Inspired by a suggestion from a listener, Bryan Fischer hit upon a brilliant idea on yesterday's radio program: using health care reform to mandate that everyone attend church and assess a tax on all those who don't.
As Fischer explained, "people who have an active, vibrant spiritual life are healthier" and since "Obamacare is all about improving the health of the American people," we ought to "mandate that you go to church for your own health and we are going to tax the atheists who don't go to church":
On her radio show Tuesday, Janet Mefferd warned listeners who tuned in that they might vomit like a sick child with a stomach ache over the story they were about to hear…about Anderson Cooper coming out of the closet. While Mefferd noted that Cooper’s sexual orientation was no real secret, she was most upset about an article by Baptist minister and Huffington Post Religious Editor Paul Brandeis Raushenbush’s reflecting on Cooper’s statement that “the ability to love another person is one of God's greatest gifts, and I thank God every day for enabling me to give and share love with the people in my life.”
After spending time quoting from Raushenbush’s column, she warned that greater acceptance of “neo-pagan” homosexuality will ultimately lead to the de-stigmatization of pedophilia and a return to the sexual mores of Ancient Rome, cautioning that “Jerry Sandusky thirty years from now may be a normal thing.” “You already have pedophiles who are trying to be normalized at the American Psychological Association, I think that’s the name of it, they’ve succeeded in having homosexuality removed from the playbook as some sort of disorder,” Mefferd said, “and now they’re working on pedophilia and I’m sure they’ll be successful because that’s where it is all headed.”
She concluded by telling Cooper that he “did receive from God an ability to love, but not that kind of love,” which she claims is a “a lie from the pit” of Hell:
I don’t know about you, when your kids are sick like mine sometimes are and they’ll come down in the middle of the night, ‘mommy I have a stomach ache,’ I always give them the same words of advice, ‘get a bucket, put a little bit of water in it and put it next to your bed and that way if that upset stomach does what it might do, you’ll be prepared.’ So in that vein I would like to give you the same advice, given what I’m about to talk about you might want to get yourself a bucket with a little water in it and that way if you feel a little sick and it manifests itself in a physical way you’ll be prepared. I wasn’t going to even talk about this but I can’t resist because this has got to be the neo-pagan story of the day. Did you know—I know this isn’t going to be a shock to you—Anderson Cooper is gay. I know, what a shock, I’m reeling from this news, I had no idea, yes I’m being sarcastic. But there is something very funny about this because Paul Brandeis Raushenbush over at the Huffington Post has a headline on his story about Anderson Cooper, the CNN anchor, announcing that he is gay and it says “Fact is.. Anderson Cooper Thanks God He’s Gay.”
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If this were pagan, Ancient Rome, Jerry Sandusky wouldn’t have been in trouble at all because homosexuality and man-boy love was so common and so accepted that outrage would’ve been inconceivable. It is only the vestiges of Christianity in our culture that give people the moral framework by which you can look at a Sandusky and feel revolted. And you know what the way we are going, Jerry Sandusky thirty years from now may be a normal thing. You already have pedophiles who are trying to be normalized at the American Psychological Association, I think that’s the name of it, they’ve succeeded in having homosexuality removed from the playbook as some sort of disorder and now they’re working on pedophilia and I’m sure they’ll be successful because that’s where it is all headed.
Anderson Cooper did receive from God an ability to love, but not that kind of love. That’s not love, it’s not love. All you need to do is go back to Romans Chapter 1. This is an absolute pagan expression that has twisted love beyond recognition and turned it into something that is not God’s design at all. This is a lie from the pit, and we must oppose it. And unfortunately, we have so-called evangelicals getting on this train to nowhere.
Lou Engle is redoubling his efforts at building a prayer movement to stop the “homosexual tornado” before it destroys America, and told members of The Ramp, an anti-gay youth ministry, that he had dreams of 100,000 gays and lesbians becoming part of a “first wave” of ex-gay preachers who will bring about “radical salvations and healings of AIDS.” He led a prayer for “asking God to loose a movement, a divine breakthrough, 100,000 gay and lesbian men and women, loose a sound that DC can’t contend with, loose a sound that the media can’t contend with, overflow the media with the sound of revival.”
While addressing the Alabama-based youth ministry group, The Ramp, Lou Engle urged the audience to go see “The Avengers” in order to learn about how to fight demons: “The Avengers is a must-see for spiritual warfare.” “I want to be the Hulk,” Engle declared, “I was so moved in that movie when the music’s going and Hulk’s coming—boom, boom—I start weeping in the movie I am so moved by the Holy Spirit, now you really think I’m crazy.”
Last year, the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer created a bit of controversy when he wrote a piece claiming that the Native Americans deserved to be wiped out by European Christian settlers because they were "steeped in the basest forms of superstition, had been guilty of savagery in warfare for hundreds of years, and practiced the most debased forms of sexuality."
The AFA quickly removed Fischer's piece, with Fischer claiming that his critics were just "not mature enough" to handle the truth. In defending his view, Fischer offered a rather telling insight into his worldview when he warned that it was necessary to view the establishment of this nation and the related treatment of Native Americans as sanctioned by God, otherwise we are essentially admitting that "the entire American experiment is rooted in evil":
A lot is at stake here. If Americans believe that the entire history of our nation rests on a horribly evil foundation, then there is nothing to be proud of in American history, and our president is correct to identify America as the source of all evil in the world and to make a career out of apologizing for her very existence.
If, however, there is a moral and ethical basis for our displacement of native American tribes, and if our westward expansion and settlement are in fact consistent with the laws of nature, nature’s God, and the law of nations, then Americans have much to be proud of.
This latter view certainly would not compel us to believe that Americans were never guilty of evil themselves. But saying that America was wrong here, or there, is certainly a different thing than saying that the entire American experiment is rooted in evil.
Since Fischer believes that America was established by God and founded by Christians for Christians, then everything that happened in establishing this nation must be fundamentally godly because to say otherwise is to believe that the nation was founded on evil.
This framework popped up again on Tuesday when Fischer discussed the American Revolution and claimed that it "was not a war of rebellion" because rebellion against governing authorities is a violation of Romans 13:
Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
Since Romans 13 says that all governing authorities have been established by God and that rebellion against them is rebellion against God, it was necessary for Fischer to explain why the American Revolution was not actually a rebellion. And he did that by claiming that once the colonies declared their independence from England, they had formed a new and sovereign government, meaning that the subsequent war that erupted was the result of a foreign power (i.e. England) invading our "sovereign, free, and independent territory":
The next time you hear this sort of pseudo-historical foolishness spread by Fischer or David Barton or any other Religious Right figure and wonder to yourself "how can these people believe this nonense?," just remember that they really have no choice but to believe it because their entire worldview hinges on it.
After the California State Senate and an Assembly committee approved a bill placing limits on sexual orientation conversion therapy, the right-wing group Save California is framing the legislation as an attack on victims of child abuse. Relying on the discredited claim that homosexuality is a result of molestation, Save California is urging members to contact legislators to stop “this horrible bill locking children into homosexual bondage” that will prohibit counseling for those “who have often been molested or raped.” “What lack of love for children suffering from gender confusion disorder, who’ve often been molested and become confused as a result,” the group maintains, including an image stating: “Democrat politicians to molested kids: No help for you.” Led by the virulentlyanti-gayactivistRandy Thomasson, Save California also recently launched a new page, “Not Born This Way” to expose the supposed “myths” about homosexuality.
UPDATE: SB 1172, the Democrats' tyrannical bill banning gender-confusion counseling for minors was skipped over during Monday's floor session of the California State Assembly. But this horrible bill locking children into homosexual bondage could still pass on Thursday, July 5, so it's important that you take a couple minutes right now to oppose it. Leave a recorded message or send an email to your assemblymember.
SB 1172, which has already passed the Senate, would:
1. Ban California parents from seeking counseling for their son or daughter who falsely think they are "homosexual"
2. Penalize licensed counselors who care enough to counsel these gender-confused children, who have often been molested or raped
SB 1172 reads, "Under no circumstances shall a mental health provider engage in sexual orientation change efforts with a patient under 18 years of age, regardless of the willingness of a patient, patient's parent, guardian, conservator, or other person to authorize such efforts."
What an attack on parental rights and on mental health professionals! And what lack of love for children suffering from gender confusion disorder, who've often been molested and become confused as a result. The Democrats pushing this bill on behalf of homosexual activists want to lock children into thinking they are "homosexual," when these kids' gender confusion often results from an attack by a sexual perpetrator.
As Brian noted the other day, phony ex-terrorist Kamal Saleem has been a guest on Liberty Counsel's "Faith and Freedom" radio program where he has been warning that the Muslim Brotherhood is plotting to take over America.
On today's episode, Mat Staver revealed that, according to "two sources" involved in the intelligence community, the Obama administration has implemented an "affirmative action program" to place unqualified Muslims in important national security positions. This revelation prompted Saleem to warn that the administration is also bringing in Muslim students from all over the world and enrolling them in military academies where they are being made ranking officers all as part of an effort by the Muslim Brotherhood to infiltrate and dismantle our civilization:
Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality yesterday appeared on VCY America’s Crosstalk, where he joined Vic Eliason in railing against the supposed “LGBT Tidal Wave” in America. LaBarbera, who earlier tweeted that out CNN anchor Anderson Cooper should stop reporting on LGBT issues, doubled down while speaking to Eliason and a caller, arguing that “his reporting was extremely pro-homosexually biased” and “he shouldn’t be reporting on these homosexuality cases because he’s proven obviously that he is more of a gay activist than an actual reporter.” “So much for CNN,” Eliason lamented.
Caller: We just had another person this morning came out saying he’s gay, Anderson Cooper.
Eliason: He came out? This morning? Well that was no secret.
LaBarbera: And Vic, Anderson Cooper was touted by the homosexuals in their magazines, everybody said he was a homosexual, his reporting was extremely pro-homosexually biased. I think he shouldn’t be reporting on these homosexuality cases because he’s proven obviously that he is more of a gay activist than an actual reporter.
Eliason: Well, so much for CNN.
The two anti-gay activists also went on to decry the presence of police officers at gay pride parades, as LaBarbera claimed that “the police have become the protectors of homosexuality.” He also insisted that such parades are “inappropriate for children” but “the gay family movement is foisting innocence children, forcing innocent children to be exposed to this filth.”
LaBarbera: What other area would you find a parade in which children are all over the place, you know parents are bringing children, and there is this incredibly X-rated homosexual stuff going on, what other area in our society would you find it?
Eliason: And it goes on, I remember some years ago in the city of Milwaukee when they had the gay pride parade and at that time they found sympathy in the chief of police and he assigned the marching band, the police band, to lead the parade down Wisconsin Ave.
LaBarbera: Right, the cops are always at these parades now so the police have become the protectors of homosexuality. Vic, in Chicago here’s another example, in the Chicago parade there was one guy walking down the street, he was Captain Bisexual. There is a Bisexual Flag, as there is a sadomasochism flag by the way, in case you didn’t know, and so Captain Bisexual was waving a big banner that said “Bisexual Justice.” Now has a parent supposed to explain that to a child watching? He sees somebody who looks like a cartoon figure hawking bisexuality. These parades are inappropriate for children. The gay family movement is foisting innocence children, forcing innocent children to be exposed to this filth.
After warning that gay rights will lead to bestiality and the collapse of the United States, Eliason gave Right Wing Watch a shout out and said their appearances on RWW should be considered a “badge of courage”:
Generations with Vision Ministry’s Kevin Swanson, who last month claimed that gay parents are one of the “most devastating things” in the “history of mankind,” on his radio show yesterday portrayed the scandal at Penn State University as a portent of an imminent doom to befall all of western civilization. He also suggested that gays encourage pedophilia, calling it “part and parcel of the homosexual vision,” and advocated for a complete transition to biblical law. More specifically, a reversion to the law practiced in the time of the pilgrims, where ‘homosexual acts’ were punishable by death.
Even Christopher Marlowe and Shakespeare, to some extent, had some writings that were somewhat favorable of homosexuality. Now, homosexuality had not existed for about 1,000 years, between about 300 AD to 1400-1500 AD where certain mentions of it were extant in some of the classical literature of the day, because classical literature tends to bring back homosexuality as the ‘cool thing’, but it hadn’t existed for about 1,000 years. It was, obviously, very very important to humanism, it always has been important to humanism, and whenever you get a humanist, classical approach to education, you’re probably going to get the gymnasium. The gymnasiums were all built around the idea of pederasty and pedophilia.
Now, I don’t want to get into a lot of the details on this, because it’s very very very gross, but they trained young boys in homosexuality. This is part and parcel of the homosexual vision, still is, by the way, to this day. This is the goal, this is where they’re headed, if you read the homosexual literature, which I encourage you not to do, but this is the direction that they’re headed. This is the goal of humanism. The goal of humanism is to make it to Sandusky. The problem is Sandusky was prosecuted and that’s an indication that we’ve got 2,000 years of Christianity, and these guys are not going to get away with it.
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You know, Dave, I think if we’re going to have a halfway decent, stable society, much like what the pilgrims had, with a divorce rate of .01%, fornication rate of 1%, and a homosexuality rate of .0005%, if we’re going to have a stable society, we’re going to have to get back to biblical law.
Under the banner of United For the People, a new web platform launched today to collect and amplify the growing grassroots movement in America that is calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s flawed 2010 decision in Citizens United and restore the balance of influence in our elections to the people.
At www.peoplestestimony.com, the American people, good government organizations and elected officials can record a short video about how their lives are affected by money in politics and the outsized influence in our elections enjoyed by corporations and wealthy special interests – and what we can do about it.
Proposed bill would amend federal criminal law to prohibit deceiving voters about when to vote and the qualifications for voting. It would also prescribe federal criminal penalties for doing so.
Christian publisher Thomas Nelson Inc. is offering a July 4 special, with several books available at the patriotic price of $17.76. Among them is the American Patriot’s Bible, edited by Atlanta-based pastor and Religious Right figure Richard Lee. Nothing could better demonstrate the effort by Religious Right leaders to claim a divine blessing for their political views and their view of America’s founding.
The American Patriot’s Bible attracted some unflattering attention when it came out in 2009. Ethics Daily reported that some critics charged that it “promotes idolatry and glorifies nationalistic violence.” One of those critics was theologian and pastor Greg Boyd, author of The Myth of a Christian Nation, who called the Patriot's Bible "one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever witnessed coming from a Christian publishing house.” Boyd published an in-depth critique that ended this way:
In the Introduction Dr. Richard Lee promises that, "If you love America and the Scriptures, you will treasure this Bible." I truly love America and deeply love the Scriptures, but for just this reason, I was thoroughly appalled by this Bible.
But not everyone was appalled. In 2010, Glenn Beck told viewers that he had a copy of the Patriot’s Bible at home and one at his office and said, “this should be in every person’s home.” Lee was part of Beck’s show on the eve of his “Restoring Honor” rally, and has been active in Religious Right efforts to shape the 2012 campaign and defeat President Barack Obama.
Spending a little time with the Patriot’s Bible makes it clear why the Gingrich campaign invited Lee to serve on its faith leaders coalition during this year’s presidential primary. Religious Right political rhetoric appears in an introduction and in articles sprinkled throughout the Patriot’s Bible. It complains that Supreme Court rulings against requiring prayer and Bible readings in the public schools amounted to “censoring religious activities long considered an integral part of education.”
On abortion: “If people and nations do not grant ultimate respect and protection to both the born and the unborn, all other professed morals and values are meaningless.”
On marriage: “The plan of God, nature, and common sense is a man and a woman producing children within the institution of marriage. What that plan is lost, “marriage” and “family” become meaningless, and a nation and its people will follow the road to ruin….”
The American Patriot’s Bible also promotes Religious Right propaganda about the supposed threat to religious liberty in America:
Our freedom to serve God and to promote the gospel in our land is disintegrating. We are engaged in a great spiritual battle that threatens our county, our families, and our lives. Only God’s intervention will return America to solid footing and restore a moral nation that righteousness will exalt.
And, for those who keep hoping that the Religious Right is going to fade away:
When fighting for the right, we must never cease until we prevail. The battle is not always won by the strongest, the smartest, or the most elite, but ultimately it comes to those who persist and persevere.
The formal complaints against the American Legislative Exchange Council are mounting. A group of clergy in Columbus, OH have filed a complaint with the IRS alleging that ALEC violated its tax-exempt status by “significantly misrepresenting its activities to the IRS, the states, and the public in order to advance a legislative agenda — an agenda largely crafted by the organization’s corporate members — that elevates commercial gain for a few over the well-being of society’s less fortunate.”
ALEC is an ultra-conservative organization that works to shepherd pro-corporate, lobbyist-drafted bills into model legislation to be introduced in statehouses around the nation. Their extreme agenda seeks to bolster corporate profits by privatizing public resources, defunding public education, damaging the environment and attacking working families.
As such, Clergy Voice, composed of 18 pastors from mainstream Christian churches, believes that such an organization has no right to the same tax status reserved for charitable organizations:
“It has angered a lot of us that there is this group of the big and powerful in terms of industries and the extremely wealthy that is courting legislators to pass cookie-cutter legislation that really favors their particular interests,” said the Rev. Eric Williams, spokesman for the group and pastor of North Congregational United Church of Christ on the Northwest Side.
Earlier this year, Common Cause submitted a similar whistleblower complaint against ALEC to the IRS.
In March, Kyle reported that Rick Scarborough of Vision America was launching a new effort, 40 Days to Save America, to rally conservative voters before the November election and stop the “daily deluge of sinful activity”:
We fully understand and are grateful for the fact that America was birthed first in your heart. We acknowledge that America has been a blessed nation above all the nations of the world. Hallelujah!
But we also acknowledge that we have forgotten as a people that it was you and your laws that made this country the land of freedom and opportunity that has been the envy of the world for more than two hundred years. Dear Lord, forgive us of our pride and apathy that has allowed men to call good, evil; and evil, good. We acknowledge that we have grown calloused to the daily deluge of sinful activity, degradation and speaking that has become the routine in American life, and we repent.
Reignite our love for purity and holiness, and create in us a will to initiate the changes in our society that will allow you to once again bless our beloved America.
Scarborough is now unveiling endorsements of the effort from Senator Roy Blunt and Congressmen Todd Akin, Doug Lamborn, Duncan Hunter and Louie Gohmert, and major Religious Right groups like the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, Liberty Counsel, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and the Family Research Council. Dominionist organizations including Lou Engle’s The Call and Cindy Jacobs’ Generals International have also signed on, along with Janet Porter’s Faith2Action, Jerry Boykin’s Kingdom Warriors, Sam Roriguez’s National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and Jim Garlow’s Renewing American Leadership.
The board of directors appears to be a who’s who of leading conservative activists and pastors:
David Bereit
40 Days for Life
General Jerry Boykin
Kingdom Warriors
Dave Butts
Harvest Prayer Ministries
Dr. Jim Garlow
Renewing American Leadership
Bishop Anne Gimenez
Rock Church, Virginia Beach, VA
Bishop Harry Jackson
Hope Christian Church
Dr. Robert Jeffress
First Baptist Church, Dallas, TX
Penny Nance
Concerned Women for America
Father Frank Pavone
Priests for Life
Tony Perkins
Family Research Council
Rev. Samuel Rodriguez
National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference
Kamal Saleem has promulgated some of thecraziestandwildconspiracies so it is difficult to take thephony“ex-terrorist” seriously, but since Religious Right leaders continue to rely on the hoaxer for their anti-Muslim activism, he can’t be easily ignored. Liberty Counsel chairman Mat Staver hosted Saleem on Faith & Freedom this week where he maintained that radical Muslims are plotting to takeover America’s religious, education, medical, financial and political fields until “Islam will be the only religion that will be practiced in the United States of America and the White House and all this will be Islamist”:
The invasion that we are seeing today, it’s mandated by their own Sharia law, that they have to do so and the way that they are here today in the United States of America they have infiltrated to every level. The head of the Muslim Brotherhood said we are not here to be equal to the American people or to their belief but to be the highest order, where Islam will be the only religion that will be practiced in the United States of America and the White House and all this will be Islamist. In doing so, what happened is the agenda is to infiltrate the highest rank of this government, the political arena, the education arena, the banking arena, the medical arena, all the other facets of what make America, America. With this they have penetrated the religious sector and they have penetrated also the government today, Islamist lobbyists are bringing billions of dollars to our government and buying politics, and you know, politicians. The education system has been shifted because now the Islamic centers are being opened specifically in all the Ivy League universities in the United States of America to create the curriculum for our students from kindergarten all the way to university level.
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Nobody is stopping them, you know, in this current political time and leadership. So therefore what happened is that’s why they are advancing in many different ways, specifically in the education, where they are changing the future, and also in the medical arena where they are concentrating on changing and bringing all the natural resources in America to be owned by Islamists so there will be co-dependency on Muslim power.
Bryan Fischer has dedicated almost every minute of his program since the Supreme Court upheld the health care reform legislation last week to railing against it and has been growing increasingly outraged and apocalyptic with every passing day.
The trend continued yesterday when Fischer seized upon an old Brietbart article about a survey conducted by a Tea Party-affiliated group called the Doctor Patient Medical Association Foundation that supposedly found that 83% of doctors are thinking about quitting the practice of medicine and nearly half would stop accepted Medicaid/Medicare patients because of the changes in legislation.
As such, Fischer declared, President Obama was going to have to create an army of "enforcers," "Stormtroopers," and "Medical Nazis" to go around forcing doctors to remain in business and ordering them to provide treatment to patients:
PFAW staff and supporters welcomed home the Nuns on the Bus as they arrived in Washington, DC following a two-week tour through nine states. The Catholic sisters went on tour to stand in solidarity with those living in poverty and to push back against the Ryan Budget, which further enriches the wealthiest Americans while slashing vital programs that help our neediest citizens.
The nuns drove through nine states to help spread the word about how the Ryan Budget, which passed the House this year, harms the most vulnerable American families, and does so -- in the words of the nuns -- in violation of Catholic teaching.
Speakers at this afternoon’s rally condemned those in Congress who voted to perpetuate a political system that benefits the privileged few at the expense of the many, limits participation in our democracy in order to maintain an established system that protects the powerful and fails to show compassion for all people. They coined the slogan “Reasonable Revenue for Responsible Programs – the Faithful Way Forward” to illustrate the priorities they would like to see adopted by Congress to help make our communities and country more just for all.
At their annual conference in Orlando, the U.S. Conference of Mayors unanimously passed a resolution in opposition to the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, which opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate and special interest spending on elections. Citing Justice John Paul Stevens and the dissenters in the Citizens United case, the mayors’ resolution declares the need to “broaden the corruption rationale for campaign finance reform to facilitate regulation of independent expenditures regardless of the source of the money for this spending, for or against a candidate.” Finding compelling “fundamental interests” in “creating a level playing field and ensuring that all citizens, regardless of wealth, have an opportunity to have their political views heard,” the Conference of Mayors resolves that corporations should not receive the same legal rights as natural persons and that “urgent action” be taken to reverse the impacts of Citizens United in opening the door to unlimited independent campaign expenditures by corporations that undermines “free and fair elections and effective self-governance.”
The resolution calls on other communities, jurisdictions and organizations to pass similar resolutions. So far over, over 250 municipalities have already passed resolutions calling for amending the Constitution to overturn Citizens United and related cases and returning the power to influence our elections to the people. And more than 1600 public officials have gone on record in support of constitutional remedies to overturn the decision. More than 100 organizations have come together under the umbrella of United For the People to press for amending the Constitution to address the harm caused by Citizens United and related cases.
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