LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This Working For Change article questions the monolithic silence on the Jeff Gannon affair.

A few weeks back, Buzzflash.com editorialized: "The Gannon story touches upon everything from manufactured news to manufactured 'reporters' to the Valerie Plame affair to websites that have a connection to the White House, but appear independent, to a Bush Cartel hypocrisy about gays, to payola, to scripted Bush news conferences, to who knows what. This is a BIG media story that should be on the cover of the New York Times and Post."

Unable to speak with representatives from Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council and the Traditional Values Coalition, I turned to Joe Conn of American United for Separation of Church and State and John Aravosis, the creator of Americablog.

In a telephone interview, Conn said he wasn't surprised that there hasn't been any response from Christian right organizations because "The religious right is pretty much a team player when it comes to the Bush Administration. Unless it's an issue like same-sex marriage -- a core issue of their agenda -- they will give the president a pass."

"Clearly this is an example of the religious right's hypocrisy," Conn point out. "If it was Bill Clinton they would be in total uproar."

Via e-mail, I asked Aravosis why he thought the Christian right was being silent about the Gannon Affair.

"Because they're hypocrites," he wrote in an e-mail. "They know this scandal is hurting Bush and they put politics ahead of their God. That's how petty and un-Christian they are."

"Am I correct in thinking that they certainly would have responded to a similar situation if Bill Clinton was still president?," I asked. Aravosis responded with tongue firmly implanted in cheek: "Do you think the religious right would care if Bill Clinton welcomed a gay hooker to the White House, and then slipped him classified intelligence information? Let me think about that one."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Media Transparency, who watches, among other things, 'faith-based movements' published a very interesting article about Christian broadcasting and its players. 'Christian persecution' was the main theme.

An excerpt:

...Plummer wasn't opposed to having religious extremists subvert a greater society. His critique of Islam, couched in the language of spiritual warfare, was only meant to cast it as Christianity's most dangerous competitor. The Christian Right's dominionist intentions, a theme of the convention, were particularly in evidence at a seminar called, "Taking Over Cities For Christ: The Thousand Day Plan."

The seminar was led by Raul Justiniano, the Bolivian president of the Confederation of Ibero-American Communicators (COICOM), NRB's Latin American counterpart. Like a counter-revolutionary version of Che Guevara, the goateed Justiniano laid out his three-year plan to "invade" Latin American cities one by one by establishing cells in local churches and spreading outwards to "take possession of all parts of the city."

In the past decade, Justiniano has plastered Latin American cities with apparently non-religious billboard advertisements soliciting people to evangelization centers, saturated local media with Christian-themed commercials and films, and hosted stadium-sized revivals across the sub-continent. All in all, he claims to have won millions of souls through 61 "invasions" in six countries.

"Christian media is the air force and the church gives us people on the ground to mobilize our troops," Justiniano explained. "People will take notice and those are your targets. Everyone will be networked in eventually."

Like Justiniano, Olivia Gans was fluent in the language of cultural counter-revolution. A chipper, middle-aged woman leaning against an orthopedic cane, Gans manned the booth of America's oldest and largest anti-abortion group, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC - website). While the much of the Christian Right's leadership uncompromisingly demands a reversal of Roe v. Wade, NRLC has quietly shifted its focus from overturning Roe to what Gans calls, "changing the culture."

It's also called 'swarming'. It's really scary to see 'swarming' in action. Read the entire article- it's quite interesting.