• Rick Santorum refuses to rule out becoming Mitt Romney’s running mate but does call Romney a “uniquely disqualified” candidate.

• No surprise here, Santorum dominates among anti-choice voters, while Romney sweeps voters making more than $200,000 a year.

• Jerry Boykin says “the gay and lesbian movement,” “the women’s movement” and “the environmentalists” have all “become apologists for the Muslim Brotherhood.”

• Lila Rose, ironically, lambasts Planned Parenthood’s “deceptive tactics.”

• Tony Perkins is positively giddy that Kirk Cameron will “teach” everyone “the secret recipe to America’s success” in Monumental.

• Finally, another extremely disturbing ad from Herman Cain:

Liberty Counsel chairman Mat Staver joined Jim Schneider on VCY America’s Crosstalk on Friday where Staver derided the Obama administration as “the most radical, ideologically-driven administration in American history” in response to the Department of Health and Human Services’ contraception mandate. Staver accused the administration of having a “very radical agenda that is very anti-life and anti-liberty” which he said is putting reproductive and gay rights ahead of the economy and even national security. “It is in-your-face forced abortion funding, in-your-face forced homosexuality,” Staver lamented, “and in-your-face a deconstruction of moral principles.”

Schneider: Last Friday the Obama administration announced some new rules that now would require colleges and universities to provide their student health care plans covering female students in the US, that they would have to include coverage for free voluntary sterilization surgery and then also said that further women of college age who don’t attend college, don’t attend school, they also would get this free sterilization coverage whether they are insured through an employer, their parents, some form of government subsidized plan. Mat, how much further is this going to go?

Staver: What we have is a president and an administration that he has gathered that is the most radical, ideologically-driven administration in American history and the ideology is very much pro-abortion and pro-homosexual rights and that trumps everything, it seems to trump the economy, it trumps national security. Of all the myriad of things that the president and the administration could be working on to make America a better place, to bring more jobs and so forth, they are working on these kinds of micromanagement things to push a very radical agenda that is anti-life and anti-liberty. It’s to not just satisfy the radical fringe that supports this administration but it is to satisfy the ideology that comes with this administration, it is part and parcel of what they believe and who they are. In terms of where the end is, nothing should shock anybody at this stage in terms of where this will be going. It is in-your-face forced abortion funding, in-your-face forced homosexuality and in-your-face a deconstruction of moral principles.

Today on WallBuilders Live David Barton claimed that a Pennsylvania judge used Sharia law when dismissing charges against a Muslim man who had been accused of assaulting a man dressed as “Zombie Mohammad.” Cathy Young in Reason writes that the judge’s decision was “probably not” improper due to conflicting accounts and a lack of evidence, although the judge did seem to go out of bounds when lambasting the plaintiff “for his disrespect for other people's culture and faith” and suggesting that he was “way outside your bounds of First Amendment rights.”

Following the ruling, the right wing immediately heralded the case as an example of Sharia law in American courts and went ahead to completely distort the facts of the case.

Conservative pseudo-historian David Barton was no exception when he covered the story today on his radio program:

First, Barton claimed that the defendant “beat the dickens out of the guy” dressed as Mohammad, while as Young points out it was “unclear” what actually happened in the altercation.

Then, Barton claimed that “the judge is himself a Muslim.” The judge, a Lutheran, was thought to have said this during the hearing, but actually said “I’m not a Muslim.” The judge quickly clarified his remarks, and Barton either hasn’t done his homework or is willfully ignoring this fact.

He went on to claim that the judge said he “can beat the dickens out of you for making fun of Mohammad because you can’t do that,” even though, again, that is not what happened. The judge said in a statement that he lectured the defendant on Islam but that it had nothing to do with his ruling:

In short, I based my decision on the fact that the Commonwealth failed to prove to me beyond a reasonable doubt that the charge was just; I didn’t doubt that an incident occurred, but I was basically presented only with the victim’s version, the defendant’s version, and a very intact Styrofoam sign that the victim was wearing and claimed that the defendant had used to choke him. There so many inconsistencies, that there was no way that I was going to find the defendant guilty.

Later in the program, Barton went even further by arguing that secular law actually paved the way for Sharia in America. He maintained that since the “God-fearing system” was replaced with a “secular system,” Sharia has come to supplant “Judeo-Christian principles.”

I was really struck with a passage that Jesus has in Matthew 12. Matthew 12 he talks about how an unclean spirit had gone out of a man and in verse 43 it says it goes through dry places seeking rest and finds none, verse 44, then he says, ‘The unclean spirit says, ‘I will return to the house from which I came.’ When he comes, he finds it empty, swept and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself.’ I thought, that’s that principle, if you don’t fill it with good stuff, bad stuff is going to find its way in and it will be a lot worse. So we had it filled with kind of a God-fearing system and then we made it a secular system, so now we made it seven times worse by saying, let’s take Sharia law, not only do we not want biblical stuff we don’t even want secular stuff, we want seven times worse than secular. The vacuum is going to get filled with something, and if we’re going to refuse to have some Judeo-Christian principles in there on which the founders built everything and that’s what they had as the undergirding , if we’re not going to do that, then what are we going to fill it with? Right now it appears that it is going to be Sharia.

Religious Right activists are reviving their anti-anti-bullying campaign by attacking April 20th’s Day of Silence, an annual event when students protest bullying and anti-LGBT bias. Religious Right groups are once again promoting Focus on the Family’s Day of Dialogue, a counter event scheduled for the previous day. Candi Cushman of Focus on the Family on Friday joined Janet Mefferd to warn about how the Day of Silence “crosses the line in a lot of ways beyond bullying into indoctrination, just promoting homosexuality and transgenderism.” Mefferd, delighted that the Day of Dialogue would stand opposed to the “deluge” of “gay propaganda,” was especially startled by the idea that gay rights advocates wanted same-sex couples to be allowed to participate in proms.

Mefferd: I just love the idea of the Day of Dialogue because we do see so many Christian kids hearing gay propaganda and being deluged with this stuff. Let’s go back to the Day of Silence, now how long has this been around and how has this played itself out in the schools?

Cushman: It’s been around for a longtime, nearly a decade now. It started just as a group of college students, actually this was first intended for older students but now GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, has done a good job of infiltrating this event all the way down to middle schools, sometimes even elementary I believe, and the event is now in I would say nearly 8,000 middle schools and high schools and some colleges today.

Mefferd: Wow. What goes on during the Day of Silence? Obviously they are silent and it’s all about bringing attention to the LGBT issues but how does it play itself out?

Cushman: Well they say it’s all about promoting safe schools and anti-bullying but if you look at what they actually encourage students and teachers to do it crosses the line in a lot of ways beyond bullying into indoctrination, just promoting homosexuality and transgenderism. For example they encourage teachers on this day to discuss LGBT, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender themes in the classroom, to have materials on homosexuality and transgenderism displayed, books about it in the classroom, they have encouraged students to lobby for things like a ‘queer friendly prom.’ So it really gets into transforming students into being actions for adult gay and lesbian causes.

Mefferd: Wait, queer friendly prom? Is that what I think it is?

Cushman: That’s their word. That any combination of genders can go to prom together. it’s a problem when you have these things endorsed by the school.

Today the 700 Club featured a segment on a man who tried to “change” his sexuality by marrying a woman, but later ended up having extramarital affairs with men. The couple reconciled after his “repentance and deliverance from the homosexual lifestyle” and decided to stay together. “That type of conduct is wrong and it is time that in society we say certain things are wrong,” Robertson said. “He’s obsessed, he has a compulsion,” he added. “I think it is somehow related to demonic possession.”

Watch highlights of the segment and Robertson’s commentary here:

With the Supreme Court hearing arguments on the constitutionality of the health care reform law this week, conservative groups are reviving the apocalyptic rhetoric they developed when the law was passed.

Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver and Matt Barber discussed the case on today’s Faith & Freedom, where Staver said that if the court did not overturn the law it would set “an incredibly bad precedent that allows huge power grabs, not just in this medical insurance issue but in every place else.”

Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice emailed members that the law is an “atrocity”:

Over the next three days, the ObamaCare oral arguments will be heard before the Supreme Court.

Roe v. Wade made it a "right" to end the life of an unborn child; ObamaCare forces every taxpayer to help pay to end the life of an unborn child.

We are fighting this atrocity, and we need your voice now.

…

As we have said since the beginning, ObamaCare uses taxpayer dollars to dramatically grow the abortion business. Now we know that President Obama is also forcing citizens to directly pay an abortion surcharge with health insurance plans.

Forcing us to pay for abortion is not only a moral outrage, it is a violation of our constitutional rights.

The Christian Defense Coalition plans to “encircle” the Supreme Court to pray “that the President's Health Care legislation is declared unconstitutional”:

The groups will also lay 3,300 flowers around the court as a "prophetic witness" to the Justices, reminding them of the 3,300 children who die every day from abortion and the 3,300 women who are diminished through abortion.

…

Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition and one of the organizers of "Encircle the Court in Prayer", states;

"We are calling people from all America to come to Supreme Court and 'encircle it with prayer' from March 25 as we cry out to God for justice, human rights and religious freedom.

"Sadly, the President's Health Care legislation crushes religious freedom and liberty with unjust mandates on faith institutions and forces taxpayers to subsidize abortions.

"We will be praying that the President's Health Care legislation is declared unconstitutional so Congress can put forward health care legislation that will respect religious freedom, protect human life and honor the principles of our Constitution.

"When Roe v. Wade was decided, the Christian community was detached and uninvolved. We want to make sure that is not the case this time as we challenge people of faith to publicly pray and speak out with boldness and passion."

After claiming that everyone from everyone from the IRS to gays and lesbians is a direct threat to African Americans, now Harry Jackson maintains that the Obama administration mandate for insurance plans to cover contraceptives is actually a means of anti-Black population control. Jackson links the requirement for employees to offer plans that include contraception to racist anti-Black actions in the past, but never explains how ensuring that insurance plans cover contraceptives is part of a “silent effort of the powerful to control black breeding,” arguing that “the black community does not need more birth control.”

But black Americans in particular would be wise to pay close attention, since the age old contraception battle has special historical significance to them. For over a century, "reproductive services" have been special code words for the constant, silent effort of the powerful to control black breeding. And this control has often come in the form of a "helping hand."

From the earliest days of our nation, people in power have wanted to control black reproduction. Before the Civil War, slave owners had a financial interest in increasing the birthrate among their slaves. This was a matter of simple economics: even before the transatlantic slave trade was outlawed, it had become cheaper to "breed" your slaves than to import new ones. Female slaves were pressured to become pregnant (often they were raped).

After emancipation, black birthrates (and marriage rates) were higher than whites, causing great concern in the growing movement known as Eugenics. An elite group of whites began to see the growth of the black population as a direct threat to their community. Blacks at this time actually had a higher employment rate than whites, because black men were willing to work for lower wages. In a time when many intellectuals were becoming paranoid about overpopulation, some began to fear that blacks would compete with whites for the resources needed to survive.

Powerful whites no longer wanted blacks to make more babies that they could enslave; now they wanted blacks to stop having babies that would compete for their jobs or overcrowd their cities. Their goals changed from forcing them to breed to preventing them from breeding.

Thus in modern times, no people group has been plied with more contraceptives than African Americans. People willing to turn a blind eye to the obvious still aren't convinced about whether abortion is aggressively marketed to blacks. But there can be no confusion about contraception being pushed on black women from the time they are middle school students to even the most highly educated married women. And in a way it is working: despite a terrifyingly high 70 percent illegitimacy rate, the black American population continues to decline as a percentage of the American population.

…

The black community does not need more birth control. We need men and women who respect their bodies and raise their children to do the same. We should put more energy and effort into educating people to make wise choices in relationships and being a family instead of mandating how they make those choices. Let's let our representatives know how we feel!

• Julie Ingersoll @ Religion Dispatches: A Monumentally Different Kirk Cameron.
• Charles Johnson @ LGF: TN Bill Mandates Publication of Names of Abortion Doctors and Patients.
• Hatewatch: Faith and Freedom Coalition: Is Obama Greater Threat than Nazi Germany?
• Joan McCarter @ Daily Kos: Rush Limbaugh spokesman attacks Media Matters, truth.
• Alex Alvarez @ Mediaite: Geraldo Rivera: ‘The Hoodie Is As Responsible For Trayvon Martin’s Death As George Zimmerman.’

• It seems that even Hugh Hewitt realizes there is something wrong with GOP presidential candidates like Rick Santorum legitimizing Bryan Fischer and his bigotry.
• Speaking of Fischer, he says that GLAAD's Commentator Accountability Project proves they are afraid of the AFA. So, by the logic, the AFA must be terrified of Ellen DeGeneres.
• It is interesting to see people who don't believe there is any sort of right to privacy in the Constitution start worrying that health care reform will destroy the right to privacy.
• Randall Terry vows to go to court to get his name on the ballot in Kansas.
• Finally, Newt Gingrich wants to know "why does the president behave the way that people would think that [he’s Muslim.]"

Earlier this week, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released the results of a survey showing that "the number of people who say there has been too much religious talk by political leaders stands at an all-time high ... and most Americans continue to say that churches and other houses of worship should keep out of politics."

In fact, the survey found that 38% think "there has been too much expression of religious faith and prayer from political leaders" while 30% say there has been too little and 25% think there has been the right amount.

Given these results, we can't say we are surprised to see Religious Right leaders respond by misrepresenting the findings: