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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.
Mr. Stripper Is in Trouble (the court stripper that is) |
| Wed Sep 27, 2006 at 05:47:53 AM EST |  print story | |
 
Rep. Hostettler's most recent bill passed yesterday along party lines. H.R. 2679 is euphemistically called the "Public Expression of Religion Act" and more accurately referred to as the "Christian Supremacy Act." This bill is consistent with Hostettler's philosophy: "When the courts make unconstitutional decisions, we should not enforce them. Federal courts have no army or navy. The court can opine, decide, talk about, sing, whatever it wants to do. We're not saying they can't do that. At the end of the day, we're saying the court can't enforce its opinions." |
| topic: All Topics |
The "Public Expression of Religion Act" is aimed at stopping citizens from challenging in court government-sponsored religious activities. If a plaintiff wins a court challenge based on the principle of church-state separation, they can't recoup court fees.
This bill has special relevance to challenges in the courts today. JewsOnFirst has been reporting on cases where Jewish or atheist school children are coerced and harassed in school because they are not Christian. On July 23 Talk To Action joined with Jews on First and CrossLeft to send a message of religious tolerance to the board of the Indian River School District in Delaware.
Hostettler authored two other court-stripping bills that passed the House. Do you remember that two-and-a-half ton monster monument of the Ten Commandments sitting right in the lobby of the Alabama Supreme Court? The lower courts ordered it removed. Those court decisions were challenged until the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals supported the lower courts and the monument had to be removed. Along comes Representative Hostettler with a bill saying you can't remove it with our money.
On July 23, 2003, the U.S. House of Representatives approved by a vote of 260-161 an amendment to an appropriations bill that bars the use of federal funds to enforce the decision that ordered the removal of a two-ton Ten Commandments monument from the Judicial Building in Montgomery, Alabama. The vote was primarily along party lines. (The monument was removed, but I don't know who paid the movers.)
One year later, almost to the day, July 23, 2004, Hostettler drafted the Marriage Protection Act. It was adopted in the U.S. House of Representatives 233 to 194, again primarily along party lines. The bill would strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over legal challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a federal law passed in 1996 that purports to leave the recognition of same-sex marriage entirely to each state. In otherwords, one part of our population, gays and lesbians, would be denied access to the courts on the gay marriage issue.
Here comes the good news - for those of you who bother reading articles to the end. Mr. Stripper is in trouble. The polls show his opponent for his seat in November is leading him by double digits.
Blogs
Bartholomew's Notes On ReligionChip BerletMax BlumenthalThe Panda's ThumbFrederick Clarkson Chuck Currie DefCon father Jake Stops The World John Gorenfeld Religion Clause Chris Mooney Religious Right Watch The Revealer Jesus Politics Majority Report Radio Blog Mainstream Baptist Orcinus Dispatches from the Culture Wars Ex-Gay Watch The Wall of Separation Blog From The Capital:a blog on religious liberty issues and the separation of church and stateOrganizations
American Booksellers Foundation for Freedom of ExpressionACLUAnti-Defamation LeagueAmerican Library AssociationChristian Alliance for ProgressCitizens ProjectDefCon: Campaign to Defend The ConstitutionFaithful America People For the American wayInstitute For Democracy StudiesInterfaith AllianceJews On First: Defending the First AmendmentAmerican Fundamentalists Americans United for Separation of Church and StateBaptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty The Clergy and laity Network Political Research Associates Theocracy Watch Media Matters for AmericaMilitary Religious Freedom FoundationMontana Human Rights NetworkNational Center For Science EducationReligious Coalition for Reproductive ChoiceThe RevealerSouthern Poverty Law CenterTexas Freedom NetworkCrossLeft: Organizing the Christian LeftTheocracy WatchTruth Wins Out"
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