Environment

Harvey: Gays Are Their Own Bullies Because Homosexuality Is "Unsafe"

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 7/14/2011 2:03 pm

Mission America’s Linda Harvey continued her attack on the National Education Association and the group’s support for anti-discrimination policies during her July 9 radio show. Harvey argues that “whining” led to the NEA to endorse “safe work environments” and initiatives against bullying and harassment that she says will ultimately lead to the promulgation of “left-wing, pro-abortion and pro-homosexual viewpoints.” She goes on to warn that no contract will protect gay and lesbian school employees, telling them “you’re not safe!” Listen:

Harvey: The NEA’s anti-bullying campaign will include a strand on creating safe work environments to include “support plans within the organization for members bullied, harassed or exposed to hate language”—whoa, you know what that’s gonna mean—“student discipline plans to stop bullying, harassment and use of hate language” and contract language, that’s in negotiations friends, “contract language that secures safe work environments for all our members,” in other words their gonna mandate no hate language by contract.

That’s the union muscle, with all their money, and you know what that means friends. We know what ‘safe’ means to the Left about homosexuality and abortion; it means we don’t want to hear any viewpoint except for the left-wing, pro-abortion and pro-homosexual viewpoints. It’s silencing by whining, by asserting that they’re not safe, the viewpoints of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and His believers on this earth, and teachers and school employees and students in order to be so-called ‘safe.’ You’re not safe! If you’re doing those things folks, you are so far from God’s will and so unsafe.

Rick Perry Partners With 'Apostle' Who Blames America For September 11th Attacks

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 6/20/2011 10:42 am

Right Wing Watch has looked into organizers of Gov. Rick Perry's The Response from Cindy Jacobs, who blamed the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell for mass bird deaths in Arkansas, to televangelist John Hagee, who claimed God sent Hitler to be a “hunter” of Jews, and the rabidly anti-gay International House of Prayer. The Response's National Church and Ministry Mobilization Coordinator Doug Stringer, a Texas ‘Apostle’ who believes that the America only had it self to blame for the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 because the country rejected God and His protection:

In our gathering in Dallas, we realized there are three primary things in Scripture that are so disheartening to God that they cause Him to be ill, and they ultimately cause His presence to depart from His people:

1. Ritual or temple prostitution

2. The shedding of innocent blood on the altar

3. Licentiousness or moral looseness to the degree that it is “in your face,” including homosexuality

…

Immediately after the tragedy of 9/11, I was contacted by national media who asked me if I thought this was a judgment of God. Along with Anne Graham Lotz, I stated:

“WE ASKED GOD NOT TO BE IN OUR SCHOOLS, NOT TO BE IN OUR PUBLIC VENUES, NOT TO BE THE LORD OF OUR LIVES ANY MORE EXCEPT IN IMAGE. YET WE WANT TO BLAME GOD WHEN THINGS LIKE THIS HAPPEN?

“IT REALLY DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU MEAN BY ‘JUDGMENT’ OF GOD. IF YOU’RE SAYING GOD’S NOT PRESENT SO JUDGMENT COMES, THEN THE ANSWER IS YES. BUT THE BIBLE SAYS SIN PRODUCES DEATH. IT WAS OUR CHOICE TO ASK GOD NOT TO BE IN OUR EVERY DAY LIVES AND NOT TO BE PRESENT IN OUR LAND. THIS IS NOT AN ACT OF JUDGMENT, IT’S A WAKE-UP CALL. GOD IS LONGING TO BE IN THE MIDST OF HIS PEOPLE AGAIN.”

When I asked my friend David Ravenhill to address a gathering of pastors in Houston, he challenged us with this question: “Are you asking God to come as invited guest or as an inhabitant?”

I have many close friends who will invite me into their houses and tell me to make myself at home. While there, I know I can help myself to the kitchen, get up or go to bed when I want to, borrow a book from a bookshelf. But what would my friends think if I began painting the walls, changing out the furniture, or redecorating the living room to fit my own tastes?

This is, sadly, what we do with God. We want Him around, but only as our invited guest rather than One who has the right to create an atmosphere or an environment in which He wants to dwell.

My spiritual grandfather, Leonard Ravenhill, used to say, “Is the life you’re living worth Christ dying for?” We cannot live the kind of life worth the price our Savior paid unless we allow God in, not as a guest but as an inhabitant. We must open our hearts, our churches, and our public venues as dwelling places and allow Him to conform them to fit His preferences instead of our own. That is the difference between institutional Christianity and impartational relationship with the person of Jesus Christ.

Santorum: Global Warming Is "Patently Absurd"

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 6/9/2011 10:01 am

While speaking to Rush Limbaugh yesterday, presidential candidate and former Senator Rick Santorum called global warming “patently absurd” and “junk science.” In addition, Santorum said that climate change science was simply a “beautifully concocted scheme” to allow the “government to come in and regulate your life some more.” In 2006, Santorum claimed that “scientists have not decisively concluded” that climate change is real and received a zero percent score from Republicans for Environmental Protection.

Later in the program, Santorum lavished praise on the right-wing talk show host for making people remember “to believe in ourselves instead of having someone tell us they need to believe in him, the anointed one to provide for them.”

Limbaugh: And we're back, Rush Limbaugh here with Rick Santorum, Republican seeking the presidential nomination. Mitt Romney in his announcement earlier this week in New Hampshire said, yes, he believes there is global warming, and, yes, he thinks human beings are contributing to it. Do you?

Santorum: I believe the earth gets warmer, and I also believe the earth gets cooler, and I think history points out that it does that and that the idea that man through the production of CO2 which is a trace gas in the atmosphere and the manmade part of that trace gas is itself a trace gas is somehow responsible for climate change is, I think, just patently absurd when you consider all of the other factors, El Nino, La Nina, sunspots, you know, moisture in the air. There's a variety of factors that contribute to the earth warming and cooling, and to me this is an opportunity for the left to create -- it's a beautifully concocted scheme because they know that the earth is gonna cool and warm. It's been on a warming trend so they said, "Oh, let's take advantage of that and say that we need the government to come in and regulate your life some more because it's getting warmer," just like they did in the seventies when it was getting cool, they needed the government to come in and regulate your life because it's getting cooler. It's just an excuse for more government control of your life, and I've never been for any scheme or even accepted the junk science behind the whole narrative.

…

Limbaugh: I have a minute and a half. You ever ask yourself where the American people are politically? Do you ever fear the American people just maybe want a European socialist country, that they'd rather be dependent on government? Does that worry you?

Santorum: Does it worry me? Well, you know, Rush, 'cause you combat it every day with the popular culture and the media and academic institutions, that gets pounded away every day into the minds of our young people, and I don't know how many times I've listened on your show where people said, "You know, you opened, the scales fell from my eyes. It's finally making sense to me. I understand all of these lies I've been told." You tell people lies enough and you indoctrinate them enough, of course I've got grave concerns and that's one of the reasons I'm doing this is because I think we need -- look, the person who's been able to win the presidency since the age of television has had one thing in common. They've been the best communicator in the race. We need someone like a Rush Limbaugh who can communicate and can touch the soul of Americans and can reach out across the radio and television and paint a vision that helps drop those scales, that can remind people what a great country we are and that it's a great country because we believe in free people and the ability of free people to provide for themselves, their family, their community, and the God they love. That's what America is about, and we can with get back to that. We need to begin to believe in ourselves instead of the having someone tell us that they need to believe in him, the anointed one to provide for them.

Limbaugh: Rick, thanks for your time. Your passion is infectious. It really is.

Liberty University Law Prof: On Gay Rights "Satan Obviously Doesn’t Want Us To Look To The Truth of Scripture"

Submitted by Nichole on Tuesday, 6/7/2011 11:04 am

Last month, Peter LaBarbera used his radio show, Americans for Truth Hour, to highlight a speech given by Liberty University law professor Rena Lindevaldsen, who serves as Lisa Miller's attorney in her position with Liberty Counsel. Lindevaldsen, speaking against marriage equality, declared that Christians can’t compromise on the issue of LGBT rights because that would mean “deny[ing] the truth of the scripture” and “Satan obviously doesn’t want us to look at the truth of scripture.” This is just the latest in a long line of anti-gay statements from Liberty University and the affiliated Liberty Counsel, which in the past has claimed gay marriage is a fight against an "Antichrist Spirit" and would like to see President Obama impeached for extending leave to domestic partners. 

 

To accept homosexuality as healthy and normal necessarily means we as Christians deny the truth of the scripture. There is simply no sound biblical position of neutrality on this issue. As Christians we have to treat the Bible as our action plan, therefore we have to refuse to legitimate [sic] any actions that the Bible calls sin.

And that’s one reason as Christians we hear we should compromise on the marriage battle. Let’s allow civil unions. Let’s allow domestic partnerships. When we do that, however, we compromise on scripture by calling what God says is sin, good.

Our only options as Christians, if we’re going to adhere to scripture, is to fight for marriage and everything that’s included in that. We don’t want to give up all the rights of marriage and simply protect the name of marriage because that’s not what the Bible is about when you hear about marriage.

That’s also why we shouldn’t get out of the marriage business all-together which is what some Christians say. “Let’s just give it over to churches, let them marry who they want and government gets out of the business.” That’s not the way the government works though. Government in all areas of life seeks to steer people into conduct it thinks is good, and is helpful to society. And that’s why it is involved in marriage, because time and again marriage between one man and one woman has shown to be the most optimal environment for raising godly children who are productive citizens.

And so to get out of the marriage business, as I like to call it, altogether simply means there’s going to be a void. There’s going to be a vacuum. Something fills that void. In essence, evil will sweep in and run rampant on the issues of marriage, relationships, and homosexuality.

Satan obviously doesn’t want us to look to the truth of scripture. The truth of scripture is that God has a different plan than same-sex sexual conduct for your life.  And so if Satan and those who are essentially advancing his agenda do not what to shed light on the truth, we have to.

Harvey Calls Gender Identity Education “A Pedophile’s Dream”

Submitted by Coral on Monday, 6/6/2011 4:39 pm

Linda Harvey, founder of the fringe anti-gay group Mission: America, not only condemns the LGBT community but condemns anyone who isn’t condemning them. Harvey is also the host of the Mission: America Radio show, and last week she spoke out against pro-tolerance education:

Sex Change Pushed on Children

Recently, I read an outstanding article on the website American Thinker. It’s called The Left’s Dirty Little Secret. It exposed what has been obvious for a long time, that liberal values in schools and in our culture are leading to widespread sexual abuse of children. The author talks about the culture of Berkley, CA, during the hippie days of the 60s, how unsupervised kids in the bohemian communal living arrangements were often neglected, and so were vulnerable to abuse by drop-in friends or sketchy relatives.

These values have been dragged out into the mainstream and called everything else but what they are. Planned Parenthood calls it choice. The Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network, along with their close allies in the teachers’ unions call it safety. Promoting explicit sex practices to kids, with the rationale that they have a “right” to these practices, is one of the biggest con-jobs going and it’s a pedophile’s dream.

I’m sure the adult who wants to prey on a minor, either heterosexually or homosexually, appreciates the schools, media, and liberal churches persuading the kids themselves that all this is okay, that early sex is normal, and that adults who try to teach restraint or delay are really bigots who are violating your rights.

Well, the lunacy is rapidly expanding to new territory. We’ve talked about this before, but the boundary of gender is being breeched quickly with the transgender issue. Recently, even liberal California wasn’t ready for where some goofy educators wanted to take their kids. In Oakland’s Redwood Heights Elementary School, an outside anti-bullying consultant taught special lessons advocating gender confusion. The presentations were from a group called Gender Spectrum, who was paid $1500 with a grant from the California Teachers’ Union. The male presenter told grade schoolers that “gender identity is a spectrum, where people can be girls, feel like girls, they feel like boys, they feel like both, or they can feel like neither.” All 350 students in the school were subjected to these lessons, which the principal claimed would make a more accepting and welcoming environment for students who don’t conform to gender norms.

No, actually, they have just planted disturbing and harmful doubts about themselves within the minds of little children. I think that what we’re dealing with are deviant adults working out their considerably weird issues through children. Many parents objected, according to Fox News, and three families kept their kids home.

This gender change agenda is everywhere. Have you noticed? It’s pushed on us by teachers, Hollywood, popular musicians, even a few political figures. Numerous incidents over the past decade involve teachers who begin dressing and acting, all of a sudden, as the opposite gender. Two years ago, Ohio came very close to passing a bill, House bill 176, which would have forced homosexual and gender-bending behavior on all work places in the state, including schools. It passed the Democrat-controlled House, but thankfully not the Ohio Senate.

Friends, we must be vigilant against such corruption of our culture. So we wonder why some children are desperately insecure? God never intended for them to be so. He designed us marvelously as male and female, and we should celebrate those lovely and interesting differences. When adults who should know better want to sell these disturbed ideas to impressionable children, it’s up to us to their rescue. We must commit to keeping sexual orientation and gender identity language out of local, state, and national policies. This just opens the door to sin, confusion, and heartbreak.

Newt: Worst Campaign Promise Ever?

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Tuesday, 5/17/2011 1:42 pm

“I know how to get the whole country to resemble Texas.”  

      Newt Gingrich on Sean Hannity, May 11, 2011
 
In his presidential campaign announcement on Sean Hannity’s Fox News Channel show, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich praised job creation in Texas and said he’d been talking to Texas governor Rick Perry and knows “how to get the whole country to resemble Texas.” That could go down as the worst campaign promise ever. 
 
“I dearly love the state of Texas,” the late Texan and progressive icon Molly Ivins wrote, “but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults.” Noting that Texas was a state that provided relatively few services to its residents, she once wrote, “The only depressing part is that, unlike Mississippi, we can afford to do better. We just don’t.”  Maybe that should be the motto for Newt Gingrich and his fellow anti-government demagogues.
 
The impact of that governing philosophy is spreading a lot of pain in Texas right now. Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote earlier this year:  
 
Texas is where the modern conservative theory of budgeting — the belief that you should never raise taxes under any circumstances, that you can always balance the budget by cutting wasteful spending — has been implemented most completely. If the theory can’t make it there, it can’t make it anywhere.
 
In fact, Texas lawmakers have been struggling all year to figure out how to deal with a massive budget deficit.  An AP story from March, headlined “Texas’ economic miracle beginning to tarnish,” noted that the state’s budget shortfall was “among the worst in the nation.” A temporary budget deal in March involving more than $1 billion in spending cuts still left the state $23 billion short over the next two years by one estimate. Proposed cuts could result in layoffs for 100,000 school employees and 60,000 nursing home workers and eliminate 9,600 state jobs this year. Just this week lawmakers struggled to reach agreement on a deal to close a $4 billion deficit in the current year, which ends in August.  
 
It is possible that entire crisis may have been manufactured by Perry and other anti-government Republicans to give lawmakers a justification for further slashing government and basic human services.
 
Does Newt think we really want the whole country to look like Texas, which ranks:
 
 50th in percentage of population without health insurance (2010)
 
50th  in percentage of children insured (2009)
 
50th  in percentage of women receiving early prenatal care (2010)
 
45th  in rate of infectious diseases (2010)
 
44th  in percentage of children in poverty (2010)
 
42nd  in per capita health care funding (2010)
 
40th  in overall health (2010)
 
36th  in high school graduation rate (2010)
 
35th  in crime (2010)
 
35th  in percentage of children immunized (2010)
 
34th  in rate of occupational fatalities (2010)
 
30th in percentage of people with college degree (2008)
 
Texas also ranks:
 
1st  in amount of recognized carcinogens released into the air (2002)
 
4th highest  in release of toxic chemicals into the environment (2002)
 
8th highest  in percentage of people below poverty level (2008)
 
13th highest  in obesity (2010)
 
“I know how to get the whole country to resemble Texas.”   Uh, thanks, Newt, but no thanks.
 

2012 Candidates Weekly Update 5/17/11

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 5/17/2011 9:48 am

Michele Bachmann

2012: More likely to run for president following Mike Huckabee's decision against running (CBS News, 5/16). 

Constitution: High school student challenges her to a debate on the Constitution as a result of her record of making incorrect statements (Minnesota Independent, 5/13). 

Herman Cain

Georgia: Wins praise for speech at Georgia GOP convention (Southern Political Report, 5/16). 

Florida: Tops field in Fort Lauderdale Tea Party straw poll (Sunshine State News, 5/16). 

Mitch Daniels

Reproductive Rights: Signs law defunding Planned Parenthood that costs thousands their health care, state millions of dollars (The Faster Times, 5/16).

2012: Members of Indiana Republican Party encourage Daniels to run during state convention (AP, 5/13).

Religious Right: Anti-choice activists upset Daniels weighed Condoleezza Rice as a running mate because she is pro-choice (Life News, 5/13). 

GOP: Reports say that Governors Haley Barbour, Chris Christie and Scott Walker would endorse Daniels (CBS News, 5/12). 

Newt Gingrich

Religious Right: Denies advisers' links to Dominionist theology (RWW, 5/16).

Medicare: Describes Paul Ryan's plan to privatize Medicare as "right wing social engineering" but previously said he would've voted for it (Think Progress, 5/16). 

Health Care: Makes inconsistent remarks over his past support for health care insurance mandates (Politico, 5/16). 

Iowa: Will make swing through Iowa this week following official announcement (Dubuque Telegraph Herald, 5/15). 

Jon Huntsman

Religious Right: Set to address Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition (RWW, 5/16).

South Carolina: Huckabee's former state campaign chair announces his support for Huntsman (Politico, 5/16). 

Florida: Meets with key donors in Florida (St. Petersburg Times, 5/11). 

Roy Moore

Religious Right: Claims President Obama is "pushing his own immoral values without regard to what the people think or believe" (WND, 5/16). 

Campaign: Launches website for exploratory committee (RoyMoore2012.com).

Sarah Palin

PAC: Embarks on new direct mail campaign with focus on 2012 election (WaPo, 5/16). 

2012: Supporters hope that Huckabee's announcement will create an opening for Palin (Commentary, 5/16). 

Tim Pawlenty

South Carolina: Hires political director for South Carolina primary (The Hill, 5/17). 

Environment: Continues to apologize for past support of ‘cap and trade’ system (Minnesota Post, 5/17).

Mitt Romney

Fundraising: Raises over $10 million on Monday call-day in Las Vegas (WaPo, 5/17). 

Health Care: Defends state health plan that is analogous to federal health care law (NYT, 5/13). 

Rick Santorum

Medicare: Criticizes Gingrich for attacking Paul Ryan’s Medicare privatization proposal (The Hill, 5/16). 

Health Care: Knocks Romney for defending his Massachusetts health care law (The State Column, 5/13).

Eagle Forum: UN Is Using Environmentalism To Remove God And Take Over The World

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 5/12/2011 2:37 pm

After she was forced out as head of the Texas GOP, Cathie Adams became Eagle Forum’s International Issues Chairman. Adams, who as president of Eagle Forum’s Texas chapter denied that Obama is a Christian and insisted that scientists will soon start cloning humans for the purposes of “injecting them with diseases and studying them, then killing them,” is now arguing that the United Nations is using environmentalism to destroy Christianity in American youth.

Joining the many Religious Right leaders who have derided environmentalism an anti-Christian movement, Adams warns that to “protect our children, we must educate ourselves about the UN’s insidious agenda to subvert our children’s faith in God by elevating its earth-centered zealotry that would grant the UN dominion over the earth.”

Adams points to climate change science, sustainable development efforts, and a school children’s song “Earthlings Unite” (which she describes as “classroom abuse”) as proof that the UN wants to “supplant God’s directive to man to care for the earth with government dominion”:

Have you wondered why your children lecture you about the environment and where they get their misinformation? The answer is critical to fulfilling your parental responsibility to rightly educate your children and to protect them from a cruel scheme.

You need look no further than the United Nations as the source of fanatic environmental views using labels like "sustainable development" and "global warming/climate change" in treaties and action plans that trickle down into every classroom and into every level of government — national, state and local.

Under the guise of protecting the environment through "sustainable development," the UN is leading the world's regression to primitive reverence of the earth, even capitalizing the first letter of the word: Earth. This same earth-centeredness prevailed before Abram was called from the Ur of the Chaldees, until the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob proved His superiority over nature. Our Western Civilization is based upon this Judeo-Christian worldview that sets man apart from bugs and trees, and gives him the responsibility to care for the earth.

The proposed UN treaty to give rights to "Mother Earth" as well as other environmental treaties are fatally flawed because they equate God with nature, and aim to supplant God's directive to man to care for the earth with government dominion.

…

To protect our children, we must educate ourselves about the UN's insidious agenda to subvert our children's faith in God by elevating its earth-centered zealotry that would grant the UN dominion over the earth.

Adams also includes this video which she describes as “classroom abuse”:

$30K Raised For Man Charged With Assisting Lisa Miller

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 5/11/2011 11:04 am

We had been covering the Lisa Miller saga for over a year, but the trail had largely gone cold as Miller had kidnapped her daughter and disappeared and nobody seemed to know where they were ... until last month when a man, Timothy Miller [no relation], was arrested for allegedly having helped Miller and her daughter flee the country.

Timo Miller, as he is known, is now being charged with aiding in an "international parental kidnapping" ... and, of course, his supporters have set up a legal defense website to help him fight the charges which paints both Lisa and Timo as Christian heroes for refusing to allow a "child to become a pawn of the agenda of those who desire to 'normalize' homosexuality":

Since God has not intended for two men or two women to raise children as a family unit, they can’t produce children on their own. This creates a problem in their agenda to create the perception that homosexual behavior is normal. Thus they resort to adopting children or using artificial insemination from a male donor in the case of a lesbian relationship. Can you imagine being a child growing up in the middle of such an environment? It is a tragedy that laws and courts in our nation can be manipulated to allow an innocent and defenseless child to become a pawn of the agenda of those who desire to “normalize” homosexuality. Truly sin has devastating consequences.

...

A mother goose will fight to the death to protect her young. So will a robin or a mama bear. God has put instincts into a mother to protect their young. Lisa did what any good mother would do. She “died” while attempting to protect her young child from what she perceived as very imminent danger. Rather than risk what she felt was certain harm to her daughter, she took her child, and fled to Nicaragua .

...

The criminal complaint against Timo Miller says he aided in the removal of a child from the US in order to interfere with “parental” custody. It accuses him of arranging tickets, and picking them up at the airport.

The accusation begs a question. How can a biologically unrelated individual who has not gone through the adoption process even have “parental” rights? Homosexual marriages are not recognized federally, nor are they recognized by most states. In fact, most states have specific prohibitions banning homosexual marriage. These bans help to protect children from becoming pawns for homosexual activists who desire to use them in their crusade to “normalize” the homosexual lifestyle. Unfortunately, Vermont does not offer such protections to its defenseless children.

According to an update from yesterday, the defense fund has already raised over $30,000.

2012 Candidates Weekly Update 5/10/11

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 5/10/2011 9:47 am

Michele Bachmann

Background: NPR looks into her transition from Jimmy Carter volunteer to right-wing culture warrior (NPR, 5/9).

GOP: Breaks with Speaker John Boehner over debt ceiling (The Hill, 5/9).

Herman Cain

Nevada: Addresses conservative group in the early caucus state (Las Vegas Sun, 5/9).

Debate: Claims his candidacy gained momentum, new supporters after Fox News debate (CBS News, 5/6).

Mitch Daniels

Religious Right: Decision to defund Planned Parenthood will bolster social conservative credentials despite 'truce' talk (TPM, 5/9).

2012: Report claims that Daniels' wife is final hold-out to presidential bid (HuffPo, 5/9).

Newt Gingrich

2012: Expects to make official announcement tomorrow in Atlanta (WaPo, 5/9).

Campaign: Built vast network of political organizations to promote his clout, image (WSJ, 5/9).

Family: Wife Callista to play a pivotal role in campaign (NYT, 5/9).

Mike Huckabee

Background: NPR explores his roots as a pastor and church leader (NPR, 5/8).

Media: Fox News wants answer from Huckabee about 2012 plans (MoJo, 5/5).

Jon Huntsman

Campaign: Launches leadership PAC during swing through South Carolina and New Hampshire (Fox News, 5/9).

Religion: Concerns that Huntsman is distancing himself from his Mormon faith (Salt Lake Tribune, 5/9).

Experience: Defends serving as ambassador to China in Obama administration (Business Week, 5/8).

Sarah Palin

Poll: Most popular among low-income Republicans (CBS News, 5/9).

GOP: Neoconservative Republicans increasingly abandon Palin (TNR, 5/6).

Tim Pawlenty

Environment: Abandons past support for cap and trade policy (Christian Science Monitor, 5/9). 

Foreign Policy: Knocks Obama's handling of Libya crisis (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 5/7). 

Government: Backs aspects of Paul Ryan's plan to privatize Medicare (Politico, 5/6). 

Mitt Romney

Religious Right: Plans to address Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Conference (CNN, 5/9).

South Carolina: Campaign wary that South Carolina primary victory is out of reach (Politico, 5/8). 

Rick Santorum

South Carolina: After winning state convention straw poll, looks to gain support from state's Religious Right, business communities (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 5/8). 

Foreign Policy: Says Obama "doesn't understand what it takes to defend America" (Fox News, 5/5).

Donald Trump

Media: Ratings for reality TV show falling rapidly (Hollywood Reporter, 5/9).

Race: Says he can't be racist because he picked a Black contestant as winner of The Apprentice (Think Progress, 5/9).

The Religious Right's Fact-Free Climate Change Misinformation Campaign

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 4/26/2011 2:06 pm

Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance is at the center of the Religious Right’s growing push against “the Green Dragon,” otherwise known as the environmental movement. As noted in the latest Right Wing Watch In-Focus, Beisner has his PhD. in Scottish history and absolutely no scientific credentials, however, he does have close ties to corporate-financed, anti-environmental groups such as the Acton Institute and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. Now, right-wing activists like David Barton, Wendy Wright, and Bryan Fischer are heavily promoting Beisner’s film (which they are also featured in).

According to Beisner, environmental protection is “anti-biblical” while heightened carbon dioxide emissions are good for the earth. Even though actual scientists have concluded that the rapidly increasing human emissions of carbon dioxide cause warming temperatures, drought, and rising sea levels.

While climate change threatens to reduce precipitation and produce devastating food shortages, Beisner wrongly claims that climate change will increase the food supply and, in fact, goes so far as to accuse the EPA of intentionally seeking to "hurt the poor":

Beisner: A lot of agricultural economists think that the increased crop yields that we've seen over the last forty to fifty years, something in the neighborhood of twelve to fifteen percent of that is attributable directly to increased carbon dioxide, which means that food gets more plentiful and that helps the poor.

Well, the EPA wants to hurt the poor [in] two ways: one, by raising energy prices by forcing us to switch from carbon-based fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas, to much more expensive and much less reliable fuels like wind, solar, and bio-fuels. And two, they want to hurt the poor by lowering the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which would reduce plant growth efficiency, reducing crop yields, reducing food availability, raising food prices. So it's a double whammy on the poor.

Then David Barton, of all people, accuses scientists of ignoring anything that does support their worldview and manipulating data to support it, while complaining that it is all plot to increase government control and play God:

Barton: This is not about science, this has nothing to do with science. Science is a vehicle to give them more control over the lives of individuals.

Green: So there's no intellectual honesty then there?

Barton: No. There's no intellectual honesty. You find something that lines up with your worldview and you say "here it is, this is what I've always believed, I knew it was out there." And you find a fake science like the IPCC at the UN which has its own agenda ...

Green: And they're willing to put out supposed data, that's false ...

Barton: And the great proof that it's a philosophical worldview is when you refuse to listen to opposing data. When you get all these scientists on the other side ... who roll out all these studies that say "no, no, no that's wrong." When you won't listen to opposing data, science has nothing to do with it. You're into a worldview conflict at that point and your saying that my worldview demands that I have more control over your life, over what you do, that's why government does exist, you're hear to serve government, not vice versa, and this is the vehicle to do it. This really has nothing to do with science.

But what happens is, not understanding that, a lot of Americans buy into that this is science.

Green: Oh, they've been indoctrinated with it in education for the last twenty years.

Barton: Are you kidding me, Earth Day in the schools? We've got to save the Earth? I mean, that's like a tick ... trying to save a whole heard of cattle. I mean, ticks go along for the ride, they don't manage the cattle, they don't tell them where to go. And that's our arrogance in thinking that we can do something to save the planet and control where the planet goes. You know, we're just along for the ride and we're insignificant peons on this thing

Green: Well, arrogance is the right word. I mean, it really does, we get to the point where we think - not that we shouldn't do the things we can do, of course you do the things that are responsible - but we think that we can control this whole thing. We think we're God.

2012 Candidates Weekly Update 4/26/11

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 4/26/2011 9:28 am

Michele Bachmann

Media: Included in the Time 100 (Star Tribune, 4/21).

2012: Claims she will reach a decision on presidential bid by June (LA Times, 4/20). 

Haley Barbour

2012: Decides against running for president (Politico, 4/25). 

Newt Gingrich

Energy: Received $300,000 from ethanol lobbying group (Des Moines Register, 4/25).

Immigration: Balances outreach to Hispanic voters with GOP's increasing nativism (Politico, 4/22). 

Mike Huckabee

South Carolina: Leads other candidates among South Carolina Republicans in new poll (The Ticket, 4/25).

Media: War of words with Glenn Beck escalates (HuffPo, 4/22). 

2012: Former campaign manager predicts he will run (The Daily Beast, 4/21). 

Jon Huntsman

Foreign Affairs: Wins praise from Chinese leaders as he leaves post as Ambassador (Salt Lake Tribune, 4/21). 

Campaign: Hires prominent GOP pollster (Fox News, 4/20). 

Roy Moore

Iowa: Completes 27-stop tour in Iowa, focusing on religious voters (Iowa Republican, 4/22). 

Religious Right: Addresses militantly anti-gay Cornerstone World Outreach church (Sioux City Journal, 4/22) 

Sarah Palin

Alaska: 61% of home state voters view her unfavorably (Anchorage Daily News, 4/25). 

Family: Estranged ex-future-son-in-law Levi Johnston to write tell-all on Palin family (LA Times, 4/25). 

Religious Right: Set to speak alongside dominionist ex-General William Boykin (HuffPo, 4/25).

Iowa: Campaign in Iowa a one-man operation (WSJ, 4/22). 

Tim Pawlenty

Polls: Fails to increase support among GOP primary voters in polls (Minnesota Public Radio, 4/25). 

Environment: Former adviser and polar explorer disappointed with Pawlenty's move towards climate change denial (Mother Jones, 4/21). 

Mitt Romney

Budget: Wrongly claims that Obama is managing a "peacetime" budget in op-ed (Washington Monthly, 4/25).

Fundraising: Escalates fundraising to build campaign war chest (AP, 4/25). 

Rick Santorum

Equality: Doubles down on opposition to civil rights for gays and lesbians (Crooks and Liars, 4/25). 

Health care: Regrets voting for Medicare prescription drug benefit plan (HuffPo, 4/24). 

Iowa: Hires state campaign manager and field director before embarking on tour (Politico, 4/21). 

Donald Trump

Birther: Claims President Obama's birth certificate is either "missing" or "does not exist" (Daily Caller, 4/25). 

Voting: Has spotty voting record during primary elections (NY1, 4/23).

Newcombe: Taking Prayer Out Of Schools Will Make America Akin To Nazi Germany

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 3/31/2011 1:59 pm

Jerry Newcombe of Coral Ridge Ministries appeared on WallBuilders Live, the radio program of right-wing pseudo historian David Barton, to promote his new book about how the Constitution was supposedly shaped by the Bible. Speaking to Barton’s co-host Rick Green, Newcombe claimed that the goal of organizations such as People For the American Way, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation is to arrest and imprison people who pray in public. He points to D. James Kennedy, the founder of Coral Ridge Ministries, to argue that without prayer in schools, America will go down the road of Nazi Germany.

Newcombe: I think about that statement from George Washington, clearly in the context when he’s talking about Christianity when he uses the word ‘religion,’ and he says, what, of all that habits and dispositions which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. He goes, in vain would that person be able to call himself a patriot who in anyway would subvert those great pillars of human happiness. So in other words, Washington was saying that it’s unpatriotic to undue these pillars.

Well that is exactly what these groups like the ACLU and People For the American Way, and so forth, with all their lawsuits, Freedom From Religion Foundation, whatever, with all their lawsuits. ‘Oh my goodness, this person said a prayer, a principal, oh heavens!’ Not only fire them but send them to prison, there have actually been attempts where they actually try to put people in prison for saying a prayer because they’re a public official.

Green: And it’s just as dangerous I think, especially in this environment with the Tea Party and everything and everybody’s getting involved and studying the constitution and whatnot, but there’s a strong libertarian bent that also leaves out religion and morality and doesn’t want God to come back into the equation, and I’m somewhat libertarian in many ways, but look, Washington said you cannot be a patriot and leave those things out so don’t leave that out. Don’t go to this, this kind of conservative version of the ACLU where we don’t want God in the equation at all, we just don’t want the government spending money, because that’s just as dangerous, isn’t it?

Newcombe: Well I don’t know if it’s just as dangerous, yeah, in the long run, yes, it is, in the long run it is. In fact, as D. James Kennedy once pointed out, in 1935, what was the most educated nation on earth? The answer was Germany. But that didn’t prevent Auschwitz from taking place. So there is such a thing as education, where if it’s devoid of God, it is dangerous.

Right Wing Leftovers

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 3/29/2011 5:47 pm
  • Tim Pawlenty undertakes the mandatory task required of all Republican presidential hopefuls: apologizing for once having cared about the environment.
  • Rep. Michele Bachamnn will speak at Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Summit.
  • Finally, anti-Islam activist Robert Spencer says examining anti-Muslim sentiment is nothing more than "demonizing freedom fighters, people who are trying to fight to defend the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience and the equality of rights of all people before the law."

Focus on the Family: Anti-Bullying “Radicalism” Coming To Sports Teams

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 3/22/2011 5:16 pm

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

IRD: How Dare Methodists Include Buddhist and Shinto Groups in Japan Memorial Service

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 3/22/2011 10:44 am

Apparently, even a prayer service for the thousands of people deceased and missing in Japan is a reason for the far-right Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) to bash mainline Protestants.

When the Church Center of the United Nations hosted an interfaith “Gathering for Prayer and Hope” in the wake of the deadly earthquake and tsunami to hit Japan to “provide us with the spiritual encouragement and strength to overcome this time of suffering together,” according to Rev. T. K. Nakagaki. But the IRD, a Religious Right organization that is always looking for opportunities to attack mainline Protestant churches, took umbrage at the event and said that the Church Center, which is owned by the Untied Methodist Church, should have disinvited Buddhist and Shinto leaders and guests. While the vast majority of people in Japan identify as Buddhist or Shinto, Mark Tooley of the IRD claims that the Methodist group hosting the gathering should have excluded such groups from participating:

"The original purpose was to be a Methodist and Christian witness to and at the United Nations," says Tooley. "A number of other denominations also have offices in the building, and there is a chapel there as well. Of course, following the drift of agencies of the United Methodist Church and of mainline Protestantism, and especially of the often very radical Methodist women's division, the building's political witness and spiritual emphases are -- as to be expected -- often very far left and not orthodox."

Tooley says the United Methodist Church has significantly strayed from its Christian heritage.

"Having the Buddhist cleric lead the service at the Church Center of the United Nations certainly illustrates how the Methodist and Christian witness of that ministry there is so watered down as to be almost unrecognizably Christian," comments the IRD president.

Garlow: The Left's "Ideological Radiation" Is Poisoning America

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 3/21/2011 1:46 pm

Last week, Cindy Jacobs, Rick Joyner, and Chuck Pierce all weighed in on the tragedy in Japan to explain that God was seeking to break the "stronghold of spiritism" that gripped the nation in order to free them from the "grip of idolatry" while warning that the earthquake was a sign that demonic Nazism was going to engulf the United States.

Over the weekend, Jim Garlow who, in addition to running Newt Gingrich's Renewing American Leadership also has close ties to Jacobs, Lou Engle and the entire movement of self-proclaimed prophets and apostles, took to his Facebook page to say that while there may be some cause for alarm about radiation from Japan reaching America, the real threat to this nation is the secular left:

As one who lives on the West Coast, I am concerned about potential radiation drift from Japan, as well as the failures of our own nuclear reactors in earthquake-prone California.

But as one who lives on the Left Coast, I am infinitely more concerned about the lethal ideological “radiation” that has been leaked into our “atmosphere” for forty years from the radical secular left. It is killing our nation.

This is not a future threat. It is a present day struggle of life and death – now. In fact, a faulty understanding of the beginning of life has resulted in the deaths of 52,000,000 persons in the womb. After all, when do human rights begin?

But that is only one small part of the ideological damage from radical secularism. They would, if they could, destroy the very concept of a mother and a father leading a home. They will, if they can, spend us into oblivion, destroying the future for our children.

We will all be safer when we come to the realization that the anti-biblical secular philosophies are, at this moment, a greater threat to our nation’s existence than our nuclear reactors.

We can examine, alter and improve our aging and vulnerable nuclear reactors. And we should. They are old and need attention.

But secularism’s largely undetected toxic political ideology is poisoning us and our children. America needs a massive dose of “political, historical and theological potassium iodide” to protect us from the radical left’s destruction. And we need it quickly. Morally, America has been getting closer to a Chernobyl-like “level 7” condition for over two years.

Introducing “Resisting The Green Dragon” The Book

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 3/16/2011 2:00 pm

In November Right Wing Watch highlighted a video by the Cornwall Alliance featuring prominent Religious Right leaders who lashed out at the environmentalist movement for trumpeting “exaggerations and myths,” and “seducing” and “scaring” children. Now, the Cornwall Alliance is pushing a book, “Resisting the Green Dragon: Dominion, Not Death,” about environmentalists’ “anti-human and anti-Christian ideas.” Focus on the Family has already endorsed the book. According to author James Wanliss of the Cornwall Alliance, environmentalists are attempting to “co-opt the church” and “harm the poor”:

"My book seeks to display the incompatibility of modern environmentalism with Western Civilization and suggests an alternative path that leads to godly dominion, not death," Wanliss says. "I also show how the Green movement seeks to co-opt the church, and why the church should resist by teaching the Biblical relationship between humanity and the rest of creation that leads to the flourishing of both nature and humanity."

"This book is both important and timely," says Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, Founder and National Spokesman of the Cornwall Alliance. "Today's environmentalism isn't a neutral set of ideas that can be tacked onto the Christian faith without theological compromise. Instead, it promotes its own worldview and its own doctrines of God, creation, humanity, sin, and salvation. And those doctrines aren't Biblical."

…

1. Green Dragon: How Environmentalism Gets It Wrong and Endangers Society;

2. The Church Complicit: How Environmentalism Has Penetrated the Church with Anti-Human and Anti-Christian Ideas;

3. Created in the Image of God: Why Humans are More Special to God than Other Creatures;

4. Naked Ape: How Nature is Not Divine, and Humans are Spiritually Superior to All Other Creatures;

5. Dominion: How Humans' Filling and Subduing the Earth Can Release It from Bondage;

6. Death Wish: How the "Sustainability" Chimera is Harmful to the Environment and Politically Dangerous;

7. Dominion, Not Death: How Environmentalism Harms the Poor and Biblical Christianity Offers the True Hope for the Future.

Right Wing Round-Up

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 1/27/2011 6:51 pm

Right Wing Round-Up

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 1/27/2011 6:51 pm
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Environment Posts Archive

The Ultimate Obama-Islam-Sharia-Agenda 21-Immigration-Debt Conspiracy
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Wednesday 05/23/2012, 12:55pm
The number of right-wing conspiracy theories relating to President Obama, Islam, Sharia Law, immigration, Agenda 21 and the debt seems to be growing exponentially…but finally now there is one conspiracy theory that brings them all together. Avi Lipkin, who on speaking tours in churches and synagogues across America says he learned secret information from his wife, whom he claims is an Israel intelligence officer. On Crosstalk with Vic Eliason of VCY America, Lipkin maintained that Obama is a Saudi plant who is out to destroy Israel and the United States: Lipkin: Obama was made... MORE
Talk Show Host: Karl Marx Created Climate Change to Destroy Capitalism
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Tuesday 05/22/2012, 5:00pm
Earlier we reported that James Dobson warned that the environmental movement is a “Satanic” effort to help radical Islamists and Cal Beisner claimed that the movement is modeling itself after Satan. Conservative talk show host and Eco-Tyranny author Brian Sussman appeared yesterday on Eagle Forum Live with Phyllis Schlafly and identified yet another sinister force behind the environmental movement. Sussman claims that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels not only created the environmental movement but also the nefarious, anti-capitalist and anti-Christian notion of man-influenced... MORE
Satanic Earth-Worshiping Militant Environmentalists are Funding Islamic Terrorism
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Tuesday 05/22/2012, 11:48am
It had been a while since James Dobson did a series of radio programs designed to terrify his audience about the looming threat of an Islamic take over of the world, and so he has returned to the topic this week with the help of guest Michael Youssef who graciously offered his "Insights on Radical Islam." And just what sorts of insights did Youssef have for Dobson and his audience?  Well, when Dobson wanted to know why Americans oppose domestic drilling for oil even though our dependence on foreign oil funds terrorism, Youssef explained that it was because lots of people don't... MORE
Cal Beisner Warns the 'Depraved' Environmental Movement Models itself after Satan
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Wednesday 05/16/2012, 4:20pm
The Religious Right’s favorite anti-environmental activist Cal Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance appeared on Janet Parshall’s radio show In The Market on Monday where he maintained that environmentalists are following the same path as Satan. Ironically, the corporate-allied Beisner lamented the presence of “theft,” “covetousness” and “greed” in society, which he said that along with “sexual perversion” and disobedience were part of “the growing depravity in the United States,” which he of course linked back to the... MORE
David Barton on the Environment, Abortion, and Michael Vick
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Thursday 03/29/2012, 2:03pm
As we mentioned yesterday, a few episodes of David Barton's "Building on the American Heritage Series" program are available in the TBN archives, including one in which Barton explains how "social justice" is really just another term of "socialism." At one point, the discussion turned to the subject of climate change, a topic on which Barton fancies himself an expert, in which he explained that the Biblical account of creation in the book of Genesis reveals that God placed man above all animals and the Earth.  But, Barton explained, today... MORE
Wildmon: Efforts to Prevent Human-Influenced Climate Change are 'Anti-Christian'
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Thursday 03/22/2012, 5:00pm
Prior to their interview with Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), who is promoting his new book on how science—and the Bible—expose the “Global Warming Hoax,” American Family Association president Tim Wildmon said efforts to combat human influence on climate change are led by “anti-capitalist, anti-American, anti-Christian” activists from “the Occupy wall Street crowd.” Cohost Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, also dubbed them “anti-child.” Perkins: We are abdicating our national sovereignty to the UN under some of these... MORE
Tennessee Republicans Copy John Birch Society Model Legislation on Agenda 21
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Friday 03/16/2012, 10:45am
The latest conspiracy theory sweeping the tea party movement is the fear that Agenda 21, a United Nations program focusing on sustainable development, is surreptitiously destroying the American way of life. Tennessee House Republicans recently passed a resolution, sponsored by Rep. Kevin Brooks, condemning the plan, using almost identical language from a John Birch Society model bill. The Tennessean reports: Tennessee lawmakers passed a resolution Thursday condemning a United Nations environmental plan as a “destructive and insidious” effort to advance a communist agenda through... MORE