Religious Right Changes Their Name, Values Of Hatred And Intolerance Still Follow

Hope and change were the winning campaign themes of 2008 and now the Republicans are trying to follow suit. One particular group in the GOP tent, the vaunted "Religious Right" is also making a change this year so that they can appeal to others. Of course, that wouldn't include their policy goals and ideas, heaven forbid! Going after teh gays is far more important than trying to combat poverty. No, instead, the change they seek is merely in their name.

From ThinkProgress:

Christianity Today reports that some “politically conservative evangelicals” no longer want to be referred to as the “religious right.” According to social conservative leaders like American Values President Gary Bauer, the term “religious right” and others like it have “become synonymous with extremism“:

Gary Bauer said this week, “There is an ongoing battle for the vocabulary of our debate. It amazes me how often in public discourse really pejorative phrases are used, like the ‘American Taliban,’ ‘fundamentalists,’ ‘Christian fascists,’ and ‘extreme Religious Right.’”

A Focus on the Family official added that the “religious right” label might generate negative impressions: “Terms like ‘Religious Right’ have been traditionally used in a pejorative way to suggest extremism. The phrase ’socially conservative evangelicals’ is not very exciting, but that’s certainly the way to do it.“

Bauer is as narrow-minded about reality as are his views of the world. The only reason that everyone else uses "Religious Right" in a pejorative way is that those in the group make themselves deserving of that form. Bauer and his ilk can call themselves "Santa's bigger helpers" or "The Keepers of Falwell spirit" for all I care, but as long as they continue to preach a message of hate and divisiveness they'll always be referred to with a heavy dose of negative connotation.

I Thought Baseless Attacks On San Fran Was A Republican Thing

San Francisco, for the most part has been known for decades a bastion for freedom, equality and liberty for its residents regardless of their gender, ethnicity or political views. For quite some time now Republicans have bashed the city with some of the most beautiful geography to rile up their supporters. Not too long ago Bill O'Reilly called on terrorist to bomb it. Most Independents and those on the left realize that those attacks are emblematic of lunacy at its finest and nothing more. Unfortunately that isn't how Hillary Clinton sees it, apparently she's joining the club that loves to hate on the liberal-leaning town.

From AmericaBlog:

Anyone else notice that Hillary and her staff keep gratuitously mentioning "San Francisco" when talking about Obama's "bitter" comments? Markos noticed it too: "I remember the good ol' days when only Republicans used to demonize San Francisco," Markos wrote yesterday. A DailyKos diarist noticed it too, as did the readers at popular gay news and culture site Datalounge. As did some folks interviewed by the SF Chronicle:

So the most shocking part of the whole incident, he said, has been the appearance that "Hillary Clinton wants to ... throw in with the critique from the far right" in appearing to feed the image of an out-of-touch "San Francisco-style Democrat."

It suggests "that the Clintons are so committed to the political tactics that they'll do virtually anything to advance a step without regard for the long term implications," he said. "Most Democrats and most Republicans will not attack their opponent in such a way as to give massive fodder to the other side in the general election."

But "she's just writing the playbook for the Republicans in November..."

And we all know what San Francisco is code for. Now let's examine what Hillary was after. From the NYT:

Some Clinton advisers also said that the focus on Mr. Obama’s “guns or religion” comment was a way to put him on the spot with so-called values voters...

Value voters. That's PC media slang for the religious right....

The article goes on to ask why, why, why does she continue to talk badly about San Francisco. Well it seems that it is something to do with those "Values Voters" and what they see as the biggest problem on the peninsula, teh gays.

See, Hillary Clinton had no problem going to the center to run in New York as a Senator. All she had to do was do okay upstate and crush her opponent down here in NYC. Now that she is running nation-wide and as a proud member of the DLC, her belief is that she has to go as far right as possible with those that hear the "coded" messages while still talking about bringing the troops home to us on the left (really, the majority of Americans). It is quite a tightrope that she walks day in and day out and it would be impressive if it weren't so sad to see a woman that doesn't care about her principles because they are clouded by the desire to win at all costs.

Senator Clinton needs to realize that everyone who votes has values, though I feel that she just doesn't get it and frankly never will. I hope and pray that this ends as soon as possible, and we can finally have our nominee.

Yes we can!

You Know, Huckabee Really Is Crazy

He seems to be a "likeable enough" guy on the outside, good smile, can be funny in front of a crowd stuff. Though a problem arises when you start to scratch the surface....he is just plain crazy. Forget what he Joe Scarborough about cooking squirrel in his college dorm room (ah, the good ol'days). I'm talking about the really crazy stuff, things that can affect the lives of not only squirrels but human beings as well.

From TPM:

Huck, in elaborating on his views that the Constitution should be subjected to Biblical standards, had just wrapped up a discussion of the fact that marriage has meant "a man and a woman in a relationship for life." With this context firmly established, this exchange followed:

QUESTIONER: Is it your goal to bring the Constitution into strict conformity with the Bible? Some people would consider that a kind of dangerous undertaking, particularly given the variety of biblical interpretations.

HUCKABEE: Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again. I think the radical position is to make a change in what’s been historic.

That's pretty clear cut. Changing the definition of marriage so it can mean "two men" or "two women" is equivalent to changing it to mean "a man and an animal." No ambiguity here whatsoever.

Are you kidding me? Does this man believe what he is saying here? Unfortunately, yes, Huck comes straight from the crazy movement, those evangelical bastards (not all evangelicals mind you) that want to impose their version of god's will on us all, democracy be damned to hell. I don't know what those Iowan elephants were thinking, but I sure hope that the American electorate understands what they are doing when they vote for him, whether it is in a primary or (gasp!) a general election.

Red State Update Gives Us A "Christian Candidate"

Giuliani Loves The Nuts

We aren't talking about the ones you buy on the street corner here, this is about one particular religious nut that goes by the name of Pat Robertson. Robertson has a history of saying and doing ridiculous things and apparently that is okay by Giuliani's standards. It isn't the religion or moral values (what values?) that Rudy admires, it is the influence that he supposedly commands over a large sect of Republicans and what that could mean for himself from an endorsement. With Rudy, the lust for power is practically worn on his sleeve.

From ThinkProgress:

Thank you very, very much, Pat. Thank you for the very kind words and the introduction. And thank you for having me here.

I am very, very impressed with Regent University, when I consider that it was founded just a short while ago. The number of graduates that you have and the amount of influence that you have is really, really terrific.

And of all the many things that you’ve done — and there have been many, and many contributions…

The only contributions I can think of is people like Monica Goodling that hail from this 4th tier law school that slither into our government and try to destroy it. The truth of the matter is that both men are merely seeking their own realms of power. Giuliani wants the religious right vote and Robertson wants to be seen as an important player in Republican politics. Both of these scoundrels make me sick.

McCain Campaign Scorns The Religious Right

In public John McCain has repeatedly tried to earn the respect of religious right leaders and their flocks. He ditched the 'maverick' status and went religious, attending ceremonies at Liberty University and wavered on his more moderate social policies such as abortion. Many independents distanced themselves from the Senator while the fundies didn't really move much closer to him.

Now it turns out that all of that posturing was for show. The nuts and bolts of the campaign tells a story that paints McCain as a politician that simply uses the religious right (like George Bush) for votes while not doing much at all for their core issues.

From U.S. News and World Report:

Two former aides hired to spearhead religious outreach for presidential candidate John McCain say that they were virtually ignored by the campaign and that McCain's top campaign strategists are intent on winning votes of religious voters without having to develop serious ties to faith communities. The aides, who were fired in early April after roughly three months on the job, said the campaign staff declined to return scores of their phone calls and E-mail messages, denied them access to leaders of the McCain campaign, and pressed them to collect church directories—a controversial tactic—as the centerpiece of a strategy to woo "values" voters.

"In the end, you came away with the strong sense that they had contempt for the faith-based community," says Marlene Elwell, one of those fired staffers. Elwell, a prominent Christian-right activist, was hired by McCain in December 2005 to be national director of his "Americans of Faith" coalition. "The way we were being treated it was as if we had leprosy."

McCain expected great results without doing any hard work for the conservative Christian vote. Now he is paying the price for that. George Bush got away with it for the most part but the religious right is getting tired of being used by candidates that talk a lot without doing much action.

The whole story pieced together is actually quite amusing. McCain panders to the right with meaningless political stunts, including hiring the religious outreach staffers. The right is still skeptical and rightly so, as the new staffers are treated as lepers. A series of mistakes due to McCain's image problems results in a drop in the polls, followed by a drop in donations and ultimately the need to cut back staff led to the religious outreach people's dismissal.

Now the story comes full circle when the staffers broke their anonymity and went to the press with what went down inside the McCain campaign. The result? McCain gets more bad news and continues to lose hope for a comeback in the Presidential primary.

Fictional Museum, A Place For The Deluded

If you believe in the literal interpretation of the bible and the Natural History Museum in your city bothers you with archaeological fact then there is a place for you now. The Creation Museum is opening its doors to the fundamentalists and curiosity seekers that want to see dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden and riding on Noah's Ark. I'm sure Noah felt safe with that Velociraptor on the boat for forty days and nights.

Bush's Bible Believing Base

If you aren't in tune with the American political scene, one may ask why George Bush still has 28% support in the United States. I certainly try to comprehend it on a daily basis. The man does nothing but erode and destroy the tenets of the Constitution whenever he gets the chance. Like he said, it would be easier if this were a dictatorship, just as long as he was the dictator. Do people out there agree with his statements? You bet they do, and they believe a hell of a lot more as well. Including the literal translation of the bible.

From Editor and Publisher:

NEW YORK About one-third of the American adult population believes the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word, a new Gallup poll reveals. This percentage is only slightly lower than several decades ago.

Gallup reports that the majority of those "who don't believe that the Bible is literally true believe that it is the inspired word of God but that not everything it in should be taken literally." Finally, about one in five Americans believe the Bible is merely an ancient book of "fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by man."

There is also a strong relationship between education and belief in a literal Bible, Gallup explains, with such belief becoming much less prevalent as schooling continues.

So for those of you out there that are having children, please educate your young ones. I have had enough education to be included in that one in five that believe the book is recorded by man to teach morals and tell fables. I do not mean to sound elitist or anything like that, its just religious history shows that this what happened in human history over the past few thousand years. Cultures throughout the world wrote down what their ancestors told them around the fire late at night and taught the good word.

The number of literal believers has gone down, but there is no reason for that decline to stop. There is nothing wrong with learning your morals from religion of course. Just do not use it to attack other societies that you deem 'non-believers' (that goes for all religions). Come on, can't we all just get along?

Falwell Funeral Missing An Obvious Few

Jerry Falwell is known in politics as the man that brought religion into the voting booth. He helped spur millions of evangelicals to support Republicans like Ronald Reagan and George Bush. In the last few years however, he was increasingly seen as a fringe religious nut by many on the left and the right. So when none of the current GOP Presidential hopefuls showed up to honor his death, it wasn't much of a surprise.

From the AP:

Some Republican figures were expected for the funeral, but none of the party's presidential candidates said they could attend. The White House was sending a midlevel aide. Among the Virginia Republican leaders attending was Attorney General Bob McDonnell.

Falwell, 73, died a week ago after collapsing in his office at Liberty University. His physician said Falwell had a heart condition and presumably died of a heart rhythm abnormality.

Despite the absence of the Presidential contenders, there were approximately 10,000 that showed up for the funeral. Those who attended were quite diverse, including a mid-level White House aide, leaders of the religious right, students of Falwell's Liberty University and protesters of course. One person that thankfully didn't attend was Mark David Uhl, who is currently in jail for planning to bomb the funeral. Despite the long list of terrible things Falwell did with his life, there is no excuse for that type of crap.

Falwell's Heart Takes Him Out At 73

The world lost a great purveyor of hate and intolerance yesterday as Jerry Falwell died from heart complications. His career spanned more than 30 years as he helped build the religious right in the 1970s with his Moral Majority operation, that helped lead to Ronald Reagan's victory and the growing tide of anti-gay sentiment that can be found on the right.

From The Huffington Post:

The rise of Christian conservatism _ and the Moral Majority's full-throated condemnation of homosexuality, abortion and pornography _ made Falwell perhaps the most recognizable figure on the evangelical right, and one of the most controversial ones, too.

Over the years, Falwell waged a landmark libel case against Hustler magazine founder Larry Flynt over a raunchy parody ad, and created a furor in 1999 when one of his publications suggested that the purse-carrying "Teletubbies" character Tinky Winky was gay.

Matt Foreman, executive director of National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, extended condolences to those close to Falwell, but added: "Unfortunately, we will always remember him as a founder and leader of America's anti-gay industry, someone who exacerbated the nation's appalling response to the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic, someone who demonized and vilified us for political gain and someone who used religion to divide rather than unite our nation."

While I pray for his family and extend condolences, I find it hard to empathize for the man that has done so much to set us back as a nation. The notable stories about the tele-tubbies, the lawsuit against Larry Flynt and his statements blaming liberals et al for 9/11 are sad and amusing. It was the years of preaching intolerance and bigotry against those he feared that I will remember most. The organization he built up that spread so much disease in the nation's collective conscience will never be forgotten....and never forgiven, in life or in death.

Romney Will Say Anything For A Vote

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney already has the stigma of being known as a flip-flopper. Of course, that didn't stop him playing to his audience at Regent University and tell lies to please the conservative crowd. He lied about and bashed the French, 'liberal' culture and used the tragedy at Virginia Tech to show off his holiness. It amazes me that this guy is considered a front-runner for anything, let alone the Republican nomination next year.

From The Washington Post:

VIRGINIA BEACH, May 5 -- Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R) did not discuss his Mormon faith as he continued his outreach Saturday to conservative Christians in a graduation speech at Regent University, the school founded by televangelist Pat Robertson.

Instead, Romney, who is intensely courting this key segment of the Republican base in hopes of winning the party's 2008 presidential nomination, expounded on conservative themes such as the importance of child-rearing and marriage and the presence of evil in the world.

(snip)

"There is no work more important to America's future than the work that is done within the four walls of the American home," Romney said. He also criticized people who choose not to get married because they enjoy the single life.

"It seems that Europe leads Americans in this way of thinking," Romney told the crowd of more than 5,000. "In France, for instance, I'm told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past."

Wow, those are some pretty harsh statements against the French. Ah Mitt, if only they were true words. Crooks and Liars looked up your odd statement and found that it was based on a French comedy, not what really goes on outside the brilliant mind of Mitt Romney.

Now that the French have elected a new President they want to follow through with actual morality that benefits society and the world, specifically concerning climate change. Sarkozy wants to work with the U.S. to fight climate change...but what is the chance that a President Mitt Romney would care about little things like that? Probably slim to none.

Hate Crimes Bill Being Fought By Religious Right

One would think that passing legislation that provides equal protection under the law from persecution would be a good thing to everyone. Originally, hate-crime law was introduced to heavily penalize criminals that attacked their victims based on race, ethnicity or religion. Nowadays, one in six hate crimes are against the victim's sexual orientation and there is nothing in the current law to protect them. So Congress has finally brought legislation with a clear shot at passing as opposed to years prior when the Republican leadership would abandon the bill. Why would they do that? Because of their religious wingnut friends.

From The Huffington Post:

Predictably, anti-gay extremist organizations are at it again. Marking a new low in politics, these groups have embraced the work of a known white supremacist filmmaker, callously invoked the Virginia Tech massacre, blatantly lied about the Congressional record and even used the name and image of Jesus Christ in vain -- all in order to block passage of a bill that does nothing but provide equal protection under the law for every American.

In an action alert to members nationwide, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, incredibly used the memory of the Virginia Tech massacre to rally his troops against the hate crimes bill, stating that its passage would provide "a homosexual would have more federal protection under the law than the 32 victims of last week's massacre."

The Traditional Values Coalition created and disseminated a fake transcript of last week's House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Hate Crimes bill to "prove" that the legislation would punish anti-gay thoughts. The falsified transcript doesn't even remotely resemble the official transcript of the proceeding. They even produced a "wanted poster" in which Jesus Christ, wearing a crown of thorns, is wanted for violating the proposed hate crimes bill. The poster states that Christ is "wanted for revealing the truth about homosexuality in 'The Bible' and encouraging his followers not to offend God by committing such behavior." Is abusing the image of Christ in order to divide and discriminate really the Christian way?

And that my friends is the insanity we have to deal with. These creatures of 'morality' are full of anger and hate for another group of god's children. They would rather see people be beaten and killed than love them as another human being. What kind of church would teach that crap?

Scumbags like Tony Perkins and James Dobson are absolutely revolting. For Perkins to use the death of the students at Virginia Tech is beyond belief. These religious wackos will stop at nothing to keep up their followers fear and hatred for the massive amount of humanity out there that does not look, talk or fuck like they do. Of course, I expect this from people like Perkins and Dobson, I did not however from members of the black clergy. How incredibly hypocritical can one be?

Be sure to counter-act these groups and write your Congressman today to have them support H.R. 1592.

This One's For You MSM

Considering the Edwards-blogger brouhaha, I believe this TT sketch from last year covers the unfair practices that the so-called liberal media commit on a routine basis.

McCain Panders, Dobson Smacks Him Down

John McCain has been doing almost everything to achieve the support of the religious right in order to win the most important voting bloc of the Republican primaries. The so-called 'maverick' has expunged any moderate tendencies he may have had in the past to win in 2008. Three years ago he toured the country in support of 'born-again' Bush, even after he was scoured by the Bush campaign in 2000, especially during the South Carolina primary.

So how do the leaders of the religious right repay Senator McCain for selling his soul?



Thats right, he got nothing. Dobson just trashes him and implicitly tells his flock to distance themselves from McCain by praying not to get stuck with him. Wow, prayers against McCain. What will the Republican establishment do? They already have the top operatives on his campaign. Switching to Giuliani will be impossible when the bible belt gets to watch this video.



I guess we'll just have to watch things develop implode for the Republican party.