Majikthise

McCain's spiritual guide wants war on Islam (video)

Brave New Films released a remarkable video of Ohio mega-church pastor and faith-healer Rod Parsley preaching about how the Founding Fathers intended America to fight the anti-Christ, demon-inspired religion of Islam. (I'm not making this up.) Interspersed with the Parsley segments is footage of Sen. John McCain effusively praising Parsley on stage at a campaign rally in Cincinatti. McCain introduces Parsley as "one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, [and] a spiritual guide." The Republican presidential candidate thanks pastor Parsley for his leadership and his guidance.

And here's Pastor Parsley railing against the Supreme Court's legalization of "the perverted act of sodomy":

More words of wisdom from John McCain's moral compass Rod Parsley. (Check out the stuff about the prayer cloth and the love of money.)

Photog-kicking State Rep. calls guest workers "illiterate peasants"

Charming fellow...

Antitax crusader Douglas Bruce kicked a newspaper photographer and was then sworn in as a state representative on Monday, but not while the House was in session, as he had demanded. Bruce later said he wouldn't apologize and said the photographer should be the one to say he's sorry.

Bruce, a Republican, backed down in his standoff with Democratic House Speaker Andrew Romanoff and members of his own party over Bruce's insistence that the full House attend when he was sworn in to fill a vacant seat.

He settled for a smaller ceremony when the House was not in session, which is standard practice for midterm appointees.

Carrying a family Bible, Bruce went to the House floor Monday morning as a guest of Rep. Kent Lambert, a fellow Colorado Springs Republican.

When Rocky Mountain News photographer Javier Manzano took his photo during the traditional morning prayer, Bruce, who was standing, brought the sole of his shoe down hard on the photographer's bent knee. A CBS4 News videographer saw Bruce make a kicking motion, but didn't see the actual contact.

"Don't do that again," Bruce told Manzano.

Later, Bruce refused to apologize.

"I think that's the most offensive thing I've seen a photographer do in 21 years," he said. "If people are going to cause a disruption during a public prayer, they should be called for it. He owes an apology to the House and the public." [cbs4denver, Jan 14, 2008]

ThinkProgress reports that Douglas Bruce is back in the news. This time, for referring to 5000 proposed legal guest workers as "illiterate peasants." (Video)

Man kicked off plane for refusing to interrupt prayers for takeoff

A man was kicked off a plane in New York for refusing to return to his seat for takeoff. He was praying and didn't want to be disturbed.

According to friends who witnessed the incident, the man ignored the flight attendant's instructions because he feared theological blue balls:

When flight attendants urged the man, who was carrying a religious book, to take his seat, he ignored them, Brafman said. Two friends, who were seated, tried to tell the attendants that the man couldn't stop until his prayers were over in about 2 minutes, he said.

"He doesn't respond to them, but his friends explain that once you start praying you can't stop," said Brafman, who was seated three rows away. [AP]

It's usually difficult to tell from these kinds of "dramatic official reaction" stories whether the response was proportional, or whether the situation could been defused more adeptly.

Still, I appreciate United Airlines' stance: One guy's ritual should not take precedence over the timely departure of a flight; and, passengers must obey the instructions of the flight crew, as required law, whether they're praying or not.

State Rep: Atheist has no right to testify before state assembly

An Illinois State Representative says that its dangerous for children to learn that atheism exists. Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) excoriated atheist activist Rob Sherman as he testified in the state assembly last Wednesday.

Davis told Sherman that he had "no right to be here." It's not clear whether she meant the legislature or the state of Illinois generally.

"I am fed up! Get out of that seat!" she barked at the witness:

Davis: I don’t know what you have against God, but some of us don’t have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings. And it’s really a tragedy -- it’s tragic -- when a person who is engaged in anything related to God, they want to fight. They want to fight prayer in school.

I don’t see you (Sherman) fighting guns in school. You know?

I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous--

Sherman: What’s dangerous, ma’am?

Davis: It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you’ll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!

Sherman:Thank you for sharing your perspective with me, and I’m sure that if this matter does go to court--

Davis: You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon. [Chicago Tribune]

Audio.

HT: Crooks and Liars.

Huckabee wants to rewrite the US constitution

Radical cleric and Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee wants to rewrite the constitution:

The United States Constitution never uses the word "God" or makes mention of any religion, drawing its sole authority from "We the People." However, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee thinks it's time to put an end to that.

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution," Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

When Willie Geist reported Huckabee's opinion on MSNBC's Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski was almost speechless, and even Joe Scarborough couldn't immediately find much to say beyond calling it "interesting." [Raw Story]

For starters, Huckabee (may have) supported a proposal to rewrite the 14th Amendment to deny citizenship to children born on US soil to undocumented immigrant parents. Huckabee is the only presidential candidate to have called for the elimination of birthright citizenship.

Correction: Earlier I wrote that Huckabee opposed birthright citizenship. Actually, it's more complicated and interesting than that. Huckabee's ally Jim Gilchrist of the Minuteman Project reported on January 8th that Huckabee promised to oppose birthright citizenship, but on January 9th Huckabee contradicted Gilchrist saying he'd made no such promise:

Mike Huckabee yesterday contradicted his own top immigration surrogate, announcing he will not support a constitutional amendment to end birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to illegal aliens.

It was a stark reversal after The Washington Times reported that James Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, said Mr. Huckabee promised to pursue an amendment to the Constitution.

In an article in yesterday's editions, Mr. Huckabee's spokeswoman did not challenge the former Arkansas governor's statements to Mr. Gilchrist and said the two men shared the same goals on immigration.

But by yesterday afternoon, Mr. Huckabee had backed away from that position."I do not support an amendment to the Constitution that would prevent children born in the U.S. to illegal aliens from automatically becoming American citizens. I have no intention of supporting a constitutional amendment to deny birthright citizenship," Mr. Huckabee said in a statement posted on his campaign Web site. [WT]

I'll leave it to you to decide who's more credible, Jim Gilchrist or Mike Huckabee...

 

[HT: LGM]

Huckabee calls for wifely submission

Gov. Mike Huckabee reaffirmed that a wife should submit to her husband during last night's Republican debate in South Carolina.

Huckabee tried to soften the blow by saying that the Bible commands husbands and wives to give to each other 100%. He endorsed a far more radical position in 1998 when he endorsed the Southern Baptist Convention's amended statement on the family in a national advertising campaign.

The Southern Baptist Convention revised its core statement of belief in June of 1998 to include an explicit dictate for wives to submit to their husbands. Mike Huckabee and his wife Janet were among the 131 prominent Baptists signed a statement telling the SBC: "You Are Right" about the new family code.

Here's what Huckabee said the SBC was right about:

XVIII. The Family

God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society.

It is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood, or adoption.

Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God's unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race.

The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God's image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation. [The Baptist Faith and Message]

Am I the only one disturbed from the segue from "the family" to "sexual expression" to "submission"?  If family the forum for Christian sexual expression, and wives are supposed to submit to men on "family" matters...

Marie Griffith and Paul Harvey wrote approvingly of the SBC family resolution in 1998. Their article in Christian Century Magazine notes that SBC's changes were even more radical than the views espoused by leading Christian conservative groups at the time:

The SBC's concern about gender roles is not unlike that displayed by such organizations as the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America and the Promise Keepers. But the unequivocal proclamation on wifely submission moves the denomination well beyond the ambiguous and frequently conflicting statements on marital relationships made by these other groups.

Griffith and Harvey explain that "submission" in modern-day America doesn't mean that wives must unquestioningly obey orders from their husbands at all time. They reassure us that wives are still allowed to make suggestions and manipulate their husbands into giving them their way:

The meaning of "submission," of course, has changed significantly over time, despite the convention's claim that its resolution exalts the "unchanging Christ." Even among religious conservatives the word does not suggest blind obedience so much as pliant cooperation and acceptance of familial obligations. Research by sociologists, historians and ethnographers has dearly shown that the language of female submission in recent U.S. history has often been intertwined with the language of egalitarianism and, more important, that many women and men who claim to believe in female submission do not actually practice that belief with the literalness that outsiders might suppose.

In most everyday cases, the doctrine of submission entails consulting one's husband in areas that affect the family; it does not prevent attempts at persuasion, influence or even outright manipulation. Such techniques allow women who lack certain forms of social power or authority to get what they want without, it is hoped, seeming overly aggressive, unfeminine or "feminist." While such methods are not directly advocated by the doctrine's supporters, Southern Baptists and everyone else know that they go on all the time in real life.

Huckabee's dodge about mutual submission doesn't fit the SBC code that he endorsed.

If a wife's relationship to her husband is analogous to a man's relationship to God, it seems that "gracious submission" can't be mutual. After all, godfearing Baptist men aren't told to offer advice to God, nor manipulate the Almighty to get their own way. They're just supposed to accept that God knows best, even if His dictates seem ridiculous.

For example, Mike Huckabee's God tells him that he's not a primate, and Huck doesn't give the Good Lord any guff.

Union activists decry sweatshop crucifixes

Labor activists at the National Labor Committee say they have traced the path of crucifixes from a sweatshop factory in China to prominent retailers in North America:

NEW YORK - With Christmas just weeks away, a labor group on Tuesday denounced "horrific" sweatshop conditions where crucifixes are made in China to be sold at religious gift shops in the United States.

Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee, held a news conference in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral to call attention to conditions at a factory in Dongguan City where the religious objects, sold in St. Patrick's gift shop, are made.

Kernaghan said the crosses were exhibited at an annual trade show organized by the Association for Christian Retail, a Colorado-based trade association that works with thousands of religious stores across the country. [AP]

Here is the National Labor Committee's report on the working conditions at the Junxingye Metal and Plastic Products Factory in Guangdong Province, China.

The report documents the paper trail from the factory, to major importers of religious gifts, to prominent end-line retailers in the USA.

The report's sourcing on the working conditions is a bit thin. Apart from a few direct quotes from anonymous workers, it's not clear how the ILC got its information.

The ILC report also includes photographs, purportedly showing the working and living conditions of the Junxingye workers. If these photographs are genuine and current, they are a stinging indictment.

Working conditions such as these are not unusual. Nor is it uncommon for end-line retailers to have no idea where the goods they sell came from, or under what conditions they were produced.

Kernaghan stresses that St. Patrick's Cathedral didn't know the provenance of the crucifixes. ILC investigators found that the merchandise wasn't even stamped with the name of the country of origin, as required by US law.

Atheist soldier sues military for discrimination

Kudos to Spec. Jeremy Hall of the 97th Military Police Battalion for standing up for his rights as an infidel:

FORT RILEY, Kan. - A soldier whose superior prevented him from holding a meeting for atheists and other non-Christians is suing the Defense Department, claiming it violated his right to religious freedom.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., alleges a pattern of practices that discriminate against non-Christians in the military. It was filed Monday to coincide with the 220th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution. [AP]

Hall's lawsuit alleges that he got permission to distribute fliers on his base in Iraq advertising a meeting for atheists and other non-Christians, that an officer prevented him from holding the meeting and threatened to file charges against him. 

It's ironic... Some believers love to claim, disparagingly, that atheism is just another kind of religion. Yet, I wonder how many of them are also prepared to treat atheism and free thought as equivalent to religions in the full legal sense.

Faith-based affordable housing

I really don't like the sound of this. Why should federal housing money be percolated through churches?

In the past year, the regional office of Enterprise Community Partners, one of the nation's largest affordable housing groups, has turned its focus to lobbying houses of worship, said David Bowers, director of the D.C. area branch. The group has had workshops for dozens of members of the clergy on using tax credits, accessing private money and crystallizing goals. The project has launched development of 235 units, including a rental apartment project in Northeast Washington and condominiums in Southwest. By the end of 2008, it plans to have helped clergy create 450 units of affordable housing.

And the Washington Interfaith Network, a group of 50 congregations that works on urban issues, has had congregants take monthly walks in every city quadrant to check out abandoned buildings and vacant properties in search of potential housing sites. The group has identified 20 to 25 sites, mostly in wards 4 through 8, and is working with the city to push along development, said the Rev. Lionel Edmonds, a co-chairman.

The effort has gained fuel from research at Georgetown University showing that in Ward 8 alone, about 60 churches own dozens of empty lots worth tens of millions.

The renewed interest accompanies what some call a spiritual crisis in affordable housing. It is particularly pronounced in Washington, where available land is rare and prices have been booming. [WaPo]

Making churches into property developers is a bad idea for taxpayers, churches, and residents alike. If churches are imbuing their developments with their other-worldly agenda, i.e., creating communities that are specifically tailored to their theological precepts, then it's inappropriate to be giving them public support for these efforts--no matter how well-motivated they may be.

On the other hand, if churches  are just acting like any other property developers, why designate them as middlemen?

The motive, I suspect, is to create yet another revenue stream for the Republicans' backers in the churches. By earmarking certain funds for faith-based programs, the church-based development companies circumvent competition for federal funds.

Majikthise: Maternity group homes

My latest article is up at RHRealityCheck: Sent Away: A New Look At Maternity Group Homes. It's about the new generation of homes for unwed mothers.

The world of maternity group homes is not very well-studied. One of the lesser-known benefits of Roe was the disappearance of the huge institutional maternity homes where pregnant women would go to gestate and secretly hand off their babies for adoption.

Today's homes run the gamut from secular publicly-funded social services for homeless teenagers, to expensive "tough love" boarding schools, to the back ends of the same crisis pregnancy centers that mislead women about birth control and abortion.

The private religious homes and the boarding schools can be shockingly restrictive and seemingly quite punitive towards their clients. For example, I found that many facilities cut off their clients' access to visitors and even phone calls for weeks or months at a time. Many will not allow the birth father to be present at the delivery, even if the mother wants him there.

If anyone has had any personal experiences with maternity homes, please leave comments or send email. I'd love to know more.

My article is part of a special RH RC symposium on the Politics of Childbirth.

Also contributing: Amie Newman, Jill Sheffield, Tracy Cooper, Lisa Chin, and Susan Hodges.