Mark Sanford

• The Minnesota State House today approved marriage equality legislation. 

• But according to Brian Brown, Minnesota’s marriage equality bill will cause “incredible social damage” and also “hurts the economy.” 

• Richard Land warns that if the immigration reform bill includes protections for same-sex couples then “most, if not all of us, would have to oppose it.” 

• The Family Research Council is asking people to pray for churches that “have abandoned the Bible” and “religious adversaries” like Mikey Weinstein, warning that “the worst can be averted only by national repentance and God-sent Awakening.”

• William Murray says what we have known for a very long time: “By backing Mark Sanford, or by saying nothing to stop his re-ascendancy, the social conservative leaders of the Christian right have declared that they are Republicans first and moral leaders maybe second, third or fourth.”

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley will announce shortly that she has picked Rep. Tim Scott to replace Senator Jim DeMint, who is leaving to head up the right-wing Heritage Foundation. DeMint’s imminent retirement is seen by many as a setback for the Tea Party, which had a genuine champion in DeMint, and a sign that the movement’s best days are behind it. But the Tea Party is still raging in South Carolina, and Scott is poised to become its new Senate standard-bearer.

Tim Scott was elected to Congress in 2010, becoming the first African-American Republican to represent South Carolina since Reconstruction (when the party of the Lincoln was still the party of Lincoln). Scott served for over a decade on the Charleston County Council before serving briefly in the state house. While he gained statewide – and now national – attention as a darling of the Tea Party movement, he has a far more extensive background as a cultural warrior for the Religious Right.

With Scott poised to replace DeMint in the Senate, we’re going to explore his extreme, and frequently bizarre, record. Be sure to read Peter’s primer on Scott from earlier today.

Scott made the leap from the county council to state house in 2008 with major backing from then-Governor Mark Sanford. Sanford was a family values conservative and rising star in the national GOP until he was caught eloping with his Argentine mistress. Sanford famously claimed that he had been hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Before he did all that, Sanford vouched for Scott’s sterling conservative credentials in an open letter posted to Scott’s campaign website:

I wanted to write to you today to let you know about a friend of mine who is running for the State House of Representatives who needs our help.

Tim Scott is a consistent conservative who will carry our values to the State House. […]

Tim is also a proven social conservative who will stand up for the family values that help to make our state a great place to live and work.

Because of his strong stands on conservative issues, I have endorsed Tim’s candidacy for the House.  Today, I am asking for you to join us in supporting Tim, both with your vote and with your financial contributions. 

And when Scott ran for Congress in 2010, he enjoyed strong backing and an endorsement from Sarah Palin:

Tim is a pro-life, pro-2nd Amendment, pro-development, Commonsense Conservative who’s been endorsed by the Club for Growth because of his solid commitment to the principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility. […]

“I am excited to receive the support of Sarah Palin. She has been a trailblazer for the conservative cause and tea party movement going on across the nation. We share the same values of limited government, less spending and being a champion for our Constitution.”

Michele Bachmann also gushed over Scott last year during the GOP presidential primary: “All of us in Washington, D.C., are extremely proud of you for choosing the right man to send from Charleston up to Washington. We love Tim Scott!”

Bachmann and Palin clearly have good reason to be excited about a Senator Tim Scott. Republican leaders, on the other hand, may soon find that they have a new liability on their hands. Keep an eye on Right Wing Watch for more coverage of Scott’s record.

• Interesting info: Mass Resistance started up in 1993 in Cardinal Bernard Law's residence with a bunch of people from around the state. It was mostly clergy and other related people who wanted to talk about issues having to do with the culture wars and after a series of months, Mr. Camenker was elected to run the group in late 1993. In 1994, they named themselves the "Interfaith Coalition." Later, after same sex marriage became law in the state, a blogger in the group set a up a site called "Mass Resistance," and the group changed the name. Right before that, they were known as the "Parent's Rights Coalition."
• You know what the White House needs?  Someone with "Divine Integrity."
• For some reason, the Washington Post thought it was a good use of space to let Sarah Palin write an op-ed about Copenhagen and climate change.
• Anti-immigration hero and Hazleton mayor Lou Barletta is mounting yet another challenge to Rep. Paul Kanjorski.
• It looks like Gov. Mark Sanford will escape impeachment.
• Business Insider: Health insurance industry trade groups opposed to President Obama's health care reform bill are paying Facebook users fake money -- called "virtual currency" -- to send letters to Congress protesting the bill
• Have you always want to see Sen. Orrin Hatch sing about Hanukkah. Well, here you go.
• Finally, Chico The Car Guard is just like the shepherds to whom the angles announced the birth of Christ!

• Focus on the Family: Hate crimes legislation is the sound "of your religious liberty being flushed down the toilet."
• Will Gov. Mark Sanford avoid impeachment?
• The right-wing campaign against the movie "Hounddog" continues.
• Richard Land submitted written testimony to the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics warning that "legalizing same-sex marriage is certain to counteract the positive social attributes of traditional marriage, by leading to fewer marriages and more divorces."
• Randall Terry's latest antics have succeeded in generating press coverage once again.
• Finally, who wants to go cruising with Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, and Newsmax? Anyone?

And he's a victim, just like Sarah Palin:

Embattled South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford acknowledged Tuesday that he has been shaken by the failure of a single fellow Republican to back him in his fight to save his job, but vowed to fight on for conservative causes and for "what God wanted me to do with my life."

The governor, trying to survive a scandal involving a widely publicized extramarital affair, also compared a new ethics probe over his travel and personal expenses to what he called the baseless complaints brought against former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

"I think I now know what Sarah may have been feeling," Mr. Sanford told The Washington Times.

Mr. Sanford vowed not to quit despite growing pressure from South Carolina lawmakers and Republican Party officials to resign or face impeachment. He said he intends to complete his term, not to hold on to power but to fight for conservative principles of governance.

"I feel absolutely committed to the cause, to what God wanted me to do with my life," he said in an interview. "I have got this blessing of being engaged in a fight for liberty, which is constantly being threatened."

• Is there anything that Religious Right groups can't find a way to complain about?  Apparently not.
• Hey, what do you know? The Freedom Federation finally set up a website.
• Washington Times: South Carolina Republican lawmakers are on the verge of calling a special legislative session that could impeach and remove embattled GOP Gov. Mark Sanford by the end of the year.
• Sen. David Vitter gets a challenger.
• Want to listen to the American Family Association's Tim Wildmon talk about college football?  Well, you are in luck.
• Institute for Creation Research announced the first of its 2009 "Demand the Evidence" conferences, to be held in Jacksonville, Florida on October 9-10 where "attendees will learn biblical and scientific evidences for the accuracy and authority of Genesis, the complex design of the human body, the facts that support recent creation, the flaws in Darwin's theory of evolution, and much more."

• Joe.My.God: Trans Attorney Runs Against Sally Kern.
• From Good As You to MSNBC.
• The Advocate: The National Organization for Marriage is pouring money into Iowa to purchase political advertisements in a calculated effort to reverse marriage equality in the state through its “Reclaim Iowa Project.”
• David Weigel takes a look at WorldNetDaily's documentary "A Question of Eligibility" featuring Alan Keyes, Jerome Corsi, and Janet Porter.
• Steve Benen: There's crazy, and then there's this crazy.
• Think Progress: South Carolina Republicans will meet to discuss impeachment of Mark Sanford.
• Eric Boehlert: According to the media, angry right-wingers are important while angry liberals are just annoying.
• Finally, the Minnesota Independent reports that Rep. Michele Bachmann participated in a “teletownhall” meeting to discuss health-care reform called “Keeping Faith with the Unborn” that was sponsored by the Susan B. Anthony List where she proclaimed:

“We all need to consider that in God’s timing that he may have allowed us, as members of Congress, to be in the position that we’re in just for this specific issue right now,” she said. “Everything that all of us have worked together and labored for over the years, all of it could be undermined with this one bill. President Obama realizes that. The radicals that are on the pro-abortion left, they realize that. They could win it all. And the unborn, and the vulnerable, the disabled and those at the end of life could lose it it all.”

• It doesn't look like Gov. Mark Sanford's efforts to save his marriage are working out as he had planned.
• Sen. Mel Martinez announced that he is resigning his seat and will step down as soon as a replacement is named.
• Alan Keyes wants to know why people like Don Wildmon, Gary Bauer, and others on the Right aren't defending the Birthers.
• OneNewsNow: Operation Rescue is formally launching a campaign called "Keep it Closed" that targets Nebraska abortionist LeRoy Carhart. Carhart has stated that he will open a late-term abortion facility in Kansas or Nebraska in the aftermath of the shooting death of Wichita abortionist George Tiller. Operation Rescue, in conjunction with Rescue the Heartland and Nebraskans United for Life, hopes to prevent Carhart from opening the clinic.
• Finally, for those who can't wait for September's "How To Take Back America Conference," there will be a pre-conference webcast with many of the hosts on August 18th.

Jeff Sharlet, author of "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power" is an expert on "The Family" and his expertise has become even more valuable in recent weeks as the various infidelities of Gov. Mark Sanford, Sen. John Ensign, and former Rep. Chip Pickering have exploded in the news, as all have deep ties to the organization and its house on C Street.

Today, he has a piece in Salon about these men and numerous other powerful political figures and their ties to this secretive organization:

Today's roll call is just as impressive: Men under the Family's religio-political counsel include, in addition to Ensign, Coburn and Pickering, Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham, both R-S.C.; James Inhofe, R-Okla., John Thune, R-S.D., and recent senators and high officials such as John Ashcroft, Ed Meese, Pete Domenici and Don Nickles. Over in the House there's Joe Pitts, R-Penn., Frank Wolf, R-Va., Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla., Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., and John R. Carter, R-Texas. Historically, the Family has been strongly Republican, but it includes Democrats, too. There's Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, for instance, a vocal defender of putting the Ten Commandments in public places, and Sen. Mark Pryor, the pro-war Arkansas Democrat responsible for scuttling Obama's labor agenda. Sen. Pryor explained to me the meaning of bipartisanship he'd learned through the Family: "Jesus didn't come to take sides. He came to take over." And by Jesus, the Family means the Family.

... I met the younger Coe when I lived for several weeks as a member of the Family. He's a surprising source of counsel, spiritual or otherwise. Attempting to explain what it means to be chosen for leadership like King David was -- or Mark Sanford, according to his own estimate -- he asked a young man who'd put himself, body and soul, under the Family's authority, "Let's say I hear you raped three little girls. What would I think of you?" The man guessed that Coe would probably think that he was a monster. "No," answered Coe, "I wouldn't." Why? Because, as a member of the Family, he's among what Family leaders refer to as the "new chosen." If you're chosen, the normal rules don't apply.

The entire thing is fascinating and worth reading, but I was particularly interested in Sharlet's explanation of how the organization regularly funds junkets overseas for its members that are, in essence, missionary trips:

M]ost of the trips sponsored by the Family aren't pleasure junkets. They're missionary work. Only the Family missionaries aren't representing the United States. They're representing "Jesus plus nothing," as Doug Coe puts it ... when they arrive in other countries, on trips paid for by the Family, at the behest of the Family, they are still traveling under official government auspices, on official business, with the pomp and circumstance -- and access -- of their taxpayer-funded, elected positions.

Considering that Sen. Jim Inhofe is reportedly a member of the organization as well, this goes a long way toward explaining this video we posted earlier this year in which he bragged to Faith and Action's Rob Schenck about this missionary trips through which he uses his standing as a US Senator to bring people to Jesus:

In fact, in this video posted today by Faith and Action’s Rob Schenck, it sounds an awful like Inhofe is using these trips for exactly that purpose, as he relates how, before his first trip to Africa, he found out that his daughter was also going to be there doing missionary work and told her that “if you go with me, it’s free.” He also explains that the trips are part of the “politics of Jesus” whereby Christians are instructed to take the name of Jesus to the kings. Being a US Senator, Inhofe says, means Africans think he is important and so he can always get in to see the kings, where he can tell them that he has come “in the spirit of Jesus.” Inhofe even holds up a copy of the Oklahoman featuring the above-mentioned article to defend himself, saying the article is an example of “persecution” and insisting that he is doing this work as a private citizen before trumpeting the fact that, through his work, he has managed to bring entire African villages to Jesus.