Jerry Boykin

The Religious Right’s Bicoastal Political Prayer Rally Weekend

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Friday, 4/8/2016 1:20 pm

The Washington event, United Cry DC 16, is scheduled to run for seven hours and will be broadcast on GodTV. It features an impressive number of familiar Religious Right figures, including Tony Perkins, Jerry Boykin, Harry Jackson, Samuel Rodriguez, Jim Garlow, Alveda King and E.W. Jackson. Joining them will be bestselling doomsday author and “Messianic” Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, Billy Graham’s daughter Anne Graham Lotz and “Hour of Power” preacher Bobby Schuller.

Also in the lineup is Doug Stringer, the “apostle” who has hosted a number of “The Response” political prayer rallies organized by Christian nationalist political operative David Lane in recent years with Republican governors like Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Nikki Haley and Pat McCrory.

WorldNetDaily is excited about the event, promoting it with a breathless story, declaring “what an assembly it promises to be.” WND even tries to put a good face on the lousy weather forecast, saying, “Perhaps the Almighty is already calling attention to the event by providing some freakish spring weather, with the possibility of snow in the forecast. But hardy souls will brave the elements because they consider the gathering a divine calling.” A Thursday email from event organizer Lewis Hogan was not so excited about the weather, urging people to pray away the rain.

This is not the first “solemn assembly” called by Religious Right leaders to put America on the right path during an election year. While the Great Awakening whose beginning is predicted at every Religious Right event hasn’t yet materialized, organizers believe it’s just around the corner. Meanwhile, they say, America’s embrace of marriage equality is just asking for God’s wrath.

In WND’s story about United Cry DC, Rabbi Cahn complained that America hasn’t heeded his warnings:

In the course of the last few years, America has not turned back to God but has grown much farther from Him. We’ve witnessed a rapid acceleration in the nation’s apostasy from God and His ways. We have called good evil and evil good. We are now at the threshold of persecuting God’s people as we celebrate godlessness. The Bible is very clear on the consequences. To any nation that has been given so much as America, much is required. If we don’t turn back to God, we are advancing toward judgment.

“The fact that it is also the year of a presidential election and a critical moment with regard to the Supreme Court, raises the stakes even higher.

On the same day as the United Cry rally in DC, Dominionist “apostle” Lou Engle and friends will be in Los Angeles hosting another in his multi-year “supernatural series of events” under the banner of “The Call.” In a video promoting the event Engel talking animatedly about the symbolism of speakers flying only on United Airlines so that America can be united.Engle has held a number of “Call” events over the last decade and a half, including one on the National Mall in September 2000 and one in 2008 in California focused in part on promoting the anti-gay Proposition 8. This one, called Azusa Now, is scheduled to run for 15 hours at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Cruz Advisers: Obama Using 'White Privilege And Nonsense Like That' To Weaken The Military

Submitted by Miranda Blue on Friday, 4/8/2016 11:41 am

Gaffney asked Boykin if he thought that “the policies that the president has been pursuing” that he claimed have “diminished the readiness” of the military are “designed to have that effect” or if it’s just a coincidence.

Boykin responded that while he “can’t answer what this administration is thinking,” it’s “certainly a possibility” that the president is intentionally weakening the military.

He contrasted the recent capture of an American boat in Iranian waters to the Vietnam era, when “to get a statement out of a POW that was being held in Hanoi, you had to beat that man almost to the point of killing him.”

“Frank, what’s happened to our military?” he asked. “Now, I’ll tell you what part of it is. They have not spent their time being trained on the code of conduct. They’ve spent their time being trained on tolerance and inclusion.”

“Diversity, sensitivity, and white privilege,” Gaffney said derisively.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Boykin said, “on white privilege and nonsense like that. That’s where they spend their training time. I get feedback from military people all the time. 'Sir, we spent the entire week doing nothing but classroom training on tolerance and integrating women into the infantry.' And, I mean, Frank, we’re wasting precious training time at a time when our enemies are growing stronger and we’re growing weaker.”

Earlier in the interview, Boykin and Gaffney took aim at one of their favorite targets, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which Boykin called “probably, next to the Muslim Brotherhood, the most evil group in America.”

The two also revealed that in February Boykin presented Gaffney with the “George Washington Leadership Award” on behalf of the Council for National Policy, a secretive conservative umbrella group that is currently led by Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.

Jim Bakker Would Not Be Surprised If The Government Stormed His Studio And Arrested Him For Teaching The Bible

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 4/4/2016 1:38 pm

Boykin asserted that the government no longer recognizes "freedom of religion" and will only protect the "freedom of worship," meaning that Christians are allowed to believe in their faith but are prohibited from actually practicing that faith in the public square, just as happened in Nazi Germany.

"In the public square, you can't live your faith," Boykin warned. "And I'm telling you, if America doesn't wake up and start rejecting this idea of freedom of worship versus freedom of religion, we're not going to have any freedom at all, of any kind."

Bakker readily agreed, insisting that it has gotten to the point where people cannot even pray, preach or read the Bible any more ... despite the fact that he happens to host a television show where he prays, preaches and reads the Bible every single day.

"If [the government] stormed in these doors right now and arrested me, I would not be surprised," he declared.

Were this to happen, it would certainly not be Bakker's first experience with getting arrested.

The Year Bryan Fischer Became 'Mainstream'

Submitted by Miranda Blue on Tuesday, 3/29/2016 2:23 pm

Back in 2011, when Mitt Romney was in the starting months of his presidential campaign, he accepted an invitation to speak at the Values Voter Summit, an annual event organized by the Family Research Council. The VVS always attracts an assortment of far-right activists, but that year Romney was scheduled to speak directly before Bryan Fischer, an inflamatory American Family Association official and radio host who had viciously insulted everyone from LGBT people to women to Muslims to Native Americans to medal of honor recipients to Romney’s fellow Mormons.

After facing a public outcry for choosing to appear beside Fischer, Romney called out Fischer in his speech — albeit not by name — decrying the “poisonous language” of “one of the speakers who will follow me today.”

After that year, Fischer was nowhere to be found at the Values Voter Summit, although his employer, the American Family Association, continued to cosponsor the event.

Then, in January of last year, Fischer was, for a moment, edged further out of the conservative mainstream. When a group of 60 members of the Republican National Committee embarked on a trip to Israel organized by Christian-nation advocate David Lane and paid for by the AFA, the RNC was forced to answer why it was sending members on a junket financed by a group whose spokesman was one of the most vitriolic voices of hate in the country — and one who said the First Amendment applies only to Christians. Facing a diplomatic incident with the GOP, the AFA finally stripped Fischer of his title with the organization, although he kept his daily radio program with its affiliate, American Family Radio.

But that was then and this is now.

Earlier this month, we reported that Fischer was scheduled to join Sen. Ted Cruz at a campaign rally in Mississippi. The event was eventually canceled: not because of Fischer’s extremism but because Cruz was reportedly ill .

And, although Fischer remains one of the most hateful voices on the Right, he is hardly any more controversial than many of the figures with whom the leading Republican candidates have surrounded themselves in 2016 — or even, in some cases, the candidates themselves. As soon as the GOP began to ostracize Bryan Fischer, it was taken over by Bryan Fischer’s ideology.

Fischer himself pointed this out on his radio program last week as he prepared to discuss a column in which he reiterated his long-held views that Muslims immigrants should be barred from the U.S., American Muslims should be shut out of the U.S. military and state governments should ban the construction of mosques. Things that he’s been saying for years, he said, that were once perceived as “outlandish” and “off-the-charts lunacy,” have now “become virtually mainstream.”

He’s right. In fact, when we began to look through some of Fischer’s most controversial statements — which are bad enough that he was publicly rejected by the 2012 Republican nominee — we found that they weren’t too different from things that Republican presidential frontrunners Donald Trump and Ted Cruz say every day.

Although Fischer has campaigned for Cruz and openly despises Trump, his ideology and rhetoric is echoed by both campaigns. (Although, thankfully, neither candidate has called for stoning whales … at least not yet.)

On Muslim immigration...

Fischer: ‘Stop Muslim immigration into the United States’

Fischer was far ahead of the trend when it came to anti-Muslim bigotry,calling as early as 2010 for the U.S. to block all Muslim immigration, “repatriate” Muslims who are already here, ban American Muslims from serving in the U.S. military, and impose a policy of “no more mosques, period.” Fischer repeated these demands just last week.

Trump: ‘A total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States’

He was several years behind Fischer, but Trump called last year for a temporary ban on all of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims entering the United States and deporting Syrian refugees who have been resettled in America, which have since become central planks in his platform. Echoing Fischer, Trump has also said that if he were to become president, he would have “no choice” but to close some mosques and once flirted with the idea of setting up a government database to monitor all Muslims. Cruz, for his part, has called for banning the resettlement of Muslim refugees from Syria.

On religious freedom for Muslims ...

Fischer: ‘Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims’

Fischer justifies his anti-Muslim plans by claiming that the First Amendment does not apply to Muslims or any other non-Christian religion and asserts that any religious liberty rights extended to non-Christians are simply a “courtesy”:

Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam. Islam is entitled only to the religious liberty we extend to it out of courtesy. While there certainly ought to be a presumption of religious liberty for non-Christian religious traditions in America, the Founders were not writing a suicide pact when they wrote the First Amendment.

Cruz: ‘Patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods’

When Cruz called for the U.S. to “patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods” in response to this week’s terrorist attacks in Belgium, it came as no surprise since he has surrounded himself with advisers who argue, like Fischer, that Muslims do not deserve the same civil rights and civil liberties as other Americans.

One Cruz adviser, the Family Research Council’s Jerry Boykin, has explicitly said that “Islam is not a religion and does not deserve First Amendment protections.” In an interview with Fischer, Boykin called for “no mosques in America.”

Trump, for his part, has repeatedly called for government profiling of Muslims.

On Mormonism and Mitt Romney ...

Fischer: ‘I’m more Mormon’ than Mitt Romney

Fischer has never been a fan of the Mormon faith, insisting that the First Amendment doesn’t apply to Mormons and warning that a Mormon president like Romney would threaten the nation’s “spiritual health.” However, when Fischer deemed Romney to not be anti-gay enough, he declared that he himself was “more Mormon” than the candidate.

At one point, Fischer clarified that he had “love” for Mormons and just wanted them “to come into the full light of the truth” and abandon their faith.

Trump: ‘Are you sure he’s a Mormon?’

Although Trump may “love the Mormons,” he has been out on the campaign trail with Robert Jeffress , an extremist pastor who says that Mormonism and Islam are demonic faiths “from the pit of hell” (and that the Roman Catholic Church was created by Satan). It was in a radio interview with Fischer at the 2011 Values Voter Summit that Jeffress, who was stumping for Rick Perry, declared that Romney is not a “true” Christian because Mormonism is a “cult.”

Like Fischer, Trump has questioned Romney’s faith after Romney criticized him, asking a crowd in Utah: “Are you sure he’s a Mormon?”

On LGBT rights ...

Fischer: ‘Rainbow jihadists’ on the Supreme Court ‘blasted the twin pillars of truth and righteousness into rubble.’

Fischer reacted with predictable reason and restraint to the Supreme Court’s landmark Obergefell marriage equality ruling, comparing it to 9/11, Pearl Harbor and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and referring to the justices in the majority as “rainbow jihadists.”

Cruz: The gay community is waging ‘jihad’ against religious freedom

In this case, Fischer may have picked up a turn of phrase from Cruz, who several weeks before the Obergefell ruling accused LGBT rights activists of waging “jihad” against the religious freedom of Christians.

On the role of women ...

Fischer: God ‘designed’ women to be good secretaries

Fischer explained back in 2014 that he wouldn't consider male applicants for receptionist and secretary positions at his church because God “designed” women “to be warm, to be hospitable, to be open-hearted, to be open-handed, to have their arms open, to be welcoming, to be receptive, to create a nurturing, welcoming environment.”

Trump: ‘It really doesn't matter what they write, as long as you've got a young and beautiful piece of ass’

Trump may have a different view of women in the workplace than Fischer, but it isn’t any more enlightened.

On science ...

Fischer: ‘Liberals are absolutely anti-science when it comes climatology and global warming’

Fischer contends that when it comes to climate change, it’s the scientists who are “absolutely anti-science,” citing God’s promise to Noah in the Bible that he would never again destroy the earth with floods. He also believes that the theory of evolution is “completely irrational and scientifically bankrupt ”and argues that people who believe in evolution should be “disqualified from holding public office.” Fischer has filled the vacuum left by actual science with some of his own creative theories, such as that dinosaurs were actually giant, 1,000-year-old lizards.

Cruz: ‘Climate change is not science, it’s religion’

Cruz similarly thinks that it’s climate scientists who are being illogical, telling Glenn Beck last year that “climate change is not science, it's religion.” Trump is also “not a big believer” in climate change, which he has dismissed as “bad weather” and a Chinese fabrication designed to destroy the U.S. economy.

While Cruz has deflected questions about evolution, his father and campaign surrogate, Rafael Cruz, has called the theory “baloney” and suggested that it was a communist plot to “destroy the concept of God.”

On the military ...

Fischer: We’ve ‘feminized’ the medal of honor by giving it to service members who haven’t killed people

In 2010, Fischer reacted to the awarding of the medal of honor to an Army sergeant who had rescued two of his fellow soldiers in battle by lamenting that we have “feminized” the military honor by awarding it “for preventing casualties, not for inflicting them."

Trump: ‘I like people who weren’t captured’

Trump, who, like Fischer, has never served in the military, made headlines last summer when he attacked Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for his time as a prisoner of war, saying, “I like people who weren’t captured.”

Cruz's Call To 'Patrol And Secure Muslim Neighborhoods' Echoes Demands Of Extremist Advisers

Submitted by Miranda Blue on Tuesday, 3/22/2016 1:39 pm

It should hardly be surprising that Cruz made such a statement, however, since he has recently named as national security advisers several activists who have called for the severe curtailing of civil liberties for American Muslims.

One of Cruz’s new national security advisers, Family Research Council official Jerry Boykin, has said that “Islam is not a religion and does not deserve First Amendment protections” and has called for “no mosques in America”:

Perhaps giving a hint at the neighborhoods Cruz wants the police to “secure,” Boykin once absurdly claimed that the police refuse to go into the city of Dearborn, Michigan, because of its large Muslim population.

Boykin first gained notoriety as a Pentagon official during the Bush administration, when he was repeatedly rebuked by the administration for giving speeches framing the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as holy wars between Christianity and Islam (or, in his words, “our God” and the “idol” Satan).

Another of Cruz’s new national security advisers, the Center for Security Policy’sFrank Gaffney, believes that there is extensive Islamist infiltration of the federal government, the Republican Party and even the National Rifle Association, and once called for the establishment of a “House Anti-American Activities Committee” to investigate this supposed infiltration. To give you an idea of whom that committee would go after, Gaffney is the activist behind allegations that Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, conservative activist Suhail Khan and anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist are all aiding the Muslim Brotherhood. (Khan and Abedin are Muslim and Norquist’s wife is Muslim.)

Another Cruz adviser, Clare Lopez, said recently that Sen. Joseph McCarthy was “spot-on” in his notorious hunt for communist infiltrators. Another adviser, Andy McCarthy, has said that Islam may not deserve full legal protections because it may not be, “strictly speaking, a religion.”

Glenn Beck And Jerry Boykin Say Electing Trump Or Clinton Would Be National Suicide

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 3/16/2016 11:53 am

After Beck complained that Christians are being mocked for believing, as he does, that Ted Cruz has been raised up by God for this moment, he and Boykin worried that America has not yet reached the point where it is willing to humble itself and ask God to save this nation.

"I'm a recovering alcoholic," Beck said. "There was a time when I hit my bottom and I had to decide whether I was going to repeat my mother's life, who committed suicide, or if I was going to live. My mother's bottom was suicide. Some people don't have a bottom. If we vote for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, is our bottom suicide?"

"If we go down that road," Boykin replied, "I don't think the republic will survive."

Boykin's Defense of 'Religious Freedom' Includes Violent Anti-Trans Rhetoric

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Tuesday, 3/8/2016 10:16 am

On Saturday retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, executive vice president of the Family Research Council, addressed the Awakening conference, an annual event sponsored by Liberty Counsel and the Freedom Federation. Boykin, known for his anti-Muslim and anti-gay rhetoric, dedicated his remarks in the plenary session to denouncing Bernie Sanders supporters for wanting free things, and to calling on Christians to do more to stand up for religious freedom and against LGBT equality.

Boykin quoted socialist Norman Thomas saying in 1927, “America will never vote for socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program.” Boykin asked, “Is that where we are today?” He declared that support for Sanders is “an indication of the sad state of affairs in this country.”

I am absolutely, incredibly amazed at the number of young people, particularly young people, that are flocking to Bernie Sanders. My generation never would have believed we would have taken a socialist seriously. And here we have tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people, flocking to Bernie Sanders, and when you pin ‘em down and say, ‘What is it about Bernie Sanders that you really like?’ it comes back to one thing. Oh, they’ll give you the pablum – ‘I like his policies, I like this and I like that.’ But listen to them very carefully they’ll eventually tell you it’s because he’s going to give them something for nothing. He’s going to give them something that’s free.

Boykin warned that American Christians are not fighting hard enough against what the Religious Right claims are efforts to narrow the concept of freedom of religion that the Founding Fathers placed in the First Amendment down into a more restrictive freedom of worship:

Folks, if you accept the concept of freedom of worship you are going down a dangerous path. They didn’t just give us freedom of worship, they gave us freedom of religion. What they said was you can believe what you want to believe, and you can live your faith. Today, that constitutional freedom is in the greatest jeopardy of any of our constitutional liberties. It is the freedom of religion and it is based on a radical agenda to tell you that you can believe what you want to believe but you cannot live your faith in the public square…

Boykin quoted Eric Metaxas, biographer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor who was killed for his resistance to German Nazis, telling him that “if America accepts what Hitler forced the church in Germany to accept, which was freedom to worship, we’re going to wind up being just like Germany.” Added Boykin, “We’re in the same situation today. We’re being told that we can have freedom of worship but we cannot have freedom of religion and we’re going to have to pay a price … We’ve got to stand up to evil.”

As is customary at Religious Right events, Boykin and other speakers blamed the church for not doing enough to resist evil and stand up to the LGBT rights movement. Boykin praised Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver for his defense of Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk Kim Davis, who refused to process marriage licenses for same-sex couples after the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling. And he took now-familiar Religious Right rhetoric targeting transgender people over their use of bathrooms to an ugly new low:

Where is the Christian world today? Where are the Christians of America today? They should be flocking to people like Kim Davis. They should be flocking to the city council and say, ‘No, you’re not going to let a man go in my daughter’s bathroom just because he feels like a man today.’ Where are the Christians that are standing up to this kind of evil?

And I’ve already said, and somebody’ll be recording this and this’ll be on YouTube before it’s all over with. But I will tell you what, the first man that walks in my daughter’s bathroom, he ain’t going to have to worry about surgery. That’s not right. That is not right. It’s not right. It’s ungodly. But it’s also just unnatural. This is crazy. Where are the Christians that are standing up?

Jerry Boykin Falsely Claims 'The Naked Communist' Was Written And Published By The Communist Party USA

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 3/7/2016 2:54 pm

"The socialists had a systematic plan for taking over our educational system and they have pretty much done it," Joyner said, adding that students today "were educated by socialists to be socialists."

Boykin agreed, saying that communists in America specifically laid out a plan to do just this back in 1958.

"In 1958, there was a book written called 'The Naked Communist,'" he said. "It was written and published by the Communist Party USA and they laid out all the things they were going to do to take over America in time. It was a long term strategic plan."

That is, of course, totally false, as "The Naked Communist" was a book written by W. Cleon Skousen, a far right-wing conspiracy theorist and slavery apologist.

CPAC Welcomes Back Conspiracy Theorists – And Not Just Donald Trump

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 3/3/2016 11:50 am

In 2011, the American Conservative Union, which runs the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), issued a scathing report denouncing Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy for his crusade against ACU board members Grover Norquist and Suhail Kahn.

Gaffney has spent years claiming that Norquist and Kahn are secret agents of the Muslim Brotherhood and spearheaded a movement to boycott CPAC because of its ties to the two conservative figures. The ACU found that not only were Gaffney’s claims completely specious and unfounded, but that they were also rooted in anti-Muslim bias and personal vendettas, and the organization kicked him out of the conference.

But that was then, and though Gaffney has not repudiated or apologized for his previous attacks, he is being welcomed back to CPAC this year and his Center for Security Policy will even run several panel events as a “supporting sponsor.”

One of CSP’s panels will feature Jerry Boykin, the Family Research Council official who has also accused Norquist of secretly working for the Muslim Brotherhood. Glenn Beck, who has been campaigning to remove Norquist from the board of the National Rifle Association based largely on Gaffney's smears, will be delivering the closing address at the conference.

By appearing at CPAC, Gaffney and Boykin may be making themselves vulnerable to charges that they themselves are aiding the Muslim Brotherhood since they believe the ACU has been compromised by the extremist group’s supposed agent, Norquist.

But it seems that CPAC and its ACU parent have just become more comfortable with far-right conspiracy theorists taking the stage, even the ones who believe the ACU is part of an alleged Muslim Brotherhood influence operation to subvert the conservative movement and bring down the U.S.

CPAC, after all, is hosting the country’s most prominent right-wing conspiracy theorist: Donald Trump.

The ACU, which once rejected a proposed CPAC panel questioning President Obama’s birthplace, is now hosting one of the country’s most notorious birthers.

Perhaps Trump and Gaffney, a fellow birther, will be able to hold a panel on the topic next year.

Right Wing Bonus Tracks - 2/24/16

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 2/24/2016 6:30 pm

The California Republican Assembly has named Liberty Counsel's Mat Staver the recipient of its "Ronald Reagan Freedom Fighter Award."

Even after dropping out of the race for president, Mike Huckabee remains as bitter as ever.

Jerry Boykin has endorsed Janet Porter in her bid for a seat in the Ohio state senate.

Linda Harvey has penned an entirely fictional story about how the SPLC is out to label an innocent grandma as a hate group ... or something.

Finally, Walid Shoebat blasts his fellow anti-gay activists for refusing to "support the death penalty for pedophiles and homosexuals who rape young boys": "I see millions upon millions, crowds upon crowds, stadiums and arenas, yet not once did I see any of these major crowds marching to the White House crying for justice for the poor victims or calling for death for such reprobates as they do in the east."

Ted Cruz Announces Endorsement From Jerry Boykin, Anti-Muslim, Anti-Gay Conspiracy Theorist

Submitted by Miranda Blue on Thursday, 2/11/2016 3:51 pm

Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign announced the support of yet another far-right figure today, issuing a press release touting the endorsement of Lt. General Jerry Boykin, the executive vice president of the Family Research Council.

Boykin first gained notoriety when he was publicly rebuked by the Bush administration for giving speeches framing American military conflicts in the Middle East as a religious conflict between “our God” and Satan. After retiring from the Army, Boykin threw himself into Religious Right activism, eventually landing the number-two post at the Family Research Council. (Boykin's boss, anti-gay extremist Tony Perkins, is also a Cruz endorser.)

Boykin’s career in the military came under further scrutiny last year when the Intercept reported that Boykin — who now frequently accuses the Obama administration of persecuting Christians at home and abroad — created a Pentagon program that used unwitting missionaries as spies.

His career as an activist has featured plenty of the same Holy War rhetoric for which he first became known, combined with conspiracy theories about President Obama as a terrorist sympathizer and a vision of Jesus as a “man’s man” who will return carrying an AR-15. He is deeply involved in both anti-Muslim activism and the fringe “dominionist” movement that seeks conservative Christian control over the U.S. government.

Just a few lowlights of Boykin’s career:

Said that “Islam is not a religion and does not deserve First Amendment protections,” and wants “no mosques in America.”

Thinks Christians should act more like ISIS and be “willing to die” for their God.

Said Jesus, who’s a real “man’s man,” will return to earth carrying an AR-15.

Blamed Obama and his supporters for the shooting at an Oregon community college, adding that we here at Right Wing Watch use “the exact same tactics” as ISIS and Al Qaeda to encourage attacks on Christians.

Warned that Obama was using the health care reform law as a cover for establishing a private army of Brownshirts loyal just to him.

Claimed the bailout of AIG led to the establishment of Sharia law and that George Soros and the Council on Foreign relations conspired to collapse the U.S. economy in order to help Obama get elected.

Alleged that Obama may be a secret Muslim who “cavort[s] with the enemy” and says “things that are really supportive of what they’re doing.”

Said that American Jews were misled into supporting Democrats by wrongly thinking Adolf Hitler was a right-wing extremist, and believes that that Jews must be converted to Christianity.

Said the U.S. government was founded to be run by Christians.

Warned that Muslim-Americans, including Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin and John Kerry’s son-in-law, are undermining national security.

Accused the Obama administration of showing “support for the infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood into our government.”

Claimed that the police won’t go into Dearborn, Michigan, because if its large Muslim population.

Suggested that the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell led to the “absolute destruction” of our military.

Predicted that American might soon face God’s judgment because it is worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.

Said that “God’s army” must fight the “evil” of gay rights.

Tony Perkins' Selective Posturing on Religious Liberty

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Tuesday, 1/12/2016 5:03 pm

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins’ self-important “State of the Family” address on Monday was not just about chaos and blood in the streets caused by marriage equality and other “confusion” about the definition of the family. It was also about religious liberty, and Perkins’ familiar charge that the “far left” wants to deny religious Americans both their freedom of speech and their freedom of religion:

“Desperate to preserve its power, the far left now seeks to label all of its critics as extremists or haters and aggressively seeks to silence all who oppose its agenda. But we should take heart even from this. Our opponents seek to limit our freedom of speech because they fear its power. They seek to restrain the expression of our convictions because they are unsure of the truth of theirs. The freedom of expression is the very essence of liberty. But there can be no liberty in America without religious liberty. In our hearts we know this to be true.”

America’s founders, said Perkins, “believed that the best account of our personal and civic duties comes not from the whims of the political class but from the transcendent truths of scripture itself.”

“It is easy to see why we now sail such dangerous seas. Many of our nation’s leading politicians and jurists believe that religion is a toxin in public life, something to be quarantined within the four walls of our churches. They want our culture stripped of the guidance of faith, the centrality of family, and the liberties that are our divine birthright. Not only will it be impermissible to publicly acknowledge the God who made us. It will be unlawful to act on our deepest understanding of Him and His commandments. Acting on conscience will be a bar to public service. It’ll be a reason to be fined or fired.

In his speech, Perkins declared, “Religious liberty must become a priority again within our foreign policy.”

The history of the last century is clear. Totalitarians of every stripe have made suppression of all religious freedom or the liberty of some religions the target of their regimes. Especially dangerous are those who feed on religious hatred. We must promote and defend religious liberty as a human right for all faiths to be able to live freely wherever they are and whoever they are. Why? Because advocating for religious liberty lets the oppressed throughout the world know that they have a friend in America. And, it sends a message to the terrorists and the tyrants as well. That knowledge bears long-term fruit for our own security. And frankly, it’s simply the right thing to do for a nation whose national motto is In God We Trust.”

Much of this statement, coming from someone else, would be unobjectionable. But coming from Perkins, it is jaw-droppingly hypocritical.

Perkins and his Family Research Council colleagues have not consistently advocated for religious liberty for people of all faiths. For example, when Religious Right groups were rallying opposition to the misnamed “Ground Zero Mosque,” FRC’s Ken Blackwell was among them. Perkins said just last month that banning Muslims from immigrating to the U.S. would not be imposing a religious test because “only 16 percent of Islam is a religion.” He has said that people are free to make their own theological choices, but that our nation was founded on “Judeo-Christian principles” and that “those who practice Islam in its entirety” will “destroy the fabric of a democracy.”

Retired Gen. Jerry Boykin, now FRC’s executive vice president, has also pushed the idea that Muslims do not deserve the protection of the First Amendment because Islam “is not just a religion, it is a totalitarian way of life.” On Bryan Fischer’s radio show in 2011 Boykin declared, “No mosques in America,” explaining, “A mosque is an embassy for Islam and they recognize only a global caliphate, not the sanctity or sovereignty of the United States.”

Perkins has even argued that Christians who support marriage equality for same-sex couples don’t have the same religious liberty protections as Christians like him because “true religious freedom” applies only to those with “orthodox religious viewpoints.” He has dismissed as “supposed Christians” those who support reproductive choice.

And Perkins has also criticized the military for accommodating “fringe religions” and suggested that it is not the government’s role “to try to put all religions on the same plane.”

In his remarks about religious freedom in the military, Perkins claimed that Boykin had been forced to withdraw from a West Point prayer breakfast “because of the pressure from atheist groups.” In reality, the most influential protest against Boykin’s appearing at West Point probably came from dozens of the military academy’s faculty and cadets, most of them Christians, who thought Boykin’s remarks painting the U.S. as waging a holy war against Islam were irresponsible and could threaten the lives of service members overseas.

Perkins also urged Congress to pass the co-called First Amendment Defense Act, which would give legal protection to those practicing anti-gay discrimination. Perkins called the bill “a first and a vital step” and he celebrated the fact that candidates Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Marco Rubio and Rick Santorum have pledged to sign FADA in their first 100 days if the legislation makes it to their desk.

Religious Right: Bible Dictates Laws & Economic Policy But Islam Not a Religion Because It Is A Political & Economic System

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Friday, 12/18/2015 1:19 pm

Donald Trump’s call to bar all Muslims from entering the country was widely recognized as an appeal for explicit religious discrimination and generated significant pushback. But many of Trump’s right-wing defenders have turned to an argument that has long bounced around Religious Right circles: that Muslims are not entitled to the religious liberty protections of the First Amendment because Islam is somehow not a religion. A few years ago, for example, retired Lt. Gen Jerry Boykin called Islam “a totalitarian way of life” that “should not be protected under the First Amendment.”

At this week’s Republican presidential debate, Rick Santorum explained why he believes Islam is not protected under the First Amendment, an argument made repeatedly by the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer. Here’s Santorum:

The fact of the matter is, Islam is different. I know this is going to come as a shock to a lot of people, and I mean this sincerely. Islam is not just a religion. It is also a political governing structure. The fact of the matter is, Islam is a religion, but it is also Sharia law, it is also a civil government, it is also a form of government. And, so, the idea that that is protected under the First Amendment is wrong.

Conservative columnist and radio host Andrew McCarthy has similarly defended Trump’s comments, saying that Islam is not merely a religion because it “has ambitions to be more than a religion, that is to say that it is an ideological, sweeping system that does not recognize a division between spiritual life on the one hand and political and civic life on the other.”

Back in September, Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins defended similar comments by Ben Carson:

“Religious freedom and our liberty is ordered liberty under the Constitution,” Perkins said. “And as Dr. Caron pointed out, and I know this is driving the left crazy, that Islam is not just a religion, Islam is an economic system, it is a judicial system, it is a compressive system which is incompatible with the Constitution. That’s what Dr. Carson said and he happens to be correct.”

More recently, Perkins defended Trump with a dubiously specific statistic, saying that “only 16 percent of Islam is a religion — the rest is a combination of military, judicial, economic and political system.” Televangelist Pat Robertson also said this month that people should not view Islam as a religion but rather a “political system masquerading as a religion.”

Wait a minute. Aren’t these the same people who repeatedly insist that the Bible is the final authority on everything, from laws regulating personal relationships to economic and tax policy, and environmental protection? Anti-marriage-equality activists have insisted that the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling was in violation of “God’s law” and therefore “illegitimate.”

David Barton, an oft-discredited “historian” and Republican Party activist who is currently heading up a Ted Cruz super PAC, argues that the Bible opposes minimum wage laws, estate taxes, capital gains taxes, any progressive form of taxation and even net neutrality. He says the Constitution came right out of the Bible. If you applied Tony Perkins’ calculations to David Barton’s Bible, what percentage would come up as religion?

Many Religious Right leaders have embraced Seven Mountains dominionism, which is grounded in the belief that the right kind of Bible-believing Christians are meant to control all the important spheres of culture, including government, business, education, and entertainment. For example, the American Pastors Network’s Sam Rohrer says this:

Government leaders are charged with wielding the Word of God as an instrument of Justice, promoting God’s moral law as the foundation of right and wrong, encouraging those who do well biblically, and executing judgment on those who break the law.

Along those lines, three Republican presidential candidates, including current Iowa frontrunner Ted Cruz, recently joined a “religious freedom” rally organized by a pastor who argues that the Bible requires the government to execute gay people.

And don’t forget David Lane, whose American Renewal Project is mobilizing conservative pastors to get more involved in politics — and who argues that America was founded for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith, and that the Bible should be a primary textbook in public schools.

So, a thought for Religious Right leaders: If you are going to argue for stripping Muslims of their First Amendment religious liberty protections based on your interpretation of Islam as an enterprise that is more political and ideological than religious, you may have to trim your own political sails quite a bit. Either that, or quit pretending you are proponents of religious freedom, and admit that you, like Bryan Fischer, believe the First Amendment applies only to Christians, or, like Tony Perkins, that gay-supporting Christians don’t deserve the same legal protections because a “true religious freedom” has to “come forth from religious orthodoxy.” Just don’t try to pretend your definition of “religious freedom” owes anything to Thomas Jefferson or the First Amendment.

Religious Right Leader Reportedly Used Unwitting Missionaries As Spies, Endangering Christian Aid Workers

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 10/26/2015 3:50 pm

Before joining the Family Research Council (FRC) as its executive vice president, Gen. Jerry Boykin served in the Bush administration, where he most notably was repeatedly rebuked by the president after giving speeches in uniform painting the war on terror as a holy war against Islam. (The Army later reprimanded him again for leaking classified information).

Boykin has since claimed again and again that he was a victim of anti-Christian persecution during his time in the administration. Now, as a full-time Religious Right activist, Boykin frequently claims that President Obama is persecuting Christians at home and abroad.

He has claimed that the president backs terrorists who murder Christians and has even alleged that the president’s support for LGBT equality and reproductive rights at home are putting Christian lives at risk abroad. He has even charged that the Obama administration is pushing for anti-Christian violence here at home, talking about meeting Americans who want to “take up arms” and “fulfill their constitutional duty and take out the president.”

As it turns out, it seems that in his time in the Bush administration, Boykin was the one who was putting Christians at risk. The Intercept reported today that Boykin created a Pentagon program that put Christians in harm’s way by using missionaries, some of them unwitting, as spies.

By turning a Christian NGO into an American spy front, experts warned reporter Matthew Cole, Boykin’s program could endanger all Christian charitable workers who can now be accused by foreign governments of secretly working as American spies, possibly leading to imprisonment or execution.

Cole writes that Boykin’s “brainchild” was an operation to secretly steer around $15 million from the Pentagon to a group known as Humanitarian International Services Group (HISG), which Boykin and others then turned into a spying operation against North Korea.

The revelation that the Pentagon used an NGO and unwitting humanitarian volunteers for intelligence gathering is the result of a monthslong investigation by The Intercept. In the course of the investigation, more than a dozen current and former military and intelligence officials, humanitarian aid workers, missionaries, U.S. officials, and former HISG staffers were interviewed. The U.S. government officials who were familiar with the Pentagon operation and HISG’s role asked for anonymity because discussing classified military and intelligence matters would put them at risk of prosecution. The Pentagon had no comment on HISG or the espionage operations in North Korea.

Before it was finally dismantled in 2013, Hiramine’s organization received millions in funding from the Pentagon through a complex web of organizations designed to mask the origin of the cash, according to one of the former military officials familiar with the program, as well as documentation reviewed for this article.

The use of HISG for espionage was “beyond the pale” of what the U.S. government should be allowed to do, said Sam Worthington, president of InterAction, an association of nearly 200 American NGOs. The practice of using humanitarian workers as spies “violates international principles” and puts legitimate aid and development workers at risk, he argued.

“It is unacceptable that the Pentagon or any other U.S. agency use nonprofits for intelligence gathering,” Worthington said. “It is a violation of the basic trust between the U.S. government and its civic sector.”

HISG had experience shipping “medical equipment, clothing, and disaster relief supplies around the world,” and would later use those services to move military equipment.

The Pentagon tasked [HISG founder Kay] Hiramine with gathering the intelligence it needed inside North Korea, and Hiramine would in turn utilize HISG’s access to the country to complete the assignments, according to two former military officials with knowledge of the effort. Hiramine, in his role as CEO of HISG, tapped Christian missionaries, aid workers, and Chinese smugglers to move equipment into and around North Korea — none of whom had any idea that they were part of a secret Pentagon operation.

…

Because American intelligence has so few assets inside North Korea, much of Hiramine’s task was to find transportation routes to move military equipment — and potentially clandestine operatives — in and around the country. The Pentagon would eventually move sensors and small radio beacons through Hiramine’s transportation network, according to another former military official. Much of what Hiramine was doing was what the military refers to as “operational preparation of the environment,” or OPE, a category that encompasses clandestine intelligence gathering and prepositioning equipment inside a country for future conflicts.

The North Korean government frequently accuses its foreign prisoners of spying for the West or trying to overthrow the government. One such prisoner was American missionary Kenneth Bae, whose case become a cause célèbre of the FRC, which used his imprisonment in North Korea to criticize Obama for supposedly failing to defend Christians abroad. As Lee Fang, a contributor to the Intercept report, put it, Boykin condemns Muslims and gays for supposedly “persecuting Christians” while his own actions “endangered Christian charities across the world.”

Programs like the one Boykin reportedly helped create threaten to give governments like North Korea a reason to clampdown on NGOs and aid workers, including missionaries, by claiming that they are working as American spies.

Fears that this would happen led to the dissolution of the program, and HISG not-so-coincidentally shut its doors not long afterwards. A group steering Pentagon dollars to HISG also closed down, donating “its remaining funds as a gift to the federal government.”

The longer HISG operated and became more legitimate, the more opportunities would be available to U.S. military and intelligence officials to run operations in other countries as they had in North Korea. In other words, Hiramine’s ability to use HISG to form partnerships and working relationships with other unsuspecting aid workers and missionaries would give the Pentagon more places to spy, according to one of the former military officials. That official would not say whether Hiramine was tasked with operating in countries besides North Korea.

…

“If these people had been caught and tried and executed in downtown Pyongyang you’d really understand the risk,” said Robert Baer, a retired CIA officer who spent more than 20 years conducting espionage operations.

Using humanitarian and aid workers for gathering intelligence has always been risky. U.S. intelligence policy prohibits using American clergy, journalists, or Peace Corps volunteers as a cover to conduct espionage. Using NGOs is not strictly prohibited, but though it is not unprecedented, it is dangerous.

In recent years, the risk of using legitimate aid workers as cover for spying has had deadly repercussions.

…

In 2012, now-retired Adm. William McRaven, the commander of the Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida, who oversaw the Osama bin Laden raid, shut down the North Korea spying program.

McRaven told us he shut it down because he was nervous about the flap if it ever got out that the Pentagon had used a bunch of evangelicals and missionaries as spies,” said one former military officer, adding that if the program had produced better intelligence McRaven would have considered keeping it up and running. McRaven did not respond to a request for comment.

In January 2013, Hiramine and his fellow HISG executives announced to their employees that they were shuttering the organization. “We got no warning,” said Jennings, the former HISG program director. “We had no jobs, no severance, and no explanation. All they said was ‘we lost our funding.’”

Perkins: 'Emasculation Of Our Culture' Leading To Women In Military

Submitted by Miranda Blue on Thursday, 10/15/2015 12:59 pm

On yesterday’s “Washington Watch” program, the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins and Jerry Boykin reacted to Army Secretary John McHugh’s recent statement that if “your objective is true and pure equality” in the military, then women will eventually be required to register for the draft.

Perkins and Boykin were, unsurprisingly, not too happy about this.

“Let me go on record, General,” Perkins said. “I like the difference between the sexes. I like the smell of perfume. Look, I’m fine with wearing cologne but I don’t want to smell some other cologne. I like perfume. I like the fact that there’s a difference between men and women. In western civilization for the longest, we have not only protected that but we’ve elevated in many ways the status of women in our society by treating them differently.”

“This is the natural progression as we’ve seen the emasculation of our culture. And that’s what’s really behind this, is to say there’s no difference between men and women,” he added.

FRC Spox & Rick Wiles Blame Obama, Right Wing Watch For UCC Shooting; Liken RWW To ISIS & Al Qaeda

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 10/9/2015 12:10 pm

In an interview with far-right radio host Rick Wiles on Tuesday, Family Research Council Vice President Jerry Boykin blamed President Obama and his supporters for the recent mass shooting in Oregon and then suggested that we at Right Wing Watch encourage “lone wolf” attacks on Christians “using the exact same tactics” as ISIS and Al Qaeda.

Wiles spoke with Boykin about the massacre following a monologue in which the conspiracy-theory-minded radio host suggested that the shooting at Umpqua Community College was “staged” by a government “death squad” seeking to “build public support for disarming the American people of their firearms.”

Boykin served as a deputy undersecretary of Defense under President George W. Bush, who repeatedly rebuked him for painting the fight against terrorism as a holy war against Islam. He later launched a career as a Religious Right activist, in which he has touted numerous conspiracy theories and made many anti-Muslim statements, including calling for Muslims to be stripped of their First Amendment rights.

While reports are mixed as to whether the Oregon shooter targeted Christians, Boykin portrayed him as a man who was inspired by the Obama administration’s purportedly anti-Christian policies.

“Right here in America, the church, the Christian church, has been so demonized and denigrated by the current administration and those that support this administration that I think that you have to expect this because there are enough crazies out there that when you constantly hammer the U.S. Christian church, you have to expect that there is going to be some reaction and that’s what we’re seeing,” Boykin said.

“I can tell you that this is the fight of the future,” he added. “It’s not just about having to bake a cake or take photographs for a gay wedding, this is about literally about life and death for Christians in the future. It’s coming.”

Wiles then suggested that the shooter may have been inspired by reading Right Wing Watch, leading Boykin to claim that we use the “exact same tactics” as the Islamic State and Al Qaeda to encourage “lone wolf” attacks against Christians.

Wiles said that he wouldn’t be surprised if the shooter — who identified himself on a dating website as “conservative, Republican” and wrote about “his racial animus toward black people and general feelings of anger about being isolated and unable to make relationships” — was “a frequent visitor to Right Wing Watch.”

Boykin, for his part, said that Right Wing Watch and the Southern Poverty Law Center are “ultraliberal, anti-Christian and anti-American organizations,” adding that Right Wing Watch was established by the “Soros, anti-American, Marxist entity that is also anti-Christian” People For the American Way.

But they did have some good words for us: Boykin commended us for our accuracy, saying that we “actually in many cases print exactly what we said” and Wiles added, “They’ve never misquoted me, I’m not going to say that they misquote me but they definitely want to paint an image of people like you and I as dangerous wackos.”

“This is the tactics of Al Qaeda and ISIS,” Boykin added, “where they will call for people to take action against Western targets, against Christians and infidels and then these so-called lone wolfs will go out and perpetrate an act of violence which normally results in somebody’s death. So what we’ve got is we’ve got Right Wing Watch and Southern Poverty Law Center and People For the American Way all using the exact same tactics as these Middle East terrorist groups, as these Islamic extremist groups. It’s sad that that kind of thing happens in America. There is no dialogue. There is no debate. They are going to try and shut us down by striking fear into our heart.”

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened.

Who's Who At The Values Voter Summit 2015

Submitted by Isabel Carter-Kahn on Monday, 9/21/2015 11:51 am

Next weekend, GOP presidential contenders and top lawmakers will mingle with some of the most extreme Religious Right activists in the country at the Values Voter Summit, an annual event in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, American Values, and others.

Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, Lindsey Graham and Ben Carson have all confirmed that they will be speaking at the event. Carly Fiorina, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Chris Christie and John Kasich have been invited but have not yet confirmed their attendance, according to the event’s website. Jeb Bush, who was snubbed by FRC at last year’s event, declined to attend but will send a video address. Donald Trump is the only presidential candidate to have publicly turned down the invitation, provoking the ire of FRC’s president, Tony Perkins.

Candidates who attend the Values Voter Summit choose to align themselves with some of the most radical activists and organizations working to dehumanize LGBT people, erode reproductive rights, demolish the separation between church and state, and eliminate First Amendment rights for religious minorities.

The Family Research Council routinely smears LGBT people with false and degrading pronouncements and campaigns for a United States ruled by the dicta of a small faction of fundamentalists Christians. Another principal sponsor of the summit, the American Family Association, has an equally extreme record.

In addition to the abhorrent record of the sponsors of this event, the presidential candidates will also be joined by a host of radical Religious Right speakers.

Below is an introduction to some of the people who will be sharing the stage with the Republican presidential hopefuls.

Tony Perkins

As the president of the Family Research Council, the summit’s main sponsor, Tony Perkins heads the organization’s efforts to erode gay rights, reproductive rights, and the separation of church and state.

FRC continually expresses hostility to the rights of Americans who don’t share his conservative brand of Christianity. Last year, Perkins suggested that the First Amendment’s religious liberty protections do not apply to Muslims, not surprising for the leader of an organization that once issued a statement that read, “[W]hile it is true that the United States of America was founded on the sacred principle of religious freedom for all, that liberty was never intended to exalt other religions to the level that Christianity holds in our country's heritage…. Our Founders … would have found utterly incredible the idea that all religions, including paganism, be treated with equal deference." He similarly suggested that Christians who support LGBT rights should not have the same religious freedoms as anti-gay conservatives because “true religious freedom” only applies to those whom he believes hold “orthodox religious viewpoints.”

Perkins has also overseen one of the most anti-gay platforms of any major political organization. FRC officials have expressed support for the criminalization of homosexuality not only in the United States, but also in Malawi and Uganda. Senior fellow Peter Sprigg once said he would “much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society.”

Perkins himself frequently reflects the extreme views of his organization. He has:

Called Islam “evil”
Said Obama is paving the way for the Antichrist
Linked homosexuality to pedophilia, compared it to alcoholism and said that advances in gay rights encourage ISIS
Warned that LGBT rights advocates will launch a holocaust against Christians, placing those that oppose same-sex marriage into “boxcars”
Called gay rights activists “intolerant,” “hateful,” “vile,” “spiteful” and “pawns” of Satan and said that homosexuality is “man shaking his fist in the face of God”
Insisted the government is using the “promotion of same-sex relations ” as a means of “population control”
Wrote that the anti-bullying “It Gets Better Project” is “immoral,” “disgusting,” and promotes “perversion”
Denied that there was a correlation between anti-gay bullying and depression and suicide, saying instead that gay and lesbian teens know they are “abnormal” and therefore “have a higher propensity to depression or suicide because of that internal conflict"
Warned, “I don’t know if the country can survive” a second Obama term and that the president’s reelection would “destroy this country”
Defined efforts by the Obama administration to advance LGBT rights abroad as a push for “radical sexualism”
Warned that lawmakers who voted to repeal the military ban on openly gay service members would have “the blood of innocent soldiers on their hands”
Predicted that marriage equality would “create a revolution” that would “break this country apart” and lead to “the dissolution of the republic”

Jerry Boykin

Family Research Council vice president and retired Army Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin sparked a controversy when, as a high-ranking official in the Bush Defense Department, he framed the fight against terrorism as a holy war between Christianity and Islam. He has since built a career as a Religious Right speaker, specializing in anti-Muslim rhetoric and anti-Obama conspiracy theories. He:

Says that “Islam is evil” and that “Islam is not a religion and does not deserve First Amendment protections,” and wants to ban mosques
Thinks Christians should act more like ISIS
Warned that Obama was using the health care reform law as a cover for establishing a private army of Brownshirts loyal just to him
Claimed the bailout of AIG led to the establishment of Sharia law and that George Soros and the Council on Foreign relations conspired to collapse the U.S. economy in order to help Obama get elected
Said that American Jews were misled into supporting Democrats by wrongly thinking Adolf Hitler was a right-wing extremist; thinks that Jews must be converted to Christianity
Accused the Obama administration of showing “support for the infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood into our government”
Suggested that the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell led to the “absolute destruction” of our military

Mat Staver

Mat Staver is the founder and head of Liberty Counsel, which is the organization currently representing Kentucky clerk Kim Davis in her campaign to deny marriage licenses to gay couples in her county. At a previous Values Voter Summit, Staver claimed that progressives are using LGBT rights and secular government as part of an effort to “ultimately implode America” and that the “agenda of the homosexual movement” is to destroy freedom and western civilization. Staver has:

Compared Kim Davis to a Jew living in Nazi Germany, and said requiring her to grant marriage licenses to gay couples is like forcing her “to grant a license to sodomize children”
Argued that President Obama “does not respect America” and wants to intentionally cripple America so he can have global power and create his own personal army of Brownshirts
Called the legalization of same-sex marriage “the beginning of the end of Western Civilization,” warning that it will lead to “forced homosexuality” and the “ghettoization of Christianity”
Said that the Boy Scouts will become “a playground for pedophiles” now that the organization allows gay troop leaders
Claimed that Obamacare has forced Americans to “participate in a genocide” worse than what occurred in Nazi Germany
Promoted “ex-gay” reparative therapy and warned that gays and lesbians are “intent on trampling upon the fundamental freedoms” and compared them to Hamas
Alleged that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act will lead to child molestation, sexual assault, and even death and “harm women and children” if passed
Defended Malawi’s law criminalizing homosexuality and said U.S. opposition to criminalization was “immoral”
Urged schools to prohibit students from holding a “Day of Silence” to protest anti-gay bullying and said teaching LGBT history in schools amounts to “sexual assault”
Warned that the Supreme Court’s decision in the DOMA case would cause the United States to cross “into the realm of revolution”
Said that the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision was a “grave sin” that would lead America “into the very pit of Hell,” warning that the justices who voted in the majority would face “judgment” if they don’t “repent.”

Jonathan Cahn

Messianic rabbi Jonathan Cahn is best known for his novel “The Harbinger,” which asserts that the 9/11 attacks were a result of America losing God’s protection due to its sins. Cahn also:

Said Obama’s election and the affirmation of marriage equality will “accelerate” God’s judgement
Claimed that America’s defeat in the Vietnam War, economic recessions, and the September 11 attacks were all the result of divine judgment linked to the legalization of abortion in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and the funding of Planned Parenthood
Warned of purported dangers of books like the Harry Potter series, as well as gay rights laws, which he says will outlaw the Bible and ultimately “produce a Hitler or a Stalin, and the antichrist”
Predicted that God’s judgment would befall America this month, due to a number of factors including the Supreme Court’s decision on marriage equality and the jailing of Kim Davis
Prophesied that there would be some sort of cataclysmic event on September 13 of this year

Todd Starnes

Fox News commentator Todd Starnes has become notorious for filing false reports based on right-wing conspiracy theories, especially about the supposed persecution of Christians in America, which of course makes him a favorite “journalist” among conservative activists. Starnes has also:

Speculated that public school officials oppose abstinence-only programs in order to protect their “condom profits” from the “free condoms” they distribute
Asserted that Obama refuses to take action against ISIS because he wants to “accommodate the Islamic faith at the expense of all other faiths”
Said that the Supreme Court decision on marriage equality amounted to the persecution of Christians and will lead America to become like Nazi Germany
Blamed Obama for “orchestrating” the protests in Ferguson, Mo., in an effort to exacerbate racial tensions
Baselessly accused the University of Wisconsin of intentionally inflating grades to boost the academic performance of minority students
Worried that LGBT rights advocates will inevitably demand the deportation of Christians
Suggested that President Obama is secretly having a gay affair
Warned that the Obama administration and gay rights laws are ushering in tyranny, cultural cleansing, fascism and second-class citizenship for straight people
Said that defeats for anti-gay activists are a sign of “the end of days”
Compared officials who back the removal of Confederate symbols from government property to ISIS terrorists

Star Parker

Star Parker is a longtime Religious Right activist who is particularly active in anti-gay and anti-choice advocacy. She has called legal abortion a “genocide” on par with slavery and the Holocaust and blamed “sexual promiscuity” for nearly all financial and societal problems. At the 2011 Values Voter Summit, she claimed that God was getting ready to punish America for marriage equality and legal abortion. Parker has also:

Said Obama hates America and called a speech he gave “verbal rape”
Declared that LGBT people are forcing Christians “into the closet”
Mused that family life for African Americans was “more healthy” under slavery than it is today
Argued that the rate of HIV infections in Washington, D.C., would spike once the city legalized marriage equality, “transforming [the city] officially into Sodom”
Tied same-sex marriage to failing public schools

David and Jason Benham

Twin brothers Jason and David Benham were catapulted to national attention when an HGTV show that they were set to star in was cancelled following revelations about their anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-Muslim activism. Since the show’s cancellation, the brothers have become martyrs in the eyes of the Religious Right, which has lifted them up as an example of the supposed persecution of conservative Christians in America. One or both of the brothers have:

Asserted that the LGBT equality movement is part of a “spiritual fight" between God and the “kingdom run by Satan”
Compared themselves to ISIS victims
Urged the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, to deny permits to an LGBT Pride event, calling it a “vile” and “destructive” activity that “should not be allowed in our city”
Compared the fight against marriage equality to opposing Nazi Germany
Called an Islamic community center a “den of iniquity” and referred to Muslims as “the enemy attacking" America
Organized a prayer rally to coincide with the 2012 Democratic National Convention, declaring that America must repent for “homosexuality and its agenda that is attacking the nation”
Led protests outside of abortion clinics, praising anti-choice demonstrators for taking a stand at “the gates of hell” and confronting the “altars of Moloch”

Kim Davis

Kim Davis, the clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, became a Religious-Right folk hero this summer when she refused to allow her office to issue marriage licenses after the Supreme Court decision on marriage equality. Davis, saying that she was acting under “God’s authority” and wanted to use her county office to spread “God’s word,” spent five nights in jail after a federal judge found her in contempt of court for violating multiple court orders to begin issuing licenses. The viciously anti-gay group Liberty Counsel and its founder Mat Staver has been active supporters of Davis and have been representing her in court.

At the summit, Davis will receive FRC’s “Cost of Discipleship” award, which previously went to Meriam Ibrahim, a Sudanese woman who was actually persecuted for her Christian faith. Tony Perkins, the president of FRC, has previously compared Davis’ experience to that of Ibrahim, who was imprisoned for converting to Christianity and was later granted asylum in the U.S.

Casey Davis

Casey Davis (no relation to Kim Davis) is another Kentucky clerk who has refused to grant marriage licenses to gay couples. Davis called the Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality a “war on Christianity,” and vowed to go to jail — and even die — in order to protect his “freedom” to deny gay couples marriage licenses.

Brigitte Gabriel

Brigitte Gabriel is the founder and president of ACT! for America, where she works with local activists throughout the country to promote fears that Sharia law is taking hold in the U.S. and must be banned and to challenge textbooks that she believes are insufficiently critical of Islam. She makes frequent media appearances to warn of what she calls the “secret Islamification” of the West. Among other attacks on Mulsim-Americans, Gabriel has:

Implied that President Obama is secretly a Muslim and grew up “praying just like Osama bin Laden prayed”
Argued that Muslims should be banned from serving in public office because a “practicing Muslim, who believes in the teachings of the Koran, cannot be a loyal citizen to the United States of America”
Warned that Muslim Students’ Associations are waging “a stealth jihad against America through the indoctrination of our youth on college campuses”
Claimed that “[w]hat we are seeing in public schools today is basically the talking points of our enemies being fed to our sixth and seventh graders in the name of diversity and multiculturalism, teaching them about religion.”

Pat Fagan

Pat Fagan is the director of summit sponsor the Family Research Council’s Marriage and Religious Research Institute. He has compared a UN report criticizing the Vatican over its handling of sexual abuse cases to Kristallnacht, the spate of violence in which Nazis attacked Jews and destroyed their property while German police turned a blind eye, and has advocated for coming up with new names for gay marriage, such as “garriage,” “larriage” or “harriage,” so that when he says “marriage” it will be clear he means heterosexual marriage. He has said that Eisenstadt v. Baird, the Supreme Court ruling that allowed the distribution of contraception to unmarried people, may be “the single most destructive decision in the history of the Court,” explaining that “functioning” societies “punish” and “shame” people who have sex outside of marriage.

Erick Erickson

Erick Erickson is a Fox contributor and the editor of conservative blog RedState. Constantly pushing for the conservative movement to move further to the right, Erickson has:

Claimed that “biology” and the “natural world” show that women are not cut out to be breadwinners
Said that feminists are “feminazis” are “too ugly to date”
Said that he wouldn’t enroll his son in the Boy Scouts after the organization lifted its ban on gay scouts, writing that he was worried about his son “living in a society that doesn’t recognize [homosexuality] as a sin”
Called retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter a “goat-fucking child molester”
Mocked evolution as dumb and said those who believe in it are just jealous of creationists

Craig James

Former sportscaster Craig James joined the Family Research Council in 2014. In addition to claiming that Obama may secretly be a Muslim, James has:

Asserted that the LGBT community's intolerance “is going to kill America”
Failed to repudiate a radio show caller who suggested that gays be put to death
Proposed a constitutional amendment to ban the government from recognizing a trans person’s gender
Said that Satan is pushing gay rights in pro sports

Aaron & Melissa Klein

Aaron and Melissa Klein are the owners of an Oregon bakery who were sued for violating the state’s nondiscrimination laws when they refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple. They have since become Religious Right martyrs and were featured by Sen. Ted Cruz in a campaign video. Aaron Klein has said that denying a cake to a gay couple was part of his fight against “Satan.”

Ed Vitagliano

As research director of the American Family Association, Ed Vitagliano is a vocal anti-gay activist. Not only does he believe “pray away the gay” works, but he also claims that gay rights will lead to the destruction of America.

Brent Bozell

Bozell is the Founder and President of the Media Research Center, which works to expose what it claims is rampant “liberal media bias.”

Bozell has:

Said that Obama looks like “a skinny, ghetto crackhead”
Called the rapper Common’s invitation to the White House an example of the “Obamas surrounding themselves with… anti-American, American-hating people”
Claimed that children are “targets” of “gay propaganda”
Called Conan O’Brien and Lady Gaga “losers” for marrying gay couples

Boykin: Christians Are Getting 'Riled Up' About Persecution From 'Radical Secularists'

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 9/17/2015 12:55 pm

The Family Research Council's Jerry Boykin appeared on "The Hagee Hotline" this week to declare that America is starting to wake up to the fact that "radical secularists" are persecuting Christians like Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis and are beginning to get "riled up" in response.

"I will tell you that the radical secularists in this country today fear us," Boykin said, "and that's why they fight so hard against somebody like Kim Davis, because they see that America is now seeing that we're actually, in many ways, we're the victims of an all-out assault on our faith. And it is the faith of our Founding Fathers; it is, in fact, that faith upon which our Constitution was written and our nation was founded and they fear that Americans are going to get riled up and that's exactly what's happening."

'We're The Government': Jerry Boykin Says Our Government Was Founded To Be Run By Christians

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 9/8/2015 12:12 pm

The Family Research Council's Jerry Boykin joined Rick Joyner for a "special update" on Sunday where Boykin asserted that Christians must be involved in politics because the Constitution came directly out of the Bible and the Founding Fathers created our system of government to be run by Christians.

Insisting that the separation of church and state is a myth, Boykin declared that the church was primarily responsible for the success of the American Revolution and as well as the abolition of slavery and suggested that Christians who refuse to get involved in politics are cowards.

"You don't have the courage to stand for what you believe in," Boykin said, "because the church has always been a dominant factor in the politics of America and the 56 men who signed that document were men of faith. When they came back and wrote that Constitution, they wrote that Constitution and derived all of the principles out of that Constitution out of the Bible. So when you hold up a Bible, you need to hold up the Constitution right next to it and say, 'This Constitution came from this Bible and every freedom that's given in this Constitution came from the Bible.'"

"When Christians say we shouldn't be involved in politics, you've got to be kidding me," he continue. "We're the government."

Boykin: God Will Judge Gay-Affirming Pastors For Keeping People In 'Aberrant Lifestyle'

Submitted by Miranda Blue on Tuesday, 9/1/2015 11:06 am

Jerry Boykin, the retired Army general who got in trouble during the Bush administration for framing the wars in the Middle East as a Holy War between Christianity and Islam, is now the executive vice president of the Family Research Council, where he applies his fire-and-brimstone approach to theology to issues ranging from foreign policy to LGBT rights.

In a speech to FRC’s “Watchmen on the Wall” pastors’ event in Dallas last week, Boykin delivered a fiery appeal to conservative pastors to continue leading the fight against LGBT rights after the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision, in the form of “spiritual warfare” that he said would require bravery like those of his men on a failed mission to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980.

Pastors who “compromise” on LGBT rights, he warned, will be judged by God “for what they’ve done to confuse the people in this country” and keep them in “an aberrant lifestyle.”

These gay-affirming pastors, he said, just want an “easy way out” because “they don’t want to fight, they’re not warriors, they don’t have the courage.”

Boykin, who has previously said that Jesus was a real “man’s man” who will return carrying an AR-15 assault rifle, told the Watchmen pastors that Christ will come back “riding a white horse, wearing a blood-stained white robe, leading a mighty army with a sword coming out of his mouth to destroy his enemies” and will be covered with “the blood of his enemies,” ready to "slay those who have stood against him and his kingdom."

Jerry Boykin Posts Archive

The Religious Right’s Bicoastal Political Prayer Rally Weekend

SUBMITTED BY: Peter Montgomery, Friday 04/08/2016, 1:20pm

Two major prayer rallies organized by Religious Right figures are being held on Saturday —one at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., and one in Los Angeles. The two events will be linked with a simulcast “Bridge to Prayer.” The Washington event, United Cry DC 16, is scheduled to run for seven hours and will be broadcast on GodTV. It features an impressive number of familiar Religious Right figures, including Tony Perkins, Jerry Boykin, Harry Jackson, Samuel Rodriguez, Jim Garlow, Alveda King and E.W. Jackson. Joining them will be bestselling doomsday author and “... MORE >

Cruz Advisers: Obama Using 'White Privilege And Nonsense Like That' To Weaken The Military

SUBMITTED BY: Miranda Blue, Friday 04/08/2016, 11:41am

The Center for Security Policy’s Frank Gaffney and the Family Research Council’s Jerry Boykin, both national security advisors to Sen. Ted Cruz, discussed on Gaffney’s radio program yesterday how they believe President Obama is, perhaps intentionally, weakening the military by allowing women in combat and training troops on what Boykin called “white privilege and nonsense like that.” Gaffney asked Boykin if he thought that “the policies that the president has been pursuing” that he claimed have “diminished the readiness” of the military... MORE >

Jim Bakker Would Not Be Surprised If The Government Stormed His Studio And Arrested Him For Teaching The Bible

SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Monday 04/04/2016, 1:38pm

Televangelist Jim Bakker interviewed the Family Research Council's Jerry Boykin on his television program last week, where the two warned that if Christians don't start standing up for their religious liberty, then all the freedoms in America will soon be lost. Boykin asserted that the government no longer recognizes "freedom of religion" and will only protect the "freedom of worship," meaning that Christians are allowed to believe in their faith but are prohibited from actually practicing that faith in the public square, just as happened in Nazi Germany. "In... MORE >

The Year Bryan Fischer Became 'Mainstream'

SUBMITTED BY: Miranda Blue, Tuesday 03/29/2016, 2:23pm

Cruz's Call To 'Patrol And Secure Muslim Neighborhoods' Echoes Demands Of Extremist Advisers

SUBMITTED BY: Miranda Blue, Tuesday 03/22/2016, 1:39pm

Sen. Ted Cruz reacted to the terrorist attacks in Brussels today by saying that the U.S. should “empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized,” a vague proposal with troubling civil liberties implications. It should hardly be surprising that Cruz made such a statement, however, since he has recently named as national security advisers several activists who have called for the severe curtailing of civil liberties for American Muslims. One of Cruz’s new national security advisers, Family Research Council official Jerry... MORE >

Glenn Beck And Jerry Boykin Say Electing Trump Or Clinton Would Be National Suicide

SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Wednesday 03/16/2016, 11:53am

On Monday's television show, Glenn Beck aired an interview that he conducted with the Family Research Council's Jerry Boykin when the two men were in Ohio last weekend campaigning for Ted Cruz. During the discussion, the two agreed that the election of either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton would mean that America has reached rock bottom and decided to commit national suicide. After Beck complained that Christians are being mocked for believing, as he does, that Ted Cruz has been raised up by God for this moment, he and Boykin worried that America has not yet reached the point where... MORE >

Boykin's Defense of 'Religious Freedom' Includes Violent Anti-Trans Rhetoric

SUBMITTED BY: Peter Montgomery, Tuesday 03/08/2016, 10:16am

Jerry Boykin Falsely Claims 'The Naked Communist' Was Written And Published By The Communist Party USA

SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Monday 03/07/2016, 2:54pm

Rick Joyner was joined by the Family Research Council's Jerry Boykin on the most recent episode of his "Prophetic Perspective on Current Events" program, where the two lamented that young people are supporting the Bernie Sanders campaign because they have been inculcated with socialism by the public school system. "The socialists had a systematic plan for taking over our educational system and they have pretty much done it," Joyner said, adding that students today "were educated by socialists to be socialists." Boykin agreed, saying that communists in America... MORE >

Browse By:

Jerry Boykin

The Religious Right’s Bicoastal Political Prayer Rally Weekend

Cruz Advisers: Obama Using 'White Privilege And Nonsense Like That' To Weaken The Military

Jim Bakker Would Not Be Surprised If The Government Stormed His Studio And Arrested Him For Teaching The Bible

The Year Bryan Fischer Became 'Mainstream'

Cruz's Call To 'Patrol And Secure Muslim Neighborhoods' Echoes Demands Of Extremist Advisers

Glenn Beck And Jerry Boykin Say Electing Trump Or Clinton Would Be National Suicide

Boykin's Defense of 'Religious Freedom' Includes Violent Anti-Trans Rhetoric

Jerry Boykin Falsely Claims 'The Naked Communist' Was Written And Published By The Communist Party USA

CPAC Welcomes Back Conspiracy Theorists – And Not Just Donald Trump

Right Wing Bonus Tracks - 2/24/16

Ted Cruz Announces Endorsement From Jerry Boykin, Anti-Muslim, Anti-Gay Conspiracy Theorist

Tony Perkins' Selective Posturing on Religious Liberty

Religious Right: Bible Dictates Laws & Economic Policy But Islam Not a Religion Because It Is A Political & Economic System

Religious Right Leader Reportedly Used Unwitting Missionaries As Spies, Endangering Christian Aid Workers

Perkins: 'Emasculation Of Our Culture' Leading To Women In Military

FRC Spox & Rick Wiles Blame Obama, Right Wing Watch For UCC Shooting; Liken RWW To ISIS & Al Qaeda

Who's Who At The Values Voter Summit 2015

Boykin: Christians Are Getting 'Riled Up' About Persecution From 'Radical Secularists'

'We're The Government': Jerry Boykin Says Our Government Was Founded To Be Run By Christians

Boykin: God Will Judge Gay-Affirming Pastors For Keeping People In 'Aberrant Lifestyle'

Jerry Boykin Posts Archive

Share this post

Trending Topics

RWW Social Media

Most Popular

On Twitter

RWW Global Footer Menu

Browse By Date