Family Research Council

Amid reports that absentee ballot requests among those serving in the military are down dramatically this year in comparison to 2008, Tony Perkins and Don Wildmon brought Jerry Boykin on to "Today's Issues" today so all three could wildly speculate as to the cause.

While some are suggesting that requests for absentee ballots are down because the number of soldiers who are deployed is down and other are explaining that levels are similar to what they were in 2004, Perkins and Boykin suspect that something else is going on; namely that military leaders have had to spend so much time instituting the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and "implementing the President's social agenda" that they haven't had time to make sure soldiers were able to vote. 

In fact, suggested Boykin, this might even be intentional because members of the military are so angry over the repeal of DADT and "the way the military has been exploited for political purposes with all the release of information about the killing of bin Laden" that they are going to vote overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney:

An amateurishly made video of an interview with Jerry Boykin, the Executive Vice President at the Family Research Council, recently popped up on YouTube, seemingly shot when Boykin was at the Values Voter Summit last month, in which he discussed his various conspiracy theories about the Muslim Brotherhood and the Middle East in general.

At the end of the video, Boykin asserted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had better be keeping a close eye on the polls tracking the presidential election in order 'to determine when was the best time for me to get the support of the American public, American Congress, and the American military [because] if it looks like Barack Obama has a real chance of being re-elected, if I was Netanyahu, I would strike Iran before the US election":

While speaking with Family Research Council president Tony Perkins on Washington Watch Weekly, Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway said she told her client Todd Akin to withstand the controversy that emerged following his comments on “legitimate rape” just like David Koresh, the Waco compound cult leader whose standoff with the ATF led to over eighty deaths. Conway told Perkins that she advised Akin to survive efforts to “smoke him out” like Koresh until they “realize the guy’s not coming out of the bunker.” She was speaking with Perkins just as the deadline for Akin to drop out passed, and Republican figures such as Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Jim DeMint, including DeMint’s powerful Senate Conservatives Fund, rallied to Akin’s behalf. Conway said she expects even more Republicans to follow Perkins’ lead in rallying behind Akin.

Perkins: The distance between them is narrowing, Todd Akin has bounced back up, and the evidence of that is pretty clear because now you see other Republicans who abandoned him are now taking a second look at the race and realizing just how important this seat is.

Conway: They are and they’re following your lead Tony. You saw former speaker Gingrich there on Todd’s behalf at a fundraiser on Monday, saying it’s just “conventional idiocy” that’s preventing people from backing Todd, and he predicts that come mid-October everyone will be following yours and his lead back to Missouri, with their money. Of course, former senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum and Senator Jim DeMint came out just yesterday to support Todd. I believe that the establishment will have to look at this race and they will have to hold their nose because the first days—and I’ve expressed this to Todd as my client for a while now, I’ve expressed it to him directly—the first day or two where it was like the Waco with David Koresh situation where they’re trying to smoke him out with the SWAT teams and the helicopters and the bad Nancy Sinatra records. Then here comes day two and you realize the guy’s not coming out of the bunker. Listen, Todd has shown his principle to the voters.

Ken Blackwell of the Family Research Council yesterday spoke to VCY America’s Crosstalk where he, like FRC president Tony Perkins, again tried to link both the Obama administration and the Southern Poverty Law Center to the tragic office shooting last month. But that wasn’t the only thing Blackwell told host Jim Schneider, as he also warned that all those who oppose the FRC and its mission are trying to form a “totalitarian state” and “destroy the family.”

Blackwell: We at the Family Research Council, we are a conservative Christian organization, we have answered the call, it’s a biblical call, in Psalms 11:3 the question is asked, if the foundation be destroyed what shall the righteous do? As an organization we have advanced these biblical truths, we defended them and as a consequence we have become despised by those who would recreate this country into something that its founders never expected it to be, and that is a big welfare state, a totalitarian state or an authoritarian state. In those models and the state-craft of those national models they’ve had to chase God and faith out of the public square and they’ve had to destroy the family as the basic unit of governance because they replace it with an all-powerful state.

The FRC senior fellow even agreed with a warning that the SPLC may start labeling churches throughout America as hate groups, based on the false claim that opposition to same-sex marriage was the reason the FRC received the designation, and suggested that President Obama and his allies are setting up the conditions for a “totalitarian” regime.

Schneider: If Family Research Council has been labeled as a hate group because of the position that you’ve taken on traditional marriage, that we have known since the beginning of this country, that thirty-some states have certified in their own constitutions, if FRC has been labeled as a hate group, aren’t we just a step away from our individual churches all across this nation being on this same hate list?

Blackwell: Oh absolutely. That’s why I started out by saying if you look at the various models of governance throughout human history we have shown in terms of a democratic Republic driven by constitutional governance that limits the reach and intrusion of government and puts an emphasis on individual liberty and is based on the fact that there is a moral foundation of this country, if you can compare that to totalitarian states, authoritarian states, big welfare states, there are a couple things that have had to happen for these states to consolidate power and use and misuse their power. They’ve had to destroy or weaken the family and they’ve had to run God and faith out of the public square, or at minimum they have had to silence the church. I don’t think it’s a step to far to say that this is a President that has carried out that strategy in the advancement of the reintroduction of the welfare state.

On Friday, Jerry Boykin appeared on WND Radio America where he warned host Greg Corombos that the Muslim Brotherhood's infiltration of our government is far beyond what anyone could ever imagine and that the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell will make it difficult for soldiers to bond and therefore unwilling to lay down their lives for one another.

Boykin warned that the Muslim Brotherhood had managed to infiltrate all levels of government, as well as the two main political parties and even the media, citing the criticism that Michele Bachmann received over her anti-Muslim witch hunt as evidence that things are really, really bad:

Our government is so infiltrated and the Muslim Brotherhood has so much influence in this country, it is incredible. If Americans only took the time to do the proper research and to find out just how deep this infiltration into our government is, it would just frighten them. I just gave a talk on this last weekend to some folks here in Washington and they walked away saying "why don't we know this?" And my answer is because it is not in the interest of the mainstream media's agenda to tell you.

We have within, let's just say the Department of Homeland Security, two of the top people there with very high level security clearance are known to be associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. The Republican and Democratic parties are both infiltrated. Every government entity, to include the Department of Defense have people that are know to have had associations with the Muslim Brotherhood. And you know Michele Bachmann recently raised the issue of Huma Abedin, which is Hillary Clinton's closest aide and her parents' association with the Muslim Brotherhood and of course she just got blistered by her own party as well as the mainstream media, so it's bad.

Boykin also addressed the anniversary of the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell to warn that it would take a decade for the true impact of the decision to be felt because it will undermine military readiness by disrupting the bonding between soldiers and make them unwilling to risk their lives for their colleagues:

I think it's reducing the morale of the military.  I also think it's impacting on the readiness, and that readiness is something that unless you've been in the military - particularly in a combat organization - you don't understand it. The full effects of this will not be realized for a decade. But it is a camaraderie and a brotherhood is such that I am willing to risk my life for the guy next to me and that come with an absolute trust and a bonding that I am very concerned that the Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal will disrupt that bonding, that brotherhood.

As we noted the other day, Tony Perkins, Jerry Boykin, and Ken Blackwell, all of the Family Research Council, penned a joint op-ed in which they accused the Southern Poverty Law Center and others on the left of leading "an open assault upon those with whom they disagree," and blaming "this type of demonizing" for the shooting that recently took place at FRC headquarters.

Today, Blackwell discussed the topic with WNDTV/Radio America where he, like Tony Perkins before him, also placed the blame on President Obama and his administration for supposedly working with the SPLC "hand-in-glove" in the effort to demonize conservative Christians "as haters and bigots":

We think that there is more and more evidence that the Obama Justice Department and the Southern Poverty Law Center work hand-in-glove and that's disturbing because it's investing an enormous amount of power that is subject to misuse in an organization that has a political motive in attacking those of us who are strong in our pro-life ethic and strong in our support of traditional marriage. And a Justice Department that is supposed to be neutral is, by all measure, an active participant in this clash of visions; not only this clash of visions but in this mislabeling of people who are exercising their fundamental human rights and constitutionally guaranteed rights as haters and bigots.

...

Every day of his presidency, [President Obama] has done whatever it takes to undermine the Constitution and to empower a strong central or federal government which, by definition, has to be predicated on the weakening and the destruction of the family and chasing God and faith out of the public square or, at a minimum, silencing the church.

So I see this as an extension of that sort of mischief and that sort of wrongheadedness when he attacks those organizations that defend the pro-life ethic, defend traditional marriage, and defend strong families, and who advocate putting a harness on the growth and the reach of government.

Last week, Peter wrote a post wondering if Family Research Council president Tony Perkins might just be "the most disingenuous Person on the Planet" for his on-going efforts to exploit the recent shooting at FRC headquarters for political gain by accusing those who criticize the bigotry of his organization of inciting violence against him, his staff, and those who share their views.

Today Perkins proves that point yet again as he has joined Ken Blackwell and Jerry Boykin in penning a joint op-ed published by Fox News in which they blame the Southern Poverty Law Center for a "shooting that could have been perhaps the deadliest act of domestic terrorism ever driven exclusively by a social issue":

The past month highlighted issues in America’s culture war, culminating in a shooting that could have been perhaps the deadliest act of domestic terrorism ever driven exclusively by a social issue. Several related episodes showcase the nexus between these social controversies and economic prosperity.

...

This war of words launched by the SPLC as cover for its allied organizations on the left has led to an open assault upon those with whom they disagree. This type of demonizing must stop.

FRC’s belief in marriage has prevailed in 32 states where the voters have spoken, is the official position of the Republican Party, and until three months ago was Mr. Obama’s position. If the religious foundation of our convictions makes us a “hate group,” then every other Christian ministry or historically orthodox church could be likewise designated.

SPLC’s tactics are intended to intimidate and ultimately silence. Nothing could be more threatening to the future of our republic.

Keep in mind that all three of these men work at FRC alongside people who want to export gays and criminalize homosexuality, while Perkins himself says gays are intolerant, hateful, and vile pawns of the Devil and calls his enemies "cultural terrorists," whereas Blackwell compares homosexuality to kleptomania and bestiality, and Boykin seemingly spends the majority of his time spreading conspiracy theories and demonizing Muslims.

So it is a little ironic that they would end their op-ed by calling for contentious social issues to be debated "with civility" and for all involved to "eschew name-calling and marginalization."

Maybe they ought to start by taking their own advice.

Michelle Bachmann, speaking at the Values Voter Summit this morning, quickly one-upped Mitt Romney in pinning blame on President Obama for the violent protests in Libya and Egypt and deaths of four Americans in Libya. She accused Obama of appeasing the Muslim Brotherhood and opening our borders to terrorists. Not long after, Paul Ryan also attacked Obama over foreign policy: 

Amid all these threats and dangers, what we do not see is steady, consistent American leadership. In the days ahead, and in the years ahead, American foreign policy needs moral clarity and firmness of purpose. Only by the confident exercise of American influence are evil and violence overcome.

• the conference features a fake terrorist who claims to have smuggled weapons into the U.S. and carried out “bloody terror” missions against Israel

• the video that sparked the unrest in Egypt and Libya was created and promoted by anti-Muslim activists who have worked with backers of Bachmann’s effort to purge the U.S. government of Muslim Americans and key players in the effort to block the so-called Ground Zero mosque (e.g. ACT! for America and the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission)

• in July, misinformation promoted by Bachmann and two upcoming speakers at the Values Voter Summit, Frank Gaffney and Jerry Boykin, sparked aggressive protests against American diplomats in Egypt, including Secretary Clinton, whose motorcade was pelted by protestors – Boykin and Gaffney have been the leading forces behind Bachmann’s witch hunt against Muslim Americans in the U.S. government

• former Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, now the executive vice president of the Family Research Council, which hosts the conference, significantly set back American diplomacy in 2003, drawing a rebuke from President Bush and Pentagon investigators, when he repeatedly denounced and insulted Islam in uniform and characterized the “war on the terror” as a war in the name of Jesus