In 1972, the Supreme Court decided Eisenstadt v. Baird, striking down a Massachusetts law prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried people.

Next week, the Family Research Council will host a discussion explaining how this decision, which "sanctioned unmarried non-procreative sexual intimacy," set the stage for the Obama Administration's contraception mandate and marriage equality: 

On March 22nd, 1972, the Supreme Court undermined the boundaries and benefits of marriage. In the decision Eisenstadt v. Baird, the Court struck down a Massachusetts law prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried people, and implicitly sanctioned unmarried non-procreative sexual intimacy.

While the decision may seem archaic and insignificant by modern sexual standards, Eisenstadt v. Baird dealt a decisive blow to the legal and cultural norm that marriage was the institution for the full expression of the sexual relationship between man and woman. The decision and its legal consequences affect us today. Forty years ago, the Court ruled that unmarried couples could not be denied their birth control. Today, the Federal government is forcing us to share the cost, for said contraception and some states are giving marital status to homosexual relationships.

Yesterday we posted audio of David Barton claiming that the Bible, specifically Matthew 20's famous "Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard" taught that employers had no obligation to be "fair" to their employees.

This same idea was also promoted by Jay Richards in his book "Money, Greed, and God" and the tenets of Biblical economics are also now being embraced by James Robison (co-author of a new book with Richards,) which explains why Robison's program today featured an interview with Buddy Pilgrim, a Biblical business consultant who "teaches Biblical principles of leadership, business management and financial success applicable to every Christian in the workplace."

During the program, Pilgrim proclaimed that business is God's system and complained that  wealth and profit are being demonized while warning that a "dangerous" spirit of volunteerism (i.e. collectivism) was taking hold in America today: 

In the past, we have chronicled how David Barton uses the Bible, in particular Matthew 20:1-16, to promote an ultra-right-wing economic view by claiming that Jesus opposed the minimum wage and any sort of employment discrimination laws.

Barton's interpretation of this passage is particularly absurd since, as we have noted before, Matthew 20 is the famous "Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard" in which Jesus explains "the Kingdom of Heaven is like a landowner" who pays all of his works the same amount, regardless of how much they worked. The point of the parable is that no matter how late in one's life one comes to Christ, the Heavenly reward is the same; those who embraced Christ on their deathbed will receive the same eternal reward as those who were Christians all of their lives because of God's generous love.

On his "Wallbuilders Live" radio program today, Barton once again trotted out this parable, this time to declare that employers have no obligation to be "fair" to their workers and to suggest that Jesus also opposed unions:

The Bible says [the worker] started grumbling about what happened, grumbling about his wages and Jesus answered and said to him "am I being unfair to you friend? Didn't you agree to work for a day's wages? You take your pay and go. I want to give to the one who was hired the same as I gave to you. That's my choice." Here it is, Matthew 20:15. "Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money?"

Now, two things come out here, is if an employee agrees to work for an employer, that's a contract between the two of them ... and Jesus points out that you can go to a different vineyard if you don't like what I'm paying. You've got the free market, you can go choose a different employer. You agreed to work for me for this wage and that's what you're going to get. So first you get the inviolability of contracts between employers and employees ... and whatever is fair has nothing to do with it. That's not their responsibility to be fair, it's "I gave my word, that's what I agreed to work for." So Jesus says, as an employer, isn't my money mine to do with as I please?

Second point is, where were unions in all this? The contract is between an employer and an employee, not between a group. He went out and hired individually the guys he wanted to work.

Notice how Barton takes a parable about the Kingdom of Heaven and transforms it into a Biblical justification for laissez-faire capitalism, anti-unionism, and employment discrimination and does so by attributing to Jesus words that Jesus himself put in the mouth of an unnamed landowner in order to demonstrate God's generosity.

When Barton cites Matthew 20, it is not some parable about God's love, but rather a lesson in right-wing econonics in which Jesus himself hires workers for his vineyard and tells those who complain about wage discrimination that they can take a hike if they don't like it because employers have no obligation to be fair to their workers.  

ALEC: The Voice of Corporate Special Interests In State Legislatures

When state legislatures around the country passed virtually identical bills to deregulate specific industries, dismantle unions or award massive tax cuts to corporations, one might wonder if such pro-special interest, pro-corporate legislation originates organically from the people's elected representatives. People For the American Way Foundation's Right Wing Watch: In Focus report on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) exposes the quietly influential organization behind pro-corporate laws in states throughout the country. By connecting powerful industry lobbyists with elected officials, ALEC works behind the scenes to mold state laws in the interest of big corporations -- usually completely under the radar of voters.

Read the Report >>

MORE...

ALEC IN ARIZONA: The Voice of Corporate Special Interests in the Halls of Arizona's Legislature

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a key voice for corporate special interests in state legislatures across the county, is welcomed with an especially warm embrace in Arizona, according to a report released by People For the American Way Foundation and Common Cause. With one of the highest concentrations of ALEC legislators of any state in the United States, Arizona lawmakers are working hand-in-hand with corporate leaders who make up ALEC's membership to deregulate specific industries, privatize education and dismantle unions, the report found.

Read the Report >>

ALEC in Ohio: The Corporate Special Interests That Help Write Ohio's Laws

A report by People For the American Way Foundation, Common Cause, the Center for Media and Democracy and Progress Ohio reveals the deep ties between the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Ohio's legislature. Through a side-by-side comparison of ALEC legislative models and actual Ohio bills, the report shows how Ohio's legislators are working in tandem with corporate leaders to deregulate key industries, privatize education and dismantle unions.

Read the Report >>

RightWingWatch.org on ALEC >>

One of the advantages of being president of the American Family Association and American Family Radio is that you get to host a daily radio program where you can vent your outrage about whatever pops into your head regardless of the fact that you may have no idea what you are talking about, as Tim Wildmon displayed yesterday while interviewing Rep. Trent Franks as he insisted that President Obama has never made a trip to America's southern border because he doesn't care about the issues of immigration and border security. 

In fact, Obama delivered a speech on both of those issues on May 10, 2011 at the Chamizal National Memorial in El Paso, Texas which is, as you can see, pretty much right on the border:

So we decided to grab a bit of footage from the remarks that President Obama delivered on that day and make a little video to with the aim of helping to satisfy Wildmon's concerns:

We have already written a number of posts about David Barton and his tendency to proclaim that if something has any sort of parallel to anything in the Bible, then the inspiration for that thing could only have come from the Bible.

Thus, for Barton, there is no doubt that our three branches of government and separation of powers, our free market system, our due process clause, elections, and all manner of other Constitutional provisions were explicitly based on Biblical models -  an idea which is based entirely on the fact that Barton happens to see parallels between them and something he read in the Bible. 

Lately, he has been expanding upon this trick and started pulling excerpts out of letters and speeches from the Founding Fathers and proclaiming that, in just a few short lines, the Bible is cited multiple time.  Barton did it against recently on Glenn Beck with a letter written by George Washington to Marquis de LaFayette in 1785, claiming that in three sentences, Washington quoted the Bible seven times:

Here is the excerpt from Washington's letter:

I wish to see the sons and daughters of the world in Peace and busily employed in the more agreeable amusement of fulfilling the first and great commandment, Increase and Multiply: as an encouragement to which we have opened the fertile plains of the Ohio to the poor, the needy and the oppressed of the Earth; any one therefore who is heavy laden, or who wants land to cultivate, may repair thither and abound, as in the Land of promise, with milk and honey: the ways are preparing, and the roads will be made easy, thro— the channels of Potomac and James river.

And here are the Bible verses that Barton claims Washington was explicitly quoting:

Genesis 1:28

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Matthew 22:38

This is the first and great commandment.

Deuteronomy 24:14

Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates

Matthew 11:28

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Exodus 3:8

And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

Exodus 12:25

And it shall come to pass, when ye be come to the land which the LORD will give you, according as he hath promised, that ye shall keep this service.

Isaiah 4:30

A voice cries:“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

For Barton, any similarity in language or imagery between Washington's letter and anything in the Bible can only mean that Washington was intentionally quoting the Bible. 

Thus, mentioning the poor and needy must be a reference to Deuteronomy.  And Washington's use of the phrase "heavy laden" can only mean that he was directly quoting Matthew.  And imagery about "preparing" is proof positive that he was citing Isaiah.

Barton never provides any evidence that Washington had specific Bible passages in mind when writing these lines; he merely asserts it as fact. 

It is Barton who is constantly finding Biblical parallels in letters from the Founding Fathers and in our free market system and our form of government and everything else and then asserting, without evidence, that the latter were all based explicitly on the former. 

On Monday, Bryan Fischer came to the defense of Rush Limbaugh, saying he was "lexically accurate" to call Georgetown student Sandra Fluke a "slut" on his radio program and that Limbaugh's apology was proof that we are now living under "secular Sharia."

Fischer returned to the topic on his radio program again today, during a segment in which proclaimed that all the misogyny, hatred, and vulgar attacks on women almost always comes from the Left because the Right respects women and treats them with dignity.  In fact, explained Fischer, there is really no difference between the Left and Islamic Radicals, who see women as "something less than human." 

Then, after proclaiming that the Right always treats women respectfully, he then proceeded to again attack Fluke as a someone who is "sleeping with so many guys she can’t keep track [and] doing it three times a day" while wondering if President Obama would be proud if his daughters turned out like that: