Out With the Old and In with the New?

There’s been a great deal of speculation across the internet as to why James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family has stepped down.  From some reports, you’d conclude the 70+ year-old anti-equality, anti-right to choose Evangelist could perhaps be looking forward to doing what people do at that age…retire…go fishing…and wait for his admittance into the pearly gates of heaven, however, I ran across a post on TPM that may actually offer another reason, especially being that Dobson signed off as host from the Focus on the Family radio program and is set to launch a new radio program in May, which naturally leads to the question…If you’re going to retire, why not retire?  Is James Dobson being pushed out of Focus on the Family for so staunchly rejecting equality for LGBT citizens and a woman’s right to choose?

According to TPM:

Pastor Ken Hutcherson, who leads the Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland, Washington, and describes himself as a longtime friend of Dobson, says he became suspicious when Dobson, 73, announced he would launch his own independent radio show this spring. While the new show is not associated with Focus on the Family, it will be called Family Talk with Dr. James Dobson, and center on the same issues Dobson brought to his Focus broadcast.

And Focus — which has been through several rounds of painful layoffs — agreed to donate $1 million to Dobson to start the new show.

“Dr. Dobson gets off the radio in February, and he’s starting a new program in May. It just didn’t make sense. Why get off if you don’t want to get off?” Hutcherson asked in a phone interview with TPMmuckraker.

and…

Hutcherson says he’s talked to both Dobson and Focus president Jim Daly. While he won’t say what Dobson views on the matter are — and Dobson’s office did not respond to a request for comment — Hutcherson penned a WorldNetDaily column this week writing that, “One thing is for sure, in his humility, Dr. Dobson only wants to continue to speak the truth on the radio. Apparently, that truth has limited appeal to the new leadership at Focus.”

So, is their a kinder, more gentle religious right brewing? Are the old school thoughts of hate, intolerance, bigotry and discrimination being tossed aside? I suppose only time will tell, but at least this gives a glimmer of hope!

Religious Right Crying Over Secular America

From The Wall of Separation:

As last week came to a close, the Secular Coalition of America – an advocacy group made up of atheists, agnostics and humanists – had a chance to meet with members of the Obama Administration.

The meeting on Friday reportedly marked the first time American non-believers have ever met with White House officials, and it really struck a nerve with the Religious Right.

“It is one thing for Administration to meet with groups of varying viewpoints but it is quite another for a senior official to sit down with activists representing some of the most hate-filled, anti-religious groups in the nation,” said Bishop Council Nedd, chairman of a group called In God We Trust. Religious Right attorney Jordan Sekulow also complained about the White House chat during a segment that aired on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Nedd, Sekulow and others need to quit whining. Religious groups (left, right and center) have meetings with White House aides all of the time. The Obama administration decided to extend that privilege to some secularists. It’s not a big deal.

Catholic League President Bill Donohue claims the problem isn’t that atheists or agnostics are expressing their concerns, but rather that the Secular Coalition is particularly bad, in his opinion. He attacked the advisory board of the Secular Coalition, including AU’s Rob Boston, for having what he thinks is a “track record of open hostility to people of faith,” and who are “downright bigoted in their assault on Christianity, especially Catholicism.”

It’s always amusing to hear a Religious Right leader call anyone “bigoted,” “hateful” and “hostile.” But beyond that, their complaining is even more ridiculous when we look at how many times Religious Right leaders visited the White House under President George W. Bush.

More here!

Lying: The Religiously Right Thing To Do

The sleaze tactics used by the religious right in their fight against LGBT equality is something that’s to be expected.  All in all, they have nothing to base their baseless arguments and judgments on.  Being gay doesn’t make you a scary monster.  Being gay doesn’t make you a pedophile.  Being gay doesn’t take away from the life of anyone else.  Being gay is NOT an abomination.

However, since the religious right probably realizes all the above, they know they have to make up lies (we all know it’s a good Christian moral value to lie as long as your lying about the gays) and spew as much hateful rhetoric as possible hoping that some of it will influence the general population, which to a degree, I’m sure it does.  Throw dung at a wall, and some of it is going to stick.

So, in the case of adoption of children by LGBT people in the state of Florida…where gay adoption is currently illegal but being challenged, the religious right has stooped to an all time low.

The Florida Family Policy Council, who is associated directly with the anti-gay Focus on the Family, ran a piece about a lesbian couple who are battling an adoption case in Florida.  One of the lesbians is actually a blood relative to the child in question, yet the anti-gay bigots are worked up in a battle to maintain the discriminatory law that prevents gays and lesbians from adopting children in the state of Florida.  Now it doesn’t surprise me the group would run a post objecting to gay adoption.  After all, a great deal of their tax-exempt income is based on the manifestation of fear…fear of the gay agenda.

However, the thing that does surprise me, their blatant stupidity.  They knowingly used a picture to misrepresent the couple actually trying to adopt.  Of course I’m sure they knew they would be called out for their misrepresentation, but again…What happens when you throw dung at wall?  Some of it sticks, and I’m sure that’s exactly what they were trying to accomplish.

According to the Orlando Sentinel:

The judge’s ruling said exactly what most people would want to hear in an adoption case.

It said that the 1-year-old boy who had been living with his foster parents was “happy and thriving” — and that a permanent adoption made perfect sense.

It should be a simple story with a happy ending.

Except it is not.

That judge’s ruling — which focused solely on the child’s well-being — enraged some on the religious right.

Why? Because the little boy’s adoptive parents are gay.

So now those who profit from division are pouncing.

They aren’t the people who have cared for this little boy, who have nursed his wounds and tucked him in at night. In fact, they haven’t done a thing for him.

They haven’t consulted the experts — everyone from a child psychologist to a Guardian ad Litem — who say the parents provide precisely the loving environment that this child needs.

All these critics know is that they don’t want gay people to have the same rights as straight people.

So they want him separated from the parents who love him.

“Arrogant judicial activism” was how the finger-waggers at Orlando’s Florida Family Policy Council described the ruling in an alert it sent out to its members last week.

And to make their point about just how frightening this ruling was, the Policy Council included a photograph of the couple — a strange and androgynous-looking duo, one with bleached skin and both with mullet haircuts. The couple look so odd (you literally can’t tell whether they are male or female) that one might wonder how any judge could place a young child with such a disturbing-looking duo.

Except the judge didn’t.

The abnormal-looking couple that the Policy Council chose to illustrate this story is not the same couple granted the right to adopt the child.

You can read the entire post at the Orlando Sentinel by CLICKING HERE….and see the picture used below!

On the left, the picture used by the anti-gay "Christian" group. On the right, the actually couple.

CBS Refuses to Pull Ad by Anti-Gay Group

Contributed by Lyndon Evans:

On January 16 this writer was one of the first in the media to voice opposition to CBS Television’s decision to sell ad time during this year’s Super Bowl  to the anti-gay hate group Focus On The Family.

Yesterday CBS stood behind it’s decision to sell ad time and that it will not drop Focus On The Family as a Super Bowl advertiser. In an article at Broadcasting and Cable (B&C) reporter John Eggerton wrote in part, The network said it does not reject advocacy ads out of hand, and added that it would consider “responsibly produced ads from all groups” for the “few” remaining spots in the broadcast.

“We have for some time moderated our approach to advocacy submissions after it became apparent that our stance did not reflect public sentiment or industry norms on the issue,” CBS said in an e-mailed statement Tuesday. “In fact, most media outlets have accepted advocacy ads for some time. At CBS, our standards and practices process continues to adhere to a process that ensures all ads — on all sides of an issue — are appropriate for air.

“We will continue to consider responsibly produced ads from all groups for the few remaining spots in Super Bowl XLIV,” the network said.

A CBS spokesperson had told B&C Claire Atkinson last week that the network had vetted the spot’s script and did not expect to have any trouble with the video.

“It is not inflammatory or divisive,” a CBS exec told Atkinson last week.

The ad in question may not be inflammatory or divisive but Focus On The Family certainly is.

The following is an open letter directed to Les Moonves, President and CEO of the CBS Corporation.

Dear Mr. Moonves,

As a former and once proud employee of CBS Broadcasting I find your decision as head of CBS Broadcasting to allow Focus On The Family to buy ad time during this year’s Super Bowl broadcast, putting corporate profit above the fight against discrimination and to allow a group such as Focus On The Family to dictate what should be the moral conscience and decency for Americans, to be unconscionable.

When I was the commercial continuity manager at the CBS Radio Group in Hartford, CT and managed barter ads for program distributors such as Westwood One, I was not allowed to schedule certain radio spots.

I was not allowed to schedule ads from XM Satellite Radio as it was deemed a competitor. I was not allowed to schedule ads for Trojan prophylactics as the ad subject matter was deemed inappropriate for our four stations in the radio group.

And there were times I was not allowed to schedule ads from Radio Shack because the ad co-oped with XM Satellite Radio.

Part of my job was to bring to the attention of the Director of Operations and the General Manager of the Radio Group ads which may have “underlying political messages”, inappropriate content matter for the radio stations and ads which may be of a competitive nature to the radio broadcast industry (with the exception of TV or Cable Networks).

Should I be remiss in my duties and neglect to become “suspicious” of ad content, as I did once with Radio Shack co-oping with XM, my ass was handed to me on a platter, to put it in blunt terms.

So while the content of the upcoming ad from Focus On The Family may not be “inflammatory or decisive”, the same can not be said about the organization behind the ad.

Not only is your descision to accept advertising dollars from Focus On The Family an affront to LGBTs, women and those who believe in reproductive choice, it is a major disappointment I am sure for a great many loyal employees of the CBS Corporation and it’s divisions, this a Corporation which in its employee policy does not tolerate intolerance among the CBS Corporation and its various division’s employees.

Were I still working at CBS I would not write this communication to you for fear of losing my job.

Now that I no longer have to worry about that scenario, I can write this to be a voice for the thousands of fellow CBS employees I left behind and who may be afraid to express the like-minded view of this communication.

I use to say CBS was like a second family to me.

Today and until such time as you make the decision not to air the Focus On The Family ad, I am ashamed to have been part of the CBS  family.

Sincerely,

Lyndon Evans

Religious Right: Stronger than Ever?

According to an article on the Denver Post:

Fire and brimstone evangelicalism has simmered down into a broader movement of cooler approaches.

Yet much of what has been said about the expanded political agenda and softer tone of evangelical Christians has missed the point, say observers of the Christian right.

“Every time a Democrat gets elected they say: ‘That’s the end of the Christian conservatives. They’re gone,’ ” said D.C.-based Ethics and Public Policy Center vice president Michael Cromartie. “But they’re not. Broadening their agenda doesn’t mean they are suddenly liberal Democrats.”

And evangelicals, Cromartie said, are not abandoning their core issues: traditional marriage and sanctity of life. “Climate change does not trump pro-life issues.”

Although the rhetoric is gentler, the politics are the same. The money is going to lobby for the same things. The basic voting structure was largely unchanged in 2008, pollsters say.

“We want to be relevant to a new generation, but we plan to stay strong on the pillars Dr. James Dobson built at Focus on the Family,” said Tom Minnery, the ministry’s senior vice president of government and public policy.

Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/

So what is the motivation?  Is it that Americans are really rejecting the notion of “change”?   Are Americans truly afraid of the LGBT community?  Do they really believe there’s a gay agenda to take over the country and perhaps the world with the goal of ending opposite sex marriage and procreation?  Is it a failure of our educational system to demonstrate scientific fact?  Are churches more successful at reaching an audience and captivating them through fear based upon ignorance?

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