Ryan Sorba

During The Awakening’s panel on “Messaging and Mobilizing a New General of World Changers,” the fear of swelling youth support for marriage equality laws was widespread. Religious Right activists were particularly worried about the results of a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll that found that not only did 53 percent of Americans favor marriage equality, but that support was even stronger among younger Americans: “In an ABC/Post poll five and a half years ago, for example, under-30s were the sole age group to give majority support to gay marriage, at 57 percent. Today it's 68 percent in that group – but also 65 percent among people in their 30s, up a remarkable 23 points from the 2005 level; and 52 percent among those in their 40s, up 17 points.”

While the early morning panel was composed of young conservative leaders and Liberty University students, the audience was largely older and a number of questioners expressed fear over rising support for marriage equality among youth. Thomas Hall, a close aide to Lou Engle and a board member of the dominionist Oak Initiative, lamented the youth energy and support for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and Ryan Sorba admitted that even conservative students are not rallying behind the opposition to marriage equality.

William Estrada, a leader of the homeschoolers group Generation Joshua and the Home School Legal Defense Association, argued that conservative youth are organizing. Estrada mentioned a homeschoolers group in Hawaii, the Guardians of Liberty, who he said singlehandedly convinced former Governor Linda Lingle to veto a civil unions law. “We’re seeing young people standing up for the cause of traditional marriage,” Estrada said. What he failed to mention was that just a few months later, newly elected governor Neil Abercrombie signed the civil unions bill into law with little public outcry.

Marriage equality still faces immense political hurdles, with just five states and the District of Columbia adopting equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians, but the discouragement over the lack of anti-gay fervor among youth at The Awakening should not be taken as a sign that Religious Right activists have any intention of giving up. If their “Religious Liberty and the LGBT Agenda” panel demonstrated anything, it's that the Religious Right is unleashing even more venomous and blistering attacks against gays and lesbians. That is, when they aren't denying the existence of gay people.

Dejected, angered, and confused, last week’s poll by the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow shows the increasing desperation and panic of the Religious Right:

Last year, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli joined dozens of Religious Right leaders for an event called "Awakening 2010," organized by the Freedom Federation and hosted at Liberty University, where Cindy Jacobs declared that "the Bible is the government of the people, by the people, for the people," while Matt Barber and Andrea Lafferty claimed that passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act would allow those working at the Veteran's Administration to freely molest disable veterans.

In April, the Freedom Federation will host its second annual "Awakening" conference entitled "Raising Our Voices: Equipping and Empowering a New Revolution" which organizer hope will feature a mix of right-wing activists like Lou Engle, Tony Perkins, Mat Staver, Frank Gaffney, Wendy Wright, David Barton, and Gary Bauer with Republican leaders like Cuccinelli, Michele Bachmann, Marco Rubio, Alan West, Mike Pence, Newt Gingrich, and Mike Huckabee:

Notice also the proposed inclusion of Ryan Sorba, whose made a name for himself as last year's CPAC by blasting organizers for allowing the participation of GOProud.

• The Pacific Justice Institute is trying to force California to defend Prop 8.
• Richard Land may not support the "Ground Zero Mosque," but he condemns anti-Muslim crimes like arson in Tennessee.
• Glenn Beck has some new website.
• Peter LaBarber really likes Ryan Sorba.
• Joseph Farah really hates GOProud.
• Liberty Counsel wants you to cast a "Vote of No Confidence" in President Obama.
• Jordan Sekulow says people will continue to question President Obama's faith so long as he continues to be a bad Christian.
• Finally, behold Mike Huckabee featuring AshleyMadison.com on his program:

It seems that Peter LaBarbera is rather upset with me for saying that his upcoming "truth academy" was going to be "the gay-hatingest thing you have ever seen":

Oftentimes when activists on the Left have no evidence that something they disagree with is actually ”hateful,” they just label as such anyway, and then repeat themselves ad nauseam so that we’ll all get the message that said conservative activity is, well, “hateful.” Here is People for the American Way (PFAW) “Senior Fellow” Kyle Mantyla’s trenchant analysis of AFTAH’s Truth Academy curriculum:

“Peter LaBarbera has unveiled the instructor list and official curriculum for his upcoming three day anti-gay hatefest/”truth academy” … and it is pretty much going to be the gay-hatingest thing you have ever seen.”

Wow. “Gay-hatingest.” Reactionary liberals are expanding their smear-term lexicon. Seriously, though, most people on the Left are not quite willing, yet, to define anyone who disagrees with homosexuality as “hateful” — although they might call them “homophobic” (an artificial construct whose elastic definition has evolved to meet the needs of pro-”gay” liberals). I’m sure there are exceptions, but I suspect that most “gay”-affirming people would not automatically label anyone who believes that homosexuality is immoral — or that homosexual sex is unnatural – as “haters.”

LaBarbera apparently operates under the belief that opposition to all things gay which claims to be rooted in Judeo-Christian morality cannot possibly be considered hateful:

Morality is not “hate” and defending the historic Judeo-Christian sexual ethic is not “bigotry.” Homosexuality is wrong, and a controversial moral and religious issue involving behavior ... In a free society, we debate moral issues, and we discuss public health issues arising from dangerous behaviors. Does PFAW hold that it is OK to crusade for acceptance of homosexuality, but “un-American” and ”hateful” to oppose it civilly?

Maybe “Senior Fellow” Kyle, who edits PFAW’s “Right-Wing Watch” blog, and his pro-homosexual allies can explain it for us: Is every American who opposes homosexuality hateful — or just those who defend that position in public? When does moral disagreement become “hate”?

Civilly?  Is that how LaBarbera thinks his hand-picked line-up of "instructors" has engaged in the public debate? 

- Cliff Kincaid claims that gays are out to destory our military with disease-tainted blood.

- Laurie Higgins says Christians have to fight gays just like they fought Nazis.

- Rena Lindevaldsen has worked tirelessly representing a woman who fled the country rather than allow her former lesbian partner to see their daughter.

- Robert Knight comared gay marriage to Pearl Harbor.

- The only reason anyone even knows the name Ryan Sorba is because he launched into an anti-gay rant at CPAC.

- And Matt Barber is the sort of person who says there is nothing acceptable about "one man violently cramming his penis into another man’s lower intestine and calling it 'love'" and whose career, from day one, has been rooted in his virulent animosity toward gays.

And Peter LaBarber is the man who personally invited all of these activists to come a "teach" at his conference - and he chose them specifically because of their unabashed militant hostility toward gays.

Last month we noted that Peter LaBarbera's Americans for Truth would be hosting a three-day training conference for anti-gay activists featuring a who's who of the most hostile voices in the movement, including LaBarbera, Robert Knight, Ryan Sorba, and Matt Barber. 

Today Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid, who shares a LaBarbera-level hatred for gays, has now been added to the list of instructors, which explains why he is now writing glowing columns about the conference warning that it is our only hope of save America from its "moral suicide" as gays seek to kill themselves and everyone else:

LaBarbera is one of those brave few taking a leadership role in the effort to preserve traditional American social and religious values. Fighting off the predictable smears of “hater” and “homophobe” from the gay-run Media Matters group and the Southern Poverty Law Center, he and his associates will be gathering near Chicago from August 5-7 to educate the next generation—and their parents—about the consequences if homosexuality is promoted in the schools and by the federal government. This is when AFTAH is launching a Truth Academy on how to fight the “gay agenda.” I am honored to be invited to be a part of this effort. I will be discussing gay influence on the media and the homosexual drive for the “right” to donate possibly infected and contaminated blood to the nation’s blood supply.

Adults and young people alike are encouraged to sign up for this much-needed effort to organize the pro-family forces in America. The issue is just as important as the massive debt and deficits that are threatening to financially bankrupt the nation. The cost to attend the AFTAH Truth Academy is only $99 for students, $199 for adults, and $299 for couples.

A tentative list of instructors is proof that the three-day event will provide all of the evidence you need to understand that acceptance of homosexuality is not only a health hazard to those practicing this “lifestyle” but a historical indicator that our society is going down the drain. As such, you will leave the event convinced that the moral bankruptcy of America has to be avoided, in the same way that we need to keep our nation’s fiscal house in order. The Tea Party, in other words, has to take on a moral dimension. Our crisis is more than money alone.

...

As noted by Bible scholar William Barclay, Paul’s remarks seemed, at first glance, like the work of “some almost hysterical moralist” at the time. But it was “an age of moral suicide,” Barclay said, explaining that “Society from top to bottom was riddled with unnatural vice. Fourteen out of the first fifteen Roman Emperors were homosexuals.”

We haven’t reached that state of affairs in America quite yet. But we are fast approaching it ... On the gay rights front, things are also moving forward for the progressives and their libertarian brethren. In fact, the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Institute boasts that Obama has already appointed a “record number” of openly LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) individuals. Perhaps we are catching up with Rome more quickly than anybody realizes.

But don’t get the idea that these people are serving just so they can prove they can do the job and be left alone. They are in positions of power for a reason. Their “job” is to use the power of the federal government to promote homosexuality. One of the most significant appointments is John Berry as the director of the Office of Personnel Management, with jurisdiction over 1.9 million federal employees and 2.5 million retirees.

Tragically, while the gays continue to expand their “rights” in the government and private sectors, they are killing themselves in greater numbers—and pushing policies that threaten the lives of the rest of us. This is where we need real “compassionate conservatism”—not to condemn these people but save them from themselves. And save ourselves and our children in the process.

I don't really have anything to say about this, but just wanted to make note of the fact that today WorldNetDaily gave space to Ryan Sorba to spread his militantly anti-gay views: 

The actual article itself is pointlessly dull, so I am not even going to bother excerpting it or commenting on it ... I just wanted to highlight the fact that WND gave space on its website to this guy: 

Ever since Ron Paul won the CPAC straw poll, traditional Religious Right activists have been arguing that the event was overtaken by Libertarians and therefore did not represent "true" conservatives ... a belief that was only reinforced by the fact that Young Americans for Freedom's Ryan Sorba was booed by the audience for his attack from the stage on the conservative gay group GOProud.

For decades, CPAC has been the conservative gathering in Washington, but this year a man who for years had been relegated to the sidelines of the movement suddenly won the event's straw poll thanks largely to the support from Tea Party activists, which re-exposed a basic rift between the economic conservatives and social conservatives that in recent years the movement has been trying hard to bridge ... apparently without much success:

The rise of a new conservative grass roots fueled by a secular revulsion at government spending is stirring fears among leaders of the old conservative grass roots, the evangelical Christian right.

A reeling economy and the massive bank bailout and stimulus plan were the triggers for a resurgence in support for the Republican Party and the rise of the tea party movement. But they’ve also banished the social issues that are the focus of many evangelical Christians to the background.

And while health care legislation has brought social and economic conservatives together to fight government funding of abortion, some social conservative leaders have begun to express concern that tea party leaders don’t care about their issues, while others object to the personal vitriol against President Barack Obama, whose personal conduct many conservative Christians applaud.

“There’s a libertarian streak in the tea party movement that concerns me as a cultural conservative,” said Bryan Fischer, director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy at the American Family Association. “The tea party movement needs to insist that candidates believe in the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage.”

...

There’s no centralized tea party organization, and anecdotes suggest that many tea party participants hold socially conservative views. But those views have been little in evidence at movement gatherings or in public statements, and are sometimes deliberately excluded from the political agenda. The groups coordinating them eschew social issues, and a new Contract From America, has become an article of concern on the social right.

The contract, sponsored by the grass-roots Tea Party Patriots as well as Washington groups such as FreedomWorks and Americans for Tax Reform, asks supporters to choose the 10 most important issues from a menu of 21 choices that makes no mention of socially conservative priorities such as gay marriage and abortion.

“They’re free to do it, but they can’t say [the contract] represents America,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, a veteran of the Christian right. “If they do it they’re lying.”

Groups such as FreedomWorks, said Perkins, bring a libertarian bias that doesn’t represent the “true tea parties.”

As we noted a few weeks ago, social conservatives like Perkins have long been at war with Tea Party/economic conservatives like Dick Armey, but had recently swallowed their pride and linked up with Armey's FreedomWorks in an attempt to get in on the Tea Party activism which Armey's activism has come to represent:

Tea party activism is so entirely driving the right-wing movement at the moment that the most influential Religious Right organization is willing to co-host an event with a group lead by a man who publicly and repeatedly insulted them as stupid, shallow demagogues just to get in on the action.

If that doesn't tell you just where the Religious Right fits in to the conservative movement, I don't know what does.

And now you have Perkins claiming that FreedomWorks doesn't represent the "true tea parties," which is laughably pathetic and just goes to prove, as we have been arguing all along, that the Religious Right is desperately trying to co-opt the Tea Party narrative and graft their own religious agenda on to a movement that, from its founding, has had no real interest in such issues.

Every time I write a post about something Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid as written (which seems to be happening quite frequently lately) I marvel at his consistency.  While most of the people we write about frequently occasionally write uninteresting or irrelevant things that don't really warrant any sort of coverage, Kincaid seems able to produce pieces so chock-full of craziness that they are impossible to ignore.

Case in point is his latest column, which is built around refuting this Politico article by Kenneth Vogel claiming that the conservative establishment is finally trying to distance itself from the "movement’s extremist elements."

Now, I don't buy Vogel's claims for a minute ... and neither does Kincaid, but for completely different reasons.  For instance, Vogel cites as evidence of his premise the fact that Ryan Sorba was jeered at CPAC for attacking GOProud from the stage, but Kincaid sees it differently, claiming that it was those who were booing Sorba who are extremists who don't represent the conservative movement:

What he ignores is the evidence that the "jeering" came mostly from non-conservatives, many of them libertarians, and that the "anti-gay activist," Ryan Sorba of Young Americans for Freedom, was rebutting a pro-gay speaker, a leader of a group who told me he wasn't a conservative in the first place.

To clear things up for Kenneth Vogel and others in the media, let us make it clear that a true conservative like Howard Phillips, who has been a leader in the conservative movement for several decades, understands that conservatism means traditional moral and religious values, a strong national defense, and economic freedom. There is nothing complicated or confusing about it. The homosexual movement, founded by a member of the Communist Party by the name of Harry Hay, simply doesn't qualify for admission, no matter how many libertarians in the CPAC audience may applaud for GOProud or jeer Ryan Sorba.

In order to purge the conservative movement of its extremists, CPAC will have to remove its own organizers who let them in.

The story ignores the real problem of how the "conservative establishment"-in the form of the CPAC organizers--picked actual and real extremists to co-sponsor their event. And those were the self-described "gay conservatives" who reject the social conservatism that has been an essential part of the conservative movement. The well-established and well-known Family Research Council pulled out of CPAC because CPAC organizer David Keene decided to allow GOProud, a relatively new organization that works for the election of "centrist" and liberal Republicans, into the event. But this mistake is overlooked by Vogel.

[Does anybody have any idea what Kincaid is talking about when he says that the Family Research Council pulled out of CPAC?  I know the Liberty University Law School did so, but I don't recall FRC ever following suit.]

Kincaid then goes on to dispute Vogel's claim that some conservatives were uneasy about the fact that the John Birch Society was allowed to co-host CPAC ... and does so by defending the John Birch Society:

Communism was and is a conspiracy. Without commenting on every charge made by the JBS or its leaders over the years, its central claim--that U.S. leaders are working with the communists and others to lay the groundwork for world government--cannot be dismissed out of hand. Objectively speaking, one has to admit that talk of global taxes and world government is frequently in the news and cannot be said to be the fantasies of the "black helicopter" crowd. Even the Pope has stated his belief in a "World Political Authority." His own Vatican newspaper published a favorable review of Marxist theory.

At this late date, no one can seriously doubt that a "New World Order" of some kind is coming into being. The real questions are to what extent it is being deliberately designed to subvert America's standing in the world and the American way of life, and what role President Obama is playing in it.

Critics of the JBS have to concede the organization has been on the right track about an emerging world government.

Kincaid finally wraps up his piece by defending the Birthers and attacking the "so-called 'conservatives'" who spoke to Vogel for his Politico piece, accusing them of giving the conservative movement a bad name.

I can hardly wait for Part II of Kincaid's piece, which he promises will focus on the conservative movement's relationship with "Alex Jones, Russian Television, and the Oath Keepers."

CBS has an article on GOProud and CPAC that revolves mostly around Ryan Sorba's attack on the group from the stage and the boos it elicited from the audience which quotes Liberty Counsel's Mat Staver saying that GOProud free to be part of the conservative movement so long as they don't expect the movement to actually support their agenda. How kind of him.

But he  was also asked about his views regarding the negative reaction Sorba elicited with his attack, and Staver said that this year's CPAC was dominated by libertarian Ron Paul supporters, suggesting that if it had been dominated by social conservatives, Sorba would not have been booed: 

Mathew Staver, dean of the evangelical Liberty University School of Law and founder and chair of the Liberty Counsel, says that he and his allies "certainly don't support the idea that anybody would be eliminated from the political process because of their sexual orientation."

But he said Liberty University School of Law felt compelled to pull its sponsorship from CPAC over GOProud's support for the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and other policies.

"Those are not conservative policies, and they are not supported by the Republican Party," he said, noting that the GOP continues to oppose a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal as well as same-sex marriage and hate crimes protections based on gender identity. "I welcome all people being part of the conversation, but I also think that just because of your individual orientation, it does not mean that we change the values that conservatives support."

Asked if he was disappointed with Sorba's reception, Staver noted that Ron Paul won the CPAC straw poll of 2012 presidential candidates - evidence, he suggested, that those in the room were not "reflective of the conservative movement or the Republican Party."

Really!? So if those who booed Sorba "are not reflective of the conservative movement or the Republican party," then isn't Staver saying that "real" conservatives wouldn't have booed Sorba for his anti-gay rant?