Louie Gohmert

Fox News correspondent Todd Starnes likes to report on culture war issues and frequently highlights examples of supposed anti-Christian persecution. He plucks the examples from Religious Right media outlets, which then turn around and point to Starnes’ Fox News stories for validation.

Fox example, one recent Starnes story alleged that a New York school was forcing girls to kiss each other as part of an anti-bullying seminar. But the ‘forced lesbianism’ story was baseless [PDF], and the school superintendent had to write to Starnes to urge him to, you know, report stories accurately [PDF].

In another instance of shoddy journalism, Starnes claimed that the military was deliberately blocking access to a Southern Baptist website as part of a “Christian cleansing” of the armed forces by the Obama administration. Well, as it turns out, the website was automatically blocked over malware issues and the Southern Baptist Convention’s own director of information systems acknowledged that there was malware on the SBC website, not any anti-Christian animus in the military, was responsible for the mishap.

So it came as no surprise to learn that a new Starnes column about the military getting ready to court martial Christians, since picked up by organizations like the Family Research Council, was also completely groundless.

Starnes contends that Obama administration officials are working with church-state separation activists to begin kicking Christians out of the military and cracking down on their religious freedom.

As Warren Throckmorton points out, the Defense Department guidelines on proselytizing and religious bias that has so enraged Starnes and others was actually put in place in 2008 during the Bush administration and the language clearly “draws a distinction between simply speaking about one’s faith and coercion.” Throckmorton also notes that Starnes twisted a statement from a Pentagon spokesman “to make it seem as though the outcome of religious proselytizing cases would be court martial.”

The Tennessean and Stars and Stripes have also debunked the story, but don’t tell Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), who in an interview with Starnes said that Obama is trying to make Christian service members leave their faith:

“Under President Obama’s military you are no longer allowed to share your faith,” he said – noting that the policy is putting Christians in a tough position. “Do you follow President Obama or do you follow God and the teachings of Jesus?”

“That’s pretty tough when your commander in chief puts you on the horn for that dilemma,” he added.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) similarly told Tony Perkins on Washington Watch earlier this week called the story “yet another attack on religious liberty that we’ve seen from the Obama administration.”

Perkins: The idea that members of the military who share their faith, directly or indirectly, could be potentially court martialed, is this stunning or what?

Scalise: It’s frightening and shocking. Unfortunately it is yet another attack on religious liberty that we’ve seen from the Obama administration and it’s just been an endless assault from so many different angles. Of course it comes off the heels of the FDA approving the morning-after pill. There are just so many things that this administration is doing that go against a lot of the Christian beliefs that this country was founded upon and I think it really needs to be pushed back hard on.

While the victimhood narrative of oppressed white straight evangelicals is beloved by the Religious Right and trumpeted by Fox News, conservative activists may want to at least try to find real incidents of persecution and real journalists if they want people to ever believe them.

Last week, Frank Gaffney spoke to Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) to discuss immigration reform and the government’s response to the Boston Marathon attack. Gohmert, who has cited the bombing as a reason to oppose comprehensive immigration reform, told Gaffney that “millions” of immigrants will be “rushing in” over the border if Congress is poised to pass legislation that includes a pathway to citizenship.

He even said that President Obama is “not going to ever secure the border” until Congress gives legal status to people who will “vote Democrat.”

It is time to slow down and make sure we do things properly so that we don’t bring in and legalize millions of people who will come rushing in as soon as there is a bill before the borders can be secured they’ll come rushing in. Instead we’ll have the President say, ‘gee I’m going to hold my doing my job for ransom, you either give me all these people that I think will vote Democrat and make them legal so they can vote Democrat or I’m not going to ever secure the border.’ That’s ridiculous. We all ought to stand firm. You secure the border so only legal people can come in and then we’ll have a deal done in a week, no more than a month.

While addressing the FBI’s work in Boston, Gohmert said that it was “amazing” that the FBI was able to do any investigative work at all because, according to Gohmert, they are being advised by “Muslim Brotherhood members.”

He said that the Obama administration is promoting “radical Islam” and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and in the US, maintaining that “Muslim Brotherhood advisers” have made it “virtually impossible to properly and adequately investigate and defend this country.”

The FBI did an amazing job, really terrific job, considering as how they virtually and figuratively bound their own hands and blindfolded themselves while they are trying to investigate something involving radical Islamists. We know that most Muslims are moderate; I continue to have people approach me that I’ve never seen or met that identify themselves as being from Egypt, some still having family there and some not, and pointing out that we’re helping the wrong people, you’re helping the radicals, you’re helping the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt would you please stop, you’re hurting those of us who don’t want radical Islam running our country, we want our Egypt back. But that’s what we’ve been doing.

The FBI, on the same token, they have brought as you know what the Dallas federal court and the fifth circuit court of appeals identified as the two largest Muslim Brotherhood front organizations in America, CAIR and ISNA, and so you know they have been working with them, they have been advised by CAIR. They finally suspended their so-called partnership with CAIR but you have Muslim Brotherhood members who have advised the FBI and have been telling them things that just simply make it virtually impossible to properly and adequately investigate and defend this country. The job they did was really amazing considering the fact that they have purged their lexicon of any words that Muslim Brotherhood advisers have told them that they find offensive.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) defended the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on gay members today by pointing to the scandal surrounding former Republican congressman Mark Foley, who sent sexually explicit messages to several teenage male congressional pages.

Gohmert, who was filling in for Family Research Council president Tony Perkins on the Washington Watch radio program, accused Rep. Nancy Pelosi of hypocrisy because she condemned Foley’s actions but opposes the Boy Scouts’ ban.

Gohmert later agreed with John Stemberger, the Religious Right activist leading the campaign against gay Boy Scouts, when he said that allowing gays in the Boy Scouts would lead to the end of the program and “if scouting dies, part of the fabric of America dies.”

Gohmert: Back when there was a scandal in the House, I guess there was some left-wing group that had found out and then they sat on it for about a year and then right before the election released this story about one of our members from Florida making inappropriate advances toward eight pages, under age. And I heard Representative from San Francisco, Ms. Pelosi, making this speech on the Floor and the thing that really heartened me was because of the things she said I went to the Floor after her and said I am so gratified to know that Ms. Pelosi will now be helping us in maintaining the current position of the Boy Scouts and help us fight off the effort for Boy Scouts based on the things she has said about what’s happened with the page program. But apparently the things she had to say were only to condemn Republicans in an opportune movement that had nothing to do with being consistent when it came to the Boy Scout program…. Any other thoughts or observations, things you would want to encourage our listeners to do after hearing this broadcast?

Stemberger: Yes we have a simulcast coming up right at FRC studios, Sunday, May 5, it’s Stand with Scouts Sunday. We want to get folks all over the country to stand with scouting, especially folks in the program, it’s going to be an hour long program, we want folks to meet a half hour before and a half hour afterwards to organize because we’re going to have rallies around the country. That’s Sunday night, May 5 from 7-8, we want folks to gather at 6:30 and then the meeting will be over by 8:30. It will be a time to meet folks of other like mind. This is our opportunity. Look, scouting is one of the jewels of American culture; if scouting dies, part of the fabric of America dies.

Gohmert: It does.

Stemberger: Those of us who feel passionate about this, we need to fight to make sure we preserve scouting in America.

Gohmert: Yeah.

Later in the show, Gohmert told a listener named Jimmy, who warned the BSA against approving a proposal that would allow openly gay youth to join the Scouts, that homosexuality violates the Ten Commandments and as a result churches that host scout troops won’t go along with the new policy.

Gohmert blamed state and local governments for pressuring BSA to shift on the issue of gay membership. He said they’re accepting of Satanists but punish BSA simply for holding the same belief that “was contained in so many of the references to the lifestyle back among the Founders.”

Scouting has always had people who figured out they were attracted to people of the same-sex but what is being demanded is to be allowed to openly practice this. Jimmy makes the great point that so many of the scout troops, I don’t know what percentage it is but I know in East Texas so many of the troops are sponsored by churches who believe the Ten Commandments and when it says ‘thou shalt not commit adultery’ that means not having relations outside of marriage between a man and a woman. So this would once again be the government—well, government has helped push pressure, there are some state and local governments that have been preventing scouts from using their parks. You can have all kinds of weird beliefs, Satanic or whatever, and you can use the parks but they have made clear if you are a part of the Boy Scouts of America and believe what was contained in so many of the references to the lifestyle back among the Founders then Heaven help you they don’t want you to have anything to do with their parks.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) stopped by The Blaze today to weigh in on the Boston Marathon bombing and the on-going hunt for the suspect at-large. During the discussion, he stated that Osama bin Laden had set up terrorist training camps in Chechnya for the purpose of targeting America and so all Chechens who have come to this country need to be investigated and deported "if there is any violence in their background."

The lesson that this entire saga is sending to potential terrorists, Gohmert said, is that "this administration will not eliminate people who are here and have even shown violence in this country, that if you can just get into this country - and shoot, the President may even give you amnesty, just get here however you can and then you may be able to shut down an entire city also and then do what Osama bin Laden charged Chechnyans (sic) to do many years ago and that is train so you can go kill Americans and other westerners":

Earlier this year, Rick Scarborough of Vision America launched a new organization called Tea Party Unity, which seeks to become a "unique clearinghouse and town hall forum where various existing Tea Party leaders can communicate and exchange ideas to help all Tea Parties become more effective."

Scarborough is a notoriously vociferous anti-gay activist, the sort who insists on referring to gay people as "sodomites" and proclaiming that AIDS is God's punishment ... so, of course, one of the first people to participate in a conference call promoting Scarborough's new effort was none of than Rep. Louie Gohmert.

During the course of the call, Gohmert was asked about his opposition to any gun control legislation, which he explained by bizarrely linking the topic to gay marriage and bestiality:

In fact, I had this discussion with some wonderful, caring Democrats earlier this week on the issue of, well, they said "surely you could agree to limit the number of rounds in a magazine, couldn't you? How would that be problematic?"

...

And I pointed out, well, once you make it ten, then why would you draw the line at ten? What's wrong with nine? Or eleven? And the problem is once you draw that limit ; it's kind of like marriage when you say it's not a man and a woman any more, then why not have three men and one woman, or four women and one man, or why not somebody has a love for an animal? 

There is no clear place to draw the line once you eliminate the traditional marriage and it's the same once you start putting limits on what guns can be used, then it's just really easy to have laws that make them all illegal.

Earlier in the discussion, Gohmert called on Christians to take a more active role in politics ... because otherwise their churches are going to be forced to hire cross-dressing Satan-worshipers:

You need to educate yourselves on the issues. You need to understand that when there is a law being pushed, as it has for several years, that says that religious institutions should not be exempt from discrimination laws, that it is going to devastate the church, the synagogue, the places of worship that hire people because ultimately they're saying you have to hire whatever Satan-worshiper, whatever cross-dresser you think might be immoral, that's against your religious belief.  You are going to be forced to abandon your religious beliefs, and we've been seeing that with some of the requirements under Obamacare.

The freedom of the church is at risk nowadays ... Law always reflects someone's morality, so if Christians are not involved in making sure it reflects their morality as a majority, according to polls, then it's going to reflect a lack of morality or some immorality.  So the law will reflect somebody's and it better be the majorities that believe in God.

• Igor Volsky @ Think Progress: Rubio: Denying Marriage To Gays ‘Does Not Make Me A Bigot.’
• Pema Levy @ TPM: Dick Morris Delivers Bad News To Republicans: Give Up On Roe V. Wade.
• Michelangelo Signorile @ Huffington Post: Louie Gohmert At CPAC: Texas Rep Says Gay Marriage Puts U.S. 'On Road To Dust Bin Of History.'
• Rachel Tabachnick @ Talk To Action: Author of Christian Dominionist Textbook Plays Role of Thomas Jefferson on Fox News.
• Dan @ TFN Insider: Texas Attorney General Shouldn’t Stand with Extremists.
• Warren Throckmorton @ World Magazine: Getting history right.

• The Republican Party’s approval rating continues to nose-dive. 

• Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) warns that gun safety laws will make us more susceptible to Sharia law. 

• Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) offers some extraordinarily bad logic in his letter asking the Obama administration to withdraw Chuck Hagel’s nomination. 

• Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman makes the conservative case for marriage equality. 

• Fox News loves Dr. Benjamin Carson.

• Denny Burk of the Southern Baptist Convention claims that critics of pastor Robert Jeffress seek “to marginalize Christianity itself.”

• American Family Asssociation spokesman Bryan Fischer puts it more bluntly: “If Tim Tebow doesn’t reverse field here, much more than his NFL career is in jeopardy.”

• Joe Strupp @ Media Matters: Dick Armey Dishes On FreedomWorks’ Deals with Beck & Limbaugh. 

• Matthew Yglesias @ Slate: Sen. John Cornyn’s Outrageous Op-Ed on the Debt Ceiling.

• Alex Koppelman @ The New Yorker: The GOP’s Sandy Problem.

• Scott Keyes @ Think Progress: Republican Congressman Claims Hammers Could Be Outlawed Under Assault Weapons Ban. 

• Jeremy Hooper @ Good As You: Hubristic Thomas More Law Center claim discrimination is victimized position.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) spoke to anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney yesterday on Secure Freedom Radio where he alleged that the Obama administration actively aided Al Qaeda and follows the advice of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Texas congressman partnered with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and a group of Republicans to demand investigations of Muslim Americans serving in the administration, with Bachmann warning that Muslim Brotherhood secret agents have successfully conducted “deep penetration” of the U.S. government. After the witch hunt was roundly criticized by Democrats and Republicans alike, Bachmann ended up literally running away from reporters.

But Gaffney and Gohmert remained defenders of the witch hunt, with Gaffney accusing Speaker John Boehner of “parroting the Muslim Brotherhood line” and Gohmert claiming that Obama “has helped jump-start a new Ottoman Empire.”

Yesterday, Gohmert told Gaffney that the anti-Muslim investigations are needed more than ever, arguing that Obama made such “horrendous decisions” by backing “revolutions in Northern Africa and across the Middle East and to the Far East” that it is likely because the “administration had a bunch of Muslim Brotherhood members giving them advice.”

Gaffney: Congressman Gohmert let me just ask you quickly because you were one of five members of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich called you all the National Security Five, who back in June of this year wrote letters to Inspectors General of five different departments raising the question that some of these dismal policies that have resulted in the Obama administration embracing Islamists at home as well as abroad and finding itself I would argue squarely on the wrong side of history as far as freedom is concerned, may be a function of these Muslim Brotherhood associated individuals who are serving in or advising the Obama administration. Looking at what’s happening now, looking at what has developed since you wrote those letters, do you feel that that issue should be raised anew and much more aggressively as Congress looks into the fiasco in Benghazi and now more recently in Egypt?

Gohmert: Absolutely. I think it almost makes a prima facie case when you look at the decisions made by this administration over the last couple of years, or actually all four years. You look at the decisions it made especially in the last two years in going through the revolutions in Northern Africa and across the Middle East and to the Far East, and the only way you can explain the horrendous decisions that were so completely wrongheaded would be if this administration had a bunch of Muslim Brotherhood members giving them advice.

Gohmert, of “terror babies” distinction, later maintained that Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood take over Libya (they didn’t) thanks to help from the Obama administration and also talked about how Palestinians are actually a new group because they didn’t live in the area when King David ruled.

It wasn’t enough to send verbal accolades; this administration sent planes and bombs and support to oust Gadhafi so that Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood could take over Libya. Some of us were fussing about it back then but we faced what was then ‘all the rage’ and that was you know Muslim Brotherhood taking over, call it Arab Spring, call it Arab Winter, whatever you want to, but it was disastrous unless you were wanting a new Ottoman Empire to take place and that’s what this administration helped jump start. So with that same kind of spirit and enthusiasm and excitement that we saw from this administration as Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood took over in Libya and has now taken over in Egypt, now we’re seeing that for the Morsi brokered temporary peace. There is not going to be any peace in the Middle East until the Palestinians—and Newt Gingrich is right, that’s a relatively new term, they certainly weren’t around 3,000 years ago when King David was ruling from Hebron for seven years and then Jerusalem.