• Equality Matters: Weekyl Podcast (with RWW's Brian Tashman.)
• David Taintor @ TPM: Ailes Newspaper Cancels Fox News Book Author’s Subscription.
• Elise Foley @ Huffington Post: Joe Walsh: Jesse Jackson Trying To 'Keep African Americans Down On Some Plantation.'
• Terry Krepel @ County Fair: Cutting Room Floor: Live Action Edited Out Adoption Discussion.
• John Fea: Some Thoughts on David Barton's "The Jefferson Lies"--Part Three.

• I think it is pretty safe to that President Obama's re-election campaign has never really called Obama "the most pro-homosexual President in history."
• Oh good, the "U.S. Catholic Bishops is investigating whether the Girl Scouts have connections with the abortion provider Planned Parenthood."
• Peter LaBarbera is mad at Target.
• A helpful exposé on "the six ways homosexual activists manipulate public opinion."
• Finally, only in WND do you find columns that end with lines like "if the Trayvon Martin affair has taught us anything, it is that the racial hostility at the nation’s airport is likely for real."

On Bryan Fischer's radio program yesterday, Fischer and Cal Beisner discussed how environmentalism was becoming the established religion in America. 

How exactly is environmentalism a religion, you ask? Well, as Beisner explained, it has its own doctrines, its own holy day (Earth Day,) its own food taboos, sacrifice rituals (recycling,) paradoxical beliefs, sacred structures (recycling bins,) and it proselytizes.  And, as Fischer added, just like with the early church, heretics (i.e. global warming deniers like Fischer and Beisner) are punished and excommunicated:

Kamal Saleem spoke to Janet Parshall yesterday where the phony “ex-terrorist” alleged that radical Muslims are going to “penetrate” every sphere of American society and that there are even United States generals who are secretly trying to “destroy” the country from within:

Saleem: From military, infrastructure to the church and synagogues, also to the banking and the education system, and also to pharmaceutical and medical, every level that there is that they were going to go ahead and penetrate and so far they were able to penetrate every level. Unfortunately, this government has not stopped them from advancing forward, but helped them advance forward to overcome many things. Now there are many generals who swore to destroy the United States of America are generals in the United States.

Seeing that Saleem works frequently with former General and anti-Muslim activist Jerry Boykin, it would be nice of Saleem to offer Boykin and the public at large the names of generals who “swore to destroy the United States.”

Later, Saleem talked to Parshall about his life story. Saleem has implausibly claimed to have worked for the Muslim Brotherhood in Lebanon, the Syrian government, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Libyan government (even dined with Gaddafi!), Saudi Arabia and terrorists in Tora Bora.

He told Parshall that before going to Tora Bora he worked in Europe in the “culture jihad,” and after training terrorists there he came to America to diminish the conservative Bible Belt’s political and cultural clout!

Saleem also claimed 450,000 illegal immigrants came to America in 2010 to wait for Obama to “legalize terrorism,” even though the border control said the year had exceptionally low rates of crossings.

He insisted that if state legislatures don’t pass laws banning Sharia law then the United Nations through Resolution 16/18, which reaffirms “freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression” and opposes religious discrimination, will force the church to “go underground.” Then after the church isn’t allowed to write their own sermons or canonize priests, Saleem claims, “our country will become Islamist by default because only Islam can fight back” against the United Nations, or something:

Saleem: This is what’s happening in America right now, the invasion of the United States of America is happening through the borders where in 2010 over 450,000 illegals crossed through Mexican borders and these guys are waiting for amnesty to be citizens as soon as our President changes the immigration law and are granted amnesty, legalizing terrorism will be just the first cut in the United States of America.

Parshall: Wow. So now we’ve got you in the European continent and eventually you make your way to the United States, correct?

Saleem: That’s correct. My last battle was in Tora Bora and from Tora Bora I came to the United States of America and we were in the northern sector, the American people are weaker over there and they are not as the Bible Belt area, they are not as strong. So our stronghold was in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, all that region over there, and from there I was sent specifically to the Bible Belt because they asked us to take on this because in order to bring the American culture down we have to overthrow their weight of voting, of power, of everything so we have to penetrate the area and bring about the light of Islam so we can change that culture and change the future of the United States from that area.

Parshall: Wow.

…

Saleem: If this [anti-Sharia law] bill does not pass and Americans do not support it then UN Resolution 16/18 will take place and that is the hate crime bill which is the American people, simply, the church cannot talk about their belief anymore, the church will have to go underground and they will have to submit their sermon and what so have you, and we are fighting on both area to disable the Islamists from taking over. That’s why the Catholic Church is fighting so hard because how they canonize their priests and what so have you, this will disable them from doing all this, and now our country will become Islamist by default because only Islam can fight back.

Parshall: Wow.

On today's installment of the "Faith and Freedom" radio program, Matt Barber returned to his favorite theme of late, namely that liberals are tyrannical bullies who can only succeed in the public arena by intimidating their opponents into silence.

But Barber, for one, will not be intimidated!  And the reason he won't be intimidated is because he works for an organization that has "liberty" in its name ... and everyone knows that liberty is the key to furthering Biblical principles while progressive principles can only be imposed through tyranny, which is why the Left is always working to sidestep the Constitution: 

Time and time again American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer has advocated for the criminalization of homosexuality, and has been quite disturbed by the recent repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and court rulings that found DOMA to be unconstitutional. So today he posted a column arguing for a new campaign to “reclaim the ‘D’ word”—discrimination—and saying that government should discriminate against gays and lesbians to stop them from “destroying themselves through non-normative sexual behavior.”

Fischer claims that it is ironic that gays don’t face discrimination even as the government wages an “all-out war against cigarette smoking,” condemns “pedophilia, rape, bestiality” and punishes people who “burgle houses, drive while drunk, eat the faces off homeless people, gun down servicemen on military bases, embezzle funds from employers or clients, or beat their wives.”

Public policy is about discriminating against behaviors that are socially destructive and corrosive to the social fabric. So, we rightly discriminate against people who rip off convenience stores, burgle houses, drive while drunk, eat the faces off homeless people, gun down servicemen on military bases, embezzle funds from employers or clients, or beat their wives.

…

We discriminate against adults, even priests, who have sex with children. We discriminate against teachers who have affairs with students. We discriminate against teachers who moonlight in the porn industry. We discriminate against students who engage in sexting. We discriminate against rapists. We discriminate against those who expose sexual partners unknowingly to the AIDS virus. We discriminate against those adults who commit statutory rape against minors. We discriminate against homosexuals and prostitutes by refusing to allow them to give blood.

The point is this: we discriminate against sexually immoral and inappropriate behavior all the time, and homosexual behavior is sexually immoral and inappropriate.

As the president of the American Family Association, Tim Wildmon, has often said, homosexual behavior is “immoral, unnatural and unhealthy.” It is contrary to “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” as the Founders would have put it. It puts the human body to sexual uses which are utterly contrary to the way in which the human body is designed. And it is accompanied by a raft of pathologies, including HIV/AIDS and a host of other debilitating sexually transmitted diseases. It shortens the lifespan of those who engage in it by as much as 30 years.

In other words, this is behavior that no rational society should ever condone, endorse, subsidize, or enshrine. We’ve waged all-out war against cigarette smoking because it cuts six to seven years off the lives of smokers. We should care no less about those who are destroying themselves through non-normative sexual behavior.

…

Bottom line: it’s time for conservatives to unhesitatingly reclaim the “D” word, dust it off, and use it without apology. A rational culture that cares about its people will in fact discriminate against adultery, pedophilia, rape, bestiality, and, yes, homosexual behavior.

The other day I mentioned that I had begun working my way through "The One Year Chronological Bible" which I am reading in conjunction with The ESV Study Bible. Last night I made it to Exodus 18 and came across this passage:

But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain —and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.

That passage seemed familiar, mainly because it is what David Barton cites when he claims that God created the concept of elections and that our Founding Fathers explicitly cited that passage as the basis for Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution:

Notice how Barton says "God says choose out from among you leaders of tens, fiftys, hundreds, and thousands"? What I realized last night is that in Exodus 18, it is not God speaking, but rather Moses' father-in-law Jethro. 

After having led the Israelites out of Egypt, "Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, together with Moses’ sons and wife, came to him in the wilderness, where he was camped near the mountain of God." While Jethro was visiting, Moses went out to serve as judge for the Israelites and settle their disputes, but there were so many that the task lasted all day.  Jethro, seeing that the workload was too great, suggested that Moses should "select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain —and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens." Then these judges would hear the simple cases while reserving for Moses the difficult ones and easing his burden. And that is exactly what Moses did:

13 The next day Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening. 14 When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, “What is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?”

15 Moses answered him, “Because the people come to me to seek God’s will. 16 Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God’s decrees and instructions.”

17 Moses’ father-in-law replied, “What you are doing is not good. 18 You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. 19 Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him. 20 Teach them his decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they are to behave. 21 But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain —and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. 22 Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you. 23 If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.”

24 Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said. 25 He chose capable men from all Israel and made them leaders of the people, officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. 26 They served as judges for the people at all times. The difficult cases they brought to Moses, but the simple ones they decided themselves.

It is flagrantly false for Barton to claim that it was God speaking in this passage and utterly misleading for him to claim that it has anything to do with establishing elections. In fact, it was Moses alone who picked which judges to place in charge, which is pretty much the exact opposite of an election.

As we have said before, it is getting to the point where we now have to check nearly every assertion that Barton makes because so many of them turn out to be fundamentally false.  And if Barton is willing to lie about what the Bible says, it raises the question of whether there anything that he won't he lie about? 

The Southern Baptist Convention’s top “ethicist” Richard Land, a major Religious Right figure and cheerleader for the GOP, is about to lose his radio show, Richard Land Live, as a result of using racially-charged comments while describing the Trayvon Martin shooting and plagiarizing his material.

Back in April, we reported that the leader of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) said that African American “race hustlers” were using Martin’s death to “gin up the black vote” for President Obama, whom he said “poured gasoline on the racialist fires.” After his remarks generated controversy, as his denomination has been working to improve its relationship with the black community as a result of its racist past, Land pledged to never apologize. Later, Land issued a non-apology apology that blamed others for having “misunderstood” him, which only intensified the outcry from black pastors in the SBC.

Moreover, Baptist blogger Aaron Weaver found that Land plagiarized part of his remarks on the Martin shooting from a Washington Times column, and also plagiarized columns from other conservative publications like the Washington Examiner and Investor’s Business Daily in previous broadcasts. The ERLC promptly pulled his radio show archives off his website while Land tried to claim that it isn’t plagiarism when other people’s words are lifted on the radio.

Land eventually offered a second apology and the ERLC launched an investigation, and today released two reprimands for Land’s racially-insensitive remarks and “for quoting material without giving attribution.” The ERLC said Land’s “hurtful, irresponsible, insensitive, and racially charged words” regarding the Martin shooting had “re-opened wounds,” and acknowledged “that instances of plagiarism occurred because of his carelessness and poor judgment.”

The ERLC concluded that “the content and purpose of the Richard Land Live! broadcast” are “not congruent with the mission of the ERLC” and will be pulling the show once its contract with Salem Radio Network ends:

We reprimand Dr. Land for his hurtful, irresponsible, insensitive, and racially charged words on March 31, 2012 regarding the Trayvon Martin tragedy. It was appropriate for Dr. Land to issue the apology he made on May 9, 2012 and we are pleased he did so. We also convey our own deepest sympathies to the family of Trayvon Martin for the loss they have suffered. We, too, express our sorrow, regret, and apologies to them for Dr. Land's remarks. We are particularly disappointed in Dr. Land's words because they do not accurately reflect the body of his work over a long career at the ERLC toward racial reconciliation in the Southern Baptist Convention and American life. We must now redouble our efforts to regain lost ground, to heal re-opened wounds, and to realize the dream of a Southern Baptist Convention that is just as diverse as the population of our great Nation.

We further reprimand Dr. Land for quoting material without giving attribution on the Richard Land Live! (RLL) radio show, thereby unwisely accepting practices that occur in the radio industry, and we acknowledge that instances of plagiarism occurred because of his carelessness and poor judgment. We examined Dr. Land's written work during the investigation, and we found no instances of plagiarism in any of Dr. Land's written work. As a Christian, a minister of the Gospel of our Lord, and as President of the ERLC, Dr. Land should have conformed to a higher standard. We expect all future work of the ERLC to be above reproach in that regard.

Finally, we have carefully considered the content and purpose of the Richard Land Live! broadcast. We find that they are not congruent with the mission of the ERLC. We also find that the controversy that erupted as a result of the March 31 broadcast, and related matters, requires the termination of that program. We hereby announce that the Richard Land Live! radio program will end as soon as possible within the bounds of our contracts with the Salem Radio Network.

• PFAW: PFAW Foundation Applauds First Circuit DOMA Ruling.

• Simon Maloy @ County Fair: What "Liberal Bias" Is Really About.

• Mediaite: Rush Limbaugh: Wolf Blitzer And CNN ‘Set Up’ Trump For Birther Debate.

• Scott Keyes @ Slate: The GOP Sees Dead People — Voting.

• Igor Volsky @ Think Progress: Catholic Cardinal Authorized $20K To Pay Off Pedophile Priests, Then Railed Against ‘Immorality’ Of Gay Marriage.

• Jodi Jacobson @ RH Reality Check: PRENDA Dies in House as GOP Continues to Divert Attention From Real Problems by Instead Attacking Women.

• Mike Huckabee says he’s not a birther…but thinks the issue “shows how wrong the Democrats are about that and about everything else they've been promoting the last four years” and is “another good reason, since they can't get even the simplest facts right, to make sure they're not in charge and in power the next four years.”

• Southern Baptist leader and conservative activist Richard Land, who was caught plagiarizing parts of his radio show, teaches at a school where plagiarists are expelled.

• Meanwhile, Land warns that “pornography is the propaganda for a paganized sexual morality which will submerge our culture in a tidal wave of sexual deviance if uncontested and uncontrolled.”

• Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition launches a Jewish outreach effort led by Bush campaign adviser Jeff Ballabon.

• WorldNetDaily kindly explains how Obama is just like Joseph Stalin.

• Family Research Council asks God “to counter the campaign planned by homosexual activists” to defend Maryland’s marriage equality law.

• Janet Porter urges shoppers to boycott Target over “their homosexual t-shirt campaign.”

• OneMillionMoms is incensed over a JC Penney ad featuring gay parents.

• The American Family Association’s Buster Wilson seems to be in competition with AFA spokesman Bryan Fischer over who can be the most inflammatory:

  This past weekend, there was a NATO conference, a summit, in Chicago. There was heightened security in ways we are not accustomed to here on American soil. Shoot to kill orders for any planes flying over Chicago this weekend. Evac orders on standby and the Red Cross being told that it might get violent and the City may have to be completely evacuated. We Americans are not used to having these European style tactics executed in our backyard. Many wonder if the government is up to something, like training for a larger, similar exercise in the future. At the risk of sounding like a doomsday prepper or a conspiracy theorists, let me say, “I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it were”. We are living in the last days and about those Paul said they would be perilous times.