Weekly Column

In 1993, Washington Post writer Michael Weisskopf infuriated evangelical Christians when he described them in a front-page news story as “poor, uneducated and easy to command.” Most of this group is not obtuse and a number of them are quite wealthy. However, the “easy to command” label probably emanated from the fact that many of these individuals seemed eager to throw money at televangelist charlatans like Revs. Jim Bakker, Pat Robertson, and Jimmy Swaggart.

In the mid-1970’s this brand of religion reached the nation’s consciousness when Jimmy Carter ran for president as a “born again” Christian. His faith made headlines in a Playboy interview when he said, “I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times….This is something that God recognizes, that I will do and have done, and God forgives me for it.”

By the late 1970’s and early 80’s Jimmy Carter was out and Republican moral scolds were in. Anita Bryant took center stage with her anti-gay crusade in Florida and Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority reached prominence by helping Ronald Reagan get elected. Direct mail guru Richard Viguerie, whose fiery letters lambasted homosexuals and abortion providers, helped create a movement that thrived on demonizing opponents and profited from divisive wedge issues.

The next leap forward came when Rev. Pat Robertson politicized his 700 Club television show and used it as a platform to run for president in 1988. Although he lost to George H.W. Bush, he turned his campaign mailing list into the Christian Coalition and hired a young issues entrepreneur, Ralph Reed, to run the organization. This group was quite successful at using stealth tactics to take over local school boards and state Republican parties.

By 1992, the evangelical voting bloc was a kingmaker in Republican politics. This new reality was reflected in that year’s incendiary GOP convention in Houston – where Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan and Dan Quayle declared a culture war on America. Fortunately, the rhetoric was so overheated that it helped swing the election in favor of Bill Clinton.

Today’s religious right is more diffuse and lacks any single leader with the charisma of Robertson, Falwell, or Focus on the Family’s founder James Dobson. Much of the energy has also been absorbed by the Tea Party – which is basically the same extremist Republicans who rebranded themselves by wearing funny triangular hats.

Eighteen years after Weisskopf’s article, the evangelical demographic is just as difficult to define. The larger question, however, is what does this group – and their Catholic counterparts on the far right – actually stand for?  It certainly isn’t the original goal of promoting “family values.”

The hollowness of the far right’s agenda was driven home by a presidential straw poll taken by attendees at last week’s The Awakening 2011 conference, in Lynchburg. Rep. Michele Bachmann won the straw poll with 23% of the votes. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee came in second at 22%, and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich placed third with 21% of the votes.

It is bewildering to see Gingrich score so high among this “family values” crowd, considering he is on his third marriage – and served his first wife with divorce papers as she recovered from cancer in the hospital.

Furthermore, for a group that bristled at being called uneducated, they sure seem to have an affinity for blundering, unqualified candidates such as Bachmann, Palin, Huckabee and George W. Bush.

There is also an addiction to sounding really dimwitted on gay issues, despite the fact that there is ample information available and LGBT people are everywhere for evangelicals to meet. Unfortunately, instead of choosing to grow as human beings, many have elected to calcify their minds and listen to the inane ramblings of hucksters like Ryan Sorba.

“‘Gay’ is a left-wing socio-political construct designed to create grounds for fundamental rights [based on] whimsical capricious desires,” said Ryan Sorba, chairman of the Young Conservatives of California at The Awakening conference. “Gay identity does not exist.”

So, all those late nights I spent in my youth dancing at gay nightclubs trying to meet guys were just socio-political construction work? That’s news to me, and it certainly seemed more fun at the time.

Right-wing Catholic leaders appear just as hapless and empty. For instance, the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue has embraced his role as chief apologist for the unthinkable crimes committed against young people at the hands of trusted clergy. In a full-page ad in the New York Times this week, he even attacked some abuse victims as phonies, which seems neither conservative nor Christian.

In 2011, the Religious Right has been reduced to angry people in weird hats that embrace multi-divorced politicians, cheer anti-intellectual candidates, stubbornly refuse to learn about LGBT people even as mainstream conservatives increasingly support equality, disdain compromise, demand tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and bash victims of pedophile priests.

I’m not sure how Weisskopf would describe such people today, but I’m pretty sure I know how Jesus would.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Wayne Besen
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org

Truth Wins Out Calls On The Republican Party to Denounce The American Family Association After Racist Rant By AFA Radio Host Bryan Fischer

Republican Presidential Candidates Should Withdraw From Future AFA-Sponsored Pastor Policy Briefings

BURLINGTON, Vt. – Truth Wins Out called on the Republican Party to denounce comments made today by the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer, director of issue analysis, after he published a racist rant on the AFA’s website. TWO also asserted that all GOP presidential nominees, including those who are undecided, should stop attending controversial Pastor Policy Briefings that are bankrolled, in part, by the AFA. According to Truth Wins Out, Fischer’s latest remarks show why the AFA is a Southern Poverty Law Center-certified hate group.

“Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete,” said Fischer.  “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.”

“It is deeply troubling that leading Republican presidential candidates are pandering to extremists to try to win the nomination,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “We strongly urge these candidates to show some leadership by speaking out against such intolerance and withdrawing from American Family Association sponsored Pastor Policy Briefings.”

Pastor Policy Briefings are AFA-backed forums that are intended to galvanize the Religious Right in a presidential election year. They are organized by David Lane and have attracted politicians who are testing the presidential waters, including Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.).

On Feb. 10, Truth Wins Out called on the American Family Association to fire Fischer after he published an offensive online column, “Native Americans Morally Disqualified Themselves From the Land.” According to the original article written by Fischer:

“In all the discussions about the European settlement of the New World, one feature has been conspicuously absent: the role that the superstition, savagery and sexual immorality of native Americans played in making them morally disqualified from sovereign control of American soil.”

The AFA is a Tupelo, Mississippi-based organization known for launching failed boycotts against The Walt Disney Company, Home Depot, Wal Mart, Ford Motor Company and McDonalds. The group once accused Mighty Mouse of snorting cocaine.

“It is unconscionable that any politician would want to be associated with the AFA, given the group’s level of hatred and hostility for minorities,” said TWO’s Besen. “This fringe group debases — rather than defends  — the American family.”

The American Family Association also peddles “It’s Not Gay,” a DVD featuring Michael Johnston, who claims that he went from gay to straight through prayer. The AFA conveniently omits the fact that Johnston had to be shuffled off to a sex addiction facility in 2003 for allegations of group sex with men.

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.

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Truth Wins Out Confronts Divisive, Homophobic Event By Setting the Record Straight with Hard-Hitting Harvard Crimson Ad; Saturday Protest of Conference

BURLINGTON, Vt. – One week after spearheading a successful petition drive that led to Apple removing an anti-gay iPhone app, Truth Wins Out has turned its attention to confronting a bitterly divisive and homophobic conference at Harvard University. On April 1-2, the Harvard Extension Service and Learning Society will be hosting the “Social Transformation Conference,” featuring religious extremists who are falsely billed as “leading voices for the faith-based social transformation culture.”

Truth Wins Out will place a full-page ad (See Below) in The Harvard Crimson on Thursday, March 31, to educate the campus and the local community on the extreme ideas espoused by conference speakers who belong to the “Seven Mountains Movement.” The intolerant idea behind this radical plan is to “reclaim” and “hold dominion” over seven key spheres of society: education, arts, family, media, business, government, and religion. Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director, Wayne Besen, will be in Boston and available for media interviews for the duration of the conference, as well as TWO researcher, Bruce Wilson.

TWO will also co-sponsor a Join the Impact Massachusetts protest against this conference: 12 Noon, Saturday April 2, at the Northwest Science Building (52 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA). There may also be a student protest on Friday evening, further details, TBA.

“This is a divisive conference that demonizes and dehumanizes entire groups of people,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “It promotes religion-based bigotry in the guise of improving society. While these zealots have a right to speak, Harvard University has a moral and ethical responsibility to ensure it provides an appropriate forum where these dangerous views are vigorously challenged. To this end, Harvard failed. As a result, the university is aiding and abetting the dissemination of hateful, exclusionary, totalitarian views that are anathema to Harvard’s values of inclusion, pluralism, fairness, robust intellectual debate, and diversity.”

Once example of “red meat” rhetoric comes from conference speaker Lance Wallnau who said during an October 2010 webcast:

“You’ve got Islam invading the United States. So you’ve got your homosexual activity, your abortion activity here, Islam coming in, you’ve got a financial collapse — all of this, to those of us who are Christians, is an apocalyptic confirmation that when you remove God from public discourse, when you don’t line up your thinking with kingdom principles, you inevitably hit an iceberg like the Titanic and you go down”

“These religious supremacists may attempt to tone down their radical views at Harvard in a deceptive effort to appear mainstream,” said TWO researcher Bruce Wilson, who has done extensive research for Truth Wins Out on the Seven Mountains Movement. “However, even a cursory glance at their rhetoric shows that they are dangerous demagogues and utopian extremists who dream of taking over America. We will shine a spotlight on this fringe movement to make it more difficult for them to use the prestige of Harvard University to legitimize their outlandish views and whitewash their radical agenda.”

TWO believes exposing this movement is important because prominent politicians, such as Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin, have courted it. The university’s ostensible stamp of approval will make it easier for these theocrats to appear respectable and create powerful political alliances at the expense of America’s future.

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism and the “ex-gay” myth. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.

Equality Matters is providing us with a little flashback today, to a 2007 interview Mike Huckabee did on Fox News Sunday:

Oh lord, Mike Huckabee’s really imploding right before our very eyes, isn’t he?

Crazy not-birther Mike Huckabee thinks Natalie Portman is corrupting America by having been “visibly pregnant” at the Oscars without being married. On Michael Medvedev’s radio show, Medvedev talked about how “sending that kind of message is problematic.” Huckabee agreed:

There aren’t really a lot of single moms out there who are making millions of dollars every year for being in a movie,” he said. “And I think it gives a distorted image. … Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that’s the story that we’re not seeing, and it’s unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out-of-wedlock children.

Uh. How messed up in the head do you have to be to be unable to embrace the position, “Natalie Portman Can Do Whatever The Hell She Wants”?

Gawker has the audio, so click the above clicky if you want to hear the completely useless discussion.

But what I really want to point out here is Angry Black Lady’s reaction to this:

So let me get this straight. The Huckster is concerned about the colored kids born out of wedlock, but at the same time wants to force all women to have babies should they become pregnant through rape, contraception failure, a mistake, or rampant sluttery, and then he has the temerity to lament the poor uneducated and unemployed status of the zombie babymakers single moms while at the same time preaching abstinence only.

How has his head not exploded from cognitive dissonance?

Haha, that would require movement in Huckabee’s grey matter. He’s just pandering to mindless wingnuts, is all.  I do agree, though, that Mike Huckabee may have picked the wrong Hollywood starlet to talk smack about.  [NSFW, but amazing.]

Yay, it’s time for another episode of Republicans Pretending To Care About Black People!

Fox News employee and Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee said Sunday that President Barack Obama’s decision not to defend key parts of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was actually alienating his African American base.

[...]

Fox News’ Chris Wallace talked with Huckabee about the decision Sunday.

“You say that that could destroy the president,” Wallace noted. “Isn’t that over the top?”

“No,” Huckabee replied. “He alieniated the African American community. Overwhelmingly, they support traditional marriages more than Hispanics and more than whites.”

“Within the white community it’s about 56 percent, 65 percent in the Hispanic, 75 in the African American community,” he explained.

Oh, the poor thing.

Also, his numbers are all screwed up.

Still an idiot.

[h/t Jim Burroway]

This only makes sense if you understand that wingnuts don’t think along normal patterns of analysis, but instead just react to dogwhistles — in this case, the two things they don’t like are gayness and poor single [read: black] parents — in much the same way my dog just reacted to a cat walking through the yard.  She barked like mad.  She doesn’t know why.  It just feels right, y’know?  Trouble is, wingnuts aren’t cute and furry, and certainly not cuddly.  Anyway, talk, Huckleberry:

Likely Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee mauled President Obama’s decision to halt the Justice Department’s legal defenses of DOMA at a roundtable lunch with reporters on Wednesday. In defense of his position, he claimed a public mandate for the controversial Clinton-era law, and linked same sex marriage to the failure of heterosexual marriages.

“I’m deeply disappointed,” Huckabee said. “They are clearly out of sync with the public.”

Huckabee noted that 33 states have affirmed, via ballot initiatives, that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

“When the voters are so overwhelmingly [supportive of DOMA] what does the president believe he knows that citizens in all these other states don’t,” Huckabee said.

[...]

Huckabee opposes gay marriage on the grounds that, according to him, it destroys traditional families.

“There is a quantified impact of broken families,” Huckabee said. “[There is a] $300 billion dad deficit in America every year…that’s the amount of money that we spend as taxpayers to pick up the pieces because dads are derelict in their duties.”

You see, any idiot can read this statement and understand that happy gay couples raising happy children have nothing to do with dads who don’t pay child support or otherwise care for their kids. It’s self-explanatory, except when you’re a wingnut, trained to react negatively to certain buzzwords. In this way, Huckleberry’s statement is perfect — to bring the analogy back to my dog, Huckabee just sent a cat running through the yard just as the mailman dared to deliver the mail!  One, two, three, jump in the window and go nuts like a moron!

It’s much the same with the braintrust who would consider voting for Mike Huckabee.

The TPM link above, of course, points out that, yet again, the idea that laws like DOMA have overwhelming support is true crap, as polls have lately been showing either slight support for marriage equality, or support quickly nearing fifty percent.

[h/t Joe]

Sarah Posner is sitting through the muck of the Values Voters Summit, and after the first morning, it seems that, with the exception of Mitt Romney, there is no clear delineation between government and religion for these people:

[T]o win over this crowd, the presidential hopefuls — and tea party king- and queenmakers like Michele Bachmann and Jim DeMint — have to know how to preach it. That was something that some speakers this morning — DeMint and Bachmann, as well as Mike Huckabee and Mike Pence, had down. They all tapped into the “founding principles,” “Judeo-Christian” foundation, and other code, but they did more. They wept; they told stories about soldiers and family members; they evoked imagery of mountains climbed and enemies vanquished.

Mitt Romney, though? Not so much. Speaking directly after Pence, who since the inaugural Values Voters Summit in 2006, has always invoked the language of the religious right base, Romney was at a disadvantage. He was boring, technocratic, and business-like, and the audience wasn’t buying his claim to be on their side on abortion and gay marriage.

In contrast, Huckabee knew how to play the big-bad government card, claiming that the crisis we face is not “fiscal,” but “moral” — in other words, if everyone was just good and “Judeo-Christian” we wouldn’t need financial regulation. (Good luck with that!) See, for Huckabee, if people were moral, then there wouldn’t be juvenile delinquency and we wouldn’t spend government money on programs for juvenile delinquents. It’s a common refrain on the right now — especially as the religious right — that economic prosperity flows from everyone falling in lock-step with their “Judeo-Christian values.”

[...]

Huckabee elaborated: “the bigger problem with the Democrats,” he said, “is not that they don’t share our values but that they don’t share our story” — in other words, not just their version of American history, and the intentions of the founders, but their story of what government is supposed to do and not do.

It’s true that liberals and moderates don’t “share their story,” because it’s just that: a story. It has no basis in historical fact, but rather is something that wingnuts tell themselves in order to bolster their image as “The Real ‘Murrikans.”

I’m not surprised that Mitt Romney isn’t going over well, either.  Aside from his Mormonism, he appears too levelheaded to go over with this crowd, and that’s why I highly doubt he’ll be the Republican nominee in 2012.  The order of the day for right-wingers is “the crazier, the better.”  They need people who will obsessively help them further drive a wedge between themselves and the rest of the population that they view as unclean.  They need people who will erect straw demons for them to fight at will.  For the average attendee at the Values Voters Summit, so many things can be brought back to the classic [mostly imaginary] battle between good and evil, and that psychosis is so entrenched that anyone who dares to craft a message that might appeal to normal people is going to be dead on arrival.

More as it comes.

Here is a disturbing excerpt from Nicki Gostin’s Pop Eater interview with Geraldo Rivera:

I’m sorry, but I still find it fascinating that you are at FOX. Do you get along with Mike Huckabee?
He’s a great guy. Obviously I don’t agree with him on a lot of issues — abortion and immigration foremost — but he’s a wonderful guy. I would vote for him.

How could you vote for him if you disagree on key issues?
Because sometimes honor is more important and he is a very honorable guy. I consider myself an Obama Republican. I’m liberal to moderate on most issues.

What do you think of the Tea Party movement?
I think they are the most potent political force in the country today. It’s totally sapped the energy of the political dialogue in that the liberals have nothing to say except whine and complain and I think it bodes very ill for the mid-term elections for the democrats. I think they’re going to get routed. If the other side, the so called left doesn’t have a more articulate message then people are going to walk.

And on a lighter note: you were quite the ladies man back in the day. Want to give me a ball park figure?
No I can’t! The worst mistake I made when I wrote my book was naming names and it continues to haunt me but I’ve been married five times and you’ve never heard a bad word about me from any of my ex-wives.

Maybe working at FOX News is slowly brainwashing Rivera and he needs to hurry up and lock himself in Al Capone’s vault until he is deprogrammed.

I’d love to know what would preacher Mike Huckabee really believes about Rivera’s five wives?