Harry Jackson

The Freedom Federation – an anti-Obama amalgam of Religious Right groups, "apostolic" ministries, and the corporate-funded astroturf Americans for Prosperity – is holding its third annual Awakening conference in Orlando, Florida this weekend. Here’s how it describes the event:

Uniting our Voices Around Shared Values: Turning Voices into Votes

A war is raging against our shared values. Our faith and freedom are under attack. Silence in the face of this war is not an option. Decisive action is needed. Join with others who share the core values that make America a great nation. Take a stand for righteousness and justice and be part of a new revolution to take back America. The time has come to turn our voices into votes and to change the course of history.

Outreach to the Hispanic community is a major goal of this year’s Awakening and the theme of Friday’s opening night session.  That marks a continuation of the Freedom Federation’s efforts to re-brand the Religious Right as a multiracial and multigenerational movement, and to re-brand the culture war as a “social justice” movement. Last year’s gathering included a major effort to claim a religious grounding for the anti-tax, anti-government agenda of Grover Norquist and the Tea Party.

This year’s conference features Samuel Rodriguez, the head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, who tries to sell the Religious Right’s culture war to Latinos while trying to get Religious Right leaders to make themselves more palatable to Latinos.  Rodriguez recently said that Latinos are here to “bring panic to the kingdom of darkness” and “make the gospel of Jesus Christ, the church, the most influential institution in America.”  He said God has sent illegal immigrants here to “redeem Christianity” in America.

Also scheduled to address this year’s conference is Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a favorite of Tea Party and Religious Right leaders who describe him as the party’s Latino Ronald Reagan. Rubio is reportedly concocting a hollowed-out version of the DREAM Act that will try to help Romney and the GOP fix their well-earned image as hostile to the aspirations of millions of immigrants.

A new feature at this year’s Awakening is Patriot Camp on Saturday for kids ages 5-15.  Organizers promise that kids will learn about “the Christian principles on which America was founded,” which is important since, “As most Christians know, our true American heritage is not taught in schools, especially not in an objective manner.”

Notably for this Obama-bashing group, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is sending a video presentation; senior Likud official Moshe Ya'alon, Vice Premier, Minister of Strategic Affairs, is also listed as a speaker.  Also on the list, some of whom might appear by video: Former GOP presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, and Reps. John Mica and Allen West. West has been warming up for the conference by announcing, McCarthy-style, that dozens of progressive members of the House of Representatives are communists.

The list of speakers is a Who’s Who of the Religious Right and conservative legal movements, including characters like spiritual warrior Lou Engle and Cindy “God kills birds when America supports gays” Jacobs, who once haunted the fringes of the far right but have since been welcomed into a movement seeking to build the broadest political base possible.  Among them:

• John Stemberger: head of the Florida Family Policy Council who chaired the 2008 campaign that outlawed marriage equality in Florida. Awakening organizers say he has “a unique understanding" of law and government. You could say that: He has argued that only Christians are capable of creating a free society. As a lawyer he once sued a rental car company when an Irish customer was involved in a fatal crash; he argued that the company should have known that an Irish customer “would have a high propensity to drink alcohol.” (He later apologized.) 

• Rick Scarborough:birther, self-proclaimed “Christocrat,” and Rick Perry backer who said last year that he refused to endorse Romney in the primary because he is a Mormon. At the 2010 Awakening, Scarborough called Obama a “Marxist president.” Scarborough stated a few months ago that AIDS is God’s judgment for engaging in an immoral act. 

• Frank Gaffney: his infamous anti-Muslim bigotry, including charges that fellow conservatives are Islamist sympathizers, is so virulent that he was denounced by the American Conservative Union.  

• Harry Jackson:  point man for the Religious Right’s anti-gay racial wedge strategies, defender of the National Organization for Marriage’s cynical racial wedge politics, and all-around right-wing activist, who recently called for believers to form a “fifth column” to undermine America’s secularist culture from within.  

• Rick Joyner:  a dominionist and self-proclaimed prophet who recently warned people to get out of California because God is going to punish America for not being sufficiently supportive of Israel,  Joyner heads the Oak Initiative.

• Richard Land:  the primary political spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention, Land supports the criminalization of homosexuality and recently told NPR that “The Bible tells us that socialism and neo-socialism never worked. Confiscatory tax rates never work.” Land was recently pushed into apologizing both for racially inflammatory remarks about the Trayvon Martin case and for having plagiarized them from right-wing columnists. 

• Janet (Folger) Porter: an anti-abortion activist who famously brought fetuses to “testify” for Ohio’s “Heartbeat Bill,” declared during the 2008 GOP primary that God had chosen Mike Huckabee to lead the nation. Her radio show was dropped by a Christian radio network unhappy with her political embrace of Christian dominionists. 

• Mat Staver: heads Liberty Counsel, recently called the “homosexual agenda” a “moral iceberg” that threatens religious freedom.  At the 2010 Awakening, Staver agreed with a questioner that the health care reform law had a provision that gave Obama the power to create an army of brownshirts that could take control of communities. 

• Ryan Sorba: made a name for himself as an anti-gay activist by denouncing organizers of the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference for welcoming conservative gay groups; has become a regular at Awakening. 

Should be more fun than Disney World.  Watch for updates.

Appearing on Trinity Broadcasting Network’s flagship show Praise the Lord yesterday, Bishop Harry Jackson, the anti-gay activist who led unsuccessful efforts to defeat marriage equality legislation in Washington D.C. and Maryland, said that ministers who refused to work on his campaigns did so because they “envied” his success and were resentful that he had God’s favor. Speaking with Perry Stone, Jr., Jackson explained that “enemies, when vanquished, are simply stepping stones to victory, to accomplishment and to notoriety.”

Previously, Jackson blamed the “Queen of Heaven,” a demonic power, for the success of marriage equality bills.

Jackson: Sometimes envy takes hold of people, and they see you prospering and they see something that they don’t like, sometimes there are other dynamics that begin to cause them to really want to see you fail.

Stone: It’s amazing.

Jackson: It’s crazy. Not too long ago we were in a major, ground level battle, it was over the issue of marriage in the state of Maryland and Washington D.C., without getting into all those details there were people who said, ‘well if Jackson was leading it I don’t want anything to do with it.’

Stone: Were they ministers?

Jackson: They were ministers, and you’re saying, ‘wait a minute, I thought we were for the Word, I thought we were working together,’ but because there was an issue of envy that was stuck way down in their craw, so sometimes when these open doors open then enemies are revealed.

…

Jackson: When you go through the door, when you rise up, God has got a unique group of people who will be there for you. But you got to discern who they are. Secret enemies will come forward, I thank God every time I see an enemy, and I believe then God will also give His people who will help us.

Stone: What’s the purpose of an enemy? Is there ever a positive purpose for an enemy?

Jackson: Goliath was a great example, in that enemies, when vanquished, are simply stepping stones to victory, to accomplishment and to notoriety.

Stone: Praise God!

After failing in his campaign to overturn marriage equality in Washington D.C., Bishop Harry Jackson is now leading an effort to repeal a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in Maryland that will be signed into law tomorrow. We last saw Jackson raising money for the Maryland Marriage Alliance at “A Gathering of Eagles,” where he led the congregation in spiritual warfare against the demonic Queen of Heaven, who he said was responsible for gay rights and “perversion.”

In an interview with the Christian Post yesterday, Jackson baselessly claimed that Washington D.C. public schools are teaching “children – young children – to explore and examine the differences in heterosexuality, homosexuality and transgender lifestyles,” lamenting, “To say that it's okay for Heather to have two mommies is not biblical.” He also said that activists trying to repeal marriage equality are “not trying to impose our views on others” but said gay rights advocates “are trying to impose their agenda on us.”

“It is an oxy-moron,” Jackson said about same-sex marriage, “Two people of the same sex who marry and try to indoctrinate children into that lifestyle does nothing to strengthen marriage or families.” He also predicted victory in a potential referendum on marriage equality, maintaining that marriage equality supporters “are overplaying their hands and only harming our culture.”

CP: I want to start out by asking in light of Maryland's recent debate and upcoming legalization of same-sex marriage, tell me why you are willing to take such a pronounced and visible stand to defend marriage?

Jackson: First, we as people of faith are not trying to impose our views on others. We are simply using God's Word, given to us by the scriptures, to stand up for what is right. Instead, those who are advocating for what they call "marriage" that does not involve a man and a woman, are trying to impose their agenda on us.

The reality is, if you change the definition of marriage, you change the definition of the family, then you change what is taught in schools – that it's okay for Heather to have two mommies – and exploring your "sexual awareness" as a young child is acceptable; and it's not.

CP: Can you expand on how families will be impacted when same-sex marriages are legalized?

Jackson: Yes, let's use Washington, D.C. as an example. It's encouraged in public schools to teach children – young children – to explore and examine the differences in heterosexuality, homosexuality and transgender lifestyles. Now you and I both know that children should not be encouraged to examine these types of issues, especially in public schools. To say that it's okay for Heather to have two mommies is not biblical.

…

CP: Supporters of same-sex marriage say one of their primary goals is to educate the public that gay marriage does in fact strengthen families. How do you respond to that comment?

Jackson: It is an oxy-moron. Two people of the same sex who marry and try to indoctrinate children into that lifestyle does nothing to strengthen marriage or families. Again, it only attempts to redefine what marriage is and what a family should be. A mother and a father best raise children. There are factors in our society that interrupt that process and that is unfortunate, but gay marriage will not strengthen marriage.

…

CP: Do you believe the efforts to repeal same-sex marriage in Maryland will be successful?

Jackson: Yes, I do. To use a phrase from Muhammad Ali, "We float like a butterfly, but sting like a bee." But I must say that the opposing side has waged a brilliant public relations campaign. They want the public to believe the debate about gay marriage is only a religious battle, but it's not.

We are 31 for 31 on gay marriage when it's been put before the voters of different states. They are trying to press the issue in different states hoping to advance their cause with the Supreme Court. Still, when people examine what marriage is and should be, they tend to vote overwhelming against gay marriage.

But let me say this to conclude. I feel our opponents have become so aggressive on this issue, that they are overplaying their hands and only harming our culture. Yes, they may win a battle or two here and there but our side will prevail in the long run.

Harry Jackson, who believes that his political opponents are literally under the control of demons and that gay rights movement is a “Satanic plot” and “an insidious intrusion of the Devil,” had the gall yesterday to pen a column yesterday lamenting the “bickering and pettiness” in American politics and express his longing for a less contentious political environment. While Jackson noted that even our Founding Fathers engaged in fierce political attacks against one another, he called on people to look to Martin Luther King Jr. as a model:

Think about King’s quality of leadership in light of the petty politics we observe today, where members of both parties are willing to sacrifice principles and progress to score cheap points with the special interest groups. While we can’t know for certain what King would have said about the economy, healthcare, taxes or Social Security, we can be confident he would not have switched positions on these issues for opportunistic reasons. He would likely have had some choice words for the numerous elected officials caught in ethics and corruption scandals over the past months and years as well.

With today’s emphasis on political correctness, it is easy to forget how often Dr. King spoke of “moral law,” “natural law,” or even “God’s law” in his writings and speeches. Would such a man have embraced the current wholesale removal of God from the public square by secularist totalitarians? I think not. Dr. King was radically different from leaders in either party today. He was committed to making things happen. His ideology was not self-centered or self-serving.

However, King’s views on the economy, poverty and healthcare were actually quite clear and well-known. While Jackson, who likes to be dubbed “the modern Martin Luther King,” is surely shying away from King’s unambiguous support for progressive ideals that frustrate his own right-wing politics, Jackson has boldly claimed that King would be campaigning with him today against marriage equality.

Furthermore, Jackson would most likely find King one of the “secularist totalitarians” that he criticized in his column. As Rob Boston points out, King was an adamant supporter of the Supreme Court’s decision deeming organized prayer in public schools unconstitutional:

King supported the Supreme Court’s decisions striking down government-sponsored prayer in public schools. In a January 1965 interview with Playboy magazine, King was asked about one of those rulings. He not only backed what the court did, he noted that his frequent nemesis, Gov. George Wallace of Alabama, stood on the other side.

“I endorse it. I think it was correct,” King said. “Contrary to what many have said, it sought to outlaw neither prayer nor belief in God. In a pluralistic society such as ours, who is to determine what prayer shall be spoken, and by whom? Legally, constitutionally or otherwise, the state certainly has no such right. I am strongly opposed to the efforts that have been made to nullify the decision. They have been motivated, I think, by little more than the wish to embarrass the Supreme Court. When I saw Brother Wallace going up to Washington to testify against the decision at the congressional hearings, it only strengthened my conviction that the decision was right.”

Undoubtedly, not even the facts will stop Jackson from trying to use Martin Luther King Jr. to validate his own right-wing ideology.

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.”

In 2010, Right Wing Watch reported that the National Organization for Marriage was pouring tens of thousands of dollars into D.C.’s Ward 5 city council race in an effort to punish one of the proponents of the District’s 2009 marriage equality law. The beneficiary of NOM’s largesse was Delano Hunter, a candidate who supported putting a referendum to undo the new marriage equality bill on the ballot. Despite NOM’s efforts, Hunter lost fairly badly to incumbent Harry Thomas.

Now, Thomas has been forced to resign after being charged with embezzling more than $350,000 in city funds, and Hunter is again angling for the Ward 5 seat. But, perhaps recognizing that opposition to gay rights is not a winning issue, Hunter has changed his tune on marriage equality, saying he would leave DC’s marriage law as it is, reports Lou Chibbaro of The Washington Blade:

An outspoken advocate for placing D.C.’s same-sex marriage law on the ballot in a voter referendum in 2010 says he no longer holds that view and will express “respect” for the law as a candidate for the City Council in a special election this spring.

Civic activist Delano Hunter has announced plans to run for the Ward 5 Council seat that became vacant last week when incumbent Harry Thomas, a Democrat, resigned after pleading guilty to federal theft and tax evasion charges.

“I do not seek to overturn the Marriage Equality Act when elected,” Hunter told the Blade in a statement released on Tuesday.

“I will, however, continue to establish working relationships within the LGBT community to focus on issues that affect the quality of life for all residents of the District of Columbia,” he said.

As Kyle and Brian have reported, the Family Research Council is teaming up with "apostle" Cindy Jacobs' Generals International in a major push to influence the 2012 elections. In Washington, DC, last night, the FRC, Jacobs and other “apostles” affiliated with the New Apostolic Reformation launched “Fast Forward,” a year-long “prayer and action” campaign designed to influence the GOP caucuses and primaries as well as the November presidential election.  The launch event, “A Gathering of Eagles,” was held at a Baptist church in northwest Washington. It featured plenty of prophecy and lots of rhetoric about the 2012 elections as war – a spiritual battleground against demons, marriage equality, and the Obama administration.  

We are sorting through video and will be posting highlights and analysis over the next couple of days, but the entire three-plus hours should be required viewing for any reporter or pundit who has downplayed the goals or influence of Christian dominionists in American politics.  Jacobs said the Lord had told her that 2012 is the “do or die” year for bringing America back to a “biblical worldview.”  She “decreed” that separation of church and state would be pulled down.  Jacobs was joined by the Family Research Council’s Pierre Bynum, who spoke wistfully about a time in America when you couldn’t hold public office without believing in Jesus Christ, heaven, and hell.   

It featured Jacobs and others demanding that angels deliver Bishop Harry Jackson the half-million dollars he said he needs to defeat marriage equality in Maryland.  But the evening was dominated by Dutch Sheets, another NAR apostle, whose presentation focused on the need for Christians to get away from a sheep-like focus on pastoral care, and start becoming an army of warriors prepared to take their rightful dominion and rule the earthly part of God’s kingdom.

Just a taste – more to come.

Bishop Harry Jackson yesterday tried to spin Kim Kardashian’s short-lived marriage as a reason to oppose marriage equality for gays and lesbians by arguing that the “enfeebled state of marriage today is all the more reason to fight to preserve it,” meaning, to deny same-sex couples the right to marry. Jackson, who earlier called marriage equality a “Satanic plot to destroy our seed,” warned that marriage equality will do even more damage to marriage than Kardashian’s 72-day marriage because it would create a harmful environment for children and lead to an increase in divorce, the legalization of polygamy and the proliferation of “pro-homosexual propaganda.” The anti-gay activist said that same-sex marriage will “further weaken marriage by defining it out of existence” and “be the beginning of the end of the family as we know it”:

For every high-profile celebrity wedding that makes headlines, it seems we are treated to at least two high-profile celebrity divorces. I am praying for people like Kim Kardashian whose marriage problems seem to suggest that there should be a public exam for marriage prior to the issuance of a license. Unfortunately, celebrities are not the only folks whose marriages are caving in under the cultural pressures of our generation. The depressing state of marriage in our nation today provides more fuel for the fire for those that advocate redefining marriage to include same-sex couples. After all, as the joke goes, how can homosexuals make more of a mess of the institution of marriage than heterosexuals already have?

On the surface, same-sex “marriage” advocates appear to have a point. And I would be among the first to admit that marriage as an institution was terribly weakened by both the no-fault divorce laws first passed in the 1970s and by a general willingness of our culture to separate marriage from childbearing. Neither of these factors had anything to do with homosexuality, and both dealt severe blows to the strength of American families. However, these are not reasons to further weaken marriage by defining it out of existence. (I am not the first to observe that words that mean everything mean nothing, and “marriage” is headed down that very road.) The enfeebled state of marriage today is all the more reason to fight to preserve it and hopefully to restore it to its former strength.

…

In the few states where marriage has been redefined to include same-sex couples, various churches and ministries have already been threatened with the loss of their tax exempt status if they refused to perform ceremonies for same sex couples. Earlier this year, California governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill mandating that public schools teach their students “the role and contributions of” homosexual American historical figures, and forbade the use of any resources that “contain any matter reflecting adversely” upon gays on the basis of sexual orientation. The legislation also urged charter schools and private schools “take notice of the provisions of this act.” It does not take much imagination to see that if marriage is redefined nation-wide, such pro-homosexual propaganda will be mandated in every public school in the country.

Lastly, we are fools if we think that redefining marriage to include homosexual couples is the end of the story. To the contrary, it is only the beginning. Groups advocating polygamy and polyamory have their arguments prepared and will begin advocating for the definition of marriage to be relaxed further to accommodate their preferences. Children may then be born to and even adopted by any number of “families” with any number of mothers and fathers, sleeping with whomever they depending in their whims. Redefining marriage will be the beginning of the end of the family as we know it.