I’d like someone to ask the folks living at the C-Street Christian Brothel about this:
Members of the Family have occupied seats in both houses of Congress going back to the 1930s, but for all but its most recent history, the hallmark of the Family has been secrecy. In the past year, however, three sex scandals involving highly placed associates — Gov. Mark Sanford, R-S.C.; Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.; and Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss. — have thrust the group and its C Street house into the national spotlight.
And just this month, Family members Rep. Bart Stupak, a Catholic Democrat from Michigan, and Rep. Joe Pitts, an evangelical Republican from Pennsylvania, brought more attention to the secretive group when their Stupak-Pitts Amendment passed as part of the House health-care reform bill, threatening to further restrict abortion funding for the poor, if it remains in the final bill. (Pitts, like all his GOP colleagues, voted against the bill, even though it included his amendment.)
But what many people may find surprising is that the Family has branches around the world. In fact, yesterday, Jeff Sharlet, author of “The Family: Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power,” reported on NPR’s “Fresh Air” that it was a Family member in the Ugandan parliament who introduced a bill that would increase the punishment for homosexuality from life imprisonment, which is the maximum sentence today, to death.
Then again, we wouldn’t want to give Bart Stupak any ideas for more poison pill amendments.
Betsy
I hadn’t realized Stupak was a Family member. This organization sounds frighteningly undemocratic. (Also, could they possibly have a creepier name?)
Betsy
Italics fail. Oh well.
Persia
The whole thought of The Family just creeps me out start to finish. It’s like all the Illuminati/Mason/Whatever conspiracy theories– except that this one seems to be totally real. I find my natural skepticism bumping up against what seem to be real, verifiable facts.
JR
So, just so we’re clear, there are members of Congress who are part of a secret organization that, as part of its religious agenda, endorses killing people for being gay.
Jee-zus. Fred Phelps has more supporters than I realized.
JR
In the game “Fallout 3,” there’s a gang in the post-apocalyptic ruins of DC called “The Family” that practices vampirism as a way of suppressing their cannibalistic urges, terrorizing the residents of the Capital and wreaking havoc on one of the small towns that has survived in the wastes.
Now I know where the inspiration was drawn from.
MattF
I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise– the classic way of dealing with cognitive dissonance is to join a group where your beliefs will be reinforced. Inside the protective wall, ‘truth’ prevails, while outside– well, y’know– the bad, the disbelievers.
Shell
Hmmm, is this gonna be the subject of Dan Brown’s next novel?
Stranger than fiction.
chrome agnomen
family values
you betcha
also
too
jayackroyd
Read Sharlet’s book. You’ll spend the next week with a tin foil cap.
Seriously. Read the book. It is much worse than you can imagine.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Yeah, um. What was that about health care reform leading to a holocaust? And abortion is a holocaust. But locking up and killing gays and lesbians makes the Baby Jesus smile.
No shit. I rarely don the tinfoil hat, but I’m surprised some ignorant goon hasn’t tried to exclude treatment for HIV/AIDS (‘Cos only the kweers get it an’ it’s God’s punishment [fappity fap].)
licensed to kill time
Well thank God there is a new thread because that Sully one is getting too hot for comfort. Now we can all fume about how these religious fucks are taking over the world and spreading their repulsive beliefs and snaking tentacles into government everywhere.
OT – my SO was watching teevee this am when Chuckles the Todd was on, and said “see that thing on his ear?”. I didn’t see anything, and then SO said “it’s that dick hanging out, the one somebody said he wanted to fuck him with and break off”.
SO doesn’t read BJ, but I guess I talk about it a lot.
Ash Can
These people are fanatics, pure and simple. There’s no reasoning with them on issues they’re fanatical about.
Fanatics have been around forever. The way to deal with them is to keep them away from the levers of power. Unfortunately, we can all see how successful that effort has been over the recent decades. The Overton Window has been moved way over to the right, and fanatics are a feature of our system now, rather than a bug. Moving the Overton Window back to the center will solve a host of problems, and with younger, smarter generations coming along it’s feasible. It depresses me, though, to think that it likely won’t happen in my lifetime.
bemused
Meanwhile, from a glance at the tv, our intrepid media is focused on Tiger Woods & gangs tweeting.
Steph
Thank you for giving this story some needed oxygen.
http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2009/11/5113/
There is some contact info on congressional reps. who are trying to do something about money going to Uganda or not. Just penned a letter to H. Clinton on this. I wish I knew what else to do. To know that my brother could be executed for being gay, in this day an age (and not only in Uganda, of course) is driving me insane.
Gospel according to bizarre
No doubt Hitler knew a lot of funny jokes, but I don’t think I’d like to hang out with him. This from wiki on The Family. Out of context? When did that ever stop faux nooz?
Fellowship leader Doug Coe is described as preaching a leadership model, and a personal commitment to Jesus Christ, comparable to the blind devotion that Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Chairman Mao, and Pol Pot demanded from their followers In one videotaped 1989 lecture series, Coe said, “Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler were three men. Think of the immense power these three men had…But they bound themselves together in an agreement…Two years before they moved into Poland, these three men had…systematically a plan drawn out…to annihilate the entire Polish population and destroy by numbers every single house…every single building in Warsaw and then to start on the rest of Poland.” Coe adds that it worked; they killed six and a half million “Polish people.” Though he calls Nazis “these enemies of ours,” he compares their commitment to Jesus’ demands: “Jesus said, ‘You have to put me before other people. And you have to put me before yourself.’ Hitler, that was the demand to be in the Nazi party. You have to put the Nazi party and its objectives ahead of your own life and ahead of other people.”
Coe also compares Jesus’ teachings with the Red Guard during the Chinese Cultural Revolution:
I’ve seen pictures of young men in the Red Guard of China…they would bring in this young man’s mother and father, lay her on the table with a basket on the end, he would take an axe and cut her head off….They have to put the purposes of the Red Guard ahead of the mother-father-brother-sister — their own life! That was a covenant. A pledge. That was what Jesus said.
David Kuo states that comparisons such as these aren’t representative of the picture Douglas Coe was trying to paint:
Kuo says Doug Coe wasn’t lauding Hitler’s actions. “What Doug is saying, it’s a metaphor. He is using Hitler as a metaphor. Jesus used that,” Kuo said. A metaphor for what? “Commitment,” Kuo answered. … [A] close friend told NBC News that Doug Coe invokes Hitler only to show the power of small groups — for good and bad. And, the friend said, Coe spends “99 percent” of his time during the sermons talking about the leadership model set by Jesus Christ
Zifnab
Hey! It’s like a boilerplate Obamunist Tea Bagging conspiracy theory, except replace all instances of Obama / Nancy Pelosi / George Soros with some little known congressman, industrialist, or religious wanker.
So much fun to find out how close to the mark some of the tin foil hat crowd is, and yet how completely on the other side of the bullseye they’re firing.
Pseudonym
Penistoreview? Why would I want to do that?
Just Some Fuckhead
@JR:
Is that the case? Or could this be a rogue The Family member?
Pseudonym
Penıstoreview? Why would I want to do that?
Molly
Well, look at it this way. Secret organizations need…secrecy to function, right? Worst thing that could have happened to them has happened, they’ve exposed themselves via Stanford, Ensign, and Pickering.
And yes, I meant to say “exposed.”
Jason
The influence of the Family is unprecedented.
Napoleon
@jayackroyd:
Just listening to interviews of him did that to me.
Beauzeaux
Jeff Sharlet also revealed on “Fresh Air” that The Family sponsored act introduced in the Ugandan parliament seeks to punish not only gays but also anyone who may be in sympathy with them:
“What it also does is it extends this outward, so that if you know a gay person and you don’t report it, that could mean – you don’t report your son or daughter, you can go to prison. And it goes further, to say that any kind of promotion of these ideas of homosexuality, including by foreigners, can result in prison terms. Talking about same sex-marriage positively can lead you to imprisonment for life.”
gex
@Just Some Fuckhead: Is it so difficult to think that Christian dominionists would need to be rogue for this? Hawaii had a state senator who suggested that capital punishment for gays was at least a discussable option. Likewise, some of the early groups to advance the Ohio marriage amendment believed in capital punishment for homosexuality. Certainly it is not as common a view in America as it is elsewhere, but I’m sure there are plenty here who think that even if they won’t say it.
Quite frankly, I’m not sure I’d want to find out what the Family and their ilk would choose if they had to choose between full-on equal rights for gay people or firing squads. Because right now, they spend hundreds of millions of dollars year after year to prevent one of those things from happening.
celticdragon
Sully points out that the President’s favorite evengelical motivational author/pastor is a friend of Ugandan politician Martin Ssempe. He”… is the author of a classic piece of minority-baiting legislation. Its details belong in the history of genocidal hatred”
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/
celticdragon
@Beauzeaux:
Also, the law would provide for Uganda to demand extradition of GLBT persons from other countries for trial and punishment. Fleeing from Uganda would not be an option unless you got somewhere that had no extradition agreement.
licensed to kill time
__
Oh, the irony.
itsbenj
yes, I was just listening to that episode of ‘Fresh Air’ on my lunch break. truly terrifying stuff. and absolutely appalling as well – tax $ being used to fly these clowns to Africa on military transport so that they can help dictators get bills passed allowing for the executions of suspected gay people. what is wrong with the *good* Dems for not calling out the BAD ones over this? and not calling out the Republicans who are neck deep in it? this kind of behavior is certainly not supported by any kind of plurality of the public. and why aren’t the Dems making hay of the Ensign scandal? why aren’t they pounding the Repugs about this night after night after night?
I’m reminded of this gem from the primary season…
celticdragon
@licensed to kill time:
Many of us in the GLBT community had a sinking feeling when he was tapped to speak at the inauguration. It sent a very, very clear signal. I hoped I was wrong. I wasn’t.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Oh now. I’m sure if there were any examples of people who banded together to improve society by means of non-violent resistance and self-sacrifice he would have used those, but there simply aren’t any.
Seriously, using the name of the original Jewish peacenik within 50 paragraph’s of Hitler is unusually disgusting, even for these coebags.
gex
@licensed to kill time:Geez. I remember a time when queers like me were getting reamed for making a big deal out of Rick Warren.
I’m telling you, the people who fight gay rights don’t just want to protect marriage. They don’t want gays to exist. In America, they dare not follow that to its logical conclusion. In Africa…
So when Obama made his peace with Rick Warren he really was finding a middle ground in the culture wars on gays. No, we won’t get marriage, DOMA repeal, or DADT repeal. But on the other hand, the hate crimes advancement puts just killing the gays off the table. I guess we’ve found our middle ground.
Notorious P.A.T.
Ah, the joys of religion. Go ahead, Moderate Christian, put money into that collection plate. There’s a chance it won’t be used to kill poor people by denying them AIDS prevention or passing laws calling for their execution!
JR
@Just Some Fuckhead:
“Family” expert and author Jeff Sharlet on NPR.
gex
@Notorious P.A.T.: After learning that Catholic Charities gets the majority of it’s funding from the tax payers, I realized why that must be. The Catholic laity needs to tithe for the child rape cases and to campagin against gay rights. I don’t know how any Catholic can continue to feed that monster.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Ones who have made themselves useful to the cause will be rewarded with a relatively pain-free castration. Followed by a nasty death when something goes wrong and they need a scapegoat.
And of course, a few will be set aside for “entertainment” purposes.
Extremists don’t do middle gears. (Hypocrisy? Yes. Middle gears? No.)
celticdragon
@gex:
I caught a shit storm of condemnation in this blog two months ago for saying what you just said. I think that the other folks here are starting to see the truth about this.
There will be no movement on DOMA, and the administration will continue defend it in court, incredibly.
DADT has been put off indefinitely, according to Senator Durbin despite a 72% public approval rating for its’ repeal! The administration will continue to kick out officers and enlisted men and women who are ratted out.
Shut up and open your wallets! You could be in Uganda, after all…
gex
Looks like the New Jersey fight for marriage is in trouble: “the Roman Catholic Church in New Jersey threw its muscle into the fight. Bishops and priests spoke against it from the pulpit, and more than 150,000 parishioners signed petitions in opposition” Can’t they just use their time and money to rape children instead of attack gays? Focus on your core competency!
VladCat
@Gex
The Intelligence Squared Debate – Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry vs. The Catholics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvZz_pxZ2lw
The poll at the end is surprising.
Notorious P.A.T.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/09/hillarys-prayer-hillary-clintons-religion-and-politics
gwangung
I’m amused to see so many people take this news and turn around and bash the Obama administration with it.
This is the same mentality (you’re either with us or against us) that plauges the wingnuts.
Notorious P.A.T.
@gex:
I hear ya. It must take an ENORMOUS amount of money to hide child molesters. You need lawyers, sure, but you also need a far-flung network of churches so you can hide abusers in new places that haven’t heard of their crimes.
kay
This is a serious question. I’m not religious.
I (now) know religious have no concerns, at all, about religion co-opting the state.
Do they worry that this works the other way, too? That the state will co-opt religion?
Because that’s what’s going to happen. Religious in the US are dangerously close to being nothing more than one more clamoring, well-funded, powerful lobbyist at the gate. They’re indistinguishable from any for-profit interest, and just as dependent on federal funding.
Did they intend to make Christianity comparable to the Association of Independent Restaurant Owners, or the tobacco or defense lobby? Because that’s what they’ve done.
Are they starting to get a sinking feeling this church-state melding wasn’t a great idea?
celticdragon
@gwangung:
I’m glad you’re amused.
I’m not laughing.
The guy Obama had give his inaugural prayer mentored and supported several of the people in Uganda who are now trying to kill and imprison people like me and their family members.
Is this a laughing matter??
Notorious P.A.T.
@gwangung:
It’s not that Obama isn’t with us 100% so he must be against us, but rather that we want him to be with us and think he is rational enough to come over if we can convince him. That’s why we criticize.
GReynoldsCT00
@Notorious P.A.T.:
And an enormous amount of money to continue to pay lawyers to stonewall the release of documents related to abuse cases…
gex
@gwangung: I didn’t mean to bash Obama or his admin. But I do think it telling that his compromise in the culture wars over gays won’t condemn the proposed bill, because “he can’t take sides”. But he can take sides on SSM.
Killing gays? Not sure if that’s good or bad. Letting them get married? That’s definitely bad. Thanks Rick Warren.
Notorious P.A.T.
I doubt it. For the most part, things are going great for them. They don’t have to pay taxes yet get to use their pulpits for campaigning, the government (mostly) passes laws they approve of, like Proposition 8, and they have a direct pipeline to the levers of power. Where’s the downside for them?
gwangung
@celticdragon: Nope.
But, focus on the important things first. Get the big stick of the electorate FIRST. Gay rights are losing there. Because even if you get another administration on your side, the electorate WILL trump that (either by referendum). That’s happened in the past; it’s going to happen in the future.
You’re wasting time and energy bashing them. They’re irrelevant until they can give you something. They’re not giving you anything, ignore them.
And focus on the people who are actively doing you harm: the churches and right wing groups. Until you can match them fairly, you will get no help from other areas such as politicians. Eyes on the ones who hold the knife.
kay
Can religious credibly act as dissenters on any state action when they’re now effectively on the federal payroll, in all sorts of ways?
I don’t think they can, for long. I think they end up as one more lobbyist, somewhere behind Wall Street but ahead of the Service Employees Union.
Seems like a lot to risk for free plane fare and a federal subsidy, your eternal soul, but what do I know.
gwangung
@Notorious P.A.T.: Given the results in Maine (and damn near every other election where gay rights was put to a vote), I’m not surprised gay rights issues have been put on the back burner. In a country where damn near half the country DOESN’T BELIEVE IN THE US CONSTITUTION IN GENERAL, I’m not surprised this is occurring (I’d be surprised if he vetoed anything gay rights oriented, but that’s another story).
I am amused because many of the progressives here are acting just like the wingnuts. They are using a top down authoritarian model of influence–if that works, that’s fine, BUT IT’S NOT WORKING. In a country where half the country hates constitutional rights for ANYONE, it’s time for another strategy, which is bottom upwards and grassroots oriented.
celticdragon
@gwangung:
Fairly put…but we were promised that this administration could walk and chew gum at the same time. We were also told that we had a “fierce advocate”
Yep.
I’m beginning to think that Malcolm X had it right when he said that
Another one comes to mind also, since you mentioned keeping your eyes on the person holding the knife.
kay
@Notorious P.A.T.:
I don’t know. I think it starts to show. The state is subsidizing them. I think at some point the state starts calling the shots.
I actually wondered about this on Iraq. I wondered if the state had bought their silence, because it was deafening. Those faith based grants have gotten pretty important to the bottom line. Best not to upset the guy signing the checks.
Molly
@kay: “Do they worry that this works the other way, too? That the state will co-opt religion?”
Intelligent Christians are.
Keeping the church and the state out of each other’s affairs is critical for BOTH the state and the church. Christians such as myself believe the state is a corrupting influence on the church, because the state is about temporal power…and as you said, when the church is concerned about holding onto power and influence more than the work of serving others, it becomes warped. The “render unto Caesar” verse in the Bible is not about preserving the sanctity of the state from the influence of religion, it’s about preserving the sanctity of the soul from the temptations of the temporal power the state is concerned with.
So yes, many, many Christians are aware of this. You won’t see many Episcopalians or Lutherans calling for prayer in school or sanctioning Congress. This seems to be very much an evangelical mindset, which makes sense, because evangelicalism is very focused on right here, right now, converting people, and preparing for the end times. Some evangelicals are more into that than others, but it’s a common thread among all of them. So, they’re going to turn towards whatever they think will give them the most influence over THIS lifetime…the power of the state.
celticdragon
@gwangung:
UH…no. We will wait for another 50 years if we keep putting this to a popular vote. African Americans would not have gotten equal rights (bussing, schools, votes!) in many places until the mid 1980’s had they waited until they were “popular”.
Toqueville called it the tyranny of the majority, and that is why we have courts. The right can scream about black robed tyrants all they like. I know that some idiots are still saying Brown Vs. Board was wrong!
Whatever.
Fighting it through the courts looks to be the best route for now.
Sentient Puddle
@kay: I’m not entirely sure if there’s a connection, but the Puritans of colonial America believed in a form of predestination where one’s measure of wealth demonstrated whether or not they were going to be saved. To me, making the leap from that to the commercialization/corporatization of religion isn’t hard.
gex
@gwangung: Obama talked about using the bully pulpit. What did he do in Maine? He said nothing. And that’s fine. But his organization called people in Maine and asked them to work on a campaign issue in New Jersey. If asking Obama to mention the marriage referendum in Maine and point out the lies about teaching kindergartners about gay sex is too much, and makes me a winger, then I guess I’m a fucking winger.
If he didn’t want to do the bully pulpit thing, he didn’t need to say it. He fucking didn’t need to address queer issues at all, so few of us would actually vote GOP on gay issues, why bother? But he did, and I guess we’re all assholes for thinking he meant any of what he said.
(Also, I guess this means you haven’t paid attention to the time that the administration asked members of the house to hold back bills addressing DOMA or DADT). Sorry for being a stupid asshole. It’s pretty clear that the standard for gay rights is “are we killing you? No? Then shut up.”
gwangung
@celticdragon:
I cannot and will not gainsay your disappointment there. It is a fair thing to say.
But I also have no doubt that the results in Maine and California are also a sign, and it’s no wonder a politician would be much more cautious (some say mealy mouthed) about gay rights.
Gay people need a few clubs for themselves. Washington’s inititiative was a start, but I agree it’s not enough. But I think it has to have more effort in the grassroots, because, again, half the people in this country don’t believe in civil rights for straight people.
gex
I’m amused to see so many people take this news and turn around and find a way to tell gay people that their lack of progress is their own fault.
Persia
@gex: I hope you’re not surprised.
celticdragon
@gex:
I’m not sure that anyone has done that here.
I am more interested in seeing if the villagers will actually run this story about Uganda…
Silly me.
gwangung
@celticdragon: Sorry. I’m not being clear, in that I think going through the courts is insufficient. Going through the courts alone is not enough–one of the major strands of the election defeats was the sense of “special rights”–going through the courts will only reinforce that feeling, particularly in the middle, where the issue is not as strongly held.
And, actually, the courts were used for IMPLEMENTATION of civil rights; the broad principle was established through the grass roots and then through the legislature.
gex
@Persia: Good God no. I don’t know why I even entered this thread. It’s clearly time to go do something counter productive to gay rights, like I always do. Like demand a better narrative on the issue from people in power rather than ceding the framing to the Catholics, Mormons, and people who somehow effectively campaigned for their rights unlike those stupid gays.
celticdragon
@gwangung:
No. Legislation did not become possible until after significant legal victories were won (even anti lynching laws were being held up by Southern Senators! Look up Senator Theodore Bilbo if you have a strong stomach) Brown V Board overturned Plessy/Ferguson in 1952 and that became the real springboard for initial legislation (and court cases) in 1956 and beyond.
Thanks for reminding me I need to catch up on my reading for my African American history class, LOL! I have my final next week.
Steph
@Notorious P.A.T.: Huh.
OK, what, what, what can a person, a random US citizen, do to at least try to keep taxpayer money from being used to execute gays? Seriously, anyone, tell me. I need to do something.
Persia
@gex: I wanted to talk about how scary The Family is. Because they scare the crap out of me. Apparently they’re just not that scary if you’re not gay or don’t love anyone who is? IDEK.
Steph
@Steph: Sorry – I know it’s not the money that matters. Just that money talks – how do you hit the assholes in Uganda where it hurts so they say “Well, killing gays is bad PR, bad for our coffers, let’s not.”
celticdragon
@Steph:
I don’t know if there is anything to do other than calling your representative and inquiring.
celticdragon
I just called my rep’s office, actually.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@kay:
The wall between church and state was intended by Jefferson, et al to be as much for protecting churches from the state as its was the other way around. The religious wars of the 16th and 17th Cen (some of the most brutal and vicious in European history) were still very much in mind at the time the US won independance and the US Constitution and Bill of Rights were being drafted. Today, not so much. We’ve forgotten that once you allow the state to interfere in religous matters, people will do anything, anything at all with no restraints whatsoever, to get control of the state.
Steph
Don’t know if any other Catholics are interested, but I just called the USCCB and got the pro-life office and asked if the bishops planned to make a statement condemning the proposed legislation. Can’t hurt.
tavella
Me, I’m just noting that hippy-punching, like hiring Warren as one of the faces of his inauguration, has consequences. Which includes giving more prominence to people like this, as well as discouraging your hippy voters from voting.
D-Chance.
I understand they’re all Bilderbergers and want to put the under one world order… that’s what Alex Jones said.
licensed to kill time
I think God took my reply arrow. Just sayin’.
Edit: Boy, God’s being pissy about it today. Give it back, dude!
Lex
@Notorious P.A.T.: Rick Warren ain’t no moderate Christian. I am, and he’s never at the meetings.
Lex
@gwangung: Uh, no, some of us knew Rick Warren for the fraud he was long before Inauguration Day and considered it unlikely at best that Obama didn’t know what we knew.