LGBT POV

On MSNBC’s Countdown Monday night, Keith Olbermann challenged right wing talk show hosts Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh to sue Law & Order: SVU creator Dick Wolfe after a character –  John Larroquette playing a Southern-accented defense attorney –  claimed in an episode that the talkers “spread ignorance and hate.”

Larroquette’s character said:

“Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly — they are like a cancer spreading ignorance and hate. And they’ve convinced folks that immigrants are the problem, not corporations that fail to pay a living wage, or a broken health care system.”

That lit up the right wing talkers. Rush said:

They hide behind their characters when they put this stuff out there.  Now, I’ve always thought, when this kind of stuff happens, you know, “Why amplify it? Why broadcast it and do even larger audience?” and some people say, “But, Rush, they just are accusing you of inciting your audience to run out and kill illegals.”  Well, maybe I’m stupid.  I just don’t happen to think anybody’s gonna believe that, anybody I care about is gonna believe that.  I know the people that are going to believe this or be entertained by it already think it.  It’s just, to me… I guess the value in playing it is and commenting on it is it’s just an illustration of how far gone the Democrat Party is.  The Democrat Party is the home today of renegade communists, out-of-work liberals and socialists, and Marxists.  That’s where they’ve gravitated to and they happen to be running it now and their buddies in entertainment are no different.

[snip]

You have to have hate in your heart or you can’t be a liberal.  You have to manufacture that. That’s what all this is about.  And now you think finally your utopia was upon us.  That this great and wonderful world where everybody was equal and everybody was the same and everybody had the same amount of respect and nobody was discriminated against except conservatives! You thought that was going to happen because The One, The Messiah, had been elected.  Imagine how you would feel if you’d voted for the guy [Barack Obama].  Well, that’s where these people are.  So they take it out on people like me ’cause they know — they know — if they ever get serious for a second, they know I’m right.  They know that all of us were right in warning the people what this country was going to become if this guy gets elected.

On Fox News, O’Reilly said:

“That is simply defamatory, and Dick Wolf is a coward for putting it out there. He’s also a liar.”

Olbermann challenged him:

“Well, sue. Come on, tough guy. That’s defamatory and outrageous? Sue. … Or are you afraid you can’t prove that you don’t spread ignorance and hate?”

To underscore his point that the right wing talkers do talk about issues such as abortion in ways that might incite their listeners to violence, Olbermann played clips of O’Reilly calling abortion doctor George Tiller “Tiller the baby killer.”

Tiller was assassinated on May 31, 2009 at the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas where he was serving as an usher. Tiller had worn a flak jacket since 1998 when the FBI told him he was a target of anti-abortion extremists. But his killer shot Tiller point blank in the head.

Scott Philip Roeder was subsequently apprehended for the murder. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said that Roeder belonged to an anti-government extremist group called the Sovereign Citizen Movement. ADL National Director Abraham Foxman said:

“Roeder’s attachment to extreme causes extended beyond anti-abortion extremism. His extremism cross-pollinated between anti-government extremism and anti-abortion activism and led to violence and murder.”

Those who knew him said Roeder believed in “justifiable homocide.”

Dave Leach, an anti-abortion activist from Iowa and publisher of the Prayer and Action News, agreed, saying to call Tiller’s murder a crime was “too simplistic… there is Christian scripture that would support this.”

Roeder’s ex-wife Lindsey said said he became obsessed with anti-abortion movement in 1994 – the year Rush Limbaugh hit his stride as a right wing talk radio host. For firing up the anti-Clinton flames and helping Newt Gingrich usher in the 1994 “Republican revolution” that took over Congress, the GOP freshman class awarded him honorary membership in their caucus.

After Tiller’s assassination, Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, condemned the killing, saying:

“We are stunned at today’s news. As Christians we pray and look toward the end of all violence and for the saving of souls, not the taking of human life. George Tiller was a man who we publicly sought to stop through legal and peaceful means. We strongly condemn the actions taken today by this vigilante killer and we pray for the Tiller family and for the nation that we might once again be a nation that values all human life, both born and unborn.”

But condemning the actions is one thing – disassociating with Religious Right leaders who inspire those actions is another thing altogether – especially if it means surrendering or reigning in perceived political power generated by a frenzied base of supporters.

The aforementioned David Leach also published the Army of God manual, which advocates the killing of the providers of abortion and contains bomb-making instructions.

And members of the Army of God were out in force at Lou Engel’s TheCall antigay Prop 8 rally in San Diego, along with Jim Garlow and James Dobson, three of the guests on Perkin’s webcast about abortion and healthcare Wednesday night.

Having put “the holocaust of the unborn” on the shelf to deal with the “Armageddon” of Prop 8 – abortion and homosexuality are inextricably linked in the mind of the Religious Right – the Christian crusaders are back trying to ensure that government, not individual women, has the final say over who controls a woman’s body and gay sexuality.

But unlike Limbaugh, Beck and O’Reilly – these antigay and anti-abortion Religious Right activists are rarely called out by the media or progressive politicians. Nonetheless, they are the undergirding of the Tea Party movement and they wield Christianity like a sword while speaking in soft “prayerful” tones as if benighted by some God-like power.  These are the real leaders of the foot soldiers in the ongoing war to make America a theocracy.

Here’s the FRC press release about the webcast Wednesday night:

Church Services Will Join Webcast Featuring Congressional Leaders and Pastors

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 /Christian Newswire/ — Tonight, Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 8:30 p.m. ET, Family Research Council Action, The Call to Conscience and Focus on the Family Action will host a special one hour webcast that will mobilize thousands of Christians and churches to join in corporate prayer over the health care overhaul bill. Family Research Council Action President Tony Perkins will be joined by Congressional leaders, prominent pastors, and policy experts to discuss and pray over significant concerns within the bill that will have far reaching consequences for the Christian community and our society. 

FRC Action President Tony Perkins made the following comments:

• “Life and death hinges on the Senate health care bill. We face significant threats to the God-given right to human life through government funding of abortions, our health from rationing, our family finances from higher taxes, and our general freedoms posed by the government plan to take over health care.
• “There have been a number of critical hours in American history. Our nation has struggled mightily and, under God, always risen to the challenges before us. Tonight, we will face this moral crisis by taking action and obeying the Biblical mandate to pray for our nation and its leaders.”

Who:

– Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council Action

– Lou Engle, Founder and President, The Call to Conscience

– Jim Daly, President, Focus on the Family Action

– Dr. James Dobson, Founder, Focus on the Family Action

– Shirley Dobson, National Day of Prayer Task Force Chairman

– Hon. Sam Brownback, United States Senator, Kansas

– Hon. Jim DeMint, United States Senator, South Carolina

– Hon. Randy Forbes, United States House of Representatives, Virginia

– Hon. Michele Bachmann, United States House of Representatives, Minnesota

– Bishop Harry Jackson, President, High Impact Leadership Coalition

– Pastor Jim Garlow, Skyline Church, San Diego, Calif.

– Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, President, National Hispanic Leadership Conference

What: An FRC Action PrayerCast: Government Takeover of Health Care

When: Wednesday, December 16, 2009 8:30 – 9:30 PM ET

To watch the Webcast, log onto www.frcaction.org/prayercast