Miranda Blue's blog

In 2010, Right Wing Watch reported that the National Organization for Marriage was pouring tens of thousands of dollars into D.C.’s Ward 5 city council race in an effort to punish one of the proponents of the District’s 2009 marriage equality law. The beneficiary of NOM’s largesse was Delano Hunter, a candidate who supported putting a referendum to undo the new marriage equality bill on the ballot. Despite NOM’s efforts, Hunter lost fairly badly to incumbent Harry Thomas.

Now, Thomas has been forced to resign after being charged with embezzling more than $350,000 in city funds, and Hunter is again angling for the Ward 5 seat. But, perhaps recognizing that opposition to gay rights is not a winning issue, Hunter has changed his tune on marriage equality, saying he would leave DC’s marriage law as it is, reports Lou Chibbaro of The Washington Blade:

An outspoken advocate for placing D.C.’s same-sex marriage law on the ballot in a voter referendum in 2010 says he no longer holds that view and will express “respect” for the law as a candidate for the City Council in a special election this spring.

Civic activist Delano Hunter has announced plans to run for the Ward 5 Council seat that became vacant last week when incumbent Harry Thomas, a Democrat, resigned after pleading guilty to federal theft and tax evasion charges.

“I do not seek to overturn the Marriage Equality Act when elected,” Hunter told the Blade in a statement released on Tuesday.

“I will, however, continue to establish working relationships within the LGBT community to focus on issues that affect the quality of life for all residents of the District of Columbia,” he said.

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Robert Jeffress, a prominent endorser of Gov. Rick Perry, said in an interview with Janet Mefferd yesterday that the Social Security crisis, the Medicare crisis and the mounting federal deficit are “God’s judgment” for legalized abortion.

Citing a study by the fringe anti-choice group Movement for a Better America, Jeffress claims that legalized abortion is responsible for $35 trillion in lost GDP over the last 35 years.

Listen:

Jeffress: Since Roe v. Wade, we’ve had 40 million babies aborted, murdered. Do you realize that if those children, one study I cite in the books says, if those children had been allowed to live, if they had grown up and become productive citizens, it would have added $35 trillion to our Gross National Product in the last 35 years, and there would be no Social Security crisis or Medicare crisis because those people would be paying, productive citizens into the system.

You know, we’ve got even conservatives, Janet, in the Republican Party who are saying, “Oh, this is the year where we’re interested in the economy and not in social issues.” Listen, there is a connection between social issues and economic issues. You cannot wipe out 20 percent of your population, like we have done as a nation through abortion, without great economic repercussions, which I think are God’s judgment. I think the mounting deficit, the Social Security crisis, all those things are part of God’s judgment because we have murdered 20 percent of our population. 

The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer was excited today to read about a Public Library of Science One Journal study that finds distinct differences in personality traits between men and women. Although the study did not explore to what extent those differences are due to nature or nurture, and other researchers are already questioning the results, Fischer took the opportunity to expound on his views on the proper role of women in the public sphere.

Two years ago, Fischer provoked national controversy when he said that the United States had “feminized” the Medal of Honor by granting it to those who who have saved lives, not just those who have killed enemy troops. Today he goes back to the theme, claiming that America is in trouble because we have “feminized public policy”:

If these differences are as profound as this study suggests, could that be the explanation for why God has designed men to be leaders in the home, leaders in the church and leaders in society? And I would suggest that the answer to that question is, “Yes.”

In fact, I’ll tell you how we have gotten into trouble in our public policy, is – I don’t know how to say this without getting myself in big trouble here – but the way we have gotten in trouble in our public policy is we have gotten away from masculine characteristics of public policy. We have feminized our public policy. Our public policy ought to be about stability, it ought to be about rule consciousness -- that’s the rule of law, the same rules apply to everybody, that’s what it ought to be about -- and vigilance. Instead, so much of our public policy has been driven by what? Sensitivity, warmth and fear. These are female characteristics, they’re feminine characteristics, they should not be the things that guide and control public policy.

So anyway, I probably just got myself in a big mess there, but again that’s not me saying it. That’s not me saying that men and women have distinct personalities and it’s inate, that’s a secular outfit, the Public Library of Science One Journal.
 

On Friday’s "Prophetic Prospectives with Rick Joyner," leading Seven Mountains dominionist Lance Wallnau used his trademark Magic Marker illustrations to demonstrate the duty of Christians to occupy the “mountains” of government, media and economics. Referring to the parable of the strong man, Wallnau suggests that these “mountains” of influence are currently being occupied by Satan:

Well, the church is the equipping place, but the world system is where we haven’t gone. We’ve been going into all the nations to plant churches. We haven’t been going into all the nations to invade systems. We have to start to bring the Word of God, the teaching of Christ, into the systems. What systems? The governments need to be led by people with principle. That’s how you overthrow principalities, is people who have anointing and principles occupying high places. The media, right now the economics world, the media world and the government world is shaping every minute that you’re bumping into when you have a conversation….and education. What we need are believers going to the top of these systems because it’s where the high places are that Satan occupies the strong man’s house. And if you want to plunder the strong man’s house, you’ve got to go where the gates of Hell are located.
 

Lest we need any more proof that David Barton is not a real historian, or even someone with a vague grasp of current affairs, in the latest installment of WallBuilders Live he cites the research of well-known fact fabricator Michele Bachmann – and gets her fabricated facts wrong.

Discussing with co-host Rick Green the relationship between increasing secularism and the economic collapse, Barton pulls out one heck of a Bachmann whopper. Citing Bachmann as his source, Barton asserts that before the Bush administration’s financial industry bailouts and the Obama administration’s auto industry bailout, “100 percent of the American economy” was privately owned. Now, he says, that total is 33 percent:

Barton: One of the things we’re starting to see is that as the economic system is shutting down, it is corresponding to the time that we’ve become increasingly secular. As we have had an upturn in, “Hey we want less of God, we want less religion, keep it to yourself, don’t let it get out, don’t talk about it, separation of church and state,” as we’ve gone in a more secular direction, guess what? Spending’s gone through the roof, economic policies have gone away. As Michele Bachmann pointed out, before that government bailout and takeover of the various entities, what was it, now three and a half years ago, but that’s when the government stepped in and took over insurance, took over AIG, took over GM. At that point, we had 100 percent of the American economy still being free, private, privately owned. It is now down, by her calculations, to less than 33 percent of the market is still free owned and free run

Green: Is it fair to say, “Less God, more government”?

Barton: You bet it is. It is. And that’s economically as well. You lose your economic freedom, you lose your religious freedom, you lose your civil freedoms. This stuff all ties together.
 

Bachmann, as it turns out, did claim after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act in March 2010 that “100 percent of our economy was private prior to September of 2008, but as of Tuesday, the federal government has now taken ownership or control of 51 percent of the private economy." Both of those numbers were, of course, completely made up. Barton not only cites Bachmann’s ludicrous claim that the U.S. economy was free of government spending before 2008, but exaggerates Bachmann’s already exaggerated figure of the federal government’s economic control.

Later in the program, Barton brought his revisionist history to Europe, claiming that labor unions were responsible for the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Soviet Union -- and will put America on a similar path. Commenting on on Green’s interview with business professor Steve Pejovich, a native of Yugoslavia, Barton said:

Barton: He made a statement I don’t think I’ve heard anybody else have the guts to say. He said, “Investing in labor unions is the way to destroy the best economy in the world.” I mean, that’s a profound statement. Now, he understands unions, because that was a lot of what brought Hitler in, that’s a lot of what happened with the Soviet Union afterward, they had all these workers’ unions. And there’s a guy who’s seen what’s happened with unions, and he’s watching what’s happening over here with the rise of unions and unionism and all the stuff that Obama’s doing to promote unions and unionism, he knows where it will take us.

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Robert Jeffress, a prominent endorser of Rick Perry, is not happy about the Constitution’s protection of religious freedom. In fact, Jeffress warns in a sermon posted online today, the religious protections of the First Amendment will “kindle the anger of God against us”:

Although our Constitution grants every citizen the right to worship or not worship any god he chooses, that right in no way changes God’s attitude toward idolatry. God does not change. Any nation that chooses to publicly renounce the true God in order to embrace and elevate other gods is going to face God’s judgment. That is what the Word of God says. And I closed that editorial in the Washington Post by saying, how ironic that the Air Force, which is trying to protect our nation against terrorist attacks, how ironic that our nation is doing the very thing that is guaranteed to kindle the anger of God against us.

And ladies and gentlemen, when God chooses to judge us, remember how he did it with Israel? He used a pagan nation that worshipped pagan gods to bring his punishment on Israel. And I believe he will do the same with us, and when he chooses to do that, no military power, no matter how strong we are, will be able to protect us against the judgment of Almighty God.

Jeffress refers to the Air Force's facilitaton of worship by members of minority faiths. Like Jeffress, Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) has ripped into the Air Force for its equal treatment of religious minorities and televangelist John Hagee has claimed that pagan worship in the military is the reason why the U.S. is unable to win wars.

Jeffress sums up the Almighty’s beef with the First Amendment thus: “What we call diversity, God calls idolatry”:

Earlier in the sermon, Jeffress claimed that a school shooting in Kentucky was divine retribution for a series of Supreme Court decisions on prayer in public schools.

Robert Jeffress, the prominent Dallas pastor who endorsed Rick Perry at the Values Voter Summit last year and immediately got the candidate in hot water when his less than friendly views on Mormonism, Catholicism, Judaism and Islam came to light, is out with some new sermons in his ongoing series about America’s imminent collapse.

In a sermon posted yesterday, Jeffress argued that three key Supreme Court decisions on the separation of church and state have “so weakened our nation’s spiritual and social structure that collapse is inevitable.” He singles out the Court’s 1980 decision in Stone v. Graham, which struck down Kentucky’s law requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in all public school classrooms. This decision, Jeffress argues, led directly to a tragic 1997 shooting spree in a Kentucky high school by a 14-year-old student who was later diagnosed with schizophrenia.

“Is that just a coincidence?” Jeffress asks. “I don’t think so. God warned Israel repeatedly of the devastating consequences she would experience if she forsook God and forgot his commandments.”
 

The prohibition against prayer, the prohibition against voluntary reading of the Bible, were only preambles to the most outlandish Supreme Court decision to date. For years, the public schools in Kentucky had posted copies of the Ten Commandments in the hallway. Understand, there was no obligation for the students to read the Ten Commandments, there was no explanation, no teaching of it in the schools. The Ten Commandments were simply displayed in the hallways, commandments like, “Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not covet,” “Thou shalt not steal.” That was what was posted. However, in 1980, in the case of Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court ruled that the posting of the Ten Commandments was unconstitutional.

In a tragic twist of irony, 17 years after the Stone decision in 1980, a group of students had assembled together at Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky, as they did every morning for a time of prayer and Bible reading. As these students stood around a set of lockers and they were engaging in prayer, a 14-year-old student approached them, pulled out a handgun and opened fire, killing three of the students and seriously wounding five. All of that occurred in the hallway of a Kentucky school where the Supreme Court said, “You cannot post the words, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’” Is that just a coincidence? I don’t think so. God warned Israel repeatedly of the devastating consequences she would experience if she forsook God and forgot his commandments.
 

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is something of a hero to the anti-immigrant Right. He was one of the most outspoken proponents of Arizona’s draconian anti-immigrant law last year, in a large part because he had already been using the racial profiling tactics it authorized for years. He delighted in punishing prisoners –including protestors of his tactics – by making them wear pink underwear, a practice he commemorated last month by giving Sarah Palin her very own pair. He briefly had his own reality TV show. He was courted by the Tea Party. GOP presidential candidates, including Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain vied for his endorsement, which he ultimately gave to Rick Perry before joining the candidate on the campaign trail.

Arpaio’s reckless flair for self-promotion and disregard for civil rights have been well-known for as long as he has had national fame. But today, the Justice Department released a long and scathing report detailing the Sheriff’s record of civil rights violations, including his discrimination against Latinos and non-English speakers, “excessive use of force” and “unlawful retaliation against individuals exercising their First Amendment right to criticize MCSO’s policies or practices.”

The AP outlines some of the most shocking allegations in the report:

The civil rights report said Latinos are four to nine times more likely to be stopped in traffic stops in Maricopa County than non-Latinos and that the agency's immigration policies treat Latinos as if they are all in the country illegally. Deputies on the immigrant-smuggling squad stop and arrest Latino drivers without good cause, the investigation found.

A review done as part of the investigation found that 20 percent of traffic reports handled by Arpaio's immigrant-smuggling squad from March 2006 to March 2009 were stops - almost all involving Latino drivers - that were done without reasonable suspicion. The squad's stops rarely led to smuggling arrests.

Deputies are encouraged to make high-volume traffic stops in targeted locations. There were Latinos who were in the U.S. legally who were arrested or detained without cause during the sweeps, according to the report.

During the sweeps, deputies flood an area of a city - in some cases, heavily Latino areas - over several days to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders. Illegal immigrants accounted for 57 percent of the 1,500 people arrested in the 20 sweeps conducted by his office since January 2008, according to figures provided by Arpaio's office.

Police supervisors, including at least one smuggling-squad supervisor, often used county accounts to send emails that demeaned Latinos to fellow sheriff's managers, deputies and volunteers in the sheriff's posse. One such email had a photo of a mock driver's license for a fictional state called "Mexifornia."

The report said that the sheriff's office launched an immigration operation two weeks after the sheriff received a letter in August 2009 letter about a person's dismay over employees of a McDonald's in the Phoenix suburb of Sun City who didn't speak English. The tip laid out no criminal allegations. The sheriff wrote back to thank the writer "for the info," said he would look into it and forwarded it to a top aide with a note of "for our operation."
 

Federal investigators focused heavily on the language barriers in Arpaio's jails.

Latino inmates with limited English skills were punished for failing to understand commands in English by being put in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day or keeping prisoners locked down in their jail pods for as long as 72 hours without a trip to the canteen area or making nonlegal phone calls.

The report said some jail officers used racial slurs for Latinos when talking among themselves and speaking to inmates.

Detention officers refused to accept forms requesting basic daily services and reporting mistreatment when the documents were completed in Spanish and pressured Latinos with limited English skills to sign forms that implicate their legal rights without language assistance.

The agency pressures Latinos with limited English skills to sign forms by yelling at them and keeping them in uncomfortably cold cells for long periods of time.

These allegations are disturbing enough in themselves. But what’s even more troubling is that the person behind them has been not only held up as a hero by the Right, but has served as an inspiration for immigration legislation around the country. In a report last year, we examined the ways the anti-immigrant Right has worked to dehumanize immigrants in order “to inflame anti-immigrant sentiment and build political opposition to comprehensive immigration reform.” It should come as no surprise that Sheriff Joe is the movement’s figurehead.
 

Cross-posted from PFAW Blog

Rick Perry is out with a new TV spot that uses a seasonal “War on Christmas” theme to attack gays serving openly in the military and accuse President Obama of waging a “war on religion.”

Just last week, Perry released an ad assuring us that he’s “not ashamed of his faith” even though, he claims, “some liberals say that faith is a sign of weakness.” Oddly, we had never assumed that Perry was at all ashamed of his faith.

Openly attacking gay people seems to be something of a new strategy for Perry. Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the Obama administration would be using foreign aid to work toward LGBT rights around the world, noting that in many countries people are routinely beaten, jailed and even killed just for being gay. In response, Perry lashed out with a statement accusing the administration of “promoting a lifestyle many Americas of faith find so deeply objectionable.”
 

Last year, when the Smithsonian hosted “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” a groundbreaking exhibit exploring gay and lesbian themes in American art, the Religious Right unified in protest. Inspired by a CNSNews story titled “Smithsonian Christmas-Season Exhibit Features Ant-Covered Jesus, Naked Brothers Kissing, Genitalia, and Ellen DeGeneres Grabbing Her Breasts,” and egged on by the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue, the campaign against the exhibit quickly gained the support of soon-to-be House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Within a day they succeeded in pressuring the Smithsonian to remove the most controversial work from the exhibit, David Wojnarowicz’s A Fire in My Belly.

Last week, the exhibit opened at the Brooklyn Museum, famously the site of the Giuliani-fueled controversy over the 1999 “Sensation” show. Within days, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Brooklyn sent a letter to the museum protesting the exhibit, and a small coalition of GOP elected officials followed up with a letter accusing the museum of “Christian-bashing.” New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser also weighed in, calling the Wojnarwicz work “a revolting piece of slime.”

However, the museum hasn’t budged in its support for the show, and the Right’s efforts to censor the work have mostly fizzled. Donohue himself has decided it’s not worth expending too much effort –instead simply issuing a statement reiterating his disgust with the exhibit and accusing Wojnarowicz of bringing about his own death from AIDS.

Left to fill the vacuum so far have been a far-right Catholic group inspired by a Brazilian fascist movement and an artist who was previously known for painting a heroic George W. Bush on horseback holding Osama bin Laden’s severed head.

On Sunday,America Needs Fatima, a campaign of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP), held a protest in front of the museum. TFP is a spin-off of a Brazilian movement that has been called “neo-fascist.” TFP’s foundational text is a treatise by founder Plinio Correa de Oliveira, which argues that the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution and Communism have in their turn undone a natural order that must be restored. While the main American branch of TFP mostly focuses on anti-gay propaganda [pdf], America Needs Fatima is dedicated to organizing “anti-blasphemy” campaigns against targets like The Da Vinci Code, editorial cartoons and Madonna’s planned performance at the 2012 Super Bowl.

The other notable protest against the Brooklyn Museum has been that of Staten Island artist Scott LoBaido, who was thrown out of the museum after showing up with a painting of the museum’s director sitting on a toilet filled with green muck. LoBaido has been protesting art that he sees as blasphemous since at least 1999, when he was arrested for throwing horse manure at the Brooklyn Museum to protest the “Sensation” exhibit. His own work is not always negative, though. Along with his year-long project painting flags on rooftops across America, LoBaido has created fawning, heroic portraits of Ronald Reagan and of George W. Bush brandishing the head of Osama bin Laden.