The Religious Right and Republicans do not believe in compromise. As they believe one cannot compromise with Satan. Whatever human activity they disapprove of they designate as sin and it is to be forbidden. Gays according to Pastor Hagee must not be tolerated and so should not in anyway shape or form be protected by the government. In the same way not that long ago he would have said the same thing about the need to keep the races separated since this was God's ruling as found in the Bible. For agroup that claims one shouldn't compromise they appear to compromise when there is a shift in society which they cannot overcome such as the frequency of divorce (Ronald Reagan had a divorce and he was a part of the sinful pornographic Godless Hollywood establishment ), pre-marital sex, adultery, women in the workplace and even as professionals or families choosing to have fewer children etc. or the fact according to Jesus Christ someone like Hagee who is super wealthy could not enter the through the Gates of Heave.
John Hagee: Freedom is Evil & Jesus Has "a Sword" for Gays-NO MIDDLE GROUND
and in this clip of John Hagee he presents us with a stark vision of what it really means to live in a Christianized Nation & a Christianized world. Again there can be no compromise and that Christians must be the rulers of the world and there is no place for sentiment or tolerance of non-believers. Christians must gird their loins to the task at hand .( Hitler told his followers the same thing didn't he)
Hitler like Pastor Hagee as a representative of the Religious Right rejects the effeminate Christ who pities the poor and the disenfranchised the weak , the peacemakers but prefers the Jesus who in his anger turns over the tables of the money-changers and whips them at the Temple in Jerusalem.
Hagee's vision of God & Christ is that of a ruthless God using a sword to slay all those who do not obey him. Hagee and Hitler are both have a sense of absolute certainty about their beliefs. They cannot be wrong because God speaks directly to them or through "signs and wonders".
During his speech[ Hitler]swung his whip around violently as though to drive out the Jews and the forces of darkness, the enemies of Germany and German honor. Dietrich Eckart, who discovered Hitler as a possible leader and had witnessed this performance, said later, "When a man gets to the point of identifying himself with Jesus Christ, then he is ripe for an insane asylum." The identification in all this was not with Jesus Christ, the Crucified, but with Jesus Christ, the furious, lashing the crowds.
As a matter of fact, Hitler has very little admiration for Christ, the Crucified. Although he was brought up a Catholic, and received Communion, during the war, he severed his connection with the Church directly afterwards. This kind of Christ he considers soft and weak and unsuitable as a German Messiah.
The latter must be hard and brutal if he is to save Germany and lead it to its destiny.
"My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, [Page 14] surrounded by only a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned me to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love, as a Christian and as a man, I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord rose at last in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was the fight for the world against the Jewish poison." (M.N.O. 26)
And to Rauschning he once referred to "the Jewish Christ-creed with its effeminate, pity-ethics".
From: "Hitler As he believes himself to be OSS Psychological Profile of Hitler" at The Nizkor Project
Frank Schaeffer in a post on his blog entitled At Last Dobson Is Done In By the Truth By Frank Schaeffer Sept. 7,2009 as a one time insider and architect of the Religious Right speaking about his positive reaction to Max Blumenthal's book Republican Gomorrah--Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party and how Blumenthal has been able to correctly portray the mindset of those involved in the Religious Right who seem to thrive on crisis and use it to advance their agenda which is anti-democratic and anti-American and their desire to remake America into a theocratic state:
But Blumenthal explains a far deeper pathology: it isn't so much religion as the psychosis and sadomasochism of the losers now called "Republicans" that drives the party. And the "Christianity" that shapes so much "conservative" thinking now is anything but Christian. It's a series of deranged personality cults.
The Religious Right/Republicans have perfected the method of capturing people in personal crisis and turning them into far right evangelical/far right foot soldiers. This explains a great deal that otherwise, to outsiders, seems almost inexplicable--the why and wherefore of "Deathers" "Birthers" et al. Blumanthal brilliantly sums up this pathology as:
"...a culture of personal crisis lurking behind the histrionics and expressions of social resentment. This culture is the mortar that bonds leaders and followers together." ...
The worst things got the better we right wing activists liked it. We loved crisis. We manufactured crisis! Crisis (public or personal) would force the country to embrace our radical solution: a radical turn to Old Testament law that would put homosexuals to death, see adulterers stoned at the city gates and so forth.
This analysis helps explain the activities of the Religious Right and Republicans over the past few months as they turned for instance Obama's attempts at health care reform into a national crisis and that in their view Obama's policy wasn't just an attempt at modest and necessary reforms but was attack on basic American principles and the first stage towards a "Totalitarian State".
The Religious Right & Republican attacks on their current target Kevin Jennings have little to do with the facts but more to do with smearing President Obama and making his administration unworkable. They are more interested in firing up their base using incendiary and conspiratorial rhetoric than with even half-heartedly helping Obama to maneuver the current financial crisis. They are too self-involved with their own anger and their resentment towards Obama and against the majority of Americans who voted him into power.
In one sense the Republicans and their "Fellow Travelers" (to use their language) can be characterized as "poor losers" or spoil sports who do not know how to accept defeat graciously. Instead to them the world has been turned "Topsy Turvy" as they try to explain away the fact that a clear majority of their fellow Americans voted for a liberal Democrat who is black.
So since the day after the election the Republicans have been acting like the bullies that they are constantly attacking Obama and his administration on every issue without having any serious policies of their own to counteract Obama's policies. Their policy is really a strategy to foment fear and a daily sense of crisis. So almost daily they find fault with Obama and his administration and act as if these faults in policy or in the personnel surrounding Obama are the last straw and the end of civilization as we know it. So ACORN is attacked and is made into some unholy monstrous Behemoth which is at the center of the rot at the core of American society for the last twenty years. Obama is being portrayed as the Frankenstein Monster created by ACORN and the Liberals and the Far Left and Progressives to destroy America.
So their newest target is Kevin Jennings whom they seem to credit with being the mastermind behind what they believe to be the Gay Conspiracy in which Gays are trying to take control of the U.S. government and its institutions . So they are using the fact that Kevin Jennings is openly Gay and an activists to stir up their narrow minded bigoted homophobic racist base. In doing so they have inflated the actual job in the government that Kevin Jennings has as the head or adviser of Keeping kids safe in school which under normal circumstance is a position without much interest to the the citizenry at large.
But the question is will Obama toss Jennings under the bus. Meanwhile the Republicans and their angry constituency are also beginning a campaign against Planned Parenthood.
As usual the right wing smear machine is out to create uninformed hysteria to raise it to such a pitch that the targeted victim is forced to resign. The allegations against Kevin Jennings appear to be without much substance. But the anti-Obama crowd will use whatever they can to undermine Obama. To most Americans Gay rights is not among their major concerns but the Republican base at times seem obsessed with the issue.
In a statement obtained by CNN, the former student, who wanted to be called Brewster, wrote: "Since I was of legal consent at the time, the 15-minute conversation I had with Mr. Jennings 21 years ago is of nobody's concern but his and mine. However, since the Republican noise machine is so concerned about my 'well-being' and that of America's students, they'll be relieved to know that I was not 'inducted' into homosexuality, assaulted, raped, or sold into sexual slavery."
Brewster the student whom Kevin Jennings counseled in 1988
Right-wingers, outraged by Jennings' work as a gay-rights advocate, claim that he has expressed a desire to spread homosexuality among schoolkids, contempt for religion and enthusiasm for drug use. (The Family Research Council has a scare-quote filled petition circulating.) Those hits have been rebuffed by people who have actually worked with Jennings. But the charge that's gained traction is that Jennings, while a high school teacher, failed to report a statutory rape. He said in a talk that he counseled a student who went home with a man he met in a bus station:
But the student was actually at least 16 at the time. The age of consent in Massachusetts was (and still is) 16; all Jennings did was choose not to share his knowledge of a consensual, legal sexual relationship. Nevertheless, Fox News and the Washington Times have reported that Jennings was "encouraging" statutory rape. The distorted story was picked up by Politico's Mike Allen, who called it a "problem": "He didn't seem to recognize that given this young man's age, this was an assault, and that it should be reported." ABC News and the Associated Press have also reported on the story.
Anyway in order to better understand the Religious Right, the Republicans as they now are and Uberconservatives it is helpful to look at their roots going back to the 1950s/1960s etc. The Religious Right & their "Fellow Travelers" first became active in their fight against desegregation in which they argued that God had made blacks ( and other visible minorities Hispanics, Asians,Arabs Native Americans etc. ) inferior to whites . If whites are good then blacks are bad and conservatives are good liberals are bad straight is good Gay is evil .
In the midst of their battle against the Civil Rights Movement other groups such as women who felt left out of "the American Dream" began to organize and make some noise to be treated as equals. Women in America still do not have their rights enshrined in the Constitution as in the ERA Equal Rights Amendment which was blocked again and again by the Religious Right. Having lost some of these fights or only winning a partial victory over the last twenty years they have been focusing on other issues such as abortion and Gay Rights both issues which fire up their base.
For instance they lost the battle over divorce or premarital sex or adultery. They do not usually for instance demand those engaged in premarital sex or adulterers should all be rounded up and imprisoned or stoned to death.( see Shakespeare's Measure For Measure)
"We see how Satan rises up those who have a secularistic philosophy to oppose those who, like us, have a Judeo-Christian philosophy."Rev.Jerry Falwell:Old-Time Gospel Hour, 11/4/85
This quote is a telling one as it shows that Falwell and all those in the Religious Right see everything in terms of black and white in which God and Satan are in a constant war over men's souls. So as Reagan and Bush were on God's side they believe Obama and his evil liberal supporters who in the 2008 election the majority of Americans were possessed by Satan & voted for Obama and not the Godly Palin.
As late as 1964, Falwell was attacking the 1964 Civil Rights Act as "civil wrongs" legislation. He questioned "the sincerity and intentions of some civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, and others, who are known to have left-wing associations." Falwell charged, "It is very obvious that the Communists, as they do in all parts of the world, are taking advantage of a tense situation in our land, and are exploiting every incident to bring about violence and bloodshed."
as this next article illustrates Falwell like other Christian leaders such as Pat Roberson believed that blacks and whites should be segregated and inter-racial marriage was the worse sin of all .
Jerry Falwell's racist past By George E Curry NNPA Columnist at Frost Illustrated
"Decades before the forces that now make up the Christian right declared their culture war, Falwell was a rabid segregationist who railed against the civil rights movement from the pulpit of the abandoned backwater bottling plant he converted into Thomas Road Baptist Church," Max Blumenthal writes in an insightful article in The Nation magazine. "This opening episode of Falwell's life, studiously overlooked by his friends, naively unacknowledged by many of his chroniclers, and puzzlingly and glaringly omitted in the obituaries of the Washington Post and New York Times, is essential to understanding his historical significance in galvanizing the Christian right. Indeed, it was race—not abortion or the attendant suite of so-called 'values' issues—that propelled Falwell and his evangelical allies into political activism."
Four years after the Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of Education outlawing segregated public schools, Falwell gave a speech titled, "Segregation or Integration."
His message was unmistakably clear:
"If Chief Justice Warren and his associates had known God's word and had desired to do the Lord's will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision would never have been made. The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn the line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line."
The argument that God ordained segregation and white supremacy was advanced by many southern white ministers. We should not forget that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" was written to his colleagues of the cloth. The letter, written April 16, 1963, said, in part:
"I have been disappointed with the church… When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church. I felt the white ministers, priests, and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies.
"Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows."
Jerry Falwell was not silent behind his stained-glass windows. He said, "The true Negro does not want integration… he realizes his potential is far better among his own race."
...Falwell didn't stop there.
Claiming that integration "will destroy our race eventually," Falwell said, "A pastor friend of mine tells me that a couple of opposite race live next door to his church as man and wife."
Not as an unmarried couple, not as gays or lesbians, but "man and wife." That was too much for Falwell to stomach.
"I believe that the overwhelming majority of Americans are sick and tired of the way the Godless liberals are running our nation."Moral Majority letter Rev. Jerry Falwell
Moral Majority fundraising letter-Rev. Jerry Falwell
(see for instance "Godless" by Ann Coulter)
"[T]his deadly plague [AIDS] is already spreading into the heterosexual community, because of bisexuals who are carriers -- even affecting innocent young children. This is sexual TERRORISM -- and even more deadly than a gun or bomb. Across the country the militant homosexuals -- carriers of this deadly disease -- have gained civil rights advantages which seriously compromise the health and safety of Americans everywhere. ... You and I are the innocent victims of this perverted and deadly lifestyle -- AND WE HAVE NO PLACE TO HIDE."
(see Rev. Hagee , Pat Robertson etc. )
Notice that Rev. Jerry Falwell is one of the more important figures in the history of the Religious Right . Falwell who along with Paul Weyrich and Francis A. Schaeffer and a few others created what is known as the Religious Right which these days is considered as the main base of the Republican Party . The two are now for all intents and purposes interchangeable.
From the outset these religious and political conservatives were pro-segregation and Jim Crow Laws and were anti-equal rights for women and were and are still violently anti-homosexual. They also believed a great injustice was committed when "Lynching" was no longer legal or acceptable. So this sort of "local" & "community" form of justice could no longer be carried out only the State had a right to enforce punishment of alleged criminals.
They also lamented the US Supreme Court rulings in favor of desegregation and the protection of the civil rights of blacks and of all American citizens no matter their color, their ethnicity, their religion, or their wealth or lack there of so poor and rich citizens were to be treated fairly and justly. The expansion of rights and freedoms and equal protection under the law still angers these Uberconservatives who at heart are really anti-Democratic .
They do not believe as the Founding Fathers claimed or professed to that is that all men are born equal that they have equal rights and they even claimed to believe in inclusiveness at least on paper. In reality America began as a state in which only a small elite of white male property owning Christians had all those so called inalienable rights and freedoms and protection under the law.
So the Founding Fathers did not represent all of those who resided in the United States of America but rather they represented a protected class of American citizens who are white male and Christian.
Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity forget or in their revisionist history have decided to ignore the real history of the Founding Fathers. The Founding Fathers accepted slavery as an institution sanctioned by the Bible and God and they believed Blacks and other non-whites were inferior and that this view was also Bible based. They also believed men and women were not equal and that women should not be permitted to vote or to have equal rights to men. Now either these conservatives are unaware of these facts or in fact they are well aware of them and want to return America to where it was at the time of the signing of the U.S.Constitution.
So when the Religious Right is not bashing Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, feminists etc. their other favorite target are Gays and Lesbians. In the same way they believe Blacks have an agenda to take control of America and that Hispanics want to recapture Aztlan to make it into their own independent sovereign state they also believe the Gay Rights movement has an agenda not just to get equal rights but to through their positions of authority to get more recruits .
The Religious Right and Republicans and their echo Chamber of Know Nothing Nativists and white supremacists on Fox News see conspiracies everywhere. But they have their own agenda which is to return America to some mythical Golden Era when there was no crime, no adultery, no divorce , no sex before marriage ,no teenage pregnancies, no alcohol , no drug abuse and Gays, Blacks, Hispanics, women and others knew their place . In the good old days they fantasize about is a rather nasty place where white male Christians rule and everybody else doesn't have a say.
They went after ACORN and so far are victorious in their hysterical smear campaign against an organization which in their view had the audacity to help poor people in their day to day struggles and to encourage the poor, the working poor, the disadvantaged to also take part and be active in community affairs and were encouraged to register to vote and even to cast a ballot.
So now they are going after in their self-righteous view a shamelessly openly Gay man.
The Campaign Against Kevin Jennings, Backfiring?" By David Weigel 10/2/09 at Washington Independent
Media Matters staff has been all over the manufactured scandal haunting Kevin Jennings, the U.S. Department of Education’s director of the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools–a.k.a the “safe schools czar.” Jennings, who is gay, has been a target for months, but the very belated discovery of an anecdote in his book “One Teacher in 10″–in which he was told of a young student’s affair with an older man, but didn’t report it–has burned up in the conservative press.
First, Media Matters confirmed that the student was of legal age when he came to Jennings. Now, the group has a statement that really couldn’t be better for Jennings:
I had no sexual contact with anybody at the time, though I was entirely legally free to do so. I was a sixteen year-old going through something most of us have experienced: adolescence. I find it regrettable that the people who have the compassion and integrity to protect our nation’s students are themselves in need of protection from homophobic smear attacks. Were it not for Mr. Jennings’ courage and concern for my well-being at that time in my life, I doubt I’d be the proud gay man that I am today.
and see:
Kevin Jennings: Obama Aide Under Attack From Fox News, Conservatives Rachel Weiner The Huffington Post Oct. 1,2009
Conservative media figures have set their sights on another obscure Obama administration official. This time it's Kevin Jennings, assistant deputy secretary of education for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools.
Right-wingers, outraged by Jennings' work as a gay-rights advocate, claim that he has expressed a desire to spread homosexuality among schoolkids, contempt for religion and enthusiasm for drug use. (The Family Research Council has a scare-quote filled petition circulating.) Those hits have been rebuffed by people who have actually worked with Jennings. But the charge that's gained traction is that Jennings, while a high school teacher, failed to report a statutory rape. He said in a talk that he counseled a student who went home with a man he met in a bus station:
But the student was actually at least 16 at the time. The age of consent in Massachusetts was (and still is) 16; all Jennings did was choose not to share his knowledge of a consensual, legal sexual relationship. Nevertheless, Fox News and the Washington Times have reported that Jennings was "encouraging" statutory rape. The distorted story was picked up by Politico's Mike Allen, who called it a "problem": "He didn't seem to recognize that given this young man's age, this was an assault, and that it should be reported." ABC News and the Associated Press have also reported on the story.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called the Jennings critics "sad" on Thursday.
"I think it's a shame to watch what they do," Gibbs said. "I hope that as people watch, they'll match up the actual truth with what's being said on some of these occasions."
Fox News' Sean Hannity has been particularly focused on Jennings; Greg Sargent speculates that he's jealous of the attention his colleague Glenn Beck got for his successful crusade against Van Jones.
"Ex-pupil defends Obama aide over controversial advice in 1988" " CNNPolitics.com Oct. 2, 2009
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A former student of an Obama Administration official is coming to his defense, as critics seek to use a 20-year-old incident to call for the official's resignation.
Kevin Jennings, who heads the Department of Education's Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, is under fire for counseling advice he gave a teenage gay student more than two decades ago.
Conservative groups charge that Jennings, who is openly gay, condoned statutory rape and child molestation. That's in reference to an incident in 1988 when Jennings, who was a teacher at the time, did not tell authorities that a 16-year-old student revealed to Jennings that he'd had sex with an older man.
Now that former student is speaking out for the first time and telling CNN he did not have sex with that man at all. He did not elaborate on what he told Jennings at the time. Jennings could not be reached for comment late Friday.
In a statement obtained by CNN, the former student, who wanted to be called Brewster, wrote: "Since I was of legal consent at the time, the 15-minute conversation I had with Mr. Jennings 21 years ago is of nobody's concern but his and mine. However, since the Republican noise machine is so concerned about my 'well-being' and that of America's students, they'll be relieved to know that I was not 'inducted' into homosexuality, assaulted, raped, or sold into sexual slavery."
The former student recounted what happened at the time and maintained there was no sexual contact.
"In 1988, I had taken a bus home for the weekend, and on the return trip met someone who was also gay. The next day, I had a conversation with Mr. Jennings about it. I had no sexual contact with anybody at the time, though I was entirely legally free to do so. I was a 16-year-old going through something most of us have experienced: adolescence."
But conservatives have been emboldened since their attacks on environmental advisor Van Jones and National Endowment for the Arts spokesman Yosi Sargent forced their resignations, and the knives are drawn for Jennings.
Led by conservative commentators, Jones was attacked for once calling Republicans "assholes" and signing a "9/11 Truth" petition that suggested the Bush administration knew about the September 11 terror attacks in advance. Jones was also a co-founder of a group that has led a drive to convince advertisers to abandon Fox News' Glenn Beck after Beck said on the air that President Obama was a "racist" with "a deep hatred of white people."
Sargent came under fire for his participation in a conference call during which the NEA encouraged artists to participate in a project, led by first lady Michelle Obama, about national service. Conservatives, again led by Beck, accused the agency of attempting to create Nazi-style propaganda. Sargent stepped down from his position as director of communications, but the NEA said he remained with the agency in another capacity.
...Despite the revelation that "Brewster" was of age at the time, Tony Perkins, head of the conservative organization Family Research Council, called for Jennings' resignation and said, "You do not need special training to know child molestation is wrong."
But Jennings has some determined supporters. Gerald Tirozzi, head of the National Association of Secondary School Principles, recommended Jennings for the job.
"I've been working with Kevin for over seven or eight years now and his agenda is not only about gay kids," he said. "It's been all kids."
Tirozzi said that Jennings' expertise in bullying has earned him recognition from school principals in conservative as well as progressive districts.
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