Bart Stupak, Family 'Minister', Wrapped in C Street Like a Bug in a Rug
Bruce Wilson printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Tue Nov 10, 2009 at 07:26:35 PM EST
Even while protesting that he isn't trying to kill health care reform, House Representative Bart Stupak (D-Mich), who has incurred the wrath of the pro-reproductive rights American left and female Democratic Party supporters and so risked sabotaging current health care reform efforts  by forcing an anti-abortion amendment into the recently passed House health care bill, has vehemently denied being a member of "The Family":  a fundamentalist Christian association set up in the 1930's as a union-busting enterprise and which later worked to undo Roosevelt's New Deal.

But Stupak has lived for at least seven years in a well-appointed Washington DC row house that's registered as church, has its own chapel, and is run by the Family's chief nonprofit entity, the Fellowship Foundation; 990 tax return forms submitted by that foundation indicate  the very function of the 'C Street House', and similar area houses run by the Fellowship Foundation, is to provide lodging for people in the Family's ministry. As its 2005 990 Federal tax return explains, "[the Fellowship Foundation's] Room & board income relates to persons in ministry reimbursing the foundation for expenses incurred for supplying living accomodations. [sic]"

So according to the Fellowship Foundation's tax returns, the man who inserted the Stupak-Pitts amendment into the House health care bill is a "minister" in the Family. Family members, according to World Magazine, journalist Jeff Sharlet, and other sources are known to refer to their Fundamentalist Washington association as a "Christia mafia."

Michigan Representative Bart Stupak has been living at the now infamous Washington, DC, "C Street House" at least as far back as 2002, when in an interview for a September 27, 2002 story by Lisa Getter published in the Los Angeles Times, Showing Faith in Discretion, Stupak told Getter, "We sort of don't talk to the press about the house."

Journalist Jeff Sharlet, who after Lisa Getter's 2002 story has blazed a trail of in-depth research into the Family, and who lived at a Family group home for a year, states that among the benefits of the well appointed C Street House is personal maid service, courtesy of female students from a local Christian college.

Rooms at the 8,000 square foot C Street House, which features according to Getter "12 bedrooms, nine bathrooms, five living rooms (including one with a big-screen TV), four dining rooms, three offices, a kitchen--and a small chapel" go for $600 dollars a month, dramatically below area market rates - which by some estimates (excluding the free maid service) would normally run $1500 a month. This raises the question: does the apparent $10,000-plus yearly benefit, that C Street residents enjoy, amount to a political or campaign contribution which should be officially declared ?

In 2002, Representative Stupak suggested to LA Times reporter Lisa Getter  that C Street House residents shared a collective code of silence - which is certainly suggestive given journalist Sharlet's report that Family members sometimes jokingly refer to themselves as a "Christian mafia." Seven years after the Getter interview, during the summer of 2009, with the emergence of a trio of sex scandals tied to national-level current and former Republican politicians who lived at or were linked to the C Street House, Bart Stupak claimed to know nothing at all about the Family or about what goes on at C Street.

As Stupak told Michigan messenger journalist Ed Brayton, in response to a question about the C Street House, "I don't belong to any such group, I rent a room at a house in `C Street.' I do not belong to any such group. I don't know what you're talking about, [The] Family and all this other stuff."

In 2002 Chip Grange, an attorney for the Fellowship, told Lisa Getter, "The C Street property is a church." Grange went on,  "It is zoned as a church. There are prayer meetings, fellowship meetings, evangelical meetings." The target ? "Our mission field is Capitol Hill."

Evidence is that Bart Stupak has for years played an important role in the Family's Washington, DC, evangelism efforts. The Family maintains prayer groups in the House and Senate which operate in conjunction with The Family's signature yearly public event, the National Prayer Breakfast, that was established in 1953. As the Fellowship Foundation's 2001 990 form describes,

"The Foundation helps facilitate the National Prayer Breakfast held annually in Washington, DC, widely attended by business, political and spiritual leaders from around the world. This event is held in conjunction with the U.S. House and Senate Prayer groups."

In 2004, Stupak told the UPI he was "chairman of the House prayer group that meets every Thursday for one hour." But that's not the end of Bart Stupak's Family related responsibilities.

At the 2008 National Prayer Breakfast Stupak stated he was co-chair of the House Prayer Breakfast, an institution which, according to Family/Fellowship records at the Billy Graham Center in Wheaton, Illinois, was established by the Family/Fellowship in 1942. Stupak has twice spoken at the National Prayer Breakfast.

Long-time leader of the Family Doug Coe has advocated the leadership lessons of Hitler, Lenin and Mao, and spoken admiringly of the ability of Bolshevik revolutionary cells to take over Russia. The Family does not own the C Street House; a sister ministry, the international behemoth Youth With a Mission, holds title to the property. Youth With a Mission's founder and head Loren Cunningham advocates that Christians should infiltrate key sectors of society such as government, business, education, and media.




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Comment on "Bart Stupak, Family 'Minister', Wrapped in C Street Like a Bug in a Rug" The tax-exempt status of the house on C Street has been revoked. http://jonathanturley.org/2009/06/26/stimulating-sex-russ-limbaug h-blames-sanford-affair-on-obama-economic-policies/#comment-90912 November 16, 2009 at 8:55 am Here is some great news. I reported above, June 26, 2009 at 10:09 am, that the religious retreat on Capitol Hill was nothing but a tax dodge: "The property is Tax Type E1, Religious. It is tax exempt. No tax payments are shown. The Members live in a tax-free property. Most of those who live in the District have to pay property taxes, or pay rent to landlords who pay property taxes. These Senators and Representatives say some prayers in the dining room, claim their flophouse as a church, convent or monastery, and pay sub-market rent for their rooms. They are sponging off the taxpayers of the District, and will not even vote to give them representation in Congress. "This does not even sink to the level of hypocrisy. It is pure, simple, unadulterated, unmitigated gall." So the right-wing residential "church" on Capitol Hill at 133 E St SE, where Mark Sanford and John Ensign mulled over their respective adulteries, used to be exempt from property tax as a religious property. Well, at least one complaint just happened to be filed a few months ago, by some anonymous citizen who will remain nameless ""wink, wink," with the taxpayer hotline at the DC tax office. The property has now been reclassified as residential, with a taxable assessment of $1,834,500. They paid their property tax on October 21, 2009, in the amount of $1,714.70. https://www.taxpayerservicecenter.com/RP_Search.jsp?search_type=A ssessment (Just plug in the address 133 C St SE, then click on "square/lot" in upper left, then click on "view payments" in lower right. It is all there). Owner Name: YOUTH WITH A MISSION WASHINGTON DC INC C ST CENTER Tax Class: 001 - Residential.

by Vince2009 on Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 07:17:21 PM EST

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#35734354

by danny6114 on Sat Mar 06, 2010 at 10:48:03 PM EST


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