religious discrimination

Following Herman Cain’s meeting with a Muslim-American group where he distanced himself from his vitriolic rhetoric directed towards their community, anti-Muslim activists immediately denounced him. Now, Pamela Geller of Stop Islamization of America has a new column in WorldNetDaily skewering Cain for having “apologized for speaking the truth.” Previously, Cain said that he wouldn’t appoint any Muslim-Americans to his administration and that communities have a right to ban the construction of mosques.

The Justice Department observes “a steady stream of violence and discrimination targeting Muslim, Arab, Sikh and South Asian communities,” with the St. Louis Beacon reporting that “while Muslims represent less than 1 percent of the U.S. population, officials said about a quarter of religion-related workplace discrimination cases involve Muslims, as well as more than 14 percent of the overall number of federal religious discrimination cases.” But Geller contends that Muslim-Americans actually don’t face any bias in the United States, and Cain’s semi-apology renders him an unacceptable candidate:

"In my own life as a black youth growing up in the segregated South, I understand their frustration with stereotypes. Those in attendance, like most Muslim Americans, are peaceful Muslims and patriotic Americans whose good will is often drowned out by the reprehensible actions of jihadists."

So said presidential candidate Herman Cain, as he apologized for speaking the truth.

He spoke out against Shariah. He said that local people could and should resist the construction of Islamic supremacist mega-mosques. And it's true: It is not an infringement of the freedom of religion to resist a Muslim Brotherhood beachhead in your neighborhood.

…

So we thought Cain knew and understood the jihad threat. But now it turns out that his seemingly strong stance was just knee-jerk political opportunism.

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What Cain doesn't understand is that his lack of spine and political will and conviction has done more to hurt the counter-jihad movement than had he not said anything at all. Muslims like blacks in the segregated South? Please. Muslims face no discrimination in the United States, and black in the segregated South were not plotting terror attacks and boasting about "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within," as a captured internal Muslim Brotherhood document describes its strategy in America.

Who exactly is whispering in his ear? I'd love to know. Who got to him? Obviously, the ADAMS Center connection shows that the Muslim Brotherhood got to him. But it's a good thing we found out how weak he was. Because the only thing Herman Cain had going for him as a candidate was his apparent courage in facing the real enemy within and without. In issuing this apology, he thought he saved his candidacy; in fact, he killed it.

Speaking of David Barton and his anti-gay views, it looks like a few months ago he appeared on Kenneth Copeland's "Believers Voice of Victory" television program where the two had this exchange:

Barton: … those things that are in the moral Law I don’t have to pray about …. I don’t have to pray about homosexuality, He’s condemned that …

Copeland: … [Oral Roberts] he said God has never ever created anybody to be something He has already condemned … He didn’t create anybody a homosexual, because He condemned homosexuals …

Barton: … I gotta jump on this, because I want everybody to know this cause it doesn’t get publizised. This thing about that he didn’t create someone to be a homosexual, what about that homosexual gene … we now have a study out just in the last few months called Ex-Gays … it documents authoritatively 50,000 cases of people who were homosexuals who no longer were. Now on the secular side they’ve been saying there is nothing you can do about it you were born that way that’s your nature … well if that’s true you can’t have 50,000 ex-gays. I mean that’s like being an ex-black or an ex-white or an ex-whatever. So what’s it has done is science has figured out that God was right. This is not who you are, it’s what you do and you can control what you do. You may not control who you are, you can control what you do … science just got changed this year to match what the Bible’s been telling us all along. And that’s why you always stick with the Bible. Science will catch up with the Bible …

Copeland: … the reason God condemned homosexuality is because of the severe attack it has on the fabric of the blessing, life, all that God created. He created things, certain things to work certain ways to our advantage, and you break that fabric now it opens you up to all kinds of problems … so He’s not condemning people …

Barton: … in Romans 1:27-32 … not only does God not approve homosexuality, it says He does not approve those who approve homosexuality …

This exchange apparently violated standards in Australia and now Copeland's program has been dropped by the network that had been broadcasting it there:

Pentecostal powerhouse Kenneth Copeland has been a regular God-bothering feature of Network Ten’s overnight infomercial line-up for several years – but the network says it has had to pull the plug on his show Believer’s Voice of Victory after a viewer complained about the host’s homophobia.

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An Australian viewer pointed out that the discussion, which was broadcast around three o’clock in the morning, was offensive and went against the TV Industry Code of Practice.

Ten agreed, as the Code of Practice points out that a broadcast show “should not provoke or perpetuate intense dislike, serious contempt or severe ridicule against a person or group of persons on the grounds of age, colour, gender, national or ethnic origin, disability, race, religion or sexual preference.”

Ten pulled the show, which apparently is still on-air in some Australian regional channels and on PayTV’s Australian Christian Channel.

Kenneth Copeland’s Ministries have labeled Ten’s decision “religious discrimination” and is urging faithful followers to lobby the TV network.

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• Crooks and Liars: N.C. Republican candidate: Feds and BP spilled oil on purpose.
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• Bruce Wilson: Angle's Nevada PAC Promoted Crackpot Conspiracy Theories Attacking Gays, Atheists.

• Carrie Prejean is now suing Miss California USA for libel, public disclosure of private facts, religious discrimination, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
• Jenna Bush gets a new gig - as a correspondent for the Today Show."
• James Traficant is getting out of prison this week.
• NYT: Republican lawmakers in South Carolina are considering asking Gov. Mark Sanford to resign or face likely impeachment as a state investigation continues into his travel records after an extramarital affair.
• Mitch Daniels 2012?
• Ralph Reed traveled to "Iowa to strategize and organize efforts to oppose Obamacare."
• Any bets on whether Sarah Palin backs out of this speaking engagement at the last minute?

When a severe ice storm hit parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky earlier this year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency began coordinating federal assistance to the affected states and making aid available to supplement state and local recovery efforts.

But among the things it wouldn’t do was remove debris from commercial properties because, as FEMA states, “it is assumed and expected that these commercial enterprises retain insurance that can and will cover the cost of debris removal.”

Now an Arkansas church is complaining that FEMA used its parking lot during the recovery efforts but then refused to pick up the debris from its property … and so it has now contacted the Alliance Defense Fund, which is accusing FEMA of religious discrimination:

Following instructions in the local media that all properties should pile their debris by the street for FEMA to pick up, the church piled its debris near the street, but a FEMA supervisor advised the church that FEMA would not be collecting the church’s debris because “churches are considered a commercial business.”  FEMA denied assistance to other churches in the community as well.

“The denial of disaster relief to Southside Community Church constitutes discrimination in its worst form,” the ADF letter states.  “A church is not a ‘commercial business’ but is a vital community partner and participant in disaster relief....  Further, the rationale that a church is a ‘commercial enterprise’ seems to mask the fact that what is really occurring here is religious discrimination....  FEMA is mandated to provide disaster services without discriminating on the grounds of religion.”

FEMA reportedly did not pick up debris from any church which, instead of being taken as a sign of standard policy, is being held up as proof that FEMA is engaging in religious discrimination.  But for its part, FEMA insists it did not use church grounds as a staging area and that the church never requested public assistance with its clean-up efforts:

FEMA spokesman Win Henderson said federal and state government log records show the church was not a FEMA staging area during the debris clean up from the January ice storm.

Also, Henderson said, the church is a private nonprofit organization and did not qualify for debris pick up. In addition, he said, the church did not submit a request for public assistance.

This is yet another example of the tendency I commented on earlier this month, whereby seemingly standard practices, when they happen to inconvenience Christians, become further evidence to the Religious Right that there is a conspiracy afoot to discriminate against them.

We can add Concerned Women for America and Faith 2 Action to our list of right-wing groups seeking to make hay out of the entirely non-controversial provision in the stimulus legislation, as both have had representatives of the Liberty Counsel on their radio programs in recent days to proclaim that the provision will “promote religious discrimination.”

And joining them is Mike Huckabee, who is using the “controversy” to raise money for his Vertical Politics Institute:

The dust is settling on the "bipartisan" stimulus bill and one thing is clear: it is anti-religious … Why would Democrats add this provision about religion into a spending bill that they say is "urgently needed" to help our economy?

The answer is troubling and predictable. For all of the talk about bipartisanship, this Congress is blatantly liberal. Emily's List, radical environmental groups, etc. all have a seat at the decision making table in Washington these days. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are in charge and they are working with an equally "progressive" President Obama (remember his voting record is more liberal than Ted Kennedy!).

Republicans and conservatives must rally against their agenda and propose new ideas ourselves.

This is the opening round of the Democrats' campaign for BIG government. We cannot afford to sit round one out, because if we do, they will only become more emboldened and their grab for power more audacious and damaging to our country and our freedoms.

Please make an immediate contribution of $10 or more today.

And then forward this email to 10 friends. Too much is at stake for Republicans to sit this one out on the sidelines. Your contribution will be invested into our ongoing efforts to educate voters about our ideas.

Interestingly, Huckabee didn’t have much to say about this last week, when the whole farce was rolling along, but now that it is over, he’s using it to raise donations.  

Of course, hopping into the right-wing culture war in order to raise money whenever it suits his needs seems to be standard operating procedure for him.

As we reported last night, Sen. DeMint's effort to get a supposedly "anti-Christian" provision stripped from the stimulus legislation failed by the frightening close margin of 54-43.

As is to be expected, the right-wing groups had been peddling this lie all week are not happy, as David Brody reports:

The Traditional Values Coalition just issued this statement:

“Democrats showed their anti-Christian bias by rejecting South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint’s amendment that would have protected religious freedom in colleges and universities receiving federal funds,” said Traditional Values Coalition Executive Director, Andrea Lafferty today. “DeMint’s amendment simply struck the anti-Christian discrimination section from the bill.

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“This is just the beginning of aggressive anti-Christian bigotry that we will see over the next four years,” said Lafferty. “We suffered a significant defeat to our First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom and free speech today.”

The ACLJ, which was responsible for unleashing this absurd fabrication in the first place, is standing by its erroneous position and threatening to sue if this provision gets signed into law:

This is a very disappointing development. What’s most troubling is the fact that a majority of the Senate supports a discriminatory provision that prohibits religious activity from taking place in college and university facilities nationwide that take federal stimulus funds. If this language remains in the stimulus package that’s ultimately approved by Congress, we will challenge this provision in federal court by filing suit. This provision has nothing to do with economic stimulus and everything to do with religious discrimination.

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The fact is that unless this provision is removed from the final stimulus package, we'll be in federal court challenging this discriminatory measure.

We wish you the best of luck with that, ACLJ.

Which brings me to my final point.  I'm not in the habit of writing posts that revolve around comments left on blogs - especially comments left on Red State - but today I am making an exception.  Earlier this week, Erick Erickson wrote a post that made many of the false claims we have been systematically rebutting throughout the week.  A commentator there, going by the name PD, weighed in to point out that the language in this legislation is standard boilerplate legislative language.  Another commentator responded that, if the language was so common, why didn't PD provide other examples, to which PD responded with this:

Funds appropriated under a certain higher education grant program “may not be used…for a school or department of divinity or any religious worship or sectarian activity”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode20/usc_sec_20_00001068—e000-.html

Funds appropriated under another program “may not be used…for a school or department of divinity or any religious worship or sectarian activity”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode20/usc_sec_20_00001103—e000-.html

Limitation contained in program to help historically black institutions: “No grant may be made under this chapter for any educational program, activity, or service related to sectarian instruction or religious worship, or provided by a school or department of divinity.”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode20/usc_sec_20_00001062—-000-.html

Grants for work-study programs may “not involve the construction, operation, or maintenance of so much of any facility as is used or is to be used for sectarian instruction or as a place for religious worship”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00002753—-000-.html

Money used under a specific community development program subject to limitation that “no participant will be employed on projects involving political parties, or the construction, operation, or maintenance of so much of any facility as is used or to be used for sectarian instruction or as a place for religious worship”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00009807—-000-.html

Aid under program providing grants for volunteer service projects may not be used for ” projects involving the construction, operation, or maintenance of so much of any facility used or to be used for sectarian instruction or as a place for religious worship.”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00005001—-000-.html

Energy resource graduate fellowships “shall be awarded under this subchapter for study at a school or department of divinity.”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode30/usc_sec_30_00001325—-000-.html

Religious organizations participating in the “Community Schools Youth Services and Supervision Grant Program Act of 1994″ “shall not provide any sectarian instruction or sectarian worship in connection with an activity funded under this subchapter.”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/search/display.html?terms=sectarian&url=/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00013791—-000-.html

Funds used under grant program for tribally controlled schools “shall not be used in connection with religious worship or sectarian instruction.”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode25/usc_sec_25_00001803—-000-.html

Another construction program: “Participants shall not be employed under this chapter to carry out the construction, operation, or maintenance of any part of any facility that is used or to be used for sectarian instruction or as a place for religious worship (except with respect to the maintenance of a facility that is not primarily or inherently devoted to sectarian instruction or religious worship, in a case in which the organization operating the facility is part of a program or activity providing services to participants).”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode29/usc_sec_29_00002938—-000-.html

Etc., etc., etc., etc.

Well done, PD.  And do you supposed the ACLJ intends to file suit against all of these laws as well? 

In February, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales unveiled what he called the First Freedom Project, to expand on the Justice Department’s “extensive record of achievement” in the area of “religious freedom laws.” Gonzales described the department’s work on religion as “a legacy of protection unequaled since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” Even more remarkable than that startling comparison, however, was Gonzales’s choice of venue: a meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee. According to the Baptist Press, Gonzales requested to speak at the meeting “because he knew he would be speaking to a receptive audience.” Indeed, the famously right-wing SBC has been a strong supporter of the Bush administration, including its judicial nominees.

The Religious Right saw the Justice Department’s new focus as a validation of its world-view of Christians being persecuted in the U.S.: “The fact that the Justice Department finds it necessary to launch such a project further confirms what we’ve been aware of for years: our nation’s First Liberty--religious freedom--is in serious danger because of decades of sustained attacks by the ACLU and its allies,” said Alan Sears, president of the Alliance Defense Fund.

Now the New York Times is reporting that the department’s emphasis on religious liberty is part of its controversial reorganization under the Bush Administration that has led to a diminished role for traditional civil rights enforcement based on racial discrimination and voter suppression, and a more ideological and politicized staff, such as Monica Goodling, a graduate of Pat Robertson’s law school.

The shift at the Justice Department has significantly altered the government’s civil rights mission, said Brian K. Landsberg, a law professor at the University of the Pacific and a former Justice Department lawyer under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

“Not until recently has anyone in the department considered religious discrimination such a high priority,” Professor Landsberg said. “No one had ever considered it to be of the same magnitude as race or national origin.” …

Some critics say that many of the Justice Department’s religious-oriented initiatives are outside its mandate from Congress. While statutes prohibit religious discrimination in areas like employment and housing, no laws address some of the issues in which the department has become involved. … The department has … challenged so-called Blaine amendments, which are state constitutional provisions enforcing separation of church and state more rigidly than does the United States Constitution. The federal government sued because the amendments could impede Mr. Bush’s religion-based initiative, which provides money to religious groups for social programs.