Ignore for a moment Gary Bauer’s predictably sneering suggestion that President Obama is a closet Muslim-lover. That kind of bigotry has become standard for the religious right. But check out these other passages from a new essay by the commentator and former Republican presidential candidate: Progressives and Islamists are indeed on the same side. Their […]
Recent Blogs
Barton and Civil Rights
In TFN’s 2006 report The Anatomy of Power: The Religious Right and Political Power, we took a hard look at the career of pseudo-scholar David Barton and his efforts to provide a historical justification for making religion the basis for government policy. Our conclusion: His main accomplishment (has been) to provide a bridge between the […]
LWV Sets Texas SBOE Candidate Debate
With the general election campaign moving into high gear after Labor Day, voters will have more opportunities to meet and hear from candidates. League of Women Voters of the Austin Area Education Fund and public television station KLRU in Austin already have one such event scheduled: a debate featuring candidates for the Texas State Board […]
Promoting Political Theology
It’s educational when religious-right leaders reveal — inadvertently or not — the crass ideological calculations that motivate their agendas. A press release yesterday from Terry McIntosh, a Christian minister who evangelizes Muslims in the Middle East, offers a good example. The press release, headlined “America First,” warns Christians “against the dangers of socialism in the […]
Barton and Beck: An Uncivil Union
In the latest step cementing (sanctifying?) his relationship with Fox News commentator Glenn Beck, pseudo-religious scholar/phony historian David Barton has declared in prayer that Beck’s August 28 “Restore Honor Rally” at the Lincoln Memorial in our nation’s capital is divinely inspired. (Civil rights leaders don’t see it that way — they are particularly upset that […]