"Like all great satire, the book is cerebral, irreverent and hilarious, while also edifying" — Publisher's Weekly
"This book is hilarious... [Lanham] didn't skimp on his research. The book provides a telling overview of the religious right's leadership, the beliefs they espouse, and just how incredibly absurd and hypocritical they are." — The Campaign to Defend the Constitution
Editor's Pick: "From the author of The Hipster Handbook comes this irreverent navigation of all things Evangelical. Learn enough slang to fit in at a church picnic or why SpongeBob SquarePants is an agent of the Devil" — Chicago Sun-Times
"This guy has written quite a funny book." — Alan Colmes, Fox News
"A funny book with some funny cartoons on everyone from Rick Warren as the evangelical Jimmy Buffett to a guide for Christian haircuts that is hilarious... I was chuckling until I saw that I am the postscript" — Mark Driscoll, pastor of the largest megachurch in Washington State
"Every good little liberal will have this book on order as a stocking stuffer come Jesus' birthday." — Time Out
"A handbook for coping with bible thumpers.... When considering the power and influence evangelical Christians wield in this country, you have to laugh to keep from crying. Robert Lanham... understands this well and offers much needed, totally biased comic relief." — Village Voice
"Not only is this an important book, it's a funny book." — Marc Maron, Air America Radio
"Author Robert Lanham is an observer... but with his latest, The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right, Lanham's keen eye has hit perhaps his most entertaining target." — Metro Paper
"It’s hard to remember a more pointed and scathing attack… Lanham launches a focused, sustained barrage on the Pat Robertsons and James Dobsons of the world… He’s done his homework. The book is thoroughly researched and packed with quotes and analysis of the famous and not-so-famous leaders of the evangelical right… the research is truly impressive. " — The Reader
"An utterly biased, humorous one-stop guide to the major evangelical players." — Details
"Check out Robert Lanham's (author of the fabled Hipster Handbook and former Bible Belt resident) Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right. It's funny because it's true." — Elizabeth Spiers, founding Editor of Gawker
"Like the Daily Show or The Colbert Report, it's humor reveals the basic truth. Which is to say that the "sinners" of the world may be closer to Jesus and the divine than those who use God's name for personal enrichment, power building, and political gain." — Buzzflash
"The book does for religion what Jon Stewart does for politics." — CanWest News Service
"Informative, laugh-out-loud funny and horrifying at times, check out this snide, leftie-geared guide to the major evangelical players... Robert Lanham has a writing style that resembles... McSweeney's, and the irony-stacked humor of TV programs such as "The Daily Show" — Style Weekly, Richmond VA
"Hilarious... go out and buy this book now." — Sam Seder, The Majority Report
"This book should lay at the lifeless feet of your corpse as a silent, yet
powerful and all encompassing explanation as to why you took your own life."
— David Cross, Arrested Development
A woman whose summer camp for children near Devil's Lake, N.D., was featured in a documentary called "Jesus Camp," says all the attention led to her decision not to continue camps there.
"I have a responsibility to keep the children safe," the Rev. Becky Fischer said.
Fischer said the camp, which is owned by the Assemblies of God and rents to a number of groups, was vandalized after the release of the movie about her Kids on Fire camp. The Assemblies of God church also was vandalized, she said.
The camp's windows were broken and it had about $1,500 worth of damage. Police figure the church was vandalized the same night, said the Rev. Winston Titus, the camp administrator.
Critics have accused Fischer of brainwashing. She has said she wants to encourage young people to be committed Christians.
Titus said his staff has had calls from both sides - some threatening a boycott if the camp continues renting to Fischer's group, and others threatening a boycott if it does not.
"Right now, we just want it to be over," Titus said. "Any publicity just stirs things up."
Fischer has asked that Magnolia Pictures not release the Jesus Camp movie in the Bismarck area because she worries about the risk of other incidents there.
She said the movie is scheduled at the Fargo Theater on Nov. 17, and will be out on DVD in a couple of months.
The federal government's "no sex without marriage" message isn't just for kids anymore. Now the government is targeting unmarried adults up to age 29 as part of its abstinence-only programs, which include millions of dollars in federal money that will be available to the states under revised federal grant guidelines for 2007.
The government says the change is a clarification. But critics say it's a clear signal of a more directed policy targeting the sexual behavior of adults. [...] But Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the Department of Health and Human Services, said the revision is aimed at 19- to 29-year-olds because more unmarried women in that age group are having children. [...]
"The message is 'It's better to wait until you're married to bear or father children,' " Horn said. "The only 100% effective way of getting there is abstinence.... "We wanted to remind states they could use these funds not only to target adolescents," Horn said. "It's a reminder."
As usual, money is the true God of the "values" party. From TPM via HuffPost
The Republican National Committee is a regular recipient of political contributions from Nicholas T. Boyias, the owner and CEO of Marina Pacific Distributors, one of the largest producers and distributors of gay porn in the United States. This recent article on Marina Pacific's new marketing campaign form XBiz, a porn industry trade sheet, notes that, in addition to producing its own material, the "company acts as a distribution house to hundreds of lines, mostly gay, 40 of which can be purchased only through MPD."
The company actually seems to be a trendsetter in the industry. As Boyias recently noted, "We have always modeled ourselves after a Fortune-style company. They are the models of exceptional customer service. We have formed strategic alliances with our vendors and customers alike, offering them tools and marketing to assist them in succeeding with their business models. Our one-on-one interpersonal relationships have never been duplicated in the distribution industry."
Some recent releases include "Fire in the Hole", "Flesh and Boners", even a "Velvet Mafia" series. READ IT ALL
Dobson Breaks The Law: Endorses Maryland Candidate
It's appalling that Dobson's empire still remains tax-exempt. Anyone with eyes can see that Focus on the Family is aggressively partisan. Just read this letter to Maryland voters. From WUSA9
Dear Maryland Friend,
... One of your candidates—Congressman Ben Cardin—is a die-hard supporter of abortion. For more than a decade, he has maintained a 100-percent voting record from the pro-abortion group NARAL and from Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the world.
What does a perfect pro-abortion voting record look like? Ben Cardin supports abortion through all nine months of pregnancy and even favors the ghastly practice of partial-birth abortion. He voted against the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (also known as "Laci and Conner's Law"), and he faithfully supports making you, the taxpayer, pay for abortions! It's hard to get any more pro-abortion than that!
Is there any doubt that Mr. Cardin will listen to his pro-abortion financiers when it comes to confirming judges to the U.S. Supreme Court? There shouldn't be. The liberal-led filibusters against judicial nominees have been based almost entirely on one thing—where those judges stand on abortion. Indeed, Rep. Cardin announced he would have voted against U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who indicated a willingness to challenge pro-abortion precedents.
But what about Ben Cardin's stance on marriage? The answer to that question depends on whether you believe his words or his actions. He says he believes in traditional marriage, but he hasn't lifted a finger to protect it. In fact, he has done just the opposite by opposing the very measures that would defend it against the attacks of gay radicals and activist judges.
In both 2004 and 2006, Mr. Cardin had the chance to demonstrate his commitment to traditional marriage, but instead he chose to vote against the federal Marriage Protection Amendment. Further, he even voted against the Marriage Protection Act, which would have taken simple steps to protect marriage.
Consequently, the Human Rights Campaign—the nation's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy organization—has given significant campaign cash to Ben Cardin in each of the past three elections.
Fortunately, your other Senate candidate, Lt. Governor Michael Steele, has a much better track record, particularly on the sanctity of human life and marriage.
When it comes to life, there's no guessing where he stands. Michael Steele has repeatedly given his commitment to pro-life policies, from abortion to embryonic stem-cell research. Equally important, Lt. Gov. Steele's commitment to defending marriage from redefinition has been clear. He unequivocally supports the Marriage Protection Amendment that would keep liberal courts and radical gay activists from hijacking the institution of marriage.
Finally, when it comes to judges, who have triggered many of the problems on these issues, Steele has clearly underscored the need for judges who will interpret the law rather than make it. This effort to reform the out-of-control judiciary will outlast any politician and is critical to our nation's survival....
Don't let the abortion industry and advocates of homosexual marriage have their way in Maryland. Make your voice heard!
Sincerely,
James C. Dobson, Ph.D.
Founder and Chairman
... The party’s strategy, after all, has long been not to persuade moderate, suburban America, but to register, organise and mobilise millions of rural evangelical voters who had not voted in large numbers since the 1920s.
Issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage brought these voters to the polls and made the difference. Without them in Ohio in 2004, John Kerry would now be president. The Republicans also gerrymandered their constituencies to ensure these voters were spread around enough to provide narrow margins of victories across the country. The victories were always close ones, nonetheless.
Until recently the rural evangelicals have stuck with the president, in part to honour the fallen, and out of admirable patriotism and trust. It is hard to believe that your son or daughter died or is permanently crippled for a bungled cause. But if the facade cracks, if these rural voters begin to believe they have been misled, then the rock-solid patriotic support could become something else. It would not, in my judgment, fade into indifference. It could turn into rage. READ IT ALL
The battle over stem cell research in Missouri doesn't lack for star power.
Ailing actor Michael J. Fox, rock star cancer-survivor Sheryl Crow, Super Bowl hero Kurt Warner, World Series pitcher Jeff Suppan and other celebrities have given voters their two cents.
Their fame threatens to overshadow the tight Senate race between Republican Sen. Jim Talent and Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill.
As the Nov. 7 elections near, Missouri's Senate race is intertwining with a ballot measure that would engrave the right to conduct embryonic stem cell research into the state constitution. McCaskill supports it; Talent opposes it.
The ballot initiative and Senate contest have cost around $30 million each, counting money raised or spent by various campaign committees, the candidates and their political parties.
McCaskill's campaign began airing ads featuring Fox, who while shaking from the effects of Parkinson's disease, urges voters to elect McCaskill because of her support for stem cell research.
The ad prompted criticism from conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh.
The coalition supporting the initiative, which recent polls show has the support of 58 percent of likely voters, also has run ads featuring Crow, a native Missourian.
The ads prompted a group opposing the ballot initiative to make its own ad. That spot features five celebrities -- including Warner, who led the St. Louis Rams to the 2000 NFL title; Everybody Loves Raymond actress Patricia Heaton; and Suppan.
The ad also features actor James Caviezel, who portrayed Jesus in The Passion of the Christ, and Kansas City Royals baseball player Mike Sweeney.
With all the attention, the stem cell initiative could help determine the outcome of Missouri's U.S. Senate race -- and control of the Senate itself. Democrats need to gain six seats nationally to wrest control of the chamber away from Republicans, and recent polls show Talent and McCaskill about even.
"Clearly, Claire McCaskill thinks that it would be advantageous for her to be linked to it," said political scientist Dave Robertson, of the University of Missouri-St. Louis. "Whether or not that's borne out, it's really going to be hard to tell."
Missourians have a recent history of being drawn to the polls by high-profile ballot issues. An August 2004 constitutional amendment banning gay marriage attracted more votes than any other contest on the ballot.
Opponents of the stem cell initiative are hoping a similar religious-based movement can spur them to victory this year. Their attention is focused on ballot language that, while banning the cloning of human beings, allows an embryonic cloning technique that opponents contend destroys early human life.
That opposition is the main reason why anti-abortion voter James Cochran Jr., 43, says he will be casting his ballot for Talent.
He recently was driving his parents' van plastered with six "pro-life" bumper stickers, including one declaring "Vote No on Amendment 2. Defeat the phony cloning ban."
Less flamboyant but equally passionate is Sharon Fockler, 63, who declares: "I'm for the stem cells and I'm going with McCaskill." Fockler explains that she's voting for the Democrat primarily because she's dissatisfied with Republicans in Washington, not specifically because of her support for stem cell research. But the correlation still exists.
Whether the correlation will carry on Election Day is the big unknown. "There's no question that the stem cell and a few of the other ballot measures that are out there are going to be energizing the different voting groups," said Kurt Jefferson, chairman of the political science department at Westminster College in Fulton.
But Jefferson and Robertson are leery of directly linking the initiative and Senate race, especially considering that polls show the war in Iraq to be a prime issue to Senate voters.
There has not necessarily been a correlation between successful Missouri ballot measures and candidates. Republican John Ashcroft, a staunch gambling opponent, easily won Missouri's 1994 Senate race even as voters approved an expansion of state-sanctioned gambling by allowing slot machines on riverboat casinos.
"Missourians are notorious for voting one direction with a ballot measure, but maybe sending another message with the member going to Congress," Jefferson said.
How private faith is going public among the African American elite of Hollywood
Last January, in the parking lot of the West Angeles Church of God in Christ, Robi Reed had a moment that propelled her career toward evangelism.
After the Sunday service, Reed, a veteran casting director whose credits include "Antwone Fisher" and "Malcolm X," walked up to fellow churchgoer Denzel Washington and asked after his family. The longtime friends exchanged pleasantries until Reed casually mentioned her latest project. "I'm producing and casting an audio Bible with an African American cast. It's the Old and New Testaments."
Reed remembers that Washington interrupted her, saying, "I have to do it." The Oscar-winning actor didn't talk about lawyers, money, agents or publicists.
"I was trying to be very cool as he said to call his assistant with all the particulars," recalls Reed, a slender woman with waist-length twists. Then she got into her blue BMW, exhaled, screamed a couple of times and began praising the Lord again and again. "I just knew it was the start of something big."
Washington was the first A-list star of more than 200 celebrities--including Samuel L. Jackson as God, Angela Bassett as Esther, Blair Underwood as Jesus and Cuba Gooding Jr. as Judas—--who have lent their voices and acting talents to "Inspired By . . . The Bible Experience," a fully dramatized and scored, 70-hour, audio recording of the Holy Scriptures. The New Testament edition hit stores earlier this month. Washington reads the Songs of Solomon with his wife, Pauletta, for the Old Testament edition, which will be available digitally as early as next year. Why would megastars publicly associate themselves with religion, I wondered? What could they get out of it? The answers revealed something surprising and refreshing about that godless den of iniquity known as Hollywood. READ IT ALL
A new poll shows support for the war in Iraq is slipping among white evangelical Protestants, previously a key pillar of support for President George W. Bush's conduct of the conflict.
The poll is the latest bad domestic news for Bush and the Republicans about Iraq with just 12 days to go to congressional elections in which the Democrats are widely expected to capture control of the House of Representatives.
Conducted by the PEW Research Center, it found that 58 percent of white evangelical Protestants surveyed felt the United States made the right decision in using force in Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein, below the 71 percent in a previous poll in September. READ IT ALL
In the United States, atheists are becoming an ostracized minority. But now evolutionary biologists are trying to turn the tables: According to their argument, religion is the source of evil. Morals and selflessness are not God-given - they are the result of evolution.
When Richard Dawkins, a zoologist at Oxford University, steps up to the altar he seems visibly pleased to see the pews in the church fully occupied. In the best Queen's English, he reads from his book: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." READ IT ALL
Just in time for Christmas, the fine folks at Garrett County Press have released the perfect stocking stuffer for all you Pat Robertson fans: The Pat Robertson and Friends Coloring Book.
And to promote the book "Garrett County Press asked favorite artists to "color in" pages from Kevin Stone's latest project... The artists, who range from Philadelphia designers to Bangkok street artists, were given simple instructions: pick your favorite page and have fun."
Here's two examples:
You can view the entire gallery here. [Thanks John]
The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that “same-sex couples are entitled to the same rights as heterosexuals in New Jersey, but that lawmakers must determine whether the state will honor gay marriage or some other form of civil union.” READ IT ALL
Mark Driscoll: Universalist pastor "led astray by a demon"
Mark Driscoll
The fire-and-brimstone preaching "hipster pastor," Mark Driscoll is at it again. This time, he's taking pot shots at a pastor who has been in the news lately for renouncing the existence of hell. "He was apparently led astray by a demon who spoke to him," says Driscoll. Read it all here.
For a more blatantly comedic tour through conservative evangelical culture that is informative, laugh-out-loud funny and horrifying at times, check out this snide, leftie-geared guide to the major evangelical players.
With detailed illustrations by Jeff Bechtel, the book offers a comprehensive course on religious power brokers, from James Dobson to Joel Osteen (“the evangelical P. Diddy”) and Rick Warren (“the evangelical Jimmy Buffett”), complete with fire-and-brimstone rankings. A rating of 1 is the least severe (“liberal, even likes gays”), and 8 is the most (“sociopath -- thinks Jesus will return any day with a flamethrower”).
Author of “The Hipster Handbook,” Robert Lanham has a writing style that resembles the hyper-verbose, list-oriented ramblings of edgy modern publications such as McSweeney’s, and the irony-stacked humor of TV programs such as “The Daily Show” or “Real Time With Bill Maher.”
Each chapter is packed with quick-fact information about his subjects as well as tiny pop-up guides for the ADD-addled, featuring comments from five everyday evangelicals as well as fromRonnie James Dio, the elfin heavy-metal singer responsible for popularizing the satanic horns gesture (although his comments are fake, another stand-in for the author’s barbed jesting).
Sandwiched between are scary factoids, such as “a majority of U.S. adults, 54 percent, do not think human beings developed from earlier species, up from 46 percent in 1994 (Harris Poll 2005).” There’s a final quiz and glossary in back.
Lanham is preaching to the choir here and will likely appeal only to those who have already made up their mind, but his book does provide thought-provoking tidbits and funny but telling analyses of the current evangelical scene that might otherwise lead thinking individuals to outright despair if told straight.
If you’re the sort of left-winger who condemns evangelicals but knows little about their leaders, megachurches or followers, don’t miss this funny little guide.
"I have never ever seen such hatred in my life. I am being bludgeoned in the media. Why? Why now? Well, it’s not really personal to me. But they identify me as one of the people who turned out the values voters last time—and they are determined to never, ever let it happen again.
"For two years they have just been livid over what happened in 2004. I’m getting the brunt of it—but you know what, I don’t really care about that. And I’m going to cast my vote anyway. Are you?"
America, founded in secularism as a beacon of eighteenth century enlightenment, is becoming the victim of religious politics, a circumstance that would have horrified the Founding Fathers. The political ascendancy today values embryonic cells over adult people. It obsesses about gay marriage, ahead of genuinely important issues that actually make a difference to the world. It gains crucial electoral support from a religious constituency whose grip on reality is so tenuous that they expect to be 'raptured' up to heaven, leaving their clothes as empty as their minds. More extreme specimens actually long for a world war, which they identify as the 'Armageddon' that is to presage the Second Coming. Sam Harris, in his new short book, Letter to a Christian Nation, hits the bull's-eye as usual:
It is, therefore, not an exaggeration to say that if the city of New York were suddenly replaced by a ball of fire, some significant percentage of the American population would see a silver-lining in the subsequent mushroom cloud, as it would suggest to them that the best thing that is ever going to happen was about to happen: the return of Christ . . .Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government actually believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this, purely on the basis of religious dogma, should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency.
Does Bush check the Rapture Index daily, as Reagan did his stars? We don't know, but would anyone be surprised? READ IT ALL
Lauren Sandler's Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement
We've been meaning to mention Lauren Sandler's fantastic new book, Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement. It's a wonderful overview of the emerging 'disciple generation' that introduces readers to our nation's leading evangelical youth leaders and their followers. From the scary (Ryan Dobson), to the misogynistic (Mark Driscoll), to the bizarre (Stephen Baldwin), to the progressive (Jay Bakker), Sandler covers all her bases with humor, insight, and grace. Well, maybe not grace. Lauren is a card-carrying secular humanist destined to spend an eternity in hell removed from God's grace, just like us. (You can read an excerpt of Righteous here and purchase a copy here.)
The book is a great companion piece to our book, The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right and tonight author Robert Lanham will be doing a reading with Sandler in New York:
Robert Lanham & Lauren Sandler at The Half King
October 23 at 7pm, FREE
505 West 23rd Street
NEW YORK, NY
Christians gather around the world each Christmas to sing about "poor baby Jesus" asleep in the manger with no crib for his bed.But the Rev. Creflo Dollar looks inside that manger, and he doesn't see a poor baby at all.
He sees a baby born into wealth because the kings visiting him gave him gold, frankincense and myrrh. He sees a messiah with so much money that he needed an accountant to track it. He sees a savior who wore clothes so expensive that the Roman soldiers who crucified him gambled for them. Dollar sees a rich Jesus.
"He was rich, he was whole, and I use those words interchangeably," says Dollar, senior pastor of World Changers Church International, a 23,000-member College Park church, which broadcasts its services on six continents.
Dollar is part of a growing number of preachers who say that the traditional image of Jesus as a poor, itinerant preacher who "had no place to lay his head" is wrong.
"Did Jesus have money? Well, the Bible was clear. Kings brought him gold," Dollar says. "Did Jesus have money? It's clear. He had a treasurer to keep up with it."
Yet many academic scholars say pastors like Dollar are inventing a rich Jesus for selfish reasons.
"You're giving people divine sanctification to be greedy," says Sondra Ely Wheeler, an ethicist at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. "You tell them what they want to hear: The reason you have a Mercedes is because God loves you."
People have argued over their perception of Jesus for centuries. They've debated his politics, his race and more recently, his relationship with Mary Magdalene.
The new battleground: his economic status, because of the popularity of pastors like Dollar.
Dollar preaches the Prosperity Gospel, where the basic tenet is God rewards the faithful with wealth, spiritual power and debt-free living. And he is joined by a host of other nationally known preachers:
· Bishop T.D. Jakes, one of the most popular televangelist in the United States, a best-selling author and star of MegaFest, one of the largest annual revivals in the country.
· Televangelist Oral Roberts, founder of Oral Roberts University.
· And Atlanta's own Bishop Eddie Long, pastor of the city's largest church, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, 25,000 strong.
Their teaching, once seen as a fringe theology championed by flamboyant characters like "Rev. Ike," a prosperity televangelist with a pompadour who once boasted during his heyday in the 1970s that his "garages runneth over," has now moved mainstream. In the 1970s and 1980s, the flamboyant Rev. Ike made millions by promising wealth to those who followed his unabashed emphasis on materialism.
Millions of people across the world watch prosperity preachers' broadcasts and attend their crusades.
But preaching the Prosperity Gospel presents a snag in logic to its proponents: If God wants people to be prosperous, why was Jesus poor?
Well, he wasn't, say many prosperity pastors. And although their claims appear to contradict 2,000 years of traditional Christianity, they say they can prove it through Scripture and history. They also invoke common sense: Jakes reportedly told a Dallas Observer reporter that Jesus had to be rich in order to support his disciples for three years.
'Supernatural provision'
Those who preach against a poor Jesus say they aren't trying to justify personal greed. Prosperity preachers like Dollar say their teaching isn't solely centered on money, but extends to other areas such as health and relationships. They say God will provide for the faithful in all areas of their life -- just as he did for Jesus.
"When we are following God's will with all of our hearts, if it takes us to a place where we need God's supernatural provision to keep going, he will always provide it," says the Rev. Dennis Rouse of Victory World Church, a 5,000-member church in Gwinnett County.
And when it comes to Jesus, that's evident throughout his life, prosperity preachers say. How, for example, could Jesus have supported his mother when his father died early — unless he had ample money?
"It's historically inaccurate to say that Jesus was poor," says Bishop Johnathan Alvarado, senior pastor of Total Grace Christian Center in Decatur. Alvarado's church has 4,000 members who worship at two locations.
Alvarado also disputes the notion that Jesus was homeless — traditionally believed because of the passage in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of Luke where Jesus tells a would-be follower that he has "no place to lay his head."
But Alvarado says Jesus was speaking metaphorically — the world was not his home. "How many carpenters do you know who haven't built themselves a house?" he says.
And Jesus and his followers lived "sacrificially" by helping the poor and not trusting in their riches, Alvarado said. "Sacrifice is contextual," he says. " I can afford a BMW or a Bentley, but I drive a Nissan. ... It's OK to have stuff so long as stuff doesn't have you."
Dollar doesn't drive a Nissan. He drives a Rolls-Royce.
But he also believes that stories about Jesus being prejudiced against the rich have been misinterpreted. For example, he views the tale of the wealthy young ruler that Jesus confronts in the Gospel of Luke through different eyes.
In that encounter, the Gospels say Jesus told the man that it is "harder for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
Dollar says, however, Jesus wasn't saying wealth was a barrier to being accepted by God.
He says the "eye of the needle" was an ancient passageway entering Jerusalem that was so small that a camel had to drop to its knees to squeeze through. Jesus meant that a man who trusted in his riches would have similar difficulties adjusting to God's way of handling riches, Dollar says.
"This guy had an opportunity to love God with his possessions, but he couldn't do it because his possessions had him," Dollar says.
That same passage also proves that Jesus' disciples "were absolutely not poor," Dollar says. (The Gospels report that the disciples were astonished when Jesus told them about the perils of riches.) "If the disciples were poor, why would they get astonished?" Dollar says. "If they were poor, they should have jumped up and said, 'Whoopee, we're on our way.' "
'A lack of understanding'
However, if Jesus and his disciples weren't poor -- because God had blessed them -- what does that say about the millions of faithful Christians who live throughout the world in brutal poverty?
Is that due to a failure of their character?
When asked this, Dollar says: "Part of it may be, first of all, a lack of understanding. You cannot do better until you know better. I used to be broke and poor just like all of those other people. I had to first change the way I think."
Rick Hayes, a 14-year member of Dollar's church, agrees.
He says he was "homeless and hopeless" until he attended World Changers. He learned there that Jesus preached to the poor so they wouldn't be poor anymore. Today he is a medical supply salesman.
Hayes says he believes Jesus was rich because some biblical translations suggest Jesus — as a baby — was visited by a caravan of about 200 kings bearing gold, not three wise men. Jesus also needed wealth to pay travel expenses for his 12 disciples as they took the Gospel from city to city.
Hayes, quoting the ninth chapter of Ecclesiastes ("The words of a poor man are soon forgotten"), also says Jesus could not have attracted a devoted following if he was poor.
"Nobody is going to follow a broke man," Hayes says.
'By any means necessary'
Wheeler, the ethicist from Wesley seminary, sighs when she hears the arguments for Jesus being rich. She and other New Testament scholars say these pastors are distorting history and words and have no understanding of the socio-economic conditions of Jesus' time.
Wheeler, author of "Wealth as Peril and Obligation: The New Testament on Possessions" (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, $20), says most biblical scholars don't even want to dignify the debate with a response.
She says that Dollar's argument that Jesus started off wealthy because of the gold he received at birth is nonsense. Only one out of the four Gospels even mentions the gold he received from a king and that passage never gives the value of the gift.
"The notion that you would go from that to the assertion Jesus is wealthy passes credulity," she says. "You have to want to get there by any means necessary."
She also disputes Dollar's interpretation of Jesus' encounter with the rich young ruler. Jesus was being literal when he said it was hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.
"What Jesus says is that it is rarer than teeth in chickens to find a person who can own many things and not be owned by them," she says.
Similarly, Obery M. Hendricks Jr., author of "The Politics of Jesus" (Doubleday, $26), scoffs at the contention that Jesus had enough money to support himself and his disciples for three years. Hendricks says the eighth chapter in the Gospel of Luke paints a different picture: Women, using their own meager means, covered the bills for Jesus and his disciples.
"If Jesus was rich, why would he need women to support him?" Hendricks asks.
Eric Meyers, a professor of archaeology at Duke University, says he has never heard a single reputable scholar argue for a rich Jesus.
"It's new to me," he says at the beginning of the conversation. But as he listens to a litany of arguments on why Jesus was rich, he breaks in: "Now you're getting me mad."
Meyers, who personally excavated the village of Nazareth where Jesus lived during a 19-year-period, says there is absolutely no evidence of an "eye of the needle" gate in Jerusalem.
And Meyers, editor of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaelogy in the Near East, says simply put, Jesus was poor -- like virtually all the people around him.
"He didn't even have his own tomb," Meyers says. "He had to get it from a friend."
But Dollar says his interpretation of Jesus' ministry is just as valid as any scholar. His own prosperity is proof that God wants to bless his followers with financial and spiritual blessings -- just as he did for baby Jesus.
"God didn't give the Bible just to theologians and scholars, he gave it to poor people," Dollar says. "He gave it to farmers, sheep-herders -- we don't need somebody to help us misunderstand the Bible. If we just read the Book, things will begin to happen, and you'll see."
If the elections for Congress were held today, according to the new NEWSWEEK poll, 60 percent of white Evangelicals would support the Republican candidate in their district, compared to just 31 percent who would back the Democrat. To the uninitiated, that may sound like heartening news for Republicans in the autumn of their discontent. But if you’re a pundit, a pol, or a preacher, you know better. White Evangelicals are a cornerstone of the GOP’s base; in 2004, exit polls found Republicans carried white Evangelicals 3 to 1 over Democrats, winning 74 percent of their votes. In turn, Evangelicals carried the GOP to victory. But with a little more than two weeks before the crucial midterms, the Republican base may be cracking. READ IT ALL
Journalism Professor and Conservative Columnist Claims "The Only True Objectivity Is Biblical Objectivity"
Marvin Olask, who according to Wikipedia is "a professor of journalism at the University of Texas, a leading conservative columnist, and the editor-in-chief of World magazine," claims that journalists should adopt "biblical lenses" if they want to "see things as they really are." Further, Olasky claims "there is no obligation to weight both sides equally when the Bible gives one clear answer." If your child is a journalism major at UT, get your money back now.
All journalists are shaped by their worldviews, and the only way to bring true objectivity to journalism is to be shaped by the worldview of the Bible, Marvin Olasky said at the Baptist Press Excellence in Journalism Banquet in Nashville, Tenn., Oct. 7.
“[T]he only true objectivity is biblical objectivity,” World magazine editor Marvin Olasky said at the Baptist Press Excellence in Journalism Banquet culminating a three-day conference for college journalism students.
The banquet-the culminating event of the sixth annual Baptist Press national Collegiate Journalism Conference-featured award presentations for students achieving excellence in the fields of print journalism, photojournalism, broadcasting, web design and yearbook.
Olasky is editor-in-chief of World magazine, a syndicated columnist and a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of 17 books, and his writing has appeared in such newspapers at The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and USA Today.
"Only when we take up these biblical lenses can we see things as they really are," Olasky said. "So here's my thesis: the only true objectivity is biblical objectivity."
Journalists frequently make two errors regarding objectivity, he said. Sometimes they claim to be completely objective and not bring any presuppositions to their reporting, Olasky said, noting that such claims are wrong because everyone has presuppositions and a worldview. He said others wrongly bring their presuppositions to bear on a story so much that they fail to report the facts accurately.
The right way to do journalism is to let the Bible teach reporters how to view any event and report on it accordingly, he said.
Olasky used a metaphor from whitewater rafting to explain that in some journalistic situations it is easy to know how to apply the Bible and in other situations it is very difficult. Just as rapids are classified in six categories according to their difficulty, Olasky outlined six types of situations where it is increasingly difficult to apply the Bible to journalism.
•Class one situations involve cases where the Bible gives very clear instructions on how to view an event.
•Class two situations involve cases where the Bible has an implicit but clear teaching.
•Class three situations involve cases where people on both sides of an issue quote Scripture but a thoughtful Christian can reach a biblical conclusion with careful study.
•Class four situations have no clear biblical solution but can be analyzed by adopting a biblical understanding of human nature and taking lessons from history.
•Class five represents situations where there is no clear biblical teaching and no clear historical lessons but where a biblical understanding of human nature can help process events.
•Class six situations have no clear biblical answer and no other easy answers.
"A very strong biblical stand on the part of a Christian political leader, a Christian journalist on a class one or class two issue, is biblically objective," Olasky said. "A more balanced position on a class five or a class six issue is also biblically objective, given our limited knowledge. We have a goal here. Our goal here is to approach objectivity by giving God's perspective prime time and keeping silent as best we can when He's silent."
Journalists must quote people on both sides of the story for all six classes, but there is no obligation to weight both sides equally when the Bible gives one clear answer, Olasky said.
Experienced Christian journalists can increase their biblical objectivity by studying the Bible carefully and consistently, he said.
"When we study what the Bible says, we can come closer to a God's-eye view," he said. "And consistency is vital."
Christian journalists must not shy away from reporting difficult stories because by showing humans at their worst, journalists demonstrate our desperate need for Christ, Olasky said.
"You look at muck so you can see how desperately we need Christ. Bad news makes the good news shine ever so much more brightly. We need to always be looking up so that we have the strength to look down without being corrupted by it. And we look down so we can appreciate all the more what is above."
The final goal of journalism is to run with perseverance in order to honor God and know that He is pleased, Olasky said, referring to Hebrews 12.
"We're in the middle of the story," he said. "We don't know how it's going to end up. Each of us has a narrative of our lives. It may end well. It may end in temporary defeat. But in either case, running the race as journalists helps us feel God's pleasure."
Top General: Rumsfeld "Leads In A Way That The Good Lord Tells Him"
So are they listening, as they claim, to the commanders on the ground or to the "divine" voices they hear in their heads? [From the AFP]
The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God.
"He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Rumsfeld is "a man whose patriotism focus, energy, drive, is exceeded by no one else I know ... quite simply, he works harder than anybody else in our building," Pace said at a ceremony at the Southern Command (Southcom) in Miami.
Rumsfeld has faced a storm of criticism and calls for his resignation, largely over his handling of the
Iraq war.
But he got a strong show of support from the military establishment at Thursday's ceremony, where Navy Admiral James Stavridis took over Southcom's command from General Bantz Craddock.
"He comes to work everyday with a single-minded focus to make this country safe," said Stavridis who was a senior aide to Rumsfeld before taking on the Southcom job.
"We're lucky as a nation that he continues to serve with such passion and such integrity and such determination and such brilliance," said Stavridis, 51.
As head of Southcom, Stavridis will be responsible for military cooperation with Latin American countries, and will be in charge of the Guantanamo US military base in Cuba where more than 400 "war on terror" detainees are being held.
Craddock, who was named supreme commander of allied forces in Europe, hailed the role Southcom has played.
"Today I believe that we can say we were successful in our efforts and contributed to ensuring our nation's security through support on the global war on terror, and encouraged regional cooperation to enhance the security and stability in the region," he said.
New York's highest court ruled Thursday that social service agencies run by the Roman Catholic Church and other faiths must provide birth-control coverage to their employees, even if they consider contraception a sin...
The organizations "believe contraception to be sinful," the Court of Appeals said. "We must weigh against (their) interests in adhering to the tenets of their faith the state's substantial interest in fostering equality between the sexes, and in providing women with better health care." READ IT ALL
Backing away from a confrontation with religious groups, NBC said Thursday it has decided not to show pictures of Madonna mounting a Crucifix when it airs a concert special with the pop star next month....
During the provocative passage in her concert, Madonna is shown on a mirrored cross wearing a crown of thorns. She has explained that it was meant to illustrate a theme of confession.
But this angered some religious leaders, who called it a bad-taste publicity stunt. Several religious groups in the United States told NBC they would organize a boycott of one of the concert's commercial sponsors if the cross scene appeared, and were meeting next week to decide which company to target.
NBC didn't explain its decision, with a spokeswoman saying the network doesn't discuss how its editorial decisions are made. NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly ducked out of an industry function in Los Angeles Thursday before reporters could reach him.
''NBC did the right thing, but the fact that it did not say why the offensive part of Madonna's concert was cut shows cowardice,'' said Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League. ''What NBC should have done is to admit that since it refused to air the Danish cartoons that Muslims objected to earlier in the year, it felt obliged not to treat Christians in a discriminatory manner.'' [...]
The pop star, whose video for ''Like a Prayer'' likewise left some religious leaders cold two decades ago, explained earlier that she wasn't mocking the church and considered the scene no different than a person who wears a cross.
Asked about it an interview late this summer, Reilly told TVGuide.com that the crucifixion scene would probably be in the special. He said Madonna ''felt strongly about it.''
''We viewed it and, although Madonna is known for being provocative, we didn't see it as being ultimately inappropriate,'' Reilly said then, according to the Web site.
The dirty dancing of teenagers at school functions and prom nights is reportedly getting educators across the United States hot and bothered.
The teenage dance craze of "freaking" -- where couples rub and grind against each other -- has been branded as simulated sex by school officials and has led to concern across the nation, the Los Angeles Times reported.
It cited the principal of Aliso Niguel High School in Aliso Viejo, California, who had recently banned all school dances until a plan could be found to ban "freak dancing."
The school's principal, Charles Salter, implored parents to play a leading role in stamping out the craze and said he had even showed a video of the school dance to hundreds of parents.
"The 'dancing' of our youngsters today is one step from events that should be occurring on wedding nights," he wrote in an e-mail to parents.
Shana Kemp, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Secondary School Principals, told the Times the organisation had received an increase in calls seeking advice about how to tackle the craze.
"Each generation has its own thing that adults think is inappropriate," she said.
"It's just par for the course for the changing of the times," she said. "But in some instances, it's taken too far."
The Washington Post has another article on evangelicals who are beginning to embrace what they call "creation care." Of course, we applaud evangelicals' attempts to add the environment to their list of important moral issues, but are mystified by the lack of criticism the movement's unoffical leader, Richard Cizik, has received. Just last week, Cizic went on NPR saying everybody should give Dennis Hastert a break in the Foley cover-up. And earlier this year, Cizik refused to sign the Evangelical Climate Initiative since he was unwilling to confirm the possibility of climate change. Cizic also refuses to partner with environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and the National Wildlife Federation, since they are secular. Still, reporters continue to sing his praise:
[From the Washington Post] Evangelical Christian leaders are tackling a growing list of domestic and international issues, such as genocide in Darfur and global warming, despite dissension in their ranks over whether this broader moral agenda will dilute their political power just before crucial elections.
Yesterday, two dozen prominent evangelicals issued a joint appeal for President Bush to take the lead in sending a multinational, U.N.-backed peacekeeping force into the Darfur region of Sudan. They included not just liberal religious leaders but also several notable conservatives, including the Rev. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals. READ IT ALL
Religious Right Groups Receive List Of Gay Staffers In Congress
It's like the dawn of an all new, gay-McCarthyism era. From the LA Times:
This week, a list that is said to name gay Republican staffers has been circulated to several Christian and family values groups -- presumably to encourage an outing and purge. McClusky acknowledged seeing the list but said his group did not produce it and had no intention of using it.
* Voted YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. (Jun 2006)
* Voted NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes. (Jun 2002)
* Voted NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation. (Jun 2000)
* Voted YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage. (Sep 1996)
* Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation. (Sep 1996)
I have called on Senator Larry Craig to end his years of hypocrisy by leveling with Idahoans about who he really is. I am also calling upon several prominent Idaho social conservative leaders to ask them how they square their anti-gay positions with their support for this leader.
I have done extensive research into this case, including trips to the Pacific Northwest to meet with men who have say they have physical relations with the Senator. I have also met with a man here in Washington, D.C., who says the same -- and that these incidents occurred in the bathrooms of Union Station. None of these men know each other, or knew that I was talking to others. They all reported similar personal characteristics about the Senator, which lead me to believe, beyond any doubt, that their stories are valid.
Gerry Studds, the nation's first openly gay congressman, pushed the country to another landmark development when he died Saturday: the federal government for the first time will deny death benefits to a congressman's gay spouse.
The federal government does not recognize the 2004 Massachusetts' marriage between Studds and Dean Hara, and won't provide a portion of Studds' $114,337 annual pension to his surviving spouse.
The federal law, defined by the Defense of Marriage Act, not only trumps the Bay State's gay marriage law but reveals its limitations.
"A gay spouse will not receive any sort of pension or annuity or anything like that," said Chad Cowan, a spokesman for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which administers the congressional pension program under federal law.
"It's not anything that anybody in our office has seen before," he added.
Wives and husbands of deceased lawmakers have for years found financial comfort in their ability to collect more than half of the generous.
Dobson said a congressman has told him that several other gay Republicans will be "outed" in coming days. He said he doesn't know who they are, but, "They say it is going to be worse than anything that has happened so far."
"They are dribbling this bad news out so eventually the values voters will get to the point so they will say a pox on both your houses; I'm staying home," Dobson said. "Folks you cannot afford to do that."
So let's get this straight: Dobson wants his followers, the "values voters," to not be deterred by news of closeted homosexuality in the GOP. Isn't opposing homosexuality a core issue that defines them as "values voters?" Sounds like a mixed signal to us. Especially when the GOP leadership are apparently drunk on the liberal Molotov cocktail known as "Tolerance And Diversity" and are guilty of "shielding" GOP Congressman from being outed. Meanwhile, the AP is reporting on other mysterious "allegations of improper conduct toward teenage congressional assistants, which do not involve ex-Rep. Mark Foley."
Ted Haggard Mocks Catholicism, Islam, Mormonism, And The Jews
National Association of Evangelicals Leader, Ted Haggard. (From The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right)
Somehow, this doesn't surprise us coming from Ted Haggard, who is head of the 30 million-strong National Association of Evangelicals. From Catholic News Service:
Heidi Ewing, the Catholic co-director of the new theatrical documentary "Jesus Camp," said she found some hostility about her religious faith during the making of the film from an unexpected source: a high-profile evangelical minister...
"My one disturbing encounter was at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs (Colo.) with Pastor Ted Haggard," head of the National Association of Evangelicals, who is "the senior minister of the church," Ewing said.
"I was in the service, and we had three cameras rolling, and there were 3,000 people in the church, and my cameraman was on the stage shooting him, and Pastor Ted started teasing the cameraman: 'Where are you from? England? Do you go to church?'" she recounted.
When the cameraman told Rev. Haggard that he goes to church when he's in England, the minister said, "So you're in the Church of England." The cameraman replied, "No, I'm Catholic," according to Ewing. "Pastor Ted turned to the congregation—and I have this on tape—in a very mocking tone, he said, 'Oh, we l-o-o-o-ve the Catholics, don't we?' and people started laughing.
"Why would he whack another religion?" she asked. "There was a disparaging way about how everyone reacted. As the leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, he is a representative of 30 million people and a religiously respected person in the movement. For him to joke like that, I was pretty alarmed."
In a statement on the group's Web site, Rev. Haggard said, "This movie manipulates facts like a Michael Moore film and works the camera like 'The Blair Witch Project.' It's one more 'documentary' that seems to miss the point intentionally."
"We evangelicals view Mormons as a Christian cult group. A cult group is a group that claims exclusive revelation. And typically, it's hard to get out of these cult groups. And so Mormonism qualifies as that."
And who can forget Haggard's statements on Islam [from Carpetbagger]
"The Christian God encourages freedom, love, forgiveness, prosperity and health. The Muslim god appears to value the opposite."
He further explained his feelings on Islam to Harper's
“My fear,” he says, "is that my children will grow up in an Islamic state."
And that is why he believes spiritual war requires a virile, worldly counterpart. "I teach a strong ideology of the use of power," he says, "of military might, as a public service." He is for preemptive war, because he believes the Bible's exhortations against sin set for us a preemptive paradigm, and he is for ferocious war, because "the Bible's bloody. There's a lot about blood."
Paging Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council: Here’s a gay Republican story you probably did not hear last week. On Tuesday a card-carrying homosexual, Mark Dybul, was sworn into office at the State Department with his partner holding the Bible. Dr. Dybul, the administration’s new global AIDS coordinator, was flanked by Laura Bush and Condi Rice. In her official remarks, the secretary of state referred to the mother of Dr. Dybul’s partner as his “mother-in-law.”
Could wedding bells be far behind? It was all on display, photo included, on www.state.gov. And while you’re cruising the Internet, a little creative Googling will yield a long list of who else is gay, openly and not, in the highest ranks of both the Bush administration and the Republican hierarchy. The openly gay range from Steve Herbits, the prescient right-hand consultant to Donald Rumsfeld who foresees disaster in Iraq in Bob Woodward’s book “State of Denial,” to Israel Hernandez, the former Bush personal aide and current Commerce Department official whom the president nicknamed “Altoid boy.” (Let’s not go there.)
If anything good has come out of the Foley scandal, it is surely this: The revelation that the political party fond of demonizing homosexuals each election year is as well-stocked with trusted and accomplished gay leaders as virtually every other power center in America. “What you’re really seeing is the Republican Party on the Hill,” says Rich Tafel, the former leader of the gay Log Cabin Republicans whom George W. Bush refused to meet with during the 2000 campaign. “Across the board gay people are in leadership positions.” Yet it is this same party’s Congressional leadership that in 2006 did almost nothing about government spending, Iraq, immigration or ethics reform, but did drop everything to focus on a doomed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
The split between the Republicans’ outward homophobia and inner gayness isn’t just hypocrisy; it’s pathology. Take the bizarre case of Karl Rove. Every one of his Bush campaigns has been marked by a dirty dealing of the gay card, dating back to the lesbian whispers that pursued Ann Richards when Mr. Bush ousted her as Texas governor in 1994. Yet we now learn from “The Architect,” the recent book by the Texas journalists James Moore and Wayne Slater, that Mr. Rove’s own (and beloved) adoptive father, Louis Rove, was openly gay in the years before his death in 2004. This will be a future case study for psychiatric clinicians as well as historians.
So will Kirk Fordham, the former Congressional aide who worked not only for Mark Foley but also for such gay-baiters as Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma (who gratuitously bragged this year that no one in his family’s “recorded history” was gay) and Senator Mel Martinez of Florida (who vilified his 2004 Republican primary opponent, a fellow conservative, as a tool of the “radical homosexual agenda”). Then again, even Rick Santorum, the Pennsylvania senator who brought up incest and “man-on-dog” sex while decrying same-sex marriage, has employed a gay director of communications. In the G.O.P. such switch-hitting is as second nature as cutting taxes.
As for Mr. Foley, he is no more representative of gay men, whatever their political orientation, than Joey Buttafuoco is of straight men. Yet he’s a useful creep at this historical juncture because his behavior has exposed and will continue to expose a larger dynamic on the right. The longer the aftermath of this scandal continues, with its maniacal finger-pointing and relentless spotlight on the Republican closet, the harder it will be for his party to return to the double-dealing that has made gay Americans election-year bogeymen (and women) for so long.
The moment Mr. Foley’s e-mails became known, we saw that brand of fearmongering and bigotry at full tilt: Bush administration allies exploited the former Congressman’s predatory history to spread the grotesque canard that homosexuality is a direct path to pedophilia. It’s the kind of blood libel that in another era was spread about Jews.
The Family Research Council’s Mr. Perkins, a frequent White House ally and visitor, led the way. “When we elevate tolerance and diversity to the guidepost of public life,” he said on Fox News Channel, “this is what we get -- men chasing 16-year-old boys around the halls of Congress.” A related note was struck by The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, which asked, “Could a gay Congressman be quarantined?” The answer was no because “today’s politically correct culture” -- tolerance of “private lifestyle choices” -- gives predatory gay men a free pass. Newt Gingrich made the same point when he announced on TV that Mr. Foley had not been policed because Republicans “would have been accused of gay bashing.” Translation: Those in favor of gay civil rights would countenance and protect sex offenders.
This line of attack was soon followed by another classic from the annals of anti-Semitism: the shadowy conspiracy. “The secret Capitol Hill homosexual network must be exposed and dismantled,” said Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media, another right-wing outfit that serves as a grass-roots auxiliary to the Bush administration. This network, he claims, was allowed “to infiltrate and manipulate the party apparatus” and worked “behind the scenes to sabotage a conservative pro-family agenda in Congress.”
There are two problems with this theory. First, gay people did not “infiltrate” the party apparatus — they are the party apparatus. Rare is the conservative Republican Congressional leader who does not have a gay staffer wielding clout in a major position. Second, any inference that gay Republicans on the Hill conspired to cover up Mr. Foley’s behavior is preposterous. Mr. Fordham, the gay former Foley aide who spent Thursday testifying under oath about his warnings to Denny Hastert’s staff, is to date the closest this sordid mess has to a whistle-blower, however tardy. So far, the slackers in curbing Mr. Foley over the past three years seem more straight than gay, led by the Buffalo Congressman Tom Reynolds, who is now running a guilt-ridden campaign commercial desperately apologizing to voters.
A Washington Post poll last week found that two-thirds of Americans believe that Democrats would behave just as badly as the Hastert gang in covering up a scandal like this to protect their own power. They are no doubt right. But the reason why the Foley scandal has legs — and why it has upstaged most other news, from the Congressional bill countenancing torture to North Korea’s nuclear test — is not just that sex trumps everything else in a tabloid-besotted America. The Republicans, unlike most Democrats (Joe Lieberman always excepted), can’t stop advertising their “family values,” which is why their pitfalls are as irresistible as a Molière farce. It was entertaining enough to learn that the former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed wanted to go “humping in corporate accounts” with the corrupt gambling lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The only way that comic setup could be topped was by the news that Mr. Foley was chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus. It beggars the imagination that he wasn’t also entrusted with No Child Left Behind.
Cultural conservatives who fell for the G.O.P.’s pious propaganda now look like dupes. Tonight on “60 Minutes,” David Kuo, a former top official in the administration’s faith-based initiatives program, is scheduled to discuss his new book recounting how evangelical supporters were privately ridiculed as “nuts” in the White House. If they have any self-respect, they’ll exact their own revenge.
We must hope as well that this crisis will lead to a repudiation of the ritual targeting of gay people for sport at the top levels of the Republican leadership in and out of the White House. For all the president’s talk of tolerance and “compassionate conservatism,” he has repeatedly joined Congress in wielding same-sex marriage as a club for divisive political purposes. He sat idly by while his secretary of education, Margaret Spellings, attacked a PBS children’s show because an animated rabbit visited a lesbian couple and their children. Ms. Spellings was worried about children being exposed to that “lifestyle” -- itself a code word for “deviance” -- even as the daughter of the vice president was preparing to expose the country to that lifestyle in a highly promoted book.
“The hypocrisy, the winking and nodding is catching up with the party,” says Mr. Tafel, the former Log Cabin leader. “Republicans must welcome their diversity as the party of Lincoln or purge the party of all gays. The middle ground -- we’re a diverse party but we can bash gays too -- will no longer work.” He adds that “the ironic point is that the G.O.P. isn’t as homophobic as it pretends to be.” Indeed two likely leading presidential competitors in 2008, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, are consistent supporters of gay civil rights.
Another ironic point, of course, is that the effort to eradicate AIDS, led by a number of openly gay appointees like Dr. Dybul, may prove to be the single most beneficent achievement of this beleaguered White House. To paraphrase a show tune you’re unlikely to hear around the Family Research Council, isn’t that queer?
The birds and the bees may be gay, according to the world's first museum exhibition about homosexuality among animals. With documentation of gay or lesbian behaviour among giraffes, penguins, parrots, beetles, whales and dozens of other creatures, the Oslo Natural History Museum concludes human homosexuality cannot be viewed as "unnatural".
"We may have opinions on a lot of things, but one thing is clear -- homosexuality is found throughout the animal kingdom, it is not against nature," an exhibit statement said.
Geir Soeli, the project leader of the exhibition entitled "Against Nature", told Reuters: "Homosexuality has been observed for more than 1,500 animal species, and is well documented for 500 of them."
The museum said the exhibition, opening on Thursday despite condemnation from some Christians, was the first in the world on the subject. Soeli said a Dutch zoo had once organised tours to view homosexual couples among the animals.
"The sexual urge is strong in all animals. ... It's a part of life, it's fun to have sex," Soeli said of the reasons for homosexuality or bisexuality among animals.
One exhibit shows two stuffed female swans on a nest -- birds sometimes raise young in homosexual couples, either after a female has forsaken a male mate or donated an egg to a pair of males.
One photograph shows two giant erect penises flailing above the water as two male right whales rub together. Another shows a male giraffe mounting another for sex, another describes homosexuality among beetles.
One radical Christian said organisers of the exhibition -- partly funded by the Norwegian government -- should "burn in hell", Soeli said. Laws describing homosexuality as a "crime against nature" are still on the statutes in some countries.
Greek philosopher Aristotle noted apparent homosexual behaviour among hyenas 2,300 years ago but evidence of animal homosexuality has often been ignored by researchers, perhaps because of distaste, lack of interest or fear or ridicule.
Bonobos, a type of chimpanzee, are among extremes in having sex with either males or females, apparently as part of social bonding. "Bonobos are bisexuals, all of them," Soeli said.
Still, it is unclear why homosexuality survives since it seems a genetic dead-end.
Among theories, males can sometimes win greater acceptance in a pack by having homosexual contact. That in turn can help their chances of later mating with females, he said.
And a study of homosexual men in Italy suggested that their mothers and sisters had more offspring. "The same genes that give homosexuality in men could give higher fertility among women," he said.
The debate over same-sex marriage was a black-or-white proposition two years ago when voters in 11 states barred gay couples from marrying.
But this year shades of gray are everywhere, as eight more states consider similar ballot measures. Some of the proposed bans are struggling in the polls, and the issue of same-sex marriage itself has largely failed to rouse conservative voters.
In some cases, other issues, like the war in Iraq and ethics in Washington, have seized voters’ attention. But the biggest change, people on both sides of the issue say, is that supporters of same-sex marriage this year are likely to be as mobilized as the opponents.
The social conservatives, who focused on marriage in 2004 and helped President Bush gain re-election in some hard-fought states in the Midwest, have been offset by equally committed and organized opposition. Slick advertising, paid staff and get-out-the-vote drives have become a two-way street.
“The opponents of these measures have had a lot more time to organize and fund their efforts; that has made for a bit of a different complexion,” said Julaine K. Appling, the executive director of the Family Research Institute of Wisconsin, which supports a constitutional amendment in that state defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
Proposals like Wisconsin’s are also on the ballot in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Virginia. And while most of the measures are expected to pass, their emotional force in drawing committed, conservative voters to the polls, many political experts say, has been muted or spent.
Recent polls in Arizona, Colorado, Virginia and Wisconsin, for example, have suggested only narrow majorities in support, in contrast to the 60 to 70 percent or more majorities in most states that voted on the issue in 2004. Two recent polls in South Dakota suggested that the same-sex marriage amendment might actually lose, while a third said it seemed likely to pass.
“As it stands right now, conservative turnout is not going to be as strong as it has traditionally been,” said Jon Paul, the executive director of Coloradans for Marriage, which is supporting a ballot measure that would ban same-sex marriage.
Some pollsters say people might just be burned out on the subject of marriage and its boundaries.
“It doesn’t seem to be salient to what most Tennesseans are concerned about right now,” said Robert Wyatt, the associate director of the Middle Tennessee State University poll. The ballot proposal there will almost certainly pass, Dr. Wyatt said, but few people think it will drive turnout or swing the tight race for the Senate between Bob Corker, a Republican, and Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., a Democrat. Both candidates support a ban on same-sex marriage.
Dr. Wyatt said efforts to stir enthusiasm among conservatives have mostly fallen flat.
“It’s one of those things that’s like preaching to the choir,” he said.
The momentum against same-sex marriage at the ballot box has also been hurt by court cases that have upheld bans on same-sex marriage — notably rulings by the highest courts in New York and Washington this summer — by removing some of the urgency for constitutional amendments.
Here in Colorado, the debate has been complicated by the presence of two ballot measures on the subject that in essence work in opposite directions. One measure would add a ban on same-sex marriage to the Constitution, and the other would create a framework of legal rights for same-sex couples in civil unions.
Scholars who track gender-law issues say that gay rights groups and their allies have worked hard since the last election to create a middle-ground position on the question of partnership rights that could appeal to voters who might not vote for same-sex marriage.
The position, which has been repeated like a mantra across Colorado this year by advocates for the civil union proposal, holds that civil unions are not marriage and that if voters want to hold marriage apart as a separate institution for heterosexuals, that would be fine. But it is only fair and just, they say, that couples in other types of relationships have legal protections, too.
Opponents of the civil union bill say that the moderation line is a smokescreen and that same-sex marriage in Colorado will become a reality in fact, if not in name, if the civil union proposition is approved.
“It is nothing short of Orwellian doublespeak to say it is not marriage,” State Representative Kevin Lundberg, a Republican from eastern Colorado, said at a recent forum in Denver on the ballot proposals.
Political analysts suggest that just like patrons perusing an old-fashioned Chinese restaurant menu, voters in Colorado considering the two measures might take one from Column A and one from Column B. Some people say they plan to do just that.
Joel Sidell and Dona Maloy — longtime unmarried partners who live in the Denver area — show how the lines have fractured. Mr. Sidell, 62, a retired police officer and a Republican, said he would probably vote for the ban on same-sex marriage and against civil unions.
“To me, it still does not seem right for a woman to be able to marry a woman and a male to marry a male,” Mr. Sidell said. “I don’t think it’s the sanctity of the term. It just doesn’t seem proper.”
Ms. Maloy, 61, is a Democrat who said she planned to vote the opposite of her partner — no on the marriage amendment and yes to benefits for same-sex partners.
“I think that marriage is a personal thing; at least it is for me,” she said. “Legally, I don’t see why people can’t all have the same rights.”
The two major party candidates for governor in Colorado have also taken opposite sides on the marriage-civil union debate. The Democrat, Bill Ritter, has said he will vote for civil unions and against the constitutional amendment, while the Republican, Representative Bob Beauprez, has said he plans to vote against civil unions and for the same-sex marriage ban. Pollsters say those positions do not appear to be swaying the race, which Mr. Ritter has led by 10 to 15 percentage points in recent polls.
Tangled legal questions over parental rights, health care decisions and employer benefits have emerged in some states where efforts to ban same-sex marriage and civil unions were successful in the past, complicating calculations about how the bans play out in real life. The case of Lisa Miller and Janet Jenkins is one example.
Ms. Miller and Ms. Jenkins were joined in a civil ceremony in 2000 in Vermont, which allows same-sex contracts. Ms. Miller had a baby in 2002 through artificial insemination, and they raised the child together. Now they have separated, and both Vermont and Virginia, which does not recognize the validity of Vermont’s civil union system, have claimed jurisdiction over the question of child custody.
Legal experts say the case is probably headed for the Supreme Court. In the meantime, Virginia’s same-sex marriage ballot proposal would define marriage as between a man and a woman and also put into the Constitution the legal language at the heart of the custody battle: that civil unions formed in other states are invalid in Virginia.
That prohibition on civil unions is even too far-reaching for some opponents of same-sex marriage, said Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
“It’s so sweeping, it’s giving some people pause,” Mr. Sabato said.
Meanwhile, gay men and lesbians continue to come out in ever greater numbers, especially in some of the states that will be voting on the marriage issue next month.
From 2000 to 2005, the number of people identifying themselves in Census surveys as being in a same-sex couple grew by 30 percent, to about 770,000, according to a study released this week by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, which tracks and researches gay legal issues.
Of the eight states with ballot measures, the study found that six had growth rates higher than the national average, led by Wisconsin, up 81 percent; Colorado, up 58 percent; Virginia, up 43 percent; and South Carolina, up 39 percent.
Conservatives like Mr. Paul of the Colorado marriage group say the low-key tenor of the same-sex marriage debate could change in a thunderclap if a court decision that appears to undermine traditional marriage boundaries is handed down before the election. The New Jersey Supreme Court has a case pending and could issue a decision before Election Day.
Mel Gibson said in an interview his anti-Semitic tirade last summer may have been set off by criticism of his 2004 movie "The Passion of the Christ" even before its release and by
Israel's war in Lebanon.
In the interview broadcast Friday on ABC's "Good Morning America," Gibson also said he was "ashamed" by his remarks about Jews after his drunken-driving arrest, explaining that "when you're loaded, you know, the balance of how you see things -- it comes out the wrong way."
The interview with Diane Sawyer, parts of which were broadcast Thursday, was the first time Gibson has spoken to the media since sparking a storm after his July arrest. Gibson told the arresting officer: "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world," and asked him, "Are you a Jew?"
"Let me be real clear here, in sobriety, sitting here in front of you on national television," Gibson told Sawyer, "I don't believe that Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. I mean, that's an outrageous, drunken statement."
He said his words may have come from resentment following criticism he received before the release of "The Passion of the Christ." READ IT ALL
Organizers of the annual Rainbow Festival were prepared for trouble.
The Q Crew, a local "queer/straight alliance," distributed cards telling people what to do if approached by hostile demonstrators. Sympathetic local church groups formed a protective buffer along the festival ground's cyclone fence. Mounted police were on patrol.
Jerry Sloan manned a table for Stand Up for Sacramento, a recently formed gay self-defense organization.
"So far, so good," he said. "No Russians."
The festival, held last month amid the gay bars, restaurants and shops of midtown's "Lavender Heights" neighborhood, went off without conflict. But the elaborate security preparations reflected growing tensions between Sacramento gays and the city's large and vociferous community of fundamentalist Christians from the former Soviet Union.
Over the last 18 months, Sacramento Russian-language church members have picketed gay pride events, jammed into legislative committee meetings when gay issues were on the agenda and demonstrated at school board meetings.
Incited by firebrand Russian Pentacostal pastors and polemical Russian-language newspapers, the fundamentalists turn out en masse for state Capitol protest rallies.
Last June, urging readers to attend a massive rally, the Russian newspaper the Speaker told them:
"Make a choice. It's your decision. Homosexuality is knocking on your doors and asking: 'Can I make your son gay and your daughter lesbian?' "
In most instances, the Russian-speaking demonstrators far outnumber representatives from all other anti-gay groups combined. Anti-homosexual rallies that a few years ago attracted a few dozen participants now regularly draw hundreds and sometimes thousands, many with a heavy Russian accent.
Even in a state capital where impassioned public demonstrations are a daily event, the Slavic fundamentalists stand out. Elderly women in babushkas stand next to small children carrying signs stating: "Perversion is Never Safe" and "I Am Not Learning About Gay People."
Speakers address the crowds fervently in Russian and Ukrainian.
After a wave of religious refugees that began coming here in the late 1980s, Sacramento now has one of the largest Russian-speaking populations in North America: an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 Slavic immigrants, community members say. They came primarily from the Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus and the other southern Soviet republics, and settled mostly in Sacramento's northern and western suburbs.
These immigrants are different from their Russian-speaking counterparts in New York's Brighton Beach, San Francisco's Richmond district or West Hollywood, all established Russian-immigrant enclaves that are mostly Jewish or Russian Orthodox and generally coexist with large gay populations.
West Hollywood's 11-member Russian Advisory Board recently voted 8 to 3 to send a letter to Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzkov, asking him to reconsider his decision banning gay pride events in the Russian capital.
"We want you to consider the unique partnership that has developed here in West Hollywood between the large population of Russian-speaking immigrants and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community," the letter said.
The Sacramento community, on the other hand, is overwhelmingly evangelical — Baptist and Pentecostalist. The charismatic Pentacostal church, introduced in the Ukraine in the 1920s by missionary and martyr Ivan Efimovich Vornaev, includes speaking in tongues and washing of feet. The churches' social views are based on a literal interpretation of the Bible.
"The main issues in the Russian community here," said Vitaly Prokopchuk, a Sacramento County sheriff's deputy, "are gay issues, abortion issues and family-definition issues. To these people, these issues are very cut-and-dry in the Bible."
Sacramento has more than 70 Russian fundamentalist congregations. One of them, Bethany Missionary Slavic Church, has 3,200 members and claims to be the largest Russian-language church outside of Europe.
"Sacramento is the No. 1 gathering place for non-Jewish, non-Russian Orthodox, fundamentalist Russian and Ukrainian immigrants," said University of Oregon geographer Susan W. Hardwick, an expert on the Russian immigrant community. Similar but smaller communities, Hardwick said, have established themselves in Portland and Seattle, where they also are beginning to flex their political muscle.
But nowhere approaches Sacramento, which has a 24-hour Russian-language cable television station, two radio stations and several newspapers, all of which push a conservative message marked by strident opposition to homosexuality. A recent edition of the Speaker, for example, promoted a book, "The Pink Swastika," that contends that the extermination of Jews during World War II was the work of homosexuals inside the Nazi Party.
For Sacramento gay leaders, the sudden appearance of organized demonstrators was a major shock after years of building support in the state capital.
"We've been accepted and were just perking along," said Sloan, a 69-year-old church pastor and co-founder of Lambda Community Center, which serves the gay community. "That's why this Russian thing was such a jolt to people."
Leaders of the religious right, however, celebrate the Russian efforts as a revival.
"My hope and my prayer," said Mark Matta, a former legislative aide who heads the Christian Public Awareness Ministries, "is that they will become a voice in the wilderness for the rest of the country."
Many credit the Slavic Christian immigrant community with filling a void left by the traditional American church and providing reinforcements in the ongoing culture wars over what should define family, acceptable sexual relationships and marriage.
"Russian Christians bring a fresh faith and uncorrupted family values to this country. They are a shining model for the rest of us in terms of faith, family, work ethic, patriotism and community," said Randy Thomasson, president of the Campaign for Children and Families.
Gay civil rights activists, meanwhile, accuse the demonstrators of hateful and aggressive tactics that they say sometimes lean dangerously toward violence.
Signs displayed by the demonstrators often equate homosexuality with pedophilia and describe the AIDS epidemic as a message from God. One of the common tactics of the demonstrators is to tap gays forcefully on the head and announce that they have been "saved."
"They've declared war on us for some reason," said Stand Up for Sacramento founder Nathan Feldman, a jewelry store clerk. "They got it into their heads that California is the land of sin and that it is their duty to cleanse the state, starting with homosexuals."
Feldman said he formed his self-defense organization after he was surrounded by dozens of Russian-speaking demonstrators at a June gay pride parade.
"I ended up getting spit on and yelled at," said Feldman, whose organization recently staged a counterdemonstration outside Bethany Slavic Missionary Church.
Prokopchuk, the Sacramento County sheriff's deputy, is for many here the voice of law and order in the Russian-Ukrainian community. A garrulous bear of a man with a burr haircut, he appears regularly on local Russian television and radio. His cellphone constantly rings with calls asking him to interpret and explain American laws and responsibilities.
Like many here, Prokopchuk, 32, arrived with his family 16 years ago from his native Ukraine after Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev loosened emigration rules for religious refugees who faced persecution under the Communist regime.
Before emigrating, many of the refugees learned about Sacramento from two sources: a short-wave fundamentalist religious radio program, "Word to Russia," that originated here, and a Russian-language newspaper, Our Days, that was printed in Sacramento and distributed to underground churches in the Soviet Union. A local Russian Baptist church persuaded several Sacramento evangelical churches to sponsor the refugees.
Prokopchuk attributes the recent political activities in Sacramento to culture shock and anti-homosexual prejudices imported from the home country.
"Back home," Prokopchuk said, "homosexuality was looked at as kind of a disgrace and a lifestyle for immoral people and prisoners. I came from a town of 30,000 people but did not know even one openly gay person."
But an even bigger factor, Prokopchuk said, is the widespread fear in the Russian-Ukrainian community that the American popular culture will capture their children.
"It's not only about homosexuality. It's also about drinking, about premarital sex and about drugs," Prokopchuk said. "Some of these people even regret coming here because they have a feeling they are losing their kids."
At a shopping center in suburban Antelope outside Sacramento, young Russians and Ukrainians skateboard in the parking lot and gather on the outdoor patio of a Starbucks.
Across the lot, Natasha Bugriyev, 31, watches warily from the counter of her Russian vitamin shop.
Compared to many immigrants, Bugriyev and her husband, a building contractor, have been quite successful since coming to Sacramento from their native Moldova 12 years ago.
The couple, active members of a Russian Baptist church, live in a 4,500-square-foot home in Roseville, an affluent Sacramento suburb. She drives a new BMW 745. He has a new Nissan Titan pickup truck.
Recently, however, they have been considering moving back to Moldova.
"Honestly, I'm scared for the kids," Bugriyev said. "We have a 5-year-old and a 1-year-old. I'm scared that when they go to school they will be in a class where they are taught it is OK for a man to sleep with another man. We are thinking that after another five years, we will move back to Moldova."
Michael Lokteff, 69, is a former high school teacher who was the voice of the "Word to Russia" broadcasts into the Soviet Union. A cheerful, white-haired lay Baptist who takes a glass of wine with his meals, Lokteff said that many of the immigrants were unprepared for culturally laissez-faire California.
In part, Lokteff blames his own broadcasts, which he said left the listeners with the impression that America, and particularly Sacramento, was a Christian bastion.
"They even thought my program was government-sponsored," Lokteff said. "They came here expecting a Christian commune, and all of a sudden the first thing they see is a gay parade."
Like the Calvinist Puritans who were the first to settle in the New World, many in the Slavic religious community have an apocalyptic worldview. To them, the United States is a chosen nation but the American church is apostate and hapless, not up to the job. The Slavic Christians view it as their duty to cleanse and save the nation in preparation for Jesus Christ's return to Earth.
"We feel the American church already lost the battle 20 years ago by remaining silent," said Victor Chernyetsky, 47, a Soviet-trained engineer who serves as administrator for the Bethany Slavic Missionary Church. "We can't remain silent. There are a lot of sins."
One of the first Slavic immigrants to jump into politics was Galina Bondar, an energetic 39-year-old registered nurse from Ukraine whose father is a leading fundamentalist pastor.
Bondar said she was inspired by a radio interview with conservative activist Randy Thomasson, who took her under his wing and taught her the rules of engagement in Sacramento. "He was the first one who taught me the civil process, Political Science 101," Bondar said.
In 1997, Bondar started her own weekly Russian-language radio program, "Heal Our Land," which tracks legislation of interest to the Russian church. She began speaking at Sacramento Russian Baptist and Pentacostal churches, urging political action.
Bondar, as much as anyone, was responsible for organizing and directing public protests, including a raucous 2005 appearance at a legislative hearing on gay marriage that marked the political coming-out of the Slavic community.
"We hate government oppression of religious freedom and family values, whether in Russia or California," Bondar said. "We just have more we can do about it in California."
Taking her movement to a new level, Bondar was one of three people in the Russian-language community to file as a candidate for a suburban school board.
On Sept. 5, the day after the Sacramento Rainbow Festival, several hundred sign-wielding demonstrators appeared at the Capitol to oppose a state Senate bill, SB 1437, that would have banned negative references based on sexual orientation from state textbooks and classes.
In the crowd were Bondar's mother, father and grandmother.
The next day, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill, stating that protection against discrimination already existed in state law.
"We may not have gotten the veto without them," said Thomasson, who spearheaded the lobbying effort against the bill.
To Bondar, the veto was a clear victory.
"Very satisfying," she said. "It shows people who participated in the civic process that their hard work was not in vain."
If you missed MSNBC's Countdown last night, the above is essential viewing. We documented the highlights and an overview here.
ThinkProgress just printed another excerpt from Tempting Faith—which is the subject of the MSNBC report above—set just prior to Bush’s 2001 inauguration:
Every other White House office was up and running. The faith-based initiative still operated out of the nearly vacant transition offices.
Three days later, a Tuesday, Karl Rove summoned [Don] Willett [a former Bush aide from Texas who initially shepharded the program] to his office to announce that the entire faith-based initiative would be rolled out the following Monday. Willett asked just how -- without a director, staff, office, or plan -- the president could do that. Rove looked at him, took a deep breath, and said, “I don’t know. Just get me a fucking faith-based thing. Got it?” Willett was shown the door.
A new holy war is growing within the conservative evangelical community, with implications for both the global environment and American politics. For years liberal Christians and others have made protection of the environment a moral commitment. Now a number of conservative evangelicals are joining the fight, arguing that man's stewardship of the planet is a biblical imperative and calling for action to stop global warming.
But they are being met head-on by opposition from their traditional evangelical brethren who adamantly support the Bush administration in downplaying the threat of global warming and other environmental perils. The political stakes are high: Three out of every four white evangelical voters chose George W. Bush in 2004. "Is God Green?" explores how a serious split among conservative evangelicals over the environment and global warming could reshape American politics.
Kuo's book claims that Bush's right-hand-man, Karl Rove, referred to the religious right as "the nuts," "out of control," "goofy," and "ridiculous," while recruiting them to ensure a strong turn-out in the 2004 election.
From Tempting Faith:
"National christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as 'ridiculous' 'out of control' and 'just plain goofy.'"
MSNBC reports that Tempting Faith underlines how the White House "uses evangelicals for their votes while consistently giving them nothing in return." The book details how leaders, such as James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and Ted Haggard, were granted meetings and phone calls with the White House to appease them but that, according to Kuo, "the true purpose of these calls was to keep prominent social conservatives and their groups or audiences happy."
Further, Kuo says evangelical leaders were allowed to meet with Bush and attend his political gatherings when he was visiting their respective states to pad their egos. The White House awarded evangelical leaders with trinkets (such as cufflinks bearing the presidential seal) to show how influential they were.
"Making politically active christians personally happy," claims Kuo, "meant having to worry far less about the Christian political agenda."
In regard to his tenure at the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, Kuo claims that "the White House staff didn't want to have anything to do with the faith-based initiative because they didn't understand it any more than did Congressional Republicans.... they didn't lie awake at night trying to kill it, they simply didn't care."
According to Kuo, Bush even fabricated the amount the White House intended to spend on faith-based initiatives to mobilize his evangelical base. Kuo recalls one conversation with Bush where the president endorsed inflating the amount of money he planned to secure: "Eight Billion. That's what we'll tell them," said Bush. "Eight Billion in new funds for faith-based groups." Kuo claims the White House was especially interested in attracting evangelical voters with inflated promises since "the faith-based initiative.... had the potential to successfully evangelize more voters than any other."
Kuo ultimately resigned from his White House post after claiming that "there was minimal senior White House commitment to the faith-based agenda." He told Beliefnet that "from tax cuts to Medicare," Bush never cared about the "poor people stuff."
As Olbermann pointed out on MSNBC, Kuo was not alone in his frustration. His former boss also resigned from his White House post claiming that politics were king in the Bush administration.
Tempting Faith claims the White House is "mocking the millions of faithful Christians who put their trust and hope in the president and his administration. Bush knew his so-called compassion agenda was languishing and had no problem with that."
Surprise, surprise. More evidence of the dwindling influence Dobson & CO will exert over the upcoming elections. Focus on the Family has cancelled two of their "Stand for the Family Events" scheduled to be held in giant auditoriums in cities across the country—moving them instead to much smaller venues and in one case to a local church where the admission will be free of charge! Talk about desperate.
[...]
You'll remember that in August, Focus on the Family announced a massive campaign to influence the elections in eight targeted states. The campaign was touted as the largest political effort by the religious right since the heyday of the Christian Coalition and reportedly combines a massive voter registration effort, the distribution of voter guides, and a series of high profile "Stand for the Family" events across the country featuring both Dobson, Family Research Council head Tony Perkins, and Gary Bauer.
The Times claims that evangelicals blame Foley, not the Republican party for abandoning their values. Still, the poor ticket sales for Dobson's "Stand for the Family" event is very encouraging.
Religion-Based Tax Breaks: Housing to Paychecks to Books
The Times has been doing a series on "how American religious organizations benefit from an increasingly accommodating government" and the 4th installment is available here. The current article calls bullshit on media darling Rick Warren, the megachurch pastor best known for publishing the bestselling nonfiction book in our nation's history: The Purpose Driven Life.
The article details the millionaire's lawsuit against the government to avoid paying taxes on his housing. Hopefully, the adoring media will begin waking up to Warren who blatantly campaigned for Bush in 2004, compared homosexuality to sex with a horse, and used his power to censor another author's book.
You can read the the New York Times article here. And here's Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the series.
"TAX BREAKS FOR THE CLERGY: Saddleback Church, in Lake Forest, Calif. The church’s founder fought for tax breaks for clergy members, citing their service to society. Such breaks help both poorly and well-paid ministers, but are not available to low-paid teachers or secular charity workers."
There were several big changes, including -- in a truly gymnastic display of irony -- a scene in which some hipsters in a cafe decide to put on a show poking fun at fundamentalist Christians (they are quickly attacked by demons). READ IT ALL
Culture and Family Institute: "The Vagina Can Take a Lot of Punishment.
And don't miss the hilarious response to the Culture and Family Institute's Director, Robert Knight, by Jesus General:
I was so surprised to hear that you expressed feminist beliefs during an interview with David Rakoff. According to him, you said that men can't transmit the HIV virus to women because, and he quotes you here, "the human vagina can take a lot of punishment."
Now, I understand what you were trying to do--frame AIDS as a homosexual disease--but by doing so, you suggested that lady parts are tougher than our little soldiers. That sounds like feminist propaganda to me. It's like The Great Feminist 3+ Inch Thingy Lie. Such statements make men feel inadequate.
[Romney's] reluctance to delve deeper into his beliefs, only add to the mystery of a faith that many Americans associate with polygamy -- although that practice has long been outlawed by the church -- and with customs such as marrying people after they have died and converting the dead.
"Evangelicals are appalled by all that," said Pastor Ted Haggard, president of the National Assn. of Evangelicals in Colorado Springs, Colo. "We evangelicals view Mormons as a Christian cult group. A cult group is a group that claims exclusive revelation. And typically, it's hard to get out of these cult groups. And so Mormonism qualifies as that."
In addition, Haggard said, evangelicals do not accept Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith as a prophet. "And we do not believe that the Book of Mormon has the same level of authority as the Bible," he said.
When Romney says that he accepts Jesus Christ as his savior, "we appreciate that," Haggard said. "But very often when people like Mormons use terms that we also use, there are different meanings in the theology behind those terms."
Related: here's Haggard's sarcastic response to Jesus Camp-- which is aguably a cult--after the jump
"You can expect to learn as much about the Catholic Church from Nacho Libre as you can learn about evangelicalism from Jesus Camp. This movie manipulates facts like a Michael Moore film and works the camera like The Blair Witch Project. It's one more 'documentary' that seems to miss the point intentionally."
As Religious Programs Expand, Disputes Rise Over Tax Breaks
The New York Times just posted the third installment on "how American religious organizations benefit from an increasingly accommodating government." All three of these articles are ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL. Read the latest article here. Read Part 1 here. And read Part 2 here.
"The management of Holy Cross Village at Notre Dame, left, a retirement community in South Bend, Ind., is arguing in court that the development should be exempt from property taxes. The county tax board of appeals disagrees. At Hermitage Estates, right, not far from Holy Cross Village, residents pay an average of about $2,300 in property taxes. “So maybe we should get ourselves a property tax exemption,” says one resident, a member of the county tax appeals board."
"Holy Land Experience, a biblical theme park in Orlando, Fla., went to Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature to win an exemption after county authorities determined that the park should be taxable."
At what’s arguably the top of his game, Moulitsas says he’s “going offline” next year, taking his obvious knack for building online communities and applying it to that other great American pastime: sports. And once he gets his network of sports blogs ramped up, he’ll turn to building communities in the real world, a chain of giant meeting places “replicating megachurches for the left”—complete with cafes and child care. Moulitsas has shown he can harness people’s enthusiasm, but he says he doesn’t want a leadership role in these “democracy centers”…
While working on the mechanics of the sports blogs, he plans to embark next year on building real-world destinations for progressives and liberals throughout the Midwest, “cultural outposts” designed to attract thousands of like-minded liberals. “Each one of these would have a vast left-wing conspiracy component,” he says, like leadership training or discussions on progressive issues.
Secular Groups Losing Funding Amid Pressure From Religious Right
This is one of the most infuriating articles we've read in a while. From Boston Globe [hat tip Defcon]
For six decades, CARE has been a vital ally to the US government. It supplied the famed CARE packages to Europe's starving masses after World War II, and its work with the poor has been celebrated by US presidents. So the group was thrilled when it received a major contract from the Bush administration to fight AIDS in Africa and Asia.
But this time, instead of accolades came attacks. Religious conservatives contended that the $50 million contract, under which CARE was to distribute money to both secular and faith-based groups, was being guided by an organization out of touch with religious values.
Senator Rick Santorum , a Pennsylvania Republican, charged last year that CARE was "anti-American" and "promoted a pro-prostitution agenda." Focus on the Family, the religious group headed by James Dobson , said the agency that delivered the contract, the US Agency for International Development, was a "liberal cancer."
The complaining paid off. CARE's $50 million contract is being phased out this year; it has been replaced with a $200 million program of grants that is targeted at faith-based providers, and overseen by USAID itself. READ IT ALL
The Times prints Part 2 of their series on "how American religious organizations benefit from an increasingly accommodating government." Read it here. Read Part 1 here. [Hat tip The Rev].
"Mary Rosati, a novice training to be a Roman Catholic nun, was dismissed by her order after she was found to have cancer."
"The Rev. John Paul Hankins, 73, was forced to retire from the pulpit of his Stony Brook, N.Y., church. He alleges age discrimination in a lawsuit, but judges will almost never agree to hear such complaints by clergy members against a religious employer."
Ted Haggard Endorses Using "Fear," "Guilt," And Faulty Statistics To Motivate Evangelical Teens
Ted Haggard: "We always use fear and guilt to motivate people"
Last week, The New York Times ran a high-profile article citing an alleged fear among evangelicals that they were losing their teens: Evangelicals Fear the Loss of Their Teenagers.
"Alarm has been stoked," the article stated, "by a highly suspect claim that if current trends continue, only 4 percent of teenagers will be “Bible-believing Christians” as adults." The supposed "4 percent panic" was triggered by a poll in the book “The Bridger Generation," a title that was released over ten years ago. In a more current poll, Barna Research stoked the flames by claiming that only 5% of teens are "bible-believing," a statistic that has been attacked since the criterion for being "bible-believing" is too stringent.
A full-page advertisement in this month’s Christianity Today warns that America’s evangelicals may soon be on the endangered species list -- as rare as snail darters, spotted owls and Chinook salmon.
But the ad, which is endorsed by the National Association of Evangelicals, is a false alarm -- or at least an exaggeration -- according to the group’s president -- Pastor Ted Haggard.
“We’re church people. We always use fear and guilt to motivate people,” Haggard told Bible Belt Blogger, punctuating the quip with hearty laughter....
"In the United States," Haggard says, "there are some difficulties and I'm not going to get into that now, but we're trying to encourage people to solve these problems before they are created too severe.... Those ads all ran in Christian magazines in order to motivate NAE churches and others to do a better job at building youth groups."
A commentor on Bible Belt's blog states our opinion on Ted Haggard's admission perfectly:
they're altering statistics in order to make money from their conferences? Sort of bearing false witness, isn't it?
In response, Dobson again criticized Clinton and then suggested that the sexually explicit instant messages allegedly sent by Foley to underage male pages were the result of "sort of a joke":
DOBSON: We condemn the Foley affair categorically, and we also believe that what Mr. Clinton did was one of the most embarrassing and wicked things ever done by a president in power. Let me remind you, sir, that it was not just James Dobson who found the Lewinsky affair reprehensible. More than 140 newspapers called for Clinton's resignation. But the president didn't do what Mr. Foley has done in leaving. He stayed in office, and he lied to the grand jury to obscure the facts. As it turns out, Mr. Foley has had illicit sex with no one that we know of, and the whole thing turned out to be what some people are now saying was a -- sort of a joke by the boy and some of the other pages.
At any moment, state inspectors can step uninvited into one of the three child care centers that Ethel White runs in Auburn, Ala., to make sure they meet state requirements intended to ensure that the children are safe. There must be continuing training for the staff. Her nurseries must have two sinks, one exclusively for food preparation. All cabinets must have safety locks. Medications for the children must be kept under lock and key, and refrigerated.
The Rev. Ray Fuson of the Harvest Temple Church of God in Montgomery, Ala., does not have to worry about unannounced state inspections at the day care center his church runs. Alabama exempts church day care programs from state licensing requirements, which were tightened after almost a dozen children died in licensed and unlicensed day care centers in the state in two years.
The differences do not end there. As an employer, Ms. White must comply with the civil rights laws; if employees feel mistreated, they can take the center to court. Religious organizations, including Pastor Fuson’s, are protected by the courts from almost all lawsuits filed by their ministers or other religious staff members, no matter how unfairly those employees think they have been treated.
And if you are curious about how Ms. White’s nonprofit center uses its public grants and donations, read the financial statements she is required to file each year with the Internal Revenue Service. There are no I.R.S. reports from Harvest Temple. Federal law does not require churches to file them.
Far more than an hourlong stretch of highway separates these two busy, cheerful day care centers. Ms. White’s center operates in the world occupied by most American organizations. As a religious ministry, Pastor Fuson’s center does not.
In recent years, many politicians and commentators have cited what they consider a nationwide “war on religion” that exposes religious organizations to hostility and discrimination. But such organizations -- from mainline Presbyterian and Methodist churches to mosques to synagogues to Hindu temples -- enjoy an abundance of exemptions from regulations and taxes. And the number is multiplying rapidly.
Some of the exceptions have existed for much of the nation’s history, originally devised for Christian churches but expanded to other faiths as the nation has become more religiously diverse. But many have been granted in just the last 15 years -- sometimes added to legislation, anonymously and with little attention, much as are the widely criticized “earmarks” benefiting other special interests.
An analysis by The New York Times of laws passed since 1989 shows that more than 200 special arrangements, protections or exemptions for religious groups or their adherents were tucked into Congressional legislation, covering topics ranging from pensions to immigration to land use. New breaks have also been provided by a host of pivotal court decisions at the state and federal level, and by numerous rule changes in almost every department and agency of the executive branch.
The special breaks amount to “a sort of religious affirmative action program,” said John Witte Jr., director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at the Emory University law school.
Professor Witte added: “Separation of church and state was certainly part of American law when many of today’s public opinion makers were in school. But separation of church and state is no longer the law of the land.”
The changes reflect, in part, the growing political influence of religious groups and the growing presence of conservatives in the courts and regulatory agencies. But these tax and regulatory breaks have been endorsed by politicians of both major political parties, by judges around the country, and at all levels of government.
“The religious community has a lot of pull, and senators are very deferential to this kind of legislation,” said Richard R. Hammar, the editor of Church Law & Tax Report and an accountant with law and divinity degrees from Harvard.
As a result of these special breaks, religious organizations of all faiths stand in a position that American businesses -- and the thousands of nonprofit groups without that “religious” label -- can only envy. And the new breaks come at a time when many religious organizations are expanding into activities -- from day care centers to funeral homes, from ice cream parlors to fitness clubs, from bookstores to broadcasters -- that compete with these same businesses and nonprofit organizations.
Religious organizations are exempt from many federal, state and local laws and regulations covering social services, including addiction treatment centers and child care, like those in Alabama.
Federal law gives religious congregations unique tools to challenge government restrictions on the way they use their land. Consequently, land-use restrictions that are a result of longstanding public demands for open space or historic preservation may be trumped by a religious ministry’s construction plans, as in a current dispute in Boulder County, Colo.
Exemptions in the civil rights laws protect religious employers from all legal complaints about faith-based preferences in hiring. The courts have shielded them from many complaints about other forms of discrimination, whether based on race, nationality, age, gender, medical condition or sexual orientation. And most religious organizations have been exempted from federal laws meant to protect pensions and to provide unemployment benefits.
Governments have been as generous with tax breaks as with regulatory exemptions. Congress has imposed limits on the I.R.S.’s ability to audit churches, synagogues and other religious congregations. And beyond the federal income tax exemption they share with all nonprofit groups, houses of worship have long been granted an exemption from local property taxes in every state.
As religious activities expand far beyond weekly worship, that venerable tax break is expanding, too. In recent years, a church-run fitness center with a tanning bed and video arcade in Minnesota, a biblical theme park in Florida, a ministry’s 1,800-acre training retreat and conference center in Michigan, religious broadcasters’ transmission towers in Washington State, and housing for teachers at church-run schools in Alaska have all been granted tax breaks by local officials -- or, when they balked, by the courts or state legislators.
These organizations and their leaders still rely on public services -- police and fire protection, street lights and storm drains, highway and bridge maintenance, food and drug inspections, national defense. But their tax exemptions shift the cost of providing those benefits onto other citizens. The total cost nationwide is not known, because no one keeps track.
When Values Collide
Few Americans dispute the value of protecting religious liberty. The framers of the Constitution opened the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights with language preserving religious freedom with two clear goals in mind, constitutional scholars agree.
First, they wanted to assure that everyone, even members of small and possibly unpopular sects, could practice their faith without fearing the kind of persecution that many had experienced in their home countries, where a dominant religion was allied with the state. Just as important, the framers wanted to prevent the government from ever being captive to a particular religion or set of beliefs at the expense of people of other faiths.
Over the last two centuries, many scholars say, this tradition of religious freedom and tolerance, a radical concept in the 18th century, has helped this country avoid the spasms of sectarian violence that have erupted in countries from Ireland to India and attracted immigrants bringing talents from across the world.
Some legal scholars and judges see the special breaks for religious groups as a way to prevent government from infringing on those religious freedoms.
“Never forget that the exercise of religion is a constitutionally protected activity,” said Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Michigan who has written and testified in support of greater legislative protection for religious liberty. “Regulation imposes burdens on the free exercise of religion. Exemptions lift those burdens.” He added, “That is constitutionally a good thing.”
Precious as protecting religious freedom is, however, there are cases where these special breaks collide with other values important in this country -- like extending the protections of government to all citizens and sharing the responsibilities of society fairly.
Religious organizations defend the exemptions as a way to recognize the benefits religious groups have provided -- operating schools, orphanages, old-age homes and hospitals long before social welfare and education were widely seen as the responsibility of government.
But while ministries that run soup kitchens and homeless shelters benefit from these exemptions, secular nonprofits serving the same needy people often do not. And rather than just rewarding charitable works that benefit society, these breaks are equally available to religious organizations that provide no charitable services to anyone.
Similarly, religious nonprofit groups that run nationwide broadcasting networks, produce best-selling publications or showcase a charismatic leader’s books and speeches can take advantage of exemptions that are not available to secular nonprofit groups -- not to mention for-profit companies -- engaged in the same activities.
Any government oversight of religious groups must fit within the First Amendment’s command that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
For most of the past half-century, courts interpreted the first part of that clause as a barrier to government action that seemed to treat religious groups more favorably than secular ones, legal scholars said. But today, many lawyers agree, courts are taking a more accommodating view of government actions that benefit religious groups.
The willingness of the federal courts to accept these arrangements increased considerably under the influence of William H. Rehnquist when he was chief justice of the Supreme Court, said Derek H. Davis, until recently the director of the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor University in Waco, Tex.
“Clearly, we’re going to be in this accommodative mode for some time,” added Mr. Davis, who sees Chief Justice Rehnquist’s successor, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. as likely to follow in Chief Justice Rehnquist’s footsteps on cases affecting religious groups.
The problem is, efforts to protect the free exercise of religion can clash with efforts to assure that religion is not favored by the government.
Besides regulatory exemptions and special tax breaks, some of which have been in place for decades, religious organizations have recently become eligible for an increasing stream of federal grants and contracts from state and federal governments. This policy shift began in 1996 under President Clinton, and has continued with greater force under President Bush. Known in the Bush administration as the Faith Based Initiative, it has drawn considerable attention in political, religious and academic circles.
But the broader tapestry of regulatory and tax exemptions for religious groups has gone largely unacknowledged. Indeed, some religious leaders and politicians -- focusing not on these special accommodations but on issues like the display of religious icons on public land -- argue that religious groups in America are targets of antagonism, not favoritism. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, in introducing a legislative agenda last July, said, “Radical courts have attempted to gut our religious freedom and redefine the value system on which America was built.”
In March, hundreds of people and a number of influential lawmakers attended a conference called “The War on Christians and the Values Voter in 2006” in Washington and applauded the premise that religion was under attack.
Society “treats Christianity like a second-class superstition,” Tom DeLay, then a Republican representative from Texas, told the crowd. “Seen from that perspective, of course there is a war on religion.”
The argument that religious groups are victims of discrimination drew a sigh from Ms. White, the day care director in Alabama, where licensed day care centers are finding it harder to compete with unlicensed faith-based centers that do not have to comply with expensive licensing requirements.
James E. Long, a deputy attorney general for Alabama’s department of human resources, acknowledged that licensed day care operators have complained time and again that the exemption is unfair. “But I am unaware of any bill ever having been introduced” that would eliminate it, Mr. Long said. “That would be a very contentious issue. I’m sure the churches would want to be heard on that.”
Breaks for Social Services
On an early summer day at the Harvest Temple Church of God in Montgomery, a lively group of older children tossed soccer balls around a dim, cool gymnasium. In a smaller room to the side, staff members rocked sleeping infants and comforted cranky toddlers.
This bustling church-based center, next to the church sanctuary in a well-tended middle-class neighborhood, covers its costs and helps support the work of the church, the church pastor said.
“We have talked about getting licensed before in the past, but it would cost us quite a bit of money,” Pastor Fuson said. The staff would probably be large enough to meet state standards, he said, but the center would need costly renovations to upgrade the facilities.
Ms. White, whose licensed program, Auburn Daycare Centers, has become nationally accredited during her tenure, understands how demanding the state requirements are. Her centers in Auburn have to comply with them, down to the specific toys required for each age group.
As in many states, these regulations were a response to conditions that had put young lives at risk. In Alabama alone, almost a dozen children died in day care facilities in the two years before the state began upgrading its licensing requirements in 2000.
Ms. White said the root problem in Alabama is that there is not enough state aid for working families who need good day care. But given the state’s limited resources, she said, it seems unfair that subsidies are available to unlicensed centers as well as licensed ones -- a view shared by the Federation of Child Care Centers of Alabama, which has lobbied for greater financing and universal licensing.
Some churches in Alabama have voluntarily obtained licenses. The Rev. Paul B. Koch Jr., of First Christian Church in Huntsville, whose day care center is licensed, thinks licensing for such programs is appropriate and raises the quality of care. “But the Christian Coalition is still strong in Alabama and this is an issue for them,” he said.
John W. Giles, president of the state’s Christian Coalition, confirmed that his organization supported the exemption, noting that state oversight would be intrusive and was unnecessary “because the pastors and congregations are your quality control.” Although most of the unlicensed centers are run by Protestant churches or ministries, the exemption covers all faiths, from an Islamic preschool program in Huntsville to a Catholic parish center in Tuscaloosa.
Eleven other states -- including Utah, Maryland, Illinois and Florida -- also have exempted religious child care programs from at least some of the rules that apply to other nonprofit programs, according to the National Child Care Information Center in Fairfax, Va.
One state that has dropped off that list is Texas.
In 1997, George Bush, who was the governor, pushed through legislation that exempted faith-based day care centers and addiction treatment programs from state licensing, allowing them to be monitored instead by private associations controlled by pastors, program directors and other private citizens. Other laws enacted on his watch steered more state financing to these “alternatively accredited” institutions.
Fewer than a dozen child care centers and about 130 addiction treatment programs took advantage of this new alternative, according to subsequent studies. But several of these later became the focus of state investigations into complaints of physical abuse. A study by the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, a nonprofit research organization that opposed the faith-based initiatives, found that “the rate of confirmed cases of abuse and neglect at alternatively accredited facilities in Texas is more than 10 times that of state-licensed facilities.”
In spring 2001, the Texas Legislature quietly allowed the alternative accreditation program for day care centers to lapse.
Two leading First Amendment scholars, asked about faith-based day care licensing exemptions like these, said they were unfamiliar with the practice but thought it sounded legally dubious. “I think what you describe is unconstitutional,” said Ira C. Lupu, a law professor at George Washington University and the co-director of legal research for the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy, an independent project of the Rockefeller Institute of Government.
Professor Witte, the director of Emory University’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion, said in an e-mail response that he “would frankly be surprised to find even this Supreme Court going that far.”
However, when a group of licensed day care centers challenged the Alabama law in a federal court in mid-2001, arguing that it deprived them of their constitutional right to equal protection before the law, the group lost.
Judge Myron H. Thompson of United States District Court, who ruled on the case, said the state could have adopted the arrangement to avoid church-state entanglements or simply to accommodate the free exercise of religion. Indeed, he cited four other federal cases, all decided since 1988, that had upheld similar exemptions for day care centers in other states.
In Judge Thompson’s view, it is “well settled” constitutional law that “the possible economic inequalities that might result from religious exemptions such as day care licensing exemptions” are not a violation of anyone’s equal-protection rights.
Exemptions From Zoning Rules
“When you fly in to Denver at night, you can always pick out Boulder,” said Ben Pearlman, an athletic young lawyer who grew up there. “It’s the only one with big patches of darkness around it.”
As one of Boulder County’s three governing commissioners, the soft-spoken Mr. Pearlman talks about protecting the county’s spectacular beauty as if it were a sacred trust. In 1978, the county limited intensive development to already urbanized areas, buffered by large swaths of prairie and farmland. The landscape therefore now stands in stark contrast to the spreading carpet of subdivisions, office parks and malls in neighboring counties around Denver.
To Alan Ahlgrim, the mellow and mesmerizing preacher who founded Rocky Mountain Christian Church in eastern Boulder County in 1984, those encroaching subdivisions look like spiritual vineyards, full of families ready to be transformed by his church’s call for them to become “blessed to be a blessing” to others.
“The church has never grown fast enough to suit me,” Pastor Ahlgrim said with a grin that showed he was almost, but not quite, serious.
But the church, one of more than 200 in the county, did grow fast enough in the last 22 years -- from about three dozen families in 1984 to more than 2,200 people today -- to burst from its original building and five subsequent expansions approved by the county.
Today, its enthusiastic young congregation is once again bumping up against the walls of its 106,000-square-foot home, which sits on 55 acres in an agricultural buffer zone around the small town of Niwot. It is holding multiple services to handle the overflow congregation, but its Sunday school space is full, with some classes spilling out into hallways and temporary buildings set up in a parking lot.
Yet church members cringe at the notion of turning away newcomers. “Who do you say no to? Do you hang a ‘no vacancy’ sign out front?” asked Guy Scoma, a young father who visited the church as a lonely widower and stayed on when he met, then married, his wife, Kaarin.
The church wants to almost double the size of its facilities so it can accommodate up to 4,500 people. The church could then provide a new children’s wing, more rooms for adult classes and a gymnasium with room for two basketball courts or potluck suppers for 1,000. The new wings, linked to the existing building by spacious galleries, would be surrounded by more than 1,200 landscaped parking spaces, 60 percent more than today.
But the county’s land-use plan and zoning rules for the agricultural buffer zone where the church stands would limit any construction on the site to a single residential building. So the church cannot build without the approval of the Boulder County commissioners. And in February, after an emotional public hearing attended by more than a thousand people, Mr. Pearlman and his two fellow commissioners said no.
“People are always trying to develop their properties to the limits of the law and sometimes beyond,” Mr. Pearlman said. But the worst suburban sprawl is the consequence of “lots of little decisions that have this cumulative effect,” he continued. “We’re trying to resist this death by a thousand cuts, and preserve the land where we can.”
Like the leaders of large, fast-growing churches across the country confronting zoning restrictions on their expansion plans, Pastor Ahlgrim is unhappy. The decision “is severely restrictive to our mission,” he said. Like worshiping, teaching and gathering for fellowship, the practice of sharing with the community -- in this case, allowing certain outside groups to use the church when it’s available -- is “vital to our mission,” he continued. “When one of your core values is generosity and you are restricted from sharing what you want to share -- what God has provided -- we consider that to be a severe limitation.”
The church had no choice but to go to court, he said.
The church has sued the county under a federal land-use law enacted by Congress and signed by Bill Clinton in 2000 to protect religious organizations from capricious or discriminatory zoning restrictions by local governments. The unusual law came after a decade-long bipartisan tug-of-war between Congress and the Supreme Court.
Before 1990, the court had generally held that any government restriction on religion must serve a compelling public interest in the least burdensome way -- a standard known as the “strict scrutiny” test. But in one Oregon case dealing with two Native Americans’ sacramental use of peyote, an illegal drug, the majority concluded that there was nothing unconstitutional about states expecting citizens to comply with valid, neutral and generally applicable laws -- like those criminalizing peyote -- even if compliance conflicted with religious beliefs.
This “Smith decision,” Employment Division v. Smith, provoked a fierce reaction that has energized the drive for more legislative protections for religion ever since. In 1993, under pressure from a broad coalition whose members ranged from the Anti-Defamation League to the Southern Baptist Convention to the American Humanist Association, Congress adopted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which restored the “strict scrutiny” test to any federal, state or local government action affecting religious practice. A new tool had been added to the First Amendment emergency kit, although no one was quite sure how to use it.
Then the Supreme Court tugged back. In 1997, it ruled that the religious freedom act could not be applied constitutionally to the states. In reaction, 13 states have subsequently adopted similar measures of their own. But Congress thought the decision left room for it to address zoning restrictions and, separately, religious restrictions imposed on prisoners.
In 2000 Congress adopted and Mr. Clinton signed the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which restored the “strict scrutiny” test to local zoning decisions, making it easier for churches to challenge those decisions in court. The act also made it easier for prisoners to challenge restrictions on their religious practices.
The provisions that apply to prisoners have been upheld, but the Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the land-use provisions that Rocky Mountain Christian Church is invoking in its lawsuit against Boulder County. One of the church’s allies in the fight is the Justice Department’s civil rights division, which is defending the law’s constitutionality in cases around the country.
Defenders of the law say that some cases invoking its protections have addressed actions by local governments that seem to reflect blatant religious bias. For example, Rabbi Joseph Konikov of Orlando, Fla., successfully sued his local government under the law in 2002 after county officials repeatedly cited and fined him for holding small worship services in his suburban home, in violation of a zoning provision later found to be an unconstitutional burden on religious freedom.
“It was like Communist Russia,” said Rabbi Konikov, who said his grandfather had fled the Soviet Union to escape religious oppression. He has continued to hold services in his home. “It was very satisfying to see that, at the end, our Constitution and our American values and freedoms came through for us.”
Other zoning challenges, all invoking the 2000 law, have been filed by a Sikh society that wants to build a temple in a low-density residential area of Yuba City, Calif.; a Hindu congregation seeking permission to expand its temple and cultural center on a busy highway in Bridgewater, N.J.; and a Muslim organization that has been trying for years to build a mosque on land that the local government in Wayne Township, N.J., now wants to buy for open space.
Seeking a Protective Balance
Critics of the 2000 law argue that the First Amendment itself has long prohibited religious discrimination in zoning, and that such zoning decisions could have been challenged just as successfully in the courts if the law had never been passed.
When Congress considered the law, “what was actually being discussed was ‘How do we make sure churches don’t get discriminated against,’ ” said Marci A. Hamilton, a law professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in Manhattan and the author of “God vs. The Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law” (Cambridge University Press, 2005), which calls for closer scrutiny of some religious exemptions, especially those affecting land use and family law.
“Unfortunately, the answer was to give such an expansive remedy that not only are they not getting discriminated against, but they are now capable of discriminating against all other landowners,” added Professor Hamilton, who is advising Boulder County in its case.
The financial stakes in the Boulder lawsuit are large.
Under the 2000 law, if the county loses, it will have to pay not only its own legal bills but also those of the church. If the church loses, it will sacrifice the money it has spent on legal, architectural and public relations fees, but it will not be required to pay the county’s legal bills. And unlike the county, it could seek free legal help from various religious advocacy groups, although it has not yet done so.
While a county victory might provide other local governments with a template for defending against similar challenges, some lawyers fear that if Boulder County, with its long history of careful land-use planning and its environmentally demanding voters, cannot successfully argue that preserving open space is a “compelling public interest,” few local governments could.
“Religious institutions have realized that land-use authorities are vulnerable to the threat of litigation,” David Evan Hughes, the deputy county attorney, asserted in the county’s court filings. Without greater clarity from the courts, he continued, the new law’s reach “will expand to the point where religious institutions are effectively dictating their own land-use regulations.”
Like most Boulder County residents, several church members said they cherish the open space preserved by the county’s past land-use decisions. But they think the county was wrong to reject the church’s proposal.
Lanny Pinchuk, a church member who formerly served on the county planning board, praised all that the county has done to preserve the environment. “But you can’t keep people from coming to the religious institution of their choice,” he said. “I feel that is just, well, un-American.”
Church leaders and members said their current proposal was the “forever plan,” the last expansion the church would make on this site.
But they all struggled to explain why it is an unconstitutional burden for them to have to turn away newcomers now when, if they continue to grow, they will inevitably have to turn away people when their “forever” building is full.
“At some point, we’re going to have to say we can’t accommodate any more; I mean, we’re not going to have a 100-story building over there,” said Gerry Witt, a founding church member who has recently put his house on the market so he and his wife, Carole, can move to a less developed area on the western slope of the Rockies.
“So is there any limit?” He thought a moment, then answered his question. “Yes,” he said. “There’s God’s limit. When he says, ‘You’re at your limit,’ that’s when we will stop.”
Lynn Sunde, an evangelical Christian, is considering what for her is a radical step. Come November, she may vote for a Democrat for Congress.
Sunde, 35, manages a coffee shop and attends a nondenominational Bible church. "You're never going to agree with one party on everything, so for me the key has always been the religion issues -- abortion, the marriage amendment" to ban same-sex unions, she said.
That means she consistently votes Republican. But, she said, she is starting to worry about the course of the Iraq war, and she finds the Internet messages from then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) to teenage boys "pretty sickening." When she goes into the voting booth this time, she said, "I'm going to think twice. . . . I'm not going to vote party line as much as to vote issues."
Even a small shift in the loyalty of conservative Christian voters such as Sunde could spell trouble for the GOP this fall. In 2004, white evangelical or born-again Christians made up a quarter of the electorate, and 78 percent of them voted Republican, according to exit polls. But some pollsters believe that evangelical support for the GOP peaked two years ago and that what has been called the "God gap" in politics is shrinking.
A nationwide poll of 1,500 registered voters released yesterday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 57 percent of white evangelicals are inclined to vote for Republican congressional candidates in the midterm elections, a 21-point drop in support among this critical part of the GOP base.
Even before the Foley scandal, the portion of white evangelicals with a "favorable" impression of the Republican Party had fallen sharply this year, from 63 percent to 54 percent, according to Pew polls.
In the latest survey, taken in the last 10 days of September and the first four days of October, the percentage of evangelicals who think that Republicans govern "in a more honest and ethical way" than Democrats has plunged to 42 percent, from 55 percent at the start of the year.
Here in Minnesota's conservative 6th Congressional District, the loosening of the GOP's hold on religious voters is helping Patty Wetterling, an antiwar Democrat, run an unexpectedly close race against Republican state Sen. Michele M. Bachmann, who has made opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage her signature issues.
This week, Wetterling became the first Democrat in the country to air a television advertisement about the Foley scandal.
"It shocks the conscience. Congressional leaders have admitted covering up the predatory behavior of a congressman . . . ," the commercial said, adding that Wetterling is "demanding a criminal investigation and the immediate expulsion of any congressman involved in this crime and coverup."
Wetterling is best known as an advocate for missing children. Her 11-year-old son, Jacob, was abducted in 1989 and never found. The uproar over Foley's sexual correspondence with teenage employees of Congress has played into her political strength.
"This is something we all watched with churches years ago, where they didn't do anything. Congress has no excuse -- they know better," she said in a telephone interview.
The incumbent, Rep. Mark Kennedy (R), is vacating his seat to run for the Senate. The national GOP has spared no effort to bolster Bachmann. President Bush, Vice President Cheney, political strategist Karl Rove, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez all have been out to campaign for her.
Unlike some Republican candidates across the country, Bachmann is not running away from Bush. She says she is "thrilled" to be associated with him.
But the president's ratings have slipped even within his most loyal constituency. Since the start of his second term, Bush's favorability rating has dropped from 52 percent to 42 percent among all adults, and from 71 percent to 60 percent among white evangelical Protestants, according to Washington Post-ABC News polls.
"I think he's too set in his way to listen to what's really going on in Iraq," Sunde said. She noted that her rising concern about the war "possibly could" lead her to cross party lines and vote for Wetterling.
She is not alone in Anoka, Garrison Keillor's hometown and a place that, like the imaginary Lake Wobegon, defies stereotypes about religious conservatives.
"If you're pro-life and mad about the war, where do you go? That's the Bachmann-Wetterling race in a nutshell," said state Rep. Jim Abeler, 52, a Republican who represents part of the 6th district.
Jim Bernstein, 56, a Democrat who served as Minnesota's commerce commissioner under then-Gov. Jesse Ventura, agreed: "There are a lot of people here who say, 'I'm pro-life, but I'm also concerned about health care, about education, about jobs.' "
Across the country, many Democratic candidates are wooing religious voters by talking about their faith. Wetterling is not among them. Her campaign manager calls her "a very spiritual woman," but says: "We have her all over the district now, so much so that she's not able to attend church."
Bachmann, on the other hand, attends an evangelical megachurch and is known for her unsuccessful effort to put a state constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage on the November ballot. If same-sex marriage spreads, she has warned, "public schools would have to teach that homosexuality and same-sex marriages are normal, natural and that maybe children should try them."
Christopher P. Gilbert, a political scientist at Gustavus Adolphus College in central Minnesota, said there "haven't been a lot of candidates in Minnesota who closely associate themselves with the Christian right, but Bachmann has. She's the real deal when it comes to religion in politics."
Nationally, the Republicans' once formidable hold on churchgoing voters has begun to slip. Among those who say they attend church more than once a week, the GOP still holds a commanding lead. The main shift is among weekly churchgoers, about a quarter of all voters. Two years ago, they favored the GOP by a double-digit margin. But in the new Pew survey, 44 percent leaned toward Republicans and 43 percent toward Democrats, a statistical dead heat.
The slippage is particularly striking among evangelicals. According to Pew data, the portion of white evangelical Protestants who identify themselves as Republicans rose steadily from 2000 to 2004 but leveled off this year at about half. The percentage who support keeping troops in Iraq has dropped to 55 percent, from 68 percent in early September.
"The allegiance of evangelicals has been more in flux over the past 12 months, suggesting that the considerations going into their votes are changing," said Scott Keeter, Pew's director of survey research.
In addition to the war and congressional scandals, those considerations may include a broader definition of religious issues. Some influential ministers, such as the Rev. Rick Warren, author of the bestselling "The Purpose-Driven Life," are urging evangelicals to fight poverty, safeguard the environment and oppose torture on biblical grounds.
To the extent that evangelicals now view these issues as "matters of conscience" alongside abortion and same-sex marriage, they could shift some votes into the Democratic column, said Ron Sider, head of the group Evangelicals for Social Action.
Another factor in evangelicals' changing loyalties may be the efforts of Democrats to reach out to them. In Michigan, evangelical pastors helped write the preamble to the state party's new platform. "Democrats in this state are seeking the Common Good -- the best life for each person of this state. The orphan. The family. The sick. The healthy. The wealthy. The poor. The citizen. The stranger. The first. The last," it says.
But before Democrats take credit for the shift, they might ponder one of the findings in a recent survey of 2,500 voters by the Center for American Values, a project of the left-leaning People for the American Way Foundation: Republicans have lost more support (14 percentage points) than Democrats have picked up (4 points) among frequent churchgoers.
That rings true to Michael Cromartie, an expert on evangelicals at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Washington think tank. "Erosion for evangelicals doesn't necessarily lead to Democratic voting. It leads to nonvoting," he said.
Republican strategists are hoping the drop will prove temporary.
"There is a dip in support for the GOP among religious conservatives, no question," said Leonard Leo, head of Catholic Outreach at the Republican National Committee.
"People of faith were disaffected over the summer, but I think they'll come back," he added. "It's like any other election season -- people get frustrated that they haven't achieved everything they want. But as you get close to the election, you begin to look at the alternatives and realize that staying home is going to make things worse rather than better."
Despite their packed megachurches, their political clout and their increasing visibility on the national stage, evangelical Christian leaders are warning one another that their teenagers are abandoning the faith in droves.
At an unusual series of leadership meetings in 44 cities this fall, more than 6,000 pastors are hearing dire forecasts from some of the biggest names in the conservative evangelical movement.
Their alarm has been stoked by a highly suspect claim that if current trends continue, only 4 percent of teenagers will be “Bible-believing Christians” as adults. That would be a sharp decline compared with 35 percent of the current generation of baby boomers, and before that, 65 percent of the World War II generation.
While some critics say the statistics are greatly exaggerated (one evangelical magazine for youth ministers dubbed it “the 4 percent panic attack”), there is widespread consensus among evangelical leaders that they risk losing their teenagers.
“I’m looking at the data,” said Ron Luce, who organized the meetings and founded Teen Mania, a 20-year-old youth ministry, “and we’ve become post-Christian America, like post-Christian Europe. We’ve been working as hard as we know how to work -- everyone in youth ministry is working hard -- but we’re losing.”
The board of the National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group representing 60 denominations and dozens of ministries, passed a resolution this year deploring “the epidemic of young people leaving the evangelical church.”
Among the leaders speaking at the meetings are Ted Haggard, president of the evangelical association; the Rev. Jerry Falwell; and nationally known preachers like Jack Hayford and Tommy Barnett.
Genuine alarm can be heard from Christian teenagers and youth pastors, who say they cannot compete against a pervasive culture of cynicism about religion, and the casual “hooking up” approach to sex so pervasive on MTV, on Web sites for teenagers and in hip-hop, rap and rock music. Divorced parents and dysfunctional families also lead some teenagers to avoid church entirely or to drift away.
Over and over in interviews, evangelical teenagers said they felt like a tiny, beleaguered minority in their schools and neighborhoods. They said they often felt alone in their struggles to live by their “Biblical values” by avoiding casual sex, risqué music and videos, Internet pornography, alcohol and drugs.
When Eric Soto, 18, transferred from a small charter school to a large public high school in Chicago, he said he was disappointed to find that an extracurricular Bible study attracted only five to eight students. “When we brought food, we thought we could get a better turnout,” he said. They got 12.
Chelsea Dunford, a 17-year old from Canton, Conn., said, “At school I don’t have a lot of friends who are Christians.”
Ms. Dunford spoke late last month as she and her small church youth group were about to join more than 3,400 teenagers in a sports arena at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst for a Christian youth extravaganza and rock concert called Acquire the Fire.
“A lot of my friends are self-proclaimed agnostics or atheists,” said Ms. Dunford, who wears a bracelet with a heart-shaped charm engraved with “tlw,” for “true love waits,” to remind herself of her pledge not to have premarital sex.
She said her friends were more prone to use profanity and party than she was, and added: “It’s scary sometimes. You get made fun of.”
To break the isolation and bolster the teenagers’ commitment to a conservative lifestyle, Mr. Luce has been organizing these stadium extravaganzas for 15 years. The event in Amherst was the first of 40 that Teen Mania is putting on between now and May, on a breakneck schedule that resembles a road trip for a major touring band. The “roadies” are 700 teenagers who have interned for a year at Teen Mania’s “Honor Academy” in Garden Valley, Tex.
More than two million teenagers have attended in the last 15 years, said Mr. Luce, a 45-year-old, mop-headed father of three with a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Business Administration at Harvard and the star power of an aging rock guitarist.
“That’s more than Paul McCartney has pulled in,” Mr. Luce asserted, before bounding onstage for the opening pyrotechnics and a prayer.
For the next two days, the teenagers in the arena pogoed to Christian bands, pledged to lead their friends to Christ and sang an anthem with the chorus, “We won’t be silent.” Hundreds streamed down the aisles for the altar call and knelt in front of the stage, some weeping openly as they prayed to give their lives to God.
The next morning, Mr. Luce led the crowd in an exercise in which they wrote on scraps of paper all the negative cultural influences, brand names, products and television shows that they planned to excise from their lives. Again they streamed down the aisles, this time to throw away the “cultural garbage.”
Trash cans filled with folded pieces of paper on which the teenagers had scribbled things like Ryan Seacrest, Louis Vuitton, “Gilmore Girls,” “Days of Our Lives,” Iron Maiden, Harry Potter, “need for a boyfriend” and “my perfect teeth obsession.” One had written in tiny letters: “fornication.”
Some teenagers threw away cigarette lighters, brand-name sweatshirts, Mardi Gras beads and CD’s — one titled “I’m a Hustla.”
“Lord Jesus,” Mr. Luce prayed into the microphone as the teenagers dropped their notes into the trash, “I strip off the identity of the world, and this morning I clothe myself with Christ, with his lifestyle. That’s what I want to be known for.”
Evangelical adults, like believers of every faith, fret about losing the next generation, said the Rev. David W. Key, director of Baptist Studies at the Candler School of Theology of Emory University, in Atlanta.
“The uniqueness of the evangelical situation is the fact that during the 80’s and 90’s you had the Reagan revolution that was growing the evangelical churches,” Mr. Key said.
Today, he said, the culture trivializes religion and normalizes secularism and liberal sexual mores.
The phenomenon may not be that young evangelicals are abandoning their faith, but that they are abandoning the institutional church, said Lauren Sandler, author of “Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement” (Viking, 2006). Ms. Sandler, who calls herself a secular liberal, said she found the movement frighteningly robust.
“This generation is not about church,” said Ms. Sandler, an editor at Salon.com. “They always say, ‘We take our faith outside the four walls.’ For a lot of young evangelicals, church is a rock festival, or a skate park or hanging out in someone’s basement.”
Contradicting the sense of isolation expressed by some evangelical teenagers, Ms. Sandler said, “I met plenty of kids who told me over and over that if you’re not Christian in your high school, you’re not cool -- kids with Mohawks, with indie rock bands who feel peer pressure to be Christian.”
The reality is, when it comes to organizing youth, evangelical Christians are the envy of Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants and Jews, said Christian Smith, a professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame, who specializes in the study of American evangelicals and surveyed teens for his book “Soul Searching: the Religious and Spiritual lives of American Teenagers” (Oxford, 2005).
Mr. Smith said he was skeptical about the 4 percent statistic. He said the figure was from a footnote in a book and was inconsistent with research he had conducted and reviewed, which has found that evangelical teenagers are more likely to remain involved with their faith than are mainline Protestants, Catholics, Jews and teenagers of almost every other religion.
“A lot of the goals I’m very supportive of,” Mr. Smith said of the new evangelical youth campaign, “but it just kills me that it’s framed in such apocalyptic terms that couldn’t possibly hold up under half a second of scrutiny. It’s just self-defeating.”
The 4 percent is cited in the book “The Bridger Generation” by Thom S. Rainer, a Southern Baptist and a former professor of ministry. Mr. Rainer said in an interview that it came from a poll he had commissioned, and that while he thought the methodology was reliable, the poll was 10 years old.
“I would have to, with integrity, say there has been no significant follow-up to see if the numbers are still valid,” Mr. Rainer said.
Mr. Luce seems weary of criticism that his message is overly alarmist. He said that a current poll by the well-known evangelical pollster George Barna found that 5 percent of teenagers were Bible-believing Christians. Some criticize Mr. Barna’s methodology, however, for defining “Bible-believing” so narrowly that it excludes most people who consider themselves Christians.
Mr. Luce responded: “If the 4 percent is true, or even the 5 percent, it’s an indictment of youth ministry. So certainly they’re going to want different data.”
Outside the arena in Amherst, the teenagers at Mr. Luce’s Acquire the Fire extravaganza mobbed the tables hawking T-shirts and CD’s stamped: “Branded by God.” Mr. Luce’s strategy is to replace MTV’s wares with those of an alternative Christian culture, so teenagers will link their identity to Christ and not to the latest flesh-baring pop star.
Apparently, the strategy can show results. In Chicago, Eric Soto said he returned from a stadium event in Detroit in the spring to find that other teenagers in the hallways were also wearing “Acquire the Fire” T-shirts.
“You were there? You’re a Christian?” he said the young people would say to one another. “The fire doesn’t die once you leave the stadium. But it’s a challenge to keep it burning.”
Garrison Keillor: Walkie-Talkie Methodists & The Legalization Of Torture
Image from Annoy.com
This article is essential. Via TruthOut [Thanks John]:
Congress's Shameful Retreat From American Values By Garrison Keillor
I would not send my college kid off for a semester abroad if I were you. Last week, we suspended human rights in America, and what goes around comes around. Ixnay habeas corpus.
The U.S. Senate, in all its splendor and majesty, decided that an "enemy combatant" is any non-citizen whom the president says is an enemy combatant, including your Korean greengrocer or your Swedish grandmother or your Czech au pair, and can be arrested and held for as long as authorities wish without any right of appeal to a court of law to examine the matter. If your college kid were to be arrested in Bangkok or Cairo, suspected of "crimes against the state" and held in prison, you'd assume that an American foreign service officer would be able to speak to your kid and arrange for a lawyer, but this may not be true anymore. Be forewarned.
The Senate also decided it's up to the president to decide whether it's OK to make these enemies stand naked in cold rooms for a couple of days in blinding light and be beaten by interrogators. This is now purely a bureaucratic matter: The plenipotentiary stamps the file "enemy combatants" and throws the poor schnooks into prison and at his leisure he tries them by any sort of kangaroo court he wishes to assemble and they have no right to see the evidence against them, and there is no appeal. This was passed by 65 senators and will now be signed by President Bush, put into effect, and in due course be thrown out by the courts.
It's good that Barry Goldwater is dead because this would have killed him. Go back to the Senate of 1964 - Goldwater, Dirksen, Russell, McCarthy, Javits, Morse, Fulbright - and you won't find more than 10 votes for it.
None of the men and women who voted for this bill has any right to speak in public about the rule of law anymore, or to take a high moral view of the Third Reich, or to wax poetic about the American Ideal. Mark their names. Any institution of higher learning that grants honorary degrees to these people forfeits its honor. Alexander, Allard, Allen, Bennett, Bond, Brownback, Bunning, Burns, Burr, Carper, Chambliss, Coburn, Cochran, Coleman, Collins, Cornyn, Craig, Crapo, DeMint, DeWine, Dole, Domenici, Ensign, Enzi, Frist, Graham, Grassley, Gregg, Hagel, Hatch, Hutchison, Inhofe, Isakson, Johnson, Kyl, Landrieu, Lautenberg, Lieberman, Lott, Lugar, Martinez, McCain, McConnell, Menendez, Murkowski, Nelson of Florida, Nelson of Nebraska, Pryor, Roberts, Rockefeller, Salazar, Santorum, Sessions, Shelby, Smith, Specter, Stabenow, Stevens, Sununu, Talent, Thomas, Thune, Vitter, Voinovich, Warner.
To paraphrase Sir Walter Scott: Mark their names and mark them well.
For them, no minstrel raptures swell. High though their titles, proud their name, boundless their wealth as wish can claim, these wretched figures shall go down to the vile dust from whence they sprung, unwept, unhonored and unsung.
Three Republican senators made a show of opposing the bill and after they'd collected all the praise they could get, they quickly folded. Why be a hero when you can be fairly sure that the court will dispose of this piece of garbage.
If, however, the court does not, then our country has taken a step toward totalitarianism. If the government can round up someone and never be required to explain why, then it's no longer the United States as you and I always understood it. Our enemies have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They have made us become like them.
I got some insight last week into who supports torture when I went down to Dallas to speak at Highland Park Methodist Church. It was spooky. I walked in, was met by two burly security men with walkie-talkies, and within 10 minutes was told by three people that this was the Bushes' church and that it would be better if I didn't talk about politics. I was there on a book tour for "Homegrown Democrat," but they thought it better if I didn't mention it. So I tried to make light of it: I told the audience, "I don't need to talk politics. I have no need even to be interested in politics - I'm a citizen, I have plenty of money and my grandsons are at least 12 years away from being eligible for military service." And the audience applauded! Those were their sentiments exactly. We've got ours, and who cares?
The Methodists of Dallas can be fairly sure that none of them will be snatched off the streets, flown to Guantanamo Bay, stripped naked, forced to stand for 48 hours in a freezing room with deafening noise. So why should they worry? It's only the Jews who are in danger, and the homosexuals and gypsies. The Christians are doing fine. If you can't trust a Methodist with absolute power to arrest people and not have to say why, then whom can you trust?
'God Hates Fags' Cancels Plans To Picket Amish Funeral
Turns out, Fox News tool, Mike Gallagher, has agreed to give them air time on his radio show instead. From Fox
Gallagher said that church officials would have to sign a document making them liable for the airtime if they broke their promise not to demonstrate.
"It's awful for me to give up an hour of my radio show ... but I think it’s worth the sacrifice to keep them away," Gallagher said.
Now this will undoubtedly be a BIGGER story because of Gallagher.
The insanity of Fred Phelps' group is astonishing. Here's a quote attributed to his daughter:
Everyone is sitting around talking about those poor little girls -- blah, blah, blah -- they brought the wrath upon themselves... [the Amish] don't serve God, they serve themselves."
National Association of Evangelicals: "Give Mr. Hastert A Break"
Richard Cizic, the vice president for governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals
Ted Haggard's sidekick, Richard Cizic, finally addressed Foleygate on NPR. Turns out, the leaders of the largest coalition of evangelicals in America, the NAE, are willing to give Hastert "a break." Evidently, being the key player in the cover-up of a sexual predator is no big deal:
"I give Mr. Hastert a break here and say he did what he probably should have done."
Cizic went on to say that only a "small percentage" of evangelicals will be "turned off" to the GOP by the scandal.
"There are other issues that will impact their vote, but I'm not sure this one will"
Haggard calls the NAE “the representative of evangelicalism worldwide." Let's hope not.
Radical Right On Foleygate: Investigate The "October Surprise" Orchestrated By The Media And The "Homosexual Networks"
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (no relation to Anthony Perkins of Psycho)
The Radical Right's reaction to the Foley scandal is getting progressively more disgusting. First, they blamed Foleygate on the Internet. Then they blamed the gays and political correctness. Now, they want to divert attention away from the GOP cover-up by demanding an investigation of the "outside help" responsible for an alleged October Surprise. [From Focus on the Family's primary DC lobby, Family Research Council]:
...the media and homosexual networks, also owe a public account, because they have helped turn what could have been one man's tragedy last year into this year's politics-laden "October surprise." Congress should authorize its own internal investigation, make it fully independent, and empower it to look at everything, including the role of outside groups. If we've learned anything about members of Congress gone wild, it's that they usually have plenty of "outside help."
The homosexual networks?! The only homosexual network we know of is the "Christian" Trinity Broadcasting Network.
Our DOBSON COUNTER is still ticking.... there's still been no mention of Dennis Hastert's wrongdoing by the king of the "values voters," James Dobson. As we've said before, is there any doubt he'd be on a rampage had the Foley cover-up been orchestrated by Democrats?
Pastors Blatantly Defying The Law To Get Out The Vote For The GOP
Rev. Rick Scarborough, the Patriot Pastor
The LA Times has a great overview of what's currently going on:
With a pivotal election five weeks away, leaders on the religious right have launched an all-out drive to get Christians from pew to voting booth. Their target: the nearly 30 million Americans who attend church at least once a week but did not vote in 2004.
Their efforts at times push legal limits on church involvement in partisan campaigns. That is by design. With control of Congress at stake Nov. 7, those guiding the movement say they owe it to God and to their own moral principles to do everything they can to keep social conservatives in power.
Preachers "ought to put their toe right on the line," said Mathew D. Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit law firm that supports conservative Christian causes.
The Rev. Rick Scarborough, a leading evangelical in Texas, has recruited 5,000 "patriot pastors" nationwide to promote an agenda that aligns neatly with Republican platforms. "We urge them to avoid legal entanglement, but there are times in a pastor's life when he needs to take a biblical stand," Scarborough said. "Our higher calling is to Christ."
The campaign encourages individual pastors to use sermons, Bible studies and rallies to drive Christians to the polls -- and, by implication or outright endorsement, to Republican candidates. One online guide to discussing the election in church, produced by the Focus on the Family ministry, offers this tip: If a congregant says her top concerns are healthcare and national security, suggest that Jesus would make abortion and gay marriage priorities.
At a recent rally in Pennsylvania, Focus on the Family founder James C. Dobson told a crowd of 3,000 that it would be "downright frightening" if Republicans lost control of Congress. If there's a good Christian on the ballot, he said, failing to vote "would be a sin."
The law restricting political activity of churches and charities dates to 1954, when then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson pushed it through in a pique of anger over a nonprofit's effort to derail his reelection. Tax-exempt organizations, including churches, may not participate or intervene in political campaigns on behalf of any candidate. Intervention is broadly defined as "any and all activities that favor or oppose one or more candidate for public office," according to the Internal Revenue Service.
That sounds straightforward. In practice, though, there are many ways around the restriction, as the faithful recognize.
"If the pastor is doing the right job, the people will automatically vote for the right person," said Gale Wollenberg, who belongs to a conservative evangelical church in Topeka, Kan.
Perhaps the biggest loophole is that churches can campaign on policy issues -- even if that effort benefits a particular candidate. Scarborough, for instance, has spent a great deal of time far from his Texas parish, rallying Christian voters against an initiative promoting embryonic stem-cell research in Missouri. At his events, Scarborough makes a point not to mention Missouri's Republican Sen. Jim Talent, who is in a tight fight for reelection.
But in private, he says candidly that he expects -- and hopes -- his efforts will give Talent a boost. "If a pro-life candidate benefits from Christians being involved, to God be the glory," Scarborough said.
Pastors can further help their favored candidates by distributing "issue-oriented" voter guides in church, a tactic used for years among secular (often left-leaning) groups such as the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and adapted to faith communities by the Christian Coalition in the 1990s.
The voter pamphlets are supposed to be neutral, but often present issues through a distinctly partisan lens. A guide distributed by a conservative group in Minnesota in 2004 laid out the candidates' views on aborting "unborn babies." One produced this year by the liberal evangelical group Sojourners describes immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops as the only way to bring peace to Iraq.
Pastors have a right to work directly for candidates on their own time, as long as they don't use church resources. In a recent article aimed at evangelical preachers, Staver wrote that they "should feel free" to go even further and endorse a candidate from the pulpit because he thought the IRS law was unconstitutional. He repeatedly noted that the IRS had rarely sanctioned churches. The Church at Pierce Creek in Binghamton, N.Y., is the only one ever to lose its tax-exempt certification, for sponsoring newspaper ads that opposed presidential candidate Bill Clinton.
Far more often, IRS agents resolve complaints by training church leaders to avoid future missteps, said Lois G. Lerner, who directs the IRS unit for tax-exempt groups. In 2004, the IRS resolved dozens of complaints this way, including such blatant violations as churches donating to a candidate's campaign or placing political signs on their property.
Given the slim chance of serious sanction, "I encourage pastors to exchange their muzzles for megaphones," Staver wrote in the Rev. Jerry Falwell's monthly newspaper, the National Liberty Journal.
Political preaching has been particularly fervent this season in Ohio, where two conservative mega-churches have promoted the Republican candidate for governor, J. Kenneth Blackwell. They've featured him in at least six rallies that blended patriotic appeals with Christian revival.
Yet the latest poll shows Blackwell trailing by 19 points. In part, that's because Ohio voters seem to be in an anti-Republican mood, after scandals involving state GOP politicians. It also shows that a pastor's influence only goes so far.
Many on the Christian right credit their aggressive mobilization, similar to this fall's campaign, with securing President Bush's reelection. And turnout among evangelical voters did jump 9% from 2000 to 2004.
But two religious groups that heavily back Democrats also came out in droves: Turnout was up 15% among Jews and 13% among mainline Protestants who attend liberal churches, according to surveys conducted by John C. Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Overall turnout was up 4 points.
"It's really difficult to parse out" the effectiveness of the religious right's mobilization in 2004 "because it was such an intense campaign," Green said. "It does seem to bear fruit, but it varies a great deal from congregation to congregation."
Church-based campaigning may have been most influential in voters' choice of candidate. Bush won 78% of the evangelical vote in 2004, up from 68% in his first presidential bid. And evangelicals were far more likely than any other group of voters to say that religion was the most important factor in their political thinking.
Voter education from the church "can be enormously effective," said Colin Hanna, who directs the Pennsylvania Pastors Network. The group of 850 seeks to mobilize voters against "abortion and other evils," according to its website.
Some of this fall's efforts are aimed at energizing politically active but disillusioned Republicans who might otherwise stay home. But Hanna is particularly eager to reach the 30 million regular churchgoers, and an overlapping group of 19 million evangelicals, who did not vote in 2004. Their indifference to politics is "either a tragedy or a scandal," he said, but he's certain it can be overcome.
Liberals, too, see potential in mingling faith and politics. Black churches have a long history of political activism from the pulpit, dating to the civil rights movement -- but their efforts did not boost voter turnout in 2004. This time around, other Christians, including liberal Catholics, are jumping in to try to energize the religious left.
They plan to distribute more than 1 million voter guides urging Christians to evaluate candidates based on issues such as poverty and global warming. A new consulting firm, Common Good Strategies, aims to help Democratic candidates make stronger pitches to communities of faith.
For the most part, however, the left is far behind the right: "They've got organization and discipline that we don't really have yet," said Jack Pannell of Sojourners. "It may take us a generation."
With both the left and the right pursuing faith-based strategies, the IRS issued a warning in February that churches may be in danger of becoming "arms of political campaigns and parties." Agents are looking into about 40 reported violations by churches and other tax-exempt nonprofits. A few are holdovers from 2004, including the high-profile probe into an antiwar sermon at a liberal Pasadena church. But new allegations continue to come in at a brisk clip.
Liberal clergy in Ohio have filed a protest about the pastors' efforts on behalf of Blackwell. On the right, the website http://www.ratoutachurch.org is recruiting volunteers to report partisan activity from the pulpit that favors Democrats.
Melissa Rogers, a visiting professor of religion and public policy at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., says she expects more complaints as the election approaches. In their zeal to bring politics into the pews, some religious leaders "have made a decision to walk on the razor's edge of the law," she said. "Or over the edge."
In a press release dated October 3, 2006, the Arlington Group, an umbrella coalition of Religious Right leaders, said: "We are very concerned that the early warnings of Mr. Foley's odd behavior toward young male pages may have been overlooked or treated with deference, fearing a backlash from the radical gay rights movement because of Mr. Foley's sexual orientation. It appears that the integrity of the conservative majority has given way to political correctness, trading the virtues of decency and respect for that of tolerance and diversity. No one should be surprised at the results of such a tragic exchange."
Let's see if I got this right. Foley's indiscretions were swept under the carpet by the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives not because of political considerations which would force the Republican majority to acknowledge the presence of a pedophile among their ranks and might endanger their majority status in the November elections. No, the Foley incident developed into a full-fledged scandal from fears of "a backlash from the radical gay rights movement because of Mr. Foley's sexual orientation." That explains why the speaker of the House and other Republican leaders allowed Foley to remain in office and, presumably, to continue making untoward advances to underage pages.
Please allow me to offer Senator Rick Santorum a hearty Boston welcome to the world of the depraved. It wasn't all that long ago when Santorum, a conservative Republican from Pennsylvania, was blaming our entire city and seemingly every resident within it for the Catholic priest pedophile scandal that was unraveling all across the country.
Those were dark days, here and elsewhere, though we were fortunate enough to have someone like Santorum shed a little bit of his moralistic light. Specifically, here's what he wrote:
"When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political, and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm."
A Santorum spokesman was kind enough to provide even more clarity last year, telling me, `"It's an open secret that you have Harvard University and MIT that tend to tilt to the left in terms of academic biases. I think that's what the senator was speaking to."
So do I. Priests rape young boys, the church hierarchy hushes it up for years, and academics and other assorted Democrats in Boston are to blame. That fact should be obvious to anyone with half a brain, which I think Santorum may have.
So, of course, I find it surprising -- no, make that shocking -- that the center of the storm has shifted from Boston to, of all places, Capitol Hill, and not just any part of Capitol Hill but specifically the offices of the Republican congressional leadership.
The scandal in Washington so mirrors what's happened in Boston and other Catholic dioceses the nation over to the point of being surreal. A rank-and-file member of an organization does wrong by a minor. The hierarchy, in turn, does nothing. Now, rather than a priest, it's a 52-year-old Republican congressman -- or make that a former congressman, given Mark Foley's resignation on Friday. Foley, by the way, has pulled the Patrick Kennedy defense, checking himself into rehab, as if everyone is supposed to applaud the courage of self-awareness.
Update: Late on Monday, three days after Foley's resignation Focus on the Family quietly issued a statement denouncing House dirtbag Foley. Evidently, the Internet's to blame [from Focus on the Family]: "This is yet another sad example of our society's oversexualization, especially as it affects the Internet."
Here's the full Focus on the Family statement [from TPM Cafe]:
Focus on the Family Action Senior Vice President of Government and Public Policy Tom Minnery issued the following statement today about the scandal involving ex-Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla:
"This is not a time to be talking about politics, but about the well-being of those boys who appear to have been victimized by Rep. Foley. If he is indeed guilty of what he is accused of, it is right that he resigned and that authorities are looking into whether criminal charges are warranted.
"This is yet another sad example of our society's oversexualization, especially as it affects the Internet, and the damage it does to all who get caught in its grasp."
From Our Original Monday Morning Post:How long will it take James Dobson, king of the so-called "values voters," to denounce Rep. Foley and the GOP leaders who orchestrated the cover-up. Is there really any doubt he'd be on a rampage had the cover-up been orchestrated by Democrats?
We'll give Dobson the benefit of the doubt and start our timer at 12AM on Saturday, September 30, since the announcement was made late in the day on Friday:
There's been a considerable amount of press in the last year about pastor Mark Driscoll. This 35-year-old pastor is head of the largest church in Washington state. Known as the hipster pastor, Driscoll also runs Club Paradox, an indie music club that has hosted over 700 rock shows with headlining bands that include college radio favorites including Modest Mouse, Death Cab for Cutie, Bright Eyes, and Low. Everyone from Christianity Today to Blender has reported on the pastor, largely without criticism.
Given all the glowing press about Driscoll, I assumed the pastor would be at least somewhat progressive when I spoke with him last December. I was distressed to find the opposite to be true. Driscoll is a homophobe and a misogynist. He also believes that a majority of the population is "predestined" to burn eternally in a "smoldering" place of "torment with burning sulfur."
Driscoll just announced on his blog that "in conjunction with each sermon" this month he will be "modeling a goofy Jesus t-shirt to provide a few additional laughs." [hat tip Jesus Politics]
It's no coincidence that the shirt Driscoll used to illustrate his post contains the phrase "Meek. Mild. As If." That's because Driscoll believes that "Jesus is a God who hates." Jesus was no "limp-wristed hippie" who came to earth "wearing a robe like some fairy" says Driscoll. Here are some other choice quotes from the pastor:
"God hates you... God can't even look at us because he is so disgusted… You have been told that God is loving, gracious, merciful, kind, compassionate, wonderful, and good... That is a lie... God looks down and says 'I hate you, you are my enemy, and I will crush you.'"
"A pacifist has a lot of difficulty reconciling pacifism with scripture."
"After church tonight you will go home and you will eat chicken, not human, because of the spread of Christianity... go to a country where there hasn’t been the spread of Christianity and they’re having human for dinner."
"God hates you," Pastor Mark Driscoll tells his congregation, the largest one in the state of Washington. Addressing a decidedly hip Gen-X crowd of Christian scenesters, Driscoll warned his congregation that not everyone was going to like his sermon:
"God can't even look at us because he is so disgusted... You have been told that God is loving, gracious, merciful, kind, compassionate, wonderful, and good... That is a lie... God looks down and says 'I hate you, you are my enemy, and I will crush you."
A few minutes into the sermon-which spoke of God's "hatred" and "anger" over a hundred times-Driscoll confessed to his adoring young crowd that some people might be too offended to come back after hearing his fire-and-brimstone message.
Unfortunately, losing a few members is not a big concern for the thirty-something pastor. His Seattle-based Mars Hill Church has grown at a rate of 70% per year since opening in 1996. According to Driscoll, they'd added an additional 800 members—mainly trendy twenty-somethings "tapped into Seattle's underground scene"—in the previous month. He's more concerned about where to seat the impending overflow than offending his audience.
Seattle is generally better known for its heathens and wiccans than for its evangelicals. But Mars Hill Church has an appealing hook bringing in the large crowds in this decidedly Blue State town. They operate a secular (albeit booze-free) "hardcore, punk, and indie" nightclub on the same grounds as the church, known as Paradox. They've hosted over 700 shows with headlining bands that include college radio favorites Modest Mouse, Death Cab for Cutie, Bright Eyes, and Low. "This is an indie town," say Driscoll. "And Mars Hill is an indie church."
There's never any preaching or proselytizing at Paradox. Driscoll doesn't want to pull a "bait and switch," he says. Unfortunately, the bait and switch of Mars Hill Church is Driscoll himself. He goes out of his way to seem hip and appealing, but the intolerant doomsday gospel he preaches conjures up visions of a tragic Great White show. Keep your children away from him before he brings out the strychnine cocktails or takes to the stage at Paradox singing his own doctored version of "Jesus Loves You"-like he did recently during a sermon at Mars Hill. "Jesus hates me, it is so," Dricoll sung mocking what he believes to be the song's inherent naivety. He's a Paradox indeed. And by "paradox" we mean "douchebag."
Most Inane Mark Driscoll Quote
"After church tonight you will go home and you will eat chicken, not human, because of the spread of Christianity... go to a country where there hasn't been the spread of Christianity and they're having human for dinner."
A New Kind of Falwell: The Emerging Fundamentalist
Driscoll's says he hates the "F" word, which surprised us given his fondness for its derivatives, "friggin" and "freakin.'" "I'm a freakin' bible thumper," he claims. Still, the "F" word Driscoll is referring to is fundamentalist. The word reminds him of "backwoods preachers" obsessed with alcohol and sexual morays. Driscoll's got no problem with alcohol in moderation and when it comes to sex he's lectured married couples on blow jobs and "how to have a good orgasm." It's a topic that we're delighted, frankly, that fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell have never broached.
But Driscoll's appeal to the young people of Seattle seems to reside in this unorthodox breed of fundamentalism. "I'm theologically conservative and culturally liberal," he says. "Frankly I think it confuses a lot of people." His description of himself all sounds perfectly appealing. That is until you hear Driscoll claim that Jesus was no "limp-wristed hippie" who came to earth "wearing a robe like some fairy," as he did in a recent sermon. Not surprisingly, Driscoll has been described as a frat boy too.
Driscoll Says He's Not a Fundamentalist. You Decide...
— Says he's seen possessed people "totally overtaken" by demons "levitate off the ground."
— Believes the bible literally and says homosexuality is a sin.
— Doesn't believe in evolution and invited The Discovery Institute to lecture at his church.
— Refuses to let women become elders church elders and says they should get spousal approval from their dads before marrying.
— Claims "Jesus is a God who hates."
— Believes most people are predestined by God to spend eternity "smoldering" in hell, a place of "torment with burning sulfur."
— Presumably enjoys stepping on flowers and throwing rocks at bunny rabbits.
Dobson Says Christians Won't Vote For A Super Hot Mormon
Gov. Romney: "a very attractive man"
"I don't believe that conservative Christians in large numbers will vote for a Mormon," said Dobson on Laura Ingraham's syndicated radio show yesterday. He was referring to Governor Romney of Massachusetts, who may run for president in 2008.
He went on to reassure listeners that the Governor was a nice guy. In fact, Dobson thinks he's hot:
"He's a nice guy. He's a very attractive man..." said Dobson.
The question that needs to be answered now is, where is the outrage from the religious right? Focus on the Family derides those who support a woman’s right to choose as “predators” and those who seek to expand tolerance to gay and lesbian Americans as “anti-family”. The Family Research Council claims that homosexual adoption puts children at risk, despite contradictory findings by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
On Friday, after the Foley debacle erupted, the Family Research Council’s daily email alert lacked any mention of Foley and instead praised Sen. Frist for puting forth a bill that would erode a woman’s right to control her own body. READ IT ALL
“Keep the ‘Art’ in ‘Smart’ and ‘Heart,’ ” Sydney McGee had posted on her Web site at Wilma Fisher Elementary School in this moneyed boomtown that is gobbling up the farm fields north of Dallas.
But Ms. McGee, 51, a popular art teacher with 28 years in the classroom, is out of a job after leading her fifth-grade classes last April through the Dallas Museum of Art. One of her students saw nude art in the museum, and after the child’s parent complained, the teacher was suspended.
Although the tour had been approved by the principal, and the 89 students were accompanied by 4 other teachers, at least 12 parents and a museum docent, Ms. McGee said, she was called to the principal the next day and “bashed.”
She later received a memorandum in which the principal, Nancy Lawson, wrote: “During a study trip that you planned for fifth graders, students were exposed to nude statues and other nude art representations.” It cited additional complaints, which Ms. McGee has challenged.
The school board suspended her with pay on Sept. 22.
In a newsletter e-mailed to parents this week, the principal and Rick Reedy, superintendent of the Frisco Independent School District, said that Ms. McGee had been denied transfer to another school in the district, that her annual contract would not be renewed and that a replacement had been interviewed.
The episode has dumbfounded and exasperated many in and out of this mushrooming exurb, where nearly two dozen new schools have been built in the last decade and computers outnumber students three to one.
A representative of the Texas State Teachers Association, which has sprung to Ms. McGee’s defense, calls it “the first ‘nudity-in-a-museum case’ we have seen.”
“Teachers get in trouble for a variety of reasons,” said the association’s general counsel, Kevin Lungwitz, “but I’ve never heard of a teacher getting in trouble for taking her kiddoes on an approved trip to an art museum.”
John R. Lane, director of the museum, said he had no information on why Ms. McGee had been disciplined.
“I think you can walk into the Dallas Museum of Art and see nothing that would cause concern,” Mr. Lane said.
Over the past decade, more than half a million students, including about a thousand from other Frisco schools, have toured the museum’s collection of 26,000 works spanning 5,000 years, he said, “without a single complaint.” One school recently did cancel a scheduled visit, he said. He did not have its name.
The uproar has swamped Frisco school switchboards and prompted some Dallas-area television stations to broadcast images of statues from the museum with areas of the anatomy blacked out.
Ms. Lawson and Mr. Reedy did not return calls. A spokeswoman for the school district referred questions to the school board’s lawyer, Randy Gibbs. Mr. Gibbs said, “there was a parent who complained, relating the complaint of a child,” but he said he did not know details.
In the May 18 memorandum to Ms. McGee, Ms. Lawson faulted her for not displaying enough student art and for “wearing flip-flops” to work; Ms. McGee said she was wearing Via Spiga brand sandals. In citing the students’ exposure to nude art, Ms. Lawson also said “time was not used wisely for learning during the trip,” adding that parents and teachers had complained and that Ms. McGee should have toured the route by herself first. But Ms. McGee said she did exactly that.
In the latest of several statements, the district contended that the trip had been poorly planned. But Mr. Gibbs, the district’s lawyer, acknowledged that Ms. Lawson had approved it.
“This is not about a field trip to a museum,” the principal and superintendent told parents in their e-mail message Wednesday, citing “performance concerns” and other criticisms of Ms. McGee’s work, which she disputes. “The timing of circumstances has allowed the teacher to wave that banner and it has played well in the media,” they wrote.
They took issue with Ms. McGee’s planning of the outing. “No teacher’s job status, however, would be jeopardized based on students’ incidental viewing of nude art,” they wrote.
Ms. McGee and her lawyer, Rogge Dunn, who are exploring legal action, say that her past job evaluations had been consistently superior until the museum trip and only turned negative afterward. They have copies of evaluations that bear out the assertion.
Retracing her route this week through the museum’s European and contemporary galleries, Ms. McGee passed the marble torso of a Greek youth from a funerary relief, circa 330 B.C.; its label reads, “his nude body has the radiant purity of an athlete in his prime.” She passed sculptor Auguste Rodin’s tormented “Shade;” Aristide Maillol’s “Flora,” with her clingy sheer garment; and Jean Arp’s “Star in a Dream.”
None, Ms. McGee said, seemed offensive.
“This is very painful and getting more so,” she said, her eyes moistening. “I’m so into art. I look at it for its value, what each civilization has left behind.”
School officials have not named the child who complained or any particular artwork at issue, although Ms. McGee said her puzzlement was compounded when Ms. Lawson referred at times to “an abstract nude sculpture.”
Ms. McGee, a fifth-generation Texan who has a grown daughter, won a monthly teacher award in 2004 from a local newspaper. She said the loss of her $57,600-a-year job could jeopardize her mortgage and compound her health problems, including a heart ailment.
Some parents have come to Ms. McGee’s defense. Joan Grande said her 11-year-old daughter, Olivia, attended the museum tour.
“She enjoyed the day very much,” Ms. Grande said. “She did mention some nude art but she didn’t make a big deal of it and neither did I.” She said that if Ms. McGee’s job ratings were high before the incident, “something isn’t right” about the suspension.
Another parent, Maijken Kozcara, said Ms. McGee had taught her children effectively.
“I thought she was the greatest,” Ms. Kozcara said. But “knowing Texas, the way things work here” she said of the teacher’s suspension, “I wasn’t really amazed. I was like, ‘Yeah, right.’ ”
"The management of Holy Cross Village at Notre Dame, left, a retirement community in South Bend, Ind., is arguing in court that the development should be exempt from property taxes. The county tax board of appeals disagrees. At Hermitage Estates, right, not far from Holy Cross Village, residents pay an average of about $2,300 in property taxes. “So maybe we should get ourselves a property tax exemption,” says one resident, a member of the county tax appeals board."
Bill McCartney
