posted on December 17, 2006 12:41:38 PM new
Jerry Falwell
"Blacks, Hispanics, women, etc. are God-ordained minorities who do indeed deserve minority status."
Founder of the Moral Majority (disbanded in 1989)
Founder of Liberty University
Falwell is one of the most outspoken leaders of the religious right. Over the years he has raised $2.5 billion, which he has used in his various campaigns against women's rights, gay rights, and pushing the religious right agenda in our government.
Falwell has been at the center of many controversies over the years including a number of run ins with the Federal Elections Committee and the IRS. Falwell even blamed the events of September 11th, 2001
"on abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America."
"I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!"
-- America Can Be Saved, 1979 pp. 52-53, from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom.
---------------------------------------------
James Dobson
"My observation is that women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership."
Founder of Focus on the Family
James Dobson's radio show, Focus on the Family, broadcasts his extreme rhetoric of "fight abortion, block gay marriages, stop stem cell research" to over 200 million people in 164 countries around the world everyday. The television broadcast of the show is carried on 80 U.S. television stations everyday, giving him enormous political clout.
Focus on the Family's 2000 budget was $128 million. Its' ten magazines reach 2.3 million Americans.
To read more about James Dobson, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dobson.
For more memorable quotes from James Dobson, visit http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/james_dobson.html.
---------------------------------------------
Pat Robertson
"There is no such thing as separation of church and state in the Constitution. It is a lie of the Left and we are not going to take it anymore."
Pat Robertson is without a doubt the most outspoken member of the religious right elite. For nearly 40 years, as the host and founder of the daily Christian talk show, "The 700 Club," a conservative Presidential candidate, and the founder of the two million member strong Christian Coalition, Robertson has been the source of extremely controversial remarks – ranging from disparaging women's rights to advocating the detonation of a nuclear bomb in Washington D.C. While outlandish, hateful, and often laughable remarks are a common characteristic of religious right leaders, Robertson's stand out both because of their particularly aggressive tone and because his remarks go further than just the last row of the local megachurch.
Since 1966 Robertson has hosted the daily Christian talk show "The 700 Club." In 2004, the show averaged a daily audience of 863,000. That is 100,000 viewers more than CNN receives during its primetime programming, and more than three times the number of people who tune into MSNBC during the same timeslot. Robertson uses his show and its influence to unabashedly promote the religious right's agenda. Below find some of the finer examples of Robertson's vision of God, women, liberals and the state of our nation.
The Gospel According To Pat:
* "You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense. I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist. I can love the people who hold false opinions but I don't have to be nice to them." Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," January 14, 1991
* "I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is, period." Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," January 8, 1992
* "(T)he feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." Pat Robertson, 1992 Fund Raising Letter
* (Talking about apartheid South Africa) "I think 'one man, one vote,' just unrestricted democracy, would not be wise. There needs to be some kind of protection for the minority which the white people represent now, a minority, and they need and have a right to demand a protection of their rights." at Robertson, "The 700 Club," March 18, 1992
* "There is no such thing as separation of church and state in the Constitution. It is a lie of the Left and we are not going to take it anymore." Pat Robertson, November 1993 during an address to the American Center for Law and Justice
* "Many of those people involved with Adolf Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals--the two things seem to go together." Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," January 21, 1993
* "Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history." Pat Robertson, 1993 interview with Molly Ivins
* "[Homosexuals] want to come into churches and disrupt church services and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of ministers." Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," January 18, 1995
* "[The National Organization for Women] is saying that in order to be a woman, you've got to be a lesbian." Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," December 3, 1997
* "Maybe we need a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom (home of the State Department) to shake things up." Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," June 2003
* "I think George Bush has the favor of heaven …He's a godly man. He prays on a daily basis. He wants to do what's right before the Lord, and I think God has honored him." Pat Robertson, FOX News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes," November 4, 2004
* "Well, the Lord has some very encouraging news for George Bush ... What I heard is that Bush is now positioned to have victory after victory and that his second term is going to be one of triumph, which is pretty strong stuff. ... He'll have Social Security reform passed. He'll have tax reform passed. He'll have conservative judges on the courts. And that basically he is positioned for a series of dramatic victories which I hope will hearten him and his advisers. They don't have to be timid in this matter because the wind is blowing at his back, and he can move forward boldly and get results." Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," January 3, 2005
* "But I do know that there are going to be vacancies on the Supreme Court, and I think, as far as I can tell, on the circuit courts. The Democrats have filibustered a number of wonderful people, a black woman, a Hispanic immigrant, etc.-- brilliant lawyers, and the Republicans need to break that filibuster. And if they call it the nuclear option-- constitutional option, whatever it is -- get those people confirmed. But the Supreme Court has got to change. They have asserted power never given them under the constitution, and we've got to get back to constitutional democracy, which is what our country was built on." Pat Robertson, "Fox News," March 31, 2005
* "Lord, give us righteous judges who will not try to legislate and dominate this society. Take control, Lord! We ask for additional vacancies on the court." Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," August 2, 2005
* "You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if [Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war... We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with." Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," August 22, 2005
* "Wait a minute, I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should, quote, "take him out," and "take him out" can be a number of things including kidnapping. There are a number of ways to take out a dictator from power besides killing him." Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," August 24, 2005
* "I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city… And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there." Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," Nov. 9, 2005
----------------------------------------------
Gary Bauer
"We are engaged in a social, political, and cultural war. There's a lot of talk in America about pluralism. But the bottom line is somebody's values will prevail. And the winner gets the right to teach our children what to believe."
Former head of the Family Research Council, 2000 Presidential candidate. And now president of the Campaign for Working Families.
Gary Bauer is an active political force, using his organization, Campaign for Working Families (CWF), to provide funds for "Get-Out-The-Vote" efforts on behalf of an array of conservative candidates. In the 2001-2002 election cycle, CWF spent almost $800,000 on various campaigns for John Ashcroft, Trent Lott, Tom Delay, Judge Ray Moore, and others.
Bauer is a vocal advocate for religion in the classroom.
----------------------------------------------
Phyllis Schlafly
"Sex education classes are like in-home sales parties for abortions."
President of the Eagle Forum
Phyllis Schlafly is the female figurehead of the religious right. An active opponent of equal rights, Schlafly wields extraordinary influence.
Phyllis Schlafly uses her organization to push an anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-separation of church and state agenda, even taking the agenda directly to our government where she has testified before more than 50 congressional and state legislative committees. Eagle Forum has an annual budget of $2 million.
To read more about Phyllis Schlafly and the Eagle Forum, visit People for the American Way or Campus Report.
For more memorable quotes from Phyllis Schlafly, visit ThinkExist.com.
---------------------------------------------
Tony Perkins
Family Research Council
"There's more than one way to skin a cat, and there's more than one way to take a black robe off the bench."
While not as well known as many other leaders of the religious right, Tony Perkins runs arguably the most dynamic and influential propaganda machine in the extreme right movement, the 500,000 member strong Family Research Council.
The primary sponsor and organizer of the recent religious-political rallies, Justice Sunday's I & II, Perkins exerts incredible political influence with top conservative leaders, convening high-level Republican strategy meetings attended by the likes of Tom Delay and Bill Frist. Tony Perkins uses this access to power to push a dangerous agenda of intolerance and radical religious dominance.
Tony Perkins' personal agenda includes:
* Conquering the Judicial Branch: "The Court has become increasingly hostile to Christianity, and it poses a greater threat to representative government – more than anything, more than budget deficits, more than terrorist groups."1
Tony Perkins consistently labels the courts as an enemy to be conquered. Prior to the first Justice Sunday, Perkins wrote on the Family Research Council's web page, ''the liberal, anti-Christian dogma of the left has been repudiated in almost every recent election, the courts have become the last great bastion for liberalism.''2 He has called for the disabling of the judicial branch through denying the court funds, "just take away the bench, all of his staff, and he's just sitting out there with nothing to do."3
* Tearing Down the Wall Between Church and State: "I cannot think of a more foundational element of our republic than the Ten Commandments."4
Tony Perkins is a prominent proponent of God in the classroom. As a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives (1996-2004), he authored legislation calling for "a daily time of silent prayer in Louisiana public schools," and created the American History Preservation Act which "prevents censorship of America's Christian heritage in Louisiana public schools."5 Tony Perkins has also campaigned in support of religious symbols on federal property.
* Denying Personal Rights: "In [the Schiavo] case ... I think Congress was compelled to act, and I think that there are going to be other cases like this that will need to be addressed."6
Tony Perkins was the ringleader of a concerted effort between right wing proselytizers and the conservative congressional leadership during their disturbing exploitation of the Terri Schiavo incident in March 2005. He appeared repeatedly in the media arguing for congressional and judicial invasion of Terri and Michael Schiavo's constitutional rights.
* Supporting White Supremacists: In 2001, Tony Perkins addressed the Louisiana chapter of the white supremacist group Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), the successor of the anti-integration white citizen's council. And, in 1996 Tony Perkins paid former Ku Klux Klan wizard David Duke $82,000 for his mailing list.7
Tony Perkin's agenda is, to put it bluntly; terrifying. The danger he poses to the separation of church and state and the freedoms we as Americans hold dear qualify him as the Theocrat of the Month.
THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT IS WRONG! Take Action!
1 Grace, Stephanie, "Failed Politic Gains Weird Clout Over Gop," Times-Picayune, April 26, 2005.
2 Kirkpatrick, David, "Frist Set to Use Religious Stage on Justice Issue," New York Times, April 15, 2005.
3 Wallsten, Peter, "2 Evangelicals Wish to Strip Courts' Funds," Los Angeles Times, April 22, 2005.
4 Alpert, Bruce & Bill Walsh, "ON THE HILL," Times-Picayune, August 31, 2003.
5 People for the American Way
6 Simon, Richard, "The Terri Schiavo Case; Political Aftermath," Los Angeles Times, March 23, 2005.
7 O'Neil Peter, "Warning 'Radical Homosexuals'" Vancouver Sun, July 30, 2005.
---------------------------------------------
Tim LaHaye
"God will destroy this earth that is so marred and cursed by satan's evil."
Since 1995, Tim LaHaye's "Left Behind" series has sold over 65 million copies, making it one of the best-selling adult fiction series in history. While the novels are sold as fiction, according to LaHaye and an increasing number of Americans, the story they tell is nothing less than biblical prophecy born from the Book of Revelation. As LaHaye's theology has gained popularity over the last several decades, so has his access to powerful politicians including President Bush.
The true danger of LaHaye's thinking, known as Premillennial Dispensationalism– exposed powerfully in a series of speeches and articles by Bill Moyers - is in the justification it provides to its followers for damaging policies from environmental degradation to the war in Iraq.
It may sound far-fetched that so outlandish an ideology could be exercising real power over our country and our future. The reality is anything but far-fetched – not when proponents of Dispensationalism hold sway over some of the nation's most powerful politicians, and not when tens-of-millions of Americans consider themselves adherents to its claims.
Let DefCon give you a little background:
* The Rapture: "One of the comments that we've heard that has really blessed us is people have been driven back to the Book of Revelation to prove us wrong only to find that what we said was there." Tim LaHaye.
Premillennial Dispensationalism was fathered by John Darby in 19th century Britain. Based on a literal interpretation of the books of Revelation and Daniel, Premillennial Dispensationalism states that time is divided into seven dispensations, the last of which will be the Millennial Kingdom: a thousand-year period where Christ will reign over a renewed world. According to Darby and LaHaye, the precursor to this "Glorious Appearing" will be a terrible seven-year period of tribulations. During this time, those on Earth, and the planet itself, will suffer death and destruction. There is hope for the faithful, however. LaHaye maintains that prior to the death and destruction, Jesus will collect all true believers, "Rapturing" them up to Heaven, where they will escape the terrible fate of the sinful Earth.
Dispensationalists welcome this period of death and destruction because it is inextricably connected to the Rapture. They look for signs of its coming, and many take steps to hasten what they believe to be biblical prophecy.
* Growing Popularity: Today, preachers and congregations across America have adopted this ideology. Beyond this fact, and the wild success of the "Left Behind" series, there are many signs of its growing support.
A 2004 Newsweek poll found that 55% of Americans believe "that the faithful will be taken up to heaven in the Rapture."
More than a third of Americans (36%) believe the Book of Revelation to be "true prophesy that predicts the end of the world as it will happen."
Websites like www.RaptureReady.com provide daily updates on the status of the "Rapture Index," while www.RaptureLetters.com allows believers to "send an Electronic Message (e-mail) to whomever you want after the Rapture has taken place, and you and I have been taken to heaven."
And, leading religious right leaders publicly discuss the Rapture's imminence, preaching to an estimated 20 to 25 million evangelicals who share this, or a similar version, of end-times theology.
* Access to Power: "I'll tell you what is wrong with America. We don't have enough of God's ministers running the country." Tim LaHaye, 1984.
Beyond the influence Dispensationalism has through its electoral power – some estimate that followers of this ideology compose up to 15% of the electorate – the leading purveyors of this ideology are also very well connected. In 1981 Tim LaHaye founded the Council for National Policy, becoming the organization's first president. Attendees of the Council for National Policy's secretive tri-annual meetings – whose members include leaders of the religious right and top tier conservative organizers – have included President Bush, Sen. Bill Frist, John Ashcroft, Tommy Thompson, and Oliver North. Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were featured speakers at one of the group's meetings only two months after the invasion of Iraq.
A 2004 New York Times article about the Council for National Policy called it "a little-known club of a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in the country," adding that for 23 years they "have met behind closed doors at undisclosed locations for a confidential conference…to strategize about how to turn the country to the right."
As Salon.com's Michelle Goldberg wrote, "The point isn't that all these leaders are part of some kind of right-wing Illuminati. It's simply that the seemingly wacky ideology promulgated in the Left Behind books is one that important people in America are quite comfortable with."
* Justifying Policy: "God will destroy this earth that is so marred and cursed by Satan's evil." Tim LaHaye, 1973.
Dispensationalists' literal interpretation of the Bible means they look for, and often seek to create, the realization of biblical prophecy. Among the most direct results of this are support for abandoning environmental protections and for the war in Iraq.
* As then Secretary of the Interior James Watt stated in 1981, "That is the delicate balance the Secretary of the Interior must have: to be steward for the natural resources for this generation as well as future generations. I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns." (Secretary Watt, testifying before the House Interior Committee, February 1981.)
Dispensationalists' lack of support for environmental protection has two causes. First, the Earth will soon be destroyed, so who cares what we do to it? Secondly, Christ's second coming, and thus the Rapture, requires a scourged Earth. Therefore defiling the planet will only accelerate His return. This explains a large reoccurrence of this theology during the Cold War, when the threat of nuclear annihilation was omnipresent. See Jerry Falwell's "Nuclear War and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ" for an explanation of that phenomenon.
* "At church one day (DeLay) listened as the pastor (John Hagee), urging his flock to support the administration, declared that 'the war between America and Iraq is the gateway to the Apocalypse.' DeLay rose to speak, not only to the congregation but to 225 Christian TV and radio stations. 'Ladies and gentlemen' he said, 'what has been spoken here tonight is the truth of God.'"
LaHaye, John Hagee, and other Dispensationalists contend that the war in Iraq is biblical prophecy, supported by a literal reading of several of the Bible's verses referring to that region of the world. These individuals therefore support the war not for political or social reasons, but rather because it is a biblical requirement for the second coming of Christ, and thus the Rapture. This reality is argued openly by followers, including LaHaye.
The real threat posed by this growing movement is that it remains below the radar screen for most of mainstream America, which is unaware or fails to recognize its gravity. Instead of ridiculing its believers, those who are concerned by its implication and growing power need to begin to understand this theology and to develop strategies for countering its increasing influence.
Speeches and Articles By Bill Moyers:
"Welcome To Doomsday. Never!"
"There is No Tomorrow"
"9/11 And the Sport of God"
More Resources:
"The Godly Must be Crazy" www.Grist.org.
"Who Is The Council For National Policy And What Are They Up To? And Why Don't They Want You To Know?" Americans United For Separation Of Church and State.
"Club of the most powerful gathers in strictest of privacy" The New York Times, 08/28/04
"Writing for Godot: The Bible Foretold It. The War in Iraq Proves It. The End Is Near, Says Christian Activist and Best-Selling Novelist Tim LaHaye, and He's Writing as Fast as He Can" The Los Angeles Times, 04/25/04
"The Evangelical-Jewish Alliance" The Christian Century, 06/28/03
posted on December 17, 2006 05:57:00 PM new
Tim LaHaye is the nuttiest of them all, and he's praying all the way to the bank with the millions he's made off the chumps who read and believe his nonsense.
____________________________________________
May 1, 2003, America brings "democracy" to Iraq. November 7, 2006, Iraq brings democracy to America.
