The Manhattan Declaration is the religious right’s line in the sand: They’re vowing to ignore any laws that contradict their worldview. The document reads:

Therefore, let it be known that we will not comply with any edict that compels us or the institutions we lead to participate in or facilitate abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide, euthanasia, or any other act that violates the principle of the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every member of the human family.

Further, let it be known that we will not bend to any rule forcing us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality, marriage, and the family.

Further, let it be known that we will not be intimidated into silence or acquiescence or the violation of our consciences by any power on earth, be it cultural or political, regardless of the consequences to ourselves.

The Human Rights Campaign immediately lashed out at the signers of the Manhattan Declaration, pointing out that LGBT-rights groups have gone to great pains to make laws that protect both LGBT people and people of faith.

“This declaration simply perpetuates the fallacy that equality and religious liberty are incompatible and that every step toward fairness for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community is another burden on religious people. In reality, non-discrimination laws are working all over this country, where religious freedom is existing side-by-side with equal opportunity,” Harry Knox, director of the Human Rights Campaign’s Religion and Faith Program, said in a statement. “Advocates of LGBT equality have taken great pains in their legislative efforts to ensure that the rights of religious organizations and people under the First Amendment are protected. It is deeply cynical for the authors of this document to paint themselves as victims because they cannot have a free hand to discriminate, including with taxpayer dollars.”

Photo: WDCpix

While abortion politics dominated conservative opposition to the health care reform package that barely passed the U.S. House on Saturday evening, several measures in the bill that are beneficial to LGBT Americans largely went unnoticed — especially by conservatives.

The Human Rights Campaign reports it successfully lobbied to get five provisions important to the LGBT community included in the final bill.

Currently, the government doesn’t track health disparities based on sexual orientation and gender identity like it does for race, economic status, marital status, age and a number of other characteristics. The bill that passed the House would add those categories to the government’s data collection practices and would for the first time be able to determine health disparities. That would enable the government to direct funding for research and public health efforts to address those disparities. A similar bill has been offered in Congress, the Ending Health Disparities for LGBT Americans Act.

The House bill also contains language from the Tax Equity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act. Employer-paid health benefits for a domestic partner are taxed by the federal government as income but benefits for spouses are not. That means same-sex couples that utilize their employers’ health plan pay income taxes that married couples do not. The bill that passed the House on Saturday would fix that inequity.

An important disparity in the treatment of HIV is remedied in the bill. In order for people living with HIV to qualify for Medicaid programs they must have a diagnosis of AIDS — which often comes after years of living with the disease. The new legislation would enable states to qualify individuals who are newly diagnosed with HIV disease for Medicaid programs. That policy is included in the bill as the Early Treatment for HIV Act.

Strong protections to prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in health insurance and in the health care system also made it into the House bill.

Finally, the bill provides funding for comprehensive sex education programs that include relevant information for LGBT students.

Many of these policies have drawn fire from the religious right in the past, but recently such groups have been exerting most of their opposition to opposing abortion rights in the health reform bill. And the Stupak Amendment, which aims to ban any federal funding to cover abortion services, dominated the debate over the bill.

For instance, Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth, who railed against the tax equity bill in July, hasn’t mentioned its inclusion in the health bill.

The American Family Association opposed fixing health disparities for LGBT people as early as February, but abandoned that cause to fight against the inclusion of abortion rights in the health reform bill.

And the Family Research Council seems to have completely missed any notice of the LGBT provisions in the bill. The group spent a considerable amount of time and money on opposing abortion in the health reform bill, and FRC president Tony Perkins was even a featured speaker at Rep. Michele Bachmann’s “House Call” event opposing health care reform. He spoke about abortion.

Update: Now Minnesota Family Council is noticing LGBT measures in healthcare bill

The religious right has long railed against Halloween, condemning its pagan roots and claiming it promotes witchcraft and the occult. This year some groups are embracing the day as a time to reach kids with a pro-life and Christian message, while others use the day to burn “wicked” books and CDs. And one writer for Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network warns parents that witches curse Halloween candy.

“[M]ost of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches,” wrote CBN’s Kimberly Daniels. “I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference.”

Daniels continued, “Halloween is much more than a holiday filled with fun and tricks or treats. It is a time for the gathering of evil that masquerades behind the fictitious characters of Dracula, werewolves, mummies and witches on brooms. The truth is that these demons that have been presented as scary cartoons actually exist. I have prayed for witches who are addicted to drinking blood and howling at the moon.”

Americans United for the Separation of Church and State took the opportunity to have a little fun at Robertson’s expense.

“I’ve heard of the devil being in the details, but to think he’s lurking inside a Snickers bar is a little too much,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans United. “Pat Robertson has always peddled some scary stuff, but this is over the top.”

He added, “I hate to see all of that candy go to waste. I wish Robertson would send it to me, because I’m throwing a Halloween party and could use it.”

A church in North Carolina has found a more proactive approach and is marking Halloween with a book burning. Called “Burning Perversions of God’s Word,” Amazing Grace Baptist Church will be torching books and CDs it deems evil. “We will also be burning Satan’s music such as country, rap, rock, pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel, contemporary Christian, jazz, soul, oldies but goldies, etc.,” the church website says. “We will also be burning Satan’s popular books written by heretics. We will be serving fried chicken, and all the sides.”

But some groups are embracing Halloween as a way to reach children with the gospel. One anti-abortion group tells its members to make pro-life jack-o-lanterns with images of fetuses.

There are many opportunities to be a voice for the voiceless, and most of those opportunities require us to go to a public place. But, on the eve of All Saints Day, the public comes to us!

So, make a pro-life jack-o-lantern and send your photos to us. Be sure to include your name, age and address in the e-mail, and we’ll post the best ones on our home page!

It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. It could be as intricate as the design here or as simple as the word “Pro-Life.” Whatever your skill level, be creative and tell the world about the personhood of preborn babies.

For those who aren’t that crafty, the American Life League has pro-life pumpkin stencils.

One small business specializes in Christian pumpkins. For a broader religious right message on jack-o-lanterns, there’s Divine Carvings, a “Christian based watermelon and pumpkin carving kit that gives Christians a way to promote God in the work place, schools and on Halloween without actually saying any thing.”

Other religious right groups celebrate Halloween through educational offerings. Local religious right outfit the Minnesota Family Council is marking the day with a Family Conference dedicated to warning of the downfall of traditional marriage.

“Out of wedlock births, cohabitation, homosexual marriage and declining marriage and birth rates all point to marriage as an institution in crisis” will be the topic of the Halloween conference hosted by MFC at Bethel University.

In a special edition of their newsletter (DOC), the group goes after President Obama, saying his facts are incorrect.

“Despite public statements by Pres. Barack Obama that ‘no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion,’ all of the major bills under consideration would put the federal government into the business of subsidizing elective abortion on a massive scale,” wrote MCCL, then going on to quote Factcheck.org. “‘Despite what Obama said, the House bill would allow abortions to be covered by a federal plan and by federally subsidized private plans,’ reported the independent FactCheck.org.”

But what FactCheck.org actually said was that it’s a grey area in between. “The truth is that bills now before Congress don’t require federal money to be used for supporting abortion coverage. So the president is right to that limited extent. But it’s equally true that House and Senate legislation would allow a new ‘public’ insurance plan to cover abortions, despite language added to the House bill that technically forbids using public funds to pay for them.”

The rest of the groups claims have also been debunked by Factcheck.org.

Health Rationing

MCCL says that all of the health reform proposals would dole out care based on age and disability. “In addition to the expansion of abortion, all major bills under consideration — as currently written — would likely lead to the rationing of care,” the group writes. “The bills addressing health care ‘reform’ all require the rationing of health care.”

Paul Stark, Student Outreach Coordinator, wrote, “The health care legislation pending in Congress would likely lead to the rationing of care for elderly, disabled and other vulnerable persons.”

When RNC chair Michael Steele used a similar line in an ad attacking health care reform, Factcheck.org corrected him. “It’s … false for Steele to imply that Democratic health care legislation proposes to ‘ration health care based on age.’”

While none of the bills specifically spells out a rationing of health care, Politifact took time to explore the issue. “Everyone hates the word rationing,” Katherine Baicker, a health economics professor at Harvard University, told the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking site. “From an economics perspective, there’s no way around rationing. Some care is being rationed now. Everyone isn’t getting everything.”

But MCCL does not acknowledge — let alone condemn — the fact that health care is currently rationed.

Medicare cuts

Stark wrote, “[A] substantial part of the cost under the proposals would be paid for by ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ − reducing Medicare funding for older people in order to cover the uninsured.”

MCCL president Leo Lalonde wrote about seniors’ reactions when MCCL told them at a fall meeting that Medicare would be deeply cut. “This information and much more was shared with Fall Tour attendees, who reacted with anger, fear and disbelief. Some people already understood this threat. But many more did not, and were deeply disturbed to learn that Medicare — the only source of medical care for many senior citizens— could be severely restricted under Obama’s plan.”

Factcheck.org found that claim to be false:

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the House bill would result in “savings” [to Medicare] of $219 billion after all increases and decreases are netted out. The House bill would trim projected increases in payments for hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and others, including home health care providers and suppliers of motor-driven wheelchairs. But it also proposes what CBO estimates is a $245 billion increase in spending for doctors, by canceling a scheduled 21 percent cut in physician payments. None of the “savings” or “cuts” (whichever you prefer) come from reducing current or future benefit levels for seniors.

Klobuchar recounted her own experiences with the health care industry on the Senate floor last week.

Let me tell my colleagues how I got interested in this issue. When my daughter was born, she was very sick. She couldn’t swallow. She was in intensive care. They thought she had a tumor. It was a horrendous moment for our family. I was up all night in labor, up all day trying to figure out what was wrong with her, and they literally kicked me out of the hospital — my husband wheeled me out in a wheelchair after 24 hours — because at that point in our country’s history, they had a rule; it was called driveby births. When a mom gave birth, she had to get kicked out of the hospital in 24 hours.

In a press conference, Klobuchar talked about how that experience drove her to get the law changed.

Klobuchar also said she was pleased that domestic abuse was being addressed by Congress.

“In nine states and the District of Columbia, women who are victims of domestic abuse, who have been victims of domestic abuse can be denied health care coverage because domestic abuse can be considered a preexisting condition,” she said. “That’s why I’m so glad one of the major, major proposals in this reform is to do something about pre-existing conditions.”

Seven other female senators are working to make the health reform package inclusive of women: Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash; Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.; Barbara Boxer D-Calif.; Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.; Mary Landrieu, D-La.; and Senator Kay Hagan, D-N.C.

The senators say one of the most important issues facing women’s access to health care is that women pay more in premiums but get less health care for the added cost. Things like pregnancy and domestic abuse are sometimes excluded as preexisting conditions.

Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, praised Klobuchar’s efforts.

“The health care debate continues to rage in Washington, and amendments limiting women’s access to reproductive health care are expected,” the group said on Friday. “Senator Klobuchar made it clear last week that women cannot be worse off after health care reform than they are today. Health care reform must improve our lives, not take away the rights we have fought so hard to win.”

MnIndy file photo

An amendment that would ban federal funds going to companies that require arbitration in the case of sexual assault passed the Senate on Tuesday. The amendment was offered by Sen. Al Franken and was added to the defense appropriations bill by a vote of 68 to 30.

The amendment was offered after Jamie Leigh Jones, an employee of Kellogg, Brown & Root (formerly a subsidiary of Halliburton) was sexually assaulted by her co-workers in Iraq and then locked in a shipping crate when she tried to report the rape. Her return to the United States was facilitated by U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Tex., but upon her return, she learned that the fine print of her employment contract banned her from taking the case to court.

On the Senate floor, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., called it “a political attack directed at Halliburton.”

Franken rebutted, “This amendment does not single out a single contractor. This amendment would defund any contractor that refuses to give a victim of rape their day in court.”

The amendment was supported by a number of Minnesota organizations including Advocates for Human Rights, Breaking Free, Casa de Esperanza, Mid Minnesota Legal Assistance, the Minnesota Coalition against Sexual Assault, the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, the Minnesota National Organization for Women, Minnesota Women Lawyers and the Sexual Violence Center.

“I’m proud of what we accomplished today. Victims of sexual assault deserve their day in court and no corporation should be able to deny them that right,” Franken said. “Jamie’s courage in telling her story will help women all over this country and I’m honored to have been a part of that.”

Jones also praised passage of the amendment. “This amendment makes all the hard times that I have gone through, when going public with such a personal tragedy, worth every tear shed from telling and retelling my horrific experience,” she said. “I am highly honored that Senator Franken and his wife have created this amendment to ensure that others do not have to endure the suffering that I have.”

Lila Rose tells the Values Voter Summit she wishes abortions would be performed in the public square. Via YouTube.

The grainy video, filmed in Bloomington, Ind., last year, features a young woman with bleach-blonde hair fidgeting in her chair. As haunting music loops over her small voice, she tells a Planned Parenthood worker that she’s 13 years old, almost 14. She mentions an older boyfriend. The worker says Indiana law dictates that people 13 years old or under who have had intercourse must be reported to Child Protective Services. The timestamp in the corner of the screen skips back and forth. The video lingers accusingly on a clip, edited to repeat multiple times, of the worker saying she didn’t hear the boyfriend’s age. It fades into black.

Lila Rose, the 21-year-old woman behind an undercover video campaign against Planned Parenthood, as well as the actress in most of her recordings, is scheduled to travel to Minnesota to speak at a benefit dinner for Pro-Life Action Ministries in Brooklyn Center on Monday.

Following the successful bipartisan push to defund ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) after a similar undercover video campaign, abortion opponents are refocusing their energy on Planned Parenthood. Only last weekend, following a speech in which she said she wished abortions in the United States would be conducted literally in “public squares,” Rose hosted a breakout session at the 2009 Value Voters Summit entitled “Defunding Planned Parenthood.” Participants were urged to “learn from people, like you, who have successfully stopped Planned Parenthood funding in their communities.”

Rose is a superstar in the anti-abortion movement, backing a California ballot measure to constitutionally expand the legal definition of a human to include fetuses and rubbing shoulders with Republican luminaries like Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

The videos she produces are designed to fuel allegations that Planned Parenthood staff neglect to report statutory rape, as many state laws require. With only nine videos in her holster, her organization, Live Action, has managed to threaten some government funding for Planned Parenthood in Indiana, California and Tennessee — despite the fact that none of those organizations has ever used such funds for abortions.

Rose’s work faces criticism from reproductive-rights advocates who allege the videos are edited manipulatively and feature non-medical staff. It also raises ethical questions about secretly videotaping workers and the mainstream media’s careless treatment of the videos.

“Defunding Planned Parenthood”

Kathi Di Nicola, spokesman for Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota (PPMNS) said her organization wasn’t threatened by Rose’s impending visit.

“Serving the reproductive needs of our patients is our number-one priority, day in and day out,” Di Nicola said. “We’ve done that for 81 years in Minnesota and we’re not intimidated by those who attempt to undermine our work.”

Representatives from both PPMNS and Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) declined to comment about security measures prompted by Rose’s undercover videos or her presence in the state this week.

There’s been little direct public response to Rose’s operation from Planned Parenthood, which is, after all, no stranger to criticism. Their rejoinders have been limited to some general statements and a pair of now-withdrawn lawsuits in California.

“Ultimately, their modus operandi has been to try to minimize the scandal because clearly they want to keep operating as they are,” Rose said in an interview with the Minnesota Independent.

Planned Parenthood is accustomed to taking heat from anti-abortion activists, despite the fact that only a small proportion of the services the organization provides involve abortion, said Linnea House, executive director for NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota.

The tactic’s goal “is to get [a worker] to say something that the general public would disagree with,” House said. “It seems like what they’re trying to do is get Planned Parenthood defunded.”

Rose claims to have cost Planned Parenthood $1.1 million nationwide because of her videos. In June 2009, the Tennessee state legislature worked to revoke Planned Parenthood’s preferential status for federal Title X Family Planning funds because of outrage fueled by one of Rose’s videos that purported to show a Planned Parenthood worker telling an underage girl how to avoid statutory rape charges for her older boyfriend.

Representatives of Planned Parenthood in the greater Memphis area say the final legislation won’t really affect their funding, but that it’s more of a symbolic vote.

Rose also said her videos have led to the firing or other reprimanding of Planned Parenthood workers. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America declined to comment on specific staffing issues related to the videos, but in an e-mailed statement PPFA spokesman Diane Quest said, “Planned Parenthood affiliate health centers take all claims [of employee misconduct], regardless of their source, seriously.”

Quest said the organization is dedicated to protecting teens, and making sure they receive the medical care they need.

“Millions of parents trust that their teens will get accurate information and quality care at Planned Parenthood health centers, and affiliate staff work exceptionally hard to maintain that trust,” Quest said. “In the rare cases when an affiliate health center determines that a staff person hasn’t met Planned Parenthood’s high standards of employment, swift action is taken — action that can include retraining and other steps.”

But a leaked e-mail from Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region CEO Barry Chase to state legislators in April pointed out that the worker featured in Rose’s Memphis video was a translator, not a nurse or caregiver. That’s another common criticism of Rose’s videos; it’s often unclear who she is filming and in what context. In the e-mail, Chase refers to the Memphis video as “highly edited.”

It’s also not clear that she’s ever sat down with Planned Parenthood’s trained nurses, instead focusing on clerical or other workers. According to the PPFA, Rose never had official patient appointments or filled out any paper work.

Biased media or media bias?

Since the ACORN videos broke, the tactic of secretly videotaping the political opponents of right-wing activists has quickly gained mainstream conservative approval.

“It’s definitely a trend or even beyond a trend, it’s a growing number of people that are not just listening to the mainstream media anymore, or what used to be the mainstream media, and instead are determined to really find the facts for themselves,” Rose told the Minnesota Independent.

Such undisclosed investigations can be ethically troubling, said Jane Kirtley, professor of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota and member of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Ethics Committee.

“Just because you’re doing something that involves hidden camera surveillance doesn’t mean you’re doing it for journalistic purposes,” Kirtley said.

In traditional journalism circles, she said, the use of undercover cameras is regarded as a last resort, and in many states it can be illegal.

“There is this aspect of it which troubles people, the old question: Do the ends justify the means?” Kirtley said. “If you’re going to be uncovering misconduct on the part of somebody else, does that justify your engaging in something that some people think is inappropriate, like using deception?”

Kirtley said Rose’s videos, depending on how they are done, could potentially fit into the media’s watchdog role, which has often been fulfilled or supplemented by advocacy groups.

Rose, who wavers between referring to herself as a “journalist” and “activist,” readily admits that her aim is dramatic effect, shrugging off criticism that undercover videos can land her in ethically murky water. (Aside from a stint publishing a campus magazine at UCLA, Rose has no formal journalistic experience.)

“Those are diversions from the real subject at hand, which is that young girls are being abused sexually and taken in for secret abortions,” Rose said. “A lot of times, [these criticisms] are shameful diversions because what those people are saying basically is any undercover journalism and any work like this is just not OK.”

Rose points out that mainstream media shows like NBC Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator” use her form of undercover journalism.  In fact, Rose turns the tables on mainstream media outlets, accusing them of political bias for not following up on her investigations.

“People get uncomfortable with certain organizations being exposed and the embarrassment it causes them because of the true horrific things that are happening behind the closed doors of those organizations,” Rose said. “They’re willing to sacrifice the public being truly informed as they should be for their own political agenda. As a journalist I find that sickening and I think that’s not right; I think the public deserves to know.”

But Kirtley said the mainstream media’s big problem resides in its rush to air videos like Rose’s without providing appropriate disclaimers or context.

“I’m not suggesting that news organizations of any stripe shouldn’t use user-generated content. There are many times where that’s absolutely appropriate and enriches the whole news-gathering and reporting experience,” Kirtley said. “If you’re taking material from a group that has an agenda, you have an obligation to be absolutely clear in rebroadcasting the material that it comes from them and you’re reporting it because of the fact that they did it and not because the content is necessarily accurate.”

Rose said her organization has prepared other videos for 2009. Although Rose won’t disclose how many undercover videos her organization has shot or where they were filmed, she said that a 2009 video based in Minnesota is a possibility.

Despite her intense involvement in anti-abortion events and activism, Rose said her mission to “defund Planned Parenthood” isn’t about abortion.

“Many [young women] are manipulated by partners or by older men [...] into getting these abortions, so definitely we’re staunchly against [abortion],” Rose said. “But even on a purely organizational level, the way that Planned Parenthood operates in accepting tax money and in manipulating women and assessing the sexual abuse cover-up is reason enough to stop taxpayer funds going to the organization.”

Linnea House of NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota said the loss of any funding for the organization would hurt Planned Parenthood’s mission as the largest provider of family planning and reproductive health care in the country.

“This is basically another tool for [anti-abortion activists] to be doing some fear-mongering,” House said. “Doing these undercover exposés on an organization that is internationally and nationally known as a provider is a tactic to be used by those who don’t have a whole lot of options.”

Bachmann’s information seems to have been gleaned from right-wing media outlets that earlier this year Politifact ruled as lies.

“We see no language in the three main versions of the bill that would allow school-based clinics, which have a long history of providing basic health services to underprivileged students, to provide abortions,” the site wrote. “Nor would the clinics even be new — they have been around for three decades. So we rate the claim Pants on Fire!”

Further, as The Hill notes, any clinics established by the bill would have to follow state and local laws regarding parental consent.

Video and transcript below

But parents are going to excluded from Planned Parenthood as they write these clinics because the bill orders that these clinics protect patient privacy and student records. What does that mean? It means that parents will never know what kind of counsel and treatment that their children are receiving. And as a matter of fact, the bill goes on to say what’s going to go on — comprehensive primary health services, physicals, treatment of minor acute medical conditions, referrals to follow-up for specialty care — is that abortion? Does that mean that someone’s 13 year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser.

Photo: Lori Howard, iStockphoto

Rep. Michele Bachmann will be headlining a fundraiser in November for controversial ministry You Can Run But You Cannot Hide (YCRBYCH).

Based in Annandale, Minn., the group has made a name for itself as an anti-drug Christian punk rock band that organizes motivational student assemblies to bring Christ to public schools. But over the last several years, parents and school administrators have complained that the ministry misrepresents itself, claiming that the group is not transparent about its Christian mission. And since schools pay using public funds, some are concerned that the group is violating the constitutional principle of the separation of church and state.

Bachmann will be the keynote speaker at a fundraiser for the group on Nov. 12 at a Bloomington hotel. Bachmann’s office did not return a request seeking comment about the event.

It won’t be Bachmann’s first time at a YCRBYCH fundraiser. At a Minneapolis hotel in October 2006, she offered a powerful prayer for the ministry and praised the group’s work of sharing the gospel in public schools.

“Lord, I thank you for what you have done at this ministry… how you are going to advance them from 260 schools a year, Lord, to 2,600 schools a year,” she said. “Lord, we ask thy faith that you would expand this ministry beyond anything the originators of this ministry could begin to think or imagine. Lord, the day is at hand! We are in the last days! The day is at hand, Lord, when your return will become nigh. Pour a double blessing, Lord, a triple blessing on this ministry.”

In an April 2009 broadcast on Christian radio station KKMS, the group acknowledged that it is going into public schools to evangelize.

“We are doing assemblies here, folks, just so you understand, we do public high school assemblies,” said one of the group’s members. “We are speaking to kids in our schools about the constitution, suicide prevention and our own testimony of how Christ turned our lives around in public schools so we can get the light into kids hands in public schools.”

Complaints around the Midwest

In school districts around the Midwest, school administrators have taken heat for inviting the ministry into schools.

In 2003, the group came to a Benton, Wis., high school. “They had a captive audience for their message, and that wasn’t right,” Benton Principal Gary Neis told the Dubuque Telegraph Herald. He was reportedly so upset that the ministry strayed from its anti-drug message that he held another assembly to apologize to the students.

“They talked about influencing and brainwashing people. Be wise to the fact that is what they were doing. They were using the same tactics,” Neis told the students at the assembly. Neis said he contacted other schools in the area and found that they had no idea that YCRBYCH was a Christian ministry.

In 2005, at a Eureka Springs, Ark., high school, students walked out of the assembly; afterward, the principal took heat from parents. According to the local paper, The Lovely Citizen, Eureka Springs superintendent Reck Wallis, said, “I take responsibility. We had no idea about their religious, right-wing message. They misrepresented their program. We want [Eureka Springs schools] to be open and all inclusive. … They won’t be back.”

At Pequot Lakes High School in central Minnesota in 2007, the group stirred controversy when students reportedly ran out of the assembly crying after the group showed graphic images of abortion and told the students that God wanted women to be subservient to men. John McDonald, Pequot Lakes High School Principal, told WCCO, “We were expecting something a bit different,” he said. “The thing we apologized to students for is the program wasn’t to the expectation that we thought it would be.”

Bradlee Dean

Also in 2007, the group performed in Phelps, Wis., causing an uproar among parents and administrators. “The school district administrator said she didn’t know You Can Run But You Cannot Hide was a Christian group until I told her,” said Paul Guequierre, a reporter for WJFW TV-12. “She showed me the lit from the group and there was no mention that the group was Christian.”

Indeed, the group does not mention God, Jesus, Christianity or any religion in the “Principal Packet” that it distributes to school administrators. According to the four-page document (pdf), founder Bradlee Dean’s “message hits on issues such as drugs, alcohol, suicide, our country, our veterans, our freedom, the Constitution, friends we choose, the influence of media, and day to day choices we make.” (The program’s website only references God once, in a promotion for founder Bradlee Dean’s book.)

When questioned by the Minnesota Independent about claims that the group doesn’t disclose the religious nature of the assemblies, Dean said, “78 percent of the American people are professing Christians. Are they, in their line of work, to wear ‘I am a Christian’ shirts?”

“It sounds like there is a lean toward discrimination in what you are asking,” he added.

Separation of church and state

While many have challenged that the group causes schools to run afoul of the separation of church and state, both Bachmann and YCRBYCH deny that the constitutional prohibition exists.

In fact, Bachmann urges people to give money to the organization for the stated purpose of bringing Christ into public schools.

“[Public schools] are teaching children that there is separation of church and state, and I am here to tell you that is a myth. That’s not true,” Bachmann said at the group’s 2006 fundraiser in Minneapolis. “And they explain to children in the public school system what a myth that is. And that’s what I love about this ministry … We want kids to come to the truth and that’s why this ministry is so absolutely vital. We need them in every public school classroom across the state to tell young people, ‘You Can Run But You Cannot Hide.’”

Schools pay the group thousands of dollars to put on the assemblies. “On average we ask $1,500 to $2,000 an assembly,” Dean told the Advocate, a paper in Annandale, Minn. (The group’s Web site says a three-hour assembly ranges from $3,000 to $5,000.)

Dean has similarly claimed that the Constitution does not call for church-state separation.

“Did you know that the phrase ’separation between church and state’ is nowhere in the Constitution, nor in the Declaration of Independence, and nowhere in the Bill of Rights?” he asked listeners of his radio program, called “School of Hard Knocks,” which is broadcast on KKMS.

Dean says that the ministry is being targeted by the government because it tells the truth. On his April 11 radio program, he recalled an incident a week earlier which he claimed an employee of the ministry was chased by a helicopter.

“There was a blue and white helicopter that flew down on top of her van as she was going to this [Wright County] Republican party convention. And then he swooped back down on her again.”

Bradlee said that helicopters frequently dive-bomb their tour bus with “helicopters flying up to the bus and pulling off.” He said, “What they are trying to do is criminalize the righteous.”

At the ministry’s 2007 fundraiser at the Minneapolis Hyatt, Dean elaborated on his fears of the government, as reported at the time by the Minnesota Independent.

“We passed out over 100,000 [religious] tracts in public high schools because God said,” Dean said. “Not because some tyrannical government wants to try telling us what we can say and what we can’t say, because we know what the Constitution says. We know who the problem is, nothing’s changed in two thousand years.”

The study found that 44 percent of women surveyed are reducing or delaying childbearing due to the economy, and for low income women, that number increases to 53 percent.

Sixty-four percent of women agreed with the statement, “With the economy the way it is, I can’t afford to have a baby right now.” That number jumped to 77 percent for low-income women.

But while women are choosing to delay pregnancy, cost factors are causing some to take risks with birth control.

Among women who are using the birth control pill, 18 percent report inconsistent use because of costs. Some skip pills to stretch out prescriptions, while others delay getting a prescription filled or skipping a month of their prescription. Women employing these techniques because of costs increases to 25 percent among low income women.

One in four women say they have a harder time paying for birth control than in the past and that number is one in three for low income women.

“This basic health care is essential, particularly during difficult economic times, to give women the tools they need to protect and support their families,” said Kathi Di Nicola of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota (PPMNS).

Di Nicola says that PPMNS health services are accessible to Minnesota women regardless of ability to pay. She also said that rural women face greater hardships in accessing birth control.

“For many rural women, access to health care is limited at best, with more than half of Minnesota’s rural counties designated as health professional shortage areas due to an inadequate number of primary care providers,” she said.

That means for Minnesota’s rural women who want to delay having children because of the poor economy, access — both financially and geographically — can be a major obstacle to getting birth control services.

[See the Minnesota Independent's previous article, "Report: Many rural women in Minnesota lack access to basic health care"]

“Community health providers like Planned Parenthood serve as a critical entry point into the health care system for tens of thousands of Minnesotans. For many women, the only doctor or nurse they see is the one they visit at a health center like Planned Parenthood,” said Di Nicola.

The study’s authors say that the financial barriers to accessing reproductive health care could put women at risk.

“As a result [of the recession], some women appear to be taking chances that could put themselves or their families at risk,” the report says. “We found evidence of women putting off a visit for either regular gynecological care or birth control, and sometimes not using birth control and using methods inconsistently—all in an effort to save money. Women who use these short-term money-saving strategies are at risk for long-term negative consequences, including unintended pregnancy.”