Values Voter Summit

Bryan Fischer: Black “Plantation Politicians” Shouldn’t Be Angry About Three-Fifths Compromise

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 1/7/2011 1:50 pm

When Republicans selected an edited version of the Constitution to read on the House Floor, one which left out sections such as the “three-fifths compromise” that says slaves will be counted as three-fifths of a person when assessing the apportionment of “representatives and direct taxes,” Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) charged that the “redacted Constitutional reading gives little deference to the long history of improving the Constitution” through anti-slavery and civil rights struggles. For very different reasons, Glenn Beck slammed the use of the edited version, because in his opinion the “three-fifths compromise” reflects “the genius of the Constitution.”

Bryan Fischer, the Director of Issue Analysis for the American Family Association, on the other hand, managed to both endorse the decision to leave the "three-fifths compromise" out of the reading while also defending the “three-fifths compromise”:

You’d think that the Democrats, with all their bloviation about how the Constitution is a living and breathing document that must change with the times, would be ecstatic at Republican recognition of legitimate changes to our founding document.

But no. The grievance industry, represented by Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. and other plantation politicians, is royally hacked off that the original part of the Constitution that dealt with representation in the slave-holding states wasn’t read. News flash for Rep. Jackson: the Civil War ended 146 years ago. Wake up and smell the freedom! Get over yourself and get on up into the 21st century while you’re at it.

…

So the grievance industry, still stuck woefully in the past, desperately wanted the Republicans to read the “three-fifths” clause. The Republicans didn’t, for one simple reason. It’s no longer part of the Constitution.

And here’s the kicker: while the Democrats wanted that read because they erroneously believe that it says that slaves were three-fifths of a person, the Constitution itself says exactly the opposite. The “three-fifths” clause clearly affirms the personhood of slaves.

Check it out. Here is the relevant portion, with emphasis added:

“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”

…

Bottom line: the three-fifths clause is not a pro-slavery clause, it is an anti-slavery clause.

And the same clause affirms the personhood of all slaves. You could look it up.

Again, this is the same Bryan Fischer who several prospective GOP presidential candidates shared a stage with at the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit last year.

Family Research Council and Concerned Women For America pull out of CPAC, Religious Right Boycott Gains Momentum

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 12/28/2010 11:17 am

The American Conservative Union’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), one of the largest gatherings of right wing activists and a platform for Republican presidential candidates, continues to lose participants as a result of GOProud’s sponsorship of the event. GOProud is a conservative organization that supports gay rights that broke off from the Log Cabin Republicans for allegedly moving “way too far to the left.”

In November, the far-right American Principles Project instigated the CPAC boycott over GOProud’s involvement back in November, and groups such as American Values, Capital Research Center, the Center for Military Readiness, Liberty Counsel, Liberty University, and the National Organization for Marriage followed the APP’s lead in boycotting the conference.

Today, WorldNetDaily, which has provided support for the boycott movement, reports that the Family Research Council and Concerned Women For America have decided to boycott CPAC. FRC and CWA are easily the largest groups to join the boycott movement, and FRC hosts a similar conference that is geared to Religious Right activists, the Values Voter Summit. WorldNetDaily reports on their decision and the ensuing praise from anti-gay rights activists Peter LaBarbera and Mat Staver:

"We've been very involved in CPAC for over a decade and have managed a couple of popular sessions. However, we will no longer be involved with CPAC because of the organization's financial mismanagement and movement away from conservative principles," said Tom McClusky, senior vice president for FRC Action.

"CWA has decided not to participate in part because of GOProud," CWA President Penny Nance told WND.

…

"Excellent. It is gratifying to see FRC and CWA respond appropriately to CPAC's moral sellout of allowing GOProud as a sponsor," said Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, the nation's best-known organization dedicated exclusively to opposing the homosexual political agenda.

"By bringing in GOProud, CPAC was effectively saying moral opposition to homosexuality is no longer welcome in the conservative movement," said LaBarbera. "Would CPAC bring in an organization specifically devoted to promoting abortion and pretend it's conservative?" LaBarbera has formerly participated in CPAC, but said he may protest the conference this year.

"Shame on CPAC for defending the absurd proposition that one can be 'conservative' while embracing moral surrender – in this case the idea espoused by GOProud of the government granting 'rights' and benefits based on sinful sexual conduct long regarded as anathema to biblical and Judeo-Christian values," LaBarbera added.

"[ACU has] gone libertarian, that's their focus," said Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, a public interest law firm. "Libertarianism is right on the economy, often wrong on national defense, and doesn't care about social conservatism. Libertarians only respect one leg of the Reagan revolution, and you can't stand for long on one leg."

…

"We said GOProud is not a conservative organization," said Staver. "They are undermining the military" by promoting open homosexuality, and "undermining marriage" by opposing the Defense of Marriage Act, which preserves the traditional definition of marriage by limiting it to one man and one woman.

"Anything that undermines marriage also undermines our freedom and economy," said Staver. "It is contrary to our fundamental values to have as a cosponsor an organization that promotes same-sex marriage."

"GOProud doesn't fit in any of the areas of conservatism within CPAC," Staver continued. "We asked CPAC to disassociate themselves from GOProud, but they refused to.

"The only way we would return to CPAC now is if CPAC openly disassociated itself from GOProud and carried on a pattern of activity that convinces us they are truly broad-based conservatives."

The decision by Family Research Council and Concerned Women For America may spur other groups and speakers to join the boycott, although others could take the path of Ryan Sorba of Young Americans for Freedom who used his speech at CPAC to attack homosexuality and condemn GOProud’s participation:

Tea Party Leaders Preparing for Primary Fights to Bolster GOP's Ideological Purity

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 12/27/2010 4:35 pm

Back in January the Christian Science Monitor declared “Scott Brown: the tea party’s first electoral victory,” following his surprise win in the special election to fill the Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy. But now the Boston Globe reports that conservatives and Tea Party activists are mulling over a primary challenge to the Massachusetts Republican. According to the Globe, Brown’s votes in favor of repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, ratifying the START Treaty, and reforming Wall Street (but only after it was watered down to win his support) made him toxic to many Tea Party members and other movement conservatives. The Family Research Council has pledged to back a primary challenger to any Senator who voted to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and the National Republican Trust PAC promised to do the same to any Republican who supported START.

More surprisingly, movement conservatives in Virginia are hoping to block George Allen from running again for the seat he lost to Jim Webb in 2006. Allen, a former Senator and Governor best known for using a racial slur against his opponent’s campaign worker, is already finding himself in trouble with Tea Party groups even though he hasn’t even announced his candidacy yet. The Washington Post reports that Allen’s voting record in the Senate may sink his chances among Virginia Tea Partiers:

For months, it appeared that former U.S. senator George Allen would have a clear path to the Republican nomination if he chose to try to reclaim his old job.

But in the summer, grumbling about his past began, culminating in a Web site outlining the reasons some fellow Republicans oppose him: He's too moderate. He's part of the establishment. He's partly to blame for the record spending and ballooning deficit in Washington.

By this month, no fewer than four Republicans billing themselves as more conservative than Allen were considering challenging him for the right to run against Sen. James Webb, if the Virginia Democrat seeks reelection.

"There are some concerns based on his record and his rhetoric," said Mark Kevin Lloyd, chairman of the Lynchburg Tea Party and vice chairman of the Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation, a statewide umbrella group. "People are looking at things in a new light," he said.

Allen, who received a 92.3% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, was hardly considered a moderate in the Senate. But apparently 92% isn’t enough:

But during his one term in the U.S. Senate, some Republicans complain, he backed President George W. Bush's proposals to increase spending; supported No Child Left Behind, a costly program to create a national education report card; favored a federal program to subsidize the costs of prescription drugs for Medicare beneficiaries; and voted to expand the Hate Crimes Prevention Act to include crimes based on sexual orientation.

Jamie Ratdke, who recently stepped down as chairwoman of the Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation in order to explore a Senate bid, said she began to consider a run for the Senate after attending a Tea Party convention that featured Rick Santorum, Lou Dobbs, and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinnelli as speakers:

Radtke said that she had considered running for the state Senate next year but that she began thinking about the U.S. Senate instead after Virginia's first tea party convention, which drew an estimated 2,800 people to Richmond in October.

Radtke, who worked for Allen for a year when he was governor and she was right out of college, said it's time for a new candidate. She said that Allen was part of "George Bush's expansion of government" when he was senator and that she was concerned about some of his stances on abortion.

Allen has said that abortions should be legal in cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is endangered, and he owned stock in the manufacturer of the morning-after pill.

If George Allen is deemed not conservative enough for the Republican Party, then expect many more extremist candidates like Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell to win contested GOP primaries. Allen hurt his chances by supporting healthcare and education initiatives that were backed by President Bush and the Republican leadership, and is also deemed too moderate because he voted to include sexual orientation under hate crimes protections and believes in exceptions under a ban on abortion.

While running for reelection in 2006, Allen received wide praise at FRC’s Values Voter Summit for his staunch conservative beliefs, but now he is under attack from the Right for being “too moderate” even though he hasn’t served in public office since he lost the 2006 race. As Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County board of supervisors and a likely primary opponent, says, Allen’s “base has moved on.”

Pence: Congress Should Defund Planned Parenthood Because of High Unemployment

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 12/20/2010 6:09 pm

Empowered by Republican gains and the recent selection of Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) to Chair the Subcommittee on Health, Indiana Congressman Mike Pence is again speaking about ending what he calls “taxpayer funding of abortion.” Pence is the sponsor of the “Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act,” which would cut-off federal finances to health services groups such as Planned Parenthood. However, the title of Pence’s bill is deceiving, as under current law “Title X funds may not be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.” As a result, there is no taxpayer funding of abortion either under Title X or the new health care reform law, another baseless charge frequently used by the right wing activists.

Under Pence’s bill, the government will stop giving taxpayer dollars to organizations which perform abortions or contribute to groups which perform abortions, even though abortion coverage is already banned from using federal dollars. As The Nation points out, Planned Parenthood is one of the largest and most well-known groups working in the extensive field of reproductive and sexual healthcare, and would incur most of the damage from this bill: “The aim is to defund Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest network of clinics for family planning and women’s health, and in many regions the only provider within reach.”

Now Pence, the winner of the Values Voter Summit 2010 presidential straw poll, believes that cutting funds to reproductive healthcare organizations is not just necessary to constrain a woman’s access to healthcare but also to address unemployment. Pence told the anti-choice news service LifeNews:

With a nearly 10 percent unemployment rate, there is simply no reason during these tough economic times why taxpayers’ hard-earned money should fund the activities of abortion providers and equip them with the resources they need to end innocent human life.

The time has come to deny any and all federal funding to Planned Parenthood by passing the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act, which I intend to introduce again in the next Congress.”

Michele Bachmann has also embraced Pence’s bill, and the bill’s 103 co-sponsors include Speaker-designate John Boehner, incoming Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and Pitts, who plans to push anti-choice legislation through his Subcommittee on Health. Pence isn’t the first leader on the Right who suggested that anti-choice bills address economic problems like unemployment, as Jim Garlow, the Chairman of Newt Gingrich's Renewing American Leadership, recently claimed that abortion is responsible for high unemployment:

Gohmert: Without DADT, Military Stands to Lose Thousands and US Will Reach the “End of its Existence as a Great Nation”

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 12/15/2010 7:15 pm

While debating the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), of “terror-baby” fame, claimed that the policy’s repeal may doom the military and the nation as a whole. Gohmert blasted the recent Pentagon study, which showed that an overwhelming number of military service members do not oppose repealing DADT, and said that the military could potentially lose “many thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands” if the policy is repealed. Gohmert uses no scientific evidence of his own to back up his claim that “hundreds of thousands” of troops could leave, even though the Pentagon’s own polling found that the vast majority of troops do not have problems serving alongside gays and lesbians, and 92 percent of those who believe they have already served alongside gays did not believe that their “units functioned poorly as a result.”

Gohmert went on to suggest that the House, which today voted to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell 250-175, is opening up the floodgates to a disorganized and ineffective military. According to the Congressman, “when militaries throughout history of the greatest nations in the world have adopted the policy that it’s fine for homosexuality to be overt…they’re toward the end of its existence as a great nation.”

You want an accurate poll? Take one where military members can answer privately with no ability of the commanders to figure out who answered where. And then let’s find out how many thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands we can lose with this activity. That’s important.

Now we were told Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is inconsistent with American values, I would submit the military is inconsistent with American values. It does not have freedom of speech, it does not have freedom of assembly, it does not have the freedom to express its love to those in the military the way you can out here because it’s an impediment to the military mission. You can’t do that. Can you imagine military members being able to tell their commander what they think of him using freedom of speech or assembling where they wish? It doesn’t work. This is one of those issues that is so personal to the military; we need to have an accurate poll.

And to my friend who said history would judge us poorly, I would submit if you look thoroughly at history, and I’m not saying its cause and effect, but when militaries throughout history of the greatest nations in the world have adopted the policy that it’s fine for homosexuality to be overt, you can keep it private it’s fine if you can’t that’s fine too, they’re toward the end of its existence as a great nation.

Such remarks channel those made by Family Research Council head Tony Perkins. He argued that the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell would make enough soldiers “not enlist in our all-volunteer force” that “President Obama will be driven to the place he does not want to go: the military draft.” At the Values Voter Summit, Perkins maintained that countries who allow gays to serve openly are “the ones that participate in parades, they don't fight wars to keep the nation and the world free.”

Of course, major US allies, including Great Britain, Israel, Canada, Germany, Australia, France, Italy, Spain and France, just to name a few, permit gay and lesbians to serve openly and their militaries have yet to collapse as a result of soldiers leaving en masse.

Mike Pence: Obama Treats Country “Like a Dog”

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 12/13/2010 6:30 pm

With growing speculation over his presidential ambitions, Indiana Republican Mike Pence is taking the anti-Obama rhetoric into high-gear. Pence is the winner of the Family Research Council’s 2010 Values Voter Summit straw poll, and is seen as a favorite of the Religious Right. By stepping down from his position as House GOP Conference Chair because he couldn’t commit to serving a full term, Pence signaled that he could potentially run for governor of Indiana or President. In an interview with US News & World Report, Pence rejects the social issues “truce” proposed by Indiana’s governor, defends the prominent role of social conservatives in the Republican Party, and maintains that Obama wants Americans “simply to obey” like a dog:

You’re about to start hearing a lot about a conservative Republican Indiana congressman, Rep. Mike Pence. That’s because the Hoosier, considered a shoo-in to win the GOP gubernatorial nomination in 2012, is weighing a challenge to outgoing Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and about 10 others in the Republican presidential primaries. “We’ve gotten encouragement to run for governor in 2012,” says Pence, a former broadcaster. “We’ve also gotten more than a little bit of encouragement to consider running for president.”

While Pence will decide in the spring, the presidency currently has his attention. Not just because he thinks President Obama is stretching the traditional boundaries of the office and isn’t worthy. “The current administration is the most egregious example of excess,” he says, accusing Obama of treating the nation like “a dog whose duty is not to ask why ...but simply to obey.” As he considers a run, Pence also has become a student of the presidency and recently delivered thoughtful speeches on the office.

…

But he sees Ronald Reagan as “the last president in my lifetime to really model a traditional American presidency.”

While some may say Daniels is the better-positioned Hoosier for 2012, the social and fiscal conservative Pence senses an advantage. He won’t go along with Daniels’s push for a truce on social issues to let candidates focus on economic topics. “To those who say we should simply focus on fiscal issues,” Pence says, “I say you would not be able to print enough money in 1,000 years to pay for the government you would need if the traditional family collapses.”

Tealigious Right Gloats, Thanks God for GOP Victories

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Thursday, 11/4/2010 4:54 pm

Two days after the Election Day conservative tide, Newt Gingrich, David Barton, and Jim Garlow held a conference call for conservative Christian pastors to talk about what it all means. The call brought together Gingrich, an establishment Republican who has been courting the Religious Right for a future presidential bid; Barton, a long-time fixture of the Religious Right who has become a Tea Party celebrity thanks to Glenn Beck; and Jim Garlow, who hails from the dominionist wing of the Religious Right and led religious opposition to marriage equality in California. The elections, they said, were a rejection of secularism and evidence of a new religious Great Awakening that would move America to the right for decades to come.

Gingrich, while touting the massive Republican wins in Congress and state legislatures as profoundly historic, also called attention to the million-dollar Religious Right-led campaign that led to the rejection of three marriage equality-supporting Iowa Supreme Court justices in retention elections.  “Taking on the judicial class,” said Gingrich, and telling judges that “we are not going to tolerate enforced secularization of our country,” is “one of the most important things we can engage in.” 
 
Barton reveled in the Republican takeover of the Iowa house, and said he believed that a constitutional amendment denying gay couples the right to marry would be one of the first things to come before the state legislature. Even though Republicans fell just short of taking the Senate, Barton said he thought enough Democrats would be intimidated by what happened to the judges to let an amendment move forward: “This is what we call hanging a bloody scalp on the gallery rail.”
 
Gingrich and Barton both gloated that Republican wins in state legislatures and governorships put the GOP in a position to gerrymander voting districts in a way that will make it hard for Democrats to recover during the next decade.
 
All the speakers spoke of the elections as an embrace of the notion of a divinely inspired “American Exceptionalism” that Glenn Beck has been promoting and that a number of Tea Party-backed candidates were sounding as a campaign theme. Barton said that that 90 percent of the congressional freshman class is “pro-God, pro-life, pro-faith, and pro-family.” He repeated the theme that was pounded by speaker after speaker at the Values Voter summit – that fiscal and social conservatism can’t be separated.
 
In fact, Garlow and Barton went even further, asserting a biblical underpinning for an approach to economics that is probably even further to the Right than many Tea Party activists. Taxation and deficit spending, they said, amount to theft. The estate tax, Barton said, is “absolutely condemned” by the Bible as the “most immoral” of taxes. Jesus, he said, had “teachings” condemning the capital gains tax and minimum wage.   This, he declared, was “a great election for biblical values.”
 
Barton and Garlow discussed the many prayer and fasting campaigns that took place around the elections, and whether there was a way to prove their impact. While Barton said it would be tough to come up with empirical data, he called it historically “irrefutable” that there was an impact from so many people praying and fasting for conservative election victories. “There’s no way from a biblical or historical standpoint you can do that and not see God intervene or move.”

Pray and Act Ends With a Whimper

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 11/1/2010 10:34 am

When we first learned of the "Pray and ACT" effort which sought to link 7 Mountains Dominionism with election-oriented prayer and fasting, we were pretty surprised by the number of high profile Religious Right leaders who had signed on to the effort, like Chuck Colson, Mike Huckabee, Harry Jackson, Richard Land, Maggie Gallagher and various others.

In addition to orchestrating forty days of prayer and fasting in an effort to save this nation by electing "candidates who affirm the sanctity of life in all stages and conditions, the integrity of marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and religious liberty and respect for conscience," Pray and ACT organizers also hosted a series of events that became less and less ambitious with every successive outing. 

The first of these events was a two-hour live webcast that featured Jim Garlow, James Robison, Samuel Rodriquez, Jordan Lorence., Lance Wallnau, Tony Perkins, and Richard Land speaking before a tiny crowd at a church in Washington, DC.  

The second event was another webcast, but this one featured little more than pre-recorded interviews with various activists who were attending the Family Research Council's Values Voter Summit.

And the forty days of prayer and fasting was supposed to culminate with an event held at "the steps of the Lincoln Memorial" on October 30 ...  but instead if turned out to be nothing more than a forty-five minute webchat between Jim Garlow and Chuck Colson:

I don't know about you, but when Pray and ACT organizers rolled out their agenda earlier this year, I was expecting a bit more. 

Phyllis Schlafly: Muslim Cleric

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 10/14/2010 5:19 pm

This person is generating outrage:

A leading Muslim cleric in the United Kingdom said that it is "clearly" impossible for men to rape their wives, and it should not be considered a crime.

Sheikh Maulana Abu Sayeed, president of the Islamic Sharia Council in Britain, told the human rights Web site Samosa, "Sex is part of marriage. In Islamic Sharia, rape is adultery by force."

"So long as the woman is his wife, it cannot be termed as rape," he continued. "It is reprehensible, but we do not call it rape."

Sayeed also claimed many married women who allege rape are lying.

By contrast, Phyllis Schlafly says that "by getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape" and Republicans are proud to receive her endorsement while Religious Right groups give her James C. Dobson Vision and Leadership Award at the Values Voter Summit:

Could you clarify some of the statements that you made in Maine last year about martial rape?

I think that when you get married you have consented to sex. That's what marriage is all about, I don't know if maybe these girls missed sex ed. That doesn't mean the husband can beat you up, we have plenty of laws against assault and battery. If there is any violence or mistreatment that can be dealt with by criminal prosecution, by divorce or in various ways. When it gets down to calling it rape though, it isn't rape, it's a he said-she said where it's just too easy to lie about it.

Was the way in which your statement was portrayed correct?

Yes. Feminists, if they get tired of a husband or if they want to fight over child custody, they can make an accusation of marital rape and they want that to be there, available to them.

So you see this as more of a tool used by people to get out of marriages than as legitimate-

Yes, I certainly do.

A View From Inside The American Family Association

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 10/12/2010 9:29 am

It is not every day that former employees of influential Religious Right organizations step forward to reveal the unpleasant inner-workings of such organizations, but Religious Dispatches' Sarah Posner has gotten several former employees of the American Family Association to do just that.

And I guess it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to learn that the environment inside the AFA is rather toxic, with founder Don Wildmon being described as an autocratic bully who created a culture of fear and intimidation that infected the entire organization, one which has only gotten worse with the addition of Bryan Fischer:

Brad Bullock, who worked for the organization for 17 years spearheading the launch of the radio station and producing the daily radio report, was forced out 3 years ago. He said he admired Wildmon and considered him a friend, but that in dismissing him, Wildmon told him, "you have a problem and you don't know it."

Bullock said the group is "too harsh on homosexuals," though if anyone voiced concerns, "they would be attacked." He described the leadership as "autocratic" and tolerant of petty gossip among employees, like spreading rumors about employees having extra-marital affairs with one another.

Bullock added that Wildmon "chastised" people for taking anti-depressants, and that "a lot of people who had problems felt like they were second class," including Bullock, who said that he suffered from depression while working at the AFA. Employees were fearful of speaking out, according to Bullock. "We were puppies in the corner who learned to keep out mouths shut."

The AFA's radio and news division, in particular, said [Allie] Martin, had become a place where authority could not be questioned, and where the "news" was nothing more than a mouthpiece for conservative "sources" whose views were portrayed as fact. (The Values Voter Summit award citation to Wildmon described One News Now as a "respected online news service.")

And those views were extreme, even by Martin’s standards of conservative evangelicalism. He said that the director of the news service, Fred Jackson, had a "hateful, hateful attitude" that "carried over" into stories. Martin described editorial meetings in which "liberals were accused of hating their kids," while Chad Groening, who covers immigration, described gay people as "degenerates" and "reprobates."

In the newsroom, said Martin, "I saw the tone of stories develop in a way I thought was disturbing."

"They get people as news sources to say what they want to say but can't say," he added.

After Obama got elected, said Martin, "this went up to a whole new level, we have to vilify this man."

In 2008, Jackson sent Martin an email with the subject line "attitude problems," citing scripture he said governed "a worker's attitude toward their [sic] superiors." The verses he cited included Ephesians 6:5-8 ("Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, singleness of your heart, as unto Christ") and Colossians 3:22-25 ("Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God.") He closed the email with a "final warning" that "any further breaches in this area will be turned over to Brother Don."

Among the topics about which Martin had raised concerns was the news room's approach to immigration. Martin said that Groening has, for example, called undocumented immigrants "stupid," "scumbag lawbreakers" and "freeloaders." Groening believed that illegal immigration would "destroy" the country, and that "we have the best way of life, and if our borders aren't secured, this country would be destroyed."

Martin also noted that Groening had referred to Muslims as "raghead scumbag terrorists" and referred to Allah as "Satan."

Posner goes on to describe the rabidly anti-immigration attitude of AFA leaders and how that attitude has been promoted in the AFA 's work, as well as Bryan Fischer's long history of bigtory stemming all the way back to his days in Idaho when he invited Scott Lively to participate in conference hosted by his Idaho Values Alliance.

As they say, read the whole thing.

Pence Embraces Reed and the Religious Right in Iowa

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 10/4/2010 10:21 am

After winning the Values Voter Summit straw poll of likely 2012 presidential contenders, Indiana Congressman Mike Pence spoke in Iowa to Ralph Reed’s Faith & Freedom Coalition. Pence appeared to reject “the truce” proposed by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, which called on conservatives to play down social issues in order to push their economic agenda, and showed why he is so beloved by the Religious Right. In his remarks, Pence did discuss fiscal issues, calling for a “balanced federal budget” but also for extending the budget-busting Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. He went on to link the right wing social agenda of stopping same-sex marriages and Planned Parenthood to the nation’s budgetary issues:

To those who say we should focus on fiscal issues, instead of the right to life, I say ‘what is more fiscally responsible than rolling back this administration’s effort to expand funding for abortion at home and abroad?

What is more fiscally responsible than denying any and all funding to Planned Parenthood of America?

To those who say that marriage doesn’t matter, I say, ‘you would not be able to print enough money in 1,000 years to pay for the government you would need if the traditional family continues to collapse.

We are at our strongest when fiscal and social conservatives are united. Victory comes when we stand together, fighting arm in arm for fiscal responsibility, a strong national defense and traditional moral values.

Men and women, we must demand, here and now, that those who would lead the Republican Party stand for life and traditional marriage without apology.

This is our moment. Now is the time. It’s time for us to do all that we can to preserve what makes this country great.

Men and women of Iowa, the time has come to take our stand. We must not be afraid, and we must fight for what has always been the source of American greatness: our faith in God and our freedom.

And if we hold that banner high, I believe with all my heart the good and great people of this land will rally to our cause. We will win this Congress back in 2010, and we will win this country back in 2012, so help us God.

Pawlenty Joins FRC's Watchmen to Fight Pawns of Satan

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 9/24/2010 10:41 am

Lately I have started regularly posting the regular updates sent out by the Family Research Council's "Prayer Team" because they provide insights into what the Religious Right's priorities are at any given moment.  And this "Prayer Team" is actually part of a series of ways that FRC targets pastors for political involvement, even going so far as to provide sample sermons for them to use on Sundays.

But the main way FRC seeks to mobilize pastors is through its Watchmen on the Wall events where they learn to be just like John the Baptist and Martin Luther King, Jr. as they work to save our nation because "the problems we face are not just political in nature, they are spiritual in nature. Consequently, these problems ultimately require a spiritual solution administered by spiritual leadership."

In addition to the main Watchmen conference held in Washington, DC every year, FRC also holds smaller conferences around the country ... like the one on Monday that will be held in Minnesota featuring Gov. Tim Pawlenty:

Please encourage your pastor to join Tony Perkins, Governor Tim Pawlenty, and other pastors from across Minnesota next Monday, September 27th for Watchmen on the Wall 2010, a regional event sponsored by Family Research Council and Minnesota Family Institute. The year 2010 could be a turning point in the life of our nation, and we need pastors to lead in defending human life, traditional marriage, and our Judeo-Christian heritage.

Among the other speakers will be Dr. Kenyn Cureton, FRC's Vice President for Church Ministries, who, as Rob Boston of Americans United recently reported, spoke during a breakout session at last week's Values Voter Summit where he declared that those who do not support FRC's agenda are pawns of Satan:

Are you an agent of Satan?

Kenyn Cureton is worried that you might be. Cureton is vice president for church ministries for the Family Research Council. During the FRC’s recent “Values Voter Summit,” he warned attendees at a breakout session on churches and politics to be ready for some intense action.

“The battle that we’re fighting,” he said, “is not just a political and cultural battle, it’s a spiritual battle.”

And when a battle is spiritual, you can be sure that some people are serving the wrong side.

“When you think about it, you know, the real enemy is not the poor, deluded souls who are advancing these evil agendas,” Cureton said. “Really, they’re just simply pawns in the hands of their malevolent master. They’re simply doing the bidding of the devil, OK?”

Garlow And Staver: Gay Marriage Is a Fight Against An "Antichrist Spirit"

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 9/22/2010 5:40 pm

On Sunday evening, Jim Garlow held the second of three scheduled Pray and Act webcasts heading into the mid-term election.  Unlike the first event, which was broadcast live by GodTV, this webcast contained footage that was shot ahead of time, mostly at the Values Voter Summit, and webcast by the American Family Association.

Among the participants in this second webcast were the AFA Don Wildmon, Maggie Gallagher, Richard Land, Ken Blackwell, Lance Wallnau, and Lou Engle ... and I have to say that it was shockingly dull. 

In fact, the only exchange worth highlighting from the entire hour and a half was this one between Garlow and Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel discussing how the fight against gay marriage is really a fight against an "Antichrist Spirit":

Garlow: If in reality the homosexual portion of the population is only 3-5%, then it seems to me they have linked up in a profound way with many others who are not homosexual. And I'm not referring to the homosexual who may be the nice one who lives next door; I'm talking about people who are committed to a radical homosexual agenda, they have been able to link up with a number of other groups and the result is that it's almost like an Antichrist spirit, almost a capacity to silence the Gospel from being proclaimed. Is that an overstatement?

Staver: It's not an overstatement. You're having a confluence of different people who don't necessarily have the same ideas. They may not be homosexual but it is an anti-Christian viewpoint; it's a very militaristic anti-Christian viewpoint. Atheists are becoming more militaristic, the National Organization for Women, the pro-abortion organizations, and others as well are combing together because they have a common cause and that common cause is anti-Christian.

Fischer: Every Mosque Is An IED and Every Muslim Is Guilty of Treason

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 9/21/2010 11:53 am

Bryan Fischer's bigotry, especially his anti-Muslim, bigotry has been well-established ... but so long as he is going to continue to spew it, we are going to continue to highlight it.

The latest outburst comes courtesy of WorldNetDaily which basically gave Fischer ten uninterrupted minutes to lay out his case, during which he said that allowing mosques to be built is akin to planting IED's our communities and called for the monitoring of all mosques because all Muslims are guilty of treason:

I think if we take an objective look at Islamic ideology, which is militaristic, it is totalitarian, it is fundamentally in conflict with every single major American value, then no community in its right mind would want a mosque built in its community.

You know, every single mosque is potentially, or actually, a training and recruiting center for jihadism. We know that 80 percent of the mosques in America are built with Saudi money and that the Saudi Arabian government is sending education materials to these mosques that teach them to spill the blood of infidel Christians and Jews. Which means that 80 percent of the mosques in America are inculcating and disseminating this totalitarian anti-Semitic ideology. I've seen estimates that there may be as many as 3,000 mosques in the United States. That means that perhaps 2,400 of them are preaching this kind of ideology, which is treasonous at its core … So every time we allow a mosque to go up in one of our communities, it's like planting an improvised explosive device right in the heart of your city and we just have no idea when one of these devices is going to go off but the one thing we can be sure of is that eventually, one or more of them will.

…

People are free to have whatever ideology want to have: neo-Nazis can have neo-Nazi ideology, the KKK can hold their anti-Semitic ideology, Muslims can hold their anti-Semitic ideology, but the place where their freedom stops is when they begin plotting against the United States government. And their ideology teaches them to do that, that’s what is in the Quran.

And so what that means is that every mosque has to be monitored for subversive activity. You know, treason is the one crime that is identified in the federal Constitution and any Muslim mosque that is being true to the Quran, and true to the Prophet, and true to Allah, it’s not going to be long before they are engaged in subversive activity, treasonous activity, against the United States.

Let me just point out once again that not one conservative leader saw anything wrong with  appearing with this man at last week's Values Voter Summit.

Value Voter Recap: We're All Tea Partiers Now (Including God)

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Tuesday, 9/21/2010 10:43 am

The so-called Values Voter Summit, organized by the Family Research Council and sponsored by a number of right-wing groups, brought more than 2,000 activists (their count) to Washington D.C. for two solid days of speeches, workshops, networking, and a chance to spend time with others who passionately hate President Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership. Addressing the crowd were a number of GOP presidential hopefuls, including Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, and Rep. Mike Pence (who eked out a narrow victory over Huckabee in the straw poll). Not surprisingly, conference speakers echoed the themes heard at the smaller Faith and Freedom conference convened by Ralph Reed just one week earlier.

Here were the top themes emerging from these Religious Right political conferences.
 
1) We’re All Tea Partiers Now (Including God)
 
The Faith and Freedom conference and Values Voter Summit signaled the Religious Right’s full embrace of (or effort to co-opt) the Tea Party movement and its activists’ anti-Washington energies. Rep. Michele Bachmann, a superstar in both the Religious Right and Tea Party movements, railed at Tea Party critics: “If you are scared of the Tea Party movement, you are afraid of Thomas Jefferson, who penned our mission statement [the Declaration of Independence].”
 
The events were also designed to attack the notion that the Tea Party movement is, or should be, focused only on economic issues and not on moral ones. This is more than the ongoing effort to solidify a working electoral partnership among fiscal, social, and national security conservatives. This is an ideological campaign against the very idea that one can legitimately be a fiscal conservative without embracing the Religious Right’s “family values” agenda on issues such as legal abortion and marriage equality. At the Values Voter Summit, there was little patience for libertarians who consider themselves economically conservative but socially liberal. Sen. Jim DeMint, greeted as a folk-hero for his success at backing Tea Party challengers to establishment GOP candidates, took on the idea directly, saying “you can’t be a true fiscal conservative if you do not understand the value of a culture that is based on values.” 
 
Others echoed the theme. A Heritage Foundation video declared that faith is necessary for liberty. Rep Mike Pence, the dark-horse winner of the summit’s straw poll, said America’s darkest moments have come when economic arguments trumped moral principles. Newt Gingrich declared that activists have to go back to making the moral case for free enterprise, not the economic case. David Limbaugh decried “economic justice,” which he called a leftist euphemism for “confiscation.” 
 
At a Values Voter Summit panel on the Tea Party movement, two activists described their work as being inspired in part by instructions they received from God in the early morning hours, like Glenn Beck; one insisted that her activism was not just about taxes but about getting America to turn back to God.
 
2) Nothing is more important than the 2010 and 2012 elections.
 
Nearly every speaker said that the 2010 election is the most important in our lifetime. Speakers insisted that President Obama, his administration, and Democratic congressional leaders are not only wrong, they are evil and are out to destroy the American experiment in limited government and individual liberty.  It is simply not possible to overstate the level of anger and hostility directed toward Obama (described as an America-hating narcissistic Marxist), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. 
 
Activists were told they must fast, pray, and work hard to defeat Democrats this November. The Family Research Council urged people to visit the website of Pray and A.C.T, a campaign led by Jim Garlow, who has been a rising star on the Religious Right since leading religious organizing on behalf of California’s anti-gay Prop 8. Ralph Reed is promising to share with local activists a massive new database of faith-based and fiscally conservative voters that he is building. 
 
Activists were also told that they must plan to keep sacrificing their time, energy and money for the next two years to make sure that Obama is defeated in 2012. Former Sen. Rick Santorum told activists not to expect dramatic improvements even if they win big in November: things won’t really change for the better as long as the White House is in Obama’s hands. Activists were warned that these two elections may be the last chance to stop the nation’s slide toward socialism and the end of America as we know it.
 
Right-wing speakers are optimistic about the possibility of delivering both the House and Senate into Republican hands and electing a conservative Republican president in 2012. FRC’s PAC held a fundraiser Friday night for Christine O’Donnell, the new Tea Party-backed GOP Senate candidate from Delaware, and other like-minded candidates.   Ralph Reed said that voter registration and focused turnout campaigns being waged by his and other right-wing groups would turn this from a good election cycle for Republicans into a historically sweeping one. And there’s particular excitement that Florida GOP Senate candidate Marco Rubio could be the face of the GOP’s future: right-wing strategists see him as Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama rolled into one appealing, Latino-vote-getting package.
 
3) Repealing Health Care Reform the Top Legislative Priority
 
According to several Values Voter Summit speakers, health care reform legislation signed into law by President Obama wasn’t really about health care at all. It was about extending the power of the federal government into tyrannical realms. Repealing “Obamacare” before it fully goes into effect is the top legislative priority of movement leaders. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell was one of several speakers who called the legislation unconstitutional, saying that if the legislation was allowed to stand, it would effectively spell the end of any limits on federal power. 
 
4) Muslims Replace Immigrants as a Top Target
 
While previous conferences have portrayed unchecked illegal immigration as the most dire threat to America, this year’s speakers picked up on the right-wing generated furor over a proposed Islamic center in lower Manhattan – the inaccurately dubbed “Ground Zero Mosque” – to make repeated bitter denunciations of Islam. Immigration was not completely ignored: Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, in a list of complaints, denounced the White House for being an administration “whose idea of a rogue state is Arizona,” and the Heritage Foundation sponsored a workshop on “The Real Cost of Illegal Immigration.” But the real energy was in attacking Islam, which was a primary focus of remarks by Bill Bennett and Gary Bauer.
 
5) Pursuit of Happiness With an Asterisk: Gays Need Not Apply
 
Not surprisingly, all the talk about individual liberty being at the core of our national identity did not extend to the freedom of gay and lesbian Americans to pursue happiness by marrying the person they love. Several speakers exhorted attendees to help mobilize conservative voters in Iowa to turn out for upcoming retention elections and vote against Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled that denying gay couples the freedom to marriage violated the state’s constitution. The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer, who insisted that there is no confusion about what is right in the sight of God and what is evil in the sight of God, said that politicians who support, defend, and promote “counterfeits” to marriage (which include not only marriage equality but also civil unions and domestic partnerships) are doing something evil and deserve condemnation. Fischer repeated Religious Right claims that LGBT equality and religious liberty are incompatible: “we are going to have to choose between the homosexual agenda and religious liberty because we simply cannot have both.”
 
The federal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law which forbids gay members of the Armed Forces for serving openly and honestly, was also high on speakers’ minds. Sen. James Inhofe urged people to call their senators in advance of a scheduled vote on a defense authorization bill that would include language to overturn Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell as well as language that would, in his words, turn military hospitals into abortion clinics. 

2012 Candidates Weekly Update 9/21/10

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 9/21/2010 10:39 am

Your update on the potential 2012 Presidential candidates for 9/14-9/21:

Mitch Daniels

2012: Newt Gingrich says Daniels should run for President (Courier & Press, 9/21).

Economy: Attends Chamber of Commerce event in Indianapolis (WIBC, 9/20).

PAC: Leadership PAC runs ads encouraging IN voters to support Republicans (Politico, 9/19).

Newt Gingrich

Religious Right: Demands ban on Sharia Law’s use in US Courts (TPM, 9/18).

Health Care: Calls for HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius’ resignation, compares her service to “Soviet tyranny” (Politico, 9/18).

GOP: Headlines fundraiser for the Minnesota GOP (Star Tribune, 9/17).

Obama: Gingrich attacked by critics for pushing over the top anti-Obama rhetoric (NY Daily News, 9/20).

Mike Huckabee

Obama: Criticizes President’s treatment of Christians (Newsmax, 9/17).

GOP: “Thrilled” about the defeat of “establishment” candidate in primaries (Huffington Post, 9/20).

2010: Expects a Republican wave in home state of Arkansas (Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 9/20).

Sarah Palin

Iowa: Speaks at Iowa’s Ronald Reagan Dinner, tells Fox News she may “give it a shot” to Presidential run (NY Daily News, 9/18).

2012: Wins straw poll of presidential prospects at RightNation convention (Chicago Sun-Times, 9/20).

2010: Tweets to Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell with a warning against “appeasing nat'l media” that’s “seeking ur destruction” (The Hill, 9/19).

Religious Right: FRC head Tony Perkins suggests that Palin is a “cheerleader” rather than a presidential candidate (Politico, 9/18).

Media: Claims that journalists disrespect fallen troops when they “tell lies” about her (Des Moines Register, 9/17).

Poll: Rasmussen survey says slight majority of Americans identify more with Palin’s views than Obama’s (Rasmussen Reports, 9/20).

Tim Pawlenty

2010: Fundraising for GOP gubernatorial nominee Scott Walker in Wisconsin (AP, 9/20).

Economy: WSJ profiles Governors like Pawlenty and others who visited China (WSJ, 9/20).

Mike Pence

Religious Right: Indiana Congressman wins a plurality of votes at Values Voter Summit’s 2012 straw poll (MSNBC, 9/18).

2012: Speaks to conservative Hillsdale College about the Presidency (EducationNews, 9/21).

2010: Defends Christine O’Donnell in Delaware from attacks (CNN, 9/20).

Mitt Romney

New Hampshire: Romney’s Leadership PAC endorses and donates to victors of GOP primaries (Politics Daily, 9/18).

Religious Right: Lashes out at Obama’s economic and social policies, “counterfeit” values at Values Voter Summit (Religion Dispatches, 9/20).

Poll: Leads 2012 pack with 22% support from Republicans (Public Policy Polling, 9/12).

2010: Going to Florida to stump for Gov hopeful Rick Scott (Daily Sun, 9/20).

Rick Santorum

South Carolina: Tests message in early primary state (Daily Caller, 9/16).

Religious Right: Says that families don’t exist in poor neighborhoods (CBS News, 9/17).

Right Wing Leftovers

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 9/20/2010 5:51 pm
  • Rep. Mike Pence won the Values Voter Straw Poll.

  • The Religious Right is confident that its issues will be included in the forthcoming House GOP Contract with America.

  • Mike Huckabee says "contrary to published reports I believe that there is a way to cover people with pre-existing conditions" and says they "should be covered and can be covered by individual states creating pools that provide coverage for people in high-risk categories."

  • Bryan Fischer continues to pen column after column rooted entirely in his own ignorance, declaring with finality that "we have won the global warming debate."

  • Apparently, Christine O'Donnell's past statements are too much for even CWA to defend, leaving them to simply attack the media and conservative men. 

  • Quote of the day from Peter Sprigg opposing repeal of DADT on the grounds that it'll force the US taxpayers to support all those soldiers who get AIDS: "This creates a financial problem, since taxpayers will have to pay for the health care of HIV-infected service members for the rest of their lives through the military and veterans’ health programs."

  • The AFA's Don Wildom received the James C. Dobson Vision and Leadership Award at the Values Voter Summit - here is the intro video they produced:

Heritage Foundation on Money and Morals

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Monday, 9/20/2010 10:45 am

The Heritage Foundation, one of the co-sponsors of the Values Voter Summit, held a breakout conversation to push one of the conference’s central themes: the indivisibility of social and economic conservativism. The overall political goal was aptly summed up by the Heritage Foundation’s Jennifer Marshall, who spoke of the need to call attention to the “moral bankruptcy” of the war on poverty and the welfare state.

Heritage has been promoting for some time now “Indivisible,” a small book of essays with a gimmick: Heritage asked people known for being social conservatives to write on an economic theme, and vice versa. Anti-gay crusader Harry Jackson, for example, contributed a chapter on the evils of the minimum wage, which he says is a form of coercion of employers that “reminds me of slavery.”
 
One of the speakers on the Heritage panel was Stephen Moore, founder of the radically anti-tax Club for Growth and now the senior economics writer for the Wall Street Journal’s notoriously right-wing editorial board. Moore said the growing national debt erodes the nation’s moral fabric, and he called for an end to the progressive income tax and the estate tax (described as a “death tax,” which he called “obscene.”) Moore also called global warming “the biggest myth of the last one hundred years,” suggesting that the bumper crop of reality- and science-denying congressional candidates may have friendly WSJ editorials to fall back on when challenged on their climate change denialism.
 
Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, now at the Family Research Council, warned that federal spending in the U.S. is approaching levels of western Europe, and warned that anytime government has gotten big “it has accelerated the collapse of the most basic economic unit in our country and in western civilization – the family.”
 
The workshop came to an awkward end when an audience member who said he has complications from diabetes and tens of thousands of dollars in chronic medical expenses wondered what the panel would offer people like him once they abolish “Obamacare,” and the panelists had nothing much to offer beyond standard right-wing talking points about medical malpractice, medical savings accounts, and marketplace competition. He didn’t seem convinced that they understood or cared about his problem.

BS on DADT

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Saturday, 9/18/2010 3:15 pm

The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, a former Marine, hosted an offensive Values Voter summit panel on the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, which featured Sgt. Brian Fleming, a young veteran who was wounded in Afghanistan and retired Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis. Maginnis recycled bogus charges that if the ban on gays serving in the military is lifted, chaplains would be required to conduct gay weddings, and therefore Bible-believing churches would no longer send chaplains to the military.

Fleming claimed to speak for 99 percent of those in the military who he said would oppose repeal (not a reality-based claim). He said that it’s important for soldiers to develop a sense of unity, but suggested that wouldn’t be possible with openly gay soldiers because you couldn’t trust their motives when they said they wanted to be your friend.
 
Perkins contributed his own offensive and ridiculous commentary in trying to dismiss the experience of allied armed forces that allow gays to serve. Those armies, said Perkins, “participate in parades, they don’t fight wars to keep the world free.” Um, Britain? Israel? Aren’t these the same right-wing leaders who have been slamming Obama for what they say is his disrespectful attitude toward our allies? 

Embracing Ergun

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Saturday, 9/18/2010 2:51 pm

 

It was somewhat surprising to see Ergun Caner listed as a main-stage speaker at the Values Voter Summit.   After all, Caner was recently ousted from his post as the head of Liberty University’s theological seminary.  Caner was demoted, but not fired, after the media picked up on bloggers’ investigative work exposing lies and contradictions in the “Jihadi to Jesus” life story Caner had told since 9-11. That story made him an evangelical superstar and brought him to Liberty U.
 
At the Values Voter Summit, it was clear why the Religious Right is standing by Caner.   He’s an entertaining speaker who had overseen big growth at Liberty. He might have made a career as one of those stand-up comedians who tells lots of jokes about how husbands will never understand their wives.
 
After all the jokes, he gave the audience the same kind of charge so many speakers have: it’s your time to take a stand and get involved in the coming elections. He told participants that they will be appointed, anointed, and armed by God, so they won’t have to fear the media or people who will abuse and attack them. He sounded a bit self-pitying when he warned that people will mock you, stalk you on twitter, call you names, and question your motives.
 
But in spite of all he’s been through, he still can’t seem to tell his story without embellishing the tale. He told the audience that when he converted to Christianity as a teenager, he “lost my family, my father, my home, my culture.” That could easily be misleading: while Caner’s Muslim father apparently did disown him after his conversion, Caner had been living with his mother since his parents had divorced years before.
 
Maybe Caner should review his own remarks. “We would rather lose doing the right thing than win while compromising the truth.”
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Values Voter Summit Posts Archive

Bill Donohue Condemns Jeffress As A "Poster Boy For Hatred"
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Wednesday 10/12/2011, 10:40am
Last week we posted audio of Robert Jeffress, the prominent Rick Perry endorser who introduced the candidate at the Values Voter Summit, condemning the Roman Catholic faith as a “counterfeit religion” that represents “the genius of Satan” in a sermon last year. Jeffress linked the Catholic Church to a Satanic “Babylonian mystery religion” that worshiped a fish god and warned that Catholics will “miss eternal life” because of their religion’s supposed paganism: Catholicism isn’t the only religion that has encountered hostility from... MORE
Bryan Fischer Pleads Ignorance About His "Poisonous Language"
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Tuesday 10/11/2011, 1:46pm
On AFA Today with Buster Wilson this morning, Bryan Fischer said he was stunned that Mitt Romney rebuked him, albeit not by name, for having crossed a line in civil debate and using “poisonous language.” As Kyle points out, Fischer has been playing the victim and defended himself during the same interview, saying, “Jesus used far more incendiary and inflammatory language than I have ever used.” Fischer told Wilson that he was on Romney’s “hit list” since the 2008 campaign and “didn’t anticipate that he would go after me” at the... MORE
Fischer Plays The Victim, Decries Romney's Rude and Insulting Attack On Him
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Tuesday 10/11/2011, 11:51am
As you are probably aware, People For The American Way had been calling on Mitt Romney to denounce the unmitigated bigotry of the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer during last week's Values Voter Summit where Fischer was scheduled to take the stage directly following Romney. And, much to our surprise, Romney actually did so, albeit in a vague and rather timid manner without actually mentioning Fischer by name. Nonetheless, the incident is not sitting well with Fischer at all, who dedicated a good portion of his radio program yesterday to playing the victim and blasting Romney... MORE
Jeffress: God Will Judge America For Electing A Mormon President
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Tuesday 10/11/2011, 11:31am
During a 2008 debate with Jay Sekulow of the American Center of Law and Justice, who endorsed Mitt Romney’s last presidential bid, Robert Jeffress said that not only are Mormons like Romney not Christians but that America would suffer God’s judgment if a Mormon were elected President. Jeffress, an influential pastor in the Southern Baptist Convention, stepped into the political spotlight when he introduced Rick Perry at the Values Voter Summit in a speech that appeared to contrast the fight between Perry and Romney as a choice between a Christian conservative and a conservative... MORE
Bryan Fischer's Speech To The Values Voter Summit
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Saturday 10/08/2011, 4:10pm
During his address to the Values Voter Summit, Bryan Fischer made the same claims he always made: Islam is evil and Muslims are traitors, LGBT equality threatens freedom, and the Constitution protects only Christians (not Mormons). After posting clips from the speech of Fischer attacking gay rights and the theory of evolution, we decided to post his speech in full. Remember that presidential candidates Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich have all appeared on his show, along with past candidates Tim Pawlenty and Mike Huckabee. In addition, Fischer... MORE
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
Fischer: Rights Endangered If President Believes In Evolution
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Saturday 10/08/2011, 1:54pm
The theory of evolution was a central topic in Bryan Fischer's speech to the Values Voter Summit, where he argued that the presidential candidates should reject evolution. "I submit to you that not a single one of our unalienable rights will be safe," Fischer said, "in the hands of a president who believes that we evolved from slime and that we are the descendents of apes and baboons." Fischer called the separation of church and state "mythical" and argued that a result of secular government and the theory of evolution result in mass murder... MORE