Brian Tashman's blog

Bob Vander Plaats of The Family Leader, who led Mike Huckabee’s victorious Iowa campaign in 2008, endorsed Rick Santorum for president today. Chuck Hurley of the Iowa Family Policy Center also endorsed Santorum. Speaking as an individual and not on behalf of his organization, Vander Plaats lauded Santorum as the “Huckabee in this race” and a “champion of the family.” Echoing Huckabee, who frequently reminded Religious Right voters, “I come from you,” Vander Plaats concluded, “I believe Rick Santorum comes from us, he’s not to us, he comes from us, he’s one of us.”

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Les Kinsolving of WorldNetDaily thinks that demonstrators in the Occupy Wall Street movement should be punished for their protests with “extensive terms of hard labor.” Citing the OWS demonstrations against K Street lobbyists, Kinsolving says that only hard labor can “consume the energy of these creatures”:

The Washington Post reported:

"As a cold rain fell, hundreds of people filled K Street, chanting 'We are the 99 percent' while slogging through puddles and waving protest signs. They blocked intersections with newspaper boxes, wooden pallets, office furniture and tents. Tempers frayed. Horns blared.

"D.C. police said 62 people were arrested after they formed human chains across thoroughfares. Many were charged with obstruction of a public highway. On Wednesday night, 12 more people were arrested when they wouldn't leave the steps of the Supreme Court."

I surely defend the right to picket – that historic and constitutional right.

Surely this right does not include the construction of housing structures in public parks or the blocking of public thoroughfares by arm-locked protesters.

But the Washington Times reported that the D.C. code punishes obstructing a public highway with only a fine – from $100 to $250. What is needed are extensive terms of hard labor to consume the energy of these creatures.

Rick Perry, Quoting Isaiah, Asks God: “Here I am! Send Me!” Last night, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has been working vigorously to court Religious Right activists, appeared on a conference call with Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition where he spent most of the time discussing his accomplishments in Texas and his committed opposition to abortion rights and gay rights. He quoted Ezekiel 22:30 to call on Americans to “stand in the gap” by fighting “for the unborn and for the traditional values” and against “the secular left.” Perry also claimed that God is commissioning leaders to “get our country back,” and cited Isaiah 6:8: ““Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’”

Perry: I just want to challenge you tonight that the values that are going to be decided in Washington DC and in our state capitals, somebody’s values are going to be what are used to put legislation in place. I think the question is: whose values? And are people of faith going to stand in the gap for the unborn and for the traditional values that America was founded upon? Or are we going to continue to cede more ground to the secular left because of their threatening to sue us or the ACLU or the various, sundry groups. I think we don’t have a choice. If we’re going to get our country back, we have to stand in the gap; we have to be the ones that will stand up. As it says in Isaiah, in chapter 6:8, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’”

Newt Gingrich today nabbed the endorsement of Don Wildmon, the founder of the American Family Association, which is now under the leadership of his son, Tim. Wildmon praised Gingrich’s aggressive attacks on the judiciary, saying, “Newt Gingrich recognizes the threat to our country posed by judges and lawyers imposing values upon the country inconsistent with our religious heritage, and has proposed constitutional steps to bring the courts back in balance under the constitution,” and Gingrich welcomed the endorsement by calling Wildmon “one of the most important leaders in the country in the battle to uphold our founding principles.”

Wildmon endorsed Gingrich, who has admitted that extramarital affairs were reasons that ended his first two marriages, despite previously arguing that “adultery is destructive to relationships, to families, and to society.”

Wildmon’s endorsement will undoubtedly come as a disappointment to Rick Perry, who teamed-up with Wildmon to launch The Response and embraced him at the prayer rally, and Michele Bachmann, who has courted Religious Right figures like Phyllis Schlafly and Tamara Scott.

After founding the National Federation for Decency, which later became the AFA, Wildmon led censorship campaigns against shows like Seinfeld and Murphy Brown, along with other movies, television programs and music he found objectionable.

Wildmon also has claimed that “liberals” and those who support the “homosexual agenda” all “hate Christians,” and in his recent book Speechless, he claimed that “homosecularists” are trying to “persecute Christians” and “insert homosexual propaganda into the schools.” He warned that the “homosecularist elite” is using “the schools to indoctrinate children” through “pro-homosexual and anti-Christian” programs to combat school bullying. Wildmon also praised the Boy Scouts for not wanting to “expose its young members to lonely sodomites.”

But Wildmon’s endorsement doesn’t mean others in the AFA have had less than kind words for Gingrich.

Matt Freideman said that Gingrich’s extramarital affairs could disgrace the GOP:

Recently in a phone interview I challenged former Speaker Newt Gingrich with the query If the men of the Republican Revolution and their Speaker couldn't keep their marriage vows why should we now entrust, say, that Speaker who looks to be making a run for the presidency?

It wasn't much of an answer he gave. Evangelicals in power must do better in the future, and cultural conservatives in particular must surely know that the public will hold them to higher standards.

And Gingrich has faced tough criticism from AFA spokesman Bryan Fischer, who called his extramarital affairs a “show-stopper” and charged that “social conservatives and all those in the pro-family movement must have grave reservations about his candidacy”:

John the Baptist famously rebuked a politician of his day for his problematic marital history, and Mr. Gingrich rightly comes in for similar censure.

King David of the ancient kingdom of Israel kept his throne after his adulterous liaison with the beautiful Bathsheba, but a consequence of his unfaithfulness was that the sword never left his house, never left the dynasty he left behind nor the nation his descendants ruled. There were lasting consequences to the body politic for his moral failures, no matter how repentant he was and no matter how forgiven by God.

Fischer even warned that a Gingrich presidency could undermine American families:

A candidate or president with such a troubled past would have little or no credibility in talking about the sanctity of marriage and the sanctity and importance of the intact family unit. “Who are you,” folks would say, “to be lecturing us about the importance of family?”

And there certainly would be fallout for the American family and the institution of marriage if such a flawed individual served as our nation’s leader.

UPDATE: Wildmon today appeared on Focal Point with Bryan Fischer where he explained that while he was initially “ecstatic” about Rick Perry’s candidacy, he decided that because of the Texas governor's disastrous debate appearances his candidacy “cannot recover.” Wildmon said that electability matters because “we are facing the most critical election this nation has ever seen, the stake in this election is Western civilization.”

When discussing Gingrich’s extramarital affairs, he said that Gingrich “seemed genuinely repentant,” telling Fischer, “we are voting for a president, not a pope, and there is a difference.” He added that his endorsement was personal and does not reflect an endorsement by the American Family Association.

Later in the show, Wildmon and Fischer praised Gingrich’s fight against “judicial tyranny” and Wildmon cited Gingrich’s attacks on judges as one of the major reasons he endorsed him: Wildmon said “the whole of Western Civilization” is in jeopardy because “when you destroy the family, which the homosexuals and the liberals now are trying to do, then you've destroyed the foundation here. All of this business about homosexual marriage, well let’s go to Massachusetts where it started, did the people vote on it? No they didn’t. What happened? Judges, judges, liberal judges passed the law, made the legalization of homosexual marriage in Massachusetts.”

American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer said today on Focal Point that gays and lesbians could endanger the military and represent a risk to the country’s security because of mental health problems in the gay community. Researchers have consistently linked prejudice and stigma against gays and lesbians to increased feelings of depression and anxiety, and Fischer skews such research to make it seem that gay people are intrinsically unstable. Such claims are no surprise coming from Fischer, who has warned that the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was a “treasonous” act that would leave America “with a military comprised of nothing but sexual deviants.” Fischer said today that gays “represent an increased risk to national security,” calling openly gay service in the military “foolish.” While referencing the Bradley Manning case, Fischer said that “if you have compassion for people, you want homosexuals to get help,” and that gays should be prohibited from handling “sensitive national security information.”

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Daniel Lapin of Toward Tradition has emerged as the Religious Right’s favorite rabbi whose rants against government and gays have kept his image among conservatives untarnished despite his close ties to the Jack Abramoff scandal involving Indian gambling companies. Today on WallBuilders Live, Lapin not only tried to say that gay rights derived from the collapse of morality but also argued that it was “insane” that gays weren’t quarantined during the AIDS pandemic the 1980s.

Lapin told co-hosts Rick Green and David Barton, who has previously called for the government regulation of homosexuality, that health institutions should have tried to “impose quarantine” against the “homosexual-related disease” but “nobody had the moral will to do it simply because it reeked of bigotry and selective oppression and so on.”

Listen:

Lapin: Look, you’ll remember when the AIDS epidemic began, if that was anything other than a homosexual-related disease, which it obviously was, particularly at the outset, any public health organization that did not impose quarantine would have literally been tried before a court, it’s insane.

Green: So they ignored from what a health perspective they should have done.

Lapin: Yes, yes of course. If it was an outbreak of cholera or if it was an outbreak of the same severity as the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the ’80s, yes, yes of course they should have been quarantining but nobody had the moral will to do it simply because it reeked of bigotry and selective oppression and so on.

Liberty Counsel is spending the holiday season the best way they know how, by ratcheting up the rhetoric on the supposed “War on Christmas” and demanding that stores say “Merry Christmas” to customers and politicians place sectarian symbols in the public square. The group has been particularly outraged over Rhode Island’s display of a “Holiday Tree,” even comparing it to a military threat from North Korea and accusing Governor Lincoln Chafee of “kow-towing to the Commies,” saying he “is well-suited for survival at the North Korea border.” Of course, Liberty Counsel fails to mention that Chafee’s Republican predecessor also called it a “Holiday Tree,” but evidently Republicans get a free pass during the “War on Christmas.”

Today on Faith & Freedom, Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber said that Chafee is “joining forces with radical atheist groups to offend a majority percentage of Americans.” The funnyman went on to joke, “On April First we have April Fool’s Day, so atheists have their own holiday! So I don’t understand why they’re in such a fuss!”

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After Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a speech announcing a new administration directive to protect the rights of LGBT people abroad, the Religious Right reacted with the predictable rage and vitriol. Pat Robertson warned that God will punish America with a “horrible” blow and the Family Research Council accused Obama of “imposing an alien ideology on other countries” for trying to stop countries from criminalizing homosexuality.

Conservative commentators ignored well-documented evidence of pervasive anti-LGBT violence around the world, as radio talk show host Janet Mefferd railed against the directive as “crazy” and dismissed reports of violence against gays and lesbians, and Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber denied reports of persecution against the LGBT community as “nonsense” and “Orwellian New Speak.” In fact, they readily defended the seventy-six countries which criminalize homosexuality:

Last week, the United Nations even released a new report [pdf] chronicling “violations for close to two decades” of killings, rape and physical attacks, torture, arbitrary detention, the denial of rights to assembly, expression and information, and discrimination in employment, health and education” against LGBT and LGBT-perceived people:

Homophobic and transphobic violence has been recorded in all regions. Such violence may be physical (including murder, beatings, kidnappings, rape and sexual assault) or psychological (including threats, coercion and arbitrary deprivations of liberty).25 These attacks constitute a form of gender-based violence, driven by a desire to punish those seen as defying gender norms.

In addition to “street” violence and other spontaneous attacks in public settings, those perceived as LGBT may be targets of more organized abuse, including by religious extremists, paramilitary groups, neo-Nazis and extreme nationalists. Young LGBT people and those of all ages who are seen to be transgressing social norms are at risk of family and community violence. Lesbians and transgender women are at particular risk because of gender inequality and power relations within families and wider society.

Violence against LGBT persons tends to be especially vicious compared to other bias-motivated crimes. According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), homophobic hate crimes and incidents often show a high degree of cruelty and brutality and include beatings, torture, mutilation, castration and sexual assault.

The report went on to discuss how “members of sexual minorities are disproportionately subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment” and that the government, police, schools, health institutions and the justice system are major perpetrators of discrimination against LGBT people.

Surely, Religious Right activists will take heed of this new report….

In an email message sent to members of Tea Party Nation on Saturday, the group’s president Judson Phillips pushed an article written under the name “Jane Galt” saying that President Obama might have deliberately offered the recently-captured predator drone to Iran…and that Osama bin Laden wasn’t killed but his death was in fact “staged” by Obama:

This incident with Iran getting one of our top secret military drones, has been puzzling me since it happened. It's vaguely reminiscent of the alleged killing of Osama Bin Laden, with no evidence shown to the American people. ( Personally, I think he's been dead since around 2003, have seen no evidence otherwise, and think Obama staged the incident just so he could take credit. People prove they're alive by showing up, and he hadn't shown up in any way, in years. )

…

But we've been hearing reports recently, that socialists and gangs have been infiltrating our military now. So this leaves two very disturbing possibilities left.

One, that Obama passed down direct orders through a trusted chain of command, to land this drone in Iran, possibly sparking a war with Iran, and handing over our top secret military technology to them and their Russian and Chinese allies.

Or it may have been the act of a lone traitor who was operating the drone and decided to do this act on their own.

Both are very disturbing possibilities and should be investigated, but who will do that?

At least such an investigation should be called for - demanded.

Not to be outdone, Larry Klayman, the founder of Judicial Watch and the current head of Freedom Watch, also claimed that Obama may have given the drone to Iran because the Iranian government was financing his presidential campaign. “I believe that Iran has paid off Obama with campaign contributions to win the next election,” Klayman said, “This could well turn out to be the terrorist trial of the decade.”

Barack Hussein Obama, our president, is a traitor. Finally, his hatred for our nation and his plan to destroy it are crystal clear. He must be forced from office — legally — before our entire country goes down the drain for the final count!

Much has gone on in the last three years to show Obama's true colors, sympathetic not to Judeo-Christians values and culture, but Islam and its surrogate-controlled states.

…

Barack Hussein Obama was complicit in this treasonous act. By allowing the radical Islamic mullahs in Iran, China and Russia to have our highest technology when he simply could have ordered the destruction of the drone once it went down, Obama cemented my strong belief that he is a traitor.

Obama must go now! We cannot wait until an election in 2012, as more damage will irreparably harm our nation. He must be legally forced to leave office now, plain and simple.

In this regard, Freedom Watch recently scored a big victory in court in our case against the radical mullahs in Iran. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ordered that evidence be presented into the atrocities committed by the Iranian terrorist regime. These atrocities are being committed each day with Obama's apparent blessing! This trial, to be held in the next few months, will, like the Nuremberg Nazi trials after World War II, expose the horrors of the Islamic Iranian regime, which is obviously supported by Obama. I believe that Iran has paid off Obama with campaign contributions to win the next election, just as China paid off the Clintons with illegally laundered campaign contributions so they could win the 1996 election. Coupled with his Muslim roots, Obama gladly threw his lot in with the radical Iranian mullahs bent on our destruction, as well as Israel's. That's why I call Obama the "mullah in chief." This could well turn out to be the terrorist trial of the decade.

Just as I was instrumental in exposing the bribery of the Clintons by China during their administration, concerned citizens need to be hard at work uncovering the bribery of Obama by the Iranians. I for one am investigating this likelihood. Bill Clinton and his criminal wife, Hillary, were the "Manchurian Candidates," but Obama and Hillary are now the "Islamic Iranian Candidates," an analogy the movie that depicted how Chinese communists infiltrated the highest reaches of our government. The primary explanation for Obama and Clinton rolling over for the Iranian Islamist mullahs is that they were paid off, that is, bribed. This occurred during the Clinton years with communist China, so it is not farfetched that it is happening now. Obama and Clinton need the campaign cash to win the next elections, just as Bill and Hill needed it in 1996 to defeat Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole.

Just as I was instrumental in exposing the bribery with China, now we need to do this with Iran, before we all go down the drain to these radical Islamist terrorists.

Today on The 700 Club, Pat Robertson joined other right-wing commentators in blaming “anti-Christian bigotry” for people mocking Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow and his very, very public religiosity. Robertson slammed Saturday Night Live for having a character play Jesus to tell Tebow to “take it down a notch.” “We need more religious faith in our society, we’re losing our moral compass in our nation,” Robertson lamented, “and this man has been placed in a unique position and I applaud him, God bless him.”

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