Voice of Christian Youth America Dumps Janet Porter

What a week!! Janet Folger Porter has literally made a career out of demonizing gays and pushing a Christo-fascist agenda aimed at meddling in the sexual affairs and religious beliefs of other citizens. Here's a brief chronological run down: For nine years she was the Legislative Director of Ohio Right to Life (1988-1997). From there, she served as the National Director for the Center for Reclaiming America (1997-2002), founded by rabidly anti-gay Coral Ridge Ministries' founder, the late D. James Kennedy. At Coral Ridge, Folger/Porter helped devise the use of gay-bashing and the threat of the "gay agenda" as a Christianist fund raising tool. From Coral Ridge, she started her own entity, Faith2Action, another organization seeking to destroy religious freedom for other citizens not subscribing to her particularly ego centric religious beliefs, to continue living off of fear instilled in the gullible. During this process, she has been peddling a daily radio program on Christian networks and individual stations. She also has been writing a weekly column for World Net Daily, a/k/a WingNutDaily.
*
Along this journey, Folger/Porter has become more and more delusional and hostile to other religious faiths and belief traditions. Now, she's apparently too crazy even for Voice of Christian Youth America ("VCY"). As Right Wing Watch is reporting, VCY has dumped Folger/Porter's show. It seems her increasingly unrestrained dominionist theology was just too much. Here are highlights from Right Wing Watch:
*
Janet Porter of Faith 2 Action had become increasingly involved in "dominion" theology, the idea that Christians are called to take complete control over every aspect of human life in order to bring about the return of Christ.
*
There is something called "7 Mountains" theology that sets out seven specific aspects of the national culture that Christians are supposed to retake and this "7 Mountains" theology was at the very center of Porter's May Day prayer rally at the Lincoln Memorial over that weekend. Organizers had been preparing for as many as 8,0000 to attend but no more than a few hundred actually showed up, leading speakers to plead with those in attendance to make sizable donations to help defray the $70,000 cost of putting on the event.
*
I was listening to VCY America, which carries Porter's daily radio program, in order to hear how she would spin this epic failure ... but instead of hearing Porter's program begin at 2:00 pm as scheduled, I heard instead a statement from VCY America's Vic Eliason announcing that they would no longer be carrying or supporting her program due to her increasing involvement with dominion theology . . . Elisaon explains that they had repeatedly warned Porter about her dominionism to no avail, thus forcing them to sever their ties with her and her program.
*
One can only hope that more of the Christianist extremists will become so unhinged that they are deemed non-credible even by conservative Christian outlets like VCY.

GOP Lawmakers Use Christian Hate Radio To Oppose Health Care Reform

It is a sad fact but a true one that the Republican Party has morphed into a quasi-religious party that embraces the biggest lies of the professional Christian set who deem themselves exempt form the Commandment against lying and bearing false witness. The GOP effort to stop health care reform has shown an ever tighten of the GOP and some of the nastiness of the "family values," uber-Christian organizations that have a demonstrable record of lying on almost every issue that they address. Now it seems that the GOP is working hand in glove with the loons and haters at the American Family Association. Having received mailings from the AFA years ago when I was a Republican, it is hard to adequately describe the lies and hysteria that are standard fare for AFA. Think Progress looks at this unholy alliance. Here are some details:
*
The American Family Association (AFA) is a Christian hate group that mobilizes activists around the country to protest gays, Muslims, and other groups it views as either abhorrent or in violation of its narrow view of the Bible. Recently, AFA called for the military to purge all Muslims from the military.
*
Many GOP lawmakers, including Sen. Sam Brownback (KS) and Sen. Mike Johanns (NE), are frequent guests on AFA radio. In the last week, however, AFA has worked closely with right-wing members of the House to build massive opposition to health reform. AFA talk show personality Janet Porter has hosted GOP Reps. Trenk Franks (AZ), Todd Akin (MO), Michele Bachmann (MN), Steve King (IA), Tom Price (GA), Jim Jordan (OH), and others to concoct outlandish conspiracy theories against health reform, while urging listeners to make calls to Congress.
*
ThinkProgress has compiled clips of Porter and various Republican members of Congress discussing violent revolution against supporters of health care, impeaching Obama, whether health reform violates the Bible, how Democrats will use health care to ration care for Republicans, and the possibility that health reform will give the government power to kill “perhaps each of us”
*
Here's a clip of Janet Folger Porter engaging in such inflammatory conduct along with certifiably insane members of Congress, Michelle Bachmann and Steve King. For those who don't know Porter, she has been a long time homophobe and helped Coral Ridge Ministries and others in the Christian Right formulate the myth that gays can change their sexual orientation. Lies are her principal stock in trade.
*

GOP Needs to Pay a Price for the Town Hall Rage

The deranged lunacy of the GOP and Faux News incited protesters at Congressional Democrat "town hall" meetings on health care reform is taking on an increasingly frightening character and I suspect that it is only a matter of time before violence of some type ensues. The amount of hatred that these protesters - whether GOP operatives or easily manipulated idiots - are exhibiting clearly shows the true nature of the GOP base. The same base that embraced Bible Spice Palin back during the 2008 campaign. The are racists, hate immigrants - even though most are obviously descendants of immigrants themselves - and likely consider themselves conservatives and conservative Christians. The video clip below is a good example and these words speak volumes: "Send [illegal immigrants] home with a bullet in the head the second time":

David Broder has a column that looks at this increasingly vile hatred campaign in today's Washington Post that illustrates how and why the GOP leadership - and that means elected officials, not Rush Limbaugh and talking heads at Faux News - need to do if in the long term the Party does not want to lose all respect in the minds of the majority of voters. Here are some highlights:

*

Watching the muscular tactics being used in congressional town meetings by some opponents of health-care reform, I keep thinking somebody should remind the Republican leaders who are reveling in the scenes about Bruce Alger.

*

Alger was the first Republican congressman elected from Texas in the modern era, winning a Dallas district in 1954. In 1960, just a few days before the presidential election, he was part of a crowd of several hundred people who surrounded Lyndon B. Johnson, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, and his wife, Lady Bird, when they arrived for a luncheon at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas.

*
Many of the demonstrators carried signs labeling the Texas senator a "Judas." Alger's placard read: "LBJ Sold Out to Yankee Socialists." As I later wrote, the Johnsons "were engulfed by the crowd, and for more than half an hour, were reviled and jostled as they slowly made their way across the lobby.

*

The backlash was instant and powerful. As conservative columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak later wrote in their book about Johnson, the scene in the Adolphus "outraged thousands of Texans and Southerners. Sen. Richard Russell of Georgia, who had not campaigned for his party's national ticket since 1944, telephoned Johnson that evening to offer his services." The Johnson biographers concluded that while no one could prove the case, it is "a credible hypothesis" that the Adolphus incident swung Texas and perhaps other closely contested Southern states to the Democrats. In 1964, when Johnson headed the Democratic ticket, he got even: His coattails swept Alger out of office.

*

[N]ot all the GOP leaders have gotten the message. Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who represents a heavily Jewish district in Florida, phoned me to complain that top House Republicans have not publicly repudiated Rush Limbaugh for his statements likening Obama's health policies to those of the Nazis. Much improvement is needed in the health-care bills, but I think these angry opponents are playing with fire.

*

Other stories are demonstrating that violence may soon break loose. In an Associated Press story, it is reported that the Secret Service is investigating a man who authorities said held a sign reading "Death to Obama" outside a town hall meeting on health-care reform in western Maryland. The sign also read, "Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids," referring to the first name of President Barack Obama's wife, said Washington County Sheriff's Capt. Peter Lazich. Indeed, as Media Matters has reported, some of the wingnuts are now spreading the untruth of an alleged conspiracy theory that the Obama administration is planning to "round up American citizens" into "internment camps." Among those spreading this lie are - surprise, surprise - Michael Savage and Janet Folger Porter who has apparently paused for a moment from her quest to demonize and marginalize LGBT Americans.

*

I truly do not know what is worse: that people are vile enough to spread such lies or that people are so stupid and ignorant that they believe this manure.

What the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Bill Really Says

I posted earlier today about the explosin of lies coming from the Christianists over the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Bill (the photo at left is where Shepard's was found bound and beaten) now before the U.S. Senate. An anonymous commenter in a snide tone - it's always the anonymous commenters that are snippy and nasty - asked why I had not documented that the Christianists statements were not true. In fact, I have quoted portions of the bill (S. 909) in prior posts, but to prove to those who do not want to believe that "Godly Christians" lie incessantly, here are some more exerpts. Note that the bill talks of acts of BODILY INJURY, not speech or sermons:

*

‘Sec. 249. Hate crime acts
*
(a) In General-
*
(2) OFFENSES INVOLVING ACTUAL OR PERCEIVED RELIGION, NATIONAL ORIGIN, GENDER, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, GENDER IDENTITY, OR DISABILITY-

(A) IN GENERAL- Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, in any circumstance described in subparagraph (B) or paragraph (3), willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, a dangerous weapon, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability of any person--
*
(i) shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, fined in accordance with this title, or both; and
*
(ii) shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life, fined in accordance with this title, or both, if--
*
(I) death results from the offense; or
*
(II) the offense includes kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill.
*

*

(c) Definitions- In this section--

(1) the term ‘bodily injury’ has the meaning given such term in section 1365(h)(4) of this title, but does not include solely emotional or psychological harm to the victim;
*
(2) the term ‘explosive or incendiary device’ has the meaning given such term in section 232 of this title;
*
(3) the term ‘firearm’ has the meaning given such term in section 921(a) of this title; and
*

(4) the term ‘gender identity’ for the purposes of this chapter means actual or perceived gender-related characteristics.

*

Of equal importance are the following exemptions from application of the Bills protections based on sexual orientation or gender expression:

*

(3) CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTIONS- Nothing in this Act shall be construed to prohibit any constitutionally protected speech, expressive conduct or activities (regardless of whether compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief), including the exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment and peaceful picketing or demonstration. The Constitution does not protect speech, conduct or activities consisting of planning for, conspiring to commit, or committing an act of violence.
*
(4) FREE EXPRESSION- Nothing in this Act shall be construed to allow prosecution based solely upon an individual’s expression of racial, religious, political, or other beliefs or solely upon an individual’s membership in a group advocating or espousing such beliefs.

*

Again, there is no way to put it nicely. Daddy Dobson, Janet Folger Porter and the rest of the professional Christian hacks decrying the hate crimes bill are LIARS and they are lying DELIBERATELY. They care NOTHING about the truth and are nothing less than shameless demagogues who are likely putting money in their pockets derived from the the ignorant, bigoted, or uninformed. Their conduct is anything but Christ like.

Bigots and Haters at FOTF Send Out Action Alert on Hate Crimes

As I have noted countless times, part of me is always amazed - but not surprised - at the lengths to which the professional Christians will go in knowingly disseminating lies and total untruths about LGBT Americans and any legislation which would give us legal rights or protections enjoyed by other citizens. It's as if the Commandment against lying and bearing false witness simply did not exist. The willingness of these people to lie with impunity is what to me shows their utter moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy. Among the most disingenuous liars is James Dobson and his henchmen at Focus on the Family who are in near hysteria over the House of Representative's passage of the Matthew Shepard Act. Consistent with their past lies, FOTF is sending out the following action alert:

*

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote soon on legislation that would create a new class of crimes based on the traits of the victim, including "sexual orientation" and "gender identity."

*
Under "hate-crimes" laws like S.909, pastors could be prosecuted for preaching the biblical view of homosexuality. Similar laws have been used to prosecute religious speech in the U.S. at the state level and abroad.Please tell your senators that every human being deserves to be equally protected. Ask them to oppose S.909.

*

Dobson's equally dishonest ally, Janet Folger Porter, has equally outrageous and untrue statements over at Wingnut Net Daily where she about blows a gasket while venting. Here's a sampling of Folger-Porter's lies:

*

I've written extensively about how this bill would criminalize Christianity and turn those who disagree with the homosexual agenda into felons, but criminalizing Christianity is just the beginning of what this bill would do. It would also elevate pedophiles as a special protected class – since the term "sexual orientation," which has been added to the "hate crimes" legislation, includes them in the American Psychiatric Association's definition of various "sexual orientations" (30 of these APA "sexual orientations" are listed in a fact sheet provided by the Traditional Values Coalition).

*

If a mother hears that their child has been raped and she slaps the assailant with her purse, she is now gone after as a hate criminal because this is a protected class. There are other protected classes in here. I mean simple exhibitionism. I have female friends who have told me over the years that some guy flashed them, and their immediate reaction was to hit them with their purse. Well now, he's committed a misdemeanor, [and] she has committed a federal hate crime because the exhibitionism is protected under sexual orientation.

*

Of course, the claim that pastors or a mother in the quoted example could be prosecuted is totally untrue, but when have Dobson, Folger-Porter ever let the truth get in the way of their anti-gay, pro-theocracy agenda (personally, I believe God has a special place in Hell for Dobson and Ms. Porter and those like them who have made a career out of marketing hatred of others). Autumn Sandeen at Pam's House Blend - who I had the pleasure of meeting at the Blogger Summit last December - has some great commentary on Daddy D and his fellow haters:

*

There is a paragraph in it that angered me immensely: "There is no evidence of an epidemic of sexual-orientation 'hate crimes' in this country," said Ashley Horne, federal policy analyst at Focus on the Family Action. "So, what's the real reason for this bill? Gay activists want to silence those who speak out against homosexuality."

*

Well, Ashley Horne, federal hate crime legislation isn't about wanting to "...silence those who speak out against homosexuality," unless it's speech connected to violent crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, with the victims over these violent crimes selected specifically because the victim is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.

*

"So, what's the real reason that Ashley Horne of Focus On The Family and her conservative 'Christian' cohorts? Conservative 'Christians' like Ashley Horne want to protect the 'free speech' of convicted killers like Allen Ray Andrade. They want people like Andrade to be able to safely terrorize lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual people with their bias motivated, violent crimes, with 'free speech' statements connected to the violent crimes, such as Andrade's 'Gay things must die' and 'It's not like I went up to a schoolteacher and shot her in the head or ... killed a law-abiding straight citizen.'"

*

I increasingly see the Christianists like Dobson and Folger-Porter as a cancer on society that seeks to poison hearts and minds with hate driven viciousness against those who are different or who refuse to live by the perverted religious beliefs of Christianist nutcases. They are NOT nice or good people and the sooner the larger public realizes this the better off we will be as a nation

You Cannot be a Christian and Vote for Obama

So says professional gay hater Janet Porter, f/k/a Janet Folger who has long worked to deny rights to LGBT citizens and to promote the bogus Christianist "ex-gay" Programs. While her must recent conniption involves trying to depict Barack Obama as a supporter of utterly unrestricted abortion, I suspect that Porter/Folger is terrified that an Obama presidency combined with an increase majority of Democrats in Congress could mean the end to some of the Christianists' favorite legislative goals: the continuation of Don't Ask Don't Tell , defeat of ENDA, defeat of hate crimes legislation and the continuation of the Defense of Marriage Act. With Obama as president and larger Democrat majorities in the House and Senate, the haters could see all of their favorite anti-gay positions fall away. I also suspect that there's some latent racism in Porter/Folger's hysteria since the Christianist organizations she has been affiliated with in the past have one thing in common besides being anti-gay: they are all lily white. Oh, and if anyone isn't a Christian, I'd say that it's Porter/Folger and her fellow hate merchants. Here are some examples of her rantings from World Net Daily (a/k/a World Nutcase Daily) :

*

To all those who name the name of Christ who plan to willfully disobey Him by voting for Obama, take warning. Not only is our nation in grave danger, according to the Word of God, so are you.

*

In one week, America will make a choice. And to those who call themselves "Christian" who are planning on voting for Barack Obama, put down the Obama talking points and read God's voter guide before you go to the polls: I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live (Deuteronomy 30:19).

*

Obama-Biden are pro-death. McCain-Palin are pro-life. Now choose life that you and your children may live.

*

On marriage, Mark 10:7 reveals what Jesus had to say about it: For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. Notice, the man doesn't leave his father and mother to be joined to his domestic partner.

*

No, this election is not about race. It's not about the economy. It's about obeying God. . . . To those who call themselves by the name of Christ who ignore what God says about life and marriage, who and are clinging to a fantasy of economic gain, think again. Obama will use your tax dollars to kill innocent children, and then he'll take your paycheck and use it to "spread the wealth around."

*

Be forewarned: If you willfully disobey God on life and marriage because of race or false hope for the economy, you will usher in the kind of change that brought the Soviet Union to collapse. But the warning goes far beyond that. To those who think that God's grace gives them license to willfully disobey Him without consequences – think again. . . . Then obey Him in the voting booth and out of it. If not, do us all a favor and quit calling yourself a Christian.

*

If anyone should stop calling them self a Christian, it's Porter/Folger and her fellow hate merchants. Oh, and does anyone have a straight jacket they can lend to Ms. Porter/Folger? Or better yet, know of a good mental institution she might want to check into? The woman is seriously whacked out.