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

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 Before Maine’s marriage equality law was repealed, Heath contended that the legalization of same-sex marriage led to bad weather because “our elected officials overturned a law of nature, and in its place paid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

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

Avila Resigns Over Anti-Gay Column | Right Wing Watch

Major kudos to Right Wing Watch for their continued good work exemplified by their spotting in a Roman Catholic publication the indefensible demonization of an entire swath of humanity.

As first reported by Right Wing Watch, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ point person on marriage issues Daniel Avila claimed in a Catholic newspaper, The Pilot, that Satan was responsible for making people gay by “disturb[ing] otherwise typical biological development.” Following our story and criticism from his fellow Catholics, Avila’s column was retracted and both Avila and the newspaper’s editors apologized. The column can still be found here at the Religion News Service.

The Associated Press is now reporting that Avila is resigning his post.

via www.rightwingwatch.org

Avila apparently said good riddance after his rubbish was deemed bad enough by his handlers. It might be pointed out that what Avila did is not only unethical and immoral, but theologically juvenile at best, heretical at worst, even from the standpoint of Roman Catholic doctrine which is anti-modern and anti-science enough as it is already (except when it comes to some matters of physics and astronomy, because it would seem that The Vatican has a big telescope and now feels sort of kind of bad about having excommunicated Galileo, or maybe sort of kind of doesn't:

Atila Sinke Guimarães, a conservative Catholic writer, dismisses the church's mistreatment of Galileo as a "black legend." The scientist, he says, got what he deserved. "The Inquisition was very moderate with him. He wasn't tortured.")

(Image: Galileo Galilei Before the Holy Office (1847), by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury, depicting an imagining of events in 1633. Click to enlarge...a bit.)

Priest Says Catholics Must Oppose Politicians Who Don't Oppose "Intrinsically Evil" Homosexuality | Right Wing Watch

The mayor of El Paso, Texas and two city councilmembers are facing recall elections after their support of domestic partner benefits for city employees raised the ire of Religious Right activists. One of the proponents of the recall, Rev. Michael Rodriguez, was reassigned out of the El Paso Roman Catholic diocese after paying for advertisements saying that the choice for Catholic voters in the election was “clear” and they must support the recall.

In an interview last week with Michael J. Matt of The Remnant, Rodriguez said, “Every single Catholic has a moral obligation before God Himself to oppose any government attempt to legalize homosexual unions” and “oppose this homosexual agenda.” Rodriguez told the newspaper that “even a pagan, bereft of the light of faith, can arrive at the conclusion that homosexual acts are intrinsically evil.”

via www.rightwingwatch.org

Kamal Saleem Lecture in Midland Prompts Scrutiny « Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion

From the Midland Daily News (Michigan) in September:

Self-described “former terrorist” Kamal Saleem will be speaking in Midland on Sunday and Monday as part of an effort to “wake America” to the threat of radical Islam in the United States, an organizer of the event says.

“This man has a unique perspective on things,” said Midland resident Rebecca Smith, a member of Citizens Concerned for Our Nation, the group sponsoring Saleem’s talks at 2 p.m. Sunday and 7 p.m. Monday at the Midland Center for the Arts.

Saleem is one of several US immigrants of middle eastern background who now make a living from visiting churches and conservative groups with lurid tales of their Muslim pasts – last November, Saleem and his associate Walid Shoebat joined Robert Spencer and Gen “Jerry” Boykin at an anti-Islam “Fort Hood Memorial” event, and Saleem and Boykin also spoke at an event organised by the Oak Initiative, a neo-Pentecostal Christian Right organisation led by Rick Joyner.

However, as with Shoebat, Saleem’s back-story has been challenged....

via barthsnotes.wordpress.com

NAR and Dominionism Have Been a Concern of Conservative Christian Groups for Many Years

As [Rachel Tabachnick has] stated in a previous article [on Talk2Action], C. Peter Wagner[, President of the Global Harvest Ministries and Chancellor of the Wagner Leadership Institute,] has attacked the secular press for negative coverage of the [New Apostolic Reformation (NAR)], but many of his recent responses were clearly replies to the critiques of other conservative Christians. Following are some of these critiques.

via www.talk2action.org

Truth Wins Out - Assaulted At Church For the Crime of Being Gay

Two Wednesdays ago, Jerry Pittman, Jr., and his boyfriend Dustin Lee were on their way into a church service in Fruitland, Tennessee, when Jerry’s father, the church’s pastor, yelled, “Sic ‘em!,” at which point two deacons and Jerry’s uncle began to shout homophobic slurs and attack them physically, in order to prevent them from coming in. The story has shocked people across the country and around the world, as it has gone viral this week, causing millions of people who had never heard of Fruitland to shake their heads, appalled that something like that could happen in the year 2011 in the United States.

via www.truthwinsout.org

Engle: "We Are Dominion-Havers" | Right Wing Watch

Lou Engle spoke at the Justice House of Prayer’s Antioch Again conference on September 22nd, where he promoted The Call: Detroit and as usual prayed against Muslims, abortion and gays and lesbians. Engle made clear that Detroit was selected as the next site for The Call so that Muslims in Michigan “will have dreams of Jesus."

via www.rightwingwatch.org

Engle:

We're going to do The Call in Detroit ... on 11/11/11, right next to the greatest population in North America of Muslims - [Dearborn]. We're going in there and we're launching forty days and forty nights of intercession and we're daring to believe that God will invade the heavens over Deerborn and Muslims will have dreams of Jesus.

11/11/11 is also the day The Immortals opens in cinemas nationwide, so Engle may be up against dreams of ancient Persia or Civilization V. Of course, it's maybe a bit pathetic for either Engle or Hollywood to take attention away from fitting remembrance on what is Veterans Day, a.k.a. Remembrance Day.

So, on 11/11/11, wear a poppy to honor our veterans, pray for Lou Engle's sanity, and go see a movie.