Religious Freedom Amendment
| Christian Historical Revisionism |
The United States of America are a Christian Nation. The founding fathers were evangelical Christians. Church-state separation is a liberal myth.
We have all heard these claims, and the culture warriors of the Religious Right never tire of repeating them ad infinitum and ad nauseam. But who created and popularized them in the first place? The answer is a relatively little known Texan Christian Right Activist named David Barton. Barton went so far as to actually make up supporting quotes, such as the following one that is completely bogus, but still circulating in Christian Right circles:
"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." fictional quote attributed to James Madison
Barton's bogus history is embraced by all the Religious Right leaders, including James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy. To debunk him
is to debunk a pillar of Religious Right ideology. I recommend the following resources for closer study:
Barton makes a lucrative living traveling the right wing's lecture circuit where he offers up a cut-and-paste version of U.S. history
liberally sprinkled with gross distortions and, in some cases, outright factual errors. Crowds of fundamentalist Christians from coast to
coast can't get enough of it.
from: David Barton: Master of myth and misinformation
| Religious Freedom Amendment
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The Religious Right claim that the RFA is necessary to "restore" religious freedom to public schools, from which it was supposedly taken away by the courts. The fact is that private prayer is not only allowed in public schools, it is protected under the first amendment. The Supreme Court has never banned prayer from public schools. It has only banned the practice of majoritarian religious coercion through mandatory, state-sanctioned prayer.
| "Our organization is committed to seeing a vote on this before the August recess if possible, and we will spend whatever resources are necessary to mobilize our grassroots network to see that the First Amendment's freedom FOR religion will no longer be translated as freedom FROM religion." Ralph Reed, speaking for the Christian Coalition, 1997 |
With his "Religious Freedom Amendment" website, an official website of the U.S. House, Rep. Istook is abusing the power of his office and the taxpayer's money to promote the Religious Right Agenda.
Update: Ishtook reintroduced his amendment on September 15, 1999. It once again fell far short of the required 2/3 majority. The website has not been updated eversince, and it appears that the "Religious Freedom" amendment is dead for now.
Articles:
| The Culture and Family Insitute |
The Culture and Family Institute is a recent offshoot of Concerned Women for America. CFI's main areas of concern are homosexuality, homosexuality, homosexuality and homosexuality. To head the new institute, the concerned women recruited the "Family Research" Council's long-time resident gaybashing expert, Robert H. Knight. Joining Knight in his anti-gay crusade is Peter LaBarbara, another full-time anti-gay activist formerly employed by the "Family Research" Council.
Knight left FRC because it was no longer nasty enough. A March, 28 AgapePress Article quotes him as saying
"But we got a new boss about five months ago, Ken Conner, who is a trial lawyer from Florida, and Ken has a new vision for Family Research Council. He's incorporating other issues like adoption and elder care and putting them at the forefront [of FRC]. He said he will continue to keep an eye on the homosexual agenda, but that the two of us disagreed on style and tone."
That Knight is a one-trick pony whose sole obsession is homosexuality is apparent from FRC's Farewell which mentiones no achievement other than maligning gays and lesbians.
At the time of this writing, the CFI website is still relatively empty, but we can already find a detailed analysis of the homosexual agenda of the Bush administration! No, they really mean it: Knight and LaBarbera see "homosexual activists" everywhere in the Bush administration, including the Pentagon. Even Ashcroft has supposedly been corrupted by the homosexual agenda and is now "courting the gay lobby". At least their conclusion is quite agreeable: Bush will be a one-term president.
Why the concerned women felt a need for such an outlet defies easy explanation, since the anti-gay propaganda effort of the religious right has long reached saturation level. It is not clear what could be gained from another phony institute whose sole mission is to promote misconceptions and prejudices about gay people.
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Eagle Forum - Phyllis Schlafly
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that was given to our country by a wise God." Phyllis Schlafly source |
Today, the Eagle Forum is a general-purpose propaganda hub which supports all the usual causes of the right, i.e. tax cuts, religious "freedom", school prayer, school vouchers, "parental rights" and SDI. It is anti-Clinton, anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-abortion, anti-UN, anti-China, anti-environment, anti-immigrant and anti-"judicial activism".
Phyllis Schlafly on the Equal Rights Amendment: A Short History of the E.R.A
Phyllis Schlafly: Don't Risk a Constitutional Convention
| Christian Action Network
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CAN event update: CAN has produced a little video of the "shocking" conduct of Disney employees on "gay day", June 5, 1999, which it provides for your viewing pleasure as an mpg video. The tape shows two very good looking men in an erotic dance, but it is neither sexually explicit nor tasteless (which, admittedly, is a matter of subjective perception).
The tape was played during a newsconference at the national press club in Washington on July 8th, 1999, in which Mawyer acted like this dance occured in the park itself, and in plain sight of minors, where in fact it occured in a Disney-owned, adult-only nightclub. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour?
| Operation Rescue |
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"I want you just to let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is
good...We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism."
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Any sane person would expect anti-abortion activists to be strong supporters of birth control, which is the only effective means of preventing abortion. But Operation Rescue is opposed to birth control (see Randall Terry on birth control). Any rational person would also expect anti-abortion groups to be at least neutral towards gays and lesbians, because same-sex relationships do not lead to unwanted pregnancy. But Operation Rescue is virulently anti-gay, and has repeatedly staged anti-gay protests at Disney theme parks. How can one explain this apparent paradox?
The answer is: being against abortion is only a means to advance a broader, anti-sex agenda. For christian fundamentalists, sex is fundamentally evil. Procreation is the only valid excuse for having sex, so any sex that does not lead to procreation is evil. That is why religious "pro-lifers" not only oppose abortion, but also contraception and any kind of sex that does not lead to procreation. It is not about protecting life, and it has never been. It is only about forcing puritan anti-sex values on society.
| Citizens for Excellence in Education
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Citizens for Excellence in Education, founded by Robert Simonds, is a Orange County, CA - based single-issue pressure group that wants to privatize the school system by 2010, in order to
"protect" children from humanism, evolution theory and sexual education.
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"When we get an active Christian parents committee in operation in all districts, we can take complete control of all local
school boards." |
| She Never Said Yes: The Cassie Bernall Myth |
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"In the simple humility of her confession, as in her refusal to deny her faith in the face of evil and death, Cassie indeed rose to
the full stature of both ancient and new Christian martyrs, who recieved a very special baptism in the blood they shed
for the sake of Christ and for the righteousness and justice of His Kingdom. (..) We wanted to also stand up with both God and Cassie and say that it is time for America to put all political views aside and remember that this is one nation under God." (emphasis in the original) source: "Cassie's Call" |
Cassie Bernall was one of the teenagers killed in the Columbine Shooting. As such, her death was no more and no less tragic than the death of every other kid killed at Columbine. Many evangelical Christians believe differently, however. Supposedly, Cassie was asked at gunpoint by the killers whether she believed in God, and she supposedly said yes. In the eyes of many Christians, that makes her a martyr. And with such a marvelous story of Christian martyrdom, the facts become irrelevant.
Such as the fact that (according to the official investigation) Harris and Klebold were driven by indiscriminate hatred and that Cassie would have been killed no matter what, even if she had answered 'no'.
Such as the fact that witness testimony is contradictory, and that it is likely that Cassie was never asked the question and never said "yes".
But, once created, religious myths are hard to dispel, especially when the myth in question can be harnessed for political gain. Christian Fundamentalists like to portray themselves as a persecuted minority, and the alleged martyrdom of Cassie Bernall was just the right evidence. They tried to have it even better, by trying to establish yet another myth: that Harris and Klebold were gay (Falwell said that on national television, and the "Family Research" Council suggested it as well). Now that would have been too good to be true: a good "christian gal" (Beverly LaHaye) killed by two murderous gay misfits. Unfortunately for the Religious Right, the gay myth didn't stick. But the Cassie myth did.
By the time the facts were known, the Cassie myth had already taken on a life of its own. The parents were cashing in big-time by selling a book ("She Said Yes"), and interested evangelical circles were already building the pedestal of St. Cassie, and using this newfound example of christian virtue to step up their youth recruiting campaigns.
In that climate of religious hysteria, telling the public the truth would have required much courage and integrity on the part of the official investigators. Apparently too much - it took months for the truth to be widely known: She Never Said Yes. That fact was revealed to a wide audience by a Salon Magazine article on September 30, 1999.
We now know that Cassie Bernall did not "die for her faith in God". She died because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and not believing in God would not have saved her life. Find out more:
| "Emily Wyant, the young woman who was with Bernall when she died, denies that it happened and tells a much different story. Craig Scott, who started this whole tale, was asked to show where he heard the conversation take place; he pointed to under a table where Valeen Schnurr -- not Cassie Bernall -- had been. Meanwhile, Schnurr says the gunman heard her praying loudly and asked her if she believed in God. Valeen Schnurr said yes. The gunman then spared her life, rather than take it. Nobody at Columbine was shot for being a Christian. " source |