Brian Tashman's blog

Pastors Kevin Swanson and Dave Buehner are no strangers to making extreme and disturbing anti-gay statements on their show Generations Radio, so it comes as no surprise that they did not exactly react well to Colorado’s passage of a civil unions bill and a Denver Post photograph of State House Majority Leader Mark Ferrandino kissing his partner.

Swanson compared Ferrandino and his partner to Ahab, the Baal worshiping king in the Bible who was married to Jezebel, and Nero, the Roman emperor who persecuted Christians, and maintained they are “showing the big middle finger to God above.”

Indeed, he said that the “Colorado government is the worst in the world” and “probably even worse than the North Korean government.”

Buehner agreed and argued that the photograph should be labeled “Capital Crime,” implying that the kiss is a crime punishable by death.

Swanson: Colorado’s become probably the worst state in the union right now and I happen to be broadcasting from the state of Colorado. The front page of the Denver Post yesterday morning gave us a picture of our leaders that is the House Majority Leader in Colorado who is celebrating and dancing on the gravestone of the old Christian order of the last 2,000 years because they have won and God is dead as far as they are concerned. We have the House Majority Leader, and by the way 10 percent of the House and Senate in Colorado are homosexuals, and Dave they are performing a homosexual act on the front page of the Denver Post, meaning that the Denver government as far as I’m concerned is probably the most immoral government, flagrantly thwarting the government of God in Heaven, and they are doing it far worse than anybody in Communist China government has ever done, probably worse than the North Korean government as well.

I would say at this point in the history of America, Colorado government is the worst in the world as far as flagrantly thwarting God’s law on the front page of the Denver Post. Dave, a homosexual act being performed in this picture on the front page of the Denver Post, just shocking, I saw you turn your head, you took one look and turned your head, you didn’t want to look at it, I’m going to turn it over.

Buehner: The headline should read ‘Capital Crime.’ A little pun intended there because it is a capital crime.

Swanson: These are our leaders. This is Ahab. This is Nero. Well, Nero did effectively the same thing, he was doing the same thing and of course he persecuted Christians, which is what happens, so not completely unusual in the history of the world. But Dave we’re talking about the apostate Christian West and showing the big middle finger to God above and thwarting his law. This is about as blatant as I’ve ever seen in my life; this is the most blatant thing I’ve seen in my life.

Buehner: This is brazen, what San Francisco has done on the city level, Colorado is now doing on the state level.

Buehner said that the story points to the “demise of Western civilization” and should have “never be brought to public life,” and Swanson said that gays and lesbians are embarking on a “mass propaganda campaign and they’re going to put Christians in prison.” Buehner added that “these people are intent on defying; giving the middle finger to the God who is…this is the anti-God religion.”

Swanson was later adamant that conservatives need to “bring down the socialist schools” and “dismantle the public schools” in order to stop the left and the gay rights movement before they “destroy our freedoms.”

The pastors later defended the Mennonite pastor Kenneth Miller, who was recently convicted for aiding Lisa Miller (no relation) in kidnapping her daughter Isabella to avoid a court order that gave Miller’s former partner Janet Jenkins custody over Isabella. Buehner even compared the kidnapping case to helping someone leave a concentration camp.

Swanson: Now Dave I just wrote a letter to this guy in care of the Amish Mennonite church in Stuarts Draft, Virginia. I have no idea who this guy is, I understand he is being persecuted for his faith and he took a righteous position. He tried to as a leader in his church develop a righteous position, what position should he take, on this particular case and it did not happen to coalesce with the United States government’s position that would render as many possible liberties and freedoms to those that violate God’s law as possible. So this man I believe took a righteous position and it was a difficult position, probably a very difficult position, it would have taken a lot of wisdom and a lot of thought — should he do this, should he do that — and he wound up taking I think a righteous position on this issue and he is being persecuted for his pains, serving three years in a jail in Virginia. At least two pastors right now in America are being persecuted, nothing in comparison to what’s happening in places like Iran, however.

Buehner: I would like to say that this Mennonite pastor did pretty much follow the path set out by Rutherford: you want to fight the case as much as you can in court and when you lose there then you flee. And they fled and he helped them to flee. If somebody wanted to leave the public schools I would help them leave the public schools; if somebody wanted to leave a concentration camp and I was in Nazi Germany I would try and help them to leave the concentration camp. I believe, and I believe this pastor also believes, that this mother and child were in deep, grave moral danger and perhaps even physical danger and their opportunity to practice the Christian faith was compromised in America so I stand with him.

The National Organization for Marriage’s upcoming Marriage March in Washington DC is sponsored by a whole litany of national and state-based Religious Right organizations and Catholic Church affiliates, and Jeremy Hooper has been doing an excellent job running down the list.

One notable sponsor of NOM’s march is Family Watch International (FWI), a group that defends the criminalization of homosexuality.

Other NOM march sponsors like the World Congress of Families and the Family Research Council have also defended such anti-gay laws, but as Warren Throckmorton reports FWI has been particularly active in pushing criminalization policies abroad.

Sharon Slater, American anti-gay activist and president of Family Watch International, recently encouraged delegates attending a law conference in Lagos, Nigeria to resist the United Nations’ calls to decriminalize homosexuality. Keynoting the Nigerian Bar Association Conference, Slater told delegates that they would lose their religious and parental rights if they supported “fictitious sexual rights.” One such “fictitious right” is the right to engage in same-sex sexual relationships without going to jail.

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In Nigeria, homosexual behavior is illegal and punishable by up to 14 years in prison. In the Islamic North, where Sharia law is enforced, gays can be sentenced to death by stoning.

According to Family Watch International, Nigeria is a role model.

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Given the application of U.S. ex-gay rhetoric to questions of criminalization in Africa, it appears that FWI and their ally the WCF are fighting ideological battles in Africa and at the UN that they have lost in the United States. As Slater noted, she opposed the repeal of sodomy laws over a decade ago and now these organizations are opposing UN efforts to encourage repeal of such laws around the world.

Despite recoiling from obvious violence of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality bill, FWI continues to carry the banner for African and Arab nations that cause GLBT people to live in fear—and sometimes in jail. Opposing the repeal of laws criminalizing homosexual behavior in the U.S. is a far different matter than opposing such repeal in Nigeria or Ghana. Despite Slater saying the matter was “complicated,” the activities of FWI reveal a very uncomplicated, black-and-white strategy: laws opposing homosexuality in any form should be retained, while those which might provide basic freedoms to gays are opposed as bad for everybody else. The only caveat is that they prefer that gays not be beaten or killed.

Kerry Eleveld in the Political Research Associates report “Colonizing African Values” also looks into FWI’s promotion of ex-gay pseudo-science and FWI head Sharon Slater’s demand that homosexuality be treated like rape, assault, sexual abuse and drug dealing.

“It is one thing to allow others the right to engage in self-destructive behavior,” Slater warned in a 2009 article. “But allowing and even granting those same individuals the right to introduce this behavior as normal and healthy to society at large, especially to children, is a very different proposition. This is why we have laws that prohibit sexual acts such as incest, sexual abuse, and rape as well as drug dealing, assaults, and other crimes.”

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This stance attracted the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), which gave Slater a platform during its annual conference last year. As “scientific” organizations that used to employ discredited research in support of curing homosexuality continue to be marginalized, they seem to be reaching out to Christian Right figures such as Slater, and in return FWI’s website utilizes NARTH resources on ex-gay therapy.

Though Slater appears to have kept news of the most recent Global Family Policy Forum to a minimum, last year in a newsletter she recounted “one of the most moving presentations” as given by a person “successfully reorienting” from homosexuality to heterosexuality. According to Slater: “For many of these diplomats, this was their first exposure to the scientific and clinical evidence that proves homo- sexuality is not genetically determined and fixed like skin color or race and that in many cases, individuals who experience same-sex attraction can be helped by therapy.” (emphasis hers)

In order to curry favor with foreign diplomats and people from developing countries, Slater continually drives home themes of the West imposing its bankrupt and deleterious values on the rest of the world. FWI’s latest documentary, “Cultural Imperialism,” is described as a “hard-hitting exposé of how the U.S. and other Western governments and UN agencies are blackmailing developing nations to accept controversial sexual rights in the guise of fighting AIDS.”

Fresh from speaking at CPAC, Pamela Geller appeared yesterday on TruNews with End Times fanatic and anti-Obama conspiracy theorist Rick Wiles where she implied that President Obama may be a Muslim.

She said that Obama’s speech to the UN General Assembly, where he explicitly opposed blasphemy laws, actually was supportive of blasphemy laws and especially took issue with Obama’s line that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. But to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see in the images of Jesus Christ that are desecrated, or churches that are destroyed, or the Holocaust that is denied.”

Geller told Wiles that Obama needs to “chill” and that Muhammad “may be your prophet but he’s not mine.”

It was so deeply troubling and so disturbing when you had the President of the United States Barack Obama go before the UN after our embassies had been attacked and say ‘the future does not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.’ Well first of all he’s not my prophet, so chill President of the United States you speak to everybody. He may be your prophet but he’s not mine. And then to use the weight of the United States to say you know violating the blasphemy laws is not the future, I think is pretty scary stuff, pretty scary stuff. I don’t care how they package it in the media, taking a steaming pile of dung and putting it in a Tiffany blue box with a little white ribbon, it is still dung.

Just today in her WorldNetDaily column, Geller called Obama an “Islamophile” and an “anti-Semite” who is “attempting to render parts of Jerusalem judenrein.”

She also told Wiles that Al Cardenas, the head of the American Conservative Union and the host of CPAC, met with her to discuss her complaints that the conference is “enforcing the Sharia.” Geller said that while Cardenas may not be part of the alleged Islamist takeover of CPAC, ACU board members Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan are “absolutely” allies of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Geller: Al Cardenas by the way did reach out to me, I must say this, called me a couple of times after the brouhaha and did take a meeting with me at CPAC and we’ll see what happens. You know I am not cynical; did he go on a charm offensive and mean nothing? I don’t know. Will he do something about CPAC and have more voices like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan and Ibn Warraq? We’ll see.

Wiles: Is there a connection to the Muslim Brotherhood in all of this stuff going on with CPAC and Grover Norquist?

Geller: I think so via Norquist and Suhail Khan; that I can prove. I’m not saying that about Cardenas because clearly I have no proof and I won’t say things that I don’t know to be true.

Wiles: I understand but with Norquist is there a connection to the Muslim Brotherhood?

Geller: Absolutely. I mean he is very tied in with the Muslim Brotherhood groups here: ICNA, ISNA, CAIR. These groups were named as unindicted co-conspirators in the largest Hamas funding trial in our nation’s history and they were all offshoots of Hamas groups here in America in the ’90s.

Geller even maintained that “the media is aligned with the jihad force” and “self-enforces the Sharia,” agreeing with Wiles’ belief that “the left is foolishly aiding the Islamic infiltration of America.”

Geller: The media is aligned with the jihad force; the media self-enforces the Sharia; they refuse to criticize or offend or insult Islam that is in accordance with the blasphemy laws under the Sharia. Now you may say, ‘Well do you think they are deliberately enforcing the laws of the Sharia? Do you think they are saying I’m going to be Sharia compliant?’ I don’t know what’s in their minds, I would say no, but it doesn’t make a difference to me whether you’re clueless or complicit if the outcome is the same.

Wiles: The left is foolishly aiding the Islamic infiltration of America because the left thinks that if they have this alliance they will break down and destroy the last vestiges of the old America.

Geller: Yes. Look, this is a pattern; it is a leftist pattern to align itself with the totalitarian ideology of the day.

End Times broadcaster Rick Wiles of TruNews has found more “proof” to bolster his case that President Obama is a demon: The History Channel’s “The Bible” miniseries. Reacting to charges that the character depicting Satan looks similar to Obama, Wiles believes “God guided the hand of the makeup artist and blinded the eyes of everybody on the movie set while it was being recorded” so that they wouldn’t see the resemblance.

But then, Wiles claims, God “removed” the “spiritual blinders” once “the program was broadcast nationally on the History Channel.” He concludes that this is yet another “clue” from Heaven that “the man in the White House is a devil from Hell.”

As Mr. Obama prepares to enter Jerusalem this week, days before Passover, another massive swarm of locusts have entered southern Israel. Mr. Obama is not only facing a biblical plague of locust in the Middle East he is also being compared to Satan in the popular “The Bible” series on the History Channel. Sunday night’s latest chapter on the series featured Lucifer and viewers around the nation immediately thought Satan looked like Barack Obama. Mark Burnett, the creator of the miniseries, denied reports that that actor was made to look like Mr. Obama. His wife Roma Downey said “both Mark and I have nothing but respect and love for our President who is a fellow Christian.” Likewise, the History Channel denounced the internet and talk radio chatter that the Lucifer character resembles Mr. Obama, in a statement the TV network said it was “unfortunate that anybody made this false connection.”

Now here’s my take on it: I believe Mark Burnett and his wife and the History Channel. I don’t believe they intentionally portrayed the Lucifer character to look like Mr. Obama. I think God guided the hand of the makeup artist and blinded the eyes of everybody on the movie set while it was being recorded, and the spiritual blinders were removed Sunday night when the program was broadcast nationally on the History Channel. How many clues do we need from Heaven to understand that the man in the White House is a devil from Hell?

After wondering about UN Ambassador Susan Rice’s sexual orientation, American Family Association radio host Sandy Rios is now floating rumors that Hillary Clinton may be a lesbian following the former Secretary of State’s statement expressing support for marriage equality.

Citing Dick Morris, naturally, Rios speculated that Clinton may be a lesbian even though she “can’t confirm or deny anything.”

She added that Clinton has a “love of homosexuality” and consistently “endorsed and embraced all things lesbian and gay.” “We are being caught in this vortex of homosexual advocacy, it’s just amazing,” Rios concluded.

If you think that her support of lesbian and gay rights is something new, I’m sorry, she has repackaged herself so successfully but if you just do a little research on Hillary Clinton you know that her love of homosexuality goes back a very long way. I remember even when she was First Lady, that would be not the beginning of her support for this, but this would be one of the more notable things, on the UN Convention on the Rights of Women, she oversaw the whole thing, the Beijing conference. It was shocking. This was a shocking thing. I think it was in ’94 I remember interviewing women that I knew who came back from the conference and I have mentioned this on the air before but I have to mention it again, under Hillary’s leadership there were even tents on lesbian lovemaking, they we remaking sure that people defined gender there were five genders, not just two genders.

Hillary Clinton, there have long been rumors about her sexual persuasion; if you don’t know that you need to know that. I can’t confirm or deny anything; I just remember that Dick Morris was the first one to raise this publicly. He worked with Bill and Hillary Clinton for a number of years and he said on public television, I was shocked because I knew about the rumors, he actually alleged that Hillary was a — he was trying to make excuses for Bill Clinton when he was caught with Monica Lewinsky — and he basically said, I believe it was on Fox many years ago when that broke, basically hinted that Hillary was a lesbian.

All I can tell you there are rumors abound and I guess since it doesn’t matter anymore then it doesn’t matter anymore, does it? So if you think this is like a seismic shift for Hillary Clinton I can guarantee you this is not a seismic shift. She has always, as far as I know back to college, endorsed and embraced all things lesbian and gay, that is her history on this so that shouldn’t be too shocking. She has played the role of wife and cookie-making mother, I’m sorry but this is just the reality of things. We are being caught in this vortex of homosexual advocacy, it’s just amazing.

Joseph Farah writes today that lawmakers in California and New Jersey who are pushing limits on ex-gay therapy are “promoting sexual anarchy” and “child abuse.” The virluently anti-gay WorldNetDaily editor warns that the “homosexual lobby” is “dangerous and totalitarian in nature” and seeks the “the active recruitment of children into aberrant sexual lifestyles.”

At the same time American society takes this anything-goes approach to sexuality, there is one new glaring taboo being constructed in some states: Counseling and therapy for minors who want to change their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Such legislation was passed by the California Legislature before being struck down by the courts.

But now similar legislation is being introduced in New Jersey, in what can fairly be described as the next big push by those promoting sexual anarchy in America.

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This is an illustration of just how dangerous and totalitarian in nature the homosexual lobby truly is.

What’s happening in our society today is nothing short of the active recruitment of children into aberrant sexual lifestyles. We once called this child abuse. But today it’s official state policy. The next step, which may have been unimaginable a few years ago, is to ensure there’s no way out for those recruits.

Parents and children shouldn’t have an opportunity to explore their options in enjoying a heterosexual lifestyle. Change only works one way, according to these fiends.

Think about this: Children molested by same-sex adults are much more likely to adopt a same-sex attraction. Sometimes all those kids need is some counseling to overcome their victimization. That would be legally prohibited by the legislation now under consideration in New Jersey and the legislation passed in California.

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The homosexual movement once claimed its supreme goal was to ensure that its constituents could do what they want in the privacy of their own bedrooms. That was a lie. Now they parade their sexual proclivities in our streets and in the “gay”-friendly media. It’s no longer an alternative lifestyle; it’s quickly becoming the preferred lifestyle, the brave new lifestyle, the hip and heroic lifestyle, the affirmative-action lifestyle.

Now the homosexual movement and its allies in the popular culture, media and politics are seeking to use the police power of the state to make sure there’s no return from a “choice” made even as a child. Once “gay,” always “gay” is their credo.

Gary DeMar of American Vision, a Christian Reconstructionist group, is out with two new columns attacking Hillary Clinton and Rob Portman for endorsing marriage equality. Yesterday, DeMar warned that marriage rights for same-sex couples would eventually mean that parents would have no legal recourse to stop pedophiles from molesting their children.

Is Hillary saying that full citizenship requires that people be able to marry anybody they want?

Does this mean that a father can marry his 17-year-old daughter or son? Will laws prohibiting incestuous marriages be considered a violation of a person’s full and equal citizenship rights?

Maybe not now, but who can say what will be permitted in 10 or 20 years?

I’m sure that people who have jumped ship to embrace pro-homosexual marriage have not thought through the consequences of their decisions, especially young people who are almost always in an affirming mood. The day will come when they will have children, and there won’t be a thing they will be able to do to stop predators from taking advantage of their children because “it will be against the law to discriminate.”

In a Saturday column DeMar called homosexuality a “grave evil” and a “bad moral choice,” and went on to compare supporting a gay son to helping a son who is a pedophile, drug dealer, murderer or slave-owner.

Are there no longer any moral standards? If Senator Rob Portman’s son wants to live and love another man, no one’s stopping him. But to overthrow the moral order of the universe by having the State sanction homosexuality is a grave evil.

No one is denied love. I love all kinds of people, but it’s a moral evil to believe that love necessitates sexual relations. Once you go down this road, there’s no way to stop.

Would Senator Rob Portman throw his support behind pedophilia if he had learned that his son was a pedophile? There are young pedophiles out there. Would he support adultery if his son was an adulterer? Would he support slavery if he found out that one of his relatives was a slave owner and argued persuasively that owning slaves was legitimate? Would the Senator Rob Portman support his son if he learned that he was selling drugs to children? Would he support contract killing if he learned that his son was a contract killer for the mob?

Senator Rob Portman’s son has made a bad moral choice. There is no need to compound that bad moral choice by capitulating to it and softening the moral barriers for young men and women who are struggling with their sexuality and helping to pass laws that will affect millions of people.

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As parents, we set standards for our children to live by. When our children rebelled against those standards when they were growing up with us, there were supposed to be consequences. It did not matter how our children felt when they did something wrong. Beating up the neighbor kid because “I felt like it” or “I couldn’t help myself” were not proper moral responses.

Yesterday on Washington Watch, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council addressed Sen. Rob Portman’s decision to endorse marriage equality after learning that his son is gay. He said that while Portman should love his son unconditionally, he should not show him “unconditional support,” such as supporting his son as a gay man. He warned that changing laws like marriage “just to accommodate our personal situation” will eventually “lead to a confused society.”

Unconditional support would say we change how we view life and we try to change truth to fit our circumstances, that’s not what the scripture calls us to do. So while I commend him for his unconditional love of his son I cannot support the idea that we change our laws, which are rooted not only in history but obviously in the Judeo-Christian tradition as well as in the social sciences of what’s best for children, that we change those just to accommodate our personal situation. That doesn’t add up, that’s confusion and it will lead to a confused society.

Perkins argued that gays and lesbians will never be fulfilled in life because society will never accept homosexuality as “morally right” since “it’s not healthy” for “society and for the individuals.”

What they want, what they’re looking for — I understand this — they’re looking for affirmation, they’re looking to be what everybody wants to be, everybody wants to be fulfilled in life. The problem is they’re pursuing it in the wrong way and no matter if they’re able to successfully force society to embrace homosexuality or say that it’s okay, this is one of the things I’ve said before: you can make it a right, you can make it legal, but you can’t make it morally right, I mean it’s just not going to happen. So even though you may force everybody silent about it, you’ll never make it right. Of course there are all of the consequences involved in it, for society and for the individuals, it’s not healthy; it’s not a healthy situation.

UPDATE: In a statement today, Perkins warned that the Religious Right may ditch the GOP and join a third party if the Republican National Committee begins “alienating the millions of social conservatives” in their appeals to gay and young voters 

"It looks like Democrats won't need to spend a lot of money building a case against the GOP - because the Republican Party is doing it for them! In what the RNC is calling its 'autopsy' report from the last election, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has decided that the way for his party to win over voters is to parrot the Left's policies. The grand strategy, which calls for throwing the party's social conservatives overboard, demands the GOP be more 'welcoming' and 'inclusive' to people that are actively working against the conservative principles in the Republican platform. 'We need to campaign among ... gay Americans and demonstrate that we care about them too.'

"I agree, we can - and do - care about gay Americans, but that doesn't mean we welcome the redefinition of the core values that gave rise to American exceptionalism. 'Already,' the report warns, 'there is a generational difference within the conservative movement about issues involving the treatment and the rights of gays - and for many younger voters, these issues are a gateway into whether the Party is a place they want to be.' Much of the autopsy (an apt name, considering where its recommendations would lead) seem to suggest that the RNC's idea of bold leadership is chasing whatever fickle policy wind blows its way. In the last 24 hours, the Washington Post caught plenty of people's attention with its latest polls on same-sex 'marriage,' particularly as it pertained to the next generation's support (81 percent). It's their assertion that Americans are racing headlong into the same-sex 'marriage' camp (a result the media was bound to get by framing the poll question as a matter of legality). But history - and most statistical data - shows that young people tend to become more conservative and more religious as they grow up, get married, and start families of their own. In fact, in Frank Newport's new book, God Is Alive and Well, the editor-in-chief of Gallup explains that most people are at their spiritually lowest point at age 23. After that, people become increasingly religious - meaning that a hasty retreat on marriage may score cheap points now, but it would actually alienate the same people later on. Besides, Priebus would be betting the future of the GOP on a bloc who barely votes - while alienating the millions of social conservatives who do! 'I'm trying to show what leadership looks like,' said Preibus, 'by not throwing [Republican Senator] Rob Portman under the bus [for endorsing same-sex 'marriage']' - at the expense of the three-quarters of his party who don't?

"As for Senator Portman, his announcement hasn't exactly been popular with either Ohio party so far. Reports suggest that the calls flooding into his office are 60 percent opposed to the Senator's new position. 'While we've seen national Republican politicians move to support gay marriage in recent years...' the Washington Post points out, 'the party base hasn't really moved with them all that much.' Seventy percent of conservatives don't just oppose same-sex 'marriage,' they strongly oppose it. If Republicans defy them on this issue, warned Rush Limbaugh, 'it will cause their base to stay home and throw up their hands in frustration.' Just look at the 2008 and 2012 exit polls, when the GOP twice nominated a moderate Republican for President - and twice hung their heads in defeat. If the RNC abandons marriage, evangelicals will either sit the elections out completely - or move to create a third party. Either option puts Republicans on the path to a permanent minority.

"Obviously, this RNC report was designed to pander to the GOP's wealthy elites, the same ones who encouraged Mitt Romney to 'tone down his social issues talk.' Unfortunately for them, money doesn't decide elections; people do. And the vast majority of the GOP base believes that marriage is a non-negotiable plank of the national platform. Anything less, writes Byron York, 'could come back to haunt the RNC in the not-too-distant future.' Values issues are not just the backbone of social conservatism, but the gateway to minority outreach. If the GOP wants to improve its relationship with Hispanics, Asians, and African Americans, it had better start by emphasizing the family issues they care about - instead of dividing the Republican family it already has," Perkins concluded.

In the second part of Jim Garlow’s post-election sermon at a conference with James Dobson, the California pastor claimed that President Obama’s re-election marked the death of America. Garlow, who warned of America’s impending doom if Obama was re-elected, said that “if a tombstone were to be prepared for America I think it might say ‘1776-2012.’” Garlow went on to compare the prospects of America’s survival to a clinically dead patient miraculously coming back to life.

18 months before the election from May 2011 on I started saying privately to certain people, I think America’s only got 18 months left. I was very hesitant to say that to anybody because it sounded so melodramatic, so over-the-top, and when I talked to people they would all nod and say, ‘I agree with you.’ I was hoping somebody would counter me. I did a countdown: 15 months America’s got left; 12 months America’s got left; 6 months as we approached November 6; 3 months; 2 months; 1 month, and then came November 6, 2012. If a tombstone were to be prepared for America I think it might say: ‘1776-2012.’

But, I’ve written two books having to do with having to do with heaven and the afterlife several years ago in which we studied and analyzed near-death experiences, people who were clinically dead but were remarkably resuscitated and came back to life. I’m hanging on like you are to a conviction, to a belief, that something could happen, that the spirit of God could be released in such a way that something stir within this nation and that revival we’ve longed for suddenly and inexplicably break out someplace, somewhere and sweep this nation, and touch enough lives and transform enough lives that we would see life come back to what appears to be a dead patient.

In an interview on The Janet Mefferd Show yesterday, Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly attacked Sen. Rob Portman’s newfound support for legalizing same-sex marriage, calling his announcement “dumb” and a “stupid statement.” Schlafly, who unlike Portman has maintained her opposition to marriage equality even after learning that she has a gay son, said that Ohio voters may “feel sorry for him” because “maybe he was pressured by his son to do this.”

She insisted that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) “does not proscribe a national rule against gay rights” and protects states’ rights.

However, Section 3 of DOMA requires the federal government to discriminate against legally married same-sex couples. Even the American Family Association’s legal counsel admits that Section 2, which allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex unions that are legal in other states, likely violates the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause.

Mefferd: What do you make of Sen. Portman’s announcement last week?

Schlafly: I think it was a rather stupid statement that he made. He doesn’t appear to understand what DOMA is all about. His statement is not in accord with the facts and it’s inconsistent. If he stands up for states to be able to make their own decisions about marriage, DOMA allows that, we have about a half a dozen states that have made that unfortunate decision and they’re not interfered with by DOMA. I don’t understand. Portman was always advertised as one of the brightest of the Senators and he doesn’t seem to understand that the Defense of Marriage Act does not proscribe a national rule against gay rights; it doesn’t do that at all. It just says if one state adopts same-sex marriage the other states simply do not have to recognize it. What can be more states’ rights than that?

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Mefferd: That shouldn’t be the way people shift positions as far as public policy is X is happening in my family therefore I’ve changed my mind completely for the entire country.

Schlafly: I agree with you and I think it’s really a dumb way to create legislation and my guess is that the Ohio voters will take care of that in the next election; I think they won’t respond to that type of an argument. They’ll feel sorry for him, maybe he was pressured by his son to do this, but I think the legislators should stand up for what the majority of people want and not decided based on personal experience.