Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

The blog of the Center for American Progress has a video clip of Rep. Marylyn Musgrave's (R-CO) speech at the Values Voters Summit.

Musgrave declared that gay marriage "is the most important issue that we face today." She told the audience that "when you're in a cultural war like this, you have to respond with equal and hopefully greater force if you want to win," and warned that the "future is grim" if gay marriage is not banned.

Wall of Separation

Jeremy Leaming also has a run down of the FRC hoedown -- noting that Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State was

a favorite target throughout the event. By the middle of the second day, one speaker, the Rev. Herb Lusk, suggested that Lynn should not be discussed further. "The enemy is out there," Lusk bellowed. "We know who our enemy is. The more you call the enemy's name, the larger he becomes."

But not everyone got the memo. During a session later that afternoon, the Rev. Rick Scarborough, a Texas pastor and a loud proponent of the so-called "war on Christians," blasted Lynn for opposing church-based politicking. For good measure, Scarborough called the separation of church and state a "bald-faced lie."

John Sugg

Meanwhile, John Sugg attended a Conference of an overlapping, but different kind last summer, hosted by leading Christian Reconstructionist author, Christian nationalist, home school textbook entrepreneuer, among other things, Gary DeMar. John blogged about it at the time:

My column this week is about a conference of theocrats held in Toccoa, Ga., two weeks ago. My print column runs about 950 words -- and this conference deserved a lot more. After all, any time a bunch of folks sit around discussing an overthrow of the established order, we ought to pay attention.

Here are some of my notes from the conference. At the heart of what was taught:
    * Six-day, "young Earth" creationism is the only acceptable doctrine for Christians.
    * Public education is satanic and must be destroyed.
    * The First Amendment was intended to keep the federal government from imposing a national religion, but states should be free to foster a religious creed.
    * The Founding Fathers intended to protect only the liberties of the established fundamentalist denominations of that time. Expanding the list to include "liberal" Protestant denominations, much less Catholics, Jews and (gasp!) atheists, is a corruption of the Founders' intent.

Huffington Post

Here is the video of a dramatic ABC News report on the film Jesus Camp, and a less good but-nevertheless-important discussion of the wider evangelical youth movement.

Religion Clause

Howard Fineman reports: On another aspect of religous youth movements and the public schools.

Today's Miami Herald says that religious clubs are thriving in public schools in South Florida. The Christian group, First Priority, has 80 chapters in Broward and Palm Beach counties, supported by local churches. Jewish and Muslim, as well as Christian groups are on Miami-Dade middle and high school campuses. The federal Equal Access Act requires that such groups be treated in the same way as non-religious extracurricular organizations in public secondary schools.

Blog from the Capital

Don Byrd has a story about yet another public school engaged in prostelityzing thier favorite religious views -- and the inevitable law suit.

Melissa Rogers

Melissa Rogers has a helpful overview of the question of religious discrimination in federally funded social service and grant programs, zeroing in on president Bush's faith based initiative. She predicts big changes if the Democrats take over the congress.

e pluribus media

Renee in Ohio has transcribed a recent talk in Columbus,Ohio, by author Rob Boston, who also works for American United for Separation of Church and State.

We Unite Ohio

Mylifeasadog has the scoop, (as it were), on Ohio Religous Right leader Rod Parsley's latest irresistable offer send him 75 bucks and...

I'll send you the Sword of the Spirit and the Shield of Faith as my thank-you gift!

The Sword of the Spirit!

This stunning sword is a beautiful replica of the sword thought to be wielded by the legendary King Arthur in establishing a unified Christian Great Britain. It is embellished with the beautiful symbol of the cross and comes with a handsome wall display.

The Shield of Faith!

Ephesians 6:16 says, "Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." This beautiful replica battle shield is the perfect accompaniment for display with the Sword of the Spirit, and you can receive both these impressive symbols of the faith-

Talk to Action

Several Talk to Action contributors attended the recent Value Voters Summit.  Here are their first-hand reports from this important event:

Chip Berlet reports:  

The Christian Right has regrouped and launched a new offensive in the ongoing Christian Right Culture War. Gay marriage and the "homosexual agenda" are the primary tactical scapegoats. These culture warriors are on a mission from God, and like a band of blue state brothers (and now sisters), they seek to mobilize "values voters" to go to the polls in November and vote for Godly candidates. They are encouraged by new evidence that this type of Christian Right voter mobilization plan did indeed help elect the Godly candidate, George W. Bush, President in 2004....

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins suggested the nation was under attack from without and within, which was a theme throughout the conference. The domestic forces of Satan--secularists, liberals, homosexuals, feminists, abortionists, pornographers--are the subversives within; while the barbaric terrorist Islamic fascists are the external enemy. Godly "values voters" should remember how they felt on 9/11, and then go into the voting booth and vote to prevent the Democrats from having the opportunity to appoint more activist judges who are wittingly or unwittingly in league with the evil forces of darkness.

Max Blumenthal reports

At the Unofficial Mid-Term Republican National Convention, so-called "value voters" heard jeremiads against liberals, "faggots," and Fallujans before receiving possibly illegal marching orders for November. I covered this event, "Washington Briefing: Value Voters Summit 2006," for the Nation...

Battling for his political life against his Democratic challenger, former Reagan-era Secretary of the Navy Jim Webb, [Sen. George] Allen did his best to endear himself to Dobson's followers, entertaining them with the football metaphors that have become staples of his stump speeches. (Allen's father, George Allen, Sr., of course, was the coach of the Washington Redskins.) "Count on me to be an ally, a teammate," Allen pledged. Then he praised Dobson, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, American United to Preserve Marriage president Gary Bauer and the American Family Association's Don Wildmon, as "The Four Horsemen," a reference to Notre Dame's legendary 1924 backfield.

But as Allen sought to dampen the public controversy over his mishandling of his Jewish heritage, his association with his "Four Horsemen" simply called attention to Dobson's and Perkins' problematic utterances. Dobson's Focus on the Family, for example, published an article in its Citizen Magazine last March attacking the parents of federal judge Stephen Reinhardt (his step-grandfather was a Holocaust survivor) for telling him "tales of" the Holocaust's "horrific violence that lacked the redemptive power of Christ's atonement." The Anti-Defamation League has repeatedly condemned Wildmon for his conspiratorial diatribes against "secular Jews." And Perkins, for his part, paid $82,500 to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke for his phone banking list, and then spoke at a 2001 fundraiser for the Council of Conservative Citizens, America's largest white supremacist organization. (When I asked Perkins about his links to Duke and the CCC, he replied tersely, "There are no links.")

Bruce Wilson reports on Senator James Inhofe's (R-OK) bizarre conspiracy theory that the UN is behind an alleged hoax causing our concern about global warming.

[from Inhofe's speech ]"They chose an issue - this is ingenious - now, I want you to hold hands with the one next to you and stay seated. Understand this, now, a lot of you are going to be real mad at me, because 70% of you out there believe that Global Warming is a reality. Now, let me tell you what what happens. Unless you don't ever...By the way, that this.... I thought it was until 3 1/2 years ago, I didn't know any better. But, uh, Let me just give you a little background because I'm going to make a request of you in a minute, staying within my time frame here. Uh, it was started really by the United Nations, the same group that starts almost anything else that's bad. [loud applause ]

But of course, there is always much to blog about the religious right, beyond events Inside the Beltway:

John Gorenfeld has the amazing story of the strange relationship between U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rev.Sun Myung Moon -- which includes Hatch composing as song for the man some call Messiah.

Carlos thinks those of us who are concerned about the religious right ought to know more about evangelicalism, and he has some suggestions as to how we can get less ignorant.

Moiv launched her new Thursday round up of news about the antiabortion wing of the religious right. She calls it Fresh Hell.