Mississippi

Bryan Fischer in the New Yorker: Extreme, Rigid and the Product of a Broken Home

Submitted by Josh Glasstetter on Wednesday, 6/13/2012 2:20 pm

The New Yorker is out with an excellent new piece by Jane Mayer that explores how Bryan Fischer came to be the bigoted firebrand known so well to readers of this blog. Over the years we’ve covered a seemingly endless stream of outrages by Fischer, who serves as American Family Association’s Director of Issue Analysis and host of “Focal Point” on AFA’s radio network. Yet Fischer only recently emerged on the national scene when he led the successful effort to oust an openly gay spokesman from the Romney campaign.

The New Yorker profile, appropriately titled “Bully Pulpit,” is Fischer’s first national media close-up, and the results are none too pretty. Mayer spoke with former and current friends and co-workers of Fischer, and the portrait that consistently emerges is of an extreme and rigid man who consistently drives friends away and is compensating, to this day, for childhood traumas.
 
                 (Photo by Alec Soth for the New Yorker)         
 
As you would expect, the article includes a number of outrageous and offensive remarks and claims made by Fischer, both to Mayer and previously (many of which were first reported on this blog). Here are some notable examples from the profile:
  • “Fischer declared that ‘homosexuality gave us Adolf Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine, and six million dead Jews.’
  • “Like the saying goes, ‘I’ve never met an ex- black, but I’ve met a lot of ex-gays.’ If one person can do it, two people can do it.”
  • “He then denied, as he does routinely, that H.I.V. causes AIDS, calling it a ‘harmless passenger virus.’”
  • “Fischer thinks that Islam is a violent religion, and argues that Muslims should be stopped from immigrating and barred from serving in the U.S. military. He believes that the country was a Christian nation when the Bill of Rights was written, and therefore non-Christians ‘have no First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.’ He has said that Native Americans are ‘morally disqualified’ from ruling America, and that African-American welfare recipients ‘rut like rabbits.’”
  • “Obama, he has said, ‘despises the Constitution” and “nurtures a hatred for the white man.’”
  • “Fischer advised a caller that, in some instances, a child as young as six months could be spanked.”
Readers who are already familiar with Fischer’s extremism will likely be much more interested in the details about how he came to be what he is today, starting with his upbringing and relationship with his parents:
Fischer’s political activism, however, began years before the advent of same-sex-marriage laws. In fact, his preoccupation with family dysfunction seems to have started with his own. Though Fischer loves to talk, he does not like to talk about his childhood, and spoke about it only grudgingly. He was born in Oklahoma City, in 1951, and his father, John, a descendant of German Mennonites, was a Conservative Baptist minister whose pacifism was so strict that he became a conscientious objector during the Second World War—a choice that makes Fischer uncomfortable. […]
 
Fischer didn’t volunteer anything about his mother, but, when pressed, said, “My parents divorced when I was about twenty. It just rocked my world.” His mother, who worked as an interior decorator at a furniture store, was “chronically late,” and the bus driver on her route to work would always hold the bus for her. Eventually, he said, “my mom fell for the bus driver,” deserting him, his father, and his younger sister. “I don’t want to go into it,” Fischer said. “But I saw the devastating impact it had on other people in my immediate family.” Asked how his father fared, Fischer turned away, then said, “He looked like an Auschwitz survivor. It was akin to that ordeal.”
 
Dennis Mansfield, a Christian conservative who was friends with Fischer for twenty years, said that Fischer also “had a deep-rooted disappointment in his father, for not being strong enough.”
Later, as a student at Stanford, Fischer gravitated to David Roper, a chaplain at the school, and began attending his evangelical church in Palo Alto. Fischer told Mayer that he was attracted by the “manliness” of the church: “It was the first time I’d been around a real muscular Christianity,” he told me. “It had a kind of strength and virility to it that would appeal to men.” Roper told Mayer he found this characterization “odd” and is no longer close to Fischer.
 
Manliness and strength continued to be major forces – and sources of strife – in Fischer’s life. Roper left Palo Alto in 1978 and recruited Fischer and Terry Papé, a fellow student, to join him in Boise after they graduated. In 1993, Roper retired and chose Papé to lead the congregation, passing over Fischer, who was crushed. Manliness was to blame:
“Bryan was very popular when he came to Cole,” Papé recalled. “But, over time, those relationships were strained, because of his very strong personality. When it comes to his perspective, it’s very difficult to get him to budge. He loves a good argument, but he doesn’t like being persuaded he might be wrong.” In 1993, Fischer was crushed when Roper retired and endorsed a different successor. […]
 
But friction had grown between the two men—and between Fischer and the congregation— over various doctrinal issues. “The central issue was gender,” Fischer told me. The church, he said, had “adopted policies that would have allowed women to exercise authority over men.” He opposed this, citing the Apostle Paul.
Fischer then started his own church in Boise, the Community Church of the Valley, and pursued a hard line on gender and family issues:
In church, Fischer preached that it might be preferable if Americans married upon becoming sexually mature. “I’m not saying go out and get your fifteen-year-old engaged,” he said. But he argued that “we have artificially delayed the age at which people are expected to marry,” and observed, “Mary, the mother of Christ, was probably a teen-ager when she was betrothed to Joseph.” In another sermon, he preached that women were equal to men in worth but “not equal in authority.”
 
“Somebody’s got to have the tie-breaking vote,” he explained to me. “According to God, that’s the husband and father.”
Fischer was appointed in 2001 as the chaplain of the Idaho Senate and began developing a statewide reputation for hard-right political activism. He also alienated many people, including Dennis Mansfield, an elder at his church and a longtime friend, who told Mayer about a pattern he noticed over the years: Fischer would “develop a closeness to a friend and then, as soon as they had a disagreement, they’d be cut adrift.”
 
Four years later, Fischer was kicked out on the street by his own congregation – again manliness was to blame:
“It was the gender issue again,” Fischer told me. “Because of my Scriptural convictions, I wasn’t able to budge. A female friend of the wife of an elder wanted a leadership role. I felt those roles should be reserved for men… . When I objected, they said, ‘You’re fired.’ It was very abrupt. I didn’t know what I was going to do next. It was very painful.” 
Fischer then fell into full-time political activism, founding the Idaho Values Alliance, which in 2007 became the state chapter of the American Family Association. Two years later he moved to Tupelo, MS to take on his current roles at AFA’s headquarters, which features a “statue of a fetus enshrined in a heart and a shoulder-high stone tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments” out front.
 
Mayer’s profile provides an interesting look inside AFA, the tax-exempt and supposedly nonpartisan organization behind American Family Radio, which “comprises two hundred stations in thirty-five states.” At one point, Fischer’s producer began laughing after saying that “we have to be careful, because we’re not allowed to endorse.”
 
Mayer also relays a story about how AFA president Tim Wildmon texted Fischer during an on-air tirade about Newt Gingrich’s infidelities to warn him that “he might be alienating listeners.” This anecdote caught my attention because we’ve noted instances in the past where AFA has censored and edited Fischer’s articles on their website. Could it be that Fischer is on course to alienate yet another friend and benefactor? Only time will tell.

 

Phil Bryant: Liberals' 'One Mission in Life is to Abort Children'

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 4/24/2012 4:20 pm

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant today appeared on American Family Radio’s Today’s Issues with American Family Association president Tim Wildmon and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins where he defended a new Mississippi law that could close the state’s one abortion clinic. As noted in a People For the American Way report, “The War on Women,” Bryant signed a TRAP bill, or targeted regulations of abortion providers, that is meant to impose “unnecessary and burdensome regulations on physicians who perform abortion services” and shut down the only abortion clinic in the state by making it more difficult for the clinic to employ doctors who live outside the state:

The state’s Republican lieutenant governor, Tate Reeves, boasted that the TRAP bill would “effectively close the only abortion clinic in Mississippi” by preventing the clinic from relying on out-of-state physicians. The clinic, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, depends on out-of-state physicians because many doctors who live in Mississippi face constant harassment and threats of violence.

Bryant, a major supporter of the state’s unsuccessful personhood amendment, now wants to stop women from exercising their right to choose after failing to eliminate that right in last year’s referendum.

He defended the law in the interview by arguing that “Barack Obama and all those on the left” are hypocrites for opposing it, demonstrating that “their one mission in life is to abort children, is to kill children in the womb.” After knocking “fly-in abortionists,” Perkins agreed and said that abortion providers are simply driven by profit.

Watch:

Bryant: You would think that Barack Obama and all those on the left that love so much to talk about women’s health care would rush to support this bill, would just say, ‘absolutely we want the strongest health care, we want admissions privileges, we want that women that is going through that abortion for her life and safety to be paramount,’ well it should be the paramount of the child.

Even if you believe in abortion, the hypocrisy of the left that now tried to kill this bill, that says that I should have never signed it, the true hypocrisy is that their one mission in life is to abort children, is to kill children in the womb. It doesn’t really matter, they don’t care if the mother’s life is in jeopardy, that if something goes wrong that a doctor can’t admit them to a local hospital, that he’s not even board certified. We passed that bill and I think you’ll see other states follow and when that happens at least these fly-in abortionists are going to be regulated under the state laws of the Medical Procedures Act here in the state of Mississippi as they should be across the nation.

Perkins: Well the driving factor is profit for many of them.

Mississippi Republicans Push to Mandate Transvaginal Ultrasounds, Renew Personhood Amendment Fight

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 3/15/2012 4:20 pm

The Mississippi House passed a bill that would require doctors to detect fetal heartbeats, which in many cases would require a transvaginal ultrasound, on women seeking an abortion and without exceptions for survivors of rape or incest. An amendment that would ban men from having vasectomies failed to pass. The group Personhood Mississippi praised the bill’s passage, and said they will begin collecting signatures to put another personhood amendment on the ballot in 2013 despite its failure last November.

The bill appears to be based on Janet Porter’s Heartbeat Bill, which passed the Ohio State House and bans all abortions after a detectable heartbeat, that has been springing up in other states including Kansas and Nebraska.

During the debate over the legislation, a Republican lawmaker responded to claims that the medically-unnecessary procedure is “state-sanctioned rape” by arguing that women “allow ourselves to be vulnerable to a pregnancy”:

The Mississippi House approved a bill that would require women seeking abortions to acknowledge when unborn children have detectable heartbeats, in some cases necessitating invasive transvaginal ultrasounds.

There is no provision in the House Bill 1196 exempting women who have been victims of rape or incest from the transvaginal ultrasound.

…

Rep. Rita Martinson, R-Madison, rebutted Wooten's statement, specifically addressing her description of the instrument.

"What do we think is used when an abortion is performed?" she asked. "What kind of device goes in and snatches a person from the womb, tears it out, and takes that beating heartbeat and kills it?"

While Hines and Wooten said the bill holds women responsible for an unwanted pregnancy while letting men off the hook, Martinson stressed it should be the woman's responsibility.

"Sometimes it's rape, but most of the time, it's not," she said. "We're the ones who remove our pants, are we not?

"We are the ones who allow ourselves to be vulnerable to a pregnancy," she said.

Santorum Appears on Extremist Talk Show – Love Fest Ensues

Submitted by Josh Glasstetter on Thursday, 3/8/2012 6:06 pm

Rick Santorum has demonstrated, yet again, his willingness to associate with people whose views are repugnant to most Americans. This afternoon he appeared on one of the most extreme Religious Right programs in the country – American Family Radio’s Focal Point with Bryan Fischer.

Fischer, the Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association, has been accused of crossing the line against “decency and civility” and of using “poisonous language” – by none other than Mitt Romney at the Values Voters Summit, who was trying to cautiously distance himself from Fischer’s repeated attacks on his Mormon faith while still courting the Religious Right. Later in January, Fischer claimed that a electing a Mormon president would threaten the “spiritual health” of the country.
 
But Fischer isn’t only out to get Mormons. He has an extensive history of bigotry against groups like Muslims (who are stupid because of inbreeding), gays and lesbians (who are responsible for Holocaust), Native Americans (who are “morally disqualified” from controlling land) , low-income African Americans (who “rut like rabbits”), and basically anyone who isn’t a “real” Christian. Fischer has also likened President Obama to Adolf Hitler and called him a tyrant who has a “hatred for the United States” and a “hatred for the white man.”
 
That brings us to Rick Santorum, who is hoping today’s appearance on American Family Radio will help him reach right-wing voters in Alabama, Mississippi and Kansas – the next states to vote in the GOP primary. He even gave a shout-out to the Deep South at the top of the interview: “We spent yesterday in Mississippi and Kansas and today we’re in Alabama. I’ll tell ya, there’s just nothing friendlier than the Deep South. We’re just enjoying the heck out of it here.”
 
Santorum knew he would be warmly received, and the interview was nothing short of a lovefest. Fischer gushed that his wife was a Santorum supporter from back when “being a Rick Santorum fan wasn’t cool,” and Santorum responded in kind: “We appreciate all the help and support. We were in your home town there, Tupelo, yesterday, and had a great reception from folks.”
 
Listening to Fischer and Santorum talk, it was clear that both men have very similar world views. For instance, Santorum told Fischer that President Obama ignores the Constitution and “believes he is more of an emperor than a president.”
 
Their conversation reminded me of a compliment Fischer gave Santorum just two weeks ago on his show:
 
This ought to be a tremendous encouragement to all of us that the leading candidate for the GOP nomination sounds like he’s hosting a conservative talk radio program.
 
Ladies and gentlemen, where do you hear anybody on the campaign trail talk like Rick Santorum talks? He sounds much more like he’s hosting a program on AFR Talk.
 
On that point, I’m in full agreement with Fischer. Santorum does sound like a Religious Right talk show host, and while that may help him in the GOP Primary, it’s also why he’ll never be president of the United States.
 
You can watch the full Santorum interview on Focal Point here:
 

Palin Schedules Next Speaking Engagement In Mississippi Because of AFA

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 10/18/2011 10:31 am

Earlier this month, Brian noted that Sarah Palin was scheduled to speak at an Extraordinary Women Conference held at Liberty University.

This weekend, Palin is scheduled to speak at another one of these conferences, which is being held in Tupelo, Mississippi ... and she has reportedly decided to speak at this event because of its proximity to the American Family Association:

Former Alaska governor and conservative Republican star Sarah Palin will anchor a lineup of female Christian speakers who will give their testimonies this weekend in Tupelo.

The 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee will speak Saturday at 3 p.m. as the climax of the Extraordinary Women Conference at the BancorpSouth Arena.

Palin announced earlier this month that she would not seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, but her appeal among conservatives remains strong, and that's part of why she chose to make Tupelo one of only four stops on the Extraordinary Women tour at which she'll speak.

"We looked for markets where her appearance demographically made sense," said Michael Stewart, the conference's vice president for event development. Stewart also mentioned the presence of the American Family Association as a reason why Palin chose to speak in Tupelo.

The AFA is a certified anti-gay hate group and the employer of one of the Religious Right's most relentless bigots ... but it seems that for Palin, the AFA is a draw that is luring her to Mississippi.

Palin To Liberty University

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 10/7/2011 9:45 am

After bowing out of the presidential campaign, Sarah Palin will now keynote a conference at Liberty University for a Christian women’s conference. Palin, the professional Fox News commentator and speaker, previously headlined events for anti-abortion groups including one gathering with Planned Parenthood smear artist Lila Rose:

A sell-out crowd of over 10,000 women are expected to pack the Liberty University Vines Center and Thomas Road Baptist Church facilities this weekend, October 7-8, for the annual Central Virginia Extraordinary Women (EW) Conference, with special featured guest Governor Sarah Palin! Thousands of women will also be joining live via simulcast at churches all over America and Canada.

"This is shaping up to be one of the most electrifying and meaningful conferences we have ever had," said Julie Clinton, EW Host and President.

An explosive national Christian women's movement, EW exists "To help women draw closer to the heart of God" everyday. The 2011 Extraordinary Women "Everlasting Hope" tour also includes New York Times best-selling authors Lysa TerKeurst and Donna VanLiere, and noted Bible teachers Jennifer Rothschild and Carol Kent, along with inspiring music from awarding-winning Christian artists, Michael O'Brien, Meredith Andrews, Jeremy Camp, and Female Vocalist of the Year, Francesca Battistelli. Filled with times of praise and worship, biblical teaching and entertainment, "This conference is our way to encourage and inspire the hearts of women," Clinton said.

The pace only picks up for the Extraordinary Women movement (www.ewomen.net), with events planned for later this fall in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Tupelo Mississippi, and Rockford, Illinois. Thirteen more major arena events are already slated and planned for 2012.

Right Wing Round-Up

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 9/27/2011 5:47 pm
  • PFAW: Pressure Begins to Yield Results as Senate Takes Steps to Confirm 10 Judicial Nominees.
  • Towleroad: Anti-Gay Activists Using Child Molestation to Fool People Into Signing Petition Against California LGBT History Bill.
  • Dallas Voice: Group says FW teacher was harassed by student he punished for saying homosexuality is wrong.

Huckabee Lauds Personhood Mississippi, Slams Avaricious "Abortion Industry"

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 9/20/2011 11:11 am

Only a few years ago Religious Right groups and Republicans were running as far as possible away from the Personhood Colorado campaign, the effort to pass an extreme anti-choice measure that was twice handily defeated by Colorado voters. Last year, the National Right to Life Committee, Americans United for Life, Colorado Citizens for Life all refused to back the Colorado personhood amendment, and the Colorado Eagle Forum called the personhood campaign a “disaster.”

But now, the Personhood Mississippi campaign –which is nearly identical to the Colorado effort – has received the support of prominent Republican leaders including Mike Huckabee and anti-choice groups such as the American Family Association, Liberty Counsel and the Family Research Council.

The campaign to pass the personhood amendment, called Amendment 26, is led by the head of the extreme Mississippi Constitution Party and a member of Christian Exodus, which wanted to have states secede from the U.S. in order to form a new theocratic system of government. Designed to challenge Roe v. Wade, the amendment would criminalize abortion in all cases and also ban the treatment of ectopic pregnancies, in vitro fertilization, stem cell research and certain forms of birth control.

Huckabee addressed a fundraiser for the personhood campaign and urged activists to give money because pro-choice activists only want to “make people rich” by keeping abortion legal. “This isn’t about elevating women,” Huckabee said, “this is about elevating wealth on behalf of those who profit from the sale of death.”

Watch:

But here’s what I don’t assume. I do not assume that you comprehend the battle you’re gonna face over the next couple of months in this fight for Amendment 26. You have no idea how many millions of dollars are likely to be poured into your state and it’s not stimulus money and economic development and job creation, it is hardcore political money that is designed to preserve the abortion industry which is a multimillion dollar industry specifically designed in order to terminate life and make people rich. Let’s not kid ourselves; this is not about elevating women this is about elevating wealth on behalf of those who profit from the sale of death.

…

The reason that America is more pro-life than it ever has been is because the younger generation of Americans are more pro-life than their mothers and their grandmothers. And do you know why? Because science has affirmed what God has been trying to scream to us all along: that is a human life! Thank God for the science that’s affirmed it.

Personhood USA Sets Sights On Ohio

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 9/15/2011 1:00 pm

Mississippi is set to vote this November on a patently unconstitutional personhood amendment that would criminalize abortion in their state, and ‘personhood’ advocates now strive to put a similar amendment on the ballot in Ohio in 2012. Personhood laws would not only prohibit abortion in all cases but also ban certain forms of birth control and the treatment of ectopic pregnancies by giving legal rights to zygotes. The anti-choice activists hope that Ohio will vote on it at the same time as the swing state’s closely contested presidential election. Right now Ohio is on the brink of passing Janet Porter’s ‘Heartbeat bill’ that would ban abortion in the vast majority of cases, but Porter has taken heat that her prized legislation doesn’t go as far as personhood laws.

The American Family Association, which is financing the personhood campaign in Mississippi, reports that Personhood Ohio, the state affiliate of Personhood USA, wants the amendment, if passed, enforced even if it is struck down by the courts. “There's a firm legal precedent that when the judiciary rules unconstitutionally and immorally, that we have no obligation to respect that law any more than if they would have ordered us to kill our wives,” said Patrick Johnston of Personhood Ohio, “We don't have to obey them:

A campaign is under way in Ohio to place a Personhood Amendment on the 2012 ballot.

Article 1, Section 1 of the Ohio Constitution currently reads: "All persons are, by nature, free and independent and have certain inalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life..." The Personhood Amendment would add that "the word 'person' or 'persons' applies to every human being at every stage of biological development of that human being or human organism, including fertilization."

The idea is to amend the state constitution to define that a person is a person when human life begins at conception or fertilization. Dr. Patrick Johnston of Zanesville, a family physician who heads the campaign, says the constitutional addition would protect all unborn babies in Ohio, without exception. Personhood Ohio volunteers must now obtain 380,000 signatures to call for the election.

"It's a good state to go directly to the voters to gather enough signatures, and then go to the voters and the ballot box and bypass the committees that end up corrupting good pro-life legislation in the House of Representatives and the Senate," Johnston explains.

That corruption, he sayts [sic], reaches the point where exceptions are made that result in abortions. But he believes Ohio's pro-life leaning is strong, so even if a court rules against it, it does not necessarily mean anything.

"There [are] several constitutional measures we can take," the physician asserts. "One is we can ignore it. There's a firm legal precedent that when the judiciary rules unconstitutionally and immorally, that we have no obligation to respect that law any more than if they would have ordered us to kill our wives. We don't have to obey them."

Right Wing Leftovers

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 9/8/2011 5:33 pm
  • Rick Perry says the Ten Commandments are "good policy and at the end of the day ... probably good politics."

  • It looks like Janet Porter's Heartbeat Bill is heading to Kansas.

  • The folks at Personhood Mississippi who are seeking out outlaw abortion insist that "obviously ... we're not taking away any rights."

  • Bryan Fischer has re-worked his "Muslims are using 9/11 to celebrate" column in light of the fact that he completely got the day wrong.

  • Finally, the Liberty Counsel's lawsuit against healthcare reform lost in court, but LC vows to appeal because the "ruling goes against every court in America that considered this case."

Huckabee Is "Delighted To Stand" With Leader Of Anti-Gay Hate Group

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 9/8/2011 10:31 am

Earlier this year, Mike Huckabee appeared on Bryan Fischer's radio program where the two of them attacked President Obama's "fundamental anti-Americanism."

Shortly thereafter, Huckabee was a guest on Alan Colmes' radio program where he was asked about why he was associating with a vicious bigot such as Fischer, to which Huckabee responded by claiming that was not familiar with Fischer's long record of undeniable bigotry and that he was not responsible for things Fischer may have said.

Since then, it has become pretty clear that there is nothing that Fischer can say that might get anyone in the conservative movement to treat him as the pariah that he is, as leading conservative figures continue to appear on his radio program on a regular basis.

Huckabee himself has appeared on Fischer's show multiple times and did so again yesterday to discuss his upcoming appearance at a fundraiser for Personhood Mississippi and declared that he was "delighted to stand" with "courageous leaders" like the AFA's Don Wildmon in supporting this effort:

So this is just another reminder of the fact that seemingly nobody on the Religious Right finds Fischer's relentless bigotry in any way objectionable or unacceptable:

Huckabee To Keynote Fundraiser For Personhood Mississippi

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 8/31/2011 12:40 pm

Mike Huckabee is scheduled to be the featured speaker at a fundraiser for Personhood Mississippi, the group running the campaign to pass Amendment 26, which would criminalize abortion with no exceptions by giving rights to zygotes. In addition to banning abortion, the personhood amendment would also make certain forms of birth control, in-vitro fertilization and the treatment of problem pregnancies a crime. The American Family Association, which is based in Mississippi, committed $100,000 to fund the effort to pass Amendment 26 in November.

By supporting Amendment 26, Huckabee places himself even to the right of the National Right to Life Committee, which refused to back Colorado’s failed personhood amendment because they thought it was counter-productive and likely to be struck down as unconstitutional.

Moreover, the founder and director of Personhood Mississippi is far-right extremist Les Riley. Riley used to be a featured blogger for the Christian separatist group Christian Exodus, until his posts were conspicuously removed from the group’s site. But luckily, he left a paper trail:

According to Christian Exodus’s mission statement, “The initial goal was to move thousands of Christian constitutionalists to South Carolina to accelerate the return to self-government based upon Christian principles at the local and State level. This project continues to this day, with the ultimate goal of forming an independent Christian nation that will survive after the decline and fall of the financially and morally bankrupt American empire.”

The group, which is closely tied to the neo-confederate League of the South, attempted to set up an independent, theocratic state in South Carolina by 2016 but has since moved on to creating theocratic settlements in Panama and Idaho.

Riley is also chairman of the Constitution Party of Mississippi and stated that its goal is to “restore American government to its Constiutional [sic] limits and American jurisprudence to its Biblical presuppositions.” According to their platform, “The U.S. Constitution established a Republic rooted in Biblical law.”

But for Huckabee, it seems no activist is too radical to work with.

Right Wing Round-Up

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 8/30/2011 5:45 pm

Richard Land Calls Out Herman Cain's Anti-Islam Stance

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 7/18/2011 3:46 pm

As we noted earlier today, Herman Cain had gone full-on Bryan Fischer in declaring that local officials ought to be able to ban the construction of mosques in their communities.

Now Richard Land, of all people, is taking Cain to task for that position:

"I think the First Amendment is one of those amendments that is too important and protects rights that are too central to our guaranteed rights in this country to be left with a local option," he asserted.

Like Christians, Muslims have the right to have places of worship near where they live, Land said. 

...

The Southern Baptist also asserted that Cain, who boasts that he is the descendant of slaves, should defend Muslims' rights under the Constitution so that they are upheld in every community, city and state.

"Mr. Cain of all people, as an African American, should understand that our civil rights have to be guaranteed on a federal level," he said. "I don't think he would want to leave the civil rights of an African American to the local voters in Philadelphia and Mississippi where they buried three civil rights workers – one black, two white – under a dam after they had killed them."

Land, as you may recall, has been a vocal opponent of the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" and even resigned from the Anti-Defamation League's "Interfaith Coalition on Mosques" amid criticism that he was promoting Islam.

Personhood Bill Flounders In Louisiana

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 6/10/2011 3:03 pm

In another stinging defeat for the burgeoning “personhood” movement, a Louisiana personhood bill which would ban all abortions was defeated in the state legislature. The legislation, sponsored by Republican State Rep. John LaBruzzo, was hailed by Personhood USA as one of their best chances to pass a personhood law this year.

Personhood legislation gives legal rights to zygotes, banning all abortion without exception along with procedures to treat problem pregnancies, certain forms of contraception, and even in-vitro fertilization. Incidentally, the federal Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funds for abortion procedures, was the rationale used by the bill’s opponents to table the measure to send it back to committee. Personhood USA lamented that “The Hyde Amendment had a chilling effect on prolife legislators.”

Personhood USA is still counting on Mississippi voters to pass a personhood amendment this November, a referendum backed by other Religious Right groups like the American Family Association and Liberty Counsel along with top Republican politicians. The Mississippi effort is led by a proponent of Christians creating their own separate, theocratic country in America. In 2006 and 2008, personhood amendments were overwhelmingly defeated in Colorado.

The Associated Press reports:

A Metairie lawmaker's attempt to force a direct challenge to the Roe v. Wade decision by banning abortion outright in Louisiana was derailed Wednesday to the House budget committee.

The 65-30 vote of the House to send Rep. John LaBruzzo's bill to the House Appropriations Committee could shelve the measure for the legislative session.

"This would basically defeat the bill by running out the clock," LaBruzzo said. Only two weeks remain in the legislative session. LaBruzzo is proposing to define a fetus as a person from the moment of conception, which would ban abortion entirely, in violation of current federal law. Anti-abortion groups are split on the worth of the idea.

Lawmakers who supported sending the bill to the Appropriations Committee cited the possibility it could jeopardize $4.5 billion in federal health care funding Louisiana receives for its Medicaid program. A financial analysis said the proposal would put Louisiana at odds with a 1976 federal law requiring Medicaid to cover abortion services to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest. Rep. Jim Fannin, D-Jonesboro, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, pushed for the diversion of the bill.

"I am truly and completely opposed to abortion, but that's off the table," he said.

LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, disagreed with the financial analysis done by the Legislative Fiscal Office.

Right Wing Round-Up

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 6/9/2011 5:52 pm

Rick Perry Teams Up With AFA For Call-Like Prayer Rally

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 6/6/2011 9:47 am

Reuters reports that Texas Governor Rick Perry has teamed up with the American Family Association to launch his own Lou Engle-like all day prayer rally:

Saying "there is hope for America, and we will find it on our knees," Texas Governor Rick Perry has invited other governors to join him in a "solemn gathering of prayer and fasting" in August in Houston, according to the event's website.

Perry, who said recently he is considering a run for the Republican nomination to contest the presidency in 2012 against Barack Obama, has frequently made calls for prayer while governor.

"I sincerely hope you'll join me in Houston on August 6th and take your place in Reliant Stadium with praying people asking for God's forgiveness, wisdom and provision," Perry wrote in materials promoting the event, called "The Response, a Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis."

A message on the event's website says it is in response to a historic crisis and calls it "a non-denominational, apolitical Christian prayer meeting," with the goal "to rise up and make a sound that will be heard in heaven."

The site says Perry "has invited all US governors as well as many other national and Christian political leaders."

"Right now, America is in crisis," Perry says in a message on the site. "We have been besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters. As a nation, we must come together, and call upon Jesus to guide us..."

Perry's spokeswoman could not be reached for comment on the August event on Sunday.

Eric Bearse, a spokesman for The Response, said on Sunday: "The governor told the American Family Association about a month ago that we need to call Americans together for a time of prayer."

Bearse said the Mississippi-based American Family Association, a conservative Christian activist group, is paying for the event, and admission will not be charged.

According to the event website, the prayer rally will take place at Reliant Stadium in Houston and last from 10 am to 5 pm and will feature Don Wildmon and Buddy Smith of the American Family Association, Jim Garlow of Renewing American Leadership, David Lane, who was involved in the effort to remove the Supreme Court Justices in Iowa and is behind the various "Restoration Project" events across America, former Congressmen Bob McEwen, as well as several leaders associated with Lou Engle and/or the International House of Prayer in Kansas City.

Religious Right And Republican Establishment Square Off Over Mitch Daniels

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 5/18/2011 11:11 am

Politico reports today that the prominent Republican politicians and activists are increasingly displeased with the current field of presidential candidates (I wonder why) and are pressuring Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels to jump into the race. “With Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s decision not to run, the party’s elites are holding out a desperate hope to persuade Daniels, who is publicly reluctant, in part because of his wife’s concerns,” Mike Allen writes, adding that the one scenario which “terrifies Washington Republicans” is “the possibility that some very conservative, insurgent candidate will become the Romney alternative.”

But Daniels’s proposed “social issues truce” has made him a persona non grata among social conservatives who will play key roles in deciding the party’s nominee.

Religious Right leaders are now taking shots at Daniels as he gets ready to announce his decision on a 2012 bid, and it appears that his support for a law that defunds Planned Parenthood has done little to tamper down criticism.

Micah Clark of the American Family Association’s Indiana chapter knocked his “weakness on the homosexual demands”:

I think he has a bit of a weakness on the homosexual demands. Two months after he was elected, he signed an executive order, elevating gender identity and cross-dressing to the same [level] as race and skin color, which was really unfortunate.

The AFA’s Bryan Fischer called the Indiana governor “toast” among the Republican faithful:

Daniels. Kept foolishly defending his call for a “truce” on social issues. But conservatives know that “truce” is just a euphemism for “surrender.” They’re looking for someone to carry the banner, not run up the white flag. He showed no eagerness to sign the Indiana ban on funding for Planned Parenthood, and showed no leadership on that issue at all. Not a good sign if you’re looking for someone who thinks pre-born babies have a right to life. Daniels ain’t gonna fight for unborn babies, and social conservatives know it. Plus he said he’d pick pro-abort Condi Rice as his VP candidate. Daniels is toast.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council was angered by Daniels’s suggestion of running on a ticket with Condoleezza Rice:

I’ve been asked a lot about the chances of Gov. Mitch “Truce” Daniels in 2012. On the heels of signing a bill to defund Planned Parenthood, Daniels managed to poke pro-lifers in the eye again when he answered a question about a possible running mate with Condoleezza Rice. Although she has stellar credentials on national defense, the former Secretary of State has long held pro-abortion views, which makes her a non-starter with social conservatives. It is ironic, however, that Governor Daniels seeks a truce with liberals while he attacks the sensibilities of pro-family conservatives within his own party.

As Kyle noted yesterday, Religious Right leaders are looking for a candidate to rally behind after Mike Huckabee decided against running. If Daniels runs and doesn’t apologize for his ‘truce’ talk, expect social conservative activists to pull out all the stops to defeat his candidacy.

Newt: Worst Campaign Promise Ever?

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Tuesday, 5/17/2011 1:42 pm

“I know how to get the whole country to resemble Texas.”  

      Newt Gingrich on Sean Hannity, May 11, 2011
 
In his presidential campaign announcement on Sean Hannity’s Fox News Channel show, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich praised job creation in Texas and said he’d been talking to Texas governor Rick Perry and knows “how to get the whole country to resemble Texas.” That could go down as the worst campaign promise ever. 
 
“I dearly love the state of Texas,” the late Texan and progressive icon Molly Ivins wrote, “but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults.” Noting that Texas was a state that provided relatively few services to its residents, she once wrote, “The only depressing part is that, unlike Mississippi, we can afford to do better. We just don’t.”  Maybe that should be the motto for Newt Gingrich and his fellow anti-government demagogues.
 
The impact of that governing philosophy is spreading a lot of pain in Texas right now. Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote earlier this year:  
 
Texas is where the modern conservative theory of budgeting — the belief that you should never raise taxes under any circumstances, that you can always balance the budget by cutting wasteful spending — has been implemented most completely. If the theory can’t make it there, it can’t make it anywhere.
 
In fact, Texas lawmakers have been struggling all year to figure out how to deal with a massive budget deficit.  An AP story from March, headlined “Texas’ economic miracle beginning to tarnish,” noted that the state’s budget shortfall was “among the worst in the nation.” A temporary budget deal in March involving more than $1 billion in spending cuts still left the state $23 billion short over the next two years by one estimate. Proposed cuts could result in layoffs for 100,000 school employees and 60,000 nursing home workers and eliminate 9,600 state jobs this year. Just this week lawmakers struggled to reach agreement on a deal to close a $4 billion deficit in the current year, which ends in August.  
 
It is possible that entire crisis may have been manufactured by Perry and other anti-government Republicans to give lawmakers a justification for further slashing government and basic human services.
 
Does Newt think we really want the whole country to look like Texas, which ranks:
 
 50th in percentage of population without health insurance (2010)
 
50th  in percentage of children insured (2009)
 
50th  in percentage of women receiving early prenatal care (2010)
 
45th  in rate of infectious diseases (2010)
 
44th  in percentage of children in poverty (2010)
 
42nd  in per capita health care funding (2010)
 
40th  in overall health (2010)
 
36th  in high school graduation rate (2010)
 
35th  in crime (2010)
 
35th  in percentage of children immunized (2010)
 
34th  in rate of occupational fatalities (2010)
 
30th in percentage of people with college degree (2008)
 
Texas also ranks:
 
1st  in amount of recognized carcinogens released into the air (2002)
 
4th highest  in release of toxic chemicals into the environment (2002)
 
8th highest  in percentage of people below poverty level (2008)
 
13th highest  in obesity (2010)
 
“I know how to get the whole country to resemble Texas.”   Uh, thanks, Newt, but no thanks.
 

Porter: Tornadoes Due To Legal Abortion, Israel Policy

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 5/13/2011 4:39 pm

Janet Porter believes that the recent tornadoes that left hundreds dead in the South were a consequence of America’s acceptance of legal abortion and “sexual sin,” along with the supposed mistreatment of Israel. In addition to wildfires in Oklahoma and Texas, Porter claims that Americans gave “God reason to at least partially lift His protective Hand from America.” Porter isn’t the only Religious Right leader who said that the tornadoes signaled that America trigged God’s wrath: Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance said the tornadoes were “early warning signals” and “little tastes” of God’s judgment. Porter warns that America continues to risk “God’s wrath against us” until Americans “give their undivided attention to God.”

Is God trying to get our attention?

The worst tornado outbreak in American history has left hundreds dead. Mississippi flooding has not been this bad in 80 years. Wildfires have swept through millions of acres in Texas and Oklahoma.

There are a number of things that could give God reason to at least partially lift His protective Hand from America, including the millions of abortions done here each year, the flaunting of sexual sin, and our recent treatment of Israel.

Any support that the U.S. provides for dividing the Holy Land risks God’s wrath against us. Rabbi Aryeh Spero says that a division could displace 400,000 Jews from their homes and more Christian holy sites would fall under Muslim control.

Pray that this will not happen and that many Americans will give their undivided attention to God.
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