Roy Moore

Birthers Hope Roy Moore Will Be Their Savior

WorldNetDaily must be pleased with this “scoop”: former GOP congressman and third party presidential candidate Virgil Goode has joined Alabama Republican activist Hugh McInnish in filing a lawsuit arguing that President Obama is not eligible to be president.

But the story gets better: the attorney representing them is Larry Klayman.

And the story gets even better: the judge hearing the case is none other than Roy Moore.

Moore, who was recently returned to office as chief justice of Alabama’s state Supreme Court after he was removed from the post in 2003 for refusing to obey a court order to remove his Ten Commandments monument, is no fan of Obama.

WND also notes that Moore has defended birther hero Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin, who said he won’t follow deployment orders because he deemed any order from Obama to be illegitimate, and the increasingly unstable Klayman has praised Moore’s “integrity and legal acumen.”

Now, 2012 Constitution Party presidential nominee Virgil Goode and Alabama Republican Party leader Hugh McInnish are asking the state’s highest court to force Secretary of State Beth Chapman to verify that all candidates on the state’s 2012 ballot were eligible to serve.

Attorney Larry Klayman, founder of the Washington, D.C.-watch dog Judicial Watch and now head of Freedom Watch, filed the appeal Tuesday with the Alabama Supreme Court, asking for oral arguments.

“We are hopeful that Chief Justice Moore and the rest of the jurists on the Alabama Supreme Court will follow the law,” Klayman told WND.

Klayman says he and his team “have great respect for Chief Justice Moore and his integrity and legal acumen.”

“He is one courageous and brave man. There are few in this country.”

The case is an appeal of a dismissal by the Montgomery Circuit Court.

In his brief, Klayman says “credible evidence and information from an official source” was presented to Chapman before the election indicating Obama might not have been qualified for Oval Office.

The complaint argues Chapman failed her constitutional duty as secretary of state to verify the eligibility of candidates.

Moore is on the record questioning Obama’s eligibility.

In an interview with WND in 2010, he defended Lt. Col Terrence Lakin’s demand that President Obama prove his eligibility as commander in chief as a condition of obeying deployment orders.

Moore said he had seen no convincing evidence that Obama is a natural-born citizen and much evidence that suggests he is not.

Moore said Lakin “not only has a right to follow his personal convictions under the Constitution, he has a duty.”

“And if the authority running the efforts of the war is not a citizen in violation of the Constitution, the order is unlawful,” he said.

Klayman asserts the secretary of state “has an affirmative duty that stems from her oath of office under both the U.S. and Alabama Constitutions, to protect the citizens from fraud and other misconduct by candidates.”

As a result of her refusal to investigate the qualifications of candidates for president, Klayman says, “a person believed to be unqualified for that office has been elected.”

The remedy, he said, “is to require each candidate to do what every teenager is required to do to get a learner’s permit.”

“It is to produce a bona fide birth certificate … and the Secretary of State is the official to cause that to happen.”

McInnish is a member of the Madison County Republican Executive Committee and also sits on the state Republican Executive Committee.

Citing the investigation of Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse, Klayman says Chapman “gained knowledge from an official source that there was probable cause to believe the Barack Obama had not met a certifying qualification.”

The appeal brief notes McInnish visited the secretary of state’s office Feb. 2, 2012, and spoke with the deputy secretary of state, Emily Thompson, in Chapman’s absence.

…

Moore told WND in an interview after his election last November that the country must return to a standard in which the rule of law prevails over politics.

He said Obama violated the Constitution when he bombed Libya, because the Constitution stipulates only Congress shall declare war.

“No president has the power to violate constitutional restraints of power,” Moore said.

“The Constitution is the rule of law, and [my job is] to uphold the rule of law.” Government’s job, Moore said, is to secure and protect those rights.

“There is little regard for the Constitution in the courts today, even the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Brian Tashman's blog

Right Wing Round-Up - 1/15/13

Kyle Mantyla's blog

Right Wing Leftovers - 1/11/13

  • Roy Moore was sworn in as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court today, nine years after being removed from that very position for refusing to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the courthouse.

  • How sad, the Tea Party is struggling to find a way to remain relevant.

  • Bill Donohue says that "given [President] Obama’s ideology, perhaps it would make more sense for him to swear on Das Kapital" at his inauguration.

  • Is Mark Sanford really contemplating a run for Congress?

  • Finally, Glenn Beck and crew mock Alex Jones for crying and believing in crazy conspiracy theories.  Seriously:

Kyle Mantyla's blog

Roy Moore: Evolution and Gay Marriage Incompatible with the Constitution

Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice-elect Roy Moore appeared on City On A Hill Radio to lash out at marriage equality and the theory of evolution, warning that they undermine the Constitution. Moore, who has argued that same-sex marriage leads to divine punishment and will “destroy this country,” maintained that the Founding Fathers “would be up in arms” over President Obama’s endorsement of marriage equality as it will “destroy the very foundation” of America.

What we’re doing in this country is—if Washington and Jefferson and Madison, name one, if they were alive today would be up in arms. None of them, federalists or antifederalists, never believed that it would come to this. Those that were for big government like Hamilton, Washington, Adams would never have believed that our courts would be doing what they’re doing today, that people would be trying to change the definition of marriage. We don’t take a moment just to stop and clear our eyes and our ears and think: what is happening when a President of the United States can get up and say we need to redefine marriage? You know, when they do that they are attempting to destroy the very foundation on which this country was built.

Moore also denied the theory of evolution and said it was warping people’s understanding of the Constitution by covering up its Biblical precepts. “Evolution has so distorted our way of thinking,” Moore said, “we know we were created but they say we evolved from whatever, something out of the ocean, you’ve got to understand that evolution affects your mental processes.” He explained that evolution makes people think that they are “smarter” than their predecessors while the Constitution shows that “human nature doesn’t change.”

Barbara Moore: Judge Moore I want to ask you, as you read the United States Constitution you can see that biblical concepts and precepts are within that Constitution, everything from separation of powers because of the sinful nature of man, and I would think that any Bible believing Christian would feel that when they look at our United States Constitution, wouldn’t you say?

Roy Moore: I think they don’t and I think there’s a reason they don’t and I think the reason like you see it maybe because you’ve studied a little bit but I think it’s not evident to those who have lost the knowledge of God. What I mean to say by that is you know we started by teaching history at the beginning of the program and it’s like going to football games and seeing who wins and who loses and going to football games and forgetting the rules. If you know the rules it makes the game more interesting because you know there is some way they get to the end of the game and win or lose and you got to go by the rules. We’re not going by the rules because we don’t think the rules matter anymore.

Evolution has so distorted our way of thinking. It’s not just about where we came from. Of course, we know we were created but they say we evolved from whatever, something out of the ocean, you’ve got to understand that evolution affects your mental processes. When you think you have evolved then you think you’re better than those who have gone before you. If you’re better than those who have gone before you then you won’t make the same mistakes, you won’t think the same way, you know better, you’re smarter. The point is, human nature doesn’t change and human nature is what the Constitution sought to restrain.
Brian Tashman's blog

Right Wing Leftovers - 10/30/12

  • James Dobson has endorsed Roy Moore with "enthusiasm and confidence."

  • Mat Staver vows to continue to fight for the Oklahoma personhood amendment.

  • Anti-Mormon activist Tricia Erickson refused to vote for Mitt Romney by "writing in the name of God, because I cannot be right with Him and support either candidate."

  • Gary Bauer has the vapors again.

  • Pat Mahoney and Troy Newman are heading to Ohio to make a "last-minute push for God to remove the most pro-abortion President in America's history."

  • Finally, Bryan Fischer says "you can read the Constitution from front to back, back to front, upside down, from right to left and hanging from a chandelier and you will find no mention whatsoever of any right to engage in sodomy."
Kyle Mantyla's blog

Moore: God is Punishing America for the Sins of Abortion and Gay Marriage

The New York Times recently reported that there were lots of Republicans in Alabama who were concerned about the possibility of seeing disgraced "Ten Commandments Judge" Roy Moore return to his seat on the state Supreme Court after being removed from that very position back in 2003.

The Times reports that "many in the Alabama business and legal establishment, a community that is overwhelmingly and faithfully Republican, are privately despondent over the prospect of a Moore victory and its effect on the state’s image," and it is easy to see why, since Moore is the sort of politician who shows up at anti-abortion rallies, as he did this weekend, and proceeds to tell the audience that "Satan is out to destroy everything that God has created" and has convinced many in this nation to support things like abortion and gay marriage, which is why God "has a controversy with the inhabitants of this land, and until we reject those evils, we shall suffer accordingly": 

Kyle Mantyla's blog

Moore: 'False Religions' in America are Persecuting Christians; Undocumented Immigrants Have More Rights than Citizens

Alabama’s Roy Moore, the Republican Party’s nominee for Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court who in 2003 was removed from the same post after he refused to move a Ten Commandments monument he installed in the courthouse rotunda, spoke to Steve Deace last week to register his disapproval with the Supreme Court’s rulings on Arizona’s anti-immigrant SB 1070 and the health care reform law.

He maintained that the Court, by striking down parts of SB 1070 while upholding the Affordable Care Act, have given undocumented immigrants more rights than citizens. “I’m curious what would happen if an Arizona policeman arrests an illegal alien going to a health care facility without a green card and find out that they haven’t paid the individual mandate, are they to be detained or released or what?” Moore asked, even though undocumented immigrants are not covered in the law. “Steve, do we have less rights than people that have no right to be here?” he continued.

Later, he warned that “false religions” are taking hold in America and as a result “Christians are being persecuted while people of a religion foreign to our country are doing what they want.” Moore, who earlier warned that secular government leads to Sharia law, appeared to twist Thomas Jefferson’s Bill for Religious Freedom, where Jefferson said that governments throughout history have established and imposed religions forcibly on their people, to attack non-Christian minorities:

Moore: Thomas Jefferson in his Bill for Religious Freedom said that would happen, when men presume to restrict your freedom then they will allow false religions to come into your country and it all began when he said ‘well aware that the opinions and beliefs of man depend not upon their own will but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds that almighty God hath created the mind free.’ You see he recognized that God gives him that freedom of conscience and when men come in and try to restrict it what happens is false religions come in and that’s what’s happening in our country today. Christians are being persecuted while people of a religion foreign to our country are doing what they want.
Brian Tashman's blog

Roy Moore Warns Secular Government Leads to Sharia Law

In 2003, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore was removed from office after refusing to obey a judge’s order to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments he installed in the courthouse. Two failed bids for governor later; Moore is once again the Republican nominee for Chief Justice and will likely return to the court.

While speaking with conservative talk show host Steve Deace last week, Moore reflected on the “spiritualness of the battle” over the Ten Commandments monument and warned that secular government paved the way for “Sharia law and the allowance of religious practices for other groups but not Christians.” He went on to link the teaching of evolution in public schools for President Obama’s support for marriage equality, lamenting that teaching evolution demonstrates that when “you cut off free argument of debate then error survives and becomes dangerous.”

I firmly believe that only God can heal our land and he is waiting for the American people to wake up to what’s going on around them about a government that is denying God and in doing so is bent on taking away those rights and liberties and freedoms given to us by God, in contradiction to the very organic law from which we are based. I think I learned a lot about the spiritualness of the battle, I never regretted what I did, I did exactly what I knew I was to do and that is to stand firm and not let some federal judge tell me to remove a monument, which he had no right to do anyway.

…

What they fear most is my acknowledgment of the sovereignty of God. Even the judge on the federal bench didn’t say it was about the Ten Commandments, he said the issue is can the state acknowledge God and in his opinion he said this, ‘while the chief justice is free to keep whatever religious beliefs he chooses, the state may not acknowledge the sovereignty of the Judeo-Christian God and attribute to that God our religious freedom.' When he said that, he violated not only our constitution but the case law of the United States Supreme Court which says our religious freedom comes from God, and if it doesn’t come from God people have to realize we will lose it and that is happening in our country today with Sharia law and the allowance of religious practices for other groups but not Christians.

…

Free argument and debate will always come out on the side of truth. So if you cut off free argument of debate then error survives and becomes dangerous. You see that in our schools with the teaching of evolution. That is exactly what has gone all the way up to the highest level of our government. The President of the United States talks about his evolving standards, well, when you got evolving standards you don’t have any standards at all to begin with because truth is fixed, when your standard is truth it is not going to change but we see it changing seemingly with our government.
Brian Tashman's blog

Alabama's Soon-To-Be Chief Justice Roy Moore Doubts Obama's Christian Faith

Roy Moore was removed from his job as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2003 after he disobeyed a court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument he placed in his court house, but last Tuesday he won the Republican nomination for the position, making it extremely likely that Moore will soon have his old job back. Moore celebrated his victory today with Sandy Rios of the American Family Association, where he urged Congress to impeach Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, among other judges he would like to see removed from office. The Religious Right went off the rails after Ginsberg suggested in an interview that Egypt look to the South African constitution when drafting its new constitution, acknowledging that what works in the US may not work in Egypt, and ignoring her immense praise for the Constitution in the same interview. Rios even suggested that progressives wanted to do away with the Constitution altogether:

He also told Rios that America has always been based on a “biblical standard” and warned that “if you take away that standard then you have same-sex marriages, marriages between two and three people, or whatever.”

Moore: There is no standard without the biblical standard that we’ve lived under for 225 years. If you take away that standard then you have same-sex marriages, marriages between two and three people, or whatever. You don’t have a standard and moral atheists may want to hold on to the past without any basis of doing so, they’ve got to recognize the basis of why they have the right to believe in whatever they want to believe in and that right comes from God, it is not from government. You can go to governments over in Southeast Asia or the Mideast and you find governments that restrict what you believe and what you think and how you worship and that is because that is what governments will do when you don’t have this freedom.

Moore went on to claim that he doesn’t know the faith of President Obama, a committed Christian, adding he thinks the President does “favor the Muslim faith” and is trying “to remove any acknowledgement of a particular God” in America.

Moore: We have people like Barack Obama who do favor the Muslim faith and there is a reason for this. Do I believe he is a Muslim? I don’t know his faith but he certainly doesn’t represent what this nation is founded upon. He is typical of secular humanists in government that try to remove any acknowledgement of a particular God and say they grant religious freedom and that is entirely opposite to what this country is founded upon.
Brian Tashman's blog

'Ten Commandments Judge' Roy Moore is Back in Business

Back in 2003, "Ten Commandments Judge" Roy Moore was removed from his position as chief justice Alabama Supreme Court after refusing to obey a court order to remove a two ton Ten Commandments monument he had installed outside the court house.

Moore became a hero to the Religious Right because of his stand and has spent the last several years running his Foundation of Moral Law organization, trying to become governor and even launching a short-lived presidential campaign. 

But recently, Moore decided that he would like his old job back .... and it looks like the Republican voters in Alabama agreed and have handed him a win in the Republican primary over two other candidates, including the current Chief Justice:

Roy Moore said about 2 a.m. Wednesday that even though he had not been declared the winner of the Republican primary for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court that he expected to win without a runoff.

“Statistically, there is just no way we’re going to have a runoff in this race,” the former chief justice said to reporters just before leaving his election night headquarters.

Moore, the former chief justice who was removed from office refusing a federal judge’s order, said about two hours earlier that, with him well ahead of his two competitors in the Republican primary, “the people have spoken.”

Moore was well ahead of former Alabama Attorney General Charlie Graddick and current Chief Justice Chuck Malone. He needed more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff.

With more than 98 percent of precincts reporting at about 2:15 a.m., Moore was hovering about 4,600 votes ahead of the 50 percent level he needed.

Kyle Mantyla's blog

Roy Moore Warns that the Government is Determined to 'Destroy this Country'

Roy Moore, the former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who was removed from office for failing to follow a court order to move his replica of the Ten Commandments, is now in a four-person race for Chief Justice following his two failed gubernatorial bids and an aborted run for president. Yesterday on City on a Hill Radio, Moore said it seems that the government has become “the enemy of the people” because of its promotion of “tolerance and diversity,” which he described as dangerous concepts. He went on to say that the legalization of same-sex marriage is proof that “our government is doing a lot that is to destroy this country and it is against the people”:

Moore: When you said ‘the government can become the enemy of the people,’ I don’t know that the government is not already the enemy of the people. When it denies the faith upon which the Constitution and our country was founded, when it is de-educating our children with some of these schools teaching them tolerance and diversity, just think of those concepts: should we praise diversity? We’re one nation under God, that’s not diverse, that includes all people, black, white, yellow, red, it includes all people, people are one under God, and that’s what it’s supposed to be, you should love your neighbor as yourself despite if you know he is different than you are that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t love him. Diversity is celebrating a division among people.

Tolerance, is tolerance a good concept? We’re not to tolerate sin. There is nothing in the Bible, nothing in our culture that says we are to tolerate sin, in fact, you’re supposed to oppose sin, you’re supposed to hate sin. But does that mean you hate people? No. You love people, but you hate the sin, and that’s always been the truth. But we’ve got these concepts sneaking into our school and the government is mandating the teaching of them.

They are approving same-sex marriage, fortunately not the United States government yet but they are trying to get that established across our country, that you could marry somebody of the same sex. Our government is doing a lot that is to destroy this country and it is against the people. Unless we wake up and speak out...we’re going to lose our country.
Brian Tashman's blog

Who's Who At the Values Voter Debate

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]

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