Ohio

Now that Newt Gingrich has launched a presidential exploratory committee, we're going to have to start taking note of the Religious Right leaders with whom he surrounds himself and with whom he meets ... like John Hagee:

Gingrich has at least two trips coming up in Iowa; at both, he will speak to conservative Christian audiences. After speaking at the "Rediscovering God in America" event in Des Moines in late March, Gingrich is expected to travel to San Antonio, where he will speak at the Cornerstone Church, which has a congregation of 19,000.

While there, he is expected to meet with Cornerstone's sometimes-controversial senior pastor, John Hagee. In 2008, Hagee apologized for comments that were considered to be anti-Catholic. Gingrich, who converted to Catholicism two years ago, has been reaching out actively to evangelical pastors for the last two years.

Because that worked out for John McCain so well the last time around.  Maybe after that he can head to Ohio and meet with Rod Parsley.

Yesterday, we noted that Janet Porter of Faith2Action had announced that Ohio's House Health Committee would hold a hearing on her "Heartbeat Bill" which "will feature proponent testimony from the youngest to ever come before the committee--a nine-week old unborn baby."

Today, Porter's stunt was put into action and turned out to be a bust, as the heartbeat of 9-week old fetus was pretty much undetectable:

State lawmakers in Ohio have seen ultrasound images of two fetuses as proponents of what would be the most stringent abortion law in the nation pushed their proposal.

The bill would ban abortions after the first heartbeat can be medically detected.

Two young mothers were given ultrasounds in a packed room at the Statehouse as part of a House committee meeting Wednesday. The heartbeat of a fetus at 15 weeks gestation was easily detected. The heartbeat in a fetus of nine weeks gestation was difficult to detect.

UPDATE: WBNS-10TV has footage from inside the hearing room as the ultrasounds were performed:

When Janet Porter is involved in something, you know it is just a matter of time before it goes completely off the rails.

It happened with her 2007 Values Voter Debate where a choir sang "Why Should God Bless America? " while Religious Right leaders asked questions to empty podiums representing the Republican candidates who skipped the event.

And it happened again with her May Day prayer rally at the Lincoln Memorial which left her facing $70,000 in expenses and cost her her daily radio show.

And so it was only a matter of time before her already bizarre "Heartbeat Bill" activism in Ohio took a turn toward the surreal, with Porter announcing plans to have a fetus "testify" in favor of the legislation:

A fetus has been scheduled as a legislative witness in Ohio on a unique bill that proposes outlawing abortions after the first heartbeat can be medically detected.

Faith2Action, the anti-abortion group that has targeted Ohio to pilot the measure, called the in-utero witness the youngest to ever come before the House Health Committee at 9 weeks old.

Faith2Action president Janet Folger Porter said the intent is to show lawmakers who will be affected by the bill, which abortion rights groups oppose. Ohio Right to Life has not endorsed the measure.

An aide to committee Chairman Lynn Wachtmann said a pregnant woman will be brought before the committee and an ultrasound image of her uterus will be projected onto a screen. The heartbeat of the fetus will be visible in color.

Just allow me to remind everyone that Porter served as the co-chair of Mike Huckabee's Faith and Family Values Coalition when he ran for president. 

Opponents of marriage equality continue to demand that Republicans put up a huge fight against the Obama administration’s decision to stop defending DOMA, and Rep. Steve King (R-IA) is even threatening by tweet that “if President Obama won’t redirect Holder’s DOJ to aggressively defend U.S. DOMA law, I will move aggressively to cut their budget.”

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council is meeting with congressional Republican leaders to plot strategy, and yesterday appeared on Bill Bennett’s “Morning in America” to discuss why he believes the Department of Justice made the decision that DOMA is unconstitutional.

Perkins initially likened Obama to a Middle East dictator for his actions on DOMA:

Perkins: The fact that the president is taking this on and saying, ‘look I don’t care what the Congress said,’ really it’s a challenge to the Congress and their authority as to whether or not who’s going to make the laws of the land. This would be fitting if it were in the Middle East in one of these dictatorships that are falling right now, but this is the United States of America.

Later, Bennett and Perkins agreed that the DOMA decision was a manufactured, “dangerous and destructive distraction” to stop Americans from thinking about Obama’s supposed failure to handle problems in the Middle East and at home:

Bennett: You’re analysis is great, you know I’m always very candid with you Tony, I’m just so baffled by this. I can’t recall a time when there’s been more news in a week, you know, to just list all the countries in the Middle East takes half a segment. Then look what’s going on in Wisconsin, and Ohio, and Indiana, and this situation in Libya where we’re trying to get American citizens on a ferry out of that country. I just am dumbfounded, why they picked this moment to do this.

Perkins: They can’t handle them.

Bennett: Part of leadership is priorities, to pick this moment to attack marriage? Go ahead, instruct me.

Perkins: Look, I mean if you can’t handle those problems and solve them then why not create a domestic distraction?

Bennett: I mean that’s the height of irresponsibility.

Perkins: But I think that’s exactly what it is.

Bennett: This is a distraction, and a dangerous and destructive distraction.

As we have mentioned several times before, John Stemberger of the Florida Family Policy Council, was an early and central player in the Rifqa Bary saga when she turned up in Florida in 2009.  His actions during that case have now resulted in misconduct complaint being filed against him by the Florida Bar as well as a $10 million defamation lawsuit from the attorney who represented Bary's parents.

As such, Stemberger has set up a legal defense fund to cover his mounting legal expenses that has the support of Jerry Bokin, Newt Gingrich, Tony Perkins, Lou Engle and David Barton. 

And today, Barton had Stemberger on his "Wallbuilders Live" radio program where they, along with Rick Green, alleged that the lawsuit and misconduct complaint are an attempt by radical Muslims to destroy anyone who dares to criticize them. [I would like to point out that none of the claims made by Bary about her parents or the claims Stemberger asserts in this interview were ever substantiated by state investigators who examined them]:

Barton: The message is don't talk about us or we'll come after you the same way.

Green: It's an intimidation factor.

Barton: We're showing you what happens to people who talk about us or people who come after us in court - we will make you pay. And they may eventually lose, but that's only if you have enough money to outlast them. And so it really is a bad thing and we've got a good friend of ours on today that's in the middle of one of these things were Islamic groups have come after him because he stood and actually won a court for justice. And because he won, now they are going to make him pay a price.

Stemberger: Well, as your listeners may remember the name Rifqa Bary was a former Muslim teenager who made international headlines in about the summer and fall of 2009 when she ran away from her parents in Ohio to Florida, to a Methodist pastor and his wife after her parents threatened her life for not renouncing her Christian faith.

You know, she knew the repercussions of this so she was very, very careful to be discreet with it. But then when the parents, when the [leaders] of the mosque confronted the parents, that's when they began to blow up and the father specifically threatened her, demanded she denounce her faith, said that "you'll be dead to me" and that, according to her affidavit which is public knowledge, made some really specific threats ... But when they found a book on Esther in her bedroom, that's when they just said "we're going to send you back to Sri Lanka" and she knew she would just be a walking dead girl at that point.

Just weeks after [Rifqa turned 18] the lawyer who opposed Rifqa in court and who represented Rifqa's parents, Mr. Omar Tarazi, whose family has deep ties with CAIR, which is the Council on American Islamic Relations, he filed a grievance against me.

Green: This is their typical game plan. You mentioned CAIR, this is how they strike back, they trump up these kind of things and just give you a barrage of quote "ethical complains" so that you have to spend your time, energy, and money defending those instead of fighting the real fight, right?

Stemberger: Well, there is a clear growing trend of malicious lawsuits and other legal actions which are filed by adherents of radical strains of Islam and they're designed to punish, silence, and to chill legitimate speech and public discourse about Islam.

Barton: That's Islamic lawfare. I mean, they're coming after you to make him an example and say "don't anybody else every try to intervene ..."

Green: Whether they win or lose, they example is made that we're going to cost you money ...

Barton: And if there is every a time to step up and help a brother, this is it. We're not going to bring a BB gun to a tank fight. We're going to show up and we're going to take you toe-to-toe on this thing.

As we have noted several times in recent weeks, Faith 2 Action's Janet Porter has recently resurfaced in her native Ohio and is leading the effort to pass anti-choice legislation called "The Heartbeat Bill."

As part of this push, Porter has organized effort to send red, heart-shaped balloons to state legislators and today they are going to be delivered:

Thousands of shiny red heart-shaped balloons will be delivered to legislators today thanking (nearly half the House members who are co-sponsors) and encouraging the others to "Have a Heart! Support the Heartbeat Bill!" The Heartbeat Bill, which will be introduced this week, will legally protect all human beings in the state whose heartbeat can be heard.

...

Thousands of balloons, sent by residents from all over the state of Ohio and nation, will be delivered today to the 99 state representatives at the Vern Riffe State Office Tower.

"The Heartbeat Bill insures that if a heartbeat is detected, the baby is protected," states Janet (Folger) Porter, the president of Faith2Action and coordinator of bill-related efforts through www.HeartBeatBill.com. "You can help pass what will be the nation's most protective legislation when you go to www.HeartBeatBill.com," added Porter. "We're not going to wait any longer because the time to protect the babies is now."

Last week Porter and other activists, including Phll Burress of Citizens for Community Values, gathered for a press conference in a room filled with these balloons during which Porter reported that she is already getting calls from legislators in Oklahoma, Georgia, Texas, Kansas, and Arizona who are interested in introducing similar bills in their own states:

This is quite a change from Porter's recent activism wtih Cindy Jacobs praying that God will give Christians control over the media and every level of government:

Live Action’s ongoing smear campaign against Planned Parenthood, where actors playing a pimp and a prostitute used hidden cameras to try to dupe clinic staffers into a sex trafficking ring, has ran into numerous hurdles. The radical group’s videos have found to be heavily doctored and actually show clinic workers acting properly and lawfully. In fact, before Live Action even released the edited tapes, Planned Parenthood alerted the FBI about visitors who sought advice for “underage girls who were part of a sex trafficking ring.” Live Action is led by anti-choice radical Lila Rose, who previously collaborated with notorious trickster James O’Keefe and likes to compare herself to Martin Luther King Jr. Rose also has a long history of deceptively editing videos.

But the Religious Right and leading Republicans have increasingly embraced Rose and her hoax videos, and Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) is using the discredited videos to promote his bill that would end federal funding of Planned Parenthood, imperiling women’s health services.

Tomorrow, leading GOP congressmen plan to join Rose and Pence to demand Congress strip Planned Parenthood of its funding. Congressmen Jean Schmidt (R-OH), Virginia Foxx (R-NC) , Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) , Renee Ellmers (R-NC), Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), and Andy Harris (R-MD) will speak with Rose and Pence, along with Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony List and Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America.

All of the Congressmen mentioned have a long history with extreme anti-choice activism:

Schmidt railed against reproductive rights in a speech to 1st graders in an elementary school; Buerkle served as the spokesperson for the extreme group Operation Rescue; Hartzler backed bills that would compel women seeking an abortion to view their sonograms and even supported legislation that would force the state to file murder charges against women and their doctors if they performed a late-term abortion; Foxx wants to ban emergency contraception like RU-486 and Ella; Harris wanted to allow pharmacists to refuse contraception to customers and challenged a moderate pro-choice Republican incumbent in 2008, and Ellmers is an avowed opponent of legal abortion who recently justified receiving taxpayer-subsidized health care by claiming that Washington DC is too expensive to live in with a $174,000 per year salary, while pushing to defund health services for low-income women.

But having such an extreme group of anti-choice congressmen standing with Rose is no surprise, as Rose herself has called for abortions to “be done in the public square.”

With CPAC kicking off tomorrow, Metro Weekly profiles GOProud, the gay conservative group that has set off a culture war within the conservative movement and whose participation in the conference led to a boycott by several Religious Right organizations. 

And while we don't agree with most of GOProud's agenda and believe their sense of smug self-satisfaction is annoying and entirely undeserved, we do whole-heartedly support their effort to drive a deep wedge into the conservative movement in order to marginalize the "nasty, anti-gay bigots" who make up the Religious Right: 

''No, we're not giving cover to bigots," he argues. "What we're doing is separating the people who don't agree with the left-wing agenda from the real bigots. You can be against ENDA and hate crimes and federal safe schools legislation and not be a bigot. If you're Tony Perkins, you're a bigot. You're against all of that stuff not because of any federalist reasons, but actually because you're just a nasty, anti-gay bigot.''

...

''When you demonstrate some common ground, when you say, 'You wanna know what? We actually think that these policies that you support anyway are good for gay people, and here's why,' then all of a sudden they say, 'Well, wait a second, maybe I don't have a problem with gay people. All of these crazy things that we've been told by the Tony Perkinses of the world aren't true. These guys and gals, they're not here trying to snatch my children, they're not here in leather chaps.'''

...

Not everyone agrees with Breitbart and Norquist, even outside of the right-wing anti-gay groups. The Heritage Foundation and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) are the two biggest names to drop out of CPAC based, at least in part, on GOProud's role at the conference.

This is Barron's time to go on the attack.

Of the Heritage Foundation's decision, he says, ''They've chosen to – and it's a mystery to me why – but they've chosen to align themselves with the losers" ...

''Look, Heritage does a lot of good work, and I didn't want – it looks terrible for them, and I didn't want to have them humiliate themselves. But they've seemed hell-bent on it. Their story keeps changing and now we're down to the truth, which is: It was about us. And they've lost donors. They've lost supporters.''

With a nod of agreement from LaSalvia, Barron concludes, ''There's a lot of people in the conservative movement who are looking very differently at the [Heritage Foundation].''

He's singing the same tune when it comes to DeMint, who is joined by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in claiming GOProud as part of his reason for staying away from this weekend's conference.

Of those calling for the boycott, Barron says, ''They're all excited that Jim DeMint is boycotting. And that's fantastic. I'm glad that he's willing to be on the Island of Political Misfit Toys with [World Net Daily's Joseph] Farah and the Concerned Women for America.''

As we have noted in the past, the groups pushing the anti-choice "personhood" amendments all around the country have tended to operate on their own because other established anti-choice groups have refused to support the efforts because a) they are unlikely to pass and b) they are unlikely to survive court challenges.

And despite the fact that the whenever "personhood" has made it onto the ballot, it has failed miserably, organizers continue to press the issue, and are even picking up support for an effort in Mississippi from the American Family Association while Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker is introducing national "personhood" legislation in Congress.

And in Ohio, Janet Porter has resurfaced with her own "personhood"-like legislation called "The Heartbeat Bill." The legislation would ban abortions once a heartbeat is detected and, just like with the various "personhood" efforts, Porter's former colleagues at Ohio Right to Life are refusing to support her measure because it won't stand up in court: 

[T]he so-called “Heartbeat Bill” legislation, which would ban abortion as early as 18 to 24 days after conception, isn’t supported by the Ohio Right to Life Society. That organization is backing a number of other anti-abortion bills, including a ban on late-term abortions after 20 weeks except when necessary to prevent the death of the mother or the irreversible impairment of a major body function.

Mike Gonidakis, the group’s executive director, said the heartbeat legislation would not survive a court challenge. “Despite noble aspirations, there is no scenario under which the heartbeat legislation will be upheld by any court and therefore no lives will be saved by passage of this bill,” Gonidakis said in an e-mail. “Our goal is to protect the lives we can now and that is why we introduced the late-term ban.”

...

Janet Porter, a key backer and a former Ohio Right to Life legislative director, said, “If we never ask, we’re never going to get it.”