In response to Houston's gay mayor's solicitation of church sermons, on Nov. 2, 2014, Houston Texas will host an I Stand Sunday.  The event, held at a church that openly endorsed a politician, wants to be a player in these issues.  The meeting, held at Grace Church, happens to be the congregation charged by Americans United for Separation of Church and State with using church stationary to seek to endorse a Congressional replacement for Tom DeLay.    Pastor Ed Young will speak.  Ed is the CEO of Second Baptist which has franchises across the region and was in court with the IRS over publicly endorsing candidates for office.   Mike Huckabee, Fox News analyst, is known for claiming that the man who wrote the book about the Myth of Separation of Church and State, is the greatest historian of our generation.  Rick Scarborough, who once claimed Tom DeLay was crucified like Jesus, will speak.  Rick drug his Houston suburb church into the political arena and tore up the congregation.  David Welch, head of the local pastor's conference, seeks to get churches directly engaged in right wing politics.  Ronnie Floyd, president of the Southern Baptist Convention is in the house.  Ronnie once used his pulpit in Arkansas to endorse George W. Bush for President.  The head of ADF will be present.  His organization is the nationally known group encouraging churches to defy the tax codes and publicly endorse candidates for office challenging the churches to defy the government and go into the court rooms.  Meanwhile the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship recently gave a public civic award to Wendy Davis. Davis is the Democratic candidate for Governor in Texas.  Entanglement with churches and denominations and politicians tends to be the trend today.

This is a reposting of an op-ed I recently published at LGBTQ Nation -- FC

Real Religious Liberty is not Oppression
FREDERICK CLARKSON
Senior Fellow, Political Research Associates

Religious liberty is one of the defining issues of our time -- offering distinct challenges and historic opportunities for LGBTQ people and everyone who is struggling to create a more just society. As the Christian Right continues to use the term to frame their issues, we must not concede the definition of religious liberty to interlopers.

Religious liberty is a progressive and liberatory value, over which theocratic factions, and the politicians who pander to them, have no claim.

The best take on Houston Mayor Annise Parker vs. the churches in her city is the story written by Marv Knox in the Baptist Standard.  The article can be found at www.baptiststandard.com/digital-edition/126-42/17084:editorial-ho uston-subpoena      The result of her legal attempt to solicit the sermons of local pastors has sent a shock wave felt around the nation.  The end result is that it has given a platform to groups who were on the fringe and mostly unknown to congregations.  Facebook posts and inter net searches bring up the comments from these Religious Right groups.   The local chapter of Americans United for Separation of church (which I am a member), nor the Baptist Joint Committee, ACLU or other First Amendment groups are not solicited for comment.  Readers might be disappointed at who is chosen by the media to represent the churches.

LGBTQ Nation   In my first bi-weekly column on religious liberty, I discuss how  

"Religious liberty is a progressive and liberatory value, over which theocratic factions, and the politicians who pander to them, have no claim."

The Public Eye  Two presidents in a row have increasingly steered federal grants and contracts to conservative Christian groups--including houses of worship. It is hard to imagine the Obama administration steering grants and contracts to state affiliates of Focus on the Family -- and worse. But here we are.

Eyes Right   I watched the extraordinary spectacle at the recent Values Voters  Conference in Washington, DC -- of Glenn Beck and Mark Levin trying to quell the current Neo-Confederate trend on the Christian Right.

Eyes Right   In "The Nullification of Religious Liberty" I write:  

It's true. Religious liberty is under sustained attack in America--but not in the way the Christian Right would have us believe. A theocratic (and sometimes Neo-Confederate) movement within the broader Christian Right is targeting the religious liberty of those they don't agree with. Marriage equality is currently on the front lines of this historic assault. And while it has not always been framed as an issue of religious liberty by LGBTQ activists and progressive allies, that is changing--even as advances in marriage equality in the courts and federal policy are causing some Christian Right leaders to discuss potential state-level nullification.

 

One of the secrets of the success of the Christian Right over the years has been that opponents have taken the movement with insufficient seriousness.  (I won't get into that story here. But suffice to say that even as it has its ups and downs, the Religious Right remains one of the most powerful and dynamic political movements in American history.)  

For decades a principal task for the movement has been to link its theology to the need for citizen action and electoral success to attain a more theocratic society.  Since the earliest days of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition the comparing of church membership lists with voter registration lists has been a staple of conservative church-based politicking. Some of it is entirely legal and many non-profit groups do similar things.  

My point here is not the legality or desirability of such activities, it is to point out the contemporary reality of Christian Right voter mobilization going into the November election.  

When an individual doesn't feel like being absolutely truthful, there are a couple of things he or she can do. One is to simply tell lies. Another, perhaps more common tactic, is to omit certain pieces of information, thus giving the listener an incomplete picture.

The latter tactic was on full display this year during the Religious Right's "Values Voter Summit" last week, and perhaps no one used it better than a man named Kelly Shackelford.

Bishop Robert Finn, head of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri has long been a symbol of the ongoing institutional intransigence in addressing the problem of child sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. Finn who was convicted by a Missouri court for failing to report suspected child abuse by a parish priest under his charge, has so far resisted calls for his resignation.  

It now appears that Pope Francis wants to remove that symbol.

In honor of the 2014 incarnation of the event known as The Gathering, I've given an interview with Jay Michaelson, writing for the Daily Beast, on what Michaelson has chosen to call The $1-Billion-a-Year Right-Wing Conspiracy You Haven't Heard Of.

The Religious Right's annual "Values Voter Summit" (VVS) takes place this weekend. Americans United staffers Simon Brown, Sarah Jones and I will be there. (Barry Lynn usually pops in too, in case anyone wants to take a selfie with him.)

If you are a religious person, please pray for us. If you're not religious, please forward some recommendations for stress-relief strategies - favorite liquors, ice-cream brands, yoga positions, etc. - as I suspect we'll all need some way to unwind when this thing is over.

My latest post at Political Research Associates is about how this weekend's Values Voter Summit fits into the Christian Right's wider electoral strategy for 2014.

It is also about a new app to make it easy for pastors to run their church membership lists against voter registration lists -- and to encourage them to register and vote.  

The annual event typically draws several thousand Christian Right activists and features speeches by top GOP pols -- especially those with presidential aspirations.  This year is no different. Headliners include Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR).

Recently, government-encouraged outbreaks of mob violence against LGBT persons in countries from Uganda to Russia, and draconian new anti-gay legislation in those countries too, have gained growing media notice - some of which has focused on the role American evangelicals have played in inciting such hatred.

But the American culprits are not being funded from the margins. Tens of millions (possibly evens hundreds of millions) of dollars for that project is coming from the foundations whose representatives assemble yearly at an event known as The Gathering, where multimillionaire and billionaire evangelical funders of the culture wars from the families DeVos, Coors, Prince, Maclellan, Friess, Ahmanson, and others, and heads of the mammoth National Christian Foundation -  gather, dine, and strategize.

Yesterday conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza was sentenced to five years of probation and a term of community service for violating federal campaign laws. He must also pay a fine of $30,000.

For many years, D'Souza was a garden-variety conservative who preached the standard libertarian line of small government and low taxes. At some point, he decided to climb aboard the Religious Right gravy train. In 2007 he penned a book titled What's So Great About Christianity. He spoke at the Values Voter Summit in 2012 and has appeared at other Religious Right gatherings - often collecting hefty speaking fees.