TFN Insider is pleased to present this guest post from Rev. Michael Diaz, Director of Connections at Resurrection MCC Church in Houston. Rev. Diaz is a proud voice for social justice in his community for a host of issues, including equality for LGBTQ citizens.
Lunch with Liberty Counsel
Rev. Michael Diaz
Religious-right propaganda distributed at the event by Liberty Counsel. |
Late last Thursday I received an invitation to a “Who Will Stand?” pastors meeting at Grace Community Church in Houston hosted by Liberty Counsel. It was short notice but my interest was piqued by the speaker line-up: “Governor Mike Huckabee, self-taught historian David Barton, Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver, and many, many others.”
About 10 people were present, and maybe five were actual local church pastors with a few bringing their significant others. That’s right, only 10 people showed up in a room set up for 80 – with a catered lunch from Chick-fil-a boxes, of course! I must say the small turn-out surprised me, considering the build-up given to the event.
The speakers “appeared” on a 70-minute DVD designed to mobilize “Christians” to vote in November. Their main message centered upon the fact that churches are allowed to lobby politically, and that no church has ever lost their tax exempt status from the IRS for lobbying. Mr. David Barton gave more revisionist history about “England attacking all preachers in the 18th Century, and that’s why America was founded as a Christian nation.” Did the English monarchy (a Protestant monarchy!) really attack ALL preachers, including those in the Church of England? One of the speakers admitted the “religious right” is no more, and that’s why there’s a need for “Christians” to vote.
The meeting ended with a song about standing up and fighting, defending our “Christian” nation against “secular socialists.” Nice try.
I was surprised no one was present from the Houston Area Pastor’s Council, except for the infamous Kendall Baker, the epitome of Christian values. It made me wonder again just how it is that the “religious right” has created such fear among progressives.
In any case, I took the meeting message to heart: Who will stand in November? Whose voice will be heard from the voting booth when Texas’ future leadership is decided and measures like the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance stand or fall based on turn-out? As a person of faith, I plan to do all I can to ensure it is the voice of inclusion my congregants and Texas’ leaders hear.
Yeah, that’s right, Billy Bob, nobody’s ever been given a ticket for running that red light as long as I remember. Go ahead, Billy Bob, run that red light! Nothin’s gonna happen!
Well, at least you got a Chik-fil-a! Winning!
Rev. Diaz, thank you for taking that hit for the rest of us….
Is that brochure even for real? Was the artist trained by the Hitlerjugend organization, or maybe a division of Chairman Mao’s art brigades? Or are we just in Bizarroworld?
Perhaps a little of both I suspect.
The art looks to my untrained eye to be WWII vintage. Particularly suggestive is the white-collar green dress of a “senior” Girl scout on the foremost girl; the background boy scout wearing a Stetson campaign hat also suggests it — while those are still allowed and occasionally given as a symbolic gesture, I understand they fell into disuse by the late 1950s. It looks like there’s an “intermediate” girl scout in a blue kerchief to the back left; and the boy and girl in blue uniforms may be some of the naval auxiliaries. (It may also just be a Cub Scout.)
Google Image search isn’t conclusive. It’s conceivably early Norman Rockwell (perhaps from one of the scouting calendars he did over the years), but seems more likely another similar artist of his era — mainly because I’m not turning it up in Rockwell collections, but also since the style seems less photo-realistic than even the early pieces my search turned up. It looks to be a crop of a larger work, as there appear to be a couple older military figures in the background.
If you’ll blow up the picture of that boy scout in the upper right corner, it looks as if he has a cigarette in his lips.
Progressive fear of the Religious Right? Annoyance maybe. Actually, the strategy is to grind what is left of the Religious Right to powder so they will never have an opportunity to cause the American people any true fear. It’s like Sheriff John Brown says in the song:
“Kill it before it can grow.”
Figuratively speaking, of course.