Tom DeLay

The US Embassy in the Czech Republic, as part of the State Department’s new LGBT rights initiative, is supporting a pride festival in Prague “to address discriminatory behavior based on sexual orientation and to promote a tolerant civil society and equal opportunities in the Czech Republic.” Already irate over Secretary Hillary Clinton’s speech on LGBT rights, American Religious Right activists joined their European, African and Latin American allies to denounce the Obama administration for “aggressively promoting the ‘gay’ agenda internationally” and leading a campaign of “cultural imperialism” [PDF]:

At the directive of the president of the United States, Washington is aggressively promoting the “gay’’ agenda internationally, including same-sex “marriage” and the stigmatization and marginalization of any who object to the same.

The Obama’s administration’s embrace of “same-sex marriage” has been overwhelmingly rejected by the American people. There have been 32 state referenda on marriage. In every one of them, voters endorsed the natural definition of marriage (a man and a woman). The North Carolina vote, on May 8, was 61% in favor of natural marriage.

…

It stands to reason, then, that anything which undermines the family – including changing the definition of marriage – is a breach of the State’s responsibility to protect this indispensable institution which precedes government and makes a stable and free society possible.

The Madrid Declaration of World Congress of Families VI (May 25-27, 2012) --which was unanimously adopted by more than 3,200 delegates from 72 countries --provides, in part: “We affirm the natural family to be the union of a man and a woman through marriage for the purposes of sharing love and joy, propagating children, providing their moral education, building a vital home economy, offering security in times of trouble, and binding the generations.”

Regarding “gay rights,” those caught up in this lifestyle have the same rights as other citizens. This does not include the “right” to force others to validate a lifestyle they find objectionable, for religious or other reasons. It also does not include the right of men to marry men and women to marry women.

The foregoing pseudo-rights do not advance human freedom and dignity but debase them.

We can not imagine a worse form of cultural imperialism than Washington trying to force approval of the “gay” agenda on societies with traditional values.

The list of signatories is mighty long, including former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay; Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver and Matt Barber; American Family Association’s Tim Wildmon; Catholic League’s Bill Donohue; Vision America’s Rick Scarborough; Rabbi Daniel Lapin; American Civil Rights Union’s Robert Knight; Concerned Women for America’s Janice Shaw Crouse; Pastor Jim Garlow; WND’s David Kupelian; TFP’s C. Preston Noell III; conservative activist Richard Viguerie; World Congress of Families’ Don Feder; Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell; Traditional Values Coalition’s Louis Sheldon and Andrea Lafferty; and the Southern Baptist Convention’s Paige Peterson.

Other activists like Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, Scott Lively of Defend the Family International and Sharon Slater of Family Watch International are also among the signatories, as is Mission America’s Linda Harvey, who believes people should refuse care for themselves and their children from openly gay doctors and nurses:

Another signatory was Yehuda Levin has claimed that gay marriage caused last year’s D.C. earthquake and linked gay rights to the 9/11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina, the Tsunami and the 2010 Haiti earthquake:

The list even included former chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, who performs gay exorcisms:

Rick Scarborough of Vision America, the self-proclaimed ‘Christocrat,’ held a conference call today with US Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) and disgraced former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay as part of his new 40 Days to Save America effort to rally Religious Right voters before the November election.

DeLay, who has appealed his convictions on money laundering and conspiracy charges that led to a three year prison sentence, prayed during the conference call and said that Americans “threw away” God’s blessing. “You gave us this nation and we’re at a crossroads, we can either succumb and do nothing or we can fight for Your worldview and for you Lord,” DeLay said, “You assigned civil government to us and that it is part of our responsibility to work hard for Your glory and Your will so Lord please give us a special favor”:

The conference call was mostly used to boost the candidacy of Akin, a Religious Right favorite who earlier claimed that “at the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God,” and told listeners that class and racial differences in America only began recently as a result of the growth of government. He said that Americans must follow the Founders who went to war against a “foreign tyrant” just “not with bullets but with ballots.” “It’s no surprise that liberalism tries to remove references to God because God is the source of strength of those patriots,” Akin said.

For a nation based on the idea that there is a Creator who blessed us with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and he gave us those blessings because they were necessary for us to fulfill the special purpose that he called every single one of us to. That of course, implies, that there are no classes, there are no hyphenated Americans, we are all just God’s children and that’s good enough. That was the dream that every single one of us could live in the blessing of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That is the thing that has held us together, it’s the glue that made America special and it’s the reason why Americans went to war because some foreign tyrant threatened our ability to be alive and to have liberty and to pursue the dreams that God gives us, that’s why we went to war. And right now, in a sense, we are going to war, not with bullets but with ballots because there is a threat in Washington, D.C. that will take every part of that dream away from us. It’s no surprise that liberalism tries to remove references to God because God is the source of strength of those patriots.

Televangelist James Robison hosted Daniel Lapin of Toward Tradition on today’s program Life Today. Lapin is promoting his new book, “Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money.” Lapin should know something about making money, as he was intimately tied to disgraced lobbyist and convicted felon Jack Abramoff (a past chairman of Toward Tradition) and his illegal financial schemes. The Washington Post reported that Lapin and Abramoff used Toward Tradition to funnel bribes from a gambling company to a top aide of then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Abramoff later became rich through his illegal lobbying practices – he and a business partner received over $82 million from the Indian casino firms they defrauded – before ultimately pleading guilty to charges of “fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials.”

Today on Robinson’s show, Abramoff’s close friend Lapin told Robinson that “money is a spiritual measure of what you have done for other human.” Accordingly, Abramoff must be one of the most moral, ethical and spiritual men in Washington.

Watch:

• Tom DeLay was sentenced to three years in prison today.
• Apparently, people like Mike Huckabee.
• Archbishop Timothy Dolan will be joining Alveda King and other "Black prolife leaders" for a rally in New York.
• Harry Jackson tries to connect the President Obama-Michael Vick story to his shilling for energy interests. 
• Finally, Ken Blackwell tries to convince us that the Constitution did not condoned slavery.

Today's eipsode of WallBuilders Live radio program was dedicated to lamenting the tragedy of Tom DeLay's conviction for money laundering with DeLay's BFF Rick Scarobough, who says that he takes solace in knowing that this nation will one day be called to judgment by God: 

Scarborough: Tom DeLay is a very close personal friend of mine. I got to know Congressman DeLay when I was pastoring for twelve years in his district. I found him to be a genuine, Godly man and consequently when this indictment came down and subsequent trial began back on November the first I determined that I was going to sit at his side, minister to her and his wife. And consequently I made trips every week for three straight weeks to Austin to monitor the trial and prayed with the family. And I must confess, at least from my perspective, we've had a grave injustice carried forth that I pray God will intervene and correct.

Rick Green: You know I ask you first, Pastor, before we get into the details, you're someone who loves this country like we do - when you see this sort of travesty of justice and abuse of the judicial system, how do you maintain hope?

Scarborough: Well, I keep my eyes focused on Jesus. I know biblically there comes a day when a nation that tramples under foot the word of God finally is called to judgment.

Later, David Barton rails against the fact that DeLay was not allowed to choose his own jury so that he could be judged by a bunch of consevative Christians who could have then ignored the law and found him not guilty, just as the Founding Fathers intended:

Green: I'll ask you the same question I asked Rick: how do you get peace when you look at these kinds of abuses of what should be the best system in the world.

Barton: Well, it's a problem and one of the things that has happened is there is a check and balance here that did not get used, and that check and balance was the jury system.

And the judges have so corrupted the jury system ... let me give you an example: we have all these cases from the Founding Era of jurors and you always here this thing, a "jury of your peers." Do you know what that literally meant? It meant that the guy who was on trial got to pick the people who sat on the jury ... But now we say "we've got to get somebody who doesn't know you personally, we've got to get somebody who has only read the news account story of you - what [George] Soros and Media Matters and everything else" - and so that's a corruption of the jury system.

We used to allow jurors, under the Constitution, they decided both law and fact and we don't allow them to decide law any more. And that used to be a check and balance upon judges but in 1895 the US Supreme Court said "oh, juries can't look at the law anymore, they can only look at the fact."

Green: Only our high and might judges can decide that ... so what we do is basically we give the juries, they're basically boxed in, you can answer yes or no to this question and that's it.

I mean, it never should have gone to trial in the first place and then on the other end you ended up with a jury that wasn't a jury of his peers and was only allowed to answer the one question.

Barton: That's right, so that's the abuse that happened. this is a pretty good example of what happens when you get away from that Constitutional guarantee of due process. The Constitutional guarantee would have made this really easy, but under that way the courts have reinterpreted the Fourth through the Eighth Amendments, all that Due Process stuff, this is where DeLay had so much trouble.

• Carly Fiorina has been admitted to a hospital for treatment of an infection but is expected recover quickly and and return to the campaign trail soon.
• John Fund calls Dick Morris "the most amoral political consultant in the country."
• Tom DeLay's trial for allegedly illegally funneling corporate money to help elect Republicans to the Texas Legislature has finally begun.
• Alan Keyes and Wiley Drake lose another round in the Birther lawsuit.
• Finally, the quote of the day from Bryan Fischer: "Child tax credits should be extended only to married couples with children, but not to children in any other domestic arrangement. Nobody is going to force anybody to get married, but cohabiting couples will quickly learn that there are financial costs as well as emotional and relational costs to shacking up. If they want to bear those costs on their own, fine. Just don’t expect taxpayers to reward your irresponsibility."

• C. Peter Wager will be joining Cindy Jacobs and Lance Wallnau for Generals Internationals Q&A.
• Randall Terry gets ready to embark upon his latest Quran-destroying escapades.
• Judge Vaughan Walker is retiring.
• Gary Bauer and Robert Spencer are among those joining Christiane Amanpour for a debate on “Holy War: Should Americans Fear Islam?”
• This press release from Rick Scarborough announcing a conference call next week with Tom DeLay and Phyllis Schlafly is borderline incoherent but apparently they have something planned.
• Finally I, for one, cannot wait to see the new Christian movie about a law student who sues Satan for $8 trillion called "Suing the Devil."

It may seem too obvious to be said, but let’s say it. Beck’s claim that his event was nonpolitical doesn’t pass the smell test, the laugh test, or any other test. He picked Sarah Palin to speak just because she’s a military mom, not because she’s the darling of the Tea Party movement, right? 

Alveda King, who invoked “Uncle Martin” repeatedly with her own “I have a dream” speech (let’s just say his version’s place in history is secure), used her remarks to press two of her major political projects, criminalizing abortion and denying equality to gay and lesbian Americans, decrying that “the procreative foundation of marriage is being threatened, and the wombs of our mothers have become places where the blood of our children is shed in a womb war that threatens the fabric of our society.” King said we will know we have arrived “when prayer is once again welcomed in the public squares of America and in our schools,” which is standard Religious Right rhetoric. 

It is important to remind ourselves occasionally that right-wing anti-choice groups don't just want to control the rights of women in America, they want to control the rights of women everywhere.

Case in point: Pat Robertson's ACLJ has been deeply involved and spent tens of thousands of dollars in trying to keep abortion out of the constitution being drafted in Kenya ... and now it looks like dozens of other Religious Right leaders are backing the effort:

With just two weeks to go until Kenyans vote on a new Constitution, World Congress of Families Managing Director Larry Jacobs announced the conclusion of a successful petition drive "In Support Of The 'No' Campaign -- Kenyans Opposed To The Pro-Abortion Constitution."

In less than a week, the Congress gathered signatures from more than 170 pro-life and pro-family leaders in 21 countries. Signers include former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Former Boston Mayor and Vatican Ambassador Ray Flynn and Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay ...

Organizations whose leaders are represented include:

-- Priests for Life
-- Tradition, Family and Property
-- Concerned Women for America
-- Alliance Defense Fund
-- Human Life International
-- Liberty Counsel
-- Americans United for Life
-- National Right to Life Committee
-- LifeSiteNews.com
-- Eagle Forum
-- Vision America Action
-- Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission
-- The Beverly LaHaye Institute
-- Focus on The Family
-- Family Talk [w/James Dobson]
-- Traditional Values Coalition

While the Religious Right is working to outlaw abortion overseas, they are also working to limit access to legal abortions here in the US in increasingly imaginative ways, which is why the ACLJ is representing a Texas bus driver who lost his job after refusing to take a passenger to a Planned Parenthood facility because it performed abortions:

[Edwin] Graning had asked his wife to call the facility; she heard a recording directing callers to call 911 in case of abortion complications. "I said, dear God in heaven, this woman's gonna have an abortion," he said.

Graning said that no protocol for orders to drive people to abortion clinics had ever been discussed. "I'm a Christian ... I love the Lord and I'm not going to be a part of something like this," said Graning, a former pastor. He pointed out that the woman quickly received a ride from another bus.

When he told his supervisor that he would not make the drive, Graning says the supervisor replied, "Then you are resigning." He objected, but was later directed to bring his vehicle and belongings back to CARTS, and received a letter of termination on grounds of insubordination.

Graning, 63, who celebrated his 40th wedding anniversary last month, is a father of two and grandfather of three.

He is being represented by lawyers from the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ).