Women

As we mentioned the other day, there have been a lot of articles lately from journalists, columnists, and Religious Right activists completely dismissing any talk of "dominionism" among the Religious Right.

Dominionism, they claim, is just some meaningless conspiracy-theory dreamed up by the Left as scare tactic because nobody within the Religious Right movement would ever embrace those ideas or associate with anyone who espoused any sort of Christian Reconstructionist views.

Really?  While searching for something else, I stumbled upon this 2007 article from Americans United about a conference organized by the Christian Reconstructionists at American Vision and co-sponsored by several "mainstream" Religious Right organizations:

The gathering, dubbed “Preparing This Generation to Capture the Future,” was hosted by American Vision, a ministry that has been toiling away since 1978 to “help Christians build a truly Biblical worldview.” In a conference handout, American Vision states that “By God’s grace, we will work together to make America a truly Chris­tian nation for our children’s children.”

Based in Powder Springs, Ga., American Vision also produces reams of material that push Christian Reconstruc­tionism, a form of fundamentalism that argues for a re-writing of American history, dismantling secular democracy and constructing an America governed by “biblical law.” Reconstructionists seek to impose the criminal code of the Old Testament, applying the death penalty for homosexuals, adulterers, fornicators, witches, incorrigible juvenile delinquents and those who spread false religions.

Despite its overtly radical theocratic agenda, American Vision is allied with some of the Religious Right’s most powerful outfits. This year’s conference was cosponsored by the Alliance Defense Fund, a well-funded Religious Right law­yers’ outfit that James Dobson and other religious broadcasters helped create; Michael Farris’s Home School Legal Defense Association; the late TV preacher Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University School of Law; and World Magazine, Marvin Olasky’s influential evangelical Christian periodical.

The event was promoted heavily by the Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition, and it was held in a facility owned by the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest non-Catholic denomination and a religious body closely aligned with the Bush administration.

American Vision is run by Gary DeMar, who is a self-identified Christian Reconstructionist.  Last year, DeMar's organization hosted another Worldview Super Conference.  Take a guess what it was called?

Sovereignty & Dominion: Biblical Blueprints for Victory!

The Bible tells us in Genesis 1:28 that God created us to multiply, fill the earth, and take dominion of His creation for His Glory. When Jesus came to earth, He gave his disciples the Great Commission and told them to make disciples of all nations, Baptize them, and teach them to obey all that he had commanded (Matthew 28:18-20). These two mandates form the basis for why Christ’s Church exists on this planet. Every square inch of this world belongs to King Jesus. It is our privilege to serve Him by exercising servanthood dominion in every area of life.

This conferece was co-sponsored by Liberty University Law School and among those attending the event were Janet Porter, who served as the co-chair of Mike Huckabee's Faith and Family Values Coalition during his presidential campaign and John Eidsmoe, who spoke at the event. Eidsmoe, as you may recall, was Michele Bachmann's mentor who advocates a variety of far-right views.

So Religious Right groups openly co-sponsor an event organized by Christian Reconstructionists and Michele Bachmann's mentor is a featured speaker at an event organized by these same Christian Reconstructionists which is entitled "Sovereignty & Dominion" ... but to point out the influece of Christian Reconstruction and Dominioism among the Religious Right and some GOP presidential candidates is "just another attempt to discredit opponents rather than answer them"?

A campaign spearheaded by LGBT rights and women’s rights groups Change.org and AllOut.org, encouraging companies to drop their ties to the Charity Give Back Group (formerly the Christian Values Network), unsurprisingly has the Religious Right up in arms. The CGBG “operates a sort of online mall, donating a portion of each purchase to religious nonprofits,” Michelle Goldberg explains. “Among them are conservative organizations like Focus on the Family, The Family Research Council, Promise Keepers, and a number of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.”

The campaign to get businesses to opt out of CGBG’s program has been very successful, with over 200 companies such as Delta, Apple and Macy’s dropping out of the program so far.

Focus on the Family is now encouraging its members to write to the companies that have ended their ties with CGBG. And today, the Family Research Council launched the “Resist Discrimination” campaign, demanding companies “resist pressure to discriminate against customers with a traditional, biblical view of marriage” with a warning that they “should beware of online activists who spread misinformation to pressure retailers to discriminate against customers and charities with Judeo-Christian moral views, including marriage as the union of a man and a woman.” Of course, Focus on the Family and the FRC would never support similar pressure campaigns…right?

As a matter of the fact, FRC was part of a campaign last year that threatened to boycott Comedy Central if the channel did not drop a planned comedy show about Jesus Christ, and in 2008 endorsed a five month boycott of McDonalds and Wal-Mart because of the companies’ ties to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. Focus on the Family also closed its Wells Fargo accounts in 2005 to protest the bank’s donation to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. In 2006, Focus on the Family founder and then-president James Dobson urged members to boycott Proctor & Gamble because of its support for a gay-rights initiative. “For Procter & Gamble to align itself with radical groups committed to redefining marriage in our country is an affront to its customers,” Dobson said.

The CGBG was founded by Stephen Baldwin (Alec Baldwin’s brother) and Michael Lohan (Lindsay Lohan’s father), with Mike Huckabee acting as its spokesman. Now, the CGBG is advised by Baldwin and Kevin McCullough, who run XtreMEDIA. McCullough recently acted as a spokesperson for CGBG’s response to the AllOut! and Change.org campaign, saying the groups were disseminating a “dishonest message.” While FRC and Focus’s active opposition to LGBT and women’s rights is well documented, McCullough is a lesser known activist. He has a radio show on the Christian channel Family NET and stands in for American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer when the latter is on vacation from his show on American Family Radio.

While McCullough claims that the CGBG shouldn’t be attacked over its ties to the FRC and Focus, McCullough’s own anti-gay activism speaks for itself.

• When something appears as a WorldNetDaily exclusive, you know that it is important and that you can trust the reporting.
• Hey, remember when Scott Lively was going to give up his anti-gay activism? So much for that.
• It turns out that the recent Traditional Values Coalition attacks on wasteful spending were totally misleading. Who would have guessed?
• Looks like the next Awakening conference will be in Florida instead of at Liberty U.
• Bryan Fischer defends Rick Perry.
• Finally, quote of the day from Gary Bauer: "Men and women of faith cannot sit on the sidelines while the culture war rages on. Homosexuality is out of the closet and the tyrants of tolerance are trying to force anyone who believes in traditional values into the closet."

Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber took to the Washington Times this morning to lay out yet another anti-gay screed. According to Barber, the future of the country will be determined over a conflict between the conservative movement’s patriotism and the left’s supposedly unpatriotic support for equal rights and the separation of church and state. Barber, who has argued that liberalism is the “hatred for God” and that gay children commit suicide because they know homosexuality is “unnatural,” said that gay rights will bring about the country’s moral collapse as “the ‘gay pride’ parade leaves nothing behind but a huge mess for the rest of us to clean up”:

Indeed, the “gay pride” parade, perhaps more than any other, best encapsulates the values embraced by today’s secular-progressive left.

Think about it. It’s got it all:

c Obscenely expensive, taxpayer-funded actions-without-consequences gaiety.

c Celebration of a caution-to-the-wind, enjoy-now-pay-later lifestyle.

c Men who act like women and women who look like men.

c Flamboyant narcissism, moral relativism and plenty of gyrating nude bodies.

c Colorful public sex displays to forever confuse, desensitize and sexualize the kiddos. (Mustn’t forget: “Childhood events permanently impact beliefs and behavior.”)

c Lots of anti-Americanism.

c And a total absence of God.

Oh, and much like the homosexual lobby’s No. 1 cheerleader, President Barack “downgrade” Obama, the “gay pride” parade leaves nothing behind but a huge mess for the rest of us to clean up.

So which America do you live in? The one with public displays of patriotism or the one with public displays of perversion? The one with lots of flag-waving or the one with lots of, well, whatever waving?

As the Good Book says: “Pride cometh before the fall.”

We’re falling.

Can we get back up?

I don’t know, but for starters, we sure could use a lot less pride and a little more patriotism. More important, though, let’s take a lesson from those who came before us.

If we don’t turn back to God, our best days are done.

WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah contends that “the homosexual agenda and the Shariah agenda” are working together to endanger the future of America. Farah claims that both the LGBT community and Muslim-Americans want to alter the institution of marriage, use hate crimes laws to silence critics, and implement Don’t Ask Don’t Tell to weaken the U.S. military. According to Farah, only right-wing activists like him are standing up to the “Muslim Mafia and the Gay Mafia,” but even many leaders of the conservative movement are selling out for “Arab cash” and “wealthy homosexual interests.” Farah writes:

Homosexual political activists are pushing hard for the cultural and legal acceptance of same-sex marriage, the adoption of hate-crimes legislation and open homosexual activity in the U.S. armed forces. Opposition to this agenda typically comes from practicing and observant Christians and Jews who recognize the Bible unequivocally condemns homosexual behavior is sinful and that there are grave real-life consequences to nations that condone it.

But I want you to notice who doesn't actively oppose this agenda in American society today – organized Muslim groups.

…

I will tell you why: Because they recognize the promotion of this agenda in the U.S. actually serves the Islamist long-term agenda. They recognize that the success of this agenda promotes the weakening of the United States of America in multiple ways.

Let's examine how.

There is little question the legal acceptance of same-sex marriage will open the door to the legalization of polygamy. It's inevitable. After all, if it is now "discriminatory," as we're told, to prohibit two men or two women from getting married, clearly it is "discriminatory" to prohibit the marriage of one man and two or more women. There is simply no other rational way to view it.

Who benefits? Those who practice polygamy as part of their religion – Muslims.

…

And what about opposition to the gutting of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law? Where are the Muslim organizations on this one? Once again, they are AWOL. Peculiar, isn't it?

Not really. That's because, I believe, the anti-American Muslim Brotherhood tentacles in the U.S. recognize that, ultimately, the U.S. military is one of the last lines of defense of a nation in economic, political and cultural retreat. And they recognize that open homosexual activity within the military's ranks renders it less effective. In other words, it spells victory for the jihadists who ruled the world in the past and intend to rule it in the future.

…

Until recently, you might note, the only organized political opposition to both the homosexual agenda and the Shariah agenda came from conservatives.

But that is changing.

Some conservative activists, flush with Arab cash, are actively networking their new Muslim friends into the movement and through the Republican Party hierarchy. Other conservative activists are selling out to the wealthy homosexual interests. And a few are even straddling both camps in a very strange and dangerous game indeed.

…

So what explains the current brand of patty-cake politics between the Muslim Mafia and the Gay Mafia?

Money, moral relativism, naiveté and power.

But this is a short-term marriage of convenience, not a marriage made in heaven.

When Sarah Palin was chosen as the GOP nominee for vice president, Phyllis Schlafly hailed her as a role model of the non-feminist woman who by her very existence discredited the women’s movement. Feminists “are really spooked by Palin because she’s done everything and she is a success,” Schlafly said, “besides she is pretty and they cannot stand her.”

Now that Palin’s star has significantly subsided and she has become one of the most unpopular politicians in America, Schlafly’s niece Suzanne Venker is crowning Michele Bachmann as the new conservative woman who destroyed feminism. Venker, who co-authored The Flipside of Feminism with Schlafly, told James Dobson that women shouldn’t pursue challenging professions like brain surgery because it might prevent them from having children.

In an article for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch today, Venker lauded Bachmann for showing the bright side of biblical “submission” and proving that the women’s movement has contributed nothing beneficial to society. Venker writes that for “the first time in decades, the liberal feminist establishment is up against something new: outspoken conservative women who undermine the feminist agenda.” But haven’t conservative women, like say, Phyllis Schlafly, been involved in politics for decades?

Venker argues that now Bachmann is being unfairly depicted as “a religious nut and a doormat,” and says a man would never be asked about biblical submission (not so). And even though Bachmann may be one of the easiest GOP candidates for President Obama to defeat, Venker says that she is actually making liberals run scared:

For 40 years, this country has endured a social movement that has been relentless in its goals. Women on the left believe the feminist movement is responsible for liberating women from constricted lives; women on the right see things differently. Feminists are consumed with their place in society; conservative women are not. They are especially uninterested in fighting a gender war. That's why the Submission Question could be asked only of a conservative female candidate. It's women on the right, we're told, who want to keep women in their place. Conservative women are anti-woman.

So what to do when faced with a female candidate who's conservative and popular? Why, portray her as a religious nut and a doormat, of course! Indeed, feminists know most women won't identify with that kind of woman. And they're right: they won't. Women on the left don't appreciate that traditional values, even Biblical values, are not at odds with female empowerment. No matter what you think of Bachmann or Sarah Palin, these women have proved this in spades. No one gets to their position by being oppressed or mousy.

For the first time in decades, the liberal feminist establishment is up against something new: outspoken conservative women who undermine the feminist agenda. Conservative women are supposed to stay home! Conservative women are supposed to lead nice, traditional lives: raise a gaggle of children, be subordinate to their husbands and stay out of the public sphere. Why are they asserting their independent minds?

…

The implication that Michele Bachmann is a Stepford wife in disguise was a pitiful attempt to bring down a female conservative candidate who has sinned in the worst way possible: She does not carry the feminist torch. And, yet, she still won the Iowa straw poll.

Perhaps feminism really is dead.

As researchers continue to challenge and discredit right-wing claims that gays and lesbians can be transformed by reparative therapy and are harmful to children, anti-gay activists simply deny the validity of the science. For example, when the journal Pediatrics found that children with same-sex parents “were psychologically well-adjusted and had fewer behavioral problems than their peers,” then-president of Concerned Women for America Wendy Wright said that the study must be wrong simply because their finding “just defies common sense and reality.”

Today on Faith & Freedom, Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver and Matt Barber similarly attacked the American Psychological Association because the group’s research on sexual orientation and same-sex parenting didn’t comport to their anti-gay views. Staver and Barber were provoked by a recent 157-0 vote by the APA on a resolution endorsing marriage equality and condemning attacks on gay rights, which was bolstered by numerous studies showing that “homosexuality is a normal expression of human sexual orientation” and that gays and lesbians face harmful discrimination.

Although the APA used a trove of scientific research to show that gays and lesbians deserve equal rights and shouldn’t experience unfair treatment, Barber concluded that the APA has become “a pseudo-scientific organization” and is now “purely a politician organization”:

Staver: You know, we’ve known for many years about the APA’s liberal background and their bent since 1973, but this 157-0 vote shows that it is clearly a political organization that is hopelessly embroiled in politics and not in science.

Barber: Clearly and purely a political organization, a pseudo-scientific organization that the left looks to a great deal to affirm many of their radical leftist political policies to try to get that quasi-scientific support.

Oklahoma Representative Sally Kern has been promoting her book "The Stoning of Sally Kern: The Liberal Attack on Christian Conservatism - And Why We Must Take a Stand" in which she compares the attacks on her to Pearl Harbor for several weeks now and last week appeared on the radio with Concerned Women for America where she and host Martha Kleder marveled at how God has kept her in office by placing her in a conservative district so she could win re-election:

Kleder:Well it is a testament to God's grace that you are still in office, given the firestorm that erupted, given the artillery that the other side had that was aimed directly at you and your race, several races. It really is a testament to the Lord.

Kern: Well, it really is. And Martha, something else - I don't mention this in the book - but when I had my first race after all of this happened and I had a very liberal Democrat running against me and of course he was saying all kinds of stuff about me. And I was at the time having an issue with my back and the doctor said "don't you go walking door to door." So I wanted to see why kind of traction my opponent was getting so I had a survey done by a good group here in Oklahoma and what we found out which I think, this just shows the Lord's wisdom and intervention, I have the most conservative district and the most churched district in all of Oklahoma. Now, isn't that something? Had I been in any other district, I might very well have been defeated, but not in the district that I'm in.

During last week's Republican presidential debate, Michele Bachmann was asked by Washington Examiner’s Byron York about her past statement that she ended up studying tax law even though she "hates taxes" and never had a desire for it" but did so because wives "are to be submissive to your husband" and so she "was going to be faithful to what I felt God was calling me to do through my husband."

In her response and since, Bachmann has been trying to claim that being "submissive" merely means that she and her husband "respect each other," which is nonsense, as Sarah Posner explained today in Salon.

And now the Religious Right is rallying around Bachmann, attacking the question as unfair and inappropriate:

Penny Nance, president of the conservative group Concerned Women for America, expressed her dismay at the question in a statement: "Byron York's question to Michele Bachmann about her relationship with her husband was incredibly inappropriate and downright ignorant.”

...

Given that both men and women are called to give of themselves in marriage, Nance lamented that the male presidential candidates were not asked the same or a similar question.

Ummm ... does Nance not remember when Mike Huckabee was asked by Carl Cameron about the 1998 ad he signed stating that a "wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband" during a Republican debate in South Carolina in 2008 where Huckabee delivered a more eloquent but equally Bachmann-like response:

CAMERON: Governor Huckabee, to change the subject a little bit and focus a moment on electability.

Back in 1998, you were one of about 100 people who affirmed, in a full-page ad in the "New York Times," the Southern Baptist Convention's declaration that, quote, "A wife us to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband."

Women voters in both parties harshly criticized that. Is that position politically viable in the general election of 2008, sir?

HUCKABEE: You know, it's interesting, everybody says religion is off limits, except we always can ask me the religious questions. So let me try to do my best to answer it.

(APPLAUSE) And since -- if we're really going to have a religious service, I'd really feel more comfortable if I could pass the plates, because our campaign could use the money tonight, Carl.

(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)

We'll just go all the way.

First of all, if anybody knows my wife, I don't think they for one minute think that she's going to just sit by and let me do whatever I want to. That would be an absolute total misunderstanding of Janet Huckabee.

The whole context of that passage -- and, by the way, it really was spoken to believers, to Christian believers. I'm not the least bit ashamed of my faith or the doctrines of it. I don't try to impose that as a governor and I wouldn't impose it as a president.

But I certainly am going to practice it unashamedly, whether I'm a president or whether I'm not a president. But the point...

(APPLAUSE)

... the point, and it comes from a passage of scripture in the New Testament Book of Ephesians is that as wives submit themselves to the husbands, the husbands also submit themselves, and it's not a matter of one being somehow superior over the other. It's both mutually showing their affection and submission as unto the Lord.

So with all due respect, it has nothing to do with presidency. I just wanted to clear up that little doctrinal quirk there so that there's nobody who misunderstands that it's really about doing what a marriage ought to do and that's marriage is not a 50/50 deal, where each partner gives 50 percent.

Biblically, marriage is 100/100 deal. Each partner gives 100 percent of their devotion to the other and that's why marriage is an important institution, because it teaches us how to love.