Mike Huckabee

• Mike Huckabee says it is "economic terrorism" to encourage companies not to fund anti-gay groups.
• Herman Cain won the Florida Straw Poll.
• Michele Bachmann reportedly held her own gathering with pastors.
• The New York Times profiles Bradlee Dean.
• Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito spoke to a private gathering at Regent University.
• If anyone knows of smacking of arrogance and stupidity, it would be Newt Gingrich.
• Finally, Cindy Jacobs has some big news for Australia.

While right now Janet Porter is focused on using spiritual warfare to persuade the Ohio State Senate to pass her anti-choice ‘Heartbeat bill,’ she continues to lead the Christian Zionist group ‘Israel: You’re Not Alone.’ Porter was able to bring together an impressive list of supporters including well known conservative leaders Mike Huckabee, James Dobson, Mat Staver, and Tim Wildmon, and during the group’s introductory press conference accused President Obama of carrying out “ethnic cleansing.”

On September 11th the organization released a statement calling for “repentance of the sin pervading the Earth and its inhabitants” and a plea for “media outlets to consider the material presented in a 10-minute video and to present this to their viewers, listeners, or readers in some format.”

The graphic video Porter’s group advertises was made by preacher Carl Gallups and depicts the September 11th attacks as a “biblical sign of judgment” and calls out politicians for the “arrogance of defiance” which is “the highest insult against the Most High God”:

“The eight harbingers of judgment pronounced on Israel,” Gallups claims, “are identically pronounced on the United States of America and have been acted out by our own nation’s leaders.” Gallups concludes:

It was in New York City where America began as a nation, it was where this nation was started, and it was there that the warning of the judgment of God was given on September 11, 2001. America on its day of birth of a nation was dedicated to God at the corner of a plot of land now known by a more ominous name, now known as Ground Zero. Ground Zero is the mystery place of American history; it was right there at the corner of Ground Zero that our nation’s first government knelt and prayed and it was there on September 11th where God spoke again. What happens to America, and probably soon, will depend upon whether America is willing to repent and turn back to God, or not.

Along with Huckabee, other Religious Right activists that signed onto her coalition include James Robison, Lou Sheldon, Jerry Boykin, Rick Scarborough, Rob Schenck, Paul Blair, Don Feder, Bill Federer, Gordon Klingenschmitt, and E.W. Jackson, and New Apostolic Reformation figures Mike Bickle, Rick Joyner, Che Ahn, Don Finto, Robert Stearns and Chuck Pierce. The signatories also included the Messianic Jewish Alliance and Toward Jerusalem Council II, which both work to convert Jews to Christianity.

While partnering with an extremist like Porter should’ve been alarming enough, do Mike Huckabee and the countless other conservative leaders want to continue their partnership with a group that endorses the claim that the September 11th attacks were a “biblical sign of judgment”?

Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church of Dallas is an anti-gay and anti-Muslim pastor who has generated attention in the past by going on the attack against Mitt Romney, urging Christians not to vote for him because of his Mormon faith and and for admitting that he'd vote for an incompetent Christian over a competent non-Christian if the two were running against one another.

But I expect that we'll be hearing a lot more about Jeffress considering that he is about to kick off a sermon series called "Twilight's Last Gleeming," beginning on 9/11, proclaiming that America is doomed and cannot be saved and that Christians need to see the nation's inevitable collapse as an opportunity to spread the Gospel:

As Jeffress told the Christian Post, the sermon series is based on a book that he has coming out next year for which Mike Huckabee wrote the foreward:

"Twilight's Last Gleaming" is actually based on my book coming out in January by Worthy Publishing. Mike Huckabee did the forward [sic] to the book, and the book is subtitled How to Make America's Last Days Your Best Days. In this series, what we're trying to do is help people realize that, ultimately, we are not going to save America.

America's days are numbered, because this world's days are numbered. But instead of reacting with despair and fear, Christians are to realize that while we cannot prevent the demise of our country, we can delay the demise of our country by being the salt and light Jesus commanded us to be. That's really what this series is about: how Christians can be salt and light in a decaying and darkening world.

I sure hope that America and the world still exist in January so that we can read all about how America and the world are doomed.

As we noted last week, Rick Perry spent some time this weekend at James Leininger's ranch in Texas meeting with a bevy of Religious Right leaders and activists.

According to Time, there was some 300 such leaders in attendance and Rick Scarborough, though he refuses to confirm that he was actually in attendance, appears quite smitten with the Texas Governor:

Last weekend, Rick Perry privately met some 300 conservative evangelical leaders at long-time supporter Jim Leininger’s home near Fredricksburg, Texas. And on Monday afternoon, reported-attendee and evangelical leader Rick Scarborough told TIME he is endorsing Perry: “I was holding judgment,” says Scarborough, who in 1998 founded the group Vision America to mobilize pastors and their congregations to vote on social issues, “but the more I’ve studied and listened, the more I have liked what I have heard.”

Perry first charmed Scarborough, who supported former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee for President in 2008, over a decade ago when Perry gave an impromptu personal testimony of his evangelical faith at a 1998 Republican convention. “It was obvious to me as a preacher that it was real, it was undoctored, it was unprepared, it was off the cuff. It really resonated with me.”

The governor had help in winning over the evangelical leader. Scarborough cited Perry’s wife Anita as a major factor in his decision. “I’ve had a chance here recently to hear Anita, much more close and personal,” Scarborough said. “Unlike [previous Presidents’ wives], I find that she holds the same values that he holds.”

...

The pastor’s endorsement has real sway. Vision America’s “Patriot Pastor” coalition has 20,000 members, and American Family Association founder Don Wildmon and Left Behind author Tim LaHaye are on the group’s advisory board. Scarborough says he’s already begun making his case to other influential social conservatives. “That’s not to say Rick Perry is Jesus because he is not,” he says. “But when you look at his full body of work, he’s been the best governor we’ve ever had.”

As we noted before, Scarborough is a self-proclaimed "Christocrat" who believes that it is his duty to "mix church and state God's way" in order to stop the country's "slide further into Communism/Socialism [and] sexual anarchy led by sodomites" and fight President Obama's efforts to "de-Christianize" this country.

Oh yeah, and he is also a Birther who stated, just a few months ago, that AIDS is God's judgment for engaging in an immoral act:

During last week's Republican presidential debate, Michele Bachmann was asked by Washington Examiner’s Byron York about her past statement that she ended up studying tax law even though she "hates taxes" and never had a desire for it" but did so because wives "are to be submissive to your husband" and so she "was going to be faithful to what I felt God was calling me to do through my husband."

In her response and since, Bachmann has been trying to claim that being "submissive" merely means that she and her husband "respect each other," which is nonsense, as Sarah Posner explained today in Salon.

And now the Religious Right is rallying around Bachmann, attacking the question as unfair and inappropriate:

Penny Nance, president of the conservative group Concerned Women for America, expressed her dismay at the question in a statement: "Byron York's question to Michele Bachmann about her relationship with her husband was incredibly inappropriate and downright ignorant.”

...

Given that both men and women are called to give of themselves in marriage, Nance lamented that the male presidential candidates were not asked the same or a similar question.

Ummm ... does Nance not remember when Mike Huckabee was asked by Carl Cameron about the 1998 ad he signed stating that a "wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband" during a Republican debate in South Carolina in 2008 where Huckabee delivered a more eloquent but equally Bachmann-like response:

CAMERON: Governor Huckabee, to change the subject a little bit and focus a moment on electability.

Back in 1998, you were one of about 100 people who affirmed, in a full-page ad in the "New York Times," the Southern Baptist Convention's declaration that, quote, "A wife us to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband."

Women voters in both parties harshly criticized that. Is that position politically viable in the general election of 2008, sir?

HUCKABEE: You know, it's interesting, everybody says religion is off limits, except we always can ask me the religious questions. So let me try to do my best to answer it.

(APPLAUSE) And since -- if we're really going to have a religious service, I'd really feel more comfortable if I could pass the plates, because our campaign could use the money tonight, Carl.

(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)

We'll just go all the way.

First of all, if anybody knows my wife, I don't think they for one minute think that she's going to just sit by and let me do whatever I want to. That would be an absolute total misunderstanding of Janet Huckabee.

The whole context of that passage -- and, by the way, it really was spoken to believers, to Christian believers. I'm not the least bit ashamed of my faith or the doctrines of it. I don't try to impose that as a governor and I wouldn't impose it as a president.

But I certainly am going to practice it unashamedly, whether I'm a president or whether I'm not a president. But the point...

(APPLAUSE)

... the point, and it comes from a passage of scripture in the New Testament Book of Ephesians is that as wives submit themselves to the husbands, the husbands also submit themselves, and it's not a matter of one being somehow superior over the other. It's both mutually showing their affection and submission as unto the Lord.

So with all due respect, it has nothing to do with presidency. I just wanted to clear up that little doctrinal quirk there so that there's nobody who misunderstands that it's really about doing what a marriage ought to do and that's marriage is not a 50/50 deal, where each partner gives 50 percent.

Biblically, marriage is 100/100 deal. Each partner gives 100 percent of their devotion to the other and that's why marriage is an important institution, because it teaches us how to love.

Republican leaders including Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee and Rick Perry like to trumpet the work of pseudo-historian David Barton despite his long record of blatant dishonesty and anti-gay bigotry. Back in January, Barton and WallBuilders Live co-host Rick Green denied the existence of bullying against LGBT youth and said that anti-bullying laws represented “homosexual indoctrination.” On today’s program, Barton continued to press his extreme views that students are becoming gay because of “indoctrination,” citing a discredited far-right doctors’ group.

Barton cited the American College of Pediatricians, a right-wing group that split off from the much larger and mainstream American Academy of Pediatricians because of the ACP’s stringent opposition to LGBT rights, particularly the right of gay and lesbian couples to adopt children. According to the AAP, the ACP’s “campaign does not acknowledge the scientific and medical evidence regarding sexual orientation, sexual identity, sexual health, or effective health education.” The ACP also endorsers 'ex-gay' reparative therapy, saying, “therapy to restore heterosexual attraction can be effective for many people.”

Barton wrongly cites the ACP as “the leading pediatric association in America” and then repeats its anti-gay rhetoric, arguing that courses against bullying and that affirm non-heterosexual orientations are simply “indoctrination.”

Discussing how schools should attend to LGBT students, Barton said: “If you’ll just let this develop naturally, they’ll end up being heterosexual unless you force them to be homosexual.” He goes on to say, “Let it run its course. If you let it run its course it’s gonna turn out normal and natural unless you guys intervene and make the unnatural stuff natural, it’s gonna run its course.”

Barton goes on to say that classes that promote a positive view of the LGBT community and condemn bullying will cause more students to become gay in the same way anti-suicide courses supposedly made more students commit suicide:

Barton: The American College of Pediatricians is cautioning educators about what they do with same-sex attraction or symptoms of gender identity or gender confusion in schools.

Green: You’re kidding, this is the Pediatric Association?

Barton: Got it, get this. The letter reminds school superintends that it is ‘not uncommon for adolescents to experience transient,’ that’s a big word, ‘transient confusion about their sexual orientation,’ and is telling 14,800 superintendents that ‘most students will ultimately adopt a heterosexual orientation if not otherwise encouraged.’ And they’re saying, guys, back off. This indoctrination you’re doing—

Green: You plant that stuff in their minds, your leading them down that path.

Barton: If you’ll just let this develop naturally, they’ll end up being heterosexual unless you force them to be homosexual. Well that’s a remarkable letter coming from the leading pediatric association in America. And this is what it says, ‘for this reason schools should avoid developing policies that encourage non-heterosexual attractions among students who may be experimenting or experiencing temporary sexual confusion.’ The discouraging program, so all this bullying stuff--

Green: Forcing stuff into classroom—

Barton: All the NEA [National Education Association] nonsense. The ’docs are saying, leave it alone. Back off. Let it run its course. If you let it run its course it’s gonna turn out normal and natural unless you guys intervene and make the unnatural stuff natural, it’s gonna run its course. And by the way, as the ’docs point out, there is no scientific evidence that anyone is born homosexual. You have to force them to accept that position.

Green: That’s big man. And I remember Dobson saying years ago talking about how you’re gonna have an increase in the number of people that identify themselves as homosexuals simply because we’re putting out there in all the television programs, in all the movies now that’s the funny person, that’s the acceptable person. So naturally, when they’re in that state just as pediatricians are talking about, of confusion or temptation or whatever, if society’s saying ‘yeah yeah yeah, go down that road’ obviously you’re gonna have more go down that road.

Barton: This may be a little bit before you’re time, but do you know how many schools now teach suicide courses, anti-suicide courses? Zip. You know why?

Green: Because it planted the seed in their minds.

Barton: Because in the early 80’s when they’re teaching anti-suicide courses all these kids started committing suicide.

Green: Wow, that just makes sense when you think about it, you plant that seed.

Barton: You’re doing fine, and now you start teaching the course, and now you think about it all the time and the more you think about it.

• Things are not looking good for Rick Perry, since only one other governor (Sam Brownback) looks like he will be attending his prayer rally.
• On a related note, the ACLU wants to know if public tax dollars are being used in any way in putting on Perry's prayer event.
• Never forget that Mike Huckabee has a long memory ... and can be very petty.
• Jesse Lee Peterson says the NAACP is a "political pawn of the liberal-elite, white, racist Democratic Party and not really for the people."  Which is hilarious if you know anything about Jesse Lee Peterson.
• Peter LaBarbera is outraged to see "servicemen marching in uniform in a sexual sin parade" and livid that this "sin does not stay in its closet; it always wants to boast and be prideful."
• Oh Concerned Women for America, you are so clever.

Linda Harvey of Mission America interviewed Gary Glenn, the head of the American Family Association’s Michigan chapter, during her radio show on how the Religious Right should respond to gay rights victories. Glenn, a prominent activist that Mike Huckabee calls his “very special friend,” warned that companies should be wary of hiring lesbian and gay employees because of what Glenn calls the “severe medical consequences” of being gay. Approvingly, Harvey argued that employers should take note that gays lives unstable lives and added, “I would not think of a homosexual person as a good employment risk”:

Glenn: Herman Miller, which is a major employer and corporation in Holland [Michigan], a furniture company, supported this so-called gay rights ordinance on the claim that it allowed them to attract the best and brightest.

Harvey: Here we go, yeah we heard that before.

Glenn: What ridiculous folly to suggest that only those individuals who engage in homosexual behavior given all of its severe medical consequences constitute the best and the brightest. It’s not really bright to engage in behavior that puts you at dramatically higher risk of mental illness and substance abuse and AIDS and cancer and hepatitis, and according to various sources, premature death. So to suggest that engaging in that type of behavior defines someone as the best and brightest, which seems to be the line coming out of corporate America, is just ridiculous.

Harvey: You’re right. And higher rates of domestic violence and unstable relationships. I would not think of a homosexual person as a good employment risk, I just wouldn’t.

In 1976, Mike Huckabee dropped out of seminary school so that he could go to work for James Robison:

In 1976, after college, Huckabee was enrolled at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Texas, when he came into contact with the televangelist James Robison. It was Robison who famously declared that he was “sick and tired of hearing about all of the radicals and the perverts and the liberals and the leftists and the Communists coming out of the closet,” and was ready “for God’s people to come out of the closet” and take back the nation. Despite Huckabee’s inclination toward a forgiving Christianity, Robison’s passion drew him in. He dropped out of seminary after one year to take a job as Robison’s director of communications.

Back in the early days of the Religious Right, Robison was a key player and one who, even today, admits that he made the likes of Jerry Falwell and Bob Jones seem downright liberal. 

Robison eventually dropped out of the movement, but has made a reappearance over the last year or so, which explains why he was the featured speaker at last night's Watchmen on the Wall conference where he demonstrated how he got the nickname "God's Hit Man" thanks to his ability to "give 'em so much Hell nobody will ever want to go there":