Religious Right

Rick Joyner of Morning Star Ministries and the Oak Initiative is warning in his latest prophesy, “America in Crisis,” that the country is facing the treat of tyranny far worse than even Nazi Germany. Last month, Joyner hosted Religious Right leaders like Tony Perkins, Janet Porter, Alan Keyes and Jerry Boykin at his South Carolina compound to demonize gays, float conspiracy theories, demand Obama’s impeachment, and warn of America’s imminent destruction.

Joyner believes that the “the very same demonic principles and powers” responsible for the rise of Nazism in Germany “were now trying to seize America” through a totalitarian government. Joyner prophesizes that “we could lose our republic very quickly, and I don’t believe we will just meld into some kind of European-type socialist country,” adding, “We would fall to the worst forms of tyranny and darkness imaginable, because that has been the Devil’s strategy for a long, long time for America.”

Watch:

Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition gathering in Washington, D.C. this past weekend was essentially a relentless repetition of the GOP’s 2012 attack themes on the Obama administration, mixed with Religious Right leaders’ demands that the Tea Party not abandon social conservatives’ priorities and conservative politicos’ appeals for unity behind whichever candidate emerges from the presidential crowd.  Just about everyone running, or thinking about running, for the presidency on the Republican side was in attendance with the exception of Newt Gingrich.

• Richard Land says the Religious Right is ready to vote for a Mormon ... as a last resort.
• Jack Kevorkian has died.
• Rudy Giuliani just never learns.
• Quote of the day from Matt Barber: "[The] homosexual activist political tsunami destroys everything in its path that is righteous, good and beneficial to society."
• Finally, speaking of Barber, he and Mat Staver have nothing but great things to say about MassResistance.

In May Rep. Pete Stark (R-CA) introduced the Every Child Deserves a Family Act, which prohibits “discrimination in adoption or foster care placements based on the sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status of any prospective adoptive or foster parent, or the sexual orientation or gender identity of the child involved.” While it is unlikely that the GOP-controlled House would approve the legislation, it is an important step in the fight to ensure that children awaiting adoption or foster care can find homes.

But the “pro-family” Religious Right wants to stop the bill in its tracks.

Focus on the Family along with the Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg attacked the bill, claiming that “children will suffer” if it passes:

“We need to do all we can to encourage successful and innovative partnerships, rather than try to shut agencies out of the process,” said Kelly Rosati, vice president of community outreach at Focus on the Family. “It’s the children who will suffer.”

Sprigg agreed.

“This represents one more case,” he said, “in which we are seeing the rights of adults placed ahead of the best interests of the children.”

Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel even alleged that the legislation is unconstitutional and demonstrates how the “homosexual activist political tsunami destroys everything in its path that is righteous, good and beneficial to society”:

At least one pro-family attorney disagrees with the liberal Democrat from California. "This bill has nothing to do with providing adoptive homes for children in need and has everything to do with shutting down all biblically-sound Christian adoption agencies around the country," contends Matt Barber, vice president of Liberty Counsel Action.

And he argues that the proposal is unconstitutional because it violates the freedom of religion, which is protected by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

"This bill puts the [political] demands of selfish, adult homosexual activists...ahead of the welfare of children and religious liberty, and it must be stopped," Barber adds.

So he decides this is the latest example of how the "homosexual activist political tsunami destroys everything in its path that is righteous, good and beneficial to society." He cites a preponderance of studies that conclusively show children are best served in a home with a mother and a father.

Last week, Atlanta megachurch pastor Eddie Long chose to settle with four young men who accused Long of using gifts, trips and money to coerce them into engaging in sex acts with him rather than fight the allegations in court.

Today, Steven Strang, the publisher of Charisma, reports that he had featured Long on the cover of one of the editions of his magazine and even published one of his book.  As such, when he heard rumors in 2006, he attempted to confront Long about them but Long refused to meet with him:

In 2006, I heard rumors about Bishop Long allegedly being involved in homosexuality. Long had built a great church in Atlanta. We once featured him on the cover of Charisma and his influence went far beyond Atlanta. I had great respect for him and published one of his books.

Since he was speaking at a large expo we were sponsoring a few weeks later, I felt I needed to talk to him. I tried repeatedly to make an appointment to warn him that there were rumors and to ask if they were true. He refused to talk to me and canceled the speaking engagement. Saddened, I just quietly took his book out of print and withdrew any support we had given him.

Stang says such scandals are "an embarrassment to the body of Christ" ... but he remains thankful that Long at least "continues to say homosexuality is wrong":

Only God, those young men and Long know if the charges are true. If they are, I hope he's truly repented and will lead his congregation in righteousness and humility. Thankfully, he continues to say homosexuality is wrong and he desires to serve the Lord.

Radio talk show host and conservative columnist Peter Heck is outraged that CNN anchor Don Lemon recently came out of the closet in his memoir, calling it part of “an alarming fad amongst the entertainment glitterati by joining the LGBT crowd.” Heck said that while Lemon may be public about the fact “that he enjoys practicing homosexuality,” coming out didn’t take any courage and is instead another sign that “proponents of sexual anarchy” continue to “shove their unconventional behavior in front of our children's faces.”

The Religious Right activist instead told Lemon to keep it a private matter. Heck went on lament that Lemon has received support from members of the press and that even “someone as vile and perverted as Lady Gaga is hailed as a courageous trailblazer.”

CNN host Don Lemon recently became the latest in a string of high-profile individuals to "come out of the closet" and inform everyone who would listen that he enjoys practicing homosexuality. Every time this occurs, and we are treated to the seemingly endless litany of interviews that applaud the recently outed individual's courage and fortitude, I'm left scratching my head.

First, why do the very people who constantly tell us that what a person does in their bedroom is no one else's business, simultaneously find it necessary to inform everyone of what they do in their bedroom? If this is a private matter, Don, then let's keep it private. Perhaps I'm the only one who feels this way, but frankly, I don't care to know what kind of sex the evening news anchor is into. Beyond it being remarkably irrelevant to the dissemination of news, it's just kind of creepy that these proponents of sexual anarchy feel it is their civic duty to incessantly shove their unconventional behavior in front of our children's faces.

But beyond that, let me be blunt: there is absolutely no courage to be found in following what has become an alarming fad amongst the entertainment glitterati by joining the LGBT crowd. Does anyone actually think that in the politically correct world of American media there was any chance Don Lemon was going to be publicly criticized amongst his peers for such a declaration? Lemon's home network of CNN has become notorious for their one-sided reporting of the emerging face-off between homosexual rights claims of sexual anarchists on the left and the rights of conscience for the traditional morality crowd on the right.

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If Lemon really wanted to demonstrate courage, let's see him "come out" in the media as a Bible-believing, born-again follower of Jesus Christ whose faith teaches him that homosexuality is morally improper. Rather than basking in the glow of the entertainment crowd's unyielding affection, he would be immediately tarred and feathered for his draconian allegiance to discriminatory and prejudicial fairy tales coming from an ancient, bigoted book.

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That inconsistency is what leads us to a culture where someone as genial and pleasant as Dr. James Dobson is branded a hater, while someone as vile and perverted as Lady Gaga is hailed as a courageous trailblazer.

In the end, it's not the presence of decadence in our culture that is the issue. Free societies will always produce the occasional oddball, and embracing liberty means securing the basic rights of those who are different. But what we're experiencing is a move on the part of the oddballs not to secure their own rights, but to deny and disparage the rights of others to disagree with them and their choices. If outlawing decadence is bigoted, codifying it is even worse.

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed the House Armed Services Committee Authorization bill, which included three amendments designed to delay the repeal of the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

With the Senate taking up the bill, Rep. Randy Forbes, along with Bishop Harry Jackson and a group of right-wing pastors, held a press conference to encourage the Senate to pass the pro-DADT amendments.

Attempting to seem semi-reasonable, Jackson began the conference by claiming that amendments intending to make the repeal of DADT more difficult and time-consuming weren’t about DADT itself, but instead about “clarity.”

That line of reasoning lasted all of 15 minutes. By the time Q&A rolled around, Jackson and the Religious Right figures that had joined him used all of the same tired arguments that have been used against DADT in the past. When asked if the repeal of DADT would hurt recruitment, Bishop John Neal claimed that he wasn’t sure, but what he was really worried about was the “close quarters” that soldiers have to share, and what would happen when there was “only one spigot” on the shower.

This again?

Multiple speakers claimed that “no one should be marginalized for their religious beliefs,” but they all seem to believe that marginalizing people for their sexual orientation is perfectly acceptable. One of the speakers, John Neil, went so far as to claim that the military discriminates all the time, by not allowing, for example, extraordinarily tall people to pilot cramped fighter jets. Because that’s exactly the same situation.

Despite their claims to be promoting the rights of chaplains, this group showed that their real goal was restricting the rights of the LGBT community, going so far as to assert that Martin Luther King Jr. would disapprove of same-sex marriage:

Jackson: There were members of his family who were for gay marriage, others were against. I know this: King basically spoke from two vantage points that he thought were very, very sacred within the American culture - one was the Bible and the other was the Constitution. And I think what we're dealing with here is that from a biblical perspective, King no doubt would have been with us biblically. And I think, again, the lines of what is exactly the right of an American to do, I've got a hard time believing that "the pursuit of happiness" crosses into some of these areas. So I think that King would be with us, as a preacher first.

Question: Just to clarify: you're saying Dr. King would be against gay marriage?

Jackson: Yes. Very specifically, yes. Because it's against what is clearly written in Scripture. And if you listen to any of his messages, that clarion call to scriptural accountability even to the point when his own house was firebombed and folks came up in Montgomery armed and ready to go fight folks, he said "no, no, no, we will turn the other cheek."

So there was not just a tacit biblical acceptance or kind of whitewashing, if I can use that phrase, certain kinds of behaviors and say this is Christian, this is not. I think there was an inherent commitment to those issues in our social culture.

Warren Cole Smith is associate publisher of World, the Religious Right magazine run by Marvin Olasky, who was the man responsible for George W. Bush's "compassionate conservative" ideology.

Smith, whose columns are run by the American Family Association and he even shows up as a guest on their radio programs, has penned a remarkably frank piece on why it is theologically dangerous for Christians to even consider voting for Mitt Romney who, simply by virtue of being a Mormon, is unfit to serve as president:

Placing a Mormon in that pulpit would be a source of pride and a shot of adrenaline for the LDS church. It would serve to normalize the false teachings of Mormonism the world over. It would also provide an opening to Mormon missionaries around the world, who could start every conversation: "Let me tell you about the American president." To elect a Mormon President is to advance the cause of the Mormon Church.

Non-Christians likely don't care much about this point one way or the other. But for the Christian, this is a vital issue. One of the strongest warnings Jesus issues is to those who "lead little ones astray." He said it would be better for that person if a millstone were put around his neck and he were cast into the sea. The validation of the false religion of Mormonism would almost certainly have the effect of leading many astray. Evangelical Christians should have no part of that effort.

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[C]ertain qualifications make a candidate unfit to serve. I believe a candidate who either by intent or effect promotes a false and dangerous religion is unfit to serve. Mitt Romney has said it is not his intent to promote Mormonism. Yet there can be little doubt that the effect of his candidacy—whether or not this is his intent—will be to promote Mormonism. A Romney presidency would have the effect of actively promoting a false religion in the world. If you have any regard for the Gospel of Christ, you should care. A false religion should not prosper with the support of Christians. The salvation of souls is at stake.

For me, that alone disqualifies him from my vote. Because Mormons believe in continuing revelation, it is possible that in the future the LDS church will renounce its heretical beliefs and come fully into the fold of orthodox Christianity. Many theologians and church historians believe the church is on such a trajectory. But if that happens, it is an event still well in the future. The Mormon Church of today is, by the lights of biblical evangelical Christianity, a false religion. If Mitt Romney believes what the Mormon Church teaches about the world and how it operates, then he is unfit to serve. We make him our President at great peril to the intellectual and spiritual health of our nation.

Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel was among the Religious Right leaders who signed on to Janet Porter's "Israel: You Are Not Alone" advertising effort and today sent out an email alert to activists asking them to support the campaign in order to stop President Obama from "cursing America":

We MUST insist our elected officials stopping pushing America to move under the curse promised in Genesis 12:3! ... Israel is a unique nation among all nations. For those who believe the Bible's narrative of God's People and the land He gave them, there is no other permissible policy than to "Stand with Israel!"

Our President's cavalier attitude toward Israel cannot go unchallenged. We must not allow our nation to become an adversary to Israel and its national interests!

We must forthrightly tell our elected officials that Americans stand in support of Israel - and pray the Lord will intervene before our President does any more damage to our relationship with Israel!

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We MUST tell our President that he is jeopardizing our nation through his disrespect of the nation of Israel! God's word WILL NOT return void!

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Would you PLEASE forward this message to as many of your fellow Believers as possible? There are very few campaigns that will ever be as important to America's future as this one! Every time you forward this message, it will bless you AND the person to which you send it!

Above all, this campaign will bless both Israel and America, two nations irrevocably intertwined in God's eternal plan for His world.