wreak havoc on the poor, and that President Obama wants communists to control America’s children.

Maybe when Cuccinelli is with the CWA leadership he can fulfill his law enforcement duties by asking them if they know kidnapper Lisa Miller’s whereabouts, seeing as the group was one of Miller’s most ardent advocates and offered clues that they know where she is.

But somehow I doubt it.

Concerned Women for America has led the fight against the U.S.’s ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women since Jimmy Carter first signed it in 1980, and is now ramping up pressure against ratification following a Senate hearing on the treaty. Thanks to pressure from CWA and other Religious Right groups, the U.S. joins Iran, Somalia and Sudan in not ratifying CEDAW, which works to end political, economic and healthcare gender disparities, sex trafficking, and violence and discrimination against women.

In an email to members, Bevery LaHaye writes that ratification will mean that a “twisted ideology of extremist feminism rebelling against God and His law” will allow communist China and North Korea to dominate American society:

Would you trust your children or grandchildren to be raised by Hugo Chavez, the brutal dictator of Venezuela?

Or Hu Jintao, the Communist president of the People's Republic of China?

Maybe Kim Jong-Il, the deranged "Supreme Leader" of North Korea? Of course not! And you and I must act NOW to stop President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and their allies from doing exactly that!

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Simply put, CEDAW would give foreign thugs and tyrants dictatorial power over American laws related to:

• The legal rights of wives and mothers,
• the protection of life,
• the definition of marriage,
• and the education of your children!!!

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CEDAW backers like Obama, Clinton, and Reid disagree. They mouth high-sounding language about "equality" and "empowerment" as a fog to cloak their dark plans.

But when I read CEDAW, I see anger, bitterness, the breeding ground for generations of conflict, and the twisted ideology of extremist feminism rebelling against God and His law.

Harold Hongju Koh, a State Department aide who is a past Dean of Yale Law and Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, testified in 2006 that allegations from opponents like CWA were “preposterous” and “flatly untrue.” CEDAW is neutral on the issues of legal abortion and same-sex marriage, and many CEDAW-ratifying countries have outlawed both, and the treaty would not lead to international bodies enforcing their laws on the US.

“Our nonratification has led our allies and adversaries alike to challenge our claim of moral leadership in international human rights,” Koh said, “Ratification of the CEDAW by the United States would similarly make clear our national commitment to ensure the equal and nondiscriminatory treatment of American women in such areas as civil and political rights, education, employment, and property rights.”

As we have previously noted, right-wing activists have waged a year-long smear campaign against legal scholar Goodwin Liu, who was nominated by President Obama to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last year. Liu’s nomination was not acted on in the last Congress; he had his second confirmation hearing on March 2, 2011, and on April 7, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved his nomination.

In the wake of that approval, Religious Right activists are ramping up their rhetoric and demanding that Republican senators block Liu’s confirmation. On Sunday, the Oak Initiative, a dominionist Religious Right group led by self-proclaimed apostle Rick Joyner, sent activists an email alert urging them to contact their Senators and urge opposition to Liu’s confirmation. On Monday, Concerned Women for America posted an interview with Mario Diaz, CWA’s Policy Director for Legal Issues, who repeated the litany of charges right-wing activists have been hurling at Liu since his nomination in February 2010, calling him the nominee of the “extreme radical left.”

It’s worth noting one more time that Richard Painter, a former chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, has publicly endorsed Liu’s confirmation and slammed the smear campaign against him:

However, for anyone who has actually read Liu's writings or watched his testimony, it's clear that the attacks--filled with polemic, caricature, and hyperbole--reveal very little about this exceptionally qualified, measured, and mainstream nominee. ..

He’s not the only conservative legal luminary to endorse Liu. So have Ken Starr and Clint Bolick.

But that hasn’t kept right-wing activists, led the National Review’s Ed Whelan, from waging an all-out rhetorical attack on Liu. Some on the Religious Right are trying to take things further: at the Freedom Federation’s Awakening conference at Liberty University this past weekend, the Family Research Council’s Ken Blackwell said they’d be calling people into the streets of Washington D.C. to stop the nomination.

• Susan B. Anthony List, Family Research Council Action, 40 Days for Life, Students for Life of America, Concerned Women for America, Catholic Vote, LifeNews.com, American Values and Catholic Advocate have all teamed up to inundate Congress with phone calls demanding the defunding of Planned Parenthood.
• Is Japan Disaster Another Apocalyptic Sign? Yes.
• Herman Cain sees signs everywhere that God has big plans for him.
• Peter LaBarbera is unveiling the line-up for his next anti-gay "Truth Academy."
• Can somebody explain to me when Christians are to be counted as Christians and when they are not to be considered "real" Christians.
• Newt Gingrich is doing all he can to endear himself to the Religious Right. Good luck with that.

After accusing President Obama of acting like a “despot” over his support of gay-rights, Mario Diaz of Concerned Women for America now claims that Democratic Senators are introducing “homosexual quotas” for judicial nominations. Currently there are two openly gay federal judges, both are women nominated by President Clinton.

Diaz says that Democrats care more about judges’ “sexual preferences” than their judicial philosophies, but at the same time maintains that Democrats only want judges who have a “radically liberal philosophy.” Since Obama has nominated J. Paul Oetken, who would be the first openly gay male federal judge, Diaz thinks the Democrats’ end-game is to “force men dressed as women down your throat.” Diaz writes:

Liberal Democrats have formed a strong allegiance with the lesbian, "gay," bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. President Obama is doing everything in his power to promote their agenda throughout all areas of government, and the judiciary is no exception.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said recently he "was shocked to learn there were no openly gay male judges on the entire federal bench," so liberals have set out on a crusade to rectify that, effectively implementing homosexual quotas.

I say "homosexual quotas," because that is the extent of their "commitment" for now. Although they talk about the LGBT community, they are not quite prepared to force men dressed as women down your throat ... yet.

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Meanwhile, undeterred by his embarrassing episode with Alter, Schumer continued his search for a new "openly homosexual" candidate of his own. In this instance, otherwise qualified candidates need not apply. If you were not "gay," you did not meet his criteria. So he searched until he finally found someone. He recommended, and the president nominated, Paul Oetken (an even more in-your-face homosexual activist) to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Oetken's resumé includes a brief for the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association that helped bring about the Lawrence v. Texas sodomy decision at the Supreme Court. Schumer noted that Oetken is "a strong advocate" for the LGBT community and felt he needed to mention his work for the radically liberal Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union. He has also written in favor of physician-assisted suicide.

Apparently, those are all great qualifications for a judgeship in the minds of Sen. Schumer and President Obama. Oetken's hearing was on March 16. Seeing the way liberal Democrats treat judicial nominations, one can understand why they are pushing for a process that would exclude a nominee's judicial philosophy from consideration. Apparently, the issue of judicial philosophy pales against the far weightier consideration of the nominee's sexual preferences.

Sandy Rios, the president of the Culture Campaign and a former head of Concerned Women for America, is repulsed that progressives are protesting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s union-busting legislation. Since the group Organizing for America, a Democratic National Committee division that is closely tied to Obama’s presidential campaign, supports the peaceful Wisconsin protest movement, Rios claims that it is responsible for death threats made against Walker and his Republican allies. She goes on to compare Obama and organized labor to Hamas and Hezbollah for opposing Walker’s bill that strips workers of their bargaining rights:

Hamas and Hezbollah are famous for gaining power through providing practical help and humanitarian aid to citizens who are later called upon to further their deeper, more dangerous agenda.

Teachers...laborers...and sympathetic farmers beware. Organizing for America, the SEIU, the NEA and many of America's labor unions have more on their mind than accomplishing your concerns...and more in common with the violence and intimidation of Hamas than with protecting "workers."

You will rue the day you fancied you were being mistreated by losing your ability to quibble over benefits. For we will all live in the midst of ruin if they prevail.