Pat Robertson

• Chris Rodda @ Dispatches From the Culture Wars: Michele Bachmann Lies About Her Own Family History To Sound More Iowan.
• Lee Fang @ Think Progress: Bristol Palin’s Nonprofit Paid Her Seven Times What It Spent On Actual Teen Pregnancy Prevention.
• David Weigel: Sharia, USA: The conservative panic about Muslim laws in Oklahoma.
• Ryan J. Reilly @ TPM: O'Keefe Hits Up Supporters For Cash, Mingles With D.C. Conservatives.
• John Aravosis @ AMERICAblog: Religious right hate group accuses Calvin Klein of hiding f-bomb in scantily clad NY billboard.
• Media Matters: Pat Robertson: "The Problem Is" Ivory Coast "Has Been Run By A Christian That's Going To Be Into The Hands Of Muslims."
• Towleroad: VA Gov. Bob McDonnell: I Don't Want Gay Couples Adopting Children.

As neighboring Mississippi is set to vote on a “personhood” amendment in November, Alabama may have its own personhood debate as a “personhood” amendment and statute have been introduced in the state legislature. Republican legislators in the Alabama legislature have introduced “personhood” laws as both statutes and amendments to the state constitution. Both chambers are controlled by Republicans, and the Senate statutory bill already has the support of a majority of state senators.

Personhood laws grant constitutional rights to zygotes and fetuses, and ban abortion without exception, certain forms of birth control, in vitro fertilization, and the treatment of pregnancy complications such as ectopic pregnancies. The radical anti-choice group Personhood USA along with the Foundation for Moral Law, led by former Alabama state Supreme Court justice and likely presidential candidate Roy Moore, are the main forces behind the state’s personhood legislation. Ben DuPré, the point person for the state’s personhood campaign, is a graduate of Pat Robertson’s Regent University and Regent University School of Law and a former clerk for Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice and Moore, and is now an attorney for the Foundation for Moral Law and the head of Personhood Alabama. DuPré likened legal abortion to the dehumanization of black people in America:

The Foundation for Moral Law and Personhood Alabama have announced personhood bills and amendments in the House and the Senate, backed by a large number of supporters.

SB301 is a clear recognition of the personhood rights of all human beings, regardless of their age, size, or location. SB 301 states “The term ‘persons’ as used in the Code of Alabama 1975, shall include any human being from the moment of fertilization or the functional equivalent thereof.”

SB 301 is a statutory change to the Alabama Code, and is sponsored by a staggering 19 of 35 Alabama Senators.

…

Yesterday HB 405 and HB 409 were filed in the House by Representative John Merrill,a Personhood Statute and Personhood Amendment, respectively. The Personhood Statute and Amendment were backed by 31 co-sponsors.

“It is my belief that this bill will clearly affirm that, under law, an individual becomes a person upon fertilization,” stated Representative Merrill.

…

DuPré added, “America used to define the meaning of ‘person’ along racial lines; now we draw the line at the womb. Personhood legislation finally gives equal protection of the laws to the unborn as well as the born, and from the first moment of human life.”

• Sarah Posner @ Religion Dispatches: Welcome to the Shari'ah Conspiracy Theory Industry.
• Salon: NPR caves to O'Keefe -- and we all lose.
• Good As You: Equality Confounds NOM’s Jennifer Roback Morse.
• County Fair: After Shootings, Does Pat Robertson Still Support Recalcitrant Ivory Coast Leader?
• Florida Independent: ‘Choose Life’ companion bill moves forward, would gut rule that funds go to pregnant women.
• Amanda Terkel @ HuffPo: Indiana Bill Would Force Doctors To Tell Women That Having An Abortion May Lead To Breast Cancer.
• Steve Benen: Did You Hear The One About The $7.5 Million Clean-Up?

• The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that Fred Phelps and his band of anti-gay bigots have the right to protest military funerals.
• Apparently Newt Gingrich won't be announcing the formation of a presidential exploratory committee.
• On a related note, Bryan Fischer says he won't be supporting Gingrich if he does run because "it is imperative that the next standard bearer of the conservative movement be a man who has demonstrated a lifelong commitment to family values in deed as well as in words, a man who does not just talk the talk but has walked the walk."
• Ken Hutcherson says President Obama's DOMA decision is "delusional."
• Finally, Pat Robertson tells Newsmax that God is not going to "turn this world lose to the crazies" but He may destroy it with a meteor.  So that is reassuring.

Last week, Pat and Gordon Robertson participated in an event in Virginia Beach called "Catch the Fire" during which Robertson delivered a speech on how God has always financially provided for his ministry and will likewise provide anything for which you are willing ask, including bringing your dead baby back to life  ... and after that, he conducted a mass faith healing of the audience: 

• The Tea Party plans to save America by launching its own magazine.
• Hooray, Pat Robertson's CBN has started its own country music station.  Finally!
• Ralph Reed's second annual Faith and Freedom Coalition "strategy briefing" is scheduled for June.
• It's extra funny because 91 people died.
• Finally, I guess nothing prepares a Republican to run for public office like a job at Hooters.

Jay Sekulow runs the American Center for Law and Justice, the Religious Right organization founded by Pat Robertson to be a right-wing counterweight to the ACLU.  In that capacity, Sekulow has recently been leading the fight against the construction of the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque."

Today, Sekulow had Rep. Michele Bachmann on his radio program to discuss last night's State of the Union address and her response and during the conversation Sekulow asked her about the Tea Party classes on the Constution she is hosting for members of Congress featuring the likes of Justice Antonin Scalia and Wallbuilders' David Barton ... and apparently also Sekulow:

Bachmann: Our opening speaker was Justice Antonin Scalia. We had both Democrats and Republicans - we had four Democrat members of Congress. It was very civil, it was very open and we hope to invite all of the Supreme Court Justices to come and speak to us. But we also hope to have people like yourself, Jay - we've invited you to come and speak to members of Congress, to speak about the Constitution. The topic will be up to the speakers choice but the whole purpose and intent is to have members thinking about the Constitution and our limitations under the Constitution. That has not been a focus here in Congress in recent years. We intend to change that and this was a very good first meeting this week.

Sekulow: I look forward to participating [and] we appreciate you're not only representing the people of your district, you're representing all of use that share the concerns and the desire to see Constitutional Conservatism placed forward and Congresswoman, thanks for being with us and thanks for the bold stand you are taking in Washington.

Bachmann: Thank you. You're wonderful and thank you for your ministry.

• George Zornick @ Think Progress: Allen West: Keith Ellison Represents ‘The Antithesis Of The Principles Upon Which This Country Was Established’.
• Sarah Posner @ Religion Dispatches: Rep. Smith Suggests A New Protected Class: "Immaturity".
• David Weigel @ Slate: Michael Bay Presents: "Pawlenty".
• Joe.My.God: Virginia Lawmaker: Feds Can't Stop Us From Banning Gays From National Guard.
• Pam Spaulding: Idaho pharmacist denies anti-bleeding med because woman MIGHT have had an abortion.
• Terry Krepel @ County Fair: Pat Robertson Sides With African Leader Who Won’t Leave Office.
• Showing Christ's Love: We Need a Christian Dictator.
• Igor Volsky @ Wonk Room: Iowa’s Anti-Marriage Crusader Compares Same-Sex Unions To Polygamy, Rails Against ‘Absolute Tolerance’.
• Media Matters: After Promoting Anti-Gay Rhetoric, Breitbart is Named to Gay Group's Board.

Liberty University Law School Dean and Liberty Counsel Chairman Mat Staver joined David Barton and Rick Green on WallBuilders Live to denounce Obama and the Justice Department for failing to win cases on Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA), which a federal judge in Boston ruled unconstitutional in July. Staver believes that Obama’s record of supporting gay rights undermined government action to effectively defend DOMA, and Staver went on to attack Obama for extending a number of health benefits to same-sex partners of eligible federal employees. According to Staver, Obama’s support for such benefits displays his “radical, liberal policies” that he believes voters overwhelmingly oppose and rejected in the midterm election:

He’s writing these executive orders as though that is able to change law, it’s not able to change law. What Obama’s trying to do is use a sleight of hand, an under the table kind of approach, to in fact change the law through these executive orders. He’s acting as though the law’s on his side, that it would include benefits for homosexuality and transsexuals and others. So he is forcing that through the system even though the laws are to the contrary. This is exactly what ultimately resulted in this tidal wave against him on Tuesday during the midterm elections, his radicalism and his forced agenda on the American people despite the fact that the people of America reject those radical, liberal policies.

However, Staver would have difficulties reconciling his argument with polling: a September poll conducted by the Associated Press shows that 58% of Americans agree that “couples of the same sex [should] be entitled to the same government benefits as married couples of the opposite sex,” and 52% even support federal recognition of same-sex marriages. Staver may be using Barton’s tremendously flawed reading on how opposition to same-sex marriage impacted the midterm election, while in reality “only 1%” of voters said “same-sex marriage was the single most important issue.”

Barton’s co-host Rick Green goes on to laud Staver for his role in training Religious Right activists at the Law School of Liberty University, which was founded by the late Jerry Falwell, to use the “right Biblical worldview” to shape government, politics, and the courts:

What they’re doing in terms of raising up this next generation. Not only the lawyers graduating from Liberty Law School but think of how many more people with the right Biblical worldview coming through a school like that will want to go be the bureaucrats, and we always think of that word as a negative word but the Justice Department and all these places and all these folks that work there in the past mostly did not have that Biblical worldview because we discouraged young people from going into those arenas. But because of what Mat’s doing and other schools out there doing that kind of thing I think we’re gonna have a lot more people coming into government for good reasons.

Perhaps Green wants more appointees like Monica Goodling, the graduate of Rev. Pat Robertson’s Regent University Law School, who drew attention for her Religious Right activism in the Bush Administration’s Justice Department. Goodling was implicated in the Bush White House’s drive to politicize the Justice Department and replace US Attorneys with partisan appointees. The Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General “concluded that the evidence showed that Goodling violated both federal law and Department policy, and therefore committed misconduct, when she considered political or ideological affiliations in hiring decisions for candidates for career positions within the Department.” For example, Goodling fired a US Attorney as a result of rumors that she was a lesbian and denied a promotion to a prosecutor because his wife was a Democratic activist. While Goodling was not a graduate of Liberty, Regent University has the same goals of training young right wing activists for government roles to advance the Religious Right’s agenda.