Secretive National Prayer Breakfast Group, "The Family" Linked to Hobby Lobby Case

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/secretive-national-prayer-breakfast-group-family-linked-hobby-lobby-case

As I introduce my new Center Against Religious Extremism report Hobby Lobby Case Linked To Secretive National Prayer Breakfast Group, "The Family&quot ,

In 2010 on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show, author Jeff Sharlet publicly accused "The Family", which hosts the National Prayer Breakfast, of being directly responsible for the notorious Uganda Anti Homosexuality Bill, signed into law in early 2014. As this Center Against Religious Extremism (CARE) special report demonstrates, The Family is also tightly linked, through its affiliate The Gathering, to the controversial Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case which gave broad new religious freedom rights to private corporations.

Last September, three generations of the Green family - owners of the Hobby Lobby craft store chain and central plaintiffs in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Supreme Court Case - attended The Gathering 2013 along with a Christian nonprofit that played a supporting "air traffic control" role in the Hobby Lobby case and also litigated Conestoga Woods v. Sebelius. Also present at The Gathering 2013 was the National Christian Foundation, which has funded the law nonprofits that litigated both the Conestoga and Hobby Lobby cases.

Because gay rights was the initial analytic vantage point from which I began studying " The Gathering", this new CARE report of mine is packed with with material on The Gathering as a central hub of evangelical anti-LGBTQ activism. But this concerns far more than gay rights. As I describe in my report,

"[The Gathering is] a community of quietly but deeply radical billionaire Christian patrons helping bankroll a mounting global onslaught against LGBT rights, who have led attacks on public schools and unions and heavily fund creationism and global warming denialism".

The Gathering is now trying to re-brand itself - with two NYT op-ed writers scheduled to speak at The Gathering 2014. But funding of the culture wars by The Gathering foundations has, over the last decade, actually increased quite dramatically (see CARE report, The Gathering: The Religious Right's Cash Cow), and the Alliance Defending Freedom - which has participated in the World Congress of Families and worked with Russian legislators pushing anti-gay legislation - gave a presentation at The Gathering 2013.

[Vilis Veritas]

1. Religious Groups need to lose their tax exempt status

and report all income.

[PeoViejo]

2. HRC's Buddies

When will she disavow these creeps?

[cantbeserious]

9. + 1,000

eom

[longship]

3. Of course it is. And Hillary Clinton is a supporter.

Which is why I cannot support her for federal office in any primary.

Americans United for separation of church and state.
Freedom from Religion Foundation.

The mixture of politics and religion is, and always shall be, toxic.

[Divernan]

4. Yet another example of HRC's baggage.

Yes, this Mother Jones article is from 2007, but have no doubt MJ will update it when HRC declares her next candidacy. And be sure to catch her position on immigration - in stark contrast to her currently stated position on sending the Central American children back to their countries.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/09/hillarys-prayer-hillary-clintons-religion-and-politics

It was an elegant example of the Clinton style, a rhetorical maneuver subtle, bold, and banal all at once. During a Democratic candidate forum in June, hosted by the liberal evangelical group Sojourners, Hillary Clinton fielded a softball query about Bill's infidelity: How had her faith gotten her through the Lewinsky scandal?

After a glancing shot at Republican "pharisees," Clinton explained that, of course, her "very serious" grounding in faith had helped her weather the affair. But she had also relied on the "extended faith family" that came to her aid, "people whom I knew who were literally praying for me in prayer chains, who were prayer warriors for me."

Such references to spiritual warfare—prayer as battle against Satan, evil, and sin—might seem like heavy evangelical rhetoric for the senator from New York, but they went over well with the Sojourners audience, as did her call to "inject faith into policy." It was language that recalled Clinton's Jesus moment a year earlier, when she'd summoned the Bible to decry a Republican anti-immigrant initiative that she said would "criminalize the good Samaritan...and even Jesus himself." Liberal Christians crowed ("Hillary Clinton Shows the Way Democrats Can Use the Bible," declared a blogger at TPMCafe) while conservative pundits cried foul, accusing Clinton of scoring points with a faith not really her own.

Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection. "A lot of evangelicals would see that as just cynical exploitation," says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers to decision makers in Washington. "I don't....there is a real good that is infected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open Bibles, and prayer."

[cantbeserious]

10. + 1,000

eom

[Enthusiast]

5. +1

[Enthusiast]

6. Kicked and recommended!

[RKP5637]

7. The hatred is astounding, as well as those who turn a blind eye. n/t

[RKP5637]

8. Yet another reason I loath religion! n/t

[avebury]

11. They are no better then the Taliban and

Islamist Fundamentalists. They just wear better clothes and try to pretend to Christian beliefs when, in reality, they are filled with hatred for all that don't cave to their beliefs.

Edit to add: I would never vote for anybody with ties to this group, including HRC.

[toby jo]

12. It's all good. Jesus is coming to take them all away.

Well, ok, he's a little late, but, sure and he's coming….