Religious Right Watch

Religious Right Now Demands More from Komen After Getting Komen to Defund Breast Exams at Planned Parenthood

 

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, following a long campaign from anti-choice group, decided to end its partnership with Planned Parenthood, which received grants to provide breast exams along with mammogram referrals. Planned Parenthood provides an estimated 750,000 breast exams a year and 16% of their services are related to cancer prevention and screening, compared to just 3% for abortion services.

But anti-choice activists wanted Komen to sever ties with Planned Parenthood even if that meant denying women access to healthcare, and won a preliminary victory when they convinced LifeWay, the bookstore of the Southern Baptist Convention, to stop selling Komen’s “Pink Bibles” over their Planned Parenthood ties.

The Religious Right also scored a victory when Komen appointed former Georgia Secretary of State and Republican gubernatorial candidate Karen Handel, who as a candidate pledged to “eliminate” Planned Parenthood funding, Senior Vice President for Public Policy.

The foundation’s less than believable reason for cutting of funding for breast exams at Planned Parenthood was the politically-charged investigation launched by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) into the women’s health group, which is greatly based on the smear campaign by Lila Rose, who recently told WORLD magazine that lying is appropriate as long as it’s for a worthy cause.

Now, anti-choice activists are demanding that Congress, like Komen, defund Planned Parenthood, and even calling on Komen to continue to bend to their demands by dropping its support for stem cell research.

via www.rightwingwatch.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)

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

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

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

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

Indicators of a Tectonic Shift on the Religious Right? | from Talk To Action

Two developments since the New Apostolic Reformation emerged as a focus of national controversy in the wake of Texas Gov. Rick Perry's prayer rally, The Response, may indicate that some realignments are underway on the Religious Right -- and perhaps even in the wider world of conservative evangelicalism.  

First, the American Family Association (AFA) directed two of its radio talk show hosts to sever relationships with Brannnon Howse of Worldview Weekend, who had been critical of NAR and The Response. AFA had underwritten the costs of the rally.  Warren Throckmorton, writing at Religion Dispatches reported:  

The talk show hosts, John Loeffler and Todd Friel, have shows aired by American Family Radio and also speak at Howse sponsored events. According to Tim Wildmon, president of the AFA, "we identified two people with programs on our networks and told them, 'you have to make a choice.'"

Now, Worldview Weekend reports that prominent evangelical author, preacher and broadcaster, John MacArthur also denounced NAR in a recent sermon.  

 

via www.talk2action.org