Fighting the Right

For nearly two years now, Janet Porter has been focused entirely on seeing passage in Ohio of a radical piece of anti-choice legislation known as the "Heartbeat Bill" and been organizing a variety of stunts and promotions designed to pressure Ohio legislators to pass it, including flooding their offices with heart-shaped balloons and teddy bears and even scheduling a fetus to "testify" on behalf of the bill. But last month Senate President Thomas Niehaus finally got fed up with Porter's antics and announced that the Heartbeat Bill was dead.

But Porter had only grown more determined, refusing to give up and instead upping the pressure with more rallies while targeting specific state legislators with postcards and newspaper ads [PDF].

Today, Porter organized yet another press conference where she stood next to a giant inflatable rhinoceros and declared that, if the Ohio Senate failed to pass her legislation before leaving for summer recess, it would be "open season on RINOS," by which she means "Republicans In Name Only, " which is what she is calling Senate Republicans who are refusing to allow a vote on the bill.

Porter has literally done nothing but pressure these legislators to pass this bill for years without success, yet now she is boldly declaring that everything she has done so far "is nothing compared to what we're going to do" if the legislation does not get a vote before recess, as she will be left with no choice but to run ads comparing these Republicans not to RINOS but - the horror! - to Democrats:

Janet Parshall in 2010 narrated a right-wing “documentary” about the “Green Dragon” menace, where Religious Right activists said that environmentalists do not believe in science but superstition, calling environmentalism its own anti-Christian religion. Yesterday, Parshall’s radio show was devoted to exposing the supposedly sinister origins of environmental science with guest Mark Musser, whose works include: “The Nazi Origins of Apocalyptic Global Warming Theory”; “Green Lebensraum: The Nazi Roots of Sustainable Development”; “Enviro-Baalism-Fascism” and “Nazi Oaks: The Green Sacrificial Offering of the Judeo-Christian Worldview in the Holocaust.”

Essentially, Musser’s main argument on Parshall’s program was that evolution, animal rights and environmentalism were the main forces behind Nazi thought and dehumanization of non-Aryan groups. He told Parshall that environmentalism inevitably leads to fascism and tyranny, and warns that the U.S. may be destroyed like ancient Israel if American society embraces environmentalism:

With environmentalism, especially the radical version of it—you know we used to have conservationism in America with Teddy Roosevelt and these people—but now environmentalism has taken over and nature is the most important thing. So you have to adjust everything to nature. Nature is viewed as a holistic tyrant, so to speak, and holism really teaches tyranny. Fascism is all connected here. You have to bow everything to nature’s holistic inter-relatedness and you can’t buck anything with regards to what nature does. This is the problem with environmentalism and why it’s so dangerous, because it becomes your tyrant.

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Israel would be the example of this originally, as they were commanded to go in and subdue the promise land and fill it and that’s what they did and for a while it was a good land, then these other things came in, environmentalism came in and destroyed their culture, what I call the Baalism, the nature worship, instead of worshiping the Creator they worshiped nature and this led to the destruction of their society. I think the same things are happening in our own country today too. We have this nature-worship now that is infiltrating our society, infiltrating Christianity too, and it is bringing us down and it is something that people need to be wary of. There is a dark path to this whole environmental discussion that people need to know.

Back in 2010, Pamela Geller announced the formation of an international “coalition of the free” to stop the supposed “overthrow of our western civilization” by Muslims. One of the groups Geller said she is working with is SIO Norway (Stop the Islamization of Norway), and today the leader of SIO Norway testified in court to bolster the defense of Anders Behrin Breivik, the Norwegian right-wing terrorist who murdered scores of Norwegians at a left-wing youth retreat and bombed a government building:

Norwegian right-wing extremists decried the "Islamisation" of their country as they took the stand Tuesday in what Anders Behring Breivik's defence hopes will help prove he was sane when he killed 77 people in Norway last year.

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Earlier, Arne Tumyr, who heads the organisation Stop the Islamisation of Norway, virulently attacked Islam, which he described as "a religion of violence, a religion of wars", and the Muslim Prophet Mohamed, who he called "a sexual delinquent, a looter of caravans, an assassin, a war criminal."

"We consider Islam as a threat to the Norwegian society and values," he said, claiming for instance that a daycare centre had been forced to remove a reference to Piglet, Winnie-the-Pooh's friend, so as not to offend Muslim children.

Although the witnesses expressed views similar to Breivik's, none of them openly supported his attacks.

Following objections from lawyers for survivors and family members of Breivik's victims, defence lawyer Geir Lippestad insisted the testimony was necessary to show that his client was sane.

"Our aim is not to argue in favour of a political opinion but to show that the way the accused views the world is shared by others," he stressed.

Breivik, 33, is intent on proving his sanity to ensure that his ideology -- described as a crusade against multiculturalism and a pending "Muslim invasion" of Norway and Europe -- not be written off as the rantings of a lunatic.

Geller had blamed the Norway attacks on Muslims, and Breivik cited Geller twelve times in his manifesto. After it came out that Breivik, not radical Islamists, were behind the atrocities, Geller then attacked the victims for their political views and diverse racial makeup.

Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness talked to James Dobson today on Family Talk about the expansion of the roles of women service members and the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which they warned will have horrific ramifications. Donnelly, who has warned that allowing women in combat roles and gays to serve openly will lead to the military’s downfall, told Dobson that the culture of the military is in grave jeopardy due to the “process of diversifying and imposing LGBT agendas,” maintaining that “the civil rights movement is being co-opted by the advocates of diversity, by advocates of the LGBT equality group.”

The new concept of inclusion is a radical departure from the military’s honorable tradition of recognizing individual merit. In fact the armed forces were way ahead of the civilian world in recognizing individual merit regardless of race, regardless of gender even, but the way we’re going now, the civil rights movement is being co-opted by the advocates of diversity, by advocates of the LGBT equality group. There are a lot of influences under the current president who unfortunately are in the driver seat in the Pentagon and they are making some serious problems here. Can it change? Yes, the military is resilient, but right now people have got to become aware, first of all, of what’s happening and secondly, figure out a way to do something about it.

I think every major conservative cause there is has taken a beating in the last several years, whether it’s health care, whether it’s the economy, our banking system, all kinds of things have been seriously harmed in the last three years. So are we going to give up on all of that? No, I certainly hope not, not as Americans. But the military is different because it’s the only military we have. If you cause problems in education, you can always homeschool; you can go to a different school system, if you don’t like your state you can move to another state; but if something is wrong with the culture of the military—Reagan had an easy job with it, all he had to do was rebuild the ships and the planes and the hardware—but rebuilding the culture of the military after we go through this process of diversifying and imposing LGBT agendas and lowering standards to accommodate it all, this is going to be more difficult.

Earlier this year, a Ugandan gay rights group sued notorious anti-gay activist Scott Lively in US court for allegedly violating international law over his role in Uganda's proposed "Kill The Gays" bill.

Shortly thereafter, the notorious anti-gay activists at Liberty Counsel stepped up to represent  Lively  and on today's installment of "Faith and Freedom," Matt Barber and Harry Mihet explained that they were doing so because Lively is really a courageous hero who ought to be commended for the kingdom's work that he has been doing but who has become instead the victim of violence from gay activists:

Today on Jay Sekulow Live, Rep. Jeff Landry (R-LA) discussed with the American Center for Law and Justice’s Chief Counsel an amicus brief that the ACLJ is putting together on behalf of the congressman in the lawsuit against the Obama administration’s mandate for health insurance plans to include contraception coverage. Landry maintained that the Obama administration is showing its “hypocrisy” by mandating that religiously-affiliated hospitals and universities cover contraception in their health insurance plans while also “granting special status or waivers to Muslims as they go through TSA screenings.”

The congressman’s allegation that the Obama administration is giving Muslim passengers “special rights as they go through the TSA screening” doesn’t seem to have any basis in reality, as the TSA on its website gives no mention of religious exemptions and TSA administrator John Pistole testified that anyone who wants to avoid a pat down based on religious reasons is “not going to get on an airplane.”

Sekulow: How big of a deal, how big of an issue is this both in the body politics [sic] and among your constituents?

Landry: Down here in south Louisiana this is huge, this is very important to my constituency. I think the biggest problems that a lot of Americans are having out there is the hypocrisy of this administration. Remember, this is an administration who has no problem granting special status or waivers to Muslims as they go through TSA screenings. Look, as they believe that there is a need to grant them special rights as they go through the TSA screening based upon their religion, that’s fine, I’m ok with that. But then don’t turn around and attack Christians when they stand up and say ‘listen, we believe that the policies you’re putting in place violate our religious freedoms as well.

Landry warned that if the contraception mandate, which he called a “dangerous” exercise of power, is upheld then there will be “no limit to what the federal government can do”:

This strikes at the very foundation of freedom of religion and freedom of conscience, if we allow the federal government to violate this principle there is no limit to what the federal government can do thereafter.

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To me this is one of the biggest cases brought forth in the country in a long, long time. I got to tell you, my hat’s off to the Catholic bishops around America, they have gotten to the point where they understand that this exercise that is going on with the federal government is a dangerous one. If they allow this to happen, if we allow this to happen as Americans, as Catholics, as Christians, there is no limit to where the government goes from here. You know, Jay, to me that is the biggest danger, that should be the biggest concern, I mean where does it stop after this?

Recently, Tony Perkins and Harry Jackson sat down for a half-hour interview with CBN's David Brody to discuss President Obama's support for marriage equality and what it will mean for the 2012 election.

Brody has posted the entire interview on his blog, in which Perkins compared the issue of gay marriage to the issue of abortion, declaring that Americans will never accept the legitimacy of gay marriage, regardless of what the courts rule, because "same-sex marriage violates reason and natural law" and warning that any Supreme Court ruling upholding the legality of gay marriage will "create great unrest in this society": 

For his part, Jackson saw the President's statement as an opportunity to create a new "Black-Brown coalition" among African Americans and Hispanics rooted in opposition to the Democratic Party's growing support for gay rights and fueled by resentment against gay activists who are trying to push minorities to the back of the line. 

Jackson said comparisons between the push for gay rights and the struggle for civil rights are nonsense because systematic discrimination and violence against the gay community "never happened" and warned that if African Americans and Hispanics don't escape the "Democratic Party plantation," then "America's best days are over": 

On Friday's installment of "Prophetic Perspective on Current Events," Rick Joyner warned that "we are close to having race riots in America" and that the racial tensions created by the Trayvon Martin shooting are giving "the enemy" an opportunity to unleash massive death and destruction in this country.

Explaining that racism "empowers the spirit of death," Joyner pointed to Nazism and Japanese atrocities during World War II as proof of what can happen and warned that, if it takes hold in America, "there will be a whole lot more death and a whole lot more destruction than the last time": 

Southern Baptist Convention’s chief “ethicist” Richard Land signed off from his weekly radio broadcast on Saturday without mentioning why he was leaving the show. He simply stated that his program is ending “due to a variety of circumstances” and asked people to pray for a “spiritual reformation” in America. Land lost his show due to his racially-insensitive tirade about the Trayvon Martin shooting, which he vowed to never apologize for until he eventually did, and for plagiarizing commentaries on his show, including part of his remarks about the Martin.

While the SBC trustees reviewing Land’s radio show said that plagiarism was one of the “practices that occur in the radio industry,” even Religious Right talk show host Steve Deace said in an interview with The Tennessean that plagiarism is not common practice on radio shows, contradicting the trustees’ claims:

Trustees claim that Land was following practices that are common in the talk radio industry.

But Steve Deace, a syndicated Christian radio host from Des Moines, Iowa, said that’s not the case.

He said that radio hosts sometimes hear other people’s turns of phrases and repeat them when talking about issues. But they don’t read word for word from other people’s work.

If a host does that, then listeners will eventually catch them at it.

“They are going to know if you are lifting stuff from people,” he said.

Blogger Aaron Weaver, who first caught instances of Land’s plagiarism, pointed out that Land not only didn’t cite the authors of the articles but was actually “adding extra comments and using different adjectives” to pass commentaries off as his own. Indeed, when he initially defended his racially-charged rant regarding the Trayvon Martin shooting, Land never mentioned in his non-apology that he was reading from a Kuhner column.

Weaver and Robert Parham of the Baptist Center for Ethics think the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which Land leads, should have been tougher on Land, especially considering the fact that Land teaches at a university where students who commit plagiarism can be expelled:

Weaver, a graduate student at Baylor University who blogs at thebigdaddyweave.com, said that trustees were wrong when they said the plagiarism was a result of “carelessness and poor judgment.”

“He wasn’t being careless,” he said. “This was intentional.”

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Robert Parham of the Nashville-based Baptist Center for Ethics said that Land’s radio show should have been canceled years ago. He said that the show was more about politics than about religion or ethics.

Allowing Land to keep his job, despite the plagiarism, sends the wrong message, said Parham.

Along with being the head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Land also teaches regularly at Baptist seminaries.

“Allowing Land to continue as an SBC official — without even an unpaid leave of absence — will create a banquet of distasteful consequences for the Southern Baptists when it comes to how seminaries deal with students who plagiarize papers and how churches deal with pastors who plagiarize sermons.”