Washington D.C.

Back in July, Kyle found that Cindy Jacobs and John Benefiel were working on an effort to lead a spiritual “siege” of Washington D.C. for forty days and transform the District of Columbia into the District of Christ, something Benefiel already claims to have done. The group, DC 40: Forty Days of Light Over D.C has released their prayer guide, “Declaration of Dependence: How to Heal Our Nation Through Prayer” [pdf].

According to the prayer guide, activists are told to ask God to “declare a new understanding that every area of culture is spiritual and the Bible’s principles answer every human problem” and for “Kingdom citizens to embrace their dominion mandate to transform every area of culture.” “This is a time of shifting from the proliferation of the dark arts, the manifestations of the acts of Satan on our TVs, radios, movies and throughout our society,” according to the declaration, “Turn the hearts of our president and leaders to judge righteously and to lead from truth”:

The calling forth of God’s will from Heaven to Earth. The directive acknowledges our authority to take dominion, speak His will on Earth and that unless Yahweh builds the house they labor in vain that build it.

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Yahweh, diffuse Your light into the hearts, minds and understanding of this nation to see that all areas of life are spiritual; declare a new understanding that every area of culture is spiritual and the Bible’s principles answer every human problem.

Call Your Kingdom citizens to embrace their dominion mandate to transform every area of culture; that instead of the world setting the standard for living, that those who are called by the name of Yahweh will exhibit Christian self-government to the culture around them. Speak strength, courage, and vision into Kingdom citizens that the light of the Spirit will illuminate their hearts, heal their souls and allow them to manifest that light to everyone they meet. Let there be a passion to bring Heaven to Earth and in the process make strong and mature disciples who care more about transforming the culture than escaping from it.

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Christians having accepted the world’s way of thinking about culture instead of setting the cultural standards because of not understanding the Biblical mandate to dominate the culture and transform all aspects of society. Churches seeing the culture as something to run and hide from instead of seeing how the Bible applies to all areas of life.

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Cause this nation to draw near to You Who watch over Your Word to perform it. Turn the hearts and minds of our nation away from Satan and toward Jesus. This is a time of shifting from the proliferation of the dark arts, the manifestations of the acts of Satan on our TVs, radios, movies and throughout our society. Cause a deep desire for repentance to sweep across our people. Send Your glory. Bring Your manifested presence; come and dwell among us. Reveal Your great love. We dismiss the deception that God is mean and that His ways are designed to steal all the fun and make our lives miserable. Replace this lie with the truth that You are love. Reveal Your trustworthiness, Your desires to bless those who will turn their hearts to You and Your willingness to heal our hearts and our land. We dethrone Satan, the source of sickness, death, misery and deception. We enthrone Yahweh, the Source of healing, life, joy and clarity. Command the atmospheres to yield to truth. Command the loyalties of our nation to come out of agreement with Satan and into Divine alignment with Your plans. Turn the hearts of our president and leaders to judge righteously and to lead from truth.

Washington DC Mayor Vince Gray along with a number of City Councilmen were arrested on Monday for protesting the budget deal which eliminates the city’s right to use local tax dollars to help low-income women access reproductive healthcare. The Family Research Council responded by saying that Gray and other pro-choice officials were actually responsible for the falling black population in the city. The Washington Post reports that recent census data shows that African Americans will soon make up less than 50% of the city’s population, “with the city’s black population dropping by about 1 percent a year.” Analysts point to rising unemployment and the city’s rapid gentrification with “rising rents and soaring property taxes” pushing much of the working class black community out of the city.

But the Family Research Council says the real reason is legal abortion. Adding to the anti-choice movement’s strategy of claiming that abortion providers are trying to commit genocide against African Americans, the FRC said in an email alert to members that the city’s declining black community is because “the local Planned Parenthood clinics are doing their job.” While the FRC uses no evidence to back up its claim that Planned Parenthood “actively targets African-Americans” and is responsible for the city’s loss of black residents, the group also spews out false, discredited claims that the women’s health organization is tied to “child prostitution, sex abuse, [and] statutory rape”:

According to pundits, this was supposed to be the year that social issues took a backseat to the economy. Apparently, Democrats didn't get the memo. If the last six weeks proved anything, it's that the culture war is alive and well--and lurking in the halls of Congress. When the dust finally settled from last week's budget talks, Americans learned that it wasn't conservatives with a one-track mind. It was the White House and Senate leadership, who thought it was worth putting more than 800,000 people out of work to satisfy the single-issue abortion supporters in their ranks. "Thanks to the way this deal was struck," the Wall Street Journal says, "we have a reminder that it was the Democratic President--and not the Republican Speaker--who stood on ideology." To those inside the Oval Office, "...it was 'chilling' to see how inflexible Mr. Obama was." But as far as liberals are concerned, an attack on abortion is an attack on the Democratic Party. D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray (D) obviously thought so. He was so angry about the ban on taxpayer-funded abortion in the District that he and 41 others plopped down in the middle of Constitution Avenue yesterday to protest. "The District restrictions that were part of the budget deal reached Friday were unacceptable," Gray said, after he was hauled away by Capitol police. "It's an outrageous position... All we want is to be able to spend our own money." Like his party, the Mayor was willing to stand in the way of progress at a major crossroads to protect taxpayer-funded abortion.

And for what? According to the latest D.C. census, the number of African-Americans in the city is alarmingly low. In one decade, "the black population dropped by more than 39,000." Experts say the percentages haven't been this low since World War II. Do liberals think that's a coincidence? Obviously, the local Planned Parenthood clinics are doing their job. So while Vincent Gray rages on about taxation without abortion representation, he should stop and consider where his city would be in another 10 years without the legislation. If you thought that black children were endangered before, imagine if the city could continue promoting free abortions to local women.

Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood, the group that most actively targets African-Americans, is awaiting its federal funding fate. As part of the budget compromise, President Obama agreed to give the Senate a vote on language to zero out Planned Parenthood's tax dollars. "Surely it tells you something about who the real extremists are that an up-or-down vote is deemed a 'concession,'" William McGurn wrote. Help your members take advantage of the opportunity. Contact your Senators and remind them that there are plenty of legitimate health clinics out there that will provide services to women other than abortion. And 99% of them probably haven't been implicated in child prostitution, sex abuse, or statutory rape!

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) said that his Republican Study Committee, the ultraconservative group that counts a majority of the GOP caucus as its members, told The Hill that he supports congressional action to reverse Washington DC’s marriage equality law. “I think RSC will push for it, and I’m certainly strongly for it,” the Ohio Republican said, “I don’t know if we’ve made a decision if I’ll do it or let another member do it, but I’m 100 percent for it.” Jordan voted against every major piece of gay-rights legislation and recently announced his boycott of CPAC over the conference’s inclusion of GOProud.

Even though the Republican Study Committee claims to be committed to “a limited and Constitutional role for the federal government” and reducing “government regulations [and the] size of government,” anti-gay attacks apparently take priority over its dedication to federalism and small-government.

The DC Council voted overwhelmingly in favor of marriage equality in 2009, and marriage rights for gays and lesbians went into effect in early 2010. National and local Religious Right groups, led by Bishop Harry Jackson, just last week lost a lawsuit challenging the law.

Bishop Jackson has unsuccessfully demanded a popular referendum to decide the fate of marriage equality in the District, saying that the issue should be left up to DC voters rather than their elected representatives in the Council and going so far as writing to Congress to demand a popular vote on the issue. In Congress, however, DC’s Delegate does not have the right to vote on legislation and was stripped by Republicans of her limited voting powers.

Clearly, given his aggressive stance in support of DC’s voters’ ability to have a say in the matter, Bishop Jackson will come out strongly against Congressman Jordan’s proposal any minute now…

Yesterday, the Supreme Court rejected the challenge to Washington, DC's marriage equality law, much to the dismay of the Religious Right.

But if you thought that was going to be the end of the challenge, think again, as the National Organization for Marriage today announced that it will continue to fight it and expects the new GOP majority in the House to help them:

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States denied an appeal by marriage defenders to the DC City Council’s implementation of same-sex marriage.

Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) pledged to continue to push for the right of District residents to vote on marriage as the union of a man and a woman:

“While we are disappointed that the US Supreme Court did not decide to take the case challenging the denial of the civil rights of District residents to vote on the definition of marriage, we are by no means done pressing this issue. With a pro-marriage majority in the new Congress we will explore a number of avenues to force the District to fulfill their constitutional responsibility to voters. As the four Court of Appeal justices who dissented in this case made clear, the District of Columbia owes it to the voters to allow them to decide the critical issue of marriage which has existed since before there was a District of Columbia. In order to curry favor with the same-sex marriage special interest group, members of the City Council have turned their backs on their own constituents. It is ironic that these same council members champion the right of District votes to be heard in national elections but then deny those same residents the right to vote on the definition of marriage. We will press our belief with Congress that the constitution of the District requires that voters be allowed to decide this important issue.”