Religious Right Watch

The Other Reason for Cutting Franklin Graham from the Pentagon's NDP Event

[The Military Religious Freedom Foundation] was already working on addressing another National Day of Prayer (NDPTF) issue when we were contacted by the members of the Muslim worship community at the Pentagon requesting our help regarding Franklin Graham['s participation in a Pentagon event]. This other issue is the scheduled participation of military personnel (i.e., military color guards and military bands) in other official NDPTF events across the country. This participation is not only in violation of the same military regulations cited above regarding non-federal entities, but DoD and individual service branch regulations on uniform wear.

And, of course, there's also that pesky constitutional issue of the military's endorsement of a particular religion by participating in NDPTF events. The NDPTF's message is very clear -- no non-Christians need apply.

To begin with, all NDPTF volunteers must subscribe to the following "Statement of Belief," a statement that excludes all non-Christians and non-religious, and even many Christians.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

The Nazis Didn't Even Dare This, But Mainstream And Even Progressive Media Voices Are Silent

After a burst of media coverage towards the close of 2009, the growing persecution of gays in Uganda seems to have dropped off radar screens not only of mainstream US media but also most of alternative and progressive media, on and off the Internet.

Meanwhile, if things go as planned, next Sunday May 2nd American evangelist Lou Engle, who played a major role in the push for California's anti-gay marriage Proposition Eight, will stage one of his anti-gay, sexual purity-obsessed prayer rallies in Kampala, Uganda's capital.

via www.talk2action.org

New Right Wing Crusade: Defund the SPLC

It is no secret that Religious Right groups do not particularly like the Southern Poverty Law Center, especially ever since it started keeping a list of "Active Anti-Gay Groups" that includes groups like the Family Research Institute, Watchmen on the Walls, and Traditional Values Coalition. 

MassResistance is also featured on the list, and is now fighting back, claiming that the SPLC secretly wrote the Department of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism that was released last year

via www.rightwingwatch.org

Click here to donate to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Ky. Supreme Court rules against Baptist university

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Baptist university can't keep $11 million awarded by state lawmakers some four years ago to open a pharmacy school.

The case, which involves the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, had been closely watched by advocates for other church-affiliated schools that have largely been excluded in the past from state funding for construction projects.

A trial court judge had ruled in 2008 that the appropriation to the private, church-affiliated university violates the state constitution. The university's attorneys appealed directly to the supreme court, skipping the court of appeals, in hopes of a quicker decision.
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Franklin County Special Circuit Judge Roger Crittenden had held in the initial ruling that the state appropriation violated a constitutional prohibition against public education money being spent on any "church, sectarian or denominational school."

Read the article here.

Pentagon has cancelled Franklin Graham as speaker

CNN has just reported that the Pentagon has cancelled Franklin Graham as the speaker for its National Day of Prayer event.

Here's the letter from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) that did it:

via www.talk2action.org

Losing the Argument Over Marriage, Anti-Gay Forces Pound the Table

A "pound the table" strategy is exactly what our opponents have opted for in court cases, in waves of ballot-measure attacks, and in the dust they throw up through the media. As Adam Liptak recounts in today's New York Times, the anti-gay forces now routinely rely now on diversion and fear-mongering to distract from the reality that when more committed couples join in marriage, families are helped and no one hurt.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

Follow the link for the rest of the article by Evan Wolfson (photo by David Shankbone) about the fear-and-distraction methods of religio-political forces determined to spread falsehoods about same-sex civil marriage and gay Americans in general.

ELCA Leadership Removes Barriers to Gays

The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has revised its policies to allow for full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the life of the church. Gay Lutherans no longer have to be closeted or celibate in order to pursue a calling to lay leadership or ordained ministry.

via www.streetprophets.com

Sputtering Start to Religious Right's Rebranding

Speaker after speaker portrayed faith and freedom under relentless attack in America. In spite of repeated assertions that the movement was nonpartisan and would not be co-opted by any political party, it was clear that the top political priorities for these leaders are to help Republicans take back at least one house of Congress in 2010 and to defeat the tyrannical Barack Obama in 2012. Ending abortion and turning back progress toward equality for LGBT people are top policy priorities.

via www.rightwingwatch.org

Follow the link for the rest of People For's reporting on the Freedom Federation's "Awakening" conference that was the Religious Right's latest attempt to make the movement more "multiracial, multi-ethic, [and] transgenerational."

(Photo: The Rev. Sam Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC) at Awakening.)

David Barton's Contempt for History Teachers

Polemical historical revisionist and right-wing Christian conservative David Barton (photo) continues to push his radical agenda into American classrooms, and now he's using abject lies against educators and historians who oppose his efforts. His recent

diatribe wasn’t just an insulting attack on teachers. It was also a carefully calibrated lie designed to discredit the entire [Texas] curriuclum process and excuse efforts by far-right members of the State Board of Education to twist the curriculum standards into a tool for promoting their own political agendas.

via tfninsider.org

Hawaii scenario: GOP & Dem candidates allied with radical, global, faith-healing, anti-gay organization, International Transformation Network. Wilson asks, "As goes Uganda, so goes Hawaii?"

Bruce Wilson's recent reporting on Talk To Action (Talk2Action) about the International Transformation Network (ITN) and its Hawaii chapter, Transformation Hawaii ("Hawai'i He'e Nalu"), reveals that Republican Lt. Gov. of Hawaii and candidate for Governor, James "Duke" Aiona, and Democratic Honolulu Mayor and candidate for Governor, Mufi Hannemann have connections with "a religio-political movement that, beyond US shores, is brutally eliminationist."

Mayor Hannemann and Lt. Gov. Aiona have both attended ITN events for years.

ITN Founder and CEO Ed Silvoso announced, "It doesn't matter if the Republican or the Democratic candidate wins the governorship [of Hawaii]. Either one is already in the kingdom."

Transformation Hawaii President Allen Cardines stated, "Hawaii will be the first Christian state."

ITN Chairman and noted Hawaii architect Francis Oda declared, "God is transforming Hawaii... we are the tip of his spear."

From Wilson's article:

[ITN] leaders such as Ed Silvoso claim homosexuals are possessed by demons, assert that HIV and AIDS can be cured through faith healing and prayer, and decry basic birth control methods. They oppose labor unions and secular public education. ITN ideology targets mainstream Christianity with the charge that Catholics and Protestants who are not "born again" and charismatic are not saved and so will not go to heaven.

[ITN] is part of a global charismatic evangelical movement that seeks to "transform" cities, nations, even whole continents, by purifying the world of perceived evil. As ITN Founder and CEO Ed. Silvoso states in a promotional video, "Jesus designed the church to be his agency on Earth to destroy Satan's empire."
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ITN operatives have played a significant role organizing and inspiring Ugandan legislators who have drafted, cosponsored, and backed the draconian and internationally denounced Anti Homosexuality Bill before Uganda's parliament which would mandate the execution of many HIV positive Ugandans and also require, on pain of three years in prison, that citizens report to the police anyone suspected of being gay. The penalty for being homosexual in Uganda is imprisonment for life.
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One of the Transformation Hawaii / Hawai'i He'e Nalu projects has been the so-called "Aloha Card." Lt. Governor Duke Aiona has handed out, with the approval of Hawaii's Department of Education, tens of thousands of the plastic business-card sized cards to students in Hawaii's schools.

Read the entire article here--including an overview of the practice of "Spiritual Mapping" and information about Lt. Governor Aiona's proclamation dedicating Hawaii to the Lord Jesus Christ.