"Go Christmas, Go Hanukkah, Go Kwanzaa..." The Gap's 2009 holiday ad. Source: YouTube

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. For the past few years, the American Family Association has targeted retail corporations that use the word “holiday” instead of “Christmas” in their holiday marketing. On Thursday, the group said it’s a trend that began with the Nazis.

AFA lists Eden Prairie-based SUPERVALU, which runs Cub Foods, as a “retailer against Christmas” because the company “refers to Christmas decorations as ‘holiday’ on website and weekly ads.”

Bloomington-based Best Buy does a little better, making the list under “Companies marginalizing ‘Christmas.’” Best Buy was the AFA’s primary target in 2006, but ended up capitulating.

Minneapolis-based Target is the state’s only retail corporation listed among “Companies FOR ‘Christmas’” by the AFA. Target incurred the wrath of the AFA’s first War on Christmas campaign in 2005 with a massive Christian boycott. The company relented in mid-December of that year in response to AFA pressure.

The AFA’s main target in the War on Christmas this year is the Gap, Inc., and its subsidiaries Old Navy and Banana Republic. On Nov. 11, the AFA launched a two-month boycott of those brands.

“Last year, Gap issued this politically-correct statement to Christmas shoppers: ‘Gap recognizes that many traditions are celebrated throughout this season and we feel it is important to display holiday signage that is inclusive to everyone,’” wrote the AFA. “Christmas is special because of Jesus. It’s not just a ‘winter holiday.’ For millions of Americans the giving and receiving of gifts is in honor of the One who gave Himself. For the Gap to pretend that isn’t the foundation of the Christmas season is political correctness at best and religious bigotry at worst.”

The Gap responded with an ad campaign that does include the word “Christmas,” but remained true to their commitment to be inclusive. The ad features young adults in a holiday cheer:

Two, Four, Six, Eight, now’s the time to liberate
Go Christmas, Go Hanukkah, Go Kwanzaa, Go Solstice.
Go classic tree, go plastic tree, go plant a tree, go add a tree,
You 86 the rules, you do what feels just right.
Happy do whatever you wanukkah, and to all a cheery night.

The AFA was not amused.

“Did you notice it? Gap compares Christmas to the pagan holiday called ‘Solstice.’ Solstice is celebrated by Wiccans who practice witchcraft!” cried the AFA in a press release.

In a statement the Gap accused the AFA of dishonesty. “Our brands have periodically used Christmas in their holiday season advertising. With this year’s Gap and Old Navy ads, we hope that the AFA will update its Web site, which has claimed that Gap Inc. ‘refused to use the word Christmas in its advertising,’” the statement said. “This is untrue.”

While the AFA is targeting domestic retailers, their rationale goes back to Nazi Germany.

On Thursday, Bryan Fischer, AFA Director of Issues Analysis, penned an article called, “Nazis Started War Against Christmas,” which inexplicably conflates the Gap’s advertising with Nazi “holiday” ornaments.

He refers to a Daily Mail article about secular Christmas ornaments used in Germany during the rise of the Nazis to make the case that the Nazis were atheists.

“The Daily Mail story refers to ‘the atheist Nazis, who tried to turn (Christmas) into a pagan winter solstice celebration,’” he wrote. “Can you say ‘Hello, Gap?’ The Gap responded to pressure from the American Family Association about the absence of ‘Christmas’ in their advertising by producing a commercial that does mention Christmas, but then adds ‘Go Solstice’ in the next breath.”

He continued, “The Nazis hated Christmas for one simple reason: it celebrates the birth of a Jew. The left hates Christmas because it celebrates the birthday of the first Christian. But isn’t there something faintly anti-Semitic about that? After all, Christians can hardly be accused of systemic racism when we believe the Savior of the world lived his life on earth as a Jew.”

According to You Can Run head Bradlee Dean — who says homosexuals, President Obama, and liberals are criminals and that the separation of church and state is a myth — Emmer was on hand to raise money for the ministry.

“The spirit of God was there,” Dean said on his Saturday radio show on AM 1280 The Patriot. “We had Tom Emmer there, the gubernatorial candidate for 2010, a potentially important guy.”

Interestingly, though, Emmer chose not to mention his attendance at the fundraiser on his list of campaign appearances from last week.

Update: Emmer’s campaign told the Minnesota Independent, “Rep. Tom Emmer stopped by the event for a social hour before the dinner and program. The program is headquartered out of Wright County which is Rep. Emmer’s county and has many supporters in Tom’s legislative district. It was not mentioned in the campaign update because it was not a campaign event.”

Bradlee Dean. Image: YouTube

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.

“What is morality? The fruit of Christ! The fruit of morality is Jesus Christ! That’s why we do high school assemblies,” he said during the fundraiser, which included a videotaped message from Rep. Michele Bachmann.

“Again, people are demonizing me right now, and I think we have a couple of those folks here tonight,” he said. (The Minnesota Independent notified the ministry I would be attending). “Thank you for making me famous! You don’t understand the spiritual world at all, brother!”

He continued, “They demonize me, they take me out of context. I have yet to have one person in media say what I said line-by-line, precept upon precept. They try to demonize the truth because they want to justify themselves.”

Then Dean, stating that he “loves” gays and lesbians, directed his comments at this reporter. “I want to say this because I have love and compassion for the homosexual community. The homosexuals are being exploited by tyrants for their own use.”

“You be sure, liberal people back there,” he said, gesturing to the table where I sat. “Tell them I said so, tell them I love them enough to tell the truth. Tell them it’s not a hate crime to warn them!”

The crowd roared with applause.

Then he concluded:

“To the liberal whackjobs that are here: I love you! Put that in your paper! Put that in your paper! All right?”

Related: ‘You Can Run’ may be running afoul of the Constitution

“[The LGBT provisions] were highlighted in a story posted on the left newsblog Minnesota Independent,” wrote Tom Prichard, president of the religious right group, on Tuesday. “They correctly conclude that the focus of pro-life and social conservatives was the battle over abortion coverage mandates in the bill. But then go on to point out a number of provisions slipped in by homosexual activists ‘unnoticed.’ [sic]”

The Family Council says that opposing the “use of our taxpayer dollars to kill, eventually, millions of unborn children, was of supreme importance.”

He continued, “That, however, doesn’t negate the significance of many of provisions [sic] which seek to redefine and thus undermine the basic structure of the natural family. This is, of course, where homosexual activists ultimately want to go.”

But, the group was quick to note its opposition to the LGBT items passed on Saturday. “The provisions show homosexual activists are once again turning to government as a vehicle for indoctrinating young students,” Prichard wrote.

A quick survey of websites of national religious right groups suggests that the Family Council is the first to speak out against those new LGBT health policies, which included better access to Medicaid for HIV-positive Americans, comprehensive sex education, governmental research into health disparities among LGBT people and an end to the taxing of same-sex partner benefits.

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

Image: Glen, Flickr

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.

Bradlee Dean of You Can Run But You Cannot Hide ministries in Annandale, a group that brings its message of Christianity and morality into public high schools, slammed the passing of the hate crimes bill on his Saturday radio show, the School of Hard Knocks Roxxs. “If you grab the bull, you are going to get the horns. I want you to listen to me carefully,” he said. “America, as this is being passed again against the majority, I guarantee you that judgments are going to increase in our country… When you begin to pass laws against what God’s words say, God promises to turn that nation into hell that forgets him and if you want to go ahead play the Lord on a national level… Folks, just sit back because it’s only beginning right now.”

Dean repeatedly called gays and lesbians criminals, a familiar theme on his show. The bill, he said, is “there to protect the homosexuals that are perpetrating crimes against the righteous, and you need to understand that Obama’s calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality and he is calling for the criminalization — without saying it — of you.”

On gay marriage, he said, “So the homosexual communities are asking the government for help legalizing that which is illegal. They are also asking for a health care plan to help cure their AIDS from that same government that said it’s okay go ahead and do it.”

He continued, “Rest assured those ignorant homosexuals out there are working overtime to silence the dissent. They want to shut you up.”

Meanwhile, Jan Markell of the Maple Grove–based Olive Tree Ministries, condemned the bill on her popular “end times” radio show on AM 980 KKMS.

“I think that Christians who dare to tell the truth — including this program — about the social, moral, spiritual and health consequences of illicit homosexual acts are accused of hate speech and intimated into silence with threats of fines or jail,” she said. “I think this: The fact that the hate bill had to be passed in such an unscrupulous and cynical manner — which means attaching it to the Defense Authorization Act — reveals the depth of President Obama’s commitment to a radical anti-Christian agenda. I think he will stop at nothing to undermine the will of the majority of Americans to pay back militant homosexual activists who raised millions of dollars for him.”

She continued, “It shows the level of contempt President Obama has for the majority of Americans who oppose the homosexualization of marriage, the military and public education… We really have our work cut out for us.”

Although it has spoken out against the bill in the past, the Minnesota Family Council has been uncharacteristically silent on the bill’s passage and did not reply to a request from the Minnesota Independent. The group’s website says the bill will impose “fines or jail time if you publicly speak out against homosexual activity — even on moral or religious grounds — and a court determines your message might arouse people to hate homosexuals.”

Nationally, religious right leaders were livid. “Public school curriculum could be built entirely on the idea of what is illegal hate in our culture,” said Craig Parshall, chief counsel for National Religious Broadcasters (NRB). “And our children could be indoctrinated [to believe that] if you criticize another religion or mention Jesus as being the only way, that’s hateful— [or] if you say that homosexuality is a sin, that’s hateful.”

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins said the bill is “part of a radical social agenda that could ultimately silence Christians and use the force of government to marginalize anyone whose faith is at odds with homosexuality.”

Of course, what the religious right doesn’t mention is that religion has been covered by federal hate crimes law since its inception in the 1960.

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.

The summit announced Pawlenty as a speaker in June. Bachmann’s name was missing from the roster until this week, and on Thursday Focus on the Family urged supporters to attend, using the 6th District Republican as a top selling point.

“Each year, the Values Voter Summit rallies together those citizens who are deeply concerned with the policies that impact our families and our religious liberties,” Sonja Swiatkiewicz of Focus on the Family Action wrote in an email to supporters. “But this event is more than just a discussion of what’s wrong in our country – it’s a chance to be equipped to make a difference in our communities, to make our voices heard and to realize that we’re not alone in our desire to preserve the values upon which our nation was founded.”

“Attendees will have the chance to hear from some of the nation’s top social conservatives, including Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., on issues such as health-care reform,” the email read.

Last year, Bachmann stumped for the GOP’s presidential candidate at the summit, coining a phrase that failed to take off: “McCain is McBrilliant!”

Here are her full remarks from last year.

Last November, the group cut 200 workers when donations failed to come in and after spending $500,000 in efforts to repeal gay marriage in California. In August, Focus on the Family sold its “ex-gay” program to shore up funds.

The latest round of layoffs shutters the organization’s in-house advertising department, which will now be farmed to an outside agency.

Here’s a look at some of the personalities Bachmann will hobnob with in St. Louis on Sept. 25 and 26.

Last week, Rick Scarborough of Vision America gave listeners on his radio show a preview or what to expect at the conference.

“There’s always a political component to revival,” he said. “If we fell on our face at that conference and said ‘Oh God, send revival and let it start with me… with the training we receive. Then [we] go back and recruit hundreds of people like us. By next spring, the spring of 2010, we can turn out the infidels, we can help people like Michele Bachmann return to Congress.”

“God does his best work right after a crucifixion,” said Scarborough. He said that Christians felt crucified during this last election especially “with Obama controlling so much of the resources, with him stealing from the American people.”

But Scarborough is not the only outspoken rightwinger at the conference.

Don Feder, communications director of the World Congress of Families, an organization which hosts anti-LBGT events around the world, is listed as an organizer of the conference. He waited two days after the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy before maligning the statesman. “Known as the ‘liberal lion of the Senate,’ Edward M. Kennedy was a fitting symbol for his creed – intellectually flabby, detached from reality, arrogant, self-righteous, hypocritical and, ultimately, useless.”

No stranger to controversy, Feder was lambasted by Latino groups for speaking out against the right of Puerto Ricans to vote for statehood. “But don’t Americans have the same right — the right not to be saddled with an impoverished, crime-ridden island of non-English speakers as our 51st state? It’s hard to imagine a worse candidate for admission to the Union than this Caribbean Dogpatch.”

Sharing the stage with Bachmann will be Janet Porter of the religious right group Faith2Action. Her latest fear is that the Obama administration will force H1N1 vaccinations on citizens, carting off those who refuse to internment camps. She’s made friends within the “birther” movement for her frequent articles calling for an investigation of President Obama because she doesn’t think he’s a citizen.

“The media bought it. The voters bought it. And now some in Congress are resisting the idea of congressional hearings because they believe that Barack Obama’s ‘birth certificate’ has been posted online,” she wrote in WorldNetDaily, a rightwing news service. “What if an imposter from another country ran for the presidency and won? What if the media blocked any news of his birthplace and citizenship?”

WorldNetDaily founder Joseph Farah is also a rightwing conspiracy theorist whose website encouraged readers to send letters to Obama on his birthday inquiring about his place of birth — all for the low price of $6.95. Farah is an organizer of the event as well.

Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel, also a conference organizer, made headlines when his group threatened to sue a school library for violating the separation of church and state for awarding children who finished Harry Potter novels with a “Hogwarts’ Certificate of Accomplishment.”

“We believe that witchcraft is a religion and the certificate of witchcraft endorsed a particular religion in violation of the First Amendment establishment clause,” Staver said of the threatened lawsuit.

Rounding out the religious right speakers at the conference is octogenarian religious right gadfly Phyllis Schlafly, who has spent the last 30 years fighting the Equal Rights Amendment, a constitutional amendment that sprang out of the Women’s Suffrage movement in the 1920s to guarantee equal rights under the law regardless of sex.

On the U.S. Supreme Court decisions on social issues in the 20th Century, Schlafly wrote: “Out went the Ten Commandments, in came condoms. Out went the Cross and pictures of Christ, in came drawings of apes pretending to walk like humans. Out went Adam and Eve, in came Heather Has Two Mommies. Out went Easter, in came Earth Day. Out went teachings against homosexuality, in came teachings in favor of homosexuality.”

Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum is reported to have said in 1996, “Many years ago Christian pioneers had to fight savage Indians. Today missionaries of these former cultures are being sent via the public schools to heathenize our children.”

Schlafly is the lead organizer of the conference and shared the stage with Bachmann several times before, including last year at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. In a webinar to supporters two weeks ago, she said, “This is the most important conference we have ever put on. Our country is in greater danger than ever before.”