Religious Right

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.”

The How to Take Back America conference, to be held in St. Louis Sept. 26, will tackle topics like “How to recognize living under Nazis & Communists” and “How to counter the homosexual movement.” And one of its featured speakers will be Minnesota’s own Rep. Michele Bachmann.

Minneapolis pastor John Piper seems to have sprouted the idea that God sent a tornado to the Minneapolis Convention Center last Wednesday to express his displeasure that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was considering relaxing its teachings on LGBT issues. But his statement has blossomed among theologians and members of the religious right chiming in with their own answers to the question: Did God send the Minneapolis tornado because Lutherans were voting on gay issues?

The religious right is ramping up its campaign against health care reform, even joining with the “tea party” movement to encourage conservative Christians to swamp town hall meetings. Minnesota’s religious right leaders say that the health care reform package is against God’s plan for health care and that Christians should go to community forums and “read them the riot act.”

The Christian Coalition is making a comeback thanks to former Minnesota campaign strategist, Jack St. Martin. St. Martin and former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed have launched the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a new group that’s been described as the “Christian Coalition 2.0.”
The new organization will feature Reed as the group’s head, and St. Martin [...]

A Wisconsin couple was arrested on Saturday for distributing bibles without permission at Twin Cities Pride, Minnesota’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender celebration. After Brian and Doris Johnson, self-described “born-again Christians,” were denied a vendor table at the festival, the couple took matters into their own hands.