Election 2012

Right-wing activists have always had a difficult relationship with the truth, especially when it comes to Planned Parenthood. The lies they have told about the women’s health organization have been disgraceful and even comical. They continued today as Ted Cruz, the former Solicitor General of Texas and a candidate for US Senate, spoke to Family Research Council president Tony Perkins on Today’s Issues about his state’s move to defund Planned Parenthood, which treats nearly half the patients in the state’s Women’s Health Program.

Under Medicaid’s rules, states cannot prohibit qualified health care providers from participating in the program, and Texas officials knew that defunding Planned Parenthood would lead the federal government to withdraw its funding for the program, representing 90 percent of the program’s total funding.

Unfortunately, 130,000 women will now lose access to health care because of Texas’ decision, and will lead to millions of dollars in new state spending due to the drastic cut to preventative health care.

But Texas went ahead and defunded Planned Parenthood, to the satisfaction of the Religious Right, and now are shocked—shocked!—that Medicaid is enforcing its longstanding rules.

Perkins claimed that “Planned Parenthood as a result of losing this funding was closing twelve of its abortion clinics.”

This is false.

In fact, none of the affected clinics provided abortion services. Planned Parenthood clinics that do offer abortions receive neither federal nor state funds and are therefore not impacted by the state’s decision.

Perkins and Cruz also attempted to hold Parent Parenthood and the Obama administration responsible for the deleterious impact on women’s health care by twisting and ignoring the facts throughout the interview. Perkins called it “blackmail” and blamed the administration for “cutting off funds to some of the most needy people in the state of Texas.” Cruz said that the Obama administration wants to send taxpayer dollars to “the abortion industry,” which he called “typical of the assault on our liberties that is proceeding relentlessly everyday under the Obama administration.”

They seem to find no fault at all in Texas’ unilateral and deliberate decision to break Medicaid’s rules and defund an organization that provided nearly half of the health services to low-income women under the state’s program.

Perkins: Let me get your first impressions, the Governor who you know well and the legislature whom you’ve worked with, they said, ‘We’re not going to be part of funding Planned Parenthood.’ They took the steps, that’s rightfully theirs, and so now I can’t explain it as anything other than blackmail from the Obama administration cutting off funds to some of the most needy people in the state of Texas.

Cruz: Tony you’re exactly right. The Obama administration has been the most radical administration this country has ever seen, he is the most radical president this country has ever seen. On this issue, his concern is quite simply political, it is ensuring that the money flow continues to Planned Parenthood and to the abortion industry, and he is willing to hold 130,000 low income Texas women hostage in order to make sure that Planned Parenthood makes their money. It’s cynical, it’s partisan and it’s wrong.

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Perkins: I wonder if the timing here, it seems very suspect to me, but after Texas decided to stop this funding of Planned Parenthood, I think it was a week before last the story came out of Texas that Planned Parenthood as a result of losing this funding was closing about twelve of their abortion clinics in Texas. That was a story that was beginning to get traction around the country, giving other legislatures encouragement to take steps like Texas. Is this an effort to cut that off at the pass and try to say ‘hey, you better slow down or else we’re going to come after funding in other areas’?

Cruz: I think it was exactly that. The disturbing thing Tony is you and I and every American are involuntarily the largest funders of Planned Parenthood in this country because the federal government and the Obama administration is fighting tooth and nail to send millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood. You and I are both strongly pro-life, have been fighting to defend the right to life for many years, the idea that we are facing an administration that is so radical that they will do anything they can to defend and expand the taxpayer money to pay for Planned Parenthood and to fund the abortion industry, that is really dismaying and it is typical of the assault on our liberties that is proceeding relentlessly everyday under the Obama administration.

Before the Tennessee primary, Rick Santorum visited the Bellevue Baptist Church outside of Memphis where he prayed alongside Pastor Steve Gaines. Gaines said that “God doesn’t come to take sides, God comes to take over and I pray that He will takeover in America.” He asked God to forgive America for “the sins of racism, the sins of abortion and the sins of immorality”:

Gaines has a sordid history, and the website Ethics Daily, a project of the Baptist Center for Ethics, reported back in 2006 that Gaines failed to report to the police a minister in his church, Paul Williams, who molested his own:

An assistant prosecutor said Bellevue Baptist Church Pastor Steve Gaines may have committed a crime if he knew the "moral failure" a church staff member confessed to him six months ago involved child molestation.

All 50 states have laws requiring mandatory reporting of suspected child sexual abuse. Tennessee requires any person, including ministers, with reasonable suspicion that abuse of a child has occurred to report it immediately.

Gaines has admitted that Paul Williams, a minister on staff at the Memphis, Tenn., mega-church for 34 years, told him in confidence about inappropriate behavior that occurred 17 years ago.

While Gaines did not disclose details of the confession, a Web site critical of his leadership alleged Williams molested his own son. Church leaders have suspended Williams and launched their own investigation, due to last a month.

"Everyone has a duty to report," Kevin Rardin, chief prosecutor of child sexual abuse cases in the district attorney's office in Shelby County, Tenn., told Memphis station WMC-TV. "There are not exceptions for clergy or anyone else."

In fact, Gaines kept Williams’s admission a secret for six months:

"It is that every person is required to make a report to an agency like Department of Children's Services if they have reason to believe that someone may, a child may have been molested or abused," said Nancy Williams, with the Memphis Child Advocacy Center.

According to Bellevue Pastor Steve Gaines' own words, he didn't just have reason to believe it, he had a confession from one of his ministers, who admitted to molesting a child.

A report by church leaders found that Gaines allowed the minister to remain on staff even after his admission:

The report states that Williams "engaged in egregious, perverse, sexual activity with his adolescent son over a period of 12 to 18 months."

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In May 2006, Williams informed Jamie Fish, the church's minister of biblical guidance, of his past actions. The report said Fish erred by not coming forward with the information, particularly since Williams' job duties included interviewing adult lay ministry volunteers who had indicated they had been sexually abused.

The following month Williams and his wife met to discuss the issue with Dr. Steve Gaines, Bellevue's senior pastor. Williams indicated that he confessed and repented to his family and there had been no further sexual abuse. The meeting was kept confidential and Williams remained on staff.

But in early December, Williams' son met with Gaines "for an explanation, in light of scriptural qualifications for ministers, as to why Paul should be allowed to continue as minister on the church staff."

While Gaines failed to report a case of child molestation and allowed an admitted child predator to remain on the church’s staff, he did ban a softball team from the church’s athletic league because the coach was openly gay. In fact, Gaines consistently rails against gays and lesbians, warning that gay rights and gays in the media jeopardize America’s security and economy:

"As important as these issues are, ... I believe they pale compared to two other issues that I believe will determine the future of America," Gaines warned. "I personally believe with all of my heart that the two issues that will determine what God will do not only with America but to America are abortion and homosexuality. ... America's economy and America's safety are more tied up with what's going on in those courts in Massachusetts than what's going on in Wall Street or over in Iraq." …

"We love [homosexuals] because we know -- as Jesus said from the cross -- 'they know not what they do.' They're in bondage, but aren't you glad today Jesus Christ can set people free from all sorts of bondage, even homosexuality?"

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Southern Baptists should oppose "pro-homosexual television programming," such as "Will and Grace," "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and MTV's homosexual channel, Logo, Gaines urged.

"We must help curb the epidemic spread of lesbianism by telling our daughters and our young girls that the passionate kisses shared by Madonna, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera at MTV's Video Music Awards last August were an abomination to a holy God," Gaines said.

In another sermon, he warned that since “homosexuals and lesbians cannot reproduce biologically so they prey on the children of normal people, seeking to entice them to be trapped in their perverted lifestyle”:

On the home-front, radical homosexuals and lesbians seek to take over our nation. You cannot watch television without being subjected to Gay propaganda. They seek to brain wash our citizens so they can make same-sex marriage the law of the land. Homosexuals and lesbians cannot reproduce biologically so they prey on the children of normal people, seeking to entice them to be trapped in their perverted lifestyle. They want to silence Baptist preachers and others from denouncing their sinful lifestyles by making it an illegal “hate crime” to point out what the Bible says about their wicked practices. Regardless of what anyone says about the goodness of being “Gay,” the Bible still calls it a “degrading, unnatural, indecent, and depraved” (Romans 1:26-28). Homosexual practice always has been, is, and always will be “an abomination” in the sight of Holy God (Leviticus 18:22). By God’s grace, homosexuals can be saved and set free from their sinful lifestyles because the blood of Jesus can cleanse anyone from any sin. But they must first repent of the sin of homosexuality and denounce their ungodly homosexual behavior.

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The Old Testament prophet, Joel, preached to God’s people in Judah just before the Babylonian armies came and destroyed Jerusalem and took God’s people into exile. He cried out for them to repent so that God could spare the land from the coming invasion. His words of warning are very pertinent for us today. I personally believe that if America does not repent, she is headed for national disaster.

The negative publicity around Gaines, however, did not prevent Rick Santorum from actively seeking his support. In fact, Santorum has made frequent appearances with extremists in the Religious Right in his bid to defeat Mitt Romney.

Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX) is out on bail after he was found guilty of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. DeLay was also subject to an investigation over his links to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In fact, DeLay played a central role in the Abramoff scandal on the illegal use of Indian gambling money.

Another member of the Abramoff’s crooked scheme was Religious Right activist Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition. Abramoff stealthily financed Reed’s anti-gambling organization in Alabama with money from casinos in Mississippi that were afraid of increased competition. Reed claimed he didn’t know it was gambling money, claims Abramoff laughed off as “ridiculous.” In a humiliating defeat, Reed lost his 2006 race to be the Republican nominee of Lt. Governor of Georgia, and in 2009 founded the Faith and Freedom Coalition.

Does it come as a surprise to anyone that DeLay, while out on bail, will be speaking at a Faith Freedom Coalition rally in Texas?

Surely, DeLay and Reed are the best people to talk about the importance of America’s “time-honored values” and “sound public policy at every level of government.”

The only thing that could make DeLay and Reed’s Texas rally more perfect would be if Jack Abramoff himself made an appearance. Too bad he now works for the ethics watchdog United Republic.

Some anti-Romney conservative Christians are pulling out the stops to try to stop his momentum on Super Tuesday. Steve Strang, the publisher of Charisma, a magazine and online media outlet for Pentecostal Christians, sent his email followers a “Super Tuesday” message urging Christians to rally voters for Rick Santorum:  “This race is so close that Bible-believing Christians CAN MADE A DIFFERENCE and help Santorum get the momentum to win the nomination and then the general election.” 

Strang says Santorum is “squeaky clean” while Romney is a Mormon flip-flopper and Gingrich has a “deep character flaw.”

Strang also promotes anti-gay, anti-Romney, pro-Santorum robocalls being made in Ohio by anti-gay extremist Brian Camenker of MassResistance, designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and others under the name Jews and Christians Together.  Here’s the call script:

Hi, my name is Brian Camenker; I'm a Jew from Massachusetts.

And, this is Darcy Brandon; I'm a Christian from California. If you believe as we do that marriage and sexuality should only be between a man and a woman, please help us stop Mitt Romney.

As Governor, Romney signed 'Gay Youth Pride Day' proclamations, promoted homosexuality in our elementary schools, and unconstitutionally ordered state officals to make Massachusetts America's first same-sex marriage state. Romney supports open homosexuality in the military, the appointment of homosexual judges, and the ENDA law, making it illegal to fire a man who wears a dress and high heels to work, even if he's your kid's teacher. When you vote tomorrow, please vote for social sanity and Rick Santorum, NOT for homosexuality and Mitt Romney.

Rick Santorum is the ONLY candidate who can be trusted to uphold traditional marriage, a straight military, and the rights of American children to have both a mother and a father. This message paid for by Jews and Christians Together.org and not authorized by any candidate. To get the facts before you vote, visit Jews and Christians Together.org.

The Jews and Christians Together website is basically a one-pager linking to attacks on Romney by Camenker’s group MassResistance, information the group says was emailed to over a million Ohio residents on Sunday.  A press release about the robocalls quotes religious bigotry promoter Gary Cass, who produces videos attacking Obama’s faith and has attacked Mormonism for its "hostility to Christianity."  From the Jews and Christians Together press release:

Brian Camenker, president of Mass Resistance and compiler of much of that Romney research and one of the robo-call voices said, "Mitt Romney would be the most liberal Republican ever nominated for the Presidency. Romney is so far left, he spoke against the right of the Boy Scouts to screen-out homosexuals. Mitt Romney proved during the January 8 Meet the Press debate that he's still as far left on the gay agenda as always. He proudly announced, 'a member of my cabinet was gay. I appointed people to the bench regardless of their sexual orientation.' Asked when he last stood up and spoke out for increasing gay rights, Romney said 'Right now.'"

Dr. Gary Cass, president of DefendChristians.org and a member of Jews & Christians Together.org said, "We believe Rick Santorum is the only viable alternative to Romney. All Jews and Christians are aware that the Bible, from the Jewish Books of Moses to the Christian Gospels to the epistles of Saint Paul, commands God's faithful to love the sinner but hate the sin, and indeed to recognize homosexuality as sin. Romney, on the other hand, endorses homosexuality as a good choice for young people."

The American Family Association recently hired Fox News contributor and former Concerned Women for America president Sandy Rios to host her own show on American Family Radio, and here’s what we get to look forward to: attacks on Jewish Americans for supporting President Obama. Earlier today she spoke with the AFA’s Tim Wildmon and Bryan Fischer, where she suggested that secular Jews are enemies of America. Rios bemoaned that “the Jewish vote in this country is so confused, so many of the Jews in this country are atheist and their hearts are with this President.” “They’re far-left,” Wildmon said, “Most of the Jews in this country are far left, unfortunately.” Rios said that “a lot of Jewish atheists are some of the ones who have done, just like former Christians or quasi Christians, people who have some dealing with Judeo-Christian ethics, sometimes turn out to be the worst enemies of the country.”

Later on in the show, Rios said that “there are very few” religious people in Israel, “by and large Israel is an atheistic country, they don’t really believe in the God of their fathers, there’s no question about that,” and maintained that Christians must “evangelize and pray for our Jewish brothers and sisters.”

Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern garnered national attention, and notoriety, in 2008 for maintaining that homosexuality is “the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam,” and last year doubling down on her claim by arguing that while homosexuality is “more dangerous” than terrorism because “it will tear down the moral fiber of this nation” and is something people “have to deal with every day” as “fortunately we don’t have to deal with a terrorist attack every day.”

Kern has also warned that greater rights for gays and lesbians will lead to approval of bestiality and pedophilia and is nostalgic for the time when homosexuality was illegal.

With such a severely anti-gay record, it comes as no surprise that she has endorsed Rick Santorum right before the Oklahoma primary, and that the Santorum campaign is promoting her endorsement.

But Kern isn’t Santorum’s only radical backer.

The Santorum campaign is also playing up his support from Bobbi Radeck of Concerned Women for America Ohio, whose claim to fame is working against the “homosexualists” behind the anti-bullying, anti-suicide Day of Silence:

The Day of Silence, which is sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), is only two days away. GLSEN's Day of Silence, which began on college campuses and has now infiltrated middle schools, exploits anti-bullying sentiment to undermine the belief that homosexual acts are immoral. GLSEN shamelessly exploits teen suicide in order to create a climate of hysteria which they can then exploit to falsely impute culpability for teen suicide to conservative moral beliefs. GLSEN's end game is the eradication of conservative moral beliefs and the creation of a social and political climate in which it is impossible to express them. Their cultural vehicle of choice for this radical social experiment is public education. What a strategic coup for homosexualists: use our money to capture the hearts and minds of our children.

And we do virtually nothing. Our complacence makes us complicit in the damage done to our children and our culture. Moreover, we teach our children by example to be cowardly conformists. It's time to resist and there's no easier way to resist than to call your children out of school on the Day of Silence.

Parents and Guardians: Call your children's middle and high schools and ask if students and/or teachers will be permitted to refuse to speak during class on Friday, April 15. If your administration allows students and/or teachers to refuse to speak during class, call your child out of school. Every student absence costs school districts money. When administrators refuse to listen to reason and when they allow the classroom to be exploited for political purposes, parents must take action. If they don't, the politicization of the classroom and curricula will increase.

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Please call your children out of school if your administration permits students to refuse to speak on the Day of Silence. For further information, including parental instructions and a sample calling out letter, click here.

Last week, President Obama issued an apology after NATO mistakenly burned copies of the Quran, which not only set off riots in Afghanistan while the apology predictably outraged Republicans here at home.

Today, Rep. Trent Franks joined Tony Perkins and Tim Wildmon on the "Today's Issues" radio program, where all three voiced their disgust with President Obama, whom they accused of undermining the troops while appeasing the enemy.

Franks was so incensed that he even managed to compare Obama's apology for this incident to his push for contraception coverage in health insurance, saying Obama has no problem about blatantly insulting and assaulting Catholics while groveling before Muslim.  Franks then went on to warn Catholics that if Obama is willing to "crush under foot their religious freedom in an election year, God help us when he gets re-elected ... because you ain't seen nothing yet":

Washington Times columnist Jeffrey Kuhner, who has already dubbed President Obama an anti-Christian Leninist and called for civil disobedience to fight his administration, today writes that Obama’s support for environmental protection shows that he has “embraced radical environmentalism – a form of neo-paganism,” and is “behaving like a quasi-religious zealot.” Kuhner was responding to the claims of Rick Santorum, along with other Religious Right leaders, who contend that support for defending the environment somehow hurts humans and is its own religion. “The green movement - exemplified by the hoax of man-made global warming - has degenerated into a pseudo-religion,” Kuhner maintains, “Environmentalists worship Gaia, Mother Earth, turning it into a secular goddess.”

He goes on to argue that Obama is not a “real Christian” who “has nothing but contempt for traditional Christianity and the family,” as seen in his support for gay and reproductive rights. “Mr. Obama has declared war on our Judeo-Christian culture,” Kuhner concludes, “The path is laid for a soft authoritarian nanny state.”

Mr. Santorum’s larger point is that Mr. Obama and his liberal allies have embraced radical environmentalism - a form of neo-paganism. The green movement - exemplified by the hoax of man-made global warming - has degenerated into a pseudo-religion. Environmentalists worship Gaia, Mother Earth, turning it into a secular goddess. Hence, they believe industrial civilization must be subordinated to a green socialist agenda. This is why Mr. Obama has dramatically strengthened the Environmental Protection Agency, favors cap-and-trade legislation, prevents most oil drilling along the Gulf Coast and in Alaska, and nixed the Keystone XL pipeline project. Mr. Santorum rightly argues that Mr. Obama’s green “theology” trumps the economic interests of Americans; the president is behaving like a quasi-religious zealot. True.

Yet Mr. Santorum should have done more than just attack Mr. Obama’s extreme environmentalism. Instead, when confronted by liberal hostility, the Republican social conservative retreated. The record is clear and obvious: The president is more a radical secular progressive than a real Christian. He has more in common with Vladimir Lenin than Jesus Christ.

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Mr. Obama is a radical leftist. Like all such extremists, he has nothing but contempt for traditional Christianity and the family. During the 2008 campaign, he decried Americans who “cling to guns or religion.” He supported partial-birth abortion - infanticide. As a state senator, he voted for legislation allowing doctors to kill viable babies born during botched abortions. He has embedded federal funding of abortion in Obamacare. In other words, devout Christians - as well as Orthodox Jews and Muslims - must subsidize with their taxpayer dollars a practice they find morally abhorrent. He refuses to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act. He has enabled homosexuals to openly serve in the military - significantly advancing the “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender” agenda. He is now mandating that health insurers for nearly all religious organizations provide their employees with free contraception and sterilization procedures - including the morning-after pill. This is a direct assault upon the Catholic Church, conscience rights and religious freedom.

Mr. Obama has declared war on our Judeo-Christian culture. He understands the economic transformation of America cannot take place without a government-imposed social revolution: Smash religion and the family - the key institutions of civil society - and the restraints upon the federal leviathan are removed. The path is laid for a soft authoritarian nanny state. The president acts as if he is hell-bent on eradicating Christianity from the public square.