Gary Bauer

Over the last several months, I have been reading a lot of books in my free time about religion and politics as research for a possible book I am thinking about writing.  As such, I am regularly discovering interesting pieces of information that don't really have any specific tie to current events but still seem worth highlighting.  As such, I am going to start posting them here whenever I come across them so as to share them with others.

I'll kick it off by highlighting this section in "Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite" by D. Michael Lindsay discussing the problems Surgeon General C. Everett Koop ran into when tasked with drafting a report on AIDS for President Reagan: 

[In 1986] President Reagan asked the surgeon general to prepare a report on AIDS as the United States confirmed its ten-thousandth case. Leaders of the evangelical movement did not want Koop to write the report, nor did senior White House staffers who shared Koop's evangelical convictions. As Dr. Koop related to me, "Gary Bauer [Reagan's chief advisor on domestic policy] ... was my nemesis in Washington because he kept me from the president. He kept me from the cabinet and he set up a wall of enmity between me and most of the people that surrounded Reagan because he believed that anybody who had AIDS ought to die with it. That was God's punishment for them."

Yesterday, the Catholic League sent out an email announcing that Bill Donohue would be taking a short break from tirelessly defending the Catholic Church from any and all criticism regarding the sex abuse scandal in order to protest violence against Christians in Nigeria:

Please join the Catholic League on Wednesday, April 7 to protest recent massacres of Christians and others at the hands of radical Muslims. Bill Donohue will be speaking at the event as well as other religious and secular leaders. The protest will take place at 5 PM at the Nigerian U.N. Consulate.

Among the others who have endorsed this event are Gary Bauer, Harry Jackson, Frank Gaffney, Niger Innis, and Andrea and James Lafferty, all with the mission of highlighting the victimization of Christians in Nigeria:

On Wednesday, April 7th from 4:45 pm on, religious, civic and human rights leaders of many faiths and backgrounds will gather in front of the Nigerian Consulate in New York City to raise their voices of conscience about the continuing massacres of Christians as well as the ongoing barbaric persecution of non-Muslim minorities by jihadists in Nigeria and elsewhere across the globe.

While there are no official figures yet to confirm the numbers killed in the March 7th Massacre of Christians in Nigeria, we do know that many of the victims were children, women and the elderly. They were trapped in nets and hacked to death, slashed as they slept in their beds, beheaded, and set on fire. Those arrested reportedly belong to the Muslim Fulani terror group.

As I explained a few weeks back when Donohue first started commenting on this issue, the cycle of violence in Nigeria has been going on for years: 

If you read this Human Rights Watch report on the recent massacre, it says that hundreds of Christians were murdered by "Muslim men speaking Hausa and Fulani" and that "the attacks appeared to be in retaliation for previous attacks against Muslim communities in the area ... on January 19, more than 150 Muslim residents were killed in an attack on the nearby town of Kuru Karama."

This Human Rights Watch report on the January massacre states that more than one hundred Muslims were killed by Christians in an attack that was set off by either "an argument over the rebuilding of a Muslim home destroyed in the November 2008 violence in a predominately Christian neighborhood" or an "attack by Muslim youth on Christian worshippers in the Nassarawa Gwom district of Jos."

So the current massacre of Christians by Muslims is believed to be retribution for an earlier massacre of Muslims by Christians, all of which is wrapped up in a cycle of violence in which "more than 13,500 people have died in religious or ethnic clashes since the end of military rule in 1999." 

And according to a recent HRW report, the March 7 attack was part of this on-going cycle of violence.  And do you recall Donohue, Bauer, Jackson or any of the others speaking out in January when Christian mobs murdered 150 Muslims?

Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that groups of armed men attacked the largely Muslim population of Kuru Karama around 10 a.m. on January 19, 2010. After surrounding the town, they hunted down and attacked Muslim residents, some of whom had sought refuge in homes and a local mosque, killing many as they tried to flee and burning many others alive. The witnesses said they believed members of the armed groups to be Christians.

I certainly don't.

It would make sense of Donohue and others were hosting a rally calling for an end to the cycle of religious violence that has killed thousands of people over the last decade. But that is not what they are doing; they are merely protesting the violence against Christians. 

Apparently, the related slaughter of Muslims by Christians is perfectly okay.

Back in December, the Family Research Council announced that it would be holding a Faith & Family Summit in Washington, DC on April 29 - May 1, 2010. 

And then that was all we heard about it, until today when FRC announced a list of participants ... and that fact that the organization is putting everyone up for free: 

I hope you are considering joining FRC for our Faith & Family Summit this April 29-May 1, 2010 at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill.

Now more than ever, we need to join together and uplift each other to stay engaged and continue to stand for faith, family and freedom. Fellowshipping with fellow Christians at our Faith & Family Summit, you will be encouraged, even in this challenging season for our nation.

Event Update: Dr. Ergun Caner has been confirmed as a speaker. The son of a Muslim leader in Turkey, Dr. Caner is President of Liberty Theological Seminary and his energized remarks will give you a unique perspective on the threat of radical Islam.

FRC Board Member and Princeton University Professor Robbie George will also join us to discuss the Manhattan Declaration, a call to Christians to adhere firmly to the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty.

Other confirmed speakers include:

* Congresswoman Michele Bachmann
* Gary Bauer, President, American Values
* Pastor Bob Emrich, Leader in Maine marriage victory
* Bishop Harry Jackson, President, High Impact Leadership Coalition
* Congressman Mike Pence, Chairman, House Republican Conference
* John H. Sununu, Former NH Governor and White House Chief of Staff
* Rick Santorum, Former US Senator and FRC Action Board Member

Time is running short. We need to know by Friday, April 1 if you plan to attend, due to a hotel deadline for room reservations.

I encourage you to contact Sara Kontz at 800-225-4008 or sek@frc.org now to reserve your place. Reservations will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis and space is limited.

FRC will provide complimentary accommodations at the Hyatt on April 29 and 30 and meals during the Summit; you need only to cover transportation costs to and from Washington, D.C. This invitation is non-transferable.

Last week we noted that an episode involving the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins having his invitation to speak at a prayer luncheon at Andrews Air Force Base rescinded was big news on right-wing outlets, with Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association even going so far as to declare it proof that the Constitution is on the verge of collapse and likening it to Dred Scott and McCarthyism.

The issue continues to outrage the Right and appears as if it is becoming one of those stories that right-wing media outlets will work covering diligently until they can blow it up into an all out "scandal ."

For instance, CNS News has a long article noting that conservative activists are livid about it which quotes no less than six separate leaders voicing their outrate, including Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center (which just so happens to be the parent organization of CNSNews,) Ron Robinson of Young Americans for Freedom, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, Alfred Regnery of Regnery Publishing, Elaine Donnell of the Center for Military Readiness, and Gary Bauer of American Values.

But it also quotes several Republican members of Congress, including Rep. Mike Pence who vows that Republicans will "be making appropriate inquiries" about the decision

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CNSNews.com that he’s “disappointed” the Air Force would “un-invite” Perkins because of his positions.

“These actions are out of line with the caution that the heads of the military branches have expressed with regards to this policy,” Inhofe said.

“Each one of them has indicated that it would be best for the Pentagon to finish its review before addressing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in a manner that disrupts readiness and recruitment. I wonder if Tony Perkins would have received the same treatment if his views on repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell had matched those of President Obama.”

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, was outraged.

“I think many members (of Congress) are outraged,” Kingston told CNSNews.com. “The mainstream media hasn’t given this as much coverage as they would if they agreed with Perkins. This is something that I think that people will be asking a lot of questions--a harbinger of what may be out there to come, you know, if on a high-profile captain like Tony Perkins, they reject him. They may (start) doing it to everybody else."

Kingston said he thought the Air Force was "using" the incident to send a message to its own chaplains about what they could and could not say from the pulpit.

“(W)hat they were doing is using him to drive a message--that your brand of sermon is no longer welcome in the U.S. military,” he said.

He added: “I think it probably does go beyond the Air Force. They knew there would be a backlash to this, and I think they had a design about that: ‘OK, you know, we want other (chaplains) to understand and pipe down on your personal views on this biblical view, and you believe it, just keep it mellow; we want watered-down messages.’”

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), the chairman of the House Republican Conference, said he would be looking into the incident more deeply.

“I hold Tony Perkins in the highest regard, as do pro-family Americans across this country,” Pence said. “And I would hope that the change in the speaking roster had nothing to do with his stated positions on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. But we’ll be making appropriate inquiries,” Pence said.

By now, we are all used to out-of-state Religious Right groups descending on places like Maine, Washington, DC, and elsewhere in order to set up shop in their nonstop effort to fight marriage equality ... but I have to admit that I never expected them to start exporting their efforts abroad.

But here they are, setting their sights on now fighting marriage equality in Mexico:

In response to a move to institute same-sex marriage in the Federal District which includes Mexico City (on March 4), more than 120 pro-family/pro-life leaders from 35 countries have signed the "World Congress of Families Leadership Petition To Save Marriage In Mexico City."

The Petition notes that "Mexico's Constitution defines marriage as between a man and a woman." Further, that all social ills begin with the decline of the family. Also "marriage substitutes ... undermine marriage and the family." The Petition observes that "children need both a mother and a father" and that those raised by two men or two women are "psychologically and socially disadvantaged."

The Petition calls on the government of Mexico City to refrain from implementing same-sex marriage and demands that the issue be decided at the national level, "with due regard to the nation's religious traditions, the wishes of the Mexican people and the needs of children and families, and consistent with Mexico's Constitution." Click here (www.worldcongress.org/special/wcf.mexpetsig.1002.pdf) to access the full Petition along with a list of signers.

U.S. signers (signing as individuals) include: Gary Bauer (American Values), Allan Carlson (World Congress of Families), Tom DeLay (former Majority Leader, U.S. House of Representatives), Joseph Meaney (Human Life International), Tony Perkins (Family Research Council), Michele Velasco (Priests for Life), Don Wildmon (American Family Association), Wendy Wright (Concerned Women for America), Maggie Gallagher (National Organization for Marriage), Dr. Paige Patterson (Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary),Yuri Mantilla (Focus on the Family) and Dr. Jerry Newcombe (Coral Ridge Ministries).

• Tomorrow, a Vermont judge will decide whether to issue an arrest warrant for Lisa Miller if she continues to refuse to come out of hiding and hand over her daughter.
• Bishop Harry Jackson will reportedly be leading a rally on Wednesday at the Capitol Visitors Center to try to step up the pressure on Congress to intervene in his DC marriage battle.
• Hey, let's all take the AFA's Don't Ask, Don't Tell poll!
• Columbus, Ohio police are investigating whether anyone involved in helping Rifqa Bary flee to Florida may have broken the law.  The man who drove her to the bus station has already retained legal representation from the right-wing Thomas More Law Center.
• Finally, the Quote of the Day from Gary Bauer: "Here is the dirty secret the Left doesn’t want you to know. Joseph Stack’s 'philosophy,' to the extent he had one, was closer to the left-wing drivel at Daily Kos and moveon.org than it is to the patriots who are in the Tea Party movement. Joseph Stack printed his manifesto on his business web page yesterday as he took off to try to kill IRS employees. In it he rails at the wealthy, GM executives, drug companies and insurance companies. His rhetoric sounded like Obama style populism – heavy on class warfare ... No, Joe Stack wasn’t any conservative – he was a left-wing populist!

Devin Burghart of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights attended the National Tea Party Convention and notes that Rick Scarborough used his address at the event to unveil a new coalition called "Mandate to Save America":

A workshop by Dr. Rick Scarborough indicated a shift taking place at the convention, transforming the focus from bailouts and deficits to the culture war. Scarborough is a former Southern Baptist pastor from Pearland, Texas, and a he heads up a corporate constellation including Vision America, Vision America Action and the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration. He has been fixture on the Christian Right for several years (Jerry Falwell published his first book).

After showing an eight minute video cataloguing his many television appearances, the jovial Scarborough told a packed room of around 215 people that the gap between “fiscal and social conservatives has got to cease.” In addition to attacking the Obama administration for its commitment to ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and supporting the inclusion of gays and lesbians into federal hate crimes protections, Scarborough warned that we "now have a government of thieves" and that we are moving towards a “collectivist” society. We have a Godly duty to defend “American exceptionalism,” he said.

Scarborough used much of his speech to launch a new campaign, called the Mandate to Save America, a project of the S.T.O.P. Obama Tyranny National Coalition.

The pamphlet he distributed read, “We, the undersigned, and millions of other American patriots, including many who comprise the growing TEA Party movement, are no less determined than patriots of the past, who fought for our freedom. We will make any sacrifice, endure any hardship, and confront any foe to keep the flame of freedom burning bright; so help us God.”

The list of signers reads like a who’s who of the Christian Right: Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Tim Wildmon of the American Family Association, Gary Bauer of American Values, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, and many more. The ten campaign demands marked an overt attempt to fuse Tea Party desires with the broader agenda of the Christian Right into a more potent form of Christian nationalism.

Scarborough worked up the crowd in the room, and got a standing ovation when he demanded, “enough is enough!” When he finished, an older woman in the front row stood up and stated, “What we need is revival and revolt!” which also brought enthusiastic cheers from the audience.

And sure enough, Mandate to Save America has a website carrying this declaration:

So far the list of signers includes Gary Bauer, Tom DeLay, Janet Porter, Tony Perkins, Phyllis Schlafly, Mat Staver, Tim Wildmon, Wendy Wright, Richard Viguerie, and several others.

Writing in The Weekly Standard, Gary Bauer complains that the lack of a "backlash" against Muslims in America is leading to more terrorist attacks:

It has been more than a month since U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly murdered 14 people and wounded 30 others at Fort Hood military base in Texas. And while we were led to believe that the rampage by Hasan, who is Muslim, would provoke a strong and violent reaction against Arab and Muslim Americans, a backlash has been conspicuous only by its absence.

In fact, in the immediate aftermath of each of the dozen attacks by Muslim Americans since 9-11, the conversation has been dominated by predictions of inevitable violence toward Muslims by bigoted Americans unable to control their rage. And each time a backlash has been virtually nonexistent. Our journalistic and political elites have become terrorism's unwitting domestic enablers, perceiving religion-based violence where there is none, while ignoring it where it is widespread and intensifying.

...

A Rasmussen poll immediately after the Fort Hood massacre found that a majority of Americans were at least somewhat concerned that the shooting would prompt a backlash against Muslims in the military. They needn't have been concerned. Since 9-11, every Muslim terrorist attack on American soil has been followed not by a violent backlash, but by outreach and conciliation toward Muslim Americans. And then by more attacks--by radical Islamists. Instead of fretting about a nonexistent backlash against Muslims, perhaps we should be examining more closely what is happening on radical Islamic websites and in some U.S. prisons, mosques, and Islamic schools that is causing increasing numbers of young American Muslims to embrace jihad against their neighbors.

Apparently, Bauer thinks that America needs a backlash against Muslims if we want to stop terrorism, since the lack of any such backlash is what is leading to more attacks.

I recall reading an Ann Coulter column several years ago which she dedicated to praising David Limbaugh's then-new book, "Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity." Among the stories of "persecution" that Limbaugh highlighted, and which Coulter also highlighted in her column, was the story of Raymond Raines:

In a public school in St. Louis, a teacher spotted the suspect, fourth-grader Raymond Raines, bowing his head in prayer before lunch. The teacher stormed to Raymond's table, ordered him to stop immediately and sent him to the principal's office. The principal informed the young malefactor that praying was not allowed in school. When Raymond was again caught praying before meals on three separate occasions, he was segregated from other students, ridiculed in front of his classmates, and finally sentenced to a week's detention.

In turns out that back in 1994, Newt Gingrich and various Religious Right leaders had made Raymond's sorry tale the centerpiece of their campaign of Christian victimization, despite the fact that it was entirely untrue:

"These are not isolated examples," said Gary Bauer, a former Ronald Reagan Administration adviser who heads the Family Research Council. The American Civil Liberties Union "has convinced educators that they cannot allow any religious expression at school," he said.

These complaints of hostility toward religion have circulated widely in conservative and Christian evangelical groups in recent years. Now they are fueling a drive among some activists to draft a broad amendment to the Constitution that would go beyond voluntary school prayer.

...

"These school incidents are fueling the fire," said Jay Sekulow, counsel for Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice.

Three weeks ago, Gingrich, in a television appearance, cited the St. Louis case as evidence that "it's illegal to pray," even privately, in schools today.

...

The St. Louis case concerned 10-year-old Raymond Raines who, his mother said, was given detention because he sought to pray over his lunch. When lawyers for the Rutherford Institute heard about the case, they filed a lawsuit against the principal and issued a press release denouncing the school system.

"I know it sounds bizarre, but we have substantial evidence to believe it happened," said Timothy Belz, the St. Louis lawyer working with the Rutherford Institute.

On NBC-TV's "Meet the Press," Gingrich described the situation as "a real case about a real child. Should it be possible for the government to punish you if you say grace over your lunch? That's what we used to think of Russian behavior when they were the Soviet Union."

But school officials said the incident never happened. Rather, they said, Raymond was disciplined for fighting in the cafeteria.

"I can tell you he was not reprimanded for praying," said Kenneth Brostron, the school's lawyer. "Do you think it makes sense that the teachers would look around the cafeteria and target the one student who was praying quietly at his seat?"

Why am I bringing this up?  Well, because I have started seeing this story popping up on right-wing websites:

An 8-year-old boy has been suspended from school and forced to undergo a psychological evaluation after he drew a picture of Jesus Christ on the cross, his father claims.

A teacher at Lowell Maxham Elementary School in Taunton, Mass., allegedly said the second-grade student created a violent drawing, the Taunton Daily Gazette reported.

The boy's picture portrayed a crucified Jesus with Xs over his eyes to indicate that he had died on the cross.

The child's father, outraged at the school's action, asked to remain anonymous to protect his son. He said his boy drew the picture after returning from a family trip to see the Christmas display at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette, a Christian retreat.

He said when the teacher asked students to draw something that reminded them of Christmas on Dec. 2, the boy recalled his trip and created a portrait of Christ on the cross.

"As far as I'm concerned, they're violating his religion," he told the newspaper.

Of course, the full story gives an entirely different perspective:

City officials sharply disputed yesterday widely distributed reports that a local elementary school suspended a second-grader and required the boy to undergo a psychological evaluation for drawing a picture of Jesus on the cross.

The story, initially reported by the local newspaper, raised questions of religious bias days before Christmas and was broadcast by local television stations and other news media. Making the story more compelling, the boy’s father held court for much of the day at his girlfriend’s apartment, granting interviews to reporters from Providence to Boston, demanding that the school district compensate him for his family’s pain and suffering.

“It hurts me that they did this to my kid,’’ Chester Johnson, the boy’s father, said in an interview with the Globe. “They can’t mess with our religion. They owe us a small lump sum for this.’’

But school officials say that the account in yesterday’s Taunton Daily Gazette was rife with errors and that the father’s description of what happened is untrue.

“The report is totally inaccurate,’’ Julie Hackett, superintendent of the Taunton public schools, said in an interview in her office yesterday. “The inaccuracies in the original media story have resulted in a great deal of criticism and scrutiny of the system that is unwarranted.’’

Hackett said the student, age 9, was never suspended and that neither he nor other students at the Maxham Elementary School were asked by the teacher to sketch something that reminded them of Christmas or any religious holiday, as the Gazette and other media reported and the father suggested, although his story changed as he explained it.

She said it was unclear whether the boy, who put his name above a stick figure portrait of Christ on the cross, had drawn the picture in school, which his teacher discovered Dec. 2.

“Religion had nothing to do with this at all, 100 percent nothing to do with it,’’ Hackett said, adding that Taunton is known as “The Christmas City.’’

She said the drawing was seen as a potential cry for help when the student identified himself, rather than Jesus, on the cross, which prompted the teacher to alert the school’s principal and staff psychologist. As a result, the boy underwent a psychological evaluation.

The right-wing myth regarding Raymond Raines was debunked back in 1994, but it was still being repeated by people like Coulter and Limbaugh nearly a decade later, and I suspect that we'll be hearing this story about a young student who suspended from school for drawing a picture of Jesus at Christmas for years to come.