Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Tuesday, 8/9/2011 12:13 pm
Casual viewers of “The Response,” including some political reporters who don’t pay a lot of attention to the Religious Right, may have watched Texas Governor Rick Perry’s prayer rally on Saturday and wondered what all the fuss was about. Most of the time was taken up with prayer and praise music. Few of the speakers seemed overtly political. Nobody used the occasion to endorse Perry’s pending presidential bid.
But context is everything, and the context for this event was remarkable: a governor launching a presidential bid by teaming up with some of the nation’s most divisive extremists to hold a Christians-only prayer rally that suggested Americans are helpless to solve the country’s problems without divine intervention. Some media coverage is missing the boat: the issue wasn’t whether it was ok for a politician to pray, or the size of the audience, but the purposes of the event’s planners and their disturbing vision for America.
Organizers argued (unconvincingly) that “The Response” was about prayer, not politics. But groups like the American Family Association (AFA), which paid for the rally and its webcast, and organizations like the Family Research Council, whose president was among the speakers, are not designed to win souls but to change American law and culture through grassroots organizing and political power-building. They have a corrosive effect on our political culture by promoting religious bigotry and anti-gay extremism, by claiming that the United States was meant to be a Christian nation, and by fostering resentment among conservative evangelicals with repeated false assertions that liberal elites are out to destroy religious liberty and silence conservative religious voices.
By calling for this rally, and partnering with the far right of the evangelical world, Perry aligned himself with all these troubling strategies. When he drew criticism for the event and the extremism of its sponsors, Perry suggested his critics were intolerant of Christians. Speakers returned to the theme, with one of them declaring that “there is an attack on the name of Jesus.” Such claims of anti-Christian persecution are a tried-and-true strategy of the Religious Right for rousing conservative Christians to political activism. And for those who actually believe that Christianity is on the verge of being criminalized in America, Perry’s event defined him as a defiant and courageous defender of the faith.
As journalist Dave Weigel writes, “That's the brilliance of what Perry has done here…He doesn't need to talk about politics, or do anything besides be here and understand this event. The religion is the politics. These worshippers understand that if they can bring ‘the kingdom of God’ to Earth, economic problems, even macroeconomic problems, will sort themselves out.”
A major chunk of the day was given over to Mike Bickle, who runs the International House of Prayer (IHOP) movement, which recruits young people into “radical” devotion to prayer and fasting. Yes, he’s the guy who said that Oprah is paving the way for the Antichrist. Bickle’s associate Lou Engle has organized a series of stadium events pushing prayer, fasting, and politics under the banner of “The Call,” which provided the model for “The Response.” Bickle and Engle are hard-core dominionists who believe they are ushering in a new Christian church which will take its rightful place of dominion over every aspect of government and society. But in spite of their well-documented extremism, they are embraced by Republican leaders. Engle, for example, took part in a Family Research Council prayer-a-thon against health care reform, at which he introduced Rep. Michele Bachmann.
The Christian-nation crowd, like Response speaker David Barton and AFA spokesman Bryan Fischer, who says the First Amendment protects only Christians’ religious liberty, shares a certain vision for America’s future. Some of the political goals of “The Response” sponsors were brutally clear at the rally; a series of speakers prayed for an end to legal abortion. While rhetorical gay-bashing was surprisingly absent at an event whose sponsors include the most vehemently anti-gay groups in America (including the AFA, which has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center), it is clear that in the America envisioned by “The Response” planners, same-sex couples would have no chance at legal recognition or protection for their families. Shortly before the event, Perry himself was forced to walk back from his very brief flirtation with a states’ rights defense of New Yorkers’ decision to extend marriage equality to same-sex couples -- and to vow his support for a federal constitutional amendment that would strip married same-sex couples of their rights and make sure that in the future gay couples could not get married anywhere in the U.S.
And lest anyone think that Perry’s religious agenda is limited to social issues, he made clear that a rigid conservative economic agenda was central to his spiritual mission. Just days before the rally, on “The 700 Club,” Perry said he’d be praying for “our country’s economic prosperity. There just so many people that can’t take care of their family because government’s over-taxed, over-regulated, over-litigated, it caused roadblocks to economic prosperity.” Those words echo the theology of activists like Barton, who have preached that the Bible condemns progressive taxation, the minimum wage and collective bargaining.
Perry is clearly positioning himself to enter the Republican presidential primary as a political savior to right-wing activists who are underwhelmed with their choices so far. Yet, oddly for someone who wants to be president, he insists that America’s problems are beyond human ability to fix. (Sadly, that may only be true to the extent that enough legislators believe that God, like Grover Norquist, is opposed to any tax increases.)
Perry’s worldview and that of “The Response” organizers seems to see no useful role for non-Christian Americans, whose religious beliefs were denigrated at “The Response.” When Perry told Americans on Saturday that we, “as a nation,” must return to God, it’s clear he meant God as understood by the event’s organizers. Jim Garlow, who organized anti-marriage equality pastors in California before being hired by Newt Gingrich to run one of his political groups, told journalist Sarah Posner on Saturday that “The Response” was “not about whether Perry becomes president, it’s about making Jesus king.” Perry used the event to let right-wing religious voters and churches nationwide know that for those who see politics as spiritual warfare, he is the warrior they have been waiting for.
Submitted by Miranda Blue on Friday, 8/5/2011 7:14 pm
Updated 8/5/2011
On August 6, Texas Gov. Rick Perry will host The Response, a “prayer rally” in Houston, along with the extremist American Family Association and a cohort of Religious Right leaders with far-right political ties. While the rally’s leaders label it a "a non-denominational, apolitical Christian prayer meeting," the history of the groups behind it suggests otherwise. The Response is powered by politically active Religious Right individuals and groups who are dedicated to bringing far-right religious view, including degrading views of gays and lesbians and non-Christians, into American politics.
In fact, a spokesman for The Response has said that while non-Christians will be welcomed at the rally, they will be urged to “seek out the living Christ.” Allan Parker, a right-wing activist who participated in an organizing conference call for the event, declared in an email bearing the official Response logo that including non-Christians in the event "would be idolatry of the worst sort."
Perry told James Dobson that the rally was necessary because Americans have “turned away from God.”
The following is an introduction to the groups and individuals who Gov. Perry has allied himself with in planning this event.
The American Family Association
The American Family Association is the driving force behind The Response. Founded by the Rev. Don Wildmon in 1977, the organization is based is best known for its various boycott campaigns, promotion of art censorship, and political advocacy against women’s rights and LGBT equality. The organization also controls the vast American Family Radio and an online news service, in addition to sponsoring various conferences frequented by Republican leaders, including the Values Voter Summit and Rediscovering God in America. The AFA today is led by Tim Wildmon, Don’s son, and its chief spokesperson is Bryan Fischer, the Director of Issues Analysis for Government and Public Policy and host of its flagship radio show Focal Point.
Fischer routinely expresses support for some of the most bigoted and shocking ideas found in the Religious Right today. He has:
said that the anti-Muslim manifesto of the right-wing Christian terrorist who killed dozens in Norway was “accurate.”
Other AFA leaders and activists are just as radical:
AFA President Tim Wildmon claims that by repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell President Obama shows he “doesn’t give a rip about the Marines or the Army” and “just wants to force homosexuality into every place that he can.”
AFA Vice President Buddy Smith, who is on the leadership council of The Response, said that gays and lesbians are “in the clasp of Satan.”
The Response’s leadership team includes five senior staff members of the International House of Prayer (IHOP), a large, highly political Pentecostal organization built on preparing participants for the return of Jesus Christ. In a recent video, IHOP encouraged supporters to pray for Jews to convert to Christianity in order to bring about the Second Coming. IHOP is closely associated with Lou Engle, a Religious Right leader whose anti-gay, anti-choice extremism hasn’t stopped him from hobnobbing with Republican leaders including Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Mike Huckabee. Engle is the founder of The Call, day-long rallies against abortion rights and gay marriage, which Engle says are meant to break Satan’s control over the U.S. government. One recent Call event featured “prophet” Cindy Jacobs calling for repentance for the “girl-on-girl kissing” of Britney Spears and Madonna. Perry's The Response event is clearly built upon Engle's The Call model.
Engle has a long history of pushing extreme right-wing views and advocating for a conservative theocracy in America. Engle:
IHOP’s founder and executive director, Mike Bickle, who is an official endorser of The Response, like Engle pushes radical End Times prophesies. In one sermon, he declared that Oprah Winfrey is a precursor to the Antichrist.
The International House of Prayer, incidentally, remains locked in a copyright infringement lawsuit with the International House of Pancakes.
Tony Perkins
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, is a co-chairman of The Response. At the FRC, Perkins has been a vocal opponent of LGBT equality, often relying on false claims about gay people to push his agenda. He:
denied that there was a correlation between anti-gay bullying and depression and suicide, saying instead that gay and lesbian teens know they are “abnormal” and “have a higher propensity to depression or suicide because of that internal conflict";
One of the most prominent members of The Response’s leadership team is pastor Jim Garlow. The pastor for a San Diego megachurch, Garlow has been intimately involved in political battles, especially the campaign to pass Proposition 8. Garlow invited and housed Lou Engle to lead The Call rallies around California for six months to sway voters to support Proposition 8, which would repeal the right of gay and lesbian couples to get married. He claims Satan is behind the “attack on marriage” and credits the prayer rallies for the passage of Prop 8. He said that during a massive The Call rally in San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium “something had snapped in the Heavenlies” and “God had moved” to deliver Prop 8 to victory.
Most importantly, Garlow is a close spiritual adviser to presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and leads Gingrich’s Renewing American Leadership (ReAL). Garlow is a principal advocate of Seven Mountains Dominionism, and wants to “bring armies of people” to bring Religious Right leaders into public office and defeat their political opponents.
likened homosexuality to bestiality, saying that if marriage equality is upheld “the next court case could conceivably say that if three people wanted to marry or four people or five people or if someone wanted to marry their dog or their horse”;
While Senator John McCain rejected John Hagee’s endorsement during the 2008 presidential campaign for his “deeply offensive and indefensible” remarks, Perry invited Hagee to join The Response. Hagee leads a megachurch in San Antonio, Texas, and is a purveyor of End Times prophesies. Like members of the International House of Prayer, Hagee utilizes language of spiritual warfare and says he is part of “the army of the living God.” He runs the prominent group Christians United For Israel, which believes that eventually a cataclysmic war in the Middle East will bring about the Rapture.
John McCain was forced to disavow Hagee for a reason as the Texas pastor:
claimed that God sent Hitler to be a “hunter” of Jews to usher in the establishment of Israel and “do God’s work,” lamenting that Jews are no longer “spiritually alive.”
referred to the Catholic Church as ‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system.’
said that God won’t allow the United States to win wars anymore because “we have allowed the worship of Satanism in the U.S. military.”
James Dobson
James Dobson, an official endorser of The Response, is one of the most prominent figures in the Religious Right. Founder of both Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council , Dobson has been instrumental in bringing the priorities of the Religious Right to Republican politics, including campaigning hard for President George W. Bush. But many of the views that Dobson pushes are hardly mainstream. Dobson:
insists that the Religious Right’s fight against Planned Parenthood is “very similar” to that of abolitionists who fought against the slave trade.
Asked if God had withdrawn his hand from America after 9/11, Dobson responded: “Christians have made arguments on both sides of this question. I certainly believe that God is displeased with America for its pride and arrogance, for killing 40 million unborn babies, for the universality of profanity and for other forms of immorality. However, rather than trying to forge a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the terrorist attacks and America's abandonment of biblical principles, which I think is wrong, we need to accept the truth that this nation will suffer in many ways for departing from the principles of righteousness. "The wages of sin is death," as it says in Romans 6, both for individuals and for entire cultures.”
David Barton
David Barton, an official endorser of The Response, is a self-proclaimed historian known for his twisting of American History and the Bible to justify right-wing political positions. Barton’s strategy is twofold: he first works to find Biblical bases for right-wing policy initiatives, and then argues that the Founding Fathers wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, so obviously wanted whatever policy he has just found a flimsy Biblical basis for. Barton, “documenting” the divine origins of his interpretations of the Constitution gives him and his political allies a potent weapon. Opponents who disagree about tax policy or the powers of Congress are not only wrong, they are un-American and anti-religious, enemies of America and of God.
Barton uses his shoddy historical and biblical scholarship to push a right-wing political agenda, including:
Biblical Capitalism: Barton’s “scholarship” helps to form the basis for far-right economic policies. He claims that “Jesus was against the minimum wage,” that the Bible “absolutely condemned” the estate tax,” and opposed the progressive income tax.
Revising Racial History: Barton has traveled the country peddling a documentary he made blaming the Democratic Party for slavery, lynching and Jim Crow…while ignoring more recent history.
Opposing Gay Rights: Barton believes the government should regulate gay sex and maintains that countries which “rejected sexual regulation” inevitably collapse.
Other Allies
Among the other far-right figures who have signed on to work with Gov. Perry on The Response are:
Rob Schenk, an anti-choice extremist who was once arrested for throwing a fetus in the face of President Clinton, and who allegedly had ties with the murderer of abortion provider Dr. Barnett Slepian.
Loren Cunningham, who is working to mobilize support for the rally is a co-founder of the radical “Seven Mountains Dominionist” ideology. Cunningham says that he received the “seven mountains” idea, which holds that evangelical Christians must take hold of all aspects of society in order to pave the way for the Second Coming, in a message directly from God.
Doug Stringer, The Response's National Church and Ministry Mobilization Coordinator, who blamed American secularism and the increased acceptance of homosexuality for the 9/11 attacks, saying “It was our choice to ask God not to be in our every day lives and not to be present in our land.”
Cindy Jacobs, self-proclaimed “prophet” and endorser of The Response, who famously insisted that birds were dying in Arkansas earlier this year because of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
C. Peter Wagner, an official endorser of The Response, is one of the most prominent leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation, a controversial movement whose followers believe they are prophets and apostles on par with Christ himself (other adherents include Engle, Jacobs and Anh). Wagner has advocated burning Catholic, Mormon and non-Christian religious objects. He blamed the Japanese stock market crash and later the devastating earthquake and tsunami in the country on a traditional ritual in which the emperor supposedly has “sexual intercourse” with the pagan Sun Goddess.
Che Ahn, a mentor of John Hagee and official endorser of The Response, who endorses “Seven Mountains” dominionism and compares the fight against gay rights to the fight against slavery.
John Benefiel, a self-proclaimed "apostle" and official endorser of The Response, who claims the Statue of Liberty is a "demonic idol" and that homosexuality is a plot cooked up by the Illuminati to control the world's population, and that he renamed the District of Columbia the “District of Christ” because he has “more authority than the U.S. Congress does.”
James “Jay” Swallow, official endorser of the rally, who calls himself a “spiritual warrior” and hosts “Strategic Warriors At Training (SWAT): A Christian Military Training Camp for the purpose of dealing with the occult and territorial enemy strong holds in America.”
Alice Smith, who advocates "spiritual housecleaning" because demons "sneak into" homes through everyday objects.
Willie Wooten, a self-proclaimed “apostle” who claims that God is punishing the African American community for supporting gay rights, reproductive freedom and the Democratic Party.
Pastor Stephen Broden – Broden, an endorser of The Response, has repeatedly insisted that a violent overthrow of the U.S. government must remain “on the table.”
Timothy F. Johnson – Johnson, a former vice-chairman of the North Carolina GOP, was elected to that post despite two domestic violence convictions and still unresolved questions about his military service and educational record.
Alice Patterson – Patterson, a member of The Response's leadership team, insists that the Democratic Party is controlled by a "demonic structure."
Despite all of this, Bearse told the AFA’s OneNewsNow that if Christians or non-Christian people feel uncomfortable about attending The Response, it’s their own fault:
But Eric Bearse, spokesman for "The Response," assures that non-Christians are welcome to attend the prayer event on Saturday -- and if critics choose not to come, "they're excluding themselves," he says.
Indeed, Bearse thinks that “non-Christians are welcome to attend”…but only if they intend to convert to Christianity. Bearse told the AFA’s American Family Radio back in June that “the message” of The Response is to encourage non-Christians to “seek out the living Christ.”
Bearse: A lot of people want to criticize what we’re doing, as if we’re somehow being exclusive of other faiths. But anyone who comes to this solemn assembly regardless of their faith tradition or background, will feel the love, grace, and warmth of Jesus Christ in that assembly hall, in that arena. And that’s what we want to convey, that there’s acceptance and that there’s love and that there’s hope if people will seek out the living Christ. And that’s the message we want to spread on August 6th.
"Homosexual activists are quite clear that their so-called 'rights' trump our religious liberty, our freedom to act on our beliefs to oppose sexual immorality," he explains. "So we certainly can't trust open homosexual activists to give us fairness and to defend religious liberty and our First Amendment freedom to live by our faith."
LaBarbera adds that it is because homosexual activists strive to convince people, and force them by judicial fiat, to accept the homosexual lifestyle as somehow equal to heterosexuality.
"This is dangerous territory where we are seeing homosexual activists trying to get on the bench," says the spokesman. "The Democratic Party is advancing their cause and it's not going to help justice. In fact, I predict this will undermine religious liberty in this country."
Says LaBarbera: "We have a big fight ahead of us."
I wonder what LaBarbera's response would be if people were to demand that an openly Christian judicial nominee be kept off the bench because everyone knows that the Religious Right cannot be trusted to "give us fairness" on equality issues?
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 7/19/2011 4:22 pm
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.
[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.
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 7/18/2011 3:46 pm
As we noted earlier today, Herman Cain had gone full-on Bryan Fischer in declaring that local officials ought to be able to ban the construction of mosques in their communities.
"I think the First Amendment is one of those amendments that is too important and protects rights that are too central to our guaranteed rights in this country to be left with a local option," he asserted.
Like Christians, Muslims have the right to have places of worship near where they live, Land said.
...
The Southern Baptist also asserted that Cain, who boasts that he is the descendant of slaves, should defend Muslims' rights under the Constitution so that they are upheld in every community, city and state.
"Mr. Cain of all people, as an African American, should understand that our civil rights have to be guaranteed on a federal level," he said. "I don't think he would want to leave the civil rights of an African American to the local voters in Philadelphia and Mississippi where they buried three civil rights workers – one black, two white – under a dam after they had killed them."
Land, as you may recall, has been a vocal opponent of the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" and even resigned from the Anti-Defamation League's "Interfaith Coalition on Mosques" amid criticism that he was promoting Islam.
Christian Counseling under Assault – This week a homosexual activist group reported findings from their undercover “sting” operation at Minnesota Christian counseling clinic owned by Republican Presidential candidate Michelle Bachman and her husband, Marcus. Sympathetic national media seemed shocked that the Christian counseling center offered help for homosexuals to break free from addiction to homosexuality through faith in Jesus Christ. Where will the homosexual assault on religious liberty stop?
May God open the eyes of all Americans to the truth regarding natural marriage and sexuality vs. homosexuality as well as homosexual rights vs. religious liberty. May officials at every level stand up for natural marriage and sexuality. May the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and state marriage amendments be upheld in the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. May our military men be protected from the introduction of homosexuality into their ranks. May we all stand up for our First Amendment freedoms! (Ps 82: all; Is 42:6-7; Mt 19:4; Rom 1:24-28; 1 Cor 6:9-11; 2 Tim 2:24-25)
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 7/5/2011 10:40 am
Eliana Benador, the neoconservative PR agent who lost her outlet in the Washington Times after she speculated that former congressman Anthony Weiner may have converted to Islam, now has a new outlet: the Tea Party Nation. In her column for the tea party group that once lamented that America is facing white “extinction,” Benador blames immigrants from “non-European nations” for much of the country’s social ills. She claims that such non-European immigration was responsible for President Obama’s election and claims that the U.S. should consider revoking First Amendment protections for religions (most likely Islam) that she deems inherently violent:
Some may agree that we have forgotten the lessons taught by slavery -and may be prone to not identify it even if it knocks at our doors, when we see a silent invader roaming our streets and we don’t dare call it as it is:
The invasion of America is taking place as we speak, but if we remove those blinders, we can still stop it.
What has happened to our country? How did this situation begin? It all began when then Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy heavily supported the abolition of the National Origins Formula, in place since the Immigration Act of 1924, to replace it with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
In a flagrant display of nepotism in America, when the three Kennedy brothers took the reins of American politics, immigration reform was a critical issue for the family community of origin: the Irish.
…
Despite assurances by the Kennedys that the immigration reform they were pressing for, would not upset America’s ethnical balance: “It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs…,” it ended up altering the immigration pattern and opening doors to non-European nations, thus changing forever the intrinsic tissue of American society.
As we celebrate America’s Independence Day, it’s noteworthy that the percentage reduction of original American voters, might have been a defining factor in the election of someone like the current president, who among other goals, seems to be keen in opening further our borders to endlessly increasing numbers of immigrants who, regardless of their skin color, are bringing in a whole new texture of culture, 100% foreign to what America’s origins were as its wonderful adventure began back in 1776.
As America celebrates her 235th Independence Day, she finds herself under siege from all kinds of enemies: The known and the unknown; the external and the internal enemy.
The external enemy is that whose goal is to expand so much throughout the world with its most coveted prize: our land.
…
One Administration after the other has kept the immigration-invasion under the radar, hiding behind the First Amendment to the Constitution that stands for freedom of religion” in our country.
However, the First Amendment does not stipulate that “freedom of religion” must be upheld even if the followers of a religion have perpetrated an attack on, and massacred, our civilian population in times of peace, especially if that religion incites to the destruction of our country, our people, and our values.
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 6/21/2011 2:59 pm
A conservative columnist and a news analyst for Renew America suggested in her latest column that President Obama is like the Beast found in the Book of Revelation who wages “war against God’s holy people and to conquer them.” Sher Zieve quoted from Revelation 13 when discussing how Americans should rise up against Obama for his alleged acts of treason and if they can’t defeat him peacefully, she says “there seems to be no other solution except violent civil unrest.” Zieve writes:
Treason is generally defined as "betrayal of country: a violation of the allegiance owed by somebody to his or her own country, e.g. by aiding an enemy."
High treason is defined as "treason perpetrated by somebody against his or her own country."
Another apt definition of treason is "any attempt to overthrow the government or impair the well-being of a state to which one owes allegiance; the crime of giving aid or comfort to the enemies of one's government."
It is my contention that Barack Hussein Obama has perpetrated all of these. It is also my assertion that our current Congress and our increasingly leftist court system have allowed — and continue to allow — Obama to perpetrate such treachery upon the United States of America and its citizens with impunity.
…
Once he gained (many say "usurped") the office of the presidency, Obama has undertaken repeated attempts to unravel the First Amendment. These attempts have ranged from banning and refusing to speak with reporters who asked him tough questions to actually locking them in closets!
…
Virtually every day, Barack Hussein Obama is committing multiple treasons and high treasons against the United States of America. And STILL he is allowed to do so with nary a scolding...or a whimper. Nothing is ever done to stop him. Isn't it time for us to do so? Isn't it?
Who or what group might be willing to organize a few massive marches on D.C., and especially Congress, to stop this insanity and destruction of our country, our lives, and everything that — by the grace of God — we Americans have built or hold dear? Otherwise, there seems to be no other solution except violent civil unrest.
Even dyed-in-the-wool Democrat James Carville has said: "You know, look...you're smart enough to see this. People, you know, if it continues, we're going to start to see civil unrest in this country. I hate to say that, but I think it's imminently possible."
"And all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?" (Revelation 13:3-5).
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 6/3/2011 11:14 am
In May Rep. Pete Stark (R-CA) introduced the Every Child Deserves a Family Act, which prohibits “discrimination in adoption or foster care placements based on the sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status of any prospective adoptive or foster parent, or the sexual orientation or gender identity of the child involved.” While it is unlikely that the GOP-controlled House would approve the legislation, it is an important step in the fight to ensure that children awaiting adoption or foster care can find homes.
But the “pro-family” Religious Right wants to stop the bill in its tracks.
Focus on the Family along with the Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg attacked the bill, claiming that “children will suffer” if it passes:
“We need to do all we can to encourage successful and innovative partnerships, rather than try to shut agencies out of the process,” said Kelly Rosati, vice president of community outreach at Focus on the Family. “It’s the children who will suffer.”
Sprigg agreed.
“This represents one more case,” he said, “in which we are seeing the rights of adults placed ahead of the best interests of the children.”
Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel even alleged that the legislation is unconstitutional and demonstrates how the “homosexual activist political tsunami destroys everything in its path that is righteous, good and beneficial to society”:
At least one pro-family attorney disagrees with the liberal Democrat from California. "This bill has nothing to do with providing adoptive homes for children in need and has everything to do with shutting down all biblically-sound Christian adoption agencies around the country," contends Matt Barber, vice president of Liberty Counsel Action.
And he argues that the proposal is unconstitutional because it violates the freedom of religion, which is protected by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
"This bill puts the [political] demands of selfish, adult homosexual activists...ahead of the welfare of children and religious liberty, and it must be stopped," Barber adds.
So he decides this is the latest example of how the "homosexual activist political tsunami destroys everything in its path that is righteous, good and beneficial to society." He cites a preponderance of studies that conclusively show children are best served in a home with a mother and a father.
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 5/31/2011 12:01 pm
Last week Bryan Fischer announced his support for laws banning profanity and blasphemy and followed that up over the weekend with a Tweet calling for laws banning fornication and adultery:
And this got me thinking about what life in America would look like if Bryan Fischer got his way:
Muslims would be banned from serving in the armed forces.
Muslims would be banned from immigrating to the United States.
University of Pennsylvania historian Richard Beeman was yesterday’s guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart following an appearance by pseudo-historian David Barton. Beeman, like other real historians, notes that Barton greatly embellishes the religious views of the Founding Fathers and misrepresented the Constitution.
“The Constitution is federally devoid of any mention of religion except for one provision which says there shall be no test for public office or any position of public trust, so the only mention of religion is keep religion out of our government,” Beeman says, and “the debate in the [constitutional] Convention is virtually devoid” of religious references. Barton, on the other hand, made this pathetic case that the Constitution incorporates the Bible.
During part II of the interview with Beeman, Stewart noted that while Barton told him that he was OK with Sharia law in the US, he would likely make the opposite case to his conservative supporters.
Such dishonest actions reflect the fact that Barton is a political activist, not a historian -- he even was paid by the Republican National Committee to mobilize church groups to support President Bush’s reelection and Republican candidates. As Kyle notes, even his documentary on African American history is brazenly partisan.
Towards the very end of the televised portion of David Barton’s interview on The Daily Show, Barton said that one of the cases he “did at the US Supreme Court was rabbi Leslie Gutterman was asked in Providence Rhode Island to give a prayer at a graduation, and he wasn’t allowed to, now tell me how “Congress should make no law’ means that a rabbi cant say the word ‘God’ at a prayer.” He claims that this poses that the first Amendment is misused by putting a restriction on individuals, rather than government.
He referred to the case of a Rhode Island rabbi who was invited to deliver a prayer at a public school graduation to demonstrate that the Constitution is being misapplied to stifle religious expression. But it was the public school, not the rabbi (Gutterman), that was the defendant in the Supreme Court case Lee v. Weisman. Robert Lee was the principal of the school who invited the rabbi and Daniel Weisman’s daughter was the graduating student at the school who objected to the prayer service.
In the following section, that was posted only online, Barton dismisses fears that people could be coerced into prayer in schools, saying, “there’s coercion, you have to pull on your big boy pants and do something” and “look at all the pressure that goes to school anyway, there’s drugs and everything else and we don’t rule that unconstitutional.”
Barton misconstrues the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which is incorporated to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment (see Everson and Cantwell), and calls the ruling a “pretty strange parsing of the Constitution” and places a “restriction on the rights of people to say the word God in public.”
As Justice Kennedy writes in the majority opinion, which decided that the school is barred from holding a prayer service during the graduation ceremony, the First Amendment has been interpreted to prevent the government from sanctioning or endorsing religion:
The First Amendment’s Religion Clauses mean that religious beliefs and religious expression are too precious to be either proscribed or prescribed by the State. The design of the Constitution is that preservation and transmission of religious beliefs and worship is a responsibility and a choice committed to the private sphere, which itself is promised freedom to pursue that mission. It must not be forgotten, then, that, while concern must be given to define the protection granted to an objector or a dissenting nonbeliever, these same Clauses exist to protect religion from government interference.
As Stewart notes, Barton completely neglects the rights of the students whose beliefs are compromised by the school-sanctioned prayer by putting the burden on the student to just put up with it. Kennedy writes that such thinking “turns conventional First Amendment analysis on its head. It is a tenet of the First Amendment that the State cannot require one of its citizens to forfeit his or her rights and benefits as the price of resisting conformance to state-sponsored religious practice.”
Barton grounds his beliefs that the majority should trump the rights of the minority in his view that the First Amendment actually doesn’t prevent the state from endorsing religion. Lauri Lebo writes in The Devil in Dover that in Barton’s book The Myth of Separation,
Barton argues in his book that the First Amendment only refers to the establishment of a specific Protestant denomination. In other words, Barton claims that Christian founders were saying they couldn’t endorse Lutheranism, for instance, over Presbyterianism. But in Barton’s view, forcing Christian beliefs on the nation’s citizens has always been fair game.
But the drafters actually rejected proposed amendments that only stopped governmental recognition of denominations or sects. Warren Throckmorton, a professor at Grove City College, a Christian school, pointed to James Madison’s speech during the debate over the First Amendment where he makes clear that “Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law” for otherwise they could pass laws that “might infringe the rights of conscience and establish a national religion.”
By ignoring the meaning behind the First Amendment and opposing the First Amendment’s incorporation to the states under the Fourteenth Amendment, Barton pushes a radical version of the Constitution. If “taken to logical conclusion,” Throckmorton notes, “this argument would establish Christianity as the religion of the nation, something the Founders specifically did not do.”
Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Thursday, 5/5/2011 12:10 pm
People For the American Way’s recent report on David Barton was subtitled, “Religious Right ‘Historian’ Hits the Big Time in Tea Party America.” Barton has really hit the big time this week, with a profile in the New York Times and an appearance on “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart’s popular Comedy Central program. Anyone who questions Barton’s facility at manipulating and distorting history should watch him in action, denying reality with a straight face.
In the extended interview available online, Stewart did a good job getting Barton to admit that he doesn’t believe the First Amendment applies to the states, and that he thinks states and localities ought to be able to establish religion. (If you’re a Jewish kid forced to start the day with Christian prayers in your local public school, tough luck. If you don’t like it, move someplace with a Jewish majority.) The good-natured Stewart did not call Barton a liar even when Barton contradicted the facts that Stewart put before him.
RWW will be providing some detailed fact-checking on Barton’s interview, but here’s the big picture:
Barton dramatically downplayed his promotion of his “Christian nation” historical revisionism; he misrepresented his use of Jesus and the Bible to promote right-wing economic policies; and he asserted that he had never had to retract a single thing, which is demonstrably false. Barton also said his critics have never provided documentation of his manipulations, which is laughably untrue. Our recent report cited a number of historians critiquing his claims and linked to very detailed refutations, some of which Stewart asked him about directly. Barton has admitted that a number of alleged quotations from the founders that he used to promote are inaccurate or non-confirmable from original documents.
Barton also distorted his use of the Bible to support right-wing economics. When Stewart questioned him about using the Bible that way, Barton suggested that in a particular speech he was simply citing historical documents referencing a 1765 sermon. In fact, Barton has repeatedly claimed a biblical basis for right-wing views on progressive taxation in speeches and broadcasts and on his own website. Among his targets: the capital gains tax, the inheritance tax, minimum wages, and “socialist union kind of stuff.” His use of the Bible to promote his take on taxes and labor relations is no more trustworthy than his use of historical documents.
Perhaps the scariest claim Barton made, if it were true, is that he secretly edited the nation’s best selling public school textbook but kept his name off of it to avoid controversy. Let’s hope that claim is about as accurate as many others he made on Stewart’s show.
UPDATE: Chris Rodda, who challenges Barton's scholarship by examining the historical documents he says support his claims, has responded to Barton's latest distortions by offering her book, Liars for Jesus, for free as a download.
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 4/14/2011 4:16 pm
We already know that Liberty Counsel, like other Religious Right groups, zealously opposes programs designed to stop bullying if they include bullying based on sexual orientation. Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs with Liberty Counsel, decried such anti-bullying programs as a “homo-fascist tactic” and a “‘Trojan Horse’ strategy,” saying that high suicide rates among gay and lesbian youth is because “kids who are engaging in homosexual behavior often look inward and know that what they are doing is unnatural, is wrong, is immoral, and so they become depressed and the instances of suicide can rise there as well.” Liberty Counsel’s Public Policy Analyst Shawn Akers dubbed bullying-prevention initiatives as “a form of indoctrination and reeducation that smacks of socialist and communist countries.”
Now, the group’s founder Mat Staver is deriding tomorrow’s Day of Silence for allegedly propagating a “radical sexualized agenda.” Like the American Family Association, Liberty Counsel is urging a boycott. The Day of Silence is an event where students take a vow of silence to show their solidarity with children who are bullied, harassed or attacked due to their sexual orientation, but Liberty Counsel claims that it is “not protected under the First Amendment” and part of the “homosexual and transsexual promotion agenda.” In another attempt by far-right groups to play the victim, Liberty Counsel claims that the Day of Silence makes students “feel like outsiders” and pushes “intolerance” by protesting the marginalization and bullying of gay students.
Parents and students will protest the so-called “Day of Silence” agenda tomorrow. Last year, some parents chose to withdraw their children from any school that promotes the Day of Silence. The Day of Silence is a project of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which promotes a radical sexualized agenda, including the promotion of books that encourage sex between adults and minors.
Parents are encouraged to call the schools their children attend and tell them the reason their children will not be attending. School administrators usually listen, because the school loses money for each absence.
The Day of Silence has been turned into a homosexual and transsexual promotion agenda. Neither students nor public school teachers or staff should be forced to promote homosexual behavior.
School teachers should be aware that students do not have the right to remain silent when they are called upon by teachers. Conduct on the part of a student that causes a substantial disruption or material interference with school activities is not protected under the First Amendment. Students cannot learn if they refuse to participate in class, and they harm other students’ experience by not contributing to a dialogue of learning.
School administrators do not have to promote the Day of Silence. In those states that require abstinence instruction, schools do not have to recognize clubs that promote sexual activities.
Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, said, “The Day of Silence is not about tolerance or bullying. It is about pushing a sexual agenda. Students and staff who disagree with a radical sexualized agenda are demonized and made to feel like outsiders. Children should be afforded a rigorous education opportunity and not be forced to accept a radical sexualized agenda subsidized with tax dollars. Parents and lawmakers should take the time to learn about the extreme views of GLSEN and the intolerance promoted by the Day of Silence.”
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 4/8/2011 1:19 pm
The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer is doubling-down on his view that the U.S. should ban Muslim immigration, and on Wednesday he called Muslim immigrants a “toxic cancer.” Fischer, who believes that the First Amendment doesn’t apply to Muslims, now claims that the U.S. should use the Book of Numbers when establishing its immigration policy and that Muslims should “be prepared to drop his Islam and his Qur’an at Ellis Island.” According to Fischer, all new immigrants must “convert to Christianity” or “stay home”:
Allowing Muslims to immigrate into the United States, a Christian nation by origin, history and tradition, without insisting that they drop their allegiance to Allah, Muhammad, the Qur’an, and sharia law, is to commit cultural suicide. We believe in freedom of religion for Muslims like we do for everybody else. But if they insist on clinging to their religion, they will need to exercise their freedom of religion in a Muslim country which shares their values: death for those who leave Islam, the beating of wives by their husbands, and the labeling of Jews as apes and pigs.
Immigration is a privilege, not a right, and our policy should be to admit to our shores only those with a commitment to a full assimilation to American culture, adopting our faith, our heroes, and our history. Someone with a Muslim background who wants to become an American had best be prepared to drop his Islam and his Qur’an at Ellis Island.
…
So ancient Israel offers a paradigm of what a sensible and sane immigration policy looks like. It’s simple: don’t break the law (that is, come in through the front door instead of breaking in through a window), convert to Christianity, fully assimilate (become an authentic American, not a hyphenated American), and support yourself. If you commit to those things, you are welcome here. If you don’t or won’t, perhaps it’s best for you to stay home.
We allow unrestricted Muslim immigration into the United States we are welcoming to our shores, welcoming to our borders, men who are determined to destroy us. They’ve said it themselves, it’s in their own writings, it’s in their own words; they’re out to eliminate and destroy western civilization. It’s just absolute folly to invite that kind of toxic cancer into our culture, but that’s what we’re doing every single day.
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 4/4/2011 12:15 pm
After telling a reporter from Think Progress that he wouldn’t appoint any Muslims to his administration, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has doubled-down on his religious test for public office. Cain told the conservative site NewsMax that his opposition to Muslims serving in government comes fro his belief that “they are not free to infuse their religious beliefs into our laws”:
“They can accuse me of bigoted speech all they want,” Cain counters.
“I want people committed to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States in my administration. I don’t have the time or the desire to worry about somebody or some faction that wants to impose shariah law on this nation. I believe in American laws in American courts.
“The First Amendment says everybody can practice whatever religion they choose. [Muslims] are free to practice their religion in the United States, just like all other legitimate religions. But they are not free to infuse their religious beliefs into our laws. We don’t do that in the United States, and if I’m president I’m going to work to keep it that way.”
Another likely Republican presidential candidate, Rick Santorum, similarly criticized Muslims for purportedly trying to bring their religious beliefs into politics while at the same time urging Christians to “try and change” laws since “civil laws are supposed to comport with God’s laws.”
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 3/30/2011 11:26 am
Last week, the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer declared that the First Amendment does not apply to Islam and therefore, Muslims have no right to freely practice their religion in this country.
A few days later, Fischer was in Iowa to broadcast his radio program from the Rediscover God in America conference where he lined up an all-star list of guests, including Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, and Haley Barbour.
As such, People For the American Way released open letters to Gingrich, Huckabee, and Barbour, asking them not to give Fischer credibility by appearing on his program or, at the least,to denounce Fischer's bigoted views.
Not surprisingly, our request was roundly ignored.
Yesterday, Fischer dedicated nearly the entirety of his two-hour radio program to railing against Islam and demanding an end to immigration from Muslim nations and a ban on the construction of mosques in America. So I edited down the audio of his rant and decided to merge it was photos of these GOP leaders sitting side-by-side with Fischer just last week in order to produce this short video:
This is where George Bush was simply plain wrong: he believed that there's a hunger in every human heart for freedom. Not true. That hunger for freedom does not exist in the Islamic heart. It's not in their DNA. Why? Because the spirit of God is absent in Islam. There is no spirit of God in Islam. It is the spirit of Satan. It is the spirit of darkness. It is the spirit of tyranny. It is the spirit of bondage.
The Quran is based on hallucinations. These hallucinations, I think Mohammad really experienced something, but what he experienced was what Paul refers to as the Angel of Light. This was a messenger of Satan masquerading as a messenger from God. You want to see what a religion looks like when it has been revealed by the Prince of Darkness, you look at Islam and the Quran.
From now on, no more immigrants from Islamic countries. Can't have it. It's going to corrode western culture. No more mosques because these are places of subversion, places where Sharia law, places where jihad is inculcated, where it is taught and where they are recruits made for jihad.
The First Amendment of the Constitution provides no specific protection for the free exercise of the Islamic faith. So that's a matter of courtesy. They behave themselves, we're glad to give them the opportunity to exercise their religious faith. but they've got to behave themselves. They start becoming subversive, they start releasing a toxic ideology into our culture, then we have the right to do something about that.
Congress can say 'no more Muslim immigrants to the United States.' They have the constitutional authority to do that. So that's one part of a solution. Congress exercising its constitutional authority to control immigration by restricting immigration from Muslim countries. Then, they could - a state could pass a law prohibiting the building of any more mosques in their state. They could do that, would not be in violation of the federal Constitution. And then state and local governments have the authority to refuse permits to the building of mosques. They can do that. So those are the things that we need to do to stop the spread of Islamization in America.
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Saturday 10/08/2011, 11:15am
Earlier today at the Values Voter Summit Bill Bennett called on speakers not to "give voice to bigotry," Bryan Fischer however did not get the memo. As part of a much longer speech against the supposed "threat" of "the homosexual agenda," Fischer said that "we must choose as a nation between homosexuality and liberty, because we cannot have both."
Watch:
Fischer: I believe we need a president who understands that just as Islam represents the greatest long term threat to our liberty so the homosexual agenda represents the greatest immediate threat... MORE
Earlier this week, we here at People For the American Way called on the Republican presidential hopefuls who are scheduled to speak at the upcoming Values Voter Summit to denounce the unmitigated bigotry of the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer.
We singled out Mitt Romney because he is scheduled to speak directly before Fischer on Saturday and Fischer has recently begun asserting that the First Amendment does not apply to any "non-Christian religions," including Mormonism.
Given that Romney is going to be directly preceding Fischer on stage at the Values Voter... MORE
SUBMITTED BY: Miranda Blue, Wednesday 10/05/2011, 11:20am
This weekend, nearly every major GOP presidential candidate, along with the top two Republicans in the House of Representatives, will speak at the Values Voter Summit, an annual gathering of the leaders of the movement to integrate fundamentalist Christianity and American politics.
The candidates – Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich – and the congressmen – House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor – will join a who’s who of the far Right at the event. The organizers of... MORE
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Monday 10/03/2011, 10:38am
On Friday, Rachel Maddow reproached Republican presidential candidates for planning to appear alongside American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer at the upcoming Values Voter Summit. Maddow pointed out that Fischer, along with being “outlandishly all caps bigoted against every other group in America that you can think of” with his anti-gay, anti-Muslim and anti-Native American rhetoric, believes that the First Amendment does not apply to Mormons, which makes it “particularly awkward” that Mitt Romney, a Mormon, is speaking immediately before Fischer at the... MORE
As mentioned in our earlier post, we are once again asking Republican leaders who will be attending the upcoming Values Voter Summit to denounce Bryan Fischer's long history of unmitigated bigotry. This time we are focusing on Mitt Romney because, according to the conference schedule, he will be speaking immediately before Fischer on Saturday morning.
Our efforts in the past to get someone, anyone within the GOP or Religious Right to condemn Fischer's relentless bigotry have not amounted to much, mainly because nobody within the movement seems to be particularly bothered by it, which is... MORE
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Thursday 09/29/2011, 10:27am
We reported yesterday that American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer will not only be speaking at the upcoming Values Voter Summit but will immediately follow Mitt Romney. Today, People For the American Way released a statement urging Romney and fellow Republican presidential candidates Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain and Rick Santorum to condemn Fischer’s unmitigated bigotry rather than lending it legitimacy by appearing with him:
• Fischer, the chief spokesman for the AFA, has insisted that American Muslims have no First Amendment... MORE
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Monday 09/26/2011, 11:14am
This November a coalition of anti-Muslim and Religious Right groups are hosting “The Constitution or Sharia—Preserving Freedom Conference” in Nashville, Tennessee, dubbed “the first national conference on Sharia and the Islamization of America.” The location does not seem to be coincidental: the Tennessee legislature recently weighed a bill that would make it a felony to follow Sharia law and the town of Murfreesboro, just south of Nashville, has witnessed vicious anti-Muslim attacks and arson against a planned mosque. A lawsuit against the mosque declared that... MORE
