Tag: Jesusland

Poll: Nearly Half of Tea Baggers Are Christian Extremists

Jon Ponder

A year ago, the Republicans who astroturfed the tea party phenomenon were adamant that it was a secular “movement” focused on fiscal issues and not on the culture wars. At that point, there was disaffection between the party and its extremist base. The GOP brand had been damaged by the incessant bigotry and invective streaming from the religious right, while the evangelicals and others were disappointed that the GOP had made so little progress on its issues — restricting the right to abortion and the civil rights of gays, for example — during the 12 years it controlled Congress and the eight years of the Bush presidency.

Another unsurprising result: 60 percent of the GOP-tea bagger base say their most trusted source of news is the Fox channel, which broadcasts Republican Party propaganda.

Lately, however, the tea party candidates have been backing away from fiscal issues, the specifics of which are political nonstarters — and trotting out old “culture war” issues from the 1990s. Top Senate tea bagger Jim Demint of South Carolina recently revived his call for banning from the teaching profession women (but not men) who have premarital sex and gays. Five of the tea baggers running for Senate — Sharron Angle of Nevada, Ken Buck of Colorado, Joe Miller of Alaska, Christine O’Donnell of Delaware and Rand Paul of Kentucky — advocate using the government to force women to have babies, even when the father is the woman’s rapist or a family member.

It’s not surprising then that this new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute finds that nearly half of tea baggers are holdovers from the religious extremist base:

Eight out of ten Americans who identified with the Tea Party were Christians and 47 percent said they were part of the Christian conservative movement, the poll found.

But the grassroots movement (sic) remains a small part of the population overall. Christian conservatives make up 22 percent of the population but those who favor the Tea Party only comprise half of that, about 11 percent of the population. An overwhelming majority of Americans, 94 percent, who support the Tea Party movement were white men and more than half were 50 or older, according to the survey.

The poll found overwhelming support, 80 percent, for Sarah Palin, and 75 percent opposition to Pres. Obama.

Another unsurprising result: 60 percent of the GOP-tea bagger base say their most trusted source of news is the Fox channel, which broadcasts Republican Party propaganda.

Republican Senators Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and Don’t Answer the Phone for Lady Ga Ga

Trish

Ga Ga: “I am here to be a voice for my generation, not the generation of the senators who are voting, but for the youth of this country, the generation that is affected by this law, and whose children will be affected. We are not asking you to agree with, or approve of the moral implications of homosexuality.”

There is so much wrong with these assumptions that it’s hard to know where to start (many Guard members are in their 30s, 40s, and even 50s, and why NOT ask the senators to stop declaring homosexuality is immoral?) but as the aunt of a 12-year-old, I know that Ga Ga is correct that she speaks for youth, and her heart is definitely in the right place on this one.

Let’s Make a Deal: Qur’an Burning for Manhattan Muslim Center

Trish

quranburn20463.jpg
Orlando Sentinel photo of Mohammad Musri talking to reporters
The head of Orlando’s Islamic Society of Central Florida was among the many folks in Gainesville lining up to see Pastor Terry Jones, the leader of the 50-member Dove Outreach Center, who plans to spend Saturday night burning Qur’ans. But unlike the FBI agents and members of the press gathered nearby, Mohammad Musri was making an offer.

Mohammad Musri, of the Islamic Society, went to the church for the second day in a row Thursday afternoon, this time to make a deal. He said if Jones agrees to call off the Quran burning, he will urge Feisal Abdul Rauf, the controversial Imam behind the proposed mosque and community center near New York’s “ground zero,” to relocate the planned mosque in New York City.

No word on Jones’ decision.

It’s been a busy day for Jones, as he counts down to the fateful moment at 6 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday when he has promised to burn Qur’ans in commemoration of the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

Obama: “Yeah. I hope he listens to…those better angels.”

FBI sources tell ABC News that the agents were there to brief Jones on all the death threats he’s received and to discuss how they’re going to protect him and the church on Saturday.

Protecting University of Florida Gator football fans is also a major issue, as the home team plays cross-state rival Tampa’s University of South Florida Bulls in a game that kicks off at 12:21. What with the press, protestors, and supporters flocking to Gainesville to witness the Qur’an bonfire, Gainesville police have their hands full. Add thousands of drunk football fans and who knows what will happen?

[…]

93-Year-Old Stetson Kennedy Vows to Arrest Qur’an Burner

Trish

stetsonkennedyLocal (in my neck of the woods anyway) legend Stetson Kennedy, best known for his ground-breaking journalism exposing Ku Klux Klan members in the 1940s, is taking on the Qur’an burning church. The 93-year-old Kennedy has vowed to perform a citizen’s arrest of Pastor Terry Jones of Dove World Outreach Center on Sept. 11.

Stetson Kennedy says he’ll be in Gainesville this weekend, and will conduct a citizen’s arrest on Dove World Outreach Center Pastor Terry Jones on the grounds of inciting violence and rioting.

“Any citizen in the presence of a crime in progress may make a citizen’s arrest,” Kennedy said.

“In this case, I would intend to take the Reverend Jones to the nearest U.S. Attorney.”

Kennedy plans to arrest Jones on grounds of sedition, which can be defined as inciting people to disturb the public peace. It’s a bit of a reach, but it makes more sense than Jones’ own plan to paint all of Islam with one brush, based on the attack by Osama bin Laden’s followers nine years ago.

Around the world, others are making a similar error of generalization in mistaking Jones’ idiocy as representative of all America, or all of Florida, or even all of the Missouri-born Jones’ operating base of Gainesville, with some Muslims vowing revenge for Jones’ ignorant actions against Americans, including troops, abroad.

There Has Been a Mosque Near Ground Zero Since 1970 – Same Year the World Trade Center Opened

Jon Ponder

Design concept for Cordoba House
Design concept for Park 51
I lived four blocks east of the World Trade Center in the 1980s, so I’ve followed the controversy about Park 51, formerly known as Cordoba House, the new Islamic center being built two blocks north of the trade center at Park Place, with insider-y interest.

I found an unexpected source for tapping into local attitudes about Park 51 on Andrew Sullivan’s site, the Daily Dish, where people from my old neighborhood have been posting comments about the project. The clincher was this factoid that, in hindsight, shouldn’t have been surprising: A mosque, Masjid Manhattan, has been holding services on Warren Street, four blocks north of the World Trade Center, for the last 40 years. (It’s about a block west of the Tweed Courthouse, if you know the area.) From the mosque’s website:

Our members are city, state and federal employees, as well as professional employees of the Financial [District] who come to our Masjid to perform their daily prayers. Masjid Manhattan and its members condemn any type of terrorist acts. In particular, the attacks of 9/11 where non-Muslims as well as Muslims lost their lives.

(UPDATE: Masjid Manhattan includes this disclaimer on its website: “Please be advised that we are by no means affiliated with any other organization trying to build anything new in the area of downtown Manhattan.”)

It is significant that Masjid Manhattan was started in 1970 because the World Trade Center also opened at the end of that year. The first tenants moved into the North Tower in December 1970; the South Tower opened a year later, in January 1972.

The fact that Muslims have been worshiping four blocks away from Ground Zero for so long makes it hard to argue that it’s a sacrilege to have an Islamic presence so close to the site of the attack by their fanatical coreligionists. (So should the fact that about 60 innocent Muslims died in the trade center on 9/11 — roughly 2 percent of all fatalities.)

[…]

God Hates Idolatry, Smites Ohio’s 60-Foot ‘Touchdown Jesus’ Statue

Jon Ponder

Left: Touchdown Jesus before; Right: Statue feeling God's wrath
Blowed up real good. Left: Touchdown Jesus in happier times; Right: Experiencing God's wrath
God seems to have expressed his displeasure with idolatry in Ohio:

A six-story statue of Jesus Christ was struck by lightning and burned to the ground, leaving only a blackened steel skeleton and pieces of foam that were scooped up by curious onlookers Tuesday.

The “King of Kings” statue, one of southwest Ohio’s most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati…

The sculpture, about 62 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained Tuesday.

Most Americans Favor Tomorrow’s National Day of Prayer

Buck Banks

According to a recent Gallup poll, 57 percent of Americans support, 38 percent are not bothered by the annual National Day of Prayer, which President Obama proclaimed will be celebrated tomorrow, May 6, and only 5 percent oppose it. Of those who say religion is important in their lives 74 percent support the day, while 66 percent of those who say religion is not important say it doesn’t matter to them, but only 9 percent oppose it outright.

[…]

Did Oral Roberts Fail Another of God’s Ransom Demands?

Trish

God recently called Brother Oral Roberts home, this time seemingly free of charge. No attempts to fund-raise his way out of heaven were involved; the 91-year-old faith healer and televangelist went without asking for contributions.

The colorful Roberts will be missed, if only for his ability to make us smile. Claims of raising the dead, the aforementioned incident in which he told donors God would call him home if he didn’t collect $8 million, visions inspired by 900-foot Jesus, and repeated rumors of mishandling money have kept us snickering for years.

His legacy will live on in the form of Oral Roberts University, an institution the holy man founded in his native Tulsa that his biographer, David Harrell Jr., said allowed Roberts to “flirt” with respectability. Roberts is also survived by two of his four children and fellow faith healer, Benny Hinn.

Roberts

Get up and walk, heathen!