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the covert campaign against liberal chuches and the social justice tradition
[above: click on image for YouTube video trailer]"Renewal or Ruin": New Video Documentary By Steve D. Martin Spotlights Secretive Rightwing Effort To Destroy Mainstream Protestant Churches
Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy, by Frederick Clarkson
Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort
by Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyons
sample chapter
God's Profits: Faith, Fraud and the Republican Crusade For Values Voters
By Sarah Posner
Liars for Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History
By Chris Rodda
Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism
: by Michelle Goldberg
With God on Their Side: How Christian Fundamentalists Trampled Science, Policy, and Democracy in George W. Bush's White House.
by Esther Kaplan
Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement
Tanya Erzen
Attack on The United Churches of Christ
Attack on The United Methodist Church
"The Christian Right, Dominionism, and Theocracy", by Chip Berlet
"Taking Over The Republican Party", a four part series by Joan Bokaer
The Woman in A Mink CoatWhile We Were sleepingAngels On a PinheadUnder Cover of Night
The Indian River Incident : What You Can Do
link > The "Stop the ACLU Coalition" Shaming Project
How you can help stop "Stop The ACLU" just by sending a few emails
The Shaming Projectdoes the violence of "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" bother you ? If so, what can you do ? Well, to begin with you can email Jonathan Hutson's stories to people you know. That will help to bring more public scrutiny of the game. Public shaming really works ! Just click on the "email" icon and link at the top or bottom of the story and you'll be taken to a form that will allow you email the first story, The Purpose Driven Life Takers or the latest installment without leaving this site. Thanks.
Drive-Away Lesson: Persistence |
| Sat Jan 14, 2006 at 12:22:23 AM EST |  print story | |
 
From inventing "intelligent design" to replicate the discredited creationism, to the pounding of reproductive choice on a hundred fronts, to this renewal of threats against Ford, this much can be said about the Religious Right: it is nothing if not persistent. |
| topic: Gay Rights |
The more I was around them, the more I admired their ingenuity and persistence while at the same time I got more and more scared at what they relentlessly want to accomplish.
It was just weeks ago, in December, when gay organizations seemed to have won a mini-victory after Ford said that it really didn't want to cruise to the tune of the AFA's strident whine, demanding anti-gay discrimination and bias. A December diary on Talk2Action described the situation.
Gay activists and a website Americablog had jumped on the issue and managed to rouse public attention.
Some of the less savory postures of AFA circulated, as described in this post by Michelle Goldberg, who urged that AFA deserved serious media scrutiny:
To me, one of the more sinister aspects of AFA's ideology is its association with anti-gay Holocaust revisionism -- the belief, promoted throughout the hard right, that not only were gay people not targeted by the Nazis, but that they were the primary mover behind Nazism.
By December 14, 2005, Americablog was declaring "We Won," and urging people to thank Ford via an online form.
Well, Americablog better swing back in action because AFA is baaaack.
In a letter, dated January 10 and co-signed by 44 Religious Right leaders including Tony Perkins of Family Research Council, James Dobson of Focus on Family, Gary Bauer of American Values, D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, Paul Weyrich of Coalitions for America, Beverly LaHaye of Concerned Women for America, Judie Brown of American Life League, Ted Haggard of National Association of Evangelicals, Alan Chambers of Exodus International, AFA demands a return to intolerant anti-gay promises that it said Ford had made.
The letter outlines the concessions that AFA said Ford had given, and set a January 20 deadline for a turnaround.
On November 28, Ford Motor Company and American Family Association worked out a representation concerning Ford's support of groups promoting the homosexual agenda including homosexual marriage. Ford's representations seemed to AFA a very reasonable and attainable goal.Here is what Ford's representation included:
1. Ford would not renew current promotions or create future incentives that give cash donations to homosexual organizations based on the purchase of a vehicle.
2. Ford would stop giving cash and vehicle donations or endorsements to homosexual social activities such as Gay Pride parades.
3. Ford would not make corporate donations to homosexual organizations that, as part of their activities, engage in political or social campaigns to promote civil unions or same-sex marriage.
4. Ford would cease all advertising in homosexual websites and media outlets (magazines, television, radio) in the U.S. with the exception of a small amount to be used by Volvo. The Volvo ads would be the same ads used in the general media and not aimed at the homosexual community specifically.
When homosexual groups opposed Ford's actions, seven homosexual leaders met with Ford. At that meeting, Ford repudiated your representations and issued a public letter strongly supporting the homosexual groups ....
Why would Ford put the interests of seven homosexual groups ahead of the interests of all your dealers?
This time, AFA not only pushed the anti-gay marriage buttons, but a few others, too:
Your support for these groups pushing homosexual marriage can only hurt your dealers.We strongly suggest that Ford remove itself from involvement in the cultural war and apply its resources to building the best product possible. It ill serves the purpose of Ford to take sides in the cultural war. It is a no-win situation. When you favor one side, you alienate the other. Leave the cultural battles to the various groups pro and con and to the politicians.
And then, the threat:
We can not, and will not, sit by as Ford supports a social agenda aimed at the destruction of the family.We ask that you respond to our request by January 20. If we do not hear from you by that date, we will assume that Ford does not intend to honor its representations to AFA.
If there is a lesson to be learned from the Religious Right, it's this: it doesn't back down. From Anita Bryant to Janet Floger, from Clarence Thomas to Samuel Alito, again and again, they come back and back and back.
Is there anything on which the Religious Right has backed down? Is there an example to inspect? Maybe, but it's not apparent. As much as eternal vigilance -- a guard-the-gates defensive position, the example of persistence -- a determined forward motion, is the one lesson that progressives and supporters of religious liberty should be driving baaa-ack home.
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