Religious Right Leaders
stcynic | November 6, 2006According to this article at Salon.com, yes. You know Stephen Baldwin, the dumbest and least successful of the Baldwin brothers (though I did like him in The Usual Suspects). He's now an evangelist and you've got to see him perform (and yes, that is exactly what evangelism is, a performance). And now, presidential advisor:
These days, Baldwin not only has the ear of young boys who cleave to his fundamentalist reading of the Bible, and whatever skein of celebrity still clings to his Jesus T-shirts. He has been named a cultural advisor to President Bush, a formidable follow-up to his invitation…
stcynic | November 2, 2006Ted Baehr, Christian movie reviewer and propagandist, has an essay at the Worldview Weekend site where he rather brazenly accuses MIchael J. Fox and "liberal elites" of lying about stem cell research. In the process, he tells some whoppers himself.
When is a lie not a lie?
According to America's liberal, secular elite, a lie is not a lie when it comes from the mouth of a Hollywood star with a terrible debilitating disease or injury. Or, when it comes from some other sympathetic victim, such as the left-wing parent of a dead soldier (Cindy Sheehan) or a left-leaning widow trying to push an…
stcynic | October 17, 2006Yesterday was yet another of those frequent religious right "conferences" - really just a series of ridiculous speeches to fire up the base with rhetorical red meat to get them out to vote in November. This one was disingenuously called Liberty Sunday, following on the heels of the equally misnamed Justice Sunday earlier this year. There are several reports on what was said, all of which was predictable and much of it patently absurd. In keeping with their theme, they used a picture of Boston's famous Old North Church, indicating their metaphor that, like Paul Revere, they were bravely riding…
stcynic | October 14, 2006Frederick Clarkson has a post at Talk2Action about a new Senate report that shows all sorts of funny goings on between Jack Abramoff and Toward Tradition, a group headed by the religious right's favorite wingnut whacko Rabbi, Daniel Lapin. I had no idea that Abramoff had served as chairman of that organization and on its board for years. Also implicated in the report are several other ostensibly non-profit groups. The Washington Post reports:
The report includes previously unreleased e-mails between the now-disgraced lobbyist and officers of the nonprofit groups, showing that Abramoff routed…
stcynic | October 2, 2006So I'm flipping the channels and come across a D. James Kennedy sermon, which is always good for a laugh or two. The sermon was about tolerance of intolerance and it included all the typical martyr-mongering we hear from the religious right about how persecuted they are because they don't get to impose their will on others the way they used to be able to (which is a bit like King George claiming to be persecuted after the American revolution). By my favorite part was where he actually claimed that what is happening to Christians in America is just like the Holocaust. No, I'm not making that…
stcynic | September 29, 2006This is quite a shock. Dick Armey, a former Congressman who was always on the side of the religious right, is now out of politics and telling the truth:
In the interview, Armey responded pointedly when Sager asked why he thought Christian conservatives seemed more powerful now than in the 1990s.
"To a large extent, because Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies," Armey said. "I pray devoutly every day, but being a Christian is no excuse for being stupid. There's a high demagoguery coefficient to issues like prayer in schools. Demagoguery doesn't work unless it's dumb . . . These…
stcynic | September 28, 2006Found this youtube video via Pam Spaulding. It's about Rod Parsley's Reformation Ohio and Center for Moral Clarity and their theocon agenda. The video is put out by Equality Ohio.
stcynic | September 25, 2006The Chicago Tribune had an article this weekend by Judith Graham that indicates that the religious right is now broadening their focus on abortion to include opposition to contraception itself.
Emboldened by the anti-abortion movement's success in restricting access to abortion, an increasingly vocal group of Christian conservatives is arguing that it's time to mount a concerted attack on contraception.
Their voices were raised in Rosemont on Friday and Saturday at an unusual anti-abortion meeting that drew 250 people from around the nation to condemn artificial birth control. Experts at the…
stcynic | September 11, 2006Today is, of course, the 5th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Centers. While we are remembering how that day made us feel - and it's a day etched in my memory in extraordinary detail - let us also keep in mind that some of the most influential religious right leaders immediately tried to put the blame on everyone they hate. Here's Jerry Falwell on the 700 Club speaking to Pat Robertson on September 13th:
And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the…
stcynic | September 5, 2006Radar Online has an interesting article on some of Pat Robertson's shady and mostly ill-advised business dealings. In the last few years, Robertson has embarked on a wide range of business ventures that have failed miserably, from his Kalo Vita "age-defying" shakes to diamond mines in Zaire to an oil refinery that was shut down because it polluted so badly. My favorite is Freedom Gold, a Robertson venture that put him in bed with the genocidal Charles Taylor in LIberia.
stcynic | September 1, 2006Thanks to Ahcuah for sending me this article. Some of you may remember Dave Daubenmire, the former high school football coach who was told by the courts that he could not proselytize his players and engage in religious exercises while doing his job. He then became an evangelist and formed Pass the Salt Ministries, crusading against separation of church and state for, among others, the Worldview Weekend folks. I've critiqued his predictably weak arguments here many times. His son was just arrested for possession of child porn. But I have to give credit to the father for his unequivocal…
stcynic | August 26, 2006Like the Worldnutdaily, Agape Press has been frantically trying to defend D. James Kennedy's absurd documentary claiming that Darwin led directly to Hitler. Their latest attempt has the producer of the documentary, Jerry Newcombe, trying to defend it. Predictably, he falls flat on his face in the attempt.
The documentary's producer, Jerry Newcombe, says it is important for Christians in particular to understand the social impact of Darwin's theory. ""Ideas have consequences," he explains, "and evolution lays at the root of so many different factors of our culture. We deal with some of those…
stcynic | August 24, 2006Recognize these folks?
It's Randall Terry and his family. The picture is taken from the mailers he sends out in his campaign for the State Senate in Florida. But it's missing two of his children, Jameil and Tila, both adopted. Why aren't they in the picture? Well, Jamiel is gay. And Tila had a baby out of wedlock. And we wouldn't want to spoil that image of a perfect family, would we? For that matter, there's no mention of the wife of 19 years he divorced only to marry his 22 year old personal assistant 7 months later either. Tell us all about your "family values" again, Randy.
stcynic | August 10, 2006Talk2Action has an interesting expose` on Paul Weyrich, the most important religious right leader you've likely never heard of. Weyrich has had an astonishingly busy and effective career in politics. He's probably the single most important figure in the religious right, though nowhere near as well known as Dobson, Falwell, Robertson and others. He's the power behind the throne, the prime mover behind the scenes. Among other groups he has founded: the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, the Council on National Policy, and the Free Congress Foundation. More than any other man, he is the…
stcynic | July 20, 2006Everyone knows that by now. But you have to see this video of Sen. Sam Brownback, quite possibly the looniest man in the Senate (and with Santorum and Robert Byrd around, that's saying a lot) and his special chart during the debate on the bill. It has a child's drawing of embryos with sad faces and happy faces.
stcynic | July 17, 2006Wow, this is an explosive story. GQ has a story on Ralph Reed, former Christian Coalition director now running for Lt. Governor in Georgia, that contains new allegations that will shock even the cynical. Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed were, according to email exchanged between the two of them in July of 2003, working on a program to get elderly black church leaders to take out life insurance policies payable to non-profit groups that Jack controlled. TPMmuckraker picked up on it and explains how it worked:
We know how this scheme would have gone, because Abramoff pitched something similar to a…
stcynic | June 17, 2006Crooks and Liars and Wonkette have all the dirt on Jack Burkman, a registered lobbyist for the Family Research Council, and his apparent taste for picking up young women and attempting to pay them for sex. I'm sure he only intended to save their souls for Jesus.
stcynic | June 13, 2006I've talked before about how easily one could put together a conservative essay generator, similar to the postmodern essay generator, that would crank out volumes of buzzword-laden prose that makes no sense whatsoever. I think perhaps someone has already written one and this piece at the Worldnutdaily is the result. It's just loaded with the kind of non sequiturs that the religious right is so famous for. He's complaining, mind you, about a comic book with a lesbian superhero and how this constitutes discrimination against Christians:
Even the people who make our children's comic books are…
stcynic | June 9, 2006The FDA approved a vaccine for HPV, a virus that causes cervical cancer. Believe it or not, this is actually opposed by the religious right in one of the most twisted and destructive bits of 'thinking" I've ever seen.
In the US, for instance, religious groups are gearing up to oppose vaccination, despite a survey showing 80 per cent of parents favour vaccinating their daughters. "Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV," says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group that has made much of the fact that, because it can spread by skin contact, condoms are…
stcynic | June 8, 2006This just gets funnier and funnier. After making the stupendously ridiculous claim that he could leg press 2000 pounds because of his "age defying shakes", Pat Robertson is now defending that claim - kind of:
A spokeswoman recently released a photo she said showed Robertson leg-pressing 2,000 pounds on February 1, 2003. Robertson had surgery to remove a cancerous prostate gland later that month and turned 73 that March.
"I did it one time, one rep, but I had built up to it for about three years," Robertson insisted on Wednesday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press, the first…