Greed and God, SCOTUS and Pot, Bush and the Porn Star
 

June 9 2005
Counterbias.com
Mel Seesholtz
 

You’ve probably noticed.

Since George W. Bush and those warm-and-fuzzy leaders of the Christian Right have been running the country things have gotten a bit… strange.

Every day the news brings confirmation of that strangeness, but sometimes it’s the sequence or juxtaposition of stories that are the real story. Consider this cluster from June 3-8, 2005:

• The money trail

• God and the Texas governor

• The boycott that wasn’t

• Rx: pain, suffering, and jail time

• Bush and the porn star

1. The money trail

The Intelligence Report is published by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It’s recent 23-page exposé  documented how the holier-than-thou leaders of the Christian Right are using homophobia not only to enhance their own political power through bigotry and hate, but also to fill their organizations’ coffers and line their own already deep pockets.

A Denver Post article by Eric Gorski entitled “Focus is on politics of nonprofits: The fundraising success of a new James Dobson group spurs debate on the rules” also exposed the money trail and its destination, as did an Associated Press story on the profitability of Focus on the Family’s Focus Action.

What’s Focus Action? Its founder is James Dobson (of SpongeBob fame). Here’s his explanation.

Note the conspicuous promo for his hysterically anti-gay book Marriage Under Fire, in which Dobson argued legalizing same-sex marriages would not only destroy society and civilization, but would bring about the end of the world: “The culture war will be over, and the world may soon become ‘as it was in the days of Noah’ (Matthew 24:37).” According to their federal tax forms, the second largest expenditure in Focus Action’s first six months of existence was $1.17 million for the distribution of Marriage Under Fire and its companion films, video and audio products.

In the first six months of its existence (April through September 2004), James Dobson’s Focus Action took in $8.8 million, all from “individuals” whose identity is protected, so there’s no way to know if these “individuals” actually represent political, religious, and/or corporate interests. Shouldn’t there be a public record of “individuals” contributing large sums of money to help influence government and public policy?

One hundred fifty-two donors contributed $5,000 or more. The largest contribution was $150,000. Five donors contributed $100,000 each. “That is quite a lot of money,” noted Frances Hill, tax program director at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. "But with Focus on the Family, it is not so surprising. They have an enormous money engine.”

Contributing to a non-profit ministry that genuinely seeks to help people is one thing. Contributing to a “ministry’s” political arm that’s dedicated to hurting and demeaning people as deeply and extensively as possible is quite another matter. In the case of Focus Action, the vast majority of their funds go to help prevent gays and lesbians -- 2 percent of the population -- from gaining civil equality in their personal and professional lives.

And on what does Focus Action plan to spend its money in the months to come? According to Tom Minnery, vice president of public policy for Focus Action, the first order of business is to revive and pass the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That’s money spent to turn the Constitution into a document that proscribes rights rather than guarantees them.
 

2. God and the Texas governor

On Sunday, June 5, 2005, Texas governor Rick Perry traveled to an evangelical school in Fort Worth -- Calvary Christian Academy -- to put his signature on measures that restrict access to abortion and seek to prohibit same-sex marriage. The latter document didn’t need his signature. It was just a statement confirming that the proposed amendment to Texas’ constitution banning same-sex marriage will be on the November ballot. But signing it at an evangelical school was “political capital” in the bank.

Mr. Perry described the signing event as “pro-family, pro-life.” But it was more and less than that, as New York Times writer Ralph Blumenthal noted:

The event caused a stir last week after The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported on plans for it. The Perry campaign later released the text of an e-mail message sent to religious groups. It said in part, “We want to completely fill this location with pro-family Christian friends who can celebrate with us.”

It continued: “We really need for you to help us turn out a very large crowd. We may also film part of this to be used later for TV.” …

In defending the location for the signing, Mr. Perry said “If we did this in a parking lot of Wal-Mart, God would be there.” So if this staged signing was "pro-family, pro-life” and “God would be there” no matter where it took place, perhaps the governor will select Texas’ death chamber for his next signing. It gets more use than any other death-chamber in the country.
 

3. The Boycott that wasn’t

“Charles C. Boycott and America’s Christian Right” appeared on Counterbias.com on Monday morning, June 6, 2005. The news from Don Wildmon’s American Family Association later in the day was that the boycott of Ford had been “suspended” for six months. According to AFA’s official announcement, they had met “with a group of Ford dealers,” presumably those from Tupelo, Mississippi where AFA is headquartered and, as Wildmon stated, “We believe the dealers were making a good faith effort and agreed to accept their request. Therefore, we accepted the suspension request and will work with the dealers in attempting to resolve our differences.”

Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, had a more likely explanation for the speedy suspension: “In less than one week, the American Family Association (AFA) capitulated and suspended its boycott of Ford Motor Company. It’s abundantly clear that AFA heard -- loud and clear -- from Ford dealers that they thought the boycott was a stupid idea. … You’d think AFA would have learned something from the flop of its nine-year boycott of Disney, which it had to suspend on May 24.”

In announcing the suspension of the Disney boycott, Wildmon said the company was still “on probation” because it sponsored “Gay Days.” The sixteenth annual Gay Day on June 5, 2005 drew 150,000 participants.

Perhaps boycott-crazy Wildmon also saw the latest study of Fortune 500 companies from the Human Rights Campaign. “Corporate America knows that fair treatment is not just the right thing to do -- it’s good for the bottom line,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese. “Non-discrimination policies and equal employee benefits help recruit and retain the best talent while improving productivity by ensuring that all of their employees can provide for their families.”

Among the Fortune 500, 216 companies provide domestic partner benefits and, as the 42-page report The State of the Workplace for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Americans 2004 noted, “the closer a company is to the top of the Fortune list, the more likely it is to have an inclusive policy. Forty-nine -- or 98 percent -- of the Fortune 50 companies include sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policy.”
 

4. Rx: pain, suffering and jail time

The headlines said it all. “Supreme Court allows prosecution of medical marijuana” (CNN). “Court Rules Against Pot for Sick People” (AP).

Both the CNN and AP stories noted that under the U.S. Constitution, Congress has the power to regulate a state’s economic activity if that activity involves “interstate commerce.” But the medical marijuana in question was “homegrown” – literally, in one of the plaintiff’s backyard.

The essence of the case was whether the prosecution of medical marijuana users under the federal Controlled Substances Act was constitutional. The case made it to the Supreme Court on appeal by the Bush administration, which had lost in the lower courts in 2003.

Despite the California state law allowing the medical use of marijuana, it was none other than that Crusader for Christ, former attorney general John Ashcroft, who decreed he and his federal forces would go after California physicians who prescribed or recommended marijuana as well as their patients who used it. Two of those patients -- Angel Raich and Diane Monson -- filed suit asking for a court order allowing them smoke and grow marijuana without fear of arrest or home raids. Monson's backyard crop of six marijuana plants was seized by federal agents in 2002.

Raich suffers from scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea, fatigue and pain. Monson has degenerative spine disease. Both women have been through all the medical and pharmacological protocols. Their cases are well documented. The only medication that helped was marijuana, which does have a 5000-year history of medicinal use. It’s also a weed and can be grown by anyone just about anywhere. In other words, it’s a medication that’s cheap and readily available, facts that no doubt upset the pharmaceutical lobby.

Reacting to the decision, director of National Drug Control Policy John Walters said “Our national medical system relies on proven scientific research, not popular opinion. To date, science and research have not determined that smoking marijuana is safe or effective.”

He’s just plain wrong about the scientific documentation of marijuana’s medical benefits. But he is right about the shortage of contemporary scientific and medical studies. It’s difficult to do them when all agencies in the Bush administration have made it extremely difficult -- if not impossible -- to gain permission for such research or to obtain funding for it, as was well documented in a June 8 New York Times OpEd by Sally Satel:

The first obstacle is ideological. The Drug Enforcement Administration has fought marijuana's use as a medicine, maintaining that it has no therapeutic value. …

But scientific consensus says otherwise. Surveying a range of findings, a federally commissioned Institute of Medicine report issued in 1999 noted the active ingredients in marijuana, cannabinoids, can relieve chemotherapy-induced nausea, stimulate appetite and suppress pain in patients who have failed to get relief from conventional treatments.

More obstacles come in the form of bureaucratic approval and a legal supply of research marijuana. Aside from gaining their own institution’s approval, researchers must pass evaluations by both the FDA and the DEA, not an easy task considering both agencies deny marijuana has any medical benefits. As Satel noted, “One scientific team has been trying for two years to get a mere 10 grams of marijuana from the drug abuse institute for its effort to develop a device that heats marijuana but doesn’t burn it, thereby providing nontoxic and immediate relief to patients.”

As for supply, the only legal supply available to researchers is the marijuana grown on a farm in Mississippi that’s run by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. But as Ms. Satel noted, this federal marijuana “is notoriously weak and poorly manicured.”

The director of the National Drug Control Policy was concerned about “safe and effective” medications. Has Mr. Walters ever read the long list of side-effects and contraindications on FDA approved prescription drugs, more than a few of which have been taken off the market, and some -- like thalidomide -- after having caused horrific damage.

And what did the Christian Right have to say about the Court’s “anti-life, pro-suffering” decision?

Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, a right-wing organization that specializes in religious freedom, said “from an application perspective … the enforcement against crime ensuring the fact that illegal drug usage doesn’t spread, this is a clear victory.” Dacus was also afraid that marijuana grown in one backyard could wind up for sale in dozens of other states. Somehow I don’t think Ms. Monson's six plants are going to supply “dozens of other states.”
 

5. Bush and the porn star

George W. Bush, the “values voter” president, beloved of Focus on the Family, Traditional Values Coalition, American Family Association and the other organizations of the evangelical Christian Right, all of which are rabidly anti-pornography.

Well, apparently Mr. Bush is going to have dinner with a flamboyant pornographer and his porn star date. The June 7 story was spotlighted in a far-right publication that regularly features Ann Coulte and has published articles with titles such as “Throw out all female members of Congress!” From World Net Daily:

Last week, Carl Forti, communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, explained to WND that self-described pornographer Mark Kulkis and his date, porn star Mary Carey, will be attending the two-day event, “The 2005 President’s Dinner and Salute to Freedom,” next Monday and Tuesday because their money is just as good as anyone else’s.

“They’ve paid their money,” he said. “No matter what they do, the money is going to go to help elect Republicans to the House.”

For $5,000, Cary and Kulkis will be in the same room as the president one day and presidential confidant Karl Rove another.

World Net Daily ran a follow-up story later that evening in which Mr. Kulkis, president of Kick Ass Pictures, explained that he had been “personally invited” to the dinner. “I’m honored to be invited to this event,” said Kulkis. “Republicans bill themselves as the pro-business party. Well, you won’t find a group of people more pro-business than pornographers. We contributed over $10 billion to the national economy last year.”

Ms. Cary is also very excited and enthusiastic: “I’m especially looking forward to meeting Karl Rove. Smart men like him are so sexy. I know that he’s against gay marriage, but I think I can convince him that a little girl-on-girl action now and then isn’t so bad.”

Will Mr. Rove have to apologize and excuse himself from the table when Ms. Cary begins her “a little girl-on-girl action” argument? Will the GOP hierarchy have to apologize to Mr. Kulkis and Ms. Carey for canceling their $5000 tickets?

Not according to another World Net Daily (WND) story about an article by die-hard right-winger Jack Wheeler who advocated America’s foreign policy -- and domestic political policies -- should be governed by a line from a 1948 John Wayne movie: “Never apologize, son. It’s a sign of weakness.”

WND and Wheeler claim “Some members of the Bush administration have taken” the cue. We’ll see…
 

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