Family Research Council

While he certainly has a lot of competition serving among the likes of Michele Bachmann, Steve King, Louie Gohmert and Steve Stockman, Rep. Tim Huelskamp is doing his best to position himself as the leading congressman of the anti-gay radical right.

Huelskamp told Family Research Council president Tony Perkins in an interview before last night’s State of the Union address that President Obama seeks “to destroy the family and replace it with his view of a radical new social agenda.”

This President has a radical social agenda and the media will probably give him a pass when instead of talking about the fact that mom and dad don’t have a job we’re going to talk about how to destroy the family and replace it with his view of a radical new social agenda. So we’re going to hear a lot about that, we’re going to hear a lot of blaming and also a lot of talk about how he would solve this and that problem but gosh darn it he’s had four years to do that and he hasn’t solved one and I would argue it’s gotten progressively worse since he took office.

The congressman went on to criticize the Republican leadership for trying to avoid a discussion of social issues. Huelskamp, who last year falsely claimed that 85 percent of people in the U.S. don’t support legalizing same-sex marriage, insisted that Republicans “defend the seventy percent position that most Americans support traditional marriage,” which in Religious Right-speak means oppose marriage equality.

Of course, most polls find that just over half of Americans support same-sex marriage.

Huelskamp went on to call the Department of Defense’s extension of partnership benefits to same-sex couples and the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) as “radical ideas” that “most Americans do not accept” because they “specifically and selectively reward homosexual behavior.”

Once again, the majority of Americans favor job protections and partnership benefits for gays and lesbians.

The response from the general leadership is: gosh, we can’t talk about social issues. But the President can? Someone has to stand up and defend the seventy percent position that most Americans support traditional marriage, most Americans understand the value of family, they understand it’s under attack and they understand that, they see it, they believe it. So we got to stand up. I’ve always been confused by Republicans that refuse to support a seventy percent position and say, ‘gosh we can’t take our stand there.’ But whether it’s Obamacare, whether it’s these radical DoD [Department of Defense] proposals coming out of the White House or changing all the employment rules to specifically and selectively reward homosexual behavior, those are really radical ideas and most Americans do not accept them.

So we’ll have an opportunity to hear from the President but again don’t forget he is a lame duck President, he’s not running for election again and I think this could be the most radical we’ll hear from him in a long time because it is Obama unleashed. We’re going to hear tonight probably exactly what he would like to do and he promised he’s going to change America and he’s still after that agenda and that goal.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) appeared on today’s edition of Washington Watch Weekly with Tony Perkins in order to criticize the U.S. military for removing a small church steeple and cross-shaped windows at an Afghan base, which he claims means that the military won’t let service members worship.

As NBC News reported, the steeple and cross “violated Army regulations and could reinforce suspicions that the United States is fighting a holy war” against Islam, which is exactly how Taliban insurgents are framing the war.

But Gohmert said that by removing the steeple the military is telling service members that they “can’t have freedom of religion” or have the right to worship. The congressman said that people who “hate anything to do with Christianity” are leading a “witch hunt” in the military by pushing “active discrimination against Christianity.” He even suggested that they are banning chapels, rather than just removing symbols that violate Army regulations.

Gohmert: It is amazing how many people think that the First Amendment means that government must discriminate against Christianity when actually it says we’re supposed to avoid prohibiting the free exercise thereof. We shall make no law respecting any establishment of religion, we get that, but we’re not supposed to prohibit the free exercise thereof. It’s like, ‘oh you’re in the military you can’t have freedom of religion,’ ‘what do you mean I can’t have freedom of religion, I’m fighting for people to have freedom of religion, you’re not going to allow me to worship at the very time I need it most when my life could come to an end? You’re going to deprive me of that? You’re going to take away the symbols of the things I believe in, seriously?’ So we’ve got a witch hunt going on by those who for some reason, and you and I know the reason, but they just hate anything to do with Christianity. They certainly don’t go after Islam or Hindu [sic] or anything like that; heck we’ll let them build a Muslim worship center on Ground Zero but a Christian chapel? ‘No I don’t think so we’re not going to do that.’ There is active discrimination against Christianity.

Later, Gohmert said that suicides among service members are due to a lack of religious belief but the military is “sitting on the results” of a study proving his point.

He also suggested that the Obama administration is refusing to “speak up” about anti-Christian persecution in the Mideast, when actually the administration has repeatedly condemned the detention of pastors in Iran and anti-Christian violence in Egypt.

Perkins: Why is the military pushing out the very thing that could help them solve this problem of suicide?

Gohmert: It’s a great question and it’s because I think people who are so fervently against Christianity that they just want it squelched so the military has kowtowed to them. When you have a President that seems to be fine with us having such an important role in Afghanistan and yet under our watch the last public Christian church has closed, when you have an administration where Christians in Egypt are being pursued and even in Iran you got a Christian pastor just sentenced to eight years in prison and we don’t speak up, we don’t stand up, so the only people that are being heard and being boisterous enough are those who want to eliminate Christianity, as has been tried many times, from the face of the country. So that’s who is most vocal and so they kowtow the them.

But it is so dangerous and I talked to someone who is very familiar with the study that the military had done and now they are sitting on the results. Supposedly there is a good chance unless there’s an uproar that they won’t release them because if they will release them, they will be honest about the results of a study they paid for involving thousands of soldiers and my understanding is the results show that everyone within their study of thousands of military members who ultimately committed suicide, they were in the bottom two percent of being the most atheistic. We’ve been looking for so long, how do we help these service members? It really is just a plague of suicides like we’ve never had from military members, how do we deal with that? Well one thing is we have to be honest about the problem, what is the problem? What do they have in common? How can we address this? I think tearing down steeples and eliminating crosses in windows are not a good way to go.

• Cindy Jacobs explains how she became a "respected prophet."
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• Unfortunately for us, Fox News' resident quack psychiatrist Keith Ablow will not run for the vacant senate seat in Massachusetts.
• Rep. Randy Forbes is very worried about "America’s new government-imposed religion," by which he means conservative Christians not getting their way on everything.
• Finally, the Family Research Council cannot possibly be a hate group because someone who interned there says they are "the most delightful, friendly, sweet, loving, caring, and Christ-like people you will ever meet."

Before the Boy Scouts of America announced that they would delay discussions about the organization’s ban on gay members, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council argued on his radio show that it is “ironic” that “the very ones who are pushing this policy change in the Boy Scouts are some of the same ones that were screaming about the Catholic Church” over its handling of widespread child abuse cases. Perkins claimed that those who want the church to be held accountable for shielding priests who abused children “are putting the Boy Scouts into the same compromising situation.”

It’s kind of ironic to me, I thought…just on its surface it seems very ironic to me that some of the very ones who are pushing this policy change in the Boy Scouts are some of the same ones that were screaming about the Catholic Church and wanting them to be more transparent and liable for the damages that were done. The Catholic Church has paid out millions of dollars as a result of those cases of abuse that took place and now they are putting the Boy Scouts into the same compromising situation. It just does not add up.

Perkins said that “homosexual activists” will not serve as “male role models” since they want to gain access to the Boy Scouts in order to have “influence” over “impressionable children” just “as they have in the schools.”

We’re talking about young, impressionable children that even in this society today there are certain things we don’t allow them to decide for themselves. So we’re going to put these impressionable children in situations that could affect their safety. But beyond that, the whole purpose for the Scouts is to provide for male role models and at a time in our nation when over forty percent of our children are being born out of wedlock and in some places in the nation seventy percent-plus of our children are growing up without dads in the home, they need these male role models and the Boy Scouts does a great job in providing a male role model. I think a part of what is at play here is that the homosexual activists — not all, some — want to be able to get into the Boy Scouts to influence the next generation on the issue of homosexuality just as they have in the schools.

He even compared the BSA to Judas Iscariot for taking “thirty pieces of corporate silver” and jeopardizing “the well-being of the children” by shifting the policy on gay members.

This is the question they should ask themselves: will this policy change make Scouting better for the boys under our watch care? Will it make it safer? Will it make their experience in this journey from adolescence and childhood into manhood, will it make it more successful? I don’t think they can answer that in the affirmative, but that’s the question they should ask. It comes down to them making a choice between the well-being of the children who are under their watch care or thirty pieces of corporate silver. This is about standing up for principle, standing up for what’s true and what they know in their hearts is right, and not caving to the pressure of corporate elites who are trying to reshape America in their image.

While it is becoming extremely unlikely that the GOP will be able to muster enough votes to filibuster Chuck Hagel’s nomination as defense secretary, Religious Right groups and their Republican allies continue to make new and more over-the-top overtures to activists hoping to block his confirmation.

For example, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) told Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council that “we can’t afford to allow someone who has been that cozy with the terrorist groups that are out there to become Secretary of Defense.”

Inhofe went on to say that Hagel wants to “disarm us” and shows “hostility” toward the U.S. and Israel. Inhofe also cited Sen. Ted Cruz’s questioning of Hagel where he egregiously misrepresented the nominee’s speeches and interview with Al-Jazeera.

Inhofe: That is what is so scary about this; we’d be confirming a secretary of defense—

Perkins: That wants to basically disarm.

Inhofe: Who wants to disarm us. Before I run out of time, Cruz came up with something just great, he’s a new senator from Texas and he’s on my committee, the Armed Services committee, and he came out and he actually used…a spot that came from Al-Jazeera, this was Chuck Hagel being interviewed on Al-Jazeera a short time ago when he agreed with the call-ins at that time that Israel committed war crimes; Hagel admitted that Israel committed ‘sickening slaughters’; admitted that America is the world’s bully. And this is the guy that is trying to become the secretary of defense; it’s a scary, scary thing.

Perkins: Senator before I let you go, just one question: do you know why he seems to be so indifferent if not hostile toward Israel?

Inhofe: And the United States, Tony. I just don’t understand it. Of course, he denies that he is and you know the record confirms that he has this hostility to it. By the way, almost every group in Israel is lobbying us and calling us and saying, ‘please don’t let this happen.’ They’ve been just as concerned about Obama, this is the first time that any President of the United States has trashed Israel in my memory. So I can’t answer that question.

Matthew Hagee, the son of televangelist John Hagee who has been lobbying with Christians United for Israel against Hagel and called him “dangerous to America’s security,” said on the Hagee Hotline that Hagel’s contentious confirmation hearing was an answer to their prayers.

At the end of the day, Pastor Hagee and those 400 [pastors] who joined him were very confident that what they had done was all that was in their physical power to do to not only represent their views as Americans but the views of the body of Christ and the kingdom of God and to stand up on behalf of God’s chosen people, Israel. All that was left to do was to remain in prayer and to be hopeful that the actions that they had taken would make a difference. If you saw any of the headlines following the Senate committee’s interview of Chuck Hagel, you know that a difference was made. You saw that the Senate firsthand was able to expose Hagel’s weaknesses and you saw the difference that the prayer of the righteous and faith in action can make.

Just today the Family Research Council asked activists to pray for Hagel’s defeat and FRC senior fellow Ken Blackwell said Hagel’s nomination invites “chaos and confusion at a time of international peril.” Eagle Forum told members in an action alert that “Chuck Hagel is a threat to America’s strength and safety” and Rick Santorum claimed “his confirmation would be a direct threat to our national security.”

American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer also weighed in, saying that Iran “loves” Hagel because he wants to “disarm” the U.S.

Conservative leaders are continuing to rally opposition to a proposed plan to end the national ban on gay members in the Boy Scouts of America with warnings about pedophilia and “indoctrination.”

Family Research Council vice president Rob Schwarzwalder told Janet Mefferd yesterday that fathers cannot trust their sons to be around gay people.

Mefferd called gay rights advocates “totalitarian” for opposing the ban and lamented that the “violins are playing full blast” in the media when they cover stories about gay youths kicked out of the Boy Scouts.

Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel said in a statement that “people like Jerry Sandusky” would be “permitted to be Scoutmasters” if the policy changes, adding, “To allow homosexual Scoutmasters or homosexual Scouts will put young boys at risk.”

Concerned Women for America started a letter-writing campaign against the move before gays attempt “to infiltrate the next generation.” The group even claimed that if gays are allowed to join the Boy Scouts, it would mean that “our religious liberties are being taken away”…somehow.

The Texas Pastors Council called on parents to “defend our children” and not “allow our boys to be targeted by those who believe there is no moral code and no definition of gender” and stop those who are bent on “forcing their immorality on society.”

Pastors, if the scouts fall, the church is next in the sights of the activists committed to forcing their immorality on society – WILL YOU COME?

Fathers, if we allow our boys to be targeted by those who believe there is no moral code and no definition of gender – WHO WILL DEFEND OUR CHILDREN?

Mothers, your voice of courage and protection of the virtue of our children is desperately needed – WILL YOU STAND ALSO?

Florida Family Policy Council president John Stemberger went on another anti-gay rant, alleging that the BSA will “open a can of worms that would cause a mass exodus” and “devastate the Boy Scouts permanently.”

If the BSA departs from its policies on allowing openly homosexual scoutmasters and boys in the program it could destroy the legitimacy and the security of this iconic institution.

As an Eagle Scout, former Scoutmaster and a Vigil Honor Member of the Order of the Arrow, I have a deep personal interest in passing on the rich experience of Scouting to my two sons and I pray that the BSA does not open a can of worms that would cause a mass exodus from a program that America needs now more than ever to train boys to become responsible men. A change of this policy could transform and devastate the Boy Scouts permanently. Additionally, the vast majority of Americans do not support changing the policy to allow openly homosexual scout leaders, so this proposed change makes no sense on many levels.

2000 presidential candidate Alan Keyes in WorldNetDaily warned of “homosexual indoctrination” and “idolatry” in the Boy Scouts if they change the policy:

The simple words of the Scout Oath were meant to encourage boys in the habit of walking this straight path; hence the endeavor to be “morally straight.” But the oath first of all made it clear that the Scout looked first of all to God as the standard of moral rectitude. Try as they might, the present-day trustees of the Scouting movement will never fit the square peg of God’s standard into the round hole of homosexual sin. Moreover, though they begin by admitting practicing homosexuals into the ranks, they must end in acknowledging homosexual activity as morally correct, else they will involve the whole movement in the perjurious administration of an oath openly violated in practice. For in that moral sense, it is not possible to be gay and morally straight at the same time. Thus what the present trustees of the BSA reportedly may do involves rejecting God’s standard for male sexual behavior. And it involves doing so in a way that willfully abandons the straight path blazed by the footsteps of Christ.

…

By accepting a humanly fabricated redefinition of the moral standard, the BSA will fall prey to the inevitable logic of such idolatry. “Their idols are … the work of human hands … those who make them become like unto them; so do all who trust in them.” (Psalm 115:8) It will speedily become evident that what masquerades as tolerance is actually indoctrination, seeking to mold boys according to the standard the BSA trustees will have raised above God’s standard. For if homosexual activity is morally acceptable as an expression of love and good fellowship, then those who express their love accordingly do what is right.

But the aim of Scouting is to encourage young men to do what is right in various ways. Therefore, once the moral prejudice against homosexuality is regarded as a violation of right, doing things that habitually assault and break down this prejudice becomes part of “moral training.” Just as, on many campuses now, refusal to experiment with homosexuality is frowned upon as a sign of bigotry, so henceforth in Scouting braking down this prejudice would be recognized as a meritorious activity. Though camouflaged in different words there will be a merit badge for this experimentation as part of the regime of homosexual indoctrination. God knows what that will lead to; and given now widely publicized possibilities, so should the BSA Inc.

• The Family Research Council and Liberty Counsel are urging activists to contact the Boy Scouts and voice their opposition to the possibility of lifting the ban on gay scouts and scout leaders.
• In case that is not enough, FRC is also asking God to intervene: "Thanks be to God for keeping the Scout Program strong till now. May He intervene to prevent this travesty against righteousness and justice from taking place! May God give the BSA leaders courage and understanding NOT to forsake their own laws by BOWING to those behind this immoral shakedown. May those within who are behind this resign or be removed! May Scout parents across America rise up to say 'NO' to this evil and may they prevail in preserving this great institution!"
• Gary Cass also opposes any possible change because it will only lead to sexual abuse.
• Bart Gingerich of The Institute on Religion & Democracy says the Boy Scouts are being pressured by a gay "mafia": "Let's not just call it the LGBT agenda; it's almost like an alphabet mafia, really. It's very thuggish."
• Why is the AFA broadcasting live from the Super Bowl?
• Finally, Kenneth Miller will remain in jail as he refuses to cooperate in the kidnapping investigation involving Lisa Miller.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has joined American Family Association’s Buster Wilson in linking the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell to the military’s suicide rate. Discussing the Pentagon’s new policy on allowing women to serve in combat units yesterday on his radio program, Perkins said that the Obama administration’s work in “driving Christianity out [and] putting homosexuality in” are “adding additional stress” that leads to a higher rate of suicide.

Perkins cited no evidence to back up his claim, but as with his ominous and incorrect predictions regarding the consequences of DADT’s repeal, he apparently doesn’t see a need to substantiate his outrageous allegations.

Perkins: The volume of these decisions coming out of this administration is unbelievable, unbelievable. The stress in our military, when you look how they have used the military for their social experimentation: driving Christianity out, putting homosexuality in, suicide rate going through the ceiling. I think it was last year if I recall the numbers there were 349 suicides in 2012 and I believe that’s more than were killed in combat, that’s the highest number since the Pentagon began tracking suicides back in 2001. And what are they doing? Adding additional stress by this social engineering. Unbelievable.

On his radio program on Friday, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins added his voice to the Religious Right’s collective outrage over the Pentagon’s decision to allow women to serve in combat positions. The move, Perkins warned, will decrease morale and deter volunteers to the point that “we will have to reinstate the draft.”

I spoke with Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma earlier today about this. He is the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee and he is probably going to be joining me next week on the program. We talked about it and he says the Pentagon will – they don’t have to by law, they don’t have to get a congressional action – but they will be presenting their proposal to Congress. Congress could stop it. Now, I’m not very optimistic that Congress has the backbone to do anything about that. We’ve seen that before on ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’

We’re going to be tracking this very close because, again, this is a national security issue. I didn’t even get into the issue, don’t have time today, but with all of the social engineering that’s going on in our military, I do not think we’re far off from the very real possibility of having to reinstate the draft. Now think about that for a moment. Walk that out. We have to revert to the draft because all of the morale issues and what’s happening in the military, people are not volunteering to join, so we get into another major conflict, we have to reinstate the draft, and all of a sudden they’re drafting our daughters to serve in combat.

Perkins is not alone in his fears. The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer also warned last week that the new policy would cause a “complete sexual meltdown” in the military and a subsequent reinstatement of the draft.

It may be of some comfort to Perkins and Fischer to note that their similarly dire predictions about the end of “don’t ask, don’t tell” – including Fischer’s prediction that “the draft will return with a vengeance and out of necessity” – have not come to pass. Not only has the draft not been reinstated, a study by a group of military school professors one year after the repeal of DADT found that the repeal “had no overall negative impact on military readiness or its component dimensions, including cohesion, recruitment, retention, assaults, harassment or morale.”