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

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 Before Maine’s marriage equality law was repealed, Heath contended that the legalization of same-sex marriage led to bad weather because “our elected officials overturned a law of nature, and in its place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

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

Bishop Eddie Long takes leave from megachurch | Pam's House Blend

The beleaguered man in the pulpit made headlines this year for charges that he was a sex predator of young men that he ministered to in his church. This preening man-of-the-cloth sent phone pics of his buff bod, spandex-clad bod to the young men he groomed to be his victims.

Saying he would ‘fight this thing’ as ‘David vs. Goliath’ to the end, he instead settled with some of the young men who had given detailed accounts of his disgusting behavior and abuse of his role as a spiritual leader.

Long was sued in September 2010 lawsuit by former New Birth members Anthony Flagg, Spencer LeGrande, Jamal Parris and Maurice Robinson, who alleged the bishop used his influence, trips, gifts and jobs to coerce them into sexual relationships.

In the midst of the scandal, civil rights legend and LGBT ally Julian Bond flat out called Long a raving homophobe

via pamshouseblend.firedoglake.com

| Occupying Hate in Springfield, Massachusetts

Occupy Springfield (MA) morphed into "Occupy Hate" on Friday in a protest outside of the evangelical coffee house ministry of anti-gay activist Scott Lively.  

Lively, who has had a long career as an anti-gay activist, notably in Oregon, California, and recently in Uganda, where he rallied support for the national legislation that would make homosexuality a capital offense, claims that his Springfield ministry has nothing to do with his ongoing anti-gay activism around the world.

As if they can be separated.

 

more at www.talk2action.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.)

Personhood Ohio Claims Bible Dictates Criminal Penalties for Abortion | Religion Dispatches

Personhood Ohio has submitted the necessary signatures to begin an official citizen-led initiative for a fetal personhood amendment. This amendment will define the words "person" and "men" to "apply to every human being at every stage of the biological development of that human being or human organism, including fertilization." A fertilized egg would become, legally, a human person.

At the press conference announcing the success of their signature drive, one of the presenters is scheduled to be Jason Storms, of Missionaries to the Preborn—an organization which features, on its website, a video comparing an abortion provider to a sniper who is running around killing children at an elementary school; which describes abortion clinics as "death camps" and a clinic employee as "one of the crazy women;" and which adopts militaristic language like "regiment" and "brigade" for its local groups. On the Personhood Ohio website, meanwhile, there are implications that God’s curse resides upon Ohio as long as abortions happen there, and that "sooner or later, judgment will fall on a land that sheds innocent blood."

via www.religiondispatches.org

Election-year goals of Christian group questioned

Dominionism and the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) in the news:

In the 1940s, an argument erupted among a group of American Christians far from the mainstream. Pentecostals, the spirit-filled worshippers known mostly for speaking in tongues, were at a crossroads, divided over the extent of God's modern-day miracles. If God made apostles and prophets during the New Testament era, did he still create them today? Most Pentecostals said no, and went on to build the movement's major denominations. A minority disagreed - and amazingly, their obscure view is now in the crosshairs of a presidential race.

Also from the article:

Chuck Colson, the Watergate figure and founder of the Prison Fellowship ministries, said labels such as "dominionist" are epithets meant to discredit all Christian activists. David French, senior counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice, founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson, wrote an article in the National Review with the mocking headline, "I'm a Dominionist? I had no idea."

However, many religion scholars argue that some watered-down dominionist principles have long influenced conservative Christian activists, who hope to shape society according to a biblical worldview. (A true dominionist not only wants Christians to shape the world, but also run it.)

What does Michael D. Coe say about Mormonism?

Joseph Smith had a sense of destiny; ... this is how he transformed something that I think was clearly made up into something that was absolutely convincing.

Michael D. Coe (born 1929) is an American archaeologist, anthropologist, epigrapher and author. Primarily known for his research in the field of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican studies (and in particular, for his work on the Maya civilization, where he is regarded as one of the foremost Mayanist scholars of the latter 20th century), Coe has also made extensive investigations across a variety of other archaeological sites in North and South America. He has also specialised in comparative studies of ancient tropical forest civilizations, such as those of Central America and Southeast Asia. He currently (as of 2005) holds the chair of Charles J. MacCurdy Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, Yale University, and is Curator Emeritus of the Anthropology collection in the Peabody Museum of Natural History, where he had been Curator from 1968 to 1994.^[1]

Coe worked for the CIA as a part of the front organization Western Enterprises in Taiwan created to subvert Mao's China. Reference Tim Weiner's book, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.

With over four decades of active research experience, Coe is a prolific author of scientific papers across a broad range of archaeological, anthropological and ethnohistorical topics. He has also authored a number of popular works for the non-specialist audience, several of which have been best-selling and much reprinted, such as The Maya (1966) and Breaking the Maya Code (1992). He also co-authored the book Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs (1962,sixth edition, 2008) with Rex Koontz.

Coe received his Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard University in the early 1950s. Shortly after commencing his graduate studies program there, in 1955 he married the daughter of the noted evolutionary biologist and Russian émigré Theodosius Dobzhansky, Sophie, who was then an undergraduate anthropology student at Radcliffe College.

via en.wikipedia.org

 Coe on the Mormons.