peter montgomery

Bishop Harry Jackson, the Religious Right’s favorite African American preacher, asked the mostly white participants at the Values Voter Summit to tone down their anti-Obama rhetoric. He knew they weren’t racists, he explained, but the fact that some people were sounding like racists made it even harder on him as a conservative trying to get other black clergy to join his anti-gay organizing in D.C.
While asking summit participants to be less offensive, Jackson’s Saturday afternoon speech may have actually reached some new personal lows of offensive rhetoric. Let’s review:

1) Gays and liberal Christians are enemies of God who deserve to be struck down. Jackson cited verses from Psalm 68 saying “let God arise, let his enemies be scattered….let the wicked perish at the presence of God.” He described God striking dead a person who wasn’t following instructions about how the Ark of the Covenant should be moved. Who are the wicked? Gays, certainly, but also “folk who are Christians in name only” but are just asking to be struck dead by God for not following His ways.

2) Jackson said repeatedly of people who don’t support his agenda that “there are people in our culture who are easily led.” Do you remember the outcry from the Religious Right when the Washington Post said the same thing about them? But nobody batted an eye when Jackson suggested that African Americans who don’t support him are “in an ideological plantation” and “easily led” to believe the worst “character assassination” about white conservative evangelicals. That’s why, he said, right-wing activists need to tone down their attacks on Obama. In the fight to keep same-sex couples from getting married, he said, he “can’t win if my own black brothers see me as a traitor.”

3) Jackson utterly ignored the existence of African American LGBT people and their leadership in the pro-equality movement in the District of Columbia. He portrayed the battle over marriage equality in DC as a battle pitting rich gay lawyers against black clergy and poor single mothers. Jackson’s litany was a perfect example of the race- and class-baiting he is using to rouse opposition to marriage equality in the District. “Many of our gay people,” he said, are professionals, disproportionately educated, make a lot of money, are living in DC’s fancy new condos. Jackson said a “K Street lawyer who decides to come out and call himself gay” cannot understand the plight of a single mother in Washington, DC raising two kids without a father. This seems to be from his new gays-vs-blacks talking points. Hey, Rev. Jackson, what about all the LGBT people in DC who aren’t rich lawyers, who are people of color, who are raising kids without the legal protections of marriage? Maybe he hasn’t spent enough time in his new hometown to meet any of them yet.

4) Jackson cited his father’s experiences of racism to credential himself for an attack the notion that the gay rights movement is a civil rights movement. “Their movement is a handful of privileged people,” he said, who are “intolerant of anybody with another idea” and who want to “oppress and suppress truth in the name of freedom.”

5) The tea party movement, on the other hand, “is a movement that God is in the background stirring up.”

Jackson, who borrowed a line from fellow Religious Right figure Rick Scarborough to say, “I’m not a Republican or a Democrat, I’m a Christocrat,” ended his speech by leading the crowd in chanting
“Let God arise and his enemies be scattered.”

Saturday morning’s speech by Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association may be the most valuable moment of this conference. It’s not often that Americans get an unambiguous look at the Religious Right’s extremely dangerous definition of religious liberty.
Religious liberty is of course a core American value, protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. And it’s the separation of church and state that protects the right of every American to worship or not as they choose, and protects all Americans from the government using its power to coerce religious belief or worship. It’s one of the constitutional principles that define this country.

Fischer basically attributed the idea of church-state separation to Adolf Hitler, who he said was the inspiration for the forces of “secular fundamentalism” who are bent on “castrating” the church and bringing America a “bleak, dark, vicious, tyrannical” future. Invoking Hitler is practically commonplace name-calling from the right these days. But it was not the most important or provocative point of his remarks.

Today Fischer went a good bit further than televangelist Pat Robertson, who notably called church-state separation a “lie of the left.” According to Fischer’s interpretation of the First Amendment, here’s what religious liberty means: Congress has the liberty to promote religion in any way, as long as it does not single out one Christian sect or denomination and make it the nation’s official religion. That’s it.

According to Fischer, “the only entity that is restrained by the First Amendment is the Congress of the United States.” Thus, he says, it is “constitutionally impossible” for governors, mayors, city councilmembers, or school administrators to violate the First Amendment. Fischer said the “incorporation doctrine” – the idea that the Fourteenth Amendment applied First Amendment protections against state governments, is the “most egregious” example of judicial activism.

So by his definition, a state legislature could declare itself an officially Christian state. Or an officially Baptist or Mormon state. Presumably any public school, city council or state government could require students to attend Christian worship or profess certain religious belief.

Fischer isn’t the only Religious Right leader who holds this radically extreme definition of religious liberty. In their 2008 book, “Personal Faith, Public Policy,” Religious Right leaders Tony Perkins and Harry Jackson said that a 1961 Supreme Court decision, which held that the state of Maryland could not require applicants for public office to swear that they believe in the existence of God, one of “the major assaults that have been successfully launched against the Christian faith in the last forty to fifty years.”

So, to these prominent Religious Right leaders, preventing a state from demanding that its employees swear to certain religious beliefs is an attack on Christianity. And any court that tries to stop a state from imposing religious beliefs on its citizens is judicial activism.

It’s disturbing to note that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is among those who believe the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment does not apply to the states. In a 2004 concurring opinion, Thomas wrote:

Quite simply, the Establishment Clause is best understood as a federalism provision — it protects state establishments from federal interference but does not protect any individual rights. . . . .
[E]ven assuming that the Establishment Clause precludes the Federal Government from establishing a national religion, it does not follow that the Clause created or protects any individual right. . . . it is more likely that States and only States were the direct beneficiaries. Moreover, incorporation of this putative individual right leads to a particular outcome: It would prohibit precisely what the Establishment Clause was intended to protect — state establishments of religion.

Americans deserve to know whether the parade of top GOP officials who engaged in this weekend’s mutual love-fest with Religious Right leaders have the same narrow, distorted view of the First Amendment.

Bishop Harry Jackson took the next step in his campaign against marriage equality today, testifying before the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics that the board should approve Jackson’s proposed referendum, which would overturn a new DC law recognizing same-sex marriages conducted legally in other jurisdictions. Jackson and his allies are demanding that the board of elections allow them to put the question before voters.

 

The D.C. Council voted 12-1 today to recognize marriages performed legally in other states.  The lone vote in opposition was that of former Mayor Marion Barry, who struck a more conciliatory tone than he did at last week’s anti-marriage rally, at which he led chants and urged preachers to speak out against “immorality.”  Today, Barry recounted his long support for efforts to advance LGBT equality during his years of leadership in the District, and asked people not to make this one vote a litmus test.

Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander had a different story to tell, noting that the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club (the city’s gay Democratic club) had endorsed her even though she had taken a stand in opposition to same-sex marriage in D.C.  On the other hand, she said, since she voted with her colleagues last month to have the District recognize legal marriages performed in other states, she’s had some pastors questioning her Christianity.  In response to those who have threatened to run a “Christian candidate” against her, she said, “I am a Christian candidate.”

A number of other Councilmembers spoke movingly on behalf of the legislation; we’ll have some video highlights available later.

The crowd organized by Bishop Harry Jackson was a different story.  Marriage opponents cheered Barry’s statement and shouted when Alexander spoke.  As soon as the vote was final and the capacity crowd moved into the hallway, raucous shouting broke out among those threatening to vote out every councilmember who had voted for marriage recognition.

Jackson spoke to reporters (describing himself as a D.C. resident) then headed across the street where an anti-marriage rally had been going on during the filled-to-capacity council meeting. Jackson led chants of “It’s not over” and vowed to pursue a legal strategy, a congressional strategy, and a strategy of continuing to organize at the grassroots. 

Oddly, the post-vote rally ended with a religious “marriage” ceremony for a young man and woman from Texas who came to DC and decided to go through the motions of a wedding ceremony presided over by Jackson to make a statement about “right marriage.”  

• Our own Peter Montgomery has a post up on Religious Dispatches on the recent Iowa Supreme Court ruling.
• The Daily Beast reports that Republicans are threatening to filibuster President Obama's nominees if he moves to release the infamous Bush administration's "torture memos" - Drew has more over on the People For Blog.
• Nate Silver says that if Iowans were given the opportunity to vote on a marriage ban today, "it would pass with 56.0 percent of the vote. By 2012, however, the model projects a toss-up: 50.4 percent of Iowans voting to approve the ban, and 49.6 percent opposed. In 2013 and all subsequent years, the model thinks the marriage ban would fail."
• John Aravosis reports that Think Progress founder Judd Legum is running for office in Maryland.
• Tips-Q reports on both Alan Keyes and Steve Deace freaking out over the Iowa marriage ruling.
• Good as You has the audio of a rather remarkable discussion between Matt Barber and Steve Crampton of Liberty Counsel and a caller on their radio program.
• AU doesn't like efforts by David Lynch, with support from Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, to get Transcendental Meditation taught in schools.

As we’ve noted, the organizers of a massive stadium rally pushing the anti-gay initiative in California have snagged for the stage the biggest name in the Religious Right universe. No, not Sarah Palin, but James Dobson of Focus on the Family. One benefit might be to draw media attention from the event’s organizer, Lou Engle. He’s far less well-known than Dobson, and organizers might prefer to keep it that way.

Engle is an unabashed “dominionist” – someone who thinks the church, under the leadership of modern-day apostles like him, should rule over government and other institutions of society. He thinks of himself as a John the Baptist who badgers Christian teens to adopt a radical lifestyle of fasting and prayer that will bring God’s intercession against gays, liberal judges, and the like. And his style – screaming at the top of his lungs and rapidly rocking back and forth – is a sharp contrast with Dobson’s polished media-star demeanor.

A new report by People For the American Way Foundation documents some of his other charms, which include:

• praying for God to “terrorize” judges until they fall like stars from the sky>
• believing that the appearance of the goddess Minerva on California’s state seal is a sign of demonic domination over the state by the “Jezebel spirit”
• suggesting that marriage equality is Satanic and legal abortion spells America’s doom>

Though, given Prop. 8 leaders’ tendency to describe their campaign in apocalyptic terms, and the increasingly shrill and panicky proclamations of doom from the Right over the prospect of an Obama presidency, Dobson and Engle are likely to feel right at home in each other’s company.

Club for Growth, the radically anti-tax and anti-government organization, has often targeted Republican incumbents it deems insufficiently devoted to its free-market fundamentalism. But Politico points out that its endorsement may not be such a great thing for candidates these days.

It couldn't have been a nicer Saturday for Democrat Frank Kratovil, up on stage playing blues guitar for an oyster-slurping, beer-drinking crowd on the water in Queen Anne's County, Md.

 When he's done with his set, reporters from CQ, Politico and the New Republic are waiting to talk with the man who may be the next member of Congress from Maryland's 1st District.

This isn't what the Club for Growth had in mind.

Back in February, the conservative PAC helped knock off moderate Republican Rep. Wayne Gilchrest in the GOP primary here, in the hopes of installing a more conservative Republican in his place.

But it may not work out that way. With less than a month to go before Election Day, Kratovil is running neck and neck with the Club for Growth-backed GOP nominee, Maryland state Sen. Andy Harris, in a district that's about as red as they come.

And with voters worried about their retirement accounts and suddenly suspicious of the free-market economics espoused by the Club for Growth, Kratovil is using the Club for Growth's support of Harris as a way to bludgeon him.

 "We need to stop listening to those people, like my opponent and his million-dollar backers, the Club for Growth, who believe in no regulation," Kratovil says.

For Club for Growth-backed candidates across the country, this is sounding like a familiar story.

Politico reports that Rep. Tim Walberg, elected in 2006 after defeating moderate GOPer Joe Schwarz in a Club for Growth backed primary challenge, is now seeing the Club's backing used as a major line of attack from his opponent. And it's forcing the GOP to spend money to defend what were once considered safe seats:

Still, the club's investment in GOP efforts may end up costing the party more than it saves it, forcing the National Republican Congressional Committee to spend money in what might have been forget-about-'em races if more moderate Republicans were on the ballot.

It seems likely that Grover Norquist's expressed desire to shrink government to the size that he could "drown it in the bathtub" doesn't resonate too well with voters who see the financial meltdown draining their retirement plans as the result of a little too much "magic of the marketplace" and not enough oversight or regulation.

In addition . the group played a key role in funding conservative Rep. Steve Pearce in his New Mexico Senate primary victory against Rep. Heather Wilson. Wilson was viewed as the more electable Republican against Democrat Tom Udall; with Pearce as the nominee, the GOP has written off the seat.

A group of national Religious Right leaders used a press conference held in Washington the day before The Call – a “non-political” youth prayer rally on the mall – to talk about the event and to denounce Sen. Barack Obama and criticize Christians who are considering voting for him. Lou Engle, the increasingly visible organizer of similar rallies around the country said the event was designed to mobilize young Christians around ending abortion. Immediately after saying the event was not political, and was not about endorsing a candidate, he launched into an attack on Sen. Obama’s pro-choice record and implicitly questioned the candidate’s faith, describing politicians “who say they’re Christian.” Engle, who is also actively backing anti-gay ballot initiatives on marriage, called pro-choice and pro-equality efforts “false justice movements.” Bishop Harry Jackson, the most visible African American Religious Right spokesman, wasn’t coy about his political message for the day: if Sen. McCain chooses a pro-abortion vice president he will give the election to Obama. Jackson called it “tantamount to political suicide.” Jackson also returned to his standard denunciation of abortion as “black genocide” and “pandemic extermination.” Jackson said that America needs God’s favor, and that this year’s election – an important “expression of desire” for the people of God – will basically let God know whether we deserve it. The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins said that it’s right for evangelicals to offer solutions on issues like AIDS, fiscal policy, and racial reconciliation, but that doesn’t mean all issues are equal. He said young evangelicals are more fervently anti-abortion than their parents, and that waning evangelical support for the Republican Party was a reflection of how poorly the party functioned in power, not a sign of reduced commitment. Asked about Sen. Obama’s outreach to evangelical voters, Jackson said he thought it was good to be considered a swing vote, and hoped that it could push both parties closer to evangelical concerns. Engle was less enthusiastic, denouncing Obama’s record on abortion issues in graphic terms and warning young evangelicals that if they compromised on abortion, history would stand in judgment of them the way it stands in judgment on churches’ silence on slavery. Former presidential candidate and long-shot VP possibility Mike Huckabee said the purpose of the event was “not political at all.” Huckabee, like Engle, cited Martin Luther King, Jr. as a role model, saying it took “not a politician but a preacher” to remind the country of the evils of racism. During Q&A, Huckabee said he’d support McCain no matter who he chose as VP, but he thought a pro-choice running mate would hurt McCain by draining enthusiasm and intensity from his evangelical supporters.

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee recently took a shot at rival Mitt Romney for having changed his political positions:"I think people should judge Mitt Romney on his record. Is he consistent? Does he say and believe the things now that he said and believed before? That's what ought to be the criteria.” When confronted over the weekend by his 1992 comments about people infected with HIV calling on the federal government to “take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague,” Huckabee said, "The one thing I feel like is important to note is that you stick by what you said" and that while he might say things differently today, “I don’t run from it, don’t recant from it.” That concern about consistency apparently didn’t extend to his much more recent position on federal government policy toward Cuba. In fact, it only took a couple of hours for him to reverse course when it looked like his previous position might cost him some votes, according to a Miami Herald story about the GOP candidate debate hosted by television network Univisión:

Although the candidates kept it polite on stage, Fred Thompson's campaign circulated press clippings from 2002 in which Huckabee called for an end to the trade embargo with Cuba. In a letter to President Bush, Huckabee wrote at the time: ``U.S. policy on Cuba has not accomplished its stated goal of toppling the Castro regime and instead has provided Castro with a convenient excuse for his own failed system of government.'' That stance is bound to rile many Cuban Americans in Miami-Dade, who believe that the embargo helps undermine Fidel Castro's repressive regime. Huckabee is certain to face questions about the embargo at a Monday morning press conference in Miami, where he is expecting an endorsement from Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, one of the most prominent Cuban-American Republicans in the state. Caught off guard, Huckabee's campaign said two hours after the debate that he had since changed his position on the embargo after consulting with Cuban-American leaders. ''He's committed to vetoing any legislation that lifts sanctions on Cuba,'' said Huckabee spokeswoman Alice Stewart.