Planned Parenthood Gunman Admits Religious Motive

While the couple who waged the attack on the San Bernadino social services office never left clear clues of their motive in the terror attack, Robert Lewis Dear, the gunman at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood facility more or less confirmed that he is a Christian terrorist - something the talking heads on the right and Republican politicians continue to refuse to admit exists.  More specifically, he exclaimed that he was a "warrior for the babies" - a phrase that correlates with the Christofascist manta that abortion is the murder of babies.  Not, of course, that the same godly folk give a damn for children once that are no longer in the womb as evidenced by their support for GOP policies that throw poor children off of assistance programs and that would deprive poor children of access to health care.  KKTV-11 has details on Dear's confession of sorts.  Here are details:

Family members of UCCS Officer Garrett Swasey and Iraq veteran Ke'arre Stewart were in the courtroom as Dear learned what charges he would face for allegedly killing their loved ones.

Dear made multiple outbursts during the court session--our reporter counted nearly 20--including declaring he was a "warrior for the babies" and accusing his own public defender of wanting to drug him.

Though investigators have not publicly released a motive, Dear heavily eluded to one with frequent references to abortion.  "Protect babies!" he exclaimed once.

"Can you add the babies that had been aborted that day, can you add that to the list?" he yelled another time while lawyers and the judge deliberated whether a list of victims' names should be made public.

Dear claimed his public defender was in cahoots with Planned Parenthood, suggesting that by trying to seal documents, the lawyer was trying to hide what Dear saw inside the building to protect the clinic.

Robert Dear faces 179 counts for allegedly storming a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood on a snowy Black Friday afternoon and gunning down 12 people.

Dear is accused of killing three and injuring nine in the shooting rampage. More than 300 people were locked down in the nearby shopping center as the suspect--who police believe was Dear--engaged in a fire fight with officers for four terrifying hours.

Dear and the San Bernadino shooters share one thing in common.  If Republicans want Muslims to have to register, they should similarly require that far right Christians register with authorities so that Christian terrorism can be controlled.

Ted Cruz's Hypocrisy on Christian Extremism

There's much to dislike - perhaps even hate - about most of the would be 2016 Republican presidential nominees.  But in many ways the most frightening is Ted Cruz. The man is not stupid, but then again, neither has Adolph Hitler.  Both are, in my view, equally mentally disturbed int their own way.  And both are only too willing to lie and play on prejudices to further their own egomaniacal ambitions.  With Hitler, the target of his hypocrisy and cynicism was the Jews.  With Cruz, it is gays and immigrants.   Perhaps Cruz's biggest lie of late (and there are so many) is that there’s “no meaningful risk of Christians committing terrorist attacks."   This after Cruz attended a gathering of hate filled extremists who want to execute gays.  Here are highlights from the Washington Blade:

Just days after attending an Iowa conference hosted by an evangelical media personality who called for the death penalty for gays, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz now says there’s “no meaningful risk” of Christians committing terrorist attacks.

“There is no meaningful risk of Christians committing acts of terror,” Cruz is quoted as saying in the Washington Post. “If there were a group of radical Christians pledging to murder anyone who had a different religious view than they, we would have a different national security situation.”

The U.S. senator from Texas made the remarks Sunday in the early primary state of South Carolina in the context of explaining his view that Muslim refugees from Syria should be barred from the United States, but borders should be open to displaced Christians.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush also said Sunday assistance for Middle East refugees should be focused on Christians.

“We should focus our efforts as it relates to refugees on the Christians that are being slaughtered,” Bush said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Cruz’s comments ignore the call made at the recent National Religious Liberty Conference by Iowa evangelical leader Kevin Swanson, who delivered a fiery tirade in favor of the government rounding up gay people and executing them in the name of Christianity.

Cruz appeared on the same stage as Swanson at the event along with fellow GOP presidential hopefuls Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal. Each of these candidates has remained silent on the views expressed by Swanson and their campaigns haven’t responded to a request for comment from the Washington Blade on whether they’d repudiate the remarks.

The Cruz campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment on why the candidate thinks there’s no “meaningful risk” of Christians committing terrorism in the aftermath of Swanson’s remarks.

America’s 10 Worst Terror Attacks by Far Right Extremists and Christian Fundamentalists

If one only listens to Fox News and various right wing news outlets, one would quickly believe that only Muslims commit terror attacks and atrocities.  However, a post at Civil Commotion sets one on the right path:

There is something here that needs to be faced: Islam today is what Christianity once was — domineering and brutal. The Roman church ruled the West for 1000-years, and gave us the grotesque indecencies of the Inquisition, the witch burnings, and the auto da fe (sometimes claiming the lives of dozens in a single huge fire); it did not, inspired by its own teachings, end violence. It was secularism that tamed Christianity, the [Albert] Mohlers and [former Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin] Cochrans of the past, and secularism is more needful than ever as they come to grips with the fact that their backward-looking worldview has lost to the progress of knowledge.

The pious Christian crowd and Fox News followers obviously won't like hearing the truth.  A piece in The Raw Story  reminds us of some of the heinous deeds done by fundamentalist Christians and elements of the far right.  Here are highlights:

From Fox News to the Weekly Standard, neoconservatives have tried to paint terrorism as a largely or exclusively Islamic phenomenon. Their message of Islamophobia has been repeated many times since the George W. Bush era: Islam is inherently violent, Christianity is inherently peaceful, and there is no such thing as a Christian terrorist or a white male terrorist. But the facts don’t bear that out. Far-right white male radicals and extreme Christianists are every bit as capable of acts of terrorism as radical Islamists, and to pretend that such terrorists don’t exist does the public a huge disservice. . . . many terrorist attacks in the United States have been carried out by people who were neither Muslims nor dark-skinned.

In fact, most of the terrorist activity occurring in the United States in recent years has not come from Muslims, but from a combination of radical Christianists, white supremacists and far-right militia groups.

Below are 10 of the worst examples of non-Islamic terrorism that have occurred in the United States in the last 30 years.

1. Wisconsin Sikh Temple massacre, Aug. 5, 2012. The virulent, neocon-fueled Islamophobia that has plagued post-9/11 America has not only posed a threat to Muslims, it has had deadly consequences for people of other faiths, including Sikhs. . . . .  On Aug. 5, 2012, white supremacist Wade Michael Page used a semiautomatic weapon to murder six people during an attack on a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Page’s connection to the white supremacist movement was well-documented . . .

2. The murder of Dr. George Tiller, May 31, 2009. Imagine that a physician had been the victim of an attempted assassination by an Islamic jihadist in 1993, and received numerous death threats from al-Qaeda after that, before being murdered by an al-Qaeda member. Neocons, Fox News and the Christian Right would have had a field day. A physician was the victim of a terrorist killing that day, but neither the terrorist nor the people who inflamed the terrorist were Muslims. Dr. George Tiller, who was shot and killed by anti-abortion terrorist Scott Roeder on May 31, 2009, was a victim of Christian Right terrorism, not al-Qaeda.

3. Knoxville Unitarian Universalist Church shooting, July 27, 2008. On July 27, 2008, Christian Right sympathizer Jim David Adkisson walked into the Knoxville Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee during a children’s play and began shooting people at random. Two were killed, while seven others were injured but survived. Adkisson said he was motivated by a hatred of liberals, Democrats and gays, and he considered neocon Bernard Goldberg’s book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America, his political manifesto. 

4. The murder of Dr. John Britton, July 29, 1994. To hear the Christian Right tell it, there is no such thing as Christian terrorism. Tell that to the victims of the Army of God, a loose network of radical Christianists with a long history of terrorist attacks on abortion providers. One Christian Right terrorist with ties to the Army of God was Paul Jennings Hill, who was executed by lethal injection on Sept. 3, 2003 for the murders of abortion doctor John Britton and his bodyguard James Barrett. Hill shot both of them in cold blood and expressed no remorse whatsoever; he insisted he was doing’s God’s work and has been exalted as a martyr by the Army of God.

5. The Centennial Olympic Park bombing, July 27, 1996. Paul Jennings Hill is hardly the only Christian terrorist who has been praised by the Army of God; that organization has also praised Eric Rudolph, who is serving life without parole for a long list of terrorist attacks committed in the name of Christianity. Rudolph is best known for carrying out the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics—a blast that killed spectator Alice Hawthorne and wounded 111 others. 

6. The murder of Barnett Slepian by James Charles Kopp, Oct. 23, 1998. Like Paul Jennings Hill, Eric Rudolph and Scott Roeder, James Charles Kopp is a radical Christian terrorist who has been exalted as a hero by the Army of God. On Oct. 23, 1998 Kopp fired a single shot into the Amherst, NY home of Barnett Slepian (a doctor who performed abortions), mortally wounding him. Slepian died an hour later.

7. Planned Parenthood bombing, Brookline, Massachusetts, 1994. Seldom has the term “Christian terrorist” been used in connection with John C. Salvi on AM talk radio or at Fox News, but it’s a term that easily applies to him. In 1994, the radical anti-abortionist and Army of God member attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic in Brookline, Massachusetts, shooting and killing receptionists Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols and wounding several others.  . . . .  The Army of God has exalted Salvi as a Christian martyr and described Lowney and Nichols not as victims of domestic terrorism, but as infidels who got what they deserved. 

8. Suicide attack on IRS building in Austin, Texas, Feb. 18, 2010. When Joseph Stack flew a plane into the Echelon office complex (where an IRS office was located), Fox News’ coverage of the incident was calm and matter-of-fact. Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa seemed to find the attack amusing and joked that it could have been avoided if the federal government had followed his advice and abolished the IRS. Nonetheless, there were two fatalities: Stack and IRS employee Vernon Hunter.

9. The murder of Alan Berg, June 18, 1984. One of the most absurd claims some Republicans have made about white supremacists is that they are liberals and progressives. That claim is especially ludicrous in light of the terrorist killing of liberal Denver-based talk show host Alan Berg, a critic of white supremacists who was killed with an automatic weapon on June 18, 1984. The killing was linked to members of the Order, a white supremacist group that had marked Berg for death. Order members David Lane (a former Ku Klux Klan member who had also been active in the Aryan Nations) and Bruce Pierce were both convicted in federal court on charges of racketeering, conspiracy and violating Berg’s civil rights and given what amounted to life sentences.

10. Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing, April 19, 1995. Neocons and Republicans grow angry and uncomfortable whenever Timothy McVeigh is cited as an example of a non-Islamic terrorist. Pointing out that a non-Muslim white male carried out an attack as vicious and deadly as the Oklahoma City bombing doesn’t fit into their narrative that only Muslims and people of color are capable of carrying out terrorist attacks. . . . . Prior to the al-Qaeda attacks of 9/11, the Oklahoma City bombing McVeigh orchestrated was the most deadly terrorist attack in U.S. history: 168 people were killed and more than 600 were injured.

The foregoing is not intended to diminish the heinous nature of the terror attacks in Paris last week.   But, if one reads the excerpts above, one thing becomes quickly apparent: most of the terror attacks, like in the Paris attacks, were motivated at least in part by fundamentalist religious belief.   Yes, we need to rid the world of Islamic extremism.  We also need to rid the world of fundamentalist Christian extremism as well.

The Christian Terrorist Movement No One Wants To Talk About

I've often noted the parallels between far right Christian fundamentalists who seem to hate nearly everyone and the murderous Islamic fundamentalist of ISIS.  Baptist Pastor Steven Anderson's  suggestion that all gays should be killed is a case in point.  Interestingly, as reported by Addicting Information on a flight back from a trip to Turkey Pope Francis drew a parallel between Christian Fundamentalists and Islamic terror groups such as ISIS when a reporter sought to elicit a condemnation of Islam from Francis.  Indeed, Francis retorted: “You just can’t say that, just as you can’t say that all Christians are fundamentalists. We have our share of them (fundamentalists). All religions have these little groups.”  

Pope Francis was on to something.  Sadly, here in America, most journalists and news outlets refuse to reveal to the public the truth about Christian terrorist groups.  Yet again, religion and its followers are given undeserved deference.  Think Progress looks at a frightening and growing Christian terrorist movement in America.  Here are excerpts:

Last Friday, Larry McQuilliams was shot and killed by police after unleashing a campaign of violence in Austin, Texas, firing more than 100 rounds in the downtown area before making a failed attempt to burn down the Mexican Consulate. The only casualty was McQuilliams himself, who was felled by officers when he entered police headquarters, but the death toll could have been far greater: McQuilliams, who was called a “terrorist” by Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo, had several weapons, hundreds of rounds of ammunition. . . .

While the impetus for McQuilliams’ onslaught remains unclear, local authorities recently announced that he may have been motivated by religion — but not the one you might think. According to the Associated Press, police officers who searched McQuilliams’ van found a copy of “Vigilantes of Christendom,” a book connected with the Phineas Priesthood, an American white supremacist movement that claims Christian inspiration and opposes interracial intercourse, racial integration, homosexuality, and abortion. Phineas priests take their name from the biblical figure Phinehas in the book of Numbers, who is described as brutally murdering an Israelite man for having sex with a foreign woman, who he also kills. Members of the Phineas Priesthood — which people “join” simply by adopting the views of the movement — are notoriously violent, and some adherents have been convicted of bank robberies, bombing abortion clinics, and planning to blow up government buildings. Although McQuilliams didn’t leave a letter explaining the reason for his attack, a handwritten note inside the book described him as a “priest in the fight against anti-God people.”

[H]is association with the hateful religious group highlights a very real — but often under-reported — issue: terrorism enacted in the name of Christ.

To be sure, violent extremism carried out by people claiming to be Muslim has garnered heaps of media attention in recent years, with conservative pundits such as Greta Van Susteren of Fox News often insisting that Muslim leaders publicly condemn any acts of violence perpetrated in the name of Islam (even though many already have).

But there is a long history of terrorist attacks resembling McQuilliams’ rampage across Austin — where violence is carried out in the name of Christianity — in the United States and abroad. In America, the Ku Klux Klan is well-known for over a century of gruesome crimes against African Americans, Catholics, Jews, and others — all while ascribing to what they say is a Christian theology.
[R]ecent decades have also given rise to several “Christian Identity” groups, loose organizations united by a hateful understanding of faith whose members spout scripture while engaging in horrifying acts of violence. For example, various members of The Order, a militant group of largely professed Mormons whose motto was a verse from the book of Jeremiah, were convicted for murdering Jewish talk show host Alan Berg in 1984; the “Army of God”, which justifies their actions using the Bible, is responsible for bombings at several abortion clinics, attacks on gay and lesbian nightclubs, and the explosion at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia; and Scott Roeder cited the Christian faith as his motivation for killing George Tiller — a doctor who performed late-term abortions — in 2009, shooting the physician in the head at point-blank range while he was ushering at church.

Yet unlike the accusatory responses to domestic jihadist incidents such as the Fort Hood massacre, news of McQuilliams’ possible ties to the Christian Identity movement has yet to produce a reaction among prominent conservative Christians. Greta Van Susteren, for instance, has not asked Christian leaders such as Pope Francis, Rick Warren, or Billy Graham onto her show to speak out against violence committed in name of Christ. Rather, the religious affiliation of McQuilliams, like the faith of many right-wing extremists, has largely flown under the radar, as he and others like him are far more likely to be dismissed as mentally unstable “lone wolfs” than products of extremist theologies.

McQuilliams’ attack is a stark reminder that radical theologies exist on the fringes of most religions, and that while Muslim extremism tends to make headlines, religious terrorism is by no means unique to Islam.

Sally Kern: Homosexuality Is "More Dangerous" Than Terrorist Attacks

In the first post of the day I mentioned the unleashing of hate that was caused by 9-11, most of it coming from self-congratulatory "Christians" and GOP demagogues. A case in point? Oklahoma hate merchant and GOP elected official Sally Kern. Kern represents everything foul in the GOP and the Christianists who now largely control the GOP. Right Wing Watch looks at Kern's latest batshitery in which she states that homosexuality is more dangerous than terrorist attacks. I suspect the families of those who died on 9-11 might feel otherwise. The fact that Kern continues to be re-elected by her district is an indictment of her constituents. Here are highlights from Kern's most recent missive of hatred:

Oklahoma Republican state legislator Sally Kern spoke on August 31st with Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality to promote her new book, The Stoning of Sally Kern. Kern is best known for saying that homosexuality is “the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam.” Kern has tried to explain that her remarks were taken out of context and distorted by the media, but she repeated her claim that homosexuality is “more dangerous” than terrorist attacks while speaking with LaBarbera, lamenting that young people are “bombarded” with the message that “homosexuality is normal and natural.” “It’s something they have to deal with every day,” Kern said, “Fortunately we don’t have to deal with a terrorist attack every day.”

You know if you just look at it in practical terms, which has destroyed and ended the life of more people? Terrorism attack here in America or HIV/AIDS? In the last twenty years, fifteen to twenty years, we’ve had maybe three terrorist attacks on our soil with a little over 5,000 people regrettably losing their lives. In the same time frame, there have been hundreds of thousands who have died because of having AIDS. So which one’s the biggest threat? And you know, every day our young people, adults too, but especially our young people, are bombarded at school, in movies, in music, on TV, in the mall, in magazines, they’re bombarded with ‘homosexuality is normal and natural.’ It’s something they have to deal with every day. Fortunately we don’t have to deal with a terrorist attack every day, and that’s what I mean.

It’s more dangerous, and yes I think that it’s also more dangerous because it will tear down the moral fiber of this nation. We were founded as a nation upon the principles of religion and morality, if we take those out from under our society we will lose what has made us a great nation, we will no longer be a virtuous people, which we see happening already. And without virtue this nation will not survive.

It's people like Kern and her hatred and embracing of ignorance and bigotry who pose the biggest threat to the survival of this nation.

The Conservative Double Standard on Christian Terrorism

The far right continues to endeavor to depict Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik as "not Christian" even though his "manifesto" and his Templar identity indicate that he viewed himself as defending western Christendom from the Muslim infidel and a multiculturalism that was welcoming to non-whites and non-Christians. It's sadly typical of the far right and the Christianist among them for whom hate and hypocrisy are their principal attributes. When not asking for money to oppose some threat to "religious freedom," they are incessantly pontificating against gays, Muslims, immigrants and other "sinners" in general.
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These efforts to depict Breivik as "not Christian" also utterly ignore the Old Testament of the Bible where the pillaging and slaughter of those not conforming to the laws of a vengeful God and/or the Jewish religion is writ large. In these recurrent images of violence and destruction, neither women nor children are spared. Breivik's actions were certainly consistent with this violent message. And Breivik certainly displayed the hate, intolerance and bigotry which seem to be the hallmarks of today's conservative Christianity. Amy Sullivan has a piece in Time that looks at this double standard of those trying to disassociate Breivik from Christianity as preached by so many in the professional Christian set who seem to adhere only a violent Old Testament version of Christianity. Here are highlights:
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Ever since the murderous rampage in Norway last week, Bill O’Reilly and other American conservatives have sought to insist that the alleged Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik is not a Christian. . . . . The belief underlying these denials of Breivik’s professed Christian identity is that news outlets would only label a terrorist “Christian” in order to discredit Christianity.
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But the Christian designation itself was informed by Breivik’s own voluminous writings, which show a man animated by a very twisted version of Christian thought and history. . . . In fact, the clash-of-civilizations nature of Breivik’s manifesto is not so different from the warped interpretation of Islamic thought and history that motivates some Muslim terrorists.
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[Bill] O’Reilly remains unchastened by the fact that he routinely rebukes Muslims for distancing their faith from terrorists in the way that he has sought to distance Christianity from Breivik this week. He and other conservatives have focused on their doubts about whether Breivik “practices” Christianity as reason to refrain from labeling him Christian.
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O’Reilly and others do damage to Christianity by implying that it’s so fragile as to be threatened when one member does something truly vile. As heinous as Breivik’s alleged acts of terror were, Christianity has withstood worse. Islam has withstood the past ten years of turmoil within and criticism without. The best defense against terrorists like Breivik is to show how his interpretation of Christianity is wrong, not to deny that he could have come out of the tradition.

Far Right Tries to Duck Ties to Terrorist Even As AFA's Bryan Fisher Says Breivik Views Were "Accurate"

It has been entertaining - if such a term can be used in the wake of the horrific slaughter in Norway last Friday - to watch the anti-Islamic bloggers, neocons and far right columnists and Christianists strive to distance themselves from the actions and views of mass murderer Anders Breivik who quoted many of them in his "manifesto" and obviously took many of their rantings, bigotry and messages of hate to heart. Those feigning shock range from gay conservative Bruce Bawer who used a Wall Street Journal column to dodge his own responsibility for anti-Islamic rhetoric to the anti-Muslim blog FrontPageMag led by conservative activist David Horowitz. In contrast to these, and not surprisingly to those who follow his daily doses of poisonous screeds, American Family Association’s hate merchant in chief, Bryan Fischer, said that after reading Norway terrorist Anders Behring Breivik’s manifesto, he concluded that Breivik’s “analysis of cultural trends in Europe and the danger created by Islamic immigration and infiltration is accurate.” All disclaim the violent actions of Breivik even though his actions - at least to the mind of a fanatic - were arguably the natural result of their lies and propaganda. Here's a sampling of Fischer's disingenuous bullshit:
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Much of his analysis of cultural trends in Europe and the danger created by Islamic immigration and infiltration [sic] is accurate. . . . Breivik’s angst was caused by the presence of so many Muslims in Norway and Europe, which he correctly observes is leading to “cultural annihilation.’ But he blames their presence not on the Muslims themselves but on the “cultural Marxists” and their obsession with diversity and unrestricted Islamic immigration.
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Fischer then goes on to try to argue that Breivik wasn't a "true Christian" apparently on the premise that Christians don't engage in mass murder. Fischer seems to forget the atrocities committed during the Crusades, the treatment of Moors in Spain, the religious wars in Europe in the 16th Century, etc. He also ignores the passages in the Old Testament celebrating the destruction of the opponents of Israel be they men, women or children.

Why Norway Could Happen Here

For the last two days I've written about my concerns over the manner in which the unending inflammatory hate speech of the Christian Right and elements of the political far right creates an atmosphere where some unhinged individual or individuals could commit a heinous crime like that the struck Norway on Friday. Worse yet, the constant hate speech would make such individual(s) feel completely justified in the unleashing murder and destruction. I'm not the only one that had such thoughts. Peter Beinart at The Daily Beast has an article that looks at the same concerns. Here are some highlights:
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How would the American right have responded had Anders Behring Breivik been a Muslim? Luckily, we don’t have to guess. In the immediate aftermath of Friday’s terrorist attack in Norway, conservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin did us the favor of simply assuming that he was a Muslim. She then used the attack to denounce lawmakers who in the name of deficit reduction favor “huge cuts in defense” and to lambast President Obama for suggesting “that we can wrap up things in Afghanistan.”
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But had Breivik actually been a Muslim, I suspect Rubin’s efforts to tie the attack to the Afghan war and the defense budget would have quickly been overtaken by the search for his American counterparts: homegrown Muslim terrorists. . . .
The media’s primary question in the wake of the Breivik attack would have been, Can it happen here? And conservatives would have answered, Hell yes.
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So let’s ask that question about the real Breivik attack: Could an anti-Muslim bigot commit a large-scale terrorist attack in the U.S.? The answer is, Absolutely, because the same anti-Muslim bigotry that influenced Breivik in Europe is widespread here.
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There’s actually been a lot of right-wing, extremist Christian terrorism in the U.S. in recent years. The biggest terrorist attack in U.S. history prior to 9/11—the 1996 Oklahoma City bombing—was carried out by Timothy McVeigh, a white ex-Army officer with ties to the militia movement. That same year, Eric Rudolph bombed the Atlanta Olympics to protest abortion and international socialism. The only major WMD attack of the “war on terror” era—the 2001 anthrax mailings—apparently was the handiwork of a microbiologist angry that prominent Catholic politicians were pro-choice. In 2009, anti-abortion militants murdered Wichita doctor George Tiller.
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[W]hat makes a larger, Breivik-style attack possible is that terrorism usually stems from the intersection between militant ideology and mentally vulnerable people. That’s why people like McVeigh and Rudolph latched onto extremist militia and anti-abortion ideology in the 1990s. And it’s why their equivalent today might well be influenced by Islamophobia, the current obsession of America’s extreme right.
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Islamophobia is at least as prevalent on the political right today as militia-style, anti-government conspiracy-theorizing was in the 1990s. . . . . It’s painfully clear that in today’s Republican Party, the price of publicly opposing anti-Muslim bigotry is higher than the price of fueling it. And somewhere out there, someone like Anders Behring Breivik is watching.
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Words do have consequences and it is long past time that the demagogues of the Christian and political right be held accountable for the hate and violence they engender.

World Net Daily Blames Norway Attacks on Islamic Terrorists

In my first post of the day I ended by referencing the hate and fear mongers among the so-called "conservative" and "Christian" that help to fuel the actions of those like of Breivik in Norway. Imagine my shock to see that despite all of the evidence to the contrary, World Net Daily, is telling its Kool-Aid drinking readers that the attack on Norway was "Islamic terrorism."

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As one commentor stated most aptly, the fact that World Net Daily has left up the incitement to anti-Muslim hate speaks volumes about just how dishonest and - in my view, evil - the faux news site has become. Here's the comment left on the webpage (I suspect the comment will be soon scrubbed):
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It would seem that a legitimate Christian news site (one concerned about not bearing false witness, let alone lying) would have had the integrity to pull this poll question after it became clear that the perpetrator of this horror was not a Muslim, but a Norwegian Christian conservative Islamaphobe (someone very much one of your own). Sadly, WND demonstrated an utterly lack of integrity and honesty in posting and perpetuating this poll.
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Part of me suspects that the folks at WND are secretly applauding the terrorist attack in Norway.

AFA to Muslim-Americans: Convert To Christianity Or Leave

There are some who have chided me for using the term "Christian Taliban" because unlike Islamic fundamentalists America's far right Christians have not utilized violent acts of terrorism. This actually not a true statement - ask George Tiller's family - and over looks the seemingly growing hatred espoused by far right Christians against anyone who isn't "one of us." The American Family Association ("AFA")which boasts that it has 43,000+ member churches has now taken the level of diatribe to a new level. Now language typically reserved for gay Americans (who AFA would like to deport or exterminate depending upon which of its extremist leaders is speaking at the moment) is being leveled against Muslim-Americans. The message? Convert or leave the USA. I have long believed that far right Christians constitute an increasingly clear and present danger to other citizens not to mention the right to freedom of religion for all purportedly guaranteed to all citizens (other than gays, of course) by the United States Constitution. A column at Huffington Post looks at this frightening new development which the AFA is now openly voicing. Here are highlights:
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It seems like only a week ago that the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer (who is the AFA's Director of Issues Analysis, perhaps because he has so many personal issues that need to be analyzed by professional psychopharmacologists), was saying that the Christian thing to do would be to round up all Muslim American citizens and deport them to Muslim countries, because surely that would solve a lot of problems? You know, by sending happy American citizens to other countries?
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Well, naturally, such remarks call for a clarification, and, in keeping with the traditions of "clarifying," Fischer basically swaps out one ridiculously abhorrent statement for another statement of equal ridiculous abhorrence, without really retracting the first.
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Via Media Matters: Muslims who have become naturalized citizens, of course, would need to commit an act of treason to forfeit their citizenship and become eligible for repatriation. Based on the Constitution's definition of treason in Article III Section 3 ["adhering to (the) Enemies (of the United States), (or) giving them Aid and Comfort"] treasonous acts are likely committed on virtually a weekly basis here in the U.S. in many mosques and Islamic organizations.
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Muslims continue to have as their objective the Islamization of the entire world, including the U.S., and are taught by their god to use force where necessary to accomplish the goal. The current objective of Muslim activists is to create a brand new Islamic state - meaning a state like New Jersey or Montana - out of existing jurisdictions and establish a virtual Islamic homeland in our midst.
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Those who are willing to convert to Christianity and renounce Islam, Allah, Mohammed and the Koran may be welcomed, for they can become not just good Christians but true Americans.

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Meanwhile, I am reliably informed by the Constitution of the United States that one of the freedoms we cherish in America is the right to worship whatever faith we bloody well please, so maybe it's Fischer who needs to sail away on a little sloop in search of a land more to his liking?
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So there you have it. Only Christians can be "true Americans." The mindset sounds all too similar to that held by Muslims in the Middle East. I believe that "Christian Taliban" is an appropriate name for organizations like AFA.

TheCall and Christian Extremists Declare War

Fellow Bilerico blogger, Patricia Nell Warren, has an interesting - one might say even frightening - and timely post on the growing possibility of far right Christian religious terrorists in this country. It is a long post but worth a full read because too often we discount just how fanatical some of the extreme Christianist organizations are becoming. While there is much attention given to Islamic extremists, little focus is given to equally threatening Christianist extremists. Worse yet, the main stream media continually resists exposing the insanity and level of hatred of these "Christian" groups - using the term Christian very loosely given how the Gospel message has been perverted - out of both laziness and some false fear of being accused of being anti-religion. These people DO constitute a clear and present danger that too many people ignore. Here are some post highlights"

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Just this morning, an announcement went out from TheCall, asking its list of followers to join a national prayer-and-fasting movement aimed at "the spiritual darkness of the homosexual agenda" and the "restraining" of our "ideology." TheCall is not just another fringy extremist church group -- we need to pay serious attention to this move it's making. Lou Engle, founder and leader of TheCall, is not the familiar old bible-thumping enemy like Jerry Falwell and James Dobson. A major figure in the New Apostolic Reformation that I've been writing about, Engle has close ties with the violent anti-abortion movement called The Army of God, who stirred up such a frenzied atmosphere of attacks on abortion clinics that they finally incited someone to assassinate the well-known doctor George Tiller.

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Now Engle's . . . . movement also calls for acts of "martyrdom" -- meaning followers who are willing to commit violent acts, including murder, who will willingly go to prison or be shot down by police, so they can rid the world of the movement's "enemies," namely prominent abortionists and LGBT leaders and the like.

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TheCall's message (which is below) has to be read in its entirety, to get the full fanatical sweep of what Engle is calling for. So I've copied it verbatim from the email I saw. In my opinion, we will now see the violent Army-of-God-type of inciting turned openly against the LGBT community. These extremists are nothing like the conventional enemies we've gotten used to fighting. . . . essentially a form of religion-motivated domestic terrorism that is apparently being winked at by conservative American government and law enforcement who don't have the brains to see how dangerous it is.

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Here is Lou Engle's email message to his faithful this morning: . . . 40 years ago the Stonewall Riots of New York City, marked the beginning of the homosexual revolution. 40 years later we are coming to the ripening and legal empowering of the movement. Apart from God there is no way of turning this back. . . . . I believe the Lord wants to raise up a "Stonewall" of intercession, a prayer stand if you will, expressed in Ezekiel 22:30 "I looked for a man to stand in the gap to build up a wall before me ..."

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The Christianists can deny the danger that extremists within their ranks pose all they want, but the report released by the Department of Homeland Security back in April said it all. The reality is that these people are dangerous and need to be taken seriously for the risk they pose to the religious freedom of other citizens as well as the rule of law. Among other things, the report found:

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Anti-government conspiracy theories and “end times” prophecies could motivate extremist individuals and groups to stockpile food, ammunition, and weapons. These teachings also have been linked with the radicalization of domestic extremist individuals and groups in the past, such as violent Christian Identity organizations and extremist members of the militia movement.

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Unlike the earlier period, the advent of the Internet and other information age technologies since the 1990s has given domestic extremists greater access to information related to bomb-making, weapons training, and tactics, as well as targeting of individuals, organizations, and facilities, potentially making extremist individuals and groups more dangerous and the consequences of their violence more severe.

Another Case of Majority Mob Rule Mentality

The Christianist agenda has consistently been to deprive others of constitutionally guaranteed rights of freedom of religion - including the right to have NO religion - and to instead have government based on majority mob rule since at this point in time Christianity is the majority religion in the USA. The fact that all Christians are not hate-filled, mean spirited wretches has not filter through to the wingnuts. This view that minority groups have no rights other than whatever crumbs the majority throws to them isn't limited to evangelical Christians since their allies within the Catholic Church and many Mormons are equally willing to trample the rights of minority groups. One recent example of the Mormon version of this mindset - and which shows these folks are perhaps just as crazy as some of the Islamic extremists - is an op-ed in the Mormon Times where the writer, Orson Scott Card (pictured at left) endorses the overthrow of the civil government. Once again, in my view, these folks are a clear and present danger to secular civil government. The question is when will the main stream media start doing its job and exposing these lunatics? Here are some highlights:

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The first and greatest threat from court decisions in California and Massachusetts, giving legal recognition to "gay marriage," is that it marks the end of democracy in America. These judges are making new law without any democratic process; in fact, their decisions are striking down laws enacted by majority vote.

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Do not suppose for a moment that the "gay marriage" diktats will not be supported by methods just as undemocratic, unconstitutional and intolerant.Already in several states, there are textbooks for children in the earliest grades that show "gay marriages" as normal. How long do you think it will be before such textbooks become mandatory -- and parents have no way to opt out of having their children taught from them?

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How dangerous is this, politically? Please remember that for the mildest of comments critical of the political agenda of homosexual activists, I have been called a "homophobe" for years. This is a term that was invented to describe people with a pathological fear of homosexuals -- the kind of people who engage in acts of violence against gays. But the term was immediately extended to apply to anyone who opposed the homosexual activist agenda in any way.

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That many individuals suffer from sex-role dysfunctions does not change the fact that only heterosexual mating can result in families where a father and a mother collaborate in rearing children that share a genetic contribution from both parents.

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Because when government is the enemy of marriage, then the people who are actually creating successful marriages have no choice but to change governments, by whatever means is made possible or necessary.

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Why should married people feel the slightest loyalty to a government or society that are conspiring to encourage reproductive and/or marital dysfunction in their children? Why should married people tolerate the interference of such a government or society in their family life?

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Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.

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If the Constitution is defined in such a way as to destroy the privileged position of marriage, it is that insane Constitution, not marriage, that will die.