DADT

There are few Religious Right leaders active today who can compete with the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer in terms of openly hostile bigotry against gays, Muslims, and all those who do not share his radical worldview:

So it is bound to raise a few eyebrows that former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty went on Fischer's radio program yesterday to promote his new book ... but it won't raise any eyebrows that Fischer used the opportunity to grill Pawlenty on social issues or that Pawlenty largely shared Fischer's right-wing concerns:

Fischer: If you are asked the question "should CPAC provide a place at the table for an organization like GOProud," what will you say?

Pawlenty: You know, I am not familiar with that dispute, I have heard it referenced ... but I'm not just a fiscal conservative, I'm a social conservative so I can't speak for CPAC but I can speak for myself and what I believe and I've been a strong supporter of the family, pro-life positions, traditional marriage positions - so I'm not sure what that dispute all involves. But whatever it is, I don't think we should be afraid of telling what I believe and what we believe to whatever audience. We're trying to make sure we stand what what we believe in and we share it in a way that will hopefully bring more people to our side.

Fischer: Now the Left, and homosexual activists and organizations like GOProud, one of their stated agendas is to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal law that defines marriage in federal law and for federal purposes as a union of one man and one woman. The Obama administration has made a tepid and pretty ineffective defense of that law - if you become president and that law faces a challenge under your administration, how vigorously will you defend DOMA? What will you do to make sure it's defended?

Pawlenty: I believe strongly in traditional marriage. I was co-author of the law in Minnesota that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. I've been a vocal supporter of an amendment in Minnesota that would put that into our constitution. I hope that the day comes when it is put before the voters of Minnesota. And it's not just a legal issue; it's also an important cornerstone for our society and our culture. I mean, families and traditional marriage is so important to that and I don't believe all other domestic relations should be on the same platform as traditional marriage, I just don't buy and so I've been a strong supporter of traditional marriage. I also think who you appoint to courts in this regard is important and we don't have litmus tests, so to speak, but we want strict constructionists and people who take a conservative view toward the interpretation of our laws.

Fischer: Now Roe v. Wade is obviously the critical court ruling on the abortion issue - that is a ruling that was issued in 1973 so it seems to me that candidates would have the freedom to comment on whether they thought potential nominees to the Supreme Court, would have the freedom to comment on whether they thought Roe v. Wade was properly decided from a constitutional perspective. A number of sitting Supreme Court justices have commented on the fact that they believe it was poorly decided. So that's going to be a critical issue, if you have the opportunity to appoint nominees to the federal bench - will you talk explicitly with a nominee to the federal bench about his or her view about whether they think Roe v Wade was properly decided from a constitutional basis, will that be in the nature of a litmus test for you, that question, will you bring it up, will you look for an answer?

Pawlenty: Well, I've appointed a lot of judges as the Governor of Minnesota, including at our Supreme Court, appellate court and district court level. For the first time, at least in the modern history and maybe in a long time we now have a small majority of people on our Minnesota Supreme Court we are conservative and strict constructionist. I have confidence in them and how they would approach these issues of how you interpret the law. On the specific issue of Roe. v Wade, when you tell people or ask people to be strict constructionist and you look at the Constitution, to have people say "I'm a strict constructionist" would somehow lead to a decision or a conclusion like Roe v. Wade, I think it was wrongly decided. And if you look at the reasoning behind it and the strict interpretation approach to interpreting the Constitution, I think Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided by the Court. But I have been careful that I appoint people, particularly at the appellate level, that share this strict constructionist philosophy - that at least says to me directly - I didn't have litmus test - but I do want to know that they share my view and values about the proper role of the court and the interpretation of the law, so we try to get to the bottom of that.

Fischer: One last question, got about forty five seconds left, put you on the hot seat one more time: we just saw the ban on homosexual service in the military repealed, overturned. Conservatives will be working over the next couple of years to see that that ban is reinstated. If you become president in 2012, will you work to reinstate the prohibition on open homosexual service in the military? Would you sign such a prohibition if it got to your desk?

Pawlenty: Bryan, I have been a public and repeat supporter of maintaining Don't Ask, Don't Tell. There's a lot of reasons for that, but if you look at how the combat commanders and the combat units feel about it, the results of those kinds of surveys were different than the ones that were mostly reported in the newspaper and that is something I think we need to pay attention to. But I have been a public supporter of maintaining Don't Ask, Don't Tell and I would support reinstating it as well.

Over the weekend, Cindy Jacobs of Generals International posted a new video prompted by the fact that, as a prophet, people have been asking her about the meaning behind the recent rash of bird deaths ... to which she replied that it might be due to the fact that America is violating God's prohibition on homosexuality with support for gay marriage and the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell:

According to biblical principles, marriage is between a man and a woman, so we have to say “what happens when a nation makes a decision that’s against God’s principles?” Well, often what happens is that nature itself will begin to talk to us – for instance, violent storms, flooding. And you know there are actually some patterns that you can see where a nation will make a decision that is contrary to the principles of God and after that there is some kind of answer that God gives - being the God of creation, the God who created nature - but we don’t always understand what He’s saying.

Well, there’s something interesting we have been watching – let’s talk about this Arkansas pattern and say, could it be a pattern? We’re going to watch and see. But the blackbirds fell to the ground in Beebe, Arkansas. Well the Governor of Arkansas’ name is Beebe. And also, there was something put out of Arkansas called "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" by a former Governor, this was proposed, Bill Clinton. As so, could there be a connection between this passage [Hosea 4] and now that we’ve had the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, where people now legally in the United States have broken restraints with the Scripture because the Scripture says in Romans 1 that homosexuality is not allowed.

It could be because we have said it’s okay for people who commit these kinds of acts to be recognized in our military for the first time in our history, there is a potential that there is something that actually happened in the land where a hundred thousand drum fish died and also where these birds just fell out of the air.

The Family Research Council's most recent prayer team update declares that America is under God's judgment because of its embrace of "perverted sexual practices" and urges members to ask God to "supernaturally intervene" to reverse steps toward gay equality:

America's moral decline is directly related to His people's public and private acts of disobedience that dishonor God and His eternal laws. Scripture warns that the shedding of innocent blood (e.g., abortion) and perverted sexual practices are abominations that call for Biblical judgment. America is now under such judgment. Can we find our way back? God has only one prescription.

...

With the traditional American family in near statistical free fall, homosexual activists persist in their destructive agenda. Backslapping and self congratulation at President Obama's signing of the law to overturn DADT left Biblically informed onlookers aghast. Obama and Vice President Biden say they are rethinking their position on homosexual "marriage." Yet God's plan for marriage, family, and natural sexuality is essential to the survival of our nation. Dr. Pat Fagan's groundbreaking research not only shows that God's way works best, but it also shows the precipitous decline of the America family (thus its ability to support the nation) as nearing the point of no return.

The Senate not only used the lame duck session to overturn Don't Ask, Don't Tell (65-31 vote), it also confirmed Chai Feldblum by "unanimous consent" to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission during Christmas week. Feldblum, an open lesbian, is infamous for her view that homosexual rights trump religious liberty.

Meanwhile attacks charging FRC and other Christian groups with "hate" for holding to a Biblical view of marriage and sexuality, continues.

• May God's people have faith to believe that laws giving those who practice homosexuality special rights, protections and privileges can be reversed! May the Lord supernaturally intervene to do so.

Incensed over the participation of the conservative gay-rights group GOProud in the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, far-right activists are now trying to connect the major conservative event to the Muslim Brotherhood. The American Conservative Union (ACU), which hosts CPAC, has been the target of Religious Right groups and leaders over their handling of GOProud’s involvement, with Joseph Farah even calling for conservatives to “purge” the ACU from the movement. Already, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women For America, American Values, the American Principles Project, the Capital Research Center, the Center for Military Readiness, Liberty Counsel, Liberty University, and the National Organization for Marriage have announced their boycott of CPAC.

Now, the conservative news site WorldNetDaily, a major cheerleader for the groups boycotting CPAC, is giving right wing activist Frank Gaffney a platform to charge the ACU with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamist group. Gaffney is no stranger to conspiracy theories, as he previously claimed that the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell “amounts to a vote for reinstating the draft,” maintained that Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan is tied to an “ominous campaign” to “bring Shariah to America,” and said that Barack Obama is “America’s first Muslim president.” He is joined by WorldNetDaily’s Paul Sperry, who wrote a book asserting that radical Muslims were infiltrating the government through the congressional internship program.

Gaffney outlines a theory that since the ACU is allowing the leader of an organization known as Muslims for America, a conservative group with ties to the GOP, to participate in CPAC, the ACU is supporting a “stealthy effort to bring Shariah” to America. He is also outraged that Grover Norquist, the head of the highly influential Americans for Tax Reform and a GOProud board member, is involved in CPAC as well. But mostly, Gaffney directs his vitriol at Suhail Khan, the chairman of the Conservative Inclusion Coalition. Both Khan and Norquist are ACU board members, and in 2009 Khan received the Young Conservatives Coalition’s Buckley Award at CPAC. But according to Gaffney, Khan has ties to radical Islamists and, along with Norquist, wants to promote a “seditious totalitarian political program” in the U.S.:

With the Conservative Political Action Conference under fire for allowing participation by a homosexual activist group called GOProud and for a financial scandal in which some $400,000 was misappropriated under the watch of current leadership, Frank Gaffney, a leader of the conservative movement for the last 30 years, charges that CPAC has come under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is working to bring America under Saudi-style Shariah law.

Gaffney, deputy assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan, is founder and president of the Center for Security Policy and co-author of the new book "Shariah: The Threat to America." He told WND that Islamism has infiltrated the American Conservative Union, the host of CPAC, in the person of Washington attorney and political activist Suhail Khan and a group called Muslims for America.

Khan is a member of the ACU board and, according to Muslims for America, will assist the group's presence at CPAC during the 2011 meeting Feb. 10-12.

Gaffney also accuses another ACU board member, leading conservative political organizer Grover Norquist, of helping the Muslim Brotherhood spread its influence in the nation's capital.

…

Paul Sperry, author of "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington" and "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America," says Khan is running "an influence operation on Capitol Hill that's quite sophisticated and slick."

"Suhail is the firstborn son of the late Mahboob Khan, a founding father of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in America," said Sperry, a Hoover Institution media fellow. "Suhail has been a consultant to CAIR [The Council on American-Islamic Relations] and served on committees at ISNA [the Islamic Society of North America], both of which the government says are fronts for Hamas and its parent the Muslim Brotherhood."

…

Gaffney describes Norquist, who, ironically also serves on the board of the controversial GOProud, as the enabler for Muslim Brotherhood associates, providing them with access into the highest reaches of the conservative movement and the Republican Party through his many contacts. Norquist, the founder of Americans for Tax Reform, hosts a weekly political organizing meeting attended by many of the leading conservatives in Washington.

"This is a ticking time bomb for the conservative community," said Gaffney. Using language reminiscent of the Cold War, Gaffney declared, "An influence operation is contributing materially to the defeat of our country, supporting a stealthy effort to bring Shariah here.

"Grover Norquist is credentialing the perpetrators of this Muslim Brotherood influence operation," he adds. "This is part of tradecraft, to get people who have standing in a community to give it to people who lack it, so they can do what they're assigned to do in terms of subversion. We are in a war, and he has been working with the enemy for over a decade."

Norquist declined to respond to WND requests for comment.

Said Gaffney, "What's going on in conservative circles should give everyone real cause for concern. What it bespeaks is an effort to penetrate and influence conservatives, who are the most likely and perhaps only community in America who will stand up to and ultimately help ensure the defeat of this seditious totalitarian political program."

• Michael B. Keegan @ Huffington Post: A Gay Tempest in the Tea Party Cup.
• Alvin McEwen: Sign of the Apocalypse: Fox News makes fun of religious right over CPAC controversy.
• Alan Colmes: Iowa Rep. Steve King Often Asks School Children Where They Stand On Abortion.
• Igor Volsky @ Think Progress: RNC Candidates: Marriage Is ‘Foundational In Our Lives,’ But Gay People Should Be Excluded.
• Joe.My.God: Liberty Counsel: Terrorists Are Laughing Themselves Silly Over Repeal Of DADT.
• Andy Birkey @ Minnesota Independent: Hard rock ministry tied to tax evasion scheme.
• Equality Matters: Wash. Times: DADT Repeal Will Lead To "Privileged Homosexual Protected Class With Ramifications That Will Reach Beyond Military Service".
• Rob Boston @ The Wall of Separation: ‘Equal Access’ In Utah: Gay-Straight Alliances At Public Schools Have The Religious Right To Thank.
• Amanda Terkel: Scalia: Women Don't Have Constitutional Protection Against Discrimination.

• Pam’s House Blend: WND on DADT: Officer asks to be relieved of command over repeal.

• Mother Jones: Could Gays Spoil the Special Forces?

• American Independent: Many states look to Arizona’s SB 1070 as a model for new immigration legislation.

• TPM: Fair & Balanced? Fox News’ Big Year.

• The Daily Beast: GOP Dark Horse Scenario.

Back in January the Christian Science Monitor declared “Scott Brown: the tea party’s first electoral victory,” following his surprise win in the special election to fill the Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy. But now the Boston Globe reports that conservatives and Tea Party activists are mulling over a primary challenge to the Massachusetts Republican. According to the Globe, Brown’s votes in favor of repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, ratifying the START Treaty, and reforming Wall Street (but only after it was watered down to win his support) made him toxic to many Tea Party members and other movement conservatives. The Family Research Council has pledged to back a primary challenger to any Senator who voted to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and the National Republican Trust PAC promised to do the same to any Republican who supported START.

More surprisingly, movement conservatives in Virginia are hoping to block George Allen from running again for the seat he lost to Jim Webb in 2006. Allen, a former Senator and Governor best known for using a racial slur against his opponent’s campaign worker, is already finding himself in trouble with Tea Party groups even though he hasn’t even announced his candidacy yet. The Washington Post reports that Allen’s voting record in the Senate may sink his chances among Virginia Tea Partiers:

For months, it appeared that former U.S. senator George Allen would have a clear path to the Republican nomination if he chose to try to reclaim his old job.

But in the summer, grumbling about his past began, culminating in a Web site outlining the reasons some fellow Republicans oppose him: He's too moderate. He's part of the establishment. He's partly to blame for the record spending and ballooning deficit in Washington.

By this month, no fewer than four Republicans billing themselves as more conservative than Allen were considering challenging him for the right to run against Sen. James Webb, if the Virginia Democrat seeks reelection.

"There are some concerns based on his record and his rhetoric," said Mark Kevin Lloyd, chairman of the Lynchburg Tea Party and vice chairman of the Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation, a statewide umbrella group. "People are looking at things in a new light," he said.

Allen, who received a 92.3% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, was hardly considered a moderate in the Senate. But apparently 92% isn’t enough:

But during his one term in the U.S. Senate, some Republicans complain, he backed President George W. Bush's proposals to increase spending; supported No Child Left Behind, a costly program to create a national education report card; favored a federal program to subsidize the costs of prescription drugs for Medicare beneficiaries; and voted to expand the Hate Crimes Prevention Act to include crimes based on sexual orientation.

Jamie Ratdke, who recently stepped down as chairwoman of the Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation in order to explore a Senate bid, said she began to consider a run for the Senate after attending a Tea Party convention that featured Rick Santorum, Lou Dobbs, and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinnelli as speakers:

Radtke said that she had considered running for the state Senate next year but that she began thinking about the U.S. Senate instead after Virginia's first tea party convention, which drew an estimated 2,800 people to Richmond in October.

Radtke, who worked for Allen for a year when he was governor and she was right out of college, said it's time for a new candidate. She said that Allen was part of "George Bush's expansion of government" when he was senator and that she was concerned about some of his stances on abortion.

Allen has said that abortions should be legal in cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is endangered, and he owned stock in the manufacturer of the morning-after pill.

If George Allen is deemed not conservative enough for the Republican Party, then expect many more extremist candidates like Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell to win contested GOP primaries. Allen hurt his chances by supporting healthcare and education initiatives that were backed by President Bush and the Republican leadership, and is also deemed too moderate because he voted to include sexual orientation under hate crimes protections and believes in exceptions under a ban on abortion.

While running for reelection in 2006, Allen received wide praise at FRC’s Values Voter Summit for his staunch conservative beliefs, but now he is under attack from the Right for being “too moderate” even though he hasn’t served in public office since he lost the 2006 race. As Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County board of supervisors and a likely primary opponent, says, Allen’s “base has moved on.”

It is getting to the point where Bryan Fischer's obsessive hatred of all things gay has become so fundamentally incoherent that he is now practically cackling with glee that gays have "just lost their 'get out of jail free' card," thanks to the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Apparently Fischer believes that gays have been signing up for the military just to, you know, test it out for a few weeks, knowing that if they didn't like it, they could just come out and get discharged.

But now that DADT has been repealed, Fischer wants all these "would-be limp-wristed enlistees" to know that if they sign up for the military now, they are stuck for the duration:

Well, all that’s gone now, both for gays and straights willing to tell odious lies about themselves. If a homosexual signs up now, he’s stuck with the whole magilla. Go to your superior officer now and say, hey, I’m a flaming homosexual, I hate the army, let me out of here, the superior officer will say, tough darts, those days are gone. You’re stuck with us now, Nancy-boy.

So, who’s sorry now?

This may be the silver lining in this whole mess. Conservative groups, simply as a public service, may want to sound this message far and wide out of simple, straightforward compassion, just in order to protect potential homosexual soldiers from themselves and from the distressing discovery that they just kissed off a handy exit option that nobody else had.

The more this message resounds, the fewer homosexuals will want to enlist. It’s one thing to be gay, and say, hey, I’ll give it a few weeks and then bail if I don’t like the food, can’t get enough action in the barracks, or thought I’d enjoy ogling male soldiers in the shower more than I did.

Those days are now shortly to be a distant memory for our homosexual friends. They enlist, they’re stuck with the whole program just like everybody else.

In other words, they had preferential treatment and special privileges, a status and privileges and an exit strategy denied to their honest and straight counterparts. And homosexuals just bargained it away. Now, they will discover to their dismay, they’re back to having equal rights instead of special rights.

Bottom line: be careful what you ask for. You just may get it.

• PFAW: GOP Senators Target Judicial Nominees of Color.
• Brian @ PFAW Blog: Arlen Specter Denounces Roberts Court, Republican Obstructionism.
• Terry Krepel @ Equality Matters: Gotcha Fail: Rep. Frank Turns Tables on CNS.
• Rachel Slajda @ TPM: FRC Claims McCain Will Keep Leading Pro-DADT Fight, McCain Says Not So Much.
• Andrea Nill @ Wonk Room: Vitter Blames Undocumented Immigrants For Loss Of Louisiana Congressional Seat.
• Media Matters: Sarah Palin: Winner Of The 2010 Glenn Beck Misinformer Of The Year Award.
• Stephen C. Webster @ Raw Story: Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson favors marijuana legalization.