Religious Right

The religious right’s annual “War on Christmas” is ramping up early this year, and at least one Minnesota-based company is on its hit list. Targeting retail stores that use the word “holiday” instead of “Christmas,” a trend it says the Nazis began, the American Family Association includes SUPERVALU, Eden Prairie–based owner of Cub Foods, among its targets for using the h-word in its ads.

While Rep. Michele Bachmann was the highest-profile catch for the “Appeal to Heaven” gala for the controversial You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International ministry (even though she ultimately was a no-show and sent a video message instead), another rising star in the local Republican party reportedly managed to make it to help raise [...]

Bradlee Dean, the founder of You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International told the attendees of the group’s “Appeal to Heaven” fundraiser that the media “demonizes” him for bringing his fiery brand of Christianity into public schools. Then he pointed out one of the reporters he feels is behind such attacks, the Minnesota Independent’s Andy Birkey.

As noted here Monday, social conservatives — distracted by concerns over abortion and the House health care reform bill — missed key provisions in the bill that benefit LGBT Americans. One group that apparently overlooked the measures, the Minnesota Family Council, confirms that assessment.

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.

Friday was historic for LGBT Americans as President Obama signed into law a hate crimes bill that includes sexual orientation and gender identity. But some among Minnesota’s religious right didn’t receive the news warmly, saying the law will bring the wrath of God down on America, that Obama is an “anti-Christian radical” and that the bill was a plot by “homosexuals” to silence Christians.

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.

Rep. Michele Bachmann will join Gov. Tim Pawlenty at the biggest religious right event of the year. The Sept. 18 Values Voter Summit, hosted by Focus on the Family and several other groups opposed to gay rights, generates controversy just about every year it’s held. In 2006, a speaker decried “faggots” and a gay-rights movement [...]

James Dobson’s Focus on the Family announced Wednesday that it’s cutting 75 jobs due to a decrease in profits and donations, according to the Denver Post. The organization, which works to prevent expanded rights for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, has cut more than 40 percent of its workforce over the last year. [...]

Some of Rep. Michele Bachmann’s comments in Denver this week — notably, that opponents of health care reform should “slit our wrists, be blood brothers” — generated plenty of attention in the media and blogosphere. But in just three weeks, she’ll have plenty of competition for those headlines. Speaking at the “How to Take Back America” conference later this month, she’ll be sharing the stage with a pastor who says conference attendees will be trained to “turn out the infidels”; a radio host who doubts President Obama is a U.S. citizen; and a columnist who opposes statehood for Puerto Rico because he says it’s a “Caribbean dogpatch.”