Kyle Mantyla's blog

The Family Research Council's Watchmen on the Wall conference is truly a unique event, as it brings together a cornucopia of conservative pastors and religious leaders to hear from all sorts of political activists, evangelists, Creationists, and anti-Muslim crusaders, all of whom are free to promote their own specific agendas. Which is why Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of Billy Graham, was given a half an hour to lay our her views about how the End Times will arrive "within my lifetime."

Working from Matthew 24, Lotz systemically checked off a long list of recent wars, environmental disasters, and examples of Christian persecution, all of which she asserted were proof that the return of Jesus was just around the corner.  And yet, Lotz warned, people today are just blindly going about their business amidst an atmosphere of rising secularism and atheism, completely unaware that God's judgement has already begun:

Over the last few weeks, Bryan Fischer has been growing increasingly vocal about his views that President Obama hates both the Constitution and the United States of America because he thinks it is "one big, giant Ku Klux Klan meeting" and is therefore intentionally trying to destroy the country.

And he made the case again on his radio program yesterday, this time adding in Attorney General Eric Holder, claiming that Holder will never "prosecute someone if the victim is white":

Let's just start with Eric Holder and the Department of Justice - and this goes to his boss Barack Obama - they believe fundamentally that the United States is a racist nation to its core, that it's part of our DNA, that the Constitution is a racist document, that it's a toll of what oppression, that the United States has always been a racist country, it always will be a racist country, it cannot be helped because it's part of our DNA, as long as the United States exists in its current form, it is going to be racist. So Barack Obama and Eric Holder they see that their role, their job, is to punish America for its racism. And I think part of the reason they want to bring America down is, you know, essentially what Barack Obama has said is you can't clean this thing up, you can't correct it, you can't rebuild it, you just have to destroy it. If you're going to get rid of the racism that characterizes America, you are simply going to have to destroy the American political system and start all over because it's in our DNA. There's no what to rehabilitate it, you got to just get rid of it, you got to get rid of the Constitution because it is a racist document.

So in Eric Holder's world, and he's been very straightforward about this, he's never going to prosecute someone if the victim is white, he's just not going to do it. Because in his world, by definition, whites can only be perpetrators. It's impossible, in their worldview, for a white to be a victim, they can only be perpetrators and blacks can never be perpetrators, they can only be victims. So unless the template for the crime is a white person committing a crime against a black person, they're just completely uninterested. They are not interested in justice, they are interested in racism and pressing their view of race.

• Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: One of Jesse Kelly's sore spots.
• Zachary Pleat @ County Fair: Right-Wing Freak Out Over Arabic Classes At Optional NYC Public School.
• SPLC Intelligence Report: 30 New Activists Heading Up the Radical Right.
• Michael Fumento @ Salon: My break with the extreme right.
• Mikey Weinstein @ AlterNet: David Barton’s latest lunacy: “I’ve decided that Mikey Weinstein is now the new Secretary of the Air Force.”
• Frances Martel @ Mediaite: CNN’s Brooke Baldwin Takes Tony Perkins To The Woodshed: ‘Why Do Homosexuals Bother You So Much?’

• Donald Trump has a suggestion of someone who would make a good VP running mate for Mitt Romney: Donald Trump.
• On a related note, the Romney campaign is not only not ashamed to be in any way associated with Trump, but is actually promoting him by offering donors a chance to win dinner with Trump.
• Gary Bauer proclaims that a recent Gallup poll "an overwhelming majority — 72% — felt abortion should either be limited or 'illegal in all circumstances.'" A more accurate reading would be that 77% feel that abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances.
• It looks like the US Catholic Church is teaming up with the National Association of Evangelicals for an event called "Fortnight for Freedom" in order to "bring attention to religious freedom issues."
• Finally, FRC prays that "our military chapels [will] never be used to perform unions of or celebrate what God calls abominable."

Earlier this year, we stumbled upon a few episodes of David Barton's "Building on the American Heritage Series" that had been posted on the TBN website. Today, while searching form something else, we noticed that several other episodes from that same series had also been posted and so we are working our way through them.

Near the end of the episode entitled "Politics In The Pulpit," Barton made a point that the purpose of the church is not to create harmony or unity among the congregants but to preach the word of God's and support God's laws.  As such, Barton cited 1 Timothy 1:8-10 in order to declare that the purpose of the law is to punish ungodly and sinful (like gays) regardless of what the Supreme Court rules:

The Family Research Council is currently hosting its annual Watchmen on the Wall Pastors Briefing in Washington DC, featuring a variety of Religious Right leaders and members of Congress working to mobilize pastors from across the nation. 

Today, in between speakers, FRC handed the floor over to Jesse Connors so that he could promote his web-based evangelism tool called TrueLife.org which claims to offer "reliable answers from a biblical worldview via the Web that are non-threatening and easy to understand and directs people to church."

Connors' service seems to revolve around producing, for a fee, personalized business cards that pastors can hand out, encouraging people to visit the True Life website where they can learn more about Jesus and the Bible and find local churches.  At least, that was the best we could discern, as it was hard to know just what Connors was talking about as he grew increasingly emotional while discussing the success of the effort and demonstrating a video about struggling with homosexuality: 

• Jonathan Chait @ New York Magazine: The Conservative Fantasy History of Civil Rights.
• Nick Sementelli @ Faith in Public Life: Fox News Priest: HHS is “Raping” the First Amendment.
• Towleroad: Anti-Bullying Bill Defeated by Illinois Conservatives Warning of Front for 'Homosexual Agenda', 'Indoctrination.'
• Adam Serwer @ Mother Jones: Many "Pro-Life" Americans Don't Want To Outlaw Abortion.
• Mark Potok and Evelyn Schlatter @ SPLC Intelligence Report: National Organization for Marriage Continues to Spread Lies About Gays.

• Jim DeMint, Tony Perkins, Harry Jackson and others are holding a press conference tomorrow "to show their support for the Defense of Marriage Act and marriage as the union of one man and one woman."
• It seems that people who watch Fox News are actually less informed than people who don't watch any news at all.
• Michael Youssef says that President Obama has "ambushed" America with his support for marriage equality.
• Gary Bauer declares that President Obama's ties to Jeremiah Wright "should be fair game in 2012" and that John McCain "forfeited one of his most powerful arguments against Obama" by not attacking him over it.
• Finally, Rick Joyner warns that "we are headed for an economic collapse, followed by the worst civil unrest America and much of the world has ever experienced, followed by martial law."

One of the central components of the work we do here at Right Wing Watch is listening to various radio programs and watching videos produced by an ever-growing army of Religious Right activists.  And among the most unpleasant chores in this process is the regularly viewing of Rick Joyner's daily "Prophetic Perspective on Current Events" broadcast, since Joyner generally spends the entire program mostly talking in circles without ever actually saying anything while simultaneously insisting that what he is talking about is vitally important.

Joyner fancies himself to be something of an expert on history, despite the fact that he doesn't really know what he is talking about, and he is convinced, based on a two-day long vision he had several decades ago, that the demonic forces responsible for Nazism in Germany are now trying to take over America.  Thus, we end up with clips like this from yesterday's program where he declares that liberals and gays are "useful idiots" being used by the Devil to bring America down and who, once they succeed, will immediately be wiped out by the very forces they helped to bring to power:

We should probably point out that it was not Marx, but rather Lenin to whom the phrase "useful idiot" is generally attributed.

Peter LaBarbera today posted yet another interview with his new best friend, Patrick Wooden along with John Kirkwood, pastor of Grace Gospel Fellowship in Bensenville, Illinois. discussing the recent passage of the marriage amendment in North Carolina.

During the discussion, the three men tackled a wide array of related topics, including President Obama's statement of support for marriage equality.  It was Obama's citation of the Golden Rule in explaining his views that seemed particularly offensive to them, prompting Wooden to offer up a truly incoherent statement that "most people don't invite strangers to their family reunions" while Kirkwood simply compared Obama's citation of Scripture to Satan: 

LaBarbera: Talk about this use of the Golden Rule that Obama cited to justify his new support of the so-called homosexual marriage.

Wooden: It's funny, he's quoting Scripture to debunk Scripture. Amazing. But I agree with the President on the Golden Rule, I think we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us ... I don't that that I should aid anyone in entering into anything that does apply to them or does not appertain to them. Words still have meaning and the word "marriage" means something, it means the union between a man and a woman. So I don't know how he's applying the Golden Rule but I think we should treat people the way we want to be treated. But if a person wants to do something that doesn't apply to them, then I don't think we should help them do it.

Most people don't invite strangers to their family reunions. Most people don't allow perfect strangers to come into their house and sit at the dinner table and dine with them. And we shouldn't, under the Golden Rule, allow people who are not to participate in marriage to be invited into the union in the name of treating people the way we want to be treated. It makes no sense.

LaBarbera: And John, also, four years ago or long, dismissed Romans 1 to justify his support for homosexuality. So talk about this.

Kirkwood: Yeah, I don't think he holds The Word with a great deal of esteem. There was another guy in Matthew 4 who quoted The Word to rebuke The Word. It's not going to work out so well for him.

Matthew 4, for those who may not know, is when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by Satan.