Submitted by Josh Glasstetter on Friday, 7/13/2012 10:28 am
Reverend William (Bill) Owens is the founder and president of a tiny outfit that goes by the name of the Coalition of African-American Pastors. The group’s sole reason for existing appears to be attacking African-American leaders and organizations from the right. Among other things, Owens thinks a man having sex with another man is like a man having sex with a dog. He also thinks that people become gay because they were molested as kids. But more on that later.
Yesterday in Houston, Owens held a press conference outside the NAACP annual convention to attack the group for endorsing marriage equality. Back in May, Owens generated some press by attacking President Obama, likewise for endorsing marriage equality.
I wasn’t surprised then, to learn that Owens is affiliated with the National Organization for Marriage, whose internal planning documents talk of the need to “drive a wedge between gays and blacks.” Owens was once a heroic civil rights leader in Nashville, but these days it’s hard to know – apart from NOM – who or what Owens’ constituency is. For instance, Owens is a collecting signatures for an anti-marriage equality pledge at 100000signatures4marriage.com (that’s with a 1 with 5 zeros). But he wrote in a May 31 letter that “over one thousand” people had signed (so close, just 99% more to go!).
And just last week, the African Methodist Episcopal Church took exception with a Coalition of African-American Pastors press release that claimed that both organizations would call on black pastors to “withhold support from President Obama because of his ongoing disrespect for the views of many of us in the black church.” Bishop Carolyn Tyler Guidry, chair of AME’s Commission on Social Action, said that “contrary to the report, neither the AME Church nor its leadership is involved with or partnering with the Coalition of African-AmericanPastors.” Oops.
Owens, it must be said, is a true believer and comes by his anti-gay wedge politics honestly (although NOM is likely providing some financial backing). At the May press conference where he attacked Obama, Owens belied his own ignorance and homophobia. He equated gay sex with bestiality and said that homosexuality is caused by, and spreads through, molestation. You can listen to highlights of the full event here:
A few months ago, the Commercial Appeal carried an article with a young man’s picture in it. He was charged with having sex with a dog. Now I wonder was that his civil right? Will we go down that road where whatever we choose to do, we’ll call it our civil rights? Well if it’s a civil right for a man to marry man, and a woman to marry woman, what’s the difference of a man deciding he wants to have sex with a dog? […]
When people that you don’t know they’re homosexuals, and they get caught into something, they will tell you it was early childhood that they were molested. Sometimes by a family member, sometimes by their father, or sometimes by a friend. It starts in early childhood. […] Homosexuality spreads because somebody abused children.
With views like these, it’s little wonder that Owens is struggling to convince people that he, not the NAACP and Obama, is on the side of justice.
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 3/16/2012 10:45 am
The latestconspiracytheory sweeping the tea party movement is the fear that Agenda 21, a United Nations program focusing on sustainable development, is surreptitiously destroying the American way of life. Tennessee House Republicans recently passed a resolution, sponsored by Rep. Kevin Brooks, condemning the plan, using almost identical language from a John Birch Society model bill. The Tennesseanreports:
Tennessee lawmakers passed a resolution Thursday condemning a United Nations environmental plan as a “destructive and insidious” effort to advance a communist agenda through the guise of community planning.
The state House of Representatives voted 72-23 in favor of House Joint Resolution 587, which denounces the nonbinding Agenda 21 plan adopted by a United Nations environmental conference two decades ago.
The plan called on members of the United Nations to adopt sustainable development principles to alleviate poverty and combat global warming. But the resolution approved by Tennessee lawmakers on Thursday depicts it as a plan for the “socialist/communist redistribution of wealth” through energy conservation policies, zoning restrictions and forced abortions.
“It reads well. It has nice words like sustainability and helping the poor,” said state Rep. Glen Casada, R-Franklin. “But what these people want to do is they want to cap the number of people this planet can have. … So ladies and gentlemen, if that doesn’t bother you, if those words don’t scare you, we’ve got to talk.”
…
Two other states, Georgia and New Hampshire, have considered anti-Agenda 21 measures this year. Brooks said the resolution had been promoted by the RNC.
But the measure matches up nearly word for word with a model posted on the website of the John Birch Society, a conservative group that Republicans have largely shunned since the 1960s, Turner said.
A RESOLUTION relative to United Nations Agenda 21.
WHEREAS, the United Nations Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of extreme environmentalism, social engineering, and global political control that was initiated at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992; and
WHEREAS, the United Nations Agenda 21 is being covertly pushed into local communities throughout the United States of America through the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) through local “sustainable development” policies such as Smart Growth, Wildlands Project, Resilient Cities, Regional Visioning Projects, and other “Green” or “Alternative” projects; and
WHEREAS, this United Nations Agenda 21 plan of radical so-called “sustainable development” views the American way of life of private property ownership, single-family homes, private car ownership and individual travel choices, and privately owned farms all as destructive to the environment; and
WHEREAS, according to the United Nations Agenda 21 policy, social justice is described as the right and opportunity of all people to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment which would be accomplished by socialist/communist redistribution of wealth; and
WHEREAS, according to the United Nations Agenda 21 policy, national sovereignty is deemed a social injustice; now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE, THE SENATE CONCURRING, that the General Assembly recognizes the destructive and insidious nature of United Nations Agenda 21 and hereby exposes to the public and public policymakers the dangerous intent of the plan.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that neither the U.S. government nor any state or local government is legally bound by the United Nations Agenda 21 treaty in that it has never been endorsed by the U.S. Senate.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the federal government and state and local governments across the country be well informed of the underlying harmful implications of implementation of United Nations Agenda 21 destructive strategies for “sustainable development,” and we hereby endorse rejection of its radical policies and rejection of any grant monies attached to it.
A MODEL STOP AGENDA 21 BILL FOR STATE LEGISLATURES
AN ACT relative to the United Nations Agenda 21 and the non-governmental organization International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives, also known as ICLEI — Local Governments for Sustainability.
WHEREAS, for the purposes of this act, a “political subdivision” means all state, county, incorporated city, unincorporated city, public local entity, public-private partnership, or any other public entity thereof; and
WHEREAS, the United Nations Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of extreme environmentalism, social engineering, and global political control that was initiated at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992; and
WHEREAS, neither the U.S. government nor any state or local government is legally bound by the United Nations Agenda 21 treaty in that it has never been ratified by the U.S. Senate; and
WHEREAS, the United Nations Agenda 21 is being covertly pushed into local communities throughout the United States of America through the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), now calling itself “Local Governments for Sustainability,” through local "sustainable development" policies, such as Smart Growth, Wildlands Project, Resilient Cities, Regional Visioning Projects, and other "Green" or "Alternative" projects; and
WHEREAS, this plan of radical so-called "sustainable development" views the American way of life of private property ownership, single-family homes, private car ownership and individual travel choices, and privately owned farms all as destructive to the environment; and
WHEREAS, according to the United Nations Agenda 21 policy, social justice is described as the right and opportunity of all people to benefit equally from the resources afforded by society and the environment which would be accomplished by a socialist/communist-style redistribution of wealth; and
WHEREAS, according to the United Nations Agenda 21 policy, national sovereignty is deemed a social injustice; and
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the state of ___________ and all political subdivisions are prohibited from implementing programs of, expending any sum of money for, being a member of, receiving funding from, contracting services from, or giving financial or other forms of aid to ICLEI — Local Governments for Sustainability, or any other organization promoting the implementation of the United Nations Agenda 21, sustainable development, or smart growth.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the members of this body recognize the destructive and insidious nature of the United Nations Agenda 21, endorse rejection of its radical policies and of any grant monies attached to it, and recommend exposing to the public and public policymakers across the country the dangerous intent of the plan.
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 3/5/2012 3:30 pm
Earlier today we reported that Rick Santorum’s campaign is promoting endorsements from anti-gay radicals like Sally Kern and Bobbi Radeck of Oklahoma and Ohio, respectively, and now the former Pennsylvania senator’s campaign is trumpeting the endorsement of Tennessee state legislator Joey Hensley, the chief House sponsor of the state’s “don’t say gay” bill. “We don’t want students to be exposed to alternate lifestyles,” Hensley said in defense of the legislation, which would prevent any discussion of homosexuality in K-8th grades classes. Hensley also criticizedModern Family because two of the show’s main characters are gay, calling it “inappropriate for children.”
Today may mark the real beginning of the end of the United States of America. We-the-People are being forced into the deadliest phase of the Obama Plan, yet — that of his overwhelming implementation of his US Police State.
Obama and his syndicate have now declared the usurpation of the State of Tennessee and its melding into the Obama government to be official. After extensive testing to see how far employees of Obama's perverse TSA (Transportation Security Administration) would go with their sexual groping of even small children, Obama has now seen that they will do virtually anything they are tasked to do and "The One" has judged them worthy of the questionable honor of checking for US citizens' papers on US highways, buses, trains and wherever else the now official dictator-in-chief decides he wants to exhibit his power and control over the American people.
Tennessee — which is the scene of multiple unconstitutional test cases with its completely corrupt Monroe County — has been chosen as the State that will begin the official Obama Police State. The former USA has now become either East Germany or the Stalinist USSR — take your pick. And, this move by the Obama syndicate has nothing — whatsoever — to do with terrorists (unless you're finally waking up to the fact that the Obama syndicate members ARE the terrorists). It is, however, Obama pushing hard for the final forced submission of We-the-People into the US Slave State, which has now arrived with nary a whimper.
Note: I never realized how thoroughly submissive to totalitarianism we had become, until recently. I thought we still had a chance to survive. I actually thought we would fight. On one thing Obama is correct. We HAVE become soft.
Now, in a secondary move to seize all power in the country for himself and his syndicate, Obama has decided that he will confiscate ALL television and Radio broadcasts for a supposed "test" of the EAS (Emergency Alert System). Communication for both US television and Radio will be cut off on 9 November 2011 for at least 3-4 minutes. This is both unprecedented in our history and constitutes the final phase of Obama's testing of his ability to seize communications in the USA at will. In the past, real Presidents of the USA have asked for time from the various broadcast networks when there was an emergency and they needed to speak. No more. We are now firmly in the bowels of the Obama dictatorship and said tyrant is violating each and every principle and law contained with the US Constitution.
The Obama-supported and implemented "Occupy Wall Street' flea circus has provided Obama with both an "if you don't give us what we want, we'll turn violent" crowd and an almost perfect cover for his implementation of the finalization of his Police State. Anyone still think Obama is naive and incompetent? Not a chance. As I've been writing since before he usurped the Office of POTUS, Obama has been hired to destroy the USA and once he's in power we may not be able to get rid of him. He knows precisely what he's doing. Any more questions?
But the columnist for the conservative news site isn’t alone in her fears about the test of the Emergency Alert System. Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association went on a similar rant on Focal Point today (at the 3:05 mark) about the potential of the airwaves being “completely owned, occupied, operated by President Obama” who he feared could later “declare an emergency and then he could co-op all of the broadcast media in the country, and it would be all the president, all day”:
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 10/4/2011 10:10 am
After Hank Williams Jr. compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler and called him “the enemy” during a Fox News interview, ESPN dropped his theme song on Monday Night Football. Williams later acknowledged that his comments were “extreme” but didn’t back down from the analogy. Now, Tea Party Nation president Judson Phillips wants Williams Jr. to run for U.S. Senate in Tennessee and wants members to stop watching Monday Night Football “until Hank Williams is brought back to sing the intro to MNF”:
No Hank, no Monday Night Football, ESPN, owned by far left leaning Disney struck back at Hank Williams today, taking his trademark, “Are you ready for some football?” song off fo [sic] the opening of Monday night football.
Why? Williams dared to insult Disney darling Obama.
…
Earlier this year, ESPN reprimanded Golf commentator Paul Azinger for an anti-Obama tweet.
From USA Today in August:
UPDATE: ESPN is coming down on Paul Azinger for mocking President Obama on Twitter. The golf analyst tweeted Thursday the commander in chief plays more golf than he does -- and that Azinger has created more jobs this month than Obama has.
…
As much as I love sports, I have just about had it with ESPN. Until Hank Williams is brought back to sing the intro to MNF, I won’t watch it and I encourage everyone else to turn off MNF.
Hank Williams, Jr. is rumored to be thinking about running for the US Senate in Tennessee. As a Tennessean, all I can say is, “Run Hank Run!”
The summit features panels on issues such as “Fighting Islamist Propaganda in the Media,” “Grassroots Organizing Against Sharia and Rabats (including Mega-Mosques),” and “Defending Liberty In Legislatures.” The chief sponsor of the event is the extremist media outlet WorldNetDaily and speakers include a mix of the usual anti-Muslim activists including Robert Spencer, Frank Gaffney and Pamela Geller, along with Religious Right leaders who have consistently attacked the rights of Muslims such as Jay Sekulow, Mat Staver, Andrea and Jim Lafferty, E.W. Jackson and William Murray. Michele Bachmann is listed an invited speaker but has not been confirmed:
• Pamela Geller of Stop Islamization of America and Atlas Shrugs
• Robert Spencer of Stop Islamization of America and Jihad Watch
• Jay Sekulow of American Center for Law and Justice
• Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel
• William J. Murray of Religious Freedom Coalition and No 911 Mosque
• Frank Gaffney of Center for Security Policy
• Christopher Holton of Center for Security Policy
• Lou Ann Zelenik of Tennessee Freedom Coaltion
• Andrea Lafferty of Traditional Values Coalition
• James Lafferty of Virginia Anti-Sharia Task Force
• Barrister Paul Diamond, United Kingdom
• Father Keith Roderick
• Bishop Earl W. Jackson
• Fred Grandy - Actor and former congressman
• Wafa Sultan
• Rev. Dr. Mark Durie, Australia
Lou Ann Zelenik is best known for the malicious anti-Muslim themes in her unsuccessful campaign for Congress last year, which focused on stopping the Murfreesboro mosque development. E.W. Jackson is currently relying heavily on anti-Muslim rhetoric in his bid for U.S. Senate in Virginia.
With another gathering set to demonize Muslims and hype fears of “creeping Sharia,” the Religious Right’s ostensible commitment to religious freedom yet again doesn’t translate into freedom for non-Christian faiths.
For example, notice the involvement of “William J. Murray of Religious Freedom Coalition and No 911 Mosque.” As Kyle noted last year in a post about Murray, the Religious Freedom Coalition is “dedicated to the equality of all mankind and the freedom of religious expression” but is also running a campaign determined to stop Muslims from having those same rights by trying to block the construction of the Park 51 Islamic Community Center. The center opened last week without protests, and so far, Lower Manhattan is not under the rule of Sharia law.
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 6/13/2011 10:43 am
Laurie Cardoza-Moore, the head of the Christian Zionist group Proclaiming Justice to the Nations (PJTN), blames President Obama’s recent speech on the Mideast crisis for the deadly tornado outbreak in May. Cardoza-Moore is a Tea Party and anti-Muslim activist who is funding the lawsuit to block the construction of a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, which argued that Islam is not a religion and that consequently Muslims shouldn’t have the constitutional right to build a house of worship. Congresswoman and likely presidential candidate Michele Bachmann addressed PJTN last year just before Cardoza-Moore held a fundraiser for her campaign, and Religious Right radio host Janet Parshall won the group’s “Tree of Life” award earlier this year.
The head of a pro-Israel group says that country's prime minister has replaced the president of the United States as leader of the free world.
Laurie Cardoza-Moore, president of Nashville-based Proclaiming Justice to the Nations (PJTN), is trying to mobilize Americans to take a stand for the nation of Israel. (See earlier story) She is concerned that Muslim countries are trying to muster U.N. support for a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood, which could be approved by the General Assembly in September.
…
The PJTN president believes that Obama's treatment of Israel has already had consequences.
"President Obama is bringing us down. If you look at what happened after Obama made that speech, look at the weather patterns that we had. Day after day, horrific tornadoes [came] blazing across this country [and] hundreds of people [lost] their lives," she recalls. Cardoza-Moore adds that history shows that every nation that has ever turned its back on Israel was brought down to ruin.
From the latest FRC prayer update: "May Tennessee enact this bill to prevent ENDA-like ordinances! May Congress do so likewise, if the President dares to circumvent Congress by issuing an ENDA-like Executive Order!"
Finally, quote of the day from Gingrich spokesman Rick Tyler: "The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding. Washington cannot tolerate threats from outsiders who might disrupt their comfortable world. The firefight started when the cowardly sensed weakness. They fired timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to be dropped from the establishment’s cocktail party invite list unloaded their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods. Now they are left exposed by their bylines and handles. But surely they had killed him off. This is the way it always worked. A lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught. But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won’t be intimated by the political elite and are ready to take on the challenges America faces."
Gabriel: But a lot of people say that Sharia law is a religious practice, and maybe it should be protected by the First Amendment. Can you please tell us, is it compatible with the Constitution? Should it be protected by the First Amendment as a religious practice?
Gaffney: It is the law of the land in Saudi Arabia and Iran, and anyone who thinks that life is like in either of those two countries is the same as life in America obviously doesn’t nothing about Saudi Arabia or Iran. In fact, it is absolutely antithetical, Sharia is, to our Constitution, and the pursuit of it you said in your comment is incompatible with the Constitution’s Article VI, and therefore being a protected religious practice, it is an impermissible act of sedition, which has to be prosecuted under our Constitution.
Gaffney isn’tthefirst right-wing leader to say that Muslims shouldn’t be given constitutional protections, and his comments echo a push in state legislatures to ban the non-existent use of Sharia law in courts and an effort in Tennessee to criminalize the practice of Sharia. As Intisar Rabb of Boston College Law School notes, the Tennessee bill could make it “a felony for Muslims to perform everyday religious practices like praying, giving to charity, or fasting because they would be defined as banned Sharia practices.”
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 3/4/2011 2:09 pm
After an Oklahoma judge blocked a state constitutional amendment “banning” Sharia and international law, state legislators across the country have been following in Oklahoma’s (failed) footsteps. Proposals to ban the use of Sharia law in courts have emerged in at least thirteen states, and legislators in Tennessee and Missouri may even make practicing Sharia law a felony.
One Alabama state legislator now wants to pass a law which states, “The courts shall not look to the legal precepts of other nations or cultures. Specifically, the courts shall not consider international law or Sharia.”
The Anniston Starreports that the bill’s sponsor, Republican State Senator Gerald Allen, admits that he doesn’t know of any court cases in Alabama or anywhere in the U.S. using Sharia law to make decisions. Allen’s staff lifted the legislation’s description of Sharia law from Wikipedia, and the senator admits he doesn’t even know what it is:
A bill introduced Tuesday in the Alabama Senate would ban the use of Islamic law in Alabama courts.
The bill’s sponsor said the measure was designed to protect future generations from erosion of the Constitution. One Birmingham area Muslim leader said the move was an effort to “demonize Islam and Muslims.”
But no one — not even Sen. Gerald Allen, who sponsored the bill — can point to examples of Muslims trying to have Islamic law recognized in Alabama courts.
“It’s not about what’s happening right now,” Allen, a Republican from Cottondale, said in a telephone interview.
“I’m thinking about 10 years down the road, 20, 30, 40. Time has an effect on these things, and I’m thinking about the future.”
Allen is the sole sponsor of SB 62, a bill that would ban Alabama courts from using Shariah law or international law in making legal decisions.
The bill defines Shariah as “a form of religious law derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: The divine revelations set forth in the Qur’an and the example set by the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.”
That definition is the same, almost word for word, as wording in the Wikipedia entry on Shariah law as it appeared Thursday. Allen said the wording was drafted by Legislative staff. A source on the staff at the Legislature confirmed that the definition was in fact pulled from Wikipedia.
Allen could not readily define Shariah in an interview Thursday. “I don’t have my file in front of me,” he said. “I wish I could answer you better.”
…
Allen said his bill was based on a state constitutional amendment that was recently passed in Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, too, supporters of the measure were unable to cite a single in-state example of Shariah law being used in court, according to an account by the Los Angeles Times.
Allen said his bill, which also bans the use of international law in Alabama courts, is designed to “protect the Constitution for the future generations that come after us.”
“Our Founding Fathers were pretty smart,” he said. “They gave us three branches of government, a separation of powers. I want to preserve that system.”
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 3/3/2011 12:05 pm
Today, CBN ran a report on efforts around the country to ban Sharia law, including legislation in Tennessee that would, in essence, make it a felony to be a practicing Muslim ... and Jordan Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice, which is "specifically dedicated to the ideal that religious freedom and freedom of speech are inalienable, God-given rights" was there to urge legislators who are serious about trying to outlaw Sharia to give them a call so that they can help:
We we've said at the American Center for Law and Justice is if you're a state legislator and you're serious about writing a law from stopping judges from being able to use Sharia law in court, come to us and let us walk you through this because, as you see now, the American Bar Association, the ACLU, they've got their sights set on these anti-Sharia laws and they are going to look for any holes in them to try to hold them unconstitutional.
What we've encouraged people is come to use early, let us work with the law, through the law with you, to make sure there's no holes for the ALCU and other outside groups to attack.
You know, the ACLJ really ought to change it's "about us" page to reflect the fact that its belief that "religious freedom and freedom of speech are inalienable, God-given rights" only applies to Christians.
ACT! for America recently announced that it wants UCLA to ban the campus chapter of the Muslim Student Association due to the groups purported links to radical Islam. “We at ACT for America are serving this petition to UCLA in our effort to ban the assembly of any group advocating the overriding of the laws of the United States Of America with their own set of laws on a publicly funded university such as UCLA,” says the group in a letter to UCLA’s Chancellor, “We are specifically sighting the Muslim Student Association in violation of this.”
The letter goes on to say, “We demand that they be removed from campus on the grounds that their purpose is to conduct a stealth jihad against America through the indoctrination of our youth on college campuses.”
Now that ACT! for America has made its extreme agenda even more obvious, does Congressman King agree with his allies at ACT! for America that universities should ban groups which represent Muslim students?
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 2/24/2011 7:03 pm
PFAW - Right Wing Watch In Focus: Citizenship in the Balance: How Anti-Immigrant Activists Twist the Facts, Ignore History, and Flout the Constitution.
Steve Benen: How The Media Covers Health Care Rulings, Cont'd.
