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Religious Right to Romney: Safety Net Un-Biblical

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on February 3, 2012 - 11:51am
When Mitt Romney stepped on his Florida primary victory message by declaring that he wasn’t concerned about the very poor – and that he’d patch any holes that just might be in their safety net – most observers thought his mistake was declaring disinterest in the poor. But to right-wing activists, Romney’s bigger problem was his support for any kind of social safety net.
 
The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack called Romney’s comments “unconservative,” saying that “The standard conservative argument is that a conservative economic agenda will help everyone.” 
 
“The safety net contributes to poverty,” declared Rush Limbaugh. “It does not solve it.” Tea Party favorite Sen. Jim DeMint told a reporter, “Those are the programs that are hurting, not just the poor, but our country.” 
 
Religious Right leaders added another touch: the safety net is un-Biblical. Yesterday, Liberty Counsel pushed out a statement promoting the Christian Reconstructionist notion that the Bible gives the government no role in addressing poverty:
Romney wrongly assumes that it is the role of government to provide more entitlements to help the poor. In fact, that is not the role of government. The historical biblical view of helping the poor is that they are best helped by individuals and the faith community. Government programs tend to enslave the poor in an endless cycle of poverty. The biblical model is that both, the giver and the recipient, are blessed. When government steps in between the giver and the recipient, the giver loses the blessing of giving and the recipient is often left in a worse, rather than better, position. Romney's statement that he would rely on government programs to help the poor indicates his intent to continue the same failed big government programs and policies….it is the duty of the church, the faith community, to look after the poor, the orphans, and the widows.

Longtime Religoius Right activist Gary Bauer made the same point in a USA Today column in January, arguing that “nowhere in the Bible are we told that government should take one man's money by force of law and give it to another man. Jesus' admonition was a personal command to share, not a command for Caesar to "spread the wealth around." 
 
There are, of course, alternative views about what the Bible has to say. President Obama, speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast this week, cited the Biblical principal that much will be expected of the person who has been given much. (Laughably, Obama has been criticized by Ralph Reed for discussing how his faith influenced his approach to policy-making.) Writing recently for Sojourner’s, an economically liberal evangelical group, Tim King called Bauer’s claims about scripture “false,” saying that biblical injunctions related to forgiveness of debts and the release of slaves are “forms of government mandated redistribution of wealth” and “laws concerned with justice not encouragements to charity.”
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Schlafly and Noebel: McCarthy was a 'Hero,' Communism Nearly Upon Us

Submitted by Miranda Blue on January 27, 2012 - 1:31pm

Pyllis Schlafly had David Noebel, founder of Summit Ministries, on her Eagle Forum Live radio program on Monday to talk about the ongoing threat of communism to America and the world. When a listener called in to complain that communist-hunter Joseph McCarthy is now “demonized” in schools, Schlafly and Noebel agreed that McCarthy was, in fact, a “hero”: 

Caller: I remember learning in school about McCarthyism, and they demonized him, essentially, is what they did. And probably he was more of a hero than he was a villain. So I just wanted to get you guys’ take on that. Thanks.

Schlafly: Well, plenty of us thought he was a hero. What about you, David Noebel?

Noebel: I think he was a hero. Now look, I was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Remember, he was from Appleton, Wisconsin, just 20 miles away. He was a hero.
 

Later in the program, Noebel warned that the central tenets of communism have been “nearly fulfilled” in the United States today:

Noebel: If you read the manifesto, the Communist Manifesto, written in 1848, Marx and Engels come out with no God, no private property, no family – traditional family – no inheritance, graduated income tax, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. In fact, if you read the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto, you’ll be surprised at how we have nearly moved into every one of those areas. And later on, about 1958, Cleon Skousen came out with a book called “The Naked Communist,” and he listed 45 goals in 1958 of the communists and today we have nearly fulfilled every one of them. So people say, ‘This can’t happen.’ But it’s happening right in front of us. Right in front of us, and we can’t even…we just don’t seem to see it.

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Focus's Cushman Slams Sex-Ed Standards for Promoting Respect for Gay Families, Dubs Bullying Prevention 'Homosexual Promotion'

Submitted by Miranda Blue on January 20, 2012 - 1:33pm

Earlier this month, a coalition of health and education groups released new recommended guidelines for sex education in schools, which address topics including sexual orientation, birth control and bullying. The non-binding recommendations have not, unsurprisingly, been popular among the talking heads of the Religious Right.

On Wednesday, Candi Cushman of CitizenLink, Focus on the Familiy's political arm, joined Janet Mefferd to discuss the new guidelines and her displeasure that, among other things, they recommend teaching young children to “demonstrate respect for these different types of families,” a notion that Cushman insists is “undemocratic.”

Cushman: The important things for parents to understand is that these standards are supposed to start in kindergarten so at the elementary level students are going to start to be taught to ‘identify different types of family structures.’

Mefferd: Ugh.

Cushman: And then demonstrate respect for these different types of families. That’s basically codes for, ‘We’re going to teach your kids about same-sex marriage and homosexual relationships and this is an option worthy of being embraced just like heterosexual marriages and relationships.’ Not only are they going to be willing to embrace it but they’re going to respect it and they’re going to get that down by the second grade. So they will need to start that probably around kindergarten so they’ll have it down in their heads by second grade. That’s just one example of them dealing with the homosexuality topic.

Mefferd: Well and in most states we don’t have same-sex marriage, so why the need for that?

Cushman: Right, it’s totally undemocratic.

Mefferd and Cushman went on to discuss the recommendations for older students, including discussions of the proper use of contraception, which Cushman claims were designed by “left-wing, casual-sex activist groups,” and are not intended to promote public health.

As for the inclusion of discussions about bullying, Cushman insists bullying prevention is a Trojan Horse for gay rights groups: “They do have this agenda of inserting homosexuality promotion under the category of bullying and this is one way they go about that with these sexuality standards.”

Cushman has been the voice of CitizenLink's opposition to anti-bullying programs, which we wrote about in detail in a report last year.

Mefferd: I thought the whole purpose of sex-ed originally was to tell kids the birds and the bees, but now it’s flat-out indoctrination.

Cushman: Right, if you look at the material that the groups who did these standards put out it’s all about students’ sexual rights, their rights. The emphasis is not on prevention, avoiding disease and harm, it’s about ‘Oh let’s just reduce the risk, what are their rights?’ Its activism, it’s not about health. That’s why we shouldn’t just surrender our schools to left-wing, casual-sex activist groups.

Mefferd: I agree. I’m sure from what I read there’s this aspect of bullying. They love throwing that around, ‘We need to deal with the bullying issue and the gay bullying issue,’ even though bullying has been around since time immemorial for kids, from kids, for all sorts of reasons, not just the homosexual issue. But do they talk much about that? Are they framing it in terms of, ‘We got to talk about this stuff to stop the gay bullying’?

Cushman: Yes they do. In fact, I found that very interesting that they were titled sexually standards but they address bullying. I thought, now we’re just saying that bullying is sexualized now.

Mefferd: Wow.

Cushman: I really think that bullying should be its own category, not in sex-education. Bullying should be addressed as prevention, protecting all students no matter how they identify because they’re human beings, as I’ve explained many times before. So yeah, I found that an interesting part that they’re trying to mix those two, sex-education and bullying. But I think the reason they are mixing them is because they do have this agenda of inserting homosexuality promotion under the category of bullying and this is one way they go about that with these sexuality standards.
 

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FRC: Obama Out to 'Destroy' Religious Liberty, America Itself

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on January 19, 2012 - 12:30pm
Religious Right leaders have long relied on bogus claims of anti-Christian persecution to energize their supporters – and they’ve cranked up the volume on those claims since Barack Obama’s election. But even by those amped-up standards, the latest direct mail piece from the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins is a roid-rage rant against the godless "forces of darkness" -- that would be the Obama administration -- who "seek to destroy" the country."
This year promises to be one of challenges for Christians as the Obama administration continues to destroy religious freedom in America.
The “substance” of the letter focuses on a recent episode in which a poorly worded Navy memo – meant to protect wounded servicemembers from unwanted proselytizing while recovering at Walter Reed Medical Center – seemed to ban even friends and family members from bringing a Bible to a visiting soldier. When controversy predictably erupted, the Department of the Navy withdrew the memo for re-writing so that its language would better match its intent. 
 
FRC, of course, did not see this as a problem of lousy editing, but as evidence of a “blatant attack on religion” by part of “President Obama’s secular army.”  During the December brouhaha, Perkins said the episode “speaks to the effectiveness of the President's three-year war on Christianity. Apparently, this administration will do whatever it takes to wipe faith off the military's map.” 
 
It’s not just the military, of course. FRC's new letter says the sinister Bible-ban plan was “part of a broader agenda to push God out of American life in favor of a godless, secular worldview and global community.”
The first step in the fulfillment of this radical utopian dream is silencing Christians like you. After all, it is we Christians who are at the heart of the resistance to the Obama agenda.
Perkins is just warming up. He warns that the Obama administration is counting on the excitement of the election year to distract people from its “radical anti-Christian agenda.”  Perkins says “I am certain that the attack on religious freedom, primarily Christianity, is only going to intensify this year.” 
 
But don’t worry. “Despite the forces of darkness mounted against us, I am confident we can reclaim our country from those who seek to destroy it.” Of course, that’s only if you, dear FRC contributor, aren’t too comfortable and lazy to open your wallets: 
I know for a fact that those who want America to be a godless nation are counting on Christians to retreat to the safety of our own communities and surrender the broader culture to them.
 
They are confident that Christians won’t have the courage, or motivation, to defend their faith. They think we are too comfortable and lazy.
 
Don’t play into their hands….As you contemplate the new year that lies before us, please join with FRC to help reclaim our culture for Christ.
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Dominionists in Search of Warriors: More from FRC - Cindy Jacobs 2012 Kickoff Rally

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on January 12, 2012 - 2:39pm

We have been reporting on last week’s Gathering of Eagles in Washington, D.C. where the Family Research Council teamed up with “Apostle” Cindy Jacobs to launch a prayer campaign designed to influence the 2012 elections. 

The event was vivid evidence of the Religious Right’s willingness to embrace the radical dominionists of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR).  The Family Research Council is probably the most prominent political group on the Religious Right; its Values Voter Summit attracts Republican presidential candidates, congressional leaders, and other officials.  FRC is teaming up with proponents of politics as spiritual warfare against demons who control Washington, D.C. and other cities.  FRC and NAR leaders have common political goals (defeating President Obama, opposing LGBT equality, etc.) and a shared disdain for the separation of church and state.

The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins didn’t show, but the group’s chaplain and national prayer director Pierre Bynum represented FRC, asking for “miracles” during the election year prayer project and “joy” in November.  Bynum recounted God’s instructions to Moses, through his father-in-law, regarding the kind of men he should select as leaders (men who are capable, who fear God, who love truth, and who hate dishonest gain).  Then Bynum spoke wistfully about a time when he says there was a clear religious test for public office -- something explicitly forbidden in the Constitution.

…used to be you couldn’t hold public office in America unless you believed in Jesus Christ, and also believed not only in Jesus Christ but in a future destiny of rewards and punishment for people – you had to believe in a heaven and a hell to be elected for public office in the United States.

But Bynum, and Cindy Jacobs herself, were just the warm-up crew for “teaching apostle” Dutch Sheets, a leader in the New Apostolic Reformation.  Sheets’s keynote was part lecture and part battle cry, structured around what he portrayed as two aspects of the church – the oikos – which represents the church as family – and the ekklesia, which he says is the church as legislative body, as God’s government on earth.  His thesis is that the American church is too caught up in pastoral care and taking care of individuals and congregations – the oikos – and not nearly concerned enough with their responsibility to legislate, govern, and manage the earth in partnership with god. 

Sheets blames that on Satan, who stole from people the concept of being an ekklesia , a “nation-discipling, ambassadorial, earth-stewarding extension of his kingdom.”   Satan, it turns out, also had some help from King James, sponsor of the beloved 1611 English translation of the Bible.  Sheets says King James was uncomfortable with people thinking of themselves as a government (“kind of like our government that is trying to sell us separation of church and state”) and so he instructed his translators to use the word “church” when translating ekklesia.

Sheets is out to change the emphasis on the "family" side of church. He says he’s looking for soldiers and warriors who understand the commission in Matthew 28 to disciple the nations as a grant of authority to be partners with God.  “Disciple, rule, manage the earth. Make it look like heaven.” This is not a new concept, he says, but “a renewing of the Genesis mandate to manage our home -- and make this part of the kingdom look and think like the kingdom of heaven.”  In fact, Sheets said, the earth itself is “groaning” for the sons of God to exercise their proper dominion and authority, saying that if they don’t, it doesn’t rain when it’s supposed to rain and crops don’t produce.

He was not implying “that we’re going to take over everything and rule the earth completely for the Lord,” he said. “But we’re supposed to try.  It is our commission….There’s no insinuation here that we’re going to take over everything, but our assignment until he comes, is to bring his kingdom rule into the earth so that our region looks like heaven again.” According to Sheets, the church as ekklesia was meant to “divide and conquer” and, pointing to Harry Jackson in the front row, said, “it gets a little divisive when you try to rise up and save marriage, doesn’t it?”

Sheets repeatedly mocked “little sheepies” – people focused on the caring and pastoral work of the church (while insisting he wasn’t demeaning that work) – and called for warriors, saying “I’m trying to raise up an army!”   In his final prayer, he denounced as lazy, self-centered, narcissistic sheep those Christians who don’t register to vote because they don’t want to serve on jury duty, and asked God to “raise up kingdom warriors that are ready to do whatever it takes to bring forth your kingdom rule in the earth.”

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CNSNews Discovers More Yuletide Gays at the Smithsonian

Submitted by Miranda Blue on January 11, 2012 - 5:12pm

CNSNews’ Penny Starr caused an uproar in 2010 when she published a story titled, “Smithsonian Christmas-Season Exhibit Features Ant-Covered Jesus, Naked Brothers Kissing, Genitalia, and Ellen DeGeneres Grabbing Her Breasts.” Starr’s story, a breathless review of a groundbreaking National Portrait Gallery exhibit on the gay and lesbian experience in American art, started a textbook case of the right-wing controversy machine, ultimately resulting in the Smithsonian’s removal of a work from the exhibit.

Apparently encouraged by last Christmas’s triumph, Starr is at it again. Her new target: a National Portrait Gallery exhibit on Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. That the Smithsonian would twice in a row acknowledge the existence of gay people during the winter months is too much for Starr:

For the second year in a row, the federally funded National Portrait Gallery (NPG), a part of the Smithsonian Institution, held an exposition during the Christmas season focused on the homosexual lifestyle.

“Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories,” an exhibition appearing at the NPG from Oct. 14, 2011 through Jan. 22, 2012, focuses on lesbian activist and writer Gertrude Stein.

The exhibit, set up in five rooms at the taxpayer-funded museum, highlights Stein’s lesbian relationship with Alice B. Toklas and Stein’s “second family” of homosexual men, some of whom collaborated with Stein on various projects.

On the wall at the entrance to the exhibit, Stein is described as “one of America’s most famous writers.” It gives brief descriptions of each of the five stories, including “Domestic Stein,” which “looks at the lesbian partnership of Stein and Alice B. Toklas, focusing on their distinctive dress, home décor, hospitality, food and pets.” The “Art of Friendship,” the introduction says, “explores Stein's relationships and collaborations after World War I with the neoromantics, a circle of international artists who were young, male, and gay.”
 

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Jeffress: Social Security Crisis, Medicare Crisis and Deficit are ‘God’s Judgment’ for Legal Abortion

Submitted by Miranda Blue on January 10, 2012 - 3:40pm

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Robert Jeffress, a prominent endorser of Gov. Rick Perry, said in an interview with Janet Mefferd yesterday that the Social Security crisis, the Medicare crisis and the mounting federal deficit are “God’s judgment” for legalized abortion.

Citing a study by the fringe anti-choice group Movement for a Better America, Jeffress claims that legalized abortion is responsible for $35 trillion in lost GDP over the last 35 years.

Listen:

Jeffress: Since Roe v. Wade, we’ve had 40 million babies aborted, murdered. Do you realize that if those children, one study I cite in the books says, if those children had been allowed to live, if they had grown up and become productive citizens, it would have added $35 trillion to our Gross National Product in the last 35 years, and there would be no Social Security crisis or Medicare crisis because those people would be paying, productive citizens into the system.

You know, we’ve got even conservatives, Janet, in the Republican Party who are saying, “Oh, this is the year where we’re interested in the economy and not in social issues.” Listen, there is a connection between social issues and economic issues. You cannot wipe out 20 percent of your population, like we have done as a nation through abortion, without great economic repercussions, which I think are God’s judgment. I think the mounting deficit, the Social Security crisis, all those things are part of God’s judgment because we have murdered 20 percent of our population. 

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Gina Raimondo's Curious Speech at the Manhattan Institute (VIDEO)

Submitted by Josh Glasstetter on January 10, 2012 - 10:37am
Rhode Island Treasurer Gina Raimondo appeared at the Manhattan Institute on Thursday to receive that organization’s Urban Innovator Award. Raimondo was being recognized for her efforts to reform the state’s public pension plans. While Raimando is not the first Democrat to receive the award, her appearance at the right-wing think tank is likely to raise eyebrows back home because of what she said and where she said it.
 
For instance, in response to a question from Charles Brunie – a founder of Oppenheimer Capital and former chairman of the Manhattan Institute – Raimondo seemed to indicate that she’s open to privatizing, or selling outright, state assets. She also suggested that, due to her private sector background, she outworks lawmakers and other public servants and employees at the state house.
 
To be sure, the substance of Raimondo’s speech was the importance of core government services and the need to sustain them financially for future generations. She highlighted Rhode Island’s pension reforms as proof that government can work and closed by arguing that the debate over whether government is too big should be supplanted by a debate over whether government is effective. However, the venue for her speech raises questions.
 
The Manhattan Institute, perhaps best known as the “brain trust” of the Giuliani administration in New York, has a long history of working to privatize, undermine, and cut public schools, social services, and public transportation. These are the very services that Raimondo cited as essential in her life and to all citizens of Rhode Island.
 
More broadly, the Manhattan Institute pushes a right-wing agenda that is only partially obscured by the intellectual veneer it projects on its work. Whether it’s equal rights for gays and lesbians, immigration reform, equality between men and women, or affirmative action for minorities, the Manhattan Institute is working against it. In fact, the think tank’s best known “scholar” is Charles Murray, co-author of the discredited Bell Curve, which claimed a genetic link between race and IQ – e.g. blacks are genetically less intelligent than whites.
 
It is unclear what Raimondo hoped to accomplish by accepting the award. The motivations of the Manhattan Institute, however, are far less opaque. Their aim is to cut government spending on social programs – not to make it more effective – but rather to achieve their utopian free market vision of society. Partnering with a Democrat like Raimondo enables them to put forward a reasonable, bi-partisan face. The day after her speech, no less than the Wall Street Journal editorial page – no fan of Democrats or government – heaped praise on the treasurer for leading the Rhode Island “miracle.”
 
You can watch selected clips below and the full speech on the Manhattan Institute’s Public Sector Inc. website.
 
Intro video featuring Dick Cheney praising the Manhattan Institute’s “fresh thinking”:

Raimondo on getting locked in the state house:

Raimondo Q&A with Charles Brunie:

Raimondo on the importance of government:

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Fischer Laments that ‘We Have Feminized Public Policy’

Submitted by Miranda Blue on January 9, 2012 - 6:00pm

The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer was excited today to read about a Public Library of Science One Journal study that finds distinct differences in personality traits between men and women. Although the study did not explore to what extent those differences are due to nature or nurture, and other researchers are already questioning the results, Fischer took the opportunity to expound on his views on the proper role of women in the public sphere.

Two years ago, Fischer provoked national controversy when he said that the United States had “feminized” the Medal of Honor by granting it to those who who have saved lives, not just those who have killed enemy troops. Today he goes back to the theme, claiming that America is in trouble because we have “feminized public policy”:

If these differences are as profound as this study suggests, could that be the explanation for why God has designed men to be leaders in the home, leaders in the church and leaders in society? And I would suggest that the answer to that question is, “Yes.”

In fact, I’ll tell you how we have gotten into trouble in our public policy, is – I don’t know how to say this without getting myself in big trouble here – but the way we have gotten in trouble in our public policy is we have gotten away from masculine characteristics of public policy. We have feminized our public policy. Our public policy ought to be about stability, it ought to be about rule consciousness -- that’s the rule of law, the same rules apply to everybody, that’s what it ought to be about -- and vigilance. Instead, so much of our public policy has been driven by what? Sensitivity, warmth and fear. These are female characteristics, they’re feminine characteristics, they should not be the things that guide and control public policy.

So anyway, I probably just got myself in a big mess there, but again that’s not me saying it. That’s not me saying that men and women have distinct personalities and it’s inate, that’s a secular outfit, the Public Library of Science One Journal.
 

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Jeffress: Kentucky School Shooting God’s Retribution for Supreme Court Decision

Submitted by Miranda Blue on January 6, 2012 - 11:17am

Robert Jeffress, the prominent Dallas pastor who endorsed Rick Perry at the Values Voter Summit last year and immediately got the candidate in hot water when his less than friendly views on Mormonism, Catholicism, Judaism and Islam came to light, is out with some new sermons in his ongoing series about America’s imminent collapse.

In a sermon posted yesterday, Jeffress argued that three key Supreme Court decisions on the separation of church and state have “so weakened our nation’s spiritual and social structure that collapse is inevitable.” He singles out the Court’s 1980 decision in Stone v. Graham, which struck down Kentucky’s law requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in all public school classrooms. This decision, Jeffress argues, led directly to a tragic 1997 shooting spree in a Kentucky high school by a 14-year-old student who was later diagnosed with schizophrenia.

“Is that just a coincidence?” Jeffress asks. “I don’t think so. God warned Israel repeatedly of the devastating consequences she would experience if she forsook God and forgot his commandments.”
 

The prohibition against prayer, the prohibition against voluntary reading of the Bible, were only preambles to the most outlandish Supreme Court decision to date. For years, the public schools in Kentucky had posted copies of the Ten Commandments in the hallway. Understand, there was no obligation for the students to read the Ten Commandments, there was no explanation, no teaching of it in the schools. The Ten Commandments were simply displayed in the hallways, commandments like, “Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not covet,” “Thou shalt not steal.” That was what was posted. However, in 1980, in the case of Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court ruled that the posting of the Ten Commandments was unconstitutional.

In a tragic twist of irony, 17 years after the Stone decision in 1980, a group of students had assembled together at Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky, as they did every morning for a time of prayer and Bible reading. As these students stood around a set of lockers and they were engaging in prayer, a 14-year-old student approached them, pulled out a handgun and opened fire, killing three of the students and seriously wounding five. All of that occurred in the hallway of a Kentucky school where the Supreme Court said, “You cannot post the words, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’” Is that just a coincidence? I don’t think so. God warned Israel repeatedly of the devastating consequences she would experience if she forsook God and forgot his commandments.
 

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