Hate Speech

PFAW, Fischer React To Mitt Romney

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Saturday, 10/8/2011 2:11 pm

People For the American Way repeatedly called on Mitt Romney this week to denounce Bryan Fischer, the radical American Family Association spokesman who immediately followed Romney at the Values Voter Summit and whose relentless bigotry has been thoroughly chronicled here at PFAW's Right Wing Watch. Romney did in fact use the opportunity to put at least a little distance between himself and Fischer:

People For the American Way president Michael Keegan said in a statement:

“Mitt Romney clearly realized that his presidential campaign couldn’t ignore the bigotry of Bryan Fischer and the American Family Association,” said Michael Keegan, President of People For the American Way . “I’m glad that he saw fit to put at least a small distance between himself and the hate speech regularly pushed by Fischer, even if he couldn’t bring himself to call Fischer out by name. Since he began running for President, Mitt Romney has bent over backwards in a desperate attempt to make himself palatable to the extreme right. At least we’ve seen that there are some things he’s willing to speak out against, no matter how tepid his condemnation may be. It’s disappointing that none of the other candidates have been willing to go even that far.”

Naturally, Fischer did not take kindly to Romney's subtle rebuke. Fischer called out People For the American Way, along with The New York Times and the Southern Poverty Law Center, and slammed Romney as "tasteless and tawdry." Watch Fischer's reaction in a video captured by Think Progress:

Who’s Who at the Values Voter Summit 2011

Submitted by Miranda Blue on Wednesday, 10/5/2011 11:20 am

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 the Values Voter Summit and many of its prominent attendees are on the frontlines of removing hard-won rights for gay and lesbian Americans, restricting women’s access to reproductive healthcare, undermining the free exercise rights of non-Christian religions and breaking down the wall of separation between church and state.

In perhaps the starkest illustration of how far even mainstream Republican candidates are willing to go to appease the Religious Right, Mitt Romney is scheduled to speak immediately before the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer, a man whose record of hate speech should be shocking by any standard. Along with regularly denigrating gays and lesbians, Muslims, and other minority groups, Fischer has no love for Romney’s Mormon faith. In a radio program last week, Fischer insisted that Mormons have no right to religious freedom under the First Amendment and falsely claimed that the LDS Church still sanctions polygamy.

People For the American Way has called on GOP presidential candidates appearing at the conference to denounce Fischer’s bigotry. Last year, PFAW issued a similar call to attendees, which was met with silence.

The following is a guide to some of the individuals with whom the leaders of the GOP will be rubbing shoulders at the Values Voter Summit this year.

Bryan Fischer

Bryan Fischer is the Director of Issues Analysis at the American Family Association, which is a sponsor of the Values Voter Summit. Fischer acts as the chief spokesman for the group and also hosts its flagship radio program, Focal Point, on which he has interviewed a number of prominent figures including Bachmann, Gingrich, Santorum and Mike Huckabee.

On his radio program and in blog posts, Fischer frequently expresses unmitigated bigotry toward a number of minority groups, including gays and lesbians, Muslim Americans, Native Americans, low-income African Americans and Mormons.

Fischer has:

At a speech at last year’s Values Voter Summit, Fischer said that if Christians don’t get involved in politics, they “make a deliberate decision to turn over the running of the United States government to atheists and pagans.” Of the gay rights movement, he warned, “We are going to have to choose, as a nation, between the homosexual agenda and freedom, because the two cannot coexist.”

Tony Perkins

Tony Perkins is president of the Family Research Council, the main organizer of this weekend’s summit. Perkins leads the group’s efforts against gay rights, abortion rights and church/state separation.

The FRC famously expressed its hostility to religious pluralism in a 2000 statement blasting a Hindu priest who was invited to give an opening prayer in Congress: "[W]hile it is true that the United States of America was founded on the sacred principle of religious freedom for all, that liberty was never intended to exalt other religions to the level that Christianity holds in our country's heritage…. Our Founders … would have found utterly incredible the idea that all religions, including paganism, be treated with equal deference."

The FRC has one of the most anti-gay platforms of any major political organization, including expressions of support for the criminalization of homosexuality. Earlier this year, the group called on members to pray for the continuation of Malawi’s law prohibiting homosexuality , under which a gay couple was sentenced to fourteen years in jail. Senior fellow Peter Sprigg said he would “much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society.”

Perkins himself frequently reflects the extreme views of his organization. He:

At last year’s Values Voter Summit, Perkins managed to simultaneously insult U.S. servicemembers and several important U.S. allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying that armies that allow gays and lesbians to serve openly “ participate in parades, they don’t fight wars to keep the world free .”

Mat Staver

Mat Staver is the head of the Liberty University School of Law and its legal affiliate, Liberty Counsel, both sponsors of the Values Voter Summit. Liberty Counsel vehemently opposes rights for gays and lesbians, and in July filed the lawsuit to overturn New York’s Marriage Equality Act . The group’s Director of Cultural Affairs Matt Barber has called marriage equality “ rebellion against God” and said LGBT youth are more likely to commit suicide because they know “ what they are doing is unnatural, is wrong, [and] is immoral .” Barber has also described liberalism as “hatred for God” and said the president and Democrats “are anti-God.” In fact, Liberty Counsel claimed that Obama is “ pushing America to move under the curse ” of God and “ jeopardizing our nation” for purportedly not supporting Israel.

Through his role at Liberty Counsel and on his radio program Faith & Freedom, Staver has:

Staver aggressively promotes “ex-gay” reparative therapy and warns that gays and lesbians are “ intent on trampling upon the fundamental freedoms ” of others. He is also closely linked to the saga of Lisa Miller, a woman represented by Liberty Counsel who kidnapped her daughter and fled to Central America after a court granted custody to her former partner, a lesbian woman. Although Liberty Counsel denies involvement in the kidnapping, earlier this year Miller was reportedly staying at the house of Staver’s administrative assistant’s father in Nicaragua . Staver has also taught the Miller case in his law classes as an example of an instance where “God’s law” preempts “man’s law.”

Jerry Boykin

Retired Army Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin sparked a controversy when, as a high-ranking official in the Bush Defense Department, he framed the War on Terror as a holy war against Islam. He has since built a career as a Religious Right speaker, specializing in anti-Muslim rhetoric and anti-Obama conspiracy theories. Boykin rejects religious freedom for American Muslims, claiming that Islam “is not just a religion, it is a totalitarian way of life.” In an interview with Bryan Fischer, he called for “no mosques in America.”

Boykin is a leading member of the dominionist group The Oak Initiative. In a speech at the group’s conference in April, he declared that George Soros and the Council on Foreign Relations conspired to collapse the U.S. economy in order to help President Obama get elected. Last year, he told the group that President Obama was using his health care reform legislation as a cover to establish a private army of Brownshirts loyal just to him .

Star Parker

Parker is a long-time Religious Right activist who is particularly active in anti-gay and anti-abortion rights work. As Washington, DC was poised to legalize marriage equality, Parker warned that it would lead to more HIV infections in the city, which would “ transform officially into Sodom.” In a recent radio interview with Tony Perkins, Parker mused that black family life was “ more healthy” under slavery than it is today and has accused liberals of treating Justice Clarence Thomas and Gov. Sarah Palin like runaway slaves. She has called legal abortion a “genocide” on par with slavery and the Holocaust.

Ed Vitagliano

As the AFA’s research director, Ed Vitagliano helped co-produce the 2000 anti-gay documentary “It’s Not Gay,” which is riddled with misleading statistics about gays and lesbians and promotes “ex-gay” reparative therapy. The “documentary” starred ex-gay leader Michael Johnston, a self-described “former homosexual,” who was later revealed to have been secretly having sex with other men. Vitagliano’s anti-gay work has continued apace — on the AFA’s radio program this year, Vitagliano argued that gay men are “ abusing the nature of the design of the human body” and said homosexuality is not a “ natural and normal and healthy activity.” Vitagliano also scolded congressman and civil rights hero John Lewis for supporting marriage equality , saying that Lewis “thumbed [his] nose” at God and “needs to go back and read his Bible.”

Bishop Harry Jackson

Jackson, who built his career as an avowed opponent of rights for gays and lesbians, is a regular speaker at Religious Right conferences. He has called for a “SWAT Team” of “Holy Ghost terrorists” to work against hate crimes legislation that protects gays and lesbians, and said that black organizations that support gay rights have “ sold out the black community” and have been “ co-opted by the radical gay movement .” Jackson claims that gay marriage is part of “ a Satanic plot to destroy our seed” and that the larger gay rights movement is “ an insidious intrusion of the Devil.”

Along with his fierce opposition to LGBT rights, Jackson has compared legal abortion to “lynching” and urged the Senate to defeat Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court because she is not a Protestant (Kagan is Jewish). Jackson has even described his political efforts in apocalyptic terms, telling a Religious Right group before the 2010 elections, “God is saying to us ‘I want to pick a fight in which I can wipe out my enemies and cause them to be silenced once and for all.’ This is where America is; if we do not recognize and repent, we are going to see our way of life destroyed as we now know it.”

Lila Rose

Rose is the anti-choice activist responsible for carrying out a deceptive hit job against Planned Parenthood this year. Members of Rose’s group, Live Action, went to Planned Parenthood clinics around the country posing as clients seeking help with a child sex trafficking ring. Planned Parenthood alerted the FBI about the activity, and the one staffer who handled the supposed traffickers inappropriately was promptly fired. Nevertheless, Rose claimed that her hoax proved “beyond a shadow of a doubt that Planned Parenthood intentionally breaks state and federal laws and covers up the abuse of young girls it claims to serve.”

Rose is no newcomer to the Values Voter Summit: in a speech at 2009’s summit, she called for abortions to be performed “in the public square.”

Glenn Beck

Until Beck’s Fox News program was canceled earlier this year, he was one of the Right’s most visible fear-mongers and conspiracy theorists. When his violent rhetoric inspired some real threats against progressive leaders, he laughed off the critics who urged him to choose his words more responsibly. Beck’s elaborate conspiracy theories include the idea that socialists and Islamists were planning a global caliphate, with the help of American progressives; an obsession with the progressive funder George Soros, at whom he leveled a number of anti-Semitic smears including a personal attack that the Anti-Defamation league called “horrific”; and a distrust of President Obama, who he once said was “racist” with a “ deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture .”

On air, Beck joked about killing prominent progressives (for instance, poisoning Nancy Pelosi’s wine), but frequently insisted that it is progressives who were urging violence, even predicting his own martyrdom. In one 2010 broadcast, he warned that "anarchists, Marxists, communists, revolutionaries, Maoists" have to "eliminate 10 percent of the U.S. population" in order to "gain control."

After a terrorist in Oslo killed dozens of young members of Norway’s Labor Party at an island summer camp, Beck attacked the victims , comparing the camp to “Hitler Youth” and calling it “disturbing.”

PFAW Urges GOP Candidates To Condemn Fischer

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 9/29/2011 10:27 am

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 rights, has said that Muslims should be banned from the U.S. military, and has called for a ban on the building of new mosques in the U.S.

• Fischer has written that “gay sex is a form of domestic terrorism,” thinks gays and lesbians should be “disqualified from public office,” claims that gays are responsible for the Nazi Party and that gay people today will “do the same thing to you that the Nazis did to their opponents in Nazi Germany.”

• Fischer has insisted that Native Americans are “morally disqualified” from controlling American land and insists that American Indian communities are “mired in poverty and alcoholism” because not all have converted to Christianity.

• He has written that African American welfare recipients “rut like rabbits.”

• Last year, Fischer insulted Medal of Honor winner Sal Giunta, who saved the lives of two fellow soldiers under heavy fire in Afghanistan, saying “we have feminized the Medal of Honor” because "we now award it only for preventing casualties, not for inflicting them."

People For the American Way president Michael Keegan urged Romney and his fellow presidential candidates to denounce Fischer’s bigotry before appearing with him at the event.

“Bryan Fischer’s stunning record of public bigotry would make him a pariah in any sane political movement,” Keegan said. “But his long record of hate speech doesn’t seem to bother the supposed ‘mainstream’ GOP politicians like Mitt Romney and Rick Perry who are sharing the stage with him at an event sponsored by his employer. Candidates don’t have to agree with the views of everyone they appear with – but they should be wary of lending legitimacy to those who peddle hate and fear of their fellow Americans.

“If Mitt Romney wants to appeal to mainstream audiences, he should publicly disassociate himself from Fischer’s bigotry before handing him the podium.”

Author of ‘Anti-Christian’ DHS Report on Right-Wing Extremism is a Conservative, Anti-Choice Gun Owner

Submitted by Miranda Blue on Wednesday, 7/27/2011 11:38 am

The Religious Right loves manufacturing controversies that “prove” the victimization of Christians in the United States. When NBC left the words “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance in the broadcast of a golf tournament, Religious Right groups jumped to proclaim that the network was in the pocket of God-hating liberalism. When an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery included an image of Christ’s suffering made by a gay artist, the Religious Right called it “hate speech” and got the work of art pulled.

Recently, we’ve been reminded of one of these made-up controversies that may have more sinister consequences. In 2009, a Department of Homeland Security report on the threat of violent right-wing extremists was leaked. The report dealt exclusively with violent racist and anti-government groups – your Timothy McVeighs and Hutaree militias – but the Religious Right saw an opportunity to play the victim and do some fundraising. Groups including the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America and the American Center for Law and Justice labeled the report an attack on American Christians, ginned themselves up some allies in Congress, and ultimately got the report pulled. (But not before Liberty Counsel had a chance to print up some “I’m Proud to be a Right Wing Extremist” membership cards).

Now, the main author of the DHS report, who left his job after the fallout from the controversy made it “difficult to get any work accomplished,” is speaking out. Daryl Johnson tells California State University’s Brian Levin that he is a gun-owning, anti-choice Republican Mormon who started work on the report under the Bush Administration. And he’s worried that the manufactured controversy over the report continues to hinder DHS’s ability to combat violent right-wing extremism:

Do you have any political antagonism towards conservatives, military veterans or religious people?
Absolutely not. I am a conservative. I'm married, have children and am a lifetime third generation registered Republican. I have military veterans in my extended family. I'm also a Mormon. I respect people of all faiths. I feel so strongly about our religious freedoms, that I served two years as a missionary for my church.

Would you consider yourself prolife?
Yes. I believe in the sanctity of life including the preborn.

Do you support a broad right to individual gun ownership by competent non-felons?
Yes, I am a gun owner myself and enjoy target shooting and experienced game hunting in my youth.

…

Why interview now?
Obviously, I couldn't discuss this with the media while employed at DHS. It took me a year after leaving to finally decide that this was truly the right thing to do. I also wanted to give DHS adequate time to determine whether or not it wanted to reconstitute the domestic non-Islamic terrorism effort. It never did.
Since Obama took office, there have been nearly twenty extremist rightwing attacks and plots, including the killing of almost a dozen police officers in six separate attacks. There have also been militia plots in places like Alaska and Michigan that targeted government officials such as a judge and police. Package bombs were mailed in the DC area. In recent months we had three sovereign citizen related shootings in Florida, Arizona and Texas.

How many people worked on your team?
Six worked directly for me with two others in support roles.

How many analysts at DHS worked Muslim extremism issues?
A: In 2008, there were close to 40. A year later that number had decreased to around 25. There were additional analysts working other topics such as critical infrastructure, border security and weapons of mass destruction.

How does the threat from radical Muslim extremists in the U.S. compare with that of right wing domestic extremists?
During the past 10 years there have been five successful attacks in the U.S. by Muslim extremists, but in the last three years there have been 20 attacks attributed to domestic right wing extremists and the number of fatalities is about equal between the two. There were more firearms possessed by the Hutaree [an alleged extremist] militia than by all 200 of the Muslim extremists arrested in the U.S. since 9/11.

…

What happened at DHS as a result of the criticism?
My team was dissolved. All training courses and briefings presentations were stopped. DHS leaders made it increasingly difficult to release another report on this topic.
Why would DHS leaders dissolve your team and stop these analytic activities?
The subject had become too politically charged. As a result, DHS leaders adopted a risk adverse approach toward this issue. Perhaps they thought it was a matter of organizational preservation.

Do you think the dissolution of your unit that you discuss has negatively affected State and local law enforcement?
Certainly. There is one less agency to assist state and local law enforcement with this growing and dangerous problem at a time of heightened activity.

Why did you leave DHS?
I could no longer effectively do my job. New processes made it increasingly difficult to get any work accomplished.

Have the conditions which affected your conclusions changed since the report was issued?
No. The factors have remained the same - the economy remains sluggish and uncertain; unemployment hovers around 10 percent nationally; Obama is still President; and the 2010 Census results show a changing demographic in America shifting away from a predominantly Caucasian nation.

Has the leak had a chilling effect on the analyst community?
Within the intelligence community at-large, I don't think so. Inside the Department of Homeland Security, I believe it did. Other DHS analysts saw what happened to us - saw leadership backing away from supporting the report and those responsible for writing it. Many left the agency as a result.

 

James Robison Offers A Helpful Chart On How To "Defeat The Enemy's Plan"

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 7/22/2011 2:21 pm

Televangelist James Robison continues to position himself as a behind-the-scenes leader of the Religious Right’s political planning and mobilization for the upcoming presidential election. Today, Robison posted on his blog a chart from writer Wayne Grudem on how to “defeat the enemy’s plan” (read: Satan's plans) in politics and “fulfill the will of God.”

During our recent Leadership Summit, Wayne Grudem, Ph.D., who is a professor at Phoenix Seminary and a gifted author, began to write what God revealed to him concerning the strategy and effectiveness of the enemy. He outlined the enemy’s tactics and contrasted them with the will of God as it relates to many issues of deep concern to everyone who understands the importance of faith, family and freedom. The information he shared was sobering, but true.

With God’s help, believers can defeat the enemy’s plan. We must join together to see hearts changed and fulfill the will of God. We can and must defeat the enemy’s strategy. Remember, we are not warring against flesh and blood, but against spiritual powers and hidden sinister forces of darkness and deception. Satan is the father of all lies.

Grudem’s chart contrasts “the enemy’s desired result” and “God’s desired result” on issues like evolution and LGBT rights. The chart is extensive, but here are a few examples:

Topic

The enemy’s desired result

Means to reach that end

By contrast: God’s desired result

Life

Death of babies

Abortion

More babies born, not aborted

Sexual morality

Increase in homosexuality

Same-sex marriage laws; hate speech codes

Healthy marriages between 1 man and 1 woman

Sexual morality

Gender identity confusion in children

Teaching in schools that homosexuality is normal

Boys and girls confident and secure in their own distinct gender identities

Moral standards

Moral breakdown of society

Teaching of evolution, with implication that there is no God to whom we are morally accountable; teaching of moral relativism in universities

Belief that all people are accountable to God for their actions; belief in some moral absolutes

Patriotism

 

American citizens ignorant of the goodness and greatness of America; citizens not proud of country, even hating it

 

Revisionist, anti-American teaching of history; obsessive repetition of past American mistakes

 

Renewed patriotism; America’s renewed belief in its own goodness; balanced, truthful emphasis on America’s good actions along with acknowledgment of mistakes

 

Fischer: "We Must Choose Between Homosexuality And Liberty"

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 6/13/2011 10:45 am

As we have noted before, Bryan Fischer has made it his new cause in life to prove that the "number one class of people who are committing hate crimes today are homosexual activists."

And to prove that point, Fischer is now seizing on a story out of South Africa about former Sunday Sun columnist, and current South African ambassador to Uganda, Jon Qwelane being found guilty of hate speech by the Johannesburg Equality Court for a column he wrote back in 2008 entitled "Call Me Names, But Gay Is NOT Okay." 

Qwelane was fined and ordered to apologize ... and now Fischer is using it as proof that "homosexualists are bigots":

For telling the truth about homosexual conduct, Qwelane was convicted of propagating “hatred and harm,” even though he called for no violence whatsoever against gay folk. There was no word about the “hatred and harm” directed against Qwelane for saying something that civilized people have been saying since the dawn of time.

This sorry incident tells us two things: homosexualism will kill free speech, and homosexualists are bigots.

They are hate-mongering bigots who will trample on the free speech and religious liberty rights of any who get in their way. They’ll trample on their unalienable, God-given right to private property by plundering them with fines. And they will trample on their unalienable, God-given right to liberty by throwing them in jail whenever and wherever they can.

Our choice as a culture is clear: we must choose between homosexuality and liberty, because homosexual bigots won’t allow us to have both. As for me and my house, we choose liberty.

Turek: Gays And Radical Muslims Have United To Destroy Western Civilization

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 5/17/2011 10:58 am

Speaking with Bryan Fischer, fellow American Family Radio host Frank Turek argued that gays and Muslim extremists are allied in their plot to destroy America. Turek, the host of CrossExamined and a motivational speaker for businesses, previously joined Tony Perkins, Jerry Boykin and Rick Joyner in announcing a Spartan-like 300 to get more Christians involved in politics.

Turek tells Fischer that “the homosexual community and Muslim community [are] joining together” pass laws banning ‘hate speech’ in America in order to bring about “totalitarianism” by “shutting up the opponents.” Turek says that the two groups are collaborating because “they both hate Western Civilization” and “hate Judeo-Christian natural law values.” Turek’s views appear to reflect a new theme among conservatives like Newt Gingrich and Rep. Louie Gohmert who believe that progressives and radical Muslims are in an anti-American alliance. Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber last month claimed that progressive and radical Muslims are trying to “unite together to destroy Christianity” over their allegedly shared hatred of God.

Watch:


Fischer: Anybody who speaks out against Islam in the United States just gets hammered by voices on the left trying to censor them, silence them, intimidate them, the only thing they are lacking right now is the club of a law that will punish them for telling the truth about Islam.

Turek: Well that’s on the way and I’ve mentioned on my show there are strange bedfellows politically in our country today that is the radical left and the radical right in terms of Islam. You have, for example, the homosexual community and Muslim community joining together to try and call any criticism of their behavior or their religion ‘hate speech’ which would make it illegal, if they could get these laws passed, to criticize homosexuality or to criticize Islam. See it isn’t about truth here, it’s about totalitarianism, it’s about a way to silence the opposition. You can win the debate by just shutting up the opponents here.

So it’s really strange to me how these two disparate groups can be in concert together, maybe it’s because they both hate Western Civilization, maybe it’s because they both hate Judeo-Christian natural law values that our Constitution and particularly our Declaration of Independence were founded on, ‘we hold these truths to be self-evident,’ maybe they just hate that both those groups hate those values so much that they’re in bed together. But I can tell you one thing, if the Muslims ever takeover, the first people they’re going to go after is the folks on the radical left.

Fischer: Centuries of Inbreeding The Reason Muslims Are Stupid

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 5/13/2011 11:49 am

Last year, Bryan Fischer wrote a post asserting that that Muslims are dangerous, violent, and stupid because of centuries of inbreeding ... and that is position he continues to espouse, as he did yesterday on his radio program:

I've talked here before about the consequences in Islamic cultures of inbreeding, because of the practice of marrying first cousins. Now you can get away with that for once or twice, but Muslims have been doing this for fourteen hundred years and because this is what Muhammad did, they always will do this, they will always defend it, they will always practice it. And this kind of inbreeding results in an enormous cost in intellectual capacity, intellectual quotient among the Islamic people. It's just a plain fact. You can't argue with it, it's just simply the truth. And you get hammered for saying it, but that's because the truth has now become hate speech, the truth has now become bigotry.

Donohue: God Doesn't Look Out For Progressive Religions

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 2/16/2011 2:50 pm

Bill Donohue purports to defend religious Americans from anti-Christian and particularly anti-Catholic prejudice, but appears to find no problem with smearing others from Jews and gays and lesbians to victims of child molestation with his own bigoted and inflammatory remarks. The head of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights also relishes another target: people of faith who disagree with his ultraconservative ideology, who he says are “no more Christian than the man in the moon.” Like other Religious Right groups and leaders, Donohue has a long history of criticizing and vilifying progressive Christians, especially progressive Catholics, even though his organization claims to defend the rights of Catholics “to participate in American public life without defamation or discrimination.”

Today, the self-proclaimed adversary of “anti-Christian hate speech” released a statement saying that God doesn’t care about mainline Protestant churches.

Donohue called a recent study showing a decline in attendance rates at mainline Protestant denominations as proof that God is only “looking out for those religions that don’t treat Scripture as if it were a post-modern text to be deconstructed by left-wing ideologues.” According to Donohue:

With the exception of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and to some extent the American Baptist Churches, all the other churches with declining membership hold liberal views on abortion and gay rights. Moreover, the smallest decline among the Baptist churches was registered by the most conservative among them, the Southern Baptist Convention (down .42). By sharp contrast, all the religions that experienced a growth in membership are pro-life and pro-marriage (normatively understood).

In other words, those religions whose teachings on abortion and marriage approximate the views of the New York Times and NPR are in free fall. Looks like God is truly looking out for those religions that don't treat Scripture as if it were a post-modern text to be deconstructed by left-wing ideologues.

Following Donohue’s logic, since the Roman Catholic Church grew by just 0.57% and the Mormon LDS Church attendance rate increased by 1.42%, does that mean that God is looking out for Mormons more than Catholics?

Donohue: God Doesn't Look Out For Progressive Religions

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 2/16/2011 2:50 pm

Bill Donohue purports to defend religious Americans from anti-Christian and particularly anti-Catholic prejudice, but appears to find no problem with smearing others from Jews and gays and lesbians to victims of child molestation with his own bigoted and inflammatory remarks. The head of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights also relishes another target: people of faith who disagree with his ultraconservative ideology, who he says are “no more Christian than the man in the moon.” Like other Religious Right groups and leaders, Donohue has a long history of criticizing and vilifying progressive Christians, especially progressive Catholics, even though his organization claims to defend the rights of Catholics “to participate in American public life without defamation or discrimination.”

Today, the self-proclaimed adversary of “anti-Christian hate speech” released a statement saying that God doesn’t care about mainline Protestant churches.

Donohue called a recent study showing a decline in attendance rates at mainline Protestant denominations as proof that God is only “looking out for those religions that don’t treat Scripture as if it were a post-modern text to be deconstructed by left-wing ideologues.” According to Donohue:

With the exception of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and to some extent the American Baptist Churches, all the other churches with declining membership hold liberal views on abortion and gay rights. Moreover, the smallest decline among the Baptist churches was registered by the most conservative among them, the Southern Baptist Convention (down .42). By sharp contrast, all the religions that experienced a growth in membership are pro-life and pro-marriage (normatively understood).

In other words, those religions whose teachings on abortion and marriage approximate the views of the New York Times and NPR are in free fall. Looks like God is truly looking out for those religions that don't treat Scripture as if it were a post-modern text to be deconstructed by left-wing ideologues.

Following Donohue’s logic, since the Roman Catholic Church grew by just 0.57% and the Mormon LDS Church attendance rate increased by 1.42%, does that mean that God is looking out for Mormons more than Catholics?

Religious Right Slams the Purportedly "Homosexual Message” of Anti-Bullying Efforts in California Schools

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 2/3/2011 11:12 am

With greater awareness among policymakers about the problem of pervasive anti-gay bullying in schools, the Religious Right has stepped-up their efforts to misleadingly label anti-bullying policies as “homosexual propaganda.” Focus on the Family warned of “activists who want to promote homosexuality in kids,” David Barton dismissed accounts of bullying and condemned alleged “homosexual indoctrination,” and the Minnesota Family Council blamed the LGBT community for bullying by endorsing an “unhealthy lifestyle.”

Now, the California Family Council (CFC) is escalating its own attacks against anti-bullying initiatives in schools. The CFC is affiliated with Focus on the Family and was highly involved in the campaign to pass Proposition 8. The CFC is now turning its attention to combating what it calls the new “cause célèbre of homosexual activists,” implementing anti-harassment policies. The CFC’s Rebecca Burgoyne spoke to the American Family Association’s news service OneNewsNow about their work fighting anti-bullying policies under the guise of protecting free speech:

A pro-family activist is taking to task a prominent homosexual-rights group for camouflaging its true agenda behind the banner of "bullying" in public schools.

Rebecca Burgoyne, research analyst with California Family Council, tells OneNewsNow that children across The Golden State are being indoctrinated with a pro-homosexual message. She maintains that the Obama administration and homosexual lobbyists are advancing an agenda that silences religious speech and the rights of parents.

"For many years, maybe a decade or so, gay activists in California have been making a big to-do about 'bullying' because of sexual orientation -- or even perceived sexual orientation," she explains. And the term "bullying," she argues, has become the elementary-level word for "hate speech."

January 24-28 marked "No Name-Calling Week" in public schools across the nation -- a week-long observance designed for fifth- through eighth-grade and sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). While the observance claimed to be a week of educational and creative activities "designed to address bullying and end name-calling of all kinds," Burgoyne explains that the agenda behind it contains a decidedly pro-homosexual slant.

"Nobody wants a child to be bullied," she acknowledges. "Nobody wants a child to [be] hurt. Most people say 'Oh, great! We're teaching our children not to bully each other' -- which is a good thing. But it's being used instead to push the homosexual message."

In an article published on her group's website, Burgoyne notes that a young adult book featured during the week is The Misfits. The book, authored by an open homosexual, normalizes same-sex attraction, one character being an "openly homosexual seventh-grader who sees nothing wrong with being attracted to the boy who sits next to him in class."

The CFC research analyst contends that through such events as "No Name-Calling Week," homosexual activists are seeking to make same-sex attractions acceptable to young children -- while at the same time silencing the voice of other viewpoints.

Religious Right Slams the Purportedly "Homosexual Message” of Anti-Bullying Efforts in California Schools

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 2/3/2011 11:12 am

With greater awareness among policymakers about the problem of pervasive anti-gay bullying in schools, the Religious Right has stepped-up their efforts to misleadingly label anti-bullying policies as “homosexual propaganda.” Focus on the Family warned of “activists who want to promote homosexuality in kids,” David Barton dismissed accounts of bullying and condemned alleged “homosexual indoctrination,” and the Minnesota Family Council blamed the LGBT community for bullying by endorsing an “unhealthy lifestyle.”

Now, the California Family Council (CFC) is escalating its own attacks against anti-bullying initiatives in schools. The CFC is affiliated with Focus on the Family and was highly involved in the campaign to pass Proposition 8. The CFC is now turning its attention to combating what it calls the new “cause célèbre of homosexual activists,” implementing anti-harassment policies. The CFC’s Rebecca Burgoyne spoke to the American Family Association’s news service OneNewsNow about their work fighting anti-bullying policies under the guise of protecting free speech:

A pro-family activist is taking to task a prominent homosexual-rights group for camouflaging its true agenda behind the banner of "bullying" in public schools.

Rebecca Burgoyne, research analyst with California Family Council, tells OneNewsNow that children across The Golden State are being indoctrinated with a pro-homosexual message. She maintains that the Obama administration and homosexual lobbyists are advancing an agenda that silences religious speech and the rights of parents.

"For many years, maybe a decade or so, gay activists in California have been making a big to-do about 'bullying' because of sexual orientation -- or even perceived sexual orientation," she explains. And the term "bullying," she argues, has become the elementary-level word for "hate speech."

January 24-28 marked "No Name-Calling Week" in public schools across the nation -- a week-long observance designed for fifth- through eighth-grade and sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). While the observance claimed to be a week of educational and creative activities "designed to address bullying and end name-calling of all kinds," Burgoyne explains that the agenda behind it contains a decidedly pro-homosexual slant.

"Nobody wants a child to be bullied," she acknowledges. "Nobody wants a child to [be] hurt. Most people say 'Oh, great! We're teaching our children not to bully each other' -- which is a good thing. But it's being used instead to push the homosexual message."

In an article published on her group's website, Burgoyne notes that a young adult book featured during the week is The Misfits. The book, authored by an open homosexual, normalizes same-sex attraction, one character being an "openly homosexual seventh-grader who sees nothing wrong with being attracted to the boy who sits next to him in class."

The CFC research analyst contends that through such events as "No Name-Calling Week," homosexual activists are seeking to make same-sex attractions acceptable to young children -- while at the same time silencing the voice of other viewpoints.

AFA's Professional Name-Caller Accuses SPLC of Name-Calling

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 11/29/2010 3:07 pm

As we noted earlier, the Religious Right is uniformly livid with the Southern Poverty Law Center's updated list of anti-gay hate groups and seems to be struggling to come up with coherent response as demonstrated by this Concerned Women for America statement which basically accuses the SPLC of calling African Americans bigots:

Concerned Women for America, among several other pro-family, pro-life national groups, has been named a “hate group” by The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) because of our opposition to same-sex “marriage.”

The SPLC began as a civil rights organization in the 1960s, but has been marginalized by “gay rights” organizations. They no longer simply focus on the noble cause of fighting racism and have, instead, become another tool for the left. This time, the SPLC has taken their liberal propaganda too far. By demonizing traditional family groups that support traditional marriage, they just put a huge portion of the African-American community in California in the same category with the rest us so-called bigots.

According to an Associated Press exit poll, 70 percent of African-Americans in California who voted for Barack Obama also voted for Prop 8 and in support of traditional marriage in 2008. The very people the SPLC supposedly seeks to protect from bigotry and “hate crimes” are heavily in favor of the very institution that the SPLC is fighting against.

And the AFA's Bryan Fischer has also decided to weigh in, trotting out his now standard "truth has become hate speech" line as he unveils his own convoluted response:

The Southern Poverty Law Center last week added five members to its list of “hate” groups, one of which is the American Family Association.

This illustrates one point and proves another. The point it illustrates is that the first and last refuge of a man without an argument is name-calling. If you can’t win on the merits of the case, call your opponent a racist or a bigot or a hater and the debate is supposed to be over at that point. So you know as a matter of fact that the moment someone stops debating and starts name-calling, they’ve lost the argument. It’s an admission of defeat.

...

Thus, in a strange way, it is a badge of honor for these groups to be tagged now by the SPLC as hate groups. It’s a sign of desperation on the part of the SPLC, and a sign that they are so threatened by the truths that these groups speak that they are now flailing about trying to silence them rather than to debate them. They’ve given up winning on points, and so have taken to trying to run them off the field. Their strategy now is not to persuade the public but to demonize their cultural adversaries.

I’ve often maintained that liberals, progressives, Democrats, socialists, Marxists, etc. - they’re all the same under the covers - hate free speech. They hate freedom of religion, and they hate freedom of the press, because such freedoms threaten their stranglehold on public discourse and their goal of indoctrinating the American people with their non-traditional moral values. They hate the First Amendment, for the very reason that it was designed by the Founders to protect robust public discourse on political and social matters.

So, Fischer says name-calling an admission of defeat ... and then proceeds to simply assert that all the Marxists and Socialists on the left just hate free speech and religion and the First Amendment and America in general.

Of course it should also be noted that Fischer's entire professional career is based on calling gays names like nancy-boys and sexual perverts and sexual deviants and pedophiles and domestic terrorists who are part of a "deviancy cabal" who "want to use the anal cavity for sex."

Vander Plaats Tries to Downplay AFA Backing of Iowa For Freedom

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 10/14/2010 10:10 am

Yesterday, religious leaders in Iowa held a press conference to decry the role that the American Family Association in playing in running the Iowa For Freedom effort to remove three Supreme Court justices over their ruling in favor of marriage equality: 

“I believe that as a person of faith I am called on to aide those who are oppressed, abused and bullied — just as Jesus did,” said the Rev. Tom Capo of Peoples Church Unitarian Universalist. “And when I hear any faith-based organization — whether it is called the American Family Association, Iowa for Freedom or IowaPastors.com — that calls basically for revenge against our Iowa Supreme Court justices because these justices made one decision that these groups don’t agree with, a decision to allow one group of people to have the civil rights that they deserve, I wonder if they are considering if they are living loving messages of faith that all the world religious speak of: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Love your neighbor as yourself. Help those in need or in pain. Help those who society shuns. These are the messages of my faith.”

The groups aren’t preaching that message, according to Capo, but are attempting to “manipulate us using fear.”

Rabbi Todd Thalblum, leader of Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, agrees that “the voices of hate are out in force” and encouraged all Americans to return to the country’s “founding principles of equality and respect.”

“We are, each of us, a representation of God on this earth, and this makes us equal,” Thalblum said.

“History has shown us that where ever hate speech has been allowed to fester, violence and aggression are not far behind,” Thalbulum said. “The Jewish people know this all too well as do many, many other minorities both in this country and across the globe. We should never make our decisions based on a rhetoric of hate, rather we should let that what is just and right be our guide.”

Bob Vander Plaats, executive director of Iowa for Freedom, responded by claiming that the AFA was merely one supporter of many:

“The only thing I’m going to denounce is activists judges on the supreme court that’s used to make law, govern law and amend the constitution, and usurp the will of the people, and the will be the message today all the way until November two,” Vander Plaats says.

He says he believes the people of Iowa will have their voice be heard and will vote “No” on the three justices. The Interfaith Alliance says the A-F-A is an “extremist group, with a radical agenda, and a record of hate.” Vander Plaats says the group is one of many supporters of Iowa for Freedom.

He says Newt Gingrich supports the effort, Iowa Congressman Steve King supports the group and Vander Plaats says he’s not going to take credit or responsibility or accountability for any of their comments, nor should they take credit or responsibility or accountability for any of his comments.

But as the Iowa Independent reports, Vander Plaats' claim is complete nonsense: 

But in fact, according to documents filed with the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board, Iowa for Freedom is not a separate entity, but simply the name given to AFA’s Iowa campaign. The group’s attorney told the state, “It is anticipated that all source funds for the Iowa for Freedom will come from AFA directly and that no other individuals or organizations will contribute specifically or directly for the campaign.”

As The Iowa Independent reported Wednesday, AFA has spent about $85,000 in Iowa in hopes of swaying Iowa voters not to retain three state Supreme Court justices that appear on the November ballot. According to Bryan Fischer, AFA’s director of issue analysis for government and public policy, the group will spend $200,000 on the effort.

...

While Vander Plaats downplays AFA’s contribution, AFA has done little, if anything, to hide its involvement with the retention campaign. Each page of the Iowa for Freedom website is marked as being “paid for by AFA Action Inc.,” the political arm of AFA. Advertisements generated by Iowa for Freedom are clearly marked as being “paid for by IowaforFreedom.com, a project of AFA Action Inc.” The West Des Moines address provided below the disclaimer is to a mail box at a UPS Store. In addition, e-mails sent by Vander Plaats on behalf of Iowa for Freedom dating back to August bear a similar disclaimer that the group is a project of the AFA. The website does note that AFA Action is a 501(c)4 organization, and that no contributions are tax-deductible.

PFAW’s Letter to NPR

Submitted by Drew on Friday, 9/17/2010 1:03 pm

Yesterday, Kyle pointed out Bryan Fischer’s appearance on Morning Edition, where he was billed simply as a representative of the American Family Association. If a respected media outlet like NPR is going to give a platform to someone like Fischer, it needs to make clear the long record of hate speech he brings with him. PFAW President Michael B. Keegan reached out to Alicia Shepard, the NPR Ombudsman with this note:

Dear Ms. Shepard:

I was surprised yesterday to hear the voice of Bryan Fischer, Director of Issue Analysis at the American Family Association, on Morning Edition. I wonder if the show's producers knew of Mr. Fischer's record of extremism and hate speech against Muslim Americans and gays and lesbians.

People For the American Way's RightWingWatch.org blog tracks Fischer in his roll as a blogger and radio host for the AFA, where he makes no attempt to disguise his extremism. Just in the past year, Fischer has:

Yesterday, in response to People For's call that GOP leaders distance themselves from Mr. Fischer, he repeated his comparison of gay men to domestic terrorists. On Tuesday, Mr. Fischer defended his call for deporting Muslim Americans, saying "we are doing them a favor by repatriating them to their homeland where an entire nation shares their values."

Of course, Mr. Fischer has the right to air his opinions, no matter how hurtful. However, he should not be given air time by a nonpartisan news organization without some disclosure of his record of hate speech.

I also hope that Mr. Fischer is not, as Morning Edition implied, representative of the Tea Party movement as a whole.

This weekend, he will be appearing this weekend alongside leaders of the Republican Party, including Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, and 2012 presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, and Mike Pence. We have alerted these public figures to Mr. Fischer's record and urged them to denounce Fischer's remarks lest they lend credibility to his extremism.

Similarly, I urge NPR to resist lending credibility to an extremist like Fischer by providing him with a national platform without alerting audiences to his record of vocal bigotry.

Thank you for your time,

Michael B. Keegan

President, People For the American Way

 We’ll keep you posted on the response.

PFAW Sends Letters to GOP Leaders Urging them to Denounce Fischer, Skip Values Voter Summit

Submitted by Miranda Blue on Thursday, 9/16/2010 4:41 pm

People For's President, Michael Keegan, sent the following letter today to Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, all of whom are scheduled to appear this weekend at the Values Voter Summit, alongside the virulantly anti-Muslim and anti-gay Bryan Fischer.

Dear ________:

I am writing to express my concern about your appearance this weekend at the upcoming Values Voter Summit. Among the participants this weekend will be Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association. We urge you to publically denounce Fischer’s record of hate speech and extremism, and reconsider appearing beside him this weekend.

People For’s RightWingWatch.org blog has tracked Fischer’s career over the past several years. His long and prolific record of hate speech and extremism includes the following recent statements. Just in the past year, Fischer has:

I am attaching the names of over 6,500 concerned citizens who have signed the following letter regarding your participation in the summit:

Values Voter Summit Participants:

Reasonable people can, and do, have reasonable differences of opinion. Bryan Fischer, of the American Family Association, is not a reasonable person.

By sharing a stage with Fischer at this year's Values Voter Summit, public figures acknowledge the credibility of his shameless anti-Muslim and anti-gay propaganda. Any candidate thinking seriously of running for president in 2012 should think twice about standing alongside a man who has called for the deportation of all Muslims in America; insulted Muslim servicemembers; claimed that brave Americans died in vain because Iraq was not converted to Christianity; and called gay people deviants, felons, pedophiles and terrorists. Bryan Fischer is no mainstream conservative. And neither is any person who shares a platform with him while refusing to denounce his hate-filled propaganda.

We urge you to denounce Fischer's extremism and separate yourself from his comments.

For more background on Fischer’s extreme rhetoric, please click here.

Fischer’s appearance with conservative leaders such as yourself lends his extreme hate speech credibility. We urge you to publicly denounce Fischer’s record and to think twice about sharing the stage with him.

Sincerely,

Michael B. Keegan
President, People For the American Way

We Rest Our Case: Bryan Fischer Tries to Defend His Bigoted Record

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 9/14/2010 3:27 pm

Today, People For the American Way issued a statement calling out all those conservative leaders who will attending the upcoming Values Voter Summit and sharing the stage with notorious bigot Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association and chronicled the myriad of outrageously offensive things Fischer has said about gays and Muslims and others.

Needless to say, Fischer is not particularly pleased with our statement and dedicated a portion of his radio program today to "defending" himself ... and in doing so, only helped to make our point even clearer.

Fischer took particular exception to our point that "any candidate thinking seriously of running for president in 2012 should think twice about standing alongside a man who has called for the deportation of all Muslims in America," by claiming that he did no such thing (but, of course, he did when he claimed that Muslim citizens were, simply by being virtue of being Muslim, guilty of treason against the US.)

Fischer's "defense" is that he simply wants to deny entry to all Muslims because we are doing them a favor since they could not possibly handle or tolerate our freedoms:

"Any candidate thinking seriously of running for president in 2012 should think twice about standing alongside a man who has called for the deportation of all Muslims in America."

That, as a matter of fact is not true. What I has said is that if Muslims are here and they have citizenship status, we shouldn't do anything to them. They have citizenship status, it might have been a mistake to give it to them, but they have it and we need to respect it because we uphold the rule of law.

What I was talking about is when you have Muslims who are applying for permanent residency, for permanent legal residency, or applying for citizenship, my recommendation is that instead of granting them citizenship, we help them return to their homeland, to their native country, we help repatriate them to their country of origin where they can have the freedom to be Muslims without having to chafe against our religious liberty and our freedom of speech and first-class citizenship status for wives and for women.

This has got to be awkward for them, it's got to be painful for them, it's got to be uncomfortable for them to see so many people enjoying the fruit of Christianity, its liberty and its freedom, its respect for the individual, its respect for the freedom of individuals to think and make decisions for themselves, its got to chew them up because it is so the polar opposite of what Islam is all about.

So I say we are doing them a favor by repatriating them to their homeland where an entire nation shares their values.

We also pointed out that Fischer demanded a ban on Muslims serving in the US military which he "defended" by saying that he was merely telling the truth about how all Muslims are required to kill Christians and Jews:

So if telling the truth about Muslim service-members is an insult, then truth is now the new insult, truth is now the new hate speech.

All I have said about Muslims in the military is that their god commands them to kill us and it does not make sense to me that we would allow people to enlist in the body that is designed to protect our security and enable us to sleep peacefully in our beds at night, we should not invite into our military - the very organization that is supposed to protect us - invite into our military those who have a solemn and sacred obligation to kill us and kill their fellow soldiers.

Finally, Fischer explains that he doesn't "hate" gays or Muslims - he just hates the horrible, empty, disease-filled lives they lead:

 I am pro-gay; I am anti-homosexuality. I am pro-Muslim; I am anti-Islam. 

I am for homosexuals because I want them to be delivered from the bondage and the death sentence of homosexual conduct. So I am against homosexual behavior, I am against homosexual expression, I am against homosexual conduct because I want to see the people that are trapped in that lifestyle, I want to see them set free.

And the same is true when it comes to Islam: I am for Muslims; I am against-Islam. And, as I mentioned before, the primary victims of Islam are Muslims. I mean, it's got to break your heart when you visualize the life that these people lead in Muslim-dominated countries.

There is darkness, there is tyranny, there is repression, there is hatred, there is a complete absence of freedom, a complete absence of liberty, women are second-class citizens, they're considered as property, as chattel who can be beaten by their husbands according to Allah, according to the Holy Quran, according to the Prophet.

I mean the poverty, and the disease, and the emptiness and the sterility of life in a Muslim-dominated land, it ought to break our hearts. And that is why I am against Islam because I see what it does to people, I see what it does to cultures, I see what it does to entire nations when it is allowed to take root and flourish.

So I am pro-Muslims, but anti-Islam. I am pro-homosexual, I am anti-homosexuality. 

Let me point out again that this is Fischer defense against charges of being an anti-gay and anti-Muslim bigot.

So let us ask again why conservative leaders like Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Mike Pence, Bob McDonnell, Newt Gingrich, and Michele Bachmann are so willing to share a stage with this man and attend an event being co-sponsored by the American Family Association, the group that has given Fischer a national platform?

Right Wing Leftovers

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 8/16/2010 5:41 pm
  • The group responsible for last week's ridiculous list of 25 worst Americans in history will now be sponsoring GOProud's Homocon 2010.

  • CBN's David Brody says President Obama's apparent support of the right of Muslims to build a facility near Ground Zero "may be the fatal blow" in making him a one-term president.

  • Remember Steven L. Anderson?

  • For some reason, the LA Times decided to give space to the AFA's Tim Wildmon to complain about the Prop 8 ruling.

  • Mike Huckabee continues to lead in Iowa polls.

  • Charles Colson and the Manhattan Declaration will be featured at the 2010 New Mexico Biblical World View Conference.

  • Finally, the quote of the day from Richard Land, vowing never to give in to gay marriage: “Let me spell it out for you, If they say that telling what the Bible says about homosexuality is hate speech, and cannot be allowed -- we will be arrested in our pulpits. We will obey God rather than man."

Prophecy and Political Update With Cindy Jacobs

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 5/14/2010 2:46 pm

It's been a rather slow news day here, so why not spend ten minutes getting up to speed on the latest prophecies from Cindy Jacobs?

The video is actually dated April 29, but just showed up on the General's International website and in it, Jacobs highlights two prophecies she made recently, the first about the birth of a new island and the second about fire coming from ice.  Both have come true, Jacobs explains, citing some new island forming off of Hawaii and the volcanic explosion in Iceland.

She goes on to prophecy that the upcoming Global Day of Prayer, which coincides with the Day of Pentecost, will lead to news reports all over the world of "great and mighty miracles." In addition, there will be great breakthroughs in fighting human trafficking, as well as earthquakes, flooding, and the bursting of dams as God prepares to show the world that he is in command.

Also, there is going to be some "shaking" along the border between North Korea and China, but she is not sure what exactly:

In other, more straightforward political news, Jacobs and GI want activists to utilize the resources and action steps set out by Faith 2 Action, Gordon Klingenschmitt, and the Family Research Council to urge the Senate to "oppose and filibuster Elena Kagan":

The President's nomination to the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan, is a social liberal with no judicial experience, and she is allegedly a lesbian. Among many other points of concern, Kagan possesses an incredibly hostile view of the military, opposing "don't ask, don't tell", and she endorses presidential control of federal agencies on domestic issues as well as the federal banning of certain books, pamphlets and "hate speech"--a violation of First Amendment rights. For more information:

* Elena Kagan Profile from FRC Action's thecloakroomblog.org
* Roundup of Articles on Kagan from FRC's thecloakroomblog.org

Let us pray that the Senate Judiciary Committee would thoroughly and diligently examine Kagan's qualifications. May the new Supreme Court Justice pick be someone who will uphold righteousness in this Nation. Here are some action steps, outlined by Faith2Action.org, which we can take:

1.The following seven Republicans sadly voted for Kagan in 2009 in the 61-31 vote to confirm her as Solicitor General. Please call each to say "oppose and filibuster Elena Kagan" right away. Let's seize momentum! Kyl (R-AZ, 202-224-4521), Hatch (R-UT, 202-224-5251), Coburn (R-OK, 202-224-5754), Lugar (R-IN, 202-224-4814), Snowe (R-ME, 202-224-5344), Collins (R-ME, 202-224-2523), Gregg (R-NH, 202-224-3324). Also please call new Senator Scott Brown (R-MA, 202-224-4543)

2. Send correspondence to the offices of your Senators.

a. Chaplain Klingenschmitt's Pray in Jesus' Name organization can send a fax petition to all 100 U.S. Senators, or a couple of smaller groups of swing-vote or Judiciary Committee Senators on your behalf, opposing this nomination. Click here for details on sending your petitions.

b. The Family Research Council has also set up a system for sending letters to your Senators in the form of an email or a printed letter. For details, click here.

As for the 2010 U.S. elections, I urge you to take note of who is running in your state at every level, and where they stand on the issues--and vote righteously. We all know that we are seriously reaping from a whole generation of believers, that as a whole, have not paid adequate attention to the election process and, as the Body of Christ in general, have not voted, or have not voted responsibly. Let us be the Salt and Light we are called to be, exercising our right and responsibility to vote with Scriptural convictions. Here is an excellent resource to help you make informed choices.

Barber: Gays Want To Imprison Christians

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 5/12/2010 12:08 pm

When it was first reported that Dale Mcalpine, a Christian street preacher in Britain, was arrested for saying that homosexuality is a sin, you know it was only a matter of time before the Religious Right in the US started using this incident to work up fears about how this is exactly what gays want to do to Christians here in America.

Case in point:

Liberty Counsel Cultural Affairs Analyst Matt Barber raised the warning that such cases will be seen more and more in America, too.

"We know that what's happening in Europe and what's happening in Canada offers us a window into the future of what will happen here in the United States," he said. "The hate crimes laws and employment sexual orientation laws such as ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act here in the United States, have been the precursor to the more oppressive hate speech laws," Barber explained.

"Make no mistake, those laws we have now for hate crimes and the more present danger with ENDA, these laws are the precursor in the U. S. for the same kind of criminalization of Christianity that's happening in the U. K.," Barber said.

...

"Their goal is to silence any dissent and to silence under any penalty of law the Biblical recognition and expression of a traditional Judeo-Christian world view relative to sexual behavior and sexual morality," Barber said.

He warned if unchecked, the radical homosexual lobby will ensure that the U.S. goes the same direction as Britain.

"We've seen the same kind of vague language and loopholes that are used to prosecute Mr. McAlpine in Great Britain show up in laws employed here in the United States to prosecute individuals for non-violent speech, for simply sharing a Biblical world view relative to sexual morality," Barber said.  

This WND article also contains audio of the entire interview with Barber, during which he also claims that after he first learned of this incident, he "started perusing a number of homosexual news sites and homosexual blogs" and found that "the majority of homosexuals and homosexual activists for this same kind of homophobia/hate speech persecution here in the United States" and goes on to say that this is exactly what the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Kevin Jennings, Chai Feldblum want to see happen in this country. 

Syndicate content

Hate Speech Posts Archive

PFAW, Fischer React To Mitt Romney
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Saturday 10/08/2011, 2:11pm
People For the American Way repeatedly called on Mitt Romney this week to denounce Bryan Fischer, the radical American Family Association spokesman who immediately followed Romney at the Values Voter Summit and whose relentless bigotry has been thoroughly chronicled here at PFAW's Right Wing Watch. Romney did in fact use the opportunity to put at least a little distance between himself and Fischer: People For the American Way president Michael Keegan said in a statement: “Mitt Romney clearly realized that his presidential campaign couldn’t ignore the... MORE
Who’s Who at the Values Voter Summit 2011
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
PFAW Urges GOP Candidates To Condemn Fischer
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
Author of ‘Anti-Christian’ DHS Report on Right-Wing Extremism is a Conservative, Anti-Choice Gun Owner
SUBMITTED BY: Miranda Blue, Wednesday 07/27/2011, 11:38am
The Religious Right loves manufacturing controversies that “prove” the victimization of Christians in the United States. When NBC left the words “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance in the broadcast of a golf tournament, Religious Right groups jumped to proclaim that the network was in the pocket of God-hating liberalism. When an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery included an image of Christ’s suffering made by a gay artist, the Religious Right called it “hate speech” and got the work of art pulled. Recently, we’ve been reminded of... MORE
James Robison Offers A Helpful Chart On How To "Defeat The Enemy's Plan"
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Friday 07/22/2011, 2:21pm
Televangelist James Robison continues to position himself as a behind-the-scenes leader of the Religious Right’s political planning and mobilization for the upcoming presidential election. Today, Robison posted on his blog a chart from writer Wayne Grudem on how to “defeat the enemy’s plan” (read: Satan's plans) in politics and “fulfill the will of God.” During our recent Leadership Summit, Wayne Grudem, Ph.D., who is a professor at Phoenix Seminary and a gifted author, began to write what God revealed to him concerning the strategy and effectiveness... MORE
Fischer: "We Must Choose Between Homosexuality And Liberty"
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Monday 06/13/2011, 10:45am
As we have noted before, Bryan Fischer has made it his new cause in life to prove that the "number one class of people who are committing hate crimes today are homosexual activists." And to prove that point, Fischer is now seizing on a story out of South Africa about former Sunday Sun columnist, and current South African ambassador to Uganda, Jon Qwelane being found guilty of hate speech by the Johannesburg Equality Court for a column he wrote back in 2008 entitled "Call Me Names, But Gay Is NOT Okay."  Qwelane was fined and ordered to apologize ... and now Fischer... MORE
Turek: Gays And Radical Muslims Have United To Destroy Western Civilization
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Tuesday 05/17/2011, 10:58am
Speaking with Bryan Fischer, fellow American Family Radio host Frank Turek argued that gays and Muslim extremists are allied in their plot to destroy America. Turek, the host of CrossExamined and a motivational speaker for businesses, previously joined Tony Perkins, Jerry Boykin and Rick Joyner in announcing a Spartan-like 300 to get more Christians involved in politics. Turek tells Fischer that “the homosexual community and Muslim community [are] joining together” pass laws banning ‘hate speech’ in America in order to bring about “totalitarianism” by... MORE