Activism

Religious Right and pro-corporate groups failed today to block President Obama’s nominee for U.S. District Court in Rhode Island, John McConnell, from receiving an up-or-down vote in the Senate. The Senate invoked cloture on McConnell’s nomination in a 63-33 vote, defeating the filibuster against McConnell. Filibusters against district court judges are extremely rare—only a handful of District Court nominees have ever faced cloture votes, and none have ever been blocked—and many Republicans previously vowed they would never filibuster a judicial nominee.

Today’s vote came after a long wait for McConnell: according to The Providence Journal, the delay caused by the concerted right-wing effort to block McConnell forced Rhode Island’s chief federal judge to “take the unusual step of reassigning more than two dozen civil cases to judges in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.”

Why the tough fight? McConnell faced virulent opposition from the Chamber of Commerce over his role fighting big tobacco companies and lead paint manufacturers. The Chamber and other groups that oppose corporate accountability found allies in the Religious Right groups that decided to fight McConnell as well.

The Conservative Action Project made McConnell a top target of their efforts. The group includes pro-corporate organizations like the 60 Plus Association, National Taxpayers Union, Americans for Limited Government, Citizens United, and American Tax Reform, along with social conservatives such as the Family Research Council, Traditional Values Coalition, Heritage Action, American Values, Liberty Counsel Action, and Eagle Forum. The Conservative Action Project’s Memo to the Movement [PDF] claimed McConnell was unqualified to serve in the judiciary because he was a trial lawyer with a history of challenging big business.

Eagle Forum derided him as a “pro-choice, anti-business, pro-judicial activism nominee” who “has made numerous anti-business statements.” The Family Research Council slammed McConnell for his ties to the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the country’s most prominent civil rights organizations, and Phillip Jauregui’s Judicial Action Group said that his link to the SPLC and the American Constitution Society shows he “supports organizations who support homosexual marriage and oppose conservative politicians.”

While the Corporate Right and the Religious Right of the McConnell nomination failed, many of these organizations will continue to work together to block other qualified judicial nominees and aggravate the country’s burgeoning judicial vacancy crisis.

Over the weekend, the Freedom Federation's "Awakening 2011" was held at Liberty University and Saturday was dedicated primarily to smaller break-out sessions featuring a variety of right-wing and Religious Right activists.

One of those sessions was entitled "Confronting the Culture: Engaging People of Faith" and moderated by Vision America's Rick Scarborough who used it as an opportunity to recount how he first became engaged in Religious Right activism. 

As Scarborough explained, he attended a sex ed program at this daughter's high school and was so outraged by what he heard that he was mobilized to action because, as he explained, he knew that AIDS was not just a disease but rather God's judgment for engaging in immoral behavior:

This was right at the front end of the AIDS epidemic and pastors who care were reading everything they could find out because I happened to have believed - and haven't changed by mind - that it was a judgment as a result of an immoral act.

It was interesting, in those days it was still largely called GRIDS: Gay Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome. And to this very day, the overwhelming majority of those who are transmitting that disease are still homosexuals. It is a homosexual disease.

As we have been noting for nearly a year now, a theology known as "Seven Mountains" has been slowly creeping its way into "mainstream" Religious Right activism. 

Beginning with Janet Porter's "May Day for America" prayer rally on the National Mall last year, this Dominionist theology has become increasingly common place in Religious Right events, ranging from the National Day of Prayer events to Jim Garlow's "Pray and Act" 2010 election effort.

As we have explained before, Seven Mountains dominionism seeks to place Christians in control over the seven forces that shape and control our culture: (1) Business; (2) Government; (3) Media; (4) Arts and Entertainment; (5) Education; (6) Family; and (7) Religion.  The reason for this, as Lance Wallnau, the leading advocate for Seven Mountains theology, explained is that Jesus "doesn't come back until He's accomplished the dominion of nations."  And the way "dominion of nations" is accomplished is by having Christians gain control of these "seven mountains" in order to install a "virtual theocracy" overseen by "true apostles" who will fight Satan and his Antichrist agenda.

In the past we have caught people like Porter teaming up with Seven Mountains advocate Cindy Jacobs and praying for God to give Christians control over the media and government mountains. We've even found David Barton sharing the stage with Jacobs.  In fact, later this month both Barton and Garlow will be joining other Seven Mountain Dominionists/Spiritual Warriors for an event called "Government Transformation Summit For Visionary Leaders" [PDF] in Texas.

But Barton has tended to keep his ties to this movement under wraps and we had never heard him explicitly advocate Seven Mountains Dominionism ... until today on his radio program:

Barton: There's five areas that you have to be able to influence and control if you are going to take a culture and that's media, business, government, education, and pulpit.

Now, for twenty years as it turns out - I wasn't even aware of this - way back, Bill Bright from Campus Crusade, when he was still alive, Loren Cunningham, Youth With a Mission, these guys got together back at the same time and really felt like there were seven areas that had to be taken for a culture and these are the seven that they gave: family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business and government. Now we've grouped some of those together and throw some together, but they said those are the seven areas you have to have and if you can have those seven areas, you can shape and control whatever takes place in nations, continents, and even the world.

Green: So it's the same idea, saying "look, every single area of the culture you need to be involved in."

Barton: That's right. Christians got to get involved. And there's a Scripture they used that came out of Isiah 2:2 and it says "Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains," so this is now called the Seven Mountain Prophecy, there's a book out by that name.

It says the Lord's house is going to be established on top of the mountains and these are the seven mountains. If you're going to establish God's kingdom, you've got to have these seven mountains and again that's family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business and government.

Now that's what we believed all along is you got to get involved in this stuff. Jesus said "you occupy 'til I come." We don't care when he comes, that's up to him. What we're supposed to do is take the culture in the meantime and you got to get involved in these seven areas.

It was just the other day that Mike Huckabee was saying that all Americans should be forced to listen to Barton's messages - at gunpoint if necessary.  

Is Barton's call to have right-wing Christians take complete control over every aspect of society the message that Huckabee had in mind?

Candi Cushman of Focus on the Family’s True Tolerance campaign has been an outspoken opponent of anti-bullying policies, and now she is warning parents that the safe-schools group GLSEN wants to make school sports teams a friendlier and less hostile environment for gay and lesbian athletes. While the National Education Policy Center found that 85% of LGBT students “report being harassed because of their sexual or gender identity” at school, anti-gay groups like Focus on the Family militantly oppose any efforts to tackle the bullying problem and claim “pro-homosexual” anti-bullying programs “promote homosexuality in kids.” Today, Cushman demonizes GLSEN for designing ways for coaches and athletes to prevent the harassment of LGBT players:

Parents should be aware of how this radicalism could be introduced to their children through school sports programs.

Called “Changing the Game: The GLSEN Sports Project,” the new initiative is “focused on addressing LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] issues in K-12 school-based athletic and physical education programs.”

The director of the new GLSEN sports program is Pat Griffin, who has a history of promoting homosexual and transgender activism and is the author of a book entitled Strong Women, Deep Closets: Lesbians and Homophobia in Sport. The book has chapters with titles like, “We Prey, They Pray? Lesbians and Evangelical Christians in Sport.”

In a “Chalk Talk” series for coaches, Griffin has advised on “What is Unacceptable in an Athletic Setting,” including “Teammates proselytizing other team members who are not interested in discussing religion.”

Does this mean that GLSEN’s new sports project director would prefer to ban athletes using their freedom of speech to voluntarily share the Gospel with those who disagree with their viewpoint?

…

It’s clear we can expect GLSEN’s sport project to become yet another venue for pressuring schools to implement radical policies and teachings that fall in line with homosexual and transgender political activist goals.

Even though her ties to Cindy Jacobs and 7 Mountains Dominionism cost Janet Porter her radio program and essentially shut down her political activism for almost a year, it has become pretty clear that she has no intention of backing away from it.  In fact, she not only got even more deeply involved in it during her time away, but continues to associate with the movement today. 

And now it looks like Porter is no longer simply associating with the Dominionists who inhabit this sphere of prophetic activism, but is actually bringing them in to her more "mainstream" political activism. 

Last week, Porter scheduled a fetus to "testify" before the Ohio Legislature in support of her "Heartbeat Bill" and this week another hearing was held where Porter brought in not only an abortion survivor to testify but also Jerry Tuma, who testified that abortion is responsible for our various economic problems:

Tuma is not a particularly well-known figure ... but he the United States Reformation Prayer Network's "National Apostolic Coordinator for the business/economic mountain" and is Cindy Jacobs' personal friend and favorite Biblical economist:

Legal scholar Goodwin Liu, President Obama’s nominee for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, is receiving a second hearing at the Senate Judiciary Committee today. Liu, who is an Associate Dean and Professor of Law at the Berkeley School of Law and a renowned legal scholar, has unsurprisingly found himself to be a top target of right-wing activists.

Ed Whalen of the Nation Review accuses Liu of “trying to fool senators and get himself appointed to the Ninth Circuit, where he would (among countless opportunities for mischief)” overrule California’s Proposition 8. In addition, a coalition of right-wing groups including the Judicial Crisis Network, Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, Liberty Counsel, American Values, the Center for Military Readiness, the Media Research Center, the Traditional Values Coalition, Americans for Limited Government, and Citizens United have signed on to a memo condemning Liu for representing the “extreme liberal agenda of judicial activism.”

But Richard Painter, the Associate Counsel to the President during the Bush Administration, points out that while many ideological right-wing activists oppose Liu, prominent conservative legal minds like John Yoo, Ken Starr, and Clint Bolick endorse his confirmation and corroborate Liu’s qualifications. “The attacks are rife with extravagant and tendentious readings of Liu’s record,” Painter writes, “and they are based on selective quotations of Liu's writings that even then don’t prove the point”:

Liu's opponents have sought to demonize him as a "radical," "extremist," and worse. National Review Online's Ed Whelan has led the charge with a "one-stop repository" of attacks on Liu. However, for anyone who has actually read Liu's writings or watched his testimony, it's clear that the attacks--filled with polemic, caricature, and hyperbole--reveal very little about this exceptionally qualified, measured, and mainstream nominee.

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Far from being radical, Liu's view probably comports with the intent of the framers who bequeathed the Constitution to their descendants with the intent that it be a useful document. Few if any of our ancestors would have intended that we run our businesses, farm our land, educate our children, or live our lives exactly the way they did, even if they did intend that the Constitution give us principles of self-government that would last for generations. Liu's perspective may be more realistic than that of some of his opponents; his view is certainly not radical.

…

In sum, Liu is eminently qualified. He has support from prominent conservatives. He would fill a judicial emergency vacancy, and he would add important diversity to the bench. He is pragmatic and open-minded, not dogmatic or ideological, as his support for school vouchers shows.

Many, though by no means all, of his scholarly views do not align with conservative ideology or with the policy positions of many elected officials in the Republican Party. (This might not have been the case thirty years ago, but many moderates have since left the Republican Party.) Nevertheless, his views are part of the American legal mainstream. The independence, rigor, and fair-mindedness of his writings support a confident prediction that he will be a dutiful and impartial judge.

According to Rod Parsley, if judges overturn laws that are supported by conservatives, they are outcome-based activist judges who don’t care about the Constitution. However, Parsley says that it isn’t judicial activism if courts overturn laws backed by progressives, such as campaign finance reform and health care reform. Rather than argue for judicial modesty or restraint, Parsley supports judges overturning laws as long as they are laws traditionally supported by the left.

Illogically, after praising himself for decrying “judicial activism,” Parsley slams liberals for accusing the courts of activism when they disagree with their rulings.

“See, when liberals realize they can’t win on the arguments of the facts, they attempt to win in the war of words, and often they do win,” Parsley says, “that’s how abortion came to be known as ‘women’s health care,’ and perverting the definition of family became ‘marriage equality,’ lately, they’ve taken to calling Bible-believing Christians ‘evolution deniers.’ and now this, calling fidelity to the Constitution judicial activism. Words mean things.”

Conservative activist Alan Caruba usually works as a shill for corporations and is the former communications director of the American Policy Committee, which staunchly opposes environmental protections and the United Nations. Instead of criticizing regulations on businesses, Caruba yesterday launched a tirade against the Obama administration’s decision to stop defending the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act, calling marriage equality “an act of societal suicide” and the administration’s decision “a stealth attack on the nation.” He also derided the Obama administration for bringing the “homosexual agenda” in schools, appointing Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, and repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell:

I have always thought that "gay" was an odd choice of words to describe homosexuals because those whom I have known rarely evinced much happiness about being regarded by the rest of society as aberrations. They may have made their personal peace with it, but the notion that a society based on heterosexuality should regard them as "normal" defies logic.

Granting homosexuals the right to marry is an act of societal suicide. I will cite some examples below.

In late February, the White House and its Department of Justice announced that it would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. It is a warning of moral decay that America has reached a point where it requires a law to assert this definition, recognized from the dawn of civilization, of mankind itself.

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This is giving parents fits, but it was President Obama who installed Kevin Jennings as the White House "safe schools" czar in the Department of Education even though Jennings is a major homosexual activist who has pushed the homosexual agenda in the nation's schools. Jennings, prior to his appointment, was the founder and executive director of the nationwide Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network.

President Obama nominated Elena Kagan to a lifetime position as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court despite her activism as Dean of the Harvard Law School during which she expelled military recruiters over the Armed Forces' ban on homosexuals. She called it a "moral injustice of the first order." She was known for recruiting homosexual activists to the school's faculty such as the former ACLU lawyer, William Rubenstein, to teach "queer" legal theory and elevated an outspoken lesbian professor, Janet Halley. She encouraged Harvard students to get involved in homosexual activist legal work.

These White House appointments are just one part of what millions of Americans have come to realize as measures taken to undermine the nation's moral authority, its legal system, its economy, its military strength and defense, and its energy security.

In 2012 Americans will clean house in the White House and the Congress, electing men and women who understand that homosexuality is an unfit condition for marriage, for service in the military, and that its justification in the states and the courts is a stealth attack on the nation.

Just because James Dobson left Focus on the Family last year doesn't mean he has abandoned his Religious Right activism.  Last week he dedicated two days of his radio program to exposing the dangers of Islam with Jerry Boykin and this week he is dedicating two days to exposing the evils of Planned Parenthood with Gary Bauer and Rick Santorum.

On today's broadcast, Santorum claimed that the Nazi's eugenics ideas were taken from Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger and that the organization continues to target minorities to this day:

Dobson: We're going to talk about Planned Parenthood today which has been in the news recently in scandals that reveal just how evil and how sinister this organization really is.

Santorum: They have been pushing their agenda for close to a hundred years. I mean, it goes all the way back to Margaret Sanger and her views on eugenics, of culling the race from inferiors, that started Planned Parenthood. This was a movement to try to purify the race and she was for abortion and sterilization and things to get to her aim of a eugenics movement in this country and it was, unfortunately, widely accepted in the early part of the last century. That, with what happened in Nazi Germany which, by the way, took a lot of their eugenics ideas from Margaret Sanger and from the American eugenics movement and applied them to the Jews and other quote "undesirables" in Nazi Germany. But Planned Parenthood is the offshoot, is the progeny of Sanger and this movement and it continues today as they set up their clinics and as they try to ... again, if you look the statistics, target the minority community, the African American community where the abortion rates are much, much higher. This is no accident.

When a woman walks into an abortion clinic, she's entitled to a dead baby and it doesn't really matter how you do it - that's where the abortion movement is moving.