Religious Right Watch

Empire State Bldg to house evangelical campus

Nick Paumgarten writing in The New Yorker, summarizes the evolving saga of the newly re-minted The King's College. The college recently had a fund-raising campaign built around their convenient charge of "anti-Christian" bias on the part of the state's Board of Regents, which the college (and National Review Online) said was rumored to be planning to extend the college's one-year accreditation by only an additional year, not five years as is common. (Of course, in the end, the accreditation was extended by five years.)

The college closed in 1994, but Campus Crusade for Christ--an evangelical collegiate proselytizing organization--resuscitated it in 1998.

The King's College's administrative offices are on the 15th floor, "in a suite once occupied by Oxford Shirts." The college takes their lease this fall. Classrooms, a "'leadership center,'" a canteen, and a small library will be in the lower lobby (located sub-grade), and the 250 students will live in nearby one-bedroom apartments--three to four students to a room (Welcome to Manhattan)--grouped in "'houses" with names like Ronald Reagan, Elizabeth I, and Winston Churchill.

The college's goal, according to its president, Stan Oakes, is "to educate students for national leadership.... [Students] will study politics, philosophy, and economics, and attempt, as Oakes put it, 'to bring sophistication to the defining questions: marriage, family, when to go to war, does poverty cause crime.'"

Dialogue

As Frederick Clarkson points out on his blog today, Justice Sunday II is only a few weeks away. It will be a Religious Right extravaganza. As has been discussed on Talk To Action, the topic of language is key, and a discussion before Justice Sunday II would be ideal (but it might be logistically difficult). By the topic of language being key, what specifically comes to mind is the topic of how to move beyond labeling or demonizing the Religious Right, for the sake of making connections with the rank and file members--not all of whom are unreachable; many of them are dismissed as fanatics or extremists far too often.

Clarkson's post today takes the reader back to a Newsday article about Chip Berlet and dialog with the Religious Right. It's a great opening to a larger dialog; please read it and recommend it to others.

Public Theologian

This site is not yet a month old, yet a link to Public Theologian could be deemed "long overdue." Tim Simpson is a Presbyterian minister active with the new org, Christian Alliance For Progress. A link to his blog was recently added under Good Shepards. Please go check out Rev. Simpson's great blog.

Rightwing tries to label Democrats "anti-Catholic" -- WWRD (What Will Ratzinger Do?)

Yesterday a story swirled around the media that Sen. Richard Durbin on Friday had asked Supreme Court nominee John Roberts what he, as a devout Roman Catholic, would do relative to rulings on things the Roman Catholic Church declared immoral.

The story, as related in the Los Angeles Times by a professor not at the meeting, itself become the story. The New York Times summarized:

An opinion-page article in The Los Angeles Times on Monday by Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, included an account of Mr. Durbin's question. Professor Turley cited unnamed sources saying that Judge Roberts had told Mr. Durbin he would recuse himself from cases involving abortion, the death penalty or other subjects where Catholic teaching and civil law can clash.

If Roberts had, or if he did, answer that way, it should render him unfit to serve. However, a spokesman for Durbin stated that the story was wrong. (By "wrong," I assume was meant "in error," not "immoral.")

Immediately, the "anti-religious" card was play by the likes of the religious right organization currently headed by Tony Perkins, the Family Research Council, and Fidelis.org, a Roman Catholic religio-political organization, as well as in the Religious Right's media vehicles, and all Democrats were broadly painted as "anti-Catholic."

But some, like Amy Sullivan on Beliefnet, see manufactured outrage, and note that even before any Democrats had sounded an opinion about Roberts at all, right after Roberts was announced by the President, conservative and Religious Right groups were already shouting that Democrats were on the attack against Roberts for his religion (or, seemingly worse yet, "attacking" his wife, who is active in adoption advocacy but also anti-abortion groups).

Sullivan:

[I]t is outrageous for conservatives to argue that Democrats, by virtue of concerns about whether Roberts would uphold Roe v. Wade, are injecting religion into the confirmation process. Accusing those who disagree with them of harboring religious bias is no more becoming or compelling for conservatives than it is when liberals lodge the same charges with race. What’s more, it sullies the process from the very beginning for no good reason.

This could all play-out unfortunately for the Democrats unless they are careful. The issues have been put out there: 1. Would a Catholic doctrine or papal pronouncement affect your ruling, Mr. Roberts? 2. Does your wife's anti-abortion activism affect you? The second question is to be avoided, and will be. The whole topic of the spouse of someone nominated for the Supreme Court needs to stay pretty much irrelevant.

But the first question has some aspects that may warrant exploring. Then-Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict the XVI, supported the withholding of Communion (excommunication of a degree) from officials who voted to support abortion. For a Roman Catholic, if orthodox, this can literally put ones soul in jeopardy. So, the question that still might need to be asked is, "Mr. Roberts, you say you will not let your religion influence your judgments as a Justice of the Supreme Court. Are you saying that you're willing to have Communion denied you--perhaps by papal decree--if you should find yourself ultimately deciding that you must uphold the law of the land, which is that abortion is legal in some situations and under certain conditions? Or, Are you confident the Pope would allow you to vote however you wish, without consequences that, you might believe, could jeopardize your soul?"

In the end, it will probably play out more or less as David Brooks has predicted. Roberts isn't in demeanor a Scalia. He's more likable, by all accounts. Democrats were already put on the defensive by the Durbin story. (Some on Daily Kos yesterday suggested that the Durbin story was planted by the Bush administration, so that conservative Republicans and the Religious Right had occasion to brand Democrats "anti-religious.")

If nothing else, now comes a real test of the leadership of Sen. Harry Reid, the political acumen of Sen. Clinton, who's spoken about abortion a lot recently, and the intellect and nerve of Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is on the Judiciary Committee that will question Roberts. They will need to call the "anti-Catholic" bluff so dear to the conservative religio-political coalition influencing and actually governing much of America today, and at the same time ask the appropriate, tough questions, even the one about excommunication suggested above, for the sake of determining Roberts' viability as a nominee for the highest court in the land.

Steve Noble: rising star of Christian Right

The News & Observer staffer Yonat Shimron recently profiled a rising star of the Christian Right, Steve Noble (registration required). The profile gives us occasion to examine key players in the Christian Right, and to begin to observe Noble's ernest activism. (Neither links nor emphases below are in Shimron's article online.)

(Photo of Steve Noble by Sher Stoneman)

Shimron writes that Noble organized a fall 2004 "sold-out rally for evangelist James Dobson," in Noble's home state of North Carolina," at which he "was invited to attend the secretive Council for National Policy."

The Council for National Policy (CNP) has been referred to by journalist Marc J. Ambinder as "the most powerful conservative group you've never heard of," and a "sausage factory for conservative ideas" (source).

(Photo of Paul Weyrich)

At the meeting, "Noble dined with Paul Weyrich," who co-founded the Heritage Foundation in 1973,"and introduced himself to former Attorney General Edwin Meese and anti-feminist crusader Phyllis Schlafly." Weyrich is often referred to as the father of the Christian Right. As Michelle Goldberg summarized for Salon.com, Weyrich, along with Howard Phillips and direct mail titan Richard Viguerie "recruited a little-known Baptist preacher named Jerry Falwell to start the Moral Majority."

Shimron:

[Noble has] "made a quick ascent into the conservative elite. In little more than a year, he has built an effective grass-roots organization that can mobilize Wake County's largest evangelical churches. Now he wants to replicate his group -- Called2Action -- in cities across the nation."

.....

Noble says local organizations, are the key to changing the culture. Called2Action persuaded a newsstand owner at Cary Towne Center to take down some racy calendars. It led a two-month boycott of The News & Observer for running a photo of two gay men. More recently, it lobbied for a bill in the state Senate requiring public schools to offer the Pledge of Allegiance five days a week....

Called2Action was recently invited to join the Arlington Group, a national coalition of 26 conservative organizations working to pass a U.S. Constitutional amendment defining marriage as a heterosexual union. Last week, the coalition filed papers for a political action group, Called2Elect, that will endorse candidates for office.

(Here is Weyrich himself on the topic of the Arlington Group.)

Shimron writes that when Noble:

gets up in front of a crowd of conservatives, he tells them that until recently he was just like them. He had disengaged from society and shut out popular culture....

"I built my castle," he typically says. "I dug my moat. I pulled in my gate."

But...last year, he heard a preacher talk about a Christian's responsibility to get involved, and in the words of the prophet Nehemiah, "rebuild the wall of Jerusalem." He scribbled a commitment to himself: "To be more outspoken for God's truth in the public arena." After the sermon, he placed the note on the altar.

A week later, a friend, Raleigh City Council member Mike Regan, told him the city's Human Relations Commission was amending its policy to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Regan, Noble and Pastor Patrick Wooden of the Upper Room Church of God in Christ got to work. They packed city hall with 400 protesters and shouted down anyone who spoke in favor of the revision, saying the policy would sanction immorality.

They lost. But Called2Action was born.

According to the article, Called2Action has 49 church partners in Wake County now, and 2,200 people signed up to get electronic "ActionGrams," and "Noble is working to recreate Called2Action in other cities. Already, there's a Durham/Orange Called2Action and a Wilmington "Act Now" group. Noble is talking to people in Winston-Salem about organizing a chapter there."

Shimron spoke to critics, too, for the article. "Rev. Doug Gamble, missions pastor at Raleigh's Crossroads Fellowship...said Called2Action is too closely associated with Republican Party issues." Shimron summarizes:

But Noble, like many evangelicals, is not too worried about causes such as poverty. He thinks the problem can be addressed if the two parties, Republican and Democratic, become better stewards of national resources. Like many evangelicals, he says traditional family values take precedence over everything else.

"Society won't crumble based on tax policy or housing policy or even welfare policy," he said. "These aren't foundational issues. It's what you do with life, what you do with your family. You destroy those, and you destroy society."

Local press perspective on Zach

Wayne Besen, the author of "Anything But Straight" has responded to the saga of Zach, the 16-year-old in the press a lot recently for having been trucked off to "ex-gay" boot camp by his parents and blogging about it.

In May, 16-year old Zach told his fundamentalist Christian parents that he is gay. Horrified by the news, they vowed to fix him by sending him to an “ex-gay” boot camp in Memphis to be reprogrammed. Like a modern day message in a bottle, Zach used his Internet blog to send an SOS. Miraculously, his desperate plea for help washed up on the shores of sanity and circulated in cyberspace at warp speed.

“I told my parents I was gay,” he wrote. “This didn’t go over very well,” and “They tell me that there is something psychologically wrong with me, and they ‘raised me wrong.’

“Today, my mother, father and I had a very long talk in my room, where they let me know I am to apply for a fundamentalist Christian program for gays.”

The next day, Zach threw another bottle into the Cyber-sea.

“It’s like boot camp. If I do come out straight, I’ll be so mentally unstable and depressed it won’t matter.”

By now, Zach’s plight has received worldwide attention and the spotlight has shone brightly on the debatably abusive and coercive tactics used by Love in Action, the cult that runs the ex-gay boot camp for youth called “Refuge”.

With all the focus on this young man, another pair of victims in this tragedy has largely gone unnoticed: Zach’s parents. They have alternately been portrayed as abusive or religious zealots. Indeed, Zach’s father, Joe Stark, unwisely appeared on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club to defend his decision to enroll his son in Refuge.

“We felt very good about Zach coming here because…to let him see for himself the destructive lifestyle, what he has to face in the future, and to give him some options that society doesn’t give him today,” Stark told the toothy televangelist. “Knowing that your son…statistics say that by the age of 30 he could either have AIDS or be dead.”

These are the words of a father who clearly loves his child. He is doing what any sane father would do, and that is using all available means to protect his son. Stark believes he is doing what is necessary to keep Zach from a premature death and an unhappy life.

The problem is, all his assumptions are based on deliberate misinformation spread by quacks or charlatans who have a political or profit motive in deceiving the public. Stark is a parental pawn in the culture wars and I believe he will one day come to greatly resent this unethical manipulation by the extreme right.

First, his statement that gay people die at 30 comes directly from the work of Paul Cameron, a disgraced researcher who was kicked out of the American Psychological Association for distorting the facts on homosexuality. Second, it is clear from Zach’s blog that Stark bought the right wing lie that Zach is gay because he wasn’t raised properly.

This canard is a staple of conversion therapy and a mammoth burden weighted on the shoulders of guilt-ridden parents who did nothing wrong, but are assigned blame. Parenting has no more to do with a child’s sexual orientation than it does with determining height or handedness. Mounting evidence points to sexual orientation resulting from biological factors. Unfortunately, Zach’s parents are being victimized by the right wing offering them outdated and disproved research from the 1950’s and 60’s. I suspect, in time, they will also be outraged by the right’s dubious use of “blame the parents” pseudo science.

Look, there is no way in the short run that this is going to end well for the Stark family. They enrolled their son in a failed program where the co-founder, John Evans, dropped out after his friend Jack McIntyre, also in the program, committed suicide because he couldn’t change. I photographed Love in Action’s poster boy, John Paulk, in a seedy gay bar. The group’s youngest graduate and spokesperson, Wade Richards, is now a gay activist. Needless to say, the group has credibility problems, especially when one explores their bizarre techniques.

“I’m looking at that wall and suddenly I say its blue,” Love In Action’s director, John Smid told the alternative newspaper The Memphis Flyer, while pointing to a yellow wall. “Someone else comes along and says, ‘No, it’s gold.’ But I want to believe that wall is blue. Then God comes along and He says, You’re right, John, [that yellow wall] is blue.’ That’s the help I need. God can help me make that [yellow] wall blue.”

Don’t get angry at or lose faith in the Stark family. Like most parents, they will need time to sort through the pernicious myths and misinformation. When the high priced miracles and magic fail, they will see that yellow walls don’t become blue and gay people don’t turn straight. At that point, the Starks will have to choose between valuing their family or Pat Robertson’s family values. My bet is they will embrace Zach over Pat.

Pat Robertson picked John Roberts

The Fredricksburg Free Lance-Star is reporting, "In Virginia Beach, television evangelist Pat Robertson said in a statement that [Supreme Court nominee John] Roberts was at the top of his own list of candidates for the court vacancy."

Robertson also offers some seemingly equivocating statements, too. But his endorsement of Roberts is unlikely to be welcome news for many vigilantly watching the religious right's rising influence on the judiciary.

Falwell attacks CAP as "hardly Christian"

Christian readers of RRW might very well find an advocate in the new org, Christian Alliance for Progress (CAP). They were recently attacked by Jerry Falwell, so they must be doing something right. Christian or non-, if you want a great example of the Christian Right's understanding of "faith" (i.e., the Christian Right is really about [conservative] politics, not faith), the below reprinted e-mail from CAP is interesting. (The emphasis is not in the original.)

On July 8, the Reverend Jerry Falwell sent out an email to the Moral Majority Coalition and the Liberty Alliance attacking the Christian Alliance for Progress. He claims that we are “hardly Christian” in part because of our political views.     Read his email here.

On the following Sunday, the Christian Alliance received a host of emails that were clearly fueled by Reverend Falwell’s words of anger.  Many of these messages repeated his judgmental tone, but almost none said anything about the values Jesus taught.  For example, "It's a travesty that your group has taken the 'Christian' name."  Click here to see more of the comments that we received from his followers .

We suspect that Reverend Falwell’s criticism of the Christian Alliance for Progress is not really about faith.  We think it’s more about imposing his radical right-wing politics and ideology.  His statement illustrates how the leaders of the Religious Right try to mandate to Americans what it means to be Christian.  Is Reverend Falwell’s way really the only way to express Christianity in the public square?   Are the political views of the radical Religious Right really the only views Christians are permitted to have?  We say no.  Christianity is our faith.  We seek to follow the values Jesus taught and to express those values in our political views.

We want to hear YOUR response.  Perhaps you feel Reverend Falwell’s attack on the Christian Alliance is also an attack on YOU.  Take a stand for the Christian values in which you believe.  Tell us how you would respond to Jerry Falwell.  If we get 5000 responses, we'll see how we can deliver these messages to Reverend Falwell.   Let’s remember that, according to the Washington Post, Reverend Falwell is one of the people the White House has asked for input on the Supreme Court nominee.  Send your response to Reverend Falwell so we can help remind him and the White House that there are many Christians who see our nation’s needs differently than he does.  Ask your friends, your family, and your co-workers to do the same.   Click Here to Respond to Reverend Falwell’s Letter.

Patrick Mrotek
Founder

The reparative therapy couch is bunk

Before presenting below a summary of part two of Mark Benjamin's four-part coverage on Salon.com of so-called "reparative" therapy for gay people--in which he pretends to be gay and visits his "licensed Christian therapist" who explains why kids who can't "hit the ball or fire the gun" are more likely to be gay... I have two observations to share.

The first is that of a Yale Divinity professor I stood next to in the audience attending a 1996 on-campus presentation by a group of "ex-gays." After the sometimes woeful and glassy-eyed tales (the meds were working overtime) of drug abuse, self-destructive sexual behavior, being diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, etc. one after another, as if theirs were normative gay experience, and statements of how they'd all been "cured," I heard the prof demurely state. "This isn't about gay anything. The only thing these people's testimonies really prove is that dysfunctional families breed dysfunctional children."

My second observation is that as a non-artist who hasn't the patience to learn a musical instrument or hone drawing skills, who hates to cook, who seems devoid of fashion sense beyond suit-and-tie routines, who ran cross-country and track, who was class president, and who is the COO of a company in its third year of double-digit revenue increases, who is a damn good shot with a rifle and has fired everything from a Chinese SKS to a mere Ruger 10/22, and whose mother never once disparaged my father, whose mother was never controlling, whose father wasn't absent, and who is gay...some of the pseudo-Freudian derivative claptrap that is voiced and written by these Christian "therapists" and leaders of the ex-gay movement in Benjamin's articles and elsewhere is appalling and deceitful. It is grounded in intellectual dishonesty, and often skewed data and "findings." In other words, it is bearing false witness.

Benjamin's article in part:

Barry Levy, a Christian counselor and licensed clinical social worker, is explaining to me what causes homosexuality. "Take the young boy who is more sensitive, more delicate, who doesn't like rough-and-tumble, who is artistic," he says. "He can't hit the ball, fire the gun or shoot an arrow. There is a high correlation between poor eye-hand coordination and same-sex attraction."

I am sitting in an overstuffed chair in Levy's office in suburban Rockville, Md.

.....

I was referred to Levy by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family....

Levy practices what is called "reparative" or "conversion" therapy, which allegedly helps homosexuals become heterosexuals. The theory that homosexuality is a mental disorder that needs to be cured is the moral underpinning of the Christian right's crusade against gay marriage, sodomy laws, gay adoption and sex ed curriculums in schools. While all major modern mental health professions say conversion therapy is baseless and potentially dangerous, I wanted to experience for myself what is going on behind counselors' closed doors.

I was asked to fill out roughly 15 pages of questions about myself and my family. Mostly the questions centered on how I got along with my folks. In a section about my problems, I wrote "possible homosexuality...."

According to the Bible, Levy says, homosexuality "is not consistent with the manufacturer's desire.....

Homosexuality, Levy asserts, is a mental disorder, a certifiable neurosis. "The psychoanalytic perspective has always considered homosexuality and same-sex attraction to be a neurosis. They still do and they still treat it." (In fact, mental health associations do not consider homosexuality a neurosis and do not "treat" patients for it. Dr. Douglas Haldeman, president of the Association of Practicing Psychologists, a group affiliated with the American Psychological Association, says it is wrong to identify homosexuality as a neurosis. "There is no scientific evidence of that, and there is no mainstream mental health organization or profession that supports this ancient, discredited theory," he says.)

Levy informs me that homosexuality is difficult to treat because it is about more than sexuality -- it is about a way of life. "I want to make a distinction between same-sex attraction and being gay," he says. "That is a whole ideology. It is a lifestyle. It becomes the locus, or organizing principle, of the identity of the human personality." Reparative therapy focuses on getting gays and lesbians to stop talking or walking "gay." One "ex-gay" program in Memphis, Tenn., Refuge, bars men from wearing jewelry, donning Calvin Klein clothes and listening to secular music.

The causes of homosexuality, Levy explains, are many, but childhood loneliness figures prominently.... "When kids are understimulated, they play with themselves, and the source of greatest stimulation is obviously your genitals or your mouth." I tell Levy I did not think I was a lonely kid. "There are more reasons," he responds. "I got more."

He suggests that I may lack confidence and am turning my admiration for bold and masculine men into sexual desire for them. "I call it the Wizard of Oz principle," he says. "The lion wants courage so he can be the most courageous one on the journey. Some people call it the 'cannibal compulsion.' Cannibals will eat people, but only the enemies they admire...."

He turns to a central theory of reparative therapy, which is that a son's unrequited love for an emotionally unavailable father gets transferred into sexual desire for men. Homosexual feelings can arise, Levy says, "when a boy is not affirmed in his gender by the father, who might be mean, who might be cruel, who might be absent. Often, there is a highly conflicted relationship where the mother disparages the father. She misidentifies with the marriage and might even start to identify with the son." Under those circumstances, Dr. Joe Nicolosi, president of the National Association for Research and Treatment of Homosexuality, later tells me, "temperamentally sensitive" boys become vulnerable to homosexuality.

Levy says reparative therapy is effective, but that a cure for homosexuality takes at least two years of weekly counseling. (My one hour cost Salon $140.) He says that if I stay in therapy, I will either turn straight or get "significant relief."

Creationism museum project presses on

From the article on ChallengerNKY.com:

Since breaking ground in March 2001, construction [of Ken Ham's muesum about Creationism] has been almost non-stop as money comes in; with roughly $300,000 received each month.

Every item, from the office chairs to the life-size Tyrannosaurus Rex model, was bought with donations. But large corporations aren't bankrolling the project, it's regular people.

"The surprising thing is that this facility hasn't been built by a lot of large donations," said Mark Looy, [Answers In Genesis'] vice president of outreach. "The average donation is about $70. People from all over the country donate, even Alaska."

Those small donations have added up over the years, now totaling $16 million.

(Photograph of the museum as seen from its nature tail. Source.)