Religious Right Watch

Santorum Tells A Mother Her Gay Son Is Engaging In Unhealthy Activity That Government Should Not 'Promote' | ThinkProgress

Rick Santorum railed against the LGBT community at a campaign stop at Community Christian Academy in Stuart, Florida on Tuesday, telling a woman that her gay son engages in unhealthy activity that the government should not “promote“:

via thinkprogress.org

JFK vs. Romney & Santorum on Separation of Church & State

 

Frederick Clarkson's "A Tale of Three Speeches About Separation of Church and State" -

Both candidates have staged high-profile speeches to define themselves in relation to John F. Kennedy's famous 1960 campaign speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association - a speech that has served as the model for how politicians balance religion and public life for a generation. But when they stepped up to the podium to define themselves in the bright light of history, each pandered to the religious right.

via www.truth-out.org

(Photo: Gage Skidmore)

NOM attacks in the state of Washington

 

In the inbox via Washington United:

The campaign for Marriage Equality in Washington State is under attack.

Yesterday, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), promised to spend $250,000 dollars in the next election to defeat any Republican who votes for Marriage Equality in Washington State. Read their press release here. There is no doubt they are trying to intimidate those who support same-sex marriage.

Today there are five courageous Republican lawmakers who have publicly said they will vote to make Marriage Equality legal in Washington.

As a result of their courage we are only one vote short of making Marriage Equality a reality.

But the fight is just beginning. Right now over $1,000,000 is on its way into Washington State to blackmail these leaders into changing their vote and to scare others. We must fight back now!

Make an emergency contribution to the Marriage Equality campaign.

For God So Loved the 1 Percent ... - NYTimes.com

 

in 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower presided over the first presidential prayer breakfast on a “government under God” theme and worked to promote public religiosity in a variety of ways. In 1954, as this “under-God consciousness” swept the nation, Congress formally added the phrase to the Pledge of Allegiance.

 

In the end, Mr. Romney is correct to claim that complaints about economic inequality are inconsistent with the concept of “one nation under God.” But that’s only because the “1 percent” of an earlier era intended it that way.

via campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com

Tim and Beverly LaHaye and Mat Staver Endorse Newt Gingrich | Right Wing Watch

Is the Religious Right beginning to coalesce behind Newt Gingrich? Yesterday, the former Speaker hosted a conference call with the members of his Faith Leaders Coalition: American Family Association founder Don Wildmon, Religious Right pollster George Barna and pastor Jim Garlow. Now, Gingrich is racking up additional endorsements from Religious Right figures just days before conservative activists are set to meet in Texas to see if they can get behind one of the presidential candidates.

 

via www.rightwingwatch.org

Crazy For Creationism: Legislators In Ind. And N.H. Seek To Undermine Instruction About Evolution

Rob Boston at Talk To Action:

It looks like opponents of creationism are going to have their hands full in 2012. The new year is just a few days old, and already we've seen several anti-evolution bills popping up in the states.

In Indiana, state Sen. Dennis Kruse has introduced S.B. 89, a bill that would allow public schools in the state to "require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science, within the school corporation."

Kruse has been on this crusade for a number of years and has introduced versions of this bill before. They always died. But Republicans now control the state Senate, and Kruse is chairman of the Senate Education Committee. From this powerful perch, he can agitate for this misguided legislation.

There remains one huge problem with the bill: It is patently unconstitutional. As Genie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, told the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette,  Kruse's bill would run afoul of Edwards v. Aguillard, a 1987 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Louisiana law requiring "balanced treatment" between creation science and evolution.

"The law is very, very clear on this," Scott said. "If this bill is passed, it is going to be challenged, and they will lose. The case law is so strong against them."

Meanwhile, some New Hampshire legislators have introduced a pair of truly kooky bills. State Rep. Jerry Bergevin's bill, H.B. 1148, would order the state board of education to "[r]equire evolution to be taught in the public schools of this state as a theory, including the theorists' political and ideological viewpoints and their position on the concept of atheism."

via www.talk2action.org

Yellow Cat Offers Rebuttal to Creationist Rabbi | Philly

It’s not only rational to propose that the origin of life happened through natural processes, it’s irrational to think otherwise. Why? In solving other problems, science has always found natural solutions and never supernatural ones. So believing in a natural process behind the origin of life is as rational as believing the Earth will journey around the sun again in 2012.  

Furthermore, science gives us some good reasons to think life could emerge through natural processes. First of all, there are no components of living things that are not found in the earth’s crust or atmosphere. Secondly, the laws of chemistry allow simpler molecules to assemble themselves into quite complex structures.

via www.philly.com

Hat-tip to the NCSE on Facebook. Like 'em at: https://www.facebook.com/evolution.ncse

Few suspected the Higgs would be so cuddly.

Rick Santorum: "the dangers of contraception in this country"

"One of the things I will talk about that no president has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea ... Many in the Christian faith have said, 'Well, that's okay ... contraception's okay.'

"It's not okay because it's a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They're supposed to be within marriage, for purposes that are, yes, conjugal...but also procreative. That's the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. We take any part of that out, we diminish the act. And if you can take one part out that's not for purposes of procreation, that's not one of the reasons, then you diminish this very special bond between men and women, so why can't you take other parts of that out? And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point where it's simply pleasure. And that's certainly a part of it—and it's an important part of it, don't get me wrong—but there's a lot of things we do for pleasure, and this is special, and it needs to be seen as special.

"Again, I know most presidents don't talk about those things, and maybe people don't want us to talk about those things, but I think it's important that you are who you are. I'm not running for preacher. I'm not running for pastor, but these are important public policy issues."

- Richard John "Rick" Santorum (b. May 10, 1958), sometime U.S. Senator representing the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Senior Fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and a contributor to Fox News Channel.

Hat-tip: MMA via dKos

Ron Paul's Iowa State Director Dedicated His Career to Fighting 'Evil' Gay Rights | Right Wing Watch

As Iowa State Director for the Ron Paul presidential campaign Mike Heath claims to have visited close to three hundred houses of worship on Paul’s behalf, more evidence of Heath’s rabidly anti-gay background while a Religious Right activist in Maine is coming to light. Before Maine’s marriage equality law was repealed, Heath contended that the legalization of same-sex marriage led to bad weather because “our elected officials overturned a law of nature, and in its place paid honor to evil and unnatural practices,” and Warren Throckmorton, who first uncovered that Paul was boasting about an endorsement from a pastor who advocates for the death penalty for gays and lesbians, notes that Heath was also the Board Chairman of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, one of the most fringe and virulently anti-gay groups in the country.

In Maine, Heath urged the legislature to re-criminalize homosexuality, saying it would “be prudent to reinstate Maine’s anti-sodomy law,” and worked to overturn the state’s marriage equality law, declaring, “Homosexuality has absolutely nothing to do with marriage. Homosexuality is a sickness.”

via www.rightwingwatch.org

Merry Christmas

Iowa's Bob Vander Plaats' Pay-For-Play Scandal: Charged A Million Bucks For Endorsement, Asked Candidates To Drop Out | ThinkProgress

Though Santorum did not specify the dollar amount he and Vander Plaats discussed, multiple sources said he was soliciting as much as $1 million from Santorum and other candidates.
.....
ABC News has learned that Vander Plaats tried to solicit money for his endorsement during the last presidential cycle too.

via thinkprogress.org

Progress Iowa has launched a petition calling on the Federal Elections Commission to investigate The FAMiLY LEADER for potential illegal campaign coordination. According to Erin Seidler, a spokesperson for the group:

Bob Vander Plaats’ solicitation of funds to promote his endorsement of Rick Santorum raises serious questions about further coordination between a political campaign and an outside group. Considering the possibility of illegal activity so close to Caucus Day, you can take Bob’s word there is no coordination or you can join us in telling the FEC to investigate if any illegal coordination is taking place.

The Religious Right Ain't What it Used to Be

Frederick Clarkson at Talk To Action:

The Los Angeles Times reports:  

Pastor Cary Gordon is warning Christian voters in Iowa not to trust Newt Gingrich. The attack, in the form of a three-minute satirical Web video....

[T]his is not the kind of thing that the GOP envisioned would happen when it encouraged the Religious Right to bend and break the perfectly reasonable IRS proscriptions against electioneering by churches.  The abandonment of political restraint is evident.  While Gordon's video release may be within the IRS guidelines as an act of an individual, he and his church were the subject of a complaint filed by American United for Separation of Church and State last year, for having violated its tax-exempt status in organizing (successful) electoral efforts against three Iowa Supreme Court judges.  (The judges had ruled in favor of marriage equality.) Gordon said at the time:

"The orthodox Christian pastors of Iowa do not and cannot recognize, with regard to the definition of marriage, the imaginary authority of the Iowa Supreme Court. History has already shown who inevitably wins when state wages war against the authority of the church of the living God. So let the battle between state and church begin."

via www.talk2action.org

Christianity Today Doubles Down on Samuel Rodriguez

A central feature of my work over the last four months has been exposing the contradictory positions of Samuel Rodriguez, and a major goal of mine has been to see both secular and religious institutions come to grips with his extremism and distance themselves from his work. Of particular concern to me is Rodriguez's standing within evangelical institutions that I have considered centrist or progressive. Like many writers and commentators I have considered Christianity Today a reliable bell weather of the evangelical center.

via www.talk2action.org

Statement by Jeremy Ben-Ami on Newt Gingrich Remarks on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict | J Street

J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami released the following statement in response to Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s recent remarks about the Palestinians.

Newt Gingrich’s comments about the Palestinian people and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are ill-informed, irresponsible and frightening.

The former Speaker’s assertion that the Palestinians are an ‘invented’ people shows an appalling lack of understanding of the history of the Middle East in the last century following the break-up of the Ottoman Empire.

Gingrich further misunderstands the present-day politics of the Palestinian people, willfully blurring distinctions among Palestinian factions and demeaning the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to state-building, security cooperation with Israel and pursuit of a two-state solution.

Most dangerous, however, is the threat a Gingrich presidency could pose to the future of Israel and the region. Israel’s long-term security as a Jewish homeland and democratic state depends on the establishment of a Palestinian state living next door. Israel simply cannot retain control of all of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and remain both Jewish and democratic.

This is a fact that Israeli Prime Ministers and US Presidents of all political persuasions have recognized for more than two decades. Achieving a two-state solution to the conflict is not simply essential to Israel, it’s also a fundamental American national interest. A truly pro-Israel President taking office in 2013 will do more, not less, to end this conflict in a two-state solution.

Newt Gingrich is recklessly pursuing political gain by throwing gasoline on the powder keg of the Middle East. The consequences will be dire not just for Israel but for the United States as well.

To us, the Speaker’s remarks are not what a pro-Israel politician should be saying. J Street calls on Speaker Gingrich to retract his comments and on other Presidential candidates – and the President himself – to push back strongly in the campaign to come against ideas like these that are far outside the mainstream of American foreign policy.

via jstreet.org

Report tracks explosion of religious lobbying in Washington – CNN

Lobbying and advocacy by religious groups in Washington have exploded in recent decades, increasing fivefold since 1970 to become a nearly $400 million industry, a new Pew report finds.

More than 200 groups are doing faith-related lobbying and advocacy in the nation’s capital, compared to fewer than 40 in 1970, according to the report. Put together, the groups employ at least 1,000 people.

The report, released Monday by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, found that religious groups spend $390 million a year to influence U.S. domestic and foreign policy.

“About one-in-five religious advocacy organizations in Washington have a Roman Catholic perspective (19%) and a similar proportion is evangelical Protestant in outlook (18%), while 12% are Jewish and 8% are mainline Protestant,” according to the report, called "Lobbying for the Faithful: Religious Advocacy Groups in Washington, D.C."

via religion.blogs.cnn.com