Congress

Linda Harvey of Mission America is speaking out against a grant to the anti-bullying group to help schools create “safe spaces” for LGBT students that are targeted for harassment. The Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) said it has worked with both the Clinton and Bush administrations in prior years to combat school bullying, but in a World Net Daily article entitled “Hope and change 2011: Now homo and change,” Harvey specifically attacks the Obama administration for pushing “its destructive priorities.” Harvey, a fierce critic of GLSEN and the It Gets Better Project, tells WND that anti-bullying programs represent “child corruption” that are “fast-tracking youth into homosexuality and gender confusion”:

"Schools can punish bullies without endorsing 'gay' behavior," argues Mission America, an organization that researches and reports on social issues affecting Christians in America. "This is child corruption, funded by taxpayers."

"We can only hope few schools agree to this scheme for fast-tracking youth into homosexuality and gender confusion," Linda Harvey, president and founder of Mission America, told WND. "Our federal government, through this grant, essentially agrees with the mythology that some humans are 'born gay.' They are therefore willing to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars during a national fiscal crisis to defy parental rights, Christian moral tradition, and sound health practices.

"Once again, this administration is demonstrating its destructive priorities," Harvey continued. "If this GLSEN program is implemented, impressionable teens will suffer for it. I am calling on Congress to put a halt to this grant."

Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) told the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow today that the public is behind the GOP’s effort to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) because “85 percent of Americans” oppose marriage equality. Discussing a Senate bill that would repeal DOMA, Huelskamp said: “Eight-five [sic] percent of Americans say, ‘We support traditional marriage,’ and the Senate does the opposite.” Polls show that the majority of Americans support equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians and believe that DOMA should be repealed. Huelskamp did not cite which survey he was referring to. The congressman also claimed that the Obama administration was promoting a “really radical agenda,” pointing to a proposal that would have allowed Navy chaplains to perform same-sex marriages in states with marriage equality.:

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives approved two amendments to the Defense Appropriations Bill that affirm congressional support for traditional marriage and religious liberty. Congressman Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas) offered one measure Thursday night that would prohibit the reemergence of a recently rescinded Navy directive that would allow Navy chaplains to perform same-sex "wedding" ceremonies. "We need to protect the rights of our pastors from this really radical agenda that's coming out of this White House," he contends.

The Navy chief of chaplains announced earlier this year that military chaplains who desire to perform weddings for same-sex couples would be allowed to do so following the repeal of the policy known as "don't ask, don't tell." The directive says chaplains could perform such ceremonies in states where homosexual "marriage" is legal.

Huelskamp believes President Obama continues to stand in the way of traditional marriage initiatives.

"Democrat leadership has decided to take on the Defense of Marriage Act again," he notes. "Seventy-five to 80 percent of Americans say, 'Hey, balance your budget.' The Democrats will not do that. Eight-five percent of Americans say, 'We support traditional marriage,' and the Senate does the opposite as well," the Kansas congressman laments. "So that's the latest there. The president continues to...refuse to defend DOMA, [as does] the attorney general.... We've been fighting them on that, and Congress is standing up for traditional marriage."

Bryan Fischer has been demanding a ban on the construction of mosques in the United States for a year now and argues that such a prohibition is entirely constitutional because the First Amendment does not apply to Islam.

In fact, as Fischer is fond of saying, the First Amendment does not apply to any "non-Christian religions":

[T]he First Amendment was written neither to guarantee freedom of religion to Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus nor to prohibit their free exercise of religion. It wasn’t written about them one way or another.

It was written for one specific purpose: to protect the free exercise of the Christian religion ... We must be clear: the First Amendment does not prohibit the free exercise of alternative religions, but neither does it guarantee it. It simply does not address the issue at all.

In defense of this view, Fischer has lately started arguing that prohibitions on polygamy prove that "non-Christian religions" (i.e., Mormonism) do not have First Amendment protections:

That the free exercise clause provides no guarantee for non-Christian religions is made clear in the case of Mormonism. It was part and parcel of the “free exercise” of the Mormon faith to have as many wives as you wanted. Congress said nope. In fact, the Mormon church was required to prohibit plural marriages as a condition of Utah’s statehood.

(It’s worth noting in passing that the Mormon church has never renounced plural marriage. It has simply instructed its followers to obey federal law in the matter.)

Idaho came into the union in 1890, at virtually the same time as Utah, and the first page of Idaho’s state constitution makes it explicitly clear that the free exercise of religion shall in no sense be construed to justify plural marriages.

...

In fact, the Republican Party came into existence in 1854 to combat two evils: slavery and the pernicious Mormon practice of plural marriage, what the original GOP called "those twin relics of barbarism." (Let me point out that I’m talking about the LDS faith as it existed then, not as it exists today.)

Clearly, then, as our political experiment with the Mormon faith makes clear, there is no guarantee of the free exercise of religion for religions which are outside the stream of historic Christianity, as Mormonism is. (It denies the Trinity, the virgin birth of Christ, the unique deity of Christ, his all-sufficient atoning sacrifice on the cross, and the completeness of God’s revelation in the Old and New Testaments.)

Following Fischer's logic, it only stands to reason that local communities likewise have the power to deny Mormons permission to build temples in their communities as well.

Fischer claims that the Mormon church "never renounced plural marriage" and therefore it must be entirely acceptable for local officials who do not want Mormons or their "pernicious" teachings polluting their communities to deny them permission to build houses of worship, precisely because the First Amendment does not apply to "non-Christian religions" like Mormonism. 

Last week we noted that Liberty Counsel had issued a "Declaration of Independence 2011" asking people to sign a petition pledging their lives to resist the "abusive and lawless regime in the Executive Branch and in the United States Congress."

As it turns out, the petition we linked to was only a small part of a much larger document [PDF] that Liberty Counsel has produced which is billed as a modern day version of the Declaration of Independence in which they assert that the abuses committed by this administration actually "exceed those of the King of Great Britain during the 18th century ... thus sparking the American Revolution":

When any government begins to run rough shod over The People, or when government behaves in a way that contradicts the will of THE PEOPLE, or when government actually destroys the civil rights of THE PEOPLE, then THE PEOPLE have an overriding Right and Duty to change their government and make it behave, or, failing that, they have a Right to abolish that abusive government and craft a replacement as they see fit. Simply put: In America, we do not suffer tyrants.

Obviously, the wise and prudent will not run about recklessly demanding government be abolished on a whim or for shallow, temporal reasons. Historically, most people would rather endure government abuse, hoping matters will change, as opposed to engaging the very painful and dangerous work of revolution.

However, when an abusive government refuses to change, refuses to listen to THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE, and indeed, when such a government insists on escalating its abuses against THE PEOPLE, demonstrating a clear intention of moving toward central control, even Despotism, then it is not only the Right of THE PEOPLE, but their Duty, to throw off such a government and appoint others devoted to serve as protectors of Liberty, Life, and the pursuit of Happiness.

For decades, and especially since 2006, the American people have suffered patiently under the near-dictatorial rule of government officials and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., officials who have abused their authority, trampling upon the rights and liberties of THE PEOPLE. So grievous have these abuses become, especially in the last two years, THE PEOPLE have concluded the usurpations of the federal government exceed those of the King of Great Britain during the 18th century, abuses and deprivations causing the issuance of the first American Declaration of Independence, thus sparking the American Revolution.

Liberty Counsel then lays out a litany of abuses of which the administation is guilty, including:

Promoted on every front the same-sex relationship agenda, again, against the WILL OF THE MAJORITY, advancing same-sex marriage, same-sex adoption, and the arbitrary policy shift to normalize same-sex relationships in the military, an obvious infringement upon military
readiness, another weakening of our ability to provide for the common defense, and a violation of the Presidential Oath.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is working with yet another extreme organization ardently opposed to gay rights. The virulently anti-gay American Family Association is the host of Perry’s prayer rally, and another endorser of The Response is David Kubal of Intercessors for America, an organization which claims to helps Christians who recognize “the need for God to intervene in U.S. governmental and cultural issues” about current political and cultural issues.

Among the issues Intercessors For America focuses on include the threat of microchips implanted into humans, the so-called North American Union, and the supposed wrongdoings of the Obama Administration. Most recently, Intercessors for America asked members to be wary of the Dalai Lama’s visit to Washington, D.C.: “Pray that any occult spirits from the Dalai Lama and monks of Tibetan Buddhism will be bound and unable to bring harm to Washington, D.C. or the U.S.A. May they and those they seek to influence, or have influenced in the past, be set free from the power of darkness and come to know the light of life in Jesus Christ!”

Kubal’s Intercessors for America is also a harsh critic of gay equality and a vocal proponent of ex-gay reparative therapy. An endorser of the ex-gay group Exodus International, Intercessors For America hosted Bob Ragan, formerly of Exodus International, to give a speech on “Freedom From Homosexuality.” Furthermore, the group prayed to stop anti-bullying laws to protect LGBT and LGBT-perceived youth, warning they “can only lead to God’s judgment,” and that support for marriage equality “leads a soul to eternal damnation”:

Marriage equality in New York: By the signing of this measure into law it has opened the door by inviting the spiritually blind to walk in degradation, accepting a reduction in rank, dignity, standing, losing their honor of a sound reputation, accepting humiliation, and moral and intellectual decay which eventually leads a soul to eternal damnation unless they repent.

Ask the Heavenly Father to bind this edict from gaining acceptance in the hearts of the populace of New York. Ask the Lord to loose the power of His holy and eternal love to each of those who will turn back to God and denounce this unrighteous lifestyle.

Gay rights: Pray that this "homosexual" agenda initiated by an extremely small minority of individuals be exposed to the whole of our U.S. citizenry, and that a proper response and correction be made to this attempted corruption of our governmental principles. Ask the Lord to raise up leaders to bring this corrupt movement to a halt.

Anti-LGBT bullying: Ask God to help us to speak the truth in love to young people who are being affected by the "LGBT" lifestyle. Ask the Lord to protect those “bullied” by any corrupt government effort to promote sinful sexual practice among our youth. Ask the Lord to help our citizenry to stand courageously against these misguided “bullying” efforts which can only lead to God's judgment!

Student Non-Discrimination Act: (H.R.998 & S.555) These parallel bills both prohibit public school students from being excluded from participating in, or subject to discrimination under, any federally-assisted educational program on the basis of their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity or that of their associates. S.555 Bill Summary & Status 112th Congress (2011 - 2012) Legal experts believe that, if passed, this bill will actually empower the homosexual community to dictate curriculum in all our schools, public and private. As a result, our schools may become a form of "indoctrination centers" for the gay lifestyle. (Contributors: Library of Congress, Capitol Hill Prayer Partners)

Greater is He that is in us than He that is in the world! Ask the Lord to forgive the sponsors of these bills for they know not what they do.

John Benefiel, the head of the Heartland Apostolic Reformation Network and one of the official endorsers of Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s The Response prayer rally, says that Washington D.C. is under a curse from God because the Founders named it in honor of the goddess Columbia. Benefiel, who calls the Statue of Liberty a “demonic idol” and homosexuality an Illuminati plot, blames the country’s political problems on the District of Columbia’s supposedly pagan foundations.

In an August 2010 sermon, Benefiel claimed to have the “spiritual authority” to “divorce Baal” from Washington and said that he had “renamed the District of Columbia the District of Christ.” He explained: “I tell you I have more authority than the U.S. Congress does, see I guarantee you that that will not forever be called the District of Columbia, it will be changed by somebody, it will be changed by the Lord when He comes back or our Congress.”

But Gov. Perry isn’t Benefiel’s only powerful political connection. In a speech before the 2010 election, he said that Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, who was one of the most conservative members of Congress prior to her election as governor, is one of his followers who he led “into the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” Benefiel goes on to say that Oklahoma’s Republican Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb, Attorney General E. Scott Pruitt and House Speaker Kris Steele had all “come to us for prayer”:

Eagle Forum’s Phyllis Schlafly wants Congress to hold up the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act until it is altered so that it doesn’t benefit women. Schlafly, a long-time critic of the landmark law who believes that married women cannot be raped by their husbands, contends that the Violence Against Women Act goes too far in protecting women from abusive spouses and that the law is merely a feminist plot to tear down men:

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), now up for reauthorization, is in major need of revision. Its billion-dollar-a-year price tag spent by the radical feminists to pursue their ideology and goals (known as feminist pork) make it an embarrassment to members of Congress who voted for it.

For 30 years, the feminists have been pretending that their goal is to abolish all sex discrimination, eliminating all gender differences no matter how reasonable. When it comes to domestic violence, however, feminist dogma preaches that there is an innate gender difference: Men are naturally batterers, and women are naturally victims (i.e., gender profiling).

Starting with its title, VAWA is just about as sex discriminatory as legislation can get. It is written and implemented to oppose the abuse of women and to punish men.

…

Women who make domestic violence accusations are not required to produce evidence and are never prosecuted for perjury if they lie. Accused men are not accorded fundamental protections of due process, not considered innocent until proven guilty and in many cases are not afforded the right to confront their accusers.

Legal assistance is customarily provided to women but not to men. Men ought to be entitled to equal protection of the law because many charges are felonies and could result in prison and loss of money, job and reputation.

Feminist recipients of VAWA handouts lobby legislators, judges and prosecutors on the taxpayers' dime (which is contrary to Section 1913 of Title 18, U.S. Code), and the results are generally harmful to all concerned. This lobbying has resulted in laws calling for mandatory arrest (i.e., the police must arrest someone – guess who) of the predominant aggressor (i.e., ignore the facts and assume the man is the aggressor) and no-drop prosecution (i.e., prosecute the man even if the woman has withdrawn her accusation or refuses to testify).

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.

Back in 2009, the Family Research Council launched a prayer effort timed to coincide with the 4th of July holiday called "Call 2 Fall" during which churches across the country would commit to dedicating several minutes to praying that God will save our nation.

It has since turned into an annual event and, as FRC reports, the event is needed now more than ever because, thanks to the passage of marriage equality in New York, "our nation has already crossed thresholds of decline and decadence which, unless the spiritual leaders of our nation (pastors and churches) arise to pray, take hold of God and follow His leadership to turn the tide in our nation, America's destruction is virtually assured."

So it is perfectly understandable why FRC would undertake this endeavor, especially considering that Tony Perkins was personally chosen by God for just this purpose:

The rot in American culture and our social institutions is beyond man's redemption.

Our hope is in God, not men! ... FRC President Tony Perkins has long pondered the promise of Scripture in 2 Chronicles 7:14. He was uniquely prompted by the Holy Spirit to lead this effort.

In early 2009, Tony preached in a large Southern California church about "Real Change" in America -- the message of "repentance," preached by Jesus, John the Baptist, Peter and all of the apostles (see Mt 3:2; 4:7; Mk 6:12; Acts 2:38; 17:30). After church a little lady stood in line to greet Tony. When she reached him, she told Tony his message was for the entire Church in America; that God was calling him to call the Church to get on its knees. Tony thanked her, and told her he would pray about it. But she stopped him, "No, you don't understand... God has called you to call His people to get on their knees." Later that day, flying home, Tony opened a book he had been reading, Ira Stoll's biography of Samuel Adams, and began to read where he left off.

Tony's eyes fixed upon a paragraph recounting how the Continental Congress proclaimed a day of "public humiliation, fasting, and prayer throughout the Colonies on July 20th, 1775," a full year before the Declaration of Independence. Military clashes between Britain and the colonies were already underway. It was a time of great perplexity, but God-fearing men like Samuel Adams, knew what they had to do. They called Americans to seek the face of God. Three million heeded that urgent "call to fall." Later, Adams' friend, James Warren, described what he observed in his own church that day.

This fast," he wrote, "has been observed as you could wish; with that deference to the authority that appointed it; with that devotion that our circumstances require. It is a grand solemnity. Three millions of people on their knees at once, supplicating the aid of Heaven, is a striking circumstance, and a very singular one in America. May the blessings of Heaven follow in answer to our prayers!

When Tony saw, "three millions of people on their knees at once...," he remembered the little lady's words, "God has called you to call His people to get on their knees."

Deeply stirred, Tony conferred with FRC's Pastors Council, who wholeheartedly affirmed the call and the need to obey. The urgency of the hour demanded a response. July 5th, 2009, the Sunday after "Independence Day," was chosen to declare our "national dependence upon God." Obedience was our driving motivation.