Women

Mike Huckabee Endorses Janet Porter's Radical Anti-Choice Bill

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 4/11/2011 3:06 pm

Janet Porter continues to nab more endorsements for her extreme “Heartbeat bill,” the Ohio legislation which would criminalize most abortions, as she announced at The Awakening that Mike Huckabee has endorsed her bill. Porter, who brought in two fetuses to testify on behalf of the bill in the State House, was able to get the legislation out of committee by just one vote after Ohio Right to Life Society criticized the bill as plainly unconstitutional. Along with Huckabee, Porter said that Republican Rep. Steve Chabot and potential Senate candidates Josh Mandel and Ken Blackwell also back her bill. Huckabee’s endorsement of Porter’s legislation shouldn’t come as a surprise, the former Arkansas governor said that he would base a potential presidential campaign on his opposition to abortion-rights and that he answer’s to two Janet’s, his wife and Janet Porter.

Knight: Gay Staffers Control Congress And Washington DC

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 4/11/2011 1:10 pm

At the Freedom Federation’s The Awakening 2011, right-wing activists unleashed their venom at the gay community and supporters of gay rights at the “Religious Liberty and the LGBT Agenda” panel. Robert Knight, a columnist for the Washington Times who is the executive director of the far-right American Civil Rights Union, maintained that gay congressional staffers represent one of the most difficult hurdles for opponents of LGBT equality. According to Knight, who has also worked for a wide range of conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation, Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, Media Research Center, and Coral Ridge Ministries, gay staffers have “veto power” over legislation because they “work all hours and, I think, tend not to have family lives.” He went on to say that the “gay subculture” in D.C. “intimidates the overriding Washington culture” and that opponents of gay rights are “undermined from within”:

Fischer Fires Back, Accuses Left of Spreading "False Accusations of Racism"

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 4/6/2011 12:13 pm

As we noted earlier, the AFA had changed Bryan Fischer's blog post from yesterday in which he claimed that welfare had destroyed the African American community because it just gave money to "people who rut like rabbits."  Here is the original paragraph:

Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete. Welfare has subsidized illegitimacy by offering financial rewards to women who have more children out of wedlock. We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it’s no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of people who rut like rabbits.

The AFA subsequently changed it to remove that line:

Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete. Welfare has subsidized illegitimacy by offering financial rewards to women who have more children out of wedlock. We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it’s no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of those who engage in random and reckless promiscuity, whether they are Caucasian, Hispanic, or African-American.

And now Fischer has written a new post accusing the left of leveling "wildly fasle accusations of racism":

My column of yesterday has lit up the blogosphere with false accusations that I am some kind of virulent racist.

This was in response to my statement that our welfare policies - in which we subsidize and reward sex outside of marriage - is incentivizing people of all ethnic groups to “rut like rabbits.” This is a simple and unmistakable fact. You get more of whatever you subsidize, and we are clearly getting more sex outside of marriage and more children born out of wedlock than ever before. (I have since made changes in my original column to clarify any confusion and misinterpretation of my comments.)

I was commenting on the effect of our misguided welfare policies across the board, and was not singling out the African-American community in particular, although the consequences of our disastrous welfare policies are felt most acutely there. I was speaking generally to the fact that fallen human nature is going to gravitate to whatever behavior government rewards, even if the behavior itself is self-destructive.

Because we are subsidizing fornication and illegitimacy - every illegitimate baby means more taxpayer money for the mother - we now have 40% of all babies being born out of wedlock overall. In the Hispanic community, the number is over 50% and in the African-American community, the number is now catastrophically over 70%.

This is actually typical for Fischer.  Every time he says something bigoted and people seek to hold him and the AFA accountable for it, his response is to claim that everyone else is deliberately misrepresenting his statement when, in fact, they are just quoting him directly. 

Fisher Goes Too Far: Blog Post Changed to Remove "Rut Like Rabbits" Comment

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 4/6/2011 9:43 am

Yesterday, we noted that the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer had posted a piece on the AFA blog asserting that welfare needed to be ended because all it did was give money to African Americans who "rut like rabbits":

Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete. Welfare has subsidized illegitimacy by offering financial rewards to women who have more children out of wedlock. We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it’s no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of people who rut like rabbits.

But sometime after the post went up, the AFA changed the paragraph and removed the "rut like rabbits" statement while adding language to make it appear that Fischer wasn't singling out African Americans.  The paragraph now reads: 

Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete. Welfare has subsidized illegitimacy by offering financial rewards to women who have more children out of wedlock. We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it’s no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of those who engage in random and reckless promiscuity, whether they are Caucasian, Hispanic, or African-American.

Suspecting that this might happen, we saved a copy of the original webpage so that the AFA could not succeed in scrubbing Fischer's statement:

Fischer: Welfare Just Gives Money To "People Who Rut Like Rabbits"

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 4/5/2011 12:03 pm

Bryan Fischer says there can be no debate "about whether or not Christians ought to be involved in politics" - they should.  And they should be seeking to "liberate people" and free them to "make choices that affect their own lives without the interference of the overreaching hand of government."

As such, it is time to end welfare to the poor because all it has done is give money to African Americans "who rut like rabbits":

We have spent over $16 trillion fighting the war on poverty, and it’s time to run up the white flag of surrender. Poverty has won. We now have more people on food stamps - think children here - than at any time in our history. The war on poverty has been a total, dismal failure and it’s time to recognize that. You get more of whatever you subsidize. You subsidize poverty, which we have done since 1965, and you just get more of it.

Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete. Welfare has subsidized illegitimacy by offering financial rewards to women who have more children out of wedlock. We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it’s no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of people who rut like rabbits.

And children are the ones who get chewed up. Welfare, as Walter Williams has pointed out, has done what slavery, racism and Jim Crow laws could not do: destroy the black family. The Christ-centered statesman puts himself in the place of a fatherless black child, sees the catastrophic damage that the meltdown of the family has caused, and pursues policies to wean people off marriage- and child-destroying welfare, and pursues policies that incentivize marriage, incentivize self-reliance rather than abject dependence, and incentivize the reconstruction of the American family.

Rand Paul To Address Ralph Reed's Religious Right Conference

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 4/4/2011 2:58 pm

Newly elected Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is set to address the Faith & Freedom Conference and Strategy Briefing in June, the hallmark event of Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition. Sen. Paul and his father, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, both appear to be testing the waters for a presidential bid. The younger Paul recently address the Iowa Republican Party’s “Night of the Rising Stars” and the Iowa Campaign for Freedom; he also told The Hill that he feels ready to run for president even though he has only held elected office since January.

Paul has also helped serve as a bridge between the Tea Party and the Religious Right, and conservatives were quick to defend him after he said he publicly opposed the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 2009 Paul headlined an event for the Constitution Party, which wants to establish “biblical law,” and his far-right positions have helped him win endorsements from prominent Religious Right figures like James Dobson and Beverly LaHaye.

During his Iowa speech, he said that politicians should refuse to compromise on the issue of abortion, connecting it to compromises on slavery laws prior to the Civil War. Earlier this year, he tried to connect his opposition to abortion rights to his battle against low flush toilets.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who is forming a presidential exploratory committee, is also slated to speak at the conference. The group’s Iowa convention hosted likely candidates such as Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Tim Pawlenty, Herman Cain, and Buddy Roemer.

Unruh Unleashes Variety of Falsehoods In Attempt to Defend South Dakota's Anti-Choice Law

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 4/1/2011 2:33 pm

Last week, South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard signed legislation forcing any woman seeking an abortion to wait three days and undergo counseling at an anti-choice "crisis pregnancy center."

South Dakota activists Allen Unruh and his wife Leslee have long been involved in seeking out outlaw abortion and Alan Colmes recently brought Allen Unruh onto his radio program to explain the need for this law.

It did not go well. 

Unruh kept insisting that 60% of all women who get an abortion are "coerced" into doing so and whenever Colmes pointed out that that was a false statistic, Unruh was reduced to citing a woman who was reportedly forced at gunpoint to get an abortion.  Colmes kept trying to point out that coercing women to do anything at gunpoint was already illegal, so a mandatory three-day waiting period and counseling was just an attempt to further restrict a woman's right to choose. 

Eventually, Unruh started claiming that Planned Parenthood routinely "coerced" woman into getting abortions, that their facilities had no trained medical personnel on staff, and did not conduct any sort of exam of patients seeking abortions  ... but then a registered nurse who worked at Planned Parenthood called in and told Unruh that he had no idea what he was talking about:

Alabama Weighs Extreme "Personhood" Laws

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 4/1/2011 1:08 pm

As neighboring Mississippi is set to vote on a “personhood” amendment in November, Alabama may have its own personhood debate as a “personhood” amendment and statute have been introduced in the state legislature. Republican legislators in the Alabama legislature have introduced “personhood” laws as both statutes and amendments to the state constitution. Both chambers are controlled by Republicans, and the Senate statutory bill already has the support of a majority of state senators.

Personhood laws grant constitutional rights to zygotes and fetuses, and ban abortion without exception, certain forms of birth control, in vitro fertilization, and the treatment of pregnancy complications such as ectopic pregnancies. The radical anti-choice group Personhood USA along with the Foundation for Moral Law, led by former Alabama state Supreme Court justice and likely presidential candidate Roy Moore, are the main forces behind the state’s personhood legislation. Ben DuPré, the point person for the state’s personhood campaign, is a graduate of Pat Robertson’s Regent University and Regent University School of Law and a former clerk for Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice and Moore, and is now an attorney for the Foundation for Moral Law and the head of Personhood Alabama. DuPré likened legal abortion to the dehumanization of black people in America:

The Foundation for Moral Law and Personhood Alabama have announced personhood bills and amendments in the House and the Senate, backed by a large number of supporters.

SB301 is a clear recognition of the personhood rights of all human beings, regardless of their age, size, or location. SB 301 states “The term ‘persons’ as used in the Code of Alabama 1975, shall include any human being from the moment of fertilization or the functional equivalent thereof.”

SB 301 is a statutory change to the Alabama Code, and is sponsored by a staggering 19 of 35 Alabama Senators.

…

Yesterday HB 405 and HB 409 were filed in the House by Representative John Merrill,a Personhood Statute and Personhood Amendment, respectively. The Personhood Statute and Amendment were backed by 31 co-sponsors.

“It is my belief that this bill will clearly affirm that, under law, an individual becomes a person upon fertilization,” stated Representative Merrill.

…

DuPré added, “America used to define the meaning of ‘person’ along racial lines; now we draw the line at the womb. Personhood legislation finally gives equal protection of the laws to the unborn as well as the born, and from the first moment of human life.”

Right Wing Round-Up

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 3/31/2011 5:43 pm

Schlafly Didn't Need Feminism, But She Did Need Domestic Help

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 3/31/2011 4:02 pm

Phyllis Schlafly is enjoying a bit of a renaissance at the moment, thanks to the recent publication of the book she penned with her niece Suzanne Venker entitled "The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know -- and Men Can't Say."

The point of the book is that feminism, as Schlafly puts it, has "made women unhappy and it's to make them believe that we live in a discriminatory and unjust society, and that they should look to government to solve their problems."

As Schlafly likes to remind everyone who will listen, she managed to obtain a college degree, a master's degree, a law degree, run for Congress, stop the ERA, and raise six children, all without any assistance from feminism or anyone else for that matter:

MARTIN: How did you manage, though? As a mother of six, as your husband was -certainly had a busy career of his own, and being as significant a national figure as you have been, how did you manage?

Ms. SCHLAFLY: Well, politics was my hobby. And I really spent 25 years as a full-time homemaker before I did any particular traveling around. And by that time the children were well along in school or college. And they were very supportive. My husband was very supportive. I told the feminists the only person's permission I had to get was my husband's.

But, as it turns out, Meghan Daum of the Los Angeles Times got Schlafly's niece Venker to admit that she did, in fact, have help:

I recently called Venker at her home in St. Louis because I had some questions, not least among them: How did Schlafly manage to raise all those kids and pursue such a prominent career? Granted, at 25 Schlafly married an older, well-established lawyer, and granted, she herself didn't go to law school until she was in her 50s, but did she have help? If so, she never seemed to mention it.

Venker seemed to almost despair at the question: "I'm in a pickle because I haven't been asked this directly before," she said. "I'm going to say this the best way I can. She had domestic help.... She wouldn't have called them nannies, but she had people in her home. That's what she chose. Did she mention that fact enough to get her point across to young people about how she managed to do it? No, she did not."

Arizona Bans "Race-Based" Abortion In Attempt To Bolster "Abortion As Black Genocide" Myth

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 3/30/2011 11:19 am

In early February Right Wing Watch reported on a bill in Arizona that would make it a felony for women from having abortions if the decision to terminate the pregnancy was based on race or sex. Yesterday, Governor Jan Brewer signed the bill into law, allowing the biological father or the woman’s parents to sue abortion providers for damages if the doctor knowingly conducting the procedure on race or sex grounds:

Arizona is the first state in the nation to make sex- or race-selection abortions a crime.

Gov. Jan Brewer on Tuesday signed into law House Bill 2443, which makes it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion based on the sex or race of the fetus.

…

Rep. Katie Hobbs, D-Phoenix, said the only proof Montenegro offered was a magazine article on such practices in China and India.

The law allows the father of an aborted fetus - or, if the mother is a minor, the mother's parents - to take legal action against the doctor or other health-care provider who performed the abortion. If convicted of the felony, physicians would face up to seven years in jail and the loss of their medical license.

The law is a result of a right-wing campaign to smear abortion providers, notably Planned Parenthood, for allegedly targeting women of color in order to commit “genocide” against the African American community. Anti-choice groups have launched billboard campaigns using images of black children and President Obama, publicized the discredited “documentary” Maafa 21, and organized “Freedom Rides” against abortion-rights.

Susan Cohen of the Guttmacher Institute explains how activists who want to take away women’s reproductive rights are twisting the facts about abortion in minority communities. As Cohen explains, African American women’s disproportionate lack of access to contraception and healthcare has led not only to higher rates of unintended pregnancies but also to higher rates of sexually transmitted infections:

These activists are exploiting and distorting the facts to serve their antiabortion agenda. They ignore the fundamental reason women have abortions and the underlying problem of racial and ethnic disparities across an array of health indicators. The truth is that behind virtually every abortion is an unintended pregnancy. This applies to all women—black, white, Hispanic, Asian and Native American alike. Not surprisingly, the variation in abortion rates across racial and ethnic groups relates directly to the variation in the unintended pregnancy rates across those same groups.

Black women are not alone in having disproportionately high unintended pregnancy and abortion rates. The abortion rate among Hispanic women, for example, although not as high as the rate among black women, is double the rate among whites. Hispanics also have a higher level of unintended pregnancy than white women. Black women's unintended pregnancy rates are the highest of all. These higher unintended pregnancy rates reflect the particular difficulties that many women in minority communities face in accessing high-quality contraceptive services and in using their chosen method of birth control consistently and effectively over long periods of time. Moreover, these realities must be seen in a larger context in which significant racial and ethnic disparities persist for a wide range of health outcomes, from diabetes to heart disease to breast and cervical cancer to sexually transmitted infections (STI), including HIV.

Setting Barton Straight On Obama's Use of "Endowed By Their Creator"

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 3/29/2011 3:28 pm

David Barton continues to demonstrate that he is an absolute joke:

A leading Christian historian told WND he believes President Obama is engaged in a pattern of "willfully, deliberately" repudiating America's Christian heritage.

As WND reported, Obama has been caught numerous times – seven, by WND columnist Chuck Norris' count – omitting the phrase "endowed by their Creator" when quoting the Declaration of Independence and misquoting the national motto "In God We Trust" in official White House communication.

Potential presidential candidate and WND columnist Herman Cain said he believes the omissions are "intentional," and historian David Barton told WND at the Iowa Renewal Project's Pastor's Policy Briefing that he agrees:

"The first time or two I thought, 'Well, he's flustered, he wasn't thinking.' But seven times? There's no way. Especially when he was called on it," Barton said. "Congressmen sent him a letter challenging him on it. There's no way it's matter of ignorance or slip or excuse at that point. I believe it's by design and by intent.

"I gave him the benefit of the doubt a few times, I waited," Barton continued, "but there's no way in a court of law that would not be seen as willful, deliberate intent."

Barton, head of Wallbuilders, an organization dedicated to presenting America's moral, religious and constitutional foundations, said unlike previous presidents – notably Founders like Washington and Adams – who publicly proclaimed God's hand in America, Obama has been going out of his way to not acknowledge the Almighty.

"You remember when he spoke at Georgetown, he had them cover the Christian symbols [behind him on the stage]?" Barton asked. "There's a pattern. When he misstates the national motto, it's not just the Declaration omission of 'their Creator.' When he became president, one of the first things that happened on the White House website was they took off the faith-based office. That kind of reaction is circumstantial, but in a court of law it would convict him."

Let's take a look at Barton's "circumstantial evidence," shall we?

First of all, Barton cites Chuck Norris' earlier WND column in which he asserts that Obama has dropped "endowed by their Creator" seven times ... but if you actually look at Norris' list, you see that several of the instances he cites were times when Obama was simply paraphrasing to make a point:

 

  • On Sept. 11, 2010, at the Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Va.:

"For our cause is just. Our spirit is strong. Our resolve is unwavering. Like generations before us, let us come together today and all days to affirm certain inalienable rights, to affirm life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

  • On Sept. 10, 2010, at the president's press conference at the White House:

"With respect to the mosque in New York, I think I've been pretty clear on my position here, and that is, is that this country stands for the proposition that all men and women are created equal; that they have certain inalienable rights – one of those inalienable rights is to practice their religion freely."

It is absurd to claim that Obama was directly quoting the Declaration in these instances, so the assertion that he intentionally dropped "endowed by their Creator" is ridiculous. 

Secondly, what about all of the times Obama has, in fact, cited that passage?

Remarks by the President at United States Military Academy at West Point Commencement -
May 22, 2010

But this nation was founded upon a different notion. We believe, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” (Applause.) And that truth has bound us together, a nation populated by people from around the globe, enduring hardship and achieving greatness as one people. And that belief is as true today as it was 200 years ago. It is a belief that has been claimed by people of every race and religion in every region of the world. Can anybody doubt that this belief will be any less true -- any less powerful -- two years, two decades, or even two centuries from now?

Remarks by the President at Independence Day Celebration - July 4, 2010

Two hundred and thirty-four years later, the words are just as bold, just as revolutionary, as they were when they were first pronounced: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Remarks by the President at Las Vegas "Moving America Forward" Rally - October 22, 2010

Look, change has always been hard in this country. This country was founded when 13 colonies came together in a revolution that nobody believed could happen, except they believed. They founded this country on ideas that hadn’t been tried before: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal -- (applause) -- that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Remarks by the President at DCCC General Reception - October 25, 2010

So don't let people tell you you’re not making a difference. Yes, it’s hard. But it’s always been hard. The history of America has been hard, starting with a revolution to found this country. The idea of America is hard, based on a document and ideas that had never been tried before: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Remarks by the President at a rally for Congressman Perriello - October 29, 2010

So don't let them tell you -- don't let them tell you change isn’t possible. Here’s what I know. This country was founded on what seemed impossible. We had 13 colonies come together and have to battle the greatest empire on Earth. And then they drafted this document nobody had ever tried before, proclaiming, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” A son of Virginia wrote those words. (Applause.) “That all men are created equal.” (Applause.) “And they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Remarks by the President at DNC "Moving America Forward" Rally in Chicago, Illinois - October 31, 2010

You know, this country started -- 13 colonies -- who folks said didn't have a chance against the British Empire. And then they drafted this document with ideas that had never been tried before: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

You know, the first few times I saw David Barton misrepresent facts in order to further his right-wing agenda, I gave him the benefit of the dobut, thinking perhaps he just misspoke. 

But when you see him do it time and time again, it becomes impossible to see it as anything other than a willful, deliberate intent to deceive.

Tea Party Group Warns of White "Extinction" In America

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 3/29/2011 10:43 am

Tea Party Nation is a major (for-profit) Tea Party organization that gained prominence after its convention last year hosted Republican leaders like Sarah Palin and Tom Tancredo, along with Religious Right figures Roy Moore and Rick Scarborough. TPN’s President Judson Phillips previously denounced the “Marxist” Methodist Church and suggested that President Obama’s campaign was funded by Hamas and China.

This morning, Tea Party Nation sent out an email to its members with the headline “Destroy the Family, You Destroy the Country!” from an article by Dr. Rich Swier, a contributing editor to the anti-Muslim group Family Security Matters. Writing for Tea Part Nation, Swier says that “The title of this column is a direct quote from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the first leader of the former Soviet Union. Lenin's vision was for the state (Communism) to replace the family as the provider of all things necessary for life and happiness. What Lenin did not foresee was his political policies leading to the eventual extinction of Russian civilization.” Swier goes on to lament the falling birthrate of native-born Americans compared to immigrants, and warns that “American culture” will soon perish since the “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) population is headed for extinction”:

What is keeping America's fertility rate up are immigrants - both legal and illegal.

There are those in America who are continuously attacking the family, bent on redefining marriage and have established anti-family government programs. This has led to downward pressure on our national total fertility rate. All of these actions are done in the name of various causes such as: reducing unwanted pregnancies, delaying child bearing to further career goals and even promoting childlessness and promoting adoption as a better option.

Child bearing has become something distasteful to many women, an unwanted and painful experience to be avoided rather than embraced.

All of these programs, ideals and ideologies are doing one thing and one thing only - reducing America core TFR to the point of no return. The White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) population in America is headed for extinction and with it our economy, well-being and survival as a uniquely America culture.

This county is dying not because it is aging, it is dying because of infertility as public policy.

2012 Candidates Weekly Update 3/29/11

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 3/29/2011 10:00 am

Michele Bachmann

Fundraising: Embellishes fundraising skills (WaPo, 3/28).

Religious Right: Slams proposed “social issues truce” at conservative forum (Des Moines Register, 3/26).

Iowa: Names State Senator and prominent Birther the director of her Iowa campaign (MoJo, 3/25).

Haley Barbour

Mississippi: State lawmakers criticize Barbour’s out of state traveling that caused him to miss budget deadline (The State Column, 3/28).

Obama: Claims President sees Americans as “too stupid to take care of ourselves” (ABC News, 3/26).

Equality: Calls to reinstate Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in order to prevent an “amorous mindset” among soldiers (RWW, 3/25).

Herman Cain

Equality: Says he will not appoint any Muslims if elected President (ThinkProgress, 3/26).

Race: Declares he “won’t stay on the Democrat plantation” (Politico, 3/26).

Newt Gingrich

Background: Believes it wasn’t hypocritical to impeach Clinton for affair while he was having an affair himself (CBS News, 3/28).

Religious Right: Tells John Hagee’s church he fears America as “a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists” (CNN, 3/28).

Equality: Discusses with Bryan Fischer how he will “slow down the homosexual agenda” (RWW, 3/25).

Mike Huckabee

Religious Right: Calls on activists to become “spiritual warriors” in social issues fight (RWW, 3/25).

Poll: Leads all other Republican candidates in national poll (TPM, 3/25).

Jon Huntsman

PAC: Horizon PAC hires more staffers and readies for potential campaign (Politico, 3/28).

Background: Staffers looks to distance Huntsman from Obama (AP, 3/26).

Roy Moore

2012: Alabama justice best known for Ten Commandments controversy plans to announce presidential bid in April (CBS News, 3/28).

Equality: Addressed Iowa opponents of marriage equality law at rally (Des Moines Register, 3/15).

Sarah Palin

Poll: Loses support in survey of Republicans nationwide (Reuters, 3/25).

Media: Refers to Bill Maher as an “annoying little mosquito” (Politico, 3/24).

Tim Pawlenty

Religious Right: Focuses Iowa campaign on attracting support of the Religious Right (RCP, 3/28).

Fundraising: Announces finance team led by former McCain fundraiser (WaPo, 3/28).

Mitt Romney

Campaign: Hires former Bush Administration staffer as policy advisor (Politico, 3/28).

Fundraising: Hopes to raise $50 million for the primary campaign (The Caucus, 3/25).

Rick Santorum

Family: Cancels campaign appearances to attend to ill daughter (CBN News, 3/28).

New Hampshire: Scheduled to appear at “first town hall meeting” of 2012 primary (Union Leader, 3/22).

Hartzler: Force Openly Gay Soldiers To Live In Separate Quarters

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 3/28/2011 12:22 pm

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) began her career as an anti-gay firebrand and spokesperson for the successful campaign to pass a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality in Missouri. After she was elected to the House in 2010, she became a favorite of conservative groups for her virulent attacks on the Obama Administration over its stance on the Defense of Marriage Act. Now, Hartzler told constituents that she supports the reinstatement of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, but if the policy’s repeal is successfully implemented, the military should house openly gay soldiers in separate barracks just as quarters are divided for men and women. The Daily Star-Journal reports:

At the ABC Building on Wednesday, Hartzler met with active, reserve and retired military members and spouses. A military retiree, Tom Fitzpatrick, Warrensburg, asked Hartzler about the new military policy on gays.

"Is there a growing sentiment to reinstate don't ask, don't tell?" Fitzpatrick asked.

After a 10-month Pentagon study found more than two-thirds of service members do not object to serving alongside openly gay soldiers, President Obama signed a defense bill that included ending the practice of expelling gay service members.

Hartzler - whose 4th Congressional District includes Whiteman Air Force Base and the Army's Fort Leonard Wood - told Fitzpatrick she and other Republicans oppose the change.

"I can tell you people on the committee, who are my side of the aisle, think it's very ill-advised and do not support that," Hartzler said, and are "pushing back."

Hartzler said that during a hearing with military brass she asked why, because separate housing exists for male and female troops, gays are not housed separately, too. She said a general, she did not know which, responded first with a gurgling-type noise before answering, ""We're recruiting professionals."'

Hartzler's description led some in the crowd to laugh.

"So we have some work to do there," she said. "We're going to keep advancing the cause."

Religious Right Dream Team Joins Dobson For Discussion on Marriage

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 3/28/2011 11:03 am

Today's broadcast of "Family Talk With Dr. James Dobson" featured an all-star Religious Right line-up of leaders in the fight against marriage equality, including Bishop Harry Jackson, Dr. Jim Garlow, Dr. Ken Hutcherson, Gary Bauer & Tony Perkins.

This was actually just part one of a two part series that will conclude tomorrow and I have edited down the program to its key soundbites.

As you would expect, each one was greatly alarmed by push for marriage equality and vowed to dedicate their lives to doing everything they can to fighting it, with Jackson, who has walking pneumonia warning, warning that that it is the nation that has walking pneumonia that will turn fatal if left untreated, while Garlow asserted that secularists hate democracy as Bauer attacked the elites for promoting the bizarre idea of men marrying men and Perkins warned that children will be "indoctrinated into the ways of homosexuality":

Jackson: I think the nation has walking pneumonia and if we don't stop it, this thing could become fatal.

Garlow: Well, for one, we're not going to give up; we're going to press forward. It is true that it seems the secularists do really hate democracy, they don't like it when the people speak out so they try to get a judge or judges to try to take away the consent of the governed.

It's shocking to me that anybody would be attacked for standing up the family or standing for marriage or that a child needs a mommy and a daddy. Who would think that we'd be in such a condition that somebody would be attacked for that? But we just do not believe that somehow the power of the enemy is going to breakthrough and totally destroy the definition of the family. We're going to stand firm. The social science is on our side, overwhelmingly so, the practical implications are on our side, and the Biblical data is on our side.

Bauer: And what are the liberal elites of our country doing, whether it's the media elites or even the president or our judicial elites, etc., the people in Hollywood? Instead of devoting their energy to trying to stop this destruction of the American family and do something to make sure our children have mothers and fathers, they're all spending their time promoting instead men marrying men and women marrying women, which will guarantee that more children will have either not fathers or mothers. It is just a bizarre concept.

Perkins: As soon as same-sex marriage is rolled-out, the curriculum is changed to aggressively promote homosexuality on par with heterosexuality. There is complete intolerance in those pushing this agenda in our schools. And so this goes back to the question "how will this affect my marriage"? It will affect your family because your children will be taught that this is normal and it will be aggressively taught to them and they'll be indoctrinated into the ways of homosexuality.

Flashback: Abby Johnson’s Suspicious "Conversion" To The Anti-Choice Movement

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 3/28/2011 11:03 am

As part of their campaign to defund Planned Parenthood, the Susan B. Anthony List is running television advertisements featuring Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood staffer now with Lila Rose’s LiveAction group. As RWW previously reported, Johnson baselessly asserted that Planned Parenthood has abortion “quotas” and requires their staff to “coerce” women and minors into having abortions:

In addition, the Texas Monthly poked numerous holes in Johnson’s story:

Johnson’s departure from Planned Parenthood turned out to be a more complex story than it first appeared. At a court hearing for an injunction sought by Planned Parenthood to prevent Johnson from divulging confidential information to her new allies, two of Johnson’s former co-workers testified that she told them in the days before she resigned that she was afraid she was about to be fired. At one time, Johnson, who was named the regional Planned Parenthood affiliate’s employee of the year in 2008, seemed to have a promising future with the organization. By mid-2009, however, her relationship with her employer had begun to deteriorate. Salon reported that on October 2, Johnson was summoned to Houston to meet with her supervisors to discuss problems with her job performance. She was placed on what Planned Parenthood calls a “performance improvement plan.” It was just three days later, on Monday, that Johnson made her tearful appearance at the Coalition for Life. The following day she faxed Planned Parenthood a resignation letter, which mentioned nothing about a crisis of conscience.

...

Other questions about Johnson’s credibility arose during our interview. She told me, for example, that there had never been any threats of violence against the Bryan clinic; however, Johnson herself received a series of threatening letters in 2007. “God will punish you for killing the innocent or we will,” read one. “You are not taking us seriously. You were at the clinic alone. Not very smart,” read another. In fact, the threats were taken so seriously that security cameras were installed at Johnson’s house, as she later acknowledged. Johnson also claimed that while most services at Planned Parenthood were provided by a nonprofit corporation, abortions were done by a for-profit corporation. Both she and Carney seemed to sincerely believe this was true, though all services at Planned Parenthood are, in fact, provided by a pair of separate nonprofit corporations.

As confounding as these inconsistencies are, there may be a much larger problem with Johnson’s story. Johnson has told the story of her journey from pro-choice activist to pro-life celebrity many times in many venues, and the crux of the tale is always the same: her moving description of what she saw on the ultrasound that September day in the Bryan clinic’s operating room ... Johnson’s account is so plausible and rich in detail that even Planned Parenthood seems not to have investigated whether this event ever took place. At my request, the staff at the Bryan clinic examined patient records from September 26, the day Johnson claims to have had her conversion experience, and spoke with the physician who performed abortions on that date. According to Planned Parenthood, there is no record of an ultrasound-guided abortion performed on September 26. The physician on duty told the organization that he did not use an ultrasound that day, nor did Johnson assist on any abortion procedure. “Planned Parenthood can assure you that no abortion patients underwent an ultrasound-guided abortion on September 26,” said a spokesperson. It’s difficult to imagine that Johnson simply got the date wrong; September 12 was the only other day that month that the clinic performed surgical abortions.

Could clinic staff and the physician be mistaken? The Texas Department of State Health Services requires abortion providers to fill out a form documenting basic information about each procedure performed at a clinic. This document is known as the Induced Abortion Report Form. The Bryan clinic reported performing fifteen surgical abortions on September 26. Johnson has consistently said that the patient in question was thirteen weeks pregnant, which is plausible, since thirteen weeks is right at the cusp of when physicians will consider using an ultrasound to assist with the procedure. Yet none of the patients listed on the report for that day were thirteen weeks pregnant; in fact, none were beyond ten weeks.

Obama Featured on Chicago Anti-Abortion Rights Billboards

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 3/28/2011 10:04 am

After an anti-choice organization placed, and ultimately pulled, a New York billboard with the message “The Most Dangerous Place for an African American is in The Womb,” the group is now posting similar billboards in Chicago featuring President Obama. Jill Stanek, a radical anti-choice blogger, details the group Life Always and its new billboard in Obama’s hometown that reads: “Every 21 Minutes, Our Next Possible Leader Is Aborted.” Stanek writes that “Tomorrow, March 29, over 30 pro-life billboards will be unveiled on Chicago’s south side, where residents are predominantly black.”

The “Abortion as Black Genocide” theme in the anti-choice community continues to grow, with legislators even pushing bans on so-called “race-based abortion.” Kathryn Joyce of Political Research Associates explains:

Recent studies by the Guttmacher Institute found that abortion rates are indeed higher among women of color. African Americans, in particular, are thirteen percent of the population but account for 37 percent of all abortions. However, Guttmacher determined, this is due to their greater incidence of unwanted pregnancies, resulting from economic inequality and poor access to contraception and education. Nonetheless, the anti-abortion movement holds that Black and brown populations are being targeted – rather than served – by abortion providers who deliberately place clinics in inner-city, low-income neighborhoods.

Iowa Religious Right Leader Compares Marriage Equality Ruling To Overturning Gravity

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 3/24/2011 1:25 pm

Cary Gordon of Iowa’s Cornerstone World Outreach has continued to make waves with his anti-gay diatribes. Gordon was heavily involved with the successful effort to remove three Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of marriage equality in 2009, and just last week he told a rally hosted by Bob Vander Plaats that like Rome, “we too will be extinguished from the earth” as a result of civil rights for gays and lesbians. While Gordon’s political maneuvers through his “Project Jeremiah” drove his church into bankruptcy. After failing to pay back the construction company that worked on Gordon’s church, the county sheriff is now putting the church on the auction block. But severe fiscal problems haven’t stopped Gordon from targeting gays and lesbians, and criticizing secular government. Tyler Kingkade of the Iowa Independent reports:

Gordon, pastor at the Sioux City-based Cornerstone World Outreach church, claimed secularists want to throw God out of our public policy decisions.

“The natural problem that causes is an overt immorality. The crime rates go up, people suffer, people are stealing and murdering and [doing] all the things morality tells you not to do,” Gordon said in an interview with The Iowa Independent, although he clarified that he did not mean same-sex marriage is the direct cause of all these things.

…

Gordon often referred to France’s government and society and noted an “objectum sexualist” who married the Eiffel Tower. Gordon said he believed the secular path he saw America’s society as being on would lead beyond legalizing same-sex marriages to polygamy, “whole villages getting married,” or grandparents marrying their own grandchildren. “There’s always been this fight of can you have a free country without God?” Gordon said.

“There has been a tendency leaning backwards towards secularism. And so what my point was that gay marriage or any other issues that are detached from the moral foundations of the teachings of Christianity are the result of a vacuum created by secularism.”

…

Gordon told The Iowa Independent his outspoken opposition to same-sex marriages is “not about hate, it’s about natural law.” Although he didn’t say how he felt about two men or two women being able to receive the same legal benefits if they were not legally married.

“I didn’t make gravity, no board of three against two on a board of five voted and said ‘let’s have gravity now,’” Gordon said. “And so there are natural laws that men did not make and we don’t have the power to overrule. One of those laws is it takes one man and one woman to make a baby. I didn’t make that law … and that is the logical definition of family.”

He then called children the innocent bystanders of the situation, and said a same-sex couple could never raise a child as well as a heterosexual couple.

“When two men say to the world we can raise a child just as good as any heterosexual couple, I think that’s offensive to women, because you’re saying that a woman, a female, does not bring a unique contribution,” Gordon said.

Right Wing Leftovers

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 3/22/2011 5:38 pm
  • Susan B. Anthony List, Family Research Council Action, 40 Days for Life, Students for Life of America, Concerned Women for America, Catholic Vote, LifeNews.com, American Values and Catholic Advocate have all teamed up to inundate Congress with phone calls demanding the defunding of Planned Parenthood.

  • Is Japan Disaster Another Apocalyptic Sign? Yes.

  • Herman Cain sees signs everywhere that God has big plans for him.

  • Peter LaBarbera is unveiling the line-up for his next anti-gay "Truth Academy."

  • Can somebody explain to me when Christians are to be counted as Christians and when they are not to be considered "real" Christians.

  • Newt Gingrich is doing all he can to endear himself to the Religious Right. Good luck with that.
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Women Posts Archive

Huckabee To Keynote Fundraiser For Personhood Mississippi
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Wednesday 08/31/2011, 12:40pm
Mike Huckabee is scheduled to be the featured speaker at a fundraiser for Personhood Mississippi, the group running the campaign to pass Amendment 26, which would criminalize abortion with no exceptions by giving rights to zygotes. In addition to banning abortion, the personhood amendment would also make certain forms of birth control, in-vitro fertilization and the treatment of problem pregnancies a crime. The American Family Association, which is based in Mississippi, committed $100,000 to fund the effort to pass Amendment 26 in November. By supporting Amendment 26, Huckabee places himself... MORE
Sprigg: "Nothing That We Have Done Can Reasonably Be Called Hate"
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Tuesday 08/30/2011, 3:36pm
Family Research Council senior fellow Peter Sprigg appeared today on The Matt Friedeman Show on the American Family Association’s American Family Radio to discuss the budding controversy over the right-wing “charity” service CGBG. The progressive groups AllOut.org and Change.org have persuaded over 200 retailers to leave the CGBG, a for-profit group that allows customers to shop at companies online and direct part of their proceeds to right-wing organizations like FRC and Focus on the Family – success that, unsurprisingly, has got the Religious Right up in arms. It... MORE
Barber: Gays Want To Put Conservatives "Behind Bars"
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Tuesday 08/30/2011, 1:00pm
On an episode of Faith & Freedom scheduled to air tomorrow, Liberty Counsel’s Matt Baber dedicates the program to discussing how “homo-fascists” are unfairly pressuring businesses to drop out of the “charity-giving” program run by the right-wing CGBG. As noted in previous posts, the CGBG sets up a virtual mall for consumers to shop at companies and donate part of their proceeds to charity groups. However, these charities include the far-right, anti-gay Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, and Liberty Counsel. Barber, who in 2008 personally led a... MORE
'Abortion In The Hood' Campaign Revives 'Black Genocide' Smear
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Monday 08/29/2011, 1:50pm
No matter how many times the deceitful claim that abortion providers are systematically targeting the black community for genocide is repudiated, new anti-choice groups can’t seem to stop running more ‘black genocide’ billboard campaigns. In March, a group called Life Always notoriously used images of President Barack Obama and a young black girl in their billboard campaign that abortion is black genocide. Earlier this summer the National Black Pro-Life Coalition put up billboards in Atlanta likening legal abortion to slavery and the Radiance Foundation and Issues4Life... MORE
Donohue Likens LGBT Rights Movement To Apartheid, Denies Ever Leading Pressure Campaigns
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Friday 08/26/2011, 5:31pm
The Catholic League has rallied to the defense of their anti-gay allies the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family as a reaction to a campaign by LGBT rights and women’s rights advocates to have corporations drop out of the Charity Give Back Group, which sponsors the FRC and Focus. The Charity Give Back Group (formerly known as the Christian Values Network) allows customers to shop in a virtual mall and direct proceeds to CGBG affiliated groups, which led to complaints as a number of the CGBG’s charities are actually anti-choice and anti-gay political groups. Yesterday,... MORE
Downplaying The Religious Right's Embrace Of "Sovereignty & Dominion"
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Thursday 08/25/2011, 11:46am
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... MORE
Perkins: Homosexuality Is "Man Shaking His Fist In The Face Of God"
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Thursday 08/25/2011, 11:10am
Family Research Council president Tony Perkins joined Janet Mefferd yesterday to discuss the campaign progressive groups are leading to get companies drop ties to the Charity Give Back Group (formerly the Christian Values Network). The CGBG is a for-profit company that helps consumers direct a percentage of their purchases at participating retail outlets to a variety of right-wing organizations including the FRC and Focus on the Family. LGBT rights and women’s rights advocates are calling on companies to leave the CGBG over its support for FRC and Focus on the Family. CGBG’s... MORE