Today we’re celebrating the 10th anniversary of Right Wing Watch, which was launched in 2006 as the online outlet for People For the American Way’s research department. (Our previous incarnation as a video and paper library lives on in the collections of the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies.)
In honor of the occasion, we’ve taken on the tough task of picking our 10 favorite Right Wing Watch posts of 10 years. There was a lot of extremism, bigotry and conspiracy theories to choose from, but the 10 posts we picked are ones that were especially memorable to even those of us who spend our days immersed in the alternate universe of the Right.
- Soy Makes You Gay (December 12, 2006)
We’ve covered a decade of conspiracy theories, bogus science and questionable theology from Joseph Farah’s conservative outlet WorldNetDaily, from the birther theory to President Obama’s secret gay Muslim wedding ring to the Bible’s predictions of a Mitt Romney victory. But one of the most memorable WND stories we covered was one of the earliest, the site’s devastating exposé of how soy products were turning children gay. – Miranda Blue
- ‘And So It Begins’: 90-Year-Old Glenn Beck Delivers Dire Message From The Future (December 19, 2014)
Since Glenn Beck owns his own television network, there is nobody around to stop him from indulging in whatever strikes his fancy, which is presumably why he decided to close out 2014 by airing an hour-long program that purported to be a dire video message that decrepit and isolated 90-year-old Beck delivered to a shattered world in the year 2054. –Kyle Mantyla
- Is God Using NAFTA Superhighway to Stop Homosexuality? (November 28, 2007)
One of our first big video hits was a 2007 clip from Pat Robertson’s “The 700 Club”about a group of ministries who believed Interstate 35 was the “highway” prophesied in Isaiah 35. One of the reported miracles from the “purity sieges” was a young gay man on his way to a bar who was supposedly turned straight when hit by the “fire” of the Holy Spirit. Post-script: A couple of months later the “cured” gay man was recovering from a stint in an “ex-gay” ministry and apologizing to the LGBT community for his brief turn as a Religious Right media sensation. -Peter Montgomery
- Ted Nugent Stumps for Mitt Romney at NRA Convention: “Chop their heads off in November” (April 16, 2012)
Ted Nugent apparently wasn’t content with just threatening to kill President Obama. In 2012, the singer and NRA board member was stumping for Mitt Romney at the gun group’s convention in St. Louis when he made this bold prediction: “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” – Brian Tashman
- Kevin Swanson Begs You Not To Buy Communist Lesbian Girl Scout Cookies (October 21, 2013)
Colorado pastor and radio host Kevin Swanson asks a lot of his adherents, advising them not to use birth control because the pill leaves “little tiny fetuses” and “dead babies” embedded in the womb, and to only attend their gay child’s wedding if they first cover themselves in cow manure. Then there was the time he literally begged his radio listeners not to buy Girl Scout cookies, lest they “support lesbianism.” – Brian Tashman
In 2011, then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry decided to launch his ill-fated presidential run with a stadium prayer rally coordinated in part by a panoply of Religious Right activists. It turned out to be the first of many “oops” moments in Perry’s campaign, as Right Wing Watch’s research into the anti-gay, Christian nationalist and dominionist activists dominated much of the coverage of the big day. Emceeing the event: International House of Prayer founder Mike Bickle, who had once declared Oprah Winfrey to be the forerunner of the Antichrist.- Miranda Blue
- John Hagee Winds Up Debunking His Own ‘Blood Moons’ Theory (April 6, 2015)
In 2013, megachurch preacher John Hagee released a book called “The Four Blood Moons” that predicted that the presence of several “blood moons” in 2015 would be a signal from God to prepare for world-shaking events, especially for the state of Israel. In an effort to promote his book, Hagee hosted a panel discussion during which a Christian astronomer managed to humiliate him by gutting his entire theory on live television. –Kyle Mantyla
- The Dangers of Auto-Replace (June 30, 2008)
The American Family Association’s radio operations provide RWW with a steady stream of extremism. This post chronicled a relatively silly consequence of the editing practices of the AFA’s OneNewsNow site, in which the automatic conversion of “gay” in Associated Press stories to the AFA’s preferred “homosexual” led to an embarrassing headline about an American Olympic athlete. -Peter Montgomery
- Robertson: Gay People Deliberately Spread HIV/AIDS By Cutting People With Special Rings (August 27, 2013)
Pat Robertson usually isn’t shy about his hostility towards the LGBT community, but his statements in one episode of “The 700 Club” proved so denigrating that they even went too far for his Christian Broadcasting Network. When we posted a video of the televangelist suggesting that gay people wear special rings that they use to deliberately transmit HIV to unsuspecting strangers, CBN not only edited his remarks out of its broadcast but also tried to take our video off the internet. Fortunately, they were unable to do so. – Brian Tashman
- Jacobs: Birds Are Dying Because of DADT Repeal (January 10, 2011)
When “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed in late 2010, we fully expected Religious Right activists to issue a flurry of warnings about the dire consequences that would result. But even we, despite our years of experience chronicling absurd predictions from the Religious Right, could never have anticipated the repeal being blamed for the death of birds in Arkansas. -Kyle Mantyla
