Archive for December, 2009

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More about the Religious Right’s ‘Prayercast’

December 17, 2009

TalkingPointsMemo now has a full report up on last night’s “prayercast,” an event hosted by the far-right Family Research Council to oppose health care reform in Congress. A couple of quotes from speakers helps reveal the tone of the event:

From Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.:

“Whether they’ve been mesmerized by the president or just convinced somehow in their own heart, we just need to pray that God’ll channel their hearts to realize that the exceptional nature of this country did come from government control of everything, but from limited government, and a free people with Judeo-Christian principles, that created the character and integrity that made this country work.”

From James Dobson of Focus on the Family:

“I just pray that You will frustrate the plans of the Evil One, and revive us again with conviction and forgiveness. Show us how we can further your cause, Lord and advance your kingdom, and we will be careful to give you the praise. Just begin a revival in our hearts that will restore us as one nation under God.”

Read the full report here.

Posted in religious right | 7 Comments »

Bad History from the Religious Right

December 17, 2009

Last night the far-right Family Research Council hosted a 90-minute “prayercast” against health insurance reform efforts in Congress. Never mind the abuse of faith to kill efforts to make health care accessible and affordable for all Americans, rich or poor, healthy or sick. That’s become fairly common rhetoric from the right in recent months. But the event included something else not particularly unusual from the religious right these days: a bad history lesson.

TalkingPointsMemo reports that FRC head Tony Perkins told his audience last night that when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 appeared to be failing because of feuding among delegates, Benjamin Franklin urged delegates to join in prayer to save their efforts.

“And you know what happened?” Perkins asked. “History records that they prayed.”

Actually, history records that they did not pray — and this has been a recurring myth of the American religious right that never goes away. As the Library of Congress says: “Franklin’s motion failed, ostensibly because the Convention had no funds to pay local clergymen to act as chaplains.”

If religious-righters like Perkins can’t get simple facts right about our nation’s founding, we shouldn’t trust them to get the big things right — such as acknowledging that the Founders crafted a Constitution and Bill of Rights that protect the religious freedom of all Americans by keeping state and religion separate and forbidding government from favoring or disfavoring any particular faith.

Posted in religious right, social studies | 6 Comments »

Top Religious Liberty Stories of 2009

December 17, 2009

The Baptist Joint Committee, which advocates out of traditional Baptist principles for separation of church state, has listed its top stories from 2009 dealing with religious liberty. Curriculum battles over science and social studies in Texas public schools missed the Top 10 but got an “honorable mention.” Because of the BJC’s work as a legal organization, its list of top stories leans heavily toward controversies involving the courts and constitutional issues. Among the group’s Top 10 stories:

  • David Souter’s replacement by Sonia Sotomayor on the U.S. Supreme Court
  • A court ruling against Christian-themed license plates in South Carolina
  • Controversial bans against Muslim headscarves
  • U.S. foreign affairs and the role of religion
  • Concern by progressives over whether the Obama administration will strongly support separation of church and state

Check out the full list here.

Posted in religious freedom | Leave a Comment »

Talking Points

December 16, 2009

From today’s TFN News Clips:

“It is, in many respects, a war. Not a war that’s fought with guns. But it’s a war of ideas. It’s a war for the heart and soul of America. Who are we? And what are we to become? And that war is on many, many fronts. That war is on popular culture, on our movies and television programs and music and entertainment videos. The war is in academia, in colleges and universities and now — increasingly — in primary and secondary schools. And the war is against people who have an ideology — a secular ideology, a relativistic, materialistic ideology — which denies the existence of truth, which denies the existence of a creator and a foundation upon which to build and to seek those truths.”

– Former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., telling recent graduates of a South Carolina Christian school that they are about to enter an ideological war. Is it too much to ask that religious-right leaders stop talking about matters of faith in terms of violence and war — even as the United States is engaged in a real war with violent religious extremists?

Stay informed with TFN News Clips, a daily digest of news about politics and the religious right. Subscribe here.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Texas Eagle Forum: Everybody Hates America!

December 16, 2009

Sometimes it’s instructive to note the bizarre and bitter paranoia that infects the far right in America. Texas offers plenty of examples, including the folks at Texas Eagle Forum. In fact, TEF’s new president, Pat Carlson, seems to harbor the same fear of everything foreign that the group’s past president, Cathie Adams, does.

In a new e-mail report to TEF activists (dated Dec. 14) from the Copenhagen conference on global climate change, for example, Carlson rails against efforts by the Obama administration to cooperate with foreign countries on cutting emissions of greenhouse gases. “Obama is still campaigning but now it is for world leader,” she sneers.

But toward the end of e-mail, she most clearly reveals her xenophobia, arguing that foreigners simply want to destroy the American way of life:

“The world hates America because of jealousy and because Americans are a good and generous people.”

Oh, good grief. The Pew Global Attitudes Project shows that global attitudes toward the United States vary over time and by region, but generally our country is viewed favorably in many developed and developing countries around the world. And the U.S. image globally has actually been improving. But Texas right-wingers like Pat Carlson see only enemies surrounding us — a paranoia that simply reinforces extremist politics in this country.

Posted in religious right, Texas Eagle Forum | 11 Comments »

What Does He Really Think?

December 15, 2009

It seems that Brian Russell, anointed by Cynthia Dunbar as her desired replacement on the Texas State Board of Education, doesn’t much like the Texas Freedom Network. And we’re such nice folks. Go figure. Anyway, just a few days before word got out that Russell is seeking Dunbar’s board seat, the Austin attorney and his fellow State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) members passed a resolution attacking TFN as a “far left-wing fringe group.”

Well, we’re fascinated that SREC members spend their time worrying about TFN. But more than anything, the resolution itself also offers a roadmap of sorts for the political agenda Russell wants to promote on the State Board of Education.

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Posted in Brian Russell, hate mail | 11 Comments »

Tea Partier Wants to Mandate Carols

December 13, 2009

Much of the attention on the angry Tea Party mobs over the summer and fall has been focused on their blind opposition to health insurance reform and government generally. But religious-right activists and their goals haven’t been completely absent from Tea Party ranks. In fact, their presence is one way you know that the call for limited government is little more than a political slogan — the Tea Partiers want to limit government, except when they don’t. An example:

The Tea Party movement is supposed to be all about keeping the government out of your business. But if some California members get their way, the state will force public schoolchildren to sing Christmas carols.

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Posted in tea party, war on Christmas nonsense | 7 Comments »

The Religious Right in Houston: FAIL

December 13, 2009

The religious right once again thought a campaign of fear and bigotry would work. Tens of thousands of dollars funded attack mailers sent out to Houston voters.  The same voters heard dark warnings about gays taking over their city’s government. Families and children, they were told, were in danger. It was, in short, a classic smear campaign designed to persuade voters that what mattered most when they entered the voting booth wasn’t what the candidates said about fiscal matters, transportation, city services and other issues typically important in a mayoral election. Oh no, they were told. What mattered most was the private life of one of the candidates and who she loved. What mattered most was that Annise Parker is gay, regardless of the fact that she was running on a record put together during a career that included six years on the City Council and six years as city controller.

But the religious right failed.

On Saturday a majority of voters rejected fear and bigotry, making Houston the nation’s largest city to elect an openly gay mayor. And in doing so they sent a strong message to the religious right: not in our city, not today, not anymore.

Posted in LGBT issues | 4 Comments »

Funniest Protest Signs of 2009

December 12, 2009

We couldn’t resist this. Check out Huffington Post’s compilation of the funniest protest signs of 2009.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

President Obama vs. Charlie Brown?

December 11, 2009

Texas Republican Party Chair Cathie Adams isn’t the only right-winger to attack President Obama’s personal faith and make other bizarre charges about the nation’s chief executive. Plenty of other political figures and commentators on the fringe right continue to suggest (or claim outright) that the president is a closet Muslim, that he hates white people and that he’s a Marxist (or Nazi). But usually elected officials are little more careful. Not so in the case of the mayor of the Memphis-area city of Arlington, Tenn.

Arlington Mayor Russell Wiseman is charging that ”our muslim president” deliberately chose the date of his nationally televised announcement on Afghanistan troop deployments last week so that his speech would preempt what Wiseman apparently considers a quintessential Christian television program: “The Charlie Brown Christmas Special” that kids have been watching annually for more than four decades.

We’re not making this up.

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Posted in Barack Obama | 13 Comments »

Dunbar Issues Statement: She’s Out

December 10, 2009

Texas State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar has now released a statement explaining that she will not seek re-election to her seat next year. She used her announcement to endorse Brian Russell, an Austin attorney and State Republican Executive Committee member, as her replacement. Russell has already announced his intention to seek the seat and said Dunbar recruited him.

From Dunbar’s announcement:

“I promised them that I would be a statesman and not a career politician and that I would get in, get the job done and get out.  That is exactly what I have done. I know it is common for politicians to make that promise and then conveniently forget it once they have reached the ranks of popularity and incumbent security.  However, I am satisfied that I have been effective in accomplishing all that I had promised and I intend to keep my word to my constituents.  I have kept my finger on the pulse of my district, which has enabled me to know what they ultimately want and I have not been deterred by minority opposition.”

The Texas Tribune has more here.

We’re unsure what job Dunbar thinks she finished. She has spent her four years on the board dumbing curriculum standards with political nonsense. But battles over how those standards are implemented in new science and social studies textbooks won’t come until 2011, at the earliest.

That’s one reason why Dunbar’s departure from the board after next year will represent an important victory for Texas families who want their children to get a sound education, not right-wing political indoctrination, in their public school classrooms. Still, Russell is cut much from the same cloth as Dunbar. His presence on the board would help ensure that our public schools remain in the crossfire of the religious right’s divisive culture wars. That means the 2010 elections are still very important.

Posted in Cynthia Dunbar, elections | 1 Comment »

Talking Points

December 10, 2009

From today’s TFN News Clips:

“They think because there are 92 precincts in McLennan County, we need to have 92 precinct chairs. What they fail to understand is about half of those precincts are minority precincts, and you’re not going to find any Republicans in them.”

– M.A. Taylor, longtime head of the McLennan County Republican Party, explaining his opposition to a new Hispanic Republican club’s efforts to recruit Hispanic residents to serve as GOP precinct chairs in the Waco area

Stay informed with TFN News Clips, a daily digest of news about politics and the religious right. Subscribe here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Hitler on the Brain

December 10, 2009

Is everybody at Texas Eagle Forum obsessed with Adolf Hitler? The far-right group’s former leader (and now Texas Republican Party chair) Cathie Adams infamously compared President Obama to Hitler in September. Now new TEF boss Pat Carlson is referring to Hitler in an e-mail to far-right activists in which she attacks the United Nations and mainstream science on climate change:

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Posted in Cathie Adams | 3 Comments »

More of the Same

December 9, 2009

So what happens if Brian Russell, a State Republican Executive Committee member from Austin, replaces Cynthia Dunbar on the Texas State Board of Education after next year’s elections? Russell told the Texas Tribune today that he wants to keep education policy “moving in the direction we’ve been going in.” From the Tribune:

Russell, who previously endorsed Dunbar and seeks to be her replacement, has nothing but kind words for Dunbar: “I think she’s had a terrific record of achievement on the board. She’s been a problem solver and someone who’s exhibitied a lot of leadership.”

“My advantage is that I haven’t been a lightning rod,” he said.

But that’s a consequence of people not knowing yet just how politically extreme he is. Just take a look at the 2004 Texas Republican Party platform that he helped write (page 31 of this report). And check out the anti-science resolution he pushed through the State Republican Executive Committee last March.

And remember that Cynthia “Public Schools Are Tools of Perversion” Dunbar recruited him for the state board. That alone says volumes.

Posted in elections | 1 Comment »

American-Statesman Confirms: Dunbar Is Out

December 9, 2009

According to reporter Kate Alexander at the Austin American-Statesman, David Bradley is confirming that fellow Texas State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar will not seek re-election to her seat next year. Bradley told the Statesman that Dunbar recently began teaching at the Liberty University School of Law in Virginia and commutes from her home in Texas. The late Rev. Jerry Falwell founded Liberty University.

Bradley, R-Beaumont Buna, won re-election to his seat last year. The seats of two other far-right board members — Don McLeroy, R-College Station, and Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio — are up for election next year. So far McLeroy and Mercer appear to be seeking re-election.

Posted in Cynthia Dunbar, elections | 9 Comments »

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