Focus on the Family Goes to Bat for Bullies

Here we go again; more HATE injected into society under the guise of Religion.  These Christians and their organizations  seem to believe it's not just their duty but their right to push their poisin down everyone's throats.

Treaty of Tripoli
Article 11: As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Patty



Original Article HERE

 by Candace Chellew-Hodge

In the world of lawmaking, some proposed laws are right to invite debate and controversy. But then there are, on rare occasions, proposed laws that seem like no-brainers. Take, for example, the Safe Schools Improvement Act now pending in Congress that would prevent bullying in schools. The bill defines bullying as “conduct placing students in reasonable fear of physical harm.” The law covers harassment based on race, color, national origin, disability, religion, sex, or sexual orientation.

Who would be against a law that seeks to end bullying in school? Enter Focus on the Family.


It is, of course, that last classification that has caught the attention of FotF. They claim that the inclusion of sexual orientation in the bill is a ploy by gay rights activists to push acceptance of homosexuality in schools, according to a report on ABC News.

“What parents need to be aware of is there are activist groups who want to promote homosexuality to kids because they realize if they can capture hearts and minds of our children at the earliest ages they will have for all practical purposes won the clash of values that we are currently experiencing,” Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family, said on the recently launched Web site TrueTolerance.org.

Cushman appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 Wednesday night on CNN, and tried to put a pretty face on their efforts, saying: “We absolutely think every child should be protected from bullying.”

She went on to try to explain, and this is where I began to wonder if conservative Christians ever really listen to themselves when they speak—because she hit the nail on the head, but, unfortunately, it was her own head.

“The correct focus would be on preventing the wrong actions of the bully, not focusing on the characteristics of the victims because it doesn’t matter why the victim was targeted. What matters is that harming them is wrong for any reason,” she said.

Okay, let’s focus on how to prevent “the wrong actions of the bully” for just one moment. I can find no evidence that there is any manner of widespread bullying of Christian kids by gay or lesbian kids. There are no stories of Christian kids killing themselves after being hounded by gay kids about their religion. There are no stories of Christian kids being pushed down on the playground and called “dirty Christ lover.”

No, all the stories of bullying seem to involve kids, some probably from good Christian homes, calling other kids “faggot,” or “queer,” or “fairy,” or “dyke.” One must wonder where they learn these words, and where they learn that being any of these things is shameful, sinful, or wrong. Most likely they hear it from their parents, or from their churches.

So if we are going to focus on “the wrong actions of the bully,” let’s start by focusing on where bullies learn that being gay is wrong. They learn it in their good Christian homes from their good Christian parents or from their good Christian pastors. I will believe that FotF is really, truly, interested in addressing “the wrong actions of the bully” when they launch an effort within their own ranks to encourage parents not to teach their potential little bullies that it’s wrong or disgusting or shameful to be gay. The only way to correct “the wrong actions of the bully” is to educate them on the reality of gay and lesbian children—that they exist and that God still loves them and that beating them up or calling them names is wrong, and God would not approve.

But wait... that might play into the gay agenda of promoting tolerance and acceptance of gay and lesbian people... and that’s exactly what FotF is trying to prevent. So, please, tell me, how would they ever correct “the wrong actions of the bully” if they're not willing to prevent him from becoming a bully in the first place? It reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw years ago that read: “Focus on your own damn family.” If you don’t want homophobic bullies running around, then for heaven’s sake, stop raising them!

Reality, however, is never the strong suit for FotF and its cohorts. Remember, these are the people who feel okay sending their children into the sexually charged atmosphere of high school armed with nothing more than a simple purity pledge, even though studies have shown them to ineffective.

So, it was no shock to see Cushman continuing to use broad platitudes to deny reality during the interview.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, made it clear that “when school level policies actually mention sexual orientation and gender identity, rates of bullying and harassment go down, and this is for all students.” There’s no agenda here, only policies based on data that shows what works.

FotF’s approach may sound nice, said Rosalind Wiseman, author of the book Queen Bees and Wannabees, but generic bullying policies simply don’t work.

“We can have policies about ideal reality or we can have policies that are about concrete reality and reflect what children are experiencing, and that’s when we become relevant to young people. If we don’t then it doesn’t work,” she said.

By focusing on the bully, Wiseman said, it becomes a matter of the victim’s word against the word of the bully, and if FotF gets its way and strips specific categories from anti-bullying laws, the victim won’t even be able to use the words necessary to describe what they were being bullied about.

“If you take out the language of naming the behavior, then it becomes so amorphous that there’s no place for that kid to define what is happening to them. These words are not allowed to be talked about and they become silenced,” Wiseman said.

Which really is the whole point of FotF’s campaign—driving gay and lesbian people so far back into the closet that they are completely silenced. If kids are forbidden by law to say the words that the bullies are allowed to say to harass them, then they will simply shut up and take the abuse, and the whole issue of having to deal with gays and lesbians as human beings goes away. Problem solved!

Cushman, however, kept relentlessly missing the point and denying simple reality. As proof she actually had the nerve to say: “All human beings are created in God’s image and they deserve to be protected because they are a human being uniquely created by God with innate dignity and worth, and not because of how they identify sexually.”

Honestly, could she even hear herself? If she and FotF truly believed that, and encouraged conservative Christian parents to actually teach that to their potential bullies in training, then there would be no need for anti-bullying legislation. But, that would require a reality check, and we know, in the world of the religious right, those always bounce.


http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/candacechellew-hodge/3261/focus_on_the_family_goes_to_bat_for_bullies/

The President; Racism & The Fading of Separation of Church And State

YouTube - People & Power - White Power USA

ADDING TO MY PREVIOUS BLOG POST: 

RACISM AND THE PRESIDENT. -SO- WHY IS
THIS TOPIC HUSH-HUSH IN THE MAINSTREAM
MEDIA?  ANOTHER POINT: THE ANTI-IMMIGRANT 

ATTITUDE AND RESURGENCE OF CHRISTIAN
RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES IN GOVERNMENT THAT
 DELIBERATELY BLURS  -THE SEPARATION OF 

CHURCH AND STATE-  I AM WORRIED, FRIGHTENED,
REPULSED AND ANGRY ALL AT THE SAME TIME BUT
THAT'S JUST ME........YOU DECIDE.

PATTY

Almost a year ago the inauguration of President Barack Obama was hailed as a turning point in US race relations. The country was said to be entering a new era of post-racial politics, on the path to a future of greater diversity and tolerance. But while crowds flocked to Washington to witness the swearing in, others were refusing to join the party. Racially motivated threats against Obama rose to new heights in the first months of his presidency, with the US seeing nine high-profile race killings in 2009. Meanwhile white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups claim their membership is growing and that visits to their websites are increasing. Filmmakers Rick Rowley and Jacquie Soohen went inside the white nationalist movement to investigate.



This is really disturbing to watch on so many levels . This is also one of the reasons the GOP party has a lower approval rating then our Democratic party . You have far right wacko Michele Bachmann, a religious right Catholic preacher and sitting Republican senators praying to not just stop this current bill, but ANY real reform that could help people . So basically what they are praying for is the status quo . And what's the status quo ? 45,000 men, women, and children die every year . That's what these people are praying for . In addition, their doing it with an even crazier controversial "preacher" . Also, pay attention to one of the Republican senators. He hints somewhat that he wants to do away with the separation between church and state clause in the constitution . People should be very, very worried that nuts like these could control the house, senate, and maybe even worse, the W.H.




The above video in full

Rep. Michele Bachmann and Lou Engle of The Call participate in the Family Research Council's
anti-healthcare reform "prayercast."




YOU WILL FIND MORE HERE: RIGHT WING WATCH

C Street House, Religion, Scandal And Hypocrisy

Ensign's "C Street House" Owned By Group Touting Plans For Christian World Control

Most recently covered by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow (1, 2), Washington D.C.'s "C Street House" has over the past two weeks become the center of a media firestorm. Along with GOP Senator Tom Coburn, sex-scandal embroiled GOP leaders Senator John Ensign and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford have been tied to the row house, assessed to be worth 1.84 million dollars, which is registered as a church and provides Washington politicians with substantially lower than market rate rent. Coburn and Ensign have lived at the C Street house, while Sanford has participated in its Bible study group.

According to the Washington Post the house is owned by Youth With a Mission D.C. Youth With a Mission is one of the most extensive Christian fundamentalist para-church organizations on Earth, and YWAM founder leader Loren Cunningham has publicly outlined a vision for Christian world-control.

In a 2008 promotional video, "Reclaiming 7 Mountains of Culture", Loren Cunningham describes a vision he shared along with the late Campus Crusade For Christ founder Bill Bright and late Christian theologian Francis Schaeffer, in which Christian fundamentalists could achieve world domination by taking over key sectors of society such as business, government, media, and education.

Francis Schaeffer is widely credited as one of the most influential theologians of the 20th Century Christian right. Among the myriad ministries of Bill Bright's behemoth Campus Crusade For Christ is the Washington D.C. ministry Christian Embassy that targets Pentagon leaders for evangelizing.

The C Street House is run by a secretive Washington ministry known as The Family, or The Fellowship. Over the past year and a half, The Family has gradually come to public attention, mainly due to journalist and Harpers editor Jeff Sharlet's ground breaking book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. The Family runs the yearly National Prayer Breakfast and maintains a network of Capital Hill prayer groups which have enjoyed the participation of both top GOP but also top Democratic Party Congress and Senate members.

The Family runs but does not own the C Street House. According to a June 26th, 2009 Washington Post story, by Manuel Roig-Franzia, "The Political Enclave That Dare Not Speak Its Name: The Sanford and Ensign Scandals Open a Door On Previously Secretive 'C Street' Spiritual Haven", the C Street House is owned by a "little-known organization called Youth With a Mission of Washington DC."

Youth With a Mission is a global Christian evangelical organization founded in 1960 which, declares YWAM, is "currently operating in more than 1000 locations in over 149 countries, with a staff of nearly 16,000."

As Cunningham introduces Reclaim 7 Mountains of Culture, "It was August, 1975... and the Lord had given me, that day a list of things that I had never thought about before. He said, 'This is the way to reach America, and nations, for God.' "

The video continues with a narrator who declares, "In every city of the world, an unseen battle rages for dominion over God's creation and the souls of people. This battle is fought on seven strategic fronts, looming like mountains over the culture, that shape and influence its destiny. Over the years, the church slowly retreated from its place of influence on these mountains, leaving a void now filled with darkness. When we lose our influence, we lose the culture and when we lose the culture we fail to advance the kingdom of God. And now, a generation stands in desperate need. It's time to fight for them and take back these mountains of influence."

Reclaim 7 Mountains of Culture then outlines seven areas of influence for Christian fundamentalists to reclaim:

* The Mountain of Government, "where evil is either restrained or endorsed",

* The Mountain of Education, "where truths, or lies, about God and his creation are taught.",

* The Mountain of Media, "where information is interpreted through the lens of good or evil",

* The Mountain of Arts and Entertainment, "where values and virtue are celebrated or distorted",

* The Mountain of Religion, "where people worship God in spirit and truth, or settle for a religious ritual",

* The Mountain of Family, "where either a blessing or a curse is passed onto successive generations and,

* The Mountain of Business, "where people build for the glory of God or the glory of man."

The last is the key mountain, proclaims the video: "those who lead this mountain influence what controls our culture."

Youth With a Mission also runs a global Christian evangelism educational ministry headquartered at the University of the Nations 45 acre campus in Kona, Hawaii.

As one example in which organizations such as YWAM are implementing the Reclaiming the 7 Seven Mountains agenda, the university has developed programs to provide its students with real world skills such as media and film production.

One of the graduates from the Kona university is Loren Cunningham's son, David Loren Cunningham, who founded the Film Institute in 2004 with other University of Nations students, to place students in the film industry in order to transform Hollywood from within. Cunningham directed Path to 911, the controversial television film aired on ABC on September 10 and 11, 2006 and covered at The Huffington Post by journalist Max Blumenthal.