David Barton

Yesterday I posted a video compilation of David Barton claiming that every aspect of our culture and politics - from our tax laws to our building codes - ought to be carried out in accordance with Biblical principles. 

I have gone back through the videos to grab a few other highlights that I believe perfectly demonstrate the utter inanity of Barton's "expertise" and pseudo-history.

First of all is this video in which Barton claims that science always confirms what the Bible teaches, which is why global warming is not real and why embryonic stem cell research - which is immoral - will never work:

Next up Barton takes on the famous "Jefferson Bible," which he claims was not an attempt to Jefferson to remove all the things he didn't believe from the Gospels but rather an effort by Jefferson to produce a book that could be used to evangelize the Native Americans:

Finally, Barton explains that the story of the Tower of Babel is really about God's hatred of socialism:

A few weeks back, we captured video of Mike Huckabee being introduced by David Barton at the Rediscover God in America conference in Iowa, during which asserted that he wished every American would be forced - at gunpoint - to listen to Barton's teachings.

Last night, Huckabee appeared on "The Daily Show" and Jon Stewart ended up dedicating nearly the entire interview to questioning Huckabee about his support for and praise of Barton and his pseudo-history:

During the discussion, Stewart mentioned a few of Barton's more outrageous claims by name, which we first reported here - specifically Barton's claims that Jesus opposed the minimum wage and the Estate Tax and that God set the boundaries of nations.

For more examples of Barton's absurd statements and intentional misuse of history, take a look through our archive of posts about him.

David Barton continues to demonstrate that he is an absolute joke:

A leading Christian historian told WND he believes President Obama is engaged in a pattern of "willfully, deliberately" repudiating America's Christian heritage.

As WND reported, Obama has been caught numerous times – seven, by WND columnist Chuck Norris' count – omitting the phrase "endowed by their Creator" when quoting the Declaration of Independence and misquoting the national motto "In God We Trust" in official White House communication.

Potential presidential candidate and WND columnist Herman Cain said he believes the omissions are "intentional," and historian David Barton told WND at the Iowa Renewal Project's Pastor's Policy Briefing that he agrees:

"The first time or two I thought, 'Well, he's flustered, he wasn't thinking.' But seven times? There's no way. Especially when he was called on it," Barton said. "Congressmen sent him a letter challenging him on it. There's no way it's matter of ignorance or slip or excuse at that point. I believe it's by design and by intent.

"I gave him the benefit of the doubt a few times, I waited," Barton continued, "but there's no way in a court of law that would not be seen as willful, deliberate intent."

Barton, head of Wallbuilders, an organization dedicated to presenting America's moral, religious and constitutional foundations, said unlike previous presidents – notably Founders like Washington and Adams – who publicly proclaimed God's hand in America, Obama has been going out of his way to not acknowledge the Almighty.

"You remember when he spoke at Georgetown, he had them cover the Christian symbols [behind him on the stage]?" Barton asked. "There's a pattern. When he misstates the national motto, it's not just the Declaration omission of 'their Creator.' When he became president, one of the first things that happened on the White House website was they took off the faith-based office. That kind of reaction is circumstantial, but in a court of law it would convict him."

Let's take a look at Barton's "circumstantial evidence," shall we?

First of all, Barton cites Chuck Norris' earlier WND column in which he asserts that Obama has dropped "endowed by their Creator" seven times ... but if you actually look at Norris' list, you see that several of the instances he cites were times when Obama was simply paraphrasing to make a point:

 

• On Sept. 11, 2010, at the Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Va.:

"For our cause is just. Our spirit is strong. Our resolve is unwavering. Like generations before us, let us come together today and all days to affirm certain inalienable rights, to affirm life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

• On Sept. 10, 2010, at the president's press conference at the White House:

"With respect to the mosque in New York, I think I've been pretty clear on my position here, and that is, is that this country stands for the proposition that all men and women are created equal; that they have certain inalienable rights – one of those inalienable rights is to practice their religion freely."

It is absurd to claim that Obama was directly quoting the Declaration in these instances, so the assertion that he intentionally dropped "endowed by their Creator" is ridiculous. 

Secondly, what about all of the times Obama has, in fact, cited that passage?

Remarks by the President at United States Military Academy at West Point Commencement -
May 22, 2010

But this nation was founded upon a different notion. We believe, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” (Applause.) And that truth has bound us together, a nation populated by people from around the globe, enduring hardship and achieving greatness as one people. And that belief is as true today as it was 200 years ago. It is a belief that has been claimed by people of every race and religion in every region of the world. Can anybody doubt that this belief will be any less true -- any less powerful -- two years, two decades, or even two centuries from now?

Remarks by the President at Independence Day Celebration - July 4, 2010

Two hundred and thirty-four years later, the words are just as bold, just as revolutionary, as they were when they were first pronounced: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Remarks by the President at Las Vegas "Moving America Forward" Rally - October 22, 2010

Look, change has always been hard in this country. This country was founded when 13 colonies came together in a revolution that nobody believed could happen, except they believed. They founded this country on ideas that hadn’t been tried before: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal -- (applause) -- that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Remarks by the President at DCCC General Reception - October 25, 2010

So don't let people tell you you’re not making a difference. Yes, it’s hard. But it’s always been hard. The history of America has been hard, starting with a revolution to found this country. The idea of America is hard, based on a document and ideas that had never been tried before: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Remarks by the President at a rally for Congressman Perriello - October 29, 2010

So don't let them tell you -- don't let them tell you change isn’t possible. Here’s what I know. This country was founded on what seemed impossible. We had 13 colonies come together and have to battle the greatest empire on Earth. And then they drafted this document nobody had ever tried before, proclaiming, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” A son of Virginia wrote those words. (Applause.) “That all men are created equal.” (Applause.) “And they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Remarks by the President at DNC "Moving America Forward" Rally in Chicago, Illinois - October 31, 2010

You know, this country started -- 13 colonies -- who folks said didn't have a chance against the British Empire. And then they drafted this document with ideas that had never been tried before: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

You know, the first few times I saw David Barton misrepresent facts in order to further his right-wing agenda, I gave him the benefit of the dobut, thinking perhaps he just misspoke. 

But when you see him do it time and time again, it becomes impossible to see it as anything other than a willful, deliberate intent to deceive.

David Barton introduced Mike Huckabee at the Rediscover God In America conference, praising him as the epitome of the "Black Robe Regiment" mentality of seeking to apply the Bible to every aspect of the culture. 

Huckabee, in turn, repaid the compliments to Barton, calling him one of the most effective communicators in America and wishing that every American would be forced, at gunpoint, to listen to every Barton broadcast:

As we noted yesterday in our post about Bryan Fischer interviewing Rep. Michele Bachmann, a group of conservative leaders - including Bachmann, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Haley Barbour, and David Barton - have gathered for a Religious Right event in Iowa aimed at mobilizing pastors called "Rediscover God In America."

The event is being webcast by the American Family Association and last night David Barton got the festivities underway by explaining to the audience that all of our economic and tax policies ought to be dictated by the Bible ... and that means getting rid of the minimum wage because it was opposed by Jesus (Barton didn't actually cite the passage he uses to support this claim in this presentation, but it is Matthew 20:1-16):

Earlier this year, there was a short right-wing freak-out when the State Department announced that the spaces for "mother's name" and "father's name" on passport applications will be replaced with "parent one" and "parent two."

The State Department quickly backtracked but that wasn't good enough for Rep. Randy Forbes who quickly introduced legislation to require the use of "mother" and "father" on all federal forms.

Today, Forbes showed up on "Wallbuilders Live" with David Barton and Rick Green to discuss the importance of stopping these sorts of changes at the source while Barton warned that is was an example of the unholy contaminating the holy:

Barton: And it really is important. A little bitty deal like changing the mother and father designation on a passport, those are not small deals.

Green: Even though it sounds small, isn't it a fundamental change? It's really at the heart of this question of is the family going to continue to be the major nucleus of our culture and is there a definition of family and marriage that we're going to stick with or are we going to go to anything counts?

Barton: Well, it becomes death by a thousand paper cuts, is what it amounts to. Nothing really enough to cut to the bone, but you just bleed to death a drop at a time. And that's what this is because you say "man, we're so busy with the President trying to get DOMA defended, we don't have time to mess around with what they're writing on passports." Well, when it comes at you from a hundred directions, you may repel ninety-eight of the attacks, but if two of them get through, that's two more than you had when you started this thing. And those are attacks that you have to push back on every single one of these fronts one hundred percent of the time. You cannot give ground.

The minor prophets talked about the fact that if you take something holy and put just a drop of unholy in there, does the holy make the unholy become holy? Or does the unholy make the holy become unholy? And the answer is: the unholy contaminates the holy.

Forbes: The other big thing that we're worried about is, as you know, the slippage of these kinds of things and how they work their way in and then ripple throughout all of government. If we let this stand, the next thing we know is there's going to be another agency that does it and then another agency and then before you know it they're going to come back and say "we've done this with the State Department and we did it with such and such. We ought to make it in all federal documents everywhere." And that's the way these things happen unless you try to put them out at the source.

And the other thing, imagine with children. You know, for how long have we said "who's your mothers?" and "who's your father?" and now we're going to say "well, who's your parent one and who's your parent two?"And these are the kinds of things that have huge ripple effects through the federal government if gone unchecked.

In the last "Random Book Blogging" post, we excerpted a few sections from John Fea's "Was America Founded As a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction" where he explained that, contrary to pseudo-historians like David Barton and his supporters, the Founders never intended the Declaration of Independence to be understood as establishing a Christian nation.

In today's post, Fea explains that there is nothing in the Constitution that suggests the Founders intended to create a Christian nation.  In fact, the lack of God in the document was one of the reasons Anti-Federalists regularly cited for opposing it:

While Anti-Federalist opposition was always more political than it was religious, many Anti-Federalists rejected the Constitution because it did not make any appeals to God. Even some statesmen who were prone to give their support to the Constitution on political grounds wondered why the framers had not made the slightest mention of God in drafting the document. The writings of these constitutional skeptics present an interesting dilemma for those today who want to argue that the Constitution was a Christian document. In the eighteenth century it was those who opposed the Constitution who made the strongest arguments in favor of the United states being a Christian nation ...

One of the most scathing critiques of the godlessness of the Constitution came from William Petrikin, an Anti-Federalist from Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Writing under the pseudonym "Aristocrotis," Petrikin attacked the framers of the Constitution as elitists who preferred a refined religion of "nature" over a religion of "supernatural divine origin." In doing so, he sounded a lot like a twenty-first century working-class evangelical complaining about the so-called secular liberal elites who had no respect for the Constitution. The difference, of course, was the Petkikin was attacking the U.S Constitution and the men who framed it ...

The Anti-Federalists wanted to insert an acknowledgment of God or a Christian requirement for officeholding into the Constitution because they took seriously the idea that religion was absolutely essential to a virtuous republic ... In the end, the Anti-Federalists lost. The Constitution was ratified and remains the foundation of American government today. The framers of this document chose deliberately to reject the notion that the U.S. government was a "Christian" government or that those who served in that government should acknowledge Christianity or even a belief in God. Today, many of the Anti-Federalist ideas about God and government can be found in the arguments made in defense of the notion that the U.S. Constitution was a Christian document that established a Christian nation. As far as history is concerned, the defenders of Christian America today cannot have it both ways. If they continue to defend the Constitution as a Christian document, they must be willing to part ways with some of the strongest eighteenth-century defenders of a Christian America, the Anti-Federalists. On the other hand, if they want to continue to make arguments in favor of a Christian America, then they might find some strong allies in the Anti-Federalists. But this would mean that they would to be a lot more skeptical and critical of the framers of the Constitution.

Michele Bachmann

Health Care: Decries secret funding of reform law which wasn't actually a secret (Minnesota Post, 3/7).

Energy: As gas prices rise over Mideast crisis, Bachmann blames Obama (CNN, 3/7).

Religious Right: Invites Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel to her Tea Party Caucus (RWW, 3/4).

Haley Barbour

Campaign: Adds staff to leadership PAC (The Fix, 3/7).

Iowa: Will join Bachmann, Santorum, Gingrich and others at conference hosted by Steve King (Des Moines Register, 3/7).

Background: Made millions as a lobbyist for the energy industry, now repeating their arguments (HuffPo, 3/3).

Mitch Daniels

Indiana: Democrats in state legislature lead boycott to protest Daniels's anti-labor agenda (TPM, 3/4).

Religious Right: Richard Land attacks Daniels's truce proposal as "political suicide" (RWW, 3/4).

Newt Gingrich

Campaign: Discusses "confusion" of exploratory committee announcement (Des Moines Register, 3/7).

Obama: Tells Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition that "secular, socialist" Obama administration "cannot represent America" (The Hill, 3/7).

Religious Right: Plans to address Religious Right conferences in Iowa and Liberty University, and meet with controversial pastor John Hagee (RWW, 3/4).

Mike Huckabee

South Carolina: Tells South Carolina crowd on book tour that the state is a must-win primary (The State, 3/8).

Culture: Slams actress Natalie Portman for allegedly glorifying single motherhood (The Week, 3/4).

Obama: Agrees with Bryan Fischer that Obama is anti-American; falsely claims that President Obama grew up in Kenya and then lied in his mea culpa (RWW, 3/2; County Fair, 3/7).

Religious Right: Joins Bachmann, Barbour, Gingrich and pseudo-historian David Barton for a webcast on religion in politics (RWW, 3/2).

Jon Huntsman

Campaign: Top aides meet in New Orleans, set sights on New Hampshire voters (RCP, 3/7).

Obama: Praise from President may damage Huntsman's chances (Salt Lake Tribune, 3/6).

Donors: Supporters of Huntsman paid for video about his work as Ambassador (Politico, 3/3).

Sarah Palin

2012: Says she would run for President if voters are ready for someone who is against "obsessive partisanship" (BBC News, 3/7).

Culture: Picks fight with comedian Kathy Griffin (LA Times, 3/7).

Foreign Affairs: Prepares for trip to India (Politico, 3/6).

Tim Pawlenty

2012: May be GOP front runner due to the "process of elimination" (TNR, 3/8).

Religious Right: Calls on members of Ralph Reed's Iowa group to "take back our country" (CBS News, 3/7).

Minnesota: Keith Ellison says Pawlenty has "no connection" to his roots (Think Progress, 3/4).

Buddy Roemer

Tea Party: Tells Religious Right group, "Thank God for the tea party" (Des Moines Register, 3/7).

Campaign: The former Louisiana governor announces exploratory committee (CBS News, 3/4).

Mitt Romney

Health Care: Massachusetts AG uses Romney's health care policy to defend federal law (Politico, 3/7).

Social issues: After turning hard right on social issues, Romney now wants to downplay them (Salon, 3/7).

Campaign: Produces "restoring hope" video for leadership PAC (Politico, 3/7).

Rick Santorum

Reproductive Rights: Plays-up his career in the anti-choice movement to Ralph Reed's Iowa group (Des Moines Register, 3/7).

Religious Right: Argues in Iowa op-ed that LGBT equality will "eviscerate" freedom (RWW, 3/7).

When the Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Department of Justice will end its defense of the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Religious Right groups were naturally apoplectic. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council likened President Obama to a Middle East dictator, the Traditional Values Coalition blasted the “unprecedented power grab,” and Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel said Obama “betrayed the American people.” However, the government will continue to enforce DOMA and the move by the Department of Justice was not without precedent, as the Bush and Clinton administrations both refused to defend laws that they found to be unconstitutional. Even David Barton agrees that the Obama administration has the right to drop its defense of DOMA.

Concerned Women for America’s Mario Diaz believes that the DOMA decision represents a grave turning point in American history as a “tyrannical move” by President Obama, who he accuses of lying about “his putative Christian faith.”

Ironically, Diaz argues that Obama and Holder are “suppress[ing] the rights of the majority of Americans” and don’t think certain people “deserve the same protections other Americans enjoy” by dropping the defense of a law which singles out gays and lesbians for discrimination. In fact, CWA finds the decision so scary that it believes that the future of marriage in America will entail a man leaving his bride at the altar for another man:

Wednesday, February 23, 2011, should be a day all Americans remember. It was the day when President Obama betrayed the majority of Americans by refusing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), in fact ordering the Department of Justice (DOJ) to abandon the protection of the federal law preserving marriage as the union between one man and one woman.

This decision – just like his pretended support for traditional marriage during the presidential campaign – was purely political for the President whose radical liberalism grows starker by the day. Obama is counting on the powerful homosexual lobby to come out in full force for him, but Americans must not forget this tyrannical move by the president. Even as we focus on issues of the economy, jobs, and spending, we must remember that a morally bankrupt nation can never flourish. All the tax cuts in the world can never repair a nation’s broken spirit.

…

So, just like any other despot, Obama decided unilaterally to make the decision for all of us ignorant Americans who support DOMA, and we should be grateful.

Shame on him. And shame on us if we just stand by silently and take it. We should not! We must speak out.

Truthfully, we have been too silent for far too long. President Obama and Mr. Holder have been actively working against DOMA and, therefore, against all Americans ever since they took office. Even on the cases where they decided to “defend” DOMA, they were actually undermining its reasoning by abandoning the most effective arguments.

DOJ’s mission statement says it is “...to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.” But President Obama and the attorney general have made a mockery of impartiality. They have chosen to side with an extreme, liberal minority and chose to suppress the rights of the majority of Americans.

Simply put, if you support DOMA, this president and his administration view you as the enemy who does not deserve the same protections other Americans enjoy. We are on our own.