The blogosphere never disappoints when it comes to keeping tabs on the religous right. This week was no exception. Here is a sampler of the great stuff out there -- this time led off by a George Lakoff post from right here on The Daily Kos that scrolled away all too quickly.
The Daily Kos
George Lakoff, writing under the nom de keyboard, Rockridge, has, in the context of a wider essay, a brief description of what he means by framing -- as distinct from words and slogans alone.
The idea of framing is essential to moving the discussion about the religious right forward in a more productive way -- ways that so far have mostly eluded most elements of mainstream political and religious thinking. Too many people still think what matters is the label more than the substance. Lakoff helps us put such notions to rest.
I have also been advocating that progressives say what they believe, that they understand their values and articulate them loud and clear. And I have advocated telling the truth. In both cases, I have pointed out the crucial importance of effective framing. Framing is primarily about ideas, values, and moral worldviews, and secondarily about the language used to express those ideas. Some frames are deep -- those that define overall worldviews, values, and principles. Other frames are surface -- those that characterize the meanings of words and slogans. For surface frames to be absorbed and accepted, the deep frames must be in place in people brains. That's why mere sloganeering doesn't work for progressives. It works for the far right because they have done their homework -- they have spent decades getting their deep frames into people's brains. Progressives face the long, hard task of getting the public, once more, to accept traditional progressive values as a basis for public discourse.
Facts are crucial, and I keep saying so. But they have to be framed properly in order to be understood, accepted, and assimilated. Just the raw data, the statistics, the polls in themselves -- unframed, outside a moral context -- may mean nothing. If the public you are talking to has a frame that contradicts the raw facts, the frame will stay and the facts will be ignored, to the detriment of our country. Framing for the truth is a crucial enterprise, and a failure to do so does harm.
Being real about the world is crucial. So is being real about the mind. The 17th Century view of the mind -- rationalism -- says that there is a disembodied universal reason shared by everyone, that there are not frames or metaphors that people reason in terms of. That view has been shown in contemporary cognitive science to be false. If it were true, then it would follow that if you just tell people the facts they will reason to the right conclusion, and people would always vote to maximize their material interests. Both of these conjectures are false. Many progressives still believe in rationalism and it hurts our cause. The alternative is reason at a higher level, to recognize the differences in frames, metaphors, worldviews, and take them into account, to understand that people really vote on the basis of values, authenticity, and trust, with positions on issues being symbolic of those qualities. Progressives should be authentic, say what they really believe, and be clear about their values. It is not only a moral imperative, it is a political one.
(People who are unfamiliar with Lakoff, should do themselves a favor and buy his short, paperback, New York Times best selling book Don't Think of an Elephant.)
Wall of Separation
Lauren Smith sets Christian right legal eagle Jay Sekulow strait about a few things:
In a recent fundraising e-mail, Jay Sekulow, who heads TV preacher Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice, warned supporters that Americans United for Separation of Church and State is out to get them.
Sekulow used this particular message to "explain" AU's recent project educating religious leaders about the tax law governing non-profit participation in partisan politics. Jay got one fact right - that we sent letters to over 117,000 houses of worship across the country - but his analysis plunges headlong into absurdity from there.
Jay starts off with a bang: "Americans United for Separation of Church and State...[is] intimidating churches into silence on abortion, same-sex marriage, and other important issues - using a vague, half-century-old law."
Au contraire, my friends, au contraire.
Our letter makes explicitly clear that we recognize and respect every religious leader's right to speak out on social, moral and political issues. We have no problem with, and have never reported, a religious leader for speaking out strictly on issues. Our concern is that religious leaders don't tell their congregants which candidates to vote for.
Jay goes on: "And the IRS itself has announced it will be on the lookout for any church that gets involved with politics."
Yes, heaven forbid that the federal government actually plans to enforce the laws regulating the morass that is campaign financing.
People for the American Way -- Right Wing Watch
Kyle reports that the Family Research Council's Liberty Sunday event will feature a Boston pastor who has written that marriage equality is literally the work of the devil.
For instance, Roberto Miranda, Pastor of the Lion of Judah Congregation in Boston, has been invited, presumably because of his efforts to fight marriage equality in Massachusetts as well as his work in drafting a "Master Plan: A Strategic Plan for the Church in Massachusetts" which he wrote up after the state supreme court decision recognizing same-sex marriage in the state.... Satan has warred mightily against this region, and has effectively neutralized it through the influence of principalities of rationalism, humanism, intellectual pride and spiritual arrogance. Massachusetts, as well as all of New England, has become a cemetery of churches, a breeding ground for heretical doctrine, and intellectual furnace energizing attitudes of godlessness, rational arrogance and secularism It is no coincidence, of course, that something as dramatically distant from the Christian worldview as gay marriage would be originated in this region.
Miranda takes it one step further - if that is even possible - and claims that there is a direct correlation between marriage equality and the September 11th terrorist attacks.
Is it exaggerated to see prophetic significance in the fact that on September 11, 2001 Boston served as the point of departure for the deadly forces that spread so much destruction and havoc in this nation and all over the world? What took place at the material level is now being carried out at the moral and spiritual level, as the virus of homosexuality and gay marriage begins to spread dramatically all over this nation and perhaps the world.
Street Prophets
Chuck Currie reports that the religious right is upset because a Bush nominee for a federal judgeship participated in a same sex committment ceremony four years ago in Massachusetts.
U.S. Senator Sam Brownback, one of the most conservative members of the Senate, has placed a hold on the nomination of Janet T. Neff, whose nomination by Bush has been approved by the U.S. Judiciary Committee.
Melissa Rogers
Melissa Rogers has a round-up of White House reaction and news coverage of David Kuo's new book exposing the adminstration's cynical uses of the faith based initiative and the leaders of the religious right.
Religion Clause
Howard Freidman links to some important news stories:
The first, big news from Michigan:
The Associated Press reports that on Tuesday, the Michigan State Board of Education unanimously adopted new curriculum guidelines that support the teaching of evolution and exclude the teaching of intelligent design in science classes. The theory could be taught in other courses. Michigan Citizens For Science issued a statement praising the fair procedures used by the Board of Education in considering the issue.
Links to the recent Boston Globe four-part series detailing how the bush admnistration is shoveling money to religious organizations involved in international relief and development work.
Finally,
Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch reports on a lecture focusing on church-state issues given by former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor at William & Mary Law School. In it, she said: "I do think we're lucky in this country. We have generally kept religion a matter of individual conscience and not a matter for the prosecutor or bureaucrat." She also said that she opposes the idea that the federal government should have greater leeway to reflect Christianity as the religion of the majority of Americans.
Talk to Action
Chip Berlet has the details of the upcoming Liberty Sunday, to be broadcast from Boston by the Family Research Council and featuring Massachussetts governor Mitt Romney.
The event is billed as "Liberty Sunday: Defending Our First Freedom," with the slogan, "Preserving the light of the Church." Sunday, October 15, 2006 at 7pm eastern time, in Boston at the Tremont Temple Baptist Church, "in response to the legal battles over marriage taking place in Massachusetts."
One notice from FRC is titled "First Amendment Under Attack," and reads: "Family Research Council will tackle one of the most divisive debates in the culture wars during a nationwide simulcast."
The program simulcast will be hosted on the Sky Angel satellite broadcast service.
These battles are destined to have an impact not only on marriage, but also on the free speech and freedom of religion rights of all citizens. Liberty Sunday will broadcast live in churches across the country via Sky Angel satellite system, and will also broadcast on Daystar Television, Bott Radio Network, American Family Radio and web-cast on (Cite:)
Bruce Wilson smells a rat in stories about ex-White House aide David Kuo's apparent claim that the religious right didn't get anything for their support for Team Bush.
...the Boston Globe has just concluded a four part investigative series exposing how the Bush Administration has rechanneled massive amounts of US foreign aid to religious groups:
President Bush has almost doubled the percentage of US foreign-aid dollars going to faith-based groups such as Food for the Hungry, according to a Globe survey of government data. And in seeking to help such groups obtain more contracts, Bush has systematically eliminated or weakened rules designed to enforce the separation of church and state. ....many of those restrictions were removed by Bush in a little-noticed series of executive orders -- a policy change that cleared the way for religious groups to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars in additional government funding.
Renee in Ohio has the transcript of a recent presentation by Barry Lynn, Executive Director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.
The issue in Ohio is the same one we're seeing all over the country, and I'm going to phrase this question in three ways.
Will churches deliberately or unwittingly let their sanctuaries become soapboxes for selected candidates for public office?
Will the churchgoers know incense from the altar or cigar smoke from the partisan political activity in the basement when they walk into a church?
Will the church advocate the civic responsiblity of voting, or advance the candidacies of certain people they want to see elected?
Frank Cocozzelli continues his series detailing the elements of the Catholic Right:
Thomas Monaghan wants to transform our society. Part of how he is going about it, as I reported in the last installment of this series that, the Dominos Pizza King is using his vast wealth to try to transform the basis of American Jurisprudence from the principles of the Enlightenment to one based upon an ultra-Orthodox Catholic vision of natural law principles.
John Gorenfeld tells us about the time Rev. Sun Myung Moon spoke with, and was endorsed by a host of dead American presidents. Moon quotes John F. Kennedy as saying from beyond the grave: "Don't ask what the United Nations can do for you. Ask what you can do for the realization of the eternal world of peace." Gorenfeld explains what Moon is up to.
Moiv has a hair-raising account of how Chritian Rightists are creating "Hell Houses" for Halloween to scare small children about abortion, among other things. (Lots of pics to illustrate the ugly scam.)
Halloween approaches, a holiday traditionally celebrated with haunted house attractions that draw children and teenagers like moths to a jack o'lantern's flame.
But over the last several years, an increasing number of churches have begun offering more than the customary chills and thrills. Instead of haunted house ghosts and goblins, these houses of worship invite children and teenagers to enter Hell House -- where they are treated to graphic depictions of the eternal damnation and torment that await them, should they stray from the straight and narrow path of "Christian" purity.