Kyle Mantyla's blog

Yesterday David Barton dedicated his "Wallbuilders Live" radio program yesterday to addressing various criticisms he has been received, among them allegations that he has spoken at events hosted by racist and anti-Semitic groups.

As we noted in our post, Barton stated that he had been forced to file defamation lawsuits to protect his reputation. And, according to The Weatherford Democrat, that is exactly what he has done:

David Barton of Aledo-based WallBuilders has filed a libel and defamation law suit against an Internet writer and two former Texas State Board of Education candidates.

Barton is alleging public policy opponents have falsely painted him as a white supremacist sympathizer and liar.

The suit unspecified damages from the three defendants for allegedly exposing Barton and WallBuilders to “public hatred, contempt, ridicule, financial injury and impeaching [Barton’s] honesty, integrity and virtue.”

The suit alleges Barton has been subjected to a loss of business because of the false statements.

The article reports that Barton has filed suit against two Democratic Texas State Board of Education candidates over YouTube video that asserted that Barton was "known for speaking at white supremacist rallies" and an Examiner.com writer who asserted that Barton is "an admitted liar."

Last month we noted that Michele Bachmann was headlining a fundraising event for the Florida Family Policy Council where she received the organization's William Wilberforce Award.

But just because the FFPC thinks Bachmann is a hero for her willingness to stand "firm for principles of life, marriage or family in the face of opposition," that apparently doesn't translate into support for her presidential campaign as FFPC president John Stemberger is announcing his pending support for Rick Perry because Bachmann is just not a realistic or viable candidate ... and Mitt Romney "wasn’t Mormon enough":

Florida evangelical leader John Stemberger is a step away from endorsing Rick Perry for president, a big coup for the Texas governor and a loss for fellow Republican Michele Bachmann. Stemberger's likely endorsement follows some top-level Perry staff hires.

"We really like Michele Bachmann She has stellar credentials when it comes to our issues. She is an amazing woman. Our primary drive is principle and the issues," Stemberger said. "But we also have to be realistic, pragmatically, and determine who’s viable."

Stemberger said that meant he and the Florida Family Policy Council, which has an email list of about 65,000 Florida evangelical voters, had two choices.

"This is a two man race between Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. And there’s a growing consensus among evangelical leaders and, to some degree, among those in the tea party and pro-life Catholics that Rick Perry is the most trustworthy candidate on our issues," Stemberger said.

"There are too many trust issues with Mitt Romney," he continued. "The issue not that he is a Mormon. The issue is that he wasn’t Mormon enough. If he had been consistent with traditional Mormon values his whole career, that would make me feel a lot more comfortable about where he’s coming from. Perry is a lot more solid on our issues."

It is certainly ironic that Liberty Counsel's Matt Barber would dare to attack anyone else as a bigot, but that is exactly what he did on LC's "Faith and Freedom Radio" program today while discussing the recent Supreme Court ruling in Snyder v. Phelps.

Barber insisted that while Liberty Counsel opposed the vicious bigotry espoused by Westboro Baptist and the Phelps clan, they have a First Amendment right to spew it ... as does Dan Savage, whom Barber calls the "pro-homosexual version of Fred Phelps":

Last week, Glenn Beck invited Jerry Boykin onto his program to give his "expert" opinion on the uprising in Egypt and he is also listed among the invited speakers to the next Values Voter Summit:

So now might be a good time to repost this video he produced for Rick Joyner's Morningstar Ministries in which explained that President Obama is a Marxist who intends to create an army of Brownshirts loyal only to him though Health Care Reform legislation:

When he is not speaking to Beck or hobnobbing with Republican leaders at the Values Voter Summit, Boykin is working hand-in-hand with Joyner, preaching at this services, and sitting on the board of his Oak Initiative along with the likes of Janet Porter, Lou Sheldon, and Cindy Jacobs.

Joyner is a self-described prophet who is worried that President Obama might just be a treasonous Muslim and who roots his activism in dreams and visions about the imminent destruction of America:

For his part, Boykin delivers sermons to Joyner's followers with titles like "The Church Must Rise Up" in which he reports that everywhere he goes, people come up and ask him "when do we take up arms" against the Obama administration, which Boykin opposes because we are really involved in a spiritual battle:

Earlier today I noted that Mike Huckabee seemingly has no problem associating himself with fringe right-wing and Religious Right activists, regardless of how radical they may be.

Now Sarah Posner brings to our attention another connection that I had not realized: Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan.

As Sam Stein reports, Glenn is targeting Democratic state House candidate Toni Sessoms with robocalls that use the word "homosexual" ten times:

Liberal Democratic lawyer and openly homosexual statehouse candidate Toni Sessoms, doesn't share our values. Michiganliberal.com boasts that Sessoms is 'independently wealthy, and if elected would become the first openly lesbian state representative.' Sessoms is endorsed by the homosexual newspaper in Detroit, by Detroit's homosexual equality Michigan PAC and by the Michigan Democratic Party homosexual and transgender caucus. Sessom's campaign manager is the openly homosexual Central Michigan University faculty member who lost the statehouse race two years ago. Her deputy campaign manager was co-president of CMU's homosexual student group -- an openly homosexual candidate with a campaign run by homosexual activists. But, of course, in a district where voters strongly supported the marriage protection amendment none of this is disclosed on Toni Sessom's campaign material. With homosexual activists in the Michigan Democratic Party pushing to repeal our marriage amendment, our families deserve a state representative we can trust shares our values. Not a candidate with a hidden agenda, homosexual activist agenda, not Toni Sessoms.

Posner notes that Huckabee and Glenn have a long history and points to this video in which Huckabee positvely gushes about the work being done by Glenn and the AFA Michigan:

The following year, Huckabee provided a videotaped speech to Glenn's group's annual fundraiser, in which he called Glenn "a very special friend. . . one of the stalwart, key people who absolutely has not flinched or wavered in his commitment to pro-life and pro-family values." He continued, "If we had leaders like Gary Glenn across America, our work wouldn't be so hard. . . . [they] have been committed to maintaining a solid course for truth."

Sarah Posner has a good piece up at Religion Dispatches on Lou Engle, founder of The Call, and his recent branching out from this militant anti-abortion proselytizing and into the marriage debate and the upcoming election. 

Engle, as Posner explains, is best known for his efforts to turns hordes of young men and women into warriors for Christ and “raise up of an army of spiritual warriors for revival” and is becoming something of a regular figure in the political Religious Right movement, appearing with notable figures such as Tony Perkins and Mike Huckabee before and during his recent “The Call” rally in Washington, DC:

The Call’s advisory board is stacked with prominent Pentecostal and charismatic preachers, leading figures in the controversial apostolic movement, which is elevating a new generation of self-appointed prophets and apostles, African-American and Latino religious leaders, charismatic publishing giant Stephen Strang, and religious right leaders like Perkins, Harry Jackson, and Gary Bauer.

The religious right political leadership’s keen interest in Engle was evident at The Call held on the National Mall in August. The day before the event, the public relations firm Shirley Bannister introduced Engle, flanked by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins and former Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, at a press conference just a few blocks from the White House. Perkins, one of the most visible political leaders on the religious right, noted Engle’s influence on young evangelicals, who he claimed were even more conservative on abortion than their parents, though he cited no surveys or polls to support the claim.

…

Engle, per his custom, likened his crusade against abortion to Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement. He rocked back and forth, as though davening, preached against Roe v. Wade, and shouted, as the crowd prayed and spoke in tongues, “this is a Passover Day for America. Today, we plead the blood of Jesus on the doorpost!” Purity covenants, requiring abstention from even thinking about sex outside of marriage, were distributed. Participants were urged to consecrate themselves, to be ready for the moment when Jesus “is going to rule over Washington, DC and the world.”

“Repentance and revival cannot start in the building behind me,” said Huckabee, his back to the Capitol, “until it starts in the temple inside me.”

But when he’s not leading day-long rallies such as this or the anti-gay marriage one scheduled at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium this weekend, Engle and his army can be found at International House of Prayer he co-founded in Kansas City where they direct their prayers toward things like remaking the US Supreme Court … and rather successfully at that, according to Engle: 

Engle unabashedly credits prayer for George W. Bush’s presidency and his subsequent appointment of Supreme Court Justices who upheld the ban on so-called “partial birth abortion.” “The praying church deals with the demonic realm, so that God raises up one and brings down the other,” Engle said in a recent video on The Call’s web site, explaining how prayer proved victorious over satanic forces in the spiritual warfare of an election, adding, “I directly attribute [Bush’s election] to the prayers of the saints.”

Young people at his House of Prayer, said Engle, had been praying about judges for three years when Sandra Day O’Connor retired and William Rehnquist died. As if to prove to his acolytes that their prayer and fasting is not in vain, Engle maintains that their prayers and prophecies shaped the Supreme Court. “One of the young ladies had a dream,” Engle asserted, “that a man named John Roberts would be the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.” He beams with pride. “Don’t you think those kids were baptized with confidence? Their prayers, I believe, were literally moving a king to appoint a justice who has now led a court that has banned partial birth abortion. Don’t tell me prayer doesn’t shape a nation.”

Below are short biographies of those who have been mentioned as participating in tonight's "Values Voter Presidential Debate" in Fort Lauderdale, Florida:

Joseph Farah

Farah, designated to moderate the Values Voter Debate, is publisher of WorldNetDaily.com, a right-wing web site that provides a home for a large stable of infamous and lesser-known commentators, such as Ann Coulter, Pat Buchanan, Roy Moore, Jerome Corsi, and Jonathan Falwell (son of the late Jerry Falwell). In his own column, Farah accused Bush of being involved in the “War on Christmas,” said Democrats opposing the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown were “racist to the core,” and started an early anti-Giuliani pledge.

In 1992, Farah founded the Western Journalism Center to counter supposed liberal media bias. The group went on to sponsor Christopher Ruddy’s lengthy “investigation” of the Clinton Administration, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars from conspiracy theories about the death of Vince Foster.

Phyllis Schlafly

Schlafly first made a name for herself in right-wing circles with her pro-Barry Goldwater book  “A Choice Not An Echo” in 1964 and then firmly established herself as a bona fide force by almost single-handedly leading the campaign to kill the Equal Rights Amendment. 

In 1974, she established the Eagle Forum, an organization that focuses on a wide variety of issues, ranging from standard right-wing concerns such as reproductive choice and “judicial supremacy” to more arcane topics like open hostility to various international treaties, including the Genocide Convention, and opposition to mandatory vaccination. Recently, Schlafly has become increasingly concerned about the Security and Prosperity Partnership, which she and many others believe is part of a conspiracy to create a North American Union that will usurp US sovereignty. 

Schlafly has long been an ardent anti-feminist, defending the notion that men should not marry career women, despite the fact that she possesses a Masters degree and  a law degree, runs one of the most influential right-wing organizations in Washington, DC, has testified before more than 50 congressional and state legislative committees, has been a delegate to the Republican National Convention nearly ten times, has thrice been elected President of the Illinois Federation of Republican Women, and was twice a candidate for Congress from Illinois.

Schlafly has a long history of making outrageous claims, as evidenced by her statements in the last year blaming the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech on the University’s English Department and claiming that married women cannot be raped by their husbands.

Judge Roy Moore

Moore, former Chief Justice of Alabama’s Supreme Court was ousted from the Alabama Supreme Court for his refusal to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the courthouse despite orders from a federal court judge to do so.  Moore quickly became one of the most popular figures in Alabama and an icon among the Religious Right who paid for Moore and “the Rock” to tour the country visiting churches and conferences of conservative Christians in at least 31 states.

Moore considered challenging President Bush as a third party candidate in 2004 but instead decided to focus his sights unsuccessfully on the governorship of Alabama in 2006. 

Moore writes a column for Worldnetdaily on issues ranging from decrying proposals to expand pre-kindergarten programs as an attempt by “liberal elites” to “indoctrinate our youth,” on par with the formation of the Hitler Youth to linking the conviction of Cheney aide Scooter Libby on perjury charges to the removal of 10 Commandments Monuments in courtrooms across the country. 

Moore is currently Chairman of the Foundation for Moral Law, a nonprofit legal group that represents individuals in religious liberty cases and works to education the public on the necessity of acknowledging God in law and government.  They most recently represented the three protestors arrested for disrupting a Hindu prayer in the Senate.

Rick Scarborough

Scarborough is president of Vision America and a pioneer in organizing “Patriot Pastors” to get out the vote, a model of religious-right electoral activism designed to supplant the waning Christian Coalition. The Texas-based former Southern Baptist pastor, a long-time ally of Tom DeLay, formed the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration with stalwarts such as Jerry Falwell and Phyllis Schlafly to oppose “activist judges.” Scarborough organized a “Judicial War on Faith” conference following the death of Terri Schiavo in 2005, and a “War on Christians and Values Voters” conference in 2006.

In the summer and fall of 2006, Scarborough concentrated his efforts on opposing a stem-cell research initiative in Missouri and a referendum in South Dakota that repealed an abortion ban. Scarborough toured both states with Alan Keyes, warning of a dystopian future of clone slavery, not to mention the wrath of God, if the measures succeeded, which they did.

Scarborough has already begun holding church political rallies in anticipation of 2008. His “70 Weeks to Save America” tour, featuring Keyes and ex-chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, is designed to “enlist 100,000 Values Voters, 10,000 key leaders, 5,000 Patriot Pastors and 5,000 women” right up to Election Day. As he explained at the first of a planned “One Day Crusades,” quoting from the “Rick Scarborough Version” of the Bible: “He who hath the most votes wins.”

Gordon James Klingenschmitt

Klingenschmitt has only recently become a high-profile right-wing activist, thanks to his relatively high-profile fight with the US Navy over what he claims where attempts to prohibit him from praying in the name of Jesus, though in reality he was discharged for violating rules against wearing his uniform at political or partisan events. Klingenschmitt’s attempts to portray himself as  a martyr has been so over-the-top that it even prompted his former commanding officer to set the record straight:

“I was the dishonored ex-chaplain’s supervisor for the past 2 years. I found him to be totally untruthful, unethical and insubordinate. He was and is contemptuous of all authority. He was not court martialed for praying in Jesus’ name. I sent him out in uniform every week to pray at various ceremonies and functions. He always prayed in uniform and in Jesus’ name. He was never told that he could not pray in Jesus’ name. In fact, the issue of prayer had nothing at all to do with his dismissal from the Navy. He disobeyed the lawful order of a senior officer.”

Klingenschmitt spoke at last year’s “The War on Christians and Values Voters,” hosted by Vision America, where he went so far as to compare himself to Abdul Rahman, the man who faced a potential death sentence for converting to Christianity in Afghanistan. Since his discharge from the Navy, Klingenschmitt has again teamed up with Vision America and is taking his tale of persecution around the country as part of the “70 Weeks to Save America Crusade” where he has joined Rick Scarborough and Alan Keyes. 

Don Wildmon

Wildmon is the Founder and Chairman of the American Family Association, which exists primarily to decry whatever it deems “immoral” in American culture and lead boycotts against companies that in any way support causes, organizations, or programs it deems offensive, particularly anything that does not portray gays and lesbians in a negative light. 

Over the years, AFA has targeted everything from the National Endowment for the Arts, Howard Stern, and the television show “Ellen” to major corporations such as Ford , Burger King, and Clorox.  AFA has also been particularly focused on Disney, declaring that the company’s “attack on America’s families has become so blatant, so intentional, so obvious” as to warrant a multi-year boycott.

Recently, AFA has been busy warning that proposed hate-crimes legislation is designed to lay the “groundwork for persecution of Christians,” attacked presidential candidate Mitt Romney over his time on the board of Marriott Corporation because the company offers adult movies in its hotels, and warned that the US Senate was “angering a just God” and bringing “judgment upon our country” by allowing a Hindu chaplain to deliver an opening prayer. 

Mat Staver

Staver is the Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, as well as the Dean of Liberty University School of Law, both of which are directly tied to the late Jerry Falwell.  Liberty is a nonprofit organization dedicated to “advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the traditional family” which routinely files lawsuits and argues cases claiming religious discrimination against Christians. 

Last year, Staver offered public school teachers advice on how to sneak discussions of Christianity into “literature class, art class, music class, whatever course it is” by subtly turning the discussion toward the “Judeo-Christian influences on the subject matter.”  He was also active during the last election, urging pastors to “put their toe right on the line” and endorse candidates from the pulpit, claiming that tax laws prohibiting such things were unconstitutional. 

Staver was also featured on the recent CNN series “God’s Warriors” where, along with Jerry Falwell, he made clear that the Right’s ultimate goal is complete control over the Supreme Court, saying that he is training future generations of lawyers at Liberty University to "keep fighting at the Supreme Court until we have a new day. We never ever, ever give up."

Staver is also the author of several books, including “A Complete Handbook for Defending Your Religious Rights,” “Take Back America,” and “Judicial Tyranny.”

Paul Weyrich

Weyrich, President of the Free Congress Foundation has been one of the foremost right wing strategists for 35 years and is often referred to as the father of the Religious Right.  He helped draft Rev. Jerry Falwell to head the Moral Majority, and helped to start several other groups that have become pillars of the right-wing movement, including the Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council and the highly secretive Council for National Policy.  He is currently the president of the Free Congress Foundation.

He was quoted in 1984 describing his efforts as a departure from strategies pursued by traditional conservatives:  "We are different from previous generations of conservatives…We are no longer working to preserve the status quo.  We are radicals, working to overturn the present power structure of this country." 

Weyrich was also one of the first to recognize the political potential of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.  Opposition to abortion was one of the biggest factors uniting the coalition of disparate groups known as the “New Right” that elected Ronald Reagan president in 1980.

According to Media Transparency, ' Weyrich was one of the earliest commentators to advance the idea that the United States is engulfed in a cultural civil war."  Describing this "cultural civil war," Weyrich once said, "It may not be with bullets, and it may not be with rockets and missiles, but it is a war, nonetheless. It is a war of ideology, it's a war of ideas, it's a war about our way of life. And it has to be fought with the same intensity, I think, and dedication as you would fight a shooting war."

Weyrich strategic vision is matched by his aggressive promotion of grassroots activism. He pioneered America's Voice (formerly known as National Empowerment Television), a cable network designed to rapidly mobilize Religious Right followers for grassroots lobbying.

Weyrich’s most recent efforts include the Arlington Group, the newest coalition of the leaders of Religious Right groups brought together by Weyrich and Don Wildmon, head of the American Family Association, to coordinate activities. The group is widely credited with being the driving force behind the effort to put marriage protection amendments on the ballot in 11 states in the 2004 election.

Star Parker

Parker, founder of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), is the author of such books as “Pimps, Whores, and Welfare Brats” and “Uncle Sam’s Plantation,” denouncing social service spending as a form of racism against blacks. She’s been a featured speaker at right-wing events such as CPAC, the Christian Coalition’s Road to Victory, and Mayday for Marriage.

Aryeh Spero

A former rabbi and radio talker, Spero has generally been on the periphery of the Right, although he has been involved with groups such as Rick Scarborough’s Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration (a group opposed to “activist judges”), Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation (4 or 5 people organized by the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue to protest the supposed “war on Christmas”), and Stop the Madrassa (organized to protest an English-Arabic school in New York). Spero’s own group is Caucus for America, although the Values Voter Debate program lists him as part of Jewish Action Alliance, a New York City-based outfit formed after the Crown Heights riot.

Spero styles himself one of the first Jewish leaders to endorse Ronald Reagan in 1980, although by 2000 he was an advisor to Pat Buchanan’s Reform Party bid.

Richard Thompson

Thompson, a former Detroit-area prosecutor known for dogging Jack Kevorkian, co-founded the Thomas More Law Center with Domino’s Pizza magnate Thomas Monaghan. The Center frequent argues, files briefs on, or simply opines about cases or laws involving abortion (unsuccessfully suing Planned Parenthood to make them hype a supposed connection to breast cancer, for example), gays (e.g., opposing adoption by gay couples), and religion (e.g., school prayer). In the group’s most famous case, they unsuccessfully defended the Dover, Pennsylvania school board’s policy promoting “Intelligent Design” creationism.

Brent Bozell

Bozell is Founder and President of the Media Research Center, which has worked since 1987 to make “liberal media bias” a household term.

Bozell is also a founder of the right-wing online news service CNSNews.com and the Culture and Media Institute (CMI), which describes its mission this way: “to thwart the efforts of the liberal media to subvert America’s culture, character, traditional moral values, and religious liberty.”

Bozell is founder and Executive Director of the Conservative Victory Committee (CVC), an independent multi-candidate political action committee that has helped elect dozens of right-wing candidates over the past ten years.  He was National Finance Chairman for the 1992 Buchanan for President campaign, and Finance Director and later President of the former National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC).

Bobby Schindler

Schindler is the brother of the late Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman whose feeding-tube removal sparked a fierce nationwide debate in 2005.  He now tours the country speaking at anti-choice and anti-euthanasia events.

Schindler endorsed Sen. Sam Brownback earlier this year and accompanied him on a “Pro-Life, Whole Life” tour of Iowa.  He is currently the Executive Director of the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation.

Tom Scott

Scott is President and CEO of Sky Angel Television Network, a Christian and family direct-to-home satellite television service has been on the air for 10 years and currently provides 36 channels of Christian TV and radio, family entertainment, and 24-hour news channels.  Satellite channels include the Liberty Channel from the campus of Liberty University, the Trinity Broadcasting Network, the most watched faith channel, and FoxNews, among other.  Sky Angel will be broadcasting the Value Voters Debate.

Vic Eliason

Eliason is the founder and head of VCY America, a religious broadcast ministry based in Wisconsin. In 2006, Eliason signed on to a letter blasting Rick Warren for inviting Senator Barack Obama to speak at an AIDS event held as his church because of the latter’s position on abortion.  The letter, signed by the likes of Phyllis Schlafly, Janet Folger, Peter LaBarbera, and others called on Warren “to rescind his invitation to Senator Obama immediately. The millions of silent victims who have died because of the policies of leaders like Senator Obama demand a response from those who believe that life is a gift from God.”

In 1995, Eliason agreed to pay Julie Brienza, a former United Press International reporter, $255,000 to settle a lawsuit filed after he led a successful radio campaign to get her fired because she was a lesbian, proclaiming that “Christianity has triumphed” when her employment was terminated. [Associated Press, 5 April 1995]