Impaled on the Horns of the Devil
 

August 29 2006
Counterbias.com
MEL SEESHOLTZ
 

The Republican Party has been in an incestuous relationship with the Christian Right for many years. But with the election of George W. Bush, the GOP sold their soul to the Devil.

They say the Devil is a deceiver who pretends to be “of God” while working for His own malevolent ends: a perfect description of the politicized evangelical Christian Right.

After six years of Bush fiascos and as many years of self-righteous, hypocritical, and often just plain vile thundering by the sanctimonious leaders of the Christian Right, the GOP is impaled on the horns of the Devil.

The impaling began in earnest on August 18, 2006 when news broke that California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had hired one of the most homophobic lobbyist from the most homophobic organization in the Christian Right: Benjamin Lopez from Lou Sheldon’s Traditional Values Coalition. TVC says its goal is “to restore America’s cultural heritage” by opposing gay and lesbian civil rights. The “traditional values” and “cultural heritage” Sheldon, Lopez and the TVC wish to resurrect, preserve and propagate include segregation, discrimination, and bigotry masquerading as “morality.”

Himself a advocate of concentration camps (aka “cities of refuge”), Sheldon has accused gay Americans’ struggle for civil equality of being Nazi-like:

Americans should understand that their attitudes about homosexuality have been deliberately and deceitfully changed by a masterful propaganda/marketing campaign that rivals that of Adolph Hitler. In fact, many of the strategies used by homosexuals to bring about cultural change in America are taken from Hitler’s writings and propaganda welfare manuals. (“Homosexual Propaganda Campaign Based on Hitler’s ‘Big Lie’ Technique,” by Louis Sheldon, special report, Vol. 18, No. 10)

Sheldon can see outside only what’s inside his mind and soul.

“Lucky Louie’s” favorite lie is based on the stereotype he loves to pervert even further for his own sinister purposes:

As Homosexuals continue to make inroads into public schools, more children will be molested and indoctrinated into the world of homosexuality. Many of them will die in that world. (“Homosexuals Recruit Public School Children,” by Louis Sheldon, special report, Vol. 18, No. 11)

The extent to which Sheldon and the TVC will go in further twisting false stereotypes for their own political purposes (and financial well-being) is more fully explored in “America’s New McCarthyism: Homosexual Stereotypes, Myths, and the Politics of Fear,” Popular Culture Review, 16:2 (August 2005), 83-115.

More recently, Sheldon added his two-(non)sense in another venue:

none of the panelists delivered as bombastic a screed as the Rev. Lou Sheldon, head of the hard-line anti-gay group Traditional Values Coalition. Sheldon demanded laws that treat homosexuality as “a social disorder.” Decrying the term “homosexual” as the brainchild of a 20th-century German psychologist obviously sympathetic to gays, Sheldon implored the conferees to return to the 18th century’s superior diction. “The word used in America [then] was ‘perverted’,” he noted. When Sheldon was asked by an audience member what to call homosexuals, he shot out of his chair and shouted, “Call them what they are – sodomites!”

Too bad Lou doesn’t know what “sodomites” really means. But then again, ignorance and unbridled hate are Sheldon’s forte.

Political writers for The San Francisco Chronicle Carla Marinucci and Tom Chorneau summarized Sheldon, his political connections and unbridled hatred for gay and lesbian Americans quite well in their August 21, 2006 article:

Sheldon has been described as a Republican point man often tapped by Washington insiders, from presidential adviser Karl Rove and Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, to advise on evangelical outreach.

 

But critics say Sheldon’s Traditional Values Coalition crossed the line of mere evangelical advocacy to fringe behavior, citing Sheldon’s past suggestions that AIDS patients be quarantined in “cities of refuge,” and his statements that a homosexual invasion will result in “the stealing of our children,” and that gay marriage will “destroy civilization as we know it.”

Benjamin Lopez is a Sheldon clone. No matter what it is, if it involves any modicum of social, cultural, legal, or economic recognition for gay Americans, their children or their families, you can count on Lopez being there to protest. He was a principal player in convincing Schwarzenegger to veto the marriage legislation passed by the California legislature that would have given equal social, legal and economic recognition to all families. Lopez took great pride in hurting gay and lesbian parents and their children: “To be given specific credit by [CA Assemblyman] Mark Leno for the ultimate defeat of his same-sex marriage bill is an honor.”

When California tried to recognize the contribution of gay and lesbian Americans in history textbooks, Lopez was there to offer the usual fallacious arguments – as he has done so many times before – and to defend the discrimination he and the TVC advocate:

“We feel schools should not be in the business of teaching beliefs and value systems that parents instill in the home,” Lopez said. “We’ve given them an inch and now they want to take a mile. I doubt it will stop here.”

Mr. Lopez’s first statement really makes no sense. How does acknowledging the contributions of gay and lesbian Americans – or Jewish, African, Chinese, Hispanic Americans for that matter – contradict anyone’s beliefs or values system, unless, of course, one is a bigot and prejudiced against these groups.

It’s history. It’s a fact that gays and lesbians have significantly and positively contributed to American society. Why do Mr. Lopez and the TVC object to acknowledging that?

As for his second statement, if the “we” refers to the Traditional Values Coalition, then Mr. Lopez is simply lying. Sheldon and the TVC are well-known for not wanting to give even a millimeter, much less “an inch.” All one has to do is visit the TVC website to see how virulent and vitriolic their anti-gay attitudes are and to see how they twist and pervert every negative stereotype in their campaign against civility and civil equality. They thrive on fear-mongering and the politics of fear, which is exactly what Mr. Lopez invoked when he said “I doubt it will stop here.”

It looked certain that this Sheldon acolyte and master of the politics of fear was to be part of Schwarzenegger’s reelection campaign team and a GOP consultant in the Golden State. His first “task” seemed obvious. On August 21, 2006 the California Assembly passed a watered down version of the textbook bill Lopez had railed against

Legislation banning materials and activities in California schools that are discriminatory towards the state’s LGBT community or portray gays in a negative light was passed late Monday afternoon in the Assembly.

 

The measure passed 47 - 31 after a lengthy, often heated debate.

 

The bill was a watered down version of one that would also have mandated the teaching of LGBT history and current affairs in schools throughout California. The curriculum provisions were struck out two weeks ago at the request of the bill's author, Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Los Angeles), after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger threatened to veto it. (story) …

 

By that point the original measure had passed the Senate.  The new version returns to the upper house which is expected to approve it. But whether the governor will sign it is not yet known. …
 

California already requires that African Americans, native peoples, Mexicans, Asians and Pacific Islanders be included in textbook descriptions of “the economic, political and social development of California and the United States of America, with particular emphasis on portraying the role of these groups in contemporary society.”

 

“We’re just the latest community to come along…" said [Sen. Sheila] Kuehl [the bill’s author].

Right on cue, another so-called “pro-family” group opposed to civil equality for all citizens mounted a campaign against the California legislation, and the governor if he signed the bill. Randy Thomasson of the Sacramento-based Campaign for Children and Families was blunt in this threat, as duly reported by Agape Press, the propaganda organ of Don Wildmon’s American Family Association: “If the governor of California ‘abandons children’ by signing this or any of the other school sexual indoctrination bills, Thomasson predicts that ‘pro-family voters will abandon him’ when he runs for re-election in November.”

“Abandons children”? Perhaps Thomasson might want to speak with two other “pro-family” zealots – Randall Terry and Alan Keyes – about how they abandoned their children.

The threat of abandoning Arnold in the November election defines “hollow,” and shows just how desperate the Devil is, and how deeply impaled on His horns the GOP is. Please, stay home, theocrats. Don’t vote. Help California and the rest of the country move forward.

Writing for the California Progress Report, Frank D. Russo summarized the effects of the Schwarzenegger’s – and the GOP’s – impaling:

It’s just fascinating to watch all the gyrations of Arnold Schwarzenegger and the spinning of his spokepeople as the California Republican Party holds its convention this weekend [August 19-20]. You can see the campaign strategy of moving left, right, and center in the press accounts of this media spectacle. If there wasn’t such an important office at stake – the head of the biggest state in the union, we could treat this as a sport or maybe a modern artform of spatial distancing – not too close to Bush, but not too far away from some of the litmus test issues of the right wing. If you plot out this on a graph, or even use three dimensional coordinates, it is difficult to see where Arnold really stands. It’s a place that doesn’t make any sense and doesn’t exist in nature, but only in the construct of a political campaign. [italics added]

That last phrase is astute and prophetic. Similar sentiments were echoed in Carla Marinucci’s and Tom Chorneau’s San Francisco Chronicle article:

Critics, however, are already questioning Lopez’s hiring and suggesting it raises concerns about Schwarzenegger’s aim of crafting a moderate political profile in the current re-election campaign.

 

“This is what happens when you try to be all things to all people, which is Schwarzenegger’s strategy,” said Democratic Party spokesman Roger Salazar. “This is a governor that will do and say anything to get elected ... and if the governor doesn’t agree with Lou Sheldon on these issues, then he ought to get up and disavow him.” [italics added]

American politics has become a perverted caricature. The overt machinations and behind-the-scenes scheming derive largely from the incestuous marriage of perverted religion – a la Sheldon-Lopez-TVC – and “politics as usual.” Many true Christian are appalled: “‘How dare we live in a nation where, because of our sexuality, we are denied human rights?’ asked a church member, the Reverend Mary Workman, 78, speaking at the First Christian Church in Tucson.”

The words of another true Christian were recorded by her son, Rob Hamm, in a November 2, 2004 Advocate.com article. The lead-in to the article read: “A church-going mom called her gay son last night to ask what he thinks about today’s ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage and civil unions in their native Oklahoma. The conversation didn’t go as he expected.”

What did Mrs. Hamm have to say? To begin with, she voted against the Oklahoma constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and civil unions because, as she put it, “God meant for everyone to have choice in their lives. That is all about being human, and anyone that takes that choice away is acting like God. That is blasphemy, and I won’t be a part of it… I don’t think it can be changed or should be changed that you are gay. I don’t know if you were made that way or not, but as long as there is a possibility that it is internal and can’t be changed, I cannot judge anyone based on that. Besides, the Bible says there is only one judge, and we should not be putting ourselves in his place.” 

But as the November elections near, the devilish forces of discrimination are gearing up for pulpit politicking. According to Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice (founded by Pat Robertson), and Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, politicized “pastors and churches can do plenty” to skirt the separation of church and state:

“What pastors can do is not only encourage their people to be engaged in the political process, and to vote a biblical worldview, but also, they can talk about the key issues of the day,” Sekulow told [James Dobson’s Focus on the Family’s] CitizenLink. …

 

“Churches and nonprofit organizations may not specifically endorse or oppose a candidate for elective office,” Staver explained. “For example, a church cannot say that it corporately supports or opposes a particular candidate – whether it’s for local, state or national office.”

 

But Staver said 501(c)3 groups clearly do have the right to engage in educational campaigns during elections.

 

“That can be done through the distribution of voter guides that clearly indicate the positions of the candidates on certain issues. These voter guides need to cover a number of areas,” Staver said. “Certainly, the moral areas can be included, as well.”

 

Staver said churches and nonprofits can also give their specific positions on issues. … [italics added]

“Educational campaigns”? Apparently Mr. Staver has the same understanding of “educational” as Tom Minnery, senior vice president of public policy at Focus on the Family, had when he said the “Stand for the Family” rallies would be educational and lay out issues “in a nonpartisan fashion.” James Dobson’s Focus on the Family has spent more than $500,000 to block gay marriage in Colorado, and has launched a new campaign against the California legislation that would benefit gay and lesbian citizens, their children and families.

Dobson’s “urgent call” to the self-righteous to bombard Schwarzenegger was covered by World Net Daily:

James Dobson, the president of the action affiliate of Focus on the Family ministries, has issued an urgent call to the millions of radio program listeners to contact California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger before he is asked to sign the bills.

 

“What all four bills will do, they will reinforce homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderism in a positive light,” Focus State Issues Analyst Mona Passignano told WorldNetDaily.

 

So what’s wrong with a positive light? Maybe nothing.

 

But, she said, “They will keep people from saying anything negative about them.”

 

“You cannot preach the Gospel. If you want to preach about Romans 1, you can’t. Someone could say, ‘That makes me feel bad,’” she said. “You cannot preach what the Bible says.

 

“If you’re a Christian, it’s got to be alarming. If you are not a Christian, it’s got to be alarming,” she said. “Because what comes next?

 

“Is someone going to say, ‘You can’t drive a red car, that’s the color of heterosexuals. You have to drive a purple car?”

Like her boss James Dobson, and like Lou Sheldon and his lobbyist Benjamin Lopez, Passignano doesn’t want anything positive said about gay and lesbian Americans. How much more bigoted can you get?

“Preach the gospel”? Last time I checked, there were only four “gospels”: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Romans 1 is not a gospel. It’s dogma created by Paul who, in First Timothy, told Christians “suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” When are Ms. Passignano and the rest of the selective Bible readers of the Christian Right going to start preaching that?

Intended to inspire fear, Ms. Passignano’s “red car” statement is just plain stupid. It’s akin to Dobson’s assertion in his Marriage Under Fire book that legalizing same-sex marriage would bring about the end of the world. On that issue, Lewis Hastings’ August 25, 2006 OpEd in The Arizona Republic was straightforward and astute:

Two Republican candidates for governor, Mike Harris and Gary Tupper, oppose the ban on gay marriage, believing it to be religious in nature and therefore inappropriate for government action (“GOP hopefuls court gay voters,” Valley & State, Monday).

 

I agree.

 

The mayor of Phoenix and a former president of the University of Arizona oppose it for practical reasons (“Gay-nuptial ban under fire,” Republic, Wednesday).

 

I agree.

 

But most importantly, my common sense tells me that gay marriage will have no impact on me.

 

It will not affect my relationship with my wife. It will not affect my relationship with my children, other family or friends. It will not affect my business and professional relationships. It will not affect my political beliefs or my religious beliefs, whatever they may be.

 

If gays marry, it will not affect anyone except the two involved.

 

Those who wish to impose their religious beliefs on me should think twice before supporting this ban. The pendulum is never centered. [links added]

Others share the mayor of Phoenix’s concerns about anti-gay legislation spawn during the Bush administration.

Entrenched opponents of equality – Louis P. Sheldon, Benjamin Lopez, James Dobson, Don Wildmon, and the rest of the sanctimonious leaders of the Christian Right – wholeheartedly support George W. Bush, their messianic faith-based president. But Bush is burning. According to a CNN poll released August 21, 2006,

Most Americans (54 percent) don’t consider him [Bush] honest, most (54 percent) don’t think he shares their values and most (58 percent) say he does not inspire confidence.

 

Bush’s stand on the issues is also problematic, with more than half (57 percent) of Americans saying they disagree with him on the issues they care about.

 

That’s an indication that issues, not personal characteristics, are keeping his approval rating well below 50 percent. …

 

Bush dismissed a question about his popularity during a news conference Monday [August 21, 2006].

 

“I don’t think you’ve ever heard me say: ‘Gosh, I better change positions because the polls say this or that,’” he told reporters. “I’ve been here long enough to understand, you cannot make good decisions if you’re trying to chase a poll.”

George W. Bush hasn’t made “good decisions” since he was appointed president, as has become so painfully obvious to the families and friends of the tens of thousands of Americans killed and wounded in the Iraq war Bush started. Then, of course, there are the other Bush “good idea” fiascos: the “No Child Left Behind” program that’s destroying public education (and students), the lead balloon of his Social Security reforms, and the unconstitutional spying on American citizens, just to mention a few.

One of the people intricately involved in the appointment of George W. Bush as “president” was Florida’s former Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who certified Bush as the winner in the state over Al Gore in 2000. Harris went on to become a U.S. representative. She is currently in a primary battle for the GOP nomination to run for the U.S. Senate.

In a recent interview with Florida Baptist Witness, Harris called the separation of church and state “a lie,” said that “God” – for who she apparently speaks – never intended America to be a “nation of secular laws.” She also asserted that “if you’re not electing Christians then in essence you are going to legislate sin.” Not surprisingly, when asked “Do you support civil rights protections on the basis of sexual preference?” she responded “Civil rights have to do with individual rights and I don’t think they apply to the gay issues. … I do not support any civil rights actions with regard to homosexuality.”

But back to Benjamin Lopez…

He was fired by the floundering GOP “at the conclusion of last weekend’s [August 19-20] state Republican Party convention.” In reporting on the firing, Focus on the Family’s Citizenlink quoted Mike Spence, who leads the conservative California Republican Assembly. Mr. Spence “called Lopez’s dismissal frustrating, noting that ‘they fired the only person who could do church outreach.’”

A most interesting comment. A man who takes pleasure in – and has made a career of – hurting fellow citizens, their children and families is “the only person who could do church outreach.” If that’s so, then it’s clearly better that those “churches” embracing Sheldon’s, Lopez’s and the TVC’s brand of bigotry and hate be “left behind,” far behind.

And what would a CitizenLink story be without a comment from “the Chairman”?

There was no immediate indication of what effect Lopez’s firing would have on the action Schwarzenegger will take on several pro-gay [ie, pro-equality] bills awaiting either his signature or his veto.

 

Focus on the Family Action Chairman Dr. James Dobson said on his nationally syndicated radio show today [August 23, 2006] that the governor has “waffled” on an earlier promise to veto at least one of the bills.

 

“Now he’s saying, ‘I’m not sure. I’ve got to think about this. I don’t believe I can give you an answer today.’ He’s dancing like crazy,” Dobson said. “He’s trying to keep the support of the homosexual community in California. He’s trying to have it both ways.

 

“If people don’t hit him hard in the next two or three days (with demands that he veto the bills) we’re going to see this legislation … the law of the land. He has good reason for listening to people this time of the year.” [italics added]

Dobson doesn’t like folks “thinking” about things. He demands that people – especially politicians – just blindly obey him, or else. With his usual penchant for exaggeration – “the law of the land” – Dobson makes it seem as if the California legislation would become law in all other states: another classic example of the politics of fear.

Dobson was, however, correct about one thing. Schwarzenegger is trying to have it both ways. How much you want to bet he’ll veto at least some of the pro-equality legislation as a peace offering to the Christian Right?

In the movies, Arnold usually played a good guy who eventually did what was right. Wouldn’t it be more redeeming – personally and politically and for the American body politic – if Gov. Schwarzenegger and other “moderate” Republicans stood up to the evangelical Christian Right and their pocketed politicians and said “Enough! You guys preach hate, discrimination and bigotry… and you have no place in the party of Lincoln.”

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