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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.
Bobby Jindal's Creationism and Alliance with David Barton |
| Sat Sep 29, 2007 at 10:08:13 PM EST |  print story | |
When Bobby Jindal ran for governor of Louisiana in 2003, his support for teaching creationism surfaced during the campaign. Since his defeat in that race and subsequent election to the U.S. House of Representatives, he has continued to tour the state, often speaking at churches. Last fall, he toured north Louisiana churches with Republican Religious Right operative David Barton, who promotes the myth that the United States was founded politically as a Christian nation. During his 2007 campaign for governor, Jindal has largely avoided public forums in which he might be asked unexpected questions, and the media either are unaware of or have avoided covering Jindal's activities with Barton. The Louisiana Democratic Party launched a series of ads regarding Jindal's religious views that have obscured the true issue: his alliance with the Religious Right. What follows is a letter I wrote to a local Louisiana newspaper in order to accurately inform the public about Jindal's creationism and alliance with Barton. |
| topic: Church/State Separation |
Mr. Jindal’s alliance with the Religious Right has been obscured by the Louisiana Democratic Party’s ham-fisted ads attacking him as anti-Protestant. Not only are Democrats wrong to use religion politically, but their ads are factually incorrect: Mr. Jindal, a Catholic, is not anti-Protestant. He works hand in hand with evangelical Protestants who oppose public education and church/state separation. Conservative Catholics and evangelical Protestants became allies in 1994 to pursue a shared political agenda (“Evangelicals and Catholics Together”). Although they certainly don’t represent all Christians, they pursue common goals such as putting right-wing ideologues into federal judgeships, promoting intelligent design creationism, and dismantling church/state separation. Democrats didn’t have to make Mr. Jindal’s religious views a political issue. He has done this himself.
Mr. Jindal’s platform calls for promoting “math, science and literacy” and hiring teachers in fields such as “physics, math, or biology” (p. 5). However, an important fact from his 2003 gubernatorial campaign should be recalled: Mr. Jindal supports teaching creationism. In September 2003, the Associated Press reported his answering “yes” on the Louisiana Family Forum’s voter guide as to whether he favored teaching the “scientific weaknesses of evolution” (creationist codetalk) in public schools. (LFF is affiliated with Focus on the Family, a powerful Religious Right organization.) When a reporter asked his position on teaching creationism, Mr. Jindal’s response clearly favored undermining the teaching of evolution: “With evolution there are flaws and gaps. I think it's appropriate to tell our students that no scientific theory can prove evolution.” (“Sharp questions put candidates at governor’s forum on spot,” Associated Press, September 25, 2003) Jindal, a Rhodes scholar and Brown University biology graduate, surely knows better but apparently opted for political expediency.
Jindal has made his religion an issue by fusing personal religiosity and politics. The 2/28/07 Livingston Parish (LA) News reported that his February 2007 Abundant Life Church speech (in Denham Springs, LA), attended by “prominent local politicians,” consisted “almost entirely” of his Christian testimony. Jindal was also photographed praying with Destiny International Church pastors during a party at the church coordinated by Livingston Parish Republican Women. (Livingston Parish News, 4/26/07)
Among Jindal’s most troubling allies is Republican Religious Right operative David Barton, who calls church/state separation “a myth.” Barton, who runs an organization called Wallbuilders, has used bogus quotations by the Founding Fathers to support his contention in books and videos that American government was founded on Christianity. Americans United for Separation of Church and State exposed Barton as a pseudo-historian who “makes a living” attacking church/state separation (Church & State, April 1993). Mr. Jindal promotes this false history.
Journalist Frederick Clarkson reported in October 2006 that Jindal and Barton visited Baptist churches in Alexandria, Bossier City, and West Monroe. Describing these visits on Barton’s Wallbuilders Live! radio program a few days later (October 18 & 19, 2006), Jindal praised Barton’s pseudo-history: “Dave did a fantastic job, went to three churches with us, just reminding us of our nation’s history [and] heritage.” Barton, calling Jindal a “product of what we were able to put in office in 2004” because of the “huge increase in Christian voter turnout,” praised Jindal’s desire to “make a difference in the culture war.”
Voters who value religious freedom and disapprove of George Bush’s attack on church/state separation should consider what Mr. Jindal may do as governor, aided by his Religious Right allies. His religious views should be no one else’s concern, but he has made them everyone’s concern.
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