planned parenthood

It seems that Rod Parlsey has taken a page out of Glenn Beck's playbook, as last week he dedicated two of his programs to exposing the nefarious conspiracies behind both the health care reform legislation and the "genocide" being carried out against African Americans in the form of abortion, complete with chalkboards and props.

In the health care program, Parsley was joined by former Senator Mike DeWine as he exposed the conspiracy to funnel billions of dollars to Kathleen Sebelius so she could promote her pro-abortion agenda, which had the support of people like the late Dr. George Tiller.

But that was nothing compared to the episode about the "Black Genocide," where Parsley pulled out Beck-inspired chalkboard to lay out the similarities between Planned Parenthood and the Nazi Holocaust while cradling a model of a fetus and screaming that he is "outraged that African Americans are being systematically targeted and deceived into aborting themselves into extinction":

Last month, House Speaker John Boehner stated that, despite the demands from the Religious Right, Republican had no intention of shutting down the government over the issue of defunding Planned Parenthood. 

The issue was not included in the last Continuing Resolution, but now that that one is set to expire soon, anti-choice Religious Right activists are warning that they will oppose any resolution that does not include the Planned Parenthood and a related anti-choice provision and will score the vote accordingly: 

In a letter FRC provided to LifeNews.com that it sent to House members, FRC Senior Vice President Tom McClusky said, “I want to strongly encourage you to oppose any additional temporary Continuing Resolutions for FY 2011 that fails to prevent government funding of abortion in the District of Columbia and government funding for the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood.”

While FRC did not apply this pressure to House members on the first short-term continuing resolution, it is taking a more intense approach this time.

“FRCAction will score against any such extension of government funding without these key pro-life provisions,” the group promised. “FRCAction will oppose any additional temporary Continuing Resolution that does not include these two pro-life provisions and include any such vote in our scorecard for the First Session of the 112th Congress.”

• GOP may abandon effort to defund Planned Parenthood.

• NOM promises to spend $1 million to defeat marriage equality and its proponents in Maryland.

• Disgraced former congressman Bob Livingston named the top fundraiser for the Louisiana GOP.

• Lisa Ling reports that even the head of Exodus International believes “you can't change your sexual orientation.”

• Birthers at WorldNetDaily absolutely flabbergasted that the Supreme Court rejected their lawsuit against Obama.

• Michele Bachmann still has no idea what she’s talking about.

• Bryan Fischer says “it’s long past time to return our public policy to biblical principles of justice.”

Rick Green of WallBuilders hosted Elizabeth Swanson of the Protect Kids Foundation, a virulently anti-gay group that opposes programs to protect children from bullying and harassment in schools. Like other groups such as Focus on the Family, the California Family Council, Mission America, and the Family Research Council, the so-called Protect Kids Foundation claims that gay-rights proponents “indoctrinating kids to accept and adopt LGBT lifestyles, starting in kindergarten.” David Barton, the head of WallBuilders, himself said that public school students “are getting homosexual indoctrination” and manufacturing the bullying problem.

According to the Protect Kids Foundation, gay-rights advocates are “obsessed with power” and “are determined to transform schools, kids, and culture into their hedonistic vision of a new utopian America…radically transforming society by using our children as pawns for social change.” The organization believes that the immense bullying faced by students who are gay or perceived as gay in schools is not a significant issue, accusing supporters of anti-bullying policies of “fabricating an issue and claiming victim status to gain power” and “indoctrinating impressionable school children.” In their words, the establishment of anti-bullying programs “stigmatizes the normal and normalizes what has for centuries been deemed deviant” and somehow takes away the rights of heterosexuals who don’t support attempts to “homosexualize their children”:

The civil rights issue actually runs in favor of the estimated 96% of the population who are not homosexual. Having LGBT activists homosexualize their children will trample upon their civil rights. For the first time in our history, America is faced with a powerful movement that defines its alleged “rights” in terms of the deprivation of the fundamental rights of others. As a result, the homosexual movement is depriving other Americans of civil liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

Swanson told Green on WallBuilders Live that people should “reclaim” the word 'homophobic,' which she believes, has unfairly become a “pejorative” and a “racial epithet.”

Rick, you said a very key word, 'tolerance,' that we're going to teach tolerance. But the redefinitions of the words go even further. So when you look at the definitions that GLSEN has put forward, there’s a document called Tackling LGBT Issues in the Schools, and it’s a document prepared jointly by GLSEN and Planned Parenthood. And interestingly, the definition that they use of the word “homophobe,” “homophobia” or a “homophobic level of attitude,” which is a word I do not normally use because that word in itself was created by an activist who wanted to get back at people that were disagreeing with homosexuality as a moral good. So to me the term is a pejorative term, a racial epithet if you would, that should not be used because you’re basically name calling people right there if you say ‘Oh, they’re homophobic,’ so that’s a word that needs to be reclaimed and not used in our every day vernacular when talking about this issue.

• Mike Huckabee is holding a Facebook fundraiser seeking donations from those who "support traditional marriage and disagree with Pres. Obama's decision to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act."
• Rick Santorum wants to know why he and Newt Gingrich were suspended from Fox but Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin were not.  That is a good question.
• Maggie Gallagher reacts to the Supreme Court's Westboro Baptist decision by declaring that "the Constitution is not a suicide pact." I have no idea what she is talking about.
• Ed Meese will receive the 2011 Vision and Leadership Award at the Values Voter Summit.
• Abby Johnson is challenging Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards to a public debate. I challenge Johnson to come clean about the real reason for her departure from the organization.
• Bryan Fischer longs for the good old days when blasphemy was illegal.
• Finally, here is Janet Porter-approved footage of her "Heartbeat Bill" stunt:

• Justin Elliott @ Salon: What sharia law actually means.
• David Neiwert @ Crooks & Liars: Huckabee: Obama alienating blacks with gay marriage decision.
• Igor Volsky @ Wonk Room: Huckabee: Same-Sex Marriage Will Lead To Polygamy.
• Sarah Posner @ Religion Dispatches: More Americans Support than Oppose Same-Sex Marriage for First Time.
• Scot Kersgaard @ Colorado Independent: Conservative publisher calls out GOP over Planned Parenthood cut.
• Benjy Sarlin @ TPM: Haley Barbour's MLK Memories Thrown Into Question.
• Alex Seitz-Wald @ Think Progress: Former GOP Sen. Bennett: Reagan Held Views That Were ‘Absolutely Anathema’ To The Tea Party.

James Dobson decided to "commemorate Black History Month" on his radio program by dedicating today's program to discussing William Wilberforce ... and to do so by explicitly linking the Religious Right's fight against Planned Parenthood to Wilberforce's fight against the slave trade:

Dobson: Into that world comes a young William Wilberforce - a young Parliamentarian - who saw this [the slave trade] and said this is evil, this is wrong, I will do what I can to fight it.

In some ways, it's very similar to our situation here with regard to abortion because that's a multi-million dollar industry. You know the money that even our own Congress gives to Planned Parenthood is reminiscent of the evil that was expressed in that day because other Parliament members didn't want to touch that very lucrative business. And so here you've got Wilberforce standing up and saying "this is wrong" and he was vilified and attacked and discredited and marginalized. It sounds kind of familiar to what happens to pro-life people today.

I have to say that I am getting increasingly fed up with hearing from conservative Christian biblical literalists today about how they are supposedly the ideological and moral heirs to the abolitionist movement because such claims are laughable. 

In the last few months, I have read several books about the role of religion and the Bible in the fight over slavery, including "Noah's Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery," "Religion and the Antebellum Debate over Slavery," "The Civil War as a Theological Crisis," and "When Slavery Was Called Freedom: Evangelicalism, Proslavery, and the Causes of the Civil War" ... and I just want to highlight a few passages from this latter book which demonstrates how proslavery advocates relied heavily on the Bible to justify the legitimacy of the institution of slavery:

Most ministers who galvanized southern moral support for slaveholding denied that they were "proslavery." The moniker fits nonetheless. These men repeatedly insisted that good Christians could hold slaves, that slaveholding was moral, and that virtuous acts could result in one's becoming a slaveholder ... Good slaveholders, they maintained, gave the institution its character - that is, goodness. As moral individuals, they were more powerful than institutions. This formulation allowed proslavery spokesmen to denounce the historically evil institution of slavery while defending southern practices: slaveholders in the evil form of slavery were bad men; the southerners were good, and the source their wealth therefore untainted. Good - and especially evangelical - slaveholders supposedly redeemed the institution of slavery.

...

Southerners thought abolitionists either did not understand the Bible or did not know God''s will, and they suspected them of perverting both. From the southern perspective the Bible offered an ideal source of vindication. If the Bible explicitly ordained slaveholding, as southern churchmen were sure it did, then to condemn slaveholding outright as a sin was to insult God's Word and betray His Will ... Most defenders of slavery believed that God had "put" slaves into their hands. The Divine purpose, they thought, was that the master train slaves for "self-dependence and self-government."

During his successful congressional campaign last year, now-Congressman Raul Labrador (R-ID) used his opposition to abortion-rights as a wedge issue to criticize his opponent, who was the most conservative Democrat in the House. The freshman congressman recently joined his conservative colleagues by voting in favor of the Pence amendment to defund the women’s health organization Planned Parenthood. ABC’s Boise affiliate KIVI reports:

Freshman Boise congressman, Raul Labrador says the abortion debate just about splits this country in half, but GOP lawmakers argues all Idahoans agree on one part. "They don't want the federal government to be abortions. There's so much money going to Planned Parenthood. And it's impossible for us to know where they're going. They claim they are not funding any abortion with that money, but that's the main business they do," argues Labrador.

…

Planned Parenthood believes Congress is attempting to take away the reproductive rights of women. However, Congressman Labrador takes exception to that. The freshman republican, states, "I don't think Planned Parenthood speaks for women. If they want to provide services, they can continue to do so. We're not closing their shop, we're just saying no more federal funding." The Senate is expected to vote on the resolution this coming week.

However, Labrador is indisputably wrong when he said that abortion is Planned Parenthood’s “the main business.”

Abortion services account for just three percent of the group’s services, with the vast majority going towards contraception, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, immunizations, and screenings for breast and cervical cancer. Such services especially help women without health insurance, with Planned Parenthood clinics sometimes acting as the only women’s health service providers in many regions.

Labrador also incorrectly describes the federal government’s role in providing abortion services, as the 35-year old Hyde Amendment prohibits federal taxpayer funding abortion care except in the cases of rape and incest, or when the woman’s life is at risk.

The freshman Congressman’s erroneous statements reflect the collaboration of Religious Right and Republican leaders to dishonestly smear Planned Parenthood.

Last week, Religious Right leaders signed on to a letter to Speaker John Boehner demanding that the provision to defund Planned Parenthood "must be a non-negotiable in the Continuing Resolution and we urge you to accept nothing less than this outcome."

Randall Terry even took his crew of activists to Boehner's office to demand that House Republicans make this issue "a hill to die on" and they got arrested in an effort to drive home that point ... but in an interview with CBN's David Brody, Boehner made it clear that they are looking to pass the Continuing Resolution in order to avoid being blamed for a government shutdown and have no intention of drawing a line in the sand on this issue:

David Brody: “Can you commit to them that (defunding Planned Parenthood) will stay in the CR no matter what?”

Speaker John Boehner: “The continuing resolution passed 10 days ago did in fact defund Planned Parenthood and that bill has gone over to the United States Senate. They, like the House were out last week. What they’ll do with that bill I have no idea. In the short term CR though our focus is on cutting spending and making sure that we keep the government open. In order to get this through the House and through the Senate and signed by the President by March 4th, we're not going to take any big chances on the fact that they're looking for an excuse to shut down the government. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer they've been rooting for a government shutdown. We do not want to give them an excuse to do that."

David Brody: “But then again with Planned Parenthood and this whole situation we know what’s going to happen in the Senate. It’s not going to be part of the CR. The pro-life community wants the GOP leadership to stand firm here in conference and is that a line in the sand?”

Speaker John Boehner: “The goal here again is to cut spending and keep the government open. I met with a lot of religious leaders earlier today to talk about the strategy and I think it’s important that we understand that what we want to do here is win the war not just win a battle and there will be an opportunity sometime in order to win the big war and we're looking for that opportunity. I don't think this short term CR is the opportunity that will get us there."

David Brody: “So in essence you’re saying if it comes to that you’re not going to shut down the government over the defunding of Planned Parenthood.”

Speaker John Boehner: “There are a lot of options on the table but I don’t think in the short term CR (Continuing Resolution) this is the opportunity we’re looking for.”