During his TheCall events Lou Engle has encouraged his audience to worship an aspect of God called "the avenger of blood," and Engle claims gays are possessed by demons. He calls San Francisco's Castro District a place where "the homosexuals boast the dominion of darkness." As shown in the video below, Lou Engle is described as a good friend to Kansas Republican Senator Sam Brownback - a relationship now more in the spotlight due to a Kansas Democratic Party press release calling on Brownback to denounce Engle. And, there's more...
Priests for Life organize the latest attempt by the anti-abortion movement to turn the civil rights movement on its head
Whatever else one can say about the anti-abortion movement, you have to give it credit for a certain amount of creativity in its single-minded pursuit of totally eliminating a woman's right to have an abortion. You see this creativity in a broad array of strategies and tactics the movement employs. There have been some relatively big plays recently, including a bevy of new restrictive anti-abortion laws enacted in more than a dozen states around the country. There is also the awareness of the importance of growing the movement, especially by focusing on bringing young people aboard. Over the past few years, well-trained young anti-abortion activists, armed with hidden cameras aimed at Planned Parenthood clinics, have tried baiting staffers into unlawful activities.
Recently, the leader of one of the most vocal anti-abortion organizations teamed up with the niece of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., to announce the launch a campaign called "Freedom Rides for the Unborn."
LaHaye's Apocalyptic Dreams Hits Pay-dirt with new series of books
Given the Tax Day Tea Parties, the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, and the 40th anniversary of the burning of the student union building on the campus of the University of Kansas, the National Football League's draft, and news about the Hutaree Christian militia, you may have missed one of the major literary events of the week; the return of Tim LaHaye with a new series of apocalyptic novels.
Yes, to paraphrase the great Lou Christy, for the Detroit, Michigan born Tim LaHaye who will turn 84 on April 27, the Apocalypse is striking again and again and again and again.
And, cash register drawers at bookshops all across the country are once again ringing - perhaps not as loudly as they did for his Left Behind series - the mega-bestseller sold more than 65 million copies and was translated into 30 languages -- but they're ringing nevertheless.
"Is it scary? It sure is": Oklahoma Tea Party leaders want an armed militia to combat the federal government
Coming on the heels of the arrests and indictments of the Hutaree militia group in Southern Michigan and given the fact that April 19 is the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing - the day that Tim McVeigh exploded a truckbomb outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killing 168 people -- at first glance I thought the story I was reading had emanated from the fevered minds of the writers at The Onion -- one of the nation's premier humor/satire publications where no issue is off limits.
But I soon realized that this in fact was a serious news dispatch from two Associated Press writers, Sean Murphy and Tim Talley.
The appearance, and then disappearance, of crisis pregnancy centers on the list of Lilith-eligible charities sparks online dust-up
In the middle of last year, Lilith Fair co-founder Terry McBride announced via Twitter that the all-female festival would make its return in the summer of 2010. Six months later, Lilith 2010 launched its website and announced that the tour would launch on June 27 in Calgary, Canada. An extraordinary array of artists including Erykah Badu, Heart, Indigo Girls, Kelly Clarkson, Loretta Lynn, Mary J. Blidge, Norah Jones, Sheryl Crow, Selena Gomez, have already signed on.
With so many culture war battles going on at once and Tea Party activities grabbing so much media attention these days, is it any wonder that the battle fought out around the revival of the Lilith Fair summer concert series, didn't appear on most radar screens?
I wouldn't have known anything about it if it wasn't for Jill Stanek bringing it to my attention via her weekly email alert. Stanek is the head of an organization called Born Alive Truth, a decidedly anti-abortion operation that became visible during the 2008 presidential campaign through its persistent attacks on Barack Obama. Stanek, a regular columnist for WorldNetDaily.com, also delights in attacking Planned Parenthood of America and all things pro-choice.
Celebrated author and long time human rights activist Patricia Nell Warren says that it's time for ENDA to pass.
Despite the occasional setback - the vote on California's Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage comes quickly to mind - and the incessant squawking and shameful and manipulative fundraising missiles from the likes of such professional scolds as Lou Sheldon of the Tradition Values Coalition, the American Family Association's Wildmon family, and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities will continue to advance. Nevertheless, there are many more battles - dare I use that word in this overheated political climate - to be fought and won.
Passage of ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, is one of these impending fights.
The mainstream media has plenty of time and space to devote to Sarah Palin's Hollywood hi-jinks, but apparently has little interest in delving into her fantastic religious connections.
A few weeks back, I interviewed Rachel Tabachnick about a movement of religious conservatives called the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). The story, which appeared at Alternet on Monday, March 1, was given the rather tantalizing title, "Heads Up: Prayer Warriors and Sarah Palin Are Organizing Spiritual Warfare to Take Over America". The subhead was also a juicy tease, advising that the NAR was likely "the largest religious movement you've never heard of" (http://www.alternet.org/news/145796/).
All-in-all, the piece was probably the most extensive article/interview yet published on this movement. While the piece didn't go "viral," it did provoke an interesting response. Within a few days, it became one of the "Most READ," "Most EMAILED" and "Most DISCUSSED" articles at Alternet.
A number of websites and blogs linked to the story, including such popular sites at The Huffington Post, Daily Kos, TruthOut, and Beliefnet. A host of lesser-trafficked blogs including God's Poetry Factory, God Discussion, End Bigotry in Venango County [Pennsylvania], The Oread Daily, and "The Christian Radical," also linked to - or ran -- the story.
There were tweets, Reddits, and Diggs.
The mainstream media, however, didn't pay it any mind.
From his dining room table in 1977, the decidedly anti-gay Rev. Donald Wildmon built a multi-million dollar ministry and media powerhouse. Now, although he has retired, AFA's beat goes on.
You wouldn't recognize him if you ran into him on the street; you couldn't pick him out of a lineup; you've probably never seen him on television. Nevertheless, over the past thirty+-years, he has been one of the Religious Right's most effective campaigners against whatever he perceived to be indecency on television and in the movies. He was feared by corporate leaders, and, along the way, he became one of the country's predominant and persistent scolds.
Now, after thirty-three years at the helm, the Rev. Donald Wildmon, an ordained United Methodist minister who founded the National Federation for Decency in 1977 to fight indecency on television (it changed its name to the American Family Association (AFA) in 1988), and American Family Radio, has called it quits as chairman of the organization.
Bishop Harry Jackson, a full-time fighter against gay equality, has raised a fair amount of money from national Christian conservative organizations to combat same-sex marriage in Washington, D.C.
Over the past few years, Bishop Harry Jackson has been more than a trusted ally of the Religious Right. As an indefatigable fighter against equality for gays and lesbians, he's gone well beyond the call of duty. These days, from his church headquarters in Beltsville, Maryland, Jackson has led a coalition of mostly African American religious leaders in a major battle over same-sex marriage with the District of Columbia's City Council.
On Dec. 19, Washington, D.C. officially legalized same-sex marriage by a D.C. Council vote of 11-2.
In a crowded universe of conservative mandates, declarations, and statements, two more, `The Mount Vernon Statement,' which aims to unify the three legs of the conservative movement, and the soon-to-be-finalized `Contract From America,' which wants nothing to do with social or national defense issues, may end up dividing the conservative movement.
If it seems that mandates, declarations, and statements are flying out of the offices of conservative movement leaders faster than participants in short track skating at the Winter Olympics, that's because they are. In the past few months, desperate for an identity other than "Just say No-ers," conservatives have become quite adept at issuing documents declaring the tenets of principled conservatism.
Rick Scarborough comes up with a document aimed at fusing the Religious Right's social agenda to the Tea Party movement
In the end, despite the laughs generated by Sarah's Palin's hand-o-prompter speech to the National Tea Party Convention in early February, there wasn't a heck of a lot noteworthy about the event. Prior to the convention Tea Party groups from around the country aired their displeasure with what appeared to be a money-making venture. However, despite the inside-the-Tea-Party-turmoil, the convention did manage to attract some 600 Tea Party supporters from across the country; it received a bevy of mainstream media coverage; and, it had its fair share of outrageous moments - Tom Tancredo's immigrant-bashing opening remarks being chief among them.
One convention development that might have slipped past the mainstream media's coverage was a new effort by some longtime Religious Right leaders to hoist them-selves aboard the Tea Party bandwagon.
Her memoir, `Why I Stayed: The Choices I Made In My Darkest Hour,' takes readers on a three-year odyssey from the depths of despair, to the former mega-pastor's being `cured' of his homosexual `compulsions.'
The mega-takeaways from Gayle Haggard's new memoir about the trials and tribulations she went through after her husband Ted's involvement with a gay prostitute and his solicitation of drugs came to light in November 2006, are: 1) she forgives him, 2) he has put it all behind him; and, 3) he is now free of any and all homosexual "compulsions."
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