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July 2, 2008
Burress, Schlafly, Barton Dispense with McCain Foreplay
After a private meeting with John McCain, Ohio Religious Right icon Phil Burress remained a little ho-hum about the candidate he felt obligated to support, but soon enough—after McCain announced his support for California’s anti-gay marriage amendment, anyway—Burress was bubbling over with excitement:
He says McCain was courteous and took detailed notes on what the six had to say about issues such as the sanctity of life, marriage, and judges. "It was so refreshing to me because he was so different than any other politician that I have ever met," describes Burress. He says McCain is not swayed like other politicians. …
"...[I] left there a changed man," he admits.
Burress wrote to his supporters that after the meeting, “40 Ohio Pro-Family Forum leaders … have decided to move forward and start working to educate Ohio Values Voters about the vast differences between McCain and Obama.”
I was once one of those people who said "no way" to Senator John McCain as President. No longer. The stakes are too high. And if Obama wins I need to able to get up on November 5th, look at myself in the mirror, and when I pray, say, "Lord, I did all that I could."
And today, Burress joined a hundred other activists—including far-right heavyweights Phyllis Schlafly and David Barton—in Denver to commit to campaign for McCain:
"Collectively we feel that he will support and advance those moral values that we hold much greater than Obama, who in our view will decimate moral values," said Mat Staver, the chairman of Liberty Counsel, a legal advocacy group, who previously supported Mike Huckabee's candidacy. …
The group included leaders like Phyllis Schlafly, the long-time leader of Eagle Forum; Steve Strang, the publisher of Charisma magazine; Phil Burress, a prominent Ohio marriage and anti-pornography activist; David Barton, the founder of WallBuilders and Donald Hodel, a former secretary of the Interior, who previously served on the board of Focus on the Family. Jim Dobson, the head of Focus and an outspoken critic of McCain, did not attend. The McCain campaign was also not directly represented at the meeting.
A second person who attended the event, but asked not to be named, said that the group was motivated principally by a desire to defeat Barack Obama. "None of these people want to meet their maker knowing that they didn't do everything they could to keep Barack Obama from being president," the participant said. "You've got these two people running for president. One of them is going to become president. That's the perspective. That that's the whole discussion." …
On a recent swing through Ohio, McCain met with a group of religious leaders and activists, including Burress, who has previously been critical of McCain's lack of outreach to Christian conservatives. According to two participants at the Tuesday meeting in Denver, Burress spoke out strongly in favor of uniting behind McCain's candidacy.
Staver said the McCain campaign was making progress but still had more work to do. "I think that the outreach to the community has to increase significantly," he said. "There is a clear enthusiasm."
Posted by Ezra at 5:18 PM | Permalink
May 15, 2008
More Phony Right-Wing Environmentalism
It seems as if the Right is finally realizing that they are losing the battle over the issue of the environment and have decided, rather than to change their tune, to instead adopt a posture of appearing to care about global warming and climate issues in order to push their own agendas.
For instance, a few weeks ago we wrote about the American Environmental Coalition, a group founded by right-wing stalwarts like Pat Robertson, Paul Weyrich, and Gary Bauer which was created to “bring balance to the debate” about climate change by essentially denying the existence of global warming and fighting against efforts to address it.
Right off the bat, they found a champion in militant global-warming skeptic Sen. Jim Inhofe … but apparently one phony right-wing environmental group just wasn’t getting the job done and now Inhofe is back with another:
Christian leaders have joined with pastors and legislators to put forth a new initiative on caring for the environment. Today marks the launch of www.WeGetIt.org, a website offering visitors the opportunity to sign up and be a part of an historic movement.
The reaction to climate change has reached deep into prevailing culture. Knee-jerk reactions with good intentions can harm more than help. The recent increase in the cost of food is one example of the consequence of diverting crops such as corn to the production of ethanol as a fuel source. The impact that steep corn price increases have had on food distribution to third-world countries has been profoundly negative. Keeping in mind this difficult lesson, the "We Get It" coalition offers recommendations by which we can honor and care for the environment along with the poor.
The "We Get It" campaign coalition includes Senator James Inhofe, Cornwall Alliance, Institute on Religion and Democracy, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, and Wallbuilders. Janet Parshall, Joel Belz of World Magazine, Acton Institute and Dr. Richard Land have also joined this monumental movement.
That’ll fly, because when one thinks of those protecting the environment and assisting third-world countries, one automatically thinks of the tireless efforts historically put forth by the likes of the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America, and Wallbuilders.
The effort appears to be designed to try and piggyback off of Al Gore's "We Can Solve It" campaign, with the notable exception that their position is that “our stewardship of creation must be based on Biblical principles” and the demand that any efforts to protect the environment must be guided by “principles of His Word to care for the poor and tend His creation.” As the video on their website explains, efforts to protect the environment and fight global warming will only end up making food more expensive and less available, which will ultimately hurt the poor in places like Africa and cause children to go hungry. As they see it, “contrary to popular belief, the science is not settled on whether the Earth’s recent, slightly warming was caused by man or nature.
If you didn’t know better, you might initially mistake this video for a plea for donations to help those suffering around the world, at least until right-wing icon Janet Parshall shows up and explains that “it won’t cost you a dime” because what will really help those in need is “faithful environmental stewardship” and a right-wing pledge to “rally together on behalf of our neighbors in poor and developing countries, to speak up for them and protect them from the effects of well-meaning, but flawed policies."
FRC's Tony Perkins says they are trying to show that you can be "green without being gullible," which is a distinct change from his earlier view that believers should welcome the consequences of climate change as a sign of the End Times.
Posted by Kyle at 4:15 PM | Permalink
April 22, 2008
Expulsion: Far Right Loves Ben Stein
Ben Stein’s anti-evolution attack film, “Expelled,” has finally arrived, grossing $3 million over the weekend, thanks to a church-based roll-out by the marketers that brought you “The Passion of the Christ.” Critics have savaged the documentary—which claims widespread persecution of creationists in academia and warns of a direct link between the theory of evolution and the Holocaust—as a dishonest work of propaganda, but, not surprisingly, the movie has a lot of fans among the Religious Right.
“Expelled” has been promoted heavily in right-wing media this month. Stein appeared on Focus on the Family radio, where the movie received the “enthusiastic” endorsement of James Dobson. Producer Mark Mathis appeared on WallBuilders Live, the radio show of premier church-state integrationist David Barton, to discuss “the persecution of the many by an elite few.” Rush Limbaugh exuberantly promoted it on his show; apparently, the movie taught him that “Darwinism, of course, does not permit for the existence of a supreme being, a higher power, or a God.”
Stein was also interviewed by the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow, while executive producer Logan Craft hit WorldNetDaily. Baptist Press, the official outlet of the Southern Baptist Convention, featured an op-ed by Stein and a series of articles pushing the film. The producers gave a private screening to Brent Bozell of the far-right Media Research Center. (He loved it.)
“Expelled” is also featured by the late D. James Kennedy’s Coral Ridge Ministries, which offers its own product line equating Darwin and Hitler. While some “Expelled” cheerleaders express sympathy for the “Intelligent Design” advocates who have been “persecuted” supposedly (the National Center for Science Education has their realistic back-stories here), most on the Right seem to be especially enchanted by the film’s reliance on a half-baked linking of evolution to Nazism and Stalinism.
“Expelled,” wrote World magazine editor and faith-based initiatives architect Marvin Olasky, “rightly equates Darwinian stifling of free speech with the Communist attempt to enslave millions behind the Berlin Wall.”
The real question is: Did Darwinism bulwark Hitlerian hatred by providing a scientific rationale for killing those considered less fit in the struggle for survival?
The answer to that question is an unambiguous yes.
Richard Weikart of the “Intelligent Design” group, the Discovery Institute, defended the Darwin-Hitler connection as critical: “[W]hat is most objectionable about the Nazis' worldview? Isn't it that they had no respect for human life?” Weikart, who wrote a book entitled “From Darwin to Hitler,” added, “the Nazis' devaluing of human life derived from Darwinian ideology....”
Gary DeMar of American Vision was so inspired he branched out on his own, linking evolution to the fundamentalist polygamist cult that’s been in the news recently.
Given the worldview shift that has taken place in America, none of this is of any consequence. Evolutionary and atheistic assumptions are standard worldview thinking in every public school classroom in America. So then, why is it wrong with having forced sex with young girls? It’s evolution in action. …
The secularists should be proud of what these polygamists are doing. They are confirming the evolutionary thesis of Dawkins and his selfish gene hypothesis.
Posted by Ezra at 6:07 PM | Permalink
March 10, 2008
Hutcherson and the Legacy of MLK
It appears as if Ken Hutcherson's crusade against his daughter's school continues. As we noted previously, Hutcherson was invited to speak at his daughter's high school on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which did not sit too well with some staff because of his anti-gay views. The school apologized for the controversy but Hutcherson was having none of it and demanded that the teachers involved lose their jobs.
And that was the last we had heard of it until Hutcherson showed up on the Wallbuilders Live radio program today to discuss his on-going feud with the school, which has now broadened to include attempts to shut down the school's Gay-Straight Alliance and end the school's participation in The Day of Silence.
On and on Hutcherson and host Rick Green went, complaining about supposed double standards and anti-Christian bigotry, leading Hutcherson to declare that the teachers at the school who oppose his anti-gay views and activism ought to thank their lucky stars that he has found Christ and is no longer violent:
What it shows is the power of God to control his son. Before I became a Christian, if a white guy looked at me wrong, he was beat up. That's the reason I went out for football, so I could hurt white people legally there in Alabama. I was a much better baseball player than football, but you hit someone with the baseball while they're running to first base, people didn't like that. But you could hit them on the football field and knock them out and they patted you on the back.
But those days are past - supposedly:
If they don't fire these teachers, I'm going to sue 'em and I'm going to ask them for their dreams. And then they're going to mess around and laugh and I'm going to take their tongue out.
Considering that Hutcherson is the sort to threaten to tear out tongues and rip the arm off of any man who dares to hold the door open for him and "beat him with the wet end," it is a bit of a mystery as to why anyone would think he would be a good choice to discuss Martin Luther King and his legacy of non-violence.
Posted by Kyle at 3:44 PM | Permalink
January 25, 2008
David Barton at Work
We have written about David Barton, a right-wing political activist and self-styled historian, here many times pointing out that, for all of his claims to be dedicated to uncovering “America's forgotten history and heroes, with an emphasis on the moral, religious, and constitutional foundation on which America was built,” his primary functions appears to be using his supposed historical expertise as cover for run-of-the-mill Republican political activism.
This technique is most obvious in his 2006 DVD “Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black & White” which he claims is designed merely to recognize “the forgotten heroes and untold stories from our rich African American political history,” but is, in reality, little more than a 90-minute effort to portray the Democratic Party as responsible for every problem that has ever plagued the African American community in America and imply that the Republican Party is the antidote.
As we noted in our report on Barton, he runs through a litany of Democratic sins, ranging from slavery to Jim Crow to segregation while praising the Republican Party as the party of abolition and civil rights until his history lesson suddenly ends after the Civil Rights Act of 1965 and makes absolutely no mention of the political transformation that overtook the country in its wake and the rise of the Republican Party’s “Southern Strategy.” The video concludes with Barton concludes telling his audience that African Americans cannot be bound blindly to one party or the other, but must cast their votes based on the “standard of biblical righteousness … the principles of Christianity … and an awareness that voters will answer to God for their vote” – and there is no doubt about which party he has in mind, considering that he served as vice-chairman of the Texas Republican Party from 1998 until 2006.
Until now, there was little to no footage available of Barton delivering any of his “historical” lectures to religious audiences so it was difficult to know just how much his political work colored into his presentations. But the remarks he recently delivered at the Rediscovering God in America Conference in Florida dispel any doubt there may have been about just how much more political than historical Barton’s work really is.
After a half-hour of recounting the nation’s history to coincide with his preferred religious views, Barton segues into a lengthy political analysis of the importance of getting Christians to vote, delivering a presentation more befitting a Republican Party activist than a "historian":
Barton has carved out a niche for himself as the Religious Right’s favorite historian, regaling them with tales of the faith of our Founding Fathers and the central role their brand of Christianity played in the founding of this nation. But as this video makes clear, Barton’s “historical” presentations are really little more than thinly-veiled GOP get-out-the-vote efforts and thus it is no surprise that the RNC regularly pays him to deliver them around the nation during election years.
Posted by Kyle at 2:16 PM | Permalink
January 23, 2008
God Wants You To Vote … Republican
Right-wing pseudo-historian David Barton has unveiled a new web video encouraging “church leaders” to get “people of faith” to vote in upcoming elections:
God ordained the institutions of civil government and it’s the Bible that provides us with clear guidance about electing God-fearing leaders of moral character and wise judgment. In fact, it’s our duty as Christians to elect such leaders, for Proverbs 29:2 tells us that “When the RIGHTEOUS rule, the people rejoice. But when the WICKED rule, the people groan.” Or, to put it simply, when people of faith elect God-honoring representatives and government, all of America benefits. As Christians, we must take this to heart and vote in the coming elections.
Gratefully, in recent years, we’ve seen slow but steady progress not only in protecting traditional biblical, moral values in public policy but even in advancing them throughout the culture. But as you know, there are still several key issues at stake, and the leaders we select in this election will affect the future of issues such as traditional marriage, protection of unborn human life, and the right of public religious expression, just to name a few.
…
Voting is not only your right as an American citizen, but it’s your duty as a citizen in God’s kingdom.
Not surprisingly, Barton suggests that the voter guides put out by his organization, WallBuilders, can help “people of faith” choose the candidate most in-tune with their values.
This video is, in many ways, a condensed version of the message Barton regularly shares with pastors around the country, as he did over the weekend at the Rediscovering God in America Conference in Florida, where he shared the stage with Mike Huckabee, among others, and where he came across less like the academic historian he pretends to be and more like the right-wing political activist he truly is by delivering a Power Point presentation explaining to the right-wing crowd the importance of getting out the Christian vote in order to “control the political forces through elections.”
Barton’s proclaimed goal is to uncover “America's forgotten history and heroes, with an emphasis on the moral, religious, and constitutional foundation on which America was built,” but his real goal is to mobilize religious voters to support Republican candidates – which is, after all, what the RNC regularly pays him to do.
Posted by Kyle at 8:57 AM | Permalink
September 19, 2007
A Right-Wing Three-Fer
Right-wing pseudo-historian David Barton will be addressing the Regent Law School chapter of the Federalist Society today.
Posted by Kyle at 11:09 AM | Permalink
August 14, 2007
Stuck in the Mud, Right Wing Forgets Its Happy Days with Rove
For many frustrated right-wing activists, news of Karl Rove’s departure from the White House may have felt like good riddance to bad rubbish. Richard Viguerie called it “good news for conservatives.” Paul Weyrich, another old hand of the conservative movement, said, “You have to say that if (Rove) can claim credit for what happened in 2004, it is reasonable that he is somewhat responsible for where we are in 2007.”
But if these right-wing activists can pin the blame for the administration’s woes on the president’s erstwhile “architect,” they will have a hard time glossing over Rove’s role in giving them an important berth of political power in the Bush White House.
As Rove helped make the Republican Party dominant in Texas in the 1990s, he increasingly forged an alliance with the Religious Right, one that went so far as to find “Christian nation” pseudo-historian David Barton the state party’s vice chairman. As early as 1997, when he apparently helped departing Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed get a cushy consulting gig at Enron and kept Reed from attaching to another campaign, Rove saw the far Right as a ticket to the White House.
After Bush’s win in 2000, Rove saw locking in Evangelical and fundamentalist voters – by inflaming them over wedge issues – as key to creating a “permanent majority” out of a victory so narrow that his candidate lost the popular vote, and he developed working relationships with religious-right leaders. In 2004, the Arlington Group – a powerful coalition right-wing groups and leaders – put pressure on Rove directly and was able to secure the president’s endorsement of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
Although the Right complained that Bush dropped the amendment after using it for his re-election, Rove retained enough trust on the Right to personally convince James Dobson to support the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court—support which was withdrawn later, to Dobson’s embarrassment, after a right-wing campaign against her coalesced and drove her to step aside. “Dobson didn’t call here asking for any advice,” an official at the Family Research Council told reporter Dan Gilgoff. “He just relied on the word of Karl Rove.”
In spite of a few apparent missteps like that, Rove will be remembered fondly for his efforts to organize Bush’s campaigns around abortion, gays, and judicial nominees, and to give the Religious Right enormous access. For while Rove helped create a politics structured around far-right values, he also helped solidify a Religious Right, addicted to this influence, that remains structured around the Republican Party.
Posted by Ezra at 4:15 PM | Permalink
July 16, 2007
Catholics Against Rudy, But For Thompson?
A few months ago, the New York Observer reported that various right-wing Catholic activists were gearing up to target Rudy Giuliani’s campaign for the GOP presidential nomination.
One of those efforts, Catholics Against Rudy, is in the process of gearing up while the other, headed by Joseph Cella of Fidelis, doesn’t yet have much to show for its bold goals:
Mr. Cella says that the organization will try to provide a comprehensive, Web-based “clearinghouse” of issue-based opposition research, and that it will also engage in the distribution of more traditional negative literature, as when the group recruited a handful of volunteers to network and pass out its anti-Rudy materials at the South Carolina debate earlier this month.
“More is afoot—not just from us, but others,” said Mr. Cella, who has also served as an editor at the popular conservative Web site Redstate.com. “It will be edgy. Creative. Hard-hitting.”
Cella and his organization, Fidelis, seem to exist primarily to level accusations of “anti-Catholic” bigotry against Democrats, which is why his anti-Giuliani work was interesting … and which makes this development all the more intriguing:
Now the Christian right is eyeing former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson, who is thought to be on the verge of entering the race. And Thompson is waging a rigorous behind-the-scenes effort to win its support.
U.S. News has learned that [Fred] Thompson recently hired Bill Wichterman, who served as conservative outreach director for former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and Joseph Cella, president of a conservative Catholic group called Fidelis, to lead the effort. The aides are arranging more meetings between Thompson and conservative Christian leaders and have launched a rapid-response operation to fend off attacks on Thompson's conservative credentials.
But Cella is not the only right-wing figure that Thompson has approached - and he seems to be winning a lot of converts:
Thompson is emphasizing his eight-year record as a senator from Tennessee and his campaign endorsements from the National Right to Life Committee. "It didn't look like he was saying what a group of Christian consultants told him to say," says Harry Jackson, a black pastor who met recently with Thompson. "He seemed to be saying, 'I'm one of you.'"
Contrasts. Jackson has also met with Romney but notes that Thompson has a conservative Senate voting record, while Romney's conservatism has come in just the past few years. "Romney has done a superb job reaching out," says Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. "But it takes a long time to establish that trust and credibility."
Many evangelical leaders are leaning toward Thompson but are waiting to see how he holds up under increased scrutiny once he officially enters the race. "There's a deliberate attempt by evangelical leaders to come to consensus," says Jackson. David Barton, an evangelical activist who spearheaded pastor outreach for the Republican National Committee in 2004, says "the leaders I talk to are all really interested in Thompson, but they're waiting to pull the trigger [on endorsements] until later this year."
Thompson still faces stumbling blocks among rank-and-file evangelicals, including his own reputation as an infrequent churchgoer. But "Thompson's very good on the defense of normal marriage and free expression of religion," says one time presidential candidate Gary Bauer. "Frankly, he might have an easier time...if he's not easily labeled as 'religious right.'"
Bauer is right: Thompson “might have an easier time … if he's not easily labeled as 'religious right.'" Of course, that label will only become more and more difficult to avoid if he keeps hiring, meeting with, and winning accolades from right-wing leaders such as Joseph Cella, Richard Land, Harry Jackson, Tony Perkins, David Barton, and Gary Bauer.
Posted by Kyle at 4:36 PM | Permalink
July 11, 2007
Religious Pluralism Will Destroy America
Tomorrow, a Hindu chaplain is scheduled to deliver the opening prayer in the United States Senate and the Right is not happy about it:
"In Hindu, you have not one God, but many, many, many, many, many gods," [David Barton of WallBuilders] explains. "And certainly that was never in the minds of those who did the Constitution, did the Declaration [of Independence] when they talked about Creator -- that's not one that fits here because we don't know which creator we're talking about within the Hindu religion."
But while Barton is merely concerned that such a thing only offends the Founding Fathers, The American Family Association is setting of alarm bells and warning of dire consequences:
Buddy Smith is a spokesman for American Family Association, which opposes the non-Christian prayer and urges citizens to call their Washington legislators to take action.
"It is a watershed day in that it brings to mind some of these precedent-setting events like the day that we took prayer and Bible-reading out of school in our country [and] the day that we legalized abortion," Smith offers. "I fear that while God has been so merciful with our country in the past, events such as are about to happen, like this in the U.S. Senate, is angering a just God. I fear that we bring judgment upon our country with such acts."
Posted by Kyle at 4:42 PM | Permalink
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