August 7, 2008
Election of Obama Would Allow “March of Darkness” to Continue Unfettered
Last night, Focus on the Family’s Tom Minnery and Stuart Shepard took time out from their busy schedules attacking Barack Obama’s faith and praying for “rain of biblical proportions” to ruin his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention to sit down for a webcast with Bishop Harry Jackson, himself taking a break from running his bogus grassroots energy front group to discuss the upcoming election.
Jackson explained that it is vitally important for “values voters” to get active before November because “an anti-church sentiment is aligning against us” and that an on-going “march of darkness” will overtake the country if “we don’t do the right thing in this campaign":
And how does Jackson plan on combating that “march of darkness”? He explains that he is personally working to explain to his congregation, which he says is overwhelmingly inclined to support Obama, that there are “certain policies that will attract the blessings of God on the nation” and those policies are life and marriage. Jackson also notes that he recently met with members of Obama’s faith-outreach team and urged them to adjust their positions. Jackson says “there’s got to be a stand for family, a stand for marriage, a stand for life and we can’t be duped into thinking that our economic position is more important than our moral position.” He then laments that, so far, John McCain has failed to merge the economic and moral message that the Right wants to hear in order to give them the clear choice they desire:
Posted by Kyle at 4:41 PM | Permalink
Anthrax Family Values: Suspected Bioterrorist Supported Anti-Gay Group
The virulently anti-gay American Family Association generates buzz and media attention year after year by launching outlandish boycott campaigns – McDonald’s is the latest target. It also doesn’t hurt that their flamboyant founder and chairman, Don Wildmon, more than lives up to his name.
PR is the lifeblood of a group like AFA, so you might think that they’d be thrilled when a longtime supporter of the group rocketed to the top of the media charts. Maybe so, but not when that supporter happens to be the FBI’s only suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks – Bruce Ivins.
Indeed, the nation learned today that Ivins and his wife – who served as president of a local anti-abortion group – were strongly committed to the AFA:
Donations were made to AFA in the name of Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Ivins 11 times between 1993 and 1997. Another donation by the couple was recorded one month after an article about the Greendale incident appeared in the AFA Journal. The Ivins subscribed to the Journal until March 2005.
And his support for the AFA actually helped the FBI catch him:
Bureau investigators also connected the fictitious return address on the second round of anthrax letters – the "Greendale School" of Franklin Park, N.J. – to a charity well-known to Ivins. He had donated numerous times to a group called the American Family Association, which in 1999 had filed a lawsuit on behalf of parents at the Greendale Baptist Academy in Wisconsin in a dispute involving corporal punishment.
Here’s a scanned image of one of the envelopes:
Knowing more about Ivins’ background may help explain a great deal about the attacks, especially the targets. The anthrax letters were sent almost exclusively to prominent Democrats – Senator Pat Leahy and then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle – and large, New York media outlets. Interestingly, Senators Leahy and Daschle and the mainstream media have consistently served as punching bags for the AFA.
Posted by Josh at 1:27 PM | Permalink
Television Watchdog Doesn’t Like What’s On TV
The Parents Television Council, the right-wing television watchdog group founded by Brent Bozell, is dedicated to “documenting the dramatic increase in sex, violence and profanity in entertainment.” With that as its mission, it was not much of a surprise when they released a new report saying that they don’t like what they see:
Today’s prime-time television programming is not merely indifferent to the institution of marriage and the stabilizing role it plays in our society, it seems to be actively seeking to undermine marriage by consistently painting it in a negative light. Nowhere is this more readily apparent than in the treatment of sex on television. Sex in the context of marriage is either non-existent on prime-time broadcast television, or is depicted as a burdensome rather than as an expression of love and commitment. By contrast, extra-marital or adulterous sexual relationships are depicted with greater frequency and overwhelmingly, as a positive experience. Across the broadcast networks, verbal references to non-marital sex outnumbered references to sex in the context of marriage by nearly 3 to 1; and scenes depicting or implying sex between non-married partners outnumbered scenes depicting or implying sex between married partners by a ratio of nearly 4 to 1.
How exactly does the PTC quantify such things, you ask? Good question:
But, our personal fave is the Sept. 24 episode of NBC's "Journeyman," in which time-traveling journalist Dan has traveled back to a time when his now-presumed-dead wife, Olivia, was still, um, alive:
Olivia comes home and begins to change clothes. She is shown in her underwear. Dan and Olivia lie down on the bed and begin to kiss. Dan, who travels through time, notices his wedding band, apparently considering the fact that he is married to another woman in the future.
Parents Television Council has it filed under "Infidelity/Adultery."
Yet, for some reason, this new PTC report is generating all sorts of press coverage. Apparently nobody in the media is concerned about PTC’s obvious right-wing agenda or, for that matter, bothered by the fact that, according to the FCC’s own estimates, the PTC has been responsible for nearly every indecency complaint filed in recent years:
In an appearance before Congress in February, when the controversy over Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl moment was at its height, Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell laid some startling statistics on U.S. senators.
The number of indecency complaints had soared dramatically to more than 240,000 in the previous year, Powell said. The figure was up from roughly 14,000 in 2002, and from fewer than 350 in each of the two previous years. There was, Powell said, “a dramatic rise in public concern and outrage about what is being broadcast into their homes.”
What Powell did not reveal—apparently because he was unaware—was the source of the complaints. According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003—99.8 percent—were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group.
This year, the trend has continued, and perhaps intensified.
Through early October, 99.9 percent of indecency complaints—aside from those concerning the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” during the Super Bowl halftime show broadcast on CBS— were brought by the PTC, according to the FCC analysis dated Oct. 1. (The agency last week estimated it had received 1,068,767 complaints about broadcast indecency so far this year; the Super Bowl broadcast accounted for over 540,000, according to commissioners’ statements.)
The prominent role played by the PTC has raised concerns among critics of the FCC’s crackdown on indecency. “It means that really a tiny minority with a very focused political agenda is trying to censor American television and radio,” said Jonathan Rintels, president and executive director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media, an artists’ advocacy group.
Posted by Kyle at 12:35 PM | Permalink
Inside the CUFI Conference
The American Prospect gives the inside scoop on John Hagee’s most recent Christians United for Israel Conference:
Afterward, I headed over to the CUFI on Campus meet and greet. The room was filled with approximately 250 students from 138 universities, and we were greeted by Hagee's wife Diane and lauded as "the dream" and the "Joshua's generation." Mrs. Hagee launched into a speech about biblical rationale to support Israel. At one point she mentioned that Hitler could be reborn. Across the table, a suspiciously old-looking "student" guffawed. "Hitler reborn? Hitler has been reborn," he said, pausing for effect, "and his name is Obama."
…
Hagee's speech was a hodge-podge, comparing the relationship between the land of Israel and the Jewish people to a marriage and warning various evildoers like Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia of ominous divine intervention. Discussion of end times and the pastor's signature fire-and-brimstone preaching was notably absent until an awkward rhetorical pivot, seemingly designed to please the crowd: "The terrorists will produce a bloodbath that will make 9-11 look like a walk in the park," Hagee proclaimed in a booming voice. "The Lord's vengeance shall soon come."
During the Q&A, one woman asked about forming a "Christian militia." Hagee grimaced; "militia" implied taking up arms. "We are in a spiritual dogfight," he said, suggesting that she use "the weapon of prayer" and "concerts of prayer" to affect "spiritual revival."
It was easy to see why the militia-monger was confused, though. The conference was never short of military jargon. We were told to establish "facts on the ground in our fight to take back America's campuses" and reminded that "you are in a war, a battle for your mind." We were "prayer warriors," set upon by many foes: the media, liberal professors, popular culture, the cultural elite, secular society, Europe, the United Nations, and, of course, the Islamo-Fascists.
That afternoon, right-wing darling former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania laid the situation out clearly: We are not at war with terror, he said, we are at war with Islamism -- a significant though small portion of the Islamic world. "Secular relativistic" liberals, he explained, "don't believe, and if you don't believe, you can't understand." To my left, a middle-aged woman with ginger-blondcolored hair dutifully scribbled in her notebook. "Eliminate Iran," she wrote.
Posted by Kyle at 11:33 AM | Permalink
Glad to Oblige
Mike Huckabee says he needs our help to promote his new website: www.mikehuckabee.com. He suggests that bloggers “write a post about the new website and share it with your friends and readers.”
Okay.
Here’s Mike Huckabee’s new website:
It’s every bit as cool and exciting as this photo would lead you to believe.
Posted by Kyle at 10:33 AM | Permalink
Santorum Says Obama Has “No Right To Claim” He’s a Christian
It looks like former Senator Rick Santorum is adding his voice to the right-wing chorus that has been loudly proclaiming that Barack Obama is not a “true Christian,” that his proclamations of Christian faith are ““deceitful” and that is understanding of the faith is “woefully deficient” and borderline sacrilegious. Steve Waldman at BeliefNet reports on a recent speech that Santorum gave to the Oxford Center for Religion and Public Life in which he asserted that Obama’s talk of the importance of his faith is “absolutely disingenuous” and “phony” and that Obama has “abandoned Christendom” and thus has no “right to claim it”:
Santorum, known for overtly connecting his faith to his politics, said the Democrats' current efforts to be more faith-friendly are "a charade... I don’t think it's sincere at all." Obama's efforts to talk about the importance of faith in his life is "phony--absolutely disingenuous. I think he's a complete phony."
Obama, Santorum argued, chose Trinity Church in Chicago because it was politically advantageous -- "faith was an avenue for power."
(At the end of the attack, he added that of course it would be inappropriate for him to judge the authenticity of Obama's faith, as only God could do that.)
…
However, he questioned whether liberal Christianity was really, well, Christian. "You're a liberal something, but you're not a Christian." He continued, "When you take a salvation story and turn it into a liberation story you've abandoned Christendom and I don't think you have a right to claim it."
Posted by Kyle at 10:15 AM | Permalink
August 6, 2008
Kern Dubs Herself "Warrior for Judeo-Christian Values'
Oklahoma state legislator Sally Kern first came to national attention back in March when an audio clip of her declaring that the "homosexual agenda is destroying this nation, OK, it's just a fact ... I honestly think it's the biggest threat that our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat" was posted on-line by the Victory Fund.
Since then she has become something of a hero to the Religious Right, receiving a standing ovation from her fellow Oklahoma GOP legislators and being praised and defended by the likes of militant anti-gay activists like Matt Barber, then of Concerned Women for American, and Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality.
In April, at least a thousand people attended a rally in the Oklahoma capitol to show their support for Kern, where she declared that "we were in a cultural war for the very existence of our Judeo-Christian values. This situation proves that I was right. We are in a cultural war; this is for real."
Kern has been quite for the last several months but she up for re-election in November and has now begun declaring that God put her in the statehouse to be "cultural warrior for Judeo-Christian values":
Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, told members of the Cleveland County Republican Club Tuesday that being a conservative means supporting religion and morals in government as strongly as cutting taxes....
"I am not saying everyone has to be Christian; this is not a homogenous nation," Kern said. "What you have to be is someone who believes in a Judeo-Christian ethic, in other words, in knowing there's a right and wrong.
"Not all lifestyles are equal; not all religions are equal," she said. "Was I saying all people are not equal? Heavens no; we were all created equal."
...
[Kern explained] how she, a schoolteacher and minister's wife, became a state representative.
"I expected to run and lose, and then be a better government teacher, but I won," Kern said. "My Lord made it very clear to me that I'm a cultural warrior for Judeo-Christian values."
Posted by Kyle at 3:07 PM | Permalink
Scarborough's Crusades Continue Their Losing Record
As we have chronicled several times in the past, Vision America’s election-related "One Day Crusades" have been plagued by difficulties. When Rick Scarborough first announced his bold “70 Weeks to Save America” tour, the goal was to with the goal of sign up “100,000 Values Voters, 10,000 key leaders, 5,000 Patriot Pastors and 5,000 women” to “vote their Christian values on Election Day 2008.” Since then, its messaging has been, at best, confusing and its efforts to rally supporters have repeatedly run into problems, especially once his partner in the endeavor, Alan Keyes, decided to run for president. But Scarborough forged ahead, opening chapters of Vision America in New Mexico and Kansas and planning scaled-down “One Day Crusades” in both states.
His latest Crusade was held last week for the express purpose of bolstering Phill Kline's efforts to retain his position as Johnson County District Attorney - as Scarborough said at the time, "It’s the only reason I’m here." Unfortunately for both Scarborough and Kline, attendance at the event "was the lowest the group has seen" and that lack of enthusiasm seems to have carried over into yesterday's primary:
A political newcomer knocked Phill Kline out of the race for Johnson County district attorney Tuesday, defeating the hopes of abortion opponents who had campaigned nationwide.With all of the vote counted, Steve Howe, a former Johnson County prosecutor, trounced Kline with 33,260 votes to Kline’s 22,188, a margin of 60 percent to 40 percent, according to final unofficial returns.
...
Abortion played a key role in the race because Kline is the first prosecutor since Roe v. Wade to file criminal charges against a Planned Parenthood clinic. The case is pending.
Independent groups from outside Kansas are thought to have spent more than $100,000 to keep Kline’s candidacy alive.
Posted by Kyle at 12:05 PM | Permalink
The World Congress of Families Chooses Its Destination
Every few years, right-wingers from all over the globe gather for the World Congress of Families in order to “affirm that the natural human family is established by the Creator and essential to good society,” share strategy, and urge their governments to adopt policies that “protect and support the family, and not usurp the vital roles it plays in society.” Not surprisingly, high on their list of priorities is the protection of marriage and families against “pornography, promiscuity, incest or homosexuality”:
The complementary natures of men and women are physically and psychologically self-evident. These differences are created and natural, not primarily socially constructed. Sexuality is ordered for the procreation of children and the expression of love between husband and wife in the covenant of marriage. Marriage between a man and a woman forms the sole moral context for natural sexual union. Whether through pornography, promiscuity, incest or homosexuality, deviations from these created sexual norms cannot truly satisfy the human spirit. They lead to obsession, remorse, alienation, and disease. Child molesters harm children and no valid legal, psychological or moral justification can be offered for the odious crime of pedophilia. Culture and society should encourage standards of sexual morality that support and enhance family life.
So where is the next World Congress of Families going to be held, you ask? Of all places, Amsterdam:
Last week, the Selection Committee for World Congress of Families V met in Washington, D.C. and unanimously recommended Amsterdam as the site for the next Congress. Their recommendation was accepted by the WCF Management Committee.
If the World Congress of Families sounds like some sort of international version of the sorts of “values voters” events put on in this country by right-wing political groups, that probably has something to do with the fact that many of those same groups are members of the WCF’s various steering committees, with groups like Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, and Concerned Women for America all playing a role:
The 16-member Selection Committee was composed of: Ignacio Arsuaga (HazteOir.org, Spain), Chuck Donovan (Family Research Council), Don Feder (World Congress of Families), Farooq Hassan (Pakistan Family Forum), Jesus Hernandez (The Family Network, Mexico), Marie-Claire Hernandez (Family & Society, Mexico), Randy Hicks (Georgia Family Council), Robert Knight (Culture and Media Institute, Media Research Center), Ewa Kowalewska (Human Life International, Europe), Gwendolyn Landolt (REAL Women of Canada), Yuri Mantilla (Focus on the Family), Dorothy Patterson (Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary), Austin Ruse (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute), Mary Ellen Smoot, Jennifer Swim (GFC Foundation) and Father Jaroslaw Szymczak (Institute of Family Studies, Poland). The meeting was chaired by Gwen Landolt (Real Women of Canada).
...
The Management Committee, which has ultimate oversight of the Congress, consists of Carlson, Janice Crouse (Senior Fellow, Beverly LaHaye Institute, Concerned Women for America), Paul Mero (President, Sutherland Institute), William Saunders (Senior Fellow & Human Rights Counsel, Family Research Council) and Christine Vollmer (President, Latin American Alliance for Families).
When the event was held last year in Poland, members of the European Parliamentary Working Group on Separation of Religion and Politics were not particularly jazzed that right-wing advocates were preparing to use the nation as a staging ground for saving Europe and the rest of the world from the “demographic winter and … the secularists.”
But the group soldiered on, despite the opposition. As Robert Knight of the Media Research Center put it:
This is a nation that has suffered enormously over many decades. First from Nazism and then communism. They're a tough bunch of people who appear to have the strength to resist especially the homosexual agenda. If you've been victim of communists and Nazis, you're not going to run in fright from the forces from San Francisco.
Posted by Kyle at 9:49 AM | Permalink
August 5, 2008
Burress Predicts McCain Will “Reverse Himself” on Stem-Cell Research
Back in June, when John McCain met with right-wing activists in Ohio, McCain was told in no uncertain terms that “he needs to talk about marriage” and just one day later he publicly came out in support of the California Marriage Amendment.
Since that meeting, Ohio Religious Right icon Phil Burress has become a vocal supporter of McCain and been working hard to win over other right-wing activists to the cause. Now, Burress is speculating that, thanks to their pressure and McCain’s need to pander, they just might have some success in getting him to change his position on his support for stem-cell research:
Others, though, see reasons for hope, both that Mr. McCain will draw contrasts on the issues on which he sides with conservatives and that he might end up changing his mind on stem cell research. The feeling stems in part from a meeting social conservative leaders in Ohio held with Mr. McCain late last month, when Dr. Jack Wilke, a pro-life movement leader, made a case for him to change his position on federal research funding.
Dr. Wilke argued that embryonic stem cell research is a false hope and that money is better spent on other areas that are less morally contentious.
"[McCain] took extensive notes; he listened intently to what [Dr. Wilke] was saying; and when he was done, he didn't hesitate to ask for all the research," said Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values, an Ohio-based group. "It was only a month ago he got all this information. I didn't expect him to change his mind overnight. My gut feeling, and this is strictly an opinion, is he has all the reasons to reverse himself."
Mr. Burress said the politics of the situation might make it impossible for Mr. McCain to reverse himself during the campaign - "the left and the left media will immediately pounce on him as pandering to the right and flip-flopping" - but he said once in office he thinks the research showing research options other than embryonic stem cells will be convincing to Mr. McCain.
Does Burress really think that McCain is reluctant to “reverse himself” during the campaign because “the left” will pounce on him? That would be odd. By one count, he has already done so on more than seventy other issues.
Posted by Kyle at 12:34 PM | Permalink