Values Voter Summit

A few years ago, anti-gay activist Harry Jackson claimed that he had moved from Maryland into the District of Columbia in order to lead an unsuccessful campaign against marriage equality in the District.  Jackson’s legal residency was the topic of much debate at the time; Jackson signed an affidavit affirming his DC residency.  But now, Jackson is supporting an anti-marriage equality campaign in Maryland.  Will he be eligible to vote against marriage equality in Maryland?  At the Values Voter Summit this past weekend, Jackson bragged that he had ordained and pastored Derek McCoy, who directs the Maryland Marriage Alliance and asked VVS attendees for financial support. Jackson, in a workshop promoting his own campaign to use marriage as a wedge issue against Obama and other Democrats in seven swing states, caught himself when talking about the struggle over marriage in Maryland.  “I live in – have a church in that state,” he said. 

Last night on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow called out Paul Ryan for speaking at the Values Voter Summit and lending credibility to the bigotry and pure crazy on display at the conference. Her report provided crucial context on the extremists who are appearing at the conference – something that has been sorely lacking in most media coverage so far.

Speaking at the Values Voter Summit, Star Parker blasted Sandra Fluke and hailed her own Christian conversion for saving her from her own "sexual rampage":

We have been covering the absurd, bizarre and paranoid rantings of phony ex-terrorist Kamal Saleem as he emerged on the Religious Right scene, and today he had his biggest platform yet at the Values Voter Summit, where he was preceded by Ohio congressman Jim Jordan and a video message by Mitt Romney. Saleem told conference goers his made-up story about his time as a terrorist working for Lebanon, Syria, the PLO, Libya, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and even Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, until he moved to the U.S. to wage "cultural jihad." He claimed he and his fellow terrorists "met the professors" at American universities and colleges, which "were our playgrounds," in order to help "the professors to establish new curriculum purposefully" to brainwash students to change "your children to hit your nation with everything they've got."

Later, Saleem said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is working with Islamic countries to eviscerate the Constitution and "subjugate American people to be arrested and put to jail and their churches and synagogues shut down," which he says will happen early next year!

Speaking during the afternoon session at the Values Voters Summit, Texas Republican Senate nominee was introduced by fellow Texas, Rick Scarborough of Vision America.

After Scarborough hailed Cruz as "a man grounded by faith and principle" and "a true champion of freedom," Cruz returned the favor, hailing Scarborough as a "tremendous patriot and voice for Christian values."

As we noted in our pre-VVS write-up, Scarborough spends most of his time warning that America is facing "sexual anarchy led by sodomites" and declaring that AIDS is God's "judgment for an immoral act":

History has never been Kirk Cameron's strong suit, which can probably be partly attributed to the fact that he relies on "experts" like David Barton for his information.

So it didn't come as much of a surprise when Cameron delivered another rather strange history lesson today while speaking at the Values Voter Summit when he proclaimed that America has been so successful because our Founding Fathers relied "on the very eternal principles that had not been tested and tried from the ground up for three thousand years since the ancient Hebrew republic under Moses":

Bad news for Eric Cantor. He’s speaking tomorrow at the Values Voter Summit, but he’s apparently still going to hell. Let me explain.

Jerry Boykin is the Executive Vice President of the Family Research Council and Tony Perkins’ right-hand man. FRC is hosting the far right conference that the House Majority Leader, who is Jewish, plans to address tomorrow.

Boykin, much like Bryan Fischer, has a penchant for saying exactly what’s on his mind – things which others know not to say, even when they’re thinking the same thing. While you may know Boykin from his prolific Muslim-bashing, he also has some interesting things to say about Jews.

In a 2009 speech on “Why We Must Stand with Israel,” Boykin spoke out against pastors who say that “the Jews don’t have to come to know Jesus,” complaining that those pastors were “destroying the efforts” to lead Jews to Christ:

Last year, Boykin said that “one of the most disgusting things I hear is for people to call Hitler the extreme Right” because he was “an extraordinarily off the scale leftist.” He then lamented that “many Jews in America, for example, can't identify with the Republican Party because they're called the party of the Right, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth."

Boykin also said that President Obama is creating a Hitler-sytle Brownshirt army to force Marxism on America. And in 2003, then-Lt. Gen. Boykin said that the U.S. was fighting a war “in the name of Jesus,” prompting a rebuke from the ADL and President Bush.

To be sure, the Religious Right hasn’t always had the best relations with American Jews. Jerry Falwell sparked a controversy in 1980 when he said that God “does not hear the prayers of unredeemed Gentiles or Jews.” He was speaking at a press conference in defense of the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, who had proclaimed that “God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew.”

More recently, however, Religious Right leaders have been careful to stress Judeo-Christian values and avoid explicit attacks. Boykin, however, doesn’t have any use for such niceties.

Yet Boykin was able to meet recently with Mitt Romney, and he has three speaking slots during the conference. He’s even leading a panel on Israel with his good friend Kamal Saleem. Saleem, who is considered to be a fraud, describes himself as a former terrorist who “completed his first bloody terror mission into Israel for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) at the age of seven.”

All of this makes me wonder if Cantor’s folks did their homework before agreeing to speak tomorrow. Perhaps something will come up, and he’ll have to decline FRC’s invitation, much like Ann Romney and Cardinal Dolan have done. We’ll find out tomorrow.

[Update 9-12-12: Ann Romney Joins Cardinal Dolan In Declining Values Voter Summit Invitation]

Ann Romney, the person tasked with humanizing her husband Mitt, is apparently scheduled to address a conference that dehumanizes others. I’m talking about the Values Voter Summit, which is hosted and sponsored by two Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate groups – the Family Research Council and American Family Association.