Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission

Earlier this summer the Southern Baptist Convention was embroiled in a fiasco over SBC “chief ethicist” and political activist Richard Land’s racially inflammatory comments regarding President Obama and the Trayvon Martin case, remarks that later turned out to be plagiarized. After initially refusing to apologize, Land ultimately apologized, lost his radio show and announced his retirement.

One of the people who pressed Land to apologize was Dr. Fred Luter Jr., the African American pastor who was later elected to head the SBC. Luter said of Land’s comments at the time, “It doesn’t help. That’s for sure.”

Luter is now slated to appear at a Religious Right simulcast, iPledge Sunday, hosted by the Family Research Council and the American Family Association, a group whose very own spokesman and Director of Issues Analysis for Government and Public Policy, Bryan Fischer, has used racially offensive language just as bad if not worse than Land’s, and far more frequently.

The group Faithful America is asking Luter to cancel his appearance at the event whose organizer proudly promotes “racial rhetoric to demonize President Obama.”

The Rev. Fred Luter Jr. is the first African American to serve as president of the Southern Baptist Convention. He helped get the denomination to formally apologize for its racist history and even rebuked a fellow Southern Baptist leader for making offensive comments about the killing of Trayvon Martin.

When Rev. Luter was elected this summer, he said that the racial rhetoric used to criticize President Obama shows "that we have a long, long, way to go in America as far as racial reconciliation." Now he has an opportunity to stand up and show real leadership by pulling out of this event and disavowing the hateful rhetoric of his fellow conservative evangelicals.

Rev. Luter: If you want the Southern Baptist Convention to overcome its racist past, you must cancel your appearance at iPledge Sunday and denounce the religious-right extremists who've used racial rhetoric to demonize President Obama.

Fischer, a birther and conspiracy theorist who has defended the three-fifths compromise and regularly refers to Obama as an imam, a dictator and a Hitler clone, has said that:

• Obama is a racist: “President Barack Obama nurtures this hatred for the United States of America and, I believe, nurtures a hatred for the white man.”

• Obama is like a “street thug” and a “juvenile delinquent” who is “destroying America.”

• Obama’s “mission in life is to punish the United States” as revenge for anti-black racism.

• Obama is not “authentically black” and not a “real black man.”

• Obama has “drunk deeply from the well of critical race theory” and therefore believes the Constitution “does not need to be obeyed.”

• Obama’s re-election will lead states to “talk about secession” and warned the health care reform law may bring about armed revolt “to resist the tyranny imposed on us.”

In addition, Fischer claimed that African Americans “rut like rabbits” due to welfare.

Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete. Welfare has subsidized illegitimacy by offering financial rewards to women who have more children out of wedlock. We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it’s no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of people who rut like rabbits.

Fischer even alleged that African Americans are “like drug-addled addicts.”

The only reason we can see why the Democrat Party still has support in the African American community is because the Democrat Party promises them more goodies, the Democrat Party is handing out stuff, basically getting them addicted. It’s like the government is one big giant methadone clinic and they’re just handing out these injections to people in the form of welfare benefits to get them hooked, so they got to hook up with their supplier once a month, they got to get their fix, they got to hook up with their dealer on a street corner once a month and get their fix from the federal government. They’re like drug-addled addicts and the Democrat Party has gotten them addicted to welfare benefits. That apparently is the only reason they continue to support this party.

Luter rightfully led the SBC to reprimand Land over his inflammatory comments, but partnering with the AFA and its racially-charged rhetoric directed at Obama and the African American community only undercuts his message of racial reconciliation.

The Southern Baptist Convention’s top “ethicist” Richard Land, a major Religious Right figure and cheerleader for the GOP, is about to lose his radio show, Richard Land Live, as a result of using racially-charged comments while describing the Trayvon Martin shooting and plagiarizing his material.

Back in April, we reported that the leader of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) said that African American “race hustlers” were using Martin’s death to “gin up the black vote” for President Obama, whom he said “poured gasoline on the racialist fires.” After his remarks generated controversy, as his denomination has been working to improve its relationship with the black community as a result of its racist past, Land pledged to never apologize. Later, Land issued a non-apology apology that blamed others for having “misunderstood” him, which only intensified the outcry from black pastors in the SBC.

Moreover, Baptist blogger Aaron Weaver found that Land plagiarized part of his remarks on the Martin shooting from a Washington Times column, and also plagiarized columns from other conservative publications like the Washington Examiner and Investor’s Business Daily in previous broadcasts. The ERLC promptly pulled his radio show archives off his website while Land tried to claim that it isn’t plagiarism when other people’s words are lifted on the radio.

Land eventually offered a second apology and the ERLC launched an investigation, and today released two reprimands for Land’s racially-insensitive remarks and “for quoting material without giving attribution.” The ERLC said Land’s “hurtful, irresponsible, insensitive, and racially charged words” regarding the Martin shooting had “re-opened wounds,” and acknowledged “that instances of plagiarism occurred because of his carelessness and poor judgment.”

The ERLC concluded that “the content and purpose of the Richard Land Live! broadcast” are “not congruent with the mission of the ERLC” and will be pulling the show once its contract with Salem Radio Network ends:

We reprimand Dr. Land for his hurtful, irresponsible, insensitive, and racially charged words on March 31, 2012 regarding the Trayvon Martin tragedy. It was appropriate for Dr. Land to issue the apology he made on May 9, 2012 and we are pleased he did so. We also convey our own deepest sympathies to the family of Trayvon Martin for the loss they have suffered. We, too, express our sorrow, regret, and apologies to them for Dr. Land's remarks. We are particularly disappointed in Dr. Land's words because they do not accurately reflect the body of his work over a long career at the ERLC toward racial reconciliation in the Southern Baptist Convention and American life. We must now redouble our efforts to regain lost ground, to heal re-opened wounds, and to realize the dream of a Southern Baptist Convention that is just as diverse as the population of our great Nation.

We further reprimand Dr. Land for quoting material without giving attribution on the Richard Land Live! (RLL) radio show, thereby unwisely accepting practices that occur in the radio industry, and we acknowledge that instances of plagiarism occurred because of his carelessness and poor judgment. We examined Dr. Land's written work during the investigation, and we found no instances of plagiarism in any of Dr. Land's written work. As a Christian, a minister of the Gospel of our Lord, and as President of the ERLC, Dr. Land should have conformed to a higher standard. We expect all future work of the ERLC to be above reproach in that regard.

Finally, we have carefully considered the content and purpose of the Richard Land Live! broadcast. We find that they are not congruent with the mission of the ERLC. We also find that the controversy that erupted as a result of the March 31 broadcast, and related matters, requires the termination of that program. We hereby announce that the Richard Land Live! radio program will end as soon as possible within the bounds of our contracts with the Salem Radio Network.

While the Southern Baptist Convention’s political arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, is mired in scandal resulting from ERLC head Richard Land’s repeated plagiarism and inflammatory remarks on race, it has found time to criticize the Violence Against Women Act. Doug Carlson, manager for administration and policy communications for the ERLC, voiced the group’s opposition to the highly successful law because of new provisions that ensure that LGBT victims of domestic violence do not encounter discrimination while seeking help.

Carlson quoted a letter Richard Land signed along with Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel, Jim Garlow of Renewing American Leadership Action, Tom McClusky of Family Research Council Action, C. Preston Noell of Tradition, Family, Property Inc., Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum and Penny Nance and Janice Shaw Crouse of Concerned Women for America.

Notably, the letter was also signed by conservative activist Timothy Johnson, who was convicted of a felony domestic violence charge and was arrested a second time for putting his wife in a wrist lock and choking his son, as reported by Sarah Posner.

Carlson writes:

Under the reauthorization, VAWA, as the bill is known, would spend vast sums of taxpayer money—more than $400 million each year—on programs that lack sufficient oversight and fail to address the core issue of protecting vulnerable women from abuse. Many of the programs duplicate efforts already underway. Among other problems, it would expand special protections to include same-sex couples. Men who are victimized by their male sexual partners would receive the benefit of the law above heterosexuals. And with broadened definitions of who qualifies for services, those who are most in need of the bill’s protections would have diminished access to it.

…

Pro-family groups, too, have been leveling attacks on the bill for months for its anti-family policies. Many of them expressed those concerns to the Judiciary Committee in February in hopes of derailing the bill. “We, the undersigned, representing millions of Americans nationwide, are writing to oppose the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA),” Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission President Richard Land, along with nearly two dozen other religious and conservative leaders, wrote in a Feb. 1 letter to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “This nice-sounding bill is deceitful because it destroys the family by obscuring real violence in order to promote the feminist agenda.”

“There is no denying the very real problem of violence against women and children. However, the programs promoted in VAWA are harmful for families. VAWA often encourages the demise of the family as a means to eliminate violence,” they added.

Regrettably, a slim majority of committee members rejected that counsel, ultimately approving the bill in February on a narrow 10-8 vote. Now the battle lies in the full Senate, where those opposed to the new VAWA are facing significant pressure to support it. Allies of the bill are tagging its opponents as waging a “war on women.”

But no matter how noble its title suggests, the Violence Against Women Act is the wrong answer to addressing ongoing domestic abuse. With a shortage of evidence to date of VAWA’s success in reducing levels of violence against women, the war to decrease such violence and to ultimately strengthen the family shouldn’t include reauthorizing a flawed policy that promises an expansion of the same.

As Brian noted the other day, it has not been a very good week for Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

First there was the continuing controversy over his statement that "race hustlers" where using the Trayvon Martin tragedy in order to "gin up the black vote" for President Obama. Land had largely remained defiant in the face of the criticism he had been receiving, saying he was being "mugged" by the media and that he would "not bow to the false god of political correctness."

But this week, Land backed down and issued a rather passive-aggressive quasi-apology, saying he "overestimated the progress that has been made in slaying the ugly racist ghosts of the past in our history."

But that was not the only bad news for Land, as he also had to fess up to having routinely plagiarized articles and columns during his weekly radio program, where he had a habit of reading things on air written by others without attribution and passing them off as his own words.  

But Land's multiple apologies have not put an end to his problems, as the ERLC's executive committee has now issued a statement saying that it is "very concerned" about how Land's behavior "may damage the work of the ERLC" and is launching an investigation: 

Comments by Richard Land about the Trayvon Martin killing "have angered many and opened wounds from the past," the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission's executive committee said in a statement released April 18.

The executive committee also registered concern that Land, the ERLC's president, had used sources from other media without proper attribution for some of his comments in his weekly radio call-in show.

An ad hoc committee has been formed "to investigate the allegations of plagiarism and recommend appropriate action," the ERLC executive committee reported in its statement.

"The [ERLC] Executive Committee is very saddened that this controversy has erupted, and is very concerned about how these events may damage the work of the ERLC in support of Southern Baptists and in furtherance of the Kingdom of our Lord," the six-member committee said.

On the website for Land's weekly radio program, all of the archived programs have now been removed and replaced with this message from the ERLC:

We recently became aware of instances in which Dr. Richard Land read from materials written by others during his radio show without clear and proper attribution to the authors of those materials on the program. We have also learned that news agencies occasionally access this website and use clips from Dr. Land’s past broadcasts without prior notice or permission. Due to the danger that such unauthorized use by news agencies or others might include quoted material used by Dr. Land without clear and proper credit being given to the author or source of the quoted material, we have removed links to prior radio broadcasts.

Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, yesterday took up a defiant tone against charges that he used racially-insensitive language during his radio show in his attack on President Obama and civil rights activists over the Trayvon Martin case, saying that he is being “mugged” by the media for simply “criticizing this rush to judgment.” Land on his show had said that “it was Mr. Obama” who turned the Trayvon Martin shooting into a national issue” by pouring “gasoline on the racialist fires” in order to help “gin up the black vote” for his re-election with the aid of “race hustlers.”

But black SBC pastors, including the incoming-president of the convention, criticized Land’s comments and one threatened to introduce a resolution condemning Land at an upcoming meeting, and other Baptists commented that it was reminiscent of Southern Baptists’ past work against the civil rights movement and helped feed “the deep-seated resentment toward people of color held by some white Southern Baptists.”

Land’s problems didn’t end there.

Baptist author and blogger Aaron Weaver found that Land not only plagiarized his controversial rant from a Washington Times column by Jeffrey Kuhner, but also that Land has repeatedly plagiarized editorials verbatim from other right-wing publications like the Washington Examiner and Investor’s Business Daily.

Not a good move for the SBC’s “chief ethicist,” who used his title as ethicist while defending his comments about the Trayvon Martin case: “defending people who are being lynched in the court of public opinion is part of my job as an ethicist.”

Rather than apologize for the two incidents, Land instead said he is simply sorry that others have “misunderstood” his comments on Martin or his blatant plagiarism.

First, Land admitted to failing “to provide appropriate verbal attributions” during his show but not to plagiarism, saying he regrets “if anyone feels they were deceived or misled”:

On occasion I have failed to provide appropriate verbal attributions on my radio broadcast, Richard Land Live!, and for that I sincerely apologize. I regret if anyone feels they were deceived or misled.

…

While I do not use a script, listeners familiar with the program know that both the audio of the program and material I reference during the program are posted on the program’s Web site during or immediately following the broadcast.

However, Weaver notes that Land unmistakably tried “to pass off Kuhner’s words as his own” and even “attempted to make Kuhner’s words his own by adding extra comments and using different adjectives,” pointing out that while Land includes a link to Kuhner’s article on his website no author can “write a 500-word essay, pull 250-300 words verbatim or nearly verbatim from someone else and simply include a short footnote at the bottom.”

Land kept up with his “sorry if you misunderstood” mantra in a letter to SBC president Bryant Wright posted late on yesterday where he again offered a non-apology about the “misunderstanding” regarding his comments, complaining that he “overestimated the progress” the country has made on issues involving race:

I am writing to express my deep regret for any hurt or misunderstanding my comments about the Trayvon Martin case have generated. It grieves me to hear that any comments of mine have to any degree set back the cause of racial reconciliation in Southern Baptist or American life. I have been committed to the cause of racial reconciliation my entire ministry. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister has been a personal hero of mine since I surrendered to the ministry in 1962.

…

Clearly, I overestimated the progress that has been made in slaying the ugly racist ghosts of the past in our history. I also clearly underestimated the extent to which we must go out of our way not to be misunderstood when we speak to issues where race is a factor.

Please know that I apologize to any and all who were hurt or offended by my comments. I will certainly recommit myself to seeking to address controversial issues with even more sensitivity in the future.

The anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking and release of ‘Titanic 3D’ has apparently inspired Truth in Action Ministries, formerly Coral Ridge Ministries, to produce a new short film presenting the “radical homosexual agenda” as an iceberg that could potentially destroy the United States.

The Truth that Transforms film features well-known anti-gay activists such as Jennifer Kennedy Cassidy and Jerry Newcombe of Truth in Action Ministries, Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, right-wing historian Bill Federer, radio talk show host and author Michael Brown, and pastors Harry Jackson, Robert Jeffress and Erwin Lutzer.

Staver warned that the “homosexual agenda is the moral iceberg that we need to steer clear of” and maintained that it is “the biggest threat I believe in our lifetime to religious freedom and the fundamental values we share here in America.” While Jackson said the “homosexual agenda” is “one of those icebergs that if we don’t navigate around them correctly, will take us under,” Brown claimed “we’ve already hit the iceberg and the ship is already going down” and Land insisted that “we’re taking on water, the only question is whether or not we’re going to be able to survive and the ship won’t sink.” Staver predicted that opposition to gay rights is bound to be “criminalized and targeted for assault” and Federer even asserted that “there are just a couple steps before the military could be used in a persecution of those that are viewed as enemies of the new state belief system.”

Watch highlights of the film here:

North Carolina activists pushing Amendment One, the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and civil unions in the state, met at the Southern Baptist Convention’s Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary where Richard Land said that the referendum “is not about gay rights” but about whether marriage will “be transformed by the whims of a minority,” i.e. gays and lesbians. Land tied marriage equality for gays and lesbians to growing rates of single motherhood, and said that North Carolina vote would influence a potential Supreme Court case on same-sex marriage. Tami Fitzgerald of the North Carolina Values Coalition, the group behind the campaign in favor of Amendment One, added that “gay marriage is the beginning of the end for religious freedom,” and the seminar professor Daniel Heimbach said marriage equality “will harm everybody by harming social stability”:

"If the people speak in North Carolina, and also in other states, to affirm that marriage is between a man and a woman, it will tip the balance of the Supreme Court to reject trying to foist by judicial imperialism same-sex marriage on a populous that is clearly opposed to it," Land said at the March 28 forum.

…

Land went on to say that the federal government spends $700 billion in domestic programs to support women and children due largely to the absence of fathers. The epidemic of fatherlessness has been "catastrophic" on America's landscape, Land mentioned. The issue, Land said, "is not about gay rights," but instead "about the basic building block of human society" -- and "whether we'll allow it to be transformed by the whims of a minority."

The issue of religious liberty was also discussed as gay rights groups throughout the United States have pursued legal action against Christian owned-companies and religiously affiliated adoption agencies, forcing compensatory damages and even closure. "This is not a question of sexual freedom, but of religious freedom," Land said. "The agenda of the homosexual community is to have their behavior and their lifestyle normalized and have same-sex marriage normalized and to have those who disagree with it to be ostracized."

Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of North Carolina Values Coalition, said that "when marriage is redefined as genderless, there are legal consequences for anyone who disagree with it."

"Everything from inheritance laws to property rights must then change," she said. "If you disagree with this, you're treated as a racist and as a bigot."

"Gay marriage is the beginning of the end for religious freedom," she said.

With upcoming votes on gay "marriage" in other states, Land said, the future of marriage could be settled in the next 18 months. No state has, by popular vote, chosen to create same-sex "marriage," Land said.

Gay marriage proponents insist that the proposed amendment is unnecessary, discriminatory and unfairly targets gay persons. Daniel Heimbach, an ethics professor at Southeastern Seminary, said gay "marriage" is not about equality.

…

"The harm of legalizing gay marriage will radically change marriage in a way that it will then deny all fixed structures," Heimbach said. "It will de-institutionalize marriage as an institution.

"It will harm everybody by harming social stability."