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Cursor.orgMediaTransparency.org sponsor More stories by Bill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs' Media Transparency writersAndrew J. Weaver FundometerEvaluate any page on the World Wide Web against our databases of people, recipients, and funders of the conservative movement. |
ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz "War on Christians"?Later this month, Rich Scarborough's Vision America will host 'The War Against Christians and the Values Voter 2006' Conference in Washington D.C."The left will continue to accuse us of trying to 'Christianize America.' Because it can't debate us on the issues, it seeks to demonize us. But we are the inheritors of the faith tradition that is part of the fabric of America. We seek to return America to the Godly values espoused by leaders like Washington, Adams, Lincoln and Reagan. And we have just as much right to be actively involved in the political process as other citizens." "A specter is haunting America, and it is not socialism and certainly not communism. It is the specter of Americans kneeling in submission to a particular interpretation of a religion that has become an ideology, an all-encompassing way of life. It is the specter of our nation ruled by the extreme Christian right, who would make the United States a 'Christian nation' where their version of God's law supersedes all human law -- including the Constitution." If this past holiday season's "War on Christmas" -- which occupied a disproportionate amount of air time on the 24/7 cable television networks, especially over at the Fox News Channel -- didn't really gain traction, and the "War on Valentines Day" -- a battle initiated by Christian conservative parents that claimed their children were discouraged from bringing Valentines Day cards with religious messages to their classrooms -- was a profound dud, what should we make of the latest evocation of "war on" phraseology by Christian conservatives? According to the good folks at Vision America (VA), there's a "war on Christians" being waged in this country. You want proof? Consider the following nuggets provided by VA:
While whining about Christians being under attack has been a standard operating tool of the religious right, Vision America has taken it to a new level, organizing the first full-fledged conference devoted to presenting evidence that there's a "war on Christians" in the United States. "One of my goals in life is to give the Republican Party courage," Scarborough said in a recent interview. "We have a lot of gutless wonders who wear the tag conservative Republican. Anytime there's any amount of fire, they crater." The conference, called "The War on Christians and the Values Voter in 2006," will be held on March 27 and 28, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. In full martyr mode, Pastor Rick Scarborough, the President of Vision America, recently said that he expected "attacks" on "our 'War On Christians' conference" would "accelerate" as conference time "approaches." "The left will continue to accuse us of trying to 'Christianize America.' Because it can't debate us on the issues, it seeks to demonize us," Scarborough said. "But we are the inheritors of the faith tradition that is part of the fabric of America. We seek to return America to the Godly values espoused by leaders like Washington, Adams, Lincoln and Reagan. And we have just as much right to be actively involved in the political process as other citizens." Promised speakers at the "War on Christians" conference include "such Values Vote leaders" as Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), Gary Bauer, the president of American Values, Alan Keyes, the recently defeated Republican Senatorial candidate from Illinois, Phyllis Schlafly, the founder of Eagle Forum and a 50-plus-year conservative activist, Janet Parshall, a popular right wing radio talk show host, Ohio's Pastor Rod Parsley, the founder and president of the Center for Moral Clarity, the beleaguered and indicted Congressman, Tom DeLay (R-TX), and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX). Scheduled panels include The Gay Agenda: America Won't Be Happy; The ACLU And Radical Secularism: Driving God From The Public Square; Hollywood: Christians Through A Distorted Lens; Jews Confront The War On Christians; The Judiciary: Overruling God; The Media: Megaphone For Anti-Faith Values; and Taking Our Faith To The Ballot Box. Conservative columnist Don Feder is the spokesman for the conference. Mel Seesholtz, Ph.D., a contributor to Online Journal, recently pointed out that in an article that first appeared on chronowatch.com and was reposted on the website of The Christian Underground, "Feder labeled the Anti-Defamation League and the American Civil Liberties Union the 'Anti-Prayer Axis.'" Feder described himself on one of his own websites as being "to the right of Sharon on Zionism, to the right of Pat Buchanan on immigration and Americanism, to the right of Mother Angelica on abortion, to the right of Chuck Heston on Second Amendment rights, and generally mak[ing] the legendary Attila look like a limousine liberal." According to its website, Vision America's mission is "to inform, encourage and mobilize pastors and their congregations to be proactive in restoring Judeo-Christian values to the moral and civic framework in their communities, states, and our nation." The organization's advisory board includes such Christian conservative leaders such as the Coral Ridge Ministries' D. James Kennedy, the American Family Association's Donald Wildmon, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Adrian Rogers and Laurence White, a Lutheran minister who serves as the national co-chairman along with Scarborough. The organization was founded "to reach across the nation and help mobilize thousands of his fellow pastors of all denominations...[to] promote active citizenship." Scarborough's countryAnd. according to several articles published over the past year or so, Rick Scarborough has been doing just that. The May 16, 2005 issue of Time magazine reported that "Scarborough has been the kind of dedicated activist the G.O.P. has to thank for much of its current dominance." For more than a decade he "has used his pulpit to help elect conservative judges and politicians," while Vision America, "has recruited 3,000 to 4,000 'patriot pastors' in parts of the South and Midwest to help get out the evangelical-Christian vote." Scarborough received a master's of divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas and a doctorate in ministry from Louisiana Baptist Theological Seminary. In 1990 he settled in Pearland, Texas, and from 1990 to 2002 he was senior pastor of First Baptist Church. When he "attacked high school sex education courses, experimental medical treatments and transsexuals trying to change their gender identification," Scarborough gained a measure of national notoriety, the Washington Post reported in May 2005. "He recruited like-minded candidates to run for the local school board and city council. He crisscrossed the country to protest the ousting of Roy S. Moore, former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, for installing a Ten Commandments tablet at his courthouse. And Scarborough created a network of 'Patriot Pastors' to lead evangelicals to the polls in 2004." The Washington Post article appeared after Scarborough had organized a conference in Washington D.C. on "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith," which according to Dr. Bruce Prescott, the Executive Director of MainstreamBaptists.org and President of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State - Oklahoma, who posts regularly under the name "Mainstream Baptist" at Talk to Action, "launched the movement against the filibuster in congress and inspired three 'Justice Sundays.'" Dr. Prescott described Scarborough as "a Dominionist Southern Baptist minister who first emerged as a leader of young pastors who [in 1989] supported the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention." Dr. Prescott provided this additional background information: In 1990, he became pastor of the First Baptist Church in Pearland, Texas. From that pulpit, with help from the fundamentalist leaders of the SBC that he helped elect, he continued to work to takeover the Texas Baptist state Convention. His 1996 book 'Enough is Enough' begins with two full page letters of endorsement. One by Paige Patterson, then the President of Southeastern Baptist Seminary in North Carolina, the other by Jimmy Draper, then President of the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board in Tennessee. The book was mailed to the pastors of all the churches in the Baptist General Convention of Texas. That same year he ran against moderate incumbent Charles Wade for the presidency of the BGCT and lost by a 2-1 margin. While in Pearland he moved from denominational politics to secular politics. He helped elect members of his congregation to the city council and school board, and encouraged church members to fill top local government jobs -- including city manager and chief of police. He also worked out a sweetheart deal with the city on the purchase of land for his church to relocate. In 1994, after a member of his congregation, Republican Steve Stockman, defeated long tenured Democratic Representative Jack Brooks for his seat in Congress, Scarborough credited political action by his church with helping Stockman win the election. Unfortunately for his church, he bragged about it publicly in an article that he wrote for Jerry Falwell's Liberty Journal. The IRS investigated his church and they nearly lost their tax exemption. At one time pressures were so great at his church that he resigned, but Jerry Falwell wrote a letter to the church asking them to rescind his resignation and the church did. In 2002 Scarborough resigned the pastorate and began working full time for Vision America - a political organizing ministry he founded with the help of Jerry Falwell. Scarborough is one of many Christian conservative pastors who have developed close ties to Tom DeLay; the congressman even calls him "one of my closest friends." In the early spring of last year Scarborough "recruited 2,000 more Christian ministers for his Patriot Pastor network, boosting total membership of the three-year-old alliance to about 5,000 members," the Washington Post reported. "One of my goals in life is to give the Republican Party courage," Scarborough said in a recent interview. "We have a lot of gutless wonders who wear the tag conservative Republican. Anytime there's any amount of fire, they crater." Before a recent Florida appearance promoting his book, Rabbi James Rudin told Susan L. Rife of Florida's HeraldTribune.com that "Christocrats" -- evangelical leaders determined to create a Christian theocracy in this country -- "and the larger evangelical community really feel that they're under siege, under attack, beleaguered, and that their values are ridiculed and made fun of." Rudin, the now retired director of inter-religious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, added that "The Christocrats actually feel that America's been stolen." Ultimately, whining about a "War on Christians" in the United States, staging a first-ever, star-studded "War on Christians" conference, selling "War on Christians" gear, and using it as a battle cry to galvanize Christian voters, does not make it so. sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
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MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism' On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root.
Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy' In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy."
Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day.
Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.
Bill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."
Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states."
Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency.
Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill.
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