Gary Bauer

• Everything you ever wanted to know about Herman Cain.
• FRC's "Watchmen on the Wall" group for pastors is holding a conference later this month featuring Michele Bachmann and Jim DeMint.
• Gary Bauer says the fact that President Obama would take money from gay donors just "show[s] how vulnerable he is."
• Honestly, how long before the ACLJ files a suit on behalf of this guy alleging he was discriminated against because of his faith?
• Finally, the latest prayer update from the Family Research Council: "Please pray that DADT will be restored, and that until then, measures will be put in place to protect the religious conscience and physical safety of our men and women in uniform."

• The pastor arrested in connection with the Lisa Miller kidnapping has been released on bond.  Let's hope he doesn't flee the country.
• Richard Land says those who President Obama's Christian faith or birthplace are "irrational and a little unbalanced."
• Haley Barbour is not running for president.
• David Barton is headlining the Citizens for Community Values Annual Spring Partnership Banquet, along with Rep. Jim Jordan.
• Finally, Gary Bauer says everyone ought to get down on their knees and be thankful that America is a Christian nation.

Today's broadcast of "Family Talk With Dr. James Dobson" featured an all-star Religious Right line-up of leaders in the fight against marriage equality, including Bishop Harry Jackson, Dr. Jim Garlow, Dr. Ken Hutcherson, Gary Bauer & Tony Perkins.

This was actually just part one of a two part series that will conclude tomorrow and I have edited down the program to its key soundbites.

As you would expect, each one was greatly alarmed by push for marriage equality and vowed to dedicate their lives to doing everything they can to fighting it, with Jackson, who has walking pneumonia warning, warning that that it is the nation that has walking pneumonia that will turn fatal if left untreated, while Garlow asserted that secularists hate democracy as Bauer attacked the elites for promoting the bizarre idea of men marrying men and Perkins warned that children will be "indoctrinated into the ways of homosexuality":

Jackson: I think the nation has walking pneumonia and if we don't stop it, this thing could become fatal.

Garlow: Well, for one, we're not going to give up; we're going to press forward. It is true that it seems the secularists do really hate democracy, they don't like it when the people speak out so they try to get a judge or judges to try to take away the consent of the governed.

It's shocking to me that anybody would be attacked for standing up the family or standing for marriage or that a child needs a mommy and a daddy. Who would think that we'd be in such a condition that somebody would be attacked for that? But we just do not believe that somehow the power of the enemy is going to breakthrough and totally destroy the definition of the family. We're going to stand firm. The social science is on our side, overwhelmingly so, the practical implications are on our side, and the Biblical data is on our side.

Bauer: And what are the liberal elites of our country doing, whether it's the media elites or even the president or our judicial elites, etc., the people in Hollywood? Instead of devoting their energy to trying to stop this destruction of the American family and do something to make sure our children have mothers and fathers, they're all spending their time promoting instead men marrying men and women marrying women, which will guarantee that more children will have either not fathers or mothers. It is just a bizarre concept.

Perkins: As soon as same-sex marriage is rolled-out, the curriculum is changed to aggressively promote homosexuality on par with heterosexuality. There is complete intolerance in those pushing this agenda in our schools. And so this goes back to the question "how will this affect my marriage"? It will affect your family because your children will be taught that this is normal and it will be aggressively taught to them and they'll be indoctrinated into the ways of homosexuality.

Today was day two of James Dobson's attack on Planned Parenthood, only today Rick Santorum was replaced with Rep. Mike Pence, while Gary Bauer returned and called up priests and pastors to use this Sunday to preach against Planned Parenthood and get their congregations to contact their members of Congress to cut off funding because "it's not politics, it's a moral issue":

For the pastors and priests and other religious leaders who are listening to this show, you know this Sunday you could to a tremendous service for your congregation by educating them on how they could have an impact on saving these babies. They don't have to stand outside a clinic, they don't have to go to some big demonstration which a lot of people are uncomfortable doing, unfortunately. They only have to make a phone call. So by using the information that Dr. Dobson and Congressman Pence are giving you today - it's not politics, it's a moral issue about whether our children are going to be welcomed into the world and protected by the law. So I encourage those pastors to step up and do that this Sunday.

After the Republican-controlled House voted to strip federal funding of Planned Parenthood for procedures like cancer screenings and STD tests, activists opposed to a woman’s right to choose want to make sure that the amendment defunding the woman’s health organization remains in the budget bill after the House negotiates with the Senate on the final Continuing Resolution. A group of prominent Religious Right leaders signed a letter insisting that Boehner “accept nothing less” than the elimination of Planned Parenthood’s federal funding, and rely heavily on Live Action’s discredited and doctored smear videos to justify their demands. Signatories include Lila Rose, Marjorie Dannenfelser, Tom McClusky, Penny Nance, Phyllis Schlafly, Frank Cannon, Gary Bauer, and Erick Erickson:

Dear Speaker Boehner,

Planned Parenthood, a scandal-plagued abortion organization, must be held accountable for abusing innocent young victims while receiving hundreds of millions in federal dollars each year.

They must be defunded of federal tax dollars, and now is the time to do it. The House vote in support of Rep. Mike Pence’s Amendment No. 11 to the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011 (H.R. 1) to prevent government funding for the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, is an excellent start.

However, the House vote on the Pence Amendment is nothing more than symbolic unless it remains intact through the legislative process. Defunding Planned Parenthood must be a non-negotiable in the Continuing Resolution and we urge you to accept nothing less than this outcome.

…

As debate over the Continuing Resolution continues we urge you to do everything you can to ensure that the Pence Amendment remains intact in the final version of the Continuing Resolution. Planned Parenthood is not safe for women, it is not safe for young girls, and it must be defunded now.

Meanwhile, Randall Terry led a sit-in at Boehner’s office where protesters, except for him, were arrested, and threatened Boehner and other House Republican leaders with primary challenges if Planned Parenthood’s funding wasn’t withdrawn. “If they do not fulfill this obligation,” Terry said, “we will run primaries against Mr. Boehner and other House leaders,” as it would be “a betrayal of God Himself.”

Just because James Dobson left Focus on the Family last year doesn't mean he has abandoned his Religious Right activism.  Last week he dedicated two days of his radio program to exposing the dangers of Islam with Jerry Boykin and this week he is dedicating two days to exposing the evils of Planned Parenthood with Gary Bauer and Rick Santorum.

On today's broadcast, Santorum claimed that the Nazi's eugenics ideas were taken from Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger and that the organization continues to target minorities to this day:

Dobson: We're going to talk about Planned Parenthood today which has been in the news recently in scandals that reveal just how evil and how sinister this organization really is.

Santorum: They have been pushing their agenda for close to a hundred years. I mean, it goes all the way back to Margaret Sanger and her views on eugenics, of culling the race from inferiors, that started Planned Parenthood. This was a movement to try to purify the race and she was for abortion and sterilization and things to get to her aim of a eugenics movement in this country and it was, unfortunately, widely accepted in the early part of the last century. That, with what happened in Nazi Germany which, by the way, took a lot of their eugenics ideas from Margaret Sanger and from the American eugenics movement and applied them to the Jews and other quote "undesirables" in Nazi Germany. But Planned Parenthood is the offshoot, is the progeny of Sanger and this movement and it continues today as they set up their clinics and as they try to ... again, if you look the statistics, target the minority community, the African American community where the abortion rates are much, much higher. This is no accident.

When a woman walks into an abortion clinic, she's entitled to a dead baby and it doesn't really matter how you do it - that's where the abortion movement is moving.

Earlier today it was reported that President Obama had ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.

So far, reactions from the Religious Right have been few and far between but we are going to post them here as they trickle in:

National Organization for Marriage:

“We have not yet begun to fight for marriage,” said Brian Brown, president of NOM.

“The Democrats are responding to their election loss with a series of extraordinary, extra-constitutional end runs around democracy, whether it’s fleeing the state in Wisconsin and Indiana to prevent a vote, or unilaterally declaring homosexuals a protected class under our Constitution, as President Obama just did,” said Brown. “We call on the House to intervene to protect DOMA, and to tell the Obama administration they have to respect the limits on their power. This fight is not over, it has only begun!”

...

“On the one hand this is a truly shocking extra-constitutional power grab in declaring gay people are a protected class, and it’s also a defection of duty on the part of the President Obama,” said Maggie Gallagher, Chairman of NOM, “On the other hand, the Obama administration was throwing this case in court anyway. The good news is this now clears the way for the House to intervene and to get lawyers in the court room who actually want to defend the law, and not please their powerful political special interests.”

FRC:

"It's a dereliction of duty,'' said Tom McClusky, senior vice president of Family Research Council Action. "Whether they agree with the law or not is irrelevant...The Obama administration has purposely dropped the ball here."

AFA:

"I think it's a clear sign that we simply cannot avoid engaging on the social issues," Bryan Fischer, director of issue analysis for the group, told TPM. "Mitch Daniels has called for a truce on social issues and that would be fine if the homosexual lobby was willing to lay down arms, but they're obviously not and this proves it. A truce is nothing more than a surrender."

Fischer said he was not surprised by the president's decision.

"Frankly I was surprised that President Obama pretended to be a defender of natural marriage as long as he did," he said.

He said that the White House move should serve as "a wake-up call to all conservatives that fundamental American values regarding the family are under all-out assault by this administration. It ought to represent a clarion call to man the barricades before we lose what is left of the Judeo-Christian system of values in our public life."

Focus on the Family:

Tom Minnery, a vice president with Focus on the Family, said the Obama administration did not aggressively defend the Defense of Marriage Act in any case. "If the federal government will not defend federal laws, we're facing legal chaos," Minnery said. "If the administration can pick and choose what laws it defends, which law is next?"

"We would hope Congress uses the tools at its disposal to counter this decision and defend marriage," Minnery said.

ADF:

“Typically, when a law is challenged, the government has a duty to defend the law, and typically they do so with the most vigorous possible defense,” said Jim Campbell, attorney with the conservative Alliance Defense Fund. “In this case, we’ve seen executive branch officials refuse to do so.”

Official FRC statement:

"This decision by President Obama and the Department of Justice is appalling. The President's failure to defend DOMA is also a failure to fulfill his oath to 'faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.' What will be the next law that he will choose not to enforce or uphold?

"Marriage as a male-female union has been easily defended in court and overwhelmingly supported by the American people. There is absolutely no excuse beyond pandering to his liberal political base for President Obama's decision to abandon his constitutional role to defend a federal law enacted overwhelmingly by Congress.

"With this decision the President has thrown down the gauntlet, challenging Congress. It is incumbent upon the Republican leadership to respond by intervening to defend DOMA, or they will become complicit in the President's neglect of duty," concluded Perkins.

Liberty Counsel:

Today President Barack Obama instructed the U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, and the Department of Justice to cease defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). “This is outrageous and unthinkable that the President would abandon the defense of marriage,” said Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. “President Obama has betrayed the American people by his refusal to defend the federal law that affirms what many courts upheld as constitutional, namely, that marriage is between one man and one woman,” said Staver.

...

“Regardless of President Obama’s own ideological agenda, as President, he and his Attorney General have a duty to defend lawfully passed legislation, especially when the essence of the law has been upheld by many courts. Thirty states have passed marriage amendments affirming marriage as one man and one woman. Today President Obama has abandoned his role as President of the United States and transformed his office into the President of the Divided States. He has been the most divisive president in American history. He has today declared war on the American people and the fundamental values that are shared by most Americans. His radicalism resulted in the historical push-back in the 2010 elections. His radicalism today will come back around when the people respond to this betrayal in 2012,” said Staver.

TVC:

“The Obama Administration has been sabotaging marriage in direct contradiction to his campaign promises. Today, President Obama takes his most unprecedented step yet, choosing to rule and reign through executive decree in what could only be called a supra-constitutional act. After massive defeats at the polls in November, a total repudiation on health care, and staring down a cost-cutting Congress, Obama is looking to secure what little base remains. Obama’s actions today are an unprecedented grab for power and perhaps the most audacious in the 235 year history of the American republic.

“President Obama believes he has “concluded” that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional, as passed along by Attorney General Eric Holder -- effectively asserting that Obama may rule by whim and decree.

“We are a nation of laws, not whims.

“Virtually every state in the country has overwhelmingly passed laws and state constitutional amendments protecting marriage. This unprecedented power grab demands the immediate reaction of the United States House of Representatives, who must do everything possible to fight back against what can only be described as a despotic and alarming attack on the rule of law.”

Catholic League:

Now Obama is officially on record as president opposing the defense of marriage. Thus does he pit himself against the 1996 law that was signed by President Bill Clinton, and opposed by only 15 percent in the House and 14 percent in the Senate. He also stands in opposition to the over 30 state initiatives affirming marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Now that Obama is totally out of the closet, it will spur a genuine effort to adopt a constitutional amendment affirming the integrity of marriage.

Gary Bauer:

The president is the chief law enforcement officer, not the chief justice! It is not up to Barack Obama to determine which laws he likes and which laws he doesn’t. It is his responsibility to enforce the law until the nation’s highest court decides the law does not pass constitutional analysis.

But this president sees things very differently — he’s here to fundamentally transform America, by, among other things, redefining marriage ...

Today’s news should put to rest any suggestion that Obama has moved to the center. He has just aligned himself with the most radical elements in the culture war who are trying to redefine normalcy.

I’ll have more on this tomorrow, but I have to be honest with you: I’m worried our side has gone back to sleep. Financial support for our work has dropped significantly. But the left is energized. Obama suddenly feels free to abandon the law and let the militant homosexual rights movement force same-sex “marriage” on every state in the nation. A liberal politician is urging the unions to “get a little bloody” in the streets.

The Tea Party protests have ebbed while the left-wing radicals are fired up. The momentum seems to have shifted back to the left. Men and women of faith must remain engaged in the public policy battles of the day. The culture war is real and only one side can prevail.

Gary Bauer is outraged - outraged! - by the "left-wing hate" protests in Wisconsin:

But the big story being ignored by big media is the reaction of the unions and their left wing allies to the Governor’s proposal. Opposition is understandable. But what is taking place is a series of street demonstrations with vicious rhetoric, hateful signs and threats of violence. Posters compare the Governor to Hitler, Mussolini and Mubarak. Teachers have walked out of classes and taken their students with them to the demonstrations. “Activists” have gone to the homes of Republican legislators to harass their families and neighbors. Death threats against conservative legislators and the governor are rampant. You can see a sample video here.

So where is the civility police? Not one word of condemnation has come from any major liberal commentator. Clearly the left’s concern about civility is very selective. It is used to savaging the GOP, conservatives, Sarah Palin and talk radio. But anything goes when the incivility is aimed at conservatives.

The tactics on display in Wisconsin are a microcosm of what will happen when Republicans here in Washington, D.C., try to cut the fat and waste from our federal budget. I predict the left will use intimidation and civil disobedience across the country.

Because right-wing activists would never stoop so low as to compare their opponents to Hitler:

• Focus on the Family has delivered 45,000 petitions to Speaker John Boehner seeking action on their right-wing agenda.
• Rick Santorum admits that he has a Google problem.
• Linda Harvey says "Homosexuality is a huge issue. If [Sarah] Palin doesn't get this, she is just as incapable of leadership as she is being painted by incensed lefty bloggers."
• What a surprise: Abby Johnson joins Lila Rose and Live Action.
• I'm still confused: when does Bryan Fischer represent AFA and when does he not?
• Finally, the quote of the day from Gary Bauer: "It was irresponsible for CBS to send an American woman into the anarchy in Cairo. As evil as the rapists were, their attack should not be a surprise. Everywhere radical Islamists are in control, 'infidel' women are not safe ... Multiculturalism is 'raping' the West."