Billy Graham, Anti-Semite and Homophobe

Billy Graham, one of the founders of the religious right, died this week. Following are a few views on Graham from people who are not fans of the religious right.

Friendly Atheist writes that Billy Graham’s Body Shouldn’t “Lie in Honor” in the Capitol Rotunda

Evangelist Billy Graham, who died this week at age 99, was known for being an informal advisor to presidents of both political parties as well as one of the most admired people in America for decades.

That’s the white-washed version of his legacy.

He also helped inspire the modern Religious Right, left behind a son who’s best known for making life worse for LGBTQ people and women and minorities, disparaged Jews over their “stranglehold” on the media, and was hardly a champion of civil rights in the 1960s even when his support could’ve helped African Americans.

That’s the full legacy. You can’t talk about Graham without noting those glaring flaws in his life.

And that’s why it’s inappropriate for Republican leaders to honor him by bringing his body to the United States Capitol Rotunda next week so that people can pay their last respects.

The post later cites a letter which the Freedom From Religion Foundation sent to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell protesting the honor. From that letter:

Graham’s career was devoted to revivals, Christian conversions, hellfire preaching and the insertion of his brand of religion into what is supposed to be a secular government governed by a godless Constitution barring establishment of religion or governmental preference for religion, FFRF points out. One of Graham’s dubious accomplishments was to successfully lobby Congress to pass a law declaring an annual National Day of Prayer. This law enacted at Graham’s behest, which FFRF has previously challenged, has entangled religion and government, spawned countless inappropriate prayer breakfasts, prayerful governmental events and prayer resolutions at all levels of government. In doing so, it has sent for generations a message that evangelical Christians are “insiders” and non-Christians and the nonreligious are “outsiders.”

FFRF also highlights how irresponsible it is for the U.S. Congress to venerate and honor a noted anti-Semite. The secret taping system that recorded President Nixon’s conversations and led to his Watergate downfall captured Graham’s anti-Semitic musings with Nixon. “A lot of the Jews are great friends of mine, they swarm around me and are friendly to me because they know that I’m friendly with Israel,” Graham told Nixon. “But they don’t know how I really feel about what they are doing to this country.”

Graham was on the wrong side of the leading issues of his time. The day after Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his letter from the Birmingham Jail — a letter addressed to white religious leaders like Graham who were doing little else other than “mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities” — Graham mouthed a few more, arguing that King should “put the brakes on a little bit.” Graham seemingly never met a U.S. war of aggression he didn’t favor or encourage the occupants of the Oval Office to wage. As columnist and former priest James Carroll observes: “Billy Graham was the high priest of the American crusade, which is why U.S. presidents uniformly sought his blessing.”

Graham vociferously opposed gay rights and marriage equality, saying “we traffic in homosexuality at the peril of our spiritual welfare.” The Billy Graham Evangelical Association once said that Vladimir Putin was “more right” on LGBTQ rights than then-President Obama. Graham, in his 90s, wrote a full-page ad appearing in several North Carolina newspapers “to urge my fellow North Carolinians to vote FOR the marriage amendment” in May 2012, which passed, banning gay marriage until later nullified. He belonged to a denomination that refused to ordain women. The “Billy Graham” rule directing a man to not be alone with a woman other than his wife continues to influence evangelicals, including Vice President Mike Pence, isolating career women in the process.

Religion Dispatches protested calling Billy Graham America’s Pastor:

Let’s try this simple test. Would a good pastor suck up to presidents and other powerful people, granting them general absolution despite their known crimes (and yes, here I am thinking primarily of Napalmer-in-Chief Lyndon Johnson and of Tricky Dick Nixon, the president with whom Graham had the closest relationship)?

For that matter, would a good pastor reinforce a parishioner’s Jew-hatred, as Graham clearly did vis-a-vis Nixon (although he later claimed that he forgot saying these appalling things)?

Donald Trump Fails The Country In Refusing To Stand Up To White Supremacists

The hatred and violence seen in Charlottesville this weekend raises the question of whether Donald Trump will ever stand up to his white supremacist base. His statement about the violence has been criticized by many for failing to call out the white supremacists and identify the evil behind the event. The Dallas Morning News stated in an editorial that, Amid the violence in Virginia, President Trump failed in a test of leadership:

Unfortunately, what we witnessed Saturday in Charlottesville, Va., revealed the ugliness of America. What’s worse is that in its aftermath, President Donald Trump had an opportunity to show real leadership but couldn’t bring himself to do it.

White supremacists, in a protest billed as a “Unite the Right” rally, gathered to rail against the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a city park. The protests started out peacefully but as the day went on, fights broke out between the white supremacists and counterprotesters, including Black Lives Matter activists, faith leaders and the anarchist group Antifa…

Once police dispersed most of the crowd, a Dodge Challenger plowed into a crowd of protesters, hurling people into the air, killing one and injuring 19 others. The driver put the car in reverse, sped backward and managed to escape before being arrested later.

At a time when such ugliness took place in the hometown of founding father Thomas Jefferson, Trump had a golden opportunity to condemn the violence and speak out against the white supremacists and white nationalists, many of whom supported him in the election against Hillary Clinton. The country needed the leader of the nation to forcefully call out these ugly — and un-American — interests.

There is no room for violence from any group, including Antifa. But on this day, it was all about white supremacists, neo-Nazis and white nationalists.

The best President Trump came up with is to say, “We want to get this situation straightened out in Charlottesville. And we want to study it. And we want to see what we’re doing wrong as a country.” He also blamed “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.”

The country needed to hear the president specifically condemn white supremacists and make clear to them that while they have a First Amendment right to express their views, their hatred and bigotry run counter to the values of the United States. There will be no toleration of violence.

On Saturday, President Trump failed his country.

Chris Cillizza called Trump’s statement incredibly unpresidential:

What Trump failed to do is what he has always promised to do: Speak blunt truths. The people gathered in Charlottesville this weekend are white supremacists, driven by hate and intolerance. Period. There is no “other side” doing similar things here…

There are moments where we as a country look to our president to exemplify the best in us. They don’t happen every day. Sometimes they don’t happen every year. But, when they do happen, we need the person we elected to lead us to, you know, lead us.

Trump did the opposite today.

While Donald Trump failed his country in  his response, others from all sides of the political spectrum did far better. Barack Obama quoted Nelson Mandela in a series of three Tweets: “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion … People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love…For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

Republican Senator Cory Gardner specifically called out Trump for failing to speak out against white supremacism. He Tweeted: “Mr. President – we must call evil by its name. These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism.” Marco Rubio also stated that Donald Trump needs to clearly denounce white supremacists in Charlottesville.

Ted Cruz had this statement on Facebook:

It’s tragic and heartbreaking to see hatred and racism once again mar our great Nation with bloodshed. Heidi’s and my prayers are with the loved ones of those killed and injured in the ongoing violence in Charlottesville. The First Amendment protects the rights of all Americans to speak their minds peaceably, but violence, brutality, and murder have no place in a civilized society.

The Nazis, the KKK, and white supremacists are repulsive and evil, and all of us have a moral obligation to speak out against the lies, bigotry, anti-Semitism, and hatred that they propagate. Having watched the horrifying video of the car deliberately crashing into a crowd of protesters, I urge the Department of Justice to immediately investigate and prosecute this grotesque act of domestic terrorism.

These bigots want to tear our country apart, but they will fail. America is far better than this. Our Nation was built on fundamental truths, none more central than the proposition “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Update:

Trump Backtracks And Blames Both Sides, Including Alt-Left, For Charlottesville Violence

Trump Continues To Express Contradictory Views In New York Times Interview

trump-ny-times-interview

With Donald Trump often expressing contradictory views, sometimes in the same speech, we will not really know what a Trump administration will be like until we see what they actually do. In the meantime we continue to get some clues, such as in his interview with The New York Times (full transcript here).

Reading this, and other  recent statements from Trump, makes me believe he is non-ideological, has not thought very much about the issues, and often reflects the views of the last person he talked to. This provides hope that Trump can be persuaded to change his mind in areas where his statements have been contrary to fact, but also gives more reason to be worried about those he has appointed to his administration so far.

One area where he has altered his view to some degree is climate change:

JAMES BENNET, editorial page editor: When you say an open mind, you mean you’re just not sure whether human activity causes climate change? Do you think human activity is or isn’t connected?

TRUMP: I think right now … well, I think there is some connectivity. There is some, something. It depends on how much. It also depends on how much it’s going to cost our companies. You have to understand, our companies are noncompetitive right now.

They’re really largely noncompetitive. About four weeks ago, I started adding a certain little sentence into a lot of my speeches, that we’ve lost 70,000 factories since W. Bush. 70,000. When I first looked at the number, I said: ‘That must be a typo. It can’t be 70, you can’t have 70,000, you wouldn’t think you have 70,000 factories here.’ And it wasn’t a typo, it’s right. We’ve lost 70,000 factories.

We’re not a competitive nation with other nations anymore. We have to make ourselves competitive. We’re not competitive for a lot of reasons.

That’s becoming more and more of the reason. Because a lot of these countries that we do business with, they make deals with our president, or whoever, and then they don’t adhere to the deals, you know that. And it’s much less expensive for their companies to produce products. So I’m going to be studying that very hard, and I think I have a very big voice in it. And I think my voice is listened to, especially by people that don’t believe in it. And we’ll let you know…

SHEAR: Just one quick clarification on the climate change, do you intend to, as you said, pull out of the Paris Climate …

TRUMP: I’m going to take a look at it.

On the one hand, he does admit to at least “some connectivity,” which is an improvement over his history of denial of the human role in climate change. He also shows what I believe is the bottom line for many Republicans. They choose to deny climate change as they see it as bad for business. To them, a change in their business models would be bad, while liberals are more encouraged by the prospects of stimulating the economy with measures to change to more environmentally sound processes. Advisors such as Myron Ebell and Bob Walker make it less likely that we will see action by Trump on climate change.

Trump appeared willing to soften his views in some areas, but not where it might jeopardize his business concerns:

SHEAR: You’ve talked about the impact of the wind farms on your golf course. People, experts who are lawyers and ethics experts, say that all of that is totally inappropriate, so I guess the question for you is, what do you see as the appropriate structure for keeping those two things separate, and are there any lines that you think you won’t want to cross once you’re in the White House?

TRUMP: O.K. First of all, on countries. I think that countries will not do that to us. I don’t think if they’re run by a person that understands leadership and negotiation they’re in no position to do that to us, no matter what I do. They’re in no position to do that to us, and that won’t happen, but I’m going to take a look at it. A very serious look. I want to also see how much this is costing, you know, what’s the cost to it, and I’ll be talking to you folks in the not-too-distant future about it, having to do with what just took place.

As far as the, you know, potential conflict of interests, though, I mean I know that from the standpoint, the law is totally on my side, meaning, the president can’t have a conflict of interest. That’s been reported very widely. Despite that, I don’t want there to be a conflict of interest anyway. And the laws, the president can’t. And I understand why the president can’t have a conflict of interest now because everything a president does in some ways is like a conflict of interest, but I have, I’ve built a very great company and it’s a big company and it’s all over the world. People are starting to see, when they look at all these different jobs, like in India and other things, number one, a job like that builds great relationships with the people of India, so it’s all good. But I have to say, the partners come in, they’re very, very successful people. They come in, they’d say, they said, ‘Would it be possible to have a picture?’ Actually, my children are working on that job. So I can say to them, Arthur, ‘I don’t want to have a picture,’ or, I can take a picture. I mean, I think it’s wonderful to take a picture. I’m fine with a picture. But if it were up to some people, I would never, ever see my daughter Ivanka again. That would be like you never seeing your son again. That wouldn’t be good. That wouldn’t be good. But I’d never, ever see my daughter Ivanka…

This is one of, if not the only, core belief which is likely to guide the actions of Donald Trump in office.

Trump was confronted with the charges of racism and anti-Semitism surrounding Steve Bannon in light of his work at Breitbart:

DAVIS: You hired Steve Bannon to be the chief strategist for you in the White House. He is a hero of the alt-right. He’s been described by some as racist and anti-Semitic. I wonder what message you think you have sent by elevating him to that position and what you would say to those who feel like that indicates something about the kind of country you prefer and the government you’ll run.

TRUMP: Um, I’ve known Steve Bannon a long time. If I thought he was a racist, or alt-right, or any of the things that we can, you know, the terms we can use, I wouldn’t even think about hiring him. First of all, I’m the one that makes the decision, not Steve Bannon or anybody else. And Kellyanne will tell you that.

KELLYANE CONWAY: 100 percent.

TRUMP: And if he said something to me that, in terms of his views, or that I thought were inappropriate or bad, number one I wouldn’t do anything, and number two, he would have to be gone. But I know many people that know him, and in fact, he’s actually getting some very good press from a lot of the people that know him, and people that are on the left. But Steve went to Harvard, he was a, you know, he was very successful, he was a Naval officer, he’s, I think he’s very, very, you know, sadly, really, I think it’s very hard on him. I think he’s having a hard time with it. Because it’s not him. It’s not him.

I’ve known him for a long time. He’s a very, very smart guy. I think he was with Goldman Sachs on top of everything else…

He was also asked about his support from neo-Nazis:

UNKNOWN: Mr. President-elect, I wanted to ask you, there was a conference this past weekend in Washington of people who pledged their allegiance to Nazism.

TRUMP: Boy, you are really into this stuff, huh?

PRIEBUS: I think we answered that one right off the bat.

UNKNOWN: Are you going to condemn them?

TRUMP: Of course I did, of course I did.

PRIEBUS: He already did.

UNKNOWN: Are you going to do it right now?

TRUMP: Oh, I see, maybe you weren’t here. Sure. Would you like me to do it here? I’ll do it here. Of course I condemn. I disavow and condemn…

Trump will remain under close scrutiny in light of Steve Bannon’s past work, and others on the far right who support him. He is also being watched closely by several civil liberties organizations.

He also backed down slightly on torture:

HABERMAN: And on torture? Where are you — and waterboarding?

TRUMP: So, I met with General Mattis, who is a very respected guy. In fact, I met with a number of other generals, they say he’s the finest there is. He is being seriously, seriously considered for secretary of defense, which is — I think it’s time maybe, it’s time for a general. Look at what’s going on. We don’t win, we can’t beat anybody, we don’t win anymore. At anything. We don’t win on the border, we don’t win with trade, we certainly don’t win with the military. General Mattis is a strong, highly dignified man. I met with him at length and I asked him that question. I said, what do you think of waterboarding? He said — I was surprised — he said, ‘I’ve never found it to be useful.’ He said, ‘I’ve always found, give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I do better with that than I do with torture.’ And I was very impressed by that answer. I was surprised, because he’s known as being like the toughest guy. And when he said that, I’m not saying it changed my mind. Look, we have people that are chopping off heads and drowning people in steel cages and we’re not allowed to waterboard. But I’ll tell you what, I was impressed by that answer. It certainly does not — it’s not going to make the kind of a difference that maybe a lot of people think. If it’s so important to the American people, I would go for it. I would be guided by that. But General Mattis found it to be very less important, much less important than I thought he would say. I thought he would say — you know he’s known as Mad Dog Mattis, right? Mad Dog for a reason. I thought he’d say ‘It’s phenomenal, don’t lose it.’ He actually said, ‘No, give me some cigarettes and some drinks, and we’ll do better.’

It is good to see that he listened to the view that torture is not effective. It is discouraging to see that he then said, “If it’s so important to the American people, I would go for it.” Hardly a position which respects either the facts or ethics. Torturing prisoners because “the American people” want it, even if it is of no benefit, is hardly a defensible position.

David Brat’s Views On Economics And Religion

brat_cantor

The surprising defeat of Eric Cantor last night appears to be largely due to the personal faults on Cantor’s part along with possible preference for the more extremist views of David Brat, despite Cantor’s dishonest ads calling him a liberal college professor. It does not appear that cross over Democratic voters had a meaningful impact on the results. Cantor’s problems appear more cultural than strict ideology as pointed out at The New York Times.

David Wasserman, a House political analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said another, more local factor has to be acknowledged: Mr. Cantor, who dreamed of becoming the first Jewish speaker of the House, was culturally out of step with a redrawn district that was more rural, more gun-oriented and more conservative.

“Part of this plays into his religion,” Mr. Wasserman said. “You can’t ignore the elephant in the room.”

The New York Times does go overboard in calling Cantor’s loss a bad omen for moderates. While Brat is more extreme in opposing immigration reform and raising the debt ceiling to meet our financial obligations, Cantor is hardly a moderate. As Steve Benen pointed out, “He has a 95% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, for goodness’ sake.”

Brat has been called a follower of Ayn Rand, and his victory could be seen as a loss for crony capitalism. Whenever I hear that a Republican is a follower of Ayn Rand I wonder if they are aware of or acknowledge Rand’s atheism and strong hostility towards religion. Brat’s economic writings have shown a view of religion which Ayn Rand would never accept. The Wall Street Journal writes:

In the paper, titled “Is Growth Exogenous? Taking Bernanke Seriously (But How Can a Fed Guy Forget the Institutions)”, Mr. Brat waded into a debate among economists over the determinants of long-term growth with this conclusion: Mr. Bernanke’s work on economic growth overlooked the role that religious institutions–particularly Protestant ones–play in driving a country’s growth rates.

In his argument against Mr. Bernanke, Mr. Brat draws on previous research titled “Economic Growth and Institutions: The Rise and Fall of the Protestant Ethic?” a 2004 paper in which he wrote that Protestantism “provides an efficient set of property rights and encourages a modern set of economic incentives” so “one might anticipate positive economic performance.”

“Give me a country in 1600 that had a Protestant led contest for religious and political power and I will show you a country that is rich today,” he wrote.

On the other hand, another article in The Wall Street Journal suggests he does not accept the agenda of the religious right:

Can Christians force others to follow their ethical teachings on social issues? Note that consistency is lacking on all sides of this issue. The political Right likes to champion individual rights and individual liberty, but it has also worked to enforce morality in relation to abortion, gambling, and homosexuality. The Left likes to think of itself as the bulwark of progressive liberal individualism, and yet it seeks to progressively coerce others to fund every social program under the sun via majority rule. Houston, we have a problem. Coercion is on the rise. What is the root word for liberalism? (Answer: Liberty)

It is of course a straw man argument to claim that the left seeks to fund every social program under the sun. Unless he means the cost of established and highly successful programs such as Medicare and Social Security, the spending advocated by most liberals on social programs is far less than Republicans have coerced others to pay, such as on the Iraq War. Bush’s policies, including both his spending and tax cuts for the wealthy have had far more impact on the deficit that liberal social programs. Despite his acceptance of these rather naive right wing talking points, it is encouraging that Brat has opposed the Republican use of government to enforce the social views of the religious right. It remains to be seen if he will buck the Republicans on such issues when voting in Congress.

Update: Mother Jones takes a look at Brat’s libertarian views, including slashing spending on Medicare,  Social Security, and education. What happens when you cut funding on education? A lack of understanding of science, leading to people falling for denial of climate change.

Update II: There has been considerable speculation that Brat won due to Cantor’s views on immigration. It is not clear that this was the reason for Brat’s victory. A survey from Public Policy Polling showed that there was not widespread opposition to Cantor’s views on immigration in his district but it is possible that those turning out in a Republican primary held stronger anti-immigration views than the general population. Both blogs on the left (such as Mother Jones) and right (such as Hot Air) have questioned if immigration was the reason Cantor lost.

House Majority Leader Agrees Anti-Semitism Is A Problem In GOP Caucus

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor appears to acknowledge that the House Republican caucus has a problem with anti-Semitism in the exchange in the above video. In his response he also seems to recognize their problem with racism. Of course when talking about Republicans, there’s also the problems of xenophobia, homophobia, and, of course, their war on women.

The problem is that these aren’t just problems which can be corrected. Use of fear and hatred is an integral part of what the Republican Party is. When their policies are only beneficial for one-percent of the population, they have no choice but to find ways to scare others into voting for them.

Racist, Ant-Semitic, Homophobic Commentator Pat Buchanan Dumped By MSNBC

Pat Buchanan thinks he was forced out of MSNBC by the Jews, Gays, and other conspirators working in the dark. Let him think that. I find a little justice in knowing that Pat Buchanan will spend the rest of his life thinking that the Jews got him. That’s what he gets for spending so many years defending Nazi war criminals, and Hitler himself. Buchanan’s racism and anti-Semitism are well known. He doesn’t even seem to understand why people might object when he goes on the radio and claims homosexual acts are “unnatural and immoral.”He doesn’t seem to believe that he is homophobic, as he doesn’t understand that the views he has expressed for years are racist and anti-Semitic.

Hunter of Daily Kos sums up Buchanan’s column:

Pat then goes on to blame loudmouthed Obama supporters, homosexuals, Jews, and I don’t know, maybe werewolves. Yeah, let’s say werewolves.

Buchanan’s recent book may have been MSNBC’s excuse for finally taking him off the air for good, but it seems mostly to be a “final straw” sort of thing. Buchanan has been mourning the downfall of white America for a considerable time now, so this latest book was hardly new ground for him. He has been accused of anti-Semitism even by such conservative stalwarts as William F. Buckley, and got in hot water a few years ago for a bizarre column proposing that Hitler was misunderstood. No, his pissy statement sells himself rather short on the number of ridiculously bigoted things that would regularly come from his mouth. No matter what he said on air or off, though, the network would always prop him up in front of the television cameras.

 

MSNBC Considering Dumping Pat Buchanan For Racist and Ant-Semitic Views In New Book

Patrick Buchanan is a racist, anti-Semite, and homophobe. In the past the best defense of him, which is hardly exonerating, has been that he personally does not hate all these people but  used the buzz words of those who do in order to attract conservative voters during his political career. His latest book, The Suicide of a Superpower reportedly expresses racist and anti-Semitic  views which are making it harder for NBC to justify keeping him on the air. Media Decoder reports that Buchanan’s future with MSNBC is now murky:

The days of Patrick J. Buchanan as a commentator on the news channel MSNBC may be over.

Phil Griffin, the president of the network, said in an interview here on Saturday that Mr. Buchanan might not be allowed to return to the channel because of the arguments in his most recent book, “Suicide of a Superpower,” which have been criticized by some civil rights organizations as racist and anti-Semitic.

Mr. Griffin said that Mr. Buchanan, who has not appeared on the network since he began a book tour in October, was still employed by MSNBC, but that his future with the channel was unresolved.

“Pat and I are going to meet soon and discuss it,” Mr. Griffin said. But he cited some of the arguments Mr. Buchanan made in the book as reason the commentator had not come back, even after his book tour ended.

“During the period of the book tour I asked him not to be on,” Mr. Griffin said. “Since then the issue has become the nature of some of the statements in the book.”

Mr. Buchanan argues in “Suicide of a Superpower” — which has the subtitle “Will America Survive to 2025?” — that the “European and Christian core of our country is shrinking,” which is damaging the nation “ethnically, culturally, morally, politically.” The book also contains a chapter titled “The End of White America.”

Mr. Griffin said, “The ideas he put forth aren’t really appropriate for national dialogue, much less the dialogue on MSNBC.” The network has set out to brand itself as a network designed to appeal to progressive and liberal viewers.

On his Web site, Mr. Buchanan reprints part of an essay from Chronicles magazine titled “The Mob vs. the Statesman” that defends the book: “For all the hue and cry over Buchanan’s supposed ‘hate,’ the emotion that runs through ‘Suicide of a Superpower’ is not hate, but love. Buchanan sees the country he grew up in and loved passing away, and he wants to raise his voice in its defense.”

Mr. Buchanan’s comments have led to protests from civil rights groups and the Anti-Defamation League. The A.D.L. sent Mr. Griffin a letter urging that MSNBC drop Mr. Buchanan.

Why Evangelical Christians Do Not Receive Much Respect

Timothy Stanley, a right wing writer at The Telegraph, argues that America’s evangelical Christians deserve respect despite being wrong about the Rapture. While I would  not form an opinion of all evangelical Christians based solely upon the Apocalyptic views of one Christian cult, I cannot accept Stanley’s argument. He concluded:

Across the United States, atheists are gathering at Rapture parties to celebrate another day of life on this corrupted Earth. Their joy as Camping’s error is plain mean. While they knock back cheap imported beer and make-out in hot-tubs, thousands of evangelicals will be providing care and love to prisoners, homeless people, drug addicts and the poor. It is a noble calling worthy of a little tolerance.

There are evangelicals and non-evangelicals of a wide variety of views who do charitable work. Non-evangelicals actually do more than “knock back cheap imported beer and make-out in hot-tubs.” You cannot judge a religious or philosophical viewpoint by highlighting the charitable work of one segment of the believers in one viewpoint and mischaracterizing the behavior of others. The real way to judge the group is by the beliefs held by the whole group.

It is hardly worthwhile to devote any time to analyzing the validity of fundamentalist Christian belief as most people have already made up their opinions here and it will not be altered by a blog post. I will just make two points here: 1) those who have a low opinion of evangelical Christians do so based upon reasons having nothing to do with their charitable work and 2) my primary objection is not with their beliefs as much as with their actions to impose their beliefs upon others.

Stanley, incidental, is working on a biography of Pat Buchanan. If he misses why people with integrity are opposed to the Anti-Semitism and homophobia of this Nazi-sympathizer, it is not hard to see why he would miss the all the harm caused in the United States by the religious right.

Update: Camping Says End of the World Is Still On For October. Majority of Evangelical Christians believe Rapture will occur by 2050.

Further Questions of Anti-Semitic Motives In Gifford Shooting

Yesterday I questioned whether anti-Semitism was a possible motive in the shooting of Gabrielle Gifford. From what we know so far, the shooter had far right wing ties and there is now a possible tie to an anti-Semitic group:

An internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo quoted by FOX News Channel revealed the gunman – named by the media as Jared Loughner, 22 – is “possibly linked” to American Renaissance.

The group subscribes to an ideology that is “anti-government, anti-immigration, anti -ZOG (Zionist Occupational Government), anti-Semitic,” according to the DHS memo.

Giffords “is the first Jewish female elected to such a high position in the US government. She was also opposite this group’s ideology when it came to immigration debate,” the note said.

Update: More at Politico.

Update II: Correction: Reports of Jared Loughner’s Ties To White Supremacist Group Appear False

Glenn Beck Receiving Criticism For His Anti-Semitic Attacks

Glenn Beck often repeats conspiracy theories from the Birchers and other far right wing groups. That made it inevitable that he would wander into repeating anti-Semitic memes which have historically been common on the far right. In return, Beck is now receiving criticism for spreading anti-Semitism and fabricating false attacks on George Soros from a number of sources, including Michelle Goldberg at the Daily Beast and The Anti-Defamation League,  James Besser at The Jewish Week, and Media Matters for America.