Townhall

Sandy Rios, the former president of Concerned Women for America turned conservative columnist and Fox News contributor, doesn’t buy Sharon Bialek’s claim that Herman Cain made an unwanted physical advance to her during a meeting with him in 1997. Rios, now the vice president of Family PAC, says that if Bialek was planning an “over night visit” with someone she only knew “slightly,” then, “What was Herman Cain to think about a single woman making an unnecessary arrangement like that—agreeing to drinks and dinner on the basis of nothing more, according to her, than a few conversations at public dinners and receptions?” In her Townhall column today, Rios argues that “if he did what she said he did and she in turn flirted inappropriately, it is NOT sexual harassment, it is what happens every day in our sex-obsessed, morally bankrupt culture”:

Why do I discount Bialek’s story? I’ll answer with a few questions of my own.

What was Bialek doing meeting Herman Cain in Washington, DC? What did she hope to achieve by a face-to-face meeting? If she were staying in New Jersey, why didn’t she make it a daytime meeting, not an over night visit? Why do that with someone you know so slightly?

What was Herman Cain to think about a single woman making an unnecessary arrangement like that—agreeing to drinks and dinner on the basis of nothing more, according to her, than a few conversations at public dinners and receptions?

If Bialek were so traumatized and embarrassed, why did she eagerly seek him out at a recent Tea Party event in Chicago? Amy Jacobson, co-host of Morning Drive on WIND Chicago, was witness to that encounter with Cain and described her as “hell bent” on getting back stage to see him. Jacobson said Bialek “cornered him” and that her approach to Cain was “flirtatious.”

If you are embarrassed by a sexual encounter, you don’t eagerly seek out the perpetrator to reconnect for a chat. Unless you think the harasser might someday be president and you are imagining the connections that might come from that.

Why did she so carefully include the buzzwords of a harassment lawsuit? Herman Cain was “powerful,” she said, “in a position of authority over me.” Bialek was “shocked” that he would use his “power” in this way. Does a sincerely abused person so carefully script her account? Were there certain words she wanted to use? This was not a court of law, but her statement was worded like a deposition. She even described the clothing they wore—strange and unnecessary.

…

Am I excusing Herman Cain? No. But if he did what she said he did and she in turn flirted inappropriately, it is NOT sexual harassment, it is what happens every day in our sex-obsessed, morally bankrupt culture.

Herman Cain has said this week that he is pro-life and that abortion should be made illegal, but also that the government shouldn’t have any role in it and the decision should be left up to the woman and her family. As Kyle notes, it seems that Cain’s position is that abortion should be outlawed but “in situations where a family was deciding whether or not to break the law, it is none of the government’s business to tell them what to do.” Cain seems to be the only person who understands this view, and the Religious Right is not happy, to say the least.

Rick Perry’s campaign suggested that Cain, along with Mitt Romney, has “flip flopped” on the issue and Rick Santorum went so far as to call him “pro-choice.” Concerned Women for America CEO Penny Young Nance said that Cain “needs to decide whether or not he is a social conservative”:

Last week Herman Cain said he didn’t support a federal marriage amendment, this week he has backed away from his earlier position on the sanctity of human life. Herman Cain needs to decide whether or not he is a social conservative. The issue of life is like the issue of slavery, it is an inalienable right. The life issue is a dividing line proving whether or not a leader’s moral compass is intact. This is not a point on which social conservative women will negotiate. Cain needs to figure out what he believes.

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association argued that Cain’s remarks “could have come right out of the Planned Parenthood playbook” and wrote a column taking Cain to task:

Herman seems to be saying that he is pro-life with no exceptions for rape and incest — unless the family wants an exception, and then it’s none of his business.

Ouch.

In other words, Herman’s position on conceived-in-rape is virtually indistinguishable from the typical liberal position: personally pro-life, politically pro-abortion.

Although the rape and incest issue is obviously controversial, and a subset of the larger pro-life debate, this will create real problems for Herman in the campaign. It will be difficult for him to walk this one back.

Christian talk show host Janet Mefferd, like everyone it seems besides Cain, was utterly befuddled, saying that “his answer sounds awfully pro-choice,” charging, “that’s how the pro-abortion side talks!”

Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber later called into Mefferd’s show and urged Cain to clarify:

Guy Benson of Townhall also writes that after watching Cain’s interviews with Piers Morgan and with John Stossel, where Cain said that “abortion should not be legal” but an abortion “is her choice, that is not government’s choice,” it seems that Cain’s position, on the face of it, is pro-choice:

I'm a bit mystified that I'm even asking this question, frankly, because I simply assumed Cain was rock solid on the life issue -- but after a puzzling interview with CNN's Piers Morgan, I'm not sure what to think any more.

…

He starts out by saying he believes that life begins at conception, and that he supports "abortion under no circumstances." When Morgan presses him on the government's role in enforcing that belief -- an exchange that at least begins with a hypothetical question about a rape exception -- Cain begins to sound a lot like a "personally opposed to abortion, but still pro-choice" candidate. If you didn't know the following quote came out of Herman Cain's mouth, I wouldn't blame you for presuming its source was a Democrat.

• Bill Keller and Janet Mefferd rally to Robert Jeffress' side and defend his assertion that Mormonism is a cult.

 

• Chris Christie has endorsed Mitt Romney.

 

• Tim Pawlenty regrets dropping out of the presidential race.

 

• Michele Bachmann is still trying to pretend that her campaign is right on track.

 

• Joe the Plumber is running for Congress.  This ought to be good.

 

• Matt Barber says the Religious Right doesn't seek "dominion," but simply "intend to 'take over government' insofar as this means ensuring that true, traditionalist statesmen are elected to office."

 

• Finally, Herman Cain didn't really want to run for President, but God insisted.

• Michele Bachmann will be speaking to Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition "Presidential Series National Tele-Town Hall" next week.
• Fortunately for CAIR, Herman Cain will never become president.
• Randall Terry needs money.
• So does the Family Research Council.
• And Gary Bauer is asking for donations to "help us defend normal marriage" despite the fact that his organization doesn't seem to ever really do much of anything.
• Finally, can someone explain to me how the Obama administration is playing politics by refusing to release the photos of Osama Bin Laden?

Religious Right leaders are coming together to form yet another law school to train future lawyers of the conservative movement. The right-wing Alliance Defense Fund is helping Louisiana College, a Southern Baptist institution, start the Paul Pressler School of Law, which will join Liberty University, Regent University and others in providing politicized training to the next generation of Religious Right lawyers.

Pressler’s ties to the Alliance Defense Fund will be similar to the Liberty University School of Law’s partnership with Liberty Counsel and the Regent University School of Law’s (originally Oral Roberts University’s Coburn School of Law) alliance with the American Center for Law and Justice. As Sarah Posner notes, such law schools intend to “teach the ‘biblical’ foundations of the law” and create “lawyers unafraid to inject their particular Christian beliefs, not only into the public square, but quite deliberately into legislation, policy, and jurisprudence.”

According to the National Law Journal, the new law school “is named for Paul Pressler III, a former Texas Court of Appeals judge who helped lead the conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention during the 1970s.”

The founding dean of the Pressler law school, J. Michael Johnson, was previously senior counsel of the ADF and, according to his Townhall.com bio, has “provided legal representation to organizations such as Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America, Toward Tradition, the American Family Association, and Coral Ridge Ministries, and numerous family policy councils and crisis pregnancy centers.” In 2005, Johnson won the “Faith, Family and Freedom” award from Family Research Council president Tony Perkins for his work defending the Louisiana Marriage Protection Amendment, which placed a ban on same-sex marriage in the state’s constitution.

Yesterday on Today’s Issues, Perkins, who is a member of Pressler’s board of reference, spoke to Johnson about the new law school. Johnson said the law school would be “not unlike what our colleagues are doing at the Liberty University School of Law and the Regent University School of Law.” Perkins said, “This law school’s not going to be pumping out ambulance chasers, this is going to be pumping out liberal chasers, I mean we’re gonna track them down, wherever they are and we’re gonna defeat them, and if we can’t defeat them in the policy realm we’re gonna defeat them in the courts.” He added, “This law school is gonna be pumping out God-fearing, American-loving, family-defending attorneys”:

The choice of Louisiana College is no surprise. The school claims it “seeks to view all areas of knowledge from a distinctively Christian perspective and integrate Biblical truth thoroughly with each academic discipline” and believes “academic freedom of a Christian professor is limited by the preeminence of Jesus Christ, the authoritative nature of the Holy Scriptures, and the mission of the institution.”

In 2008 the school barred members of the Christian LGBT group Soul Force from appearing on campus. In his decision to bar the group, the college’s president cited a fake James Madison quote propagated by David Barton, which states that the U.S. government was based on “the Ten Commandments.”

Now David Barton is serving on the board of the law school.

Along with Perkins and Barton, Religious Right leaders on the board include Alan Sears of the Alliance Defense Fund, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association, Alveda King of Priests for Life, Religious Right luminary Tim LaHaye and his wife Beverly LaHaye of Concerned Women for America, Kelly Shackleford of the Liberty Institute and Reagan’s Attorney General Edwin Meese. Republican politicians including Reps. Rodney Alexander and John Fleming, former congressman Bob McEwen, and senatorial candidate and Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz are also on the board.

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins used his daily Washington Watch radio alert to slam ABC for selecting Chaz Bono to appear on the upcoming season of Dancing With The Stars. Bono, a transgender man, said he hasn’t “been paying that much attention” to critics like Fox News and conservative activists who have attacked his selection. The American Family Association’s One Million Moms accused ABC of trying to “promote this destructive lifestyle” by selecting Bono and Carson Kressley, who is openly gay and best known for his role on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and urged members to contact ABC and demand that “these cast members are replaced”:

Email ABC Network and let them know that we will not tolerate these subjects being forced into our homes. DWTS airs 8/7 central when children are awake and Christian families will not enhance the ratings by watching the show when it returns September 19 unless this issue is taken care of and these cast members are replaced (Kressley was added last minute anyway because of another cast member's injury).

Today, Perkins slammed the network and advised parents not to watch DWTS, warning, “The indoctrination is in full swing.” He claimed that the show is working “to advertise for the radical Left” and has become “an hour-long political statement.” Perkins said:

Forget "Dancing with the Stars." ABC is dancing with the transgenders. Hello, I'm Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. On the 13th season of Dancing with the Stars, the indoctrination is in full swing. This fall, ABC's picked its first transsexual to compete. Chaz Bono, the famous child of Sonny and Cher, may have been born a woman--but she'll be dancing as a man. And while the gay community approves, fans certainly don't. ABC's been blasted by thousands of viewers for turning a popular show into an hour-long political statement. The message boards are full of angry parents who think ABC's gone too far. One mom wrote, "I am not about to risk the potential for on screen dialogue about sex changes and gender confusion while my 7- and 9-year old are watching... We are NOT tolerant--[if tolerance means allowing] any influences to come unfiltered into our home..." I guess if "Dancing" wants to advertise for the radical Left, they'll find out how out of step they are!

• Sarah Palin's suddenly relaunched "Hey, Pay Attention To Me" bus tour has predictably come to an end just four days after it started.
• Michele Bachamann was late to a campaign event because she was attending a family reunion.  Except she wasn't.
• Dennis Prager has the solution to all the world's problems: the Ten Commandments.
• Rick Joyner has a unique ability to write more words that say nothing then anyone I have ever seen.
• I am bummed that we did not make it onto the Pamela Geller/Robert Spencer enemies list.
• Tea Party activists asks President Obama why Vice President Biden called them "terrorists." Obama says Tea Party call him a "a socialist who wasn't born in this country, who is destroying America and taking away its freedoms" all the time. Tea Party activist says that is because he is a socialist.

• Frank Graffney says the terrorist attacks in Norway demonstrates the urgency to fight…you guessed it, Sharia law.

• Live Prayer’s Bill Keller says that while a Christian who commits acts of violence is an apostate, “a Muslim commits acts of terror, killing innocent people, they are simply following the teachings of their false religion.”

• Conservatives defend Herman Cain for saying communities can ban mosques; claim states' rights trump freedom of religion.

• Meanwhile, Cain is skipping an interview with Stephen Colbert.

• Michael Brown, author of A Queer Thing Happened To America, gives his take on the Norway attacks: “Sadly, the atmosphere in our country has become so toxic that venerable ministries like Focus on the Family and the American Family Association have been branded as “hate groups” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, while People for the American Way sends out regular warnings about evangelical Christian leaders on its RightWingWatch website. And this will surely intensify in the days to come in the wake of the tragedy in Norway.”

• Noted cool guy Matt Barber informs us that it is cool to be conservative.  Cool!
• Tim Pawlenty is running for president because he doesn't want to sit around playing hockey, drinking beer, and getting rich.
• Gary Bauer does not support Mitch Daniels.
• Kimberly Daniels won her race for a seat on the Jacksonville City Council. This ought to be good.
• Two Kentucky counties owe nearly a half-million dollars in legal costs for trying to post the Ten Commandments.
• Finally, an aid worker is suing Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse for allegedly refusing to ransom her after she was kidnapped in Sudan despite the fact that the organization had an insurance policy that could have been used to free her.