• Jeremy Hooper: NOM's Ruth Institute claimed it had Chicago Bears' support; was intercepted; fumbled.
• Matt Gertz @ Media Matters: NY Times Hides Extremism Of Fringe Gun Lobby Group.
• Rob Boston @ Wall of Separation: Profiting The Prophet?: Tenn. Legislators Fear Voucher Bill Will Subsidize Islamic Schools.
• Adam Serwer @ Mother Jones: Cuccinelli Campaign Won't Say If He's Committed Any Crimes Against Nature.
• Warren Throckmorton: Author endorsed by David Barton claims founding of America was prophesied in Genesis.
• Aviva Shen @ Think Progress: Head Of Gun Organization: ‘Time To Hunt Democrats.’

• It is pretty entertaining to see the Religious Right ripping Bill O'Reilly for his arrogance and ignorance, especially since they only seem to have discovered it once he upset them.
• Case in point, Bill Keller has issued a $10,000 challenge to O'Reilly to debate him.
• To hear Mat Staver and Matt Barber describe it, The Awakening Conference is just about the most important thing ever.
• Speaking of Staver, he received the Faith Community Leader of the Year Award at the Weyrich Awards Dinner, which is a good reminder that radical Religious Right anti-gay voices are regularly honored within the movement.
• Finally, and on a related note, Steve Deace takes on "laughabe gay marriage cliches" like "homosexuality is in nature so it’s natural" by declaring "there’s also the licking of one’s own genitals, the flinging of one’s own feces, and the eating of live prey and then vomiting it back up to feed your offspring in nature, too."

PFAW’s recent Right Wing Watch in Focus report on opposition to more effective regulation of guns noted that promoting conspiracy theories is a primary strategy used by extremists to block common sense policies.  New evidence comes in the form of a recent email from Sen. Rand Paul raising money for the National Association for Gun Rights, a group that is so far out there it thinks the National Rifle Association has gone soft.

Rand Paul’s letter uses inflammatory rhetoric to push the conspiracy theory that registration of guns and requiring background checks for gun purposes – which is supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans, including gun owners – is just a prelude to “confiscation” by the “gun-grabbers.”

And make no mistake, the gun-grabbers’ TRUE motives behind gun registration is always the same -- outright gun CONFISCATION, and to do that they must first register every gun and gun owner.

Another letter Paul signed for the group argues that President Obama is working to empower United Nations bureaucrats to confiscate Americans’ guns:

I don't know about you, but watching anti-American globalists plot against our Constitution makes me sick.

PFAW’s report on opposition to addressing gun violence notes that there are real consequences to the promotion of conspiracy theories by elected officials:

It is also true that the failure to challenge extremist and dishonest rhetoric can lead to damaging consequences for our common public life.  The promotion of false conspiracy theories, the claims by public figures that their political opponents are out to destroy freedom and America itself, and the false equation of sensible, broadly supported laws with the elimination of the rights of hunters and other gun owners, can foster a dangerous extremism, including threats of violence.

One of Rand Paul’s letters refers to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s bill restricting ownership of assault weapons as “the effective END of the Second Amendment in America.”

I can hardly even think about what a DISASTER for our country it would be should President Obama, Senator Feinstein and their anti-gun pals succeed in ramming this monstrosity down our throats.

An earlier alert from the National Association for Gun Rights was labeled: “Obama declares war.”

Why is Rand Paul raising money for these guys?

It is always fun to watch Religious Right leaders say one thing when speaking to right-wing audiences and then something completely different while speaking to mainstream ones. It is even more fun to see what happens when they get called out on it.

Take for example Fred Luter, the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

As we reported last week, Luter told End Times radio host Rick Wiles that he doesn’t think it is a coincidence that North Korea’s military threats are coming at the same time the US debates marriage equality and allowing gays to join the Boy Scouts.

During an interview with Anderson Cooper, however, Luter quickly backtracked.

Luter claimed he told Wiles that he didn’t “think there’s any connection” between North Korea’s threats and gay equality but had to backtrack after Cooper played the recording of Luter saying exactly that.

After Cooper confronted Luter about his claim that a favorable decision on marriage equality from the Supreme Court may lead to America’s “destruction” a la Sodom and Gomorrah, Luter again tried to backpedal. Luter said that homosexuality is a sin comparable to abortion, gun violence and racism, but then told Cooper that he does not believe that homosexuality is a sin on par with gun violence.

Buster Wilson of the American Family Association is no stranger to spreading anti-government conspiracy theories on his radio show, even sharing them with listeners who threaten President Obama’s life.

On his show this Tuesday, Wilson lauded a caller who said that “our boys will never use force against our own country but they will use it to protect this country and Obama, look out,” and went on to once again promote the Oath Keepers, of which he is a member:

At another point of his show, Wilson received a call from someone who wondered if he should “shoot somebody who is going to come in my house” and take his weapons.

Wilson, rather than give the obvious answer that it is not ok to kill federal authorities, responded by telling the caller that he is “neutral” on whether it is appropriate for someone “to shoot down United States Marshals when they come to take our weapons.”

Caller: I’ve got some information, what you guys were saying, about the government buying millions of rounds of ammunition and Homeland Security buying these 2,700 assault vehicles that are supposed to be for homeland security and what goes through my mind immediately, looking at the fools that are running our country, what am I going to do when they come to my house and say: ‘We want to come in.’ ‘What did I do wrong?’ ‘Nothing, we want to look and see.’ ‘No, you’re not coming in my house.’ Am I willing to protect my home and my family and my constitutional rights because I know where I’m going when I die, but am I willing to shoot somebody who wants to come in my house and basically devastate — if they can take your weapons they can come in and take your wife or your children or whatever.

Wilson: I appreciate that and I’m going to comment on what you said. You and I right now are talking about things at the level of anarchy. I want to tell you what I don’t want to do on this program; I don’t want to have a discussion about how we are ready, willing and able to shoot down United States Marshals when they come to take our weapons. I’m not saying you wouldn’t do that or you shouldn’t do that, I’m just staying neutral on that right now. But I don’t want to talk about it because if our society breaks down that far then we are really in trouble.

Yet again, Liberty Counsel dedicated its "Faith and Freedom" radio program today to warning about the dire consequences that would result if the Supreme Court recognizes the constitutionality of marriage equality, with Mat Staver proclaiming that not only would it undermine religious freedom, but "a major disruption to our society [and] the beginning of the end of America":

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus has hailed Mike Huckabee as “a model for a lot of people in our party” on how to discuss topics such as marriage equality and abortion rights: “I always tell people: Listen to Governor Mike Huckabee…I don’t know anyone that talks about them any better.”

Yes, the RNC chairman who supposedly wants the GOP to reach out to women, people of color and gays and lesbians named Huckabee as the role model for discussing social issues.

As if that wasn’t already absurd, Huckabee is slated to headline the American Family Association retreat in North Carolina in October.

The AFA has attacked Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, non-Christians and of course, gays and lesbians.

Here is a compilation of statements made by the AFA’s chief spokesman, Bryan Fischer, which we put together about two years ago, that almost feels out of date based on all of the ridiculous and ludicrous claims he makes on a daily basis.

In fact, it was on Fischer’s show where Huckabee claimed that President Obama was raised with an aversion to America.

With Huckabee set to address the AFA meeting, we can’t wait to see the other great forms of “outreach” the GOP has in store.

The discredited “researcher” Paul Cameron, chairman of the anti-gay Family Research Institute, frequently claims that gay people want to rape children. Or, as he once put it, “The long term goal of the homosexual movement is to get every little boy to grab his ankles and every little girl to give it a try.”

Cameron, whose “research” has been used by numerous Religious Right groups and was cited recently in an essay promoted by RNC committeeman and Michigan Republican lawmaker Dave Agema, told the National Press Club today that around one in four gay men have sex with children “as part of their sexual repertoire.”

He asserted that “parents are very leery about having their children sleep over or have homosexuals’ children sleep over with their children, they just don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Cameron also claimed that the adults in his study “who had reported [having] a homosexual parent…seemed to account for a disproportionate number of those who reported sex with their parents and sex with friends of their parents

Cameron’s bases his new report on a review of gay peoples’ obituaries, that is, those that have one; Cameron writes that “many gays are anonymous—having sex without ever exchanging names—so their obituaries are ‘missing.’ Lesbians are anomalous—seldom being given an obituary.”

Cameron goes on to say that gays and lesbians are “more frequently involved in criminality” and “are more apt to smoke, use drugs, drive recklessly and get infected by their sexual activities with a host of dangerous germs and experience various organ failures.”

He adds that a reference to pets in a gay person’s obituary is a sign of his or her “estrangement from humanity,” adding that 20% of gay men “reported having had sex with an animal.”

According to the crackpot study, it is even more likely that gay men have sex with children:

“Not only do GLBT fail to generate their replacements, their influence on the demographic is negative when the ~25% of gays who admit sex with boys and thereby influence many to adopt homosexuality is factored in,” Cameron writes, arguing that gays and lesbians “make a negative contribution to the demographic by inducing many boys to adopt homosexuality (and seriously harming many [especially boys’] lives).”

Back in January, we discovered Rick Wiles' TruNews radio program after it was mentioned in an email from Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, mentioning that he had been a guest on the program. In looking through Wiles' archives, we noticed that he regularly interviewed a variety of Religious Right activists that we monitor here and so we started listening to his programs ... and then we kept listening when we realized that it was going to be a source of nonstop craziness.

Last week on the program, both Wiles and Southern Baptist Convention president Fred Luter agreed that it was no coincidence that North Korea was threatening nuclear war with the United States at the same time the Supreme Court was hearing two cases involving gay marriage.

The attention from that clip eventually led to Alan Colmes inviting Wiles onto his radio program to explain his views. And according to Wiles, all this attention he is receiving is proof that God's judgment is just around the corner.

As Wiles explained on his program today, when God first gave him a vision of America on fire back in 1998, God also promised that He would give Wiles a nation audience through which to spread his message "just before the judgment strikes" ... and that is exactly what is happening now:

This ministry was birthed by the Holy Spirit in 1998 following a life-changing spiritual vision that I experienced in April that year. I saw American cities on fire; I saw American refugees staggering out of those cities with a bewildered look on their face, they were amazed that they had even survived  whatever had happened.  I didn't know what to the cities, I just saw the cities burning.  And I asked God what I was seeing in the vision and he said "this is your nation's future if America does not repent." And I asked him why he was revealing it to me and he said "I am calling you today as a watchmen to warn your nation, tell them to repent and return to me and I will forgive them.

In 1999, just before this radio program took off, the Lord made two promises to me: he told me that if I accepted this call to warn America, he promised that no harm would come to my family and the second thing that he told me was "I will give you a national audience just before the judgment strikes."

Monday evening, Fox News Radio called and we went on the Alan Colmes Program and after that interview, a friend of mine called me and he said "hey, I heard the interview and you did good but I tell you what, I'm not feeling good about this Rick."  And I go "why?" And he said  "because I remember what you told me." He said "you said the Lord told you in [19]99 he'll give you a national audience just before the judgment strikes and I don't know that this is a good sign that Fox News is now interviewing you."

Dr. Paul Cameron of the Family Research Institute appeared at the National Press Club today to unveil his new report, which claims that gays and lesbians who are married or in civil unions actually die younger than their uncoupled peers.

“The Supreme Court ought not to harm homosexuals by legitimating homosexual coupling,” Cameron said, “and the psychiatric community ought to pay attention to this enormous deficit of lifespan and reopen the issue of whether or not homosexuality is a mental disability or a disorder.”

He argued that homosexuality is a “mental pathology” much like drug abuse or cigarette smoking, because it “shortens lives” and “harms its participants and harms the demographic.”

Watch: