Well, my headline is a tad exaggerated. But not by much. There is dynamite material in this blog round-up that points to themes that have never been adequately exploited by those affected by the religious right. Three examples:
1) Routine lies and distortions by religious right organizations and leaders
2) The bizarre role of Rev. Sun Myung Moon in the GOP
3) Forced abortion and prostitution in the free market paradise of the Mariannas promoted and protected by Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff.
There have been a great many unexploited or underexploited fractures, flaws, hypocrises and more over the years. To make effective use of such thing requires knowledge and skills in using the material effectively. These are things that are rarely encouraged anywhere left of the religious right.
And people wonder why the religious right is so powerful.
Meanwhile, here is one of my "more or less weekly" round-ups of some of the most interesting and significant discussion of the religious right and what to do about it that I can find out there. Some of them I saved from a little while back, since I have been out of action of late. Most are very recent.
Religious Right Watch
Scott flags a comment by Jonathan Hutson on the Daily Kos:
One mistake progressives make is to assume that religious right leaders spend most of their time and resources organizing for change on the religious front, using the tools of religion. In reality, religious right leaders spend most of their time, energy, and other resources organizing for change on the political front, using political tools, such as voter registration, building up the Republican party from the grassroots up, voter identification, and get-out-the-vote drives.
There is much cognitive dissonance about this. This cognitive dissonance shows up in Democratic Party caucuses, when the topic of what to do about the organizing of the religious right leaders does not even come up.
Here on Daily Kos, the cognitive dissonance comes up when some people pay little attention to posts on the religious right, because they assume discussions of the religious right have little to do with their main interest, which is how to win elections.... But discussions of the religious right are directly relevant to Democrats who want to win elections.
Street Prophets
Mahanoy has an excellent multi-part series on dominionism and Chirstian nationalism. We need more of this kind of analysis. And more importantly, more people who understand its significance and are able to take these arguments into the much ballyhooed "public square," -- and use these arguments effectively.
Where in Washington, DC is Reverend Moon?
John Gorenfeld notes that
Washington Times owner and conservative benefactor Rev. Sun Myung Moon has dumped a fortune in foreign mystery money into the Capitol. Here [In a video on John's site] he is speaking on CSPAN in 1984 about what he describes as a vast project to influence the destiny of the United States. That was years ago, of course; Moon has now injected as much as $3 billion into the paper alone.
Faith in Public Life
Alex Carpenter notes
a disturbing trend among right wing religious groups, one of not checking their facts and even mispresenting reality. For example, the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures states that the opponents' argument, that supporters of the Stem Cell Initiative "have a 'profit motive' for wanting to pursue stem cell cures, is false and absurd. The truth is, the major medical institutions involved in stem cell research in Missouri - such as the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Washington University School of Medicine and the University of Missouri - are non-profit institutions."
Wall of Separation
Speaking of the lies and distortions of the religious right, Lauren Smith reports that in the wake of a recent federal court ruling that a taxpayer-supported prison program in Iowa run by Charles Colson's Prison Fellowship was unconstitutional, Charles Colson the founder, and Mark Earley, president of Prison Fellowship, are apparently "very angry over that ruling - so much so that they are trying to re-litigate the case through the media."
The past two months have seen a torrent of columns, letters and other outraged communications from Colson and Earley carping about the ruling and spreading misinformation about it. It's clearly part of coordinated effort to reach the secular and religious media. Most recently, Colson struck in the August issue of Christianity Today, asserting in a column that Judge Pratt's ruling in Americans United v. Prison Fellowship Ministries gives a "distorted" view of evangelicals and promotes bigotry....
Judge Pratt's 140-page is in no way bigoted toward evangelicals. Pratt does examine the beliefs of evangelicals in the decision but merely to make the point that evangelical beliefs are not the only version of Christianity. He notes that many other believers find the tenets of evangelicalism in conflict with what their churches teach.
Smith also notes that Prison Fellowship's claims that their program decreases recidivism, "does not hold up under scrutiny".
The one and only study they cite that did show a lower recidivism rate for IFI graduates was quickly debunked. University of California-Los Angeles professor Mark Kleiman found that the study simply ignored 58 percent of the participants. When those inmates were added back in, Kleiman found that IFI participants actually returned to prison at a higher rate than non-participants.
Blog from the Capital
Don Byrd has dug-up some background on Jay Hein, the latest White House director of faith based initiatives. He notes that whoever the guy is, the Interfaith Alliance nails the underlying problem of the office itself:
This office violates the First Amendment by creating government-sponsored religion, paid for by all taxpayers no matter what their faith and beliefs; and it violates civil-rights laws by allowing religious discrimination in hiring and in providing services to those in need.
Talk to Action
Max Blumenthal has an expose of the new Christians United for Israel headed by Texas televangelist John Hagee, "a newly formed political organization that tells its members that supporting Israel's expansionist policies is 'a biblical imperative.'" In sum: "They have their own agenda and it has nothing to do with peace." Interestingly, the first lobbyist for the group, David Borg, used to be the chief of staff to U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA).
Chip Berlet describesinfluential evangelical minister and novelist Tim LaHaye's obcession with the alledged conspiracy of "secular humanism" in part seven of his series.
Moiv Reports:
In his farewell speech Tom DeLay told the House of Representatives, "We have opposed abortion, cloning and euthanasia, because such procedures fundamentally deny the unique dignity of the human person."
But as a well-compensated favor to one of his "dearest friends," Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay has actively promoted "such procedures" in the Marianas Islands for years, where thousands of garment workers -- most of them young Chinese women -- labor in indentured servitude, live in labor camps run by members of the Chinese Communist Party, and submit to forced abortions if they become pregnant.
Human rights worker Eric Gregoire told ABC News, "With 11,000 Chinese workers here, I have never seen a Chinese garment factory worker have a baby."
Diarist Kaylor reveals that the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance -- a religous right group that recently issued a statement that downplays concerns about climate change -- has serious conflicts of interest:
...of the signers, eight of them work for six organizations that have received a total of $2.32 million in donations from ExxonMobil over the last three years. This includes one of the four authors of the document. Two men connected to the Jack Abramoff scandal also signed the statement.