Jesse Lee Peterson

Conservative columnist and frequent Fox News guest Jesse Lee Peterson today asserted that he is “certain without a doubt that Barack Hussein Obama is NOT a Christian.” Peterson, head of Brotherhood Organization Of A New Destiny, agreed with Rick Santorum’s remarks on how Satan is attacking the United States and even went on to link Satan to Obama’s election in 2008: “I do agree with Santorum that this is a 'spiritual war' and that 'Satan is targeting the U.S.' which is precisely why I believe Barack Obama was selected and elected.” He said that Obama is “an American hating Socialist” who is “more in harmony with Muhammad than he is with Christ”:

"I am certain without a doubt that Barack Hussein Obama is NOT a Christian. It's unfortunate that Rev. Graham and Rick Santorum won't be completely honest about Barack Obama even though his deeds are contrary to Christian values.

"Both these men oppose Obama's recent contraceptive mandate and assault on the Christian conscience. They know that for 20 years Obama worshipped in Rev. Jeremiah Wright's racist Black Liberation Theology-based church. They fully grasp the spiritual connection America has with Israel and see that Obama is no friend of the Jewish State. Rev. Graham has said that Obama is more concerned with the plight of Muslims than the Christians that are being murdered in the Muslim countries. Still these Christian leaders cannot tell the truth about Obama. Why?

"I do agree with Santorum that this is a 'spiritual war' and that 'Satan is targeting the U.S.' which is precisely why I believe Barack Obama was selected and elected. I'm convinced that the weak-kneed timidity that's preventing many white conservative Christians from pointing out Obama's wickedness is a result of their fear of being labeled 'racist.'

"Evil understands that most white Christians have been intimidated and are too afraid to stand up to it. Especially when it is operating in the form of an American hating Socialist black president who appears to be more in harmony with Muhammad than he is with Christ."

• FRC is urging activists to contact the Members of Congress and get them to "intervene in the ongoing litigation challenging DOMA."
• Bryan Fischer says the DOMA decision is "inexcusable and even impeachable" and proof that Obama is "no patriot and is a clear and present danger to his own country."
• But apparently, the fact that the Obama administration will not defend DOMA is good news for the Religious Right because "DOMA will now get a much better defense."
• Roy Moore has been traveling to Iowa a lot lately, but unfortunately he's not running for president.
• Jesse Lee Peterson flips out over news that churches are allowing Muslims to use their buildings.
• Finally, Janet Porter's "Heartbeat Bill" has now been officially introduced in Ohio.

• Ten Commandments judge Roy Moore finished fourth in Alabama's Republican primary for Governor.
• Anti-gay Utah State Sen. Chris Buttars had heart surgery, but expects to return to work after the summer.
• CBN's David Brody profiles Andrew Breitbart.
• BOND's Jesse Lee Peterson was tossed out of a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting for protesting the Board's decision to boycott Arizona over the state's immigration law.
• Randall Terry reports that his television program is being picked up by more carriers.
• Why does Politico keep giving Gary Bauer space to place these sorts of moronic op-eds?
• CWA's Penny Nance calls investigative reporter Joe McGinniss, who moved in next to Sarah Palin, a "peeping tom."
• Finally, if you are going to claim that your father "died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany," it is your fault when people mistakenly think you meant he died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany instead of ten years after World War II ended in California.

• Congratulations to Peter LaBarbera, whose Americans for Truth has reportedly made it onto the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of anti-gay hate groups.
• Oklahoma lawmakers have decided it was necessary to take action to prevent the implementation of Sharia law.
• Those Tea Partiers such are a delightful crowd.
• New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms sure take their "counter-punch" rhetoric seriously.
• Who cares what Jesse Lee Peterson has to say about anything?  Sean Hannity does.
• Congratulations to David Weigel, who has been hired by the Washington Post.
• Finally, behold Michele Bachmann, "Amaricas Congress Woman."

• AMERICAblog: Maine's Catholic Church donations to anti-gay campaign top $550,000.
• Good As You: What did we ever do to Calvary Chapel?!?
• Why does Sean Hannity keep bringng Jesse Lee Peterson on his program?
• And why do people not named "Reagan" feel free to keep claiming the mantle of Reagan over people actually named "Reagan"?
• Finally, who started this "war"?

The last time I wrote about Jesse Lee Peterson of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND) I noted that he had managed to carve out a rather unique niche for himself among right-wing activists:

Peterson, who is black, has carved out a niche for himself as an outspoken foe of racism ... or rather, an outspoken foe of black racism which, in his view, is the same thing as being a Democrat, like when he declares that Barack Obama was elected president thanks to the votes of "black racists and white guilty people" and proclaims that black ministers who supported Obama were leading their congregations straight to hell.

Conversely, when it comes to white racism, Peterson tends to serve primarily an apologist for the likes of Michael Richards or Duane “Dog” Chapman.

In Peterson's world, all Democrats are racist, except for African America Democrats, who are actually Black supremacists who out to intimidate conservatives and Republicans (who are totally not racists) into silence for fear of being called racist. 

This niche must be quite lucrative for Peterson because he is still producing columns (for WorldNetDaily, naturally) spewing this sort of nonsense - like this one:

Barack Obama hates white people – especially white men.

That is the very first line, and it just gets better from there:

A growing number of Americans were questioning his out-of-control spending ($1 trillion in six months), but they didn't see him as racially polarizing. That all changed after he weighed in on the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and accused the white cops of racial profiling without knowing the facts. For the first time he spoke from his heart without the aid of a teleprompter, and we saw the real Barack Obama.

Barack Obama is Jeremiah Wright Jr. He is the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus! He embodies the aspirations of every left-wing black group that wants to tear down this country and take power away from the "oppressive" white man. He's not an obvious race hustler like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson; but Obama is a smooth pathological liar – with a wicked heart.

...

Barack Obama is dividing the races like no other president in history ... Both Obama and his friend Henry Louis Gates are racist ... President Obama spoke of this being a teachable moment, and it certainly is for white Americans. The lesson is that they need to speak up or lose their country!

Allow me to also point out that not only do right-wing rags like WND give Peterson a platform to spew this nonsense, he and his BOND organization were recently tapped to join the Religious Right umbrella coalition calling itself The Freedom Federation, along with groups like the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, Eagle Forum, Family Research Council, and several others.

• The New York Times examines the factors at work behind Sarah Palin's sudden resignation.
• Mike Huckabee says its unfair to call Palin a "quitter" while predicting that Mark Sanford's political career is over.
• The ACLU is taking a look at Sally Kern's "proclamation for morality."
• Rick Scarborough has found a new crusade: Obama's various czars, which he complains "are unelected and unaccountable [and] have too much money and power, and are remaking America in ways none of us could have imagined."
• Jesse Lee Peterson lambastes Michael Jackson's memorial service saying it was all "about unrealistically lifting up a black Michael as the 'king' in order to lift up blacks, and, in so doing, lowering the value of the hated white man."
• Personhood advocates claim their movement is gaining momentum.
• Ted Cruz, who is running for Texas Attorney General, unveils a list of endorsements and backers [PDF] that includes, Cathie Adams of the President of Texas Eagle Forum, Kelly Shackelford of the Free Market Foundation, Jay Sekulow of the ACLJ, David Barton of Wallbuilders, Tim Goeglein of Focus on the Family Action and many other right-wing figures.
• Finally, Harry Jackson, Niger Innis, Dr. William Owens, Sr, Bishop Dale Bronner and Pastor Terry Millender have penned a letter to President Obama urging him to fight the "disintegration of marriage" by saving DOMA and opposing marriage equality:

Changing the definition of marriage will have many unintended consequences, which will hurt generations to come. If one redefines marriage, then the family is redefined. If the family is redefined then the nature of parenting must also be redefined.

“We are concerned that an attempt to recognize and adjust to one group’s sense of alienation may actually confuse future generations of children about their sexuality and blur lines of responsibility in our families. The very definitions of motherhood and fatherhood may be unnecessarily challenged in years to come.

“Same-sex marriage is not a civil right. The laws enacted by Congress during a century of struggle for equal rights for African Americans were intended to eliminate discrimination on the basis of race, not on the basis of an individual’s sexual preferences or personal behavior.

Today we are starting a new feature highlighting other good posts from progressive blogs that relate to the issues we work on.  

So, without further ado: 

• The Texas Freedom Network has released it’s annual “The State of the Religious Right” report, which explains that while some “might assume the religious right’s influence [in the state] will be much weaker in the 81st Legislature ... that would be wrong … the religious right will not easily give up its long-standing influence over public policy.”

• Media Matters catches BOND’s Jesse Lee Peterson declaring that “most black Americans, 96 percent of them, are racists who (unintelligible) white Americans. And white folks feel guilty and they are afraid of being called racists.” Pam's House Blend has more.

• Good as You highlights Tony Perkins voicing concerns about new RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

• Tips-Q takes on Matt Barber's latest insanity.

• Sarah Posner points to Focus on the Family's Stuart Shepard asserting “that conservatives' failure to speak up for poor Rush Limbaugh in the face of the fascistic criticism from all those ‘wild-eyed liberals’ is like not speaking up against Nazism.”

• Finally, Dan Schultz (aka Pastor Dan) writes in Religion Dispatches that efforts to find a common ground between conservative, moderate, and liberal Christians tend to overlook the basic fact that the views of each group are often antithetical to one another and that “to think that they can be resolved in due time around the kitchen table not only underestimates their importance, it underestimates the people behind them.”

You just know that when Jesse Lee Peterson of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND) releases a statement, it is going to be something ridiculous ... and once again he doesn't disappoint:

According to BOND ACTION, Inc, Founder and President, Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, the Obama campaign and its surrogates have knowingly used race as a wedge issue to scare black voters and mischaracterize Republican positions on the issues. Rev. Peterson said today, "If the McCain campaign doesn't start aggressively combating these false allegations it will cost them the election" ... Rev. Peterson said, "Democrats are using the same racially charged scare tactics used by white segregationists in the past to antagonize the races. This is shameless and dangerous, and we have a moral duty to point it out."

Peterson, a right-wing African American activist, has built an entire career out of calling African American Democrats racists while defending white people who are actually ... you know ... racist, like Michael Richards:

By not allowing whites to express themselves, it only drives the problem underground and forces people to keep these emotions bottled up -- in essence, the politically correct culture is helping to create people like Michael Richards!"

And Duane Chapman:

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, Founder and President of BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, issued the following statement today congratulating Duane “Dog” Chapman and his fans on the news that plans are in the works to resume production of the hit show “Dog The Bounty Hunter.” A&E suspended the show on October 31 after a tape of Duane using a racial slur to describe his son’s girlfriend was sold to the Enquirer. Since the incident, Duane Chapman has worked closely with conservative black organizations such as BOND and CORE to reach out to the black community.

The following is Rev. Peterson’s statement about this developing story: “Congratulations to Duane Chapman and his family. Duane is not a racist. We’re happy to learn that A&E is planning to resume production of ‘Dog The Bounty Hunter,’ which should have never been suspended.

Back in 2005, Max Blumenthal wrote a good profile of Peterson that explains the role he plays in the right-wing movement:

In late February, inside a sterile conference hall at Washington's premier conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, a crowd of no more than seventy took off their snow-flecked coats and settled in for an afternoon with a group of speakers billed as "The New Black Vanguard." Perched on a platform above the audience, the speakers promptly launched a barrage of attacks on the civil rights establishment and "the entertainment-industrial complex." At first the audience seemed disengaged, even a bit overwhelmed by the cacophony of blustery rhetoric. Then the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson piped up. "W.E.B. Du Bois was a communist, socialist pig," Peterson crowed. A few of his fellow panelists blanched at his overheated language. But once the shock subsided, laughter rippled through the previously mute crowd, followed by vigorous applause.

It was vintage Peterson. Throughout his fifteen-year career as a right-wing evangelical minister, Peterson has never shied from bombastic assaults on targets ranging from civil rights leaders to liberal Democrats to undocumented immigrants. But while Peterson's strident style may be unique, with his extremist politics he is merely playing the role of front man for a murky, well-funded network of white nationalist activists and right-wing Beltway operatives. By deploying Peterson to gatherings like the Heritage event and into the media, this coterie of conservatives have been able to apply a bold veneer of blackness over the brand of bigotry they find increasingly inconvenient to espouse on their own. Peterson has no professional or political accomplishments to speak of, beyond directing a small inner-city aid ministry and hosting a radio show syndicated on a handful of AM stations across the country. To his sponsors, though, that's irrelevant; it is his immunity from charges of racism that matters.