choice

Barton: Jesus Supports Employment Discrimination

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 8/2/2011 4:45 pm

On today's episode of "Wallbuilders Live" the topic of discussion was whether churches ought to be allowed to discriminate in their hiring practices.  Not surprisingly, David Barton argued that they should and, as is his tendency, explained that there is nothing wrong with discrimination because even Jesus says the government is not supposed to be involved in this issue anyway:

Now discrimination today is always a bad word a hundred percent of the time, but it simply means making a choice between or making a difference between. And discrimination means I am going to discriminate and say I can tell a difference between a Christian and a non-Christian and therefore I only want Christians working on my church staff. I can tell the difference between someone who says they're homosexual and someone who says they're straight. A secular organization has a tough time discriminating, but a church needs to have the right to discriminate.

This is a biblical issue because Jesus has an entire parable in Matthew 20: 1-15 where he talks about a landowner who had a vineyard who went out to hire folks to work in his vineyard. And as he hired them he make a contract with them that said you'll work for this much or whatever and throughout the day he hired people and he made individual contracts with them and at the end of the day when he is paying them all off, the guy who got hired first said "wait a minute, that's not fair" and [the landowner] said "time out, we had a contract, didn't we? You agreed to work for a certain wage ... you should have gone down the street and found somebody else to work for that would have paid you different, but you agreed to work for that wage." And Jesus makes a great statement in Matthew 20: 15 where he says "don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money?"

Now that's a great statement and that's a statement Jesus teaches to show the inviolability of contracts between employers and employees. That's why the government is not supposed to get involved in this stuff anyway. Government shouldn't be involved in employment contracts period.

As we have noted several times before, Barton frequently cites this passage in the Book of Matthew to justify right-wing economic policies like the elimination of the minimum wage even though it is actually a parable about the Kingdom of Heaven in which Jesus is explaining that no matter how late in one's life one comes to Christ, the heavenly reward will be the same.

But Barton is using it to justify blatant discrimination in hiring process even among secular businesses. 

As we noted when Jay Richards made this same argument in his book "Money, Greed and God," by this logic it is entirely biblical for a business owner to refuse to hire women or to pay his white males employees more than all other employees or to engage in any other sort of employment discrimination because Jesus teaches that they have a right to do what they please with their money and the government has no right to interfere with the process in any manner whatsoever.

Porter Keeps Up Pressure For Passage Of "Heartbeat Bill"

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 8/2/2011 1:18 pm

In June, Janet Porter's radical anti-choice "Heartbeat Bill" passed the Ohio State House but then stalled when the state legislature recessed without the bill being taken up by the Senate.

But the Legislature will return in September and Porter is already planning a rally to welcome them back that will continue her efforts to join together Religious Right leaders with prophetic dominionists by mixing the likes of Wendy Wright [formerly] of Concerned Women for America and Rick Scarborough from Vision America in with Porter's prophetic pal Rick Joyner of The Oak Initiative:

Right Wing Leftovers

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 7/29/2011 5:26 pm
  • Just 6,000 people have RSVP’d so far for Perry’s The Response.
  • A Houston judge dismissed the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s lawsuit against Perry.

Rick Perry Partners With Anti-Choice Extremist For Prayer Rally

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 7/27/2011 1:03 pm

Yet another radical endorser has been added to the website of Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s The Response prayer rally: Rob Schenck of Faith And Action. During the 1992 presidential campaign, Schenck was arrested along with Randall Terry “after thrusting a container with a 19-week-old fetus at presidential candidate Bill Clinton,” and four years later told President Clinton “God will hold you to account, Mr. President” for his pro-choice views. Schenk helped Terry found Operation Rescue, one of the most extreme and controversial anti-choice groups in America.

Schenk continues to work closely with other anti-choice zealots, including his brother Paul, who leads that National Pro-Life Action Center. In the 1990s, Schenck and his brother spearheaded a harassment campaign against an abortion provider in upstate New York who was later murdered by an anti-choice activist who is alleged to have had ties with the Schenck brothers.

Along with his militant anti-choice activism, Schenck has repeatedly questioned President Obama’s Christian faith and in 2006 described a deadly mining disaster in West Virginia as a punishment from God. Schenck is also a staunch opponent of gay rights. He called the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell an “attack on personal, moral, social and religious sensibilities” and criticized “militant homosexual activists” for holding an LGBT pride parade in Jerusalem, calling it an “abomination.”

Judging from Perry’s other prayer rally organizers, Schenck will fit right in.

Author of ‘Anti-Christian’ DHS Report on Right-Wing Extremism is a Conservative, Anti-Choice Gun Owner

Submitted by Miranda Blue on Wednesday, 7/27/2011 11:38 am

The Religious Right loves manufacturing controversies that “prove” the victimization of Christians in the United States. When NBC left the words “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance in the broadcast of a golf tournament, Religious Right groups jumped to proclaim that the network was in the pocket of God-hating liberalism. When an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery included an image of Christ’s suffering made by a gay artist, the Religious Right called it “hate speech” and got the work of art pulled.

Recently, we’ve been reminded of one of these made-up controversies that may have more sinister consequences. In 2009, a Department of Homeland Security report on the threat of violent right-wing extremists was leaked. The report dealt exclusively with violent racist and anti-government groups – your Timothy McVeighs and Hutaree militias – but the Religious Right saw an opportunity to play the victim and do some fundraising. Groups including the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America and the American Center for Law and Justice labeled the report an attack on American Christians, ginned themselves up some allies in Congress, and ultimately got the report pulled. (But not before Liberty Counsel had a chance to print up some “I’m Proud to be a Right Wing Extremist” membership cards).

Now, the main author of the DHS report, who left his job after the fallout from the controversy made it “difficult to get any work accomplished,” is speaking out. Daryl Johnson tells California State University’s Brian Levin that he is a gun-owning, anti-choice Republican Mormon who started work on the report under the Bush Administration. And he’s worried that the manufactured controversy over the report continues to hinder DHS’s ability to combat violent right-wing extremism:

Do you have any political antagonism towards conservatives, military veterans or religious people?
Absolutely not. I am a conservative. I'm married, have children and am a lifetime third generation registered Republican. I have military veterans in my extended family. I'm also a Mormon. I respect people of all faiths. I feel so strongly about our religious freedoms, that I served two years as a missionary for my church.

Would you consider yourself prolife?
Yes. I believe in the sanctity of life including the preborn.

Do you support a broad right to individual gun ownership by competent non-felons?
Yes, I am a gun owner myself and enjoy target shooting and experienced game hunting in my youth.

…

Why interview now?
Obviously, I couldn't discuss this with the media while employed at DHS. It took me a year after leaving to finally decide that this was truly the right thing to do. I also wanted to give DHS adequate time to determine whether or not it wanted to reconstitute the domestic non-Islamic terrorism effort. It never did.
Since Obama took office, there have been nearly twenty extremist rightwing attacks and plots, including the killing of almost a dozen police officers in six separate attacks. There have also been militia plots in places like Alaska and Michigan that targeted government officials such as a judge and police. Package bombs were mailed in the DC area. In recent months we had three sovereign citizen related shootings in Florida, Arizona and Texas.

How many people worked on your team?
Six worked directly for me with two others in support roles.

How many analysts at DHS worked Muslim extremism issues?
A: In 2008, there were close to 40. A year later that number had decreased to around 25. There were additional analysts working other topics such as critical infrastructure, border security and weapons of mass destruction.

How does the threat from radical Muslim extremists in the U.S. compare with that of right wing domestic extremists?
During the past 10 years there have been five successful attacks in the U.S. by Muslim extremists, but in the last three years there have been 20 attacks attributed to domestic right wing extremists and the number of fatalities is about equal between the two. There were more firearms possessed by the Hutaree [an alleged extremist] militia than by all 200 of the Muslim extremists arrested in the U.S. since 9/11.

…

What happened at DHS as a result of the criticism?
My team was dissolved. All training courses and briefings presentations were stopped. DHS leaders made it increasingly difficult to release another report on this topic.
Why would DHS leaders dissolve your team and stop these analytic activities?
The subject had become too politically charged. As a result, DHS leaders adopted a risk adverse approach toward this issue. Perhaps they thought it was a matter of organizational preservation.

Do you think the dissolution of your unit that you discuss has negatively affected State and local law enforcement?
Certainly. There is one less agency to assist state and local law enforcement with this growing and dangerous problem at a time of heightened activity.

Why did you leave DHS?
I could no longer effectively do my job. New processes made it increasingly difficult to get any work accomplished.

Have the conditions which affected your conclusions changed since the report was issued?
No. The factors have remained the same - the economy remains sluggish and uncertain; unemployment hovers around 10 percent nationally; Obama is still President; and the 2010 Census results show a changing demographic in America shifting away from a predominantly Caucasian nation.

Has the leak had a chilling effect on the analyst community?
Within the intelligence community at-large, I don't think so. Inside the Department of Homeland Security, I believe it did. Other DHS analysts saw what happened to us - saw leadership backing away from supporting the report and those responsible for writing it. Many left the agency as a result.

 

Right-Wing Activist Says Homosexuality Creates "The Most Violent Societies"

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 7/22/2011 10:26 am

Tim Dunkin of Renew America and Conservative Underground wants to warn America that not only is same-sex marriage not a right, but that homosexuality itself “is a lifestyle choice that lends itself to violence, degradation, disease, selfishness, and exploitation.” Arguing that gay rights must be “fought, defeated, and thrown back” along with “the rest of the broader revolutionary socialist agenda,” Dunkin claims that “homosexuality is destructive” and will ultimately destroy America because, he says, homosexuality is associated with violence, pedophilia and abuse:

So, marriage is a right because it is natural. Society benefits when men and women bond monogamously to raise children and devote themselves to each other. The obvious naturalness of heterosexual marriage is even testified to by the simple facts of anatomy. Men and women can procreate. Men and men, or women and women, cannot. If you take fifty men and fifty women, drop them on a desert isle, and come back a hundred years later, you will find thousands of their descendants filling the land. If you take one hundred homosexual men or one hundred lesbians and do the same, you will come back and find nobody there, because they all died of old age and had no means of reproducing themselves. Heterosexual marriage fits the natural and Scriptural order. Homosexual "marriage" does not.

Homosexual marriage is also not a natural right because it is intrinsically not "right." Nobody has the right to harm others. Yet, homosexuality is a harmful behavior. It is obviously harmful to its practitioners — the clinical evidence for all manner of psychological and physical problems created by acting on homosexual impulses is well established. Homosexuality is destructive to self because it uses the human body in ways that it simple was not intended to be used by nature and nature's God. Homosexuality is also, however, more likely to be harmful to others who do not practice it. Let's not forget that the threat to our blood supply presented by AIDS largely exists because of the tendency within the homosexual community to practice unsafe, unprotected sex with multiple partners (one study reported up to 53 different partners a year, on average). Despite the cries of outrage that usually accompany when pointed out, homosexuals are statistically much more likely to be involved in pedophilia and child abuse. Historically, some of the most violent societies, both internally and externally, were also practitioners of adult male homosexuality, especially. Simply put, it is a lifestyle choice that lends itself to violence, degradation, disease, selfishness, and exploitation. As a result, those who practice it may not only harm themselves, but are more likely to also harm others. One does not have the right to that. Yet, if a homosexual keeps his degradation to himself, then it remains only his business and the business of those he participates with consensually — as I've said before elsewhere, freedom includes the right to do things that harm yourself so long as you don't harm someone else in the process.

…

In summary, homosexual marriage, along with a great many other things that the Left has and continued to try to impose onto us, cannot be considered a "right" under the system of natural law that our Founders believed in and based this nation upon. This is, of course, why the Left has made such a concerted effort to remove that underpinning, by attacking the Judeo-Christian heritage of this nation, and by trying to shift us over to a social justice/positive rights/subjective social rights framework. If this nation is to return to what it was and become what it should be, then the homosexual agenda, like the rest of the broader revolutionary socialist agenda, must be fought, defeated, and thrown back.

Fischer Says Only Those Without Reason, Logic or Arguments Call People Nazis

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 7/21/2011 4:08 pm

And now for a post from our we-couldn't-make-it-up-if-we-tried department.

In our last post, we noted how Bryan Fischer had taken his "gays = Nazis" allegations to their logical conclusion by declaring that Adolf Hitler himself was gay.

But in the segment directly preceding that, Fischer kicked off the program by stating that somewhere on the internet, someone had referred to him as a "Nazi gas bag" ... and claimed that when people start calling you a Nazi, it is proof that they do not have any legitimate arguments to make:

And by the way, ladies and gentlemen, this is a clear indication that the Left has lost the argument and the debate in public policy. Because name-calling is the first refuge of a man who does not have an argument. As soon as someone starts calling you names, then realize they're out of ammunition, they're out of arguments. They can't reason with you any longer, they don't have facts on their side, they don't have reason on their side, they don't have logic on their side, they don't have history on their side, they don't have research on their side, they don't have science on their side so they start calling you things like a "Nazi gas bag."

Here, ladies and gentlemen, is Bryan Fischer saying just two months ago that gays are Nazis:

The homosexual agenda is just like Islam: there is no room for dissent, there is no room to leave, once you're in, you can't leave. Muslims won't let you leave, homosexuals won't let you leave - if you leave, they claim you're faking it, so there's no way out. There's no freedom of choice, there's no freedom of religion - if you have religious views about homosexual behavior, you are squashed.

I mean, ladies and gentlemen, they are Nazis. Homosexual activists, when it comes to freedom of speech, are Nazis. When it comes to freedom of religion, they are Nazis. There is no room in their world dissent, there is no room in their world for disagreement, there is no room in their world for criticism. You criticize homosexual behavior, they tag you as a bigot and a homophobe and then they got to work to silence you just like the Roman Catholic Church did in the days of Galileo - it's no different; it's the Spanish Inquisition all over again.

Ladies and gentlemen, they are Nazis. Do not be under any illusions about what homosexual activists will do with your freedoms and your religion if they have the opportunity. They'll do the same thing to you that the Nazis did to their opponents in Nazi Germany.

Bryan Fischer is a lot of things ... but self-aware is not one of them.

Who's Who in Today's DOMA Hearing

Submitted by Coral on Wednesday, 7/20/2011 10:42 am

Cross-posted on PFAW blog

Senate Republicans have called Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family, David Nimocks of the Alliance Defense Fund and Ed Whelan of the Ethics and Public Policy Center as witnesses in today’s hearing on the “Defense of Marriage Act.” The groups these witnesses represent have a long record of extreme rhetoric opposing gay rights:

CitizenLink, Focus on the Family’s political arm, is a stalwart opponent of gay rights in every arena:

• Focus on the Family has consistently railed against the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, demanding the discriminatory policy’s reinstatement.

• The group claims anti-bullying programs that protect LGBT and LGBT-perceived youth in schools amount to “homosexual indoctrination” and “promote homosexuality in kids.”

• The group insists that House Republicans investigate the Justice Department over its refusal to defend the unconstitutional Section 3 of DOMA.

The Ethics and Public Policy Center is backed by the far-right Sarah Scaife Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and the Koch- backed Castle Rock Foundation, all well-known right-wing funders.

• George Weigel of EPPC wrote in June that “legally enforced segregation involved the same kind of coercive state power that the proponents of gay marriage now wish to deploy on behalf of their cause.”

• Ed Whelan spearheaded the unsuccessful and widely panned effort to throw out Judge Vaughn Walker’s 2010 decision finding California’s Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional on the grounds that Walker was in a committed same-sex relationship at the time of the decision.

The Alliance Defense Fund, which bills itself as a right-wing counter to the American Civil Liberties Union, is dedicated to pushing a far-right legal agenda:

• The ADF has been active on issues including pushing "marriage protection," exposing the "homosexual agenda" and fighting the supposed "war on Christmas."

• The ADF claims 38 “victories” before the Supreme Court, including: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which allows corporations to spend unlimited money on elections in the name of “free speech” and Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000), which allowed the Boy Scouts to fire a Scout Leader because he was gay.


Parker: "Too Many Blacks Still Don't Want To Be Free"

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 7/18/2011 4:00 pm

Religious Right activist and unsuccessful Republican congressional candidate Star Parker has a new column today lamenting that African Americans have yet to embrace her ultraconservative ideology. The outspoken anti-choice and anti-gay activist bemoans that African Americans are still predominantly Democrats since they don’t watch Fox News and because “too many blacks still don’t want to be free” despite advances in civil rights. Parker, who received just 23% of the vote in her failed bid for Congress, writes:

The message that massive government spending and borrowing does not grow the economy has not reached blacks. Rather, like our president, they seem to believe that the problem is we just haven't yet dug the fiscal hole deep enough.

Is this a racial thing? Whites will jump off the ship run by a black captain in a minute while blacks will ride it out until it hits the iceberg?

No, I don't think so. I think it's both a liberal information thing and a moral thing.

The liberal information thing is that blacks overwhelmingly get their information from liberal sources.

Blacks watch CNN and MSNBC, not Fox. They listen to urban black radio.

…

But I think more corrosive is the moral thing.

Almost a half century since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, too many blacks still don't want to be free and accept the responsibilities that go with it. Too many blacks still believe that the condition of their lives is caused by what someone else does or has.

It is sad that this is true despite the fact that blacks go to church more often, pray more often, and say religion plays a central part in their life more than any other ethnic group in the nation.

Why does a people so inclined to turn to God so readily violate the Tenth Commandment's prohibition on covetousness and measure themselves in terms of what others have? And then use this sin to justify violating the Eighth Commandment and give government license to steal what others have in order to redistribute?

Perhaps most fundamentally, how can a church-going people buy into the materialism of socialism?

Randall Terry Recruiting Phony Candidates To Run Graphic Anti-Choice Ads

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 7/15/2011 2:44 pm

During the 2010 midterm elections, Randall Terry and his crew of anti-choice zealots discovered a way to get graphic anti-abortion ads to air on television by exploiting a loophole that prohibits broadcasters from refusing to run or censor campaign ads.

In the 2010 election, a woman named Missy Smith ran against Washington DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton simply for this purpose and Randall Terry himself is now "running" for president in as a Democrat for the same reason.

But Terry isn't stopping there and is also apparently recruiting more phony "Democratic" candidates to similar run ads around the country:

A Highland, Illinois mother of 13 known for her protests outside a Granite City abortion clinic announces she’s running for Congress as a Democrat on the abortion issue.

Retired obstetrics nurse Angela Michael says she wants to air more than 250 commercials in the St. Louis television market featuring images of aborted fetuses.

“I want America to see the message behind abortions,” Michael said, “I want them to see what happens to babies daily. And I also want to show them healthy babies that we rescue and we save in our ultrasound van" ...

Her decision to run was announced on the steps of the Old Court House in downtown St. Louis, flanked by pro-life presidential candidate Randall Terry, who is running as a Democrat. Terry, who says he is already running ads in Iowa, says he’s trying to create a “crisis of conscience.”

“If I can cause three or four percent of the Evangelicals and Catholics who voted in for Obama in 2008 to not vote for him in 2012, I could perhaps keep him from being elected,” Terry said, “I can’t beat Obama in the primary, obviously, but I can wound him.”

Right-Wing Columnist: Eliminate Public Schools To Stop "Stalinist" LGBT History Law

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 7/14/2011 4:27 pm

Writing for the ultraconservative Crisis magazine, Kevin Ryan of Boston University’s Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character is outraged over the recently signed California law that makes sure textbooks cover important LGBT historical figures. Ryan said that the policy has a “distinct Stalinist odor” that will bolster the “gay agenda.” But Ryan has a way to respond to the new textbook law: abolish public schools. “Eliminate state-run public schools,” Ryan writes, “make a transition to one of the many school choice options” like home schooling:

Given the brute fact that the state can and does put parents in the slammer for not delivering up their children for the state approved and directed schooling, this new legislation has about it a distinct Stalinist odor. The odor is particularly strong in the nostrils of those parents who believe such grave matters as how one lives out their sexuality is not the educational province of the state bureaucrats who create the lesson plans for teachers.

It is tempting to dismiss this soon-to-be statewide curriculum as just another in a long line of outrageous and kooky, La-La Land events seemingly designed to keep the rest of us chuckling and mildly finger-wagging. However, the Sunshine State is the 800-pound gorilla of the textbook world and teachers and parents in Montana, Iowa and Georgia will surely be seeing the “gay agenda” in their next textbook adoptions.

…

Another idea — and one which is receiving a great boost from legislation requiring a gay-friendly curriculum — is to eliminate state-run public schools. That is, make a transition to one of the many school choice options that put parents back in charge of their children’s education.

Increasingly, the very idea of the state answering the core educational question, “what is most worth a child knowing,” is being acknowledged as dangerous and a violation of parents’ right to control the education of their children. Currently in the US the parents of well over one million children are making huge personal and financial sacrifices to homeschool their children, and the movement is growing. While motivations vary, many of these parents have withdrawn their children from the public school because of the very over-sexualized environment this new California legislation will doubtlessly intensify.

It is tempting to take solace in the idea that this latest school victory by gay activists is a step too far and will spark a revolt. However, the public school teachers unions, local, state and national, are very strong and very politically protected. The opposition is underfunded, disorganized and tends to have a short attention span.

On the other hand, if attempts to alter our children’s understanding of their sexuality and what is the correct way for them to live out their sexuality cannot arouse parents to action, what, in God’s name and our nation’s future, will?

Religious Right Activists Warn GOP Not To Nominate Mitt Romney

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 7/13/2011 1:39 pm

Right-wing activist and former California legislator Steve Baldwin has organized an open letter to “Conservative, Catholic and Evangelical Leaders” asking them to refuse support for Mitt Romney’s campaign for president. Already a number of activists including failed US Senate candidate and Tea Party hero Joe Miller; Rick Scarborough of Vision America; Brian Camenker of MassResistance; Linda Harvey of Mission America; Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association; Ted Beahr of WND and Movieguide; Gary Glenn of American Family Association-Michigan, Kelly Shackleford of the Liberty Institute; Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation; Floyd Brown of WND; Dick and Richard Bott of Bott Family Radio, and the leaders of a number of anti-choice groups have signed the letter.

The letter says that “a Romney candidacy would be disastrous for the conservative movement and for the country,” writing that he is insincere in his conservative beliefs and “continues to support many aspects of the homosexual agenda even today.” The activists claim that “the flatly illegal charade of ‘gay’ marriage exists solely in Massachusetts due to Governor Romney’s illegal actions,” and lists numerous other issues including abortion rights and health care reform where Romney has reversed himself: “Romney has also been both in favor and against minimum wage legislation, capital gains taxes, gun control, amnesty for illegal aliens, campaign finance reform, the Kyoto agreement, gambling, gun control, and many other issues.”

They conclude by warning that nominating Romney “would be a disastrous mistake”:

Most disturbing is the key role Mitt Romney played in accelerating two of the greatest threats to our Judeo-Christian culture and free enterprise system: Homosexual marriage and government control of health care. In both instances, the actions Romney took – or didn’t take – on homosexual marriage and RomneyCare have done lasting damage to our country. Romney’s aggressive efforts to implement the unconstitutional Goodridge decision set a precedent which inspired pro-homosexual marriage activity nationwide, and his RomneyCare bill served as the model for ObamaCare, the biggest lurch toward socialism since the New Deal.

As such, Romney has done more damage to America in his four years as Governor than any Democrat officeholder we can think of. But Romney, to this day, defends his actions on both fronts and sincerely believes he has done nothing wrong, an attitude which only raises additional questions about his fitness for national office. We must question his worldview, his sincerity, and his judgment. We believe the election of Mitt Romney would be a disastrous mistake for the conservative movement and for the country.

Right Wing Leftovers

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 7/8/2011 5:29 pm
  • Tony Perkins wants it known that, contrary to reports, he was not on the Religious Right's Rick Perry conference call.

  • It is apparently unfair for Rep. Keith Ellison to point out that his opponent is an intolerant anti-Islam right wing activist.

  • I never fails to amuse me when Religious Right groups best known for hating gays decide to speak out on foreign policy issues.

  • It looks like Sally Kern will be promoting her new book on AFA Radio and with Concerned Women for America, so we have that to look forward to.

  • Finally, Peter LaBarbera says "Christians and all defenders of sexual normalcy ... no other choice but to fight back against the emerging liberal homo-fascism."

Right Wing Round-Up

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 7/7/2011 6:06 pm

Right-Wing Columnist Wants Catholic Democratic Politicians Excommunicated

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 7/7/2011 5:20 pm

Gerard Nadal, a columnist for the anti-choice and anti-gay website Life Site News, is infuriated that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Catholic, signed a marriage equality bill into law. He calls on Roman Catholic bishops to get tough on the “sins of the Ted Kennedys, Andrew Cuomos and Nancy Pelosis” and all “Catholic pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage politicians,” insisting that they be refused communion and eventually excommunicated. Nadal believes that only religious pressure can compel a progressive politician to “undo their grave injustices” of supporting reproductive rights and marriage equality:

The sins of the Ted Kennedys, Andrew Cuomos and Nancy Pelosis are so vast, so deeply rooted, and entirely the fabric of the Democrat Party, that any confession by these people needs to have a public recanting of their deeds and concrete evidence of an action plan to undo them as the penance. If the politician is unwilling to work within the political system to undo their grave injustices and work toward a restoration of justice under law, then they are not contrite.

We have run out the rope on the excuse by so many bishops that we don’t know the private state of their souls. That simply strains credulity. If the politicians remain the same week after week, month after month, year after year, then as we say in Brooklyn, that’s a clue.

It’s a clue to their impenitence, and it is a sin against charity to confirm them in their impenitence by allowing them to eat and drink condemnation upon themselves, as Saint Paul put it.

As I’ve said before on this blog, if the fight was “too political” for the bishops in the past, the threat is now existential going into the future. The faithful are enraged over this law, and the bishops have a once-in-a-generation opportunity here to publicly call upon Catholic pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage politicians to publicly repent or face severe sanctions, beginning with being barred from the Eucharist, and leading to excommunication. There is a small window of opportunity here to reclaim the leadership most have eschewed for far too long.

For great good, or great evil, this is an historical moment for the United States Bishops in general, and New York’s bishops in particular. This is the great moment where the bishops can define what it means to be a Catholic in terms of sacramentality, and how to be a Catholic in the public square. This is the time for a muscular response. The faithful will back them to the hilt.

Do Response Prayer Rally Participants Understand The Views Of The AFA?

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 7/7/2011 12:06 pm

In our coverage of the upcoming "The Response" prayer rally that Gov. Rick Perry is organizing, one of the points we have been trying to hammer home is that Perry reached out to the American Family Association as his partner of choice in organizing the event and that the AFA will be paying for the event.

Ever since, Perry has been trying to insist that the AFA's long record of unmitigated bigotry should in no way reflect upon the event he is organizing with them, which is utter nonsense.

Today Warren Throckmorton wrote a good post asking why Gov. Sam Brownback had been the only governor who has agreed to attend, especially since Brownback has played a leading role in apologizing for the treatment of Native Americans ... whereas the AFA's chief spokesman believes that Native Americans deserved to have been wiped out:

In my view, the AFA has earned their designation as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Critics point to outrageous statements from the AFA’s Bryan Fischer regarding gays, Muslims and African-Americans as reason to question why a prominent elected official would partner with the AFA.

While all of the insults and stereotypes identified by critics are serious and disqualifying, I don’t want us to forget Bryan Fischer’s views of Native Americans. Early in 2011, Fischer wrote that “Native Americans morally disqualified themselves from the land,” saying that Native Americans were so savage and immoral that they were displaced for their evil. In other words, they got what was coming to them. Even though that article was removed from the AFA website, the AFA was silent on the issue, allowing Fischer to remove it without an apology saying he removed it because his critics were not “mature enough” for the subject. Then Fischer followed up that article with one that stated Native American assimilation into the new America would have been “seamless and bloodless” if only they had converted to Christianity. One Native American writer called Fischer’s writing “ugly” and said he advocated “thinly veiled race-purity arguments.”

...

In my view, the AFA should not be leading a prayer event claiming to call America to their view of righteousness. I am surprised and sad that Governor Perry would partner with them.

I was even more surprised that Governor Sam Brownback (R-KS) would agree to take part. Brownback was a prime mover of the Native American Apology Resolution which I called the AFA in March to endorse. I do agree that at times it can be productive to join together with various groups to accomplish an objective. However, it is beyond me how these two Governors can partner with a organization that regularly slanders and maligns entire groups of people, not individuals mind you, entire groups. In the case of Brownback, he stands for confession to Native Americans, and yet he will stand with the AFA who could not even publicly acknowledge how they had offended an entire group of people.

That is a good question and one that could just as well be applied to Dr. James Swallow, who is listed as an endorser of the Perry/AFA prayer event:

Swallow became a Christian in 1961, so perhaps Fischer would not consider him to be one of those Native Americans who "resisted the appeal of Christian Europeans to leave behind their superstition and occult practices for the light of Christianity and civilization" and therefore deserved to be wiped out. But it would still be interesting to know just how Swallow feels about endorsing and participating in an event being paid for by an organization that has, as its public face, a man who not only believes Native Americans got what was coming to them but attacks anyone who disagrees with his bigoted views as "not mature enough" to handle the truth.

Remembrance of Bachmann Things Past: Her Ties To Janet Porter

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 7/6/2011 2:19 pm

In 2009, Janet Porter of Faith 2 Action organized a right-wing conference in St. Louis called "How To Take Back America" that was co-sponsored by the likes of WorldNetDaily, The American Family Association, Vision America, Liberty Counsel, and WallBuilders.  The keynote speakers at the conference were Mike Huckabee and Rep. Michele Bachmann.

The line-up at this conference was so radical that we put together a report on the participants which gave special attention to the truly fringe views espouse by Porter: 

It is probably impossible to overstate the extremism and lunacy of Janet Porter, whose radio program and Faith2Action.org website gives her a platform for promoting the most unhinged of conspiracy theories.

Porter is Mike Huckabee's biggest fan. She first fell in love when she organized the 2007 Values Voter Debate to which she had personally invited a gospel choir to sing "Why Should God Bless America?" and after which Porter (then Folger) declared that Huckabee had been revealed as the answer to Christians' prayers for a presidential candidate who shared their views, proclaiming him to be the "David among Jesse's sons." During the presidential primaries, she started a front group to attack Huckabee's arch nemesis Mitt Romney and wrote columns claiming that only Huckabee could prevent Hillary Clinton from throwing all Christians into prison and save her fantasy world from this "evil queen and her dragon of slaughter."

She has since claimed that God has cursed America for voting for Obama, that anyone who voted for him is bound for hell , and that anyone who has ever voted for a pro-choice candidate is also living under a curse. She has actively pushed the Birther conspiracies and even alleged that Obama's presidency was the culmination of a decade-long Communist conspiracy twenty years in the making. After the election, but before the inauguration, she called on God to prevent Obama from taking office, while warning that "AN EARTH-SHATTERING CALAMITY IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN" to this nation because we deserve God's judgment.

Among other fears she has recently been stoking: the Obama administration is creating internment camps for conservatives and building mass evacuation buses to take them there, while warning that the H1N1 flu vaccine is really a nefarious plot by the government to kill millions of Americans. She helped to create and inflate the Right's false claims that a Department of Homeland Security report was equating conservatives and veterans with terrorists; as noted above, she's now pushing comparisons between the Obama administration and the rise of Nazism.

Porter has written a book called "The Criminalization of Christianity" and claims that hate crimes legislation will lead to Christians being thrown in jail. More recently she's joined the chorus of extremists falsely claiming that the bill would "give heightened protection to pedophiles." As part of her campaign against hate crimes legislation, Porter has repeatedly invited on to her radio show Ted Pike, a rabid anti-Semite who claims hate crimes laws are part of a Jewish plot for world domination.

Of course, the radical views held by Porter and the others in no way dissuaded Bachmann from attending.  In fact, Bachmann appeared on Porter's radio program ahead of the event and used it as an opportunity to praiser her and endorse the May Day at the Lincoln Memorial prayer event Porter was planning for the following spring:

That May Day event ended up being so infused with Seven Mountains Dominion Theology that Porter lost her radio program and almost ended her career at a Religious Right activist, until she showed up in Ohio earlier this year where she began scheduling fetuses to "testify" on behalf of her extremist anti-choice "Heartbeat Bill."  In her downtime, she was busy praying for God to give Christians control over the media and every level of government.

But none of that seemed to bother Bachmann, who joined Porter, Joseph Farah, and others in promoting Porter's "Pink Slip" campaign to warn members of Congress that they would lose their jobs if they voted for legislation opposed by the Right:

In 2008, Porter was a key supporter of Mike Huckabee.  But with Huckabee declining to run for President this time around, Porter's endorsement is still up in the air. 

But given the already existing ties between Bachmann and Porter (and judging by the poll Porter is currently running on her website) it seems increasingly like that Bachmann could wind up being her candidate of choice.

Anti-Choice Group Fundraises To Encourage "Freedom From The Homosexual Lifestyle"

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 7/6/2011 12:22 pm

Steve Jalsevac, the cofounder of Life Site News, wants readers to know that the fight against reproductive rights isn’t enough, and that the group will be redoubling its efforts to combat LGBT equality. While describing a recent trip to a Pride Parade, where he “was filled with sadness for all the lost, confused souls who were participating in it,” Jaslevac warns that “our freedoms” are at stake if the gay rights movement continues to advance. Jaslevac ends his missive by asking for financial help in order to help “the homosexuals themselves” by bringing them “freedom from the homosexual lifestyle”:

With the enthusiastic help of the rich, the powerful, and the famous, and the all-too-willing mainstream media, the tactics of the “gay pride” agenda are proving to be frighteningly successful - to the detriment of the family, traditional sexual ethics…and our freedoms.

Have no doubt about it. Many gay rights activists are not satisfied with mere “tolerance” - they want acceptance, even if it tramples on our basic rights. Already we are seeing devout Christians losing jobs, being fined, and being ostracized, simply for speaking up in defense of the family.

…

As I was standing watching Sunday’s Gay Pride parade, I was filled with sadness for all the lost, confused souls who were participating in it.

The fact is, despite the unprecedented levels of social acceptance for homosexuality, the gay community continues to be plagued by soaring levels of deadly sexually transmitted diseases, drug abuse, depression, and suicide. And no wonder!

We know that only God can provide the peace and happiness for which we all crave. What could be more opposed to this than the promiscuous gay lifestyle?

As our editor-in-chief, John-Henry Westen, wrote last week, it isn’t acceptance that homosexuals need. It’s freedom from the homosexual lifestyle, and all its dangers and miseries.

…

So please, for our culture, our children, and for the homosexuals themselves, who are in need of God’s love and freedom from the homosexual lifestyle, please consider making a donation to LSN today.

Anti-Choice Groups Urge FDA To Place Graphic Warning Labels On Emergency Contraceptives

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 6/30/2011 10:04 am

A coalition of groups opposed to abortion rights wants the government to place graphic warning labels on emergency contraceptives and abortion clinics in the same way cigarette packs are now required to display explicit images. Disregarding the fact that abortion is an exceptionally safe medical procedure, a spokesman for the campaign said, “If you’re going to force cigarette manufacturers to put graphic images on every single pack of cigarettes, you should do the same thing with abortion.” In fact, a number of states already force doctors to read false statements that abortion causes breast cancer and other ailments. In a petition-drive launched by organizations including The Radiance Foundation (best known for placing billboards that refer to legal abortion as “black genocide”), Operation Rescue, Pro-Life Nation, and Students for Life, the coalition urges the government to impose labels to shame women:

The FDA recently announced new restrictions on cigarette packages, forcing manufacturers to feature prominent graphic images on the front of every cigarette package to warn smokers of harmful effects that smoking can have on their health and those around them.

When picking up their cigarette packages, smokers will see pictures of a man blowing smoke out of a hole in his neck, a smoker’s mouth riddled with cancer, a baby under a cloud of smoke, and a deceased man, among other colored graphics.

This marks the biggest change in cigarette package warnings in over a quarter of a century and notes the shift in American public opinion about smoking. Smoking has become passe.

Yet, what about abortion?

Where are the warning labels on abortion?

Where are the warnings to tell women that abortion will kill their child and scar them for life?

Sign your name to this petition to tell the FDA that all abortion facilities and abortion-causing drugs should come with graphic warning labels - showing women what an abortion really does.

Right Wing Round-Up

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 6/29/2011 5:49 pm
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choice Posts Archive

Alliance Defense Fund To Launch Law School Aimed At Creating "Liberal Chaser" Attorneys
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Wednesday 09/28/2011, 12:56pm
Religious Right leaders are coming together to form yet another law school to train future lawyers of the conservative movement. The right-wing Alliance Defense Fund is helping Louisiana College, a Southern Baptist institution, start the Paul Pressler School of Law, which will join Liberty University, Regent University and others in providing politicized training to the next generation of Religious Right lawyers. Pressler’s ties to the Alliance Defense Fund will be similar to the Liberty University School of Law’s partnership with Liberty Counsel and the Regent... MORE
Porter: Because Of My Heartbeat Bill, God Will Again Bless America
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Tuesday 09/27/2011, 12:45pm
Janet Porter saved the big guns for last when she organized her Heartbeat Bill rally last week.  After speakers were done comparing supporters of the effort to Moses and likening women's health centers to concentration camps, Dutch Sheets and Lou Engle took to the podium to beseech God to pass this legislation.  While Sheets asked God to give no rest and no peace to Ohio senators until they agree to pass the bill and "end this curse in America," Engle screamed out, calling upon God to break the demonic spiritual powers over the Senate so that Senators will receive dreams... MORE
Garlow Equates Criminalizing Abortion With Ending The Holocaust
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Tuesday 09/27/2011, 12:27pm
Jim Garlow of Renewing America’s Leadership (ReAL), Newt Gingrich’s Religious Right group, told activists at Janet Porter’s Heartbeat Bill rally last week that the end of abortion in America will be remembered just like the end of the Holocaust. Garlow told the crowd that after abortion is criminalized, people will tour shuttered abortion clinics in the same way that people now tour concentration camps in Europe. Garlow, who has also been organizing the “Pulpit Initiative” to convince pastors to use more partisan political rhetoric from the pulpit, also... MORE
Harvey: "Evil Bloggers" Are After Me!
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Monday 09/26/2011, 4:40pm
Here at Right Wing Watch we have been tracking right-wing activist and radio show host Linda Harvey of Mission America, who without fail attacks gays and lesbians in irate, crude, virulent and bizarre outbursts. In fact, she denies that gays and lesbians even exist. Yesterday on her radio show, Harvey had on as her guest Laurie Higgins of the ultraconservative Illinois Family Institute. Higgins and Harvey agreed that homosexuality is in fact a choice, and that “homosexual activists” are dishonestly covering up that fact. Harvey went on to chastise “evil bloggers” for... MORE
Dakota Ary, Hate Crimes, And The Gay Nazis
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Friday 09/23/2011, 3:15pm
Whenever I see articles like this one about Dakota Ary, a fourteen year-old Texas student who was suspended for reportedly saying in class that, as a Christian, he believes homosexuality is wrong, I am always reminded of the story of Raymond Raines or, more recently, the eight year-old Massachusetts student supposedly suspended for drawing a picture of Jesus. These absurd stories are almost always generated by the Religious Right legal groups who have been hired to represent the families of the "victims" - does anyone remember Edwin Graning? - and the resulting stories inevitably... MORE
Anti-Immigrant Activists Blast Perry Over DREAM Act Defense
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Friday 09/23/2011, 1:37pm
At last night’s Republican presidential debate Gov. Rick Perry defended a state law he signed that allows the children of undocumented immigrants living in Texas to pay in-state tuition at the state’s public colleges and universities. Although Perry has attacked the federal DREAM Act as “amnesty,” anti-immigrant activists are furious over his defense of the Texas law. In a statement, Americans for Legal Immigration-PAC president William Gheen speculated that Perry has “assured his own defeat”: Texas Governor Perry destroyed his chances of winning the GOP... MORE
Porter Brings Another Ultrasound To "Speak" On Behalf Of Her Heartbeat Bill
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Thursday 09/22/2011, 1:57pm
Earlier this week, Janet Porter organized a rally to press for passage her radical "Heartbeat Bill" which has been endorsed by everyone from James Dobson and Roy Moore to Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry. For the event, Porter brought in Religious Right activists like Rick Scarborough and Wendy Wright, as well as "prophets" and "apostles" like Lou Engle and Rick Joyner.  And, just as she did when her bill was being debated in the Ohio state house, she brought an ultrasound of a fetus to "speak" on behalf of the legislation. The woman in the... MORE