Money and Self-Enrichment - The Real Motivation of "Family Values" Groups

There's more behind the agenda of "family values" groups and organizations besides bashing gays and disenfranchising blacks and other minorities so as to maintain white privilege.  And, yes, they want to maintain a pre-modern world and society in many other ways as well.  But the real motivation for many of the leaders of such groups is money.  Cold hard cash.  They live the good life while duping the gullible and ignorant like slick con artists and peddling hate and bigotry.  What's even more disgusting is that many of these groups purport to be "educational" in their efforts and shockingly hold tax-exempt status which significantly ups the gravy train for their leaders.  Brian Brown and Maggie Gallagher have made out like bandits at the National Organization for Marriage, locally, Pat Robertson has made many millions of dollars, Catholic League blow hard Bill Donohue reportedly makes between $350,000 and a cool half million a year.  The list goes on and on.  To show how the system is milked, Think Progress has done a review of how the Joseph Goebbels like Gary Bauer (pictured above) has lived well while peddling "family values" hate.  Here are highlights:

Gary Bauer has been one of the nation’s most visible and outspoken social conservatives since his work in the Reagan Administration — fighting against LGBT equality, pushing to restrict women’s reproductive rights, and promoting Islamophobia. But while the former Republican presidential hopeful’s myriad political organizations and tax-exempt groups claim to support conservative values, a ThinkProgress analysis suggests that of late he uses them primarily to funnel money into his own pockets.

As president of American Values, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) “charitable” organization focused on “defending life, traditional marriage and equipping our children with the values necessary to stand against liberal education and cultural forces,” Bauer received an annual salary of about $120,000 in 2011 — and another $30,000 in other benefits. His wife Carol, who worked 10 hours a week as secretary/treasurer for the organization, received an additional $60,000 in annual compensation for her efforts.

But Bauer augmented this . . . .  by hiring himself as a “consultant” for the various political committees he controlled.   . . . . With hundreds of thousands left in the bank, Bauer hired a campaign strategy and communications consultant: Gary Bauer. In the 2005-2006 cycle, he took $40,000 in fees; in recent years his figure has risen to $3,000 a month. So far, Americans United to Preserve Marriage has paid Bauer more than $260,000 — and between 2009 and 2012, Bauer received more than half of the committee’s total spending.

Finally, Bauer turned to his oldest available account for his most lucrative work.  . . . . starting in March, Bauer began paying himself $13,750 a month for “political and admin” consulting — $68,750 over the past five months, and several times more than the $8,250 the committee has given, total, to federal political candidates so far this year. At these rates, his annual consulting fees for these committees would project to more than $200,000. This would be in addition to his full-time American Values job . . .

As I said, spreading hate, lies and bigotry can be very, very lucrative as financially stretched widows and ignorant individuals are fleeced of money that cannot afford to be giving away to charlatans like Bauer et al.  The IRS truly needs to revoke the tax exempt status of these scam operations.

Alabama GOP Votes Against Removing Member For Supporting Gay Marriage

Click image to enlarge

Perhaps there is some hope for my former state of Alabama yet.  I frequently lament that Alabama is far more insane now that it was in the late 1970's when I lived there and George Wallace was governor (I got to meet Wallace once).  In a move that frankly took me by surprise, the Alabama GOP voted down a rule change aimed at expelling the president of the state College Republicans organization for committing the heresy of supporting gay marriage.  One can only assume that the Christofascist behind the proposed rule change failed to ladled out enough Kool-Aid to addle the minds of the governing board of the state GOP.   Talking Points Memo looks at the surprising and welcome move.  Here are highlights:

The Alabama Republican Party voted Saturday against a proposed rule that would have removed a junior member from its steering committee because of her support of gay marriage, the Associated Press reported.

The measure was aimed at Stephanie Petelos, the chairwoman of the Alabama College Republicans, who had made public comments in support of the Supreme Court's decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act. Petelos told the AP she hopes her ordeal "doesn't scare or shy anyone away from the party."

Bonnie Sachs, an executive committee member who proposed the rule change, told the AP that steering committee members need to serve "in such a way that we don't go to the media with an agenda that we may have." Other committee members said they didn't share Petalos' view on gay marriage, but did respect her First Amendment right to expressing that view.

"We're not the Taliban. We're not the Third Reich," committee member Clay Barclay told the AP.

Perhaps the GOP isn't yet the Taliban or Third Reich, but that is exactly the type of regime that the Christofascist who drafted the 20112 GOP party platform would like to implement.   Candidly, I can see FRC's Tony Perkins happily playing a role equivalent to that of Joesph Goebbels in the Third Reich.  Or if not Perkins, then Gary Bauer. 

Gary Bauer: Blacks Should Be Grateful "Every Major Goal of Dr. Martin Luther King Has Been Reached"

Gary Bauer

The batshitery and outright lies of the far rights seemingly knows no bounds.  We've just seen a man who deems himself "white" literally get away with murdering a black youth, black males suffer from sky high arrest rates and incarceration rates totally disproportionate with their percentage of society, blacks suffer far higher unemployment and poverty rates that whites, etc., yet former GOP presidential candidate Gary Bauer - who looks like Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels in my view - just had the audacity or insanity (take your pick) to say that African Americans should be happier than every that "Every major Goal of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., has been reached."  Is the man delusional or does he simply not give a damn about black Americans?

Goebbels

Right Wing Watch looks at at Bauer's disingenuous batshitery.  Here are highlights:

In an email to supporters of his Campaign for Working Families today, Gary Bauer wondered why African Americans are still so upset about racism and continue “falling through the cracks” when “every major goal of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been reached.”
In the email — “Will Holder Persecute George Zimmerman?” — Bauer laments that discussions on race can’t happen in America because “it inevitably degenerates into another round of bashing non-minorities and an indictment of America’s past sins.” Social services, “‘gangsta’ culture” and a lack of patriotic education, Bauer claims, are the real culprits for problems in the black community.
- See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/bauer-african-americans-should-be-more-grateful-every-major-goal-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-ha#sthash.1obuXRx0.dpuf

In an email to supporters of his Campaign for Working Families today, Gary Bauer wondered why African Americans are still so upset about racism and continue “falling through the cracks” when “every major goal of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been reached.”
In the email — “Will Holder Persecute George Zimmerman?” — Bauer laments that discussions on race can’t happen in America because “it inevitably degenerates into another round of bashing non-minorities and an indictment of America’s past sins.” Social services, “‘gangsta’ culture” and a lack of patriotic education, Bauer claims, are the real culprits for problems in the black community.
- See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/bauer-african-americans-should-be-more-grateful-every-major-goal-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-ha#sthash.1obuXRx0.dpuf

In an email to supporters of his Campaign for Working Families today, Gary Bauer wondered why African Americans are still so upset about racism and continue “falling through the cracks” when “every major goal of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been reached.”

In the email — “Will Holder Persecute George Zimmerman?” — Bauer laments that discussions on race can’t happen in America because “it inevitably degenerates into another round of bashing non-minorities and an indictment of America’s past sins.” Social services, “‘gangsta’ culture” and a lack of patriotic education, Bauer claims, are the real culprits for problems in the black community.

Bauer has the gall to then go on blathering about how God teaches us that all of us  are "created equal with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  But Bauer leaves out any reference to his opposition to equal rights for gays, blacks, immigrants and basically every minority group.  The man is a nasty and disgusting weasel.

Christofascists: Feminists Are Family-Destroying Whores; Minorities Are Leaving "Normal Marriage"

Even as the GOP potentates are struggling to find a improved message and "Moses like messenger," the Christofacists elements of the GOP base are hard at work ramping up their efforts to alienate women and minorities.  How else to explain two batshitery eruptions from the far right.  As Right Wing Watch reports, Christian radio hosts Pastor Kevin Swanson and Dave Buehner went on a rant describing feminists as ugly, narcissistic, family-destroying whores who refuse to submit to a man. And then we have Joseph Goebbels look alike, Gary Bauer (pictured above) attacking minorities for their growing acceptance of same sex marriage.  The dripping hate and venom that these "godly Christians" and good Republicans is more than enough o send sane voters running away screaming.  First, here are highlights from Right Wing Watch:

Christian conservative radio hosts Kevin Swanson and Dave Buehner are not exactly big fans of feminism in any of its forms. So far this month, they have opined that a woman fired for being too attractive shouldn’t have been working for a man who wasn’t her husband in the first place; that “socialist” single women are taking over America; and that Sandra Fluke isn’t “ladylike” enough to be considered for Woman of the Year.

There are “two forms of feminism,” Buehner argued. There are “cute” feminists like Sarah Palin who will find jobs in the “marketplace” and “get themselves a husband” but will “never submit to the husband, in fact they will use their power probably to make their husband submit to them.” Then, there are the “ugly” feminists whose “lack of attractiveness has not given them access to power that they wanted in the marketplace.” These “attractively challenged” feminists will only find careers in academia and in government agencies, for instance, “you can run the EPA.”

What all these feminists have in common, Swanson argues, is that “all of them want to be free from the family” and together with “the homosexuals” are “destroying society.” Buehner speculates that in the future, feminism will be remembered as “a time in which women lost the love of their children” and “decided to become selfish, narcissistic, family-destroying whores.”

Truly, this batshitery is NOT a winning message for attracting women voters, yet people as insane as these crackpots drafted the GOP 2012 party platform.  But women are not the only targets of far right venom.  As The Advocate reports, failed GOP presidential candidate and Family Research Council founder Gary Bauer has been ranting against minorities and accusing them of abandoning "normal marriage."  Here are highlights:  

Immediately after Republicans failed to take the White House or the Senate and lost seats in the House, religious right mouthpiece Gary Bauer claimed in interviews that the party just wasn't antigay enough to win.

But now he seems to be revising his post-election analysis ever so slightly.  .  .  .  . now ThinkProgress points out that Bauer claims President Obama has so drastically reshaped the political landscape with his own support for marriage equality that it might not be a winning issue.

"The coalition in favor of normal marriage has been made up of political conservatives and American minority groups, including Hispanics and blacks," Bauer told LifeSiteNews. "But the president’s so-called ‘evolution’ on this issue has resulted in what appears to be a major shift among blacks and Hispanics toward favoring same-sex marriage."

But Bauer isn't calling for his party to change. Just the opposite: he predicts the GOP will remain opposed to marriage equality come 2016 and that the platform will continue its staunch antigay language.

If one wants to see active cases of untreated mental illness, look no farther than the GOP base.  These people are frightening.

Gary Bauer Insists GOP Can Win If More Antigay

Peter Lorre look alike (at his most creepy, of course) and Joseph Goebbels like propagandist Gary  Bauer has a solution as to how the Republican Party can turn around its losing streak: become more stridently anti-gay.  One can only wonder what kind of mind altering drugs Bauer is taking or what sort of severe head trauma he has suffered to come to this conclusion in the wake of last week's vote on anti-gay initiatives in four states, all of which went down to defeat.  Oh, and let's not forget all the recent polls that indicate that outside of the South, gay marriage is approaching a tipping point of majority approval.  None of this matters in the delusional world of Bauer and his fellow modern day Pharisees.  The Advocate looks at Bauer's batshitery which I am sure the Democrats would love to see the GOP implement to hasten its death spiral.  Meanwhile Jon Huntsman - who in my view might have defeated Obama had he won the GOP nomination - politely says that Bauer is nuts.  Here are highlights:

As Republicans argue about the future of their party, Gary Bauer claims the way to lure minority voters into the fold is by amplifying their antigay policy positions. Recent data, though, seems contradictory to his advice.

Bauer led a PAC called the "Campaign for Working Families" that bought ads during the election for the likes of Missouri's failed Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin — the "legitimate rape" candidate who as congressman tried to ban same-sex weddings on military bases. Bauer said during a discussion on CNN's State of the Union that social issues supposedly unite minority voters.

But on marriage equality, Bauer's contention doesn't match with exit polling or with major polls of Latino voters conducted since President Obama offered his support for letting gays and lesbians marry.

ABC News reported on Election Night that preliminary exit polls showed Latino voters are actually more likely than other voters to back same-sex marriage, with 59% siding with equality.

That finding matched almost exactly with a poll from NBC Latino/IBOPE Zogby in October that found 60% support marriage equality.

Bauer had appeared Thursday on The Janet Mefferd Show and insisted that the reason Romney lost was his failure to talk more about social issues. It's a theme others like the National Organization for Marriage's president, Brian Brown, have also struck.

Former Utah governor and Obama administration ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, was also on the CNN panel and insisted "people don't want to be moralized to, they don't want to be lectured to" and above all they "want to be left alone."

"The Republican Party needs to decide whether it wants to win or lose going forward," said Huntsman, who lost the Republican primary race for president.

Gary Bauer: Gays Cause Murder; Michele Bachmann Hunts Muslims

Speaking of conservative Christians driving the younger generations away from religion, two examples of the hate dripping animus that passes as religious motivated behavior, Gary Bauer - who looks like a self-loathing closet case to me (see the photo at right) - and Michele Bachmann are both on lunatic rampages that underscore the ugliness of Christianity at the hands of the far right.  First we have Bauer claiming that gays and gay marriage cause crime, especially murder in Chicago.  Right Wing Watch reports on Bauer's deranged mindset and effort to stir up violence against gay Americans.  Here are excerpts:

On Wednesday, Gary Bauer of the Campaign for Working Families attempted to tie the Obama administration’s support for gay rights…to violent crime. Bauer said that the escalating crime rate in the city of Chicago is due to children growing up in fatherless homes, which he maintained is a result of Democratic policies that have “made it comfortable for many women to not have husbands in the home” and even same-sex marriage. “Obama and the Democrats have embraced the radical idea of men marrying other men,” Bauer sneered, “How is that going to help the black family?”  

For the past fifty years, Rahm Emanuel's party, the Democratic Party, has made it comfortable for many women to not have husbands in the home. Now Obama and the Democrats have embraced the radical idea of men marrying other men! How is that going to help the black family?

When Emanuel worked in the Clinton White House, the response to gang violence, do you remember this, was midnight basketball programs. It didn't work, midnight basketball programs don't replace fathers. And, of course, it was around that time when Democrats and their media allies did their best to convince us that values really didn't matter. Even the disgusting values demonstrated in the Oval Office with a White House intern.

As if Bauer and his white supremacist leaning fellow Republicans give a rat's ass about black families!  

Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann sees a Muslim conspiracy under every bush and has embarked on more lunacy trying to ferret out Muslims infiltrating the government.   Salon has a piece that looks at Bachmann's Muslim witch hunt.  Here are highlights:

Muslim conspiracy theories have largely vanished from the political debate. But with another election looming, the tide may be rising again, and Rep. Michele Bachmann is predictably already ahead of the crowd.

The Minnesota Republican, joined by Republican Reps. Trent Franks, Louie Gohmert, Thomas Rooney and Lynn Westmoreland, sent letters to the inspectors general of five government agencies responsible for national security to demand they investigate infiltration by the Muslim Brotherhood into the highest reaches of the federal government. In particular, Bachmann singled out Huma Abedin, the wife of former congressman Anthony Weiner and a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Another letter targets the Department of Defense, which Bachmann et al. accuse of failing to “characterize accurately the jihadist motivations” of Maj. Nidal Hassan, the Army psychiatrist accused in the Fort Hood shooting.

A third letter went to the Department of Homeland Security, alleging the department is covering up the Muslim Brotherhood threat by developing an official lexicon that obfuscates its danger.

Yet another letter went to the Department of Justice inspector general warning that officials there had been meeting with Muslim groups that she accused of being “fronts” for the Brotherhood.

The final letter went to the Office of Director of National Intelligence, stating, “we request that your office conduct a formal investigation or evaluation into the extent to which Muslim-Brotherhood tied individuals and entities were involved 

In an interview with the American Family Association’s Sandy Rios late last month, Bachmann explained, “It appears that there has been deep penetration in the halls of our United States government by the Muslim Brotherhood.  

So what is Bachmann’s source? Every one of her letters prominently cites Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan defense official who has become one of the country’s most prominent anti-Muslim conspiracy theorists. Gaffney heads the Center for Security Policy and has for years been preaching to anyone who will listen that the Muslim Brotherhood is secretly infiltrating every aspect of American life in a grand scheme to impose Shariah law when we least expect it.

For Gaffney, everyone is an agent of the Brotherhood, including CPAC, the big annual gathering of conservatives in Washington, D.C., and Grover Norquist, the prominent anti-tax activist who is married to a Muslim woman.

Gaffney has since been ostracized from several other key conservative groups, yet Bachmann apparently feels justified demanding official investigations based on his theories.  

It would seem that the only "deep penetration" that has occurred is the level of Bachmann's insanity.  In my opinion, the woman belongs in a mental hospital.

"Protecting Marriage" Lies

The anti-gay Christianist and Mormon organizations have gone to great lengths to disseminate the message that they are not anti-gay and are merely motivated out of a desire to "protect marriage." Sadly, many in the media out of a combination of stupidity - remember, anchor are typically hired for looks, not intelligence - and laziness let these disingenuous statements go unchallenged and do not look at the true actions of the alleged "Christian" organizations and the professional Christian set. In reality - if one will bother to look - is that their actions and opposition to ANY rights for gay citizens tell the true story. Right Wing Watch has a story that looks at the intentional and totally disingenuous lengths these false Christians go to in order to blur the lines between civil rights and religious rights in their effort to deceive the voting public. Here are a few highlights:

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There are many different definitions of marriage. For most Americans, marriage is a couple’s public commitment to love, care for and take responsibility for one another and for their families. As a legal matter, marriage is a civil institution regulated by state governments, an institution accorded recognition and protection in a variety of ways. Marriage is also a religious institution, defined differently by different faiths and congregations.

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In America, the distinction can get blurry because states permit clergy to carry out both religious and civil marriage in a single ceremony. Religious Right leaders have exploited that confusion by claiming that granting same-sex couples equal access to civil marriage would somehow also redefine the religious institution of marriage. Like many other Religious Right political strategies, this is grounded in falsehood and deception.
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It is important to note that there are denominations and congregations whose religious views embrace marriage for loving and committed same-sex couples. In the absence of civil marriage equality, clergy from those denominations and congregations are essentially made unwilling enforcers of inequality, because they cannot offer all the couples who come before them the same services.

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This memo focuses on the Right’s persistent, purposeful blurring of the distinction between religious and civil marriage. This blurring serves several of the Right’s purposes: it falsely frames marriage equality as a threat to churches’ freedom, independence, and integrity, and it encourages voters to think they must choose between religious liberty and the constitutional principle of equality under the law.

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Those who portray civil marriage equality for same-sex couples as a grave threat to churches’ religious liberty are not being truthful or consistent. There are no high-profile campaigns to make divorce or remarriage illegal, or claims by church leaders that legal recognition of second or third marriages -- or interfaith marriages, or civil marriages between people of no faith at all -- is somehow an assault on their own religious liberty.

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Also telling as to the real agenda of the Christianist/Mormons are the remarks made recently in connection of extending partner benefits to employees, something that has zero involvement with marriage rights. As noted in a prior post weasel look alike Gary Bauer made the following remark recently which demonstrates that the reality is that our foes want us to have no legal right whatsoever or better yet be targeted as inferiors:

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Gary Bauer, president of American Values, a conservative advocacy group, said that if Obama extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal workers, he would "provoke a furious grass-roots reaction, reinvigorate the conservative coalition and undermine his efforts to portray himself as a moderate on social issues."

Christianist Crocodile Tears

It's a bit mind boggling, but the Christo-fascists like James Dobson and Tony Perkins and similar religious fanatics who do not hesitate to condemn and bad mouth others are whining and shedding crocodile tears over being referred to as the "Religious Right." These folks are as un-Christian as they come, lie incessantly, knowingly cite bogus research, and have turned bay bashing into a cottage industry, yet they cannot stand the fact that their own hateful actions have now given the term "Religious Right" an extremely negative connotation - especially among younger voters who are increasingly flocking to the Democratic Party. One account of the disingenuous tears is at Right Wing Watch which describes the whining as follows:

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It seems that leaders of the Religious Right are tired of being associated with the Religious Right because nobody likes the Religious Right. Unfortunately for them, they are the Religious Right and that is what we are going to keep calling them . . . . If the phrase "Religious Right" has negative connotations, it probably stems primarily from the fact that the people who have traditionally represented the Religious Right have caused it to, you know, have negative connotations.

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When people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson go on television and blame the 9/11 attacks on "pagans, and the 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, [and] all of them who have tried to secularize America," that is the sort of thing that tends to create negative impressions about the Religious Right.

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Christianity Today provides some quotes from some of the worse hate merchants (e.g, Gary Bauer, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, Tony Perkins of FRC, and a spokesman for Focus on the Family) who seek kid glove treatment for themselves even though they give none to others. Perhaps if they did not act like fascists and did not make hate towards other their stock in trade the term would not be viewed so negatively. Here are some highlights:

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However, several politically conservative evangelicals said in interviews that they do not want to be identified with the "Religious Right," "Christian Right," "Moral Majority," or other phrases still thrown around by journalist and academia. "There is an ongoing battle for the vocabulary of our debate," said Gary Bauer, president of American Values. "It amazes me how often in public discourse really pejorative phrases are used, like the 'American Taliban,' 'fundamentalists,' 'Christian fascists,' and 'extreme Religious Right.' "

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[M]any groups would rather distance themselves from the Religious Right, even though they may agree on several political issues. Richard Land said he corrects numerous reporters who call him a leader of the Religious Right, explaining that he represents a group of Southern Baptists who would probably consider themselves conservative evangelicals.

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Coming up with the best term to describe religious groups who are politically conservative can be tricky for writers. Rice University sociologist Bill Martin, who authored the book With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America, resists the term "religious conservative" because it has connotations with a group that identifies itself as theologically conservative.

Right Wing Nutcases and the Politics of Hate

With Barack Obama's inauguration just around the corner, the Christianist nutcases are increasing their whining about a doom and gloom future and disseminating false concerns of upcoming Christian persecution. Naturally, their true goal as always is to scare the ignorant and/or bigoted into sending money into their respective organizations so that they can live comfortably without having to be gainfully employed. Meanwhile, one can only hope that the Obama/Biden administration will roll back the improper intrusion of Christianist religious views into the civil laws. Here are some highlights from Right Wing Watch demonstrating the latest dishonest theatrics from this bunch of hate merchants:

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[O]n a recent Focus on the Family radio program, guest host Frank Pastore was joined by Tony Perkins and Gary Bauer to discuss the threat that Christians will soon find themselves under in this country thanks to the election of Barack Obama and the Democratic majorities in Congress. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, and Gary Bauer, president of American Values, told Pastore they are both concerned about what's on the line as Barack Obama takes office.

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Perkins said the battle over marriage is on center stage. "We have an administration that supports the redefinition of marriage in many, many ways," he said. "We’ve got a number of issues that are going to be coming out of Washington. The Defense of Marriage Act, Employment Non-Discrimination Act, hate crimes are all going to be on the table right after the Obama administration begins."

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Bauer described the situation as a "witch's brew." "You’ve got people in government, willing to use the force of law to push the radical gay-rights agenda," he said, "and you’ve got a gay-rights movement that is willing to use the tactics of intimidation in the streets of America to silence those that would dare oppose them."

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Perkins went on the warn that liberals "ultimately want to take away the voice of American citizens, primarily those of religious faith" while Bauer proclaimed that "if we lose this [fight over marriage equality], the next generation of American children will be taught about family and about normal relationships between men and women in a way that will completely distort God's plan for mankind and that is something that I think would be devastating for our culture, for our families, and certainly for our country."

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After discussing about the dangers they face from issues like FOCA and the Fairness Doctrine, Perkins warned "don't let your guard down ... [or] we will lose these precious freedoms" while Bauer closed with a call to arms: This is probably the one thing that listeners should take away from this show: you can't take for granted the right to hold these views any more. You're going to have to stand up ... if they go down the road on these issues, I believe [that] with all of our passion, all of our intelligence and all of the freedom that the founders gave to us, we need to resist.

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With this kind of poison being widely disseminated, it is little surprise that non-Christians may be targeted for violence by Christian extremists as in the recent Eldora Ski Resort episode.

Fundamentalists Launch Shareholder Drive To Fight Microsoft On Gay Rights

As 365gay.com is reporting (http://www.365gay.com/Newscon08/01/010908micro.htm), homophobic and anti-gay bigot Ken Hutcherson along with some other professional gay-haters has formed a corporation to organize a proposed shareholder revolt against what they call Microsoft's funding of the gay agenda. People are starving and going without medical treatment in this country and around the world but instead of ministering to their needs, this ***hole is wasting time, money and manpower of this crap. Not exactly what Jesus would do I suspect. Of course, I would love to know how much money the "Rev." Hutcherson and Messrs. Wildmon and Bauer will somehow receive in the process. Seriously, but for fighting "the gay agenda" would some of these guys even have jobs? Here are some story highlights:

(Seattle, Washington) A group of conservative religious leaders have formed a corporation to organize a shareholder revolt against what they call Microsoft's funding of the gay agenda. AGN Financial is led by Rev. Ken Hutcherson (pictured), a Redmond, Washington pastor who has fought Microsoft on gay issues in the past. It's board of advisors includes longtime gay foes Don Wildmon of the American Family Association and Family Values leader Gay Bauer.

In a statement AGN said "that corporations are donating close to $1 Billion every year to promote the dissolution of family values in our society." Microsoft is the first corporation to be targeted but if the campaign is successful other companies will be added. AGN this week launched its “Buy Three, Donate One” campaign where supporters are urged to buy three Microsoft shares and donate one to AGN.

The AGN Financial Website will allow shareholders "to see what AGN recommendations are backed by Biblical scriptures. For the first time in American History, a single person with only three shares of Microsoft stock, will have the voice of millions or even hundreds of millions of shares shaping the moral decisions of one of the largest companies in the world."

Microsoft has a written anti-discrimination policy and provides health benefits to the partners of gay workers. Microsoft's directors urged shareholders to reject Hutcherson's attempt to kill the policy, and the issue failed to get enough support for a vote.