Free Speech, Politics, Religion

Religious Freedom and the Values Voter Summit

By Mike Appleton, Weekend Contributor

“All governments are theocracies. We now live in a secular humanist theocracy. I want to change that to a government with God at its head.”

-Gary DeMar (quoted in John Sugg, “A Nation Under God,” Mother Jones (December, 2005)

When I started first grade in 1951, each school day began with the Pledge of Allegiance. We recited “one nation, indivisible,” because people understood that fidelity to one’s country is not a religious virtue. The National Prayer Breakfast was not on anyone’s calendar because it didn’t exist. Politicians felt no compulsion to invoke God’s blessings on the United States at the conclusion of every speech. Protestants opposed every effort to secure public funding of Catholic parochial schools in order to preserve the “wall of separation” between church and state. The corner grocer didn’t care whether a customer was gay or had been born again. Textbooks were not reviewed by religious committees for conformity with the King James Version. No serious person had yet suggested that insentient, artificial commercial entities could magically channel the religious beliefs of their shareholders. And no one complained that a war was being waged against religion.

But following some of the events at this year’s Values Voter Summit, I have become nostalgic for 1951.

The Summit is the premiere annual political event for conservative Christian evangelicals, and making an appearance has become almost a required pilgrimage for Republican presidential candidates who desire the support of the religious right base of the party. Those in attendance this year heard many of the usual rants against same-sex marriage, abortion and the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act. However, those concerns did not top the priority list. Instead, a 39% plurality of those polled at the conference believe that the most important issue facing the country today is religious liberty.

So how is this possible? The past 30 years have seen an explosion in government support of religion. Millions of dollars in public funds are provided to a variety of so-called “faith-based” programs. Taxpayers support charter schools with decidedly sectarian curricula all across the country. A number of states provide tax credits to enable parents to send their children to religious schools. Religious institutions and, after Hobby Lobby, for-profit businesses as well, have been granted exemptions from compliance with portions of the ACA. This is in addition to the exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation which religious institutions already enjoy in their hiring and firing practices. Religious groups distribute bibles in public schools and operate after-school programs on school property to proselytize grammar school children. The Town of Greece decision now permits governments to schedule ceremonial prayer in accordance with local majoritarian religious preferences. Most rational people would agree that freedom of religion and religious expression are hardly at risk.

The comments of several of the event speakers may furnish us a clue. Kelly Shackelford of the Liberty Institute repeated the false story of the child disciplined for saying grace before eating her lunch. Michele Bachmann reminded the audience that the battle against Islamic terrorism is “spiritual warfare.” Gary Bauer accused President Obama of protecting Muslims while ignoring the persecution of Christians in the Middle East. Jason and David Benham, whose proposed television program on HGTV was cancelled after revelations of their virulently anti-gay activities, compared themselves to victims of ISIS, silenced for their Christian beliefs. And Sen. Ted Cruz, who for the second year in a row won the presidential straw poll, intoned “We need a president who will speak out for people of faith, for prisoners of conscience.” So for the attendees at the Values Voter Summit, there is indeed a war on Christianity. It is being waged by Muslims and by those who object to intolerance.

But the whole story is really darker. When members of the Christian right speak of freedom of religion, what they mean is freedom for a particular brand of conservative Christianity. Tony Perkins is the president of the Family Research Council, the principal sponsor of the annual Summit.  He is neither a legal scholar nor a theologian, but that does not matter. In Mr. Perkins’ view, religious freedom does not apply to Islam. It also does not apply to Christians who support gay rights. In fact, religious liberty is reserved solely for those holding “orthodox religious viewpoints. It has to have a track record, it has to come forth from religious orthodoxy.” Mr. Perkins’ First Amendment does not compel government neutrality toward religion; it requires preferential treatment for those Christian sects whose doctrines adhere to Mr, Perkins’ notion of  orthodoxy. He is a theocratic dominionist in religious liberty’s clothing.

And that, in a nutshell, is what the war on religion in America is all about. It is a war declared by Christian fundamentalists on all religious traditions deemed non-conforming. The goal is a society in which separation of church and state is eliminated and religious pluralism rejected as unbiblical. Ted Cruz is merely the latest last hope for the hapless.

389 thoughts on “Religious Freedom and the Values Voter Summit”

  4. @NickS

    I have read Camille Paglia, and have 2 of her books. As far as being provincial, if you mean that I don’t wish to star in a bukkake flick, or have objects shoved up my rear end, then I am guilty as charged. Somehow, I suspect that you are equally provincial. But, I could be wrong.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  5. anon: Since I work in the legal adult porn industry, I can assure you that NONE of the women who perform in the sexual content produced by adult industry producers are trafficked, and of course, no children appear in their movies. The adult industry opposes human trafficking of all sorts.

  7. I’m taking a wild guess here but I think Mark has some REAL nasty letters to him in his file cabinet. Like maybe THOUSANDS. They would make a great anthology book.

  8. @Mark Kernes

    And you want the movie Deep Throat to be celebrated??? Here is what Linda Lovelace has to say:

    Linda Lovelace has much to say about her pornographer: “When in response to his suggestions I let him know I would not become involved in prostitution in any way and told him I intended to leave, [Traynor] beat me up physically and the constant mental abuse began. I literally became a prisoner, I was not allowed out of his sight, not even to use the bathroom, where he watched me through a hole in… the door. He slept on top of me at night, he listened to my telephone calls with a .45 automatic eight shot pointed at me. I was beaten physically and suffered mental abuse each and every day thereafter. He undermined my ties with other people and forced me to marry him on advice from his lawyer.”

    “My initiation into prostitution was a gang rape by five men, arranged by Mr. Traynor. It was the turning point in my life. He threatened to shoot me with the pistol if I didn’t go through with it. I had never experienced anal sex before and it ripped me apart. They treated me like an inflatable plastic doll, picking me up and moving me here and there. They spread my legs this way and that, shoving their things at me and into me, they were playing musical chairs with parts of my body. I have never been so frightened and disgraced and humiliated in my life. I felt like garbage. I engaged in sex acts for pornography against my will to avoid being killed.The lives of my family were threatened.”

    There are other interesting tidbits from other porn actresses at this link:

    http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?98713-Porn-stars-speak-out-about-the-reality-of-the-porn-industry

    For example:

    My first movie I was treated very rough by 3 guys. They pounded on me, gagged me with their penises, and tossed me around like I was a ball! I was sore, hurting and could barely walk. My insides burned and hurt so badly. I could barely pee and to try to have a bowel movement was out of the question. I was hurting so bad from the physical abuse from these 3 male porn stars! – Alexa Milano

    But, by all means, you go celebrate the porn industry! Perhaps for an encore you can become a Concentration Camp Reporter, and regale the world with tales of all the hijinks behind barb wire.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  9. nick, Historically some feminists and the religious right have allied over porn. Not a big issue for me but squeeky did make some valid points.

  10. A little food for thought:

    “The Connection Between Sex Trafficking and Pornography”

    http://humantraffickingsearch.net/wp/the-connection-between-sex-trafficking-and-pornography/

    America’s Dirty Little Secret: Sex Trafficking Is Big Business

    By John W. Whitehead
    September 29, 2014

    “For every 10 women rescued, there are 50 to 100 more women are brought in by the traffickers. Unfortunately, they’re not 18- or 20-year-olds anymore. They’re minors as young as 13 who are being trafficked. They’re little girls.”—25-year-old victim of trafficking

    “Children are being targeted and sold for sex in America every day.”—John Ryan, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

    https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/americas_dirty_little_secret_sex_trafficking_is_big_business

  11. SWM, She is provincial sexually. But, you folks are aligned w/ Senator Jeff Sessions. During the sexual assaults in the military hearings he blamed porn. What folks like yourself, SWM, don’t understand is that we free thinkers can disagree on topics. We don’t have a little red book that tells us how to think on certain topics. Squeeky and I disagree on other topics. Free thinkers are bound to disagree, that’s why folks like us deplore echo chambers. But, when the Falwell’s and Sessions, align w/ the Steinem’s and SWM’s, something is TERRRRRRIBLY wrong.

  13. “Real women embrace porn. Provincial women are w/ the Jerry Falwell’s of the world on the topic. But hell, this is the US. Embrace whomever you like.” No, you have called squeeky a real woman many times. Now, she isn’t but because she has spoken out against violent porn.

  14. LMAO, “Real” women embrace porn?! Whoa another excellent joke! Fake women, ala blowup dolls embrace sex too!

  15. @Mark Kernes

    I guess you are one of those people who can make themselves believe anything. A few excerpts from an ex-porn star::

    The California pornography industry is a destructive, drug infested, abusive and sexually diseased industry which causes severe negative secondary effects on female and male adult industry workers as well as the general public. I am confident of the above because not only was I a stripper, pornographic performer and escort in the California pornography industry from 1986 to 1994, but I have also counseled with or spoken to over 300 female and male workers in the pornography industry as well as those struggling with pornography addiction.

    In statements I have received from females and males working in the pornography industry and those who previously worked in the industry, at least 80% admit to catching an STD while working in the California pornography industry. I personally caught the non-curable disease Genital Herpes in 1994 and was not given any information or help from porn producers or the adult industry. Recently, Jan Meza, a former porn actress who left the pornography industry in October 2007, publicly shared of late that she discovered she has Herpes. She is totally devastated in that she caught a non-curable disease. Belladonna, a well known pornographic performer states: “99% of the porn industry has Herpes.” One male pornographic performer, Rocco, 600 films and 3,000 women later says: “Every professional in the porn-world has herpes, male or female.” Tanya Burleson, formerly known as Jersey Jaxin, caught Chlamydia her first year working. She exclaimed, while speaking with me, “I don’t believe I worked with one person who didn’t at one time have an STD.” Tanya made over 200 movies in her three year career. She also says, “Performers have to pay for their own testing, their medicine and lose at least eight days of work every time they catch a sexually transmitted disease.”

    Sexually transmitted diseases are highly prevalent in the pornography industry. Among 825 porn performers screened in 2000–2001, 7.7% of females and 5.5% of males had Chlamydia and 2% overall had gonorrhea. Dr. Sharon Mitchell confirms the STD prevalence in an interview with Court TV, in which she states: “66% of porn performers have Herpes, 12-28% have sexually transmitted diseases and 7% have HIV.”

    Employers in the California pornography industry are required to provide a safe and healthful workplace for employees, even pay the costs of a health and safety program, and yet this is not the standard in the adult industry. The accurate standard at present in the California pornography industry is that employers are completely ignoring the laws of the State of California to protect adult industry workers and are causing severe secondary negative effects on workers by subjecting them to physical and emotional abuse, major degradation and violence, illegal drugs, sexually transmitted diseases and entrapment into prostitution. This is the standard of the California pornography industry; any adult industry employer or worker who tells you differently is blatantly lying and does not value human life, but is rather destroying human life for the gluttonous love of money.

    http://www.covenanteyes.com/2008/10/28/ex-porn-star-tells-the-truth-about-the-porn-industry/

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

    1. Squeeky: Wow! You’ve hit the know-nothing porn-critic trifecta with your last two posts. You apparently expect me to take seriously a quote from John Stoltenberg who had the interesting experience (I’m sure) of being married to anti-porn “feminist” Andrea Dworkin, who famously said that all male/female sexual couplings are rape, plus you’ve managed to dig out another screed from former-prostitute-turned-porn-performer-turned-religious-grifter Shelley Lubben, whose lies about the adult industry have been well-refuted by documentarian Michael Whiteacre here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZmLv1w4RZg&hd=1), here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol0IKeWPIvQ&hd=1), here (www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_r7NZsTH8U&hd=1) and in several other similar episodes.

      America’s still a (putatively) free country, so you’re certainly free to dislike porn as much as you like. I know I’d appreciate it, though, if you became actually informed on the subject rather than simply repeating second-hand the lies told by others.

      1. Markkerns, the comment you posted at 4:03 had more than two hyperlinks and therefore the system kicked it out. I edited it by dereferencing one of the links.

        You might not have been aware of this but a comment having greater than two comments is affected. If you would like to provide the readers with more than two links, just add those within an additional comment.

        1. Thanks, Darren! I didn’t know that; I was wondering why it went up with the admonition “awaiting moderation,” and in future, will try to limit the links in any one post from now on to two.

  16. Real women embrace porn. Provincial women are w/ the Jerry Falwell’s of the world on the topic. But hell, this is the US. Embrace whomever you like.

  18. @NickS

    Well, I like what this guy said:

    “Pornography tells lies about women. But pornography tells the truth about men,” meaning that pornography is an accurate representation of the way men, gay and straight, have constructed their sexuality around dominance, objectification, and dehumanization of women.

    http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/06/a-short-history-of-male-feminism/372673/

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  20. I never said porn was Academy Award. It’s what men watch to get off for chrissake. It’s fantasy. It’s a guy thing. Don’t like it. Don’t watch it.

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