The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: tony perkins
Republicans Say They Should Have Talked More About Abortion

Republicans Say They Should Have Talked More About Abortion

“It was probably a bigger factor than a lot of people thought.”

That's current Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Ronna McDaniel having the most profound GOP revelation of the cycle on the role abortion played in the midterms. McDaniel was speaking earlier this month with radio talk show host John Catsimatidis, but her next observation was perhaps even more telling.

“We’ve got to get conversant on that,” McDaniel added, according to The Hill.

That's the jargon of a political operative who knows their entire enterprise has taken a direct hit and has absolutely no earthly idea what to do about it.

McDaniel surely would be ignoring the topic of abortion if there was any chance Republicans could just stick their heads in the sand and ride it out, but the energy behind the issue and its financial firepower wouldn't allow for that, she admitted:

“We can’t just do an ostrich method and pretend that it doesn’t exist when Democrats are spending $30 million on that message.”

But if the the next phase of the Republican Party's campaign to take 50 percent of the American population hostage is anything like the misadventure of their post-2012 GOP autopsy, simply acknowledging the problem is all but meaningless amid the vacuousness of the GOP.

The truth is most Republican operatives knew exactly how devastating abortion might prove at the polls, even as they publicly assured political reporters that women would forget being voted constitutional inferiors by the time they cast their ballots.

The RNC actually put out a memo encouraging Republican candidates to cast themselves as pro-lifers open to exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother, while depicting Democrats as wanting "abortion at any time for any reason." That false framing supposedly yielded a 22-point advantage for generic Republicans, per the RNC memo.

But the entire conversation was so toxic for Republicans, candidates chose to ignore it altogether.

“We put out a memo, we said address this, take this head-on,” McDaniel explained in a post-election interview with Tony Perkins, president of the right wing Family Research Council. “How many candidate consultants said we don’t want to talk about it, it’s not polling well?”

And it wasn’t polling well for Republicans in virtually every survey conducted on the topic. Remember when Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina tried to offer a compromise ban of 15 weeks? There’s a reason that national ban proposal dropped like a lead balloon on the campaign trail.

Naturally, McDaniel’s doing a lot of CYA as she tries to save her job, but she does seem to realize Republicans are in a pickle. Her fundamentalist counterparts, meanwhile, remain delusional.

For instance, get a load of Marilyn Musgrave, vice president of government affairs at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.

“I’m very confident that the voters are with us on this,” Musgrave said of placing what she called "reasonable limits" on abortion.

Never mind the fact that Roe v. Wade—and the approximate 24-week viability limits associated with it—was the standard for what roughly two-thirds of Americans consider "reasonable."

Yet Musgrave believes that all Republicans need to do is work a little harder at jamming their extremism down Americans' throats.

“They just need to get that information and they need leaders and they need candidates talking about this," she explained. "And of course, it will be a big issue in the presidential, so here we go.”

Oh yes, yes, it will be.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Rep. Lauren Boebert

Boebert Suggests Her Election Was Divinely Ordained

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) on Thursday described her 2020 House election victory in terms often used by Christian conservatives that place U.S. politics in a context of biblical miracles.

During an interview with Tony Perkins, president of the far-right anti-LGBTQ Family Research Council, Boebert said, "My victory in this race is certainly a sign and a wonder, just like God promised."

Telling Perkins about "the journey that Jesus took me on as I was called to Congress," Boebert said that she voted for Donald Trump, "who defended the right to life and honored the Bible."

"The wisdom of the world is foolishness in God's sight," she said of predictions that she wouldn't win her race for the House, reciting a Bible verse: "Just like God promised, he said, 'Here I am,' Isaiah 8:18 says, 'Here I am, and the children whom the Lord has given me. We are made for signs and wonder,' and this victory was a sign and a wonder to so many people who think that they have it figured it out."

"I see two possibilities here. One is that Boebert means that her election is in itself a miracle, something that testifies to God's power at work in the world. That seems more than a bit ego-inflated," said Daniel Schultz, a liberal Christian minister in Wisconsin. " The other possibility is more realistic: that her election demonstrates what God can do through the faith of ordinary people."

Schultz said, "It reinforces the claim that conservatives have God on their side: God shows power by sending righteous people into public office or public activism, with 'righteous' defined as agreeing to Boebert's hard-right agenda."

Boebert has previously used the term "signs and wonders" in a political context. She used it in a House floor speech on Feb. 25 speech laced with comparisons of current political events to events in the Christian Bible.

Christian conservatives have recently turned to the Bible in protesting the validity of Trump's loss in the 2020 election. The Washington Post reported in January, after the riot by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol, on an Arkansas ministry that broadcast to its listeners, "We thank God for exposing and foiling all the plans of the enemy set against him. We affirm his lawful election and pray for four more years with Donald Trump as our president!"

A growing number of them are also attracted to the QAnon conspiracy theory supported by Boebert, which posits a cabal of Democratic politicians and celebrities running a satanist child-sex ring, among other claims.

Former GOP Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam told the Atlantic this month in response to a question about Christian churches and the Jan. 6 riot, "I have heard enough pastors who are saying they cannot believe the growth of the QAnon theory in their churches. Their churches had become battlegrounds over things that they never thought they would be. It's not so much the pastors preaching that from pulpits—although I'm certain there's some of that—but more people in the congregation who have become convinced that theories [such as QAnon] are reflective of their Christian faith."

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

LGBT supreme court

Supreme Court Ruling Upholds LGBTQ Rights — And Enrages The Republican Right

Reprinted with permission from MediaMatters

Right-wing media figures had a meltdown after the Supreme Court decided that it is unconstitutional for employers to discriminate against LGBTQ people, calling it "Orwellian" and "a brute force attack on our constitutional system." In one of the most significant rulings for the rights of trans and queer people, the court ruled 6-3 that LGBTQ employees are protected under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex.

The Supreme Court issued a combined ruling on several cases; two were on behalf of men who were fired for being gay and a third about a woman who was fired for being trans. In that third case, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, extreme anti-LGBTQ group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) represented a funeral home owner who fired employee Aimee Stephens after she came out as transgender. Stephens died on May 12 and was unable to see the landmark decision in her favor.

Read NowShow less
Evangelical Leaders Still Support Trump — But Will Lewd Remarks Repel Voters?

Evangelical Leaders Still Support Trump — But Will Lewd Remarks Repel Voters?

By Steve Holland and Michelle Conlin

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Leaders of religious conservative groups largely stood behind Donald Trump on Saturday, the day after vulgar sexual comments he made about women surfaced online, but some expressed concern that the U.S. Republican presidential nominee’s remarks could depress evangelical turnout on Election Day.

Most evangelical leaders did not condemn Trump, and instead pointed to an urgent need to prevent Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton from winning the presidency, reshaping the Supreme Court and implementing liberal policies.

The latest blow to Trump’s campaign came after a 2005 video surfaced of the then-reality TV star talking on an open microphone about groping women and trying to seduce a married woman. Vice presidential running mate Mike Pence said he could not defend Trump’s words.

Gary Bauer, chairman of the Campaign for Working Families, said Trump’s “grossly inappropriate language” does not change the choice facing the country in the Nov. 8 election and that “I continue to support the Trump-Pence ticket.”

“Hillary Clinton is committed to enacting policies that will erode religious liberty, promote abortion, make our country less safe, and leave our borders unprotected,” Bauer said.

White evangelicals make up about 20 percent of the U.S. population, according to the Public Religion Research Institute, and represent a crucial voting bloc Trump needs to win the presidency.

They have long represented a pillar of support for Republicans. In 2004, they were instrumental in President George W. Bush’s re-election. They turned out in similar numbers in 2008 and 2012, when Mitt Romney, a Mormon who many evangelicals considered too moderate, was the Republican nominee, according to a report by the Pew Research Center.

Support from evangelicals for Trump has been strong throughout his campaign, even though it was only late in life that the New York businessman adopted their cause. Social conservatives flocked to his side over other deeply religious Republican presidential candidates, such as Ted Cruz.

“Naturally I’m disappointed,” said Steve Scheffler, head of the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition. “But, you know, the Bible tells me that we are all sinners saved by grace and I don’t think there’s probably a person alive that I know of that hasn’t made some mistakes in the past.”

He said Clinton has peccadilloes of her own, most notably marital woes with her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

“So yes, I will vote for Donald Trump. I’m not excusing his behavior at all. It’s disgusting,” he said.

Still, politically active Christian conservative leaders across the country said they were worried that Trump’s comments could depress turnout among evangelicals.

“Evangelicals are not going to vote for Hillary,” said religious political activist David Lane. “But this could cause them to stay home. This could be a big deal. Things like this matter.”

Much will hinge on Trump’s performance in the second presidential debate on Sunday night, and whether he can convince Christians that he is a changed man, Lane said.

“He already apologized and said he was wrong,” said Lane. “I think he’s moving in the right direction. But he’s got to do really well in the debate Sunday night.”

Other religious leaders, however, were less forgiving.

Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, tweeted an article detailing evangelical apathy toward the Trump tape, calling it a “disgrace.”

“What a scandal to the gospel of Jesus Christ and to the integrity of our witness,” Moore wrote.

Still, the majority view among religious conservatives appeared to be summed up by Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council action group, who said evangelicals “are left with a choice of voting for the one who will do the least damage to our freedoms.”

“This is far from an ideal situation, but it is the reality in which we find ourselves and as difficult as it is, I refuse to find sanctuary on the sidelines and allow the country and culture to deteriorate even further by continuing the policies of the last eight years,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson and Amy Tennery in New York; Editing by Bill Rigby)

IMAGE: Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council