Congress

Ron Baity of Return America, the group behind the campaign to pass an amendment to North Carolina’s constitution that would ban same-sex marriage, which is already barred by statute, joined right-wing radio host Janet Parshall yesterday on her show In The Market. Parshall said that marriage equality efforts come from “the Father of Lies and the Accuser of the Brethren,” two names for Satan (John 8:44; Revelation 12:10). She said that Satan has marriage in his “crosshairs” because he wants “to tear down the idea of Christ’s unconditional love for us.”

Baity agreed with Parshall’s analysis and warned that government will be changed for the worse if same-sex marriage becomes legal. “I’m afraid defense is down in our country,” Baity went on to tell Parshall, “Rght now in our economy and everything else we’re experiencing in our nation I don’t think is anything less than God trying to get our attention”:

Parshall: But as a pastor do you ever stop and think, of course it makes sense that marriage is under attack. It’s the first institution that God created in a place of perfection, it’s emblematic of the love that Christ the bridegroom has for his bride, the Church, so if you were the Father of Lies and the Accuser of the Brethren, boy I tell you marriage would be in my crosshairs, I would go after that with every bit of energy I’ve got because I would want to tear down the idea of Christ’s unconditional love for us and what he’s done for us and that message is repeating in the model of marriage. So from a biblical vantage point doesn’t it make sense that marriage is under attack?

Baity: Absolutely, and it’s been well stated that as the home goes so goes the government. Because the home is the theater for the government and what happens there in that basic institution will eventually determine what happens in that next generation. You know to a great degree it will determine who sits in the Oval Office and who sits in the halls of Congress and in our local legislatures. Our forefathers would not recognize our nation today, we have moved so far. And you know I’m afraid defense is down in our country Janet and I’m afraid that we are right now in our economy and everything else we’re experiencing in our nation I don’t think is anything less than God trying to get our attention.

No matter how many times the deceitful claim that abortion providers are systematically targeting the black community for genocide is repudiated, new anti-choice groups can’t seem to stop running more ‘black genocide’ billboard campaigns. In March, a group called Life Always notoriously used images of President Barack Obama and a young black girl in their billboard campaign that abortion is black genocide. Earlier this summer the National Black Pro-Life Coalition put up billboards in Atlanta likening legal abortion to slavery and the Radiance Foundation and Issues4Life placed billboards in Oakland as part of their campaign comparing abortion rights to the genocide in Darfur.

Now, a new group called the Restoration Project is placing billboards in Atlanta with a similar message in their ‘Abortion In The Hood’ campaign.

The Restoration Project was founded and is led by Catherine Davis, who previously was “director of minority outreach” for Georgia Right to Life with a role of “educating Georgians about the holocaustic impact this practice has had on the Black community.” Davis says that the ‘Abortion in the Hood’ billboards are supposed to both spread the ‘black genocide’ message while also shaming pro-choice female and black leaders. Davis told the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow: “If this were alcohol or tobacco, we would have African-Americans marching in the street. But because it's abortion, they are not willing to examine this question, and they're turning a blind eye, and we are asking why that is.”

Her group calls out the Congressional Black Caucus in particular for supporting “abortionists as they prey on Georgia’s black women and target our children”:

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) has long told the black community they are “leading our communities and country with passion and commitment” assuring us that they “… continuously strive to be a voice for the voiceless, earning the moniker “the conscience of the Congress” (Emmanuel Cleaver, III, Chairman, Congressional Black Caucus).

Yet, neither the CBC, nor its members from Georgia has examined abortion’s impact on the people they serve. Instead they have turned a blind eye to abortion’s impact by voting for legislation that promotes and supports abortion. They have betrayed their constituents instead giving “voice” to the abortionists as they prey on Georgia’s black women and target our children. They refuse to examine the disproportionate number of abortions on black women. They do not seek explanation for abortion’s depopulation effect on us.

Each is rated 100% by the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), indicating a pro-abortion voting record. Georgia is among the states leading in abortions on black women and our members of the CBC will not question why. They will not discuss the fact that one hundred percent of Georgia’s abortion clinics are in urban areas where blacks reside. We demand they begin to ask why!

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC’s William Gheen is out in force after we at People For the American Way’s Right Wing Watch reported on an interview with Janet Mefferd in which he said that “extra-political activities” that he described as “illegal and violent” might be the only way for people to stop the "Dictator Barack Obama." Gheen told Mefferd that the Obama administration is “putting out videos and propaganda telegraphing what I believe to be a conflict with White America they’re preparing for after they get another 10 or 15 million people in the country to back them up.” He went on to say that his group is now referring to the president as “Dictator Barack Obama” and said, “If you’re looking for a peaceful, political recourse there really isn’t one that we can think of, and I’m really not sure what to tell people out there than I guess they need to make decisions soon to just accept whatever comes next or some type of extra-political activities that I can’t really talk about because they’re all illegal and violent.”

Gheen has since released a “clarification” of his comments. “I have made it very clear that I disavow any form of violence on many occasions,” Gheen said, “I cannot delve into the options Barack Obama is forcing on Americans that are concerned about the illegal alien invasion of America.” He blames Obama for forcing people “into a decision between submission or more revolutionary means” and added that he is considering “ending efforts to influence elections or Congress because I feel that such measures will not be enough to change the course of America.”

Later, Gheen appeared on Alan Colmes’s radio show, and continued to deny that he mentioned “illegal and violent” activities even when Colmes played to him his own words, and tried to explain that he was not endorsing the possible use of “illegal and violent” activities because he is personally non-violent and that is why he couldn't talk about them. He attacked Colmes’s “exploitation” of his remarks and told him that because he advocates non-violence on his website he doesn’t need to do the same on-air, saying, “I should’ve prepared my comments a little bit better so they wouldn’t be exploited by the opposition” (Watch the interview below the fold).

Now that Gheen is furiously backtracking from his comments, we thought it would be a good time to post another segment of his interview with Mefferd, in which he says that options beyond impeaching Obama to “remove him from office” must be on the table, adding that there is talk “about the military coming in or somebody just coming in taking this guy into some form of arrest.” Gheen also warns against marching in Washington D.C. because of the city’s black and Latino population’s support for Obama:

Gheen: Once again this isn’t just Obama, this is a group of people, we’ve been reading about them for five or ten years now about how they plan to integrate the economies of North America and to do so in a way to do so that bypasses the legislatures, that’s been in all the materials that we’ve read and here it is in front of us. They’re integrating the workforce of North America and the populations of North America and they did just bypass the legislatures. The same cabal has such influence with the media and the Associated Press, I’ll give you example and I haven’t totally muttered this on the air before, right after Obama did this I got a call from an Associated Press writer out of Washington, D.C., she’s like ‘what’s your initial reaction’ and I said, ‘this is, Obama has just exceeded his constitutional authority and acted in a dictatorial manner which we believe removes all legitimacy for his presidency and that we’re gonna be calling on the Republican to remove this man from office as soon as possible.’

And I didn’t say just impeachment. I said remove him from office because some people are also leaning to the words ‘treason’ and talking about the military coming in or somebody just coming in taking this guy into some form of arrest if we’re doing this. I mean what do you do here? What does a nation do when this happens? We may have to try to have to gather in the streets and demand that Obama step down. But you know when you talk about doing that, you’re gonna gather in the streets of Washington D.C. which where Obama has a support rate of 88% of the blacks and Hispanics who live there.

• Bill Keller is "calling for a boycott of Christian TV network TBN, along with Pastor John Hagee and David Barton, for supporting the efforts a Mormon cult member Glenn Beck in his latest SCAM on the Christian community."
• Jennifer Roback Morse will not use the term “same sex marriage” any more than she will "use the term 'square circle' because such an entity is not possible."
• Bryan Fischer is still on his "gays commit hate crimes" crusade.
• Former Roy Moore aide Dean Young will seek the Republican nomination for Alabama's 1st Congressional District.
• Finally, why does it seem that everyone except for Liberty Counsel is posting Matt Barber's pedophilia press release?

Pamela Geller has a second column out today attacking Texas Gov. Rick Perry for his ties to the Aga Khan, the leader of the Ismaili sect of Shiite Islam, and to one of Geller’s favorite targets, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. Anti-Muslim activists have long viewed Norquist as one of the principal architects of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the conservative movement and American society at large because of his work to make the political Right more inclusive of Muslim-Americans. Geller writes today in her WorldNetDaily column that she doesn’t “want to see a GOP presidential candidate palling around with Grover and his thugs,” and says that Perry’s relationship with Norquist “raises legitimate questions about whether or not Perry knows about, or cares about, or even endorses, that activity by Norquist”:

First, Norquist. Yes, all Perry did was give a speech in partnership with Grover Norquist, and promote it on his website. Norquist heads up Americans for Tax Reform, and Perry's tax-cutting message is redolent of Norquist's influence. But Norquist also has deep and extensive ties to Islamic supremacists and jihadists, as I showed in the first commentary. That raises legitimate questions about whether or not Perry knows about, or cares about, or even endorses, that activity by Norquist. I certainly would refuse to speak at the same event in partnership with Grover Norquist – let alone promote it on my website. Shouldn't Rick Perry have, too?

Grover Norquist's background is no secret. His tax mask has worn thin. It was old five years ago. Grover Norquist is toxic and should be persona non grata in the Republican Party. He is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood. And has been exposed as the recipient of huge donations from a Brotherhood figure who is now in jail for financing terror activity. I don't want to see a GOP presidential candidate palling around with Grover and his thugs. I want a presidential candidate to declare that he will appoint an attorney general at the Department of Justice who will press forward immediately with the prosecutions of the co-conspirators named in the Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest terror funding trial in our nation's history. I want a presidential candidate who is unafraid of the stealth jihadists in our midst, and who will vow that he will clean out the infiltrators.

But Perry is far from the only Republican to collaborate with Norquist, who Geller calls “a front for the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Norquist’s organization Americans for Tax Reform spent close to $4 million in the midterm election to elect Republicans to Congress, and 235 Congressmen and 41 Senators, all Republicans, have signed Norquist’s “Taxpayer Protection Pledge.” In fact, just seven Republican representatives and seven Republican senators have not signed Norquist’s pledge to never support a tax increase. Already, Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have signed Norquist’s pledge, as have congressmen Louie Gohmert and Allen West, both darlings of anti-Muslim activists.

Since the vast majority of Republican members of Congress have no problems affiliating with Norquist, does Geller see them all working with the Muslim Brotherhood?

Geller goes on to argue that Perry is one of the “dhimmi candidates” who is “going along with our civilization suicide.” She contends that Perry must take a more active stance against Muslims and Muslim organizations or will be complicit in the “stealth jihad,” or the furtive and gradual Islamic takeover of American society, and must not put “lipstick on a halal pig”:

The fact that Hamas-tied CAIR, one of the top five groups named in AFDI's Threats to Freedom Index, immediately praised Perry, speaks volumes. All this speaks to a pattern. And the pattern is not good. It speaks to a pattern of going along with our civilization path to suicide. No matter who wins the nomination, I will support him or her with every breath of my body. But I am going to fight like a cat to get the right cat there. Of course, a candidate should make nice with Muslims who oppose jihad. But introducing the Islamic whitewash into our public schools and universities is the most dangerous thing you can do. It is not my intention to damn all Muslims, but we need a president who will call out the Islamic supremacist groups on stealth jihad. That is real political courage, not calling for tax cuts.

We have had enough of dhimmi candidates who kowtow, out of ignorance or financial interest or both, to Islamic supremacists. In my new book, "Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance," I detail the advances it is making, and show how Americans can and must resist. Do you really think that Rick Perry, in light of the information above, is really the man who is going to lead that resistance? Has Gov. Perry addressed the jihad ideology that has been responsible in recent years for the slaughter of thousands across the world? Or is he busy putting lipstick on a halal pig?

Perennial North Carolina Republican congressional candidate Vernon Robinson is asking for money for his campaign to readers of the far-right website WorldNetDaily. Robinson is best known for his Twilight Zone ad, which he ran during his unsuccessful campaign against Democratic Rep. Brad Miller.

While he failed in his bid for Congress, Robinson endeared himself to Republicans across the country. Now, Robinson is running in the 8th congressional district against Rep. Larry Kissell and in a fundraising email blasts President Barack Obama for “hanging out with terrorists” and “smoking marijuana and snorting cocaine”:

While Obama was smoking marijuana and snorting cocaine, I was earning badges to become an Eagle Scout. While Obama was being mentored by Communist Party Member Frank Davis, I was taught to love God and country by my parents. While Obama was consorting with Marxist professors, Black Panthers, trial lawyers, union bosses, hippie peaceniks, anti-Christian atheists, militant homosexual agitators, radical pro-abortion feminists, gun grabbers, amnesty zealots, Chi-Com sympathizers, globalists who worship at the altar of the UN, and environmentalist wackos, I was earning my bachelor's degree alongside my fellow cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

While Obama was hanging out with terrorists such as Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers (who bombed the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon), I was serving my country as a Missile Combat Crew Commander and Intelligence Officer. While Obama was attending "Socialist conferences" at Cooper Union, I was reading Milton Friedman, watching William F. Buckley, Jr., and attending the 1980 Republican National Convention that nominated Ronald Reagan. While Obama was learning his redistribution-based economics theory from law professors at Harvard, I was earning my MBA and learning the virtues of free market principles and pro-growth policies. While Obama was following in the footsteps of Saul Alinsky to become a Chicago-based community organizer, I was working as a business professor and serving in the first Bush Administration.

While Obama was saying Amen to the loony, vile, anti-America, anti-Whitey, anti-Semitic, pro-reparations, black liberation theology spewed by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, I was worshipping at a church that preaches the Gospel and erecting a Ten Commandments monument on municipal property (to the dismay of the government bureaucrats and high priests of political correctness who insist that God must be ejected from the public square). While Obama was supporting the NAACP, the ACLU, the NEA, and ACORN, I was filing the successful lawsuit against the University of North Carolina that put an end to its practice of electing trustees according to strict racial and gender quotas and providing blacks-only scholarships at taxpayer expense.

…

I don't head for the high grass when the Left turns up the heat. That's just not my style. I put my trust in God, not my finger to the wind, and my record proves it. I want to put a burr in Barrack Obama's saddle. I want to put a bee in Nancy Pelosi's bonnet. I want to give Barney Frank a Maalox Moment. And I want to embolden Republican Congressmen to buck up instead of buckling.

People For the American Way is preparing to move its headquarters to another location in Washington, D.C. , after more than 20 years in the same space. That has meant a monumental effort to sort through decades of accumulated paper and figure out what to do with video recordings in more formats than you could imagine – and endless save-or-toss decisions.

• a letter from Jerry Falwell urging his supporters to call Congress and oppose sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa in order to prevent a Communist takeover (an  accompanying 16-page “Fundamentalist Journal – Special Report” included a Falwell interview with the foreign minister saying that the West “has been doing the work of Moscow.”);
• a 1990 Christian Coalition leadership manual that includes the assertion that the relationship between employers and employees should be based on Bible verses telling slaves to obey their masters, no matter how harsh;
• a 1982 PFAW report on the Religious Right’s efforts to use the Texas textbook process to foist their ideology on American students nationwide (sound familiar?);
• books and campaign plans for the takeover of America by once-obscure Christian Reconstructionist figures who are now in the news thanks to the frightening ascension of followers like Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann;
• candidate questionnaires from Religious Right groups in the 1980s demanding to know whether politicians would support across-the-board tax cuts, a reminder that the Religious Right has been pushing Tea Party economics for a long time;
• a lavishly produced press kit for the 2006 opening of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, where a disturbing number of Americans have flocked to be mis-educated about biology, geology, and history; and
• in honor of Rick Perry’s recent prayer rally in Houston, a 1985 campaign flyer from the "Straight Slate" of candidates for Mayor and City Council, warning that Houston “has become the Southwest capital for homosexuality and pornography” and insisting that “We must not allow Houston to become another San Francisco!” (Current Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who was sworn in last year, is a lesbian who parents three children with her partner.)

• Miranda @ PFAW Blog: Did Whole Foods Cave to Anti-Muslim Extremists?
• Towleroad: Ann Coulter Joins Board of Gay Conservative Group GOProud.
• Dan @ TFN Insider: Saving America from Marxists and Progressives!
• Alvin McEwen: Sign the Petition and get Congress to call out false anti-gay testimony.
• Carlos Maza @ Equality Matters: State Sodomy Laws Continue To Target LGBT Americans.
• Travis Waldron @ Think Progress: Bachmann’s ‘Must-Read’ List Included A Book That Claims Blacks Were ‘Better Off In Nearly Every Way’ Under Slavery.
• Mark Potok @ Hatewatch: Court Dismisses Case Involving DHS Extremism Report.

Updated 8/5/2011

On August 6, Texas Gov. Rick Perry will host The Response, a “prayer rally” in Houston, along with the extremist American Family Association and a cohort of Religious Right leaders with far-right political ties. While the rally’s leaders label it a "a non-denominational, apolitical Christian prayer meeting," the history of the groups behind it suggests otherwise. The Response is powered by politically active Religious Right individuals and groups who are dedicated to bringing far-right religious view, including degrading views of gays and lesbians and non-Christians, into American politics.

In fact, a spokesman for The Response has said that while non-Christians will be welcomed at the rally, they will be urged to “seek out the living Christ.” Allan Parker, a right-wing activist who participated in an organizing conference call for the event, declared in an email bearing the official Response logo that including non-Christians in the event "would be idolatry of the worst sort."

Perry told James Dobson that the rally was necessary because Americans have “turned away from God.”

The following is an introduction to the groups and individuals who Gov. Perry has allied himself with in planning this event.

The American Family Association

The American Family Association is the driving force behind The Response. Founded by the Rev. Don Wildmon in 1977, the organization is based is best known for its various boycott campaigns, promotion of art censorship, and political advocacy against women’s rights and LGBT equality. The organization also controls the vast American Family Radio and an online news service, in addition to sponsoring various conferences frequented by Republican leaders, including the Values Voter Summit and Rediscovering God in America. The AFA today is led by Tim Wildmon, Don’s son, and its chief spokesperson is Bryan Fischer, the Director of Issues Analysis for Government and Public Policy and host of its flagship radio show Focal Point.

Fischer routinely expresses support for some of the most bigoted and shocking ideas found in the Religious Right today. He has:

• held gays responsible for the Holocaust and likened them to domestic terrorists and Nazis who are intent on committing “virtual genocide” against the military, and asserts that “homosexuals should be disqualified from public office”;
• said “we have feminized the Medal of Honor” by awarding it to a soldier who saved his fellow combatants rather than killing enemies;
• demanded all immigrants “convert to Christianity” and renounce their religions;
• asserted that Muslims have “no fundamental First Amendment claims” and should be banned from building mosques and deported from the US, adding that Muslims are inherently stupid as a result of inbreeding;
• claimed African American women “rut like rabbits” due to welfare and that Native Americans are “morally disqualified” from living in America because they didn’t convert to Christianity and were consequently cursed by God with alcoholism and poverty;
• said that the anti-Muslim manifesto of the right-wing Christian terrorist who killed dozens in Norway was “accurate.”

Other AFA leaders and activists are just as radical:

• AFA President Tim Wildmon claims that by repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell President Obama shows he “doesn’t give a rip about the Marines or the Army” and “just wants to force homosexuality into every place that he can.”
• AFA Vice President Buddy Smith, who is on the leadership council of The Response, said that gays and lesbians are “in the clasp of Satan.”
• The head of the AFA’s women’s group led a boycott against Glee because she accused it of indoctrinating children in homosexuality and idolatry.The editor of AFA Journal Ed Vitagliano said that gay pride months are an affront to the Founding Fathers and will usher in “a return to pagan sexuality.”
• A columnist for the AFA demanded Christians stop practicing yoga because it was inspired by the “evil” religions of Buddhism and Hinduism.

International House of Prayer

The Response’s leadership team includes five senior staff members of the International House of Prayer (IHOP), a large, highly political Pentecostal organization built on preparing participants for the return of Jesus Christ. In a recent video, IHOP encouraged supporters to pray for Jews to convert to Christianity in order to bring about the Second Coming. IHOP is closely associated with Lou Engle, a Religious Right leader whose anti-gay, anti-choice extremism hasn’t stopped him from hobnobbing with Republican leaders including Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Mike Huckabee. Engle is the founder of The Call, day-long rallies against abortion rights and gay marriage, which Engle says are meant to break Satan’s control over the U.S. government. One recent Call event featured “prophet” Cindy Jacobs calling for repentance for the “girl-on-girl kissing” of Britney Spears and Madonna. Perry's The Response event is clearly built upon Engle's The Call model.

Engle has a long history of pushing extreme right-wing views and advocating for a conservative theocracy in America. Engle:

• is a proponent of “Seven Mountains” dominionism, a movement that seeks to have Christians take control of all aspects of American life, including government, business, entertainment and the media;supports the criminalization of homosexuality;
• claimed that universities with LGBT anti-discrimination measures are teaching students to “accept the mark of the beast”;
• is waging a “spiritual war” on the Supreme Court to get abortion outlawed in America;
• prayed that Ellen Degeneres will be “converted” from homosexuality.
• led a prayer rally in Jerusalem to lead one of the "greatest awakenings in the earth" to bring the Jews of Israel to Christianity.
• claimed that the devastating tornado in Joplin, Missouri was God’s judgment for abortion.

IHOP’s founder and executive director, Mike Bickle, who is an official endorser of The Response, like Engle pushes radical End Times prophesies. In one sermon, he declared that Oprah Winfrey is a precursor to the Antichrist.

The International House of Prayer, incidentally, remains locked in a copyright infringement lawsuit with the International House of Pancakes.

Tony Perkins

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, is a co-chairman of The Response. At the FRC, Perkins has been a vocal opponent of LGBT equality, often relying on false claims about gay people to push his agenda. He:

• called gay rights activists “intolerant,” “hateful,” “vile,” “spiteful” and “pawns” of Satan;
• denied that there was a correlation between anti-gay bullying and depression and suicide, saying instead that gay and lesbian teens know they are “abnormal” and “have a higher propensity to depression or suicide because of that internal conflict";
• wrote that Senators would have "the blood of innocent soldiers on their hands" if they vote to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell and allow gays to serve openly in the military;
• likened President Obama to a Middle East dictator when the president refused to defend the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act in court;
• said “I don’t know if the country can survive” another Obama term;
• said that armies that allow gays and lesbians to serve openly – including several U.S. allies in Iraq and Afghanistan –“participate in parades, they don’t fight wars to keep the world free.”

Jim Garlow

One of the most prominent members of The Response’s leadership team is pastor Jim Garlow. The pastor for a San Diego megachurch, Garlow has been intimately involved in political battles, especially the campaign to pass Proposition 8. Garlow invited and housed Lou Engle to lead The Call rallies around California for six months to sway voters to support Proposition 8, which would repeal the right of gay and lesbian couples to get married. He claims Satan is behind the “attack on marriage” and credits the prayer rallies for the passage of Prop 8. He said that during a massive The Call rally in San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium “something had snapped in the Heavenlies” and “God had moved” to deliver Prop 8 to victory.

Most importantly, Garlow is a close spiritual adviser to presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and leads Gingrich’s Renewing American Leadership (ReAL). Garlow is a principal advocate of Seven Mountains Dominionism, and wants to “bring armies of people” to bring Religious Right leaders into public office and defeat their political opponents.

Garlow has a long record of extreme rhetoric. He:

• when Prop 8 passed in California, claimed that African Americans “saved us from the bondage and enslavement that would come upon us if gay marriage actually passed in a state” and alleged marriage equality supporters are going to “totally destroy the definition of the family”;
• likened homosexuality to bestiality, saying that if marriage equality is upheld “the next court case could conceivably say that if three people wanted to marry or four people or five people or if someone wanted to marry their dog or their horse”;
• compared gay adoption to children losing their parents in the September 11th attacks and said that supporters of gay rights are “almost like an Antichrist spirit”;
• told conservative activists that “your land has cancer” and believes that the “lethal ideological ‘radiation’” of progressives “is killing our nation” and “poisoning us and our children”;
• argued that legal abortion is responsible for unemployment.

John Hagee

While Senator John McCain rejected John Hagee’s endorsement during the 2008 presidential campaign for his “deeply offensive and indefensible” remarks, Perry invited Hagee to join The Response. Hagee leads a megachurch in San Antonio, Texas, and is a purveyor of End Times prophesies. Like members of the International House of Prayer, Hagee utilizes language of spiritual warfare and says he is part of “the army of the living God.” He runs the prominent group Christians United For Israel, which believes that eventually a cataclysmic war in the Middle East will bring about the Rapture.

John McCain was forced to disavow Hagee for a reason as the Texas pastor:

• claimed that God sent Hitler to be a “hunter” of Jews to usher in the establishment of Israel and “do God’s work,” lamenting that Jews are no longer “spiritually alive.”
• referred to the Catholic Church as ‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system.’
• believes that Hurricane Katrina “looked like the curse of God” and ravaged New Orleans in order to stop a “homosexual rally” and punish the city’s high “level of sin.”
• said that if gay marriage becomes legal “you can kiss this country goodbye,” alleged that the US is “rebirthing Sodom and Gomorrah,” and demanded that the government stop funding AIDS research and treatment to stop benefiting a “sinful lifestyle.”
• demands that “wives submit yourselves to your husbands” and said that the “husband has a God-given role as leader of your home.”
• said that God won’t allow the United States to win wars anymore because “we have allowed the worship of Satanism in the U.S. military.”

James Dobson

James Dobson, an official endorser of The Response, is one of the most prominent figures in the Religious Right. Founder of both Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council , Dobson has been instrumental in bringing the priorities of the Religious Right to Republican politics, including campaigning hard for President George W. Bush. But many of the views that Dobson pushes are hardly mainstream. Dobson:

• is no fan of the women’s movement, writing that women are just “waiting for their husbands to assume leadership” ;
• claims that marriage equality will “destroy the Earth”;
• insists that the Religious Right’s fight against Planned Parenthood is “very similar” to that of abolitionists who fought against the slave trade.
• Asked if God had withdrawn his hand from America after 9/11, Dobson responded: “Christians have made arguments on both sides of this question. I certainly believe that God is displeased with America for its pride and arrogance, for killing 40 million unborn babies, for the universality of profanity and for other forms of immorality. However, rather than trying to forge a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the terrorist attacks and America's abandonment of biblical principles, which I think is wrong, we need to accept the truth that this nation will suffer in many ways for departing from the principles of righteousness. "The wages of sin is death," as it says in Romans 6, both for individuals and for entire cultures.”

David Barton

David Barton, an official endorser of The Response, is a self-proclaimed historian known for his twisting of American History and the Bible to justify right-wing political positions. Barton’s strategy is twofold: he first works to find Biblical bases for right-wing policy initiatives, and then argues that the Founding Fathers wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, so obviously wanted whatever policy he has just found a flimsy Biblical basis for. Barton, “documenting” the divine origins of his interpretations of the Constitution gives him and his political allies a potent weapon. Opponents who disagree about tax policy or the powers of Congress are not only wrong, they are un-American and anti-religious, enemies of America and of God.

Barton uses his shoddy historical and biblical scholarship to push a right-wing political agenda, including:

• Biblical Capitalism: Barton’s “scholarship” helps to form the basis for far-right economic policies. He claims that “Jesus was against the minimum wage,” that the Bible “absolutely condemned” the estate tax,” and opposed the progressive income tax.
• Revising Racial History: Barton has traveled the country peddling a documentary he made blaming the Democratic Party for slavery, lynching and Jim Crow…while ignoring more recent history.
• Opposing Gay Rights: Barton believes the government should regulate gay sex and maintains that countries which “rejected sexual regulation” inevitably collapse.

Other Allies

Among the other far-right figures who have signed on to work with Gov. Perry on The Response are:

• Rob Schenk, an anti-choice extremist who was once arrested for throwing a fetus in the face of President Clinton, and who allegedly had ties with the murderer of abortion provider Dr. Barnett Slepian.
• Loren Cunningham, who is working to mobilize support for the rally is a co-founder of the radical “Seven Mountains Dominionist” ideology. Cunningham says that he received the “seven mountains” idea, which holds that evangelical Christians must take hold of all aspects of society in order to pave the way for the Second Coming, in a message directly from God.
• Doug Stringer, The Response's National Church and Ministry Mobilization Coordinator, who blamed American secularism and the increased acceptance of homosexuality for the 9/11 attacks, saying “It was our choice to ask God not to be in our every day lives and not to be present in our land.”
• Cindy Jacobs, self-proclaimed “prophet” and endorser of The Response, who famously insisted that birds were dying in Arkansas earlier this year because of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
• C. Peter Wagner, an official endorser of The Response, is one of the most prominent leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation, a controversial movement whose followers believe they are prophets and apostles on par with Christ himself (other adherents include Engle, Jacobs and Anh). Wagner has advocated burning Catholic, Mormon and non-Christian religious objects. He blamed the Japanese stock market crash and later the devastating earthquake and tsunami in the country on a traditional ritual in which the emperor supposedly has “sexual intercourse” with the pagan Sun Goddess.
• Che Ahn, a mentor of John Hagee and official endorser of The Response, who endorses “Seven Mountains” dominionism and compares the fight against gay rights to the fight against slavery.
• John Benefiel, a self-proclaimed "apostle" and official endorser of The Response, who claims the Statue of Liberty is a "demonic idol" and that homosexuality is a plot cooked up by the Illuminati to control the world's population, and that he renamed the District of Columbia the “District of Christ” because he has “more authority than the U.S. Congress does.”
• James “Jay” Swallow, official endorser of the rally, who calls himself a “spiritual warrior” and hosts “Strategic Warriors At Training (SWAT): A Christian Military Training Camp for the purpose of dealing with the occult and territorial enemy strong holds in America.”
• Alice Smith, who advocates "spiritual housecleaning" because demons "sneak into" homes through everyday objects.
• Willie Wooten, a self-proclaimed “apostle” who claims that God is punishing the African American community for supporting gay rights, reproductive freedom and the Democratic Party.
• Pastor Stephen Broden – Broden, an endorser of The Response, has repeatedly insisted that a violent overthrow of the U.S. government must remain “on the table.”
• Timothy F. Johnson – Johnson, a former vice-chairman of the North Carolina GOP, was elected to that post despite two domestic violence convictions and still unresolved questions about his military service and educational record.
  
• Alice Patterson – Patterson, a member of The Response's leadership team, insists that the Democratic Party is controlled by a "demonic structure."