Rick Santorum

This week, a Michigan high school canceled a planned speech by Rick Santorum after Santorum refused to provide school district officials with an advance copy of his remarks. But Religious Right activists think there is another explanation for the cancellation. Fox News commentator Todd Starnes reports that he spoke to a conservative youth group spokesman who said that Santorum’s speech was cancelled because of his well-known anti-gay remarks. In the past, Santorum has likened same-sex unions to “man on dog” and “man on child” marriages.

Talk show host Janet Mefferd posted a link to Starnes’ article on her Facebook page today, noting that she can soon see the “day when every Christian who supports real marriage might be made to wear a yellow patch on the sleeve, a ‘badge of shame’ to identify us as ‘anti-gay haters.’ Kind of like the Jews in Nazi Germany.”

The comparison of anti-gay activists to the Jews who suffered and died under the genocidal Nazi regime is deeply offensive and absurd on its face. And Mefferd should also remember that homosexuals in Nazi Germany were forced to wear pink triangle badges and were sent to concentration camps.

Rick Santorum’s group Patriot Voices is out with a new contest focused on saving the American dream before President Obama destroys it. During an appearance on Patriot Voices Radio last month, Santorum declared that it is necessary to protect the American dream from companies like Starbucks that support gay rights.

Starbucks is the focus of a boycott campaign backed by groups like the National Organization for Marriage, Concerned Women for America, Liberty Counsel and the Family Research Council over the company’s endorsement of Washington state’s marriage equality.

At a recent shareholders meeting, CEO Howard Schultz rebuffed an effort from the head of the Corporate Morality Action Center to drop the company’s pro-gay rights stance, which he said led to “disappointing” sales. Schultz refused, saying “If you feel, respectfully, that you can get a higher return than the 38 percent you got last year, it’s a free country. You can sell your shares of Starbucks and buy shares in another company.”

Naturally, Santorum is outraged that Starbucks has “taken a very aggressive stance against natural marriage and for changing the definition of marriage” and claimed Schultz said “if you are a shareholder of Starbucks and you support traditional marriage then sell your shares, we don’t want you as a shareholder.”

Santorum suggested that both the company’s support for marriage equality and the customers who patronize the chain are endangering American values and urged listeners to boycott: “So are you going to live out your life and say we’re going to support institutions, we’re going to support businesses, we’re going to support colleges and universities, we’re going to support media that are out there fighting against the values that we know are important to this country or are we going to live our lives consistent with that.”

“So when I say, what are you doing to support the American dream?” Santorum asked, “Are you going to live it or are you just going to say well I support this and then go out and do things that actually support organizations and things that undermine the causes of our country?”

What we ask people is: how do you see the American dream today and what are you going to do to make it happen? For example, I just passed a Starbucks on the way in and I don’t know if you saw this this past week but the CEO of Starbucks was asked a question by one of the shareholders at the shareholder meeting, you know they’ve taken a very aggressive stance against natural marriage and for changing the definition of marriage and they made the point that: hey look this is hurting your company, it’s hurting our sales because people are not buying Starbucks anymore. He made this bombastic statement, he said: if you are a shareholder of Starbucks and you support traditional marriage then sell your shares, we don’t want you as a shareholder. Unbelievable.

Now, a lot of Americans will say well that’s too bad, but are you going to live out what you believe? Do you believe that this is a good for society? Do you believe that this something we should stand behind? The left does and they live it in their lives every day. So are you going to live out your life and say we’re going to support institutions, we’re going to support businesses, we’re going to support colleges and universities, we’re going to support media that are out there fighting against the values that we know are important to this country or are we going to live our lives consistent with that.

So when I say, what are you doing to support the American dream? It’s not just, what are you doing to support your dream; what are you going to do to support the basic concepts and values of this country and are you going to do it in every aspect of your life, are you going to live it or are you just going to say well I support this and then go out and do things that actually support organizations and things that undermine the causes of our country? That’s the difference I think between a group of people who believe that the country is—well I hear this all the time, you know America is in trouble but we’ll be OK and everything will be fine—and the bottom line is it won’t be fine unless we make it fine, unless we actually stand up and have the same revolutionary zeal, if you will, as the left is in trying to change America. We have to have the same kind of intensity if we want to keep the values and virtues of our country solid.

Rick Santorum and James Dobson are back together again, this time promoting Dobson’s “dystopian thriller” on Patriot Voices Radio, which is Santorum’s new radio show. The former presidential candidate said that the Obama administration is pushing “godlessness” and is “overtly hostile to people of faith,” to which Dobson agreed and predicted the creation of euthanasia clinics in the future that result from a dramatic decline in the birth rate.

Later, Dobson lamented that he has “never seen a time when there was less common sense in government than appears to be there now” and that Santorum was the only candidate who had “the guts to talk about the family” during the campaign.

Santorum: Can you play this all out, you do it in the trilogy here, can you play this all out, you end up with the godlessness and that’s really what we’re seeing this administration now doing, something that is historic in America. I have never seen anything that is so insidious as the government regulations and the court cases that this administration is bringing, they are overtly hostile to people of faith.

Dobson: You’re absolutely right about that and I should’ve mentioned that my co-author in this book is Kurt Bruner who was the vice president of Focus on the Family for many years and he’s a young, brilliant writer and he and I are working together on this. As we pointed out one of the implications of these changes demographically is a changing view of morality. Views of infanticide will change and of suicide and of euthanasia and of abortion, all those things will change because as the population struggles to bring children into the world then there will be, we predict or project, that as there are abortion clinics all over the country, and we’ve got one two blocks from my house which I have to drive by every day, there will also be euthanasia clinics where people can do ‘the loving thing.’

…

Dobson: I don’t want to be pessimistic about everything and I do see a lot of pessimism but what I’m seeing now is disturbing. I’ve never seen a time when there was less common sense in government than appears to be there now. This is why, I don’t want to be self-serving to you or serving to you, but I supported you for president because you were the only person that had the guts to talk about the family and to talk about its implications and why it was important and why the government had to take a stand for families and make it possible for them to survive. Man I wish you had an opportunity to continue to do that and that’s why I joined you today.

While it is becoming extremely unlikely that the GOP will be able to muster enough votes to filibuster Chuck Hagel’s nomination as defense secretary, Religious Right groups and their Republican allies continue to make new and more over-the-top overtures to activists hoping to block his confirmation.

For example, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) told Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council that “we can’t afford to allow someone who has been that cozy with the terrorist groups that are out there to become Secretary of Defense.”

Inhofe went on to say that Hagel wants to “disarm us” and shows “hostility” toward the U.S. and Israel. Inhofe also cited Sen. Ted Cruz’s questioning of Hagel where he egregiously misrepresented the nominee’s speeches and interview with Al-Jazeera.

Inhofe: That is what is so scary about this; we’d be confirming a secretary of defense—

Perkins: That wants to basically disarm.

Inhofe: Who wants to disarm us. Before I run out of time, Cruz came up with something just great, he’s a new senator from Texas and he’s on my committee, the Armed Services committee, and he came out and he actually used…a spot that came from Al-Jazeera, this was Chuck Hagel being interviewed on Al-Jazeera a short time ago when he agreed with the call-ins at that time that Israel committed war crimes; Hagel admitted that Israel committed ‘sickening slaughters’; admitted that America is the world’s bully. And this is the guy that is trying to become the secretary of defense; it’s a scary, scary thing.

Perkins: Senator before I let you go, just one question: do you know why he seems to be so indifferent if not hostile toward Israel?

Inhofe: And the United States, Tony. I just don’t understand it. Of course, he denies that he is and you know the record confirms that he has this hostility to it. By the way, almost every group in Israel is lobbying us and calling us and saying, ‘please don’t let this happen.’ They’ve been just as concerned about Obama, this is the first time that any President of the United States has trashed Israel in my memory. So I can’t answer that question.

Matthew Hagee, the son of televangelist John Hagee who has been lobbying with Christians United for Israel against Hagel and called him “dangerous to America’s security,” said on the Hagee Hotline that Hagel’s contentious confirmation hearing was an answer to their prayers.

At the end of the day, Pastor Hagee and those 400 [pastors] who joined him were very confident that what they had done was all that was in their physical power to do to not only represent their views as Americans but the views of the body of Christ and the kingdom of God and to stand up on behalf of God’s chosen people, Israel. All that was left to do was to remain in prayer and to be hopeful that the actions that they had taken would make a difference. If you saw any of the headlines following the Senate committee’s interview of Chuck Hagel, you know that a difference was made. You saw that the Senate firsthand was able to expose Hagel’s weaknesses and you saw the difference that the prayer of the righteous and faith in action can make.

Just today the Family Research Council asked activists to pray for Hagel’s defeat and FRC senior fellow Ken Blackwell said Hagel’s nomination invites “chaos and confusion at a time of international peril.” Eagle Forum told members in an action alert that “Chuck Hagel is a threat to America’s strength and safety” and Rick Santorum claimed “his confirmation would be a direct threat to our national security.”

American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer also weighed in, saying that Iran “loves” Hagel because he wants to “disarm” the U.S.

• The Christian conservative magazine WORLD notes that while abortion is illegal in South Korea, abortion rates there are “double the U.S. rate.” As we’ve said before, abortion rates tend to be higher in countries where it is criminalized. 

• Tomorrow, Rick Santorum, Rand Paul and Tony Perkins will speak at the March for Life [PDF], while Speaker John Boehner will send in a video message. 

• New Mexico Republicans want to prosecute rape survivors who terminate the pregnancy with a felony charge of “tampering with evidence.” 

• Concerned Women for America claims that feminism has left women “at the mercy of sexually liberated men.” 

• A very delusional Joseph Farah maintains that Obama “got re-elected because there was virtually no opposition.” 

• If you ever wanted to learn how to literally wrestle a demon and evade their “fiery darts,” here’s your chance.

The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins welcomed former presidential contender Rick Santorum to his “Washington Watch” radio program on Tuesday, where the two discussed the moral decline of the nation. Santorum blamed colleges and universities for “indoctrinating in a sea of relativism and a sea of antagonism toward Christianity,” leading to the “symptoms” of abortion, marriage and pornography:

Santorum: The cultural indicators that I talked about earlier that are sort of going the wrong way, we're, you know, in ever-increasing numbers, less and less people here in America, you know, and believe in God, and believe in Jesus Christ, and believe in truth and right and wrong. It’s understandable, I mean, if you certainly, if you look at popular culture and what comes out of Hollywood, if you go to our schools and particularly our colleges and universities, they are indoctrinating in a sea of relativism and a sea of antagonism toward Christianity -- religion in general, but Christianity in particular. And so it’s understandable that that happens, but we, you’re right. Abortion is a symptom, marriage is a symptom, I mean pornography is, all of these are symptoms to the fundamental issue that we’ve gotten away from the truth and the Truth-Giver.

Earlier in the program, in a conversation with FOX News’s Todd Starnes, Perkins fondly reminisced about the days “before repressive government” when his elementary school teacher would discipline her students with a yardstick:

Perkins: I remember my third grade teacher had a big Bible, one of the biggest Bibles I ever saw, sitting on the corner of her desk, and on the other side of the desk was a yardstick, and I think she used the yardstick more. In classrooms today, you couldn’t have either one. But that was, we date things in terms of A.D., that was B.R.G., Before Repressive Government, back when God was still welcome in our schools.

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities failed to capture the 2/3 vote needed for ratification in the U.S. Senate today due to fierce Republican opposition. Many Republicans and their allies in the conservative movement claimed that the treaty codifies abortion into law, even though that preposterous claim was rejected by the National Right to Life Committee and Sen. John McCain. Along with the false charges about abortion, opponents of the treaty claimed it will undermine U.S. sovereignty and harm children. Critics like Rick Santorum warned that the treaty may kill his disabled daughter; Glenn Beck said it could create a “fascistic” government and Sen. Jim Inhofe alleged the treaty would help groups with “anti-American biases.”

One of the lesser-known but extremely active opponents of the bill was homeschooling activist Michael Farris.

During an interview with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, he claimed that the treaty will prompt the United Nations to ‘get control’ of children with glasses or ADHD and remove them from their families.

Farris: They’re called living documents, just like the disgraced living Constitution theory, which means the treaty doesn’t mean today what it’s going to mean tomorrow what it’s going to mean ten years from now. So you never know what you’re signing up for, that by itself is a good enough reason to leave it alone and to never enter into one of these things. But in particular, you hit the nail on the head Tony, the definition of disability is not defined in the treaty. My kid wears glasses, now they’re disabled, now the UN gets control over them; my child’s got a mild case of ADHD, now you’re under control of the UN treaty. There’s no definitional standard, it can change over time, and the UN, not American policymakers, are the ones who get it decided.

While speaking with the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer, the two warned that the treaty could lead to the deaths of disabled children, all the while admitting they have no evidence it would do such beyond their pure speculation.

Fischer: Disabled newborn babies in the UK are being put, oftentimes overriding the wishes of parents, on this death pathway where no matter what the parents want the doctors say this kid cannot live, severely disabled, too many congenital deformities, we think the best thing for this kid is just to be starved and dehydrated to death. It seems to me that although that’s not specifically contemplated in this treaty that could be an outcome.

Farris: Whether they thought about it or not, that’s exactly what Rick Santorum said in our press conference. He was holding his daughter Bella and she’s of the category of child that in Britain they would take that position because her official diagnosis is ‘incompatible with life.’ So when the doctor gets to decide, the doctor empowered by the government—these doctors aren’t doing it on their own, they are doing it because the government says they have the power to do it—the doctor/government deciding what they think is best for the child. It goes to the point of deciding whether the child lives or dies, it is that crazy. If we want to live in a Brave New World like that where the bureaucrats and the government and the UN all tell us what to do, fine, but this is the beginning of the end of American self-government if we go here, it’s just crazy, we cannot let this happen.

After warning that the treaty will kill children, Farris told conservative talk show host Steve Deace that the treaty will create a “cradle-to-grave care for the disabled” and said if the U.S. ratifies it “signing up to be an official socialist nation.” Farris claimed that the treaty will treat the parents of disabled children like child abusers in order to grow government power and implement “coercive socialism.”

“Everybody in America will be living under is socialism as an international entitlement” if the treaty passes, Farris maintained, “it’s a way to make the socialist, liberal, amoral element a permanent feature of our law.” Deace agreed and said the treaty will “due in freedom and liberty.”

Farris: Every parent with a disabled child is going to be in the same legal position as if they’d been convicted of child abuse. We are taking away parental decision-making power in that area. The other thing that everybody in America will be living under is socialism as an international entitlement. The United States resisted all the UN treaties of a certain category that began being proliferated in the 1960s; the first was the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights. Our country said no that is coercive socialism, we’re not going to do that. So we rejected all those treaties ever since 1966. Yet we’re signing up now for our first economic, social and cultural treaty which means as a matter of international binding law that goes to the supremacy clause level in our Constitution, we’re signing up to be an official socialist nation, cradle-to-grave care for the disabled. Maybe Americans want to do that, but I think we’d want to do it as a matter of domestic law, not as a matter of international law. I personally don’t think that’s any business of Congress to do that sort of thing but I certainly don’t want to be doing it when the United Nations tells us to do it. So those are two big ways it will affect every American and there are more.

Deace: Michael Farris is here with us from Patrick Henry College, also from the Home School Legal Defense Association, talking about another attempt to usurp American sovereignty, to essentially do an end-run around the Constitution and then of course due in freedom and liberty through an effort through the United Nations.

…

Farris: If they can get this one through, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, CEDAW, which is the women’s treaty with all kinds of junk in that one, and then a whole host of other UN treaties that the Obama administration wants to send our way, it’s a way to make the socialist, liberal, amoral element a permanent feature of our law through the use of treaties and they are going to do a full-force attack. We’ve got to stop them now. It’s not like just the camel nose in the tent, it is that too, but we don’t want a camel’s nose in our constitutional system, that’s what we don’t want.

As Brian noted last week, the Religious Right is in the middle of making a full-court press on the Senate in an effort to prevent ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by doing what they always do:  lying about what the convention says and means.

Today, Rick Santorum, who has been leading the fight against ratification, appeared on Glenn Beck's radio program when Beck ominously cited language from the convention proclaiming that "children with disabilities shall be registered immediately after birth" to suggest that something "really Orwellian or, quite honestly, fascistic from the Nazi days" was going on; an assessment with which Santorum heartily agreed:

The most amazing thing about this, and the subsequent discussion in which Beck and his co-hosts wildly speculated about what this and other provisions within the convention "really" mean, is the extent to which their complete ignorance about the actual meaning and intent of such provisions in no way hinders their willingness to boldly make declarations about them. 

Article 18, Section 2 of the Convention the Rights of Persons with Disabilities says that "children with disabilities shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by their parents."  

While Beck and his cronies were busy laughing about the aburd assertion that children have a right to a name and to acquire a nationality, a bit of research would have taught them that such language is rooted in Article 24 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which entered into force in 1976: 

1. Every child shall have, without any discrimination as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, national or social origin, property or birth, the right to such measures of protection as are required by his status as a minor, on the part of his family, society and the State.

2. Every child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have a name.

3. Every child has the right to acquire a nationality.

The main purpose of such rights is to "reduce the danger of abduction, sale of or traffic in children" and "ensure that every child has a nationality when born." 

And here is a news flash for Beck, who seems to thinks that there is something sinister about having the US ratify a document containing such language: as noted above, the provision that every child shall be registered upon birth was first set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ... which the United States ratified in 1992.

So the United States has already ratified a UN convention containing the very language that Beck is now warning is "fascistic" and Naziesque.

Conservative organizations have come out strongly against the UN Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities, with Rick Santorum leading the charge. The groups are upset about the treaty ensuring that people with disabilities have equal rights because they claim it is “pro-abortion.”

Article 25 of the Treaty reads in part: 

States Parties recognize that persons with disabilities have the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health without discrimination on the basis of disability. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure access for persons with disabilities to health services that are gender-sensitive, including health-related rehabilitation. In particular, States Parties shall:

(a) Provide persons with disabilities with the same range, quality and standard of free or affordable health care and programmes as provided to other persons, including in the area of sexual and reproductive health and population-based public health programmes;

Anti-choice activists are angry about the inclusion of the phrase “reproductive health” in the nondiscrimination clause, according to LifeNews:

Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, has previously noted the pro-life concerns, saying abortion advocates put language in the treaty in Article 25 that requires signatories to ‘provide persons with disabilities… free or affordable health care including in the area of sexual and reproductive health and population-based health programs.’” “Translation: the global community could force America to sanction sterilization or abortion for the disabled–at taxpayer expense” he said. “Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tried to neutralize the threat during the mark-up in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Unfortunately, his amendment (which would have stopped the treaty from forcing abortion policy on countries that sign) was thwarted by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) after a debate.”

Several pro-life groups are on record opposing the treaty, including Eagle Forum, Family Research Council Action, CitizenLink, Concerned Women for America, Liberty Counsel, and others.

In addition, the Home School Legal Defense Association and the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) have also came out against ratification.

But Perkins’s claim that the treaty “could force America to sanction sterilization or abortion for the disabled-at taxpayer expense” is simply false.

The State Department makes clear that the treaty “does not include abortion” and the phrase “reproductive health” in Article 25 “does not create any abortion rights, and cannot be interpreted to constitute support, endorsement, or promotion of abortion.”

The Convention is firmly rooted in the principles of equality and non-discrimination. As the Chairperson and many other delegations, including the United States, have noted on countless occasions over the course of negotiations, the treaty reinforces existing rights and is aimed at assuring that persons with disabilities will be treated on an equal basis with others.

This approach was reflected in oral statements and in various places in the written travaux preparatoires, including in a footnote to the draft text of Article 25 that appeared in the report of the Seventh Ad Hoc Committee.

In this regard, the United States understands that the phrase "reproductive health" in Article 25(a) of the draft Convention does not include abortion, and its use in that Article does not create any abortion rights, and cannot be interpreted to constitute support, endorsement, or promotion of abortion. We stated this understanding at the time of adoption of the Convention in the Ad Hoc Committee, and note that no other delegation suggested a different understanding of this term.

Even the National Right to Life Committee reported after the text was adopted that no delegate interpreted “reproductive health” to mean abortion and that “delegates from pro-life nations ultimately accepted this language.” “The committee responsible for enforcing compliance to this treaty would be going way beyond their mandate if they were to interpret the term ‘reproductive health’ to include abortion,” the NRLC said:

The legally undefined and controversial term "reproductive health" remains in the document despite the fact that the term has never appeared in any other UN treaty. However, all parties maintained that the term does not include abortion and that its inclusion in this treaty cannot be interpreted to create any new rights such as a right to abortion.

The final version of Article 25 (a) on health states that nations signing and ratifying the treaty shall: "Provide persons with disabilities with the same range, quality and standard of free or affordable health care and programmes as provided other persons, including in the area of sexual and reproductive health. . . . ."

Delegates from pro-life nations ultimately accepted this language because they were assured and became confident that it does not include abortion or create any new human rights such as a right to abortion.

For example, during the debate the Treaty Chairman, Ambassador McKay of New Zealand, stated repeatedly that the use of the term "reproductive health" in this treaty does not create any new human rights such as abortion. He even added a non-binding footnote to the record of negotiations, not the treaty itself, which he claimed would preclude any such misinterpretation of the term.

Numerous delegates from nations throughout the world including the European Union agreed with Chairman McKay that the term "reproductive health" does not include abortion. No delegate from any nation stated that it does.

In light of all these statements and the language of the treaty, the committee responsible for enforcing compliance to this treaty would be going way beyond their mandate if they were to interpret the term "reproductive health" to include abortion. It is crucial that they do not because nations that sign and ratify a treaty are required to change their laws in order to comply with the treaty.

But for the Religious Right, even definitive evidence that the treaty’s language does not refer to abortion doesn’t change their mind that the Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities must be defeated.