Religion

As mentioned in our earlier post, we are once again asking Republican leaders who will be attending the upcoming Values Voter Summit to denounce Bryan Fischer's long history of unmitigated bigotry. This time we are focusing on Mitt Romney because, according to the conference schedule, he will be speaking immediately before Fischer on Saturday morning.

Our efforts in the past to get anyone within the GOP or Religious Right to condemn Fischer's relentless bigotry have not amounted to much, mainly because nobody within the movement seems to be particularly bothered by it, which is why GOP leaders continue to appear on his radio program and on stage with him at Religious Right events. 

But we wonder if Mitt Romney might finally raise some objections to sharing the stage with someone who openly declared just earlier this week that the First Amendment does not apply to Mormons and asserts that the LDS church still supports polygamy:

My argument all along has been that the purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the free exercise of the Christian religion.

One evidence that [the Founding Fathers] were not dealing ... they weren't even intending to deal with non-Christian religions is what they did with Mormonism in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Mormonism - they call themselves by the name of Christ, but it is not an orthodox Christian network of churches, it just is not. Mormonism is not an orthodox Christian faith. It just is not. They have a different Gospel, they have a completely different definition of who Christ is and so forth, I mean, the list could be multiplied endlessly.

And it was very clear that the Founding Fathers did not intend to preserve automatically religious liberty for non-Christian faiths, so when Mormonism came along, they practiced polygamy, they believed in polygamy, just like Muslims do today. It was a part of their revealed religion. God had commanded Joseph Smith to have multiple wives and commanded Joseph Smith to go tell your wife Emma, look you gotta room, I want my son Joseph to be able to have as many wives as he wants so you're just going to have to accept it. So God is telling Emma through Joseph Smith, look you're just going to have to live with this deal. So multiple wives in the Mormon Church until 1890 when the Mormon Church told their folks to obey the law.

The Mormon Church, by the way, has never denounced the practice of polygamy. It has not. What it did in 1890, if you go back to the Doctrines and Covenants, what the Mormon Church did is they advised - it wasn't even an order - they advised the members of the LDS Church to obey the law which said one man, one woman, period. So my guess is that if those that are trying to legalize polygamy, and they are working on it right now ... [Fischer cites court case pushing for recognition of polygamy and says it the same as using courts to push for gay marriage] ... If there is some activist court that says you have to recognize polygamous marriages in your state, you're going to start seeing the LDS church, I believe go back to the exercise of polygamy. If it's legal, because all they told their folks is obey the law, if the law says you can have multiple wives, I believe the LDS Church will be out in the front of the pack.

I mean, not everybody in the LDS Church is going to do it any more than all the members of the LDS Church ever did it. It was a minority even in Joseph Smith's day - I mean, Brigham Young set some kind of world record for number of wives, I mean he was up there in Muhammad territory frankly. But most Mormons didn't do it, it was just a small percentage that had the resources to be able to do it. But I think it will come back, it will come back pretty vigorously in the Mormon Church, again, because all the church fathers said in 1890, just obey the law. Well, if the law says you can have multiple wives, they'll be back.

Writing for the American Family Association’s One News Now, Michael Youssef of Leading The Way ministries is urging Christians to quit the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) after the denomination voted to allow the ordination of gay and lesbian ministers. Youssef, who previously declared that the Episcopal Church couldn’t be Christian because of its support of gay rights, is now insisting that Presbyterians and Episcopalians leave their churches because “these denominations have chosen darkness” and are committed to “the spread of apostasy.” Youssef lamented that the churches submitted to “this Chinese water torture method of homosexual lobbying,” they have sealed their own demise:

All true Christian believers, whether they are Presbyterians or not, must be weeping right now over the spread of apostasy. Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, accurately refers to it as "following Jesus while rejecting the Bible."

Many of us have seen this Chinese water torture method of homosexual lobbying in both denominations coming for many years. We have known that it's only a matter of time. And yet, when it becomes reality, it is so hard to comprehend.

Today, I'm appealing to all faithful Presbyterians in the PC(USA) and Episcopalians to vote with your feet and get out of these churches as fast as you can. As I mention in my latest book The Greatest Lie, this type of preaching is now invading many mainline and evangelical churches.

There can be no excuse.

No, you cannot stay and be a witness.

No, you cannot stay and try to change things.

No, you cannot stay and hope that you will be a light.

These denominations have chosen darkness, and they need to experience what true darkness is all about by not having any believers inside their walls.

To modify slightly the words of the apostle Paul, the faithful believers ought to deliver these institutions to Satan by walking out as fast as they can. (1 Corinthians 5:4-5)

Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

While the American Family Association claims that one of its founding objectives is to defend “the rights of conscience and religious liberty from infringement by government,” its chief spokesman Bryan Fischer continues to show his contempt for religious freedom. Fischer, the AFA’s Director of Issues Analysis, repeatedly demanded that the US deport all Muslims and prohibit and purge Muslims from the military, and also called for the banning and destruction of mosques. Fischer today attempted to reconcile his ardent opposition to Muslim religious liberty with the Constitution’s First Amendment by claiming that the Constitution actually doesn’t apply to or protect Muslims at all:

Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam. Islam is entitled only to the religious liberty we extend to it out of courtesy. While there certainly ought to be a presumption of religious liberty for non-Christian religious traditions in America, the Founders were not writing a suicide pact when they wrote the First Amendment.

Our government has no obligation to allow a treasonous ideology to receive special protections in America, but this is exactly what the Democrats are trying to do right now with Islam.

From a constitutional point of view, Muslims have no First Amendment right to build mosques in America. They have that privilege at the moment, but it is a privilege that can be revoked if, as is in fact the case, Islam is a totalitarian ideology dedicated to the destruction of the United States. The Constitution, it bears repeating, is not a suicide pact. For Muslims, patriotism is not the last refuge of a scoundrel, but the First Amendment is.

Of course, the founding fathers certainly did construct the First Amendment to protect all people, including non-Christian groups like Muslims. George Washington’s letter to the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island clearly demonstrates that non-Christians were intended to be protected by the Constitution, and the Treaty of Tripoli crafted under Washington and ratified by John Adams makes clear that the “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,” [Muslims].

But evidently, plain historical facts aren’t enough for Bryan Fischer.

Richard Land has been among the most vocal Religious Right opponents of the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque." Apparently concerned that his opposition was blatantly hypocritical, Land eventually signed on to the Anti-Defamation League's "Interfaith Coalition on Mosques" stating that while he opposed the location of the "Ground Zero Mosque" he believed it was important to "help preserve the First Amendment for all Americans" by ensuring that all people "have the right to the free exercise of our faith without the interference of the government."

If Land's stance of vociferously opposing the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero while supporting the construction of mosques places like California, Wisconsin, and Tennessee seemed rather confusing to you, you were not alone - it was apparently confusing to Southern Baptists as well, and their opposition to Land's "promotion" of Islam has caused him to resign from the ADL's coalition:

Richard Land announced January 21 he had listened to Southern Baptists and as a result was withdrawing his name from a diverse coalition established to monitor “mosque discrimination” in the U.S.

"While many Southern Baptists share my deep commitment to religious freedom and the right of Muslims to have places of worship, they also feel that a Southern Baptist denominational leader filing suit to allow individual mosques to be built is 'a bridge too far,'" wrote Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, in a letter to the Anti-Defamation League, which established the coalition

...

Admitting he was surprised at some of the reaction from fellow Southern Baptists, he explained most of the negative responses at a minimum affirmed "everyone’s right to worship," but drew the line at "denominational leaders filing suit in court to protect those rights when Muslims are the aggrieved party."

Land said his involvement with the interfaith coalition was perceived by many as "crossing the line from defense of religious freedom to advocacy of, or promotion of, Islam itself."