It appears that for the Religious Right, simply criticizing their anti-gay activism strips them of their freedoms. Echoing Kirk Cameron’s claim that his freedom of speech and religion are jeopardized by negative responses to his claim that homosexuality is “destructive,” David Krayden of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies writes on LifeSiteNews that GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, is a “totalitarian” organization because it denounced Cameron. Of course, Krayden never shows how organizations that have decried Cameron are taking away any of Cameron or anyone else’s freedoms. He also claims that “the current trend towards acceptance and promotion of homosexual behaviour is in itself a throwback to the attitudes and opinions of ancient pagan civilizations,” and argued that supporters of the “gay agenda” are “completely at odds with basic democratic freedoms.”

The remarks engendered a swift counterattack by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), which apparently is unaware that Cameron has continued to work as an actor and producer since he was a featured player on the sitcom Growing Pains. Said GLAAD’s senior director of programs Herndon Graddick, “In this interview, Kirk Cameron sounds even more dated than his 1980s TV character. Cameron is out of step with a growing majority of Americans, particularly people of faith who believe that their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters should be loved and accepted based on their character and not condemned because of their sexual orientation.”

OK, so you would not expect an organization that is actively pushing the gay agenda to either ignore Cameron’s comments or even to agree to disagree. Cameron said nothing about not loving gays and lesbians, but for GLAAD, anyone not of the fervent conviction that homosexuality is as natural as the rain falling is trapped in a medieval mindset and hopelessly out of step with progressive thought.

But does being “out of date” have anything to do with being right or wrong on an issue? For that matter, one could say that the current trend towards acceptance and promotion of homosexual behaviour is in itself a throwback to the attitudes and opinions of ancient pagan civilizations where same-sex couplings were not only an acceptable part of sexual expression but embedded in religious rites.

The demands of GLAAD and other similarly focussed groups that Christians accept homosexual activity may well be a rooted in the approval of that distant coupling of sex and religion, in a desire to have organized religion today sanction that behaviour just as it was in the distant past by pagan cultures. GLAAD desires a return to a religious conformity that might well be described as strangely nostalgic.

The “people of faith” that Graddick describes as accepting any sexual orientation must surely belong, as far as Biblically-based Christianity is concerned, to any apostate church that flatly rejects the clear moral dictates that may be found in preponderance in both the Old and New Testaments. Furthermore, since “sexual orientation” is a term that can describe anything, and therefore ultimately means nothing, do we really believe that any sexual urge may be satiated, that any sexual calling must be applauded, that any sexual – dare we say – perversion is permissible?

Clearly we have reached a new level in society’s attitudes towards homosexuality. The yardstick of political correctness has subtly but undeniably been stretched from tolerance to acceptance to promotion – and now it is insistence, insistence that religious opinion and “people of faith” accept the homosexual lifestyle without question, without remorse, without further comments—especially to networks like CNN. At least no one – yet – is suggesting that Cameron should not be allowed to work in films because his opinions are too odious and corrosive for public viewing.

This insistence is profoundly totalitarian in scope and intent while being completely at odds with basic democratic freedoms – in particular a certain freedom which we used to have called freedom of religion. No one can demand that people think in a certain way or that the only acceptable “people of faith” are the ones who won’t disagree or “condemn” your lifestyle choices.

Televangelist Pat Robertson on the 700 Club today attacked Sandra Fluke’s testimony at a Democratic hearing, after she was barred from speaking at a GOP-led committee, in support of making religiously-based institutions like universities cover contraception in their insurance plans. Robertson falsely claimed Fluke was asking for “$3,000 a year” for contraceptives, as Fluke actually said that without insurance “contraception can cost a woman over $3,000” over the course of law school, and noted that contraceptives are important not only to prevent unintended pregnancies but also matters such as ovarian cysts, hormonal disorders and early menopause. His guest Jeffrey Bell of the American Principles Project said that Fluke’s testimony was part of a larger left-wing plot from the 1790s, not the 1970s, of “imposing the values of the sexual revolution on everybody else” and trying to “attack organized religion and the traditional family.” Bell later told Robertson, a former presidential candidate and founder of the Christian Coalition who talks about social issues almost every day of his show, that social issues “keep coming up” in political debates “because it’s in the DNA of the left.”

Watch:

Robertson: You know there was a woman, the law student at Georgetown University who appeared before a congressional committee, and she said that students needed $3,000 a year for contraception and that they couldn’t afford it. As I understand, the Catholic school was supposed to pay for it. Now Catholics say that fornication, if you will, sex outside of marriage, is a sin. This woman is saying ‘I’m going to be committing sin but I want you to pay for my sin.’ Now am I overstating that? Rush Limbaugh got a little bit over the top on that thing but is that what it amounted to?

Bell: I honestly think that the left, their greatest achievement is the sexual revolution and they want to complete the job of imposing the values of the sexual revolution on everybody else, including those who have held out and disagree with some aspects of it. They’ve been this way since the 1790s, when the word ‘the left’ was invented, that was all about tearing down the existing social institutions and the political institutions, yes the royalty and nobility, but also the left from the beginning in the 1790s with the Jacobins and Robespierre wanted to attack organized religion and the traditional family and they have never changed in that regard. Every left movement has been about getting rid of traditional institutions.

Robertson: So Obama’s playing right down to that playbook, is that what you’re saying?

Bell: I think he’s being true to it, I don’t think he calculated the potential damage of doing this to the Catholic Church because it’s in the DNA of the left, that’s why the issues are unavoidable and why they’re going to keep coming up, because the left is going to insist on that.

After Kirk Cameron’s denigration of homosexuality as “unnatural” and “destructive” didn’t exactly go over well with others in the acting community, Cameron employed the common Religious Right refrain that his rights to “freedom of speech and freedom of religion” are being infringed upon when people respond critically to him. He seems to think that people expressing their own beliefs about his remarks somehow takes away his constitutional rights. Along with Religious Right groups, anti-gay writer and talk show host Michael Brown is jumping to Cameron’s defense, and he takes particular issue with a tweet by Roseanne Barr where she called Cameron “an accomplice to murder with his hate speech.” Brown argues that if Cameron’s statements fuel anti-gay stigmas and gay suicide, then Michelle Obama must be equally “complicit in the suicides of kids who were bullied because of their obesity” because of her Let’s Move campaign which promotes healthy living:

Last weekend, actor Kirk Cameron appeared on the Piers Morgan show to discuss his new movie Monumental, and somehow Morgan turned the interview to the subject of homosexuality (surprise!), asking him if he thought gay marriage was a sin and wanting to know what he would teach his children. Cameron stated that according to his beliefs, marriage “was defined by God a long time ago … one man, one woman for life, till death do us part.”

Morgan then asked him, “Do you think homosexuality is a sin?” to which Cameron replied, “I think it’s unnatural, that it’s detrimental and ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization.”

The backlash was immediate and intense (surprise again!), coming from gay activist organizations like GLAAD (which, I have pointed out, really stands for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Disagreement, not Defamation) and from celebrities like Roseanne Barr, who said: “Kirk or kurt or whatever Cameron is an accomplice to murder with his hate speech. So is rick warren. Their peers r killing gays in Uganda.”

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How should we respond to these charges? First, we should point out that gay kids do not simply kill themselves because they are told that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. In the vast majority of cases, gay teens kill themselves (like other teens do) because of deeper emotional and psychological problems, so we must do whatever we can to help them deal with the deeper issues in their lives. Without a doubt, each of these deaths is a terrible tragedy, but these kids must not be used as pawns to advance a social agenda, nor they should be told that their suicides are somehow expected or unavoidable.

Second, we should ask gay activists if anti-obesity campaigns are causing obese kids to commit suicide. If so, wouldn’t this make Michelle Obama complicit in the suicides of kids who were bullied because of their obesity? (In no way do I minimize the horrific tragedy of a teen suicide, whatever its cause. I simply want to expose the folly of the “accomplice to murder/suicide” accusation.)

Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry is running for the Democratic presidential nomination in order to run graphic ads against abortion rights, which he says have aired in fifteen states. Because he won over 15% of the vote in the Oklahoma primary, where he had the help of Ann Coulter, Terry will likely have at least one delegate representing his candidacy at the Democratic National Convention.

He said in a statement yesterday that he hopes his campaign and Obama's support for abortion rights will cost Obama “the White House in 2012”:

"My message was simple: Obama promotes the murder of babies by abortion, and is attacking the Church and religious liberty. Knowing this, a Christian cannot vote for him in good conscience.

"Obama's promotion of the murder of unborn babies could cost him the White House in 2012. I will run in at least 6 swing states, and be a voice for the babies who are dying under Obama's policies. If these numbers hold true in those states, the plight of the babies will cause Obama to lose the White House in 2012. How's that for the most critical 'social issue' of our times being the driving force of an election? Obama's promotion of murder is his Achilles heal [sic]."

In 2009, pastor and author John Piper said that God sent a tornado to Minneapolis, Minnesota to warn the country’s major Lutheran denomination not to approve the ordination of openly gay pastors at their convention. Now, Piper is telling the victims of the recent tornado storms in the South and Midwest that “God gave the command” for the tornadoes that left at least thirty-nine people dead. Piper said he disagreed with televangelist Pat Robertson, who said that the tornadoes resulted from a lack of prayer rather than being God’s doing, and maintained that God sent the tornadoes because of the sins of the region:

God's "fierce fingers" are all over the deadly storms that ripped through the Midwest and South over the past weekend, popular preacher and author John Piper said.

…

"We do not ascribe such independent power to Mother Nature or to the devil," he penned on his ministry's blog. "God alone has the last say in where and how the wind blows."

"If a tornado twists at 175 miles an hour and stays on the ground like a massive lawnmower for 50 miles, God gave the command," he shared, in direct opposition to Robertson, the host of "The 700 Club" who said on Monday that God that was not to be blamed for "doing something foolish" and that He did not send tornadoes to hurt people.

…

"This is a word to those of us who sit safely in Minneapolis or Hollywood and survey the desolation of Maryville and Henryville. 'Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish' (Luke 13:4-5)."

Every deadly wind in any town is a divine warning to every town, he emphasized.

The warning especially rings true to God's own people.

Quoting the Scriptures, Piper shared, "It is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?" The disastrous storms were calling "every person of every religion or non-religion" to turn from sin and come to Jesus Christ for forgiveness and eternal life.

"Jesus rules the wind," the Bethlehem Baptist Church preacher affirmed. "The tornadoes were his."

• Michael Keegan @ HuffPo: Who’s Sorry Now? The Republican Art of the Non-Apology.

• Lara Bergthold @ HuffPo: Rick Santorum’s Latest Target – Single Moms.

• Tommy Christopher @ Mediaite: The 53 Attacks Rush Limbaugh Didn’t Apologize For.

• Simon Maloy @ County Fair: Be Civil, Not Like Those Jerks.

• Nick Sementelli @ Bold Faith Type: Why Birth Control is Not Beer.

• Michelle Goldberg @ The Daily Beast: Planned Parenthood Under Attack: Fighting Back in Texas.

• With Mitt Romney supporting a federal health care mandate in 2009, we wait with bated breath for reactions from Romney boosters Jay and Jordan Sekulow, who claim the mandate is unconstitutional.

• Meanwhile, Ted Nugent wants to let us know why he endorsed Mitt Romney.

• The Media Research Center launches its latest campaign, “I Stand With Rush.”

• The FEC has received a complaint about illegal coordination between Rick Santorum’s campaign and the Michigan chapter of Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition.

• Liberty Counsel and Personhood USA are entering a “new partnership” to increase “its efforts to pass personhood legislation and initiatives.”

• The National Organization for Marriage and The FAMiLY Leader are organizing yet another rally in Iowa against marriage equality.

On Americans For Truth About Homosexuality Radio Hour, AFTAH president Peter LaBarbera spoke with board members John McCartney and Jim Finnegan about Sheriff Paul Babeu, the Republican candidate for Congress in Arizona who recently came out as gay after his ex-boyfriend accused him of trying to deport him, and Babeu’s claim that he was assaulted by a priest when he was a child. LaBarbera claimed that Babeu is gay because he was abused as a child and is “not a natural homosexual but a victim of a homosexual predator.” “The saddest thing of all when you see somebody who has been is a victim of a pedophile,” LaBarbera said, “is to then say that when you have these unnatural sexual attractions and feelings, to say that you’re ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ when you’re obviously just a victim of a predator, that is so tragic.”

Later in the interview, Finnegan argued that “the violence that caused this” type of abuse is being “aided” by the government by “allowing that lifestyle to be legitimized” when it legalizes same-sex marriage. LaBarbera added that the Catholic Church’s child abuse scandal was because “the homosexuals got in the Catholic Church.”

LaBarbera also asked McCartney about churches that allow openly gay and lesbian parishioners to receive ashes on their forehead on Ash Wednesday, a practice which McCartney condemned:

LaBarbera and McCartney blamed the growing acceptance of gays and lesbians on aggressive protests which he claimed intimidated psychiatrists into dropping homosexuality as a mental health disorder, which LaBarbera described as “political terrorism.”

However, the American Psychiatric Association states:

All major professional mental health organizations have gone on record to affirm that homosexuality is not a mental disorder. In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association’s Board of Trustees removed homosexuality from its official diagnostic manual, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Second Edition (DSM II). The action was taken following a review of the scientific literature and consultation with experts in the field. The experts found that homosexuality does not meet the criteria to be considered a mental illness.

American Family Association president Tim Wildmon today used his column praising the admirable works of Christian charitable organizations to criticize Muslims.

If there ever was a contrast in worldviews, it is with Christianity and Islam. One of the most striking differences is that Christianity teaches, practices, and encourages charity. Islam does not. It is the Christians from America who are doing the majority of the private charity and humanitarian work around the world. Just these past couple of weeks alone, I was reminded by several examples of this.

…

American Family Association/American Family Radio has been participating in this project with Gospel for Asia for several years. Why do we care about the outcast people of India? Because in the Bible, Jesus instructs us to do so.

There is no such comparable work being done around the world by Islamic groups or organizations -- because the Koran does not teach such charity.

Religion, more than anything else, affects the values and morals of a culture, a society, a country.

In fact, charitable giving is one of the five pillars of Islam. Wildmon could have done a simple Google search to find the names of major Muslim charitable organizations like Islamic Relief, Red Crescent Societies and Muslim Aid, but seeing that the American Family Association is one of the most malicious purveyors of misinformation and bigotry in this country, it should come as no surprise that its leader can twist an article about the importance of charitable work into an attack on the Muslim people.

David Limbaugh in his column today defended his far more successful brother, Rush, for his daily sexist diatribes against law student Sandra Fluke, attacking his brothers critics’ “viciousness” and lack of “forgiveness”:

What is a much bigger story is that the left's primary interest here is not in protecting Fluke -- in my humble opinion. Liberals are attempting to exploit this as another opportunity to destroy Rush through a calculated, organized Saul Alinsky-type community organizing campaign to pressure and intimidate his advertisers into discontinuing their sponsorship of his show.

I am watching them operate on Twitter and other social networks, and their viciousness is palpable. They didn't want Rush's apology, which they absolutely refuse to accept. They want his scalp. And they've wanted his scalp for years because he is the most effective and influential spokesman for the conservative cause.

What I am observing is the most radical display of hate and intolerance that I've witnessed in years. It does not surprise me, but it is ironic that the very people who masquerade as exemplars of tolerance, civility and compassion have no room in their hearts for forgiveness.

If this is “the most radical display of hate and intolerance” that he’s “witnessed in years,” then he must not be listening to his brother’s show.

Besides Limbaugh calling Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” who should compete for the “Wilt Chamberlin scholarship” and release a sex-tape, Limbaugh has dubbed a then-13 year old Chelsea Clinton the “White House dog,” told an African American caller to “take that bone out of your nose,” said Democrats who wanted to stop the genocide in Darfur only wanted to win over black voters, imitated President Obama calling Hillary Clinton a “B-I-itch,” and denounced feminists as “whores to liberalism” who established feminism “to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society.”

In another case of irony, the American Family Association is gladly promoting Limbaugh’s column attacking the campaign against Limbaugh’s advertisers as an “organized Saul Alinsky-type community organizing campaign,” even though the AFA and its affiliate OneMillionMoms runs pressure campaigns against Home Depot, JC Penney, Ford Motors, Toys R Us, Hardees, Macy’s, and AARP, and against advertisers on shows such as Degrassi, Glee and Modern Family.

Or maybe David Limbaugh can just tune in to the radio show of AFA spokesman Bryan Fischer if he feels the need to listen to more “hate” and “intolerance.”