Obama's War on Christians: AFA called 'hate group'
Soldiers ordered not to affiliate with pro-family organization
Bob Unruh
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
wnd.com
The U.S. military already had been caught teaching that the Founding Fathers, whose beliefs and political positions could accurately be described in today’s terminology as conservative, were “extremists.”
And according to a study at the West Point Military Academy, those who make up that right-wing segment in society constitute a danger to the U.S.
Then it was revealed that a far-left organization that was caught providing information to a terrorist later convicted of a domestic attack was “advising” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
But it wasn’t really until this week’s revelation by Todd Starnes on Fox News that U.S. Army soldiers at a Mississippi base were being instructed that the the American Family Association is a “hate group” were there charges that the man at the top of the military food chain was at fault. The Army used taxpayer funds to classify pro-family organizations as “hate groups” and ordered uniformed personnel to avoid any affiliation with them.
Brian Fischer, the director of issues analysis for the American Family Association, told WND the government’s hostility is rooted entirely in the groups’ opposition to same-sex marriage and open homosexuality in the military. The AFA also asserts that the Obama administration is using the list of “hate groups” compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a radical leftist group.
Fischer’s interview with WND can be heard below:
Fischer cited Starnes’ report in writing, “If our military wasn’t headed by a commander in chief who is hostile to Christian faith, these allegations would be laughed off every military base in the world.”
He said the act of linking the organization to hate simply because it adheres to the biblical teachings about homosexuality, something that is done routinely by that above-mentioned far-left organization, the SPLC, is simply unjustified.
“The truth is that AFA doesn’t hate anyone. We love everybody. We love homosexuals enough to tell them the truth about the moral, spiritual and physical dangers of homosexual conduct,” he wrote in a commentary on the exploding controversy involving the U.S. military.
“Our first commander in chief, George Washington, was flatly opposed to the normalization of homosexuality in the military, dismissing two soldiers who were caught in the act. And his language was quite strong. Referring to the ‘attempt to commit sodomy,’ Washington expressed ‘abhorrence and detestation of such infamous crimes.’”
Fischer said he’s also heard from various sources that many Christian members of the military do not plan to re-enlist because of the crackdown on religious freedom by the federal government.
“Those that are strong in their faith, strong believers in Christ and in Christianity and in the values that made America great, they are the heart and soul of the American military,” he said. “If we start losing them, that really is going to weaken our military and that will ultimately be the biggest threat to our national security.”
President Obama worked aggressively to rid the U.S. military of a ban on openly displaying homosexual behavior – as well as a number of other moves to promote homosexuality throughout the rest of society.
“In an effort to appease Muslims, President Obama once said, ‘We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others,’” Fischer noted.
“Mr. President, it’s time for you to start practicing what you preach; stop denigrating Christians in your own country.”
In a video interview on American Family Radio, AFA President Tim Wildmon also blamed the top of the power structure for the problem.
There are “far left ideologues in the Obama administration, and in charge at the Pentagon and at the Justice Department,” he said. That’s who is getting such materials sent out to the military bases.
Officials at the Pentagon, as well as Army headquarters there, declined to respond to WND requests for comment on the issue.
But the Starnes report detailed what happened this time in the latest in a long string of attacks by the U.S. military under Obama on those with a Christian faith.
He reported it was during a briefing at Camp Shelby in Mississippi that officials listed the AFA with the KKK, the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam as a domestic hate group.
A soldier ordered to attend the briefing had contacted Starnes about the seminar’s content.
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“I had to show Americans what our soldiers are now being taught,” the soldier, whose identity was withheld, said. “I couldn’t just let this one pass.”
The soldier said the presenter remained adamant in his condemnation of the AFA even though he was challenged by a chaplain, and then suggested soldiers could be penalized for supporting the AFA.
A part of the issue appears to be the connections between the government and the SPLC, which was linked to domestic terrorism in a recent attack in Washington.
The organization, which has adopted the position that any criticism of or opposition to homosexuality is based on “hate,” was identified by convicted terrorist Floyd Lee Corkins as the source of his information that the Family Research Council was a “hate group” for its opposition to homosexuality.
He admitted to investigators he picked FRC to attack because the organization was listed as an “anti-gay” hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center on its website.
FRC promotes traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs about the family and homosexuality, but SPLC claims the organization’s “real specialty is defaming gays and lesbians.”
Corkins, a former volunteer at an LGBT community center, pleaded guilty to terrorism.
On Aug. 15, 2012, a heavily armed Corkins walked into FRC headquarters and began shooting with the intention of killing “as many people as I could.” He managed to shoot and injure just one person, facilities manager Leo Johnson, who is credited with heroically stopping the attack.
The SPLC was quickly tagged as a source of the damaging allegation in the AFA’s case.
“The blatantly false ‘hate’ allegation is coming from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is now a thoroughly discredited source on any subject, especially hate,” Fischer wrote. “In fact, for spreading malicious lies about pro-family groups, SPLC belongs on its own hate group list. They’ve made a despicable career out of using lies, distortions and innuendo to whip up reckless and dangerous animosity against groups which defend the values of the Founders. … The real hate group here is the SPLC…”
The Obama administration’s attacks on conservatives date back to just weeks after he took office.
At that time a newly unclassified Department of Homeland Security report warned against the possibility of violence by unnamed “right-wing extremists” including those who oppose abortion.
That had followed by only days a report from the Missouri Information Analysis Center that warned law enforcement officials to watch out for individuals with “radical” ideologies based on Christian views.
Officials with the DHS later told WND they would refuse to identify the actual authors of the report, or comment on any actions taken in response to the controversy.
But the steady drumbeat of statements from the administration even prompted members of both parties in Congress to blast the comments.
The Department of Defense later was caught teaching that those who oppose abortion are “low-level terrorists.”
It was only weeks after all of this developed that the SPLC confirmed to WND it published a report and delivered it to law enforcement officers across the nation that lumped those who are dedicated to the constitutional principles on which the nation was founded alongside crazed killers.
It then was revealed the SPLC was advising DHS formally on how to “combat violent extremism” and the DHS was caught monitoring a blog posted by a Christian who was forced to flee Brazil because of the conflict between that nation’s pro-homosexual “hate crimes” agenda and his advocacy for traditional marriage.”
The Obama administration declined comment on its decision to monitor Julio Severo’s unabashedly Christian Last Days Watchman blog.
The statements continued. Early this year a West Point study from the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center linked opposition to abortion and other “fundamental” positions to terrorism.
The study, “Challenges from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right,” cites “anti-abortionists” as an active threat for terrorist activity.
“The anti-abortionists have been extremely productive during the last two decades, amassing 227 attacks, many of them perpetrated without the responsible perpetrators identified or caught,” author Arie Perliger wrote. “And while, in both cases, the 1990s were more violent than the last decade, in the case of anti-abortion, the trend is much more extreme, as 90 percent of attacks were perpetrated before 2001.”
American Life League President Judie Brown called it a smear tactic.
“I can see exactly what is going on with reference to the pro-life movement. The use of two words expose the bias and hatred for what we stand for as a movement. Those words are ‘attacks’ and ‘violence’,” Brown said.
Herb Titus, a constitutional law professor, former dean of the Regent University School of Law and distinguished fellow with the Inter-American Institute for Philosophy, Government, and Social Thought, says it’s an attempt to link conservative thought with violence.
“Professor Perliger has adopted the strategy of many left-wing members of the professoriate, concentrating on the behavior of a few in order to discredit many who hold similar views but who do not engage in any form of violence,” Titus said.
“His theory is that of the iceberg, that which as seen may be small, but it hides what is a much larger threat just below the surface. Obviously, the professor disagrees with those who favor small government, cutting back of federal government encroachments upon the powers of the state and to discredit this movement focuses on a few gun-toting militia,” Titus said.
Titus turns his attention to who he believes is the source of the study.
“Like so many in the Obama administration, Perliger does not want to engage in any dialogue on the issues, but just discredit an entire political movement by ad hominem charged words,” Titus said. “Perliger is not a serious scholar, but a propagandist for the existing regime.”
The military teaching that the colonists were “extremists” was traced back to the SPLC.
Judicial Watch, a government corruption monitor, said it got records regarding the “preparation and presentation of training materials on hate groups or hate crimes distributed or used by the Air Force.”
The documents claimed, “In U.S. history, there are many examples of extremist ideologies and movements. The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule and the Confederate states who sought to secede from the Northern states are just two examples.”
The 9/11 attacks by Muslims who killed nearly 3,000 people are called a “historical event.” |
