Sandy Rios

Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel spoke to Sandy Rios earlier today and warned that the Supreme Court “will become an illegitimate arbitrator of the rule of law” if “the court goes the wrong way” on the marriage equality cases.

After complaining that the Bush administration sabotaged efforts to pass a federal marriage amendment, Staver insisted that gay rights advocates seek to “tear down the family and put the homosexual agenda, particularly led by same-sex marriage, on a collision course with the free exercise of religion.”

Staver concluded that “the church and people of faith and values need to rise up” if the court rules in favor of same-sex marriage as “we just simply cannot allow this to become the law of the land.”

Staver: When it came into 2005 his mandate was marriage and he didn’t do anything about it, that’s when we had the momentum to go forward with a national constitutional marriage amendment and both he and Karl Rove throttled back and went down a different path. But now we’re today and it’s the big day for Proposition 8 and DOMA and these are not conservative arguments that Ted Olson is going to make, these are judicial activism arguments, these are deconstructive arguments, these are arguments that will actually tear down the family and put the homosexual agenda, particularly led by same-sex marriage, on a collision course with the free exercise of religion.

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Staver: This is a monumental point in American history. God forbid if the court goes the wrong way. If it does, the court will become an illegitimate arbitrator of the rule of law and become simply a political institution and it will ultimately hurt the value and the respect of the United States Supreme Court.

Rios: Well I totally agree with you, I think we really are on the precipice and it’s pretty scary. I’m seeing all kinds of prognostications of what’s going to happen and I think back to the hearing on Obamacare where almost everyone thought we knew which way the court was going to go and then we were shocked by Justice Roberts’ decision and we might be in for the same thing on this.

Staver: I pray that we are not. If we are, if worst case scenario the last week of June we come down with a bad decision, the church and people of faith and values need to rise up. We just simply cannot allow this to become the law of the land, it will fundamentally change who we are, it will fundamentally weaken the family and religious freedom will be in the crosshairs.

Sandy Rios of the American Family Association on Friday said that she isn’t surprised that a large majority of young people support marriage equality because “our children, for the most part, have heard nothing but positive things about homosexuality and its effects.” She blamed TV shows like TLC’s “Say Yes to the Dress” for making homosexuality seem “kind of fun,” saying they’ve “only painted [it] with a positive brush.”

However, Rios claimed that “those of us that have been involved in issues related to this know that there’s a very dark side” to the gay community and understand that homosexuality is a “destructive force.”

She maintained that gay rights advocates are “forcing little children to be educated, they call it educated, I’d say sexually abused by information their little ears are not ready to hear,” and once again warned that “homosexual advocacy” brings about “the raping of the innocence of our children.”

We hear so much first of all about young people being in favor of gay marriage and I believe that’s true, I believe those stats are probably for the most part true and I believe it makes sense because our children, for the most part, have heard nothing but positive things about homosexuality and its effects; it’s kind of fun. We see “Say Yes to the Dress,” which by the way I love, and we see the gay characters on that and the one in Atlanta and the one in New York and those guys are really, I really, it has nothing to do with ‘like,’ but it is the face of the homosexual community that is only pained with a positive brush when those of us that have been involved in issues related to this know that there’s a very dark side, that this is not a good thing for people ultimately in their lives and it is a destructive force. It’s a destructive force especially — my concern, more than that for the gay community which I am very concerned about — is for the raping of the innocence of our children, forcing it in public schools, forcing little children to be educated, they call it educated, I’d say sexually abused by information their little ears are not ready to hear. In states where homosexual advocacy is strong this is exactly what’s happening, it’s happening to some degree all over the country in all school rooms, but it’s worse in states like Massachusetts.

Later, she mocked media coverage of her latest statements where she speculated about Hillary Clinton’s sexual orientation by facetiously asking why people were offended by her remarks since schools now teach that homosexuality is “wonderful.”

Rios even said that we are telling children to “engage in experimental sex with their friends, you know encouraged to act out sexually with their girlfriends if they are girls and their boyfriends if they are boys,” and that Bill Clinton “loves all things sexual in general I think, homosexual or heterosexual.”

She must be bi, she’s got a child, if she is a lesbian she would have to be bi so what’s wrong with that? Isn’t that okay? Isn’t that wonderful, in fact? Aren’t we telling our children in public schools, aren’t we giving them books about it, aren’t we reading stories about it, aren’t we seeing this on television all the time and movie themes, isn’t this cool? Aren’t we having our kids sort of engage in experimental sex with their friends, you know encouraged to act out sexually with their girlfriends if they are girls and their boyfriends if they are boys? Doesn’t Bravo feature things like this all the time? I just watched one this week when I was working out in the gym. What’s the problem?

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I mean her husband is supporting gay marriage, he loves all things sexual in general I think, homosexual or heterosexual, it could be argued. I’m not talking about his behavior, I’m talking about just that he seems to embrace all kinds of sex, doesn’t seem to mind it, and certainly he is denigrating the Defense of Marriage Act, which he signed in 1996. I really honestly don’t see what the big deal is on this.

The topic of discussion on Sandy Rios’ American Family Radio program Wednesday was diversity among federal judicial nominees. The Washington Post published a story over the weekend detailing President Obama’s largely successful effort to appoint more women, people of color and openly LGBT people to federal judgeships. The voice of dissent in the article was that of the Committee for Justice’s Curt Levey, who told the Post that the White House was “lowering their standards” in nominating nonwhite judges. So naturally, Rios invited Levey on as a guest and explained to him why she disapproves of President Obama’s diverse judicial nominations.

In particular, Rios disapproves of Obama’s Supreme Court nominees, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, respectively the third and fourth women ever to sit on the high court. Sotomayor and Kagan, Rios says, have been forgetting their place and behaving “rudely,” “interrupting” and “speaking inappropriately” to, of all people, Justice Antonin Scalia.

While Levey correctly notes that “Scalia can give it out as well as take it,” he agrees with Rios that Sotomayor, the Supreme Court’s first Latina justice, “has occasionally, at least, stepped over the line.” In particular, he says Sotomayor – who he once accused of supporting “violent Puerto Rican terrorists” --  “sort of lost it” during arguments on the Voting Rights Act, when she contradicted Scalia’s stunning assertion that the law represents a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.”

In fact, while Scalia’s bombast provoked audible gasps in the hearing room, Sotomayor waited several minutes before calmly asking the attorney challenging the Voting Rights Act, “Do you think that the right to vote is a racial entitlement in Section 5?"

Later, Rios, with an impressive lack of self-awareness, marvels that progressive groups criticized Scalia for his remarks. “Groups on the left,” Levey responds, “shall we say, like to personalize things.”

Rios: I read an article that Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, at least this article was intimating that they are behaving in a – these are my words – sort of rudely on the bench, to Scalia and to others, interrupting, speaking inappropriately. Have you observed that? Do you know what I’m talking about and is that true?

Levey: Um, yeah. I mean, you know, Scalia can give it out as well as take it, but yeah, Sotomayor has gone over the line a number of times. Most recently in the Voting Rights Act case, which was just last week, where, you know, Scalia had the nerve to speak the truth and refer to the Voting Rights Act as “racial preferences,” which of course is what it’s become by guaranteeing that there be minority districts formed, minority congressional districts. And, you know, Sotomayor sort of lost it when Obama [sic] said that, interrupted and you know, basically made fun of Scalia’s comment. So yeah, I think they have the right to be aggressive up there, but Sotomayor has occasionally, at least, stepped over the line.

Rios: And on the Voting Rights Act and Scalia’s comments, you know, there were demonstrators at the Court last week, hundreds of them, demonstrating against Antonin Scalia. I don’t remember that happening. I don’t remember a Supreme Court justice – doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened – but I don’t remember it being a subject of public demonstrations.

Levey: No. Typically they will, you know, they’ll, protestors at the Supreme Court will focus on issues, not justices. But you know, that changed of late. There’s been in the last two years a lot of, you know, progressive groups have gone personally after Scalia and especially Thomas and his wife. But you know, we see that in so much of politics, that groups on the left like to, shall we say, personalize things.

Rios: Yeah, as like in Alinsky, yes, personalize and target, yeah, so we are seeing some very new things and actually pretty dangerous I think.

Earlier in the program, Rios and Levey lamented the fact that President Obama has had more openly LGBT people confirmed to the federal bench than all of his predecessors combined. Echoing right-wing arguments made against Romney advisor Richard Grennell, who was forced to resign last year after less than a month on the job, Rios claimed she didn’t mind that the president was appointing gay people to federal judgeships, but that they are “activists who are trying to change the law.”

Levey: You know, I don’t have any problem with him nominating gay and lesbian nominees. The problem is that they should be gay and lesbian nominees who respect the Constitution. You know, there are…

Rios: I don’t disagree, Curt, just for the record, I don’t disagree with that. It’s the activists, activists who are trying to change the law that I will have trouble sitting on the bench.

Levey: Exactly. He’s not appointing, you know, conservative or even moderate, you know, gay Americans, he’s appointing very radical gay Americans. And, you know, again, it’s not so much any individual nominee as it is the pattern here. Of the 35 or so nominees who are pending now, only six are straight white males, even though about half the legal profession is straight white males. So, do straight white males have some, you know, right to a certain number of seats? Of course not. But if you were doing it in a balanced way without any preference for minorities of various types, then you’d probably wind up with about 17 or 18 of those 35 being straight white males. The fact that there’s only six tells us that there’s a system of preferences going on.

On her radio program today, the American Family Association’s Sandy Rios read listener responses to her recent interview with anti-gay activist Brian Camenker, who claims that bullying-prevention programs and LGBT-inclusive curricula are ruining American education.

Rios praised one email from “Margaret,” who wrote that “basic skills” like reading and writing are being “pushed aside in favor of teaching moral choices and left-wing agenda. It is no wonder American students have fallen so far behind other nations.” Margaret lamented that schools “rob the innocence of children through forced instruction of alternate lifestyles,” adding: “When two percent of America’s population seeks to dictate to the rest of us how our children should be educated, we have truly sunk into a pit of moral decay.”

Rios concurred and claimed that schools are “teaching radical environmentalism or homosexuality” now “instead of math and science,” which she explained is “the reason our test scores are so shockingly low compared with the world.”

It’s sad; it’s just amazing how they are throwing—whether they are teaching radical environmentalism or homosexuality. Can you imagine that they are teaching this instead of math and science? And they are. And Margaret’s right, that’s the reason our test scores are so shockingly low compared with the world.

According to Rios, it all goes back to a plan of Bill Ayers to “radicalize” teachers and the National Education Association’s goal of “promoting homosexuality in every discipline in public schools.”

The radicals of the ’60s, the college radicals of the ’60s, they were rebelling in the streets against everything, really. Some of them were ‘make love not war’ marijuana drones but some were really smart radicals. Because they did not win the battle in the ’60s they focused their sights on education. Look at Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, that is what they all did, they went into education and they populate our universities, they saturate them and they train teachers. Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground is one of the leading educators in the country, he’s a terrorist, it’s just amazing that he writes books and people read them, and that’s how the educators have become radicalized.

The National Education Association was led by a gay man for over twenty years who was not out until he stepped down and they started promoting, radically promoting, homosexuality. This started a long, long time ago, they started with a film called ‘It’s Elementary,’ I remember when that came out; it was a total propaganda piece for homosexuality. Gradually the National Education Association made this one of their largest concerns, was promoting homosexuality in every discipline in public schools, so that’s how it started.

Glenn Beck isn’t the only one promoting an unhinged conspiracy theory about John Brennan, President Obama’s pick to lead the CIA. A number of Religious Right and anti-Muslim activists are also wondering if Brennan is a secret agent of the Saudi government.

The source of the smear against Brennan is former FBI agent John Guandolo, who has made a career out of warning about the alleged implementation of Sharia law in the U.S. and asserting that Muslims “do not have a First Amendment right to do anything.” For Guandolo, making completely unsubstantiated accusations is nothing new:

In 2011, he asserted that a Muslim college professor in Ohio was working with terrorists even though the same professor played a key role in counterterrorism efforts and the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and other members of the intelligence community all called Guandolo’s claim unfounded.

But his accusation about Brennan has been quickly picked up by former congressman Fred Grandy of the Center for Security Policy and Sandy Rios of the American Family Association, who seemed to accept it with little scrutiny. Grandy and Rios also were some of the first people to allege that Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin — among other U.S. government officials — are Muslim Brotherhood agents.

Grandy: The influence of Islam as a religion among top intelligence authorities in this country is not limited to John Brennan. Whether or not that influenced his political determinations probably has more to do not so much with Islam but to what degree has been cooped by Saudi authorities. It seems to me that you can practice Islam but still be an American citizen and loyal to the Constitution if you’re an officer in the CIA, but what we don’t know whether or not that conversion might have been instigated by Saudi authorities who then used it to perhaps remold his thinking vis-à-vis the Saudis, the Qataris and others who are allies of the United States but the principal funders and underwriters of terrorism around the world.

Rios: Well I think the proof is in the pudding. When he redefines jihad to mean something that it doesn’t mean, to water it down; when he rewrites the training manuals for our law enforcement, for those that would protect the United States; it’s all very, very frightening and suspicious to me. And wasn’t it John Brennan who calls Jerusalem, ‘Quds’?

Grandy: He has referred to Jerusalem as Al-Quds which of course is the Muslim name for it.

AFA spokesman Bryan Fischer also floated Guandolo’s accusation against Brennan.

Fischer: How in the world can this guy [Obama] be up nine points in national defense? He wants a guy to be the director of the CIA who may be a Muslim covert. There’s a highly-placed source, I can’t verify this because it’s only come from one source but John Brennan who President Obama wants to be his CIA director, there’s a well-placed source that says everybody understands in the intelligence community that he converted to Islam when he was on an overseas assignment. He’s allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to infiltrate his administration.

So, is Guandolo a reliable source of information?

If you believe Guandolo’s story, the former agent was pushed out of the FBI as part of a Muslim Brotherhood plot and is now informing Americans about how the group has successfully infiltrated the U.S. government.

But the news reports beg to differ, reporting that Guandolo stepped down after it was discovered that he had a sexual relationship with the star witness in the corruption case against former Rep. William Jefferson.

Guandolo, “who is married and who unsuccessfully solicited a $75,000 donation for an anti-terrorism group from a wealthy witness in the Jefferson case with whom he was having an affair,” resigned from the FBI in 2008 “after superiors found a list he wrote of his sexual conquests with agents and a confidential source.”

But a total lack of credibility has never stopped someone from being treated as an “expert” in right-wing circles, and Guandolo’s influence is further proof that conservatives will believe just about anything to advance their anti-Muslim and anti-Obama paranoia.

The American Family Association’s Sandy Rios today continued to press the Boy Scouts of America against opening the organization to gay members on her radio show. She said that opponents of the ban like AT&T CEO Randall Stevenson, Ernst & Young CEO James Turley and Mitt Romney (!) who are affiliated with the BSA should be forced to pay for any future settlements of all the child abuse cases that Rios claims will be a consequence of having openly gay Boy Scouts.

I think I have a solution, I just thought of it this morning. I think these guys, let’s put Mitt Romney in there, and let’s put the guy with Ernst & Young whose name is James Turley, and let’s put Randall Stevenson the CEO of AT&T, and any of the other organizations or corporate sponsors who are pushing the Boy Scouts for this policy change. I think actually we might let this go through with the stipulation that whatever lawsuits are brought from now until the end of time against Boy Scout leaders who have sexually molested their Scouts, that they personally are responsible to pay them. Let’s go after Mitt Romney, let’s go after the guy at Ernst & Young, let’s go after Randall Stevenson at AT&T, let them write a check and just say, ‘I believe in this so much that I am willing personally to cover any costs on the outside, ridiculous chance that some Boy Scout should be molested by a gay Scout leader or seduced. If there is any harm then I’ll pay, I will pay.’ If they are willing to sign that statement, go for it. While we’re at it, we should have AT&T and all the other organizations like Ernst & Young that are pushing for this put their corporate—just think of all the money, the potential of lawsuits.

The AFA has even called for Stephenson to resign from the BSA board for “using his corporate influence to bully the BSA into gay assimilation,” and joined a whole host of Religious Right groups demanding that both Stephenson and Turley step down.

Along with the AFA, the coalition includes ex-gay groups like the Restored Hope Network and Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) in addition to Mat Staver’s Liberty Counsel; Rick Scarborough’s Vision America; Scott Lively’s Abiding Truth Ministries; Linda Harvey’s Mission America; Peter LaBarbera’s Americans For Truth About Homosexuality; Brian Camenker’s MassResistance... and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, which apparently still exists.

American Family Association radio host Sandy Rios today warned listeners that gay rights advocates are promoting a form of “fascism” and that gay equality will result in a “lack of freedom.” 

Rios: We all watched the inauguration recently of the President and we saw on the platform where things lie. We know that if you think that homosexuality is a problem you will not be allowed into public service hardly in any way. If you think that homosexual couples should not be able to adopt, if you have a problem with that, then you are out of the adoption business. I think it is fascism personally; I would go to that extreme and say that, it’s a lack of freedom.

Her guest Robert Knight of the American Civil Rights Union also criticized gay rights supporters and argued that any shift in the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on gay membership “would destroy the Boy Scouts,” and later called for a “new board of directors” who would not “entertain such bizarre notions as opening up the ranks to homosexuals.”

Knight: What they are saying is they are going to leave it up to parents and local councils and Scout troops on whether to allow homosexual leaders and members in. This would destroy the Boy Scouts, let’s cut to the chase, what parent would put their young boy under the authority of men who are attracted to males and take them camping and swimming, etcetera. It’s not designed to make the scouts fairer it’s designed to destroy the Boy Scouts as we know them.

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Rios: There’s really no pressure in the courts and the financial pressures they were facing earlier had subsided so this is like a new assault on them, isn’t it? Now they are coming out because of the corporate angle.

Knight: Yeah and I think what people have to do is say the Boy Scouts need a new board of directors if they are going to entertain such bizarre notions as opening up the ranks to homosexuals. This is about getting corporate money so they can keep their fat headquarters in Texas. Think about it, Scout troops raise money locally they can survive just fine without corporate donations, but not the people at the top, they are the ones who ought to be replaced.

In an interview with the American Family Association’s Sandy Rios today, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said that a government default – which would crash the U.S. economy – may actually be a “wonderful experiment.” Coburn encouraged Republican resistance to raising the debt ceiling, the routine mechanism that allows the government to borrow to meet its existing financial obligations. 

Coburn justified his opposition to raising the debt ceiling by using the false equivalence of the federal budget with a household budget. He also falsely claimed that programs like Social Security and Medicare would not be impacted by a default and even used inflated statistics to attack public workers, suggesting that they are to blame for the national debt.

He concluded by arguing that “our freedoms are going to be put at risk” under President Obama and expressing doubt that the nation could “survive” Obama’s leadership.

We can also now add Coburn to the list of GOP leaders who apparently have no qualms appearing on shows hosted by the extremists at AFA. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised: he seems to fit right in to the group’s fact-free alternate universe.

Coburn: Let me address again, which I didn’t, this idea we’re not going to pay our bills. We’re going to collect $200 billion a month if in fact the government were to not extend the debt limit. Social Security would be paid, Medicare would be paid, the essentials would be paid; it’s the non-essentials that wouldn’t be paid, it’s the $250-300 billion a year in stupid things we do that we wouldn’t pay, it’s the programs that aren’t an absolute necessity that wouldn’t get funded, the things that would be a necessity would get funded. It might be a wonderful experiment, regardless who wins the next election or not, just to see if we could live on the money that’s coming into the Treasury and not have to borrow against the future of our children.

Rios: But Dr. Coburn, who decides that. [Obama] made that threat yesterday when he said you know, Social Security recipients would have delayed checks and military and on and on the most horrible list of all these horrible cuts that would happen. Doesn’t he decide that? Doesn’t he ultimately decide?

Coburn: He can decide it but the point is, look, we’re coming to a point in our country where the cost of our profligate spending in the past is going to be so great and so manipulated that our freedoms are going to be put at risk. I’m not sure we shouldn’t challenge that. I’m not sure the debt limit is the place to challenge that. I’m not sure that we should continue to run a government that is highly inefficient and highly ineffective where the average federal employee works 3.8 weeks less than the rest of us and makes on average twice what the rest of us make. I’m not sure we should continue down that road. That doesn’t mean federal employees aren’t good employees and it doesn’t mean they don’t do a good job but we have set it up where we’ve undermined self-reliance, we’ve undermined efficiency, we’ve undermined expectations in this country as far as those who work for the federal government and then we’ve overpromised.

So when the federal government’s discretionary spending is about forty percent bigger than it was eleven years ago and the average family is tightening things and living within their means and living within their budget, its’ time for that comparison to be seen. Maybe we lose that battle but if we lose that battle we’re going to lose our country anyway and that’s what people ought to be thinking about. you cannot continue to borrow the way this President wants to borrow and our country survive.

Pastor Scott Lively yesterday in an interview with Sandy Rios of the American Family Association warned that homosexuality “is the issue of the End Times.” According to Lively, the advance of gay rights will lead to the persecution and killing of Christians like in the early days of the Church and is “another sign that I believe that we’re close to the end.”

He argued that “the last straw for God before He brought [Noah’s] Flood was when they started writing wedding songs to homosexual marriage” and said homosexuality “represents the outer extent of rebellion against Him in a society and the last thing that happens before wrath comes.”

Lively: We need to remember that in the time leading up to the Flood what the rabbis teach about the last straw for God before He brought the Flood was when they started writing wedding songs to homosexual marriage and Jesus said that you’ll know the End Times because it will be like the days of Noah. There’s never been a time in the history of the world since before the Flood when homosexual marriage has been open and celebrated, and that’s another sign that I believe that we’re close to the end.

Rios: You know Scott you’re talking to thousands of the people across the country and some of them are probably pastors. What would you say to pastors out there who are facing, you know they’ve come up with these issues, these issues have come across their knowledge, they can’t escape it, whether it’s domestic partnerships or its benefits for homosexuals or whatever and it’s hurdling toward gay marriage in every state, what would you say to them by way of preparing themselves and how they should respond?

Lively: It’s time to adopt an apostolic mentality as Christians and to look to Revelation. How did they prevail? They prevailed by the blood of the lamb, the word of their testimony, and I think is most important, they did not love their lives unto death. We’re entering into a time in which standing for the truth of God is going to cost you more than just a few people walking out of your congregation and the temptation to compromise with the world, especially on this issue. I think this is the issue of the End Times, homosexuality. It’s present, if you do a careful investigation of all the scriptures dealing with this from the beginning and all the way to the end, God is painting a very clear picture that this represents the outer extent of rebellion against Him in a society and the last thing that happens before wrath comes.